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Beyond Boundaries: Zen's Cultural Liberation
Winterbranches_7
The talk explores the themes of cultural freedom within Zen practice, examining how individuals can experience a state of being beyond their cultural conditioning. Discussion revolves around the concept of "no-name" culture, where individuals encounter a space devoid of cultural labels, potentially leading to a sense of liberation. The dialogue delves into personal experiences with texts like the Quran and the use of Zen practice as a means of achieving cultural detachment. Later, an extended metaphor involving a turtle and fire from a koan is used to illustrate the innate cultural constructs challenged in Zen practice, paralleled with the natural act of breathing which transcends cultural bounds.
Referenced Works:
- Quran: Mentioned in the context of how encountering different cultural texts can impact personal practice and self-awareness.
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I Ching: Referred to in connection with the imagery of using turtle shells in the fire, symbolizing prediction and the balance between cultural traditions and personal insight.
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Zen Koan: Discussed as a method for Zen practitioners to contemplate and integrate seemingly contradictory images, such as a turtle and fire, into their understanding of practice and cultural freedom.
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Buddhist Teachings (Prajnatara and Bodhidharma): Alluded to in discussions about transcending established cultural narratives and engaging with fundamental elements of existence, like breathing, that unify different cultures.
AI Suggested Title: Beyond Boundaries: Zen's Cultural Liberation
Well, if I look like a cripple sometimes, not doing the service this morning and things, it's because I had a rather hard fall and was a little bit crippled. But I think I'll be better, so. So I'd like to hear about what anything you have had to say to each other during the recent discussion you just had. Or anything that came up for you this morning during the tea show.
[01:06]
Okay. Last time we tried to define what Sangha is. Last time, you mean last winter ranches? Yes, during the last winter ranches. And you said, to put it briefly, that there are people who can no longer define themselves in the culture in a room here. And they meet here in a space which you called emptiness. I did. And it moved and impressed me. And then I did say it.
[02:07]
And the question you asked us here was, how do I experience cultural freedom in practice? And how I experience it very clearly is in things like in service and in prostitution. And I've clearly experienced this in service and during the bows. I have more the feeling that this is not a predefined form, but it's an expression of freedom of culture.
[03:27]
In other words, what do we feel when we come to the broadcast? What we feel there is something that I see in Göttingen, for example, when completely different people come to the broadcast. They step in and become completely silent. They really step out of their current constitutional culture completely. What I see, getting these people who have no idea about it, they come into the Zen-do the first time and they get quiet, they completely step out of their culture. So also here we created a space that's palpably outside of culture. So it's more like a physical feeling of being removed just for a second or a short period of time, maybe longer, later, where you're removed out of your regular life.
[04:34]
See, you don't have to say that and do it, you know. Okay, someone else. But I first noticed when I read the Quran and I must admit I haven't never read it before. Is that something terrible to admit? Is that something terrible to admit? The first thing that came to my mind was that you, in a film that was released in 1993 or 1995, I don't remember exactly, in Roseburg, emphasized this change very much. So the first thing I remember is that in 1 and 2 Sushin 93 or 95 you used one of those phrases.
[05:37]
Yes, this central turning of the Qur'an. This key phrase there. not to pass into the realm of body and mind, and not to get entangled in the realm of exhalation. At that time, this turning remained like a fishing hook. And this phrase kind of got hooked to me like a fishing hook. It was the years that maybe dissipated a bit. And I'm not always here. I think it looked like those days in Roseburg. Well, then it worked. Okay, someone else. For me, a question got more pertinent now also in the context of what Gerhard says.
[07:04]
What is it when we speak of culture? I can see this, what he says, and I can accept it, but at the same time we're creating a culture here. So for me it makes just other things possible than a different culture, or not. I would also like to say something about the term culture or experiencing culture. When I first came here about three years ago, you, Roshi, talked about this being a no-name culture. When I came here first, three years ago, you spoke about this here being a no-name culture.
