Well, today is the truth of the Tathagata's words. You must be crazy, all of you, to be sitting here for seven days. Hmm. Hmm. Me too, I suppose, but somehow I like it. I've been here a month about in Europe now. And most, except for Saschins, in fact, I teach pretty informally. At least the style is informal. And coming into Seishin, I'm reminded that this is a rather formal way of teaching, etc.

[01:04]

And I don't really know why I do it, the two ways. I can think up some reasons, but actually I don't know. And for me it's not a matter of one is... One is right or wrong or better. This is what I'm doing, that's all. And so it may not be in the categories of right or wrong for me, but it is in the categories of whether I can share it with you or not. And even though some of you I haven't seen this year, Still, I'm going to speak in the Sashin to some extent about the teaching I've been doing in the seminars so far this year.

[03:00]

And I'm, as usual, engaging you in the process of teaching, at least to some extent. And I do that, I suppose, partly to lessen the distance between our roles. Particularly in such a formal situation as this. But also, I'm teaching to fulfill, and this may sound a little funny, but teaching to fulfill my debt of gratitude to my teacher.

[04:02]

Und ich lehre aber auch, und das klingt vielleicht etwas merkwürdig, ich lehre auch, um wirklich den Grad der Dankbarkeit zu erfüllen, den ich meinem Lehrer schulde. So I hope some of you actually, I hope some of you will become teachers so you can help me fulfill my debt. And even if you don't become teachers, still mostly in Zen you have to teach yourself. So anyway, I'm emphasizing the process of practicing and the process of teaching as an activity, actually, we do together. Now, I just did two seminars, one in Munster and one in Sinsheim.

[05:05]

I think the seminar in Münster was easier for most people. I suppose because I talked about practice as something you can do. And again, I don't really know why they're different, the two seminars, but I feel that the second one, maybe because it was about the mind, studying the mind, it's more difficult. But in this session I want to start out in a pretty basic way, in a pretty simple way.

[06:34]

But I want to talk not only about what to practise but also the mind that practises. Now the most basic practice, in addition to just sitting down, is, of course, counting your breath and also naming your breath. This is as simple and basic as you can get. So I want to talk a little bit more about naming your breath. And this practice is described very simply as breathing in, I know I'm breathing in.

[07:45]

And breathing out, I know I'm breathing out. Now, when you do this very simple thing, and I suggest in the Sesshin you do it, I want to relate this to a more advanced sense of practice as of recognizing where your state of mind is rooted. Because here we have a basic idea, which is, one, you have different states of mind. And those different states of mind have different roots. We can ask ourselves, what state of mind keeps the precepts? Instead of saying, how do we keep the precepts?

[09:06]

We can ask, how do I maintain a state of mind that keeps the precepts? If you maintain a state of mind that keeps the precepts, then there's no effort in keeping, almost no effort in keeping the precepts. And keeping the precepts doesn't just mean to correct yourself all the time. To notice what's wrong and correct it. First of all, it means to notice what's right. What is already right. Most things are already right. and discover the state of mind which finds things that are right.

[10:31]

And we have Thich Nhat Hanh's famous example of the toothache. He says, when you have a toothache, you have a little enlightenment experience when you realize you don't want the toothache. But when you have a non-toothache, you don't appreciate it. This is quite true. We don't appreciate our non-toothache. But if you get some serious illness or you have a serious accident, you appreciate your ordinary state of mind.

[11:39]

So the question here is, how can you appreciate your ordinary state of mind? How can you have the capacity to appreciate your ordinary state of mind? So sitting in a saschin is a way of locating those states of mind which are most grounded. And if you can stay in one place, and when we eat, you're trapped behind your orioke bowls, you're in orioke prison. You can't get up without I mean, you could sort of get up and kind of climb around them, but they've got you trapped pretty effectively.

[13:02]

And even though your legs may be hurting halfway through lunch, you can't get up until you fold all these things back together and clean them. And then we have this schedule for seven days, and I know all of you have more important things to do. But for some intuitive reason, you have put yourself in this orioke prison. But maybe you can find freedom behind bars. As many people find freedom on the other side of a serious illness. But sometimes, as soon as you're out of danger from the illness, your old personality comes back and puts you in another kind of prison.

[14:16]

Sometimes people even wish they would get sick again because they had a kind of inner freedom and appreciation for everything when they were sick. They almost want their toothache back. So Sashin and Buddhist practice is to discover this capacity of being. Without having to become sick or have an accident to appreciate being itself. So if you do stay in this Sashin prison, Pretty, you know, following the schedule and just being here.

[15:45]

No matter how you feel. Sometime during the session, probably, you will enter more grounded states of mind. And every time you've discovered these more grounded states of mind, and how these states of mind are rooted, where they're rooted, you can begin to root your ordinary daily life in this same way. So you, most of the time, or any time you want or intuitively remember, you can have the appreciation of the non-toothache. An almost invisible pleasure. Okay, so when you're sitting and you, to make it simple, just you can say, now I'm breathing in or in breath or just in.

