Thank you for being patient all these years with my only speaking English. I sometimes think you're learning a strange vocabulary. But anyway, thanks for trying to learn and go along with my English. And thank you for the trouble you go to sometimes to bring a translator to doksan. Yeah, so what should this last lecture be like? Paul, yesterday, after the lecture, said, let's go on for another week.

[01:02]

And I thought it was a good idea, actually. But anyway, of course, it's not possible. Mm-hmm. And I started out emphasizing ascending the seat as the topic and title of this koan. And now in this last lecture, let me emphasize the mind Yao Shan was pointing at. In the mind Sukhiroshi pointed at, Dogen pointed at, and so forth, making use of this story. The trouble is we can only point at this mind, we can't describe it. Or not at least with much clarity.

[02:25]

And I've tried in these last six day shows to be as clear as I can. And I think today I can't be so clear. I mean, even if I try. So let's start out with saying that Yaoshan is pointing at incomprehensible mind. Now if I say incomprehensible mind, I don't want you to now try to comprehend it. I think it's useful to, even in our rational down-to-earth world, It's good to accept that there's an incomprehensibility to mind.

[03:47]

And without getting into magical thinking or extrapolating it into theories, subtle theories about, you know, that we... that are only theories. Let's... But let's function within this incomprehensible mind. Yeah. Although you don't hear the teaching of insentient beings, Do not hinder that which hears it. A famous story in our lineage. Although you do not hear it, do not hinder that which hears it.

[05:10]

Obwohl ihr sie nicht hört, hindert oder behindert nicht das, was sie hört. And what is this teaching of insentient beings? Was ist das, diese nicht fühlenden Wesen? And what is, you know, the all-at-onceness of everything? Und diese alles zur gleichen Zeit von allem? And which we are, you know, part of. It's all the same chemistry, etc. But it's not all the same sentience. And yet we're also somehow merged with this all at once world. So what, how can we allow this mind Yashan's pointing at to function?

[06:33]

Now, you know, in the 19th century they had the idea of ether. usually spelled in English A-E-T-H-E-R, which was the medium for the dynamics of the world or something like that, as sound needed air or water for propagating its waves. It was assumed that light must have some medium. And they called it ether. But I think the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1877 kind of eliminated ether from the world of contemporary physics.

[07:42]

Michael, what's his name? Nicholson. Nicholson. Nicholson, M-I-C-H, M-I-C-K. Nicholson Morley. Nicholson Morley. Experiment. Experiment. So ether is not accepted physics. Now, maybe the idea of ether isn't just an idea of what the heck does light propagate itself through. But maybe it's an intuition that we have that arises through our own, through our experience of mind. And in Sanskrit there's the word akasa and in Hinduism it too, it means something like tangible space.

[08:55]

And here you have the German word for space, Raum. Which seems to be all around us. But it also means conveniently room. So it becomes the space in which things happen. But what about the mind in which things happen? Often in this kind of worldview, Daoism and Buddhism is non-doing. What is this non-doing that perhaps does something? I mean, the koan puts it in the category of farmers, merchants, crafters, and so forth.

[10:36]

Bankers. No, I didn't mention bankers. And... And then the commentary says, but the unskilled one is always at leisure. What is he pointing at? The unskilled one is always at leisure. Well, it's not much different than Sukhir she meant with beginner's mind. In the expert's mind, there's etc. And in the beginner's mind, in the unskilled mind, there are many possibilities. And the phrase beginner's mind occurs in Dogen's The Point of Zazen.

[11:41]

When he's commenting on Yao Shan's steadfast non-thinking, Okay, sorry. And so the unskilled one, we could say, returns to non-doing. And let's take unskilled to mean something like not discriminating. And Dogen says something like subtle thinking doesn't discriminate. Now that's something for us to ponder. What kind of thinking doesn't discriminate, doesn't compare, etc. ?

[13:09]

doesn't discriminate, but is still some kind of thinking. Let's call it thinking. And Dogen says this thinking which doesn't discriminate is in the midst of merging. And he means something like not really able to be separated from the all-at-oneness of the world. Note that I'm not saying the oneness of the world. I'm saying the all-at-onceness of the world.

