Changsha, also Tiger Zen, wrote a poem that is much quoted in the Zen tradition. He said, those who practice the way, I don't know the real. He meant, I hope, mostly. Most of those who don't practice the way don't know the real. Don't practice the way. Most of those who practice the way don't know the real. Okay. And you hope he meant? That mostly, not all of, but... but mostly those who practice the way don't know the real.

[01:01]

He said from the first they only see the perceiving mind. From the first they only see the perceiving mind. Which, he says, from the beginningless beginning has been the source of birth and death. It is what stupid persons call the original body. So it's a rather interesting poem because, or statement, because it really makes clear that what we mean by, what he is saying, what is usually meant by original mind might be better called the original body.

[02:30]

Changsha was much appreciated by Suzuki Roshi. And in the blue cliff records of Hekigan Roku, I can't remember what koan it is, but it's the one where I went out following the smell of the flowers. And returned following something or other. Anyway, it strikes me too from this poem how I sometimes don't, as I implied in various ways yesterday, don't

[03:34]

really notice as much as I ought to, I think, what should be taught. But I guess maybe when I go back 50 or 60 years, the first living in San Francisco yeah I I really was fed up with the perceiving mind I didn't like what it did but I really didn't know what was going on I just knew I didn't like what it did But then I met an alternative being Suzuki Roshi. And at that time I also for some reason didn't have any idea of a career or job or anything like that.

[04:57]

Yeah, I just wanted to discover what it meant to be alive, if I was going to be alive. So I, you know, I don't know. exactly how it happened, but I did make a decision at that time to spend really basically the rest of my life paying attention to what it meant to be alive. Yeah, to pay attention to aliveness. So in a way, aliveness became my path. Yeah. So the perceiving mind, and of course he means this seamless sensorium of consciousness,

[06:19]

Changsha also said the entire universe is your eye. The entire universe is your complete body. The entire universe is your luminescence. Luminosity or luminance. the entire universe is within your luminance. Now, you also, if you're going to practice, you have to kind of take some of these statements as, what if this is true?

[07:53]

Are these people talking turkey? Or is it a kind of rhetoric? Well, again, I decided not having much to go on, that I wouldn't take it as rhetoric. So then you have to look at statements of Dogen or anybody, and say, what parts can I relate to? And you start there. So in this statement that I just gave you of Changsha's, I would start with, for me, I would have started, if I worked with it in those days, the entire universe is your complete body.

[09:13]

Now, intellectually or philosophically, that doesn't make much sense. But maybe experientially it makes sense. So I would have taken that statement and just put it in the bodily mind machine and let it be on every appearance. And see if it revealed anything, if it revealed itself. And if you're patient and you don't try to look for something or need something, but just let it bounce around in your activity, And when you are patient and don't expect or need anything specific from it, but simply allow it to jump back and forth in your activity, then it is often the case that a kind of revelation takes place.

[10:37]

So this question which I responded to yesterday, of how do we notice mind on appearance, it was clear at first we have to notice appearance. And we really have to then notice that mind is fooling us. The brain mind, the brain consciousness is fooling us. And in various ways, in those early days of practice for me, I noticed this. But now if I look back, I have to say, okay, how can any one of us see the craft of this practice? And to put it simply, you want to physicalize consciousness.

[12:10]

You want to bring... I mean, when you are bringing attention to the breath, that's what you're doing. You're basically saying consciousness... or attention, you don't only belong in consciousness. It's not a healthy atmosphere. It's full of smog, pollution, stains, obstructions. You know, it's healthier down here. Down here? Why side? Down here? Anyway, it's healthier here in the body. Yeah, so basically you're trying to encourage, persuade, seduce breath to hang out in the body.

[13:32]

It's nice down here in the lungs. Yeah, there's some big spaces here. And this is the first breath practice, as I've been pointing out recently, is Anapanasati. And the more well-known four foundations of mindfulness practices of Satipatthana is based on the practice of Anapanasati. Which means to bring attention To the bodily breath.

[14:50]

The breath as an activity of the body. So you're bringing attention not really to the breath so much as the activity of the body breathing. So you're trying to re-educate attention so it doesn't go to the seamless TV of consciousness. Yeah, but where the programming is so interesting. And just notice the movements of the body in its breathing. So I would say if I were going to create a syllabary or a curriculum I would say probably let's just make it grand and say the first year just get completely used to the breath

[16:10]

being located in the movements of the breath body. And these teachings are both instructions And codes. Yeah, the other day I said it was like a manhole cover in the street. The instruction is to, you know, there's a manhole cover and you try to lift it off with tools. It's very heavy. I've seen them once or twice shoot 10 or 15 feet into the air with the torrential rainstorms in Japan.

