Do you know how unreasonable it is of you to expect me to reach into the ball of reality? Every day, day after day, reach into the ball of reality and pull something out. You're using sticky words to kind of pull it out. But it's stuck to the words. I only do it for you. In fact, I couldn't do it except for you. To the extent that I can do it. Yeah, but these cons in our practice ask me to do it. But for myself I wouldn't do it.

[01:07]

Except when I do it to the extent that I can do it for this larger body we are. Of course I find out. It's for me too. Now, as I said, if you want to practice with a koan, you want to... get the feeling of it in your activity. For example, now that we're, I mean, I've been on this koan off and on for many decades now. So it's an image that's In me, it's like part of my own history.

[02:17]

Yeah, now that we're back on the koan again. Yeah, I look out the window and I see there's Matsumai Jang walking down the street. Yeah, and wild ducks. I mean, I don't know. I haven't seen any, but somehow they're there. And it's clearly part of the scene. It's not that they're going away or... Or staying, it's just that they're part of the scene. So it's not like these two guys are there and the ducks are going away. What we've got is a scene which includes going away and staying. The ducks are always coming back. you

[03:28]

And in this interdependent world, the ducks are always coming back. And as you know, in the Buddhist way of thinking about the ten directions, up and down, including, etc., as the ducks are moving, as the directions are moving towards you, Not out there, toward the north. The north is coming to you. Yeah, these somewhat different conceptions feel different. Yeah, again, it's not like, as I say, you go into the future. The future is always coming toward you in its unexpectedness. Now these are many, I've talked about these things over and over again.

[04:30]

But it really takes time, even intellectually understanding it, it takes time to get it interleaved into our own activity. And even if you understand it intellectually, then it takes time for us to get it in between the sheets of our own activities. So that it is inseparably how we function. It's again all versions of Yamada Mumunaroshi's statement that the most important thing in Zen practice is to feel, know, how everything in its all-at-onceness cooperates to make this move. No, that's an idea we can understand.

[05:35]

But how do we actualize it? Quite naturally, not making some kind of mental effort. I've been talking about this sight moment, S-I-T-E. And giving a physical dimension to each moment. And to give a physical dimension to each moment, this is what's really meant by yogic practice. And that's what all those Zen rituals are about. And just look closely at it.

[06:36]

What we do, it's about giving a physical dimension to each moment. Until it's just natural. A learned naturalness. Learned because it's in contrast to another kind of so-called naturalness that we have learned from our culture. Learned insofar as it is in contrast to a different kind of naturalness that we have learned from our culture. Or becomes natural. Or so it will be then, of course. Yes, it will. Once you do it occasionally, when it occurs to you, and you trust occurrence, you trust when it occurs to you, that occurrence isn't just some-all, it's just No, something brought it to us.

[07:51]

So when we enact a teaching, when it occurs to us, Each time you create the possibility for your actions, following actions, to fill in this kind of space you've opened. So again, we give a... I'm just trying to find words, sticky words that allow them to stick to you and let your own actions go in this direction. Yeah, again, look at our ceremonies.

[08:57]

The orioke practice is entirely about giving the physical dimensions to each moment. No action is just because, oh, I think I'll put my chopsticks down. You put your chopsticks down when it's part of your eating. So it all flows from the enactment of the activity. Yeah, and when I offer, anyone offers incense. When the jisha or Frank is handing me incense. It's all done with a physical enactment.

[10:01]

Each action is separate and felt separately. And yet part of some kind of constructed whole. And as I've pointed out, sometimes if you're the doshi, the person leading the ceremony, Yeah, you're supposed to go up to the altar. And of course, the whole situation is leading you up to the altar. And you know somehow you're going to end up at the altar. But as much as possible, your body doesn't know at each moment where it's going.

[11:06]

And each moment is quite free to go left or right or decide to go somewhere else. So it's all full of little stops where there's a stop and what's next? Oh, okay, I go up to the altar. So you're sort of on the edge of all possibilities and one possibility. And this kind of freedom is only found through this, you know, Opening up of the dharmic moment. Yeah, you try it out, you enact it. But eventually, it is the reality. Doing something else is then acting. Now, a number of people have expressed some interest in my speaking about attention.

[12:38]

Yeah, and, you know, so, and it's a, you know, it's always a present subject in our practice. How could it not be? And yet, you know, recently I've been trying to speak about it and, you know, and it's... I'm always trying to speak about things in a different way or new way. So the way recently I've been trying to speak about it, we can bring into, we can use this teaching in relationship to this koan. And I have tried to talk about it in a new way, how we can introduce this teaching to the use of the Quran.

