Thank you all for coming. Since I'm not doing almost any seminars this summer, this year in Europe, I'm especially glad that you took the trouble to come. because I'd hate to please come in. Oh, my gosh. An entirely new member of the Dharmasangha. How old is Paulina? Four months now? Pretty old, actually. She looks healthy. Can I come see you, please?

[01:06]

Whoa, hello. She's not ready to be held by strangers. Whoa. What is this gadget she's in? Yes, she's got problems with her hips. Her bone is not yet... Okay. Oh, good. Okay. She smells nice. Yes? She got a bath yesterday. Yesterday? Thank goodness. Thank you for bringing Paulina.

[02:19]

Paulina, right? Okay, anyway, as I said, I'm glad you guys came because I'd hate to not to see you this year. There's various reasons, but the two main ones are, one, I have to work with my editor most of this summer. from the new publisher to turn the book in. And we're also building a building at Crestone that's going to be entirely wood joinery, a traditional Japanese-Chinese style building. And this kind of building, since I... I can say I designed it, but basically it's modular, so you just work out the basic idea and then...

[03:22]

The style of the building decides most of the, most of at least the floor plan and, you know, anyway, decides most of it. What is modular? Modular means it's all in modules, in units. But at the same time, the architect, the designer and the builder usually are all one person. And being as it's that way, a lot of decisions are made during the process of building. So the building's all cut out and going to be assembled now. But in the process, there's a lot of decisions to be made. And while the Zender was being built, I was here in Europe. And some things are different than I intended because I was here while the decisions were being made.

[05:12]

So it worked out pretty well, but luckily I came back just as they were about to put a wood floor instead of a slate floor in. Or rather, they were going to put joists, which wouldn't have been strong enough to support slates, so we had to make that change. The boards that support the beams that support the floor. So I decided since this building is even more crucial and it can only be built in the warm weather when the ground is not frozen, So I thought I had to be there during the building process.

[06:24]

But we have this phrase that we've joined together to discuss. The pure body of reality. Der reine Körper der Wirklichkeit. Now this phrase is from a koan. Nun, dieser Satz ist aus einem koan. But I don't want to discuss it in relation to the koan particularly, at least this evening. Aber zumindest heute Abend möchte ich diesen Satz jetzt nicht in Zusammenhang mit dem koan besprechen. It's a wonderful phrase. The pure body of reality.

[07:25]

I mean, first it's... I mean, this is a phrase that's been passed down to us by our Buddha ancestors. So it's not just a polemic or some kind of polemic? It's a phrase passed down because... it carries the teaching with it. So I'd like to just stay with the phrase, at least for a little while now, that just the idea that there's a reality is already something pretty big. I mean, it's, you know, we have to look in your own experience.

[08:56]

How do you decide what's real? Is there something real? What's reality? And of course in Buddhism probably the word actuality is better to use than reality. Because actuality is, at least in English, refers to, and there's a parallel word in German, right, refers to a series of acts and not some real, I don't know, something outside, some big controlling factor. So we could say the pure body of actuality as well. And then the idea that it's pure. Why would it be pure?

[10:18]

I mean, yeah, they had a more innocent idea of the planet in those days. And they had no idea enough people with enough equipment could destroy our environment. But this is pure in another sense than some kind of environmental idea. So this... reality or actuality, this weekend we should ask ourselves, try to look at, in what way is it pure? Could it be pure? And also then that it's a body. In what sense could... What could be a pure body of reality?

[11:41]

In any case, it's a very big idea. And one of the... things Buddhism works with is that we're capable of a very large idea about what's going on. I mean, if you believe in God, you then have a very large idea of what's going on. I mean, if you feel that there's the presence of God, tangible presence of God in everything, in all of our actuality, As a Buddhist, we wouldn't think exactly this way, though in effect it may be quite similar.

[12:54]

But in any case, it demonstrates that one of our human capacities is to hold a very big idea about what's happening. And when we, as I discussed a little bit in the Sashin, when we turn off the bathroom light because we're wasting electricity, And you have a sense of this light burning coal somewhere or damming a river somewhere. You're carrying a very big environmental idea that you feel right away when you turn the light on or turn it off.

