On the one hand, our own, as you said, provisions are there, and on the other hand, also we can, yes, we can develop in certain directions, and this is mentally on order that we are striving at. Okay, anyone say that in Dutch? Yes, I had thought that I would also be able to hear a little more about Oji's experience or spiritual processes at this point of order, because that is very important. Somehow we have our own precepts in our But on the other hand, it is also a path of development that we take.

[01:03]

And yes, there must also be something spiritually applied to it. So not only as food, so organic as food, but also as food. She said we should also just try to achieve something mentally, not just biologically sitting. Well, you may... Well, you may be right. But I myself don't want to achieve anything mentally.

[02:05]

Occasionally, I'd like to be clear. And like this morning, and I'm trying today, I'm trying to be as clear as possible because there's so much muddle around Zen practice, particularly does a dog have a Buddha nature? So some people, I mean, practice this as if they're going to enter a Mu trance. And other people, there's another side to it, it's just you're afraid. I mean, I don't know what this question means, and I know enlightenment's on the other side of it, and I don't have it, and you know, etc.,

[03:10]

So it's kind of scary, you know, can I give the right answer to the mu koan? And of course... Of course, the answer is mu. You can't give the right answer because the answer is mu. So anyway, I'm trying to be clear. It makes bright this mu koan with these doors. You have to swallow it like an iron ball and throw on it and all that. But you really have to try very compulsively to... It's a little bit. Yeah. Deutsch? that one should use this choir every day.

[04:19]

If you worked so hard, you would have swallowed an iron, a glowing ball to swallow it further down. That's how you should work with the choir. That shows the intensity that you have to use to insert the choir. That has a little scary effect on whether your own practice achieves this intensity. Yeah, it makes it sound like we have to be a kind of Zen soldier. Yeah. Spartan Zen soldier, and we want to be laid-back Athenians. Or Apollo. Not Apollo, is it... Who ate grapes. Yeah, this Marcus.

[05:20]

Sure. While we were sitting, Oshie Baker said that we should not correct, but that where the attention goes, we should look where it goes. And if you do it endlessly like that, then I have the feeling that I sit and for 20 minutes or three quarters of an hour I'm in my garden or here and there, and I think, yes, and You said during meditation that we should attend to our attention and just follow it and not correct it, but then I just spent 20 minutes sitting just being all over the place, you know, my garden, this and that, and then you said returning to the basis.

[06:30]

What do you mean with basis? The breath or...? Yeah, it's a problem. Dogen's teacher, Wujing, has a poem in relationship to this Mu Koan. Or a kind of statement. He says, he starts sweeping away your thoughts. And then the more you sweep, the more things there are to sweep. And partly you're flailing the broom around. And at one time the broom explodes. then everything becomes clear he said but there's some truth to this you can't you see

[07:34]

If you try to achieve some mental order or something like that, of course we want a certain amount of mental order or you can't function. But practice is to come to a very free state of mind where you're not trying to establish anything, an effortless state of mind. Or a mind that is free of being pulled this way and that way by thoughts or trying to create order. So if you correct it, then you have the problem of who's correcting it and according to what rules. So if you stop correcting, what do you do? Then you just wander around in your mind, right?

[08:50]

So to put those two things together, is you pay attention to the wandering around. If you try to change the wandering around, then you have the question of culture and ego and stuff, changing things. And it really is a bit like the oxherding pictures of breaking a horse. I mean, after a while of mounting attention or getting on attention almost as if it was a horse,

[09:52]

The horse calms down. And all the time while attention is staying with distraction. Attention itself is developing. And attention itself turns into a kind of stream of awareness that goes through the distraction. You're trying to use the eye to see the eye. Or use consciousness to see consciousness, but not interfere with consciousness. So, you know, that's just the way it is. And do you name it at the same time?

[11:09]

It's like you gave the example of you walking through the world, like naming a car and stuff like that. Yeah, there are various ways to... I'm giving you certain... shall we say, techniques. You've got to find out how to apply them. And you can't do everything at once. That's true. So if you want to practice naming, you practice naming for a while. I said ten minutes or so. But when you While you're doing this, several other things are going on. While you're naming things, actually there's a pattern to what you happen to name.

