He went on to study with Pai Zhang for many years after that. And One day, Baizhang asked a traveling monk. He said, there's a nice, remote mountain nearby. I'd like to establish a monastery there. It was called Mount Gui.

[01:06]

And Baizhang asked this traveling monk, or the traveling monk said, this is not a good place for you. You won't have many students. You could go out of business. If you relocate there. Because you're too ascetic. This mountain is warm and sensuous and rich. So he took that, I don't know if he took it well, but he considered that and said, well then, which one of my students should I send? And the traveling monk said, I'll have to see them one at a time. And He did, and he was most impressed with a young monk named Ling Yu.

[02:27]

Ling Yu was not the head monk. He was in charge of business affairs. Still the traveling monk was convinced that this was the person. Now this got back to the head monk who was not happy to hear that he was being given this mountain to establish a monastery. He felt that this should be his plum.

[03:28]

So Bai Zhang said, well, we'll just decide this in front of the whole assembly. And so everyone assembled and Baizhang said to the two monks, he pointed to a pitcher, pitcher of water or something. Baizhang said to the head monk, what do you call this? The head monk said, I wouldn't call it a wooden wedge. He then asked Lingyu, what would you call it?

[04:36]

And he asked Lingyu, what would you call it? Lingyu got up and kicked it. He got the mountain. And in those days, teachers were named after the place where they lived. So he became Guishan, Lingyu. So that's Guishan now. Right. So Guishan is now established on his mountain. Everyone should have a mountain.

[05:50]

Now a little flashback on another young man. He was about 15 also. When he just, as 15 year olds sometimes do, he just got disenchanted with life as a 15 year old kid. And he he announced to his parents that he was going to become a monk.

[06:53]

They wouldn't hear of it. Absolutely not. So, I mean, a young Chinese kid in these days, you don't just ignore your parents. But he really was serious about this. So he cut off two fingers and presented them on his knees to his parents, asking their blessing. They let him go.

[07:59]

So he had his head shaved and became a monk at the age of 15. And the story is that he just started traveling. And he met a certain teacher with whom he achieved some understanding. And one day he showed up at Mount Gui, where Guishan was living. He asked for a meeting or an interview with Guishan.

[09:00]

We're talking about Yangshan. Is this clear? The young monk. Okay. Guishan asks him, Are you your own master? Yangshan said, I am. Guishan said, where is your master? Yangshan, this is the guy with the hole, you know. You can see he's styled. Yangshan walked from east to west. Or maybe it was from west to east.

[10:00]

Guishan was impressed. That began a long journey collaboration and practice together. So that brings us to this meeting in the fields. These are the two kids who came from their respective lives into practice and now are meeting in the field.

[11:03]

Together, Yongshan and Guishan established a way of teaching that became known as the Guiyang school. And this was one of the important schools of Zen at that time, known as one of the five houses of Zen. And this line of Zen, or school of Zen, lasted for some generations. So out of this meeting of these two guys arose a whole distinctive way of looking at this existence and penetrating it.

[12:34]

And as In this story, they're developing this language or this way of communicating. And as some of you discovered Yesterday in your group, this language is not conventional. Perhaps not polite. But something is going on and they are communicating. And it seems that this style of teaching or communicating had a great deal to do with physical gestures.

[14:00]

If you remember Guishan's answer, he kicked over the picture. If you remember Yangshan's answer, he walked from one side of the room to the other. So it's not surprising when Guishan asks Yangshan, where are you coming from? He says, from the fields. And Guishan says how many people are there? And Yangshan planted his hoe. So we're meeting each other and we're meeting Guishan and Yangshan right now Their lives and their understanding

[15:45]

can be our own. There's a line here that catches my eye. Meeting on a narrow road Escape is impossible. Very nice. There's always that feeling.

[17:06]

Well, what I've found with these guys is You never know exactly what they're saying. I mean, that's obvious. But they have ways of... They're contrary guys. Let me put it that way. They're contrary. They give you a compliment.

