Category: Zen Ethics

Action

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen zazenkai on June 14, 2024. A recording follows the text.

Impermanence was the theme of my last talk, which I gave at Sunrise Sit on June 4th. I opened it with this case from the Blue Cliff Record:

A monk said to Dasui, “When the thousands of universes are altogether and utterly destroyed in the kalpa fire — I wonder whether this perishes or not.

“This perishes,” said Dasui.

“If so,” persisted the monk, “does it follow the other.”

“It follows the other,” said Dasui.

As you can see, we’re serious about the idea of impermanence in Zen. Even emptiness is empty. It dies with form. Don’t think of it as the ultimate ground of reality, at least if you’re imagining something that exists apart and persists forever.

I said at the end of that talk that I would connect the observable truth of impermanence, of change, to action. I’m making good on that promise now. 

Let me open this talk with another koan, a brief story, from the record of Dogen’s teaching, together with his brief commentary on it:

Mayu, Zen Master Baoche, was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, “Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then, do you fan yourself?”

“Although you understand that the nature of wind is permanent,” Mayu replied, “you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere.”

“What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?” asked the monk.

Mayu just kept fanning himself.

The monk bowed deeply.

Dogen’s commentary:

The actualization of the buddha dharma, the vital path of its authentic transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the buddha house brings forth the gold of the earth and ripens the cream of the long river.

Here we meet yet another monk who has gained some insight—and who is stuck in emptiness. He thinks the nature of wind somehow exists apart from wind. He thinks he’s grabbed the lion by its tail and caged it. He’s not yet become the lion.

We know the wind as it beats against us. As we move the fan. We know the lion as it roars. As we roar.

The nature of emptiness can’t be expressed as an idea (even this one): Emptiness is only ever actualized, enacted. Emptiness is expressed as action. The action of the wind. The action of my hand moving the fan.

Action is motion. The best definition of life I’ve ever heard, from a biologist, is movement. Living things are moving things. And everything is alive, even supposedly dead things. Corpses and logs are expressing a form of life we call decomposition. They’ll eventually spawn forms of life that appear to be moving faster for a while, until those life forms “die” and decompose.

Motion is change. Impermanence.

What does it mean to say the nature of wind is permanent? What does permanent mean here?

Change. Wind moves as wind.

In my last talk I also said another core tenet of Zen Buddhism is that our default mode is to resist the reality of change. We cling to whatever evokes pleasurable feelings. We’re averse to whatever threatens to take away pleasurable feelings. We remain willfully ignorant to the reality of impermanence; to our inability to avoid change. We seek a safe haven in which nothing changes, and in which we needn’t change.

Mayu is demonstrating a more viable path. The path of activity beyond ideas. The path of becoming a Buddha. Dogen said, “Buddha-nature and becoming a Buddha always occur simultaneously.” The nature of wind and wind always occur simultaneously. 

Our ideas also are activity. We must permit them to change. I never get myself into more trouble than when I cling to a misguided viewpoint or idea about some situation and myself and others in relation to it. 

It’s 90 degrees out. Mayu is hot. He fans himself. An appropriate response. 

I’ve taken offense at what someone else has said or done. My blood is boiling. I fan the flames. An appropriate response? Likely not.

How are my preexisting, fixed views conditioning the experience and my reading of it? Can I let my views be susceptible to change? Can I remain open to newness and possibility, including newness and possibility within myself? Can I remain truly present and curious? If so, perhaps I’ll use my fan to cool the room, or even to extinguish the flames, rather than fanning them.

Zazen—our practice of sitting still—is activity. It’s the activity of becoming a Buddha; of learning to act as a Buddha acts. Finding the still point on the crest of the wave of impermanence. Maintaining our balance there. Knowing how precious this passing moment is and how precious those with whom we briefly share it are. Knowing this in our bones. Moving as the wind, roaring as the lion, to enact that knowing.

Even This Perishes

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 55 in The Blue Cliff Record:

A monk said to Dasui, “When the thousands of universes are altogether and utterly

destroyed in the kalpa fire — I wonder whether this perishes or not.

“This perishes,” said Dasui.

“If so,” persisted the monk, “does it follow the other.”

“It follows the other,” said Dasui.

Sleep. Morning dew. The chill in the air. Feeling happy. Feeling sad. This day. Tomorrow. This life. All life.

Impermanence is a core tenet of Buddhism. Why? Because it’s observably true. How can we deny the reality of change?

Another core tenet of Buddhism is that our default mode is to resist the reality of change. We cling to whatever evokes pleasurable feelings. We’re averse to whatever threatens to take away pleasurable feelings. We remain willfully ignorant to the reality of impermanence; to our inability to avoid change.

This koan probes the furthest reaches of Zen Buddhist notions of impermanence. The monk accepts that the morning dew, and even our whole universe, will vanish. But what about this?

We Zen types are always point to this. Just this. But what is this? Is this permanent?

No, the Dasui says. Even this perishes. It perishes with the tea and the teapot. With the moon and the stars.

As usual, the answer to the koan is in the question. The monk divides the world into this and that. Destroyed and not destroyed. 

And, as usual, the question is about oneself. The monk has some insight into the Great Matter. He’s seen into emptiness—and has become identified with it.

If emptiness is not destroyed, might I live on?

Just as form is no other than emptiness. Emptiness truly is no other than form. When all the many universes are destroyed in the kalpa fire, their moons and stars with them, emptiness perishes with them. And you and me with them. This is no thing.

This koan is about as close as Zen gets to dogma on physics and metaphysics. As physics and metaphysics, this perspective undoubtedly is debatable. But we know the Buddha declined to engage in metaphysical speculation. I don’t think Dasui is engaging in metaphysical speculation either.

