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The Ky0jukaimotr, Part II Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett The Eightfold Path, represented by the eight-spoked wheel of the Dharma, is well-known all over the Buddhist world but has seldom been connected with the sixteen Precepts of the KyOjukaimon. Last month I spoke of the way in which the Ky6jukaimon can be interpreted as a means of understanding morality spiritually and exhibiting spirituality through morality. This month I want to explain how there are not really sixteen Precepts all separate from each other but one Buddha Nature exhibited within all sixteen of them. Once again taking the two Precepts which I used as illustrations last month, let us see how they interact upon each other with the others. Obviously if one kills another person one is also stealing his life from him, therefore a person who breaks the first Precept of killing is also breaking the second and becoming a thief. If a life is stolen it has first to have been desired, that is, coveted, so the third Precept is then broken. To desire to take life means to say to oneself that the person whose life is coveted does not deserve to live ffid, this being untnre, the fourttr Precept, which speaks against that which is untrue, has been broken. There is no doubt that a murder is committed by a deluded person for a person whose mind was not deluded to the Truth could never commit a murder so such a person breaks the fifth Precept. By being deluded the murderer has spoken in his own mind against s { The Journal of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives the person he murders and thus the sixth Precept is broken. By thinking that another deserves to die a murderer presumes that he has the right to play god with powers of life and death and his pride in himself and his devaluing of the person he kills make him break the seventh Precept. When a person is proud as above described one is also mean since the life of another is begrudged to him and this breaks the eighth Precept. When a person begrudges another something that person usually gets angry about his possessing it in the first place and a murder, even when done seemingly in cold blood after premeditation and without heat, is still an act of anger and fear, therefore the ninth Precept is broken. In becoming angry the Buddha Nature within the murderer himself is defamed as well as denied within the person murdered and the last, tenth, Precept is broken. Thus the breakage of one Precept is the breakage of all of them and the breaking of any one is just as bad as the breaking of all. There are bound to be people who will cry that it is not nearly kill him. just But think about it for a minute. If you slander another you are not only stealing his reputation, you are also killing it. Which is worse? To kill a physical body which can feel no pain after it has died or to kill a reputation which the person may have to live with for the rest of his life? By killing the reputation you may deprive a person of his means of livelihood, thus he will suffer physical hardship and perhaps eventual death from starvation. In this day and age the latter is hard to visualise but it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. In Japan once a person gets fired from a job he can seldom ever get another; almost no one is ever fired in Japarl, no matter how incompetent he may happen to be. But it does occasionally happen with disastrous results for the person concerned and almost always as a result of slander. So as bad to steal something or to slander another as it is to {l i The Kydjukaimon, Part II Ltfting the statue back onto the main altar at Shasta Abbey after a ceremony during the Ten Precepts Retreat. be present in all you say and do remembering that even the slight- est act against another is an act against the very existence of Buddhahood. How does all this tie in with the eight-spoked wheel and the Eighffold Path of the Buddha's original teaching? As I have said so often before, there is nothing to be found in Zenthat is not to be found in the original teachings of the Buddha in a much less developed form. Just for a moment give the steps of the Eighf fold Path a little thought. Now the actual steps are: right under- standing,right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concenfration. Obviously h' tj, The Journat of the order of Buddhist contemplatives and if one has right understanding one is going to think colrectly only right if one thinks correctly one is going to say right things. livelihood is bound action can come out of right speech and right right effort which to result from right action which must lead to which always will yield right mindfulness and right concentration full circle- From produce right understanding and the wheel comes and morning will this the importance of meditation every night the words of the become clear as you read on. Let us consider wrong in connection with the Eightfold Path. "Al1 Ky6jukaimon me from time actions, behaviour and karma perpetrated by greed' anger and deimmemorial have been, and flfe, caused by mouth and lusion which have no beginning, born of my body, ,don,ts' of the Kyojukaimon are against actions of wi11." AII the daily life; every body or will, speech and thinking in our ordinary notpractising the code breakage of th" rvojukaimon comes outof in the Kyoof morality, both physically and spiritually, taught jukairnor, and to practise that code the steps of the path, which followed. are the spokes of the wheel, must be carefully joined together in Notice how the spokes of a wheel are all completely unmovthe cenffe and that when it turns the centre is people cannot find their true ing. only the outside rim moves. they do not Buddha Nature in the centre of the wheel because because know how to reach it; they are frightened and helpless good look at themno one will tell them to sit down and take a teach them to find selves, correct them when they err and thus who want the tnre the centre of the wheel. There are also people joy and freedom that comes thereof, for ffue freedom can only the moral code of come as a result of living the spiritual side of life in everyday tasks' the Kyojukaimon and exhibiting it in daily wheel of the Dharma' He who keeps the precepts rearns to turn the The Kyojukaimon, Part II A water wheel is dependent upon an outside force, that of water, in order to turn and when there is no water it ceases turning having no power of its own. A wheel that contains within the stillness of its own centre the power to turn itself, that is, when the driving force within a person is generated by the power of Zazen and an understanding of what the Buddha taught, no outside source or stimuli are needed. It is because I know this to be true that I am against drug-taking, cigarettes, alcohol and other artificial forms or means of trying to gain religious experience or simply to relax. Such pleasure or enjoyment that they give can only ever be temporary: like the mill-wheel which ceases to turn without water, he who relies on external stimuli can never find permanent peace and true freedom and yet keep the wheel turning and so such people long for death; any release except the one sure way to understanding appeals to them until they can realise that they are trying to live their lives the wrong way out. But a person who has found the true source of life within himself needs no outside stimuli whatsoever for the energy of his wheel is the Buddha Nature itself which is within the true meditation hall within him. When such a one meditates the whole world meditates too. Next month I will discuss this matter further.