Well, I'm very grateful you're all here and that you know this practice or that you are willing to try out this practice because I love sharing this practice with you. So what we're trying to do here is find some suitable form that allows you to get familiar with practice. And so this is, these next few days are like half, half a day is like a sashin or monastic practice. And half the day is more like a seminar, perhaps more identified with the usual way we study something, lay practice.

[01:12]

Quite a number of you are new to me and new to this place, I guess. How many of you are new? Can you put your hand up? You look old to me, but new enough. Okay. So how many of you new people are fairly unfamiliar with meditation or Zen meditation at least? Yeah, okay. I'm unfamiliar too, so. So, okay. So, you know, this question that we have for these days, what is lay practice?

[02:43]

Is that one of the translations? Yeah, one of the translations. How would you translate it? I wouldn't say it yet. How do you practice as a layperson? So this is a practical question which needs a practical answer. But it's also a philosophical question that we need to consider. And it's also a Dharma question that we need to consider. cultivate within ourselves.

[03:52]

Of course you have come here for personal reasons. But I feel quite sure you've also come here inevitably because we are part of some kind of new culture. Some people say new planetary culture. Yeah, to some extent that's true, but at least a new culture. And that's, I think, part of Part of this question, what is lay practice, what is monastic practice? Because if we talk about how do we practice in our lay life, Lay is some kind of word in contrast to monastic or something like that.

[05:22]

And here you find yourself in a kind of, I don't know, Western Buddhist Zen monastery or something like that in the middle of Europe. What are you doing here? How did you find your way here? You don't live next door, I don't think. You didn't just wander in. So I'm dressed sort of half lay and half monk here. So tomorrow morning we'll have what's called Tesho. And that'll be more formal, I'm sorry, to scare you away. But I'll wear my regular robes.

[06:47]

But even now, this is a small version of Buddha's robe. And I have these Buddhist beads made from some kind of Hawaiian seed. They're very light. They're usually women's jewelry that people buy in Hawaii. So what is this? Am I a lay person or a monk? I don't know. You know, this building here we're in, is built on the site of a farmhouse that was maybe a couple hundred years old.

[07:53]

And a man bought it, I guess, around 1910. He was a somewhat famous artist, or quite famous. Yeah, he was an artist and architect, too. And he also happened to have been an anthroposophist. A follower or practitioner of Rudolf Steiner's teaching. And I guess the local folks thought that was very strange and they, around 1915, burned his farmhouse down. It could have happened in America too at the same time.

[09:02]

Something kind of strange in the neighborhood? Burn it down. But, you know, now it seems rather funny and ironic. Because Steiner's philosophy is, if anything, quintessentially Western. And here we are involved in some kind of Asian yogic practice. And I don't think anyone's going to burn us down. So my point is here that we're here for, again, personal reasons.

[10:24]

But also because we're, you know, part of some kind of new culture that's developing. And, you know, it's a little bit like, you know, here's Western culture and here's Asian yogic culture. And we have some kind of idea of lay practice and monk practice. belong to Asian yogic culture. But in effect, our interest in lay practice is to try to bring it into Western culture. We're trying to bring this practice into our own lives in some way that works in our personal and...

[11:29]

necessarily Western context. You see this in in what cities do nowadays. They don't build cathedrals anymore. I can't think of any cities building cathedrals. They build sports arenas and fancy new museums. And airports. And messes, conference centers. And each city tries to identify itself through a special museum or a special airport or something like that.

[12:39]

Yeah. But I think it's intuitively that they know if they build a cathedral, they're closing themselves off from the world. But if they build a nice airport... Or a... new sports arena for the team in Munich or the team in Liverpool or something? It's a way that the city identifies itself and has its own personality.

[13:41]

But it's also the way the city lets the flow of other cities and other sports events come into it. No, I don't mean that Johanneshof is a sports arena. But I actually think there's some strange similarity. This is one of these landing fields. You know, the Australian Aborigines say that if you don't rub the stones and perform the rites... Just... You don't rob them, you rub them.

