I got a call from Colorado that you were in a stow in Germany and you didn't make it. No, this didn't happen in the old days. Old days being Chinese, Buddhism, etc. Yeah. And I appreciate the practice period participants for giving up your, I'm very sorry, giving up your lazy eve. And if you all fall asleep, well, not the practice period, you fall asleep, I'll forgive you. Okay.

[01:02]

And it's wonderful for me that practice period has, seems to, and this is only the third practice period, has really become a part of our practice life. I led the first two practice periods here, sort of to get things started. Yeah. And my effort in the first two practice periods was to really, as much as possible, give the first priority to the integrity of the practice period.

[02:04]

But my experience this practice period and with how Ryuten Roshi is leading the practice period is that practice period, I think, is established as part of our life here and part of our schedule here. And so now I feel a certain confidence in letting the Sangha, larger, wider lay Sangha practice to some extent fold it in, join into the practice period.

[03:12]

Of course, all of these things, what we're doing is, for me, I'm very clear we should do it, but simultaneously it's an experiment. So it's an experiment to see how this works. And the sashin allows us to fold lay practice into the practice period. I mean, sometimes any one of us may be doing monastic practice, or we may be doing primarily lay practice. And we are developing, pioneering along with others, some interplay between monastic practice and lay practice.

[04:16]

Now, transmission, the formal transmission ceremony, in a sense, transmission begins when you start to practice with commitment. And the study of how we continue the teaching continues until you die. But the formal transmission ceremony begins when your teacher decides, yeah, you're likely to realize the teachings in your own life.

[05:46]

Aber die formelle Übertragungszeremonie beginnt, wenn dein Lehrer entscheidet, dass du wahrscheinlich in der Lage sein wirst, die Lehren in deinem Leben zu verwirklichen. And it's also when your teacher recognizes that your practice is inseparable from practicing with others. Others practice has the same value as your own practice. And when you really feel that, there's no question about it, this is a big step in practice, and the first big step that's real, you can't think your way to it, that leads into transmission teachings.

[07:02]

And when you really feel that, when there is no doubt, no question for you, and that is a big step in your practice and it is the first step in the direction of transmission. I'm mentioning this because what I'm involved in now, what my life is now, is how we're going to continue the teachings. Yeah, I mean, you've heard me say this a lot, but that's the way it is. We talk about food a lot, too. Yeah, and we still eat. Yeah. So, transmission is really about how you continue, how we continue the teachings.

[08:15]

And the challenge is how to discover how to do that in the West. And how to do that with a primarily, basically lay Sangha. And the challenge of that is many-folded. Okay. Now, formal transmission divides the world up or divides how you continue the practice into three dimensions or three folds, we could say. One is how you fold yourself, your practice into the mind and practice of your teacher.

[09:22]

And if the teacher is a good teacher, you're not just folding yourself into him or her as a person, but into how somehow, in the midst of everything, beyond personality, the teaching continues. And if the teacher is a good teacher, then you don't just fall into him or her as a personality or as a person, but also into the question of how the teaching is carried on. Yes, and somehow this move is a folding into our lineage practice. that's before us and is now reopening before us. So that's the first fold, let's say, of continuing the teachings. Through mutual realization, which affects you in such a way that when you look back at a teacher from hundreds of years ago, you feel, ah, yes, I can be inside that practice of that person.

[11:13]

And the koans try to give us that opportunity. One of the most, I mean, the koans, you know, I spend a lot of time in the literature of Asia, Europe, and so forth, and the Cullens are just extraordinary examples of literature. Also ich verbringe ziemlich viel Zeit mit asiatischer und europäischer und so weiter, mit Literatur. Und die Koans sind wirklich ein außergewöhnliches Beispiel für Literatur. Okay, so that's the first fold, first dimension that's emphasized. Das ist die erste Faltung oder die erste Dimension, die betont wird. The second is you fold yourself, you fold your practice in the moment into the present Sangha.

