It’s been exactly a year since I replied “yes I will” to Jundo’s questions about vowing to keep the precepts. I came asking for them without knowing what they were or what it meant. I knew I wanted to do “something”, something more than just zazen and chanting in the privacy of my home. I wanted to make “it” official, whatever “IT” was. And the path led me to Treeleaf.
A year later, I look back at what I have learned and gained and I am grateful and humbled daily.
The precepts sink in a bit more every day and I recommit to keeping them every month. I wake up and go to sleep next to them. I see more of their meaning and power every day.
They paint a clearer picture of me in every moment, so I can look at myself and work on fixing what needs fixing. They shape my way of being in the world and how I engage with everyone. They give me new ways of expressing myself and new standards that I use to measure my words.
I remember receiving my dharma name and thinking “ ugh.. it doesn’t sound Japanese enough”. But then a change happened and I found a deeper meaning in it. It means “beautiful sound” and Jundo gave me a brand new purpose: all my words, directed at every being, should be “beautiful” , or as I say daily, “kind and compassionate” - he never said that was what he meant, but it is what it means to me.
Jukai 2021 was a beginning for me. I thought I knew things, but not a day goes by that I don’t see just how much more there is to do, to learn, to execute and embody. Receiving the precepts is not, as I used to think” something one does for oneself, so that we become a buddhist or a boddhisatva, or “something”. We receive the precepts to serve, unreservedly and generously. The work is done, fully complete, as we sit in zazen. Zazen is every precept kept. But off the cushion is where we work to keep our vows and use the zazen mind. I wish all of my fellow jukaiees from last year, and our new jukaiees, to find in themselves the determination to turn the precepts into their walking, breathing, talking reality. To take them off the written page and use them as a mirror. Master Dogen said “moving forward is after all an every day affair”… So I wish to move forward, caring after every day affairs the same way I care for my posture in zazen, or hands in kinhin..
Sorry for the length of this! I almost never start a thread or post like this. But I wanted to mark the occasion somehow with all of you, not on social media or in private.
[emoji1374] Sat Today
A year later, I look back at what I have learned and gained and I am grateful and humbled daily.
The precepts sink in a bit more every day and I recommit to keeping them every month. I wake up and go to sleep next to them. I see more of their meaning and power every day.
They paint a clearer picture of me in every moment, so I can look at myself and work on fixing what needs fixing. They shape my way of being in the world and how I engage with everyone. They give me new ways of expressing myself and new standards that I use to measure my words.
I remember receiving my dharma name and thinking “ ugh.. it doesn’t sound Japanese enough”. But then a change happened and I found a deeper meaning in it. It means “beautiful sound” and Jundo gave me a brand new purpose: all my words, directed at every being, should be “beautiful” , or as I say daily, “kind and compassionate” - he never said that was what he meant, but it is what it means to me.
Jukai 2021 was a beginning for me. I thought I knew things, but not a day goes by that I don’t see just how much more there is to do, to learn, to execute and embody. Receiving the precepts is not, as I used to think” something one does for oneself, so that we become a buddhist or a boddhisatva, or “something”. We receive the precepts to serve, unreservedly and generously. The work is done, fully complete, as we sit in zazen. Zazen is every precept kept. But off the cushion is where we work to keep our vows and use the zazen mind. I wish all of my fellow jukaiees from last year, and our new jukaiees, to find in themselves the determination to turn the precepts into their walking, breathing, talking reality. To take them off the written page and use them as a mirror. Master Dogen said “moving forward is after all an every day affair”… So I wish to move forward, caring after every day affairs the same way I care for my posture in zazen, or hands in kinhin..
Sorry for the length of this! I almost never start a thread or post like this. But I wanted to mark the occasion somehow with all of you, not on social media or in private.
[emoji1374] Sat Today
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