[14:48]

Rub. This is an instruct me. Talk about that tomorrow. Meaning somehow if you don't rub the stones, if you don't sing the land, they say. If you don't sing the land, the land dies. So one way to express it, you have to rub the stones and perform the rites. So in some funny way, I think a sports arena is our way of rubbing the stones and performing the rites. somehow to bring the power of a place down into us.

[15:51]

And they say, you know, this same... Aborigines say that if you don't rub the stones and perform the rites, the land dies. And all the people who are embodied through that land then also die. I feel that when we do things like build an airport and stuff, we're actually, underneath that, there's a kind of basic right of trying to locate yourself in a particular place. And also simultaneously to connect yourself with others. So these are questions, I think, that are involved in this discussion. What is lay practice, or how do we practice as lay persons?

[17:05]

How do we identify ourselves in our own culture? Particularly if we do something like this, which is fairly unfamiliar. And how do we identify ourselves with our own energy. You know, here we have these stars and Milky Ways. And this planet and somehow us sitting here on it. From that point of view, what's monk or layperson? I don't know. Imagine if you had a theater or a play of some kind in... Say, München or Berlin.

[18:17]

And on the stage you had this sort of whirling ball and you had everybody sitting on it. You'd think this is quite weird, you know. It's not explainable. But in fact, this is not explainable. So whether you're a lay practitioner or monk, Buddhist practice is not a belief, it's to open yourself to this unexplainable. So even if you want to have an explainable lay life, Also sogar wenn ihr ein erklärbares Laienleben haben möchtet, dann müssen wir uns sogar innerhalb dieses Laienlebens öffnen, dieser Unerklärbarkeit des Lebens.

[19:21]

Und das ist wesentlich, ob ihr jetzt ein Laie seid oder ein Mönch. So we have, each of us has a certain vital energy that's always going here and there into talking and acting and cooking and eating and so forth and into our job and so forth. And we hardly notice our vital energy because it's always doing things. So practice is also to pull that vital energy back into yourself. Literally to come to feel your own power. Maybe we can say your true power.

[20:39]

And we could say that's the main reason we sit. To withdraw our true power from the world. But you're going to give it back, so don't worry. But we need the experience of drawing it. to whatever your here is. Where you perform the rites or no dislocation, rub the stones. So you draw your power into yourself. Hmm. And in yourself then you find your power keeps going into your thinking.

[22:01]

So you tend to Try to create a state of mind which allows your power to settle out of your thinking. And when that begins to happen, you'll feel very bright and... energized. You'll find each particularity has some power. Each breath. Thoreau, you know, Henry David Thoreau, the American transcendentalist. He said... Let me say to you and myself.

[23:08]

Let me say to you and to myself in one breath. Quite interesting. Let me say to you and to myself in one breath. Cultivate that tree which you find grows in your own soil. In one breath, cultivate that tree which you find grows in your own soil. What is your soil? What tree do you find grows in your soil? What way of life do you find most grows in your soil? This is as important a question as there can be. So anyway, that's what we'll be trying to do the next few days.

[24:42]

While you're here, see if you can as much as possible begin to feel your own power and energy. Don't let it dribble away. Try to be in the halls during eating and working in the kitchen. Try to take care of your energy and your state of mind. See if you can feel it in what you're doing. So the schedule and our style of doing things here is to try to to help you, help us together find our own energy and really have a sense of living within it, living as it, before we start putting it back out into our

[25:58]

lay activity or whatever kind of activity our life is. And here in my speaking, I'm just trying to start a discussion with you that you will continue within yourself. And for many years, I hope. that you will continue with each other for at least the next few days. Because whatever reality what I'm speaking about has, it will only be discovered when you cultivate it in your own soil. When you continue this discussion with yourself, practically and philosophically and as Dharma, Now, we have a study period in the mornings, right?

[27:29]

A short one-half hour or something like that? And I thought if we can, maybe we can Xerox three short sections of Sukhreshi's books and My Beginner's Mind. Original Buddhism is right near the end and the two on either side. It's called Original Buddhism, I think it's called. There are two sections on each side. So if we could Xerox them in German or English, I guess the German, I'm told the German translation isn't very good, but it's what we got. So we can copy it in English or in German, and as far as I know, German is not so good, but we can...

