Does anybody have something they'd like to say from yesterday or from today? Has anyone got something they'd like to say from yesterday or from today? Yes, Tab. I'm a little slow, so I'll take a few sentences from the last lecture. I'm always a little bit slow, and therefore I'm still with a sentence from the, not the last koan, but the one before that. And this sentence is accompanying me. And this sentence is accompanying me. So it's this sentence, that in you, in me, that comes and goes with you, that is, or it is this.

[01:04]

It is what comes and goes in me with you, yeah. And for me that is a territory of less self. Otherwise such a kind of meeting or melting together would not be possible. But I personally am therefore not gone, there is always this part that knows itself and is there despite this openness.

[02:04]

but still there is this part of me which is always there, which does not disappear. Good, that's good. Okay. We wouldn't want to lose you entirely. I wouldn't like to lose myself either. Anyone else want to say something? There's two people who were here who aren't here now. Oh, okay. Well, that phrase, that line you brought up from the koan a couple of seminars ago, is at the center of what we're talking about.

[03:27]

So today is our, this morning, I guess we end at lunchtime. I don't know exactly why, but I have a certain reluctance to carry this topic forward. It's not unusual for me to feel this way. I feel, why should I bother you with rearranging your entire life? And I'd never even considered doing it if I hadn't somehow fallen into this responsibility for the dharma.

[04:41]

So I'll say some of the things I feel like I ought to say. And you, of course, have the freedom just to forget about it after the seminar. And what I... I don't have to give you that permission. But I... And what I want to say is nothing special.

[05:52]

In any case, we have this phrase that I gave you yesterday and before. The flow of momentary appearance. Now this is a generalized statement. You can feel it as an image, as an idea. But it's hard to act on, act within. I mean, I can look at Ruth here and have a feel for her appearance. Then look over at Mark. How do you have a feel for your appearance? And I can allow each of my lookings to be an appearance that I absorb.

[07:07]

And I can let one disappear and the other appear. So there's a feeling of appearance. It's like that. It's had the four marks. Is that the four marks? So something appears. It's held for a moment. And it dissolves. And it dissolves all by itself. But the craft of appearance is that I instigate this dissolution or I join this dissolution.

[08:27]

I intend to disappear. So the last mark tells you this is a human activity. I mean, the first three are sort of like physics. Molecule appears, and atom appears, disappears. By making it disappear, by joining in its dissolution, I'm practicing appearance. Because I'm just sitting here and you're all here. And there's no, I mean appearance doesn't occur in units. I have to create the units and the four marks is one of the simple practices simple but far reaching practices that allows you to develop the practice of appearance

[10:03]

to start noticing the world in units of appearance. And this requires an intentional practice. Intentional, attentional practice. And I don't think we come upon it naturally. Perhaps a chess player might or an athlete. But it's something we have to learn and study. Okay. And when you do this, you're developing attentiveness. Now the word in English, mind, is very useful for translation.

[11:15]

So we can have a compound like mindfulness. But I think a more accurate translation of whatever the original is, mindful attention. And now I'm emphasizing maybe something like mindful attentiveness. Sorry, I realize there may not be any distinction there. So attention is aufmerksamkeit and attentiveness. It's hard to translate that. Attentive. Because achtsamkeit, which would be the word, I think, is already taken over by mindfulness. Okay, so something like that.

[12:41]

Irgendwas so ähnliches. Nee, gewahrsein ist awareness und nicht attentiveness. Attend means to stretch toward. In English, attend is to stretch and attention is to stretch. Not so important, but attentive. If I give attention to your hand... Yeah, I just look at it or something like that. But if I'm attentive to your hand, maybe I take it, hold it, and stroke it. Well, she's easily pleased. Yeah, okay.

[13:45]

So... When we do kin-hin, you might say it's slow walking. But you might more accurately, you'd say it's attentive walking. Because the point is not to walk slowly. But the point is to walk in a way that attention can be each part of the walking. And, you know, it puts the Eno, who was in charge of the Zendo, in a kind of perplexing situation with people. Because you'd like the Eno, or me, would like to go over and say, now please walk just like this.

