Now I'm trying to give you a feeling for, this morning particularly, for Yunyan. What kind of person was this Yunyan? And at the moment he's sweeping, in the middle of this activity of sweeping. And I'm doing that also because I want us practitioners to look at what we are at this moment. Do you have the distinction in Hungarian between what and who? Yes. Okay, so you can ask, what are you? And you can ask, who are you?

[01:06]

At least in English, it's quite a different feeling. You say, what am I? Instead of, who am I? Now again, this is just an example of The difference a word makes. And English both starting with the short words, starting with W. But the word what directs attention in a different way than who directs attention. So, following Suzuki Roshi, I suggested this basic incubatory practice. Moment after moment, bringing attention to the breath.

[02:09]

And bringing attention to the spine, to the posture. Now this koan is also asking us to bring attention to a phrase. Or really to bring attention to a view. And usually you're bringing attention to a view that is... an antidote to views you have already. That's in some contrast or in conflict with views you already have. Now, if you have, if the view is in... contrast or conflict to views you already have. The views you already have are deeply embodied. inseparable from the way mind and body work.

[03:34]

So you can have some kind of understanding of Buddhism but that understanding doesn't reach the level of your embodied views unless you use the new view in some repetitious way. Now this is not repetition in a sense of sort of like some kind of boring duty. In a world that we accept as if it was how can I say Out there. We've got to switch to having a world that's in here. And that's already a big shift. To feel the world in here rather than out there. And somehow you have to Let me start again.

[04:44]

If the world is at each moment unique, as it is in fact, then there's really no such thing as boredom. And it is boredom because you don't find the world unique at each moment. So this in itself is a simple challenge. Do you find the world unique at each moment or do you find it pretty much the same at each moment? And the difference is the difference between adept practice and some kind of sport. You're just trying to improve yourself and not transform yourself. Now, a phrase I used when I was first couple of years of practicing.

[05:53]

Which is very similar to the one who is not busy. By the way, it's also translated that you should know there is something that's not hurried. Now, we can explore if there's some difference between something that's not hurried or busy and one who is not busy. Because, you know, again, this con only is... As any value, if you make it your own. You make it your own, it's supposed to be up here, not way back there. I mean, it's okay, but I would like to rather see you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[07:14]

Sorry to bother you. So, the phrase I used was, there's no place to go. And there's nothing to do. And I... I don't know how I hit on the phrase exactly, but I made it up. And I was extremely busy at the time. I was a full-time graduate student at the University of California. And I was a full-time employee at the University of California Adult Education. And I was a new father. I had a family to support. And so I was a bit busy. And I survived, partly because of this phrase.

[08:22]

And I would just, every time I felt busy, I would say, there's no place to go. And there's nothing to do. And... Just to recount my experience with the two phrases. To put it in the context of not understanding, but incubation. And it was really a matter of survival. So I... I didn't even care whether it was Buddhism or not. It was just that I had to find some way in which there really was no place to go and nothing to do. And Zazen was helping me, of course. Because I was sitting every morning and usually afternoons too before I went to work and the university. So I said the phrase quite a lot under my breath all the time.

[09:42]

It was just no place to go, nothing to do. And it would particularly come up in an antidote, antidotal sense. An antidote to being busy. And I remember I did it for about, I think about seven months. And then I forgot about it. And then, after about... Nine or eight, ten months, I remembered it. And I just started again. And I remember I sort of congratulated myself. Because I didn't criticize myself. I didn't say, you dumb practitioner, you forgot. I just started again. So already that was some sort of progress. Because I already had a sense of... I can't really measure things by successive time.

[10:51]

I remember another fruit of... of a practice like that. I had a Hamada cup. Hamada is a potter, famous potter. Hamada. And he was the most famous potter of Japan. And he kind of introduced craft village pottery into Japanese village pottery into kind of the world pottery scene. And he was a national treasure of Japan. And somebody had given me this cup. And I used it. And my daughter, Sally, who's now 40, knocked it off my desk and it broke into a lot of pieces and I remember watching it and I had no sense of anything

[11:57]

My immediate thought was, oh, now it's to be cleaned up. Because I had really shifted, without my being so aware of it, to a world in which there's only activity. So the cup, up until that time, had been an activity for me. I rather liked it. I still have it, in fact. It's been repaired. And so it was an activity. It wasn't an entity. An entity, a separate unit. Okay, so I'm trying to introduce a lot of things at once to you here. And again, in English, the difference between seeing the world as activity and seeing the world as entities.

