I think as you all know, this is going to be a somewhat different practice period than usual. At least the teaching is going to be, the teaching that I do, is going to be presented differently. Because I'm going to try to finish my book, but finish it with you. So the idea is that, we don't know exactly, I mean, I don't, I've discussed it, of course, with some of you, but we'll have to see what works. So the idea now is that on zero, one, two, zero, one and two days, and five, six and seven days, There will be seminars.

[01:02]

And I will attend the seminars on the two days and the five days. No, two days and the seven days. Got that straight? So there will be no seminars on three and four days and eight and nine days. That will be in the schedule. You don't have to worry about the numbers. Anyway, there will be three seminars a monk week. This is the present idea. And the last of the three of each monk week, I will participate for a critique of what you think about, feel about, make sense of the text of the book as I give it to you. And, yeah, I say my book, but I don't think of it as my book.

[02:09]

I think of it as our book because the book has arisen, developed through my teaching, my practice with you. And it's going to be particularly your book because you'll be more instrumental than anyone else in seeing what makes sense in the book. And of course it will also be the reader's book. You know, there'll be presumably somewhat a few more readers than just you. But even those I think of as you, because the book will only make sense, as far as I'm concerned, if it's an instrumental part of people's practice. And that I'll try to find out with you. Now, behind any

[03:10]

thinking about such a thing, is what makes a book credible? What makes an author credible? Now, contemporary authors have a real problem because they're just making this up. I mean, we don't have a common shared culture. Now, in previous centuries, books, texts, poems had their authority because they were part of an a shared and already assumed culture. And novelists who do have credibility and authority, so-called great novelists like Tolstoy and Robert Musil, Joyce, Proust, Thomas Mann, and others, I think their authority comes not because they're good writers, which is actually somewhat unimportant.

[04:15]

It's not because they're good writers or because of the kind of individual they are, but rather because they went through historical periods. They instantiate historical periods, transitions. Now there are less famous novelists who somehow, in some more local way, are at the edge of some transition. So I think the authority comes even in contemporary novels, or novels of the last hundred or more years, Flaubert, come through someone instantiating some kind of shift in a culture. Now, in Buddhism, we have the same problem. I mean, it's the same idea. Dharmakirti goes at some length to say, what makes a text credible? Now, most of the sophisticated commentarial scholar practitioners didn't attribute the sutras to the Buddha or to some cosmic Buddha.

[05:26]

Manjushri, or we should have Manjushri here in the Zendo, but ideally, but that's why we have the five forms of Manjushri back there on that tanka mounted on a board behind the wrong-sided Shakyamuni. So it's not some cosmic Buddha or otherworldly source or eternal source or Manjushri or something who spoke the sutra. They're considered to be spoken by individuals. Now New Age texts are often given authority by being channeled. They have to have some otherworldly orientation. They're channeled and they're truer. But in the sophisticated commentarial tradition in Buddhism, exemplified right now by Dharmakirti, what makes a text credible?

[06:34]

And his analysis is that it comes when there is how can I put it, perceptual instrumentality and inferential awareness. Now this may sound like a little bit too philosophical for you, but basically what it means is instrumental, or I like, implemental, means that that your perceptions lead to enlightenment, or your perceptions enter you, engage you in how things actually exist. If your perceptions don't engage you in how things actually exist, or your inferential awareness isn't rooted in evidence, then there can't be truth to what you say.

[07:47]

It's just something you've made up. I think in the Tibetan tradition, don't they try to give authorities to text because they're hidden and found like termites? Aren't they called termites or something like that? Yeah, so that's a way to give a text credibility. I found it in a cave, you know, it was there. But Dharmakirti says the text has authority when it has instrumentality basically. Perceptual instrumentality and inferential awareness or listening to a teacher whose he himself or herself speaks from inferential awareness and instrumental perception. That's the whole idea of transmission. What gives what we're doing authority?

