The accomplishing work of great peace has no sign. You know, I hope this doesn't sound too odd, but I'm honored to be speaking to you about this. That the years of my practicing and our practicing together allow us to talk about this teaching. It's, to me, wonderful and extraordinary. Yeah, I mean, it's not such a big deal, but it's, you know, important. And at this point I think it's surprisingly simple.

[01:18]

The difficulty is it's simple if there's an accumulated familiarity with the teaching and your own experience. And that's when it's difficult? It's not difficult. Yeah, and if it's simple, it should be easy to speak. Yeah, but I'm speaking in words, and words are... You know, slippery. And the words and phrases are embedded in our experience. And it's very difficult really to shake our experience, our cultural experience off the words and phrases we use.

[02:29]

Yeah. Okay. Anyway, the accomplishing work of great peace has no sign. Well, I think we can easily take this sentence as the kind of turning sentence or the key sentence for the whole koan. Although it's typically glossed, made to look like, although it's typically glossed or made to look like part of a narration, about the emperor and his advisor and bringing peace to the land and so forth.

[03:39]

But take off the story, which is a kind of light veil over the koan, And then you have a Buddhist statement. Great peace is a word for nirvana. So now we have the The accomplishing work of nirvana has no sign. So the practice of nirvana is the practice of no sign. So the practice of nirvana is no sign, is also no steps and stages. But I thought nirvana was when you're dead.

[04:55]

Of course, that's pari-nirvana, super-duper nirvana. Paul, what did the great yogi, Yogi Berra, say about surprise me? Would you tell us? You can translate. His wife said to him, We grew up in St. Louis. We grew up in St. Louis. And you played baseball in New York. And we live in New Jersey. So if you die before me, where would you like to be buried?

[06:02]

And he said, surprise me. So how do you practice nirvana? Surprise me. So it's difficult to practice nirvana. Look, we have a new term, non-abiding nirvana. We're talking about a sort of different kind of nirvana, a nirvana you can practice. Now, the Buddhist world is an experienced world. Yeah, I mean, there's the world of science, you know. And that's part of our knowledge. And, you know, wisdom, too. And it affects how we view our experience.

[07:25]

But the world that we know is the world we know through experience. And our knowing is shaped through experience. So how we know is the result of knowing through experience. And so what is the source of our knowing? It's our five senses, physical senses and mind. Okay. Now, mind, I mean, they say the six senses counting mind. But, you know, maybe it's easier to understand if we say the six sources of knowing. Because mind is part of each five physical senses.

[08:31]

And it's also a separate way of knowing. You can initiate ideas and concepts somewhat independent of your senses. So there's the mind that accompanies each sense. I mean, just to hear something without it being known in the mind is not hearing. Also gibt es den Geist, der jeden Sinn begleitet. Denn wenn du etwas hörst ohne den Geist des Hörens, dann ist das eben nicht hören. Yeah. And so there's the mind that accompanies each sense and there's mind itself.

[09:37]

Also gibt es den Geist, der jeden Sinn begleitet und dann gibt es auch nochmal Geist selbst. So let's call these the six sources of knowing. Okay. Now, if the only way we know is through these six source senses, Yeah, and we don't live in a worldview where we have some special inner knowing that comes from some other source. If we take Wittgenstein's simple statement beginning at the Tractatus the world is all that is the case. The world is all that is the case, and the only way we know the world is through our senses.

[10:56]

Then the job of any explorer, any adventurer, or at least an adventurer, an explorer, an adventurer of how we exist, is to try to participate in how we know. To understand or participate in how we know. How do we know? Okay. Now, a little aside. Most of you know that I had a cataract operation four or five weeks ago.

[12:05]

Yeah, I'm sort of half bionic now. Yeah, because I have two implanted teeth now and a plastic lens, you know. And there's enough medical skill in this room to replace a few, I don't know. We're already working on Paul. So, So what they did is a miracle of modern medical technology. So Sophia, I told this story in Rastenberg. And that's when I found out about it. Sophia heard that my eye was slid open. And she said, how did they do that?

