When I speak, I like to try to include everybody. I don't know if I can include Janis, except I enjoy him being here. When I came in, there were all these shoes lined up, and there was this real teeny pair. Yeah. So I suggested you look at these three sections of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And in the first one, experience, not philosophy, Sukhya, she says, the most important thing is to practice with a group.

[01:10]

And he says the reason for that is because this is our original form of life. So we have original nature, original mind and now we have original form of life. So I'd like to try to explain or give you a feeling for what he meant. Hmm. Of course, I also want to be open to your questions and observations about what we're doing here.

[02:23]

But we can do that more in the seminar time this afternoon. And, of course, at this stage, you know, what we're doing here in Johanneshof after the first year and a half, or is that right, year and a half? Two years now. It's still, and will be for the next 10 or 20 years, some kind of experiment. Mm-hmm. But we shouldn't look for guidance in this experiment.

[03:27]

We shouldn't look to some ideal form of practice, an imagined ideal form of practice in Asia. We should look also to what Johanneshof actually is already. Just now. Again, let's look at the simple... a relationship between your posture as it is and Buddha's posture. Our posture is a dialogue between the posture you have and Buddha's posture. And you can't really separate them.

[04:36]

The ideal posture is clearly based on our actual body. And yet... Our actual body is the source of the ideal posture. Some alien from outer space with a different kind of body would have a different ideal posture. It might be quite interesting. Yes. Maybe an octopus's ideal posture is quite different. He could do multiple full lotus.

[05:37]

But yet, without this ideal sense of a posture, Zazen posture wouldn't make any sense. We wouldn't know what to do. So, while most of the time we're accepting our posture, we have to, first of all, accept our posture as it is. At the same time, sometimes, when our zazen is particularly clear, The ideal posture appears.

[06:40]

And the ideal posture, suddenly our back and everything feels quite straight and relaxed. And the ideal posture begins to inform our actual posture. It begins to teach us something about our body even. How our energy works. So there's this intimacy of a dialogue between ideal posture and accepting our posture as it is. If you only related to the ideal posture, this would be some rigid thing. And there wouldn't be much creativity or any way that the ideal posture could teach us.

[07:53]

So it's in this always first and last accepting our posture as it is That the creativity of our life comes, of this sitting comes forth. So in a similar way, we have to accept Yohannesov as it is and study it. Although we have some ideal form of life that informs this life here. What Suzuki Roshi means when he says this practicing with a group is the original form of life.

[09:05]

He doesn't mean it's the ideal form of life. He means the actual life you live with other people practicing is the original form of life. Now, you know, maybe I should just say, oh, there's monk's life and there's lay life, and lay life is this, but it's not that simple, I'm sorry. It's a relationship. And that's what Sukhiyoshi said, meant by saying experience, not philosophy. Experience is much more subtle. So we need to look at our experience. Now there's a simple idea that many people have that, excuse me for sounding like I'm changing the topic,

[10:13]

A simple idea that cities are based on an excess of food that the rural agricultural population produces. But this is probably not true. Jane Jacobs, an American writer, makes this point very clearly. She's in America transformed the way we understand cities. In the last 20 years or so. Anyway, she makes the point that rural countries are the poorest countries.

[11:17]

Rural countries that are only rural and agricultural are the least well fed and the poorest. that it takes cities to produce fruitful agricultural life. Only in countries where there are healthy cities is there enough food for everyone. It's all of the stuff that makes agriculture productive, metal, cutting tools, etc., comes out of the crafts that are developed in cities. For example, weaving, just weaving your clothes, although it's done in the countryside, it was developed in cities. And everything, not only just markets, but all of the equipment used in farming comes from city life.

[12:24]

So you can't just look at cities or farms, you have to look at the relationship. So we have some idea of maybe the ideal form of practice is in the countryside. Or in the mountains, maybe. Or even in a cave. You know, maybe that's true in some ways. But in fact, if you look at the development of Buddhism, it's a relationship between city practice, mountain practice, monks and lay people. And all share in a Buddhist culture this sense of an original form of life.

