Of course, I've been speaking directly or indirectly all these years. I was about the quality of being. I never quite put it that way. Makes me think about it in a little different way. But I've often... spoken over the years about using the two words nourish and complete. And the first, as a practice, you just notice when you feel nourished by situations. Now, Fa Yang, one of the founders of the

[01:01]

who lived a long time ago, 1858, 1885 to 958. And he said, student practitioners, Zen practitioners, only need to pay attention to conditions to realize the way. Now that's a dramatic statement, I think. You only need to pay attention to conditions to realize the way. This must be coded language.

[02:14]

In other words, there's a... a great deal of practice embedded in this simple statement. But, you know, he said it a long time ago and we still have it written down and it's in books and so forth. And then he went on to say if you must try to understand the Buddha, just notice what's going on. Okay, well, that's a, you know, if the main object of attention is the present, Das heißt, das Hauptobjekt der Aufmerksamkeit ist die Gegenwart.

[03:24]

Und was ist die Gegenwart? Und was ist die Dynamik des Bemerkens? Und was fangen wir damit an, was wir bemerken? Und so weiter. So, yeah, now back to the word nourish. No, what I'm suggesting is you notice when you feel nourished. Now, this, of course, is based on a view of no permanent self. If you have some idea of a permanent self or the acorn becomes the oak and the oak is fated, But of course, as Jörg could tell us, it makes a big difference where you plant the acorn.

[04:37]

So to really Pay attention to when you feel nourished. It helps to have the feeling that the potentials of the self are not inherent, but circumstantial. And Shido, one of the real early founders of the Zen school, said that the self of the practitioner is nothing but circumstances.

[05:55]

Now, this can't be true. I don't care what the Shido said or not. But what did he mean? Well, I mean, obviously... We have genetic and cultural evolution. But within that we also have an evolution that's suddenly related to circumstances. what is this subtle relationship now really I can say you know this and that about it but you want to really explore this yourself the only way bring attention to the present

[07:06]

What present? Okay. So, let's now go to the present in which you feel nourished. You know, they did a study a while ago, I don't know, maybe you read it, about all over the world, they went to villages and so forth and they asked, who's the happiest person in town? Who ever thought up this project? and got funded was pretty smart. He may have been totally depressed and wanted to find out what it means to be happy, but in any case, it was a pretty good project.

[08:25]

So you go into town, who's the happiest person in town? Oh, it's so-and-so. And after a while, they find quite a few people say so-and-so is the happiest person. Yeah. And so they go and interview this person. And there's various things they... They often have very different circumstances, but there's some overlap. But what did they all share? Everyone had made the decision to be happy. Really? Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it's simple, huh? How do you make such a decision, though?

[09:43]

But it's clear that among the alternatives, happiness is usually the better decision. I mean, I could choose to be miserable, but it just seems easier to be happy. So you might make the decision to be nourished. So you notice when you feel nourished. I'm imagining you're walking along somewhere in the city or a park or somewhere, and you feel, you know, actually, while I'm walking along here, I feel nourished. And nourished by? What are you nourished by? Well, maybe somebody called you up and told you, I just called to say I love you. Vielleicht bist du genährt, weil gerade dich jemand anruft und sagt, ich habe nur angerufen, um zu sagen, dass ich dich liebe.

[10:57]

That would make almost anyone feel nourished for at least half of the day. But usually, let's say, the sun is shining around here, other weather is always raining, right? Aber wir können zum Beispiel sagen, hier scheint die Sonne, wo es überall drumherum regnet ist. Nice rain or sunny or I don't know what. Yeah, something makes you feel nourished. So you notice when you feel nourished. And then you notice when you feel less nourished. What happened? You suddenly had to hurry because you're getting late. Or some kind of thought came into your mind about... Something that's never been resolved in your life. Okay. What do you Notice if you change your pace, don't hurry, or you let that thought go, then you start feeling nourished again.

[12:14]

Then you make a decision. Actually, I'd rather feel nourished all the time by my circumstances than harassed, anxious, or fearful. So you find a way to, as much as possible, walk, talk, speak within a field of nourishment. That would be a wise decision. I would agree. Okay, so that... Trying something like that is what I call the practice of nourishment.

[13:27]

Noticing when you feel nourished. And walking, acting, thinking within that field of nourishment. And if you notice, if you try to force it or something or make it happen, you won't feel nourished. You have to find that... Allowing and accepting that is nourishment. Now, the practice of completeness is something you can do. Now again, this is a review for many of you. But as I say, whatever you do, when you happen to think of it.

[14:36]

You try to do it with a feeling of completeness. So I'm maybe going to pick up this glass of water. So there's an inclination either mentally generated or physically just happens? And the power of mind over matter, I just think and my hand moves. And then you go to the glass. It's kind of cool. It's cool. So you notice the coolness.

