Zen Precepts And The Idea Of Repentance

This dharma talk was recorded at the North Carolina Zen Center. Broadly, the topic is the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. More specifically, the talk is about the perspectives of relative and absolute reality and the Zen teachings of "formal" and "formless" repentance. (Friends, the sound quality is not the best... but it's not too bad, either...)

Transcript

So our topic this morning broadly is 16 bodhisattva precepts more specifically though we're going to talk about repentance and the perspectives of relative and absolute Reality now we talked about those before anybody anybody want to venture,

You know,

Your thought or understanding about the differences between relative What we perceive as relative reality absolute reality Which one is that Relative reality.

Yeah Right here here.

I am there you are and we have this sort of feeling that it's all sort of That I'm here and everything else is outside of me So what's the absolute reality?

What's not that just that since it's separate?

Just one yeah,

Just one this Hold this,

You know,

We've talked about this before I use the example with my students that you know My mat and my pants are swapping electrons My body in this like turn,

You know when you get right down to that subatomic level There is no our boundary really between anything that's in reality.

So let me just run through the 16 Bodhisattva precepts because a lot of times we talk about the precepts we think about 10 They're actually 16.

The first three are simply the three refuges I take refuge in Buddha I take refuge in Dharma I take refuge in Sangha.

The second three are what are called the pure precepts and there's a really fun story that I'm not going to tell today About how those came to be but they kind of encapsulate The ten precepts that we normally consider and the first of three pure precepts You know over the years have been The first of three pure precepts is you know,

Avoid all that is evil,

Do all that is good,

Save the many beings And then what we here refer to as the ten grave Precepts not killing,

Not stealing,

Not misusing sex,

Not lying Not misusing intoxicants,

Not talking about the faults of others,

Not praising self at the expense of others Sometimes not being stingy,

An old-fashioned word,

In other words practicing generosity Not misusing anger and not disparaging the three treasures of Buddha,

Dharma,

And Sangha So we have these precepts We also have coupled with it this repentance gatha.

Gatha being one of those short little verses if you will And some of you probably know it.

We don't say it often here in Lisbon,

But it runs All my ancient karma through endless greed,

Hate,

And delusion Born of body,

Speech,

And mind,

I now fully about So put that on your tongue for a minute,

Even if you don't say it aloud But if you know it,

Say it.

All my ancient karma through endless greed,

Hate,

And delusion Born of body,

Speech,

And mind,

I now fully about So precepts and repentance Now how we transgress,

You know,

In context of these precepts may seem clear enough But the question becomes,

What is repentance really?

I mean it's such a heavy word,

You know What are we really talking about?

How does it tie in this idea of repentance?

How does it tie in with Zen practice?

What's it got to do with Zazen?

Or for that matter,

Any of these other ideas that we talk about,

You know Interdependence,

Dependent co-arising,

These ideas of relative and absolute reality How does it tie into that?

We need to be thinking about absolute reality Something that,

As in practice,

We grow to experience as a living,

Dynamic union So what we mean when we say emptiness?

No thing having a separate existence All things making up everything,

Where there's no separation,

No distance Not to,

But,

You know,

Right?

As humans,

We are given to a lingering insistence On experiencing things in relative reality Perceiving and believing that all things,

All beings,

All dharmas are separate from one another If that's the case,

Though,

Then we could ask,

We should ask What are the ways our sense of separation manifests in our lives?

What then,

If we're working from that context,

What is the nature of our actions?

How do we affect other beings?

How do our actions affect other people?

Let's see these 16 precepts again,

The three refuges,

The three pure precepts Avoid all that is evil,

Do all that is good,

Save the many beings And then the 10 grave precepts,

Not killing,

Not stealing,

Not misusing sex Not lying,

Not misusing intoxicants,

Not talking about faults of others Not praising self at the expense of others,

Not being stingy,

Not misusing anger And not disparaging the three treasures So there are two ways we can look at these precepts,

First from that relative point of view And when we do that,

We can look at the precepts as literal guidelines for ethical behavior Don't steal,

Got it?

