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Taming the Mind's White Ox

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The seminar titled "Lazily Watching the White Ox" delves into the intricate exploration of consciousness and perception through Zen practices. Emphasizing the analysis of the Heart Sutra's concept of the five skandhas, this discussion examines how meditative practice can slow down the process of cognition. It also touches upon the notion of a pervasive, fast-operating mind and how dreams may offer insight into this rapid consciousness. The talk explores themes of koans, comparing them to profound artworks that require continuous engagement, and highlights the metaphor of the 'white ox' within Zen practices for cultivating mind-body awareness. The conversation also reflects on the dual nature of speech as both a hindrance and a path toward shared spiritual understanding.

Referenced Works:
- Heart Sutra: Discussed within the context of slowing down the process of perception to understand the five skandhas.
- Wang Bo: Cited for the imagery of the 'quicksilver' Buddha mind, illustrating the concept of a pervasive mind.
- Ten Ox-Herding Pictures: Leveraged as a metaphor for guiding one's practice in Zen, symbolizing stages of enlightenment and the taming of the mind.
- Nagarjuna: Reference to the image of a snake in a bamboo tube, symbolizing a more advanced spiritual practice related to latent potential and awakening.

AI Suggested Title: Taming the Mind's White Ox

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So that's what the compilers of these koans also tried to do. Now if we have a situation like, again going back to the Heart Sutra and the teachings of the five skandhas, And to see the five skandhas, form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness, in other words, if I see this book, wham, I have consciousness. I mean, I don't see the form, feeling, but it's immediate. It's so fast, I only see the book. So when we've talked about the five skandhas, we've talked about the necessity to slow the process down of this so that you can see it. So you actually practice doing it slowly.

[01:16]

Noticing something at the level of signal. Seeing yourself identify it or have a feeling about it. Turning that into a perception and then seeing the associations and so forth. And in meditation practice, this is the basic process, also an example of analysis, of following a thought to its source. Now, I just spoke about this as a slowing down of the process of consciousness production through the stages of perception and so forth. Now, can you imagine a mind that is... You don't have to slow down the process, it sees the process in slow motion even when it's fast.

[02:34]

Like the kind of very fast camera they use in sports events to stop motion and so forth. Now, we can't grasp this I don't like to say fast, but we can't grasp this fast mind with our ordinary mind, because it's too fast. So, but it does occur in dreams. Dreams are very, I mean, you can have a dream that lasts a moment or two, and then if you try to write it down, you're writing for, you know, two hours, stuff keeps unfolding and unpacking from it, right? Your friend falls asleep in the afternoon. Was I asleep? I guess so. You laid down only two minutes ago.

[03:51]

But I had this extraordinary dream, and the rest of the afternoon you're telling it. This is this fast mind that we don't usually... Fast is not the right word. Anyway, another example, as I pointed out, is when you... The experience that some people have in near-death experiences of having immense amounts of their life experience appear before them in a moment. Now, it's assumed in Buddhism that that mind, fast mind, is present in this room right now. Or pervasive mind. Intensive mind. I don't know what word to use. Fills this room. Now, Wang Bo again used the image of quicksilver. Now, it's not so important whether this Buddha substance, which he calls Quicksilver, if there's any such Buddha substance.

[05:38]

What he's saying is, it's experienced like this. So experience like this, we have this quick silver mind that forms holes and is also connected and connects to all the others if it has a chance. This mind is also called utter darkness. Because it operates in the darkness outside of consciousness' ability to grasp it. And you can't understand this, and if you try to wait for an understanding of it, it won't happen. All you can do is not interfere with it. And Buddhism is always talking about entry or threshold. You can get at the edge of it, but you can only allow it to happen. It helps to assume it's happening, but not to depend on it.

