LIVING by VOW: The Verse of Repentance (Atonement) - pp 53 - 62 (All Chapter 2)

[Jundo]

With no regrets, let us now move on to all of Chapter 2, only a few pages ... the Verse of Atonement.

Okumura Roshi touches on two faces (two faces of the single faceless coin) of this Verse: First, repentance for our acts of excess desire, anger and other harmful acts in this world. We undertake the Precepts vowing to avoid taking life, taking what is not given, anger, harmful speech, jealousy and so much more ... and sometimes we fall short. Humans sometimes fall short. We reflect and repent, fix what we can, try to balance the scales of Karma with greater good, do what we can not to repeat ...

But there is also that aspect of the Mahayana Precepts, and Zazen, where no Precept can be broken from the start, never was and never could be. There is no taker and nothing to take or in need of taking, no killer and no killed nor birth and death.

Unfortunately, this second face if left alone can lead to a kind of amorality (e.g., since there is ultimately no killing and nothing to steal, might as well kill and steal! This attitude sometimes surfaced during Japanese Buddhism's brushes with nationalism and war during the period of the Second World War). The first facet should not be neglected either.

I would like to ask folks to listen to an old talk by me on this ...

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: ATONEMENT / AT-ONE-MENT

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?8087-SIT-A-LONG-with-JUNDO-ATONEMENT-AT-ONE-MENT

How does the Verse of Atonement/at-One-ment, and these two facets, come to play together in your life?

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

PS - I notice the first post in the above thread is by our long time member Engyo, who left this visible world a few years ago. I dedicate all our study here this week to him.

[Mp]

Thank you Jundo. =)

Gassho
Shingen

SatToday/LAH

[Kaishin]

I like the idea of full/new moon repentance ceremonies -- I'm guessing this is uncommon in Western Soto groups?

-satToday

[Onkai]

Thank you, Jundo.

One thing that came to mind when reading this chapter was that when I first tried just sitting, I knew I was unhappy, but I didn't know the nature of what was making me unhappy, delusion, which became clearer to me as I sat. I guess it was like the horse arriving before the donkey departed. It was transformational.

Sitting zazen now, thoughts and emotions come and go and I give up fixations. When reciting the chant of atonement, I feel I'm not stuck repeating the same mistakes. I can acknowledge past errors and take up my life from where I am. They are two different things, but they work together.

Gassho,
Onka
SatToday/LAH

[Onkai]

I like the idea of full/new moon repentance ceremonies -- I'm guessing this is uncommon in Western Soto groups?

-satToday

The Village Zendo, in New York City, has a monthly futsatsu ceremony. It is a ceremony with an extended verses of atonement with a talk about the precepts from one of the teachers.

Gassho,
Onkai
SatToday/LAH

[Jundo]

I like the idea of full/new moon repentance ceremonies -- I'm guessing this is uncommon in Western Soto groups?

-satToday

Some groups do so. I would say that most do not. Some do so from time to time. Here is the content of the shorter "Ryaku" version from San Francisco, if you wish to see what is included.

https://sanfranciscozencenter.blob.core.windows.net/assets/Full_Moon_Chants.pdf

I consider our recital of the Verse of Atonement during the weekly Zazenkai to take such role here.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Kaishin]

I consider our recital of the Verse of Atonement during the weekly Zazenkai to take such role here.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

That makes sense. Thanks, Jundo.

-sT

[Entai]

"As the Buddha’s students, we receive the precepts and vow to live by them. This is why we have to repent deeds against our vow."...." Vow and repentance are inseparable."

I usually shy away when I hear words like "repent". I typically relate repentance to a heaven /hell idea. This quote and the chapter as a whole has given me a different perspective.

Gassho, Entai
#SatToday /lah

[Jundo]

"As the Buddha’s students, we receive the precepts and vow to live by them. This is why we have to repent deeds against our vow."...." Vow and repentance are inseparable."

I usually shy away when I hear words like "repent". I typically relate repentance to a heaven /hell idea. This quote and the chapter as a whole has given me a different perspective.

Gassho, Entai
#SatToday /lah

Many folks have difficulty with some of the "Christian" words that pop up here and there ... Vow, Repent, Atone, Prayer, Priest, Monk. Much of that seems to have to do with the scars of some previous encounter with religion in their youth, often what led them to Zen in the first place.