[08:21]
And? And before I heard that, and you might have said it, I came here very unnecessarily, as far as the form of practice is concerned, and in doing so, So when I came here, and you probably have said that, I came here with not knowing so much about it, so I just came here and within it could experience a non-culture, or free from culture, something like that. That's maybe what it says in that main phrase that you can step into a space with not much identification in it. And I do observe that this kind of experience can also make you restlessness because there is no reference point.
[09:53]
And then there is this kind of sort of danger which I can observe in myself is that So that what we are creating here, which is also changing, I turn into a culture. And that kind of constricts me. And this would be the answer to the second question you asked this morning, that it confines my practice. And so this is a kind of a wish for us all that we be alert about that.
[11:01]
To always experience the freedom of the form or in the form and for me to kind of re-experienced beginner's mind I had in the beginning. Let me see if I understand. When you first came, you found that there was some sort of no-name culture or some sort of antidote to your usual cultural habits. Yeah, but now you find it's actually another kind of culture we're creating, and the culture we're creating here is now confining you in some way, but a different way than your culture you arrived with.
[12:13]
Something like that? Almost. I don't want to speak about or can't speak about what others do here. It's just what I do. I'm only speaking about what you're doing. So to get some kind of stability or anchor or something, I might turn it sometimes into a culture, and then it confines my practice. I see. And that brings me to the image we talked about earlier with the turtle that, as we said, slowly approaches the fire. And that brings me to that image we had about the turtle very slowly approaching the fire.
[13:17]
I think that this surprising process that a turtle slowly approaches the fire And it requires enormous courage because this shell it's stuck in for all its life might burst or melt or something like that. Yeah. Well, it reminds me of a little etiquette hotel. I was in Durban, South Africa. I'd been working on a ship, you know. So I wanted to, I don't know, go somewhere. So I just, in the middle of Durban, there was a bus. So I took it.
[14:28]
I didn't know where the bus went. I just got on the bus and went to where it went. And then I got off the bus and I was in some little place about an hour later and there was a train. So I just got on the train. It was a train like you see in these travel movies and National Geographic stuff with all kinds of people hanging off the train, sitting in the windows and so forth. So anyway, I went another couple hours and then I just got off the train somewhere. And then I just walked into the bush. Luckily, I'm still here.
[15:31]
Anyway, I just kept walking for 30, 40 minutes, not too long. And there was this, you know, like you're supposed to see in D.O. or Grass Hut. And then it was really like a geomagazine. Suddenly I saw a grass hut. So I was, they seemed to be around, it was sort of clearing and I sort of looked around and I looked in the door of the grass hut and there was a turtle upside down in a fire being cooked in its own shell. Yes, I looked around for Prajnidhara. Actually, I knew nothing about Prajnidhara. But I felt a little funny, and then a little boy came up there, maybe 10 years old, and he, black kid, and He looked at me, I looked at him, and then I walked back toward the road, hitchhiked back to Durban.
[16:44]
So turtles do sometimes end up in fires. Someone else? Oh, yes, me. Thank you. She said something about already, but we spent a lot of time with the first two phrases. Yeah. The state before the beginning of time and the turtle heads for the fire. If it's dangerous for the turtle, the fire, why she's doing it. And one aspect was like I Ching came up. I Ching. The I Ching, yeah.
[17:45]
I Ching. Because they... Used turtle shells. Yes, used turtle shells. They threw into the fire and then the cracks, they were predicted in the future. And then we went back to Indian mythology, you know, there. Yeah. There was quite many phases of this we found in this phrase alone. if it's deliberately, if it walks deliberately, or if it's attracted by the fire, if it wants to destroy itself in the fire, All right. Do it, someone. Because everybody was here during this. I know what he spoke about. Oh, so it doesn't have to be translated? Not really. Okay. Then you just say, Not necessarily, yes.
