Having shed illusion and enlightenment. Shed means to get rid of. Having cut off holy and ordinary. There are not so many things. setting up host and guest, and what enlightens and obfuscates or deludes is a special house. It's not that there is not the giving of jobs according to ability.

[01:02]

But how to understand siblings who share the same breath? Siblings of adjoining branches. Hmm. Okay? This is the introduction to this koan. What is it, 21 or something like that? What number is it? Does anybody know? I should know and you all should know. I don't know. It's in the book of Serenity. And it's one of the koans I speak about the most.

[02:09]

You know, Daowu is, Yunyan is sweeping. And his brother monk says to him, too busy. And his brother monk says to him, too busy. And Yunyang says, you should know there's one who is not busy. Aha, says Da Wu, who is quite, you know, smart. Ah, there's a double moon then. And Yunyang says, Yunian holds up a finger and says, is this, or the broom, is this a double moon? Yeah, so that's the koan in which this phrase, the one who's not busy, comes from.

[03:13]

Yeah, and as you can see, I'm still successfully avoiding the topic. And the introduction is what I said first. So, just leaving that in the air, does anyone have anything you'd like to say? following up from our conversations this morning, discussion this morning. Yeah. I'm always interested in the scientific aspect you point out in practice. It never seems that it's so much my home territory.

[04:30]

I met an astrophysician on the train. An astrophysicist. Yeah, well, that could be different. At least in English it would be different. And you converted him to Buddhism. Successfully. But I was in a conversation where we came up talking about a formula that expresses infinity. So 1 divided by x is 0, he said, was a mathematical expression for infinity.

[05:33]

And I thought that was kind of great that you could actually put this in words in mathematics. He explained to me that the formula for infinity 1 divided by x is 0. And I was fascinated that you can write it that way in mathematics. But I think I was even more fascinated by the fact that he said this was pretty simple. But for the first person to think of it, it was kind of genius, I guess, to be able to put it. For one, my question is really what is the mind that is not too busy to have questions like this? Or to be busy with things like that?

[06:38]

What mind is that? And How do you look behind the scenes when you, for example, analyze what kind of questions are really at the heart of our practice? if we look at, if we yearn for the truth, and we live in a guilt, justice culture, and we feel like if we don't find the truth, you know, there's something wrong with us. I feel that's, yeah, maybe too, what is the mind that can actually have that kind of question?

[07:39]

You mean, how do I think of that? Yes, because people come to Dokusan and say, I have a bad taste. Something like that. Yes. Also, what kind of spirit is that, who looks behind the scenes and says, which questions are really important for us, and where we may hold on to some pretty Christian thinking, although we then call it Buddhism, and somehow feel guilty if we don't find the truth. I don't think we need to think... It's not the case that to think clearly about things means that you're busy.

[08:50]

You know, the... Okay, that's enough. Does someone else want to say something? Yeah? You said this morning practice comes first and then there is also thinking about, and also thinking about takes you into the practice. I guess this is what I mean. So my question is, thinking about, and thinking is always in terms of wrong and right, or at least it has always also this direction.

[09:53]

So thinking about practice and about the understanding and realization of practice, Does it have to think into the practice in terms of wrong and right or in terms of well thinking at all? Is this a step into, or can this be a step into the realization? Is it always following the understanding, the realization? Is thinking following or can thinking go first? Okay. My question is, first of all, is that the realization and the practice, and there is also the thinking, and can the thinking and the thinking also always be in... I am right and wrong, and for me this is also an aspect of thinking.

[10:57]

And the question is, can the thinking precede the realization, or can thinking always just follow? So do I arrange with the thinking behind the realization, or do I go ahead with the thinking and the realization, the experience, the actual experience follows? We notice things. And the way we notice things is structured by our habits of what we notice. And what we are conscious of is structured by the structure of consciousness itself. And what we are aware of is structured by the structure of consciousness itself.

[12:04]

So the world is framed by our habits of perception and our views. Okay. So as I said this morning, going back to something I used to mention quite often, is we think that we are separated by space. So that is a perception, that is a view that structures our perceptions. But in fact, we know that we're connected by all kinds of things. As I say, there's no strings to the moon, but we're affected on a monthly way by the moon.

[13:39]

Or perhaps the moon is affected by us. Anyway, obviously there's some kind of shared connectedness. Okay. But consciousness perceives difference. So consciousness establishes, our culture establishes, our culture and consciousness establishes that we are separated by space. So that's what we see. That view, again, exists prior to perception. Okay. So the view, again, is prior to what we perceive.

[15:06]

So our perception confirms the view which is false. Does that understand what everyone? Okay. Now, I have to think about that. I have to express that in thoughts to you. And if I don't think about it, it's very difficult to change how I notice. What Ulrike and Otmar, you both brought up, is pertinent to what we're talking about.

[16:09]

And it's fundamental to what we're talking about. And it's actually a direction I wanted to go in later in the seminar. But right now, in this context, I have to find a way to speak about it. Okay. So Buddhism is rooted in one fundamental view. You all know that everything changes. Absolutely everything changes. And that is the test of all the teachings of Buddhism.

