Well, I checked with Yudita and she assured me, yes, this is the last day of the session. As director and Jisha, she should know. So I should say something to her. Wrap it up. Okay. So let me start with what I'm holding, this staff which you've heard me speak about so often. The staff without a flower. Mm-hmm. But obviously it's not exactly without a flower. Because all its elements imply a flower. And Shakyamuni, when he... lifted up a flower, Mahakashyapa supposedly was enlightened.

[01:14]

So the mythopoetic beginning of Zen is not from any sutra or teaching of the Buddha. But from the Buddha holding up a flower. And Maha Kashyapa was the person who said, whoa. And Yeah. So sometimes our lineage is called, or the Buddha mind is called, the mind of the flower. And Zayami, Zayami was the a person who more or less created NO, N-O-H, or NO Theater in Japan.

[02:21]

And he talks about the moment that comes together and all the elements flower. And the word for flower in Japanese is hana, H-A-N-A. Yeah, and he's always talking about the height of the... height of the art of theater is Hana. And Hana is also the result of training. As we have talked about. And a stick like this also has not only the

[03:34]

the flower that's not there in it. It's also got the shape of the spine in it and the implied chakras. And of course it's also meant, as you know, to be held and you hold it at this lotus embryo. So what is this flower? Why is the flower such a powerful image? And Zayami quotes the sixth patriarch, Zen patriarch, saying, the mind ground contains seeds.

[04:40]

The weight or bloom through the Dharma. Dharma rain or Buddha's rain, he said. Although what Ziyami says in the Sixth Patriarch is slightly different, they're still very, very similar. Yeah, so I'm again trying to catch this practice to complete that which appears. Or the feeling or the fact of when when things advance and cultivate the self.

[05:48]

This is one of the most succinct statements in Buddhism. Succinct? Very precisely exact. And inclusive. To cultivate and authenticate myriad things by conveying the self to them. What could be a more accurate and prescriptive description of our usual mind. Yeah, and the implied teaching here is that It's not so much that you need to get rid of the self or change the self.

[06:58]

But notice how the self changes. performs in our activity, how the self actualizes, cultivates, and authenticates our activity. It's not just that you have a habit of noticing things in relationship to your personal history and self. It's not just a benign noticing. conveying the self to things, cultivates the world in terms of the self, authenticates yourself and the world in terms of yourself.

[07:59]

And such a self is, you know, boy, we're really stuck in it as a delicious, usually nice habit. Such a self. drinks up praise. Drinks up... Drinks up praise. Drinks up praise. Yeah. Not praise. Yeah, so mostly we get... Mostly we're affirmed in our life. We try to just create a life in which we're... affirmed through others. But we put ourselves in a very precarious situation in the midst of the vicissitudes of life. And it's really not very satisfying, usually, in the long run.

[09:26]

It's the self as hungry ghost. You know what a hungry ghost is? Hungry ghost is a ghost or you or me, which has a throat so small, needle-like, that you can't swallow anything. But you're constantly hungry. And nothing satisfies you. Yeah. So Dogen says, hey, you don't want to be hungry.

[10:27]

He goes to you. Think about it. Okay. So he suggests... Should we go on tour together? Or maybe we are on tour together. Okay. Um... He says, change, don't worry so much about the self, just change how you are in the midst of each situation. So when myriad things... cultivate the self. Come forward and cultivate the self. He says, this is the condition of enlightenment. And how do we make this shift? Yeah, this... One, this habit of conveying the self to things, and the other, letting things come to us.

[11:45]

What we have to do is, first of all, cultivate the mind of impermanence. No, I don't mean just that you should know everything's impermanent. That's, you know, nice, it's obvious. Yeah, it's sort of a fact we keep out there somewhere and don't really try not to notice too much. So Stonehouse, for instance, says... What I ask you all to do is the first rule of practice is never put your feet on permanent ground.

[12:47]

It's great. You know, I kind of like Buddhism. Here's this guy Stonehouse about the age of this Buddha. Who's, you know, if you read him and read his poems and teishos, he's rooted in a deep philosophical understanding of things. But he always presents his understanding, his philosophy, his teaching, That's something you can do. And very exact. Very exact. Why not follow Stonehouse's advice? Why don't you try it? I know, I've often said now and then to the Sangha,

[14:10]

The practice I developed of always feeling that when I stepped forward, the ground might not be there. You need some way to inculcate. Inculcate is to imprint through repetition. We need some way to inculcate the mind of impermanence. And you can't really think your way to it. Yeah. You've got to do your way to it. If you do your way to it, it changes your thinking. It's like the bridge between two different ways of thinking is doing.

