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Unified Presence: Mindfulness in Space

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Practice-Week_Sandokai

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The main thesis of this talk explores the concept of "Sandokai," or the merging of difference and unity, highlighting the integration of mindfulness into both physical and mental spaces. It emphasizes the importance of maintaining a sense of continuity within one's physical location and practice environment, instead of focusing solely on thoughts. The discussion touches upon how this practice can lead to a deeper connection with one’s surroundings and promote a distinct sense of unity and rootedness. Furthermore, it argues that this experiential practice contrasts with Western approaches that prioritize intellect over physical presence.

Referenced Works and Concepts:

  • Sandokai: Explored as the central text, it translates to "the merging of difference and unity," serving as the foundation for the discussion on interconnectedness and the experiential practice of Zen.
  • Issey Miyake: Mentioned as a designer who integrated Eastern ideas of the body being free within the structure of clothes, reflecting a yogic understanding of fabric as an extension of presence and mindfulness.
  • Yamada Mumunroshi: Quoted for the idea that everything in the cosmos contributes to the individual's existence, highlighting the theme of interpenetration and self-continuity within one's environment.
  • Dogen: Referenced for viewing the cosmos as the "true human body," emphasizing a non-dualistic perspective on the unity of human experience with the universe.
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger: Used metaphorically to illustrate the concept of mindfulness, suggesting the notion that mental focus enhances physical presence and strength.

AI Suggested Title: Unified Presence: Mindfulness in Space

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Thank you all for being here. And it's nice for me that we're not so many people. For example, this morning I could speak about Kenyan. in a way that would be much harder to do in a large group. And if I pretend you're all amateurs, I know you're not quite that bad. Anyway, if I so pretend... Then I can explain very simple things, beginning things to you.

[01:07]

And it brings me back to the excitement I felt first in entering this yogic world of practice. On the one hand, I'm a little embarrassed to always be suggesting this world is quite different from our usual Western world. And sometimes it sounds like I'm saying it's better. First of all, of course, it's not the Asian world that's better. But it is the case that those aspects of the Asian world which support Buddhism are better if you're going to practice Buddhism.

[02:12]

And in some ways this... Someone said, I can't remember, Schiller or somebody or other said that... I'll find out who it was that said it. Something like, in the daytime, Europe lives in Christendom. At night, they dream of the Orient. The Orient has represented some kind of mystery or wisdom for some centuries in Europe. And I'm sure in Asia they've had dreams or nightmares of the West.

[03:15]

Because in some ways, both these two cultures, which developed so separately... Both open doors that were closed for the other. So while on the one hand I'm a little embarrassed to be presenting you always with this sort of different world, Also I'm excited to be able to share my own excitement with you or satisfaction with this yogic practice. It's the case that small differences make a big difference over centuries.

[04:38]

But for a culture to emphasize, to give the body primacy over the mind, is a big difference from a culture which gives the mind primacy over the body. Even though we have both the mind and body, we can give primacy to one or the other. And this yogic culture has also given primacy to change, to seeing change, overseeing things in a more static way, permanent way.

[05:53]

Stability or non-change? Stasis or stability. Now that's rather strange, contradictory, because historically Europe has been the country which has changed so rapidly compared to any other part of the world. And China as a major civilization has probably changed more slowly than any other. Yet within these larger historical movements, Asian culture, yogic culture has emphasized seeing how the dynamic of how things change.

[06:59]

So I'm... Yeah. So I'm speaking today, starting out speaking today about the Sandokai. Which is, Sandokai means, if it's translated generally, it means the merging of difference and unity. The cleaning team cleaned the Zendo so thoroughly. There's a little bug here looking for his dirt. And he's lost.

[08:18]

Maybe you could bring him out. Put him on a piece of paper in your hands or something. He says, the world is changing rapidly. By the way, it's good to try to keep that outer door closed because we live in a mosquito bog here. The amount of water that's here in this little area right around Haus der Stille, is about the same amount of water as has been in southern Colorado for the whole summer.

