I'm going a little over 12. I'd like to finish this if I can, if you don't mind. And since we're not having a seminar this afternoon, But we won't go on another hour and a half. Unless your legs are feeling really good. But in fact, names do hurt us. You couldn't say to your boss, you know, who says, I think I'll fire you, you're such a nut. So if names hurt you, your continuities in your thinking.

[01:20]

No, of course, if somebody doesn't like you, it does affect you. But it's very different when your sense of continuity is in, not your identity, but your sense of continuity is in your body, breath and phenomena. So your dharma task is to always, first of all, an inventory. To inventory how you actually notice, how you actually find your continuity. And then recognize that you don't lose the sense of a personal history. When you bring your fundamental sense of continuity out of your thinking,

[02:41]

That you cannot change your history. That it doesn't change your personal history. You're still the person you are. You don't have to be afraid of it. You have to change your views of reality. But in fact, you don't have to change your views of yourself. Aber in der Tat musst du nicht die Weise, wie du dich selber siehst, ändern. And if your view of yourself does deepen or widen through changing your sense of continuity, wenn sich deine Sichtweise von dir selber oder sich dein Selbst weitet, it widens hohen. widens and deepens when you change your sense of continuity. But you still include the previous ways you viewed yourself.

[03:55]

Or the whole process feels healthy. So you feel wider and more inclusive, not as if you've lost something. Okay, so knowing that, you make the dharma decision now. The wisdom decision. Yeah. to shift your sense of continuity. And the main way to do that is to keep bringing your attention to your breath throughout the 24. And then that practice, when that continuity shift has occurred, Then you can begin to practice maintaining the one without wavering.

[05:16]

Now this sense of practice, as I'm explaining it, is implicit within and assumed by the Sandokai. Now, just in telegraphic fashion, I'll finish. When you actually can do what's meant by maintaining the one, Which means to be aware of awareness itself. Untiringly be aware of awareness itself. Now different objects appear in this awareness. Or you may focus this awareness on your body, your organs, your emotions, etc.

[06:36]

But basically you maintain an awareness of awareness. which is technically only possible when your sense of continuity is no longer in your thinking. Now to try to continue in telegraphic fashion. When your thinking, when your continuity is in your thinking, You're functioning through consciousness. And the current of consciousness sweeps into its course primarily those things of which one can be conscious. And those things of which we can't be conscious but are interrelated with the current we call unconscious.

[08:00]

Now when you shift out of consciousness You're still conscious. But your continuity of being and becoming is not in consciousness anymore, even though you're conscious. But this continuity, this current, is actually here in front of the altar, sitting here. Then, what's called the Alaya Vijnana, which means the totality of everything that has affected you,

[09:14]

in between senses, in the interaction of sense fields, all that is also part of you. You could call it non-conscious, not unconscious. So now, this current which is strengthened through the practice of maintaining the one without wavering, turns this entirety of our experience, which we call the alaya-vijnana or storehouse consciousness, into the activity of wisdom itself, Because all of our experience is brought into continuous contact with the world.

[10:35]

And that can be called mirror wisdom. Because the whole world is constantly reflected in it. And the light is called dark because it's not in the light of consciousness. And when this functioning goes forward, so the dynamic of mindfulness in Zen is not considered to be a nice, alert, aware state of mind, but a process that engages the whole of you with the world, moment after moment. in a deeper and wider way than is possible for consciousness.

[11:48]

And that activity is called Buddha nature. It's not a soul or an entity. It's a way of functioning fully in relationship to everything all at once. Or as fully as is possible almost. And that way of practicing is what the Sandakaya is trying to bring forward to us in this short poem. So what I tried to give you today was another version of yesterday's talk. I don't know if it's any clearer. I had fun making the effort.

[12:59]

And thank you very much. Vielen Dank. May we in our abstinence have the power to do all that is right and to do all that is right. May we in our abstinence have the power to do all that is right. Oh, what you can say about love? Oh, what you can say about love? What you can say about love?

