You know, there's an exhibition of okesas at the Basel Cultural Museum that's happening right now. And I've never heard of such a thing happening in the West anyway, and so just to honor The fact that they put on this show, which I hear is pretty good, I think it would be good to go to visit it. So our practice period ends on the 15th and we have kind of celebration or party or something. And on the 16th is a Tuesday.

[01:02]

The museum is open. It's not open on Monday. So anybody who wants to, some of us from the practice period are going to still be here. We'll go and some David Beck, I heard, will go from Basel. I don't know. What? Agatha will join us. Yeah. So any of you from Berlin or Luzern can join us. Now, you know, I always find it rather funny actually that I dress up in this robe and all to give the lecture. Hans, how are you?

[02:05]

Anyway, and I have lots of friends who at gunpoint you couldn't get them to put on these robes and do something. But they will dress up for meetings or banks or for university graduations. Although I always doubt what I'm doing. In some existential sense, not practically. Still, I rather like the okay side. One thing, it gives me permission to sit here and talk to you. Because I'm not doing it as me so much at all, but as our shared practice.

[03:32]

Weil ich das nicht so sehr als ich oder gar nicht als ich tue, sondern eher als unsere gemeinsame Praxis. And I sort of like the concept. Und mir gefällt das Konzept. Which is it's Buddha's clothes. Und zwar, dass das Buddha's Kleidung ist. Well, not probably actually, but it represents Buddha's actual dress. Now I wonder, I have not made a study of other religions vestments. Vestments means religious dress. But In Buddhism, Buddha's not a god.

[04:41]

He's a person who is not so different from us. We think he's more different than he is. But whatever the difference is, it can represent a challenge and a possibility for us. But whatever the difference is, it can be both a challenge and a possibility for us. In Buddhism, when you're ordained, you put on Buddha's clothes. Like he was your teacher, your good friend, and you happen to inherit some of his clothes, and they sort of fit.

[05:45]

They were short in the legs, but you know. And then I carry around, as I told you the other day, carry around in my wrist Buddha's enlightenment. I mean, that shape is called the Bodhi Mandala, Bodhi, enlightenment, Mandala. So I unfold the space in which the Buddha was enlightened. In this case, before I start the talk, and I leave it open, and then I hope during the talk, by the end of the talk, I look over, and all of you are sitting in the middle of it, enlightened.

[06:48]

It's a little crowded, but it's crowded in the Zendo, so we're used to that. But this is conceptually quite interesting. I'm wearing Buddha's clothes. Nicole is. And the fact and possibility of enlightenment is, you know, reminds, is re-wristed or re-minded by carrying the Zagu around. And the fact that Did you say re-wristed and re-minded?

[08:05]

Well, re-wristed. Yes, yes, I get it. Re-minded. Re-minded, okay. And the fact of the light is directed by hand or counteracted by the sagu. Yes, certainly. kind of encouragement and talismanic emotional support. Also ist das mit Sicherheit eine Art Ermutigung und eine Art emotionale, talismatische, glücksbringende Unterstützung. And this koan, we could say this koan is similarly, because it's trying to present us with the accomplishment of Buddha's mind. Okay.

[09:07]

Yeah. Now the koan again I mentioned the line is at a single stroke. Completion at a single stroke. No, let me say something about Dao Wee, which I started to say yesterday.

[10:08]

Dao Wee, his teacher and his grand teacher, great grand teacher, I guess, created the Blue Cliff Records and how to practice with them. It's not entirely new, but they brought it together in a way that is our practice today. So a koan is written aphoristically, so that there are critical phrases. And there are quite a few critical phrases.

[11:11]

And at different times when we practice with a koan, we find different ones. Und manchmal, wenn wir mit einem Korn praktizieren, dann finden wir neue oder andere. And the critical phrase connects you with the Korn and connects the Korn with you and the critical phrase connects to the whole of the Korn. And the koan itself is connected with a practicable aspect of enlightenment. Of the enlightened mind, which Buddhism assumes is possible and knows is possible.

[12:27]

And supposedly the Buddha was asked, I don't know if I mentioned this, but the Buddha was asked what is the basis of religion. What makes a religion? There are four possibilities and one of them, for example, is an insight confirmed by sutras or teachings. And the Buddha's choice is among the four was, and I'm not going to go through it, was insight confirmed by your experience. And clearly it requires, from this point of view, a transcendent or an insight beyond our usual way of thinking and functioning.

