how he or she is enlightened, because they were enlightened by accident. And then there's Bodhisattvas and Buddhas to make ten. Now what's interesting about this Buddhist way of looking at it, it's a little bit like, you know, when you If we had some dogs here in this room. A chow. And a Doberman Pinscher. And maybe a dachshund. and a collie and they're all quite different we say they're all dogs but they're obviously very different but we human beings we look quite alike and that

[01:04]

the degree to which we look alike fools us. Because some of us are dachshunds and some of us are childs. If you look more carefully, some of us are Doberman pinchers and some Russian wolfhounds. So, Anyway, Buddhism has this idea that if you look carefully, some of us are beasts and some of us are demons and some of us are humans and some of us are disciples. So there's these ten realms of which we find ourselves in. Now, it's not only understood that we are maybe predominantly in one of the other realms. But each of us is in all ten realms.

[02:16]

So within each realm, there's the ten realms. So that even in the realm of hell, there's a Buddha... and a bodhisattva, a disciple. So even if you're in hell, there's a Buddha for you in hell. So it's like that. So that makes ten realms, ten in each, that makes a thousand or a hundred or something, a lot. I think it makes a thousand. And then each of these realms, these thousand realms occur in your skandhas. And they occur in the spatial world.

[03:19]

And they occur in the environment. So it's thought that there's these three thousand realms we live in. And we move in and out of them being more like a beast sometimes, more like a human sometimes, and more like a bodhisattva sometimes. So it's not so much a psychology of dealing with our story, but dealing, seeing when our nature is bestial or when it's demonic and so forth. And the way of looking at it is not psychological in the sense that it looks at our life history, but simply to recognize when our nature is more animalistic, more demonic, more human and so on. Zen Buddhism particularly emphasizes not only a mind of clarity and light but also a mind of utter darkness.

[04:40]

So through practice we achieve a mind of calmness and clarity and that mind, the greater we rest in stillness, calmness and clarity, there's a radiance to this mind. Again, we may taste sometimes like we spoke in Castle of the perfect moment, in a perfect moment. But also emotions. Now it's hard for me to say much about emotions. Because they can't be studied the same way as the patterns of mind can be studied.

[05:53]

Because emotions occur between the patterns and around the patterns. But we can begin to see them directly when we have calmness and clarity. We can begin to see the pattern, we can begin to really feel directly the pain when we are calm and still. And we can begin to shape that pain by the attitude of mind, the pattern of mind we place, we put in place. Now, mind has the... the quality of a single thought shapes the whole of mind.

[07:10]

So even if you have the thought of a mind free of thoughts, this one thought shapes all of mind. When you have even a single thought, That shapes the whole of mind. So the power of emotion is, we could say, the single thought of enlightenment the recognition of our deep connectedness to the point where it's feeling and not thought and this opens us to the power of feeling or emotion.

[08:16]

From this we could say Buddhism is a calling out of the darkness. calling, I would say a calling even out of our ancient past. This is kind of almost like a yogic tube going back into our most ancient human life. Which we ourselves are sitting here doing just like they did three thousand years ago. By beginning to find a mind of calmness and stillness and clarity, we begin to feel the mind between these and pain is often the first taste of it because we can study it so clearly.

[09:30]

But feeling mind free of patterns This we call not brightness or light, but utter darkness. This is a deep darkness. feeling of knowing knowing our connectedness with the past and the present and the future. We can't say it's anything conceptual, it's just a deep knowing. Emotions now return to their root in caring. All emotions are rooted in caring.

[10:50]

You care about something. You're not angry unless you care about something. So when emotions are in the patterns of mind and the confines of self, they become anger or this or that. When you feel these emotions more directly, Outside of the patterns of mind, it's a deep knowing of our ancient human life. Do the sages of antiquity Is there some truth of which they have not spoken?

[11:57]

Okay, thank you very much. oh oh It is not possible for us to work in this way.

[13:07]

Satsang with Mooji kare ma ken no jiji suru koto etari negawa kuwa nyorai no shinjitsu ni o keshitate matsuran I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I love hearing you chant, hearing us chant in German.

