the moment-to-moment experience, which is inclusive of heart and mind, emotions and perceptions. So how we feel about an object is equal to how we think about an object. So if we take this first phrase again, when all things are Buddha Dharma, well, you don't want to go any further until you figure out when all things are Buddha Dharma. So that can be your practice for the next, you know, I'm not kidding.

[01:07]

Look, if I just said, okay, when all things of the Buddha Dharma come back, Maybe Johanneshof would be a deserted place. Or maybe I should say, whenever you want a taste of when all things are the Buddha Dharma, come back. Okay, so what the heck does this Dogen guy mean? I always think of him as Dogon Dogen. Dagon. Yeah, Dagon in English means shucks or to hell with it or damn it.

[02:10]

I don't know where it's at. It's a euphemism for something. Dagon. Yeah, Dagon, another day is gone. Dagon. Wieder ist ein Tag vorbei. That Dogon Dogon, he says these things. Dieser Dogon, dieser Dogon Dogon. When all things are Buddha Dharma. Yeah, so what does he mean by Buddha Dharma? Was versteht er unter Buddha Dharma? And we have the title. Here it's translated, Actualizing the Fundamental Point. Und wir haben einen Titel. Hier wird das... And I usually prefer a more esoteric translation of the title. To complete that which appears Knowing everything is simultaneously particular and universal.

[03:38]

So we can take to mean when you complete that which appears. as being actualizing the fundamental point and as being at least the beginning of what he means by Buddha Dharma. And when all things are thus, Then there's delusion. There's still delusion. That becomes clear.

[04:44]

But it also becomes clear there's enlightenment. And that's a different feeling than waiting for enlightenment. Or imagining someone else got it and you didn't. Or imagining it's all bull. Bull. Quatsch. Quatsch, yeah. Or to imagine that it's all quatsch. Yeah, it's quatsch, yeah. And there's practice and there's birth and death we talked about. And there's sentient beings. And there's Buddhas. And that sentence deserves a little bit, that can change your world. When all things are the Buddha Dharma, we'll know that we live in a world where there are both sentient beings and Buddhas.

[06:04]

Maybe you have to change your definition of what a Buddha is. But you anyway can't just kind of think that Buddhas are back in the past somewhere. So this sentence deserves as much attention as you're able to give it. And you don't really go on to the next sentence until you recognize, feel, yes, this is a real possibility. So, you know, when people said to me earlier, we have to have a text for the seminar, the practice week. I said to someone, well, let's have the first sentence of the Genjo Koan.

[07:15]

And someone said to me, well, how are we going to study that for 40 minutes? We could all sing it. We could sing it in German. As a round. You start here and then you start. And then you go on to... the next sentence, which says the same thing, really, as myriad things are without an abiding self. Now, that's exactly parallel to, and you should understand it as saying the same thing, As all things are Buddha Dharma.

[08:21]

So now he says myriad things. And he says they're all impermanent. They're without an abiding sense. Like yourself. So he's saying, okay, Buddha Dharma is when you really know things are without an abiding self. Yeah. Then you can't say there's Buddhas or... sentient beings, because from this point of view with no abiding self, At this point, from this point of view, when there's no abiding self, you can also say there's no Buddhas.

[09:30]

No sentient beings. So now you practice with no delusion, no realization, no Buddha, etc. Now you practice with no delusion, no Buddha, no birth and death. Well, this is a big shift already. What is it? Yeah, we think we're alive and we've been born. And we maybe are certain we're going to die. And maybe we're certain we're going to die. But here we've got no birth and death.

[10:31]

Suddenly we're in a timeless realm. Or a realm without comparison. Or we're in the realm of the absolute. We are in the realm of the Absolute. What does that mean? So you can look at this pillar as substantial. Or you can look at it as non-substantial. Whether you look at it as substantial or non-substantial, the pillar is still there.

[11:34]

But there's a different mind arises depending on which way you view it. Now, if your habit of mind, which is partly what the Eightfold Path is designed for us to notice... If your habit of mind is to notice it as substantial, then you're going to have a certain kind of world you live in. if you see that when you make a comment about the pillar being non-substantial, in a way both are accurate.