In this light,

They become statements of behaviors which protect individuals Which strengthen our community rather than tear its fabric And when we see the precepts in this way,

You know,

Sometimes we can say we're doing well And other times,

Not so much So repentance,

In this context,

Is what we call formal repentance Where we recount our wrongdoings,

We name them,

We take responsibility for the things we do That are unskillful,

All my aging karma,

My patterns of action,

My patterns of behavior Through endless greed,

Hate,

And delusion,

What we call the three poisons Oral body,

Speech,

And mind,

All the ways that we manifest those poisons as we move through our lives And how they affect ourselves and others,

I now fully about I admit them,

I declare them,

I take responsibility for them,

All my aging karma Through endless greed,

Hate,

And delusion,

Oral body,

Speech,

And mind,

I now fully avow Do you feel the power of that?

So in December,

When I started my postulancy,

The room was full,

A lot of you were here And I spoke those out loud nine times And I have never experienced anything like that in my life It's difficult to put into words how it made me feel very aware,

Vulnerable,

Ashamed,

Hopeful,

All of that You know,

I'm grateful for that,

And grateful for the opportunity for this formal repentance Back in the early 1970s,

Some of you remember there was a movie called Love Story And it had this tagline,

Right?

Love means never having to say you're sorry John Lennon said,

That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard So love means having to say you're sorry a thousand times a day So we practice formal repentance We avow the ways in which our delusion has caused suffering We recall the precepts,

We make the four bodhisattva vows,

And we renew our commitment Formal repentance from within the context of relative reality Make sense?

There's another way that we can look at precepts,

Though,

Kind of a deeper way Where we're not simply recognizing our delusion of separateness and our transgressions What if,

Rather than that,

We could just come to live and act from a mind which is free from delusion Living within the absolute reality of fundamental wholeness,

And then acting accordingly We call this formless repentance And it's here that we can swing the whole thing around to our practice of zazen There's a well-known priest and teacher,

An author in the Soto tradition,

Shōhaku Okamura And in his book Living by Vow,

He tells us that zazen is the full expression of being free from delusion With this freely flowing receptive attention,

Not holding on to thoughts of this and that,

Engaging in the equanimity of zazen Open,

Clear,

At peace Okamura speaks of zazen mind as the manifestation of an enlightened being One whose experience is beyond discrimination,

Beyond discursive thinking,

Beyond duality We worked on this So the second way of viewing repentance,

Formless repentance,

Which Okamura defines as simply sitting in zazen Working toward deep and honest practice Coming to live within the mind of zazen,

Letting go of thoughts and feelings which cause us to feel separated From others,

Formless repentance Okamura Roshi writes in his book that when we awaken to the interpenetrating reality of zazen We can't help but live in harmony with all beings We can't help but live in harmony with all beings because we are all beings Absolute,

Non-dual reality And Okamura teaches that that realization is itself repentance Formless repentance Not to apologize,

Not to make amends,

Not to seek forgiveness or to reestablish peace and harmony between ourselves and another But formless repentance,

To be present within peace and harmony A realization of compassionate non-dualism Which then results in actions which do not require repentance That make sense?

Formless repentance,

Okamura tells us,

Is more of a promise to the future than a regret for the past More of a promise to the future than a regret for the past So there's a shift we have to find here From the relative to the absolute From separateness to wholeness So let's look again at the ten grave precepts And we call them grave because,

You know,

They matter They're important We shouldn't kill,

We shouldn't steal And so we often see the precepts worded as To not kill,

To not steal To not misuse sex,

To not lie To not misuse intoxicants To not talk about the faults of others To not praise self at the expense of others To not be stingy,