[18:19]

They call you a blind donkey. And that's a compliment. So as far as Xuanzha is concerned... What do you mean by the blind donkey? Oh. There's... You mean the language in the Koran makes a blind donkey? No, there's ways of praising in Chan circles or Zen circles. They say the opposite of what they mean. So, Xuansha may be criticizing him. Or he may be praising you. That's first. I don't know. Perhaps it's more a suggestion for the reader of the koan not to be too sure that you understand what they are talking about.

[19:46]

He actually refers to the readers of the choir, so that the reader does not feel too safe, that he understands exactly what is said in the choir. Yes, we should discuss this with our group members. Thank you very much. I have not surpassed 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

[21:02]

to remember and accept. I am not one to taste the truth, but I doubt that it does ruin us. Is anyone feeling frustrated? Angry? Does anybody have anything you'd like to say or you would not like to say? Finally, an oral discussion was frustrating for me. Because we found out that the same way, the police work is wrong with the men, right?

[22:34]

But there are very different ways of acting with the police, with the police as well. At least there was, I had a feeling there was no, yet no possibility from the women's side and from the men's side to come together. And I think both is necessary to find a way together. Deutsche. But in our discussion, I was at the end, I was a little frustrated because I had the feeling Well, first of all, the origin of Zen Buddhism is in men's prayer, because there are almost only men in the choir, and women, mostly, to pray.

[23:35]

I can't even remember the prayers of the men, because I only pray for them, because then it becomes manly. And that in the discussion it also emerged that there are two very different perspectives between us men and women. And that I have the feeling at the end, I don't know, And, um, why do you think it's a men's way? Um, yeah, because of personally, because, um, There are really only men who are acting and who are playing the role in the stories.

[24:45]

It's very funny, the only women in this choir that appear, they're spinning. In German, when they say somebody is spinning, they're crazy. Well, I feel that women have to take some of the blame and responsibility for, I know this is unfashionable, for there not being more women in these stories. I don't think we can take blame for the past. Well, then you can't blame men for dominating women for all these years either. I don't blame men in the past I blame the present man sometimes I feel that these it could be these could be two women having the same conversation and I mean there must be some differences between the way men do things and women but I don't think it's basic

[25:56]

Do you refuse to try for me? Sorry, I lost my translator's mind. Thank you. At least what I hope is that from now on women will take as much role as they want to in Zen Buddhism. I just nearly completed transmission with a woman who is a professor of psychology in University of Mexico in Mexico City to be a Zen teacher in this lineage.

[27:11]

And all the students at Zen Center, she was certainly one of the most toughest questioners in this spirit of Yangshan and Krishna. When she was coming toward you, you'd think, oh, God, what is she going to ask now? Yes. Yes, well, I have no doubt that, and it irritated me in the beginning of my Zen career, that it was inculcated very much with samurai. That's why I was very touched when I was called samurai, my name. Warrior-like.

[28:22]

In the old Zen stories, there's always cutting fingers, cutting up cats, and these warrior-like pictures seem to have irritated me because I myself was trying to get away from this hero-like male character. picture of the conception of life. So I have no doubt that this has to be overcome in the future, in a new impregnation of the creative then in the future. But on the other hand, then it is, as you have told us the last days, so much not only relying on analytical thought, which is traditionally the main way of behavior on trying to solve problems, or the first approach of solving a problem which cannot be solved this way.

[29:30]

So that the other, the intuitive, the spontaneity, and all the rest, I don't have to list it up. You know what I'm talking about. not male way, not a male character of Zen, but you would feel perhaps it is a very biblically or feminine way. So it's a paradoxical character of Zen itself which is based on paradoxes. So we have a man defending the woman, I'm not going to ask that you speak in German every time. If somebody needs it to be spoken in German, you can do it. But what do you want? Maybe we can do it in such a way that if someone doesn't quite understand something, they can contact us. Yes, Eberhard, it's in German. You can shorten it a little.