[14:05]

You feel something going on in the world that's polluting our rivers or air. So we have this capacity. To hold a big idea of what's going on. And it's like I discussed, I don't know when, but fairly recently, the fact that not only do we have intention, we have the capacity to intend. Now, this is a very important idea that there's a distinction between the capacity that we have the capacity to intend and not just sometimes we have intentions. It's obvious that, yes, we have thoughts, but much more significant is that we have the capacity to think.

[15:22]

So because we have the capacity to intend, if you don't intend, you're going to be in a hodgepodge. You're going to in effect intend, but you're going to have contradictory intentions. And one of the first things that we recognize about our mind is that it has direction. And we... Knowing that it has direction, we better give it direction. And if you don't give it direction, you'll suffer for it. This is one way to understand the ten oxherding pictures. If you're looking for the ox, giving it direction, at some point the direction becomes spontaneous.

[16:59]

But it only becomes spontaneous when the ox has been found and tamed, and then the picture usually just shows a big circle. Suki Roshi said in Zen Mind Beginners, the best way to control your cow or ox is to give it a big pasture. So what is this big pasture we can give ourselves? How big a pasture can we give ourselves? So an important part of, maybe the root of practice is really, serious practice, is discovering our deepest intention.

[18:23]

Okay, so we have this big capacity for envisioning the world. Now one of the unique things about Zen Buddhism in contrast to other Buddhist schools Well, one of them is this working with phrases, working with language out of the syntactical context of language. Turning language into a kind of medicine or acupuncture type activity. And the other is this emphasis on not just the vijnanas and the alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness, But another kind of mind we can call original mind.

[19:51]

And an original mind which conditions or is the source of all of our thinking. So this emphasis in Zen is how to realize, discover, actualize our original mind. This happens to be the title of my book, Original Mind. the practice of Zen in the West, because it is really because of original mind that Buddhism can equally be in the West as in Asia.

[20:59]

Because in the end, the root of Buddhism is not cultural. It's not philosophical in the sense of its particular kind of philosophy. It's not a revealed teaching. It's a teaching you reveal to yourself. And how do you reveal it to yourself? This revelation of teaching to yourself is original mind. Now, one way to work with or discover original mind is to find some conception as big as the possibility of original mind. Now, if you study mind from a Buddhist point of view, it can have structure, it can have direction and other qualities.

[22:10]

Direction. It has a field quality. It can form self-observing focuses. And so forth. But it can also, as well as have structure, it can have no structure. Because it can have structure, it can have no structure. And that mind without structure, we also can call original mind. Now this phrase, the pure body of reality, is one way Zen tries to establish a very big envisioning. There are others.

[23:30]

One bright jewel. And each one has a little different quality. Now, Traditional Mahayana and Tantric Buddhism works with the thought of enlightenment that you need some big vision of other human beings. And if you have a limited vision of other human beings, you're going to have a limited way of acting with others. Yeah. And, you know, No matter how you extrapolate it out and we can go through it and actually take some time to work yourself in a real way into it, not just superficially.

[24:51]

But we can say that this large vision of all human beings is that all of us can realize enlightenment. Now, in Mahayana Buddhism and especially in Tibetan Buddhism, the emphasis is that if you do not have this vision, there's no true, there's no Bodhisattva practice, period. But Zen also emphasizes that you need a large vision of this phenomenal world. Because we have the capacity to have a large vision you should make use of that vision And one phrase that points to or articulates this big vision is the pure body of reality.

[26:10]

So I would ask you during these two and a half days, is to carry with you, to hold in view, as we say as practice, hold in view this phrase, And the vision of this phrase. And the feeling of this phrase. The beauty of this phrase. The pure body of reality. And don't be easily discouraged. Just because it doesn't look too pure most of the time or some of the time. You don't really know what actuality is in reality. But listen, if people can believe in God, you can believe in the pure body of reality.

[27:32]

It's a big leap to God. It's a small leap to the pure body of reality. And most of you... once believed in God and probably most of you are still not sure. So just, you know, connect them and let's have the pure body of reality. I was in a pension the first night or two I arrived in Germany.

[28:32]

Before Sashin. So I go down to the breakfast. And I love bringing a pile of books with me. And having, you know, all these little things you can go to the table and get. And... And have some tea, you know. So... It's... They have to throw me out eventually by starting cleaning the table, you know, moving things, because I tend to just sit there and I read a few sentences in this book and then a few sentences in that book. And they... And then I do a lot of focused daydreaming.

