Well, I'm very grateful to be able to start another session with you. With Neil as my translator. And I know, I feel pretty confident clearly, exactly what I'd like to speak about. But whether I can or not, as you know, sometimes is, you know, we don't know. Yeah. But we're very lucky to be here in this Johanneshof in kind of stormy, a little bit cold weather.

[01:01]

Yeah, and I'm interested in how and and gratified by how each of your individual practice develops. And I'm also interested and grateful for how our practice as a Sangha develops. It's quite interesting that although you've practiced, those of you who are here, you've practiced for different lengths of time. Some of you are fairly new to the Dharma Sangha.

[02:15]

And yet there is still some common development of our practice as a Sangha. This is Sangha. Some of you are fairly new to the Dharma Sangha. And yet there is still some common development of our practice as a Sangha. This is something mysterious. We can see it, feel it, but it's not so easy to explain. In fact, we don't have to explain it.

[03:15]

But it's good to have some kind of... permission or attitude of openness to Sangha practice. No, as I've been doing this for some decades now in the United States and here in German-speaking Europe. Hmm. And I'm also interested and grateful for how our practice as a Sangha develops.

[04:37]

It's quite interesting that although you've practiced, those of you who are here, you've practiced for different lengths of time. Some of you are fairly new to the Dharma Sangha. And yet there is still some common development of our practice as a Sangha. This is something mysterious. We can see it, feel it, but it's not so easy to explain. In fact, we don't have to explain it. But it's good to have some kind of...

[05:39]

permission or attitude of openness to Sangha practice. No, as I've been doing this for some decades now in the United States and here in German-speaking Europe. I find myself... trying to observe and understand why Zen is the way it is.

[06:57]

Why it is the way it is in relationship to other Buddhist schools. Or other ways of practice. Because on the one hand I'm trying to widen our practice so that it includes anybody. It's not so dependent on some kind of austere monastic practice. And widen it so it covers Buddhism. It's not just some school within Buddhism. But I also have to recognize that we do have a specific way of practicing.

[08:00]

It's not the same as other schools and ways of practice. And we have to maintain the integrity of our own school, our own lineage. It's not just a matter of... not being something other than Buddhist. Or not shopping around. A certain magpie instinct is good. Magpies like to find something bright for their past.

[09:07]

So some kind of magpie finding bright things from other schools is okay. But In fact, the reality is, a practice works through its own integrity. And you have to feel that integrity to let the practice spread throughout you. For example, you know, as I've pointed out a couple of times recently, Zen, in contrast to most other schools, doesn't give guided meditations.

[10:07]

We don't tell you where you're going in practice. Again, we don't conceive of practice or Buddhism as the truth. As I said, it's a way to come to the truth. To open yourself to the truth. But it's you that is the truth or discovers the truth. Now to do a sashin you have to enter another body. Another kind of mind, but also more specifically a Sashin body.

[11:14]

A Sangha body. It's not just that to do seven days of sitting all by yourself would be harder. I'm sure some of you could do it and follow even a much longer, more difficult schedule. But it still would be different. Because each of us is somehow a receptacle for the other. A receptacle means in English something that takes hold again and again or receives again and again.

[12:25]

Which brings me to this new Buddha we have, this old new Buddha. It's early, according to a my eye, but also to a museum person in San Francisco. It's early Edo period, which probably makes it about 300 years old. It's the basic look of it, though, with the robe, a kind of monastic robe, but also a non-monk's robe over both shoulders.

[13:33]

And the kind of face and kind of... hair, headdress hair, goes back to the 6th or 7th century anyway in China. So this basic look for a A big buddha, a cosmic buddha was established, well established in Japan by the 10th century and earlier. So let's say, let me take this dangerous word, worship.

[14:53]

Not dangerous. Is it dangerous? What word do you use? Okay. So you're here to stop worshipping the self and start worshipping the Buddha. So the question is, can you do this for seven days? To make the word worship more accessible, the word part is worthy, and the ship part is a state or condition of being worthy.

