And my robe is put on this way. Until you get quite used to these, if you don't put it on the usual way, you can't figure out how to fold it back up again. As Otmar is finding out. Thank you. I mean, you put it on your head, and then you hold it like this, and then you do this, and then it turns out all right. But if you try to do that down here, you think, you know. And all this origami folding all comes out of using the body. Even the rubric cube is actually a physical movement, not a thinking thing. That's why the people who get good at it can do it behind their back and take it and there it's all finished, the Rubik's Cube. So strangely, if you use your body more complex folds are possible than if you use your mind.

[01:25]

Or considerable complexity which doesn't require any thinking at all, just a pattern of doing it physically. Yeah. Now even The fingertips are avoided using unless you have to because thinking is involved in the fingertips. For instance, when you take the Setsu out of the bag, you don't take it out with your fingertips. You take it out like this. With your sides of your fingers. And then you put it. So you put your fingers like this, pull it out, and like this. And I can do that in front of somebody for five years, and they see it this way.

[02:31]

Because that's the way we think about it. But I do it this way, right in front of them. Sometimes I hold and I go... And no one sees it, practically. And it's like in tea ceremony, there's a tendency to use this part of the hand and not this part of the hand. And it's very interesting. When you start using your body rather than the thinking parts, The different feeling in how you do things. And also things are very specific, like when you wash out the Setsu, the swab. Unless it's really... dirty from the macaroni and cheese.

[03:37]

This doesn't happen very often in Japan. They don't eat cheese. But if it's all cheesy, then you have to really clean the darn thing. But if it's normal times, there's a very specific rule about how you do it, so you don't have to think. You put it in the water. And you clean the staff of it twice. Bringing water up the sides. Then you lift it. Then you squeeze it once. You dip it. Squeeze it a second time. Turn it. Squeeze it a third time. Put it in the cloth. Dry it. Turn it this way. Push it through. All the way through. And then into the bag. Everything is extremely specific, every detail is specific and I tell you most of you don't notice it.

[04:51]

I do it in front of you but you don't notice it. And it's because this is truly a body culture which means use the intelligence of the body, not the slow-witted thinking. Any athlete can tell you, if you think about how you're going to hit the tennis ball, you're going to miss it. This is a whole culture which says, lead with the body. Use the mind only when there's no other alternative. Just develop the habit of using the body. When you walk up, when you're in front of somebody, feel your body in front of them, not your personality in front of them.

[06:02]

And get a feel of their body before you start to speak. Yeah. And strangely enough, there's an incredible softness that starts to occur in your relationship with people when you develop this habit. Again, I notice it with athletes. There's a kind of softness, even... you'd think it might be the opposite. There's a kind of softness in the way they are with each other that's not true, you know, like a college professor. And the more you lead with your body, the more you're open to this, hard to translate, interiority.

[07:19]

So I've given you these small examples to open you up, to give you an opening into this feel of everyday life. Now, we generally hear the phrase everyday Zen. Which we generally understand in the West to mean we can somehow fit Zen into our everyday life. And that's traditionally not what it means at all. Although that may be true and it's a good starting point. What it really means is that everyday life is the field that you can transform into Zen.

[08:45]

Dogen says, when there's going, going, how does he say it? in English translation. Going goes as the skies goes. Going goes as the sky goes. Please, you do your best. Arriving arrives as the earth arrives. And Dogen says, this is everyday mind. In other words, there's two basic movements of the mind again, all and each. When your state of mind is all, it's like the sky. When your state of mind is each or arriving, or concentrated, then each thing appears.

[09:51]

the earth arrives. When you know this mind of the sky and each thing appearing, this is everyday mind. So that mind we bring to each situation. The earth sky or all each mind. Now again, I don't want to go on long, so I'll just say a little something about posture. And tomorrow I want to give you zazen instruction. It's rather late in the Sashin, but I thought we ought to do it sometime.

