Good evening and welcome. I feel very grateful to be here with you tonight. It doesn't seem to be working. Well, maybe it's good if this is not recorded. I have no idea what's wrong. Well, if you can't hear me, feel free to come closer.

[01:04]

So... I came here tonight with a question. I have no intention to answer it, but let's say to surround it with words, to surround it with a story, to circumambulate it. maybe something opens up for me, for you, for all of us together. I'm a little bit shy about this question because it's actually a big one. I phrased it, how can we speak about love and why should we? In my experience,

[02:16]

Love has always been a challenge. Love opens me up to a reality that's larger than my comprehension. In Zen, we sometimes say... Can I wait? You're being recorded, go ahead. Words don't reach it. They will now. Maybe just for the duration of his talk, let's think about this as a statement about the experience of love. It, being, person, The reality I'm in love with, it's larger than the words I have to describe it.

[03:23]

Sometimes speaking about it, it's like catching a fish with oily hands. So sensing the ineffable in our love, we might resort to silence. And this can be good. can be good for what? However, in practice, we also say it's not in the words, yet it responds to our inquiring impulse. If I put this differently, there's the urge, a wish, to express one's love. Actually, love needs it. And then in doing so, we might simply say, wow, or stem, or sing, or dance, or compose a poem, tell a story.

[04:37]

And while we tell the story, we already feel that we are not in control of it. Something eludes us. It's like a fish we held only a second ago. It leaves back into the stream. Then, empty-handed, we might feel like a pool. And this is how I feel tonight, like a pool, trying to stammer about zaza, a practice I really love. It was only a few weeks ago when I sat in Zazen in the morning that an old story came to me. It's like 1,200 years old. I had heard it before, and I think many of you know it too. But this time when it came to me, I heard it differently.

[05:44]

I heard it as a story about my being in love with Zaz. Chaochan asked Elder De, the Buddha's true reality body is like space. It manifests form in response to beings, like the moon in the water. How do you explain the principle of response? De said, like an ass looking in a web. Chao Chang said, you said a lot indeed, but you only said 80%. Der said, well, so what about you, teacher? And Chao Chang said, like the whale, looking at the ass.

[06:47]

As I said, this story came to me in the morning in Zazen, and I heard it. has a dialogue about the dynamic relationship between our life and Zaza. What we can talk about, I would suggest, is this overlap, the meeting between our life and Zaza. And I will try to say a few words about this, even in Vicky. Before my mind's eye, I see a rural landscape, a donkey, blinders for his eyes so that he's not distracted from his task, his trapped tooth being. Day after day, the donkey troughs in endless circles around the well, hauling water up from the deep to nurture the surrounding

[08:04]

Of course, seeing reminds me of the archetypal situation of Sisyphus, who was condemned by the gods to haul a large boulder up a hill. Once he's up, the rock rolls back down. And he has to do it again, day after day, throughout eternity. Now a question appears. What is it for you? Well, I could easily identify with his donkey. I often feel like an ass, stupid, stubborn. Wearing the blinders of my own fixed views, I go astray from the way.

[09:08]

directly before me, as Dogen puts it in the Fukun Sazeng. And then I find myself again and again following the same trodden path of karmic patterns. I circle in seemingly endless rounds of samsaric life. By the way, the donkey wears blinders so that he has the impression of following a straight path. If he really understood that he was walking in circles, he would go mad. However, that's only part of the story. Because after all, this donkey, who in many world cultures, in China, Germany, and I also think here in the United States, represents stupidity. and submission to the powers of fate.

[10:10]

Well, he has very deep and patient brown eyes. These eyes look into things. Maybe he has an intuition that he doesn't fully understand. And then, one day, he stops. I don't know how he unstraps himself from the beam but he does, and walks over to the well, stops again, and stares into it. We come to practice, I believe, with a more or less clear knowledge that something in our lives is lacking. And we have This is really miraculous in my eyes. We have a knowledge, or perhaps it's more a feeling or an intuition, that the cure is to be found not anywhere outside, but right in the middle of the feeling of lack.

[11:24]

Same is true for the donkey. By stopping, he simply refuses to follow the karmic vector of his mind. He already has some sense that what appears in front of his brown eyes will not give him any lasting satisfaction. At that moment of stopping, his eyes begin to transform into wisdom eyes. Thus, he reverses the direction of his karmic rod. As we say, shines his light inward and illuminates the self. So instead of simply following his karma, he begins to study it. At that moment, I believe, the seed for the unfolding of awakening has begun to sprout.

[12:29]

I think I want to tell a little story from my own life that I think, in retrospect, illustrates this process. Most of you know I spent most of my life in Germany. And as long as I remember, I had a favorite spot, an old Cistercian monastery, which was 45 minutes away from my hometown. is located among the rolling red hills of the Rhine Valley in a beautiful and culturally rich landscape. The location of the monastery once marked the frontier of the Roman Empire. The Romans introduced grapes, and cultivating wine was one of the major activities of the monks who later lived on this stretch of land. It's called Edelbach Monastery.