[15:58]

So at least in English this worth part means what you turn toward. To turn toward something that's worth something to you. And it particularly means to turn inward. Actually, the word rhyme is the same root. Rhyme, whole rhyme. Because when two words rhyme, they turn back together. So we're turning toward, let's say, now this Buddha. And this Buddha too, the one behind me.

[17:28]

Seeing them together, you can really feel how much younger this Buddha is. Now all Buddha statues, although they have different forms, are emanation bodies. They're nirmanakaya in a sense, bodies. In other words, they're manifestations of the Buddha. Or they're receptacles in which the Buddha is invited to join us. To join us as long as there is something called samsara.

[18:31]

But to make a Buddha, you have to invite this power, awareness, into yourself as well. A friend of mine lived in New Jersey when he was young. And he went to, that's a state in America. South of New York. Anyway, people in New Jersey have often quite a strong accent.

[19:32]

And he went to school in Michigan. And he arrived in Michigan and thought, geez, everyone here has an accent. Something we've all noticed. But he, you know, for a while he thought, they have an accent, it's so strange. And then he realized... Yeah, but I have an accent. And it was his first enlightenment experience. Because he realized nothing is natural. Everything is artifice. Everything is some kind of artificial or art. If you comb your hair, it's...

[20:34]

not natural anymore. If you let your hair grow, you're crazy without combing it. Pretty soon it's full of bugs and grease and that's not natural either. That would be some kind of ascetic style. So let's throw the word natural out. In Japanese wood joinery when you plane the wood you don't put oil or or anything on it usually, paint for sure. Because you want to see the nature of the wood.

[21:41]

So for them it's artificial or unnatural to paint the wood. But planing the wood is also not exactly natural. Hmm. So what I'm trying to get at here is a basic Buddhist view that everything is generated and we are part of the generation of everything. So this Buddha will only come to life if we generate it. And this Buddha behind me is more of a, not only younger, but it's more of a kind of, what we could say, maybe a chakra Buddha.

[22:57]

Gérald has lived with it a long time. Someone gave it to him for years ago, many years ago. And you can see that Gérald has come to look like this Buddha, or the Buddha has come to look like Gérald. Notice the shoulders are very similar. Now Gisela looks more like the Buddha on the main altar. She has more round shoulders. So we have quite a good couple here on the altar. But this young Buddha here, has this earth testifying mudra and is sitting in half lotus, not full lotus. And each part is separate, the hand, the legs, torso, shoulders, the head, the long ears.

[24:07]

And this earth-testifying mudra is shooting out through the head, the hose flame of the head. Hmm. And turning this into a flame is particularly East in Asia, particularly Thailand and countries like that, Southeast Asia developed this look. And since they emphasize monastic practice, it's clearly got a monk's robe with a shoulder bear. This Buddha is more of a cosmic Buddha.

[25:42]

And the only concession to the chakras are the fingers pointing upward in the mudra. And as you notice the robes and everything makes a circle. So this Buddha behind me has this upward movement and downward movement in its posture. And this Buddha on the altar has wider and wider circles. So we have to come to another body to do sesshin. I think it's best if you can enter into the pace of each breath.

[26:55]

Yeah, like when you read a poem, the poem asks you to enter into the pace of the poet or the poem itself. So there's a rhyme or there's turns back on itself or the lines are irregular? Well, prose, just as straight lines across the page, and mentally you can read even half a page at once if you're a quick reader. But in a poem you have to find yourself in each word.

[28:09]

Yeah, and you have to stop and breathe. You're not thinking so much, but you... feel, find yourself, feel your way into, find yourself in the poem. And Sashin is kind of like a poem. You have to Feel your way into each breath. Find yourself just sitting on your cushion.

[29:15]

If you go back into this prose mind, you're going to have a hard time sitting. If you can come into the poem of this moment, it won't be so difficult. In fact, you may find yourself wrapped, as in rhapsodic. This same word worth is also the root of to be wrapped, to be wrapped up inward, to be rhapsodic. Attention is not thought.