[13:16]

From a... From a Buddhist point of view, this is not a bell. It's a belling. It's something you do. And I mean, it could be a teacup. A strange kind of hat. Oh, it's a good Buddha bump, yeah. Like you have in your stone statue out there. Anybody have any scotch tape? Okay. So, of course, we can call it a bell. Like we call a tree a tree. But you can get in the habit of calling, in English, the tree a treeing. Until you really don't.

[14:16]

That sounded good. But it has another meaning. So you really, when you see a tree, you see its activity. The insects that live on it, the... When the link changes. And you really want to get in the, have the habit that you inhabit, that you live within. To not see entities. I can just say flat out, I'm sorry. If you have a habit of seeing entities, you're not practicing Buddhism. You're not practicing transformational Buddhism. You're practicing some sort of well-being and not non-being. Okay. So you take something like a tree and you... You develop the habit you inhabit of seeing it as an activity.

[15:27]

So you see this as a bell because you use it as a bell. I saw a really beautiful handmade bell once in front of someone's fireplace in Minnesota, and they were using it, they had no idea what it was really, they were using it to put logs in in front of their fireplace. I couldn't believe it, this fantastic bell. So when they were all in the kitchen, I took all the wood out, and I was sitting in again. They were quite insulted that I was messing with their log holder. But for them, it wasn't a bell. They only seen bells that hang. They didn't see a bell that sits. Okay. So when the cup broke, for me, I really, without knowing it, begun to see the cup only as an activity.

[17:02]

And when it broke, it was just all. Now it's the activity of cleaning it up. And now it's the activity of getting it repaired. And it's a good view because it kept the potter busy. If nobody broke pots, he wouldn't have many pots. If we break them, he can make more. So this was a recognition of a shift. So I took this phrase, again, no place to go and nothing to do. And when I forgot to do it, I just forgot. And I realized I never said to myself, I had good practice or bad practice.

[18:07]

I never thought about comparing practice from the outside. I just did practice. That's all. Okay. And then after, as I said, after a few months, two or three months, I think, suddenly I started doing it again. Oh, okay. If I remember correctly, it was about a year and A fourth. When suddenly there was no place to go and nothing to do. I simply found myself located in immediacy. Sorry? Located in immediacy. The immediate, immediate, immediate. Immediate in English means no media. I found myself located in what I call in English situated immediacy.

[19:10]

The situation. And I didn't feel any pressure to do anything. It drives my wife a little crazy sometimes. Because she feels a lot of pressure to do things, and I say, oh, fine, let's have a cup of tea. I do do things now and then. I somehow got here, and... But it's different when you really feel there's no place, actually, where is it to go? Where is it to go? I used to think, maybe I'm doing all this weird practice, maybe I'll go crazy. And then I thought, Well, if I go crazy, I'm still going to be here.

[20:15]

There was no place to go crazy, too. And then you do things, but you're not set. Okay. Now, what concept of being did Yunyan have? Okay, I've already suggested that he felt connectedness Rather than separation. He felt connectedness because of the Asian and Chinese worldview. But he also felt connectedness because of the... because of his Buddhist practice.

[21:22]

And his friend, sometimes people think Daowu was his brother, but at least he was his brother monk. And Daowu seems to have been quite a bit smarter than Yunyang. And I kind of like it that her lineage goes through the dumb one. The dumb means not too smart. All right. It's encouraging. It gives us hope. Okay. But Yunyan is a famous example of the one who incubates practice. Someone described his practice as like, I don't know if it's in the koan or not, but maybe it's in the koan, pushing a cart through mud.

[22:25]

He spent decades, he would be 10 years with a teacher and not understand much. You can imagine this muddy road pushing for ten years a cart to the mud. But this incubation is the secret of practice. Okay. So he already felt through his practice. And through his cultural view. A sense of connectedness. And through his practice, let's say, with the broom. Yeah, he felt connected. that his body was an extension of the brome. Or the brome was an extension of his body.

