But this story is also about, as Guishan said, some kind of communication among those who practice together that can't exactly be explained. that we begin to know each other's mind. This is the sixth power of what Sukhiroshi mentioned. And it's not exactly, we can't exactly understand it from science. But some kind of intimacy of knowing that's not usual friendship. Mm-hmm. So I'm still trying to talk about the robe.

[01:33]

And I can't really... You know, it's not something... I can ask you to interpret my dream. Maybe you are interpreting my dream. And Dogen says, practice is a dream within a dream. If everything is a mind object, it's not so different from a dream. I look in my closet, it's like a dream. If you looked in there, it wouldn't be your dream. Particularly if it was you, you wouldn't know what to do with these jackets. A couple of them would make a good blanket. Yeah, but for me it's, I know, this is a kind of mind object, my closet.

[02:41]

And within that there's Buddha's robes, another dream I inherited. So maybe in my closet there's a dream within a dream. The dream I'm wearing Buddha's robe. A cloth which... covers the world. And, you know, even I've been doing this, you know, pretty long time. Forty years almost. And still I couldn't tell you why there's such an importance on the rope. Even though there's no question for me, it's the most important or precious object in my life. And I have Sekiroshi's teacher's teacher's teacher's robe that he gave me at transmission time.

[03:52]

This is also something precious, of course. And I have quite a few. I inherited all of Sukershi's robes, so I have enough for each of you if you ever want one. Yeah, and not tomorrow. So, Yujing talks about dropping body and mind. And dropping body and mind is, he just says when Dogen asks him, what do you mean by dropping body and mind?

[05:05]

Dogen always asks, as you can see in this Book, if you look at it. Dogen asked very simple questions. Why do you sit like that? Why do you wear a robe? Why do you wear a simple robe and not such and such? They weren't deep questions, but they become deep questions. And Ru Jing said it's freeing yourself from the Six hindrances. Freeing yourself from the six hindrances.

[06:07]

And the six hindrances, as Ru Jing describes them, are desire, ill will, laziness. Sehnsucht. Ill will. Ill will. Kranker. Wille. Anger. Missgunst. Ärger. Missgunst, ja. Sounds right. Ärger. Ärger, okay. Desire, ill will, laziness. Faulheit. And restlessness and doubt. That's the traditional list of five hindrances.

[07:16]

And he adds a sixth. He's not understanding how we exist. And Ru Jing says, if you understand how we exist, then you don't have five hindrances anymore. So this is part of the reason the robe is passed with the giving of the precepts. And the precepts have two faces. One face is toward humanity or toward human beings. One face is toward the Bodhisattvas. So as I always say, the precepts are the precepts of common humanity. You know, they're what you want your children to do if you have a child.

[08:28]

You don't want your child to lie or steal, etc. Somehow we grow up and We don't follow the precepts. Many people don't follow the precepts very well, but they still teach their children to follow them. This is called not living your life accurately. How can you teach your child one thing and live? I mean, it is sure to make you sick. It's so obvious. Most people don't notice. So this is one face of the precepts. Just ordinary human behavior. The way we want human beings to be. But we shouldn't really criticize.

[09:50]

If we follow the precepts, we shouldn't feel superior. Or we shouldn't criticize others for not following the precepts, really. Because this is attacking all of humanity. Sorry, attacking? Attacking. If you attack people for desire, restlessness, ill will, then you attack human beings. If you have a feeling for this human life that we are, whether we're dogs, cats, or goats, or human beings, if you look at a goat, you say, oh, that's what goats are like. If you look at a human being, you say, oh, that's what human beings are like.

[11:02]

Desire, ill will, doubt. Restlessness. Let's not attack human beings. So let's call these, as they are traditionally called, the five coverings. They cover the mind. So if from the way the precepts face the bodhisattvas, it's just to recognize as you must in your zazen practice, as if you're sitting, When too much desire comes up, your clarity of mind is gone.

[12:08]

Your concentrated feeling is gone. Or if restlessness comes up, or doubt and suspicion, or ill will, that guy next to me just farted. That dude neben mir, what is he doing? Fart? Farted. Forced. And it wasn't his fault, it was the cook's. It wasn't his fault, it was the cook's. Tassara, we used to serve Jerusalem artichokes. I don't know if you have them in Europe. But they can... I mean, they're ruled. From World War I it was banned, you know.

