Bassui: An Arrow Flies Straight to Hell

"The mind is host, the body is guest."

Zen master and historical figure, Bassui was born in Japan in 1327. Rejected by his mother at birth, Bassui is recorded to have been raised by a family servant. At age 29 he became a monk, but he did not shave his head or wear robes; he did not recite Sutras, like other monks. His practice was the most simple practice. It can be called the practice of no practice. This was to be Bassui's Way throughout his life.

As a Zen master, Bassui was often questioned; often he gave reply. In one instance he was asked: "The spirit is this skin, this skin is the one spirit. Is this correct?"

Bassui replied affirmatively to the question.

"If so,' continued the questioner, 'who will become buddha after the body's dispersed to the four winds? Who will sink into the sea? What will be the reason for keeping the precept that prevents crime?"

To this Bassui replied, "If you continue holding this view, in which you deny cause and effect [karma], like an arrow, you will fly straight to hell. Do you have dreams?

Questioner: Yes.

Bassui: What do you usually see in your dreams?

Questioner: It's not always fixed. I usually see things that occur in my mind and through my body.

Bassui: The rising and sinking after death are also like that. All thoughts that come are by way of the four elements that comprise the physical body. Dreams in the night follow suit and appear in accordance to the good or bad thoughts of the day... An ancient said, 'You receive a body according to Karma, and your body in turn produces Karma. You should realize the continuity of the body in this life and in the next... If you truly understand this, then you cannot doubt the statement that the one spirit in this skin is the one spirit in that skin.

Questioner: Now I realize that the body and the mind are not separate. This being the case, the significance of 'seeing into one's Buddha nature' is relegated to the leaves and branches [of a tree]. If you simply stop doing bad deeds concerning your physical body, practice various good deeds, practice the precepts, and eliminate evil thoughts, will you then become a Buddha?

Bassui:
All thoughts are born of deluded ideas feelings [disordered thinking]. If you do not see penetratingly into your own nature, though you try to eliminate evil thoughts, you will be like the one who tries to stop dreaming without waking up. All evil deeds are rooted in deluded thoughts. If you cut out the roots, how can the leaves grow?... If he were a man who penetrated his own nature, how could he even think of committing a sin in which he breaks precepts?

How May I Help?

Sometimes we want to help others. When we give assistance to others it comes in different ways. It may be quiet, relying upon the attentiveness of the other, or it may be directly spoken. Sometimes they appreciate our assistance; sometimes others just want to struggle on their own without assistance. The help of others isn't always wanted.
How then may we help? Zen teacher Joko Beck has written about compassion, "[so compassion ] if we're truly listening with compassion to another person, we may not feel much of anything; we simply listen and act appropriately... compassion is not itself an emotion."

 And there is a Zen story to illustrate another way of help to others:

A Zen master enters the prayer hall with a bowl, ready for the meal being served; he comes much too early. So the cook stops him in the kitchen and says they have not rung the bell yet. The Zen master returns to his room and waits. Meanwhile the cook can't resist! He approaches the abbot, tells him of the master's folly, with glee. The abbot listens, then shrugs replying that the master can become befuddled sometimes!
Soon the Zen master returns to the hall to eat. He hears of the abbot's remarks and is displeased.  Later he speaks to the abbot in private. He inquires of  him if he be disapproving.  At that, the abbot leans forward to the Zen master and whispers into his ear. Immediately the Zen master is relieved of his concern.
Later the Zen master gives a dharma talk. It is thought very good. The abbot profusely compliments the Zen master afterward.


Yet for those listening, the question remained: what was whispered into the Zen master's ear by the abbot? Or from another perspective: what was the role of the abbot in the situation? Did he help the Zen master?

Nothing Special: Promises Not Kept

"He who does not expect, has all things"

Charlotte Joko Beck writes, "Our human trouble arises from desire. Not all desires generate problems, however. There are two kinds of desires: demands, I have to have it, and preferences. Preferences are harmless, "they are what we would want to like to have,' Beck writes.