[23:27]

You know, there's something called peripersonal space. The perimeter, peri is perimeter, peripersonal space. You can just use the English word. If you give a monkey or a human being a stick, the brain acts as if the hand was out here. So the brain relates to the tool as if it was an extension of the body. That's how you drive a car and you can feel where the fenders are and so forth. That's called, and people who study these things, that's called peripersonal space. So there is a quality that the broom is actually your body.

[24:28]

The brain is treating it really, if you let it, as your body. There are actually many subtle ways in which the space around us is embodied. And in zazen, when you can't find your thumbs, for instance, And you're sitting, right? And your thumbs wander off. And you say, where are those darn thumbs? And you try to find them. It's a vast cosmic space. And finally, oh, there they are. Okay. Well, when it's like that, you've lost your usual sense of the body sheath. This is actually related to the sense of the Dharmakaya, the body is space. And if we do this, And then someone says, which finger is it, right?

[25:48]

It's very difficult to do. If they point. But that's because you have an outside sense of the body. You're not feeling your body from inside, or you'd know exactly which finger to move. And part of practice, this is called the thought sheath, like a sheath that you put a knife into. And one of the fruits or results of practice is you drop the body image or thought sheath of the body. And when in zazen you begin to feel a kind of space around you and it feels like the form of the body has gone. You're actually feeling a kind of embodied space not connected with the brain image of the body.

[26:49]

Or a more subtle brain image of the body. Okay. So, Yunyan is sweeping. And he feels some relationship between the broom and his spine. So like Sukershi said, he's bringing attention to his posture and his spine. And now he's moving that feeling from his body to the broom. And he's moving that feeling into the whole space around it. And so when Daowu walks in, it's almost like Daowu walks into the same water you're in. it's like you're in a swimming pool and someone else gets in the swimming pool and you can feel immediately someone else has gotten in the swimming pool that's connectedness that's already connected so we

[28:11]

Now we have Yunyang Shui. And Dao Wu comes in and he feels the embodied space being changed by Dao Wu walking in the room. So we have to imagine this situation. Okay. Now, we also have a famous phrase from a koan. Heaven and earth and I share the same root. This is another phrase you can practice with. Listen, earth and I share the same root. Okay, now... So this gives more depth to Suzuki Roshi saying, bring attention to the posture and the spine.

[29:32]

If you feel heaven and earth and I share the same root, that's really feeling connected. And immediately, of course, means the spine. Now, in the Chinese conception of heaven and earth, sometimes the image in China was heaven and earth are copulating. And you have to kind of separate them. And heaven is up there, but they're really wanting to be connected. That's a different feeling than heaven's way up there or something like that. And we're, heaven and earth are mixed right here.

[30:32]

This is the sky. Where does the sky start? Above buildings. Above the trees. The sky is right here. Now, if you imagine that heaven and earth are mixed, are connected, not someplace you go after you die or something. My daughter told the neighbors in I have an eight-year-old daughter, too. But when she was about four or five, she told our very Catholic neighbors in Harris Street, in Yoke, where I'm from, because over every bed there's a cross, you know, the crucifixion in the Black Forest.

[31:33]

She told the kids, there's no God because I've been up there in an airplane. And she told them, there's no God because I've been up there in an airplane. Well, where does heaven begin? Where does the sky begin? Where does God begin? We told you, you can't say that in this neighborhood. Everybody's very nice to us there. But just imagine if you feel that your posture allows a kind of conduit, a conduit is energy like electrical conduit. That your posture, your spine is a kind of conduit for the energy of heaven and earth. And You'll notice if you study Buddhism and most of the lists, one of the things in the list is energy.

[32:42]

Or effort or activity or something. And it's hard for us to translate it. We have no word for it in English. But it basically means the energy. Experienced aliveness. In each situation, do you experience aliveness? Does the situation nourish your aliveness? Okay, so now I suggested that one person Fruit of practice. And one challenge of practice is to feel, experience each moment as unique. Amen. I can close my eyes and open them, and the room is slightly different.

[33:44]

Some of you had your head this way, some of this way. So there's no way it's exactly the same every time. But there's a profound relationship, relatedness going on. If we took a, this has been done, so I didn't do it, but if we took a movie of this right now, And we slowed it down to frame by frame by frame. All of our blinking and all would be in the same rhythm. It's amazing. If you do film a lecture, for instance, within a few moments, all the movements of the lecturer are echoed in everyone else, how they move, etc. Because you actually create a common or mutual body. And I'm trying to speak just now to this mutual body.

