Now I've been assured by a number of persons that I'm not getting too zenny. But I'm definitely not presenting this to add alternatives to your already complex lives. I'm presenting it as a way of looking at the world, which in my sense resonates with the praxis, the practice, praxis of consolation. Okay, so it does sound like, from what Christina said and others that probably if you want to try to constellate this thing, do you?

[01:10]

I mean, we don't have to. It's just an idea. But it sounds like We should then do it in the afternoon. And then with the fire we can tear it up and burn it. That's a Buddhist practice actually. You write down all the things you want to get rid of and you go to a fire. Okay, so let me pick out some more cells of being or seeds of realization. Or just to establish a sufficient context for the cells of being that we might be. Constellate.

[02:18]

So this Yuan Wei, Wu Wei asks Master Furong, how long has it been since we met? How long has it been since we met? Seven years. So Mr. Yang says, Have you been studying the way engrossed in meditation? And Furong says, I don't play that fife and drum. Okay, so this establishes first of all that this koan is about something other than just what happens in meditation. And it starts to establish a time frame for its study.

[03:32]

It's not accidental or incidental that they throw in seven years. And down below they say, ten years pilgrimage. In other words, the koan is suggesting, rather strongly, that this is something you have present in your life for five or ten years. No, I'm not, of course, suggesting that we are going to, for the next seven years, if I last that long of our seminars, we're going to bring this up every year.

[04:40]

Just like some of these things take time, that's all. Now, Tom Thomas mentioned to me that he has some concern about what happens when you calculate something. Could you say what you... Thomas told me that he has a few considerations about what happens when you calculate something. Let me first say that I have little experience with, only little experience with constellation work through my, didn't have much space in my studies.

[05:54]

Seeing the world, trying to see the world with Buddhist eyes through meditation, viewing it as a flux or flow, Constellation implies for me the danger of seeing things too statically. For example, exploring the three tantrins.

[07:03]

I see it more as a flow of experience that I... have a hard time seeing how it can be constellated and that I almost have the feeling I could lose what this is by constellating it. Were you here last night? I see the use of describing healing systems in this way and it seems to be a good method. So you're concerned that constellation may be a concretization?

[08:14]

Anybody else think that? The opposite. I can see that some people might use it like that. They might say, I saw that. Yeah, I understood that. I can see that it's a problem. It could be a problem. And certainly to what I do in the, what has developed that I do in these winter branches meeting.

[09:18]

The term winter branches, by the way, for those of you who might be curious, comes from the idea that during the winter branches look dead. So that lineage might look dead through several generations. or a practitioner might be living the life of a banker and it doesn't look like he's practicing but something else is happening and when spring comes he or she blooms. Banker was a reference to T.S. Eliot being a banker for some years and then really writing some wonderful poems.

[10:21]

T.S. Eliot, Okay. So what I see, find myself doing in what's developed by circumstances in the winter branches of seminars is in fact we just kind of wander around aimlessly in the koan like it says here. And then we try to actualize some of the sort of stuff. Like the phrase, the cloud rhino, the cloud rhino engulfed in light.

[11:38]

And then you have to see everybody walking around like a rhino. Excuse me. That's a reference to UNESCO's play, Rhinoceros. Yeah. Or, you know, in Koan 6 we worked with Apart from the four propositions, Nagarjuna's Tetralemma, and beyond the hundred negations, what is this? So then somehow people have to get a sense of that without thinking it.

[12:57]

So if they can act it, you know, sometimes helps. What? In this case, yes. Okay, so some other things here. As Nanchuan says, the way is not in knowing or in not knowing. Knowing is false consciousness and not knowing is indifference. So the koan is beginning to try to shoot down any ideas you have. And some people just go over to not knowing. They think it's about not knowing and they say, just this is it.

