Good morning. Thank you for making the choice, the decision to come here for this week. I know it's often difficult in the midst of your priorities to make this a priority. But of course, one song made really dedicated his life to making the choice of presenting this book, actually, the Shoyuroku, to us. Aber natürlich hat Wansong in seinem Leben tatsächlich die Entscheidung getroffen, es zu einer Priorität in seinem Leben zu machen, uns das Shoyoroku, also dieses Buch, zu präsentieren.

[01:17]

In these cases, there's all these teachers who have made, practitioners who have made their life choices, which now somehow we're engaged with. And in these cases, we meet all these teachers and practitioners who somehow also made these life decisions in their lives, which we now also let in. It's longer than what I said. Yeah, you like to use the word engage, huh? I'm sorry. It always makes it longer. Oh, I'm sorry. Can I engage a different word? Enter in. And somehow as a sangha we've chosen this particular way to to face these koans. To enter into the choices Wonsang made and Matsu and so forth.

[02:21]

Wonsang and Matsu made. And Matsu also made. Now, in the first koan, you know, we meet the epithet of the Buddha. Epithet? Like a characteristic or something? The name or characteristic, yeah. So it says the ten epithets of the Buddha. And he's not called the Buddha, he's called the world-honored one. And so in the tradition of using epithets, I call him Mr. Who, World Honored One. And of course it's also in the British tradition of epithets with Dr. Who, the television personality.

[03:27]

Only some of you know Dr. Who. Tom Baker was the best doctor, wasn't it? No relative, unfortunately. Maybe here we are in a phone booth. Well, let's not go there. Okay, so anyway, in the first koan, let us say we met the Buddha as an activity. A world honored one.

[04:29]

And it's interesting to see that today I would say that the Dalai Lama is probably the most honored person in the world. More than any other religious or political leader. So it's not necessarily just an exaggeration. And in the feeling we give to the importance of practice, we think the Buddha should be the world-honored one. But he doesn't say anything, as you all know. He's just silent. And Manjushri says, everything else is leaking. Mm-hmm. Including studying koans is leaking.

[05:41]

And then in the second koan we meet Bodhidharma. And an emperor. Yeah, the Kaiser, right. And that's our neighbor, isn't it? Yeah, it's across the street. Frau Kaiser. I don't think anybody in English should be named Mrs. Emperor. Kaiser comes from Caesar, yeah, right. But in Spanish you could be named Caesar. Anyway, we meet the emperor and we meet Bodhidharma. And we encounter the teaching and practice of emptiness. And... And in these koans, the handle of the dipper hangs down.

[06:57]

So we're also encountering in the middle of the night the handle of the dipper hanging down. Also begegnen wir auch inmitten der Nacht diesem Ziestock des großen Wagens, der herunterhängt. Yeah, some sense of our engagement with everything. Und daran liegt auch irgendein Gefühl von unserer Teilhabe an allem. And in this koan there's a shining subtle dot. And in the next koan there's a jewel hidden in the clusters of form. Now I'm just speaking about this to look at the various ways in which each of these koans prepares us for this koan six, number six.

[08:19]

Yeah, in the next koan now, number three, we meet Prajnedhara, the chant his name in the morning. Our so-called 27th ancestor. Yeah, the teacher of Bodhidharma. So now more clearly the lineage is coming in. Prajnadhara and Bodhidharma. Prajñādhara and Bodhidharma. And Prajñādhara doesn't even read the scriptures. So this third koan is, in the first we have silence, then we have emptiness, and in the third koan we have how do we relate to the written teachings. Also haben wir im ersten Chor die Stille, im zweiten Chor haben wir die Leerheit und im dritten Chor ist die Frage, wie begegnen wir den geschriebenen Lehren.

[09:37]

And this is a major teaching and development of Buddhism throughout its history. What is the role of scripture in relationship to experience? Yeah, it's not a revealed teaching, Buddhism. It's not revealed by something outside God or something like that. It's a human-created teaching. And as a human-created teaching, what weight do we give it in relationship to our own experience? Well, throughout the history of Buddhism, primarily, your experience wins out.

