I'm very happy to be here with Norman and Kathy, of course. There you are. With a few new people who've come because of you. And, of course, those of you I know pretty well. And those of you I know pretty well. Or very well. Um... Usually we sit half an hour at the beginning of each, in the morning and then in the afternoon before each session. But I hate to force people to sit meditation. So as soon as I imagine you might be uncomfortable, I want to ring the bell. Unless we have a prior agreement that you're willing to suffer.

[01:02]

No, it's not suffering. You have to do it for a while, but in the beginning it's sometimes... So we made the second period, which we hope people can come to as part of the seminar, only 30 minutes in the morning. Yeah. And I guess there's a couple more people coming at some point. Okay, but again our custom, for those of you who come here often, is to do Friday as a kind of prologue day or pre-day. And normally we do the Friday as a pre-day.

[02:05]

That's how we practice it. At this pre-day we try to avoid whatever the topic of the seminar is and not to get too involved. But since almost everyone who's going to come is coming for these three days, we'll have the same schedule for each of the three days, except Sunday we end early because people have to travel. So since I'm a host here, I thought, or we thought, that I should start out giving some kind of hello introduction.

[03:14]

And the... You know, well, let me go on a little aside. I was in Vienna the other day or, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago or something like that. And I was in a shop with a friend of mine. Tom Buckner. Near the hotel we were staying. And he's a He was just in Paris recently. I guess a few of you are from Paris. He was just in Paris recently singing a Robert Ashley opera. So we both had a few days where our schedules allowed us to visit in Vienna for a couple of days.

[04:18]

Yes, so we went in the shop which has nice things to buy gifts for people made of bone. Yeah, the young woman who was the clerk, her name turned out to be Julia. And I said, almost involuntarily, methinks, how sweetly flows. And my friend said, Robert Herrick. And, yes? I didn't get that. Okay. This is a famous poem that's used to as an illustration in most English literature educations of silken liquefaction.

[05:35]

I better say it again. This is a common poem studied in, you know, if you study English literature at all. And it's an example of, often, by teachers used for the alliteration, the sounds that fit together. You can see some things are quite hard to translate. Particularly something like this. You can see how things are quite hard to translate. And sometimes not translated. Okay. Anyway, it doesn't actually say methinks.

[06:41]

It says, you don't have to translate. When as in silt my Julia goes, then, then, how sweetly flows the liquefaction of her clothes. And it sounds like silt, you know. And when as is a kind of double entendre. And that sounds like silk rubbing against each other and like a... I didn't understand that word. Yes, okay. Well, anyway, what struck me about it is how both of us, just because this clerk was named Julia, both of us just popped up in both of our minds simultaneously. Yeah, and so... You know, it struck me how, I mean, of course, it shows that Tom and I from 15 years apart had similar educations. This clerk, Julia, who spoke pretty good English, though didn't have any idea what we were mumbling about.

[07:46]

But it struck me as, you know, interesting, characteristic of how phrases float in our experience. And even, yeah, we can, I would say, organize our experience. And we're, Norman and I agreed to pick three phrases from Dogen. And not tell each other. I don't know what three he's picked. He doesn't know what three I've picked. And, of course, Dogen wrote in, well, sometimes Chinese, but mostly Japanese. And, um...

[08:53]

So we don't have alliteration going in the phrases of Dogen for us. But there's a kind of, I don't know what, somatic image of them. And I don't know, I must be thinking of these things related to poetry because my friend here is a poet. But imagism is a movement poet. movement of the early 20th century of American British poets, Ezra Pound being the most famous probably. And it kind of, you know, puts the image, the concrete image, maybe you could say, in place of rhyming as an organizing way to organize a poem.

[10:23]

But I wouldn't say, although sometimes say concrete image, I would say more somatic or bodily images. Because I think when things stay with us, it may be the sound, Of course, the sound is often a part of it. But I think there's a bodily, conceptual image That stays with us.

