So I'm working on this, I'd like to say darn essay, but it's actually quite interesting. And I, assuming it'll get done, I will share it with you. Und ich gehe mal davon aus, dass er irgendwann fertig wird und dann würde ich den auch mit euch teilen. Ich schreibe den für diese Gruppe von Leuten, mit denen ich mich treffe. And Paul told me, someone told him that I will be missing the first few days of Sashin. That's not true. I will be arriving back on the first day of Sashin.

[01:01]

So I'll stumble in smelling of airplane. And try to say something. Yeah. But I have to write this to these rather, you know, folks who've got their own lifetime developed world views. And the topic for everyone, except me, is evolution, and by that they mean progressive evolution. Progress. And deification.

[02:19]

This isn't exactly my topic. So I'm the odd man out, let's put it that way. So I can say that, well, we don't really deify, but the Bodhisattva is... a multi-generational suchness. Oh, okay. Now, who's going to understand that but us? I mean, maybe not even us. Deification. And maybe it's processive evolution, but not progressive evolution. Ja, und vielleicht können wir eher sagen, das ist so was wie eine prozessbezogene Evolution und keine fortschreitende, eine auf ihren eigenen Prozess bezogene Evolution und keine fortschreitende Evolution.

[03:38]

Yeah, I mean, it's a process, but whether it's a process toward better or worse, that's something else. And so I have to write in a way that's understandable to you and me and also understandable to them, and that requires a lot of unpacking. But again, it's actually quite challenging and interesting. And when I'm speaking with you, there's always... you know, there's the tone of the voice, there's our shared presence and so forth.

[04:39]

And writing, that's not present. But in writing, the words and the grammar kind of make you say things a certain way. And in writing, Machen die Worte und auch die Grammatik sorgen dafür, dass man Dinge auf eine ganz bestimmte Art und Weise sagt. It's like there's a stream bed there and the water is going to go down the stream bed of the grammar and the available words. Es ist als ob da ein Flussbett ist und das, was man sagt, das fließt dann das Flussbett hinunter, das vorgegeben ist von den Worten und der Grammatik. But then you see that, oh, there's some other streams and there's another stream underneath the stream. Various ways language, alternatives that language offers you. Yeah, and then maybe there's a water wheel which lifts the water out of the stream. and then powers something in some other context.

[05:58]

And then there's the kind of... You know, I took a train ride once with a Japanese fellow. He went up. I had this little... village meeting house I converted into a place to live in the 60s on this great beach in Japan. And this Japanese fellow, I can't remember who it was. But anyway, he came all the way up to spend the weekend with us at this party. And I left my family there and went back to Kyoto with him on the train.

[07:01]

And the whole way he didn't say a single word. I mean, maybe a couple words like... There's a window or something like that. Yeah. And I'm sitting there thinking, is he mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Or what could I say to start a conversation, you know? So I finally just gave up and sat there beside him in a lovely shared presence. And so, yeah.

[08:03]

So when I got back, he said, what a wonderful trip. Thank you very much. And later I heard he said, I finally met a Westerner with whom I can communicate. And I'm sitting here thinking, what can I say, you know? But it is another culture. We have to keep reminding ourselves where our teaching comes from, our practice comes from. It's like what we feel in the Sashin for seven days or even in an Ango where you feel each other but you don't say much.

[09:04]

But it's just not our medium, our meteor. Yeah. Yeah. But it can be partly, of course. Yeah. It's not better or worse. It's just interestingly different. And as I said, we get a taste of it sitting next to each other in Sashin for seven days without speaking.

[10:08]

Dogen says I brought this up to you several times. And Dogen says, I, eh, hey, sometimes enter an ultimate state and bring up something like profound discussion and enter a profound discussion with you And I wish you only to be continuously intimate with your state of mind. Now there's no... This is a culture not of entities, you all know, and of activity.

[11:22]

So the writings, particularly of a Zen teacher like Dogen, and not just Zen teachers, Murakami too, who I spoke about last time, There's an assumption that what they say is sort of like theater directions. Meant to be enacted. And stated in a way you can enact it. And es muss so gesagt werden, dass es umgesetzt werden kann. So if you want to enter into a teaching and statement like Dogen's, wenn du in eine Lehre und eine Aussage so wie die hier von Dogen eintreten möchtest, you say simply, you say, I, Ungarn Sensei, dann sagst du, ich, Ungarn Sensei,

[12:42]

I can't say that. No. No, you'd have to. You can say it. Enter an ultimate state. Whoa. Watch out. You're supposed to translate now. Get out of that ultimate state and translate. Okay. Okay, so I might say, I, Quellen-san, enter an ultimate state. So if you read that, you don't think it. You sort of say, jeez, I'm supposed to perform this on stage. How can I show that I've entered an ultimate state? And if you hear that, then you don't think that, but you think, hmm, I'm supposed to perform this on stage, and how can I show that I'm now in a final state?

