But the unfolding and the evolving of this gestural path has been going on ever since until even in my speaking now it's evolving. So the remark of Suzuki Roshi, he was new in California, So he was, you know, kind of not a tourist, but kind of like a Japanese person coming to California. So people would ask sort of tourist-like questions.

[01:16]

What do you notice about California, about the United States, that's different from Japan? And the questioner might have expected something like the huge, six-inch-long Ponderosa pine Pine cones, which compared to Japanese pine cones, are quite oversized. And the person who asked the question probably expected an answer like, for example, these huge yellow pine cones that are in California. Not six inches long.

[02:26]

Yes, that makes it 15 centimeters, right? Oh, I see. I heard you say meter, and I thought, oh, my God, a meter-long pine cone is not even in California. I've never seen anything like that. I think I said centimeters. That's what I meant, anyway. Yeah, I'm sure you did. You know, my ears... Okay, so what did he say? He said, oh, that you all do things with one hand. And I thought, what a funny thing to notice. One thing we don't, we take bodily movements sort of for granted and we don't, we hardly notice them. So I began to watch him carefully. What does he, what is an example? What does he mean? Yeah, and so watching him, if someone asked for the salt, say, the Gamashio, the salt, the Gamashio,

[03:48]

Yeah, he would pick up the gomasio or the salt. I have a stone here that I happen to rather like. And he would pick up the gomasio but bring it to his chest, to in front of his chest. More or less where his heart is. And then he would turn his body toward the person who asked for the gomasio or the salt. He would turn his body toward the person, still holding the gamache of the salt, more or less in front of his chest, and then with both hands he'd reach out and hand it to the person while he's facing the person.

[05:19]

Almost like when you toast another person, you toast with wine or something, you're supposed to look them in the eye. There's a kind of toasting or looking in the eye of the person when you give them the salt. And what he did was he turned to the person and while he was looking at the person, almost like we do when we bump into someone, then we should also look into the person's eyes when we bump into them. And also with a similar feeling, what he continued to reach, the salt, the gomasio, he continued to reach in direct contact while he was looking at the person. And when somebody, when he asked for something, it was the same path, it was the same gestural path. He turned toward the person, put out both hands and received whatever was being passed. And then he brought it again into the same location in the front of his chest.

[06:23]

And each of these movements are distinct, successional movements. And each successional movement defined, articulated by a pause. And it enter into this or get a feel for this successional pace i often give suggest the phrase the mantra like uh phrase to pause for the particular

[07:53]

This is difficult for me. Then he would receive whatever was passed to him and either use it, if necessary, whatever it was, or just put it down. Again, with little pauses, you know, you receive it, pause, hold it, and then there's a complete action putting it down, pause. And I looked at this and it was like I was seeing a map. I would not have made this connection in those days, in 61 or 62.

[09:15]

It was sort of like a BPS, a body positioning system. What is in German? KPS? Yeah, it's a KPS. Okay. Anyway, I intuitively felt and recognized it really was a body positioning system. Yeah, it wasn't global, but it was certainly yogic and yogic cultural and Japanese.

[10:18]

Because I've had this stone, let me say something about it. I happen to like this stone because it feels like I can see the... I mean, is it a thousand years old? Ten thousand years old? Who knows? A geologist could probably tell us how old it is, but it is way older than our civilization, whatever it is. And it happens to have little faces which make me feel like I can shape it with my thumbs as if I'm part of, in this short time period, kind of shaping this over its thousands of years of turmoil in oceans and oceans.

[11:33]

rivers and mountains. And this stone has such small furrows, such small places where I can put my thumbs in, and it gives me the feeling as if I can almost shape it and accompany it through all these millennia, probably through the sea, the sea floor, and whatever was formed in the form that it has today. So for me it's a kind of shamanic stone, and it makes me think of when I first also watched Suzuki Roshi give lectures. I said the other day, there's the... I said the other day, there's the... field of consciousness as a medium.

[12:55]

And there's the field of mind as a wider medium. And there's, for me, there has begun to be, or there was and is still, a field of a wider medium in Chinese Taoism and Buddhism. It's kind of a qi field or a tissue that connects everything, as some people translate it. And then it started for me to feel behind it an even wider medium, perhaps as it is expressed in Daoist culture, a qi field or a kind of energy tissue that connects everything together, as some people translate it.

[13:58]

Yeah, Sukhiroshi would be standing in front of us. In the early days, we didn't sit on the floor yet. In Zazen, we sat on the floor, but in lectures, we sat on chairs. And I would see him standing in front of me with a teaching staff, a nyoi, sometimes this one, more often a different one, which I have, but often this one. And he would be standing with it, and you could feel, let you translate that much. You could feel, and I could feel, his energy, and we should have a tea show or talk on energy sometime, because it's something different in yogic culture. So I could feel a kind of energy, vitality, presence coming forward and then turning into words.

