This talk was given at the Village Zendo a few days before Halloween. The occasion of Halloween and masks opens up ideas of appearance and reality, true self and false self and no self. And all of these can be quite confusing, especially if we have powerful reasons to stay confused about them. A pervasive fantasy we carry around is that we've got a precious true self deep inside. Close to the end of his life, Thomas Merton wrote that he concluded there is no true self, other than the self you already are. How are we to understand this in the context of Buddhism? How do the costumes we wear and the roles we perform relate to our identity? Are there deep down true essences we're trying to bring out or is who we are truly who we are in this moment? What would it mean to you if your true self is the way you treated your partner this morning?

How can you respond without speaking or remaining silent?

Joko Beck used to describe her students as hungry birds waiting for her, the mama bird, to drop a worm in their beaks. What happens when such a student is full? When he has all the worms he needs, has heard enough talks. It's a picture of a realization you start off lacking and then can get, and no longer have to go chasing for it. But what do you do with it? What's it for? How are you different?

Returning from a week of retreat we are faced with the question, What difference did sesshin make? How are we different returning from that intensive experience? What do we try to integrate from that? The danger of special experiences, practices, and meditation is that it becomes something that stands in contrast to our everyday experience rather than informing it. It's a fundamental ongoing question for anyone who practices - how does what happens on the cushion connect with what happens when we leave?

Jukai is when a student receives the precepts, the Buddhist moral and ethical teachings, and publicly vows to uphold them. It is also signals a deepening commitment to practice and service to others. As part of doing Jukai, students at Ordinary Mind are required to give a talk on some aspect of the precepts.

Jukai is when a student receives the precepts, the Buddhist moral and ethical teachings, and publicly vows to uphold them. It is also signals a deepening commitment to practice and service to others. As part of doing Jukai, students at Ordinary Mind are required to give a talk on some aspect of the precepts.

Jukai is when a student receives the precepts, the Buddhist moral and ethical teachings, and publicly vows to uphold them. It is also signals a deepening commitment to practice and service to others. As part of doing Jukai, students at Ordinary Mind are required to give a talk on some aspect of the precepts.

According to Dogen, "The world is not a world of defilement. It is nothing other than the ancient mirror." And so, our practice is not a practice of purification. It's difficult to realize how totally that goes against the grain of what is called religious practice almost everywhere, including Buddhism, where practice can focus on separating the pure from the impure. Is attachment a defilement? Is sexuality a defilement? Or are they the ancient mirror?

In American Zen, almost everybody has grown up in a different religious context. But they can't quite be called convert Buddhists as by and large most Americans don't describe themselves as having converted. They will often use terms like practicing Zen or practicing mindfulness. Yet, our Jukai ceremony is precisely a conversion ceremony.

Religious practice often comes with lists of virtues that particular tradition is designed to cultivate. So what do we think we're cultivating in practice here? How does this square with the identity of practice and enlightenment that Dogen posits?