So when Dogen came back from China, he said something like, studying under Ru Jing, and plainly realizing the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. And without being fooled by anyone, I return home empty-handed.

[01:02]

Okay. Then he said, I let time go as it goes. The sun, every morning, morning after morning, the sun rises in the east. Night after night, the moon sets in the west. And night after night, the moon goes down in the west. The clouds disappear.

[02:03]

Mountains appear. The rain stops. The four mountains are low. Those are all concepts. Okay, so we have to sort of sort out for ourselves what's the difference between Yuan Wu saying don't activate the conceptual faculty What words do we find, or how do we define for ourselves the difference between these two words? uses of concepts.

[03:03]

Yeah I think the best thing for me to do is to leave it to you to figure out. And we were speaking, you know, about, you were speaking about investigation. And this piece of paper we had during the Zammai-O-Zammai. Dogen says, study the world at the very moment of sitting.

[04:09]

The very moment of sitting. Is it vertical or horizontal? Hey, there's the eyes and nose again. Sit vertical or horizontal. At the very moment of sitting, what is sitting? Yeah, but here he's saying at the very moment of sitting, what is sitting? So he's using concepts right there. But he says, is it an acrobat's graceful somersault? Or is it the rapid darting of a fish? Is it thinking or not thinking? Doing or not doing? Is it sitting within sitting?

[05:18]

Those are all the use of concepts which are trying to free us from Only thinking through concepts. I would say that in some fundamental way, body and mind are articulated through concepts. articulated in a way that allows conceptual thinking. And we We use conceptual thinking to return us to body and mind.

[06:31]

Like taking off our shirt. Because if I ask you, what is sitting within sitting, that's certainly a concept, but it doesn't take you anywhere. So then you're facing the world with a concept that doesn't take you anywhere. Now that's something different than looking at the world through a process of conceptual thinking. We will have to develop terminology You know, conceptual thinking A, conceptual thinking B, conceptual thinking C, or primordial conceptions, I don't know what, something.

[07:44]

You always have this kind of contradiction. Like Zen is the teaching outside the scriptures. But it has more scriptures than any other Buddhist school. So you have to just look at it and say, okay, this is the way it is, what do they mean? But I think you can feel the difference between the concept, I return empty-handed, And a more common way of looking at the world conceptually, as good or bad or so-so. Yeah. Could you say that leaking, from my point of view, is a kind of shifting towards conceptual thinking?

[09:18]

That in leaking the contact between body and mind gets lost. Yeah, leaking is the loss of the contact of body and mind. Yeah, I think you can have some experience of it. For instance, if you get the habit of listening, hearing, without naming what you hear. Let's just imagine a typical situation. We're sitting in the sender.

[10:41]

And you hear the squealing of these cows next to her, being better treated these days than they used to be. At least they're allowed out. The squealing is what? You know, like a baby squeals or cries, crying. You're helping him translate now. Whoa. Or you hear the tractor truck start. And you just hear it. Yeah. And then you think about it, oh, that's Kohlbrenner's tractor. And then you get annoyed, maybe. There's an immediate kind of leaking that occurs. You don't feel as good as when you just heard it.

[11:51]

So in such simple situations, can you just hear things? Without, as you pointed out there, without conceptualizing it. But of course, if I say just hear it, that's a kind of concept. But in our experience, there is some difference. and to use the concept just to hear it, to prevent us from leaking. So we could maybe make a distinction between leaking concepts and non-leaking concepts. So practice then is to, as Yuan Wu was saying, is to the craft of finding a way to stabilize

[13:13]

The mind, so that there's no leaking. Now, this is the subject of the first koan in the Shoyaroka. The book of serenity. You know, the world-honored one, as it calls the Buddha, gets up and doesn't say anything on the teaching platform and leaves. And the Bodhisattva Manjushri says, Behold, the world-honored one,

[14:34]

Thus is the Dharma. Behold. Look. Behold. The world-honored one. Thus is the Dharma. And then the commentary says, you know, there's the Buddha not leaking. And there's Manjushri saying, thus the Dharma, he's leaking. So that's the first koan in the book. which is basically saying all the koans in this whole book is a form of leaking. So then we have the problem, how do the craft of, how do we not leak while, and leak when we want to?

