Your practice is enough. It could be better, but it's enough. And your understanding is not so bad. And your experience in practice is pretty good, even considerable. So if there's any problem, what is the problem? Why aren't you all as golden as this guy behind me? Maybe you are, actually. If I squint. I look in the mirror every morning and squint. Not too bad. I don't open my eyes too wide, though. Maybe squinting is not so bad. Maybe that's why we turn the lights down in the Zendo.

[01:27]

So the problem is mostly in our practice because we don't exactly put it together. don't make sense of it, or something like sense of it. Or we're not quite straightforward enough. And I think partly it's that we don't have confidence that we can really realize this practice.

[02:49]

Maybe we kind of believe we can, but we don't really have that confidence. You know, Dung Shan, who was sort of considered the founder of our lineage, died at 63. Of course, they start counting at nine months, but still, he died younger than me. His Dharma age is... A little older than me, but older than my Dharma age, but he was ordained earlier than I was, younger than I was.

[03:51]

Dogen was much younger when he died. So I'm not comparing myself to Dogen and Dung Shan. But I'm trying to put our practice in perspective. But this practice doesn't make sense unless us human beings can realize it. Denn diese Praxis macht überhaupt keinen Sinn, wenn außer wir als menschliche Wesen können sie verwirklichen. If you think it's really you have to be the historical Buddha or some great figure like Linji or Dongshan. Wenn ihr also glaubt, ihr müsst irgendeine herausstehende Person sein wie der historische Buddha oder Linji oder Dogen.

[04:52]

It's clear some of these guys exist. among our great ancestors weren't actually too smart. They weren't as smart as most of you. They might have had better conditions for practice than you two. Better teachers. And the historical conditions may have been more conducive to realization. But that's all. Those are all kinds of excuses. The fact is, we have our lifetime. You're not so young yourself.

[05:53]

Some of you have been practicing quite a while. The problem is really making use of your experience. I like something Thoreau said. The cost of something He was talking really about he could see commerce encroaching on American freedom and its wilderness in the 19th century. It was clear at that time that all the great families and fortunes were based on opium and slave trade, actually.

[07:19]

Yeah, the merchant families which traded with China and so forth. So he said, really, when you buy a product, are you buying into this life? But he also meant, not that all commerce is bad, But he also meant just know what life you're choosing. I mean, you know, when I was young, I was quite, I wouldn't put money in a bank because I didn't know where the bank invested the money I gave them. Yeah, I think Suzuki Roshi taught me that's too extreme.

[08:26]

You have to participate in this life, this human life, and it's not always good. But we still have to be aware of what life we give up or choose by our choices. So part of this is to be able to choose the life that's most satisfying for you. That you feel good about. And to have the confidence and courage you can make such a life work.

[09:35]

And you participate in your society and with people as a way of expressing your love for people. Not exactly as a way of loving yourself. You feel good enough, you don't need to love yourself. Everything's okay. You're at home right here. Yeah, is that hard or is that easy? You know, sometimes I feel funny talking about Zen gardens and stuff like that.

[10:46]

Well, you guys are sitting here suffering on your cushions. What's wrong with me? Yeah. Yeah. Especially the ones new to Sechin. I sort of remember it can be kind of bad. And even after all these years, sometimes it's pretty uncomfortable. but a surprising amount, but some of it's physical skill, physical familiarity with sitting.

[11:49]

But most of it, I'm afraid, is the mind you bring to your sitting. Let's take a simple example. If you put your arm somewhere, as I have often said, on the table or something, and you decide to leave it there for a few hours, this can become pretty uncomfortable. I would really like to move my arm. If you fall asleep, it's fine. What's the difference? The difference is simply the consciousness or awareness or mind you bring to your arm.

[12:51]

Sometimes you wake up in the morning, everything is out of place and you've slept funny, but you didn't notice it while you were asleep. So then the thing is, how can you develop a mind while you're sitting that doesn't mind being in one place. Which doesn't mind just sitting in one place. Doesn't mind some discomfort. So you're asleep up to the waist and numb up to the waist.

