So what I'd like to speak about today is simplification as transformation. This is this week's effort to find some way to make sense of this process. ancient practice so that it can live in usable forms in yourself. So I'm speaking now about simplification as transformation. So Buddhism itself is an extraordinary simplification of the world which can transform the world.

[01:05]

Transform how we live in the world and how we experience the world. Now, maybe what I mean by simplification, if I have, say, 20 rocks on my desk, which I probably do, Wenn wir über Vereinfachung sprechen, also wenn ich, sagen wir mal, 20 Steine auf meinem Schreibtisch habe, was ich habe. If I... Should I do something? No, Max needs to do something. But we'll be okay. Okay. There we go. Okay. Whatever is happening, I'm very happy to see you sitting there. Yeah, so numbers, if I count the 20 rocks, and the rocks are extremely complex geological examples of our Earth's history, but if I count them, turn them into 20 numbers, that's a huge simplification.

[02:45]

Wenn ich die Steine zähle, und die Steine sind ja unglaublich komplexe Gebilde unserer geologischen Geschichte, und wenn ich die Steine jetzt zähle und sie in eine Zahl verwandele, nämlich 20, dann ist das eine riesige Vereinfachung. But the simplification into numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, creates a number system. And once I have a number system, I can imagine fictive numbers, 500 stones or a million stones. And then, once I have a sequence of numbers, I can see that some numbers are prime numbers. There's a pattern in the sequence of numbers. It's not in the stones in any obvious way.

[03:49]

And then once we can use numbers as a way of looking at the world, As that number system evolves, computers and databases and, yeah, something extraordinary. A transformation has happened from counting stones and creating as numbers. And computers and databases are made from numbers, not from stones. Okay, so what am I talking about here?

[05:23]

I'm actually talking about mental postures. Because a mental posture is a simplification of all postures. I want to look again more deeply at things we've already been speaking about. So I defined the seeming instruction to not move during Zazen. I described that instruction as a mental posture. So I'm looking at that again in Zazen.

[06:24]

Let's just say simply with more depth. So when we practice zazen, of course, the other basic instruction is to bring attention to your breath, usually at first through counting your breath to ten and starting over. So, counting your breath is an action which joins breath and attention and the body. And it's an essential instruction that you almost can't be without. Yeah, but it's not exactly what I mean by a mental posture.

[07:50]

Simply put, the mental posture of don't move is both seed and fruit of Zazen practice. Die geistige Haltung, bewege dich nicht, ist sowohl der Same als auch die Frucht der Zazen-Praxis. So what does the mental posture of don't move bring to Zazen? Was bringt die geistige Haltung, bewege dich nicht, was fügt sie dem Zazen hinzu? Of course, it brings a mental posture or mind into your experience. Natürlich bringt sie eine geistige Haltung oder eben Geist in deine Erfahrung hinein.

[08:56]

And it brings attentionality into your zazen posture. Und sie bringt ein Aufmerksamkeitsfeld in deine zazen Haltung hinein. And so the mental posture of don't move becomes a lens by which you focus attentionality moment after moment into your posture. Also wird diese geistige Haltung, bewege dich nicht zu einer Linse, durch die du die Aufmerksamkeit von Moment zu Moment in deine Haltung hinein fokussierst. So in that sense, a mental posture, don't move, is a lens by which we focus attentionality into our posture. So it's also a kind of vehicle because it's carrying mind into your posture.

[09:59]

And by carrying mind into your posture and attentionality into your posture, you begin to transform your posture and you're transforming your mind and attentionality. And what started out as a simple instruction by being joined, and I'm trying to use certain words here that we get familiar with, by being joined processively as a process to your zazen, indem wir das als Prozess, und ich versuche hier bestimmte Worte immer wieder hineinzubringen, damit wir uns an sie gewöhnen, indem wir diese Anweisung als Prozess im zazen in unsere Haltung hineingetragen haben,

[11:35]

It turns into a vehicle carrying mind into your posture and then a lens with which you focus your posture, focus your mind. And as a focus, it means you begin to more and more feel what kind of posture allows you not to move. And then it begins to, so what kind of body cannot move? And also what kind of mind cannot move? So it's a pedagogical technique.

