So, wholeheartedness in all activity. It's not about accumulation over a period of time. Es geht nicht um Anhäufung über eine Zeitspanne hinweg. It's about completion in the depth and fullness of each moment. During my university years, I had the opportunity to be a big brother.

[01:05]

Do you have this kind of concept, a big brother? To take a young person and spend time with them. In America we have this concept of being a big brother. And it's over, well, it's around 50 years ago, so I don't remember the exact details, I'm sorry, how it happened. But I was told about a young boy, an eight-year-old boy, who was undergoing reconstructive surgery in a hospital. Okay. And so I said, sure, I would like to do that.

[02:26]

And I went to the hospital to meet this young boy who was, for this six-month period, he traveled from the Philippines to where my university was in Pennsylvania. And when I met him, it was unimaginable. He had three holes in the center of his face which were his nose no bone or shape of nose just three kind of random holes and one of his eyes was more up by the temple of his head than where we normally have an eye socket And he had scores of stitches all over his face.

[03:47]

It's the kind of thing that could be terrifying to see such a person. Das ist die Art von Sache, das kann wirklich erschreckend sein, jemanden so zu sehen. Es könnte einem das Herz brechen, jemanden so zu sehen. Aber hier ist dieser achtjährige Junge, der Karten spielen möchte mit mir. Sein Name war Buddy. So I started to, once a week, I would go and visit Buddy in the hospital. And before he went back to the Philippines, he wanted to bring back a birdhouse to his family.

[04:47]

And I asked the doctor, I said, explain to me about what happened to this child. And he said, in America we wouldn't talk about it, we would turn the child over at birth. To turn over means to kill? To smother the child, suffocate the child. Because of the potentially hellish life this being would look forward to. And he was also mentally impaired. He wasn't what we might call mildly retarded. Anyway, so Buddy and I made a birdhouse. And we found plans.

[06:07]

He picked out the birdhouse he wanted to make. And I would use a very thick black marker to draw the line. And he would lean with his good eye to try to make the cut. But I would secretly recut the piece straight after he left. Because he couldn't make a straight cut. We finished this birdhouse. and he painted it red he was so proud and one day he said come with me and he took me to a room which had weren't beds it was more like cribs like for infants but young children were in these beds

[07:20]

And he took me to meet his friend. And his friend had multiple operations. He was four years old, roughly four years old. And he had multiple operations on his legs. Like Buddy, he'd been there maybe six months. And they completely loved each other. And he wasn't at all afraid about how... Because Buddy looked... It was hard to look at Buddy. But this young boy loved Buddy. That was his friend. Die beiden haben sich geliebt. Der kleine Junge war überhaupt nicht erschrocken, Buddy anzusehen, obwohl es wirklich schwierig war, Buddy anzusehen.

[08:48]

Aber die beiden waren Freunde. And it's a late fall afternoon, maybe like one of our afternoons. Und an einem spätherbstlichen Nachmittag, so vielleicht wie einer unserer Nachmittage jetzt, And I'm standing next to this crib with Buddy and this young boy. And I felt the sunshine on the side of my face. I felt the warmth of the sunshine. And it was such a joyful feeling. It's unimaginably joyful. In the presence of my broken open heart. before I divided the world up into pain and suffering joy and happiness just the feeling of the warmth on my cheek

[10:18]

So we've been exploring possibilities, possibility to shift from our likes and dislikes. our mind that's continually picking and choosing, to a mind that rests in perceptual immediacy, Simple pleasures. The feeling of the warmth of the glass ball that collects the water in the morning. The sound of the water pouring. Sometimes I think, oreoki meals are just so we can drink that hot water.

[11:51]

Sometimes for me, clearly, the meal is very good, but the hot water is just outstanding. Manchmal finde ich, dass die Speisen sehr gut sind, aber dieses heiße Wasser, das ist einfach unübertrefflich. Weil es immer anders ist. Auf subtile Weise anders. Wenn ich dafür offen bin. Wenn ich nicht in meinen Vorstellungen davon gefangen bin. If I allow it to come forward and meet me. This is rooted in an adept practice. Where we lead with the body, not our thinking. We can't think our way into a space where we feel joy simply from the presence of the warm sunshine on the side of our face.

[13:10]

These four stages of practice I mentioned recently. Diese vier Stufen der Praxis, die ich vor kurzem erwähnt habe. Beginnend mit dem Nichtdenken. Das bedeutet, sich auf das Denken nicht einzulassen. And the second is joyfulness in body and mind. And the third is simply joyfulness in the body. How the gold and brown leaf meets our eye. In all its majesty offers itself to us. Simply if we're willing to take it in.

[14:27]

Then the fourth aspect of practice is doing nothing at all. Prior to dividing the world up in any particular way. And prior to any idea we have of dividing the world up or not. And in such a place these simple pleasures proliferate. I went to

[15:27]

10 or 12 years ago for a weekend sitting and it's the practice of the Veen Sangha they made a table for lunch we all went to a restaurant for lunch for lunch Serio Erich sent me a wonderful postcard from Café Wilde. And on the way back after lunch, we stopped by the canal that runs through the Stadtpark. And there were pools of water with big fish in these pools of water in that concrete canal. And there were, I expect, maybe 12 of us.

