I'm very happy that our host and my friend, Giorgio is here, designed and and built and gifted us this building. And had the vision that this would work the way it does. And I apologize for the meeting earlier getting a little emotional there. And I just want to say one thing about it, which is that some of you don't know that the bank and the insurance companies, two banks, all agree the property is worth more than a million and are willing to loan us $600,000, but we can't afford $600,000 loans.

[01:11]

And there is one more thing I would like to tell you, because I don't know if you all know this, but it is the case that the building is estimated to be worth more than one million euros, both by two banks and by the insurance company. Die Banken wären bereit, uns einen Kredit in der Höhe von 600.000 Euro einzuräumen, aber wir können uns einen so großen Kredit nicht leisten. What's wonderful is how much we all care. Aber was wunderschön ist, ist, dass wir uns alle so stark darum sorgen und kümmern, dass es uns das wert ist. And care about how we... develop the leadership in Sangha which will continue this teaching. And we can be here another 22 years, 44 years. Will you please tell Dorian that we may want to be here another 22 years?

[02:16]

Now somebody asked me, or asked you, what is the experiential world? What is the entirety of the experiential world? Well, I would answer it's location and ingredients. And I would use these very ordinary words. your experiential world is first of all your location and the ingredients in this location. And the dharmic practice of Buddhism, Zen especially, is first of all we should know

[03:34]

this location and its ingredients. And we should, I don't know, again, how to exactly talk about it, but we engage this location. And let's not, I don't want to call it some abstract word like now. Which implies there's some alternative now and then. wie das einige Alternativen beinhaltet, wie zum Beispiel hin und wieder. There is no alternative. There is location and ingredients. Es gibt keine Alternative. Es gibt nur den Ort und seine Bestandteile.

[04:50]

So we can call a location various things. So können wir einen Ort... Yes, I have rejected now. And I reject the present because it implies the past and the future. if we're going to take the realization of non-duality or non-dualism seriously, we have to discover ourselves in a non-dualistic world. Now, as... I commonly point out mind and body are not separate are inseparable and yet we can experience them separately and do

[06:14]

And we can find ways to develop the value of this experience, this separateness of experience. And we can use the experience separateness to weave mind and body together. It's not just a matter of let's get rid of the separateness. Let's understand how to use the separateness.

[07:38]

And very much of Zen practice is about weaving mind and body together. Even the simple practice. Sitting Zazen without moving is a practice of weaving mind and body together. And we find that mind and body are most together when we are most still. And we discover a stillness in which mind and body are at the same pace, even stopped together. And if we come to know that,

[08:40]

And if we come to know that, we can start mind and body more and more often up together. Almost as if two cars stop at a red light. And being stopped at a red light, they can start up and drive together. So we begin to discover what kind of separateness can begin to flow together. Now just as we can experience mind and body separately and together, We can experience body-mind and phenomena separately.

[09:56]

And commonly we do. And not only commonly, culturally it's a fact that body-mind The body-mind, in fact often the body and mind are separate. But more deeply culturally agreed upon is that body-mind and phenomena are separate. But You know, you really have to kind of get rid of that as a fact.

[10:59]

As I said earlier, you're... I want to say it doesn't make sense, but you're immensely... inseparable from your circumstances. And it's something Brother David Steinder-Ross made a point of discussing with me at the corner of the building right over there. Ah, you said... That, that... for him, religious practice, and for me, the same, and the practice of compassion, is to recognize how thoroughly the agency of being and doing

[12:23]

is everything all at once. Unnoticed by most of us, circumstances are usually the agency of doing and being. The Wu Wei teaching of Taoism, so-called non-doing, is to recognize how much circumstances are actually doing us. It doesn't mean we don't have freedom and free will. But we have to think differently about it than investing it in the...

[13:36]

function of the observer concretized itself. So the word I gave you earlier, and it's very interesting, and I tried to give you some sense of its methodology. And I mean, I'm trying out different terms. Corresponding concept. Corresponding concept. Because corresponding means both more or less identical. And responding to each other.