[17:19]

Yeah. But I wish so many of you weren't sick. Yeah. Some of you are sick, I know, and you're hiding it. So there's more sick people here than you realize. Yeah. And Guni, you must be feeling better. Oh, good. Not perfect yet, huh? Was this a good hospital? Was your room okay? Okay. So, maybe Sushin's a good place to come to get sick. Hopefully we take care of each other well. But I hear a lot of people in Germany are sick, so... There's some kind of flu or cold going around.

[18:29]

Anyway. So we cough together and chant together. I forgot yesterday. I said there's four sufferings rooted in the body and four in the mind or in the emotions. And I forgot one. It's the pain of separation from a loved one. The pain or suffering caused by envy and hate. And usually fourth is listed, the activity of the self. And the third is the frustration of one's life goals. Why do you laugh? This is an important problem.

[19:30]

It has the sense of, again, the Greeks had this sense too, that a moral virtue is to know what's due to you. To know, for instance, if you have a capacity of a poet, But you live in an age in which poetry is not appreciated. This would be a frustration of one's goals. Or if you live in our society, where in many ways there are so many opportunities, but the opportunities often dear to our heart are not there. And I think, of course, in recent decades, Europe and America too have lived through periods which crushed people's hopes and ideals.

[20:50]

Now I'm trying to understand what I've been talking to you about, especially yesterday. and I try to understand what I tried to talk to you about yesterday. There's a koan which I said I would try to get to. This comes from the Blue Cliff Records, number 88. Schwansha, it's about Schwansha, who is quite an interesting fellow. As usual, often we don't know too much about him.

[22:13]

But what we do know sounds probably right. He lived in the middle of the 9th century in the Tang Dynasty. As I said before, a kind of modern period, our so-called modern period exists in various periods in history. And their sensibility in poetry and philosophy and interests were... close to our own. Anyway, supposedly he lived rather, it's not clear, but until he was about 30, he used to fish on a river regularly, but he wasn't a fisherman. He just did it because he enjoyed it. Probably like many of us, we don't know what to do with ourselves until we're 30, so we might as well go fishing.

[23:32]

So it says in his biography that he associated with fisher folk. It says in his biography that he associated with fishing people. It says, strangely, that at 30 he decided to give up his hook and his boat. And he shaved his head and joined a sangha. And actually he Eventually was the disciple of Xue Fang, a famous teacher, sometimes in Japanese called Seppo.

[24:38]

Anyway, one of the great Zen teachers, and he was one of Sukershi's favorites. But they were Dharma brothers, Xue Fang and Xuanzhe. But basically Xuansha seems to have related to Xue Feng as his teacher even though they were Dharma brothers. Yeah, yeah. It's not important. One guy related to the other guy. It would be a little bit like we're all here in our Dharma Sangha. But some of you might feel, for example, a practice affinity with Geralt. And Gerald would be in effect your teacher, even though you're practicing with me.

[25:47]

And you might wait till I... What do we say in English? Kick the bucket. And then you would become a disciple of Karal Singh. No, you might not wait. And it might happen because you traveled together or started practicing together or corralled left to go to Elephant Bone Crag Mountain. Bone Crag Mountain. Crag is a You're part of a peak of a mountain.

[26:56]

A craggy... We have some creativity here. Well, that's what... Shui Fung did leave and he went to Elephantbone Crag Mountain and Xuanzha went with him and helped him establish a temple. It's kind of encouraging that he started at 30 because some of us are starting practicing not so young.

[28:03]

And he was known as the ascetic because he just wore simple robes and sat a great deal. And was very relaxed in his sitting. Things didn't seem to bother him. Yeah. And Xue Fang used to call him the ascetic. One day, He said, ascetic Pei, are you ascetic Pei? And Pei answered, I would never dare not to reveal the truth. And Pei answered, I would never dare not to reveal the truth.

[29:06]

A rather clever answer. Without having to say, I am such and such a person. So one day Shui Feng said to him, how come you're just always here and you don't travel and visit other teachers? And Pei said, Bodhidharma never came to China. And the second patriarch, second ancestor, never went to India. Shui Fang liked this answer. I have actually a scroll from... What's his name? Who taught us, whose monk, whose nun, disciple, taught us how to make robes and cases. No, no, his disciple.

