Yeah, I should probably talk about Dungschans. Why don't you go to a place where there's no hot, no cold? Ich sollte wahrscheinlich über Dungschans, warum gehst du nicht an einen Platz, wo es weder heiß noch kalt ist, sprechen. But unfortunately the koan isn't about air conditioning. Aber unglücklicherweise dieses koan ist nicht über... Air-conditioned. You don't have it, Jeremy, I know it. Not so often, anyway. So I should talk about K'in-hin instead. Mm-hmm. Something I can never quite get after 10 or 20 or 30 years. I can't get people to do.

[01:02]

It seems simple enough, but it's hard to do for some reason. Es scheint ganz einfach zu sein, aber aus irgendeinem Grunde ist es sehr schwierig. And I'm going to exaggerate a little bit. Und ich werde ein bisschen übertreiben. For instance, we're doing Khin Hin. Zum Beispiel, wir machen Khin Hin. Yeah, continuing the mind of Zazen. Und setzen den Geist des Zazen fort. Discovering how to continue the mind of Zazen. Wir entdecken, wie wir den Geist des Zazen fortsetzen. Can you hear him okay? Not too well. You should speak more loudly than me. I can whisper to you. You have to speak louder. And then at the bell we move quickly back to our places.

[02:09]

Now exaggerating, when you hear the bell, you take off like you were shot out of a gun. Like you were shot out of a gun. If you bump into the person in front of you, that's okay. Maybe it'll get the person in front of you to move a little. But it shouldn't be felt as aggression. Unless after you knock someone over, you kick them. That would probably be aggression. But just a bump into their back, that's not aggression.

[03:19]

If you think it's aggression, then you're in social space. Okay, so what I'm emphasizing here is a great deal of what Sashin is about is getting out of social... or societal and societal space. Kin Hin is just one little example. Much of what we do in Sesshin is to do everything differently, or just a little differently, so it's annoying. Yeah, so when the bell rings at the end, regular quinhin, You don't move forward in relationship to the person in front of you.

[04:39]

Of course you take into consideration someone's in front of you. But you don't wait for the person in front of you to move. You move the moment you hear the bell, after you do a little bow. There's a little pause. You bring both feet together. And then you do a little shashu bow. And then you start. I've said this many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times. Yeah, like that.

[05:51]

What happens? Everyone kind of wanders along. Some people have a gap of a meter or two in front of them. Because they think they're supposed to walk slowly or something like that. But the idea is feet together, a little shashu bow, and then you go forward. You close up the space in front of you. It's not like a line waiting to buy movie tickets. Well, you don't mind if your spouse is against your back. Where you don't mind if your spouse is against your back.

[07:00]

But you do mind if some stranger is right against your back. Unless you're awfully lonely. I'm lonely. Now, when you're in a movie line, it's like a social space. We're not in that kind of space in Sesshin. Yes, so behavior is a little different. In small things like that, you just move up and you're not being aggressive. And if everyone starts at the same time and not little bit like dominoes,

[08:05]

Not like dominoes. Do you have that? Yeah. And then the whole line moves at a good pace back to your place. Yeah, if we had 60 people in this machine, that's almost impossible in this room, but with the number of people we have, it's possible. Wenn wir 60 Leute im Sashin hätten, was in diesem Raum fast unmöglich ist, dann wäre es unmöglich mit 60 Leuten in diesem Raum. Aber mit der Zahl von Leuten, die wir im Sashin sind, ist es möglich. So this Sashin is continuing the fourth week of the practice month. Some of you have been here the whole practice month and some for one or two weeks of it.

[09:22]

And some of you are here just for the Sashin. Okay, so somehow I want to continue the teachings that were part of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha of this first three weeks. And there's, of course, a lot of... A lot of the teachings that have come up have been the seminars in the last few months. A lot of the teachings have been the seminars of the last few months. Part of what I... I have to be part of what I'm speaking about.

[10:26]

And since we can't all live together, that's just the way it is. So at the same time, I have to start from some kind of beginning. So I'm starting here with a sense of renunciation. or the relinquishment of being identified through social and societal space. So, you know, I think we again have to look at the image, I'd like to look again at the image we have of the body.

