Anyway, I'm impressed with how well you're sitting. Certainly most of you. And is this microphone okay? You know, I would really like you to know about sitting if you want to.

[01:03]

And, you know, your brain and thinking is very connected with your eyes. And if you want to meditate, you're cold. Maybe we should close that window. If we keep those two open, we can open it if it gets too hot. Just translate it as your half sentence. She's telling me what to talk about now, so it makes it easier for her to translate. Do you have to translate that? She's the power behind the cushion.

[02:05]

Isn't there an expression, the power behind the throne? My mind has gone blank right now. So your brain stalks your eyes? Stalks, you know, like... Not the stalk, like the... If your eyes are moving around and looking at things, There's no hope of quieting your mind.

[03:14]

And you know, we don't have, in English at least, a word for this kind of meditation. Because meditation and contemplation all imply an object of contemplation, an object of meditation. And what you want to do is to be able to just sit and have your eyes looking slightly ahead of you. And your eyes slightly, either closed or slightly open. Slightly open is better. And again, without looking around or curiosity. And when I'm talking so much during this seminar, when I'm talking so much this seminar about Japan, I don't mean to imply that Japan is the same as the Buddhist culture.

[04:42]

but certainly much more relationship between the two than in our culture. But if a Zen teacher in Japan was speaking to a group of people like this, he would be speaking about pretty much the same things. But he wouldn't have to convince anybody of the fact of multiple being. And he wouldn't have to convince anybody of this state of meditation which is not either meditation or contemplation. So I guess I'm... but I'm emphasizing these differences partly perhaps to pique your interest but more to keep you from being afraid because it's easy to have experiences in meditation

[06:17]

which if you want everything to be familiar, can be scary. It's easy to have experiences in meditation, which can be a little scary if you want everything to be familiar. So we often have people coming to us and saying, I felt that, is it all right? Well, you felt that. Why does it have to be all right or not? Who's going to decide that? When we live in such a scientific kind of culture too, we want to test everything and make sure it's okay or all right first.

[07:39]

And that's certainly all right when it comes to new prescription drugs. But it's not always the best attitude to apply to your own experience. And one of the weaknesses of contemporary science is that it ignores the non-repeatable. It sees the world as repeatable. And what's real is only what you can experiment with and repeat the experiment. And that certainly makes a good deal of sense in much of the realm of science. Das ist natürlich sehr sinnvoll auf dem Gebiet der Naturwissenschaft.

[08:44]

But it doesn't make sense to apply that to your own development. Aber das macht keinen Sinn, wenn man das anwendet auf die eigene Entwicklung. Much of what happens to us will never happen again. So vieles, was uns passiert ist, das wird sich nie wieder ereignen. And if you're really in the detail of your experience, nothing ever happens again everything is unique and not repeatable and if you have some enlightenment experience and you want to repeat it you're in trouble and you eliminate other possibilities of enlightenment experiences So, you know, if you don't, if your eyes no longer move with your thoughts, if your eyes aren't checking out your thoughts, then your eyes will begin to see things that aren't included in thoughts.

[10:03]

As I said, in practice you begin to know yourself and willing to know yourself in more ways than language points out. So in mindfulness practice, the practice of bare seeing In mindfulness practice, the practice of bare seeing is to just see without thinking. And you will begin to notice things that you don't usually notice. The space of a tree. The numinous life of a tree. Not just its branches and leaves.

[11:09]

But its shadows, space, its energy. And almost a kind of discourse. In tree language. Not in your language. And again, I think poets and painters are always trying to, they are people who for some reason remain neotenous. Neotenous means remain childlike. And I think we tend to see and feel that way as children, as I've often said. Up until language begins to supply us with the past and future. And watching children pretty closely. I don't think it's when they start to speak that they lose this.

[12:10]

I have to learn the grammar of German so I know when to pause. What you can... what you can say without my finishing the sentence. There's a particular, changing the subject for a moment, there's a particular rhythm to a language and rhythm to a culture that you find that the kind of music and language kind of pops out of the rhythm of the culture. So I have to feel things a little differently here than in the States.