[28:30]

Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't want you to be up all night xeroxing and things like that. But if we can do it within a normal amount of time, it'd be nice. Then if you... You can read. You can look at something else if you want. But if we have that, it'll... can be the basis for our discussion and for questions and things. So tomorrow morning we'll start, we wake up at 5 and we sit at 5.30 at night.

[29:33]

And we have two periods, two forties. And then we'll have a service. And for those of you new to it, again, the point of the schedule and the service and all is to be a little strange and interrupt your usual habits. So for us who do it every day, it has to still seem strange. So for somebody completely new, it must really be strange. Don't worry, just do it. There's no bad magic, you know. And you can make all the mistakes you want.

[30:54]

And let's see what happens if we bring our energies together these days. Quite a few of us bring our energies together in ourselves and with each other. When you sit, if you sit still enough, with some ease, your energy begins to gather around you and within you. And that feeling begins to straighten and open up your posture. Your energy is looking for the autobahn.

[31:58]

So after a while your back begins to straighten up. Basically you sit down and with your legs back or crossed like this. For those of you new, you're folding your heat together. And you're trying to find a posture that's stable enough that you can sit without muscular effort. where the structure of the architecture of the posture supports you. So you can forget about body and mind and just disappear. I like to come into Zendo when it's full of people and I see no one. I like it when I come into the center and it's full of people and I don't see anyone.

[33:18]

You're all disappeared. It's beautiful. So you're lifting, you're having a lifting feeling up through your back. And relaxing feeling coming down through your body. And you're accepting your posture just as it is without criticism. At the same time your posture is informed by Buddha's posture or an ideal posture. And you use your breath to Bring your attention to your breath.

[34:23]

To bring your presence to your breath. To gently wean yourself away from identifying with thinking. Like that. There's not much to it. quite easy to do. It's difficult to do for a long time, but quite easy to do once or twice. It's interesting. The easiest thing in the world to do, one of the easiest things in the world to do, is to bring your attention to your breath. You can all do it right now without effort. One of the hardest things in the world to do is to keep your attention there. This is quite interesting.

[35:28]

Why is that? Okay. Time to go to bed. Thank you very much. Thank you for translating. Thank you. Sounded good. Now I'm going to go rob some stones. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So let's start out with talking about everything like... Let's start with whatever you want to start with. No one can scratch their head or anything.

[36:32]

Sobald jemand seinen Kopf kratzt, muss er was sagen. I think one of our main questions we had this afternoon was why do we emphasize breathing or practicing breathing so much in our practice? Why is that breathing so important to practice? Deutsch? Have you tried doing without it? I mean, really people have that question? Yeah.

[37:36]

Well, the relationship to breath is far more ancient and pervasive than Buddhism. For these words, Atman, spirit, soul, are all versions of the word breath. So there's been an ancient identification of spirit with inspiring, with breath. And practically, it's the activity of our body autonomic activity of our body, which is most accessible to attention and intention.

[38:45]

And it has this inner quality and outer quality, like our heartbeat, we don't have the same kind of access to. Yes, there's so much I could just speak about breathing for a week. But it's how we weave mind and body together. And as I say sometimes, it's how we physicalize the mind. Because when you bring your attention, which is a mental quality, to your breath, you begin to weave mind and body together.

[39:52]

Something like that. In any case, whether you want to understand it or not, it's the It's the most effective medium of practice. And if you'd like me to tell you something that will transform your lives, I absolutely guarantee Just develop the ability to keep your mind and breath together 24 hours a day the rest of your life. Listen, if you can do it for a minute, you can do it forever.

[40:54]

It is actually possible. What else? Yes? We talked about the question if zazen after some time can be part of our everyday activity. Yeah, go ahead. Since I'm a beginner? How long will it take until it becomes part of my everyday life? What kind of job do you have? A nurse. I see. The doctor finds you sitting cross-legged on the patient's bed.

