Now, what interests me among many things that interest me in what we're doing and in this case what we're doing and I'm doing is to try to find formulations in English. and through all of you and through Christina now translating in Deutsch and in the paradigms of Western ways of thinking and doing Auf Deutsch und in den lästlichen Paradigmen des Denkens und Tuns.

[01:01]

And so I'm exploring, I've been exploring the simple use of the word time after bodily. After bodily? Yeah, bodily time. Und so habe ich dieses einfache Wort Zeit nachkörperlich erforscht. to speak about the presence of the body, the feel of the body, and add the word time to it. And then the use of a word like that has allowed me to find a way to speak about the practice of in effect walking into our potential future.

[02:04]

Okay. So let's start again with the bodhi mandala of the space of the body. So we're using the body as a talisman. To start practice. To remind us to start practice. To remind us what we're doing is in the larger field of the possibility of enlightenment. And the larger field that we call the world of a Buddha or Buddhas or a Buddha field.

[03:06]

And one of the things, as I point out often, is one of the big things Chinese Buddhism did is say, this does not make sense as a practice unless we also are somehow Buddhists. So this is the practice that's possible for us. Okay. So trying to make that happen is, you know, like The background of sudden enlightenment, gradual enlightenment. So what I'm saying now is that you take as an initial mind and you just do it every now and then.

[04:16]

Right. The space of the body. And then the time of the body. And to notice body as time means you notice the heartbeat and the lungs and breathing and so forth. And you find a certain pace there. Yeah, and you just accept it. You let that be your pace. And if you don't find the pace, you kind of slow down a little or speed up a little in a way.

[05:28]

You're noticing so that until you find yourself sort of tuning yourself. If there's a goal, one of the goals would be to feel completely at ease in your own aliveness. You just feel a completeness, a completeness you don't need. Okay. But, of course... Let's say that I experience this right now.

[06:32]

And I've gotten to know over the years to basically remind myself to be in bodily time. That's just what I've gotten used to. And it makes me understand things of Dogen's statement, like mountains, mountain, mountains, mountain, meaning a mountain does itself. And that's how bodily time feels. But I'm also at this moment here with you. And so now here is a youthfulness in noticing a difference. You are each in your own bodily time either with attentional veracity or just haphazardly in your own bodily time.

[07:43]

And the fact that we're here together already either haphazardly or with a shared field of a variety of attentions. We're in a, let's now call, context. Okay, what I'm calling contextual talk. No, we're not. Of course, in the background, in this paradigm, is clock time. The solar time of our year.

[08:59]

But that's more like a theory we all have decided to live by through clocks. And to make that the case, we even have daylight saving time and so forth. Okay. Okay. So there's this contextual time. And it is not clock time.

[10:04]

And let's even call it contingent contextual time. Contingent, the word in English, contingency means Everything depends on each other with a large degree of chance involved. And if I just say contextual time, it doesn't necessarily emphasize that there's a lot of just chance involved. So you begin to open your bodily time unfold your bodily time, open and unfold your bodily time to the contextual time.

[11:24]

And the contextual time is a kind of domain where we're all living, but it's also kind of a network of connections. And I'm going to speak about Buddhism with you. And be heard by you, felt by you. And if I'm going to feel you in this in this activity I have to be in a variety of attunement to this contextual time.

[12:25]

And sometimes it's pretty effective and sometimes it's not very effective. But I'm in this contextual time. And in a way, bodily time is more in the background, or it's the motor within the contextual time. I don't know whether I'm a lawnmower or an outboard motor. So, yeah. Now, there's also... We're in the contextual time, and primarily I'm speaking about situational contextual time.

[13:42]

And the contextual time presented to us through our one or two people or friends or the seminar. And, you know, it might also be that your contextual time is established by you and your cat and your dog. And I think that one of the reasons people like pets is that pets are very good. I mean, they've domesticated humans for generations. And so, you know, they get fed, everything's pretty groovy.

[14:58]

And all they have to offer is an extended contextual time. And it's a kind of thrill to find your cat or your dog in a similar contextual time. But there's also the contextual time or time of phenomena itself, the allness, the all-oneness of the allness. Now we live within this extended situation of the so-called phenomenal world. And it's physical stuff But it is also, if you do have gotten the feeling for what I mean, is that you internalize and then walk within your own externalization of an internalized space.

