Here we are moving along in Sashin. Perhaps swimming toward the other shore. Neil and I, we have our little boat. And swimming along in this Sashin, I encountered Sophia's and Marie-Louise's pretty bad cold they had when I came back from Berlin. Or maybe it's Eric Ito's cold. And I thought I was going to avoid it, but, you know, I haven't. But it's nice to share things with one's daughter. Yeah, the other day, Sophia and I were at the beach, and she loves to collect rocks and things like that. And she was very pleased.

[01:13]

She came up to me and presented me very carefully. Papa, here's a teaching staff for you. So, right from the ocean itself. It's an ocean mudra. Ocean mudra. Yeah, so. Now, what is the muse behind what I'm speaking about? Muse, muse? Like the nice three ladies who help poets? Yeah, yeah. What is the muse behind? Was ist die Muse hinter dem, wie kommt das hin? Die Muse hinter dem, sozusagen, worüber wir gesprochen haben. Or the question. The one who kisses you, isn't it? I don't know about that, but, you know, I've never heard of the muses kissing.

[02:14]

Oh, kissed by the muse, don't you sing in German? Then he gets an inspiration. Maybe I should try to write some poems in German. Or the questions behind what I'm speaking about. And certainly one of the questions behind what I'm speaking about is what can it possibly mean that myriad things and I are the same body? How can we take that Literally, or how can we make sense of it as practice? Is it just a nice idea or a feeling? Or is it... Is it meant all factually?

[03:32]

Yeah, of course it's a kind of fact because we're all made of atoms and molecules and things like that. But we don't experience it. We don't act through it in any way that we notice. So, and there's various ways it's said. Yeah, heaven, earth, etc. And then myriad things and I share the same body. And Dogen says, the great way of going beyond, more or less the last sentence of the Ocean Mudra Samadhi, in the great way of going beyond, we can stop there. What the heck does that mean? Come back next February or something.

[04:36]

In the great way of going beyond, no endeavor is complete without being one with myriad things. This, he says, is ocean mudra samadhi. Okay, so I'm trying to get at what really is he in a tangible, tactile way speaking about? Maybe if you have to translate that way, maybe I should lecture them. Okay. Gerald and I used to translate together, and we both hold our big toe. And people in the audience used to think there was some sort of magic involved.

[05:54]

Antenna. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, this guy I've been quoting, Stonehouse, 14th century poet, Zen master. He says it in a poetic way. He talks about the hassle of having to visit a government official, the granary or something like that. But at least he had the feeling of coming to rest in a cup of tea. And he says in a white porcelain bowl, the bubbles of snow

[07:12]

And what he means is when you frost the tea, it makes all these little bubbles, of course. And they're reflecting the white tea bowl. And he says, and made from the stream water which milled the tea. tea leaves. In other words, the tea's dried and then ground up, and then the mill that ground it up is turned by the stream which is also the water which made the tea. So he just says having a cup of snowy tea in a from the stream milled the tea milled stream.

[08:43]

But it's his way of saying Myriad things and I share the same body. And when he feels that, he finds himself at rest. Now, how do myriad things put us at rest. Now, myriad, you know, is a word which is nowadays mostly used as an adjective in English. And do you have the same word in German? And in English, you can say myriad things or you can say a myriad of things. So it's both an adjective and a noun.

[09:54]

Now, if you say, let's say, you said a myriad of raindrops, it would mean a lot of, many raindrops. And, um, mm, Yeah, many individual raindrops. Lots of raindrops. But a myriad of raindrops is more like, if you imagine a shimmering curtain of So it's not many raindrops, it's just a large number, an indefinite number of raindrops creating an overall presence. Now that's the more ancient meaning in English, that it's the presence of myriad things, not numbers, many myriad things.

[11:01]

Okay, now what is the presence of myriad things? What is the form that the presence of myriad things takes? And what is our form in the presence of myriad things? Now again, in this way of thinking about things, there's no clear inside-outside distinction. Yeah, I think one of the words in Chinese for the body means not only a share of the whole. But it means the body extended into the whole.

[12:14]

It's the presence of the body reaching into the surrounding. So again, that's a very different sense of body than we have, which we have a pretty strong inside-outside feeling. When I first started practicing, that was the the way I understood the sense of the world being dualistic. A dualism isn't just two things. A dualism is two things which don't have any connection. So dualistic thinking is like good and evil, mind and body, physical and spiritual.

[13:31]

And if there's a real distinction between inside and outside. And it has interesting ramifications. This is just a complete aside. In Asian cultures, there's a very little idea of public space. Because public requires an inside-outside. As I've often pointed out, about the time I went to Japan, Sixty. Eight. In the Tokyo airport, the Japanese on a hot day would all be wearing their underwear. You'd say, if you said to the Japanese, you know, what are you wearing?

