So since this is the last teisho of this practice week, we will have the usual two meetings this afternoon, isn't that right? And tomorrow we have a big circle and smoke the peace pipe? Past the peace pipe. Do I participate tomorrow morning? Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, so what maybe, you know, to sort of like, you know, end what we're doing, that, yeah. Maybe I can put this in a context of Zen practice and Buddhism.

[01:08]

So what's unique about Zen practice? One is the emphasis on Zazen. No other Buddhist school emphasizes zazen as much. And second, the unique use of words. And secondly, this unique use of words. Yes, koans, wados, what I call gate phrases or wisdom phrases. Okay.

[02:16]

And third, the face-to-face teaching outside of the scriptures. Face-to-face transmission outside the sutras. Okay, so we have this statement, you know, a famous statement, a slogan of Zen, a teaching or a transmission outside the scriptures. Okay, so let's say that that's true. But it doesn't mean outside, in the context of our seminar, it doesn't mean outside truth. the bodily self.

[03:32]

And the bodily self, what I mean by that is also what Sukiroshi would mean by big self. Or as he would put it, the self which covers everything. But I think as we've been trying in this seminar to have an entry to the self which covers everything. Yeah, let's say the gate, the gate, the entry, the initial practice and understanding. is the bodily self. The body as the bridge from moment to moment.

[04:37]

Der Körper als Brücke von Moment zu Moment. The body as our experience of continuity. Der Körper als die Erfahrung von unserer Kontinuität. In English we say, for instance, he carried her, the child, bodily from the room. We don't say he carried her body from the room. We say he carried her bodily from the room. Really? What's the difference then? Because is that refers to him or the body which is being carried? Well, I asked if you could translate the difference between bodily self and body self. Right, I can, but not in this context. You can't say he carried her bodily from the room? Does it refer to him, his way of carrying, or does it refer to that body that is being carried? It means he picked up the whole of her, Sophia, and carried her physically from the room. So anyway... Okay, it sounds good. It's physically.

[06:07]

Oh, good. Physically, yeah. Bodily means physically. Yeah, physisch. So a physical sense of continuity from moment to moment, within moment to moment. Also eine physische Kontinuität innerhalb von Moment zu Moment. Now, I think the Catholic Church, at least earlier Catholic Church, You know, it seems to have much more of a bodily sense of being. Yeah. You know, and I get this partly, of course, from my Catholic teacher, Yvonne Illich. And his sense that Catholicism has been on the downhill slope ever since the 12th century. Okay. You know, in the earlier, I mean, Catholicism emphasizes the resurrection of the body.

[07:27]

Yeah, the actual body is resurrected. And in the sense that ecclesiastical or church rituals... Yeah, are a means to salvation. And a means of expiation of moral problems, guilt, etc. What's expiation? To get rid of, to atone for. Okay, so expiation of moral and? Or moral problems or guilt? There was a salvation by works.

[08:29]

Yeah, there's a sense of, the Aristotelian sense of, St. Thomas, I believe, had a sense of habitus, embodied spirituality. So Aquilidrup, that's Thomas from Aquin, right? Yeah. Okay, so you have all these funny endings to German words. Well, it's an English ending. Okay, what did he say? St. Thomas Aquinas. Okay. Of Aquin, is that right? Of Aquin. Okay. He used Aristotle's idea of habitus, I believe, to mean embodied spirituality. Location of embodied spirituality.

[09:49]

Well, this is certainly, I would say, closer to what Buddhism feels, expresses, than is the usual Protestant understanding. This seems to me to be much closer to Buddhism than to what is considered Protestantism. And I'm mentioning it just to say that this is not completely foreign from our culture, what I'm talking about. And so, you know, as I said during the first day, we do this bowing, we have this bell stand and so forth. The bell stand should be at the same kind of attention to detail, craft as the bell. Dieser Ständer der Glocke soll die gleiche Detailliertheit und kunsthandwerkliche Ausführung haben wie die Glocke selber.

[11:00]

And when to express his understanding to Bodhidharma, Huiko went and left his place and bowed to Bodhidharma and returned to his place. Huiko To express his understanding to Bodhidharma? Yeah, and Bodhidharma said, he has my marrow. Again a bodily image. Bodhidharma also said spoke about the body as the senses. And he said that each sense goes beyond words.

[12:13]

By sense you mean the sense input or the organ as such? No, a sense impression, looking at something. Each hearing of something, each seeing of something goes beyond words. And in the experience of it going beyond words you see mind. See mind, feel mind. This is a good prescriptive definition of mind. Because each of you can feel how hearing, sensitive, detailed hearing of something goes beyond words. And it's just the smell of the garden and the birds in the morning at first light. You can say, I smelled the rain, the grasses.

[13:21]

I heard the birds. And we can guess from that the experience. But it's just such a simple thing as... That goes beyond words. And that we can say is an experience, Bodhidharma points out, of mind. That we can experience mind When we see how, each sense goes beyond words. Okay. Now, this is not... But Buddhism is also part of contemporary Western thinking and culture.