[15:38]

And then you bring the glass to the line of the spine mind. That feels complete. It's quite static. And then you drink. Your attention is within the swallowing. And it feels complete. Then you're going to put the glass back. So you do it in a way that feels complete. It's a kind of respect too. Dogen says, treat all objects as if it were your eyeballs. I'll drink it. An iPad, an eyeglass, an eye cocktail.

[16:55]

Anyway. So then you put it down. Again, I'm sorry, this is like kindergarten. But it really makes a difference. If between now, as I... often said, and one year from now, every action and thought you have, you try to do with a feeling of completeness. I guarantee at the end of the year, you'll feel more complete. If you do a lot of things hurriedly, unthoughtfully, incompletely, you'll feel less complete at the end of the year. And practice is really this simple. Can I interrupt?

[18:09]

Of course. I would like to say something about this, because the experience of being able to do something fully is for me an experience that I mainly made in the context of opening up in the Bible. The experience of completeness is an experience which I had mainly being in Johanneshof. And the experience of not being complete and not being able to do this sufficiently to bring it into my everyday life. And it's very difficult for me that these extremes of experience of being doing something absolutely completely and not being able to do it in my everyday life is very difficult to handle.

[19:38]

This is difficult for me. I just would like to share this. Well, it's why people live in monasteries. Because it's easier. But, I mean, the reason Zen practice centers like Yohannesov exist, at least as far as our Sangha is concerned, is to get a feel for these things and find out how to bring them into our daily life. Or how to change our daily life if possible. So it is possible. But what I'm speaking about as a practice of completeness, is also the practice of establishing dharmas.

[20:46]

To come in, bow to the cushion before you sit down, is a practice of completeness. You try to find a way to physically articulate Du findest heraus, wie du auf physische Art ausdrücken kannst, was du tust. And when you begin to see what happens when you physically articulate mental formations, then you find what it means to be practicing the rupa dhatu. The realm of form. Which is part of the practice of the jhanas, and jhanas is the word for zen.

[21:49]

So when you really bring attention to simple things, like trying to complete things, gets more and more subtle. For example, again, when I go to lunch, if we have lunch today, I'll return my cushion to the middle of the Zabutan. That's a practice of completeness. But why is the middle more complete than the side? Because we've More or less decided arbitrarily that when cushions are left by themselves, no one's there, he put them in the middle of the sabotage. It's an arbitrary agreement. But it becomes part of the practice of completeness because there's the sense of things are more complete when they're returned to where they started.

[23:07]

when the end is the beginning. And that's just part of the way we think. Okay. But it's also, when we talk about original mind or originary mind or the mind before your parents were born, that's all about completeness, returning things to the beginning. Okay. So the So the way I've spoken about the quality of being in the past is I've spoken about these two simple practices of nourishment and completeness.

[24:11]

And to take it a step further, to rest. The mind in its completeness. Okay. Now, So now we have the quality of being. And I'm speaking about it a little differently. And now I would play with being, becoming, beingness, etc. Now, that would have been hard to do before I had translators like Neil, because how do you play with these words in German, in Deutsch?

[25:14]

So for a while, until my translators got so good, that actually I could just sit here and say nothing and he could just give the talk. I didn't experiment so much because I thought these experiments will never work and do it. Okay. So in the past I wouldn't have experimented with being, becoming and beingness like I did the other day, yesterday. And why not? Why didn't I do it earlier?

[26:20]

Well, just I can't think of everything at once. It takes me actually years to say, well, actually, I don't like becoming as an alternative to being. This is something Heidegger's worked with a lot, being, becoming, etc., Heidegger really made use of the useful distinction between tree and treeing. Heidegger did? Heidegger did, yeah. I'm Lodegger and he's Heidegger. But I didn't go from treeing to tree-ness until fairly recently. And I really had to practice with treeing a lot. the gerund of nouns.

[27:47]

Before I realized I need some other word than treeing, particularly for certain syntactical structures. And certain experience structures. So tree-ness got me into beingness. Now, what I would say now, carrying nourishment, completeness, and beingness to a kind of next step, Is that you play around with, experiment with, Feeling yourself as a location.

[28:50]

As I've said in the past, sometimes the situate or situated self. Now, if you experience yourself as a location, In contrast to a constantly being narrated self. No. You need to establish the contrast. Du musst erst mal den Kontrast herstellen, etablieren.