[14:01]

Die gefühlen Wesen sind zahllos. Ich gelobe, sie zu retten. Die Begehrten sind unausgleichlich. Ich gelobe, ihnen eine Hände zu bereiten. Die Damer sind fressenlos. Ich gelobe, sie zu beherrschen. Der Lebensbruder ist unertrefflich. Ich gelobe, ihn zu retten. Satsang with Mooji [...]

[15:32]

He ga wa kuwa nyo rai, Nyo shin jitsu, Nyo geshi itate matsuram. I don't know. [...] Good morning.

[16:34]

Yesterday was what we call in the monastery a four and nine day. In Japanese, Shikunichi. And it's the day, I mean, monastic life is arranged around a five day schedule. Zen monastic life. And we call it, at Crestone, the monk week. Yeah. And so every four or nine days, four, 19, 29, etc., you... Wash your clothes. Bathe. Shave your head. Have your car stolen.

[17:40]

It's a day for redistributing wealth. Getting rid of possessions. Yeah, washing yourself clean. Yeah, we sort of went overboard yesterday, though. Yeah. But it's nice that we gave him a car that, for her, just finished, had just completed its tuff. But at some moments we weren't feeling so compassionate. And we're glad that the gas tank was nearly empty. But, you know, it was quite surprising.

[18:52]

I think Marie-Louise told you about it this morning. We felt pretty safe. We left her bag, backpack in the car and stuff. Because we were parked in a private company parking lot. Yeah, next to the security police car. And we took a little walk for about 10 minutes. Much of the time inside of the car. I think I should study with this guy. You can keep the car, but come back and be my teacher.

[19:52]

Yes, so now I think we've... gone into the Sandokai pretty well this week. Yeah, better than I expected we'd be able to. And I'm looking forward to the seminar this afternoon when we can finish the text. And all in all, we're looking at this as a wisdom teaching, something that's practicable for us and true for us.

[21:04]

And yeah, and I think that's true. And I think Buddhism I think Buddhism continually surprises me. Because I think you do have to say it's a very well worked out wisdom teaching. Wisdom teaching for us human beings at any time and place. In any culture.

[22:07]

And why is that so? Well, one reason, a main reason is because it's a teaching about how the mind works. It's a teaching about how we function. Free of culture. So it's wisdom is its way of being free of culture. So this means if you want to practice it, you have to somehow also free yourself, have some perspective within your own culture.

[23:16]

Yeah, I would say that, I mean, we still need teachings based on our culture. And I would say that our psychology and psychotherapeutic practices Are? Yeah, yeah. No, I have problems with these psychotherapeutic words. Oh, I'm sorry.

[24:18]

It's okay. Are more culturally based. I don't think the idea of a psyche is universal. For us, these teachings are good. These practices are good. And I don't think we can simply say that Buddhism substitutes or is better than. That's just not the case. I think they in fact can work together quite well. So, although I've just emphasized the kind of universality of Buddhist teachings, I'd like to emphasize their historicity as well.

[25:24]

Let's look at this guy Shido. Shido was the disciple of Ching Yuan. I always find Such Chinese names are a little difficult. Shido is easy to say, but Ching Yuan... It makes me think of this... We started something in San Francisco called the Neighborhood Foundation. And... We tried to work with the housing development people in San Francisco, a very poor, dangerous neighborhood, mostly black. And one of the leaders, a woman of the black community,

[26:35]

Who was great, she was great. Yeah, she was the one who went once when she had to give a talk. She stood up to give her talk. And she said, my thoughts just sat down. That's why I sit when I talk. And she also said, oh, I met this Chinese woman, can't remember her name, it sounded like a fork falling on the floor. And she... So that's like this guy. He was one of our great ancestors, Ching Yuang. And he was considered the foremost disciple of the so-called six patriarchs. So this is the very beginning of Zen practice coming into China.