[12:18]

Und die zweite ist, dass du deine Praxis im Augenblick, im Moment, in die gegenwärtige Sangha hineinfaltest. Whatever your Sangha is, you're not waiting for an ideal Sangha, you're just the Sangha that's somehow chosen itself to practice with you. Now, there may be differences between people, but basically each person is somehow, as Ryuten Roshi said the other day, a Buddha. And of course there are differences between individuals, but still every person, like Ryuten Roshi said a few days ago, is somehow a Buddha. As I've often said, we are multi-generational beings, you know, grandparents, parents, etc., instantiated in your singular individuality.

[13:29]

I mean, I don't exactly see your grandparents, great-grandparents and so forth, But in fact, you are the manifestation of them right now. Yeah, and also we are somehow the manifestation, we're multiple beings within our own generation. And when you bow to your companion in practice, you are bowing to yourself. And if you don't feel that you're a step or two away from the path okay yeah as usual I always thought I had about five minutes to say and already be patient don't go asleep yet

[15:09]

Okay, the third fold. The third fold is the world itself. The world itself, how the world itself continues the teaching. Now this means everything from mudras or the posture of zazen bowing or the gestic from gesture, gestic the gestic Acknowledgement of appearance.

[16:26]

Which means as a practice, if we're going to go there, and we are going there, that you really develop the craft, the skill of finding yourself in a flow of individual appearances. And if you want only one practice, because I offer too many things, somebody said I'm building a cathedral, three things every lecture you're supposed to do. I won't tell you who said that. If you want only one practice, take this one. Find yourself in the midst of a succession of appearances. If you want only one practice, take this one. If you're practicing the Dharma, that is practicing the Dharma.

[18:04]

If you're not there, you're not quite, you don't have both feet yet on the path. So just as a concert hall helps is a necessary part of continuing classical music. A zendo and the kind of facilities we have here are a kind of concentration hall. No, that doesn't sound right. You can't say that. A kind of place where we can concentrate in an inner and outer way. And the materiality, the physicality of our practice Und die Materie, die Körperlichkeit unserer Praxis.

[19:21]

Deine Haltung. Deine Gestik. Das ist die dritte Faltung der Lehren in der Übertragung. socially and environmentally responsible administrative practices. It's how we take care of the things of the world. And it includes the gardens. And really bird song at first light.

[20:21]

For feng shui and geomancy and so forth are not just about adjusting yourself to nature, so-called nature, but letting so-called nature come into your life. So how you create a place for practice, an inner and outer place for practice, is the third fold of how practice is continued. Now let me speak about how we fold ourselves into the world. The first step is to know know, know, experience everything changing.

[21:38]

Now I invited a number of people, I don't know, some people in the practice period and some people not in the practice period to join me for what what I did 10 or 15 years ago, what I called the Dharma Wheel. Yeah, if my work right now, my life right now is how to continue practically and these two centers. I need help. So I'm trying to find ways that you can help me and I can help you. So I'm suggesting we create something like Sangha Councils, which I'm not going to speak about now.

[22:54]

But I want to experiment with this Dharma Wheel gathering. I know I want to do this. I know I should even have to do this. But I really don't know what I'm going to do. As usual, actually. First of all, the fact of getting us together this evening and tomorrow and Sunday morning, whoever can come. I want to explore together what we can do. How we can maybe become clear about the basic Dharma Sangha practices. And then, by infolding them in the Dharma wheel group, we can maybe outfold them into the whole of the Sangha.

[24:20]

As a way in a lay monastic practice continuing the teaching. Could be worse. So with the Dharma Wheel group and with all of us in other venues I want to go back to our most basic teachings. And look at how those basic teachings evolved.

[25:25]

A specialty of lay practice has to be that a basic teaching evolves through your living that teaching in your lay life. I lost you. Okay. There's monastic teachings. And monastic teachings depend on a teacher and depend on other teachings that are brought into your practice. Gosh, I lost you again. Well, it's too hard to understand. It's really not. No, I don't know what's happening. Thank you. Very good. I know when I don't understand something, I read a book and I... I'm not saying, of course you didn't understand. As I read a book and I get to a certain point and I fall asleep. I'm not good at reading horizontally anyway.

