Well, here we are again. Here I am here again, your morning monk. Hier sind wir wieder und hier bin ich wieder, euer Mönch am Morgen. A monk in the morning. A monk in the morning. Nice. It could be a name of a novel. A monk in the morning. Also der Mönch am Morgen, das könnte ein Titel von einem Roman sein. At least we're not in mourning as we might have been if Germany had lost. But if Germany wins, a kind of nation wins. If Ghana wins, A continent wins.

[01:01]

That makes the choice rather hard. A whole continent happy. And then the goal was made by Özil. And he's from Turkey, isn't he? So are we rooting for Germany in name only? I think Özil grew up in Germany, right? But he was born in Germany. He's still Turkish, isn't he? Yeah, all right. So who are we rooting for anyway? Maybe we're rooting for each other rooting. At least I wouldn't have wanted to have been in downtown Herrschried rooting for Ghana. But I was very happy that Ghana went through, too, to the next round.

[02:06]

But I don't know. I've been coming to Germany for going on 30 years, so I was rooting for Germany too. So what's in a name? Now, I would think some of you would wonder, since I... I'm always presenting Buddhism pretty much as a non-religious religion. If it's a non-religious religion for me, why does it look so religious? Yes, chanting, bowing. Yeah, I wonder myself sometimes. I suppose since, you know, I, you know, got us started here, I could have got us started in a less religious way. But, you know, it is our tradition, so I think I should observe our tradition.

[03:36]

I'm not smart enough to change everything. And I know I've learned so much from the religious part of our practice. The real feel I have for this staying, pausing in appearance, has come from these little things like

[04:38]

bowing at the cushion, turning around, bowing to the room and so forth. Practicing returning interdependence to zero by putting the cushion in the center. Practicing interdependence. And you begin to just inhabit the habits. And they begin to reach into the details of your life. And if Suzuki Roshi hadn't created a situation where I had to do all these things with him and then a whole bunch of us had to do all these things with him, I never would have discovered it.

[05:53]

I couldn't think it. I had to discover it by doing it. And it's a no preference time in my life. The service. Service is for me a moment, a time in which I have no preferences. Of course there are a lot of occasions like that. But I particularly feel it during service. So it's going to be nine bells we start to ring. I'm not going to be able to stop at seven. Gerhard won't let me. He just will keep hitting the darn bell.

[06:54]

Then I pick up the altar, etc. What mind just does it without preferences? Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of preferences in my life. It's wonderful to have a more basic sense of no-preference mind. Yeah. Sukhya, she used to speak about having a ready mind. Suki Roshi had davon gesprochen, einen bereiten Geist zu haben.

[08:10]

Yeah. And, yeah, you hear the words and you can think, yeah, it's nice to have your mind be ready, alert, something like that. Das kann man hören und sagen, ja, das ist schon schön, so einen bereiten, aufmerksamen Geist zu haben. So what words can he use? His experience is having a ready mind. But if I pay attention to the context in which he says a ready mind, Sometimes he uses other terms. And at some point I realized, you know, like in this column it says, simultaneous inclusion. And sometimes, like in this koan, there is a term like this simultaneous inclusiveness.

[09:25]

So this simultaneous inclusiveness is Dongshan's progression, meaning the lineage, the teaching that is inseparable from the lineage. Yeah, and then this koan starts out right from the very beginning to shed Let's shed ideas of illusion and enlightenment. To cut off mundane and holy. The cut off is more to cut off the active discriminations of preference.

[10:38]

When it says mundane and holy, or ordinary and holy, or something. It means all preferences, like the biggest preferences we make, like what's holy, what's sacred, and what's profane? Everything, even the greatest things that are most sacred and most important to you. All preferences. Which somehow are all rooted in ideas of what's important or not important or what's sacred, etc. Yes, okay. Then Cohen says, there are not so many things.

[11:47]

Now, there are not so many things. Could this be simultaneous inclusion? Simultaneous inclusion sounds like lots of things to me. But in many of these things, you have to know what's being talked about. Okay, so say that I gave you a practice the other day. Of not originating. Not originating. You'd think, well, this is, everything is permanent. But if I gave you a practice of not originating today, Which comes after having given you the practice of just now originating.

