My first teacher, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, once encouraged us. He said, each time you enter the Zendo, you should forget everything. And be ready to start a new life. Each time we enter this Zendo. This moment together. A feeling of readiness. Feeling of waiting inside the moment.

[01:05]

And it's an active waiting. It's an engaged, alive, contactful waiting. And it's a willingness to forget everything. To forget everything doesn't mean we have lost our memories. Alles zu vergessen bedeutet nicht, dass wir unsere Erinnerungen verlieren. Es bedeutet, dass wir bereit sind, uns nicht von ihnen begrenzen zu lassen. Von ihnen einfangen zu lassen. In ihnen gefangen zu sein.

[02:08]

to forget everything and start a new life. Stepping into here. Into an unconstructed, unknown here. I hear that each of us Particularly and all of us together are continually making. Unknowingness of what here is. Apart from our making it together. Many ingredients are present and the way that we put them together makes here continually stepping into this moment

[03:15]

This contextual stream of activity. And we have some idea about it. We have a concept of a dencho bell and time and place and coming together. But we really don't know. And practice, we may say, is a willingness to find ourselves in one another apart from our ideas of Und Praxis, können wir sagen, bedeutet uns selbst und uns miteinander jenseits von unseren Vorstellungen von uns zu finden. The act of the willingness to forget.

[04:41]

Der Akt, das Tun, dieser Bereitschaft, the act of the willingness to forget. Der Bereitschaft zu vergessen. To set aside what we know. And the openness, the energy, the wholehearted willingness to find ourselves in one another. Und die Offenheit und die Bereitschaft und die aus ganzem Herzen kommende Bereitschaft, uns miteinander zu finden. The stream of activity we're continually creating together. Den Strom der Aktivität, den wir fortwährend miteinander erschaffen. So several days ago we spoke about Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. Samantha means to extend.

[05:43]

And Bhadra means virtue. Stepping into here. With the feeling of Samantabhadra who enters without taking a step. Extending virtue. Extending the virtue born of our unknowingness and our willingness, our readiness. Virtue born out of.

[06:44]

Our unknowingness and our willingness, our readiness. It's a willingness not just to follow the schedule. but to make the schedule our own. Otherwise it's a piece of paper and some ideas, some mapping of something we can't quite get a hold of, but we continually try to. It means our unknowingness and our willingness makes the schedule. And each activity is the schedule.

[08:05]

There's a monk named Hanko. And he says to join the hands across the chest making Shashu. That's practice. He doesn't say attaining the mind of the celestial Buddhas is practice. Doing zazen with empty mind is practice. He says making shashu is practice. Each of the activities of the schedule, making the pause is practice. Walking to and from the Zendo is practice.

[09:16]

As we talked about, each of these activities is a receptacle for our awareness. And our awareness that we're continually forming and refining together. So making the... that we did during Nenju ceremony is forming and refining this space together to renewing our practice to form and refine our space together. and as we are able to continually extend that space.

[10:35]

From this place zazen is not an activity of practice. Practice is how zazen is expressed in each of our activities. How in the midst of each activity, practice is continually unfolding. We can't appropriate it. We can't make it into a thing that we do. Wir können uns sie nicht aneignen oder besitzen.

[11:37]

Wir können sie nicht zu einer Sache machen, die wir tun. Aber es ist etwas, dem wir beginnen können, uns anzunähern und gemeinsam zu verfeinern. Wie machen wir das? We develop intentions in our consciousness, in our thinking. We ripen them in our bodily awareness. and a way to work with the concept, the feeling of in the midst of this activity, this life.

[12:44]

We may intentionally lower the concept of in the midst into the stream of our activity together. And by placing the concept in the stream of our activity, the stream of activity changes. And not only the stream of activity, but our awareness of it changes. May flow over the concept. May flow around it. May tumble it. lowering this concept in the midst into our stream of activity.

[14:09]

In the midst of our zazen, kin-hin, eating, or yuki. And in the midst of our doing these things together, the density, the viscosity, the quality of the liquid of the mind changes. It's possible to tune the mind with the mind. Maybe much more useful and effective to tune the mind with the bodily presence.

[15:19]

Leading with our eyes. felt uh breath and posture experience this is uh Hanko encouraging us to place the hands folded across the chest as making practice. And it's anchored in pace. not just in the content of our activity, but in the space between appearances.

[16:30]

Samantabhadra riding on an elephant. The pace of moving like an elephant. The pace of Zazen. Regardless of whether we're moving so-called quickly or so-called slowly. Egal ob wir uns so bewegen, dass man es schnell nennt oder dass man es langsam nennt. The sense of composure is what it means to extend virtue. Das Gefühl von Haltung ist, was es bedeutet, Tugend auszuweiten.

[17:30]

It's extending the mind of composure. Forming it together in our joined activity. Sharing it with ourselves and one another and beyond. So we talk a lot about awareness or attention. And when we drive a car, we pay attention. What's the difference? We may today say there are two primary differences.

[18:42]

One is it's not just the content of what we're paying attention to. But it's how we bring our attention to our activity. shifting from an idea of attention into attention being located in the context or flow of our activity. And it's not just about how we pay attention.

[19:53]

But it's how we begin to develop an attention-keeping mind. A mind that settles in and matures attention. Ein Geist, der sich in der Aufmerksamkeit niederlässt und sie reifen lässt. Und es verändert nicht nur die Sichtweise, die wir auf uns selbst haben. Es verändert unsere Erfahrung von dieser Welt. It's the kind of world where each moment we can step into our stream of activity. Be willing to forget the stories we've been telling ourselves.

[20:54]

and find a new aliveness which we can live with and through others. This is the joyfulness of a dedicated and clear heart that attains it. Thank you very much.

[21:37]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_75.75