Some of you are pretty new to what we're doing here, so I think we have to look at this in a very basic way. And this is Ulrike Greenway, is my other half. Ja, das ist Ulrike Greenway, seine andere Hälfte. And 100% of my German. 100% seines Deutschs. And this is Randy Box, who's the Nino at Crest Home. This is Randy from Creston. He is a Raino. That means he is a sendo-seer. From Creston, that means from Colorado, where Roshi has his monastery.

[01:06]

And this is Christina Griesler who will be the Ino for the Sashin coming up and I think with Randy share the Ino work for this practice seminar. So... Mostly, for me, I'm here just to spend time with you, to hang out with you. So I had to figure out some way to do that and give a good excuse for doing that. So I'm going to pretend to teach something, you know, things like that. And so really I want, so my sense of, because quite a few new people, fairly new people are here, this fits in with my own feeling of just finding a way to practice together during this week.

[02:37]

And why we're doing this is because so many of you are serious practitioners. So we're trying to find some way which doesn't require monastic training to practice together. And then as I often said, despite its reputation as a kind of press releases, as a lay practice and so forth, really the teaching is mostly carried in the monastic tradition. So to rectify that, since most of us are really lay people, we have to find some ways to practice together which allow us to look at the teaching carefully together, and the together part is very important.

[03:51]

I had to give a little talk in Hamburg yesterday. I don't think anybody was here. A couple of you were here, yeah. And the word every, we talked about everyday Zen, and the word every struck me. Yesterday I gave a lecture in Hamburg and there was almost no one there except for Edith. Who else was there? There was almost no one there. The topic was Zen in everyday life, everyday Zen, and the word every stuck with me. Because in English every is an interesting word because it's simultaneously singular and plural. You can't say, you know, every people of Germany.

[05:07]

You have to say every person of Germany, which means all persons in Germany, but each considered separately. This person is... means each person, people means together. So the word every in the root of it in English means vital force or vital energy. The root of it. And there's a quality in practice that's understood primarily Probably in Chinese Buddhism, the field of Chinese Buddhism includes Japan. That some kind of energy flows in the mutual attention that's both singular and plural.

[06:10]

So there's a tradition in Chinese Buddhism which is related to the sense of Xi or Qi in which you do a very individual practice, very personal, private practice with a So for some of you who are new to this, the schedule is an important part of it and I think a rather strange part of it. Because the schedule doesn't have so much to do with discipline really or, you know, getting to class on time in the university. I can't say what the schedule is about, but it's... The custom is to follow the schedule very exactly.

[07:39]

And give up your own sense of personal time and make everything your own time. Hi, Dr. Berry. You have a very strong smell. So I think you will discover – it's a way of discovering a kind of body together, this every, each and all feeling is also the edge the schedule gives us.

[08:53]

So, you know, in seminars there's a schedule, like we start in the afternoon at two or something after lunch, but this is a different feeling. This schedule during this practice seminar is more like a Sashinska. This year we made it a little easier or at least a couple of shorter periods of zazen than last year's Nun, wir haben den Zeitplan etwas einfacher gemacht als letztes Jahr, also die Sitzperioden etwas kürzer als letztes Jahr. So instead of two 40-minute periods in the morning and two in the evening, statt dass wir jetzt zweimal 40 Minuten morgens und zweimal 40 Minuten abends haben, gibt es einmal morgens 40 und 30 Minuten

[10:04]

And two 30-minute periods in the evening. And one 40-minute period before lecture rotation. So that's five periods a day. I think that's enough to have a taste of zazen. And I heard that one or a few people were worried that if they moved once during the 40 minutes the Buddhist police arrived and carried you bodily out of the Zendo. You have to worry it, you know. If you move, I mean, more than an inch, I mean, that's a problem.

[11:13]

But you don't have to worry. I feel quite relaxed about it. The important thing is to just be there on your cushion or if necessary to sit in a chair and just be present and sit as well as you can. And Randy will say something in a little bit, in a few minutes, about sitting and what you can expect in the Zendo and so forth. And Christian has translated two koans, but we might only do one. We'll see. And this first koan is... The first of the two is pretty interesting.

