being here for another teisho. And I apologize for coming into Zazen in the middle of a period this morning and leaving in the middle of a period. But during the night I could feel the congestion coming back. You don't have congestion in Germany? I don't know how to translate it. We must have it, but... Cough medicine is a decongestant. Anyway, not important. We understand. You understand. Anyway, Fritz, you have the same.

[01:12]

You have that congestion, I see. Yeah, congestion is also like a traffic jam. You call it congestion. I have a stow in my chest. I remember once driving somewhere in Germany and it said, between Cologne and Berlin is a parking lot. Yeah, because it was when the East just opened up, and I guess the... I was in a parking lot, oh my God. Anyway, I had this... The stow was a little bit like a furry little animal inside me, getting ready to bite. And yesterday I'd mostly gotten congestion to go away. But I could feel it. congesting during the night.

[02:32]

So when I got up with the wake-up bell, I thought, uh-uh, this probably isn't good if I go to Zazen. But because when I don't feel a... I mean, being sick is just another way of being alive. And I don't really care whether I'm sick or not, particularly. But I like to have a kind of participatory relationship with the sickness. Because I don't necessarily want to get more sick, even though I don't mind being sick. So during the night, when I woke up, I mean, when I got up with the wake-up bell, I could feel I'm not in a participatory relationship with this.

[03:36]

It may make me worse. And, um, yeah. Um, so I, uh, um, put some hot water on for Marie Louise and went back to bed. But after about half an hour, I really wanted to go to Zazen. And I wondered, why do I want to go to Zazen? I can just sit here in my room if necessary. But there's a certain kind of experience of zazen when I'm sitting with you in the zendo that's not the same as sitting in the room by myself. So for about half an hour I was saying, can I establish a participatory relationship with this damn little fuzzy animal?

[04:54]

Or is he like some kind of mole going to burrow deeper into me? Mole? And cause me as an old man to get pneumonia and die. People have been hinting to me, you know, you're kind of old and you have to be careful with pneumonia. And people have been hinting to me, you know, you're kind of old and you have to be careful with pneumonia. Yeah, hinting. But after about half an hour I felt, yeah, I've got a relationship with her. So I got up. And then I had the next problem. Do I put on my robes or do I just go into an ordinary clothes?

[06:06]

It might have been simpler and warmer just to put on regular clothes. But then, like most of the time, I decide to let my body decide. And I noticed my body probably already decided because during the night I was thinking about whether to use the new OB I just got from Anne or my old OB which keeps getting shorter because I have to cut it off because it frays at the end. Did I say all that? Yes, you did. Oh my goodness. Anyway, so I got up and I'm standing beside my regular clothes in the closet where my robes are and I just started putting on my robes. And then of course, since all the basic, not all, but many of the basic koans are present in my attitudes all the time,

[07:30]

And then, because not all, but many of the basic koans in my opinion are present all the time. I thought of koan 16 in the Mumonkan about Yanmen. went into the Zendo, according to this koan, and said, the world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your seven Joe O'Casa at the sound of the bell? I was reminded of you the other day saying to me, I made this.

[08:47]

Your seven Joe, okay, sir. Yeah, so why am I putting on my robe because of this endo? And I've certainly seen commentaries which say, well, this koan shows that you don't need to wear robes and do the Zen stuff to study koans. This is such a convenient and stupid understanding. I mean, it's true that we think of a koan like that because so often we put on our robes and it's raining or it's cold or our robes are... And we think, why am I putting on robes?

[09:54]

Yeah, so such a koan stays in our mind when we hear the bell for the Oyuki meal or whatever. And sometimes it's translated without seven Joe or seven piece. Okay, sir. And that's really shows somebody's got missed the point. Young men does not say, why did we put on a robe? He says, why do you put on your seven part made okesa? Yeah, and you could say this question is not much different than why do you bring your books to school?