But, a couple of points:

First off, a lot of these words were placed on Buddhism in the late 19th Century when English speaking colonists and missionaries came to Asian countries at that time and used their Judeo-Christian vocabulary to translate the Asian language words and concepts. None of those words are perfect fits, as Okumura points out here and there in the book (e.g., with regard to Vow, Prayer). Some fit better than others, and it is good to leave some of the mental baggage aside and start fresh with these words.

For example, the whole book is about "Vow", but a vow is just a Vow too ... and we take many "Vows" in life, such as Boy Scout Vows, Marriage Vows.

"Repent" is a bit strong (makes me think of "sinners repent"), but here it also simply means to be sorry for doing harm to oneself or another, learning from the experience, trying to repair or make up for it, vowing to do one's best not to do so again. It also also has the sense, special to Mahayana Buddhism, of "at-one-ment" ... that no breach or badness is possible from the startless start.

"Priest" is actually not that far off the English meaning of clergy authorized to perform certain rites and administer certain sacraments when someone in a traditional temple, for example, asks the priest to perform a ceremony to bring good health or good fortune to a family member. "Monk" is not wrong when someone is living in a Zen "monastery," also not a bad translation. But I prefer a more literal translation of the Chinese-Japanese term for a priest ... 僧侶 ... which is something very close to "Sangha Companion." Nice. I also like this traditional term for a Teacher or Master ... "zenchishiki" in Japanese, in China "shanzhishi" = a "good wise friend" on the Way (善知識, Sanskrit kalyanamitra.) That fits the job description well, a experienced mentor.

So, good to put down some of those youthful hangups.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[AlanLa]

You can also find this post in the dharma talk forum, where I mistakenly posted it after watching the video. OOPS! It makes more sense here.

I would like to think I make fewer mistakes related to the precepts the longer I practice. I would like to state that more definitively, but it would feel like an ego-driven mistake to do so, thus one more thing to repent. I say the Verse of Atonement every day after I sit, like I did today, because it is the final washing away of my precepts violations since the last time. it gives me a clean slate to mess up all over again, and it's that never-ending mess that keeps me practicing. When I recite the 10 precepts, I tend to put the one(s) I most recently or egregiously violated first and then reflect on how I went wrong so that I can go wrong less the next time. Note that I did not say not go wrong again, because that just sets up this deluded buddha for failure, something I am going to do anyway, just hopefully less often. Anyway, that's my form repentance, and then zazen addresses the formless repentance. Although I never thought of it so directly or dualistically before, I am glad to know I've got my bases covered.

I found it interesting that early Buddhists were doing what seems like a formal version of confession of "sins" long before Catholics came along.
"Forgive me, Buddha, for I have sinned."
"Recite two Heart Sutras and reflect on your transgressions."
Or something like that
(That was probably a mistake to post, but I couldn't resist. My atonement process has already begun.)

I absolutely LOVE "Before the donkey leaves, the horse has arrived." Everything about that saying is beautiful to me. It captures how reality includes delusion, how both are present, neither negated, nor affirmed, nor grasped, and how the Path of Liberation includes them both.

I wish everyone well as they take care of their donkey.

[Michael Joseph]

Hello everyone,

I found this chapter quite moving and have been thinking about it all week. Though I have a number of sections highlighted, I've come back to a couple of statements Okumura makes on page 59. The first is "In other words, we do not become attached to what we think is good, meaningful, or important according to our own system of values." The other is in the following paragraph: "We see the reality of things with ever-fresh eyes, unclouded by even our good will." Within context, he's talking about the the ego-centric motives of our good (and bad) actions and how zazen allows us to formlessly repent for them since "they are not in accord [great word choice] with the reality of oneness, impermanence, and interdependent origination" (58). This is at once a frightening and a liberating perspective if my understanding is correct, and it's probably only partially correct. I have always thought of the good as the highest value and the goal of all activity without questioning how what I call good might actually be only good for me or good only within a particular ideological context or from a limited ethical perspective. I've been investigating the idea of the good, and it does seem to me at this point that what we call good does often arise out of what-is-good-for-me and can blind me to what-is-good-for-others. Even acts of apparently selfless good can arise out of habit or self-interest. However, instead of leading to moral nihilism, the realization has freed me to look beyond MY idea of good or, at least, to look critically at it and examine how it might be an obstruction to compassion and a hidden barrier to realizing not-two-ness. I'm looking forward to the next chapter, but now I've got to get the cats some water.

