Well, I feel I'm trying to teach you or present to you something that hardly exists at all. And when someone in one of the groups yesterday said to me as I walked by, said something like, what is the Dharma body anyway? Yeah, I understood. It was a real question. How can we answer that question? Yeah. First we have to have a more relaxed feeling about what is the... I'm trying to give you that, the sense of that. For example, in chanting in the morning or at any point.

[01:03]

If you don't have such a... if you have a more fluid sense of the body, we can say a chanting body appears. If you understand that, you can understand why ritual is so important in Chinese culture. Because it's through form, through ritual, that we experience our extended body. Form almost becomes a kind of currency currency you know like money currency a medium of expression you know as words are for a poet

[02:17]

wie zum Beispiel Worte für einen Poeten or a medium's painting for a painter oder das Malen für einen Maler or glassblowing for a glassblower oder für einen Glasbläser das Glasblasen. But if you know your body in a way If you have a more fluid view of your body, all forms, not just words or painting, is the currency or current, maybe like electric current, or the presence of the wider body. Now, why do I call this dharma body such? Why don't I call it a dharma mind? Well, because, yeah, I mean, again, these words are so overlapping, they're almost interchangeable.

[03:32]

Yet, what I mean by dharma body... It has backbone in it. It may not have the shape of your body necessarily, the boundaries of your body, but the backbone is present in it. The backbone is present in our ordinary body and especially present in our subtle body. Yeah, and the objects of the world are part of, not just your backbone, the immediate situation, and the objects of the world are part of this body. Melons and flags. Yeah. Bridges.

[04:56]

The sky, the floor. So this, we... Yeah, so it has this physical quality. It finds its... Anyway, it has this kind of feeling or form. It's, again, to think of the body as appearance. So the body isn't a thing, an object. It's an appearance. And you know that. You know how you appear. And we try to appear differently, you know, sometimes than other times. But we think it's just something superficial.

[06:02]

But, you know, the cosmos is, we call it the cosmos, which means cosmetic. The universe is ornamented with form. In this sense, it emphasizes the universe itself, the cosmos itself, its appearance. So if you begin, try to think of yourself, try to feel yourself as appearance. Also, wenn ihr euch selbst seht, euch selbst fühlt als Erscheinung. And then you're more open to understanding how you appear in others. Und dann seid ihr mehr offen dafür, wie ihr in anderen erscheint. Because our appearance floats... floats, I don't know, what can I say? Floats in our own... And our appearance floats over to other people.

[07:11]

Yeah, and then it takes all kinds of forms. So we can have a more feeling for how we appear to others if we recognize ourselves. that we are only appearance. Now, behind that appearance is, most deeply, is intent. Intention. Now, you may notice that sometimes when I give a talk, I'm the talk is about what I'm avoiding saying. And what I'm avoiding saying is calling this an intention body. Because I think this is the biggest danger, is thinking you understand.

[08:14]

If I say intention body, then you think you understand maybe. So I have to avoid that. I mean, the thing I hate most if I try to... work on a practice with someone, when they say they understand too quickly, then I know they're just protecting themselves. they're not able to be in an unpredictable place all the time. Or they have a process of understanding. Like people have a leadership process. They're only comfortable when they're in the position of leadership.

[09:46]

And some people have a process of understanding. They only feel comfortable in their own mind and with others when they have the experience that they understand. Yeah, this may be effective in some ways. But it's definitely not effective in practice. I don't know what is it. Even if you understand, recognizing how much you don't understand around that understanding, This way practice is much more fruitful. Yeah, for example, Yesterday I told you the story of the seamless monument. The national teacher, Chu, says, build me a seamless monument after I die.

[10:52]

The emperor says, well, what would that be? Please explain it to me. And then... Chu is silent for a long time. And then he says, do you understand? Now, intellectual people think the silence represents something. Und intellektuelle Menschen glauben, dass die Stille für irgendetwas steht. The silence is a kind of word. Die Stille ist eine Art Wort. Yeah, so it represents seamless tomb. Und es repräsentiert dieses nahtlose Grab. This is a trick to make you, to make the dumb smart ones think they understand. Das ist ein Trick, um die dummen Gescheiten glauben zu lassen, dass sie verstehen. Yeah, so... It's just a pause.

