Yesterday I pretty straightforwardly told you the story of this koan. And now I'd like to say something about how you work with koans. How you find an entrance to Koan practice. And I think the entrance is to... First of all, to see the koan as a kind of list of ingredients. Now, I think too, as I said the other day, too often we try to precede too quickly to the cook.

[01:05]

Because we want our recipes, our recipes woven into the recipe of the koan before we start cooking. Then the koans are designed for you to do this. Now the first entrance, of course, is the The first ingredients are the phrases. First of all, the phrases that stick with you. And second, the phrases that are prominent in the koan.

[02:11]

Of course, they may be the same thing, but they may not be. Like, when have they ever flown away? His whole capacity stands revealed. His whole capacity stands alone revealed. Hmm. Where have they gone? The entire world cannot hide it. Now, you know, maybe it's useful for me to say that we can consider these phrases tropes.

[03:15]

I don't know what it means either. In music, it has a fairly more specific meaning, I think. But it's a hard word to pin down because it means the substitution of one thing for another. So irony, puns, metonymy. These are all tropes. So it's like To say Berlin when you mean the German government, say. Or a hired hand for somebody who's a worker or employee. A helping hand? Yeah, I like that. Thank you. And it's also using the same word

[04:43]

in a variety of ways. I can remember there were ads when I was young for pell-mell cigarettes, pall malls or pell-mells. Yeah, the long cigarette that's long on flavor. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what does Groucho Marx say? How does he say? He says that time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. Or more seriously in Othello, Shakespeare.

[05:47]

He says, put the light out, then put the light out. Yeah, so, yeah, and we have in us, like, put the light out. our own feelings of revenge, maybe not murderous, but we have our own feelings, our need for revenge, for example. Or in this image of the story of these two two guys, Matsu and Bai Zhang, walking along. Yeah, I mean, you know, movies and theater plays are often very similar ingredients, just moved around a little.

[06:49]

Kino, Theater, Spiele sind ja oft sehr ähnlich in ihren Zutaten, nur etwas anders bewegt. In Science Fiction gibt es also diese fremden Eindringlinge. So aliens or cowboys and Indians, these are tropes. It represents, begins to represent something. Like an oak tree in the garden in Zen represents enlightenment. Okay. And this also relates the stories, these stories, to other stories.

[08:03]

But it also relates it to your stories. I mean, dreams are elusive because they're so elusive. A trauma. Because they allude to other things. Okay. But... That's also the power of dreams, because they reach into us. So the first thing you do with a koan, I mean, after you kind of read it, is really don't waste your time trying to understand it. Thinking about it, what does it mean?

[09:09]

I mean, it's good to be studious, but this isn't useful. You just want to kind of read it. And you want to see if any phrases stick with you. Because you want to think that the story, the surface story, And it's just a story. What you want to do is find an entrance into it and then come back into the story from underneath. Yeah, now... Koans are sometimes used in a kind of step ladder way.

[10:16]

To represent certain points. Yeah, and this is partly true. But it's really, they're much more complex than that. And it's still superficial if it just represents a certain point. You wanted to engage your life. Because you've got cowboy and Indian stories in you. Or something like that, I don't know. Wagner. We've all got Wagner in us. Yeah, I like that. And then when your own stories, when you've got a feeling, maybe you're crying inside, you've got a feeling, then you begin to look at the koan more carefully.

[11:24]

And so, and also... Get the image of the story. And what's the image of the story? These two guys are walking along. And overhead, the ducks are flying in formation. The seasons are changing. So the seasons are changing, the ducks are flying, and these two guys are together. So what is this together? What is it like to be together with someone else? Is together always a contrast to things flying away, leaving?

[12:29]

And this koan clearly, particularly in the Shuedo's verses, implies And the way I told the story yesterday is tied or the interpretive phrase is the cloud on the mountain the moon over the sea Der Mond über dem Meer. So anyway, you, again, take phrases or the image of the story and you let it live with you.

[13:32]

You interleave it in the text of your activity. Interleave, I guess you all know what it means. No, you put... a blank piece of paper between each page. So it's like between each page of your own stories you put this image of these two guys walking and the migrating birds. And this idea of interleaving or holding in front of you is at the center of Zen practice.

[14:43]

Between the pages of our folly, we interleave wisdom. We practice with the five skandhas this way. Specifically so stated, you practice with the five skandhas. And what makes the precepts Buddhist precepts? Which is not the content, that's just human common sense. is not that you follow the precepts, but that you interleave the precepts in your own activity.

[15:52]

So always in your activity you can feel the commentary of the precepts, and in the precepts you can feel the commentary of your activity. No one can save all sentient beings. But if it doesn't make sense to say, I think I'll save 32. Really, are you too busy to save 33? No, the intention to save all sentient beings is present in all your activities. And you have to bring your own sense into it. of meaning to the word save because it's too salvational in English.

[17:01]

I'd love to be translated. I don't know what's going on. We'd solve the kind of nice counterpoint. Maybe we should have somebody sitting here translating into Swahili. Yeah, say less. Okay. Again, the sense of when have they ever flown away? What is away? Yeah. That's enough, I think. So let me speak a little bit about this sense of... stabilizing yourself in each moment.

[18:29]

Now Vasubandhu, who lived about the fourth century A.D., and one of the two or three major figures in all of Buddhism, And more or less the founder of his half-brother of the Yogacara school, which is really Zen. He says, without an understanding and realization, understanding of the teaching of Anakman, Anatman, no self, non-self. There is no realization apart from the teaching of Anatman.