[16:56]

And we leaned over the railing together. And side by side with each other, we just looked at these fish And when I left Wien after that weekend, I realized why I went to Wien was to be able to stand by the canal and look at the big fish with... Da wurde mir klar, dass der Grund, warum ich nach Wien gefahren war, war, um die Möglichkeit zu haben, am Kanal zu stehen mit uns allen und die Fische anzuschauen.

[17:59]

Die Sufis nennen das eine Perle, die man nicht bezahlen kann. precious beyond worldly measure. Dogen Zenji says that the way is abundant everywhere. But if we allow the slightest, he says the least, like or dislike to arise,

[19:04]

The mind is lost in confusion. And he says, don't seek after intellectual understanding. He suggests we take what he calls the backward step. And turn the light inward. And this stepping back is not stepping back in a temporal sense. It has a feeling of a spatial stepping back, stepping back prior to.

[20:22]

It has a feeling of a spatial stepping back prior to. Prior to dividing the world up. Prior to the engagement of our thinking mind in dividing the world up. So simply to say this, to say that it's spatial doesn't even work. Dawi says, to enter practice is to enter the living gate.

[21:29]

To enter the living gate, he says. A gate, you mean gate? Like a moan. Oh, wait, like a moan? Like a door. Like un moan. Yeah, okay. But gate like we are building, not G-A-I-T, but... No, correct. Like a physical gate. Yes, okay. Okay. To practice is to enter a living gate. And he says, and to enter the living gate, we have to put to death our fabricated reality. And to enter the living gate, we have to put to death our fabricated reality. This is Bajang's relinquishment we talked about. Relinquishing a sense we have of the dual nature of things.

[22:49]

Dividing the world up into what we like and don't like. What we think is good and not good. What we think is true and false. But it's the kind of gate, there's no inside or outside to such a gate. There's no separation in such a gate. That's why he calls it a living gate. The reference point is our own aliveness. So when Dogen suggests that we take a step back into our own aliveness, not seeking outside our aliveness for some answer, for some reason, for some understanding.

[24:22]

nicht außerhalb unserer Lebendigkeit nach irgendeiner Antwort oder irgendeinem Verständnis oder irgendeinem Grund zu suchen. And we can only lead into this space with the body, not with our thinking. Und wir können uns in diesen Raum nur über den Körper hineinführen, nicht durch das Denken. Because thinking's job is to immediately appropriate things and make them into something we can do something with. It's what thinking does. And thinking, it's incredibly important. Conceptualization is maybe very helpful.

[25:45]

But it won't help us realize Suzuki Roshi's bottomless calmness. As much as it might try to appropriate it. Make it into something. A better place. A way we want our life to be. So taking a backward step and turning a light inward. Rilke says, to know the substance of a tree. is to invest in our own substance.

[27:05]

invest in our own substance. invest in our own substance. 90 days of peaceful abiding is investing in our own shared substance. It's not investing in our intellectual understanding of it. From outside, it makes no sense to say, I went to Vienna to look at some big fish in the canal through the Stadt.

[28:17]

But from the point of view of awareness invested in itself. An observing mind, not an observing self. There's a completeness and a depth That wholeheartedness in that moment. So it's not about the content of our experience. The backward step is prior to dividing the world up into an experiencer, the process of experience, and what's experienced.

[29:42]

This step back, it's about what goes on before we divide the world into someone who learns, the experienced, the process of learning and what will be learned. It's about the aliveness of the relationship between these three possibilities in this moment. So rather than settling ourselves on who we hope to be, What we expect. Who we think we are. Dogen's encouragement is to settle ourselves on the self simply as it is.

[30:48]

Prior to any elaboration. Any anything. Anything. So Katagiri Roshi, I could feel Katagiri Roshi rubbing his, he'd rub his head when he'd say things that he couldn't figure out how to say. And he used to say this as, it's to settle the self on the self of the self as we truly are. To settle the self. On the self, of the self, as the self, as we truly are.

[31:54]

He'd add about five or six things. Da hat er fünf oder sechs Dinge aneinander hinzugefügt. Aber worüber er spricht, ist, dass wir uns in diese Vertrautheit mit der Praxis und dem sogenannten Selbst hineinlassen. this directionality of stepping back into our so-called life and continually moment each moment to settle each self that arises on itself.

[33:13]

And so-called effort in practice, the energy that we dedicate ourselves with is simply to this uncorrected attitude. Being able in each situation to feel its warm sunshine on our cheek.

[34:16]

And from here, practice isn't some special thing that we can make or do or attain. It's about simply being who we are in each situation. Wholehearted depth of each moment. Thank you very much.

[35:09]

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