[13:11]

But it's not different in the way, again, going to a place like Japan is. Where I used to go out sometimes in the streets in Kyoto And I would say to myself I'm just going to lose myself in the rhythm of the crowds and the people And I'd let myself be swept along for several hours in Kyoto, not going anywhere. And every now and then people would run into me that I knew. And I'd have to snap out of it because they'd think I was in kind of this walking trance. And I kind of was, actually, in a kind of trance.

[14:17]

But it was my way of trying to learn their culture. It's interesting here, you know, I go in a hotel and the... and the people speak English to me without asking, without trying out German first. So I feel I'm rather clumsy. But in Japan, when I'm in Japan, people speak Japanese to me right away. No one speaks English to me, even though I look American. When I see Japanese people, Japanese people and Japanese people coming down the street, without even knowing why, I'll start speaking English to them.

[15:24]

And they turn out to be Canadian-Japanese or American-Japanese. It's quite clear. I mean, I've also watched foreigners hailing a taxi. And the taxis won't stop for them. And I can walk out and they'll stop right away. Because they know immediately I know where I'm going and the tourists don't. And these differences are so basic the taxi driver can pick it up like that just the way you're in the street. So... So again, why I'm mentioning these things is partly so that they won't be so unfamiliar or scary if you begin to have sort of unusual feelings from sitting.

[16:32]

But I'm also telling you these things to give you permission. Because many, many of these things we notice are just part of our experience. But we don't realize they're important. Or we brush them aside. So one advantage of having a teacher is the teacher can give you some suggestion or hint which allows you to move more quickly in meditation because you know to pay attention to this experience and not that experience. But there are problems in teaching traditional way in the West.

[17:50]

Because it's one of the most common ways to teach in general in Japan and in Buddhism in particular. Is if you come and ask me a question. if you ask a Zen teacher a question in Japan, if the question is, if the state of mind with which you're asking the question represents the state of mind that you're asking about, In other words, if you are what you're asking about, then he will answer the question by hearing it. But if either you're not the question you're asking, or you are the question you're asking, and it's not the direction you should go in your practice, the teacher will just ignore your question.

[19:13]

He won't say no or yes, he'll just sort of kind of not hear it and go on with what he's doing. He would neither say yes nor no, but just keep on whining. And in America, people persist, they ask me again and again, and I have to say, well, and if you lose something when you have to explain why, it's better just not to hear it, because then you deflect the current just slightly. Yes, so in America, people often insist that I react to the answer, but something is lost. It's better just to let it go. And I want to say something about hearing. Hearing is a very important sense in meditation practice.

[20:19]

Because we are so visual and our brain is so visual, and our visual and thinking is strongly connected. As a kind of antidote to that, sound auditory perception is emphasized. And in fact, auditory is the first perceptual realm that begins to have the same weight as the visual realm if you practice meditation. So the first practice in the auditory or hearing realm is not to hear something, but to hear yourself hearing.

[21:31]

And that may be something you do sometimes. But you probably wouldn't know to emphasize it unless you were doing something like practicing Buddhism or meditation. You come much more into the possession of your own experience when you see yourself seeing and hear yourself hearing. So it means you know then you don't hear everything, you only hear what you hear. And as the hearing becomes more your own possession, and not linked to and translated into thinking, for example, if you have an airplane going overhead, don't think that's an airplane, or a polar bear,

[22:43]

Just hear the sound and hear yourself hearing the sound. And when you can do that more, and these bird sounds, these bird sounds are extremely intricate. And you can actually slow them down with your ear. And kind of hear inside the bird sound. It's a great pleasure. And it's not just some kind of neat trick to do. It allows the world to speak to you. And we don't feel so isolated and estranged from this world that we have to kind of force our way around it.

[23:57]

Because when the world begins to speak to us at the level of which we speak to ourselves, if we can listen, you feel so totally familiar and comfortable in this world we live in. It's a kind of profound ease in it. That you may taste it first and touch a little. And more and more you can live in this feeling or know this feeling. Hmm. Now, someone asked me, and several people have asked me to speak about the difference between women's energy and practice in men's.

