When I was a kid, I had to stay home from school sometimes because I had the mumps or the measles or something. There was... You know, television wasn't even an idea at the time. But there was radio. And... For some reason, when I turned it on, you know, when I couldn't go to school, it always started with, excuse me, I can't sing, but good morning, breakfast clubbers, and how are you? And I... You said that very fast. And I somehow had the idea that the people I went to school with in my family and the rest of the world were breakfast clubbers.

[01:02]

I somehow had the feeling that the world was my family and my school friends and the rest of the world were breakfast clubbers. So I just had the feeling as I was coming in here of singing to you, good afternoon, Buddhist, Dharmas, and how are you? Good afternoon, Buddha, Dharmas, and how are you? Anyway, you can see where my lectures come from. Yeah. Now, I've been correcting our Nicole, who's also the Anja, or Jisha, rather, and teasing her a little bit, straightening the incense.

[02:13]

She's always handing me the incense like this. Get her to try to straighten it out. And, you know, there's some Buddhist schools... Which they just take the incense and they take a whole bunch and stick it in the butt, you know. It's an old thing. Yeah, but in Zen this is considered quite weird. Because it's... Yeah, the... Incense... How you hold the incense represents your practice and how your backbone is. Sorry, I broke the news to you in public.

[03:24]

The way you hold the incense stick is seen as a sign of how the practice is and how straight the spine is. Yeah, it's thought if you can't hold the incense straight, you don't know where your backbone is. And you should be able to put the incense in the incense mirror, so from all angles it's straight. Zen is full of such things. These staffs, for instance, are supposed to, I don't know what this one does, supposed to be able to stand up by themselves. They're often made so that they do. You know, it's really a difference between lineage Buddhism and institutional Buddhism. Because, you know, I just have been thinking about this recently.

[04:35]

Because in lineage Buddhism, the authenticity is passed from teacher to teacher. And in the history of Buddhism in China and Japan, there's always been a tension between these two views. Because the institution wants to control who's really a priest or monk, etc. They don't want some wild guy claiming to be a Buddha who authorizes people. Like me.

[05:49]

Yeah. Well, not so much. But anyway. So there's been an attempt like that. And the government prefers that because the government likes to control people through the institutions of the church. Yes, and they do that through cemeteries in Japan. You're supposed to be buried where your ancestors are buried. And up until recently, every Japanese person had to be registered at some temple. That's how the government knew where they were and what they were doing. And then this was used during the Second World War to control the priests and the population.

[07:00]

But Tsukuyoshi used to tell a story often about how when the government in China persecuted the Buddhists, it's the Zen guys who survived because they just beat it to the mountains and practiced on their own with a few disciples. No. During... In China, in the Tang Dynasty, etc. The government persecuted Buddhists, destroyed institutions, burned temples, etc.

[08:06]

But Zen survived quite well because the teachers went into the hills and the mountains with their disciples and practiced independent of government. I think about this because what kind of institutions am I creating in Crestone and here and what kind did I create in San Francisco? Certainly one reason Tsukiroshi left Japan because he didn't like institutionalized Zen. Okay, so if if as this koan implies, you're also the emperor in relationship to heaven.

[09:11]

And if there's no God, there's no outside space, outside the universe, a special observer space, meta-observer space. Then we're all alone in the world. No one to help us. And I used to, even after years of practicing, if I'd been in a difficult situation, I'd find myself going to bed and say, please God, and I'd say, stop that, stop that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been an atheist all my life. There's never been one fraction of a moment I believed in God. But I would find myself as a cultural hero saying, please, God, I mean, stop.

[10:21]

Like my arm jumped at the bathtub. So I really had to discipline myself. No one's here to help me. You're stuck, you poor fella. Okay, but what do you do when you have this feeling? What does a culture do when they have this feeling? What's the move they make? They bring the universe inside themselves. And that's also what's happening in this koan. Okay. Now again, I'm surprised where we've gotten to in this session.

[11:37]

Have we all gotten there? I don't know. Well, anyway, I started out with not wanting to say anything. So I said I don't want to say anything. But then I had to realize that saying I didn't want to say anything was saying something. Obvious. And saying something then has an effect. And I had to take responsibility for the effect. And does my saying I'm not going to say anything. Is that different from not saying anything? Ideally, it's better than not saying anything and has more deeply the effect you want by not saying anything. Now I'm sounding zen. Sorry.