[11:25]

In other words, I think if, you know, I use a phrase often for folks because it sounds, you can hear a sound, the sounds in it. To pause for the particular. To pause for the pause. Now, for many of you, I'm sorry to go over these simple things I talked about often, but we have to get on the same pause, the same page. So to pause for the particular certainly has in English some kind of But it also is in sort of somatic, bodily units.

[12:28]

To pause for the particular. Für das besondere Anhalten. So I think, at least I find, when I choose translations of Dogen, I usually choose translations which have this kind of embedded somatic concepts. And so our body carries them. Anyway, the use of phrases like the one I just gave you, are characteristic of Zen practice and teaching. And I often remember, sometimes years ago, when I would encounter a new poet, couldn't feel him, and then one line or two lines get you, and then the rest of the poems open up.

[14:03]

And I feel that the use of phrases in Zen practice If you have the skill, if you're able to make them work, which is initially you sort of enter them into yourself, with a kind of mantric repetition that then just becomes presence. But at first they often, and ideally, they don't We don't make much sense.

[15:09]

Or like to pause for the particular, it contradicts what we usually do. Because we usually, I think, most of us function in a flow of generalizations. And with our attention usually in our thinking, discursive thinking and not in the particulars. So to a phrase like when it becomes a presence in your noticing to pause for the particular or when some teaching you can embody in a Somatic phrase, body in a phrase.

[16:13]

Oder wenn du eine Leere verkörpern kannst in einem solchen Satz. Can turn a whole body of work in you. Dann kann dieser Satz den Körper umsetzen. Like a particular line of poetry, once you feel it, can open up the body of work of the whole poet. And so, in like manner, sometimes a phrase of Dogen's Um, can... When you hold it in you... It can, um... And you're not just holding it in you.

[17:16]

If it's a good phrase, you're holding it against, to some extent, your usual way of thinking. So you're holding it and it's also being held against. you're holding it, you're also being held against. And that creates a kind of dynamic which can suddenly release you into a new way of looking at things. I'd rather say different than new, a different way of looking at things. Because new implies better usually for us, and I would rather say different. Because the significance is its difference, not its newness.

[18:18]

Okay. Now, Dogen wrote so that every sentence, virtually, phrase can be used this way. Because he was writing for us. a non-discursive mind. I sometimes say, if you're going to study a poem, bring your sense of location to your ears, to the oral field,

[19:20]

Yeah, and instead of, when you read the koans. have your attention in the aural field. And also the aural field is more bodily than the visual field. So Dogen assumes these are going to be read even though they look discursive, read non-discursive. So it's written so it's read with the mind But it enters the body.

[20:25]

And read with the mind, it sometimes doesn't quite work when you read it with the mind. It only works when you read it with the body. So there's, you know, there's what Norman and I are hoping to do here. And what Norman and I are trying to do here is find at least three phrases, parts of Dogen, which are kind of hinges, which can open a door to the whole of Dogen and Zen Buddhism. Okay. No. What I'm saying here is all related to a yogic way of being in the world.

[21:34]

So what are the ingredients of this event, these three days? Well, one ingredient, of course, is the, excuse me for saying so, Norman, I hope you don't mind, the palpable connection I feel with Norman over all these years. And we practice together regularly for, what, about 10 years, something like that. Whoa! Not at all. It's a good unit, ten, twelve units. That's what I had with Suzuki Roshi. When we're chanting in the morning, of course the chanting is part of a kind of bodily field. We're chanting the lineage of Dharma ancestors.

[22:52]

And the feeling there, and it really does develop, that you have a palpable... connection with these folks who lived a long time ago. But it seems like it was 2,500 years ago. But three or four times the number of people in this room. In other words, Supposedly, 90 generations about bring me back to the Buddha. Of course, it gets a little mythological around the time of Christ.

