This realm where everything is changing and in which everything is known only through itself, then no moment of zazen is like any other moment of zazen. you're continuously freeing yourself from the previous moment that can be known only through itself. This is the fruit of the habit of seeing everything as changing. Maybe you can add the word function object to every object.

[01:05]

Function microphone. Or say fixture microphone. And notice that your habit is to think of it as a fixture. You know, you walk out the door and most of the trees are fixtures. But any one of the trees you could stop and make Rilke's tree. As Suzuki Roshi said, wind is a tree, not a tree, but a poem. So if you stop for a moment, any tree can be Rilke's tree. Any tree can be a tree Rilke never saw before.

[02:19]

It can be a tree no one's ever seen before. A tree known only through itself at that moment. Ein Baum, der nur durch sich selbst gekannt wird in diesem Moment. The tree known only through itself includes you. Der Baum, der nur durch sich selbst erkannt wird, der enthält euch. I mean, the tree, if you think this exists by itself, wenn ihr meint, dieser Krug existiert so für sich, from its own side, nur für sich, This is a kind of, from the Buddhist point of view, deluded way of understanding. This exists from every side.

[03:21]

As the tree exists from every side. It's thousand winds and thousand sunlights. And raindrops. And trees produce rain. Where there are trees, there's more rain. So when you start seeing that this only exists from every side, And only exist because the potter made it. And only exist because I use it. Or the house distiller uses it. And now this pot is different. You put it back in the kitchen, it's going to glow. He's going to... Advaita's going to put it on the altar.

[04:34]

And if you look down in there, there'll be a tiny Buddha. But in any case, we give this... Anyway, you understand. And the more this becomes one objectness, So now you understand the monk is saying, when everything returns to the one, when everything is drawn in to the one objectness, Where does the one objectness return to?

[05:34]

When I was in Jingjiao, I had a shirt made. A very particular shirt. It weighed seven pounds. No. That's enough for today. ...and say I know... O come, [...]

[06:44]

Die fühlenden Wesen sind zahllos, ich gelobe sie zu werten. Die Begierden sind unauslöschlich, ich gelobe ihnen ein Ende zu bereiten. Die Wermals sind grenzenlos, ich gelobe sie zu beherrschen. Der Weg des Buddhas ist unbetrefflich, ich gelobe ihn zu erreichen. 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Arima gen no shichiji suru koto etari negawaku wa

[08:08]

Yorai o shinjitsu myokeshi tate matsuran. I would like to wish you in the home for a coming Adama. There are certainly hundreds of thousands of women and men in the Calvary, only because I can see, hear, remember and live, do I dare to experience the truth of the God of God. Well, I'm very happy to start another lecture today with you. And with my new translator who I'm getting rather attached to. And perhaps you're getting attached to her too.

[09:10]

You know, I really never have any idea what I'm going to speak about when I start a sashi. People sometimes ask me, what will you speak about in the Sashin this week or next week? And my mind's complete blank. I have no idea. I don't get worried, though. Somehow. Of course I will speak about what's concerning my practice or what I've been thinking about for the last months. But that's more of a background. So I don't actually know how I got onto this one objectness, but here we are.

[10:57]

Jan, I'm sorry, I don't really know if this is useful to you or understandable. But somehow I trust that since it got started, it must be okay. And if it's not okay, I'll find out later. But perhaps what I speak about is itself an aspect of one objectness. Because I somehow with you find myself in the middle of a topic that becomes kind of one object. That I keep trying to turn in the light of our shared mind.

[12:18]

What I'm speaking about also is rooted in an experience I had many years ago. I had a rather good teacup or something, you know, chawan bowl that someone had given me. And maybe I was worried about breaking it. And because I was practicing, I guess one day I thought, oh, breaking it is just part of it. Or perhaps I did break a glass or something and I found myself sweeping it up.

[13:19]

And I thought, oh, sweeping it up, this is good. It gives me something to do. Instead of drinking out of it, I'm sweeping it up. It's sort of... And I suddenly saw the glass or the cup as a focus of activity. Yeah, and it gave someone else a chance to make a new cup or a glass. So I think I almost saw myself as active. in front of an endless stream of cups coming by, which I kept breaking, and other people kept making, and the world was going around. With my clumsiness, I was keeping lots of people busy. Yes, I know him in English.