[30:07]

A nun taught us how to make these. Anyway, I have a scroll painted. He painted a stick like this. And then underneath it, it says, Bodhidharma did not come to China. The second patriarch did not come to India. Now, this is a kind of phrase which we say in Zen, don't die in the words. Because, you know, this is a funny statement because Bodhidharma did come to China. And the second patriarch never planned to go to India. So one half is false and the other half is sort of true.

[31:21]

But anyway, it's a good answer if somebody said, how come you're always at Johanneshof? Luki Roshi never came to America. And Richard Baker, he never went to India. Not that I'm the second patriarch. So why not just stay here at Johannesburg? But there's another version of the story, which is... when Shui Fung did say to him, why don't you do some traveling? As he was leaving, he stumbled on a stone. And he exclaimed, Bodhidharma never crossed over. And the second patriarch didn't receive transmission.

[32:31]

And this is his enlightenment statement. But you can understand, in a way, this kind of statement is quite wonderful. Because we have some idea of enlightenment or improving ourselves or something like that. Or hardly knowing what Enlightenment must be because it's so glamorized. No, we think being Buddhists we should want it. And sometimes we have a genuine feeling of wanting some change or something like that. Some deep change.

[33:34]

And yet we want that change, we desire that change in terms of our usual way of thinking and feeling. And what we mean by enlightenment doesn't occur in the realm of our usual thinking and feeling. It occurs by a change in your... your view of the world. So he said, he expressed his enlightenment by saying Bodhidharma didn't realize enlightenment nor did the second patriarch receive transmission. Anyway, Xuanzang was this kind of guy. Yeah. So he used to say quite often to his sangha, there are

[34:43]

The old adepts are always trying to help people, benefit people. This was at a time when it's said all the teaching schools, all the monasteries looked to each other. It would be as if we are practicing here in Germany. Look to Ayakema's group. And Sogyal Rinpoche's group. And they looked at us occasionally too. Because Buddhism was developing in China at the time. And it was a confused period at that time too.

[35:58]

Because China was being flooded by all these translated texts. And no one knew quite what to make of them. Because some of them looked like they were so different from the early Buddhist texts. And yet they were said to be the word of Buddha. And it's only actually Western scholarship with its philological methods which have allowed us to really determine when these sutras were written. And it's clear the Mahayana texts were written hundreds of years after the Buddha died. But not only were all these texts coming in which people couldn't see how they related to each other,

[37:00]

But there were many corrupt and spurious fake sutras being presented. So there was an effort during that time for people to try to work out which were the true texts and which were not. Which were valid words of Buddha and which were true sutras and not something somebody made up. And some things were being written in China and then translated back into Sanskrit and then re-translated into Chinese so they looked like they'd come from India.

[38:17]

And in fact, as I pointed out in the past, the Heart Sutra seems to be just such a case. It actually was written in China, a Yogacara text written in China that they pretended was a prajnaparamita text. So, you know, there was all this, what's the true teaching going on? And what the true practice, they were wondering, how do you practice these things? And again, as I've mentioned, there was an immense effort of huge, huge sort of Buddhist think tanks trying to figure out what each word meant and how you practiced it and so forth.

[39:19]

So in the Tang Dynasty there were these monasteries and they were often located quite near each other. And things were just coming into Chinese, so how do you say them in Chinese? So people actually paid attention to what different teachers did and how they said certain things and how they practiced certain practices. And I think... For sure, in the foreseeable decades, we'll be doing the same thing.

[40:25]

Foreign Europe and America, we're trying to find out which of the Buddhist schools are most appropriate for us in the West. And which teachings and practices work the best for us? And what teachers have found a way to present the practices or found a language for the practices that works for us? And teachers like Trungpa Rinpoche have a great gift for presenting the teachings in English so that they make sense to it. So anyway, this kind of ferment is going on now.

[41:32]

and will for the next decades. In the middle of the ninth century, the same kind of thing was going on. By the way, I spoke to Angelica today, and she told me she just noticed it. We were first time here in 1990, Dharma Sangha, in November just now. It's been seven years I've been looking at these knots for inspiration. So when he said the old adepts are always trying to aid and benefit people, he's making reference to all the other teachers in nearby places who are trying to find ways to make Buddhism something we can practice.

