Man says cast driftwood into the night ocean. This means you have to have faith in the night ocean. You have to have faith in your own existence. Hmm. And I think if you can feel this night ocean in your practice, you may find at least one blind turtle or one-eyed turtle. Or maybe many. In any case, this image can be quite useful in directing, allowing one's practice.

[01:16]

Now, we could say this is not much different, and it isn't much different than the psychotherapeutic technique of free association. But here you're allowing a free association in the middle of still sitting without any effort to correct your mind. And with a faith in this what I call a fractal hinge. One of the assumptions of yogic culture is microcosm and macrocosm are

[02:18]

versions of each other. And they're hinged in us. And also our conscious mind and our undifferentiated essence of mind pervade each other. But there's some point at which a blind turtle swims across the line. Anyway, there's some phase like this in a fractal opening in practice.

[03:28]

No, I would like to talk about the other tools of practice, but I don't want to go on much longer. So let me just say one thing. Mindfulness practice is holding in view three forms of mindfulness practice. Is mindfulness which allows us to extend and integrate mind. To develop a coherence of mind and body.

[04:32]

Another mindfulness is to hold something in view. And to hold it in view in order to absorb it, to see its many examples around you. Like holding the five skandhas in view. By holding it in view, you begin to see it operating, functioning everywhere. And another form of mindfulness is to hold in view so that you precipitate

[05:42]

Now the mindfulness I want to speak about just now in ending is that mindfulness which establishes us in awareness. For example, when you drop the you that hurts, And you're just it's just your right leg that's hurting. And even the degree to which the discomfort is noticed, it's only part of your mind which is involved with that noticing.

[06:50]

Now, when you really get a sense of that in sitting, and your discomfort and your boredom and so forth drop away, We can say you've established yourself in awareness. Because it's the you that hurts that establishes you in consciousness. And also the you that loves and the you that thinks and so forth. So one practice of mindfulness is to be able to establish yourself in awareness. or as we've discussed in the past, sometimes to establish yourself in immediate consciousness.

[08:10]

Now, what I want to point out is that when you're established in awareness or immediate consciousness, you don't establish yourself in memory. In other words, if you spend all afternoon in immediate consciousness, you'll remember very little of what happened during the day. As we've discussed though, for example, if you notice a car run into another car.

[09:13]

And drive off. You won't remember the license plate unless you happen to note it. And most of what we remember is what we notice in this kind of mind. Now it's also true that another kind of memory is going on because you can establish it's common that a hypnotist can get a person to remember the license plate even though they didn't note it. So in certain kinds of visual

[10:15]

states of mind, you can see the whole scene and then read the license. And in Buddhism we call this awareness the same mind that pervades a lucid dream. The point I want to make again is that in this, when you're established in awareness, you're not establishing yourself in the usual kind of consciously retrievable memory. But what you are establishing yourself is, it is in energy.

[11:32]

And instead of building up memory of a certain kind, you build up your energy body. And this building up of your energy body through being established in awareness is part of the practice of discovering this critical point. Yeah, as long as you're involved in the you and in the memory of you and so forth, you don't really have much real power. You don't really have much real energy. It's very hard to have the kind of energy necessary, that pure kind of power, which allows you to open this fractal hinge.

[12:44]

So again, sashin is as much as possible to give you a chance to not think about much. Let Mahakavi and Daniela worry about the cooking. Let Christian worry about the schedule. Let me worry about the lectures. And you guys just coast. Or sunbathe on your cushion in Buddha's sun. Yeah, okay, thank you very much. We are the same as you.

[13:51]

We are the same as you. We are the same as you. O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave, and the home of the brave? I pray to God to save them. [...] The greatest or the highest, unquestionably, is to reach the European Union.

[15:02]

The European Union. Yakuzen man no ni owae o koto katashi Chanting. Sometimes I think I should just let you sit and not talk so much and get your mind thinking.