[11:39]

But first, let me suggest that you, during this session, you try to rest in yourself. Or rest in yourself without yourself. So that you anticipate each period of zazen. Yeah, so that, oh, another chance to rest in myself. And maybe that sense of rest can be strong enough that the discomfort of sitting isn't important.

[12:49]

The discomfort of sitting won't be so important. The sense can be strong enough. That the sense of resting in yourself can be strong enough that the discomfort of sitting is not important. Sounds good, doesn't it? Yeah. And you're really, if you can do it, you're making a much more complex consciousness. There's the discomfort of your legs and so forth, back, whatever. And it's hopefully just discomfort or pain, but not damage.

[13:58]

You're not forcing yourself in some way that you're damaging your nerves or something, which sometimes people do. So if you can be present within the discomfort of sitting, sometimes it's more than discomfort, And at the same time, feel some resting, some feeling at rest in yourself. This is something like Dungsang means.

[15:04]

Why don't you find a place where there's no hot or cold? Yeah, and because you're not the person who rings the bell, usually. And the person who rings the bell can only do it a tiny bit early. You have to find that place where you can feel at rest and also accept the pain of sitting. You may say, why does Zen have to be so painful? I hear that a lot. And you're right. Maybe you should do something else. But it does actually produce a more complex awareness consciousness.

[16:23]

And it's a shortcut to imperturbable, stable mind. It isn't pushed around by moods and annoyances. You find it the hard way. But there may be no other way. It's like when I asked Suzuki Roshi, how do I learn to practice heat yoga? He said, first it has to be very cold. You need some reason to practice it, otherwise you're not motivated to practice it.

[17:38]

Luckily, in Tassajara, it was very cold in the Zendo, no heat in the Zendo. So it helped to learn such practices. And imperturbable mind? It's probably pretty difficult to come to without this kind of complex awareness and consciousness. Und der unerschütterliche Geist, den zu erreichen, ist wohl sehr schwierig ohne dieses komplexere Bewusstsein. Where you can feel at rest, at ease, even though it hurt like hell. Wo ihr in Ruhe und in Gelassenheit sein könnt, obwohl es sich wie die Hölle anfühlt. Then you approach it and lose it and approach it and lose it.

[18:41]

And then you approach and you approach and you can't hold it and you approach and you have to let go again. some part of the period or a whole period, there's no problem at all for some. You don't know where all the discomfort went to. And you think, oh, great, I've realized imperturbable mind. Until the next period. It's even worse. Anyway, this is what our practice, this strict practice is like. So to rest... rest in yourself.

[19:50]

And after a while, you can extend that to resting in your situation. To resting in phenomena. So you might have some phrase like resting in and resting within. Resting in yourself, resting within phenomena. The phenomena actually give you rest. So I'm suggesting that some things you might notice during zazen. And that... If you notice these things and feel it as a possibility, it's likely to become possible.

[21:14]

Now you also might see if you can find Freedom in each moment. Even though we have a schedule here. He said, see if at each moment you can feel... See if you can be free at any moment. Let's say you're not in Sushin and you're planning to go to town and you've got a lot of errands to do. Let's say it's not a life and death errands. It's not errands that are terribly important.

[22:26]

It's just for food and toilet paper and stuff like that. Pick up the photographs or something. But you want to do something tomorrow that you can't, etc. That's kind of important. But on the way, there's a stow. You don't care at all. Stow? Oh, okay. Or you meet a friend. Oh, let's go to a cafe. You spend the afternoon with a friend. Or you pull off out of the stow and stop at the nearest restaurant or something. And you never even think of the toilet paper and the food and stuff.

[23:30]

Yeah. I mean, so you have a plan, but you don't live... You don't live in the plan. At each moment, there's a choice. Borges, the poet, speaks of the garden of forking paths. At each moment there's a garden of forking paths. Yeah, and you had a plan. But, yeah. There's a new path.

