The first part of the word ‘Jukai,” Ju, means, “to receive.” That is why we don’t say we take the Jukai. We actually receive the Kai. So Jukai means, “To receive the Kai.” The word kai can be translated as “precepts.” That is not my favorite translation. “Discipline” is another word that we can use, but “way of being”, or “way of living our life” comes the closest. When we receive Jukai, we are receiving the way to live our life. The reason we say, “receive” is you can’t take it. It is not something that is up for grabs; you open your heart and mind and it flows in. You are actually receiving it as an empty cup receives, rather than grabbing it like a clenched fist. And what is it that you are receiving? The most important element is when we talk about receiving The Three Treasures. This means that you are acknowledging that you have received the Buddha mind, the Dharma mind, and the Sangha mind. In reality, you can’t get that because you already have it, but it means that you have now opened yourself up to the point where this is revealed. You are opening yourself up and you are revealing what has always been there, only hidden from sight.

What has always been there is the fact that you are the living Tathagata, the living Buddha. That’s your life. That’s exactly what your life is. That’s what you are born as. Of course, everybody is born that way – but very few realize it. More than a few acknowledge it by receiving the kai, the precepts, but very few really realize and manifest that this life is really the life of Shakyamuni. This life is the Dharma, meaning the truth, the reality. Your life is the manifestation of the truth, and this life is, even though it doesn’t appear to be, always in harmony. We think that our life is chaotic. We think things are chaotic. That’s just because of our perception. Everything is completely in order and completely harmonious, every moment. We just haven’t been able to see it. We simply can’t understand it with our rational, intellectual mind so we think our life is chaotic. But it is always in perfect order. It’s always manifesting exactly as it is supposed to, because it is manifesting like it is. That’s the way it’s supposed to manifest. We think it should manifest some other way, but every moment our life is manifesting exactly perfectly and it is a mutual interpenetration, interconnectedness between the absolute and the relative, because they are inseparable and in harmony to begin with. So, your life is not only the manifestation of this relative form that has a beginning and an end but it is also the manifestation of the absolute, which is unborn and undying, beginningless and endless. These appear to our dualistic minds as two very different things, but in fact, if we eliminate the dualistic mind, it is one perfect manifestation.

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