The monk is still looking for something permanent to hold onto. He’s searching for the ultimate and equating it with permanence. Dasui is channeling the ancients that preceded him, and foreshadowing the ancients that will follow him, like Dogen, who tells us that hitting the mark—finding what we’re seeking—is knowing we never have another nest than this fleeting moment in this fleeting life in this fleeting universe in which to settle.

Dasui is advising the monk, and advising us, that, whatever perspective you may have on physics or metaphysics, it’s best to live in accord with the observable reality of change, including the ways we ourselves, and our own perspectives, are susceptible to change. Orienting ourselves in this way invites and enables, in turn, a particular orientation toward our actions, or activity, another key Zen theme that Dogen emphasized in his teaching. It opens us to newness and the possibility of an appropriate response to what’s arising here and now, rather than to our prior, fixed and, quite possibly, misguided views on ourselves, others, and the situation in which we now find ourselves–views on which we may have a death grip and which we may layer over our immediate experience, strangling the life from it. I’ll return to and develop this theme in my talk during our upcoming Zazenkai.

I’ll close by reading our koan again . . .  

Gatha of Atonement

Jeff

I gave this talk a short while ago at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit. A recording follows the text.

Last Thursday we began using a different version of the Gatha of Atonement during our sutra service. It’s Version 3 in our Sutra Book. We’ve been using Version 1.

Here’s Version 1:

For all my unwholesome actions since olden times,

from my beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance,

born of my body, speech, and thought,

Here’s Version 3:

I now fully atone. 

All harm caused by me,

because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance,

through my conduct, speech and thought,

I now deeply regret.

I thought I’d comment this morning on a few of the noticeable differences between these two versions of this important verse that’s chanted daily in Zen communities. Let’s take them line by line:

For all my unwholesome actions since olden times (Version 1)

All harm caused by me (Version 3)

The first line in Version 1, which speaks about “my unwholesome actions,” seems entirely focused on, and primarily concerned about, me as the person reciting the verse. At the same time, the phrase “since olden times” introduces one theme of the first version: my actions are entangled with events that precede my personal history. In this verse we’re looking at my actions from the perspectives of oneness and relatedness, or interbeing, which is important and beautiful, and which also raises challenging questions about the degree to which I’m even responsible for my actions.

The first line of Version 3—“All harm caused by me”—seems laser focused on how my actions have affected others and seems to place responsibility for them on me.

The second line in each version also highlights these distinctions:

from my beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance (Version 1)

because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance (Version 3)

Version 1 seems to suggest my “unwholesome actions” somewhat mysteriously arise from my “beginningless” greed, hatred, and ignorance, Buddhism’s three poisons. I do appreciate the reference to mybeginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance. It conveys a both-and quality that implies I have a responsibility for all that is, including the consequences of unskillful actions throughout history that precede my personal existence. Version 1 of the gatha seems to let me off one hook to a certain extent by acknowledging that my personal karma is entwined with all karma, past and present, but it also tells me I’m on the hook regardless.

Once again, Version 3 is simpler, more direct, more focused on my responsibility. The harms to others I’ve caused: I’ve caused them because of my own greed, hatred, and ignorance. This is because I ignorantly imprison myself and others in the delusion of ontological separation and horde more for myself and/or burden others with what I don’t like, including my own projections (that is, what I don’t like in myself).

Ignorance is something we should talk about more in Zen circles, especially our tendency toward ignorance by choice, or “motivated ignorance,” as psychologists call it. This is a key strategy humans use to cling to partial narratives that provide false security and comfort.

born of my body, speech, and thought (Version 1)

through my conduct, speech, and thought (Version 3)

I must confess that “born of my body” seems far too exonerating to me. I get that we don’t choose our lives or bodies, at least initially, and that we don’t control our impulses entirely. I get that, depending upon things like the color of our skin, disabilities, or gender, some of our bodies are read by others in society in ways that are unfair and hurtful. Still, for purposes of this verse, I prefer the third line of Version 3. The harm I’ve caused because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance—and most of us have caused at least some harm, whatever our circumstances, causes, and conditions—is caused through my conduct and speech and the thoughts (or thoughtlessness) that motivates them. My body—my limbs, vocal cords, and brain, to the extent I have them or they function in typical ways—is an instrument. And most of us do have considerable agency with respect to its activity.

I now atone for it all (Version 1)

I now deeply regret (Version 3)

I like the word “atonement” for its layered meanings. At-one-ment provides a view of our broken world and interconnected selves from a relational perspective and of our neither-perfect-nor-imperfect universe from the perspective of the Absolute, of oneness or wholeness. Version 1 of the gatha uses the verb form of the word: atone. This suggests I must do something, whether just acknowledging my unwholesome actions or trying to address their consequences somehow.

Yet it also feels to me like there’s something lacking, or at least not sufficiently acknowledged, in the word atonement—something affective, something emotional—that’s captured in Version 3. It calls upon me to “deeply regret” the harm I have caused. To turn toward it, see it, understand its conditions, causes, and consequences, fully own all that, and deeply feel others’ pain—and my own. To deeply feel the weight of our own responsibility. I see that as a prerequisite to genuine atonement. If you’ve ever received an apology from someone who claims to get the harm they’ve caused but is defending themselves against deeply feeling the weight of it—or you’ve offered one yourself—you know that apology is not clean and will land flat.

Each of these versions of the gatha is beautiful. Each shines light from a different angle. Both are true. Neither is best. Version 1 may feel more approachable and palatable for many of us in the West, having grown up in traditions, or in family cultures, that may have been punitive and shaming. The first version can feel like a welcome corrective to that. Yet we can take that corrective too far. Version 3 of the gatha can help us accept responsibility maturely, without deflecting or defending against it; without succumbing to crippling shame if we’re prone to it. It’s nice to have and be mindful of both versions. 