[29:50]

Maybe we can call it meditative stabilization, but, you know, it's kind of focused daydreaming. So there were, you know, the woman, this is Hauser, puts me in, she knows me and she usually knows I'm a little peculiar and so she puts me in the corner by myself. Plus, in fact, I am rather different. I don't speak German. Yeah, I don't behave like the other folks, you know. And I have no hair. So I get stuck in the corner. I'm not supposed to bother too many people. So I'm wondering, how am I different from all these folks?

[30:54]

I mean, the Diamond Sutra says you're not supposed to perceive any difference. There's no perception of a self, of a person, or a lifespan. And so, yeah. Yeah. But if I have no perception of a person or a lifespan, I'm already quite different than these other folks because I'm quite sure they have a perception of a person and a lifespan. Yeah, but I don't want to be different. I like feeling I'm not different Even if I am in the corner, I still like to feel that, hey, I'm just one of the guys.

[32:14]

But the big difference is that teaching is a factor in all of our lives. But the teaching that I'm concerned with is different than what they're concerned with. And teaching, and we discussed this again in the Sashin, is one of the ingredients of your life. And if you're sitting in a sashin for seven days, what have you got there? You've got your body and the posture of your body. And you've got your mind. And actually, we can say the posture of your mind. How your thinking occurs, how you relate to your thinking, and so forth.

[33:35]

And you have other people. And you have the phenomenal world. And you have memory. Associations. That's almost all the ingredients. But the key ingredient is teaching. Everything, how your body is, how you relate to the other people, how you perceive the phenomenal world, how your thinking goes, all is pervasively related to teaching. These people sitting in this pension with me, they speak German, I don't. Like you do.

[34:49]

And there's an immense amount of teaching in German. Your language is, I think, let's not call it culture, let's call it teaching. It's showing you how to name things, how to relate things, and so forth. And then there's the fact that these folks, I guess you too, are also, except one Dutchman, are German. This is also teaching. But while I'm sitting there with these folks, I'm thinking about the Buddha 2,500 years ago or so.

[35:59]

I doubt if anyone else in the room, since none of you were there, is thinking about the Buddha. So I'm wondering, what am I doing such a weird thing for, you know? I should just be having breakfast with these folks and have no idea of the Buddha, you know? But... One of the factors, I think, is whether you're the teaching, because you're always in the midst of teaching. But is that in teaching implicit and unconscious? Or do you make it conscious? Or do you go one step further and actually choose a teaching, consciously choose a teaching?

[37:14]

And Buddhism says there's a very big difference between the teaching just being implicit and you're making it explicit and then consciously choosing what teaching you want. Because again, we human beings could be defined as we have the capacity, we are formed by teaching. So looking at this phrase, the pure body of reality, it's a teaching. How to relate to this phrase is a teaching. So I'm speaking now about what's teaching. So teaching is one way we can understand teaching.

[38:46]

Teaching is a learned sequence. I think the simplest example is in how computers and printers and things are set up often. Or electronic watches. There's no way Many of the sequences that are necessary to turn off your alarm or to do certain things on your computer can be figured out rationally. It's just a sequence. You push that and then you push those two things simultaneously and something happens. And if you've ever... been given an electronic watch without the instructions, you know, how long it takes to play with all the possible sequences to figure out how to turn that bloody alarm off, which is going off in your desk all the time.

[39:51]

I've had watches I've buried because, you know, you can't stop the money. And you go into the, you know, I have a watch which tells all possible times on the planet plus five alarms. Playing with all the sequences, I mean, it's, I mean, if I had days, you know, and I was rubric, And if you go to a jeweler, they spend half their time trying to explain to people how to do this. Anyway, there's a lot of things about teaching that are actually a simple sequence and you have to know the sequence.

[40:57]

And one of the interesting things about this is that if you put two or three different practices together in Buddhism, they often lead to a fourth practice, and that, in combination with that, leads to a fifth practice. And there's not much way you can know that this combination of teachings leads to another state of mind unless you're taught. Okay, another aspect of teaching is that you learn through experience and through experimenting. Most of our food arrives to us that way. And there's no way you could figure out what's edible and not edible without a lot of help from others.