[16:29]

So if you're in an externalized internal space, Because you folded in your sensorial experience then you almost feel like you're walking inside yourself. And it's what I mean when I say it's all inside, there's no outside. And when you're in this... externalized internal space, the subject-object distinction is mostly gone.

[17:41]

To ask who, I or me, you know, then it doesn't have much presence. Okay, now you're in when we make that further shift to include the allness of all at once. Now notice I'm not saying oneness. This doesn't exist in Buddhism. All I can say is allness. At this moment there's an allness and an all-once-ness. And that allness is always increasing and subtracting from itself and so forth.

[18:47]

So we can't really know this allness. Even though we are this allness, so in some ways we have to know it. It's another kind of knowing that can't be grasped consciously. And you come closer to knowing this knowingness which can't be grasped. The more you find the source of stillness in yourself, I like to say you distill stillness. Distill actually means drop by drop.

[19:49]

So you're in bodily time, because again, everything, these beautiful trees here, are rooted in the stillness of their trunks and roots. Ocean waves are rooted In the stillness of water when it has no wind. And we too are somehow rooted in stillness. And as Matthias pointed out, zazen is much about discovering that stillness. Reaching that stillness. And through reaching that stillness, discovering the source of that stillness, and finding then the skill of letting everything appear from that stillness.

[21:17]

Und die Fähigkeit zu finden, alles in Erscheinung treten zu lassen, aus dieser Stille heraus. Das wäre auch die Übung der Wehrheit. Der wurzellosen, vielversprechenden Grenze. The pace of contextual contingent time is fairly easy to discover. You just have to move, deploy, which also means to unfold. Deploy yourself in the space of contingency.

[22:26]

And be open to the contingencies, which means to not act as if everything was expected. To move into the field as it's presenting itself. And also to move into the field expecting unexpectedness. So that's sort of the craft of entering contingent contextual space. But the craft of entering gestational space

[23:29]

And then you can ask, why am I calling it gestational space or gestational time? Which I'm also calling it the allness of all-at-onceness. But maybe when I use a phrase like the allness of all at once, which is a phrase which suggests, you can even feel it maybe, that this is within the territory of our experience, So maybe now you can have a feel for Dogen's statement, the entire universe is the true human body.

[24:45]

Yeah, now he doesn't mean the entity of the universe. the stones on the moon or something. He means that which can be experienced as allness. So you could say the entirety of allness at this moment is the true human body. Now, how do we get there? One of the secrets, the craft, is to enter the pace of allness through stillness.

[25:51]

through feeling the source of stillness in yourself, suddenly becomes the stillness of the tree, even in its movement of the needles and leaves. Now, why also do I call this gestational time? And Dogen again says, you know, time past, time present, and time future all flow through you simultaneously. And I think we know that. I mean, it When you enter the fourth skanda of associative mind, the past is present, the present is present, and the future, the anticipation of the future and of possibilities are present.

[27:10]

Ich glaube, wir verstehen das. Wenn wir das vierte Skanda, dieses Assoziieren, betreten, dann bemerken wir, dass die Vergangenheit gegenwärtig ist, dass das Gegenwärtige gegenwärtig ist und die Vorwegnahme der Zukunft, die Möglichkeiten der Zukunft gegenwärtig sind. And the possibilities you will awaken in the future or for the future. And the possibilities that your very situation and culture and geography awaken in the future. flow through you. Now, this is where you place the decision to practice on. This is where you hold the precepts.

[28:17]

This is where you decide. My daughter is in the process of deciding now whether she will be a musician or a scientist or a layabout. This is the place where my daughter decides whether she will become a musician or a scientist or a layabout. Yeah, I mean, she could tell her teacher, yeah, I'd also like to be a layabout. And the teacher would say, That's not very good. Yeah, but she says, my father, he just lazily watches the white ox on the open ground. Just taking after dad. So the the veracity of her interest in science, which engages her mind in a way she finds satisfying.