[14:25]

Now, I had a dream, I don't know why, sometimes a kind of waking dream. And I found it quite amusing. I was examining it as it was happening. There was this kind of column of space in which various, you know, lots of things were happening. Various people I have known over the years were there. Some are supposedly dead, but there they were. And some of them were, I don't know why the heck they were there. Yeah, and in the middle of it, I had to, for some reason, had to park my car. So I drove up in this column and it supported my car quite well.

[15:40]

Yeah, and when I got out at the top of the hill, I parked the car. Yeah, and I came, walked back down. So the space was physical. You could drive a car on it. And it was also temporal. Things were happening. And so once I was back down, it turned into not a hillside, but an apartment. And I could feel this column of, it was both physical space and non-physical space. I could feel this column of, let's call it mind, as a kind of tangible stuff.

[17:10]

As the word I've used occasionally, a kind of gel or something that held things together. And whatever this field was that held things together which could be physical space or mental space or living space in the dream it was all mind I mean when I stepped away from this column and tried to touch the stuff that was gluing everything together I would say it was the actual feel of mind. And, you know, and I recognized it's the feel of mind I have in Zazen, too. The feel of mind in which things happen, like Rom opens up into.

[18:37]

And it's like sometimes the feel of mind I have sitting here with you. And sometimes I don't start speaking until I feel this mind and that kind of gives me permission to start to speak. And then I speak into this mind. From this mind. Well, I don't know. How can you say... I mean, this is my experience. What can one do about it? We can call it incomprehensible mind.

[19:51]

Or akasa perhaps. Etheric mind. Somehow something we humans and perhaps the sentience of the insentient world Now, I'm not... I'm trying to stay carefully away from saying the world is mind. Ich bin da sehr vorsichtig und versuche, davon wegzubleiben, zu sagen, die Welt ist meint. Or everything is meint. I think that's not correct, it's inaccurate, and it leads us astray. Ich finde, das ist nicht korrekt, nicht akkurat, und es führt uns in die Irre.

[20:56]

And that's a kind of, from the experience of a kind of tangible field of mind we share is a kind of leap of faith to the world is mind or a leap of futile hope But still we have this sense of incomprehensible mind. Sometimes, I don't know, I am using myself by doing calculations in my mind. Sometimes I just make calculations in my head.

[22:03]

My mind. Your mind too. No, I limit it to my mind. You don't have to cancel it all. You know, I'll say like if you go 1, 3, 7, what's the spaces between them, and if you look at those spaces differently and you extrapolate it into several sequences of numbers, I do things like that. So what would be the number when this sequence is extended several times in two different ways? Well, sometimes a number will appear, 79. And I'll think, where the hell did that come from? I mean, I wouldn't swear. I would say, where the heck did that come from? Could that number be the sequence I was looking for?

[23:16]

The end of the sequence I was looking for? And it's actually rather laborious to check that. Okay, between 1 and 3 there's 2, and between 3 and 7 there's 4, and that's doubled. Now, am I going to add or am I going to multiply? I mean, it takes me a few minutes to try to figure out if the number is correct. Good. Maybe these are mental calisthenics, you know. Do your daily exercises. This is do your daily exercises. You don't have to translate that either.

[24:30]

I'm trying to make your job easier. Okay, but say that number 75, 79 or whatever it was, is correct. I'm not sure. But when I laboriously work it out consciously... Yes, it's right. Now what produced the number without my thinking it? Now there are many examples of things like that. And part of the practice, the yogic practice of this kind of incomprehensible mind which does something, is to begin to feel when it's probably correct, which is common with intuition. And one of the dangers of intuition and in fact one of the dangers of certain kinds of enlightenment experiences

[25:51]

It gives us the feeling that it's right. We may not trust our thinking always, but we usually trust our intuition. We say, I did that when I had no choice. I had no choice, so I did it. Okay, so there's a kind of subtleness of mind that knows but doesn't think. And one way you can approach this and actuate it, activate it and become familiar with it is to feel instead of think. Instead of thinking the world Or thinking about the world.

