He's my student and disciple in the United States, who I've taught the most and who has most realized the teachings. He has quite a past. He's been a One or two or three leading drag queens performed on stage in the United States. When he used to dress as a woman, he was actually the girlfriend of one of the leading mafia gangsters. And he's really seen everything. And Lenny Bruce, the comedian, turned him out to heroin, and he was a heroin addict for a long time.

[01:08]

During the 60s, he used to be kind of a spiritual head of a commune. And he was the one who would take any pill, any drug that anyone gave him to try out if it was okay for the rest of the house. So people say, here's some new stuff that's on the street, Tommy. What do you think? Oh, okay. So it's amazing that his immune system works at all, alone, under the stress of AIDS. But at some point in there, he stopped fooling around. He's a tremendously loving, compassionate person.

[02:26]

And at some point he saw that really his friends needed another example. But the whole scene he was part of was going downhill. As they got older and the drugs got more serious and stuff. So he decided to practice that. So he showed up. Yeah, about, I don't know exactly, maybe 67 or 68. So we practiced with Sukhya Rishi for a few years.

[03:27]

And when he showed up, we had him taken to the doctors and his stomach, the doctor was listening, what's your stomach doing up here? Well, anyway, he'd been in a car accident, drunk and thrown out of a car a great distance and never gone to a doctor. So for years he'd been walking around with his stomach up here. It's really hard to practice Zen and concentrate on your heart when you can't even find your stomach. So I remember having him go to the doctor and helping him, but I don't remember how he had his stomach jiggled down in the right place. But anyway, he was the kind of shining light actually in the Zen Center for many years.

[05:02]

He took care of everything. Whatever you put in front of him, he takes care of. The gardens, the grounds, flowers start to bloom. He took care of the kitchen. Contributed a lot to the development of the Zen diet. And took care of whatever the building, the guest room, whatever, he would just take care of it. And kept taking care of all his old friends who began to show up and and so forth. I gave him a transmission about two years ago, I guess.

[06:08]

He helped start the first Zen Buddhist meditation center particularly in the gay community in the United States. And one of the people who started the gay spiritual movement in the United States, too. Which has particularly become strong during the AIDS epidemic. Anybody who's head of a meditation center, this meditation center that, you know, we started, I helped some back in the 70s sometime in the gay community. And then these young men began coming to him asking him to help him die and so he started the hospice.

[07:14]

So anyway, he heads up a hospice now for people with AIDS as well as a meditation center. Did I mention it to you already? During the seminar, during the session last year. Anyway, the spirit there is quite good, you know, quite open and they make fun of what's happening. They laugh at themselves, which is a good spiritual sign. And they call the hospice, Ihsan's failed hospice, because no one dies. Because they rescue people literally from the street and they get people who doctors say have only a few days to live and then they live three years. One of the practices we do there is to make sure that every person has someone with them 24 hours.

[09:00]

We have volunteers who come and sit beside them or hold their hand. You wake up in the middle of the night, somebody's there to get you a bedpan. And one of the practices we do there is that every patient is really taken care of around the clock. There's always someone there. There's a voluntary helper program. So if someone wakes up in the middle of the night, then someone sits on the bed and holds the hand or brings a bedcloth. And the presence of, of course, someone there just seems to make all the difference in the world for people. And they also call it, you've heard of Club Med? Yeah, they call it Issan's Club Dead. They all laugh about it. Because some people do die. But you know, he... I began spotting back around 19... I don't know exactly now.

[10:16]

I remember 79, 80. But people were One or two people died for no reason in this little street behind the Sun Center. They were sick, but we barely knew them. They were just gay guys who lived behind the building. One had a cold and then died, and another sort of flew and then died. This was before the AIDS acronym had been coined and so forth. So something made my antenna go, something's wrong. So I've actually been lecturing fairly soon after that. There's some disease going around that has epidemic possibilities.

