The precepts can be understood in the context of illuminated heart-mind.  We are guided not by “do’s” and “don’t’s” but by the interconnected nature of being.  This is not so much to be understood by the mind, but by the heart.

Not taking what is not offered is the second of the five precepts that we undertake as practice in the life of intentional integrity. We are mindful in thought, word and deed about our relationship to desire and contentment.  We are mindful when grasping arises, when desire or covetousness overtakes our sense of care, not taking more than agreed.  It works in large and small ways— “borrowing” without returning, taking supplies from the office, we rationalize that it’s a perk; advantageously rounding off numbers on an expense account, we figure no one will know—habits that condition the mind to grasp.  Exploitatively, we take more than needed.

Content, we no longer glance sideways at what others have, or grasp at more, better, different.
Instead, can we open to the mind/heart free from craving?  Not taking more than our fair share evolves into letting go, letting be, simplifying, to use less and share more.

In integrity, we are mindful of the tendency to grasp and let it go—we are generous and use resources wisely.  Letting go, generosity and nonattachment, at the heart of this precept, are worthy of cultivation.

Know and enjoy every moment of the open heart of non-grasping, contentment, gratitude.

In awareness practice, we invite ourselves into more and more sensitivity to life–to the aliveness within us and our interrelatedness with all life around us.  We cultivate this sensitivity by becoming very simple, slowing down and being willing to see things as they are at the level of simply being alive.  From clear seeing, our acts need not be contrived to be “good” or “virtuous,” because the acts that naturally flow from a mind of clear seeing will be compassionate and wise.

“To refrain from killing or harming” is the first of the five precepts taught by the Buddha. This precept teaches us to have respect for all of life and the interconnectedness of all beings.  Many monks in Asia sweep insects and worms from the path as they walk.  What they’re doing is wholeheartedly training themselves to preserve, cherish and respect all life. If we are able to consistently act on the belief that even the smallest insect is precious and deserving of our protection, we are reminded of the degree of effort, awareness and love such a practice demands. Yet, issues that arise from this precept such as euthanasia and abortion demand not simplistic, monolithic answers but profound thoughtfulness and compassion.

To practice this precept, each of us must reach into our hearts and search for the wisest, most compassionate, caring and reverent attitude to life.  We develop an attitude of cherishing life when we learn to yield, give in, let go and soften our hearts towards every being in any state.  We can begin now.

Every Law student studies the case in which Oliver Wendell Holmes advised that when we come to a railroad crossing, we should “stop, look and listen” in order to be safe. Great advice, not only for railroad crossings, but for all the crossings, large and small, in life.  It is akin to the last words of the Buddha on his deathbed to his disciples:  “Strive on with heedfulness.”

The first five precepts taken in conjunction with going for refuge to the 3 Jewels are a framework for living heedfully and harmoniously, assuring safety in community.   This ethical practice, rooted in meditation and wisdom, aligns us with the Path, reminding us that the factors of Wisdom, Ethics and Meditation are integral to and dependent on, each other.

To live a heedful life means that we carefully pause, look and listen to life happening within and around us, resolve to do no harm and restrain the conditioned impulse to act unethically, building a spiritual backbone and offering the gift of fearlessness.  We delight in that.

What are the precepts? —The undertaking training to refrain from:
1.  intentionally taking life or harming any other person or creature;
2.  taking what is not offered—not  stealing;
3.  using sexual energy harmfully;
4. reckless, divisive, false or malicious speech; and
5. taking intoxicants that cloud the mind.

Which is particularly straightforward in your practice?  This week, appreciate every time you act in alignment with that precept,  knowing how it feels before, during and after you act in that way.  Enjoy!!!

Sangha is the third jewel, the third refuge in the Buddha’s teachings. The traditional meaning of “Sangha,” is the community of practitioners who preserve and uphold the teachings of the Buddha: the enlightened Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, monks and nuns and householders who are practicing to realize the wisdom, ethics and meditation Path of Dhamma, moving toward truth.

Contemplating, we ask how narrow or broad is the community to which we wish to go for safety, for refuge?  Rather than taking refuge in our personality or the narrow band of our clan, our tribe, our small circle, we cultivate connection to the larger whole.  Sangha invites a communal perspective.  We recognize that our thoughts, words and deeds affect the entire interconnected web of which we are a part.  Thus, we practice tirelessly to contribute love, wisdom and beauty, to relinquish selfishness, aggression and ignorance.

Let us take refuge in Sangha together, co-creating a peaceful and  inclusive communal space for all who study and practice here. Let us build together a Sangha that is sensitive and richly diverse: all ages, genders, ethnicities, cultures, countries, and socio-economic backgrounds, delighted, appreciative and encouraging of all who come through the door.  Taking refuge in the jewel of Sangha we come together, just as we are, as a safe, engaged and interdependent community.  We don’t have to walk alone.  Grateful for the unique beauty of every being, we can feel at home here.  Come for refuge.  Support and feel the safety in Sangha.

 

Dhamma is the second jewel, the second of the three refuges in Buddhist practice. Taking refuge begins with asking the question, “where do I find safety?”  When we take refuge in Dhamma, it means we seek and find safety in the truth of the way things actually are, warts and all.

Meditation is a way of opening to Dhamma, opening the mind to truth.  Taking refuge in Dhamma is to be in a state of alert attention, not trying to concentrate on this and get rid of that; not caught in the habits of indulgence of the pleasant and suppression of the unpleasant.

It’s not a matter of reading the truth or waiting for somebody else to realize the truth for us or to tell us what the truth is.  We study in this mind/heart/body internal and external reality, and their relationship.  We realize the truth of the constantly changing, insubstantial, subtle, diaphanous and tenuous nature of all phenomena; the truth of dissatisfaction, its cause, its end and the Path to its end;  and the inexorable law that all actions have consequences. This opens the way to the safety of living wisely.

