So he then presents a teaching on this point. But he presents it in a way that puts Dung San in the same place. He can't hear it. Er kann es nicht hören. Und wenn ich nun diesen Stock hier hochhebe, dann hebe ich die ganze Welt damit auf. Because in this staff, at this moment, there's a unique world that arises at this moment.

[01:04]

Michel Foucault, the French philosopher who died of AIDS, said that the constitutive part of myself, is the way of not remaining the same. The most essential part of myself is my way of not remaining the same. the same thinking that's in Zen Buddhism. So, if your effort as a person is to discover how you're the same every moment,

[02:23]

And to remain the same every moment. One thing, you're going to have a hell of a time with Sashim. The more you become a person who constitutively does not remain the same every moment. As the Gershi used to say, is face-to-face the facts that one faces? The facts, whatever facts face you, at this moment, that's who you are. So you never interpret yourself as a person who might be free of this pain.

[03:31]

It may take an awful lot of pain before you get to that point. But when you really don't separate yourself from the pain, and you don't think comparatively, Ah, there will be a time when the bell happens. I didn't say this was easy. But it is really different when you actually become a person who way is not to be the same on each moment. You reach down into some nourishing depths that are flowing up all the time. Someone said the biosphere is always flowing into the possible adjacent chemistry.

[04:45]

and we are always flowing into the adjacent mind chemistry that's possible and we are always flowing into the adjacent mind chemistry that's possible but if you think the same all the time that flow is not passing through you The plasticity of this fundamental unique time is not available to you. And Sashin is a way in the sense to force you into another kind of time. I'm sorry we use force, I apologize. But it's the Inos fault, because she controls when the bell is running.

[05:59]

Even sometimes I wish, I wish that door would ring the bell. I've got pretty bad pillows in this situation. I'm cutting off my circulation. But who needs circulation? So, I can't believe it's already this time. I haven't even started. But at least I've finished this story, alright?

[06:59]

Also, ich möchte diese Geschichte noch zu Ende erzählen. So, he raised his whisk, Gueshan, and the raising of the whisk or the finger or whatever it is, is a way of pointing to the absolute uniqueness at each moment.

[08:27]

uniqueness in which we are absolutely free. This moment that can't be measured where we actually live. Where we live and die and where we take the precepts. So, When Dung Chan didn't understand, he said, the mouth that was given to me by my parents, society, culture, language, can never explain it to you. We don't just live in a human world. He means...

[09:29]

So Dung San, like a good Zen student, persists. Are you persisting? Yeah, somewhere. And he says, is there someone else who reveres the way, reveres the Dharma as you do? Gibt es jemand anderen, der so wie du das Dharma herzeigt? Wer kann mir das erklären? Weil Dung Shan hat intuitiv erkannt, dass er die Gelegenheit versäumt hat, Guishans Schüler zu werden. And there's no fooling around in this business. You miss your chance, you miss your chance.

[10:34]

It's not like college advisors. You go back and you can have another rearrange your courses. And Dung San knew he'd missed his chance, so he also knew he had to go. So he said, is there someone else who knows the way you do? And Guishan said, well, in such and such a province, in such and such a district, near where there are some adjoining stone houses, Dort, wo es einige Steinhäuser gibt, die nebeneinander stehen, da wirst du jemanden finden, mit dem du, wenn du das Beugen der Gräser kennst, dann wirst du seinen Weg hochhalten.

[11:44]

So, he left and found union. And then asked Jungian the same question. Now, when I met Suzuki Roshi, you know, there was no Buddhism around. And he was just a local priest in a... Japanese. There's a lot of Japanese folks in Düsseldorf. And in those days there was a lot of Japanese people living in Los Angeles and San Francisco. There was not a single Japanese restaurant in New York, for example.

[12:48]

No one knew what sushi was. No, you can't go out to lunch in New York without having sushi. Dead, uncooked fish is terrible. I mean, that's how people would react back in the 50s and 60s if you talked to them about dead, uncooked fish. And here was this tiny Japanese man who was the priest for the local Japanese folks. There was no way the mouth of my parents could tell me whether he was a good teacher or not, or I should do this, or something like that.