[14:44]

He knows about you. Not as much as me, but... yeah and so from that on I felt differently it was a little Kensho experience I felt differently about things so now I find myself trying to talk about this in more detail yeah and talking about things that Suzuki Roshi kept presenting to me. But for many years I saw him every day. And so he didn't have to explain so much to me.

[15:53]

But, you know, I'm not such a good teacher and I don't see you so often. So I maybe go out of my way too much to try to make this clear. So maybe just think of this as not Zen teaching, as yogic teaching or general Buddhist teaching. general Buddhist teaching. Now discovering this word one objectness allows me to speak about one pointedness in a new way. It's funny how a word can do that.

[17:05]

Because I often have spoken about one-pointedness, that the two, as I always say, the two most important yogic skills for Zen practice are one-pointedness and a non-interfering observing mind. And one-pointedness is, you know, the ability to bring your attention to something like this. And having your attention able to rest on it without leaving. Or if it leaves, it comes back by itself. Okay, but the phrase, this one word phrase, one pointedness, doesn't make clear the cooperation needed from the object.

[18:23]

erklärt nicht die Notwendigkeit der Kooperation des Objektes. Now, truly one-pointedness depends on the object cooperating. Und in Wahrheit hängt die Einpunktigkeit davon ab, dass das Objekt kooperiert. And the object cooperates through your understanding of the object. Perhaps we can say this is an aspect of insentient, the insentient teaching the Dharma. Insentient, you know? Yeah. Sentient means something that's alive. Could you hear what she did say?

[19:43]

Okay. And... So if you view the object as... as... object permanence, it doesn't cooperate. If you have the good habit of viewing the object as object of thusness, then it cooperates. And it's not just the object, it's also the mind that cooperates. What I mean is when the mind is the object of your attention, the mind as thusness then cooperates in this unity of mind.

[20:52]

So one of the things we're speaking about here is the unity of mind. And we could say that one objectness is the look, the look of the unity of mind. Or one objectness is the craft of entering the unity of mind. Isn't it something in the Bible about getting a camel through the eye of the needle? Here you get the world through the eye of the needle. And on the other side, the camel appears as the Dharmakaya. There's Joe Camel and then there's the Dharmakaya.

[22:06]

Okay. Now the unity of mind, I mean the unison of mind, I don't mean exactly one mind. Or we have to explain what we mean by one mind if we use it. Yeah, okay. Okay. This is a room. Or we call it a room. Or we call it a room. Anyway, and when we first, when I first came here, Saturday morning and dropped off everything for Atmar and others arrival.

[23:18]

It was this funny empty place. Like it will be Sunday morning. But it's no longer one room. Or is it one room? It's at least four rooms. It's a zendo. It's a Buddha hall. It's a Buddha hall when we chant in here. It's a dharma hall. It's a dharma hall right now when I'm giving a lecture. And it's a refectory, a dining room. An essence room. That sounds good.

[24:23]

Essence room. Okay. And each of these rooms is divided into a number of functions. Now, when you remember this room later, remembering the sashin perhaps, you'll remember it as a dharma hall or a zendo or something. You won't remember the empty room of Saturday. So let me speak about the room as the refractory or serving room. Now I'm speaking about this partly just because we're serving in it and I notice it.

[25:41]

But partly I'm trying to speak about this one objectness again. Because As much as possible, Zen teaching is not in words. Although I use words sometimes to try to establish you in non-thought. And that's a necessary use of words. Zen as a teaching tries to establish itself, tries to embody itself. For instance, there was some tradition of 97 circles. And in the transmission teachings we still use a whole series of circles to teach, to organize the teaching and to condense the teaching.

[27:16]

And in the transmission teachings we still use the circles to and condense or push over the edge. Yeah, but those circles are also how we walk around the room. So you think that we do a lot of details, but it's really a kind of wayan teaching. Hua Yen is the teaching of unimpeded mutual interpenetration. Unimpeded mutual interpenetration. So this is not just interdependence, it's interpenetration.

