Now I've sat down here and arranged Buddha's robe. Bowed to this Amida Buddha representing compassion and reaching everywhere. As a way of actualizing in my dress and actions. And the vision of the Mahayana. And the vision is no higher, no? No, I'm... I'm... And, you know, if you don't wear Buddha's robe or bow, etc., still, if you have the conception clear in your mind, it's pretty much the same.

[01:20]

The point is, how do you actualize this practice? You know, there's a koan of Shushan. Where have you come from? And he says, from the south. Now, how are things in the south? Well, there's much discussion. And Dijan said, how does that compare to me planting rice and cooking? And Shushan said, well, but what can, what, because the discussion is about how do we live in this world, what do we do, but what, what can we do about the world, he says.

[02:35]

But what can we do about the world? Yeah, most all discussion is basically about what can we do about the world and ourselves. And Dijon with an acupuncture-like precision says, but what do you call the world? And this is, you know, where we're at, too. What do we call the world? What kind of world do we think we live in? Yeah, there's the standard view of the universe nowadays.

[03:40]

There was the It's the big bang, and then it's expanding or contracting, and it'll eventually do one or the other, finally, etc. This view, I mean, it's oversimplified, but this view does affect our sense of the world we live in. But this teaching of the Mahayana is really trying to bring what the world is and what we are into our moment-by-moment practice. And in the koan, near the end of this first koan, it says, Guifeng says, the original energy

[04:46]

is mind. And all is contained in the imagery field of the depository consciousness. And this is the very source of the Tsao-Tung lineage. And the lifeline of the Buddhas and Buddha ancestors. So the Cao Dong school is our school. This is our lineage. Okay. So it's the very source of our lineage. What's that? And the lifeline, you know, wearing the robe is part of the lifeline of the Buddhas and Buddha ancestors.

[06:09]

What is this lifeline? I mean, it's already something just to imagine that there's such a thing as a lifeline. Now, I've introduced during this week, you know, a number of concepts. Like today, the imagery field of the depository consciousness. And this is a way of referring to the Alaya Vijnana. And I don't like the word consciousness as a translation, but imagery, field, it's okay. Now, Valentin asked me in the last seminar if I would talk about this, but I didn't then and I'm not going to now.

[07:16]

What I'm not going to talk about explicitly. But, you know, I've introduced quite a few concepts. And they're all relatively simple. They are simple, in fact. But we have to get familiar with them. We have to accept them and let them work in us. Because we're complex people, individuals. And we have actually, usually, a kind of mesh of often contradictory concepts in us. And it makes it hard to function, actually. Convenient sometimes, but it leaves us on the surface of our life.

[08:41]

And much of the tension we feel is between contradictory concepts in our thinking and our mind itself not in the pace of our body. And not in the pace of our body. Our mind not in the pace of our mind. And one, and a sort of psychotherapeutic approach too. Two, the contradictory approach. ambivalence, etc., as well, in our mind, in our thinking. Much is clarified, even purified, by bringing the mind into the pace of the body and the body into the pace of the mind.

[09:43]

Now, one of the ideas I've introduced and that Mahayana introduces, that each of us, in each of us is the wisdom of the Buddhas or the wisdom of the Tathagatas, we say. The Tathagata is a sort of E equals MC squared type name. It's an epithet for the Buddha. But it's the biggest epithet for the Buddha. Yeah, I like that. And it just means everything comes and goes, appears and disappears. And we and the Buddha come and go, appear and disappear. So it's not a name for the Buddha which connects the Buddha to the historical Buddha but connects the Buddha to how things actually exist.

[11:17]

We can say, in each of us is the wisdom of the Tathagata. Now wisdom isn't looked in the abstract, it's personified. So it's just the actually powerful vocabulary of the time. As we talked yesterday, this is a science of human experience. And I introduced the idea that this is a kind of subjective science. And I think you ought to take that view as a way to organize your practice for a while, see how it works.

[12:20]

And Dao Shun, who I've been speaking about, really takes a very Chinese practical and scientific view of the Lotus Sutra. He treats all the things like the light coming from between the eyebrows and all as, you know, as he treats it in a rational kind of way as meaning something in our practical life. Er behandelt alles, wie zum Beispiel das Licht zwischen den Augenbrauen, auf eine sehr rationale Art und Weise. No, it is true that when you practice, this area and this area do get affected and you feel something in these areas. Daosheng knows this, but he treats it as exaggerations for the purpose of the text.

