Yes, and maybe feel what the topic of this seminar, what that means for us or could mean. Suzuki Roshi's dream, order and transmission of Buddhism in the West. When I chose the titles together with Christian at the beginning of the year for the seminars of Roshi this year, I had the very strong feeling that it is important that we as Sangha, all those who practice together, that we meet once and really take up this topic. Roshi sets the dream of Suzuki Roshi here in the west and we are here about Roshi.

[01:05]

And I think now the time is really right. When I think about what has happened in the last few months, once Beka Roshi completed the transmission of this teaching line with Rosiyo in Crestone. After the Sesshi there was the last ceremony. Rosiyo is a very old student of Beka Roshi, who started practicing with him 20 years ago. and she then received the priest ordination in San Francisco, then returned to Mexico, she is Mexican, studied psychology, is now a professor at the University in Mexico and a few years ago she practiced intensively with him again and he then started one year ago with the transfer and tried to give her this transfer.

[02:12]

And it was a very intense experience for all of us to witness how it all happened, also the beginnings of it. And the other two students of Roschi, who also already have this teaching transfer, This is Philip Whalen. Some of you know him. Philip was part of the very first Sashin that B.K. Roshi held in Germany. That was in 1989 in the Waldhaus on Lake Lara. And I think with that, with this step here to do this rail practice and especially Beate asked Roshi again and again to start with it. Did he really decide to bring Suzuki Roshi's teaching here to Germany, to Europe? And Philipp now lives in San Francisco, lived in Santa Fe for a while and is now quite old, almost blind.

[03:21]

The other student of Bekaroshi was Isan Dorsi. You may have seen the book Street Zen. It describes Isan's life. Isan died of AIDS three years ago. And that was a great loss for all of us. He ran the Zen Center in San Francisco, the Hartford Street Zen Center. It's in the gay community. And part of it was a hospice for AIDS patients. Yes, if I now know the three or the four, let's say Baker Roshi, I knew Isan, I know Philip Whalen and I know Suzuki Roshi and of course I ask myself who was Suzuki Roshi? And just when I started practicing with Baker Roshi, it was a question that moved me a lot.

[04:31]

I often looked at his picture on the back of Zenmind, Beginnersmind. I even had it on my shelf for a while, so that he often looked at me. I know once I had an intense dream of him. It was very funny, I was just having a discussion with Pekka Roshi and I had to think of something like, it would be incredibly nice if Suzuki Roshi was still there. I would take him to court or interrogate him or as a referee or something like that. And I then dreamed of Suzuki Roshi. That was the first time. And then he appeared to me. It was a very tender man, a Japanese man. And he was wearing a grey training suit.

[05:38]

And he came in and looked at me and said, I don't want you to be sorry for yourself. And then he said, that made me a little upset, you have to meet him with the sword. I thought, how am I supposed to do that? And the dream took me a long time, especially this training suit he was wearing. It's really true. I somehow also put on the training suit at some point and I think I'll wear it for a while. And that's how my relationship with Beka Roshi started, also with Suzuki Roshi.

[06:44]

And for six years I've been in America more often, also in Santa Fe. And there are always students, old students of Suzuki Roshi passing by, who tell about him, how he was. And what he liked to eat and what he liked to do. And I always close my ears and eyes and listen very much. And about a year ago David Chadwick came to visit in Cresthorn. This is also a very old student of Suzuki Roshi, a very, very funny and humorous one. And he recently published this book, Thank You and OK, An American Zen Fault in Japan. It's a book that I can recommend to you very much, so wonderful. And he has now decided as a project to publish a book about Suzuki Roshi.

[07:46]

And he also came by and of course wanted to talk to Baker Roshi like Suzuki Roshi for Enma. And so I would also like to ask you to feel a little bit during this weekend. Who is Suzuki Roshi for you? And what was Suzuki Roshi's dream? What was his vision? And we can certainly say one thing. That's what Beka Roshi said to me in the car today. We are his vision and his dream. And so Suzuki Roshi brought Zen, or the practice and the teaching of Zen, to America.

