Yes, good afternoon. It sounded like, because I can hear right up the stairs, it sounded like you were still meeting around 4.30. Should we make it a little longer? What? What? We should watch the time, okay. Well, I mean, the schedules... Yes, the schedule is important, but on the other hand, if we're having a discussion and it's going along well, you don't need me and I can come later or something. You just let me know to come a little later. Okay, so, someone tell me something.

[01:02]

Again, we won't start with the first person, we'll start with the second person. I would like to mention something that I felt came up for quite a few people. Most people feel a kind of field of tension with a koan where there is something that attracts them. and at the same time a kind of impermeable world where you can't break through and where you don't know how to handle it.

[02:20]

Yeah, that's why I think if we can get a feel for just one or two koans, that will be a step toward finding your ease with other koans. So did you meet in small groups or in one big group? Oh, let's see, okay. Okay, and I read at least five pages of the text I wrote. two and a half decades ago. And I found it... I didn't disagree with it. But I found it kind of wordy and sometimes... Not as well to the point as I would like.

[03:34]

But anyway, I can only handle about five pages and then I stop. I promise I'll finish it. Okay. Yeah, someone else, yes. The first answer I thought might have been from the oncoming book. Oh, no. No, but there was... But then what came out in the discussion was that quite a few people just read koans quite extensively, and many koans, without probably yet practising properly with it. So there must be some real... unnameable attraction, but not a psychological one, but something that, like Gerhard said, you don't get, but something attracts you.

[04:37]

And at least I know that I think I read what I could get, just read. And I found it really interesting and for me it reflected, I was more interested in the reflection of the state of mind of the people who wrote it or presented it. So that was something like a mirror. You looked You looked in the mirror and you saw the ancient Buddha looking back? No, it's... Yeah, probably, but... Probably, this is good. It affects the state of mind or the mind of the person who wrote it. All I hope. Yeah. Yeah, as well. I thought the first thing he wrote would be from his book, but that wasn't the case. And I noticed that so many of us, obviously many of us, had already started reading. And so did I. And I found it interesting that for me the state, the state of mind or the mind of the person who reflected it, the one who wrote it.

[05:44]

And I tried to discover something like that. Yeah, there's a certain poetry and vividness to them, at least for some people. And that's, as you say, that's not necessarily practicing with them, but it's laying the groundwork. Let's call it that. I think when you start practicing them, when you come to a koan that attracts you, perhaps, but there's something that just doesn't make sense in it. Then you try to see if you can find the opening. Something else. Thank you very much.

[07:16]

You're welcome. We have to keep the translator from getting rusty. I don't know if water helps, but it might. She gets squeaky. Yes. I'm not so familiar with koans and I didn't have the access that I would just open a book and then read a lot of it. And I'm noticing that something within me is resistant to work with them this way. With the few that I read, it was the case that I pretty quickly was attracted by the poetry in it that I could work with.

[08:24]

And then sometimes during everyday activity or life a few parts or fragments come up and that's really exciting for me. And that to me seems as if something was shining, like one of these phrases was shining upon me or upon my mind and was reflecting something all the time. And then it also happens that when these cases are presented, it feels as if I was stepping into one of these scenes. And my wish at the moment is to really just deal with one or two koans and not to go through all of them in the books.

[09:44]

Well, you say you're new to koans or unfamiliar with koans. But you sound like an old pro. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's no reason we should go through a lot of them because that's not the way koans work. We want to work with one or two. But in this first Winter Branches on koans, I want us to look at koan practice in general, first of all. Okay, so, yeah, but we're speaking about koan practice in general by relating to the first koan at the present time.

[11:02]

Someone else. Yes. In this koan I'm... touched by the image of hitting the board and the energy that's in it. And in this way I can feel that whenever I go into the world kind of not holding back with energy, I feel something comes back which I can't anticipate. I don't know what happens because I don't control it. So, in that way, I get a sense that working with phrases, I get a feeling that this is how I would like to work with the phrases.

