One nice thing about doing sashins here at Johanneshof. I get to know all your bare feet very well. Beautiful bare feet and how elegantly they walk on this wood floor. Sometimes I don't know who the feet belong to, but I get to know the feet quite well. Because I don't look up. The other day there was a fly on my... I mean, the flies have really been liking me this session.

[01:06]

Yeah, I mean, I've had sometimes they go in my nose and in my ears, but this time they haven't done that. That takes the stamina of a bodhisattva to stand. But on my neck, on my head, I don't mind at all. It's just an airport for them. But on my neck, it's all right, too. But when they start walking around my eyes and they think, and my Quella Munda, where I live on Quellan Way, some of them think this is Quella Munda. Quella... I don't know. They take little sips from the corner of my mouth.

[02:08]

And they leave their track and feel their track for an hour later, you know, where they went, you know. And occasionally they bite. Now, if I was sitting at my desk writing or something, I would probably brush it off. But yesterday, the first time it got near my mouth, I brushed it off. Okay. I'm in Sashin, I'm not going to brush it off. And this guy said, yeah, he knew he had me under control.

[03:11]

So he spent about 10 minutes wandering safely, he thought, around my face. But I made a big space. I decided to do what I had been saying in Teisho. Yeah. So I was introducing patience to the fly. But, you know, if you do have this big space, you know, the fly is just some little thing somewhere. So this shift to identifying from the contents of consciousness to the space that surrounds consciousness And as a basic practice, you know, of Buddhism.

[04:35]

I don't know how, do you have the expression to bite a bullet? No, not exactly. Well, do you know what it means? In wartime, if you have to be operated on, They give you a bullet and you bite it so that you can be... Also dieser Ausdruck im Englischen, auf eine Kugel beißen, stammt aus dem Krieg, wenn man dort die Verwundeten ohne Betäubung operieren musste und dann haben die so eine Gewehrkugel gekriegt, um da drauf zu beißen. And I suppose if I was in such a situation, luckily I've never been in such a situation, sometimes sort of at the dentist, I would create this big space and just let it happen. But I don't know.

[05:44]

I might also ask for a bullet. I'll do both. So I'm trying to give some examples, obviously. Of... Patience as a mind without comparisons. Not about endurance, but about identifying with the space of your experience. The space instead of the contents. Now, in most Zen manuals of meditation instruction, they say to keep your eyes slightly open about the

[06:54]

sort of focused about the height of your body onto the floor. And it's a, you know, very basic practice. And one I did for years. But in Buddhism, the definition of a sage is one who thoroughly knows his or her mind. But I wasn't trying to be sagacious, but my curiosity about exploring the mind got the best of me. So I began to sit with my eyes mostly closed.

[08:17]

Lightly closed so you can still feel Light, but it's still closed, but lightly closed. Yeah, and it does make it more likely, if you're sleepy, that you will go to sleep. And with your eyes slightly open, you can maintain your posture better. But I really decided at some point to explore whatever appears in this interiority. And I've discovered, I don't know, I'll just mention this, I'm not suggesting any of you try to develop it as a practice.

[09:46]

The first five or six years of my after a while, for five or six years, I didn't dream at all. Then I started dreaming sort of normal dreams. And now my dreaming is almost always just a continuation of my usual dreams. In other words, the same topics or concerns I have are now examined in dreaming mind instead of awareness or consciousness. And I've gotten so used to exploring interiority in zazen,

[11:06]

Exploring primarily the space of interiority, not so much the content. But if contents are there, sometimes they're way in the distance and I bring them forward and move them, you know, various things to do to keep yourself amused. And I've gotten quite skillful at this. You know, I've only been doing it 50 years. Or this particular practice about 35. Also diese spezielle Praxis vielleicht seit 35 Jahren tue, kann ich das inzwischen ziemlich gut. I will use the word container, but it at the same time pervades everything.