[08:57]

And Beka Roshi from 1986 to Europe. And in 1989 this ski practice began in the Waldhaus. And in the meantime we have been doing this since 1990 in the House of Silence in Hamburg. And then, in the last few months, two more important events took place. At the end of last year, B.K. Roshi decided on Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen master who had to leave Vietnam. And since he lives in exile in France and has a center there, and who practices very intensively in Europe and in the United States, and who is also a teacher for Bekaroshi, to accompany him on a long trip to Asia. And that meant that for the first time here in Europe we conducted a Sesshin-Onin.

[10:06]

It took place in May and some of the Sesshin are here. I have to say that it was a very touching experience for me, I think for everyone, that Bekaroshi's students, Gerald and Gisela Weischütte, came from Creston to lead these Sesshin. But it was clear that everyone was absolutely important to this success of the show. The cook, the dancer, the Mahakavi, then the Christine from Vienna. Unfortunately, they could not come, the grizzlers, because it is a very long journey. Actually everyone, the whole practice with Bekaroshi, all the years, has contributed to the fact that we have managed to do it without him making the decision. Just to feel that our practice is already mature enough, that we can do it without him,

[11:14]

has deepened my practice. And Bekaroshi then sent us a message from China and said, yes, Gerald and Gisela have crossed Giorgio's bridge in this Sesshin. It's a metaphor from a koan. And he himself was in this time in China and thus fulfilled a wish for life. He went to all these places together with Thich Nhat Hanh, to Linzhi's temple, Rinzai, and to some other temples with unspeakable names. where our ancestors, from our transmission line, the monks and masters have practiced and where the stories from this time have been delivered to us and which we study in Shoyeroku, in the Book of Serenity.

[12:27]

And after the Sesshin, I flew to Bangkok to meet Bekaroshi halfway. After the end of his journey and one of the first things he said, I'm sure he will talk about it, he said, the Chinese today are further away from the koans than we are in the Dhamma Sangha. This is also a transfer. And that's amazing. And he just said, your practice looks really good. The Chinese monks. I think he will talk a little bit about it later. Yes, and then of course the mood now also for this weekend, I have noticed that I have also let something happen, my beginnings in practice, and of course also what I want with the practice.

[13:51]

The old question again, why do I practice? And of course, when I think about it, what is Suzuki Roshi's vision? then I am very quickly at the question, what is my vision of my life? And Beka Roshi asks you, also this weekend, to really make contact with this question. What is the vision of my life? And what is the vision that I have for Dhamma Sangha, for our practice, how we practice together here? And maybe we can also find some points of contact.

[14:59]

Please. That is a perfect point. Thank you for starting for me.

[16:16]

I don't know who thought up this title, but... Maybe I did. But in any case, it's the first time I've thought about talking about Sukhiroshi and in this way. Did you mention the Roman villa? No. We left a little early yesterday. Usually we leave the same day. We're trying leaving a day earlier. Every year it seems I get stuck in more stows. So I thought maybe we should leave earlier. And I heard holidays are starting up here. So we, in Arweiler, is that right?

[17:43]

Very good. We stopped in a, stayed in a little hotel. And then there's, right near the hotel, there was a Roman villa they uncovered recently. And when you come out of the hotel, there is a sign that says, Roman Villa. And in 1980, the foundations of a Roman building were discovered. And if you haven't seen it, you should go. It's quite extensive and quite extraordinary. And if you haven't seen it yet, you should really take a look at it. It's very big, very extensive and extraordinary. It was a residence, there were two residences from the second to the fourth centuries. And then from the fourth to eighth century it had other uses. So it was a villa twice as long as America has been settled by Europeans.

