It's the first time I remember being in the middle of a... being in a zendo, in the middle of a traffic jam. But it probably happened last year, but I don't remember. Um... Now I asked you to study, to observe the three ceremonies we did. And by implication I asked you to examine it, study it, in the context of young men's saying, the world is vast and wide. Implicit bin ich auch davon ausgegangen, dass ihr diese drei Zeremonien untersucht, studiert, im Zusammenhang von Jan Mintz' Ausspruch, die Welt ist unermesslich groß und weit.

[01:13]

Yeah, and so why do you don your Seven Joe robe at the sound of the bell? Don? Don means to put on. He donned his clothes. Yeah. And of course, we just chanted now. So what are these particulars by which we structure our life? And in this case, structure our life together as a practice period. Why do we offer food to the Buddha before our meals.

[02:18]

Well, before two of our meals, but not a third, this evening meal. And then all the bowing to each other and the cushions and the couches and the stars. If you bowed to all the stars, you'd have quite a job. I'm halfway through the galaxy. Yeah. And then we had these three ceremonies. The ordination ceremony. The renewing and confirming ceremony of our practice in the Ryaku Fusats.

[03:21]

And then the Shuso entering ceremony. So we're doing these things and it's good just to accept them. It's the way the practice period is. Wir tun diese Dinge und es ist gut, das einfach zu akzeptieren. So ist die Praxisperiode. But it is the structure of our practice period in our life right now. No, I don't think we should think about it too much as I like or dislike it or something. Ich glaube, wir sollten darüber nicht so sehr nachdenken im Sinne von, ob wir das mögen oder nicht mögen. But rather, right now this is what we're doing. And of course there will be if the practice period ever ends.

[04:23]

Sometimes they never end. But it's assuming it probably will end for some of us at least. Then how does the practice period structure relate to my usual structure of living? And I'm afraid that some people felt when I, in the last tea show, Why is he talking so endlessly about getting up and feeling sick and going back to bed and coming to Zen? Oh, gosh. And maybe it did go on a little too long. I'm sorry. But I wanted to segue right into from

[05:24]

just you're doing your daily life, even like getting up and deciding if you can go to Zazen, right into a koan. Segway? Follow directly into segways. Okay. But I wanted to follow directly into the application of a koan, where you get up and get dressed and go to the Zen. From there I wanted to follow directly into the application of a koan. I mean, for example, our ceremonies always segue right into cake eating. Okay, so just go on, you know, as I presented it the other day. presumes a certain pace or experiential space of the yogi, of the adept practitioner.

[06:43]

So it's asking, what is do we do in this world of this vast wide world? Yeah, I mean the inseparability of the vastness and the particular. And it is a kind of parallel in a way to the Shushan and Dijan in the 12th Shoyaroku koan.

[07:46]

Shushan and Dijan. Yeah, where Dijan says, well, how does that compare to me planting rice to eat here and here? And Xu Shan said, well, then what do we do about the world? The world right now is falling into flooding and overheating. Yeah, and what do we do about this world? And Ti Chang? responds very succinctly.

[08:57]

Precisely succinctly. And astutely. Intelligently. You know, there's a word for it. Oh yeah, well that's good. I can't think of it. Also genauer jedenfalls. Well, Xu Shan, Xu Shan, what do you call the world? So Di Jiang says, well, yeah, what do we do about the world? What world are you seeking about? What do we call the world? Yeah, and early Buddhism has the Buddha saying the five physical senses are all of the world. And in this koan of young men and women, the world is vast and wide.

[10:17]

The emphasis is not so much how are you defining the world, but in the sense of what do you call it. This is how do you define the world through what you do. Yeah, yeah. Fundamentally, they're very similar, but they lead into different ways of looking at things. So, as I said, this koan of young men assumes a certain... pace and space, contextual space of the adept practitioner.

[11:18]

And what is this contextual space? I mean, here he establishes, first of all, vast and wide, So as I said last time, the adept practitioner feels this vastness and wideness. And not just intellectually, conceptually, through zazen you begin to feel this boundaryless space as your body itself boundaries disappear. Everything is here, near, intimate and not reachable.

