I apologize for taking so long to sit down. But it's old age. The layers of robes, the way they're designed, requires an attentional body that I'm losing. They're sort of barometers of attentional acuity. But the whole culture is like that. In this yogic culture, we're getting to know through practice. I used to be able to just sit down and everything fell into place.

[01:07]

Now I sit down and everything's tangled up. I mentioned it only because it's curious to me that it happens. So we have, of course, this koan. And it gives us the lovely simplicity of the phrase the one who is not busy. Or the one not busy, without the who. Now, as I said yesterday in the afternoon, we can ask, what is the parentage of the one who's not busy? And we can look into the dynamic of the koan because usually, typically, a koan will present one aspect and then

[02:23]

embed it in a lot of other aspects. So you have the aspect of Dao and union. But then it also talks about the lineage. This is the special school looks at things this way. So if we look at the koan as a construct which we enter through our practice, the construct is the whole of Buddhism. Like if I write something, I find myself, whatever little section I try to write something, pretty soon it turns into the whole of Buddhism.

[03:57]

And these koans turn into the whole of Buddhism. So you have to be willing as a practitioner to be within the whole of Buddhism without feeling some kind of tension. I should be at the advanced part or the beginning part. You're just in the midst of the whole of Buddhism. And as a practitioner, you have to have the willingness to find yourself in the depths of Buddhism, without any tensions with it. And for example, you have the idea that you should be in the advanced part of Buddhism or something like that.

[04:59]

But as a practitioner, you are simply in the midst of the depths of Buddhism. Did I say all of that? Yes, you did. Okay. I mean, if you're a physicist or you're interested in physics, as I probably would have been a scientist if I wasn't a Buddhist, you could take a phrase like a formula, E equals MC squared, And you could practice with maybe mass and energy. So you could have a sort of term like one who is not busy, you could look at everything as mass and energy. And you could feel something when you said, because the words would direct attention, you could feel something when you said mass, and you could feel something when you said energy.

[06:14]

And in a similar way, I've suggested you practice with activity and entity. Yeah, so you... look at the objects of the world and you say, entities, activity. And you see where it goes. I mean, if you're If you're a physicist, then you'd think the speed of light and all that stuff, but you're not there yet, so all you know is mass and energy. But even if you're saying it, you're still in the middle of a great chunk of modern physics.

[07:24]

But it still could be fruitful to practice with mass and energy. And if you were a Newton-type person, there aren't too many like that, but if you were, you might have some feeling for gravity and planetary movements. But it's probably useful just to feel mass and energy. And your own mass and energy So this phrase, the one who is not busy, is sort of like that.

[08:45]

There's a whole lot of Buddhism in it, but mostly you can just use this simple phrase. And the koan says, how do you understand siblings with the same breath? Yeah, so Yunyan and Dawu have the same breath, or they're both breathing. So you and I, we together and individually are each breathing. And the lineage teaching is considered a shared breath. And so it says this is setting up a special school.

[09:59]

And it says there's not the setting up of jobs according to ability. Which is saying there's different levels of experience between Daowu and Yunyan and so forth. But we have the same, but they have the same breath and maybe the same experience of the one who's not busy. And I think this is a difficult point for because we have such a comparative sense of identity.

[11:10]

But we want everyone, because we want somehow intuitively everyone to be equal unless they're refugees. Excuse me, a political comment. But we're all different. That difference is part of this one suchness, as the koan says. And it says there's nothing existing outside of mind. Now is this just scenery or an ornamentation in the koan?

[12:12]

Or how do you understand the simplicity of the one who is not busy? Oder wie verstehst du diese Einfachheit von dem, der nicht geschäftig ist? And there's nothing in the statement. The dynamic of the koan puts in the statement. There's nothing outside of mind. Und die Dynamik des koans legt in dieser Aussage hinein, dass es nichts außerhalb vom Geist gibt. Everything is one suchness. Therefore, it's unborn and undying. Where the heck does that come from? I think if you're going to investigate a koan, And you're interested in this like, hey, what's this all about?

[13:19]

Not just as much as I want, I'll do it, but really, what is this all about? We can say that... Zen practice is investigative repetition. And Dogen and the koans often say, investigate. This should be investigated. And you just put yourself in the midst of it without thinking, do I understand or don't I understand, etc. You just put yourself in the midst of it. And there are differences in ability. This teaching all arises in what is essentially an agrarian culture.