[13:36]

Particularly if we are talking about lay adepts and monk adepts. Now I'm speaking about it this way because of course I understand it this way. Or I wouldn't be involved with developing your hands off with you. Because I'm doing this because my own understanding, experience is that we need to create this original form of life together.

[14:40]

Doesn't mean it's the only form of life, it just means we could call it the original form of life. Now, last night I defined meditation as that posture and mode of mind in which you come to know your own power. And we could also say, in which you come to know your happiness. We could call Zazen posture a happiness gathering posture. No, that may sound really kind of silly, but, you know, What is zazen posture ultimately, but in its most full sense is called the bliss body?

[15:54]

Bliss may be a bigger, more serious sounding word than happiness, but it's pretty much the same thing. Now, how do we find our original, what is happiness? So what is happiness? Happiness is when we feel at ease. Happiness is when our senses feel satisfied. Happiness is when we have everything we need. Or happiness is when we don't need anything. Pretty hard to feel that way in ordinary circumstances. So we forget what that's like. Sukhirushi also says in this section that if you don't know your original pure effort the results of your effort won't be satisfying.

[16:56]

you'll always feel something hollow. So here, this is clearly not about monk or layman. It's about something very basic to our life. I mean, our life, whatever life you have, it's a form of effort and activity. And sometimes it's satisfying, and sometimes it feels, what am I doing this for? And sometimes it satisfies you and sometimes it asks you, why am I even doing this? So we develop this way of life traditionally in Buddhism for our society as well as for ourselves.

[18:18]

So we must understand monk and lay practice in this context. So I would say, if you practice, you have five identities. At least five. One identity is your individual identity, your relationship to yourself. The second is your relationship to your family. And the third is your relationship to your, how you are an individual in your work. And I think if you're honest with yourself, you'll see that you're a different individual at work than you are with your family.

[19:24]

And you're a different individual to yourself than you are with your family or at work. And there's even, I think if you look carefully, a different kind of morality. Perhaps you're open with your... I mean, we do something that no other animal does. We trade. We find things someplace and carry them somewhere else and sell them and so forth. And cities and agricultural life, everything develops through this strange thing human beings do, which is they trade.

[20:25]

There's commerce. And I think those of you who have administrative work, even if you're a school teacher or a doctor or you're a business person, The values, morality, customs of trade and commerce and business are different from your family life. You're open with people in your family in a way you're not so open with people, particularly your competitors in business. Now I'm speaking about this because lay life, lay practice involves finding ourselves in a variety of identities. Depending on how we live our family life and depending on what our particular work life is and so forth.

[21:33]

Now, if you start to practice, you have two more identities. You have your relationship to yourself through practice. And you have your relationship to others who practice. And these five identities I would say working with these five identities is lay practice. Now, what Suzuki or she is saying again in this first classical or section is that through practicing with others we discover our original form of life. We could call it something else, but he says that, so let's call it our original form of life. And coming to know our original form of life,

[22:46]

Whether you're a lay person or a monk, you bring that original form of life into your regular life. In somewhat the same way you bring the ideal posture into the way you accept your actual posture. Or maybe we could say your actual posture and your original posture. So you begin to have a dialogue between your actual posture and your ideal or original posture. Through practice you begin to develop a dialogue between your actual family life and personal life and your work life and your maybe original form of life that you discover in the Sangha.

[24:21]

So we could call the Sangha your original form of life or ideal form of life. Now, for this original form of life, to gather its own energy, it has to have its own posture or its own form or schedule. So we're trying to find here some form of life that is accessible enough to us, but that allows us to open up and trust and function a little differently. aber die uns erlaubt, zu vertrauen, uns zu öffnen und etwas anders zu funktionieren. Now I must say, I am quite touched and impressed by all of you doing the Orioki.

