Thank you. Everybody seems to wait for someone else. You all came to hear someone else speak. I have a question. I have a question. I'm just missing one word. What does discursive exactly mean? What does it mean in German? Discursive? It means... When you're thinking about something, discoursing on something, what's this, you know, sort of ordinary, comparative, usual thinking, I mean. Denkend vergleicht. So when the thoughts jump from one thought to another?

[01:13]

Well, when it's really jumping, we call it monkey mind. But when you wake up, for instance, and you start thinking about what you have to do during the day and you've got this appointment or you have to make that phone call, that's what I mean by discursive thinking. It's normal, useful. Thank you. The problem is only if you identify with it or find your personal identity in that. Of course it's part of who you are. But it's not your fundamental identity. Okay. It seems to me you are that guy who's already there.

[02:26]

What does it mean for you? What has changed for you? What has changed since you started to practice? What has changed in your life? Could you say that again? Does it make sense to knock on the door? Does it make sense to knock at all? You mean you want a testimonial? What's a testimonial? Testimonial is somebody says, this is really the best car and it's a very good car and I testify that it is.

[03:30]

Well, I'm nicer. Well, I mean, kind of problem I had before I started practicing. Yeah, I was very tangled up in my thoughts and thinking and trying to, you know... And I found, starting to practice, it definitely made my life better. I don't know.

[04:33]

It does make a difference. But I'm not trying to promote Zen. I'm just sitting here talking to you. So I don't know what... If you practice mindfulness, for example, when you do know something, When you do have an insight or notice something, you tend to notice it in a way that much more fully, it's not just a thought, you really much more fully feel it and it has more consequence. And for me it's a kind of science in which I just have come to know how mind and body and emotions and so forth function.

[05:39]

in which I have determined how body, mind, emotions and so on function in a way that I can participate in and in a way that I have a choice about what kind of mind and body I want to live in or live with or live as. Okay? Yeah. I have a very urgent question but I can not really put it into words. And I'm practicing since some time and I'm confronted with Illness.

[06:41]

Your own illness. Yeah. This separates myself, my mind and my body. And I thought for a long time that I'm very well connected with my body. And I feel a kind of failure that I'm ill or sick. And what I wanted to ask you? From what kind of From what kind of angle can I look at my body which is ill? Or is there a suggestion towards a question I can ask myself?

[07:50]

Well, you know, we do get ill. And there's no reason to blame yourself or feel any kind of failure. My teacher, Suzuki Roshi, died of gallbladder cancer. And lots of people said, particularly in the 60s and 70s, He's a Zen master. He shouldn't be sick. Yeah, but no matter how much you practice Zen, for example, you can't change the shape of your nose. I've tried. I've tried. Maybe I should too.

[09:06]

Yeah, that's why we like each other. That's why we like each other. I mean, you know, you can change a lot. I've done, changed some physical things with practice. You know, doctors couldn't believe I could do it. But I had myself prostate cancer three years ago. And maybe the virulence of it has something to do with my own practice, but in my life situation. But the incidence of it A person my age, and I know many men my age, is just built into being particularly a male at this age.

[10:13]

And I'm a person who I don't even ever take an aspirin. And whatever, I don't try to get well. If I have a flu or something, I just wait until it's gone. And I find it quite a lot more interesting to kind of like find out in myself how it goes away. And I've got so, my body is quite sensitive, I can feel on the tip of my finger actually, fingers, they get a little cold when a flu or the cold is coming. And sometimes the image I have is that flu or cold is coming down the kindergarten track from my four-year-old daughter.

[11:22]

And it's coming to me, and I'm the station. And I get out, and I flag the train. Don't stop here. Go on. No passengers. But... And usually the train goes by. But with the cancer, it was the train ran right into the station. Jump the tracks. And it was the first illness I've been encountered in my life that I just had to do more practical, traditional approaches. As I said, just yesterday or the other day, somebody asked me about it.

[12:29]

I said, for me, actually, strangely enough, the experience was quite good. I'm not as young as you are. So I was quite, I've lived long enough, this is, you know... That was a thought. That was a thought, yes. The world would do well without me, I felt. But at the same time, the nurses and the doctors, everyone was so nice. Everybody went out of their way to be helpful.

[13:32]

It was great. I mean, I didn't want to go back in the hospital, but it was... It was fine. Yeah, but if I'd been younger, maybe I would have been, oh, this is unfortunate, but... But if there's nothing you can do about it, you know, I mean internally, and I just get the best help you can, and, you know, as long as you're alive, you're alive. That's, for me anyway, good enough. Someone else? Yeah? My question is, you're talking about this, the Japanese Zen, right?