The Hands and Eyes of Compassion

Jeff

I gave this talk on March 15, 2025, at our annual Two Traditions, One Family Zazenkai (one-day retreat) with and at Providence Zen Center.



This is Case 89 in The Blue Cliff Record:

Yun Yen asked Tao Wu, “What does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use so many hands and eyes for?”

Wu said, “It’s like someone reaching back groping for a pillow in the middle of the night.”

Yen said, “I understand.”

Wu said, “How do you understand it?”

Yen said, “All over the body are hands and eyes.”

Wu said, “You have said quite a bit there, but you’ve only said eighty percent of it.”

Yen said, “What do you say, Elder Brother?”

Wu said, “Throughout the body are hands and eyes.”

Tao Wu is saying compassion isn’t something we do. It’s what we are. It’s what we’re made of.

Can you feel it? Do you experience it all through your body? If not, maybe you’re not compassionate enough with yourself.

Have you had that pillow experience? I have. I’m shifting in bed, still in a sleep state, but conscious enough to know I’m readjusting my position. I reach for a pillow without thinking and put it someplace that provides support and comfort. And then I slip back into deep sleep. It all just sort of happens.

I got new pillows a few years ago. They’re great for side-sleepers, but too heavy. Now, when I adjust them, I struggle and strain my shoulder. I need to buy lighter pillows, but I don’t.

What is this part of me that doesn’t seem to take care of myself? Is it there when I’m not as compassionate as I could be during the day?

If you’re like me, others do things that can trigger you. We respond harshly sometimes. It’s a protective reaction. We feel vulnerable somehow. There’s something important at stake, but our reaction neither leads to the care we need nor addresses the relationship challenge with wisdom and compassion.

Maybe that vulnerable part needs compassion before we can respond less reactively. Maybe it needs to know we’re tending to it, perhaps by setting healthy boundaries in the relationship or reconfiguring it.

Perhaps I don’t replace the pillows that bother me when I sleep because I overload myself when I’m awake. Part of me feels vulnerable to becoming overwhelmed, so it’s on overdrive, cutting things from my to-do list that’s always too long. Too often it’s cutting things important to self-care.

Maybe we should listen to those vulnerable parts whispering about something we need, so we care for ourselves better and can express our karma more fully and clearly. So we let compassion move more freely around and through and as us.

The Ten Grave Precepts and the Ten Commandments

Jeff

A Cursory Side-by-Side Comparison

This is a talk I gave at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on February 19, 2025. A recording follows the text, which includes some elaboration on a few of the closing points not included in the recording.

We’re midway through the progression of our Precepts Study Group, in which many of you are participating. We’re currently discussing non-speaking of others’ faults and errors, the sixth of the ten so-called Grave Precepts.

The fact that we have exactly ten grave precepts got me thinking last week about the Ten Commandments and whether there are parallels among them and our Zen Boddhisattva Precepts. Having now examined the commandments and the grave precepts side-by-side, I think the fact that there are ten of each is a coincidence. But what are the similarities and differences between these sets of moral principles that developed independently within two—eventually, three—distinct religious traditions, Judaism (and, later, Christianity), on the one hand, and Zen Buddhism, on the other hand?

There are similarities. Each of the first four precepts—non-killing, non-stealing, non-misusing sex, and non-lying—has an analogue. Five of the ten commandments prohibit killing, stealing, coveting others’ possessions, coveting another’s partner and committing adultery, and bearing false witness. These similarities seem rather predictable. Across cultures and throughout history, to promote social stability, ethical and legal systems have provided slowly evolving norms about killing, stealing, lying, and sex among group members that tell them when these actions are and are not appropriate.

But there also are at least two stark differences between the precepts and the commandments.

The first difference is that we have several precepts that have no analogues among the ten commandments—yet the inverse arguably is not true. Each of the commandments arguably is contemplated by one of our precepts, but not the other way around.

We have a precept for non-misuse of intoxicants; for keeping a clear mind. We have precepts for non-talking about others’ errors and faults and for non-elevating oneself and blaming others. At least on the surface, it’s hard to see commandments that correspond to these precepts.

We also have a precept for non-being angry. We can see anger as an emotion that often fuels behavior prohibited by one of the commandments, like killing, but we have a separate precept about non-killing plus a separate precept about non-being angry. We also have a precept for non-being stingy. That may sound vaguely related to not coveting and not stealing, but I think it’s different. We’re encouraged not only to refrain from wanting and taking what is not ours, but to freely share what we have; to be generous.

The second stark difference between the Ten Commandments and the Ten Grave Precepts is that there are at least three, and maybe four, commandments that seem to be about respect for a god figure who seems rather self-focused, authoritarian, jealous, and obsessed with displays of loyalty. These are the commandments to recognize the lord as thy God, to have no other gods before thy God, and not to make idols of God or take God’s name in vain. Perhaps we can add the commandment to honor the sabbath to this subset. The sabbath is a day of rest but also the day when Jews and Christians gather to worship God.

If we were to make a connection between these commandments and one of our precepts, the leading candidate would be non-abusing the Three Treasures (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha). That seems like a fair comparison, but the spirit of our precept and the emphasis of these commandments seems very different.

There are three or four (!) commandments focused on submitting to and honoring a god figure who is somehow above it all. In contrast, we have one precept about not disrespecting the Three Treasures. (Notice we’re not told to exclusively elevate them.) And, as you know, we think of each of the Three Treasures both literally and metaphorically. Buddha is both the founder of our tradition, who is not regarded as a god, and our own innate, awakened, realized nature. Dharma refers to the Buddhist teachings and to all distinct beings and things in the universe as such. Sangha is the community of Buddhist practitioners and the unity, the ultimate oneness, the interconnectedness of all beings and things.