[27:21]

Try to substitute what you do when you think with feeling. So as much as possible you go through the day feeling everything but not thinking it. One of the useful enactment rituals is the practice of nothing, of nowhere to go when you're cueing. As I say sometimes, get in the longest line at the grocery store. And just say, no, I've got no place to go. Oh, you want to get in front of me? Fine. You only have 15 things and I have 16, so why are you getting in front of me? It's a kind of great feeling.

[28:23]

Here you are on the planet with nothing to do. In the eyes it's called seeing. In the ears it's called hearing. What is it called in the eyebrows? In suffering we grieve together. In happiness we rejoice together. But what about the useless great function? What about the useless great function? The unskilled one who's always at leisure. We can point at this mind, but it's not something we can grasp.

[29:28]

It's something we can allow or permit. Do not hinder that which hears it. We can allow and accept and one of the secrets of allowing and accepting is to always feel complete. As Shido said to Yaoshan, when he said, I've studied the scriptures and the Shastras and so forth, Shido said, you can't get there with any idea of attainment. Well, how do you establish in yourself a feeling of no attainment?

[30:44]

Sometimes for years I've suggested just practice with just now is enough. Yeah, which is fairly easy to do. Because it's a fact. Just now it has to be enough. What are you going to do? You've got two or three nows. Just now is enough. I mean, it's all you've got. Might as well be enough. Enough can be a problem because it's all you got, but is all you got enough? Is that somebody I know? But if we take it a step further, at each moment can you feel complete?

[32:08]

No idea of enlightenment. Does that mean enlightenment doesn't exist? No, it doesn't mean that. It means when the gate of generosity is open and nothing is blocked, the idea of enlightenment blocks enlightenment. So now you can try to sneak under the door into the room where there's no idea of enlightenment, so you get enlightened. Yeah, the door isn't open, but maybe you can, like a mouse, squeeze under it.

[33:11]

Now you're practicing no idea of enlightenment. But only mostly. I'm still hoping. Yeah, and et cetera. So really to have no idea, you don't give a damn about enlightenment. What's the problem? Just now. Hey, good. Someone said to me in Doksan that they found themselves working with the phrase that appeared to them.

[34:15]

Something like no thing at all. Not a single, nothing at all. And there's a phrase we sometimes use, not a single thing. Now, not a single thing or no thing at all Now the English of at all is probably needed too, at least in the beginning of the use of the phrase. The phrase at all is probably necessary in the beginning of the use of the phrase. And sometimes some words fall away and you don't need them after a while.

[35:16]

But nothing at all. Or not a single thing. Yeah. These are not philosophically analyzable. Some people do try to analyze them and get a theory about what it means. It's simply an action phrase. It does something. And it interrupts mental grasping. Now the technical term is usually grasping. That's translated. But that may be too strong a word. Just when we try to make sense of things.

[36:23]

Why shouldn't we try to make sense of things? That's how we live. So if we give up trying to make sense of things, or rather more successfully make use of our desire to make sense, our need to make sense of things, And cut it off with the sword of Manjushri. With an action phrase like not a single thing. And what's on the other side of not a single thing?

[37:23]

Or what's on this side of not a single thing? Is an opening into unstructured mind. Which sometimes I think is like a great bird with its wings folded. Sort of like the core of the mind is this folded up bird. It knows everything that's going on. But it's not opening its wings. Now, it could open its wings, but it's... and create space and time.

[38:25]

Now, it's not... It's not... The words inward mind would not be so good for it. Because this bird is not inward, this bird is just inward to all things at once, perhaps. And Dogen calls it something like a hub mind. Like the hub at the center of a wheel. Now the hub is not inner, it's what everything turns around. So Yashan is pointing to this hub mind. This mind of non-doing which functions.

[39:40]

This mind which can open its wings. Thank you very much. Mögen und Verabsichten gleichermaßen jedes Wesen und jeden Ort durchbrennen.

[40:06]

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