[26:26]

But sometimes I try. Yeah, it'd be nice to read some kind of... great thought before I go to sleep. But I find I go back and I start over again and then I fall asleep with the same great thought. And it's clear I've fallen asleep because I don't understand the great thought. Okay, monastic practice, I mean ideally transmission is months and years together, face to face. How are we going to do that in a lay situation?

[27:28]

And because you're living together for, you know, There's lots of opportunity to see when a missing piece could be another teaching and you bring it in. So it's a teaching skill, a practice skill to notice when there's a missing piece. And it is a practice ability to notice when there is a missing piece. So lay practitioners can use Sashin, Doksan and so forth. As much as possible.

[28:29]

And lay practitioners can use Sashin and Doksan and... What else? Sashin, Doksan and... Yeah, okay. Yeah, as much as possible. Okay. But the ideal lay practice is once you've got it down or once you've realized it or basically understand it and can apply it. The first step in any teaching is to know it. Der erste Schritt in jeder Lehre ist, es zu wissen. The second step is to apply it. Der zweite Schritt ist, es anzuwenden. Now, a teaching within a lay sangha that are most effective don't have to be applied in the monastery. They can be applied in your ordinary circumstances. And then they evolve through your ordinary circumstances.

[29:34]

And if you really have an attentionally evolved practice, You don't so much have to go back to the teacher or the monastery or something to find out what the next step is because the next step keeps unfolding from your life. Okay, since we don't have, you know, all night. No, it's, you know, I was very amused, even thrilled, to find out Dogen sometimes gave talks at 2 a.m. You know, if you don't have lights and things, what do you do when it's dark?

[30:41]

You go to sleep, but you can't sleep for all those hours that it's dark, particularly in the winter. So Dogen would get everybody up at 2 a.m. and let's have a little Dharma in the kitchen. I haven't tried that yet. And I haven't asked the Tenzo permission. So I said, the most basic teaching, let me say there's maybe two companion basic teachings. The root teaching is acceptance.

[31:44]

If you can't accept what appears, you're in trouble. You might as well live in a different century or something. So maybe the first practice is acceptance. Okay. Now, I'm sorry to say, but one of the secrets of practice is 100%. Practice which is 90%? Well, 10% allows the whole world to come in. So your intention has to be 100%.

[32:45]

In every appearance, in every situation, your first response, natural response, is acceptance. In jeder Situation, in allen Umständen ist deine erste natürliche Reaktion darauf akzeptant. Of course, your second response might be, oh my God, this is horrible. Deine zweite Reaktion darauf kann natürlich sein, oh je, das ist schrecklich. The plane is crashing. Das Flugzeug stürzt. But if you're in the plane, you can't do too much about it. Better accept it. You might. Your calmness might help the people around you. So at least our intention ought to be 100% everything that appears, I think of, etc., I accept. And then your practice is to notice when you don't accept it.

[34:03]

And then your practice is to investigate why you didn't accept it, how you didn't accept it. So the intention to practice 100% acceptance allows you to investigate when it doesn't happen. And that's the craft of practice. Like, yeah, enough. Okay, the other basic teaching, philosophical basic teaching, is everything changes. But everything changes as a concept.

[35:15]

How do you practice everything changes? How do you practice a concept? Well, I mean, I think in English and in Deutsch, we are stuck sometimes with practicing a concept. And we might as well start with the concept. If that's what the teaching is, we have to start somewhere. Okay, so then we have to have a feeling for language or for words, the physical dimension of words. So if the words are just mental formations, they don't work in practice. Okay. So we have... Like I've often said to you, say to yourself, I'm sorry, in English, who am I?