[42:14]

What are you doing? I'm bringing zazen into my daily life. But the patient has no room for his feet. Yeah. You must mean the feeling and mind that arises in zazen. The feeling and mind. You mean, how can you bring that into your daily life? Strictly speaking, that takes a while.

[43:24]

But the fruits of meditation practice, of zazen practice, begin to be part of your whole life right away. In other words, for example, When you go to, let me try to make a simple, silly sounding, but simple example. When you... When you have a good night's sleep. That affects your whole day. But you don't bring sleeping into your daily life. What do you do? I'm bringing sleep into my daily life. But the mind of sleeping, that mind which is open to the unconscious and open to imagistic ways of knowing, can be brought into your daily life.

[44:45]

But just sleeping every night doesn't help. So at first zazen is like a kind of maybe spiritual or psychic sleeping. And When you've had a good period of zazen or your zazen is a regular practice, it will affect your life. But the skill to bring that into your life as a present mind within your... That's more skillful, but it can be done. Was my answer clear?

[45:45]

Make sense? So it's nice, this practice. It gives us something to do for a long time. But even understanding sleeping, the transition between waking and sleeping and how much wisdom is just in this transition. Most of us don't know how to observe. Even though you've all been sleeping a lot, I think. Maybe not as much as you'd like, but... Yes, Christine. The picture of the five identities you gave us this morning helped me to understand why it's so difficult to make space for practice in my daily life.

[46:56]

And the question for me is then, how can I develop the relationships between these identities? Could you speak about that? Deutsch. I would like to talk about how we developed the relationship between these five entities. I think there's a certain amount of tension of box. And so that we want to somehow be the same person at work and in our family and to ourself.

[47:57]

Although we do recognize To some extent, we still, I think, there's some tension there. But I think the healthy thing to do is to, first of all, really recognize that these are three different kinds of people, three different persons. Yeah, to recognize that. to overemphasize the differences. And then overemphasizing the differences to see them separately. And there are certain ambitions and hopes and dreams in each of the three that are different.

[49:03]

The genuine hopes and dreams we have in relationship to our spouse, for instance, And our children, if we have children. Maybe... in conflict with the genuine hopes and dreams we have in our career and occupation. So we need to, I think, see the differences and accept them. And then begin to develop a relationship among these differences. Instead of trying to force them, trying to discover one person underneath it. So then, sometimes out of that very tension, we start to practice meditation.

[50:18]

Now let me divert a minute. I met a person I spent a week or so, almost a week, in what we call a Lindisfarne Association meeting at Crestone just a week or so ago. During a Lindisfarne conference in Crestone in the USA, I spent a week there. It's not really so much a conference as a kind of almost family meeting because we have several generations present. And we've been meeting for... 30 years together.

[51:22]

So, like my daughter, who's 20, joined this meeting. And there's a woman, Mary Catherine Bateson, whose father was Gregory Bateson, was a member. So anyway, it's a kind of a unique We just meet and talk with each other. And there's no audience. Except sometimes friends and family members. So we're supposed... Crestone, our meditation center, is the main home of Lindisfarne. Anyway, yeah, the main home of Lindisfarne. If it confuses you at all, the word Lindisfarne is taken from an island off the coast of Ireland and England, which supposedly preserved culture during the so-called Dark Ages.

[52:37]

So called dark ages, yeah. I don't think they were so dark actually. But anyway, Bill Thomson called this association Lindisfarne, because maybe he thought we could preserve culture in this time of, what could I call it, mall mind. Ja, Einkaufsstraßen oder der Shopping Center. Okay. Groß Einkaufszentrum. Anyway, a person who came this year I'd never met before was a man named Fritjof Bergman.

[53:50]

Dieses Jahr kam eine Person, Fritjof Bergman, die ich vorher nie getroffen hatte. And he's an Austrian and a philosopher teaching at an American university. Und er ist Österreicher und Philosoph und er lehrt an einer amerikanischen Universität. And he feels, yes, if you look at history, how many millions of people have been killed or lives destroyed in war. And one of the members of this association, Saul Mendlowitz, is a very sweet man. I really like him. His life goal is to end war.