[13:06]

It's like if I say, this stick doesn't exist. Das ist wie wenn ich sagen würde, diesen Stock gibt es nicht. That statement is in the context of the stick exists. Diese Aussage wird im Kontext gemacht, in dem dieser Stock existiert. So to say that this stick doesn't exist doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It means, what does it mean in the context of its existence? Also um die Aussage zu machen, diesen Stock gibt es nicht, Im Kontext, dass es diesen Stock gibt, the conclusion. The conclusion? No, I said... It's incomplete. Oh, please. The third part of that. Oh, poor thing. So, we've had to stick that it doesn't exist, but it's there.

[14:11]

So... Seeing it in a context. The context of it being there. Of how that... Okay, then there's nothing else. Okay, evaporated. We'll find, okay, it just disappeared, this is good. Okay. So if I say, now, practice with not originating, that a practice is occurring in just now, within the context of just now originating. Und nachdem das eine Übung ist, die in dem Kontext der Praxis gerade jetzt erscheinend stattfindet. So if I say, if you practice now, incubate, not originating. Wenn ich jetzt sage, brütet die Praxis aus, jetzt nicht auftauchend. Suddenly originating stops. And there's a tremendous stillness.

[15:18]

A stillness which isn't about permanence. It's about the stillness of the mind. Lusthaus has a little note in his big book that if you shine a light on the retina for more than 45 seconds, That's good. The light disappears after 45 seconds. Okay. Which, as he points out, If things didn't change, the world would disappear after 45 seconds.

[16:34]

So everything depends, our perceptual apparatus depends on things changing. But it is something like if you practice just not originating, You come into a kind of stillness. The world is there, but it's now so still, it's almost ready to disappear. Okay. Now, I don't usually speak about my Zazen experience. At least not phenomenologically, descriptively.

[17:47]

Yeah. Because, I don't know, why should I bore you with my Zazen experience? And I don't want you to in any way get the idea, just because I've been doing this for a long time, that my Zazen experience is anything special. Nor do I want you to think in any way that you ought to have similar Zazen experience. So my Zazen experience is an undisclosed secret. But now I'm going to disclose a little bit of it. Just because it's kind of curious. Not interesting.

[19:00]

Curious. Yeah. Okay. So this morning when I sat down, and I'm just speaking about this morning, I barely settled. And it felt like a sewing machine needle went across my right knee. Just like that. It was such a sharp pain that I almost jumped. Well, I just, yeah, that's interesting. I never had that experience before. So I let it happen and it went across my knee and started to go up my leg and then disappeared.

[20:04]

Now I'm talking about what I would call the Shikantaza mind of just observing. Or a kind of randomness observing. There's no effort to understand. Maybe there's an under-knowing, but not an understanding. Maybe there's an under-knowing, but not an understanding. Okay. And so, you know, there's a sitting there, right?

[21:14]

There is a sitting there? Well, that's how I'm describing it. There is a sitting. There is a sitting. Yeah, and I, after all these years, have no... I bring in no sense of the usual feeling of the body or something like that. Yeah, so I don't have any effort to understand the observations. Or to put them in the category of the usual body image. I suppose you could say I have an intention just to observe sensations and feelings. sensations and feelings, with a sense of their incommensurability.

[22:38]

Two things which are not comparable and not understandable to each other. Incomparable. Each thing is so unique it can't be compared to another uniqueness. Well, various things appear. Some little kind of acupuncture sting here, and then there's one over here, and then there's one here, and et cetera. Yeah, and there's a kind of pattern, but I pay no attention to any pattern. And then there's a feeling of space as wide as my head, or this head, anyway. And then there's a... How can I make a distinction?

[23:59]

There's a sense, not exactly looking into, but a kind of looking into perhaps a sense of space that's almost two meters wide. Then there's a feeling... It feels this wide, but it looks this wide. And I know if I want to, I can go into the feel of the space or I can go into the look of the space. And I can say I can choose, but it's not really a sense of a subjective I. It's more like, say, I'm standing in a waterfall. My head might be in the water or I might pull my head out of the water.

[25:18]

And I don't know if I'm doing it, my head just likes being in the water sometimes, likes being out of the water sometimes. So whether I look into the space or I feel the space, I let it happen. And then around my left eye, A kind of a spatial feeling occurs which it's almost like something's happening here. Again, I could go into what's happening there. But over on this side, nothing's happening.