[14:41]

Can you say that in German or should I say it here? My German is very good. My impression is that you... Yeah, I'm very wary of using the word nature or essence. Because it implies some kind of inherent, like an acorn, the acorn leads to the oak tree. The basic teaching of Buddhism, I understand it, and emptiness is that there's no permanence and no inheritance.

[15:52]

So we speak about Buddha nature. And we could say that this mind of just now is enough. I could say it's your... you're experiencing the fundamental nature of mind or something. But I'm rather cautious about speaking that way. And I don't like the term original mind particularly in Buddhism. If it's understood to be some prior mind and not some emergent mind. And some Zen teachers teach something like oneness.

[17:10]

And it's a useful, perhaps provisional teaching. But I don't think there, even though some Zen teachers do teach that way, I don't agree. Because it's basically then a theological idea. Now I'm not saying that's what you feel, I'm just saying that's why I'm wary of the words essence and nature. And I also don't speak about enlightenment and realization except with people who are practicing. You had your hand up a minute ago. I don't think you have to translate that because...

[18:41]

In America I say it's my bag. Which is a pun. Your bag in slang English means your job. And my daughter thinks it's my bib. Yeah. Because I'm a kind of messy eater. But it's actually a small version of Buddha's robe. And it's made from pieces of cloth sewn together and usually chanting while you sew it together.

[20:04]

And the custom is that if I'm speaking about Zen practice I should wear Buddha's robe to show that this is not just my thinking but I'm part of a lineage of trying to develop this way of looking at the world. Anybody else have something else? Just one question. I can't speak German, so I will say English. Yeah, well, I happen to speak English. How does Buddha fit into Zen mind and try to say? Well, from the point of view of Zen, Basically, what this Zen practice is, is Chinese.

[21:10]

Zen was almost entirely developed in China. And you could practice Zen all your life and have not much idea of the historical Buddha. But I would say in Zen practice, the historical Buddha is the beginning point, but not the end point. And from my point of view, we may experience things, science is an accumulated teaching, So is Buddhism accumulated teaching. So we may experience things that historical Buddha never experienced. Unless you think of the Buddha as a god. But we do, you know, one of the basic teachings in Zen is the so-called three bodies.

[22:30]

Yeah, the Dharmakaya, the Sambhogakaya and the Nirmanakaya Buddha. And the Dharmakaya means something like space itself as the Buddha. or all things in their all-at-onceness. And the Sambhogakaya Buddha means something like, if you have this experience, this wide boundaryless experience, you also have a more precise experience of the body as something blissful. I'm making it rather simple. And then the expression of that is called the Nirmanakaya Buddha, which is also considered to be a historical Buddha.

[23:36]

And I'll end with a rather famous koan in reference to this. The Chinese Zen Master Dung Shan was asked by an adept monk among the three bodies of Buddha I just mentioned. Among the three bodies of Buddha, which one does not fall into any category? And Dung Shan said, I'm always close to this. And so in Zen practice what we would do is practice with that phrase, I'm always close to this.

[24:48]

Okay. What do I mean by this? This, yes. Well... Well, the word thus, the word this is actually the same word as thus, and thus is another word for Buddha, or emptiness. But when you practice with, I'm always close to this, as I'm looking at you, it directs my attention towards you. I'm always close to this perception of you. Or I'm always close to this, or this, or... And you can't say much about the phrase itself, but if you try to use it and you find it present on every perception, it has an effect on you.

[26:04]

Can I ask one more question? It sounds like you are following the teaching of Buddha and history of Buddha, all the things, but you do not believe Buddha himself. Is that true? What was the last part? Do I believe in Buddha as a kind of God? I do not. If I believed that, I probably would have stayed a Christian. But I do believe it's possible for Buddhas to appear. And another way to look at it is if enlightenment or awakening is possible, and the Buddha is one who is awake, That possibility of awakening isn't back in the past somewhere.

[27:21]

And that possibility of awakening is right now. And that is also Buddha. Yes? There's a Zen story, it's called No Water, No Moon. Do you know the story? I don't know the story, no. What could you explain it? I don't know the story. But it could well be that you see the reflection of the moon in the water. And so is the reflection of the moon the real moon? Or is the moon in the sky the real moon? Or is the tides the moon? The tides?

[28:32]

The tides, the ocean tides. Yeah. Are procreative cycles the moon? How do you call this? Procreative. a woman's period. From one point of view, all of these things, from the teaching of interdependence and interpenetration, they're all the moon. then you can also say, no mood, no water. Like we also say, very simply, the willow is not green, nor is the flower red. Or we can also say, Thank you very much.

[29:35]

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