[34:46]

And find if the words that come out are speaking to this mutual body. So there's this sense that at each moment is not repeatable. But there's also the sense that this non-repeating mutuality is nourishing. You feel energized by the aliveness of each moment, each situation. And that's also a big step when you allow yourself to step into this sea of aliveness.

[35:52]

Now in a yogic culture much of the way you actualize this aliveness your own aliveness But your own aliveness as inseparable from each situation. So we're not just talking about some kind of scientific or philosophical connectedness. But an actual feeling of being in the same... Water that's flowing through us. So that's the sense of heaven and earth and I share the same root. And that's also the mind of no place to go and nothing to do.

[36:53]

Okay. And the second phrase of this, it's at the center of koan, is myriad things and I, actually it's ten thousand things and I, share the same body. It's almost always translated as myriad, but it actually almost, I mean, I think always, it's actually the 10,000 things. And 10,000 means many. But I like it that many, that it's specific and not a generalization. Many is a generalization.

[37:57]

10,000 things, there's 10,000 things in this room. I mean, there's an infinite number of things in this room. I mean, all the little spots of wood, all the way to the boat bar, and each hair. So, I mean, each hair... So... Excuse me, that was a falsehood. Well, not really. They're waiting to come out. Okay. I mean, at least back here. If I could look like him, it would be great. But so 10,000 things means it's actually... It's actually something that's here. We're talking particulars, not generalizations. The 10,000 things and I share the same body. Now, when you read a phrase like this, your practice is to make it true.

[38:59]

I don't care if it takes you 10 years. Your practice is to make it true. And the vow to practice is you just decide to make it true. This is very difficult to do. And the main difficulty is that we define ourselves through practice. And because we define ourselves through other people, which is loving and compassionate and we're created through other people, and it's very, very, very, very difficult to give up our definition of ourselves through other people.

[40:06]

Yeah, what we want to do in relationship to our family, our parents, our friends. Our society. I mean, we need a job because we... You need to earn some money to live, you know. Most of us do. But the real reason we have a job, it's the way society says you can fulfill your identity through other people. To really make the vow to do transformative, adept Buddhist practice. You have to define yourself as independent of all other definitions. I will discover that myriad things and I share the same body.

[41:18]

I will discover the one who is not busy. Or the something which is not hurried or busy. And I will do this as prior to job, family, Anything else? Are you ready? It doesn't mean you can't have a family and a job and things like that. But your priority is your own transformative practice. During the Vietnam War, there was a person sitting in the front of the lecture. And he said something about we have to stop the Vietnam War.

[42:24]

Political feelings much like today's. And Sukiroshi knew this person quite well. And he actually... kind of went and kind of strongly took this person by the shoulder and said, actually stop the war! And knocked him onto the floor. And he meant, you have to really decide you're going to stop the war Even if you can't, it can't be something, oh, we all should have this political view of stopping the war. Unless you're willing to actually stop the war, don't talk about it. Okay, but... Still, as I say, you can have jobs, you can do things, I do things, etc.

[43:34]

But I do things in the context of how they support my vow to realize this practice. And I just have to say, I don't... I haven't fulfilled this vow, but I keep trying. So again, when you encounter these phrases, The one who is not busy. Your job is, as a practitioner, is to discover what Yunyan in this koan means. Now there's also a feeling in Chinese culture that the North Star, the Polar Star and the Big Dipper are the kind of rule the heavens.

[44:47]

And there's a a sense of this spine and heaven and earth, this connectedness. Now, we have what's called the pine needle stitch. I'm almost certain, though I've never seen it written, but I know enough, that this is a constellation. And this represents the Big Dipper or something similar. And so that you are putting this talismanic constellation here at the top of your spine.

[45:49]

Okay. So the spine has the big dipper or the pole star right here, and that's what you're wearing when you wear a raksa. And this was Suzuki Roshi's raksa. He asked me to bring robes, and he wanted me to bring a kesa, but I couldn't fit it in, so I fit in this small one. But this is also, I'm wearing Suzuki Roshi's robe. Yeah. And so it reminds me, or I have the feeling of this extended body, which is Suzuki Roshi or Deshimaru Roshi. And this constellation of the heavens here at the top of my spine here. So I'm again trying to give you a feeling for Yunyan when he's standing there sweeping.