[12:48]

Okay. Anyway, but that was my intention and my feeling. Then I was led to, yeah, but really it's not the saying something, it's the concept in the saying something. It's the... It's not the saying of something, it's the concept in the saying of what you say. And that's really about images. In the end it's actually about images. Okay. Now we know that dream mind is powerfully generated and evolves through images.

[13:51]

And so if we bring images into our Conscious mind, it begins to bring aspects of dream or begins to affect our conscious mind. Bring in aspects of dream and or affect our conscious mind. And when we now take pictures into our conscious mind, then it also carries aspects of the spirit of the dream. I'm sorry, I'm making it difficult for you. That's all right. It's all right? Okay, I like your spirit. And I try to simplify this as saying we have an image of space separating when space actually also connects.

[14:54]

One of the most powerful images we have is that we're separated by space, and so we don't notice how we're connected by space. So we also have invisible images in our own culture. It's an invisible image to us that space separates, because we don't think of it as an image, we think of it as a fact. And I didn't get the first part. We also have images in our own culture. And this example, we don't see it as an image because we see it as a fact and not a cultural image. Okay.

[15:56]

Now let's take a koan that often, that over the years a number of you have worked with The buffalo that doesn't go through the window. The head goes through, the horns go through, then the head goes through and then the shoulders go through and then the butt and the etc. goes through. But the tail doesn't go through. And then the question is, why doesn't the tail go through? And people try to understand this. But it's not understandable. It's an image. And the image either works in you or it doesn't.

[17:03]

It's a good example of a koan because it has nothing to do with understanding. So it works. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm serious. Good morning, no. Okay. It works when this image begins to be embedded in you. And whenever you feel you see anything, you feel it's also this image. Buffalo, bison, cow. The buffalo is often used in images in Buddhism, but in koans, but that's another subject, somewhat different subject.

[18:09]

Okay. But when it becomes like when I'm looking at you, I see a buffalo. Or I see a tail that won't go through the window. Or I feel in my own life that my own life isn't going through the window somehow. When I get to that point, then the image starts to work. And sometimes suddenly the buffalo goes through the darn window. And you suddenly feel complete. Or secure and intimate with the whole of reality. Then it's working. It's not about understanding. The image has worked.

[19:09]

Or perhaps you accept that the tail is never going to go through the window. As we say, as long as you're alive, there's nirvana with a remnant. Remnant is like a piece of cloth left over from a bolt of cloth. You know what I mean? When they sell cloth, there's finally a little piece left. That's called a remnant. As long as you're alive and have this body with its problems and your personal history, there's not ever complete enlightenment. There's always a remnant, a leftover part. So the image also works when you're the tail is the bodhisattva, the tail is the incomplete world, and so forth.

[20:23]

Yeah, now, contemporary physicists, they, you know, let's take somebody interested in, who, yeah, string theorists, Yeah, or quantum mechanics, you know. Now, I've talked to physicists who say, you know, it's interesting, these guys, they go to the laboratory, the Max Planck Institute or something, and they do their calculations, and they use quantum mechanics, and then they go home, and it has nothing to do with their life. It's a way of solving certain kind of problems, but it has nothing to do with how they actually exist. No, maybe this is just human.

[21:42]

But it's also perhaps part of a culture which is able to have an outside space for unbelievable things. In yoga culture, the feeling is, whatever it is, is also you, and you've got to find a way to be it. So if there's moment after moment samadhi, as in the koan I mentioned to you, How do we live that moment after moment samadhi? And if we're in fact interdependent and interpenetrating with the whole of everything, How do we live that?

[22:50]

Because we can't depend on grace or God or something. Whatever it is, we've got to find a way to live it. We're not alone, in fact, because the universe is... Also us, we're secure and intimate with the whole of reality. So early Buddhism was interested in freeing you from suffering. And that's still the goal of Buddhism. But now to be really free of suffering is to be secure and intimate with the whole of reality.