[13:49]

So this story became important to me. Because it was like someone said, well, you go down here and there's a stone house, and then you go in the stone house, and if the grass is blowing nicely, it's okay. So I thought, this has to be a decision I can only make for myself. There's nothing in my culture that can support me or even support or go against this decision. And while there is a lot more Buddhism around and a whole lot more Sushi, still the decision is basically the same. You can't just look at your human world to make this decision.

[15:00]

the subtle mind that's present everywhere. And at the same time ask, is really the welfare of our present society my paramount importance? If those two things come together, you're ready to make this radical decision to practice. or to understand that even in the midst of taking care of your life as I also learned to take care of my ordinary life and be married and have, as you know, two daughters somewhere in there this radical decision still Again, sometimes the trees, the bamboo even, and the birch tree and the pine tree are quite still.

[16:13]

And you look along the ground and tiny leaves seem to be stirring the air. And you look along the ground and tiny leaves seem to be stirring the air. And sometimes some leaves are going this way and right beside them some leaves are going this way. And this sense of some kind of wind or energy that moves in the tiny pathways. And this expression in Chinese to see the wind. in the grasses means to see not just the wind in the trees but these tiny little winds in the grasses and it means to see beyond the words into what is really being said.

[17:22]

and to see into yourself beyond the words of your mind into what you really want to do. So you can ask, what bright moon will lead, will show me the way? What mind will show me the way? What will lead me to my practice. The mouth which your parents gave you cannot tell you. This is the fundamental problem of life in general. How do you make this kind of decision?

[18:23]

Where you find really how to order a hot dog. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Oh, oh. Oh, oh, [...]

[19:48]

... [...] .

[20:50]

. [...] Vare Ateno Jijuji Tsuru Koto Etari Nega Vakuan Yorai Oshin Jitsu Niro Geshim Tate Natsuran I don't know what I'm talking about, but I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know what I'm talking about.

[21:52]

I don't know what I'm talking about. And somehow we've gotten, I like my new voice, somehow we've gotten to the fifth day, sixth day, fifth day.

[22:56]

And we've started Doxan, which I'm very grateful to be doing. And we've started Doxan, which I'm very grateful to be doing. And we've started Doxan, which I'm very grateful to be doing. I really like meeting with you. Dharma Sangha, the word, the name Dharma Sangha, it means we can translate it as those who study the truth. Now, I think it's better to that we disguise it in Sanskrit as Dharma Sangha. I think if Sabina is going shopping in Bad Sackingham, I say, who are you? She says, we are those who study the truth. I think there would be less grocery clerks who came

[24:08]

up to see what we're doing. We tell them later that we're interested in studying the truth. Yeah, but you know, we take this very seriously to study the truth. What is the truth? No one knows. This is a big question. But anyway, that's what we're doing, and I want us to do, and I hope we're doing it. And together. So, If we're going to... You've become a cripple.

[25:10]

Is it getting worse or better? Worse. I'm sorry. It's my fault. It is? Well, I don't know. So, if we're going to study the truth, we have to study how we know things. Let me try to sum that up. briefly. I want to say that, I mean, it's very difficult to know what our society is like.

[26:24]

And in Europe, And I consider America part of Europe. I know you don't want to admit it. But it was settled by all those people you didn't want. Those people you threw out are my ancestors. So we want to be Europeans too. So they weren't off EUPSA. Anyway. Anyway, we Europeans have a horrible... And now that I'm half German, I can say this. And half Austrian, excuse me. Anyway, we Europeans have a horrible history.

[27:29]

I mean, just the hundred years war where everybody was fighting everybody. This is a terrible history. But I think we can't let this fool us. I think in our own European history there are It's just that the historians don't know about it or don't write about it. And it's not about the formation of nation states and so on. So I want us to... I feel we're in a European wisdom tradition as well as a... Asian wisdom tradition.