[12:50]

Both statements are accurate. You can call this substantial. And when Andreas and others took this wall out of here... They had to make sure these two pillars were substantial. And make sure this didn't fall down in the middle here. Because there used to be a wall here. No, we can call it substantial. And yet we also know this building is not going to be here forever. And we better fix all the electricity pretty soon. Because in such a wooden building, an electric fire is always a possibility. Yeah, so we can know this is, yeah, insubstantial.

[14:07]

It will change. Okay, so now I'm not calling it insubstantial in English, I'm calling it non-substantial. Yeah, now it makes some difference actually in English. When you say non-substantial, you're talking about it's fundamentally not substantial. Like you could say it's a lot of molecules all going in a variety of directions. Random directions. And luckily the molecules aren't all going in one direction. The pillar would leap over that one. So the randomness of the directions is the substantiality of the pillar.

[15:22]

Yeah, so really it's molecules and atoms and mostly space. So you can talk yourself into its non-substantiality too. But since both are more or less true in our usual world, It's more important to view them, it is both substantial and non-substantial.

[16:22]

But since we have a mental habit to view things as substantial, We counteract that habit with viewing it as non-substantial. So here your decision to view it as non-substantial So here, your decision to view it as non-substantial is a comment on the mind that arises through the view, not a comment on the pillar. So some people reading Buddhism, they get really involved in whether you're talking about the pillar being substantial.

[17:32]

We don't give a damn whether the pillar is substantial or not. In Zen, in Buddhism, we're always talking about our experience. We're not talking about the physical world. And almost everyone makes experience of trying to think of it as the physical world. Now, as I said the other day, though, the bias of the Western view and Western science is to study the physical world.

[18:49]

And Western... Science has been brilliantly, really brilliantly successful studying the physical world. And then we turn and say, oh, what kind of object then is a human, a sentient being? What kind of object is mind? What kind of object is consciousness? How can we duplicate it in a computer? But those questions arise from a bias to look at the physical world. But such questions arise from the misconception of looking at the physical world.

[20:02]

The misconception of... Okay, everyone can take what is right for them The misconception of Buddhism The bias, and it is a bias And it is a misconception It's not a misconception, it's nothing bad It's just an imbalance, a right or a wrong A misconception A prejudice A misconception, the tendency If we have it all, it's going in one direction You think so? The bias is to... on cloth is the angle. Cloth as a bias is sewn, the fabric goes this way, you cut it on the bias and you cut across the angle. So bias is an angle, a slant, a... I'm biased toward this so I don't see the other side.

[21:07]

Is one-sidedness okay? Okay. The bias of Buddhism and please see it as also a bias which to some extent blindsides you. is to study experience. And then look at the physical world and say, what kind of experience is that? So instead of looking at a stone and then saying, oh, what kind of stone is this?

[22:14]

Yeah, we look at this and say, oh, what kind of mind is the stone? Yeah, it's a different bias. Productive. Okay, so now what we're talking about then is not the pillar, but the attitude of mind you bring to the pillar. And you can only bring, the way our mind works, you can only bring one or the other or both. And since the way the mind works in both Asia and the West, is to have a bias towards seeing everything as substantial.

[23:20]

Much of Buddhism, the teaching, is an antidote to that bias. To shift to seeing the pillar as non-substantial. To shift to seeing the pillar as non-substantial. Okay. No, I'm supposed to stop right now. And I was so bad yesterday, maybe I should stop right now. But I want to read a lot of this to you, but I'll read one sentence. Samay, oh Samay. You got this in German and English now?

[24:32]

You translated it. To transcend the world directly. What the heck does that mean? What the heck does that mean? We're not interested in transcending the world. We're accepting the world. We're accepting everything as it is. Dogen's not a Zen master. Zen masters accept everything as it is. And he says, Samadhi, King Samadhi. Always King. Samadhi, King Samadhi. What do you mean to transcend the world directly? Then he says to manifest the magnificence of the Buddha ancestor's house.

[25:32]

Yeah, we have to talk to Manjushri's real estate agent. How do we have the magnificent of the Buddha ancestors' house? You should read it this way. Don't take it so seriously. What the hell? What the heck are they talking about? And then he says, this is sitting in meditation posture? Not my meditation. So anyway, I'm trying to show you how to read, Doug. Okay, so let's sit for a minute.

