Well, it's obviously the second day. And we're beginning to enter Sashin. I... I know you've, of your own free will, chosen to do this. But sometimes I feel responsible and then I feel sorry for you. But this practice is the result of... the Chinese Zen teachers trying to unify all the practices of Buddhism in still sitting.

[01:06]

And the desire to put this practice in your own hands or more than your own hands, literally in your own body as your own personal treasure. So you're not dependent on, so dependent on teachers or dependent on elaborate practices. But as a result, it's... I suddenly thought about the Big Bang, where you have only one thing and it divides in a very immeasurable amount of time into the highly differentiated world we have.

[02:17]

True or not, it's a wonderful idea. It's harder to believe in than God. that all of this could be. You know, there's one guy who thinks you could start a universe in your garage. Yes. That would make him God, I guess. You think you can get the right things and it would expand into another universe. Anyway, it's actually rather close to the Buddhist idea. In any case, sitting is a very condensed teaching like that.

[03:20]

And it's unfolded through very simple but differentiated attitudes. So, you need a teacher, you need teachings to really get a feeling for these attitudes which aren't very different. What can I say? They could easily be thought of as just one thing. But once you have these attitudes, or once you have a feel for and know these attitudes, then the practice is pretty much in your own hands. Again, in your own body.

[04:28]

But let me come back to this in a minute. Let me say something about the serving. First of all, just because I suggested you bring me the rhino. It doesn't mean you have to serve like a small rhino stumbling around in the zender. Some of you like to see a little rhino come in. Some of you, boom, boom, boom. The movements in... What the heck are you doing with it?

[05:30]

Are you playing with fire again? The movements in Zen practice, at least religious Zen practice, And I'm distinguishing between religious Zen practice and, shall we say, samurai Zen practice. And religious Zen practice, I would say, is a practice that anyone can do, not just strong young men. Anyway, the forms are usually precise, soft, economical, and sometimes with alacrity.

[06:32]

Excuse me? Alacrity. It means quickness. Sometimes with quickness or alacrity. I'm getting to like these words, flinkeit. You know, I don't hear what she says at all. And so I'm not learning any German at all. But I feel what she's saying. And then some words just pop out like nice sounds, like little diamonds or something. And then I get curious about what they mean. Anyway. So... When you are serving, you again, as I've said this a lot, but we have to keep reminding ourselves, I think.

[07:49]

You walk down the aisle. And in a sense, that's a complete action. And then you bow to the two people you're going to serve. And that's a complete action. It's sort of like there's a little stop, like the whole world stops in each complete action. And then you come down to where you can serve. And then you take hold of the handle of the spoon or whatever. And so forth. And then you present each bowl, you know, you present one ladle at a time to the bowl.

[08:50]

This practice is, you know, really is to get you out of your mind and rushing through these physical actions rather than letting the physical actions dictate to you. Like to speak with you now, I have to say each word And since I'm being translated, I have to say each word so that it can be translated. And there's a similar grammar, physical grammar, or sentences of the physical world. So we're trying to come to know the physical grammar of the world.

[09:55]

And each unit is like a word and there's a kind of grammar to it. And there's a pace to it. Like when you are here in the zendo, you're doing kinhen with the pace of your breath and meditation. But when you're doing outside walking meditation, The pace is of course developed from your body and your breath.

[10:59]

But it's also and most definitively in the pace of the physical passage. In the pace of the red and yellow flowers. And the Queen Anne's lace. That sort of white weed with a little lacy pattern. And the many grasses. By the way, in the evening, I noticed some of you are being very orderly. And you sort of naturally enough put your two bowls so that they sort of are evenly spaced in front of you.

[12:17]

But the custom is to leave leave a space in between as if the middle bowl was there from lunch and breakfast. That's partly to emphasize that this is the medicine meal and a bowl is missing. And the cleaning stick goes in its usual position on the right. And this also allows you to, when you have water in the third bowl, The second bowl, in this case, you can put it in the middle to do the cleaning.

[13:20]

Now I want to say one thing about the meal chant. You know, we first start out with, you know, I could do a whole seminar on this meal chant. It's quite good. Because we start out with a little quick history of the historical Buddha. The Buddha was born at Lumbini, landed at Bodh Gaya, taught at Varanasi, entered Devan at Kusinagar, and so forth. You don't have to translate. And then it says, may we open Buddha Tathagata's eating bowls. Now, this is the transformation of the historical Buddha into what happens afterwards here in the chant.

[14:28]

Because first we have the historical Buddha in the past. And we're reminded as reading an interior novel of this person who was born, enlightened and taught and died. Just like us. Then we open what's called the Tathagata's eating bowls. And Tathagata means, as most of you know, I think, the Buddha that comes and goes in thusness. And that means not much difference from the rhinoceros of this colon. The presence in the eating bowls of this thusness in the way we exist with the physical world.

