Well, since this is the session that commemorates Buddha's enlightenment, and tonight is the night, one of the nights celebrated, in our tradition, the night celebrated as the night he sat and realized enlightenment on the dawn of tomorrow. So I should talk a little bit more about enlightenment. But also I want to talk about our practice of sesshin here. And I know some of you are already making plans to leave tomorrow and entering already today into borrowed consciousness rented consciousness, or at least rented cars.

[01:02]

And sometimes I think we should have eight or nine days of shins, or maybe five days of shins and people have to come for seven. And it's, you know, I'm not speaking so much of my attachment to your staying a little longer, but rather to what Sashin practice is and what Zen practice is. And I think that I am happy to offer you Sashins and I think the community is happy to offer you Sashins. And your coming here and joining us in the practice helps us too. But we're, you know, we're not a conference center and we're not a sashin machine. And you come and enter sashin at one end and get spewed out the other and off you go.

[02:08]

And there's, one of the problems with that is it's a kind of educational model. Like you come here for education or a conference and then you go back to your life and Buddhist practice is not an educational, it's not in that frame, which also is a frame which has to do with the improvement of self and so forth. So it's natural that you come here for Sushins and that will probably continue to be possible. But I also want you to understand that the jewel of our practice, or one of the jewels of our practice, is sashing. But the setting of the jewel is the daily life here. And the setting is pretty important. It's the setting which makes the jewel shine.

[03:11]

And I think those of you who live here sometimes or stay for longer periods know the difference. It's sort of like Sashina is a downpour. Do you know what a downpour is in German? A heavy rainstorm. Sashina is kind of like a downpour and daily life here is like a fine mist or fog that gets into your clothes and under your robes and... It gets your skin all wet. A lot of the sesshin rain just washes off. So I want you to understand this so that you can think about how you continue practicing in the future and how you continue practicing with us. Although I'm happy and the community is happy, the Sangha is happy, I know, to offer Sashins to you. But we actually want to practice with you.

[04:17]

I mean, do you get it, you know? You're not just somebody who comes and shows up and practices and we... It's nice, but we really want to practice with you, which means getting to practice with you in various circumstances. And as you know, nobody here gets a salary and we kind of barely make it and we want to keep offering this place to you as a place to come, but also we want to practice with you as individuals. And For those of you who are here a short time, you have the idea that this practice or this teaching that I'm giving you every afternoon is coming from me or some hose that's connected to Suzuki Roshi, which is connected to Kyokujo and so on, Roshi, which is connected back to Buddha, the original source, who's squirting all this water through this hose.

[05:26]

There's some truth to that. But really, Teaching, you know, what I discovered, learned, received from Sukhiroshi is something deeper than what I'm saying. It's what allows me to say what I say. And what I'm saying is developed with the Sangha. So those of you who I practice with in Europe and here, you will recognize, oh, I remember when That teaching was developed, that way of bringing practice into English or into German, if the week is translated. And when you see that you were participant, as all of us who do the seminars here, the daily practice here, and the people who find a way to practice through several seminars and sesshins in Europe, the practice is more your own and it gets into you more deeply because you recognize it's not coming from me, it's coming from us.

[06:48]

It's coming from the Sangha and how we practice together. Because the real teacher is our relationship. I'm not the teacher. Our relationship is the teacher. And we develop that relationship. So I really want you to be my teacher. And you can only be my teacher if we develop a relationship together. So that's why I hope you understand that Sangha is the jewel, but you, one of the jewels, but you ought to pay attention to the setting too. Because if you pay attention to the setting, you'll also find the setting in your own life. Because you can't have the jewel of Sashin in your daily life, but you can have the setting. Hmm. Now another thing about our practice, I noticed, you know, I don't make, most of what I do is not planned.

[07:52]

I notice that I'm doing something, I say, hmm, why am I doing that? What I noticed this time was I didn't come to open sitting. I came once, I think the second night, maybe. And I thought, why am I not coming to open sitting? And a couple of times I started out to come to open sitting and then I decided I shouldn't come. And what I recognized is I shouldn't come to open sitting. And that means, and I recognize it, we are now mature enough that we take care of the practice without me. Because the tradition is the seniors take care of the zendo. The roshi doesn't come into the zendo too much. comes in for specific occasions, for tesho, or in the Dharma hall. I mean, I fully intend to keep sitting with you in sesshins and giving tesho and doing doksan, etc. But the daily taking care of the zendo, I certainly will come.