[42:25]

I remember once when Suzuki Roshi and I went to some land on the Russian River, which is a place north of San Francisco. And before we found Tassajara, we looked at this land that somebody wanted to give us as a place for a monastery or a practice center. And while they were on the land, Sukhiroshi found some ferns. And he collected the ferns, little curled up ferns. And nobody in America knows you can eat the things. the Japanese have hundreds of things they eat, many, many hundreds more than we eat in the West or in America.

[43:43]

But he recognized these things and he said you couldn't eat them because they were poisonous. But if you cook them with ash, then they became edible. And this made a big impression on me. He paid as much attention to showing me this, how to cut them, how to collect them, how to cook them, as he did with a Buddhist teacher. And I never would have figured out I could eat these things. And if I tried them, it would have taken me a long time to figure out ash was the secret. I have a friend, Sterling Bunnell, who likes to experiment, and he once decided you could eat banana slugs.

[45:00]

Do you know what a banana slug is? They're like big snails without shells. They don't... So Sterling being the kind of person he is, picked one up, bit it off. This is a guy who supposedly in high school had the second highest IQ in the United States. I don't really know if this was an example of his high IQ. Because for several days after that, his mouth was full of this slime and he could not get it out. And this was like, he did this, I remember now, like 30 some years ago. He happened to call me up about a month ago.

[46:03]

And I don't know how it came up, but he said, I now figured out how to eat banana slugs. Well, it took him 30 years, but now somebody else could find out in five minutes. So anyway, all of this is, I was thinking in this pension about what's teaching and so forth. And teaching is also a relationship with a teacher. And what does a teacher give you? One thing the teacher gives you is permission. Permission to go around.

[47:18]

Permission is really very important. It's very hard to give yourself permission. I mean, just to sit for seven days, it'd be very hard to think up that on your own, you know. And how to do it. Take some permission and teaching. And a teacher also conveys presence. A presence which ideally is a kind of bio-entrainment or field in which things can be understood with subtlety. And finally, teaching requires that you know how to be taught.

[48:29]

And how to have not only a teacher teach you, but how a teaching itself teaches you. So this You know, just the beginning of this koan is a monk asks young men, what is the pure body of reality? And he says, the flowering hedge, the flowering bush fence around the garden. There's four phrases in the Quran. That's the first two.

[49:33]

Now, what does Yan Men give us in the way he said this, or what he said? What is, again, the pure body of reality? I mean, I think this is a really wonderful idea, the pure body of reality. Now, the last thing I'd like to bring up is I'd just like to give you an example of a teaching. And so this evening I'd like to mention, and maybe tomorrow I'll mention the five dharmas, but tonight I'd like to mention the four foods.

[50:39]

And the four foods are what you put in your mouth. This is the first one. And four foods means the four ways we have contact with the world that's nourishing. one is what we put in our mouth and the second is called the meeting of the three and the third is volitional thought and the fourth is awareness Das dritte ist Gewahrsein.

[51:39]

Now again, this is a teaching. Nun, das ist eine Belehrung. And what can we learn? Because the first teaching is something familiar to us. The first food is what we put in our mouth. Und was können wir jetzt lernen? Also das erste ist uns recht vertraut. Nahrung ist das, was wir in den Mund stecken. And what's the quality of what's characteristics or aspects of what we put in our mouth? It's selected. And it's prepared. Usually prepared. And it must be edible and digestible. And it must be, in Buddhist teaching, measured. That you eat a measured amount. The Buddhist eating bowl is a measure of food, not just a container of food. So the Asian way of eating

[52:40]

is for us the plate is an extension of the table. It's easier to wash the plate than the table. So it's really a kind of table and we put our food on. And then we have our utensils to eat off the plate. And this yogic sense of eating, which has influenced Asia, is that the bowl you eat in is part of the eating utensil. It's necessary relating to the chopstick and things like that. So it's not an extension of the table, it's an extension of your hand and the eating utensil. And it's a measured amount of food.

[54:15]

So the different dishes are small or big because the dish reflects the amount you're supposed to eat. So anyway, in this teaching, they're included in the idea that food is selected and edible, is that it's also a measured amount. Yeah. This is, I think, basic to yoga culture, which is it's our responsibility to measure and choose And this is in quite specific contrast to an idea of natural. You eat as much as you feel like. And you can know how fat your cat can get if you... Or even we ourselves.