[14:38]

You're in public. They'd say, where? It's just a hot day. I took off my clothes, my kimono. And there used to be little signs. Remember, Westerners think it's odd to wear here. So these differences, little differences, make a big difference. Because if you think about it, we think of the government and democracy as taking care of the public. And you have a private space. If you don't have a public space, what's your government? Also, wenn man auch bei uns, also jetzt nochmal mit der Regierung, die sich darum kümmert und auch vom öffentlichen Raum sozusagen Besitz ergreift, wenn man dann keinen privaten Raum hat, when you don't have a private space?

[15:39]

Yeah, what does your government govern? Was kann dann deine Regierung sozusagen regieren? Yeah, and again, most of traditional Japanese culture had no hotel lobby space. That's a British colonial creation. Because all space was initiated. You couldn't just walk into an inn. You had to be initiated. You had to have a key or you had to have somebody invite you in. There was no... public lobby you went to restaurants where you were known where you were known. And the prices, the first time you went, the prices were quite high. If you came back regularly, the prices began to lower, and you realized they wanted you to come back.

[16:43]

Now, nowadays, they certainly have public spaces and restaurants and hotels, but it's all developed in encounter with the West. As I say, as I said, initiatory space is based on rights, R-I-T-E-S, and our western space is based on rights, R-I-G-H-T-S. First, well, right. Right, yeah. What was the first, excuse me? Initiatory space, where you have to be initiated to enter. Depends on a right, R-I-T-E, initiation. But in America, in a public space, You can't close it off.

[17:47]

There's legal rights that you can come into a public space. So if your hotel is somehow public space, the hotel can't close their lobby. So I'm trying to give you just a feeling for... that these different ways of conceiving the space you're in makes a really big difference. So we're in the middle of myriad things. You know, when we go camping out, do people camp out in Europe much?

[18:52]

In America everybody goes camping out. There's a lot of space to go camping out in. You do that? Everyone has a tent, a sleeping bag, and they spend usually part of the year camping out somewhere. And there's a feeling of the presence, a feeling of connectedness when you camp out with things. Or also just taking a walk. Or in a nice big rainstorm like this morning. I think in a rainstorm you hear the rain on the roof and you hear some thunder and the god Thonis, etc.

[20:06]

There's some feeling of connectedness. Through the practice I'm talking about, or trying to reflect with Dogen, you feel that all the time, not just in a rainstorm. Or maybe you feel you're camping out in your life all the time. Just trying to see if we can feel this. Myriad things and I are the same body. I think that we can look at the word chi or ki. And etymologically, it's also related to... But much more breath as energy.

[21:17]

And it's often translated by in the case of some Chinese philosophers as ether. And they use the English word ether or European word which means a massless medium that penetrates everything. And so that all objects are alterations of this ether. But Yeah, and we could say the objects are alterations of different way molecules, atoms are put together. But we don't have any experience of our atoms or molecules.

[22:18]

Even though you can taste the atoms of molecules of cheap silverware. Of what? Nothing. No, you know, where you have real cheap silverware, utensils in a restaurant or a cafe or something, you can smell the metal. That's just little molecules coming off. That's how sensitive we are. Not as good as a dog, but we do pretty well. I always wonder, dogs who have tens of thousands of more sensitive nose than we do, what world do they live in? the silverware must be overwhelming I think I'd be willing to be reborn as a dog just to have this experience what a thrill

[23:25]

Maybe someday you could choose what you're going to be reborn as. Have a thrill as a dog be reborn and here they become a commercial enterprise. So in this way this idea of connectedness is developed in yogic cultures. There's a sense of that we have access to this ether that makes all, that makes the world. Now, I'm not saying in Particularly, you should believe this. Again, I'm just trying to get a feeling for the world of our Buddhist ancestors.

[24:53]

So chi is really not something you're born with. Now I'm not trying to deal with Taoist ideas of chi or martial arts ideas of chi. I'm just talking about more or less in the Buddhist context. Shi is something that's generated and it's accumulated. Those two things. And it's generated and accumulated within the mind-body phenomena complex. So practice was assumed that you generate in each situation a kind of... and you accumulate it. And when you die, you lose it. Or if you lose it, you die.

[25:57]

And you live with a lot more vitality if you learn how to take care of it And the primary place it accumulates is in the Tanden or Hara period. And this area is called, in this way of thinking, the Chi Hai, which means the ocean of Chi. Now there's no way Dogen doesn't know that this is called the ocean of chi. So when he says ocean mudra samadhi, he's speaking about this area.