"Desire that demands to be satisfied is the problem. It's as if we feel that we're constantly thirsty, and to quench our thirst we try to attach a hose to a faucet in the wall of life. We keep thinking that from this or that faucet we will get the water we demand... We demand countless things of ourselves and the world; almost anything can be seen as desirable, a socket we can attach ourselves to, so that we can finally get the drink we believe we need... self-assured [or not], underneath it all we feel that there is something lacking.

We feel we have to fix our life, quench our thirst. We've got to get that connection, to hook up our hose to that faucet... The problem is that nothing actually works. 
We begin to discover that the promise we hold out to ourselves... is never kept... If we've been trying for years... to attach our hose... there comes a moment of profound discouragement... and it dawns on us that nothing can really fulfill our demands... 
That moment of despair is in fact a blessing, the real beginning... A strange thing [then] begins to happen when we let go of our expectations... 
Practice has to be a process of endless disappointment... [In] good sitting we must notice the promise that we wish to extract from other people and abandon the dream that they can quench our thirst."

Christianity refers to this experience as the dark night of the soul, the moment when one enters into union with that which is greater, and infinite love, though the gate may be narrow, the joys are great:

"Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate which is wide and the road broad, lead to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.

'How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few."
--The Bible, Matthew chapter 7, verses 12-14

On Right and Mistaken Paths

"If one not yet having attained true perception were to gather followers... discoursing from limited perception, he would become a demon and his followers hell-dwellers." --Bassui

Bassui writes, "The way of Zen began without the establishment of any sect. It is simply a religion that points to the original mind of all buddhas and ordinary people. The mind is nothing other than Buddha nature. To see this nature is what is meant by religious practice. When you realize your buddha nature, wrong relationships will disappear, will not be of concern, the dust of dharma will not stain you. This is what is called Zen. This real buddha is nothing other than the heart of all beings, the master of seeing, hearing, and perceiving."

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Misguided Students of the Way

Said Bassui, "They care only about their relation to the teacher and his name, not knowing whether he is a teacher of the Right or a misguided heretic. They count names, journeys to the East, West, North and South, and take pride in having met many teachers. Some may for example, place their faith in one place, spending their summer training there. During this summer period, however, they are just spending their time preparing for a pilgrimage in the Fall. Some may consider a summer and a winter place, counting the days. Others may hold onto sacred relics, secretly forming groups of three to five persons, discoursing upon inferiority or superiority among them... some burn their bodies, inflicting severe pain to their minds and bodies... Others ignore the laws of cause and effect, meeting others and desiring what they possess, they desire it for themselves. They love to talk Zen and wish only to be victorious in Zen combat. They talk of their long practice of Zen while they drag their juniors down the road of heresy."

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"Today's students of the Way go to teachers everywhere, but they don't want to penetrate all the way to the bottom of the great matter... They try to surpass others with great Zen stories and they collect paradoxical words and clever expressions from old masters. These are examples of the way of heretics." --Zen Master Bassui, 14th century Japan

The Great Truth Just Moved

"There is in truth deception, and in deception, truth." -- a Simple mind

An old story about Mara, the evil one, goes like this: One day Mara and his disciples came upon a man in the road. His face glowing, they curiously inquired into the cause of the man’s pleasure. It seems the man had just discovered something of the Truth.

Upon reporting this to their master, Mara, the disciple was perplexed at his reaction. You, Mara, the One of Deception, does it not perturb you that this one has come into a moment of Truth? Mara replied that it did not.

You see, Mara opined, that no sooner do people discover a part of the Truth, a moment of the Whole, then they make a belief out if it.

The great Hindu Master, Sri Aurobindo once stated that no sooner does one discover that there is a certain truth, that, then, they often chase after it. They lose their common sense. For Truth was about them all the while; they have only just noticed it! Whether you recognize or understand Mara, Quan Yin or any other sage, at any time in your life, is no matter to anyone else; the sages have always been about you.

