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--- jukai [2026/10/08 14:44] – created neilwinterburn
+++ jukai [2026/10/21 00:32] (current) – neilwinterburn
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 Will you maintain this?
-Society is oppressive in so many ways. How can I move without unintentionally adding to the many invisible and visible waves of oppression? Maybe the key word here is ‘cease’? What if instead of trying to find a way to move without contributing to injustice, I could move less? Trying to freeze or not act dosent feel right either. Evil implies ill intent - so maybe the answer to this is love - not acting as much from anger. While making my Raksu I experienced memories of love from my grandad that broke me right open. I also learned I can exude anger without realising it when I feel I'm being mistreated or neglected. So - consciously, I can try remind myself I can be a bit of an arsehole at times and try to see and accept that. The main thing I can do is sit more as that seems to help me open myself up to those feelings of love, and act from that.
-Second, I vow to do good.
+**Second, I vow to do good.**
 *This is the Dharma of sammyak-sam-bohdi; this is the way of all beings.*
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 Will you maintain this?
-This is so beautiful - liberating myself by focusing on doing good for others. I am at an early stage with this. I still fear ignoring my own needs could lead to me being taken advantage of and becoming angry. Hang on, I'm being very binary here. Doing good for others dosent exclude doing good for myself. Doing good for others as an act of sheer willpower, coralling myself to do it dosent feel like the way either. I want to get to a point when it dosent feel like an act of willpower.
 ## The ten grave precepts
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 Will you maintain this?
-I felt a lot of resistance to this at first. Deep down I agree with Proudhon when he said, all property is theft. So if I read this literally I feel very wary. Dogens commentary is so beautiful though. I feel like he's showing me two dishes on the table, one with my mind on it and the other with the world, then asking why mix them? It's so tempting though.
-My ideas about the world and how it should be are theft.  When I have rigid ideas about how people should talk to me and treat me, I'm stealing from them. Im seeing my self, as a theft from the dharma.
-**Notes 9th Oct 2024**
-I was thinking about Roshi talking about 'letting go' on the mat and Dogen’s commentary on the second of the ten grave precepts.
-*I vow to refrain from stealing.*
-Dogens commentary..
-*The mind and the externals are just as thus. The gate of liberation has opened.*
-I've been sitting on what it might be that I'm clinging on to and what I might be trying to steal. One big thing came up is I'm clinging on to being a "successful artist". Being a successful artist would mean I get to make all the art I want to make how I want to make it, and I'll become the person I want to be.
-It's been my north star since I was 18. It's like I made a deal with life that I would try to be who everyone wants me to be in every other situation, if I could express myself however I wanted when I'm making art. Then I'd steer my life towards making as much time as possible for making art. I've been stealing from my appreciation of the present to give to time for creative freedom in some imagined future.
-I'm realising this partition has meant I've been less present to my day to day life, it's felt less real than my art practice. Now it's dawning on me that my artistic practice is a part of my whole life, not the other way around.
-What if I let go of that bargain and didn't fence off making art as the only time and space in which I do what feels natural?
-I realised how much Ive been seeing my life through the expectation that I am on the path to becoming a "successful artist", and banging up against things when these expectations arent met. It's not so much that I have a vision of a future me, so I expect everything to go that way. More that I have to make sure everything is going in that direction at all times, so there's tensions between what Im looking for and what's actually happening.
-But just now, I dropped into my body and saw these expectations  as dried skin falling off the world. Letting these tensions drop even for a few moments, I felt so much freer to look and move around!
-I'm asking myself..What if I don't "make it"? What if I let go of the idea that one day I'll be a successful artist?
-I'm not saying I'll stop making art, far from it. Communicating through images feels so much more natural to me than words. I'm just not sure how much I need what I push it into the institutions that validate art.
-I'm just beginning to loosen the grip that this vision of my future self has on me in the here and now. I feel like I can open my life so its not just about trying to steal time.
-What is the Buddhist way to experience this without pushing away painful feelings for the loss of my more successful future self?
-How do I open myself to everything that my drive to be a successful artist has been trying to escape from?
 **Third, I vow to refrain from sexual misconduct and being greedy.**
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 Will you maintain this?
-From the 1st line of Dogen’s commentary, I get - I don't need to exaggerate so others see what I want them to see, how I want the world to be.
-From the second line, - the Dharma, (the truth), permeates everything evenly like a mist. It's not a thing to be focused on.
-Its not often I outright lie, but I project my frustrations with myself onto other people, trying to misdirect attention away from my shame.
-When I dampen down my feelings and inhibit my impulses, hiding my sensitivity - I'm not being honest with myself or other people. Sitting shows me the things that are caught in the folds of my robes, in my guts, between spline and lymph nodes.
 **Fifth, I vow to refrain from being intoxicated and ignorant.**
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 Will you maintain this?
 Koan Practice