[28:34]

And one of the doorways to this is, again, one objectness. The unity of mind. Okay, so we have an object here, this room. This is an object. But remember, an object in Buddhist teaching is its functions. This stick of Siddhiki Rishi's, which he gave me, doesn't... It's only its function. Otherwise, what would it be? It's not good as a fly swatter. The flies get away quick. Plus, I'd get a lot of bad karma. And sometimes it's kind of relaxing. Yeah, but it's a teaching staff.

[29:53]

It has a string which attaches it to nothing. It's only its function as I use it. Mm-hmm. So as a stick, just a stick, it's not an object in Buddhism. An object means an object of functioning. Like the subject of functioning, an object of functioning. Now, like the word body, as I've many times pointed out, that you have to remember, that this is not a body in Buddhism. The corpse, if there was a... I'm getting old.

[30:59]

If I perish now and I was laid out here, that's not a body. That's stuff. The way Buddhism uses the word body, it means that which makes the stoof alive. So when we speak of the Dharma body, it's talking about a body which functions through Dharma. The Buddha body is to function, have the function of a Buddha. So in a similar way, an object is the functioning of the object.

[32:13]

So this room is the functioning of the room. So let's just quickly look at this room as a dining room. A dining room and a serving room. Because we serve as well as eat the food. The serving is equally important with the eating. Okay, so first of all the room has a center. And an altar. All four rooms have this.

[33:15]

And the center joins all four rooms. It's the only thing all four rooms share. And it's provisionally divided into two parts. There aren't really two parts. We provisionally divide it into two parts. If we had the altars for the 16 Arhats, it would be divided into what, 17 parts or something. If we had the 10,000 Buddhas, then it would be infinitely divided, and so not divided at all. So this is the way Buddhism thinks. Because it's infinitely divided, it's not divided.

[34:18]

Because it's infinitely divided, Okay, now when we do the serving, there's four aspects. There's offering the Buddha tray. There's entering to serve. And there's serving. And there's leaving from serving. Anyway, this is the way Buddhism thinks about things. I'm sorry. Okay, in addition to the offering place being in the middle, The room shares that we all sit around and circle on the four sides.

[35:28]

Mm-hmm. So... When the person making the offering comes in, they come in somewhere and go over there and offer. And we can think of there being four, there can be two squares here, other than our sitting. One square is the serving square, which is pretty much in front of the people sitting.

[36:35]

And one is a smaller square we can think of in the middle. Okay, so if we were going to use this sender regularly, this is just the way we're using it this week, I think the servers on entering would come in and go follow the smaller square. And they wouldn't go like the server on that side goes all the way over and comes back. The fact that you do that shows that you haven't, it's either you were asked or you have intuition that the room has some kind of shape we have to present.

[37:49]

How we act in the room creates the room. How we step up under the cushion creates this as our little private place. Okay. So, whenever, when the servers come in, in this case, two servers, they are acknowledging the altar when they come to the center. But instead of bowing to the altar, they bow to each other.

[38:51]

Which is a shift from bowing to the Buddha to bowing to each other as Buddha. So that can happen in the smaller square in the room. So the server for that side can only have to go a little bit beyond the center and turn around. Because they're really relating to the altar and this provisional division in the two parts. But when they start serving, the room doesn't have two parts. So if you're serving and there's still people, you just go straight across as if it was not in two parts.

[40:05]

Yeah, that's the custom. Because now it's not a room offering to the Buddha. It's a room in which you sitting, the eater, is the Buddha. The eater is the Buddha. So at that point you bow to the person eating. And the whole room becomes the altar then, so it's not divided into two parts. So when you, the server who's here, for instance, after they bow to the other server, wouldn't cut across there, would come into the serving room, even if there's no one eating here, because you define the room as serving by following that path.

[41:40]

But if you're returning from serving, you've finished serving somewhere, right? Then you don't have to follow the outside because serving is finished and you can go to the inner square. rectangle and follow it out and out. Sorry. It'll be interesting. It's the one wind. Once again. Okay. So when you finish serving, When you're on the way out of the room, you don't have to follow the serving path. You can actually go to this smaller rectangle and then out the door. Okay. So when you are setting up a meditation hall, even a temporary one like this, it's thought through of when we're relating to the Buddha, when relating to the eater as Buddha and so forth.