[18:59]
In our attempt to understand the text and to get closer to it, we are very inclined to immerse ourselves in this mythology and in these layers below. And what could that mean? This has also aroused me through the questions. In our attempt to understand or get deeper into the text we always tend to quickly slip into what the mythology says and what all these things could mean and maybe this is triggered by questions. We can also stay in the very upper surface of the text and just look at the answer of Prajnatara. From this one can see that before there was the Sutra, before there was the culture, before there was Buddhism, there was the breath, and what is more cultural than the breath?
[20:09]
The Indians, the Chinese, the Japanese, we, I think we all breathe the same way in the forest, what is more cultural than the breath? So he answers, I'm breathing. And this is prior to Indian, Chinese, Japanese, to Buddhism. So it's prior to culture. This is something that stretches over and beyond all cultures, is the breathing. And I think it is also an invitation to everyone, it is not only about Prajnatara's breathing, and he breathed differently than Buddha and us, also this trust that his own breath ultimately can produce everything that we may call culture or sutra or yoga or wisdom.
[21:10]
And can I go to my own breath with my own breath, with the trust, which is no different than So we can go with a lot of trust to this breath because Prajnatara didn't breathe any different from Buddha or from us. Okay. He had a special technique, but yeah. But out of the breath, this all can arise, the culture and stuff. But the trust would be that the Buddha and the Prajnatara and we just breathe in the same manner. Yeah, that's the idea. For me, I would like to add what was very beautiful for me when I read it the first time. So when I first read this in a very natural manner it caused for me a very deep inhalation and exhalation.
[22:20]
It pointed to me what the connection might be and I was able to remember situations in which I was able to change situations through the deep awakening, for example, when I was in a very big hurry, which led to a lack of time, So this brought back memories when I had situation where through very profound inhalation, situation changed in particular when I was in extreme hurry. It got everything slowed down very much.
[23:21]
And the image of the turtle opened for me also this awareness of the process of slowing down. Good, thank you. Yes, Frank? What touched me and what I remember most from the teshu this morning is that the breathing and the meeting belong together. Breathing seems to be essential for my connection with this moment. Breathing seems to be the main thing to make a connection here with this very moment.
[24:29]
This means that the way I meet my breath, my breath can connect with me The way I meet my own breathing opens also this situation. And out of this, dangerous questions arise. Dangerous questions? So then I see how little I meet my own breathing, how difficult this simple advice of Prajnatara is to actually fulfill. That shows me in what relationship I am to every situation and to myself.
[25:31]
So in the listening and in the reading of the Quran, the listening and the discussion, I could feel more how my dealing with the process is. Yeah, it's like one is more the level of content and there's another one of how my relationship to what I do and what the content is. So both somehow parallel and switching always between both sides. In the beginning, Ottmar gave the question,
[26:48]
How do I know freedom from culture? And I stuck with the word freedom. How do I experience freedom? Maybe I'm free and I don't know it. How do I personally experience freedom? And this first sentence or these first two sentences really somehow hit me and had a very deep impact. I was reading the sentence somehow as if I was inhaling the sentence and as if the sentence was working from inside and coming to a very spacious feeling and very silent, yeah, silence, deep silence and yeah, so that's for me that's somehow how I experience freedom and being in that space
[28:06]
the question of culture doesn't arise. Nothing would have any meaning at all. And in between, the question came up in the group about Zen and culture and so, etc. And being in that space, I'm actually not interested in Zen. That's also not from relevance. Yeah, I understand. It's not there. I'm not interested in Zen. It works for me and helps me. And being in a Zen Tao, doing Kin Hin, I mean, it's very structured and so on, on one side. But on the other side, it opens it. gigantic space in it, it's tremendous, but I'm not interested in Zen.
[29:08]
So simply because that's not a space for culture or Zen or so, it's from any relevance. So you could say, I practice Zen because I'm not interested in Zen. Oh, you have to translate into Deutsch, I'm sorry. That was too long. In the reading of this koan and also here in the group, I changed back and forth between content level, to call it that, and my own process, what I experience in dealing with the text or with what I have heard from you. And Ottmar asked at the beginning as a question, how do I experience that this practice is free of culture?