[12:06]

I have the experience of working with energy, but using a phrase and applying it the same way, I trust that that would work. I trust that it would work too, and please trust it in Deutsch. Yes, I have the experience that with the practice of going into a situation with energy, something simply comes back that I could not know before, and that it just repeats itself, that it works. I can imagine that with one wonderful thing once you find out how to work with koans a wonderful thing about koans is that you carry them with you

[13:12]

You carry them with you in a different way than, say, a sutra you carry with you. Of course, there can be a similarity. But if you... As Uli says, once you... have a feel for a phrase, it can start coming up in various circumstances. And as you know, I've often said, what a word does is it gathers energy. My simple example is the difference between asking who is breathing and what is breathing. There's not much difference.

[14:22]

Two words start in English with W and one's what and one's who. But the kind of energy that gathers in what is different than the energy that gathers in who. So a phrase really is a kind of... a little packet of energy that you direct into your activity. Yeah, and you kind of illuminate around the corners in your activity. It's like when a person's face face is open to you.

[15:33]

I mean there's often layers of intelligence of experience of beauty And you know, it's just a face, but when the face is open to you and you're open to another person's face, much of their life is layered in their face. And layered in the totality of their activity and presence. Each of us, we could say, is a kind of, as I said, I don't know, a while ago, is a kind of streaming.

[16:40]

Each of us is a kind of streaming. I don't think there's one common stream here. If I use this image or this metaphor, each of us is a kind of separate streaming. Would you like to use that word as more active than saying each of us is a separate or particular presence? Yes. So I could say presence or streaming. Presence as well, but I'm now saying streaming. And it's like if you could take your hand and cup it into your own streaming. And suddenly you see layers within the streaming.

[18:02]

And in a way you can sort of... the... phrase of a koan sort of can kind of uh cat you know like when you put your hand out of a car window you can feel the air you know Or a boat, you know, feel the water. Yeah, if we really accept and get it that there are no entities, everything is an activity. And you remind yourself of that until it's really the view in the background of your mind.

[19:03]

And even rocks are activity. And everything, this activity is kind of streaming. And you use a phrase to kind of enter the streaming of each object or each person or the world itself. But I suppose this isn't really possible until your practice has matured enough that that thoughts, words, phrases are always embodied, not just mental formations, but formations of the body.

[20:18]

Sorry, that was a little bit of a long riff, I'm sorry. Someone else. With this Quran one that you gave us to start with, it came to mind that how important Quran practice is and was in my life. practice, and for me there are kind of three pillars in my practice. One is zazen, the other one is sangha, living in the sangha with the sangha, and koan practice, working with koans. And this koan one just presents this question, brings up this question to me every time when I

[21:36]

I read a koan, and what... how can I say? Where does the koan pick me up? So every time I read it, once in a while I read the same koan again later, the koan picks me up somewhere else. And I remember where the koan picked me up earlier, so it's like a process that's endless to me, and that way this book is a kind of an endless book, it's not limited to one hundred koans, somehow. Okay, sounds good. Deutsch, bitte. this first koan as a basis, it became clear to me how important the koan practice is and was for me. And I can say that there are three pillars in my practice. The first pillar is the zazen, the second is the life in the sangha, with the sangha, and the third is the work with the koans.

[22:45]

And what I always find very exciting is, this has become clear to me especially with the first one, the question, where does the Koran take me? And when I read the same Koran later, it takes me to a completely different place than the first time. And in that sense, working with this book, with the 100 Korans, is a journey that is infinite, not limited to 100 Korans, but it is simply an infinite story. Yeah. Thank you. Going back to my speaking about streaming, you know, if you – this may seem like too extreme of a metaphor to make sense.

[23:52]

You don't experience a stone or another person is streaming. Yeah, I certainly understand if you don't. But, you know, the problem is that the world as presented to us by our consciousness is so convincing. Okay. And even if we understand intellectually that it's a world that's just presented to us, it is also the world in which we've formed ourselves.

[25:01]

the public or cultural or mutual space of a culture. As you know, I've pointed out that most cultures, I would say, until recently, don't have public space. They only have subjective space. There's no space that's open to everyone. All space is initiatory space. You have to be initiated to be in it. Like family or tribe or club or something. Now, if you don't understand what I mean by this, I would like you to bring it up.

