You don't say, oh, this is the same old painful moment. What the heck? You say, this is a unique, terrible, painful moment. If you don't ring that bell, I'm going to ring the neck of the dawn. This is a unique, painful moment. Do you know ring the neck? So pain gives you a sense of the uniqueness of something. And there's the patterns. The interdependence. The profound interconnectedness of everything.

[01:03]

It has a conceptual, it's a mental knowing. But it's a conceptual inseparable from noticing. So these folks, Dignaga and so forth, are asking us more subtly than just to practice alertness or mindfulness, to establish the basis of mind, and your initial mind at each moment of perception in this realm of immediacy and inference or connectedness so you know the

[02:09]

uniqueness of the tree at that moment in the wind. But you also know the quality of that tree like other trees. and it draws you into the pulse pace of the world into the nearness of how things actually exist. So this parallel perception coupled to the dual nature of each object of perception is where we could say healthy, free from suffering consciousness, Awareness swims.

[03:27]

Okay. It's where the healthy or even free from suffering consciousness or awareness swims. It is too much. I agree. swims and becomes the basis of our mind. We don't know what mind is, but we can discover how it works, and we can say, ah, these workings of it must be the basis of mind, And our initial mind. And then we can weed the garden of consciousness. The weeds of all this distracted thinking. Future planning, future worries.

[04:37]

Those are kinds of weeds. Because usually the path is pretty clear, can be pretty clear. And you can decide what's planted in your house, in your garden of consciousness. And you can plant and weed, take care of the garden of consciousness. Quite easily when you're the basis, An initial mind is this parallel perception of the dual nature of each object.

[05:42]

Yeah, it's taken me 40 years to sort this out as clearly as I just talked about it. Yeah. And much of working this out is because of the sweating horses of the past. And Dignaga only lived 60 years. I'm 66. And he worked much of this out without much help from the past.

[06:57]

So when I bow just now, I'm going to bow deeply to Dignaga as well as the Buddha. And to Vasubandhu, who's one of the people we... chant every morning. So you can think of the chant as we're bowing to the sweating horses of the past. Thank you for being patient with all this. Aum [...]

[08:13]

Suru koto etari. Naniwa kuwa nyora iwo eshibe. Jesu nyo nyeshi sate matsura. I am the one who has been hit by the end of my life. [...] Well, it looks like the Sashin will have an end after all.

[10:51]

So, it looks... Yeah, it looks like it, the Sashin. I'm sorry, but... Yeah, so today I think is the last day. Tomorrow we have the ordination ceremony. And I guess probably lots of you will have to leave and can't stay for the ceremony because it's going to be probably four o'clock. If anybody wants to stay and And it makes a difference whether it's 3 or 3.30. I don't know. The guests have already been told. But I don't know. I don't know if we can get ready in time.

[11:55]

Yeah, tomorrow morning, Before dawn, I have to start preparing for the ceremony. The ceremony is the same as I've done before, but I start as if I've never done it before. It takes me some time to do everything that's necessary and to Start from the beginning again. And now we have these, the sashin we're finishing. And I think in the lectures we got somewhere.

[12:56]

Somewhere I haven't been before. So I appreciate your opening this for me. So how are we going to... How can we continue? I'm thinking about how do we... deepen what we've come to. And how do we continue it in our practice? Well, you can do it if you want to. You just have to make certain things clear and then practice them. If you leave it all kind of muddy, you don't get anywhere.

[14:19]

But if you can make even small parts of what we came to clear and practice them, this is great. But I decided today to give you a koan. I actually introduced it last night in the hot drink. Yeah, and I know some of you have trouble with, well, first of all, with koans. And God said, Some of you have trouble working with a line, working with a phrase.

[15:36]

And some of you have the problem of trying to really understand the koan. And you ask me, where can you read about it? But the better students, better adepts, shall we say, know enough to just take what's presented. They're in a habit of taking just what's presented. Taking what's presented as enough. Because that's what's going on all the time anyway. So, you know, you might say to yourself, This, this, just enough.

[16:59]

Just enough. So that's another phrase you can work with. This, this, just enough. That kind of mind is necessary to work with a koan. So that's one teaching or phrase, I'm just now giving you. We already had another one. What was it? Each thing complete. And in moving into the shape of each thing as complete.

