I'm going slowly and getting started because I would like your consciousness to be in the details of life. Because that's really what this sutra is about. And those of you who were here last evening will be a little more prepared for what I'm implying here. But I think those of you who were not here last night will catch the feeling of, if I leave something out that I talked about last night, Now the job of a sutra is to introduce a teaching to people.

[01:17]

And to introduce a teaching to a people, a society. And a sutra is meant to be written in such a way that it will be, can really only be understood at the level at which the teaching exists. So it's a hard thing to dilute.

[02:43]

You can't dilute it. You can understand it at several levels. And each level implies the existence of the other. But it's not a dilution of the other. So knowing that one of the topics in Europe this summer was going to be the heart and mind teachings, I've been in the back of my mind been kind of turning over how to present this teaching to you. Now, the idea that form is emptiness and emptiness form, how many of you have heard of that phrase before, form is emptiness?

[04:11]

Put your hands a little higher so I can see, okay. Has anybody not heard that phrase, form is emptiness? Okay, that's three people, four people. Okay. The sutra did its job very well, even in Western culture. In other words, most of you, but almost all of you, except for a few, have heard the phrase, form is emptiness. I remember when I first spoke to Suzuki Roshi about this sutra. He said that it takes quite a long time to understand the sutra from inside. So sagte er, dass es eine ziemlich lange Zeit dauert, bis man dieses Sutra von innen heraus verstehen kann.

[05:22]

From inside means something like, if you were going to write this, this is how you'd write it. In other words, if you were going to try to say something like this, this is the way you from yourself would choose to say it. That means you are turning the sutra, the sutra isn't turning you. Do you understand what I mean by that? Now turning the sutra, this is a little aside, but these asides have some value, I think you'll see. The phrase, turning the sutra, is a good one in English and it's a pretty good translation. I think it clearly means that if the sutra turns you, you're reading it affects you.

[06:38]

You're reading it, you're getting, you're understanding the content of the sutra through reading the sutra. It's coming from the text to you. But it also means literally turning the sutra physically with your hands. And that's done several ways. The Tibetan prayer wheel is turning the sutra. You put a little sutra in a little metal case and you put a little weight on it and then you turn it. And what it's done in a similar way in China and Japan is the sutras were originally written on accordion-like books where the paper folded. It's folded like this back and forth and then A little bit like this.

[08:15]

That's where this form comes from. But what you do is when you physically turn the sutra in China or Japan, if you imagine about a hundred of these pages, And there's the boards or the front and back stiff part. You take it with your hand, with two hands, and you stretch it out like an accordion, and then you let it fall. You take it with your hand, with two hands, and you stretch it out like an accordion, And it's done practically because to get the bugs out once a year, you know, to air them, get the bugs out, get all the mold out from the damp climate of Asia.

[09:22]

But this is also sort of considered studying it. I hope by Sunday you'll have an understanding why someone would consider that form of studying the sutra. As if you picked it up every day and you didn't have time before you went to work, so you kind of took it and set it up. Oh, I've studied the sutra, and he went off to work. It sounds completely stupid. And when they do it, I've done it myself in monasteries, is first you do it to the left hand, and then you take it and you do it to the right hand, and they fly through the air, and every now and then somebody drops one, and it kind of flips off.

[10:40]

And you have about as many people, say, as we are, less, or it could be many more, doing it. And you have boxes of them in front of you. And you pick one up, and everyone then shouts while they're doing it. And everyone's doing it differently, and it's a great sound. Can you pass like that? So even, you know, there's an emphasis on the physicality of things, even to the extent of turning the sutra means actually turning it physically.

[11:47]

Okay, now this is a translation from the Indian Prajnaparamita literature, probably the Prajnaparamita Sutra in 25,000 lines. This is a translation that occurred by Kumarajiva and Xuanzong, I think. There's several translations around the year 600, 650 in that period. These translations were made by these two people around 600, 650 AD. And this was a translation at the time the tantric ideas were coming into Buddhism in India and into the Prajnaparamita literature. The title Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra here means the great...

[13:05]

the great wisdom that's gone beyond wisdom. It's not just wisdom, but wisdom that's gone beyond wisdom. Heart, Ruddhaya Sutra. And you may be able to see that the word sutra has suture in it, like sewing up a wound, suture, it means to sew. And there's various theories about why that's the case, and one of the theories is that the texts were actually sewn together. Okay. So I said that this sutra has done its work. Okay. Because the... the... The fact that this was translated at the time tantric ideas were coming into Buddhism makes this an incantational or mantra text, not a content text.

