As we may begin to explore and settle in to an initial mind of yes. Am I speaking loudly enough? I'm trying to keep my... It's like when we fall in love. It's not just about the beloved. The world is a different place for us. we can experience a kind of non-duality, a kind of connectedness.

[01:08]

A non-otherness. Through a mind that's just simply willing to receive whatever appears. einfach durch einen Geist, der bereit ist, das zu empfangen, was auftaucht. And whether we're liking or disliking the appearance, und egal ob wir das, was erscheint oder auftaucht, mögen oder nicht mögen, as it may settle in our awareness, so wie es sich in unserem Gewahrsein vielleicht niederlässt, können wir uns dem nahe fühlen, unabhängig von unserem Vorlieben.

[02:11]

Es uns zu eigen machen. And we need to practice constantly. Because we have a mind. Because we're constantly adding something. That's what minds do. So 1969 at Tassajara. A man named Loring was the head cook in the kitchen. And Loring was a dedicated macrobiotic. Do you know what macrobiotics are? And Loring was a... dedicated macrobiotic.

[03:24]

And many people in Tassajara were. And maybe some of you know, Suzuki Roshi didn't have very good teeth. But Loring told him when he ate brown rice, he should chew each mouthful 75 times. And Suzuki Roshi just tried to do what people told him to do, so he tried to do this. So one day, Loring was in the kitchen with a man named Dennis. And Dennis was, as much as Loring was an archetypal macrobiotic, Dennis was an archetypal child of the 60s.

[04:38]

Dennis didn't have a girlfriend, he had an old lady. Bonnie. Her name was Bonnie. And he had very long hair and a beard almost as long as his hair. Finally, he trimmed his beard, but he kept his hair. And he was wiry and very fit, very energetic. And this particular time, Dennis saw luring, putting bonito, shaved fish into the soup stock. And they almost came to blows over him putting this fish in the soup that was going to be served in the Zendo.

[05:55]

And somebody had the good sense to kind of physically extract Dennis from the kitchen and plunk him down in front of Suzuki Roshi in Suzuki Roshi's cabin. And I know this from Dennis, because nobody was there but Dennis and Suzuki Roshi. He said, you know, Suzuki Roshi, luring is putting fish in the soup and that's killing things and I haven't eaten meat or fish for six years and it's not the reverence for life and... And there had Lauren, had Lauren gesagt Suzuki Roshi, Dennis hat gesagt Suzuki Roshi, der Lauren, der packt Fisch in die Suppe und ich habe jetzt aber schon seit sechs Jahren kein Fleisch oder Fisch mehr gegessen und so ehrt man das Leben nicht und das ist doch falsch.

[07:20]

And Suzuki Roshi didn't say anything and Dennis kind of talked himself out. Und Suzuki Roshi hat gar nichts gesagt, während Dennis sich leer geredet hat. And then according to Dennis, Suzuki Roshi said in a very soft voice, which he felt like screamed at him. He said, your ideas about things are killing reality. Separating ourselves from ourselves and one another and each arising. filtering our experience through what we think is right. And it may be right. But it's completely not the point.

[08:21]

I don't think Suzuki Roshi said killing reality. He didn't use the word reality. But what he was saying is don't take refuge in your own views and beliefs. Don't take refuge in a diet. Take refuge in the formless three treasures. Buddha which abhors we may feel Buddha is a kind of the most satisfying kind of aliveness. Dharma is the exploration of that aliveness. Sangha is to live that aliveness, that most satisfying aliveness with and through others.

[09:58]

It means even a really good idea is not as good as no idea at all. No idea means we can make use of every idea. It means our practice can continue seemingly without an end. Learning from one another, each situation, each thing. None other. None other. And it's a kind of non-otherness that we can't think our way into.

[11:25]

We have certain soft rules in the temple. One of the soft rules in the temple is don't look around in the Zendo. It means don't think around in the zendo. It means please feel around in the zendo. Feel the space that each of us and all of us together are continually creating. We can't think around such a space. In so einem Raum können wir uns nicht herumdenken.

[12:28]

Das können wir versuchen, aber das ist nicht möglich. Aber wir können ihn erspüren und wir können miteinander einen solchen Raum hervorbringen. It means leading with an ungraspable feeling of each practice, each appearance, each arising that we encounter. And as we're able to enter it, to feel a kind of completion in each activity, Feeling the completeness as we pick up the third bowl with the shamak and dasar in it.

[13:56]

And we from our body taking it in. almost imperceptibly into our body and then sharing our bodily feeling, holding it over the water receptacle. Feeling the space that's created as it leaves the feeling of this place in our body to this place that's shared between the four of us over the water receptacle. And then pouring the water off Returning what we've been given.

[15:10]

And then touching the lip of our third bowl. In the place that touched our lip. To the wall of the water receiving receptor. And then bringing the ball back into the center. And bowing. It's such a simple activity. This morning I felt doing such a simple activity for, if only for that moment, stop the killing in Syria now.

[16:28]

It includes the joy meeting with our best friend. Everything is happening there. All the heavens and hells rattling around together. We can't think our way into such a situation. And Bekharoshi is a legend for making up words. So he has a word for the combination of being and energy. Why does he do that? Because he's trying to, as best he can, express the unsayable.

