Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / The Three Pure Precepts in Practice - Jomon Martin, Zen Teacher

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The Three Pure Precepts in Practice - Jomon Martin, Zen Teacher · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Jomon: Hello and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
• 0:25
  Jomon: We are embarking on a whole entire series of talks that that we kind of moved from talking about vow in lots of different ways and the vows that we take in the Buddhist tradition that include the four great bodhisattva vows and we talked about those and taking refuge, we talked about that and we're moving into a whole series of talks on the precepts of ethical behavior and these are vows that Buddhists take. In the time of the Buddha there were, I don't remember the exact number, 270 some ethical precepts that a monk would have to live by and that would include not touching women, not eating any food that wasn't offered, very very specific and strict things all about the robes, things to do, what not to do, and then the nuns had 300 and some, so there you go. But householders often have to certainly go through life and deal with money and get food and take care of business so they can't go by monastic rules, but there are sometimes five precepts or 16 precepts that householders and monks perhaps share. In our tradition of Buddhism we receive the precepts from a teacher and that is called Jukai and that is when you also receive a dharma name, when you've committed to the practice, to perhaps a lineage, and so I'll talk more about that.
• 2:29
  The 16 precepts include the three refuges so we've actually covered those. We did that last week didn't we? Didn't we talk about that last week? And so tonight we're gonna talk about the three pure precepts and this is so those then those six you've got the refuges, you've got the three pure precepts, then those six are followed by the 10 grave precepts. Very specific behaviors to do not to do.
• 3:03
  So for instance not to kill but to cherish all life is the first one. Some people in here are actively preparing to receive the five precepts and Don has wagesa, a little blue strip of fabric and it indicates that he has done all of the requirements and taken the class and done some reflections on these five precepts and so then can wear this garment that he sewed himself, is that right? Yep. How did that go? It's a long strip of fabric that you got to sew together.
• 3:48
  So then you wear that at a Buddhist gathering or a time of practice. You can wear it at home, some people like to wear it around under their clothes just to kind of remind themselves of these precepts so that's the first five and we'll talk about those. There are some people in here who are currently in a class taking a class on the first five precepts and that's part of the requirements before you start sewing a Wagesa and that's a time where you can read about these precepts to different authors, different teachers and their view on them, talk about them with the teacher in real life so either at the monastery or on zoom or at Heart of Wisdom. Maybe some way of doing it here but I thought we could support that effort by having a Dharma talk on each of the precepts for a while. This will carry us into fall, well into November actually because I'll be traveling some each month So that's cool.
• 4:59
  So that's the orientation here. So tonight we're on the three pure precepts and I'll actually be spending kind of a lot of time on the different ways that they're worded. So my hope is then that that just gives you a feeling of them rather than here's what to do or not do because you'll see that that is not so simple or maybe it's too simple. So the Zen community of Oregon, the phrasing that we use is, I vow not to commit evil. I vow to cultivate goodness.
• 5:37
  I vow to do good for others. That's it. Simple, right, easy. So here's a story though that might help us as we begin to look at these precepts. The story is about a Chinese Zen master in the Tang dynasty which I've been really enjoying studying about and this Chinese Zen master or Chan, his name was Cao Fu and they called him Birds Nest Roshi and Roshi is the designation of an older teacher, Birds Nest Roshi.
• 6:16
  And he got this name because he often meditated in a tree. One day an eminent man who was both a governor and a well known poet paid him a visit arriving while he was up in his tree. When the governor found him he said, what a dangerous seat you have up there in the tree. Birds nest Roshie replied, yours is more dangerous than mine. The governor said, I'm the governor of this province and I don't see what danger there is in this.
• 6:54
  Birds Nest responded, then sir you don't know yourself very well. When passions burn and mind is unsteady this is the greatest danger. The governor then asked what is the teaching of Buddhism And Birds Nest Roshi recited a verse from the Not to commit wrong actions but to do all good ones and keep the heart pure. This is the teaching of all Buddhas. When the governor heard this he was not impressed and said, any child of three years knows that.
