Good morning. Now we have to cope with a few things. One is a question, natural question that was brought up about what does this word light mean? Also, I would like to be able to give you a little better sense of the possibilities of this body and mind. But first I'd like to ask if any of you want to share something from the discussion you just had or have some questions or whatever. I'd like to say that I had this feeling when we were in a group discussing, but it was a pity that we didn't have more time to really get to know each other better.

[01:41]

Yes, but I thought it was a pity we didn't have more time to let things, people, other people say, sing it and really respond. Because now it was a short moment of saying something and you couldn't really get into it. I would like to do that more. So I rang the bell too soon. I'm sorry. Well, we could all go back. Yeah. Anybody else? Yeah. Yeah. It's still not clear what is meant in the koan, and that's related to my question yesterday.

[02:44]

What is meant by accumulating and profit? Oh, yeah. Okay. I want to go through the parts of the koan with you, making comments, which I'll do in a little bit. And I would like to discuss the koan step by step with you and then comment on it. So I'll do that right away. Okay. Yes. I have a question about breathing. And what we explained yesterday about the head with the right leg. When you sit, the right leg also interferes with the right leg. I have a question about the breathing and what you explained to us yesterday about the circulating light. Do you mean when I sit I should really start concentrating on this circulating movement or how did you mean that? Good question.

[03:45]

I have to speak about that this morning so I will come back to it. Yes. I have a question. In what extent can a discussion about the core have an effect on the solution if it is mainly opinions? So not necessarily what the people have to say. I haven't solved it myself. I can only do my opinion on what happens to me. When we discussed the koan and we shared among each other, all we hear is each other's opinions. And my question is, does this contribute to solving the koan or my question? Yeah, I think so.

[04:52]

I mean, endlessly no. But I always think of the example of if you study tea ceremony. You look as carefully at the poor tea bowls as the good tea bowls. Or you'll never know the good tea bowls. So it's good to hear each person, not just to say, oh, there's a bad tea bowl over there and another one over there. But to hear the good tea bowl inside what each person says or is trying to say. Yeah. We were talking in our group about the precepts, and first we said it's impossible to do it the way it's written.

[06:05]

We know from each of us that it's impossible for us, and we were trying to understand how to manage to practice. Louder. Uh huh. That's a question that came up in our group, too, at the end.

[07:07]

How to work with this tension? I didn't realize I was speaking German. Yeah, to work with this tension on one hand, not being able to keep them 100%, yet to try. Yeah. I understood in whatever language you spoke. You know, it's funny, when I first came, first years I was in Germany, I would be at restaurants, like last night, and everyone would be speaking German, and I felt... I was glad to be left out, but I felt a little left out. But now after 10 years of coming to Germany,

[08:12]

And in effect living here now part of each year. I still know the same number of German words. Gesundheit, you know. I don't know quite why I'm so stupid, actually. But... Now it is so familiar to me, I don't feel left out. It's just so nice to hear, and I don't know. And I almost understand sometimes. Okay. I think the basic pattern of vows is best understood if you look at the main vow, the bodhicitta vow. As the vow that sentient beings are without bounds. And sometimes, often that's translated, sentient beings are numberless.

[09:54]

But it means more that each being has no bounds and they're numberless. And save isn't the right word, and to take into care is too philosophical. So I think save, we have to say, the vow to save all sentient being and beings. Of course, it's impossible. Of course it's possible.

[11:03]

But you certainly wouldn't want to vow to save three sentient beings. I vow to save three, maybe four sentient beings. So, well, five, six, I mean, you have all. All of them. So all the vows in Buddhism are like that. It's your attitude, your commitment, and this impossible vision that's great. I mean, you have to give up this, I'm a bad person, and that's it. Someone said to me last night, which I appreciated, is it all right that I have this glass of wine and take the precepts tomorrow? You know, if you feel that way, maybe it's nice not to have a glass of wine before you have the precepts.

[12:20]

Now, Thich Nhat Hanh, who I love very much, respect completely, he feels you should take the precepts and really not ever even sip a glass of wine again. And my friends who are teachers with Thich Nhat Hanh, I tease about it. And maybe he's right, but that's not how I feel they should be interpreted. And vielleicht hat er recht, aber ich empfinde das nicht so, dass sie so interpretiert werden sollten.

[13:20]

I feel, you know, the statement about Avalokiteshvara, when Avalokiteshvara meets a thief, he or she becomes a thief. Und ich sehe das eher so wie die Aussage von Avalokiteshvara, wenn er oder sie einen Dieb trifft, dann wird er oder sie zu einem Dieb. Maybe it's a little like that expression, I think it's a German or Austrian expression, you're the kind of person I'd like to steal horses with. And then there's the, what the Arabic expression, trust in Allah but tie up your camel. Maybe you should tell Isan's story, what he said when he was asked how he interprets this vow to save all beings. Why don't you say it? I don't know if some of you know Issan Dorsi, a female follower of Roshi, who was a member of this small center in San Francisco for the gay community and who died of AIDS two years ago.