[12:20]

In other words, if you have two people walking down the street and you could have a little secret tape recorder, and each one has a little tape recorder, This one is saying, store, clerk, beautiful woman, you know, trash, etc. And the friend is walking along saying, sky, clouds, leaves, horses, you know. They've covered the same short distance, but they've definitely noticed different things. And sometimes they'll notice the same things. And if you connect those dots to what you've noticed, there's actually a pattern there, and you begin to see a pattern in what you notice. So there's a pattern there,

[13:23]

of either or, I like or dislike, and then there's a pattern within that of what you notice and also a pattern in what you don't notice. Now, they say a thief returns to the scene of the crime. So when you follow your thoughts, it's a very similar practice to following a thought to its source. Basic practice you can do in meditation. It's hard to do other times, but you can do it other times. Now here I'm again talking basics, mental posture. Here's a thought or a feeling or whatever. Where did it come from? Well, it seems to me I felt that. And then I heard this or something. And after a while you develop a skill, you can actually track any feeling or emotion down to when it first appeared.

[14:52]

It's a very simple and basic psychological skill. You can take it on as a little task and learn how to do it. And it moves you more into the actual present. Most of us are caught in a kind of driftwood of thoughts and we never know how they get onto the beach. Now, one of the things you'll a product of this is like you probably won't have headaches again. Now, why is that? Because almost always a headache arises when there's a certain tension from a thought or something you've noticed.

[15:59]

And usually the time you notice the headache, your head's already hurting, and what caused it is back there 10, 15 minutes or two hours ago. The more you get experienced at following thoughts to the source, the more you're present when things happen. So, say that you notice 10 o'clock in the morning, you notice a gray anxiety. So you notice on some mornings you have this gray anxiety.

[17:01]

So you start trying to track it down. When did I first feel it? I didn't feel it at 7 o'clock, but I felt it at 10 o'clock. What happened between 7 and 10? Do I sound like a nitwit telling this? This is real basic stuff. And at some point you get to say, I saw a person in a gray coat or a green coat. Every time I see a person in a green coat, I start feeling anxious. Now then you can start going into the green coat and my great-grandfather and stuff like that. But if you just notice what causes it and you're present at the moment, you can shift your mind slightly and the anxiety won't start.

[18:04]

Or the headache won't start. But if you're three or four moments down the point, It's too late. Then your mind is already the chemistry, the chemicals are already in place, and it's very hard to change it. And that's one of the reasons, I mean, again, we want to get back before substantiation, because the mind and body is in its most chemically free open state before it substantiates. So the person in the green coat for some reason causes you to feel anxious.

[19:09]

Now, that green coat is rooted in your story. It's also rooted in the act of substantiation. That you give up. Now the word wave comes together. Now the green coat comes together. Now the person comes together. And through that coming together, all kinds of stuff flows into your state of mind. So we say in one of the koans, hold to the mind before thought arises. So hold, rest in the mind before substantiation. So instead of tracking down the green coat in your story, which you can also do, you can also track it down in the process of substantiation.

[20:16]

So, the more your mind can rest, and it is possible to do it, the more your mind can rest. These are your provisions. Rest before thought arises. You can see much more clearly your patterns, what leads to headaches, anxiety, or whatever. And what leads to joy. But what's most interesting is in this mind, before thought arises, there's almost a constant feeling of joy and gratitude. And the happiness that comes after substantiation is a different kind of happiness involved with having or not having, or something good or bad.

[21:49]

Now again, I mean, I know some people would say, well, you don't want to be in a state where we're happy all the time. I mean, we don't see the world. This is kind of pretty stupid. Try it. It's not so stupid, actually. But it's a different kind of happiness. It's not one that excludes unpleasant things, it's just this welling up of a gratitude or acknowledgement which accepts and then looks at it in terms of realistically. And we lose it sometimes, even if you're an adept practitioner, you lose it sometimes, but most of the time it's right there under the surface, welling up. So you're using Mu as a way to see your patterns.