[28:14]

We can't even call it Zen practice. It's Buddhism coming into China and turning into Zen practice. It's the Chinese making Buddhist practice into their own. and creating Chinese ancestors and a Chinese lineage rather than an Indian lineage. And it really began to be a conscious part, conscious, you know, conscious part, visible part of the culture With these two great, they were called the two gates of the elixir.

[29:31]

Elixir? Yeah. That's something you drink, some kind of... Yes, a potion, some kind of magic potion. And this is called, the hara is called the field of elixir. And as I said, Shido lived from 700 to 790. And the other gate, Matsu, lived from 709 to 788, slightly younger and died slightly earlier. But basically, exactly contemporaries. As I said the other day, the people of China supposedly wandered between these two and you were ignorant unless you met them.

[30:49]

Before Shido, Zen teachers pretty much lived in obscurity. Yeah, it would be like one of you practiced Zen and then you lived in, I don't know, Hanover or someplace. And you just led your life and maybe one or two people practiced with you. The German government didn't notice you. And you, German newspapers didn't write you up. But for some reason with Shido and Matsu, it came into the light of the culture.

[32:11]

And Shido had quite a lot of enlightened disciples. And there's five famous schools of Zen. And three of them started from Shido's disciples. Yeah. The Faiyan school, the Yanmen school, and the Zhaodong school. And two schools started from Matsu. And one of the schools, of the two schools that started with Matsu, was a disciple of both Shido and Matsu. So I'm telling you this just so that you can see when we look at this poem.

[33:15]

We're looking at the very beginning of Zen practice in China. When Zen practice was trying to take some form that worked in Chinese culture, So that's why I said it's good to also look at not just its universality but its historicity. The historical moment in a particular culture. Now I would say all in all what these early folks were trying to do they saw the power of a non-conceptual mind.

[34:32]

Yes, as a mindological process. They wanted to engage the mind at a non-conceptual level. Do we want to do the same thing? I don't know. Maybe we want to do something slightly different. Okay. Now, in a somewhat parallel way, I tried to emphasize the last couple of days the shift from seeing entities to seeing functions. Now, that may sound obvious, it's just words. It's up to you to bring this into a reality in your own experience.

[36:04]

I can give you a kind of picture of it. Maybe ideally I can give you a feel of it. But that's the most I can do. You really have to decide to find in yourself your way to do this. Okay. So you've got to really see the degree to which you tend to think or feel in entities. In entities. And how this is in you and how it's part of your going along with others and going along with your own culture.

[37:10]

Okay, see what the fine... It can be short times, but times like during zazen. During periods of mindfulness practice. In which you try to see your own habits of mind. and see if you can develop antidotal habits of mind. Actually do it occasionally, it's a big change. and then try to see functions.

[38:31]

That's also a very big shift. Like a shift from conceptualizing the world to non-conceptualizing. Okay, so what the sixth patriarch, for instance, seems to have been trying to do, or what the Zen history has him doing, is to bring in, in a practical way, the understanding of emptiness. Now, up until the Sixth Patriarch, Things are, it's sort of like here we are in this world.

[39:41]

In that case, this Chinese world. And in which you try to make, you try to work within the culture. And you also imagine yourself as a process. And a process is something different than functions. You imagine yourself as a process. And which you gradually change the process. And in which you assume there's some kind of ground of being. Or some kind of inner truth that you uncover.

[40:59]

We can have too. It's an image we also can have easily. And some Zen teachers through the centuries have in fact taught on the basis of uncovering. And I think that's a mistake. Bad pedagogy. But it can be a useful way to practice, in fact. Okay, so this is symbolized by the two disciples of the fifth patriarch. One expressing his understanding of there's a mirror and you wipe it clean, you keep the dust off.

[42:06]

As if our practice is to purify our mind. And make it more and more clear. It's a kind of ethical practice as well. Okay, so the sixth patriarch comes along. And then comes the sixth patriarch, the other disciple of the fifth patriarch, the other main disciple. Supposedly an enlightened, uneducated woodcutter. We have to have a little drama in these stories. So he says, there's no mirror, there's no stand, there's no polishing, etc.