[06:55]

So you have many somebody answering koans about this saying, I'm always close to this. Or I'm practicing nearness. Which is an attitude of letting it happen, not denying it and not depending on it. Because of the subtlety in our life that can't be grasped consciously. And in practice you're trying to let yourself into this water outside the wave. And normally our conscious mind only perceives the waves. But through the process of analysis, which is one of the techniques, you can get to see the surface of the wave.

[08:12]

Taking the letters apart of the words. The more you take the wave apart, then get close to the surface and then you can make this transition into the water or back to the wave or back to the surface. Anyway, this kind of image is used so often because we're waves, but we're all water. But our knowing process is a wave process, so it doesn't know the water, it only knows the waves. These are the kind of images used to give us a sense of the mysterious way we exist. Okay, now, in a koan like this, you can look at it if you want to.

[09:30]

Koans like this are meant to be studied and read like a good painting. over many years and they still keep nourishing you. So one of the levels in this koan is just the story and where you come from and so forth. And a recognition that, how does that compare to me planting the fields, making rice, is just part of the discussion of the south or north.

[10:36]

And then in the second page there you have showing that this discussion, the discussion could be different and so forth. Okay. Then there's a... Another level which we can call the level of a path mind here. When scholars plow with the pen and orators plow with the tongue, and we pastoral mendicants lazily watch a white ox, etc., If you know enough Buddhism, you recognize that these are the three mysteries of body, speech and mind. And body, speech and mind are ordinary stuff, but also called the three mysteries.

[11:41]

I mean, our body, obviously, etc. It's obvious what it is. Our mind is what we usually know, consciousness. And they can come together in the act of speaking. And that act of speaking... produces, as I said, a people, a culture, or so forth. But, as I said just before we started, we have a garden here that we're cultivating. And in addition to plowing with the pen, what else can you do with your hand? You can make mudras. And those mudras turn the hand, the body inward. And also orators plow with the tongue. What else can you do with the tongue? You can say mantras. So in the outer world, we do things with a pen, we do things with a tongue, plow exactly, that makes it more subtle, but we do things with our tongue and our hand.

[13:33]

And in the outer world we do things with our hand, our filler, our tongue. These are normal things that we do. But as soon as it is said that these monks look at an ox with their flippers, at that moment we are talking about Samadhi. And so he says, one outside, two outside, three inside. Which means, okay, pull one and two inside too. And see this relationship of inside and outside. Okay. And then it describes what this samadhi is. And it's not paying attention even to the rootless, auspicious grass, which is interesting. Now in the 10 ox herding pictures, the ox represents the mind or something like that, a realization of Buddha nature.

[14:38]

And at first you talk the ox into doing zazen with you. But first you have to find it. It keeps not being in your room. So finally you get a hold of it. You see its tail. Which in some koans won't go through a window. And you pull that tail till you see the ox. Hey, hi, ox. And you say, sit your big ox ass down here and do zazen with me. And it does zazen for a while, but then after a while you can let it go. It's quite well trained.

[15:39]

And it grazes on its own. And you can take the rope off it. And pretty soon it disappears. And then everything disappears. And then you go into town. That's the last picture you enter the town, you know. With Don Juan and Castaneda sitting in the marketplace somewhere. And there, but right sitting right next to Don Juan is this white damned ox that's there. But it's Mexico, you know, there's a lot of oxen. So you're not so surprised. But Don Juan is in a deep conversation with Castaneda.

[16:40]

But as you walk by with his seeing, he notices you. And he knows you have the potentialities of an adept. So although his arms are crossed, you notice one finger lifts up. And he's pointing at the white ox. So you get that and you begin watching this white ox. So here we are watching the white ox. Mm-hmm. I think you should try writing a different kind of book. What do you mean? Stories like that. They're so wonderful.

[17:40]

Okay, well, Robin and I, we could work on doing a television program. What? Dickie and Robin discussing Buddhism in the kitchen with Robert or something like that. Anyway. So... So here, once you see that the... What is being brought up here with the second word, plough, plough, and then cultivation, how planting the fields, in the case, you can see this is a koan about cultivating. And what do you choose to cultivate? You choose to cultivate the body which is a condition, not an is.

