In certain circumstances, like when a group of people are together trying to understand practice better, and it's in that spirit, it's okay. And I think in the kind of context we're developing in the Dharma Sangha Europe, it's helpful because we need a mutual permission. So do you have an experience you'd like to tell us about? No, okay. Good. Okay, any other questions you'd like to direct at me? Well, let me talk a little bit about, and if something comes up, please ask me, but let me talk a little bit about

[01:16]

meditation practice. I mean, this sense of meditation practice or mindfulness practice and the sense of a stream. So I'm just going to talk about the meditation practice or the practice of mindfulness or this practice of the stream. And if you have any questions, just ask them. Now, I believe James Joyce, as I said last night, coined the phrase, the stream of consciousness. Or maybe someone else did, or somebody used it describing his literature, but it became quite famous around his writing. But what he actually meant was not a stream of consciousness, but a stream of associative, a stream of associations. Hamada, the famous Japanese potter, said that creativity should be like walking downhill in a cool breeze.

[02:33]

I'm not saying that's the only way to be creative, but that comes out of Buddhist culture as a way of thinking about it. Hmm. So where do you, how do you rest your mind, nourish your mind in a, like you are walking downhill in a cool breeze? A gentle breeze. In one way is to allow a kind of associative flows to start occurring in your mind.

[03:51]

In other words, we're always talking to ourselves. We've got a subconscious comparative gossip going on all the time. And sometimes it's, instead of trying to get rid of it, it's better to fight fire with fire. And the koan refers to this. You don't have to look in yours, I just... He says, while we haven't been apart for long, you sure can reflect on high. I don't understand the English.

[05:01]

You can reflect on high... That means you're taking a high position and you're kind of reflecting, giving generalizations. But there's several phrases like that in this poem. Which actually refer to kind of letting your mind be present in a certain level of detail. And I got a sort of confirmation of this the other day reading a newspaper article about some brain research. People who have been damaged by brain damage from tumors or accidents and things. may be able to notice all the small things in their house, for instance, scissors, pieces of paper and things.

[06:22]

But they can't remember the big things, like refrigerators, stoves and stuff. Or a person may not be able to notice animals, but they can notice people. They can't remember the names of animals, but they can remember the names of people. So there's a kind of, the way our memory works in my own experience and opinion is that we actually remember, we know the world actually through a series of associations that's not actually formed into concepts. So it's very restful sometimes to just notice colors, not what the colors are, like your pants are red and apple is red, your shirt is a certain color, your shirt is green, but not that it's a shirt or that it's pants or that it's an apple.

[07:50]

You may notice a lot of details, but no generalizations or no big picture. And I think daydreaming is a kind of surfacing into our mind of another kind of mind. And what daydreaming means is that you're probably processing something, you're trying to work through something that goes on underneath your ordinary mind. And, you know, again, I went to the documenta, And I had a lot of thoughts about it or feelings about it.

[09:17]

Partly that I lived in New York is pretty much a part of the art world in the 50s and 60s, 50s. And one close friend of mine, Bob Smithson, is credited with, along with Donald Judd, of creating minimalist art or starting minimalist art. So what struck me seeing this show is really how little this art of found objects and the ordinary has, it hasn't changed much in 30 years. I was kind of amazed at how many thousands of people go to this thing and it seems like a lot of it is just general public, not artists or so forth. And what I noticed is that a lot of it is about art, we could say art, about things that we can't control.

[10:42]

Walls, columns, spinning columns, television sets, and so forth. And elevators. There were two elevators, which were sort of elevators, but they were art objects at the same time. And it's also about art that's, it's also about what's not understandable. Like the spinning, double spinning head of the shaved, double shaved, double head of the, the shaved headed man. Two of them spinning. It was all about, you know, you couldn't understand.

[12:01]

I mean, it was just... Help me, help me. Maybe so, yeah. Yeah. As I said last night, it was a kind of intrusion of the familiar. I think what happens when you come to a point where you can't understand something, And all of this stuff sort of stopped your story. But I found it actually kind of gloomy and depressing. But I was interested in how it blocked your story. You couldn't think about this stuff. And when your story is blocked, it forces your story up or down, forces your story to the surface.