[18:45]

And seeing it made me quite sad, actually. The life is quite articulated, and they liked bathing and eating just about as much as we do. And the refinement of the house is extraordinary. And the refinement of this house is really extraordinary. But if you think about the political situation at the time and the exploitation and so forth that goes into building such an extensive house, it makes you rather sad. But if you think about the political situation at the time and also how much exploitation is necessary to build such a house, then you get pretty sad.

[20:09]

And we haven't, so it made me sad because I felt, you know, here we go back almost 2,000 years and we haven't learned much in those 2,000 years. And there's these cave paintings they've discovered recently, which go back, quite beautiful paintings, which go back 30,000 years. And then after looking at this Roman villa, we went and had lunch in a 13th century building, which was quite nice, too. It was very pleasant. I couldn't afford it very often, but it was very pleasant. made me think of all these layers of time that we live in.

[21:29]

And certainly, as I think many of you know, at least I was just in China and Japan for six weeks. with Thich Nhat Hanh and a group of Plum Village monks. And Thay, which is what he's commonly called Thich Nhat Hanh, asked me to join the group last, I don't know, year sometime. And I'm speaking about it partly because a number of people have asked me to and also because it relates to thinking about this topic of Sukhiroshi's vision or dream.

[22:32]

So... Anyway, he said he wanted to go with seven or eight ordained Western people. Yeah. So there were one American monk And me, that's two. And there was one French and one half French, half Vietnamese. Or part Vietnamese. And there was an American woman, nun.

[23:33]

And anyway, there were eight of us. And Arnie and Therese, who I ordained, but who now live as laypeople, and who do Parallax Press. And they went first to... They started in Taiwan and then they went to Korea. And that was for a month or so before I came. And I joined them. I met them actually in Korea, but then went directly to Japan. So we were several weeks in Japan and then several weeks in China. And I couldn't I didn't join them in the beginning part because I was finishing the practice period at Crestone. But I had a lot of of the

[24:46]

feeling of what happened in both Taiwan and Korea before I came. And I decided to do this pretty much the way I lived as a monk in Japan years ago. And living as a monk, there's an aspect of it which is perpetual winter schlaf. I mean, it's sort of like if you're a monk living in Buddhist type, right? It's sort of like somebody picks you up and puts you in a corner and leaves you there for a few days. You don't know how long they're going to leave you, whether it's going to be 15 minutes or two and a half days, so you sort of go into hibernation.

[26:08]

And you learn to pull yourself into hibernation. And what happens when they come to get you doesn't make much difference actually. If it makes a lot of difference, you suffer. And I at least get tired of suffering. So you learn how to winter schlaf. And sometimes it's wet and cold and you have to sleep on the floor and sometimes it's sweltering hot.

[27:14]

So anyway, it was quite enjoyable for me. So I just went along with the situation. Now, actually, I don't have too much I can say about the trip. We'll see what comes out during the seminar. And I don't have too much to say about it because I'm not a tourist. I have no interest where I was. I don't even know where I was in China. I never looked at a map. I just went wherever everybody went.

[28:15]

I can tell you sort of, but I actually didn't know beforehand or during. I like to do things, but I have no interest in seeing anything. I find whatever is in front of my eyes is usually more than enough. So I really didn't know where I was. They said, okay, 10 o'clock, put your luggage outside the door. 5.30, there'll be a special breakfast. We leave at 6 on a bus. So then we'd do those things and At six we'd get on a bus and at quarter to seven we'd be in some train station with lines from here to the town waiting for two days for tickets.

[29:29]

I mean, 1.2 billion people is a lot of people. It's soon going to be half the world's population. So whatever happens in China, it's half the world. It will be half the human beings anyway. Anyway. So then you get on a train and you sit on a little wooden bench in a passageway for six hours. So I didn't know where the train was or where it was going, so I can't tell you that kind of thing. But we did go to Rinzai Linji's temple and to Zhaozhou's temple.