[13:40]

Now, Suzuki Roshi, when he went through all 100... And when Suzuki Roshi, back in the 60s, went through all 100 Hekigan Roku koans with us, I immersed myself each week in one of the koans with him. But he had to translate them himself. And his English was not too good. He studied English in Japan and there's quite interesting stories about that and even taught English a bit. But in those days he only fairly recently arrived and his English was a little clumsy.

[14:44]

Sometimes to his discomfort after every lecture I would go in and be with him alone and correct his English. And he'd sit down on the couch and kind of let me do it, but he'd kind of... No one likes to be corrected all the time. Anyway... But also he tried to use this Christianized, weird translation by R.D.M. Shaw. So he ended up with this kind of dumbness of R.D.M.

[15:51]

Shaw in his clumsy English, producing translations of the Blue Cliff Records. But sometimes, in clumsy English, things sneak out into the translation that wouldn't get there otherwise. I like to... I try to read... Many translations of a koan, for example. And often I learn more from the bad, worse translations. Because what we're doing when we translate something, we have to put it into the other language.

[16:52]

And when you put it in the other language so it sounds good, It only sounds good when it's in common understandings. So when you fit it into common understandings, the uncommon understandings, bye-bye. So I've printed out Sukershi's somewhat mixed up translation of the introduction to this case. And I cleaned it up somewhat. But anyway, it's hard to remember because it doesn't stick in your mind because it's not in any normal English.

[17:53]

Yeah. So this is... Introducing Yuan Wu said, Obtaining the soul existing independent body. That's a little better than originally. I've changed it a little. Obtaining the soul existing independent body. What the heck is that? How do you obtain it, first of all? And then it says the total free activity takes place. The total free activity takes place.

[18:56]

What's that? And then we have a little comment here. In connectedness, your activity touches everything At that moment it is the activity of one existence. And by one existence he meant Existence discovered in no externality. Hey, does that help you? Or the all-at-oneness of existence. Yet, at the same time, that there's this connectedness.

[20:06]

At the same time, on each moment, on each occasion, the enlightened mind is free and independent. Able to freely turn around. Oh dear, what's this? This is called spontaneous, intuitive, free activity. It is only because Matsu has no idea of self. Now that's all hidden in the word partiality in the Cleary's translation. It is only because he has no idea of self that Matz's words are powerful enough powerful enough to put an end to ordinary mind.

[21:10]

Think for a while. After all, from what place did the ancients get the ultimate restfulness? Woher, von welchem Ort, von welchem Platz, bekamen denn die Alten, unsere Altvorderen, ihre letztendliche Ruhe? So instead of... How did the ancients find their rest? Sukhiroshi translates it more literally. From what place did the ancients find their rest? He says actually, did the ancients get the ultimate restfulness? Ponder the following subject.

[22:15]

It's like you're making hollandaise sauce. Ponder the following subject. I think we have to ponder the introduction before we can even begin to ponder the following subject. Okay. Are you all with me? Now, in Rostenberg and I think here, I spoke about no externality of the insect world. The insect world? Yeah. There's a... A teaching of no externality.

[23:40]

So some of you have heard me riff on this and some of you haven't. And the first time I spoke about it I think was in Rostenberg and recently anyway. And there happened to be all these little insects that were flying around. They get caught in the peak of this room and then they get kind of groggy and kind of fly around. In Rassenberg. So, I mean, we can have a thought experiment here. You can... Imagine a little insect wandering. This little insect, you know, it's flying around, right? And it's got, you know, those multiple eyes, you know. But it's really teeny. You can hardly see it.

[24:41]

What world is it living in? It's living in a complete world from its point of view. We can't enter that world. I often think that, as I've said occasionally, if I had furry ears and a wet nose and... walked on four legs, I'd probably be a dog. I wouldn't be a human in a dog. I'd be a dog. Because if I had all the ingredients of a dog, I'd be a dog. I'd live in a dog's world. Dogs can live in our world, but I'm not sure I could live with a bunch of In a dog pack or a bunch of wolves.

[25:52]

So that anyway this little insect flies around. And you can't photograph that insect's world. I can photograph the insect, but not from the point of view of the insect. And I have no idea what time means to this insect, how long the insect finds its life. Its clock may tick at a different pace. As even Einstein says, on the moon, the clock ticks at a different space than here. And sure, for the insect it does. So from that we can say there's no externality to this insect's world.