[15:48]

In the way we exist in the world, the thusness of the bowls represents the way we exist in the world. So from that, once you recognize that, then the bodies of Buddha open up, the Vairakshana, the Sambhogakaya, and so forth. Mm-hmm. So again I'm just pointing this out to indicate this teaching of meeting in objects.

[16:52]

And the first object is your own body realized through sitting. Dogen talks about that we practice with our own body and with the body that arises through sitting, which is also your own body. But we do have a distinction here. Your body and the body that arises through sitting. And that's part of what I meant when I... That's partly what I mean by that. said that we're entering sesshin now in the second day.

[18:05]

It takes a while and for most of us coming from our usual circumstances to have this body that arises in sitting become foremost. Und das dauert eben eine Weile für die meisten von uns, die von ihren gewöhnlichen Lebensumständen hierher kommen, bis dieser Körper beginnt sich zu zeigen. Und Sashin ist eine Abkürzung, um sich mehr und mehr damit vertraut zu machen. And it's the practice where monastic practice and lay practice meet. Now this koan I've mentioned again about the rhinoceros. The opening line in the introduction is oceans of lands, oceans of lands.

[19:19]

Without boundary are present. And the infinite eons of the past are in the present moment, in the immediate present. So I give you these two opening lines. Oceans of land, oceans of lands without boundary. And infinite eons of the past in the immediate present. Everything's in the immediate present. So this is already giving you the kind of world this koan is trying to enter you into. Now, one aspect is that Broken things, the broken fan, the rhino with the missing horn, is in itself just the way things are.

[20:45]

That's okay. That's one dimension. Another is that broken is perfect. That everything is complete. When you say broken, actually each thing is complete. That's another aspect. And again, these aspects you can begin to feel them in your own life. And the way you look at things. And third is, broken is a handle on the absolute. So when he draws the circle and puts the rhino inside, he's pointing out how from this rhino arises the absolute or emptiness.

[21:58]

Und dann weist er darauf hin, dass von dem Rhinozeros das Absolute entsteht, die Leere. Now this koan is emphasizing the absolute in the sense that the moon is used as an image of the absolute. Und in diesem koan wird der Mond als Bild für das Absolute benutzt. In that the moon is sometimes full. Der Mond ist manchmal voll. And even when full, you're only seeing half of it. And the moon is sometimes partial. And the moon is also reflected in everything, in these ponds, in the ocean, in a teacup. So this koan is emphasizing how the absolute or emptiness is apparent in the particular.

[23:36]

So a koan like this and this kind of phrase, like bring me, if the fan is broken, then bring me the rhinoceros, is in some ways meant to partly it's meant to resonate with your deeper mind, your inner life, your unconscious. But it's not meant just to stir up your inner life. Or this life sometimes we can barely acknowledge and it presses against the surface of our daily life.

[24:39]

Oder dieses Leben, das wir manchmal kaum anerkennen können, das aber gegen die Oberfläche unseres gewöhnlichen Lebens drückt. Das soll also nicht nur unser Leben aufrütteln und Aspekte dieses Lebens an die Oberfläche bringen. With the sort of sense that somehow if things are brought to the surface, that in itself is healing. That's often true. But that's not what these koans are about. They're partially about that, but that's not what defines them. nor is it the sense that if you get to know this wider life better, that in itself is healing.

[25:49]

Or this wider knowledge will reorganize your life, bring your surface life and your inner life together better. That's also true, often anyway. But the point of this kind of koan is to teach you something about the structure of your mind. In other words, it's not so concerned with the content of your surface mind or inner mind, but the structure of your mind. So how to recognize the structure of your mind and transform or invert the structure of your mind. That's a very important point, and I don't know if you quite... I was really clear, but I think you have the feeling of what I mean.

[27:15]

So this resonant statement, bring me the rhinoceros, with all its sense of awakening parts of ourself, is also utilized by these teachers utilized in the koan through the comments of these various teachers which express certain attitudes and these attitudes when practiced begin to reveal the structure of the mind. Now I'd like to review a little bit this practice of still sitting. Now I'm using still sitting here as a kind of noun itself, like one word, still sitting.

[28:40]

Now still sitting has three main... Three main aspects. One is the yogic posture, the straight-backed yogic posture. And this, as much as you can sit straight but not rigidly, is the way in which our energy body is awakened. The next is the practice of unfabricated and uncorrected mind. Which Suzuki Roshi taught together as a beginner's mind.

[29:53]

And this is usually initially taught by the admonition, don't invite your thoughts to tea. Or practice without gaining ideas. So this sitting is not passive in that you're just sitting waiting for something to happen. Nor is it active in that you're attempting to contemplate some subject. Nor are you trying to do something with your state of mind or do something with your breath.

[31:03]

You're trying to do only enough through sitting and certain attitudes That you negotiate yourself, in a sense, into a state of mind that can be described as beginner's mind or unfabricated or uncorrected. Okay, now... The third aspect is sitting still without moving. This is harder to do when mosquitoes are biting you. Last night when I came in, I got bitten by about five mosquitoes in a short order.