[29:36]

And the... And the veracity of the music which she has discovered, the way her feelings can flow through her fingers into the piano. And how the complexity or genius of these composers can flow back into and awaken her own feelings. Through her fingers. And then she wants to be a contingent layabout. So those, depending on how she puts that into her gestational space, In Japan, this practice of talismans is much more upfront in the culture than in our culture.

[31:04]

If you want to have a baby, Or you're hoping for a particular kind of spouse. Or you'd like somebody to get cured of some disease. write on a piece of paper and then you tie it to a branch or you put it on a kind of around a Buddha figure or something. And some places which had the quality of an aroused space, you find thousands of these things in a case tied to everything. And I opened one once that said, contingent lay about.

[32:15]

Yeah. Okay, so in effect, your desire, the veracity of your desire or intention, functions within this gestational space. And it incubates over time. And like a powerful intuition flows through you I'm going to play the piano. Where this world is in such bad shape, I'm going to be an environmentalist.

[33:15]

Where did this come from? Well, it comes from all kinds of things flowing in this celestial and gestational space. You can see where I'm going. Yeah. Yeah. And so many things from the past are flowing in. In my case, my decision to practice with Suzuki Roshi is still flowing in my gestational space. Now, what is the medium for this gestation space?

[34:30]

The medium is phenomena itself. It's your simple everyday life. Where the allness of all at once... The simplest of everyday life where the allness of all at once. But anyway, that's what I say. Flows in the streambed of phenomena. Over the details of your life. Your job, your friends, your children and so forth. It's kind of like a big cosmic washing machine. And we're going to see what comes out when we open the door. Click. Click. Okay, we could have now and I won't speak about it though.

[35:58]

What really is the relationship between your intentions and your karma and so forth? And the skandhas and associative mind? and how this all flows, is deployed from us and flows back into us. But we don't have time. Neither gestational, nor contextual, nor bodily time. But I forgot my glasses. Let's see if I can read what I wrote. This is from the Shorya Roku column 81. And he's trying to say much more poetically than I am.

[37:06]

I think the same thing. Master, it was a little bit complicated, so I wrote it down. Master, we'll learn soon. is quoted in the Shoyoroku 81. If you want to get to the bare essence, if you want to get to the bare essence, it is the mountains, rivers and earth. It is the mountains, rivers and earth that discover it for you. That discover it for you. When you are bringing he means for sure when you are bringing your

[38:09]

unfolding your attentional space when you're bringing your attentional space to everything all at once. Then the grace and gift that is discovered for you if you are entering by way of Manjushri's door if you're entering by way of Manjushri, the bodhisattva wisdom's door, so Manjushri is a, we can think of as, in our functioning, as a particular kind of mental mind-body posture. If you enter by way of Manjushri's door all conditioned things earth, wood, tile, stones

[39:21]

tile, stone, help awaken potential. If you enter by Avalokiteshvara's door, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, all sound, And echoes. And I like the next best. Even clams and spiders. To hear the clams and spiders show you potential. Show you your potential. Now, if I said these things, you wouldn't believe me. You'd think this is... He's really gone over the edge.

[40:45]

Yes. But thank goodness, Master Wolonju did it for me. Yeah. If you enter by Samantabhadra's door, the bodhisattva of luminous practice, you arrive without taking a step. This is stillness. I use these three doors provisionally to direct you. But it's like using a broken stick to stir the ocean. It's like using a broken stick to stir the ocean.

[41:47]

Showing them showing fish and dragons that water is their life. That's what Master Wolin said, too. But also the Tiantong comments If you always know the source of moving, the source of stillness, speech and silence, coming and going, already you're not wasting your time.

[42:58]

If you always know the source of moving, of stillness, of speech and silence, of coming and going, then already you're not wasting your time. Okay, the end. The end. Oh dear. Thank you very much. Thanks, Master Wolden. Thank you, Master Wolden. And thank you, Christina. You're welcome. Ten after four. Sorry. And one sad thing about talismans. You always have to take them with you.

[44:05]

You get big pockets. Yeah, well, you don't have to. We have two centers, which are big pockets. Yeah.

[44:27]

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