[09:45]

We have a little thin layer of this water spread out over the whole state. So when I sit down, for example, here to start the lecture, how would I describe what I'm doing? From a yogic point of view. As I tried to describe Khinin this morning.

[10:53]

Well, I had to sit down somewhere. By the way, it's okay if you're not so used to sitting. You can use a chair if you want during lecture. And even during sasen too, it's okay to use a chair. So, but anyway, I sat down. And as you noticed, I rearranged all my robes and all that stuff. Now, of course I have to arrange my robe because wearing robes is like walking around in a bed. You have to keep remaking it with yourself in it. You know, if you feel lazy and try to make your bed while you're in it, it's really worse. But still, I'm just sitting down and rearranging all these things.

[12:03]

But I could also say I'm settling myself down mindfully into this location. Now, if you really understand that there's actually a point to that, you can understand why they designed the clothes to make you do that. Our clothes are designed to be convenient. And to let ourselves quickly get up and down and so forth. These clothes, you have to be mindful of the clothes.

[13:07]

If you're not mindful, they get all mixed up. And they're all supposed to, you know, these things are all supposed to be in the line. Just as my feet are supposed to be more or less that distance apart, the front of this Buddha's robe is supposed to run parallel to the sleeve. And then the whole thing is supposed to be horizontally even parallel to or at the same point as the bottom of the ring. It's pretty hard to make that happen actually.

[14:26]

The biggest problem is nobody knows how to make robes for our proportioned bodies. But the idea you should be able to handle your body inside the clothes in a way that the clothes reflect your inner order. The inner order of your body. You can see the sleeve. You were really starting from the beginning here on the seminar. You can see the sleeve is just two loom widths. They don't shape the cloth to your body. They let your body shape itself to the cloth. And so they feel the cloth has its own integrity and own beauty.

[15:51]

And it should show you how it was made. The loom should be seen in the cloth. So they tend to just use two loom lengths, no matter what size your arms are. Then your arm has to be constantly in relationship to the sleep. Yeah. And you know, Issey Miyake, for instance, who first brought Japanese design feeling into Western clothes. which is the basic conceptual difference between these robes and your Western clothes, is in Western clothes our body is free outside the clothes.

[17:28]

And in these kind of robes, my body is free inside the clothes, inside the cloth. Pull my arms up inside and scratch my chest. So Issey Miyake just took this basic idea of the body being free inside the cloth. And then he took these extraordinary fabrics they make and started making some of them in plastic and things like that. But it's still basically, conceptually, clothes based on a yogic sense of the body.

[18:41]

So, all right. So if I use my clothes, you can use your own clothes or your own body. You don't have to have robes to do this. To settle yourself, To settle yourself into your location. To find my continuity in my location. After I've settled myself. And I feel myself mindfully settled into this location. One is that mindfulness penetrates my own body.

[19:48]

But also that feeling of being settled in this location I can extend that feeling of location to include you. So I can feel my continuity of location include each of you. Now that's, I think, a little different then we usually think of what happens when you sit down. It may be the same, but we don't usually think of it that way. If you... Manuel just went to southern France. If you went to the beach, If you settle yourself down on the beach, I think you really feel the sense of location with other people on the beach.

[21:15]

And maybe in a restaurant too. But still, there's some difference. We notice it in some circumstances, it's not so different, but to have such a big emphasis is different in yogic culture. To have such a big emphasis on it in yoga culture is different. Okay, so what am I trying to get at here? Well, we have a week here. Mm-hmm. What I'd like you to try to do is to bring your mindfulness to this location and this place, to your location and this place.

[22:28]

And that's one of the reasons, as much as possible, it's good to refrain from making phone calls and sending letters and things like that. Every phone call tends to leak your energy out of this place. If you have to make a phone call, it's okay. It's very hard to do it, though, without leaking. So the effort in a practice week like this is to see if you can embed your mindfulness in this place. and in your own particular location.