[28:31]

And I don't think this wisdom tradition falls only into categories of Buddhism or Catholicism or something like that. I think this wisdom tradition is deeper than that. And sometimes it disguises itself as Buddhism or Catholicism and sometimes it disguises itself as poetry. Or psychology or science. And sometimes it's within the institutions of the society and sometimes it's within gatherings of friends. Now, how we know things through our senses.

[29:53]

We know things through our senses. It's mostly the way we know things through our senses is generalized and diluted. I'm going to try not to get philosophical here. I'll try to just be brief. [...] Sukiroshi, I said last night, there are many, thousands, many moments on each breath of time. You know, let's put this in a big, tiny scale. Let's put this in a big, tiny scale. And I've been talking about science partly just to throw this into a bigger scale.

[30:56]

There are something, I'm told, something like 10 raised to the 12th power neurons in the human brain. 10 to the 12th power. 10 hoch 12. Yeah. And this is a huge number. Just offhand I'd say it's something like the number of seconds in three or four hundred years. It's about 31 million seconds in a year. So please live each one. Why not? Why not? And the number of connections in the human brain, the nervous system, are, I'm told, ten to the fourteenth power.

[32:02]

And the number of connections in the human brain, the nervous system, I'm told, ten to the fourteenth power. We're getting up there with the number of molecules in the universe. These are huge numbers. And yet we look at things and we say this tree is three-dimensional. Our mind is trained to think in three-dimensional sequentiality. When you look at a tree and you say it's three dimensional, you have created a mental box around it. Which is useful if you're trying to figure out if a truck will get under a bridge. But it's not much...

[33:07]

more subtle or accurate than that. Each stem, each leaf, each part of each leaf all are in these little three-dimensional boxes, if you want to think of it that way. And they don't add up to three dimensions, they add up to something vast. So we live in a vast world which is not apprehensible because of the way our senses work. But we're actually participating in this vastness. So the first sense of When we study our senses, we see that our senses are homogenized.

[34:08]

And usually under one sense. And for us humans, it's the seeing of the eye. Im langläufigen Sinn ist das das Auge. Und die Vishniana Praxis ist, wie viele von euch wissen, diese Sinnesorgane einmal auseinanderzuheißen. Und der erste Schritt zu wissen ist, So you can smell the mood in this room, not the fact that we haven't taken showers. The mood? The mood. We can smell the mood in this room.

[35:15]

And we can hear the mood of the room. And we hardly notice we're doing it, but actually we react within this perception. There are thousands of tiny sounds going on now. And when you begin to work with your senses in a unitary sense, one at a time, You begin to recognize you're hearing things that when your senses are homogenized, you don't hear. I mean, you notice it in the Zendo when somebody clears their throat, about five people have to clear their throat or cough.

[36:17]

My throat didn't itch, but yours started to itch and it made mine itch. This is a gross level that's much more subtle than that actually. The connectedness is Our perception of it is very slight. Conscious perception. Okay, so this is taken for granted in the Buddhist way of thinking about things and in the teaching of the Sutras and Kohans. And then the next Third category is to orchestrate the senses to be able to bring, say, sound and smell together, but not sight.

[37:27]

And the fourth is to recognize that there are things going on that don't fall into the categories of the senses. And the koan we've worked on off and on for a couple years back and forth about going on a pilgrimage and not knowing his nearest about acting in the world where the senses don't reach. For example, right now, the example I use often is right now there's hundreds or thousands of cellular phone calls right here.

[38:41]

A hundred years ago, if you told somebody that, they'd say, you're crazy. But in fact, it's in many, many television stations. Oh, I see a movie right there. But these are still beyond our senses, but still in the realm of senses. In other words, we may be affected actually by the cellular phone calls in this room, even though we can't listen to the conversation. But then there's the way in which this, the, is that the fourth?

[39:48]

Please. Okay, the sixth then is the way in which it's not in any category of the senses. That is also present. It's somewhat analogous to mathematically the world is much simpler in ten dimensions than three or four. That's where scientists come up with the idea of hyperspace and string theory and stuff like that. Yeah. And the world is so folded together that it's outside of our perceptual any way we can perceive it. But we are it. Now, Buddhism, I think, because it's basically non-theological, has had to look very carefully because they've had to say, this is it.

