And so we're already into the Sashin pretty far. Now, how do I find a way to talk about practice that doesn't disturb your practice? We're all like little theaters. And when you sit, the curtain opens inside. And you're most, you think you're the only observer, but mostly the only audience, but actually we all feel something.

[01:13]

And you think you're the only audience, the only audience, but we all feel something. Now, I often talk about Buddhism as if it was a stage, if not a kind of psychology, at least it was a stage for psychological events. And that certainly it is, especially during Sashin. But practice is also... What can I say?

[02:21]

A kind of special, ordinary kind of living in the physical world. In other words, how can I put it again, you have a physical body, structures of the body. And the structures of your body are not the same as your lived body. The body, the lived body, the embodied living. The lived body. Okay, now this koan, which I happened upon by chance.

[03:30]

But it turns out to be, you know, at the center of what I find myself talking about, Mr. Sheen. And I'll present you a little bit of this koan. And it's the shoyuroku which we're plowing together. This is case number 12, I believe. called Dijon Planting His Fields. It starts out with scholars plow with the pen. I gave you a little of this coin last night at the hot drink. That was good hot drink last night.

[04:54]

At least if you like sake dregs. That was the best sake dregs we've had yet in America, I think. Is dreg the same word in German? Dresde. Dresde. Sake dresde. Yeah. Can I have some now? No, no. That's very good. Anyway, I gave you a little of a koan then last night. So, again, the introduction. And thank you for translating. Oh, by the way, I should say that this will be good. He's trying to find a way to live this strange life as a Buddhist talking team.

[06:00]

And she, because of this, because of the way it is, she really does every seminar and every sashin. So she's experimenting this sashin to see if she can concentrate on translating and sitting in the beginning some periods and having some time to work other times. And so she experiments during this session to concentrate only on the translation and to sit for a few periods and to be able to work a little during the rest of the time. And if you get mad at her for not following your schedule, we'll put a complaint box outside. But please write your complaints in English. No. So scholars plow with the pen.

[07:31]

Orators plow with the tongue. But we patched-robed monks lazily watch a white ox on open ground. We don't even pay attention to the auspicious rootless grass. How to pass the days. Here's a question for everyone. How to pass the days? Yeah.

[08:35]

Now, Ulrike last night thought I said that pastoral monks in a laser-like way watched the cow or watched the ox. But maybe they did, but anyway, the case says lazily. And I had this phrase... We don't pay attention to the rootless, auspicious grass. It's a little, I don't know. I'd like it to sound a little more normal. This is too weird sounding. I would say something more like if I were writing the koan. The many birds singing in emptiness don't notice a thing.

[09:52]

Maybe that's no better. I like it better. Okay. And then it says, then the case, of course. Mm. Di Jiang asked Shu Shan. Shu Shan, I always think of the Chattanooga Shu Shan boy. You don't have to translate that. Anyway, Di Jiang asks Shu Shan. Where do you come from? And Shushan said, naturally, from the south. And Di Chang said, how is Buddhism in the south these days?

[10:55]

And Shushan says, there are extensive discussions. And Di Chang said, how does that compare to me here planting fields and growing rice to eat? How does that compare to me here planting fields and growing rice to eat? Hmm. Shushan said, well, what can we do about the world? Shushan said, what do you call the world? So, how are we going to pass the days? And what do you call the world?

[11:57]

Now, later on in the koan, it quotes a Ching Lian, who's actually quoting from a sutra. And Ching Lian says, communion with the source is one's own practice. Communion by speech is showing it to others who are not yet enlightened. So this phrase is at the center of this koan. Communion with the source is one's own practice.

[12:57]

So that's what I'm talking about, communion with the source. But I'm using speech, of course, to do it. Now, I asked you in the first day of the Sashin to, I'd really like you to sit with as much strength and energy as possible. And I think if you do, you'll find the Sashins actually easier. Don't just endure it, but come to each period as if you are starting anew. Now I'm trying to find phrases here that capture something about practice. They, of course, won't describe it in its entirety.

[14:38]

But a phrase like, I want you to find out how to live in your posture. As if your posture... your body, your posture, we're the whole world. Now, already in saying posture, you may understand what I mean a little bit by the lid body in contrast to the structures of the body. Und allein schon wenn ich Haltung sage, versteht ihr vielleicht etwas, was ich mit gelebtem Körper meine in Vergleich zur Körperstruktur. But the structures of your body remain pretty much the same, I think, during the whole session.

