I'm glad you're all here. That you made this decision to come to Sashin. And as the session goes on, I'll be glad that it's this particular each of you. Because exactly each of us will make this sashin. Denn es ist genau jeder von uns, der dieses Sechin machen wird.

[01:02]

And you've decided, to some intentional degree, to make this Sechin with each other. Maybe it's some feeling like getting off your blind spot. Perhaps I think we often feel there's something in our life we don't see. Or we have some intuition that there's more to life than the usual happening of our life. And we want to get out of our habits for a while.

[02:05]

And we want to do something that's beyond our thinking. Sashin should be demanding enough that you come here with some trepidation. Fear. So that here we're facing the first day of Sashin. And we're not sure we want to go through it. Some of you may be Some of you may even be debating whether you have a choice to leave.

[03:14]

You do, of course. We don't have the Johanneshof police at the door. Yeah, so... But something makes us feel it wouldn't be easy to leave. Yeah, it makes us feel, too, it may not be so easy to stay. Or even if you're sure, you know, I mean, most of you know you're going to stay. But I hope that in that staying you don't know quite what will happen. We should have such opportunities in life. Yeah.

[04:27]

So there's, I think, an intelligence in making this decision to practice Sashin. In the sense that I think we... We would like to be able to apply our intelligence fully to our living. And I would say, I would define Zen practice as a way to fully realize our intelligence. Not just the cultural skills that require intelligence.

[05:28]

but the fullness of our life, which is also intelligence. Sometimes I think of zazen as My experience of zazen is often like a cool lake. Like you imagine a hot, sticky day. And there's a lot of thought flies buzzing around your head, or in your head. Yeah, and there's a bunch of, quite a few anxiety mosquitoes buzzing around.

[06:36]

There's a couple even inside our shirt. You can't quite get rid of them. And then you decide to get in the lake. And you don't jump at the cold water. You just settle into it gently. It doesn't even feel cold. And then mosquitoes and flies are gone. And it feels so cool and relaxing. Anyway, something like this is my experience of zazen.

[07:57]

And when I can be really relaxed, when you could be really relaxed, the pain becomes sensation. Yeah, some kind of sensation, but it's not really pain anymore. When we can really relax that much. And we find that... Yeah, this... Water, we can say it's something like pure mind. And this water is, you know, if we're sitting on the shore and these various flies and clock flies and anxiety mosquitoes are around us,

[09:07]

And some friends and strangers are sitting nearby and they have their own flies and mosquitoes. But when you get in the water, You all share the same pure mind, same cool water. And Sashin is like that too, at least for me. I begin to feel... the arising of pure mind from all of us.

[10:11]

Even if for a while the thought flies get more numerous, And the anxiety mosquitoes get huge. Still we see these thought flies and big mosquitoes through pure mind. So I'm continuing what I said this morning about Sashin is a gathering of the mind. What does it mean, a gathering of the mind? What mind gathers? And what did I mean when I said consciousness defines us out of pure mind.

[11:36]

Yes. And what is aliveness? What is our aliveness? What's the relationship between aliveness and pure mind? So I'm inviting you to ask yourself these basic questions. What is aliveness? What is mind? What would be pure mind? What is My, you're sitting here.

[12:49]

What makes it difficult just to sit here? You know, usually we don't have a theme in Sashin. I just had to think of the try to think of the topics, the names of the seminars for next year. I tried to think of, I don't know, something rather that might be of interest to you. Or interests me now. In some way to say it simply. Of course, by the time next year comes, I won't remember what the title was about. Natürlich werde ich im nächsten Jahr nicht mehr wissen, worum es bei diesem Titel ging.

[14:03]

I have to ask your help. Dann muss ich euch um Hilfe bitten. But we don't announce themes for Sashin. Aber für das Sashin kündigen wir keine Themen, keine Titel an. You don't want to come here for some topic. You want to come to Sushin and put all the topics aside. We'll see if some kind of theme or topic arises. Yeah, but right now we just have The fact that we're sitting here. And the ease or difficulty of that. And our intention to do it. Yeah, so we have some ingredients, yes, of our sitting. The other day... Yeah, sorry, but I'm going to speak about Sophia.

[15:39]

Neulich, ja, entschuldigt, ich werde... You know, I'm studying her. And, yeah, just because she's so interesting to me. And she's caused a problem for me. Because the other day, a couple of days ago, she looked at a picture of her uncle and aunt. Those names are Bernhardt and Stefanie. So she looked at the picture. And she suddenly said, Bernhardt, Stefanie. No, not Bernhardt, Bernhardt.

[16:42]

Because it's the first time we noticed she said two- and three-syllable words. She prefers one syllable. I can understand that. I prefer one syllable, too. Then she has two languages to choose from. So she likes poon better than little. And she's not Sophia, she's here. And I keep thinking she's saying here, and now she's actually saying here. Mm-hmm. Yeah, here, meaning herself, actually.

[17:44]

Yeah. Yeah. Here, here. So... Why did this cause a problem for me? Now, we've had this picture up on the kitchen counter for a long time. And she's seen the picture before. I mean, she's just there. She sees everything. Sie hat das Bild schon vorher gesehen. Sie ist einfach da und sieht alles dort. But suddenly this time she said their two names. Aber auf einmal sagte sie die beiden Namen. And she gets the syllabic rhythm of it too, even though her pronunciation is funny. Und sie hat den Silbenrhythmus auch verstanden, auch wenn sie es falsch ausgesprochen hat oder seltsam ausgesprochen hat.