[25:02]

Please sit in any way that's comfortable for you. Good. He wants to speak a little louder. Oh, you want me to speak a little louder? Yes. Oh, okay. Sure. Thank you for reminding me. Is it too cold by the windows, when the windows are open? Okay. Can we open that other window, too, then? I'm not a woman. I'd like to be. And I sometimes think I am. But everyone tells me I'm not.

[26:14]

In fact, I was swimming with Susan Griffin. And Hazel Henderson, who's an economist. And Susan is a feminist and kind of women's philosopher. And I thought I was just swimming along the pool, getting some exercise. And they stopped me and they said, do you see how differently you're swimming than us? I said, no, I'm just swimming. And they were sort of swimming and I was... And they said, well, you're splashing. You're too much testosterone, they said.

[27:33]

So I'm not... Anyway. So I'm probably all wrong on this. But it's clear to me, practicing with women... is that the kind of key experiences that mark development in meditation practice, women almost always have those experiences faster than men. And I don't exactly know why. But I can kind of guess why, but the trouble is guessing you get into stereotyping men and women. But the men I've seen who also...

[28:34]

get into meditation practice quickly in a similar way to women with certain characteristics, the same characteristics. One, they trust their emotions much more. they tend to feel and trust their feelings and a feeling world more than a thinking world. In the men I'm thinking of whose practice develops in the way many women's does, it's very clear. You can see the difference from other men quite quickly. And they believe what they feel. Men tend to believe what they think in general. And also... they seem to believe what happens to them.

[30:09]

How can I put this? What I want to say, but I don't know how to explain it, is there's more a sense of stopped time in these women and men than in most men. But after a while after practicing for a few years men make more of their experiences in general than women tend to. They give them importance and decide what they're going to do in their future and so forth. To put it real simply, they're more career-minded.

[31:13]

I'll make a career out of this meditation stuff. And then I'll get to sit like Baker Oshie up on the plane. And wear foolish clothes and things. You know, Harry Roberts, who was an American Indian an American, but also grew up and was trained as a Yurok Indian shaman. And one of the things he used to say that struck me was Americans, and he meant Westerners, not himself, though he was all American. Don't believe what they see.

[32:33]

They believe what they think. And if something happens in front of them and they can't think it, they don't see it. And I think that's true. I what? See that's true. I see that's true. And sometimes I like this example that I've mentioned other times of Einstein answering the question of where he gets his ideas from. And this seems to me as much characteristic of his genius as are the various things he thought of. Which as he said, he has a physical sensation which he pays attention to and it changes into an idea. And we tend, as a habit, we tend to screen out physical sensations as a distraction. And he trusted his body enough to think that everything that happened was something that was happening.

[33:53]

So if he had a sensation in his hand or his leg or his stomach, he didn't take an aspirin. He paid attention to it. What's this? And then some idea would form. He didn't screen it out. And being sensitive to your, well, form first of all, of the five skandhas. Form of the five skandhas. And if you stop generalizing about the world, you'll start seeing that when you look at things, sometimes they're brighter and sometimes they're darker. Sometimes they're more precise and sometimes they're less precise.

[35:15]

Sometimes you can feel the space of a, well, you're maybe sitting at dinner and you can see the candlestick and the people with you. And then suddenly all may become very precise. Or very bright. Or you can feel the space of the whole dinner table. Or the objects almost placed like sculpture to create a sculpture. And generally we don't, we think, geez, I had a drink or something. And we don't notice that these reflect a different state of mind. So the first of the five skandhas means to give form its own reality. Doesn't mean just to translate into feelings and perceptions and so forth.

[36:25]

Now I have to tell you again this idea of, you heard me say many times, that firewood is firewood and ashes is ashes. Some of you heard me. But this is an extremely important idea in Buddhism. And it means that firewood is not the past of ashes. Firewood has its own past, present and future. And ashes have their own past, present and future. And as I explained to an owner of a large meatpacking business once, pig is not the past of pork. That's it. Pig has its own past, present and future.