[26:20]

Tell me what you don't understand. If you form yourself in subjective space, you have a very clear sense that I formed myself through my mother, my father, my family, my neighbors. If you form yourself in the illusion of public space, Which we do both. We form ourselves in the subjective space growing up of our family and friends. And then, but we shift to form ourselves in a public space formed by newspapers and governments and so forth. Sidewalks.

[27:31]

Hotel lobbies. Movies. Computer games. All these are a kind of public space. And the deceptive quality of it is we really think it's the truer space, truer than our subjective space of family. You can very clearly see when teenagers shift from Being formed through their family space to suddenly being formed through teenage public youth culture space.

[28:33]

Heaven forbid. What did you say? Be formed by the teenager way? A youth culture space. Hip-hop. You know, I read the other day where hip-hop comes from. Somebody thought it sounded like marching shoulders. Hip-hop, hip-hop. And then it became a term within the music world because of playing with DJs, you know. And some young people are able to manage a balance between the subjective space and the public space. But some young people go completely over into the public space. And then they have mostly an externalized life.

[29:53]

They don't have an internalized life. The point I'm making by saying all this It's not just that consciousness presents us with a convincing world. It's also that we formed ourselves in this world. So if you challenge this... The world is presented to us by consciousness. You challenge how we're put together. You challenge how we're constructed.

[30:55]

Do you understand? Do you see that that's the subject, one of the main subjects of this koan? The Buddha getting up on the platform Rostrum is not presenting public space. He's presenting something that's completely not public space. And what does Manjushri do? Now, I don't know what they had in the sense of courts and judges and gavels and things like that in those days. But certainly the Dharma is called the law because they thought the Dharma was the law, how things really are.

[32:08]

So for us, the gavel represents like a judge or court. And so Manjushri is saying, this is the king of Dharma. Not the king of society. This is the way things really are. Yeah, really are. This guy gets up and then sits there a minute and gets down. But the point of the koan is that this koan is pointing out this is the way things really are. Now, do you experience it that way? If you don't, you don't yet have a deep entry into the koan.

[33:30]

Now, maybe we can fiddle ourselves, fiddle ourselves? No, not really. Fiddle is... No, but to fiddle yourself is to wiggle into something. Maybe we can fiddle, wiggle ourselves into finding that, yeah, we actually feel this way. And I'm convinced you all do feel this way. And I don't care whether you think I'm wrong or not. Because you wouldn't be here if you didn't feel this way. Now I just have to convince you. Yes.

[34:47]

Listening to you, this morning I just read the introduction to the Book of Serenity with imaginary consciousness, dependent consciousness and absolute consciousness. What are the three? Dependent? Imaginary? Oh, yeah, the Yogacara three, yes. And you just showed this in the first koan. And I understand it with my consciousness. When I read the koan, I was... more moved by another phrase, the unique breeze... Of reality, yes. So how to bring these approaches together that it blooms?

[36:02]

Yes. Swiss-German, please. Do it, bitte. What Roshi said about the first koan reminds me of the words I read in the introduction to the book of Serenity, the difference between the immanent consciousness, the dependent consciousness and the absolute consciousness, the three of Yogyachara. and I understand it somewhat intellectually. When I read the koan, a different sentence touches me more or deeper, the unique crisis of reality, a different approach.

[37:05]

How do I bring it together to brew? That was high German, wasn't it? I have to. Yeah. Only David would understand. Oh, and Coco. And Bernd. Okay. Someone else? Yes. Yes. Now you talked about the different cultures and about the consciousness we are formed through. And now that I look at what we talked about, the first koan last weekend when we met, it feels like I'm noticing something in a new light.

[38:19]

Because all these stories about these men, and I've said this before, felt very foreign or strange to me because it is also so characteristic, these relationships between two men in a corner. So that was one cultural boundary or barrier for me. And then also the situation or the setting with teacher and disciple and this entire monk environment seemed a little strange to me.

[39:28]

Sorry to me. She's getting more monk-like every day, you know. She cuts her hair a little shorter every day. And then... But then there's another aspect of foreignness in it being a different culture, not in Europe and also so long ago. And what happened for me last weekend was very beautiful, where we simply let ourselves touch by the different aspects, the case and the verse of the Koran. And also particularly the subjectivity where everyone would talk about what is touching to them and what different layers that would come to move through that.