[18:11]

You find yourself in a pulse, a pace. A very healthy thing to do. That's one of the emphases of this session, is to find... Not your pace. Or not only your pace that makes you feel good inside. Relaxed inside. But also a pace that draws near, draws near each situation and each person.

[19:15]

So the commentary, the pointer or introduction to this koan, Something like when lightning flashes. How will you have time to think? When thunder sounds, how will you have time to cover your ears? But some of you will lower your head and Think conceptually. Trying to figure it out. And you won't know it's just ghosts dancing in front of your skull.

[20:17]

These guys had a good sense of theater, didn't they? These guys had a good understanding of theater. Ghosts, you know it's just ghosts dancing in front of your skull. You won't know that it's just ghosts dancing in front of your skull. Watch out, ghosts. So if... If something is presented to you, if something happens, how will you not use the conceptual facility? How will you not fall Into ideas of gain and loss.

[21:34]

Wie werdet ihr nicht in Vorstellungen von Gewinn und Verlust fallen? How can you awaken? Wie könnt ihr erwachen? So this introduction is asking you to be sensitive to when you have ideas of gain and loss. Diese Einführung fordert von euch... Yeah, when you find yourself using your conceptual faculty. Again, you know we're not talking about something bad about conceptual thinking. We just don't want it to be the only shape of your mind.

[22:38]

And we don't want it to be your basic mind or your initial mind. Now we're each, you are, we are, each of us living our consciousness all the time. No, some of you are pretty new to Johanneshof. Some of you are pretty new to Johanneshof. But already you know the path behind the house and so forth. But can you really experience the consciousness in which you live as well as you already know the path in Johanneshof? Can you feel the territory of your basic mind and your initial mind? Practice assumes you're You see the necessity of knowing this territory if you're living in your actual world.

[24:07]

This is called pointing to mind. And when does this pointing occur? And is it as fast as a flash of lightning? Or something you hear and a tune you don't hear? Something you hear but don't cover your ears? It's too late, it's gone by. Don't open your ears. Mm-hmm. Now, the koans are presented this kind of way because, you know, they're trying to challenge you, of course, trying to challenge you.

[25:23]

But maybe you don't like to be challenged. You're an adult now. You don't have to be challenged anymore. Maybe it's a different way of looking at the world. Well, let me present the koan anyway. The main phrase of it. Yeah. The triple, in the triple world, There is nothing. There is no thing in the triple world. Where will you find mind? Okay, now, I don't know. Let's just take that as a phrase for now. And I'm saying it's an entry to what we've been talking about all week.

[26:52]

And much of what you've been encountering in your practice that the lectures have just been a small portion of. Well, I say this, I think it's right, can you feel this line, this phrase of Pan Shan Bao Ji. Pan Shan Bao Ji. Let's just call him Bao Ji. Bao Ji. Yeah. Oh, let me tell you something about him. He was a disciple of Matsu, the famous, one of the most, two or three famous of all Zen masters, who created Zen Buddhism, resting it, resting, do you understand that?

[28:08]

To wrestle it out, resting it from Indian Buddhism, into a practice for sophisticated, literate Chinese folks. And he's not much is known about Baoji. He went off to... After leaving Matsui, he went off and he taught right near what's now North Korea. One of the first teachers in that area.

[29:12]

Einer der ersten Lehrer in diesem Gebiet. But his teaching actually permeates the blue cliff records. Aber seine Lehre durchdringt wirklich die Niederschrift von der Smaragden-Felswand. Because Yuan Wu, the compiler, was an admirer of his and quoted him throughout. The quotes are throughout the koans. Without attribution. The one who put the inscription together was a admirer of him and he quotes him in all the koans. And he first started practicing because he was walking one day past a butcher shop. And he heard someone say to the butcher, Cut me a piece of the finest.

[30:29]

And the butcher put down his cleaver. And said, Inspector, Tell me which piece isn't the finest. That's like, is this an ideal form or is it just this is this is this, that's all. So when the butcher did this, Baoji had some feeling, and he decided to start practicing Zen.

[31:31]

Then he'd heard of Matsu, so he went and joined Matsu. And later he, you know, I'm just trying to give you a feeling of this guy. And later he went, he was, you know, in the village. And he heard drumming and singing. Oh, and they were singing the red disc, the red disc, the sun, the red disc. The red disc, the red disc inevitably sinks in the west. When, where will we ever, where will the ghost ever go?