[30:32]

The question is if Zen doesn't... from a warrior's life, a fighter's life, which is very shaped with its stories of cutting off fingers, arms and cats and so on. And I have no doubt about that. And that in the future of the development, maybe other stories and others will be transported differently, that it is very manly shaped. When this irritated me, I asked one of the Zen co-founders of this house and named my irritations, and they answered to me, it does not touch the essence. And I think that confirms that Zen is not only based on analytical thinking, but on the contrary, to stop the thoughts is an important

[31:35]

So that the other aspects that we have talked about and heard from Groschi in recent times, there is definitely a very personal character descent included. And the female character is not necessarily bound to women, but will certainly also be carried on by men who develop this other side. And I often think that it is sometimes important for women to get to know this tough side. There are both. In this respect, for me, it is also something even if it is one-sided, because it is also in a historical context, but also something where I also want to go a bit, yes, also as a woman. And on the other hand also this more intuitive side, more love. And I think we all agree here, women, men or women. But I understand well where you stand.

[32:39]

I am also very connected to you there. Yeah. Well, Peter says, I just said, I feel this kind of tough side these guys are treating each other is also a side I want to develop more, being a woman. And also I feel... You have no problem there. And also I feel some men I'm practicing with have very well-developed intuitive sides. It's not really a gender issue, but I feel very touched by what you said and feel very close to her in her concern. And that's definitely an issue that needs to be acknowledged. There are no real powerful women in these stories. Yeah, well, there will be from now on. I mean, when they start telling stories about you and Ulrike and your CEO and... I forgot to say, Peter said, well, let's just give us permission to be more androgynous.

[33:54]

All of us. but I think that this is a different form of meeting. I think that this is a very different form of meeting and that I meet a lot of intuitive men here. I feel it's here to communicate is much more different as in my daily life with men. And I feel here are much more intuitive men, so we can communicate in a different way, much more closely. I see. Not always, but... And this is what Ulrike said,

[35:00]

We have to combine both sides, and we may have to combine those. Yes. Yeah, this would mean really the unpolite endeavor to plant the hoe in the ground. And not to say, oh, what does it mean? And I go into it, what do you excuse me to do? But just to say, well, probably not to plant the hoe in the ground, but take the pit and pour the water on who asks, which would be the females. Okay, let's go for it. So the wolf, let the wolf act, which he does. Yes. I would like to say something for the men.

[36:08]

If there was a woman who also brought about such a system of Judaism, then I would go where this woman is. But there is not such a woman, at least as far as I know. On the other hand, men also have such a super organization as the military can organize. That's the other side of it. Nevertheless, I mean, it has also grown on the male internet. Such a system that destroys and extinguishes other people. But on the other hand, due to the foundation of this religion, or also due to the foundation of Buddhism, there is something so good, I find no words, something so outstanding that has come to this planet, that I forgive the men a lot.

[37:24]

Because they did so many great things, so she feels she's also forgiving them. And I just said, do you accept, you guys? It's hard being a man these days because you get put down all the time. I just feel it is probably at those times when those guys lived it was very difficult for a young woman, let's say 15, to decide to become a nun because wandering around they would just present themselves for each and for becoming pregnant. How could they concentrate on one kind of work with... with all this kind of danger, the society was not so well organized to protect all those wandering people and the wandering monks, they did not have anything, so they were not attacked.

[38:45]

So, for women it was really impossible to go this way. They went out. Why? Because they would just be raped or distressed. Tradition was made. The tradition was made. Only men, they could become monks. That's not true. Women became... Later. Later. It's very, very difficult for them. At the time of these people, there were women, even women adepts. Yes, but I think they've been quite difficult for them to become... Now I wonder, is this topic in this koan? Are you using this, or are we using this as a projection to put it into the koan? Perhaps it's in the koan.

[39:47]

It's very interesting. I mean, it's fascinating. But I haven't seen it so far. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Temperature is rising in the cooking pot. Well, for me, it's part of the Genjo koan, which is what comes up when you look at a koan, and this issue comes up always. Yeah. And it's strictly speaking not in the koan, of course, but we do have to relate, feel ourselves in relationship to these koans. And it's harder for women to do that. And I think one of the things, just to put it in context, one of the things that... that Eric said is partly true.