[23:50]

So how do you do this? One of the ways is to continually enact images of the world as it is. And we may not actually know how it is, of course. But we can assume we are also the world. So how can we enact that we are also the world? Okay. Now, when you put, again, as I said yesterday, I can't tell what time it is I forgot my watch good luck

[24:59]

And none of you have a watch because no one's supposed to have a watch or jewelry or anything during the Sashin, you know. And none of you have a watch because none of you have a watch or jewelry or anything during the Sashin, you know. But we can't be out of time because we are time. All right, okay. So when we put the okay-saw on our head, you are enacting a worldview. Enacting is a hard word to translate. It needs to be different every time. Use enact. I don't know. Then you bring a worldview into your actions.

[26:15]

I wonder why it has to be different. Well, anyway. I leave you to understand some things. Okay. Because this is the central channel. And this is the crown chakra. Where we connect with everything. Here we, at these chakras, we open to the world and receive the world. And maybe you can feel that when you feel these different areas. Yeah. And this is, again, where we are not just receiving the world, but connecting to the world, being one with the world. Now the world is considered, or the all at once-ness of this is considered to be Buddha. A Buddha is one who's realized.

[27:19]

And if you're realized, that potential for realization has to be in everything all at once. So also, as I've said, given with the, when we do the precept, the precept ordination or Jukai ceremony, You're given what's called the Kechi Miyako, which is the blood lineage. Which is the names of, as I told you, all the, from the Buddha to Suzuki Roshi to me to you. And I think, if I remember correctly, I'm the 91st from the Buddha.

[28:40]

Of course, we don't really know, because the records aren't too clear. But it's pretty historically accurate back to, I don't know, 8th or 9th century. That's amazing. Yeah, but say it is 90 or 100. Well, that's about three times the number of people here. That's not very many. So if I tell Eric Eno... And he tells you, and you tell him.

[29:42]

Well, it'll be pretty strange by the time it gets over, too. That's called telephone. I mean, the game is called telephone. In German, too? Stille Post. Stille Post, oh. Well, in those days, they didn't have Stille Post or telephone. So you spent 10 or 15 or more years telling Eric. Then you said, Eric, you got it straight? No, he hands you the incense like this. Wow, 30 blows. You notice his last name is Eno, but we don't always make him the Eno. Eno means head of the sender. Okay. But, you know, I'm sure at some point, Eric, being a smart fellow, would...

[30:44]

Get it straight. I would say I dub the... No. Ino Roshi. And then you would spend 10 years or more with... Your name? Simon. Simon, that's right. Simon. Yeah, okay. Isn't there a game Simon knows? Yeah. Yeah, pick the right person. Okay. Okay. So this blood image is, as I said again yesterday, is actually a circle. It goes like this, but it's really, if you straighten it out, a circle.

[32:04]

So it's exactly a representation of this koan. Heaven and earth and I share the same channel. And there's this upward movement in it called prana. Or specifically called udana. And it says at the beginning of this koan again, the first line is cease and desist. And that means something like stopped and stay stopped. And an iron tree blooms with flowers. Now this refers to the experience of meditation I've have spoken about.

[33:21]

When you feel fused, all of one piece. I think in German you say something like a single pore, one pore. It's like a single pore, like a, you know, it's all one piece, one pore. I keep checking to see if it's five. So this has also the sense that when we see the world in consciousness, it looks also all of one piece. Yeah, we don't see the Dallas episodes and the cell phone calls.

[34:22]

So, consciousness fools us by making a consistent picture. So, okay, it says so. seeing, hearing, awareness and knowledge are not one and the same. And then Yuan Wu comments on this first line of the poem. In the multitude of things, And in the myriad appearances, there is not a single thing.

[35:24]

Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind are suddenly all of one pore. like a hammerhead without a hole. Okay. Now, this a philosopher can't understand. You can only understand it if you've had the experience in meditation. So people say this is a riddle, a hammerhead without a hole. Okay. Now, hammerheads break things. Iron trees bloom. So this is a bodily welded together and with the world. In contrast to the deceptive conscious one piece.

[36:35]

And this feeling is sometimes what shatters into enlightenment experience. So the six vijnanas, the five sense fields and mind, fuse into a single piece. It's as if the mind of the body fuses. The mind's body.

[37:37]

The body's mind fuses. Okay. Okay. And you experience some of that, like when you're sitting. And you can't tell whether it's your left leg or right leg or where your foot is. It's just sort of one piece. And the whole one piece of your lower body you can sense, but it's just a kind of area. And you can also feel the middle part of your body and the upper part of your body. And suddenly all three or four areas can fuse together. And this is also this, and there's an upward feeling to it, and it's called, you know, there's a word for this, fusing.