[13:35]

So you can't discount it all together, but you put it in the context of your own experience. Yeah. Yeah, there's even a short sutra. Es gibt sogar ein kurzes Sutra. Which says that every particle of dust in the universe, every particle of dust of the universe is the Tathagata. Das besagt, dass jedes Staubpartikelchen im Universum selbst der Tathagata ist. This whole is contained in the parts, kind of idea.

[14:46]

It even says, you know, the entire universe is painted on a canvas. A canvas as big as the universe. Fanciful ideas. Das ganze Universum ist auf einer Leinwand gemalt. Also eine Leinwand, die so groß ist wie das ganze Universum. Das sind sehr fantasievolle Ideen. And then this immense scroll is rolled up into each particle of dust. So the DNA of the universe. If you look carefully enough at each point of dust, everything is there. And maybe we can understand Sukhirashi saying now, if you could just sit, he says, please, he kind of almost pleads, he says, just sit one hour a day or one period a day.

[15:53]

Sit without moving and in the space of mind. And he says, in each exhale and in each inhale, there are innumerable units of time. Please experience each unit of time. Okay. No, we live in the world and we've talked about it in a kind of practical, conscious way. But the world exists in a very moment-by-moment way. How do we enter into the way it actually exists? So this is, you know, the question, the basic question. If every particle of dust, or if we want to conceive of it that way for a while, try it out, contains the whole, as if everything were poised for enlightenment,

[17:17]

If we're going to view it this way, how can we take this parallel world and go back and forth into it? In a scientific sense, if we want to know things as they actually exist, They actually exist in this momentary, unit-by-unit time. Yeah. And so, again, as I said yesterday, this immense complexity also can be explained in four particles, neutrons, protons, electrons, and neutrinos.

[18:29]

So this becomes a kind of door to enter into the complexity in a participatory way. Yeah, so we want to, from this point of view, The practice emphasizes each thing is unique. The practice emphasizes that each thing is unique. A separate appearance. Everything is connected. And within that there has to be some experience of continuity. How do we do this? Again. You know everything is unique. You know this morning is different than yesterday morning.

[19:30]

And you know that right now is a little different than it was a moment ago. But just notice how much you feel it's actually some kind of predictable continuity and not really so different. Yeah, it may make no difference to you. It's very convenient to think it's fairly predictable. To live in the delusion of implicit permanence. Yeah, I live there. You know, we all live there most of the time. But, you know, things get pretty tangled up there. Very hard to, you can't really understand everything.

[20:53]

You can't figure it all out. You get clinging brambles and vines, we say. Brambles and vines. Brambles are little like thorns, like roses have thorns. And vines are, I don't know, what's the word for vines in German? Cliff of vines, yeah. Like on an English building. So secure, she says, just for an hour a day or one period a day, sit in these minute units of time and don't try to connect them. Let things appear. So we're not reducing the world exactly to appearance, continuity, context and uniqueness.

[21:59]

Uniqueness and continuity. I had those two, actually. Okay. Which were the other ones? Appearance. Okay. But rather as a... as a filter for all the other ideas we have. And as a kind of gateway again that we go into and the complexity of the world opens in a new clarity. And so again, as I always say, this practice works pretty much in homeopathic doses. If you try it out a little and you have an intention and clarity in it, it begins to permeate your whole what? It can do well. And it will, you know, it'll kind of loosen neurotic attachments.

[23:30]

Not all, but loosen them up and then you can do your own work. And it will have power because it actually computes, it actually holds together in terms of our own being and the world. So I'm trying to review a little here what we talked about the last couple of days. Okay. If it's, again, the most simple truth we can say about things is that everything's changing. Wenn die einfachste Wahrheit, die wir über die Dinge aussagen können, ist, dass sich alles verändert, dass alles im Wandel begriffen ist.

[24:46]

And we ourselves are changing. Our breath, breathing, heart is beating, metabolism goes, etc. Wir atmen, unser Herz schlägt und der Stoffwechsel, der ist da. But breathing is a kind of gift from the spirits. I mean, breath means spirit, in fact. But the breath is a kind of gift from the spirits, I think I have to say. Soul, psyche and spirit are all words. The root means breath. So soul, psyche and spirit, this spiritual, they all have the same root with the word breath. But can breathing the world be, can that be, can it really be that simple? No, it's simple to conceive of, it's not so easy to do.