[40:48]

And also a change was noticeable when we started to sit with it in Zazen over time. And it felt something like as if we had formed a new culture within the Sangha. And there's a kind of self-confidence that we can also work to a certain extent without you. I'm being... And then this morning I was listening to you as if I was in a different state of mind while you talked about this koan.

[42:25]

And what I got from that was that I don't have to understand this, like usually. You mean you don't have to understand what I said or you don't have to understand the poem? No, you said that we shouldn't have the expectation to understand it in the usual way all at once. this so-height of this moment where you just put the stick like this. And then when you hit your little stick... My big stick. Yeah. When you hit with your stick on this wooden thing, it felt, for a second, it felt as if I was in the story.

[43:47]

It felt exactly like the story. And there was for a moment just this thusness. And now I notice that everything comes together as if we were these streams. And now when I put all these things together, it feels like as if we were mixing or merging all the different streams together. Okay. If I'm indispensable, I'm not a very good teacher. A failure, in fact. And in any case, I've heard that, you know, most human beings are dispensable eventually.

[44:48]

So I have to face the fact. But it also makes me very happy if the seminar you had together without me a couple of weeks ago or so, a few weeks ago, seems to have been quite satisfying. Nothing could make me happier. Because again, Buddhism doesn't make any sense if it's not something we all can do together. And I think what you said, we are in fact creating another culture within our culture here.

[46:05]

Perhaps by looking at koans, we can move this culture in a more substantial way within us and within us together. I mean I would say you know there's the sutras And the next big step in the development of Buddhism as a teaching is the Abhidharma. Yeah, to systematize and intellectualize, philosophize the teachings.

[47:06]

And then, I think for Zen practitioners, the next big step is koans. Which is sort of as if you took the... Buddha's teaching and kind of put the Abhidharma into it and then put it back into us as if the Buddha was talking to us in our own experience. And I agree that the monk... The monk monastic atmosphere of the koans is a little bit off-putting. But as Sukhiroshi used to say, we're a new kind of monk, a new kind of layperson.

[48:19]

I also agree that there's a male, sometimes macho atmosphere to the koans and to Buddhism in general, but particularly Zen practice. And I think it's more present in some koans than others. I'm going to give, if you don't say, I'm going to give you 30 blows. Women would only say 15. No, 70. 70? Oh my gosh, that's a net for you. Yeah, she doubles it and adds 10. Okay. But many koans, like this koan, you could have Ms. Manjushri hitting the gavel. Yeah, and Kuan Yin could be getting up.

[49:41]

Or Tara ascends the seat, spreads her skirts, arranges her nails, and then says nothing. But I think a difference that we probably don't think of right away is that in the Tang and Sung dynasties, even though there was a pretty developed urban culture, it was also a lot like cowboy movies, Wild West. I've been reading about, and some of you heard me speak about, Plenty Koops and the Crow Indians. His name, Chief Plenty Koops, you don't have to worry about it, and the Crow Indians.

[51:03]

And... they were all brought up to instill physical courage and readiness in each person, women as well as men. Physical courage and readiness in men and women. In those days, you had to be able to protect yourself. Like a street kid in the slums nowadays. That's one reason the martial arts were so important. And monks carried their own weapons. And one of the weapons they used were a rope with two balls on the end, and you could spin it and not kill somebody, but snare their feet and throw them down on the ground.

[52:12]

There weren't policemen or stuff like that. Everyone, like in Europe, people used to have umbrellas with knives in them and things like that. And there was an atmosphere that you had to be ready to fight. And if you weren't ready to fight, you probably got yourself in deep trouble or killed. So there's an atmosphere you see in the koans often of kind of combat, combative. But I think it comes from the culture.

[53:14]

It's not male so much. It's the way the culture was. You had to be able to take care of yourself and that is still present in Japanese monasteries. And so in this koan, there was a feeling that you have to be able to take care of yourself. People fire questions at you, pull the rug off, you have to be ready to take care of yourself. And we don't have that in our culture much anymore. So that atmosphere you can feel in the koans.