In her book, Waking Up to What You Do by Abbess Diane Eshin Rizzetto, she writes about the “Certainty Principle.” Certainty is seductive. She says that often we desire to feel safe and comfortable via certainty. Sureness may arise out of personal experiences, but impermanence may alter the sum of those experiences. Things do change. Thus the Buddha emphasized that we must not believe the teaching alone; we must go out and discover it for ourselves.

Rizzetto writes, “truth [just] won’t be pinned down. Truth will not be pinned down with the word, the.” Truth defies definition because as soon as we try to grasp it, it changes. In this way it shares a close connection to reality. Reality is many faceted. There is no single valuable reality. Instead there are many parts of the whole. So what does this notion leave to us? It seems that we can trust, be truth, moment to moment. We can be as we are, as we find ourselves to be. This is awareness that the great masters speak about. It is just this moment, every moment together forms what we know about reality, about truth and about our selves.

Playing Triangles: Victim, Persecutor, Savior

The Simple Mind is away from the computer. This article ran here previously on March 26, 2009.

"Religious practice is about atonement." -- Nothing Special, Living Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck

Joko Beck writes in her book, Nothing Special, Living Zen, "I listen to many people talk about their lives, I am struck that the first layer we encounter in sitting practice is our feeling of being a victim--our feeling that we have been sacrificed to others' greed, anger, and ignorance, to their lack of knowledge of who they are. ' "Often this victimization comes from our parents.

Nobody has two Buddhas for parents. Instead of Buddhas, we have parents for parents: flawed, confused, angry, self-centered--like all of us..." If, in practice, we grow more in awareness of having been sacrificed, we become angry, upset, confused. We feel hurt that we have been used, mistreated, like this by our loved ones... Firstly to simply become aware of the feeling, the sensations in our body arising in this instance; secondly, we can grow into working with those feelings that have come to the forefront of our awareness, our anger, desire to get even, our feeling of hurting those who have hurt us in like fashion... We can fight back, but there are other avenues we may choose instead, reflecting back a growing awareness of victimization.

Practicing with this perception, we may experience powerful desires, anger, retribution, confusion, withdrawal or coldness. If we continue to ask, "what is this?" something, however painful it first seems, begins to arise into our consciousness. "We begin to see not only how we have been sacrificed, but also how we have sacrificed others. This can be even more painful than our first realization." It may occur to us that what we have been doing to others, sacrifice, was done to us--especially when we act upon our angry thoughts and try to get even. We then sacrifice others."

As the Bible says, the evil is visited upon generation after generation." When regrets and sorrows become great, they're a heavy burden to carry, a realization that what we have done, is what others have done before us, comes a desire to lighten the load, for salvation may arise within us. If we are "committed to healing, we want to atone..." To atone means to be at one, to be in harmony, to make amends. Unable to wipe out the past--we've already committed the deed, we must look to this present moment, to this time now. In atonement, we embark upon a lifelong process.

Out of our self centered spinning, we learn to focus on the now, others around us, reality as it is. We, as humans, will not ever hope to entirely stop sacrificing others or ourselves; we are not too perfect to realize that. But what we do hope to realize is that we can, and do grow in maturity and recognition of those places and situations which inspire our impulses. Thus it becomes much more important that we recognize not what has been done to us, but what we do to others. There is, as theologian Martin Buber wrote, "the I thou relationship." Someone must be the first to break the chain in relationships with our friends and intimates. What does "this have to do with enlightenment and oneness?"

An enlightened person will be the one willing to be the sacrifice, to break the chain. The willingness to become the sacrifice is basic. Practicing through our lives, growing in awareness, in maturity, we get a free choice, or free will, about what we're going to do. Even if it's about people with whom we are no longer in co-union (communion). Anger arises, a sinking feeling in the stomach, perhaps. Do they, or we for that matter, need a sacrifice? Is there some lightness drawing the sense of action forward? What are our intentions? Examine intention carefully, and do not absolutely avoid people who have brought up this anger in you.