The metaphorical perspective on the Three Treasures also points to another major difference between the Judaic and Christian commandments and our precepts. The former are expressed as literal commands: “thou shall not” or “thou shall” do something. Our precepts are expressed rather curiously in terms of non-doing or non-being something.

As you know, while a literal construction of our precepts is one perspective we take on their meaning, we also consider them from two other perspectives, which we sometimes call the relational perspective and the intrinsic perspective. Whereas the commandments are expressed in literal terms—thou shall not kill—our precepts are expressed in the language of the relative or intrinsic perspective. Dōgen’s statement of this precept is at once relational and intrinsic: “Recognizing that I am not separate from all that is, I vow to take up the Way of Not Killing.” The older formulation attributed to Bodhidharma seems to double-down on the intrinsic perspective: “Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the everlasting dharma, not giving rise to concepts of killing is called the Precept of Not Killing.”

I’ve just made a rather cursory comparison between the Ten Grave Precepts and the Ten Commandments. I know there are Jewish and Christian thinkers throughout the ages who offer less literal, more richly nuanced interpretations of the commandments. (I also should hasten to add that many of the older and much more numerous Theravada Buddhist precepts that partially inspired our Zen precepts also are rather literal prescriptions and proscriptions.) Even so, the differences between the primary expressions of the commandments and of our Zen precepts are striking and significant. Comfort with metaphor, mystery, nuance, and complex, synthetic thought and experience is part of the Zen vibe. It’s there from the start, both on the surface and at the core of our tradition.

Our tradition has a distinctive quality. Zen has a very different psychological, cultural, and spiritual developmental orientation than the mainstream elements of other religious traditions. Maybe we can think of this a bit like swimming pools, which can be shallow or deep or have a shallow end and a deep end. Zen has one depth: deep. Paradoxically, deep envelops, sustains, and partially expresses itself as shallow. We can think of the literal perspective—just don’t kill, for example—that way in the realm of the precepts.

This is evident in the fact that other traditions generally are better at connecting with young children and providing a context in which their development is supported. Many of Zen’s forms, practices, and ideas put relatively more emphasis on the relational and intrinsic perspectives. Seeing from all of these perspectives requires a developmental vantage point young kids (and even some adults) don’t yet occupy. There’s no problem with that, however, because kids are expressing all three perspectives perfectly all the time. And we can respond to them from all three perspectives with our more developed capacity to conceptualize and reflect on this without needing to conceptualize it. In fact, Zen practice ultimately is about un-forgetting and then forgetting again; awakening to oneness and then letting our awareness of it sink back into our bones. Conceptual realization is an important waypoint on the path for some of us, but real realization is about unselfconscious actualization. Simply expressing it. Presence. But elaborating on Zen through the lens of developmental psychology will need to be a topic for a future talk.

The Five Remembrances (and the Buddha’s Overprotective Parent)

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on Wednesday, September 25, 2024. I recording follows.

I thought we’d reflect on the Five Remembrances briefly this morning:

I am of the nature to grow old; there is no way to escape growing old. 

I am of the nature to have ill health; there is no way to escape having ill health. 

I am of the nature to die; there is no way to escape death. 

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature of change; there is no way to escape being separated from them. 

My deeds are my closest companions;
I am the beneficiary of my deeds;
My deeds are the ground on which I stand. 

This verse, the Five Remembrances, is part of a discourse attributed to the Buddha that’s titled “Subjects of Contemplation.” The Buddha wanted us to actively contemplate old age, illness, death, and loss.

I must admit I found this verse rather stark and arresting the first time I chanted it. Pow! Well, there it is. It seems Buddhism doesn’t sugar coat things.

This verse made Buddhism seem so very different than other religions and wisdom traditions. Why this strong emphasis on human fragility and contingency?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Siddhartha Gautama was a prince whose father apparently went to great lengths to make his life extra pleasant—to the point of insulating him as much as possible from the realities of old age, illness, and death.

As some of you have heard me say recently, Buddhism begins with overprotective parenting. I wonder whether Buddhism even would exist if it weren’t for the Siddhartha’s father’s well intended but overreaching efforts to insulate his son from life’s harsh realities. It seems that left Siddhartha even more haunted by them.

Most of us have existential questions. Most of us experience angst about old age, sickness, and death as we become aware of them. There are modest efforts to deflect our attention from them in our culture—certainly more so than in some others—but nothing like what Siddhartha is said to have experienced. I remember attending open casket wakes and funerals growing up as a Catholic. More and more people today seek hospice care at home, breathing their last breath with loved ones who will continue to inhabit one’s place of departure.

And yet many of us still divert our attention from the realities of old age, illness, and death much of the time. No tradition other than Buddhism seems quite so determined to remind us of them.

In the sutra that contains the Five Remembrances, the Buddha explains why he offered them. He recognized that life is change and that unrealistic attachment to youth, health, the things and people dear to us, and life itself produces suffering. He hoped to help us shed those attachments.

But why include the fifth remembrance about our deeds being the ground on which we stand? Well, our suffering isn’t just about losing youth, health, life, and what and who is dear to us. It’s also about how being overly identified with conditions we especiaqlly like diminishes our appreciation of life and contentment when those conditions aren’t present. 

How are we thinking about and responding to whatever is arising? Are we grasping for what seems attractive and pushing away what’s not? How we think, speak, and act in response to our contingent experience determines the quality of our own life and affects the quality of others’ experience.

The Buddha likened himself to a lion and his teachings to a lion’s roar on those rare occasions when he spoke of himself in relation to other teachers of his era and to their teachings. As you’ll know if you’ve ever seen one in the wild, a lion’s presence pacifies all other beings across vast space.