• 7:41
  Birds Nest Roshi said, Any three year old child may know it but even an 80 year old man cannot do it. So I think that is a beautiful story about these three pure precepts that they are simple but not perhaps easy or not perhaps clear. They're kind of unarguable though aren't they? Let's not do harmful things. Let's be of benefit, let's do good whatever that is and let's let's do good for others, let's focus on others, excellent.
• 8:21
  How exactly do we go about this? So one of the things that we are fortunate to have available to us in our community, the Zen community of Oregon, is the Harmony Committee. The Harmony Committee. Now this is a group of people and it's evolved over time. It's had a few different incarnations and lots of different Zen places have something like this, which is a group of people that are volunteering to be the the folks who receive any sort of complaint or concern or if there's a conflict between sangha members that they're not able to resolve for themselves or someone has a difficulty with the teacher and they need help maybe talking to the teacher about it.
• 9:12
  This is a group of people that's volunteered to say we will help. We will help. And I was the Sangha Harmony chair for an extremely long time and finally was able to move that on to a very wonderful group of people who did an incredible job updating the policies of the Sangha Harmony Committee and they took like two or two and a half years to really work on that and clarify it and they framed it in terms of the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. It's a 28 page document and it's fantastic. You should definitely access it.
• 9:56
  It's accessible on the website if you go to the About tab and it's under Governance and then it'll lead you to the Sangha Harmony Committee page. So this 28 page document outlines our ethical principles and conflict management and I love bringing it forward especially in precepts classes or any sort of precepts discussion because this is something that these folks really worked hard on to reflect our community's values very specifically and how the precepts are expressed. I have to add though that the harmony committee that redid these policies did this work and just sort of like got this over the finish line in I think it was February 2020 right before COVID and then they just were sort of like done with you know this was the they did so much work on it and really everybody was much more worried about COVID than they were about conflict resolution so the Harmony Committee kind of, you know, disbanded on accident and we were a little bit floating around with that one and as we all kind of got back into connection it's like, oh wow, I think we need this. So I was able to put together kind of a dream team and I feel very confident in the current group of folks that we have now in that committee and I think that's really important.
• 11:33
  So do check it out and you can kind of look around and see what's available there. So I wanted to read what the Sangha Harmony Committee has to say about the three pure precepts. Here's the first one, We vow not to commit evil. This is the foundation of Buddhist teaching. We refrain from harming ourselves, other people, animals, air, water and the earth herself by embracing interdependence, oneness and integration.
• 12:01
  When we see ourselves as separate we cultivate the ground for the three poisons greed, anger and ignorance and an approach to life that is fearful, dominating and selfish. So I just really appreciate how they unpacked it. These are some of the elements to be thinking about. Here are some of the directions in which we might commit evil or some people phrase that as harmful behavior. But really it's this misunderstanding about how we're separate or a tendency to fall into patterns of greed, anger, or ignorance and if that governs our life then we'll be confused and we'll definitely and perhaps accidentally commit harmful actions.
• 13:01
  We can try to look ahead and see as clearly as possible but we can also look at like the wake that we're leaving just like in a boat like what how are we doing? You know, what's the what's the effect of my life on others? I I I think there are people that never look at that and but I perhaps most of us do. We try to be open to feedback or open to input about times we may have accidentally been unskillful and be willing to repair that. I think too I was trying to look it up but I didn't get a signal out there.
• 13:51
  Does anybody know the name of the that that building? I think it's in Italy where it had a fresco painting of Jesus and the lady that was hired to repair it like just didn't actually know what she was doing and then it just ends up this like mushy kind of cartoon like picture from this fresco that was just you know 100 like a thousand years old or something and now it's just this sort of like not very good. Is that do they know what a few of you know what I'm talking about. You've seen it. Yes.
• 14:29
  And so this is kind of my when I think of the three pure precepts, it's like, okay, don't do harm and then we're like, oh but no, I'm gonna fix this. I'm gonna do good and I'm gonna fix this and then we go and mess it up on purely on accident just with our own ignorance or unskillfulness. And then what's funny about this, what I love about this story is you know this tragedy of you know some work of art that's lost basically but now it's become a complete tourist attraction and revitalized the city. People wanna like have their picture next to it and it's this you know kind of has this cult following now which is just really wonderful. Humans are endlessly creative and surprising.