[40:53]

I mean, there were big institutions and there were convents and so forth, but much of, particularly during certain centuries of these guys, it was quite dangerous to be a monk and there was a lot of persecution and a whole weaponry developed to protect yourself, which monks who lived alone had to develop skills with whirling a piece of metal on the end of the rope and things like that because there was some actual danger in trying to practice in the ruins. But it's certainly true that, as you said, for most of recorded history, we've been in a male-dominated society. But maybe that will change now. I hope so. I have two daughters. I'm four of them. Well, I think it's good to be able to look at these koans as first of all not about men, just about individuals.

[41:56]

And that's one reason I mentioned yesterday that playfulness of these dialogues, they're not this hosen. Mondo is the question, one question, one answer type response. Hosen means an overall dialogue. of people using gestures, presence, and usually based on mutual understanding, not a difference. And this is also the reason why yesterday I emphasized this common, playful thing, because this is a Hosen, not a Mondo-Mondo, it's this, I don't know if you've ever seen it, what the Tibetans do, it's this almost combative Dharma dialogue, where one answer to a question, and it goes back and forth very quickly, And, you know, I have quite a lot of inner debate, as I think you picked up on in the last few days, of whether it makes sense to teach koans to people in general who probably won't follow up on them in any likely way.

[43:37]

Can they be useful to someone for whom this is their only encounter with them? And I hope so. I'm thinking, trying to talk about it that way. I'd like this to be the feeling for all of us as if you met somebody on the train or something who said these strange things. But this draws on a tradition that goes back before Chinese Zen of exalted friends or great friends developing a way of talking about something that's too subtle for a language.

[44:42]

And the feeling was that, I mean, this is very basic to lineage Buddhism. The feeling was not so much that the teachings came from the sutras. Or the discussion, the sutras are supposedly, but of course they were compiled later, the discourses of the Buddha. It's really the Non-reifying conversation of good friends, which is the source of the teaching.

[46:01]

What do you mean with non-reifying? Conversation which doesn't speak about something as if it had a permanent existence or inherent existence. And I really, I mean, I'm debating how... And you guys, I really want you to help me. What's... And I really, I mean, I'm debating how, and you guys, I wish, I really want you to help me what's useful and what's not useful, and when it's too much, and you say, hey, please don't tell me about this. Because I have people every now and then who say, well, I was going to come to the Cohen Seminary, but then I thought, I never know what you're talking about anyway, so I think I won't come.

[47:12]

And I want to find a way to, with your help, to talk about these things so they're useful. And I'm thinking actually for a while dropping Collins as the topic of seminars in Europe, maybe coming back to them in a year or so. Because these koans raise issues which require a real effort to understand. It doesn't require any special intelligence. It requires, as I said, an effort to establish clarity and stay with it.

[48:15]

And I don't, but Eberhard, you said, actually most of the koans can be understood by analysis. But it's not the usual way of analyzing. And the point is, once you see the way of analyzing, it may help you see how things proceed outside our usual way of thinking. Excuse me for coming in with my feelings at this point. I feel something happened which is quite similar than yesterday when Eric brought up this feeling of impoliteness. And you've said in the lecture today that you felt later you didn't quite pay attention to it, and I feel something really emotional came up.

[49:22]

And for me, that's related to the Koran. And I would rather go this way. And I feel now you're trying to talk about the Koran, how you teach it, and I feel it's leading me away from the actual situation. Okay, why don't you lead us into the emotional situation? I don't want... I just want to... bring our attention to that point and then we can decide which way we want to go. Roshi said in a lecture that yesterday there was a point in the seminar where Erich reported that in his group there was an intense feeling of impoliteness.

