Sorry, I'm a little sick, but I'll probably recover. It's been happening for the last four or five days. Everybody at Christmas had something, and I seem to. I'm on the upswing today, though. And I always appreciate those of you who can take the time to come on what we call the pre-day or prologue day. Yeah, I think of this day as a little more intellectual, maybe, and we don't... sit necessarily before the beginning of the morning and afternoon? Or we can talk about something that avoids the topic.

[01:12]

I don't even dare say what the topic is. Because it's like a magnet which draws whatever I say toward the topic. So we're going to be busy trying to avoid talking about the one who's not busy. Or I'm going to be busy talking about. I find the counterpoint between the kind of day this is and then starting with the topic this evening actually quite, usually quite fruitful. No, I, you know, some of you are new to the Dharma Sangha and to, yeah.

[02:31]

But what you've entered into is a practice which has been developing over, well, certainly the last 10, but even 20 years here in Europe. And I don't give... Yeah, introductory lectures about Buddhism. Although I do to visiting high school students. And that's actually, that's fun. I like doing that. Yeah. Sometimes they're better than any other lecture. But, yeah, so what you've entered into if you're new to the Dharma Sangha is a practice that's been going on and I think quite successfully developing over the last decade and more.

[04:23]

At the same time, I'll try to speak in a way that allows you, if you're new to what we do, or new to Buddhism even, to feel included, to be included. And this sort of Christmas, New Year... seminar probably is a good place to come just to start looking at what's going on in the Dharma Sangha. Yeah, it seems to be the main, at least especially in America, practically the only festival or celebratory time of the year.

[05:45]

Certainly, it's probably pretty close to the most important for most Europeans, too. Yeah, and it's the time of New Year resolutions. Do people in Germany make New Year resolutions? Yeah. That they never keep? Okay, so... But it is an interesting question. We want to make a New Year's resolution, but then we don't know how to keep it. Often we don't know how to keep it. And that's not, but that's, you know, that's actually worth exploring. In any case, each of you, quite different individuals, have come here, yeah, to Yonassar for these days. And you've come here for some reason, I suppose.

[07:10]

Either to continue your practice or to look at practices. In fact, I'd like to be able to ask each of you, and I probably couldn't ask each of you, but be able to ask each of you, to say something about, yeah, Zen Buddhism. Why, perhaps if you're new, why are you here? What interested you about Zen practice? Perhaps it was a friend liked it. Perhaps you've tried sitting or think meditation might be a good thing to do.

[08:31]

Yeah, and if you've been practicing for a while, I'd like you to say maybe what interests you right now about practice. Or what doesn't make sense to you right now or is a problem for you. Yeah. So, anyway, please think of something because maybe later on 15 minutes or two hours, I might just say, please, would you tell me something? Oh, Valentine knows I'm going to ask him. He's ready to leave. And Andreas knows I won't ask him because he's always got something to say.

[09:34]

Yeah, so each of you is some, you know, yeah, particular person. I can see that. But I'm certain we each share some kind of yearning. Longing. It's the same word? Yeah. Or some desire to complete something or fulfill something. And that's not unrelated to New Year's resolutions.

[10:37]

Maybe two of us came here. Each of you is two persons who came here. The individual person you are and then somebody you would like to move toward. But if I say more about that, I start going toward the topic. Now, Zen is a school of Buddhism. Yeah. That means a lot, means something.

[12:02]

First of all, of course, it means that there's other schools of Buddhism. And if there's other schools of Buddhism, then there must be various kinds of Buddhism. And if there are other schools in Buddhism, then there must be different kinds of Buddhism. And how can we find out which is the best or the truest one? Well, I mean, those are questions we entertain at times. But they're not very productive questions. Better is, you know, each school is an entry into Buddhist practice. And, yeah, if you're here, this might as well be your entry. Mm-hmm. Anyway, each school is a particular entry into Buddhism.

[13:20]

Yeah, and I'm saying this because I want it to be clear that well, I don't know, lots of things I want it to be clear. That we're not talking about here about Buddhism as the as the truth. Perhaps we can make an analogy with language and say, you know, language isn't the truth. German or English or French or something. But we can use language to discover ourselves, the world, and perhaps to some degree the truth. And so, by analogy, the analogy I'm making is that we can use, you can use, Buddhism perhaps to discover what's true for you.

[14:34]

Now, if there's various schools presenting different versions of Buddhism, Did you say truth of Buddhism? Versions of Buddhism. Then you're going to have to understand, you're going to have to find out for yourself what's true. To use this approach you take as an entry into Buddhism. But the measure has to be your own practice. And that's what's happening here in the West. And I think with our... Well, the conditions that are going to develop Buddhism in the West are our tendency to want to believe in a teaching.