[13:10]

Yeah. A whole zendo can... Then you get mad at the cook. No more Jerusalem artichokes. But when you have ill will, even if it's something like that, your calmness and clarity of mind disappears. So this is to what Ru Jing meant. Is free yourself from thought coverings. These coverings. Mm-hmm. So say that you have some desire, possessiveness.

[14:36]

Wunsch. Wunsch. Gier. You want this or that or you're comparing yourself to others and so forth. Yeah. Most comparisons are rooted in desire. To be better or right or better. And you can free yourself from that. Or you can see yourself caught in it. And you can withdraw from it. We can call that a samadhi. So this thought covering gives you an opportunity when you see it in ordinary circumstances, you don't notice it.

[15:42]

But in zazen you could notice it. I was feeling quite concentrated. And I was felt at ease. Yeah, and I didn't care about anything. We call that dropping body and mind. And then some kind of desire... Acquisite possessiveness came in. Or fear. And my sense of ease and relaxation disappeared. So at that moment you can Which is practice, not to say, oh shit, I'm full of desire again.

[16:52]

What's wrong with my mouth today? It's an opportunity to go into the samadhi of freedom from desire. Yeah, you see it come up and you have the skills to just sit within it and let it go. A mind object that And it generates a Samadhi. And each of the five coverings can be an uncovering, a Samadhi. And we have this kind of opportunity in Zazen practice.

[17:53]

And until your practice is quite mature, daily sitting doesn't happen much. It takes something like Sashin where we sit enough to begin to see the distinction between clarity of mind and these coverings. And to have the opportunity to come into a samadhi of freeing ourselves from coverings. And when you do that, you drop body and mind. Yeah, so you may have this experience sometimes. You hardly know where your body and mind is.

[19:02]

Yeah, it's like just a big space. Yeah. Formless body. Yeah. Because if you don't have desire or restlessness, these are expressions of the ordinary body. Our ordinary body is generated by ill will. Our ordinary body is generated by comparing ourselves to others. Our ordinary body is generated when we feel separation, not connectedness. And the more we feel connectedness, the more our practice is just to give away our practice.

[20:04]

like giving the leaf back to the leaf. So Rujing says we dedicate our zazen to the merit of it, to each moment. To each human being, to everyone, to insects, he says. You see an insect and you feel, oh, I give you all my merit. It's very hard to kill the insect then. Sometimes with mosquitoes, I don't give them my merit. I have to confess. Because I know if I was in the mosquito's house, he would bite me.

[21:26]

So if he's in my house, sometimes I go away. But mostly, you know, you feel, even then I feel... Hey, this mosquito I know is wearing Buddha's robe. So sometimes it's okay. Okay, so if you drop body and mind, what are you going to wear then? Buddha's robe.

[22:27]

Ordinary clothes don't do for a dropped body and mind. And the more you have this experience, and when you her with your teacher, if you have a good teacher, that you have good feeling with. It's almost like you now have no body or mind. So like a baby, he takes or she takes off her robe and puts it on you so you have something to cover you. Yeah, anyway, there's some kind of feeling like this. Belonging to a family that goes back through many generations. Like Joachim's beautiful robe.

[23:28]

So I can't explain exactly this feeling for the robe. And again, it's not something I usually talk about. Because I'm trying to present Buddhism to you as an inner science. I concentrate on the sixth sense. hindrance not understanding or deluded views because I think we westerners have a good chance to see how views are deluded if we can really get a feeling for that sometimes we're in the room then suddenly of freedom from the five hindrances. No, it doesn't mean, again, you don't ever, not ever restlessness, but you know the samadhi of being free from restlessness.

[24:47]

Sometimes you may be restless, but now part of your life, but now part of your life, one of the provisions of your life, provisions, something like in the storehouse there, yeah, one of the provisions of your life is this samadhi of freedom from restlessness. And every time you have this samadhi of freedom from restlessness, even a moment or two in a sesshin, a new seed, a new body is born in you. And this new body wears Buddha's robe.

