due to generate detachment and allows you to realize in your practice when you can sit with more and more immovability That immovability generates and is made possible through this background mind, which isn't disturbed by foreground stuff. And when Sukhiroshi would say, let your thoughts come and go, just don't invite them to tea. You're generating a background mind. And this is also the practice of uncorrected mind.

[01:14]

Which is also expressed in his koan, Why pick weeds in a wild field? Now, I did this little exercise, and I suggested to you yesterday, And I took one of the points at which I made a decision to practice. Which I told some of you the story before. But I was walking along reading a book coming from lunch when I was working in a warehouse in San Francisco. And I just met Suzuki Roshi. And as I was walking, I hadn't opened the book yet, and I was thinking, well, I'm not good enough to practice Zazen. And I was quite convinced I was not good enough to practice.

[02:36]

So then I opened the book of D.T. Suzuki's and walk along reading it. And the sentence in the middle of the page said, it is a form of vanity to think you're not good enough to sit. So I snapped the book shut. was not yet aware of the power of simultaneity. And I went the next morning and started sitting. Nobody was going to say I was vain. Okay, so that was a decision point. So I looked at the con. And the first line that comes to me from the koan was to moor your boat on the deep, clear, the deep waters of the clear source.

[04:03]

And that was my, really described my early practice. And then the second line that came to me was, why pick weeds in a wild field? And then a fourth line came to me, which is this line of Heidegger, to take into care beings as a whole. And the exercise showed me that the first and the last are the same decision, but one is just much more developed and mature. To recognize that not to sit or not to take the precepts or not to enter was a form of vanity.

[05:06]

It's really also the intuition to take into care, to find a way to take into care or recognize beings as a whole. So this background mind, as you begin to generate it, You also see that this background mind has a kind of luminous gray quality or luminous background light that goes with the background mind.

[06:22]

very much like the gray light that you see when you first go to sleep. And foreground mind has a kind of spacious quality, but doesn't have this, or kind of overall light, but doesn't have this kind of background radiation, or it's like maybe gravity is so faint that you don't see it, but it holds the world, holds the cosmos together. We're all influenced by gravity but it took Newton to really notice it. And once he noticed it, he could take it out of the context of apples and so forth and see how Earth and Sun and so forth work together.

[07:53]

So there's a certain, there is a definite power and craft in noticing dimensions of interior consciousness. And so liegt da wirklich eine Kraft, eine Macht darin, und auch eine Geschicklichkeit, wirklich diese feinen Dinge, dieses inneren Bewusstseins zu bemerken. Now, let's say that you paint a painting, or you see a painting, maybe of a barn against a gray sky. Sagen wir einmal, ihr seht jetzt ein Bild, oder malt ein Bild, zum Beispiel von einer Scheune vor einem Hintergrund. Now, Of course, because it's a painting, there's not just space behind the barn. There's a gray sky that's made of paint.

[08:56]

And if you wanted to, if you could reliquify the paint, you could kind of scrape the grey sky off from behind the barn. And you could take that gray paint and paint a boat or something. Or make another sky. Or paint a little gray Buddha. So likewise, You practice with a wado and you generate a background mind. And the background mind, which is less involved with foreground things, allows you to notice a kind of background light to the mind. A little bit like the barn got smaller or the barn just sort of appeared out of the sky.

[10:20]

And the reality was much more the gray sky than the barn. And you can shift back and forth, the barn or the gray sky. And that's a skill of practice. You can shift to the foreground thoughts or you can shift to the background mind. Or you can shift from borrowed consciousness to secondary consciousness to immediate consciousness. But this background... So now you have the background mind, and within the background mind you have this quality of a luminous light. Now, just almost like you could take the paint off the sky, the gray sky paint off, you can lift, you can take this luminous quality of the mind and move it with your breath.

[11:40]

Almost as if you can liquefy it and start moving it in the channels of your body. Now, when you learn to bring, first bringing your attention to your breath, and then bringing your mind to your, joining mind and breath, Or generating mind through bringing breath and attention together. Pretty soon you're moving mind and breath as one, and you get a feeling of moving mind and breath in your body and up your backbone and so forth. And then you realize that you've learned to move, through moving your breath, you've learned to move mind. So you're now... moving mind up your backbone, not exactly air, but mind that you've learned to move through joining breath and mind.