[24:01]

So when you sit down on your cushion for meditation, you feel you almost merge with your location. Now I'm trying to approach in a an actualizing way, this merging of difference and unity. For this isn't, again, a philosophy. It isn't. No, it isn't. It's more like a prescription. Yeah, a medicinal prescription. Yeah, or an instruction. See, when you sit down, you can physically merge your difference

[25:05]

In a unity with your situation. With what kind of unity? With the unity of your location, with your situation. Okay. Now many of you know, and I spoke about it just the other night in Hamburg, that I emphasize or I speak about shifting your sense of continuity. out of your thoughts, into your breath. But what I'm emphasizing for this week is seeing if you can shift your continuity out of your thoughts into your physical location, your actual location, your mental and physical location.

[26:44]

To make your physical location your mental location. That's what the practice of mindfulness means. To make your physical location your mental location. Now what's the advantage of that? Well, yeah, the advantage is, of course, that you feel more located. You feel more stable than settled. When this really takes hold, we speak about a person as an iron man, an iron person.

[27:57]

I know that doesn't sound very nice to women. But it just means you feel so solid, it feels like no one could knock you over. You just feel really solid where you are. It doesn't mean you also don't feel flexible and so forth. You know, your famous Austrian, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ah, you know, the famous Austrian Arnold Schwarzenegger told a friend of mine, one pump with the mind in it is worth ten without the mind in it.

[29:11]

So while you're exercising watching television, you can watch ten times as much television. But the point is, when your mind is in your location, you have the kind of, you know, a kind of Arnold Schwarzenegger type feeling. Without steroids. Yeah, that's good to have a much more sense of rootedness on each moment.

[30:36]

But if you only understand it that way, it's not enough. Because when you practice mind... I really have trouble finding the right words. When you practice mindfulness, you're not trying to achieve the state of mindfulness. You're trying to come into a mode of mindfulness that does things.

[31:42]

I don't know what metaphor you use. I mean, you don't fill your car with gasoline just so it's full of gasoline. Mm-hmm. So you can sit around and smell it evaporate. I was in Ireland once some years ago. This guy was really poor. I was visiting. And he had bought a car, a very cheap second-hand car. And he drove it home and then it stopped. It never ran again. So he pasted travel posters on the windshield.

[32:45]

And then he'd go out and sit in the car and read. She was charming. I thought it was great. Anyway, you put gasoline in your car so your gasoline does something. Because yogic practice is always about change. It's actually about a dynamic. It's about movement. And you fill your tank with mindfulness so something happens. It's not just to create a calm, nice state of mind. Nothing wrong with that.

[33:58]

But much more than that happens. What time is it? I forgot to bring my watch. Ten to twelve. Ten to twelve. I only have ten minutes. Oh my goodness. So I'll come back to why we fill our tank with mindfulness. Maybe this afternoon. I want to tell you a story of somebody I've admired a long time and met once years ago. And the other night I spent the evening with him. And he told both Marie-Louise and I several stories which are quite interesting. He's a Westerner. But he really has somehow discovered this sense of continuity of location and place.

[35:32]

And one of the things that happened to him is some years ago he needed some time alone. So he decided, pretty unusual decision, to go to British Columbia in the glacial area and stay for three and a half months by himself. So he stayed in a tent. He had brought enough supplies to stay, and he stayed in a tent for three and a half months. And during the night, in the last week he was there, he heard a noise, and he sat up in bed, got up more or less on all fours with his flashlight, And there was a large bear almost fully in the tent.

[37:00]

So he stared at the bear and the bear stared at him. Und der Bär hat ihn angestarrt. And he stared at the bear for one full hour. And the bear stared at him for one full hour. And he didn't dare drop his attention from the bear. He had to wait till the bear gave him permission. Because the bear held all the cards.