Gassho,

Michael

Sat today

[Hoko]

This chapter caused me to reflect on the ideas of Great Doubt and the Middle Way.
For a short while many years ago when dealing with depression I delved deeply into Cognitive Behavior Therapy which strives to cultivate an internal voice to counter the self criticism many of us just tacitly accept. When the internal critic says "this is the worst thing to happen to me ever!" you seek to engage another voice to ask "it is really? Who says so?". A lot of emphasis is placed on asking who's voice the internal critic speaks with. Your mother's? Your father's? In many ways CBT treads closely to the same ground of Zen Buddhism in that it requires deep reflection and self study.
This type of doubt directed towards our own internal BS is useful and prevents us from accepting every bit of drivel the ego coughs up. In many ways I am reminded of Dizang's "not knowing is most intimate" and the great doubt cultivating done in Korean Zen. It also echoes in Okamura's discussion of repentance. We have to temper our vows with acceptance of our imperfections. We must remember to counter the voice that says we have to be perfect before we can do good in the world. Do we really? Who says so?
I'm also reminded of the Middle Way because when vow and repentance are not one, not two they hover between nihilism and perfectionism. Reality doesn't require application of delusive concepts such as those and when we drop the ideas of trying to be perfect or just giving up altogether we are liberated and free to simply BE. Then we can do good, avoid evil and uphold the precepts without falling into self mortification or egotism.

Gassho,
Hōkō
#SatToday
LAH

[AlanLa]

Good? What's good? Okamura dug a well and killed many beings, so was it good? That depends on perspective, doesn't it. Good/bad, so dualistic and thus problematic. Since karma is really about intent, do we repent for our good deeds gone bad? Duh, of course, because who is to know the result of the ripples we throw into Jindra's Net? So just repent, because you don't know. That's the whole unknowable (non)you (doesn't) reach for in zazen.

Doing good is complicated. We do the best we can. As a counselor and educator, I sometimes need to tell people bad news they need to hear for their own good, or at least in my best judgment. Maybe I was wrong, as has happened on multiple occasions. People have became successful despite my what i told them, and nothing pleases me more than to be wrong on those occasions. But in what moment did I do wrong? Did I spur them on to success, or was my recommendation meaningless to them on their own personal journey? How do I separate wrong/right here? I can't, so I don't, and sometimes doing "good" hurts like hell, but I repent nonetheless. Let it go. Let the donkey come before the horse leaves.

[Hoko]

Good? What's good? Okamura dug a well and killed many beings, so was it good? That depends on perspective, doesn't it. Good/bad, so dualistic and thus problematic. Since karma is really about intent, do we repent for our good deeds gone bad? Duh, of course, because who is to know the result of the ripples we throw into Jindra's Net? So just repent, because you don't know. That's the whole unknowable (non)you (doesn't) reach for in zazen.

Doing good is complicated. We do the best we can. As a counselor and educator, I sometimes need to tell people bad news they need to hear for their own good, or at least in my best judgment. Maybe I was wrong, as has happened on multiple occasions. People have became successful despite my what i told them, and nothing pleases me more than to be wrong on those occasions. But in what moment did I do wrong? Did I spur them on to success, or was my recommendation meaningless to them on their own personal journey? How do I separate wrong/right here? I can't, so I don't, and sometimes doing "good" hurts like hell, but I repent nonetheless. Let it go. Let the donkey come before the horse leaves.

Good and bad are matters of perspective so there may not actually be "doing good".
But there is still doing good... 🙇

Gassho,
Hōkō
#SatToday
LAH

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[Entai]

"Repent" is a bit strong (makes me think of "sinners repent"), but here it also simply means to be sorry for doing harm to oneself or another, learning from the experience, trying to repair or make up for it, vowing to do one's best not to do so again. It also also has the sense, special to Mahayana Buddhism, of "at-one-ment" ... that no breach or badness is possible from the startless start.

Thank you for this explanation. Funny how certain words can trip you up. And I agree, best to set those things down.

Gassho, Entai
st /LAH