[14:40]

So we can look at Wittgenstein. Saying that there is meaning in words only when there's also doubt about the meaning. I think he would say something like words are not propositional. Language is not propositional. That means a sentence has a fixed truth value. Words are performative. We perform language and build up a meaning.

[16:13]

And you know, when he was served in the First World War, he was always asking to be at where the most danger was, to the most dangerous front line. And he had a copy of his, supposedly had a copy of his manuscript to take this in his backpack. Yeah, this guy. Anyway, so some people think he wanted to go to the extreme limits of language by being in physical danger. Now, we don't have to go this far. But we should feel ourselves at the limits of language. And, in fact, we use language because of the limits of language. Some rather stupid interpreters of Zen Buddhism say that silence is best.

[17:48]

That the teaching outside the scriptures means we don't study the sutras. That this silence beyond the sutras means that we don't need to learn the sutras at all. Yes, but Huyco's silence or bowing means he's silent. No, he bowed. And you say that this bowing of Huyco is actually silence. But no, he actually bowed. Yes. So we use language for its limits. So the performative aspect of language I would say is part of what I mean by to let things come forward. So this unique sense of language in Zen Buddhism

[18:53]

is to use language in a performative sense, not a propositional sense, and to use language in an incubational sense to incubate an intention, To incubate the direction and quality of our life. And to use language without knowing its limits. So this unique use of language is the main process of realization in Zen Buddhism. And the verification of understanding is in the face-to-face transmission.

[20:25]

What I call an intra-subjectivity. Now in contemporary sociology and philosophy they sometimes say inter-subjectivity. Yeah, like intercellular, between cells. Wie zum Beispiel interzellulär, also zwischen Zellen. And technically intracellular would mean inside the cell. Und technisch würde intracellular bedeuten innerhalb der Zelle. But from the point of view of Buddhism, this is all inside. Von Buddhismus her gesehen, aber technisch bedeutet das alles innerhalb. So there's an intra-subjectivity. An always contextual knowing.

[21:41]

Matsu supposedly said, I think it's Matsu, every day is a good day. Yeah, well, this sounds like something the newscaster would say just before he signs off. Every day is a good day. See you tomorrow. Have a nice day. I'm sorry I have other plans. So how the heck is this wisdom? Well, Even if it's a rainy, drippy day, this is our own intrasubjectivity. The rainy, drippy day awakens a particular whoever we are. And you might wish for a sunny day.

[23:12]

On a full and glorious morning, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that's Shakespeare. I was just listening to one of his sonnets. Yeah. And when there is a sunny day, particularly around here, we might be very relieved and happy. In Crestone, when there's a rainy day, we're very relieved and happy. But each day is the particular day of our life. And we want that this day to be in its most fundamental sense without comparison.

[24:17]

So, yeah, there may be some surface that wants a sunny day. or remembers what a sunny day is like. But at the level of acceptance, fundamental acceptance, We're living this rainy day. This kind of feeling is also the feeling of mind-to-mind transmission. So the practice of zazen and mindfulness is the basis.

[25:19]

The primary emphasis on realization practice is the unique use of language. Und diese primäre Betonung, Verwirklichung, ist die Verwendung von Sprache. Und die Bestätigung von Verwirklichung, diese Bestätigung der Verwirklichung, die ist in dieser Yeah, and that this intersubjectivity includes, as is clear in reading the Genghis Khan,

[26:20]

includes all beings, each being. It includes also the suffering and delusion and so forth. So this intersubjectivity is also the Buddha body. The Buddha body, which includes suffering and delusion. Now, this is also what's meant by thusness. Das versteht man auch unter Soheit. The thusness of each moment. Die Soheit eines jeden Momentes. At each moment there's a kind of field of presence of being.

[27:35]

In jedem Moment ist so ein And that, let's call it a field of being, with a dynamic of periphery and center, but with no prior creation. The fact and experience is not that it was there before and is here now and will be. It has no prior creation. Okay, that means that specific thing hasn't been created before. It doesn't mean that before that thing there was a creation. It means that there's continuous creation, but our experience and emphasis and understanding is not that it exists prior.

[28:49]

It's at this moment created. Okay. And it has no past and no future. But it has center and periphery. It has receiving and releasing. It has completing and releasing. And that's also what we mean by thusness. When we experience each moment, the appearance of each moment, not as something as a prior creation,

[29:50]

But at this moment having an existence you can receive and release. This is thusness. And this thusness is also what's meant by Tathagata, the body of the Buddha. It's also what's meant in a deep sense, by thorough sense, by our bodily self. This bodily self. The bodily self which covers everything. The Prajnaparamita Sutra says even when the words are perfectly fitting and reach right up to it The meaning is still mysterious and profound.

[31:24]

And even though we go very deep, we may miss it. And even if we go very deep, we can miss it. Yeah, and this is not known by thinking, but by our bodily existence. Let's pretend I've said enough. Thank you very much.

[32:21]

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