[55:25]

So there's this sense that we don't do things just naturally, we do things in a measured way. Okay, so the second nourishment The way our contact to the world nourishes us is this meeting of the three. The meeting of the three means the sense organ, the sense object, and the sense field that arises. So I'm playing with this bell. So it's sitting on my hand. So the measure of sense nourishment is for me to know the meeting of the three.

[56:38]

The sense organ of the proprioceptive, the skin, the hand, the body. I mean the sense organ and then the sense object. And the feeling that arises from the contact of my hand and the bell. And I think when you look at it physically, you can really see that there's a third factor. It's not just your hand and the object. A feeling arises from my hand being on this cool metal bell. And I think when you look at it physically, you can really see that there's a third factor. A feeling arises from my hand being on this cool metal bell. That's a rather different feeling. And so the same is true if I look at you, as you are the sense object, my eye is the sense organ, but a field arises in my seeing just as much as a field arises in my body from holding this bell.

[57:53]

So the teaching here is that your contact through your senses is nourishing when you're aware of the meeting of the three. And do you see that that's a teaching that's not natural? I mean, it's a natural event, sort of, biological event. But to note to yourself until it's just a habit that there's the sense organ, the sense object, and the arising sense field. To divide this looking, seeing, smelling into three,

[58:55]

And to note the coming together of the three is a teaching. And it's also a dharma. When you feel the presence of the three, the meeting of the three, this is what we can also call a dharma. Now, at first this is, as a teaching, is something that is not obvious. We categorize it in Buddhism as something slightly hidden. It has to be pointed out to you. Well, you could get to it by your own experimentation, but it's slightly hidden.

[60:10]

It's not immediately obvious. But although it's slightly hidden, if you know it pretty thoroughly and keep noticing it, it then becomes natural. Okay, that's the second food. The third food is volitional or intentional thought. Or one-pointedness. In other words, I'm thinking but when I can think mindfully when I can really bring intention and thinking together or when they come together naturally. Or I can just look at you and not have much doubts other than the looking at you is my experience.

[61:14]

And this is volitional or intentional or mindful thinking. And if you do this as a habit in your thinking, this becomes very nourishing and is the third food. It's selected, it's measured, it's digestible. Another aspect of food, it has to be local, it has to be accessible. Yeah, Martian food is no help to us. Even if it might be edible, if there's such a thing. But Himalayan ferns, if they were available at Aldi, hey, you know. So there's this quality.

[62:34]

Part of the teaching of this is to look at what we know which is the gate to this teaching which is food, what we eat. is to see that these other foods share some of the characteristics with the eating foods. And the fourth food is awareness. Non-conceptual awareness. Focused daydreaming. So this teaching is when you can more, when your contact with the world falls into these four measured kinds of contact, You will find yourself quite nourished by all the occasions of your living. So while I was having breakfast with these folks in the pension,

[63:38]

I'm thinking about that I'm having four foods. I'm reading a little in my book and having a little mindful one-pointedness. And I'm sitting enjoying the room as a kind of presence with these people and everything. So For me, the teaching is actually bringing me in a feeling of a really great intimacy with these other people. But it's the teaching from the Buddha which is helping me to do this. And one of the things that's making me close to them is the teaching. And one of the things that makes me different than they are is I'm seeking teaching in a different way than they are.

[65:12]

But what each one of us in that pension breakfast room had, have, is we all have the opportunity to decide what our teaching will be, what the source of our teaching will be. And we've all chosen this weekend to look at this teaching, the pure body of reality. So I think it's a good time to stop now. But I would like to suggest that you see if you can develop the skill, unless you already have the skill, to hold in view a phrase like the pure body of reality.

[66:18]

And in this beautiful carnelian center Yeah, it's easy to see that the world is one bright jewel. Or at least a precious stone. Easier than usual. So I guess we should discuss the schedule for a moment. Ich denke, wir sollten für einen Augenblick den Ablauf besprechen. Maybe everyone but Pauline knows it. Wahrscheinlich alle außer Pauline wissen das. Anyway, I think there's going to be zazen for anybody who wants to have zazen at 7.30. Und ich glaube, morgen früh um 7.30 Uhr gibt es zazen. And then we'll have breakfast at 8.30 Uhr.