[13:19]

So what I'm saying is that when you change When you change the way you follow your story, you move your story. So again, what I'm saying here is this practice is, we could say, psychodynamically evolved. To create a state of mind that's very inclusive. So you're always processing things or working through things at levels that aren't conscious to you.

[14:33]

And by trying to control your surface mind, you interfere with that process. And you force this processing into dreams, into daydreamings, and into eruptions of other kinds into your consciousness. So part of the dynamic and function of mindfulness practices is to find a state of mind that allows many states of mind to happen at once. So as it says here, One word knowing is the gate of myriad wonders.

[15:42]

And this gate, one word knowing means, the one word knowing means all the possibilities of knowing. Knowing, not knowing. a state of mind which is neither knowing nor not knowing, but allows a knowing to occur. This koan is trying to let you explore those possibilities. So again, we're going back to the sense of relaxation. Instead of trying to keep your mind always engaged in a control of your mental environment, to always try to maintain the false sanity of a conceptual continuity,

[16:51]

The sense of I'm in control, I know what's happening, I know what I'm going to do next, etc. That takes a tremendous amount of energy. You have to go home and go to sleep right away. You have to sleep a lot and have a few drinks and smoke cigarettes. So how do you find a state of mind that doesn't take so much energy? And, you know, first of all, you've got to go through, break through the fear that you're going crazy if you're not in control of your conscious mind. And a lot of that happens just by doing Zaza.

[18:03]

You actually start moving your sense of location out of your head into your body, moving it down. That's why there's this emphasis on the hara, just below the navel, and emphasis on your hands and on your breath and so forth. So I think you've got the picture. So then once you have that security that you don't have to always maintain this time-based conceptual continuity, You can find or begin to explore states of mind you feel very relaxed in. There's no obligation to think all the time. Would you like a break to blow your nose? Yes. So maybe you just notice a certain level of detail.

[19:40]

Or it's relaxing to do nothing but, say, pay attention to the trains going by. Or hear just the sound of my voice without thinking too much about the words. Or begin to notice the many ways our body speaks to us. So you just feel the motion of the breath. Or as I've said several times, you feel a certain dignity of your body. And you can stay present with that sort of physical dignity while you're looking around, listening to things.

[20:43]

Or again, a sense of physical intactness. Or you can gain the sense of being nourished by others or feeling your strength through others without comparing yourself to others. You can begin to... It's a kind of stream. Once you begin to feel this, it's a kind of stream in which you immerse yourself. So you have a real kind of stream of non-consciousness, non-consciousness. If we think of conceptions as boats, It's like you're paying attention to the boats, but then you just start paying attention to the water line or the sound of the splashing.

[21:59]

Pretty soon you can feel the heave of the water and you're not really thinking about the boats. You can feel the shift of your mind kind of moving or the moods or sort of receptiveness of your mind. And you're sort of conscious of it. But consciousness doesn't go much further than that because it's not any more graspable. So here you're beginning to be introduced to a non-graspable level of mind. Or a feeling you have with somebody that you can't notice.

[23:16]

If you notice it goes away, oh, don't we feel good? But you can let it happen without... What's the phrase? Letting truth happen is more than knowing something. So there's a kind of non-graspable state of mind. It actually allows daydreaming, dreaming, and conceptual mind all to kind of mix together. I think that's what we use music for all the time. We turn the radio on to occupy something so that we, you know, But why you go through periods of going to the movies a lot?

[24:38]

The movie occupies you, but something else, you can start thinking about something else, and the movie makes you burst into tears for reasons not having much to do with the plot sometimes. And when you notice things like this, you're studying your mind. And meditation practice includes beginning to know your mind well enough to know where it's relaxed, where it's resting. It says here, when you direct your effort like this, Rest does not interfere with meditation. Meditation does not interfere with rest.

[25:39]

So part of the practice suggested in this is a kind of mindfulness practice of finding out when you're physically and mentally at rest. Sometimes just to take a phrase, I don't know what it would be like in German, but just no descriptions.

[27:04]

Some phrase like that can give you an entry to this feeling of rest I'm talking about. I think that's enough for today. I'd like to sit for a few minutes. Good morning. Good morning. And Giulio, good morning. Are you here for today or? Just today. Yeah. I didn't know you were coming. Yeah. All right.