[12:42]

By, again. The lens of don't move begins to teach your body how not to show you a body which doesn't move and shows you a mind which doesn't move. And this is an endless exploration, the 40 or 50 minutes or 30 minutes of meditation. And the many years of discovering, almost every day it's a little different, discovering the mind that doesn't move and the body that doesn't move, even in the midst of activity.

[13:50]

and for many years to discover the spirit that cannot move, to discover the body that cannot move, even in the midst of activity. So now we can say the mental posture of don't move becomes a lens, a vehicle for mind, and a medium of transformation. So the instruction, don't move, as a process becomes the realization of imperturbability. Now, the word impermanence, we've been speaking about impermanence because of what's happening in the world and so forth.

[15:00]

It's a noun. But if we add expecting impermanence or not expecting impermanence, it becomes a mental posture, a transformative, processive noun. So if you are living moment after moment expecting impermanence, it will shift your worldview and you'll end up in a different world than if you're not expecting impermanence. Wenn du Moment für Moment Unbeständigkeit erwartest, dann wird das zu deiner Weltsicht und damit lebst du langfristig gesehen in einer anderen Art von Welt, als wenn du Unbeständigkeit nicht erwartest.

[16:13]

So the world is changing, you know, et cetera, obviously. But to simplify the changing of the world into expecting impermanence or not expecting impermanence is a transformative simplification. So all of the dynamic of all of Buddhist practice is intent and attention. Intention and attention. Die gesamte Dynamik der buddhistischen Praxis ist Intention und Aufmerksamkeit. So to expect impermanence is an intention which you give attention to and it transforms your world.

[17:17]

So you can simply, in Zen practice, you can simply... Form the intention not to move in zazen. And you can discover the mind which doesn't move in zazen. And now that you've discovered the feel and presence of the mind that doesn't move, That then becomes something that can be present in all your activity. So monastic Zen practice is a fair amount of zazen, but also other activities in which you can discover that imperturbable or non-moving mind in your activity and begin to transform your whole life wherever it is.

[18:51]

And that transforms your life in the world. What else should we transform? Yeah. So there's a famous koan about this at this point, which Suzuki Roshi spoke about very, very often. Matsu was a very, almost the most famous of all Zen masters, Zen teachers. Matsu was obviously a very committed, young, dedicated practitioner.

[19:55]

And he said, as often as possible and as much as possible. And one day, Nanue, his teacher, came and sat down beside him. And he picked up a tile. There's lots of tiles around Zen practice centers in East Asia because they tile the rules. So he picked up this tile and he picked up a stone from my desk. And he began rubbing, rubbing the tile. And Matsu, you know, what are you doing over there?

[21:20]

And Nanue said, well, I'm turning this tile into a mirror by rubbing it with the stone. And Matsu said, you're not going to be able to make a tile into a stone. What do you think you're doing? Into a mirror, you mean. I mean, to a mirror. Yeah, it was already a stone, right? Yeah. This was Nanue's way of answering, responding to a question, a discussion he'd had earlier with Matsu. Nanue asked him, implying why are you sitting so much, but Nanue asked him, what's the point of your sitting?

[22:28]

Nanue asked him with the implication, why do you sit so much? But what he asked him is, what is the reason, what is the meaning and purpose of your sitting? And Matsu said, I want to be an awakened Buddha, I want to be enlightened. So Nanue is saying to practice zazen with the goal of awakening is like trying to turn a tile into a mirror. Yeah, well, sitting does help create the conditions for, for instance, realizing imperturbable mind. But to bring Zazen or turn Zazen into a real awakening requires some kind of mental posture or shift which Matsu wasn't there yet. Yeah.

[24:04]

So it's rather this, you know, this process of finding the posture in which there can be mental and physical stillness, and then finding the mind or the mental posture which transforms your sitting and your mentation and phenomenality into one interpenetrating sphere. So let me give you another simple example.