[15:10]

But that's good, corresponding concept. But right now I think I prefer commensurate concept. Commensurate. Commensurate. I don't know, these are English words. Commensurate means measured together, having the same measure. Is it too easy to translate it with similar? Well, it's different. I mean, I rejected similar and I rejected adjoining. But, you know, we're not perfect. I mean, nearly perfect.

[16:17]

She decided for me. Well, he always accepts your recommendation. So anyway, I'll say commensurate, you say whatever you want. A commensurate concept. So the commensurate concept or turning word that I suggested is inseparable. So, if on each appearance, on each mental formation, on each sensation, on each noticing, you have this commensurate concept, or turning word, inseparable.

[17:26]

If you have this similar turning word, It's like having a magic wand. My daughter Sally, when she was four, wrote a letter to Santa Claus. She was five to write the letter. I had to help her. My daughter Sally, when she was four years old, she wrote a letter to Santa Claus, or maybe she was already five, if one has to be five to be able to write, but maybe we helped her too. It's a dear Santa, you know. And it's done? Back with Zazen, yeah. Please bring me a magic wand. And a machine that tells me what I don't need. That's good. This is very Buddhist.

[18:36]

If you have a machine that tells you what you don't need, you almost don't need a magic woman. So a commensurate concept like inseparable. when you touch whatever you're perceiving separation can once you've got the technique separation just dissolves and you And interiority and exteriority dissolve. Or it becomes one big interiority. And then we have some sort of, I write it in my notes,

[19:40]

mind-body phenomena as one word mind-body phenomena as one word when you know this there really is as The first thing you said to me was something about non-dualism. You're immediately entering into a world of differentiation but without separation. And if you have this experience long enough, it's like being in a cosmic washing machine. You're going to start being cleansed and transformed. When interiority and exteriority are gone.

[21:06]

And you're within differentiation without separation. I can't say it in language any better. You feel like you're constantly being reborn. So at first this occurs on the occasion. I can remember when I first started experiencing this. I often felt it. It was like being in one big stomach. There was no outside. It was all stomach. But this craft of incremental enlightenment It makes me now try to say it in this way of

[22:14]

of bringing the word inseparable to every separation. Because things appear and there's a distance in the appearance. And then you touch it with a magic wand of And for a moment it is inseparable. And again, for a moment you're in this differentiation without separation. The words are contradictory but the experience is like that. This is an experience that's outside of language and outside of science and outside of anything but your own experience. And too much of modern Buddhist thinking tries to be too scientific and too phenomenological and rational and so forth.

[23:47]

This kind of experience I'm speaking about which is the certitude of living being revealed to living. The certitude of living being revealed to living. does not fall into any category of science or rationality, etc. But it may be the secret of what religions all are about. Now, all of this What I'm speaking about evolves from practicing your experiential world is location and ingredients.

[25:19]

This location is mind and body. This location can also be mind-body. And this location is also mind and body and phenomena. But it can also be, this location, mind-body phenomena. in a flow of interiority that we could give the name of Buddha Nature to. I'm reluctant to use the word Buddha-nature because we think it's some sort of inner thing. This is not inner. This is everything all at once.

[26:21]

Now we were speaking this seminar quite a bit, obviously, about lay practice and monastic practice. And one of the questions is always what kind of rituals you bring into lay practice. Ideally, in a Zen, within the expressive, the the expressive beauty of the Zen monastery. There are various rituals we do. But in a healthy monastery, all the rituals are the particles of Dharma.

[27:47]

All the rituals are meant to create the habit where you experience things as dharmic units. All rituals are designed so that they show that you develop the habit of perceiving the world as dharmic units. So I would suggest that for the lay practice group, you have to decide for yourself, of course. But if I were doing it, I would think there would be only the bow at the door when you enter.

[28:49]

Enter and leave. And the bow to your cushion and then to the room. And the bow to the fellow practitioners. And the bow to the Buddha. If you happen to have an altar. And I think that's enough. If you use each one as an enactment ritual, enactment ritual, I know, enact is a hard word to translate, impossible to translate.

