I haven't quite adjusted myself to your time zone yet. Maybe it's because I'm a little slower than usual. Maybe it's because I went to California from Colorado for... almost a week before I came here. That's a small adjustment, but it makes a longer adjustment in coming to here. But if I'm not in your time zone yet, I hope I'm in some other zone with you. And what we're trying to do here in these practice weeks is to find a way to bring our bring our practice with more accuracy let me say it that way into our life and to share with each other have an opportunity to share with each other the

[01:41]

craft and experience of practice. We have two biases in the West that are very deep. One is individualism. Somehow we're going to do it all ourself. And the other is God's going to help. So we have some sense of grace, or it's going to be easier. Something's just going to, I don't know, something like that. But the Chinese and Buddhist vision is much more, God isn't going to help, but we need help from each other. But maybe we have the best of all possible worlds. We have each other and God may help. Who knows?

[02:46]

Maybe God helps in the West but not in Asia. And I know some of you are quite interested in rebirth and reincarnation and stuff. So let me say just a moment or two more about it. Which is, if we accept that in some way there's something mysterious about how we exist, and that in ordinary and exceptional states of mind, we can Sense that mind is more than just something encased in our brain and body.

[04:01]

Somehow we're connected in ways that we can't explain, but we sometimes experience. So this knowing and experience is one of the bases for trying to make sense of the possibility of rebirth. And as I said, in Buddhism no... Entity is reincarnated, but your consciousness or aspects of your consciousness can be reborn. That's the view anyway. In Buddhism, it is not so that a form is reincarnated, but that parts of consciousness are passed on.

[05:08]

But this ends up to having some funny ways to try to make sense of it. Like in China they have tried to combine it with ancestor worship. They want to know where their grandmother is reborn, not to some stranger. And they have some ideas that when you put up the tablet, the memorial stone or tablet, Part of the deceased person remains hanging around the tablet. Part of it goes to heaven. And what part gets reincarnated?

[06:21]

I don't know. I haven't figured that one out yet. So if you're ever in China and Japan too, people are always going to the tablet and they bring flowers and incense and food because you have to feed the part that hangs around the tablet. And in China and also in Japan people go back and forth to the tombstone And if you don't feed that part, then the part up in heaven may punish you. But if you feed this part, that part will protect you and help you. It might be true. I don't know. I don't have any experience of it. But it's also very difficult to explain in any way we can think of. And although millions of people in China believe this, or billions,

[07:33]

In the West, in our scientific, we want to have a mechanism. How does it work? And even in Tibetan Buddhism, the deceased spirit is reborn every seven days. It goes through a kind of mini-rebirth every seven days, and after seven, seven days, if it doesn't find someone to join, The deceased spirit goes into a spirit world. And hangs around there until, I don't know, when, you know. When you start thinking about it in detail, it's all very difficult to imagine how it works.

[09:06]

And Buddhist rebirth also assumes a double fertilization. A man and woman make the baby. Embryo. I guess in English, there's an embryo for eight weeks and then a fetus after eight weeks. But anyway, there's an embryo there, and then it needs the surviving consciousness of a deceased person to do the second fertilization. So it doesn't occur at the moment of the biological fertilization, but occurs at some period later. I just put this much out for you to think about.

[10:26]

If you're interested in the reincarnate, rebirth part of Buddhism. I spoke also, yesterday I mentioned often adept practice. And I'd like to speak, I think this afternoon with you, about the flow between everyday practice and adept practice. And again, as I suggested, the fundamentals of Zen practice.

[11:30]

But this morning I'd like to come to the second word in our title, Realization. Realization. Causation and realization. So, I like the word realization in general better than enlightenment. Because for us, at least in English, I don't know what words, what are the two words in German? Okay. And is the first word used the same way as realization is in English pretty much? I think so. Okay. By experiential content I mean we say, I realized I had to move out of my apartment.

[12:44]

At least in English we don't say, I enlightened myself out of my apartment. Or we say, I realized what so-and-so meant. We have another word, realizing, and in this sense, understand. I realized what this and this person said, would in German mean, I understood what this person said. That's different than saying, I understood what somebody meant? It's a little different. Okay. So I realized the answer to the math problem. The math problem?

[13:46]

Math. Mathematics. Ich realisierte die Antwort für ein mathematisches Problem. And enlightenment also has this 18th century humanitarian philosophical meaning of the emphasis on reason as to free ourselves from superstitions and irrational traditions. to use reason to free ourselves from superstitions, and irrational traditions. But then your own Frankfurt School of Adorno and Marcuse and others opposed this idea of reason.

[14:48]

I said Markusa, but Habermas, yes, is true. We work together. I remember one. So the word enlightenment has that weight, at least in English, too. Anyway, let us speak about enlightenment or realization. But... I think enlightenment is very discouraging also for those of us who practice in a tradition which assumes enlightenment as a possible goal. We start practicing Zen and it seems unattainable. You're waiting for a bus that never seems to come.

