Now, one thing you bump into following the schedule throughout the day, is that you bump into the service. You stop what we're doing for no reason, it seems. We stop what we're doing for no reason, it seems. And then come in here and bow and chant. Yeah, so... If you're an outside observer, we gather and we sing, sort of sing, chant together. Yeah, and we bow together. So basically, we're doing something together. In a way, we're doing something in terms of our personal life, but rather meaningless.

[01:01]

And we're bowing to... Yeah, we're bowing to the Buddha. Or we're bowing for the chanting we're doing. So somehow we're relating ourselves physically to Buddha. Yeah, the possibility of a Buddha and the teaching, the Dharma. Yeah, so three times a day we enter this space here in the Zendo. where there's the implicit recognition of the possibility that there have been or could be Buddhas.

[02:25]

And we chant the teaching that has come from the Buddhas and Buddha ancestors, as we say. Yeah, and you know, we could all walk in here and say, hey Buddha, hi Buddha, and walk out. it would be just as good, I don't know. But, you know, we have to do something physical, so we bow. Yeah, and we chant. So you're entering three times a day some kind of realm and physical activity that recognizes the possibility of Buddhas and their teaching.

[03:51]

Yeah, now, if you were a fashion model, say, you'd have to act like, dress like a fashion model. If you're a businessman, you have to act, dress something like a businessman is expected to, unless you live in California. Where, yeah, where if you dress like an East Coast businessman, you're not a businessman in California. In other words, there's a certain... form we take for a certain kind of activity or, yeah.

[05:07]

Yeah, it's a form we take, as I said, yeah, for sleeping and standing and so forth. Well, what form do we take for a Buddha? Yeah, the first day, the opening ceremony, I spoke about being here in the presence of the Buddhas. But really, Buddhism as a practice makes no sense. unless there's the possibility of Buddhas. So this is one koan of our practice. Is this a possibility in our life? Can we first of all have to feel the possibility in ourself if we're going to imagine the possibility in this world?

[06:36]

So the service takes us out of our usual habits just for five minutes or twenty minutes. And we appear as a person and as a mind Through other persons, through other minds. You appeared as a person through your parents and your society and culture, as I said. as a power and a presence.

[07:40]

And through that you achieved some, you know, autonomy. The ability to take care of yourself. But we don't want to lose this wider sense of being that arises through others. Yes, so being a Buddha is not your achievement. That's some kind of very narrow thinking characteristic of much of our culture's thinking. A Buddha arises through the wider being of others.

[08:52]

A Buddha arises through the wider being of others, with others, through others. So there's some reason why we come in here and shout together, Hey Buddha, Hi Buddha. And again, since there's not much, you know, unless you just happen to love chanting, there's not much reason to do this. Yeah, in the end you're just alive. Can you be alive?

[09:54]

Breathing, heart beating, anywhere. Makes me think of, I think it was in Kassel, I don't know, maybe it was Göttingen, someplace anyway, recently. Someone put up their hand at the end at some point and said, it's so... You know everyone says you're supposed to pay attention, give attention to your breathing. And this person said, I can't do this because my breathing is so boring. And this man said, I can't do this, my breathing is just so insanely boring.

[11:18]

And someone else put up their hand and said, I think it said something like, try smoking, it makes breathing more interesting. Then someone else called and said, try smoking, it makes breathing a little more interesting. You can't argue with that, I suppose. So maybe just being alive, just having the heart beating and breathing is boring. But somehow we have to get by this boredom barrier. And this is one of the secrets of practice. Make it as boring as possible and see if people stick with it. Yeah, and maybe we'll discover just being alive is absolutely fantastic. Yeah, just hold your breath for a long time and then you'll see how nice it is to breathe.

[12:20]

But we forget that on each breath. How can we discover this, as I said, just being alive? When you're doing zazen. One thing that helps is just noticing. Is to just notice. Without any self-referential thinking. Oh, just noticing without anything added.

[13:44]

If you're a businessman, business person, something's added. What is added if you're a Buddha? Okay, so we can talk about Buddha nature. Maybe we can talk about true nature. What's the difference between Buddha nature and true nature? Well, don't think about that too much. Even to think about it is to some kind of entity thinking, as if Buddha nature was some real thing. As if the mind was some real thing that you could grasp and identify. First of all, Buddha nature and true nature are just Two words each.

[15:02]

But Buddha nature may make us think of adding or achieving or something. The direction is sort of outside ourself. Or it might be. But true nature, if we say that, we feel the direction more outside. So what is our true nature? Let's not worry about Buddha nature until the end of the practice week. Or month or whatever. Let's imagine what is our true nature. Yeah, being a carpenter is something added.

