That was a very pleasant afternoon yesterday and meal together. The family way of the Sangha is most pristine. You know, I have a tea bowl Upstairs, as you can imagine, I might. It's not particularly good, but it's a kind of a classic type of tea bowl. And classic tea bowls have a front and a drinking spot, which are different. And it's just a good example, one of the best examples that I know of something like a tea bowl as an activity and not an object.

[01:06]

Yeah, so, you know, often I just have hot water in it. And I find that I tend to, not always, I tend to follow the pattern implied by the bull. Where there's a kind of... Start with looking at the front. Which has a kind of... creamy glaze like whipped cream almost coming down the front. And even if I drink from any place, I can feel still the implicit implied activity of the bowl.

[02:22]

And, you know, I understand from practicing the tea ceremony that when I make powdered tea, you know, I... would follow the pattern implied by the tea bowl. But when I'm just drinking some hot water, I'm surprised. I still kind of follow the pattern of the tea bowl. The tea bowl calls forth its identity as an activity. Yeah, I mean, it makes me think of the accomplishing work of great peace.

[03:46]

Has no sign. Yeah. But then it says, one song's comment on Qian Dong's line. Yeah, it says, when does the star on the banner show itself yet? Yes, like marching into activity, the star. In that sense, the T-Bowl is a kind of star. Or my turning the bowl is a kind of star showing on the bowl.

[05:08]

And in that sense we can understand the whole koan is a kind of star. Or even writing down that we don't practice steps and stages. Or saying no sign is still a kind of star showing on the banner. And I think I should emphasize that what I called yesterday the operant pause is a pause within the process of perception. It's a pause within the process of acting.

[06:10]

It's not the pause of some kind of spatial pause within zazen. It's a spatial pause in the midst of perceiving and acting. And the technical term I used yesterday, one moment comprehension. Yeah, as the moment before enlightenment or the comprehension of a Buddha. contains all six perfections, the paramitas. So there's this sense that this spatial pause, can include anything.

[07:31]

On the one hand, it's a pause that calls forth, it's a cessation. But as you practice this pause, which is a pause of cessation, Cutting off naming. Cutting off discrimination. At the same time it can call forth the practice of the field of the Four Noble Truths. as the one-moment comprehension can include all six perfections. Excuse me, did you say include the Four Noble Truths? Yes, include. Yes, as one-moment comprehension can include the six perfections. So each moment pause, each moment comprehension, or what I'm calling the spatial pause, can include, because it is a moment of cessation, you also feel the Four Noble Truths.

[09:03]

So this is an extremely... extremely amazing tool. As breathing can be an extremely amazing tool. As attention to the breath becomes a tool, a means of practice. The body pauses in the breath. And you can take that pause that's built into the breath and make it your practice.

[10:05]

Now, many of you, all of you maybe, are discovering, showing me how you take refuge in practice. Many of you, or maybe all of you, show me how you take refuge in practice. For us as practitioners, it is so that we do not take refuge in faith, but we take refuge in practice. And I would like to, if I can, deepen your sense of your ability to take refuge in practice. Because our life is a tapestry of difficulty and moods and anger and so forth. Betrayals, devadatas.

[11:13]

And in the midst of this, you know, practice can be there as an awareness of looking at what's happening and a refuge within what's happening. And a refuge within what's happening. So not a refuge from what's happening, but a refuge within what's happening. Yeah, and where Chen Deng's line, the family way of the peasants is most pristine, Yeah.

[12:25]

One song comments. How does that compare with me planting the fields and making rice balls to eat? No, no. Where does that come from? Well, it comes from page 51 of koan 12. Yeah, yeah. And so what we have here is this koan calling up another koan. And this is a process of filiation.

[13:26]

Filiation is like filial. And in English, filiation means descent and inheritance not through marriage. Okay. Das ist ein Prozess, der... wo man Nachfolge heranzieht. So filial is brother and sister, right? Also das Wort filial ist sowas wie Geschwister. So filiation is like affiliation. Und affiliation, das ist... oder affiliation ist wie Nachfolge oder... Verschwisterung. [...] And shun and yao are called forth are partly to be examples of virtue and benevolence.

[14:30]

And you probably all know who Shun and Yao are, right? You've done your work. Anyway, they're 23rd century B.C. That's a fairly long time ago. Yeah, not so long, actually. Okay, anyway, so, you know, as Shun married both of Yao's daughters, and he inherited the throne, so he didn't inherit it through marriage, he inherited it through, we can say, filiation. So shun and yao are used as an example of sort of a benevolence and virtue. But that's sort of denied because the family way of the peasants is already exemplary of benevolence and virtue.

[15:54]

So that suggests they're meaning something else. So another way the koan is emphasized as transmission or affiliation, lineage. So Yao and Shun are a good example of the passing of a tradition. And Qing Yao, Yuan, is the foundation of our lineage. So again, this koan is very early on in the Book of Serenity. It's establishing our lineage. And also, in a sense, calling up Yao and Shun is a deconstructing of the text.

[17:12]

In the sense that it's not saying, whether this really happened between Chin Yuan and the monk. The true blue monk. True blue comes from a dye used in Coventry, England, which didn't fade, a blue dye. So it means a committed person who won't lose his commitment or her commitment. jemand, der sich verpflichtet fühlt und seine Verpflichtung oder sein Engagement nicht verliert.