[54:23]

You mean we don't have the getting ready and being challenged that way or you feel like we don't have to fight in the same way? We don't have to fight or no, we're not really challenged in the same way. Physically? In every way. When I was at a heiji for instance, the general way you got out of the bell and cleaning core, bell, you rang the bells and you cleaned everything. You had to pass a kind of test. So since you're sitting in front of me, you've been here for three months, say. And so everybody gathers around you. And then they say to you, on Wednesday at four o'clock, what do you do?

[55:42]

And then somebody else says, Tuesday on three o'clock, what do you do? How often do you take baths? How often do you take baths? What did Durgin mean? And what did he mean when he said, and everybody, almost every monk starts to cry. They ask you details about the schedule. You have to know every aspect of the detail of the schedule for the whole week on special days and other days. And if you miss once, people then start challenging you. And then they start asking you Dharma questions. And every monk I saw, the first two or three times they did the test, finally collapsed in tears and couldn't function any longer. And one Westerner I know who was in the monastery slightly before me made a joke at someone else's expense.

[56:55]

Which in Japan you don't do. And so the monk who was embarrassed said he was going to kill this Westerner. And he was bigger and stronger. And they assigned two, and you can't appeal to the people above you because they just say, you guys have to solve these problems. So this monk was really bent on attacking this Westerner, wasn't he? Thank goodness! So whenever they were near each other, the monks decided that two of them would keep this one guy from attacking the Westerner. And he really wanted to. They'd hold him. And during service, sometimes, you know, while you're doing service, the abbot will suddenly, in the midst of service, I've told you this before,

[58:21]

Yeah. And we'll say, and Uwe's just chanting, we'll say, Uwe, here. And Uwe has to go stand at the back of the cushion. And then say, what is the essence of the Yogacara teaching? And everyone is, you know... Yeah, and Uwe says, I don't speak Japanese, I'm sorry. LAUGHTER And then, Lona, what do you think about this? You know, it's like this atmosphere, like this, you know. And this isn't exactly male. It's a kind of culture. You see it in Japanese parties. It would be nice if you're having a nice time and suddenly somebody will say, Katrin, please sing us a song.

[59:58]

Really. Isn't that true, Katrin? Then you have to stand up and sing. And whatever just happened to me, all I could think of was, roll, roll, roll your boat. Gently down the stream. Okay. Anyway, my point is we're not talking so much about a different culture back in time. We're talking about a different culture that could be now. So there's a strong atmosphere. Everybody should be ready. Everybody should be able to take care of themselves. And everybody should be able to kind of defend themselves against, you know, trying to... make you nervous.

[61:11]

There was a woman from our group too who went to Haiti before I did and they used to put, I don't know, frogs in her bed and things like that. They just try to see if they can disturb you. One last story to tell you how terrible it is. I had to go rescue one woman from a woman's Roshi's temple. And she'd had a pretty bad time.

[62:13]

One time she was going out to take the garbage. She put her feet in, quickly she put her feet in someone else's shoes and went out and dumped the garbage and came back. This is kind of unbelievable, but this is true. When they came in, they said, you should take your own shoes, not so-and-so's shoes. And they threw her down, and the various nuns or women started biting her. And so she complained to the woman Roshi. And then she called all the group together and literally congratulated the nuns, so-called nuns, for disciplining this woman with their mouths. So she wrote me a letter, they won't let me out of here.

[63:24]

Could you come rescue me? And luckily they couldn't read her English letter, so I was able to get the letter. And I went to the monastery and went in and saw the woman. First she said I couldn't see her. And I just simply insisted. And I was a little bit bigger than this woman. I said, you bring her here. So they brought her and I talked with her and then we talked privately and I said, you're going to leave with me, go pack. And the woman teacher, the abbot, said that she couldn't leave, but I simply said, she's going to leave, you just try to stop me.

[64:25]

Call the police if you might. So anyway, we got her out of there and brought her to Kyoto. Anyway, Oh, I could tell you some more stories. I'll tell you one more. This guy, I can imagine he was kind of a pain, but anyway he sold the monks at Eheji, they weren't doing Zazen, enough Zazen. So he would go up and sit in the cemetery. And they told him, sit on the schedule, don't sit in the cemetery.