[43:26]

So when you're bowed to and the bow is mutual, some of you, as soon as you finish serving, you bow and then you go to the next person. And the person you were bowing to is still sort of, what happened? That's like, you're supposed to bow now, you bow soon. But you wait for the person to get their act together and then you bow together. Now, this way of doing things is meant to bring the teaching into our activity out of words.

[44:28]

And it's meant to move you into physical or embodied space out of mental space. so that you actually can't go anywhere till you've had the mutual bow with this person. Because embodied space holds you in the bow. Mental space allows you to do the bow whether anybody's bowing to you or not. So you think these are a lot of rules we're following. But there are only a lot of rules in mental space.

[45:38]

In embodied space, it's as simple as the heartbeat. The heartbeat and the breath. And discovering the breath of each person. And the breath of the room and the heartbeat of the room. And the heartbeat of the mokugyo which is shaped like a heartbeat. Dogen says you listen to the teaching with complete power. You listen to the Dharma with complete body and complete mind. And body which goes beyond the body your parents gave you.

[47:07]

And body which extends into the future. And what does Dogen mean? This goes beyond sentient and insentient. You know that often a Buddha is called omniscient. Omniscient means to know everything. Yeah, and in practical terms, this means something like, well, you know when you dream sometimes. you have dreams but you can't figure out where could that have come from I never thought that before I never saw such a strange combination of things before this is a kind of omniscience

[48:12]

It's a kind of knowing what you didn't know you knew. And the Dharma is often like this. You begin to come into a mind that knows what you didn't know you knew. So it's not so much that we achieve knowing, we achieve a mind that knows what we didn't know. And this is something kind of subtle, to say the least. And you're jiggled into it, nudged into it. And you're jiggled into it. Nudged into it.

[49:37]

Nudged into it. And geschubst. Nudged into it. And this kind of making this one room, making this one room, this empty room of Saturday, into the four rooms of the Zendo, and yet bringing the structure or the function of these four rooms together, with an articulation that relates all the parts to each other, as, for example, changing the room from a room where you bow to the Buddha to a room in which you're bowing now to the person eating.

[50:45]

where these two rooms are separated in articulation, separated so that the bow to the person eating is equal to the bow to the Buddha. the more you start to feel that or don't even know that you're feeling it, your mind can be lifted up into the one objectness. lifted up into the unity of mind, in which you and the Buddha and the altar are all on the same plane. This is the unity of mind in which the Dharmakaya appears. When we suddenly find ourselves knowing things that are not explainable, feeling things that make complete sense,

[52:36]

That never even occurred to us before. And we start living this wider life. Through the one objectness of our own sitting in Sashin, opens us to the unity of mind. The thusness of Buddha mind. Anyway, this is what this teaching is about. Very good. Children of the land, stay in the land of the Lord.

[54:04]

But when you are alone, stay in the land of the Lord. But when you are alone, stay in the land of the Lord. Die Begegnen sind unausweichlich. Ich glaube, ihn erheblich zu bereiten. Die Damen sind grenzenlos. Ich glaube, sie zu beherrschen. Der Weg des Bruders ist unausweichlich. Ich glaube, ihn zu erreichen. Ujo jen-jen mi-myo-no-wa Hyaku-sen-ma-no Ni-yo-wa-yo-ko-to-ka-ta-shi Wa-e-ma-su-ke-ma-ko

[55:27]

Jai Jai Jai Surah Al-Qaeda Al-Mu'tahari On your right, you're on a check. Check, sir. On your right, you're on a check, sir. The 70 year old and the 100,000 year old young man, who had passed away at the age of 60, and the young man who had passed away at the age of 70, and the young man who had passed away at the age of 60, Well, I'm glad you're all still here on the fourth day.

[56:41]

And maybe we could set up the doksan room. Oh, okay. The doksan room is already set up. So if I start tomorrow morning, since there's not so many of us, We can examine our practice maybe more carefully than usually in sesshins. So I'll see what you offer me. Ulrich, you seem to be in a much better mood since you've been sitting on a chair. Maybe we'd all be in a better mood.