[25:25]

Und ich muss sagen, ich war sehr berührt und beeindruckt darüber, wie ihr alle die Oriokis, die Oriokis gegessen habt. Yeah, I'm even a little amused. Es hat mich sogar etwas amüsiert. Okay. It's very impressive that you're willing to do this. You know, I find Yoriyuki quite weird. You know, I love it, but I still find it quite weird. But, you know, I find something that when I eat Oryoki, everything tastes better. Now, if I went to the oxen and they served... That's the restaurant. And they served me this stuff, I'd say, oh, gosh, I want something more interesting. And if I went to the oxen and they served me this stuff, I'd say, oh, my God, I want to eat something better.

[26:29]

Sitting here with Oryoki and each thing at a time, it feels like the original form of food. It's so tasty. So isn't it strange that a different posture and a different way of eating makes things taste different? And maybe this first meal was a little too Japanese, you know, I'm sorry. Maybe we should have had oatmeal and something. But, you know, if you eat this way a lot, and the Japanese and Asian folks have developed quite a good vegetarian cuisine, primarily based on soy, which gives you, you know, everything you need to eat vegetarian food.

[27:35]

Yeah, so anyway, we get used to, if you eat this way regularly, you get used to eating miso soup and things. And since we have these three bowls, we don't have a fork and knife. So for small things we have chopsticks, and not because it's Asian, it's just that it works best. And of course there are certain rules about which bowl you use the spoon in, but you don't have to worry, you can use the spoon in all three bowls. If you come to Sesshin, maybe then it's better to learn it in more detail. Now it takes some time to get a physical feel for the Oryoki. But again this is a yogic culture.

[29:04]

And so the way in which all the senses relate to the world physically is very important. And to bring the senses together, seeing and hearing and feeling simultaneously. And to have something that you open out. Move in relationship to your body. And to the chakras. and then fold up and it disappears. So this whole sense of it opening up and then disappearing into a little ball that you can hike with. They're basically hiking balls. Anyway, to get a real feel for the

[30:05]

physical satisfaction of eating this way and being served. Part of it is that the serving and cooking is all interrelated. Anyway, this kind of culture I think we need to have some of this kind of culture in our Sangha life here. And if you get used to it, I think you'll find it quite satisfying. Culture is a form of a kind of external memory. And you learned your culture by imitating your parents and other people.

[31:23]

And it can get too ritualized, that way we get stuck in our culture. But still, the most profound way of learning something, the deepest way, is to imitate. And then to make it your own. So we have some kind of mimetic culture here. Mimetic means to imitate, to mind. Yeah. I think I've said enough. Let me end with saying again that this posture, let's define this posture as a way, this dialogue of an ideal and actual posture.

[32:34]

and in which you gather your energy into yourself away from externals and discursive thinking and a posture in which you begin to feel flecks of happiness gathering Maybe even feelings like from when you were a baby come up. Maybe the body you were born with you begin to feel again. And your skin may feel after Zazen sometimes like a baby's.

[33:34]

So maybe you feel also like your body begins to feel like the body you should have. So the life we're trying to develop here is a life not based on usual goals but a life in which we can discover our original body and original nature not as philosophy but as an experience that begins to emerge It begins to appear. Now the monk may be the person who makes this the main form of his or her life. Not the, it may not be the only thing they do, but it's the main form of their life.

[34:50]

And they may see their job as helping other people practice. Like someone has to take care of this place. But this way of life that we come to taste our original body and our original nature for a lay adept, is the root of their life. It may not be the main form of their life, but it's the root of their life. They feel themselves rooted in this life, although they may take many forms in their daily life. And even many disguises. So this relationship of lay adept and monk adept is something like this.

[36:07]

Like city and countryside. It's some relationship rooted in the same life. The same original form of love. Where we feel our happiness. And our nature, our true nature. Okay. Thank you. May our intentions be the same for every being and every word.

[36:56]

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