[17:30]

And I can see that some of you have discovered how to use the sashin. to give up this disruptive, languaged self, and to rest in a deeper self. And I hate to bother you with pointing even this out. You should be allowed to rest. I often have said that the self is The function of the self is to establish separation, to establish connectedness, and to establish continuity. Connectedness.

[18:44]

It is also, did I say, to establish a place where we can rest. And I hope if you get used to Sashin, you can find a way to take a good rest here. And also, you know, my trying to talk about Buddhism in English. Yeah. Yeah. brings me to the edge of my language abilities. And then I have to tax Christian with trying to put this into German.

[20:09]

And he has so much to do and to be present in every period, so maybe I should give you a break too. And he has so much to do and has to be there in every sitting period. As you must guess, this is an apology for just being about to say too much. So last night I, you know, I worry about you sometimes lost in the night ocean of birth and death. So I said, you know, there's this anchor, this big mind we can glimpse in the preciseness of posture of our body. And it just popped out.

[21:24]

I said it last night. And then I think, geez, that must not make any sense to anyone. Yes, should I explain what this means? Yes, so maybe this is trying to make a little clearer what I meant. Now, we've, you know, in the practice weekend in the Sesshin, we've been using a vocabulary,

[22:27]

we've come to during this time. So I think I should tell you this story, the koan that we looked at last week. Zhao Zhou says, even immeasurably... Something like this. Even immeasurably great... persons can't avoid this matter. Or can't avoid being caught by this matter. The other day when I was at Guishan's, someone asked the meaning the living meaning of Chan, of Zen.

[23:39]

And Guishan asked, please bring me the meditation seat. And Zhaozhou said, but we should use the basic thing. to teach people. Meaning we shouldn't use objects or thinking to teach people. So a monk, a person in this, his, Zhaozhou's assembly, asked, then, what is the living meaning of Zen Buddhism?

[24:47]

And Zhaozhou said, the cypress tree in the garden. This is a famous koan, famous response. But we need to look at it in the context of the whole story. So the monk then said, but teacher, don't use objects to guide people. Yeah, I'm not using an object to guide people in any way. So this honorable one persisted and said, then what is the... living meaning of Zen Buddhism.

[25:55]

And Jaojo said, the cypress tree in the garden, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Dogen says, commenting on this, Dogen Zenji, there is no objectivity or subjectivity to this oak tree. Okay, oak tree, I'm sorry, most people translate it as oak tree, not cypress tree. I forgot, cypress tree. The cypress tree is not the objective self.

[27:07]

Because there is neither subjectivity nor objectivity, this tree is rooted in complete freedom, Dogen says. Okay, so this question must be pertinent for us too. What is the living meaning of... Zen Buddhism nowadays, today, right now, in this Sesshin. And we'd have to ask ourselves then, what is this basic thing? what Suzuki Roshi called the first principle. So we can't put this only in the context of, we can't limit this to the oak tree or the cypress tree. We have to look at it in the context of this story. So, first of all, what we see is he presented this in relationship to Guishan and what somebody said to Guishan and what somebody said to him and so forth.

[28:47]

And, of course, our lineage of commentators who presented this story present it this way. So this is something mutually got at. Guishan's meditation seat is part of this discussion too. And asking and saying, don't use objects, and saying, I'm not using an object, is part of this. So this kind of discussion within ourselves and with others is part of this way we get at this. And with others is part of how we approach this.

[29:50]

And in fact, we can say this basic thing, this first principle, is a nexus of relationships. And when you focus on this nexus of relationships, we can call that focus a dharma. Dogen says, to study is to study unison.

[31:06]

When we study Zen, we're studying unison. And unison means to sing together. One sound, unison. I said that the bell the other day, for Kinhin is not two hits of the bell. That's the wrong way to describe it. It's one sound created by two hits. So Dogen is saying that The study of the way is to see how things, we could say, sing together.

