Yeah, I've rather surprised myself. Oh, good afternoon. I've rather surprised myself how much time I'm spending on these three essential conditions for, essential ingredients or conditions for Zazen. Yeah, posture, don't move, and time limit. But then when we look at this samay, oh samay, which is the king of samadhi, samadhi. Sounds good. Yeah, oh is Japanese king. And in Sanskrit there's a raja samadhi. And there's some idea that this is a samadhi in which all dharmas appear as objects.

[01:26]

But I don't know, I don't think there's any particular state of mind or experience specifically defined as, other than what I just said, as king of samadhis. Dogen, in this fascicle, tries to say, or says, doesn't try to say, really says, that cross-legged samadhi sitting is the king of all, is the king of all samadhis. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now let's, I'd like to contemplate during this session two sentences from Samay-o-Samay.

[02:47]

One sentence, to sit in meditation, to sit cross-legged, is to go beyond I need a word. Really? I gave you is and to, go and beyond. Okay. I know, you have to put things at the back. Okay. Okay. You just can't go beyond unless there's something to go beyond. That's right. That's the essence of my lecture today. Now I can go home. Okay. To sit cross-legged seated meditation is to go beyond the deepest and most intimate teachings of the Buddha ancestors.

[04:09]

Really? To sit cross-legged meditation is to transcend or go beyond the deepest and most intimate experiences, he also means, of all the Buddha ancestors. Can this really be true? I mean, just because Dogen said it, we don't have to accept it. But we also might think maybe it might be true. What did he mean?

[05:16]

Say that before you came to Sashin your spouse said to you or your employer who you got some days off to come to Sashin said to you what are you going to do for this week? And you said, I'm going to go beyond the deepest and most intimate teachings of all the Buddhas for seven days. Really? Take a month off. Really? Now, if we put it in this context, we say, Really? Can this be true? If you said that to anybody, they'd say, yeah.

[06:18]

What else is new? Oh, yeah? Okay. Okay. Now in the mornings, or mealtimes, luncheon, breakfast and lunch, we chant the Buddha was born, he was enlightened, he taught, and he died. Now, I mean, you might think that the most important of those four is he was enlightened.

[07:21]

Yeah, for us that's probably true. But in the context of world cultures, the most important thing is he was born. And he died. Which means he's like us. There's no great cosmic interference or something like that in Buddhism. I mean, later such things were added. But basically it starts with he was born and he died. This means that teaching can belong to us, can belong to us. Buddha is not the son of God or doesn't arise, he just dies. Okay, so then I think... Oh, all right, sorry.

[08:31]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So whatever mystery or transcendence or going beyond is in Buddhism. is within our existence. Or is within our experience. Or is the intimate, deepest, most intimate experience and teachings of the Buddha ancestors. And where does this happen?

[09:39]

In zazen. No, I think most of us would say, I'm not sure that's my zazen. Yeah, well... Maybe not, but maybe so. Now I really don't know how to explore this in a way I would consider it fully explored. And of course I could never get there anyway because Anything close to full exploration has to be your exploration.

[10:42]

But we're also trying to explore this together. That's what lineage is about. Exploring together generation after generation. Now, I think let's first start with simply Zazen is different from all other worlds, etc. Dogen says. So what he's emphasizing here is the difference. We don't want to now make everything the same. Now I have my own since I'm practicing with You and with others for now half a century.

[12:03]

You know, I don't want to exclude anyone. I mean, I accept that exclusion happens. But I have a real problem with Even though it's the... Well, even though in my... I... I have a real... I have a real problem. Do I have to tell you that before you can say the sentence? I have a real problem with saying that Buddhism depends on zazen. Primarily. Basically I believe that in the sense that if you look at it in history but I don't like to say that in terms of of

[13:07]

our generation's practice. Because I really don't want to exclude anyone. I mean, I have to face, though, even the winter branches exclude some of our best students. Because they can't make the time commitment that the Winter Branches program expects. But also Winter Branches includes many more people than I thought it would in, I think, a more thorough and intimate practice. So I'm not going to stop the winter branches just because some people can't participate. And then don't participate much at all because they feel they're not participating in the real thing.

[14:39]

And I don't want to emphasize Zazen too much, because then those who can't do Zazen are too old or don't have the right daily life context to support it, etc. Now I'm discussing this not just because it's my problem and how do I teach. But it's also your problem in how you practice. And how you think about practice in relationship to your friends, your family, etc.

[15:54]

You can't say to your spouse, well, you don't do Zazen, so toodaloo. Toodaloo, it means goodbye. You mean my kids don't do zazen? No, you can't be like that. None of my kids do zazen. Not really, anyway. Okay. Failed as a teacher again. But each of us in our own life, we sometimes do Zazen more than others and blah, blah, blah. So I think we really have to look at the role of Zazen practice in our own life.

[16:55]

Also glaube ich, dass wir wirklich die Rolle der Zazen-Praxis in unserem eigenen Leben betrachten müssen. And if Zazen-Practice has a role in our own life, we need to make that clear and make the difference, make what Zazen is clear. Und wenn Zazen eine Rolle in unserem alltäglichen Leben hat, dann müssen wir diese Rolle klar machen und wir müssen auch den Unterschied klar machen. And also at the same time accept the practice and practice with those who don't do zazen or don't do zazen as much. Okay. So anyway, what I'm saying is somehow we need to accept zazen in our own life but not exclude others from practice who don't do zazen. No, I don't mean practically exclude, I mean conceptually exclude. But if you do Zazen, let's really think about what Zazen is.

