Yeah, well, I'm told, someone told me that there is a schedule and this is the last day show. How could I give a last day show? I don't know. Well, give it a try. Michael McClure, the younger beat poet. Ja, Michael McClure, der jüngere Dichter. He says, he wrote, praise be to the surge of life for which there's no answer. Ja, er sagte, gelobt sei, praise be to the surge of life for which there's no answer. And he said, there's no form but shape.

[01:08]

I didn't think that would cause a problem, but now I see that it could. And... There's no logic but sequence. Now, there's something to that in terms of how do we enfold our life in meditation and mindfulness. Yeah. You know, I'd like to just sit here and sit with you for the 40 minutes. I suppose I could. But it's cozier than having to talk. Ja, ich würde am liebsten einfach mit euch 40 Minuten sitzen.

[02:20]

Das ist angenehmer, bequemer als zu reden. But I looked at the schedule this morning. It says Taisho, so... Okay. Ja, aber ich habe den Tagesablauf angeguckt und da steht Taisho. Doesn't mean I have to do everything the schedule says, but... But anyway, so last... Yesterday I spoke about how the practice of mindfulness The cultivation of mindfulness bears fruit in meditation. But how now maybe I should speak about how the cultivation of meditation and mindfulness bears fruit in our daily life.

[03:23]

So that's what I'll aim at today. Okay, now Michael McClure is several, it's interesting, the beat, the so-called beat movement. The first line I knew, Michael's an old friend of mine. Yeah, I met him first in 50, 1957 or something like that. Before some of you at least were born. Before my translator was born. Just one year. A little teeny baby and Michael was... Anyway, yeah. So, not yet a baby. Okay. So anyway, Michael was, I remember, a line, he used to get in a car and he'd be driving, he'd say, here we go out into the bop neon night of America.

[04:47]

Ja, ich erinnere, wie er Auto fuhr und sagte, ja, hier gehen wir los zu dem neon durchleuchteten Auto. Where are you going? Bop, bop, neon, night of America. What does bop mean? What does it mean? It's music. Bop, I mean, you know, some... B-bop. B-bop, yes, like B-bop. Also, zu dem bop, neon, beleuchteten Nacht. Oh, yeah. So anyway, for some reason, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder already from the beginning was. Yeah, Allen Ginsberg and Dick Schneider. Gary Schneider from the beginning was. And then Michael McClure. They've all become Buddhists. I don't know why.

[05:48]

But maybe the Bob Neon Knight is something like the surge. Praise be to the surge of life. The surge of life. Praise be to the surge of life. To honor this surge of life. And it has a shape, it keeps taking shape, and it has sequence, but it doesn't necessarily have logic or form. So we look at what shape it has, but then we may give it form, too. But, you know, I don't know what Michael intended by these lines particularly, but it's not, it's in the same territory as to complete that which appears.

[07:04]

And it's not unrelated to how do we give coherence to consciousness. Okay. Now tomorrow we have, in the afternoon or as early as possible, I'm asked to do it as early as possible. So it'll be somewhere between two and four. Or maybe at 11. Oder vielleicht um elf. I don't know. We'll see how I do tomorrow. Wir werden mal sehen.

[08:07]

Okay. And so I will give a name, lay initiation, ordination to, I think, three people, right? Ja, werde ich eine Laienordination durchführen, eine Initiation, und werde drei Leute einführen. And they will take... Refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Or give definition to their life through Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Yeah, but why don't we all give definition? definition to our life through Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I mean, everyone asks, how do we bring this into our daily life?

[09:10]

Well, why not start with an intention to Define your life through Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Now, if I ask myself that question right now in this tesho, as this tesho, I don't think I can do justice to it just in this next 40 or 50 minutes. But if you want to bring some shape or form into this surge of life, Ja, aber wenn du da irgendeinen Rahmen, eine umrissigende Form in diesen Drang nach Leben dem geben willst...

[10:27]

Just each day, your life takes shape somehow. And if you don't let that happen, then you ought to. That's one good thing about doing zazen. In the morning. Yeah, we just sit down. We give form of the posture to our body. And that's pretty much all we do. That's ideally all you do. Just give the form of the posture to your body. And as much as possible, as I've said, leave yourself profoundly alone. Or let your life day take shape. Yeah, let it take its own shape. And you can kind of like encourage it along with your breath.

[11:59]

Bringing attention to your breath. Now, somebody asked, you know, again speaking about Ulysses and James Joyce, Yeah, someone asked him, you know, you're always talking about this book you're writing. And you're always talking about it in terms of such bodily terms. What about the mind and the... ideas and so forth. And Joyce said, there would be no mind without the body. So it might be a good idea, and it would certainly be a yogic practice. To see if during the day you could bring the body into the day.

[13:09]

You have no choice about it, actually. You might want to have left the body in the bed sleeping while you did your day, but it doesn't work. Sometimes I feel when I first arrive I left my body over the Atlantic or something. Or vice versa. But let's make it something intentional. So there's kind of general mindfulness and maybe particular mindfulness.

[14:10]

And maybe you can give some particular concentration to something. I don't care, the wall, the flower, your breath. Sort of to jump-start mindfulness. Do you have jump-start? Okay. Okay. Jumpstart mindfulness. Nobody's ever said that, I think, before. Yeah, so you make an effort to really bring your attention fully to something. Yes, I would say the craft of practice.

[15:13]

Yes, a little intention is needed. So you bring attention to something. And that's what activates mindfulness. And if you, you know, why not take Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as a presence in your day? I mean, you may feel it's a little goody two-shoes. I'm sorry. Actually, that phrase occurred to me this morning, so I said, where the heck does that phrase come from?