[08:59]

But I love following Randy. It's great, you know, I don't have to I just have to stay right next to his back. It's great fun and much easier for me. And I don't have to decide whether we go around this column or that column. It's real nice. But so it means that now I feel that there's mature enough people here. Randy, Gisela, Gerald, Robert. that you guys can take care of the zendo. Now, sometimes, and I've seen it in Japanese monasteries, there's a lot of abuses if the eroshi isn't too present in that. But if the practice is healthy, the sangha is healthy, it's the best way. And because not only do We individuals are students, I'm a student too, and I was a student in the same way you are now for many years.

[10:04]

We mature by seeing actually it has to devolve onto us, evolve onto us. And it also makes it clear to everyone that this is our practice. And as someone mentioned in Sesshin, in Doksha, Buddha is just a guy like us. There's many deeper understandings of Buddha, or big understandings of Buddha, just like there are deeper and big understandings of you as an individual. But still, as an individual, he was an individual like you and I. And what's that mean? It means this is a human created teaching, not a revealed teaching. As I said, it's not a revealed word. It's the sound, the Buddha nature, which is there, which the historical Buddha Shakyamuni realized, which we're celebrating in this session.

[11:18]

So it's a human enterprise, or engagement, or activity, which we're all making. I mean, there are human dimensions to this practice. So it also fits well with those of you who practice with a revealed teaching, because this is a kind of human-made teaching that can go along with a revealed teaching. But basically, Buddhism is a constructed by people like us. In fact, constructed by us. Not people like us, by us. And this sashin was quite rich for many of you. Many of you had, I'm surprised, more than usual, had some experience of enlightenment. And one person had enlightenment experience, though they may not know it.

[12:28]

It may seem funny to you I say they may not know it. But it's good not to know it. It's much deeper then. Or not to have to know it. Maybe you know it but you don't let yourself go into knowing it because it shifts into borrowed consciousness. And some of you are having had a taste of enlightenment and if you continue practicing you can mature that taste. Now let me describe or try to describe a little bit about enlightenment, Buddhist enlightenment. Because the experience of enlightenment is a universal human potential.

[13:30]

It occurs in shamanism and Christianity and among artists, scientists, and ordinary people with no special, you know, it can happen to, you know, you don't have to be an artist, you can be a farmer. So what is Buddhist enlightenment then as separate from or in addition to this universal potential which is independent of Buddhism? The teaching in Buddhism that's particular to Buddhist way of looking at it, into Mahayana Buddhism, is that we all are enlightened already. And this, as a doctrine, it means you can become a Buddha or you're already a Buddha.

[14:35]

But is in practice, if you're practicing, you know you are Buddha. And the problem there, in the big con there, is how do you cope with that? How do you cope with knowing you're a Buddha? That to be a human being means to be a Buddha. First, it's a frightening challenge. And how do you know this without it turning into borrowed consciousness or ego or something that actually depletes you? So it's a kind of knowing you have to kind of pretend you don't know or know and work with or cope with. But if you don't have the faith that you are Buddha, you're not being compassionate to others.

[15:40]

Because if you don't have the faith you are Buddha, you can't have the faith anyone else is. And so you've given up hope. So real hope and compassion for others to be Buddha, for there to be possible for the Buddha to be on this earth, means you have to know you are Buddha. It's actually the only way to be really compassionate. So it means you have a lot of work to do. Or something. A kind of accommodation. Now there's an expression in Buddhism, in Japanese Buddhism, called Buji or something like that, I think, which means someone who thinks they're a Buddha without having to practice or too easily to kind of, it's also like a fox Buddha or raccoon Buddha or something like that. Tanuki Buddha.