[50:31]

And Roshi simply said, yes, that has nothing to do with the choir. But then, of course, he also said, like in the Genjo choir, of course, whatever happens in the context has something to do with the choir. And I suddenly had the feeling that I don't want him to continue and explain that it is so difficult for him to teach koans, because I noticed that the point at which we were here in the seminar at the moment, it undressed us a bit, and for me it has something to do with the koan. And I would just like to have a short feedback on how we should continue, now more in one direction or in the other. Did you see something? No. We were working anyway with the corn, which was not analytic in a linear way. Maybe you should sit. For me, since yesterday, I was going on and on with this text.

[51:53]

And it was building like, first, when I read it the first time, I thought, I will never understand it. Why? going just one way. It was like building something ignored. And then it was inside of me, it was building like a room after a while. And in this room I could go different way and different directions and it was also analyzing. I was stepping back and forth also in the text. And I was looking which what is referring to which sentence of the case. And there is such a richness of pictures, and that comes very close to me as a woman, going with pictures and just looking around how my intention goes to one picture and to the next, and how they are working together.

[53:06]

And sadly it seems to be so easy, I couldn't believe it. Great. We are in our group about this confrontation. Yesterday it was the same for us. The first time we look at this horn and try to analyze it linearly, it is a hopeless undertaking. Some people have become angry about it. I have tried it for the first time. Wonderful, it is also relieving. And as we went with the text, it formed a kind of space for us. something multidimensional, in which you can not only look in one direction, but here and there, and up and down, and forwards and backwards, and suddenly connections appeared, also a lot through the pictures, so what actually relates to what in the text.

[54:20]

It was some kind of pattern that came together, and suddenly it seemed understandable. Connecting to what Susanna says, the positions are not very much apart from each other. By talking in a linear way of thinking, I started just to try to analyse what was going on in the core, and it was one level, and getting... into my own process and getting into more contact with the Koan, it was somehow space creating. But I also needed this linear level just to create somehow space, somehow depths, somehow some other dimensions to

[55:26]

to get deeper, to get into depths, to get into some other level and somehow was even a level of meeting people of the koan in the space. And somehow inside me I somehow created a space where I could meet those people. Does that make sense for me to say? But what I actually wanted to say is, for me, both levels are not so very much apart from each other. They're somehow additions. I needed both. I couldn't have done this without this analyzing by linear level. And that was remembering the process in our group. We were actually on both levels and jumping from one level to the other. and doing both things, and was very nice additions, I thought, and very creative atmosphere in our group.

[56:33]

I would also like to say something. For me as a beginner, my practice fits. I have never had such a practice in such a group, to the difficulties with the Quran in the group. Yesterday I didn't understand anything at the beginning. Then we understood something in the group through playing. and then through sitting today I went through other difficulties then I heard something about the five obstacles that exist and then back to the quran and everyone approaches the quran and the whole thing is round for me with all the difficulties and this search for what can be found in the Qur'an is also settled for me on this level of meditation, and yes, and the difficulties with myself also reflect with others, for me it is round, and I find it important to sit with this feeling of frustration, because on the level of the head it is with the Qur'an, and physically it is in sitting,

[57:58]

For me it's all very round, I have to say. I'm a beginner, but for me the work in our small groups reflects really my stages in practice. And so we go along in the small groups and I feel all these different things and they lead me back into the koan. Like first when we played the koan, in the group I could relate to that. And then frustration and then I felt I understand a little bit and the kind of struggle we go through with the koan for me also happens on my cushion. So it's all very related and I have to say all the different feelings are very round and I learned a lot. So for me, this hand movement is very natural, because it's just pictures of how people in Asia were behaving, so not so verbal, just with hand movements, and a little bit of this Indian way of planting a rake, which might be strange for people,

[59:22]

For me, it's so good. You know, I read these stories and it's like meeting my Asian relatives that I've never met. It feels so familiar, the way the people behave. And when I see Yangshan doing this, it's like he's my grandfather. And so a lot of images come up and it feels so good to me. I feel he's my grandmother. Yeah, what I feel about co-lions is first this controversy, the different points of the people. And like you interpret Yangshan yesterday, he wants to stop the borrowed mind. And on the other side, John Meister Tosi, who said, I don't know. The Buddhas and patriarchs disappear and Yangshan plants this.