[10:41]

The Dalai Lama said fairly recently, If we find something through science or some other way that contradicts Buddhism and it's true, we throw out those aspects of Buddhism. Yeah, so this third koan really asks us to examine our relationship with written teachings. And it becomes a teaching of breath practice in the koan. And the sensorium, as Ayatanas taught, Yeah, so it's kind of like he doesn't read the scriptures, but then the whole koan becomes a teaching rooted in the scriptures.

[12:05]

So all of this is, how do we learn from others and learn from generations of others? And these are real questions, I mean, for you. Because all these koans are asking you to place yourself in the lineage. And what does it mean to place yourself in this lineage? Really? What does it mean? You've got a lot of possible choices. Why should you choose this? What convinces you to choose this?

[13:06]

What convinces you to have the trust that's necessary to go forward, the trust in the process, even though you don't fully understand it? T.S. Eliot, in one of his poems, says, you only arrive where you are when you arrive at what you do not know. Yeah. So the Buddha, Mr. Hui, is just silent. Everything else is leaking or partial. Could it be that what we do not know is somehow more complete?

[14:14]

Can we arrive at what we do not know? Does practice give us any sense of being in the midst in a fruitful way of what we do not know? And if arriving at what we do not know is some kind of something meaningful, how do you know enough to make a choice to arrive at what you do not know? Wie kannst du dann genug wissen, um die Wahl überhaupt zu treffen, dort anzukommen, was du nicht weißt? All these questions are implied in these koans. And there is basic or maybe more basic than what looks like the content of the koans. And in the fourth koan they plant a blade of grass.

[15:19]

They establish a sanctuary, a monastery. And now you're meeting the emperor of the gods. Indra, etc. All the big boys are... I'm sorry, they're mostly boys. Big boys are in these koans. Yeah, and they're all prime ministers or rajas and so forth. Yeah, well, you could say Buddhism is tooting its own horn here. I was wondering if I could... I was pretty sure you would.

[16:21]

Tooting your own horn means bragging. Toot, toot, toot. Pay attention to me. You could say that Buddhism... But, you know, it's partly true. Buddhism is saying, hey, this is really important, and emperors ask our advice. Yeah, but it's also partly true. Mm-hmm. Buddhists are always an advisor and never an emperor. The Buddhists are or the Buddha is? It's just a kind of joke. The Buddhists are always advisors and never emperors.

[17:22]

But when we talk about The United States or in the newspapers today we talk about the United States or Germany or Afghanistan. And inevitably we talk about Obama and Merkel and Karzai and so forth. I mean Karzai. So it's the way we talk about these things. And here, how does planting a blade of grass lead to establishing a monastery? So again, here in these koans is the establishment, the obvious emphasis on lineage. And then establishing a... place to practice over generations, which is what a monastery is, a sanctuary.

[18:40]

Yeah, it's not just a story. We've done it right here. We're doing it right here. Lots of blades of grass, flowers, and So these koans are also, you know, really about us and what we're doing. Yeah, and the next koan is, what is the great meaning of Buddhism? And it's equated with not grass this time, but the price of rice in Lu Ling. Yeah, so here we are establishing a new context. Und hier schaffen wir jetzt einen neuen Zusammenhang.

[19:54]

The great meaning, the great meaning, that you are all these big boys and stuff, and yet it's the price of rice. And nowadays it's the price of gasoline. Also, da ist die Frage nach der großen Bedeutung. Und dann haben wir hier all diese wichtigen Kerle. Und dann heißt es da, das ist wie der Preis von Reis. Ich schätze mal, heute wäre das vielleicht der Benzinpreis oder so. Yes, now in our koan, this present koan. Yes, we were introduced explicitly and implicitly to Nagarjuna. So there's a, you know, what's the scriptures, etc. Now here we're right in the midst of Nagarjuna's teaching.

