Thank you for joining this session, which ends about six weeks of practice, or at least the house together. And quite a few people have joined us this summer again. And yeah, as I always say, you know, this is an experiment. But also, excuse the comparison, Western culture is an experiment. Asian culture, Japanese culture, Buddhist culture is an experiment. And this sashin, even one period of zazen, but the sashin is to enter this experiment somehow on your own terms.

[01:20]

So we're always asking, basically in doing practice, How do we exist? What is this existence? And this morning, during the first period of Zazen, I said, yeah, this Sashin starts now. Yeah, of course it... started when you decided to come some weeks or months ago. And then it started when you, you know, the last few days you thought, am I really going to do this? Is this how I use up my vacation? But in some way this morning we sat down, took this posture.

[02:47]

beginning the seven days of Sashin. Yeah, and so I said, this Sashin starts now. Now I said that because I wanted to give you some mental posture. Just to take a physical posture and sit here is not quite enough. We also need some mental posture also during this week. But we want some mental posture that doesn't interfere. Yes, some mental posture which lets us receive.

[03:53]

Receive what? Well, let's not have any what? Just be a feeling of readiness or... Ready to receive? Yeah, as this posture is, you know, when you take the posture, you try to sit. Yeah, so you don't have to use much musculature to correct your posture and so forth. And then I said, just to know yourself. To accept yourself.

[04:56]

But then I didn't like saying yourself. I wanted to take self away. So I said to know what is sitting here on this cushion. Yeah, I'd like to take away here and cushion too. But we do have to start somewhere. So let's start with not to know yourself, but to know what's... what seems, what is on this cushion. Yeah, and then I didn't want to say no. I didn't want to use the word no.

[06:10]

So I found myself going back to what we've been speaking about these six weeks, noticing instead of knowing. I'm going back to what we've been speaking about. Noticing instead of knowing. So just to notice what is here. Without connecting the dots. Just notice. And to notice what is here, not who is here. This is like saying the face before your parents were born.

[07:14]

Maybe we could even say, yeah, the face, the what before even God created us. My father, my former father-in-law, my first marriage, he had a number of heart attacks and it was clear he was going to die. And I liked him a lot, and I was talking with him. And he said, yeah, it was all right before I was born. I'm sure it'll be all right after I'm dead. Yeah, it's a kind of... A commonplace remark in a way.

[08:22]

But it's also a profound, wise remark. It allowed him to have considerable ease in dying. And to say that is not different really from saying the face before your parents were born. In effect he was saying It was okay before my story started, and it will be okay after my story's ended. But could we end our story in this Sashin? Just for seven days. You can pick up the narrative again after Sashin. It's a vacation.

[09:37]

And literally, vacation means to vacate yourself, to have nothing to do. And this word vacation in English means to empty yourself and have nothing to do. So I would try to say we Europeans... We Americans are also part of the Western experiment. didn't step out of our story too. To, um, to, um, this, well, I can say this Protestant illness of always having something to do?

[10:45]

Can we, can you just for a week, yeah, just do the schedule? Yeah, I always have to say something like this in the beginning of Sashin because that's really what makes Sashin work. And I use the word accept to do just accept. I need a stronger word than that for sashin. Maybe to give up. Or to surrender. No. Kapitulieren.

[11:49]

Kapitulieren, danke. Capitulate? Yeah. That means to cut your head off. I know, but capitulate literally means to cut off the cap, cut off your head. So, the headless sashin. There's a famous book by some Englishman who started practicing Buddhism called India, I think, or some place. What's it, The Man Who Lost His Head? Anybody know the book? Yeah, Having No Head. And he had the experience of having no head. So that's good. That's good advice. Surrender your head. Surrender your head. To give yourself over into a silence, a stillness where all is well.

[13:06]

A stillness where all is well. A stillness where everything is... in its place. And in one period of meditation or the whole Sashin, maybe you have more of a chance to find this stillness where all is well. Yeah, again, you can be as busy as you want after the Sashin. Just see if you can, again, find stillness where all is well. A palpable feeling. And you want to get this feeling in your heart. Whatever is here.

[14:25]

It's a kind of vacation again. Where you have nothing to do. And if you can really get to that feeling, even when you have something to do, underneath there's nothing to do. There's a silence or stillness where all is quiet. All can be well. Now, I mean, when you do a sashin, you have the feeling that you, I think you must have the feeling, I've come into some kind of Buddhist culture. Yeah, or a Japanese culture. But what we really want is a nameless culture.

[15:38]

What could be a nameless culture? Well, we're going to give it some kind of name. So let's, well, we can call it Buddhist or Japanese or something. But really the idea behind a sashin is not a Buddhist culture, but a nameless culture. One in which your self-text can be lost. So now let's go again to Dogen's statement that I have been speaking about. The continuous practice which actualizes itself So we're going to have something for this week we can call continuous practice.

[16:56]

Giving up into the schedule. And this continuous practice which actualizes itself, how is it going to actualize itself? What would that mean? And Dogen goes on to say, is your practice, your continuous practice, just now? And, of course, all of this is your continuous practice just now. Please don't look to what I'm saying for some meaning particularly or content.

[17:59]

Look, if you're going to look, look to what it makes you feel. What kind of palpable feeling do you have? I read a review of some woman choreographer, dancer the other day. And her name was Susan, maybe Susan Marshall, something like that. And she doesn't, like Twyla Tharp and other of her contemporaries, doesn't start with music, unlike her contemporaries. She just starts with the body and tells them to do something different. rather abstract.

[19:03]

Maybe like enter a nameless culture. And then she watches what the dancers' bodies do. And then after Something develops, then they add music, write music. This is actually surprisingly close to Bart Hellinger's, what is it called, systemic psychology. To watch what the body does in a nameless culture. Just to notice. And her dances are only four to six minutes long. Four to six minutes long, her dances are.

[20:10]

But look at the popular song. It's, what, three or four minutes. And then we might say, oh, it's because the original vinyl records couldn't hold more than three or four minutes. Now one side can hold all the operas ever written. Or at least an iPod can. But I think it's actually that three or four minutes there's some kind of unit there. A song coming at you out of nowhere. can suddenly capture your mood. Yeah, so in sashing we have many of these little moments. In our life we have many of these little moments.

[21:24]

And they don't have to be episodes in our story, one thing set next to another. But I'd like you to take these little moments occurrences out of your story. You just notice them, but don't make connections particularly. Notice them in your breath. Notice them in Yeah, the feeling of subject and object disappear. Now, Dogen goes on to say, you know, he starts this continuous practice which actualizes itself. Is your continuous practice just now?

[22:27]

So don't say to yourself, oh, am I doing Buddhist practice? Or I should be doing this better or differently. That's then not your continuous practice just now. What is your mood just now? What is your immediate situation? Within several breaths, within several minutes. This is your continuous practice just now. And then Dogen says, the now of this continuous practice is not, was not, is not originally possessed by the self.

[23:32]

It's not originally possessed by the self. It was okay before I was born. I'll be okay after I die. This world in which I live is not originally possessed by my story. The self, particularly our western self, is so related to the text of memory. And memory as a narrative. So Sashin gives you a chance to vacate yourself from this text. To know this feeling.

[24:43]

Your text will keep reappearing during this Sashin. But to sometimes be outside your self-text. Your self-tape. And to be in a what or a now that is not possessed by the self. A stillness or silence where all is well. All is good. Thank you very much.

[25:36]

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