[54:54]

And he's actually one of the main people doing something about it. And although this century is the worst century of wars, in all other centuries combined. Still the numbers of wars in the world are lessening. He feels if slavery, if we can end slavery, we can end war. So in the light of this discussion, Pritchard Bergman said, yes, war has maimed, killed many people. But if we look at work, work has destroyed millions of people over the centuries.

[56:10]

The work people have been required to do, huge numbers of people, have maimed them and made them die young and given them no life at all. Has the work people have been required to do over the centuries has maimed them. That means harmed them physically. and caused them to die young and given them in effect no real life at all. So he really is trying, as a philosopher, as a philosopher of work, is trying to transform how we understand work. And it would be very related to Thoreau's statement. Let me say to you, and to myself in one breath, cultivate that tree which grows best in your own soil.

[57:30]

So that takes some courage to say, This is the kind of life that fits me best. I'll do that. So he's got these big companies, General Motors and others, when they lay off people to support them for some time, trying to discover what they would actually like to do. So I say all that because I think many people come to practice in Europe here and in America Not so much because they're attracted to practice, but because their lay life or their work life is so dissatisfying to them, they don't know what to do.

[58:39]

So they're really, I think, many people come to see me and talk about practice. Are really not talking about practice. Or rather they are really speaking about practice. Is this a way I can change my work? Or you speak of practice as a way of changing how I work. But society holds us so in place that it's pretty hard to change our work. The best most of us can do, which is also very just equally important, is to change our work from inside, the kind of work we do. Don't change our job, but change how we do our job. Okay, so we have these three identities, at least the main ones we have.

[59:51]

Ourself, our family, and our work. The kind of person we find we are when we look at ourself this way. Now, when you start to meditate, you begin to change your relationship to your personal self. Part of meditation practice is a recapitulation of our personal history. I would say that unless you follow the bad advice of cutting off thoughts, the first couple of years of meditation practice are letting your personal history recapitulate.

[61:11]

And you reform it in the light and presence of meditation mind. And you actually are transforming your karma. The way you see and understand your personal history. And the way you restore that history to storehouse consciousness. I mean, you can actually think of meditation mind as chicken broth. And perhaps ordinary mind is beef broth. And so when you bring the contents of your personal history into the chicken broth, it cooks with a different flavor than when it's in the beef broth.

[62:36]

But after a while you want to take the chicken flavor out of your meditation mind. It's healing for a while, but you know. Okay, so when we start to meditate, we change our relationship to our other three identities. And then to sustain and support and develop this relationship, identity you discover through meditation, you need the education, culture, and support of the Sangha. And I'll come back to that latter point during our days. Well, that was a rather long response to what you said.

[63:55]

But you know, since quite a few of you are fairly new or are new to the Dharma Sangha, I want to bring out the basic ways we have of looking at our practice here at Johanneshof. So would you like to say something more, Christina? I see your point that, I mean, immediately when I come here, I feel the support of the Sangha, and my identity of practice is strengthened. And I'm happy because I can take part of the Sangha with me, because I'm married.

[64:58]

You've married a Sangha member. I've married a Sangha member. I know, but... But although this is so... I would like to learn more about bringing my practicing identity into the other identities. When I'm on my own. I understand the point that the Sangha supports me in my practice identity. I can feel the support when I come here, that I am supported and I am lucky that the Sangha can live with me in the form of my husband and with other people with whom I practice together.

[66:00]

The point that concerns me is how I can experience my practice identity more in my other identities. when I am alone, when I am on my own, when I have to take care of myself. Although it is something to some extent you can learn, mostly it's not something you can learn. you need to secure what one, or we, or you, or I, need to do. We need to secure. Wir müssen das, was wir tun, absichern.

[67:02]

Is to secure this practice identity. as the root of our way of being. We could say original body, original mind, or something like that. In other words, there's various words in language for this. But the words in language are rather clumsy words. clumsily point at some experience. Let me give a simple example again.