[11:17]

So Ihsan knew from the very beginning about it because soon it was very apparent. And Ihsan was celibate for many years. And there was this street kid he used to take care of whose brother died on the street. That's very strange. He's a very strange young man. He does things like rollerskate 200 miles to go through the street. And he's quite crazy, but he has peculiar insight into koans, and he used to come to my koan seminars.

[12:18]

But anyway, his name is James. His son and James got carried away one night, and they had sex. And three months later, I tested positive. But I'd never in the five years or so since then, was with me actually in Santa Fe at the time I tested positive. But I've never once in these five years heard him ever say he wished it hadn't happened. Ever get mad at James about it. Or ever get mad at himself for this one weekend. He just completely accepts what's happened without any regrets.

[13:34]

I think I'd complain a bit. I'd say, shit, that was stupid, you know. Anyway. He says, this has been my life, why shouldn't I have it? These are my people. The center, by the way, is not just gay people, but it's mostly gay people. Six or seven of my students head up the hospice in the center. And four or five of them are not gay. So it's just open to anybody. Remember Philip from last year? He runs the Zendo hospice. Okay. I'm telling you about him partly because I think he would like it if, while he's in the hospital, he knew this session was giving him some thought.

[15:05]

And when I finally got through to him last night, I told him that it took a while to track his number down. And get through to the ward and then his room. And then I... But when I did talk to him, I told him we'd concentrate the sashina on him. That I'd ask you to... Because now it looks like his main doctor, he's got a very good doctor, supposedly the world expert on AIDS-related lymphoma. Another former student of mine who always said when he left

[16:08]

living at the center to, well, he still lived at the center, but to a medical school. When he finished, he wanted to start a clinic to work with four people, and Zen students were nearly the same. A lot of people are idealistic, but then in the end they don't do it. But Rick's an unusual person, so I thought, well, maybe... And now he's not the lymphoma doctor, but most of his practice is concentrated on people's days. He keeps almost daily care of his son. But according to Rick, he has, Rick Levine, he has about maybe six, could be two or three years, but maybe probably less than six months.

[17:54]

So I have to think about what I can do to help him and his students right now. So that his son is in the teaching lineage and has a disciple, which you need to stay in the teaching lineage, you have to have one disciple. So a disciple of mine is also a disciple of his. And I'm going to complete the teachings with him, but we're going to do the ceremony with his son while he's alive, if possible. So he's in his son's lineage, though I'll do most of the teaching. and that is that uh... you don't have to keep you know that the activities and that i think it's the only someone who couldn't do this to him so that's uh... it was just the same distance and so i have to give finds get some instructions to the two of them in particular and so much as it isn't but i think that uh... that's the sort of uh... and i think you can find some suggestion and i'm just watching that's great too

[19:31]

for his son to teach right now, and a way for his students, in particular one student, to support his teaching function. To find a way for his students, especially for the one student, to support his teaching function. exists within a person in the midst of their personality and chokha. And the teaching function is something that we could say is being laid down in a person, mostly without their realization. If you're just practicing ordinary daily practice with a teacher in a practice situation, your attitude is right in your daily life and in practicing.

[20:36]

You're absorbing teaching in a way that you don't know how to use yet and won't come out for sometimes many years. And it takes years, but once this teaching function starts to be manifest, it takes years then to then perfect the personality and so forth. His son has become rather well known for phrases been saying the last few years. Don't wait, he says to his students, don't wait 20 years to reside in the breath body as I did. But sometimes it takes 20 years before you can actually reside in the breath body.

[21:54]

So he's a teacher and he's got his ordinary personality which is trying to deal with the pain and the medicine and the sickness. And then you've got everything that goes with being very sick, the reactions to AZT, the reactions to chemotherapy, the need to sleep, having no energy, and so on. So what the students have to learn to do, find out how to do a particular one, is how in the midst of that to liberate the son's teaching function. So even when he's very sick, he'll have a way to teach.

