Now I said the other day that each of us has some reason for coming to Sesshin, finding ourself in Sesshin. Yeah. And the reason may not be too conscious. But you're here. And I find that at any point in my life, just now, just now today and just now for two or three weeks or some length of time,

[01:01]

I find that in some sort of semi-conscious, non-conscious way I'm working on something. And my practice is to let that happen and a little bit to try to bring it to the surface. Whether it's sashin or just ordinary weeks, I feel something working. And I know that I enhance that working or ongoingness through doing zazen and practicing mindfulness.

[02:07]

Sometimes it really becomes explicit and sometimes it just moves into another kind of ongoingness. Manchmal wird das explizit und manchmal bewegt es sich einfach weiter in ein weiteres Geschehen. And I find it useful to notice it. Und ich finde es nützlich, das zu bemerken. And that's also what I mean by we have something brought us here. We have some reason, a sort of reason. And we also came here to do this together. With some clear experience or intuition that there's something about just sitting silently next to other people.

[03:36]

At the same time, it's a good part of the time for many of you, rather frustrating and annoying and so forth. Now, this sense of working on something may be a more... I think it's true for all of us. But it may be more the case when you feel your life is a singularity. And by singularity I mean Your experience is your experience.

[04:42]

Not anyone else's experience. And it is continuously unique. I also mean that by singularity. Okay, so now I want to point out a mind of uniqueness or singularity. Because I'm trying to bring into our practice here the fabric of Zen practice. Yeah.

[05:47]

So... So it's not just that you know that things are continuously unique, in fact, not repeatable. But you have a mind that doesn't expect repetition, but a mind, in fact, which expects uniqueness. So that's one of the, if you want a goal of practice, that's one of the goals of practice. And that's also can be described as a mind without before and after. Or here and there.

[07:02]

Oh. I'm moaning because I'm wondering how to speak about these things. I just recently looked at a lecture of Suzuki Roshi's. And I was happy to see that he moaned the same way. And I was happy to see that he was moaning in the same way. And he said... I don't want you to concentrate on something. And he said, well, that sounds like the opposite of Zen.

[08:03]

He said, I don't know how to say it. He said, what I want you to do is be ready to concentrate on something. You said it's said that Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, has 1,000 arms. And Sukershi said, if you concentrate on something, 999 arms are useless. He said, do you understand? I think I will. So he said, yeah. He said, if I look at you, I only see you, or I look at you, I only see you, but in zazen I can feel all of you at once, he said.

[09:22]

So he's talking about a mind that's ready to concentrate, not concentration. And I was trying to say something similar yesterday. Yeah. I pointed out yesterday that we are by chance in the vanguard, in the lead of those of people practicing Buddhism. I mean, there's thousands of us doing it, so it's not that special.

[10:40]

But as are the philosophical ideas of Buddhism that had such an effect on our culture. Mostly unseen or unacknowledged. I think the practice is going to have a much bigger influence on our Western culture. But at first it has to have an influence on us. Those of us who, for some reason, are doing this or have decided to do this. So I said, we each have some kind of reason or something going on that brings us to Sashin.

[11:52]

But we also don't know, I think we don't know quite what we're doing. Does it worry me? Well, we don't seem to be causing much harm. So I think it's okay. But... And I kind of like not knowing what I'm doing. But still, I think we don't know quite what we're doing. But we're doing something. Beate, as most of you know, was just ordained a week ago or something like that. And Christian was just ordained at the same time.

[12:59]

That's this guy. And he doesn't look much different, but Beate looks quite a bit different. We've saved her red curly hair in case she changes her mind. But she said to me the other day, What have you got me into or how did you get me to this place? I don't know. Why do you blame me? It's not me. Well, it's a big responsibility. Why am I willing to take on such a responsibility? Maybe I'm stupid.

[14:03]

Well, I think someone should do it, so I'm willing to do it. But it's also because I don't know how I got here. You know, I'm a person who... refused to wear a tie in high school and so they wouldn't put my picture in the yearbook. And I wouldn't at college either, so they wouldn't feed me in the dining room. Now look at me now. I'm nothing but a tie.

[15:04]

And I walk around here in a dress with a stick. I don't really know why I'm doing it but here I am. It's what I do, but I don't know, I don't have an explanation. If I stop and think about it, it sounds rather foolish. And it's time to give a lecture, so I'm here to give a lecture. And you're here because it's on the schedule.