[15:41]

Und die Strukturen eures Körpers bleiben wohl während des ganzen Sessions so ziemlich gleich. But if your posture feels right, you live the structures of your body differently than if your posture doesn't feel right. So your posture as a kind of feeling within and around your body, your posture is a way of making apparent to you your lived body. Because if your posture is not only pretty good and straight, but feels right, feels vigorous. Or feels relaxed and open. then your lived experience of the same structures will be different.

[16:51]

Now, again, this is such a minute point that somebody might think we were nuts to make a distinction between posture and structure. But I want to make this distinction, even though it seems like a very small distinction, I want to make this distinction as precise as possible. Because what we're really doing is exploring our lived body. And when you practice Zen, you change the body you live in. You develop a lived body. This will in turn change the structures of your body.

[17:52]

To some extent. Usually it will make it healthier, things like that. So what we're doing in practicing is you're studying your lived body. Which includes studying your psychic history, your karma, and so forth. Now for a moment, a little aside, going back to naming, labeling. You can take this sense of naming, labeling, mantra, turning word. And when you're sitting pretty well with some ease, you can ask yourself a question or present to yourself a request. You can say to yourself, Deeply meaning it.

[19:29]

I want to be free of my karma. You know, like an intention. I mean, an intention. You intend to be, as you say it, you intend to be free of your karma. This will create a certain feeling. Then you can say immediately or a few minutes later. I want to fully live my karma. The statement will, if your practice is you're sitting pretty well, this statement will create a different feeling and mood in you. Or you can say, I will understand my karma. Or I can never, etc.

[20:31]

Or all of And you don't just necessarily practice one of these. You can find the feeling and what happens from each of a statement like this. This is like, it's a kind of labeling. just as you call your in-breath your in-breath, and out-breath, out-breath, you can, in advance of the breath of karma, you can name it something to pull something, a wind, into your being.

[21:39]

Now, this isn't something you get too involved in. It's just a kind of way. It's what Ching Lian meant by communion with the source is one's own practice. This is lazily watching a white ox on an open ground. Notice this white ox is not pulling a plow. Yet the ox means your relative nature. But it means your nature which easily disappears into emptiness. Now, the famous story, of course, the Buddha holds up a flower to

[22:44]

Some large number of monks, they say 1,250. So there's 1,200 missing or they're invisible. You can't see them all sitting here. So there's 50 of you plus 1,200, you know, mahasattvas. The Buddha holds up a flower and Mahakashyapa smiles. Now, this is not an exercise in artificial intelligence. This is a person, a Buddha, holding up a flower. It's not a robot cranking into the room and holding up a flower.

[24:03]

Nor a rhinoceros charging by with a flower tied to its horn. Mm, mm, mm. This is the Buddha holding up a flower. So what is he holding up? Being this is not an experiment in artificial intelligence. The Buddha is holding up the consciousness which perceives the flower. And that consciousness perceiving flower, flower perceiving consciousness, appears as he raises the flower. And when he takes it down or before, it goes back into emptiness. So communing with the source means thinking, feeling, noticing in ways that easily return to the source, easily merge with emptiness again.

[25:18]

Not the kind of thinking which moves into secondary and then borrowed consciousness or some kind of conceptual consciousness. So lazily means uncorrected mind. A white ox is sort of maybe turns us and he's walking, maybe she's walking around in these aisles. Stepping carefully through the middle section, not stepping on your cups or glasses. When you look too closely, all you hear is the birds singing. Hmm.

[26:58]

Now, in Sesshin, you are likely to, I imagine, we each feel quite a bit of pain or discomfort, even pain. And I remember Sukhiro, she used to say sometimes, you know, even he who seemed to sit effortlessly, You think it's going to help if you move. But when you do, it doesn't help. I know he was speaking from experience. Now, when you can develop a mind, a state of mind that lazily watches, you know, pain as if it were this white box, that can observe the pain but not react to it,

[28:50]

Now, of course, I'm assuming you're not doing permanent damage to your legs during this experience. So you're just, maybe you concentrate on the earth element, the solidity element in your legs. And merge your legs with the floor. And forget they're there. Or forget about or don't even observe, just become, rest in the feeling of discomfort or pain. Or move your sense of location into your backbone. Anyway, there's a lazy, you know, nice summer day feeling. Mm-hmm. And when you can have this state of mind which doesn't react to the pain, and you've got to not test your luck too much, hey, I'm doing pretty well.