[32:33]

And he heard from the garden of the son, the son of the person who died, he heard from the garden. He heard the son of the person who died. Oh, because someone died, that's why they were singing. So it was like the Austrian band, but they were beating drums and singing and singing the the red disc, the red disc, inevitably sinks in the West. Where will the ghost ever go? Then he heard the son of the man who died say from behind the garden wall, alas, alas, Sounds good.

[33:55]

At that, something trembled in Baoji's body. And his mind turned. And he went back to the temple and Matsu saw him. Matsu said, I understand, and gave him his seal of approval. And Matsu said, I understand, and gave him the seal of his recognition. There were no words. And Baoji afterwards, at some point, started to teach. And when he was, you know, much later, when he was going to die, when Julie was going to die, as I said, to die within your own power, within your own intention, yeah, so,

[35:13]

So there's a tradition that disciples paint a picture of the teacher after he dies. And then it becomes part of the altar. So he said, before he died, he said, my disciples, he said, would you draw a picture of me? I want to see what I'm going to look like. So all the disciples did pictures. He looked at each one. No. So his eccentric disciple, Pua, had been out somewhere. So when he came in, Balji said, I asked everyone to draw a picture of me and I'm about to perish.

[36:27]

And Pula just turned a somersault and went right out the door. And Pua, he just made a leap and went out the door. And he said, this student will teach the people in the future in the craziest way. And then Baalji passed away. Alas. So... I think this may be where Dogen got the somersault in Sammai-O-Sammai. Dogen says, at the very moment of sitting...

[37:41]

Dogen sagt, in genau dem Augenblick des Sitzens. What is this? Vertical or horizontal? Was ist das? Is it an acrobat turning a somersault? Senkrecht oder waagrecht? Is it a fish swimming in a tree? Ist es ein acrobat, der einen Salto schlägt? I added the tree. Ist es ein Fisch, der im Baum schwimmt? Ich habe diesen Baum hinzugefügt. Okay. So here's this guy. And he said this, in the triple world, there's not a thing in the triple world. Where can we seek for mine? Now I want to... Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[39:00]

Now I want to say something about... something that puzzles me. Which I'm, you know, trying to understand. Now I practice here in... German-speaking Europe. Because, you know, you're very supportive of each other in your practice. And for other reasons, too. One reason is that you actually try to do this practice. I've often said if I give a practice to 50 people here in German-speaking Europe. And I come back in six months.

[40:02]

Maybe 20 or 30 or... Forty of you have tried the practice. If I give a practice to 50 Americans, I come back in six months, I'm lucky if two or three have tried. I'm making these comparisons not to be critical, but just because I'm trying to figure out how to teach. The advantage Americans have is they tend to make the teaching their own more quickly than Europeans. And making it their own, they're willing to try it out in new ways.

[41:09]

Europeans have more tendency to try to think about the way it should be. of wanting to look it up and find the source and things like that. That's understandable, too. That's good. But in Zen, the source is here. Don't tell me you want to wish you'd met Suzuki Roshi. If you feel that way, you don't understand what this is about. I meet Suzuki Roshi every time I see any one of you. I meet Baoji when I see any one of you. To make it real, you have to practice in this way.

[42:31]

So what I'm puzzling about is you may think this is strange, but I really am puzzled by it. I'm doing in America and Germany, German speaking Europe, I'm doing the Oryoki with you for now 20 years, 15 years, 10 years. I would say none of you virtually have got it right. Why is that? I can't understand it. I'm trying to understand it. I don't think it's your... not visually alert. I think it has to be rooted in some view of the world.

[43:47]

I guess partly you might think that the Yoyoki is something that can be learned. And so you think, well, now I've done it for a year, I must have learned it. But it's not that kind of thing. It's an activity. I mean, how can I explain? Well, one difference is, you know, like in... that I can try to point to. Ein Unterschied, auf den ich hinweisen kann, ist... And again, not being critical. Noch einmal, ich will hier nicht kritisch sein. Another tendency we have is we think there's right and wrong.

