Carl Jaspers thought that there was an axial moment in history. Axial, you have axis like a, the car axial. Like a turning point? Yeah. An axial point, okay. And his idea was, he noticed, I don't know if he was the only person who noticed, that the Buddha and Confucius and Lao Tzu and Parmenides and Heraclitus all lived at the same time. Confucius, Amenides, Heraclitus, and in the very next generation, Plato and Socrates, Socrates and Plato, and all except Heraclitus overlapped 15 years from, if the birth dates are roughly correct,

[01:18]

And everyone except for Heraclitus is 15 years old when the birth dates are correct. From 546 to 531, 15 years, all of them but Heraclitus were alive. BC. And Heraclitus overlapped five years. This is not, I don't know whether historically this is so important, but it leads to some interesting thoughts. One is that it seems that in India, China and Greece, Europe, there was some coordination of consciousness.

[02:36]

And this was taught by Jaspers to represent a kind of leap in consciousness. And what this also suggests, and Buddhism takes for granted, is that consciousness changes and is a cultural artifact. and is a construct. And an artifact, a construct, a social artifact, a cultural artifact. We can also say this means that the practice of Buddhism is greater than Buddhism.

[04:00]

If you study Buddhism fairly closely, you can see that various people disagreed, and the schools disagree, and within the schools people disagree. But that doesn't mean Buddhism as a whole doesn't come together in an essential way. Because while it may not come together Intellectually or philosophically exactly, there may be no way to exactly express it. The field that the various teachings establish can be practiced. And if practice is more important what I'm saying, than Buddhism itself, it means that your practice is more important.

[05:45]

What can I say? It's not a comparison. Your practice, if Buddhism exists at all, it's your practice. And if the consciousness of Confucius or Buddha or Heraclitus or Parmenides makes a difference, then your consciousness makes a difference. This is your treasure, which is also our treasure. Shots. Yeah.

[06:46]

Shots in the dark. That's a bad joke. Can it translate? That doesn't, I don't, it's two languages so it doesn't translate. Okay, practice. A teaching like that I've been mentioning, heaven and earth share the same root.

[07:53]

actually one version of it is heaven and earth and I share the same root. And myriad things and I are one body. And the koan asks, what is this root we share? What is this one body? Now these are questions that are in the koan and questions you ask yourself in meditation. So here I'm emphasizing again the seeing, I'm emphasizing analysis, the seeing things in parts. Simultaneously, like your breath and your thoughts about your breath and your intention and so forth.

[09:24]

And your And sequentially as well, one thing leads to another. What is the source of thoughts? What is the source of this thought? And the second noble truth, of course, is causality. And so causality or causation or a systematic analysis is part of meditation. So you can ask yourself while you're sitting, is everything changing?

[10:36]

So you not only observe a thought, but you ask yourself a question, is this thought changing? Does anything remain the same? Does the background mind, the mind background to the thoughts, does it remain the same or does it change too? Now this process analysis is also kind of inner seeing or vipassana. And the word analysis in Latin means to, the ana part is throughout and this part is to loosen. Also das Wort Analyse im Lateinischen

[11:37]

So to throw out, to loosen things, or sometimes it means to dissolve. And this is actually a good English word for... the analysis which goes on in, good Latin English word, that goes on in meditation practice. So I'm trying to I'll give you some clues on how to practice with things in which the practice is not always obvious. And maybe I can I can give you, make this clearer, I don't know, in successive lectures, but the Prajnaparamita Sutras, for instance, are written very analytically and philosophically.

[12:46]

But there's practice after practice. Gates hidden in the philosophy. So let's look at the meal chant. This is meant to be, and it's organized as a kind of enactment practice, to enact something. To enact. To enact. Okay.

[13:56]

Can everyone hear the two of us? Yeah? Okay. Probably better not to. So we start out with the meal chant. The Buddha was born at Lumbini, as you've all said a number of times. So we state the sort of basic facts of Buddhism, where he was born, enlightened, where he taught, and where he died. And now we've got that all, the Buddha's life has begun and ended. Now we open his, the Tathagata's eating bowls. So who's eating?

[15:11]

If you're eating out of the Buddha's eating bowls, you must be Buddha. So this is as a practice is enacted that the Buddha entered nirvana and reappeared here in you and you're now eating out of his bowls. Now this meal chant is just the meal chant. We do it, blah, blah, blah. And yet it's organized as a visualization practice. As a visualization practice. I can even say that, a visualization practice. I'll learn some German working with you. Ulrike is too fast.