[27:02]

Not only this area, but he's talking about this area. Now, he says Togan has an interesting way of speaking. He says, the ocean of, I am the ocean mudra, samadhi, I am the ocean. Mudra Samadhi. Or shorter, the ocean of the ocean Mudra Samadhi. The ocean of the ocean Mudra Samadhi is not the abode of human beings. What he means is you alone are in the ocean mudra samadhi. It's a bit like you were swimming in it, but most other people are not swimming in it. It's like most people are, we could say, in a mental medium. And the adept is in a chi medium or ocean mudra medium.

[28:17]

And here it's that a drop of water includes the ocean. And concentration is not thought of as just mental concentration. And how do you bring your body into the concentration? And one of the first things I learned was that If you concentrate like the watchmaker, you stop your breath to do tiny things.

[29:19]

So to stop your breath is a way of bringing the body into what you're doing. But one of the first things you have to learn in practicing is how to concentrate without stopping the breath. How to still the body without stopping the breath. And as I said, I started to say earlier about speaking about dualism. My first experience of it, and I've often said this, was that I was in the world and there was a glass wall between me and other things. I seem to live in this world, but I'm not part of this world. So once I had the conception, And after practicing for a little while, I could feel this glass wall.

[30:37]

And a kind of always present separation. that I couldn't see but I could feel. So my intention was to face this glass wall at each moment. Yeah. While I acted in the world that I could see through the glass wall. And I think it took six or eight months, and then suddenly the glass wall wasn't there. This was a big step toward what I'm talking about now. But compared to what Dogen means by in the great way of going beyond, But a necessary step to begin to feel connected.

[31:51]

Okay. Now, chi also as well as accumulates and is generated. It also circulates. Now, the Japanese word for... To be interested in something. Das japanische Wort dafür, an etwas interessiert zu sein. Is ki agaru. Is also ki agaru. Which means to have ki, to have chi. Und das bedeutet einfach chi zu haben.

[32:53]

So if we look at the etymology, the etymology of interest in English is to be in between is. Est is is and inter is in between. So there's a feeling of being in the is-ness between things. Well, that's something similar, but ki agaro means... That you're interested in something is the flow of ki between you and the object you're interested in. Yeah, to be in the midst of the... of the flow of ki between you and the object. Now, just imagine what a different world this is. I'm interested in this object.

[33:58]

And when you say that, although maybe Japanese people have forgotten about this, if you look at the etymology of the words, then you see originally it meant to actually feel an energetic energy. Not an aesthetic, but an energetic connection between things. The object gave you energy and you gave energy to the object. And you really get a feeling for that. You can see why Japanese people put one thing in the room, not lots of things. And they choose an exceptional thing which they can have this sense of chi or ki with. And to think or feel is ki-ga-su-ru, which means ki does something, chi does something.

[35:26]

So here we have a way of looking at the world is, if I think about something or feel something, it's an energy that's doing it. So now maybe we can feel more when all things advance. And cultivate the self. Now maybe you can feel more when the when you feel the qi or sea ocean of energy, not of objects, but an ocean of energy, not of mind, but an ocean of energy, you can then feel when all things advance and cultivate and authenticate the self. But when...

[36:27]

It is self which is conveyed to things, cultivates things. The whole thing deflates. Deflates. Collapses. It's almost like the idea of self or self-interest pricks the balloon. breaks, opens the balloon. Well, it's not a balloon, but this sense of a shared body, which is a lived body, which is a share of the whole, and is extended in space, Yeah, it's the starting point of Dogen's feeling about what a human being is. Yeah. So it means part of our practice is really feeling a sense of stability in the body as well as the mind.

[38:02]

And we can feel it most clearly if you get in the habit of breathing down into your hara. And you'll find that you actually move in the world differently. Now, you can't go around with bulging eyes and a red cheek. You always are trying to keep your breath in your aura. What are you doing? I'm keeping... No, I mean, just you have to try out now and then. See if you can get familiar, get familiar with having your breath and sense of location in your hara and not up here in your shoulders. So you just have to see that you get familiar with it and that you practice it over and over again to get this feeling of locality or location right here and not up here in the chest or in the shoulders.

[39:14]

We enter the world and we also protect ourselves predominantly in our shoulders. And so, in a way, when you feel that, you're swimming with the ocean. You're swimming in the world in a certain way, but not necessarily everybody else is in the same ocean. But when you feel that, You're generating the world as ocean. And the myriad of things swims toward you. It's a funny, you know, an outsider. A non-practitioner thinks Zen is about sitting on a cushion and being calm.

[40:18]

But for the insider, the practitioner, zazen is a door. So housing and mindfulness are doors where this great bird unfurls its wings. The wings of vastness. Well, okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

[41:10]

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