To not misuse anger To not disparage sensory pleasures But this language is problematic It's bound into a dualistic framework We're killing or we're not killing We're talking about the faults of others or we're not talking about the faults of others We're lying or we're not lying And it's not so much that that perspective is wrong as much as it's incomplete It's the language of the relative reality that we all bind ourselves to so closely It's a perceived reality of self and other Not unreal,

Not really real either,

Not the whole story So I've been looking at a new book recently,

That recently came out That we're going to draw from in the upcoming precepts class starting,

I think,

March 26th Running six Sundays And it's called Opening to Oneness by Nancy Mojo Baker,

Who's in the library And at the beginning of the book she lists all 16 of the precepts The three refuges,

The three pure precepts And then what I referred to as the grave precepts But it's here where this author,

Baker,

She makes an important change in language Not killing becomes non-killing Not lying becomes non-lying And not stealing becomes non-stealing So what's she getting at here?

There's a chapter in the book called From Not to Non And she writes,

Both stealing and not stealing are concepts They have boundaries,

And they're separate from my own boundary concept of me She goes on,

In this separation,

There is no not stealing without stealing No stealing without not stealing And so her contention is that not stealing can never be wholehearted It can never be free from stealing It can't be liberated And it sounds like a clever little logic trick,

But I think it's pretty profound She's trying to get away from a dualistic construct Because when we're in that not stealing versus stealing,

Stealing becomes something to avoid Something toward which we feel aversion,

Something we have to resist And not stealing becomes something that we attach to And so there we are,

Caught in opposition In that push and pull of like and dislike,

Craving and aversion So instead,

Non-killing,

Non-stealing Each year when we do the precepts class,

March and April We look at each of the precepts from several different perspectives Including the context of relative and absolute So how might a precept look from within a perception of relative reality,

Of separation?

Let's keep with stealing We might speak of someone's financial loss,

Or loss of property As a result of theft,

We might talk about how we can be guilty of the theft of someone's time Their attention,

The theft of someone's love The theft of someone's confidence,

Their sense of self worth What about stealing from the perception of absolute reality,

Non-separation?

When we practice Zazen as a full expression of being free from the delusion of separateness Dogen wrote,

When we sit in Zazen,

What precept is not observed?

For Dogen,

Zazen is not a means to enlightenment But rather,

It's an expression of enlightenment Sometimes we're kicked around with this phrase of non-gaining mind What does that really mean?

Does it mean we shouldn't want to achieve growth in our practice?

For Dogen,

Zazen is not a means to enlightenment But rather,

An expression of enlightenment Dwelling in non-dual reality So are we practicing not stealing out of concern for others and ourselves?

Where stealing becomes something to avoid,

Something we feel aversion about Or are we practicing non-stealing?

Where non-stealing is to be content with the thought of gaining other than what comes naturally You see the difference?

Bodhidharma says,

Self nature is subtle and mysterious In the realm of the unattainable dharma,

Not having thoughts of gaining is called the precept of non-stealing So,

In this way,

Precepts aren't something we have to remember They aren't something we have to check ourselves on or judge ourselves by In the clarity of Zazen mind,

From the perspective of absolute reality Perspective of unified wholeness Precepts simply are,

Their nature simply is And we manifest them rather than try to choose to uphold them And sometimes succeed,

And sometimes fail They become something that we inherently are Dogen said,

The self and the things of the world are just as they are And the gate of emancipation is open So that's a lot of words for a fairly subtle concept So do me a favor,

Let all those words go for a minute Just sit for a minute or two And just bring it with it Don't let your minds be the measure of the subtle,

But rather your heart

Reviews

The sound quality was rather low, such that many words were warbley and I couldn’t understand them. This only mattered with a couple key words, as I could fill in the rest. If you have the time and means to do some sound adjustments, then re-post the talk, that would be very helpful. I’m going to listen again, anyway, as I often do. This is a great talk, and I especially appreciate the focus on language. 🪷🙏🏽🪷