so the next day Lungtan says well there's somebody here the new monk who has claws and teeth or something he says and the next day or so Deshan takes his commentaries on the Diamond Sutra and burns them in front of the monastery. Dogen wouldn't burn the Diamond Sutras. So this whole line of Deshan with the teaching of shouting and striking is kind, is... Togen doesn't like too much. But aside from that, it's pretty strange for someone who can affect you so deeply

[01:09]

who can reach you so deep by simply blowing out a candle. So much that you give up your scholarly career, burn your books, And then a few days later you leave. Then he went to see Guishan. One of the most gentle and greatest of all Zen teachers. And he immediately challenges Guishan. So I think Dogen would have said, If Lungthang affected him so deeply, why didn't he stay and study with him?

[02:38]

He still had the same proud and greedy mind. Why didn't he stay and spend some time with this woman in the tea shop, in the dumpling, dim sum shop? Anyway, Dogen questions these stories in this way. Still, what is this ungraspable mind? What is this mind that flows freely? And clearly these stories make clear that The physical world is the circumstance, ordinary circumstances, seemingly ordinary circumstances.

[04:18]

are the cause of teaching and realization. An encounter with a shopkeeper. Trying to buy a dumpling. blowing out a candle. So what's the teaching here? Yeah, it's not, I think, whatever St. Augustine meant. We can't find the direction from him. The direction here is a mind sensitized by holding a phrase or holding a teaching. It's from this world that the teaching arose.

[05:27]

So you bring the teaching back to the physical world. You rub the mind, so to speak, with repeating the phrase or the teaching. And you rub the teaching in a sense against the physical world. Now that comparison, just bring the teaching and whatever appears in context. And the word for this, the name for this approach is Wado. It means get to the root of the word. The Wado means the word source or root. So mind is the source of the words.

[06:50]

So this practice is also to watch the mind appear through the teaching, through the circumstances, through mind itself. The mind refreshes mind, mind liberates mind. So whether you're feeling uncomfortable or comfortable in your sitting, or desperate or blissful, what mind is there? What mind is here? May our intentions equally penetrate every being and every place with the true merit of the Buddha-Vedas.

[08:18]

Shukra, Mohen, Seh, Gan, Loh. All the dreams taken and done All the wild and warrior taken and done I believe to guide them. The desires are inexhaustible. I believe to give them up. The desires are inexhaustible. I believe to overcome them. The way of the Buddha is unsatisfactory. I believe to realize it. Satsang with Mooji

[09:30]

Monshii tsutsu no koto betari Gawaku wa nyorai no shinjitsu Gyori shi tate matsuran As is obvious, you know, we're practicing Zen.

[11:06]

Most of you are, and I certainly am, practicing some version of Zen at least. Why am I practicing Zen? Mostly it's the fortunate meeting I had with Suzuki Roshi. But the whole world I inhabited as a young teenager and young man was heading in the direction of Zen. You know, I'm doing this Yeah, for some combination of reasons.

[12:26]

But since I'm doing it, I should explore it thoroughly. Yeah, you know, to put it in another perspective, there's Human beings have been in some form like us for maybe a couple hundred thousand years. We don't know exactly, but of course with pretty much the same capacities we have. And anthropologists, I think, have pretty much determined that there's no such thing as primitive languages. So there's no such thing as primitive people.

[13:36]

Yeah, it's just that intelligence is applied differently in different cultures. And within our culture, which now includes an element of Asian culture, intelligence is applied a certain way. And in Zen it's applied in a quite specific way. And I would say that in Zen it's applied, it's a different application of intelligence through practice than in earlier Buddhism.

[14:38]

Now, I can't really say that that's... to what degree that's true. Because I only practice this. I don't practice other forms of Buddhism. So really I'm just trying to make what Zen practice is clear. Yeah, my comparisons are not intended to to compare favorably or unfavorably. But if I look at...

[15:52]

what the little I know about other forms of Buddhist practice, I would say that meditation is more contemplative and more structured. Now Zen emphasizes, I think, it seems to me, more than any other school, a very, very still sitting. And to emphasize very, very still sitting, it emphasizes posture. And the stillness of sitting and the emphasis on the posture is an alternative to structured sitting, mentally structured sitting.

