to share or have me speak about or bring up? Roshi, you talked about democracy yesterday and about the fact that democracy needs the support of everybody and that there is a system of at the same time of yeah like controlling people And I agree, but I think that through language and what you said this morning, that through activity, outside activity and attraction,

[01:05]

we're kept in a situation where we should not know on a deeper level something that is hidden, it seems to me. And I'm not saying that there is a conspiracy or a group that knows what's going on. It's like a social not knowing that we're producing or collectively trying to hide something. and their connection towards freedom and I would like you to maybe say something about it. social control over language and also about the fact that external things are designed very attractively and that we are always into external things.

[02:10]

And my feeling is that we collectively as a large group are trying to about something that should not be seen. I am not saying that there is a group of conservatives who want to destroy Islam. It seems to me to be something social that we hold on to each other. And what is the relationship to this title of the seminar? And in addition to that, my feeling is that the Dharma Sangha and the practice we are doing here within the Dharma Sangha is a kind of new territory where we try to hide less. And it seems to me as if it's like a free zone or something like that in that direction.

[03:15]

Yeah. Well, I think there's some danger in congratulating ourselves. Though I'd like to do it. Someone else do it occasionally. though I like to do it or have someone else do it occasionally. Certainly the idea of Sangha is to create an optimal community within the larger community. It's assumed in the past that society is always governed by greed, hate and delusion So there was never the idea that society itself could progress. Now we see that society can progress.

[04:46]

But we tend to fall into the idea that this is the best of all possible societies. It's better than the past and it's as good as it gets. Maybe that's the case, but we shouldn't let it delude us. The point of Buddhist practice is to free yourself from your society. Not to make yourself independent of it, or not to participate in it, but to free yourself from its views. One reason Buddhism feels so modern, like a 15th century or 9th century Zen teacher,

[06:12]

is because a 15th century or 9th century Zen teacher, because each of them free from their particular society to a significant degree, so they feel modern. You read other writers of the period saying they feel very much back there in the 10th century or something. So practice is to realize our, excuse the Zen cliches, our true nature. But to do that we need an inwardly directed attention.

[07:28]

And again I ask you to just notice where your attention goes. And what do I mean by inwardly directed attention? Well, I don't mean, you know, most of our inward consciousness is actually outward. You're all having thoughts that all of the rest of you have sometimes. Your private thoughts today are her private thoughts tomorrow. In that sense they're not really private. Yeah, I don't want to go into it too much.

[08:55]

It would take three times the time we have. Here goes the door. But let's just leave it at what I said earlier. You have to see how much your idea of self-worth is determined by the society. You know, there's an expression in one of the koans, when you come into your own power, When you're a person in your own right. You drive off the plowman's ox. And and take food from the hungry man's mouth.

[10:15]

This is a dramatic Zen way of talking. I mean, society is basically plowing and farming and so forth, and feeding people. But when you're so independent, can take a hungry man's food away and drive off the horse or ox. It means, of course, you wouldn't do that. Because the mind where everything isn't enough would be quite unhappy. But there's a feeling of a radical arising of life itself in you, quite independent. And it's very hard for us to have this inwardly directed attention when society in so many ways tells us it's selfish or, you know, troublemaking or something.

[11:50]

And there is certainly a collusion between business, government and civil society. Collusion? Collusion means a... Between the government, the economic society. And the overall definition of a civil society. And the effort is to get us all to share the same mind. Because then we're governable. And we can't say off with his head, so we each have to govern ourself. And you can no longer say, get out of here.

[13:08]

That's why we all have to govern each other. That's okay, it's not a bad, it's, you know, maybe it's a good way for society to govern itself. But practice is to discover for yourself what perception is, what thinking is, and so forth. That's enough on that, I think, for now. Yes? I'm thinking about freedom. I do it better in German because my English is so... Okay. If we're talking about freedom, we're talking always about be free from something. But what about being free to do or to do? Towards something.

[14:31]

Please. Yeah. Something else? Yes. I have mixed up the days a little bit. I have found that the topic of enlightenment for me over the years that I have been sitting was actually a taboo topic. This is a fruit basket. Also, die Früchte hingen immer zu hoch und ich habe eigentlich ganz zufrieden damit gesessen, dass ich das völlig außen vor gelassen habe.