[32:05]

There was a woman here the other day who said she likes to let them just bite. She says she watches them. And then their snout is so stuck in them. And then they fly out kind of overloaded with... Then it's quite easy to... Then it's quite easy to... But I like to try to use the architecture of the room to kind of see if we can use it to keep the mosquitoes down. This room isn't exactly well-vented. But maybe we can air it out during the day and after lecture

[33:14]

And then keep the doors closed in the evening. But the heat accumulates all day and the heat of our bodies too. So it may just be too hot in the evening. And if it is, then we just have to make a decision more or less together, should we open the door. Then if the people who want to open the door have to take on the guilt of getting the others bit by mosquitoes. Or the responsibility for them smearing themselves with poisonous liquids. So I don't know what the solution is. But we have what we'll put out on the table in the evening. So we have a tall can of poisonous liquid.

[34:32]

And a small bottle of health food mosquito repellent. Non-toxic or something. And so if it's too hot and we turn... If it's too hot and we open the door, then you can use the repellent if you wish. I'm not making any decisions here. I'm just mentioning that it's hard to sit still with mosquitoes all over you. Okay, so I want to say something about the importance of still sitting. Because practice with these three aspects of the yogic posture of unfabricated mind and still sitting combine vipassana and shamatha practices in one practice.

[36:17]

So still sitting itself, what is the purpose of, Zen emphasizes, really sitting without moving inside or out. What's the reasons for this or the fruits of this? First of all, still sitting is a way of developing the ordinary calmness expected of Zen practice. A kind of territory of calmness. At a cellular level. And other related or similar virtues like deep patience or a non-passive acceptance. A non-passive acceptance. And second is an intimacy with yourself. An intimacy of self-knowing.

[37:36]

Really being able to sit still allows a... When you really break that barrier of thinking, you come into a direct content with the contents of your life. So part of it is just an intimacy with yourself, a softness with yourself. And the third is that you break the adhesive connection between thoughts and action. And this is more than could be described by the word intimacy. Because it opens you with a fearlessness to the full contents or much of the contents of your wider life, your unconscious, your inner life.

[39:00]

Because to face all aspects of yourself You have to feel that you wouldn't necessarily act on things that came up. That you're free just to observe. And compulsive thoughts or threatening thoughts can't push you around anymore. The devil can no longer take form in your thoughts. Or if this he or she devil does take form, he or she can't hurt you. So you're no longer afraid of your own mind or afraid of your thoughts.

[40:14]

This fearlessness, this psychological fearlessness, is most directly realized through being able to sit through anything. So that's the third aspect. Another aspect is that you develop inner vision. You develop the ability to see what's happening inside you. And this again is almost only developed directly through being able to really sit still. A big space develops which you can then observe how your mind functions, how your perceptions function.

[41:35]

And another aspect of still sitting, by breaking your connection with your conceptual thoughts and your I-Vijnana, you're able to realize each perceptual field independently. And how your whole identity has a play in each perceptual field. And the realization of each perceptual field is part of how we transform the structure of the mind. And finally, this still sitting creates a fertile ground for all the practices and teachings of Buddhism.

[42:57]

So, given this, what I've just said, you can see, I think, how Sesshin developed as a kind of tool of Zen practice. It's a direct effort, opportunity for each of us to realize this, to work on this yogic posture. And it takes some time because your posture has to have an effortless quality before your energy body will really become awake. So it takes this kind of situation day after day.

[44:29]

Making an effort and giving up and being exhausted and so forth. To have enough inventory or presentation of possibilities that we finally settle into our posture. And sometimes we find our posture when we're most wiped. When we're exhausted, we want to give up. And then suddenly you just sit. It's not easy and it's up to you. And likewise, finding this uncorrected or unfabricated mind is very elusive. And again, sometimes it's at the exhaustion of many possibilities that you finally settle into an unfabricated mind.

[45:41]

And again, beset by many distractions and discomforts. It's in this context often we realize finally inner stillness. So entdecken wir doch oft in diesem Kontext innere Ruhe. Of course there are many other aspects to Sashin. Natürlich gibt es, was das Sashin betrifft, noch viel mehr Aspekte. And there's many things you know that happen to you, memories, feelings. Und es gibt viele Dinge, die euch geschehen, Erinnerungen, usw. And there are many small recognitions in the fabric of the songs of the birds.

[46:51]

And so forth. But the overall shape of sashin is developed to give you this opportunity to Enter the structure of how you're put together. To bring you to the edge of the structure of yourself. And facing the deeper structure of mind and body. And through that to realize the wider formlessness of this big mind. Okay, so this background which I just presented is assumed and is part of the dialogue of this koan.

[47:54]

Please bring me the rhinoceros fan. I'm sorry, but it's broken. Then bring me the rhinoceros. And Ji Fu draws a circle and puts the rhinoceros in. So here you are drawing a circle and finding your life in it. Meeting yourself face to face. Thank you very much. They are our intention.

[49:03]

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