[16:05]

So your true nature can't be being a carpenter. But you might discover your true nature by being a carpenter, perhaps. But still, I think we're talking about not adding something. Let's see if we can not add something. Let's take away everything that's added. Okay, say there's a fly crawling around on your head. Yeah, maybe for you, if you have hair, it's more on your cheek.

[17:13]

Flies think I'm the Frankfurt airport or something, you know. And they walk around looking for the runway. Yeah, they have nice little soft legs. Sometimes they sort of bite you. Okay, so I can just notice without... Just only notice, just notice. Manchmal kann ich einfach nur bemerken. Yeah, only notice. Also nur bemerken. Yeah, there's some sensation of the legs. Also es gibt so eine Empfindung der Beine. And then sometimes I can think it's a fly.

[18:15]

And then I can think, I wish it would fly away. And then I can stop thinking about it being a fly. I can let go of the thought formation, fly. Just have the sensation of the legs. Or I can kind of shift into a wider field where the fly and the legs and everything disappears. Or it's a You know, it's such a wide field, you barely notice the lakes. Yeah, as you maybe might camping on a lake, you might see a fire on the other side of the lake, campfire.

[19:32]

Like when these television cameras can beam into the fire or distance itself and it's just a spot. Yes, you can feel hardly notice the legs walking around. But you do shift back. Oh, that's that darn fly. Aber man schaltet wieder zurück und sagt, oh, das ist diese verdammte Fliege. Wo läuft sie denn jetzt wieder rum? The fact is, we make this shift. Die Tatsache ist, dass wir dieses Umschalten, diesen Wechsel machen.

[20:37]

We make a shift from the wide field. to the sensation of the legs moving around, to the thought formation, it's a fly, And the desire for it to go away. And your hand might almost jump in your mudra to get up there and knock it away. So what you get familiar with And it actually takes time. It takes quite a few, quite a lot of zazen.

[21:39]

Until you can really feel the shift from the thought formation to just the only sensation of the legs. Or even the wider field of mind where you're not bothered by the fly. Which that wider field is also a sensation. Wobei dieses weitere Feld auch wieder eine Empfindung ist. It's like you might have a sensation that the weather is going to change. So it's not a guess, it's a real feeling. So wie man zum Beispiel ein echtes Gefühl haben kann, dass das Wetter sich bald ändern wird.

[22:43]

Some people can say, I think it's going to rain tomorrow. Yeah, and we have a sensation of lightness. Yeah, so I'm just using the word sensation to say that there's actually a shift between sensations, the fly's legs, the wider field of mind, the thought formation. Can you say it again? There's actually a shift between or among sensations. Yeah, that's right. We say if you feel the weather change, you call it weather feelingness.

[23:43]

So if you use the feelingness in that sense, then you can... Okay, so there's a... you get to know the sensation or feel of the wider field of mind. Or you can get the sensation or feel of just noticing without thought formations. Then you can get the sensation or feel of the mind of thought formation. First it's just the thought formation and then it's of the mind of the thought formation. It's, yeah, both are the same. Because I'm saying the same thing, maybe then. Okay. Well, there's the sensation or feel of the legs without any thought formation.

[24:48]

Okay. Zuerst kann man, also man kann ein Gefühl für diese Sensation, diese Empfindung von nur diesen... It's just legs. Who knows what it is? It's just some kind of... It's exactly the same as hearing an airplane and not thinking it's an airplane. You just have hearing. And you can feel the difference between when you think, oh, it's an airplane, or when you, that's way in the distance, the thought that it's an airplane. Now, this may sound ridiculous to any intelligent person, what I'm saying. But in such simple noticing in Zazen practice, You begin to know different minds.

[26:03]

You get to feel the shift between different minds. And you begin to know the sensation of the different minds. The feel. And you begin to get the ability to stay in one or the other. And participate in the shifts. As I told this story before a few times, but I have a friend whose father was a missionary in China.

[27:04]

And he was forbidden to go into any Buddhist temples in China. God forbid. The child. But as he was an autonomous agent, He went into a Chinese Buddhist monastery or temple at one point. And up on the altar he saw a Buddha. So he felt quite free. He walked in and walked along. And there were There was a fly on the Buddha's head. Walking around. And that's what made him sure that it was a statue.

[28:22]

He got up quite close and he realized it was a live monk. paying no attention to the fly. And that simple event changed him into a Buddhist. The fly in the ointment. Fly and the ointment? It's an expression which means the thing which makes everything different. You're going to use some ointment, face cream, and you look in, there's a fly in it.

[29:22]

So you don't want to use it. It's just an expression. So it's the fly and the ointment of Christianity. I don't. I realize I forgot my watch. So we might have a very long lecture. How are your legs doing? It's strange. We have to listen to the lecture with our legs. Sometimes it's the hardest Zazen, period. But there's a koan just about what I'm talking about.

