I heard that they said yesterday, today might be the hottest day in all of Europe, at least highest ever at this time. So how lucky we are to be here in the cool black forest. Down in Bad Säckien and in the lower parts it must be much hotter. Recently Sophia has been needed things to be exactly as she wants them.

[01:12]

In a new way, in some different way than before. just very small things, if they don't happen as she wants them to happen, she dissolves into unconsolable, inconsolable sorrow and grief. And I suppose it may be related to, you know, she's so much deeply in the process of imitating and learning a language by imitation and behavior. She wants to get the words right and be able to imitate it or mirror the words.

[02:15]

She seems to want the world to mirror her own inner processes. And recently, the last few days, if there's some tiny detail that takes us forever to figure out that's not the way she wants it, she completely falls apart. It feels like she has a magical relationship to the world, which... Yeah. Has to be there or she's finished. I had a friend, he grew up in China, missionary, Christian parents. And he was forbidden to go into Buddhist temples.

[03:44]

One day, playing near a temple just went in. And down at the far end of the temple he saw a statue of a monk. At the other end of the temple, he saw the statue of a monk. The name is different. It's a statue. There were a number of flies lying around the statue. But when he got up close, he realized it was a monk sitting zazen, sitting meditation.

[04:52]

And he felt the undisturbed mind of this monk. And it changed him into a Buddhist. This image kept staying with him, and he dreamed about seeing this monk. And finally, when he was college age or so, he somehow became a Buddhist. And some of you know him because he set quite a few sashins at Kristallnacht. So the mind of this monk was quite different from Sophia's. And to realize a mind like this monk, And it doesn't mean that you're kind of holding yourself still and trying to ignore the flies.

[06:23]

You just have a mind available to you. It doesn't disturb you at all. There's almost a different pace. You can feel the flies walking around and they think they're in a park or an airport or something. That's a different pace. You feel the planes, and it seems as if they were in an airport. Yeah, a shaved head looks like an airport to me. Or a park. Yeah, and it seems as if they're walking around in a park or on an airport. A shaved head looks like an airport to me. It's a little more difficult if they're in your ears or in your nostrils. But in any case, this is, you know, a kind of symbol of Buddhist practice, this kind of mind.

[07:27]

Now, yeah, it's such a mind to... experience such a mind? or to realize such a mind, certainly has benefits. You're calmer, you have less desires. You're less pushed around by your desires. In the Maha Parinirvana Sutra, There's the eight awarenesses of an enlightened mind.

[08:29]

And one is called having few desires. Which means not... not desiring too much those things which you don't have. It's a very Buddhist definition. It's not really saying you cut off all desires. You know you don't have much desire for those things you haven't yet attained. And knowing how to be satisfied is the second. And this means to... It means not just to be satisfied with what you have.

[09:49]

Yeah, but how much to use of the things you do have. How much to the things that you do have to just use the amount of things you do have that you need. It assumes that people have various resources, and you know just how much of your resources you need. It implies then, too, how much you need. But it's not about getting rid of everything or having no desires, but just having a realistic relationship to the world.

[10:51]

Which results in your having few desires. And being satisfied with... within what you have. Now, those are practices which presage anticipate or foreshadow. This mind a few preferences of this monk. So we can speak of an imperturbable mind or we can speak of a mind of few preferences. And so you can notice in your own mind

[11:53]

feelings, desires, satisfaction, what kind of relationship you have to your thoughts and your actions and your needs. And this is something Sophia is pretty much incapable of doing now. But how many of us, even as adults, live in our projected needs? Yeah, clearly none of us, and I hope Sophia won't be like this forever, Yeah, someone spoke to me this morning that in the meal chant, they don't like the line, we should have food because our virtue and practice deserve it.

[13:22]

And the compassion of this person said, well, yeah, but everyone, even some people in prison, everybody deserves food. But the practitioner is not somebody who's in prison. Yeah, and doesn't just, you know... And they know how their food... How can I say it?