[43:15]

Well, what does that mean? Simply speaking, it means don't conceptualize. This is a stick, we can polish it, etc., The sixth patriarch says, don't think of it as a stick. Okay, well, that's a... It's a stick, why not think of it as a stick? It's a kind of stupid idea. But even if you like it, it's an elusive idea to know how to apply. Even if you like the idea of not calling it a stick, How can this be of any use to you in your life?

[44:20]

What I would call a no-notion mind. Now we can see there's a famous story of of Xing Yuan asking the sixth patriarch. How do I practice free of stages? without practicing step by step. How can I practice free of stages? Free of thinking of the culture, certain ways, etc.

[45:25]

Uncovering the ground of being. So in this question is the power of a person bringing his life and saying, how do I cut through stages? So this kind of question doesn't make any sense unless your life is gathered up in the question. And the sixth patriarch says, what stage do you fall into? So in other words, if you're even thinking about stages, you must have an experience of yourself in a stage. And Xinyuan said, I don't even practice the holy truths.

[46:35]

What does he do? I don't even practice the holy truth. Yeah, and so the Sixth Patriarch said, if you don't... I'll get it mixed up here... Something. And then Ching Yuen says, okay, if I don't even practice the holy truth, what stage could I fall into? And the sixth patriarch says, so it is, just as it is. Okay, so now he's looking at his culture. There's all these things you're supposed to do, Confucian and so forth, etc.

[48:06]

He says, I don't even do that. Okay, so again, this is a way of saying, I'm not going to conceptualize who I am and what I'm doing. Das ist wiederum eine Weise, wie jemand ausdrückt, ich konzeptualisiere nicht, wer ich bin und was ich tue. It doesn't mean, I mean, Ching Yuen was not a Karate teacher. What? A car thief. He practiced those holy truths. Don't steal someone else's car. But everyone was going, oh, the car's already in Poland. Or somewhere. The license plate has already been changed. We talked, somebody talked to the police this morning, they said, oh, we're not even looking.

[49:09]

So he practiced those holy truths. But in his way of, in the fundamental, I don't know what words you, in the, essence of, in the basic of what it was for him to be alive, they were trying to find a way to practice non-conceptualization. which is also the basic teaching of the Diamond Sutra. And the Heart Sutra.

[50:24]

Okay, so how can we practice this too? And if we want to practice, what practices can we do that support this? Yeah, I think we can practice it. I think we have to, for instance, I don't think for most people Moo works. Moo is, yeah, it's probably better to have everybody say yes. Moo is translated often as no. It means emptiness. Does a dog have a Buddha nature? Most people when they practice this just turn into cows. Take you around mooing at everything.

[51:40]

And nothing happens. If you say yes to everything, something happens. Maybe then we have to practice with also no. Maybe then we have to practice with also no. But we can find a way to practice with the realization of non-substantiality. We can find a way to practice with the realization and expression of non-substantiality. Okay. But I think the practices we need to support that, but I think the practices we need to support this practice of emptiness or non-substantiality

[52:54]

are probably most basically to change your experience of continuity. And my effort the last couple of days was to give you a conceptual understanding of that. To try to make that clear. That it is possible to change your experience of continuity, and to recognize that continuity is a current that gathers the world into your life as experience. And that if you change your experience of continuity,

[54:13]

And then you add to that the practice of maintaining the one. One awareness in all situations. You actually change the dynamic of the way you function. And one of the keys to this is opening up mindfulness as a way of thinking with the world. When you hold something, a teaching or a phrase or anything, in mindfulness, without thinking about it discursively or analytically, can affect your practicing non-conceptuality.

[55:39]

you're not conceptualizing this which you're holding in your mind. You're not thinking about it conceptually. So it's a way of entering into the practice of non-conceptuality. Now going back to the Sandokai, basically Shido is saying, take away conceptuality, take away the way in which you glue the world together. Through the senses and four elements.