[67:21]

No, here. We'll have breakfast at 8.30 Uhr. Um 8.30 Uhr dann hier Frühstück. And we'll have four foods for breakfast. Yeah. One of them made by the kitchen and three of them made by the pure body of reality. And we will start the seminar at ten. Is that right? Okay. And we'll start the seminar with a little sitting too. Okay, so I said I'm really happy to see all of you. Thank you. Good night. And thank you for being here in transit. Good morning.

[68:38]

Guten Morgen. I have to... I think it's too early to ask you how you understand what we spoke about last night. But I would like to Yeah, anyway, I'd like you to understand what we talked about. It says in this koan, and I'm actually trying to refer to this koan as little as possible. Although I, you know, I'm still... Yesterday afternoon I couldn't remember which koan this phrase came from.

[69:47]

Christian had asked me to choose some titles. I asked him to choose some titles and he asked me to choose some titles. Because he was doing the schedule, the announcement. So I liked this phrase, so I said this phrase, and then the other day I was thinking, where does that come from, you know? I'm supposed to know what I'm talking about. I didn't know where this phrase comes from. Yeah. It's the only way I discovered it yesterday afternoon, where it is from. I mean, certainly I could have talked about it without knowing where it came from. But discovering it in this koan and remembering the koan, I'm amazed at how... I'm actually surprised at how... fully this koan works with this phrase.

[71:25]

And you know, the nature... I can't tell you, I'm not going to talk about this koan here. I'm talking away about it. Sorry. But the nature of these things is, for me, is every time I haven't looked at a koan for... Some months. When I look at it again, it's like I never read it before. I don't feel completely outside it like I did years ago, but still, what's this all about, you know? And that's good, because it makes me discover the state of mind which the koan is asking me to discover.

[72:26]

And I'd like you to discover the state of mind of this pure body of reality. So, you know, it says in the koan, when gold, in the commentary, pure gold, that has been smelted and refined hundreds of times, To refine it further, you need the forge and bellows of a good teacher. Forge? Bellows is, you know, that you make a fire.

[73:27]

Forge is the furnace. Yeah, we don't have many forges and bellows around anymore. So it means I should be able to convince you or I'd like to be able to convince you of the reality for you of this so-called original mind. Now, as I said last night, if mind has a structure, And if particularly we can structure our own mind, then it's possible to have an unstructured mind. Whether this is completely logical or not is not so important because it is the fact that we can.

[74:35]

Now, one of the suppositions of Zen Buddhism and why it's a quick path and a sudden path is it doesn't attempt, like most Mahayana and Vajrayana schools, to first of all remove obstructions I mean, to some extent we obviously have to remove obstructions, but the main emphasis is not on the removal of obstruction. Or we could say, The main emphasis is on transforming the mind in its obstructive nature.

[75:43]

Here comes a little unobstructed nature into the room named Paulina. But soon to be obstructed. The obstruction starts early. So this unobstructed mind is not a baby-like mind. Okay. If you have an experience of unstructured mind, it is such a refreshing experience. You feel I mean, deeply normal.

[77:06]

Relieved. Released. And it creates the opportunity to deal in a whole new way with mental obstructions. So the emphasis in Zen practice is to, first of all, to practice those conditions which are most likely to help you, cause you to realize unobstructed mind. And the main focus in Zen is to practice these conditions with which it is most possible to realize this non-detached or disabled state of mind. Now, this koan, the phrase is, the monk asks, what is the pure body of reality?

[78:56]

And Yan Men says, a flowering hedge. And the monk says, if so, how do we go on like this? And Yanmen said, golden-maned lion. Again, this is, as it says, household talk. This last night I went out and there was a small group of people engaging in what I call special breathing practice. Yeah, and I looked at one of the adepts who recently returned from Crestone.

[79:57]

And she said, holding up her cigarette, this is the fifth food. Yeah, this is household talk. How could I disagree with it? I might have said, ah, yes, measured but not digestible. Ah, and hardly a flowering hedge. Now, if I'd said something like that and she'd responded with some other smart remark, this is really the same kind of conversation as in the column.

