Good afternoon. Guten Nachmittag. Now, I want to, as I, yeah, now and then say, I want to talk to you, speak with you about something I don't know how to do, how to speak to you. Wie ich ab und zu ja mal schon gesagt habe und sage ist, ich möchte mit euch über etwas sprechen, von dem ich nicht weiß, wie ich darüber sprechen soll, wie man das macht. Now, just because I've said that before and then found something to speak about, that doesn't mean it could happen this time. Because each time when I feel this, I wonder... Can what I feel be said? And not just said, but said in a way that you have a feeling for it. And I say this because I think it's at the edge of what we can have a feeling for.

[01:04]

From another point of view, I would say it's at the center of what we can have a feeling for. Okay, so let me go back to this... One should form a thought, says the Buddha supposedly in the Diamond Sutra. However many beings there are, Now this is a pretty big statement. However many beings there are. And whatever we feel when we hear such a statement.

[02:17]

And the next statement is, in whatever... realms of being that might exist. in whatever realms of being that might exist. What is this asking of us? I remember, you know, somewhere in 1968, two or three or something, Sukhiroshi talking about this beginning of the Diamond Sutra. And I think that, you know, I could say that I entered this path meeting an Iranian man named Shukrila Ali. An Iranian man?

[03:28]

Mm-hmm. I've told you this story a few times. But anyway, I was working on a ship, and I won't tell you much of it, just a little bit. And I went into this little dusty town called Bandishapur. After Euphrates. Bandishapur. Yeah, I guess I was 20 or something. This man kept inviting us up onto his little wooden platform in front of his house. And I guess I had something like my first experience of a person who felt selfless. But what I would say that maybe it's misleading to say selfless.

[04:38]

Let me say, I would say maybe he didn't perceive entities. So that's what I'm talking about today. And what does it mean not to perceive entities? I mean, it's something we can do. Maybe we can do. Of course we can do. But does it make enough sense to bother with it? Does it seem completely beside the point or such a slippery idea? It's a waste of time. But when I met Suzuki Roshi, I felt the same thing again.

[05:39]

He was someone who felt to me like I wanted human beings to be. And I wouldn't again say he was selfless. There's no he to be selfless. And of course there was a he there, but... his activity was to see activity. Yeah, and if you have the habit of only noticing activity, we can also say you don't, you you free yourself, loosen the habit of perceiving entities.

[06:55]

Which is to perceive basically the predictable, because that's the way our perceptions work. When we have the experience of Each moment is, when we have the experience of finding each moment in its particularity, And its uniqueness. As we might in a crisis or a very demanding situation. But when it's not a crisis... Do we slip into predictable thinking?

[08:02]

Okay, so if I hear this Diamond Sutra starts out with supposedly these guys outside the city of Shravasti. The Sutra says something like 1,100, 1,000... 125 or something like that. Who's counting? They speak about the Buddha's As I said, standing, walking. They're noticing him stand and walk. That's what I noticed about Shukrila Ali and then immediately... about Sukershi when he came in to lecture.

[09:05]

One evening when I happened, by complete chance, at least on the surface, complete chance. I was in San Francisco, too, looking for such a person. But I met him just, I was at a bookstore, and I was demonstrating a samurai movie and shouting, and this guy from the bookstore looked up at my imaginary sword and said, you should meet Suzuki Roshi. So I put away my imaginary sword and said, what? All right. There's a lecture tonight? I went. I'm this man. person in the midst of activity and noticing activity walked into the room.

[10:19]

How does he stand? How does he walk? How should a son or daughter of a good family set forth on the path? How should each of us set forth? How should we stand? Walk? Yes, and form our thoughts. Or shape or control our thoughts. Maybe in the sense that we might control our health. Adjust our thoughts. Now I think we could take what I mentioned a number of times recently, the practice of the four postures. And as I say, not postures, not positions, but postures.

[11:33]

And the simplest thing I can say is postures you can fill with aliveness or fill with energy. Or feel your aliveness. So tuning in aliveness with your posture. And you can feel the difference in Sashin when that sound... tiredness or whatever gets you down and suddenly you can come alive in your posture again. all your life.

[12:43]

So this is a way of noticing and acting within activity. Because finding your posture is an activity. You know, this is very, you know, primitive for me. I mean, primitive in the sense that it's very at the very beginning of my practice. Yeah, I mean, one nice Charlotte Silver or... Another person, I would say, was one of my two or three early teachers. And most of you know, when she asked us all, we were sitting on the floor, asked us all to stand up. She didn't say stand up.

[13:45]

As I mentioned before, she said, come up to standing. And as she said it, and in the presence of she herself who knew this, I came up to standing and Things have never been the same since. So if you find this, find a way to live in the aliveness of these four postures. Which in themselves, I think, can make life worth living. This is enough. Like the tiger and the bottom of the cliff and the fraying rope and all that stuff.

[14:51]

But if you do find these postures, they're always in a context. They're not independent of whether you're walking, standing, etc., or in a hall or a big room or whatever. One's posture in a hall is different, somewhat different than one's posture in a room. in a big room. Now, what can I say? You begin to feel a cotton-like air, feather-like air. It's not like you're walking in a nothing-in-between space. Maybe we could say it's like something in between space.

[16:07]

Because this aliveness is also the context now. And you walk in a something-in-between space different than a nothing-in-between space. And I can say that you're more likely to discover this... I sound crazy, I know. But you're more likely to discover this something-in-between space If you get in the habit of perceiving, noticing activity, primarily noticing activity only. And all these things I can say, you know, But it really has some, it has fruit only if you repeat it, if you do it.