[23:01]

You're seeing what you notice. The pattern in what you notice. And you're also, by using mu, working with desubstantiating or taking the habit of substantiation away. So sometimes you're repeating mu or announcing everything to yourself with mu is working with the habit of substantiation. Sometimes it's working with the either-or addiction. Either-or habit.

[24:02]

Sometimes it's working with feeling the the-ness of the cup rather than the cup-ness of the cup. So this mood changes. Now let me say one more thing since I feel this is so important and central to practice is that this following attention is the way it discloses patterns is clearer in zazen than in ordinary walking around mindfulness practice. And you can take something as a little experiment, say take a tightness in your shoulder or an itch on your cheek. So your attention has come to this tightness in your shoulder, for instance.

[25:33]

So you pay attention to it, and immediately then, let's say, you feel an itch on your cheek. And then you feel some other feeling, and then something down here, maybe. Then you begin to see there's a whole pattern of tightness in this corner of your body that the attention is drawing your attention to. Now you couldn't do anything about the shoulder, but once you see that pattern being revealed, you can suddenly release the whole pattern. So attending to attention begins to reveal patterns in our behavior. And as you gain skill at really following attention, it actually becomes very fine-tuned and begins to reveal the subtle body.

[26:52]

I mean, there's a Zen poem which says, my poverty of last year was not... I can't remember how it goes, but something like, my poverty of last year was not real poverty because a gimlet could still get in, an ice pick or something. Now, he's putting it down, but actually it's the Zen way of praising. a practice where your attention is so fine it's like a little needle, it can see right into how our emotions and feelings work. So first attention, attending attention. Sometimes you're in your garden, sometimes you're in your cheekbone.

[27:56]

But if you stay with it, it becomes more subtle. In addition to showing you your patterns and moving you more into the actual present, It's also developing a background mind that can stay with something in the midst of the distraction. Yes. Well, there's still some difficulty.

[29:40]

I discover when I want to be attentive or follow my attention, it works for a while, and then I notice a certain unwillingness, like I don't want to. And then I stop doing it, and then after a while I start doing it again until my unwillingness sort of stops me again. But then pay attention to your unwillingness. Well, I work with it that I just try to feel out how this unwillingness expresses itself physically, and then when I do that, then it moves. Good. I mean, you have to just play with this, do it yourself. And you have to relax sometimes. And as someone taught me recently in a little dowsing thing, that after you've doused something, you have to stop, take your hands off and shake your hands and go back to the rod.

[30:44]

Otherwise, you're not subtle in the next dowsing. So on the one hand, the resistance may well be the ego saying, hey, you're getting too close to home, cool it. But it may also be simultaneously you need to relax to come back to it with greater clarity. Usually both sides are in things, a negative and positive are both in there and you've got to work with both.

[31:50]

When I do this, I come to an area where I feel very comfortable. It is a very pleasant area where I can cover all things, for example, fear, well-being, etc. But if I continue to give my attention in this direction, then the attention weakens, it is somehow ingrained. I am very close to the dream. The point, and from the dream it quickly goes into the world of thought. And to avoid this point, or not to fall into it, otherwise I sit and dream wonderfully. But I don't know how to deal with it. So how do I get my attention to the point where I am in this area and I have my attention on it, but then I lose it. I come to an area where I just lose it.

[33:06]

My problem is, when I put my awareness to all what's just going on, I come in a space which is very comfortable. It's very nice. But if I go deeper and deeper, I mean, just... then it's very near to a dream state. And at this point, thoughts are coming. And then it can happen to me. I had dreamt of all meditation, to be clear, because I didn't. And the awareness is gone in some way, or the intensity of awareness has gone. And I don't know how to find the point where it turns around into a dream. I'll join you in meditation tomorrow. and show you inside. To notice that is quite a lot.

[34:28]

Now you can ask yourself a question to be present. See if you can be present at that moment of transition. And your practice simply isn't subtle enough to do that yet. So all I can say is practice more. But you're in the territory and that's good. Why not? Might as well be good. And what goes on at that transition and so forth? Dream consciousness is also connected with, sometimes the dog represents that we are all realized.