[80:59]

So you don't have to be intimidated by this Kohan-type talk, golden-haired lion. It's just, you have to get used to this household talk. Hmm. But what Franziska said, if I may identify this adept, did not call forth an answer like young men's, a golden, a flowering hedge. So we have to assume that this monk was in a particular, I mean, he really was, it wasn't just some kind of

[82:09]

phrase, this was something he knew well, the pure body of reality. Or perhaps he'd heard the phrase and the phrase, though he didn't know whether he understood it or not, filled his body. And this is a koan I studied with Suzuki Roshi in the 60s. And to various degrees, this phrase has stayed with me since then. So for me it's a household affair.

[83:28]

And it had to be, I think, if we're going to understand this koan, it had to be for this monk. No. As if I'd answered when she said it's the fifth food, if I answer it's measured but not digestible, we know what that means. The point I'm making is that if you get familiar enough with this language, which isn't too difficult to do, there's actually a real conversation going on here.

[84:29]

It's not just kind of, you know, some kind of, what can I say, drama. For example, in the story which I presented to you very often, of Yunyan and Daowu, Yunyan sweeping. Anyway, quickly, Yunyan is sweeping and Daowu comes up and says, too busy. And Yunyan responds, you should know there is one who is not busy.

[85:31]

Now, this is about what I could say, call not sequential stillness, but simultaneous stillness. In other words, usually we think of meditation as something, well, I'm very busy, now I'm going to go have a vacation or meditate, so I'll have a period of calmness. Now, that's great, but you can't search for the calmness of the Buddha only in those periods of calmness. Because in the midst of his busyness, Jungian is saying, there is one who is not busy.

[86:53]

We could call this, let's call it busyness or stillness, let's use those two words. So we can call this dynamic stillness. Now that sounds rather contradictory. Stillness isn't supposed to be dynamic. But let's look at the useful metaphor of water. Water can be still. And the other day after Sashin I went and had lunch beside one of these lakes and first it was rather rough and then late in the afternoon the light flattened out and got bright and almost seemed to flatten out the lake.

[87:57]

And you can see that the lake First was quite choppy and then became still. And so we can say the lake is water, is sometimes choppy and sometimes it's still. And it has these two possibilities or capacities. But even when it's choppy, if you look carefully at the wave, you can see the form of the wave is determined by stillness. The nature of the wave is to return to stillness. If it didn't return to stillness, it would just fly off somewhere, disperse.

[89:11]

So no matter how much you're trying to disturb it, the shape of the mathematics even of that disturbance are always to return to stillness. So that simultaneous stillness, not sequential stillness. Or we could say the dynamic of the wave is stillness. Do you understand what I mean? So in the midst of the most busy wave is stillness always shaping it. And this metaphor is very true of the mind. In the midst of the most active, disturbed mind, the mind is always trying to be still.

[90:12]

So the question is, can you recognize this? Can you feel this dynamic of stillness? Not stillness later when you have time to be still, but right now in the middle of disturbance, can you find that dynamic of stillness? Und die Frage ist jetzt, könnt ihr inmitten eines aufgewühlten Geisteszustands diese Stille spüren? Nicht später, wenn sich der Geist beruhigt hat, sondern mitten in diesem Aufgewühltsein. Now our experience is and the teaching is that as long as a wave leads to wave, And as long as you're, you know, identified with the wind, perhaps, as long as you're identified with your thoughts, it's very hard to know the stillness even in your thoughts.

[91:24]

So, periods of stillness, or zazen, is trying to give you a genuine taste of not just stillness, but the dynamic of stillness. And one of the most, the more you experience not just word leading to word, but word leading to space between the word to the next word, to space between the word to the next word. So the more you have an experience of something like, instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, you have an experience of 1, 0, 2, 0, 3, 0. Now, you can understand this, and if you begin to have this kind of experience, you're beginning to have a taste of the pure body of reality.

[92:49]

No, we could say, is this pure body of reality only something in the mind? Well, that sort of begs the question. Because whatever we experience is only in our mind. And you know how different it can be. Excuse me for using Nico and Beate as examples, but I'm entranced with Paulina. But I'm sure that having this bright jewel of Pauline in their lives has changed things. But is anything really different? You know, the trees are the same, the road's the same, the apartment's the same.

[94:18]

You know, what's really different except there's this bright jewel that they have to change the diapers of? Yeah. Yeah, when the sun comes out, you fall in love, etc. The world isn't different, but it's different. And you, it's useful to recognize that the world is just waiting for us.

[94:45]

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