country infused with dharmic practice. Where the Japanese, for instance, rebuild the Ise Shrine every 20 years. It's a big thing. The whole country's involved in it. They take it down, rebuild the whole thing every 20 years. And the central Japanese dharmic ceremony is you take the hundred grasses or the mind of grasses and trees You take the grass and you cut it and you have a bunch of it.

[01:05]

And then you tie it into a knot. That's form. And then you burn it. And that's the center act in many, many ceremonies in Japanese culture. And that parallels the four marks. Appearance, form, temporariness and dissolution. the idea is how do you bring that into each act and even in the midst of doing things finding freedom from doing finding a sense tiny little sense, small sense of completeness in each thing you do.

[02:21]

Now, so the teaching in this, how you do the Setsu, the teaching of emptiness and completeness is clear in it. How I use a knife and fork is also form, but the emptiness of it is not so explicit. Wie ich Messer und Gabel benutze, das ist auch eine Form, aber die Leerheit darin ist nicht so explizit. So, if we just eat with knife and fork here, you think, wow, that's natural, and why not do that? We're Western. Also, wenn wir hier mit Messer und Gabel essen, das ist doch natürlich, und es ist die Art, wie man es im Westen tut.

[03:23]

If we do that, yes, okay, but we may not really... get a sense of this giving form to things. So it has a beginning and end. And a beginning and end that relates to the body. The chakra is the whole field of the body. And because it has a beginning and an end, And because it has a beginning and an end, with the end we feel completeness and we feel form is emptiness. What does Dogen say?

[04:39]

Something like enlightenment is not hindered. As a drop of water doesn't hinder the moon. What's he talking about? Enlightenment cannot be hindered as a drop of Water does not hinder the moon. So wie ein Wassertropfen den Mond nicht behindert. The depth of a drop of water die Tiefe eines Wassertropfens is the height of the sky. ist die Höhe des Himmels. The depth of a drop of water is the height of the sky. Die Tiefe eines Wassertropfens ist die Höhe des Himmels.

[05:40]

the reflection of the moon in the water, manifests the height of the sky, I think he says, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky. Thank you very much. Mögen unsere Absichten gleichermaßen jedes Lesen und jeden Ort durchdringen, mit dem wahren Verdienst des Buddha-Rihes. Sthujom enserandot. La la [...]

[06:51]

I believe in you. I believe in you. I believe in you. Thank you for watching. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

[08:12]

Thank you for watching. You look nearly the same. Maybe you're swimming in slightly different waters. At least you're swimming in slightly different clothes. I almost said during the ceremony yesterday, but I thought it would be too much.

[09:29]

Learning to wear robes is like trying to make a bed with yourself in it. At first you need quite a lot of outside helpers to get yourself tucked in. As you know, I find it very peculiar to give a lecture. I do it so often, but the experience remains somewhat uncanny and peculiar. I do it so often, but somehow the experience remains uncanny.

[10:55]

Uncanny? Yes, uncanny. Yes, uncanny, that's right. Somehow the experience remains a bit uncanny. Strange. I should have said it. I should have said it, uncanny. Because we're here together. What are we doing together? Dogen had this question, you know, if we're already enlightened, why do we need to practice? And this question followed him all his life. All his practice life.

[11:57]

Of course many questions follow us. And a big part of practice is letting a question follow you. Having the confidence to have an unanswerable question. And yet relate to it fully as if it were answerable. Sikhi rishi... told the story of Yakusan Igen. We chant his name in the morning. And... And he was the disciple, in Chinese, Yao Shan.

[13:18]

His name is, no, Yao Shan is his name in Chinese. And he studied with Shido, who wrote the Sandokai. And Shido said, you know, your affinities aren't here, you should go practice with Matsu. So he went and practiced with Matsu. Matsu and Shido are the two great lineages that come from the sixth patriarch. They're both grandsons of the Sixth Patriarch. So Yaoshan's right at the center of the beginning of Zen Buddhism as a tradition and a practice. Yes, and his dates are 751 to 834, quite a while ago.