[17:12]

So as I said earlier, if there's characteristics of dharma, is there also an underlying nature to those separate dharmas? There's a connectedness. But is there an underlying nature? Is that the same as connectedness? These things have to be thought out. And if they're not thought out, they affect our experience. If they're not thought out, they shape our experience.

[18:29]

Another example is the common belief in oneness. And much of Chinese Buddhism seems to take the position of oneness. Implicit. Okay. We have a... we had the experience of intuition, intuitions being true. So in contrast to our usual discursive thinking, When we have an intuition, it is usually true.

[19:37]

Okay, so, because intuition comes from a more integrated level of thinking. Now, as I speak about this, I want to throw out some questions because we have to question ourselves. You know, you can't depend on me to my explanations. So, if I just said there's a discursive level of thinking and there's a more integrated level of thinking, what's that? Now, is the more integrated level of thinking the one who's not busy? Now, if I'm going to teach Zen practice, I have to have a pretty good understanding of these things.

[20:50]

Otherwise, I can't support your practice in a good way and your insights. Okay, now we have a habit of intuition. We have an experience of intuition being usually truer than discursive thinking. Okay. Now, sometimes we have the experience... of a deep sense of oneness and transparency. And intuition. And then we extrapolate that intuition to the world.

[21:51]

Extrapolate that. So a person who has an experience of oneness then assumes this is true and so everything is one. Whatever one, everything being one might mean. Again, it becomes some kind of spiritual sense or God-like sense. So Buddhism has an antidote to that. Which is what Sukhiroshi would always say, not one, not two. So we can see that there are many things and yet many things isn't. It's many, but it's also related.

[23:12]

So there is connectedness. But connectedness is not oneness. Okay. So if you don't have some kind of corrective, like not one, not two... Well, you don't have a... If you don't distinguish between... If you don't distinguish between oneness and connectedness, Then you end up with some kind of one mind. There's one ground of being. Which is a very common view. And it's the view that Chinese Buddhism, as I said this morning, smuggled back into... smuggled into Mahayana Buddhism.

[24:39]

Okay, so we can... The point I'm making here is that the touchstone, the test of our practice is our experience. Okay, but experience itself can fool us. So without thinking in a certain kind of philosophical or logical thinking, we can be fooled by enlightenment and by intuitive experiences. So, there's a... Yeah, okay.

[25:41]

I'm going to... Yes? I tried out some phrases and I tried them out like I say them to myself in Zazit sort of and then I watch what my body does. and then I get a certain kind of response and it's very interesting because just a tiny word a little bit different but sort of the meaning exactly the same shows me that the body does extremely different reactions to it and then I can see that on one hand

[26:48]

Then I can see they're both worldviews, but they're just on the same subject. They're slightly different, but they have a huge different effect on me. So I'm wondering, because you say it should be based on our own experience, and thinking sometimes you don't have the capacity to think something through like a philosopher or keep it all under control and keep all ends in there somehow. isn't that also a valid way, because it seems easier accessible to solve it through thinking? to try out the sentences to myself. In a sense, I present the sentence as a mantra and then I look at what the body is doing on it. And these are, let's say, two sentences on the exact same topic.

[27:51]

They feel the same when I think about it. In one version I feel good and in the other version I don't feel good at all. So I get some kind of physical reaction on it. And then I see that both are views of the world. One is good and the other is harmful to me, even if it is one that I have had all my life, for example. When he says that his own experience is what comes to him and you have to think through things somehow, So, given what the three of you said now, We are in the midst of questions which are among the roots of the development of Buddhism.

[29:10]

And to respond to them, we have to create a common framework a framework we share to try to have some shared understanding. Now, in the introduction I gave you to the koan, having shed illusion and enlightenment. Okay, so those distinctions are gone. And cut off ordinary and holy. Now, these two phrases refer to different teachings. And cutting off ordinary and holy, of course, refers to Bodhidharma.

[30:26]

There are not so many things. Okay. This means that when you don't see things hierarchically, I like this, I don't like that. This is good or bad. Or this will lead me to enlightenment and this won't lead me to enlightenment. Then you're more like, as Peter said, he sees things as in equanimity or we can say equalness. If you can see each thing that's presented to you equally, she's equal to the pillar. Sorry. She is equal to the pillar. I mean, it doesn't make her a pillar, but it makes the pillar more interesting.

[31:45]

Because that's doing what it's doing. You're doing what you're doing. And this is also related to seeing the activity of everything instead of seeing... things in comparative terms. Yeah. And then it says, and the setting up of host and guest And distinguishing what enlightens from what deludes is a special house. That means a lineage teaching, a teaching very specifically which shapes how you see the world in terms of enlightenment.

[33:16]

Sorry, that shapes the world? how you see the world in terms of enlightenment. It's not that, and then it goes on, it's not that there isn't assigning jobs according to ability. So when we have visitors here or a seminar, Otmar will probably choose someone to cook who can cook. When it's just us, the people who live here, anybody can cook. Because everyone should have the chance to cook.