[15:15]

So I got, you know, first it was kind of a... Yeah, I had to remind myself to step forward as if the ground might not be there. And then it's easy to bring into your kin hin. And you can do, you know, start doing it other times. But I, you know, in a way it surprised me because after a while it just was the way I walked. And I suppose there's something to, you know, the way maybe a hunter is walking in the woods. Or a soldier in a dangerous situation. I don't mean we have to become soldiers or hunters. But when I talk to hunters... I know some people who hunt.

[16:37]

I can't imagine it, but anyway, they do it. And there's a thrill to it. Yeah, some kind of... They express it, the few I've talked to, some kind of... very alert, ecstatic even mind. To be in this situation of alertness where things count, life and death. When I hear them, I think they like the mind that's generated by hunting more than the hunting. So maybe we Buddhists are hunters who don't hunt.

[17:44]

We're hunters of the flowering moment. Tiptoe up on it. Or to give you a feeling of it, I try to imagine being parachuted into a situation. You're rapidly coming down toward the ground. You've got to figure out where to land. Knowing you're down there, you have to see if you can stand up and see what's going on around you. So maybe you should practice parachuting into each moment. Just now we've all parachuted right here. Then you look around and try to feel what's going on. So we practice we say Buddhism is to see things as they are.

[19:02]

To know things as they are. What is it to see things as they are? What mind sees things as they are? And how are so-called things Now we know by this time that all objects are mind objects. That's something you've got to also inculcate. And feel mind on every object. On every percept. There's presence of mind and there's the object. That's just, you know, the basic Dharma habit that we need to develop.

[20:06]

But this is also training. It doesn't come naturally. Because consciousness is the mind of basic survival. So that's what we're brought up in, that's what our parents used to train us and so forth. Yeah, but the mind of fundamental survival is awareness. Practice mindfulness. Maybe we're really practicing awareness, awarefulness. Awarefulness. That sounds good. And aware also has in it, and it's useful, wary. To be wary. Okay. No, it's easy when you look at a flower to see that it's momentary, transitory.

[21:26]

There's usually at least one or two petals already on the way out. So such a thing as a flower, a weed, you know, etc., you can really notice that everything's impermanent. But then you say, oh, well, stones aren't so impermanent. And it's true they don't change too much while you're watching them. But the mind that's watching them changes. Your ability to have attention on the stone changes. So as a mind object, stones change. I always loved it, Sukhiroshi said, the stone at the top of a mountain is different from the stone at the base of a mountain.

[22:39]

I used to think to myself, no, you take the two stones and put them together and they're the same darn thing. But he would have said, you know, climb up there and see. Then put it in your orioke bowl. Yeah. We haven't served stones for lunch yet. Oh, almost. But I loved it that there wasn't enough of the green corn. Is that what you call it? So I didn't take much, and it's lucky I didn't take much. It really tasted good, but I would have been still chewing. If I'd had a full bowl.

[23:48]

So it was a very subtle way to get people to take small servings. I'd like to actually see if I can buy the stuff in America. Does anybody know the English name for this? I've only seen it in Germany. I'll find out. We can look at it. Smoked green spelt. Smoked green spelt. I can just see myself going into the grocery store and saying, can I have some smoked green spelt, please? Might work. What are you smoking? Give it up. Going to New Age Grocery. You know, at Crestone, our mountain looks real permanent.

[24:49]

Not when you walk up through the... There's huge stones that once were at the top, somewhere near the top. In any case, when you feel, when you get in the habit of mind objects, you're also... can't avoid noticing that everything is impermanent. Okay, so... It's the mind of impermanence which can notice impermanence.

[25:56]

Okay, now how do things actually exist? So I said yesterday things are a pulse and not a stream. Mm-hmm. And everything is momentary. And what is the nature of that momentary? Okay, one. aspect is that things appear very precise. For some reason, to the mind of impermanence, a mind that expects impermanence, for some reason, the world seems very precise. clear clearer and more precise than you usually feel or maybe like

[27:12]

The mountains look after the rain stops. That feeling you start having all the time, even on a misty day. So things feel precise, clear, finely textured. And things feel like they're there. everything feels in place. Everything feels exactly where it is. And there's a kind of solidity to it. So one side of the mind of impermanence As if, like with a camera, you brought things into focus.

[28:39]

There's the first moment of things appearing, and they come into a focus that's really extremely precise and clear. And there's a very strong there-ness to it, almost solidity, a kind of solidity. So that's one aspect. The other aspect of things as they are. The other aspect of seeing things as they are is evanescence. Things appear momentarily, about to disappear, evanescent. You feel things are held together by your attention.