[30:10]
And I was stuck with this question, how do I even experience when I am free? Maybe I am free and I don't even notice it. That would be conceivable. And these first two sentences, the condition before the beginning of time and a sign of evil that destroys the two sentences, they actually, at the very first reading, They really touched me and I somehow breathed them into me, as if they could unfold from the inside. Together with a feeling of a great breadth and also of a deep inner peace, And in this room I notice, when I am there or when I have contact with it, then I am not interested in the question of culture at all, because it is a room that has no meaning.
[31:17]
And I am not interested in Zen in this room either. I am not interested in Zen or Buddhism or something like that, because it is a room that has no meaning. It is simply a room of being here somehow then it works for me and helps, but when I am there, then it is irrelevant to me. Okay, thanks. Agata? Yes. You said yesterday that if we set such a strong image at the beginning, then You said that if we have such a strong image in the beginning that our understanding of the koan will be influenced by that. And for me, it were also the two first phrases, and with this mortar on its edge, the flowers are growing.
[32:28]
On its lip. and it is very difficult for me to put it all together, but there is such a feeling that there is really a primordial force in it, where the world begins, or the time begins, or there is also a force that is in it, if I am not in the pre-written or cultural whether it is the ten forms or my everyday life, if I don't hold on to it, but really feel this free space, this freedom, which is in these moments when I live consciously. Okay, so for me, this is very difficult to bring these things together, but I can feel something like a kind of primordial power or something.
[33:47]
Also, if we practice, then this is more within that. It's free from culture. Well, yeah, go ahead. What is triggering a freedom of experience or space? and it has something to do with the fact that I ... In this moment where I am breathing, and this is a good example, that I am really there, and that what is there should not be a judgment, an idea of how it should be or how it is, but this freedom. It can still happen.
[34:48]
It is the beginning of time. It is this openness that we speak about such sentences here. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So I understood it like this, where do the cultural habits break for us, so to speak, in your practice, and where do you actually find the learning line in your practice? Then I immediately got an answer from the practice, Uh, yeah, the... If I were to abbreviate it, I would say... One of my main cultural habits is... ...to fight.
[36:06]
Oh. Yes, in everyday life. Yes. Very quickly there is some kind of competition, or some kind of premonition. It's very contradictory. There are also contradictory tendencies. You want to be hit again, but you also want to get hit again. There are different situations and different impulses. And in this practice, in this practice, the opposite actually happens. So this is a kind of, I'll shorten it, a kind of opening, a kind of compassion, I say with all due caution, what for me essentially means the guideline, that is, so to speak, beyond the papers, that is, so to speak,
[37:28]
Just, so to speak, this open hand, you may be there, you can be there, you can be who you want to be, so you are welcome. And that somehow has such a great depth and also had such an existence over many years, over all the years, Okay, thanks. Peter? How does Buddhism liberate us from our culture? My first thought is that it is about inner freedom. which of course is connected with the cultural conditions.
[38:55]
But what interests me more in this context is that we are talking about culture. What culture are we talking about? I have experienced the world, the whole culture, that has nothing to do with the culture, to be honest. I have experienced the world, the whole culture, that has nothing to do with the culture, For me, Buddhism in that context already has the direction of emancipation. And if one may believe in the numerous scientific analyses, our culture is actually characterized by the fact that there are hardly any conventions, great uncertainties, no definition, highly insecure, high insecurity, very little attention and so on.
[40:04]
I think it's a practice of Buddhism, less as an emancipation, it's like a survival package. Okay. Iris? You wanted to go somewhere else? No, no, that's fine. I went to the Teisho office morning at the end, So they want it to be in sequences, but Miklós can understand.
