It's very nice of you to treat me so kindly and to let me join in your practice here. And I don't, of course, know what you usually do here as a way of practicing and teaching And, of course, I don't know what you usually do there, here, as an exercise and as a teaching. And, yeah, Myoken Roshi asked me to speak about this very useful and famous koan about the one who is not busy. And I could just, I can just give you some kind of taste show about it.

[01:02]

But I think we can... since we have this one day together, this morning and this afternoon, I think it would be more useful for us to have a more kind of feeling of a discussion among each other. Because we don't have, if it was a seshin, we'd have seven days and seven teshos. And we could sit together, of course, for all those days. And that's a different kind of way to present the teaching than I think works if we have only one day together. Yeah. So I'll start out with, I'll say something.

[02:10]

But I think if it's okay with Myokin Roshi, when we, after we take a break, we can take a break, can't we, at some point? We could all sit more in a circle. And I heard you made this table, this platform this morning. It's kind of dangerous, I might fall off. Is it possible for it to be lower? I don't like being way up here so high. Maybe afterwards I can just sit on the floor. Okay. And you do some koan study here.

[03:23]

I don't know what the form of koan study you do. So I just will have to say something about practicing with koans in the way I'm used to and see if it makes sense for you. Koans are a Chinese form of Buddhism. And it was the way the Chinese made Indian Buddhism their own. And in the koans the references are all to Chinese practitioners primarily except for Bodhidharma. And the Buddha is presented not so much as the historical Buddha but

[04:27]

as a presence and way of understanding the world. So the koans are actually about, primarily about Tang dynasty, Zen practitioners. But they're actually mostly compiled during the Sung Dynasty. And just for your information, if you take the most famous of all Zen masters, probably Matsu, if you study his Texts we know that he... Texts of his teaching that we know are his.

[05:35]

They're very traditional Tang Dynasty, rather predictable form of teaching Buddhism. But the Matsu we know from the koans is... full of dramatic exclamations and a very different form of presenting Zen. So it's clear that in the Sung Dynasty they recreated these Tang Dynasty figures and made these into stories. Teaching stories. Yeah. This doesn't mean they're not based on actual incidents, actual events.

[06:40]

But they may not be. They may be actual events then put together as a story with particular teachers added in. And partly as a result, the different lineages have a different flavor, partly because that flavor was created as representing that lineage. Okay. Now I'm mentioning this. Because if you know that these are... texts, created texts, then you can be part of the creation of those texts. In other words, their stories, teaching stories, meant created for the purpose of practice.

[07:52]

And there's a particular way to practice with them. And so what I would like to look at this koan as a way for you to practice with it to make it your own. Now there's a talismatic, you know the word talisman? Talisman, yeah. Like a rabbit's, in America people have rabbit's foots. Do you have a rabbit, do you have the idea of a rabbit foot here that you carry and it gives you good luck? Talisman, yes. That's a talisman, something you carry or have that gives you good luck. I've never had a rabbit's foot, and I would feel funny walking around with a rabbit's foot. I'd wonder where the rest of the rabbit is.

[08:57]

But the point is, if you did have a rabbit's foot, and I was a kid, people actually had little rabbit's feet. Its meaning is found in your own life when you have a sort of crisis or you feel like you're unlucky, you kind of check if your rabbit's foot's there and it's gone and you're really unlucky. So what I mean by that is, and the koans were understood to be talismanic. In other words, you use them in the context of your life. Okay, so we have this phrase. the turning phrase of the koan, the one who is not busy.

[10:00]

Now, Myoken Roshi told me, you're all familiar with the koan, or it was given to you, or something like that. He said, maybe you've read it. In America maybe people would read it, in Germany everyone would read it. Maybe Hungary is halfway in between. So we have this phrase, you should know there is one who is not busy. Now, as a talisman, this is just a phrase you can carry with you. Independent of the koan. And these turning word phrases, wados, are meant to be carried with you. So there may be more than just this one phrase in a koan.

[11:02]

There may be more than one turning word phrase in a koan. But usually the case turns on one and then several other versions of the phrase. So the first is, you know, you... For us, I think you can just take this phrase, the one who is not busy. And you can imagine in your life when you feel busy, maybe feeling busy reminds you of the phrase. Like it reminds you of the rabbit's foot. Saying, I'm feeling stressed or anxious, so, oh, I've got my rabbit's foot. So you can say, you know, you can feel, God, I'm so busy, I've got so much to do, and there's 400 emails.

[12:10]

Ah, there's one who's not busy. I don't know if the one who's not busy ever had to deal with emails. But still, the feeling is you try to bring this up in the circumstances it reminds you. Now let me introduce the idea of incubation in contrast to understanding. If you, by the way, if I use words in some funny way or you'd like, please just ask me. because I don't know what I'm saying sometimes. So, if we look at it together, it's more interesting. Okay. Now, most

[13:12]

Well, basically Buddhist texts are meant to be incubated and not understood. Incubate is like when you, I don't know what the word would be, when a chicken sits on the eggs, it incubates the eggs. Yeah. So... Yeah. And it's similar to the difference between understand and incubate. It's the difference between develop and evolve in English. In English, the word develop means to The evil part of it has to do with rolling, something rolling.