[13:11]

And you can bring it down your front through your body, permeating your body, and let it rest here at the airfield below the navel. And you can protect it there. And circulate it there and guard it there. And let it move throughout your body. Now this is done partly through an image of the arteries or channels of this now are images, not specific blood vessels or nerves or something. But it's an image or thought that allows you to move your hand.

[14:13]

And it allows you to move your mind through your body. Julio, when you're finished, right? Could you maybe tell us what you told me yesterday about what you discovered when you go on stage to make your mind move? I once had a very clear feeling during my nap. consciousness [...] a very clear feeling of my body.

[15:29]

And then I suddenly realized that my body is within this consciousness and not the other way around. So not something is in a body, but the body is inside. And then I realized that in the work for the stage, which is also in my room, that it is very helpful and very relieves the stress when I go into a room Now, this is not just a trick. And if it is a trick, it's a good trick. And has good results. But what he's been able to do through his intuition and probably practice is recognize that our body image is confining.

[16:37]

But what we need is the body image of the world. Now, going back to chanting practice or teaching, one of the things that is taught in chanting More developed chanting practice. As if I want the feeling of my voice being everywhere in the room or a feeling that my voice, say, comes from where Miriam is. I concentrate myself while I'm chanting here, but I create an image. I take this feeling here and place it where Miriam is and then chant from Miriam's location. And just to bring it back into the Western context, I know that Elsa, no, what's her name?

[18:02]

A woman who taught Gielgud and Laurence Olivier and Alan Cherry. I can't think of her name, but she was a woman teacher to them. She taught them how to do things like this in acting. Anyway, what? That's a different person. That was Charlotte Silver's teacher. Yeah. Now, I can't do that, this kind of chanting, but I've seen it done where it's uncanny. The person's here, you can't hear any voice, and you hear the voice coming from over there. But there's some mystery here. But the mystery is opened up by freeing your body image.

[19:09]

And one way of this freeing your body image is to recognize... Well, Neil said it's so difficult to practice realizing... accepting each person because some people are so difficult. The Allah, Samaya, Lod, something like that it's usually called AAA you can understand why Prajnaparamita says a Bodhisattva who goes on a who has a pilgrimage of difficulties

[20:23]

And who courses in difficulties cannot be really a bodhisattva. Because they cannot work for the wheel Of all beings. For the welfare of all beings. A bodhisattva must cultivate the notion of ease. And cultivate the notion that all beings, each being, is his or her friend or parent or child. Now, this is understood to mean you're changing your body image.

[21:39]

Now, it means also, and the instructions about this are to cultivate, to develop the notion or recognition that each being you meet is immeasurable. That each of you is a whole world. I mean, I see the outside of you, but I know many things are going on. I mean, each of us is a whole world. Now, you have certain images of people and you think, oh, they're natural, but really they come from your culture. And this chitopada, which is called generating a mind which lifts your heart and the heart of others, It's called the entrance gate into the Mahayana.

[22:48]

So in this practice of Mahayana, you're educating your image. So you... remind yourself or you generate the notion that all beings, each being is immeasurable. But not only are they a whole world unto themselves, they're also interconnected with many other people. They influence innumerable other people. And if they are a particularly negative person, they may be carrying negative traits for us.

[23:51]

And how they are affects everyone around them. So you keep reminding yourself that each being is immeasurable. And you feel your own immeasurability. And again, this is not just an idea, it means something that the mind as a sensory organ feels. The mind that is inseparable from the body. And not confined to the body, the narrow body image. So when you practice with this sense of an experience in meditation, the sense of the Dharmakaya, you're changing your body image. You have two body images. They say American men have two body images.

[25:00]

One that sits on the couch drinking beer and the other that plays football or baseball on the television. So we have this capacity to have more than one body. Okay. Now You also cultivate the sense that this immeasurability is a quality of sameness. And you see the sameness on each person, the sameness of immeasurability. And you feel this sameness in you too.