[17:22]

And out, or out-rest. I think when you do that, you find actually you start resting in naming. Somehow, and naming, you know, is not thinking. Und benennen ist nicht denken. Naming is a funny... funny. It links your breath and thinking. Nun, benennen ist merkwürdig. Es verbindet den Atem und Denken. You sort of use thinking to name your breath. Ihr benutzt gewissermaßen das Denken, um den Atem zu benennen. Or we can say label your breath.

[18:23]

So if I said, it's sort of like you take a label and you glue it on your out-breath. And then you glue it on your in-breath. And somehow, using thinking to label things stops thinking. And then you can kind of peel the label off. And this applies not just to your breathing. When you're eating your Oyoki meal, you can have the sense of, now I'm eating, now there is eating. And again, whenever you do that, then you begin finding yourself resting in the phenomenal world. And if just now you say to yourself, now I'm listening, It's a kind of vacation.

[19:44]

You don't have to do anything else right now. Now I'm listening. Or now I'm sitting here. And when you use a label like this, again, it is such a simple thing, but magically moves you out of comparative thinking mind. And now you're resting in the phenomenal world, in eating and sitting. It's a kind of vacation. And it's quite amazing. You can have a little vacation anytime you want by stopping and labeling what you're doing. Now, why does this work?

[20:45]

Maybe there's no reason to know why it works. But I think you may practice it with more a depth, if you have some feeling of what's going on. And it gives you more access to the practice. Because when you name what you're doing, you've actually created a door into an inclusive state of mind. You've created a kind of entry into a deeply rooted state of mind that's rooted in the capacity for enjoying being itself. that can appreciate the non-toothache.

[22:00]

And by rooted I mean that your state of mind, or saying grounded, by rooted or grounded, I mean that your state of mind is not drawing energy from some kind of idea about yourself. It's drawing energy from the phenomenal world itself. And all the parts of you that are functioning. And ultimately it's drawing energy its energy from an inclusive state of mind. Now, what I'd like you to be able to do, and it might be difficult, but when you're sitting, to notice the difference between just being involved with your thinking and shifting to naming or labeling.

[23:14]

These two states of mind, if you can really feel their difference, are different enough to be called trances. You're entranced by one or entranced by the other. You're sealed in by one or sealed in by the other. Now I'm using the word seal here in a little more various way than I often use it. Because we usually get sealed into a state of mind that's very difficult to get out of. And it affects every way we think about things. Now, I'm talking here about an inclusive, trying to find a word for...

[24:20]

I'm talking about a state of mind that I'm trying to find a label for. A name that gives you some feeling for it. So I'm calling it an inclusive state of mind. A state of mind that breaks the seals of other states of mind. Or breaks the trance of other states of mind. A state of mind which in a sense, in a large sense, may be, of course, a kind of trance of its own. And that the taste of this state of mind is on everything. But it's a state of mind which breaks the seal of other states of mind.

[25:44]

So everything comes and goes through you very easily. Other people's states of mind come and go through you easily. And don't disturb you much or don't disturb you at all. Now this morning we did the, this morning, lunchtime the serving was pretty smooth. But this morning, the first meal, most of you have served for quite a while. There's all these imaginary paths in here that you have to follow. And when you get in the aisles, you have to follow these paths, which are invisible. And this morning there were not many traffic lights or people were kind of not knowing what to do.

[27:06]

And I wondered how I would feel after doing Sechin just recently in our new Zendo in Crestone. Because, as I pointed out in Crestone, where we had a quite small room to do before the new Zendo, The same is true here. We have a pretty small room for so many people to sit a sashin in. So it's a little bit like you took an architectural plan and then you folded it in on top of itself until it was all, you know, kind of overlapping. And then it would be hard to understand the building that you built because it would need to be unfolded. Well, there's many aspects of the practice that we do that are folded on top of each other. And if we had a traditional Zendo, you'd see how they unfold.

[28:34]

So the new Zendo made the serving and the feeling of the way the practice goes much easier. But also for many years, I've practiced in rooms that weren't traditional Zendos. So I was wondering, how will I feel when I come back to the Haus Destiller, where the room is a little small for us? And I found this morning I liked it. It was nice that it was kind of mixed up. I'm quite familiar with it and it felt good actually. Because I think we learn something by bumping into each other. Sashin is kind of like a washboard with lots of bumps.

[29:53]

And if you get 50 people in a small room, we're all kind of washing each other's psychic laundry. And each person is one of the bumps. So everything you do has got 50 bumps going. I think this is very good. It's a kind of, you know, every bump helps wash you. It's a kind of purifying process to sit together like this. Because our consciousnesses get all mixed up.

[30:53]

It's not so easy to notice as long as your primary identification is with comparative consciousness. But the more you can feel inclusive consciousness, You'll recognize that each one of us is taking in the other's dirty laundry. And we're helping each other wash our laundry. So coming back to this practice again of naming your breathing.

