Nicole, your shape-shifting is getting to be almost too much for me. I didn't say shaving, shape-shifting. I understood. Well, you didn't translate it. He understood that in transfer. Yeah, I mean, you look exactly like Neil. All right. I'm joking. No, no, I'm not joking. I'm thinking about... Maybe I'm not joking. I'm thinking about Sangha. And so we've been hearing Christina's story of what led her to decide to practice.

[01:01]

And what lines you cross. And how her two friends, her husband now and Michael, have come along with her. And I spoke to him today because he's designing the brochure for us. You know, some years ago, three, I think, I went to see a friend of mine who is, you could say, is descending into Alzheimer's. And I was warned that if I don't see him soon, I won't see him, or he won't see me.

[02:16]

So, when I was in New York for some meeting, unusual for me, but a few years, two, three years ago, I left for a day and went into Connecticut and visited with him and his wife, Margaret. It was wonderful to see him. It was wonderful to see him. And the feeling of him as a person is still the same. And his voice is the same. And it was clearly, we completely recognized each other. But his conversation has only occasional coherence.

[03:16]

So anyway, I spent the day, and Margaret is a poet, and she made a meal for us, and then I came back to the meeting. Yeah, but it's been about three years now. And every, I mean, almost, probably every time, but certainly almost every time I have an Oryoki meal since then, I think of them. And I've been wondering whether I should tell you this story or not, because it's kind of irrelevant maybe, but anyway, it stayed with me, so I decided to tell you. So it's kind of strange. I mean, literally, I open the eating bowls or unfold the cloth, and I think of Margaret and David.

[04:28]

And, you know, I pay quite attention to... naturally, my job, pay attention to what appears in my attentional sphere. So I thought it actually was quite peculiar that it happened every time. And always when I was using the Oryoki. I even wrote them some emails and said, did we talk about Oryoki practice when I was there, etc. ? No, no idea.

[05:33]

No memory of anything like that. Yeah, so I... Yeah, so it just stayed with me. And during the early days of the practice period here, And still they would pop up here when I would do the Oryogi. And I... So let me say something about his importance in my life. We were practically a kind of couple. We did everything, virtually everything together.

[06:34]

And we always knew what the other was doing and our friends always joined us, etc. And we had very similar visions of what the world might be. And I told this story in another context a couple of times to the Sangha. Yes, so anyway. And I introduced him to Suzuki Roshi and Suzuki Roshi actually took quite an interest in him as a presence. But he decided to move back to the East Coast. So I told him I would take him to the airport.

[07:39]

I don't know how I did that. I didn't have a car, but anyway, I must have borrowed a car or rented a car. But the night before, I took him out to a goodbye dinner. No, I went to a restaurant. I walked by many times but never been in, but I decided to go there. It was a dumb place to go. It was some kind of Mexican bar, flamenco restaurant in the middle of North Beach. North Beach. It's like the Greenwich Village of New York. But this is San Francisco. Anyway, so we were sitting and I can completely see everything, the booth over on the right and the wall. A what?

[08:59]

A booth. A booth, yeah. And he was facing the door and I was facing into the restaurant. And as I said, I'd introduced him to Sikirishi. But anyway, so it's something he said in the middle, near the end of the meal. You know, Dick, if we were really serious, meaning serious about life and stuff, we'd do nothing but practice Zen the rest of our life. And I thought, Oh my God, he's right. And I thought, oh God, he's right. I didn't say, oh my God, but I did say, oh, he's right.

[10:04]

And I can remember I had the feeling of some kind of garage door came down and closed me off from my past. And I thought, yes, Dave, that's right, what a gift. So anyway, the next day I showed up in this car from somewhere or other to take him to the airport. Yeah, and I said, David, before you got in the car, I said, David, thank you for what you said last night. And he said, what did I say? So I repeated and he said, ah, did I say that? Yeah, you did. Anyway, I took him to the airport and off he went. And, um, I think I always was holding a place I always assumed somehow we would practice Zen together and the role of friendship and Sangha is very

