It surprised me yesterday when it seemed like the least considerable part of your discussion was about pain. Because, you know, to me this is the laziest, easiest practice in the world. Yeah, lazily watching an ox upon... You know, it's like that for me. Yeah, but I suppose, you know, I'm somewhat used to sitting so it ain't so bad. And I suppose when you, if you're not living here, you know, and you come here, suddenly you have to sit through lectures in this pretzel position, etc., Ja, und wenn du nicht hier wohnst und dann hierher kommst, dann sitzt du durch all diese Vorträge hindurch in dieser Brezelposition.

[01:15]

Or you can't forget what Sechin is like or something, I don't know. Ja, oder du kannst nicht vergessen, wie sich die Sechin anfühlt. Because I barely mentioned it in Taisho the other day, yesterday, and it became such a big part of your discussion. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm glad there's... I'm glad there's... I'm grateful for the difficulty it took me to learn to sit. There's no question for me that that's made it easier to go through the things I've had to go through in my life. Yeah. Yeah, and just being with people, which I have done quite a bit, just being with people in the latter and last and final stages of life.

[02:27]

But still, practice for me is kind of, I'm a little embarrassed that I want a lazy life I have. You know, as a kid I think I told you I always wanted to be a housewife. At least the version I had of it. pushing the baby in Central Park, not going to work. But since I've been the husband of two mothers now, I don't think it's quite so easy. But still, the idea of not having to go to work Actually, I like work, but I want to choose my work.

[03:39]

Yeah. And it occurred to me, I don't know why exactly, to tell you one of the first Zen stories I read. What was about Linji Rinzai? Which is, you know, while many of Linji's predecessors and his successors have influenced me a lot, Linji himself I have not had much companionship with. He seems to me too exclusively caught in the sudden polemic. Yeah, it's the same word in German, polemic? Yeah. Okay, thanks.

[04:58]

Now I know a new German word. Ja, jetzt kenne ich ein neues deutsches Wort. I'm always learning. Ich lerne immer zu. Okay. Linji goes with the so-called assembly leader, I suppose, somebody like Dieter. Puh, ha! Yeah, Puhau. Puhau Dieter. And Plempa. Puhau Plempa. And they're having dinner, a meal at a patron's house. And you know, in those days, up through the Song Dynasty, up through the end of Dogen's time, the 13th century, the Chinese didn't yet sit on chairs.

[06:07]

So they had raised platforms with straw mats on them for beds and tables. I suppose to keep them up above the mice and the cold floor and things. So the same platform you slept on was also the table during the day. So they're having a meal with this patron on what is a kind of bed table. And so hatten Sie diese Mahlzeit auf diesem Bett oder diesem Tisch von diesem Gastgeber? And Linji says to Diet, I mean to Puhar. Und Linji sagte zu Puhar? When a single hair swallows the ocean, that's what I don't like about Linji.

[07:25]

And Mount Sumeru, the center of the universe, is in the mustard seed. Is this the display of supernatural powers or the function of the absolute blah, blah, blah? And at the time of my reading that story, I didn't know anything about mustard seeds and hairs swallowing oceans. I didn't know about this dialectic. Yeah, and then Puha, when he heard Linji say this, he simply took the table and threw it in the air and all the food and everything. I was shocked. When I read it, I was shocked.

[08:26]

I mean, I was actually shocked. Yeah. I mean, I'm a pretty unconventional person. They wouldn't put my picture in the high school yearbook because I refused to wear a tie. Yes, and now I kind of like wearing a tie occasionally. You know, this is nothing but a big tie. But it represented, you know, kind of... saying yes to a world that I thought was terrible, that fought wars and all that stuff. Then when I went to college, they told me I couldn't eat in the dining room, dining halls, unless I wore a tie.

[09:46]

Und als ich zur Uni ging, wurde mir gesagt, ich könne da nicht in der Mensa essen, außer ich würde eine Krawatte tragen. So, I said, okay, I'll eat somewhere else. Und dann sagte ich, ja, ist in Ordnung, dann esse ich woanders. This was quite daring for me, because in two weeks I'd have maybe 10 cents for a cup of coffee. But they sort of said, well, then you can wear a scarf. So I had a white flowing scarf. Anyway... So I was, you know, mildly unconventional. But I certainly didn't go to people's houses and throw the table and all the food into the air. And when Puhaplempe did this, don't you dare.

[10:47]

Linji said, and I was very glad he said it, said, to course. To course, yeah. So then the next night they went, you know, gives you something, idea what the life of a great Zen master is. The next night they're at another patron's house having a vegetarian feast in order to raise money here probably. Ja, und so kriegt ihr so einen Geschmack, wie das Leben von so einem Zen-Lehrer ausschaut. Sie waren dann am nächsten Abend bei einem anderen Gastgeber zum Abendessen. Dieter und ich gehen am nächsten Abend zu einem großen vegetarischen Essen, was gegeben wird, um auch Spenden zu sammeln. So Linji says to Puhar, how does tonight's feast compare with last night's? And again, he just threw the table and all the dishes, the food.