[18:02]

And whether you can sit regularly or irregularly, it still will make a difference if we come to as clear an idea of what Zazen is from our point of view and Dogen's. And if you sit regularly or irregularly, it doesn't matter. It will still make a difference when we come to a clear idea of what Zazen is and what Dogen's idea of Zazen is. Well, I think to various degrees we feel different if we sit Zazen. And we think differently. And we, as I say, often make different decisions in zazen than we do in our usual mind. And maybe, I know for many of us, our day feels better if we've done zazen during the day.

[19:35]

Now, what are these differences? Now, if there are these differences, then let's explore and deepen these differences. Not to separate Zazen from our ordinary life, but to deepen the whole of our life through deepening our Zazen. Now I tried to give you, as I did, these three basic conditions. Ich habe versucht, euch, und das habe ich ja auch getan, euch diese drei grundlegenden Bedingungen zu geben.

[20:43]

Now, remember, we are in a world not of static entities, but of activity. And in a world of interdependent activity, everything does something. Absence does something. If the milk is absent from the kitchen, we have to go shopping. Or you have to cook differently. If the cat is absent, then you have a problem, if you like your cat. So absence is a kind of activity. It depends on the concept of being present. So Dogen asks, at this very moment of sitting, Is the world horizontal or vertical?

[22:01]

And Dogen asks, in exactly this moment of sitting, Are all the realms horizontal or vertical? There are various translations. That's another one. There are various translations. One of them is all the worlds and all the realms. Are the realms either horizontal or vertical? So this is the second sentence I wanted to contemplate. At this very moment of sitting, is the world horizontal or vertical? Now, if you want to study the Dharma, to really do it with any thoroughness and depth, it's essential and certainly useful to take individual sentences

[23:08]

And see how they fit into your worldview. Or how they don't. Okay. Now, to study another culture, you do the same thing. But Buddhism is a culture rooted in what arises through meditation postures. So in an Asian culture, yoga culture, still the Dharma is another culture than the usual culture. It's still another culture or posture, what did you say? It's another culture. At this very moment of sitting, is the world horizontal or vertical? Now, how does that fit into your thinking? Well, When you're sitting, of course, these concepts have no relevance.

[24:48]

They're comparisons. But they do establish that Dogen wants to look at this sitting in terms of basics. So basics. Time, space, vertical, horizontal. Yeah. And so you use the same words in German, vertical and horizontal? Well, our worlds overlap, huh? At least in vertical, in Latin, verticality. Yeah, okay. Well, I think we do feel when we're sitting that we're vertical.

[25:51]

And the etymology of vertical is actually the highest point, to move toward the highest point. And horizontal is to be like the horizon. But your legs are horizontal. And you couldn't be vertical unless, you couldn't be only vertical without some horizontal, or you'd disappear, you'd be so thin. Du könntest nicht nur vertikal sein, ohne auch ein bisschen horizontal zu sein, weil sonst wärst du ja so dünn, dass du verschwinden würdest. If I think that, I can't get the image out of my head of Frank Sinatra, because when I was young, the two big singers were Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. When I was young, Frank Sinatra was a teenage sensation. And now he's like the oldies but goodies.

[27:03]

But they used to have cartoons of Frank and he was so skinny that he'd be singing in front of a microphone and when he moved behind the microphone he disappeared. Because he was only vertical. You can't be only vertical. You have to be partly horizontal. So again, Dogen is saying in a sentence like this, you can't think in categories. You can't put your experience into categories. Comparable, comparative categories. Okay, so last night I said the sun and moon do not light it.

[28:16]

Heaven and earth do not cover it. I could also say space does not contain it. Time does not include it. This kind of statement in Buddhism, in Zen especially, is that you can't put this into a comparative category. This, you know, body, mind phenomena are such basic categories that they're not made up from other categories. I mean, they may be in chemistry or physics, but in terms of this experience, this experiential teaching that arises from a Buddha who was born,

[29:30]

These are experiential categories that can't be compared. So if you find your life located in A direct experience of phenomena. Or a direct experience of mind or the body as attention. These are categories or experiences you can trust. because there's nothing more basic than these. Okay, so Dogen can say that your experience sitting in meditation can't be compared to the experience of the Buddha's.

[30:38]

Buddha ancestors. There's no way something you understand from the teaching of the Buddha ancestors. There's no way something you understand from There's no way something you understand from the teachings of the Buddhas that can compare to the intimacy of your actual experience in Zazen. So you can learn a lot from the Buddha ancestors, from the sutras, from the teachings. But it can't compare to your actual experience. Then the question Dogen is presenting here is, how do you open yourself to this depth and intimacy of experience?

[31:46]

And where and how do you open yourself to this depth and intimacy of experience? Dogen says the realm of this experience, our most intimate experience, most directly effaced experience, is zazen. He said, you have to study this and see if this is true. And if this is true, then how do you bring this experience into your life, into your lived life? Okay. That's part one. I don't think I have time to go on to part two and so maybe you have a little longer break it's long enough anyway it's more than 50 minutes or something like that and well maybe I mean there's no reason we couldn't do part two tomorrow

[33:47]

You know, I'm only moving an inch at a time, a centimeter at a time. And I'm taking a whole, what, four teishos now to go two centimeters. But Dogen asked me to do it this way. I heard him. Okay, so we have another centimeter tomorrow. It's like a caterpillar, you know. Okay, thanks. You must have seen him, Gertrude Watson, in St. Vincent.

[34:43]

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