Today is Thursday and tomorrow is Wednesday. I decided to give a lecture. Since some of you are new from today, I thought we shouldn't start with the seminar, so we switched the days. weil einige von euch neu sind und gestern erst angekommen, haben wir diese Tage vertauscht. Ich dachte, wir sollten deswegen heute nicht schon ein Seminar haben und deswegen haben wir die Tage vertauscht. And since we had that wonderful summer storm, and it didn't cool things off at all, I thought I'd wear this green queso to make you feel cool anyway. It almost feels like Japan in the summer. Maybe Beate and Martin remember what it was like in August in Japan.

[01:03]

Yeah. So, you know, I'm finding these, giving lectures in this practice month. It's so different from either Sashin or seminar lectures that it's probably not good for me to try to speak to a theme like entering transformation and realization. Or if I do speak about it, maybe it should just be inadvertent.

[02:08]

That means accidental. By chance. Because if I try to relate to a theme, we just need several lectures in a row with the same people. I can't really do it. So maybe I think what I have to do is just give a number of individual talks. So let me start with something very particular. Try to talk about basic practice. And basic practice in this case at a level that may seem rather boring or dumb. So I'm going to speak about cleaning the Setsu.

[03:19]

Cleaning stick. Many of you who've been doing this Oryoki for a long time have it down pretty well. But almost nobody gets how to do the Setsu correct. Even people who sit beside me for an entire practice period at Crestone still do it however way they want to. Now, there's actually no correct way exactly, but there is a way to do it.

[04:25]

So I'm partly speaking to why do we give form to things? Why do we give so many forms of things? It must be annoying to new people particularly. Anyway, let me say, see if I can remember how to do it. Without the Oryoki bowls here. So I have the sticks that Hiroshi gave me that use it. So your Setsu cleaning stick is sitting in the third bowl. Then when you're ready to clean it, you take it and put it in the... middle bowl where the water is.

[05:36]

By the way, you put it in the last bowl. And, okay. Hold it up. There's the bowl. So you put it in the bowl, and then you take it, put it in the bowl, and then you use your right hand and you take it and you bring water up the staff, the shaft, and down. Now, if it's particularly dirty and cheese is all over something, then you can clean it as much as you want. But I think almost no one gets how to do it, even if they're sitting beside me for hundreds of meals or dozens of meals.

[06:38]

Because they think the purpose... is to clean it. So they clean it. That makes sense. But in Dharma practice, the purpose is also to give it form. Now, the form can be modified if it's dirty or sticky. The tip or the shaft. But however you do it, you're relating to you're modifying a particular way to do it.

[07:42]

Okay, so you put it in the water. And as you put it, you're taking it with the right hand, and you're putting it in the water, and then you put your left hand on it. So typically you're doing it with two hands. And then you take the right hand and you get some water on it and go up along the staff and then back down. And then you take the dry hand and you lift it and squeeze the water. You don't use the already wet hand. It doesn't make any difference.

[08:57]

It's a kind of aesthetic. And you don't take both hands and squeeze it. That's a big no-no. Unless you have a sponge for a sexy stick. Okay, so again, you put your Setsu stick in the water. Go to your left hand, you wet the shaft of the stick with your up and down once. One and two. Up and down once. Two motions. One, two. Okay. And then you switch to the right hand and put the... and lift it and dry it, squeeze it once with the left hand.

[10:08]

Then you dip it once. Then you squeeze it twice with the left hand. Then you turn it clockwise. Then you squeeze it once. So it's squeeze, dip, squeeze, squeeze, turn, squeeze. Sounds like a love affair. Squeeze. Drücken, Tonken, Drücken, Drücken. You can make it all right. Drinken, Tonken, Tonken. Drehen, Drücken. Das ist ja wie ein Liebesspiel hier. And then... And then you turn it and put it in the cloth.

[11:13]

You lift the cloth and put it in the cloth. Directly, just to the side. And you dry it. Then you turn it straight toward yourself. You push it through, drying it. And this is the final motion. Then you take it and put it in your setzu bag. And it's not atypical that the final motion is toward you. All Japanese tools are that way. You pull a plane or saw toward you. You don't saw away from you. You saw toward you. Yeah, this is not just Japanese, it's Asian tools.

[12:17]

And what's the reason for that? Well, there's a practical reason, which is your skill level is worst, is least out here. So you establish the plane or whatever it is, the tool out here. Yeah, and once you're established, you pull it toward yourself and your control increases as you come toward you. So that's the practical reason. And if we're talking about planing, it takes... They generally consider three years of regular planing before you really get planing down.

[13:32]

How to plane wood that you don't have to finish in any other way. So that's the practical reason. But the more dharmic reason is that you feel more complete when you bring something towards you. Okay. Now, I don't think you remember what I said. You have orioki this evening or tomorrow or something?