[20:56]

Sorry, can you say it again? The earlier koans are involved with lineage and reading the scriptures and so forth. And now we're focusing on Nagarjuna. And now we concentrate on Nagarjuna and the founding of the Madhyamaka school, which is one of the two main bases of Zen Buddhism as a school. And earlier we met the Buddhas before Buddha, Dipankara and so forth. And now we're more specifically meeting the founders of the Zen tradition. The most classic of all Zen masters, Matsu, His illustrious and famous disciples.

[22:24]

Yeah, that's right. I should have known that. Yeah. And we have the four propositions. And the hundred negations. No, I think that some people look at this koan as, well, Zen doesn't worry about that, it's just brushed aside and let's not, we don't have to worry, Zen is more important than the four propositions, etc. And this is nonsense. The koan is, like they say, we'll present the tail and the head, but you have to figure out what's in between. And this whole koan is based on the four propositions.

[23:33]

Even the questions, first he asks Matsu, then he asks the next guy, then he asks the next guy, then he goes back to Matsu, it's four steps. And even this whole process, he starts by asking Matsu, then he asks the next one and the next one, and then he goes back to ask Matsu. And even that alone is already four steps. What are these four positions or possibilities? They are actually something like the four possibilities of choice. They're versions of yes and no. When I was with my daughters, I've always hollered at them, yes.

[24:35]

And I've got them to holler back at me, no. See how fiercely they can say no. They like to say no. Then I'd shift. I'd be no and they'd be yes. So the basic teaching of Buddhism is that everything changes, changes itself, changes. And the dynamic of change for us where we meet change consciously is in choice. And I'd like you to think about that.

[25:42]

What choices do you have? What choices do you make? You didn't choose your parents. Even if you have some experience of previous lives and you think you chose your parents. Even so, when you're born, you don't have much choice. Whoever these two, let's hopefully two, people who are taking care of you, They make the choices of feeding you and housing you and so forth. And you can persuade with smiles and googles and crying, but still they make the choices mostly. And then, yeah, then depending on your circumstances, etc., you go to a particular school, etc.

[26:54]

And, uh, who your teachers are, etc., is not too much your choice. Even many of us marry the person who happens to sit next to us in college. Which years later may not seem like such a good choice. So this koan is asking us, what is a choice? Yeah. What is choosing?

[28:03]

The etymology of choose and choice are slightly different, but basically they come from test to test to try to taste. The etymology of choose and choosing, I have now translated it as choice or choosing, is a little different in English, but in principle the words come like test or test, you could say, or also taste and so on. So, what... When do we have a choice and when do we not have a choice? Isn't it Yogi Berra, Paul, who says, when you come to a fork in the road, take it? I always thought it was some sort of Zen saying, but you know, it's Yogi Berra.

[29:08]

When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Okay. Is that what we're doing? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I remember when I first came back from Japan. It's not so true now, but I rather like milkshakes. Somebody met me at the boat when I returned with a milkshake. Yeah, so sometimes I'd be walking along and I'd think, I think I'll have a milkshake. And then I'd say, no, no, I don't have time. And then somehow I'd find myself in a shop drinking a milkshake. How did I get there? Well, this is a kind of version of the Tetralemma. Tetralemma is called in Western philosophy.

[30:28]

You have the choice of yes, no, yes and no, and neither yes and no. Then we also have make no choice, just let it happen. That's kind of a fifth and sixth. Or arriving at what we do not know. What kind of choice is that? Anyway, I remember in those days fooling around and practicing with choice. As I said to David Chadwick the other day, sitting in a restaurant after Paul and I picked him up at the airport, this is the illustrious David Chadwick.