[25:07]

You can look at the world through, I mean, simplification first. Simplification can be a form of reductionism, but simplification can be a form of transformation. So if you look through the lens of adding and subtracting, you'll see one kind of world. If you look at the world through the lens of interdependence, and that is one of the basic teachings of Buddhism, look at the world through the lens of interdependence. And then you find out that that's not enough, that isn't satisfying and makes the world really feel authentic.

[26:44]

So now you can look at the world through inter-independence. And interindependence shifts the world from seeing it as something that's added and subtracted to something that's interrelated. And interindependence, that transforms the world from something that is simply added or subtracted And then inter-independence allows each thing to be its separateness and its relatedness simultaneously. Von etwas, was man einfach addieren und subtrahieren kann, verwandelt wechselseitige Abhängigkeit die Welt in etwas, was wechselseitig miteinander in Beziehung steht.

[28:17]

Und durch die Brille der Abhängigkeit und Unabhängigkeit gleichzeitig zu schauen, das verwandelt die Welt in etwas, wo die Dinge gleichzeitig... This is something like the teaching of Mahayana and then the teaching of Madhyamaka. And then you can look at the world. The translation isn't, I think, so good, but through not inter-independence, but inter-penetration. Und dann kannst du dir die Welt anschauen. Ich glaube, die Übersetzung hier ist nicht so gut, aber statt durch wechselseitige Verbundenheit kannst du dir die Welt jetzt anschauen durch die Brille, durch die Linse der wechselseitigen Durchdringung. So the world adds and subtracts? Die Welt ist etwas, wo die Dinge einfach einander hinzugefügt, addiert und abgezogen werden können.

[29:28]

The world is interdependent, the basic shift in the Buddhist teaching. And the world is simultaneously interconnected and each Each eachness is an instantiation of allness. So each eachness is independent as well. Und die Welt ist gleichzeitig so, dass die Dinge, dass jede... So let me explore this a little bit more. The four noble truths, better translated as the four ennobling truths, Die vier edlen Wahrheiten, die man besser übersetzen kann als die vier veredelnden Wahrheiten, are a great simplification of the world.

[30:54]

A vast simplification of the world. A simplification of the vastness of the world. Sind eine... A simplification of the vastness of the world. Sind eine Vereinfachung der Weite und Fülle der Welt. And in a way you could look at them as they're added to the world. And there's something Buddhism has added to the world as the basis of the Buddhist teachings. But as something added to the world is not their dynamic. So if you add to your living room four windows... Yeah, you have added four windows to your... But the point is that what you've added is four ways to look out into the yard or the garden.

[32:15]

And you've added the four windows to let light come into the living room. So the four noble truths are a way to look at the world. And the practice is to explore simply with this acute attentionality you've developed. And to just simply look at the world as honestly as possible and say to yourself, do I agree with this? There's suffering and there's cause and there's freedom from suffering and so forth. So you can look at the world very carefully. Is what I see suffering?

[33:37]

Is what I see suffering? Perhaps the emphasis on suffering is not just a universal truth. It was a truth back when Buddhism was first formulated. Maybe we need to look at it a little differently now. Vielleicht ist Leiden gar nicht so eine universelle Wahrheit. Vielleicht war das eine Wahrheit, als der Buddhismus ursprünglich sich gebildet wurde, zu der Zeit. Und vielleicht müssen wir uns das heute ein bisschen anders anschauen. Yeah, so when I look very carefully at the world, if I see a staircase, the staircase is to... When I see the staircase, I see a relationship to suffering.

[34:43]

And when I look at the world very carefully, and I, for example, look at a staircase, then I see a relationship to suffering in the staircase. Yeah, and then there's a railing, and that's also a kind of way to lessen the possibility of suffering. And then there's a railing, how do you say it in German? A handrail. And this handrail is also another way to reduce the possibility of suffering, to reduce the probability of suffering. A dear, very dear friend of mine recently died, partly as a consequence, in fact, of a fall of a few years ago. On stairs. Ein sehr, sehr enger Freund von mir ist vor kurzem gestorben, aufgrund, wo die Ursache letzten Endes in einem Fall lag, wo er vor mehreren Jahren mal die Treppe hinuntergefallen ist.

