As I realized some point early on in my practice, that Zen practice is an institution. Otherwise, chemistry is an institution. It's chemistry? Chemistry is an institution. You don't wake up in bed and say when you're five, I'm a chemist. If you do, you have to start studying pretty soon at some point. Previous chemistry and you have to have a laboratory and so forth. Like Carolina knows. So I realized if Buddhist practice is going to develop, the institution has to develop too.

[01:07]

I spoke about this at the beginning of the day show yesterday, too. And certainly, you know, I have this role of being a teacher. But the teaching just doesn't appear spontaneously out of me. It appears through the previous teaching, through generations. And almost equally important, it appears, because there's this institution which allows me to know you over many years. So it's always been important to me that Dharma Sangha is an institution within the larger Sangha, within the larger institution of Zen practice.

[02:37]

Of scholars, books, Zendos, etc. Yeah. And so at this stage, I mean, while I've always been concerned with the survival, with the development, survival of the institutions, naturally, when I was younger, I was concerned with the founding and development. And now at this stage of my life, I'm interested in the survival of the institution. And as you know, Creston is viable as an institution.

[03:52]

Crestone is viable. No, no, it can function. Because there's enough people who just make it last and work. Well, it's not viable in a financial sense. Passive. Viable. Passive. Yeah, it's passive. Okay. I don't know. Is it viable? No? No. What's the word for viable? It's not viable. If it's not viable, it's not going to work.

[04:54]

Okay. Well, I can't, I accept whatever you say. And it's not viable because it's so remote. We accept people on the basis of practice and not whether they can pay anything. And we can't support the people who live there and take care of it. But one spot of good news that I've been working on the last few days The foundation is going to double anybody's contribution.

[06:07]

So that had to be sent in yesterday or today, that proposal. And if it works, it's going to get us through at least a couple of years. So I started out wanting to speak to you about something which I don't even know what to call. And so I tried various names for it.

[07:15]

The attentional stream of mind. The attentional and phenomenal stream of mind. The intentional stream of appearance. It's all intentional. Stream of appearance. Yeah, but I realize as I'm trying to speak about it, You know, I have to start teaching Buddhism all from the beginning again. So last night I made up this hot drink poem. Through sound we gain entry.

[08:31]

How did you translate it last night? I don't know. Don't give up in the middle of a sentence. Through sound you gain entry. Okay. Yes? I try again. That sounds better, anyway. The senses return to their source. Steadily, intimately, with the mind field.

[09:32]

This is a phrase from Dogen. I'm just asking all of you to be steadily intimate with the mind field. And then I said, there's nowhere to look and nothing to hide. Even the iron ox agrees. So I'm also trying to unpack steadily intimate with the mind field. And so I've been speaking about K'in Hin. And K'in Hin is a practice that versions of it are done by all Zen schools.

[10:36]

But it's primarily a Soto institution, shall we call it that. And it's sometimes called walking which is standing. And it says, if you look at Kin Hin from the side, it looks like a person is standing. And one of the rules of Kin Hin is that your foot doesn't go ahead of the body. Your body moves with the legs. Der Körper bewegt sich mit den Beinen.

[12:08]

And you go in a straight line, but if you turn, you always turn right. Und du gehst in einer geraden Linie, aber wenn du dich wendest, drehst du dich immer nach rechts. And going back hundreds of years, the Shashu position is exactly as we do it. And it's called a forked posture because the fork of the hands is put like that. Now, what I'm trying to reach here Why are such things like mudras, hand postures, so important? So I'm trying to see if I can find a way to speak about it.

[13:15]

Yeah, we talk about stillness and movement. But now I'm speaking about slowness. So what do I mean by slowness? Okay. Now, if you watch a Japanese samurai movie, you can notice also it's a cultural thing. The samurai runs forward with his legs under him. He doesn't put the legs out like that. Okay, so let's look at the Gassho. And generally, some of you, your thumbs are like that.

[14:25]

I mean, you can have them any way you want. I don't care. But anyway, customarily, you put them like that. Not like that. Unless you want to rest your chin. Okay. Some of that you don't have to translate. Okay. So the gassho is the... If you unfold the gassho... You end up with the meditation... So when you gassho, you're offering the meditation mudra to people. And this is also called the Dharma realm mudra. This mudra. Because it calls forth the Dharma.

[15:41]

It's also called the Buddha Mudra. But you notice from this figure here, it's sitting like this. And that's almost only found in Japan. This is an Amida Buddha, and Amida Buddhas in China usually have this mudra. But you may know, some of you know anyway, that this Buddha used to sit in a shop across from a Japanese restaurant I liked. And I near Van Ness Avenue on Fillmore. And I often went there because I liked sitting at a table where I could see this Buddha.

[16:44]

And because of his posture like this, I sat this way for a year or so. Just to see what it felt like. And the reason I recognized this when I saw this figure 20 or 30 years later in a shop at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Because he's a little off. He's not quite centered. His hands are a little to the left. Yeah, so I, oh, that's my Buddha, I thought. So I went in the shop and the guy said, oh yeah, that used to be in that guy's shop next to that restaurant.

[17:57]

And he wanted some amount of money for it, which was way too much for me to even think about. So I came back to Germany. I was giving a lecture in this hotel. Not to the hotel guests. So then I came back and I was sleeping here and I woke up after about... I was sleeping here and about two weeks after I returned I woke up And I said, we ought to try to get this Buddha, this Amida Buddha. So, you know, in the middle of the night, here's a good time in San Francisco. So I got up and I immediately dialed this guy.