[12:28]

And then there's the sound of the bell. the space of hearing. And the Shuram Gama Sutra emphasizes hearing as the sense most open to the experience of non-duality and enlightenment. All good things. I don't know what I said. I didn't even pay attention.

[13:50]

Terrible. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, I mean, there's no question that young men would know the Shurangama Sutra, and so this has to be a reference to that practice. But even if it's not a reference or, you know, whatever, who cares? If you're a regular sitter, you begin to notice the difference between hearing usually and hearing when you're sitting regularly. And when you sit regularly, you begin to notice this difference between hearing as it normally is and hearing when you sit often.

[15:10]

And what I have often mentioned is this hearing-hearing. And I think the Shri Ramakrishna Sutra talks about entering the stream of the self nature of hearing. Entering the stream of the self nature of hearing. I don't know what is originally translated, but the self-nature of hearing would be really to hear hearing itself. And this is one of the treasures and fruits of Zazen practice, which you probably wouldn't notice if you didn't do Zazen. And one of the questions that's always buzzing in me

[16:27]

Is there a way to do this Buddhism, to do Zen without Zazen? Some sort of morally, conceptually, I'd sort of like to be able to say yes. But I'm afraid I really think that without Zazen, regular Zazen practice, Zen doesn't reach us, doesn't hold together. So if you hear, as I'm often pointing out, a bird, or an airplane, and then a consciousness arises, which we can call hearing consciousness.

[17:44]

But it arises in you through an object of perception. And that's essentially an experience of duality. But when the song of the bird arises, when hearing, your own hearing arises through the song of the bird, now part of being an adept practitioner is to notice an experience like this and then really notice the consequences of an experience like this.

[18:45]

The potential consequences and its difference from our usual way of hearing. die potenziellen Konsequenzen und die Unterschiede zu unserer gewöhnlichen Art zu hören. Because, again, the source, when you hear the bird, the source is outside you. But when the hearing arises within your own hearing, the source is yourself. And when the source is yourself, this is close to non-dual experience. So you can begin to develop this epiphany This insight, or this noticing, which can be an epiphany.

[20:00]

Um, uh, is then also a big time Dharma door. Carried more and more, the feeling carried more into all your activity, it becomes a door, a non-dual door. Dogen says, the host within the host and the host within the host Dogen sagt, der Gastgeber im Gastgeber und der Gastgeber im Gastgeber.

[21:14]

And he repeats it twice. Und der wiederholt es zweimal. What is the host within the host? Was ist der Gastgeber im Gastgeber? Okay, well. Why does it have to, my watch have to turn the hands? Ich muss meine Uhr, die Zeiger weiter tippen lassen. Okay. Because, you know, the problem is, you know, any one of these things I speak about leads in several directions at once. So this is the basic idea of host and guest. which parallels the idea of don't invite your thoughts to tea. And otherwise, don't derive, don't... Invite your discursive thoughts which arise from outside perceptions.

[22:35]

Or assume an outside world. Don't invite those thoughts to tea. So the mind which doesn't invite the thoughts to tea is the host. And the thoughts which assume an outside world are the guest. So a simple instruction like don't invite your thoughts to tea. Again, when you feel the consequence of it, you begin to feel the host within the host. You begin to feel the possibility of a... a non-dual beingness.

[23:49]

So that would be the host within the host. Das wäre der Gastgeber im Gastgeber. And that would be hearing, hearing. Und das wäre auch das Hören, hören. And that would be also, as I've been saying, no outside. Und das wäre auch, so wie ich das gesagt habe, kein Außen. No universal time and space. It's all an inside. Keine universelle, kein universeller Raum, keine universelle Zeit, sondern alles ist im Innern. Even the guest discursive outside assuming thoughts are really not outside, they're also inside.

[24:52]

So the host within the host emphasizes your own non-dual experience. Or we can say, no outside, it's all inside. And when Dogen says a second time, the host within the host and the host within the host, He means there's no phenomenal world outside also. Now this is a good example of something, you know, you have a Zen teaching, you know, you're a solo practitioner without a song.

