What we have done so far, I would say, is created a view, a vision of how we are in the world. That I said in the first Teisho. Yeah, I approach the lectures, the practice in a Sashin. with having really, let's say, no idea where we're going. But I think we've come to a point where we can look at some things in the teaching that can make a new sense.

[01:22]

So let's go forward to Yuan Wu again. He said, constantly step back from conventional perceptions. Now, what I want to get across also in quoting something like this is for you when you read such a thing. You practice this close reading and experienced reading. And you really wonder what it means and you do not go forward to the next phrase until you come to some feeling for what it means.

[02:44]

Okay, constantly step back from conventional perceptions. Tritt stets zurück. Tritt stets zurück. Tritt stets zurück. What's hard about that phrase? It's just not nice to say. It's easy to say in English. But it's not easy to understand. How do you do anything constantly? What is stepping back? What does that mean? From conventional perceptions.

[03:44]

What the heck are conventional perceptions? I mean, what's wrong with my perceptions? Who told them conventional? Step back from conventional perceptions and worldly entanglements and go along with Interdependent awareness. Okay, so what's interdependent awareness? And how do you go along with it? And what is the contrast between going along with interdependent awareness... and conventional perceptions.

[05:04]

And then he says, look to the void and trace its outline. Yeah, swim along with the half-blind tortoise in the dark sea. I just made that up. But I made all this up, so you know. No, I didn't. I had some help from my friends. Yeah, okay. So what the heck does it mean, look up? into the void or look to the void and trace its what?

[06:10]

Its outline? Yeah, contour is all right. And, you know, all of these... these statements that have any power are not menus, they're cookbooks, instructions. So, look to the void and trace its outline. And then unoccupied and at ease. And there's the instruction. Unoccupied and at ease. Whoa, that would be nice. Unbesetzt und mit Wohlgefühl.

[07:30]

Das wäre schön. Just preserve stillness. Bewahre einfach Stille. Well, okay. Of course, I'll just... How the hell? I mean, heck, excuse me. Do you preserve stillness? Also wie zum Kuckuck. Bewahrst du still? Ja, ja. And then he says, this is called secretly manifesting. This is called secretly manifesting. Secretly manifesting the great potential without alarming the crowd.

[08:51]

This is called secretly manifesting the great potential without startling the crowd. im Geheimen das große Potenzial manifestieren, ohne die Massen in Aufruhr zu versetzen. And what does the crowd here mean? And why are you keeping it a secret from the crowd? Well, the crowd is also you, of course, and your own resistances and perceptual habits and so forth. I mean, we glue the world together with, yeah, love maybe, if you're particularly in a Christian culture. Yeah, and if you're in a Buddhist culture, you glue it together with compassion.

[10:01]

Both are ways of describing caring for and observing others. Aber beides sind Arten und Weisen, das sich kümmern um andere und andere zu beachten, zu beschreiben. Or we glue it together with competition or fear, etc. Oder wir leimen sie zusammen mit dem Gefühl von Wetteifer oder sowas. In other words, when we establish as maturing individuals, human beings, how we want the world to be, And if you're a Buddhist, you try to look to each of your perceptions and so forth through compassion.

[11:15]

And compassion in this case is caring about and feeling for and with. Mitgefühl in diesem Zusammenhang bedeutet, dass sich kümmern um und das Mitfühlen mit. Yeah, or if you're a boxer or a businessman, no, I mean, you might be looking at the world through competition. He's a boxer and a businessman. But I'm sure you were the most compassionate boxer possible. Pulled your punches all the time. I wouldn't mind boxing you. I'd win. My father got me to box when I was a kid in summer camp, and the only kid near my weight was named Force.

[12:24]

I can't remember his first name, but I remember his last name. It was worse. And I was a kind of skinny kid, and he was about at least 10 or 15 pounds heavier than I was. And I just couldn't... I learned the postures, though. So we can, and when you're going to school and your people want you to do well, you know, you'd start defining the world through competition. Wenn du zur Schule gehst und alle möchten, dass du das gut machst und so, dann beginnst du, die Welt durch den Wettbewerb zu definieren. It's good to notice what views color and enhance your visible world.