[65:46]

But he thought this is an old tradition to sit in cemeteries and blah, blah, blah, so he did. And the next thing he knew, he was on a train in Kyoto going to Tokyo with all his stuff piled around him. And they'd come up behind him while he was sitting with a hypodermic needle and poked him in the butt He went out, they put him in a train, piled his stuff on and sent him off. And he woke up and didn't know what had happened to him. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is it's still a little like that in Japan.

[66:58]

I've seen monks who are tied up and their feet and hands tied together and thrown into a room. Yeah, go ahead. Did they do that to you? That's my question to you. They... I really... I took... I did what I told Uwe to do. I said, I really don't know Japanese well enough. So they did it to some extent. But I can't remember exactly how I did it, but I had to pass the test. But I passed the test by answering the questions and working it all out. And I don't know, I did it some other way, but... You know, they asked me, but I had them ask me slowly enough that I could understand and then answer the question.

[68:20]

So they didn't have the possibility to try to unnerve me. But I did have to take charge of the situation. I had to say, this is the way it's going to be, whether you like it or not, and I'm going to do it this way. It's about staying stable. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I'm sorry. That was a bad atmosphere maybe to tell you all that stuff. But I'm trying to be somewhat realistic about it. We don't do that here. We've never allowed anybody to put frogs in anyone's bed. We have a different culture here, but it doesn't change the basic teachings. What time are we supposed to eat?

[69:43]

Half past six. Half past six, okay. Okay. Sorry for all that, but I actually think it's maybe valuable to have a perspective on. Someone else? What is the subject of this comment? Anybody want to take a shot at it? Yes. To me this ascending the seat first is taking the posture of sadhana and in this posture observing each appearance and

[71:06]

And also, with naming it, or naming it a soul or this, that there's some disappearance, and where there is the an end to the observance the way it is just now and so somehow calling for a new fresh look at each situation and how to bring that into the world. Okay, let's do it in German, please.

[72:15]

Yes, so the first essence is simply to take in the Satsang attitude, in the attitude of looking at the world somehow, studying, and with every appearance, with every realization, actually a willingness to look at the new. Yes, that's a rather long version of the topic. Someone else wants to say something about the topic, yes. This question of what is the topic that distracts me or brings me away from my practice?

[73:23]

When I just step into my practice, then I'm not so active, but the phrases are guiding me and the streams are doing something with me. And when this question comes, then I am in a different world. And when this question is being asked, then I feel as if I was in a different world. This morning you said, it asks questions, and I don't bring them together, my own practice, it doesn't lead me to ask questions. Something comes, it goes again, everything goes through each other, And this morning you said that we need questions, but when I just am rooted in my practice, then I'm not coming up with questions, but rather things are happening, they are coming and then they are going.

[74:43]

Having to ask questions or this question brings me more into a rational mind. And I also have an idea of an answer, but it's not worth a lot. How do you know it's not worth a lot? Because I don't feel it physically. Well, you could say, I don't feel it physically, but my answer is... She's being silent, you see. Okay. I understand not that framing a question makes it feel more rational or something like that.

[75:56]

But in that kind of situation you can just speak about your observations. But here I'm also asking us to look at the koan from outside and very simply, what's the obvious topic? The mind that can't be put into words. Okay. Any other? Deutsch, bitte. Didier? Okay. But also very tools I can practice with, for example, how close my eyes are related to thinking, and how thinking somehow is a barrier in understanding the Koan.

[77:06]

It's not about eyes, various ways eyes are presented, that topic. Yes. German, please. Okay. Yes. also to get a feel for being very, very, very present in the very present moment. Okay, can you translate that? Yeah. In some ways, some of you are looking at more subtle examples or subtle descriptions of the subject than I'm looking for.

[78:16]

I'm looking for something real simple. Christa? For me, the focal point is the presence. Presence, yeah. David? Appearing, disappearing. Okay. It's possible to conceptualize the Buddha. Yeah, okay. I want to be the Buddha and Manjushri tells me I have to go through the weeds. Okay, yeah. Relative and absolute nature. Relative and absolute nature. Okay. Sort of four marks. Okay. Zazen. The four marks. Well... Embodied teaching.