[15:49]

Probably the simple answer is you begin to find ways that when you in effect leak, which is what bodhisattva practice is, You feel nourished through that leaking. Maybe to continue the image as if you were watering a garden. And we could say that the leaking which nourishes you is the practice of the precepts. So then you hear some tractor?

[17:18]

Or airplane? You don't have to think of it, airplane or tractor. But if you do think of it in terms of tractor or airplane, you have to go somewhere or you have to talk to Kohlbrunner today for some reason. Then you're thinking about Kohlbrenner in the context of the precepts. You feel sure in your body that whatever thoughts you have about Kohlbrunner or what you have to do in the day will be for the benefit of Kohlbrunner. and the benefit of others. And that's the bodhisattva practice or the practice of the priesthood.

[18:26]

And that's really possible, not through suppression or repression or something like that, of aggressive tendencies. And that's possible when you really feel fundamentally at ease. And living is like putting on your shirt. Whoa, I'm giving you... I'm saying too much, I'm sorry. But something else. I'm saying too much. Yes. Oh, you haven't finished. Yes, I did, but maybe a short question.

[19:46]

Okay. It's somewhat technical. You talked about narratives. Yeah. that are stored in the body? Is there a connection between narratives and Manu Vishnayana Datu? The alaya vijnana or the mano vijnana? This is a pretty technical question. But no one knows the answer. Exactly. But I'll try to make up an answer. In short, you can think of the manna-vijnana as the editing function, the filter.

[21:04]

Mano. Mano. Yeah. And certainly narrative structures are part of that filtering. What kind of person I am, and so forth. But at a more fundamental level that we've been trying to explore in these 20 days of body, speech and mind, body, speech and mind. We have it, the alaya-vijnana then we have to assume is a more, is less narrative and more grammar.

[22:17]

So what happens through the practice as I've been trying to describe it somewhat Not always too clearly, I think, these days, because I've been trying to figure out how to do it. Yeah. How did you start the sentence? Well, let's start over again. What I've been trying to... Explain this, not always clearly, is that through this practice of body, speech and mind, you can see the bones of the world before flesh and blood is put on. Then I would say you're seeing the grammar and not the narrative.

[23:26]

And I would say the grammar is close to what the Eightfold Path means by views. It's fairly easy to see past your narratives, but much more difficult to change your grammar. But that's also possible. Whoa, okay. Yes. You partly answered already my question, which you said before, but I still wonder about recognizing. Yes, please. And I have some experiences I'm thinking about, One is me and a friend, we were making a game.

[24:36]

We had our eyes covered and someone else put fruits in our mouth. And who recognized it first was the winner. Did you also hold the nose closed? No. Oh. That makes it harder. And Mike couldn't name any of the fruit. It took me very, very long. I had the taste, but I couldn't name it. So she was very fast. She was secretly practicing. I was wondering, is it recognizing to name the fruit or to recognize the taste at what point? That's a good question. We got the fruit in our mouth, and my problem was that I had the taste, but I couldn't name what kind of fruit it was.

[25:39]

You want to go? Yeah, why don't you go on to the next two? The first time I was doing the big bows and the sandals. The big bows? The full bows. I suddenly saw you get huge. I didn't know when they finished. I started counting I recognize when there's the bell ringing two times it's the last one and yeah I can't remember whether I heard the bell when I did them before or I didn't hear them or whether it started when I started whether I recognize it only by counting can I hear them completely and not counting

[27:08]

The second example, when I did the great deep meditation in the sendo, I didn't know when to stop, until I realized that when the bell rings twice, it means that it's over, and I can't remember whether I hadn't heard the bell before, Okay, what's the third? Also, during your session, I had to serve the food, and I was very nervous organizing the pots and clean them. And once I recognized that when I have the feeling in my hands of completeness, it feels better, it works better.