[24:37]

It's okay. Or you continue your plan. But even in your plan, at each moment, you feel free. You get to the store. Oh, it's closed at 12.30 on Saturday evening. In Snott, but in Lorach, it's open. Goreville is closed. How long does it take to get to Lorach? There's no stress. You're just, oh, okay, it's closed. Your plan, oh, you change your plan. Of course, we all know this and we're somewhat like this already. But often our life is interlaced with short- and long-term plans.

[25:44]

Yeah, and if we don't fulfill them, we feel we're not a good person or we're not going to have the right identity or something. A lot of these problems are solved by just feeling free in each moment. You can still have plans, but you feel free in each moment. You can discover that in Sashin. It's a good place to discover that. You're free of the schedule. At that moment, you're free of the schedule, even though next moment you follow the schedule. At this moment, you're free of the pain, even though it continues.

[26:58]

So you're free of your social and societal space. And you're free of your personal psychological space. And you're even free of the space of pleasant or unpleasant, hot or cold. If at each moment when you're identified by circumstances, when you are Identified through circumstances. Yeah. At the same time, you're free of those circumstances. You have some kind of more fundamental identity. Just as Akirashi would

[28:14]

say is awakening the body of the sage. He says in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind something like, we're not talking about metaphysical concepts here. We're talking about awakening the body of the sage. In each moment. And now what is our body? So I said we've got to get away from thinking of it as a container. Think of it more as an extension. Or an appearance. Yeah. The kind of person that appears... The kind of person you are that appears at work. The kind of person you are that appears with a friend.

[29:56]

So noticing and identifying ourselves through our appearances. And also those appearances, as I've said, as they are reflected in other people. You can think of them as reflections which have little strings attached. There's no words in English that I can find that are close to what I'm trying to say. But so I have to make some image. Like you're reflected in other people or you appear in other people. And those reflections have little strings.

[31:07]

And they come back to you. And they bring something of the other person back to you. We're full-time engaged in this process with Sophia. It would be a little like the reflection of the moon had strings attaching it to the moon. And when the moon was reflected in this pond out here, little of the pond went back up to the moon. Or you look at the moon and a little of your eye actually goes to the moon and becomes part of the moon.

[32:22]

Maybe that actually happened, and that's why we sent people up on the moon to walk around, find their eyes. Or their hearts. Mm-hmm. So if you think of yourself more like a reflection or an appearance, and not as a container, let's start to imagine how a computer might feel about itself. I don't like computer images, but let's try one out.

[33:24]

I'm a computer. Am I the case? The case. Am I the case? No, I'm not. I'm more than the case. I'm the software. But am I the software? No, no, I need some electricity. Okay, but am I the electricity? Well, the electricity in my room is not me.

[34:29]

In the room. The electricity, yeah, but the electricity when it's in a silicon microchip, is that me? When the electricity is in a silicon microchip, is that me? Yeah, so what part is the hardware? Is the case the hardware? Are the... Are the silicon chips the hardware? Are the photons and electrons the hardware? Or is that, what's the software? Or maybe we don't, maybe there's just some kind of aliveness. And we can bring that aliveness, we can, you know, you can say bring that alive, we don't have to have a person to bring something alive.

[35:32]

So we can say like that painting is very alive. So we can speak about the computer having aliveness maybe. Wir können also auch über den Computer vielleicht so sprechen, dass er Lebendigkeit hat. We can't really say which is hardware and which is software or which is aliveness. Wir können also nicht wirklich sagen, was hardware und was software ist, was Lebendigkeit ist. And aliveness doesn't exactly fit into any category. Und Lebendigkeit passt überhaupt nicht genau in eine Kategorie hinein. Now, if the computer, if I'm a computer, am I also the internet?

[36:34]

Is, again, shall we go back, is the size of a flower its fragrance? Yeah, again, if you're allergic to that flower, it's probably the fragrance is the size of the flower. Once again, if you are allergic to the flower, then the scent of the flower is probably its size. It's the size of Sophia, the way our room looks upstairs. Anybody walks into the room upstairs, they'd say, oh, there's a baby here. Blankets and toys and so forth. And all the lower shelves are in the process of being cleared. And in this old building we have to find some way to hide all the extension cords.