[13:39]

Und ganz deutlich oder offensichtlich beinhaltet, dass aus dieser Sichtweise heraus eine Einsicht, die über unsere normalen Sichtweisen und über unsere normale Art zu funktionieren hinauskommt. authenticating that through your experience. So Dao-Wi emphasized the critical phrase and existential doubt and a doubt about every word. You have to confirm the meaning of every word within your own experience. You take nothing for granted. But after doing all this, since I said yesterday, he burned all the copies. and burned the woodblock

[15:10]

printing blocks. Jeez, so. That must have been a big fire. That must have been one big pile of printing blocks. Why did he do it? We don't really know, but We know something he said. And one of the things he said was, it's becoming a form of literature and not a form of realization. The koans became a form of accreditation. Like getting a college degree or something.

[16:12]

Accredited, accreditation. A koan is a story with a commentary by another teacher. So if you then make a comment on the koan, it gives you the position of a teacher. Wenn du dann einen Kommentar zu einem Koan machst, dann gibt dir das die Position eines Lehrers. So I guess too many people were writing literary comments on koans and then saying, well, now I'm a teacher. And he said, oh, we'll burn the whole bunch. Und ich glaube, dass zu viele Leute angefangen haben, so literarische Kommentare zu den koans zu schreiben und dann gesagt haben, okay, jetzt bin ich ein Lehrer. Und dann hat er gesagt, verbrenn das ganze Zeug. So it's said that it was not until 1300, 200 years later, that the book of Hekigan Roku was reconstituted.

[17:17]

How that fits with Dogen during his life, before 1300, doing his one-night copy of the blue cliff records, we don't understand the dates. Supposedly, Dogen had not didn't know about the blue cliff records until the day before he sailed back to Japan. He didn't fly, he sailed. So supposedly he stayed up all night knowing he could sleep on the boat. and copied the whole blue cliff records yeah of course I mean maybe he could copy just the cases I don't know but certainly not all the commentary

[18:30]

Vielleicht konnte er die ganzen Fälle abschreiben, keine Ahnung, aber auf jeden Fall bestimmt nicht die ganzen Kommentare. Okay. So these, one of the critical phrases is completing at a single instant. Mit einem einzigen... Excuse me, do you want to distinguish instant from moment somehow? That's the same. Okay, good. Completing in a single moment. Okay, good. I'm not getting that fussy. Instant moment. Okay. Another is leaving aside wondrous activity in all directions. And he does.

[19:45]

What he really means is not leaving it aside. Because wondrous activity in all directions means acting a way beyond holy, ordinary, and beyond, beyond the two truths. So we have some key hints here on how to practice with this. Completing. in a single instant. And ordinary and holy, the two truths.

[20:46]

And then a third category beyond ordinary and holy. Now you can philosophically talk about the two truths, practical and fundamental. Du kannst die zwei Wahrheiten philosophisch besprechen. How did you call it? Fundamental and practical. Praktisch und fundamental. But you can't write about philosophically beyond practical and fundamental. Because there's no such conceptual category except to say beyond or aporia or something like that. Not a priori. Not? Okay. Aporia, which means something you can't solve. Like the liar's paradox.

[21:55]

All Cretans are liars. None of you are Cretans, of course. Something like that. Okay. But you can experience... You can't describe it, but you can experience being caught neither in the category of fundamental or practical. So we can say, as... and so könnten wir sagen, so wie Qin Jing das tut, expressing it should be easy, but to say the whole thing is difficult.

[23:03]

Okay, so then can we experience this union or beyondness of the two truths? So the koan is trying to create this kind of complexity. Okay. So... A kind of simple response if someone says, if I was there, say, and he asked me, what does that sound outside the gate? Yeah. Of course, it's not outside the gate in the real sense.

[24:07]

It's everywhere. As Atmar has said and as Sukhiroshi also said. So how could you respond very simply? So it's a simple... I mean, you could say, you know, something more zenny like... Well, I'm waiting for the next drop. Du könntest da ganz einfach antworten. Du könntest natürlich auch ganz sennig antworten und so etwas sagen wie, naja, ich warte auf den nächsten Tropfen. Because to just say raindrops suggests that such a thing as raindrops exists. Denn einfach Regentropfen zu sagen, da steckt drin, dass so etwas wie Regentropfen existiert. And it doesn't emphasize their existence. So to avoid giving some kind of identity to raindrops you could say very simply to such a question Well, it soon might be a downpour because that doesn't give any

[25:20]

identity to raindrops. It just means they're going to change. They might change into a downpour. And it includes Tianjin because you both may see that it becomes a downpour. So if I just say raindrops, he already knows it's raindrops, so why do I have to say what he already knows? So now this is what I'm saying. It's really simple, right? But if you explore how to answer questions so that you answer them as activities and not as entities... I mean, Marie-Louise and I went to a restaurant in France for her birthday.