[14:27]

We recognize in eating as a practitioner... The sweating horses of the past, that's the Buddhist line, means all of the centuries that people have developed agriculture and cooking and so forth. and what farmers do now in the stores and so forth. So when we take the food that farmers and marketers and so have brought to us, We should eat with a recognition of their effort and a respect for each grain of rice. How do we get from, you know, the mentality of Sophia to the mentality of a practitioner who feels this way?

[16:02]

Okay, so many things. Now, this is what I'm speaking about now is, we could say, the mind of entering. Now, I felt the last couple of lectures, I felt I was speaking to... to an understanding we have together. But at the same time I felt I wasn't speaking in a practical way enough. Partly because I'm trying to say too much. Yeah, and each of these themes, entering, transforming, and realization, could at least take a full seminar to come to some resolution.

[17:20]

And we only had two or three talks in each monk week. One or two. So I'm kind of, how can I, you know, be more practical with my feeling right now? And now we have this theme of realization. So what I've spoken about just right now is ways of basically entering practice. And to develop a mind, begin to taste, touch a mind, relatively free of preferences, would be entering practice.

[18:35]

But when that mind, free of preference, is as much a part of your living as sleeping and being hungry and so forth. Then we could say you've realized that mind. And that realized mind becomes then a mind of transformation. Because as the point I've made the last couple of times, a mind free of preferences, of emotional likes and dislikes and so forth, also lights up the world.

[19:43]

transforms the myriad dharmas, as Dogen would put it. So now you're not just entering the practice, you're transforming your own mind, your own body, and Because if you feel connected, inseparable, located in the world in a different way, Denn wenn du dich verbunden fühlst, ungetrennt, verortet in der Welt, you've transformed your world. Dann hast du deine Welt transformiert. And again, the most easy example to use is it's something like the feeling of falling in love. Und noch einmal, das einfachste Beispiel dafür ist das Gefühl, sich zu verlieben.

[21:02]

For some reason, falling in love that initial maybe one or two years, maybe longer, which makes you feel like you're in a transformed world, is very similar to what probably a version of the same mind which realizes the myriad dharmas, which, as Dogen says, advance and illuminate. Again, when we have a mind for your preferences, it also means a mind in which we find each thing equal.

[22:06]

And at that point, the valence of the world, the connectedness of the world, awakens. And that's also the mind, I'm quite sure, of the monk who's sitting there looking like a statue. And sometimes this is described as identifying yourself, your mind and body with a mountain. You know, In my own practice, I used to try to identify with mountains and dogs.

[23:19]

When I felt disturbed or something, I would say, now, the mountain isn't disturbed. Why can't I be like the mountain? Yeah, and then I'd And then somehow I feel better. And I can't remember exactly how I used dogs, but it's something like, you know, if a dog wouldn't be bothered by this, so why am I? And strangely, it didn't make me feel less human. I felt more human. These images you put here in the sutras and koans, do you actually use in some practical way? So again, what do I mean by realization?

[24:42]

Well, I mean enlightenment. And I also mean understanding something so thoroughly it's become... a natural or usual part of you. Now, what do I look for in a practitioner? Now I'm not practicing in a way with you so much to kind of trap you into enlightenment.

[25:51]

To trap you into enlightenment. I'm not trying to set an enlightenment trap. I mean, that's one way to practice. You create a situation where there's really no way out except enlightenment. Or to run away. Yeah. I want you to be free to leave, but I don't want you to run away. And also I've discovered that I don't think as a mode of practice that works too well. I can say over and over again, enlightenment is not something you can seek. And then you can say, well how do I seek the mind that doesn't seek? Or how do I accept that the enlightened mind doesn't care about enlightenment?

[27:12]

How can I? An enlightened mind doesn't care about enlightenment. So then you can stop caring about enlightenment and does that mean you're enlightened? Well, not quite. But it's something close if you really have no preferences. I'm happy just to practice here and help other people practice. And it doesn't matter whether I'm enlightened or not. Who the heck cares? I just want to do this. That's very close to the conditions which allow the transformation we call enlightenment to occur.

