Do not think like that, Subhuti. Why? In truth, there is not one single living being for the Tathagata to bring to the other shore. If the Tathagata were to think there was, he would be caught in the idea of a self, a person, a living being, a lifespan. So, go on. That's enough, I think. Well, let me, might as well finish this passage. Subhuti, that which Tathagata talks of as a self essentially has no self in the way that the ordinary person thinks there is a self. Subhuti, the Tathagata does not think that

[01:07]

person is in fact an ordinary person. Somebody does not think that person is in fact an ordinary person, and only then does Sathagata use the term ordinary person. Just be a little patient with me. So the koans are involved in this. You say an ordinary person, but you have to know you mean... not just an ordinary person. You mean something that's realized through the experience of meditation and so forth.

[02:29]

Let me give you a couple of stories if I can, one little one. Yangshan asks Kueshan, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And that's of course the question, why am I teaching here, why is Buddhism in the West, why are we practicing, etc. Das ist natürlich die Frage, warum lehre ich hier, warum praktizieren wir in Westen? Warum praktiziert ihr Buddhismus in Westen? And Kweishan says, a fine, a fine big lantern.

[03:30]

Kweishan sagt, eine feine, eine schöne große Laterne. And Yangshan says, you mean not this? And Guishan says, what is this? And Yangshan says, a fine, beautiful lantern. And Kweishan says, you don't really understand. Now, I would like to analyze this. Because it's... He asked the question, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And I think Kwechon gives Basically a linear answer, a good answer.

[04:56]

Yes, he's a lantern. It's like a lantern. Some people say there must have been a lantern. He looked at it and pointed at the lantern. I don't think that's so right. And Kweishan, so Kweishan actually says he's a kind of lantern for us. So Yangshan changes the level, because usually the question is taken at a more subtle level. He says, isn't this, meaning thusness or the immediate, the path of the immediate present, isn't that why Bodhidharma came? So he says, so then Kuaishan says, well, then what is this? And of course that says, what is emptiness? And what is emptiness but form? So he's pushed back into the same answer, a fine big lantern.

[06:14]

And then he says, you don't really understand. Okay, now there's three possibilities where you don't really understand. One is he doesn't really understand. The second is He understands, but it's better not to say he understands because that reifies the whole idea and you can't reify emptiness. And in addition, you want your disciple to have so much confidence that he knows that what he's saying is correct, even if you tell him he's wrong. And third, in this kind of practice, you should take the lantern and the whole dialogue away.

[07:22]

And the most effective way of doing that is just to say you don't understand, because that takes everything away, including understanding. Okay, now that's a typical dialogue. And there's a kind of logic which is neither male nor female. And you have the same kind of logic going on in this koan. When... I will leave that story aside. I'll tell it differently. Let's see. May I please, Rika? Sure. Okay. Leave this till tomorrow. No, no, no, no. He wanted that knowledge. Yeah, all right.

[08:47]

So there was a mystic sort of shaman type who was known for picking the kind of person who could occupy a mountain or a place for a temple. And there was a mountain called Kwe Shan, Kwe Mountain, that he thought somebody should live on. Did you discuss the story already? Did you tell the story? Today? Well, let me continue. So he went to the... Ai Zhang was probably the most famous teacher at the time. And do you have somebody who would make a good person to take over this mountain?

[10:03]

And he said, well, meet the head monk. And he asked the head monk, Guo Lin, to walk him across the room and cough a couple of times. And he said, uh-uh, not him. So then they brought in Guishan, who'd been with Pai Chan for 20 years as the tenzo. And he looked at him and said, yes, this is the person. So Hua Lin was a little irritated about it and came and said, I'm the head monk, I should be blah, blah, blah. So he said, if you can say something in front of everybody, I'll give you the, you can have the Kui Shan Mantra.

[11:05]

Then he put a water pitcher down. If you do not call it a water pitcher, what do you call it? And there's various, several different versions. It's a wooden wedge or a wooden shoe or something. He says, you can't call it a wooden shoe. And this is a completely stupid answer. Do you understand why it's a stupid answer? Because it's at exactly the same level as calling it a pitcher. If you're not going to call it a pitcher, you have to change the levels. Now, you could have done something like go get a glass of water and offer it to the teacher.

