Buddhist initiation

I'm not.

So do you give Jukai nonetheless?

Yes.

Like, how does that work with you guys? Okay.

I, my, my, my empowerment was, you know, in Denkai, so allowing me-

Yeah

... to give Jukai.

Yeah.

So the first half is Denkai, which is transmission of the precepts.

So some of you are studying for Jukai.

Jukai means receive precepts.

Denkai is transmit precepts.

And that's really what makes the difference between a novice priest, which I was until Thursday, and a fully transmitted Zen teacher is being able to pass on the precepts.

Some people have the tradition with Dharma names that you receive...

Usually people trained in San Francisco Zen Center, if you're sort of from that group...

From Jukai onwards, you receive two names, four characters altogether.

So in March 1996, I received the precepts and formally became a Zen Buddhist, continued to practice.

So April 23rd, 1996, journal entry, "Why, why is it so impossible for me to meditate? Things have only gotten worse and worse despite trying teachers, the Jukai retreat.

I can only sit zazen for about 10 minutes before I fall asleep.

Why? Is there some big, terrible secret waiting to arise in me that I'm resisting? Am I obsessed with not having kensho, and thus I resist going into deep samadhi? Am I just lazy? Am I fighting sleep too hard? Am I not fighting it, but instead letting it have its way? I try not to feel bad about this or frustrated, and most of the time I succeed, but sometimes it really makes me wanna cry long and hard.

You might already have vows in your life which are giving shape to your life.

We have Jukai where people formally become Zen Buddhists and vow to make the moral precepts part of their life.

We have zaiketokudo, or lay ordination, where people have been around for a number of years, and they've really started that process, like I was talking about, of just really just absorbing themselves in the tradition, just being around, doing all the things.

Maybe not all the things, but doing whatever they can.

It involves flowers.

We usually have kids come.

And then we have Jukai, where people receive the precepts and formally become Buddhists.

And for anyone who has a little karma around religion and churches and things like that, sometimes this stuff can be a little alarming.

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I don't know any right now, but over the years I've become acquainted with a few people who were Buddhists and serving in the military.

Actually, I had my Jukai ceremony with a guy.

Gosh, I've forgotten his name.

But there were three of us.

And one of the guys who was getting Jukai that day, which was taking the ten Buddhist precepts and vowing to live by the Buddhist precepts, which include the precept of not killing, was a guy who was at the time serving in the U.S. Navy.

He was in Yokosuka base, I think.

Or is that the Air Force base? He was in the Navy base that was there near Yokohama.

In general, we should not use any violence or harmful words when we speak.

I'm pairing this with the aspect of the Jukai, or the precept ceremony.

So we're at the, "All my ancient twisted karma from beginningless hate, greed, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow." Shakuhachi says, "Sango, which means the three actions are the source of karma," refers to body, speech, and mind, or thought.

Depending on how we use the body, speech, and thought, we can create healthy and happy relationships, or we can generate pain in the dealings with others.

Sitting quietly, absorbed in zazen, is a fundamental way of working to solve what ails us and our world.

In Jukai, the ceremony of taking the precepts, we say, Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the past were like us, and we will in the future become Buddhas and bodhisattvas.

The Japanese haiku poet Basho wrote, I don't seek to imitate the people of the past.

I seek what they sought.

Yeah.

I didn't, I didn't take Jukai decades into my 20, 25 years or something.

It was only when I wanted to get ordained.

Um, I had to take Jukai.

It was just part of the progression.

And then I did it.

I don't know if you ever met him, but he, he was quite an amazing first generation, uh, teacher from Tibet.

And I was just about to take Jukai, so this must have been nineteen ninety-four or five, with, with my teacher, Blanche Hartman.

And he was gonna do, um- Uh, an empowerment the next day, uh, so you take refuge.

And I thought, "Should I be doing this?" You know, like cheating on my teacher or...

It arises from completeness.

It arises from completeness.

I was always shocked when I first started being around a temple and watching, uh, the Jukai ceremony where, uh, people take vows with precepts.

Many of you have done that, and some of you have seen it.