[25:49]

But can the tool, the essential instrument, be this simple? Well, what is almost always the main instruction in meditation is just bring your attention to your breath. It's simple, but yeah, it's far-reaching. Again, attention is the mind. And you're using the needle of breath to weave mind and body together. Now again, you're on wool, you know, my

[26:54]

favorite person to quote? He says, as I've mentioned many times, once you've understood, realized, the gist of the teaching, the essence, the core, Bring the mind continuously to the breath. Concentrate continuously without interruption and allow the embryo of sagehood to mature and develop. I really apologize that it's so simple. I wish I could offer you something really complicated.

[28:14]

It was important and big. Just to concentrate continuously. Well, as you all know, it's hard to do, but it's certainly possible. You don't have to be born, you know, 2,500 years ago from the, you know, etc. You were all born, and maybe with a little pad or two, breathing. And at that moment, the wisdom of the Buddhas, the wisdom of the Tathagatas is in you. We don't know how to articulate it yet. But we do articulate it, it's just we don't quite see that this is the wisdom of the Buddha.

[29:25]

Okay. Oh my goodness. I'm just beginning the review. Your legs know maybe how long I've been speaking. Too long. But this step to be able to bring concentration means more than just the breath, but concentration, the breath continuously, Without breaks. Now you already have attention to your posture most of the day. You already know how to do that.

[30:29]

You could bring attention to your posture in a fuller way, but you do do that already. And as far as I'm concerned, that proves you can do it with your breath. And Yuan Wu says, when you can do it without breaks, then the embryo of sagehood matures and develops. Okay, so there's bringing attention to your breath. Just an ordinary zazen. And then there's bringing attention and concentration continuously. That's the big step into real practice.

[31:31]

And so that's, let's call that number one. And we have five or ten more steps to bring ourselves more subtly into this changing world. But I'll leave that till tomorrow. Afternoon. Well, let me just end by saying, you know, the first... koan in the Shoyaroku, is this one we're discussing, which really is a vision of the teaching. And the second is emptiness. And the third is, the second is Bodhidharma. And the third koan is Bodhidharma's teacher, Prajnaktara.

[32:51]

And some Indian Raja. These are Indian guys. I don't know why it's not an Indian farmer, but it's an Indian Raja. Probably the local Raja wanted to know this. This yogic adept. This Indian raja wanted to know this yogic adept. So he thought he'd like dinner. So he invited them to dinner. Can you imagine inviting Bodhidharma's teacher to dinner? What do you make for him? Do you light a candle? But at that time they just looked like ordinary folks.

[33:52]

No one knew the history that was going to proceed from that. So, I guess, without much ado, without saying grace, at the meal? Oh, no, then not. Saying grace is when you, we say, it's like when you chant before a meal. Okay. Thank the God or the Buddha or something. And without... Yeah, so I guess maybe Rajnathara was, Rajnathara rather was, Rajnathara, that was a good one, Rajnathara was hungry. So he seems to have just dug in and started eating. Also er ist einfach reingekommen und hat angefangen zu essen.

[34:54]

And so the Raja said, why don't you recite the sutras? Und der Raja, der sagt, warum rezitierst du nicht die sutren? And Prajnathara said, this poor old wayfarer, wanderer, wayfarer. Und Prajnathara, der sagte, dieser alte arme wanderer, doesn't reside in the realms of mind and body breathing in, and doesn't get caught by myriad circumstances breathing out. I recite this scripture hundreds of millions of thousands of times a day. I recite hundreds of thousands of millions of scrolls of this scripture. So, this story tries to give some importance to just breathing in and out.

[36:13]

Raising out in this world which we make so ordinary in our mind. But if you're suddenly seriously sick, it's not so ordinary. If you're present at the birth of a baby, it's not so ordinary. Oder wenn du anwesend bei der Geburt eines Kindes bist, dann ist sie nicht mehr so gewöhnlich. If you really wonder how anything exists at all, it's not so ordinary. Wenn du dich wirklich fragst, wie überhaupt irgendetwas existiert, dann ist sie nicht so gewöhnlich. Thank you very much. Dankeschön.

[37:14]

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