[14:49]

And one of the qualities of a mantra text is to attempt to introduce things to you physically, not mentally. Okay. So that for those of you, for instance, who haven't heard the word, the term formless emptiness, um, that's been introduced to you now in a way that may stick with you. What the hell does that mean, form is emptiness? And if you wonder why 30-some people in this room already have heard the term form is emptiness and you haven't, and you assume, what's wrong with all of us?

[15:54]

These seemingly normal-looking Swiss respectable people would take such a phrase seriously. Okay. So if you think about it like that, then the sutra has done its work. And really, although the term formless emptiness occurs in the Prajnaparamita lecture in an abundance, It's this sutra, this version, which singled it out and made it commonplace in China. So it's this sutra which made it commonplace in the United States and Europe too. In other words, this is a kind of Buddhist advertisement.

[17:21]

A tantric advertisement for Buddhist teachings. And so, although this is translated from Indian text, it's the quintessential Chinese text. I just learned a German word, quintessence. Okay. You know, the longer I stay in Germany, the more people ignore the fact that I don't know German and just speak German around me without switching to English.

[18:21]

So when I first came here, I was a sort of smart American, smart enough to come to Europe. And slowly over the last five years I've become kind of a dumb German who doesn't speak German. For everybody has to explain things to them. The menu, you know, it's a soup, you know. Mm-hmm. So I've got a menu you don't know and I know. This is the Buddhist menu tantric advertisement. And it is a kind of menu. Mm-hmm. So what this sutra did is its existence is almost entirely Chinese.

[19:48]

It's taken out of a larger sutra. But this short version translated into Chinese with the inclusion of a new tantric approach made it extremely important in China and Japan and Korea and Vietnam and so forth. And it took certain ideas out of the larger text and made them commonplace ideas throughout the society. And it's been so effective and powerful, it's made formless emptiness one of the most acknowledged ideas coming from Buddhism into the West.

[20:59]

Now, in China, form is emptiness is usually in the commentaries understood as form is mind, mind is form. Okay. So that's a kind of introduction to the text and introduction to what I'm going to try to include with you in this weekend. In what sense is form mind and mind form? Mm-hmm. So I would like to introduce some practices and one I'll start out with.

[22:19]

And then I'd like to do zazen with you. And I'll try to explain or give you a feeling for why why I introduce a particular practice. Last night I used a phrase quite a few times. to experience the territory, or rather to inhabit the territory of your own physical existence.

[23:21]

Or to enter the territory of your own physical existence. Each of us, now here's another phrase, and it may sound a little strange. Each of us has to establish our own identity within the force of our own physicality. Now I'm using these phrases in the same sense that this sutra uses form as emptiness. It's not exactly understandable, but I wanted you to question it or feel it. So I'm using the technique of the sutra in the way I'm teaching.

[24:37]

So each of us has to establish our identity within the force of our own physicality, of our physicality. Now, I could say each of us has to establish identity within the form of our physicality. But I use the word force instead. Because force has a more dynamic, more powerful, less passive sense than form.

[25:39]

Each of you has a particular nose. And you have to live with that nose all your life. Even if you have an operation, then you have to live with the operation on the nose. You may or may not like your nose. And your friends may and may not like your nose. Looking at me, you can understand why I picked this particular... Once I was in Japan and I was eating in a wild boar restaurant up in the mountains. And these sort of farm women waitresses who didn't at that time usually see Westerners were all lined up at the end of the table down there where I was eating.

[26:55]

Sort of looking up the line like this. So I looked down at them, realizing they were looking at me. And I said, what is it? And they said, does it get cold on the end? Like your fingertips get cold or something. So whether you like it or not, your nose has been forced on you. And you have to live with that nose. So you have to live with the physicality you are.

[28:10]

On the one hand, that's been forced on you. On the other hand, it's you have no choice about it, so it's not forced on you at all, it's just what you know. And also there's a certain force in the way you locate yourself physically. So, you know, as well known, the word spirit, spiritual means breath.

