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Guided Meditation: Confidence & Clarity

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night all over the world. In fact, warm and cold, wet and dry, one Dharma or greetings. Let's begin with some sitting together.

So settling into our upright meditative posture. Upright and alert, whether we are reclined or sitting with a free spine. First sensing into the support, the ground, the seat. And from a connection with that steady supportive base, sensing our way up the spine, aligning little by little. As we do this, you may notice your breath adjusting itself, and now may be a good time to take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Arriving with the body. Letting go of any obvious holding.

Letting the breath return to normal, its natural rhythm.

Settling in with the breathing. With the breathing. Clear with the breathing.

Thank you.

To clearly know this breath. This breath, recognizing breathing in, recognizing breathing out. Confident in the clear recognition. This breath.

Confident. Confident in the clear recognition. This in-breath, this out-breath.

If there is wavering, if there is uncertainty... breathing in, confident in clearly knowing uncertainty. Confident in clearly knowing wavering.

Clearly knowing this breath in, this breath out. Confident in the clear knowing.

All right.

Sitting comes to an end. To relax, let go of any effort with the meditation, is to relax our body, our mind, and to appreciate any little bit of goodness or well-being that's arising in any little bit. So that recognition can nourish us.

My confidence and clear knowing: May everyone we encounter benefit, and may the benefits of our practice together extend far and wide. Thank you.

Dharmette: The Precepts (5 of 5): Keeping Us Safely on the Path

So hello again. Deep appreciation for this week of reflection together. My name is Kodo. Yeah, so deep appreciation for five days considering the five lay precepts. What a pleasure to do that in Sangha^[1].

For this morning, our fifth day, I'll make some brief comments about the fifth precept, and then I would like to, as we have been this whole week, do a recitation of the precepts. But I'd like to do a longer form and in the ancient language of the Pali^[2]. So I'll share that with you, and then I would like to make some time at the end for questions. So maybe a bit to cover in about twelve minutes, and I may stay a few minutes after if there are extra questions.

Let's begin with the fifth precept, which is put this way: For the sake of our training together, I undertake the precept to abstain from intoxicants that are a cause for heedlessness.

Clear, confident with the time that we have, one of the maybe more evocative things that we could put forth is a simple observation that the Buddha, as far as I am aware in these early teachings, never praised the use of intoxicants. In fact, spoke against it strongly, consistently. So the Buddha prohibited the use of alcohol, wine, and intoxicating liquors for the monastics, and then in the ten rules for novice monastics, which were then the model for the five lay precepts.

And out of curiosity, I was looking up the origin story: where did this rule come from? Because the Vinaya^[3]—the monastic rules—are just full of these stories of a time before a monastic rule, and then something happens, and then the Buddha says, "Ah yes, now there will be a rule. We will train in this way."

So the story is something like there's this venerable monastic, I think at the time is an attendant of the Buddha, perhaps not Ananda^[4] but another monastic, and they're wandering on alms round^[5]. The folks say, "Oh, don't go over to this cave, there's a dangerous serpent in this cave." To make a long story short, the attendant, the monastic—I think his name is Venerable Sagata—goes into the cave and has what more or less amounts to a meditative battle with this dangerous serpent. Sort of peacefully subdues this dangerous serpent.

Sometime later he comes out and the lay people are standing at a respectful distance and they say, "Oh venerables, this group of monks, what can we give you? What's hard for you to get that we the lay people can offer?" And the group of monks say, "Oh, there are these intoxicants, there are these liquors that are really hard for us to get. You can give us those." So every house in the town apparently then gives to the monastics these drinks.

So this attendant, Venerable Sagata, goes from house to house and then sometime later, as you might imagine according to the writing, he's found sort of face down, unconscious next to the path, and the Buddha says, "Oh monastics, pick him up, let's take him back." So this previously strong meditator, venerable, respectable monk is found unconscious; at the least a bit embarrassing. Then they take him back to the monastery and he's sort of rolling around in his sleep. The monastics put him down with his head toward the Buddha so he can sleep—a sign of respect in ancient India. And while he's rolling around, he ends up putting his feet toward the Buddha—a sign of disrespect at the time.

And this is when the Buddha makes the proclamation, and he says things along the lines of it's unseemly, it's not fitting for Sagata, it's not becoming, it's not suitable, it's not worthy, it's not allowable. And it's in the wake of this that the Buddha then makes this rule of abstaining from intoxicants.

So I think with the time we have, I'll maybe leave some of the reflection to: what do you suppose the Buddha's motivation was? What were the intentions that the Buddha had for himself, and then what qualities was he trying to imbue in the Sangha? What were the consequences that he saw through this act that he wanted to prevent? Qualities, consequences, intentions.

So the one I will highlight before we move on to the next piece: a very, very important quality in the Buddhist teaching, a very important ancient word—appamada^[6], heedfulness. This precept encourages us to undertake the abstinence from intoxicants that are a cause for heedlessness—pamada^[7]. And that is, the mind becomes blinded or influenced in such a way that its care for skillful qualities gets lost. Its care for skillful qualities gets lost.