[17:26]

So there's maybe instructions about how to move the manhole cover, but then underneath there's the whole city of, you know, waste disposal, electricity, and so forth. So the instruction is to bring attention to the breath. It's a code in that it's a code for letting the attention follow where the breath movements take you. And when you do that, and that's why I said a year, it's often a long time before the breath can actually

[18:45]

the attentional breath with the feeling of presence can actually find its way through the sinews and organs and so forth of the body. And these things really help actually to lessen suffering. Now the four, let me just shift out and say the four credentials or criterion of a Buddhist teaching. It assumes the potential of enlightenment.

[20:13]

It assumes the potential of transformation, of realization. Realization or? Which means that the teachings are designed to increase the potentiality of enlightenment. And if you don't believe that's possible, those teachings aren't going to work. It doesn't mean you have to think about enlightenment or want to be enlightened or anything, but just be aware, hey, it's possible.

[21:15]

The human beings, there is such a thing as the awakened Buddha. So that's one of the credentials of a Buddha's teaching. A second is that it is possible to be free of mental and emotional suffering. Das zweite ist, dass es möglich ist, frei zu sein von geistigem und emotionalem Leid. No, I suppose most therapists, psychotherapists who see so much emotional suffering think that that's really maybe impossible. Und ich würde denken, dass vielleicht viele Therapeuten, die so viel geistiges und emotionales Leid sehen, denken, dass das so gut wie unmöglich ist.

[22:25]

You can change your relationship to suffering, but it's always going to be there. Well, that's true too, but, and we don't want to deny by this teaching that the reality of suffering, but the Four Noble Truths and all of Buddhism really involve is rooted in the fact that it is possible to be free of mental and emotional suffering. And that imaginal space can inform your practice. And third, credential, criterion, is that it's possible to practice in a way that's beneficial to oneself and to others.

[23:45]

Und das dritte Kriterium ist, dass es möglich ist, auf eine Art und Weise zu praktizieren, die einem selbst zugute kommt und anderen zugute kommt. And the fourth is that we live as close as possible to how things actually exist. Und das vierte ist, dass wir so nah wie möglich daran leben, wie die Dinge tatsächlich existieren. Now all these are interrelated. We can define enlightenment as to live as closely as possible to how things actually exist. So also one of the first jobs or responsibilities or wisdoms of practice is to accept the potentialities of these four.

[24:47]

ist die Potenziale dieser vier zu akzeptieren. Und wenn du sie nicht akzeptieren kannst, dann untersuche, warum du sie nicht akzeptierst. Und durch dieses Untersuchen entdeckst du die Lehren. The teachings are not like studying computer coding or something like that. The teachings are developed and work through your applying them to your particular situation, problems, ideas, joys, etc., So here again bringing attention to the bodily movements of the breath Open attention to a certain physicalized attention.

[26:08]

Now, I am not saying, I kind of hesitate to say this, because people have migraines. It's really serious to have a migraine. But when I was young, I'd get an occasional headache. But through this practice of anapanasati, I could feel hours before a headache occurred when a headache was going to occur. And in my case, it was a little ping in the left side of my head above my ear. There were probably other things I could have noticed, but that was sufficient.

[27:33]

And as soon as I noticed that, I would change my breathing, I'd change the sense of my bodily blood circulation, and I've never had a headache in 70 years now or something like that. Now, if I had a physiology prone to migraines, maybe that wouldn't be possible. I'm only mentioning it to say it is real that simply a practice of anapanasati can begin to relate you with an attentional virtuosity. which allows you to notice your body in ways that allow you to really participate in your state of bodily mind.

[28:52]

But it does take a thorough investigation of the body from the inside of, from your toes to the top of your head and as much as you can through the contours of the muscles and so, because you can do that with this attentional skill of anapanasati. Okay, so let's sort of get back on track here. Okay, so what you're trying to... So... similarly to bringing attention to the breath, you're bringing attention to your steps and your physical active actions.

[30:11]

As somebody mentioned to me, in Doksang, the practice of bringing attention to an object with two hands, doing things with two hands. What you're doing is you're using the unitarity the ability to experience things in units, the bodily unitariness or unitaritivity. That's not better. It's not better. Sorry. You're trying to get the mind or you're trying to get attention to locate itself in the sequentials of the body.

[31:26]

You've perhaps noticed that, like, the bell for doksan is not really a signal. Du hast vielleicht bemerkt, dass die Glocke für Dokusan nicht wirklich ein Signal ist. We could call it a signaling, perhaps. Wir könnten das vielleicht ein signalisieren nennen. But if we use the simplistic translation of the Dokusan bell as a signal to come to Dokusan, You don't really get what it's about. And then you wouldn't respond in a similar way with the bell. So let's call it a sequential rather than a signal. No. So it's a sequential made by a human being.

[32:35]

I think it was made by a human being. So it's, you know, It's not, I mean, it's always one and one, it's never two. Whenever I hear someone hit the bell twice, I know they don't know what's going on. Twice is once and once. There may be some exceptions, but I'm not going to try to figure it out right now. And the Zazen, to begin Zazen, there's three bells. And they're sequentials. They're related to the end of Kinan, or related to offering incense, and bowing at the cushion, and so forth.