[23:18]

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting for you to hear about this as an example of practice and somebody practicing. I wish in the session there was in a way time for us to have some discussion. I get probably as tired as you do hearing myself. So anyway, right now, would anybody want to say something and comment about your son or anything at all?

[24:19]

From here? Do you want to say that in German? I think that if he just has the feeling that he's being supported by his friends and by his teacher encouraging students here even to support him that's a lot and if you in the sense of seated Buddha If you can have any sense of this person, Issan, or those of you who've met him, you'd have the feeling of seated Issan sitting inside you. Okay. We can do Makahanyapin singing in the spaceship. You can chant the makahaniya for him, sentiently.

[25:42]

You don't usually chant sutta for somebody unless they're almost dying or dead. So he would get a, oh, shit. I'm on the way out. I said to Isan last night on the phone, I said, Isan, are you going to leave us? We're not ready for you to leave us. He said, Oh, Roshi, I still have work to do. I'm not going to go yet. I still have a couple of things to do. The main thing is to complete this teaching with this student. Anybody else? Well, as I said yesterday, I've been thinking about how to continue, as a constant subject for me, how to continue teaching in Europe.

[27:08]

And I've been wondering why I can't seem to... Usually I talk 40, 50 minutes during sessions. So I've been wondering why I can't get what I want across in an hour or so or less with the usual concentration that I feel in sessions. Sometimes being fairly stupid and overlooking the obvious, I forgot that third to half the time is taken up with translation. So it's very trouble getting it across without making you sit too long.

[28:13]

And in any case, it made me think I should do something else. So I think what I would like to do is offer some other kind of teaching time other than the seminars in Sashin for the more regular committed students. So anyway, what I'm thinking of after the Sashin, you can tell me what you think. It's maybe having the Dharma Sangha have members in Europe. And maybe from the members there might be some people who are also students.

[29:26]

Maybe a student would have to have done say three seminars or one session or planted a tree or something. So then I might do something like take two weekends in a row or four or five days in a row. and try to actually give in some detail on a limited scope some teachings for students. Maybe we would have zazen on early morning and up till noon and in the afternoon have study and discussion and so forth. And do something similar for members would be a little different than the students. So I might do that several times a year, so separate from the seminar session.

[30:32]

Because you can't all come to the meditation center's monastery in Crestone. And I think many of you have real capacity for practice. insights and attitudes that's necessary to make it work. So I'd like to work with you and giving you what you need and finding ways to teach this way in your... That's the end of that subject. And the next subject, which is to start the tea show, maybe it is too late.

[31:49]

I'll start a little bit and we'll see. Maybe I'll finish tomorrow. Let's see. Now in the story of the rubbing the tile and sitting meditation and making a mirror, there's the line if you are studying seated Buddha or sitting Buddha it's the same if you are studying seated Buddha you should know that the Buddha is no fixed mark So I want to discuss this no fixed mark. When you know something about some phrase like this no fixed mark you have to recognize that despite the public image of Zen

[33:33]

It's extremely esoteric. Or at least requires special knowledge to sort of get what's going on. But it's a kind of compassionate esoteric. Esoteria. But it's a kind of with emotional esoteric teachings. There are many reasons for this, but the most important reason is that the teachings should be made accessible to the beginner in the same way as to the adept. Okay, so the Buddha of no fixed mark, let's call the Buddha of no mark, can be a fairly simple practice, because what would no mark mean?

[35:02]

Yes. What would no mark mean? I find it difficult to say no mark in comparison to no fix mark. Yeah. So how would you say no house? No dog? No mark. [...] It's a good mood for Zen. Okay, so no mark. You can say no fixed mark. Now, what would that mean? Anybody. Come on. Yeah, that's okay. Everything's changing, permanently changing. Yes, and what does that mean? What does no fixed mark mean?

