Well, I'm glad you're all here this evening. And of course we have the topic that today I've been trying to avoid during the pre-day, the prologue day. And now I will stop avoiding it. So the topic of the seminar, this Christmas New Year seminar, is the one who is not busy. And I think this should bring up for us all that different ways we feel.

[01:01]

As I said earlier today, particularly at New Year's, there's this time of New Year's resolutions. And for some of us wanting to be a new person or something different in our life, Or to have something different in our life. And when you look at it, what do you maybe desire or yearn for or something? I think in the end it's a yearning for, yeah... Probably in the end something like completion.

[02:07]

To feel complete. And I think we, you know, sometimes we imagine if we accomplish this or that we'll feel more complete. And that's of course sometimes true. We can lead a life that's more fulfilling than not sometimes. But still, if there's this sense of wanting completion, to be complete, And I think this idea of the one who is not busy asks us or suggests that completion, the feeling of completion can be present now.

[03:29]

And perhaps if we can feel complete now, we're more likely to, in fact, practically speaking, have a fulfilling life. Because like usually leads to like. Yeah, what's similar leads to what's similar. Yeah. So if you feel dissatisfied and you keep trying to satisfy yourself, you'll probably continue to feel dissatisfied. So this phrase has these kinds of psychological dimensions for us.

[04:33]

And I think should have these psychological dimensions. Yeah, and of course we've, you know, if we're a kid, we've believed in Santa Claus. Maybe that's the one who's not busy. No, he seems very busy. Going to every kid in the world? Yeah. A few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, we told Sophia, you know, we have a really big secret to tell you. Probably it's better not to tell the other kids, but there's no Santa Claus. So she liked having a secret. She announced to me, because one of her teeth are loose, That the tooth fairy was also her mother and father.

[05:57]

Do you have the tooth fairy in German or does it only fly around America? A few years ago she tried to make a deal with a tooth fairy. I think she asked us for a quarter. And we said, what do you want it for? Because I want to put it under my pillow. Why do you want to put it under your pillow? Because maybe then the tooth fairy will come and get my tooth so I'll be old enough to go to school.

[06:57]

I never could have thought that up. Do you remember why the tooth fairy gets all the teeth? Oh yeah, why? Because she doesn't. Oh, the tooth fairy doesn't have any teeth, so she's collecting them. So when you believe in the tooth fairy, things can get very complicated. I don't know if we're making a deal with the tooth fairy, but anyway... So this phrase, the one who's not busy, comes from a koan. Koan 21 in the Book of Serenity. And it's really quite an important koan for us in the Dharma Sangha and in this lineage. And the koan is very simply two brothers who are actually supposedly physical brothers as well as dharma brothers.

[08:21]

Da Wu seems to have been the more intelligent of the two brothers. And I'm sorry to tell you, but our lineage descends from Yunian, the less intelligent one. Anyway, Yunyan is sweeping. And Dawu, his brother, comes in and says, too busy. And Yunyan says, well, maybe he wasn't so dumb. He says, you know, you should know there is one who's not busy.

[09:23]

And Dawu tried to catch him up. Says, then there's a second moon or there's a double moon. And Yunian holds up the broom and says, which moon is this? Okay. Now this is a simple, simple story. It's a simple story. Thich Nhat Hanh told me once that this is a story that was important early, maybe his first realization experience when he was young. Yeah, really, such a little story. Hey, you guys... This is your chance.

[10:38]

And it's, you know, typical of a Zen story. And that it carries lots of teaching with it. But you can practice with it. Again, today I called it an acufrase. Acupuncture phrase, you could say. That is much easier. Yeah, we'll just say that. Just go the easy route. So, an antidotal phrase, an antidote.

[11:46]

So these phrases are conceived as antidotes to our usual habits. And then there's just the sense that you can work with a phrase at an intentional level of mind and not a discursive level of mind. the very idea of practicing with a phrase assumes two levels of mind. And you insert the phrase in one level of mind And the one who is not busy. And then you let that phrase sink into another level of mind.