[31:37]

my old friend and fellow practitioner, Dharma brother, who's made use of airplanes and things to come and hang out with us for a while. So we were sitting in the restaurant trying to make choices. And I mentioned that, you know, choices make you think, and I hate to think. So for several years I wouldn't make choices. I either ate everything on the menu. I actually did that occasionally. Or I ate whatever my finger touched. Of course, on American menus, at least, it's good to keep your hand to the left because it's cheaper on the left.

[33:08]

I would just, I always like anything, so I just eat it, whatever my finger touches. But isn't that not so different from picking up a blade of grass and establishing a monastery? How do we choose? I used to also, I had this job at the University of California. Ich hatte früher diesen Job an der Universität von Kalifornien. And I never liked to look up phone numbers. Also habe ich einfach gewählt. And I would follow through. Whoever answered, I'd say, oh, well, I'm sorry.

[34:10]

So it was a kind of practice of choosing. It was a practice of following through on whatever choice I made, even if it was obviously going to be wrong. But it was also a practice of noticing that my hand, my body, had a better memory than my head. I think in those days I knew at least a thousand people, a thousand phone numbers. No, that's not so many, really.

[35:13]

Sounds like a lot. When you compare it to, say, Japanese and Chinese people who know characters, kanji, in their hand. A scholar might know 20 or 30,000 characters. And you ask them, what does that carry? They say, you know, oh yeah, that one. So the phone numbers became an exploration of letting the body make the choice. Do we have a kind of somatic tetralemma? What is the territory of making choices? Of course we make The big choices, marriage, jobs, family.

[36:39]

Or we choose not to be married or have a family or a job even. And, you know, the hundred negations also includes, you know, the four of the tetralemma and then those four, the tetralemma applied to those four. This is what Tsukirishi pointed out once. So that's 16. And then there's those choices applied to past, present and future. So that's 48.

[37:50]

And then you double that and it's 96 and then you get 100. Okay. Well, I make choices. I let my body make choices. I've been developing that and now it's a constant process. I mostly let all my decisions be made by my body. What I choose to eat or when I, etc. But are those good choices in the future? So we do have to think about our choices, how they affect the present, past and future. So this koan is asking us to enter into our experience of choosing.

[38:54]

The point at which we meet, mind, body and phenomena meet. At least consciously mind and body meet through choice. But this is also within the parameters and boundaries of attention. You're sitting, Zazen, within the boundaries and parameters of attention. You mean parameters? Parameters. Parameter, that's okay too, but that's boundary. If you're sitting Zazen, there's an itch. In normal daily life, you'd probably scratch it.

[40:25]

That would be your choice. But in Zazen, they tell you that stupid advice don't move. So you're stuck with the itch. Okay. But it's an itch that you wouldn't even notice in daily life. And it's noticed now because the boundaries of attention shift in Zazen. And what's included in the field of attention are things like itches that you wouldn't have noticed before. So choice occurs within certain parameters of attention. But if you change the parameters of attention, hey, a whole bunch of different choices.

[41:29]

Did you translate, hey? Sorry. Hey, there's a whole bunch of different... Okay. And what happens when you don't scratch the itch? The itch sinks in. Moves somewhere else usually too. And when the itch sinks in, You're starting a process in which the world reaches into you in a different way.

[42:45]

And here such ideas of neuro and somatic plasticity can come in. Because we're not just talking here in this koan about the big choices of the form of your life. And those choices are... make the most sense if you see the world as a big semi-permanent event and the choices you make have a predictable future Yeah, and we have to make those kind of choices, of course.

[43:54]

But the world is fundamentally, actually, momentary. So now we have a choice about how we choose. Also haben wir jetzt noch eine Wahlmöglichkeit darüber, wie wir eine Entscheidung treffen. And when you choose, you choose because there's a difference. And the wise person chooses the differences from which he chooses, or he or she. The koan is about entering into the differences that the world presents to us.

[45:00]

This encounter, the body, mind and phenomena, which we call a choice or a no choice or both a choice and a no choice or neither a choice nor a non-choice or just letting things happen and is that a choice or not sometimes Thanks.

[45:48]

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