[30:37]

And many other places, but I mentioned those two. And in my imagination, they were always, because I've, of course, been doing this 30 or 40 years. So in my imagination, I thought about them a lot. I imagine at least a hilly place, maybe mountainous. It's just, but it's a huge, flat, dry, populated plain. Sort of like in the, might be in the middle of town here.

[31:37]

And of course China has been through immense social dislocation, suffering in the last century. Starting with the Japanese occupation. But at the same time, being in first Japan, which I know very well, and China made me think a lot about Buddhism, what I'm doing, what we're doing, etc. And, of course, in China and... Korea and Taiwan, I'm not a monk because you have to take 250 precepts and you couldn't be married and things like that.

[33:12]

So it made me think a lot about the precepts and how Buddhism has been continued. Both Tibet and Japan have ordained married people, but the rest of Asia doesn't. In Tibet and in Japan there are ordinated people who are also married, but the rest of the Buddhist world, the rest of Asia, does not have that. Most of it will not be so interesting for you. I just want to design a picture for you. Well, I was in Japan.

[34:15]

I ran into, literally in the lobby of a hotel, Maezumi Roshi. And I think he knew I was going to be there because Thich Nhat Hanh's trip was quite an event in Japan. So he tried to, I think he hoped to run into me and in the same hotel I ran into Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoichi-sensei, Hoichi Roshi. And Maizumi Roshi wanted me to meet with the Soto leaders to talk about the transmission of Buddhism to the West and so forth.

[35:18]

And I haven't participated in the formal side of these things for years and I'm not very interested. But he knows that, so he kind of ran into me and got me to meet these guys. So I had lunch with them. So they were quite nice people. In the middle of the lunch, she had to leave and we agreed to meet later. But we didn't because the next day he died. So he went to his brother's temple in Tokyo and didn't wake up in the morning.

[36:23]

Er ging zum Tempel seines Bruders in Tokio und wachte am nächsten Morgen nicht auf. Das ist alles. So I've known him for a long time, since the early 60s, and he knew Suzuki Roshi, but anyway, he died. Und ich kenne ihn eine lange Zeit, seit Anfang der 60er Jahre, und er kannte Suzuki Roshi auch sehr gut, und er starb. I don't know how old he was. I should find out. I have to write something in the next few days. But he's not much older than I am. I'm not threatening you with an imminent death. But it is, you know, what are we doing here? I don't know what you're doing here, but what am I doing here?

[37:43]

Well, Suzuki Roshi's vision has to be you. Whatever his vision was, it has to be that somebody like you or you specifically continued this practice. And in short, going back to China and Japan a bit and Thailand too, the trip made me feel very good about what we're doing in the West. And what the Dharma Sangha is doing. And given the huge changes in China in recent centuries, I feel, you know, in many ways we're closer to the koans and to Linji and Zhaozhou than they are. And there's a quality of, I mean, we, you know, there are cultures which have no language, no words for wait, to wait or to be late.

[39:00]

Other kinds of time are possible. And when you enter practice, the more deeply you enter it, you discover other kinds of time. And I don't know what words to use in English, but our usual time is, we could say, divided time. And then we could say maybe there's joined time or undivided time where you feel undivided continuity. Or a simultaneous time where everything that's happened is present, overlapping.

[40:14]

I think Ulrike was physically struck by that because the location offers it to you on her recent trip to Jerusalem. But I, looking at the history of being there in China, the history of much of China is as much in me and more than most of the contemporary Chinese. Now, I'm not talking about China, really, nor was Thich Nhat Hanh there because it was Chinese. But because something happened in Buddhist time and in the creation of Zen Buddhism in China, which Thich Nhat Hanh has spent his whole life studying,

[41:31]

Studying and living. And modestly, me too, in my own way. So although we may not have learned, I'm afraid we haven't learned much in 30,000 years or 2,000 years. Or maybe we knew more in the past. But I think the vision of Buddhism is, although we are not different from others, The rapaciousness or greed, hate and delusion or confusion we see in people politically, psychologically, spiritually is necessarily also us.