Opening ourselves here and now, we experience peacefulness, because we’re not looking for any particular something to attach to, but opening to the way it is rather than the way we might romantically conceive things to be. This opens to spaciousness and ease.  We’re not frantically running around in avoidance or denial; we’re stopping.  Stopping, we open to and take refuge in Dhamma. Deep and long outbreath.

In what do we take refuge when we take refuge in the Buddha? Like us, the Buddha was a human being, and our refuge in these qualities of Awakened Mind/Heart respects deeply our own potential—luminous, spotless, wise.

We develop the faculty of faith by paying homage to and taking refuge in Buddhamind/heart.  The qualities of Buddha are chanted daily in Buddhist monasteries: the elimination of  greed, aversion and ignorance; wisdom; endowment with knowledge, living in concord with that knowledge; adept in the art of choosing the right words to benefit the listener; beautiful and excellent; the seer of the world as it really is; incomparable tamer of the tameable conditioned mind/heart; exalted, fulfilling the ten perfections.

Reflecting and contemplating, we are “the one who knows truth” or “that which knows” and acts in accordance with the knowing. Wisdom is already here, no need to try to “get it.”   We know the world as it is, as it arises in consciousness—the fears, the desires,  views and opinions, the perceptions that come and go in the mind.

In taking refuge in the Buddha, we allow that-which-is-wise to lead us.  We turn to our Buddha-wisdom, and it trains us to live in a skillful way, in these bodies and society in wisdom, goodness and kindness.  We learn to be of benefit, rather than harm, to the world.  Buddha is the teacher.  We are the teacher.  The Buddha, as refuge, trains all virtuous creatures to see things as they are, to embody truth.

Take refuge in the awakened mind/heart.

All Buddhist traditions invite taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha.  These Three Jewels provide a focus for commitment and  reflection.  In daily life, we are constantly looking for safety, refuge,  in something—whether it is our ambition, career, house,  money, neuroses or relationship.

In what do you find safety?

Working on the level of “I” or “me,” as a person trying to be free from desire, anger or confusion, might help to deal with this material world, but our practice is then not transcendent.  Contemplating the Three Jewels, assumptions based on self view can be relinquished. Do these refuges exist in their own right, or are they suggestions to the mind to realize transcendent reality?

Having faith and confidence in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, our practice is not idealized as something to be attained in the future, or a method for psychological release.  Rather, such confidence points to the transcendent in the here and now.  Helping us to develop devotion, these Refuges are tools for sacred mindfulness, rather than for ungrounded belief.

In our society, tradition and devotion are seen as simple minded belief or superstition, rather than a doorway to the sacred.  Our task is to develop our relationship with these symbols out of wisdom, with our own energy and intelligence, supporting the actual practice of the teaching.

The Three Jewels invite us to use them as a doorway to the Dhamma, for recollection, mindfulness, wisdom and kindness.
Where do you find ultimate safety? In what do you take refuge?

 

We each have our measure of joy and of suffering, which the Buddha referred to as the Eight Worldly Winds: gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disrepute.  I suspect he named them meteorologically because, like these worldly winds, we are subject to the weather but cannot control it.  Gentle breezes to gale force winds all unpredictably blow through our lives.

Do you resist the gale winds of loss, pain, blame and disrepute, hoping that you will only have to deal with the cool breezes of gain, pleasure, praise and fame?  Our response to difficulty can be denial, fear, confusion, aggression, anger or greed, believing that these will be our protection.  We can try to escape, busy ourselves, hoping that we won’t be affected by them. The degree of our willingness to let go of the idea that the difficult winds are our fault, or are blameworthy, is the degree to which there can be joy and peace in our lives.  Our ability to graciously accede to these elements of our experience as human beings is ennobling and leads to letting go and freedom.

Our practice trains us to lean into the rough weather, rather than trying to outrun or deny it, of course donning whatever protection is wise.  We respect and bow to the losses and disappointments, facing our fears.  We allow ourselves to be held in our capacity for presence, with wisdom and compassion in handling the arising difficulties.   Every time you are willing to turn towards difficulty, boredom and pain in your meditation practice, you strengthen the muscle to handle every wind that blows through.  Happy sailing!

 

Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Many of us see him only in oversimplified terms of race:  as an eloquent, segregation-era “voice of his people.” Yet, his words resound as moral philosophy, informed by his considerable knowledge of the writings and thought of the great philosophers.

Dr. King constantly reminded us of interconnectedness. He defined love as the binding power that holds the universe together “tying us in a single garment of destiny…in an inescapable network of mutuality.”  Each of us, he emphasized, has the power to change ourselves and the world, and reminded us to consider how one confronts social evil without creating further evil, division and enmity.

Despite the pernicious effect of segregation, he staunchly advocated love and nonviolence.  The purpose of the boycotts, he said, was “reconciliation…redemption, the creation of the beloved community.” He warned that “our loyalties must transcend our race, tribe, class, and nation.” He believed that the cornerstone for the beloved community was love and justice; and the struggle to resolve conflicts, rather than the absence of conflict, was the fertile ground on which to build it. He believed that, although laws could promote desegregation and eliminate discrimination in education, employment and housing, only a change in attitude created by love would create a society based on respect and justice.

As Coretta Scott King stated, “The beloved community is not a place, but a state of heart and mind, a spirit of hope and goodwill that transcends all boundaries and barriers and embraces all creation.”
May we together build the beloved community, realize our belonging, and feel embraced by its resounding good will.