[19:16]

And he said, oh, I'm glad you called. I want you to have this Buddha. And I'll give it to you for about half price. So I called up Melita and said, you were going to give some money to the by Johanneshof, maybe you'd help with the Buddha. And she said, sure. So that's how you develop an institution. Then the cat knocked it over and we found out it was made in about 1500. Someday I'd like to repair the stand, which is of a later period. And when this Buddha arrived here, my future wife happened to come to visit and it helped that too.

[20:17]

That was Marie Louise, of course. And marriage is called an institution. Okay, so there's these mudras. Okay. Now I notice that most of us don't pay too much attention to our mudra. And there's two basic mudras I suggest we use. One is like Shashu. You sit like this. And the other is this dharma realm mudra or buddha root or meditation mudra.

[21:40]

It's called jo-in or zen jo-in. Okay. Now, what are you doing when you place your hands in the mudra? Now again, I'm trying in the last few weeks anyway to go deeper into the details of things. Now, We could say that when you put your hands in the mudra, when you're changing the gassho into a mudra, meditation mudra, you're placing the hands in the wilderness of the mind and body. What is the body?

[22:52]

Where is the body? Yeah, in meditation our body boundaries are wide. Where is the mind? What is the mind? Well, at least we can locate these two hands. And Dogen also, as he said in these some teishos he gave near the end of his life, one I've mentioned, I simply want all of you to reside in the intimacy of the mind field.

[23:55]

To be steadily intimate with the mind field. This is what I'm trying to speak about. But he also said at about the same time, I simply want all of you to hold what you can in your hands. Now our hands are the most obvious embodiment of our intelligence. I mean, without our hands there'd be no crafts, there'd be no pottery. You know, it's very hard to function without your hands.

[24:58]

I mean, I think a dolphin would have a very hard time being a carpenter. Even though their brains are bigger than ours. Yeah. It's an interesting image, though, trying to see a dolphin carpenter. So Dogen is speaking about what you can hold in your hands. And you know I often speak about doing things with two hands. Now here I'm really talking about the mind that manifests through the body. Which is also this attentional stream of appearance.

[26:00]

And how you develop a feel for it. To be able to stay within the immediacy of experience. Let me say that again. To be able to stay within the immediacy of experience. Now, Kin Hin is a practice to help you discover staying within the immediacy of experience. Kin Hin is a practice that helps you stay within the immediacy of experience. And the idea of it goes back, at least mythologically, to the Buddha doing something like he did around the tree under which he was enlightened.

[27:18]

Now, I... I... I think this aspect of things that's part of Zen practice is difficult for us to kind of get. Even if I change words around and put them in unusual combinations, the English words don't reach what I'm talking about. To stay within the immediacy of experience. Okay. Now, yesterday I said that usually, in a traditional situation, I wouldn't explain Kinhin as I have.

[28:36]

As the mind, the heel breathing up the spine or filling the body with attention. to breathe up through the body or to fill the body with attention? And that mostly you wouldn't explain that because you'd kind of get it by mimicry. Mimicry? Practicing with others. And it's said that Ru Jing, Dogen's teacher, Und es wird gesagt, dass Dogen's Lehrer Wu Jing repeatedly walked east to west, repeatedly, repeatedly, and let Dogen watch until Dogen got it.

[29:59]

Dass er immer wieder von Ost nach West gegangen ist, immer wieder, immer wieder, sodass Dogen es nachmachen und verstehen konnte. I don't think we can imagine doing that. Ich glaube nicht, dass wir uns vorstellen können, das zu tun. You can all sit here on bleachers. Bleachers? Like at a sporting event. And I could walk back and forth here and ten times and I don't think any of you would know anything more about Kenyan than... Because this is a somewhat different world than we inhabit. Oh dear. Time runneth on. And I'm only getting started. So I'll just say a few more things.

[31:02]

The word for nature in Japanese is Shizen. And it's been confused in Japan as well as... It's been confused in Japan by it also being used to translate the English word for nature. Its meaning in Japanese has been confused for the Japanese because it's used to translate the English word nature. So the English word means something like born by itself, nature. But the word Shizen in Japanese means spontaneously appearing.

[32:17]

And it's not a noun, it's an adverb. Like always is an adverb. You can say, I see nature, but you can't say, I see always. You must never stop seeing. So the word Shizen, as it's understood in Japan originally, describes your spontaneously participating in the spontaneous appearance of things. So unless you enter a mind of spontaneity, you can't see what the Japanese mean by nature.

[33:25]

So it's a way of beingness, not something opposed to, you know, etc., It's a way of being in the immediacy of experience. So only if you are in the immediacy of experience can you know the world as nature, as she's in. Okay. Now, why did I say, I'll finish with this, placing your hands in the Dharma mudra and making something close to a circle? you're putting your hands, I said, in the wilderness of the mind and body, because if you can learn, if you can develop the ability to maintain the mudra, even when you're sleepy,

[34:54]

it will tend to wake you up. And it also, it's like practicing with holding something while you're sleeping. Can you have a mental formation which you place around your hands and shape your hands And then through distraction or sleepiness or whatever happens, the mudra is maintained. So the mudra becomes the center of your sitting. It's kind of bringing mind and body together in the hands in a way that's an iron ox. It's invariant. Yeah, it's there, no matter what happens, it stays.

[36:25]

No, this is not. I don't always do this, we don't always do this. But it's the most telling aspect of your posture. It's the barometer of what's going on with you. And if you develop the skill of just... The mudra always stays pretty good. Try to make a circle. The feeling is a circle. If you try to do this, and you really pretty much get so you can do it in all conditions of mind and body during Zazen, you also develop the mind that can be steadily intimate with the mind field.

[37:34]

Or to be slow enough to know things in the immediacy of experience. The mind which allows the depth and vastness of the immediacy of experience. Okay. That's enough for now. Thanks.

[38:14]

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