[37:44]

A little neighborhood boy of... That cat's got the strangest collar. It's an alien cat. It's from outer space. Okay. I told you. Yeah. Yeah, a little boy... Next to my parents was electrocuted playing around with a plug and killed. Crawling, you know, to the wall. So anyways, what we do to the rooms up there, is that the size of Sophia?

[39:03]

Well, if you look at, strictly speaking, from the point of view of interdependence, the flower is the size of the world. So we have to have some boundaries. Because to say the flower is the size of everything doesn't, you know, it's only a slightly useful thing to say. So let's limit it to its root systems and the nearby dirt and the raindrops that fall near it. So let's say the flowers is interactions.

[40:13]

So let's say that our aliveness is our interactions. Well, our computer may be connected with the Internet. Let's say that the computer is its interactions. You could say the body of its interactions is its body. Yeah, what are those things that companies like Amazon.com attach to your computer called? Rechallenges? No. They have a word for it. They can track your computer. Cookies. Like if the moon has cookies.

[41:18]

So all your... Yeah. So every person you meet is establishing little cookies in you. Especially your family. And you want to clear the family cookies out sometimes. Clear. Clear out. So if you're your interactions, and your interactions include all the ways you appear, and all the reflections in others which come back with cookies,

[42:25]

That is what your alaya-vijñāna is. That is what your alaya-vijñāna is. Your storehouse consciousness, your storehouse awareness. Now, garbha, tathagata garbha, well, the word alive and the root of the word life In English, in Greek, it's to anoint with oil. To anoint, to bless. Yeah, and it means something like to stick to, to continue. I think it's, I don't know if it really applies, but for me it's useful to think of it that way.

[43:47]

Aliveness isn't just the electricity and the computer-like. Yes, and it's not just the interactions. It's inseparable from how the interactions stick to us and how they continue in us. And the alaya-vijnana is all those things that have stuck to us. And it's kind of a hidden place. And alaya also has this sense of coming and going, actually, the root. And strangely, that's also what Tathagata means, to come and go.

[44:59]

These interactions. And Garba is matrix or womb or embryo, as you know? But it also means hidden room. Not just a hidden room like the Alaya Vijnana somewhere with everything that's happened. Thakur de Garba has a sense of a hidden room right here in the present. So what I'm suggesting again for just in our sitting. Resting in our sitting. Just our sitting.

[46:13]

And I've used a lot of words. I'm actually talking about the physical experience of sitting. And not simply a concept of the body. But look at how, call your body what you feel. If you close your eyes and you're not thinking, what you feel right now is your body. And notice there's a body which accompanies each sense. What do you mean by sense? A sense feel, sense perception.

[47:14]

So that notice if you hear some sounds. This body that you feel is different. Yeah, if you start to visualize something. There's always some, particularly on a hot day like this, a warm day like this, there's always some kind of, the air, the people around you have some kind of fragrance. And if you pay attention to that duft, is that the right word? Yeah, if you pay attention to that duft, you'll find a feeling body appears that accompanies that. This is a kind of hidden room.

[48:19]

So again I'm suggesting that in your sitting, and in kin hin too, you see if you can be Feel somehow being outside of social and societal space. Space of discomfort and wanting to move. And feel some resting in yourself. And in your situation. And feel a freedom in each moment.

[49:21]

And this will Open yourself, peel away social and societal space, psychological space. And you'll feel some of the hidden rooms of your life. So also I'm suggesting you sit down in the hidden rooms of your life. Now, you can't exactly enter them, they're hidden. But they'll open to you more. You can get up, feel some freedom from being identified through social and societal space. And you can feel some freedom and rest in each moment.

[50:31]

This is an actual and an extraordinary chance It seldom happens, except in Sashin. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for translating. You're welcome. May our intentions pierce through every being and every place with the true merit of the Buddha-Vedas. Va-na-ma-jin-se-van-vam, Pa-pa-muryo-se-van-vapu,

[51:49]

Oh, to God, oh, [...] to God It is God's duty to grant you this praise. I love you.

[53:13]

I am loaded by twelve men, a very strange man, far from a man of honor. We need to get rid of that thousand-million-dollar house in New Zealand. We're going to have to get rid of that. We're going to have to get rid of that. We're going to have to get rid of that. Yeah.