[18:56]

And someone brought up to me that they understood or thought that Buddha nature is an is that's there and you discover it. Some teachers present it that way actually. And it may be a useful approach for people. But it's much too simple because there's no there-ness to the Buddha nature and it's not waiting for us. If you think that, then you're into soul and theology and so forth. The Buddha nature is a possible combination of things we already are in combination with. And that combination is always slipping and sliding.

[20:08]

Slipping and sliding? Yeah, that's the song. Slipping and sliding. We have to have our own esoteric subtext here going on. Of pop culture. After all. What about knock, knock on heaven's door? Knock, knock, only sung by Bob Dylan. Thank you very much. Oh, you like their version better? You like their version better? Yes. Oh. Well, I'll have to listen to it again. Okay. So planting the fields, then it asks the question, if you're reading it on this level of cultivation,

[21:21]

In recognizing the body and mind are conditions to be cultivated also means to cultivate also the relationship between mind and body. So then, if that's what you're involved in, Aren't you forgetting the world? So he comes back, what do you call the world? So going back to Ruth's question, And there's an attempt here to, this idea of watching a white ox, is actually a process of cultivating mind and body.

[22:34]

And it's actually quite used in Buddhism, in Zen. And if you have the book, you can see that the ox comes up quite often. You have Feng Shui's Iron Ox, number 29. And then you have where the ox is led to the water and you ask... You say, after lunch, bring me the ox and we'll drink water together and so forth. But since most of you don't have the book, I decided not to go into those other koans. But the ox, again, is a body. So you're not just concentrating on a point or something.

[23:51]

Or your breath. You're engaging your visual inner field which is also awakening the overlap of non-dual and dual consciousnesses which appears as dream. So by developing a feel for this white ox, and I really believe that I may sound crazy to you, I'm just telling you what these guys did. By... By emphasizing, by suggesting you lazily watch this white ox.

[24:59]

Now, I can't tell you how to do this. But I can tell you it's possible to do it. And again, for fear of sounding crazy, while I'm talking with you here, I can see a large white ox in this room. And his legs are this big. And he's not stepping on any of you. And he's kind of moving quite slowly through the room. Right now he's looking that way. I can see it too. Oh, yeah. Whoa. We're crazy together. It's not psychotic, I think, but maybe... But also I can reduce it instantly to move it around.

[26:00]

So it's a little tiny ox who's tiny right by the foot of the Buddha. And I have no problem while I'm talking maintaining the image of this ox, you know, slowly going along. If you can develop the ability to have a sense of this movement or this ox, whatever you want to call it, horn coming out of your head perhaps, you are developing the ability to use outer thinking to cultivate inner space. And if you do it, you'll also begin to see that it's a way of cultivating an inner space which slows down the skandhas. Or that quicksilver fast mind that sees, as if in slow motion, thinking and perception happening.

[27:13]

Now, up here where Ruth started, page 50, well, Ching Lian said, communion with the source, communion with the source is one's own practice. Certainly if you're watching a white ox, it can't be anybody else's practice. Although Ulrike just claimed it's also. But we're not sure we're both watching the same ox. My ox is a very cute female ox. Okay. Waves its tail at me every now and then. Okay.

[28:33]

So this is one's own practice. And communion by speech is showing it to those who are not yet enlightened. Now this communion by speech does not mean orators plow with the tongue. Because the corruption of my opinion is, again I'm not a scholar, but the corruption of the memory palace was when it ceased to be a way of creating inner space and became a space for lawyers and politicians to make speeches. It ceased to be a palace and became a memory technique. So this is saying, cut off all the tongues of everyone.