[25:59]

So we have this feeling of continuing, putting on this robe to continue Buddha's body being born in us. And it's a particularly delicate time now in the West. Because many of us, following Japan's example, wear the robe and yet also live part of the time like householders. And most of the Buddhist world is very critical of Japan for this. But it's a great experiment.

[27:03]

Can anyone who develops the qualities of a Buddha wear Buddha's robe? And Ryujin describes Zazen As a manifestation of the vow to realize and develop the qualities of a Buddha. So that's another way to look at sasen. Every time you sit down in sasen, intuitively, if you don't know it clearly yet, you are saying to yourself, I'm sitting here to develop the qualities of a Buddha. This is also to follow and take the precepts.

[28:09]

So now, how are we going to wear this robe in the West? How do we pass the robe to others in the West? Yeah. I mean, if you have a castle and many lands, it's very important to take care of those things, I suppose. But for me, this is... covers many lands. And I should take care of this. Because this cloth, this tradition of how you wear it and how you make it, how you pack it in your suitcase, all these

[29:12]

traditions that have been passed down. How you put it on, on your head and shoulder. This goes back centuries and centuries. How do we continue this in the West? Practicing, you know, in so many different situations. Being married or not married. It's a very important moment how to respect this robe. in this society because the styles you know if you look at paintings from different centuries in Japan and China

[30:21]

Every century the paintings, the lay people's clothes change. But the monks over every century look the same. So it's a very ancient style. That doesn't go out of style. So how do we keep this robe in style in the West? And transmit it and practice it accurately. Practice the teaching and realization that goes with it. Inside this robe, Guishan sat. Inside this robe, Dogen sat.

[31:34]

Inside this robe, Zhaozhou sat. This is some responsibility. I can't imagine fulfilling this responsibility. But I can't imagine anything else, too. Okay. Thank you very much. May our intentions be just as great as those of this and every other place, with the true service of the good path. Shujo muhen se gandho, manho mujhin se gandan.

[32:36]

Aum Amoryo Se Ganga Kul Butsulyo Mujo Se Gangchoro Die führenden Wesen sind zahllos. Ich gelobe, sie zu retten. Die Begierden sind unausgleichlich. Ich gelobe, ihnen ein Ende zu bereiten. Die Dabas sind herzenlos. Ich gelobe, sie zu beherrschen. Der Weg des Bruders ist unübertrefflich. Ich gelobe, ihn zu erreichen. Satsang with Mooji Satsang with Mooji

[33:44]

Oh, I can. [...] Satsang with Mooji The truth of Tathagata can only be found in hundreds of thousands of millions of people. Good afternoon.

[35:03]

Thank you, each of you, for carrying this sashin. And many of you, several of you, many of you have had quite good experiences in the sashin, I think. And my experience over the years has been that the experience people have in the Sashin is not so particularly, not so dependent on what I lecture about, but is rather more connected with the feeling among each other and the concentration in the Sashin. Mm-hmm. Last night I asked, which way do you face?

[36:31]

The world is vast and wide. Which way do you face? So this is, you know, the last lecture, I guess. And so we should have some kind of starting point. And maybe we could start with what is the religious temperament in Buddhism. I don't think you can exactly call Buddhism a religion in the Western sense. You can certainly call it a yogic practice. A kind of inner science. But it still appeals to, or we could say it appeals to our religious feeling.

[37:35]

And from my study, what that means in in Buddhism is that we have some feeling of appreciation or value. Even no matter how emotionally confused or Deluded we might be, occasionally that's the case. Even in that emotional confusion or delusion, we still have some sense of worthwhileness. Some caring about how things exist.

[38:56]

And the second aspect, I would say, is some existential understanding. That the world is actually rooted in each person. That each person makes a difference. So this caring about The world has to start with us. We're also the world. So if you want to express your feeling of sense of meaningfulness in the world, it has to start with yourself. And this is intrinsic to all of Buddhism. That the world, everything points this direction. But there's no outside to this world. There's only an inside that comes from each particularity. And the third is love.