[13:50]

Yeah, I mean, really, I totally suggest when you look at Kahn's or Dogen or something, you see if you can enact it, as if you did have to act it. And each kanji actually is an enactment of several kanjis put together metaphorically. And each kanji, each character is a unit and has a pace. Each one occupies the same amount of space. It's not small space or big space. Each one is the same amount of space. And it's taught to do each kanji like it's a square.

[14:53]

But Yamanmu Munroshi, my teacher when I was in Japan, Rinzai teacher, he did all his kanjis as if it was a circle. And this kanji I found in this character's junk shop in Freiburg the other day. And this letter... You understand that? Yeah, the character has the person now, right? He's such a character, he's kind of a funny guy. Yeah, yeah. So the letter that I found with this weird guy in Freiburg a few days ago... He gave us that little tiny incense burner out there in front of the Manjushri.

[16:00]

Next, near the grocery store where I get to errands, I saw it in the window and it was about this big. I went in and I said, what are you going to do with that? He said, I'm going to give it to you. So the kanji that I hung it on the door, it's more in a triangle, the one that I found in this shop, which Dieter has not recognized it yet. Because it's written in grass style. Yes, grass style. So when the kanji is in a square, one of the communications is square, square, square. Or with Momon Roshi, circle, circle, circle, circle. Jesus Christ.

[17:20]

So I'm trying... So I'm trying to really get you embedded in these differences. And me too. Not because we have to be like that, but we're studying this way of presenting the teaching, so maybe it would help us to feel this way. So you can act out this statement and you can imagine I'm going to act it on

[18:25]

Yeah, in front of a kindergarten or in front of the women who come here to do exercise on Thursdays or whatever. They probably would never come back. Okay, now there's a meta-statement behind his statement. He says, I... Quellen-san, or I, A-A. Which means, yeah, now I'm this intentional, now I'm this intention, which is sometimes someone else, but at this moment is A-A.

[19:47]

And what he says is that now I am this intentional being, or now I am this intention, this intention, which is sometimes something else, but now I am that, I, Ehe. So if you were going to read this, you should read it as I thinking that you have an intention, and then when you come to Ehe, you say Unge. then you're enacting it. So he has a choice about who is going to be the person doing this. And sometimes enter an ultimate state. It means he can intentionally enter a samadhi.

[20:57]

So then you think, can I do that? And it gives you a sense of your own practice. Well, you can imagine. You can imagine some feeling in zazen. and how you notice things, notice things about yourself, about situations in zazen, or when taking a nap, for instance, that you don't notice in ordinary situations. And then enter into a profound discussion. In other words, he's letting this samadhi or ultimate state, express something. Be the source of something.

[21:58]

Not he... Dickie Bird or Nicole. Nicky. Were you ever called Nicky? As you know, yes. I didn't know, actually. I forgot. There was this whole thing about Nicky Bird in Japan. Oh, that's right. A friend of mine used to call me Dicky Bird. Then we called her Nicky Bird. Okay, but now you said a whole lot. Where were you going again? It's not important. Okay. And then you enter into a deep conversation from there. And that means that from this state of samadhi, something is expressed, something is communicated. And it's not like you say, I, Dickie Bird, or something. Now, can you feel some kind of feeling you might have in Zazen or other times, and feel that that also can be a presence or an expression?

[23:07]

And then Dogen says, and I only wish you to be steadily intimate with your field of mind. And then you say to yourself reading this, Oh, thanks, Dogen. I think I will not worry about the ultimate state. I'll just be steadily intimate with my field of mind. But then you can ask yourself for the rest of the practice period, am I steadily, really steadily intimate with a field, my field, some field of mine? No, I tried to speak to them last day show about suchness as the intangible, non-sensorial field of mind.

[24:23]

And I spoke in the last Teisho about Soheit as a non-aggressive, non-sensory field of the spirit. Yes. Inner. Inner. When we view the world as entities or percepts, Coins that are flipped are either heads or they're tails. They're not both. Yeah, and that's when mind may be a partnership to perception, but it's not yet a field of mind in which perceptions arise.

[25:43]

But in a field of mind in which you're steadily, steadily intimate, the flip coin is all the positions that's going through, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails. And to know the feel of the, let's say, is, you know, it's... It's in a kind of instantaneous field of mind, which is not available to consciousness. Excuse me, I lost you somewhere. It's not available to consciousness.

[26:56]

But it is available to you. It's faster than iCloud. The way your body functions is faster than iCloud. Or at least it's way faster than consciousness. Zumindest viel schneller als das Bewusstsein. And this field of mind is not accessible to you unless you're steadily intimate with it. Und dieses Feld des Geistes ist nicht zugänglich, es sei denn, du bist fortwährend damit vertraut. Now, where did all this come from? Woher kommt all das? I'm writing this darn wonderful darn essay. Also ich schreibe diesen... And I decided to start with it because I have to get some sort of frame for the folks.