[13:38]

It was founded in the 13th century, exactly at the same time when Dogenzenji founded Ahij. Its Romanesque church is a powerful expression of the deep spirituality of that age, and it's still standing. I remember how happy I was every time I visited this place with my parents. The monks had long gone. The monastery was actually secularized after the Napoleonic Wars in 1809. I must have been six years old when we first visited. I didn't believe that the monks had lit, very thick, high stone walls surround the compound. I remember how I circled these walls.

[14:40]

I knocked on them and put my ears on the stone. I was convinced the monks were already hiding. And I also came across a deep well. For me, the kid, the walls were very high. And I had to climb up to look into it. I did. And I was overcome by a feeling of happy ecstasy. I remember the cold air coming up from the deep, the scent of moist earth and decay. At first, it seemed totally dark down there. But when my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I saw a glimmering, shifting light, like Quicksilver on a rock. It moved slightly, and when I stared into it, I finally saw the shifting reflection of my own face.

[15:52]

Something pulled me down into this darkness. I remember feeling anxiety and longing, an unfamiliar, contradictory mix of emotions. Over the years, I felt it every time I went back to this place and stared into the well. I imagined donkey in our story is overcome with similar emotions. He senses a secret that he imagines lying at the bottom of the well, maybe a treasure, and starts looking for it. Or he simply has a question. What is this? What is down there? In Zazen, we enter the deep We look into what's simmering underneath the surface of appearances.

[17:04]

Zazen people are well-sterers. We look into the depth of our body-mind and begin to see its shape-shifting nature that is like a reflection on the bottom of a well, like the moon in water. Case three of the blue clip record, there's a poem about this whale seer. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. What kind of people were the ancient emperors? For 20 years, I suffered bitterly. How many times have I gone down into the blue dragon cave for you? This distress is worth recounting. Clear-eyed, patched road mugs should not take it lightly.

[18:13]

So here's what welled out for me. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. However long our life lasts, What kind of people were the ancient emperors? You and me. For 20 years, I suffered bitterly. We inquired for the truth of our discontent. How many times have I gone down into the blue dragon's cave for you? We stopped and studied the cell. This distress is worth recounting and compassionately share this process with others. Clear-eyed, hand-stroke monks should not take it like you and me just don't hold it.

[19:21]

But what does this donkey actually do after he stopped? Well, maybe after 20 years having suffered bitterly for the first time, he becomes aware of what is closest to him, his body and his breath. I would say tonight in Zazen, we enact cultivate stopping by positioning ourselves in a very exact physical posture. We sit upright in the immediate present, not leaning to the right, not leaning to the left. In this way, we do not lean into our imaginations about the past or our imaginations about the future. We do not lean backward, do not lean forward.

[20:34]

In this way, we neither touch nor turn away from what is happening right now. Of course, my stubborn, dunking mind constantly wants to lean into imaginations, wants to get away or grasp things. The work of Zaza is to always convert to the physical posture to adjust and re-enter the immediate present. Focusing on the physical posture, relaxing into it, allows the mind to come to rest. Actually allows the mind to open up and receive all that is happening. In my eyes, that's the Zen way of practicing shamatha, of course, in addition, we might follow our breath, count our breath, or take out any other object of shamatha practice.

[21:57]

When we practice in this way, It has very wholesome effects, difficult emotions, which are always connected with clinging to thoughts about past and future, quiet down, and may even disperse forward. It's important to me to say that calm abiding does not lead to a mind that's simply quiet or somehow blank, rather In come inviting, everything is happening. But in addition, our consciousness opens up to the four immeasurable qualities of a bodhisattva's mind. Compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. I remember a few years ago, I was, I don't know why,

[22:59]

But I was very happy when in a passage in the Sandi Nyambhalachana Sutra, a very complex chapter about shamatha and vipassana practice, I came across the following statement. Manjushri asked the Buddha, how many kinds of shamatha are there? And the Buddha replies, there are four kinds. immeasurable joy, immeasurable love, immeasurable compassion, and immeasurable equanimity. So this is my danki understanding how sitting zaza, the simple activity of sitting zaza, fulfills our bodhisattva vow to save all beings. Practicing shamatha, sitting in the immediate present, open up to the four immeasurables.

[24:08]

Then, when we get up, these wholesome qualities saturate our activities, touch the minds of the beings we meet. And they, in turn, keep transmitting these qualities, and so on, and so on. I feel it's like throwing a pebble into a still ocean. Reverberations of perceptivity just continue endlessly. And I also want to say, I'm not speaking about any future or idealized practice. This can happen right here, right now. Just open up to the immediate present. It is not the whole story of how we untangle ourselves from blinders, beams which bar us from freedom and karmic pattern.