[28:04]

It's good, you know. Well, I'd like us to... What I'd like to do, I think, is talk with you a little bit. and then have a break, and then after that I'd like us to continue our discussion together somehow. I'm wondering here what would be useful for me to talk with you about. I, of course, have some feeling. But I don't want to talk about just what I think would be interesting to me as well as you, but also something that you can actually use.

[29:14]

Anyway, this is always the debate I'm having with myself, what to present and what, I mean, I hear things from you, but I hear many things from you, and which level should I listen to? In some ways I want to present to you the teachings, not just so that you can practice them, That has to be the final and initial reason I present them to you. But I also want to present them to you because I want to give you a picture of this human life. But on the other hand, I would like to give you an image of this human life from the point of view of Buddhism.

[30:39]

Does anybody have anything you'd like? We're going to have a chance to talk. Does anybody have anything pressing right now you'd like to bring up that's been on your mind since last night or something? Not from you, Giulio. I mean, no, I know you're pressing things from last night, but you weren't here last night. Okay, yes. Yeah. I haven't quite understood this, what you said about the knowable and not knowable, or not knowing. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure. but not knowing is nearest not understanding is nearest that's an easy way out for me but it's also true no no we do have to look at this more

[32:12]

So again, we're saying, why should we set out on this path? The koan says, where are you going? This is another way of asking, another form of asking, who are you, what are you, and so forth. Now, you want to let loose of the world in order to practice. That doesn't mean to let go of the world. It means, I'm trying to say something that's a little different than that, quite different, to let loose, let the world be loose. Now, I talked about this a bit in Sushinan.

[33:29]

I'm sorry for Heike, because she has to... hear me try to say some of these things again. But what I'm trying to talk about is I'm trying to find a way to really teach the importance of fundamental relaxation. But I really cannot find any English for it. I mean, I found the useful distinction between awareness and consciousness, but I can't find a way to say what this relaxation really means. We just don't have any idea about it, language.

[34:30]

So this is a kind of meditation out loud on my part in trying to find a way to teach this This sense of relaxation. Now there's an ancient metaphysical, philosophical tradition in the West which sees the human being as double. I haven't traced the idea, but it goes back into Greek times. It's not just Christian. And we see ourselves as double in the sense that we see ourselves as a material person and also as a soul or spirit.

[35:43]

Mm-hmm. Okay, that's a powerful and useful idea. See, Buddhism would not say such an idea is real. Buddhism would say such an idea is an idea. Not exactly in a negative sense, but in a sense that all we actually know is language. What we do as human beings is create languages. We create ways to describe the world.

[36:59]

Now, the problem is we get into feeling that the description is not the world. Our dreams, for instance, we want to find the meaning of our dreams. Our dreams mean something else. And we're always dealing with like our language is not reality itself, it's a description of reality. When you think that way, pretty soon everything is something else. But from the point of view of Buddhism, language is not a description of something else. Language is the medium in which we live. You don't live in the world, you live in a language about the world. Now, the world is very compassionate and absorbs most of the descriptions we make of it.

[38:18]

But the environmental crisis is a good example of the world is getting pretty tired of just absorbing our descriptions. Some of our descriptions do a lot of damage to the world and a lot of damage to other people. But from the point of view of Buddhism, many descriptions are possible. And when you're practicing, you're developing the views, the vows, the vision of a new language. And these vows, views, vision penetrate your usual language. And when you have an experience like you described, waking up in the morning, When you really recognize the experience, it changes your view.

[39:35]

And this view becomes part of your language. It changes how you actually experience the world. So you can see in this koan, what does this koan reference primarily? It references other koans. It references other Zen teachers. It's a form of literature about itself. I think it's Derrida who says, texts are not about the world, they're about other texts. Buddhism has had this view for centuries.

[40:35]

So the koan says, hey, I'm the world, you can live in this world. This is not a description of the world, this is the world. What's going on in your mind right now is not a description of your world, it is your world. It doesn't mean you can't change. Or you can't do, but you change your language by changing. And if you don't change your language, you really can't change. It's very hard to change unless you change your language. Because language is an addictive glue. It's very sticky.