[43:05]

Each person you see is a version of you. This is important to remind yourself of. But each person you see is also a version of Buddha. And in everything you do, you're showing what kind of Buddha you are, as well as what kind of heir of 30,000 years. So if I look at, well, I think Eureka said that, I mean, if we're going to look at Sekiroshi's dream or Sekiroshi's vision, Each of us has to look at our own vision.

[44:30]

You can't study something so intimate as Buddha's vision or Sukersi's vision unless you actually look at your own. And I ask you to this evening and during the seminar, but this evening, beginning this evening, really ask yourself, what kind of person do you want to be? What kind of world do you want to live in? And so forth. And how can you enact this vision of your own? I mean, our personal vision has to be the basis of everything we do. And the Eightfold Path starts with right views, which means vision, because everything comes back to, every perception comes back to the vision in which those perceptions rest and are initiated.

[46:05]

So Sukhiroshi's dream or vision is that at least we can each be true to, find a way to be true to how we would like to live. And not, this isn't about houses or jobs, you know, things like that. And it's not about houses or jobs? Ulrike bought herself a new bicycle, the old one was stolen.

[47:08]

And so I bought myself one too, and we discovered Heidelberg on the bicycle. I hated to come to the seminar because I didn't want to be separated from my new bicycle. We almost got a rack and brought you. Now that I saw you drove for three days, right? Maybe, hey, next time we'll... Well, I can't bring that suitcase, but maybe a Zafu or two. I'm not talking about, of course, again, houses or bicycles. But how do you enjoy your own aliveness?

[48:08]

Everything has to start with enjoying your own aliveness. You don't have to know anything about practice, really, except how to begin, how to discover the enjoyment of your own aliveness. You can't hibernate if you're distracted, unable to enjoy your own aliveness. And you can't enter that deep fallow time or timelessness in which the teachings of insentient beings and Buddhism appear.

[49:26]

So I'd like to talk, practice with you as much as we can, the discovery of the enjoyment of our own aliveness. At least this is central to Buddhism and to Sukhiroshi's vision, so we should speak about it. Now, supposedly, the Buddha held up a flower, we say an Udambara flower,

[50:42]

And it says he held it up and winked. But I think, you know, somehow the image of Buddha's winking is a little strange. But in Buddhism there's much about the eyebrow and the eye and a way of speaking with the body that is characteristic, particularly in Zen practice. So let's leave the wink out, even though it appears in some koans. So the Buddha supposedly held up a flower and Mahakasyapa smiled.

[52:15]

Now I'm coming back to this story, this mythology because Sukhirishi is a Zen master, and I devoted my life to understanding him because his personal vision and Buddha's vision were one. So I can try to give you some feeling about him as a person and my decision to practice with him. And how that decision carried me for ten years and carries me today.

[53:26]

But I also should speak about the vision of Buddhism that Suzuki Roshi carried. So we should, I think, go back to this mythology of the beginning of the Zen lineage. Because in this mythology is encapsulated teaching. So the Buddha held up this flower and Mahakashapa smiled. And then when he smiled, the Buddha said, I have the true eye of the Dharma.

[54:52]

I have the true Dharma eye. And the inconceivable mind of nirvana. And I now entrust it to you. So I'd like to speak with you, study with you, practice with you this statement, at least this much, these two, two and a half days. Now, Dogen's work is called Shobo Genzo. In the 13th century, the same, he lived in another part of the world at the same time this restaurant building was built. He was wondering, I'm sure, what was going on in Arweiler.

[56:08]

In any case, he called his life work the Schobogenzer. Which means, the title means, Shobo Genzo is True Dharma Eye Treasury. Treasure. So, So he carried the name of his, he took from this statement to Buddha, to Mahakashapa, the title of his life work, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.

[57:14]

Now, So if we talk about this, we have to talk about Dharma, and there are really five aspects of Dharma which belong to you. And what is the eye, the true eye of Dharma? And what is the inconceivable mind of nirvana? And how do I entrust it to you? Shall we sit a few minutes and then... Have the evening to sleep.