[15:26]

What was there before the words and then would become words. Yeah, and energy would also... All the energy wouldn't fit into the words, and some of it would be in the stick. You could feel him sort of using the stick as a kind of oar to stir the energy or shake the energy. Yeah. So you could, it was like The way he was standing, he would stand, not sit, in those days, early days, he would stand and we all felt we were in some kind of energy field that he was generating.

[16:58]

And when we succumbed to it or released ourselves into it, we could hear him in a new way or a clearer way or a bodily way. At that time he stood in front of us and it was almost as if we were all in an energy field that he had created. And when we opened up for it or trusted this field, then it was almost as if we could hear him differently and even more physically. And when he did pass this ancient and now being modeled, modeled and shaped rock. And when he did pass, he passed it? When he did pass it to someone else. Ah, okay, okay. Oh, the salt, the gamashio.

[17:59]

Okay, okay, okay. And when he passed it to someone else. It felt, his passing the salt or the gamashil, it almost, it felt really like there was a kind of light in his chest that he would turn toward the person and there was a feeling of lighter energy present in the passing and extremely respectful and touching and compassionate. And when he reached for something, then there was such a feeling almost as if he had attached to the person, as if he had reached for what he had reached for in such a field of light, out of his chest. And that was such a feeling that felt extremely respectful and very compassionate. So it wasn't, obviously, it wasn't just picking it up and handing it.

[19:01]

Yeah. So anyway, watching all this, I thought, wow, this BPS, this bodily positioning system is, yeah, I began to have some resonant, have some feeling of it for myself. Mm-hmm. And to observe and to see that, I thought, wow, this BPS, this KPS body positioning system, I started to go into resonance with it and to develop a feeling for it myself. And Sokoji, Soko is in Japanese, syllabize everything because it's not an alphabetic but a syllabic language. So San Francisco will become Soko. Soko, San Francisco, Soko.

[20:03]

Yeah, and Ji means temple. So the temple where Tsukiyoshi resided and taught was called Sokoji. Yeah, so I noticed. So I... And Sokoji was in the middle of a Japan town in San Francisco. And Sokoji was in the middle of a Japanese town in San Francisco. And I often ate in Japanese restaurants.

[21:06]

Japanese restaurants in America came in in those days in some kind of similar societal expression like Chinese restaurants, and they were quite inexpensive. Later in Europe, they came in in competition with French restaurants, and they were quite expensive. And at that time, the Japanese restaurants came into a kind of social comparability with the Chinese restaurants. They were opened and they were quite cheap restaurants. But later, in Europe, for example, the Japanese restaurants were opened in parallel or comparable to the French restaurants as quite expensive, high-quality restaurants. And there were almost no customers who were Westerners. It was all Japanese people living in San Francisco.

[22:13]

In those days, if you said to somebody... ate in a Japanese restaurant, they'd say, ugh, raw fish? Of course, it's a different world now, but in those days, really, people would really say, I can't go to a Japanese restaurant. Raw fish, this sounds gross. When someone told you that you went to a Japanese restaurant to eat, people reacted with disgust. They said, oh, no, I can't go there. I don't eat raw fish. Nowadays, of course, it's different. And then they ate this funny white stuff in blocks, which just heated it in water. But most of the time when I ate in restaurants, it was Japanese restaurants. They were there and inexpensive.

[23:15]

But for me, mostly when I went to eat, I went to Japanese restaurants. They were just there and they were pretty cheap. And after studying this gestural path, this BPS path of Suzuki Roshi, I noticed everybody in the restaurant was doing it, particularly Issei and Nisei, first and second generation Japanese, picked up cups the same way Suzuki Roshi did. And if somebody handed them something, they did the same bodily path, turning their body toward the person and taking it with two hands.

[24:29]

Und wenn Ihnen jemand etwas gegeben hat oder nach etwas gefragt hat, dann haben Sie genau den gleichen körperlichen Pfad, gestischen Pfad beschritten, wo Sie es erst aufgenommen haben, sich dann der Person zugewandt haben und es der Person überreicht haben. And a friend of mine, an old friend of mine, John Nathan, made a film for, what's the national TV? BBC? What? BBC? BBC? Kentucky Fried Chicken? AHK? Oh, no. No, no. Like National Public Radio, but... PBS. What? PBS. PBS, oh yeah, Public Broadcasting System. We don't have television here, so I forgot about PBS. He made a film for PBS, three films actually, but one of them is called The Colonel Comes to Japan. And a friend of mine, John Nathan, shot a film for PBS, the public television or radio, television obviously, and one of these films is called The Colonel Goes to Japan.