[17:53]

Express this feeling of offering water with a third bowl. a feeling that's really known only to us in that moment. And if you tell your friend, well, you know, you see them after this three-month on-go and they say, well, what did you do? Say, I stood in the zendo and I Then you can say, I stood in the station and heard the Densho bell. I tasted the water that we cleaned our bowls with. This kind of thing doesn't make any sense.

[18:55]

It's unsayable. But it's the territory in which our practice takes place. In a great area we live. In these very particular minute details of our activity together. And as we're gently able to set aside our fixed ideas about the way things are, we're able to enter a continuous practice of immediacy. desto mehr sind wir in der Lage, eine fortwährende Praxis der Unmittelbarkeit zu betreten.

[20:12]

Es gibt eine Lehre, die nennt sich die drei Geisteszustände des täglichen Bewusstseins. Da gibt es geborgtes Bewusstsein, sekundäres Bewusstsein und unmittelbares Bewusstsein. Barred consciousness is to know the different kinds of trees in our forest, to know the names of the trees and the different species of trees and what are deciduous and non-deciduous trees, etc. Secondary consciousness is the experience of walking in the forest and smelling the trees.

[21:18]

The smell of our childhood. The smell of a bicycle ride. An immediate consciousness Is to enter the space of the tree. Not mediated by our knowledge or understanding. Not subject to our associations. Not subject to our associations. It's to listen to the clouds that are passing this Zendo overhead now. It's to feel into the Zendo, not to think around in the Zendo. And there's a saying, the flower is not yellow and the leaf is not green.

[22:40]

What does it mean? I mean, that flower is yellow and that leaf... What does it mean to say such a thing? It means, in this bind of immediacy, Unmediated perception. There's no comparisons. There's no distinctions. And yet it doesn't mean that we're not able to make distinctions.

[23:42]

Doesn't mean that we're not able to function in a mind of secondary consciousness and in a mind of borrowed consciousness. However, it means that our default position is what's happening now prior to dividing the world up. Aber es bedeutet, dass unsere Ausgangsposition da ist, was genau jetzt geschieht, noch bevor wir die Welt unterteilen. Bevor wir alles, was auftaucht, bearbeiten und es durchsortieren, je nachdem, was unsere Vorlieben und Abneigungen sind, was wir mögen und nicht mögen. In the practice it is not about doing anything. Zazen is being exactly engaged in the process of Zazen itself.

[24:54]

What Dogen calls bare activity. on each moment, attending to breath and posture. And particularly when he went and founded Eheiji deep in the mountains, he left Kyoto with his monks. There was a concern amongst the monks, how are we going to survive? How are we going to eat? And Dogen said, when we don't have food and we don't have support, then we'll make a plan.

[25:58]

So we're fortunate. Bakeroshi is in Königstein? Right now he's in Freiburg, but he will be in Königstein. Tomorrow. That's why he's not here. Meeting with our Sangha Council to figure out how we're going to survive. And Nicole and Ikiroshi and Ulrich, who came several days ago, and others are making an effort to figure this out. But it's based on what's arising in the current situation, not a plan how to take care of something that may vaguely take place in the future.

[27:12]

So practice is not about necessarily putting an end to our problems. Also bedeutet Praxis nicht notwendigerweise, unseren Problemen ein Ende zu bereiten. It's about in each unique moment and situation how we take the best care of our problems. Sondern es geht darum, wie wir inmitten jeder Situation uns am besten um unsere Probleme kümmern können. Suzuki Roshi didn't speak so much during Zazen. And one Sashina Tassohara, the sixth day in the afternoon. And the afternoons at Tassajara were grueling afternoons in Sashin.

[28:17]

There was no lecture and no break in the afternoon, really. Grueling. challenging. Suzuki Roshi would give his lecture in the evening during Sashin. Anyway, Suzuki Roshi said in Sazen, the problems that you are experiencing now and we were all hoping for some wonderful way that he was going to erase them and he paused and he said you will experience them forever

[29:20]

Und dann hat er gesagt, die wirst du für immer erfahren. So wie wir sie für immer erfahren, so kümmern wir uns um sie genau jetzt. Es ist nicht, dass man sich in ihnen verliert. Nicht zu versuchen, sie wegzuwünschen. but with the capacities that we have. To take care of them. And it's not that they may necessarily go away. But in the taking care of them, we're also taking care of ourself. And the relationship to the problem may begin to shift.

[30:37]

The Buddha ancestor Shita was asked by a monk, What is the meaning of the Buddha's teachings? And he said, it's unsayable and unknowable. And the monk said, can you say more? And he said, the great sky does not bother the function of the white cloud. Und er sagte, der große Himmel behindert nicht das Wirken oder die Funktion der weißen Wolke. Our white cloud effort.

[31:43]

Unsere weißen Wolken Bemühungen. Sitting in a great area. In einem großen Gebiet sitzend. sitting in the midst of all the heavens and hells. And not in spite of, but deeply connected with and because of these heavens and hells. We're able to find our way together. Because of the support of the work that so many beings are doing on our behalf right now. Including the Sangha Council. Including the staff here. Including each of us.

[32:49]

The great sky does not hinder our functioning. But in its unsayable, unknowable immediacy immeasurably supporting us thank you very much

[33:21]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_77.41