Are you measuring yourself? Is there a fantasy playing in your mind the moment the person comes into view? What is necessary in the situation? Be the best you can be in that moment. Focus upon the necessary, and do that. Victims need not apply.

simplemindzen.blogspot.com

Precepts: Living Awake and in the Truth, Part 1

Simple Mind is away from the computer. The following is a favorite which appeared here last year, December 31, 2008.--SimplemindZen

Taking up the precept of the Way of Speaking Truthfully is often a first precept encountered and one of the most obvious, yet not always to ourselves. Many of us have finely developed defenses to what would otherwise intrude upon our dream of self. Some have referred to this as being fond of, or attached to our "favorite sins."

In truth we find the ability and power to break away from our usual thought habits and self destructive practices-- practices that act to keep us separated from our true selves, from our peace and our joy. Yet as practitioners of the Way, we see there is only just this moment, that it arises from other moments, and that this moment now leads the way to every other moment. In the Simple Mind, there then is awareness that "where ever you go, there you are now."

Truth is expressed as only just this. Truth turns us towards the realization that our assumptions of permanence are just that, assumptions. Thus living in awareness of truth causes us to look carefully, and to see that practice in this instance is to challenge those assumptions of what it is that makes the world real to us. What is truth, what is "such"?

Here our true self lies, and in the freedom of the truth is our strength.

So, Pay Attention: Attention means Attention!

"There's an old Zen story: A student asks, "Please write for me something of great wisdom... Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word, "attention..." --Nothing Special Living Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck

All of us in the busy whirrings of our mind, find that in the modern world there is so very much competing for our senses, our eyes and ears most especially. We are easily bombarded with advertisements and other communications, all of which have the potential to take us away from this place, this body and this present moment. Suzuki wrote that a quiet mind is vital to self knowledge, to enlightenment.

We become wrapped up, each in our own great 'I'. There is the I who likes this, the I who doesn't like that; the I who wants to give an opinion and the I who wishes not to be missed, and then there's the I who just wishes and wishes. It is actually so easy to become entangled with 'I' because, in our daily lives, 'I' accompanies us everywhere and often interprets, interrogates, judges or assumes-- voicing all the while what 'I' wants, wishes and desires. It's no wonder the present moment becomes lost, or even the 'last moment.' Do we bother with the little things, portions of our daily musings, do we notice? Can I see that this moment is as important and unique as any other moment?

I stubbed my toe, my partner is angry with me, I missed the bus, my child is sick, I can't find my pen! Every one of these experiences occurs in a moment, present and unique, and then it's gone. So many, many moments are what our lives are made up of. When you think about it, there are only moments in a day, strung together by our varied experiences within that day. Tell a story of your own day. You will find a natural sequence to the experiences of that day, yet the progression of thoughts in your mind may not be so sequential, relevant or clear. An agile mind easily produces a life that can actually be experienced as muddy, messy, unclear, stressful.

When the student asked Master Ichu, as Charlotte Joko Beck writes of in her book, Nothing Special Everyday Zen, "something of great wisdom..." He wrote, Attention. The student said, "Is that all?" The master wrote, "Attention, Attention." The student was irritable--it was not profound or unique in the student's way of looking. The student then demanded of the teacher that he explain the meaning of this word, attention. The Master then replied that attention means attention.

Beck writes, "it is not a question of importance; it is a question of paying attention, being aware. Why? Because every moment in life is absolute in itself... So when we don't pay attention to each little this, we miss the whole thing. And the contents of this moment can be anything. It doesn't matter what the contents of the moment are; each moment is absolute."

Giving full attention, undivided to each moment, each person, each task is both a challenge and a gift that we receive in that moment. If we learn to pay total attention, we "would never be upset... if we are, we're not paying attention. The difficulty arises in a life when we give over a moment to something, to anything else.Our mind whirrs, spins off. Often it is to our self-centered thoughts, our ego: 'I want.' Focused on this notion, we lose attention to other things within and around us in the world; we miss the possibilities in the moment of something new, something good-- something, that while, impermanent, may be our answer. And just maybe life, lived simply as it is.