[14:30]

751 to 834. And his teacher told him the story about Yao Shan. One time, he hadn't given a lecture for the longest time. And Dieter went, I mean, the Eno went up to him. Dieter is much older than you think. Seven, no.

[15:35]

Anyway, Dieter went up to him and, I mean, the Ino went up to him and said, you haven't given a lecture for the longest time. And he said, Du hast jetzt ja schon eine Ewigkeit keinen Vortrag mehr gehalten. So, ja, schon. Ring the bell, beat the drum. So, much like we do. The drum was beaten. You know? And then the Densho was hit. All this equipment comes from China. And so he came in and wound up on his platform. He got back down and went out of the room. It's actually just like the first koan in the Book of Serenity.

[16:41]

So the Eno said to him, You said you'd give us a talk. Why didn't you? And he said, there are teachers for sutras and there are teachers for shastras. Shastras are philosophical commentaries on the sutras that make up a big part of the Tripitaka. philosophical commentaries. And he said, There are teachers of the Shastras and teachers of the Sutras, so why are you bothering me?

[17:46]

So anyway, Gyokujin Soen gave this story, told this story to Sukhiyoshi. And Sukhiroshi said, to me, I realized this was the first problem that my teacher gave me. He said, for a long time I didn't even know it was a problem why Yao Shan didn't give a talk. What kind of world do we live in? Like Dogen's question, why do we practice?

[19:10]

The story of Yaoshan stayed with Tsukiroshi for his practice life. Many stories stayed with Tsukiroshi. But this was one of the ones that shaped his way of being in this world. So, of course, it affects me and it affects you now. So, again, what kind of world do we live in? This is, yeah, we have to ask this question ourselves. Even asking the question and believing it can be answered is already a step.

[20:10]

Yeah, and I'm not a teacher of shastras or sutras either. I mean, although we do study the sutras to some extent. And I certainly expect those of you who are continuing this to know the sutras. So although I'm not a teacher of sutras specifically, I am living with you here. Yeah. What is this living together? Now, I... I'm always trying to find some image or way of speaking about the world of practice with you.

[21:43]

And as I've said to you many, many times, I stepped back a number of times listening to Sukhiroshi and said, what is he teaching us? And I came up with, answering the question, attitudes. And I realized he was always starting with the first of the eightfold path, views. Now, right now in the West, there's a big effort to come to a collective understanding of this imagined object called Islam.

[23:04]

So there's lots of books and articles coming out now. And some take the view, well, all religions are paths to one God. are paths to one God. And other books and articles take the view that West is somehow civilization and Islam is less than civilization. And others are trying to sort out different schools of Islam, good and bad and terrorist and not and so forth.

[24:06]

So they have to bring some attitude to the subject. so that we can imagine what this subject is. So we can say that, from this point of view, we can say that Islam is an imagined object. Von diesem Standpunkt aus könnten wir also sagen, dass der Islam ein imaginiertes Objekt ist. I'm just saying this to try to create the idea of an imagined object. Ich sage das nur, um hier eine Vorstellung davon zu erzeugen, von einem imaginierten Objekt. Okay, now, Buddhism is...

[25:22]

Buddhism an imagined object understood by the West? I actually don't think so yet. But we're participating in this what I'm calling today an imagined object. Now, why do I say an imagined object? Well, I'm saying that the world, we know the world, if you practice, is a sense-mind object. Now, I have this aura on my eyes. Sophia says.

[26:30]

Papa has got an hour. It seems to be getting better. And I can't see it, so it doesn't bother me. But sometimes it prevents me from seeing. It gets very filmy, and when I'm driving, like the other day, I actually, this eye, if I open just this eye, I mean, it's a blur out there. And if I open just my left eye, it's pretty clear. But if I open both eyes, it's clearer. Now, why wouldn't the blurred eye make it worse?

