Some of you are pretty new to practice here. And suddenly you're thrown into this context in which we practice here. And I often feel, and I did just the other day indirectly at least, apologize for the chanting in kind of Sino-Japanese. Yeah, Chinese-Japanese, Sino-Japanese. But, you know, I don't know how to do it in English or German. Maybe I could figure out how to do it in English.

[01:05]

But it has to be some grouping of words and syllables that didn't produce a thinking meaning. but still had content. Yeah, Dharanis are that way, and, you know, they say, if you translate a Dharani, it says things like, sapphire, blue, blue, shh. Shout, you know. Oh, okay. Something, you know, I made that up, but it's like that. Because what we're really doing, chanting, as I said, is... First of all, we're joining our sound bodies with each other.

[02:21]

And I find as soon as we're in German or Deutsch or English, this tends to be like the mind of meaning appears rather than the sound body. And we're not just singing, we're chanting, which is more just joining our sound together. Nuts, yes. Mm. Now, you know, of course I want to continue what we've been speaking about with the residents and one or two people or so who are continuing from the first part of the practice month which we had in a

[03:22]

parents and children at. It actually went quite well. I think all in all, quite calm even with the children. And the music of children is, I think, I like. But I also want to somehow start anew with you. And how do I enter, continue the fabric and enter us all now again into the weave? And I'm thinking I use that image because I'm thinking in terms of fabric and weaving just now. And, you know, a defining statement in Shoyuroku, the Book of Serenity.

[05:04]

Book of Serenity. I don't know. And defining of the world and defining of practice is continuously creation runs her loom and shuttle. Continuously creation runs, operates, her loom and shuttle. Die fortwährende Weaving the ancient brocade. Incorporating the forms of spring. Mm-hmm. So the world is described as a weaving.

[06:23]

And the word tantra is from the Sanskrit tantram, tantram, which means loom. So the sense of the world as weaving is embedded in Buddhist thinking. Yeah, so we could say Creation is a continuous weaving. The weaving of an ancient brocade which simultaneously incorporates the forms of spring. Now, if this is a nice statement, a poetic statement, a philosophical statement, how do we make it our own?

[07:42]

How do we find ourselves in the midst of a weaving. You know, what I've been speaking about last, you know, explicitly and in the background is relational objects. Now, I don't know how this, as we again discussed a couple of days ago, I don't know how this really works in German. But I know that it's very helpful to work with these teachings in our own language. In our own language I don't mean that exactly because of course we have to work with it in our own language.

[09:08]

What I mean is we have to work in the teaching with our language. Why with our language? Well, first of all, I just know it's very helpful to work with our language. Yeah, and one reason is, you know, because we're always naming the world. And the names carry our habits and views. Carry. Transport our views. Transportieren. This is good. I like it. Okay. And again, the Buddha's Eightfold Path begins with bright views, perfecting views.

[10:17]

So if practice is anything, it's actually any fundamental practice, it's always working with our views. Which means we have to see our habitual views. As I've often said, after some years of practicing with Sukhyoshi, I said to myself one day, what the heck is he teaching? You know, it was a funny question to pop up because I've gone to every lecture he gave for quite a few years. So I was completely absorbed in his teaching. But one day I asked myself, what the heck is he teaching after all?

[11:33]

And I have to say, it's attitudes. Everything he's teaching is really about attitudes. The attitudes we have in our thinking and acting. This means really the views we have in our thinking and acting. So if we need to look at how language, how perception carries our habitual views, But also how can we introduce dharmic views or new views into this transportation?

[12:34]

We buy a dharmic bus ticket. So already, you see, I'm trying to play with our language which relates us to the world. In a way, we're lucky, you know, Buddhism ends outside words and letters. Yeah, but maybe outside words and letters means to use words and letters in an unconventional way. So we're lucky in a way to have the language because it allows us to, if we practice mindfulness in our actions and speaking, it allows us to see our habitual views being transported by

[14:11]

Maybe we have a sort of checkpoint like the Swiss border where we can see all the trucks lined up, we can see everything. See if we can see our views going by. Maybe we can put another view in there using the same transportation system. So I can try to do this in English and you ought to try to do it in Deutsch. Or you can play it, do it in both languages, that's okay.

