You know, when I'm at Crestone, I like being there, of course, very much. And it's nice to practice with people that you're living with. It's... more natural in a way. And less intense in some ways and more intense in other ways. But as you can imagine, of course, when I come here, I recognize how much I miss all of you. And I think, oh, how could I stay away so long?

[01:04]

And I mean from my own point of view, not yours. And I think I wish I had been here all along. But then probably since you're is primarily a lay practice. You wouldn't know what to do with me if I stayed here more. I'd interfere with your lay life. Two sesshins a year is enough. Mm-hmm. and a seminar and so forth.

[02:06]

I like coming here too with Randy because I think of him as my random monk. Since he's a lay person, I think of him as a random monk. So it's actually quite interesting for him especially to do this practice of sashin and making a sashin work and taking responsibility for how the practice is formed in a sashin. Because, you know, being a monk in both Asia and the West is to take the orders, to become ordered in a certain way. So a practice like this, sashin, is a practice of creating a certain kind of order.

[03:28]

And when you get into the precision and order of the altar, and the service and just how you use your body in the service and in the meal, and so forth. Actually, there's quite a fine line between that and the order of wearing these kind of robes and so forth. So being a monk is, in a sense, in Buddhism, you know, and Zen especially, there's no distinction between priest and monk.

[04:53]

It's just the same. So becoming a priest or monk is to sort of enter the stream of order. So where do you draw the line in this practice in which a great deal of order is part of the practice? Let me stop for a minute and say I'm very grateful to be sitting here having Ulrike translate again with me. There's a possibility that she may go back to work next year teaching again in the gymnasium. So this might be her last season.

[06:00]

So it's a certain poignancy I feel her translating. The sashin, I think, well, maybe only this summer we'll be able to teach together like this. Ulrike has been so much a part of my finding a way to teach here in Europe. Ulrike ist so sehr Teil davon, wie ich versuche herauszufinden, hier in Europa zu lehren. But all of you have supported me so much and this practice so much that I think whatever, it'll be okay, however it works out.

[07:07]

Aber ihr alle seid so sehr Teil davon, das hier zur Entfaltung zu bringen, dass ich denke, es wird schon irgendwie weitergehen. So, No, I want to bring you in this session, at least today, I'd like to tell you one of the famous Zen koans. And I'll just tell it to you right now and then come back to it. And I'll just tell it to you right now and then come back to it. Yan Kuan was... Maybe you can remember the name or visualize it better if you realize it's spelled Y-E-N-K-U-A-N or Y-A-N-G-U-A-A-N. You don't have to spell it, I don't.

[08:14]

Anyway, Yan Kuan was... asked his attendant, spoke to his attendant and said, would you bring me my rhinoceros fan? Anyway, he said, would you do that? It was probably a hot day like this. It's really not so hot. It's not so bad as it could have been. So usually, you know, we emphasize, if it's warm, you just adjust your body temperature. If it's cold, you adjust your body temperature. It's not too much to complain about. But, you know, sometimes it's nice to have a fan.

[09:28]

So he said to his attendant, please bring me my rhinoceros fan. Then it's not clear whether this is a fan with a rhinoceros painted on it or a fan made of rhinoceros horn. Maybe it's both. But anyway, he said, bring me my rhinoceros fan. His attendant said, I'm sorry, it's broken. It's broken. Then bring me the rhinoceros. The attendant didn't know what to say. Anyway, this is quite famous koan. Now, this is...

[10:28]

You know, like ordinary talk between two people who practice together. Would you get me something? And it's called sometimes father and son talk. And then the second, you know, bring me the rhinoceros then is more called parent and adopted child talk. It's more strictly speaking, Zen language, Zen talk. In this case, Yang Kuan is not only using Zen language, he's also creating Zen language. Because this koan became such a famous and repeated statement. Okay. Now, going back again, mentioning Randy's practicing with... being a layperson and doing this, being responsible for some of the order of this practice.

[12:09]

Now, I've always thought of, you know, the categories are a monk disguised as a layman and a layperson disguised as a monk. And monk and layperson, of course, four categories. Now we have a fifth category, the random monk. So... Hmm... And I feel, you know, for us, especially for Randy to join me here in the Sashin, and he was in the Maria Lach Sashin, the first one we did. He's actually an expression, too, of your practice as primarily as late eagle. Now, part of being a layperson is to be more random.

[13:19]

And I think why... Part of the genius of Chinese Buddhism is, of course, as I've mentioned many times, its emphasis on the layperson. And its development of Buddhism then, hence, in a... what shall we say, a dissolving framework of randomness. And so Zen, and Zen especially, but Buddhism in general in China, has a... central to it is... is...