• 15:32
  So the second one, we vow to cultivate goodness. To do good means to uncover and to act from the kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity of our awakened nature. In our effort to live ethically we embrace and rely upon the time honored practices of confession, repentance, atonement, and reconciliation. So isn't that interesting that that went there and not in the doing harm part? And I don't know what their conversations were about and how they went about making those choices of how to open these up, but I really like that they put that there because it contrasts with I vow to do good for others.
• 16:20
  I vow to cultivate goodness is kind of like how am I cleaning up my side of the street? How am I how am I looking at myself? How am I taking care of my own practice? How am I taking care of myself? To uncover and to act from the kindness, compassion, sympathetic, joy, and equanimity of our own awakened nature.
• 16:41
  So those are the four immeasurables kindness, compassion, sympathetic, joy, and equanimity that these are qualities that arise from an awakened nature. They arise naturally and they're boundless. And so coming from that then we can really begin to address the inevitable times that we're unskillful, inevitable. We vow to do good for others, Actualizing good for others is the life of the bodhisattva. By taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and following the Buddha way we offer people the opportunity to discover their true nature.
• 17:36
  Dogan said that service for the welfare of all beings must be engaged in a spirit of oneness and without a desire for some return or recognition. Doing good for others springs effortlessly from a well of compassion. Actualizing good for others by taking refuge, it's amazing. And in this way we are offering everyone. We are taking care of our community here and in doing so we're offering this opportunity for all of us to discover our true nature.
• 18:21
  So if we're in service for the welfare of all beings in the spirit of oneness that is so important. That means that we're not putting ourselves above someone. Here let me help you, you poor ignorant person. Right? You're coming from this one up location to help someone and that doesn't feel really good for anybody on to be on the receiving end of that.
• 18:52
  That in order for you to be up there, I have to be down here. Can we offer anything just from a spirit of oneness that it's so completely and thoroughly intertwined and interconnected. There's no such thing as up or down actually. Doing good for others springs effortlessly from a well of compassion. So in many ways these three pure precepts are the thesis statement.
• 19:26
  The rest of the precepts, the 10 great precepts are the whole essay, the examples and the supporting statements. Young people still write essays? Is that still a thing? So some other ways that this is articulated. Norman Fisher has the Everyday's End community and he does a wedding ceremony that has these in it.
• 20:01
  I vow to refrain from all action that increases suffering. This is the intention to always practice a wise restraint. So he's kind of got these structured in the positive and the negative, the what to do and what to try to avoid and that's how the rest of the precepts are. So I think that's a creative way of looking at it. I vow to refrain from all action that increases suffering.
• 20:25
  This is the intention to always practice a wise restraint. I also like the word intention too and in Buddhism intention really matters. Intention really matters. Really in our legal system it actually does too. There's a difference between accidentally harming someone and purposely harming someone.
• 20:43
  Now in some cases the intention doesn't actually ameliorate the impact of an action and we have to be able to just accept that sometimes that that's true, but as far as the weight of karma and the effect of karma there is a big difference between meaning to harm someone and not meaning to harm someone and to maintain this intention to practice a wise restraint that matters. The second one is I vow to perform all action that increases awareness. This is the intention to actually do what occurs to us that can make ourselves and others truly happy. If how to perform all action that increases awareness Isn't that true that when we're aware we are less likely to engage in harmful behavior? There might be a very direct relationship with the doing of beneficial things and increased awareness.
• 22:05
  I certainly find that after a sasheen when I'm a lot more sensitive, a lot more aware, I can maybe pause and wait for someone to you know finish expressing themselves or maybe notice a little more about how people are doing and then I can be a little more skillful about when I take action or not or not. The third one is I vow to live for and with all beings. I vow to live for and with all beings. This is the intention to always try to see everything with an unselfish eye. This vow to do good for others is to include ourselves in everything and everyone that we're all just part of something much larger and can we express that in what we do?