[18:35]

Okay, so Shun and Yao are used to show that this whole koan is the same kind of thing. As we call up Yao and Shun as examples of benevolence and virtue and so forth, we call up this koan as part of our history of our lineage. ziehen wir dieses Koan als Teil der Geschichte unserer Lehrlinie heran. And this Koan is meant to be written, composed, so that it holds together as a unit in our experience. Und dieser Koan ist darauf angelegt, so geschrieben und zusammengestellt zu sein, dass es... So it holds together as a unit of experience. So again, new Senguru is used the same way as the good advisor who is willing to speak frankly and say the great peace in effect has no sign.

[19:37]

Peaceful government has no special form. So your practice has no special form. You want to feel the path of your practice as having no special form. Du willst den Pfad deiner Praxis als etwas spüren, was keine bestimmte Form annimmt. And so then it says, he's all right by saying, giving the advice and then saying he's going to retire. Indem er also diesen Rat gibt und dann sagt, dass er sich gern niedersetzen würde. He already is creating a model, drawing a likeness. So that's used to point out that this koan is drawing a model, drawing a likeness, creating a model.

[20:56]

So the koan is instructing us how to use the koan. Now this may be kind of boring and tiresome of you to hear this technical stuff about a koan. But I think it's important to know this and have a feeling for this so that you can use the koan As a talisman, something you can invoke. Invoke, you have the same word to call forth. You can invoke it within the circumstances of your life. And it begins to establish a history within each of us, a shared history within each of us of the lineage.

[22:12]

So one song says, how can that compare with me planting the fields and making rice balls to eat? Now, if you know that koan, one song is calling it forth from you for you. Yeah. Yeah. Now, we could say that Wansong didn't have to point this out, but he did go to the effort in a grandmotherly way, as we'd say, to point it out. And how does that koan proceed, the case? And Dijang asks, where do you come from? And Shushan says, from the south. And Dijang says, how is Buddhism there these days?

[23:13]

And Shushan says, there's extensive discussion. There's extensive discussion. And then Dijon says, how does that compare to me planting the fields and making rice balls to eat? So one song puts that next to the way of the peasants, the family way of the peasants is most pristine. So that's equating the ordinary life of samsara. Thoroughly understood is nirvana. Because now he says the family way of the peasants Again, an idea of filiation.

[24:54]

The family way of the peasants is somehow equivalent to extensive discussion of Buddhism in the South. Okay, and how is that koan introduced? Scholars plow with the pen. Hey, we've got farmers here again. Orators plow with the tongue. Orators plow with the tongue. But we patch-robed mendicants. I love this line. But we patch-robed mendicants. Lazily watch the white ox on an open ground. lazily watch the white ox.

[26:10]

And at the end of the case, when he says, how can that compare to me planting fields, etc.? Shushan asks this question we all ask. But what can we do about the world? Yeah, which the news shoves in our face all the time. And Dijan asks with this, I think, extraordinary response, what do we call the world?

[27:14]

The world is a nexus of configurations of ideas. Yeah, and it's the experienced world. And where we have to start is the experienced world. And how do we enter the experienced world? Not the world of our thinking only. but more deeply our experienced world first of all. And that experienced world we can enter through as I've been repetitiously pointing out through the spatial pause or as accomplishing work in the process of acting.

[28:20]

The operant pause. So we could even say the operant ox. The ox of the moment. At each moment. We're lazily watching the white ox. I've many times told the story of no place to go and nothing to do. At each moment we can have this feeling, no place to go and nothing to do. Even in the moment of acting. And in this way we bring the two truths into one activity. And this is also the teaching of the five ranks.

[29:36]

So the operant pause is a cessation. But it's also like a funnel. And within that operant pause you can pour teachings. Like just now is enough. Or the white ox lazily, etc. Yeah, or mind, body, sight and emptiness. Yeah, or acceptance, what is it, and belonging. And the operant pause also becomes a shift.

[30:48]

We can bring a deeper intention into the present moment. The operant pause can be the way we bring Zazen mind into the present, the foreground, at least the background of our activity. Die operante Pause kann der Ort sein, durch den wir den Sasengeist in den Vordergrund oder zumindest aber den Hintergrund unserer gegenwärtigen Aktivität bringen. Und so wie der Körper durch den Atem atmet, so kann der Geist durch die operante Pause atmen und kann Weisheit in das hineinatmen, was wir tun. And now I think you can see that the moon is white. The wind is pure. Each falls into its own lot. Do you understand? Return to the hall. Then return to the hall. then return to lazily watching the white ox.

[32:10]

And in this sense, the price of rice is in the same category. Yeah. It's not, as it says earlier in the poem, a matter of, it can't be assessed. Es ist nicht so, wie das zuvor im Koran schon gesagt wird, dass es eine Angelegenheit, die nicht ermessen werden kann. Sondern es ist einfach das, was uns dargestellt. Das Weiße des Mondes. Der Preis von Reis. Der reine Wind. Versteht ihr? Dann kehrt zurück in die Halle. Okay? Thank you.

[33:09]

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