[29:26]

Or it's derived from the word meaning inspiration, breath. So those of you who are a little intimidated by, perhaps, by the idea of... Excuse me. The idea of trying to determine whether it was alive or not. So those of you who are a little perhaps intimidated by so much emphasis on physicality which can be a little scary we tend not to think about our bodies And if we do think about our bodies, we take them to the doctors. Or we, you know, jog or something like that.

[30:28]

And what I'm trying to talk about is not in the territory of doctors or jogging. But is in the territory really of spirit and mind? Geist and geist. So... We could do a seminar called Geist and Geist. Geist who? So... What did she say?

[31:48]

But it's much easier to get at these things through the body. Mind and spirit are very nice, but they're very slippery. Your body is more or less here. But when you start being aware of the fact the real fact of of your body awareness. For example, when you're meditating, if you start to meditate, that's when you suddenly feel your heart as you. And beating there, and you're dependent on each one of those little beats. A certain mental fear can happen.

[32:59]

Shit, I'm dependent on that little thing. And then it goes... So it's a perfect lesson that mind and heart and body are really connected. So the little practice I'd like to introduce to you is quite simple. The next two days whenever you enter a room I want you to step into the room with your foot nearest the hinges of the door.

[34:12]

Mm-hmm. This is a very basic Buddhist practice, not easily presented because Westerners would think it was too peculiar. So, if you imagine this wire as a door, and this is the hinge part, The door swings this way. It means that when you walk in, you walk in like this. And then when you're going out, because the hinge is on this side, you walk in this way.

[35:13]

And it doesn't mean that, though this may happen at first, that you get up there and you go... In other words, it begins to, if you're going to walk naturally, you begin to have to have a consciousness in the door from back here so that when you walk up, it's fairly natural. But, you know, at first you may come up and do a little... This is a simple practice, but there are a lot of reasons for it. One of them is simply to begin to know what you're doing. To begin to know what your body is doing.

[36:18]

In a way of noticing what your body is doing. Already we have a problem here, at least in English, to know what your body is doing. Who is your? So we could try to substitute something for your, like to know what mind is doing. Or instead of what your body is doing, you say what mind's body is doing. mind or mind? Mind. What mind's body is doing.

[37:18]

Geist's body is doing. But then is geist or mind self? Is that your? Okay, now let's reverse it and say What is to know what body's self is doing? Our language is completely biased toward a you're owning the body. But it becomes awkward to say a body's owning the your. You can say, I suppose you can say the body's foot. If the body owns the foot.

[38:33]

But at least in English you'd usually say your body's foot. So something called your owns the body which owns the foot. Then what owns the step Now this is not foolishness what I'm talking about. Because I want you to begin to think that the body may own the self as much as the self owns the body. Okay. And when you step across into a room, I want you in a single kind of... with a single view, grasp the whole room.

[39:59]

So you feel the step into the room is actually, as you step in you feel the room. So you're not only stepping in as if you're going outside, stepping through that door with this foot, with the foot nearest the hinge, but you are also stepping into it stepping into something. So you step into, oh, outside, trees. And then you have outside, inside, and which side... Now part of this is whether you don't notice it, but when you say outside, inside, your body, etc., you are applying the grammar of language to your consciousness.

[41:28]

Wenn man also diese Begriffe benutzt, wie außerhalb und innerhalb und nach außen treten und nach innen treten, dann wendet man die Grammatik der Sprache jetzt auf das eigene Bewusstsein an. So your mental activity is constantly framed by a kind of grammar. Not limited to the grammar of language, but primarily the grammar of language. Not limited to the grammar of language, but primarily the grammar of language. So this kind of paying attention to your walking as you walk into a room is to begin to apply a kind of physical grammar to your physical actions.

[42:40]

And just as the grammar of language begins to make consciousness surface into our life, A physical grammar makes awareness or consciousness surface into your life. Okay. Now, how many people have had no experience with meditation? Okay. Now, what I'd like to do is take a little break and the people who have not had any experience with meditation

[43:54]

I'd like to meet with during the break or maybe we'll make the break say 20 minutes and the last 10 minutes I will meet, last 10 minutes of the break I'll meet with people and give you some meditation instruction. Now, any of you who want to can join the meditation instruction, but I'll do it specifically for the people who aren't familiar with Zen meditation. And then after the break we'll sit for a little bit. Okay. Thank you very much.

[44:55]

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