[29:49]

Cut the... and, you know, it doesn't have to be plowing with a pen or with a tongue. You can be saying mantras or making mudras. So this communion by speech is showing it to those who are not yet enlightened. Now if your pen is a mudra and is hiding enlightenment in the preface, then... Now this descent also means there's a hidden place underneath our daily activity. There's a hidden place in the midst of our daily activity. Now, the koan I've used so often because it's so helpful is, you know, Da Wu and Yun Yan sweeping, you should know there's one who's not busy.

[31:03]

Now, this white ox and the one who's not busy are quite related. Und dieser weise Ochse und derjenige, der nicht beschäftigt ist, die stehen in enger Beziehung. And this is a good phrase to practice with when you're doing things, knowing there's one who is not busy. Und das ist eine ganz gute Praxis, sich immer diesen Satz zu wiederholen, wenn man sehr beschäftigt ist. Ich weiß, es gibt jemand, der nichts zu tun hat. But this koan is taking it a little different direction or another step. There is also a place which is not busy. Where this quicksilver mind is inhabiting. So there are two kinds of communion. Communion with the source means by way of transcending progress. This communion with the source is a way of creating an inner space which is not based on the false conceptions of speech and symbols.

[32:25]

Now, symbols here means the experience of substantiation. Because that's what a symbol is. Now, for us, symbols don't have much meaning anymore because they kind of like represent something. But I'm sure that for a medieval cleric, monastic, he saw or she saw a symbol and it immediately caused a whole feeling of giving substance to the Bible, to Jesus, to Christianity and so forth. So speech is one level, and the substantiation of symbolic thinking is another level. And communion with the source means to cut off your mind from speech and symbols, from conceptions and substantiation.

[33:41]

Now, can any of you do that? Probably not. It's actually not so important. On the one hand, it's extremely important for practice, but on the other hand, what's really important is to know it's possible. And if you really know it's possible, the quick silver mind will be working on it. And you don't have to do much. Because it initiates an own organizing process.

[34:54]

So a lot of this practice is not doing it, but letting it happen. An uncorrected mind, an unfabricated mind, watching the white ox and so forth, are all ways to let it happen. Now when it says to utterly detach from false conceptions, this means a cessation. To utterly detach, to completely detach is a cessation. To get something to cease completely. Now, how do you get something to cease completely? Again, it's not the process of pushing something out of your mind. Creating an artificial samadhi. A true cessation is the analysis of something into emptiness so that you know that so completely it never comes back as a substantiation.

[36:24]

So to utterly detach is a phrase which means a complete cessation. And only a complete cessation can only be achieved through the analysis of things into emptiness. So now we can go back to Chen Deng's verse. Source and explanation variously are all made up. Passing to ear from mouth, it comes apart. In other words, if you hear something and you speak it, that's just outer world stuff. And there's no complete cessations. It has to pass through the process of analysis and the development of an interior emptiness and then it doesn't come apart.

[37:44]

Okay, so going back to there are two kinds of communion. Utterly detached from false conceptions of speech and symbols. And go to the realm of non-indulgence. Speech and symbols and go to the realm of none. By the process of self-awakening. Now, an ox is also the animal in China of cultivation. It pulls the plow. But here the ox is not pulling the plow. It's only in an open field grazing. And here they're talking about this as the realm of non-indulgence. And a process of self-awakening.

[38:57]

You don't interfere with the ox. You let the ox do what it wants. And through that a light shines forth and your eyes suddenly become shiny. because they're seeing inside and outside simultaneously which is often true of baby's eyes and they get duller and duller as we get older unless you fall in love Then they shine inside and out. And we confuse that for love and when really we're just yearning for spiritual experience. And many people at the point, in a big way and in small ways, when they come close to realizing something, turn it into an affair, turn it into a relationship with someone.

[40:05]

And sometimes, if you're aware of that, maybe you can fall in love and practice. But this might be the realm of indulgence. Okay. Okay. And this is called the character of the quality of communion with the source. Now this is a very clear inner science description. And you could go to the pharmacy with this prescription and say, I have this prescription, and he'd give you a bottle with a small white ox in it. And you'd swallow it with two glasses of water. And it would instantly appear outside you.