[13:57]

That's also wrong. And some people just go over to not knowing Then it reverses the thrust and says, not speaking about not knowing, just says the one word knowing. when gar nicht von nichtwissen die Rede ist, ist einfach dieses Wort Wissen. Einfach dieses Wort Wissen ist bereits das Tor zur unendlichen myriad, It's the gate of myriad wonders. So it's, you know, we don't know what not knowing is, we don't even know what knowing is, in other words.

[15:04]

And then it says, the hook is in an unsuspected place. And that is the idea that like in a constellation, Exactly where do you, I mean, like maybe putting your hand out, where do you place the hook so the person doesn't feel it until you yank it? And then it says, once the golden dragon strays from the water, The giant Garuda bird quickly grabs it. And the glossary has an interpretation of this which I think is wrong. Because it's more that, because it says next, there's not a thread of gap.

[16:25]

Dijang's timing of cause and conditions had not a thread of gap. The sense of time in yogic consciousness. There is no linear time. There is only ripening time. and Andrea's time is ripening in one, and your time is ripening, and my time is ripening, all in rather different paces.

[17:48]

And an astute observer sees in a room like this a flow of ripening times going on at the same time. and knows where to put the hook so the ripening time can open into an insight. So that's like the golden dragon is like practice. If it strays from this practice, if there's a gap, the Garuda bird gets it. And I have a wonderful little Buddha that's a carved Garuda.

[18:49]

And it looks iconographically related to the Native American thunderbird. But things like these images can be looked at negatively or positively. In this Concept the Gouda bird is like a huge bird with wings as big as the universe which is ready to grab anybody who's not alert. And it says here roaming serenely he goes where his feet take him this is trusting in circumstances but more specifically trusting in the agency of circumstances as a larger sense of being

[20:33]

And here they quote Zheng Zhao, who I quoted the other day. And here they quote Zheng Zhao, who I quoted the other day. the non-difference of all things, or we could say the inseparability of all things, doesn't mean that you add to a duck's legs and cut a crane's legs. You don't add to a duck's leg, cut a crane's leg, so everything is equal.

[21:45]

Come over here, duck. Then it says, let it be long. Let it be short. Stop cutting and patching. And that could also be... Constellate. Stop cutting and patching. Hör auf abzuschneiden und zu flicken. Das könnte man auch aufstellen. Hör auf abzuschneiden und zu flicken. And then we have, you know, we talked about the eight Vishyanas here. And now we have a suggestion in the koan that you have to practice the eight vijnanas as part of working on this koan.

[22:53]

And they suggest it by the funniest little theater piece. First it says, one face big as a slat. It means a big face with just like a flat board. Also, ein Gesicht groß wie eine... A slat? A slat is like a piece of wood. Ein Gesicht groß wie eine Platte. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, and could have touch. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, distinguish territories. And this is a basic idea in Buddhism, that we know the world through our eyes and ears and nose, but there are only five or six pieces of the pie.

[24:06]

Like the cell phone Cell phones going on in this room right now. In movies, I mean, Fred Astaire is dancing over the air. They're just outside our senses. So the first thing to know is your senses only are small parts of the pie and there's a lot happening that's outside what we know. And that's pointed out by just saying the face is like this, but and, i.e. your nose and tongue, only distinguished territory. And then they have this little theater piece.

[25:15]

Mouth says to nose. Eating is up to me. Speaking is up to me. What good are you that you're above me? A nose said, Among the five mountains, the central one occupies the honored position. Nose, then ask the eyes.

[26:36]

But why are you above? I said we are like the sun and the moon. Truly we have the accomplishment of illumination and reflection. But in turn we really dare ask the eyebrows, what virtue do you have to be above us? And eyebrows say, well, if you let us be below, we really have no merit. We're ashamed to be above you. And if you will let us be below...

[27:43]

And let the eyes look from above. What kind of face holes are you? So this is this Kahn's way of saying, you better study the eight vijnanas. And things do have their place. The eyebrows, can you imagine me with eyebrows here? Next year I may arrive that way. We'll see. And then this all leads up to In the eyes it's called seeing. In the ears it's called hearing.