[14:35]

But perhaps the people near me will start noticing and maybe it will spread by the end of the ten days. Now, we could have another way of doing it. And there are slightly different ways of doing it. This is the way I've decided. Which is influenced by Suzuki Roshi, of course, and the particular... time I was living in Japanese monasteries. Because in another generation a new teacher changes things slightly. So in our Centers, we're stuck with the way I do it, I'm sorry.

[15:48]

Because part of giving form to something is to give form to it so it can be shared. So I have to choose among the various ways that I know how to do kin-hin or o-yo-ki the one that I think is most shareable among us. It's not about right and wrong or anything. It's arbitrary, basically, but not quite arbitrary. Now, just to switch to Western eating... Is the, in Western, in the, I don't know what England does now, but the English-American way of eating is you never have your fork in your left hand.

[17:12]

Unless you're, I don't know what they do in England now, unless you're cutting something, then you can have your fork in your left hand. So it's actually quite difficult for me to learn the way you do it is using the fork. Knife as a pusher and pushing food up on the back of the fork. This is really ridiculous. We don't do that. Yes, people push. They hold their fork upside down and push it up on the top and eat right off the top. I've watched it. Even in fancy places. Every now and then I try it, but it feels real funny to me. I'm sure it's more sophisticated in my way. And you never need a spoon.

[18:24]

You just pile it up on the back of your fork. Okay. All I'm saying here is that we have habits built into us. I have a written habit of how to use a knife and fork and spoon. Now, is there any difference between this kind of habit and the habit that we have of eating with orioke bowls. Now the main reason in Dharma practice is that we give form to things. Of course, there's usually a purpose.

[19:35]

But what really struck me when I first learned the Uriyoki myself, Sometimes there's clearly no purpose. If you have one of these little folding lacquer paper tables, Sometimes it has water on it from the eating bowls. And it makes sense to wipe it. It's perfectly clean and dry. You still wipe it. Being a very practical, minded, sort of American guy,

[20:48]

I thought this was totally weird. Why wipe this thing and it's not wet? I like, but I like the peculiarity of it right away. When Wednesday is Thursday. So you wipe it one, two, three, and then you move the bowl, and then the other side is never wet, and you wipe it with a nice straight line. So that makes it clear that the form is also just about making the form, not about any purpose. No. No. Why do that? Is it some kind of, you know, just sort of...

[22:05]

ritualized, unnecessary ritualized behavior? Well, I'm sure it can become that. What I'm trying to do is eliminate as much of that as I can. So why give up? form to something and not just function. The contemporary architecture says form follows function. Why is Here, form doesn't just follow function or purpose. But form follows form itself. Yeah, this is actually quite a deep question, problem. We say form is form, emptiness is emptiness.

[23:33]

Dogen says in the Genjo Koan, the The reflection of the moon in the water doesn't break the water. And the moon doesn't get wet. So what's Dogen talking about here? Form, he's saying actually, form is form and emptiness is emptiness. So we have this famous formula created by the Buddhist advertising director.

[24:36]

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. It always reminds me of an advertisement for a so-called Doze when I was young. Das erinnert mich immer an die Werbung für eine Seife, die mit dem Namen does... Does, D-U-Z, does. Does. And the mantra was, does, does everything. Do you remember that, Miriam? Does everything. Also, das tut alles, wäre die Übersetzung. Does, does everything. And there was another soap called Tide, and Tide's in, dirt's out. Okay, so this is not much different than form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Somebody thought this up a long time ago and everyone all over the world

[25:39]

The Western world people know this idea of form as emptiness nowadays. What do we mean by it? Not as a philosophical understanding, but as a way to experience actuality. Why do we give form to things? Because we want to give completeness to things. We want to do things in a way that that we can have an opportunity to complete it. Not just like when we start a carpentry project or sweep a room. Not just when we start a carpentry project or sweep a room.

[27:00]

But when we do our moment-by-moment being alive. Now, in the West, freedom often means freedom to... Do whatever you want. But that's not what we mean in Buddhism when we say to have freedom. We mean to be free from, to find freedom from form. Freedom to do anything means you're always choosing.

[28:00]

Shall I do this? Shall I do that? I can do whatever I want. That's all right, and that's a certain kind of freedom. Certainly it's... social and political freedom. But is it actually psychological and spiritual freedom? But real inner freedom. Okay. And this parallels this giving form to things.

[29:03]

You know, the the title we can understand to mean to complete that which appears. Knowing everything is simultaneously particular and universal. Now, universal, we don't really have, that's not really a good translation. Particular is all right. So this is the center of Dharma practice. To complete that which appears. And to have the mindfulness... to be present when things appear.

[30:14]

So there's practice there, of course, in that mindfulness to be present as things appear. And not have a mind anticipating the future. or a mind assuming the predictability of the past assuming the predictability of the past Assuming the predictability from the past. So how do we get free of a mind that's always, you know... Again, the role of consciousness is to establish a predictable...

