A verse by Busan. Coolness. Coolness. The sound of the bell as it leaves the bell. inviting the bell to sound, inviting the sound of the bell to fill this room, each of us, And a kind of, we may say, a wave of coolness.

[01:02]

We may say that zazen is to sit down and to do nothing. And then to let nothing explore and unfold itself. So we exert we exalt we don't assert the self. We make an effort, but we, in a sense, forget ourselves in the effort that we're making. We let our knees and hips and shoulders and neck and chin to do zazen.

[02:33]

Wir lassen unsere Knie und Hüften und Nacken und Schultern und das Kinn zazen machen. We allow the world to come forward into so-called our experience. And we energetically, alertly meet the world. So the kinds of sound, like the sounding of a bell, Make points straight to and enter deeply in our heart. In this feeling of a kind of choiceless or purposeless awareness. But if we're sitting, waiting for the bell to sound, did the Doan go to sleep?

[03:57]

Did they forget us? When will the bell sound? Oh, that bell was very loud sounding bell. That bell was a very soft sounding bell. The discrimination that accompanies this kind of self-oriented referencing Doesn't allow sound to enter deeply into our It stays on the surface of our experience, what we like, what we don't like, what feels good to us, what doesn't feel good to us.

[05:21]

So it's as though the self is appropriating this moment toward its own ends. To its likes and dislikes. And our experience may begin to flatten out. May begin to be familiar, the kind of experience we're used to have. Oder sie wird zu etwas Vertrauten der Art von Erfahrung, die wir schon kennen oder an die wir uns gewöhnt haben. And this kind of coolness, this quality of coolness, this wave of coolness that Busan talks about. Und diese Frische, diese Qualität der Frische, über die Busan spricht, may seem far distant away.

[06:28]

Diese Welle der Frische, die ist dann vielleicht in weiter Fernung. It's about a kind of intimacy of experience. It's being close to our experience without filtering it with some idea we may have about it. One monk once asked Dogen, what's the awakened mind? He said, it's the mind that's intimate with all things. Intimate means not placing a filter between ourselves and our experience. No subject or object.

[07:40]

We could say pure subject and pure object. An objectless and subjectless experiencing. ein objektloses und subjektloses Erfahren eines jeden Moments. And we've been exploring together applied attention and sustained attention. Und wir haben miteinander angewandte Aufmerksamkeit und aufrecht gehaltene Aufmerksamkeit erforscht. Intentionally bringing attention to the uprightness of our breath and body, particularly located in the spine.

[08:43]

Bringing attention and focusing. And then sustaining that attention by fastening it or anchoring it to the feeling in each moment of the spine. indem wir sie auf das Gefühl des Erfahrens in jedem Moment in der Wirbelsäule bringen. And sustaining it by exploring and investigating the feeling in your spine.

[09:48]

Und sie aufrecht zu erhalten, indem wir das Gefühl in unserer Wirbelsäule erforschen und untersuchen. I mentioned that this may for us bring a kind of physical ease. And it may bring a kind of mental softness, relaxation. What's called in traditional Buddhism joy and happiness. Without necessarily a specific reference point. But through this directed and sustained attention, a feeling of joyfulness and a feeling of easefulness.

[11:03]

And it may develop into a kind of mental one-pointedness or mind settled on itself. Why are we exploring this? Because we're continually constructing ourselves in this world in each moment. What kind of world do we intend? What kind of self are we constructing? One that is determined by our history and past experiences.

[12:23]

By our culture, by our study. Or one that's relatively free and unstructured. through allowing an objectless or subjectless intimate experience of ourselves and the world in each moment. This self and world that's constantly changing. And this intimacy means as we don't separate ourselves with some expectation or anticipation.

[13:28]

We don't separate ourselves with some anticipation or expectation. Our experience in the self and world we're constructing may take on innumerable possibilities. There's a wild a wild, unknown quality to our experiencing. Wild and unexpected. It's actually not so wild. Wild talent. But the timing was good.

[14:47]

The Buddha ancestor Sam Ganandi was in the Buddha hall with his disciple Jayata. And there was a wind chime outside the Buddha hall. And he said, what is the sound coming from? The chime or the wind? Wait, chime is that like a... Like a wind... It would be tubes of metal or tubes of wood and then a striker and it would make a sound. Also ein Windspiel. Dann hat er gefragt, woher kommt der Klang? Where does the sound come from? From the chime or? The wind.