[16:29]

And I can't actually also give a lecture about something I think, oh, probably I should give a lecture for the benefit of the Sashin on such and such. Often I have to give a lecture on what I don't quite yet know what I want to talk about. Yeah, I'm working on something, but I don't know, and I can't get away from it, but I don't know what to say. Okay. Now, we're practicing. And up till now, mostly the philosophy of Buddhism has been studied.

[17:37]

And that those philosophical ideas can be very influential. But they're not Buddhism. They're Buddhist ideas, but they're not Buddhism. Buddhism is a practice. It's like yoga is a practice. Yeah, you can study the philosophy behind yoga or the ideas about yoga. But that's not yoga. You would see not much change in a person who read about yoga. You have to practice yoga. And we have to practice Buddhism. And we're here practicing Buddhism.

[18:40]

But philosophical ideas are inseparable from our practice. Maybe we should say practisophical ideas. Practisophical? You don't have to say it. Okay, I don't have to say it. Okay. Because it's not about the love of wisdom, it's about the practice of wisdom. Okay. What I find myself keeping coming back to is the mind free of preferences.

[20:10]

And this when Feng Shui comes into the room, Nan Yuan says. Feng Shui comes in without bowing. He says, first you have to deal, when you enter, first you have to deal with the host. When you come in, he says, then you have to Now that's a statement which also reflects the other statement I made yesterday about penetrating on level ground. In other words, if you read that, you could easily think he means, geez, when you come in, you at least should shake my hands or bow or greet me or something like that, because I'm the host and you're the guest.

[21:34]

But no one would keep a story for a thousand years around about not being polite. So clearly he means something else. So the host means emptiness. The host means fundamental mind or original mind. The host means the absolute. That means in your own zazen, can you begin to discover the host and the guest? When Sukhirashi says in zazen, don't invite your thoughts to tea,

[22:38]

People in the back can't hear us very well. We need to shut the windows. You can shut the windows or just bring your cushion up here. You can bring your cushion up here or close the windows or both. The rain might be much nicer than what I'm saying. Are you shy? No. Can you hear now, Yudhita? I was kind of hoping you'd come up and sit right here.

[23:49]

So clearly this is some interaction between these two about how you acknowledge fundamental mind. So here we can see some condition of Zen practice which is always initially you find yourself Starting everything from fundamental mind. That's just a basic of Zen practice. We may not be there, but we can... understand that it's possible.

[25:04]

Okay, so this phrase on level ground also means it just looks like an ordinary conversation, but it's actually about Zen. Say it again with level ground. It just looks like ordinary conversation, but it's actually a conversation about Zen. And you might be in your activity, quite distracted. But when that distraction becomes an internal conversation about how to be free of distraction, that's also called penetrating on level ground.

[26:09]

Please? More. No, I'm serious. Why don't you bring your cushion up here? We don't want to holler. And I like people sitting right here. It's nice. This is your place. This is great. I hope it rains every lecture. Anyone else want to come up here? The rest of you don't care whether you're here or not. It's the same old stuff anyway. So let's just go back to the bow.

[27:52]

We bow when we enter. Yuan Wu says, or Nan Yuan says, this is taking care of the host. And we can understand then, a bow is first of all acknowledging the person. The person as is. An appearance at that moment. Not, I've known this person before. I know who this person is. That's there. that it's there that you've known that person before and all that.

[28:58]

But we're talking here about this Zen practice, which is to notice the person as the they're appearing at that moment, as if you never knew them before. This is the mind of singularity or uniqueness, something like that. So you acknowledge the appearance and you bow, returning to emptiness. In other words, you let it go. You both join together in the fundamental mind, which we can also call emptiness.

[30:03]

Okay, so mind free of preference. Sounds kind of boring. Because preferences are a big, essential part of our life. We certainly try to cook the food well here and make it tasty. We try to keep the zendo fairly cool if possible. And we put chairs out in the lawn or grounds, in the shade and in the sun. Those are all preferences. But we're also trying to, within that, practice to get

[31:06]

an architectural feel of, a physical feel of a mind without preference. So you're sitting, yeah, and it's probably uncomfortable for you sometimes in Sashin. Certainly somewhat uncomfortable for me, too. My legs have never worked too well. And through all this radiation treatment and stuff I went through, my legs stopped being flexible at all. But now they're working moderately well. But still, I remember in the early days of my sitting how difficult it was.