[17:20]

This cotton-like air, maybe, I don't know what. Sometimes it's described in text as being silk-like. But you see the words, you don't really know it until you've had the experience and say, oh, that's why they... Put that in there. So now we're talking again. If a son and daughter, a good family, etc., set forth... How do they stand? How do they walk? Yeah. What ought to be their thoughts? So the Buddha said they should form a thought thus.

[18:31]

He doesn't say stop thinking or something like that. He says they should create this thought. However many beings there are. In whatever form realms of being that might exist. Yeah, this blows my mind. In whatever realms of being... Yeah, are our eyes that wide? Yeah, is our... Are we this awake? And then he goes on to say, whether born from an egg, whether born from a womb, whether born from water, sometimes moisture born like moss or something,

[19:49]

Or whether born from the air. And sometimes this is translated miraculously born. And I prefer spontaneously born. Because it's like emergent things, everything. How does this exist anyway? It's spontaneously born. So whether born from an egg, womb, moisture, or... whether with form or without form. So you're sort of looking around and saying, yeah, what realms of being are here? Are there any without form? What kind of mind is looking around and saying, What realms of being are there here without form?

[21:04]

With form or without form? With perception or without perception? Or neither with perception or with no perception? or even your own not perceiving, knowing, in whatever realm of being of which we might conceive, that beings might exist, he says. Whatever realm of being in whatever conceivable realm of being, in which beings may exist, might exist, all these I will awaken. And in their awakening, awaken. Okay. Now, you may not want to practice Buddhism after hearing this.

[22:26]

It's about time to quit. I want something real, something I can grasp. I want to be told the first stage is to count your breaths. But the Diamond Sutra is at the very... source and center of Zen practice. And the Buddha is presented as saying this is the first thing you should do. I want to go back to school. It was easier. How are we going to do this? Well, you just produce this thought. And you see if you can produce this thought and kind of hold it. This thought is understood to be the Buddha itself. If the Buddha is an activity, this thought is considered to be the Buddha itself.

[23:31]

This thought is the activity of a Buddha. This thought enters you into the activity of a Buddha. The Buddha is not an entity, it's an activity. So don't try to grasp the Buddha as an entity. That says in the Diamond Sutra, those who see me, the Buddha says, by my form do not see me. Now we're at the center right here of what I'm speaking about at the seriousness of Zen practice. The non-substant substance of Zen practice.

[24:44]

In whatever realms in which being might exist. Now, this is not a statement like, be nice to everyone. This goes a little bit beyond, let's be nice to everyone. Yeah, but way, way, way beyond. Whoa. And it doesn't just mean to be a benefit to everyone. It means to form this thought of in whatever realms of being, conceivable realms, being might exist. Yeah, awaken yourself to this possibility.

[25:47]

It is called the mind. Buddha also asked the Buddha, It's funny, the Buddha says. Confucius says, Hey, Buddha. Buddha asks, Hey, Subuddhi. Hello, Subuddhi. Confucius, I mean Buddha says. The Buddha says, Is the space to the south easy to measure? Subuddhi says, No, it's not easy to measure. And he says... And is the space to the north easy to measure?

[26:58]

And the space to the east and west easy to measure? And the space in between? And the space up and down? And the space in all ten directions. No, no, no, it's not easy to measure. Yeah. Thus our practice should have this immeasurable feeling. With this kind of feeling we enter into whatever conceivable realms of being might exist. In the space in all directions which is difficult to measure.

[28:02]

So we can say that if you can see the profound interdependence of all things, Now remember, you're not trying to grasp the profound independence of all things. And we're not talking about continuously seeing it all the time. This all the time is trying to make it permanent.

[29:12]

We're talking about practice, your practice, your and my practice. If you can see the profound interdependence of all things, For a moment, we have seen the Dharma body. We have seen the dynamic of all things at once. Because this profound interdependence is extreme. See how everything exists. So if you can see the profound interdependence of each and everything, even for a moment, it can only be seen for a moment because it is only momentary. Then you've seen the body of the Dharma.

[30:31]

No, that's logical, isn't it? Sorry? That's logical, isn't it? Yeah. It's very logical. Dharma is moment by moment known. When you see that, well, you've seen the body of the Dharma, because there's an all-at-once-ness to this. We don't call it mind, because it's more substantial than mind. It's more... Yeah. Wir nennen es auch nicht Geist oder Mind, weil es substantieller ist. Es ist mehr... If you see the absence of permanence of everything, you've seen the Buddha.

[31:35]

You've seen the Dharma body. The Dharmakaya, Dharma body. The Dharmakaya is... The body of the Buddha. We say the Tathagata's body. On the cover of the Zen mind, beginner's mind. So Kiroshi took a frayed yucca plant, a big It's a big kind of cactus leaf. He used it as a brush. In this place at Tassajara where I first brought him. In 62 or 64 or so. And then he came to live there and have his ashes there.

[32:35]

Yeah, he took one of these big yucca plants and he dipped it in ink and made a calligraphy. And he said, this is Tathagata. And he said, it is... it means the body of the whole earth is the Tathagata. So I put it on the cover of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. The body of the whole earth. The Dharma body. When you see for a moment the profound interdependence of all things.

[33:40]

When you see for a moment the absence of permanence, this is to see emptiness. This is to see the Buddha. Thus the Buddha's body is always present. So we have this thought to see being in every conceivable realm where being might be conceived. The Diamond Sutra starts with this statement as setting forth on the path. And the sutra ends with to see the Buddha without form. lightning flash, a bubble, etc.

[34:58]

We have a saying, there are White flowers in the moonlight. But you must see them for yourself. There's a jewel hidden in the mountain of form. But you must see it for yourself. Thank you. Amen. Amen.

[35:45]

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