[08:53]

Now that's what the problem I face with the book. What will give this text authority? It'll have authority when it somehow makes people feel the practice. And so it will have authority also from you because if you, if the text makes you feel the practice, if it's instrumental, perceptually instrumental, and rooted in evidence, in awareness, inferential awareness. Now I'm trying to use the terms Dharmakirti used because, you know, he says, what makes something true? I mean, we can't say, oh, Buddha wrote all the sutras, because it's clear they weren't all written by Buddha. I mean, they may be rerouted in things. And we can say the Buddha gives authority. Enlightenment gives authority. But what about you and I?

[10:01]

It's how we perceive. Now, when you bring attention, in a simple way, when you bring attention... to your breath, to the breath, when you bring attention to the bodily sensations that arise through practicing. What you're doing is not giving attention to self-constructing thoughts. When you're giving attention to self-constructing thoughts, you construct self, you construct a life. Like the Dharma Sutra says, no, I mean, the Diamond Sutra says, no idea of a lifespan. No idea of a lifespan. Well, aren't our thoughts so often constructing self or constructing a life or constructing what we're going to do next?

[11:02]

Well, naturally. But you need a vacation from that. And maybe you even need a three-month, a 90-day vacation from that. And very simply, when attention is brought to the breath and bodily sensations and not self-constructing thoughts, not life-constructing thoughts, you're bringing attention simply to aliveness. And then there's less selfness. Now, we have the extraordinary, I think, extraordinary statements I made this morning, quoting Chendong, Rujing, Chendong, Rujing, and Dogen. The 90-day practice period, you're creating the structure, the structures, true structures of practice. Structures of true practice.

[12:05]

How the heck are we doing that in 90 days? And you're carving a cave in emptiness. Now I'd like to spend about a month with you on carving a cave in emptiness or maybe a second. But really, creating a structure of true practice with that. Carving a cave in emptiness. And to complete these two, Dogen, Ru Jing says. Now you can just take that as the subject, object of this 90 days. Or Dogen says it's practices, functions in unlimited or limitless time. What do these things mean? I mean, let's take them seriously because, I mean, these are considerable persons, persons with the authority of inferential awareness and instrumental perception.

[13:11]

Presumably they exist in a field of perception and awareness at each moment, not self-constructing thoughts. They know what's going on. So maybe what they do and feel has credibility because what arises from inferential awareness, the idea is that inferential awareness, if that's where you exist, it begins to introduce you, engage you, show you how things actually exist. How things actually exist. So the 90 days, yeah, the forms of practice that will be the forms of how you live the rest of your life, including, he says, walking, stretching out your feet, sleeping, etc. Shut in by winter.

[14:21]

Suddenly, I see the snow falling between the trees, brightly as flowers. Now, that's just a little poem. I might come back to it. And then we have Kahn, 15, in the Shoyuroku. Guishan. Yangshan planting his hoe. Guishan says, where have you come from? Guishan knows where he's been. They're living there in the same place, you know. Guishan says, where have you come from? Yangshan says, from the fields. Guishan says, how many people are there? Yangshan plants his hoe. He's had a hoe. It's pretty obvious he's coming from the fields. Plants his hoe, clasps his hands, and stands there.

[15:25]

What's he doing? Well, of course, he's one thing, establishing himself outside the borrowed consciousness, the self-constructing thoughts, as Guishan throws him a little hook. Where have you been? How many people are there? Well, I mean, Yangchuan's going to have none of that, so he just puts his hoe in the ground, clasps his hands, and stands still. That's exactly what it says. These are details. Puts his hoe in the ground, clasps his hands, and stands still. What do these details tell us? What does him putting his hoe on his ground tell us? I mean, it's no different than our guidelines this morning, which say, when you meet somebody, stop for a moment and stand and bow.

[16:35]

It's exactly the same, but how does this mean, how does such actions are seeing the original face of the Buddha and Buddha ancestors, as Dogen says? knowing the original face of the Buddha and Buddha's ancestors. The commentary, or the introduction, rather, on this koan says, knowing before thinking is called silent discourse. Knowing before self-constructing thoughts is called silent discourse. Spontaneous revelation without clarification, spontaneous revelation without anticipating, without thinking about it, spontaneous revelation, this is inferential awareness.