[28:21]

Somehow I recognized it, but it was more Yes, okay. I also brought the food to the Sesshina. I put the tapioca in front of the sender and was pretty nervous and it didn't work out so well. And then at some point I realized that if I do it with the feeling in my hands or that it is complete, then it works better. I think this also is kind of recognizing, but it's more the feeling. So when you felt, what did you say, something complete, then you seemed to know what you did was correct. You know, when I have to do the bows in the morning, I do the bows in the morning of the three.

[29:29]

The doshi does the three bows at the beginning of satsang. And, you know, I've been doing three bows for many years now. And my body just does it, right? But if I happen to have a thought while I'm bowing, I often have no idea whether I've done two bows or one bow or five. There's a fine line between that and senility and Alzheimer's.

[30:31]

So you may find me in there bowing. But what I hope is that the doan has sense enough to put the striker down after the third hit. Because if he's put the striker down, I figure I've done three. If he's got the striker up, I think, well, I might as well keep bowing. So there's lots of the forms in a traditional practice life are meant to allow you to do it without any thinking as much as possible.

[31:55]

You just let your body do it. And it works very well. Your body is extremely good unless you think too much. So, likewise with your tasting, if you weren't trying to distinguish how much is odor and how much is taste, then not identifying it, I don't know, who cares? I had a kind of stew the other day for a first course and a meal. It was extremely good.

[33:05]

And I enjoyed it. At some point I thought, geez, this is so good. It would be nice if I could make it. At that moment I wished I had Eric's palate. So I could feel into it and decide how it was made. But that actually takes a change of mind to try to taste it with the feeling of what's in there. And that's interesting to do, too.

[34:19]

But I have most fun when I just taste it. Yes? Can you ask him about record knifing tastes? So my experience, for instance, when I eat blueberries, and when I was a child... This is our gourmet Zen practice. Our gourmand Zen practice. This is our gourmet Zen practice. So when I eat blueberries, as a child I used to walk with my grandmother in the woods and collect blueberries. So when I eat blueberries, all these... Can you translate that for me? Well, that's just one example.

[35:23]

For example, when I eat blueberries in Heidelberg, I often went to the forest with my grandmother as a child and we picked blueberries. And when I eat blueberries, that's actually the primary, the primary and the much faster form of benign that this situation arises again. If we establish the kind of mind Yuan Wu is talking about, and the form of mind Dogen is talking about, let's look at what Dogen says again. studying with Ru Jing yeah realizing plainly realizing that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical not being fooled by anyone I returned empty handed

[36:35]

Okay. Now that's often taken by almost all commentators and all people write about it as some kind of idea of Zen simplicity. That it's just ordinary things are the source of Zen or something like that. We don't need the sutras, our eyebrows are big or whatever. He doesn't mean anything of the sort. He's describing a mind before articulation. Kind of again in this form of, we're talking about body, speech and mind. I can speak with my lips, but my horizontal eyes and vertical nose is already a kind of speaking.

[37:54]

It's all the things you don't have to say because they're already there. So he's describing the mind that's already there. And that's what he returned with. Okay, and so then he goes on to say, He knows that through letting time have its own way. The sense of time ripens. The sun rises, the moon sets. The clouds disappear, the rain stops. The mountains appear.

[39:15]

This all is describing a mode of mind, a kind of mind. Before associations of blueberries and so forth arise. And then he says, the four mountains are low. Not high. No, I just thought maybe there was a different meaning. Die vier Berge sind niedrig. Okay, the four mountains are not high means birth, old age, sickness and death are no longer problems.

[40:22]

These four mountains of birth, old age, are now small hills. Now that's definitely a concept. But again, they're speaking about really being stabilized without almost identification in a mind before even the associations with your grandmother arise. But there's still ear, there's still... vertical nose and horizontal eyes.

[41:23]

And thus we know each other. And through the craft of practice you're at ease in this mind before associations arise. Or if associations arise, it doesn't disturb this stable mind. Okay. Am I making any sense here? Okay.