[56:43]

And without bringing the four elements and the senses together conceptually, let them function on their own. It's a little bit like your breathing is unconscious. Mostly we just breathe, we hardly notice we're breathing. You start bringing your attention to your breathing. You bring your attention to your breathing in sasen and in mindfulness practice. And this interferes with your breathing. It sort of adds baggage to your breathing.

[57:53]

There's some constrained feeling in zazen of watching the breathing. But at some point breathing, we could say, feels like it breathes itself. And when breathing breathes itself, it just does itself. But it's not unconscious. And the attention you have been bringing to breathing no longer interferes. In fact often expands into a wide, clear sphere. So, Shida was talking about something like, let all of you function that, let all of you do itself.

[59:09]

Now let me end by just bringing to our attention a couple of the images. This practice of merging with principle. This kind of conviction and responsibility for realization. Conviction and responsibility for realization. or the responsibility for the realization, the Buddha-ness of our life, and this as the root of maintaining the one,

[60:13]

Now this practice of maintaining the one, not just keep it short like that, maintaining the one, keeping to the one, is sometimes said it's like having a bird on a string. keeps trying to fly off and you pull the string and you pull it back. It's flapping right here. But eventually it's more like space penetrating space. We can concentrate on an object and bring our attention back to it. You bring it onto an object and then you take it away. And that's called, to be able to do that, it's called one-pointed.

[61:31]

What we're talking about now is something more like space pointedness. You keep bringing yourself back to just this feeling of awareness, a spatial awareness. And it becomes more and more precise and wide. And it sometimes feels like space penetrating space. The very space changes into a space that penetrates space. Now the image of this is an arrow hitting a target. And the next arrow, being so accurate, it splits the previous arrow.

[63:08]

And the next arrow splitting that one. Halved within halved. Halved within, right? The halved of an arrow. Halved in halved. Half and half. You put that in your coffee, don't you? Okay. Okay, so that's a pretty experienced meditation. It's not. It doesn't take brilliance. It takes commitment. It takes commitment and experience. And when this kind of practice is developed, the image that's used in the Sandokai, it's like two arrows meeting mid-air.

[64:28]

This doesn't mean you have to become a great Zen archer. It's just an image to try to give you a feeling of what it feels like. You feel you're meeting another person I mean, face to face in an exact way. It may not last a long time, like two arrows. That would be pretty remarkable to do that anyway, wouldn't it? Oh, pine, this would be great, you know, like something out of a samurai movie. So this happens in Dharmic time.

[65:49]

Because there isn't duration, there's really just moment by moment. So this Image of the two arrows has the feeling of preciseness, accuracy and momentariness. Momentariness and accuracy. And we feel that with the world too. Unless your car is stolen. But when your car is not stolen, everything meets exactly.

[66:55]

But sometimes some creep steals the moment away. It really was funny. We walked back. The two cars are... Our brother has a... Polo. Yes. A little polo and a golf were sitting beside each other. Both red. Both red. And the interior of the car was well established in my mind. Because my jacket was in the back and my sweater and other various things. And the two cars were sitting beside each other.

[67:57]

And as we crossed the street, Marie-Louise started jumping around saying, my car is gone, my car is gone, my car is gone. And I looked and there was one red car. And I was sure just the other one, the red, had been peeled off. The interior was still there. And I kept thinking the red will then reappear around it. But I suddenly realized she was right. It was gone. If we'd left it all night, I could have understood. It's a bit like if Marie-Louise is here, I see her there. I turn and look at you guys, I look back, she's gone.

[69:02]

But I know her very well. She must be there. Okay. So I think we've come to some pretty good feeling for an understanding of the Sandokan. in the practice embedded in this poem the teaching embedded in it the vision of what our human life can be free and wide and true to how things are And I think it's also an opportunity to see teaching evolving. coming into the light in another culture, historically.