[15:39]

Und indem wir das so angerissen haben, fällt mir eine bestimmte Form von Perspektivlosigkeit im Sitzen auf. Also, hier habe ich ein unangenehmes Ei ins Nest gekriegt. It's a stupid sign. It's a stupid sign. In the past, when I was sitting, I didn't think about enlightenment in a way that it would be something to achieve. It was a little bit like fruits that were hanging too high, so I was more or less just sitting. Now they're underneath you. I have the feeling that there's a little bit lack of perspective or something like that.

[16:48]

For him? Hm. That's okay. Perspective-less, yeah. Yeah, a lack of perspective. What do you mean by a lack of perspective? I would change it a bit. I would have liked to say I did not think about enlightenment and realized it was a taboo. And now you bring up this taboo, which I put aside. And while this is not turmoil, it's a bit restless. It's restless. Because I had to think about perspective, vision, or something. I'm sorry. Maybe you needed a little restlessness in your practice. Yeah. Okay, I understand how you feel about it.

[17:50]

And that's why I don't speak about it much. Yes, Junior. I have to say that I kind of resent, if I may say so, but the bringing up of talent, what you did last night, in connection with enlightenment. Because we talked about it during the break, and in my experience, The word is always used to... It's always used from the outside. It's not something you can actually deal with from the inside. Because, you know, you don't feel yourself... You know, it's always a label that goes on from the outside. And that bothered me. Yeah. Can you say that again in German? I wanted to say that last night he talked about talent and enlightenment, more or less.

[19:13]

We also talked about it during the break. In my experience, talent is always something that is called from the outside, i.e. in relation to a person, so that in some way, at least I personally can't deal with it, so I can't really deal with it, so neither if you say to me that I am talented for it or not talented, it actually has no real meaning, and I wanted to say something. I'm sorry. The fact is some people have an aptitude or talent for such things. And as I said, it's not necessarily good, but some people do have that aptitude. So it's a karmic aptitude. I think it's more related to genetics, actually, a person's energy.

[20:23]

You can say karmic. It's also related to how deluded one is to start with. The more deluded, perhaps the experience is bigger. But you know the other side of it is that people practice ten years or so and They hear something about enlightenment and some people seem to have this experience and they don't and they drift off out of practice, out of discouragement.

[21:25]

So I think it's useful to know that it's a kind of aptitude that some people have and some people don't. It's not limited to that. In other words, some people will come into practice and very quickly have various kinds of experiences. It almost happens without their even starting to practice. So I think we should just recognize that. And I think it makes enlightenment less important to know that. What is important is the whole context of your practice. I mean, I have people, there are people I practice with who have, you know, I'm astonished at the experiences they have.

[23:06]

I think, whoa, I'd like to have that experience. But for me it's just interesting. I can still practice with them and understand what they are doing. I'm just happy to be able to keep doing this with you. Anything else? Maybe one question. Sitting every day, I would say it's step number one. And the step number two is to bring it into the usual life.

[24:06]

to bring them into the usual life. And maybe you can recommend from your experience some things that could be easier or just that one should know. I don't know. Okay. Yeah, do it. All of practice can be brought into your ordinary life. And all life is ordinary life. This is ordinary life. If I review a little bit what practice, as I've emphasized it in this seminar, I emphasized redirecting your attention.

[25:29]

Studying, observing your attention. Bringing attention to attention itself. and redirecting that attention away from identification with thoughts, and primarily to move that sense of location and then identification and then our sense of continuity away from our thoughts to the main locations, our breath our body phenomena and the field of mind itself.

[26:58]

So one can make an effort to do that in any situation. When you bring your attention to your walking, that's what you're doing. Instead of when you walk down the street thinking, you bring your attention just to the walking. Or just to the tissue of sound, the field of sound. Or you, as I always say, you walk with a feeling of nourishment. And I suggest three times you can do this quite easily, even at a job or something.

