It gives me so much pleasure just to sit here with you. Then I start acting schmaltzy, so I have to restrain myself. But I do feel this is a meeting. Such a fortunate meeting for me. And we get to meet so many things together. One of the... Well, let me start with... I'm amused by how far we've gotten, at least we've come along,

[01:02]

Am I taking the single point? You know, I see sashina as something like letting yourself down into some water that's sometimes cold and sometimes too hot. So I made a remark, something like that, on the first morning. And then what has come from making such a remark and what happens when you make such a remark, yeah, it's been the as I said, the content of these teashows. And then I'm also amused by the fact that we just finished, as I said, the winter branches week, first week,

[02:17]

And I said, yeah, practicing in the way we're doing now in the Sesshin is not enough. We also have to study and understand Buddhism as a whole. But now I'm saying this is enough. And I mean both completely and honestly. Well, what's the difference? I would say that I hope what I'm doing in the Sashin is enough for your individual and mutual enlightenment. At least it certainly enters into you the craft that arises from an enlightenment-based practice. But there is a difference when you understand Buddhism in a more thorough way.

[03:53]

But there is a difference when you understand Buddhism more thoroughly. You re-educate your already acquired education. And that makes your understanding deeper and more integrated with your culture, our Western culture, been more able to effectively relate to and even transform

[04:55]

Western culture. And relate to others also more effectively. to others, other people, more powerfully. As Fritz said the other day, I'm usually telling you, here's some good food, enjoy the food. And he said, now you're saying we ought to run the restaurant. I think that's a good image. Right now I'm trying to dish up some enlightenment food. And give you a feeling for Zen practice. So I just... partially at least answered the question I said a couple of teishos ago, wondering how to answer.

[06:23]

What's the difference between this practice I hope we enter into in the winter branches and what we're doing in Sashin? Letting ourselves down into the currents of the Sashin. And I hope... finding out how to, this upward floating that happens to. Schwimmen is floating? We don't distinguish between floating and swimming.

[07:32]

You don't? So wir treiben. We do have a word. Aufwärts treiben lassen. Also floating ist treiben und schwimmen ist schwimmen. Swimming. Okay. So it's sink or swim in Germany. More or less. Well, we have float a little bit. Okay. But floating in German makes you move in a direction something wants you to go, like the wind. Floating along with the current. So we don't have just being on top of water. Oh, okay. Something my mother was good at. She could lie back in the ocean with a muscle and she'd just float away, float along. I would try it and I would go, boop, boop, boop, boop. What's wrong with you, son? I don't know. She wasn't fat either. She's also somebody who liked to go swimming in the ocean in March or even December.

[08:34]

She was much tougher than I am. Anyway, what's that have to do with the lecture? We'll see if we can weave it in somehow. Okay. Now, I'm also always looking for examples that might be useful to you for the kind of ritual rites that are so much a part of our practice. In Sashin, we discover the structure of true practice. You know, again, I, you know, tea bowls, as you know, most of you know, have three fronts. And the front you turn to drink and the front that's uncovered when you drink.

[09:42]

So that means that A potter can make a tea bowl which has no obvious front in order to confuse you. Or you can just pick up the tea bowl anyway and see how your body decides to drink from it. Yeah, whether it relates to the fronts that the potter established or not. No, I couldn't do that if the t-ball had no sense of these three fronts.

[10:57]

So the form leads me to play with the form, to experiment with the form. And to see possibilities that just wouldn't be in a commercial exactly round bowl. And, you know, this Buddha here, which I knew, as you know, I knew in San Francisco, yeah, 40, 35 years ago. And I even used to sit that way partly because of this Buddha. But now, you know, I'm up there every day offering incense to this guy, gal, I don't know. And he has his hands just a little off center, which makes us hard to figure out how to place the Buddha and the incense burner and everything.

[12:38]

And this wonderful, powerful female figure behind me, She's got her own kind of like, don't mess around with me, look, you know. Sort of pee-pee long body. Yeah. And when I'm in front of these, these things are like Chartres Cathedral.

[13:47]

They're embodied in a way which we can feel in our own body. And when I am in front of this thing, it is a little bit like Shatras. They embody something that we can find in our own body. Yes, so when I am up here offering incense to the Buddha here in the main altar, I find, oh, it's surprising. My hands aren't in that posture as I'm offering incense. It's almost like the tea bowl. It has possibilities. So the... So I almost feel I'm talking to the Buddha and I say, OK, I'll put my hands in that position in a few moments.