[15:54]

Kommt der Klang vom Windspiel oder vom Wind? Where does it come from, he said. Woher kommt der? Jayata said, it comes from mind. Sangyanandi said, what kind of mind is that? Jayata said, it's the complete calmness of the mind. Jayatha said, this is the complete calm of the spirit. This is very similar, but centuries before the story about is the flag moving or is the wind moving? This is very similar to this story, but centuries before this story with the sixth patriarch, where it says, is the flag moving or is the wind moving?

[16:55]

This is lineage. This is the continuation of an exploration of shared and at the same time uniquely experienced mind. So it's not the bell, the wind chime, and it's not the wind that's making the sound. Jayatha says, it's the mind that's ringing. It's our experiencing the mind that's the ringing.

[17:58]

It's the relationship between the wind, the bell, and the mind that's continually ringing. And as we may be able to not experience separateness, Busan's description of coolness, some quality that aims at and fits inside each of us, may have some meaning for. So can Busan's description of this quality of the cool freshness that refers to each of us, can perhaps have a meaning for us.

[19:03]

And the calmness of them doesn't mean it's calm in the Johannes of Zendo and it's busy with Sigmund and Jakob in the hospital in Bad Säckingen this afternoon. It's not a comparative calmness. It's not things are more or less calm. When he says it's the complete calmness of them, it's the complete intimacy of all of the components of experience in each moment. It's the intimacy. In early Buddhism it's called the meeting of the three. It's the sense organ, the ear. The sense objects, the wind and the bell.

[20:21]

And the sense consciousness which brings them together. Which is what allows appearances to be experienceable. Allows them to be our experience. So the applied and sustained attention to the breath in the spine is the complete calmness of them. And it's not that there's applied attention and then there's sustained attention and then there's joyfulness and then there's ease and then there's mental one-pointedness.

[21:44]

Engaging in one is the complete calmness of all of them. All of Buddhism could be accomplished in such a seemingly simple act. And it's about a kind of communication. For communication to happen there needs to be a subject and an object. Everything wrapped up into all-at-onceness may be an experience, but it's not a description necessarily of reality.

[23:05]

For communication to happen, there needs to be a subject and an object. The one who speaks and the one who listens. The foot that steps and the floor that meets it. But it doesn't mean that at the same time they're not also connected. It means to not appropriate the world or experience as some fixed entity for our own purposes. It means at the same time it's both separate and connected.

[24:13]

At the same time, in the midst of the complete calmness of them, we can hear a bell and know that it's the end of Zazen. Communication is about not getting stuck in our point of view. How many times do we have a conversation with somebody and have it littered with our ideas of who they are, who we are, what's important, how things should come out? Wie oft haben wir eine Unterhaltung mit jemandem, die zugemüllt ist mit unseren Vorstellungen davon, wer wir sind, wer die andere Person ist und worum es hierbei geht und was dabei am Ende rauskommen soll.

[25:38]

Sometimes it's not necessary to have the conversation. We've already had the conversation. We don't have to have it with the other person. How many times do we take a step with the foot and we say, it's my foot and the floor is over there and it's going to be there and I'm going to put it down and I'm going to have some substantiality when I place my foot forward. Our ideas may very likely be true. It's not that we don't have any experience and know in general terms who the other person is, what their positions are, what our positions are.

[26:42]

We know these things. It's true. Most often when we take a step and put our foot toward the floor, the floor is there. But can we create what this intimacy is, where there's no sense of subjectivity? When there's pure subjectivity or pure objectivity. And meet one another in this unknown space which is not predictable. Not predetermined.

[27:49]

Allowing the world to come forward and us to meet the world in this unknown, mysterious, miraculous, I don't know if we'll get another sound, space. Zuzulassen, dass die Welt hervortritt und ihr in diesem unbekannten, wundersamen, non-miraculous und noch viele andere Sachen, unerwarteten Traum zu begegnen. Sometimes it looks like we made it to the Zendo this morning, our job is done. It's a miracle at 4.17 or 4.22 that I found my way to my cushion. What about the bell?

[29:04]

What about the opportunity that's present to meet our spine, our breath, our posture, one another? Was ist mit dieser Gelegenheit, die da ist, unsere Wirbelsäule, unseren Atem untereinander zu begegnen? One of the things that we've been speaking about from Sashin through now is a feeling of constancy. an unwavering willingness to accept what's arising in each moment.

[30:06]

Actually accepting is not quite enough. It's about meeting each arising ourselves, our breath, our spine. With exertion, with willingness. With the curiosity and an openness to discover what the communication is actually happening in this moment. Say yes to our painful knees, yes to our painful back and shoulders, yes to our painful neck. Yes to the bottomless calmness that may await us in each moment, in each horizon.

[31:29]

May await us in the bottomless calmness that may await us in each moment. Why wait? Thank you very much.

[31:59]

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