I can sweep all the insects out, you know, that you can see as you go along, wear no clothes and not eat and perish. So the precept not to kill, I mean, these precepts, look, let's take the vow to save, to realize with all sentient beings, okay? It's clearly impossible, right? So let's take the vow to save one sentient being. Hmm. If you can save one, let's save three. I've got to save three. God, you're parsimonious. I'm going to save six. It doesn't make any sense to give a definite number. It's an effort to save sentient beings. Not in the realm of understanding how many am I going to save and should I make this effort because I can't really do it. We say it's like a bird putting out a forest fire by flying from a lake and shaking water on fire.

[01:03]

That's all. And we say if the bird does it enough, the lake becomes empty and a beautiful land appears. This kind of effort is necessary to practice. I thought there was a fire there. So if you're practicing Dharma, you identify with what holds, which is the field of mind. which is space, which is empty, which is suchness. I have a question about taking precepts.

[02:13]

Do you think it's important for practitioners to take precepts in that informal, angle-minded way that you just described? How do you know if there are any Australians who are not? I mean, among the Dharma people you know, not many have taken the priesthood? This is a big mistake. Take the precepts. The precepts are really important. And they're not even Buddhists. I mean, they're the precepts of basic humanity. Not to kill, not to take what is not given, not to lie.

[03:18]

But to vow that this is the basic as a human being. has a power in you. A vow is very powerful. Like you might get married for two years and live with somebody else eight years, and somebody asks you, were you married? You say, once. Something that happens in that 20 minutes of a marriage ceremony, so that something happens when we vow, and that's what intention is. Buddhism also rests on intention as a vow. Could a person who works in a slaughterhouse take the vow not to kill? Well, basically, your question is, does a person who eats a Big Mac, can he vow not to kill? But I didn't want to make... No, it's the same.

[04:21]

But You know, I think, no, a person who really took those vows couldn't work in slaughter. And one of the precepts is it's not to sell alcohol. But that means not to sell firearms, not to have a livelihood that harms. So as much as possible, you have a livelihood that doesn't harm. All the precepts come down to don't harm So does that mean a farmer who raises the animals to go to the farm? Well, we also participate in our society and wear leather shoes and things like that. Yeah, there's nowhere you can draw the line clearly. But there is a difference between raising the animals and killing. But we do harm all the time. We harm all the time, yeah. That's right. I just met that little corner guy.

[05:23]

We're not bound to abide by it. But how is that different from what I said before about counting the number of people you're going to save or not? We're human beings and we do certain things. There's a word in Japanese that's spelled just like aware, A-W-A-R-E. A-W-A-R-E, yeah. And it's pronounced aware. And it means, though, it doesn't mean awareness in Japanese, but it means in effect awareness. the awareness that everything you do is killed, and to feel that with remorse. If this building killed, you had to clear land, you had to cut trees down. There's nothing that can be done about it. Absolutely. Well, you have to find some way to remind yourself.

[06:27]

For instance, one of my practices is, I mean, I drive a car. I know a car kills me. Making an interaction is the most important thing. Like, with cars. Right? You know, cars wish action. But we don't. And yet we take good action. What do you think? Well, I don't know what to say. You have a position. I don't agree with it. My feeling is that when you take the precept and you vow not to kill, and Thich Nhat Hanh these days is presenting the precepts as mindfulness training. And that's okay, but they're real specific and they don't work then. And he dropped the word precept. Because I think a precept means exactly what the word says, pre, before holding.

[07:33]

Precept. So you hold it in your mind before you do something. But if you really hold in mind not to kill, you notice when you talk to somebody, you just kill them a little. If you haven't taken the precepts, you probably won't notice it. Now, if you use the precepts as an excuse for yourself, well, that's just your lack of character. Now, as I started to say, you have to have ways to remind yourself, and one of the ways I remind myself is even though I drive a car, I bow for every animal or insect that hits my window or I see dead one behind me. So every time I pass a little rabbit, I think, sometimes it's been smashed 40 times. But people drive me and say, what the hell are you doing? I keep going. Take your hat off for real. I do. I take my hat off. Not because I'm on the speed, you know.

[08:36]

And every time a moth, sometimes, you know, when the moths hit the insects, it's real hard to keep going. But this is my habit anyway. I don't want to get pedantic, but what about when you do eat a Big Mac? I enjoy it. But I'm trying to understand the reconciliation about these, because it seems to me it's easier to separate and say, well, this person is killing and I'm not killing. Then you'd have to go to India and be a giant. When the farmer kills a chicken to have dinner that night, I don't have much problem with it. Okay? But when... In a slaughterhouse, they terrorize the animals so the meat is flooded with adrenaline so that it will be more tender.