[28:04]

So I started with the four beliefs or conditions or catalysts which power Buddhist practice. That you have to believe transformation, enlightenment, realization is possible. It's a catalyst which makes you notice things you wouldn't otherwise. And you have to believe that it's actually possible to be free of the suffering of mental and emotional states. And you have to know that, believe that it's possible to practice in a way that's beneficial for us and all.

[29:14]

So I got to those three. And I could say a few sentences about each, which I thought was good enough. But then I got to the fourth. That it's possible to live as closely as possible to how things actually exist. And I sort of presume that when I say that, we have some feeling for that. But when I wrote it, I realized they're not going to understand that. It sounds good, but how do you experientially realize it? Or it just sounds like a black box. A black box means it can mean anything. How can you not live?

[30:48]

close to how we actually exist, because there's no alternative. You're living, that's close to how we actually exist. You know, it doesn't mean anything. It's like saying, this, this is this. Oh, okay. So how can I make it clear that it's, experientially possible or it's experientially available or it's measured experientially. I can't say, please just be steadily intimate with your field of mind. I'm sure most of these people have no experience of a field of mind separate from other ways of the mind being present to you.

[32:02]

And when you're involved with, you have to do this, and then you have to do that, how can you be steadily intimate with something so abstract as a field of mind? But immediacy is not always available. It sounds like immediacy. This is immediacy. No big deal. But to feel immediacy as another kind of time, another kind of experience, that's actually like entering an ultimate state or entering immediacy.

[33:04]

And I would say that the two main It's implicit, but it's not always explicit in Zen. The main zones of transformative practice are still sitting and extended immediacy. And what do I mean by extended immediacy? Again, I'm just taking words and throwing them at this, and they sometimes stick and they don't stick. So I would say that to be steadily intimate with your field of mind is actually a door to immediacy.

[34:18]

If you realize that and you have a real experience of the sensuousness, the texture of the field of mind, I would say then that you're, we could say you're continuously intimate with immediacy. Okay, so... Let's find some easier doors. Now, being, beingness, is an assumption of continuity. and the stock phrase in Buddhism, own being, is that you feel this continuity of beingness, you own it, and it goes, it's your time independent of everything else that's happening.

[36:02]

And I would say at least in English, the way the words are used, being isolates you from immediacy. And at least in English, like the words I would use there, I would say that the concept of being separates us from the mediocrity. Or being protects you from the immediacy. I don't know, anything might happen to me. Protects you from the immediacy. But if being is an experience of continuity, independent of non-being, Aber wenn Sein die Erfahrung von einer Kontinuität ist, die unabhängig ist vom Nichtsein, then we can know that immediacy has to be or is momentariness, momentariness, moment, moment, moment.

[37:20]

Dann können wir wissen, dass Sein momenthaft ist, von Augenblick zu Augenblick. So maybe the door to immediacy is also to be steadily intimate with the breath-paced momentariness. And maybe we can say that the door to immediacy is also to be constantly familiar with the The pace of breathing. The pace of stepping. Now, when we designed these realisational spaces called Johanneshof Quellenweg, Atmar very carefully measured the distance from the Zendo door to the back Johanneshof door.

[38:40]

Ottmar hat ganz sorgfältig die Distanz von der Sendeltür zur Johanneshof Tür gemessen. And he made a pace along with the stones that gives you a chance to practice being steadily intimate with your breathing and stepping. He didn't know he did that, but actually... Yes, thanks. He didn't know he did that, but actually... So it's a very carefully... measured realisational distance. And you have a chance several times a day to feel if really you can breath pace, step pace

[39:57]

no mental formations especially with no thoughts about what's next or no thoughts about what was before As soon as you have next thoughts and before thoughts, you're not in immediacy. The door slams shut. And most of us, not you, of course, you are depth, but most of us, we like before and after better than we before and next better than we like immediacy, because we actually don't know what an immediacy is about.

[41:08]

But immediacy is about, well, maybe it's about knowing the behavior of colors. Colors are different at different times a day. They're different as the the shadow of the person you're walking with passes the bushes. In immediacy, the colors are speaking to you. And in immediacy, you feel you're seeing. And you feel your hearing.

[42:21]

And you're located, if we are close to how we actually exist, and we're not dragonflies. We're this usually non-flying kind of aliveness. And this kind of aliveness hears. But this kind of aliveness only hears what you can hear. So you're always in your share of the whole, your part of the whole. And you are aware there's a mystery all around your share of the whole, and that mystery, like streams of fog, is passing through your own share of the whole.

[43:22]

So you're not located in the external world. We could say you're located in the externalized world. Or we could say, you're located in the field your senses allow you. This would be one way to talk about living as closely as possible to how we, who are not dragonflies, actually exist. Coins are flipping everywhere. Überall werden Münzen geworfen.

[44:29]

And allness is showing us some of them. Und allheit zeigt uns einige von ihnen. Yeah. I can't write that to them. Das kann ich dir nicht schreiben. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank.

[44:42]

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