[79:21]

Yeah. Well, Zazen is the closest answer. Or we could just say, because when somebody gets up to speak, you expect them to speak. And they don't speak. So that's, it's totally obvious, but that's the topic. Okay, so what is the difference between the mind that doesn't speak and the mind that speaks? This is what you said in a way. Okay. So the Buddha represents Zazen mind. Getting up on the podium represents usual everyday mind. So in the most simple sense, the subject of this koan is what is the difference between zazen mind and our usual mind.

[80:44]

Okay. Does that make sense to you? Do you accept that, sort of? If you don't accept it, tell me something else, yes? Yes, but it will take a long time. It gets boring to me as soon as something is being named, the process is stopped. Really? Well, we'll have to get it started again. Okay. Don't give up so easily just because it's getting too boring. Okay. All right. So let's say... All right. Erase the blackboard right now.

[82:02]

Why is this the first koan in the case, in the book? Yes? To me it more represents the minute the separation appears in our life, you have practice, you have delusion and enlightenment and that's what these figures also act out. And that's what our old practice opens up, what the book opens up. Okay. Dutch, I mean, Dutch, please. Dutch, please. Or you want to translate it? You want to speak German? Should I translate you? Okay. Yes. Maybe it's also about the... about zazen night in the sense of emptiness and the expressibility or the ability to teach or convey it, and the tension between these two.

[83:37]

Yes, Deutschpeter. Of course that's true. But let's not think so much. Let's just say, yes, there's the subtleness of the Buddha and the silence of the Buddha and Manjushri's and Gavo, etc.,

[84:38]

But none of this would be so unless there was a difference between Zazen mind and usual mind. Do you see how... You see I'm trying to make it very simple, right? Why am I trying to make it very simple? Okay. If we take, as Dieter said, it's maybe emptiness and things like that. Or others of you have said. For most of us, that's quite a ways before we get to emptiness as a kind of base, fundamental of our experience.

[85:41]

We want to enter this koan. So let's make it as simple as possible. This koan is the first koan in the book. And for various reasons, it's the first koan. And I think we should notice why it's the first koan. I mean, they didn't put these in a basket and shake it, and this one fell out, and they said, oh, let's make this one first. The compiler decided to make this one first. Why he did that, we should have some understanding of. But also why he did it, because what is the basic difference between a Buddha and a non-Buddha?

[86:44]

Or is there a difference? That's the question. And that's why perhaps he's called Mr. Who. He's given the epithets of a Buddha, but he's not called a Buddha. Er bekommt die Eigenschaften eines Buddhas, aber er wird nicht Buddha genannt. Er wird der von der Welt Verehrte genannt. Und wenn wir da jetzt nachschauen, was bedeutet der von der Welt Verehrte in der Sprache des Buddhismus, Where does the world-honored one occur in Buddhism, as a phrase? Several places, of course. But I think most dramatically and famously, the Buddha, when he's born, takes seven steps, this is the story, and raises one finger like Goethe.

[88:18]

And says, I alone, like Goethe. Do you remember any story about Goethe raising one finger? I actually do. That's why I said that. You do? Well, tell me the story about Goethe raising one finger. I don't know the story. I just know the picture of it. Oh. Okay. Well, that was a good shot in the dark. What did you say? Gute. Gute is the Japanese word for this Zen teacher who held up one finger. Okay. Yeah. And you can see the cutting off of the finger or the killing of the cat are all of the culture I was talking about earlier. And you can understand from my feeling when I told those stories that this was deeply disturbing to me to go to Japan and see this. You know, I could understand it.

[89:38]

Here's a society that is not a modern society and has developed its own own way you know people do citizens arrest citizens arrest in america anybody can arrest another person you don't have to be a policeman you can arrest another person well japan societies develop a way to deal with lawlessness And if you don't have an appeal to higher authority or to the police, then people in general have to control lawlessness. And Japan developed its own internal way, cultural way, not just monastic, of dealing with lawlessness.