• 23:16
  And this is a opportunity to do that. We practice that here and and take it out of here. There's some training that this is, whether it's Zen training or military training or firefighter training or social work training or you know there's some sometimes we get we put ourselves into a training program that allows us to practice this, some things more than others. And that just really reflects the malleability of our human being. Know, that the more we do a thing, the more we can do that thing.
• 24:03
  I'm debating about whether to read these Dogen. I'm gonna go ahead and read Dogen's phrases. Dogen is the founder of the So to Zen school from the December in Japan and he was a spiritual genius and his writings were rediscovered hundreds of years after his death and they've revitalized and you know his teachings have carried on for hundreds of years and he writes from it can sound confusing when you hear it but he writes and switches back and forth from the view of the relative and the absolute all the time. It's like going from human mind to mountain mind, a human mind to mountain mind constantly so but he doesn't warn you about when he's doing that so it's hard to kind of follow. So a lot of these are kind of from Mountain Mind.
• 25:13
  The first one is cease from evil, release all self attachment. This is the house of all the ways of Buddha, this is the source of all the laws of Buddhahood. Do only good, take selfless action. The dharma of anyutara samyak sambodhi, that means perfect enlightenment, is the dharma of all existence never apart from the present moment. Do good for others, embrace all things and conditions, leap beyond the holy and the unholy.
• 25:46
  That's some mountain mind right there. Let us rescue ourselves together with all beings. Oh my gosh. Let us rescue ourselves together with all beings. That's not a one up kind of a rescuing is it?
• 26:02
  That's like we are we are in this sinking boat together everybody. Here's a paddle, I've got a paddle, let's go. Aren't those beautiful? I mean it's just really beautiful even if we don't quite understand, even if we can't quite feel into these tools, we can still admire them and over time they really can open up. So we've talked about the four great bodhisattva vows here and we will chant them this evening when we close.
• 26:43
  Beings are numberless, I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them, and the Buddha way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it. So much about what we're doing just keeps repeating this over and over this orientation to how do we want to be, how do we want to show up, what is our life for, what is our life. What is our purpose?
• 27:16
  So Master Sheng Yan who's another Chinese Chan teacher, Sheng Yan lived in the modern times, recently deceased says that to help us actualize these four bodhisattva vows we need these foundational vows of the three pure precepts to help us behave ethically and to help us reduce our habits of greed, anger and ignorance sometimes also called the three poisons. So these three vows he says help us keep the precepts of ethical behavior which we'll talk about in our next talks. He says these three vows help us perform beneficial actions and they also help point us in a direction to be of benefit to all sentient beings. And he says that the pure precepts help us to keep the 10 which are about you know don't do such and such and then instead do such and such. I always felt that the three pure precepts were the basics and then like okay I can agree to that, not do evil, do good for others, yes.
• 28:23
  Sign me up, that sounds great. Okay but how? I need a few more details but master Shen Yin says that the pure precepts are more of a support because like the devil is in the details. So here's what he says. He says that by receiving the precepts one generates a vast amount of merit.
• 28:56
  Now that's interesting to say right then and there. In some Buddhist traditions going to a temple or offering incense or donating money or time this is considered an act that will accumulate merit and maybe result in more favorable karma, more favorable rebirth and that's stressed more or less in different traditions. Not so much in our tradition but it's definitely more in some other ones. So he says, it's said that by receiving the Bodhisattva precepts one generates a vast amount of merit but not in any sort of magical way. He says this can be understood as follows, when you take the precepts a seed is planted deep in your consciousness Because the seed has been planted for the benefit of all sentient beings the natural consequence of its maturation as you nurture it by keeping the precepts is a growth in your compassion and a weakening in your propensity to do harm.
• 29:58
  With sustained practice there naturally arises in you a tendency towards wholesome actions. The more you do that thing the more you can do that thing or the more you starve this kind of behavior the less you're gonna do that kind of behavior. And that's what he's talking about generating merit and he goes on to say, as you increasingly go through life acting on the basis of compassion you will come to experience a sense of security and stability. Well that sounds good. Why is this?