[27:36]

Because my brain's doing the work. My eyes aren't seeing, my brain is seeing. So my brain takes the kind of fuzzy information from the right eye and improves the information from the left eye. In the proof. Checking on the side. So... So the brain, we can say, the brain is seeing the road. But it's doing it because it's seeing known objects.

[28:37]

The brain has a memory of the known objects. Now, if a spaceship came down the highway at eight feet high, My fuzzy eye wouldn't help at all. Because I have no stored memory of spaceships coming down the highway. So what I'm saying is, what I'm seeing with my eyes is constantly made to fit memory.

[29:41]

So I'm saying that the world is a mind object or a mind subject. Let's say a sense mind object. Okay, and so the first step in wisdom as practice is to know the world is a sense mind object. And to remind yourself and re-sense yourself on each moment. That this is a sense mind object. So that's one step in

[30:42]

discovering what kind of world we live in. To remind yourself of that, as a kind of wisdom habit. Okay. Now I found that, well, let's say, what, again, If the world is an imagined object, what do we mean when we say the world as it actually exists?

[32:06]

How do we come into a relationship with the world that gives us a sense that this is close to how it actually exists? Again, one of the first and essential steps is to know it's a sense-mind object. Now, this was a big part of my pre-practice insights into the world or feeling for the world. I mean, I found, for instance, in high school that I could sip about a fourth of a can of beer and change my perceptions. And I thought this was quite interesting.

[33:19]

So I did. I had a teacher who required me to write, because everyone had to do it, a one-page or two-page essay every day. And I found two or three sips of beer helped writing the one-page essay. But I gave up that practice. I didn't have two or three sips of beer before the lecture. And then in college, in the 50s, I found that mushrooms from Mexico also gave one a little different way of looking at the world.

[34:20]

But what was much more influential for me, because that beer and mushrooms, I mean, that's, you know, maybe they're doing the work. I found that the my senses closely observed, I found that my senses, when closely observed, revealed or showed a world to me that wasn't the collectively understood world I shared with others. And since this came straight from my senses, it was much more convincing.

[35:48]

And clearly, this... among other things, led me to being open to practice. I think you have similar experiences in yourself and you can think of those as, let's say, small enlightenment experiences. Their enlightenment experience, if they changed your views, So when I started to practice, several images stuck with me.

[37:09]

One of them was many times people practicing come to me and speak to me about something similar. I felt some invisible wall or glass wall between me and the world. Between me and other people. Everything I could see clearly, but I didn't feel connected. And at that time, too, I thought, if this world is some kind of imagined object, A collective view I share with others, but that actually I don't find I share exactly with others anymore.

[38:20]

I didn't want to have a career in a world that I couldn't understand. It was an imagined world. Since then, I would say that all our worlds are imagined. Since then, I would say now, all our worlds are imagined. Because they're sense-mind objects. And it's important that it can be shared with others. It always maybe becomes a little more unreal when it's shared with others. But we have to find some way to live in a shared world.

[39:40]

And to live in a shared world is compassion. But what kind of shared world is most compassionate? The shared world that justifies wars and things wasn't acceptable to me. Institutionalized wars. So what kind of shared world do we live in? So then I found there's a glass wall between me and this world. But then I had other experiences. But I kind of developed some ability to notice.

[40:51]

I don't know why I did, but I did. But I think we're all here because we all have some ability to notice things that don't quite compute in the usual way. Another was I felt sometimes I felt the world was coming out from me. And sometimes I felt it was coming from out inward. Yeah, and I remember talking to Sukrishi about it. I said, which is more real? Which is right.

[41:56]

And then another one is I felt I had what I've often told you is an underwater feeling. Like... Like in an aquarium. A fish swims by the seaweed and the seaweed moves, you know. And I began to feel some kind of... water connecting us. And that led me at some point to the insight that space connects. And that entered me into a different world.