[17:37]

And what's the idea behind this? Well, still sitting seems to draw the body into stillness. Jan Wu seems to emphasize sitting as stillness, silence, and investigation. Jan Wu seems to... Physical stillness, mental silence and Now, it's not so easy to know exactly what that means.

[18:41]

So I'm trying with you now to explore what that means. And this is the kind of lecture which I might... next week or a few years, change my mind a bit about. But the spirit of our practice is to keep exploring it. Now, Yunyan and Daowu, who are our two favorite monks, Yunyan being the teacher of Tungshan, When Dungsan wanted to, he asked Guishan a question.

[19:50]

Now, I'm not going to tell, I hope I'm not going to tell a lot of stories as I did yesterday. But my telling the stories, because it's pretty traditional kind of Teisho is to base it on a koan or lineage story. A very large percentage of Sukhriyashi's lectures were that kind of tesha. So since I presented this kind of, introduced you to this sort of group of people, And if you want to catch the feeling of a particular koan and teacher, you kind of follow various stories about, that are interrelated.

[21:18]

And the point here is that this is an emphasis on the teacher teaching rather than the teaching itself. The teacher's teaching rather than the teaching itself. Teaching. through a teacher. And that's what a lineage means. And the emphasis in Zen on lineage, I think, comes because of the emphasis on teaching through a teacher.

[22:25]

And the emphasis on teaching through a teacher For example, again, Dungsan explored an aspect of teaching with Guishan. And he couldn't quite understand what Guishan's answer was. I mean, there were several things said, including raising his whisk. So he said, so Dung Shan said to Guishan, who else in your generation of teachers do you admire? and he said well there's a man called Yunyan a man of the way called Yunyan who go to where there's a

[23:34]

are stone houses strung together. Go to strung, attached. And if you can follow the grasses and face the wind... And this... A statement made a big impression on me for some reason when I was younger. The statement to follow the grasses and face the wind. This is what he said he should do? Yes, if you can follow the grasses and face the wind. He meant something like, can you trust your own inner inclinations and face the wind of a teacher, the force of a teacher.

[24:57]

He said, Dongshan said, who is this person? Dongshan said, who is this person? He once, and Guishan said, he once asked me, how should one respect, how should one respond to a teacher who touches you, reaches you? And Guishan said, I said to him, stop all leaking. And Guishan said, I said to him, Halte alles ausfließen.

[26:13]

Ausfließen. Yeah, outflows. Yeah. Okay, that's good. Why not? Stop all leaking. And then Yunyan added. Und dann fügte Yunyan hinzu. And... [...] And go with the direction of the teacher's teaching. So here you can see that there's this emphasis on... Yeah, on... Here... But not the teaching, because Guishan didn't quite reach Dungsan, but looking for someone who could reach this particular person, Yunyang.

[27:15]

In other words, what Guishan said to Dungsan, he couldn't quite understand. That doesn't mean that if you don't understand, you give up. But rather that... The context of teaching and teacher is essential in Zen. It's a face-to-face activity or practice. Okay. Now, going back to still sitting again. And the practice of mindfulness. Now, early Buddhism practices mindfulness.

[28:23]

Of course. But Zen practices emphasizes really mindfulness of mind itself. That's why it's always called the teaching that points at the mind. Sukhriyashi actually even, there was quite a well-known medical doctor who'd been practicing Zen for many years. And he was a psychiatrist. And Sukharshi, one time after a lecture, this person was visiting. Sukharshi, actually, after the lecture, they came out sort of in the same when the doctor came out shortly after Sukershi.

[29:38]

Sukershi actually pulled him into a side hall and then pointed his finger at his forehead three times and touched his forehead. And then walked off. And this guy spoke to me later and said, you know, a couple of years later, what did he mean? Yeah, well, I know Sukesh was hoping that maybe the context was a possible one, but it didn't seem to have been. Now, one characteristic of Zen practice, and I'm sort of just poking around here trying to see how to talk about this, Zazen is seen as a kind of repository or a basket of experience.