[11:03]

And those of you who are new to the Sashin, I'm surprised. All of you, including the two of you who are new, are doing very well. I'm impressed with how well you're all sitting, in fact. All I need is a couple of bad periods where it really hurts and I think, God, I'm impressed with all these guys. Most of the time it doesn't hurt too much for me anymore, but sometimes I'll go through a whole period and it's agony. And then I remember when every period of all my sesshins was like that. And then in my mind I do very deep bows to each of you. But first of all you want to... I want to specifically talk about zazen mind as well as zazen instruction.

[12:12]

But simply, let me say today, first of all, you settle your legs. You settle your legs and your feet. And once you've accepted them, adjusted them, and can more or less forget about them, you work on your upper body. Mostly finding a kind of energy that makes it feel clear and lifted up. Then you work on the relationship of your head and neck and torso. So this energy and feeling of lifting up and then a clarity that comes penetrates to the top of the head. Then you work on bringing your breath into order.

[13:25]

So that breath, body and mind are together. Then you start to work on opening the the channels, or the subtle knowing, the subtle knowing body. And then you begin to work on what we could call access samadhis. States of bliss which access other states of bliss. And then finally you work on the body, beyond the body of life and death. Most of us will, including me, get to our legs and feet.

[14:35]

Do a little work on our torso. I wonder why our neck is crooked. But really, these things actually follow one after another. You know, I'm finally finishing this book. And for the first time in 30, 30 is it, 30 years? I'm a poor example of 30 years of practice, almost 40. I should tell people I've been practicing five years. But I've been practicing 38 or 39. Anyway, Be that as it may, the first time in all these years I've asked permission from the Sangha to not be in the schedule.

[15:57]

So from mid-April I've been doing that, and I've finished about, rewritten really, or made new about a third of the book. So I'm going to continue doing this, except for when I have to do sessions or seminar, doing this until it's finished. So I've had to think a bit about why am I practicing? If I'm writing this book recommending that people practice, And the publishers hope I will be recommending it to many thousands. Before I do that, I ought to say, why the heck am I practicing?

[17:00]

So I've been asking myself this question. Yeah. to be continued. Thank you very much. shudra muhen se vanjo, vatmokrujan se ganjan, omamburyo se ganjaku, musuno muhjo se ganjo.

[18:22]

Die führenden Bösen sind zahlschluss. Ich belohne sie zu retten. Die Gehege sind unauslöschlich. Ich belohne ihnen ein Ende zu erhalten. Die Arme sind grenzenlos. Ich belohne sie zu beherrschen. Bewehtes Bruder ist unabtrefflich. Ich belohne ihnen zu erreichen. Nukunpyo jinjin miyo no wa yakusenman no niyo ayo koto katashi

[20:43]

Pare mangen no shi juji suru koto etari negawa kuwa nyorai o shen jitsu niyo geshi tate matsuran I am here with a thousand-year-old young man on the farm of a young man. He lives in Chicago, living with thousands of millions of young people. He lives in Northampton. We hope that he will be able to live in a better environment. He will be able to live in a better environment. Good afternoon.

[21:57]

Two small things. Continuing on the serving. I don't think we should pick up the condiments, in other words the gamacho and stuff, until the meal serving itself is completely over. The other day as the water was still being, the dish water was still being collected, we were picking up the gamassio. I think it's all right to overlap the first and second and third bowl serving. But the condiments in the... Sutra cards and things come before or after the food serving part.

[23:10]

The other thing is we don't take shortcuts. If anything, we take long cuts. We have all the time in the world. You can't get fired in a Sashin. You might wish you could, but. So you don't cut across a cushion or something, you just, yeah, it's all right. Okay, I suppose I have to answer the question I left yesterday, why do I practice? The context in which I asked myself the question is, I don't want to imply either in my lectures or in this book that I'm promising too much.

[24:14]

Or making promises that are unlikely to be fulfilled. Or speaking about Zen in such a way that it allows an inflated idea of what it is. But since we're promising full enlightenment in Buddhahood, it's hard to, you know... So somehow we have to make this realistic. So if I look at my own practice over these decades in a practical sense I was able to work on my psychological situation my emotional situation my character and I was able to work on

[25:19]

ineffectively perfecting my personality. This is what Sukhiroshi, one of the goals Sukhiroshi gave me was to perfect my personality. I think mostly I've learned to avoid trouble. I've learned to avoid the trouble. But at least I'm trying. So those are practical things. And those four can be worked on. in other ways than Zen practice. But working on them in relationship to Zen practice establishes a ground for Zen practice. In other words, if you worked on them In some other way, it might not lead as usefully to maturing your Zen practice.