[41:04]

There's nothing outside the system. So the mystery is somehow folded into the system. So Buddhism has assumed that and much of the koans, the so-called great function, the term great function means to know how to exist where the senses are. don't reach and cannot reach. Where the senses don't reach, where they cannot reach. Now this is remarkable that we are part of a wisdom stream here. That is... This tradition teaches us how to exist where the senses don't reach.

[42:12]

When I was a kid, I never imagined this was possible. No one told me. So it's been a revelation to me. A metanoia. Oh. I'm just testing your English. It's not in the dictionary. In the Greek. Well, it's in some dictionaries, but you have a pretty big one. Yeah. Okay. So, what would I suggest you know? Was schlage ich euch daher vor? As if I knew. Knowing there's a limit to knowing, what do I suggest we know within those limits? I suggest that we know that everything changes.

[43:27]

And I suggest we know that everything we know is mind. So I would practice with these two things. As the preceptor in the background of your mind, you really need to have in the background of your mind, before thought arises. Your mind is a structure. Dein Geist ist nur eine Struktur. Diese Struktur wurde entwickelt, seit du geboren wurde. Und es gibt, wie ich gestern gesagt habe, eine große Plastizität, wie dieser Geist geformt werden kann.

[44:28]

directly with the plasticity of the mind. And we restructuring the mind. And part of that restructuring is what basic views you hold before thought arises. Once it arises, it arises in the structure of the mind. The structure is prior to the thinking. I think, just something I read a while ago, that the intelligence of a child is in direct relationship to the vocabulary of the parents.

[45:30]

But it seems to be the vocabulary of the parents that is face-to-face communicated. It's not the vocabulary of the babysitter. Or the vocabulary of the television programs that are going on in the background. It's a fleshly vocabulary. Okay, we need to know to hold in view that everything changes. We have to be aware that everything changes everything you see or think about. So as I say, since I like my own mind, I like everything I see.

[46:41]

How could one not be friendly? How could one not be friendly? The third thing to know is that everything is interdependent. That everything is changing means that everything is interdependent. And it's both sequentially interdependent and simultaneously interdependent. And it's also interdependent with mind itself. With the structural capacity, sensorial capacity of the mind. So this interdependence should always be held as part of your accurately assuming consciousness.

[47:50]

Also, und diese wechselseitige Abhängigkeit sollte immer im Bewusstsein gehalten werden. Okay. In addition, I think you should know that mind always has a physical component and sentient physical always has a mental component. Und zusätzlich dazu sollte die Wissen... And this is the secret of practice, one lifetime practice, is to get to know the physicality of your mind. And when you practice bringing your attention to your breath, you are physicalizing your mind. Now, the next two are more speculative, but I think I take them as true.

[49:02]

All is existence. Everything you see is existence. And everything you see is void. This is a formula of Yogacara. All is existence and all is void. And now it was developed to be said more deeply. All is neither existence nor void. which means we're really out of a human-centered world. We're in the midst of something that we are, that we cannot comprehend. Moment by moment it disappears and reappears.

[50:10]

Moment zu Moment verschwindet es und entsteht wieder. Close your eyes. Schließe deine Augen. Öffne sie wieder. Alles ist hier. Schließe sie und es ist weg. Und das ist sehr mechanisch, aber es ist eine Wahrheit darin, wenn du beginnst, es zu praktizieren. Now, what I really want to talk about here is friendship. And I'm surprised, you know, I'm not a scholar of literature. I'm not a scholar of anything, in fact. But I can't think of any novel about friendship.

[51:18]

All are Romances, Romane. They're all about love and stuff, but they're never about friendship. That I can think of. On the other hand, my acquaintance, limited acquaintance with Chinese literature. Friendship is much more celebrated than love. And spousal relationships are most celebrated when they're also or fundamentally friendship. Now, this does take certain forms.

[52:27]

It's assumed that friendship is productive and creative. It's because of friendship that lineage is so important in Asian culture. Lineage is not vertical. It's horizontal, [...] horizontal over many generations. Someone might say Richard Baker came to Germany and founded the Dharmasanga. It's easy to write this way. It's easy to write in this way. And that's what a magazine article might say. And that's what a magazine article might say.