[36:36]

Okay, now take the word who away and put in another W word, what am I? Jetzt nimmt das Wort wer weg und ersetzt es durch ein anderes Wort mit we, nämlich was bin ich. When you respond to your internal question, who am I, what am I, it's different. Wenn ihr auf eure innere Frage, wer bin ich oder was bin ich, antwortet, dann seht ihr, dass das unterschiedlich ist. And it's different because the word what has changed. if you use it regularly in English, it has captured its meaning in its physical sound. So maybe one of the things we can talk about in the Dharma Wheel is how to Be sensitive to the physical dimensions of language.

[37:56]

I can say jump for joy. Yeah. It's fairly, you know, it's like directions in a theater. At this point, the actors jump for joy. But, you know, it doesn't incubate very well. If you try to practice jumping for joy, you'll get tired after a while. So how could you practice non-referential joy? No, that's a concept that doesn't lend itself to practice so easily. Okay, so I think one of the things we should speak about in the Dharma Wheel is how to transform a concept into something you can practice.

[39:37]

And I think one of the things we should talk about in the Dharma Wheel is the question of how to convert a concept into something that can be practiced. Like you can pause for the particular. It's an instruction. Pause for the particular. Okay, now I think I've said about as much as can be absorbed this evening. But I want to, since this may be the only tesho I give during this practice period, I would like to see if I can say a few more sentences. One of the things I'd like the Sangha Councils and the Dharma Wheel to do is to think about whether there's practices Is darüber nachzudenken, ob es Übungen gibt, die wir alle machen können.

[40:57]

I mean, maybe some, the feeling that the whole Sangha is practicing something might have some power. Vielleicht hat dieses Gefühl, dass die ganze Sangha etwas praktiziert, vielleicht hat das Kraft. I about a year ago said something like, you all have spines, usually they're with you. But your attentional spine is not always with you. You have to establish an attentional spine. And all you need is attention and your spine and you got it. And then you have to gestate it, explore it, repeat it. Repeat it in changing circumstances. Okay. And this practice has been brought up to me more often, I didn't expect it, more often than anything else in the last year or so.

[42:23]

Brought up to me in Doksana, I think. So for some reason, it seems obvious to me that we should be doing it, but for some reason to make it really explicit became a general practice for many people. Okay. The most basic view of Buddhism is that everything changes. And maybe we give it a stronger form. And say absolutely everything always changes. How can you bring that into your life?

[43:25]

First you have to investigate it. And make sure that you really believe that and know it. So you have to start trying it with things that you think don't change. Yeah, the stone on your desk. Yeah, but you can move it around on your desk. And if you lick it, it gets shiny. And if you look at it carefully, you see the geology of its change over millennium. And if it stays in your desk for 20 years, In my case, some have been there longer than 20 years.

[44:42]

Somehow not the stone I found 20 years ago. I'm finding it again. Okay, so you have to investigate like that and make sure you really feel that everything is changing. And then you have to work with the concept of staying. Some things stay. They don't change so fast. So let me just speak about One way you can practice with everything changing. If you bring attention to your spine and to the spine mind and to the space that appears through the spine mind

[45:50]

And you do that enough now and then, here and there, etc. Pretty soon I think you'll find your breath and your spine are coordinated. So I suggest you can breathe up your spine. Everything changes. And each appearance you breathe up your spine, everything changes. And then you let that appearance confirm that it's changing. And you are changing. Now, if you find a way that every appearance is appearance that you're that's changing and you're accepting it, knowing it as changing.

[47:26]

You've transformed the membrane between you and the world. The skin of the world is now your skin. Because the fact of the world is that everything is changing. Dogen says, explicitly, to know that everything changes is Buddha nature. To know and experience. And when you experience the world as it actually exists, Everything changing.

[48:33]

Dogen can call it Buddha nature. Because it opens you up to the world in an entirely new way. The membrane between you and the world and the life is jnana and everything that's happening simultaneously. The unexplainable as well as the explainable begins to act within you and through you. And we can call that Buddha nature. Yeah, I didn't really say that. A few things I ought to have said.

[49:42]

How nice to be here in the midst of each of you. Thank you very much. Our intentions are the same in every being and every place.

[50:01]

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