[26:59]

Does that make sense? What I've said? To Joe, anyone, he's the only one who understands me. The rest of you understand him. Whatever it is, yeah. Most of you know English pretty well, so. Yeah. Okay, then, an in-between thing. In-between practical and spiritual. We have not much of a good word in English, but I'll use spiritual. Is simple or ordinary joys became more apparent? In other words, it became okay to be happy.

[28:26]

I know we're not supposed to be happy. You're supposed to be serious and have suffering and anxiety and things to achieve that you don't and so forth. And at some point you say, I'm too old for all that. So I guess I'll enjoy being a happy failure. It's better than success. Anyway, some such thing like that. Okay, then through Zen practice itself, There is, I think, if you practice, a taste or fulfillment of bliss or deep feelings of satisfaction that I think mostly come through practice.

[29:40]

They certainly exist in other practices, but there's a particular way they are developed in Zen practice. Then there's an increasing freedom from mental and emotional obstructions. And then there's a growing clarity of mind. And then there's the chance to work on one's character, meaning develop create a basis for developing your compassion and so forth?

[30:42]

And then I would say you begin to have a, I'm speaking both from my own experience of practicing and what I think you can expect in practice. And I'm also picking out the things, from the many things that happen through practice. I'm picking up the things that have been most important to me and have most sustained and helped me to continue practice. And one is a growing intimacy and familiarity with oneself and the world. That strangely, even when you come upon something completely new or a person completely new to you, although you're well aware you don't know the situation or the person, there's still an immediate sense of intimacy and familiarity with the person and the situation.

[32:23]

Yeah. And then there's some things that... a little harder to describe. One is you begin to, which is related to what I just said, is you begin to know what Dogen would call your true human body. And I spoke about this in Austria recently. Ich habe da vor kurzem in Österreich darüber gesprochen. But it takes a... To give you a feeling for what that means, it would take a whole lecture, so I won't do it.

[33:42]

Euch aber ein Gefühl dafür zu geben, was das bedeutet, würde also die ganzen Vortrag füllen, und deswegen durch das... But in 1999 in the seminar at... No, not just... Ah, jetzt habe ich Spaß. We're selling tickets here. And then it's what I referred to yesterday, the body beyond life and death. Which is, I will probably speak about tomorrow. To a select few. Now, you are the select few. It's you who have made me give these lectures, so you must be the select few. Yeah. And that really means, it's partly just a sense of being in touch with the larger mystery of what that our life is.

[35:04]

And finally, I would say the the opportunity to come close to this extraordinary vision of a Buddha in our world. So that's enough. Do you think that's a good enough reason to continue practicing? Well, I hope so. It kept me going anyway. I think it's useful for each of us to take stock of our lives now and then. I don't know.

[36:09]

In English, to take stock means to take an inventory and to evaluate. Like I'd stop and look at your life up to now. And just say, what parts are most satisfying? What parts of your life have been worth living for? And then second I would ask yourself, what parts of your life could you do without? And then I divide that into two parts. Those parts you can do without and get rid of. And those parts you can't do without because you need them or it's your responsibility or something. And then you work on how you accept or transform them.

[37:24]

And third, I would look at what unfulfilled dreams we have. To row across the Atlantic in a rowboat. I have a friend who once had a restaurant in Amsterdam. No, excuse me, in London. She's Dutch but the restaurant was in London. And she had this waiter who said he wanted to learn how to row because he wanted to row across the Atlantic. And he'd go rent a boat in Hyde Park and practice rowing. During his lunch hour. Then he left the job, and about two years later, she read in the newspaper, young English boy rows to New York. Big headlines.

[38:46]

So I don't know what dreams you have, but maybe you have some such idea. And you decide what ones are realizable, what ones are just fun. Or perhaps to make you feel like a failure. I'll never do that. And then fourth, I would look at how practice can enter your life. How you would really like a human being to be. Wie er wirklich wünscht, dass ein menschliches Wesen sei.

