How are you all doing? So we're at the psychic midpoint of Sashin. Not that that helps much, but yeah. Even though I know it's pretty difficult, I'm so grateful to be practicing with you perhaps most of all because it's the best way for me to discover, to feel your large body. Also, it lets me enter into my own practice with you. And then last, I guess for the talking about today is that it gives me a chance to talk about things that really I couldn't talk about in a seminar.

[01:08]

Most situations, except practice period, I could. Which is I want to... I said yesterday that Buddhist practice is mindfulness, meditation, zazen, and analysis. And I don't think it's clear to us how embedded Buddhist practice is in analysis. So I try to see if I can make that clear, give you a feel for it. Right views, of course, is the first. I keep coming back to that. It's the first of the Eightfold Path, the beginning of the teaching. And views in the end are, for the most part, opened up through analysis. Now, the analysis has a very particular purpose in Buddhism, which is to clarify your thinking.

[02:25]

We can say even to train your thinking. And I know that some of you, particularly the painters or artists and poets among you, will kind of probably object to the idea of training your thinking because we're over trained as it is. But I think this kind of training is necessary because actually our thinking already is apparent to you, is muddled with views. Every thought you have carries habits of perception, habits of thinking, and so forth. So it's good to clarify those. Now one of the objections is that we lose randomness, chaos, tangential thinking, and so forth, if we train our thinking too much.

[03:28]

But the kind of training that Buddhism emphasizes actually increases the power of randomness, tangential thinking, chaos. Now the main views of Buddhism are that everything's changing. And since everything's changing, because there's no controlling deity, then there's an own organizing process going on. So first of all in your thinking there has to be the patience for the non-attachment, for the equanimity that allows an own organizing process to go on. I use For those of you who aren't familiar with it, I don't like to say self-organizing because I'm a Buddhist, so I say own-organizing. Non-self-organizing processes.

[04:33]

And second is that everything is interdependent. Interdependent with itself, interdependent with other things, and interdependent with itself because everything's changing. Interdependent with other things and interdependent with you, with beings. So that also should come into our thinking. And finally, emptiness. Now the gate to emptiness is One of the main gates to realizing emptiness, creating the conditions for an actualized realization, is to come to an internalized interdependence in your thinking, as a matter of habit.

[05:45]

Now analysis also, kind of analytic meditation, and when you follow a thought to its source is probably the most dynamic, psychological-like process in Zen Buddhism, is the practice of following a thought to its source, which allows you to find a functioning, dynamic home in your mind. Because generally we actually don't know where to locate ourselves in our mind. It slips around. We create meta-observers that we identify with, but following thoughts to its source. So you're present, finally present at the triggers, the sources of emotions and thoughts. allows us to locate ourself in a very basic way.

[06:59]

It's also the source of this idea which I said yesterday, iron being. An iron being also has the quality of water in the sense that it's non-resisting. And it has the quality of fire in that it's a digestive process, immediate engagement. And it also has the quality of space in that it covers everything. But the pivot, the so-called unwobbling pivot, is the sense of an iron being, of unshakable intentionality. And that's also discovered through this practice. One of the roots to this is the practice of following thoughts, emotions, feelings, mental appearances to their source. The 27th Patriarch, Hanyatara or Prajnidhara, asked Bodhidharma,

[08:08]

Where, among all things, what is formlessness? Among all things, what is formlessness? And Bodhidharma said, non-arising is formlessness. This is a very analytic, actually, answer. because it's understood in Buddhism that, for many reasons it is, but one is that appearances, when all things appear, they arise. So among the arising of things, what is formlessness? And Bodhidharma says, I mean, they say Bodhidharma, he's probably not a real guy. mostly fiction-wise, but in any case, for our purposes, he said, non-arising is formlessness. So non-arising, it's also the route to discovering, and I mean, and this is a very, not a, on Bodhidharma's case, as these words are put in Bodhidharma's mouth by I'm sure realized teachers, um,

[09:28]

It's not a philosophical answer, it's a practice answer. What is, among all things, what is formlessness? It's a good question, you know, it's not the kind of question you ask the average guy. Hey, among all things, what's formlessness? But Bodhidharma, he says, non-arising is formlessness, which means Realize the mind of non-arising. Hold to the moment before thought arises. This is also the practice of the root, one of the roots to this is the practice of following a thought, a motion, a feeling to its source. So the practice of analysis makes us recognize that everything's changing.