[33:40]

And each of those sequentials is given its due. And when you wash dishes, it's similar. You don't wash them as groups. You let machines do that. You wash each piece of silverware, each glass, separately. It's a kind of respect for each piece of silverware or utensil as well as a practice of bringing attention to the world in units and sequential units. So the entire way things are organized here, or articulated,

[34:58]

ist die gesamte Art und Weise, wie die Dinge hier organisiert oder artikuliert sind, ist die individuelle Sequentiality, sag mal, wie sagst du das? And the Sangha is seen as, during Sashin or a practice period or something like that, is seen as a single body of interchangeable parts. That's one reason we rotate the jobs. And you get one job or another job. And it's not really so much about being free of preferences.

[36:19]

But you have to be alive somewhere. So it's okay to be alive washing dishes instead of something else. You're located in the sequentiality of the dishes or you're located in the sequentiality of the changing, making up the room. I know some of you occasionally ask in advance for particular jobs. Oh, I wouldn't have dared do that in Japan. Oh, yay! I can't even imagine, I can't even think it. If I'd asked at a Heiji or an Taiji or when I was practicing Rinzai with Yamada... when I practiced in Eheiji or in Taiji or with Yamada Muman Roshi if I said I want to

[37:51]

I want to come to your Sashin, Muman Roshi, but I'd like particularly... Whoa, would I lose my position? I would not... I mean, years they would not let me come to a Sashin. Because if I can't find joy and aliveness in whatever I do, I'm not a serious practitioner. Some things can be annoying, I know, but still, in the midst of it, what the heck? So I don't have much time left, so I have to tailor what I'm doing. And in a sense, when you develop this attentional skill, let's even call it, which I've never said before, an attentional virtuosity, You can begin to feel.

[39:16]

Now this is different than bringing mind and appearance together. You can begin to be in the midst of consciousness constructing itself. Because the more you physicalized the seamlessness of consciousness... You sort of, in a way, opened up the seams of the sensorium. You can feel the Schneider, the tailoring process going on. Schneidering?

[40:19]

Do you have that word in German? Not quite that word. What are you doing? I'm schneidering. Schneidering consciousness. What else are you doing? Because you now physically feel the articulation of consciousness. the qualia that constitute consciousness. Weil du jetzt körperlich die Qualia des Bewusstseins spüren kannst. That means you also don't just bring attention to the obvious, you don't just bring attention to the noticeable sequentialities of the body. Each breath, each step, each heartbeat.

[41:20]

I remember when I first started, when I first really began to find attention on each heartbeat. I had a white kind of, what's that word, meaning to shiver in German? Zittern. Schüttelfrost. I had a shot of Schüttelfrost. It could stop. I just was taking it for granted. Oh, my God. Oh, dear. And then I noticed I have arrhythmia. So you begin to also notice when thoughts can be physicalized. Like right now, I'm speaking in my breath.

[42:37]

And there's a kind of invisible umpire here, or arbitrator. who notices a thought I might have that doesn't have a physical basis, so it's excluded from what I'm saying. I'm literally only speaking in words I can physicalize. Not words I can think. I can think a lot of words. I'm not thinking them. So that means you give each thing you look at its due. I don't know.

[43:38]

The keyboard, the tea bowl, whatever it is. You let... To practice it, it's good to let yourself rest on whatever you see for ideally two breaths at least, but maybe only one sometimes. So if I'm going to pick up that glass, this I just learned by practicing Zen with Sukhya. Because I discovered him doing it. There's a breath as I let the body know, which occurs, let the body know that I've agreed with this decision to pick up the glass, because the bodily decision comes before the mental decision.

[44:38]

So I breathe that moment. Not really necessary, but I'm teaching myself to think in units, which at first are breath units. To think in bodily units, which at first are breath units. So then I feel the glistening of the glass. And then I put my hand on it and I feel the coolness of the glass. And each of these is really a completely separate event.

[45:44]

Luckily there's a sequence to it so I can get water in my mouth. And then if you've noticed Asian people, if they do just what I just did, if they drink something, they'll hold the teacup here. Why? It's the chakra shelf on the middle of the chest. And if they're going to drink again, they hold it in front of this chakra. I can tell whether a person is first or second generation Japanese, whether they do that or not. Third generation, they start losing it. And just as these figures are articulated that way, that's why we hold our hands this way and so forth.

[46:46]

So through this extended anapanasati practice, Durch diese ausgeweitete Anapanasati-Praxis spürst du die Körperhaftigkeit des Bewusstseins. Und wenn du dann, egal in welcher Situation bist, kannst du spüren, wie das Bewusstsein sich selbst formiert, während du zum Beispiel einen Raum betrittst. That should be enough for today, don't you think? What about this as a way of sitting? Is it okay? You can play tennis with each other.

[47:46]

Did you ever see that Hitchcock movie where everyone's watching a tennis game like this and one person is not? He was either asleep or as a Zen practitioner.

[48:01]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_72.7