In each of these koans there are certain meditations required or expected of one. One meditation is expected in this koan is discovering what it is to how you find yourself alive. We know night in contrast to day, and waking in contrast to sleeping.

[02:17]

But while you're living you have to know living in contrast with living. So I ask you this evening, what does it mean to you to be alive? Taking hopes and expectations away just this moment, what does it mean to be alive? Let's take away hopes and expectations.

[03:25]

Just in this moment, what does it mean for you to be alive? If you're not going anywhere and you're not expecting anything, you must have already arrived.

[04:35]

So I would suggest you encourage yourself with some phrase you mention, remind yourself of. Each moment or now and then have already arrived. Already arrived. Have you? Have you already arrived? Please sit comfortably. Good morning.

[06:55]

Well, out of my, really, excuse me, my affection for you, and my affection for myself, and out of my knowledge that this practice is realizable, I somehow, I don't know what's wrong with me, I take on these impossible tasks of trying to give you a sense of what it's like to be 10th century, 9th century Chinese person. First of all, you might ask what makes any one of us think I might know. Well, that can't be answered. And it's hard enough to, you know, it's pretty difficult to know even for ourself what it is to be alive.

[09:08]

And our very discussion of it, as Heidegger says, hides its discoveredness. In other words, that with the thinking we discovered or noticed what it is to be alive, that very thinking hides it from us. Now the usual way of practice in this is to hope you make a commitment of some Lifetime, length of time.

[10:11]

Not with a sense of a lifetime, but just, you just have this commitment. Okay. And then you do things like count your breaths and things like that. And certain teachings are presented to you to repeat, to read every morning or now and then, once a week. And eventually some insight occurs. Some shift occurs. And you may think that those of you who are new may think that, you know, someone who's been doing this a long time has an advantage over someone who hasn't.

[11:36]

Of course, there's some maturity in practice. But advantage, no. Insight takes no time. And it doesn't occur even in time. So, I mean, partly we're here just an excuse to hang out together. Or at least that's my excuse. Well, we have to figure out something to do, I mean, I suppose. So we might as well have an impossible task. Now, you should know that the idea of what a human being is changes over the centuries.

[13:02]

In our culture, the way Jesus is considered both Jesus and the Christ, and how those two beings are one person, is part of our culture. And the ideas of being which seem to have the most power are the ones that have affected the development of culture in the most profound way, are ones that see being as an entity, an inclusive entity. Yes, and the idea of what being is, which has the most power and influences our society the most, is to see the being as something that is an entity, an entity that includes a lot.

[14:13]

So it's definitely the case that ideas about being affect our being. Even if you don't see them, you're operating from them. Now, since you're here for this weekend and we're talking about Zen Buddhism, then we have to look at what is being in Zen Buddhism. And we also should look at or practice that process of discovery of being. Because here we're looking at, when you talk about being, We're looking at what, as I said in the recent talks at Oldenburg, what connects us to the world.

[15:53]

And what connects us to others. Because being is a withness. Can you translate these kind of things? Well, if you can say them What about what I can't say? Can you translate that? That's the problem And also being is what separates us. And many cultures have rituals of separation where you wash your body, wash your mouth and eyes and things like that, which is to actually seal your body and separate you from others.

[17:00]

And a, um... And we generally understand asceticism and monasticism as a denial of the body. But you can also see it as an exaltation of the body. As an emphasis on the separate body that doesn't procreate. And some people feel that homosexuality is an emphasis on the body which doesn't create and hence an emphasis on individuality.

[18:05]

It doesn't. It doesn't procreate. So asceticism can be seen, or at least monasticism, or celibacy as an emphasis on the individual life that isn't connected. to future generations. Sorry, I didn't understand quite. Because you said before homosexuality wasn't about individuality. Yes, it is about individuality. Oh, it is? Then I didn't understand that.

[19:05]

And the early Christian idea of monasticism, as far as I can tell, definitely has a... and celibacy has an important role in our idea of what the individual is in the West. So... Okay. She has to be louder, I don't have to be, right? So anyway, the idea of being has to do with, again, our sense of connectedness and our sense of separateness.

[20:29]

As I've often said, our immune system is one of the dimensions of self. Our immune system decides what belongs to us and what doesn't belong to us. And your identity is also making decisions about what belongs to you and what doesn't belong to you. And it's necessary that you, for sanity's sake, that you know this is my voice and not your voice. And our senses have been developed to see the world as external. And if someone throws an apple at you, you better realize the apple is external or you won't catch it.

[21:56]

But the actual process of perception is internal. The apple that you throw What you see of the apple is interim. So self and being also has to do with what, not just what separates us, but what gives us cohesion. Cohesion in the present and cohesion over time. And these basic questions of what separates and what connects and what continues Are the stuff on which civilizations and cultures are built.

[23:08]

And religion's role often is to clarify this or affirm it or ritualize it. Now, this koan is asking this question. Linji is about to die. What connects him to his disciple? What will his disciple continue? Does anything of Linji continue? It's characteristic of Zen practice that in this koan, which is central to one of the central figures of all of Zen Buddhism, reincarnation is not mentioned at all.

[24:26]

You can see in this how almost completely unimportant reincarnation is for Zen Buddhists. Okay. Now, this is... How do we make this more something feeling connected to us and not just ideas, even if they're important ideas? If you hold up your finger, if you each hold up your finger and look at it from the back part of your hand.