[41:27]

Okay, now, what is the character of communion by speech? It means teaching the various inductive doctrines of the nine branches. Here, after the poem, somewhere in there, nine branches. Now, the nine branches as the footnote to this Cohen says, just means all the different preparatory practices. Avoiding signs of difference or non-difference. This means the practice of sameness. Now, communion by speech. This is clearly contrasted with The orator and the writer with the pen.

[42:40]

Das steht ganz klar im Kontrast zu dem Gelehrten mit der Feder und dem Redner mit der Zunge. This means speaking in an ordinary way to people. Das heißt also zu Menschen auf eine ganz gewöhnliche Weise sprechen. But avoiding signs of difference or non-difference. Aber dabei Zeichen von Unterscheidung und Gleichheit. How can you possibly do that because language is about difference? Because if I can talk to you and watch the white ox at the same time, then perhaps when I'm talking to you, the white ox can be in my conversation. Although it's not referred to directly. And so you don't want to emphasize, you speak about difference, but somehow you take through your practice of analysis and seeing interpenetration and so forth, you pull the differences out of the conversation while you speak about differences.

[43:44]

It's sometimes called grandmotherly speech. At the same time, you don't come on like a Zen master and emphasize non-difference all the time. Non-difference is also not emphasized. Okay. And then you also don't speak in a way that either emphasizes existence or non-existence. And if you develop this kind of way of speaking, using skillful techniques to explain the truth as is needed, this is the character of communion by speech. This is quite a lot that they're saying.

[44:58]

And it's, what can I say? Can I make it any simpler or more complicated? I'm just saying what's hidden in this book. And even if you don't This isn't something you really can do or want to do. It's amazing some people live this way. And some people like these folks have found a way to live this way. And found a way to speak, which is not like an orator or a writer in the usual sense, plowing with a pen or tongue. Sie haben einen Weg gefunden zu sprechen, was jetzt nicht die übliche Weise ist, wie ein Gelehrter, der jetzt mit der Feder pflügt, oder ein Redner mit der Zunge.

[46:05]

Sondern sie haben gelernt zu sprechen und dabei Zeichen von Verschiedenheit und Nichtverschiedenheit zu vermeiden. Und Existenz und Nicht-Existenz. And then it goes on in the next paragraph, where Ruth was also pointing to a belief, mainly, was that these two actually work together. Okay. I think we should stop pretty much right here. Communion with the source without communion by speech is like a snake gone into a bamboo tube. Now, this is just an image of Nagarjuna's that putting a snake in a bamboo tube is putting the mind in the backbone. He just emphasizes the kundalini and awakening the Sambhogakaya body and so forth.

[47:09]

But just to do that is nothing. It's just a dead snake in an old bamboo tube. Communion with the source, etc., is like the sun in the open sky. And if you don't do either, it's like a dog howling in a thicket of reeds. Which is a description of samsara. Ordinary life for many people. A dog howling in a thicket of weeds. Now, rather than going into this anymore, there at least, let me say there is, let me come back to the sense of a hidden place in the midst of our life.

[48:39]

I would like to say something about this. I just don't know how to. But it's when you practice, you more and more, what can I say, live in a kind of hidden place that you feel connected with everything, but it's very hard to exactly share. And it says, communion with the sources is one's own practice. But I think you must all have this feeling to some extent. You're walking along with people in a city, say.

[49:46]

And when with your friend, maybe. But maybe friends, or maybe you notice it more when you're alone. And you may feel everything is slowed down. You may almost feel you're no longer who you are, Richard, or whatever your name is, but you're now a kind of white ox walking through the city, which no one sees that it's a white ox. But you feel everyone else actually is a white ox, but no one's noticing that everyone's a white ox. And sometimes this feeling comes to us as a kind of yearning. A yearning for what we don't know what. We're walking along, we feel connected to everybody, but we feel something's missing or wants something.