[16:14]

I can learn more from you. So when you're settled enough, at some point suddenly you feel, oh yes, Buddha's eating bowls. By the way, I would recommend that anyone who's going to regularly come to Sashins that you consider, if you can afford it, buying traditional Oryoki. This is the first time, because for reasons I won't explain, I don't have my eating bowls, so I'm using the regular things we make up for everyone. And it's quite clumsy compared to the real thing. But anyway, it's fine.

[17:36]

They both work, but I just wanted to mention that. I'm having a lot of sympathy for all of you. You can't get the spoon out of the little bag. Okay, so now we open Buddha Tathagata's eating bowls, and of course this is a big idea of Buddha, the word Tathagata. It means simply the Buddha as thusness itself. We are a kind of embryo, simultaneously embryo womb Buddha. And then we have this black bowl which is supposed to be the Buddha's skull. And at that moment then we make the basic vow.

[18:42]

We take refuge in the Buddha, we take refuge in the Dharma, we take refuge in the Sangha. So at that moment we become a Buddhist and a Buddha. And then what do we do? We say all the names of the Buddha. Dharmakaya, Vairochana Buddha, So we're naming all the names of the Buddha because we're in the list. The various ways the Buddha appears. and the bodhisattvas.

[19:59]

Then, of course, we bring this meal to everyone. It comes through the efforts of everyone. So now everyone's here in our meal. Then we offer it back to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. So, Why this isn't pointed out much? And the main reason these things are not pointed out much is because everything is an enactment, everything is an opportunity for practice.

[21:02]

And if we point out too much, you only discover the things that are pointed out, not everything. So let's take this heaven and earth and I share the same root. What could be heaven and earth? What could be the same root? This is not just poetry. Poetry in the service of practice. That exactly.

[22:13]

Sounds right. So what's the most obvious thing that is the root? Connecting heaven and earth. Your backbone. So you sit discovering your backbone. So you sit discovering your backbone. So what's your backbone in your body? What's your backbone in your meditation? It's not the same as a picture in a medical chart. It's something you discover in sitting.

[23:18]

And you discover it by this kind of analysis of beginning to see things in parts. And it's, you know, you don't worry about being smart. You're quite primitive. You say, where's my background? What does it feel like from inside? Now let me say something about this process of analysis or asking yourself questions in meditation. You ask questions as you have the energy for it. When your energy changes, then you maybe just sit in absorption.

[24:27]

Or maybe you start having just random, non-systematic thoughts. Or maybe you start having There's no analysis, it's just kind of distracting thoughts coming and going. Then you don't practice with shoulds, I should or shouldn't. Begin to trust your energy body. Just feel your energy, what it tells you to do, instead of thinking. Your energy will support analysis sometimes, and then it won't. And since you haven't died, it will support something else.

[25:43]

Sometimes there'll be no energy there at all, and you'll see what kind of mind you have then. You only have so much energy. And you learn to sort of listen to it and take care of it. And sometimes you're, you know, you just feel worn down by Sissi. Even beaten down by Sissi. And you just, sometimes you may get depressed. Discouraged. Testing your vocabulary.

[26:51]

You seem to have more in English. Yeah, we have more nouns, you have more verbs. We stole our nouns from the French. And sometimes we just Worn down, we give up. Manchmal sind wir so entmutigt, dass wir aufgeben. Or give ourselves over into the schedule. Oder geben uns über hinein in den Zeitplan.

[27:52]

Into the Zeitplan. Yeah, okay. Sounds like an architectural drawing. So you give yourself over into the... into the immediacy of your practice. Your legs, you abandon. They become part of the floor. I don't need them anymore. You belong to the floor. This can be a moment of depression or a moment of seeing. Hmm. You know, I'm not a psychologist, so I don't use these terms professionally or accurately probably.

[29:17]

So I see these things as quite separate or fairly separate and in practice you find them to be separate. So sanity and clarity in a sense of being anchored are one thing. Our sanity and clarity and being anchored are one kind of thing. And then there's being neurotic, that's another kind of thing. I mean, by neurotic I mean something like, if you need a cup of coffee in the morning, that's a little bit neurotic. Even if it makes you sick and you don't like the taste of it, still you have to start your day with that cup of coffee.

