Because while your individual practice may be good, it's probably not good enough to influence your maps of other people and society. Does that make sense? And, of course, when you go to work and you go to school or whatever you do, your maps of your usual way of thinking of people are reinforced all the time. So let me try to give you an example, some more examples. I like the expression in one of the koans, exposed in the golden wind. Now we have an expression in English, twisting in the breeze. And twisting in the breeze means like you've hung somebody like the

[01:04]

And then you just leave them there and they're twisting in the breeze. So what's the difference between exposed in the golden wind and twisting in the breeze? So I think some of you, when I say kind of dissolve in the presence of others, you feel you're twisting in the breeze. Okay. So I've given you this practice of bringing your energy equally to whatever appears. And I think some of you understood that to mean your energy should be equal. No, your energy is different all the time.

[02:14]

It's the bringing that's equal, not the energy. So you bring your energy to each thing. Now that energy begins to be more and more what you are. What is my experience of myself right now? Well, I'm some stuff here, you know. But I don't really experience the stuff much. And my lips are flapping. And... And there's some kind of mental activity.

[03:16]

But my main experience of all those different things is energy. I can feel my backbone. And my backbone is pressing my energy upward. And I feel my breath, and my breath is modulating my energy. And my energy is coming up, is drawing thoughts up. out of my body. So I would say, because, you know, probably mostly because I've been practicing pretty long time, I've come to The main experience of myself is as energy. And I feel in each statement I'm making a kind of energy which I'm sharing with Gerald. Okay.

[04:19]

Maybe you all experience yourself this way, I don't know. But it's not the way I experienced myself before I started to practice. Now, it's assumed we have... It's assumed that we have... I'll stop when my legs start hurting. I just said that to tease you. My legs are already hurting. Then I think I should keep at this a little while, all right?

[05:40]

Please sit comfortably. Yeah, yeah. There are... What's the word? Um... thought coverings. For example, for a very long time, the Western world thought the world was flat. Now all you have to do is stand on a dock and watch a ship disappear, which ship disappears from the bottom up. And it's obvious that the world is round. Or spherical or something. But anybody can observe that.

[06:58]

Columbus observed it. The question is, why did he observe it, we could ask. But in other words, there was a thought covering over the world that said it was flat. I mean, the moon was a hint, because it does look round. And you could see the shadow of the earth on the moon, so there was a lot of hinting going on, but still the thought... covering shield was so strong that many millions of people thought the world was flat. So Buddhism says The world is more complex than our senses and our thinking.

[08:06]

But even within our senses and our thinking, thought shields deny the experience of our senses. So one of the antidotes to thought shields, seeing things, in terms of thinking, not how they actually are. Say this again. one of the antidotes to thought shields or coverings, thought coverings that keep you from seeing things as they actually are, is to experience yourself as energy rather than as thought. So if I experience myself as thought, I experience a boundary here and a boundary there. But if I experience myself as energy, Some of you are quite big energy, some of you are smaller energy, and it's all kinds of overlapping energies here.

[09:29]

And I feel some of you from the back reaching way over to here, and some of you up close are only reaching to the cushion. I'm sorry. Yeah, but this is also, if you start thinking, then your energy... aura shrinks. Am I getting too far out or is this okay? Some of you like me to get far out, I know. Or far in. Am I getting too far in? Okay. So now the point of where I'm getting to, we have these little bowels we give when we greet each other traditionally.

[10:38]

It's a little safe moment to dissolve. And you don't dissolve your personality, you dissolve your energy. Now, if you think when I'm talking that I'm saying, dissolve your personality, then you get scared. Oh, shit! It's pretty close. I know a few words, you know. I know a few words, you know. And as soon as you dissolve your boundaries, your personality boundaries, you feel lost.

[11:46]

So tomorrow I will try to speak about... I was going to do it today, but it's impossible. Three layers of... personhood. That's something I've never spoken about, so I'll try it out tomorrow. Okay. So when I greet somebody and bow, and the bow itself as we do it, again, I've talked so often about two hands. That's in our Oryoki practice too.