[26:46]

Let's see if we manifest the magnificence. How was your discussion today? Pretty good. Thank you very much for bringing your practice life into this week.

[29:06]

Thank you for translating. I decided what we've done at Haus der Stille sometimes in practice weeks to have Friday afternoon sort of off. So we'll have Taisho in the morning, but Friday afternoon you can take a walk. talk among yourselves, whatever you'd like. So tomorrow is Thursday. We'll have a schedule just like today. And Saturday we'll have a schedule like today. Sunday we'll have a longer morning. And the lay initiation ceremony for seven people?

[30:43]

Nine people? You're getting ordained too? Ten. On Sunday afternoon. And then Monday morning I unfortunately leave. But it's wonderful to be with you right now. Thank you for translating. You're welcome. O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? Katashi.

[31:44]

Neh-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah. Hi. Good morning again. And I'm sorry for the confusion this morning.

[32:59]

The misunderstanding of you. Some of you waited for Doak San for quite a while. If I'd known you were waiting, I would have rushed back. Yeah, but you got out of work anyway. But they got out of work. So maybe that was a benefit. And some of you may have gotten to deal with your expectations. And maybe some emotions, things like that. Yeah. So I said yesterday I'd talk about I guess I said, didn't I say, something like I would talk about impermanence.

[34:06]

Yeah, but the topic has to be impermanence, so maybe we should change it. Because if I now talk about impermanence, then I'm fulfilling your expectations. And so that's not teaching you anything about impermanence. Yeah, but I'm serious. The difficulty in speaking about impermanence or emptiness Die Schwierigkeit, die darin liegt, über Unbeständigkeit oder Leerheit zu sprechen, ist, dass wir eine Erwartung haben, etwas zu verstehen. Und das behindert das Verstehen von Unbeständigkeit. You know, the reason I keep, we keep the chanting in Japanese at the beginning of, like just now, is not because Japanese is some sacred language.

[35:36]

Right, right. I just chant it because you don't understand it. Yeah. Because it's better if you don't understand. For a while I was pressured, many years ago, pressured to let's have it in English and let's understand, like let's do the, let's not do the services in Latin anymore. But I actually found I couldn't give a lecture very well when we chanted in English. Yeah, there was no interruption of ordinary thinking mind.

[36:40]

And I really can't give a teisho or lecture to ordinary thinking mind. So for about four weeks, I remember I tried it in the early 70s. And it felt sterile. So I switched back to chanting in Japanese. And it surprised me that such a little difference made such a big difference. So what are we doing when we chant?

[37:56]

In this case, what does chanting in Japanese do? Well, it changes a little bit the directionality of our mind. Although many of you probably just think right through the Japanese. You chant it, but you're thinking right in the middle of it. Yes, still there's some difference. Now the trouble with speaking about emptiness, to speak about impermanence is to speak about emptiness. But it's a little easier to speak about impermanence. Because we have some place to start.

[38:57]

I can say the stick is impermanent. But we first can start with its assumed permanence. So we have a place to start. You can see that it's sort of permanent, but... You can also understand that, yeah, it's probably impermanent. But if I speak about emptiness, where do we start? Hmm. It's difficult because it goes against the directionality of words.

[40:09]

For example, if I say the word beginner. Beginner points toward, from the beginning, toward the end. Yeah, but if we want to... But we can also understand beginning to point to the beginning. Now there's a relationship between between continuity and impermanence. Our need for continuity is closely related to, or a form of, our need for permanence.

[41:39]

So what we're trying to do here, what I'm trying to suggest today, as a kind of territory of thinking or activity, Well, you can shift your attitude or shift your thinking toward emptiness. Yeah, a way of thinking where you can shift toward impermanence, away from permanence. We spoke about it last night, yesterday afternoon, when we talked about the pillar. And it's also a... parallel relationship between our need for substantial phenomena and our need for a substantial self.

[43:06]

So in the practice of impermanence, or breaking the habit of permanence, we have to counteract our need for a substantial, phenomenal world and counteract our need for a substantial self. One of the ways we substantiate self is to plan for the future. Now, we do need to plan for the future. I know that. The airlines require it. Yeah. The sooner you know your plans, the cheaper the ticket. So we do have to plan for the future.