[30:50]

And you keep trying to bring your zazen experience into your daily life. Now, in early Buddhism, the five skandhas are kind of pointing out the mind as a consciousness, as a construct. In early Buddhism, the five skandhas show consciousness as a construct. And Zen, without going into more detail on that, Zen emphasizes, for instance, the five skandhas as a pretty common experience. Our usual way of going into zazen. When you sit down, you're in some kind of consciousness.

[32:15]

But not after you've heard Christian's drum. When I started to come down for a lecture, I guess Sophia watched you drumming, is that right? She was upstairs and had turned upside down all containers and was running around beating them. So my consciousness was already in some kind of being beaten up before I got here. And if you follow the physiological experience of sitting, consciousness sort of subsides and you have more just an associative mind. And then you're in the fourth skanda.

[33:22]

And then if you sit a little more, you become stiller, your associations pretty much cease and you just hear perceptions. When you sit a little more and become quieter, then the associations stop and you only hear Now here I'd like to say something about the difference between noticing, which is part of investigation, and attention. Now say you have your attention on your breath, for example. And you notice a sound. That noticing is a little bit different than attention.

[34:37]

Attention you can hold on something. Noticing just goes here and there. Now part of the non-structure of zazen practice, is to follow this noticing once you're not in the mind of consciousness and associative thinking. Now, it's interesting that if you notice your thinking, it interrupts your thinking. But if you notice a sound, the birds or the cows or whatever, the noticing doesn't interfere with the sound.

[35:45]

then noticing is, how can I say, first of all, it's of the same category as thinking, because it interrupts thinking, like a roadblock or something. But yet, it can go deeper than thinking. Because if you think about a sound, you lose attention to the sound. But you can notice the sound. So now, A lot of these stories are to try to point out to you the difference between attention and noticing. Yeah, like to follow the grasses is a coded way of speaking about noticing. This is one of those lectures I'm trying to figure out how to talk about these things.

[37:21]

But I'm going to assume it's useful to you to notice the difference between attention and noticing. Okay. Notice the difference between noticing and attention. Because you get all day, you're just sitting here doing nothing, you might as well notice these things. Yeah, get familiar with the way the mind works. Now, tantric Buddhism seems to emphasize interior reality more than exterior.

[38:30]

I would say that Zen tends to emphasize interior and exterior equally. as if there were a continuum. And again, Yuan Wu says that through maturing still sitting, and, he says, stopping leaking, maintaining continuous concentration without interruption, You mature the embryo of sagehood. I'm quoting him. Bringst du den embryo des... He also says through sitting you find one great potential.

[39:51]

Now here it's not speaking about oneness. He calls it the roundness of one great potential, which appears before you, throughout you, complete. He's speaking about some kind of alchemy, a kind of alchemy, catalytic process, of joining still sitting to just simply noticing and then letting that noticing dissolve. I never spoke about it this way, but this is a way to speak about the technique of Zen sitting.

[41:18]

And a way of finding the mind absorbed in the body. and the body absorbed into the mind. Going back to our earlier lectures, understanding noticing is the root of speech. Here, if you weren't in the earlier lectures, speech is again a kind of code or sign for all the articulations of mind and body. Yes, if I can move my arm, is that mind or body?

[42:20]

If I was dead, it certainly wouldn't move much anyway. Mind or body or speech? I'm telling it to move. Can we find ourselves in the middle of that alchemy of mind, body and speech? And begin to feel how mind, body and speech absorb each other, express each other. Going back to what I said before again, and discovering a grammar not from our inherited culture,

[43:33]

but a grammar that arises through still sitting. Or a grammar of knowing the world, knowing the relationships of the world, through the fusion of mind, speech, and body. Now, once this fusion occurs, Yuan Wu says, once you've got the gist of the teaching, then your practice of mindfulness is the

[44:47]

Nurturing of big mind. You now have a... moment by moment, tangible experience of big mind. So the beginning practice of Zen or the first years of practice of Zen is you're developing a physical and mental stillness. And that reaches into the way mind and body function together in surprising ways. how body and mind function together.

[46:21]

So you are developing physical and mental stillness. how body and mind function together. As a catalyst. Simultaneously, you're developing mindfulness practice. And you're developing that primarily through attention to breathing. Attention to your physical activity. And attention to your physical activity.