[14:00]

What difference does it make? And you know when it's time to get up, but freaking in, your legs are... Someone said once they were rocker blotters. What's that? You know, in your old days when you had actual ink and you had a blotter. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nowadays nobody knows what a rocker blotter is, but when I was young... So what's the trick to have a mind which can just rest anywhere? Or allow your body just to be at rest somehow.

[15:09]

I mean, you have to be alive somewhere, right? It's not your time to go yet. You have to be alive somewhere. Your heart's going to beat, you're going to breathe. Why not here on this cushion? So for the next week, I'll be alive on this cushion. It doesn't make any difference whether... what I do, I'm just going to be alive on this cushion. What kind of mind is that? Strangely enough, the seed of this mind is in your consciousness. The seed of this mind is not in your You, the observer, the seed of this mind is not in you.

[16:33]

The seed is in consciousness itself. Or in awareness or in mindfulness. And it's in the afflictions of consciousness. Afflictions or the sufferings. So sitting in the middle of an afflicted or suffering consciousness. The seed of the mind that's free of that afflicted consciousness is in the afflicted consciousness. field the ground for the seed and some kind of acceptance of the seed of

[17:59]

Acceptance of the afflictions of consciousness is the start of the seed. Just to sit in the midst of whatever is there. Maybe you have some feeling. What is it? Or this is me. And maybe you love yourself to wonder what it is, this afflicted consciousness. Maybe you love yourself enough To accept this afflicted consciousness. And to wonder what it is. So, Dung Shan, the last words, the last line of his death poem, was, diligently walk in the void.

[19:30]

Diligently we could translate as carefully. Continuously. Considerately. Taking care. Walk in the void. That's a lot of help, isn't it? Come on, Dung Shan, you can do better than that. But that's the best he could do. It was virtually his last words. He actually died after that. He actually died then.

[20:49]

And then everyone burst into tears. They loved him so much and cried and so on. And then he woke up again for a moment and said, what's wrong with you? There's no need to cry. Just walk diligently in the void. But because I love you, I'll postpone my death for seven days. So he's around for another week and then he died. Walk diligently in the void. Yeah, now why, why do Zen people say such funny things? Why do they think it's useful? to discover the seed of realization.

[22:07]

So mostly we have to get used to sitting and coping with what happens while we sit. But yesterday I spoke about gardens as a kind of, as I said, a gathering in of the surrounding landscape. And tying it together with the buildings. So you feel here in this place, if we did that. The world is somehow folded into this place in its representations. And everything is in place and complete.

[23:26]

So this same gathering in can be your own practice. As I said yesterday, to gather yourself into each particular. Now, Sao Shan, who was one of the main disciples of Dung Shan, two of his verses for the five ranks. One of them is just two line verses.

[24:28]

One is not clinging to, simply don't cling to contraries, simply don't cling to comparisons. Hafte einfach nicht an Vergleichen. Nicht an Vergleichen haftend. Transformiert Gefühle in Verwirklichung. Do you believe that? Glaubt ihr das? One of the main things Zhaoshan left us. What mind doesn't cling to comparisons? It's not, again, so much that you get some kind of nice state by not clinging to comparisons.

[25:30]

Well, that's true. The experience that happens through that is not enlightenment. It's not the experience that results from not, how can I put this, It's not the state of mind that arises through not clinging to contrarians, to comparisons. It's what happens to your feelings, emotions, over time through not clinging to comparisons. sondern es ist das, was mit euren Gefühlen und Emotionen passiert, wenn man über längere Zeit hinweg nicht an diesen Vergleichen haftet.

[26:47]

He also said the other little two line verse. Der andere zwei Zeiler von ihm. It's not the union. The union is not within or without. Die Einheit liegt weder Okay, the union is not within or without. But then where is it? What's he mean? It's not easy to understand this. I mean, you can't understand it philosophically. So people say, oh, these are riddles or something like that. Yes, a fiddle or a riddle. Gloria Steinem said, you know, that is the American feminist. She said once, a man is like a fish without a bicycle.