[35:56]

Okay, so you look at the world through the window of suffering. What are causes? Are there causes? Are there always causes? Is there a freedom from causation? You know, you have to explore that yourself through the lens of these four windows onto the world. And then you have to look at how this light coming through the windows of is there suffering, is there a cause, begins to transform you. And then this process, does it sound crazy, begins to transform the glass itself. So this process of... the Four Noble Truths becomes a transformative medium through which you live.

[37:25]

And this process, and this sounds a bit crazy, but this process begins to change the glass or the window itself. And insofar as the process of observation becomes a transformative medium, Anyway, this is a process and a subtle process which the process itself develops. Yeah, recently I found myself particularly frustrated with knowing the world so much now through screens. I can see the person I'm talking to, Nicole now, or often Paul Rosenblum, for example, And the embodiment of their presence really doesn't come through the screen.

[38:41]

And, um, yeah, and, uh, And what I've noticed by the real dispossession or absence of the embodiment of the person, I suddenly realized I'm not just deprived of the embodiment of the person, I'm deprived of the embodiment of their contextual situation.

[39:43]

Was mir da auffiel ist, dass mir nicht nur, was mir da fehlt, ist nicht nur die verkörperte Präsenz der Person, sondern auch die Verkörperung ihrer Lebenssituation, ihres Umfeldes. And the term I would use, trying to find vocabulary for this, would be spatially embodied connectedness. For right now, there's a spatially embodied presence. here in this room, in this zendo. Now, I'm trying to explain what I mean by spatial embodiment. A space isn't, again, an objectively neutral space.

[40:52]

Objects are subjectively, trying to use these words, objects are subjectively creating space. So I can feel how this space the ceiling the Noguchi lamps the tile floor I can feel how this embodied I can feel how the embodiment of this space is part of the embodiment that I feel. So I can see Nicole, but I can't see the spatial embodiment of the other people there, Yanisov, the room, etc.

[42:15]

It doesn't come through. So in a way, I'm seeing a disembodied ghost or a visual ghost. You're not a ghost, but there's something, there's a kind of ghostliness about images on a screen. What did you say now? There is a... A ghostliness to the... Ah, ja, ja, ja. Da ist etwas Gespenstartiges, wenn jemand über den Bildschirm präsent ist. And I'm not yet ready to live with ghosts. Because I live here, I'm not living with ghosts.

[43:26]

But because I also live in Johanneshof on a daily basis, practically, I'm living with the ghosts of Johanneshof. And it's not that I... It's not very... I realize I'm feeling deprived. I also had an age crisis recently. I was feeling a little bit uneasy, and so in the afternoon I went to Hotuan, the Dobson building, where I also often sit by myself. Yeah. And I had this metaphor, I sometimes call them metaphors, a metaphor of a road.

[44:35]

Now, when you're young, there are many roads, there are many choices, many roads you can choose. And when you're middle-aged, usually there's more like one main road. And depending on your skills and vigor and vision, the road opens up before you. So that was a kind of mental posture that I could feel in my zazen. And then that mental posture, which now was a road that usually opens up in front of me, was rolling towards me.

[46:02]

And I could see that many of the things I hoped to do in the future were rolled up in this road rolling toward me. And believing in these metaphors of having real power, like mental postures do, I thought, I've got to get out of the way of this. Because the road was going to roll me up into the past, so I got out of the way and the road rolled past me. And simultaneously, I could feel that the road of our sangha here in the United States, in Colorado, and the role of our sangha, the road of our sangha, road of life of our sangha in Europe,

[47:19]

Ich kann sehen, dass die Straße, der Weg unserer Sangha hier in den Vereinigten Staaten und der Weg, die Straße unserer Sangha in Europa still opening up. Nicole's road is opening up and the Sangha's road is opening up. I had a feeling I'm rolling up and everyone else, or some others, are rolling out. That was my age. Yeah. And it made me realize, you know, that... Suzuki Roshi asked me to continue this teaching. And he really asked me to continue it for others, but of course for others through myself as well.