[13:25]

I don't want my eyes slit open. So I tried to explain, you know, the way I understand. And then she said, she suddenly said, it's so frustrating, it's so frustrating. What is frustrating? She said, my body knows how to see, but I don't. Oh? This is a very acute observation. I mean, if we study it, First, I mean, mainly, if she's talking about I, herself, or the pronoun I, she's speaking about a knowledge derived from language.

[14:27]

So it's clear that German and English the only languages she knows, make her think that her body is not herself. She is her consciousness. And her consciousness doesn't know what her body knows. That simple observation itself can lead one into being a Buddhist. That she doesn't know what her body knows. Why is that? I told her, well, if you have a baby, your body will tell your baby how to see. Yeah, well, okay.

[15:37]

I don't know if I have a baby, she said, but I still don't know how I see. Okay. So she doesn't know She doesn't know how her body knows. And she says she wants to know. How can we know? Okay. Okay. So how can we participate in the experience of knowing?

[16:46]

Okay. So, you know, it somehow has been discovered that in the meditation we know things sort of differently. Es wurde irgendwie schon entdeckt, dass wir in der Meditation die Dinge irgendwie anders kennen. And we know and decide and perceive sort of all at the same time. Und wir wissen und entscheiden und nehmen wahr gleichzeitig. How do we create an awareness within perceiving, deciding, knowing, etc. ? Wie können wir jetzt ein Gewahrsein im Wissen entscheiden und wahrnehmen schaffen? And that's what I tried to talk about yesterday. And that's what I tried to talk about yesterday. So you have to create some kind of space where you can experience knowing occurring.

[17:53]

Okay, now, so I've said, create a spatial pause, let's call it that. Now, pause, the word pause, the etymology in Latin and Greek is to cease. So, the third noble truth is the truth of cessation. Okay. So, Ching Yuen asks Wei Ning, what work should I do?

[19:16]

Here's the word work again. The accomplishing work of great peace. What work is needed So as not to enter into steps and stages. And then we go to the four noble truths. And the koan. I don't even practice the four noble truths. Okay. So the first noble truth. The truth of that life is suffering. Okay, now, let's say that that's a recognition. A recognition in a kind of inventory. You recognize that childbirth for the woman is often suffering.

[20:21]

And then, and often now, childbirth ends in the death of the child and sometimes the mother. And birth itself seems to be a suffering for the child. And baby. Sophia announced to Marie-Louise the other day, Why did you make me suffer when I was born? Why did you make me suffer when I was born? And I stuck my two cents in. I said, to give you a chance to suffer more. Okay. So even birth itself seems to be suffering. And then there's illness. And old age and death. Okay, so then the second noble truth is that there's a cause.

[21:44]

And the cause is, you know, desire and attachment, etc. But the causes are mostly understood as the causes that cause us to suffer in consciousness. We're attached and so forth. But if you take away the causes like illness, war, societal problems, etc., Even if you lead a rather happy, healthy life, still there's old age. We could have a whole topic here, the aging of our Sangha. We need a big porch out here.

[22:52]

We can all sit in rocking chairs. You know? Drooling down our front, yeah. Wir brauchen hier draußen eine große Terrasse, wo wir uns alle in Schaukelstühlen hinsetzen können und rumsabbern können. Wir brauchen dann mehr Schaukelstühle als Saffus. Selbst wenn alles gut läuft, dann wirst du immer noch so klapprig. So what's the cause? It's not because you're attached that you get old. So, you know, more and more as Buddhism developed among practitioners, not in a general population, change itself became the focus of the problem. and it's not attachment that's the problem, it's the mind that can be attached which is the problem.

[24:09]

So even if you're just dealing with the suffering of illness and accidents and war and stuff, If you just accept it, that's the way things are. Actually, there's a lot less mental suffering. So acceptance itself leads to less mental suffering. And the more deeply you look at this and you start accepting that everything changes, and you develop a mind that expects change and doesn't resist change, there's less mental suffering.

[25:15]

So without trying to go through the centuries of this development, eventually the emphasis in Mahayana Buddhism is on the third noble truth. Cessation itself. Instead of trying to end your attachment and end your desires, And hence leads to a rejection of the world. Or it's better to live as a hermit, it's better to live in a cave, etc.