[35:42]

And sometimes the dog is the more dogged side of our own consciousness. And in that sense, dream consciousness is like many, like opposites are together. Dream consciousness is where we most taste a certain kind of free freedom, mental freedom, and a kind of even enlightenment. But dream is also where our ego and our soul is most deeply embedded. So Zazen moves us into a consciousness that has the flavor of dream, then ego comes up in the dream and begins to function. So see if you can bring into these depths the Mu, and when that happens, say Mu.

[36:52]

Say no. No. You know, I like Zhaozhou. For one thing, he lived to be 120. Let's hope he was... He's the longest-lived Zen master. And let's hope he wasn't just addicted to life. And couldn't let go. But he was a pretty unusual fellow. He first let go when he was 17. And he had a certain humor. And he described that experience at 17 as suddenly ruined and homeless.

[38:06]

It's a good feeling, you know, suddenly ruined and homeless. When he went to meet Nanchuan, his teacher, Nanchuan was in bed. Perhaps was lounging like an Athenian with grapes, I don't know. But he said to... Nanchuan said to him, from where have you been recently? And... I believe in Japanese it's . And the word means auspicious image. Meeting this youngish monk said, where have you been recently? And he said, I come from Suisse.

[39:20]

And Nanchuan said, have you seen the auspicious image? And Nanchuan said, well, what was it? And Jojo said, it was a reclining Tathagata. And so Nanchuan said, do you have a teacher? And so Nanchuan said, Jojo said, I have. And Nanchuan said, who is it? And Zhaozhou went up close to Nanchuan and said, I'm glad you look so well despite the bad cold.

[40:27]

Despite? Despite the bad cold. So Nanchuan accepted him as a student. He's a quite alert fellow. Did you follow the story? Should I say it again? Maybe you don't have to translate. He says, he comes to see Jiaojiao, Nanchuan, and he's lying down. He's got a cold or something. And he says, Nanchuan asks him, where have you been recently? And Joshu says, I've been, I say Joshu, Jaojo, because one's Japanese, one's Chinese. And Joshu says, Zuiso, I've come from Zuiso. And Nanjuan said, have you seen the auspicious image? And Joju said immediately, I've seen you reclining to Thagatai.

[41:30]

meaning the Buddha as thusness lying down. And he said, oh, Nanchuan probably said, hmm, well. Because there's no critical sense. He shouldn't be, he should be sitting up or should be doing something, you know, he shouldn't be sick. He just said, I've seen him reclining Tathagata. So he said, hmm, do you have a teacher? He said, I have, just like that. He said, who is he? He came up close and said, I'm glad you're looking so well despite your bad cold. And Zhaozhou is also famous for, well known for not using the stick and shouting and sparing people 30 blows. He did not use the stick. But they said that light or fire played on his lips. It's easy to light a cigarette, you know. Oh dear, maybe we should sit for a few minutes then go to lunch, huh?

[43:02]

Another kind of practice of working with a question or of using language to free yourself from language. Of using a phrase or words to free yourself from thoughts. This kind of practice always assumes that you're joining a personal question with a practice question. How do you discover your own question? Well, we've heard some. And to form it as a question or a point of attention is very useful.

[44:35]

Like with Hermann, how can I be present at this transition? What is this transition? What's going on at this transition? But to discover your own question you can ask yourself some, have a habit of asking yourself some questions like, what are the facts of your life? Just know what's the inventory facts of your life. And of course, do you want to change the facts or have some other relationship to them?

[45:53]

And the second question, what is most essential to you? And third, you can add a practice question like now, what is Buddha-nature? Does a dog have a Buddha-nature? Does being itself Buddha-nature? How can anything have Buddha nature? Ulrike, when she was young, recognized once that she didn't have a body.

[46:59]

She was or is a body. Dogen emphasized, you don't have Buddha nature. Dogen emphasized, you don't have Buddha nature. If Buddha nature exists, you are Buddha nature. So what can it possibly mean to say, what way am I You can't answer. But you can let your body be it, your mind be it. Especially starting the chemistry by joining it with your own questions. So for this seminar, it's every seminar actually, but let's take this one now.