[12:29]

I think it's a good one for us to work with. But again, I feel quite relaxed about how much we get into the koan. Mostly I just want us to practice together here and have some discussion together about Buddhism. The point of practice for us in the West and in Asia too is to find some way to recognize how, begin to look at how we actually exist. And this is pretty much a mystery, how we exist. And our sense of it not being a mystery hides its mystery from us. Yes, and that we don't see it as a secret, so to speak, hides the mysterious nature of life in front of us.

[13:55]

And tomorrow in the lecture I will probably talk a little more about koans and in our meeting in the afternoon But tonight I'd just like to say that koan is a way to lift up the corner of your life and look into your life. Or it's a way to look in the stream and see your reflection. Or it's the funny, slippery way dreams have of leading you away from your daily life. And then surfacing right in the middle of your life. Like some current that looks like it's leading you away, but then it surfaces right in the middle of everything.

[15:00]

And usually this is a mystery to us, like intuition is. It's something that just appears. We don't understand dreams or intuition. It just appears. We can kind of note it. But it's actually, from the point of view of Buddhism, a way of thinking that we can participate in. It's a way of thinking that's going on all the time in between our usual thinking. So if we can look at cons together in some way that it helps us look at our own life, each of you, then I really want to do it. But if it's too strange and different and too hard to get used to, then I don't want to do so much of it.

[16:18]

So we'll see together what it really is together, what we can feel out, feel through in these koans. And the schedule, again, coming back to that, is part of finding a way that the day and your activity and your study and your meditation practice are all kind of different forms of the same kind of thinking that goes on in another way. I don't know how you translated that. I hardly knew what I was saying.

[17:29]

So... Maybe she didn't translate it. I don't know. Well, I think I've said enough. Anybody want to bring up anything? We have plenty of time to talk in the next days. Yeah, I would like to say a little bit to the schedule. Yeah, you can say something about the schedule and things. And then Randy can say something about sitting. When I say I want to hang out with you, it doesn't mean I'm always going to be here. I want to be around, so I think I'll leave. Thank you very much. Nyorai wo shinjutsu ni logeshi tatte ga masatsu ran.

[19:01]

An unsurpassed, frustrating, imperfect dharma. It is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kelpas. Having it to see and listen to, to study and read and accept, I vow to taste the truth of that cactus' worth. I think I'll leave the koan to talk about the seminar this afternoon.

[20:06]

And I'd like to talk this morning about Buddhism in as basic a sense as we can. Even in its most basic sense, Buddhism requires some intellectual effort. A kind of effort which allows you to have clarity about what you understand. And the ability to hold to that clarity. And to examine that clarity by, through holding to it, many examples come up which either reinforce or alter that clarity.

[21:22]

So again, you have to come to some pretty simple things, but the ability to be clear about it and hold to it in order to have your understanding guide your practice. Now the word that comes up most often for us in Western practice is the word practice itself. So I'd like to try to define what practice is. I think most simply, practice is the Buddhist, practice is the recognition that everything's changing. Now, if you really look at everything changes, everything in Buddhism follows from that one observation.

[22:40]

And practice is the response to seeing that everything changes. No, you have to decide for yourself really whether everything is actually changing or not. Is there anything that is permanent or predictable and so forth? Hmm. But in addition to the fact that everything changes, I think a fact, we do have a deep desire for things to be unchanging or predictable.

[23:53]

And strangely enough, recognizing that everything changes also opens us to find what doesn't change. So you can have a little maybe exercise with the windy leaves of this house distiller park. If you just pick a leaf or two and watch it. It moves this way and that way. And it comes back, but it always is in a slightly different position and almost immediately, if it's windy, it moves again. Now, if you notice that and just stay with that, something else may become apparent to you.

