I admire each of you for deciding to do sesshin and coming here and joining me in this sesshin and letting me join you in this sesshin Of course, the sheen uniquely belongs to you, each of you. Yeah, but we can't ask which or what you does it belong to. Because, by the way, can you hear us?

[01:02]

Can you hear Katrin back there? Because in Sesshin we come up into the middle of our life. In fact, always we are in the middle of our life. There's no beginning or end, really. There's just the middle. You keep being in the muddle of the middle. Da gibt es kein Anfang und kein Ende und ihr seid fortwährend in dem Mischmasch der Mitte.

[02:06]

Mischmasch. Is that German? It sounds English to me. The Mischmasch muddle of the middle. But we have, you know, that what I find one of the most radical statements in Buddhism, the Bodhisattva has no idea, from the Diamond Sutra, the Bodhisattva has no idea of a lifespan. This is repeated as a refrain over and over again in the sutra. And to touch the experience of no idea of a lifespan, It takes many forms.

[03:18]

I remember putting the laundry in a washing machine. And it was Marie Louise's laundry and Sophia's and mine. And it was all mixed up, cotton and wool. Colored, white. I mean, I'm thinking of the most ordinary circumstance you can have no idea of a lifespan. And as is not uncommon, I didn't have that much time. Yeah, I forget what I had to do, but something probably.

[04:18]

And I... Realized as I'm doing the laundry, I had to sort it as I was going on, see if things are in the pockets and what, yes. And I noticed that I had no problem with the fact that it took me 10 minutes to sort the clothes or something instead of one minute to stuff it in the washing machine. And I remembered of course times when I'd be impatient in the past. But I was charmed and pleased with myself that there was no impatience at all.

[05:26]

But just, yeah, now it was, I mean, how can I say it? I mean, It wasn't patience. And what's translated in Buddhism commonly in list after list as patience isn't really a good translation in English at least. Patience sort of sounds like it's in the same sort of emotional category as jealousy or something. That means something like to go through suffering, to be willing to go through suffering in English.

[06:27]

But I wasn't. I mean, this washing machine example, I wasn't suffering. And I wasn't impatient. Or patient. It's just what life was at that moment. Now I suspect everyone, you all have experiences like that. But getting to the point where there's no impatience. No concept of a future time in your life. Somewhere you know that you have a schedule and there's a future time.

[07:30]

But it's something like something written down on a piece of paper that's on the table or your desk or something. You don't have any experience of it. This is something like no idea of a lifespan. No timeline. Whatever it is at this moment is what it is. This is what I also call sometimes no other location mind. And I think one of the main, certainly for me anyway, the only place I learned that was Sashin.

[08:56]

If you have lots of other location minds during this Sashin, I guarantee you, you'll have quite a bit of suffering. Sorry. No, I can't promise if you have no idea of a life span your legs are going to stop hurting. I can't promise. But the suffering will be different. Yeah. And different suffering is better than, you know, in some. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we can use words like acceptance and so forth.

[10:03]

Also wir können da Worte wie Akzeptanz oder so benutzen. Yeah, it sounds the same in German. It means in English receive, take. Also in Englischen bedeutet das empfangen und nehmen. You receive something and you take it. That's it. But such simple things are difficult in Sashin. I mean, Sashin makes us aware of the difficulty. And we, you know, and... and... Sashin does most of the work for us. The schedule. The circumstances. That there's people sitting all around you. All this does much of the work. The kind of work we can't do unless you choose to go to a Sashin.

[11:26]

And the ordinary details of our life where we shift things around, etc. So for a week you can't shift around. Well, I don't mean you can't change your posture occasionally. The best thing is not to change your posture. Zazen is, if I were to define zazen, it's a posture in which you can feel relatively comfortable. And eventually, when you get used to it, more comfortable than in any other posture.

[12:34]

And you can relax inside and out. Mm-hmm. Judy, I'd rather you didn't take notes. It makes me think I have to say something important. What do you want to say? Yeah, but I don't want one. So the combination of discovering a posture, and if I were more subtle about it, I'd say a posture which allows consciousness to subside and primarily awareness to arise.

[13:37]

And the mind of awareness suffers much less than the mind of consciousness. No, it sounds like I'm trying to tell you all the ways to avoid suffering. Well, I would tell you if I discovered all the ways, but I have only discovered a few. But you can notice the difference. And you can tell when... You can notice the difference when awareness... is the feel of the body and of aliveness.

[14:52]

And when the thinking about of consciousness is pretty much gone, Now, as I said, Sashin does most of the work for you. We stay here for seven days, and the first priority is to follow the schedule. But Sashin is much more powerful if you bring an intention into the Sashin. Now I am in effect suggesting various intentions like no other location mind.

[16:08]

to see if you can feel that and discover that. But also discover the posture where awareness pervades your experience, the experience. So I started to define as simply as I could Zazen. And I think you know my definition. which is again this posture in which you can find ease and openness plus the concept don't move now sometimes you will move but Your intention is, if possible, don't move.

[17:49]

And see if you can find an inner not moving too. And this inner not moving is very close to no other location, mind. Now if I step back from my life a little bit and try to look at what I'm doing as if I were outside my life well I guess if I were you know I would say that person, or I, am trying to bring monastic experience into lay life, into lay practice.

[18:54]

And that's not to be imagined or anticipated from my life before I started practicing. But after the experience of Tassajara, it's clear to me that at least at this stage we need a monastic, as you heard me say so often, component to our practice. But what I'm also doing, which perhaps is more unique, is I'm trying to take the practices which develop through monastic incubation and find some way to distill them or express them so they can be practiced in everyday life.

[20:19]

And Sashin is one of the best places to try this, do this. And Sashin is the best way to try this and do this. Because Sashin is an intense part of ordinary monastic life. But it's also been developed as a way for lay persons to have an experience of monastic life. In general, unordained lay people are not allowed in the monastery. But they sometimes can come to lectures, and they can sometimes come to sashins.

[21:32]

So, sashin is this overlap between monastic life and lay life. And as a way to see if you can... feel yourself without any timeline. I would like to say during this session, my suggestion, just feel your body. But, you know, I don't... I should find some other word than feel.

[22:59]

Because feel suggests an observer who's feeling things. In English I could maybe say something like to be present as the body. Just be present as the body with no idea of past, present and future. No idea of a lifetime. Just appearing in the middle of Something which is unnamed.

[24:02]

In the middle of the unnameable. Knowing there's no alternative. In the middle of an unnameable, without an alternative. That's how we're going to advertise Sashins from now on. Not that we've ever advertised Sashins, but now we've got a phrase we ought to start with. Come join us in the middle of an unnameable without an alternative. In a lovely posture in which you don't move. Thank you very much.

[25:26]

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