[10:51]

And it makes us recognize that everything's interdependent. And joins us with the, internalizes in us the habit of thinking interdependently. integrating our mind, body, and the physical world. This primordial energy, Hakuin Zenji talks about primordial energy or primordial vigor, original vigor. And he says, distill this vital energy. protect it, nourish it, and store it in the elixir oven, which means your tandem or your hara. So again, this is very practical.

[11:54]

I mean, it's practical if you get to the point where you know what's being talked about here. You can feel this kind of energy, and you can feel how you can protect it and nourish it. And it's also at the root, it's almost before our immune system arises. It's also our immune system which differentiates us from what's not us. Also, there's a point you can be, you can find the point at the source of your immune system and begin to have an amazing participation in what happens to you physically. It's not a cure-all, but it's an amazing participation in your states of mind and body. So what I'm talking about again is based on

[13:04]

an analysis, and integrating mind, body, and thinking, and the interaction with the world. Now, I have to take a very simple example, one which I've used in Sashin in Europe, but I'll carry a little farther, the Gamachio tray. And I say this and I'm talking some of this I've talked about before, but it's interesting the degree to which we don't feel it. Now I'm talking about this as Buddhist practice. Now one of the things that Zen does is builds the practice of analysis into the details of the life in a monastery, the practice period, the sashin and so forth.

[14:19]

So that things are seen in tremendous and small detail Because there's a grammar, now we talk about body language, it's very common nowadays, and it mostly means something like flirting, I think, for most people. I talked to a woman who did an experiment at Stanford in gazing. You know the feeling you have when somebody is looking at you from behind and you turn around and they are or a common experience of people is they're in a car and they feel, and they turn, somebody's looking at them from a car. So she set an experiment at Stanford where they actually had people two or three rooms removed watching a television set.

[15:25]

And they would gaze at this person in the television set who was, and about 15% of the time, I guess there was a more, the person responded, was being gazed at. Not even directly, but at the television set. So I'm not trying to stretch science or try to say that we have no explanation for these things. But one of the things she discovered is that there was a greater response between the opposite sex or perhaps when sex was involved or sexual feelings, I don't know. But in any case, Intentionality had a lot to do with it. The more you had a feeling of intentionality in this gazing, the more the person was likely to pick up that they were being gazed at, even through the television set. Now Buddhism assumes, as I always say, that space not only separates, but space connects.

[16:31]

Now, if it does, how are you going to discover this? Now, body language, as I started to say, has its own grammar. Now, we kind of feel like we're being over-trained sometimes in Zen, or there's too many little details, and why the hell do I have to carry the gamashio tray a certain way? It's totally stupid. I mean, I feel that way sometimes. But... We're used to it in language. We don't get nouns and verbs mixed up. But in the physicality of this, body language is not right word, but in a body culture, the language of integration of mind, body, and the physical world has a grammar to it. It has verbs and nouns and so forth. Okay. So let's do a simple analysis of the Gamashiyo Tray. First of all, someone's bringing you the gamashio tray, and you have to put your salt, your gamashio, back on the tray.

[17:46]

Now, logically, by analysis, since other people have to put it on the tray after you, it makes sense to put it toward the back. You also want to put it back toward the backs of the person carrying the tray. The weight works okay. That's pretty obvious. It's sort of manners, social manners. You put it in the back. You can feel, I can feel when it comes around, I can feel the lingering mind on each one. I can see, that was put in, that was that person, and that gamasya was that person. They carry the atmosphere of the person who put it down, you know. So then from the point of view of analysis in Buddhism, there's two ways to put your gamasya on the tray. There's only two ways. One is at the back,

[18:51]

Also, so the weight works for the person carrying the tray. Or, randomly. Those are the only two possibilities, from the Buddhist point of view. You just put it on any old place. Chaos. That's okay, too. But to put it on in a muddled way, that just causes trouble. Okay, so that's simple. But now, let's look at it... Because it's also not just the interdependence of the gamacho cups and the tray and the server and the other people, but it's also the physical interaction. I don't know. We have no words. Psychic? No, because there's no psyche here. Yes, there is. I'm sorry I made a mistake.

[19:54]

I'm sorry. Still, there's no psyche here. So, I don't know what we say. Anyway. So when a person, now almost everyone, when they bring me the tray, try to make it easy for me to put the salt on the tray. They move the tray around, seeing where the best hole is on the tray to put the gamashio. And that's very kind of you. but it doesn't stand up to analysis. Because first of all, you have to move your whole body, and I only have to move my hand, so it's much more efficient for you to just stand there and let me find the place.