[43:05]

So he said, suppose such a teacher meets someone who's blind. They may hit the... lift up the gavel. That's what you... like the clackers. They may lift up the clackers. Or the whisk. But the blind person couldn't see it. How would they teach him? Or suppose they meet a deaf person. He can't hear the words of Tesho. How do you teach such a person? And suppose one of these old adepts meets a person who's mute.

[44:09]

Who can't speak. How do we teach such a person? So he asked this question regularly. What about a blind person, a deaf person, a mute person? How do you teach them? And one person came to him and said, I hear you always tell this story about a blind person, a deaf person, a mute person. And Chi Chang said, I have eyes, ears, nose, tongue. How will you teach me? And... Swanshya approved of this, but didn't say anything.

[45:21]

Yeah. So, you know, you can see there was this kind of exploring practice, really much like we're doing. Yeah, Yan Min heard of this story. Someone came to him and told him that Xuanzha says this. And this monk asked Yan Min, what do you have to say about this story of Xuanzha's? And this was the typical, actually, of teachers to take a few stories and repeat them over and over again so that people could go into it in depth. So Xuanzhe was known for this story. And this monk presented it to young men.

[46:36]

So young men said bow. And the monk bowed. And then young men poked him with a stick. And the monk backed up. And he said, see, you're not blind. And the monk didn't know what to say, but the young man said, come closer. So he came closer, and the young man said, see, you're not deaf. And so a young man said to him, do you understand? And the monk said, I don't understand. And the young man said, see, you're not mute.

[47:37]

Anyway, he had some realization, of course, you know. Of course, he had some realization. As I can tell, all of you, well, most of you just did. Some of you are resisting, I can tell. So, you know, there's various kinds of commentary in the koan. There's various kinds of commentary. There's various commentary in the... It starts out with, our methods of the school, the methods of our school are clear. We break two into three. And it also says, and... And break the golden chains and hidden barrier.

[48:55]

The golden chains means a good practice. In other words, you have good practice, you're following the precepts, you've realized stillness, clarity, and so forth. In the sense that you realize these things are called, not just regular chains, but golden chains. And it says, some people see many things, but don't see. And hear many things, but don't hear. And it also says that There's a kind of little poem in the old Zen saying in this koan.

[50:14]

Although it fills the eyes, although it fills his eyes, he doesn't see. Although it fills his eyes, he doesn't see forms. Although it kills his ears, he doesn't hear sound. Manjushri covers his eyes. Avalokiteshvara covers her ears. So, you know, Manjushri is the bodhisattva of wisdom and is supposed to see things very clearly. And Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva who hears the cries of the world. And so, but Avalokitesvara covers her ears. So we have this kind of story.

[51:27]

And what do we make of it? How do you teach a blind person, a deaf person, a mute person? Now, Anyway, I want to make some comment about this. So I've been presenting to you the dhatus and ayatanas. And these are all based on the senses. What comes in through the senses. And you know, I know a contemporary Japanese Roshi who I like quite a bit.

[52:37]

You know, I mean, I like him a lot, actually. And I admired his practice and his spirit. He's quite a powerful presence. And also a very sweet guy. Yeah, that kind of match. But, you know, when he teaches, he says things like, we really have to know the now. The now is how we realize nirvana. He says things like that. Everything is how we enter into this present moment. And you know, this is true.

[53:38]

But this kind of teaching, and I'm not criticizing him, this is just the usual Japanese way of even very good teachers to teach. I don't know if it really gives people a sense of how you enter the now, what is the present or the now. Now, if you're in a situation where there's a great deal of common Buddhist culture and and people practicing together in a monastic situation, this works very well. But if you don't know what you're doing, and you're not in that kind of situation, I don't know that my experience is it doesn't help people too much.

[54:52]

So I think it's useful to go back to the effort these people, at the time they were compiling the koans, Because the koans are not the fruit of... What can I say? The koans were a stage in Chinese Buddhism where they were trying to figure out how to develop the teaching. And so the koans are mostly about the pioneers. Yeah, there are few koans from much later periods.