[14:20]

Let's start over again. Characteristic of Chinese Buddhism, and especially Zen, is an emphasis on aesthetics or an aesthetic dimension in how we apprehend the world. And that sense of aesthetic at the center of everything is an expression of the sense of randomness at the center of everything. Now, usually, at least the last two or three years, I've been giving you very specific teachings. And trying to show you how to use these teachings. And to get you familiar enough with them that you can use them on your own.

[15:58]

But at least today, at this first day of, more or less, the first day of teaching in Europe this year, I'm emphasizing this, not so much specific teachings to give you a order or framework, but I'm emphasizing randomness and maybe an aesthetic element in your practice. Until recently in Western thinking, it's been assumed that order was the basic state. Even the word disorder implies that order is the basic state and disorder is the unusual state.

[17:08]

But Buddhism grew up and influenced also in that direction a culture in which you might say chaos is the basic state and dischaos is the unusual state. There's an ancient story that Chauncey tells of the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor. Who's a mythic emperor and very ancient. China, a lot of things are attributed to him. But supposedly one time he went north of the Red River and then climbed a high mountain and looked south. Surveying the Middle Kingdom.

[18:29]

Which is what the Chu of China means. It's a sort of rectangle with a line through it, the Middle Kingdom. And when he returned to his palace, he discovered he'd lost his dark pearl. So he sent knowledge looking for it. And knowledge couldn't find it. Then he sent debate, dialogue and debate looking for it. And dialogue and debate couldn't find it. So he sent shapeless looking for it.

[19:30]

Of course, shapeless found his dark pearl. So in a culture which is even long before Buddhism came in, there are stories like... like this, in which shapeless or formless is how we find our pearl, you can see that Zen came into a... Anyway, that's enough. Sometimes my senses become shapeless because they are, but also because I can't figure out how to end something so she can translate it. Sometimes my senses become formless, otherwise they are anyway, because I can't find out exactly how to end something so that they can translate it.

[20:40]

So actually we have a situation, and contemporary chaos theory would say, is that all states of order tend toward disorder. So Chinese Zen Buddhism has developed in such a way that the teachings are presented... Chinese Zen Buddhism is developed so that the teachings are presented with a significant amount of disorder or randomness in them. Like many teaching systems, there's a whole system.

[21:56]

If you do this, this happens. If you do that, this happens, and so forth. But parallel to that is always, well, you do it your own way. Or you do it with a certain degree of chance or randomness. So that kind of thinking is also part of this koan. Bring me the rhinoceros fan. It's broken. Then bring me the rhinoceros. So I think mostly I'll just give you this phrase, bring me the rhinoceros.

[23:00]

For today, and I'll comment on the koan more tomorrow. But these statements are developed this way so that they have a resonance in your unconscious. And one of the aims of a sashin is to make your surface order thinner. And one of the reasons there's so much order in a sashin and why the schedule is so important is that the sashin allows you for seven days to make the surface of your life a lot thinner. Now the rhinoceros is like buffaloes and Dr. Barry.

[24:06]

Dr. Barry is the dog. I call him Dr. Barry. Because he's such a smart, intuitive dog. Anyway, the animals are used as representing primal consciousness in Buddhism, in Zen. And the rhinoceros sometimes represents our heart or even the bodhisattva, kind of alone, independent, complete. Instead of two horns, it has a sort of non-dual horn.

[25:07]

And the horn also represents one pointedness. And the rhinoceros is often imaged as standing alone, gazing at the moon with its one horn. And Hakuin, in speaking of the matter of this koan, said, in order to plumb these depths, you have to practice in secret with your entire body.

[26:11]

And he said, I don't think it's easy. I have toiled these 30 years with this problem. Ich habe 30 Jahre mit diesem Problem mich herumgeschlagen. Now, this 30 years is not meant to intimidate you or make you think it's impossible. Und 30 Jahre bedeutet nicht, dass euch das einschüchtern soll oder jetzt andeuten es sei unmöglich. But to emphasize rather that this is life work, not ego work. Aber es soll euch eher klar machen, dass das eine Lebensaufgabe ist und nicht eine Arbeit oder Angelegenheit des Egos. This is work that brings you to life. Now, the order and form of a sashin is also, of course, a kind of ritual. And ritual, as you know, is not very well understood or appreciated in our culture.

[27:28]

And we don't recognize it when it is part of our life even. But ritual is the borderline between the unconscious and the conscious. But I actually prefer to say the non-conscious than the unconscious. Because from the point of view of Buddhism, all of this is non-conscious. The unconscious or the non-conscious isn't something down inside you somewhere. Or down inside us all human beings. It's rather, again, there's this non-consciousness or mystery or randomness. Which we, through our consciousness, understand a small slice of.