[12:06]

This looked like pretty strange behavior to me. And Linji said, too coarse again. And Fuha says, who are you to speak about coarseness or fineness? Pua said, who are you to talk about purity or fineness? And Linji said, okay, okay, I'll tell you. And Linji said, okay, and stretched out his tongue. I thought, geez, am I really want to practice Zen? Suzuki Roshi never asked me.

[13:14]

I never threw the table over or anything like that. I remember one time we went to a patron's house, actually, some Japanese farmers who lived outside San Francisco. And the Japanese, you know, men particularly, Japanese people can't hold their liquor. One little drink and they're kind of red. But they think the way to treat a guest is to pour them tumbler. A tumbler? A tumbler is a large glass. Pour them a tumbler full of whiskey. Or gin or something. So they keep pouring us tumblers full of whiskey and thinking we're drinking it and we're just pouring it in the plants. I hope they didn't kill the plants.

[14:24]

Yeah, and then they come back to Philadelphia, oh, you guys, you know, real men. Well, at least we didn't throw the table up. But again, I did learn something from that story, as perplexing as it was to me. I learned that the Main relationship, the defining relationship was with your teacher, not with anybody else or with society. With your teacher and with the practice.

[15:24]

The niceties of, you know, the social life, cultural life are, you know, niceties, but they're not how you define your life. So the story perplexed me, but it still stayed with me as... in the end defining my relationship with Suzuki Roshi. So anyway, I just told you that story. Obviously, I just told you that story. And I'm also breathing and sitting here. And, you know, I think we could say that the brain has been shaped by, yeah, conceptual activity. And by language.

[16:58]

I think first conceptual activity and second language. Now I keep coming back to the I mean, often anyway, I come back to how we're put together, how physically and mentally we're put together. Because I think that our practice is dealing with really how we are physically and mentally more than how we are culturally. So I think we can understand language as kind of the wiring, I've probably said this before, the wiring of the brain.

[17:59]

Und wir können die Sprache verstehen als die Verdrahtung des Gehirns. Okay. So you can direct attention through language. Und so kannst du Aufmerksamkeit richten durch Sprache. Like... Like attention goes through the wiring of language, electricity goes through the, you know, wiring of the... Et cetera. Yeah, we... So you can ask a simple question, what is chanting or who is chanting? Mm-hmm, yeah. These are just a little bit different spellings of a word starting with W. So if you, but if you say what is chanting, it feels different than when you say who is chanting.

[19:42]

No, that has to do with language in English, German, etc., Deutsch. But it also has to do with, I think we can think of these different sentences as slightly different wires. We can direct attention in very subtle ways. Now, let's just look, you know, waking, sleeping, meditation, etc., Also da gibt es wach sein, schlafen und meditation und so weiter. And we know there's a topography too. Sleeping, for example.

[20:55]

The kind of topography of dreaming while you're sleeping is different than the non-dreaming deep sleep. Then there's light dreams and, yeah, light, sort of half-waking dreams, and there's deep dreams. And my experience in exploring dreaming. Now, let me say, during the years I most, I've said this before too, but during the years I most was concentrated on practice. I don't know, five to seven years. I didn't dream. Dreams were forced. The activity of dreaming was the companion of my daily life. Und die Aktivität des Träumens war mein Begleiter in dem täglichen Leben.

[22:14]

So, I'm saying that just to point out that we really can, through practice, change ourselves in pretty dramatic ways. Und das sage ich, weil durch Praxis können wir uns wirklich auf ziemlich dramatische Weise ändern. Well, I started, and this topic is supposed to be the benefits of practice, and I'm These are pretty odd benefits. Sorry. But I guess what I'm saying again is that this is a powerful... Practice is powerful in our life. And you can bring out its power, you know, according to your attention and attention.

[23:21]

You can use it to explore in a fundamental existential sense the human condition. Yeah, what it is to be a human being. Whatever this is, we call it. Yeah, or you can use it to deepen your life, improve your life. Or you can use it to deepen your life, to improve it. In my exploration, the way I practice now, I do dream. Ja, in meine Erforschung, also so wie ich jetzt praktiziere, träume ich auch.

[24:22]

But also I try to explore my dreams and I never try to interpret my dreams. Heaven forbid. Ja, also ich versuche auf keinen Fall die Träume zu interpretieren. Also ich erforsche sie. Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of joking. It's hard to avoid interpreting sometimes. But actually, it is true, though. I am not interested in the meaning of anything. I'm extremely interested in what the dream is, but what it means, I don't care. But part of my experience is that there are dreams that I have, like chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, you know, something like that. Part of my experience is that I have dreams like chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3.