[48:10]

It's important to find during the seminar your own question. That's first, and then work with a question from the koan. There's a great vitality in noticing what your question is. Of course it changes, but it has a certain consistency over some days or weeks. What is your question? It turns like a gourd under water.

[49:38]

It shines like a jewel. Are you all sufficiently fed? Sleepy? Anything you want to say? Very personal question. So, when we talk about sitting, you have many tips on what possibilities you can control yourself with, with what attention you can go into yourself.

[51:04]

Is there any analogy with which you can't go with a choir? A way or a possibility. If I read with my mind, then it's very fast. Then I go on, I can't read the text. The question is, is there any kind of reading or understanding that is similar to the tips that we have? Well, when you talk about sitting, you give us lots of little hints and pieces of advice how to practice. My question now is, could you do something similar to help us really access the koan or how to work with the koan? Because when I read it, I realize the text really can penetrate the text, and very quickly there's just this wall.

[52:10]

So my question is maybe just some practical advice how to start working with it. That doesn't sound too personal to me. Or it's personal to everyone. Well, this is considered for most people the beginning koan. But it's probably the hardest to understand to the extent that it's understandable. It's the first koan because it's easy to practice and effective if you make this effort. But there's no handles in this koan. Yangshan with his hoe and the people in the fields and the people on South Mountain, these are all actually things we can talk about.

[53:14]

It's a dialogue about different Buddhist teachings and people in the fields, people in South Mountain and so forth. It's a dialogue about different Buddhist teachings or teaching aspects, the people in the fields, the people on the southern mountain. And this can be, I think, usefully pointed out. But this koan really depends on maybe faith. So I guess you just have to be in a context to be willing to do it. Now I've given you some hints this morning about why all this mu or no or yes is related to the larger practice of naming.

[54:31]

And some of the fruits, actually, of naming. But if we look at the koan itself, open to it, Neil, could we have some light, please? Or whoever is in control of the switch. That's good. That's enough, yeah. Whoa! A gourd floating on the water, push it down and it turns.

[55:57]

This is mostly a description of our usual mind. Our self-nature based on thinking. But jewel in the sunlight has no definite shape. This is Buddha nature. Now, one thing it's trying to suggest here by this, actually I think it's a quite wonderful image, is the gourd in the water, the cork or something that you push down, It doesn't have any shape. It keeps moving around. And the jewel in the sunlight, you can't see the facets anymore.

[56:58]

You just see a brightness. And it has no definite shape. So what the koan is starting out with right here in the commentary is that samsara and nirvana share a no definite shape. And that no definite shape is thusness, we can say. So it means you can use the confusion as the basis for realization. You can use the cup.

[58:06]

Cup is the name and the is the no shape. But there's a quality to... I can't make it easy, I'm sorry. But it is easy. But it can't be done. It's like you push on a wall, the wall you mentioned, and you push and you push and suddenly it turns. And you don't know when it will turn. Like when Ulrike had a feeling that I don't have a body, I am a body.

[59:08]

What allows a small shift like that? And sometimes I can say that, or you can hear it. It doesn't mean anything. But sometimes you might hear it, or you might feel something like that, and you can feel something shift in you. And then you remember it. It's like Herman's question. You know, he has quite a good feeling in zazen and then he gets dreamy and something else starts to happen. But one way of practicing is to make each part of that clear.

[60:21]

So when you have the good feeling, to really make that clear and know it with your body so you can recreate it at other times. And really, when the dreamy feeling happens, don't try to get rid of it, just really know that dreamy feeling. So that's a practice of starting here. You don't say, well, the clarity is better than the dreamy feeling. You're not discriminating. Your practice is just to shine a light on everything, including confusion. Now, I'm just talking here, you know. Now I'm trying to give you a feeling of practice.