[38:02]

Or at least the bear held all the teeth and the territory. And he felt his continuity passing through the bear. And he felt something like the bear's continuity was passing through him. And he had to fully find his continuity in that location that he and the bear established. And finally, after an hour, the bear kind of moved its head down and then went.

[39:04]

He said, I was scared the whole time. Now when, I don't mean you're all going to have to confront a bear, but sometimes in Sashin you do. But I'm saying that mindfulness can bring you into a sense of location. In which your sense of continuity is not in thoughts. Now behind what I'm saying is the... is my understanding that we should look at self as function rather than as entity.

[40:42]

And one of the functions of self is to establish continuity, duration from moment to moment. Goethe lived from what, 1749 to 1832 or something like that? A lot happened in Europe during those years. But he had some sense of continuity. Before 1749 or so, there was no Goethe. And after 1832, there was no Goethe.

[41:54]

At least he himself experienced himself as a duration. And so whatever he is physically during that time, he had a sense of being a particular person. And that sense of being somewhere from infancy to the time of death, that sense of continuity from infancy to death, during which we occupy a particular location, is something to do with self. It's part of what we know as self. So what a yoga culture asks you, is how do you establish your sense of continuity from infancy to death?

[43:20]

Because that sense of continuity is part of the illusion and delusion of self. And yoga culture says it's healthier and closer to things as they actually exist to establish your continuity through location rather than through thoughts. If location and place give you a sense of continuity, that's a healthier vehicle for the experience of self as continuity. and truer to how things are than finding your continuity in your thoughts.

[44:37]

So, I ask you during this week To as much as possible, see if you can find your location, your continuity in your location. And in this place, with these ponds and grassy green fields, area, lawn. And notice at the same time how often in fact your continuity, sense that continuity shifts the thoughts.

[45:43]

Just to get that information is useful. Just to notice how much your continuity is in it. So I'll just finish with one other story. This person I was speaking about after a very busy day wanted to go to the Berlin Zoo. He feels a special connection with animals. And as a sort of maybe spiritual experience, he wanted to go see the cats, the tigers, and so forth at the Berlin Zoo.

[46:46]

Now, we have this funny dog here, Dr. Barry. I mean, Barry. I call him Dr. Barry. I think you can imagine if you could really feel your continuity in your location. When you see Barry, maybe you can imagine your feeling of continuity passing through Barry. I think if you did, Barry would notice it.

[47:49]

And certainly, Frank and Angelica's continuity passes through Barry. And especially Angelica's. And Barry feels Angelica's continuity. So we can imagine that with the bear, I mean with the dog. Yeah, and I think if you can imagine it with a dog, then you can imagine it with other people. If you could really begin to feel your own continuity in location and place, you can begin to feel it in that the people you're with are also part of your location. And I felt this when I met this person, this friend, again after many years, the other night.

[49:09]

He stopped and was present with me in a way that was almost rather disturbing. Clearly outside of social space. So anyway, he wanted to go to the Berlin Zoo and it was just closing and people said, oh, don't bother, it's only 20 minutes or so. So he went to the Berlin Zoo anyway. He wanted to go. And he went to the cat tiger area. And then suddenly somehow found himself outside behind those cages where there's white wolves, he says.

[50:38]

And one of the white wolves looked at him very particularly. And he suddenly found himself looking back at the wolf the way he'd looked at the bear. He was suddenly captured again by this shared continuity. And When that happened, all the wolves became silent and all faced him and watched him. And they held this space until the zoo closed and he had to leave. So it makes not a simple difference when you really begin to find your continuity in location and place.

[51:49]

And place. There are profound emotional, psychological, experiential differences in how you're with other people, with yourself and with the world. with the world, other people. So this is a commentary on the title of the Sandokai, The Merging of Difference and Unity. Now Frank has up in the office a very small little Xerox machine. Frank hat im Büro oben eine sehr kleine Kopiermaschine.