[26:22]

We have with the Mahayana to live in the world. And the Bodhisattva, I mean, it's a little odd that he postpones nirvana, you know. I've got more compassion than you, Buddha, who went into nirvana. I mean, little sort of tensions like that occur. The Buddha got out as quick as he could. But the Bodhisattva hangs around like you doctors and psychotherapists and so forth. And since I'm more compassionate than the Buddha, I'm hanging around. Yeah, and you see that in the second part of the koan there.

[27:32]

The new Sengru, the advisor to the emperor, says the farmers aren't deserting. There's no nation, no other country is invading us. Yeah, there's enough rice and the farmers are singing and having festivals. But it's not the ultimate order. That's another code for nirvana. Or absolute truth. This is as good as it gets, emperor. I can't offer you anything better. This has to be good enough. So that is an emphasis on bodhisattva practice. Das ist eine Betonung auf die Bodhisattva-Praxis.

[28:39]

Der, der in der Welt bleibt. So this emphasis on the Bodhisattva staying in the world changes the emphasis on the Four Noble Truths. Und diese Betonung auf den Bodhisattva, der in der Welt bleibt, das verändert auch die Betonung in den Vier Edlen Wahrheit. And this koan locates itself in this problem. Und der koan verortet sich genau in diesem Problem. So, Ching Yuan says, I don't even practice the Four Noble Truths. Now, up until this point in Buddhist history, the central and normative practice was the Four Noble Truths. The identity of a Buddhist was through the Four Noble Truths.

[29:39]

So this is a big statement. I don't even practice the Four Noble Truths. This is not my identity as a Buddhist. And this is not my basic practice. And so this becomes on the one hand a code for... Four Noble Truths is a code for the Abhidharma and earlier Buddhism. And steps and stages and so forth. Okay, so now let's say that we're emphasizing the third noble truth, cessation.

[30:40]

How do we have moment after moment cessation? which allows you to stay in the world. Nagarjuna said, nirvana and samsara nirvana can't be found. Nagarjuna said that samsara and nirvana cannot be found. Nirvana is the thorough understanding of samsara. So if nirvana is the thorough understanding of samsara, how do we accomplish this great work? then how do we accomplish this entering into the knowledge of samsara?

[31:57]

The thorough knowledge of samsara as nirvana. Okay, so first we have to have some way some surgical technique to enter into how we exist, how we know. And I think that the way we can practice this This is what I call the spatial pause. Or today I would call it the operant pause. Operant and operation are all mean to work. The work of accomplishing work of great peace.

[33:14]

And operant was also a word that B.S. Skinner, when I was one year old, coined for behavior modification. I didn't know it at the time. But I'm big time involved in behavior modification. Okay. So how do we create an operant cessation? And the word pause again means to cease or stop. And we can understand Dharma means to stop for a moment.

[34:15]

Dogen says to complete that which appears. And you can't do that unless you pause for a moment and let what appears have the opportunity to be completed. A completion you can allow and participate in. And so we want to have a mind which allows and can participate. Okay.

[35:17]

So, when we use something like just this or what is it, we're using was ist das as a phrase that stops things for a moment. So at each appearance, now this idea of non-abiding nirvana, which means really nirvana is the thorough understanding of samsara, In other words, you don't abide in nirvana. Nirvana is part of the way you know the world. Now, there's a phrase, another technical phrase, translated as one moment comprehension. One moment control.

[36:30]

No, moments in English, I'm sorry. I have to do this in English, but it may... You can do it in German, I don't know. Moment is a back formation from momentum. Do you understand back formation? The word momentum existed first and then they created moment out of momentum. Okay, and momentum means to move. So a moment is, you know, is in fact a kind of readiness to move, readiness to move, readiness to move.

[37:36]

And it's also often knowing wants to be known. So moments are also kind of little units of wanting to know. And one moment comprehension, that's not so hard to understand, is it? One moment comprehension. But we're peering into how we... We're peering into both the Buddhism and peering into how we exist. Okay. So... But one moment comprehension is technically used to mean that moment that occurs that precipitates enlightenment.