[29:58]

Hmm? Don't put it here. I don't like it. Sorry. Because, yeah, it's your lecture. No, no, but we have to include. Okay, so... Anyway, the idea of enactment rituals is very important. And the bow to each other. is most of you know already is an enactment first of all of the flow of the chakras flow of the chakras and then to the heart chakra

[31:09]

And then up into a mutual space. And then dissolving that mutual space with the other person. So you get in the habit of doing these little bows. To recognize your cushion. And then turn and recognize the room. And if you feel those as each little Dharma stops. Mm-hmm. it will begin to affect everything you do.

[32:29]

And the practice of pausing for the particular... Pausing for each appearance creates, makes the practice quite easy. Even Zazen is an enactment ritual. What you're doing is you're enacting the Buddha. We are taking the form of a Buddha.

[33:34]

And And in effect, enacting a Buddha. And in that enactment, simultaneously, you're You're entering the utterly singular aliveness of your own being. An aliveness unique to you. An aliveness no one else can know. And you have to kind of get used to the fact that no one else can know it.

[34:43]

And not long too unrealistically or too long for the anima or animus. And... und nicht lange darauf wartet oder euch danach sehnt, dass es einen Animus und ein Anima gibt. And the more you accept this aliveness, as I said, the certitude of aliveness being revealed to aliveness, which you begin to feel completely comfortable in without comparison without even comparing it to the Buddha which you are enacting

[35:47]

Because what is the Buddha's own experience? Singular experience. of his or her own aliveness. And when there's no comparison, we can call this aliveness. As long as there's comparison, it's not enlightenment. One of the teachings is called the five fears. I can't tell this without without telling an anecdote.

[36:58]

Many years ago with some western Tibetan woman teacher I had to speak for a few minutes or speak for a while. And for some reason I happened to speak about the five fears. So a disciple of this A Tibetan woman teacher. Who I liked. We had a good feeling together. went up to her afterwards and said, I love Baker Roshi's teaching of the five fears. Do you know where it comes from? And she said, he just made it up. It's not true, but... Anyway, the five fears are fear of loss of reputation.

[38:12]

I'm a specialist in this. He knows what he's doing. A fear of loss of reputation, a fear of loss of livelihood, I'm also good at that. A fear of unusual states of mind. A fear of death. And, as most of you know, a fear of speaking out in an assembly. You can imagine, you know, like in the McCarthy era in America, who could speak out against what was happening? Who can even speak out in your company when your company is doing something dishonest? You get fired.

[39:13]

Und wie kann man das Wort erheben in dem Unternehmen, in dem man arbeitet, wenn die etwas unehrliches tun? But for the practitioner, the most important or significant, is a fear of unusual states of mind. Because in the end all meditative states are unusual states of mind. which the beginner is afraid, has anybody else ever experienced this? And it's good to find out that Fellow practitioners or your teacher have had similar experiences. But really your practice develops when you don't compare anymore. You're willing to have states of mind without feeling you're going crazy even though you might be.

[40:23]

To find your own location and stability in this aliveness which is your own most utterly personal experience. Is that enough for the day? Is this enough for the weekend? We're not supposed to stop till four. That was good.

[41:45]

We didn't have really reports from the groups. We should stop. These are the people, the monastics. How wonderful to feel secure. In this aliveness revealed to aliveness. Which is the essence of Zen meditation. So maybe we can sit for a little bit. und vielleicht könnten wir noch ein wenig miteinander sitzen.

[43:01]

Still about 4.30 if your legs are in good shape. Wenn eure Beine in guter Verpassung sind, können wir bis 16.30 sitzen. If you don't know the path as it meets your eyes, how will you know the way?

[44:31]

These are the last lines of the Sandokai, which we chant in the monastery sometimes. If you don't know the path as it meets the eyes, the experiential world of your own location and the ingredients of that location when you are so located as I said earlier only in sensation and sensations are all equal So you're located in a world not yet perception, not yet conception. A world of sensation.

[45:42]

Interior and exterior are the same. And your world begins to flow in sameness. Flow in economy. So this is... If you know the path as it meets your eyes. If you don't know at least that much. How will you know the path, know the way as you walk? Wie wollt ihr dann den Weg wissen, kennen, wenn ihr geht?

[46:44]

Humbly I say to you. Bescheiden sage ich zu euch, So humbly I say to you who study the mystery, Don't waste time. Humbly I say to you who study the mystery, don't waste time.

[47:26]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_76.78