[16:11]

Well, this is partly a misunderstanding of enlightenment. But the idea of enlightenment, and particularly sudden enlightenment, is peculiarly or uniquely Chinese. All the schools of Buddhism that emphasize enlightenment, particularly sudden enlightenment, are rooted in Chinese culture. And it may as an approach to practice work better in a Chinese culture than perhaps in a Western culture or Tibetan culture. And here I'm trying to put this in a cultural framework.

[17:17]

Not some absolute religious framework. So you can feel free to say, okay, that's what Zen teaches. This may be partly cultural. What is it for me as a Westerner? But the dynamic for it, the dynamic of asking yourself, what is it for me as a westerner, is the same dynamic of acceptance that's essential to Chinese way of looking at things. Because part of this Buddhist culture, and particularly Chinese Buddhist culture, is that you yourself are the necessary sufficient cause of enlightenment.

[18:39]

This is Dogen's question. If we're already enlightened, Why do I need to practice? And this is a good example again of taking one practice or even one question. Dogen really, this question really settled in him from the time of his mother's death. watching the twin stream of incense floating up from incense burner next to her body. If you look at incense, sometimes it's a single stick, but sometimes it has two strands of smoke coming off.

[19:50]

You have this basic contemplation here, one and yet two. Enlightened, but we have to practice. If I'm already the sufficient cause and condition for enlightenment, what do I have to do to... to ripen those conditions? And this question Dogen carried from the time of his mother's death all the way through his pilgrimage to China and back into Japan. And again, what I'm emphasizing is somehow these basic questions have to get inside you. Dogen didn't just do zazen.

[20:50]

He did zazen always with this question, why am I doing zazen? Why is it necessary to do zazen? And this sense of us that you yourself are sufficient cause. You have to ask yourself, do you believe this? Do you really believe that you yourself are sufficient? Everything you need is here. Glaubt ihr das wirklich, dass ihr der hinreichende Grund seid? Alles, was ihr braucht, ist hier. Ihr seid schon all das, was ihr braucht. If you don't believe that, then you depend on something external. And what external can you depend on? So if everything, if we live in some kind of mystery, can't fully explain, still we have to look at

[22:35]

We have to have somewhere to start. So Buddhism says start with noticing that everything has a cause. If I clap my hands, there's I guess the sound, isn't it? Wouldn't you call that a noise? So we can say the cause is I clapped my hands. But the cause is also I did it. I mean, my mind did something. I did it. My mind did it. And my hands did it. Yeah, but your ears did it too. And the air did it. If there was no air, there would be no sound. And the sound itself did it. Because if the sound itself didn't do itself, there would be no sound.

[24:05]

The sound has to have some way to cohere and make a shape that you hear. So causation is not simple. I mean, just that is not simple. It requires me and my hands and you and air and the possibility of sound itself. So what is it to say that you are sufficient cause for realization. This is something you have to look into deeply, thoroughly. And the phrase I often give you sums this looking up. sums up this looking deeply.

[25:22]

Just now is enough. Yeah. Is it? Well, not if you're hungry. But at the same time, it has to be enough because that's all you have. So when you work with a phrase, just now is enough, it's not an absolute truth. It represents the absolute. To recognize that just now is enough is what we mean by the absolute. But just now, the truth of just now is enough is inseparable from the truth that just now is also not enough. ist untrennbar auch von der Wahrheit, dass jetzt ist alles nicht genug.

[26:39]

You couldn't live in a world where just now is enough. You couldn't live in a world where just now is enough. Even a dragon needs some food. A dragon also represents the Absolute. So just now is enough as a dynamic with Just now is not enough. Okay, so just this one phrase could be a practice for you. Like Dogen's, why do we practice if we're already enlightened? Dieser eine Satz könnte ebenso eine Praxis für euch sein wie der Satz von Dogen

[27:58]

Just this one phrase, just now is enough. Or maybe you come up with your own phrase. I made that phrase up, just now is enough. It's not from some Buddhist text. I came up with this phrase as a way of trying to Bring myself into the Absolute. And when did I say to myself, just now is enough? I said it when I felt everything wasn't enough. When I felt particularly needy or unstable. Or distracted. I cut off that. or at least made an antidote to that by saying, just now is enough.

[29:22]

And this is the basic pulse, you know, that's fundamental to practice of wisdom and compassion. I mean, it's the fruition is wisdom and compassion. But the fruit is rooted in distraction. And distraction and compassion are another pulse. So I'm distracted, so I say, just now is enough. Yeah, and I don't like being distracted. I mean, for years I wouldn't have a radio in my car, for instance.