[12:49]

So if your energy, you bring your two hands together, you're bringing your energy together. Joining your hands joins your energy to your body. And then you lift that up through this chakra. And then you bring it up to here, which is a different kind of feeling. And then you bow. And at that moment you dissolve your energy. And then you bring it back together. So now this sounds strange maybe, but this is a yoga culture which perceives the body as energy, not as a substance. So it perceives everything as interactions. This is an interaction.

[13:52]

This is an interaction. You lift it up. It's not just lifting something up, you know, like in some kind of permanent space. Everything generates space and time. There's no space out there that's permanent. Space is being generated all the time. As I pointed out before, the Big Bang thing is the Big Bang did not occur in space. It created space as it expanded. So the example I tried to give was to, I think when I was here last fall, was to put a rubber glove, one rubber glove on two hands. It's a heck of a way to wash the dishes.

[14:54]

But when you pull your hands apart, that's space. And so we're always actually creating space. I think that's a physical fact. Okay, so to put your hands together is an interaction. And to lift them is. And then to bow to somebody. And that feeling we call exposed in the golden wind. Because there's a moment, again, a moment of novelty. Each moment is new. There's never a repeated moment.

[15:56]

Each moment is absolutely novel, new. So there's nothing anywhere but creativity. Und es gibt nichts nirgendwo außer Kreativität. This is only creativity. Alles ist nur Kreativität. So, we have this practice. Just what appears, you complete for a moment. Und dann haben wir diese Praxis. Was erscheint, kompletieren wir für einen Moment. This is a vision of the creativity or novelty of each moment. Das ist die Vision der Kreativität oder Einzigartigkeit des Moments. So you're not dissolving your personality, you're dissolving your energy for a moment. And bringing it back together. And, you know, if you keep practicing, you develop a feel for this. And it may sound funny at first, because it does require a shift in your view.

[17:12]

But even though I have a different view of myself than I did when I was younger, and I have a different view of myself and the world than probably some of you do, I look like a normal person, don't I? If I let my hair grow, you'd see how normal I am. Okay, I want to say one last thing. We could call... Johanneshof, a Buddha body learning center. Because when we sit zazen, you're introducing your body to Buddha's body. When you go to sleep, you're introducing your waking body to sleeping body.

[18:31]

And sleeping body, if you did an EEG, an electroencephalogram, or other ways to measure the body, the functioning of the body is different in sleep than in waking. We would call that a different body, a sleeping body and a waking body. And the genius of this yogic practice is to introduce you to a body that we create ourselves. out of human culture. This human wisdom culture says, if you sit this way, with this lifting feeling through your back and up through your head, and you accept the posture you have and you work with an ideal posture, you are introducing your body to a new body.

[19:59]

And if you do it regularly, just like sleeping, you begin to discover a body that's neither waking nor sleeping. And some of you who are very new to practice, who have spoken to me in Doxan, already have seen how different it is. There's an internal visuality which is different. There's an internal experience of energy. And one person pointed out, and I forgot to mention in Dzogchen, there's a movement that can start.

[21:01]

And it can be quite involuntary, and it can make you swing around, and some people even make them leap off their cushion. Sometimes it's fun, particularly if you're You're not disturbing your neighbors to let it happen. There's a couple people. It happens to women more than men, but there's a couple people, both a man and a woman, I remember. We had to clear the cushions to the left and right because they were swinging and leaping and they couldn't stop. What you try to do is internalize the movement. And if you internalize the movement, then it begins winding up your spine and up your central column.

[22:10]

And you can start feeling tingling at the top of your head and things like that. And a kind of pliancy, softness throughout the body. like silk or a baby's skin. This is a different body. It's not the waking body, it's not the sleeping body. And this body that awakens through this posture begins to be open to the Buddha body. Funny, huh? Such a simple thing we're doing. That's enough for today. Thank you very much. May our intentions continue to push through this and that house.