[41:08]
It doesn't matter. Thank you for me to appear, but I can understand. You can understand Deutsch? Yes. And Hungarian? Yes. And English. So Miklós can translate into Hungarian. No, I don't think so. But I think he knows the whole word in English. Yeah, okay. But she can translate more clearly in English if it helps you to have it in... It helps a little, so we'll see. Go ahead. So German, English? No, you... I prefer you each to start in Deutsch. Okay. Because I can feel what you're saying better if everyone's feeling it. Okay? Yes. At the end of your tea show this afternoon, you suggested a practice. I don't know exactly, but something about the first sentence, the state before the beginning of time. to bring it to breathing.
[42:13]
And I had a little experience with that, that happened that the beginning of the breathing was like before, that there was like a pre-beginning of the breathing. that was like A, before beginning, before the beginning of breathing, before the actual, like, body of the air, beginning of breathing, and then the idea that there's a space nearby where things arise, and that there's a space nearby where things arise, and that there's a space nearby where things arise, We are to map the beginning, whatever it is, the beginning of arising. Okay.
[43:18]
Maybe you like the pace better of it being fully and clearly in English and German or Deutsch, or is it okay for her to make it shorter so we can... It's okay for her to whisper in my ear. So for the people who purchased the tapes, it's better if it's separated. Because the microphone hears everything at once. Oh, that's right. The person listening to this may hear the English and German mixed together. No, that was always the problem. When the microphone was here in front and there was a discussion on the tape or on the CD and someone talking and very bad, the microphone didn't get that.
[44:25]
And when you didn't get the translation, then you answered to a question no one can hear on the CD. But this is a microphone client. Yeah, okay. Very sensitive, yes. And it goes in both directions. You know, we had this microphone in the early days of when there first were tape recorders, etc. There were wire recorders when I was in my 20s. Did you know there were such wire recorders? They recorded on wire, not on tape. At the beginning, we worked with cassette recorders, but when I was young, there was something called cable recorder or tape recorder, wire recorder. And there weren't cassettes, there were big reels. Just call me a little pre-telephone baker. I guess there were crank phones.
[45:36]
Anyway. The microphones, when they first came out with little cassettes, they'd go to whatever was the loudest noise. So if you've ever listened to tapes of Suzuki Roshi at Tassajara, right outside the Zendo window, there was a big stream. So he would pause. And then you'd hear the roar of the stream. Then he'd start to speak and several words later the microphone would shift to the speaking. Yes, you wanted to say something. So I had some thoughts about the accepting, reciting... Supporting.
[46:47]
Supporting and upholding. that whenever I come here from the normal culture, there is a serious difference. So I looked at those in context with practice and I noticed that when I come from sort of normal culture to here that there is a significant difference. And I don't want to only find a reason sort of in the culture but more how I deal with it. And I somehow wish for this space of freedom that I feel here from the Sangha, but also from what you give yourself here, from acceptance, from reading, from reciting, from this form, this space of freedom that has been created here, how I can create it in this culture, without always running away, so to speak,
[48:22]
So I wish for myself that this space of freedom or something that Sangha gives me and the doing in our practice with reciting and all that, that I can also... Make that in the real world or in the culture, let's say. Be wild, be open, be relaxed. Yeah, okay. So I want to add something to what Iris said. the transfer of that first phrase to breathing. When I can experience the in and exhalations like a rhythm of a swing,
[49:29]
each time interested maybe in awe almost about the shifting points of the movement. And this is called the hinge spots. And in the koan, two of the hinges are mentioned. Exactly those hinge moments in the breathing in which I feel an enormous liberty of freedom. And a huge space in between. Well, we have to stop in a few minutes. In a few minutes we have to stop.
[50:46]
When this person walks into the Zendo in Göttingen, in Geralt's Zendo, And you say he or she is, for a moment, completely free of culture. Yeah. Well, first, we want to avoid saying things like completely free. We don't, in general, you can explain any situation from several points of view. And each explanation can be completely right, even though they're different. Well, not completely right, but yeah.