[38:52]

We can call it udana. And that's also represented by the top knot. And you can see in the more Buddhist schools which see themselves as social institutions usually have Amida Buddhas which have a curved back and they're looking down at you. But Zen and the Theravada schools almost always have yogic Buddhas with a straight back. And they're not looking at you, they're absorbed in meditation. So when you work with the circle of the Kechi Miyaku, if it represents the mind of the Buddha, the transmitted mind of the Buddha,

[40:08]

but it's imaged as a circle, then you begin to work with the circle as surrounding you. You feel you're always in a circle. And you can play with it, practice with it, when you're like doing Zazen. First you can work with this. Heaven and earth and I share the same root. And it helps to create an image of your body. And feel a stretch between the top of your head and the face of your spine. I know, when I was, I can't remember where it is, near Dusseldorf, where that new Tadao Ando Museum is. Tadao Ando is a famous Japanese sculptor, architect. Tadao. Ando Museum is a famous Chinese architect.

[41:51]

Anyway, in the museum complex there, there is some very old statues. So it's nice to look at them. But I went back behind them. And kind of poked around and looked as much as I could without the guards coming rushing in and I saw cameras in every corner. They had the figure up against the wall, you know, but I was like... Right at the base, the sacrum of the spine, was carved a tree. The sacred sacrum. And I know a couple of you here practice sacral cranial therapy.

[43:07]

That's what it's called. Mm-hmm. And... So the backbone is seen, and this is as important as the face, the backbone is seen as a tree. I have a friend who also practices with us named William Martin Allen, who I think teaches craniosacral work in Europe. He lives in Colorado. And he started out as a dentist. But then working with people's mouths and bones, he began to realize something's going on there. It's beyond dentistry. And I don't know much about these things, but I do know that I at some point realized I could stop headaches by shifting my skull.

[44:14]

I found if I had a lifting feeling from here, it would go back through here and come to the top of my spine. Because the plates of the skull do move. And anyway, so I used to have this feeling in my backbone and in my skull relating to putting my okay-so on my head. So there's a bodily reality to all of this. As I said, you start out and the imaging helps. You image your spine and you stretch that image. Stretch that, like a Gumi band.

[45:55]

I'm in a foreign rock group called the Gumi band. No, you didn't say what I wanted to know. Oh, I'm sorry. You stretch what, the image or the space? You stretch, you... have an image of the spine or the body from the sacrum to the top of the head. And now you don't straighten your back, you stretch that image. Stretch yourself in between those two points. That would be practicing with this koan, enacting this koan. And then you take like the kechimiaku, it's the robe, opening Buddha's mind, you're opening... We put the robe on, we say, now we open Buddha's robe or mind.

[47:02]

I must look pretty funny. Which is... Sophia likes to do things like this. Which is... Which is a field far beyond form and emptiness. Which is a description of the crown chakra which is not contained by form and emptiness. And then you open that robe as your aura and fold it around your body. So you're enacting the image of the world of this koan. And then the robe and the ketchi miyaku are identified, they're both...

[48:05]

So now you imagine this robe or this circle, this mind around you. So you're doing zazen. You've imaged the spine first. Some periods or the beginning of some periods. And then myriad things and I share the same body. So now you visualize this circle of the kechi miyaku or the circle of the shared body. And you see if you can reach to the neighbors on either side of you. Sometimes it'll reach to one neighbor, not the other. Then you have a compassion problem. Then you imagine them both as babies, and the circle goes to them easily. Then you imagine them as adults. But sometimes it can extend to the whole room.

[49:38]

And sometimes the boundaries get very wide. This is when we say self covers everything. And you practice with this feeling. You get to know this feeling as a bodily feeling. And it then begins to go through your perceptions and begin to transform the views at the root of perceptions. So these mental postures or images we have embodied can transform us. And transform our world view.

[50:48]

And create seeds of enlightenment. And the condition of enlightenment. Yeah, I barely get started, but it's five to five. So that's enough. Thank you really a lot for getting me here somehow, all of you. I felt I was swimming in the tapestry of this sashin. Or sometimes we were shuttling together in the fabric. And the patterns, these lectures emerged Okay, thanks. Thanks for shundering, I mean translating. Okay.

[51:47]

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