[16:43]

In Japan, people would say, oh, are you what are you? And they'd look at me, I'd look so funny, you know, as a westerner in robes, and they'd say, what are you? I'd say, Tanuki Obosan, Tanuki Obosan. They'd say, oh, no. But it was sort of true, actually. I'm still trying to cope with that. Tanuki is a badger, which in the badger in Japan is like the coyote in the Indian tradition. He's a shapeshifter. but not an enlightened shape-shifter. Even a tanuki obo-san is enlightened. So we have to practice this way. Even if you're schizophrenic, you're enlightened. And how do you realize that? with others.

[17:51]

This is the big Mahayana koa. Okay, so that's the first thing that makes, that characterizes Buddhist enlightenment, that everyone is already enlightened and the practice is to cope with knowing you're Buddha, knowing you're enlightened. Second is, to characterize Buddhist enlightenment, Zen enlightenment, certainly, is that every act of turning around, every act of shifting your view is an experience of enlightenment. And the reason you don't know it is because of deluded thinking or you're too set in your ways. or you haven't established the continuity of awareness, which allows this experience to reach through your whole life.

[18:57]

I mean, all turnings around. If I turn this around, it can move that far, that far. That's a tiny act. It's the effect of that act. So if the ground is prepared by practice, or by developing the continuity of awareness, continuity of mind, or through the purity. And purity in Buddhism means that you have come to a conclusion that you can really live with yourself without equivocation. Anyway, that's enough to say that. So if every turning around experience, every shift, every small decision, like deciding to come to the Shishin, is an act of enlightenment, this also then creates a territory of practice for you.

[20:05]

Because you can see in your small acts how they get encapsulated and have little effect in your life. So you can begin to see how your views or delusive thinking or really you think everything is permanent, etc., affects your, this experience. So every experience, shifting experience, is a kind of hinge. Like the hinge of a door. Pivot. And that hinge can open the door wide, or crack. And that hinge is also the shift from water to wave. So enlightenment is also defined as and means that you have entered a present without pressure.

[21:21]

That you're in the present, the immediate present, without any pressure from the future, from the past, from delusive thinking, from generalizations. You're able to act in the particularity of each moment. Each act. I can't even say moment. Moment's a generalization. The particularity of each act. Each mental act, each physical act. So, enlightenment then, I started to say, is defined as the particular acts of generosity, altruism, kindness, clarity, and so forth. So you can work with this field of enlightenment as you see you're able to act with clarity, kindness, altruism, and so forth. Wittgenstein says, I believe, anything that can be said can be said clearly.

[22:29]

We can also say anything that can be done can be done clearly. So you attempt in your practice to find a particularity and clarity in every physical and mental act. And that particularity, if you can enter that particularity without pressure of generalizations about the world or yourself, that particularity moves into thusness, moves into sameness. And sameness is another name for realizing the continuity of awareness that appears as particularity. When you are most in the particular, most in the details, without generalizations, that leads to the experience of sameness.

[23:35]

Not oneness, but sameness. This is considered a pretty high achievement in Buddhism. But it's not so far away. It's as close as your hands. It's as close as the clarity of each individual act. Without generalization... But you know how hard it is to act without generalizations. This is also... The most satisfying, I think, I mean, I can only say this is the teaching in my own experience, satisfying way in which we really individuate and realize our individuality, our uniqueness, is when each act in the world is unique, do you find your own uniqueness? When you're still living in, you can't be, in Buddhist sense, truly individuated when the world is a generalization.

[24:41]

Each act is unique. Each moment, moment, no, each act is unique. Mental and physical act is very particular and characterized by clarity and eventually a kind of luminous quality occurs. And then you become unique and individual. So it's not like Hinduism where the individual merges into the ocean. In Buddhism, the ocean merges into the drop. And each drop is the particularity which touches everything. But you discover it in the particularity. And you can practice with this particularity. It's not something far away. It's only far away because of your tendency to generalize. Generalize yourself, the world, etc. put pressure on this present moment from the future, etc.

[25:44]

So you have discursive, distracted, delusive thinking are the main problems. And when pain comes up, as pain will, you can practice with this pain by rolling it up into a ball and putting it aside and saying, stay over there for a while. Or you can displace it by concentrating on something else. Or you can allow it to come into your continuity of awareness so this whole continuity of awareness that moment after moment is in the light that we shine sometimes is very sad and painful, sometimes a kind of anguish. but it's absorbed into the continuity of awareness. And absorbed into the continuity of awareness, it affects our activity in a different way than if you push it away or do other things with it, which there are lots of things one can do.