[54:30]

So maybe I can speak about Dongshan's no hot nor cold. Because it does seem like air conditioning is on the way. Yeah, some kind of storm is coming. I may cool us off. If it doesn't work, you're each going to get a beanie with a propeller. Modern Zendo. Now I'm trying to share my experience of practice with you. Yeah, maybe I know how to do it.

[55:48]

Yeah, and at the same time I don't know how to do it. And why do I do it? dressed up in these robes and an altar and all this stuff, you know. Well, partly that's the way I practice with Suzuki Roshi. And I know that this tradition and my time with Suzuki Roshi transcended, way transcended, anything I discovered on my own. Yeah, at college and stuff like that.

[57:05]

And so it's also my respect for the traditions. Which also means I don't think I'm smart enough to change it too much. It reaches too far into the past. And there's too many subtleties. That I can't be sure how it should reach into the present. Perhaps it might just dry up and blow away. Vielleicht wird es einfach nur austrocknen und hinweggeblasen werden.

[58:15]

But I'm very... It's beautiful to me that you're here in Sashin for the second day. Aber es ist sehr schön, dass ihr hier seid in diesem Sashin am zweiten Tag. Yeah, and Christian is willing to try to translate. Und Christian ist bereit zu versuchen zu übersetzen. And also I know we have to create a different kind of space. So I suppose I could come in dressed in a monkey suit or a court jester. Okay. Okay. I don't know what it means.

[59:19]

You know what a jester is? You know, like those... With a little hat with bells and things like that. That might work too. Yeah, because they need to be, as I'm saying, some other kind of time and space. Partly when I'm speaking with you I'm trying to, as I said, I called it Apache language the other day. The understanding of a conversation as a building on images that mostly occur in you, but start with me. Well, they start with you, and I feel them, and I reflect them back. And then they continue building long after the sesshin.

[60:45]

Yeah, and that's one way to understand teaching, the process, the practice of receiving a teaching. But also it's the case we need another kind of time. Another kind of time. Occasionally? But it's also the case that we need another kind of time that a lot can come to us at once. The classic example would be, you know, a near-death experience where your whole life passes before you in a few instants. It feels like your whole life.

[62:02]

So I'd like to... If we could, you know, to study Buddhism in this ancient lineage, in one lifetime, only in one Sashin or one Teisho, We need to have that kind of mind where we feel our whole life might pass in front of us. Even if you don't know it, it might be happening. This is the place also where there's no hot nor cold.

[63:03]

Das ist auch der Ort, wo es weder heiß noch kalt gibt. So we have this funny koan. Also da haben wir dieses seltsame koan. And why do I use koans? Warum gebrauche ich überhaupt koans? Well, you might not believe me if I didn't quote a koan now and then. Yeah, I've got to give a little credibility to what I'm saying. But, yeah, that might be partly true. Yeah, but, yeah. The introduction to this koan, the last line is, has there ever, since ancient times, has there ever been a teaching like this?

[64:25]

So the compiler of the Blue Cliff Records is... It feels the same thing, saying the same thing. The lineage means a lot of people have tried to produce teaching devices. Lehrlinie bedeutet, dass eine Menge Leute Mittel der Belehrung hervorgebracht haben. It's not the same problem the historical Buddha faced. Es ist nicht dasselbe Problem, das der historische Buddha, dem sich der historische Buddha gegenüber sah.

[65:32]

Yeah, and don't be so innocent to think, oh, the historical Buddha, he's... Don't be so innocent. to think, oh, there's this great historical Buddha and then there's these funny folks in China. It doesn't make any sense to make those kind of comparisons. Anyway, none of us are the historical Buddha. But we might not be so different from those funny folks in China. How do we turn ourselves into a prism or window of this ancient teaching, of this wisdom.

[66:46]

It's our actual life, each of our life, not something in the past. So surprisingly, those funny folks in China, they created extraordinary entries to the teaching. And they're often disguised in ordinary phrases. And that's part of the style of Zen. And secretive Zen.