[14:25]

And so it's like, when do you plant something? And when is the moon right? And when is the rain right? And you have a certain kind of information, but you have to investigate yourself when to plant. And one farmer has an adequate crop. And another farmer has an excellent crop. And another farmer has not only an excellent crop, but he has a crop which produces, and he notices seeds which produce better crops over the generations.

[15:49]

So when you look at farming as a shared activity, There's the adequate crop, there's the excellent crop, and there's the generational crop. For the crops we have have been developed over centuries by people noticing the difference between seeds. So you can see in the elaboration of the commentary throughout the koan that you're in the midst of the whole of Buddhism here. But we each have the same breath.

[17:11]

Or we have a shared breath. If you want to survive in this world, it's not about comparison of you to others, but it's discovering you have a shared breath. And discovering that this phrase, the one who is not busy, can begin to catalyze a kind of shared resonant awareness. Resonant awareness. And this shared awareness

[18:12]

is really more satisfying than our individual awareness. But one depends on the other. Okay. So here the emphasis is on siblings with the same breath. And because they have the same breath, they're siblings, And both Yunyan and Daowu and the one who is not busy are our shared resonant lineage. Now, it says also in the koan, when you sow, when you eat, when you sow, when you boil water, and I don't know what the fourth was, I forget,

[19:42]

know the one who's not busy. Okay, so when you boil water, when you sew, when you cook, when you cook, etc., what is this? I guess we'd have to say it's immediacy. Now, Matsu is famous for saying the ordinary mind is the way. But what is ordinary mind?

[20:47]

Now, ordinary mind also, as a term in Buddhism, has a history, like its own history, like the one who is not busy. So when you're driving a car, Let's hope you're located in immediacy. You're not located where you're going or where you came from. You're located wherever the car happens to be at that moment, if it's moving. My cell phone, I'm sitting beside somebody who drove me just recently to the airport. I'm sitting there and I wanted to look up something on the cell phone. I can't remember what, where we're, you know, the GPS.

[21:49]

And the phone said, there are no notifications while you're driving. Recently I was sitting next to someone who drove me to the airport, and my phone said, when I wanted to check something out, that there were no notifications while driving. And this is like what Otmar said yesterday. How the heck does my phone know that I'm driving? I don't think it's the jiggling of the car. It must be the GPS or something. But I want to look up Google Maps or something, so I have to... And that says, I am not driving, so I push I am not driving. Mm-hmm. So, when we're driving, we hope we're in immediacy.

[23:14]

And immediacy is where your life happens. And this is an illustration, this koan is an illustration of immediacy. Yunian is sleeping, Da Wu makes a comment, Yunian puts the room, et cetera. So this is the teaching of ordinary mind is the way, when you sew, cook, or whatever. Or drive. But of course, much of the time we don't, as each of us knows, we're not in immediacy. We're thinking about something or... imagining ourselves in relationship to the past or future.

[24:18]

So now, a koan like this is asking, what is immediacy? And in some sort of physical sense, there's no existence. Immediacy doesn't exist. I just did a seminar in Colorado, Boulder, called getting, we called it, I don't know, getting some traction in immediacy. I just did a seminar in Colorado, Boulder, Now, since I mentioned last, yesterday afternoon, these small enlightenment experiences, which may not be recognized as anything.

[25:23]

But I do remember I asked my father, who was an engineer, scientist, I said to him, and I've told you this a number of times, mentioned this a number of times, I said to him, there's no 12 o'clock. And he said, what do you mean? And I said, well, it's a minute before 12 and half a minute and then a millionth of a minute before 12, a millionth of a second, and then a millionth of a second after 12. There's no 12. So he said, well, if something's approached and passed, we can say it exists. Then he said, well, if something is approached and then it's gone, then we can say it exists.

[26:37]

And, yeah, so I sort of, okay, pop. I said, okay, papa. Papa. Pop. My German-influenced daughter says Papa, and my American-influenced daughter says Dad, and I don't know whether to sign Dad or Papa or Pop. And when I communicate... I don't know who I am. Okay. Okay. So that stayed with me. I mean, it was like nothing. He said that. But it stayed with me. We can say it exists. Now, I think we could say that Zen is the... the jhana, the meditative, the school of Yogacara Buddhism which emphasizes meditation.