[17:44]

Spontaneous revelation without clarification, is called hidden activity. Saluting at the gate, walking down the hallway. These have a reason. Isn't this our practice? Saluting at the gate, bowing at this and that, blah, blah, blah. Walking down the hallway. How do you walk down the hallway? Okay. I mean, this is walking down the hallway. I mean, they're not putting these words in there just to say, oh, well, it's sort of filler between he had to get down the hallway, so he walked. Walking down the hallway, saluting at the gate. These have their reason. What about dancing in the garden and wagging the head out the back door, it says. We've got to include that, too. dancing in the garden and wagging the head out the back door.

[18:48]

Dogen says, you know, stretching the legs out, sleeping. These are forms of practice. Originally, there are no weeds. Originally, there are no weeds. Why don't you stay with that a little bit? Walking down the hallway, you know, when we walk, there's a sense of each step is like the hole. It's planted in the earth. It enters the earth. It's not like Laurie Anderson and some scientists who analyze walking, that walking is interrupted falling. that you lean forward, start to fall, and your walk, your step interrupts the falling.

[19:54]

That's moving forth on the earth. Walking in practice period, I mean, I don't mean you have to go, I mean, let me not see you doing crazy walks. What's that, Fawlty Towers? The Ministry of Funny Walks. Yeah, the Ministry of Funny Walks. Yeah, it's like, maybe we're going to have 90 days of funny walks. But, The feeling is, when you do kinhen, is you step into the earth, and you stop. Each step is a stop, and you step into the earth. This is also what it means to walk with the hara. I mean, I try to find ways to what it means to be located in your hara. One way to describe that is each step is a stop. And earth comes up through you. The depth of the earth comes up through you. You're just walking, but still, the feel is each step is a stop. You might put in a hole.

[20:59]

You know, this koan is a very good example, description of practice period. The 15th koan, I'm going to show you real quick. Do you want a tissue? Oh dear. So practice period, the 90 days of practice period, if I tried to put it as simply as possible, is about realigning body and mind.

[22:05]

Aligning the mind with the body. And this takes in any culture time, but 90 days is long enough. You don't need probably six months or five months. Maybe you need several practice periods. But, you know, like sashins are seven days. Practice period is 90 days. Not two months, not 60 days or 30 days. Somehow it was determined... or the practice was developed to work in 90 days as enough time if your attention is for the 90 days brought to aligning the mind with the body, it's enough to be, to see the original face of the Buddhas and Buddha ancestors. It's enough to know that all Buddhist teachings

[23:08]

are rooted in the 90-day practice period, Dogen says, with leaves, roots, fruit, of all the Buddhist schools. This 90 days gives you that chance to realign, align the mind with the body in this dharmic craft. Saluting at the gate, walking down the hallway. These have their reason. Dancing in the garden, wagging the head out the back door. Knowing without thinking, knowing before thinking, knowing before thinking. It's called silent discourse.

[24:12]

A practice period of silent discourse, of knowing before thinking. Then 90 days is to see the face of the Buddhas and Buddha ancestors. 90 days of silent discourse, of knowing before thinking. You have this opportunity. We have this opportunity. and spontaneous revelation. Suddenly, this poem says, shut in by winter. Shut in by winter. Shut in by winter. Suddenly, spontaneously. Appearance. It means appearance. It means spontaneous revelation. Suddenly, I see the snow falling brightly as flowers between the trees. When the snow is brightly as flowers, it means everything is mine.

[25:20]

Everything is the sameness of flowers, trees, snow. It means on everything you see mine. Then there's sameness. In this little poem is this teaching. shut in by winter. We're in winter practice period. And yet, suddenly I see the snow without anticipation, brightly as flowers between the trees. Isn't that the original face of the Buddha? And Buddha answered, he said, what else could it be? So this is what I hope we can partly discover together through this, you know, new way of looking at the teaching is to see if the text I'm trying to write with you is worth publishing, worth putting out there for other readers.

[26:30]

And it's worth doing only if it has the instrumentality of perception. It implements perception that leads to know how we actually exist and has the inferential awareness of how we actually exist. So I'm asking for your help. Thank you very much. May our intention equally

[27:09]

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