Is this the sixth day? Nobody knows? So we have one day to go or maybe eight. I wonder how it works to do two sashins in a row. I've never done that before. We could do it every year as long as I can manage. I wonder how the first seven days are influenced by the fact that the following seven days, at least for some people, We did it simply because so many people applied for this Sashin to be partly applied for the new Zendo that we decided, well, it looks like we have to do two Sashins.

[01:08]

Well, we had to have two or three people sitting on each Tatami. In a heiji, most of the time there's two people sitting on each tatami. In Heiji, it's usually the case that two people sit on each tatami. Particularly during Sashin, it's rather complicated to get up on the tan. Especially during Sashin, it's rather complicated to get up on the tan. Okay. We tend to think that what we're doing is rooted in particularly in India and Chinese Tang and some dynasties.

[02:25]

But for us, it's this way of looking at things in order to see, really see things happening is uh new for us in our culture so we're we're um we're um We're doing something that was done back in the Tang and Song dynasties and in India in comparable times. Is to try to say something that's not too inaccurate.

[03:38]

We're trying to look closely at the world with our bodies. recognizing that thinking is not only a mental brain phenomena but a bodily mind phenomena and a phenomena a bodily mind phenomenality phenomena and you may think you're just doing what was done in China a long time ago or Japan or Korea but Thailand but in fact you're pioneers new new investigators of the world.

[04:56]

And we should respect our own process of investigation. Someone said to me in Dokusan that behind all the appearances that arise, there's emptiness. Yeah, that's true and particularly at least for practitioners. And it's a... But it's not just that you start with a blank slate and then it's just added on.

[06:06]

It's a process, as Nagarjuna says, of taking away articulation, not just articulating, but taking away the articulation, which is one of the practices of emptiness. Taking away articulation is a practice of emptiness. The term tabula rasa is sometimes used to mean really a blank slate. And it's used to say a baby is born with no preconceived ideas, etc. But the term tabula rasa is more sophisticated than that because it actually means an erased slate.

[07:08]

So we're not just seeing the world through an empty slate, we're looking at it from an erased slate. Also betrachten wir die Welt nicht einfach von einer leeren Tafel, sondern von einer Tafel, wo alles weggewischt wurde. And for most of us, much of our culture is like a Cy Twombly painting is in the background of our thinking. And for most of us, in our culture, like in a painting by C. Tombly, this is the background of our thinking. C. Tombly did these huge paintings that look like blackboards with sort of something erased from eighth grade from it or something like that.

[08:38]

So now I'm speaking about how to practice with this, I think the best way for us to really notice it is the pace of the body. Yeah, I said last night, what did I say? the imba... The immediacy, you said.

[09:40]

Yeah. It's a beast and a beauty. Yeah, well, I said that. That's what he remembered, yeah. I said that unbounded immediacy is... can't be other than what it is. Okay, so if I say something like that, it's not entirely clear what it means. It's the best way I can say it, but I also know the best way I can say it is not clear. So the best way to practice with these kind of phrases, which are koan-like phrases too, is to, you know, sort of... Just keep looking at it.

[11:01]

Or I also said somewhere in one of the Taishos, stillness is the absence of differentiation and the absence of time. For me that can be a Dharma door into fundamental stillness. But then you have to kind of like, what is the absence of differentiation, absence of time, or that? And if you want to take seriously what I'm saying and imagine maybe he's saying something useful, Und wenn du das ernst nehmen möchtest, was ich sage, und dir vielleicht sogar vorstellst, dass das, was der da sagt, vielleicht nützlich sein könnte.

[12:19]

Then you've got to start noticing your experiences when there is an absence of differentiation or less a sense of time. And then I also presented you with Changsha's statement. The entire universe is your eye. The entire universe is your complete body. The entire universe is your luminescence or luminous. And the entire universe is within your luminescence. Now, this statement is very close to many that Dogen Zenji has said.

[13:30]

Now, as practitioners and adventurers in the Dharma, how do you explore such a thing? Now, I said... when I mentioned this a few days ago, that you take something you feel some relationship to. So I would start with the entire universe is my complete body. Because I can imagine bringing that phrase into my sensate bodily units of appearance. Now, there's no way, even if I knew contemporary Chinese, there's no way I can know what the characters would feel like to a contemporary of Changsha.

[14:51]

Because words are just the surface of a context of filaments and associations. Like we can say the Chinese word and words for pilgrimage is to notice micro breezes and what they call up in you. So wie wir sagen könnten, dass in dem chinesischen Wort für Pilgerschaft es bedeutet, auch die Mikrowinde zu bemerken und die Art, wie sie in dir gegenwärtig sind. Or that Hishirio should really, it's clumsily translated as non-thinking.

[16:04]

Accurately enough, but clumsily. Experientially, or for practice, best translated, I think, is noticing without thinking about. And that, when you explore it, leads into the dynamic of a non-conceptual modality of mind being what is meant by Shikantaza. And since everything's an activity, everything's doing something, even if you're not doing it, a non-conceptual modality of mind is doing something. What is it doing? No, I'm going into this kind of detail because I don't want you to just follow Buddhism like some faith or revealed teaching.