[58:27]

As part of this weekend, sharing with Suzuki Roshi. I have to talk about, I should talk about, I want to talk about the realization of continuity of mind. is asked, how do we escape from hot and cold?

[62:10]

What was the question? There's no escape. How do we escape from hot and cold? There is no escape. No, how do we escape? How do we escape? You see how this question already... Okay, well, we'll see. I want to thank all of you for coming and joining us on this short ancient journey.

[63:18]

Please have a good night's sleep. You know, sitting at the Sazen is the basic practice of Buddhism. It's the source of all the teachings of Buddhism. Not that that source has been discovered and brought forth in the sutras and the teachings and the practices.

[64:24]

You don't always have to do sitting, you can do many other practices. But if you want to go back to the source of the teachings and the source of yourself, sitting is the deepest practice. But it does take, especially as we get older, a physical commitment to staying limber and open to the posture. So that the posture itself begins to teach us. So dass die Haltung selbst, die körperliche Haltung anfängt uns zu lehren.

[65:43]

But it shouldn't at the same time be an ordeal. Aber gleichzeitig sollte das jetzt nicht irgendein schwieriger Zwang sein. Learning to sit shouldn't prevent us from practicing Buddhism. Und das Sitzen sollte uns nicht davon abhalten, uns den Buddhismus zu studieren. For most people in the beginning 40 minutes is pretty long. You can sit on a chair or change your posture if you need to. But we have this opportunity to let each other, let all of us, 50 of us or so, help each other sit. So let's try. Oh my goodness! The first step in learning not to interfere

[68:36]

is to intentionally bring your mind and breath together through counting your exhales or following your breath. And this way you open yourself to the deep mind of the body.

[70:11]

And even the deep mind of the phenomenal world. If it's possible.

[72:04]

No, you're quite comfortable. Good morning. So I want to, I'd like to begin by, if you don't mind, Beate, thanking you for organizing, making possible this seminar.

[73:16]

And discovering this beautiful place of our hosts. And talking us into coming out here. It took you about two years to talk us into it. And for, it's been about six years now that the Munster seminar has gone on. This is twice a year. Three times by the train station. And twice before that at the... Great. Seven years. Hey. So it's good I met you in the Black Forest. at that conference. And now you brought us back into the forest.

[74:24]

By the way, forgive me a little bit for always doing this, but it's such a habit, I don't... You know, suddenly having come from China, I realize it may seem kind of odd to me, it's just natural. It's not really Asian. It's a yogic thing of putting your hands in front of this chakra and relating to other people in that way. So it's a kind of unsocial recognition of the Dharma body.

[75:25]

And this question of, I mean, our social space is so powerful, it mostly takes over what we're doing. And by social space I mean how we define ourselves in relationship to others. And how we define ourselves in our actions through others. And that also affects the way I teach because I'm teaching in a lay situation. Of course, I always have to acknowledge your social space first and what's comfortable for you socially. And maybe by the end of the seminar you'll know

[76:52]

more what I mean by that. Now last year at Munster we spoke about the, I think what I call the four domains of aliveness. And that's the four noble positions of walking, standing, sitting and lying, lying down. And last year we practiced once or twice walking meditation here around the pond and and on these paths. We discovered in our room, somehow lodged in our chair, a dehydrated frog.

[78:14]

Oh, it had become a lint ball. Yeah. And it made me think of the, what's it in the Bible, from dust thy came and to dust thy returnest, or something like that. This frog was deep in the process of returnest. Kind of jumped out of the chair and I went, eek! And he jumped out of the chair and I thought, what is that? I didn't say, what is that?

[79:35]

I said, eat. And Ulrike, being the biologist, scooped it up in her hands and took it out to the pond. And I guess it fiddled around a bit and started to swim. I hope if we do walking meditation, Get as revived as the frog. He woke up Elke this morning. It's the same frog, you think? So, So this seminar I would like to teach, talk about walking meditation a little more than I did last year.