[13:37]

Und es ist gut zu bemerken, welche Sichtweisen deine But these could be called conventional perceptions and worldly entanglements. So what would be to go along with interdependent awareness? Yeah, so I'm trying to find out a way to speak about this. Okay. So let's imagine your guardian angel, or your guiding angel in this case, is your breath. Then you're in the beginning of the Anapasati Sutra about breath. You're developing an integrated attentional breath.

[14:38]

Yeah, integrated with your bodily activity and bodily movements. And you're noticing what happens when you have this integrated, this bodily breath integrated with the body. And you realize what happens when you have this integrated breath that is integrated with the body. You know, this is to me, you know, this is the, as they say in koans, this is the everyday food of patch robe monks. But even if it is the everyday food, I'm aware of what a different diet it is from the way I grew up and the way I also live in the world.

[16:03]

Now, how do I integrate this without startling the crowd? Wie integriere ich das, ohne die Massen in Aufruhr zu versetzen? How can I find a way to be with others who are perceiving conventionally and I'm perceiving unconventionally? Wie kann ich mit anderen zusammen sein, die konventionell wahrnehmen, wenn ich nichtkonventionell wahrnehme? I'd like to know intuitively or luckily or perhaps that where we put the Chinese flute player is a kind of acupuncture point within this campus. How do we see the invisible mandala-like interconnections? No, so I'm here trying to speak about the guiding angel of the breath.

[17:44]

Because usually what can be called the kind of invisible world signs, magical kind of coincidences and so forth, We attribute to magic or something or other. Or religion or our special capacity or something. But we know these Yeah, and non-graspable, invisible connectivity exists. Aber wir wissen, dass diese nicht greifbare, unsichtbare Verbindung existiert. How do we practice it? Wie können wir es praktizieren? In Koan 46 of the Blue Cliff Records, which was put together by Yuan Wu. Im Koan 46 in der Niederschrift der smaragdenen Felswand, die von Yuan Wu zusammengestellt wurde.

[18:51]

which is about the sound of raindrops. It's a worthwhile koan to study. It says, this is called penetrating sound and form. Or this is called explaining the eye of the path. So I'm trying to see if we can look at it, what it means to explain the eye of the path or to penetrate sound and form. And I try to see what it means to explain the eye of the way or to penetrate sound and form. So, integrating, discovering and developing an integrated attentional awareness

[20:07]

Or an integrated attentional breath. Or using breath as the vehicle of awareness. Or using awareness as the guiding light of breath. So you're integrating attentional awareness with attentional breath. Let's keep it that. We're integrating attentional breath with the body. Are you saying intentional or attentional? Attentional. Sometimes I misspoke. Okay. Can you say it again? I'm integrating attentional breath with the body.

[21:11]

And you can integrate attentional breath with Hishiryo, noticing without thinking. Noticing with feeling only. Or we can integrate attentional breath with the non-dual appearance of mind. Now you understand that phrase. Simultaneous arising of mind and object. So you're integrating attentional breath with the body, the mind, and perception. And through perception and like noticing without thinking with the circumstances of the world.

[22:36]

Now I spoke about the altar the other day. And I said we can look at the altar as from a participatory starting point of it doesn't exist. Or a participatory starting point of emptiness. We could call this look to the void and trace its outline. Wir könnten das nennen, schau ins Leere und verfolge die Umrisse.

[23:38]

Okay, so this could also be a way to define the first skanda, the form skanda. So I look at the altar and I look to the void. It only temporarily exists and I recreate it as I look at it. I put our sweet little kitty up on the Buddha's lap there almost and it's gone down. The one that died yesterday, right? Died yesterday? What? Saturday? She was our kind of guardian angel. She sat in the back all the time watching us. So you can see how they create themselves.