[23:29]

The perfect Dharma can also be found in the hundreds of thousands of millions of chalpas and rosettes. Now that I can hear it and understand it, I believe I can learn the truth of the Tathagata. Lovely that it's snowing again. Nun, es schneit wieder. Probably not for your travel plans, but... Sorry? Probably not for their... Yeah, wahrscheinlich nicht im Rahmen eurer Reisepläne. Yeah, but you can just stay. You can just stay. It's okay. I apologize for coming down so late.

[24:41]

I forgot we changed the time. I remembered at nine o'clock, but I just got absorbed. So I should give a shorter lecture. Recently... As it's been pointed out to me, my lectures got a little long. Long for your heads and long for your legs. Sorry. I remember during Sukershi's lectures, God, my legs used to... And I had to sit up in the altar next to him. So I couldn't really move. Now I realize I could have moved, but I was kind of proud.

[25:42]

I want to say a little bit about philanthropy, since it came up when looking at the buildings, American philanthropy, when it came up looking at the buildings for Creston. You know, America has, in America there's a, one of the rights in America Not in the Bill of Rights, but one of the rights in America. is you have a right to be rich, but only if you share, give away a considerable portion of your income. And it's mostly with a good spirit. Of course, it originated because America is a populous country. a populist democracy and they were shamed into being generous.

[27:06]

Do you understand? So, anyway... These various people who have a lot of extra money give a lot of money away. And the tax laws support them doing this. But they actually feel much better about it when the people they're giving to also support it. So if I can say, well, the people at Crestone have pledged some money, then they feel, oh, we'll give some money then.

[28:10]

And two of the people probably helping us with the buildings will give money at least equal to what other people give. So, in Crestum, just the 20-some people who are there for the whole practice period, pledged about $21,000 over three years. And some people only have... And it actually doesn't matter so much what it is. Some people pledged $50 a year for three years. But that will represent, of course, $42,000 in contributions. What does that mean, represents?

[29:21]

Because they pledge 21, we'll get 42. Oh, I see. So I've been criticized by these donors of why I spend so much time in Europe. They want me to just stay at Creston. Of course, I argue that Creston will survive better if I go to Europe half the time. Yeah. So, anyway, it would help Crestone if any of you want to make a pledge, you know, even very small, over the next three years, then I can say, well, we have 1,000 Deutschmarks from Germany or something. And it would help. But, you know, I'm very grateful the Dharma Sangha Europe is supporting this place so well.

[30:36]

And I don't want to distract you from Johanneshof. But if any of you feel a connection with Krasonga, It would help them develop the place if you gave at least some symbolic help. And after lunch we'll have a meeting for a short while, I believe. And I would like to hear from you then how you think this schedule should work in the future when we do a practice week or insight week. So you might think about that between now and then.

[31:44]

Now I'd like to try to give you a picture of our practice. So far I've tried to respond to what Dogen brought up and give you some background of practice and thinking of practice. But now I'd like to speak more about our actual practice, moment after moment. Dogen said that when we are not sincere enough, there is intelligent thought. and dull, intelligent persons and dull persons.

[32:59]

When we are quite sincere in our practice, intelligent and dull make no difference. Because this is not a mental process, this practice. This is working with something very basic to human beings. No. I said that we're a Buddha body learning center. Is that the seated posture, seated Buddha. That's what Dogen keeps saying. He always is giving various teachings, but it's always assuming that parallel to the teachings you're practicing seated Buddha. You can understand it that your body needs to sleep.

[34:02]

And your Buddha body needs to do zazen. It's like that. And so if you want to give your Buddha body a good rest, do zazen. Or you want to wake up your Buddha body. Because it is strange if you do Zazen regularly, the Buddha body wakes up in your daily life. When you don't do Zazen, the Buddha body is still there, but it sinks way down deep. Okay. I told this story last fall here in Europe, I believe.

[35:12]

Suki Roshi once was talking... talking to the kindergarten children at the temple, Buddhist temple in San Francisco. And he was sitting cross-legged talking to them, and a little girl said, I can do it, I can do it. And she climbed up on a cushion and folded her legs and sat there. And then she said, and what? And what? And Sigur, she said, you always ask me the same thing. Suzuki Roshi said, you all ask me the same thing.