[27:57]

No one knows what she means, but we know what she means. She got married recently, and every newspaper quoted her earlier statement. A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. So maybe Dung Shan, I mean, Sao Shan is saying something like that. The union is not within or without. Maybe it's a riddle or something. And then he says, the harmony is evenness. So he's trying to avoid saying oneness or wholeness or something. But if you practice not clinging to comparisons but if you continuously bring your attention

[29:43]

to the field of consciousness, until it transforms into non-pointed attentiveness, What you direct your attention to makes you. The shape of your life is formed through the direction of your attention. Through meditation experience, these guys discovered a long time ago, by bringing your attention

[31:07]

to not clinging to comparisons. First of all, you have to know comparisons. And a lot of us suffer. We have deeply rooted pain through comparisons. We have deeply rooted pain through a mind of comparisons. What we could have done. What we should have done. What we can't now do. This is a mind of comparison. Again, practically, yes, such thinking is necessary sometimes.

[32:28]

Ja, also praktisch genommen ist natürlich so ein Denken manchmal notwendig. Do you have the power to not think that way sometimes? Aber habt ihr die Stärke, dass ihr manchmal einfach nicht auf diese Weise denkt? It's a kind of power. Das ist eine Art Stärke oder Kraft oder Macht. And a week like this... Also eine Woche wie diese... is a chance to see if you can discover a mind that doesn't cling to comparisons. To diligently walk in the void. Where the union is not within or without. But first, before I come to that, just one of the secrets is to bring yourself to particulars.

[33:32]

The acceptance and acknowledgement. I'm sitting here in this room. On these funny boards. Discovered under a dirty rug. Nice boards actually. This one is rather different. This one has seen a lot of things happen on top of it. And as I said, on the stairs or the threshold of your room. Or sitting with your left foot asleep. sitting with some kind of confusion and pain, whatever the particular is, you just are present with it.

[34:51]

With the feeling that everything is gathered into this particular. And not a dream mind appears from this. might be related to dreaming mind, but it's different when you're awake. And you keep finding yourself just in the particular. Now, when you're doing zazen, I think you may often have an experience of space. There's some kind of inner space.

[36:09]

Like we feel in a dream, too. Because it's a kind of inner space and it feels often like it occupies space. What is this space? It's a... Experiential fact, your feeling of this space. Probably science can't measure it. But if you occupy this space, other people can feel you occupy it. We can say it's an inner space which is neither within nor without.

[37:18]

Now you may be sitting in zazen and it feels quite big space around you. The feeling from inside you is much like, is similar to the feeling of space around you. The feeling of this inner space is very similar to the feeling of outer space. Though nobody else can see it. I mean, it's not exactly knocking your neighbor over. Although your neighbor may sort of feel it, as I said.

[38:35]

Now let's not... I'll say this is some kind of zazen experience, it's not important. It's not real like this. What if it's more real? And we just don't know how to notice it. So you notice it. You can clear this space. You can let this inner space which is neither within nor without.

[39:36]

Zhaoshan was exactly right when he said that. It's very clear to your experience that it's not just within you. Denn es ist ganz eindeutig in eurer Erfahrung, dass das nicht nur innerhalb euch liegt. But you can't also say it's outside you. Aber ihr könnt nicht auch so ganz eindeutig sagen, es sei außerhalb eurer. The union is not within nor without. Also diese Verbindung, die ist weder innerhalb noch außerhalb. Nobody, no matter how smart they are, can understand that statement unless you practice. And this space can be settled. Just like you can discover the mind that lets your arm and body be at rest for hours, even while you're awake. It's a subtle world.

[40:52]

A mysterious world. Different world. An ordinary world if you actually notice your experience in meditation. And the seed is in your afflicted consciousness. If you have the confidence to sit still within your afflicted consciousness, within the power and energy of your sitting posture, Accepting just this, whatever it is.

[42:11]

Through the power of still sitting. This mind which is neither within nor without opens like a flower. calms itself. Calms the whole of you. And you, like Dung Shan say, diligently walk in the void. Thank you very much.

[43:07]

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