[32:16]

To see the Dharma is to see how things sing together. Now, there's a French psychoanalyst philosopher named Jacques Lacan. that a young philosopher who teaches at Colorado College near Crestone, who comes to Crestone quite often, so anyway, he wrote a study of Lacan. So he gave it to me, so I've been looking at it recently. And I've read a little Lacan before, but I haven't studied him much.

[33:32]

But maybe I can use Lacan as a counterfoil to talk a little bit about Buddhism. But maybe I can use Lacan as a counterfoil to talk a little bit about Buddhism. Did I say all that? I'm kidding. I'm just kidding. I mean, sometimes I think my translators, Ulrike and Christian, simply just give a better lecture. I say a few things and then they improve it. So... So he takes off from and thinks that Freud too takes off from Descartes' old saw.

[35:16]

An old saw is an old saying. I think therefore I am. And excuse me for bringing this up, but anyway, here we are. Yeah. He says that both Freud and Lacan himself take this as a search for certainty. Can you say something for certain? That's absolutely true. I think, therefore I am. But Lacan comes to the view that this I is just an identity interruptus.

[36:32]

A kind of fading of subjectivity. into a complex of relationships. But this sounds like Buddhism, a fading of subjectivity into a complex of relationships. But Lacan sees this as a kind of castration and proof of the existence of the unconscious because the unconscious is supposed to fill the gaps. or create the gaps, create the constant interruptions.

[37:39]

But then he concludes that the unconscious itself is fractured and constantly interrupted. So we can't take this as some substantial coherent I which thinks. Neither can we. Now, he also, and from the Freudian point of view, all of the inside, outside areas of our bodies are eroticized.

[38:45]

Now, it's maybe funny to talk about this, but since it's part of psychology, maybe we can talk about it as part of Buddhism. Because these inside-outside areas are the way we stabilize our mind and body. In other words, the mouth is not related to the interruptions of memory from the past, various associations, but rather

[39:49]

Now, how can I say this? When you are putting your hands together, as I said, the hands are one of these inside-outside areas. We bring food to our mouth with our hands. Push the world away or bring it to us. So in the sitting, we bring our hands together. And I think you'll find that if you concentrate on your tip of your nose, you'll find your thumbs stay together. There's a relationship between your thumbs and your nose. And the surface of your hands is related to the wetness of your mouth.

[41:04]

And your eyes to the center of your palms. And to your wrists. And your ears are related to your shoulders and your arms. Now, we say when you sit, line your ears up with your shoulders. That's the mechanical outside explanation. Inside, if you actually open your ears to hear, awareness, to hear mindfulness. I think you'll find your shoulders relaxed. And the anus is related to the top of the head.

[42:20]

And the heels are also related to the top of the head. So when we sit, we feel a connection between our anus and the top of our head. And the more you are established in awareness, these connections take predominance over the connections in consciousness. energy that goes up the spine. Sometimes up the heels, through the body. And when we bow, we're actually working with that energy. Now this is a more yogic understanding of the subtle body. And I mention it just because of Lacan speaking about how all these inside-outside areas are fetishistic and so forth.

[43:59]

When for a practitioner, they're a way you locate yourself in the world. And it's part of what I meant by the in the midst of the dark waves of birth and death. We made discover, see, feel in the precision of our posture. And I meant this subtle precision I just described. A glimpse of big mind. Mm-hmm. The tongue at the roof of the mouth is related to the hands, fingers being together in mudra.

[45:30]

And the more you practice, the more you find thoughts appear as a feeling between your toes or something like that. You may find a nexus of relationships in the body that reflects and represents thoughts, feelings, etc. This can only be suggested to you. This is something you have to discover yourself. Okay, now what is this about? other than perhaps it might be of some support for you in sitting practice.

[46:38]

Is not just a distinction between two different kinds of minds, or two different kinds of consciousness, a differentiated consciousness and an undifferentiated consciousness. It is those things. But it's not just those things. It also is the basis for another kind of identity. Another kind of being in the world. Buddhists long ago discovered pretty much the same thing that Lacan discovered.