[41:47]

And it gets you into something which you've got to kind of go along with it or your world falls apart. So it's very hard to change what you exclude from your world or the addictive or neurotic patterns of your world because they're part of the glue that holds your world together. Before seminar, I always ask people, what should I talk about? And since Beate organized this, I of course asked her. She said, well, I'd like you to talk about such and such, and I've in fact already described that in the announcement. Yes, I have to take the role. So I try to do it.

[42:49]

So, But I gave her the title, so you know, she didn't change it much. She didn't change it at all. But one of the things she suggested is the Eightfold Path as a stream. And she's quite right. The Eightfold Path is a stream. The eightfold stream. So your views flow into your intentions, flow into your speech, flow into your conduct, flow into your livelihood, become how you focus your effort or energy, and become concentration.

[44:00]

I'm seeing if she knows the Eightfold Path. I'm never sure if I know it actually. You had the chance to look it up. But I didn't. Anyway, so through concentration, through the kind of experience using you as an example again that you had waking up in the morning. You change your view slightly and then the stream continues. The new view goes into your intentions, into your speech, into your conduct, etc. Mm-hmm. begins to change how you think of your livelihood, etc.

[45:29]

So when we say stream in Buddhism, we mean stream, not a brook running through a forest. A brook? A brook is a small river stream. But we mean something that's experienced like a stream. It's not just a metaphor. It's an experience of a stream. You know, not a brook running through a forest. A brook? A brook is a small river stream. But we mean something that's experienced like a stream. It's not just a metaphor. It's an experience of a stream. So again, language is a medium in which you live.

[46:44]

By language, I don't mean just German or English. I mean all the ways in which we notice the world. And all the ways we notice the world have a kind of grammar that goes along with it. So we could say changing your views could be described as also changing the grammar. of how you see the world. So this is why I think the horizontal lineage is so important now at this stage of our practice together. Because when you start speaking this new language, these new views, this new grammar with each other, you're developing your own understanding in the process.

[47:59]

We develop a language by using a language. You can't develop this language very far all by yourself. So it's really important to me that you talk with each other. And that you practice with each other. And that sometimes you see each other socially and do things and feel a little difference in the way you do something socially. Okay. Now the problem with this sense of the human being as a double, the Western metaphysical tradition,

[49:25]

The trouble from the Buddhist point of view is that we have a metaphysical inherited philosophical bias to say the soul is more real. Material reality, phenomenal reality is less real. The material world speaks a language about the true world, but it is not the true world itself. The soul speaks the true world. The soul speaks the language of reality. It speaks reality, not German.

[50:37]

Not English. And it speaks a universal language to all humans. And all humans either know this soul or they're damned. But from the point of view of Buddhism, the important thing is that we have a bias to treat the soul as more real than the physical. And some of this comes out in the disguised form or a kind of flavor that goes along when people speak of the heart. They think they mean, oh, the heart is more real than the mind or thinking. But there's a flavor there of the heart is somehow almost like speaking about the soul or the spirit. That the heart is somehow more real.

[51:49]

But the word in Japanese and Chinese for heart means both heart and mind as one experience. So now the interdependence of everything, the Buddhist teaching of the interdependence of everything means that everything is equally real. Not one thing is realer than another. Doesn't mean we're all interdependent and yet somehow the soul or the heart or some essential reality is realer than the other parts.

[52:53]

So in this koan all this talk about difference and duck's legs and crane's legs and what levels, etc. is a way of speaking within the larger language that everything is equally real and there's no hierarchy. Now, when you create hierarchy, I think the best, only example I can think of that's good is this, you know, in a painting how you use a vanishing point to control the perspective. You know, the vanishing point where you draw a picture and everything goes back to that vanishing point.

[53:54]

The vanishing point is a form of controlling reality. When you think there's a hierarchy somewhere, or you see everything from your perspective, then everything fits together very tightly. And you get very tightly hooked into the world. You can't follow this statement of Wittgenstein's, letting truth happen is more than knowing something. You're always afraid things are going to get out of control. and because everything is something else because everything is a description of something else your identity spills out into these descriptions and if the descriptions aren't tied into the vanishing point which is your ego

[55:17]

You can get tremendously anxious all the time. Because your identity is stuck out there in the phenomenal world which your life is only a description of. And one little thing at your job or in your school can make tremendous anxiety because it shakes up the whole picture, which is very tied together. The practice of relaxation means You don't even have to be enlightened. No strategies of self-improvement are needed. Yes, at some practical levels, yes. The level of who you are and how you exist, no.