[14:33]

But in English, to develop means to roll it up and understand it. And the word evolve means to let it keep unrolling and see what happens. And I don't, you know, I mean, these words, and I can only speak for English speakers, Condition how you think. So if you're thinking in Hungarian, you're going to be conditioned by And I'm, of course, very unfamiliar with speaking and being translated into Hungarian. And I find when I'm translated into German, I have to learn I've learned a certain rhythm which allows German grammar to work.

[15:42]

It used to be translated into French. And I had to find a different way of speaking English For the French to be translated for the grammar to work. But here I have no idea. I have to depend on the... Whether I'm speaking in a rhythm that allows you to translate. Okay. Well, if you approach practice to try to understand the koan, you're not going to make much progress. And you don't want to develop your practice, you want to evolve your practice in English. In evolution, like Darwin's evolution, it's evolved.

[16:52]

Now, again, my point in speaking about English words is you have to look at the views you have through your language. And so, in Hungarian, if you're thinking and looking at the world through Hungarian, you have to notice how the world affects your perception. And so you want to... Let me try to give you an example of what I mean.

[17:58]

If I say that space separates things, if I think to myself, assume that space separates myokinroshi and I, and space separates you and I, That at least is assumed in English to be a fact. But it's actually a cultural view. Because space also connects. We're here and we're connected in lots of different ways. And the moon is affecting our... The moon's way up there somewhere. Supposedly. But it affects our reproductive cycles. It affects the oceans, the tides, it probably even affects the dono.

[19:03]

So, in many ways, connectedness is more of a fact than separation. They're both ways of looking at the world. Okay. Okay. Now my point in this example is if you have in your mind the view that space separates, your perceptions will confirm that. In other words, the view is prior to perception. If you think that the world you're seeing is just the world as it comes through your perception through your senses and what you're seeing is the way things are this is a rather innocent view.

[20:13]

Actually you're seeing is formed by your brain and your views. Now, if you have the view that space connects, that view, if you can really inculcate or incubate that view inculcate means something like cultivate that view till it's a view prior to perception you will begin to notice connectedness more or equal to separation.

[21:21]

All right. So say I, let's give you another phrase. But instead of the one who's not dizzy, let's make up a phrase. In English, I would say already connected. All right. So if I have the sense, if my view has been that we're already separated, then my perceptions are going to confirm that. If I have the view that we're already connected, my perceptions are going to start to notice connectedness.

[22:21]

Okay. Now, to have this happen, you'd have to incubate the view, the phrase, already connected. Okay. Now, the Buddha's Eightfold Path starts with right views. It starts with right views because views are prior to everything else. And if your views are, let's say, already separated from the Buddhist point of view this is kind of a wrong view. Okay. So but how to form perfecting or perfected or right views is a big part of the adept practice of Buddhism.

[23:40]

Okay. Now, what I'm trying to do here is get us to sort of be able to feel union who's sweeping. Yeah, let's not try to understand the koan. Let's at this point just try to get a feeling for who union is or what it's doing. Now let's assume that union practices already connected. He assumes he's connected with Daowu. And he feels he's connected with the sweeping and the broom.

[24:41]

And I think we should go into that a bit. Okay. Now I just arrived here a few minutes ago. Okay. No, when I come down, it's just a wonderful place here, by the way. If I didn't have too much to do, I'd ask, can I move here too and live here part of the time? It's great. So here you have to sleep on stone floors, you know. So I have to develop my ascetic practice for it. Do I have a stone, can I have a stone pillow? Oh, maybe, maybe not. Oh, shucks. Okay, so I come down and there you all are beautifully in your splendor standing there.

[25:52]

So immediately for me, because I've been practicing this, I feel already connected with you. And of course it's obvious too, we're all in black dresses. And yeah, hair don'ts. If we say a hair do, this is a hair don't. That's hard to translate. Yeah, that's hard to translate. So, when I see Myoken Roshi, I feel already connected. But we are connected because we're practicing within the Dungsan lineage and so forth. But if I meet a clerk in the apothecary or the Here, she's probably not practicing Zen. But still, I can feel already connected immediately. I don't have to be formal.

[26:53]

I don't have to make the connection. Now, Western people tend to feel we have to make a connection between us. A Japanese person doesn't feel that. A Japanese person feels, well, there's already a connection, we have to see how it evolves. That's very different. You feel connected, but you have to let that connection Begin to take form. No. I think it's helpful if you imagine, if we try to imagine, what kind of person Yin-Yang probably was.