[91:03]

As they say, the nail that sticks up gets hit. And from 1945 until 1945, 68 when I went there. When did you go back? 86 or 68? From 45 when the war ended until 1968 when I went to Japan. Hundreds of Americans went to Japan to study Zen. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. I only know two. out of the maybe 1,000 people who actually was able to do it.

[92:16]

They tried it, and they didn't like it. It didn't work. It's too weird. And the Japanese didn't want them. I was one of the first that made a success of it, sort of a success of it. But I had to deal with this culture, which was, I mean, you know, It wasn't very pleasant to see monks tied up and thrown in rooms, shouting, drunk. When I was there at Daitokuchi, a monk died of spinal meningitis. What is that? It was extremely contagious.

[93:30]

And when I went to get a shot at the hospital, they gave me the shot like this, literally. And I went to the monastery and I said, this monk died of spinal anesthesia. It's extremely contagious. I've arranged for you all to get shots. And they looked at me and they said, don't mess with us. He died because he's weak. That was it. No one got shots, except me and my family and Philip Whelan. Yeah. So I had to sort out Buddhism from this culture and say, hey, it's not contaminated by this way of being. Also musste ich den Buddhismus aus dieser Art von Kultur herausziehen und sagen, ja, das wird von dieser Art zu sein nicht beschränkt.

[95:03]

And we're trying to create another kind of culture in which to practice Buddhism. Und wir versuchen ja auch eine andere Art von Kultur zu schaffen, in der wir Buddhismus praktizieren wollen. And there's nothing wrong with, I think, the way the Japanese did it. It's just that it was inherited from the Middle Ages and it's quite different. It was inherited from samurai culture and it's quite different. Okay. Now, if we simplify this case to what is the difference between Zazen mind and our usual everyday mind, Without any idea of the subtlety of the teaching, what does silence mean, etc. Then we can explore our own experience of what is the difference between Zazen mind and our usual everyday mind.

[96:05]

dann können wir an unserer eigenen Erfahrung untersuchen, wo ist der Unterschied zwischen dem Sazengeist und unserem gewöhnlichen Alltag. Wenn du dort mit der Untersuchung beginnst, dann wird das den Koan öffnen. Du musst einen Ort finden, an dem der Koan mit deiner Erfahrung zusammenfällt. And that may be somewhat different for each of you, but at least all of us are in the midst of the difference between zazen mind and usual everyday mind. And I would say that all of Buddhism is about the difference between zazen mind and everyday mind. All of the teachings and all of the koans are about the difference between zazen mind and usual mind.

[97:15]

So this koan states this very simply. It doesn't say much about the relationship between Zazen mind and usual mind. Which Uwe brought up. Uwe basically brought up the Yogacara teachings. What? Evo, I mean. Evo brought up the difference, brought up the Yogacara teachings of the three minds, three truths. This is about the relationship between zazen mind and usual mind. That's another step.

[98:29]

We're not talking about the relationship between Zazen mind and everyday mind in this koan. That comes up in the next koans. In this koan it's simply about, is there a difference between Zazen mind and usual mind? And in this apocryphal story, apocryphal means made up or, you know. Mm-hmm. It's presented as simply as possible. He gets up and he doesn't say anything. But you've got this book. Do we close it and sleep? Or do we open it? Opening the book is ascending the seat.

[99:31]

Opening the book is to decide To ascend the seat. Das Buch zu öffnen bedeutet, sich zu entschließen, den Thron zu besteigen. Okay. So the first koan just says, do you know the difference between zazen mind and usual mind? Also der erste koan fragt einfach, kennst du den Unterschied zwischen zazen geist und gewöhnlichen geist? Explore this difference. Untersuche diesen Unterschied. Until you explore this difference, you can't really begin to experience the relationship. Okay. Okay, so let's sit a minute and then we'll... Ahem.

[100:43]

So we're not only making Buddhism within ourselves and making a Buddhist culture within our own culture. We're making a new kind of Buddhist culture. And koan practice can be at the center of this. Particularly if we can shake loose the essential basic teachings. Especially when we can loosen the essential, fundamental teachings a little. Or can shake them out a little.

[103:34]

What is the difference? Is there any difference between this mind and our usual mind?

[104:36]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_75.43