[39:47]

How you'd really like you yourself, some human being to be, and why not you? Wie er wirklich möchte, dass ein menschliches Wesen, und warum nicht ihr, wie das sein könnte. And how you'd really like our human society to be. Und wie er möchte, dass unsere menschliche Gesellschaft ist. And this actually is what the thought of enlightenment is. To imagine what kind of human being you wish existed on the planet. To decide if you want such a person to be on the planet, you really wish in your heart such a person existed. To decide, well, if I want such a person to exist, I should become that person. And if I don't succeed, at least I'll create the opportunity for such a person to exist. This is what's called, this is a way to describe the thought of enlightenment and the way we generate a Buddha field.

[41:04]

In other words, a world in which if a Buddha appeared he or she might be recognized. Okay, so that's taking stock of your life. Now I said I would give Zazen instruction. In specific to speak about zazen mind. Now zazen instruction, the physical instruction is You don't need to be told, but basically it's a lifting feeling through your back.

[42:19]

As much as possible. folding your heat together, your legs and hands. And this lifting feeling continuing up to the back of the head. And you can check your posture by your back posture by taking your knuckles or something and pushing down at your side or pushing in your cushion straight up And then bring yourself back down. That's usually the way your back is best. And you don't want to be stiff. You don't want your chin pulled in too much and stuff like that. My translator is somewhat guilty of that sometimes.

[43:36]

But on the other hand, your body is like a kind of acupunctural tuning rod. And so small things, like if your chin is up, you tend to think more. And your hand mudra is important. You more or less hold your steadiness of your mind in your mudra. And you all in all want this lifting feeling and a relaxing melting feeling to come down through your body simultaneously.

[44:50]

That's the general sense of the physical posture. Now I emphasize the main mental posture to be uncorrected mind. And I emphasize uncorrected mind for a practical reason and an essential reason. Now the practical reason is I've seen a lot of people practicing Zen in the West, who've learned how to concentrate very well, to work on numbers of koans, and so forth, and yet have not developed much as Western human beings.

[45:51]

And don't seem to even have much realization in practice. And at the same time are quite proud of their practice. So I partly as an antidote to this, I emphasize again uncorrected mind. And again, for this practical reason, that it allows, it's an opening, a field for the processes of recapitulation. Recapitulation and reformulation. of our psychic narrative.

[47:18]

So I think during the first few years of... Sukhirashi says it takes about six months of practicing regularly to find your own posture. personal story is gone through. And I think it's very important for us Westerners because we do emphasize a personal narrative more than Asians do. That we re-cook our karma in the mind of zazen. As you know, I often say we either cook our karma or get cooked by it.

[48:28]

So when you sit zazen and you just let things come up as happens in uncorrected mind, You should understand that uncorrected mind is like a different kind of soup stock than is ordinary mind. So to recapitulate your personal history In zazen mind instead of ordinary mind is a very transformational process. So you recapitulate, reformulate and restore it to a new integrity. One nice thing is when you get used to this, when you make a mistake, Yeah, I mean a little mistake or sometimes a big mistake.

[49:44]

Once you look at it and take responsibility for it, And make a decision not to try not to let it happen again. Once you've done that, it's gone. It's as if it happened ten years ago, not ten minutes ago or this week. And that's a kind of freedom so things don't cling to you, stick to you. Okay. Now, this idea of uncorrected mind is... a little bit subtle.

[50:59]

And it's interesting, you know, those of us in the Dharma Sangha, some of you are fairly new and some of you we've practiced together a pretty long time. But it is somehow a real sangha. And I noticed coming up in the American Sangha too, from quite a few people this feeling of they need to take the next step in this uncorrected mind practice. So I have to find some way to refine this instruction. Okay. Now uncorrected mind is an attitude. An attitude of acceptance.

[52:19]

Now intention is a direction. And attitude is a more specific held in place direction. Like the attitude of an airplane to the horizon is a guidance. So if you hold to an attitude, it's a kind of activity. It's a kind of activity. The holding to an attitude is an activity.