[28:55]

But tell me, what is it called in the eyebrows? And then the ancient who said this paused and said, in sorrow we grieve together. And happiness, we rejoice together. Everyone knows the useful function. But do you know the useless great function? Okay. Yeah. So, the last thing I'll say about the koan.

[29:56]

Where it says, look into the moment before thought arises. And you'll see it, not seeing. Then put it to one side. When you direct your effort like this, not meditating, not practicing does not interfere with practicing. And practicing does not interfere with not practicing. Okay. So we have these various examples that we could think about constellating. No other location mind.

[31:01]

That's a phrase of my own. But it's a little bit like Nervi Kalpa. So we could have, I don't know what, from this koan, not knowing is nearest. Let it be short or long. Or everyone understands. That's another line I didn't read. Everyone already understands. Or we could have, what is it called in the eyebrows? Yeah. The useless great function. Hold to the moment before thought arises. The gate of myriad wonders.

[32:26]

Okay, so that's just a kind of picture of this koan. And a picture of how one needs to work with it. and what you do when you study a koan and practice with it you just read it a few times and then you take whatever phrase happens to stick with you and then you start working with the implicit instructions Like this is about an engagement which is beyond sitting meditation or not sitting. And you want to renew your practice of the eight vijnanadas. And you want to develop the skill of holding to the moment before thought arises.

[33:45]

And you do these things. Within the kind of flow of staying with not knowing is nearest. The flow of not knowing is nearest. Yeah, and... And the koan may begin to come together. And usually there will be a pulse to your ability to bring it to your attention. And it will disappear from your attentional body.

[34:46]

And then reappear. And usually I find as a practitioner that it's begun to have a reality in me sort of like unexpectedly, in an unexpected way. And this is something like the relationship with the teacher. And You know, it's these practices, I think of a practice like the Three Tantians. It's like the body with the skin off.

[35:56]

The external body, which is a An object among objects. As the skin pulled off. That's how I feel it. And these raw tantins are functioning in the world. And the teaching, the relationship between the teacher and the sangha and a teacher and a practitioner and practitioners,

[36:57]

is something like creating overlapping rooms. Yeah. You know, there's no such thing as one parallel life. It takes a second one to make a parallel line. So you can have one parallel lines, but you can't have one parallel line. Does that make sense? Kind of sense? So this is not one parallel line. This is one parallel lines because this makes a unit. And the relationship between teacher and disciple or practitioners is like something like one parallel lives.

[38:16]

Overlapping rooms. And it functions, the great function of it is through an absolute trust in this bodies with the skin off. And there may be differences, but the trust is always there. These two, it's... remains one parallel lives. When the trust is gone, there's no real feedback.

[39:19]

If there's no real feedback among each, the relationship is gone. So there's a kind of, you know, the relationship among the Sangha is sort of like taking the skin off and in a field of trust, exploring what it means to be a human being. Say it again. the concept of Sangha is taking the skin off everyone. In a field of trust, a trust which is often tested, finding the parallel lives that create a lineage And these koans are meant to be maybe constellations.

[40:37]

And meant to be teachings which take the skin off the beingness as objects within a world of objects. and establish a mutual practice of what it means to be alive. And in a fundamental sense, we're all doing this. Not just Zen practitioners. We're all on one planet with many lives.

[41:44]

And some of us like those are shared friendship here and practicing as constellation therapists and as some of us as Zen practitioners. Our shared practice here. As therapists or meditators? is also our experience over years of what it is to be alive. Our shared invitation to each other to participate in beings coming to be. And excuse me for becoming so serious. But koans always put me in that kind of mood.

[42:53]

Because they are serious explorations of what it means to be alive. And right now, we're not doing too well in exploring together, globally, what it means to be alive. Maybe that's all I have to say this morning. So we can... sit for a little bit or we can have some discussion or whatever you'd like. Or we can make a plan for our co-installation. I heard some nodding from those who don't want to talk.

[44:01]

That's it. Okay.

[44:03]

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