Good afternoon everyone. And I think this is the last Taisho lecture of the practice months before the Sesshin, is that right? Yeah, okay, so this is a Sayonara, Au Wiedersehen lecture. Oh, but next week we'll be doing something. Yeah, so there's several things I thought I should try to speak about. And we'll, yeah, I'll see if it's possible. First, translation itself. I've been reading Ivan Illich again for a while, for some reason or other. And he speaks of the translator as the frontiersman.

[01:03]

who creates the frontier as he crosses it. And he also characterizes the translator as the ferryman who negotiates the muddy waters between languages into the clear water of the other language. Good luck. But as he points out, behind this way of looking at it is that somehow... languages are containers. And the translator is pouring the content of one language into the container of the other language.

[02:18]

And, you know, I guess he says in the 9th century the Catholic monks tried to make German a suitable container for Latin Christian scriptures. So it spent some time fashioning German so that there were vocabulary in German that you could pour Latin scriptures into. So the Benedictine rule could be understood in German. Of course, several Benedictines I know are more Zenedictines than Benedictines. There are some Benedictines that I know who are more Zen-Nedictines than Benedictines.

[03:40]

Now, apart from the fact that Ivan Illich is almost always right, but it is probably true what he says. Because so many people, when they speak to me about this or that German word, they say, oh, that's a Latin German word. And maybe it's part of the reason German speakers say to me sometimes it's hard for them to feel Buddhism in German. Of course, I wouldn't know this. All I can feel is the frontiersmen here. And feel how he's negotiating the frontier. But we have a much more complicated, in a way, problem. We have the Pali container. The Sanskrit container. Pali, not a pail.

[05:03]

No, it's not Pali with P-U-L. Oh, yeah, Pali. And the Chinese container, the Japanese container, the German and English container. And we're pouring back and forth like mad. Yeah, but you know, there's some meaning to they say Zen is a teaching outside the scriptures. So we're more concerned with the liquid being poured than the containers. And the liquid being poured is... The teachings are rooted in our practice of meditation and mindfulness.

[06:05]

I found out very early teaching here in Europe that I couldn't have smart translators. that I couldn't have any smart translators. At least in the early days. Because if the translator was smart, he interpreted what I said. Because he actually couldn't understand what I said. He was too smart. So he couldn't... If you don't practice certain things, you can't get... So I found out that I really had to have translators who already knew what I was talking about.

[07:15]

Then I could start having smart translators. You had to wait for your compliment. Good job, Jürgen. That was a compliment. Because, you know, and I've been practicing with you, how long, 20 years or 15 years? 16. 16, something like that. It goes on forever, doesn't it? Anyway, for 15 years or more we've been practicing together and he already knows what I'm talking about. In fact, if I just kind of move my lips, he can give the lecture. But anyway, that's quite true.

[08:19]

Because for us, the act of a translation is an act of interpretation, so you have to understand what I'm talking about in order to interpret it in the translation. That's good news. And that means you are also the interpreters. Yes, interpreters. You can begin to interpret and, in effect, translate for yourself. Excuse me. You can begin... No, I understood. For us, we don't have this distinction for translator and interpreter. I see, yes. Not quite this... I'm sorry, we'll make it up. Interpreter is also a translator, but one who, let's say, interprets something together.

[09:22]

I'll just explain. You say commentator. You're not just translating. Anyway, each of you through your practice, become able to translate or interpret what I'm talking about. On my call practice, it takes time to incubate. It's not there until you find it in your ongoing activity in your blood. And this, okay. So then let's go again and again to the practice of noticing. First, you know, I'm not talking about noticing this or that particular thing.

[10:33]

I don't care what you notice, actually. I'm interested in the act of noticing. So first, my first sense is for you to... First step in this practice is to notice noticing. To notice the act of noticing. Then you want to perfect the act of noticing. Yeah, or the art of noticing. You want to feel, and you try it out. You try it out. It's sometimes called direct perception. And every now and then, as I say, homeopathic doses.

[11:49]

Yeah, like first thing in the morning you notice the flower on your breakfast table if you're so lucky to have one. So you just notice something a few times a day. And you feel yourself, body and mind, coming into attentiveness or held by the attention. So the noticing is a physical act. As I say, both in English and in German, Achtung is a physical act.

[12:56]

Attention. So you want to feel the physicality of noticing, of bringing attention and being held in that attention. And then you want to feel the subjectiveness of it. Does that make sense? That there's a perceiving mind. So you want to feel the sense organ of the ear. eye, nose or whatever it is. And the object perceived sort of merge. And you feel the kind of presencing of the object and the sense at the same time. So the first step is noticing, noticing.

[14:16]

And the second step is to perfect the act or art of noticing. Yes, so you know it. And then, and so when you do notice something, you can feel this body-mind-object coming together. Okay. And the third is you increase the percentage of noticing in consciousness. So it starts out, maybe it's 5% or 10% of consciousness is noticing. And what monastic life is about in many ways is creating a situation where you can increase this percentage.