[30:42]

I haven't felt pain for 10 minutes now. Hey, also, das läuft ja prima. Ich habe seit zehn Minuten keine Schmerzen gehabt. Oh, I'm safe. Ich bin sicher. I've got this mastered. Ich habe das gemeinsam. And suddenly a thousand swords pierce. Und plötzlich werdet ihr von tausend Schwertern durchlöchert. Somebody's under the floor and thrust. Jemand ist unter dem Boden und durchstößt euch. So as I say, I wouldn't test your trust. What's the word? Push your luck. Gently, lazily, you let your legs disappear. And if you can have this state of mind, it actually kind of burns things out of you. You'll feel, if you can stay with it, purified by the... something purifying happening.

[31:51]

Now, often when we're sitting and... you may feel some bliss, as I've spoken about the other night in the seminar. A bliss of being concentrated. Now, you could say, bliss is a heck of a lot better than pain, but... So I shouldn't pay attention to bliss, it's like candy. If I pay attention to bliss, I'm following my desires. No, I would say you pay attention to the feeling of good feelings that come up in zazen the same way you pay attention to pain.

[33:15]

It's just there and you sort of rest against it. Or rest with it, like watching the white ox lazily. And you'll find this feeling of blissful feeling of concentration also cleanses you. And if you can stay with such feelings, like again the labeling of in-breath and out-breath, you just stay with the feeling, the label, without thinking about it. You'll find out that this is a kind of activity, a kind of mental activity,

[34:18]

But it's not conceptual thought. You're getting close, actually, because the white ox is also your Buddha nature. To observing. Mm. being itself in some categories other than ordinary language, living you. This is communion with the source. And this is planting your own fields. Plowing your own fields. Or letting them grow by themselves.

[35:37]

Because we have this idea that the world is separate from us. And as Evan Thompson and Francisco Varela say, That you have a cognitive system which perceives this world that's outside us. But our way of perceiving is the same system as the world. So your perceptions are not something outside the world perceiving something outside you. Your perceptions are just one surface of the world.

[36:40]

Mm-hmm. which means your lived body is one surface, is various surfaces of the world. The structures of your body, your organs and their minerals and nutrients and so forth, is obviously assembled from and will dissemble into the physical world. But your lived body is also a surface of the world. And a surface that's that is touching all of us, our lived bodies, surfaces of the world, mixed up with each other.

[37:51]

So when you develop a state of mind that can stay with the pain but not react with it, Or the bliss of concentration. Or can feel an open ground and the being itself grazing. You're not just inside yourself. You're observing in the midst of a surface of the world. We could say this is where interior consciousness and exterior consciousness disappear. And it's funny that this little practice of labeling your in-breath and out-breath can be a door to so many surfaces of the world.

[39:03]

It can become a label for both the in-breath and out-breath. And then a big spacious mind that appears from the in-breath and out-breath labeled together. And then you can peel that label off and you don't know where you are. But this is your lived body. Or the world you... What is the world you live in, Di Chang asked. What is the world? What do you call the world? Each of you lives in a particular world. Berlin, Hamburg, I don't know, Münster. And you've developed a certain world you live in.

[40:27]

And you've developed a world you live in in your lived body. And it's a little bit like clearing a space, a field in a jungle. Or finding paths in the jungle. And stepping out into the open. Mm-hmm. And this lived body is also the world. I think one last little anecdote. When I was a kid, maybe 15 or 16, I lived on an extremely steep street.

[41:45]

It was almost not possible for a car to get up the hill. And the sidewalk had to be steps. Und der Gehweg, das waren Stufen. It was so difficult. Sometimes cars with kids, teenagers, would try to race up it. They'd make it. A scooter, a motorcycle sometimes would slide back down. I don't know why I told you about that street, but anyway. But it was in a big American city. It was in an area where the university was and a number of hospitals. And I must have been 15 or 16, I suppose.

[42:50]

And having so many hospitals around, and even I used to deliver newspapers in the hospital, that I became quite aware that I was not in a hospital. And like Thich Nhat Hanh's toothache, I became, every day I'd say, oh, I'm so lucky not to be in the hospital. In any case, as a teenager, you have to go through certain things, which this year I kind of lived in a kind of bubble. But I believe that it wasn't artificial. I was in touch with the joy of being itself. But I was in touch in a way that was based still on comparative thinking. So in this practice of communion with the source, the source means to find in your lived body various tastes,

[44:17]

until you discover how to live in what I call just an inclusive state of mind. And the first step is, for us in Sashin, to get used to living in your posture. because this is also a surface of the world. And if you get so that you can live in your posture, you can live anywhere. If you can find a way through all the tribulations of the Sashin, To be at ease. Find a state of mind that's at ease in whatever you're feeling. This can be your path the rest of your life. Thank you very much.

[45:58]

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