[36:22]

The thing that grasps. Yes, but more classically. Yes, good too, but classically. Emptiness. And as the heart sutra says, no marks, emptiness. Anyway, it means emptiness. So emptiness is fairly simple. Well, you know... Yeah. So, but no fixed mark or no mark also means... the attempt within Zen to bring together all the practices in a single practice. So, for example, in some contrast, in Tibetan Buddhism you have many practices you do.

[37:24]

And so, at the other end of the spectrum you have pure Land Buddhism in which you have really one simple practice. Or fairly simple practice. Like chanting Namo Amitabh Butsu, [...] or the, you know... Now Zen is somewhere in between. Now one of the practices, there's a group of different names for practices which are in the same territory of the Buddha, no fixed mark. So there are different exercises that are within the same territory of this Buddha or fixed point.

[38:44]

Ah, bonjour. Good afternoon. Being that this is the last lecture, I'm struck by the feeling that we have more work to do together. At least some of us have more work to do together. Because I'd like to And because you're prepared, you have different levels of preparation for Sashin and different levels of experience. So to really integrate what the Sashin and what we've been studying together,

[39:47]

I think it requires a little different work with each person who wants to continue. But I'll try to. Let's see what we can do today to at least finish the koan about rubbing the tile. Zen Buddhism in its simplest stories tries to contain all of the teachings. So since it's a practice of direct realization or a sudden practice it refuses to put its teachings into stages. so whenever a particular stage of the teaching is presented it's combined with realization stages so that if you understand the particular stage or really understand it it's the same as realization

[41:37]

So it makes unpacking these stories, you know, you could spend next year unpacking this story. And Tsukiroshi was a master at this. Because his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind can be read by almost anyone of any level. And yet you can take one little section if you want and unpack it for a few months. How are you? You're all surviving, aren't you? Don't give up now.

[42:39]

It's because we had a good time last night. And it's almost over. I'd like you really to sit with concentration up through as long as we sit tonight, which I don't know how long that will be. Somehow the last night I kind of lose control of the schedule. I can't seem to remember what it says in the last night. But don't worry, I'm the softy, Roshi's. Okay, so you know the story up to the point that are you practicing sitting seated meditation or are you practicing seated Buddha?

[43:41]

And then there's a little conversation there about don't grasp and don't reject. Don't try to take hold of things, don't try to reject things, and so forth. And then Matsu says that Matsu heard this teaching like he was drinking nectar. Like he was drinking ambrosia. And then he asked, how can I concentrate so as to merge with formless absorption? How can I concentrate first? Concentrate and understand. So as to merge with, be inseparable from, formless absorption.

[44:57]

Realize Zen practice is, for Giannis for instance, the last is emptiness or formless absorption. So formless absorption also means in Zen practice the uncorrected state of mind. So you have a problem here already. How do I correct myself so as to merge with uncorrected state of mind? Are you okay, John? I'm okay. So how do I concentrate so as to merge with formless absorption?

[46:15]

That's a very basic question any astute beginner would have. Any alert beginner? Who actually looks at what he or she is doing. I would say alertness means to know what you're not. to know what you are, too. People who aren't alert always agree. They think they understand very quickly. They don't say, I've never heard of that before. Oh, wow, that's different than I usually think. That's alertness. Maybe it's a kind of courage to realize that real thinking has consequences.

[47:34]

Messy thinking doesn't have consequences. I think T.S. Eliot has a line, mess, something like messes, messes of imprecisions in perception. So what's characteristic of Matsu is very alert. Or Dung Shan, for example. He read, when he was a teenager, the Heart Sutra, no eyes, no ears, no nose. And he said directly to his local teacher, what does this mean, I have eyes, ears, nose?

[48:35]

He didn't say, oh yeah, no eyes, no ears, no nose. So his teacher sent him, said, oh, you're too good for me. You should go see such and such a Zen master. So how should I concentrate so as to emerge with formless absorption? Okay. And then Danyue says, your study of the mind ground Or your study of the mind field is like planting seeds. And my expounding of teaching my expounding of the essentials of reality is like moisture from the sky.