[68:11]

One is to make the non-people who aren't really practicing think, oh, I understand, that's just no hot, no cold. We want to help anyone who can avoid the teaching. We want to help them avoid it. We don't want to get anyone else in trouble. Once you start this, it's hard to get out. So we should disguise the teaching and make people think they understand it and then suggest they go do something else. But also the teaching in our own life is hidden in such little things.

[69:15]

Disguised in such ordinary thoughts. So these koans help us penetrate our own disguises. So here's this. Really simple koan. I will repeat the main case. The first thing a monk says, you know, as usual. When there's hot and cold, how to avoid them?

[70:18]

Something like that. And Dung Shan says, why don't you go to a place where there's no hot nor cold? And Dung Shan says, why don't you go to a place where there's no hot nor cold? Where is there such a place, says the monk? When it's hot, Dung Shan says, when it's hot, the heat kills you. When it's cold, the cold freezes you. That's all there is to this case. So why does it deserve this introduction?

[71:30]

Sounds like air conditioning would solve the problem. Yeah, but what is the introduction? Praise that settles the universe. It's followed for 10,000 ages. is followed for 10,000 ages. The ability to capture tigers and rhinoceroses is beyond even the comprehension of sages.

[72:36]

What a strange thought. What the heck is going on here? Dennis says, where there is no obscuration at all. The total potentiality is present in each situation equally. Yeah, well, we could obviously study this introduction for quite a while.

[73:37]

There's almost no relationship between each of those statements. So then it says, if you want the hammer and tongs of transcendence, it's getting worse, isn't it? If you want the hammer and tongs of transcendence, you must have the forge and bellows of the adept, like a blacksmith. Don't worry, buddy, we'll figure it out.

[74:48]

Then it says, has there ever been, since ancient times, a teaching like this? That's an awfully big build up to How can you avoid hot and cold? Maybe this is Zen nonsense. Maybe if you bring it into your actual life, actual practice, And understand the difficulty, recognize the difficulty of little things, very little things in practice.

[75:50]

Like the ability to bring your attention to your breath throughout the 24. Such a little thing. And so difficult. So, you know, there's some entries here. This place where there's neither hot nor cold. Now, I think you've got the idea of something about this place.

[76:57]

What Dung Shan is pointing out. Yeah, like, you know, simple as doing zazen, don't scratch. What could be simpler than that? Sometimes it's pretty difficult. And also, don't, you know, Joe... Yeah, yeah. When an itch appears, ask it where it's going. See what's happening. Maybe it's a kind of point at which another body is coinciding with ours.

[77:59]

And where it touches us, it itches. Yeah, there's more to these little itches than you think. And if you notice them, they'll begin to have a pattern. And how powerful an effect. A person I know whose, I think his father was a missionary in China. A person I know whose father was a missionary in China. I was told not to ever go in a Buddhist temple because, you know, it's a bad place.

[79:05]

But as a curious kid, I don't know, eight or something, He escaped from the social fabric. The social fabric? Yeah. Yeah. Of his parents, anyway. And he went in this Buddhist temple. And way down at the far end he could see a statue of the Buddha. And he walked up toward it and had a fly on it. And when he got up quite close... He realized it was a monk sitting and the flies were just on his, not bothering him.

[80:26]

So for a moment he saw, felt in himself, this place where there's no hot or cold. And it led him later in life to become a Buddhist. Sashins and so forth. Because this image stayed in his mind all his life. Worked in him. Yeah. So every time he does a sashin, this image appears in him. How powerful this place where there's no hot or cold is.

[81:29]

How such a simple thing can really change a missionary son into a Christian missionary son into a Buddhist. So you have a chance to turn yourself into a Buddhist. A lot of flies around here. I would think, ah, the flies are converting. The Buddhist missionaries are flies. There goes another Buddhist missionary. Yeah. Yeah, so don't scratch. Also, kratzt euch nicht.

[82:55]

And maybe, you know, just close your eyes. Also, schließt eure Augen. And don't think your body. See if you can feel your body. Und denkt euren Körper nicht. Seht, ob ihr euren Körper spüren könnt. Now we have some rain starting. Jetzt beginnt der Regen. Perhaps you can not just hear the rain but feel the body that appears with the presence of the rain. Or just now the air. It's sort of warmish wet air. What kind of body appears in this warmish wet hair?