[44:48]

Eine andere Neigung, die wir haben, ist, dass es richtig und falsch gibt. This is such a pernicious way to think. Pernicious is? Pernicious is... Gifty. Yeah, all right. She says so, she must be... Because there's actually a hundred degrees of right and maybe one or two of wrong. Dogen says if you shoot an arrow at a target and you only hit on the hundredth time, All 99 plus one hit the target. Yeah, it's a way of thinking that Well, there is such a thing as wrong, but almost everything is a form of right.

[46:09]

It's just somewhat different. That it's almost... Yeah, well, I don't know. They're all forms of right and almost no forms of wrong. But in our ego, we feel there's a hundred forms of wrong and only one form of right. We're always thinking, I've got to do it perfectly right or something. It so inhibits your courage and your attempt. I start to say about music. In Asia, most music is really sort of jazz. Yeah, there's...

[47:11]

It's sort of, within parameters, it's sort of made up as you go along. And it can shift according to the mood of the audience and the player and the time of day. Our culture tries to make a piece of music that you play. Rather than the playing as an activity, the music's a kind of guide. And we try to write music that someone can play. They sometimes write music no one can play.

[48:26]

So every effort is an attempt toward playing it. And so Buddhist vows are like that. Buddhist vows are impossible to follow. But, I mean, if you want to save sentient beings... come into deep accord with all sentient beings? Does it make sense to vow I'll come into deep accord with three sentient beings? Why not four? Or five? Or five. Well, I can't do more than six, I'm sorry.

[49:40]

No, the effort is all, everyone, all sentient beings. If you think in terms of, does the great way have a middle? No, it's just... Yeah, it's just everywhere at once. So it's a direction, the effort to save, the effort to be in accord with sentient beings is fulfilling the vow. So it's a direction. Now, this kind of thinking is in such a simple thing as the orioke. I think we also in Germany have a tendency to respect each other's space.

[50:52]

So we kind of give each person their space. And so maybe we don't really notice what's going on in the other person's space as much as we might. Because I find, for example, that somebody will sit beside me for all session or several times a year or for years, and they still do the orioke differently than I do it. And if I try to change the way the oriyoki is done... Is this all right, what I'm saying?

[52:10]

I'm trying to give you a sense of what I'm saying. So, in Creston, recently, I decided, you know, the way we spread the cloth out... ...is based on doing it on the floor. Is, um... So, but we in Creston do it on the tan, so there's a, you know, about this high off the floor. So, two or three years ago, I decided to do it a different way. A very small difference. Which is I let the flap here, instead of tucking under, I let it hang down the front of the tongue. The flap is the little cloth triangle.

[53:23]

I do it a whole practice period. Maybe by the end of the practice period, two people have noticed it and imitated me. And they're usually Americans, not Germans. Because I think we think, and Americans too, most of them don't notice it either. They don't see it as jazz. They see it as something they've learned and so they're going to do it a certain way. And they don't see it as something that it takes actually some years to learn jazz. even observing carefully. Yeah.

[54:31]

Now, why am I talking to you about it? I don't know, because I like you. I love you. You're nice guys. And I basically have been doing this, as you know, 40 years. And mostly... I've given up. I can't even get us to chant together. And so I give up. I can't get us to learn the Oryoki, so I give up. I do know if I was in Japan, If I put the flap down, within one meal, everybody in the Zenda would be doing it. Is that because they're more visually alert than us? No, because they pass things... I don't know, there's a...

[55:32]

They attune themselves to each other more rapidly than we do. Sometimes it's irritating because they seem to be imitating each other all the time. But let's have the best of both worlds. Because this coming into singing the same tune to moving in the same direction Pace pulse. To knowing the world in this parallel perception. To feel the momentariness of the world and the extension of the world. And that momentariness and extension is happening all the time.

[56:43]

As quick as lightning and as loud as thunder. But we don't see it. I mean, somebody who sits beside me then will teach the Yoyogi, and I know they're teaching it wrong, but I can't, what can I do? Part of the problem is, I think, You have to really notice without thinking. Even, you know, we're supposed to, we fold our claws so that they aren't exactly even. Because then when you fold it up, they are even. But we tend to do it conceptually as if it's supposed to have a space. It's just supposed to be felt. In other words, you fold two corners together so there's a slight, only feelable difference, not exactly the same.

[58:07]

Because then when you fold it, they come out even. Some of these things They can't happen or be understood conceptually. And I think part of the problem is that we don't feel the light inside the form. In other words, there's a sort of a basic light inside the oryoki. Certain views. which the form proceeds from.