And in contrast, one who is accomplished in the restraint of these precepts is said to shine, glow, be illuminated. To be accomplished in virtue and blameless, they're heedful.

So some very brief reflection on this fifth lay precept, but I would like to take a moment now and offer a longer recitation of these precepts in Pali, as that recitation has been part of our practice all week. Let me share this with you so that you can see that link if it shows up.

Because of time, I'll refrain from much explanation here and just offer the recitation, and then if there are questions we can do those at the end. This may take about three minutes, and in case anyone needs to go, I'd like to say thank you so much as a Sangha for supporting this aspect of a teacher trainee spending the week with me and these reflections on the precepts. I have a very clear sense, both from my training as a priest at Zen Center and then as a teacher trainee here, that the entire community trains a teacher. So my deep gratitude.

Looks like I need to adjust something in the document here. Maybe give that a try. There.

[Pali recitation of the refuges and precepts]

So, long form refuges, precepts. And I hope these reflections this week have been supportive for us in terms of considering how to live a dharmic life with ethical reflection. To consider how we might apply these precepts in our own life, come back to them again and again, and how to live well, how to live wisely, how to live in a way that benefits us and benefits everyone.

Q&A

So now I'd like to open the chat for more questions, and I can stay behind probably until about 7:50 Pacific, so a few minutes at least. Anything you'd like to ask.

I saw a question earlier about what to do if you know someone is speaking an untruth to you. Is there something you can say and do? And there's this teaching in the Dhammapada^[8] to conquer a liar with truth. It's at least encouraging to conquer a liar with truth. How that's done, that's definitely particular to circumstance.

What's coming to my mind to share right now without knowing is that we can always protect our own commitment to truthfulness. Someone may say something untruthful, may lie to us actually in a one-on-one situation, and we can protect truthfulness in ourselves. We can protect it in ourselves whether or not they're willing to say something true.

If you choose to engage, very simple ways without as much, without even any charge, could be something like, "Oh, I'm not sure that that is true. I'm not sure that that is accurate." And there's no barb, there's no revenge, there's no demand in what you're saying. It's just offering the simple observation: "Oh, I'm not sure. I'm not sure that that's true."

And one of the guiding criteria here for me is how to proceed peacefully. How to proceed in a way that supports peace in the interaction and then beyond. So that's something general, and then the particulars really depend on context.

Yeah, thank you for all the thanks, this is lovely.

Oh, someone asked a question earlier about if the other recordings would be posted. That's my understanding, though I'm not so in the know about how that works. And about Zoom, I understand that sometimes we also meet on Zoom in addition to YouTube. This being my first time, I went with just YouTube, and maybe by the next time I'll be able to do Zoom also.

Yeah, these are good questions. There's no simple answer for the question that very commonly comes up actually, the Holocaust question: would we lie to hide someone? And there's no simple answer to this question, but what it raises is the fact that we continuously have to navigate what is a wise, peaceful, non-harming life.

And something to note about something like the Buddhist precepts is for us as lay practitioners, there's no overarching authority in any place at all that interprets the precepts, that "this way is the right way for you to apply this to your life." We can give advice, we can encourage reflection, but there's no final answer authority anywhere.

So truly we have to study closely. My sense, as I was saying yesterday, the developmental model of working with these precepts is something like starting where it's simple. Start where it's simple, where we're not working at the edge cases. Like the Holocaust example is what I'm referring to as an edge case because it's particularly complicated. So well, complicated in some ways and quite simple in others, maybe I'll say that. But the developmental model for the training is to begin where it's easy, begin where it's clear. Start observing things like cause and effect within yourself. What qualities are generated? What intentions are evoked? What are the consequences of your actions? And then let that wisdom grow, let that wisdom expand, and then what we learn where it's simple can guide us in where it's difficult.

Oh, will I be here next week? I won't actually. Next week another teacher trainee, May Elliott, will be teaching an introduction to mindfulness meditation, I think covering five aspects of the instructions that we do well to practice over and over again.

And then maybe last question before I go that I happen to catch as it went by was: what do we do when we realize we've gone against our intention or broken a precept?

As I mentioned yesterday, the model that I take from the Buddha is a simple one. It's, one, first recognizing that this is the fact. Recognizing that I've gone against my intention or I've broken a precept that I was committed to for myself. So recognizing and then laying that open. Laying that open—that means with a good Dharma friend, someone you trust, a mentor, teacher—telling them. Confession. So recognizing, laying it open, and then making a resolve that in the future we'll try to do something differently and try to do this differently. Ever pointing ourselves toward skillfulness, non-harming, and not suffering.

So this Dhammapada verse I think will be the last thing I'll say, and then I'll say farewell. Translated by Gil^[9], verse 53: Just as from a heap of flowers many garlands can be made, so you with your mortal life should do many skillful things.

May it be so. May we continue this reflective dharmic life for the benefit of ourselves and for the benefit of others, for the benefit of both, for the benefit of the whole world without exception. Please take care. See you again.