[11:55]

It's what I called Apache thinking the other day. For those of you who weren't here, I used the example that supposedly the Apaches have a sense of language. The Apaches have supposedly a way of speaking in images, which are building blocks, kind of building blocks. They think of them as building blocks. So what they say, what's important is the image that appears in your mind. So they don't respond to what? your reaction to what they said, they respond to what your image might be.

[12:59]

And the process of the conversation goes on after it ends. Maybe it's not meant to be completed or understood. It's not meant to be completed or understood. It's meant to be a building process that goes on weeks or months after the conversation is stopped. Yeah, and you build some kind of understanding out of it, or way of acting. Or you find you're acting out the understanding without understanding. And then ten years later, the building process, like you have a new kind of house.

[14:03]

Well, Koan work is exactly like that. So, Chu is just pausing. And Chu just pauses. That's all. What appears in the pause? Who knows? He says, I don't understand. So he says, well, ask my disciple. Why doesn't he answer himself? If his disciple could answer, and he's imparted the teaching to the disciple, he could answer. But he's not interested in understanding. He's interested in what happens when he asks his disciple. And he's interested in what happens after he's dead. Who knows what will happen? He doesn't want to tie it down into some kind of... Boring.

[15:04]

How boring. You don't want to tie it down into something. The world is burning and you watch the fire. That kind of feeling. Yeah, so I'm again trying to show you, teach you something. Something about nothing. But in this koan 43 in the Blue Cliff Record, it's another different koan. It calls this, what I'm trying to speak about, the hammer and tongs of transcendence. These are big words for nothing at all. You understand hammer and tongs like forging in a fire. So how can I speak to you about the hammer and tongs of transcendence?

[16:20]

Why such big words for nothing at all? So anyway, this koan 43. Yeah, a monk. Blue cliff records. A monk asks, Dung Shan. We're the so-called founder of our lineage. What do we do when hot and cold come? Why don't you go to a place where there's no hot and cold?

[17:24]

Where is such a place, says the monk. Then Dungschan says, when it's cold, cold kills you. When it's hot, hot burns you. Sizzles you, maybe. Now you can understand this as Well, you have to be accepting of hot and cold, etc. But why is this called the the hammer and tongs of transcendence. You know, I'm finding I'm in this week of speaking about dharma and avoiding speaking about it as it's usually expressed in the Genjo koan, for example.

[18:46]

Yeah, it has led me to use a lot of koans. Because koans have a way of entering the invisible. Giving us some language and images for practicing the invisible. And some permission, gives me some permission that you might think I know what I'm talking about. If I can quote a koan, maybe you think I'm talking about something. And not nothing. Now you know how simple a practice it is to bring your attention to your breath.

[19:56]

You know how hard it is even to count to ten in zazen. I think most of you can count to ten out of zazen. That's interesting. Why is it so easy to count? Out of sasen and so hard in sasen. I become so stupid in sasen, I can't count. First of all, you're in the fourth skanda, not in the fifth skanda, consciousness. The associative mind is on the rise. And the recapitulation of your life is going on. And the numbers are swept away. So you're counting in awareness, not in consciousness. It's quite difficult to learn to count in awareness.

[21:13]

So it's a really simple practice. Not so easy, but simple. And if you can bring, as I point out always, if you can bring your attention to your mind, breath throughout the 24. This is a transformation of your life. It's the most effective way to shift your continuity out of your thoughts to your body. To your breath body and to phenomena. So these simple practices, it takes me one minute or two minutes to talk about it. It seems to take a lifetime to realize it. It doesn't take a lifetime, but it takes a while.

[22:13]

Well, what I'm talking about now is something like The detachment of non-duality without separation. This is something invisible. The detachment of non-duality without separation. Yeah, do I talk about something? How do you get a feeling for it within your own experience? So this is what I'm trying to do. So now this koan again, what do I do when hot and cold come?

[23:13]

Now I don't think most of you would recognize right away that we can understand this koan. as the teaching of the accomplishment of the second foundation of mindfulness. Now maybe some of you would guess that Since I've been teaching the Four Foundations of Mindfulness so much recently. So much of what I've been speaking about recently is dependent on the accomplishment of the foundations of mindfulness.

[24:16]

But for some months now, I have to keep teaching them. To take the next step. Because I don't think I've emphasized enough the path quality of the Four Foundations. So let's go back to the Koan 43 for a minute. The introduction says, the statement which settles the universe. You can't make a bigger statement than that. Can you imagine the statement that settles the universe for 10,000 ages?

