I'm always wondering what I'm doing. I speak to you about it, yeah, because I'm wondering. But I also speak about it because I think you should wonder what you're doing. Yeah, I never put, almost, particularly for a lecture, I never put on my robes or decide on a so-called teaching staff. I never put on my robes, especially for a lecture, or decide on a so-called teaching staff, you need some verb or something. Poor thing. I can say that in English. Okay. Yeah. Without wondering what I'm doing.

[01:02]

No matter how much I wonder for so many decades, I still just do it. I'm going to just keep doing it. Why do I wonder? Because partly I wonder what you're going to do when you continue this. And then I suddenly feel very sorry for you. You have to figure these things out. In fact, just when I came back from Japan One of the first things Tsukiroshi said to me before he died.

[02:04]

It's nice, but it's hard to compete with the wind and the tractor. So do I have to repeat everything? With or without verbs? Anyway, one of the first things Suzuki Roshi said to me when I came back from Japan shortly before he died. He said, I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do to you. Yeah, but for me, I didn't think about it.

[03:09]

I was just going to do it, so that's all right. Yeah, but I also, you know, some of you were just here for the week-long winter branches. And I wonder what's different about what I'm doing now in Sashin than what I did or what we did during the winter branches, the dead sticks. And then I ask myself, what is the difference between what I do here in the Sishin and what we did together in the winter branches, the dead stalks? I'd appreciate your observations at some point, maybe the next winter branches or something. I'd like to share your observations with you. Maybe we can do that in the next winter branches.

[04:11]

You know, I learned very early in doing Sashins, leading Sashins. You know, just to, yeah, trust that something will appear that I might speak about. To just present myself, present this object that I seem to be. In the stream of the Sashin and see what happens. Yeah, so I was thinking about it with the winter branches.

[05:16]

We, you know, had a topic and we, after a while, actually came to the topic. It took four or five days, but, you know. But here we have no topic. Or as I said the first morning, the topic, if there's a topic or content, it starts sitting here for seven days, that's it. But then I still said something, even if I only say it's just our sitting here for seven days. This becomes a statement. This is like sticking something into the current of a stream, and the water starts going around the stream. What do we stick in the current of the stream?

[06:20]

In the current of? Of the stream, of the practice of the Sesshin. As you all know, Sesshin means to gather the mind. And if I put a stick in the stream, does the mind gather around the stick? What kind of stick do you stick in the currents of your life? And if I feel what I'm doing now, what we're doing now is adequate, And why are we trying to do something else in the winter branches? I think in the context of a Sesshin, and I actually, I really don't know how to, I mean, I do the answer to this question,

[07:45]

But I really don't know how to verbally answer this question. At least in a way that I find satisfactory completely. But I think that in the context of a Sashin, so much is actually formed already. So much teaching is built into this, like the 250 precepts in some ways, are built into the life of a sashin. In the main practice points at least. So in the sashin, Yeah, I don't have to do much, just put a couple of sticks in the stream.

[09:32]

But in the larger sense, if we're going to continue this teaching, we have to thoroughly understand what kind of stick this sashin is that we stick into. in the stream of our Western practice. And how these sticks stay in the stream. Yeah. Okay, so that's... Yeah. kind of introduction.

[10:32]

Then I gave you this story last night of Miao, Monk Miao, I don't know what he's called in Chinese, but Monk Miao. And when at, I guess at midnight, transmission is still done at midnight, The Fifth Patriarch gave the Roman ball to the person who was to become the sixth patriarch. And then there's this guy who was a monk and who had formerly been a general. You know, I've met two or three times people who, yeah, look like gentle old men who were former generals.

[11:50]

I remember one, you know, I try not to use names and situations, but anyway, I met this guy and there was a Zen teacher there. I met this person. I prefer not to use names. He was a rather nice guy. And he wanted to come to Johanneshof or Crestone in fact. Or he thought he did. And the Zen teacher who was there who knew him for years Mia said, this man is dangerous. He's done incredible things as a general. And you could barely see anything below the surface of that.

[12:54]

below the surface in him. But anyway, I assume there was a guy like this in the Fifth Patriarch's Sangha. And he really resented that this transmission was given to Wei Ning. Der konnte das nicht tolerieren, dass anstatt ihm dem Wei Neng die Transmission gegeben wurde. And so he went after him, and he probably was dangerous. Und er ist ihm nach, und wahrscheinlich war er gefährlich. But when he got there, you know, I told you what happened. Aber als er dorthin kam, habe ich euch ja erzählt, was passiert ist. Mm-hmm. Now, you might read such a story or hear such a story as last night.