[28:41]

And give it some order. And it's always slipping out of order. And in addition to the slice of it we understand with consciousness, there's another slice, a wider slice we understand with awareness. And then, in order that you don't seal yourself off from the mystery, randomness is important. To study in secret with your entire body is to invert the vijnanas, invert the sense fields. So you feel the world through your whole body.

[29:55]

Maybe as much as possible, Sashin, you really want to stop thinking, not just for the sake of a clear mind, But to start apprehending more directly through your body. It also, it not only increases your apprehension of randomness. It also stabilizes you in randomness. More than your mind can. And you notice I'm using the word apprehension, not cognition or conception or perception.

[30:57]

Perception would be through your senses. Cognition would be with knowledge. Kognitiv erkennen würde bedeuten mit Wissen. And conception would be giving it order. Und wenn man Begriffe gibt, dann gibt man etwas ja auch Ordnung. But apprehension, apprehend, comes from the, in English, from the root of to grasp hold of, like with your hand. Aber das Wort begreifen, zumindest in Englisch, spricht das an, dass man etwas wirklich mit seiner Hand erfassen kann. It's more like to physically know something. And you have the double meaning in the word of both fear and knowing. Apprehend and apprehension. Apprehension being to be afraid. So there's a certain fear and vulnerability in this direct knowing. And so in Sashin you have a chance to, as much as you dare, as much as you can, let yourself into a more direct knowing.

[32:22]

It's hot, it's cold, you're just sitting here, you know. And you don't know quite what's going on, but Your body is engaged or present in whatever is happening. You don't quite know what's... You don't want to know quite what's going on. And I wanted to start this session this way. And I wanted to start this session this way. And I... So I didn't choose anything for this sashin to talk about. I just, you know, took a book. I said, well, I'll start with a koan at least. So I just opened it randomly. It said, bring me my rhinoceros. So I'm bringing you the rhinoceros.

[33:38]

And if you take a phrase like this and let it down, if you want to, it says, there's a capping verse that's used in Zen. If I use a thousand foot line, I intend to reach the depths. But the depths are also the surface. I mean, it isn't somewhere. This is here. And so there are many comments to this koan. But one of them that's used the way the Shoyeroku presents it In the Shorya Roku book of Serenity, it's koan 25. In the Heikigan Roku or Blue Cliff record, it's koan 91. And in the book of Serenity, after the story of Bring Me the Rhinoceros, it says Zufu drew a circle in the air.

[34:55]

and drew the character for rhinoceros in it. And he didn't mean this as a symbol. And someone else commented, Toji commented. He said, I don't decline to bring out the rhinoceros, but probably the horn will be damaged or missing. The horn will be lacking. And Shui Fang said, I want the lacking horn. So this is Zen talk. And it's meant to get under your surface. In this writing workshop, sort of I did in Hamburg the other day, we took various phrases.

[36:24]

You know, the darkened sun. Mm-hmm. Or the tree of life, half fire, half green. Where I only saw the fallen petals, how was I to know the many dark shadows of the garden trees, green shadows of the garden trees? Or I can show you the mandarin ducks I embroidered, but I can't show you the golden needle with which I made them. Bring me the rhinoceros. These are kinds of statements meant to, you can't make quite sense of them. But if you fish with them, You know, something may happen.

[37:39]

A certain, you know, we talk about the Alaya Vijnana, the storehouse consciousness. This is called, you know, inverting the storehouse consciousness and joining it with the world. This is, you know, a Yogacara teaching brought into Zen in the 9th century. But as the saying goes, the thousand-year light of the moon is our moon just tonight. So it's each of you and your deep sense of your own individual life which has a kind of autonomy independent of your surface life.

[39:03]

And I think you may feel that your surface, that your life, you know, your life, your lay life, your ordinary life, whatever it is, a monk's life too, is, you know, quite satisfying maybe. I hope so. But sometimes it begins to feel like a surface that's covering over something you don't quite know what it is. You can feel the dark pearl of deep water stirring under the surface of your life. And I think it's at that time that you think of, maybe it'd be good if I hope a Sashin is coming up soon. And you can feel the chaos kind of breaking out, you know, and you need a bigger sense of yourself to allow this chaos some order.

[40:24]

And to allow its disorder and dischaos. So this sense is way-seeking mind. And many of us stand in the way of our deeper life. And too many people use Zen to sit in the way of their deeper life. So I want you to use sitting in this session to get out of the way of your deeper life. And bring me the whole rhinoceros. I know you can do it. Thank you.

[41:25]

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