[25:24]

Shantideva says, watch out. If you promise people unsurpassable happiness, if you don't deliver it, if you let them down, all sentient beings will punish you. So this is something dangerous too. If I speak with you about the mutual aspiration of the bodhisattva, to realize enlightenment with you, and you understand that you should. Bodhisattva practice, to me, the bringing into being of what's the best we can imagine

[26:46]

Being a human being. We have to be careful with offering such to people. Most of us are going to be interested in fact in our culture. And success measured in terms of their culture. Or who they're in love with. Or, unfortunately, much more often, who they want to be in love. who they imagine they'll be in love with. To be the person that someone might fall in love with. This is the strongest cultural hook.

[27:57]

And so we give up real satisfaction. We give up. the being in love with everything at once, which is the life of the bodhisattva. Because in the end we Most of us can't give up defining ourselves through our culture and through our thoughts. And so the bodhisattva practice is as elusive as a preta, a hungry ghost. And that's why this bodhisattva practice is so elusive, so... Yeah.

[29:01]

So it's with daring. It's not just a casual phrase. that Yuan Wu says, the compiler, the blue cliff record says, the phrase, the statement settles the universe. With no obfuscation, no obstruction anywhere. The totality of activity is present everywhere at once.

[30:03]

This is trying to give you instruction or hint. direction into what we've been talking about. And then he says, the introduction says, But if you want the hammer and tongs of transcendence. You need the forge and bellows of an adept. The forge and bellows of an adept. Has there ever been, and the introduction ends, has there ever been a family teaching like this?

[31:14]

Could these statements really be about a simple question like, how do I avoid hot and cold? Hakuin praises Dungsan's statement. Why don't you go to a place where there's no hot and cold? Praises Dungsan said, This places him foremost among the five houses and seven schools of Zen. The five houses and seven schools of Zen. His intellect... The sharpness of his intellect is like a crystal palace in the moonlight.

[32:29]

Why is this a sharp intellect here? Why don't you go to this place where it's hot and cold? Yeah. Of course this is a monk who's asking the question. It's different when they say a lay person. Usually a monk, when they say a monk, it means he knows at least something, he's practicing. So we know hot and cold means difficulty, pain, suffering, delusion, anger. Because he certainly practiced the foundations of mindfulness. He knows well that all of our distinctions of like and dislike are rooted in pleasant and unpleasant.

[33:36]

Again, what's the first thing you teach a baby? Don't touch the stove, don't touch the candle, and so forth. You teach them the difference between hot and cold. So this is just for, you know... It represents for a baby, too, what you don't touch and what you do touch. So it's the same here. Nothing. This isn't some big fancy symbolism. It's just common sense. What do we do when there's hot and cold? Okay. So let me go now back again to the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

[34:41]

The first foundation, you need the targets or destinations for your mindfulness. For mindfulness. Again, mindfulness in this case, I won't say, also means bodyfulness. To know the body in the body through the body, not with the mind looking at it. But I'll just say mindfulness, you know what I mean. So you need a target or destination for this mindfulness, which is at first the primitive bringing attention to. Not the attention that arises within the body itself. So what are the targets or destinations?

[35:56]

Your activity. Your breath. The four elements. The fluidity. The solidity. The four postures. Standing, sitting, lying, going. And the parts of the body. And the clarity of mind that accompanies this attention. Now, as I've been pointing out, we catch the meaning of this, I think, most through bringing attention to the parts of the body. No, I'm sorry to repeat some of this, review some of this, but I'm trying to create a picture of how this practice exists. So, bringing attention to the parts of the body, To the independence of each part of the body.

[37:10]

So in zazen you begin to feel each part of your body does its own zazen. And you can bring attention to each part of the body There are no dark parts left in the body. You can explore your interior and exterior and know when something's wrong. I mean, I think it's so basic, you ought to be going through it at least once a month. And then you find each part of the body has its own intention. Own kind of attention it gives to other parts of the body. And it's almost a kind of mind that each part has.