[44:31]

But it's also the case that... our ego needs continuity. It's trying to preserve itself. So there's some difference between, you know, plans made with the airline and plans made with your ego. Yeah, so... Ego wants continuity. Wants to be assured of a particular kind of future where it can extend its power. Yeah, but we want to see that. It's not just that we want to stop that, but at least we want to see it. be wide enough for our confusion, for our delusion.

[45:45]

Because just as we need permanence to see impermanence, We may need ignorance or delusion to see enlightenment. Now, emptiness or shunyata is a wider idea than enlightenment. Because emptiness has to include ignorance and delusion. And emptiness is a... better principle for us to start with in practice than enlightenment.

[46:50]

Because if you're going to enter the door of impermanence, Unbeständigkeit ist der Vorhof... Vorhof. Four hoofs. Horses have four hoofs. So you can't depend on anything. Okay. So if you start out your practice wanting enlightenment, it's kind of understandable, and it's a kind of trick of Buddhism to get you to do that.

[48:21]

But really you're not practicing impermanence. You're trying to plan your Buddhist future. That's the egos at work. So when you're a beginner, there's almost no beginning, actually, when we start. And perhaps you wandered into this seminar. And you don't know much about Buddhism or Zen. And suddenly you're in the midst of what we're talking about here.

[49:31]

And this is your beginning, but I don't know, where did it begin? So the beginning has to be your own experience. Yeah, but... Our own experience as a beginning is something we bring together right now. Yeah. Yeah. Unsere eigene Erfahrung als Anfang ist etwas, das wir zusammenfügen, eben jetzt. So a beginner actually has no place to stand. They're just starting. Ein Anfänger hat keinen Ort, wo er stehen kann. Er fängt gerade an. So they're already practicing impermanence. Er praktiziert also schon Unbeständigkeit. Because they... They have no place to stand, really.

[50:33]

They're just beginning. But for the advanced, if there's such a thing as an advanced practitioner, as Sukhiroshi emphasized, the advanced practitioners should have beginner's mind. wie Suzuki Roshi das betont hat, der fortgeschrittene Übende sollte einen Anfängergeist haben. Es sollte immer anfangen, ohne irgendeinen Boden zu haben. So the beginner already has the wisdom of beginner's mind. Der Anfänger hat also schon die Weisheit des Anfängergeistes. But the beginner can't see the wisdom of it. Because they see beginning as a lack. But actually, I would like you beginners...

[51:34]

to recognize the fruitfulness of the situation you're in. And actually often because of that fruitfulness, the first few months of practice are often the most fruitful. People will come to me and they say, you know, I had this experience and that, and this happened, and now the last year, not much has happened at all. It's also that we have a learning curve that's flat a lot. And then it takes little jumps, we hope. But it's also that we lose beginner's mind. Yeah. Now, the idea of clarity, I want to start talking about clarity.

[53:36]

It's a kind of hard word in English to use, but it's what we got. Clarity in Buddhism is closely connected with arising. Now, let's speak about clear comprehension. So, because I'm trying to now speak about a field of impermanence, a realm of thinking behavior which acknowledges impermanence. A realm of thinking and feeling or activity.

[54:36]

So instead of exactly trying to get rid of the idea of permanence, We're trying to substitute in practice a way of articulating our experience. Substitute. We're trying to substitute for our habit of permanence. a way of articulating our activity, and our habit of meanness and our habit of phenomenal permanence, A shift or a shift or habit of impermanence.

[55:45]

Sorry. Mentioned earlier, I don't know when exactly, in the last days, the practice, idea, the wisdom of clear comprehension. Now, not speaking about the... I'll just speak about... There's a whole special term, the wisdom of clear comprehension, which arises from transforming the Mano-Vijñāna. So I'm not speaking specifically about that right now.

[56:55]

We should be clear about that. I bet you are clear about that. Okay, so we're just talking about a kind of I'm trying to come to an ordinary definition of clarity of comprehension. Here, clarity of comprehension would recognize things as impermanent. Okay, so you notice when you see something. Now let's say a bunch of things on a table. Or the people in front of you. Or any situation. So you know, what do you know when you see a situation? First of all, you know that it's momentary.