[60:47]

So it's totally different. And then Randy yesterday said that in Buddhism it is said that primordial mind shines through the koans. So I'm asking if this controversy is necessary for for this purpose the primordial mind can appear. You mean could it appear some other way than through these koans? And the controversy, does the controversy help primordial view too? I was asked about the various points of view that always arise here, also from the Zen masters who disagree about the actions of Yangzhang. that the Buddhas and the Patriarchs disappear through the act, and on the other hand, Roshi says, that the Bohort mind is finished, which for me was the most understandable.

[62:05]

Whether this contributes to these totally different opinions, that one understands the meaning of the text, i.e. this original spirit. to understand, which you can't do with your head, but more with, well, I don't know what, but somehow it seems to me that these different points of view help to understand the text more. I think because they move in the landscape of the text. And this landscape is for me a landscape of paradoxes. So always Poles. One says this, then the other says that. As for this morning, it's a blind donkey. And you have to look from the situation, is that a praise or is that a betrayal? But it's the situation, it's the specific atmosphere that makes it clear, what could it mean, what I call landscape or what Johannes Freud called inner space.

[63:17]

And I think, and this is what Karoshi said, we are not used to thinking in this room and in this paradox in Europe. We want to continue with this work because we are not used in Europe or as Europeans, to immerse ourselves in a topography where there is this tension of contradictions, from polarized opinions, where it's not about one is truer than the other, but to be able to hold this tension, to hold the extremes, to be able to wander around in this topography, in this space. So it's very good for us. They have a dark paradoxical nature of life.

[64:18]

For me, that koan is about breaking through convention. through conventional thinking and in these sentences with the angles of firewood it's also said what happens with us if we go through conventional thinking we go to confusion and doubt and if i go to confusion and doubt that become fear and angel and so on and frustrating and i try to reassure because i'm just in a new in a new space And here in that sentence, it's with the firewood and the spinning wires. It's when you ask them, they don't know and suddenly give rise to doubt and confusion. Ah, how many people, past or present, know the virtue of gratitude? It's just the next step. And I think we have to do that. We have to go that steps.

[65:20]

And for me, my biography, the biography doesn't give me so much convention, but just the other side. And so it's really joy and helpful just to go to the other side. So for me, this choir is about breaking through the convention, breaking through conventional thinking. And in this sentence with the firewood, with the spinning women, in these sentences it is also said what happens when we are driven through the conventional thinking, then we come to doubt and confusion. unsecured, that makes me scared, that makes me frustrated.

[66:29]

But with that also said, the next stage, where it is about the virtues of gratitude that I need, when I am in a new space, in one of the convention-free spaces. And I would like to add that my biography has taught me that I did not have much conventional thinking, but rather the confession. And I am very happy when I can move through the same practice in this other space, which is free of the convention. I ask myself and would like to ask you also. I feel that there are quite a few similarities with dreaming and not so much with dream interpretation.

[67:31]

I think this is one of the dangers if you commit dream interpretation is comes static if you lose contact to the dreaming process. But I think reading the koan has much to do with some sort of dreaming. And in our group, two people reported very beautiful dreams last night. So, I think it has to do with the koan, of course. So I wonder how you feel about this. I'm grateful that through you and Ulrike, that to some extent women found their voice suddenly in this group.

[68:44]

And I wish that we all can do it, because I can't teach these things in a vacuum. Really the best way is to, a field is created and we all start entering it not knowing quite what we're doing. That requires a certain courage for this kind of practice to just be out there. And yet, as I said this morning, it's not traditionally a kind of psychotherapy, but it is getting on the edge of all of us, on a psychological, emotional edge. And we have to find out how to take care of that edge and treasure that edge.