[15:01]

And I think, oh, Jesus, I don't want to bother this person. They came here to... They didn't come here to decide how to dance. But the precision Precision is to cut in advance. Pre-cision. Precision is to cut like consciousness is scissors in it. It's like being a tailor, a schneider. So you Inhale as you raise your heel.

[16:36]

And then you move your body forward parallel to the floor. And you slide your foot forward. And as you put your weight down, you exhale. And you go half a foot about. So your heel is more or less in the arch of your foot, of the other foot. And then you inhale and the other foot. as you raise the other heel, and slide forward and exhale.

[17:40]

There are several ways to do Kinyin, but that's, I think, the simplest and easiest for us to all do. But the point is the precision. Of course your posture is part of it and your hands more or less parallel to the floor and your hands turn slightly. So there's a precise attentiveness in this. Now, yesterday, Beate told us about her experience being at Creston for the practice period.

[18:53]

Some of her experience at least. I don't wonder why it happens, but at the same time I also wonder. On the one hand, I am not at all surprised why this is happening, but at the same time I wonder about it. And now she is sitting here and she looks pretty much the same as in Kristallnacht. You said you changed in some ways, but your nose is the same, your eyes are the same. And the same nose and eyes and feet were walking around in Crestum. And that's a good translation.

[20:05]

So why was being in Crestone different for three months than being here in Deutschland for three months? Well, it has something to do with the precision of the life there. that if we're talking about a flow of momentary appearance, the precision allows a certain flow. I don't know why exactly. Okay, so... And also the fact that you can't leave for three months. And because you can't leave, part of, I mean, you know, we may not have a practice period, probably won't have a practice period at Creston this year.

[21:18]

Next year. Yeah, well, it's coming, yeah, next year. Calendrical years, yes. Because we're not in debt for the first time in a thousand years. But if we do a practice period and we start heating the Zendo, we'll be $30,000 in debt by April. And generally we let anybody who wants to come, who ought to practice, come, whether they can pay or not. Yeah, so we want to see if we can get through the year without getting in debt. So we may not heat the Sendoh or most other buildings, and we're eliminating all the landline, phone lines, pretty much, and so forth.

[22:43]

And also on the... So we probably won't have a practice period. Unless we can somehow afford to heat the Zendo. So we'll probably sit in the main house. We will heat the main house. Okay. So people can come, and for the first time ever, only people can come who can cover their cost. I hate to say that, but that's what we're doing. So we'll have a practice period. I mean, we'll have practice going on. But it won't be like a Sashin, we will do two Sashins, but it won't be like a Sashin in that you can't leave a Sashin, or you're not supposed to anyway.

[24:03]

I always think of Mike Murphy. and his wife leaving a sashin and crawling on the floor. That always reminds me of Michael Murphy, who wanted to leave Cechin with his wife in the middle of nowhere. Michael, what are you doing? Anyway... So we'll have people, and I'm going to be meeting with people, and we'll have lectures and so forth.

[25:18]

So it will be ordinary monastic life. And, you know, it's quite unusual to have a practice period. I mean, most centers, temples in Japan do not have practice periods. So, basically for 25,000 Sōtō temples, there's two practice periods available, Heiji and Sochiji, and that's pretty much it. So it's quite a privilege to have the facilities and the ability to do a practice. So this is normal monastic life at Cresthout.

[26:37]

But what I'm wondering is, in practice period, I mean, I don't know about you, but most people when they're there occasionally think, geez, I could leave. Why don't I leave? And because you can't leave and then you decide to stay even though sometimes you want to leave you enter into a world where there's no alternative And as long as you have an alternative, you're not present in the same way. So we'll have people practicing, so I'm going to be curious. With the opportunity to leave, how will it feel different?