[26:15]

And you feel then that really this person and you share the same deeper identity. And And this also is a sense in what the sutras mean when they say each person is empty. It's a word that means what I've been talking about. Now, you also... increase your sense of this body image so that your body feels like a very spacious room. A room so spacious that every being can be there. And it's not so different from Giulio, allowing the other actors and the audience to come into this body that he's acting within.

[27:36]

So the next step for you is to open the doors of this theater and let your body out on the street. Let everyone come in. Now this sense, now here we have Heidegger's sense to take at the inception of Western cultures this idea of beings as a whole. That he feels touches and informs all Western ideas. And the Mahayana has basically the same idea. But having a yogic, being a yogic practice and feeling there's a profound indissolvable interconnection between the macrocosm and the microcosm

[28:55]

That we're actually part of an alive being. And the recognition through seeing the constituents of consciousness and how we generate ourselves in the present moment and through our image of our body. The way to practice the realization of all sentient beings See that you have a body image. It's not that the other person is difficult only. It's that your body image is difficult. Your body image separates yourself from them and is threatened by them. Again, it doesn't mean you don't have your ordinary functional body image.

[30:00]

But it also means you have a body image which has room for everyone. And a body image which is true, but you have to cultivate it, that recognizes the sameness of you and others. and recognizes the immeasurableness of each of us the immeasurableness of you yourself can you deny that? can you deny your own immeasurableness? when you cannot deny the immeasurableness of anyone else.

[31:14]

And this practice begins at the most basic level with these precepts of our basic humanity. These universal precepts of recognizing our common humanity. And that recognition is the seed of this Dharmakaya body and compassionate body that works for the welfare of all beings. Anyway, that's the vision of Mahayana Buddhism. And I could discuss the difference between bodhicitta and cittapada and how these two interrelate, but that's not necessary.

[32:18]

So maybe we can look at the koan a minute together? Yes. Do you have the German? A bodiless man suffers illness. A handless man compounds medicine. Ein handloser Mann stellt Medizin her.

[33:21]

A mouthless man ingests it. Ein mundloser Mann nimmt sie ein. What do we have here? Was haben wir hier? Not a sense of the Dharmakaya body as some kind of absence of thoughts or somatic state. Nicht eine Bedeutung von Dharmakaya in dem Sinne, dass da alle Gedanken abwesend sind oder in einem Zustand von Samadhi. But the sense of the Dharmakaya body has no hands, mouth, body, but yet functions. And functions through your initially joining breath and mind and learning how to bring mind into the deeper images of reality. So how do you treat this mortal disease of death? Is you generate this body which doesn't die in any ordinary sense and can be passed to others.

[34:21]

Which is empty, but which we can almost see. Great Master Yunmin said, when the light does not penetrate freely, there are two kinds of sickness. Now this is also searching for a donkey while riding on a donkey is one illness. We already live this light. Or this silence. But we don't notice it. Aber es fällt uns nicht auf. Sri Aurobindo, I believe, I told the story in Kinsey. Sri Aurobindo was told by somebody he was a kind of government official or one of the leaders of the freedom movement in India.

[35:46]

Ja, und Sri Aurobindo, dem wurde von jemandem erzählt, ich habe die Geschichte an Kinsey erzählt, von irgendeinem Regierungsangestellten, He met a sage of some sort who told him, when anything arises, nip it in the bud. Sage. Sage. So I believe the story is he did it for two days. Every thought that came up, every image, nipped it in the bud. And what happened or how he had the energy for two days to do this night and day, he did. At the end of the two days, he suddenly had a big enlightenment experience. He said he entered a primordial silence which never left him. So we, through practicing and background mind and so forth, we generate this light and this background light and the silence.

[37:09]

The stillness, which is at the center of a luminous flower. Die Stille, die im Zentrum einer leuchtenden Blüte ist. But we can also just be snapped into it because it's already there. Aber wir können da auch wirklich hineinspringen, weil es bereits da ist. And that's searching for a donkey while riding on a donkey. Und das wird damit gesagt, also ein Esel suchen, während man auf einem Esel reitet. And that's when the light does not penetrate freely. One is when all places are not clear and there's something before you. That's our usual way of giving objective reality to the world. But then second is having penetrated the emptiness of all things Still, we haven't seen the emptiness of emptiness.