[12:53]

A mind that's always present. So the very practice of a koan like this assumes the concept of the koan. So, you know, if we're going to look at this, and it's going to work for us, we have to assume also these two levels of mind. In the Isha Upanishads, I think it says something like the one unmoving faster than mind the one unmoving faster than mind that even the gods cannot reach and that passes something and then it says

[14:18]

standing, no, the one unmoving faster than mind, that even the gods cannot reach, because it is always in front. And when standing, passes all that run. But it's basically the same insight. But sense that there's some deeper level of being that's simultaneous with this level of being. But although it sounds the same, or rather the same, how you understand it conceptually makes the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism. Wie du das konzeptuell verstehst, das macht den Unterschied aus zwischen dem Hinduismus und dem Buddhismus.

[15:54]

Denn da geht es auch um ein Konzept. Da ist jemand, der geschäftig ist, und da ist jemand, der nicht geschäftig ist. Das ist ein Konzept. Wenn jemand zu mir sagen würde, Mensch, du siehst aber geschäftig aus, I could say, well, I don't feel so busy inside. That's hard to link into one concept. A concept means to con and sept is to hold, to hold together. So it wouldn't lend itself to a teaching concept particularly if I just said, I don't feel so busy inside. Also, this is thought through in a way that it's clearly a concept suggesting two levels.

[17:01]

And so, as the introduction says, Now, I'm not going to... I don't know, maybe I am. I'm not going to try to explicate this koan. Because most of you don't need it. But on the other hand, it's kind of useful to have a sense of it, because then we can talk about other things in a different way, if we've looked at the koan at least. Excuse me. Hard to translate that, isn't it?

[18:01]

And I wouldn't want you to translate it. I would be embarrassed. As the introduction says, shedding delusion and enlightenment. I think you found out that shed is a noun, is a little house. And shed as a verb is to shed hair like a cat does. To get rid of. So shedding delusion and enlightenment. Cutting off ordinary and holy. So you can see the koan is explicitly making reference to two levels. Enlightenment and delusion. Buddhism is rooted in the concept of the two truths. Two truths, yeah. Conventional existence and absolute existence.

[19:17]

The conventional existence and the absolute existence. Big mind and small mind. So all of those teachings are present in this koan. Awareness and consciousness. Now when I was in the first years of my practice I somehow, I don't really know how I did it. I came up with this phrase, which most of you know, no place to go and nothing to do. And I was very busy at the time. I was a full-time graduate student, I had a full-time job, and I had a new family.

[20:35]

So somehow, but every time I had to go somewhere, I said to myself, there's no place to go. And then I went there. And every time I had something to do, I said, there's nothing to do. And as many of you know, I said this under my breath or kept it in intentional mind for about seven months. It was cued by whenever I thought I had something to do or I had someplace to go, it cued me to bring this awareness present. Pavlovian Zen.

[21:38]

Yeah. Then I forgot it for about two months. I remember very clearly where I was walking in Pacific Heights in San Francisco when I suddenly remembered, geez, I haven't said that. I felt that, manifest, felt that. Two months or more. And I was rather proud of myself that I didn't criticize myself for forgetting. Well, then I started over again. I mean, I started again. I continued. And about a year and two or three months after that, I suddenly felt really there's no place to go and nothing to do.

[22:53]

So this is an example of working with a phrase and staying with it until it becomes true. Now, it may seem to you that no place to go and nothing to do is very similar to the one who is not busy. And away and in a way, of course, you're right. It speaks to the same, the one unmoving that is faster than mind. Mm-hmm. But in this case of this particular koan, it's not just that you suddenly or you may realize a mind that's not...

[24:09]

still mind that doesn't come and go. In this koan it says the one who is not busy. So this koan presumes that there's sort of a parallel being to us, one who's busy and one who's not busy. That makes it more complicated, complex, complicated, than just having a still mind. And that makes it more complex and more complicated than just having a calm mind or a still mind. This contrast between the still mind and the busy mind, distracted mind, is at the center of Buddhist practice.

[25:32]

And it's not so much that our understanding changes through practice, but the mind which understands changes. So in the practice of mindfulness, When you work with, again, let's take the typical example of being angry, you notice that you're angry. Now, we can say, who notices that who is angry? Which one is the real me, the one who's angry or the one who's noticing? Yeah, these are real problems.