[37:41]

And pork has its own past, present and future. And pork is a human history. It's been inflicted on unwilling pigs. So do you understand what Nagarjuna meant when he said firewood is not the past of ashes? Firewood is firewood, ashes is ashes. And so when you have the five skandhas, form is the first of the five skandhas. Form has its own past, present and future. And form stores your experience. Does that make sense? Many things that happen that you see in these sounds carry are ways in which your brain or your consciousness or your memories are carried.

[38:57]

You don't carry it in here. You carry it in the relationship between you and hearing the sound or you and seeing the leaves or you in a certain freshness of this moist day. That was too long. Oh. But I think most people understood. Yeah. It's... Anyway, you heard this, didn't you? And the same with feelings. That feelings have their own past, present and future. And if you want to practice meditation, and develop this kind of being I'm talking about this possibility of being that you don't translate feeling into thoughts you find ways to know feeling through feeling and again this is where I started off I think women do this better than men

[40:04]

And it makes a big difference in meditation practice. It's fine to know feelings translated into thoughts. And so forth. But it's also good to know thoughts having its own past, present and future. But it is also good to remember that thoughts have their own past, present and future. And to try, initially, though this idea applies to many things, as you begin to notice your feelings and refrain from turning that noticing into thinking, see if you can know your feelings through feelings like seeing like you can do bare seeing just seeing without thinking about seeing the dynamics of psychological health in Buddhism are very involved in this process okay I think that's enough for a while

[41:16]

Let's take a break. And the sense of chanting this is that you say each word And you give each word its equal weight. And you try to chant so that the... You try to chant each word so that the overtones of each word join with the overtones of the other person chanting. So when you hear a group of monks chant this well, they start out chanting each word

[42:33]

Sie fangen damit an jedes Wort zu chanten. And then the words begin to kind of get very quiet and gentle sounding. Und dann werden diese Worte plötzlich sehr ruhig. And overtones start taking over. Und die Obertöne fangen an hervorzukommen. And near the end the words become more distinct and the overtones kind of come back. Und am Ende werden die Worte wieder sehr genau und die Obertöne gehen weg, go back. And I don't think we're going to achieve that this afternoon. But we might. And if you chant well, the other side of the Heart Sutra is in English. And if you chant well and inspire me, tomorrow maybe I'll tell you something about the Sutra. She doesn't like my sound.

[43:51]

So just the ones who already... I'd like first to chant this just for the ones who already know how to chant it. And the rest of you just follow and look at each word and get the pronunciation. And when you chant, you're supposed to hold this up like that with your little fingers And with your thumb, yeah. And the same as if you were doing this, that height. No, sorry. We ran out? I thought we had sixty people, but it's obviously a few more. Okay, are you ready?

[44:54]

I'll do the title. Maka Hanyaharamita Shingyo Kanjizai Bosatsu Gyojin Hanyaharamita Jishoken Goan Sankhaiku doi saiku yakucha rishi shikifui kukufui Shiki soku zei kuku, soku zei shiki ju sokyo, shiki yakubu nyo zei shari,

[46:10]

SHI SE SHOKU SO FU SHO FU METSU FU KU FU JO FU SO FU ZEI KO KU CHU MU SHIKI MU CHU SO GYO SHIKI MU GEN GI BI ZE CHIN NI MU SHIKI shoko misoku omugen kainai shi mu ishiki kaibu mumyoyaku mumyojin

[47:16]

Naishimuro shiyakumuro shijinmukushumetsudomu shiyakumutokuimusho Satsang with Mooji Thank you. Satsang with Mooji

[48:37]

Shri Hanya Ramita Zedai Jinshu Zedai Myoshu ZE MU JO SHU ZE MU TO DO SHU NO YO MI SAI KU SHIN JITSU FU KOKO SETSU HANYA HARA Satsang with Mooji [...]