[27:38]

So I try to give people the feeling of that by suggesting the use of phrase like no other location mind. Okay, so back to K'in Hin. You're very precise in how you're mindfully attentive. Ihr seid sehr präzise darin, wie ihr auf achtsame Weise aufmerksam seid. You're training, in effect, you're using kin hin. Ihr nutzt das kin hin. To, one, carry the feeling of zazen while you're up taking a ten-minute break.

[28:56]

Um... But you're also training attention to be precise. And we actually live in an extraordinarily precise world. The way the molecules are in this rock is extremely precise. Yeah, making that precise kind of rock. And in our bodies, our lungs and organs and all have to work very precisely.

[29:58]

If there's slight differences, you might be in the hospital the rest of your life. And may I say, Paul has blood which doesn't clot easily. Most people know this. But it shapes... And it's red just like yours and mine. But there's some slight difference which actually has a great deal to do with how you live your life. You have to be quite careful. So our life hangs in the balance is carried from moment to moment by the preciseness of our body.

[31:13]

So Dharma practice includes bringing precision into what we're doing. Well, I want us to take a break a minute, but I'd like to take a few more minutes to finish this part of what I am saying. Okay. Again, appearance doesn't appear in units.

[32:16]

We have to learn how to create units of appearance. But we can use our activity to train, develop our attentiveness. So of course the most classic is our attentiveness, our attention is on our breath and reaches into our breath with preciseness. The exhale. All parts of the exhale. The turn as it starts to be an inhale. Pause as you start to inhale. And then the pause as it turns back into exhale. And if you just get in the habit of this kind of precise attentive breathing, this attentiveness begins this

[33:33]

attention and awareness begins to pervade our whole body. It's like an elixir that you drink by breathing and it infuses your body with a little more health and perhaps even a little more youthfulness. So there are particulars, all the time there are particulars and to get you to be aware of particulars I often suggest the Dharma phrase, pause for the particular. And there's right now the particularness of my fingers touching each other.

[34:59]

And I can just, my breath can be in the touching and in the fingers. Or my attention can be there. When you have your mudra in sitting, it's very precise how your thumbs are touching. And when you hold the mudra while sitting, it is also very precise how your thumbs touch each other. So as you can start in training, do you know the word in train? Like to in train like two bicycle riders or runners. If they run with each other, that's called in trained and you actually go faster with someone else. There must be a sports word.

[36:21]

Yeah, I know. If there is a team of cyclists, they decide who is doing the front and getting going along. And they change that position. Are you still biking a lot? Oh, great. without drugs you're drug free I hope have you been tested? anyway So there's a kind of entrainment. Let's just use the word entrainment. Can you go on so then I find the German word? Entrainment of what? Yeah, I don't know yet. Let me see. I just sort of want to see what comes up here. Okay, so that I'm Getting breath used to physical particulars.

[37:28]

Also, ich lasse den Atem sich an körperliche Details gewöhnen. Okay, so I get breath used to the physical particulars of breathing. Ich lasse also, I let breath? I'm getting breath familiar with, used to, the physical particulars of breathing. So one way to develop the practice of appearances is to get the breath used to noticing particulars and to get attention used to noticing particulars. Yeah.

[38:39]

So that, I mean, right now I'm sitting a certain way. And attention can be in all the particulars of my hands, and the stick for ringing the bell. And attention can... can do all that... And just like in Kinhin, it's very precise as you lift your heels. In a few moments when I get up, because we're going to have a break, I can... let my body do things in ways that attention is present in each precise part.

[39:45]

Sukhya, she used to say quite often, do one thing at a time. But we usually took that to mean don't be busy. But as a yogic practice he meant do one, one, one. Do each thing in a way that you can bring attention into it. Don't go faster than you can bring attention into it. Don't do more things at once than you can bring attention into it. Now, this attentive preciseness is one of the secrets of the practice of looking for the Self.

[41:00]

Okay. Thanks. I haven't finished yet, but we need it.

[41:27]

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