[25:11]

Und wenn ihr bei dieser Beobachtung verweilt, dann wird euch vielleicht irgendetwas anderes klar. Euer Geist, euer Mind, der bleibt ganz ruhig. If your mind didn't pretty much stay in place, you couldn't see the leaf constantly changing. Und wenn euer Geist nicht an Ort und Stelle bleiben würde, dann könntet ihr gar nicht beobachten, wie die Blätter sich im Wind bewegen. So with this leaf exercise, you could watch the leaf and then study also the still mind that watches the leaf. And really, it's quite worth it to explore this relationship between watching the leaf move and feeling the mind that watches the leaf move. And you can get a real feeling for it.

[26:30]

You can move your feeling into the leaves and you can move your feeling into being settled in the mind that's still. And you can even practice with, in this simple exercise, trying to shift your sense of who you are, what you are, your identity, into the still mind that's watching the leaf. You can even shift from the still mind that watches the leaf to the sky that watches the earth.

[27:32]

Now the basic perception of Buddhism is that everything changes. But the word Dharma which is Buddhism could be called dharmism. Dharma means what holds or what carries. And the word samadhi, probably the two most basic words in Buddhist practice are dharma and samadhi. And the word samadhi means almost the same thing. It means to establish or make firm or to create what holds.

[28:49]

Now, you can say that practice is as simple as recognizing that everything changes. And recognizing the mind that stays still. And establishing yourself in the mind that stays still. That doesn't mean you get rid of change. Das heißt nicht, dass man jetzt versucht, Veränderungen loszuwerden. Oder sich da einmischt in der Art und Weise, wie man selbst sich ändert. Es bedeutet einfach, dass alle Veränderungen, durch die man hindurch geht, in diesem stillen Mind gehalten werden. Now, if you look at your own thoughts, you can see your thoughts move around for the most part, particularly during zazen, like the leaf.

[30:15]

It goes this way and that way. Now, it's not so difficult to see the mind which stays still watching the leaf. It's much more difficult to see the mind that stays still and watches the thoughts. But it's exactly the same problem, exactly the same dynamic. And zazen practice we can say is to Begin to watch the mind that stays still. To begin to identify, choose to identify with the mind that stays still. Now this is What I mean, this isn't hard to understand, but it does take some intellectual work to make it clear to yourself.

[31:36]

And making it clear to test it over and over again. Is this true? Is this right? Is this the way it is? But if you can bit by bit make these simple things clear, your intellect and your understanding parallel and support your practice. Now if you just do zazen and try to sit still, if you follow the rules, I'm going to try to sit still, basically you're doing the same thing, but you're doing it through your body. You may not fully understand the instruction to sit still, but if you do it, eventually you'll come to see the mind that stays in place.

[32:44]

But if you are clear about this recognizing, accepting this mind which stays still, your zazen will go much faster. One year of zazen will be worth three years of zazen of trying to stay still, just trying to stay still. Now in this image of the mind as like the leaf with thoughts turning and like the leaf turning and moving, And in the contrast to the mind which is still and watches the leaf and watches the thoughts,

[34:10]

What's also in this image is the wind that's moving the leaves. So what is the wind that moves your thoughts? So that's the next subject of study, the wind that's moving your thoughts. Partly it's just the nature of thoughts that they move around. But by definition, thoughts are these things which appear and follow around, etc., But there's a pattern to that movement usually. Movement itself isn't much of a problem, but the pattern is a problem. Or at least the pattern is particularly a problem if you don't see it. Now in this very basic Buddhism, the wind that moves the thoughts are basically insecurity, comparisons, greed, aversion, and ignorance.

[35:56]

So this is all usually kind of lumped together as greed, hate and delusion or greed or attraction, aversion and confusion and so forth. In this grouping of three, sometimes the second is becoming. In this grouping of three, delusion or ignorance is always the third. That everything is in the process of becoming.

[36:57]

And the entry, though, to this from the point of view of we, us guys who are practicing, is to see what ignorance means. Now Buddhism says that the problems in the world, the suffering in the world, don't arise from evil or some evil forces, but basically from ignorance. Doesn't mean some forces in the world don't take on a life of their own, which we can say is evil.