[47:39]

That you can't with any certainty or coherence locate identity in self and consciousness and unconsciousness. And self and consciousness and unconsciousness. You can't locate self. That the word order is different in German, everything. You have to remember everything and put it at the end that I said at the beginning or something like that. I will learn German, but never well enough to give a lecture, I'm afraid. So I'm luckily always going to be dependent on my friends. I might not have any friends otherwise. He won't translate everything. It's foolish. Yeah.

[48:40]

Yeah. Okay, so how can I suggest or talk about a being, an identity, identity is such a funny word, based on awareness? Now, Dogen talks about the 18th Buddha ancestor. Kayashata. We chant his name in the morning. An Indian fellow. And he was supposedly born with a halo.

[49:42]

I don't think it made for a difficult birth. But anyway, this is from time of... babyhood, this followed him around, this present. When he leaned forward, it came forward and so forth. Yeah, anyway, this is the story. And it's not as... Silly as it sounds, sometimes the more we're established in awareness, we do see a kind of halo. And definitely more around some people than others. So anyway, Kayashata seems to have been a very bright little kid, let's say.

[51:19]

I'm sorry, I don't know what's got into me. Everybody was wearing sunglasses on. I guess I was too serious there for a while. Anyway, but at some point, Kayashata was ordained as a monk. And when he was ordained, the halo disappeared. And Dogen presents this as to discourage us from being ordained. And there's some truth to it, you know. Make a deal with Buddha, then you don't have to practice so hard. And when you deepen your commitment like that too, some of the experiences that happen out of ambivalence stop happening.

[52:24]

The experiences that led you to practice, to be ordained. It's like after you've sat for quite a while, your sitting gets pretty boring because those interesting experiences don't happen anymore. And you think I better... give this up and try something else. Soma, perhaps. But what happens is your sitting pushes these experiences out into your daily activity.

[53:48]

So that it takes a different kind of mind to notice these so-called experiences in your activity when they're not in your satsang. And this is what Dogen meant. That when Kayashata was ordained, The entire earth became his halo. Shreddo says, The entire earth is the gate of bliss and realization.

[54:59]

But there are few who enter it. This gate is everywhere, always present. This is the meaning of Dharma. And when you open this gate of the entire earth, it is opened throughout the entire earth. Dogen has this kind of way of expressing himself. And when this gate when you enter this gate of the entire earth you will see many hidden things. Now this is Dogen's way of speaking about the actualization of the body of awareness.

[56:27]

Which is not far from you. I don't want to speak much longer, so what should I say? Hmm. Proust says at the beginning of one of his books, That when you later on you remember the interruptions you had

[57:50]

one afternoon reading. I can't remember exactly what he said but wrote something like this. You remember the You remember the interruptions of someone bringing you tea and a little sandwich in the afternoon. And you were expected to eat it. And you were rather annoyed by it. So you just let it sit because you really wanted to continue your reading. But years later remembering the interruption you remember now what you couldn't have remembered otherwise.

[59:14]

You remember the sitting, reading? You remember the feel of the story. You remember the breeze in the trees beyond the house and on the pages of the book. Anyway, he wrote something like this. Now, memory is, as we spoke yesterday, selective. Selective and selected. We don't remember everything that happens.

[60:14]

We remember what consciousness selects and what we select. And this is a kind of interruption. And consciousness does this. But awareness is much more continuous. It's so continuous we sometimes describe it as immovable or stopped. And it could never select for memory or it turns into consciousness. It can never select for memory or it turns into consciousness. select in order to remember. So selective memory is essentially an interruption.

[61:32]

And this selected memory establishes who we are in consciousness. But the practice of mindfulness, well practiced, will produce a coherence Which is a continuity. We can say a non-memory selecting continuity. We remember things, we access memory through the very process of selection by which they were selected. In other words, the process of selective memory is also the process of remembering.