[47:21]

Okay. So you have this combination of your developing physical and mental stillness. Okay. which in itself is transformative. And simultaneously you're developing an attentiveness, mindful attention to your breath and your activities. and at the same time you develop an attention to Now, Zen assumes these two are brought best together by wisdom phrases. Okay, let me see if I can really make the picture clearer again.

[48:25]

As an experience of meditation, you're developing a physical and mental stillness. At first it may be only momentary. But even momentary, it has a medicinal effect on us. You know something, there's a knowledge about it once it's happened. So you have both an experience of it and you have a knowledge of the experience. And the knowledge also has an effect on you. Because it begins to be a contrast to other experiences. Because you can remember this experience. And that knowledge helps you develop practices which sustain you. and mature the experience.

[49:51]

And that knowledge can also be an encouragement to develop mindfulness in your daily practice. And you're trying to develop a continuity of mindfulness. that's natural and effortless. It's a continuity of mindfulness that is inseparable from ease. Okay. Now, these two are part of how practice periods develop, sashins are developed, and so forth. Now, you want those two practices of mindfulness and stillness to begin to work together.

[51:09]

And one way, and I'll limit it to that much today, is the use of phrases. Now we're talking about a mindfulness practice where you're mindful of wisdom. And it can be rather comical or commonplace. Can be what? Rather comical or commonplace. Let's go back to our favorite two months. So it's a kind of gray day like this. And Dao Wu picks up his hat. And Da Wu says, and Yun Yan says, Yun Yan's always hanging around, you know?

[52:35]

Yun Yan says, what's the use of that? What do you say? What's the use of that? And he says, it's... What's that for? And he says, oh, yeah. Excuse me. Yunyan says, what's that for? And he says, it has a use. Yeah. What if there's a violent storm? Dawu says, it will cover me. Yeah, and then Jungian says, does the hat have a cover? And he says, yes, but it never leaks. Um... I back up my translator.

[53:55]

It's okay. Yes, but it never leaves. Now, this is, you know, it's kind of funny and silly. But it's characteristic of trying to always be aware of... The absolute and relative simultaneously. I mean, everyone knows what a hat is for. But Jungian says, what's that? And how does Da Wu answer? He says it has a use. That's basically the practice of emptiness.

[54:58]

You speak about things, you get in the habit of speaking about things without assuming they have a reality. It's almost like you pick up a hat and you say, what the heck is this? Sophia is a lot like that. She's always finding a new something. He says it has a use. Now again, I said during the practice month, one way to practice emptiness, a fundamental way, is to take everything as only an assumption.

[56:02]

Does the world exist? Well, that's an assumption. When you step out, you step out on the floor as if maybe it doesn't exist. And if you call someone and say, telephone someone in Berlin... You're a little bit surprised that Berlin is still there. It's a way of thinking. It's a way of thinking. I mean, you can actually feel it after what happened in New York. People actually, I was with people here and they were phoning their spouses back in New York.

[57:05]

Is New York still there? Well, most of it's still there. But we don't need some kind of calamity like that to practice with, is it still there? Hmm? So, you know, you pick up a hat and you say, what's that for? I'll find out if it's raining. It has a use. But what if it's really a violent storm? It'll protect me. But does it also have protection or a cover?

[58:11]

Ah yes, but it never leaks. So they're speaking, fooling around, reminding themselves a kind of wisdom mindfulness. This can get kind of stinky of Zen. Or as I said last night, it can be a hitching post for a donkey. But here it's still, this is a characteristic way of practicing. Yeah, it never leaks. It means we take care of this big mind through never leaking. And it means what I tried to point out last night. When I said, nothing is hidden, and I said, everything is hidden, investigate this.

[59:31]

May our intentions be the same as that of every being and every place, with the true merit of the Buddha's path. Ujjom urem se gandho boyom ujjiv se gandham O Mãe Mãe, Mãe [...] Die Begierden sind unerschöpflich, ich gelobe sie aufzugeben. Die Dramatoren sind unernesslich, ich gelobe sie zu beschreiten. Der Krieg des Bruders ist unübertrefflich, ich gelobe ihn zu verwältigen.

[60:52]

Vuzhuzhen jen vizhuzhen zhuzhen vuzhuzhen [...] Satsang with Mooji My name is Alfred, I am a true and perfect Lama. For the last seven years, I have only seen hundreds of thousands of Leo and Kalpas. Now that I can save the series and my life, I try to find out the truth of this part of the story.