[25:45]

I don't know what the film is in German. The Colonel Goes to Japan. John was a super good Japanese speaker. He was able to go directly into Tokyo University speaking Japanese and passed and entered when he was a college student. And he was sensitive enough to notice when he filmed Kentucky Fried Chicken, the colonel comes to Japan, when Kentucky Fried Chicken store first opened in Tokyo. And he was sensitive enough or had a good sensitivity for it, a good anticipation for it to be filmed when KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken, was opened in Tokyo, the first store in Tokyo.

[26:47]

And when they trained the new employees how to serve the chicken, luckily they had a Japanese person doing the training. And when they taught the new employees how to serve the chicken, luckily they had a Japanese person doing the training. And they didn't, and so if you, hi out there, are the customer now in Kentucky Fried Buddhism, I mean Kentucky Fried Chicken. I would pass you your order. With two hands and with a pause.

[27:53]

Hold it, pass, receive, pause, bring your hands back. Hol ich das hoch in meinen Brustraum, gebe euch das mit beiden Händen, Pause. Ihr empfangt das, Pause. Und ich nehme meine Hände, hole meine Hände wieder zurück in meinen Brustraum. And if there was something they'd forgotten or something in addition, they just didn't reach back and take it. They turned their whole body around, facing completely 180 degrees the other way, picked it up, turned their whole body around and handed it. And it feels so profoundly respectful. And if someone has forgotten something or if they had to get something else, then they didn't just grab it from the back and get it from there, but they turned their whole body, took what they had to get and turned 180 degrees back and then it was enough again.

[28:58]

And this kind of gesture just feels so deeply respectful. So I realized this wasn't just Buddhist culture, it was yogic culture, and it was part of just ordinary Japanese culture. And Nicole was just in Japan for, what, three months? Yeah. And you are in the midst of that kind of BPS. It's addictive. It's addictive. The pauses, the successional pauses, also let you feel your own body in the presence of the other person. And there's these incremental connections which each time is rather unique, and it kind of fills you with energy.

[30:14]

These pauses that are made in the middle of the individual moments of movement, these pauses and also the attachment to the movement are incredibly binding. And you feel not only the connection, but you also feel the own energy in the middle of it. And so when I was, again, part of this whole evolution of this teaching and practice of the gestural path, I noticed that, again, the Japanese, if you have a teacup, they would hold it here with a little pause before drinking. And suddenly I also realized why they don't put cups, don't put handles on cups.

[31:20]

It's not that they hadn't thought of it, it's that they want to do it with two hands. And then I suddenly realized why they don't put hooks on the cups. It's not because they don't come up with the idea, but because they want to do things with two hands. And using the rim and the ridge, which is part of the handle, in effect, the ridge is the handle, you feel the warmth of the tea, but you're not burned by it, because you can hold the rim of the base and the rim of the cup itself. So they're holding the cup, and then they would drink from it.

[32:21]

And then when they were in between sips, they'd hold the cup here. Sips is... No, no, I understand. Yeah, I understand. Also, wenn Sie... Sie halten die Tasse und trinken davon. Und wenn Sie nur einen Moment Pause machen zwischen zwei Schlücken, dann halten Sie die Tasse hier. So what is this and what is this? These are chakras. And yoga culture doesn't actually teach the chakras the way they do in India and in some forms of Buddhism too, but they're actualizing the chakras through how they use objects, the objects of the world. The kindred objects of the world, as David Abram says.

[33:44]

Yeah. Who wrote The Path of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal. The Spell of the Sensuous is the name. The Spell of the Sensuous. The Spell of the Sensuous. Yeah. But now I forgot what you said. I'm sorry. You have to help me again. The kindred objects. Yeah. are used to actualize or awaken the chakras. Okay. Yeah. So... So there's like a little shelf here and a little shelf here. And it's the same way the three-bowl eating of the oryoki is articulated through the chakras.

[34:48]

It's almost like we have a small shelf here and a small shelf here. And in the same way, the eating with the three bowls in the oryoki, we articulate this body also with the three bowls. And when you start using just an ordinary experience, the chakras, you awaken the whole kind of column of the body here. Yeah, and you can notice when I hold the stick, I'm holding the stick... in this chakra column, and I bow from this chakra column. Yeah, I think I'm going to have to go a little longer than 40 or 45 minutes, but not much longer. I think I have to make it a few minutes longer than 40, 45 minutes, but not much longer.

[36:11]

And a stick like this is actually also represented... It's a magic wand which awakens the spine. And a stick like this is actually also something like a magic wand which awakens the spine. And so the chakra column and the spine are at the center of the yogic body. Yeah. So anyway, so just this little thing of noticing Sukhirishi saying, oh, you all do things with one hand led me to a process of years, which, as I said, is continuing today, of noticing this gestural path or... Yeah.