[12:06]

But more typically, you knock it over because this establishes emptiness. The picture is suddenly empty. You've taken the dialogue away. Not only have you changed its name and changed its level, you've taken it away. So again, so then he was sent to, he said, okay, Baizhang said, I have many, I will continue the teachings here, but if you go to this mountain, please continue the teachings on this mountain. Do you understand? There was nothing on this mountain. He was just offering him a place. And he went there and he just simply built himself a little high up on the mountain for seven or eight years.

[13:14]

He built no buildings, took no students, taught no one, just lived there by himself. He made no effort at all. But the villagers began to bring food and stuff, and pretty soon he became known. And eventually he had 1,500 people living on the mountain and 42 Dharma successors. Now I'd like to at this point ask you the question. If he's asked how many people are in the fields, but the Diamond Sutra says there is not a single living being to be saved or that can be called a living being, how does he answer? Here this is not a matter of not going into borrowed consciousness.

[14:17]

This is a matter of how to recognize with bhajan, I mean with kweshan, that there isn't a living being to be saved. and our attention we bring and betray every being and place with a true prayer we don't put us away should we do what we might say we don't know but we know that we'll exist if we say we don't know

[15:31]

Oh, I'm on the way of saving God. Let's go to the jungle of Satan, too. sentient beings are numberless. I am equal to save them. Deity, I am the sun, [...] Chō gen gen mi myō no wa Hyaku sen man o Yō yō koto katashi Wārei man gen no chi

[16:43]

None surpassed penetrating and perfect Dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Well, I left you yesterday afternoon with this question of what does it mean to say in the Diamond Sutra there are no beings to be saved.

[18:33]

Well, there's many reasons we can look at, but really let's concentrate on if it has any practical, experiential use. I should say here that Zen... Zen, again, Buddhist practice is a language. It's not... It has to do with the potentiality of human beings, but it is still a language. And in the sense that it's a language, it is a... the enlightenment and realization of Buddhism is not the same as in other schools or other teachings.

[19:59]

Now, maybe it's very similar in many ways, but still it's a very particular teaching. And the sense that it's a particular teaching also carries with it the feeling for those practicing that it's a fragile teaching. It could easily disappear from the earth. Now many Zen teachers get enamored of, caught by, confused by even the popular versions of Buddhism, of Zen that are around. But if you've had to practice pretty seriously to save yourself, you really want the teachings in the fullest sense being passed on to others.

[21:23]

So there's a kind of maybe even urgency in these stories of these folks like Yangshan and Guishan making sure with each other that they understand this together. And the understanding is not just a matter of checking up on each other to see if you agree. But rather... That each moment one's own understanding and... a new expression each moment with someone.

[23:12]

It's hard for me to exactly explain what I mean by that, But it's related to what I'm going to try to talk about in the koan. So, I mean, first of all, as I've been emphasizing, it's a kind of playfulness. It's a kind of, as Ivan Illich said to me, he thinks Catholicism is, in the truest sense for him, is a form of ultimate friendship. And that's my feeling too, is that Buddhist practice is a really, in the end, a kind of friendship.

[24:18]

But in these stories, the effort is to carry forth this friendship to, in this case, the 20th century. So, you know, if Guishan asks Yangshan this question, where are you coming from? And Guishan, Yangshan knows very well that Guishan knows where he's coming from. But still, you know, it's a normal kind of question. How are you? So you say, from the feels. But then when Guishan, even if he is your teacher, has the impertinence to ask you how many people are there in the fields, when we both fully know that there's no people in the fields to be saved,

[25:46]

wo wir doch beide wirklich ganz klar wissen, es gibt keine Menschen in den Feldern, die gerettet werden können. Und es könnte ihm also wirklich nicht mehr egal sein, wie viele Leute da sind. And he probably knows anyway. So he's obviously asking something else. And this, not only does the Diamond Sutra, who these folks were well versed in, say there are no, even say there's a person to be saved is diluted. And then in addition to require a shift of mind into borrowed consciousness and counting, this is too much. And then in addition to require a shift of mind into borrowed consciousness and counting, this is too much.