[27:59]

Every time you go up or down stairs. Every time you put your elbow on a table. So you put your elbow down and you stop for a minute and let everything stop. Maybe like you might rest your attention on the top of your breath, the top of an inhale. Oder ihr lasst eure Aufmerksamkeit auf der Höhe des Atems weilen. Or rest your attention at the bottom of the exhale. Oder ihr lasst eure Aufmerksamkeit auf dem Grund des Ausatmens ruhen. The breath has four units. Exhale, stop, inhale, stop.

[29:02]

Es gibt vier Einheiten beim Atmen. Einatmen, stoppen, ausatmen, stoppen. If you begin to feel those things, you actually slow the mind down. And many of these enlightenment recognitions are noticed, because they are very quick, are noticed when the mind is slowed down, when the attention is intention is thicker. And when you look at the sky. Every time you happen to look at the sky, you let your mind identify with the sky.

[30:06]

These are little acupuncture points in the day. Now I talked about, I said that Dogen says that when all things are the Buddha Dharma, there is delusion and enlightenment. Practice and birth and death. Yeah. sentient beings and Buddhas. And when all things are the Buddha Dharma, it also means there's a sense at this moment that there are two gates in front of you.

[31:13]

A Dharma gate and a Samsara gate. And you make the choice. And there are some things I can give you hints for to make this choice. One is to develop a mind of, this may sound funny to you, of all and each. Each, I know it's hard to translate. In other words, usually we're thinking in terms of, we think in generalizations, there's many people here or something like that. But you practice having a mind which has the sense of all of you at once. And each of you one at a time.

[32:16]

So if I look at Mahakali, my mind just rests on Mahakali. And at the same time I have a feeling of the whole situation. And if I look away from Mahakali to you, I now have a sense of the whole that's somewhat different, but I'm just looking at you. If you have that feeling, usually each moment is a dharma gate rather than a samsara gate. Because, again, there's nothing outside the system. Everything that is, is here.

[33:33]

You either on each moment make it samsara or make it nirvana. So an appreciative state of mind helps. A mind that doesn't say no all the time. A mind that... that whatever it sees, you tend to appreciate it or accept it. Also a sense of interiority creates a Dharmakate. And there's the sense that you're appearing in my mind, if I know that. I'll tend to be entering a Dharma gate on that perception. We have that chant, Dharma gates are innumerable, I vow to enter them.

[34:42]

It means each moment is a Dharma gate. But also like, let's take the example of listening to a bird. If I listen to the bird, the bird is my own interiority. And it creates a bird song arising mind. It's quite independent of the bird. The bird caused it, but we now enjoy this bird singing a rising mind. This is a kind of interiority that's not inward consciousness.

[35:48]

I mean, I don't have to check up whether you have these feelings or not, or whether it's crazy or something. This is my own interior consciousness. And each moment I can rest and rejoice in this interiority. And the bird also perhaps has the same interiority. The other birds are singing within it.

[36:53]

And even we can say, as I've said, the tree has its own interiority. Not just its outer three-dimensional thing, but all that makes it a tree. So if I look at Mahakavi again and I have a feeling of Mahakavi mind arising and Mahakavi looks at me and he has a feeling of me arising in his mind but it's not an outward perception. And then we call that two mirrors facing each other with no image in between. So if you feel that way, and when you look at things and hear things, this transforms everything into the Buddha Dharma.

[38:07]

Then you can feel the potential of each thing also as a Buddha. The condition of enlightenment of each thing. Again, this would be a dharma gate rather than a karma or samsara gate. Do you understand? If I prefer a dharma gate instead of a samsara gate, I'm still picking and choosing. There can't be freedom. One feels better than the other. Yeah, go ahead, Deutsch. Yeah, I understand. This kind of choice we make.

[39:44]

And I think it's a choice of freedom. No. There's a common phrase, great path or great activity. For instance, one of the Dunhuang manuscripts from the earliest period of Zen says the Dunhuang caves, you know. Yes. It says, the great path is infused, is fused with mind. This means mind itself is the path.

[40:54]

But this is more like the absorbent mind of Shikantaza, of Sāsen. When you can really let the mind flow freely without dwelling on anything, The mind itself becomes the path. And that Mind itself being the path without you doing it is called great activity or great path. And when that mind is the way you function all the time, that's called great function. But we have to deal with our kleshas.

