“The best way to observe precepts is just to be you yourself and then the precepts are always with you.”
What does it mean to “be yourself” in Zen, not as self-improvement, but as a direct, embodied intimacy with life as it is?
We were honored to recently host Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, at our zendo in New York for this moving dharma talk on the newly released collection of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s teachings, Becoming Yourself, that Jiryu and the late Sojun Mel Weitsman were co-editors on.
Beginning with the simple form of upright posture, he offers vivid images; zazen as a chrysalis in which we can “melt,” thoughts like a bagel wrapper that’s useful until we keep holding it, and practice as “sharing the feeling” of right here, right now.
In the latter half of the talk, Jiryu also explores Suzuki Roshi’s radical view of precepts: not moralism or rule-following, but the natural expression of a life that remembers its place in the cosmos and a self that includes everything, past, present, and future.
We hope you enjoy this dharma talk and that you'll join us for our upcoming Commit to Sit, in which Becoming Yourself will be our guiding text!
MUSIC
Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji – Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.
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