[40:23]

If, you know, over and over again it's said if you don't have the capacity for love, you don't have the capacity for religious practice. So we need to be open to what and who we love. I mean, Naropa, I believe, says we can be tainted or negatively affected by thoughts of love. But loving always frees us. Actually loving frees us. So I think that the degree to which the practice of Buddhism depends on the capacity to love is not so obvious.

[41:29]

I mean, it's obvious if you just think for a moment about compassion. That's the most defining characteristic of Buddhism. But still, in our daily practice, we're sitting zazen, we're struggling with our legs and so forth. So we may not be so aware that Buddhism is rooted in the capacity to love. It's probably the reason tantrism has, from the earliest times, been a big part of Buddhism. I like the relationship between cupid and cupidity.

[42:53]

That's nice. Cupid is, you know, the little baby with the angel wings that makes people fall in love. Amor. Amor, okay. Amor and Amora. Zwischen den Liebesengel, zwischen this little being. Yeah, that's Cupid. That's on Valentine cards and things like that. You don't have Valentine's Day in Germany? Yeah, we have. Oh, you do? Okay, so that's Cupid. Cupid is the son of Venus, I think, in Roman mythology. But cupidity means avariciousness or... greed or desire for wealth. So it's said that, you know, we could say in Buddhism that cupid sometimes turns into cupidity.

[43:58]

In other words, sometimes this capacity to love turns into possessive love or aggrandizement, self-aggrandizement. It's like the enemy of compassion is depression. I mean, if you really open yourself to how each person, how many people suffer and how many people in the world suffer, You can get quite discouraged and depressed. So the enemy of compassion is depression. So this practice is a kind of negotiation in emotional territory. Mm-hmm. And the word emotion means to be moved.

[45:22]

Motion, move, to be moved. To move toward, especially. To feel connected. So I'm speaking about how we open ourselves to loving, to this feeling of connectedness, to the feeling of being connected. in an inclusive world. Yeah, I'm trying to speak about this in some realistic way. Because you know, Buddhism is not about a naturalness. It's about spontaneity, but not naturalness.

[46:24]

I won't try to explain the difference. So the assumption in practice is that all of us are a mixture of elements. And each of us decides out of love to develop the wholesome aspects rather than the unwholesome aspects. One definition of a deluded person is somebody who accepts things at face value. Who accepts things at face value. This person's deluded? Yeah. He suddenly realized he's deluded. I'm not translating that.

[47:29]

A kind of laziness. Oh, this is the way things are, okay. That's to accept things at face value. So anyway, I'm trying to see if I can find in English, and Frank is trying to find in German. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, and Frank is trying to find it in German. Words that convey this difference, some kind of...

[48:29]

this emotional territory of practice. So I've been sort of trying to mull over what words to use. And I think one good one is satisfying. is if you look at something or feel, you know, say a flower, you feel satisfied by it. And not so much that it's beautiful or more beautiful than something else, or more beautiful than the chair or something, or the floor, but rather that just when you look at the flower, there's a feeling of satisfaction. And this is close to equanimity. Okay. Anyway, equanimity is one of the most important... states, attitudes in Buddhism.

[49:58]

So maybe when we just find satisfaction, maybe we can use that word, And the root of the word in English, satisfaction, means to make, faction part is to make. And the saddest part, the saddest part is to sufficient. And the satisfied comes from sufficient. So. Stimmig. Genügend, ja. So the word satisfaction means to make sufficient. I think of the way a mother looks maybe, hopefully, at her baby. Beyond whether the baby is this way or that way or... Just there's a feeling of satisfaction.

[51:10]

This feeling of satisfaction is also close to this capacity to love. To be open to loving, not in a possessive way, To be open to loving and caring about each thing that appears. So the so-called four Brahma, Vihara, You don't have to translate that. Which means the four divine states. Or four immeasurables. And, you know, we've spoken about them quite often. But the first is unlimited friendliness.

[52:28]

Or kindness. Maitri. These are... called divine states because it said this is the way the gods feel. So unlimited friendliness. And you can... Practice this. Each moment, maybe it takes a feeling that each moment is auspicious. This dharmic sense of each moment. And each moment is a moment you're stopped in slightly. Maybe you can think of it as a telephone call. Telephone call from God.