[30:00]

Und fühlen, wie ist es, wenn ich mich einfach nur wie eine Örtlichkeit fühle? Ich bin ganz deutlich nicht deine Örtlichkeit. Aber ich bin innerhalb deiner Örtlichkeit verörtlicht. And that's a little different than feeling I'm a self, an individual separate self. If I feel myself as a location, then some of the narrative that goes with past and anticipated future narrative that goes with self, is lessened. It's not gone. Even if I experience myself most noticeably as a location, still the anticipated

[31:21]

self and the accumulated self are still there. And they have to be there. You can't function. You wouldn't know what... What's a door and what's a window if you didn't? But they're kind of implicitly there, not explicitly there. Now, if you practice with your experience as a... If you practice with what is usually self-experience as location instead, you'll find more and more there's an interesting dimensions. subtlety to being a location.

[32:45]

Here's an etymological parallel. Location in English literally means etymologically to place something. location location um Whatever you'd like, yes, please. And so... It's also to settle into a locus.

[33:58]

So you begin to see that, like the etymology of the word, to feel this beingness as location. To be able to feel beingness as a location, you have to settle into the location, which is also a locus a moving center, the locus of a situation. And you really do find yourself, as Shido and Vayen were trying to say, located in circumstances which are defining the self as location.

[35:02]

Absolutely. That's what I connect with Zazen. I have my place. Yeah. That's my location. When I'm together with the others. And I can spread my location and make it come together again. Exactly. Exactly. And again, as we spoke yesterday, Sashin is often the way you most clearly get this experience. You're a location which is also a mutual body, an unfolded body as well as a folded in body. And when you think of yourself as a self, The language doesn't allow you to unfold the self exactly.

[36:41]

But a location can open to the location. Okay, now why... In what I've been saying these last two and a half days, has language been so prominent? When Zen is described as a teaching outside of words and letters, I must be one of those heretical types. Okay. But if Zen is outside of words and letters, let's say, what could that mean? Because, you know, any statement is somewhere on a spectrum, and you have to look at the spectrum which it identifies.

[37:44]

Words are certainly within the spectrum, part of the spectrum, which includes silence. And includes activity and actions. Okay. So, Again, outside of words and letters. And then why are the koans all about meeting and speaking? And why do the most classical and chronicled Zen masters Those words are carefully chosen. Because it's been primarily a let's call it a

[38:47]

a literary decision to make certain Zen masters the classic Zen masters. And then to chronicle their supposed Now, Zen teachers, Zen masters actually do exist. But the literature about them also exists. And the literature is an attempt to communicate to you and I about them. And the literature has its own rules.

[40:09]

You can't put the whole complexity of a human being into literature. You can only put aspects of the individual. So as we know from, you know, analysis of language and so forth, the Sung Dynasty, Zen folks, mostly created the Tang Dynasty stories. Matsu and Wang Bo are figures of literature. But they're experienceable figures of literature. And I mention this not just to be historically accurate. But to point out that we too are in this narrative.

[41:15]

And we're making the narrative through our own experience. Okay. So Matsu and Huangbo, two of the most classic and classical and chronicled Zen masters, are presented in the literature as kind of ignoring Zazen. And what did they emphasize? Taishos. They emphasize meeting and speaking. And then you have Yao Shan ascending the seat but not speaking.

[42:18]

But let's not go there. Anyway. Anyway. Okay, so if then is outside of words and letters, the words of books, what words and letters can be practiced? Well, first of all, it's the words of meeting and speaking. I mean, sometimes it's interesting to read somebody's taste show that's on the internet. Sometimes it's interesting to read someone's Teisho that's on the Internet. But even if it is interesting and useful, I think it's a very serious category mistake.

[43:19]

Teisho's lectures belong in the context of meeting and speaking. Yes. If someone transcribes this, we have a teisho, and wants to put it on the internet, I don't care how much I'm convinced by the person that it's going to be useful, it's not useful enough. Whatever I'm saying belongs in this situation. Thus I'm a location in this situation. And as I said if it weren't for you I would have nothing to say.

[44:40]

And what I'm saying belongs to you. And comes from you. How can we put this on the internet? Now There are ways to write and so forth that become an embodyable language. And this is commonly poetry, for instance. Okay, so now I'm getting closer to being able to speak about what language is Zen practice. Now, okay, now we can also ask... The hand of my clock seems to keep moving. Stop. Stop. Why is language so important?

[46:01]

Warum ist Sprache so wichtig? Why is the tradition of Zen actually a language tradition? It's because, and in this I agree with John Searle, who is an American philosopher based in Berkeley, who's written much about consciousness and the mind and so forth. But that the entire edifice of culture and government based on language. All of culture and government and so forth are verbal agreements. We have the rule, do not steal. And that's about the boundaries between people.

[47:15]

Okay. In Buddhism, the precept do not steal is actually do not take that which is not given. Okay, but let's stay with do not steal. That's a verbal agreement. Now, I could go steal one of Jerry Seinfeld's cars. Probably I couldn't. They're well guarded. Seinfeld. He's a famous American sitcom comedian. I'm sorry, I don't know him. Yeah, I don't know him either. I've never seen one of his programs. He seems to be considered a rather comic genius. He seems to be able to do ordinary things which aren't funny at all, and they're hilarious.