[37:57]

So on this talk this morning on basic Buddhism, how I would like to define ignorance. Ignorance means any views you have that prevent you from seeing everything is empty or preventing you from seeing how things actually are. And what is emptiness? And certainly we can accept that we have views that interfere with seeing things as they are, whatever that means.

[39:09]

And so then we can ask, what are those views which prevent us from seeing things as they are? Anyway, these views are one definition of ignorance. Another definition of why ignorance is defined is to not be able to see that appearances are, for us, fused with consciousness. To see that appearance is to see what's outside of us and to really believe it's outside of us and independent of us. So, again, I've talked about this many times, but it's crucial to practice, which is, you know, Peter's over there across from me.

[40:35]

Usually you're there, but you're not aware he's there. In Sashini he's been sitting here recently. And Peter is outside of me? And as I've often said, we have a brain which is developed in relationship to our hand. And it's very necessary for us to be able to see things as outside of us, or else we couldn't catch an apple, for example. But it's so convincing that they're outside of us that we don't see that this is actually an interior image.

[41:38]

So practice means to teach yourself, to remind yourself that when you look at anything, it's also an interior image. So, but it's not only an interior image, it's also consciousness itself. So, I see three things when I see Peter or I look at this moment. I see an image I've externalized. I know that there's an outside world, but I also know that it's an externalized image. That's interacting with Peter and with the world and so forth.

[42:39]

There's also an interior image which is interacting with my own field. And both this exterior image and interior image are in consciousness itself and the image allows me to see consciousness. So I see the exterior image, I see the interior image, and I see consciousness itself appear. And in Buddhism, when you don't see that, you're considered ignorant. I'm sorry. We're all quite ignorant, I'm afraid, in this matter. Now, you can recognize this understand this, but to actually bring it into your life is practice.

[44:14]

Okay, so this is one, another, second aspect of the definition of ignorance. A third is to be unable to distinguish between still mind and moving mind. To not be able to understand what's still and what's moving. And fourth is to somehow see the world as unitary and permanent and not manifold and changing. Now, these four definitions of ignorance was where we all start from and beginning to practice are the territories of practice.

[45:34]

And when you're clear about that, you just know that and you've affirmed that for yourself, Your sasen will have much more courage and clarity. I think it's actually taken all of us a considerable amount of courage just to come here and try practicing. But you'll lose that courage. You might be unable to use that courage unless you combine it with a clarity of understanding, affirming understanding. Now the other day in Hamburg I gave a talk about, which I was asked to, everyday Zen.

[46:50]

And everyday Zen really arises from the emphasis in Buddhism on the present situation and on yourself. As Sukhiroshi used to say, the arrow of Buddhism always points at you and at your immediate situation. But if you take that to mean that the present situation is practice, or somehow you're already okay, which is in some way of course true, you've misunderstood the emphasis on everyday Zen. Because we really don't know and no scientist or psychotherapist or psychologist can tell us what the everyday is or what we are.

[48:10]

But we can know what points at the everyday and points at us. You've made a decision to look at your immediate situation and to study yourself. Ihr habt eine Entscheidung getroffen, eure unmittelbare Situation anzuschauen und euch selbst zu studieren. And that decision is intention and attention. Und diese Entscheidung schließt intention und Aufmerksamkeit mit ein. And attention is the dynamic of practice. Und Aufmerksamkeit, das ist die Dynamik der Praxis. That everything is changing is the recognition of practice. And that recognition in the various ways I've spoken about it, defining ignorance and so forth, is essential to this, to practice at the level of recognition of our situation.

[49:41]

And attention is the dynamic of practice, what makes it work. Now I spoke about ignorance, but I didn't say much about greed and hate or aversion and attraction. And the reason these three are put together like this is because aversion is to think you can push things away. And desire is to think you can possess things and to get your identity mixed up with possession. Aversion and attraction are the means by which we create an illusory world.

[51:02]

And ignorance is when we don't see through the world, see through the wind to how things actually exist. Okay, so I think that this is enough for this morning to point out at the most basic level in Buddhism is to see that everything changes. And when you really look at everything changing, you see that there's a still mind that watches that. And establishing that still mind is samadhi. And the means to establish that still mind and the means to recognize what changes and what doesn't change is the practice of attention through mindfulness.