Here’s what the contemporary Buddhist teacher Tara Brach says about all this:

“We typically think of our happiness as dependent on certain good things happening. In the Buddhist tradition, the word sukha is used to describe the deepest type of happiness that is independent of what is happening. It has to do with a kind of faith, a kind of trust that our heart can be with whatever comes our way. It gives us a confidence that is sometimes described as the lion’s roar. It’s the confidence that allows us to say, `No matter what life presents me, I can work with it.’ When that confidence is there, we take incredible joy in the moments of our lives. We are free to live life fully rather than resist and back off from a threat we perceive to be around the corner.”

Experiencing that “deepest type of happiness” is what Buddhism’s constant reminders of our vulnerability, and of how much our orientation and response to it matters, is all about.

Nowhere to go

Jeff

I gave this talk on August 29, 2024, during our Full Moon Zen sesshin. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 1 in The Blue Cliff Record:

Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great master Bodhidharma, “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?” Bodhidharma said, “Empty, without holiness.” The Emperor said, “Who is facing me?” Bodhidharma replied, “I don’t know.” The Emperor did not understand. After this Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtse River and came to the king­dom of Wei.

Later the Emperor brought this up to Master Chih and asked him about it. Master Chih asked, “Does your majesty know who this man is?” The Emperor said, “I don’t know.” Master Chih said, “He is the Mahasattva Avalokitesvara, transmitting the Buddha Mind Seal.” The Emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite (Bodhidharma to re­ turn). Master Chih told him, “Your majesty, don’t say that you will send someone to fetch him back. Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still wouldn’t re­ turn.”

So let’s contrast Emperor Wu and Bodhidharma again, this time focusing on their respective moments of coming and going.

It must have been an even bigger deal to visit an emperor back then than it is now. Today many of the handful of monarchs that remain in the world are part of constitutional democracies. Their power is limited, not absolute. Emperor Wu’s temporal power was comparatively unlimited.

I have a bit of personal experience with the type of encounter described in this koan. Several years ago I attended an event at Buckingham Palace with my wife, Esther, who is British. It was the 50thanniversary celebration for a scholarship program Queen Elizabeth created in memory of John F. Kennedy. Each year the Kennedy Scholarship allows a cohort of British college students to enter graduate programs in the U.S. after they receive their undergraduate degrees in the U.K. All past recipients of the scholarship, Esther among them, were invited to the anniversary celebration. 

The queen wasn’t there, but she sent Prince William to represent her. Esther had told me for weeks before the event that I was obliged to bow if we met him. Having grown up in the U.S., I’m rather allergic to the idea of monarchy, so I bristled at the thought of bowing. 

(Yes, I get the irony. Now I bow all the time as a Zen teacher.)

I was incredibly relieved when this prince, who now is next in line to be king, offered me his hand and said, “Hi, I’m William. And you?” Perhaps that’s the less formal, 21st century equivalent of saying, “Who is this standing before me?” as Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma. 

Now, imagine I had said, “I don’t know,” when William asked who I was, just as Bodhidharma responded to the emperor. That certainly would have drawn an awkward laugh! William could have been forgiven for moving on rather quickly to meet the next guest if I’d done that.

But that’s exactly what Bodhidharma did when Emperor Wu asked him to say something about himself. Bodhidharma responded honestly—and, he’s also testing the emperor. Can the emperor see Bodhidharma, and himself and all else, from the Absolute perspective?

We don’t know whether the emperor was receiving other guests that day, so we don’t know whether he moved on quickly, as I expect William would have done had I responded to him like Bodhidharma responded to Emperor Wu. We do see that the emperor didn’t know what to make of Bodhidharma’s unusual response to his rather ordinary question. Can you blame him?

In fairness to Bodhidharma, and unlike me as I met William, the emperor would have had some idea why everyone was talking about this wandering monk now in his presence. The emperor’s question seems to invite Bodhidharma to say more about why people consider him so remarkable. “I’ve heard so much about you from others. Your teaching is unconventional. Who do you say you are?”

Some notes on this koan I have say that, according to Harada Roshi, a famous 20th century Rinzai teacher, Bodhidharma was very interested in teaching the emperor, but he was disappointed by the emperor’s lack of understanding. Harada Roshi says that’s why Bodhidharma departed. If any of you doing koan work ever thinks Fran or I is dismissive when we don’t think you’ve quite yet penetrated a koan, just remember Bodhidharma’s appraisal of Emperor Wu! The emperor was given just one chance, and he blew it by Bodhidharma’s standards. No wonder the guy has a reputation for being a curmudgeon.

Bodhidharma evidently thought there was someplace better to be; someplace to go; a better use of his time. According to legend, he goes away to occupy an abandoned temple with a few students. Perhaps that truly was a better use of his time and energy. Who knows whether we’d have the Zen tradition, and so whether we’d be sitting her today, if Bodhidharma had given the emperor a second chance.

The emperor feels regret and wants to chase after Bodhidharma. Chih says there’s no point sending a messenger. Bodhidharma wouldn’t return. From a relative perspective, Bodhidharma won’t return because he thinks his time is better spent elsewhere. From an absolute perspective, Avalokiteshvara doesn’t come or go. Compassion pervades the whole universe, existing right here and now.

So the emperor and his messengers stay put. Bodhidharma certainly had given the emperor much to reflect upon. And there truly was nowhere for the emperor to go. Nowhere he needed to go. Just as Bodhidharma found his proper place teaching other wanderers and laying the foundation for the Zen tradition—building the temple in which we now practice—the emperor continued to perform his function at that point in history, including building physical temples in which others could practice.