• 30:32
  Because quite simply you're no longer living your life in an obsessively self centered, self concerned way. Always worrying about your own well-being and feeling constantly threatened and insecure. As your life is dedicated to others you become less and less concerned with your personal benefit gain or loss consequently you no longer live in fear and cease to be agitated or plagued by vexations which are all caused by self attachment, you achieve stability of mind. So the example of this that comes to my mind is and I'm not wearing it today but I have one of those watches that like measures your stress somehow, I don't know maybe it's heart rate variability or something but it has the like I can click it and it'll show from like one to 150 or below is apparently pretty good. Above 50 is like you're getting kind of stressed out and it'll turn orange above 25.
• 31:33
  Okay so like I have these line graphs throughout the day and it's you know tall lines or short lines or blue lines or orange lines and when I first started wearing it one of the things I noticed was that not always in meditation was it blue. And I started noticing that the times that my mind was really spinning out, not blue. I could easily just wind myself up just by having a busy mind and when I was able to really settle things in and focus on practice, that's when things were able to calm down, the whole system settles down. The other times that I noticed when I'm in a doing therapy as a counselor, sitting with someone and and attending to them, listening deeply, it's like almost to the ground. It's it's completely blue.
• 32:37
  Similarly in Sansen in one on one meeting with a student, same thing. And these are times when I am absolutely not thinking about myself at all and what a relief that is. So this is what he's talking about perhaps, experiencing a sense of security and stability because you're no longer living in that obsessively self concerned way. So I noticed a correlation there for sure or at least some biometric data which we Americans love. It's so important to like, oh, is really true now.
• 33:25
  Now I know it's really true, the dharma is true. My watch told me. Finally he says, The stability and security you so experience then creates in turn an atmosphere of stability and security around your person. Now I do not claim to do this. Around your person that is palpable to other sentient beings.
• 33:47
  They feel safe around you and because of you out of genuine compassion never intend to harm them but only try to be of help. They also feel a sort of joy in your presence. Now I know people like this. I've been around people like this. It's really lovely.
• 34:02
  Thus, in an immediate and very concrete way, you after receiving the Bodhisattva precepts are benefiting sentient beings, a deed that generates a vast amount of merit and that's what he means by that. It's not some magical like bank account, it's like how is this showing up in the world. In this way we undertake the practice of the third set of pure precepts to deliver all sentient beings. The observance of this precept actualizes our intention as put forth in the four vows, the four great vows. So remember those that we mentioned right at the outset, those great big vows and sets us decisively on the bodhisattva path.
• 34:49
  So beautiful how this is all sewn together, isn't it? So I want to open it up for any questions or comments before we then chant those four Bodhisattva vows. Does anyone on Zoom or anyone in here have anything they wanna add or mention? Questions? It's pretty warm in here.
• 35:19
  We all might be low stress right now. Yes, Audrey we're gonna get a microphone so the zoomers can hear you. So I find it relatively easy to think about how I can live in a way that generates awareness in myself, but how can we live in a way that generates awareness in others? We could evangelize about meditation. Doesn't that sound like a great idea?
• 36:03
  That was sarcasm and not recommended. Yeah. Wouldn't that be great? I can think of a bunch of people that ought to be here. That doesn't usually go very well.
• 36:22
  I believe that the best way to inspire people to awareness is to demonstrate awareness and Thich Nhat Hanh tells this beautiful story about you know being on a refugee boat, know the boat people in the seventies that fled Vietnam and were just piled into these boats and the water would get choppy and it could mean life or death if people panicked and he said that if there was just one person on the boat that could kind of hold a center of gravity and calm that that impacted everybody else on the boat and really allowed people to maintain some sense of stability and awareness. So I do think that our practice does touch other people, it really does. When I get to go to teacher meetings with other teachers in our community, it's palpable in in the room when you have, you know, people who've been practicing thirty, forty, fifty years and they're all in there together. I I feel like I've got my, like, junior varsity jacket on like, oh, I get to be in here. Great.