[50:55]

And sometimes this hidden place is populated by the novel we're reading. And sometimes this hidden place has got Jackie Onassis in it. And some life she imagined, you imagine she had with Onassis or Kennedy or something. What should be quite different than what her life was like if you knew her. But I think celebrities and movie stars and advertisements have some kind of intuitive way of moving into this hidden place. Because this hidden place isn't always there in some permanent sense, but it can be awakened.

[52:02]

And if we don't know how we actually live there, then it's intruded on by evocative images from television advertisements for some lotion or something. Because these ads are often a mixture of images tied to some bottle. And the very incongruity of it kind of gets into a different place in us. So if you know it, you can do something about it, but it's a kind of disturbance of something very basic in human beings, I think.

[53:21]

Anyway, in this koan, by cutting off the tongues of the orators and the pens of the writers, And say we can not communicate, but have communion with others in a different way. It's saying that we live in a hidden place within ourselves. And that hidden place is shared with everyone. And to cultivate that hidden place, That unity of mind and body, which joins you with the quicksilver mind and body of the world, of others, is not cultivated in the usual way, but cultivated in the way

[54:32]

in various ways of practice that work for you. And one possibility in Zen practice is this, to lazily watch the white ox. That by doing nothing, just grazing, cultivates this garden, this inner garden. This hidden garden where we live with, really live with each other. Anyway, that's the import of this koan. So why don't we go have lunch? And share. I hope you all have a little space beside you at the table for the white ox to eat, too.

[55:43]

Please share your food with the white ox. And then at lunchtime, 3.30, we can come back, and if as many as you can come back, we'll have some kind of discussion or do something. Thank you very much. It's too idealistic to think that we could change something. And it's a contrast for me. On the one hand, I want to be part of this boat of Buddhism, from which I feel that it also has a positive vision of a society or a way of life.

[56:45]

And at the same time, I feel that I am part of this boat of society. Yes, I understand One sentence. I'm so angry about that that I feel with this anguish I'm really the contrary of a Buddhist. It makes me want to kill someone. Anyone in particular? No, basically more people in general than... Disarm that young man.

[58:00]

Yeah. Again, I remember talking to Suzuki Roshi about my anger when I was a bit younger than I am now. He said, turn it into a fire that fuels you I think that You two guys are getting awfully cozy back there. I see.

[59:03]

For the Dutch and the Italians to get together. Well, a friend of mine who some of you at the practice period met, David Chadwick, got so tired of, because we were all talking anti-nuclear and against these missiles being in Germany aimed at Russia and everything. And he said, why fight it? We want to commit suicide. So he formed the World Suicide Club. And really he even got a record out. He wrote all these songs and a record came out where he sang all these songs, World Suicide is, you know, the way to go and so forth.

[60:05]

And had members, you know, and things were nailed out. Everything came back deceased while everything remained alive. Yes? When German philosophers look at our reading of the Buddhas, the missiles must sit there quite still. Don't move. And it is free still. So the freedom is perfect. That's the new kind of Buddhism. Yeah, that was the theory of the Cold War. But now with Ukraine and Yugoslavia, we don't know if the missiles are going to sit still.

[61:10]

Well, I mean, David's view was it's so bad, let's just make fun of it. And I think if I was in a valley and a dam broke, I wouldn't sit there and I'd rush around trying to help people. But at this point, my own feeling is that I can't imagine I feel that I don't see if a plant can die, a civilization can die, or a planet can die.

[62:14]

Yeah, and things do seem to be getting worse. And we do have the pessimism of the end of the millennia. But if the world's going to exist, I would like people to be able to practice Buddhism. And I don't think we should abandon what is most essential, even if... I mean, if we abandon what's most essential, what is there to save anyway? So, I'm going to continue to cross my legs and hope to die. That's a joke.