[52:22]

Das ist die Praxis von Aufmerksamkeit durch Achtsamkeit. Now, in the Buddhist yogic world, situations are primarily understood not as material but as energy. Nun, in der buddhistisch-yogischen Welt sieht man also eine Situation nicht in erster Linie materiell, sondern als ein Energiesystem. And attention is the dynamic which opens that energy up. All of these ideas of chi and ki, etc., all turn on attention. So you awaken your interactive existence in change through attention. Now this koan we're going to look at is involved with what are you bringing your attention to?

[53:37]

And what is still and what is moving? And how can you discover yourself and find a way to act in the world through both stillness and movement? So you can see from my presentation that Buddhism is quite simple. The only difficulty is doing it. And the willingness to do it. And to accept the consequences and rewards of doing it. To live as things actually are.

[54:52]

Okay, thanks. We are detached and equally panicked. It's every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's Way. Shujo omense gandho gwo munten. Say God done. Oh, my God. [...] The dead beings are numberless.

[55:53]

I vow to save them. Desire is our only gospel. I vow to build and entertain. The gods of wealth suffer our bondage. I vow to master them. The Buddha's way is unsurmountable. I vow to retain it. So I guess everyone has had at least a brief opportunity to look this over. Zen is simple, right? Anyway, this is a book of stories.

[56:58]

In this modern day and age we're all very familiar with books. We're flooded with books There was a time when a book or a collection of writings was a rare event in a person's life to possess one, to read one. A book, this book in particular is an old book.

[58:11]

In fact you might not be able to determine the beginning of these stories in time. It is said that In these stories, original mind is shining. That may or may not be true. Nevertheless, we will spend a week looking into this matter.

[59:20]

Some of you have had some experience with koans. And some of you haven't. I think it's safe to say that at least on the basis of experience in our community that looking into these stories is not so easy. It's not so easy because it's not easy to know what to look for.

[60:42]

Especially if you have the feeling that what's in the stories might be important for you. That can make you nervous. Or depressed. Or any number of emotions can come up. You can feel stupid. And in that range of feelings perhaps you can begin to... that's a way, that's a gate.

[61:53]

You can look into these stories as you might look into that pond out there. The surface of the water changing with the light, with the wind. Likewise, the stories, the same story is never quite the same. Different facets appear each time. I think those of us in Crestone who have hung out with these stories for a while have... I don't think any of us would say we've gotten better at them.

[63:28]

It seems that one of the difficulties is this feeling or this habit of comparison. But it is possible to be more relaxed in the presence of these stories, in the light of these stories. As it's possible to sit by the edge of the water out there Relax.

[64:37]

It is possible to let your concerns go for just a moment. And those moments have a certain light. So in reading these stories, there can be such moments where They come alive.

[65:38]

And then they're not just old stories. It's something else. In a story like our koan, such as this one, number 15, which is rather short as these stories go, there's a lot of stuff going on.

[66:49]

Some strange stuff going on. Or it seems strange to us. It's that crazy Zen stuff that we've heard about. Somebody's coming back from work with his hoe. Somebody meets him in the field and asks a question or says hello. So far so good. That's normal. And then you just boom. Plants his hoe on the ground.

[67:56]

This is a little weird. And then he leaves. So what happened? Or what is happening? The rest of the koan or story looks at this meeting in different ways. Different people look at this story from their different perspectives. So a single koan is a collaboration or a work of many people.

[69:09]

And our looking into this koan and our working with this koan is a further collaboration. This book lives through us or it dies with us. We have to bring it to life. So we'll try to do that. It's not so often now. The fair nuns surpassed and entranced the unworthy of Darwin.

[71:04]

And if his superiority impairs, will he receive in the 900th thousand million cow-dust? They had been yet to see, and it was still to be unknown, except, while they longed to taste the truth of that utterance of the spirits. Presumably, I guess. You've all at least read the koan once? Three times. Is there anything you'd like to bring up or ask me about, either about this morning's talk or about the koan?