[57:56]

that it will change. Suzuki Roshi used to always say, just to do one thing at a time. But he also meant that as a way to begin to let things change. So first we see a situation It's momentary. It also can be changed or will change. The things on the table can be moved around. Next, the things on the table or whatever we're looking at, the situation, is momentary. interdependent.

[59:17]

Things change in relationship to each other. So you notice that things are momentary and change. And they're interdependent with each other and with everything. And they're impermanent in the sense that they'll dissolve or disappear. They dissolve or disappear eventually. So you know that when you look at any situation.

[60:17]

You have this wisdom input. Like knowing your own that you're certainly going to die. Okay, and then we also know that things are form and emptiness. Or absolute and relative. That somehow things are also absolutely independent in a way. And simultaneously not independent. So there's that kind of change too. and then we can see that everything can be affected by us we're a participant in this scene and more fundamentally what we're seeing is through the slant of mind

[61:33]

Slant, something is slanted. The example I will use is if you have a glass of water, if you see the microphone through it, it changes the angle. The slant of the hill is 30 degrees. So you're seeing these things on the table. Through your own mind, in your own mind. And there's a certain slant to that, like seeing them through a glass of water. So you're not exactly seeing them. When you see something through in the glass of water, you know that's not exactly how it is.

[62:48]

So when you see something through the slant of your mind, you know, I'm seeing it as my mind sees it. It's not exactly the way it is. So, when you see something, situation, person, Objects. Your seeing is informed, your seeing, knowing, noticing. You're noticing. Seeing is too eye-related. Your noticing is informed by that these things change. It's momentary. It's impermanent. It even has this form and emptiness relationship. And it's seen through the slant of mind.

[64:11]

Now, you could say, why do I have to add all that crap? Crap of emptiness. Scheiß, I didn't say scheiß. That is a much nicer word. Okay, anyway, he toughens up my, you know, his lectures are much tougher than theirs. But we're already bringing assumed permanence to the situation. Our ordinary seeing is loaded with the baggage of implicit permanence.

[65:12]

And you've done it for so long you don't notice it. So wisdom is to have an antidote to counteract it for a while. Now this... Stuff on the table that we're talking about. I said appearance and clarity are closely related. Because these things on the table just appear. So they're there and you notice them. So when you bring wisdom into the perceptual process the noticing process

[66:20]

The process of noticing that they're independent and momentary, etc., is really a process of noticing their appearance in your mind. So if I just notice what appears, that is also in Buddhism what clarity means. And so the path includes, as I said, is wide enough to include delusion. So say that I can't see very well. And I take my glasses off. And all of you are in a fog. That's clarity in Buddhism. Because it's just what appears.

[67:37]

And you work with that appearance. Who really is that? So if you've read Samay-o-Samay and you weren't in Samadhi when you read it and it's completely confusing That confusion is clarity. Because what's arisen is confusion. And if you just recognize that confusion That's clarity. Then you work with the confusion instead of trying to get rid of the confusion. Now, what I'm trying to suggest here also is that When we begin to practice impermanence, it begins to challenge our familiar boundaries of things.

[68:54]

How we locate our meanness. How we locate, deal with our need for continuity. How we locate? How we locate or deal with, make use of, our need for continuity. Wie wir... Wie wir... Even beginning becomes a wisdom. Or confusion becomes clarity. If you work with confusion as it appears. Yes.

[70:28]

I think that's enough as an entry into the confusion of impermanence. I like the word Elim. Elim? Yeah, spelled Y-L-E-M. You don't know the word, probably. It's the word physicists give to the form of matter that exists just after the Big Bang. before it separates into the chemical elements. It's just a word someone made up. But it's an interesting idea that things appear and you catch them just before they form into chemical elements.

[71:31]

You catch them just before they form into names, habits, associations. names, associations, and so forth. Yeah, so, we could, that's also, something like that is also seeing into impermanence. You're seeing its impermanence in its arising as well as knowing its impermanence when it ends. Thank you very much.

[73:06]

Om Namo Jinse Gandhan Om Manmuryo Se Gandhaku Uttaro Mojo Se Ganjo The four precepts are countless, I believe them Liebe Gehirn, Herr Schöpflich, ich gelobe Sie aufzugeben. Die Darmaturge sind unermesslich, ich gelobe Sie zu den Schreiten. Der Weg des Buddha ist unübertrefflich, ich gelobe Ihnen zu verhelfen. I don't know.