[16:12]

And that in contrast to our scientific view Is it scientifically, or we experiment, we decide together with peer review if something's true or not? Now, of course we have the, I mean, dangerous contrast in the United States right now between fundamentalist Protestant fundamentalist views who want to throw out science

[17:13]

Science. There's no global warming going on, it's just hotter. Yeah. Or, yes, it's true that it was only 6,000 years ago the Earth was created. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's pretty, let's just say, stupid and simplistic. But all of us have a more subtle desire to believe. in a teaching to believe that there's some truth out there or in here. If you're going to practice Buddhism you have to examine this desire for there to be truth or oneness or

[18:22]

In yourself and in the world. Yeah, no. You should have a break soon. No, not so soon. So don't get your hopes up. Now, I said maybe, you know, I want to give you a clear feeling that Zen, again, is one school of Buddhism. And it's a school developed in China.

[19:39]

And it wasn't until the 20th century that scholars or Buddhists in China and Japan ever thought about Indian sources. The sources of Buddhism in India. They didn't think about it. Now, it's clear... that the Chinese Buddhists developed schools of Buddhism that are rather and significantly different than the Indian schools.

[20:44]

Now the details of this aren't important to most of you. But the fact that that's the case should be important. Because again, what I'm saying is we together and individually have to decide what this practice is. If they couldn't figure it out in China, then we have to figure it out. But maybe because they couldn't figure it out in China, we can't figure it out. We're no smarter than the Chinese, are we? Well, but we have to try. And we have somewhat, rather significantly different conditions. One, we have a strong, we have a lot of experience of the scientific approach to things.

[22:02]

So in the end, I think Buddhism is going to have to fit with science. I don't think it has to be limited by science, but it somehow has to relate clearly to science. Or at least the crucible. Crucible is where you mix metals or make steel or iron or gold or something. A hot pot. So the crucible of the development of Buddhism in the West... is going to be the dialogue between practice and science. The Dalai Lama has said I know to people I know, and I think it's written in one of his books, that if there's anything that is fundamentally different from science, Buddhism should change.

[23:46]

But there's a couple of things he's holding open yet, because maybe science hasn't got that far, like reincarnation. Now, as far as I can tell from my own study what happened in China... And the problems I've had with Chinese Buddhism, the four main schools of Chinese Buddhism are Zen, Huayen, Pure Land, and Tendai. And very simply, to make the difference rather simple, not so simple, but clear, is that the so-called prajna schools, wisdom schools,

[25:12]

Ist es die sogenannten Prajna, also Weisheitsschulen? Yeah, it sounds good. Wisdom schools, that sounds good. Weisheitsschulen, das hört sich gut an. And sort of similar names, primordial emptiness school, things like that. Sounds good. Und da gibt es auch ähnliche Namen, so wie die ursprüngliche Lehrheitsschule, also das hört sich gut an. actually conflated the more subtle ideas of Indian Buddhism. Conflated. Pushed together. Inflate, conflate. Sorry, now I forgot what they conflated. Conflated the more subtle ideas in Indian Buddhism. And they accused the Yogacara school, which is really the basis of Zen practice, of only being interested in the characteristics of dharmas,

[26:47]

And not the underlying Dharma nature. Okay. But as soon as you have Buddha nature and Dharma nature, you're basically smuggling self back into the teaching. Okay. You're basically smuggling some kind of everywhere present mind or God back into the teaching. And all the Chinese schools did this. And I think that the more you practice Buddhism, you'll see that the problems you have with practice are often related to this smuggling that the Chinese did.

[28:06]

Smuggle? I like these words. Smuggle. It sounds kind of like smuggling. Okay. So, okay. That's probably enough for this morning. And we've smuggled ourselves back to the topic. Is the one who is not busy an underlying Buddha nature or Dharma nature? Or even if the ideas of these Chinese Mahayana schools Are conflationists, or are conceptually rooted in some idea of an underlying Dharma nature,

[29:17]

Actually, but the practice may be more that may be just a popular cover for a more subtle practice. If we're going to bring Chinese Zen practice into the West, we have to consider these questions. We don't have to solve them before New Year's. But in your own new years of practice, we have to actually solve them or someone has to develop a way to make our practice really compute.

[30:43]

Now, if the Yogacara school is accused of emphasizing only the characteristics of dharmas and not their underlying nature, Let's practice this accusation. And so this phrase I often give you, an antidotal and wisdom phrase, antidotal, It's an antidote and wisdom for it. To pause for the particular. In such a simple phrase is rooted a particular way of practice.

[31:54]

Now, if you do pause on each particular for the particular, is there an underlying nature? What actually do you find out? What actually do you feel when you pause for each particular? With no confusion, just to pause for the particular. Now let's pause for the break. Okay, thank you very much. For the pause, right? We'll pause for the part we have.

[32:50]

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