[11:23]

crucial often in practice. Look how long I've known you. My goodness, 25 years or so. We were both kids. That's right. Well, I was 50 or something. Yeah, okay. Anyway, so he went off to the East Coast and blah, blah, blah. Became a poet and a novelist and a university professor. Yeah. So suddenly it became clear to me during the early part of this practice period that when I started practicing at Tassajara, and learned the orioke practice, without consciously being aware of it,

[12:46]

I knew I'd crossed a line where he would never start practicing Zen once I'd done Horioki practice. I knew I would cross the line. I knew that I had crossed the line. I had crossed the line, yes. And in some kind of I started Tassajara for Suzuki Roshi so I could practice with him. That's clear. That was explicit. He told me I need a place to practice face-to-face with people. Most people just aren't getting it, he said. So I started looking for a place and found Tassajara. So I did that for him. But I realized

[14:10]

in this practice period, that I also did it for David, this friend of mine. And I also realized that seeing him in the early stages, middle stages of Alzheimer's, He had crossed a line where he was really never going to practice Zen with me. And I didn't know that somewhere in my heart or mind I was holding a place open for him. But every time I did Uriyaki practice, thinking of him was, oh, this is when I crossed the line and knew he would never practice with me. But every time I was at the Ureyogi practice, it reminded me that I had crossed the line that he did not cross.

[15:43]

Well, that's a story. And what I found interesting is how the story was embedded in details of my life, but not really in my conscious memory in any way. And I realized that in the beginning of this practice period, in the context of having trying to create this with you for us to practice together I was reminded that I did that once before at Tassajara and and that doing it separated me from practicing with him but opened me to practicing with you.

[17:07]

Separated me from practicing with him and opened me to practicing with you. So... You know, it was a good choice in a way, because look how many friends I have. That I can practice with you is immeasurable treasure. So someone asked me, what is this, how do we practice with worldviews? Well, I think, I mean, simply, you have to first notice a difference. And you have to notice a worldview difference.

[18:15]

And then you have to notice that Your previous worldview was either false or not satisfying. And you feel freed by the new worldview. And then third, you decide to explore, investigate the new worldview. And there are fertile periods in our life. I was thinking of Cezanne and his friendship with Emile Zola, for instance. Which they broke with each other later in life, but they both had a similar vision and influenced each other to paint and write. And Cezanne was a friend of Gauguin and Gauguin was a friend of Van Gogh and so forth.

[19:25]

So often there's a That's a kind of Sangha. Of shared visions, particularly important when your own vision doesn't coincide with your society. So the friend with whom you share a vision can be a really dynamic, alchemical part of our practice. and this kind of friendship or implicit Sangha usually just happens by

[20:37]

A mutual resonance. Seemingly by chance, but I would say actually a kind of mutual resonance. Some kind of mutual resonance has brought us together. It's a kind of mutual resonance that brought us together here. We don't live in Paris and... We're in Europe after all. I'm American and it's in a way romantic to be in Europe. And we're creating a situation which, intentional situation, in which we can practice together, share and develop a vision together. Und wir schaffen eine Situation, also mit Absicht schaffen wir eine Situation, die wir teilen können, in der wir praktizieren können und in der wir unsere Sichtweise teilen können.

[22:01]

This period of time in my life, when I was about 25 or so, was very fertile for me and many, quite a few incidents. One was, and I occasionally told this story too. I was working in a warehouse. junior manager, assistant manager of a warehouse. Yeah, a book shipping, paperback book shipping warehouse. So, anyway, I was coming back from lunch. And I threw a... Like Clinton, I've never inhaled. I smoked, but it was just like horrible.

[23:12]

I just blow it out my nose. I guess I thought I was supposed to smoke, but I just pretended. But I threw the cigarette wrapper when it was done down on the And I took two steps. And I thought, why did I throw that down on the ground? While I was assistant manager of the warehouse, it also meant that I swept the floors every evening down the aisles in the big room. And I realized that if I'd thrown it down inside, I would have swept it up later in the evening, later in the afternoon. But by throwing it down outside, I thought, What do I think?