[24:43]

You put something there, it just moves somewhere else. Someone asked me, should we put the name on them? on the altar. I said, sure. And what was her name? Kitty. Oh, okay. Oh, Kitty Colbrunner. We have to get the full name up there. He didn't want to write the full name. I asked him to write Kitty Colbrunner. We might have thought it was a cousin. Kitty Colbrunner. Okay. KK. so we have these patterns that connect and the patterns that connect are also enclosures every pattern has its own kind of momentary or something like momentary mandala

[26:09]

So there's a certain point at which that altar is a mandala which engages each of us in it. So the altar ought to be set up so when you're standing in the bowing mat at a certain point, you're engaged immediately in the mandala of the altar. And you weren't intending to bow, but you start bowing. You say, Mandala, let go of me. I want to stop bowing. So you step a few steps back and I'm getting too old to bow that much.

[27:14]

But each tree is a similar enclosure. So this integrated attentional breath Yeah, or... interdependent awareness can find itself within the enclosure of the tree, almost as if you were the tree itself. And when you look into our wonderful kind of vista of trees around here, There are interlocking enclosures. You can feel yourself somewhat differently alive in each enclosure.

[28:17]

And what we're also talking about here is samadhi and stillness and joy. Non-referential joy. Joy for no reason. Non-referential joy. It just comes up when water comes out of the faucet. It takes forever up where I live. We have to get up ten minutes earlier to see if there's some warm water that can come. All you guys are using it in lower floors. So cold water is just fine. But one of the things activity hides is stillness. How do we preserve stillness if it's hidden by activity, covered over by activity? How do we keep silence when activity is overshadowed, when activity is hidden?

[29:38]

Find yourself in the enclosure of the tree. As if your body was the trunk of the tree. Then you feel the stillness of the trunk in the leaves, the swing of the leaves. And to follow that enclosure which both encloses and opens. The enclosure of a tree is always opening and closing. And to follow that enclosure which both encloses and opens. The enclosure of a tree always opens and closes. As you are with your breathing opening and closing. And there's an inhale and there's an exhale and there's stillness.

[30:45]

You can feel how each inhale and each exhale arise within and from stillness. Du kannst spüren, wie jedes Einatmen und jedes Ausatmen aus der Stille entspringt. Mit dieser erleuchteten Wahrnehmung oder unkonventionellen Wahrnehmung kannst du spüren, wie du in der Stille deines eigenen Atmens ruhst. So Yuan Wu says, unoccupied and at ease, even in the middle of activity. Just preserve stillness. So if you wanted to work with this as a recipe, Like in some recipes, you know, what's that sauce you make that's sort of creamy?

[31:53]

What's it called? Béchamel, yeah. I don't know how to do a béchamel sauce, but I'm sure that if I found a recipe with béchamel sauce, I could work on that one point until finally I could do it. Gregor could teach me. He knows how to do it. Yeah, I'm sure all of you know how to do it, but you know, not me. I'm just a baker. Poorly named. So in this statement of Yuan Wu, Just preserve unoccupied and at ease. Just preserve stillness. It's the bechamel sauce of this recipe.

[32:57]

Unbelastet und mit einem Wohlgefühl oder Leichtigkeit bewahre einfach Stille. Das ist das Rezept, so wie die Bechamelsoße dieser Lehre. Discover how to just do one thing from this statement of Yuan Wu's. Constantly step back from conventional perceptions. Discover the guiding angel of the breath. The guiding awareness of the breath. Integrated and arising within the body and non-dual mind. This is, we could say again, explaining the eye of the path.

[34:04]

We could say again, this is Das Auge des Pfades zu erklären. Or penetrating sound and form. Oder Klang und Form zu durchdringen. We hear sound and form. What is penetrating sound and form? Wir hören Klang und Form. Aber was bedeutet es, das zu durchdringen? Yeah, okay. Yeah, the main topic I've been wanting to speak about for the last four Tayshos we still didn't get to. It gives me confidence I'll find something to say tomorrow. Okay, thank you very much. May God bless you.

[35:14]

May God bless you. May God bless you.

[35:17]

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