[53:32]

Yeah, you don't know who the phone call is from. The phone rings. Probably there's another human being on the other end. Not a horse or something like that. So, you know, this is an auspicious moment. You can feel this way, like that. So, hello. And you can have this feeling of unlimited friendliness at that moment. Mm-hmm. And the second unlimited is, or immeasurable, is compassion. To feel with another person. To feel how they feel.

[54:32]

And the next is empathetic joy. You know, again, the cheerfulness of the sage. And I spoke a while ago about this quality of cheerfulness, which really arises from a personality rooted in the present moment. If your personality is rooted in your personal history, you know, you may be in a bad mood or whatever, you know. That has nothing to do with the phone call that just came. But... If you're rooted in the present, then the phone call can be an auspicious moment.

[55:54]

When I happen to speak to people I know on On the phone. During Sashin. For example, if my daughter calls me or something. I answer the phone and I barely have a word out of the phone, out of my mouth. And my daughter says, you're in Sashin, Dad. I should tell them to call me Papa when I'm in Germany. Yeah. Yeah. And the fourth is equanimity.

[56:59]

And these four, friendliness, kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, it's said that the practice is to emanate these in ten directions. This is not so easy to do. But still, you can understand it. You can understand that this is real connectedness, not some kind of intellectual or philosophical connectedness. It's a connectedness based on caring about, caring for. And it's the... practicing, it's a way to practice this, to practice and actually feel and experience this connectedness.

[58:34]

So if you take on this practice of the four immeasurables, you know, you just... Remind yourself of them. Get familiar with them. And on each occasion you see if you can do it. You'll find at least at first that on many occasions you don't do so well. This is quite interesting. Oh, look at that. I'm not a bodhisattva. Or I'm... No, no, that's not right. I'm a failed bodhisattva. Sunyurishi used to say... In everything you do, you show what kind of Buddha you are.

[59:47]

You don't show what kind of human being you are, you show what kind of Buddha you are. So it's much better to be probably a failed Bodhisattva than an extremely good human being. The vision is much wider. I would really rather be a failed bodhisattva than a good, successful human being. And I tend to be more modest as a failed bodhisattva than a successful human being. And I tend to be more modest as a failed bodhisattva than a successful human being. So this is kind of the emotional territory of practice. You're trying to create a field of emotions here.

[60:51]

That's what I'm describing. A field of emotion that you swim in. And you are perfecting yourself developing yourself and your relationship to others all the time. So from each of you, each individual of you, you radiate as much as possible or imagine radiating these four immeasurables. Believe it or not, the very vision of it initiates it. The fact that you're sitting here listening to the teaching initiates it. No, the stages of jhana, of meditation, as is, you know, everybody who writes anything about Zen says, Zen comes from Chan and Chan comes from jhana.

[62:28]

Yeah, and jhana... is generally translated as absorption and sometimes as meditation. But when I spoke about earlier our clay pitcher, the clay pitcher, the handle and... I spoke about the potter looking at the clay, holding the clay, and then working the clay. And these are the first two stages of jhana. And the stages are, first of all, actually, an absence of obstacles. And the second is holding.

[63:34]

And the third is working or inspecting. And the fourth is joy or satisfaction. And the fifth is bliss, and the sixth is samadhi. Now, I think it's useful to see jhana or concentration or absorption divided up in a process-like way. And you can see why precepts are so important. Because, as I suggested, precepts are the commitment to free yourself from obstacles.

[64:34]

Yeah. Obstacle in English, obstacle means what stands against you. So to free yourself from obstacles, to free yourself from coverings, and taking the precepts is the first step. Because if you take what's not given or steal, you don't feel so good. Mm-hmm. whether it's a pencil from a hotel or whatever it is. Just soap, taking the soap you've used, I think is okay. What, the soap?