[12:30]

Also ich werde oder will den Begriff Behälter benutzen, aber irgendwie durchdringt es alles. But it's a kind of container that I've gotten... Real experience with feeling and examining. And now that container of interiority, which I've gotten to know through Zazen, It's just shuttled right into my dream. Almost like a railroad car going onto another track. And if there's some concern, you know, a koan or whatever happens to be, what we're talking about here, happens to be the topic, the subject.

[13:44]

And things are... as vivid as they are when I look at the garden. I'm telling you this right now just because it's funny. But a couple of nights ago, I composed a letter or a document of something I had to do, a supportive letter for somebody or something. And I worked out all the wording and the paragraphs and everything. And it was so vivid, I was debating with myself while I was dreaming, while I was supposedly asleep or whatever you call it.

[14:51]

I was debating with myself, this is so vivid and clear. When I get up, will it appear on my computer? Can you sort of scan it somehow and shoot it to my computer? No, no, no, you can't do that. It's just mind. You're going to have to rewrite it on your computer. I have discussions with myself like this. And I amuse myself. I start laughing in the middle of it. Okay. Now, part of what I'm trying to say... Okay, let me just finish this sort of topic.

[16:02]

Now, this practice of developing a detailed vividness of interiority also makes the exteriority, which is also a form of interiority, likewise vivid and detailed, with a real depth of resolution. I mean, so engaging, you can just look at one thing forever, practically. It's so engaging. So these are byproducts of practicing satsang regularly.

[17:03]

But they do bring you into an enhanced exteriority which is very satisfying. Okay. There's a kind of gratefulness or gratitude for phenomenal appearance. Everything appears and there's a flow of gratefulness with the appearance. And that gratefulness is joined by the, excuse me to use the word wisdom, the wisdom of exteriority as mind.

[18:15]

Now, I'm speaking this way because, you know, this is my experience. But I'm also speaking this way because this is, you know... the context in which the sutras, particularly the Prajnaparamita sutras, are being presented. Now, let's go back again to establishing an even mind toward each and every being. You could say this is a kind of morality. You're trying to be compassionate or you're trying to be good to people or something.

[19:36]

Well, I think it is a characteristic of morality for a bodhisattva or a practitioner. But it's not... Morality is a byproduct. I mean, it's more like if a medical doctor helped you clear your arteries of cholesterol. Yeah, something like that. He's not doing it because it's a moral act, though. I don't think so. I mean, it's a moral profession to be a doctor. It's a good profession. But he or she is just trying to increase the flow in your arteries.

[21:03]

And the Bodhisattva's motivation is more like that. To increase the flow in the arteries of mutual being. So the point is not... The point is not... Yeah, the practice is to develop... and even mind toward each and every being. But the point is to increase the arterial flow in our larger being.

[22:03]

So let me approach the sutra, aspects of the sutra from another point of view. It says in the sutra, again, hard to believe practices. A bodhisattva does not review or generate the thought, I am enlightened. Or I'm not enlightened. Or I'm praised. Or I'm not praised. Or I have realized patience. Or I have not. The Bodhisattva does not form such Now that sounds, I think, pretty close to impossible.

[23:31]

The bodhisattva does not think, I am a teacher. or I'm not a teacher. I suppose the bodhisattva, again, I'm talking about bodhisattva, you know, the protagonist, does not, might say, I have a responsibility as a teacher, but That's different than saying, I am a teacher. This is about noticing the flow of attitudes and observations in yourself. Atmar last night, I guess, said something like, in Zazen, our lives flow through us.

[24:49]

In the midst of the intimacy of our life, of ourself. And I always liked the word, struck by the word from the first day I practiced practically, coursing. Coursing. The Bodhisattva courses. Aha. I think in German we say he just is or he abides. He abides. But it doesn't say courses. It doesn't say courses. German bodhisattvas don't course. Of course this can't be true. They swim. They swim. So German buddies, that's a schwimm.