[15:25]

And what we also discover by doing it in our language, if we use our language, maybe we use slightly different words, Or in an unusual way we use the words. But there are still words we're familiar with. There are still words that carry our experience. So if you can take a teaching and kind of jiggle it into your own words and own experience of words, you can bring the teaching into your own experience. All right, so relational object.

[16:38]

This is such a clumsy phrase. But I can't figure out what else to say. No, what do I mean by relational object? Again, the other day I started to say a kanji, a Japanese or Chinese character. And we just had eight lay initiation ordinations last week. Do you know why six is scared of seven? Because seven, eight, nine. Sorry.

[17:54]

My daughter is playing with words like the seven, eight, nine. So six is scared of seven. Yeah, when you said eight, I couldn't resist. Okay. So we had eight ordinations, so I had to get to brush out and do calligraphy and so forth. And if you do it in the way I like to do it, you actually have to mix the ink with a block of black ink and you mix it with water and rub it on a stone. This isn't just a way of making ink. It's a way of getting prepared to do calligraphy with a certain rhythm. Yeah, the way a musician might warm up.

[18:59]

Or the way in the Tour de France, before a time trial, they pumped on stationary bicycles. It takes a while, 10 or 15 minutes to get your ink ready. And then when you make the calligraphy, it makes a difference whether you go from left to right or up or down or right to left. If your body goes, hand goes this way, it makes a different shape than if your hand goes this way. So you can't just decide, you really can't make a character unless you know the stroke order and the direction. You can try to think it, but it's quite hard to do, as you know.

[20:16]

So it's a gesture, it's a relationship. It's not an object. Maybe it's like a roll of toilet paper. A roll of toilet paper is not an object. It's a relationship. I mean, you can think of it as an object, but then it just sits there and it's no good. A roll of toilet paper is only useful when it's a relationship. So we can try to think of, maybe we can say, everything you notice, say, no object. Or not an object. Well, it might give you an insight to try that into the most famous koan of all, practically.

[21:18]

Does a dog have a Buddha nature? No. And it may be that you have a knowledge, an insight into this almost most famous of all koans. Does a dog have Buddha nature? No, not at all. No, nothing. No Buddha nature. No object. Not an object. Or maybe you can just say non-object. Or relational object. I don't know what to say, but somehow you want to get out of the habit of seeing the world as objects. And objective, maybe. It's all subjective.

[22:20]

You're always seeing yourself or you're seeing mind at least. So I'm trying to talk about altering or what we see, how we see. So non-object or something like that. Now what's the point of it? You try it and you'll find out. Makes a difference. But really has to come into your... as an interruption of your habits and eventually as a new habit a new habit that you inhabit.

[23:37]

The word situate or situation in English It means to place at home. Or to place and to settle down. So if we look at English, English has this, just change our words a little bit, we find the teachings are in the words. Situation is somewhere that's to place something and to make it home or to inhabit it. To feel you're inhabiting exactly where you are and what you're doing. To feel you're inhabiting exactly where you are and what you're doing.

[24:58]

So, as I've said, at each moment you feel you have the whole of your life right now. The whole of being is not waiting for the future. The whole of being is just now. And that's a way of entering this loom and shuttle, this weaving of the world a little differently. And we have at the center of any Buddhist practice is the schedule. So to create a way we can practice together, and to create a way we can interrupt our usual habits, our usual way of weaving the world.

[26:14]

And perhaps we could say you used the schedule as a loom on which to weave yourself for these next days. So it says, I always say if I'm starting a period of the practice month or practice period is to really, first of all, follow the schedule. Allow the schedule to help weave your experience the next days. We've been talking about the The body in the English word means rooted in something like brewing vat.

[27:42]

Brewing that, like where you make beer or something. A braukessel, yeah. A kettle for a brau, huh? A braukessel. Brew. Brew. Brau. And... A vat, a brewing vat, has an inside and outside. Maybe it's a different temperature between the inside and the outside. Or maybe, yeah, there's things inside which don't belong outside and so forth. This is a very different concept of the body than in yogic culture.