[49:51]

And you have a sense of the way, so you will realize. Okay, so then Matsu asks again. If the way has no form and no color, has no form or color, how am I to see the way? He had another question right at the center, puts himself right in the center of the question. It's kind of like taking a vow. Put yourself right in the center of the question with consequence. And Nanue knows if he answers, it's going to affect what he does.

[51:00]

When people ask a question, they're going to think about whether the answer will affect what they do. aren't going to draw out a powerful answer. When it's clear that the question will have consequence for you, then it draws out a powerful answer. If the way has no form or color, how am I to see it? He's trying another gate. The way you phrase the question is an attempt to practice in that direction. How am I to concentrate in order to merge with formless absorption?

[52:10]

That's like he's approaching the city from one direction. he sees a gate in the city wall it says formless absorption he says how am I to concentrate to take the secret potion that allows me to get through this gate he says your study of the mind field is like planting seeds. And my expounding of the essential of reality is like moisture from the sky.

[53:15]

So, maybe that got him a little closer to the gate, but he thinks he'll try another gate. And Cohen's often they say, you know, we talk about the capital city. Capital city means a city with its walls and gates, and how do you get into the capital city? So he tries another gate. If the way has no form or color, how am I to see it? He says, the reality eye of the mind field sees the way. Reality eye of the mind field sees the way. Okay, you understand all that?

[54:31]

That's what I've been trying to talk about now. The dynamics of Buddhist psychology is the joining of your personal history with spiritual vision. It's not thought that just understanding yourself is very interesting, or at least is not a fundamental goal of Buddhism. Buddhist psychology is to transform the person or have realization occur. You join your personal history with spiritual vision. This is the seated Buddha and the seated person. So it means, as I said yesterday and last night, you have to create, find from your own resources what your spiritual vision is.

[55:54]

Now this spiritual vision is shaped by vows. And you already have, as Beate pointed out last night, a lot of vows built into you. So you have to have antidote vows. Buddhist practice is basically antidotes to the habits you already have. But it's really not... Buddhist practice, Zen practice is really not morality. It's not saying, don't do this, do this, it's better. It's more like saying, what you do is fine, but do it from another level. So what you're doing is you're transforming in practice, in the way I've been talking in the Sashin, you're transforming the feeling Skanda into realized awareness.

[57:18]

Now, realized awareness means something like the potency of being. Or maybe it's a bit like a morphogenetic field. If you know... Hmm? Sterling, Rupert Sheldrake's ideas. The idea of it, not necessarily his biology, but the idea.

[58:20]

Or maybe another way to say is it's like, if any of you follow the dispute about whether water has memory, it was in the journals about homeopathy. The idea was sort of that, again, I'm just presenting as an idea, not something true. But if you put molecules of something in water and then remove the molecules, the water retained the memory of the molecules even though there was no measurable quantity of the molecules left. Now, whether that's true or not has not any concern to me. But Buddhism has an idea that awareness works sort of like that. Now, the whole idea of fields, F-I-E-L-D-S, is a very dominant idea in Buddhism.

[59:57]

And almost pretty much not understood, accepted as a fundamental idea in the West at all. and very little is understood or accepted as the fundamental ideas of Buddhism, even in the West. In natural science there is this wave of matter-duality, But we tend to think that if there's A and B really what's there is A and B and there isn't much in between. And thinking and feel says there's something in between. So it's like if I have something happen here and I have something happen here

[60:59]

We tend to think our way of understanding the body would be something has to be passing through here if these two are related. The Buddhist way of thinking is more like there's a field between here and here. No one tries to prove this is true or false, it's just that's the way thinking goes. So if you the sense of this is that if you practice with your reconstitute your personal history as I said last night and so that your personal history through its reconstitution by being brought into another kind of mind

[62:15]

and a particular process of zazen mind, shall we say, of reliving it or re-looking at it, you create a field of pre-conceptual lived experience. sexual lived experience. Or maybe I should say lived, realized experience. Then you do have the question here, what turns an event into experience? many events occur but they are experienced differently and you can notice in your own recalling as memories come up that certain memories come up very powerfully, like certain dreams come up very powerfully.