[69:50]

And that's what these dialogues, Hosen-Mondo dialogues in them are all about, is both of the, all of the people being willing to be on an edge. Now, what you say about it not being, it's being very similar to dreams, it's completely right. You're trying to awaken a mind through this Mando Hosen koan practice that overlaps with dreaming mind. Now, the most fundamental approach to dreams is Buddhism is not to interpret them, but to retain the image and feeling of them and stay with that feeling and let it make the day speak to you.

[71:35]

Now what I can do in trying to help us work with these I can give you some of the maps and the ingredients that these guys had to have been, and I know they were dealing. But deciding to make it Deciding to allow it to be present as an image and feeling in your day and see what happens with your interaction with people, I can't do that, you have to do that.

[72:44]

I can only help or nudge that process. And we could go into dreams more. I mean, I don't want to say that what I said about dreams is the only way of working with dreams. But dreams are also used to see directly into them as actual experiences, not compared to awakeness, as if you were awake. That means psychologically you have to be strong enough to give dreams their own priority. Just because it was quite amusing, I had a very clear dream last night.

[73:47]

And I'll only tell you one part of it. Because it's too complicated, the old thing. It's so mysterious. But there was one part where I was completely awake this morning. I woke up quite early and was just lying in bed, didn't want to disturb anything, so I stayed asleep, stayed awake, but asleep. And this dream turned into this being in a kind of campus. And I could examine everything very clearly.

[74:51]

And it didn't go away. One of the tests of a dream is if you put your hand in front of you two or three times, it changes. But in this dream, everything retained its vividness. I could look away from it and come back to it. It would be exactly the same. I could examine all the carvings over the doors and stuff like that in the building. I was lying there awake, kind of amazed about the thoroughness with which I could examine all this stuff and how it is as real as what I'm looking at now, at least as real. And Riku was in the dream. And Ulrike war im Traum.

[76:03]

And she was there and I said, look at this, like the step of this building has built into the trunk. Ich sagte zu ihr, schau dir mal, also diese Treppen zu diesem Gebäude, da ist ein Koffer mit eingebaut. She began to describe what she saw and I realized she was in a different dream. So she began describing it. We were standing there together in the same space, but she was describing everything completely different than I was. And I realized I was in a waking dream and she was in a different waking dream in my waking dream. I spent a good part of the morning and I can still explore the visual stuff. So a practice of taking a dream as real and exploring it is also part of the same practice. Even when the person in the dream with you is having a different dream Okay So what should I do now?

[77:22]

I mean, you could say a little bit about, you know, this damn Croatian. Why did he come up with the people in South Mountain? Okay. Now she's passing it back. She took the ball away from me and ran with it, and now she's getting it back. Maybe we could turn the lights on. I don't know. Yeah, okay. Just a couple of seconds. Can I ask something about dreams? I would like to ask something about dreams. What happens, in your opinion, when you have such a wake-up dream? When I lie down in bed in the evening, then it sometimes happens that I say, I want to enter a dream.

[78:51]

As always, this is what is called in psychology, awake, conscious, or whatever. But I know many dreams of mine where this works. There I dream, I also know that I am dreaming, but I cannot act in a dream. What do the levels actually do? What happens there? Often the dream has a completely different quality. I would like to hear a little bit more about dreaming, like what happens really in lucid dreaming. I mean, I've actually practiced it and it works quite well, that I have an intention, go to sleep with that intention, and I dream and I can stay conscious in the dream. But what happens? I mean, not necessarily that there are different dreams in your dream, but lucid dreaming is quite interesting to me.

[79:52]

Yeah. Good. Well, I don't know, but I mean, I think many of us may, because a koan activates this mind that overlaps with dreaming, may be having dreams that relate to the koan. You could use your dreaming, if you have some skill at lucid dreaming, to ask yourself questions about the koan or to study the koan. And you can ask also to meet Yangshan and Guishan. And you can meet them as people separate from yourself. And you can even ask them to teach you and they sometimes will. And this, what I just said, is part of a real koan study.