[53:21]

Maybe you can think of an attitude as lactobacillus. People say, why are you doing Zen? Because it curdles the mind. I knew Zen would spoil you. Sorry, bad puns. Anyway... Because the attitude of acceptance is like a culture within milk. It changes the milk. If you bring the attitude of acceptance into ordinary mind, it turns into zazen mind. So there's two what we could call pith instructions.

[54:40]

To what? Not piss, pith. I didn't understand. Pith. Pith, like the... A pith. Pith, yeah. Pith. I said pith. Pith. Yeah, I have to be careful here, you know. Pith is like the marrow inside of a plant stem. Oh, yeah. Marrow? The marrow, yeah. There are two... Yeah. So. One is, very simply, they're both very simple. You've heard them many times. Don't invite your thoughts to tea.

[55:43]

And don't scratch. So now I will... unpack these two deep philosophical concepts. Don't invite your thoughts to tea means you've got some guests in the house. You don't throw them out, but you don't invite them to tea. So you leave them alone. But you stay in your host position. Now, if you do this, in zazen, thoughts, feelings, moods, whatever, come up, And your attitude toward them is two things.

[56:47]

You leave them alone and you accept them. Now you're quite rigorous in this. You leave them alone and you accept them. But the overall attitude is this attitude of acceptance. So even if you don't leave them alone and you pour tea all over them, you accept that. Even if you have a huge party, you just accept it. Even if you are totally distracted by no conceivable object, imagination, could this be zazen?

[57:52]

If you're sitting, you accept it as zazen. You don't even say it's bad zazen. You say, okay, this is what my zazen is. As soon as you say, this is not zazen, I can't, I'm not doing it, then the ego has won. Because the ego will talk you into throwing a lot of parties during your sitting. Some of them will be quite interesting, even perhaps erotic. And you say, this is Zazen. This is Buddha mind. I mean, maybe not Buddha mind, but Zazen mind. because this attitude of acceptance is held to. It's the conceptual underpinnings of all big minds.

[59:02]

And it's the dynamic which allows you to move toward the field of mind rather than the contents of mind. So in a way it's a kind of gradient. In other words, like water goes downhill, if you keep accepting, you move away from the contents of mind toward a wider and wider field of mind. But you've got to keep holding to this acceptance. Maybe with some phrase like, this is what I am. So at first the ego will throw some real interesting parties.

[60:11]

And then, since we're using bad words already, then it'll try to bore the shit out of you. And if the ego sees some weakness, think you might give up, it'll try to bore you for two or three years. There's nothing happening here. Day after day I sit, nothing happens. So somehow you have to have some, I don't know, maybe I can figure out, give you some suggestions, but you need to have a really deep faith that practice works. The deeper your faith and the deeper your willingness to be bored the rest of your life, and this was a tough one for me because the kind of person I am, I hate boredom. Yeah.

[61:28]

So I had to be willing to be bored the rest of my life. And when that occurs, the boredom ends usually. Because how can this universe we are be boring? If there's a moment of boredom it means you're stuck on some surface. So the gradient of boredom acceptance that you hold to. And this is a mental posture, a mental condition in which you develop a field of mind, a background mind.

[62:28]

The whole idea of The whole idea that you cannot invite your thoughts to tea means that there's a mind bigger than the contents of mud. A mind bigger than the thoughts. And this is the root idea of original mind, enlightened mind, big mind, etc. So the dynamic that generates this background mind, is stopping your identification with the contents of mind.

[63:42]

And it doesn't work to reject them. It works to create a bigger mind where you accept them, but you're not caught by them. So this acceptance is a kind of dynamic. Okay, don't scratch. Which is also, don't move. And sometimes it's quite hard not to scratch. There's definitely a fly in the corner of my eye. Probably not, but in any case, leave it there. So don't move, don't scratch, is a physical posture of acceptance.