[48:34]

Now, I don't know if this is true or not, because I've never watched him, except for half a minute once or twice. But anyway, supposedly he has a very large collection of automobiles in warehouses in the middle of New York. If I could get past all the security systems, I could take one or two of his cars and he might not even miss it for months. Is this stealing? Well, I haven't harmed anyone. I haven't harmed anyone. Was it 123 cars I owned or 122? But if I'm caught, I will probably spend some time behind some big stone walls.

[49:48]

So the verbal agreement that you don't steal will be enforced by stone and steel. Oh dear. Oh dear. Okay, so these verbal agreements are serious. Now you can play with them. Do not take that which is not given. What's the difference? If I don't steal your notebook, Okay. I don't steal it because I establish that that's yours. This is about establishing boundaries between people. But if... The precept is do not take that which is not given.

[50:59]

Then you're establishing the boundaries. I only take what's given. So if Jerry calls, you want a car? Well, I'd like a... Anyway... So that's a very big difference. To forget about stealing and not stealing. Only accept in the boundaries between people, that which is given. Now that's a very good and simple example of how the verbal agreements can be nearly the same but very different.

[52:08]

Okay, so if our entire culture and how we're governed and so forth are verbal agreements. And they're so enforced that you can be incarcerated, jailed, for violating them. Our cultural... and societal rules. our worldviews are as firmly held as prisons are constructed.

[53:20]

It's very, very difficult to change them. And I think if someone took a photograph if we had enough cameras in here and someone took a photograph of all of us. And then we studied exactly what kind of clothes you're wearing. Is it a little bit hip-hop with layers? Is it a little bit preppy with turtleneck sweaters? Is it sort of jackets that you could play golf in or go to a soccer game? and so forth, and the length of your fingernails, and if the moon is showing, you'd find that we all have very similar cultural level.

[54:34]

that actually this group is defined by a certain kind of intelligence and a certain kind of inherited and developed culture. So, all I'm saying, this is wonderful. I mean, I love each one. I mean, I really do. I do. Yes. But we still represent a particular cultural configuration defined by certain kinds of signs, significations. And it may be that those similarities that we self-select by being here Allow me to develop with you an embodyable language which can unlock some of the worldviews.

[55:50]

It's probably the case that because we share certain cultural worldviews We can work on unlocking them together. Now I imagine we could go out and on and over and randomly take a number of people all who agreed they don't want to be happy. And there would not be enough agreement with them that I could talk about Buddhism.

[56:50]

And they might be extremely intelligent or whatever, but they just don't have the cultural formations that allow me to enter with language into how they view things. So let me define language then from the point of view of Wang Bo and Matsu. The Zen teacher wants to develop an embodyable language, an incarnate language, a language made flesh, incarnate language. An experienceable language.

[57:53]

Experienceable, embodyable, incarnate. That allows you experientially to enter into your and Buddhist worldviews. And ideally, it's expressed, ideally expressed, in an embodied way. Ideally, I'm speaking from the nourishment of my own embodiment of these teachings. So, we could say that what Zen tries to do is to develop an attentional language that can unlock the worldviews

[59:03]

You've been born in and lived into. and replace them with Buddhist views. That's the trick. That's what we're trying to do. What I'm trying to do with your participation. Okay. It must be time for lunch. Okay. Well, I said that pretty well. I mean, I didn't know I could say that. It's been on my mind. And thanks for helping me say it as well as I think I can. Now what we still have to do, if we're a location, and Fayen and Shido say, all you have to do is study your circumstances.

[60:40]

And we can call the present your circumstances. What is this present we're located in? One of the most famous quotes, quotations of Shakespeare is, all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players with their exits and entrances and And each one is many selves or many stages. Okay, we might say all the world's the present. And each of us are merely actors or merely selves in the stage of the present.

[61:54]

So what is this stage of the present? To be continued. When? After lunch, I suppose. I mean, I threw this out yesterday. Partly threw it out, just to see what would happen. And it's been something I've been It's actually been years for me to develop a description of the present. And it's been on my mind the last few weeks. And I've been wondering whether it's just because it's on my mind or because it relates to this seminar. And I've been experimenting to see if it relates to the seminar.

[63:05]

And now I think that it does. But does it relate to your practice at this point in your life? But even if it doesn't, we might as well go through the drill. Okay, now it's 12.30 almost, 12.25. When should we come back from lunch? If we're going to end at four, we have to come back at two. That's time enough? All right. Okay. See you later. I'm going to need the flip chart for the press. Oh, God. I often say, another day, another... There's an expression, another day, another dollar.

[64:21]

And I often say, another day, another dharma. But sometimes it's another day, I need another leg.

[64:26]

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