[30:19]

It is not thinking. You can use thinking to bring your attention to your breath. But attention itself is not thinking. You can bring attention to what you're looking at. You can look at this, but You don't have to think about it to bring attention to it. And while we're sitting here, there may be various birds going on. But you hear them, but you don't really hear them until you bring attention to it.

[31:33]

Or the birds bring you into attention. The birds somehow grasp you. So this attention, hearing is not attention. Your senses is not attention. Attention is neither thought nor the senses. And you can also bring attention inside you which is not the senses. Und ihr könnt auch Aufmerksamkeit in euch hineinbringen, die auch nichts mit den Sinnen zu tun hat. Und ihr könnt diese Aufmerksamkeit entwickeln, die weder Gedanken noch die Sinne sind. Aber was ist das dann? Es könnte eine Art Energie sein, es könnte auch ein Qi oder Qi sein.

[32:35]

so to worship in the way I'm using the word is to turn your this chi or attention inward or to turn it toward yourself as Buddha So, again, this simple thing I say about zazen posture. Zazen posture is... is Buddha's posture. And it's your posture. Now, this posture is not exactly natural. Some of you might have been in this posture in the womb, I don't know.

[33:59]

But now that you're outside, you know, it's a kind of teaching that you assume this posture. And the teaching is that it's Buddha's posture. So, I'm sorry. You may think you're just meditating, but actually you're assuming Buddha's posture. But as I say, it's a dialogue between accepting your posture as it is and being informed by Buddha's posture. So, I mean, okay, I'm sitting here. Which is my posture? Which is Buddha's posture.

[35:15]

We can't separate. This is Buddha's posture and this is my posture. So I'm a receptacle for Buddha's posture. And these are two Buddha's posture here. And there's 40-some Buddha's posture here in this room. And we invite... This Buddha won't be alive unless we invite Buddha to be present. And we allow, we invite, when you sit this posture, you're inviting Buddha's posture into your posture.

[36:16]

So for now let me say that in Zen we worship the Buddha by assuming Buddha's posture. By assuming Buddha's posture you are turning toward Buddha. Now, during this session, I would like to speak about four aspects of lay and monastic practice. Analysis. Embodiment. Mindfulness. And meditation. At least that's my idea. I should speak about that. And all four, to various degrees, proportionate to your particular life, are integral parts of serious practice.

[37:50]

Now if possible, you should sit every day. To awaken Buddha's posture. To turn toward the Buddha physically. Yeah, you can think it's okay, but It's so powerful when you do it with your body. It's nice to think about somebody, but it's very different to be with somebody. To be with the Buddha is to assume Buddha's posture. Hmm. Now, I notice when you're... You're all sitting pretty well.

[39:18]

But I would say that most of the problems I see in sitting are with the head. And in Kinhin as well as Zazen. In Kinhin, the head is the same as it is in Zazen. In walking meditation. This lifting feeling through the head and the back of the head. When the head is too far back, you're thinking. Too far forward, you're sleeping. I have different ways of categorizing sleeping, my own too. There's 80 degrees sleeping. 70 degrees.

[40:26]

There's 60, 45, that's kind of... So I have little numbers for the difference. Some of you are 70, some of you are 60, 45. I had a friend once who was... 90 or zero. He used to be head down on the mat. I can't even do it. But I know all of the categories except... all the way down. I can't get there. I probably would if I could, but I can't. But then Buddha's posture comes back in and we find ourselves upright. And sometimes Buddha's posture takes over and grasps your posture.

[41:49]

There's some secret to this posture. It's very strange. The posture itself has a power. Mm-hmm. And, you know, this idea of sitting every day in your daily life. And by that I mean sometimes you're going to be busy, but try to sit if only for a few minutes. You can't sit 40 minutes, sit three. You can spare three minutes. I'm too busy for three minutes. No, that's not possible. But notice the difference. As I've said to someone recently, Say that when you get up, it usually takes you about half an hour to finish washing your face, brushing your teeth, combing your hair and so on.