[41:57]

Our hindrance, that mind of the baby, awakening, is immediately given shape. Just how the parents lean over the crib and so forth. and the way the mind works genetically and also the way the mind is shaped culturally. It becomes identified with its own name and then a world of names. So we delude the baby from the beginning in a way so that we can live with it. So in this sense, you know, the first koan in the book of serenity again, or book of equanimity,

[43:13]

Starts out with, you know, the Buddha gets up on the podium. And he doesn't say anything. And Manjushri says, behold, the Dharma of the Buddha... of the world-honored one. Thus the Buddha Dharma. And then the commentary says that Manjushri, he's always leaking. But this leaking is our life. Our compassion for our children. But we should also turn that attention around as we get older and know practice.

[44:27]

to mind itself, to this mind of the immediate present, which the outside world is always folding into from our sense perceptions. Memory folds into it. And then it unfolds. So this is the absorbent mind of Shikantaza too. And everything is folding in and unfolding. When there's no effort in that, we call that great activity. But we still have to practice bringing our attention back to attention itself.

[45:34]

So we do take this posture intentionally. And we do practice intentionally mindfulness. But that's an intention to free ourselves from intention. So that's the general understanding of Zen practice. Now, when you do this kind of practice, like paying attention to your body and your breath and so forth, You're developing a background mind. A field of mind that's not caught by the foreground mind.

[46:42]

when you've actually developed and stabilized that background mind, then it's easier to bring turning word phrases into your daily life. So the stabilization of background mind allows us to bring all our practice into our daily life. But working with a phrase like this, just now is enough. Working with a phrase also generates background mind. Does that make sense? You don't have to wait till background mind is there to practice with the phrase because practicing with the phrase creates background mind.

[48:04]

Background mind then becomes the basis of big mind. This is, I think, useful. I hope to have a general picture of how practice works. But probably the key for all of us is really bringing our attention to our attention. And especially bringing our attention to our breath. Which is so easy to do a few times. But if you can do it once, you can do it throughout the 24. Or at least you can accept this mind throughout the 24.

[49:20]

What I would hope is that all of you eventually can be with your breath, that your mind and breath are just merged naturally. But, you know, I came here, I don't know, what is it, 15 years ago. And started doing first a few lectures and then seminars. And first, I don't think any of us knew what we were doing. People often left my seminars with a headache. Maybe it's still true. But now I feel so many of us have been together quite a while.

[50:20]

But now I really am grateful for how well so many of you are practicing and understand practice. and have a real sense of it as well as understanding. I mean that. I'm really impressed with how well you've all learned to learn, how well you understand and have learned to practice. It certainly helps me carry my practice forward. And into some of this kind of mysterious familiarity we have with everything that is one of the freedoms of meditation. And a greater intimacy with ourself and the world.

[51:39]

And a greater emotional and mental clarity. Kind of emotional power, actually, where you feel mind, and intention and emotions are all one. And a kind of physical pliancy. There are many freedoms like this in practice. sense that you can reach your arms to the end of the world. So now that we're at this point, and I say us because the Sangha helps itself, and to a really surprising degree we develop practice mutually,

[52:48]

And each of us benefits from the other's practice. Because now we have to come to these two adjustments. How really to bring practice into our life. And how to bring our life into practice. And finally, how to bring our mind into into practice. So that we actually feel this is a Buddha land. A Buddha field. So you don't feel Buddhas are just something from the past. You really know if Buddhas existed in the past, they can exist now.

[54:12]

And as Sukhiroshi used to say, Buddha is good because people are good. So it's not like we're all in a mess, let's have a savior. There's no outside place where a Buddha can come from. The Buddha has to come from here. And we have to create the possibility of that. So that's why Dogen said, when all things are the Buddha Dharma, then truly we see that there is delusion and enlightenment. the opportunity to practice within birth and death.

[55:25]

And just because there are sentient beings, there must also be Buddhas. So shall we sit for a few minutes and then we'll end? We'll sit for a few more minutes and then we'll be done.

[55:47]

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