[27:02]

So he says, I'm just going to stick my hole in the ground till you shut up. So in what sense is this an answer? I mean, maybe he's just saying, why don't you shut up and leave me be, don't ask me dumb questions. How is this action an answer? Inwieweit ist diese Handlung eine Antwort? Well, I think here we need to know a little about the Buddhism of the time. Ich glaube, hier müssen wir etwas mehr über den Buddhismus der damaligen Zeit wissen. Now, obviously a Buddhist culture and Asian culture in general was a yogic culture. Which means that mind and body were just normally considered to be one piece. So the expressions on your face are not something that follows just your words or your moods.

[28:22]

Like we don't say everything we think. And so there's no reason our faces should say everything we think. So as Westerners often say, Asian people have this impassive, kind of mysterious look or something like that. Und so sagen Westler oft, dass Asiaten dieses geheimnisvolle, undurchdringliche Gesicht haben. But Asian people, at least in traditional, there's an inbuilt kind of sense that your face should be still unless you have something to say with your face.

[29:24]

Aber in Asien hat man einfach das Gefühl, dass das Gesicht ruhig sein sollte, es sei denn, man hätte etwas mit seinem Gesicht zu sagen. So you can see in koans they say there was a raising of the eyebrow. The raising of an eyebrow is a specific conversation as saying hello or tomorrow or something. And there was a language of the body. And when, I can give you a couple examples. One, a little bit like the lantern of yesterday. Kui Shan asked his two main disciples, Yang Shan and Shan Yan, Shan Yan was the guy who was enlightened by the sound of bamboo.

[30:43]

He practiced with Kuei Shan and he just couldn't get it and he felt stupid and he went off and practiced by himself. And then one day the sound of a tile hitting bamboo opened him up. Anyway, one day they were together with Kweishan and Kweishan said, Oh, in the winter it's really bitter cold. And who is the mover? And Yangshan got up and walked a few paces and stopped and had his hand folded.

[31:58]

And Kuei Shan said, I knew you couldn't answer. So Shan Yan, being a good friend, said, let me answer. I'll try. So he walked himself. He did exactly the same thing, put his hands together and walked a few paces and stopped. And Yangshan said, excuse me, Guishan said, see, he said to Xiangyan, see, I told you, Yangshan didn't understand the question. Again, without trying to look at this more carefully, they both did something with their body and they did the identical thing and they walked and then they stood.

[33:03]

And I'm just pointing out this kind of language that was commonplace then. When Yangshan first went to visit Guishan, he was called, he started, let's see, if I remember correctly, he wanted to practice at 15. He asked his parents if he could I'm not sure whether it's Kweishan or Yangshan who did this, but anyway, he asked his parents at 15 if he could start to practice. And Kweishan, and his parents said that, I'm afraid this might be Kweishan, but we'll tell the story anyway. He couldn't leave, so at 17 he again asked his parents and they said no, and he cut off two of his fingers to show that he was serious.

[34:13]

As Eberhard pointed out, we don't have to do this today. But in any case, for whoever this part of the story applies to, Yangshan was quite alert, and before he was 20, he'd visited Matsu and Baijiang and Tanyu. And from Tanyu on, he'd received his first initiation. He also received the 97 circles, which are the yin-yang circle is one of these that Taoism has developed. And these circles are actually important in the transmission of Buddhism traditionally, and they're also meant, understood as physical movements.

[35:22]

It's one of the reasons why when we go to the altar, we make a little circle. We go up and back in a circle. When you offer the incense, you tend to make a circle. And one of the reasons we chant and bow together, and we don't do much of it, but even a little, is it's thought, one of the reasons, is it's thought to increase the resonance among people. Even the bowing, I'm boring you with these details, is considered a kind of circle that you plunge into and then return to standing again. So when Yangshan, who was already known as little Shakyamuni because he was such a talented young Buddhist, went to see Kueshan for the first time after having known these other remarkable teachers,

[37:11]

When he first came in, Kweishan said, Do you have a teacher? Do you have a master? And it's a natural question to ask somebody who clearly is quite adept already at 20 or so. And he says, I do have a teacher. And so Kueshan said, show me. And Yangshan walked from west to east and then stood still. Now, this is again part of this language of physical movement.