[81:05]

Because in a lineage, you really want to meet these people. And one of the disciplines in developing koans was that no stories were used customarily about the persons when they put these pedagogical commentaries together that weren't from immediate disciples. In other words, they tried to, when they told these stories about, like if we were going to tell a story about Snooki Rishi, they'd limit it to stories I told or Dan told, but not stories Rika told. So what we know of Yangshan and Guishan came from their disciples.

[82:23]

And keeping it to that breathed life into these people so they can become alive anew. That was the... shamanic mystery or sense of developing these stories. I mean, these stories are literally wisdom stories which are meant to give you the dreams you're having and so forth. Which are meant to give you the kind of dreams you're having instead are meant to affect you. And what's nice is like you said Suzanne, the certain point you feel it's clear.

[83:27]

And it may be clear in your body, but still that clarity can proceed and more understandings can occur over time. Yes. The koan for him yesterday had a color, it was kind of lead gray I had that experience with God, too.

[84:37]

And then we approached the koan in our group through analytical ways that pointed at doors but at the same time kept the doors closed. At least my doors. And it led to the experience that I had this real kind of heavy lead gray cloud on my head. Yeah, it looks like that. I shaved mine off. Yeah, it was really like headache. During the last periods of sarsen it sort of lifted. [...]

[85:58]

During the last periods of sarsen it sort of lifted. [...] Yes, and then I woke up very early this morning and I lie in the bed awake and that was the koan and I decided to get up and shave and then I looked in the mirror and then this came to me Yesterday we had this roof straw with the air of the roof straw interpreted like this or it was an interpretation Well, in our group yesterday, one of the interpretations that came up, that thatch or straw is something worthless. We have a saying in German that says, I mean, to beat empty straw, it's like kind of worthless.

[87:00]

Yeah, and that was one of the doors that kept closed for me because I had another feeling for that, for the straw, but the door opened this morning So all of a sudden this word roof started kind of shining. What comes into mind for me with straw is kind of form and emptiness. It's like you hold it and it's gone at the same time. To build a roof from the emptiness. It's the kind of place where I can be.

[88:05]

And then I made a verse out of passages from this Koran. And then I wrote a little poem from this. We all come from the fields. And this straw, this thatched straw only grows in the... Swamps? Questions, doubt and confusion. Down to the valley to plant the hoe. Only, the path only leads to the gray, to the lead gray clouds.

[89:25]

To the ones who cut the thatch. It'd actually be an acceptable answer, traditionally, to the con. And that would traditionally be an acceptable answer or solution to the question. No, it's quarter to six. And I'm wondering if I should try to give you a little bit of stuff that might help you on the koan.

[90:27]

Again, this is a tradition of a certain dialogue between friends in which the kind of conversation we're having itself was thought to contain the teaching. So they're really together developing this kind of conversation. Now, This morning when I talked to you about meditation and working with the Kleshas or working with yourself in a sort of psychological sense for us Westerners through meditation one way of practicing is

[91:51]

to apply to yourself some questions in the tradition. You actively look for yourself. You look for yourself in the parts of you. Your nose, your stomach, your feelings and so forth. And whether you use any description you want or you use the skandhas and the vijnanas, still it's the same. And it's clear that when you look carefully, you're not other than the parts of you. But you can't be found in the parts of you. And you don't possess the parts. And you're not inside the parts. And you're not outside the parts.

[93:16]

And in this kind of way, you keep looking. And this is different from trying to examine your story in a psychological sense and stuff. You're simply trying to see if you can find yourself. And through the practice, which is sometimes called the seven-limbed exercise, or applying the four propositions, etc., Buddhism has worked these things out, you find that you can't find yourself in the parts, in the shape of you, in the totality. And yet you keep appearing. Now, to not be able to find something is also the practice of realizing emptiness. So the Diamond Sutra, and these guys are working with the teachings, the Diamond Sutra says, for example,

[94:32]

What do you think, Subhuti, should people say that the Tathagata thinks, I shall bring living beings to the other shore? Do not say that the Tathagata has the idea, I will bring living beings to the other shore. Do not think like that, Subuti. Why? In truth.

[95:26]

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