[52:05]
But why do we have that feeling? Because you're explaining the explainable parts. So you can be very clear about the explainable parts, but you can't explain the unexplainable parts. So, I mean... So in other words, there could be two points of view on something, which both look like they've dealt with it thoroughly, and you can't say anything's wrong with either, but both are different. What's not wrong?
[53:06]
You're only explaining... Each explanation looks like it's completely right. Clearly right. But then how could that be if there are two different explanations? Because the situation goes beyond explanation. So in general, you want to be very cautious, particularly in Zen practice, about explaining. And so you don't want to say, general... It's not complete, or it's sort of complete, or it's complete.
[54:11]
All of those are just categories that allow, that our mind can create. Also, man möchte nicht sagen, ist es vollständig so oder einigermaßen so oder unvollständig. Das sind alles nur Dinge, die unser Geist erfassen kann. But you have to be able to say something. So you say, well, he might be nearly completely or almost completely or something. And the almost doesn't mean it's almost. It just means, I know this is not true. Okay. For example, if this person is standing in the zender, and I walk up to him, and I walk up fairly quickly, fist close, He's going to react like a German person.
[55:29]
You violated the territory. That's culture. So he's clearly not free of culture unless he's a corpse. Yeah. If he's Spanish, he might give you a hug. In other words, one of the main ways in which you see culture is the distance you can stand next to somebody. So, if it's likely that that isn't gone with this person. So he's not free of culture. Okay, but then the point is, maybe we can make, is that there's a relative freedom from culture.
[56:36]
And a relative freedom from culture can have the dynamic of being free of culture. Do you understand? In other words, if you're relatively free from culture, it's almost the same as being free from culture. Okay. So then what you want to do when somebody walks into the Zendo is create a Zendo that makes the person not free of culture, but relatively free of culture. Because what several of you pointed out explicitly and implicitly is you have to have some way of doing things. During the Oryoki meal today, Sophia put her head down on the table.
[57:58]
She's being quite free. I said, Sophia, you can't do that. You can't be free. Okay. Because we have a way of doing things here. But is she being free? Because You also want to be free to do things the way we do things. And Sophia wasn't free to do things the way we do things because she was bored, she told me, and so she put her head on the table. so geralt is right it's just i think we want to be cautious of how we describe what we're doing okay now i think when we start a winter branches and we're
[59:05]
we have to first look again at how you read a koan. And as I said this morning, what if we started with a polar bear peeing in the snow. Do you start thinking, well, it's furry instead of having a shell? This is not what we want to do. Okay. Maybe the way to read a koan is to imagine it as stage directions. You don't have the play. Maybe like Wong Kar Wai. Wong Kar Wai, is that his name? Makes a film. He just tells people to do a bunch of stuff and he films them for about two years and then he pieces a film together from it.
[60:57]
So imagine this is a play, these are stage, these are the director's stage directions about a play you don't know what the play is. Yeah, so it just, you know, you have to be in this movie or this play and so the next few weeks you kind of like wonder about these stage directions but you don't know what the hell the play is, what the story is. So if these are stage directions, it's clear you're supposed to pay attention to your breathing. And you're not supposed to get involved with myriad circumstances. So don't worry that the stage, the scenery isn't here yet. You need some attitude like that.
[62:21]
And so the turtle and the fire, what's that? It's just two things. Now probably, as Michael pointed out, That most educated Chinese would know the I Ching and so forth and would know about the oracles using turtle shells to project, predict the future. But that's not so far away, even if you don't know that, from just the phrase. A state before the beginning of time. I mean, there isn't any such thing. Or if there is such a thing, I mean, it's not in any way we can think it.
[63:38]
Yeah, but something's happening there because here we are. So it's some idea, there's an implied future in it because before the beginning of time and yet this turtle is looking for the pot. Be cooked in the fire. Not the potty. That's the bear. Can you make something better here? It doesn't get any better than this. Okay. I mean, if you say a state before the beginning of time and then you have to say, well, what happens in such a time? So implied in the thing is something leads to time. Well, what leads to time?