[26:50]

Okay, so you notice that you're angry. Now, at the center of mindfulness practice is you don't try to stop being angry. Unless you're so angry you're going to break the dishes or something, then you probably ought to stop it. But this isn't a process of control, it's a process of noticing. Okay, so you're getting busy. I mean, you're getting angry. So you notice, whoa, I'm getting pretty angry. Now I'm very angry. And if you're, you can also tell a friend, you know, you're making me very angry, and that's different than punching them. So this is a kind of common sense. But when you practice it, and you just keep, now I'm really, oh, now I'm less angry.

[27:52]

What you're doing when you do this, As many of you know, you're developing a mind that's wider than the anger. You're developing, using the anger, using the anger, that's the tantric part of it, using the anger to develop a mind that's not angry. So sometimes very emotional people realize this more clearly than less emotional people. So in contrast to your anger, you begin more and more to develop a mind that's not angry. Then your sense of where you're located at some point shifts from being caught up in the emotion to being caught up in the stillness.

[29:27]

So this parallels the idea of the one who's busy and the one who's not busy. But to indicate how unique this is, I mean, it is actually, I think, unique. Say you were a runner in the mile or something like that. And you're what? A runner in the mile. And instead of training you said there's one who's going to win this race. That probably wouldn't be too successful.

[30:43]

But probably if you trained and you had the feeling there's one who can or will win this race, it might help. But really you're training. You're trying to get better at running. And that's more the emphasis of early Buddhism. To get rid of afflicted thoughts. And Afflicted, contaminated. Beschmutzen. Beschmutzen Gedanken los, frei zu werden. And achieve some kind of purity. Und eine Art Reinheit zu erlangen. Get rid of deluded thoughts and realize enlightenment. Oder frei zu werden von verblendeten Gedanken und die Erleuchtung zu finden.

[31:48]

It was like the metaphor of wiping a mirror and getting the mirror clean. But as you know, the Sixth Patriarch, it's not a true story, but the Sixth Patriarch supposedly said, there's no mirror and there's no wiping. This is a very powerful idea, though. And that's the idea in this koan. That there's one who is already not busy. dass da jemand ist, der bereits nicht geschäftig ist. So, this is not just a concept, it's also a metaphor that allows you to have this... It's a concept that allows the metaphor to be present of there's one parallel person who's not busy.

[32:56]

Also, das ist ein Konzept, das dir gestattet, diese Metapher gegenwärtig zu halten, dass da jemand ist, der nicht geschäftig ist. Okay, now I don't think tonight we don't have time to examine the power of that idea. The effectiveness of that idea. And to some extent the delusion of that idea. Anyway, it's much like waves, the ocean. There's waves and there's still water deep down in the ocean. Yes, but it's the same water. Still water is not waves. But it's still, they're both water. And if you practice with this phrase, the one who's not busy, and you really know somehow it's true, if you don't have this, you know, nearly a belief, this intuitive sense that it's true,

[34:13]

You'll give up the practice. You'll decide, well, yeah, I've been busy with not being busy for three months now and it doesn't work. That means you don't really have faith in it or belief in it or conviction. If you know it's true and you know it must be true and just to support this view I will guarantee to you that it is true. The warranty is up here. Then maybe you will continue it if it's a year and two or three months or seven years and you will discover the one who's not busy. Well, I think that's enough for tonight.

[35:42]

Don't you think so? Yes. So tomorrow we'll look at the double, the second moon. And something more about how to practice with this concept and metaphor of one who is not busy. because it's a practice for lay person and monk person. To get the taste of it, it helps to meditate.

[36:46]

To get a taste of it, it helps to be in a place like this sometimes. But to realize it requires you to use your busyness to part the curtain of busyness. To view it as a craft, not just, oh, I'm waiting for enlightenment. Although we can say it's an aspect of enlightenment, it's something like being enlightened.

[37:49]

And the assumption that there's a parallel one, is like a parallel Buddha or something like that, is an assumption that this is enlightenment. But also and more realistically for us we can call it a tantric craft. Because you use your busyness to discover the one who's not busy. So you're not waiting for enlightenment or something like that. You're using your actual situation to discover the one who's not busy. And it depends on your conviction and your intentional mind.

[38:51]

Good night. Merry Christmas and to all a good night.

[39:15]

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