[53:13]

And it really does copy once. And once. And once. And I talked him, though, into, while we had a conversation, into making 15 copies of at least the first few pages of the Sandokai book. And Andreas or some important person will, like Andreas, will give you these things, unless you've done it already. Okay. And maybe you can read them at the study time after our outside Kenyan. Okay, thank you very much for this chance to speak with you.

[54:15]

Thank you. In the past, there was no such thing as the rule of law. The way of modernism was not as important as the rule of law. Satsang with Mooji [...]

[56:16]

egawa kuwa nyo rai nyo shinjutsu nyo geshi tate matsuran I don't know. We've been speaking, we're a bunch of amateurs.

[57:51]

We just came, so a new amateur arrived. And I appreciate the effort you are all making to get this straight, how we, is the microphone on? Get this straight, how we do it. But since all of you are not going to be monks, or, I hate to say it, probably you won't all be lineage holders, Although nothing could make me happier, I don't want to put any pressure on you. Since you're not going to probably make this your career, And I can assure you it's not much of a career.

[59:05]

So there's no real reason for you to learn all this stuff. Except perhaps to learn how we learn. So in your trying to do it right, some of you are trying too hard to do it right. And sometimes there's a little bit too much of a busy feeling in the zendo and teaching. And the soto shu... Sorry to be critical of them, but a few years ago, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago, maybe more.

[60:06]

They wrote down... Did you say I was sorry to be critical of them? No, thanks. Yeah. Wrote down all the ceremonies. It actually shouldn't be done. I mean, Zen has over the centuries, despite writing in books, being around for a long time, obviously the Chinese invented printing, Zen tries to continue to be essentially an oral tradition. So there shouldn't be written down ways to do it. Even marking the sutra card is not so good.

[61:19]

And even having a watch to end your zazen period is not so good. First of all, it's not so bad if we sit 50 minutes instead of 40. And then if you are the doan and you have people sit 50 minutes, you'll probably hear about it. And if we sit 35 minutes, it's okay. The stick of incense is more or less supposed to measure a period of sadhana. But really you're supposed to feel it with your body. So this is, I mean, san do kai, san means three.

[62:45]

Ichi, ni, san, shi, that's one, two, three, four. Okay, but san means three and it means many. And do means sort of, I suppose this is in Sukhirashi's lecture, I don't remember. And do means sameness. And do means sameness. but doesn't really mean oneness. It can mean unison, things together. But oneness is a philosophical or theological idea. No one has ever seen anything called oneness.

[63:52]

Like no one has ever seen the it that rains. So Oneness is a kind of not a Buddhist idea. We can talk about totality or all at onceness or sameness or we can speak about an experience of oneness but we can't speak about an abstract idea of oneness. Now this is, you know, okay, so sun is many, dough is all at onceness, Or big mind, perhaps.

[65:08]

Or the way we know things with a feeling that there's some kind of same quality to each thing. Wie wir Dinge kennen können, und zwar, dass jedes Ding die gleiche Qualität hat. So what is the most obvious same quality to everything? Also die offensichtlichste gleiche Qualität von jedem Ding wäre... If I look at you, you're San. Ich schaue dich an und du bist San. You're one or three or something. Also du bist eins oder drei oder so etwas. Okay, so, but when I look at you, even though you're someone particular, Yes, I always point out, what I'm also seeing is my mind. So if I look at you, you're different.

[66:09]

But both of you, I feel the quality of mind on both of you. So the experience of sameness in Buddhism means, one of the most fundamental things it means, is on everything you see, you also see mind. So... You know, I can tell you these things. But unless you do it and you feel it, You can't understand how reassuring it is to find everything the same. And simultaneously different.