[32:00]

Resting in your breathing. And resting in the naming or labeling of your breathing. Again, you can begin to see that this establishes a differently rooted state of mind. And you can notice the tendency to be drawn back into the state of mind that gets involved in thinking. But the more you become aware of the difference between these two states of mind, And familiar and at ease in this more inclusive state of mind, you'll find it easier to maintain it. When you're walking with someone after serving, There's a natural tendency we've been taught to start speaking.

[33:27]

And if you have some, well, first of all, it's a habit. It's hard to stop the habit. And German, I mean, I'm speaking from the outside, but German seems to me to be such a rich language. that it's not just the other person that draws you into speaking, language itself draws you into speaking. And if you believe that you really can only contact this other person through speaking, it's almost impossible to resist speaking. But if you can understand that as soon as you do, you're almost immediately drawn into borrowed consciousness. Now, this morning I mentioned the term borrowed consciousness. And for about half of you now, I would suppose you've heard me define borrowed consciousness too many times.

[34:51]

But I think it's one of the most important, it's the most important distinction I've made teaching this year. And I think it's the most useful in that it opens up an ability to see your states of mind. So you can really begin to see the difference between in many states of mind and how they're rooted. So I think I should take a moment for those of you who aren't familiar with it to define it as simply as I can. And so I'll just use the basic example. And I'll use poor Herman sitting in front of me.

[36:10]

Sorry, Herman. I've done this to you before. You should sit somewhere else. Okay. I have some feeling for something out there. I don't know what it is. I don't even have to label it. In fact, it's so subtle that even labeling doesn't work anymore. I don't know what it is, but some state of mind is here. And it definitely arises through the sashin and the presence of this person in front of me. But there's no comparison, no thinking about it. This is called, I call, immediate consciousness. Okay. Or primary consciousness.

[37:19]

Then I can look at this person in front of me and say, oh, this is a male who seems to be younger than me. And that requires thinking. And that's sometimes called falling into the secondary in Zen koans. And because by some analysis or comparison I have determined that he, I think, looks younger than me, but not much. Now I've just offended him and he has another kind of consciousness arising. Because he thinks I look much older.

[38:23]

But he's wrong. Okay. So, but then, that's called secondary consciousness because it requires some thinking to arrive at. Okay. But now, if I happen to know his birth date, this I can't know by analysis. Nor can Herman know it by analysis. It has to be told to him. His parents, it depends on calendars and all that stuff. So I can know he's younger than me, but I can't know his birth date without someone telling me. So that third state of mind is borrowed consciousness. It depends on information outside my consciousness.

[39:42]

And I think you will notice that there is a difference in energy in each of these three consciousnesses. And to notice the difference in the bump between those three states of mind, is fundamental to a more advanced practice. And it's much like noticing the difference between the state of mind that names and the state of mind that thinks about something. Okay, so when you're walking with someone and there's a tendency to talk to them, you're not only entering borrowed consciousness yourself to talk to them, Not necessarily, but probably you're entering borrowed consciousness.

[40:56]

And you're then drawing them into borrowed consciousness. So in terms of practice, you may be doing them a disservice. Or maybe it's good to draw them into borrowed consciousness. It's a good playground. But it's useful to know you're doing it. And can you return the things you borrow? Can you use borrowed consciousness in a way that you can return it? Return it to its source of primary consciousness. Now, sometimes you can speak to someone so you borrow their consciousness, but when you return it, you return it to primary consciousness. Now, this kind of practice in noticing how your states of mind are rooted

[42:00]

Und diese Praxis und festzustellen, wie die verschiedenen Geisteszustände verwurzelt sind, is discovered through not speaking with each other while you're practicing. Entdeckt man, indem man mit den anderen nicht spricht, während man praktiziert. Practicing in sesshin. Im sesshin zu praktizieren. Or naming your out-breath and in-breath. Now, this isn't a matter of thinking about the distinction. I mean, you can kind of notice it, but it's not about thinking. It's about familiarity of your body with these states of mind. So I think that's enough for today.

[43:15]

But I want to emphasize again how naming is a kind of door to an inclusive state of mind that unseals your various trance states and the main trance state we're in is borrowed consciousness where most of our identity goes back and forth and most of our education has developed this is a very useful state of mind but it tends to make us sick If you don't find more grounded, more rooted states of mind. So first of all, you bring your thinking mind to your breath.

[44:23]

In effect, just rooting it in your breath. And then freeing yourself from comparative states of mind. I want to do this, I want to do that. Such wants are fine, but you want your state of mind more deeply rooted in that. So in this session I'd like us to practice with deeply rooted states of mind. Where we can feel deep ease. Because ease is not the goal of practice.

[45:28]

Ease is the way practice develops. So strangely in this Sashin prison, I think it's possible to find our true ease. the capacity of being itself. Thank you very much. May our intention equally penetrate.

[46:20]

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