94 Promises

I returned for more of the same the very next night on Wednesday and again on Friday and then again for zazen and mid-morning service on Sunday. So much remained foreign and unfamiliar to me that I always arrived early—by 6:30 on weekday evenings and by 8:30 on Sunday mornings—and often even earlier so that I could observe and learn as doan and shoten prepared the temple for zazen and for special temple services new to me. Unnecessary speech was discouraged but whenever it seemed appropriate and an opportunity arose I asked questions of shoten and doan. This schedule I maintained for three weeks. One Wednesday evening when I arrived there were eight or nine persons present, at least twice the normal number at evening zazen, and the shoten and doan were busy making special arrangements. They set up a chair and two small tables in the buddha hall and on each table they placed special objects—koro, incense, candle, flower—and there were other deviations from the procedure I expected.

"Is there something special going on tonight?" I asked Mark.

"Oh, yes," he said, "Ryaku Fusatsu."

"What's that?"

"The precept ceremony," he explained.

"Should I not be here?"

"No, no, nothing like that," he said. "I'll show you."

Mark gave me a hurried summary and demonstration of what would happen and what I should do. That evening we sat as usual in the zendo, but for only half an hour, then we filed into the buddha hall, and one at a time each of us knelt at one of the small tables and offered powdered incense before we found places at mats and began the precept ceremony. I was totally lost and just followed along as best I could. Four or five chants were repeated three times each, one of them quite long, and at each line or two of a chant we made a full prostration, forty or fifty total. It was intensely aerobic and by the time we sat on our cushions my legs ached and my tee shirt and baggy cotton pants were damp with sweat. Together we vowed first to accept and to maintain the three collective pure precepts and then to accept and to maintain the ten grave prohibitory precepts. The master led us in the recitation.

The declaration:

"A follower of the Way does no harm."

The question:

"Will you receive and maintain this precept?"

In unison we replied:

"Yes, I will!"

The declaration:

"A follower of the Way does good."

The question:

"Will you receive and maintain this precept?"

In unison we replied:

"Yes, I will!"

The declaration:

"A follower of the Way lives to benefit all beings."

The question:

"Will you receive and maintain this precept?"

In unison we replied.

"Yes, I will!"

Then to a series of ten similar declarations and questions together we promised to esteem and to honor the buddha, the dharma, and the sangha, to respect the property of others, never to misuse sexuality, never to abuse drugs, to eschew gluttony, slander, ill will, and deception, to be open and honest, to be nonjudgmental, humble, and kind, to be loving in our relationships, to be nonviolent, and to cultivate inner peace. Of the ten prohibitory precepts only one seemed much different from the Christian principles of ethical conduct I learned first as a child from my parents and then, much later at the urging of my friend John, studied and tried seriously as an adult to practice both before and after my psychomystical experience.

The declaration:

"I cultivate letting go, I do not attach to anything, not even to the teaching."

The question:

"Will you receive and maintain this precept?"

In unison we replied:

"Yes, I will!"

When the precepts had been conferred there were more chants and more bells and more bows. For two days my thighs and lower back remained slightly sore from the dozens of full prostrations I had done on Wednesday. I returned for zazen on Friday night and for service on Sunday and for zazen again on Tuesday the following week. Then in the course of his dharma talk one Sunday morning the master mentioned just in passing what he considered the minimum he expected of serious practitioners—a regular daily practice at home, our sitting at the temple once a week, our attendance at service on Sunday, and our participation in special temple events. I had been wondering myself how I could continue to attend as often as I had and from then on I limited my evening sitting to Tuesday. There were never more than five present even counting the master and most of the time it was just the master and the doan, always Mark or Edward, and I. In a metropolitan area the size of Council Bluffs and Omaha, about half a million people, I had expected to see at zazen fifteen or so regulars, maybe as many as thirty. The actual number did not bother me but it was a surprise.

Few.