[59:21]

And once you feel this light, it's very clear how to do the yoga. I hate to talk about all this, I'm sorry. Maybe once every ten years or so I should talk about it. Suzuki Roshi said, used to say to me, be more alert. So, but it's alert in a kind of aesthetic, physical way. Which you don't grasp by conceptual noticing or naming, but some kind of feel. And that's what this koan is about.

[60:23]

That's what it means. As quick as lightning, when do you have time to think? In the triple world. Now that you're... I won't be able to do the orioke now because you'll all have floodlights on me and cameras and... And I'll start making mistakes and being nervous. Come in a little closer for the close-up here. And... I'm just trying to use the Yoyoki as an example. Because so much in practice goes by unnoticed. And you guys, your practice is so mature, I'm so impressed with it.

[61:29]

But there's still a conceptual flavor even in your physical understanding. So maybe you can have a phrase. Take out the conceptual flavor. No, unless we're going to skip dinner, I have to stop sometime. So let's go back to that. That's why we made a long break after lectures. I could talk as much as we want. and make the translator talk. It's much harder to translate than for me to give a lecture. I just say whatever I want. He has to come up. So in the triple world, if you like, you can think of that as past, present and future.

[62:44]

Triloka or triple world means more specifically means the world of desire, the world of form, and the world of formlessness. Okay, now let's take this from our lectures. Let's think of formlessness as noticing the momentariness and extension of the world. And noticing it in this way. We spoke about this dual perception, parallel perception. Let's call that the gate of the formless world. So in the triple world, let's work with that part of the phrase.

[63:59]

You can feel when there's a flavor of desire in what you do. Of gain and loss. You can feel when it's more like just form. Just this. And you can feel perhaps the shift when it's really not graspable. So this koan is asking you to feel the simultaneous presence of the triple world. Okay, so you get till you can feel that. And there's not a single thing in the triple world.

[65:07]

Now, what can you grasp in any one of these realms? Something you desire? Okay. Now, but someone said this. Baoji said this. So his mind must be present. So where can mind be sought? Can we seek it in this phrase? Can we seek it noticing our own mind? And maybe think of a phrase like this as something like a love letter. Once I went into an antique store. And this is a true story. And the shopkeeper said, oh, a few weeks ago here, a certain Tibetan teacher was in here.

[66:24]

A Western teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. And this woman said, he left you a note. He assumed I might come in the store someday. I said, well, okay, and she gave me a teeny piece of paper. I opened it up. Even opened up, it was... third the size of my fingernail. And it said, I love you. I thought, well, this is really sweet. And another time, years after I'd seen Ivan Ilyich, a letter, a note came, a piece of paper in an envelope came to me. Green's restaurant.

[67:37]

And the envelope was forwarded to me. And so I opened it up and just had a piece of paper or one. corner torn off and said, Richard, where are you? Because of that, I'm going to see him next week, actually. After Berlin, I'll spend a couple of days with him in Bremen. So he sent me that note 20-some years ago. So we've got this note from Baoji. And sometimes we can't make it too clear.

[68:40]

Sometimes we can't make things too clear. It's like the woman who says... I'm not in love. She says she's not in love. But why is the bracelet on her arm an inch too big? Well, partly, you know, we don't Other people know we're in love before we know it. We don't want to quite admit it to ourselves. And it has much bigger consequences for us than the observers. We're not sure we are, yeah. Mm-hmm. But we want to tell it somehow so we wear her bracelet or his bracelet.

[69:50]

Perhaps it's like something like being ordained. We think maybe we could be ordained. God, what a change it's going to make in my life. Yeah, we can't make the decision. But we cut our hair real short. Maybe even wearing robes as an ordained person. It's like wearing a bracelet an inch too large. Because even being ordained and taking these vows, we can't really say how much in love we are and what we hope and expect of this life.

[71:16]

With this feeling, with this kind of feeling, we can look at this love letter from Baoji. What was he asking us? In this world, where can we seek for mind? And if you can use such a phrase, It's better than a great book on a long bus ride. It's always there for you. Where do we seek for mind? In this triple world, where do we seek from?

[72:16]

I'm sorry to keep you alone, sitting so long. Thank you for translating all week.

[72:21]

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