[43:07]

But say that you really don't have time. You slept in and you've got to leave right away. If you leave the house right away, straight out of bed, without washing your face or anything, you'll feel kind of gooey. Oh, okay. But if you just take two or three minutes, wash your face quickly, brush your teeth real quickly, Yeah, it's almost the same as half an hour. You feel okay. So Zazen's like that. If only two or three minutes, it helps Zazen surface in your day. It's like each day, you know, there's some rhythm to days that each morning you wake up and you start over again.

[44:24]

So it's good to wake up and start over again. And so it's good to start each day with some meditation. It will then flow, because meditation, this sangha body, this dharma body, Because meditation, this Sangha, this Dharma body, flows underneath your life. Your daily life is usually on top of it. And if you do Zazen, Meditate, it tends to surface more, at least during Zazen. But if you sit every day, at least for a short time, even if only a short time, it surfaces more, it comes up in your daily life.

[45:47]

It's not so deep down underneath. I think sometimes in Christian terms maybe you talk about creating a second nature. You have the nature, your natural nature, and then you have a second nature. It becomes second nature. It's a created nature, a generated nature that begins to surface in you. And in Zen we sometimes call it original nature. You begin to discover your original nature.

[46:47]

The poetry of your nature. You begin to find the pure attention suffuses your body. Attention which needs no object of attention. Attention or awareness which is neither thought nor senses. And during Sashin, it's good when you go to bed to have the intention of pouring this attention Pouring it into you so that when the wake-up bell comes, in Germany you stand up.

[47:56]

You're more advanced in Germany. In English we only wake up and then later we stand up. In German, you stand up right away. Have this energy. Put this energy in you before you go to sleep and put it all night long deep and wake you up in the morning. Stand you up in the morning. This is a way to start coming into your true nature. I read the other day that Someone said, either Elizabeth Hardwick or Gertrude Stein, I don't know which.

[49:25]

I couldn't tell from the text, context. Yeah. And she said that my little grandson, who's three, who visited here recently, announced at his nursery school, kindergarten, He said, I am a little German boy. He actually lives in Lisbon. He said, I'm a little German boy and I'm going back to Germany to meet Grandfather Dick. So he seems to have some sense that German-ness can be poured into him. Yeah, I find it so. So Buddhanness can be poured into us too.

[50:39]

So let's in this saschin become a receptacle for Buddhanness. And find yourself in the pace of Buddha-ness. In each breath. Just your body as it is. Find yourself completely in each physical thing you do. With no thought beyond that, as much as possible. Let your attention, energy, chi, just rest in each physical thing you do, are. Just let yourself settle into each physical thing.

[51:47]

In each heartbeat. Each breath beat. Thank you very much. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, [...]

[53:14]

I ask you, Lord, to forgive him. I ask you, Lord, to forgive him. I ask you to forgive him. Satsang with Mooji

[54:33]

Vare Makedanwa, Jifu Jisuru Koto Etari, Me'awapua Nyorai, Hōshin jutsu yō keshitate mazuran. A non-overtroffener, non-feender and full-comer Adama, begins to save hundreds of thousands of millions of kaipas. The truth of the Tathagata is the truth of the Tathagata. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to hear these Buddhist teachings chanted in German.

[56:08]

Is he speaking loudly enough for you back there? Yeah, Suzuki Roshi once, in 1969 in Tassajara, said that when he was at Sokoji, that was the temple, what we called the temple in San Francisco. One of the kindergarten children I saw him sitting Zazen. So this little Japanese girl, I'm sure, this little American, English-speaking Japanese girl. She came up and said, I can do that. So she sat down beside him on the altar. And crossed her legs and sat quite well.

[57:22]

And then she said, and what? And what? And Suzuki Hiroshi said, that's the problem I have with all of you. And Suzuki Hiroshi said, that's the problem I have with all of you. And I can see very clearly what I want to talk about. And I can feel it very clearly. But I can't find, I don't know if I can find the words to say it. Or the images. Yeah, but I'm trying. And, you know, I'd like to give a good lecture.