[31:19]

cognizable world. Consciousness is a function of mind. Self is a function of consciousness. And we have to separate or distinguish in our own experience an observing mind from an observing self. And practice is also to clarify and to clearly experience the difference between observing mind and observing self. So if you have mindfulness, the mindfulness of an observing mind, and you can observe things, the appearance of things, also in a mind free of preferences.

[32:36]

Or at least the initial mind, again, is free of preferences. It accepts and is clear about This is a negative thought, or this is a positive thought. You're clear about each thing. Then you might have preferences. You know, I really prefer these positive thoughts. Unfortunately, many of us have a big appetite for negative thoughts. Feeds our vanity. They're wrong and I'm right. Oh, I know.

[33:52]

We may get stuck in that, but let's have an initial mind, as much as possible, free of preferences. Not some fragile emotional reaction to things. So that's also a mind for your preferences, is also the maturing of, or maturity even, of practice. Okay, so we're not speaking here again about the freedom to choose, but rather the freedom, let's say, to be free of choice. and to find a way to enter into a mind that, again, because consciousness, the job of consciousness is to supply us with a predictable, cognizable world,

[35:03]

We need a predictable world. But that tends emotionally and psychologically to turn into a kind of wish for a permanent world. So delusion turns the work of consciousness, which is predictability, Into an implicit permanence, the self is somehow permanent. into an implicit permanence.

[36:10]

Okay. So the job of consciousness, again, is to supply us with a predictable, cognizable world. How do we break into that that habit and structure of mind. We break into it by establishing a form on each moment of perception, thought, activity. We break into this habit of past-future mind. Instead of letting the past or the hoped-for future influence the particular moment, We give a form to the particular moment.

[37:23]

That which appears, we complete. And we complete it knowing it's both particular and universal. Universal means all at once, all at onceness. That everything all at once is interconnected and in this moment. Implicit in this moment. Yeah. So if we try to find some words, how do we bring this into our own flow of being?

[38:37]

Flow of consciousness, flow of awareness. flow of observing self and flow of observing consciousness, of observing mind. We give some form to it, which we can complete in that particular moment. So I would suggest, as the Eightfold Path begins with right views, and that means enlightenment views or wisdom views, So how do we break in again to this past-future flow?

[39:42]

Perhaps you can use some words here. We could try some words out, English words for me. Vielleicht können wir da ein paar Worte dazu ausprobieren. Für mich sind das englische Worte. You could try unique and connected. Ihr könntet da zum Beispiel ausprobieren einzigartig und verbunden. Unique would be the particular. The moon is the moon. The water is the water. Each is independent. The moon doesn't get wet. The moon itself doesn't get wet. Well, we could try maybe singular, singularity, singular and joined, or singular and, yeah, joined or something like that.

[41:10]

So you bring these two into what appears, you notice it has both particular or unique and also connected. Also, ihr bringt diese beiden zusammen und bemerkt etwas als gleichzeitig einzigartig, besonders und particular, unique and? Particular. Und verbunden. And connected. Und verbunden. Okay, so you're using this as a gate phrase. Und das benutzt ihr dann als eine Art Tor, als einen Satz, der wie ein Tor ist. Now, as I said yesterday, I'm not trying to give you, usually not trying to give you enlightenment traps. I'm not trying to trap you into enlightenment. Well, actually a little bit I am.

[42:17]

And when I give you gate phrases, those are actually enlightenment traps. Perhaps you can trap the moon in the water. There's a wonderful drawing, Zen drawing, of an oyster in a trap gazing at the moon. There is a wonderful Zen drawing of a house in a trap that looks at the moon. Even in the trap it can see the moon. And of course implied in the picture is that the oyster has a pearl. So if you try to bring a gate phrase, which is, we could say, singular and connected as such a phrase... It can bring you sometimes into a stopped world.

[43:37]

Because if at each moment you complete things, Yeah, complete. You feel the world stopped for a moment. completed for a moment. And we feel completeness when things have a beginning and an end. So Dharma practice is to find in each thing, because there's no natural, each thing actually has a form. The reflection of the moon in water is form. How you do the Setsu stick is a kind of reflection, a kind of form.

[45:10]

But it's not only arbitrary, it's also empty. So Sukhiroshi used to say, in this we find freedom. In this freedom of completeness, we see or feel the truth. Again, we find things in their uniqueness and their completeness. with a feeling of insight. Okay, now what's the difference between this and the way I use knives and forks? Well, of course, when I use knives and forks, form is there.

[46:23]

Yeah, but it's not so clear that completeness in the sense of emptiness is there. I mean, this... What I'm talking about parallels the four marks. Parallels the four marks. The four marks of a dharma. Birth. Manifestation or duration. Dissolution. And disappearance. I mean, we build buildings.

[47:20]

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