[26:54]

But the deepest thing to do, which brings it into our... And this means you trust the events of your life. Whatever the events of your life are, You may begrudge them and I begrudge many in mine. Ultimately, we become through trusting the events of our life. Trusting the events of our life. I can't say it in French. I might be able to read it in French, but I can't. So this is a kind of, this way-seeking mind is a kind of, proceeds from this hinge or it's a moment after moment hinge which is turning, a kind of pivot.

[28:07]

And the enlightenment experience is this pivot. And so there's one of the aspects of the technical term for this pivot. But this pivot or this hinge is a way of also mind and body disappear. And I guess we'd have to say you become something more like some energetic blissful activity. It can't be characterized as mind or body or even mind-body. So it's a kind of gathering of energy which is quite free. You can feel it in a pliancy in your hands, an ease in the immediate present. And that softness or pliancy, that ease is the hinge has begun to move.

[29:10]

Now the hinge sometimes is still creaking and needs a lot of oil, more practice. But once you know this hinge, you feel it, if you keep practicing, eventually the hinge will turn and open you into freedom. Now the usual idea of growing up is that we're an infant and a child and we become an adult and the adult is a kind of fruition stage and you're like a ripe fruit which then falls from the bough and decays or goes to heaven if you're lucky. But in Buddhism, the image of our human life is not like that.

[30:14]

Because childhood, we know childhood as a time of becoming, a time of transformation. And although it's remarkable, you can see it in the smile of a baby. In the smile of a baby, you can see the smile of the adult. There's remarkable continuity from infant to old age, but we're also, and I think this is what we really should recognize, we are also quite different people. You're a very different person than you were 10 years ago or 20 years ago. And it's important to know that. So you don't have this thing, well, am I really like that? No, no. You're this now. You don't have to worry about, are you really like that? Do I have to... Do you have to live all your life trying to keep track of whether you're really like that? Who told you that? Your parents? I don't know if you're really like that. You're really like this.

[31:17]

So, you know, your friends, your spouses may not like it if you come home and say, I'm not like that anymore. And... Who's going to pay the bills? No, no, you don't have to have those kind of ideas restrict your freedom. You can be free in the life you have already. And you can change your life if you want. But you have a choice to be free in the life you have or to change your life and change it in some responsible way if you want. But I'm not talking about changing your life. I'm talking about freedom. So the Buddhist image of our life is the transformation of infanthood to childhood to adulthood is carried biologically.

[32:26]

And as an adult, it's carried by practice. And the transformation is less biological and more spiritual. So practice is really an adult thing in Buddhism. It's not something children do. It's something that takes up transformation when you are 15, 18, 22, 25. This is the idea in practice anyway. And this transformation continues. Now, I can say being, and yesterday I said becoming. Being has a sense of having existence, but we don't have anything. And being becomes something like a kind of self, or another way to say self, a big way of saying self. But becoming sounds sort of funny too, because in English it also has the pun that, oh, you're so pretty, you're so becoming.

[33:28]

But maybe that's good. You practice Buddhism, you become becoming. Meaning beautiful. Or it feels like you're gaining, you're changing or something. No. You relax into being, but you also relax into becoming. And that very relaxation and ease allows becoming. So, Again, the Buddhist idea is that this process of realizing everything changes, you're in the process of becoming, you're quite free, goes on through what we call adulthood, but this transformation doesn't stop, and eventually this transformation and maturing is carried into other people, into your society, into your culture, and into a mind that is free of culture and society, deeper than culture and society, from which culture and societies arise.

[34:43]

Japanese societies, American, German, Austrian, French, and so forth. And for some Buddhists, matures into another lifetime. So the process of transformation is biological through childhood and then becomes spiritual through practice. And then that process of becoming the fruit doesn't fall from the bough and decay. The real nature of us continues in other people, in our society, our culture, and a mind deeper than society and culture. And your deep intention to realize this is the fulfillment of the Bodhisattva vow. Thank you very much.

[35:41]

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