[17:22]

And I go into this kind of detail because I don't want you to just follow Buddhism as if it is a belief or an open teaching. Buddhism will survive multi-generationally if we recreate it in ourselves. So for me, JQ here, Johanneshof Quellenweg, is a recreation center. Okay. Sometimes I feel like if you watch the Rolling Stones or Ali Akbar Khan or somebody, they turn to somebody and they say, well, you do a riff on the drums for a while.

[18:45]

I sort of feel something like that. Turn to you and say, okay, take off on your horn or your drum. Maybe I should get you a little drum and stuff like that. Yes. Oh, dear. No, I said the wrong thing. Okay. So if I try to practice with the entire universe is the complete body. And I have to work with the English words because that's all I really got. But I feel something in them, as concepts at least, each word. And you have to, and if you're going to do this at a pace of each unit, then the is the first unit.

[19:45]

And if you do something with the tempo of every single unit, then that is the first unit. Wonderful David Chadwick has done a whole book called self-published, that's the only way it would ever get published, called The. Der wunderbare David Chadwick hat ein ganzes Buch geschrieben, in dem nur das steht, und das hat er selbst veröffentlicht. Das ist die einzige Art, wie man sowas veröffentlichen kann. And it's many pages of many paragraphs thus. Und das sind viele Seiten, voll von vielen Paragraphen, in denen einfach nur das steht. Das, das, das, das, das. But the is related to thus and this and that. And so just the, just this, just thus. And we say the the pastor or the pasta or things like that. But we also say the chef or the, this is the doctor.

[21:07]

Okay. Yeah, this is English. We use it as an emphasis here. So, I mean, the is a sense of location. Incomparable location. And if you don't know or are not interested in the etymology of words, still the etymology is working in you whether you know it or not. And entire means something like beyond what you can touch is also complete. So the entire universe, universe we can say world or everything, I don't know.

[22:23]

allness is your complete body you have a problem with your but yeah and complete means to fill up to finish similar to entire but different Now, so I decided to work with this phrase, which I've worked with phrases of Dillgen's like this often. I would probably reduce the entire universe as your complete body to completing or completeness. And I would know in imaginal space that completeness is something that's possible even in a world of indeterminacy.

[23:48]

So I'd put on every touch, every step, every breath, as much as possible. And if I forgot about it, I wouldn't care. And then when I remembered, I'd come back to it. Completing, completeness, completing. And if you, I find if I do this, and some people I've discovered over the years just can't, don't seem to be able to use phrases in this way. But it goes back, for me, to the first series of lectures Suki Rishi did in the 61 or so was every week he lectured on the Blue Cliff Records, Higin-en-Roku. Each he did 100 cases. So at first I had to find ways to work with these phrases.

[25:22]

And I find it extremely powerful to interject, inject, into one's bodily moments, a phrase like completeness or, oh, there's no completeness. Now there's more completeness, you know, some kind of experience of each bodily movement as an appearance. And I find it extremely powerful to integrate such an exercise, such a word, into individual physical movements or into the activity, such a word, [...] such a word

[26:35]

Okay, now it does interest me also, does art really anticipate cultural changes? Yeah, I think that's most often when applied a cultural romantic myth. But it does seem in some basic sense to very often be true. Then, you know, in the Middle Ages and up until fairly recently, in fact, the highest form of painting was religious painting. And the next level were portraits. And that had to do too with where the market was. The market was the church and the market was the aristocracy. And then they started painting landscapes, but it was considered lower.

[27:48]

And then objects were considered the lowest things to paint. And artists in England and France who were gifted at painting just objects were kind of criticized by their teachers. And also there was no market for doing it. But sometimes they persisted. Yeah, and I'm talking about this not to say something about art or culture or something, so much as to say we are engaged, all of us, in a mutual process that's been going on for a century or two. Yeah.

[28:52]

And we're the first generation to really apply Indian and Chinese Buddhist thinking to how we are alive, how we see and look. And we are the first generation that really uses Indian and Chinese Buddhist thinking on how we perceive, how we see the world. And, yeah. Linji was born, no, Linji died in 866. And he was one of the most radical and experimental of our Zen ancestors. And that was a long time ago, 866.

[29:53]

I mean, not really very long ago. I'm 100. No, no, I'm not 100. But I'm getting close to a century. your mother is what 93 oh she's you know she told me the other day that she's still not the oldest who went to the solemn school and so she feels she hasn't quite reached the top yet But as I often say, you know, I'm familiar, will be familiar with a 250-year unit from my great-grandparents and those and you who will live that longer. Or let's say 200-year units.

[30:58]

It's not such a big deal, 200 years. Ten of those bringing back to Christ. Twelve and a half of those bring you back to Buddha. It really wasn't long ago. Anyway, we're starting to look at things the way they did. In those centuries. And it's interesting how Chinese poetry rings true to us, while poetry from Europe in the 9th century probably is kind of obscure. So the word for still life in French is nature mort or something like that, dead life.