[49:53]

Is there anyone here who doesn't read English? Well, I don't think we can translate this on the other side. So I'd like to just read it aloud to you and you can follow it in English. The Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva When practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita perceive that all five skandhas and that's the word I used earlier perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. O Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. And on the other side, shiki is form and mu is emptiness.

[51:11]

And so that mu is the same mu as in the mu koan. Does a dog have a Buddha nature? Mu. It's the same mu. O Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. The five skandhas. That which is form, that's the first. That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. O Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. Therefore in emptiness no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness. Five skandhas again. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind,

[52:17]

No color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind, no realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness. And this no realm of eyes and so forth is the same kind of practice I'm speaking about when I say hear hearing, see seeing. No ignorance and also no extinction of it until no old age and deaths and also no extinction of it. No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no cognition, also no attainment. With nothing to attain, the bodhisattva depends on prajnaparamita and his mind is no hindrance. Without any hindrance, no fears exist. Far apart from every perverted view, she dwells in nirvana. In the three worlds all Buddhas depend on prajnaparamita and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.

[53:24]

Therefore know the prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra, is the great bright mantra, is the utmost mantra, is the supreme mantra, which is able to relieve all suffering and is true, not false. So proclaim the Prajnaparamita mantra. Proclaim the mantra that says, Paragate Parasamgate Bodhisvaha. Now when you chant in this way of chanting, you try to do it with your hara, like everything else. And you try to have the chanting come up like a lifting sound in you. An important idea in Buddhist practice is an idea of rising mind rather than sinking mind. I mean rising mind is like you're running to get to some place that you're late for dinner.

[54:48]

And you slip and fall in a puddle. And sinking mind is, oh shit. I've got to go home and change my clothes. And I'm always late. I'm that kind of a person. I should have known I'd do this. And rising mind is, oh shit, I'm going to look hilarious at this party. Look at this, God, just like me. And rising mind isn't just an attitude, it's also a kind of energy in you. So we want to chant it with that feeling and it coming up through us. And it's not a performance.

[55:54]

And you're not trying to do it right. So if you sneeze during it, sneezing is part of the chanting. And if you clear your throat, you clear your throat as part of the chanting. You're not sort of excluding what doesn't belong. Everything belongs. All right? Okay. Let's try it together. I say the title. gift of a few rules. Naka Hanya Haramita Shingyo Kanji Saivo Satsugyo Jin Hanya Haramita Jishokenbohon

[57:21]

Sankhaiku dho'i saiku yakusha'i shi shikifu'i Kupu, Kufu, Ishiki, Ishiki, Sokusei, Kupu, Sokusei, Ishiki, Juzo, Gyo, Ishiki, Akubu, Satsang with Mooji [...]

[58:46]

ko mi sok ho mu gen kai nai shi mu i shi kai mu mu myo yak mu Mūmyo jinnai shīmūro shīyaku Mūro shījinmūku shūmetsu Dōmu shīyaku mūtoku imu shō Satsang with Mooji mukhege mukhege gomu kufu anvisai kendo musoku gyonehan

[60:05]

Sanseisho Butsuwe Hanyahara Mitako Tokuwa Nokutara Samyaku Sambodai kochi anya hara mita sedai jin shu sedai myo shu se mu jo shu se mu to do shu no jōi saiku shinjitsu fukoko zetsu hanyahara mita shūsoku zetsu shūwatsu yate

[61:30]

Satsang with Mooji Did we get that magnificent chanting on the tape? We'll sell the tape, Oliver. That was so good. I have to give some talk about this sutra tomorrow. In fact, it was so good. If you want, I'll come back next year and give a whole seminar on the sutra. Maybe you'd like to take a little stretch. I'm not going to make you all religious yet.

[63:35]

Now that I've got you chanting, I'll start burning incense. That was fun, chanting. And I actually have never done that before, so that was interesting for me to do it. And it seemed that it was good for you to do it. I mean, no problem. And I would like to leave the cards with you if anybody would like them, if we have enough tomorrow.

[64:42]

And then you can get acquainted with the sutra if you want. And if there's not enough to go around, maybe couples could only have one. Excuse me. Also when you, just in chanting, when you inhale, It will make your chanting a little different because you've got more air and more energy.