[38:21]

One of the reasons it's said that you don't say Bodhidharma came east, you say Bodhidharma came from the west, is because the west is considered where stillness is, and east is where movement is. Perhaps it's because I don't know the history of these things, but perhaps it's because the sun sets in the west into stillness and rises in the east into activity. So in this kind of yogic culture, if the sun goes from east to west, if you move from east to west, it has some kind of comparable meaning. And so hat in einer yogischen Kultur eine Bewegung von Ost nach Westen eine vergleichbare Bedeutung wie der Weg der Sonne.

[39:31]

Now this is the part that's least familiar to us, this kind of, which is really part of Asian yogic culture, but anyway I should tell you because it's related to the koan. So clearly what... Without saying it with words, what Yangshan was saying to Guishan was, yes, I have a teacher and I'm my own teacher. I'm in ownership of myself. And I'm ready to take responsibility and express that by moving from west to east. East to west. from west to east, from stillness to movement. And of course, Kweishan realized that this was quite an unusual person. So because he was saying, first of all, although I have had teachers, I am my own owner.

[40:56]

And as my own owner, I'm free to practice with you if the time is ripe. So then Yanshan asked, Kueshan asked, No. So then Yangshan asked, where does the living master, living teacher abide? Where does the living Buddha abide? So here he's, of course, asking, okay, I'm ready to have a teacher. Where is the living Buddha reside? And Guishan said, turn your no thinking back to its source. He doesn't say, turn your thinking. He says, turn your no thinking, because already this guy can think without thinking. He says, turn your no thinking back to its source, into the light, until all thinking is exhausted.

[42:21]

And then in the silence, the true silence of non-duality, where differences subside, there the Buddha of suchness resides. So Yangshan said, okay, I'll practice with you. So he moved in and stayed with Kweishan. And then they developed the most famous rapport between two teacher and apprentice of any in the literature.

[43:31]

Okay. So that's to say something about his gesture of standing in one place, neither going west nor east, and putting his staff in the ground. And without trying to intellectually understand it, because obviously a body language is not necessary if it only replicates or mimics what we can understand conceptually. This whole point in, you know, even a husband and wife who lived together years begin to have a language which has obviously many things going on outside or within the conversations.

[44:35]

And if the relationship is a good one, it's even much more than when it's a bad one. So, the point of this attempt to make one of the points of this dialogue of changing language around. I think there's a technical word metanomi, is that it? Which means like when you call the US government, when you call the United States Washington. You know, instead of calling saying the United States, you say Washington says, or coal says, or Berlin's bond says.

[45:55]

Yeah, so the custom in koans, or the tradition, is to take... one word and substitute another word for it, so you might substitute for enlightenment, you might substitute tathagata. substitute another word for it, so you might substitute for enlightenment, you might substitute tathagata. For tathagata you might substitute suchness. For suchness you might substitute lotus. So when you say lotus or lantern, if you substituted lantern, you might be talking about the Buddha.

[46:56]

So there's a whole series of substitutions meant to allow something to flow through the language that isn't there when you get tied to the words. And the same is true in the In the physical language there's a whole realm of kind of resonant physical activity which in this culture is a language. And shifting the words around and shifting from words to physicality, physical expression is to let something come through that's not in any category. Now this is the idea anyway.

[48:11]

So, I mean, this is an example of a koan taking us a little farther than most of us are in practice. Though I, you know, watching you and knowing you, even some of you newer people, we're on the edge of knowing so much in practice if we'd only really it's more a matter of not hindering than of understanding. So from one point of view I'm saying too much and from another point of view I might not be saying enough. Okay, so I want to go back now that we're still stopped at the staff for three days.

[49:40]

We haven't gone past the staff. Go back to the folks in the field. Why say there's no person? Now, last summer, spring, I spoke quite a bit about our habit of substantiation. And I used the example, which I think all of you are probably familiar with, of the letters of the word wave and mixing them up. And first there's the experience of other, and then when they come together as wave, there's a feeling of, ah, that's wave. And if you can withhold or substitute other kinds of glue for that act of substantiation, And that habit of substantiation.

[51:06]

You begin to see things more as they are before you substantiate them through your habitual mental patterns. And then dismiss them as just a tree or just a stick or something. Now there's another way to approach this, which is, as I said yesterday, this... Madhyamaka Nagarjuna practice.