[11:02]

Yeah, or why do you put on a tie or wear nice shoes when you go to a meeting? It's the custom, and it's maybe necessary, and so forth. But that's not exactly the point of this koan. This koan presumes a yogic interaction with the world. The world is vast and wide. We can say that's in the context of Zen philosophy that there are many world systems and blah, blah, blah.

[12:18]

But, yeah, that is a worldview, but right now we're emphasizing the experience of the world being vast and wide. Ja, das ist eine Weltsicht, aber gerade jetzt betonen wir die Erfahrung einer solchen Weltsicht, dass die Welt groß und offen, vast ist noch ein bisschen mehr als groß, also groß und weit ist. And if you don't have an experience of the world as vast and wide, the worldview concept of many worlds doesn't affect the way you act. When I was putting on my robes and deciding I really wanted to come to the Zendo, Yeah, as long as I'm not contagious, which I think I'm not, I thought I should come.

[13:28]

But your cough made me a little worried. I hope I haven't made you sick. It's yours. But once you've done it, it's ours, you know. Okay, so I asked her, you know, I could do as I was in here. I'm not bothering anybody. But I know that I have a more zazen when I sit with you. I feel more integrated. And I feel more bodily solidity. I mean, solid in English is a little funny because solid is more like a stone or something, but there is a kind of physical solidity that comes from zazen for me.

[15:00]

So there's a kind of solidity in it. I need it in the same way you sometimes need a good night's sleep. There's a difference between a good night's sleep and a restless night's sleep. So there's zazen, which kind of integrates you the way a good night's sleep does. And there's a... When I sit with you... And, you know, I ask myself these questions in the life context of why the heck am I doing this with you guys?

[16:06]

Why are we all doing this together and ringing bells and we all go to the Zendo and blah, blah, blah? If the world is vast and wide, we have so many choices, so many things to do, why do we do this? If the world is vast and wide and we have so many choices, why do we do this? So I ask myself, why don't I just, I'm quite happy, you know, most of the time, you know, doing Zazen anywhere is fine. Why do I do it here with you? Well, I, of course, like you. I love you. I don't know. Somehow it's nice. You're nice guys, gals. But also, you just make my son better. It's a kind of Buddhist selfishness. So I'm sitting with you this morning when I came in the middle of the period.

[17:40]

And I felt this wonderful solidity. And I often say you should be able to be in a crowd of people the same way you're in next to a tree or in a forest. But there is a difference between There is no universal space. There's no absolute space that's universal. All spaces have a conceptual, contextual aura or feel. Alle Räume haben eine zusammenhangsbezogene... Contextual and?

[19:00]

Auric. Like an aura. Okay. Eine zusammenhangsbezogene, kontextuelle aura. Yeah. So we could say metabolic space is different from empty room space. I mean, that's why people have pets in their lonely little apartment. They have a pet, and they're in metabolic space. And I've told you the story often, but not so recently. wandering down the, in a moonless night, down the mountain from the log house to the Zendo, Crestone. And I get off the path and I'm walking through stony kind of bushes and stuff to get down.

[20:13]

And that was when the space path we have now is not so defined. And suddenly I found myself in what I would call now serious metabolic space. I was in the middle of a group of male and female deer. I think 13, but there was a group that year, 13 or 15, that were wandering around that winter. And I realized, suddenly I was in this space with deer closer than you, like all around me. And I thought it was kind of a miracle because they didn't run away. And I would say that, you know, animals are much more likely to be in Sambhogakaya space than humans.

[21:44]

Which I define just now as a physicalness without referential thinking. I think if I'd been in usual consciousness, thinking about what I'm doing, they would have said, oh, God, here comes another one of those humans. Let's get out of here. But they said, here comes this strange-shaped deer. He feels like us, but he looks different. Der fühlt sich an wie wir, aber der sieht anders aus.

[22:54]

So I was standing in the middle of this group and I thought, okay. And then I walked very slowly without thinking through and they kind of separated for me and I went to the sender. So here I am in our Zendo this morning. And even... And when I heard the Eno hit the bell, was that you hitting the bell this morning? Yeah. I didn't say, well, I should get up and put on my robes again at the sound of the bell. I just... lovingly, luckily, continued sitting.