[14:53]

And I can feel the figure's body already asking me to sit that way. Yes, so the genius of these images, which are often supposed to be blessed or improved of by a meditation master. A meditation master is supposed to say, oh yes, this Buddha has the right qualities, it's okay. And the smaller... Maybe some big figures, but the smaller figures often have the ashes of the previous owners inside them.

[16:24]

I've got a lot of Buddhas around here. Well, I'm going to collect my ashes and divide them up, you know. But all of this, you know, I'm joking, but maybe I'm joking, but all of this goes back to the fact that there were no images of the Buddha in the beginning. There were only his relics, his ashes. Yes, so I'm just trying to give you some examples of practice here. And the second or third example here, and, you know, I may have bowed two or three different times.

[17:33]

I'm sorry, there might have been me bowing four times. Yeah, okay. I do that often. Have I bowed four times? How many times? Okay, so... the overnight enlightened guest. Yeah. This is really bizarre. We've all had guests like that. They're supposed to stay a day or two and they stay weeks. But did they get enlightened in that night or they were enlightened when they came? I don't know what it means. What did you say? I said the guest that was enlightened, you were enlightened.

[18:33]

No, the overnight enlightened guest. This is so funny. It sounds like the ghost, the enlightened ghost that stays overnight in Germany. Well, we have to find another term in German then. Okay, let's say it in English for a while. Okay, so, yeah, we also have the one who is not busy. Yeah, they're very similar. Yunyan says, you know, you should know the one who is not busy. But Yangshan, when he goes back to see his ordination teacher... His teacher says, this state of mind you've realized, who does it receive?

[19:46]

This state of mind you've realized, who does it receive? Now, this is all, these kind of distinctions we're making and these teachers are making are all part of what happens when you enter in to non-conscious waking mind. Can you say it again? Sorry. These kind of distinctions I'm making. We could say are distinctions that arise or that we notice when we gather ourselves into non-conscious waking mind.

[20:51]

So, sâshin means let's go back there. Sâshin means to gather the mind. All right, but let's look at that and let's define it in a new way. Sashin is to gather the mind into non-conscious waking awareness in a non-habitual posture.

[21:53]

That's the definition of the sheen. Okay, we can say again. Why we often start the day in Sashin and in monastic practice before dawn. And not just before the concept dawn, but also before first light and bird song. Because at that time you're mixing night mind and day mind.

[22:58]

We really should wake up or be in the cushion a little before we normally wake up. I think you have recognized that. Then you have to find some way to be comfortable in that, comfortable in your body and mind, and let this mixture of dream and waking and non-dreaming, deep sleep, all kind of come together. Now we're closer to the enlightened overnight guest. Because, you know, they're very similar. The one who's not busy and blah, blah, blah. But Yunyan is speaking about the fact that the one who is not busy means in the middle of your activity there's also stillness.

[24:35]

And you can feel that stillness. And it's the example it uses while he's sweeping. Yunyang is sweeping. And in this body culture, sweeping is related to the backbone. And the custom is in a monastery, when you sweep, which is very often, and when Gary Schneider, I've told you, went to visit his teacher, his Zen teacher, just before his teacher died, And Gary Snyder, das habe ich euch erzählt, ging seinen Lehrer besuchen, kurz bevor der Lehrer starb.

[26:00]

I said to Gary, there's only two things. Da hat ihm der Lehrer gesagt, es gibt nur zwei Dinge. He said, zazen and sweeping the temple. Zazen und den Tempel kehren. And no one knows how big the temple is. Und keiner weiß, wie groß der Tempel ist. When you're in a monastery, when you... sweep, you take the broom and often even physically do this and then you take the broom and hold it and you feel it in relationship to your backbone. So when I offer incense I feel also the Buddha as the one who is not busy. Okay, so that's the craft of this teaching, to come to know the one who's not busy.

[27:01]

The enlightened overnight guest Der erleuchtete Übernachtungskast. Yeah, it means someone who comes to visit you. Bedeutet jemand, der dich besuchen kommt. Yeah, and it's usually you don't see them. They just stay overnight and maybe they're in their pajamas at noon, but who knows. Normalerweise sieht man sie gar nicht. Also vielleicht haben sie den Pyjama zum Mittag noch an. You're in your pajamas. Go back to bed. You didn't translate that. That's all right. Okay. So that's the feeling of the mind that knows, let's say simply, non-dreaming deep sleep in the middle of your waking life. This emphasizes, this little example represents an approach to practice, a craft of practice, which

[28:22]

in various circumstances, is open to this zazen mind or mind that we realize, this non-conscious waking mind, Sorry, I have to straighten out. The practice notices or the access? This practice implied in the enlightened overnight guest is have a mind that's constantly receiving or open to the mind of zazen. And it emphasizes bodhisattva practice, where you're in the world, in the weeds, and yet the enlightened guest is also there.