Commentary: Sacrifice and Victim

"Religious practice is about atonement."
--C. Joko Beck, Nothing Special


Charlotte Joko Beck writes in her book, Nothing Special, Living Zen, "I listen to many people talk about their lives, I am struck that the first layer we encounter in sitting practice is our feeling of being a victim--our feeling that we have been sacrificed to others' greed, anger, and ignorance, to their lack of knowledge of who they are. '
"Often this victimization comes from our parents. Nobody has two Buddhas for parents. Instead of Buddhas, we have parents for parents: flawed, confused, angry, self-centered--like all of us..." If, in practice, we grow more in awareness of having been sacrificed, we become angry, upset, confused. We feel hurt that we have been used, mistreated, like this by our loved ones...

Firstly to simply become aware of the feeling, the sensations in our body arising in this instance; secondly, we can grow into working with those feelings that have come to the forefront of our awareness, our anger, desire to get even, our feeling of hurting those who have hurt us in like fashion... We can fight back, but there are other avenues we may choose instead, reflecting back a growing awareness of victimization.

Practicing with this perception, we may experience powerful desires, anger, retribution, confusion, withdrawal or coldness. If we continue to ask, "what is this?" something, however painful it first seems, begins to arise into our consciousness. "We begin to see not only how we have been sacrificed, but also how we have sacrificed others. This can be even more painful than our first realization."
It may occur to us that what we have been doing to others, sacrifice, was done to us--especially when we act upon our angry thoughts and try to get even. We then sacrifice others. "As the Bible says, the evil is visited upon generation after generation."

When regrets and sorrows become great, they're a heavy burden to carry, a realization that what we have done, is what others have done before us, comes a desire to lighten the load, for salvation may arise within us.

If we are "committed to healing, we want to atone..." To atone means to be at one, to be in harmony, to make amends. Unable to wipe out the past--we've already committed the deed, we must look to this present moment, to this time now.

In atonement, we embark upon a lifelong process. Out of our self centered spinning, we learn to focus on the now, others around us, reality as it is. We, as humans, will not ever hope to entirely stop sacrificing others or ourselves; we are not too perfect to realize that.

But what we do hope to realize is that we can, and do grow in maturity and recognition of those places and situations which inspire our impulses. Thus it becomes much more important that we recognize not what has been done to us, but what we do to others. There is, as theologian Martin Buber wrote, "the I thou relationship."


Someone must be the first to break the chain in relationships with our friends and intimates.

What does "this have to do with enlightenment and oneness?"
An enlightened person will be the one willing to be the sacrifice, to break the chain. The willingness to become the sacrifice is basic. Practicing through our lives, growing in awareness, in maturity, we get a free choice, or free will, about what we're going to do.
Even if it's about people with whom we are no longer in co-union (communion). Anger arises, a sinking feeling in the stomach, perhaps. Do they, or we for that matter, need a sacrifice?

Is there some lightness drawing the sense of action forward? What are our intentions? Examine intention carefully, and do not absolutely avoid people who have brought up this anger in you. Are you measuring yourself? Is there a fantasy playing in your mind the moment the person comes into view?
What is necessary in the situation?
Be the best you can be in that moment. Focus upon the necessary and do that.
Victims need not apply.
simplemindzen.blogspot.com

Nasrudin: The Lamp and the Key

Sufism, as a practice, emphasizes certain unique rituals for guiding spiritual seekers into a direct encounter with God. It comes from the Islamic traditions in places especially Persia or Iran.
Muhammad is considered the chief prophet; many consider Sufism to be a mystical practice of Islam. The following story by the great Sufi teacher, Nasrudin, illustrates a common experience for those along the Way.

His friend, Mansour, comes to visit him and sees Nasruddin on his hands and knees, crawling on the sidewalk under the street lamp, obviously searching for something, appearing frustrated.

Concerned for his friend, Mansour asks, "Nasruddin, what are you looking for? Did you lose something?"

"Yes, Mansour. I lost the key to my house, and I’m trying to find it, but I can’t."