There is merit in the emperor’s temple-building from a relative perspective—and I hope he also came to know there is no merit from an absolute perspective. No cosmic scorecard. I hope we also grasp this teaching.

And I hope and trust Bodhidharma understood this about his own life’s work, too. He meritoriously committed himself to helping others discover there’s no ultimate merit. That was his karma. His function was no more important than an emperor or cobbler or baker or candlestick maker.

The universe grants each of us admission irrevocably. We can’t be kicked out, nor get an upgrade.

Two Perspectives

Jeff

I gave this talk on August 27, 2024, during our Full Moon Zen sesshin. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 1 in The Blue Cliff Record:

Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great master Bodhidharma, “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?” Bodhidharma said, “Empty, without holiness.” The Emperor said, “Who is facing me?” Bodhidharma replied, “I don’t know.” The Emperor did not understand. After this Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtse River and came to the king­dom of Wei.

Later the Emperor brought this up to Master Chih and asked him about it. Master Chih asked, “Does your majesty know who this man is?” The Emperor said, “I don’t know.” Master Chih said, “He is the Mahasattva Avalokitesvara, transmitting the Buddha Mind Seal.” The Emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite (Bodhidharma to re­ turn). Master Chih told him, “Your majesty, don’t say that you will send someone to fetch him back. Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still wouldn’t re­ turn.”

This koan focuses us on two perspectives we see time and again in Zen teachings. We have several names for them, like the relative and the Absolute or the lower truth and the higher truth. In this koan, Emperor Wu represents one perspective and Bodhidharma represents the other. It’s obvious which is which.

When the emperor asks Bodhidharma for the essence of the holy teaching, the adjective “holy” implies that teachings and all else can be divided into the categories sacred and profane, or mundane. This is the relative perspective.

When Bodhidharma replies, “nothing holy,” he is contesting this division. This is the Absolute perspective.

They’re also channeling these different perspectives when each speaks the seemingly identical phrase, “I don’t know.” There’s relative not knowing and Absolute not knowing.

This koan seems to portray the emperor and Bodhidharma as reversing roles. The penniless, unkempt and unshaven, wandering hermit is the sage. The emperor is the fool; the court jester. The koan almost seems to demand that we read it this way.

But is this the only or best reading of it?

The pioneering French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who died over a century ago, said, “[t]he sacred and profane [i.e., mundane] are always and everywhere conceived by the human intellect as separate . . . as two worlds with nothing in common. . .. They are different in kind.” Most of us would have little difficulty sorting what we value, and our values, into “mundane” and “sacred” categories. Most of us sense intuitively that things in these categories don’t mix naturally. 

Your wedding ring is a mundane item from my perspective, worth only its weight in precious metal and stone, and vice versa. I certainly could put more money to use, as could you. Shall we exchange our rings and then cash them in? That’s a trade neither of us is likely to make.

Contemporary researchers have confirmed Durkheim’s insight. We all make distinctions between mundane items and commitments, on the one hand, and sacred items and commitments about which we feel strong moral conviction, on the other hand. Our sacred values are less subject to change, threats to them evoke strong emotions, and the conviction they inspire can inspire us to take great risks and make costly sacrifices.

Each of us has our deep convictions and commitments. First principles we consider holy truths. I have mine, and I bet you do, too. If you don’t yet know what they are, you haven’t yet had an encounter that would reveal them.

When we come to Zen and are exposed to the two truths teaching, we not only may have our eyes opened to the Absolute perspective; our ears may hear it as a call to abide there, as Bodhidharma seems to do. It’s the higher truth after all, isn’t it? 

I certainly was stranded there for a time. And I thought the higher truth demanded a consistently yielding orientation. I acquired a new “should do,” which was letting go of my convictions and commitments whenever they conflicted with others’ needs, convictions, and commitments. I could give you numerous examples.

But I ultimately discovered this approach didn’t produce much of genuine value to anyone. Truth was, I still had my own deeply felt needs, convictions, and commitments. Like the buffalo who tries to pass through a window frame in another famous koan (Case 38 in The Gateless Gate), it seems I had a tail that kept getting stuck and wouldn’t let me pass completely to where I thought I was supposed to go; to the supposed other side.

Understood this way, the Absolute became a hiding place. I wasn’t truly showing up.

Genuine moral dilemmas arise when two goods collide. Two truths. Two rights. A choice between something we know to be right and something we know to be wrong isn’t a genuine moral dilemma.

Likewise, genuine conflict arises when two or more people meet as they truly are, and when they discover genuine differences. Sometimes yielding can be a sensible and appropriate thing to do. We must choose our battles, as they say.

But inhabiting the Absolute perspective doesn’t imply retreat to a realm of idealized abstraction, in which all distinctions are leveled. The real higher truth loves and embraces and enlivens the relative, including our own deeply felt needs, convictions, and commitments. Both yours and mine.

From the authentic Absolute perspective, we loosen our grip on them somewhat. We gain some perspective on the relative perspective, and this can help us be more open to and accommodating of others’ needs, convictions, and commitments. But we’re not asked to deny our own completely. We neither let our truths completely rule us—have us and have their way with us—nor imagine we can or should cast them away.

Here’s the first principle of the holy teaching, as best I can discern and express it: Nonduality must include duality to be nondual.

To put that more straightforwardly as some contemplatives from other traditions would:

“Though we don’t know it yet, we are all sons and daughters of God.” That’s the medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart.

“The god wants to know itself in you.” That’s the Romantic poet Rilke.

Or, in Zen lingo, “The `all’ is none other than sentient beings and living beings. Thus, all are Buddha nature.” That’s Dogen.

Approaching the Precepts from the Intrinsic Perspective

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Sunrise Sit on June 28, 2024. A recording follows the text.