[65:49]

And don't try to hide that in the chanting. Trying to make each syllable the same. So when you inhale it, kanji, zaibo, satsugyo, jin, hanyara, mitaji, whatever you're doing goes into the chanting but you don't have to emphasize it whatever is there and also if you try to chant at the same speed it will actually speed up slightly as you go along Because the more we're together, the faster the same speed will be. Does that make sense? Now, I have a number of people who have asked me some quite interesting questions, and I'd like them, either anybody to ask a question, or those people who have already asked me, to repeat their question.

[67:13]

Also, einige Leute haben mich ein paar sehr interessante Sachen gefragt, und ich möchte jetzt bitten, die nochmal zu stellen, die Fragen, oder auch wenn jemand anders eine Frage hat, der möge sich jetzt bitte zu Wort melden. Yes, Beate. My question was, what is the difference between mindfulness and awareness? One at a time. Okay. Beate asked, what is the difference between mindfulness and mindfulness? Mindfulness is a practice to develop awareness. I'm aware of something. Mindfulness is a practice to develop awareness.

[68:28]

I thought it was awareness. Awareness is a practice to develop awareness. Awareness is a practice to develop awareness. Awareness is a practice to develop awareness. I love these discussions. I don't know what's going on. I'm sure we're all learning something. Martin, please help me. So you don't have exact words for this awareness? No. Oh, really? It's really hard to translate awareness into general. Presence. Well, awareness in English is not a good translation of what it means.

[69:30]

Because awareness that is meant in Buddhism also means presence. So there is a problem here, which is that in English even, these words have the quality of technical terms. In other words, in... Nearly 30 years now of Buddhist practice going on in the States. On a societal scale, there's been a development of a number of English words. which are now used in a rather special sense.

[70:40]

Sometimes I forget that when I translate. So, awareness is an example of that. And it's used in a way that's different than it was used twenty years ago. Okay. So mindfulness is a practice to develop awareness. And... My translator went on vacation. What? With the word mindfulness, yes. I know, I've gathered that. May I say something? Yes.

[71:42]

I think you can use both German words when you talk about mindfulness and awareness at the same time, but it's difficult to translate when you explain one with the other. The other, I understand. It's very difficult to convey that. That's interesting. Well, let's use the English words mindfulness and awareness. And so why doesn't she say everything in German but say the words awareness and mindfulness? And we'll use them like technical terms like dharma, karma and so forth. Yes? Mindfulness, geistesgegenwart und erinnerungsgegenwart. Das gibt es im Deutschen auch kaum einen Unterschied. Ja, aber danke. So, So let me try to define mindfulness and awareness. Mindfulness is... The word mindfulness in English means the most basic Buddhist practice.

[72:45]

Zazen is a subset of mindfulness. Yeah. zazen is a kind of mindfulness practice and really you have to also have not only mindfulness but also mindfullessness and mindless and mindless fullness And don't mind. Mindfulness practice means to identify your mind with your immediate activity To identify your mind with the identifiable physical activity

[74:31]

So that if you're walking you are a walking person. And you're paying attention to your walking. And as much as possible you have no mental activity except saying to yourself I am walking. And paying attention to your walking. And that's true of whatever you're doing, sitting down, walking. Yes. It also means to be... bring your... to bring a sense of detachment to emotional feelings.

[75:57]

This is more complicated than I thought it was going to be. To bring a detached attention Two emotional states. All right, so walking is the most common example of physical activity. So let's just use anger as the most common mental state. So you bring a detached attention to anger. Now the word detached in Buddhism actually means detached yet not separate from. It doesn't mean detached in the usual sense of detachment like you're estranged from or separate from.

[77:06]

Into thicker pillow. And the best example of that I can give you is the juggler. A juggler is juggling. And you have to suspend your vision a certain way. So you don't look at any one ball. And you're not attached to any one ball. But you certainly are not separate from them either. Yes. So it's really not so different than that, that ability to just look at all the balls at once but not focus them.

[78:05]

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