[58:34]

Sometimes you say, oh, I like that lecture. I think, well, how can I do that again? I think this is maybe natural, but maybe it's not so good. But I still would like to give a lecture with a beginning and a middle and an end. But I don't know. We'll have to call these working lectures. You may think I'm saying the same old thing again. It sounds like it, perhaps. But I'm trying to say something. I don't know. I can't figure out how to say it yet. So this is our laboratory Sashin. And I'm trying to express something of my feeling for having this new friend, this ancient Buddha join us.

[59:38]

Did I tell you I used to eat in a restaurant with him? No, I didn't tell you that. Oh, it was in a shop called Shibata's. In the 60s and 70s. During the 70s, Shibata's shop shared an entryway, all glass, with a restaurant called Tsuruyoshi. Hmm. So it used to be right in the window and I always ate in the restaurant and I could see it across the way. I mean as near as these windows. But it always was too beautiful and expensive and unattainable.

[60:40]

Yeah, and then I found a couple of months ago that somebody I knew slightly had bought it. And it kept it 20 years as his personal possession in his house. And somehow he felt better if it went to a practice place than to just any place. So once I found this out I I woke up one morning a while ago here and thought, oh, we should try at least to get it. So I suppose what I'm trying to do in a way is to take, here we are in our contemporary culture.

[62:24]

Yeah. And I suppose I'm trying to gather our contemporary culture together in each of us. In such a way that we can feel ourselves. Feel ourselves. so that we can also feel this ancient culture this Buddha represents. Now I have some image, like if we can feel it and disappear into this ancient Buddhist culture. then we can reappear in our contemporary culture and share our Zen mind with people. Last night I wasn't, you know, what I said was a little long, but needle, I said,

[63:28]

Needle and seed. What I said last night was a little longer, but needle and seed. Seed, like a seed. Yeah, needle and seed. And it's funny, and I said, and we plant and sow. We needle and seed and we plant and sow. S-E-W, plant. In English we can say sow and sow. S-O-W and S-E-W. A needle and seed mean an image for the ideal meeting of teacher and disciple. And up. And Kenko's teacher Bunne said, I want you to receive this transmission, this robe.

[64:57]

And he said, I'm not such a person. But Bunne insisted he take it, take it anyway. And go to where there are no tracks. And find a person and transmit it to succeeding generations. So maybe I'm trying to find a place where there's no tracks called Johanneshof perhaps. There's a poem I like a lot, a kind of Zen poem. Definitely, I guess, a Zen poem, yeah. Part of it is between friendship and alienation there's no difference.

[66:06]

Between friendship and alienation, no difference. On the old plum tree, fully blossomed, The southern branch owns the whole spring. As also does the northern branch. I remember very precisely walking down Broadway, San Francisco and repeating that poem to myself had been part of a koan. And I remember suddenly I was just walking on the street, ordinary street, but suddenly I understood this connectedness. You know, I've been helping David Chadwick with helping him edit his book, his biography of Suzuki Roshi.

[67:35]

It's not a book that just kind of praises Suzuki Roshi. It's a portrait of I would say of great humanness. And how Sukhiroshi's great humanness allowed his Buddha nature to flourish. Anyway, David put it together from many conversations for six years or something now. He's been doing research for the book. And he interviewed, I don't know how many people, but hundreds of people, many of the people who practiced with him here in the United States. And people who knew him and or practiced with him in Japan and various family members.

[68:48]

And then he more or less sewed all these things together without much commentary. He had to pick which versions of stories seemed most correct and things like that. And he's calling the book Crooked Cucumber. Or he calls the book crumpled cucumber. Because that was Tsukiroshi's teacher's nickname for Tsukiroshi. So maybe it'll come out before Christmas, I don't know.

[69:55]

But anyway, it's all typeset at the publisher now. I think as of a day or two ago. And I also had to edit all the... Instead of making a commentary, he has Sukirishi's quotations from Sukirishi's lectures all the way through the book. So it produces that second level in such a book that's necessary to make it work. So I edited all those quotations of Sukhiroshi for David. What Sukhiroshi used to ask me to do, he'd say, you make it sound like English. Later he said, I read Zen Mind and Beginner's Mind to see how my disciples understand me.