[25:40]

Yes, I like that. But only chapter 4 do I actually experience as a dream. Aber nur das Kapitel 4 erfahre ich als Traum. But it's clear to me that chapter 1, 2 and 3 also happened, but they were underneath other dreams. Ja, aber es ist klar für mich, dass die ersten drei Kapitel auch geschehen sind, aber sie waren unter. Well, that's just one example of a kind of topography. Even within dreaming, there's topographies underneath the dreams. Tomographies instead of topographies. Yeah, okay. You must be a doctor. Okay. And then there's topographies of consciousness. Daydreaming.

[26:53]

Thinking about something. Focusing on something. Otmar, I guess, brought me some flowers yesterday. So I had to figure out what pots to put them in. And so, yes, I had to find out in which vases I put them. Yes, and in this case I am very focused on the flowers. On the specifics and also the space between the flowers and so forth.

[27:57]

The rest of the room is also in my consciousness, but it's at a different level of attention. So I can feel the energy between the flowers. background consciousness and the focused consciousness. And I can more and more bring myself into an embeddedness in the topography of consciousness. Now that would be a way to actually define samadhi. A non-thinking consciousness... Maybe I could say non-conscious awareness embedded in the immediate situation.

[29:14]

Now a poet, particularly a contemporary poet, I would describe contemporary poetry often as unfolding a line rather than rhyming lines. It has to be embedded in the language and the situation that had the phrase come forth. Yeah, and it's not just about talent. It's what situation, what language, what particular room, chair... Time of day allows this embeddedness to occur that produces a poem.

[30:32]

Or allows a turning word phrase, a gate phrase, to free you from views. And just as language can convey, carry the electricity of attention Electricity of attention. So you can have a kind of Dharma switch. Yeah, a Dharma switch. And block the electricity. And now lots of sudden practice has to do with using blocked attention.

[31:51]

What is the word move except a way to use a word to block attention? What is the word moo? Does a cow have a good nature? Yeah, you're using this every time you look at something, see something, whatever arises, you say. So, when you... Okay, enough of that. When you... When you say mu, you're using a word.

[33:01]

You know, you can use something else if you want. No, watermelon. You're using it to block attention instead of carry attention. What happens when we block attention? Now, this is true whether you're a Chinese person or a Korean person. If you block attention, something happens that's close to universal. No, I spoke yesterday about the three shifts into gears that go nowhere. Ja, ich habe gestern von diesen drei Schaltgängen gesprochen, die nirgendwo hinführen.

[34:10]

Cutting off the connection between thoughts and action. Ja, und die die Verbindung zwischen Gedanken und Aktion, Handlung unterbrechen. What are you doing? You're blocking the flow of attention from thoughts to action. Interrupting or changing. And then where does that energy of attention, electricity of attention go to? I'm calling this incremental practice the craft of realization. It's basically a sudden practice. It's incremental, but it's rooted in the idea of blocking attention.

[35:31]

As the other two shifts I gave you are. Or to bring attention to posture and breath. And to hold attention and block consciousness and suddenly Awareness spreads its morphogenetic wings. So we can also be embedded in presence. You know, I've often mentioned the... Statue we have of Kuan Yin at Creston.

[36:48]

About nine feet tall. And she's standing on a lotus pod. And in her hand holding a lotus embryo. And then there's the lotus bud. But there's no iconography except in its absence of the lotus flower. So the absence is there. Once you feel the flower is your own, yeah, looking at it. What do you feel when you look? You feel that you're looking at it is the flower.

[38:06]

Or just the absence is present. As someone said to me, you know, referring to the keichu or, you know, keichu's cart. Yeah, and wie jemand das erwähnt hatte und Bezug nahm auf... Keichu's cart. A cart like you pull behind a horse or something like that. You weren't here during the weekend. No, sorry. You know, what I would like is all of us just to travel together, go everywhere. If I was... capable of multiple locations, I would go home with each of you. If you'd be happy, at least. Maybe say, oh no, the weekend's enough, thank you.

[39:10]

When I'm ready for you to go home with me, I'll move to Johanneshof, thank you. Until then. Until then. But you have Keichu's cart and you take out the hundred spokes of this archetypal cart maker. You take away the front and you take away the back. And you take away the axle. You've taken it away, but something is there. The absence is there. It's like you look for Charlie.

[40:18]

Where's Charlie? You feel Charlie's absence while you're looking for Charlie. So you can be embedded in the absence. You can be embedded in the presence. You can be embedded in the presence of the Buddha even if the Buddha is not there. You can be embedded in the poem that you haven't written. Ja, du kannst eingebettet sein in dem Gedicht, das du noch nicht geschrieben hast. And the embeddedness writes the poem. Und dieses eingebettet sein, das schreibt das Gedicht. Or you can be embedded in the phrase which opens into realization.

[41:21]

Ja, oder du kannst eingebettet sein in dem Satz, welcher sich eröffnet zur Verwirklichung. Enough. Enough. Thank you.

[41:34]

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