[56:41]

You can let the world be loose. The parts move loosely among each other. They're not tied into some vanishing point perspective. I wouldn't even say, though it's useful to say, each thing is its own center. But even that's a form of control. It's better than thinking you're the center. It's very freeing to come to the point of letting each thing be its own center. The center is everywhere. You don't have to think the koans are about something else. The koans are something else. You aren't about something else, you are.

[57:41]

The source is everywhere. So you can let loose of the world. Let the world be loose. It's one of the deepest sources of anxiety for us. We don't trust the world that much. We want to trust the soul or something realer than the world. But The world may not be that trustworthy, but it's the only thing you got. So you can be suspicious of it or trustworthy, but at a fundamental level, you disappear into this world.

[58:47]

So better than saying everything has its own center, maybe if you have to have a way, a language for it which helps, It might be better to say, no center, no circumference. You can look at each thing. No center, no circumference. Then you're really out of control. You don't have a center, you don't have a center, no center, no circumference. It's all moving. This is what means. Everything is changing. Everything is interdependent. Okay. The last thing I'd like to do is talk a little bit about this idea of knowing as is presented in the koan.

[60:19]

Okay, so let's take these flowers. I don't know if I can give you a feeling for what I mean, but I will try. Now I've talked in the past about direct perception. And there's, that's a very, very important practice and there's a tape on it and you know, you can listen to it if you want. You can practice direct perception of the tape. But now I want to look at this sense of floating on the wings of identity in the fields of perception.

[61:25]

And and explore a little bit why this koan is talking about knowing. Can I look at these flowers without language? Almost impossible not to. Because if I choose to look at the flowers instead of the floor, I'm making a choice between the floor and the flowers. That choice is a kind of language. And if I look at them, I think, oh, they're flowers. Or they're beautiful. Or I'm supposed to like them.

[62:27]

Or I do like them. Whatever is the kind of language that's going on. So it says here, and you don't have to look it up, I'll just mention it. It says here, in the eyes it's called knowing love. In the eyes it's called seeing, in the ears it's called hearing. Okay. So this is actually a prescription. These are prescriptions. This is a prescription for practicing. Okay. And it also talks about here... a phrase which covers everything. And it says that it talks about not knowing and knowing. And so forth. So in Zen, this isn't something... sketchy of it, you actually practice with the word knowing.

[63:45]

Or the feeling of knowing. So you're looking at these flowers and there's a lot of language, subtext language going on. So you very practically following the koan, change the seeing into the word or feeling, word or feeling, knowing. So you look at the flowers and you say to yourself, like a little mantra, knowing. Or whatever the word, the feeling that accompanies the word knowing, you have that feeling as you look at the flowers, knowing. And the word will affect how your eyes are on the flowers. In the eyes it's called seeing. In the eyes it's looking at something and saying, knowing.

[65:10]

This kind of changes the language. It simplifies the language. And you have a certain sense of these flowers with just looking at them with the feeling of knowing. Just this is it. And that's a little meditation practice or expanding the language of seeing. Because you're seeing with a recognition that when you see something, you think you know it. Or you have the feeling that you're seeing is only a description of it or it's not really it or something. So all those attitudes are brought together by looking at something and feeling, seeing, knowing. And then after a few minutes or the next day, you look at the flowers or whatever you wanted.

[66:30]

This paper cup, if you like. And you look and you say, not knowing. Not knowing. And another kind of relaxation occurs in your body, seeing and not knowing. Yeah, not knowing. Not knowing. You give the descriptions away, you give everything away. And you're seeing the flowers, and yet there's a feeling of not knowing. I'm really letting go of the world.

[67:32]

You know, I mean you're so not knowing that you don't need enlightenment or anything. This not knowing is a functional description of emptiness. So, not knowing. Maybe you can feel a kind of ease come into your body, such a relief not to know. So the koan says not knowing is nearest. But it actually means nearest, they're both near. You're beginning to be able to see without knowing or seeing with knowing, but seeing the language on the seeing.