[65:39]

Taking the soap you used is okay. But loading up on all the things from the car. It's, you know... Maybe they give them to you, but it maybe feels a little better to leave them. Even small things like this are obstacles to clarity of mind. So it's really every hotel room gives you a chance to practice the precepts as well. Yeah, and to leave the room looking nice and so forth. So the first is freedom from or absence of obstacles. At least four obstacles. Again, I really want to emphasize, we're not talking about, that's why I changed it from freedom to absence.

[66:54]

If I say freedom, it sounds like you're always free from obstacles. No. Sometimes there's the absence of obstacles and sometimes there's not. So we come to a sashin to both see our obstacles and to be free of our obstacles. Or to some periods of zazen. Suddenly there's an absence of obstacles. Then it's easier to take some practice or object of meditation. To take some practice or object of meditation. And the object can be your posture.

[67:55]

Or your backbone. Or some particular feeling. Or your breath. Anything you rest your attention on. Anything that allows attention to be rested on is an object. Now when you rest your attention on something, the practice of meditation is to try to create a totality or completeness. As I've had to say to a number of people, although I speak about many things, because I'm trying to give you an overall feeling for Buddhist practice, and so that when you have inner, internal arguments with yourself about practice,

[69:05]

Or internal doubts. You have, you know, you see some problem with practice. Sometimes If you know enough about Buddhism, you can resolve your doubts. Yeah, this is good. But, prima, yeah. Number one, huh? So, but at the same time, to really practice, you have to take one thing and stick with it. For one week or one month or until you resolve it. It's a good feeling to say, okay, I take this passage of a koan, and I stay with it till I completely understand it.

[70:13]

Or you take a phrase, and you not only stay with the phrase until you've resolved it as thoroughly as possible, But you stay with it until you can stay with it naturally. In other words, it just becomes... a way to learn to stay with a phrase. And if you develop the skill of staying with a phrase, and you can't do that by changing phrases all the time, You have to take one and really learn to stay with it.

[71:19]

And the more you develop this ability, all these abilities work together to develop your concentration or absorption in meditation. So let's just go back to the flower. You look at a flower. So just one flower or a group of flowers, but let's say one flower. And you bring your attention to it. That's holding it. Then you... The word inspection is hard. You inspect it or investigate it. But that means to feel it as a living thing. To feel yourself into it as a changing thing. So you're not just looking at the flower as a kind of photo image.

[73:01]

But it's almost like your mind, like rainwater or something, goes into the flower. It's almost like you penetrate the flower. And you feel the flower. Even one flower has tiny little movements and things usually. So that's the second stage of meditation. And this, you can apply this, what I'm giving you also to your breathing.

[74:02]

You bring your attention to your breathing and then you let yourself be pervaded by your breathing. And then you try to give your breathing away. Or free your breathing to breathe itself. So that stage is the investigation or observation. So the first So the first step is bringing your attention to your breath or to the flower. And then there's the depth of observation. And you will find that Usually that leads to a feeling of satisfaction or joy.

[75:10]

Strangely, it's this... that joy arises from the taste of non-duality. Maybe when you just get a present and you feel joyful, If you look at it carefully, the present gave you a feeling of non-duality. Maybe if you're a person who likes Christmas, I know some people hate Christmas. Ha ha! I like Christmas. But maybe at Christmas when people give you presents and so forth, there's also a feeling of connectedness with it.

[76:17]

Or like being in love is a feeling of non-duality. And strangely enough, spreads to other things. You start feeling connected to many things, not just the person you're in love with. And one of the best ways to stay in love is to be in love with everything. Usually when we're in love, the first stage of falling out of love is we start falling out of love with everything else. Then it spreads to the person. So if we start finding this way of practicing non-duality, With each thing.

[77:32]

With each mind object. With each moment. Which is really all that the four immeasurables are about. Their way to actually engage in non-duality. So we could call the four immeasurables as the four engagements with non-duality. All the four practices of actualized non-duality. Yeah, I like that. The four practices of actualized non-duality. And when there's a taste of non-duality, usually there's a taste of bliss. I tasted joy or joy and as I said satisfaction and this phrase I've often given you that many of you have taken actually that just now is enough is literally to make sufficient

[78:43]

And just now is enough is also a samadhi. So just now is enough is an expression of equanimity. Of finding each thing equal. Of finding each thing equally satisfying. So listen to my words as a kind of entry to find each thing satisfying. To find each thing equal. That just now, just this is enough. Now the more you feel that, it also becomes a samadhi.