[28:48]

Where the body is seen as, well, the Chinese word for the body, one of them is a share of the whole. And in Japan, for example, the body is thought of as an activity, as an act. Now, if you think of the body as an activity... Wenn ihr jetzt euch den Körper als Aktivität vorstellt, dann würdet ihr nicht so leicht unterscheiden oder denken über innen und außen. So was wie was geschieht ganz tief in mir drinnen. I mean, you can say that, of course.

[29:50]

But if you're in a yogic culture which thinks of the body as an activity... I'm joking if I say a toilet paper doesn't think of what's deep inside here. A roll of toilet paper. The toilet paper doesn't say, oh, I'm inside. The inside is empty. It's just an activity. No, I don't mean to compare ourselves to roll the toilet paper. But if you just see yourself as an activity, feel yourself as an activity, there's more of a sense of continuity between yourself and the world and other people. And you don't look for yourself in

[30:56]

In an inside in contrast to an outside. You more feel yourself as an activity again. Or a share of the whole again. Apart. Now I've been trying to also think consciousness differentiates. If we try to, and I've been often over the years trying to distinguish between consciousness and what I, yeah, awareness. And I feel, find that it's, you know, even though I talk about it a great deal, it often slips out of people's ability to distinguish the two. slips out of our experience.

[32:25]

So I think two things are needed. One, we have to really find it in our experience. And we have to have a conceptual sense of the difference. We can try to notice the differences between waking mind and sleeping mind. Waking mind and sleeping mind. or if we go back to this don't invite your thoughts to tea, host mind and guest mind. But I think for now we can think of it in terms of awareness tends to connect and consciousness tends to separate. Consciousness tends to differentiate, let's say.

[33:34]

To separate, to compare. And awareness tends to connect. We can notice things, it particularizes, but doesn't differentiate. I don't know how hard it is to translate this, but if you particularize something, particular has the word part in it. It's a part of something. So we have a sense of the part of the whole, share of the whole. So if you look at the particularity of something, If we differentiate it, you tend to generalize.

[34:58]

Or compare. So I'm saying if you say it's not an object, maybe we could say it's something particular. Maybe it's like a design appearing in a weaving. And not just a piece of fabric, but something that's constantly being woven. And the design, the sign, appears in... goes back into the fabric. It appears in the weaving and merges with the weaving. And we can feel ourselves as part of the weaving and the noticing of it.

[36:00]

It's almost like the world and we are two parts of the same loom. There isn't again this inside-outside distinction so much. but rather an activity of weaving and we can see in the weaving also between the we can see the space that the weaving appears in the space or emptiness that allows the weaving to appear And when we see the particular design, maybe you have a bunch of beach stones, And you just want to feel the particularity of each one.

[37:27]

So at least if I said to myself, here's these beach stones, what's the particularity of each one? I would do something different than if somebody said to differentiate these stones. What are the differences, someone asked me? I'd say, oh, this is black and white and this is big and this is small, etc. I would basically point out comparisons. But if I felt what is particular to this beet stone, I would just rest my attention on that beet stone. And I just let whatever it is, I'd feel it.

[38:36]

And if there were several beach tones, I would just feel or let my attention rest on each one. So I think if you emphasize the particularity of each thing rather than the difference, the mind of the particular which rests in each particular, tends to be more or bring up awareness more than consciousness. Brings up a different kind of mind.

[39:38]

A mind, I think, in which we'll feel more at ease and complete, actually. A different kind of energy and less tension, I think. So I'm speaking about entering into the craft of practice. and use how you notice things and what words you use to name and notice the world. And during these days here See if you can feel more of yourself as an activity and perhaps a weaving.

[40:48]

Which different designs appear. The word sign is also to seal, to put your seal on something. But it also has the sense of making watertight or sealing. And I think with this kind of craft of noticing I'm speaking about, You'll feel more sealed and complete in the weaving of the world. Yeah. Creation is a continuous weaving of loom and shuttle. Shuttle.

[41:56]

That's the thing that goes back and forth. Weaving the ancient brocade. And yet incorporating the forms of spring. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank.

[42:05]

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