[72:17]

Is there anything that you would like to address or ask me, either from this morning, from my lecture, or regarding the choir? Yes. and the second is that we don't realize that the outside world is completely and completely different from the outside world. I don't remember from the lecture you named or mentioned these four different kinds of ignorance. The first two I sort of remember, and the other two I don't really mention again.

[73:19]

We haven't hung up the paper yet, have we? No. Okay. Okay. Maybe we'll try to get a flip chart so we can write these things down. What are the two you remember? But I remember the two. First, that we don't see that everything's empty, and second, that these externalized or internalized images we have, that we think they're independent from our consciousness. My question may not have been asked correctly. It should have been more correct. Maybe I should put my question in a better frame.

[74:31]

How come there is ignorance other than just not realizing everything's empty? Well, there are various ways and traditions over the centuries which different schools have emphasized. And the different ways, I mean, Yogacara has one way, Madhyamaka has another way, for example. And it's not so important what the differences are, but each way is another way of looking at practice. For example, being able to see that, or let's use hearing, when you hear, you not only hear the object of hearing, my voice or a bird or something, you also hear your own field of consciousness or hearing capacity. And you have an experience of yourself forming an image of the sound object.

[75:49]

And that kind of experience, just let me put it in a context of practice, occurs if you practice meditation enough. But if you have an understanding of this then what we don't want to do is make the shoe fit. Do you have that expression in German? In other words, you don't want to have understandings which then shape your meditation experience. We want to have enough understanding that our meditation experiences have clarity. And there's a fine line there. So generally in Zen we try to keep the descriptions of practice at a very basic level.

[77:37]

Okay, so to see that you form the object, to have a feeling of how you form the object of hearing in your own consciousness, is not so different from the third one I gave, which is to be able to distinguish between what's still and what's moving. These all are quite similar. But you practice with them a little differently. They're like different doors into the same room. But as I always say, entering a room by the north door is not entering the same... If you enter the same room by a different door, it's not the same room.

[78:54]

It's the same room in your mind. It might be the same room architecturally, but really it's not the same room. That was a short translation. We have two words who are same. One emphasizes it's identical and the other emphasizes it's same but slightly different. I don't think you can make that distinction in English. And the last was to see the world as, among the ones you mentioned, was to see the world as unitary. and permanent when it's actually manifold and changing. And that emphasizes, I mean, that's pretty much the same as the first one, to have views which obstruct, except the first is many views, and this is the essential view.

[80:00]

So I think these four actually are useful ways to help you practice with not seeing the world as it is or seeing the world as it is. I think these four types of ignorance help you to see how the world really is. I'm really interested in the case here. I'm very interested in the case. And in our group, we kind of really played a lot with these two people, Bishak and Yangshan. Guishan. Guishan and Yangshan. And if I may say so, I think mostly we got stuck when the Croatian said, well, on South Mountain, there are a lot of people cutting thatch.

[81:24]

And what happened to Youngshot then after that? Why he took his home and went? Or should he have stayed? And what should he have done? And we all had kind of different feelings about it. We quickly dealt with the case and this dialogue between the two and the different associations we had and assumptions. And I think where we all came to was the point where Koishare just answered this planting of the chop with a sentence. And Yangshan takes his chop and leaves. Any thoughts about this case, these guys? Yes? that it felt very strange in both roles.

[82:37]

And my question now would be whether it was a provocation of the one who only asked. In our group, we actually played it. You acted it out? Yeah. And we acted out the various roles, and it felt very strange that somehow these communication levels didn't come together. When you did it, they didn't come together. Yeah, and what it meant also to then play the other role. All right. So our question is, is this a provocation? I mean, what's your view on this? It is a provocation, yes. But it's not only a provocation, yes. I have the feeling that... Yaksha did something which was not enough.

[83:39]

He missed something. He was not there, not was to creep. Something was wrong with how he did it. But I just can speak that something is wrong. Something's wrong, okay. I have the feeling, as Yaksha said, that something was wrong with him. There came some mischief. Mischievousness? Yes, a little bit. You would notice that. Being rather mischievous. He was a bit discontent. Yes, discontent. He was feeling a bit uncomfortable. He just reacted like that, and with that he actually insulted his teacher a bit.