[38:23]

We still think that there's someone having this experience. Which is of course true, someone is having the experience. But you can be free from that experience which opens up this larger body. This too is the light not penetrating freely. Also, the Dharma body has two kinds of sickness. This is all nearly the same. You manage to have the experience of the Dharma body, but you still cling to the Dharma, if not the self. And clinging to the Dharma, I'm a Buddhist, I'm helping people, or whatever, your sense of self remains. And you fall into the realm of the Dharma body.

[39:26]

Emptiness is better than form. practice is better than ordinary life. And you're moored over the deep still waters of the clear source. It sounds good, but as it says in the Dongshan succession, which is ours, or most of ours, If you're still, still you sink into stagnant water. And even if you can pass through, and if you let go, still that's not enough. This is going beyond, beyond. Examining carefully to think, how can I move this light?

[40:39]

This too is a sickness. Now, the Dharma body has three kinds of illness. And two kinds of light. You must pass through them all one by one. Okay, let's not throw them out already. Let's pass through each of these stages one by one. They're not a sickness unless you turn them into a sense of self. And then further realize that there's still an opening beyond, beyond. And going over here, hmm, [...] hmm. I like the word says, Nan Yuan says, before I was like walking in the light of a lamp.

[41:57]

This too is a light not penetrating freely. This is a teaching of realizing emptiness and really radically going beyond emptiness even. So I guess that's enough. If I keep it up, it'll be like rubbing the back of a clay mannequin with a diamond. Now, let me go back to your question about the silk. The dense web of myriad forms is so precipitous. Passing through beyond location still blocks the eyes.

[42:59]

Sweeping out his garden, who has the strength? Hidden in a person's heart, it naturally produces feelings. A boat crosses a rustic ford wet with autumn's aquamarine. And you can see everything is wet here, interpenetrating, etc. There's transcendence or acceptance here. And then sailing into the reed flowers, Reed flowers are white.

[44:02]

So sailing into the reed flowers, shining on the snow bright. This is the teaching of sameness. Seeing immeasurability on everything. There's some difference, a white flower, white snow, a silver bowl. But what is young men's cure? With a bolt of silk, an old fisherman takes it to market. In this kind of language, one of the symbols or images of inner realization or the inner craft of realization is a crystal tube. Another is white silk, tightly wound.

[45:21]

And here this white silk is disguised as ordinary cloth being brought to market. By the fisherman, which is wet with interconnectedness. It's a kind of poetry that's a little bit philosophy. So on the one hand, Yanmin says, be a person who makes silk from bright cloth, takes care of people, does things in the ordinary world. Because the manifestation of bodhisattva practice is always on two levels. A basic level of taking care of people's needs. Clothes, food, housing, so forth. At the same time, showing the Dharmakaya, showing enlightenment.

[46:24]

The absolute independence and freedom of everything. So, one side is with a bolt of silk, the old fisherman takes it to the market. The other side is floating in the wind, a single leaf travels in the waves. With many sicknesses, you learn about medicine. But only if you get results may you dare to pass on the prescription. So we're here being sick together staring into the luminous flower and about to have lunch and take the precepts

[47:26]

or help each other take the precepts. Generally, when you enter a practice period, you take the precepts together. Our basic humanity are also our way to together, since we take them together or help each other take them, Deepening our sense of Sangha. With each other. And opening the doors of the Zendo and having our large, long body reach everywhere. Thank you very much, Ulrike. Thank you very much, Roshi. Thank all of you. So let's see, it's 1.20 and the kitchen is nervous.

[48:52]

No, it's okay. We have enough time? And we should start at 3 o'clock. Fangen wir um 3 wieder an. So we'll do the ceremony. We have to figure out exactly how to do it. But the five who have raksus will sit in the middle. And everyone else who's taking the precepts will sit in the middle next behind them. Or maybe in front of them. And everyone else who's thinking about it or secretly taking them or helping us can be on either side. And everyone who is even more secretly taking them can remain outside in the world. Okay.

[49:54]

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