[38:19]

So you now begin to be more aware of the mind of the hand, different from, say, the knuckles. The mind of the heart area. The mind of the eyebrows and cheekbones. Yeah, you see in Zen stories, they always are saying, he raised an eyebrow or he did such... This is a code for the arising of the mind of each part of the body. You know, you feel the tingle of the top of the head. or the aliveness of your feet even more alive than your hands or the pliancy or fluidity throughout your body so you begin to recognize that the body itself has

[39:35]

presence or mind. And there's a clarity of mind that accompanies this practice. Now realizing this is the first step. You bring this to the second foundation of mindfulness. Which is pleasant, unpleasant, and neither. And that's really what this koan 43 is about. The realization and accomplishment of the second foundation of mindfulness. Of knowing pleasant and unpleasant. and establishing yourself in neither and having the mindfulness skills now through your practice of the first foundation of mind and a direct experience of the mind

[41:04]

and the parts of the body themselves, that you can establish a clarity of mind in the second foundation of mindfulness that doesn't shift into likes and dislikes. And neutral. Which we read as boring. When you need distraction, when you need to like or dislike something. When you're bored when there's nothing to do. You haven't realized the second foundation of mind. And that likes and dislikes and neutrals shifts very quickly into Greed, hate and delusion.

[42:17]

Attraction, aversion and a belief in permanence. And likes and dislikes and greed, hate and delusion are the funnel from which All your karma pours into your body, pours into your present activity. So this koan imagines this as a kind of furnace in which even people who are quite experienced are burning themselves up. And to reach into this invisible fire, you need the hammer and tongs of transcendence.

[43:19]

the skills of knowing subjectivity and objectivity. As I said yesterday, every perception is either subject to us or an object of the world. No. It's normal that some things are subject to you. We're not trying to exclude that. We're trying to move in the fluidity of the body and self. The self which covers everything. Not just the self-interested self. So we can Feel when we want to make something subject to us. Perhaps an omelet in the omelet pan on the fire. Do something with it and you want it to be okay and turn over nicely in the dish.

[44:41]

Maybe you care that it's a good omelet. But you have that experience, it's okay. But you're at the same time quite free of it. You have the skills of detachment. Well, this is just an event of the world. It doesn't have to be subject to you. The frying pan is helping. It would be real hard to do it in your hand. The fire is helping. Objectivity, which is free of subjectivity, and is some kind of detachment, Where there is no separation.

[46:03]

So what are the skills here? What are the hammer and tongs of transcendence? Yeah, and forge and bellows. Now, bellows is something like your breath, so your basic activity. No, it doesn't mean bellows means breath. But the poetry of the word bellows calls forth our breath and forge this sense of concentration and one-pointedness. in which you transform or transcendence or transform your immediate situation all the time.

[47:10]

Through your intent and your presence and your clarity of mind. So one gate is, as I've been emphasizing, ease and openness. Yeah, nothing much is possible without that. And another gate, as I said, is trust and acceptance. To be able to act in the world. Without putting the world away from you all the time. And to act in the world without leaking. And then what are these hammer and tongs?

[48:18]

The skills of subjectivity and objectivity. The ability to The skill of direct perception. The skill to have a mind that rests in perception. This tractor and whatever. This warm air. Without other thoughts coming in. And being able to rest in neither pleasant nor unpleasant. There's no shift into likes and dislikes and so forth.

[49:26]

These are skills, simple skills. Simple like bringing your attention to your breath. The skill of being able to rest in neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It's like you find the window of non-duality. You open the window. Clean the window and open the window. Now we're in some realm where this Dharma body appears. Give it to me with no hands. The unmoving mind, neither flag nor wind. Now intent is present, can be present.

[50:45]

Now intent can transform us. Now we can have one intent at the root of all of our views. These are the skills of an adept. One intent at the root of all of our views. So it's a seamless intent that reaches Everything in the present and continues endlessly in the future. This intent which shapes our appearance as a bodhisattva comes and goes, our appearance shifts. But because of your realization of neither pleasant nor unpleasant, your intent doesn't shift.

[51:52]

Like Linji, you plant a tree. And the tree grows with your intent. We establish Yohannesov. It grows with our intent. Wir gründen den Johanneshof und er wächst mit unserer Absicht. Wir etablieren die Gesundheit und die Klarheit unseres Körpers und unseres Geistes. Und die wachsen mit unserer Absicht. Der historische Buddha hält eine Blume hoch. His presence, his intent. Mahakashyapa understood. Or not understood, became. And we are becoming that too. This intent can become our intent. And it has power.

[52:53]

Through knowing neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Having the hammer and tongs of transcendence. This body which covers everything. which we also find in our backbone, in our own presence. Yeah, okay. Thank you very much.

[53:34]

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