[21:01]

And also, we don't want to fiddle too much with what people did, because the history of what people did is as it is, and we don't have to kind of adjust the tray. So you just come and you place the tray. But more fundamental is, and I don't know how to explain this exactly, because I've talked about this in relationship to the orioke, so you've heard me, which is that when we pick up something in the orioke, we pick it up and bring it into the field of our body and then place it down. And in effect you're empowering the physical object or you're investing the physical object with your own spiritual body or energy or something. As I often say, quoting Suzuki Roshi, found the strangest thing that we Americans do is we pass things with one hand.

[22:07]

Because when you pass things with two hands, you use the salt or whatever you're passing to pass yourself to the person. So I talked about this so many times, but yet when you stand in front of me with a tray, you don't realize the tray, when you're carrying the tray, it's a noun, shall we say. When you're standing in front of me with a tray, the tray becomes a verb, and it's a kind of instantaneous United Parcel service. And a package is being delivered, depending on how you stand there. And when you try to move the tray around, you take away from me the opportunity to bring this gamashio into the space of my body and move it onto the tray and into you. I mean, that is basic Zen practice.

[23:09]

So you honor the person by just coming and standing in front of them with the tray and it actually makes a little bridge. At that moment it becomes a verb and the person who's putting the gamashio on the tray also turns the gamashio into a verb and you may not be able to feel it at first but something happens at that moment. A grammar of action from farmer chops wood, from a noun to a verb to a noun, happens. I pass the gamachio, put it in the tray. Now that kind of analysis of the interdependence of the gamachio not only to itself and to the tray and to the surface, but as a relationship to what?

[24:24]

Our chakras. And it's not accidental when you pick up the cloth bag to put utensils in it, you put it right here at your heart. You take it out. And the word heart In English, German means something like cord or chamber or to put your trust in. And there actually are kind, there's a kind of, I mean this sense of mind and heart being the same word in Chinese and Japanese, there is a kind of cord or line there. And when you bring something into this, it's almost like there's an architecture to the body, outside the body, that you articulate in how you handle physical objects. And what all this stuff we do is trying to teach you is to put you in a position where you get it.

[25:29]

And if you don't get it, the poor teacher has to criticize you all the time. You did this and why didn't you do this and why did you move the tray? Why didn't you put the work in? And I get quite tired of that, you know. So now I'm trying to explain it. So I don't have to criticize you. But there's a kind of grammar that's as precise as grammar in language of recognizing everything changing an own organizing process, the interdependence of you and the physical world and the physical world with itself, that if your thinking is integrated with that, then it's very easy to be much freer of your thinking and it's also a gateway for the realization of emptiness. Because emptiness shines through interdependence. So it's not just, oh, interdependence, yeah, that's a good ecological idea.

[26:31]

Your basic physical habits and thinking habits have to reflect this interdependence. You get it? And one of the ways you come to this is through analysis. And then analysis is also, because it establishes right views, the ground, the basis of stabilizing meditation. Until you come to an integrated, interdependent interdependence of mind, body and physical world, your meditation can't be deeply grounded and developed. So the All these things, you know, Buddhist culture, tea ceremony, the orgy, etc., are all based on an analysis of this, an act, manifestation of this interdependence of mind, body, and the physical world, and to just teach you these habits till it clicks in.

[27:43]

And one of the main ways is that you articulate this architecture of our larger connecting body, the valences. Bonds, juxtapositions, the yoga of joining juxtapositions, the bonds are electrical and chemical and they have valences. Valences is the capacity for connectivity. And those valences are determined by intentionality and way-seeking mind and the clarity of one's thinking. Now, at first you may just notice subtle things like, well, of course, since we're not bathing too much, your neighbors may not be so subtle anymore. But you notice subtle things like the heat of your neighbors. And if you can start to feel the heat of somebody approaching you, before they get to you, you can feel their heat.

[28:59]

And this zendo is so well insulated, we practically don't have to have the heat on if we have 20 or 30 people in it. Because even with the doors open and the cracks, it stays pretty warm. So you're all heating this room. And one person on your right will have one heat, and the person on your left will have another kind of heat. And once you get more sensitive to the heat, you'll see that in the heat that you feel, there's an electrical quality. This is just happening. Animals feel it. We don't feel it so much. But Zen practice is partially based on recognizing interdependence in the full grammar, full language of this interdependence, which includes the valence or the various capacities for connectivity or connectedness. And it's meant to be taught in these things, like the oryoki and service and how we do things, you know.