[15:35]

So maybe it's 5 or 10 percent, but I'd like to see you all get to... between 51% and 80%. Let's say 60% to 80% of your conscious activity is noticing. Now, this assumes Well, that consciousness is not a container. Yeah, as I said, not an entity. It's an activity. If consciousness is an activity, if you change significantly the activity of consciousness, You change consciousness.

[16:44]

And consciousness is structured through its habits, through its activity. And if you do really notice your own noticing, you'll see that there's very definitely habits, structure in how you notice. And most of that structure is what we call Unenlightenment. Or maybe delusion. Okay. So, if consciousness is structured through its activity, If you change the activity, significantly, of consciousness, you change the structure of consciousness.

[17:58]

It's that simple. Darwin changed the world with such simple So, logic. If animals tend to, things tend to be pretty much the same, generation after generation, things, animals... But through their activity, there are small changes. And because there are small changes rooted in the activity, there's evolution. But it's that simple. Consciousness is an activity. And if you change the activity of consciousness, you change consciousness. Enlightenment experiences, insights may give you the opening to change consciousness.

[19:17]

Maybe even make a shift so consciousness turns around. But all of Buddhism is really not about enlightenment, but about the craft which keeps consciousness turned around or lets it turn around. now I'd like to you know talk about something I spoke about in Berlin I believe the impermanence of the sound of a bell so I brought a prop In this sleeve I have a rabbit.

[20:38]

Or a translator. Oh, that's not a rabbit. Okay, so... If I hit the bell... Off with my sound. Not so good. And it's clear that the sound is impermanent. It fades.

[21:41]

It goes away. It's not going to last. You can't grab it. But if you say the sound is impermanent, It's a kind of untruth. We could say it's a delusion to say that. Why is it a delusion to say that? Because to say the sound is impermanent implies the bell is permanent. Which is not true. The bell is also impermanent. It's just a lot slower in its impermanence. So it's conditionally true. that the bell is permanent and the sound is impermanent.

[22:55]

So it's a conventional truth that the bell is, but we imply, impute that it's permanent. So the technical term for the impermanence of the sound of the bell... Der terminus technicus für diesen Klang, diese Unbeständigkeit der Glocke, um auf diese Unterscheidung jetzt hinzudeuten, führt eben nicht dazu zu sagen, dass der Klang unbeständig ist, sondern dass der Klang die Abwesenheit der Beständigkeit hat. Okay. Because we can also say that the bell has an absence of permanence.

[24:06]

No, I can also say the bell is impermanent. But it's just an idea. But we want to bring into every perception that everything is impermanent. That's what Emily says. There's an absence of permanence here. So, To notice that... Find a way to notice and remind yourself that everything is impermanent. The idea of the absence of permanence is used instead of impermanence.

[25:10]

Because the idea of impermanence always has the contrast of permanence in it. But we can see that the bell sound exhibits, shows us the absence of permanence. So that's one understanding of emptiness. To notice that everything exhibits or you can bring to it

[26:14]

the feeling of its absence of permanence. Yeah, so if you get in the habit, if I... Frank is always here as my exhibit A. Frank is always here as my exhibit A. I look at Frank and I feel the absence of permanence, not so much as when I look in the mirror. Even though his sitting is quite still and he's looking as permanent as you can look. I can't even get a smile. I see an absence of permanence went across his cheeks.

[27:23]

Okay. Now, another sense of the, that the bell is impermanent, or empty rather, Is that the bell is an activity. Not an entity. Just as consciousness is not an entity, it's an activity. So this bell is an activity. It's not a bell unless I can hit it and it makes a sound. As you can see, it could be a teacup. Because I've tried using it that way and it tastes terrible. So it doesn't make a very good teacup. But its use, its activity... It's empty, it's not an entity.

[28:34]

So entitylessness is one way to understand and experience emptiness. And the third aspect I'll mention now is, of course, its subjectiveness, in that we only know it through perception, through mind. So we could say essential practice in Zen is that in your noticing, in the practice of noticing, in developing the art and act of noticing, you also direct that noticing to emptiness.

[29:37]

Not, you know, if I just say emptiness, it's like some kind of philosophy. So let's make it more direct attention to the on each perception to the absence of permanence to the entitylessness of it that it's an activity not a thing. And that it is mind, known through the mind. As far as you're concerned, it's known through the mind. Now, we can also add that it's here through causes and conditions. It's not here through its own power.

[30:56]

Someone made it. Someone conceived of it. Sorry? Someone conceived of it. Someone used it. Yeah, etc. And the bamboo out there, it that it be watered by us or the rain which rains, by the earth, etc. Everything exists through other causes. That's another way to understand emptiness. So in these three or four ways I've suggested you can bring attention to emptiness. Auf diese drei oder vier Arten und Weisen habe ich vorgeschlagen, dass ihr sozusagen auf Leerheit aufmerksam werdet.

[32:00]

Und das ist die grundlegendste und essentiellste Art, Zen zu praktizieren. Nämlich durch die Handlung, durch den Akt des Bemerkens. Yeah, that's enough, don't you think, for today? It's so nice to be here. Maybe I could think of something else to say.

[32:30]

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