[28:06]

And to see him as different from ourselves. But yet, similar to ourselves too, we can maybe feel how he's similar to ourselves too. Okay. Now, if you practice... in a Japanese monastery, which I did for some time. One of the things you do is you sweep a lot. And it can be annoying, because often you sweep places which don't need to be swept. Because it's more important to be connected than to do actual work. It's kind of drives you nuts sometimes.

[29:18]

So you're a monk, right? And there's a bunch of leaves over there that need to be swept. And there's no leaves here because you swept it yesterday and the day before yesterday and et cetera. But everyone sweeps, right, where there's no leaves. Yeah, and... Because, so I, as a foreigner, I would go over and start sweeping over there. No, no, cut back here. Be in the group. Because the feeling of being connected was more important than the leaves. So I'm trying to present the negative side. It can be kind of annoying to eventually you sweep there too, but you know. Okay. But But when you, generally, you hold the broom and you align the broom with your spine.

[30:26]

It's just the sort of standard way you do work in Zen monasteries. So you don't do it so obviously, but you hold the broom a minute and feel that broom in relationship to your spine. Okay, and then you sweep. And while you sweep, you feel the relationship between your spine and the broom. Okay, now we can be fairly certain That this is Chinese practice as well as Japanese practice. And that Yunyang is sweeping with the feeling of his spine also sweeping the path. As Suzuki Roshi said in the epilogue of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, reality cannot be caught by thinking or feeling.

[32:06]

Probably I edited Zen Mind Beginner's Mind I left the word reality, maybe I should have changed it to actuality. Because as you know, it's very hard to use, at least in English, the word real, because things aren't exactly real. Because if everything is interdependent, then everything is an activity. And the activity is always shifting and changing. So you can't say an activity is real. Just an activity. So, but, you know, he used the word reality, and I think we can Except that reality cannot be caught by thinking or feeling.

[33:17]

Okay. And by kadi means can't be understood by thinking or feeling. Then he said moment after moment to just watch your breathing and just watch your posture is true nature. There is no secret beyond this point. So he said this. Okay. Can there really be no secret beyond this point? And what does he mean? How can we understand what he said? Okay. How can we incubate what he said? He says you can't understand by thinking or feeling.

[34:25]

But so rather than think or feel or try to understand just watch your breath and watch your posture. And by watch your posture primarily he means to bring attention to the spine. Okay. Could Buddhism be no more than this? Just to watch your posture? To bring attention to your spine and your breath? Hmm. But the point is, what happens if you do this over and over and over and over?

[35:27]

Something evolves. You're incubating these statements. You're incubating this suggestion. Okay. It's actually quite difficult to bring your attention most of the time or all the time to your breath. It's a little easier to bring your attention to your posture because it's something we've been taught to do. You more or less know what your posture is during the day. And you more or less even know what your posture is while you're sleeping.

[36:28]

Whether you're on your side or back. So we do have a cultural experience, at least in the United States of America, Bringing attention to your posture. But more specifically, to bring your attention to your spine, this is another kind of mind. But the point here in these kind of statements and in a koan is what will happen to you in a year if most of the time your attention is in your spine and in your breath.

[37:28]

It changes your thinking and feeling. You end up with a different kind of thinking and feeling to try to understand the koan, which you're not supposed to do anyway. But if you bring attention to the spine and the breath, it will change thinking and feeling. It will change what you call reality or actuality. Okay. And could it really be true nature? What the heck is that? I mean, I think, again, you have to examine all these statements. Do you have a false nature and a true nature? Do I have a nature at all? I remember once I worked as a waiter years ago in Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I woke up in the middle of the night suddenly and I thought, I'm an American.

[38:44]

It was a kind of little satori experience. Because I didn't know what an American was. I'm supposed to be an American, but I have no idea what it means to be an American. And I sat there thinking, I guess I'm supposed to be American. But since I'd never been a Hungarian, I had nothing to compare it to. I had no comparison. Okay. So it's like that. You're just... Do I have a nature? What is my nature? When I'm looking around here, I don't see my eye. I see my seeing, but I don't see my eye. I don't see my nature either. Yeah. How do we notice the eye which is seeing?

[39:51]

Now, really if you want to practice Buddhism, Transformative Buddhism. You not only have to bring attention to your spine and your breath. You have to bring attention to how you view the world. And notice how you view the world. And question. I think always to have the question, what is it, is good. If I say self, what is it? What could the one who's not busy be? So I think I introduced too many things at once.

[40:52]

And is it okay to take a break now? But there's no hot water here. There's tea. Okay, so you have tea, and... Okay, so we have a tea or coffee or hot water break or something. And how long? One hour? Half an hour? 20 minutes? Totally up to me. I'm in charge. Goodness sakes. Hard to think about that. Well, anyway, about... about 30 minutes and I will come back.

[41:46]

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