[52:09]

One of the many approaches to emptiness. Which is again, if you read about anything about Buddhism, we chant the sutra, its form is emptiness, emptiness is form. But really nobody wants to know much more about emptiness than But you have to say it now and then. But the middle way means to avoid the extremes of substantiation or nihilism. Now, this is not just thinking, oh, this is real, but the noticing as we notice our restlessness or our excitability or desire, we notice our tendency to substantiate and dismiss. And we lose the power of the immediate present.

[53:23]

And Dogen talks about hosho, the absorption in the immediate present. He talks about entering the absorption of the immediate present and encountering the absorption of the immediate present. If you really do this even once or twice in your life, it changes your life. So this practice of the middle way is to notice the unfindability of things. So imagine I have a book here in my hands for the sake of conversation.

[54:37]

The book is pages or paper and print and a cover and a binding But you can't find in the parts the book. We call it a book, but the book isn't the collection of the parts. It's only nominally the shape of the parts. Mike Murphy's book has a hole in the middle like a donut. And it's not, the book isn't in the parts. And the parts aren't in the book.

[55:38]

And the book isn't different from the parts. And the book isn't the same as the parts. Now, I brought this up yesterday and Eric said to me, yes, but the person who is observing all this is the I or the book. And intellectually, that's correct enough. But the important thing is the process of doing this. So if in practice, just as I did with the book, you say, where, who am I? Where is Richard? Where is Zen Tatsu?

[56:39]

Or whatever level I want to subtly identify myself independent of Richard or Zen Tatsu. I'm not the same as these parts. These parts aren't in me. I'm not simply in the parts. I'm not the shape of the parts. I'm not just the total of the parts. I'm not different from the parts, though. And I'm not the same. This is the seven-limbed reasoning process. The point is, if you do this as a meditation practice, and you begin to see that you are not findable, you begin to see that everything isn't findable.

[57:56]

And it has a strange effect on you. The more you practice this, I mean, you still keep your sanity and you know that you're, you know, people call you Dickie Bird. But when you get familiar with the unfindability of things, you feel more like you're everywhere at once. And the idea of desire starts seeming kind of strange. Because you don't feel separate enough from anything to desire it. You tend to feel in the midst of this kind of experience that everything is already owned, like two magnets which have disappeared into each other.

[59:05]

Or it's like looking into the twinkle of an eye. When somebody looks at you with their eye, you don't think, I want to possess that eye. You know? In fact, usually you can't look too long in another eye because it's too much. So this absorption in the immediate present is like everything becomes an eye which is looking at you and you're looking at it and there's no differentiation. And from a practice sense, this is what entering the middle way means, neither substantiation nor nihilism or denial. So from this point of view, which is the Diamond Sutra is really pointing out, you can't say there's any person to be saved because there's only the twinkle of an eye.

[60:23]

So he says, how many people are there in the fields? How many twinkles are there in the eye? You know, his friend Shan Yang, after the bamboo hit the tile, the tile hit the bamboo. We don't know which hit which, actually. He was enlightened, and the word came back to Yangshan and Guishan. So Yangshan thought, well, it's great to be enlightened.

[61:36]

This is called a Pratyekabuddha when you're enlightened by accident. Very good for you to be a Pratyekabuddha, but it doesn't help many other people. Because you don't know what happened and there's no way to pass on the teaching. So Yangshan said to Guishan something like probably I'm going to go check out that Pratyekabuddha. So he went over I hope your legs are doing all right but he went over to see him And he said, it's great, young Shang, Shang Yang, excuse me, but please say something to me. And Shang Yang gave him a poem.

[62:38]

which had various lines in it. There's no need for this or that. And one of the lines is, for my eyes and ears, there are no longer rules. So it's a pretty good poem, but it was mostly derived from the sayings of teachers and nothing but old stuff. What about your own experience? So then Shan Yen said, last year's poverty was such that not even a gimlet, an ice, last year's poverty was bad indeed, I guess it was. There was room only for an ice pick or a gimlet.

[63:49]

But this year's poverty is really bad. There's not even room for an ice pick. So he's saying something like... his realization of emptiness, poverty, is really much more than last year. And then Yangchen says, well, that's good for tathagatism. But you're not anywhere near the teaching of the lineage of the ancestors. Now, Tathagatasen means the realization or the understanding that arises through practice in the Heart Sutra and meditation.