[70:15]

And how are you going to bring this teaching into the light of your own life? And the light of your immediate society. Friends, spouse, children. The people you know, the people you work with. How can this become a real light in your life and the people you know? That's where we're each at in our own life and our society right now in the West. And that is exactly the point at which each of us is in his life, in our time in the worst.

[71:29]

Thank you again for translating. You're welcome. with the power of Jesus or Jesus. But also so that we, the children of God, would stay in love with each other.

[72:30]

We feel that the days that are lost, they still open to us. We feel that the days that are lost, they still open to us. The Anas are limitless. I believe they will prevail. The path of the Buddha is unreachable. I believe to reach it. Ujo jenge ni miro wa Yakuse manoi yo ayo koto katashi

[73:35]

Varema non jiri suru kothari, Megawakwa Yorai Oshinjutsu Nyo Deshi Tate Matsuran I believe in the Lord and I believe in the Lord and I believe in the Lord. I believe in the Lord and I believe in the Lord. So we've had a good excuse to spend a week together.

[75:20]

Ashida would be very pleased to know that so many hundreds of years later he gave some people a chance to spend some time together. And although it took some mental effort to puzzle our way through this Sandokai, I hope you realized that a teaching like the Sandokai is actually not about intelligence. It's about practicing it in some honest, straightforward way.

[76:28]

With patience. So you just practice it the best you can. If you don't understand, you don't know quite how to practice it. you just do the best you can. And instead of looking to your intelligence, or some information you can look up somewhere, yeah, you can do that, but you'll end up to be a good scholar, not a practitioner.

[77:29]

You might end up to be a good scholar. You might end up to be a lousy scholar and a lousy practitioner. But if you just trust practice, instead of going to your intelligence, more deeply just trust practice and practice as well as you can. Again, see this as a practice prescription. Take half a line twice a day for ten days. And then return to the same dosage again, the first, you know, five lines, half a line, twice a day.

[78:52]

Yeah, this kind of approach is better than trying to be intellectual. So even such a dense and demanding text as the Sandokai is opened up by understanding, by practice, not by some kind of information. My understanding of the Sanugaya is completely from trying to practice it. Even so, I don't know if I really know, don't know if I really can teach Zen.

[80:12]

Or even, am I really practicing Zen? In some kind of way, a measurable way. I just know I'm trying to practice. And I'm trying to find a way to share practice with you. So a week like this is not just another week in my schedule, you know? And this is just another chance to try to see if I can find out how to practice Zen.

[81:27]

And I think you've also understood, although I know it's difficult, just to... Try something out. This kind of straightforward way probably works best in the world in general. But I can't say for sure about that. But I know this way works best in practice. Now, Krista rang the bell in some funny places there. And she thinks she made a mistake.

[82:30]

But for me it's something nice. Oh, a bell. This is quite surprising. And I'm very pleased. And I say, I hope she makes another mistake. For me, it's not a mistake. It's something wonderful. Wow. I'm used to hearing the bells in the right places all the time. So I feel Krista when she hits the bell. She's, what should I do? She thinks I'm making fun of her maybe, but no, I'm complimenting. And you have such a good, strong voice.

[83:45]

It's so clear. It's great. What's nice for me is I can feel her in her doingness. What do I care whether it's right or wrong? If we do this long enough, we'll all start doing it exactly right. And then I can't feel you so clearly anymore. You feel like everybody else. Yeah, there's still some difference in the way anyone does something. Dogen said that when Avalokiteshvara hears the bell, the bell changes direction. This is something interesting. Avalokiteshvara hears the cries of the world.

[85:04]

Avalokiteshvara hears the cries of the world. And each of you, you know, we now have more Doans here than we have at Yohannesov. We only get four or five there, we get seven. So if anyone asks about how was the week at the house of Stilla, just say it was amateur week. And we have seven doans. More doans than Johannes V. And so when each of you did it, you know, there was rather long pauses between the one sutra and the next sutra.