[28:27]

Which Dogen speaks about in that text as the mind which puts others' enlightenment above your own. But you might say, well, I'll try that for a while, but if it doesn't work, I'm not going to do that for too long. But Yuan Wu, you know, the compiler of the Blue Cliff Records, one of the most trusted of our authorities about Zen, It says the hardest kind of person to find is the one who will persevere forever. So it's not just

[29:45]

doing it for a while and seeing if it works, but just saying, really saying, just, why not? What else do I have to do in this life? And I can do almost anything anyway and still feel this way. And I can do almost anything and yet still feel this way. So I'm not really looking at you saying, now have you reported to me an enlightenment experience yet? Then what am I looking for? I'm looking for a certain vitality in your activity. And I'm looking for freedom from predictability.

[31:02]

More a sense of the uniqueness of each moment. So although your behavior might be predictable, at each moment it doesn't feel predictable. And this mind of uniqueness or... freedom from predictability, often also characterizes a mind which feels the intrinsic emptiness of each thought and action. also characterizes a mind, which without effort feels the intrinsic emptiness of each thought and action, which is sometimes called the mind of insight.

[32:12]

Because when you feel the singularity or uniqueness of the world, your thinking tends to be a flow of insights. When the world feels like It feels like an insight when you just look at something. So I'm looking for a certain kind of vitality on each moment. See if they have a continuous sense of vitality. If they feel free of preferences, or of emotional likes and dislikes, I mean, more people I practice with longer, I might provoke a little to see if I can get them angry.

[33:55]

Or make them feel offended or something. Because there's no reason that should happen. At all. Especially if we really know each other, we're no longer worried about how each of us think about each other. So again, I look for vitality. A mind of few preferences. A freedom from predictability. And a relaxed intention just to do this. To maintain this... Yeah, just to do this.

[35:18]

To... sustain and continue this mind, which links, which is like a bridge between meditation periods, and which also merges your meditation and your mindfulness with your daily activity. So it's not like trying to find a life free of distraction. But to transform your daily activity and your thinking. to transform, merge your daily activity with this mind free of preferences.

[36:35]

Doing that, that's our lineage style. And what does that mean? That means... I mean, one way to look at it in a particular way is to see that it's what Dogen means by the Genjo koan. That the mind of awareness and mind of enlightenment is merged with one's daily activity. And then you have to ask the question. If I see a person whose daily life is so merged with awareness, Whether they've had an enlightenment experience, a noticeable enlightenment experience or not, then I have to assume that somehow the conditions of their life have changed

[38:23]

open themselves to an enlightened way of living. Somehow their experience or decisions often may be non-consciously made. Their decisions are often non-consciously made, their life itself, has created the conditions of enlightenment or the potential of opening up enlightenment in their life. So the difference with Dogen with other schools is to look for enlightenment, to feel enlightenment in the practitioner's daily life and in your own.

[39:45]

to look for in the practitioner's life the activity of enlightenment. Somehow Dogen came to this conclusion, and if I read Yuan Wu, who's one of the central figures in Linji Buddhism, when he speaks about realization, it's virtually the same. He says if you can continue this mind of few preferences, without losing the boldness and vividness, So that each thought or action appears with clarity and precision.

[41:19]

And yet with an intrinsic emptiness. And then you can continue this, he says, for 10 or 20 or 30 years. Then we can say you've realized thusness. That's not a person looking for some kind of one or two experiences. So Dogen takes this kind of view from earlier Buddhism. Yeah. And that's when... Yuan Wu says, the hardest person to find is one who will persevere in this way.

[42:38]

This is about how such a person can be part of their whole generation, not just, oh, the early part of my life I practiced Buddhism in the Northern Light, But how do we enter our whole generation? How do we enter our century? With the potentialities of Buddha hope. with the potential of the Buddha. Thank you very much.

[43:32]

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