[26:35]

And in the evening we were sitting eating outside. And some guy I sort of noticed walked by me. And it turned out to be a lawyer I knew slightly 30 years ago. And he came up to our table and he said, are you from San Francisco? And I said, well, once. And then he said, are you Richard Baker? And I said, well, I guess this evening I am. But that's just a way of answering which doesn't turn it into an entity.

[27:43]

Yes, I'm Richard Baker. No, I don't know. Right now, I guess so. Sometimes I'm Richard Baker. Sometimes I'm Zen Tatsu. And my friend in New York who wouldn't wear robes at a gunpoint would call me Hotsy Totsy. I don't know. Okay. So without discussing the koan itself further, let's say something about how can we practice with this koan to make this Buddha's mind that talismanically we carry in every situation, we discover in every situation.

[28:50]

Now, in Japan and China, you couldn't say raindrops to a Zen monk without him immediately thinking of this. Come on. And his own, or her own, reflections on, yeah, how do you live the two truths in daily activity? How do you act in a world with its practical predictability and its contextual interactive interdependence? and its contextual, interactive, multidimensional conditions.

[30:10]

Where, with a single stroke, things change. Just to honor Judith McBean, I'll say it again, I saw her just before I came to Europe this year. She seemed perfectly healthy and all the doctors said she was perfectly healthy. And suddenly, no one expected anything. She wasn't ill. She collapsed and died a couple of days later. We live in that kind of world. Yeah, and this kind of thing can happen to any of us. How do we live in such a world? With an awareness of this immediacy of time where anything can happen.

[31:13]

Which, if we do, has the benefit of freeing us from mental suffering. And which simultaneously also makes us feel so deeply connected with everything. Und das macht uns gleichzeitig auch sorgt es dafür, dass wir uns so zutiefst verbunden mit allem fühlen. That somehow whatever happens, happens in a context you can absorb and act. Und dass egal was geschieht, dass es in einem Zusammenhangsgefüge geschieht, dass du absorbieren kannst und indem du handeln kannst. So let me give you three practices which... enter you into ways to realize the problems of this koan.

[32:45]

Enter into what? Ways in which we can realize and solve the problems of this koan. Yeah. When I'm not going to Again, because of time and all, I'm not going to go into what the various things the koan presents as problems to be solved. But a basic one is how to establish continuity which includes and is simultaneously beyond the two truths. A continuity which becomes wondrous activity in all directions.

[33:47]

So one is the practice we have mentioned. Das eine ist die Übung, die wir erwähnt haben. Noticing without thinking. Zu bemerken ohne zu denken. Just develop the habit of noticing without thinking. Entwickle einfach die Gewohnheit zu bemerken ohne zu denken. As often as you can, do it. So oft du kannst, mach das. You're sitting on the couch and you don't have anything to do or you're reading a little bit. Wenn du auf dem Sofa sitzt, du nichts zu tun hast oder du irgendwas liest, Take a moment and just look around. Notice something. Don't think about it. Notice something else. Don't think about it. Is she real? This establishes a kind of bodily continuity. Yes. And it cuts off thinking, but enters into a connectedness with things.

[35:10]

Okay. Another would be to, and again I've mentioned, to practice each breath completion. You know, after you've looked up from the couch or the chair or something, toilet, and looked at a few things without thinking about them. And then, practice for a moment in between this looking without noticing, feeling you've completed a breath. Now you have to, there's many ways you complete, I mean, I'm holding, I lift the stick or hold the stick in ways which always, for me, feels complete.

[36:18]

But you have to start initiating the experience. So a very basic way to do it is to feel you're completing a breath. And then you can kind of rest after that. Completing breath, rest. This penetrates change and opens you into stillness. Das durchdringt den Wandel und öffnet dich in die Stille. So the first one emphasizes kind of bodily absorptive continuity. Das erste betont eine Art körperlicher absorbierender Kontinuität.

[37:23]

And this allows you to penetrate change and discover a kind of rest in each moment. And the third practice I would suggest would be incomplete but not lacking anything. As I suggested to somebody recently too. So each moment, now you practice completion of each breath. Now when you look at everything, it's actually incomplete because it's always in the midst of changing. So you develop the mental posture. A bodily mind posture.

[38:27]

On every appearance. You say incomplete. You feel incomplete. And you feel nothing is lacking. Thus and such. So and so. We won't go into that. But these three practices will allow you to enter into the fabric of this koan and unwrap it like an okesa in your daily life. But this only makes... will only... have sense for you and fruition for you. If you treat these three practices as Dharma doors, with no sense of what's on the other side or will flow from the practice,

[39:45]

Ohne irgendein Gefühl davon, was sich auf der anderen Seite befindet oder was aus der Praxis fließen wird. Aber sei offen für die Vielschichtigkeit des Weges. Darüber hinaus gehen. Vielen Dank. Thank you.

[40:16]

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