[80:54]

And of course since I've been the last couple of months with Thich Nhat Hanh, he's decided really to teach walking meditation as the basis of all practice, or the root practice, or the standard practice. So there's a, well let me, there's a word used now in English for computers, the default position.

[81:57]

And it means both, as Ulrike just said, the standard position. It also means, in English, the position you take when all else fails. Like when you go into bankruptcy, what you do by default, what you do when everything else is gone. Or the kids took the car and the bicycle, so by default I walked to town. So there's a quality in these four postures of finding, I don't know how else to express it, the default position in each of those postures.

[83:13]

Now, many of you may have discovered that in your sitting posture. But let me speak about it anyway. Maybe I should speak about forest mind. So when you go for a walk in the forest, the forest often calms you down and brings you into a kind of peacefulness. Now what is that peacefulness that the walking in the forest can bring us to?

[84:33]

Where we feel we recognize the forest and feel the forest recognizes us. Now if you walk in a recently reforested forest mountain or field. Where the trees are all planted in straight rows and there aren't many plants or bushes between the trees. And there are few insects and not many birds. I think when we walk in such a reef forest, we don't feel this peacefulness. In fact, we may feel it's too simple or it's too conceptual or we understand it too well.

[85:46]

It may actually bring us into the very mind we were trying to get away from. It's not very peaceful. When we walk in a forest in which is healthy and unfolded in its many ecological niches, we feel a deep complexity or a deep pattern that allows many lives to be lived. So I feel that this peacefulness the forest can bring us is when we feel recognized by our own deep complexity.

[87:00]

When we can settle into our own complexity. You know sometimes it's nice to listen to a Brandenburg concertos or something like that on a record or CD. But I think sometimes it's nice just to listen to the radio. Or you don't know what's going to come next. You're not choosing what you're going to hear. As beautiful as Bach is or Mozart, if you're always choosing what you are going to listen to, sometimes you feel trapped in your own choices.

[88:21]

Do you know what I mean? And sometimes it's better just to listen to what radio, what's something stupid that the radio brings you. There's a certain freedom in not making a choice. And there's a quality of that too in zazen because you can't, your own complexity, your own deep patterns are not within your control or choice or only partially. So there's the mind that listens to something beautiful that you've chosen, like the Brandenburg Concertos.

[89:30]

And then there's the mind that just listens to the radio or whatever is going on. And then there's the mind that doesn't even turn on the radio, but just listens. So zazen is this kind of time where you don't turn on anything and you don't do anything, you just deeply listen to yourself. And it takes some time to get the feel of that, to stop interfering with that. So when you don't do anything, you don't make any choices.

[90:49]

What appears when all else fails, we can say, is the default position. So that at some point you may discover that in zazen. When you have no more choices, you just are present in whatever you are. We call that zazen mind. Now when you can bring that zazen mind to your zazen, your zazen becomes quite deep and instructive.

[91:55]

For example, when you If you take walks in the forest, and the forest brings you into a peacefulness, the forest is showing you something or instructing. But the instruction it can bring you is fairly limited. Because it's working with, relating to your social mind, your usual, your standard mind.

[92:56]

But if you could imagine bringing... really coming to know this forest mind as a way of being. And you brought that forest mind to the forest. Then the forest can begin to teach you more deeply. Do you understand what I mean? This is a basic idea in Buddhist practice. In Zen it's called the mountain mind of the sages. It means you've come to know this forest mind the way I'm speaking, and you can bring the forest mind to the forest.

[94:09]

And then you can bring that forest mind to a potted plant. Or to the beautiful wood of these columns. Or to the plaster walls. You don't depend anymore on the forest to show you this peaceful mind. So when you've discovered this, let's call it forest mind or sitting zazen mind, when you've really discovered it as a kind of default position, a fallback position,

[95:11]

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