[16:15]

I had to look it up. It's attributed to Oliver Goldsmith, a nursery story. Yeah, in the 1800s he wrote, no, in the 1700s he wrote The Vicar of Wakefield and She Stoops to Conquer. Not that you have to translate that. But anyway, he wrote a book, supposedly, The History of Goody Two-Shoes. Goodie two shoes. Two shoes, yeah, right. I think I'm actually going to get it for Sophia. I hope it's got good illustrations. But a goodie goodie is someone who's always too sweet and nice and virtuous.

[17:22]

So you may think, oh, I'm not going to bring Buddha, Dharma, Sangha to my life. It would be too goody-goody. I feel bad and baddy today. I feel bad and baddy today. Yeah. But to heck with it. Don't worry about that. Just why not Buddha Dharma Sangha? But what the heck is Buddha Dharma Sangha? Yeah. Well, Dharma is to be present in each moment, arising moment. So you get a feeling for that. Just bring the clock of your mind and body into your breath.

[18:32]

And Sangha is how you see other people. How you feel about other people. Yeah, the way, as I always say, you can feel so easily open to babies, but it's so hard if you're open to a lot of adults. Yes, it's so easy to open up to infants, but much more difficult to open up to adults. Just imagine me as a little baby. Or Frank. Or Frank. And then when he... He's not so bad when he's grown up. It's not so bad when he's 44.

[19:33]

Look at me, I was wanted. You know, no. What feel people's presence and shape and not so much the form they project. Yes, feel this presence and... Is it like an auric? Presence? No, presence is clear, but shape is sort of different. Yeah, well, don't worry about it. Just say shape in English. ... [...] If you said something has a particular shape in English, it implies it has a shape. You could say form. But if you say it has a particular form, it means it's got something that goes from past to present to future that carries its shape.

[20:42]

If you just had a blob that just kept changing shape, you'd say it has no form, but it keeps changing shape. Like a cloud, it's changing shape, but has no form. In English you'd say, the cloud, oh, it has the form of an elephant. But when it has no form you can identify, you just say it has a shape. It's not an important distinction. In German, I don't find the right word. It's interesting how some languages, even closely related languages like English and German, don't make the same distinctions. It would be interesting if form is a German word and shape is a French word.

[21:50]

That might be the problem. Yeah. Or just the feel of your elbow or arm on the desk or table, breakfast table or something. So you take a few minutes, three or four or one half minute or ten minutes, five minutes. And you really get this joy. As Joyce said, there would be no mind without a body. So take some time to ground your mind in the body. And the body in the physical location it's in.

[22:51]

Yeah, and as I said, in Zazen you can have this feeling of bringing attention to the posture in your breath and holding it there. And you cut off thinking, discursive thinking. And awareness pops open. So you get the feeling of that in Zazen. But now at breakfast or on the way to work or something.

[23:52]

You stop for more and bring attention to your physical location in the world. And for a moment you stop the discursive thinking. And let this sense of awareness, this spatial feeling, open up. And, you know, I suggest trying some things like this. That are rooted in your meditation practice. But that you can bring into for a moment or... A few moments, a few minutes.

[24:56]

And then see if, and just, you know, then just do your day. But also see if you can feel the presence of your body as self throughout the day. This material stream. There's a piece of music I particularly like by Steve Reich. And through Alan, I have a copy of it. Thank you, Alan. And it's called Different... The one I particularly like is called Different Trains. And one train is America before the war and another train is a train in Nazi Germany during the war.

[26:01]

And the third track is after the war. And it literally runs on two tracks, these two parallel trains. And I don't know the proper musical terms, but there's these repeated short riffs on a violin. Yeah, and the physical feel of the violin, the body of the violin. And there's a train quality, a train whistle quality.

[27:09]

And you have the repeated refrain of the conductor, you know, saying, express train to New York, express train to New York. New York to Los Angeles. You don't have to translate it. The doors are open. Yeah. And literally the tracks and the violin and the voices, the physical voices, carry in an intense... How do you say it? Incantation. Incantatory? How do you pronounce that? Like an incantation. Help me, Alan. It means like a chant that puts you in a trance.

[28:11]

Let's call it that. All these tracks and the sounds that... And, you know, as well, classical composers borrow folk tunes and things. Even in a folk song, you can often hear, just sung, you can hear the fiddle in the background and the way it's sung. What I'm saying is that the physical instruments of music carry the music.

[29:14]

It's not just in singing and in your mind. If you hum a phrase from Beethoven or something, that's really only possible with the whole history of music and musical instruments which have made such phrasing possible. No, I'm thinking of this also in relationship how a zendo or a chanting or bowing before the lecture carries something. And I know numbers of people who, you know, they're kind of lost in their life, and somebody was just saying it the other day to me, and they come into a Zendo and they suddenly feel at home.

[30:29]

What is the physical form that makes at least some people feel at home in it, even though they've never encountered it before? So what I'm trying to say is that the more you can bring a sense of the physical form of your life into your mind, your presence, your activity, as by jump-starting it, Or by reminding yourself?

[31:34]

With your breath or your arm on the table or whatever? Feet on the ground or sitting in a chair? If you can keep bringing the sense of the body and the breath into your activity during the day, Also, wenn du dieses Gespür für den Körper in deine Aktivitäten während des Tages bringen kannst, you open a road or a track, dann öffnest du für dich einen Straßenweg, einen Gleis, for the mind and body of Zazen, für den Geist und Körper des Zazens, to come into your life. Your body in a way becomes the musical instrument which allows the music of meditation to be played during the day in your life.

[32:42]

It allows meditation to bear fruit. in your life. Well, that's about the best I can say without another hour. So that jump starts us in bringing meditation practice into our daily life. That kicks you to bring the meditation practice into your everyday life.

[33:44]

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