[14:11]

And you might think innocently. Some of one of you, two of you might think innocently. Well, when the general heard this statement, don't think of good or evil, he was enlightened. What is the actual nature of monk Mio at this moment? What is the actual nature? And you might think, well, I just heard the statement. Why wasn't I enlightened? Then you might think, or you might think, I just heard the statement, why wasn't I enlightened? What's wrong with Baker? When the sixth patriarch says it, people are enlightened, right and left.

[15:20]

Obviously, he doesn't know how to say it. It might be true. But you're also not a general. And you, I don't think any of you broke into a profuse sweat last night. I hope you did. We're mopping up the floor around you. So a story like this is, of course, iconic. What's important about it is that it does happen. No, I don't know if it really happened with the sixth patriarch, etc.

[16:25]

But these things really do happen. And the craft of the practice is put in the commentary of the coin. At such a moment, at such a moment, when there is no thought of good or evil, So let's take away good and evil. That's kind of, again, makes it a religious story. Let's find this story in our own life. So it's not, you know, let's say, when there's no thought of good or bad, if you have a habit of thinking good or bad. Yeah, or when there's no comparative thinking.

[17:34]

Now this, you know, if you take this statement and you put this statement as a pole in the current, in the stream of your life... Yeah, something happens. It's not just that we think good and evil or bad and good or have such a habit of comparative thinking. Again, these kind of attitudes are deeply embedded in us. It's as basic as learning the stove is hot. You learn as a kid, you don't want to fall, you don't want to touch the stove, etc.

[18:51]

There's good and bad. You don't want to lock Andreas in the office. Take the keys. I mean, I don't know who did, well, anyway. I didn't do it, I promise. That would be bad. All right, so we learn these things, yeah. I mean, a version of the stove is hot. I remember some place where I taught once a year for a while. I had a room to stay in each time, and it had a bathtub. There was a bathtub somewhere. And the hot pipes were right beside the tub. I mean, exposed, not in the wall. And they were so hot that when I touched it, it actually left a burn mark on my arm for about two weeks.

[20:08]

So when I first got in the tub, I remember I put my arms on the side, you know. Yeah, like that, right. So I remember when I got back last year, I came back the next year, rather. Without any thinking, you know, I drew the water, and I was about to get in my tub, and my arm went, leapt into the air. You know, I didn't touch the pipe. My arm remembered. Yeah. So the third year I remember I went there and I thought, is my arm going to remember again?

[21:10]

Boy, I barely opened the door and my arm started to go. So thoughts of good and bad, even if you're not thinking, are really in our body. Endless preferences and hierarchies. So to not think good and bad is a very lucky or advanced state. So this makes more sense that you have this general who had no compunction about... What's compunction?

[22:11]

Compunction. No... No hesitation, let's say. Also dieser General, der überhaupt kein Zögern hatte. About ringing Wei Ning's neck. Ringing is to... Den Wei Ning zu würgen. So, yeah. So this was, in this situation, the power of Wei Ning stopped this man in his tracks. In diesem Moment hat diese... So it's conceivable that such a person would, for that, at that moment, drop away comparative thinking. Okay.

[23:25]

So going back to our own entry into such a story, and it's a koan in the Mumon Khan, I guess. It doesn't mean we never think We arrive at some state where there's no comparative thinking, no good or bad. It means that there may be moments when there's no good or bad. There may be such moments in your, our Sesshin. Where at some point, perhaps, perhaps, you don't care whether your legs hurt or not anymore. You might not care if the period lasts for a day.

[24:41]

There might be a few. Moments where you just give up. This is another koan that's similar. It says, when an opportunity arises. This is also expressed in koans, when two arrows meet. Or it's also described as the wind-blown sword. Isn't Zen great, the wind-blown sword? It means that you hold up a sword in the wind and a piece of silk blows against it and it immediately falls into two pieces.

[25:54]

Yeah, this is very, very sharp. Very, very precise. So we're back to young men's Uman or young men's every atom samadhi. Each moment samadhi. Yeah, this is from, I think, the Avanthamsaka Sutra. I think it comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra.

[26:55]

That sounds good. So a monk asks, what is each atom samadhi? Yes, and he says... food in the bowl, water in the bucket. Of course, our whole civilization, society is based on, yeah, that there be food in the bowl and water in the bucket, something like that. Yeah, it's really not about thinking that way. It's just the preciseness, food in the bowl, water in the bucket.

[27:58]

Hakuin Zenji, the famous really creator of Rinzai-style teaching and in Japan. That said, every Adam Samadhi He said, every atom samadhi. This is entering into the six sense field objects without being concerned about the six sense field objects. And he defines concentration as a reception without grasping.