[14:55]

He took part in this ceremony, this Shuso ceremony, which we will now have for the first time in Crestons. The head monk, i.e. the highest monk who leads this practice period, he has to go in the middle of the Sangha and he is then asked questions from all the Dhammas. And he has to answer them. And this is basically a... This is an initiation of the Sangha. I don't know if people here know Isan. He is known for his absolutely radiant humor and his loving nature. Why do we save all sentient beings? I save them for later. LAUGHTER And you have to imagine that in this formal ceremony with robes and...

[16:19]

Well, anyway, so my feeling is it's maybe like we should all be like a Plato symposium and drink with our fellow philosophers but not get drunk. Anyway, I feel it's good to join in with what people do, but do it in such a way that actually you're still following the precepts. And in Japanese Zen monasteries you have the problem that the Roshi often forces you to drink sake. You don't want to and they keep filling your glass and filling your drink. Don't be so pure.

[17:34]

Yeah. Of course, you're in the monastery. There's no traffic or red lights. But Uchiyama Roshi was pressing me so hard once I got up from the far end of the table and went and sat beside him. and held a glass and every time he took a bottle and every time he took a sip I added more to his glass. And so finally he left me alone. Because I had a greater capacity than he did.

[18:35]

Okay. Next question. Yes. Yes. When I discuss a koan in the group, should I just talk about my personal experience, or is it possible also to just discuss it intellectually? Whatever you want. But in general, it's better to stay with your personal experience. But it's okay sometimes to explore it intellectually, partly because there is some value in that, and also... to also see the futility of it. Certainly if your energy is intellectual, you can't touch the koan much.

[19:37]

Boris, do you have any questions? I have heard that a koan is to meditate about, and not to discuss in a group, or to explain in a logical way. And I think perhaps it's too difficult to explain some sentences in a logical way, perhaps. I don't know if there's a difference between some koans. Yeah. German? Yes, I have just heard that one can only get a word from the core, and that one should meditate on it, and that one cannot explain something like that logically or with the mind.

[20:47]

And I wonder if one wants to explain the music of the core with the mind, or logically, and if there are any differences between the two. Well, there are two schools on this, or two views on this. One is that's particularly Japanese. That you don't, that koans are a kind of esoteric tradition and... there's no intellectual discussion of them. And there's, as Wieland pointed out yesterday, there are traditional answers. And this system is also in Japan often, from our point of view, rather corrupt.

[22:07]

The answers are given and then a whole bunch of stuff. And there's a... And there's a quite brilliant scholar who's just published two books called, what are they called? His name is Bernard Four, F-A-U-R-E. Really making, exposing the system. And I think he doesn't know what he's talking about. Even when the answers are given by the teacher to his main students, there's still a teaching about the way the answers work.

[23:09]

So even when the system is done poorly, it's actually quite powerful. And when the system's done well, it's a very powerful teaching method. But my feeling and Thomas Cleary's feeling, for example, who is the main translator into English of Chinese and Japanese Buddhist texts, is for various reasons the Japanese late Zen tradition after Hakuin have completely overemphasized the degree to which there is not intellectual content or philosophical content in the koans.

[24:17]

And I happen to have the same feeling. And that when you specially bring koans into the West, my opinion is that the koans are the Chinese teacher's way of making Indian Buddhism Chinese. And I also believe that the koans really represent a method in which the Chinese practice these Indian teachings in a Chinese way. And they just have many, many levels. And certainly through them all is primarily Majjamaka, Yogacara, and Huayen teachings. And if you don't have some sense of how those are operating and being expressed in the koans, and why they're put in this form, you may even be enlightened

[25:23]

through a koan, but you don't really understand Buddhism in the deepest sense. And there's koan study before enlightenment, koan study after enlightenment, and so forth. But I notice even with Suzuki Roshi's book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind behind every paragraph there's lots of teachings. And when I've pointed those out to people people don't actually like me to do it. They like just reading the book at the level they get it. But also you have to remember that in those days there were very few books, and people had a different kind of time than we did, and they studied and embedded themselves in these teachings in a different way than we did.

[26:54]

So I wouldn't worry so much about those things you've heard about koans. Let's just see what we're doing. And if it helps you, good. If it doesn't, I'm sorry. Do you have any other questions? More practical? When you teach us about Kaohsiung, this weekend and the other weekends, you explain a kind of philosophy or psychology. I can't often understand it, but it's very interesting.

[27:55]

My answer is, is it your own development, or is it an adaption of Japanese or Chinese philosophy? I'm not telling. No. Why don't you say that in Deutsch? So I asked him, he uses a kind of theoretical teaching, which for me does not work like a philosophy or psychology, and where I often have difficulties to understand what he means, but at the very least it is interesting and I like it a lot. And the question is whether this is his own work or whether this is an adoption of a Chinese or Japanese construction. I see Suzuki Roshi in the early years I practiced with him.

[29:13]

We went through the whole Hekigan Roku, the Blue Cliff Record. And sometimes into the Shoyu Roku, but though it wasn't translated at that time, we did some Shoyu Roku cases. And we did, I don't know, maybe all or at least most of the Mumonkan koans. And also the iron flute collection. And Dogen's Shobo Genzo is also a kind of commentary on koans. But mostly over a couple of years we went through each case of the Heikigan Roku, the hundred cases. And what we're doing is a continuation of what I started with him.