[37:16]

So of course I began watching Suzuki... What? So of course I began watching Suzuki Roshi very carefully. And I noticed at some point that he actually entered every door with the foot nearest the hinge of the door. So if he's walking down the hall with a pace of a particular thing, does he just go naturally, or does his pace change, or is the pace throughout the hall articulated by the door he has to go through?

[38:33]

So I, yeah, so I, what am I seeing? And so I began an inventory. Over a couple of months, I watched him every time he went through a door, and by gosh, yes, he walked, stepped into the room with the leg nearest the hinge. And so then I noticed, you know, partly where this comes from is Japan where most doors are sliding doors. So if you slide it with your right hand, Then you use the same right side of the body, in this case, or it could be the left, to step into the room.

[39:48]

And then it became clear to me that this was, among other things, due to the way the doors in Japan are, where most doors are sliding doors. And if you open a door with your right hand, then it was almost natural, then also the right side of the body, so the foot on the right foot, of course, also goes with the left, but then to take the foot with which you opened the door, with which side you opened the door. stepping in the room with a certain modesty, because if you step with the other foot, you're stepping into the center of the room, centering yourself. If you step into the room, if you slide the door, push it, complete the action, complete the stepping, and then your body is in the room with a kind of modesty to the side. And what also happens is that you then enter the room with a certain modesty.

[40:51]

Because if you open the door like this and then take the other foot, then you enter the room in the middle, through the middle of the door. Okay, and so then I began noticing, oh my gosh, the hands, the hands are activated, the feet are activated, they're kind of like antennae. And I could see with the mind of absorption, not the mind of understanding, I could see that the hands were kind of like receiving spatial energy and giving forth spatial energy. And it wasn't a big deal mystic thing.

[41:56]

It was just yoga culture where your body is conceived, experienced and actually practiced There's a craft of the body that's practiced differently than we do. And that's not even something mysterious or mystical, but it's just yogic culture, where there's a different kind of body, a different body culture, a different kind of body than there is a kind of artificial ability to develop, than the way we learn it. So all these times noticing this stuff, there were no words for it. So I keep trying to find words for this kind of experience.

[42:58]

And every time I notice all these things, I notice that there are no words for all these things. So I try to find words for them. So that what I really see is this, I mean, the space, the near space, the surrounding space is part of your body. And we enact this sometimes. Watching the TV news of John Lewis, the wonderful, sweet, extraordinary, courageous man, John Lewis, the leader of the shift in the world that's happened in America through Martin Luther King and John Lewis and others.

[44:07]

And when I look at the news about John Lewis, this wonderful, mild and very courageous man, who is part of this cultural change, part of the change in America, which happened through Martin Luther King and through him, John Lewis, who led him. his coffin, walked in short incremental steps, the quick and the dead. They were in the space of the body almost, the slow. The bodily space was now stopped and they were stopped. And it would have felt crazy to just carry it around. that the sages who have now carried their sages, the sages walk in a very fast pace, one step after the other.

[45:11]

So the best word I can come up with right now anyway is something, well, is interactional space. And the best word that comes to mind at the moment is interactive space. So the space around you is an interactional relationship with you. sodass der Raum um dich herum in einer interaktiven, in dich hineingreifenden Beziehung steht. One of the persons who's sitting right near me here in the Zendo, Solomon, happens to be somebody who studies movies carefully, films.

[46:27]

And if you're a film director, I think one of the things the film director has to do is recognize the space in the room and the angularity or curvature of the space between people, etc., as also a character in the movie. I think one of the things that a director has to do is to understand the room around the person and almost the way the room looks. A director has to understand the room as part of the film, almost as the character of the film. He's saying this with the, because he's a Zen teacher, he's saying this with the feeling, are there any ears here which will hear this interactional space?

[47:57]

Ears which will hear this and awaken this interactional gestural path. Brian, who's here and our tech master, I call him. Years ago, I don't know, 20 years ago, Something like that. I heard me speak, as I have various times, never as thoroughly as I just did now, about doing things with two hands.

[49:06]

Brian had me speak about it many, many years ago. I've never spoken about it as thoroughly as I do now. And when he did it, just trying it out, it took some time before it was a year, something like that he says, before his friends said to him, hey, why do you always do things with two hands? So he was already teaching Zen Buddhism. And then he tried it for a while after he heard it. And it took about a year, he said, until his friends noticed it. And the friends then asked him at some point, hey, why do you always do things with two hands? So he had already learned Zen Buddhism at that time. I'm very grateful for the chance to talk to you about this because I find this gestural path transformative and extraordinary.

[50:08]

Yeah, and I'm very grateful to have the chance at this moment, this time, this opportunity to speak with you about it And that Nicole from Hannover can translate it, I think, probably quite well. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[50:36]

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