[19:31]

I mean, this is right. I mean, but what can it really mean for us? As you know, we need a strong self to be free of self. What's that mean? We have to deal with our personal psychology. Hmm. Now there's a phrase from early Buddhism. This is not mine.

[20:33]

This is not what I am. This is not self. Now, exactly like these koan phrases, that is meant to be interleaved into your activity. Don't waste your time trying to understand it philosophically or psychologically. It's either useless or you'll just resist it. Yeah, so don't try to understand it. Vasubandhu said to do it, so I'll do it. Vasubandhu said to do it, so I will do it. What are you doing?

[21:40]

Vasubandhu told me. Vasubandhu Dayosho. But you can also reverse it. You can say, this is mine. This is what I am. This is self. That's also, and that's more Zen, way of looking at it. This is very powerful. Because we're articulating ourself, of course, through our thinking, and that's Slippery and elusive and delusive. I mean, all thinking isn't bad. I don't mean that. I mean... Thinking is a late product.

[22:57]

And we can really, with some rigor, think very clearly. But you need to, even if you think very clearly about things, to make any development in how thinking is embedded in you. You have to go to where it's embedded. And it's embedded in our microscopic actions moment after moment. As we see things act on things, etc. And all these little actions are kind of little vows because they affirm us in how the world is.

[23:57]

So you put in something like this is Not mine. You look at a tree. This is not what I am. Then you look at a tree and you say, this is what I am. This is breaking up the mental habits. And as I say, the saccadic scanning, interrupting it. In early Buddhism, anatman was translated as not-self.

[25:10]

And in later Buddhism, it becomes no-self. Oh. A little problem here. It's much easier to practice with not-self. No self is too... It starts feeling philosophical. But you can imagine putting not-self into... what you do. Again, coming back to this wonderful several sentences of Dogen, continuous practice which actualizes itself, is your practice

[26:17]

your actual, your practice right now. Continuous practice which actualizes itself is your practice right now. Yeah, but what is this now? Dogen defines now in the next sentence. The now of this continuous practice ...is not originally possessed by the self. The now of this moment... ...is not originally possessed by the self. That's nothing more than the teaching of not-self. Now, this I can say, this is mine... I can say that it is mine.

[27:42]

But I add something to it. I can add self-referential thinking. But the now of continuous practice does not originally belong to self-referential thinking. And we can understand that. So how do you interleave that into your activity? Well, you can say simply, not self. on everything you notice. You get in the habit of doing that. You're not thinking about it philosophically or psychologically. You're just getting in the habit of doing that. And it begins to have some kind of catalytic alchemical effect on your actions and your thinking.

[28:50]

And this is also how you work with a koan. Okay, now stabilize yourself in each moment. But the territory of Buddha activity is the experienced duration of the present or the moment. And you need to give that some, as I've been saying, some kind of physicalized identity or experience. So I'm suggesting, I don't know in English, I don't know what you could say in German.

[30:00]

You could say, to stabilize yourself in each moment. So in a few moments, I'm going to get up and And as I stand up, what's the length of a dharma? Well, I mean, I have to stand up, so that's a kind of integrated series of physical actions. As Charlotte Selver would say, I don't stand up, I come up to standing. I don't just order myself, stand up. In a series of movements, I come up to standing. And that has some shape.

[31:02]

At some point, I am sort of standing up. We can call that a Dharma. And in that moment of coming up to standing, I stabilize myself. Yeah. In the context of my physical action and in the context of being here with all of you. Okay. Now, the only reason I've noticed that Sophia... When she plays, practices the cello.

[32:03]

Yeah, as I told you, she's got this new quarter-sized cello. Which she really... Really, I mean, she liked the violin, but she really likes the cello a lot better. She likes the... It's got this big box she hugs, and it vibrates. It's great to see her. She's a little tiny person, and she's got this big thing. It's great to see her. She's a little tiny person, And she says that her teacher says she's got a very good loose wrist. Somehow that seems to be important. He says sometimes it takes people forever to learn to have their wrist really loose.

[33:07]

Anyway, so she sits there and Well, she actually has to stabilize herself. in each moment she's got to have the cello a certain way her fingers on the strings a certain way and the bow a certain way just on one string at a time usually and the touch of the bow to the string has to be Not too heavy and not too light. So she literally, it's clear, tunes herself. I would say she's stabilizing herself in each moment. And what Marie-Louise and I noticed is that after she's had a class or practiced, she's much better the whole rest of the day.

[34:25]

We've noticed it over and over again. And with the violin too. I don't think it's because she's playing music or even that she's satisfied that she wasn't too obstreperous. Obstreperous? I know the word, but I wonder... It means like resisting, difficult, you know, fussing. It's because she stabilized herself. I don't know, maybe Mjokin Roshi, or French-Hungarian Roshi, and pianist... Who did you study with?

[35:26]

And he's just to give a concert or something? In November, you said? Yes, but in Poland. In Poland? Oh, you want to do it here? Okay, in Poland. And so did you practice a little downstairs? Oh, good. But he may find the same thing to be true. I don't know. You sit down on the desk and your posture has to be a certain way. Or Alan may find the same thing true. But what I mean by stabilize yourself in each moment is like that. The floor, the posture. The situation, each moment you find a certain stability. Stability. Yeah. And we can be sure, since they are adept practitioners, that Matsu and Baijong are walking along with this interlocking, stabilizing kind of feeling with each other.

[36:45]

That's their moment-by-moment experience. The silent we. As I said, I and thou or I and you speak, but we is silent. And the space of the silent we From where this story arises. Sorry, that's more than enough. You're going to do something? Okay.

[37:21]

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