[48:37]

So I've had to make some hard decisions in this last year. Looking back at the rolled up road, which has been my life, And finding myself in the para, my terms again, paratactic successional present. And here's a comment on causality. The successional present, each unit of the successional present has a zero in between it. So the successional present is interdependent and interindependent.

[50:07]

Also ist die Gegenwart aufeinanderfolgender Momente wechselseitig verwoben und auch die einzelnen Momente sind unabhängig. So the experiential units of the successional present are not just causally collected, they're just paratactically beside each other. So finding myself with my road rolled up and I'm in this paratactic successional present, So I said I have to make some, I've had to make this last year, some difficult decisions. You know, sanghas mature. Sanghas reifen.

[51:44]

Teachers mature. Who matures? Sanghas mature, teachers mature. Ah, okay. And the lineage teaching evolves. Okay. Sanghas reifen, Lehrer reifen, und die Lehrlinienlehre entwickelt sich auch. And they don't necessarily evolve in compatible ways. So the last year I've felt somehow the way the teaching is developing and evolving at Crestone and Johanneshof, I don't think it's what Sukhirishi would have wanted. So I had the faith, it's also not what I want. Now, I'm sure there are some people who think, you know, I shouldn't be making these decisions, but it's my job to make these decisions, so I have had to do it.

[53:13]

And I've done it. So it's a new chance for all of us to find ways to evolve in ways compatible with the teaching and with each other. Es ist eine Gelegenheit für uns, alle Wege zu finden, uns auf eine Art und Weise zu entwickeln, wo wir miteinander harmonisch kompatibel uns entwickeln und mit der Lehre harmonisch kompatibel uns entwickeln, miteinander passend sich entwickeln. Now to go back to, and to finish, and go back to that koan of Nanue and Matsu. Nanue followed up on his question about, you know, how do you make a Buddha, a tile into a mirror.

[54:19]

Nanue asked a follow-up question about how to make a Buddha, He asked Matsu, Nanue asked Matsu, when there's a cart and a horse, do you hit the horse or do you hit the cart? Nanue asked that or Matsu? Nanue asked Matsu, I think Nanue asked Matsu, do you hit the cart or the horse? And I stayed with that question about the cart and the horse for decades. And it's a teaching of the Hua Yen teaching of interpenetration. Yeah, so an alert practitioner, if asked that question, which do you hit, the cart or the horse?

[55:27]

And the alert practitioner could say something like, the cart has already hit the horse. And then if the teacher said, say something more, the alert practitioner might say, carted away. Karted away? It means taken away, karted away. Okay. Jetzt könnte der wachsame Schüler sagen, weggekarrt, vielleicht weggekarrt. The sense of it, those responses, the sense of that is the cart has already been training the horse. Und das Gefühl dabei ist, dass der Wagen, der Karren, das Pferd schon trainiert hat. So the cart trains the horse to pull the cart and the horse pulls the cart.

[56:49]

So the cart has already hit the horse. And that is an example of the teaching of interpenetration. And we symbolically uh uh act that with touching the in the orioke meal touching the bowl with the washed washing water uh onto the in with the against the rim where you drink uh yeah you know how to explain that So it's an enactment of interconnectedness. But now, you and Hanesov suggested it, and we're doing it.

[58:17]

We're not clicking it against the side, touching the lip where you drink against it. We're just holding it a minute to express what's happening in the pandemic. Recognizing the way we can't connect now these days. But still, somehow, connection is happening. And I'm glad to be talking with Nicole and with all of you somewhere over there on the other side of that screen and we who are here. Thank you very much.

[59:25]

Today I thought I was going to be shorter and I was even longer. Much longer, yeah. Well, that's good. Five minutes longer. Oh, okay, yeah. Okay, so ten after? Should we say, no, that's too quick. I think 15 after. Quarter after? Five, 15. Okay. And maybe only 40 minutes so we don't over-translate you. Thank you. Yeah. Let's try that. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

[60:05]

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