[30:24]

Because I didn't want to have the distraction of being able to satisfied distraction with turning on the car radio. So I didn't get a car radio for many years in a car until I could quite easily do without it. To do without the car radio. Until I could do without the car radio, I didn't have a car radio in the car. I'm sorry, sometimes I speak in too colloquial a way. It's hard to understand. My fault, not yours. So I came up with this phrase, just now is enough.

[31:36]

And when I could say it, I felt better. I felt centered. No, it's not different. It's another way of doing the same thing when you bring your attention to your breath. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Each of these phrases does something slightly different. Bringing your attention to your breath is the same dynamic. Or just now is enough is the same dynamic. But each one is a rather different practice with somewhat different fruits. And likewise when I also created for myself these phrases no place to go and nothing to do.

[32:44]

When did I say them? When I had to go somewhere. So everywhere I was going places, I was saying, no place to go. Within going, I was trying to find a stopped place. I was quite busy in those days. I had a full-time job and a full-time graduate student and a new family. And also trying to spend as much time with Sukhirashi as I could. I could survive by saying, okay, no place to go.

[33:49]

And nothing to do. So I used the very conditions that I had, which I had to continue. as the way to practice. And I created hundreds of phrases. Some have stuck. The ones that stuck, I share with you. Just now arriving. Arrived. Already connected. Just now is enough. These are phrases that came out of my attempt to practice. They don't come out of some book. So we can share these phrases. Because you're practicing in similar situations to what I did. and am doing.

[34:57]

But you can also come up with your own phrases. So here we have a dynamic of acceptance. If you are sufficient cause, if you and the immediate situation are sufficient cause, you have to accept the immediate situation. If there's going to be enlightenment, we have a dynamic of enlightenment, a pedagogy of enlightenment, a way of creating conditions that make enlightenment more likely. Because enlightenment is only your own possibility.

[36:02]

So you have to accept your things as they are. Accept yourself as you are. So we have this dynamic of acceptance. And enlightenment practice is not going to work Zen practice is not going to work unless you come into this dynamic of constant acceptance. We know we may not be the way we want to be, or the way we ought to be. But then we have to accept that we know we are not what we want to be. In this kind of practice, there is no way to get away from the dynamic of acceptance. I usually illustrate this by saying that when you sit satsang, you have to accept your posture, whatever your posture is.

[37:45]

Whatever your state of mind is. But you're informed by an ideal posture. And you can't separate being informed by an ideal posture and accepting your posture as it is. And the more you enter into this dynamic of a posture you accept and an ideal posture you also accept or are informed by. So we can look at this acceptance as one side.

[39:23]

And the other side is To complete perhaps. Or to transform. Or to disclose. Uncover. Or to be open. Because acceptance is inseparable from also the potentialities of change. Do you have a watch? Yes. I didn't bring my watch. So I'm supposed to stop when? In five minutes? Something like that. Okay. That's the schedule. Thank you very much.

[40:25]

You're welcome. Okay, so I would really like to stay with this dynamic of acceptance and completion. And this is what Dogen emphasizes in this phrase, genjo koan. Complete what appears. What appears? What appears? What do you call this? I don't know what to call it. What appears is what appears. You appear. I don't have any thinking. Something else should appear, no? What appears is what I see, feel, etc. My emphasis isn't, oh, something better should appear.

[41:27]

The dynamic is what appears. And that is, to what appears means to accept just what appears. And you just get in the habit of not comparing this to some better situation. This is fine. What do I need more than this? It's a kind of training. It says non-attachment, attachment. So what appears... I don't compare it, but I complete it. What does it mean to complete it? You can have to find this out for yourself.

[42:39]

It's a craft. You can try various other words. To accept and stabilize. As I often point out, if you drink tea, and you have a cup, and you pick it up, if you hold it here, there's some stability. Your chakra, through your hair and your chakra. But here there's another kind of stability. I can find a kind of stability in this stick, this teaching staff. What Suzuki Roshi always said was originally a back scratcher. Yes, sir. So it can reach anywhere.

[43:46]

So it's a teaching step. So I can have a sense of this appears in my hands and I have a feeling of completing. Or stabilizing. Now the Sando Kai is this teaching of Shido and the title Sando Kai. And there's this new book out of Sukershi's lectures about the Sandokai. And he points out that San means three. In Japanese, Ichi, Ni, San, Shi, etc. San is three. But three also means many. Because there's me and there's the world.

[45:03]

That's two. Or there's me and another person. That's two. So that's the kind of relationship we understand. The back and forth of that. And when you add a third, you already have many. So So san means many. And do means sameness. Or oneness, but sameness is better. Although there's many, there's some sameness. There's some underlying sameness. Everything appears in mind. You're in the clear vessel of mind. And kai means handshake. Or friendliness.

[46:10]

So it means the friendliness of one and men. And then the Sandokai begins, the Dharma is the sage of India communicated the Dharma intimately.

[46:29]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_73.2