[62:11]

You know, I have so many basic things to do these days. Things that I have no choice about I have to do. That's why I just try to get some of them done in the first couple of days of Sashin. But I don't feel good if I don't. practice with you as much as possible. So I gave up and gave up to the Sashin. But sometimes I think I should go to Kyoto and hide under the Third Street Bridge. If any of you are foolish enough to look for me, you'll find the road blocked by melons.

[63:46]

And I have to give, obviously, quite a lot of lectures. Between 200 and 300 a year. And you probably think it's easy for me now. It's somewhat easier than it used to be, it's true. But I face every lecture like a wall I can't climb over. Almost every lecture feels like that. Yeah, so, yeah. I must be talking about today too, huh?

[65:06]

So, what am I commenting on? Well, yesterday I wanted to speak about the craft of practice. And I found in speaking with you that the craft of how the basic Buddhist teachings, are dipped or cooked in the mind of zazen, was not the way to go. Now what I felt yesterday was the better is to speak about the parallel crafts of Zen practice.

[66:17]

I've never spoken about practice exactly this way, just this way. It must be that I'm doing so because I can feel you getting to the point where this might be useful. So I have to find out how to speak about it. Now, what am I commenting on that also brings me to this point? Well, it's a statement like Yuan Wu. Like Yuan Wu's statement. Who is, you know, the... I've said is the... more or less the author of the Blue Cliff Records.

[67:42]

And he's, you know, obviously, I think, obviously an accomplished Zen master. And one of the most informative influences on the Zen we practice today. And he was much admired by Dogen. Now let's look at what something he says. The whole Great being appears before you. Now, don't rush to try to understand that.

[68:43]

It's better to be puzzled. and look for a context in what he says to feel your way into it. And look for a context in yourself to feel your way into it. And hold back from thinking about it. And these are not dictionary words. This is just some attempt to throw some words at something.

[69:53]

Okay. The whole great being appears before you. What does he mean? Does he mean everything all at once? But that's not too bad, everything all at once. Now everything is different than everything all at once. Except my saying that it's different. Okay, and he says, the whole great being appears before you and nowhere else. Ready made for you.

[71:07]

What's this? Ready made for you. This one, then he says, this one great potential. Now this whole great being is one great potential. So what again, what are we talking about? He says this one great potential turns smoothly and steadily. It is like water being poured in water. Mm-hmm. Everything is equalized in one great suchness.

[72:39]

Now, you know, you may get tired of this, a lot of Zen buzzwords. Do you have that phrase, buzzwords? How do you translate that, Alan? But it means, you know, a word that, I don't know, politicians use certain words to mean a whole lot of things at once and they usually mean nothing. Okay. Okay. So it sounds like a lot of Zen buzzwords. But we're here in this Sashim. So can we go slowly enough to try to see if Yuan Wu is driving at something?

[73:40]

He's aiming at something. The one, the whole. The whole great being appears before you and nowhere else. Ready made for you. This one great potential turns smoothly and steadily. Like water being poured in water. Everything equalized in one suchness. Okay. Now let's take this as the description of some kind of experience central to Yuan Wu's life and central to what he was trying to convey in the whole of the Blue Cliff Records, the most famous and powerful of all the Koan collections.

[75:22]

Okay. Now, this doesn't just sound like a description of enlightenment. Yeah, it's... not separate from enlightenment. But it's a very particular, particular, it's a very particular quality. That's secure, she would say. Practice and study begin after enlightenment. and Suzuki Roshi would say that And he would also say enlightenment is always present in our life.

[76:31]

So what we're coming back to is actually a craft of practice. Okay. It's a particular craft of practice that results in this kind of experience that Yuan Wu describes. Now, I'm trying to speak to what that craft is. Now, Let's try to look at it as if it were particular to Zen practice.

[77:34]

Now, why do I want to say that? Because I want you to realize, feel, understand that this is a particular craft, this Zen practice. And it has a particular result. Now, I think we'd all agree that if you learn to play the piano with a particular teacher. Probably that approach influences all the way how you play the piano. There's not one true way to play the piano. And practicing Zen is a little bit like you learn to play the piano.