[42:27]

I used to pick blueberries for my grandmother, not too often with her. I used to pick blueberries a lot for my grandmother, but not too often with her. Getting out of the rain? It's cold. It's cold, yeah. I thought it might be raining again. Okay, shall we stop pretty soon? I mean, this side of the room has been dominating the conversation. What about you guys? The dummies are on this side? Oh, she says red says yes. Am I on the dummy side? Yeah. So you have to stand up for the dummies. But this is on the side which is receiving the light. Do you want to say something?

[43:37]

Yeah, maybe later I ask. Yeah, well, later is soon. Später ist bald. Ich habe eine Frage. Was bedeutet es, unserer Linie treu zu sein, der Lehrlinie, und... I have the question, what does it mean to be faithful with our lineage and how does our lineage is different from others? Who told you to be faithful to our lineage? In the precepts? Is there one precept?

[44:41]

Is there a precept which says, please be faithful to the lineage? That's the eleventh. I think you have to... Has some of this occurred in German? Deutsch? Yes, you've been translated. Is the Do one, is it the third bell? Keep it up. I think that, for example, if you take the precepts and so a raksu, in the Dharma Sangha, I understand that to mean, we understand that to mean, that you commit yourself to practicing this particular way of practice.

[46:05]

of this particular lineage, this particular way of Zen. That doesn't mean that you can't study other ways and so forth. But it means you have to have a home-based practice. If you don't get one practice thoroughly, you won't get any. So, you know, it's somewhat arbitrary. You could choose a different lineage. But you have to choose some lineage. Yeah. And if you... You know, it's much like if you really... master one practice or one koan, many other koans are clear.

[47:26]

In Dogen's time, they didn't make much... In China, they didn't make much distinction between Rinzai and Soto, all in all, for example. I think that Ru Jing, Dogen's teacher, was the Padungshan's lineage. But a Linji teacher asked him to be head of the temple. So the emphasis was more on the individual rather than the particular school, the individual teacher rather than the particular school.

[48:32]

But there still is a particular flavor to each lineage. And that is a somewhat different way of seeing into things. Okay. Something else? Yes? I'm still at the eyebrows and the nose. And I still have impressions from earlier meditations or sushis.

[49:34]

Some insights appear to be as clear as the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. But these clarities become unclear again with distance. And I ask myself, where are they coming from and where have they gone?

[50:48]

And most, mainly, I think these these insights lead to concepts, but they seem to arise from non-conceptual, or from non-conceptuality. Then I also know his art of... Then I know how some Zen scholars Yeah, Zen teachers.

[52:12]

But some Zen teachers speak about things with such, so assured or with such sureness that is, that puts me off a little bit or that puts me off quite a bit. And how much I also appreciate security, because on the other hand they are also repulsive. I don't know if I can construct a question. I appreciate this sureness or security, no sureness, but at the same time it's somewhat, it puts me off and I don't know quite if a question can be constructed from that.

[53:14]

You're asking two things. One is insights that are as clear as eyes are horizontal and nose is vertical. Or get lost sometimes. And then you don't like teachers who don't seem to be lost. Well, I hope I'm lost enough for you. I actually like being lost with all of you. Each of you. Okay. Well, there's a difference between the sureness of experience and the sureness of belief.

[54:38]

And I think it's natural enough, but 90% of teachers, Buddhist teachers and others, really speak from what they've read and what they've studied and the way Buddhism is supposed to be. That's just normal human behavior. Yeah, it's quite difficult to have the you know, rigor to really examine the teachings and make sure which ones make sense and to limit yourself to what your own experience is. Yeah, this isn't really a function of intelligence.

[55:51]

It's a function of kind of trust in experience and a willingness A vow to not go beyond that. And be willing not to know. Not feeling you have to answer every question, know everything, etc. I know one teacher I respect very much. And it's not his nature to really examine the teachings thoroughly and try to understand them. and understand everything.

[57:04]

And understand them thoroughly. But what he does understand, he understands very well. And I see him giving, yeah, basically good advice, real sensible way of practicing with people. And in the end that's what all of us, anyone of us can do, not more than that. Okay. I think what you said first about the insights, is really the challenge of practice in general and in specific of lay practice. And so let's go back to the sense of a craft of practice.