[24:09]

And even during Kin Hin, I felt this big space I was sitting in. And I really felt, like the first part of this koan of young men, the world is vast and wide. And it also has a feeling, this vast and wide of mystery. Yeah, it's not about how really big it is, it's about How in every way you look, it's a mystery that can't be caught hold of. So also, as you know by now, that Yogacara Zen is a kind of phenomenology. And Shibuyama Roshi, who was the compiler of the Mumonkan, translator of the Mumonkan version I happened to look at,

[25:31]

He says, his comment is, be at the sound of the bell. sein Kommentar dazu ist, beim Klang der Glocke. Beim Klang der Glocke werde wiedergeboren als die Subjektivität of seeing and hearing. This is what Merleau-Ponty and other phenomenologists have been trying to emphasize as a new way to look at philosophy in the West.

[26:49]

Be the subjectivity of hearing and seeing. It means you hear the sound arising in your own sensorium. Something I've endlessly pointed out. To hear the sound of your own hearing, first of all, So, Yan Min, when he says this, is assuming a certain kind of, let's say, yogic pace. You first of all, or at least in this context, you're in the mystery of a world that you cannot grasp.

[28:06]

It's vast, it's wide, you don't know what adjective to use, but those, we can use those. And at the sound of the bell, the sound of the bell, you're in the midst of your own hearing of the bell. And you don't even know what the bell means. It's just a bell. In some corner of your mind you think, oh yeah, it's Zazen, or there's Teisho coming up. And it's the custom of, when you listen to the teaching, to wear a Buddhist robe. And he makes it very specific, the seven Joe, okay sir.

[29:11]

So here is what makes this different from do you wear a tie or good shoes to a meeting, that's important. But first of all, is your fundamental experience that you're located in the mystery of this world? And then whatever appears A bell appears, it's arising in your own sensory. It belongs to you.

[30:18]

You can't lose that belonging by not going to Zazen or when you're supposed to go to Zazen you do something else. No, that belonging is there. But also, if the world is vast and wide, it doesn't mean you can do anything. But it does mean you have to do something. Because the only meaning of vast and wide or this mysterious ungraspable mystery of this world is that we locate our life in the particulars. whether we put on a robe or don't put on a robe.

[31:28]

And here it's a particular robe. Made to represent Buddha's robe. And of course, It's a tradition of how to make robes and a tradition of how to weave and make cloth and so forth. And you have no choice but to enter the particular. And the particulars you enter shape your life. And of course, why do I go to Zazen in the morning? It's also the same kind of question, you know, and why we're doing this. It's like, do we have a Buddha Hall or not?

[32:34]

Or a Zen Do Dharma Hall? Now, when Dogen first went in the early 13th century to China... He was rather surprised, my impression is, that there were always a Buddha hall. There was Buddha hall, the Zendo, and the Dharma hall. And when Daito Kokushi founded Daitokuji, founded Daitoku-ji, he didn't build a Buddha hall.

[33:34]

And when Muso founded Nanzen-ji in Kyoto, he emphasized the abbot's quarters and the Dharma hall, but not the Buddha hall. And Dogen thought that the two most important halls were the Dharma Hall, the Zendo, and the Abbott's Quarters. And for the teaching, instruction was best in the dharma hall and the abbot's quarters. And for the teaching, he thought that the instruction was best in the Dharma Hall or in the quarters of the Abbot.

[34:38]

I practiced at Daito-Kokshi for two and a half years, and they do now have a Buddha Hall. They didn't in Daito-Kokshi's time. And I'm always asking myself these questions, getting up in the morning feeling a little congested. Why do we not have a Buddha Hall? Should we have a Buddha Hall? And I believe I'm facing north, is that right? More or less facing north, yeah. Well, traditionally, the abbot, always the abbot who represents the Buddha but is not the Buddha, always has the north to his back. I mean, as much as possible, and he's teaching at least. Otherwise he'd walk in circles, trying to keep the north to his back.