[63:27]

There's an expression in English, you cross your heart and hope to die, meaning I promise to do something. So I promised, I don't care what happens, I'll keep crossing my legs with you guys. And I'll try not to cross swords. Nothing else? I have a more practice, practical, oriented question. Do you have any cranes related there? practicing and staying with people who don't speak when they practice with you in their mother tongue. It came up this week, and especially that I read the translation in German differently than the English text, and it brings up different things, different associations,

[64:43]

It's different, it's not more, but it's different than the English version. And still, although I speak English now for some years, some areas which not spontaneously can come through with English as they come through in German. So is that considered a hindrance or something that's not in practice together with the teacher, or is that something that's not so important? You mean that... Yeah, teacher and student are different. Tongues. Tongues, yes. And we have an experience with that. Yes. I noticed at the end of this week that when I read the German texts, the Christian brothers and sisters speak something completely different than in English. I thought we were both speaking the father tongue.

[65:56]

There's no way I can answer that question. I mean, it reminds me of a Japanese professor I had at college who asked, what's it like to be Japanese? He said, I don't know. I've never been anything else. So my teacher was Japanese, and my student is German. And this koan was originally in Chinese. And probably when we have Tom Cleary's 15th descendant, we'll get a good translation in English.

[67:22]

And then Christian will be ready to translate it into a perfectly realized German. And by then his name will no longer be Christian, it will be Buddha Gosa or something. But I don't know. We have a Christian translator. Look, we're trying to, when I go through the koan, I'm trying to translate it from my own experience. And I think and I hope it's close to the experience and intention of the compilers, whether that's present in the Chinese or not. Transmission is sometimes called, what, two tongues and no mouth.

[68:44]

So I hadn't thought you'd noticed that I'm trying to cut out your tongue. Then we eliminate the problem in this way. And you can have your tongue back when you need to talk to Gisela. Sometimes I get your two tongues mixed up and then you're... You think that was a practical question? Something else before we sit for a little while and then stop? Yes. I'm just thinking all the time on some words in the koan. It's that part of the fisherman's song, where they are, when the water of the clang-clang is clear, I can wash my vessels, and when the water of the clang-clang is muddy, I can wash my feet.

[70:04]

So I'm thinking about that. It's working, it's working. That's good. It's a famous short poem. It's, I think, from a song that's used in many situations in Zen Buddhism. I, for myself, I think for me it's something like you do just what there is to do. And I just want to ask if it's... Yeah. I'm on the right way, I guess. Yeah, but don't make a map of it. Don't think what it's about. It's a reductionist tendency. The poem is a lot more working in you than just you do what you want to do all the time. Just let that work in you. Do you want to sum that up in Deutsch a little bit, one of you? Yes. Yes. And I came to the conclusion that for me it was just to do what was in front of me, what was there to do.

[71:43]

And I wanted to ask if I found the right way. I think that Roshi's answer was basically that it is certainly a good way to work with such a core and to take such a sentence and really let it work in you. And also, as you can see, that this is just something to do that is in front of you. Don't hinder mysterious working. I mean, don't try to understand practice too much.

[72:54]

Understand it just enough to practice. Don't hinder the mysterious pivot. And believe it or not, this white ox has a mind of its own. Just like you don't, you know, even in lucid dreamings, you only partially can influence your dreams. And your dreams can surprise you. And this white ox that you've created with the help of this koan can surprise you. So I think it'd be good if we took a little stretch and then sat for a few minutes, a little while, and then stopped. I think it would be good if we stretch a little and then sit together a little longer and then come to the end.

[74:16]

I don't know. Oh, my God.

[84:38]

A body, a speech and mind. The three mysteries of body, speech and mind. In this world you present your body. And in this world you present your speech. And in this world you present your mind. There is no other way to practice compassion. And there's no other way to practice wisdom.

[86:09]

Thank you. That person upstairs, a man or a woman?

[89:40]

Two. Two, he said. How do we know the difference? Because you miss high heels. Is that it? Goodbye, my friends. Anyway, thanks very much for being here this week and weekend.

[90:12]

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