[38:53]

The moment just before enlightenment which leads to enlightenment. But it's also a term that means the way a Buddha knows. So we're talking about something very close to how a Buddha knows. Let's call it Buddha-gnosis. G-N-O-S-I-S. Okay, so we've got Buddha Gnosis here. Gnosis in German, right? Buddha Gnosis. Okay. Okay. All right.

[39:55]

So we don't feel that we're so important in, say, one-moment comprehension. Let's just say each-moment comprehension. But we're talking about something very close to that... What Buddhism thinks is the most subtle way and effective way to be in the world. And the way that frees you from suffering in the way that Four Noble Truths is supposed to do. But frees you from suffering and lets you stay in the world and not a way of leaving or detaching yourself from the world.

[40:58]

So we could have this koan is about detached but not separate from the world. So this operant pause or spatial pause we can create by what is it. Now, if you're not involved in the complicity and implicity of continuity. And complicity like complexity? Complicity is to ... accomplice is to breathe together. Complicity. So it's too complicated. I'm just fooling around a bit.

[42:01]

Just say continuity. And now what was the sentence again? I don't know either. to free yourself from the implicit continuity, you can enter into or develop this habit of a spatial pause. Okay, so a spatial pause interrupts the narrative of continuity. And when you get in the habit of perceiving, knowing this way, Of entering into knowing this way.

[43:04]

And the way goes from spatial pause to spatial pause to spatial pause. Or we can say it goes from all-at-onceness to all-at-onceness to all-at-onceness. Or we could say from whole, W-H-O-L, to whole, to whole, a feeling of wholeness, a feeling of wholeness or completeness. Of a completing that which appears. This is the knowing of a Buddha. And it changes self-narration. Narration also is a word from Gnosis, which means to know. So narration means a way of knowing.

[44:16]

So we change our narrative, our way of knowing, by going from spatial moment to spatial moment. So the practice of the question, what is it, stops naming just before it gets started. You're right at the beginning of the five marks. The five dharmas. Good to have a student here who pays attention. Naming, appearance, naming, discrimination, Erscheinung, Benennen, Unterscheidung und Rechtes Wissen und Soheit.

[45:31]

Und wenn du mit diesem Was ist das, die den Prozess des Benennens und des Unterscheidens unterbrichtst, It's a little nirvana. It's a little cessation. So what is it is a way not only to stop naming, et cetera, but it's a way to create this space of knowing. The space of knowing in which you can bring the teachings in. Like mind, body, sight and emptiness. Or like acceptance, what, and no harm.

[46:39]

And no harm, the dynamic of no harm is belonging. When you feel things belong to you, you don't harm them. So at each moment, if you bring the sense of belonging into this space of knowing, you really feel like you belong in the world. And if you develop this way of knowing only sometimes, it's so much truer than any other way of knowing. then it's a kind of medicine or tonic.

[47:43]

A tonic is something that you take over time and it has a developing effect. That it begins to transform all the ways you know. So you can do it in the garden of the monastery or the garden of Sangha life. But you can do it in every circumstance. And you can rest your senses in this operant pause. And everything appears as each sense, in each sense, without thinking.

[48:51]

And this motionlessness of the senses It's part of the teaching that was developing at the time that this koan is set. And is an operant practice in contrast to the Four Noble Truths. Or to enter directly through the cessation, moment by moment cessation of the third noble truth. Am I making myself any clearer? All right.

[49:51]

It's all here. The ingredients are here. We just have to do it. You don't have to have any special understanding. Just the ingredients of how you live. It was reported to me that yesterday after the lecture someone said they didn't understand a thing. And I wonder if that means they didn't understand a thing and they never will understand a thing. What does that mean? They didn't remember a thing. And that maybe later they'll understand. Yeah, or whatever. But I'm trying to be understandable. As hard as I can. I mean, as easy as I can. Yeah.

[51:04]

Please, this operant pause, which we can know, knowing and transform knowing, and free ourselves from mental suffering. I mean, if you're reasonably healthy and not too far gone, it works. Some of us need other help along the way. And I leave that to the medical doctors and the therapists. Yeah. But this is so fundamental, it can help us all if we practice it. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank. The Lord be with you.

[52:17]

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