[80:09]

And samadhi means in the sense that you have a feeling of totality. And when your practice is mature, each moment can be a samadhi. Because in each moment there's a total engagement. There's no discursiveness. This is also an effort to go beyond mental descriptions. Usually we go from mental description to mental description, etc. Particularly smart people. Yeah, and that's true. If you see a horse in the field and me, you should be able to distinguish between the horse and me, if you want to go for a ride.

[81:11]

I mean, I could take you a short distance. But if you want to appreciate me and the horse, the one that almost made a phone call to you, It's better to have no mental descriptions. Look at the horse and me or you or the tree without mental descriptions. So the four immeasurables are also to free yourself from mental descriptions. Because as long as your mind rests in mental descriptions, there's no meditation. There's no meditation.

[82:29]

Some of you have expressed to me, your concepts prevent you from feeling feeling other people. Mental descriptions isolate you. Love is to throw mental descriptions away. That's why we wonder how some people could love that person or another person. How does she love him? Or how does he love her? Because they threw away mental descriptions. It's true.

[83:34]

So any, you know, you're looking at a flower. You've thrown away mental descriptions. Just this one flower will do. And some satisfaction or joy arises. And bliss. And samadhi. So these four stages are usually there, holding, observing, joy, bliss, samadhi. And they all depend on initially being at the absence of obstacles. But they're all interrelated. So the experience of samadhi also frees you from obstacles.

[84:35]

And samadhi can arise just because you're sitting zazen. So zazen can give you, particularly in zazen, a direct taste of samadhi, which starts to free you from obstacles. It begins to loosen up the way things are entrenched in you. And it often helps to add words. As an antidote to mental discursiveness. Discursiveness.

[85:44]

Yeah. As an antidote to mental descriptions. So you, let's take the flower again. You might say to yourself, flower totality. So, And this is this use of mantra practice in Zen, where you use a word to protect the mind. A mantra means, etymologically I believe, to protect the mind. And it protects the mind from mental descriptions. And discursiveness. So even one little flower, if you want to sit... sit down on the bench and look at a flower or a vase on your desk.

[86:56]

You can let this process happen. You bring your attention to the flower. You deeply observe it with a feeling of caring. And usually some kind of bliss or joy arises. And then there's maybe a kind of You may be on the edge of samadhi or it may be a deep samadhi. But it was such a practice, just as also happens in Sashin, you're beginning to teach yourself, give yourself the physical and mental feeling of

[87:57]

This experience of absorption or of completeness or of deep satisfaction where you make the world sufficient. And each moment this happens again like seeds It both changes you and puts seeds in you for future change. So this... initial religious feeling of caring about the world, of feeling some value in this world, which goes beyond just what you like and dislike. And you see you have to find that in yourself. And depends on this capacity to love.

[89:13]

And a capacity to love in Buddhism, which is understood as the root of non-duality. Or the root of of feeling connected or not separated, as you do when you love. So it's not just a philosophical thing, it's actually related to actually loving. Mm-hmm. And this is, to deepen this, you have the practice of these four immeasurables. And coming closer to this experience in meditation. And feeling the... I don't like any of the words, but the completeness of each thing.

[90:26]

Each breath can be a mantra or a samadhi. It means to be able to let yourself drop into or lift up into non-duality. It's not such a big deal. You all have a taste of it. And it's your religious feeling which leads you to develop it. And you know, for me, personally I would say, this is not a small matter.

[91:34]

It's not just about your own enlightenment or realization. I believe it's the only way the world is going to be saved or it's the only way I know that if each person the more the more the more there are persons who feel this, the more chance our society has to survive and become healthy. I don't see myself, anything else that really has a chance of working. many other things are necessary but if this feeling of wisdom and non-duality and connectedness and love doesn't deepen and pervade our society all the other things won't work in the long run

[92:55]

That's why I feel it's so necessary that we continue this practice. Sorry to be so serious. Thank you very much. May our views pass through equally every being and every place

[93:38]

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