[24:30]

I guess I think the great God of the outside is going to clean it up. Nature's maid service will take over. And so I walked back and picked it up. In fact, I saw a cigarette package in our little stream up here I have to get when we leave. Because nature's maid service is not going to do it. But at that moment I realized Why did I do that? And I asked, why did I do that? And I realized, I think there's some distinction between outside and inside. And you can behave differently outside than you can inside.

[25:43]

Inside the building or inside yourself. And I realized that was a false world view. And at that moment, Because it was so clear to me it was a false worldview. The distinction between outside and inside disappeared and has never been present again. And I began the establishment of continuity. Now, when arrow points meet, when arrow points meet,

[26:57]

is an image of two worlds coming together. And an image of... of a shift in worldviews. And then the Hokyo Sanmai says, it says when arrow points, two arrows, arrow points meet together, when the wooden man begins to... begins to sing, and the stone woman gets up to sing, hmm, kind of unpredictable, don't you think?

[28:09]

Even as it says in the Okyozanmai, when a great archer, he can't make two arrows meet mid-air. a great archer can hit do blah blah blah but he can't make two arrows meet so that's unpredictable and a wooden man a wooden man beginning to sing Und ein Mann aus Holz, der anfängt zu singen. Und eine Steinfrau, die aufsteht. Eine Frau aus Stein, die aufsteht und zu singen beginnt. This unpredictability, it implies, is out of the reach of feeling and discrimination.

[29:24]

And then it says something like practice, thoroughgoing practice, and establish continuity. entspricht es von gründlicher Praxis und dem Errichten von Kontinuität. And this Hokyo-Sanmai poem story relates to his waiting in the stream. Die bezieht sich auf sein im Fluss warten. And this magic formula given to him by just this is it. But of course, he was very familiar, had to be very familiar with practices like just this. Conceptually familiar and in practice familiar.

[30:36]

And it's, yeah, kind of nothing. Just this is it. I mean, it may be something, but it's just also a few words. And yet the magic formula is also that he was leaving. It's a fertile period. He's leaving. Leaving Yunyan. And yet he knows in some way he's not leaving. And he asks Yunyan, you know, if in the future someone asks me about your teaching, how shall I respond? So, how shall I respond means, how shall I present your teaching to others? But it also means, how will you respond, Yunyan? And how will I notice your teaching.

[31:56]

And he says, again, be most thorough going, but he says, just this is it. So this magic formula has the fertility of the situation in it and has the love and intention and shared vision of union. So it's again like a kind of magical or alchemical formula. To turn lead into gold or something like that. And he applies it as he's walking, wading through a stream.

[33:00]

And he sees his reflection. He sees his reflection is Of course, there's no substantiality to it. And yet, it stays, as I said the other day, stays in the stream. It has continuity in the flowing stream. It stays still in the flowing stream. Mm-hmm. and in that he everywhere he met everywhere he went he met just this is it I am not it it is now

[34:08]

I am now it. It is not me. Ich bin jetzt es. Es ist nicht ich. I am now it. It is not me. So this is a world view shift. A two truths world view shift. Where this combination of yin yang leaving the stream, a phrase he already was familiar with, All resulted in he crossed a line which he would never go back from. And that's one thing that scares us in our practice. We know somehow that if we continue practice deeply, thoroughly, we may cross a line we can't go back from.

[35:27]

And we may lose our friends or family or our willingness to have the job we have. But I guarantee you it usually works out alright. But I guarantee you it usually works out alright. You get to know your friends in a new way. And usually you can just make your job work better for you. And you have a kind of freedom of indeterminacy, of unpredictability, and you can just do things.

[36:30]

So we started this practice period with my bringing up the three mysteries of body, speech, and mind. Let me suggest a little practice. When you look at inactivity, you look at body. It's inseparable from mind and speech. When you look at mind, it's inseparable from the other two. When you look at speech, it's inseparable from the other two. They're inseparable. But if you practice stillness of the body, It's not the same as stillness of the mind.

[37:38]

And you can practice stillness of the mind and it's not the same as stillness of the body. And you can practice stillness of speech, articulation. And that's not the same as the other two. And yet they become the three legs of awareness. Like the three legs of an incense burner. The awareness through which you can establish continuity. Yeah, enough said. Thanks. Genau, gesagt, danke.

[38:39]

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