[42:57]

Space didn't separate. Space connected. Then I began to notice When does space connect and when does space separate? And working with that led to the gate phrase. Already connected. instead of already separated. Already separated is the consensual, the collective view of this imagined object. That everything that space connects

[43:59]

is a view which generates another kind of imagined object as world. Das ist eine Sichtweise, die einen anderen Gegenstand als... Now, science has brought us many such things. Many such? Many such views that shift our... Many such views that shift our worldview. And all in all, they, I think... in many ways, on a daily basis, simplified our worldview. And I know a number of physicists who say, yeah, I use this worldview for my calculations, but I can't live this worldview.

[45:17]

But the practitioner says, I'm going to try to live this world view even if it's not possible, I'm going to treat it as possible. Now it's been important to me to see water as an image that helps me make certain shifts. Now my main practice in these things was to, I'd come to something, I'd start swimming in these new waters.

[46:37]

As already connected in contrast to already separated is a different world. And if you practice with this gate phrase already connected, I think you'll find it shifts you into another world with people. and phenomena, with other people and with phenomena. So I would say, who swims in this world with me?

[47:40]

There's almost nobody but Sukhriyasi who I felt was swimming in the same world. Sometimes I could see him way off swimming. And sometimes he'd be suddenly on the other side. And I didn't know how he got there. I couldn't swim like that. But when I looked around at most other people, they were in an empty swimming pool. Looking at the walls and thinking it was the world. Yeah, so... Yeah. So I try to, again, imagine what can I say to give a feeling for this, you know, this practice world.

[48:46]

So let's imagine we're underwater. And somebody drops something into the water. What is it? You know, big splash, bubbles, you know. And you can't see too clearly underwater. But it's unique. What is this thing? And then something swims up to you. Is it a person or a porpoise? A porpoise? A dolphin. Or a person with a purpose?

[49:50]

No, no. Dolphin? Yeah, okay. And that's how I feel, you know, when I see you. You kind of swim up toward me. I think, is that a bottlenose dolphin? No, it's Otmar. No comment about your nose, Otmar. A bottlenose dolphin is a particular kind of dolphin. Okay. Excuse me? Now this water imagery seems to be not just occurred to me, but it seems to be in the practice. For Dogen, it seems to be in the practice, in the tradition, as an image.

[51:03]

Like Dogen says, the moon and the water does not get wet. Nor is the water broken. Water is the water and the moon is the moon. And again he says that enlightenment cannot be hindered. The moon in the drop of water does not hinder the moon. The depth of the dewdrop is the height of the sky. And a reflection in the water, no matter how long or short it is, or duration, reveals the vastness of the dewdrop

[52:28]

and the limitlessness of the moonlit sky. Now this is Dogen again trying to talk to you about this imagined object that we share called Buddha mind. Dogen tries to talk to you about this common object that we call Buddha spirit. This is the teaching of the Genjo Koan. And Suzuki Roshi realized that his teacher, Gyokujin, was saying, notice what kind of water I swim in.

[53:42]

As Yaoshan was saying, By not giving a lecture, notice what kind of water we swim in together. So for me, this lecture isn't a lecture. It's just like the rest of the day. It's just now we're more consciously aware or intentionally, or something like that, swimming together. In the Shido, Yaoshan, Dogen, Zenji, Sukhiyoshi lineage, this is the emphasis of our practice.

[54:47]

You know, there's an expression that I like in Zen. Practice is like stirring the ocean with a broken paddle. Yeah, maybe it doesn't have much more meaning than stirring the ocean with a broken paddle. But practice is to keep paddling. It's like the end of the Genjo koan.

[56:09]

If you know the wind is permanent, why do you keep fanning? And Boucher says, you know that the Absolute is everywhere. But you don't know what it means that it reaches everywhere. There's another Zen water story. Buddhist water story. About the birds that try to put out a forest fire. By swimming to the ocean and picking up water and shaking it from their wings on the forest fire. And they didn't do much to put out the forest fire.

[57:21]

But they emptied the ocean. And created a beautiful land. Thank you very much.

[57:27]

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