[58:06]

Part of this crafter practice is being able to notice, let's not say insights, shifts. Shifts in the way you view things. shifts in your feeling for your life. So part of that is, part of practice is that enough mindfulness and ease, to notice these shifts, and then somehow to nourish them or sustain them, to know which ones to nourish and sustain,

[59:50]

To know which ones. To know a sense of this ripening time in your life. And then how to keep letting them open up into the whole of our life. Now again, Monastic life is conceived of as the best way to do this. That's good to know. Because then if you have a daily life which is not monastic, you have to actually find a way within yourself to sustain some continuity or continuum of mind.

[61:18]

If you can do that, that might be better than being in a monastic situation. But what I see happening is that people, for example, they might go to a practice period or even two or three practice periods at Creston, for example. And then suddenly, a lot of things come together, a lot of shifts occur in one of the practice periods. You know, monastic practice is just like maybe college education. Maybe some of us should go to university at 14.

[62:34]

And maybe some of us at 24. But on the average it's 18 or 19. And what seems to be the case is that for most people a concentrated period of four to six years, without too many interruptions, you learn the most. You learn in a way that affects your whole life. Much harder to be an autodidact. And if you do have those four, say, six years, which are sustained, you know, period of learning, all the learning you do the rest of your life keeps referring back to what happened during those four to six years.

[63:55]

And monastic practice is actually something like that. The tradition in Japan is a minimum of five continuous years. Ten years are expected if you're going to be a teacher. Okay, good. Now, most of us can't do that. So you have to then imagine, okay, how do I establish some kind of continuity in my life which emphasizes practice as the first priority? Not for the whole of my life, but for a certain number of years.

[64:58]

Okay, now what I see happening is that, say, this person... After, in this practice period, many things come together for the person. As Dogen says again, morning after morning the sun rises. Night after night, the moon sets in the West. The mountains become clear. Something happens over time like that. So something like that happens.

[66:02]

But then the person comes back to their regular life in Denver or and they find these insights or shifts have put them into a transition. Okay, then what happens? They find they're not on a transition, they're in a detour. They're in an umleiten. And this transition, which would, if they stayed in the monastery, would happen in six weeks or so. But instead, it's taking six months, and your habits keep trying to detour around the transition.

[67:26]

And they begin to feel uneasy and conflicts, and what's the strange body feelings they're having, and so forth. and they feel So there's an aspect of this practice which there's no turning back. Sorry. At a certain point, enough changes have happened to you that you kind of have to go forward with them or you get kind of sick. So the challenge is how to make your lay practice allow your practice to go forward.

[68:28]

I'm trying to teach in a way that makes that more likely, I hope. And yet I... I think we need the help of a place like this sometimes. And I think some of you have noticed, three weeks here is not the same as one week Sashin. A one-week Sesshin is a lot more intense, but something maybe deeper happens in just three weeks of being here. And if it's three or four months, it's again something different. Okay. So this process of transition and detour is something we have to take care of. Yeah. So, I mean, we could make a simple example.

[69:29]

At a certain point your body becomes more sensitive. And you realize you can't eat certain things. It happens to a lot of us just as we get older. Because we discover... You know, when you're young, you can kind of overcome any garbage you put down in the field. When you get older and you find out, I don't feel so good after I eat that. Or maybe you never felt good, but you didn't notice it, that's all. So you notice that it feels a little better if you eat a little differently and a little different. combinations of food. Maybe you notice that you feel better if you eat spelt than wheat.

[70:56]

Well, you have to have some means to follow up on that. If you don't follow up on it and pay attention to your diet, the experience or the insight or the shift the experience or the insight or the shift that makes you notice, maybe it's better if I don't eat wheat. It's very hard to explore that unless you really pay attention. Because wheat comes in many forms. So it's a little bit like that with an insight or shift in your views. You have to begin to notice the many ways those views are implicit in other things.

[72:30]

Like the insight that which I'm always pointing out that we go back to our thinking and don't stay with our big mind, not because we like thinking or we have to think about the world, but because we establish our sense of continuity necessary for identity through thinking. Now that's just an insight based on knowing that everything's impermanent.