[53:28]

It's not really true. And that's not really true. It might be more accurate to say I came to Germany or to Europe and I made some friends. And it's right to say I came to Germany or to Europe and I made some friends. I mean, the Dharma Sangha, there's no way the Dharma Sangha would exist without all of you. I mean, I've been an agent of it, but many of you have been agents of it. And I did make some basic decisions for example. I decided for the most part to

[54:29]

Only do seminars or give lectures in cities which had sitting groups. Even if the sitting group was tiny, two or three people. Two or three friends is the whole world. A thousand strangers at a lecture means nothing. Compared to two or three friends. I'm wearing these robes because Sukiroshi was my friend. Almost nothing else. And because I wanted to be friends with the other people I practiced with. And Suzuki Roshi decided he shouldn't be the, we decided together, that he shouldn't be the only one who dressed in funny robes.

[55:36]

There should be at least two people dressed in funny robes so that the other Americans, I mean Europeans would have a sense of it's possible. A very good translation. Yeah, you're getting better every day. So, I mean, this friendship had... Dama Sangha is not possible without Geralt and Gisela's friendship with each other and with me and being at Crestone for ten years. So, and many of you in this room are equally part of this horizontal flow of friendship.

[56:48]

As many of you know, one of my first friends in Europe, and one of the reasons I came back, was because of Martin Kramer. And I think in this room there's at least four people who are here because of Martin Kramer. So this one friendship led to many friends and some of them starting to practice. And we practiced at the house distiller really through the friendship with Frank and Angelica. Because of my friendship and Ulrike's friendship initially with Frank and Angelica.

[58:04]

They let us use their kitchen to cook our own meals. They don't let any other group cook their own meals. And I think this decision to cook our own meals is what created the Dharma Sangha. People who cook together, stay together. And sometimes fight together. But, you know, we just did a practice week here a few weeks ago. Which I think was quite successful in how we practiced together. And I believe the main difference... And why it worked in the other practice weeks didn't work anywhere near as well at Haus der Stille.

[59:12]

Yes, because it was the only thing we did at Haus der Stille where we didn't cook together. So we somehow didn't cook the practice together as well either. So I believe these small things make a difference. And by the way, we do have to make a Sangha decision about whether we're going to support this Sashin coming up. Out of friendship to them and for all the support they've given us, we agreed, I agreed to do one more Sashin there this year. But they only have three registrations.

[60:15]

So they're thinking of canceling it. And if they do, I think we, I or we, we'll have to give them some money to cover the loss of the weak of income. But I'm looking forward to doing a Sashin there. I think we'll have a good time. It'll be beautiful to be back there on those ponds and in that building. So if any of you are planning to go and haven't registered, Please register so that they'll have some more registrations. I'm going to send in my registration. I'm going to send in my registration.

[61:29]

But if it doesn't work for various reasons to do it, we'll have to cancel it, it's okay, but it'd be nice if we can do it. Now, I'd like to continue speaking about friendship, but it may not be friendly to your legs. So let me just say, you know, a little bit more about the story of Guishan and Dungshan. This is a story of Guishan and Dungshan is about friendship.

[62:31]

Now, it's assumed in Buddhism that, as I said, friendship is is productive and creative. And many poems are written together. I think of an example of, this isn't, but Ford Maddox Ford was a writer, quite an interesting writer. Ford Maddox Ford. Actually his name was Ford Pfeiffer. And he was an anglicized German. So Ford, Mattix Ford, der eigentlich Hüfer geheißen hat und ein anglisierter Deutscher war. And he, as the way Ezra Pound helped T.S. Eliot and they all helped, there was a group of writers who all helped each other. So wie Ezra Pound und T.S. Eliot sich gegenseitig geholfen hat, es gab eine Gruppe von Dichtern, die sich gegenseitig unterstützten.