[68:05]

Ordinary mind is something like one, two, three, four, five. When we start to practice, we bring zeros into our thinking. So maybe at first, when we start to practice, we start experiencing, instead of one, two, three, four, five, we experience ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or something. We begin to feel the presence of this empty mind or zero with each thing, one, two, ten, twenty, thirty. So in that sense the number represents form or the relative.

[69:06]

And the zero represents some big spacious sense of things. When in the particular you feel this wide sky present, this wide nature we have. And mysterious nature we have. But as soon as we're back in our ordinary life, it goes something like 10, 20, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. It looks like 10, 20, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then the numbers get mixed up and they don't add up and, you know, etc. But through practice, eventually, it's no longer 10, 20, it's sort of 1, 0, 2, 0, 3, 0.

[70:17]

1, 0, 2, 0, 3, 0. Then when your practice gets more steady, it's one, zero, one, zero, one, zero. And some of the ones we call three or five or seven. And the more that zero is there before one or two appears, then we can bring that into our daily life. And then at that point it doesn't make any difference what you do. It's all pretty much the same. Wherever you are in the world. But still it's more fun and nourishing to be with such nice people as you.

[71:34]

So I would rather myself, if I have a choice, be here with you. Okay, something else? I have a question to what you said yesterday evening. On the one hand, you said the most important thing is you have to have your own tree which grows in your own soil. Then he later said the most desirable way of being within zazen is to disappear. These two positions are difficult for me.

[72:53]

And it's within my meditation experience since a long time. And which path would bring them together? Well, if we stick to the images I used, which may not speak to what you actually mean. Yeah, of course, I didn't say cultivate your own tree, cultivate a tree. In your own soil, though. Mm-hmm. When you get out of the way, when you get out of the way, when you disappear, the tree is most nourished because many good nourishments

[74:11]

beautiful rain can come in. So when you disappear, or that kind of feeling, is when we are most nourished by everything all at once. Now that's how I would understand these two images, but I don't know if it speaks to your experience in meditation practice. I feel to speak more directly to you, we'd have to have a conversation where I understand your practice better. Do you want to say something? If I look at the words, it's understandable, like the ego disappears.

[75:35]

In theory it seems to be clear, but the question is, how do I practice it? Yeah, I know. Okay, we'll have to osmotically try to understand this together. Wir müssen das mehr osmotisch zusammen verstehen. Yes? In the Supriyoshi, in this paper, it's written about Buddha's activities and that every activity is a Buddha activity and it's translated as posture in German. that every posture is Buddha posture. But I don't understand that because... The translation doesn't sound very good.

[76:50]

No. What's meant by this? Every activity is a Buddha activity. Yeah. How can I understand that? Well, maybe I can say... Oh, German, yeah. Ah, yeah. What time am I supposed to stop? 5.45? Yes. Well, maybe I can just repeat what Sukhiroshi said. Each of you is always showing what kind of Buddha you are. Maybe it's not a very good Buddha, but you're showing what kind of Buddha you are. Does that help?

[77:50]

It's funny, not a Buddha, because I have a picture of what a Buddha is and what it should be. So that's what you said about dialogues are realistic and what's real. And so I think I can only be in a dialogue with this. When I'm thinking Buddha, I don't think I'm Buddha at all. Okay. Is that German? Ich habe das Gefühl, ich kann nur im Dialog damit sein. To practice Buddhism, we have to understand Buddhism as an actual possibility for us. Buddha as an actual possibility for us. It's not useful to think of Buddha as something impossibly great in the past.

[79:12]

In other words, if you really accept that a Buddha is possible nowadays, here in, you know, Or Buddha Württemberg. I didn't say it. I said Buddha Württemberg. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we need to develop this eye which says, hey, maybe if Buddha existed in the past, he or she could exist now. So, it means we make that possible in ourselves.

[80:23]

The more you have that feeling, the more you... you feel your own activity as somehow related to Buddha's activity. And that kind of feeling is what Sukhiroshi meant. And that's what the translator didn't understand. Question in this way. It's really true to think as a personal or the historical Buddha or to think at the Buddha nature? I think I understood, but could you translate this question for me?