[36:17]

And what? Well, that's a good question. You know, but do you need some instructions about how to sleep? I mean, can you conceptualize sleeping? Well, you can learn something about going to sleep. And you can learn something about waking up. Usually some unpleasant things about waking up. But you can't learn much about in between waking and sleeping, sleeping and waking. Basically, you have to let it happen. And some people have trouble sleeping because they can't let it happen. So counting your breath and all these things, these are really techniques about learning to go into zazen.

[37:29]

Instead of counting sheep, you're counting exhales. Okay. Dogen was three when his father died. And he was eight when his mother died. And if you ever noticed the... Incense often has two streams of smoke that come up from it. So he was with his mother while she died and he saw these two streams of incense smoke going up.

[38:33]

And he had a deep insight into transiency. And his mother seems to have felt this and she said, he was actually a Fujiwara, which is that time all the entire aristocracy were branches of the Fujiwara family, about a thousand branches. And they were related to the emperor and stuff like that. But his mother said, you know, looking at him, said, I want you to become a... Sincere monk.

[39:38]

And Dogen said, I can walk on a steel blade. I can... I can do without food and drink. But I can't forget this feeling of transcendency. And my mother's words. Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna, you know Nagarjuna, I think, maybe. Sometimes called the second Buddha. He said, when you have a deep insight into the uncertain conditions of birth and death,

[40:46]

This, whether you recognize it or not, is the thought of enlightenment. When you have a deep insight, recognition of the uncertain world of birth and death, This is the thought of enlightenment. If you maintain this mind, of the thought of enlightenment. If you maintain this mind that sees into transiency this will become the mind of enlightenment. This is quite simple.

[41:47]

But it requires your sincerity. Now, what does it mean to see into the transiency? It means to... What have you been... Transcendence, no. Transiency. Okay, sorry. It's almost the opposite. If you see into transiency, it's okay. It's good. It's better than karma biting mind. One time I was giving a lecture in Berlin. People's faces started getting funnier and funnier. And I don't speak so clearly. So I was talking about calm, abiding mind.

[42:58]

And after a while I said, why are you... It wasn't Grom. The person was translating karma, biting mind. And he had translated the spirit that bites karma. It's like some Pac-Man in computer games. What's a Pac-Man? Pac-Man is a computer game where this little guy goes and eats things. So this sense that Nagarjuna means and Dogen means and Sukhiroshi means is that you really see

[44:01]

that everything is changing. There's not even any subtle permanence to take refuge in. So what kind of mind expresses this? A mind which asks, and what? What is it? That's one aspect. Another is the mind which is ready for whatever appears. I think if you study yourself, you'll see that you're not ready for whatever comes up because you think there's something better or more permanent somewhere else. Sukhiyoshi used to say, Buddha's light shines from everything. Each moment.

[45:20]

Sometimes called something like pre-light. The light that's there that lets you see the light. Yamada Momon Roshi, who was my teacher while I was living in Japan, he said the most important fundamental issue for our human life is to clearly recognize that everything That we are living here is to clearly recognize a deep respect for ourselves.

[46:30]

That we are living here and everything in the whole world at this moment is working to make your life possible. It's true. It's easy to forget. But everything in this world is working right now at this moment. Rinzai teacher, in this century probably, said, coming back to knowing that simple thing is the most fundamental issue for us. When we forget it, we start to lose our way. So a mind that's ready for... is ready.

[47:48]

It means a mind that's empty. If you're ready for whatever appears... Buddha's activity, Sukhiroshi would say, Buddha's activity is to be one with whatever appears. And to be ready to be one with whatever appears. Maybe you're in the wrong religion. Maybe you really don't want to be ready for whatever appears. I don't know if the buses are running, but, you know, there are ways to leave. So you have to make a kind of decision. Does this make sense to you? Buddhism may sound good, but are you really ready to be one with whatever appears?