[30:05]

So, you know, even how we place these mats now, generally, if we lived here together for a while, after a while, it's analyzed down to exactly how it fits in the room the best way, then everyone just does it that way. But that analysis allows By training your thinking, it allows your thinking to suddenly join and integrate with the physical world. So the physical world in its own organizing processes and your own begin to find a pace. So there's a kind of... Fassoa has a book and a poem which he calls, The Surprise of Being.

[31:09]

And when someone comes to serve you, stands in front of you with a tray, they're really not just presenting the tray or the convenience of getting rid of the gamashu, which smells like dirty feet sometimes, They're just presenting the surprise of being on someone. And the warmth is there. A kind of energy is there. When I was in Europe, they had me talk in Heidelberg about horses. Horses have a higher body temperature than us and a slower heartbeat. So I guess it helps disturbed kids to work with horses. So this psychiatrist or psychotherapist, psychoanalyst friend of Ulrika's is this stable.

[32:13]

Started this stable so they had me speak there. What the heck I'm going to say? Does a horse have a Buddha nature? But I tried to find something to say since they asked me to. But what was great is while Klaus, the psychoanalyst, was speaking, someone brought into this audience, it was like an auditorium, a horse. And the horse was suddenly standing in front of the audience. And the horse looked at everybody. What the hell are you doing in here? And everybody looked at the horse. You know, it's like if suddenly I had a big white horse standing here, you know. White ox. It's, I mean, there was the surprise of being. The horse had a tremendous physical aliveness that you don't see in the stable because you say, oh, it's a horse. But, you know, I didn't, I expected a psychoanalyst and I got a horse. And it was incredible. But when somebody comes to the gamashya tray, you know, it's not just, there's a surprise of being as that person stands there and just presents themselves.

[33:23]

Presents the tray, which is like a bridge, holds it right at this level, and then you present the gamashya I mean, you get the sacredness of these simple acts that we can live in moment by moment and can guide us and teach us and educate our immune system, educate our body and everything. And I, as well as I think most of you, are not in touch with that so much. But Sashin reminds us in the deep wisdom of Zen training, Zen practice reminds us. The whole world is honored in each moment.

[34:48]

This staff is a I carried it today because I I think it's a remarkable little sculpture. It's a teaching staff. And I've shown it to most of you in Europe before. But it's a very good example of analysis. It's a stick. And the root of these sticks, most of them are back scratchers. And some of them are whisks to get the flies off in the hot weather. And some of them have mushrooms to represent meditative transcendent experience. But this one is a lotus staff. And let me say something about how it comes about if you look at it. You see that down here is the lotus embryo. which is the, you have them in Japanese soups.

[36:09]

You have a little clear embryonic thing with a little tiny lotus in it, if you look at it. It's in Japanese soups a lot. But that's the embryo. And that's the bud. And this is the seed pod. And also, as is typical with these sticks, this represents the backbone. So that's the curve of the backbone. So the teaching staff is to hold the backbone, which is energy, and it has two, and there's these two channels that go up your back that carry kundalini energy. And so you have these two stems, which are shaped like the backbone. And when I carry this, and if you look at the lotus embryos in my hand, if you look at statues of bodhisattvas, Often if they have a flower here, if you trace the flower, there'll be a little line that hides in the folds of the clothing and runs around into the hand.

[37:09]

So this is the source. This is the bud. This is the seed pod. And the chakras are here too. This one, this one, and this one. All in this little stick. But what's not here? The flower itself. Because the flower that the Buddha held up has to bloom in you. So this is a perfect example of the Buddhist process of analysis. The backbone, the stick, I mean the embryo, the bud, the seed pod. But the flower of emptiness is only can bloom in you. When you have this pace and you find the uniqueness of each moment,

[38:21]

the surprise of being of each moment. When you chant something like we do, homage to Manjushri Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva of perfect wisdom, it's not just words you say, you experience homage as you say it, or an integration with this Bodhisattva. As you know more about the Bodhisattvas, when you chant that you can feel Manjushri, this kind of power coming into you. Samantabhadra, this kind of universal wisdom. But that's, again, this practice of the living word where each word is integrated with the physical, the mental, and the world itself. Just to taste this brings us to an incomparable sense of home.

[39:31]

It will be one of those bulbs that bloom in you over the years. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

[39:58]

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