[32:46]

Okay. There's no question that it hurts. But if you have a mind of preferences, it hurts worse. And you can notice that in your sitting. You can notice the difference between just accepting it and wishing the bell would ring. Isn't there a movie called Shoot the Piano Player or something like that? Shoot the Bell Ringer. We actually, the Doan wears a bulletproof vest.

[33:48]

Just in case. But if you can discover that difference between You're accepting it, just accepting it without caring whether the bell rings or not. You can play with attitudes. My legs are just dead. I can forget about them. Or you can imagine you put them on a shelf somewhere and they're just sitting on the shelf. Yeah, you could try various things to get to a mind without preferences. You can see the shift when you start having preferences. Boy, I wish that the bell would ring.

[34:52]

Now, much of monk's training is about no preferences. Again, since Berthe is the Jisha, I notice that she's having this experience. Although it's cooler than last week, it's still somewhat warm and muggy. But you wear one layer, two layers, three layers. four layers, five layers, no matter how hot it is, you wear them.

[36:07]

When you can understand that koan which says, when it's hot, be a hot Buddha, when it's cold, be a cold Buddha. And the food is put on and comes out and basically you want it See if you can eat without any preferences. Just the same amount, you just eat it. That's all. So in a way, we're trying to force the new monk into a mind free of preferences.

[37:08]

You're supposed to always, if you have robes, Berthe has the longer sleeves, you have to always keep your hands in this position because otherwise your sleeves drag on the floor. And only older monks are allowed to walk with their arms down. Only monks have to always have their hands in this position. Die neuen jungen Mönche, die müssen immer in dieser Haltung gehen. Now, is this human? Is this weird? What are we doing? Ist das menschlich oder ist das nicht total verrückt? Was machen wir denn hier? You know, I didn't ask anyone to... I didn't ask you to be ordained. You asked me if you could be ordained. Ich habe niemanden darum gebeten, sich ordinieren zu lassen.

[38:12]

Ihr habt mich danach gefragt. So don't blame me. Also gib mir nicht die Schuld. Why are we doing this? I don't really know. I just know we're doing it. But I know that it does... gets you sooner to this mind without preferences. If you're hot and sweating, you're hot and sweating. It's just perfectly all right. Yeah, I was looking for the great opportunity of eating uncooked potatoes last night, but they turned out to be quite good. Without any preferences. Uncooked potatoes. Okay, so what's the point of a mind without preferences? Okay, so I come back again to another way of looking at it, the mind of interdependence.

[39:25]

Okay, it's an ecological and philosophical idea that everything is interdependent. But what is the mind of interdependence? When do we experience interdependence? This is a famous philosophical idea. that has influenced ecology, etc., interdependence. That's a great idea. What's true? But what is the mind of interdependence? Sometimes called thusness. It's also, we can say, we enter it through the mind free of preferences.

[40:40]

Because when everything is known as equal, or sameness, these are Buddhist terms, samenessism, Some translation like thusness. You make the valence of everything the same. Valence is the combinatory capacity of each thing. Now, I've been coming back to this idea the last week or so. Yeah. And the example I gave is it's like a line of these old-fashioned Christmas lights, Where if one bulb is out, none of them will light.

[41:55]

And it's a heck of a job to keep going through all the light bulbs and test them and find the one that's... You know, that's just happened in America. One in six people in America was without electricity. Because one bulb went out in Cleveland, Ohio. And most of the east coast of America and much of the east coast of Canada was without electricity for several days.

[42:56]

It wasn't even a terrorist. It's just a bulb went out. Yeah, someone called me from New York. I was supposed to talk to you. He was going to visit us soon. Phones didn't work. Cell phones didn't work. Well, they phoned to California, which allowed them to phone to Connecticut, and then after two days they went to Connecticut and found they could make a phone work in Connecticut. You don't need a translator. Okay. But we can think of it as when this, you know, hunting for the bulb is like hunting for the Buddha. Which Buddha is going to make everything light up?

[44:05]

When you've

[44:06]

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