[48:57]

If the Buddha appeared right now, Shakyamuni wandered in here somehow. He says, good night. The roads are icy. It looked warm in here. And we quickly cleared the altar and sat up there. How would you want him to be? Would you want him to be thinking about tomorrow? Would you want him to be worrying about something somebody said to him last week? You'd say, that's not Buddha. But you might feel this person was Buddha. If he was just here, ready to be one with us at this moment.

[50:02]

Oh, you'd say, what a nice guy. So this is our basic practice. To accept everything as it appears. The more we do that, we find Buddha's light shines from everything. I can't explain exactly what that means, but I think you may discover it. So the functioning of a mind of emptiness and emptiness only means the deep seeing into the world of transiency.

[51:31]

There's nothing that's permanent. In phenomena or in self, person, there's no place to take refuge. So suddenly our consciousness expands into a kind of freedom. Abiding nowhere and right here. Ready for whatever appears. So the functioning mind, the functioning of the mind of emptiness, is what is it? and to be ready for whatever appears. And this is what Dogen means also by genjo koan.

[52:34]

Now I said I would, and I'll try to do it simply, speak about this... Let's say for now, to start out, personality. Sukhyoshi was always speaking about often spoke about perfecting our personality. And I knew he didn't mean anything to do with our personal life or psychology. So when he said things, it didn't fit in with my way of looking at them. I would hold a sense of the difference in my uh background mind you know i think of i have ever seen spinner dolphins i mean in fact or in a movie

[54:04]

A dolphin, the mammal fish. Spinner dolphins, I've seen lots of dolphins and they jump out of the water and go down in, right? But I think spinner dolphins are the only ones who jump out and then they spin like this and then they go back. And they seem to be particularly joyful. Maybe because they don't own any furniture. Own any furniture. Everywhere is their waterbed. So anyway, they are particularly joyful. And they like to sleep. But when they sleep, they have to watch for sharks and other critters.

[55:27]

So they have to sleep where the bottom of the sand is very white. So they go down and they all go to sleep as a group. But they keep one part of their mind awake and they watch the white surface because they can see the shadow of a shark. And you can come back. So somehow it always makes me think it's a bit like Zazen. We're somehow deeply resting and absorbed, but one eye is open. What's going on? So when you free yourself from identification with consciousness, or you get more free of identifying with consciousness, you begin to find subtle layers of knowing.

[56:52]

And you begin to create another kind of body and mind. And Sukhiroshi used to say, The mind of zazen doesn't stick to anything. So we don't have a program or map. But we do practice and develop one-pointedness and so forth. And just as we don't stick to some, our mind doesn't stick to anything in zazen, that sounds funny because it actually becomes very stable and rests on whatever It rests but doesn't stick. It's quite free and ready for whatever comes. And he says in a similar way, we don't stick to this posture.

[58:14]

for zazen mind. Once you really know this zazen mind, you have the feel of it. It can appear in your daily life. Like once you have the feel, the physical feel of this mind of of emptiness, you can really learn to stay with it. Now, it may sound like some of the things I'm saying are contradictory. I'll let you figure that out. Now, Dogen says, to build a temple of gold and silver and jewels is not the prosperity of Buddhism.

[59:39]

The only real prosperity of Buddhism is your practicing each moment. And I often say to you, oh, you should do zazen. That would be good a few times a week at least on a regular basis. But if you really want to practice, why not every moment? It's much more effective. And what's wrong with every moment? You've got something against some moments? You should be fair to each moment. Treat each moment equally. Is it hard to have a mind that's ready? Even when your mind is not ready for anything, notice, oh, my mind is not ready for anything. That's already close to a mind that's ready for anything.

[60:58]

So bring your attention into each moment. Bring your question, what is it, into each moment. Bring your sense of a mind that's ready to be one with what appears. Okay. I found it funny, interesting, strange, a little bit, that Sukhya Rishi kept speaking about, again, perfecting your personality. Now let me try to give you, again, since I feel we've talked about enough, I should try to speak about it. Mm-hmm. I'm always trying to understand how a human being is conceived of as... How can I put it?