[57:41]

You're our leader. And today, unfortunately, Maya is leaving. Yeah. You know, I don't like to interrupt people's sessions with asking them to translate and I remember when Christian Becker was Eno. And Christian, if you know him, has almost inexhaustible energy. But I asked him to translate and be Eno and he was nearly wiped out.

[58:55]

So I knew Maya was a good translator so we called her up and she agreed to change her schedule and join us. Let's thank her very much. Thank you. Thank you. It was my pleasure. You're not finished yet. So far, so far. I have some words you don't know. I think you don't know. And Frank Shura has agreed to interrupt his session and be the translator from tomorrow. So thank you, Frank.

[59:57]

Now, you know, I love Buddhism the way it is. I love it that I will never come to the end of it. And I love it that it took, you know, it's, I can't understand it by myself. It took Sukhiroshi's life and teaching for me to understand it even a little. And it takes my practice with you to extend my understanding a little. So I like that it's an enterprise or activity that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to us together.

[61:09]

And it's our mutual responsibility, I think, too. This may be news for some of you, but you'll get used to it. Once you start practicing, it becomes your responsibility. I'm sorry. But I also wish it were simpler. Sometimes I'm embarrassed to present the teaching to you because I think I just make it sound so complicated. You think, oh boy, I'm going to try something else. Chris, I believe it's not complicated, it's complex.

[62:12]

And we're complex, so we need a complex teaching. Think how complex it is to live with another person. For most people, it seems near impossible. The kind of to have two complex beings share the same space. So here we are, complex beings trying to share this Buddha space. But it's good, we get to know it and feel our way into it. And I'm surprised, really gratified and surprised at how well you all understand and practice Buddhism.

[63:46]

And sometimes better than you realize. Less often, not as good as you think. Usually it's the other way. You're better than you think you are. Yeah. And it is simple, this practice. If you just take a phrase and really practice it, this can open up the whole of Buddhism. But my experience is that few people really take a phrase like that. Perhaps it requires too much faith or too much intuitive understanding to do it.

[64:48]

And I see many people practicing. I don't see many people with realization. And I don't see many with beyond realization and instrumental understanding. an instrumental understanding that really functions in the world. Functions in one's own life and functions in bringing others into the practice. So anyway, I'm trying in various ways to nudge us into practice.

[66:10]

Sometimes nudge, sometimes deluge. Manchmal schubsen, manchmal täuschen. Täuschen, oh yeah, täuschen. Is that right, Toshi? Right. Deluge. Oh, good. It's fun. Every now and then I recognize the word deluge. I love being in Germany, though, because I might as well be in India. Yeah, I'm going to be disappointed when I understand German better. After all these years, everything is still complete adventure. I go into an apotheke, I don't know what's going on. Nach all diesen Jahren ist es immer noch ein Abenteuer für mich. I don't know how to ask for anything. I don't know what I'm buying. I can't read the label. Ich gehe in eine Apotheke und ich kann nichts lesen. Ich weiß gar nicht, was noch ein. I might as well be in India.

[67:12]

Ich könnte genauso gut in Indien sein. Nobody speaks English in India now. I might as well be in Iran. Oder im Iran. I like it. Ich mag es. Like things to be unexplainable. Ich mag es, wenn Dinge unerklärbar sind. But you know, this teaching is rife with phrases that you should really grasp. Aber diese Lehre ist voll von Sätzen, die es wirklich gut ist zu greifen. For example, in this Blue Cliff Records 45. Wie zum Beispiel in dem Fall 45 von den Blue Cliff Records. About the Jojo's seven pound shirt. Über das sieben Pfund schwere Hemd von Jojo. It says, he wraps it up and presses it against the ancient awl.

[68:16]

Er knüllt es zusammen und drückt es gegen alle Ahnen. An all, you know what an all is? A tool, A-W-L. Gegen die Ahle. Yes, you know, like you. But it's an interesting pun because A-W-L in this Zen talk also can mean A-L-L. Yeah, I translated it that way. I know, I guessed. So your translation was correct in its incorrection. And that's typical of Zen way of doing things anyway. And it's a... apophistic.