[29:43]

Yeah, whenever you want. Hello, come on. Okay. All right. Okay, I don't know, maybe those distinctions aren't so useful, but I'm trying to elucidate or make clearer this funny approach to Buddhism that the Zen school developed. Yes, for some reason it's always ten to five or five to five when I finally get around to what I thought I might talk about. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.

[31:07]

Seven blooms, seven flowers, eight blooms. Sieben Blumen, acht Blüten. I think you've had enough, but I'll continue anyway. Ich glaube, ihr hattet genug, aber ich werde trotzdem weitermachen. Overload is sometimes good. Überladen ist manchmal gut. Then you give up. Now, you can play yourself with seven flowers and eight blooms. Yeah, and you can conclude that, yeah, okay, what's it about? Well, the eighth bloom must be your experience of the flowers. But then why are there seven flowers? Why not just one flower, two blooms?

[32:10]

Because then you have the problem of there's the flower in the world, in the garden, and there's the flower in your experience. And that's called the delusion of the double moon. Because that means you think, oh, maybe the real moon is in your mind and the moon out there isn't, you know, etc. And as you know from this koan of the yin-yang sweeping, when he says you should know there's one who's not busy, You all know the koan. Dawu, Yunyan's brother, says... Brother monk and real brother. Dawu, Yunyan's brother, says... You're too busy.

[33:52]

You look too busy. Er sieht diesen Yunyan also kehren und sagt, du bist viel zu beschäftigt. And Yunyan says, you should know there is one who is not busy. Und Yunyan sagte, du solltest doch wissen, dass es einen gibt, der nicht beschäftigt ist. And then Daoist says, ah, there's a double moon. Und dann sagt der Bruder, ah, da ist der doppelte Mond. And then he holds up the broomstick and he says, is this a double moon? Und dann hält er den... Okay, so now if I were to download, I'd start talking about putting the Raksu on top of the head, leaping off the flagpole. In case 40, you're also quoting Sheng Zhao. heaven and earth and I share the same root myriad things and I share the same body and it's in this context that Yuan Wu says

[35:00]

In the multitude of forms, and myriad appearances, there is not a single thing. Now, you also understand this is completely the opposite of common religious impulse in the West to speak about oneness. Somehow there's unity, a truth. Within a multitude of forms, And myriad appearances. There is not a single thing. Seven flowers, eight blooms. Eye, ear, nose, mouth, body and mind. Form a single hammerhead with no hole.

[36:57]

What is this Zen talk? What? What is this Zen talk? Well, you may notice some of the signs of practice. The pliancy, the softness of your skin after zazen, like a baby's bottom sometimes. It's better than any of these commercial skin treatments to keep you young. And the second example is the first slight, hard to notice, but then more and more bliss for no reason.

[37:59]

And pliancy and bliss for no reason are both signs of a developing practice. That also is a welded-together feeling. which is sometimes we have a word for it believe it or not udana as i mentioned which means prana breath chi spirit gathered together in you and and bringing body mind and the world together

[39:23]

Gather together with the world? They bring body, mind, and the world together. No, we have no word for this in English or German. This is another world we're talking about that has a different kind of language. But when you have this experience that I tried to uncover yesterday, For example. Yeah, the bell rings. You're not so comfortable sitting. Die Glocke ertönt und ihr fühlt euch nicht so wohl beim Sitzen. And yet you feel so much, all of one piece, you don't want to move. Und trotzdem fühlt ihr euch so sehr wie aus einem Guss oder aus einem Stück.

[40:41]

This is also that prana. Das ist auch dieses prana. And this is what Yuan Wu means, he says, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind become a single hammerhead with no hole. And that's what he meant with eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind become one single And it's the body or the... It's the body-mind which can break through, but there's no handle. These things make sense to us when we start experiencing them in our practice. And the myriad things begin to be welded together in our experience.

[41:52]

as some of you have said to me experimenting with using the wisdom phrase as some of you have said to me experimenting with using the wisdom phrase Got that. Okay. Observe also Seng Chau. Observe all things. Observe myriad things as oneself. Always observe myriad things as oneself. This is also from Seng Chau. He says... Or secure and intimate with the whole of reality. This is all within your grasp.

[43:39]

Please gather it in your non-conscious waking mind. Become familiar with it and it will be your treasure the rest of your life. Yeah, okay, okay. Sorry.

[44:10]

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