[62:33]

How the construction of a human being is imagined in yogic culture in comparison to our culture. So I'd like to suggest that these three layers, And maybe just suggest it for now and go into it in detail some other time. The first layer we could call is the prior layer. Before thought and perception arise. And in the prior layer is your character. What kind of person you are. You want to be honest, so forth. And also there is mythology.

[63:57]

And there is your views. Like already connected or already separated. And the second layer is the layer of your personal history. And the layer of psychology. And the third layer is the layer of personality. In the sense that you might say, so-and-so has a good attitude toward life. Say they're usually cheerful. And that's not necessarily tied to their personal history or their mythology. Now, as I understand it, what Buddhism tries to do is work on the first and third layers. So in the first layer you work on your views.

[65:13]

And sometimes, say that you have a good character. And part of your character is to always be honest. So everything that comes up, you always explain what's wrong with the situation because it's honest to explain what's wrong. Whatever comes up, Out of your good character, to be honest, you'd say, you always explain what's wrong with something. And you feel justified because these things are wrong and I'm pointing them out, honestly. And then you wonder why no one likes you. I was just being honest.

[66:18]

But it does interfere with a view of what of how we function as human beings. So through practice you work on your views in relationship to your character and so forth. And you also work on your personality. And we can think of personality in this sense as your personality is one with the field of the present. Your personality is relating to just what appears at this moment.

[67:20]

And to say, I don't want to go into it more than that, present. But since we were talking about gummy sacks earlier, I want to give you a feeling again about this difference, a different kind of person that occurs through practice. One of the differences is that What's repression? Suppression and repression. I don't know. There are two words in psychology. To repress something. Verdrängen und unterdrücken.

[68:27]

So they're two different words. In English they are. They mean slightly different things. Because as you sit, there's less and less need to repress anything. The more you can sit without any fear of moving, Almost everything can come up. So you don't have to suppress your anger. You feel your anger, but you don't have to express it. But you can choose to express it. And it's not acting. It's a choice. So say that I decide to get angry. I'm going to get angry in a different way than you get angry, probably.

[69:35]

Because I have a different gummy sack of anger. It has to do with my personal life and my personality. So sometimes, No matter what I do, something isn't clear. So I can feel the anger, but it's just floating there in space. It's fine. I don't care. And it's floating there with a lot of other things, too. It's not taking over. But I think, okay, maybe I'm not going to make the point unless I get angry. So I inflate my gummi sack, my anger gummi sack. And then I pour the anger in it. And then I pour the anger in it. Yeah, and then my point is made, so I close the gummi sack down and the anger comes.

[70:49]

It's a kind of different way of functioning. And it doesn't mean you don't feel anger. But you don't have this dynamic of an unconscious pressing against a conscious, etc., in the dynamic we often have. So let's leave that for now. When you simply bring your attention again to end this tesha, when you bring your attention to each thing equally.

[71:51]

When you bring a mind that's ready to be one with what appears. When you bring a mind which asks, what is it? That's all you have to do. Remind yourself to do that. as often as possible. All the stuff we've been talking about in Buddhism, Buddha nature, Buddhahood, enlightenment, this Buddha body which functions differently than our usual body, flower from this simple practice. And I like the word bless. And the word bless in English is related to flower, to flourish, to bloom.

[73:01]

And to blossom. Yeah, and it also is related to gush forth, so sometimes you consecrate with blood because Blessing means something flows forth. And I think we like to fall in love because we feel blessed. But we can kind of fall in love each moment. If we just start blessing each moment. And rather, instead of thinking of each of us as human beings, why don't you rename each of you? I'm sorry, I'm going to sound schmaltzy again.

[74:04]

Rename each person sentient flower. So I look at each of you and I see, oh, sentient flower. And I feel blessed by your sentient flower. If I had to wash dishes with you, I might wish you were a little more organized. Yeah, but that doesn't change the much greater feeling of this thermal, warm, sentient flower beside me. So please practice this mind that's ready to be one with whatever appears. Thank you very much. May our vision be equally perfect.

[75:19]

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