[70:57]

So I tried to make some of these things a little more understandable. Since I know Sukhiroshi's teaching quite well, mostly I know what he meant. But sometimes, if it's out of context, it's hard to... understand what he meant sometimes. Sometimes I read and I think, wow, jeez, and I receive a new teaching. Wow, oi, [...] oi. That's putting two phrases together, Japanese and English. I mean, Yiddish.

[72:20]

That's what my little daughter used to say in Japan. She'd say, Oy vey desu ne. Desu ne is isn't it, or something like that in Japanese. Yeah. So I want to explain, say something about our choreography. Because I asked you to come in and separate differently than you did before. I've wanted to change it before but I don't think of it until after Sashin started so then I decide to wait until next Sashin and then I don't think of it until after Sashin started and I wait until the next Sashin.

[73:39]

So I said to Gural, I said we should explain the details but generally we don't talk about the concept behind the details. But then I was thinking, maybe I should talk about the concept behind the details and the concept behind that concept. So we're trying again to transplant this practice here. So the details, we just should do them, but they are rooted in a concept of how we exist. And how practice is most effective.

[74:43]

Let me say as an aside though, the reason I'm served or the abbot served last is so, two main reasons. So there's enough food left for the last people. They figure you don't want to starve the abbot, so you'll make enough food so it reaches to the last person. When you start bringing me less and less food, I'll know my days are numbered. The other reason is that it allows the abbot to slow down the meal.

[75:59]

The idea is the abbot is supposed to have enough ego strength to be able to eat and be the last one eating. Because generally everybody's legs are hurting, you know. So everybody eats as fast as possible and no one wants to be the last person who's keeping everyone sitting. So if you don't have some process like this, everyone just inhales the food. And if you're the last person, everybody's looking at you. So they figure the abbot can handle that. Yeah. And sometimes I... I'm still washing my eating stick, my cleaning stick.

[77:15]

And you start bringing the bowls in to collect the water. It's okay, but I'd rather you waited until I gave you a specific signal. Yeah, until I look at the person at the door, not just look that way. And if I think people are, it's okay, sometimes I like to chant too, so I want to wait until I'm finished. The way it is now, I don't get to finish the chant. I have to keep cleaning away. Yeah. Now it's assumed in Chinese yogic culture that there is differentiation and unity, unison.

[78:47]

But there's no true separation. There's only three possible positions. We're connected or we're connecting or we're leaving things alone. But as I often say to you, practice with the phrase already connected. Because most of us, in fact, in our culture, are always practicing with implicitly the phrase already separated. But, and I give you as an antidote, already connected.

[79:59]

But in the Chinese, and I think this may be the emphasis on this, and I can't go into too much detail about it, probably. It may be a particular flavor of Chinese-derived Buddhism. Which would also then be Vietnam and Korea and Japan and so forth. Yeah. Is that there is only separation in the mental world. When we mentally see three-dimensionally a container, we think there's separation. But in fact, there's only connectedness.

[81:11]

And the problem is that we can't know this connectedness mentally or not very easily. And it's much easier to know it through our body. So, I mean, in my relationship with you, for instance, There's only three possibilities. I'm already connected with you. I can be in a situation where there is a connection being made or I can leave you alone. But even if I leave you alone, we're still already connected.

[82:25]

That's true of people I've never met as well as people I've met. This is what this poem conveys. Between alienation and friendship, no difference. On the old plum tree, fully blossomed The southern branch owns the whole spring. As also does the northern branch. So there's always some tension, elasticity. between differentiation and unison. Things are always moving toward differentiation or toward unison.

[83:32]

And I'm not saying unity, I'm saying unison. How would you say the difference between unity and unison? Unity suggests something that is one. Unison suggests something that works together. Like we sing in unison, we don't sing in unity. No, in rather loose, not so rigorous thinking, we speak about oneness, but that's a little bit not accurate. So there's unison and differentiation. So there's unison and differentiation. Yes.