"Let me help you," responds Mansour. Mansour joins his friend, kneels down on his hands and knees, and begins to crawl on the sidewalk under the street lamp, searching.

After a time, having looked everywhere on and around the sidewalk, neither Nasruddin nor Mansour can find the lost key. Puzzled, Mansour asks his friend to recall his steps when he last had the key, "Nasruddin, where did you lose the key? When did you last have it?"

"I lost the key in my house," Nasruddin responds.

"In your house?" repeats the astonished Mansour. "Then why are we looking for the key here, outside on the sidewalk under this street lamp?”

Without hesitation, Nasruddin explains, “Because there is more light here . . . !”

In his book At Home in the Muddy Water, by Ezra Bayda, Buddhist practitioner and teacher, recounts this story about a key and a light.
"In trying to uncover how to best proceed with practice, we're often like Nasrudin, looking in the wrong place. Sometimes we're looking in the wrong place for something that isn't even there. We think there is a magic key, some experience that will make the practice permanently clear, especially in the midst of everyday difficulties." In the simple mind, we realize there is no magic key, nor do we need one. What is needed is to persevere through the ups and downs of life. We hold our own key.

Blind by Definition

The Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote

...'that with such passionate clearness a man sees and knows over what he is in despair, but about what it is-- escapes his notice... For the "immediate" man does not recognize his self; he recognizes himself only by his dress, he recognizes that he has a self only by externals... In possibility, everything is possible, thus a man can go astray in all possible ways. One form is wishful... the other form is melancholy, fantastic--on one hand hope, on the other fear or dread... In order to will [when] in despair, to be oneself, there must be consciousness of the infinite self.'

The self who one might think of as the 'original face,' is the face that existed before you were born. Yet we are all blind by definition. We may see the other clearly, but not ourself. As Ezra Bayda writes in At Home in the Muddy Waters, 'to the extent that we're not aware...we're bound to follow this predictable path. When two people who don't know themselves reach the point of conflict, the result is a collision... even though it may be easy to see how unaware the other person is, our own blind spots are blind by definition. Yet these [persistent] conflicts are clues that we're in the dark... believing in our reaction is another tell tale sign of darkness to self. Many power struggles have resulted from a perceived notion of a failing, or a loss of a good or promise to us. We then act to recoup what must be ours, partitioned, from our now enemy. But in the exchange, we are mired in both our hopes and our fears; we despair to will to be ourself, the face that exists now and infinitely.

'Failure to work with, and to work out our perceived 'need for power, our self centered desires to possess, our fear based need to control results in hatred, intolerance and aggression. The blindness to self firstly, and towards the other secondly, is the source of all conflicts...without inner understanding, individuals and societies flounder," writes Bayda.

Part of the simple mind, joy in relationships, comes not so much from getting what we think we need, or from happiness, but from contact with our essential self, our infinite or original self. The expression of this connection is through generosity, a sharing of that self infinitely. It is like a well, we drink of its unending source all that is essential.

Precepts: Living Awake and in the Truth, part 1

Taking up the precept of the Way of Speaking Truthfully is often a first precept encountered and one of the most obvious, yet not always to ourselves. Many of us have finely developed defenses to what would otherwise intrude upon our dream of self. Some have referred to this as being fond of, or attached to our "favorite sins."

In truth we find the ability and power to break away from our usual thought habits and self destructive practices-- practices that act to keep us separated from our true selves, from our peace and our joy. Yet as practitioners of the Way, we see there is only just this moment, that it arises from other moments, and that this moment now leads the way to every other moment. In the Simple Mind, there then is awareness that "where ever you go, there you are now."

Truth is expressed as only just this. Truth turns us towards the realization that our assumptions of permanence are just that, assumptions. Thus living in awareness of truth causes us to look carefully, and to see that practice in this instance is to challenge those assumptions of what it is that makes the world real to us. What is truth, what is "such"?

Here our true self lies, and in the freedom of the truth is our strength.