[65:04]

In contrast to the realization that arises through another person. So then he made another poem which says... I can't remember... Well, you won't even understand my secret, but there's a twinkle in your eye or something like that. So he approved of this third poem. But it's not just that he approved of the third poem. Something happened during those three poems. And his enlightenment deepened and was realized with Yangshan.

[66:06]

So he puts his hoe in the ground. And Guishan says, you know, now I'm not talking about the people in the fields. He now talks about what they feel between them is the people on South Mountain, which means the world, who are in there gathering thatch for their doppelgangers.

[67:15]

Is that what they're called? Doppel? What's the thatched house called? It's a different meaning. Different meaning? Gathering thatch for their houses. They themselves are realized even though they don't know it if you ask them. So, I brought this staff in so I could say something about it. Because this is again a typical example of this sense of not making everything present. We could call it a lotus staff. But there's no lotus here.

[68:20]

Well, first of all, it's just a piece of wood. But down here is the lotus embryo. It's often put in soups in Japan. That's a little tiny lotus embryo. You can see, and you open it up, and there's a full little lotus in it. And here's the lotus bud. And here's the lotus seed pod. But there's no lotus flower. Because the lotus flower is in you. It's the same sense of seven flowers, eight blooms. There's seven flowers, but the bloom is in you, the eighth. So this staff is a teaching staff in that sense.

[69:20]

You can't even call it a lotus. And you can't even call it a lotus. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place, with the true merit of Buddha's sway. Shujo manse gandho. Vajra manse gandho. or who will escape the miracle of the so-called human future that they began to accept if beings are nonetheless alive and far-off to debate them.

[70:43]

The desire to start a race across the world, alive and far-off to put an end to them, To deliver our friends upon us, I will be proud to master them. The Buddha's way is unsurpassed, so I will be proud to pay it. jesu miho mokpo he sheshii tattei imatsu ran an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely yet with him in a hundred thousand million pappas and begin to see and listen to during amma and accept

[72:13]

Okay. Do you have anything to say for yourselves or your non-self? You once said enlightenment is an accident, and practice makes you accident-prone. Now, Zhang Yen, the Dharma brother, Yangshan, despairing at his lack of progress in Zen, gave it up, burned everything, left the monastery, and went to live as a hermit.

[73:22]

He was weeding. The rock hit the bamboo. He was enlightened by accident. Yangshan came to test him, considering his enlightenment What is this accident of enlightenment? What's the difference? It turned out that his enlightenment was genuine. This was revealed through their dialogue, through their exchange.

[74:27]

So what is this accident enlightenment? And how does practice make us extant? Rebecca Rocher once said that lighting is a kind of accident and that practice is something that increases the probability of an accident. And Rocher told a lecture by Shan Yan this morning. This is a monk who is desperate, who has made so few progress in his practice and he has burned his robes out of this desperation, left the monastery. and went into a one-bedroom apartment and lived there for many years. One day she heard the sound of bamboo on a piece of brick or stone and was enlightened.

[75:34]

Enlightenment as an accident. The Yangsha then started and tested this enlightenment with an intensive dialogue and found it real. My question is now, what about the accident? What is the difference and why did you call it an accident? We are all enlightened and practice is the process of realizing. Sometimes an accident makes us realize that. Sometimes further enlightenment makes us realize that. And there are many kinds of enlightenment.

[76:46]

From a Buddhist point of view, some kinds of enlightenment are might even be harmful. So, I mean, that's enough to say. If you want to question me further, Ronald. Is that enough, what I want to say, if you want to ask me further? Anything else anybody wants to bring up?

[77:50]

Yes? With both hands. Referring to your lecture this morning, that way it gives me the courage to go on. Of course, there's a lot of shame It's just a question, what is that me? I'm used to feel that me by feeling my body, by feeling emotions, feeling these things maybe from inside, but by sitting by breathing, by working with their own, in some way, it feels there's nobody from inside.

[79:01]

Or generally, there's a sensation not having a body. What then is that? Okay. Someone else? I won't forget. I won't forget. Anyone else? I don't quite understand what realization means. Yeah, and that's normal enough. So you have it shined through?