[81:27]

Should we look at it as a Buddha as a person or more like a Buddha nature? So it's the Buddha nature on the one hand and the Buddha as an actual person on the other hand. Or both. So it's the spiders. But we have to examine what we mean by an actual person. So there was almost certainly a historical person who was called the Buddha. And I believe even his father's tomb has been excavated. So there was this historical person. Okay. That there was this historical person means this is... since there's nothing in Buddhism outside the system, there's no outside place from which this was created.

[83:05]

So one of the words for the universe in Buddhism is lokadhatu, which means mutually created world. Now, people like to say, you know, all religions are the same, etc., And I think that all religions seem to produce similar similar feeling or realized people. But I think we also should recognize the differences. And it's quite a difference in yourself and how you work with yourself. If you think there's something outside the system or you think there's nothing outside the system.

[84:26]

Okay, now, if there's nothing outside the system, then even the past doesn't exist. except as it's part of this simultaneous and mutual creation going on right now. Again, as I always point out, this absolutely unique moment right now, which is not repeatable and only exists to the degree to which we bring our own presence and energy into this moment. So dharma practice is also to know this, And then give the gift of your energy and presence fully to each moment.

[85:32]

Because you know there's no alternative. This is the soil in which Buddhas grow or trees grow. So, So the fact that this person was a Buddha means that it's something that's possible for us humans. Now we get confused by the idea, oh, there's Einstein. He was remembered for failing mathematics, for being the scientific genius of this century, and for sticking his tongue out on thousands of postcards.

[86:44]

One of the most stupid ways to portray him, I can imagine. In any case, charming but stupid. Anyway... So we have some idea that Buddha was some kind of genius like that. And even if he was an accessible person, Even if he was a human being, none of us are Einstein and none of us are Buddha. This is an incorrect understanding. This is like separating, not seeing how... rural life and city life are really completely part of the same fabric.

[88:02]

So let me take a statement of Sukhirishi's, which I give you sometimes, which I give you sometimes, which is that Buddha is good because people are good. It's not that, you know, we're in such a mess we need a Buddha. I hope a Buddha comes. We need a Buddha when we're in a mess. Buddha doesn't appear when we're in a mess. That's some kind of idea of a savior. Or almost really it implies something outside the system. We create Buddha. I'm sorry to give you so much responsibility. But it's the way it is. Buddha appears when people themselves are ready to see and recognize a Buddha.

[89:37]

So if you want to study the historical Buddha, we have to really understand that he was good because his disciples were good. You can't separate his disciples and the practice and the history before Buddha appeared that all let him be heard. You can't separate That's our two bodhisattvas just went by. Two tiny bodhisattvas. And that allowed Buddha to hear himself. Because you hear yourself and then you don't.

[90:43]

Or you hear yourself partly and then you ignore it. Or you don't really believe what you hear. Or you don't know how to act on what you hear. So the Sangha is partly to support you to hear yourself. And to have the courage to act on what you hear. Suzuki used to say, your innermost request. Okay, so now we're looking at what a person is. Another example is Dogen said, Let's see.

[91:54]

The coming and going of birth and death is the true human body. The coming and going of birth and death is where most people drift about. And samsara means to drift about. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson said, an old oracle said, everything has two handles. Be careful which you pick up the world with. So Dogen went on to say, the coming and going of birth and death is where ordinary people drift about.

[93:05]

But the coming and going of birth and death is also where great sages are illuminated. In other words, this is the coming and going of birth and death. And most of us drift about in it. But a Buddha is one who knows this is where it's all we need for illumination. And... Buddha is someone who sees that this is the moment we need to achieve liberation. Yes. I recently got bit by a bee.

[94:08]

Twice, in fact, in this lake. So one of my teachings is when you're meditating, don't scratch. So I'm sitting here not scratching and sometimes enjoying scratching. Okay. So let's examine what Dogen said. And I think I brought this up here once or twice recently. But it's something we should understand. What Dogen means by saying the coming and going of birth and death is the true human body. Okay, so we have to start imagining We have a corpse here.

[95:15]

Poor fellow. And it's dead. The corpse is dead. From the Buddhist point of view, this is not a body. It's just stuff.

[95:34]

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