[67:29]

How refreshing it is to find everything different. Now, we may try to put that together and say, oh, how can it be different and the same at the same different time? Well, That's your problem. The fact is, it's simultaneously different and same without contradiction. This is like the

[68:29]

to have contextual coherence but not cross-contextual coherence. And this is part of the shift from early Buddhism, emphasis on interdependence, some kind of ecological idea. And later Buddhism emphasis on interpenetration. Because if I emphasize interdependence, This is okay. Of course it's true. Everything is interdependent. But it still tends to, in actual practice, generalize the world. Because then this situation is interdependent with that situation, with that situation, and you tend to have a kind of general feeling.

[70:02]

Generalized feeling. Okay. Now, what goes along with interpenetration... is the idea of absolute independence. And absolute independence is a little bit like saying, quite a lot like saying, contextual coherence. Okay, so what does that mean? That means if I want to concentrate on, say, you or you, Or the feeling of the two of you together and not either of you separately.

[71:24]

I can feel this is absolutely independent of the rest of the world. And I can then... And if I feel the whole world interpenetrates the coherence that the two of you make... then I can feel I'm discovering the whole world in the feeling of the two of you. Now, Yamada Mumunroshi, I've mentioned his statement many times. who was my teacher while I was living in Japan, says the most important single thing is to come into a deep respect for yourself.

[72:36]

Deep respect, knowing that everything that you are here in this place just now, that everything in whatever we call the cosmos, is working to make this moment possible. And in fact, it's working to make you possible. That goes beyond, am I doing things right or wrong or something like that. Whatever you are, everything is making it possible for you to be that. That's a fact. But it's also in practice the vision of interpenetration.

[73:53]

You know, it's very easy to be unique. As I say, no one else on the planet is sitting where Marie-Louise is sitting. That's obvious. But it's not insignificant. Each of us has A place. We are a place. Realization, enlightenment, in a way, is to realize this place. Which the whole of everything is working to make possible. So if everything I notice is characterized by mind,

[75:22]

has to be once I get the habit of noticing that everything points to mind. That's the case once I get into the habit is that everything points to mind as well as mind points to the object. Okay, so many means various things. San, three just means various things. In a world characterized by the sameness of mind, a human world of sameness of mind, so we can say big mind, shakes hands. Kai means shakes hands. And this really does mean shakes hands.

[77:05]

It means you're actively making this real. You're shaking hands with the cosmos. Hello cosmos, how are you? Yeah. Another statement I've given you many times, as Dogen says, the entire cosmos is the true human body. Okay, let's look at that statement again. These are all statements you can work with. These are all shards of wisdom. What has Dogen done? He simply renamed the cosmos. Er hat ganz einfach den Kosmos neu benannt.

[78:17]

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of boring to call it the cosmos. Es ist ja schon recht langweilig, einfach Kosmos zu nennen. What does that mean to you? Was bedeutet das denn für dich? Well, actually it's related to the word cosmetic. Es ist eigentlich mit dem Wort kosmetik verwandt. So we could think of the world as a big ornament or... Buddha's face with lipstick on it, I don't know. So Dogen says, let's not call it the world or some neutral word like that. Let's try out what happens when we call it the true human body. Now I'm in the habit of this.

[79:19]

I look at the stars at night, often I go out and look at the stars at night, especially in Colorado where the stars are lying around on the ground, it's so clear. I say, ah, the true human body. No, I don't think of it in some kind of anthropocentric way. It's just a way of looking at it that's different than thinking it's some kind of scientific thing out there. And in a number of koans it says, The handle of the dipper hangs down.

[80:26]

Okay, that's very different in English. What, the handle of the dipper hangs down? That's the thing, you know, in front of the carriage where the horses are stuck on. That's what it is called. The dipper in the sky, the big dipper? So this is like shaking hands with the cosmos. Of course, in those days, until recently, of course, everybody lived in the stars every night. It's hard to see the stars nowadays unless you live in a desert climate or something. It's not just because there's smog, it's because we have electric light.

[81:28]

So we live in the night by electric light, not star and moonlight. We don't learn to walk in the night with our bodies without light. But the common statement in Zen of the handle of the dipper hangs down is the same feeling of shaking hands. There it is, right? We're not separate from this world we live in. So this kind of vision of the way We exist.