Commentary 2-- Just This

In the study of the self, we find that wherever we go, there we are. Gaining this sort of awareness of the self is central to practice. Applying just this, we acquire the power and creativity to break out of our habitual defenses and thought habits so to experience reality as it is. When you do, you find that your anxiety level is reduced, your stress goes down, and in its place arises a new sense of the possible; that you are just this moment. Every moment is new and possible. That moment becomes a good thing; you open yourself to be curious, to learn more about the world around you, yourself. Take rest in what is real.

As we come to better understand the precepts, an awareness grows that points our attention to doing what is necessary. We ask and see more clearly what is required of us, and we do just that.

Being a scientist and examining our self, we come to see that we have expectations and requirements, first of ourselves and then of others. When these ideas or assumptions fail to correspond with reality, we suffer. Cutting through deception, we live more in this moment and find that it is a good. We may even begin to acquire the realization that often when we think it is the other, in reality it is ourselves who think, act or feel a particular way. Avoid spinning into the past or the fearful future. This moment is the only moment there really can be.

An old saying I learned as a child goes, "He who accuses, accuses himself." Being aware of a situation or an event does not make us bound to engage or respond. We may choose to do so, if it seems necessary, or we may stand back and let it play out on its own, in its own time.

Know that feelings are just feelings. They may guide or hinder us equally. Feelings arise and recede; when they're urgent at that moment things may seem clear. Later, we may, in a calmer mind see they were not, and then there's the damage we cause to ourselves and others. So there is a great deal of power in awareness. It may be increased and cultivated. Take the journey of the head to the heart through the precepts. They are a reliable guide.

A world of wonder: entering into the precepts

Recalling that the Simple Mind practice is one in which we come to a more clear understanding of the words of Practice Principles through experience:

Caught in a dream of self--only suffering.
Holding on to self-centered thoughts--exactly the dream.
each moment, life as it is--the only Teacher.
Being just this moment--compassion's way.

--Practice Principles

The order of the precepts Diane Rizzetto gives may vary from other traditions, however she states that "the order I have chosen is that which most accurately reflects one most commonly discovered by my students." In other words she finds that her students' practice usually follows this pattern or order. In addition, she notes that there are in fact 10 precepts traditionally given; however she feels that the two omitted are dealt with indirectly within the others. The complete study of the 10 precepts is included in her study therefore.

Precepts "encourage us to go beyond the just don't do it. They invite us to willingly grapple with the slipperiness [or messiness] of what's the best action to take given the circumstances of any given situation." They direct our focus to conditions here and now, presently. Precepts help light the way through the more muddy times, and times when we're not so certain.
Does then taking up the precepts, the Way, mean that we never have a mean or jealous thought, that we're not afraid? Of course not. these are natural, human things that at one time or another we experience.

The Self

In some traditions the self is spoken about as something to be parted with, as a suffering in itself. However in the simple mind, it is a continuation of the classic teaching that 'all life arises out of and continues forth as a vast, fathomless, pure and clear empty mind, or Dharma.
As Dharma, it is constant, unutterable, flawless, selfless and undifferentiated. Dharma is then, the unnameable source of all life and living. It includes our everyday simple minds. And Dharma is even more. It is the realization of a mutual dependency, the knowledge that nothing comes about on its own. Following Dharma is to take action that is in harmony or addresses the common good with relation to all things. Yet this is not to say that you, me, the neighbor, be without individuality. Clearly we are perhaps 99 per cent alike, but the one per cent, differentiates us from another;even so, Dharma shows us to be finally one part of the whole.

To study the self is to forget the self.
This means that I am this, but not only this. The core of our practice with the precepts and Dharma is to challenge ourselves to look carefully, closely, and question our assumptions about what it is that makes the world real to us; focusing us on the awareness that assumptions of permanence are exactly that, an assumption.
By working with the precepts, the Dharma, sitting quietly in practice, we can train our mind to be less reactionary, less stressed and more focused on the now, this moment. Dismantling our habitual reactions, questioning our beliefs can lead to real peace, joy and just this moment.