• 37:52
  And I can, you know, hear myself in the room with them and like, oh, why did I say that? I'm in their field and they're not trying to do anything. They're just doing their practice. So that's very inspiring. Thank you.
• 38:14
  Andy, wait for the if you could get the microphone over there. Yeah. Thank you. And then one over here after that.
• 38:21
  Unkown: So in the Theravada scriptures, in the Pali Canon, the form of those three perfect vows is avoid evil, do good, develop your mind.
• 38:34
  Jomon: Develop your mind.
• 38:35
  Unkown: Yes. So
• 38:38
  Jomon: Yeah.
• 38:39
  Unkown: That's how.
• 38:40
  Jomon: Yes. Right? Yes. Yes. Develop your mind.
• 38:43
  It's the best gift we can give to anyone. Mhmm. Yeah. Thank you for that.
• 38:56
  Unkown: I kinda think to a lot of the points where the question of am I doing right comes up, and I think a big it's a good place to remember to walk the middle path.
• 39:10
  Jomon: To to walk the middle path?
• 39:11
  Unkown: Because anything that's really, really important, especially for in giving to other people exists within these tensions of who am I and who are others. Where where do I sit, and where do they sit? What's my side of street? What's theirs?
• 39:26
  Jomon: Mhmm.
• 39:27
  Unkown: And then just existing within that tension, and you can reach really far one way or another
• 39:34
  Jomon: Yes.
• 39:34
  Unkown: When so much of of doing good is existing within a tense, tense place.
• 39:40
  Jomon: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. So one of my friends, Kurt Holting says the phrase he likes to use is when we when we get out over our skis too far, and that sure can happen. Know, we can endeavor to be doing good for others and really face plant as a result or the opposite way, know, maybe not not so so much.
• 40:10
  So you're you're right. There is that tension. And then there's also just it's already this complete there's already so much sharing that's happening. We're already completely interconnected and letting that inform the tension we experience in the relative world. Thank you for bringing those in.
• 40:36
  Any other questions or comments before we close? Yes, please. Tell me your name again and Vivek, yeah. Thank you.
• 40:45
  Unkown: I have a question. How is evil discerned in Buddhism and how does Buddha how did Buddha discern
• 40:54
  Jomon: Yeah.
• 40:54
  Unkown: Evil and who is doing the discernment? Like, who is the one? Yeah.
• 41:00
  Jomon: Great question. I think that the three poisons are where we would look and evil you know is a loaded word especially those of us who maybe grew up in other religions or Christianity that has a very specific meaning. But in Buddhism there's an assumption of our inherent Buddha nature, of our inherent perfection that gets clouded over with our misunderstanding and with our propensities to think that we're a singular being that that needs something else, greed or that wants to avoid discomfort and in those interactions that's where we tend to trip up. And when we do things that are harmful then it kind of creates a domino effect a little bit. Of our actions will then have results that we did not plan, This is where the intention comes in, that it really is that if our intentions were innocent then the result may or may not be, you know, be less harmful.
• 42:53
  And it's also possible to neutralize some of those effects as well with our behavior however we might receive them too from someone else doing harm to us. How we work with that has a way of potentially neutralizing those effects. So it's not like there's someone else that's judging. Not a referee or anything although when we get into the 10 great precepts, there are not to kill but to cherish all life, but they're not like commandments and they're not like black and white. There is middle, there is a gray, and there are different ways of understanding these that recognize the complexity or that there is absolute and relative reality.
• 43:57
  So the example that I like to share as a maybe teaser for the 10 great precepts is so you're walking along in the woods and you see a deer go by and then you see a hunter with a gun and he looks at you and says, did you see a deer go by? And so not to kill but to cherish all life, not to lie but to speak the truth, those are two of the grave precepts. What do you do? What if he says, I've been tracking this deer and I really hope I get it because I've got five kids at home and this is how we know, we really rely on this deer meat for the year. Then what do you do?
• 44:42
  Does that make a difference in what you do? So there's no outside judge, it is really just how do we meet these moments, can we meet them with compassion, Can we meet them with a very large view? And we just do our best. Thank you for that question.
• 45:14
  Jomon: Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.