[84:08]

Or, you know, again, proprioceptively, that means the way in which each part of your body, each muscle, etc., has its own way of establishing balance. Balance. Yeah, little Sophia has just today and yesterday and today captured the ability to not capture rhinos, but to sit up by herself without holding on anything. And she's thrilled with the ability She sits there trilling.

[85:28]

How do you say trilling? Our musician knows. So your body that... finds its balance here on this cushion. So sort of feel the presence of the body rather than the thought of the body. What are its boundaries? And how do its boundaries move around? Well, I don't think it makes sense just to call it mind.

[86:32]

We're talking about something It has a kind of physicality. A shared physicality with the world. Another entry is a phrase like just now is enough. This is not different than the total potentiality appears equally in each situation. And here you can see the difference between enlightenment and realization or actualization.

[87:34]

Yeah, enlightenment doesn't do you much good with this. Go on. doesn't do you much good with this koan. Generally it makes it easier to understand it without a lot of baggage. But this koan is pointing out realization or actualization and practice. The realization of this place where there is neither hot nor cold. And the understanding what you might not get at first.

[88:45]

How crucial a little practice like down scratch is. So we're talking now, Sukhya Rishi is both common Advice was, don't invite your thoughts to tea, don't scratch. Suzuki Roshi's most common advice was, don't invite your thoughts to tea, don't scratch. Now when you discover these in your actual body, these two teachings reach throughout all of Buddhism. Yeah, now here I'm trying to talk to your actual body. Not your thought body. Not your encasement.

[89:46]

How do we approach this body as presence? Yeah, let me give you a little advice now, too. Get a sense of your vitality. For example, relate to your vitality, not to your moods. So you have a mood. I'm in a certain kind of mood today. Instead of feeling that, thinking that, more say, where is my vitality in this mood? Think of yourself more as your vitality than your mood. Now, your mood may have almost extinguished your vitality.

[91:31]

And often our moods, our fatigue, our tiredness, are ways of saying, don't bother me. We don't want the world to bother us or people to bother us. So we just want to sleep. Or we're tired. In that is still your vitality is somewhere. In the middle of your fatigue in the Sashim. Your vitality is still there somewhere. See if you can reach into that vitality. Even if it's almost extinguished. And breathe in a way in your practicing.

[92:55]

Breathe in a way in your practicing, in your mindfulness. It's like a little bellows for your vitality. Try and bring it back to life. and brings it back to life. I'm trying to talk here about the arena of your life. And I'm calling your actual body the arena of your life. Arena, you know, it comes from the word sand in Latin, I believe.

[94:03]

And they put sand in the amphitheater for the gladiators in Rome. They put sand to absorb the blood of the gladiators, of the wounded. So, I don't mean it that strongly. Yeah, but we do have the twin paths of life and death. We do have this hot and cold. What about the capturing of tigers and rhinos? Mm-hmm. You know, there's silence between words or between sounds.

[95:23]

There's silence within sounds. And there's silence within silence. Something like a mirror. clouds in a mirror don't hide anything clouds there are hiding things reflected in a mirror they don't hide anything You can't go into the mirror and find what's behind the clouds. And much of our life is hidden. As if in a mirror.

[96:34]

The silence within silence. So now I'm suggesting that in our practice we... Through this place where there's neither hot nor cold, we can begin perhaps to feel the arena of our actual life. The terrain, perhaps. Now, I don't want to say landscape. Because landscape is also an interesting word. It actually comes from painting. The Dutch called their paintings landscapes. And after a while, when people began to see the world as it looked in paintings,

[97:35]

They began to see landscapes. So they began to see the world not as it perhaps is, but as it feels from knowing paintings. So we don't want your life, some sort of inner landscape. We don't want some inner landscape. Well, we want the actual rocky terrain of our life. So I'm trying to create some space here. Space for the Bodhisattva. So I would suggest you, yeah, one good practice is call up

[98:51]

one or more of your lost loves.

[99:14]

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