[This document can be acquired from a sub-directory coombspapers via
anonymous FTP or COOMBSQUEST gopher on the node COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU or
ANU Soc.Sci.WWW Server at http://coombs.anu.edu.au/CoombsHome.html]

The document's ftp filename and the full directory path are given in
the coombspapers top level INDEX files]

[Last updated: 15 July 1994]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"THE SIMPLICITY OF THE WAY"
a teisho by John Tarrant, Roshi

Originally published in: Mind Moon Circle, Winter 1994, pp.8-10.

This text addresses some of the most fundamental and delicate religious issues.
Therefore, it should be read, quoted and analysed in a mindful way.

All copyrights to this document belong to John Tarrant, California
Diamond Sangha, Santa Rosa, Cal., USA

Enquiries: The Editor, "Mind Moon Circle", Sydney Zen Centre, 251
Young St., Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038, Australia. Tel: + 61 2 660
2993
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SIMPLICITY OF THE WAY

John Tarrant, Roshi

Teisho given for Jukai Ceremony held at Gorricks Run
during the Easter Sesshin, l994

We are here for the ceremony of refuge, one of the joyful ceremonies
of the Zen universe.  In it we take up the way of the Buddha; it is a
kind of ordination for people who nevertheless live in the world.
Like many such things it really recognises a kind of inner connection,
an intimacy and commitment, that has already happened.  But through
that recognition mysterious things happenmysterious further things
happenwhich is the point of ceremony anyway.  I think of it as a kind
of inner wedding to the wisdom path; its an initiation.  When we take
refuge we say that whatever else is in my life, the opening of insight
and wisdom and compassion is at the core.  And whatever else I want
for myself I want those things first.

The precepts are boundary markers, I suppose.  I think of the way in
the ancient world people used to take a plough and oxen or horses and
plough a big circle and mark it with stones: that was the beginning of
a city, and within that circle magical things could happen.  This too
is a kind of boundary marker.  The precepts themselves are expressions
of the way the world looks from the point of view of Buddha nature,
before theyre anything else.  Theyre actually descriptions of
reality.  If you want to conform to reality and to what makes sense,
this would be a good thing to do.

In the Mahayana tradition precepts are not taken literally.  If
somebody comes along running and heads off to the north, and somebody
else comes along running behind them with an axe and says Where did
he go? you say, He went south.  How the precepts are helpful is by
bringing something into consciousness, and especially by bringing the
costs and sacrifices of our behaviour into consciousness.  We
translate the precepts as  I take up the way of . . . not lying, and
so on.  Nobody is telling you that you cant get drunk, but the
precept says that if you do there is a sacrifice involved.  Some
people call it a hangover.  But its not just that: theres a
sacrifice of consciousness, theres a sacrifice of a night of your
life, there are many things.  So if you want to get drunk you had
better really want to get drunk.

And its the same with all kinds of things.  We tell many lies in
certain ways.   Sometimes its hard to tell; we can be too literal
about this.  We dont have to share every passing feeling we have
about somebody: I hate you today!  Thats not a matter of observing
the precept about lying.  But the ways in which we distort other
peoples versions of ourselves and try to control other peoples
versions of ourselves are myriadjust as an exampleand when we take
the precepts we realise that theres a great cost to us in such
distortions, that we lose our own affective connection with the
universe.  And we may impress somebody for a little while, but usually
people know when we are lying anyway.  Because in some sense there are
no secrets in the cosmos.

So the rules are not meant to make you unable to breathe or to
strangle you, but they are meant to show you that behaviour is a very
deep and interesting matter  And if we pay attention to our human
karmic limits then something else will open out enormously.  If you
observe and respect human karmic limits you are also observing Buddha
nature and you are observing the interconnection of all beings.  And
if you do that you find that the field has grown very vast and is full
of trees and stars and wind.  And that is the point about refuge.
When we take the vows we are vowing to enter the simplicity of the
way, knowing that that simplicity makes everything shine, everything
dance, and theres nothing more precious in the world.  And thats why
we love it.

Its also a sign of gratitude for the Way.  On my own transmission
documents my teacher said, People have sweated blood for this
lineage; people have died for this.

There is gratitude to those who went before, for thousands and
thousands of years; down to the amoeba; and to those who will come
after.  How many generations there will be we do not know.  But this
is one of our gifts to them as well, that we too hope for life and
love life and want to pass it on, pass on the enlightenment of the
Way.

So let us begin. . . . The way we do this is that the vows are
announced and then we all chant together.  And the initiates each have
prepared their own words.  Four people are taking refuge for the first
time and one person is renewing her vows.  And in turn the initiates
will read their words for each vow. . . .

We now come to the presentation of the robe of the Buddha, the rakusu.

This robe is black, signifying the earth itself; and the mystery
underlying all things; and a kind of nonattachment that is not so much
cut off from things but the kind of nonattachment that comes from
allowing all things, a generous nonattachment.

The robe is madeas you can seeof many small patches.  Traditionally
it was made of pieces of thrown-away cloth sewn together, patched
together.  But also this is the patchwork of the earth itself, the
wheatfields, the ricefields, that which gives us sustenance.  It
represents the field of the Dharma, in which all things are contained.
Taking up the precept is not a regression to puritanism, it is
understanding in a broad fashion what it is to be human, what it is to
love, what it costs to love life, and finding within that an integrity
that can hold all these incompatible things together.  That integrity
is usually called enlightenment.

And that is symbolised by this round ring here.  Circles symbolise
many thingseverything, the mystery that underlies everything, that is
empty.  It is just a round circle too.

On the back of the rakusu are crossed casuarina needlesneedles from
an ancient Buddhist treesignfying that this is a mountain path,
signifying that it takes you deep into the journey into the true self.
As Rilke said, so that we walk into the silence, for hours meeting
no-one.  Also the needles are the green shoots of the Way, the manner
in which the Way will spring up like dandelions in a pavement in the
city.  Somewhere, no matter what state you are in, you can always find
a little green trace of it.  There are two needles crossed with each
other.  Every time you are caught in an opposite, at bottom there is
always some unity there, if you can find it.  Theres always some way
to hold the two together.  And that is the enlightened task.  So that
we can find the true action.

We also have names; we are given a Buddhist name.  Which is another
way to mark that we are putting wisdom and awareness at the centre of
things.  We put on the robe and we may say it becomes us: it turns
into us, we turn into it.  Its the same with a name.  It is sometimes
thought that if you know the true names of things the true name will
bring something into being; the old idea that a true name is a kind of
spell, a magical act of imagination that makes things real.  And the
naming in Buddhism makes the Way real.  So that its not just on our
skin; its in our cells and our bones.

Sometimes when people take refuge together I give them one name in
common, so that they become part of the same tribe, so to speak, the
same Zen tribe.  This time I have done that, and the tribe is the Wave
tribe.  Wave signifies something connected to the ocean, a unique form
that emerges from the great ocean underlying everything and then goes
back where it came fromjust as we do.  So it carries the power and
the beauty and the transience of life.  One person was not so fond of
water so he joined the Zen tribewhich is part of the Wave tribe; or
perhaps the Wave tribe is part of the Zen tribe.  He is linked in that
way. . . .

When you take off the rakusu, you fold it so that the writing is on
the outside, because that helps it to hang and slide it inside the bag
you have made.  There are different ways to put on the rakusu, but I
will show you my suggested way.  This is embarrassing to many
peoplewhich is a good reason to do it.   You put it on your head -
there is no shame in the Buddha-dharma.  And we chant this verse:

I wear the robe of liberation
The formless field of benefaction
The teachings of the Tathagata
Saving all the many beings.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
end of file