[68:34]

And then it says here, but this not knowing itself spontaneously creates a pattern. So that means even the enlightenment, even not knowing, even emptiness creates another pattern. Another language. And then how do you let that pattern dissolve? So now we've gone from seeing things in their particularity, seeing colors, seeing form, seeing the interdependence of these flowers, the cloud, rain, and the flowers.

[69:47]

And we're seeing the flowers from the point of view of the four noble truths. And from the vijnana, the sense fields. And now we've moved to seeing within the language of seeing itself. With hierarchies or no hierarchies. With senses of knowing or not knowing. With senses of knowing in our body or senses of knowing in our mind. Then with senses of not knowing. Then even seeing a pattern in the not knowing. Then it says, just hold to the moment before the thought arises. This becomes even a subtler form of meditation, which is that you see it before even the thought of not knowing arises. And then you hold that for a moment and then you put it to one side.

[71:00]

So there's a whole language right here in this koan of how you join the world and take the charge out of dualism. This is an extraordinary view of the human being. And this is just like, you know, Dr. Buddha's prescription. Written out in a handwriting you can barely read. And you give it to the Buddhist pharmacist and he says, well, you do this and you do this and you do this. And then you even let go of that.

[72:00]

And the whole world becomes medicine. So now I think it's time for the medicine of a break. Thanks for being so patient. And afterwards I would like you to have a break and come back from the break and get in groups of about eight or maybe Six or eight or so people, nine people apiece. And let's continue yesterday's discussion, but in smaller groups. So let's have about a 20-minute break and then continue the discussion, and I'll join in the groups if I can to some extent. Thank you very much.

[73:07]

What if we should go to lunch, right, in a few minutes? What if you went out and asked somebody where the nearest Greek restaurant was? And they said, the main road to the Greek restaurant is seven ways across and eight ways up and down. You probably wouldn't have lunch. But that's, of course, how this koan begins.

[74:10]

What is the great way to the capital? Or to enlightenment? Or whatever your goal is. As the koan says, seven ways across and eight ways up and down. It gives you some idea of what the path is in Buddhism. Where are you right now and where are you going? Also, I think it's useful to recognize that the koan is a story. This philosophy, this teaching, this worldview is always presented in koans as a story. A story might be very short. You could build a whole play around the story, but it's very short.

[75:23]

But it's still a story. So I would ask you, I'm thinking of doing a seminar next year called Koan Study and the Telling of Stories. So I'd like you to think, I think it'd be helpful for you to think about questions like, why am I practicing? What is my motivation? Think of it as a story. And if you found for yourself a phrase which has turned you the way Ulrike was turned by letting truth happen is more than knowing something. You might think of it as a story.

[76:30]

What is your story that allowed this phrase to work? What is the story of how this phrase came to be noticed by you? And I think part of this discussion among ourselves, you can recognize as you're telling each other your story. Your story of how you happened to be on your pilgrimage. And how we happened to be on a pilgrimage together. Okay. So, you know, it's once time... So let's listen to the sound of the bell instead of meditating or as a meditation.

[77:48]

In the ears, it's called hearing. So I'll see you at three o'clock? Thank you. And it's a little sleepy to do Zazen after lunch. Well, we have... A couple hours, two hours or two and a half hours. Before I go back to America and never see you, no, not see you until next year.

[79:21]

So what should we do, go out to a disco? Is there one on right now? We could make our own. So what would you like to do for the next 60 or 90 minutes? I would like to ask you a question, at least one question. Why not? Why not? This morning we were talking about the world we are creating by our language. And I was sitting here and said he dislikes generally talking this way because when we say Well, this is your view, and this is your view, and this is my view. We immediately create the idea that there is something absolute behind all these different views, as far as I understand. You got the point?

[80:26]

Once more. No, no, I understand. Yeah, you want to say it in Deutsch? We talked about it this morning, that we create the world in which we live with the language. And then Ulrich made a remark afterwards, when we were sitting together, that he doesn't like to come into such conversations in general, where you say, well, this is your point of view, and for you it looks like this, and I see it differently, because in this display of different kinds of views, you basically think along the lines of, there is an absolute behind all these different views, or the world itself. That's it. So, but also, sometimes at least, some Zen teachers, they are speaking of original mind or the original things.