[26:03]

I remember when I was in Thailand once, I was at the airport and I had kind of Samoyed on and I had a shaved head and some young woman, I don't know how old, you know, sort of 25 or 22 or 23 or something, I remember when I was in Thailand at the airport, I had a samurai on and a shaved head and there was a young woman, I don't remember how old, maybe 25 or so. A rather middle class dressed young woman. I thought I looked extremely peculiar. And she said, you know, are you a Buddhist? And I said, yeah, I guess so. And she said, well, what's your temple? And at this point, at that point, I wasn't affiliated with any particular temple.

[27:14]

And she could not believe I was a Buddhist. She said, you can only be a Buddhist if you have a temple or you are a particular school of Buddhism, etc. I said, well, I used to be part of a temple, but I'm not no more than you. It was interesting. So, with that anecdote, I forgot why I was talking about solo Buddhists. Because of Dogen's host. Oh yeah, host, within the host. So this phrase, without a sangha or explication or teacher, wouldn't make any sense to a practitioner.

[28:19]

If you said to somebody, well, our practice is the host within the host and the host within the host. Okay, fine. What else is new? And if you don't see the relationship between don't invite your thoughts to tea and all that stuff and host and guest, it doesn't make any sense. Okay. Now when I when I usually speak about the eight Vijnanas you know for most all Buddhist schools and there's six Vijnanas And they are common to all human beings. You have the six, the five physical senses and mind.

[29:31]

Die sind auch allen menschlichen Wesen gemein. Es gibt die fünf körperlichen Sinne und Geist. And sometimes they're called the six perceptual vijnanas. Und die werden auch manchmal die sechs wahrnehmungsvijnanas genannt. But Yogacara Zen adds two more vijnanas to make eight. Aber das Yogacara Zen fügt dem zwei weitere vijnanas hinzu, sodass das dann acht sind. To inferential vijnanas. Okay. Now when I've taught, tried to teach the vijnanas in the past, I've emphasized noticing the five physical senses. and noticing each one independently of the other four, and notice how there's a degree of mentation or mental activity that accompanies each of the five physical senses.

[30:53]

Now the command or recommendation to know oneself, to know thyself, means also in Buddhism to know each sense modality And notice each one separately. So you feel when a hearing consciousness arises in contrast to a visual consciousness.

[31:55]

And you become something of an expert, like somebody who plays in a quartet or a an ensemble of some kind. The difference between the cello and the violin, etc. And here you get to know the difference between the consciousness that arises through the visual sense And the consciousness which arises through the hearing sense. And so forth. And then you see how you can put them together or take them apart. And it's a fairly easy experiment to do to find a particular way to do it. Look at a tree in the wind.

[32:57]

But emphasize hearing the tree, the leaves moving and so forth. And then take the hearing away and then just look at it visually. And then see if you can go back and forth between emphasizing hearing, emphasizing seeing, and then bringing them together. And my own experience is, when I bring them together, I visually see leaves more precisely, for example, when I hear them as well as see them. Now, this kind of experimentation can be done with all the five physical senses and bring in the mental sense.

[33:59]

And these are usually translated, or virtually always, as the five consciousnesses, five vijnanas as consciousness. And the word vijnana I take to mean to know things separately, together. You know things together best when you know things separately. So the practice of the Vajjanas is to know things separately together. As I said, this is usually translated as the five physical consciousnesses.

[35:15]

But I might want to translate it or suggest that we call it the five physical awarenesses. Like you might feel the scent of a room, the fragrance of a room. The wood or the oil on the ceiling in our entry room. And you might just be aware of it without thinking about it. And if you're not thinking about it outside you, then you're just arising in your own senses. We could say it's an awareness of scent and not a consciousness of scent.

[36:25]

And when we begin to make that distinction and move more from the five consciousnesses into the five awarenesses, then we're moving more into a simultaneously non-dual world. with less experience of an outside. Now, what I really wanted to speak about during this day show is that I'd actually like to call this the five physical awarenesses of five physical spaces.

[37:48]

And maybe even the five or the six physical spaces considering mentation in this case a space. But this is the eighth Teisho, I believe. And unless we start the ninth Teisho right now, I should stop. So this is now an introduction to the sixth Teisho. then is das jetzt eine Einführung in die sechs Vijnana Räume. Which is Koan 16 of the Mumonkan assumes. Von denen das Koan 16 im Mumonkan ausgeht. Okay.

[38:50]

Right. May God bless you and your family.

[39:02]

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