[84:38]

Unison and differentiation. I agree. I'm going to keep saying this. So there's no inherent nature. That's one of the teachings of Buddhism. But there's a shared nature. Now, why is it important to make this distinction? Because when I'm teaching you about Zen, in particular Zen, I'm saying maybe, well, here we're going to make this soup.

[85:44]

put in the potatoes and the carrots and the onions. But don't peel them or cut them or anything. They'll cook themselves. Yeah. So that's a rather different image than preparing the vegetables and making a sauce and so forth. In other words, what I'm saying is, Mostly you let things happen by themselves. Now, if you say, oh, then if things happen by themselves, then things have an inherent nature. But that's not right.

[86:58]

At least I don't think so. Things have a shared nature. It's a lot like chaos theory or a self-organizing process. That occurs in relationship to each other. So our original nature, we can say, is our shared nature. If you don't get this, you don't understand why Zen practice asks you just to sit. Why we don't have guided meditation. Why we don't tell you the stages you go through as you die. We say, be ready for dying.

[88:00]

And Sikiris used to say, one of the reasons to practice Zen is so you enjoy your old age. And since I enjoy myself so much, maybe I'm getting old. You young people, I'm sorry for you. When you get old, you get happy. Yeah, I don't know. So we don't want to say what stages you go through when you die. We'd rather be ready for the surprise. We'd rather discover maybe some stages no one's noticed before.

[89:03]

Rather different concept than some other Buddhist schools. So we go to that place where there's no tracks. And that's what we're trying to do in our sitting. But the Okay, so when we come in together, basically the idea is we come in together and then at the altar we bow to each other. So we have to separate at the altar.

[90:18]

And then we separate to serve the food separately. And this is actually a kind of choreography based on differentiation and unison. Okay. Now, when I'm in a restaurant, I'm quite particular. And if I'm going to sit and have a conversation with friends in a restaurant, I would like the food to be fairly good so it doesn't disturb the conversation. You remember.

[91:26]

So, oh dear. So, I would like the cooks to be good at it. If I'm by myself, I don't care so much. But in the Zendo, I don't care. I mean, I think the cooks would never know it because I'm always saying this should be changed or this should be a little bit. But basically, I actually don't care. I think my job is to complain, so I complain sometimes. But I'm actually quite happy and usually I don't even, I don't put an Icomascio on it. So I just discover what it tastes like.

[92:30]

And when I cook for myself, I cook the same way. I just usually steam one squash, say, and just eat it as it is. Oh, this is what it tastes like. And this is more sort of Zen mind. It's something you discover through Sashin practice. And it's part of getting free of likes and dislikes. Because usually we're controlled by a pendulum of likes and dislikes. And the pendulum is attached swings from the ego. And it's always reinforcing the ego. And hiding from us our basic restlessness and distraction.

[93:32]

It doesn't just satisfy the ego, this pendulum of likes and dislikes. But it also swings rapidly past distraction and restlessness. If you stop the pendulum, all this restlessness comes up. And to come to a place where there's no tracks also means to stop the pendulum. Discover your Zen mind. The Zen mind is quite free of likes and dislikes.

[94:55]

Whatever it is, it's okay. Some Dogen or some scripture, I forget where, says when Zen mind is deep enough, Even in adversity? Even when you're in the midst of adversity, difficulty. It's a university and adversity, you know. Difficulties. Even if the Zen mind is deep enough, even if you are in great difficulties, we see a bright light. and feel some value.

[95:59]

And we don't feel like complaining. This is quite true. When your Zen mind is deep enough, We say the seven hardships disappear and the seven happinesses appear. I suppose I'm promising you candy. But... Yeah, but it doesn't work that way. Because if you think it's candy, then you have likes and dislikes. Only when you get free of likes and dislikes. But it is surprising what you'll eat in sashimi that you wouldn't probably eat in a restaurant.

[97:08]

This is not a criticism of our cooks. But if you went to a restaurant and sat down with your friends and they brought you a glass of wine and a bowl of gruel, you'd say, now wait a minute, are you paying me? No. Anyway, I'm exaggerating, because I love our gruel. But maybe it's partly because of my Zen mind. It tastes so good.

[97:57]

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