[74:39]

You know what? Do you see this? It's a mandala. And this is also part of the practice of impermanence. It represents that at each moment But I open this. I form a mandala. It's made so I can form different mandalas of different proportions. It's like the things on the table. When they just appear, ah, a mandala was written. interrelationships has appeared. So this bowing cloth is meant to protect the Buddhist robe from touching the ground.

[75:46]

Which is from the idea of how to take care of Buddha's robe. But the sago, the bowing cloth, also represents how each situation appears. Each situation is a kind of mandala. It appears and is somewhat varied. And after it appears you fold it up. And you put it on your arm under Buddha's robe. And you are ready for the next appearance.

[76:56]

I hope you're all doing okay. And if there are some comments on the form of this practice week, I'd like to hear them, not necessarily now, but sometime. And if you want to comment on the form of this practice week, then I would like to hear it, not necessarily now, but at some point. Yeah, I mean, it's something I... As a dharmasanga, we kind of felt our way into... And conceptually, it sort of overlaps Sashin and practice period. Yeah, so... In practice period we have, you know, of course, more sitting than regular days.

[80:14]

Yet it's not as intense as a sashim. All right. Yeah. And... It's a time when it's kind of like there's a gathering together. But it's non-social. So... Yeah, and that's hard for some people in the beginning, people when they first go to practice period. It's like there's not much talking and nobody seems to give you any praise. And if anybody says anything to you, it's usually because you hit the bell wrong.

[81:31]

And so it can feel quite cold. But what we're hoping happens is some kind of sense of a mutual presence arises. A kind of intimacy that arises through not being social. Yet we have, every five days, we have a day where a certain amount of social feeling and conversation is possible. So in this practice week, which isn't even quite a week, we're trying to

[82:37]

have some mixture of zazen and seminar. And some social time, you know, like tomorrow afternoon, perhaps. And at the same time, mostly we're just together without much... talking or usual kind of social relationship. Yeah, so I don't know, it's kind of like a little miniature little miniature practice period. Yes, anyway, various ways to try to make lay practice, you know, really have some power for us. Now today I really want to listen to you.

[84:04]

Yesterday I only listened to you during the bell. I only listened to you during when I hit the bell. Actually I hope I'm listening to your non-social bodies. But I want to listen in a more conventional sense today. But I also want to say a couple of small, hopefully not very long things. First this whole question of, am I presenting practice in stages? First of all? Am I presenting practice in stages? And a couple of people have mentioned it to me in various ways.

[85:17]

And by stages I don't mean steps. It's hard to say, distinguish. Maybe I can learn German if I listen carefully. Because basically what we're talking about in Zazen practice is non-corrected mind. A mind that because it's uncorrected or non-corrected, it draws...

[86:22]

into, generates and draws into a kind of integration the true nature of mind. By not correcting. Yeah, maybe it sounds easy. It's just not correct. You know, it's great. But it might be the most difficult kind of meditation. Because you've got to let the... You've got to be able to notice what you don't usually notice. And something like that is the difficulty in kind of this practice of breaking the habit of permanence. Intellectually, what I'm talking about is not difficult.

[87:44]

This isn't higher mathematics. It's really because our habit of permanence is so deep. I mean, I told you this story very often, but... Piaget was supposedly at some place in Oregon once. Piaget more or less created child psychology, I guess you could say. They were observing a little blind kid. And he was playing with toys in the living room of this house. And at one point they... stopped this little kid and took him, I guess it was a boy, up to bed.

[89:15]

And he was blind, this little boy was blind. The boy was blind. And the next morning they brought the kid down, put him on the floor. And he beelined it. Beelined it across the floor to the toy he'd left the night before. And Piaget said, Eureka, Eureka, object permanence is confirmed. And Piaget said, Eureka, Eureka, that confirms object permanence. Because the kid didn't see the toy, the kid assumed that it will be where I left it.

[90:23]

And... Yeah, we depend on that. From infancy. That our mother will be there. That the door of Johanneshof is still there in the front. It would be pretty confusing if you found the front door over there one day and over there another day. You know, I live up under the roof here. So I have windows, little windows on several sides. And I look out one window and it's a gloomy, dark day with this kind of sleet snow.

[91:16]

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