[83:07]

Is put to a test. In small things. Like you learn to do the chanting with a group of people. And if you have an instruction on how to do it, you tear it up. Because it's much more interesting to have four or five people get together and do it wrong than one person do it right. And then you have to face to face say, oh, this is the way we do it. And everyone tries to remember it. I think it sounds funny that way. Let's do it this way. That's how the tradition has been passed.

[84:13]

It sounds funny this way. Let's do it that way. Ah, Dogan and Nagarjuna did it differently. Yeah, but it sounds funny this way. So we do it this way. Sukhirashi used to tell a story about how in a big ceremony at a heiji once, You know different lineages have different ways of doing ceremonies. I teach you some way to do it. And you teach your people practice with you some way to do it. And after a while it gets off a little way, some other direction.

[85:14]

Nothing wrong with it. It's just different than this other lineage's direction. As we say, we're born in the same lineage, but we die in different lineages. So here they had this big ceremony at Eheji. Hundreds of priests. And they're all trying to figure out how to do this one ceremony when they all have different ways of doing it. It was like an orchestra playing with no one has the score. Yeah, so it's more like jazz or something. It's not like a Western symphony. Two, two. So everyone was doing it and really paying attention.

[86:34]

Because you also don't rehearse. You take your chances in the situation without planning in advance. We can't ever understand what an oral tradition is really about when you plan in advance. Okay, so they're out there, everyone's paying attention, thinking, okay, let's do it this way, and they all kind of agree. About an hour and a half into the ceremony, getting toward the end, they get stuck. And no one knew quite what to do next.

[87:43]

And Sukhiroshi was a fairly young priest at the time. And some old priest way in the back who was about 80-something. Really, the old guys, they just put over in a corner someplace and they let them sit. Because they're too old to do all this bowing. So they sit there and, you know, enough brocade to buy a Mercedes. Because one of these robes costs $30,000 or $40,000. Nobody buys them because a village will get together and honor their priest by collecting and having it made. So you have one or two of those in your lifetime. So in the old days it didn't represent money.

[88:54]

meant all the village looms stopped for a week or so and made this guy's robe. So they usually sit somewhere in all this brocade looking like a lampshade. It's kind of great. It's like a big flower pot. And this guy, when everyone's sitting, sort of struggled to his feet. Just didn't say or do anything. Except struggling to his feet. And moving in some way and then sitting back down and everyone knew what to do. Sakyurashi said it was like magic.

[90:43]

No one, you don't know what he conveyed, but by his getting up, the whole family proceeded. That's what an oral tradition is about. Das ist es, was es mit dieser mündlichen Tradition auf sich hat. It's dangerous. Es ist gefährlich. You can always lose it. Man kann es wirklich immer verlieren. You never know if you've got it quite right. Man hat wirklich nie Ahnung, ob das echt richtig ist. It's why tradition they write with a brush and not a ballpoint pen. Das ist weshalb man mit einem Pinsel in dieser Tradition schreibt und nicht mit einem Kugelschreiber. If you're going to write something, you have to grind the ink first. And it makes a mess and you get it on your robes and all kinds of things.

[91:44]

And then you write something. So if you're going to write something, you just don't pick up a pen and write something. It takes quite a while. It's an effort to do it. If you're a famous calligrapher like Yamada Mumunroshi was, Still, you have a lot of monks who mix your ink for you. Yeah, but still it's a big deal. You have a room about at least a room this size, but at least half of it all involved with the calligraphy.

[92:48]

You have two monks mixing ink. another monk or two bringing paper in front of the mumunroshi. You have another monk picking up the wet paper and putting it out to dry. You have paper all over the place. And you have visitors from the inner circle hanging around like, you know... Me. There's a foreigner who's sitting over there in another corner. In a black lampshade. And Rumi and Roshi, they bring this paper and he will joke with people and laugh.

[93:42]

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