[32:08]

In English, it's still life. And I think in Dutch it's stilled life, slowed down stilled life. But as a kid, you know, we had reproductions of Cezanne and stuff like that around. Yeah, and I always wondered, why are they painting these apples and oranges? They've got something better to do. I can see them right here on my table. And I at some point realized they were giving life to still life. It was instilled life.

[33:39]

Okay. Now, I don't know, I'm running out of time. I'll go on a little while, and if your legs start hurting too much, scream and leave. I don't love it when somebody screams and laughs. Half the room screams and leaves. Oh, dear. Okay. So the painting, trying to give life, looking at things, objects, as having a life that wasn't created by someone else somewhere else, having a life and they're created by themselves and we use them. Also diese Idee, dass Objekte so gemalt werden, das zum Ausdruck bringt, dass sie aus sich selbst heraus Leben haben, dass sie sich selbst Leben verleihen, nicht dass ihnen irgendwie Leben von außerhalb gegeben wurde.

[34:48]

So the still lives of Picasso and Braque and Gris and others all have activity in it. There's a knife or a piece of cheese or something's knocked over and so forth. And trying to look carefully at things and how they're created led to Cubism. And how things are created from the inside out, not the outside in. And Picasso's amazing painting, Les Demoiselles, and Picasso's amazing painting Les Demoiselles.

[35:55]

He did, from 1906 to 1908, hundreds and hundreds of drawings for it. More drawings than anybody's ever done for a painting, supposedly. And he was also influenced by contemporary science and Einstein and space and all that stuff. So he kept trying to explore how this group of women, supposedly from a bordello, appeared through and from themselves. Und so hat er versucht zu erforschen, wie diese Gruppe von Frauen, es wird angenommen, dass die aus Bordellen kamen, wie diese Gruppe von Frauen, how they were, existed, were created from within themselves.

[37:05]

Wie sie aus sich selbst heraus geschaffen waren. How could he paint their own interiority? Wie kann er deren eigene Innerlichkeit malen? Yeah. Anyway, so he tried to, you know, weave time and sequence or space and sequence together. And a variety of perspectives kind of coming together all at once. So it's worth taking some time to look at such a painting if you're interested in feeling for such things. Now, this is all a commentary on Linji's statement. Sometimes I take away the person and leave the surroundings. Sometimes I take away the surroundings and leave the person. Sometimes I take away both.

[38:26]

And sometimes I take away neither, and this would also parallel the Nirmanakaya, Buddha, Dharmakaya, etc. Now again, if you want to practice with something like this, and I'm assuming you all do, you can't just think it. You have to actually explore in your bodily experience until you experience it. The yogic practitioner is only in a world of bodily experience. Thoughts have a bodily presence. It's the first time I... really got that was simultaneous with my starting to practice Suzuki Roshi.

[39:36]

I was at a seminar with Charlotte Selver and Alan Watts. And Charlotte Selver was sitting somewhere like over there at the Shakyamuni Buddha. And I was sitting a little closer than that, but something like that. And she asked us to close our eyes. And then she just said the word, Baloo. And I felt it come across the room and hit us and the others like a wave hitting us. And she clearly said, if someone else had said it, it wouldn't have happened.

[40:39]

Und es war eindeutig, dass das ihre bestimmte Art war. Wenn wer anders das so gesagt hätte, dann wäre das nicht passiert. Sie hat es eindeutig mit einer vollständigen Körperhaftigkeit dieses Wortes blau gesagt. Und ich habe dieses verkörperte Wort gespürt. And in Zen, these are called live words or dead words. And when you know this feeling, you can even sort of bring dead words a bit alive by physicalizing them yourself. Now, I hope I'm not getting too far out or too far in or somewhere. I hope I'm making sense in this practice we share together.

[41:59]

So, Linji is doing something with his statement, sometimes I take away the surroundings and sometimes the person, etc., and sometimes neither. And he was doing something similar to what Picasso has done with Les Demoiselles. Now, you don't have to do hundreds of drawings, you know, for two or three years. But practicing with Linji's statement is something like that. You explore, can I really take the person out of the surroundings and just see lines and shapes? And what makes some lines and shapes stand out as an entity or a person or an object and when is it just a surroundings?

[43:02]

And you can get pretty good at taking away Sran, taking away the person, taking away neither, taking away etc., And it helps us feel the creative space we all exist in. You know, we have a website in Creston and a website here. Holger designed both of them, pretty much. I've said I wish we wouldn't take photographs of entities. And I said, I wish we wouldn't take photos of entities.

[44:20]

If we're going to emphasize everything is an activity, let's take photographs of activities and not entities. Let's walk our talk on the website. If we're going to emphasize everything is an activity, let's take photographs of activities and not things or entities. And let's do what we say we're doing on the website. So I see on the Creston website they're trying to follow my advice. So some pictures are of the Zendo. I know what that is, the Zendo. And some pictures are an obscure relationship between several buildings. And you look and you say, what the hell is that on the website for? And I'm like, oh, they're trying to take pictures of relationships and not entities. Thank you very much. Mary Ann's doubts exist in the same way as life and death.

[45:34]

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