These are the first two of Bodhidharma’s Pure Mind Precepts as translated by Taizan Maezumi Roshi and reprinted in Nancy Mujo Baker Roshi’s book on the Zen Precepts, Opening to Oneness:

Non-killing

Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the everlasting Dharma, not giving rise to the idea of killing is called the Precept of Non-killing.

Non-stealing

Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the unattainable Dharma, not arousing the thought of gain is called the Precept of Non-stealing.

This list goes on, as you know. There are ten so-called Grave Precepts.

In Zen we approach our Bodhisattva Precepts from three distinct perspectives: the literal (or fundamental) perspective, the relational perspective, and the intrinsic perspective.

The literal perspective means just don’t do it. Don’t kill.

The relational perspective is about considering context. The time, place, people, and purposes this moment presents and suggests. The relational perspective recognizes that a situation sometimes presents a confrontation among multiple right values. We must make a hard decision or even a tragic tradeoff, in which we deeply regret some expected outcomes of our actions even as we act to produce expected outcomes we hope will be beneficial.

These two perspectives are universal in the realm of ethics. We find them in ethical traditions throughout the world. As Baker Roshi explains, both the literal and relational perspectives are what we call relative perspectives in Zen, because, on their own, they’re dualistic. On their own, they take separateness as a given, even as they may try to promote greater cohesion.

The intrinsic perspective is unique to Zen, or at least it was first and is most developed within Zen. It’s why Bodhidharma and Dogen express the Ten Grave Precepts as non-killing, non-stealing, and so on, rather than not killing, not stealing, and so forth.

The intrinsic perspective is not relative in the Zen sense; separateness is not its starting point. It’s the view from the Absolute. There can be no killing from the intrinsic perspective because both birth and death are Life, however death may occur. There can be no stealing because, throughout space and time, there is no loss or gain.

But how do we make the intrinsic perspective more than an abstract idea? What could it mean as a matter of experience and as a guide to action? Practically speaking, we can approach moral decisions through the intrinsic perspective in at least two ways.

Let me make that concrete with an example. I recently had an extended conversation with a close friend. At one point this friend veered in the direction of critiquing the conduct of someone else we know. I felt a tug to affirm what I’d just heard, and I did so, even amplifying it a bit. This exchange didn’t last long. We didn’t pile on the absent party. But we clearly were praising our view and conduct and criticizing the other person’s view and conduct.

From a literal perspective some might say we had violated the precept of non-blaming others and elevating oneself. How might viewing a situation like this from an intrinsic perspective inform one’s response when a conversation partner begins to lead one in this direction?

I find it helpful to do the following two things:

First, to remind myself about the intrinsic perspective. The literal and relational perspectives are more familiar. I don’t know about you, but they often spring to mind readily, and in that order, when I sense a drift into murky ethical waters. Almost at once, discomfort arises or the thought “Don’t” flashes. That’s followed by a weighing of contextual considerations; by analysis from the relational pespective.

Sometimes we can get stuck there, paralyzed or maybe just treading water. I often find it helpful when this happens to remind myself that, intrinsically, from the perspective of the Absolute, no one and nothing is ever elevated; nothing in the Universe is higher or lower. Doing this, it’s easier just to witness what’s arising in and around me, to be spacious and curious about it, including the tug I feel to participate in the critique my friend has invited.

Second, as Baker Roshi recommends, I look at the side of me that does want to elevate itself; to boast, sometimes at others’ expense. I accept that part of myself as non-judgmentally as I can. As I do this, underlying basic human needs often become apparent. The need to be liked and loved by others. To be connected. The need for self-esteem. Even the need for self-actualization, in part by living my highest values. The need to clarify for myself and others what right conduct looks like and doesn’t look like.

Doing these two things helps cast the view from the other two perspectives in a new light.

The view from the intrinsic perspective helps me hold the literal perspective with a lighter touch. If we only view a situation from the literal perspective, our judgments and/or the ways they’re expressed through our words and actions may be too harsh. When I can see the killer, the stealer, and the boaster in myself, it becomes harder to relate and respond to others’ conduct in a polarized way, because I can see how it also may be directed toward the satisfaction of basic human needs—needs I share and am trying to satisfy in my own way. I may see another’s actions as misdirected—but misdirected toward satisfaction of some legitimate need. From the intrinsic perspective, I know I’m not above it all, because there is no above. I’m in the stew with others.

The intrinsic perspective also helps me judge myself less harshly when, in retrospect, some decision I’ve made in good faith from the relational perspective, or even from the literal perspective, doesn’t look so good in retrospect. I may have considered the choice as best I could in the moment, but, in retrospect, not made the best choice I could have made. Viewing this from an intrinsic perspective, I can trust that I won’t be ejected from the Universe. And being gentler on myself in this way may make it easier to apologize and make amends and may help me be easier on others more generally.

Let me hasten to add that the intrinsic perspective can’t be separated from the literal and relational perspectives either. If we think we’re approaching a moral question from the intrinsic perspective, but if we are merely doing so intellectually, in our heads, we get anything-goes moral relativism. If we think we’re approaching a moral question based upon the supposed profundity of our personal insight—if we are overly-assured about the depth of our realization and its integration—we may well be acting out of deluded grandiosity and cause harm.

The Absolute and relative, the intrinsic perspective on the precepts and the two relative perspectives on them, are one, after all.

The Zen Boddhisattva Precepts as Form and Formation

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen evening sit on Thursday, June 7th. A recording follows the text.

We’ll begin a study group on the Zen Boddhisattva Precepts later this month, so I thought I’d talk tonight about the precepts and how we think about and practice them. 