[61:43]

So you just shine your light on the dreamy feeling and you shine your light on the clear good feeling. And the more you do that, then suddenly the transition becomes clear. But we can't say what will happen. I mean, a shift like that for me was once I told this story before, but I can tell it again. I'm walking along, and I come from lunch. I was working in a warehouse. And I was smoking, like Clinton, I never inhaled. Marijuana inhaled, but not regular cigarettes.

[63:00]

Now I can never run for... Now I've said that publicly, it's on tape, I can never run for office in the United States. You've just seen a career ruined. Ruined and homeless. Can we erase that, please? Twelve minutes. Twelve minutes of erasure. Anything else you inhaled? I don't know what I had for lunch. Yeah, well... So, but I'm saying that because I kind of used to smoke to have something to do, you know, so I had a cigarette, I think. And I scrunched up the cigarette package. And there was this sort of railroad track that went nowhere, that just came up and stopped at the warehouse, you know.

[64:12]

And I sort of, you know, I had to go back and I was, you know, I had to sweep the warehouse and do things like that, you know. It was a book warehouse and it was one of my sources of books. So I'm coming back from the lunch, so I threw a cigarette down and packaged it on the railroad tracks. And I took a couple steps. And I thought, no one will sweep that up. And I thought, if I throw it down in the warehouse, no one will sweep it up. And I thought, why did I throw it down outside? I'm prying open now something that happened like that.

[65:25]

And I thought, I threw it down because I think outside is different than inside. And that moment, since then, there's been never a distinction between outside and inside. And that's one of the things that says in the moment of conversion of this koan, outside and inside disappear. You can't make that happen. Why does it happen? I mean, a cigarette package, a railroad track that goes nowhere. There's a certain poetry. But not something you can make happen. It requires a sort of shift. So all you can do is have the intention.

[66:33]

And the intention in the face of the wall. And if you want something better than that, you have to Do something else. It's like you can practice to play the piano. And you can get better at it. And when you practice then, you get better at it. And you can hit the keys with more facility and so forth. But at some point, sometimes, the keys start playing your fingers. You can't exactly make that happen. Sometimes, the keyboard disappears. And a large musical sound comes out of the keyboard.

[67:33]

Now I made that up. But it's something like that. You can't make the keyboard disappear, but sometimes it does. Now, when Gary Schneider saw his teacher, just before his teacher died, Kota Roshi, Anyway, his teacher said to him, there's two things, there's zazen and sweeping the temple. And there's, no one knows how big the temple is. So there's zazen and there's sweeping the temple. And my temple has reached to this little room in Berlin. So we're here in one room.

[68:49]

So we're here sweeping together. But there's also sweeping the broom itself away. But that you can't do. You can sweep things But you can't sweep the broom away. It just has to happen. And there's a quality to practice that's like that. So that makes this koan the simplest and most difficult at the same time. It says it cannot be attained by mindlessness. You have to do something. You can't just passively be mindless. It cannot be known by mindfulness. Thanks a lot.

[69:54]

Now what do we do? There's no place to go and nothing to do. And even very great people are turned around in a stream of words. In the thought space that are phonetically based words. language produces. Is there anyone who can escape? A monk asked Zhaozhou, does a dog have a Buddha nature? Now Dogen says, Zhaozhou was startled by this question. It's such a radical question. Now we read a poem like this saying, well, Zhao Zhou's sitting up there, he's really got it under control, and this monk comes up and he says, yes, or no.

[71:05]

But when somebody can ask a real question, there's a kind of danger even for Zhao Zhou in it, and fear in it. So there's a kind of shock, almost a kind of like, there's no definite shape, what to do. And in that, Zhaozhou just says, yes. And since it has, why is it in this skin bag? And again, skin bag, you know, Michael McClure's poems are all about the skin bag, but it's also an experience in meditation.

[72:13]

Here is a skin bag sitting here, you know. And then you see a dog and you say, there I go, except I'm in a hairy skin bag. And I look at you and I see all these skin bags, you know. And I look at you and I see all these skin bags. Because he knows yet deliberately transgresses. Each of our acts is a deliberate transgression of this shapeless jewel. Now it also says... Not only does it say it cannot be attained by mindlessness or known by mindfulness, it also says even the hand that can move the north star must be around in here somewhere.