[29:41]

So there's a feeling of solidity and preciseness and a feeling at the same time of evanescence, momentariness. So in my mind I sort of think of this as two and two. The first two are this preciseness and solidity and the second one being Evanescence, momentariness. And the second two are the potential, or I use the word potentia, of each moment. A friend of mine, a physicist named Nick Herbert, says that of course once something appears, it's real.

[31:06]

kind of real, factual. But he says the fuller reality, the more powerful reality is things, married things, just before they appear. Because at that moment there's many possibilities. So it's a kind of open field of potential. That you are in Inevitably actualizing or actualizing with awareness and intelligence, wisdom.

[32:26]

And then there's the second of the second two is the unfolding. Following the unfolding. So how do things actually exist? First, the experience of how things actually exist. It's a very strong preciseness, clarity, there-ness, here-ness. And a simultaneous evanescence or momentariness. And also, this field of potential, which you actualize or unfold or complete.

[33:33]

Now, what mind knows things this way? It's the mind of impermanence. The mind which has the habit of impermanence, is the only mind which can see things as they are. The only mind which becomes subtle and open enough to feel the potential flowering of each moment. Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay. I won't stop yet, so maybe you should keep your legs up.

[34:43]

Maybe I'll stop in a moment. Somehow I wanted to say about this sense of a kata or of a posture in each situation. One of the instructions given to Zen monks, or the custom custom, yeah custom, is to, when you're sweeping, is to line up, is when you start, before you sweep, you hold the broom in line with your backbone. Or sometimes you hold the broom and you run your finger down your front like this, and then you start to sweep. Now the purpose is not to just give you a nice upright posture when you're sweeping.

[35:49]

but to create a kata or a yogic posture in the middle of an activity like sweeping. And if you try that a few times, you know, with your finger or holding the broom, and then after that, of course we use a different kind, we use rakes, it's much easier, but But if you try it a few times, then you can feel it when you sweep. And then your body, and I think you'll find it so, your body somehow... is engaged in another way. Yeah, maybe you feel in the sweeping of the leaves that things advance and cultivate the self. In other words, anyway, the teaching is something like find that posture which is most important.

[37:21]

in tune or resonant with the situation. Yeah, and it's another way to try to feel this is in the sense that breath... To rest the breath on the brain, no. Rest the breath on the body. Well, give it a break. And you get a breath body. And it's the breath body on the exhale which is most likely to feel the still point. Now, I don't mean you yourself are still by saying still point. I mean, like an example I've used, if you see a tree and it's moving in the wind, the leaves are blowing, etc. In watching the leaves move, we actually do feel, and you can notice that we're feeling the stillness of the tree from which the leaves are moving and going and coming.

[38:57]

So to catch the still point in each situation, it's, I think, useful to use the exhale. Yes, something like that. Okay, now I just want to finish maybe by saying I went to this... In addition to Düsseldorf, Neuss has this new museum of... Excuse me? Ando? Tadao Ando. Tadao Ando. Kind of a boring Japanese architect who's great.

[39:58]

I mean, his houses are really, I think, kind of dreadful. But his public buildings are great. Yeah, and they have a really interesting Japanese collection. They really have an interesting Japanese collection. And it's part of something called, I think, the Langren Foundation, something like that. A 15-minute walk away or so has an older museum of a bunch of buildings here and there, clustered sculpture-like in a big garden. And in both of the two museums, And in both of these two museums, they have quite a lot of good Asian, Japanese, Chinese, etc. art.

[40:58]

And in the older museum, they have some great chunks of rock made into Buddhas and things like that. And they put the Buddhas off and up rather close to the walls. But the older museum doesn't have any guards. It's so big they don't have guards. But every room has little cameras. So I would want to go around behind the Buddhas always. So I'd go I go around and try to squeeze between the wall and the wood. And usually there's something on the back. Right at the base of the spine. There'll be a drawing of a flower. Or a little tree. And they had two great, I mean one great big scroll of Hanshan and Jitoku.

[42:00]

And Hanshan is holding a scroll of stone. It's all stone. Yeah, it's a kind of scroll. And Jitoku is all over him, his arms around him. And they have the weirdest fingernails. They look like they just came out of a swamp or something. Yeah, because their fingernails are split like a deer hoof. So their fingernails look like they're not too far removed from the animal. And they both have top knots. And if you look at the top knot, it's just hair wound around, but right in the middle of it, if you kind of set your eyes back a minute, is the yin and yang.

[43:19]

So it's kind of Buddhist top knot yin and yang in this animal nature. And like in the stone statues, The implication of evolution in the present. I would say, if through the mind of impermanence, You can enter into situations as they actually exist. Which is somehow being more physical and animal and at the same time more physical. Buddha-like.

[44:21]

So may you all enjoy your animal and Buddha nature. Thank you very much.

[44:26]

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