[63:34]

Ford Mattix Ford was so upset with Pound's in translating poetry. That he threw himself on the floor and rolled around on the floor. And Ezra Pound finally got the point. Ezra Pound hat's dann kapiert. And Pound said, that roll on the floor saved me two years. And we can see something like the Beatles. The Beatles were very creative together, but individually not so creative. What was the drummer's name? Ringo Starr. Ringo Starr, he was kind of the dumbest one. But that doesn't mean he wasn't equally part of the creativity.

[64:47]

So it's understood in Buddhism, that all... is existence. So all, each, is an embodiment, everything you see is an embodiment of the truth. Every person you see is an embodiment of the truth. And as Dogen emphasizes and the Lotus Sutra emphasizes, we all equally share the dimensionality of everything. teilen die Dimensionalität der Wahrheit gleichermaßen. And so through practice, and through Zazen especially, we discover, what can I say, in practice we're equal. In the way we create a common Bodhisattva identity were equal.

[65:54]

And part of Sangha life is how to keep the clever ones from making trouble. Smart people are always a problem. So the Sangha has to need smart people to help develop the Sangha, but it also has to keep them so they don't cause too much trouble. Also, the people who need it to develop the Sangha, but you also have to... In them. What? In them. In them. In them. I don't know which one of us is smart here.

[66:58]

Okay. So one of our precepts is to know that each person is an embodiment of the truth. And this deeper aspect of our character comes out Through practice. So the point of practice is to discover this deeper aspect of how we're equally dimensioned in the universe. In the cosmos. In the cosmos. Together be able to recognize a Buddha. Yeah, our practice is also to become a Buddha. But more deeply it's to be able to recognize a Buddha.

[68:06]

And this is also expressed in the disciples should surpass the teacher. So the teacher's work is not to be a great teacher, but to make his disciple or her disciple a great teacher. So Guishan is exhibiting what friendship in these terms. Und Guishan zeigt Freundschaft in dieser Art und Weise. Which I would say in this sense friendship is you know another person. Und in diesem Sinn ist Freundschaft, man kennt eine andere Person. You watch another person.

[69:08]

Man beobachtet eine andere Person. You're available to the other person. Man ist für diese Person da. Und man gibt dieser Person die Wahl. And most of this is silent and not expressed. Friendship in this sense is to watch and be present for another person, but not necessarily do much. And you can see in this yogic Buddhist culture, people went to great lengths to create the conditions for friendship. A great deal of the literature and poetry is about friends traveling hundreds of miles to thousands of kilometers sometimes to spend a few days together.

[70:14]

They built their houses so that their friends, so they could have friendships within the house. And wisdom can be understood as to know how to create the conditions for friendship. And I believe that if society loses the wisdom of how to create the conditions for friendship, it will eat itself up. So you see, people would do a painting and then their friend would write a poem and another friend would put their seal on it. This way of thinking even pervades the culture today.

[71:28]

I mean, in Japan, they really don't understand the idea of a patent. Yes, one person may think of a light bulb, but he had friends and books and teachers and so forth. You know, we have to acknowledge the Western emphasis on individual creativity. But I think it's good if we can also understand this Buddhist emphasis on friendship. The Bodhisattva, we can understand the Bodhisattva as what happens when friends are together.

[72:29]

We can understand a Bodhisattva what happens if friends come together. The activity of a Bodhisattva may be the activity of a Sangha in a society. The activity of a Bodhisattva may be the activity of a Sangha in a society. gave this opportunity to Dongshan. And so Dongshan, he knew Dongshan, even from a brief encounter. He knew he was in this spell or aura of friendship. So he made himself available. So machte er sich selbst verfügbar. I can be your Dharma friend.

[73:32]

I can present to you the teaching. He gave them the freedom of a choice. And he watched him. And Dungshan chose the teaching. And Dungshan had the teaching. So Guishan sent him to another friend, Yunyan. So it was a larger functioning of a Bodhisattva presence through Dungshan, Guishan and Yunyan. So, es war eine größere Funktion durch Dungshan, Yunyan und Guishan. And that Bodhisattva presence, which is friendship. I think we are trying to discover together here. Thank you very much

[74:42]

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