[35:43]

Because the north, you know, gets colder and people can't live up there. It represents the chaos and the dark forces. But in the West and East and in the South you can make things work. Now, should we follow that custom? Do we have a Buddha hall or a Dharma hall where we shift it around so the abbot can always sit? So I make in my mind a distinction between living rituals and transitional rituals. And living rituals are, I think, are bowing at the cushion, are bowing to each other and so forth.

[37:08]

Are ways to embody the interactive worldview The interactive, interdependent way the world is of appearances. But transitional rituals are different than that. So we had a transitional ritual not too many days ago in which Jonas took the precepts. And last night we had a transitional ritual called the Ryaku Fasats. And yesterday evening we had a transition ritual with the name Ryako Fusatsu.

[38:20]

Now, you know, Ryako Fusatsu is a transitional ritual. Can you explain what you mean by transitional? Well, he transitioned into being a monk. Also, mit Übergangsritual, dass er übergegangen ist zum Mönchsein. And the Ryaku Fusatsu, which by the way, Ryaku means short or simple or abbreviated. And it's the simple version. If you do the full version, which I guess they do a couple times a year maybe. It takes two or three hours and sometimes it's spread over a couple days. So we did the simple version. Even simpler than I inherited from... I mean, in Asian culture everyone has a store of ritual experience.

[39:34]

And you give life to things by physically in the world, ritually observing. Physically observing the transition observing a transition through physically doing something, offering incense, jumping up and down on one foot. So last night's ritual is a ritual in which you take the precepts We take the precepts together to become a representative of the Buddha.

[40:55]

In some Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, much of it, the teacher, the guru, is represented and visualized as the Buddha. In Zen, the conception is more the teacher is the representative of the Buddha. And the practice is to discover yourself as a representative of the Buddha. By, in the case of last night, taking the precepts and calling forth all the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. And tomorrow we'll have another transitional ritual. Because Jonas will become the Shuso.

[42:24]

Tomorrow, right? And so what I'd like you to do, and why I added this to the Teisho, which is a little long, I want you to study why we come to the Zendo when the bell rings. Why don't you put on your sitting robe? Why am I doing this Teisho ritual of bowing? My Zagu is still spread out because I'm still in the space of bowing to the Buddha when I'm talking to you. So let's study the three ceremonies. The first two, your ordination, Jonas, becoming a representative Buddha last night. And tomorrow, having all of us recognize you, want you to express our interest in you being the head monk.

[43:35]

Western paradigms are different. The western paradigms are different. For us, rituals often kill our experience. It doesn't make our experience more real. And a Buddha hall is where rituals occur, primarily. And so some commentators said Zen, Song Dynasty Zen got rid of ritual and the Buddha hall became less important, etc. But for lay people, the Buddha Hall is often the most important because that's where they get married or have funerals, where their friends visit them after they die, and so forth. So we don't have to answer all these questions after tomorrow's ceremony.

[44:59]

But it ought to be in our mind because we're in fact, whether you like it or not, the pioneers in deciding what kind of practice places we're going to have. Aber die sollten in unserem Geiste präsent sein, ob ihr das jetzt mögt oder nicht, weil wir die Pioniere darin sind, zu entscheiden, welche Art von Praxisplatz wir gründen werden. And the night of the full moon and the night of the chaotic, dark night of the full moon and the night of the new moon. are a tradition that goes back way before Buddhism in India. But we're not part of that ritual tradition. But can we Can we make it our own?

[46:19]

Should we make it our own? These are the questions I had coming to Zazen this morning. A little while ago I heard a dog bark. A bark that arose within me. And a dog, the dog was barking into this vast mystery. And the dog was barking on our neighbor's farm. And the dog was barking because that's its job to bark. And my job right now is to bow to you and stop lecturing.

[47:15]

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