[73:43]

But you discover subtle forms of permanence that are necessary to you. So how to create a practice where you can notice the opening up of an insight and the blocking of that insight? how to create a practice that allows you to notice the opening up of an insight and seeing it throughout all of your activity. And that's also not just shifts in views, but shifts in the energy in your body.

[74:51]

Anyway, I'm sorry to go on at such length. Yeah, so we should stop soon, eh? Hello? Any comments on the practice month? The Griesler gang over here. At first I would like to say something to the last point.

[75:51]

I think what helps in lay practice is to share your experience in a group, to make it explicit. What also helps me is to write about it. But what I think is really an important point is that it needs practice to practice something after you had an insight. You need to practice it. Yes, you do. If you don't do it, you lose it. That's true. And let me add that you have to practice the many forms in which it appears. So maybe it could be one of the tasks or the scope of the practice groups to somehow carry this ripening of practice, of the individual practice.

[77:07]

And this needs really intimate people. I think it can be a task in these practice groups that this experience can be carried out, this practical experience, and what is needed is that there is a feeling of intimacy. Hi, darling. Why don't you put her down, let her walk in, see what she does. I don't know. Well, we'll see. Just put her on the floor and see if she comes in. I want to see what she does. It's like putting her down in the jungle with tigers.

[78:09]

Okay. So the question is, and we have to find out whether we can do that together. Okay. We're barely developing this place. We're doing pretty well, though. But just finding enough people with the willingness to... give up the ordinary circumstances of life and just live here and take care of practice. That doesn't make your practice better. But some people have to do that if we're going to have a place like this.

[79:11]

It's not easy to do. There's all kinds of background mind associations about having vacations, having money to do things and stuff, all of that kind of has to be given up. It's not easy. That's so, you know, So it takes time for that to happen. And the practice will develop, I think, more for all of us when some of us sustain it here. And one thing we're doing here, which I've never done before, I've never had a practice place which has no priests. There's no ordained persons here except me.

[80:23]

So what does that mean? Well, I completely think you don't have to be ordained to do a service or hit the bell. But basically we're a lay group sustaining the practice here. What does that mean? Well, yeah, we're doing it. It's good. But there's a certain... I can't separate myself from the knowledge that no lay lineage has ever survived. There have been very good lay teachers, but they've never established a lineage. After a generation or so, it just disappears back into society.

[81:40]

It doesn't disappear entirely, but it disappears as a lineage. That's the lesson of 2,500 years of history of Buddhist history. But we're modern now. And that's not important. But I don't know if that's true. Usually, no matter how modern we get, things pretty much stay the same. And this has a particular point for me. Because I had a complex, interesting lay life, but Once I recognized no lay lineage had ever survived, that was the basis of my decision to be ordained.

[82:57]

So we're still at a formative stage here. And we should move to the next stage that Christina is pointing out. That we should develop each of the sitting separate dharmasangha sitting groups in ways that sustain the practice. They are more evolved than they are now. But at present, we're very lucky to even have a sitting group that meets once a week. When I see 20 sitting groups in Europe with 20 people in each, that meets several times a week, I'll think I have some confidence.

[84:33]

We're a long ways from that. So I have a deep discouragement at the same time. But I'm basically optimistic. Not because I'm an optimist, but just because it feels better to be optimistic. You know what Voltaire said about that? That a pessimist is one who knows this is the... No, an optimist knows this is the best of all possible worlds. And the pessimist is one who knows the optimist is right. Eric? Do you want a question or a comment?

[85:39]

Well, maybe later at some point we can actually... I don't know if we have time. I'd like to hear from you how we should do next year's Let's assume we'll do it again next year. How we should do it? Maybe we should have three 10-day units and then a sashin instead of two and a sashin. We've done enough, and the babysitter left. And one of the questions is, not 10 days, but what's it like to have all these children here? It's good for the children.

[86:42]

Several seem to have fallen in love. So that's part of Zen... Well, anyway, let's... Okay. Thank you very much. Oh, thanks for inviting me to the seminar. Now we don't need a test show tomorrow. Thank you for translating.

[87:10]

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