[55:57]

Because it was the experience of these initial people which, attempting to discover practice, developed practice. So going back to those folks, they really tried to say, what is this now? So they explored these things like the Datus and Ayatana and so forth. Because... This gives you an entry into the mind or this present moment that arises in your consciousness. The sense, the understanding that consciousness is not just there as a permanent thing, it arises on each moment. As it said, the Big Bang, supposedly, did not

[57:07]

expand into a container of space. The Big Bang generated space. Space expanded with the expansion. It didn't expand into space. And that same way of looking at it is the way Buddhism sees mind. In other words, we're generating a Sashin mind right now. An individual Sashin mind and a mutual Sashin mind. And we could even say that the non-graspable feeling we have

[58:20]

that's present in this machine that's been developing and changes moment by moment is a kind of our experience of this space or this mind we generate. And in this sense, impermanence means the experience of the uniqueness of each moment. Impermanence is uniqueness. As I always say, I look at Ingrid, And something unique is there. Christina, something unique is there. And I look back at Ingrid and it's different, something unique. A different unique. So each moment is impermanent and can also be understood as unique. And if you don't experience moment after moment uniqueness, if you do not experience

[59:46]

the uniqueness of moment after moment, then impermanence is just an intellectual idea that isn't affecting you deeply. What exists here is unique, unique, unique, unique. This is what the present moment is. Appearing and disappearing. In fact, this is what it is. Hmm. Yeah. And we notice that uniqueness when we... A way to notice that uniqueness is to notice this meeting of the three.

[60:56]

The organ of perception, the object of perception, and the field of mind. As I say, you can practice with the language just this. Just this is the movement, the direction of acceptance. Just this as it is. Then give yourself a pause. And then say, thus. And thus is mind arising. So you can use such a phrase to bring yourself back forward into this uniqueness. Just this. So this would be practicing with a phrase that acknowledges the ayatanas and And it says in the koan, is the tree coming into you or are you coming into the tree?

[62:26]

This is again looking at it from the point of view of the two entry points. So these vijnanas and ayatanas and dhatus give you the means to create a phrase that allows you to notice this unique and permanent. And through the Vijñānas even see the karma, the associative memory that arises with it. Okay. So these guys in these monasteries in Tang Dynasty China were exploring these things and asking each other questions.

[63:44]

This very mind is Buddha and it's Matsu. And another time he said, this very mind is not Buddha. So this is, again, this effort to see how do we exist. Yeah, and so Schwansha brought his own contribution to this dialogue. How to teach a mute person, a blind person, a deaf person. Now, all of these, the things I've mentioned, the dhatus, ayatanas, etc., are the root of percepts and concepts.

[65:00]

And the percepts and concepts arise from the structure of the mind. So Schwantz's point is, Concepts and percepts are based on the senses are based on the structure of the mind. And the structure of the mind is not what the world is. The structure of the mind is just a way of looking at the world. So how do you look past the structure of the mind? So this is Swansha's teaching. See, but don't look to the senses for seeing. Hear, but don't hear the forms of sound.

[66:08]

He means, how can you be mute deaf and blind, to see but not to be caught by forms. In a very simple way, it's a lot like my having made until recently at least a decision not to learn German. When I'm in America, I have to always take away the English when I look at people. Here I don't have to take away the German to look at you. It's already gone. It's changing.

[67:10]

I'm beginning to hear things now. It's embarrassing. But I look at you and you're just bright. I see your brightness, your energy, your eyes, and I don't have to know anything about you. Great. So how, Schwanshase was saying, how do we take away the forms of the mind to truly see? So it's a step in the dialogue of trying to understand how you use the dhatus and ayatanas to bring you into the present. bring you into the present. So the present appears to you through the structures of the mind But the present is not limited to the structures of the mind.

[68:18]

And knowing this is also Zen practice. Thank you very much. I think you should get the straight dope. I think you should get the pure material. Trying to give you a picture of then practice. So when each of you does your small part, which is what practice is, small details, how you stand with your ankles apart, you begin to feel that in the bigger picture of practice. You begin to feel mind arising thus. And you feel the boundaries of the mind in that very arising. And you feel the present rising. pressing in its ancient way on you.

[69:34]

Like that is our practice. Okay.

[69:37]

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