[25:31]

The donkey, now in doubt with calm, compassionate, and joyful mind, is ready to enter the web and descend into the blue dragon's cave. a very still gaze, he looks into the reflection at the bottom of the well. But also, it's kind of important to me to say, he becomes aware of the deep darkness which surrounds these reflections. I'd like to say, playfully, this is the donkey staring into the well phase of Zazek. Dogen calls it the study of the self. We become naturally mindful of everything that appears in the body-mind. Our mindfulness can either be cultivated according to traditional teachings, or we simply sit and watch how everything has its time, how things well out, abide,

[26:50]

and cease. I also want to say what I personally do not find mentioned in traditional teachings of mindfulness is that all the objects of our awareness are embedded in darkness. In other words, if the time is overly infatuated with the reflections of his own image at the bottom of the well, he might overlook the darkness of the walls that surround them. What is this darkness? I don't know. Here I think I begin to stand up. But I feel that to open up to this question, open up to this question, is to open up to the whale staring at the donkey.

[27:52]

For lack of words, I want to call it the dark matter of consciousness. This darkness is not a void, but it's the unlimited aspect of our mind. It's a rich ground from which the mind's objects get reflected and into which they are laid down again. Putting this into words, of course, sounds very realistic. However, the light, the light of objects and the darkness, the dark matter of consciousness, they are related to one another like front and back foot in walking. In other words, They mutually ended. Poet David White, good name, wrote a beautiful poem about the opening up to the dark matter of consciousness.

[29:03]

It is called The House of Belonging. And I'd like to read it to you. The House of Belonging. When your eyes are tired, the world is tired also. When your vision has gone, no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark, where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you're not beyond love. The dark will be your womb tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.

[30:12]

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement your aloneness to learn. Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. So looking into the deep, looking into the darkness, Our Kodak, myself who identifies with him, might not yet understand that it is time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. After all, all of the karmic rounds we have been following for so long is very strong.

[31:15]

Staring into the well, we might try to grasp something to give us relief. Of course, what we find is a reflection at the bottom of the well. So we grasp it. It becomes natural to us. We make it into an independent self. I actually think, at this point, we might encounter one of the true pitfalls of Zen practice. Especially if we have been able to cultivate a mind of shamatha, we might grasp this reflection as it feels so peaceful now, joyful and full of love, and think that the work is done. Another ancestor, Dungshan, He was the teacher of Chao Chang, who came up with the Danki Koan.

[32:25]

Dongshan was enlightened when he looked into his reflection in the stream. So he too was a well-sever. Dongshan composed an interesting poem about the confusion that can arise when we look into the reflection that comes up and the mind will. It goes like this. A sleepy-eyed Grandan encounters herself in an old mirror. Clearly, she sees a face, but it doesn't resemble hers at all. Too bad, with a muddled head, she tries to recognize her own reflection. So, it could very well be that our donkey tries to recognize or tries to grasp this shapeshifting, quicksilvery reflection at the bottom of the well as his own self.

[33:39]

Tries to make the strange and miraculous into something knowable. Could this be true for most of us? Sitting in Zaza, even if we already see that all things are constantly changing, we still might try to get a hold on something. Like drowning men and women, we grasp what's in front of us. We grasp what seems closest. the reflections of our own body-mind. I can only speak from my own experience, but I find this phase can be considerably painful. We might be quite confused about who we are and what objects are.

[34:44]

At that time, it's very beneficial to ground us in calm abiding. Sometimes, in deep stillness, a feeling of terror can well up and subvert our mental stability. Then we need to come back to our pastures and breath and cultivate shamatha. When we have reestablished shamatha, we can take a renewed look at the reflection on the bottom of the well and our tendency to grasp it. When we sit in the immediate present, there is, so to speak, no time to grasp. Then our wisdom eyes mature, and we realize

[35:48]

that what we see moment after moment is consciousness unfolded. This consciousness unfolds like a bottomless well, like a gushing stream. Objects appear in it, sense of self appears in it, and sometimes quite painful, most likely painful sense of separation between both appears in it. But now, with a stable mind, we can also see or have a sense of the imaginary nature of this unfolding. But still, who then looks into things? And what is this staring back about? I would suggest that David wipes dark, but the night has eyes to recognize its own, his mind, looking at Ma.

[36:58]

Suzuki Roshi spoke of wisdom, seeking wisdom. Staring to the well, the well stares back at us. What does this process teach us? Well, for example, that the Buddha's true reality body is like space. It manifests form and responds to feelings, like the moon, the water. And that means denies, the whales, your true reality body is like space. Bottomless, without the fixed soap. Now it can dawn upon the donkey that all his life he has been haunted by a mere image, a mere reflection.

[38:04]

I think at this point, his treasure turns into kind of freedom. His treasure store opens, and he can use it at will. Will he return to water fields? maybe. But if he does, he will do so with a renewed vision and a sense of purpose. Zazen does not make us whole. Rather, it reveals the reality of holiness, of completion, that is always given place. Zazen's pasture fulfillment within a life seems to be unfulfilled without it.

[39:08]

After all, Dogen says, immersed in enlightenment, you yourself are complete. So the purpose of my talk, of course, was to encourage us to practice Zaza. Some of you already have it in your life. So please, please, keep it well. Thank you very much.

[39:47]

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