The 16 precepts we chanted earlier this evening evolved from the Vinaya, the oldest and smallest of the three sections of the Pali Canon, which are the early Buddhist scriptures.  Dōgen crafted the version we chanted tonight.  Our Zen Boddhisattva Precepts derive, in part, from the Vinaya and the much longer sets of vows based upon the Vinaya that Buddhist monastics in traditions other than Zen are required to make.  Depending upon what part of the Buddhist world you are in; whether you are, say, a Theravadan or Tibetan Buddhist; and whether you are male or female, you will make somewhere between about 225 and nearly 360 vows as a Buddhist monastic in traditions other than Zen.

Each of these long sets of monastic vows used in other Buddhist traditions includes familiar prohibitions of things humans throughout space and time have regarded as serious moral lapses, like murder and stealing.  Each also includes many things that, today, we would consider to be a matter of personal choice, like eating meat, even if most of us would acknowledge there are weighty moral issues attending that choice. 

As you might expect with such long lists of vows, each contains some prohibitions many of us today would see as antiquated, or needlessly formalistic, or perhaps too wrapped up in a rigid purity ethic, maybe even performative virtue signaling.  There’s a prohibition on touching money in the monastic vows of other Buddhist traditions that some of us might see that way.

There’s a whole lot of lore about how the Vinaya developed.  As with many things about early Buddhism, it’s a bit hard to separate myth from history.  According to the lore, the sangha—which meant the community of Shakyamuni Buddha’s followers who “left home” to take up a celibate, monastic life with him—functioned quite well without rules for over a decade.   As the community grew larger, more diverse, and more dispersed, however, challenges and conflicts arose.  The Buddha apparently decided it was necessary to begin formulating norms that would help guide and regulate personal conduct and communal life.

It’s said Jesus didn’t start Christianity, and I suppose something like that can be said about Shakyamuni Buddha and Buddhism.  Shakyamuni didn’t use the term Buddhism for the religion he’s said to have founded.  He called it Dhamma-Vinaya.  That’s Dhamma-hyphen-Vinaya; one word.  Dhamma can be translated as truth, and Vinaya as discipline.  The Buddha seems to have been saying the truth he wanted people to know is realized and manifested through the Vinaya, or moral discipline.

The Buddha did indeed speak of a higher truth, or a deeper reality, and he encouraged a practice, meditation, that could help us know it as more than an idea.  But it seems he also came to regard a set of moral principles and practices, or disciplines, as the truest, embodied expression of this higher truth, this deeper reality.  He seems to have increasingly come to regard the Buddhist path as fundamentally about character development; about development of both the character of the individual practitioner and the character of the community. 

A line in the Vinaya reads, “Though the Buddha’s discourses (sutra) and advanced doctrines (abhidharma) may be forgotten so long as the vinaya still exists the Buddha’s teachings yet endure.”  Sutras, doctrines, and Vinaya are the three categories of teachings in the Pali Canon, so this passage is telling us that the moral virtues and principles attributed to the Buddha are the heart of his teaching.

So why do we only have 16 precepts in Zen when other streams of Buddhism have hundreds?  The first of our Precepts are the Three Treasures, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.  If we don’t count them, we’re left with only 13 precepts.  Three of those 13 are the so-called Pure Precepts, which are very general:  I vow to cease from evil.  I vow to practice good.  I vow to save all beings.  This leaves only 10 very specific precepts, like not lying and not misusing sex.  These 10 are known as the Grave Precepts.

There’s a longer story here, but I think it’s fair to say Zen has only 16 precepts because of changing times and life patterns.  Even in Dōgen’s day, there was an increasing number of people who couldn’t or didn’t want to live as monastics but who did want to live an intentional way of life.  And, even in Dōgen’s day, there were questions about whether certain formalisms really added anything meaningful to monastic life.  There had been a lot of questioning of all this in Japan around the time Dōgen lived, within streams of Buddhism that arrived and developed there before he brought the precursor to Soto Zen from China.  Dōgen himself had a hard time finding monasteries in China that would accept him, because he hadn’t taken the long list of vows most monks there took.

It does seem like there’s a purity ethic and needless formalism in many of the ancient monastic vows.  But I’m conscious of the fact that I’m reading them from a 21st century, Western cultural perspective.  Life was very different for people throughout Asia long ago, and it’s still very different than our lives in many parts of the world for some people who seek refuge in Buddhism.

What’s clear, however, is that the vows Buddhists take, whether many or few, are about cultivating a good life, individually and together.  The Vinaya was developed because early Buddhists were concerned their community was disintegrating.  We could say the precepts developed to resist the force of entropy operating in individual psyches and in the early Buddhist community.  They continue to serve this function today.

The precepts are one of our most cherished forms.  And they’re a form that is very much about personal and collective formation.  When we bake a cake, we don’t pour the batter onto a borderless cookie sheet and let it harden into a random blob.  We pour it into a mold that gives it a satisfying shape.  The Zen Boddhisattva Precepts developed over centuries as our ancestors learned from experience and were able to articulate a spare set of principles that help give our lives a satisfying shape.

But the precepts and our relationship to them are more dynamic than this metaphor suggests.  When we use the word “form” in Zen, it almost immediately evokes the word “emptiness.”  It’s too easy to thingify the words form and emptiness and regard them as binaries, even if we also say that form and emptiness are one. 

But what does it really mean to say form and emptiness are one?  It means they’re not things and they don’t create a binary.  It means yin and yang are always co-creating and interpenetrating each other; always dancing. 

So let’s not think of a precept as a static form and embrace it only in a strict, literal sense.  That is one essential way to relate to the precepts, as we’ll discuss in our study group.  Yet Zen also approaches the precepts from other, more nuanced perspectives, as we’ll see.  The deepest meaning of the precepts is realized as we live with, through, and as them in the ever newly unfolding experiences of our lives.