[69:20]

Apophysis means to say something by saying you're not going to say it. Und das meint, etwas zu sagen dadurch, dass man es nicht sagt. Like saying, Alessandro's here, but I won't mention his brother. His brother who's not here. So don't pass this comment on to Giulio. Yeah, that's apophistic. But it's used as a whole teaching device in Zen.

[70:24]

It's like saying, you idiot, you donkey, how will my teaching pass on? And it's a compliment. Or it's like saying, no mind, no Buddha. When the very phrase is meant to make you realize Buddha as mind. And you have to understand this kind of way of doing things. So, for example, the phrase, he wraps it up and presses it against the ancient awl, or gimlet is another word. Okay, and that's just what we've been talking about, believe it or not.

[71:25]

Because what could be smaller than that which is known only to itself? Okay, it's like I gave the example, talking about this the other day, of the green flash. The green flash is something that you can see occasionally when the sun sets. I've seen it, I think, three times. Ich glaube, ich habe es dreimal gesehen. And you can't exactly try to see it. And the American Indians think it's a kind of sign of something, some siddhi to see it. Siddhi, do you know? Siddhi, like special power. And the American Indians believe that it's a certain siddhi, a certain ability,

[72:36]

But if you think, you can't see it because it's so quick. Maybe it only happens occasionally, but some people will stand there and not see it and others will see it. Maybe it happens all the time, but you can't see it all the time. Maybe it only happens occasionally. No one knows. But it's like that, you know. Shorter than that. And that's like the all. It's such a tiny point. Do you see what I mean? So if they said, oh, he wraps it up and presses it against the mind, people wouldn't understand. That would be too easy to misunderstand. He presses against the mind, understood in a very special sense. So some tiny point.

[73:45]

Like driving nails into space. Another Zen expression. So you have to look at this. What is this guy trying to say? I mean, ancient all, you don't think there's an old rusty piece of iron there, do you? He wraps it up and presses it against and runs it right through. Mm-hmm. So ancient all comes to rep as a way of speaking about a very minuscule point.

[74:53]

It's also related to knowing things in an all-at-onceness. Which is the so-called complete teaching or the wayan teaching. So I'm trying to just here takes a topic like we started out with. The relationship between one pointedness and one objectness. And to make this useful from some points of view. Okay. Now instead of a pitcher up my sleeve... I have a light bulb.

[76:02]

It allows you to see the picture. He had an idea. Okay. Yeah, that's woke you up. Now, if you handed this to some person of a previous centuries, before Ben Franklin, they could not figure out what this was about. It's cute, but what do you do with it? I mean, no one would know. They might put it on an altar. It's like that movie where the Coke bottle falls out of the sky.

[77:02]

Yeah. So no one would understand. Because this as an object makes no sense without a wiring diagram. Without electricity. In other words, this can only be understood in its context, in its relationships. And if we could screw this in somewhere, you turn the switch, that one goes on and this one goes on, and they're related. So what is the actual object here? Because this is not understandable by itself. The actual object here is the electricity.

[78:05]

I mean, all these light bulbs are meaningless unless you have the wiring diagram and it's all connected and switches and so forth. So if you think this is an object, you're dumb. From a Buddhist point of view. I'm sorry. Is that German word? Yes. And... But if you understand that this is part of an object that we can call electricity. In other words, I'm trying to point out that you have to understand this from its various sides, from all sides at once. Now the word object means literally to throw before the mind.

[79:19]

Like eject, eject is throw, to throw out. An ob means before or observe, to put something in front of the mind. So let's make a distinction between things and objects. Now, would you go out for a walk? Most of the trees are things, but if you put one before the mind, it's an object. Now, what we're doing is creating in English here a technical term object in a Buddhist sense.

[80:28]

But we're in fact returning English to its more precise original use. On, yeah. So, I mean, nowadays we say, there's a book there, you say, that thing, the book or that object, we're not using language the way it's actually meant, in fact. So if we see that in Buddhist sense, this is an object in the sense that it's a mind object, It's an object when it's an object of mind.

[81:42]

So you can create a little phrase for yourself, mind object. And everything you look at, call a mind object. Until you get in the habit of doing that. Now, if you see that this light bulb is a mind object, in other words, not only is it understood by the mind, but it also requires a mental understanding to see its ramifications. And likewise the picture I had the other day, which is a mind object.