[64:51]

And you're beginning, as I said the other day, to break the back of physical and mental restlessness. And you can just sit as if the building could fall down around you. It's okay. So through this dynamic of still sitting, where you know you can sit still and don't have to react to things, you develop a tremendous psychological strength. to face things. And you also, this is also the root of one-pointedness. Because the more you can sit still without reacting, accepting but not

[66:00]

enter reacting, one pointedness naturally arises. And when you develop this don't scratch or don't move further, which we then have a stability of mind which in its fullest sense is imperturbability. And true imperturbability is a Buddha mind. The Buddha Akshobhya, which is sometimes considered the biggest of all Buddhas, is the Buddha of imperturbability, the mind of imperturbability. Okay, so the developing imperturbability or one pointedness or a really stable mind, physically stable mind, really creates a kind of pivot where you can pivot your mind from ordinary thinking mind to clear empty mind.

[67:33]

Okay, so that's the basic practice of uncorrected mind. which is to leave alone and accept and don't move. If you do those three things, leave alone, accept and don't move, To really hold those as attitudes is a kind of activity, a kind of energy. Now that's the overall posture that evolves our Zen mind. uncorrected and unconstructed mind, which opens you to the Dharmakaya, or big minds.

[68:47]

And that's why Dogen emphasizes Zazen mind is the root of all our minds. And zazen mind is not a given mind, it's a generated mind, it's a mind you generate. Okay. Now, that's only the main instruction. That's the main posture of Zazen mind. Within that, you can do other practices. Yeah. One practice you can do from the beginning is to bring your attention to your breath.

[69:51]

Which is again joining mind and body through the breath. And the more developed uncorrected mind is, the more effective breath practice is. Okay, the second subsidiary practice is to observe the patterns of mind. And the more effective uncorrected mind is, or the mind of acceptance is, the more effectively we can observe the patterns of mind, develop the capacities of mind, Study mind, following thoughts and moods to their source and so forth.

[70:59]

And the third subsidiary practice is you can intercede with your mind. And to intercede, you can intercede with enlightenment teachings. koans and so forth. Now this intercession in the mind to interrupt the process of the mind It's also best accomplished and most effective when you can simultaneously sustain the field of mind. So this mind of acceptance which develops a field of mind which accepts is the best mind from which to do these specific practices that are in koans and so forth.

[72:16]

Like practically speaking, you can really only study the skandhas when you have developed this mind of acceptance. Which allows you to slow down and observe the processes of mind. Okay, then the last point I'll bring up is which practice shall you choose then? Well, one your teacher suggests. Or one that just comes up, keeps coming up, so you follow it. And you find out for yourself which ones are fruitless. Or a distraction.

[73:33]

Or you find out which ones the ego is trying to make you think are fruitless. And that's a little more subtle. Subtle, a little more subtle. And... But you learn, you try this, you try that. But finally this one pointedness now, this ability to focus the mind, is almost like a divining rod or a wand. A wand is like a magician has. And because you can tell what practices have energy or possibilities and what don't.

[74:42]

There's actually a term in Buddhism, some things light up. There's some things in the mind that light up and some don't light up. And that knowing which practices or objects of mind have integrity and potential is also a fruit of developing this mind of acceptance. So zazen mind begins to teach us what teachings to pursue. So uncorrected mind creates the conditions through which we can develop our mind. But develop it in terms of the integrity of the whole and not in some repressive way.

[76:00]

Because Zen is a very powerful tool and you can use it to repress parts of yourself or ignore parts of yourself. But if you develop and mature the mind of acceptance, which comes from this practice of uncorrected mind, You can trust what happens and what practices you choose. That's enough. Thank you very much. We, in our intentions, will, in the same way, pierce through Jesus Christ, with the true service of the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Spirit, and through the Holy Spirit. OM NGOR YOD SE GANG GAKU BUDDH SU DOR MO CHO SE GANG CHO The feeling beings are countless.

[77:45]

I praise them to be infinite. They are boundless. Ich gelobe Ihnen, ein Ende zu bereiten. Ihr Arme sind grenzenlos. Ich gelobe, sie zu beherrschen. Der Weg des Buddha ist unübertrefflich. Ich gelobe, ihn zu erreichen. Ujo shinjin mimyo no wa yakusenman no yo hayo koto katashi

[80:05]

Satsang with Mooji Satsang with Mooji Jesu nio geshid ha-dei ma-tzu-ran. Ahem, wo'n betochna, lo' shemeda, on fo' yon konen yonah, v'yitz'yach v'yom ne'er to'zit me'el, an yon ha-b'est v'zayten. Lo'en ne'er lich'in se'en und anheuren, heredan und anheben kan. Gehore ich immer halb letzter Tage das Vorhaben. Ah, yeah.