[26:32]

That's interesting. Why does something occur on this side, not on this side? And this side feels more conscious, and this side feels more just like stuff. And yet this side has a kind of verticality and this side has a kind of horizontality. And in the horizontality I can see into the kind of something like the Southern Africa belt. Yeah, and almost like I could almost see animals and things like that.

[27:36]

Yeah, and then suddenly there's a person right here. Very close and, you know, sort of half dark. And he says something like, two crowns or four crowns, meaning the English coin, which is about a fourth, four of them make a pound. And I know this guy is the tip of an iceberg or a mountain berg. Und ich weiß, dass diese Gestalt oder diese Person wie die Spitze eines Eisberges ist. And if, I don't know, if I was so inclined or it happened, I could follow what the heck is... Never even seen an English crown. What the heck is the coin... And I know when involuntary images start. It's the same as when I go to sleep and once involuntary images start, I know that I can go to sleep easily.

[29:02]

And I can speak to Sophia or something who might be there, but at the same time I can pay attention. Allow the attentional awareness of the involuntary images. I can allow the attentional awareness of the involuntary images. And I can release myself into the involuntary images and really go to sleep. And I know that when I'm in the mind of involuntary images, in that same space are little chunks of whatever dreams I had last night.

[30:10]

And I can bring them back, and it's not like the feeling the dream just belonged to last night. The dream is sort of there when I'm in that mind of involuntary images. And then it's not like the dream is something from yesterday or something like that, but the dream is in this... And I can shift out of this body of sensations. And I can allow this shift into another kind of mind, which we can call... semiotically present or signed through involuntary images.

[31:20]

Can I do that? The sign of this mind of involuntary images, which is not limited to involuntary images, is the presence of involuntary images. That was much better. Okay. Everybody understands. Okay. Don't you want to do it? Why not? Okay. This mind is not limited to involuntary images. Which one? The one you're gliding out? Just say this mind is not limited. This mind is not... Limited to involuntary images. Dieser Geist ist nicht beschränkt auf nur diese... Wie nennt ihr das? Unwillkürliche Bilder. Viel besser. Unbeabsicht. Unbeabsicht. Unbeabsicht. Unwillkürlich is, I think, a good word because it means non-voluntary.

[32:25]

These pictures are non-voluntary. That's right. I'm really sorry. Unwillkürlich ist, es kommt von irgendwo und es hat mit nichts was zu tun. Yeah, so is it. It comes from somewhere that has nothing to do with anything. Non-voluntary. Non-voluntary. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's very hard to get words around these experiences. Okay, so this territory of mind is much bigger than images. But the sign that you're in that mind is usually the appearance of non-voluntary or involuntary image. Aber das Zeichen dafür, dass man sich in diesem Geist befindet, sind diese nicht willentlich auftauchenden Bilder. Und ich kann mich da reinversetzen, da reingehen. Aber der Gerhard hat die Glocke geläutet. Das wusstest du gar nicht, dass du mir das angetan hast.

[33:26]

So I had to get up and do the service. Now if we'd had a second period what probably would have happened more typically is the involuntary images would be kind of present for a while and then there would be a clarity of mind which a kind of really bright clearness seemingly with no content But it feels like all the content of involuntary images are now kind of just melted into the brightness.

[34:43]

Now I know why I haven't described my Zazen experience. It's too darn difficult. And this is just, you know, real ordinary stuff. Okay, so... All right, now if I tried to give you some kind of description of this, this is what I'm calling observing only mind. The Shikantaza of observing only mind. The Shikantaza translates as something like nothing but sitting. But it's what happens when there's nothing but sitting. And we could also call this the mind of simultaneous inclusion.

[36:10]

Because there's no preferences. Everything is included simultaneously. Alles ist gleichzeitig darin mit eingeschlossen. All the non-voluntary images are in the shine of the clarity of mind. Alle diese unwillentlich oder alle diese unbeabsichtigten Bilder. And I love the word content. Content or content? They're the same word. Okay. Ich liebe das Wort zufrieden. Okay. When you say content... Das gleiche Wort wie... When you say content, emphasizing the first syllable in English, it means stuff. And when you say content, it means you're happy with the stuff. That's really literally what it means.