[82:45]

Both in its conception. In its conception. In other words, the potter had to conceive of it. It wasn't there, you know, lying in the jungle. And we have to use it as its concept to carry liquids. Okay, it's a mind object in conception. In its making and use. And it's a mind object in its apprehension, the fact that we understand it mentally. Okay, so then it's a small step if you recognize the picture and the light bulb are mind objects.

[84:01]

It's a small step to seeing this room is a mind object. By Buddhist habit and training, you see this room as a mind object, not as a thing. And once you see it as a mind object, you can begin to see it affects the mind. So we could begin to describe the entering server as opening up the center. and the server who leaves as returning the center.

[85:22]

Now, if this language sounds similar to Taoism and Feng Shui, etc., there's a reason for it. It's all part of the same yogic body culture. Now, feng shui, understanding this room from the point of view of feng shui is quite similar. I'm assuming you know something about feng shui. But there's a big difference. Because feng shui is an understanding that there are various energies and forces in the environment that you are rather passively related to. And you can divert and shape these energies by how you place the furniture, the doors and so forth.

[86:30]

But the Buddhist view is you form the room in your mind And you shape the energies through that. You might still move the furniture and et cetera. But you wouldn't put up all kinds of mirrors to get it right, et cetera. Because this room is generated from your mind body, not from the forces out there primarily. So a lot of people who study Buddhism, study Feng Shui, and they think it all the same.

[87:34]

It's quite different. Okay. Mmm, getting tired? Shall I start, stop early? You're getting tired? The psychologist at work. Let's do some therapy. Okay. No, I'm not getting tired. The opposite. I'm feeling so much energy, I'm afraid I might talk for two hours. So psychologically, I'm getting their permission before I start up.

[88:36]

We'll be a good team pretty soon. Okay. So let me just go back a minute to Jaojo being asked, what is the meaning of the great ancestor Bodhidharma coming from the West? And Jaojo says, the cypress tree in the garden. And the monk, very astute guy, says, please, teacher, don't use objects to teach with.

[89:42]

And Zhaozhou says, I never use objects to teach with. But he does use mind objects. And this is one reason Zen can speak about this, the basic teachings of Buddhism without much referring to sutra, sutric doctrines. So it's brought into everyday circumstances. Es bringt es in die Alltagsumstände. For our lay practice. Für unsere Laienpraxis.

[90:45]

Or our monk practice. Oder auch unsere Mönchspraxis. Yeah, it's just really not that much difference. Es ist nicht wirklich so viel Unterschied. We're all eating, sleeping, shitting, walking, etc. Ja, essen alle und trinken und kacken und spazieren. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, whether you do it in a monastery, you know, an apartment building, it's not that different. But how you handle your activity is very important. How you know and perceive is very important. Okay, so I would like to give you a little exercise of attention hunting. Now, a good hunter doesn't just hunt for the animal.

[91:46]

He or she also hunts for the patterns of the animal. Because if you know the patterns of the animal, you hardly have to hunt for it. Weil wenn ihr die Muster des Tieres kennt, dann müsst ihr kaum noch danach jagen. Because you know where to find it, because you know its patterns. Weil ihr werdet wissen, wo ihr es finden werdet, weil ihr seine Muster kennt. So the hunt for your attention is quite easy. It gets more subtle after a while. But the main thing to hunt for is the pattern of your attention. It's said to We can't just contemplate the mind.

[92:55]

We have to contemplate the interpenetration of phenomena. Okay. The interpenetration of phenomena. Let's imagine a cat. And a cat is looking at a mouse. The cat's giving its attention to the mouse. But you know cats don't call themselves persons. They call themselves per-cats. Per Katzen.

[94:06]

Or per kids, you know, sometimes. Anyway, so the mouse, I mean, the cat doesn't say to itself, looking at a mouse, why is a per cat like you feeling so aggressive today? Yeah. We don't think cats say that anyway to themselves. But it's isomorphically, which means the structure is similar. But it might have a different origin. Being a scientist, she knows this. But at least the structure is similar.

[95:08]

To observe the mouse or to observe yourself observing the mouse is not much different.

[95:18]

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