[30:23]

And he gave me a feeling, a way to see into and under and through the koans. But exactly how I remap it using your experience in Western culture is often my own attempt to make it clear. But I also discussed these things with him quite a lot and feel like I'm still doing it. So that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is for me, Suzuki Roshi was Buddhism. And now for me, what I do is Buddhism.

[31:32]

And I can do it the way I want to do it. So both are true. Anything else? Yeah. Do you mean death and life with this side and that side? I would be interested whether this light you talk about is the same like in life or in death and particularly in the transition between the two.

[32:51]

Okay. What I'd like to do is to take a break. And after the break I'll try to answer, respond to the questions that's come, that you've asked me and that I've asked myself. We have to take the precepts today and get married. So let's have a break. Yeah. Pause. So 15 minutes or so, is that time enough? I'd like to give you some feeling for the vision of Mahayana Buddhism.

[34:22]

And not just the vision, but the craft of the vision of Mahayana Buddhism. And as usual, or perhaps more than usual, I don't really know if I can do it. Und wie gewöhnlich und vielleicht sogar mehr als gewöhnlich, weiß ich nicht wirklich, wie ich das schaffen soll. And maybe it would take a lifetime together and then several more. But we have 45 minutes. But you've given me, and I feel how much you're giving me, so maybe we can do it.

[35:35]

At least try to get a feeling for it. I'd like to, you know, some of the newer, those of you who are newer and new to sitting, You should be clear that Zazen practice begins with the posture of your back and the overall relaxed feeling in your body. And begins with the posture of the mind and breath. But all the ingredients are there already in those basic postures of this teaching of young men.

[36:51]

The backbone becomes more subtle as you practice. And the breath coming in and going out, making a kind of feeling, a circle. And that circle is just enlarged when it becomes this circuit through the whole body and through the tendon. But it's probably not possible to enlarge that circuit or do more than taste that feeling. Until you've really accomplished the alchemy of bringing mind and breath together.

[37:54]

And I'd like to respond also a little bit to the precepts, but as one person brought up, the do not kill is difficult because of the way we live in this life. And there's, but we can't sort of take a precept of I vow not to kill sometimes. And there's a word in Japanese, which I've told you many times about, called aware, which is spelled like aware in English. And one of its meanings is the awareness that no matter what you do, you're always killing and always causing suffering. But still you try not to. But these precepts are also a little bit like going over a cliff. They're precepts of our common humanity. And yet there's a quality still of, I mean, actually all of you are following the precepts already.

[39:39]

It's so basic, all of you, you know, or you'd be in jail or something. But somehow to say you're going to do it, It's like stepping across a very big line as if you're taking away your freedom. And strangely it gives you freedom but you have to do it to find that out. In the end it's an act and you feel like doing it or you don't. And if you don't feel like doing it, don't. And you can just be here in the ceremony. But be careful, because you may find secretly you take them anyway.

[40:41]

You told me, was it Ludgard? You said when you first met me, you took the precepts and didn't know it? I like that. That's good. Okay. Now, what I want to do is try to give you this sense of how vision and image work in practice. And let me use the idea of light. Now, when I first started to practice, I... I couldn't have believed this.

[42:08]

But now I see it so clearly happens in myself and others that I just have to say it's now a fact for me. Okay, now light doesn't exactly mean a visual image of light, but it can sometimes be an experience of light. And partly the word light is used because there's no other word to use. And if you look up the etymology of English words, very large percentage, the root is some form of light. And if you look up the etymology of English words, very large percentage, the root is some form of light. I even discovered this morning that when you have a hangover and you want to have a little hair of the dog that bit you.

[43:32]

So you have a little beer in the morning. It's called spiegel or something? Yeah, so you establish the light or the surface of the lake in the surface of the alcohol, etc. So... This morning when I said to the woman downstairs, I said, well, you better have ein Pils. And Neil said to her something about Spiegel. I thought she was going to drink jewels or mirrors or something. Okay.

[44:39]

So we have to have a feeling for this word, light. Maybe like looking into the stillness of a flower. Where all the petals and the leaves and the pistil come together. And many colors. But there's still a great stillness in the middle of the flower. It's a bit like our mind comes together in many layers.

[45:40]

Now, when you go to sleep at night, I think you can notice that there's a background to your mind as you begin to fall asleep that has a light quality or gray quality. A somewhat luminous gray quality. Now, it's actually useful to sometimes notice that. Now, I often say that when you practice or when you do a practice with a Wado or a turning word or a mantra,

[46:42]

And I want to, just as an aside, say, yesterday you read the koan through, and it's a kind of ritual to read the whole koan through in a mantra-like way. So, by Doing, repeating a phrase or something, keeping a practice in mind, you generate a background mind. So, you have your regular thinking. Then you start to have some thinking that you repeat or stay with, a presence. That creates a new, that doesn't just become what you repeat, but it also creates a new field of mind. Then that new field of mind, which I call back...

[48:03]

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