[26:01]

Maybe. We'll try it out. Okay. The crawl or the breaststroke? Well, coursing in English means onward motion. Also, this is coursing of English heißt vorwärtsgerichtete Bewegung. Or unimpeded motion. Like if tears coursed down her cheeks, it would mean she was crying unimpededly. Sailboats course. Yeah. Yeah. Am I the straight man or is she the straight man? Do you have that expression? In a comedic teen, one person's the straight man and one person's the Abbott and Costello.

[27:09]

I'm Abbott, of course. You're a Costello. None of you know who Abbott and Costello is. I know Elvis Costello. Oh, you do? Sophia loves Abbott and Costello almost as much as Fred Astaire. Okay. Are we doing a Tay show or what are we doing here? Oh, dear. Coursing. I mean, Joseph Campbell, the... You didn't know who he is. He talked about going with the flow, an expression that people use. That's also used as the temporal counterpart of in the zone. which is an athletic term for when space slows down.

[28:11]

So, Atmar is saying in Zazen, life flows through it. It's a little like our perceptions, our sensations flow. We flow as them. This is coursing. Okay, now I'm going to go somewhere else and come back. One good practice is to name things. Okay, so naming is a very basic pre-Zen practice. Yeah. Stick, you know.

[29:29]

Tape recorder. No, not tape recorder. MP-75 or something. Catherine. Bamboo. Like that. You just get in the habit of naming whatever appears. And it does a number of things, but two things it does. It cuts off associations. Because you're naming, not wording, wording being more like in sentences. So you're cutting off associations. And if you name, you're naming appearances. And... you get more and more subtle through the practice of naming, noticing appearances.

[30:41]

Yeah, so fern-moving. Grass standing still. So more and more it teaches you to, it exercises the muscles of mindfulness. Mindful attention. And so you begin to really feel more and more you're in a world of appearances. Now you can shift to naming namelessness. Naming the non-conceptuality of the world. Okay, so it's the same act.

[31:58]

You name bamboo or you name bamboo and you feel the namelessness of bamboo. So you're making use of the habit of naming the world. to name the world as wisdom or emptiness. And the third, I would suggest, is in addition to namelessness, the third name you try, I have no idea how well it works in Deutsch. But you name non-origination. Because non-origination is a way to enter into the non-nature or nature of of interdependence.

[33:16]

Interdependence? Or as I prefer, inter-emergent or inter-emergence. It's always generating newness and uniqueness. So if you find a way in Deutsch or in English you want to name non-origination, Because nothing has an origin. It's all from the force of multiple causes. So everything is the origin, which is no origin. So one entry, and this is in the Yen Sutra and other places, you can practice with trying to feel non-origination.

[34:44]

It enters you into experiencing no beginnings and no ends. And that's As I put it in other times, you're always in the middle. Now, if you're always in the middle, always in the middle as non-origination, you do not make, if you make comparisons, you lose the middle. So the Bodhisattva thinks, I have not achieved enlightenment, he's out of the middle immediately.

[35:49]

And he stopped coursing. There's no longer an uninterrupted flow. Now, one very simple thing, which I've said before, is this right hand can feel like it's holding the left hand. And I can make a shift intentionally, and the left hand can feel like it's holding the right hand. Somebody thinks I should go to this meeting of international neuro-phenomenologists and I will ask them if I ever get invited, can you tell me the neurology of the left hand feeling the right hand and the right hand feeling the left?

[37:00]

Okay, so now that's quite a subtle difference, and you intend it, or you just experience it. And to notice when you feel, I'm a Bodhisattva, not a Pratyekabuddha, you're out of the middle. And when one can feel, when one thinks, I am a bodhisattva and not a pratyekabuddha, whoops, one is out of the middle. How are you doing?

[38:04]

You're feeling like a pratyekabuddha. Really? Okay. But it's that kind of difference in feeling. And the Bodhisattva discovers in these sutras about how the Bodhisattva doesn't lose the experience of coursing. Coursing in the middle without beginnings and ends. And of course it's time to stop. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank. May our intentions be the same for every being and every place.

[39:14]

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