[63:04]

So there cannot be that kind of memory in awareness. This is the ocean of being and non-being. Where you may feel lost. Because memory is not the same. But it's not, as I said, as aimless as we might think. For this... And this is not a loss for awareness, but it is something different.

[64:40]

For this continuity of living, As I said yesterday, builds a kind of energy or presence. Through the very... Anyway, you got the idea. Well, you probably have an idea of it. Dogen calls this the secret dharani of veneration.

[65:48]

Because this awareness which is everywhere present the halo of the entire earth sometimes it's called the ancient mirror. Mm-hmm. Maybe I want you just to practice with the feeling of this awareness.

[66:56]

And I'll come back to this later. Choir singing. Choir singing. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about.

[67:58]

I don't know what you're talking about. The Alas are boundless. I have brought them to my lord. He loves the good and encourages me. I promise to reach him. Thank you.

[69:02]

Nei ga wa kuwa yorai wo shin jetsu ni o geshi kate matsuran. Ai nan de koro kuna, jutsu shimano koe paru no. Yes, it's true that God has made all the prophets and the saints, but not in the Old Testament, and in the Old Testament, but in the Old Testament. I think all of you know Gerald, do you?

[70:48]

Vaishuddha? The stranger who's so tall, who showed up. If you don't know him, we practiced together for nearly about 10 years and a little more. Oh yeah, 13 or so. And 10 years or so at Creston. And now he and his wife Gisela are the two assistant abbots and teachers of Johannesof. And now he and his wife Gisela are, so to speak, the helpers and also teachers in Johannesburg. And I think you came because you wanted to see us.

[71:56]

But also to bring the things from the Sashin down to Johanneshof. We haven't forgotten you down there. Yeah, so why am I doing this with you? You're wondering too, huh? Yeah. Well, one is, the main reason is I... want to share the same world with you. And I see the work also, the practice also, as seeing if the world can share the same world with itself.

[73:10]

I don't think it's difficult for the therapists who are in the Sashin, and there's quite a number of you. To have the feeling that one's own practice is directly connected to the clients, the people one works with. But that also has to be true for the whole world. We're all clients of each other. Part of that and also part of that and part of my motivation is I know Zen to be one of the most accessible interfaces between Western and Eastern cultures.

[74:38]

And I think we have to look at that at this part of this century because it's about the potentialities of being human. Now who's here? I mean, who's here talking to you right now? Yeah, well, sometimes I'm called Richard Baker. And sometimes I'm called Zentatsu Myoyu. And a friend of mine, when he hears the name Zentatsu, calls me instead Hatsi Tatsi. Hatsi Tatsi. So, Hatsitatsi is also here, I guess. And the person of this particular Sesshin is here.

[75:49]

Yeah. And the person of seated meditation is here. Now, I say the person of the Sashin because there's a mutually arising identity among any group of people. But in particular in a Sashin. And during the practice week I mentioned... how primarily the Portuguese explorers in going down the African coast couldn't use dead reckoning or knowledge of what other people

[77:17]

A sailor here. What's dead reckoning? Thank you. I knew it must be some technical term. And they weren't able to use much of Ptolemy's system. So they had to eventually discover latitude, how to measure latitude. I guess in the 1500s, I guess. Mm-hmm. The point I'm making is that in order to discover maps of the world that weren't based on cultural and Christian conventions, because until these explorers, the world was a kind of mythological

[78:49]

representation on mats. But to make real mats, they had to go into uncharted waters. And I think to make a real map of yourself, you have to go into uncharted waters. And sashin is difficult because it... The idea is it wants to force you a little bit into uncharted waters. So in Sashin, you know, Richard Baker and Zen Tatsumiyo, you kind of disappear. And I don't know who I am.

[80:09]

I'm just sitting here following the schedule. Of course, when I do that, all kinds of aspects of... of Richard and Zentatsu appear. But that's part of the uncharted waters. Also, one of the persons who is here is one for whom there is no concept of waiting. You know you're in the experience of awareness.