[28:05]

Now there's four, there's one of the teachings of Yogacara Buddhism is the four semblances. And there's the semblance of objects. Objects which seem to be objects. Seemingly objects. So there's the semblance of objects. There's the semblance of consciousness. And there's the semblance of senses, our senses. And there's the semblance of self. Well, this teaching, these views are in this koan.

[29:08]

Okay, so if we can say it exists, then maybe it really doesn't exist. And this as a kind of pondering has stayed with me since whenever that was, I was about eight years old. Okay. Okay. But we do experience a field of immediacy. We do experience that immediacy has some duration. Now, If immediacy has some duration, where does it exist?

[30:12]

Well, it exists in our senses, our sensorium. So it doesn't exist in the physical world, sort of, but it exists within our sensorium. Okay, if it's in our sensorium, it's something we construct. So the presence of the present is something we construct. Okay, if it's something we construct, then we can participate in the construction. And what means, what catalyzing modality do we use to participate in the immediacy which we are constructing within our senses?

[31:15]

And perhaps this koan suggesting locate the one who is not busy because maybe the one who's not busy is the the opportunity, the potentiality of participating in the construction of the present itself. Yeah, yeah. So this koan is an articulation of the present. And that the ordinary mind, at least when there's a repetitive investigation,

[32:38]

Und dass der gewöhnliche Geist, zumindest dann, wenn es eine sich wiederholende Untersuchung gibt, ist der Weg. The way is repetitive investigation. Now, some people complain to me that there's no stages in Zen practice. And just think for a minute. There have to be stages in Zen practice. To think there are none is nonsense. Okay, so why are the stages not pointed out? Because it's up to you to investigate and discover the stages. Weil es an dir ist, die Stufen zu untersuchen und zu entdecken.

[33:58]

And when you investigate the stages, the stages become turning points. Und wenn du die Stufen untersuchst, dann werden die Stufen Wendepunkte. Metaphorically, Zen practice is something like giving a guitar to a child. Metaphorisch gesprochen ist die Zen-Praxis so, als würde man einem Kind eine Gitarre geben. And you don't tell the child what it's for. And actually, there are some rock musicians who started that way and, yeah, it's, what is this physical thing? They found it around the house and they don't know why it was there, but, you know, so they strum their fingers on it and look at the strings and And then they find there's two strings broken and so they kind of replace them. They don't know what they're doing, but they do. Then they notice the bridge has to be vertical and they notice that

[35:00]

The tighter they make the strings, there's a different sound. So after a while, they get to know something about the guitar, maybe a year or two. Now that's the basic pedagogy of Zen practice. The ordinary mind is the way. We give you a guitar. Well, we give you a body. Or we say, notice your body when you're breathing. That's already a big step to notice your body when you're breathing. And then you investigate and you begin to see their stages.

[36:25]

And then somebody, maybe after a year or two, somebody comes to visit and they play the guitar. And you think, wow, that guitar came to life. And then you see that the guitarist came to life when he was playing the guitar. And then you see that you just listening came to life. And then you say, whoa, okay, this will be my life. I mean, you might. And then you're a rock star. Okay, so Zen is like that. You think, hey, I do Zazen, I bring attention to what I'm doing and my life comes alive.

[37:34]

I'm going to do this generationally, not just individually. And then you find out there's not only guitars, there's cellos and violins and... So a koan like this is meant to enter you into the cellos, violins and guitars of Buddhism. And really it's not about understanding, it's about investigating these two guys. And feeling this interaction Not just in the story, but in your interactions with other people.

[38:41]

When you're talking with somebody, do you feel simultaneously the one who's not busy is also listening? Wenn du mit jemandem sprichst, spürst du dann gleichzeitig, dass der, der nicht geschäftigt ist, auch zuhört. And that makes us siblings with one breath. Now there's, you know, there's more. Why not? that can focus us even more fully on this one who is not busy. So let's come to know the one who is not busy.

[39:44]

magical presence, which is the ordinary mind of the way. Thank you very much.

[39:56]

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