[29:20]

Now, where's the craft here? Worin liegt jetzt hier diese Geschicklichkeit, diese Fähigkeit? Why not just say concentration is non-grasping? Warum sagt man nicht einfach, Konzentration ist nicht greifen? Because it doesn't make any sense how concentration is non-grasping. If you don't grasp, where's the concentration? Es macht überhaupt keinen Sinn, Konzentration ohne greifen. But to say concentration is reception and non-grasping, then you feel the craft. Yeah, concentration is reception. And then not grasping.

[30:33]

Yeah, Mike Dixon, you know, Sophie Dixon, some of you know his father. He did the fly also in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. He painted the plane in his mind, beginner's mind, in his spirit, beginner's spirit. And, you know, he painted once, I've told this story once or twice, he painted, you know, Marilyn Monroe did a, after she became a movie star, it turned out she posed nude for a calendar. It was up in many garage mechanics shops across America. Anyway, she posed nude on some sort of velvet cloth or something. And so Michael did a big painting bigger than those windows. Marilyn Monroe comes rather thoroughly naked, sort of flying through a blue sky, exactly like the calendar.

[31:58]

And so it was on our kitchen wall in San Francisco. That was just there, you know. Except that I had a teenage daughter. And she did not want to bring her other 13-year-old friends into our kitchen. So we had a family meeting about it. Marilyn Monroe had to go. And Marilyn Monroe had to go. And I said, what's the problem? It's only pink and blue. Enter into the six sense field objects, but don't grasp them. My daughter said, you don't grasp them, Papa, but my teenage friends grasp them.

[33:15]

So the painting went. But I remember it gave me pause. To say it's only pink and blue and maybe not enough. I remember that. Yes, even for me that was the primary content, actually. It was a great shape. Yeah, so what's the point of my little anecdote here? Well, I guess you have to take these practices with a grain of salt. This is something bad, right? No, a grain of salt means you have to take it with a little skepticism.

[34:19]

But there is this simultaneous way of looking at things. which may not work in all circumstances, but may be closer to our fundamental mind, or may be closer to our enlightened mind, and we don't grasp at the field of the six sense objects.

[35:26]

Now this morning I spoke about the sort of what great air being, the great air being. Air like to breathe air. Yeah. Okay. You have to tell her how to translate it. Yeah. It's not a dirigible. What is that? Like the zeppelin. Okay. Yeah. the great air being that we breathe in and out, that in the moment of your breathing it in, you're articulating it. You're receiving it, but you better not grasp it. It doesn't work.

[36:28]

You have to let it go back out. Every Adam Samadhi, if you grasp things, there's no every Adam Samadhi. Each moment samadhi. Yeah, the commentary by Yuan Wu says every atom samadhi? This is the nest of all monks under heaven. So here we are in the middle of this sashin.

[37:30]

Yeah, and I'm telling you and Yuan Wu is telling you that every Adam Samadhi is the nest of all monks under heaven. The nest is, yeah, focus. Something woven together. It's where we rest. It's where we sleep. It's where we reproduce. It's where we live. Can you imagine? that this is correct, what Yuan Wu says?

[38:37]

That for all Zen adepts, this is the nest where you actually live. It means the moment Hold to the moment before thought arises. That means to be in the space without grasping. Or the space to inhabit the space before any state of mind appears. Before any state of mind appears. Any state of mind you might have. States of mind appear.

[39:37]

But where you actually are at rest is the moment before thought arises. So first you notice the content, the thoughts, etc. And pretty soon you notice the space between the thoughts and the states of mind. Then pretty soon your sense of identification shifts from the thoughts and the states of mind to the spaces between the thoughts of mind and then you're not caught by your states of mind these opportunities are always arising these still points are always arising

[41:04]

This is every atom samadhi. It makes me think of those poles in the canals of Venice. They're often quite pretty. They're decorated. Sometimes they've got sort of flags on them. And the current of the canals goes around them. And the boats tie themselves up to them. So a statement like, do nothing, when you're cushioned, do nothing, Und Aussagen wie, wenn du auf deinem Kissen bist, tue nichts. Is, yeah, not a description. Das ist keine Beschreibung.

[42:21]

It's a poll you put down in the stream of, now this has changed. In each moment samadhi, each atom samadhi, with another pole you put down in the stream. We could call them wisdom poles. If you're the current, the current of the mind swirls around them. If you're a boat, you can tie your boat to it. Then let your boat float off. And then you can let your boat swim away.

[43:28]

Maybe we could call them again wisdom pools. Because in the midst of this current of our mind, our body, our sashin, the poles help us investigate the currents the poles help us meet the mind of the Buddha the poles lift us up lift up our state of mind What poles will you put into the current of your stream here? Yeah, yeah.

[44:25]

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