[23:53]

Not because of Christ. But it's quite, you know, for many centuries, it's fairly accurate. Or is accurate. And there is. You know, so if it's like Norman and I spend 10 years or more together and then you and Norman and Christian spend 10 or 15 years together, you need another five. And... And you spend it like that. So it's not like playing... What's that game you call it when you whisper to somebody? Telephone. Telephone. It's not like playing telephone. It's like playing... It's like playing telephone for 10 years together. You get it straight after a while.

[24:55]

Yeah, so there's, you know, it's not... Anyway. Okay. Okay. So, again, like I don't like to make anybody meditate, and I'm happy, and I'm sure Norman feels fine about it too. If any of you want to sit in chairs or hang from the ceiling, I don't care. But I don't like to emphasize sitting meditation.

[25:55]

Although my entire life is about emphasizing sitting meditation. This building is about it. So although I don't think it's a yogic way of viewing the world, it's entirely dependent on sitting meditation. You don't think that's right? I don't think it's entirely dependent. He's got the other message. If you have a sense of it or a feel of it, and you're interested, you can make a small amount of meditation go a long way. I'm just trying to give you all a break. But flight hours make a big difference. But flight hours?

[27:06]

Yeah, like a pilot has to have so many flight hours. But then many hours on the cockpit, that makes a big difference. Now, we're going to have a break soon, and then Norman's going to take over and sit here. But let's just take for a moment something I've been mentioning recently because it's so basic. Suzuki Roshi's initial advice for Zazen is don't invite your thoughts to tea. Okay. Almost everyone can do that quite easily.

[28:07]

You immediately have a sense of sitting and not inviting your thoughts to tea. Without spending too much time on it, let me just say that At some point you notice that, well, isn't the recommendation to not invite your thoughts to tea also a thought? Yeah, so then you begin to distinguish between two ideas. two mental formations, both in English called thoughts. And one is an intention to not invite discursive thoughts to tea. And then you notice if you cannot invite discursive thoughts to tea, And you can stay with the mind that arises through a non-discursive intention.

[29:17]

In short, after a while, you feel... And then often think more clearly when you think into discursiveness from an intentional field. Yeah. So then you notice that with... There's a difference between your usual daily mind and there's a difference between the mind that arises in meditation. And then within meditation there's a difference between A non-discursive mind and an intentional mind.

[30:22]

And a mind of, let's call it awareness instead of consciousness is generated, which then changes even discursive mind within zazen. So these are big differences. Like, really, the difference between, you know, it's quite difficult to sleep standing up. I say, unless you're a horse. Um... it helps to lie down to sleep. I notice it every time I take a nap. Your posture affects the mind you can generate. Now, what Zazen means Meditation helps you do.

[31:34]

It helps you do a kind of, what could I call it, paratactic noticing. Paratactic is a word which means just to set things side by side without establishing a relationship between them. Eisenstein and making films would put images beside each other and let the viewer make the connection. But the Zazen mind or the yogic mind wants to just set things next to each other without making connections. And allow another kind of connecting process or no connecting to occur. So you get a physical sense of how to do this through generating a non-discursive field of mind in Zazen. which then you get a feeling for bodily, you get a bodily feel of,

[32:56]

And you cannot, like, almost tune in that mind in ordinary circumstances, not zazen. That's in short... at the center of what's meant by yogic culture or yogic practice. You begin to see particulars, pausing for a minute, you begin to see particulars, and it kind of disperses the... the mist and veils of generalizations. And it becomes another way of being in the world. And that's what Dogen is assuming and talking and writing to and toward. And out of that, and that's where Dogen comes from, Dogen writes from this state.

[34:18]

And, yeah, you can understand this. It's not difficult to understand. But you really have to have a physical feel for it before you can enact it. And zazen, or some amount of zazen, is the shortcut way, or maybe almost the only way, to develop a physical feel for non-discursive awareness. So for those of you who aren't familiar with sitting, that's a little introduction to why... Some of us sit. Yeah, so why don't we have a break? Thanks very much for being here.

[35:19]

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