[84:44]

And then he pulled it off. And then the teacher, so to speak, with the straw and so on, was of course also insulted. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [...] no. These guys are all Gustavians. Yes, at least in our day. All right. But then why does it say over here, does it emphasize so much, well, right here, teacher and apprentice join ways, father and son complement each other's actions, the family style. Of course, maybe it is a family style. Actually, I think the idea of sculpting, which, as you know, I initially got introduced to through you, which is initially a family therapy, actually applies to this column pretty clearly.

[85:47]

Now, one of the things which I've... probably the single thing I've taught the most over the last couple of years, because I found it... one of the most accessible ways to get into practice is quite clearly exemplified here. And I won't point it out right now, anyway. But if any of you happen to think, what the hell has he been teaching so often? And if that's the case, what do you see? How do you see it here? Maybe there's a little mischievous here.

[86:50]

Once I was out in the woods, I saw an anthill. And there were ants everywhere and they were, some of them were getting on my leg but quite nonchalantly. And I decided to see if the ant hill would be repaired the next day I came. So I gently scratched the ant hill without hurting any of the ants. But three ants or more immediately bit my leg. Maybe there is some kind of misguidance at work. I was once in the forest and there was an ant hill and I stood in front of it, looked at it and the ants creaked a little nonchalantly on my leg.

[87:58]

And then I thought about whether they would repair the ant hill. Now, I wouldn't use this single example as proving anything in the ant behavior, but it did seem to be the case that as soon as I, and I was quite away from the anthill, as soon as I touched it, an alarm transmitted to ants all over the place and they immediately reacted. So perhaps when Yangshan Guishan said, where are you coming from? An alarm was transmitted immediately. I'm not an expert on the behavior of ants, but I had the impression when I touched the hill that a kind of alarm signal was transmitted at that moment. And maybe it's similar here. When Guishan says, where are you coming from, such an alarm signal is transmitted.

[89:03]

When you look at a koan like this, there's a certain resistance to getting involved with this thing, which is fairly different than our usual way of thinking and so forth. And I have a little resistance, too, myself, in introducing this to you, because, you know, why should you get involved with Guishan and Yangshan and all that? So I suppose I share your feeling and I have my own feeling too of how to introduce this in a way that it has some kind of home feeling for us. Of course it's already pretty amazing that anything from a thousand years ago or more than a thousand years ago still feels pretty fresh and new.

[90:45]

It feels like something at least is within our kind of consciousness. Now, one of the things that characterizes these koans is that it's an attempt to take the teachings and really personify them in individuals. And those individuals as representatives of a lineage as well. And lineage means a certain way of teaching and recognizing how things exist. And not present it as a collective kind of teaching or a philosophy, but as a specific person who you meet who exemplifies it.

[91:59]

So it's a way for us to meet these guys, Guishan and Yangshan and to meet each other in practice. Okay, something else anybody wants to bring up? By the way, tomorrow it'd be nice if those of you way down there, because we have plenty of room here, we'd sit in the same room if we can all fit. Yes? Yeah. For me the co-op feels very much like the situation I came in. It's just like entering a new

[93:10]

way of coming from everyday life and coming from the fields and then I'm confronted with something very different. That's a feeling I have and it comes also in the choir. For me, the choir plays a very strong role in what I experience myself. I come from everyday life, I come from the fields I suppose we could say that here's Yangshan walking back from the fields, obviously, and Guishan obviously, as it points out too, must know that's where he's coming from. So he asks him a very simple question, where are you coming from? And again, as the koan points out, it's an excuse to have some interaction, like how are you, a good morning or something.

[94:17]

So So he answers very straightforwardly, from the fields. He doesn't try to be zenny or anything like that, you know. He just says, from the fields. So you can feel this guy and questions asked, any answers, there's no problem. Now what happens in the next question? How many people are there in the fields? Is that different? You have to count to know.

[95:15]

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