[73:31]

And it's not just about being able to achieve it through carelessness and carelessness, but it also means that even the hand that can move the northern star, the north star, Now, this is a really strong way of saying there's nothing you can do. Because when you get into things, you know, if you don't think, if you're trying to look for ultimate rules, nothing's left except the North Star. It's the only thing that stays in place. So... But even someone or a hand that could move the North Star can't turn around here. So what to do? It's using poison to get rid of poison, sickness to get rid of sickness. So you really have to find a way to use the immediate situation, whatever it is, in your practice.

[74:41]

If you want something, you say, I have it now. Even if you don't, you create a mind in which there is nothing lacking. As I said the other day, enlightenment does not happen in the future. You know that, right? Enlightenment does not happen in the future. It can only happen in the present. So if you have a mind that anticipates enlightenment in the future, or fears it in the future, you will not realize enlightenment. If you have a mind, one of the things enlightenment means is you have the feeling that nothing's lacking.

[76:10]

Everything is expressed, manifested in its clarity. As it says here, the shop door is open. Zhaozhou threw his shop wide open. This means nirvana. It means there's no views anymore. It's out there. The stores are all closed. Here in this sense, there's no... no views, there's nothing closed and sometimes talked about your doors are open, your shop is open. So there's a feeling of completeness or everything is clear, there's nothing lacking. The present mind that realizes Buddha nature is a mind in which does not anticipate the future and does not feel anything's lacking.

[77:36]

Although you're Your job may not be perfect. Your friendships may not be perfect. What do you start with? You don't know what to do. What do you got? You got the feeling. And if you speak English, you've got the words, nothing lacking. So repeat them. You've got to start with what you got. Don't look for something special, you know, like from the great teacher of Buddha, you know, just nothing lacking. So you, instead of saying mu on every object of perception, you say nothing lacking.

[78:43]

You don't, you have to use the provisions you have. So if you feel nothing's lacking, you'd like to have a mind of nothing lacking, just use the words nothing's lacking. It's very simple. But try it, it's not so easy. I would like to share a feeling I have for this koan. Sure. I'll say it in German first. The koans that I have practiced or read or studied so far, they caught me off guard by the story, Yes, something in the story, in the choir, has touched something in my own story.

[79:50]

And then it gave me access to the choir, a very personal one, to which I could then continue like on such a thread. It may not have been a Zen practice in the strict sense, but it was a practice that I practiced with great joy in my Sa-Sing, and over time I really got a feeling for this Choran practice. And now with this Choran, something very strange happens. And I can only imagine that it has something to do with why this koan is such a famous koan. This koan, this story, it somehow stops me. It stops me, this dialogue. Experiences or attempts that I have already made with these choirs, they really hit me directly in the heart of the Zen practice. So that it has nothing to do with language, that it really has something to do with this immediacy, with this presence, which is what it is all about in practice.

[80:59]

And for this reason I also notice that this whole story here in the koan, that it actually does not stir up anything as I am used to it. I don't know if I express myself clearly from other koans. I only feel such a presence that almost calls me. And at the same time I know I'm not getting any further or I'm only getting further to a certain point. And in this respect, I try to translate it. A feeling I have very strongly with studying this koan here at this seminar is that while from the previous experience I have with koan seminars or reading koans, that something in the fabric of the story grabs me and starts resonating with my own story.

[82:01]

And it's like I pick up a certain thread and follow it and practice with it. And it may not be the traditional Zen practice or whatever, but something happens and with joy and kind of an intent, I do it in my practice. And I start developing a dialogue with the text. But for some reason, this koan, and maybe this is why it's such a famous koan or story, it stops me. It stops me in a way. I really don't know what to do and it really gives me a feeling for what Zen practice is about. It's about immediacy. It's about being outside language. And this is something I can feel and I don't know what to do. And it's like I almost lose interest in the text, in the story. It's like this koan stops me. So what do I do? I mean, I almost don't want to read it. but it really gives me this feeling for what koan practice is about, and yet it stops me, I can't say anything.