[26:54]

In other words, the insect can't get out of this world. As Dogen says, the bird, as far as it flies, it never reaches the end of the sky. The fish doesn't reach the end of the sea. The insect doesn't reach the end of its world. We may feel we're external to it, but actually we're in our own no externality. Well, we can't reach the end of our world. It's just like the insect. There's no externality. And funnily, all of these insects and us and the dog are all folded within multiple no externalities.

[28:03]

Now, again, this is not so difficult to grasp intellectually, conceptually. But it's pretty hard to enact, to actualize. But to do it is what this koan is about. The subject of this koan. is something like, what is here-ness? You know Ram Dass' famous phrase, be here now.

[29:06]

And I don't, you know, it's a great phrase. It's almost as important as form and emptiness. It makes sense to everybody and it's a cliché. Doesn't... Yeah, it... gets you in the right place, but doesn't help you in Zen practice too much. And you can inevitably, I suppose, in most of the translations of this koan, underneath the translator has the idea, this is about be here now. In most cases, the translator has understated the idea of being here now. And Matsuo tries to teach Baizhang not to leave the here-ness. But really this is too simplistic.

[30:23]

It's not simple, but it's simplistic. At least for any practitioners. Because we all know this already. We don't have to have a whole darn koan to find that out. So you've got to look with more depth at the koan. Look, see where the insects are flying around inside the koan. So it probably might be better to say as a startup, instead of be here now, let's say be now here. Um, mal anzufangen überhaupt, wäre es vielleicht besser, statt sei hier jetzt, sei jetzt hier.

[31:29]

But what is this here we're supposed to be in? Aber was ist das hier, in dem wir sein sollten? It's not a here defined by time, by now. Es ist kein hier, was durch Zeit, durch jetzt bestimmt ist. Mhm. It's a here in which there's dharma making. It's a here in which you've sort of like taken The moment is a duration that you create. You all know that. There's no duration to the present. The duration is created by the insect or created by us.

[32:34]

We create different durations. And each of you live in a different present. Because each of you create the duration differently. So Okay, knowing that we create this duration, practice is sort of like you take the duration, you pull it open and you pour in the interdependence of the world. Or maybe you open attention and pour in consciousness. Something like that. No, attention is a funny thing. You know, if you watch advertisements. I mean, I said the other day that attention is the...

[33:36]

in some ways, the originator of consciousness. I mean, you wake up in the morning and you bring your attention to something and consciousness starts flowing into your experience. And I can give attention, for example, to Frank or to Annette. And I can not give attention to something else. And that attention isn't the same as consciousness. And maybe Frank or Anette can even feel the attention. They can't exactly feel my consciousness, probably. I mean, they know I'm more or less conscious.

[34:56]

But attention has more, particularly embodied attention, has more... palpability, palpableness, sounds like baby food. Yeah, go ahead. But as you know, I can bring attention to my right, my left hand. I've lived with this hand an awful long time. It looks funny. Hello. Anyway, I can bring attention to this left hand and touch my right hand. My right hand is conscious of the attention from the left hand.

[35:58]

But you can see right there that consciousness and attention are different. And I can shift attention, somehow direct attention, to my right hand and then my left hand consciously receives it. consciously receives the attention from my right hand. And this is some kind of magic. Now, when you go to sleep As I've said before, with some experience you can separate attention from consciousness and move it through the eye of the needle of going to sleep, and when consciousness is gone, it appears in sleep as lucid awareness.

[37:05]

So attention may be the resident, the tenant of consciousness. The tenant of consciousness. Sometimes the originator, sometimes the owner, sometimes the architect. The shaper and developer of consciousness. But also can be independent. And even within consciousness it can be independent of consciousness. So when it appears through the needle of falling asleep, leaving consciousness behind, you experience it now as kind of a What kind of ball of awareness?

[38:44]

A lucidness. A radiance. A clear light. And then... this radiance is not exactly the same as consciousness. So then we have the radiance that's in front of an ass and behind a horse. It's like ordinary civilizational cultural mind is some kind of like a pack train. Backtracking, you know, animals. This guy can translate anything. Yeah. So the pack train goes along, but in between all the horses and donkeys, a strange pack train, horses and donkeys, his radiant mind.

[39:56]

So in radiant mind, nothing flies away. Everything is poured into the vessel of attention. Consciousness flows from this attention now. And this attention does not belong to the self. It's sometimes confused with the self. But the point of this koan is, Matsu does not project self-referential thinking onto the world. And he doesn't identify attention within himself as self. So he's free.

[40:59]

He can turn around freely. And touches all existence. No, no, I didn't take this far enough into the koan, but I think it's time to stop. So I'll leave you each with your own attention. Have fun. Thank you.

[41:51]

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