Thank you. I carried this fan here because, not because it's so warm, but maybe that's a good idea. But because, oh, excuse me. I brought this fan with me today, not because it's so warm, although that would certainly be a good idea.

[01:06]

Yes, yes. Because I forgot my staff. I put it out. I don't know how I forgot it, but anyway, I didn't bring it. I didn't bring one of them. And it's customary to carry staff or something when you give a lecture like it's, I'm supposed to wear an okesa. And the staff represent the teaching, represent that I'm carrying the teaching, carrying something in addition to just being here. And then the most common teaching staffs are the whisk, of course, the white whisk, you know. And that literally is derived from the horse, you know, to get off flies, you know.

[02:06]

Because, you know, in those olden days they didn't have air conditioning and screens and things, so in hot summer in southern China you're always flipping off the flies, you know. And the other classic one is the curved one, which originally was a back scratcher. Zen is very practical. Sukhiroshi used to carry his back scratcher and say, it reaches anywhere. And then some of the staffs over the years, I've accumulated quite a few. Some of the staffs represent the soma, the psychedelic mushroom, so it represents transcendental experience.

[03:41]

And some represent the lotus, which is the root of the teaching and which flowers in you. And some like the fan, represent the hidden teaching. If you don't see right away, it has to be uncovered. And also it means that this wind reaches everywhere. This teaching reaches everywhere. So I would like to try to make clearer what I was talking about yesterday.

[05:06]

And clearer clearer to myself and for myself as well. As I'm speaking. Because for me, you know, this practice This sashin is a laboratory of understanding. And if it's a laboratory of understanding for me, my own feeling is it's more likely to be a laboratory for your own understanding. So I hope you, I wish you please be a little patient with me if I'm sometimes abstruse or long-winded. Okay. Now what I'm trying to do is really to, one of the themes has become what is teaching.

[06:32]

As I said, and I hope you discover in your Notice. I mean, it's important to notice basic things. Notice when conditions or you or your body, the emphasis is primarily your body. Notice when it's your mind. Or primarily your mind, which is defining it. Or primarily your mind, which is defining you. Or notice when it's primarily your senses, which are defining you.

[07:40]

Now there's no sharp line between your senses, phenomena, the body, your mind. Yet these are defined separately because they are different realms of experience for us, different realms in which we can focus ourselves. And each different focuses produces a specific kind of bliss. So they're understood to be different because they produce different kinds of bliss. Now, this is a teaching that's not immediately obvious.

[08:49]

And at the level of these three different kinds of bliss, they also join in a new way. For example, mental bliss and physical bliss. together produce real meditative stabilization. Now I should say that, you know, analysis, which, you know, coming from a Christian culture where religion is primarily belief and grace. And intuition and faith. We don't associate either aesthetic or religious experience so much with logic.

[10:15]

But in Buddhism it's definitely inseparable. Because the mind properly used Through analysis, divides itself into parts. Dividing itself into parts, if correctly done, or accurately done, produces emptiness. And then mind that the analysis itself turns into emptiness and is blissful. So when your thinking becomes very powerful and accurate, It flows in brightness and bliss.

[11:24]

And then this is considered a valid cognition. Or a pramana. Pramana is a Hindu Sanskrit word meaning proof. So the question here is, what's true? Are the scriptures true? Now let me come back to Sashin a minute. The form of Sashin. Now the form of Sashin is to allow you to practice a lot of Zazen. But the overall conception of Sashin, as I said yesterday,

[12:39]

is to be enough different from your ordinary life and different in a way that rubs you the wrong way and different in a way that's somewhat difficult. So it gives rise to discrimination. I'd prefer it this way or that way. But since it's obviously so arbitrary, And you're not hurting anyone. Other than yourself. Or your legs or something.

[14:04]

Please be careful with your legs. By the way, if I seem to be stumbling around occasionally, I... I actually threw my leg out quite seriously, or I don't know, somewhat seriously, in January. I didn't do it through sitting, but I did it anyway. opened up an injury I got in the 50s. So I'm having kind of fun with it because it does unexpected things sometimes. My leg goes the wrong direction. But I have to bow and I have to use both hands to get up And I'm embarrassed to be giving you such a bad yogic example of how you get up from a bow, so I apologize.