[64:39]
Something that doesn't belong in time. What belongs in time is turtles stay in the water and fire stays where fire stays. But obviously, outside of time, opposites can happen. Now, what I said, you don't have to know anything about Chinese culture to say. You just have a state before the beginning of time?
[65:39]
Well, anybody can say that in any culture. And there's turtles. I mean, most people know what a turtle is, and fire. And most people know turtles like water. You have water and fire being brought together here. So without speculating about the shell, What the turtle, I mean, you know, really, at some point, maybe there's a little bit of that useful, but basically, it's just two things, turtle and fire. So we were driving along in Freiburg the other day,
[66:43]
Two young kids had started some paper, something on fire, didn't know what to do, and then walked off from it. So Marie-Louise stopped the car, got out of the car, and went over, being a volunteer fire department, and tried to get the kids to put it out. So we got into the car in Freiburg and there were two children who lit up the newspaper and Marie-Louise stopped the car and as a volunteer fireman she went there to these children. These kids didn't know what to do. She had her helmet on. No, she didn't know what to do. But she said that because she'd read earlier this Turtle in the Fire, she came out with a kind of vividness that she wouldn't have if she hadn't read about the Turtle in the Fire. Um... And so while we're drunk, she'd said to me, I have to be a quick turtle.
[67:59]
No, she didn't say that. My point is that if you have such an image in your head, it pops up when you see some kids playing with fire. Or do you have the image turtle fire, turtle fire, turtle fire, you know? So suddenly it connects to your breath. Yeah, the inhale is like the turtle. And the fire is like the exhale. So the inhale is like living and the Exhale is like going into the fire, dying. I'm not saying this should happen to you.
[69:15]
But this doesn't happen through thinking. Ah, the turtle represents inhaling and... No! You're just holding the ingredients together like a recipe that you don't know what the food is going to be like or whatever, you know? If you've got the ingredients, there's inhaling and exhaling, there's turtles and fire, and there's a mortar, and there's the flowers, and you know, et cetera. Then you, they start mixing in your activity. And they mix when you walk out of the garden.
[70:24]
Or when you move stones with Otmar. Or when you pick up a newspaper out there and read a few words, suddenly... connections there have. So to read a koan, you just want to bring the ingredients into yourself, but you don't want to cook the ingredients, except by your own activity. Yeah, you let your activity cook them. If they're going to be cooked, maybe they're just going to be mixed and thrown out. Okay, oh, he's going to cook, yeah. So, as soon as you start trying to understand the koan, you've made a fundamental mistake.
[71:41]
Two cooks leave, two bakers are left. Three cooks are leaving. Okay. Yeah, okay, so. Yeah, so I think I made myself clear enough.
[72:47]
You want to read the koan for the ingredients. There's something wrong actually with the two top paragraphs on the second page. We have different page stuff. Well, in the book, if you have the English. If I could read Chinese and I had the original text, I'm sure that somehow Cleary foreshortened something because there's something wrong with his two paragraphs. I don't know if the effects are working with the koan, but... And it's, you know, it's actually my responsibility because I edited this and had it published, so... I mean, for example, if you... It's not anything to worry about.
[74:02]
I'm just mentioning that there's something wrong. Where it says... The Liang court took Bodhidharma to be Avalokiteshvara. In India, they considered his teacher, Prajnathara, to be Mahatma Prata. Only Amitabha Buddha hasn't come down here to earth so far. A long pause. Phangan talks too much. Well, a long pause. You don't know who's pausing. It's part of a longer story, I think, which... It was partly explained in the back, you know, in the... Yeah, but I don't... It's not explained, but it's... Yeah, okay.
[75:05]
Anyway, so these two paragraphs there, there's something that's too condensed... These two paragraphs are too condensed, too dense, it's too short written. But that's really not so important. What's important is that you get these ingredients and let them work in you. And, yeah, probably tomorrow I'll say something else. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[75:53]
@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_76.64