[37:18]

It comes from the word container. And when the container is satisfied with what it contains, it's content. So there's a lot of wisdom in these words. Content literally means to be satisfied with what you have. So there's a kind of contentment with this mind of random content. Content. Oh dear. Okay. So if I tried to give you a... Oh, it's so hard. Yeah. a survey of this just observing mind.

[38:36]

If I tried to give you a survey of this just observing mind. Yeah, I just know a survey like where you measure land. Yeah, okay. An inventory then. So there's the body of sensations and feeling. And I think, I find I have to call it a body. It doesn't look like the shape of my body. It doesn't feel like the shape of my body. But it's in the realm of bodily sensation and bodily feeling. Now, when you use my seven points that I mentioned yesterday or the day before, seven body points, which I just have arbitrarily chosen, but sort of arbitrarily, the left foot and the right foot,

[40:13]

The spine. The breath. The tongue. The facial bones. And the crowns. This sense, and it begins to be an overall sense, you feel them all at once. Attention is joined to the body through these points. But you experience the body as a presence, not as a shape. And a presence which can have stillness and awareness in it. I tell you, this yogic culture is so different than what I grew up with.

[41:27]

It's a heck of a lot more interesting to me. A heck of a lot. You said total. But Okay, so one category is an experience of the body through sensations and feeling, which I have to say is also my body. Or the body. And those turn into, next inventory, a spatial feeling. This little pointer, and it becomes a spatial feeling. Okay, then the mind. Okay, there's the content like non-voluntary images. The person.

[42:43]

The person who appeared. The two coins. The African veldt. Yeah. I have to say that's the mind. I don't understand these things. I don't try to understand why the African belt is just past the other side of these two coins. Ich weiß nicht, ich verstehe nicht, ich versuche nicht zu verstehen, warum diese südafrikanische Graslandschaft jenseits dieser zwei Münzen liegt. Also die sind ja ganz offensichtlich Teil von mir. Und ich habe das Gefühl, ich...

[43:44]

There's a sense of knowing and being part of that's much bigger than understanding. Consciousness tries to take hold of things and understand them in a context. Das Bewusstsein möchte Dinge fassen und sie in einem Umfeld, in einem Kontext verstehen. And here I allow an incomparable randomness. And here I'm speaking about the experiential roots of the four formless jhanas. You're speaking about the roots of the four formless jhanas. Okay. So, and then in addition to the

[45:01]

content of mind, there's mind that also appears, as I've said, as clarity and space. All infused in a bodily presence which is not the shape of the body. all infused, merged with, which is not the shape of the body. Okay. Now, if you're doing Zazen every day, and this mind of Shikantaza randomness Which you just allow simultaneous inclusion.

[46:18]

Yeah, where there's no delusion or enlightenment. There's no sacred and profane. There's just random inclusiveness. We could say there's not so many things. You could hardly call any of these things. And for us, the mind is unborn and undying. is in the context of, just like if I say, not originating.

[47:41]

So the stillness of mind is being pointed out here of simultaneous inclusion. The stillness of mind is... The stillness of mind, which is simultaneous inclusion, has been pointed out in this koan. Why is it being pointed out in this koan in this encounter of Daobu and Yonah? Now, I think this mind of simultaneous inclusion cannot be learned and embodied without sasen practice. Maybe it's available to some scientists and artists who are particularly able somehow to think creatively from a mind of randomness.

[48:58]

But luckily for us, more ordinary people, it's available to monks and adept lay practitioners. And if you do Zazen every day, After a while you're just so used to this mind of random inclusion that you're just in this, you feel this all the time. Things just appear. And you don't have to understand them. This is my relationship to German. The mystery of things appearing. and you can also apply that to persons every person you meet strangers and ones you know well you cut off any habit of categorizing them

[50:29]

They just appear. Like the sensations in the body. Let's say they're about 40. And you look at them and you see, once they were an infant. And 40 years have passed. What is the mystery of those 40 years? The person themselves doesn't even know. And they're always simplifying themselves so they can try to understand themselves. But the mystery of 40 years or 4 years or 50 is there. And when you yourself have this randomness of mind, You can feel something, the mystery of each person.

[52:02]

As a non-voluntary image that you know, but don't understand. Please, as a... non-voluntary image which you don't understand but you know what room is this what moon is this they both have two O's in English thank you very much Thank you very much.

[52:53]

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