[83:06]

So I find it, for some reason, difficult to have a seminar about it. But on the other hand, it's very challenging. And what I'd like you to encourage or ask, like, help us to really kind of get a taste for this feeling, for this stoppedness and kind of staying with it. Well, the two of you both put your finger on it. This is what this koan does. But if you speak now and read El Corán and say this and that about it, something opens up. The open shop, for example, means, or could mean, enlightenment. And then I'm very happy, unhappy, because we're not always there. I don't mean from death to death, but to study with you, and to really understand step by step, and maybe at some point to be able to read this myself.

[84:12]

So I was more inclined to accept the wall and to say, stop. But if you're in trouble, I'll be glad to help. It's no big deal. I just need your help. I have both feelings. On one hand, I'm ready to accept this darkness, this wall, and yet when you are here, then I feel I should make use of you and get some help from you to maybe open up the shops or the text or, you know. Now, if I was a great Zen master, when you looked at me, you'd see a towering cliff. With no hand holes. So I'll try it. It was a windy cliff, you can tell.

[85:42]

Yeah, this koan takes everything away. And that's its intention, to take everything away. But it could take your interest in Buddhism away, and I don't want that to happen. Because it takes even your intention away. How do you intend to stand in front of a wall and wonder this isn't a movie, you know, where the door turns, you know? So you have to bring your intention to this. And you have to bring your faith to it. And you have to believe in enlightenment. Not in the future, in the present. Not in the future, but in the present. And you also have to really, I think, feel locked compassionately into the vision of Buddhism.

[86:49]

Now, early school Buddhism had the teaching that some people, some beings, dogs, horses, and some human beings, perhaps could never, under any circumstances, reach enlightenment. And Chinese Buddhism came down clearly, finally, in fact, relegating schools who thought that to a lower status or a heretical status. Whatever enlightenment is, it has to be the nature of things. And the nature of things that we all share. So dogs are not excluded.

[88:28]

If there's any kind of statement in Buddhism that is just made, it's that all being shares enlightenment. So from that point of view, a dog also is Buddha nature. Which means all the people around you too. And most scary of all, it means you. I think it's much easier to think that a dog has a Buddha nature than you. So this question is asking you, do you believe you also are or participate in Buddha nature? This question is asking us to believe this. And it's a tremendously immodest thought.

[89:47]

Yeah, it's like the Buddha. He's born and he walks seven steps and says, I alone am the world-honored one. And nowadays people say, Jesus, I had the most egocentric baby. I mean, we really have to make this baby, you know, shape up, or it'll have nothing but enemies in the first place. So we've all been taught to put our tails between our legs and hunch our head between our shoulders. One reason babies are so delicious is they don't know that yet.

[90:50]

And they say, hey, I'm the Buddha. Now, it's true, we have to be nice and be social and, you know, it's all that stuff. But can you throw the shop open inside yourself and believe in enlightenment? It doesn't mean you have to think, oh, I'm enlightened and they aren't. Oh, goody, goody. Or I hope we're all enlightened, but I hope I get enlightened first. Really, you have to say and feel, I hope they get enlightened first. Or I don't care whether I'm enlightened or not.

[92:08]

I'll just help other people. That shift, that compassionate shift to not care whether you're enlightened but to believe in it and help others is a necessary way to throw the shop open. So this koan is asking you to really open yourself to this vision of humanity, animality, beingness as being the condition of enlightenment. And you don't know what that means but you sense all of us could, in addition to everything else, share a deep freedom and relaxation. So you have to believe that in some way much of what happens to us, many of our problems, and you know it intuitively and you see it happen in small things,

[93:36]

is the result of the way we look at things. Enlightenment, we could say, is really nothing more than a change in the way you look at things. But at a very physical level, we feel yourselves change. But you can't use the way you look at things to change the way you look at things. All you can do is have an intention to change the way you look at things if the opportunity occurs. So in little things suddenly you recognize that you thought there was a difference between outside and inside.

[94:53]

And recognize that those little insights are actually little enlightenment.

[95:09]

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