[30:35]

That's kind of normal neurotic. It's the way we handle certain patterns, get ourselves moving in the morning. But if you need five cups of coffee... And before the fourth and fifth, you have to hear the town square bell ring. And then you have to tap the cup three times. This is really neurotic. And we all have patterns like that too, or many of us do.

[31:45]

And then there's our shadow. And our shadow, I don't, again, I don't know, I'm not a Jungian, but I would say a shadow, go ahead. Also, Schatten, ich bin kein Jungianer, aber Schatten könnte bedeuten, is when your strengths, you begin to see your strengths as your weaknesses. You begin to see the very way in which you base your life is the way you hurt people the most. When you start seeing that the things you base your life on are also the things which hurt people the most. Yeah. or disconnect you. The things that connect you the most are often the things that disconnect you the most.

[32:49]

And you carry around with you this baggage of psychological in-betweenness. That all the points make sense, but what is carried in between them seems to... leave a bad taste. And since the shadow exists in between, it's very hard to see. So sometimes when you feel worn down in Sashin, and you just give yourself over to the schedule, and you don't care anymore, you're just going to follow the damn thing, the schedule, and you don't even add

[34:14]

You don't care what it tastes like. You're just going to eat it, whatever it tastes like. This is a pretty good state of mind, actually. You've reached a state of sameness. And you begin to see, feel the differences of each thing on its own terms. You stop doing things on your terms. And you start doing things on, letting things be on their own terms. So this moment of giving up is a kind of bhakti moment.

[35:20]

Of being worn down. A moment of giving up. And sometimes at that point we can open another kind of root between heaven and earth. Because earth is also our shadow. Our muddy mind. And heaven is our spirit and the stars and the patterns that guide us. And we keep them separate, usually.

[36:27]

So to open up this root is also to mix all this, to open up into your shadow and your light. Do you want me to do it again? When we open this, it also means that we begin to mix things, our shadow and our light. So this, we share the same root, heaven and earth, as practice has various meanings, experiences. One is your backbone. And the awakening of your will body. that is beyond likes and dislikes beyond picking and choosing.

[37:32]

Then also you give up and stop picking and choosing, and a kind of psychic root is opened. Sie hören also auf, auszusuchen, und dann öffnet sich eine Art psychische Wurzel. And as this koan says, you're grabbed at your weak point. Und wie es im koan heißt, ihr werdet an eurem schwachen Punkt ergriffen. So this isn't just about, our practice isn't just about the realization of enlightenment or something, but the study of your consciousness of how we exist. And we start to see when we give up. And then don't only be depressed or discouraged.

[39:00]

But you stay in the midst of this owning yourself, owning your shadow and your... many beings that you are. And if you can open this as a root, as a channel, then in your activity and in sesshin itself, you'll feel a movement. And sometimes you'll feel much better. So here we have these two practices, the horizontal and the vertical. Heaven and earth share one root, the same root.

[40:21]

And myriad things and I are the same body, is the horizontal practice. And Zhang Jiao, who this quotation is from, who died in, I think, 441, was one of the, he's the main disciple of Kumarajiva who brought the Madhyamaka teaching to China. Kumarajiva. Kumarajiva. And many of the Zen masters of the time of these koans looked back to St.

[41:28]

Zhao as a source of inspiration. And when Shido, who wrote the Sando Kai, read, came across Seng Jiao's statement, that myriad things and I are the same body. When Shido read that, he was greatly enlightened. He is not different from you.

[42:29]

Why do these words work differently on him than us? Or do they work differently? Maybe they are working in you. Maybe they have entered that root where you see by giving up. And then out of this he wrote the Sandokai, out of this realization. Which we don't chant here, but we do chant regularly in Creston. And it's an opening, an unpacking of this realization that myriad things and I share are the same body.

[43:36]

Of course we have different bodies, so what does it mean? So what body do we share? This kind of analysis, this question you can ask yourself. To loosen yourself up inside. Both wakefulness and dreaming are non-existent. So in all this study of yourself or analysis or giving up, even deeper than that, something, you can disappear or reappear. Your practice is greater than all of Buddhism.

[45:02]

In your consciousness shines our ancient being. Yeah, thank you very much. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

[45:35]

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