[34:26]

So Atmar does give jobs somewhat according to ability. But how do you understand siblings who share the same breath? That means us. We're siblings who share the same breath. Or a lineage with adjoining branches. This is a similar idea where the program Winter Branches comes from. So how do we establish we siblings with the same breath? How do we establish what we understand?

[35:29]

How do we establish it together and how do you establish what you understand in yourself? Establish is to establish. Establish is stronger than to make. Establish is to make it on a good foundation. I just myself and others it helps to have more feeling for the word because it could be just noting or is it making or is it creating yeah well I don't know we're into this is I want to answer this I want to respond in a well as I can here

[36:42]

But to respond well, it's not so easy. And because... So anyway, this introduction to this koan The latter part of it is asking the questions you're asking in effect. And as Marie-Louise points out, the way you frame something makes a huge difference. And as I often suggest to you, ask yourself, what is breathing? Or ask yourself, who is breathing? What and who both start with W. But the question really affects you differently.

[38:07]

Okay. So our body or our experience is telling us something when what affects us differently than who. So Marie-Louise called this a noticing or a dowsing. Okay, now I've doused, I've doused water, but you're not always right when you find, sometimes you're wrong. How do we trust our dowsing? Yeah. Oh, dear. Okay, so I think the simplest thing for me to say right now... is that you trust your dowsing, and you trust it most when you can find the words, the mental formations, which are not in conflict with it.

[39:40]

Now, let me give you an example of an experience I had. Many years ago, I'm walking along, going back to work. I've told some of you this story before. And I worked in a book warehouse. It was the first actually, you know, the paperback books didn't exist when I was young. All books were hardbound. They were real cheap kind of pulpy books, but basically all real books were hardbound. At least in America.

[40:54]

I know in France they had paper books. You had to cut the pages and things. But I think it took new kinds of glues before commonly books were published in paper. This part of the story is just an anecdote. Anyway, I worked in this big warehouse, which was, I think, the first warehouse in the United States to only carry paperback books. So you couldn't order hard bonds from us, but you could order paperbacks. Anyway, I was...

[41:54]

I don't know, some kind of, one of the warehouse managers. Not an important job. I swept the floor too. So I'm coming back to the warehouse after lunch. And I've been practicing Buddhism, practicing Zen with Sukhirishi for, I don't know, six months or something. And like Clinton, I never inhaled. But I really have never inhaled a cigarette. But I used to smoke occasionally and I'd blow it through my nose and things like that. So I'm walking back to this warehouse. And there were other poetic factors, like the railroad track ended at the warehouse. So I guess I lit the last cigarette in a package.

[43:25]

I was almost to the warehouse. And I threw the crumpled up the cigarette package and threw it on the railroad track. And there was lots of stuff thrown in the railroad track. No one was ever there. It was just behind the buildings. But I took two steps and I felt really uncomfortable. And I stopped and I thought, why do I feel uncomfortable?

[44:33]

Well, of course, my mother told me not to throw things out. But I knew it was something more fundamental than that. Yeah. So I thought, and the next thought was something like, well, if I'd thrown it down the warehouse, that had been much better because then I would have been the one or somebody would have swept it up. Out here, no one's going to sweep it up. So why would I throw it down in a place where there was no buddy going to sweep it up? Okay. This is all a kind of thinking that's going on.

[45:35]

But it's a thinking going on around an experience. The experience I didn't feel good about throwing the cigarette down. Packaged down. But I really didn't feel good. It wasn't just kind of like Yeah, you're not supposed to do that. So why did I really feel not good? And I thought, why would I throw something down which isn't going to be cleaned up? And I realized that I think there's a real distinction between inside and outside. And outside is, you know, this was before the environmental movement.

[46:39]

Outside, it all disappears somewhere. Garbage, pollution, etc. The environmental movement has dissolved, at least to some extent, this outside-inside distinction. Okay, so I threw down the cigarette package. I took a couple steps. And I realized I think there's an outside-inside distinction. And so I stepped. I realized that as I turned back, following my body's desire to pick it up, And I've never made an outside-inside distinction, really, except practical terms, since then.

[48:03]

And that shift then takes many forms. I don't think there's any outside to this world. If I have to use the word, the distinction outside-inside, I'd say it's all inside. Like we're all inside a stomach here, or something. We're inside. Okay. What did this thinking? Thinking was definitely a part of this.

[49:14]

Because I had to notice that I made a real distinction between inside and outside. And this realization experience transformed eliminated the distinction between inside and outside. That's not different than this not setting up ordinary and holy. Ordinary and holy is an inside-outside distinction, a hierarchical distinction. So thinking in a transformation of the habits of thinking was part of this experience.

[50:29]

But I'm sure I would not have had this experience. I'm sure this experience, this noticing, would not have been transformative. If I hadn't been sitting right now. Now, what is it about sitting regularly, meditating regularly, that transforms the effect of thinking on us? Now, let's just leave the question there. Because this is also the question about what is the one who is not busy. Okay, so I think we're supposed to stop at five, right?

[51:35]

So let's have about a 20-minute break and then we'll start again. Oh, you guys, you're putting me through it here.

[51:45]

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