[15:07]

But it's only because, to continue yesterday's theme, I've become an elderly cripple. Maybe I'll stumble into your hearts. If that's the case, I'm going to hit both legs. You're going to go ahead. If that's the case, I'm going to hit both legs. Maybe that was Tsukiyoshi's secret. That is Tsukiyoshi's geheimnis. Okay, so Sashin is conceptually

[16:12]

defined, designed to be different and difficult. So you can very purely see your discriminations Your preferences. Your likes and dislikes. Your desires, your tendency to personalize everything and try to control things. And seeing that, to see if you can, for these seven days, generate a neutral state of mind. A non-discriminating state of mind. So now Buddhism says that there are truths that are direct perceptions, obvious, like this room is a direct perception. But that everything is impermanent is an inference.

[17:24]

An inference. So it's slightly hidden. The Buddhism texts are divided up into obvious or direct and slightly hidden and very hidden. And very hidden are things like reincarnation. And so Buddhism doesn't, Zen Buddhism doesn't emphasize reincarnation much because it doesn't emphasize the slightly hidden or the very hidden because it has to be taken on scriptural authority.

[18:30]

So Zen being so strongly a yogacara school, really emphasizes those things which can be known through a direct perception. So Buddha's Zen is known as the teaching outside the scriptures Not because the scriptures aren't useful. But because the scriptures are not apodictic, which means are not necessarily true. The scriptures may lead you to the truth, but that direct perception of the truth, what the scriptures lead you to, occurs outside the scriptures.

[19:54]

So Zen is called the teaching outside the scriptures because the validity of Zen is outside the scriptures. The direct perception that proves something to you without a doubt. Occurs in your historical present. In the immediate conditions of your life. Now Christ is said to have come at a particular time in history. So we measure time, the Christian era, before Christ, etc. But in your own experience, you may measure time.

[21:15]

your own life in terms of certain valid cognitions that from then on your life turned. You were so sure of that, it's changed your life. Part of practice is to increase the likelihood of those valid cognitions, direct perceptions. Okay. Now, that the point of Sashin is to do a lot of sitting, we could say it's a pretty obvious direct perception. It may be, I think we can say it's slightly hidden, that the reason for these rules are not just so that we all eat at the same time, etc., but so that we create a non-discriminating state of mind.

[22:36]

And why do we want to create a non-discriminating state of mind? One reason is it makes a certain sense. I mean if you're practicing Buddhism after a while it makes a certain sense. But in what I'm trying to present to you now we do it because it's a quality of the Buddha. So when you have a non-discriminating state of mind For that moment or time you have acquired a quality of the Buddha. It's like we can see that everything is changing and impermanent.

[24:12]

Now, that is not exactly a direct perception because when I look at you, you all look fairly permanent. But by inference, I determine that You know, hey, we each are human beings, human beings age, hence we must all be aging. Now, while initially that's an inference, after you see it deeply and thoroughly enough, it becomes a direct perception. If you have a movie film in front of you, just a strip of film, you can see this one in front of the lens is the present one. The one on the left is the next one and the one on the right is the previous one.

[25:32]

So you can say that's the past and that's the future. But This is a point that Wittgenstein makes. As soon as the film is running in the camera, you can't say which is the past and which is the present and which is the future frame, because they all run together. And you are incapable of seeing the present one frame without all the information from the preceding one and the anticipation of the next one. So all that information becomes part of your direct perception. So if I now thoroughly know that everything is impermanent.

[26:52]

That influences my immediate perceptions and even shapes how I have other direct perceptions which are not based on impermanence. So basically the Yogacara school and primarily Pamanikas of Dharmakīti and Dignāga emphasize that both inference and direct perception are direct perception. So part of our practice is to become familiar enough with things we know through the teaching and through inference that they become direct perception. So you know now that you've seen it at least, or you can infer that there's something on this fan even though you don't see it.

[28:00]

Okay. So, again, another aspect of the sashin, the form of the sashin, as I said, one is for Zazen, The second is that it helps us recognize the possibility of a non-discriminating state of mind. And third, it creates a situation where we can discover the energy of basic dignity. In other words, the sheen should be difficult enough that it tends to beat you down. And if it's not difficult enough to beat you down, at least a little, you won't discover the energy of basic dignity.

[29:28]

I hope I translated it right. Yeah, I don't know how you translated it. How would I know? Dignified? Würde? Dignified? Dignified, yes. Würde. Also die grundlegende Würde sozusagen zu finden. So schwierig muss es sein. I love translating with you. I'm not sure if you do. I'm not being polite. I'm interested in valid cognition. Not polite cognition. Me too. Excuse me for hitting you. I love that. Ah! A gentleman almost my age. No, not quite. Now, dignity, I don't mean appearances or vanity or something like that.

[30:38]

I mean you may feel sitting sometimes at some period of zazen.

[30:42]

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