[80:12]

Well... Let me speak about it in the context of the koan. Because to just create a context now for speaking about it would be a little lecture all in itself. Yes. I feel that working with the part in the koan first when Yaksan is planting the hoe and then when he's taking the hoe and leaving it has an effect on me which is like I'm stretched between

[81:24]

like nothing and at the same time having contact to the surface where there is entity. That's since yesterday evening I'm feeling that. Yeah, I'm grateful. Can you say it again in German? I think it's important that we also hear ourselves in German. So, I went all the time to this place where Yangshan first plants his chop in the ground and then where he picks up the chop and goes. And for me it's like when I stay with the point where he plants the chop in the ground, a point where everything disappears. Where I, as I said before, dissolve my identity.

[82:34]

And when I go with him, when he picks up the chop again, then it's like returning to the world. And both are at the same time. Yes. I had two important experiences today. On the one hand, when I was sitting, I was looking for myself and couldn't find myself. And then I heard that we couldn't find ourselves. They said then, we can't find ourselves. That was so comforting, because I was already a little desperate.

[83:37]

Today I had two important experiences. First during sitting I was looking for myself and didn't find anybody. And then you said in lecture that we are unfindable. And that was very comforting. And the other important experience was the one that Renly went through. It was very important for me to understand this action and the teaching that is associated with it. It was great for me. The other important experience was the experience of Randy leaving the kind of to feel frustration and the emptiness after his departure and at the same time feeling the relief in that experience

[84:53]

Yeah, I heard that, I mean, the last few days Randy's been almost giving the same lectures I've been giving. But today I can't compete with him. Unless we both have diarrhea at the same time. Yes. For me, there is a sentence which I didn't understand, but there's a certain feeling that's going on in this. But this is the sentence, This is for me something I've gotten a little bit, and I'm somewhere. It's not the normal life anymore, but I'm in that. I'm on my path, but I've not arrived.

[86:11]

I'm somewhere in between. And I don't know how to really go forward and what forward means in this context. So I'll just stop with this sentence. Yeah, good. But I have no meaning. Yeah. There is a sentence where it is described that If he hadn't survived, I wouldn't be stuck between alphabets and a horse. I have the feeling that I went astray, but I'm stuck somewhere and don't know where to go. I don't know how it will go on. I don't know what this expression means. Yes.

[87:37]

You were talking several times about lineages, and what I understood is maybe something like the way how you meet the world, the way how you look at things. That was my history, it's a very big part of my story, looking back, seeing that many things are false. and getting more in contact with Buddhism and with your teaching and other teachings, and seeing forward, I simply feel fear. because it would mean I see something that we would like to do or I could trust, and it also would mean I would have to change something. I would have to change, and simply fear comes up. You've probably already lost enough here.

[88:40]

Sorry? You've probably already lost enough hair. Don't worry. Do you want to say that in German? Roshichi often spoke about lines, and what I understood is that a line means a kind of view of how I encounter the world. And that has a certain meaning in my life. So when I look back in my life, very much, or perhaps even everything in my world, I question what I see as wrong. And when I look forward, I also notice with Vipudism and what Roshi Ji and other teachings and what I believe and what I am convinced of, that a lot of fear just appears at that point, because that also means a lot of consequences for me and I would have to change my life a lot.

[89:56]

Let's start here and go back. I close my eyes. I have to say it in German. I feel very nervous at the moment. This morning at the TEDx, there was this sentence, that the room is between the deserving to hold on to things and to do nothing, to nihilism.

[91:01]

It's in this space that suddenly the world looks at me. And it hit me like a blow. And it felt like a poem that I had read as a Jew, from Wilke, the thousandth of April, who looks at me from a thousand ways. In this sentence, you must end your life. And I always understood this must as an order, not as a categorical imperative. That came to me. And then I went out, And through these shadowless eyes they can also... Shall I sit over there?

[92:09]

No, you sit here. Yes, Dorothy, I was very struck this morning in the lecture, what you'd said about the middle way, that one pole is substanciation and the other pole is nihilism, and it really struck her and it brought back a poem of Wilke she'd read as a young woman some time ago. Not so long. That's like in that poem, the broken torso of Apollo.

[92:49]

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