[25:40]

I feel like an idiot doing this. By trying to create some exercise, you look at your finger. And you imagine yourself as outside your finger. Look at your finger as it's just an object in the world. As you can feel outside your finger. Now maybe see if you can feel your eyes inside your finger. Feel that you're inside your finger. Maybe even looking out. Now you be outside your finger again.

[27:07]

Now move your finger a little bit. Okay, maybe now turn your hand around and look at your whole palm. And looking at your finger still. And feeling it outside you. And feeling also that it's inside you, you're inside it. Now maybe touch it with your thumb. And you can touch each finger with your thumb. And you can touch your fingers together as four or three and one or two and two.

[28:25]

And not only your finger, you can feel the whole of your hand. As again, both outside you and outside what? Outside your eyes? And yet you're also inside your hand. And all of this will die. Your ability to do all these things will end at some point. These simple things we take for granted. Now feel the center of your palm looking at you. Perhaps bring the third finger down and touch the center of your palm.

[29:56]

Now here you had two different parts of you, your third finger and your palm touching each other. And your eyes are looking at it. And those are only some of the dimensions. It's quite a complex event. And I don't know if this makes sense, but take the feeling in the palm of your hand and put it in the end of your finger and aim that third finger at your face and aim the energy from the palm of your hand from your finger toward your face.

[31:02]

Can you feel a certain energy in the palm of your hand? Almost as if in the center of your palm there's an eye. Now if you felt your whole body the way you feel the palm of your hand, or may feel the palm of your hand right now, This is something like Linji feels, the way he feels alive.

[32:08]

The root of the word real, to make something real means that it goes in a straight line. And to rule, which is related to real, means to make things go in a straight line. So instead of using reality, we use actuality. Actuality means something more like to move something. Or to grasp something. But this feeling in the palm of your hand can't be grasped.

[33:40]

Nor can it be a conception like a straight line, something we can conceive of. So there's a certain, I don't know what, I'm trying to give you a feeling for it, what I call not being but a domain of being. A cohesion and dwellingness in being. That is not graspable or conceptual. So I'd like at least to sit for a moment or two.

[34:48]

What I'm trying to point out to you is that there's a domain of being or a treasure house of being that is not graspable and not conceptual. which cannot be grasped and which is also incomprehensible. And now that you know this, and you've done this little example, when you want to remind yourself of non-graspable, non-conceptual being, you can put your middle finger into the palm of your hand.

[38:23]

It can be very discreet. No one notices what you're doing. You just close your hands slightly and put your third finger in the palm of your hand. If you do this, you're practicing with a mudra. As a recent koan that we looked at says, orators plow with the pen. But we Buddhists touch the domain of being with mudras. Now you may not understand this all at once or feel much about it, but if you know, now that you know this mudra, it's a treasure you can have.

[40:36]

And it becomes part of your own provisions. And when you need this mudra, you can freely use it. And each time, to some extent, you'll touch the non-graspable, non-conceptual domain of being. And every time you do it, you touch in a certain degree these non-terrific, non-touchable domains of being. so

[42:42]

Thank you. Please have a little stretch. What I just showed you or suggested to you is an entry into what's called the Dharma seal of emptiness.

[44:54]

And it's also in itself a complete practice. And of course if you really understand this such a simple thing, then anytime you touch your hands together it's the same. Sitting here is the same. Standing is the same. This morning walking in this beautiful pathways is the same. I had a dream the other night.

[45:57]

Although I'm embarrassed to tell you what my dream, but anyway, I'll tell you. I'm not presenting this as philosophy. I was asking myself in the dream, what is the topography of space? Sorry, I have such dreams. What is the density of space? And suddenly I felt a kind of thinness as I was standing up in this space in my dream.

[47:07]

I was moving, almost floating up. And right beside me was a kind of small herd of butterflies. And they were all going... You know, flying in a cluster. With a cohesion of the cluster, you know. And the butterflies were sort of saying, a little tiny... grayish-green wings. The butterflies were saying to me, look at this, this is the density of space.

[48:08]

And I say I'm not presenting this as philosophy or science. But this morning on our walk I saw the birds over the pond and it had the same feeling. I don't know if it makes sense to say that in practice this kind of experience is real. It's not about whether it's scientific or not. And when I bring the, when you take the position of a dream into your daily life, into your waking life, And you're not bringing the position of the dream into your waking life in order to interpret the dream.

[49:33]

But to have the eye of the dream in your daily life. Then you see the birds over the pond telling the same thing as the butterflies in your dream. Now this kind of experience is again what I'm calling the domain of being. So when you're standing, looking at the pond, being is here or is there at that time. And if you feel a certain cohesion in that, That's what I'm trying to convey to you as a sort of domain of being.

[50:48]

And what I tried to convey to you last night by that little mantra turning worry, This moment is a precise physical act. As precise as my touching my finger to the middle of my palm. And when you die, these precise physical acts end. But if your mind is constantly imagining what you're going to do, you never are in the midst of the precise physical act of being.

[52:00]

Or if you're thinking comparatively. Again, I always have to say, This isn't about not thinking comparatively or not thinking about the future. It's about sometimes not thinking comparatively, sometimes not thinking about the future. To realize the treasury of your own provisions. The density of maybe your own space. or the freedom and openness of your own space.

[53:08]

Now I can point at this domain of being, though I shouldn't talk about it too much. But once you feel it, you'll know it. You'll feel a non-exclusive cohesion. You'll suddenly feel like you know where you live. If you feel a little sick, say, you won't apply the medical model to your sense of being. I have a disease, I can go to a doctor, the doctor can identify it, and we can get rid of the disease.

[54:20]

That's one contemporary model of being that we have.

[54:22]

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