[81:19]

Or we can say big mind. When you don't have any concept of waiting. You're not waiting for the bell. There's no expectation. In fact, you'd kind of rather wish the bell wouldn't ring. When you're in awareness, you hope you can spend all day in the dentist's office. Peter had to go to the dentist yesterday. Do you know what I mean? You don't care if the bus arrives or the dentist comes. Wherever you are, it's quite okay. the idea of waiting doesn't occur.

[82:39]

That person is also here. Now, what am I trying to talk about here? And this is also necessarily a dialogue with myself about what I should be teaching. And you understand part of the dialogue is that I don't know what I'm teaching. Because what I'm talking about is not exactly traditional Buddhism. It's traditional Buddhism meets the West. What's that cartoon of Bambi meets the... Bambi meets the... I don't know, it's some cartoon, Japanese cartoon.

[83:56]

Bambi meets gargantuan or something, and all it shows is Bambi. You know who Bambi is? The deer. Yeah, Bambi is kind of bouncing around, smelling the flowers. And you hear, boom, boom. Suddenly this big foot appears and Bambi's gone. Yeah. Well, I don't know which is which in this West meets East. But it does remind me that some of you come in to serve food as if you were going to the elephant dance. I think maybe it's because you walk on your heels and not forward on your foot.

[85:09]

Or maybe it's because you think you're walking on the floor. Instead of in people's ears. Maybe you should imagine the floor as a musical instrument. And you're trying to make it sing or at least talk to this. But then again, maybe this is your way of talking. But you can discuss that with your therapist. Okay.

[86:17]

Okay. Okay. Okay. So this is not traditional Buddhism because Buddhism has never been in dialogue with the West before. So I'm trying to sort out, and I'm doing it right now in the Sesshin with you, as you must be aware. I'm trying to sort out from my own experience and practice what we're doing here.

[87:19]

Now also the question of what to teach comes up because, for example, at Dung Shan's memorial service for his teacher, And here also appears the question of what I should teach, because for example at Dung Shan's... Mabu? Yes, try to find the word. At the service that was made to remind of Dung Shan's teacher, Is the tradition to do memorial services for the rest of your life for your teacher? Customarily actually once a month. At least once a year. So he's doing this memorial service and somebody asks, why do you venerate your teacher? And Dung Shan says, well, because he refused, because I did not receive any instruction from him.

[88:46]

And the monk says, then why do you venerate him? And he says, how dare I contradict him? And then the dialogue goes on and it's also, he says, because he refused to reveal the truth to me. And the monk says, well, do you agree or disagree? And Dung Shan says, I half agree and half don't agree. So there's a big emphasis anyway in teaching through uncharted waters.

[89:55]

And creating the conditions where you discover And to create the conditions for how one discovers for oneself and through oneself. But since I don't really know what I'm talking about, I don't feel I'm revealing too much. Or at least I'm just exploring this with you. Okay, so... How many selves do we have here? Okay.

[90:56]

Well, we have a European self of some sort. And I'm sure the Swiss and French and German and British selves are all different. And for me, the other day I spoke of Germany, and of course, I hope you know, I mean, for me, the Dharma Sangha is the German language, not whether it's Switzerland or Austria or Germany. But in any case, there's differences among our... what kind of self we have.

[92:01]

And then there's our personal variations. And then there's the Asian self. Which I don't know much about because I'm not Asian. Although I have some intuition about it, it's still, it's rather, you know, a Japanese identity is quite different than a Vietnamese, for instance, or Chinese. Yeah. Hmm. When we're trying to talk here about who's practicing Buddhism.

[93:05]

What's practicing Buddhism. And what kind of difference does it make. Now, although there's various Asian... identities, they do have a lot of similarities. And particularly when those Asian identities are Buddhist, are practicing Buddhists. There's a surprising similarity between Suzuki Roshi, Thich Nhat Hanh, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Yamada Muman Roshi, and so forth.

[93:57]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_66.6