[10:00]

That's what they do. They make the animal terrified before they kill it. This I have a big problem with. There's a Zen master who went came from Japan to America. They showed him the Chicago slaughterhouse, and he fainted. And Tsukiyoshi said, if he was going to faint, he shouldn't have gone in there. So, I mean, there's no absolute rules. You have to work with these things and you make them work. And if you want not to kill, it's better to take the vow not to kill. If you use it as an excuse, like a lot of people become ordained as a cop-out, you made a deal with God. So now I'm ordained and I can do what I want. But you can turn anything into a cop-out.

[11:05]

or you can turn it into something that informs you. And I think the precepts are extremely important, and I think they clearly make a difference in people's lives. Anybody who sincerely takes the precepts, it seems to make a big difference in their lives. I mean, but again, as I said the other day, do not take what is not given. If you hadn't taken the precept to not take what is not given, You probably wouldn't notice when you came in the door without, not you, when you came in the door without stopping that you stole the room. So you stop at the threshold and wait a minute until the room is given you and you walk in. But that comes from taking the precepts not to steal. But you'd never think of that until you took the precepts. Why would you do that? Why would I do what? because I don't just rush into the next space I wait until the space asks me to come in like when I come to my cushion I just don't sit down I stop for a minute I look at it and when I feel settled then I sit down and I always fluff my cushion afterwards I've never in 25 years gotten up from a cushion and walked away from it

[12:34]

I always restore it to the way it was before I sat. It's just a practice I have. It's a precept. It's a kind of precept. When I said why, I mean, what's the function of it? It keeps you mindful. Stealing can be very subtle. So it becomes more and more subtle when you take the precept. Like she said, You notice with your spouse or with a friend that you've killed them a little bit in the way you spoke. And I experienced this weekend that twice I did that this weekend. And I'm feeling badly about it. Yeah? If I understood what you said, I would say yes. You want to do it?

[13:39]

Everything is a craft. There's no absolute. If you want an absolute, you can't be a human being. So, I mean, I'm a vegetarian at my house and at my practice place. And I haven't had meat or anything in my house in 30 or 40 years or something like that. But when I go out to dinner, I eat anything that's served to me in the restaurant. And for a long time, for several years, people would call me up, what can we cook you for dinner since you're coming over for dinner and you go to a restaurant and you have to have another quiche. So I became the quiche of death. LAUGHTER you know in those days they didn't have in restaurants they didn't have anything but quiche or something that head you know iceberg lettuce or something and but I was kind of hurting other people I was everybody felt oh he's too pure he doesn't drink he doesn't eat and I felt I was people felt a little uncomfortable so I just started doing the other people do that's also not killing which am I killing the people invite me to dinner or am I killing the chicken or

[14:59]

You know? I don't know. My hands are covered with blood, but you know, I do the best I can. Yeah. Something I prayed to me came up earlier. And it's about that. Mindful of giving. In the break, I was spiritual. So you know, hand touching, and the relationship between hand touching, all of that, that way. And it was a very pristine use of mind is how I experienced that as an addiction. And then another thing, another experience So when I scratch my head, or another way, through sensation, where the feeling of my hands and my hair, it's like I can fall into that and disappear.

[16:13]

And there's not mind precision, it feels to me. I don't know whether those two things are the same thing, That kind of distinction is too subtle for me to speak about. So you have to find out for yourself what the difference between touching something and disappearing into the touch and having the disappearing into the touch present while you're still clear and so forth. This is something you have to discover. But you've got the ingredients. Now make your own soup, or make your own meal. Yes? I think it's true. I don't, in general, agree with Crick. I don't agree with extreme theories and things like that.

[17:34]

But in any case, yeah, truth is... I don't know if truth is paradoxical, but our expression of it is paradoxical. Well, there isn't too much difference. Because, anyway. So, in this sense, there's this fundamental paradox of form and emptiness. But, form and emptiness also pico, emptiness. And there's various teachings. Form is form, emptiness is emptiness. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And form and emptiness is emptiness. But I'm going to go into that. okay so we're running out of what is called generally time so the question is shall I start the three natures now or shall I wait till after lunch shall we sit sit for a while yeah

[18:57]

sit until the break and then have a little space. Okay. So we've gotten to a good point where I think we have enough, we call, we say in Zen, provisions. We now have enough provisions in the larder to talk about the three natures. Now let's sit for a bit. We'll have lunch.

[19:46]

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