[30:30]

But let's imagine Katrin's life for a minute. She's here. And she's sitting. And flies crawl around on her head and face and she has no noticing of it. And the self-definitions have slipped away. She has this mental and physical location. And she's given up, let go of adding something to this mental and physical location.

[31:31]

And sometimes a fly lands on this mental and physical location. Und manchmal landet eine Fliege auf diesem mentalen und physischen Ort. And she notices it. Und sie bemerkt es. And she shifts between noticing it and thinking about it, flying away and not thinking about it. Und sie wechselt hin und her zwischen dem bemerken der Fliege und wo sie ist und ob sie wegfliegt und dem... Mostly she just has this experience of aliveness. One of the basic practices of Buddhism is to try to locate the self. And in the end you can't locate it. You can locate certain thought formations.

[32:32]

Yeah, you can locate certain definitions which carry the self. Man kann verschiedene Definitionen lokalisieren, die das selbst tragen. The fly, the desire for the fly to fly away, all sort of self-definitions. Die Fliege, das Verlangen, dass man sich wünscht, die Fliege soll wegfliegen und so weiter. And sometimes she can just be alive. Und manchmal kann sie einfach nur am Leben sein. With little self-definitions. The word accept means to, the root of it means like the handle of an oar. It really means something like to locate yourself in a situation and feel the handle of the situation.

[33:36]

But the sense of being an agent, an I, someone who does something, And the word agent means, the root of it means to grab something, seize something, drive something. And sometimes we grab hold of things, of life. But we also want to be able to just let ourselves be located. Ort sein.

[34:49]

Wenn wir von einem Gedicht bewegt werden, oder gerührt werden, dann haben wir nicht das Gedicht erfasst, sondern das Gedicht hat uns ergriffen. Or when we hear music, we're suddenly surprised. The music moves us. So when, like, maybe the fly's legs move us. Yeah. No, sometimes a thought will pop into Katrin's location. Manchmal wird ein Gedanke in Katrin's Ort hinein. She has this school she started in Frankfurt that she's responsible for.

[35:51]

Sie hat diese Schule in Frankfurt, die sie gegründet hat und für die sie zuständig ist. And you have a moment of worry or thought or something. Und dann kommt ein Gedanke, ein Moment der Sorge... But then it goes away. But when she goes back to Frankfurt, well, she brings her mental and physical location, which she's extended to her students and running the school and so forth. But sometimes she can drop that and just feel the location of aliveness itself. And sometimes, though, It takes over and she's located by the school instead of being able to be free of the location.

[37:03]

Yeah, and she feels captive now instead of just capable. Well, since it's getting too long and I've barely gotten started, I'll just give you the koan that's about this. One of the koans I repeat most often. Number 21 in the Shoyaroku. Good old Yunyan is sweeping. And his brother monk, his actual brother supposedly, and fellow monk, Daowu, sees him sweeping. What's his name? Da Wu.

[38:21]

Da Wu is the brother. Der sieht den anderen Kehr. And Yun Yan says to Yun Yan, too busy. Und er sagt dann zum Yun Yan, zu geschäftig. Yeah. And Yun Yan said, you should know there is one who is not busy. Und Yun Yan sagt, du solltest wissen, dass da einer nicht geschäftig ist. You should know there's one who can always return to aliveness. Not just return sometimes. But even when the fly is flying around and when you... want the fly to go away, and so forth. And when you have many thought formations about things, underneath it or around it, you feel the mind that isn't disturbed by these things.

[39:29]

You feel the one who isn't busy by busyness. So Yunyan says, you should know there is one who is not busy. can you find that in your practice could this be your true nature could this be you with nothing added could you be this be the one who in service or at any point whatever it is your heart's beating your breathing this is enough In a fundamental sense, even the worst chore, chore? It's no longer a chore if you can just rest in, yes, heart's beating, I'm breathing.

[40:47]

So Yunyan said, you should know there is one who is not busy. And then Dawud said, ah, then there's a double moon. There's one who is busy and there's one who's not busy. There's the moon in the sky and there's the moon in the mind. And the moon in the puddle. The reflection. Yeah. Well, yes, in some sense there is the moon in the sky and the reflection in the puddle. But in our practice, in our experience, the moon in the puddle and the moon in the sky and the moon in our experience are one. So Yunyan holds up the broom and says, Is this a double moon?

[42:16]

Can we be free of such self-definitions? In the middle of sweeping, can we be free of such self-definitions of who is sweeping? It's interesting. We say, I am breathing. But we don't say, I am beating my heart. We don't say, I am heart beating. Because the heart is considered, it isn't actually fully, but the heart is considered to be outside of our decision making.

[43:20]

So when does our breathing breathe itself? When does at a fundamental level do we feel our life living itself? This is the relaxation of the one who is not busy. Thank you very much.

[43:57]

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