[78:58]

And you get to a certain point and the keyboard changes. And you practice. You learn to play on one keyboard and then suddenly there's a different keyboard, kind of like emerges from under the keyboard you've got. And you can't explain this to anybody until they've practiced long enough to discover this keyboard that's under the other one. Or perhaps around the back of the piano where you didn't look because it's up against the wall. Or maybe you play a clavichord long enough and it turns into a piano. Or you play an organ?

[80:16]

Well, you say, I don't know, it's a... Clavichord. Clavichord, yes. Long enough, and then it turns into a piano. Okay. Okay. So I'm trying to, again, just create some pictures for you so you can feel the territory of practice. So when we're talking about the result... or the fruit of a particular craft or practice. I'm saying it this way so I can disabuse you of the idea of one truth. Disabuse means to take away the idea. No, we have no problem in seeing it.

[81:29]

I think in understanding it, You learn to play the piano one way and it results in a different kind of piano playing. And games like tennis and running are all quite different now. And games like tennis or running are now quite different. I was told the other day, I've been told several times, actually that the person who won the Olympic Games in 1923 or something like that couldn't even qualify for the Boston Marathon now. There's not one truth in sports or one physical limit for it.

[82:33]

Yet we still think all of Buddhism and all of enlightenment reaches to one basic truth. Why is it when we think about religion and spiritual life we get so stupid? We lose our common sense and start thinking, whoa. This is just a way of practice. You simply have to do it if you want to do it. And I'm trying to give you a sense of what I know about it in you. And it's not going to be because you're a really nice person the enlightenment will come.

[84:04]

And you deserve it because you were born good. Or born bad, I don't know. Both my parents were piano teachers, so I naturally know how to play the piano. Well, you don't, unless you practice. So let's look at this as... not some kind of big deal truth, but the experience Yuan Wu came to. Let's... Look at something else he said.

[85:10]

Enlightenment is exactly where you stand. Sounds good? But what does he say? Where do you stand? Bring forth the mind where there's no before and after. Where there's no here and there. That's sort of a special definition of where you stand. You stand where there's no before and after. No here and there. Oh. Maybe I should try another practice.

[86:30]

Can you imagine if that's where you stood all the time? Then you're really in the room of the Buddha ancestor. Okay, so what is this practice? I asked Suzuki Roshi in, I think, my second Shosan ceremony. When you... Shosan ceremony is in the practice period when you ask the teacher questions. I asked him, what is my responsibility? And he said very simply, it's under your feet. But he meant all of this.

[87:48]

He understood my question. And just a simple question like that you can brush off easily because it's a kind of common sense. But I had to practice with this, it's under my feet. Yeah, at some point you emerge into this standing where there's no before and after. Now, I gave you three or four crafts. Maybe I'll give you five today. Yeah, or it might be six tomorrow. Or I probably gave you five, but didn't call it five. One is the face-to-face relationship with the teacher.

[88:59]

One is the catalyst of stillness and zazen. one is investigation that's three and another is mindfulness in your activity and the fifth wisdom phrase No, that's actually, maybe there won't be more tomorrow.

[90:03]

Okay, well, let's start with what is a teacher? What's this face-to-face teaching? Mm-hmm. Suzuki Roshi said that the first teaching he received, the first difficult problem he received from his teacher, Gyokujen and so on, was the story of Yaoshan. We chant him in the morning. Anyway, Yao Shan in Chinese. And Yao Shan studied with Shido. Yeah. Shido. And these are the Ur teachers.

[91:24]

Don't you have the word Ur meaning source? The Ur root. This is the Ur of Zen Buddhism. Shido and Matsu, all Zen teachings and lineages stem from Matsu and Shido. And Shido was the person who wrote the Sandokai, which we chant in the mornings. You don't know what you're chanting, but it's great. Okay. So the problem that Gyokujun gave to Sukhriyashi was Yeah, that's the book.

[92:37]

Then my beginner's mind is dedicated to Gyokujin and so on. Was the story of, anyway, the story of Yaoshan, And one day the director of the monastery came of the temple came to Yashin and said you haven't given a lecture in months and months and everybody is missing it.

[93:02]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_63.67