[18:46]

But then when she was able to say their names, she insisted on having the photograph. She began kissing the photograph and insisted on taking it to bed with her. What connection does this have with her ability to say two and three syllable words? Well, I'm convinced that her ability to say the names is connected with her ability to relate to them. You know, I'm not a research child psychologist. I'm just making this up as I go along, watching her grow up.

[20:01]

But I'm watching her from the point of view of Zen practice. Now, my guess is that when a baby can say mama and papa, it's coincident with her being able to identify her mother and father more. And separate foreground from background. And then separate the foreground into particulars. Things and people. In particular people.

[21:21]

Well, if that's the case, it would mean that language and the structure of mind are inseparable. Yeah, and that When she can really name somebody, she's never used their names before. But she seems to have kept the names in some kind of memory until she has the mouth motor skills to say them. And the conceptual skills, to say, cognitive skills. And it seems that when she could do it, she could have a clearer relationship to him.

[22:26]

Mm-hmm. So this would mean, again, that mind and language are They generate each other. The structure of mind, and mind has a structure, seems to be created by speech and language. If that's the case, then how can I say mind is, this is the problem, how can I say mind is somehow captured by consciousness?

[23:38]

The third ancestor, third patriarch says, the great way is not difficult. Der dritte Vorfahre, der dritte Patriarch sagt, der große Weg ist nicht schwer. Only avoid picking and choosing. Vermeide nur das Auswählen. Picking and choosing is like naming her aunt and uncle. Auswählen ist wie ihre Tante und ihren Onkel auswählen. So how can we avoid picking and choosing? And of course, the third patriarch, the third ancestor, didn't walk through walls. But at least I'm sure that most of the time he used the door.

[24:42]

To use the door as a choice. Though when he says, avoid picking and choosing, he can't mean not to choose, because if you walk through a door, you're choosing. So it can't mean we don't choose. He has to mean something like avoid the mind of picking and choosing. Er kann also nicht meinen, dass wir nicht wählen sollen, sondern er meint so etwas wie den Geist des Auswählens zu vermeiden. And part of this Sashin schedule is based on his teaching. Und ein Teil dieses Sashin Zeitplans beruht auf Is it during this session, during the seven days of a session?

[26:00]

You try to have no choice about the schedule. That's the most important point for me in a sashin. Is the schedule is just as it is. And for one week we just do the schedule as it is. Tired or sick, busy or whatever. I mean, if you're, we can make some exceptions if you're, have the stomach flu, shall we say.

[27:02]

And you might mess up your sitting area. But let's say we avoid picking and choosing. What kind of mind is that? Now, coming back to this problem I had. It's clear to me that this little example of two and three syllable words And her relationship to the photograph.

[28:07]

And the whole structure of the mind related to simple things like distinguishing foreground and background. is developed mostly through language. So what is the relationship of Zen to language? We know in Zazen we can get stuck in language or get free of language. So how do we resolve this? Well, you know, I was struck by this Mercedes and unfortunately Chrysler ad. where this shows little kids playing on the TV, playing with cars.

[29:23]

At the end of the ad, Mercedes says something like, We are proud... We recognize the responsibility that the third word of infants is car. And then Narcides says at the end, we recognize the responsibility that the third word that children learn or can say is car. That after Mama and Papa, it's car. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I... There's two Papas in Sophia's life. There's Papa who's here, and there's Papa Otto. Mm-hmm. Where's Papa? He's in the auto. So whenever I'm not there, my name is Papa Auto.

[30:26]

So then I thought about hobby horses or rocking horses. In the old days of course there weren't cars, there were horses. So like kids have little toy cars now. They used to have and they still have hobby horses or rocking horses. So I suppose the kids... Infants liked to ride on horses because they were looking for their father. So it was Papa Horse instead of Papa Auto.

[31:30]

Mm-hmm. But Sophia has a kind of, not a rocking horse, they're rocking boards. They're kind of big colored boards and you can rock on them like a rocking horse. So I think we could distinguish, does the child want to be on the horse or does she like the rocking? It's probably both. Sure, it's both. Okay. So, this gadget Sophia has... is for rocking.

[32:51]

It's not because it's a car or a horse. And she can rock on it in many more ways and with more people than you can on a traditional rocking horse. So that little thing for me of noticing that it's not about the horse, it's about the rocking. made me recognize that it's not about language, it's about noticing. Language is a way to notice. And language helps us develop our noticing skills.

[33:52]

capacity. Like tennis or martial arts might help us develop our physical capacity or physical mental capacity. But our mental and physical capacity developed through such a sport Activity is not limited to that activity. So this is all to say that language develops our capacity to notice. But our capacity to notice is more fundamental than language. So in Sashin here, what we're doing is noticing. And as I've been saying recently, noticing without thinking.

[35:22]

When you practice noticing without thinking, in fact, you're trusting in gathering mind. So we can notice outside of language. the cool of the lake, the gathering of big mind, and we can notice and let go of noticing in ways we can't so easily let go of language.

[36:42]

And we can let go of the personal categories. And modes of knowledge. and see if we can be present to just what appears appears in the realm of noticing and letting go of noticing Before the arising of language. Before the arising of personal categories or preferences.

[37:54]

Before modes of knowing. What's there? What happens? What is the gathering of mind? Okay. Thank you.

[38:16]

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