[47:07]

And that he already feels this kind of, you know, before you try to understand the khan or something, he's there in the midst of this water of chair beings. And which Daowu is coming in. So we're going to now have to feel Daowu and here in a kind of some kind of relationship like that. Okay. Now let me go back to bringing attention to the breath. What time are we supposed to have lunch? It's up to you. It's also up to the kitchen and the cook.

[48:13]

It's ready now. It's always ready. We're having cold potato salad. Something like that. So the kitchen expects us in half an hour or so. All right. If it's up to me, I have to go down and start cooking. Okay. Again, I want to look at some very basic practices here and to sort of look into the basic practices and see what's going on. The most common practice that Suzuki Roshi gave us Don't invite your thoughts to tea.

[49:25]

Okay. I never drink tea anyway. No. Don't invite your thoughts to tea. I always drink tea. Okay. This is a concept. Now you may have the idea that you're just practicing zazen. It's some kind of mindfulness. But you're not just practicing zazen. You're practicing zazen, the physical posture. Zazen. To sit. And zen is to absorb. So absorbed sitting. So you're practicing absorbed sitting.

[50:27]

And you're already adding the posture. So you're adding some physical form to it. You're folding your warmth together, fold it crossing your legs. You're not scratching and moving. So just to say don't scratch or don't move is a concept. So you're bringing a concept of not moving to your sitting. And the union of that concept and the sitting creates zazen. If you're sitting like this and scratching, you're not doing zazen. But to sit this way is a concept.

[51:32]

And much later, much, you know, Dharmakirti and the more advanced logicians of Buddhism, they're all about what concepts you bring to your practice. Because it's the union of of the activity of sitting, even if you're sitting completely still, it's a kind of activity, and a concept. And what concept are you bringing then to your practice? Are you bringing the concept of the one who's not busy? Are you bringing the concept of don't move? And moment after moment in sitting you incubate the experience, the effort to not move.

[52:40]

And the effort to not move, the intention to not move begins to transform your breath and your spine and so forth. And it's the concept that you're holding that's doing the work. okay so don't invite your thoughts to tea all right so you that's easy to do almost all of us can sort of Imagine not inviting our thoughts to tea. Okay, but isn't the mental formation to not invite your thoughts to tea also a thought? So I better not invite the thought to not invite the thought to tea to tea.

[53:45]

So let's forget about the whole instruction entirely. Because I don't want to invite it to tea to not invite it to tea, etc. Okay, but there's a difference. What really Suzuki Roshi meant is don't invite discursive thoughts to tea. Now in English, we don't have a vocabulary for these kind of subtle distinctions. But from the point of view of Buddhism, The mental formation to not invite your thoughts to tea is not a thought. It's an intention. And it produces a different mind than discursive thinking. Now, Husserl, Husserl, is that how you pronounce it? Husserl. H-U-S-S-E-R-L?

[54:56]

Husza. Husza? Husza. Husza, okay. You see, I'm as stupid in German as I am in Hungarian. Anyway, he actually uses the mind of intent as a word meaning for psyche. So a mind formed by intention asks the mind, a discursive mind, not to come to tea. So with a simple instruction like this, you're discovering the difference between a mind rooted in intent And a mind rooted in discursive thinking. And when you are practicing Not inviting your thoughts to tea.

[55:58]

You're practicing establishing a mind rooted in intent. So you're beginning to experience two different minds. Not as obviously different as waking and sleeping. But maybe just as different. Okay, so part of your practice then, if we're going to have the eye see the eye, is to begin to notice and physically feel the mind of intent. In contrast to the mind that arises through discursive thinking. Okay. Now, a truism of Yogacara Buddhism, which Zen is really Yogacara Buddhism. And Madhyamaka and Yen. Our practice is Yogacara.

[56:59]

Okay. is that all mental phenomena have a physical component. Whatever state of mind you're in has a bodily component. And all sentient phenomena Physical phenomena have a mental component. All right. Okay. Now, it's New Age thinking in the West, which you can't make the pun in Hungarian, but I call it Newage. Okay, don't try it. Anyway, new age or new age thinking.