[81:29]

You know, I treasure these opportunities to practice with you. For these seven days or even this one lecture. And, you know, I'm I'm very clear about what I'm doing. At the same time, I feel inseparably like I'm reaching out into the dark. I'm reaching out through my translator. Far brighter than dark. You don't have to translate that. Even if he's hiding his light in black robes.

[82:36]

You know... Yunyan and Daowu having a conversation. And the question was, why does Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva, have so many arms, a thousand arms at least? And one of them said, it's like reaching for your pillow in the dark. You need at least a thousand arms for that. But whether, you know, I'm not sure that I... can make a comparison, but I do feel I'm reaching out in the dark and trying to find ways to show you this path that's right in front of us.

[83:45]

Here I am dressed up in these funny clothes trying to point to something that's right in front of us. Yeah. Yesterday I spoke more fully than I ever have before about zazen mind. And again, since it was the first time I've spoken So fully I felt maybe I went into too much detail. But on the other hand, some of you seem to feel that

[84:48]

I spoke about it in ways you've already experienced and so it confirmed your practice. As you know, it's always a question for me, how much should it be feeling for your pillow? How much should practice be feeling for your pillow in the dark and how much should we turn on the light? Yeah. And unfortunately, when we turn on the light, we only see the shadows. We don't see the true connectedness. It's a blind person might feel. You know, this koan I started yesterday about Matsu.

[86:27]

This koan that I wanted to start yesterday about Matsu. The great master Ma is unwell. The great master. Matsu is big time Zen. I mean, there's Nagarjuna and Dogen and Matsu, and there's a few towering figures. Matsu is kind of the Zen master's Zen master. The Matsu who said to Baijang, indeed, Have they ever flown away? So anyway, the story is Great Master Ma is unwell. It's kind of charming that he's unwell, actually.

[87:37]

Usually these guru types never are sick. They're supposed to control every form of cancer and so forth. And here's the greatest of all Zen masters, and the koan says, He's sick. What a downer. Great Master Ma is unwell. So the temple superintendent comes to see him. Master Ma, how is your venerable health these days? And Ma says, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha.

[88:49]

Yeah. Now this is often taken to mean, you know, when you're sick it's okay and when you're healthy it's okay, you're still, you know, still Buddha. It's a koan like... You know, every day is a good day. But if you understand it in such generalities, you diminish the venerable Master Ma. We have to put ourselves back in the feel of the people he practiced with.

[90:03]

And as Suzuki Roshi says, although we look forward to the bliss of hearing the teaching, this is to not be in accord with the teaching. Because the teaching is always present. Yeah, yeah, okay, good, but how do we know this? I mean, you become, they become, we have to assume that these people practicing with Matsu were very attached to him. And when he was sick, they were quite worried they might lose him.

[91:09]

So you see, it's not Bajang or somebody who comes, it's the temple superintendent representing all the monks who comes. And inquires after his health. Now the introduction to this koan says, I gave you already one gesture, one phrase, one word. The intent is to give us a place to enter. But this is gouging a hole in good flesh. Which can become a nest or a den.

[92:21]

A den is like where a fox lives or something like that. A hula, yeah. There's a restaurant in Budsekheim called the Fox Hula, isn't there? Yeah. It's quite good, actually. See, I'm learning a lot. The great activity or great function, the introduction goes on to say, is always present. Covering heaven and earth. So the emphasis here is the intent is to give us a place to enter.

[93:40]

So Matsu wants, when the temple superintendent comes, wants to give those people he's practicing with a place to enter. A place that will, a way to enter the nirvana gate. The gate of realization or enlightenment. Which is always there whether Matsu is alive or dead. But if you try to create a way to enter, this is like sometimes you don't make an entrance, you make a festering hole in good flesh.

[94:46]

Yeah, so he says sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. And there's a list of 11,093 Buddhas.

[95:06]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_72.64