[86:09]

But this is nice. I could feel your straightforward mind. What am I supposed to do next? This is something nice. Really. I know it's a very, very deep habit and a good habit and a kind of kindness to want to do it right. But in Zen this is not always right. The fourth patriarch, fourth ancestor in Japan, in our lineage, the first ancestor we would call Dogen, and the fourth ancestor, who also studied with Dogen, is Keizan.

[87:30]

And his disciple was Gassan, who became the fifth ancestor. And Khe Sanh had many good disciples. But he wouldn't recognize Ghassan. Even though Ghassan had a deep and profound understanding of Zen practice. He thought he had a good understanding. He and Ghassan himself? Yeah. So... Khe San wouldn't recognize him.

[88:34]

Khe San asked him a question. Do you see the double moon? Khe San didn't know what he meant. I don't know whether I see a double moon or not. Anyway, he didn't know how to answer this question. Very simple question. So for some years he couldn't answer, I don't know if I see the double moon or not, I don't see one moon. Yeah, and this teaching of the double moon And this teaching of the double moon can be used in various ways.

[89:38]

You don't know exactly how the teacher is going to use it. And you can look it up in the Lotus Sutra someplace and try to understand what is meant by the double moon. You can look it up in the Lotus Sutra and try to understand what is meant by the double moon. But he didn't know what Kaizan meant. He might try to find the right answer, but what did Kaizan mean? But you may want to do the Doan work right. Yeah, but you also heard my lecture.

[90:39]

I said, don't try to do it right. You didn't quite believe me. You still kind of wanted to do it right. So you set up standards on your own. Didn't really understand what I meant. So Ghassan was in, you know, he had a far-reaching understanding. But it didn't reach to what his teacher meant. So for years, Other disciples of Khe Sanh were recognized, but Khe Sanh was not.

[91:40]

And Khe Sanh seemed to have meant, just see the moon the way you see it. I see it one way, you see it your way. That's two moons. have the simple confidence to see the moon the way you see it. If you try to see the moon the way all of Buddhism sees it or the Lotus Sutra sees it or something like that, Then you are trying to see some truth or one moon. How many moons are there? Maybe at least as many people as in this room. all evening the moon is changing.

[93:05]

So sometimes just something simple and straightforward is what's best. You know, there's the famous story of Matsu who sat very well. And Nanaku says to him, what are you doing? I'm trying to make a Buddha. So after a little while, Nanaku was, Matsu was sitting there. And he hears outside the door. It's his teacher, Nanako. What are you doing, Nanako?

[94:09]

He's got a... Nanako has a tile and he's rubbing it. Oh, oh, oh, excuse me, I'm trying to make this tile into a mirror. Can't make a tile into a mirror. So... Matsu. Nanaku said to Matsu, When the cart won't go, do you hit the horse or the cart? Matsu said, horse, no.

[95:10]

He just hit the horse. You know, we're always trying to be smart and hit the cart or the horse. So there's various ways to understand the cart and the horse. But still, some straightforward, simple answer is first of all necessary. Just to sit, this is enough. There's a word in Japanese, shibui. Sounds like a phrase from a 50s song.

[96:13]

Shibui, shibui, shibui. But it's actually a Japanese word. Songs when I was in high school, you know. But shibui means to be not noticeable. To be nothing special. To be just... not famous or anything, just ordinary. The power or presence of ordinary things. There are many expressions of this in Oriental culture. Confucius said that the invisible thing is what's visible.

[97:30]

Meaning the thing you hardly notice because it's so obvious is often what's most strongest, maybe. Another expression is, while the cicada is very noisy, nice sound in the, it's very noisy. The firefly is silent. But it has, it's the insect with the light. Lotus Sutra says, you know, just light up one corner of the world. Just think, take care of your particular situation, your friends, your immediate situation.

[98:55]

Sometimes we have such big vision, everything's a mess right under our feet, you know. So if you want to practice Zen, just do it in a simple, straightforward way.

[99:09]

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