[58:02]

Yeah, is that we're all one. Body and mind are, you know. one and so forth. But that's really way too simple. The fact is you can experience body and mind separately. You know you can experience body and mind separately. But you can develop the the connectedness of mind and body. And there's various ways to develop the connectedness. Zen practice is one of the ways. So all mental phenomena have a physical component. That means if you begin to if you now accept that there's a mind that arises from intent And a mind that rises from discursive thinking.

[59:09]

And they're like two different liquids. With different viscosities. You can put them together or you can separate. So you can begin to have the physical feeling of a mind of intent. So when you go to Zazen and you hear the Han or the bell or whatever you already are entering usually a mind of intent. This is of course related to vows and so forth. The decision to practice. So you're really entering developing, it's almost like you're going to an exercise studio, you're exercising, strengthening the mind of intent.

[60:09]

By sitting and not moving, you're strengthening the mind of intent. Until the mind of intent is so predominant, you don't move. So you more and more develop a real physical feeling for the mind of discursive thinking and a physical feeling for the mind of intent. Okay. And you notice simple things like you breathe differently within the mind of intent than in the mind of discursive thinking. All right, so now what do we have here? We have the sense of two minds. And you know already the mind of dreaming and sleeping. And every day you experience a transition to waking mind.

[61:21]

And then how conscious mind comes into waking mind. And then how difficult it is to go back to sleep if you're now in waking and conscious mind. And the dream is lost in sleeping mind. And dreams float in sleeping mind and they sink in waking mind. But there is similar distinction between the mind of intent and the mind of discursive thinking. Now, so what this simple instruction, don't invite your thoughts to tea, it's showing you the difference between the mind of intent and the mind of discursive thinking. And it's shaping your relationship to the mind of discursive thinking. Because you're letting, you're not stopping your thoughts. You're not engaging with the thoughts.

[62:22]

Okay. So you're learning to let thoughts happen, appear, but not identify with them. So every time you do zazen, if you don't get caught in your thoughts, would you let thoughts appear or whatever happen? You're learning to... Not think your thoughts are you. When you really get that, that's a huge step. Because when we think our thoughts are us, that's when all the social definitions and familial definitions of who we are play.

[63:35]

So simply by not identifying With your thoughts. By letting them happen but not identifying them. You're beginning to know what we mean by Buddha. Because the Buddha is not somebody formed by your social, societal and familial identity. The Buddha is more ancient than that. And more immediate. And maybe even is tasted in the one who's not busy. And maybe the Buddha is no farther away than the one who's not busy. Okay.

[64:44]

Now a third thing you're discovering. Okay. You're discovering the difference between a mind of intent and a mind of discursive thinking. And you're discovering within the mind of discursive thinking the mind that identifies with the thoughts and the mind that doesn't identify with them. To really know that is like another mind within discursive thinking But it's completely transformed. And the third thing you're getting from this simple Zazen instruction is you're beginning to experience the field of mind in contrast to the contents of mind. Okay. Because normally we have a habit of noticing the contents of mind, thoughts, feelings, etc.

[65:52]

But we don't notice the field that the thoughts are occurring in. It's like you're looking at the words on the page and you're not noticing the page. That is another transformative shift in attention. Attention is the most important treasure you have. It's attention which forms your life and it's attention which transforms your life. What you give attention to is what you and who you are. Okay, so if you can bring attention not to the contents of mind, but to the field of mind, this is hard to do, because attention immediately goes to So it's hard to do that, because the attention goes straight to the differences.

[66:59]

You can watch television ads. They create a bunch of distinctions, and you can watch which ones your mind go to, and that's all figured out by the advertisers. Then you can try to resist What the advertisers want you to pay attention to and it's very difficult to do because they catch your attention to this part of the screen and then they move it into the center of the screen. So one-pointedness means you're in charge of your attention. Your attention It goes to where you intend it to go and it stays there. It's a fundamental yogic skill. So now we're talking about through this simple practice of not inviting your thoughts to tea, you can Discover how attention can be the field of mind and not the contents of mind.

[68:13]

Okay, got it. So I think maybe let's sit for a moment and then we'll have lunch. I didn't speak about breath, but maybe if we're still breathing in the afternoon, I will.

[68:51]

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