[81:27]

So I wanted to ask you whether you think of, from your view, there is something original or authentic or natural, let me simply say it, or if there is... I think it's all made up by ourselves. Maybe, of course. Well, I did my absolute best to say that there was absolutely no absolute behind any absolute. I thought I was absolutely convincing, but I guess I absolutely wasn't. The whole point is there's nothing behind this.

[82:53]

That's the point of this story of Yunyan and Dao. One of the many koans I keep presenting to you. Yunyan is sweeping. Da Wu says, what are you doing here? You're awfully busy. And Yun Yan says, you should know there's no place to go and nothing to do. Oh no, that's not what he says. Yun Yan says, you should know there's one who is not busy. And so Dawu says, aha, then there's a double moon. Which means like a reality behind a reality or Plato's ideal forms or something.

[83:55]

And Yunyan holds up his broom and says, here's Plato for you. No, he didn't say that. He said, is this a double moon? So, you know, Ulrike brought up, and also, just to say, Gary Schneider, the last time he saw his teacher, before his teacher died, the teacher's last words were to him. There's zazen and sweeping the temple. And no one knows how big the temple is. Ulrike brought up an interesting point, which was usually, well, you can say the point about, you know, why do I have to tell you what you said, and so you translate it about reality and language.

[85:06]

Yes, what I noticed about the lecture this morning is that, as Richard described it, for me it is more the other way around. So that I have always kept the language for real or for absolute in my life and not I became aware that it is a description of the world. For me, the way in practice is to become aware that I always use a language and that a language is always a description. And then, as the next step, maybe at some point, to make the change, to say, ah, this is a description of the world, but the only way to live that I have is not in the description, but in the language as my world. And he presented it rather in such a way that it is natural for us that the language that we use, that we are all clear about it, that it is a description. And that's how it is, that's how I don't see it.

[86:09]

Okay. Sounds good from here. You know, they've done... The book was done a while ago. I can't remember. It's got a kind of great title in which it shows how much... When you say a simple sentence, no matter how clear it is, To actually understand that sentence requires many unstated assumptions. And the trouble with what I'm talking about is, no matter how clear I try to be, It's very difficult to understand unless we've also come to share the same assumptions that are behind it or implied in the sentence.

[87:16]

Or rather, that are not in the sentence, but taken for granted by me. And if you have other assumptions that are taken for granted, you're going to hear the same sentence differently. So it takes quite a lot of work. To do this. To change our vocabulary, our views, our vows, our visions. And as Herman pointed out last night, it can become very exhausting if only one thing begins to change the way you look at things, you get real tired. Because most of our energy is tied up, not in activity, or expended in activity, but tied up in our views. Some Zen master was asked, what do we need?

[88:31]

He said freedom and intent. I might say freedom, ease and intent. Freedom means no energy tied up in views. You're not controlled by descriptions of the world. If you have that and you also have intent, The world is your oyster. But you're about to throw back into the ocean so it doesn't get hurt. So I would say that the way we, responding to Arika's statement, is that the assumption we make or tends to be made by particularly unreflective people is that there is one language

[89:45]

which describes one real world. And because this one language accurately describes this one real world, we can believe our language. So in a sense, Ulrike is right. The first step is to say, hey, these are just words. They're not the world. What did you say these words are? are just words, they're not the world. They're just a description of the world. So that's expressed in something like, don't take the finger for the moon. We're looking, you know, the finger is not, the sutras are not the moon.

[91:09]

The sutras are not the enlightenment. But the more subtle teaching in Zen and in Buddhism is you can guess what. The finger is the moon. As Dogen puts it, You can eat painted cakes. Because sometimes sutras are compared to painted cakes that you can't eat. OK. So Buddhism's view is more like this. In Japanese restaurants they're the menu.

[92:22]

They're outside the restaurant and when you order you think, that looks good, I'll have that and your mouth starts to water already and you go and order it. But you've never eaten. Depends what you mean by eating. You see, that assumes that real cakes you can eat. Anyway. There's no question, as this koan tries to say, is you don't put crane's legs on a duck. You don't put sand in your gas tank. Okay, so Buddhism would say that there is... Language and thought are one of many descriptions about many worlds.

[93:44]

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