[63:51]

And are connected with a vividness and brightness usually. Some of these memories almost like occur in a bubble of light. We would say that these are spiritual memories. These are memories that are part of your spiritual history. And they're often memories which occurred when you realized something for the first time. Memories on which your life turned a notch. I think you can feel the presence of those memories in the background of your life, actually.

[65:04]

So, how did those memories occur? So, how do the memories appear now? Buddhism says that they do not only appear because you are ripe for a change in your life or because certain circumstances were stressful or there was pressure on you but because those events occurred in a certain state of mind. They were characterized by a certain kind of awareness that went along with the event. So at that moment you say you had a spiritual awareness or a Buddha awareness. How do you recreate this awareness as the awareness of your life?

[66:16]

See, Buddhism is because it doesn't have the virtue of a book of revealed teachings. You are the book of the real teaching. And you have to study yourself like a text. Because if there's truth to Buddhism and this life, it's in you. So you have to study yourself. So Nanyue says, your study of the mind field of the mind ground is like planting seeds now do you understand that statement better? so you study your own mind ground and where is it?

[67:22]

it's in your memories and in the present state of mind you study your own mind ground and that study itself is planting seeds Just like the way you observe or study the self affects what self is revealed. And the way you study your own personal history affects what teachings arise from that personal history. Because your experience and your history leads to certain conclusions. There are certain results of your personal history. Okay, how do you look at your personal history so drops of wisdom come out, excuse me for being poetic, drops of wisdom come out of your personal history rather than drops of shit?

[68:41]

So you've got to give up looking at yourself as not very good or not very interesting or wonderful or whatever. All that's vanity. And it produces a kind of contaminated water. Like most of the water around these days. Now, again, I want to make this, put this on a simple level too. If you want to be complete, you practice completeness in the details of your life. How can you be complete if you do everything incompletely?

[69:47]

All those little incompletelys add up to incomplete. It's like simple, man. It's so easy. Okay, so when you breathe in such a way that your breath is bringing psychological stuff with it, aromas of confusion with it, the magic power of breath as a spiritual vehicle is contaminated. Now, many of you who practice Zazen will count your breath. And will notice your breath just goes on. And there's various, sometimes I spend a whole Sashin just on various breath practices. But just mentioning one.

[71:01]

Is when suddenly you feel that your breath breathes itself. It's no big deal. It happens to you sometimes. But it feels great. suddenly you feel quite independent your breath is just breathing itself now there's two teachings in this one is that you're beginning to leave yourself alone if you're going to practice uncorrected state of mind you have to begin to leave yourself alone You're going to concentrate so as to merge with formless absorption. That concentration has to be characterized by leaving yourself alone. As again, anyone who's practiced at all notices As soon as you get somewhat concentrated and you notice it, you're no longer concentrated.

[72:26]

That's because you don't yet have the skill of leaving yourself alone. Or you could say you don't know how to leave yourself alone in the third skandha. Because you can maintain a kind of awareness of concentration in the second skanda, feeling skanda, but you can't in the perception skanda. Because awareness arises in emptiness, in form and in feeling, but awareness won't arise in the perceptual skanda. So as soon as you look at awareness through the perceptual skanda, naturally it goes away because it doesn't exist on the perceptual skanda.

[73:34]

By definition you've changed levels and by definition awareness isn't there. No, I could give some footnotes to that, but I won't. Footnotes, but that does remind me, take good care of your feet. A lot of consciousness is in our feet. And it's very important to not wear socks when you're sitting. Unless you're freezing to death. And you may have also, like Neil has had these sitting robes made. The real trick of making, of sewing Japanese and Chinese style is to make a collar which doesn't touch the back of the neck.

[74:52]

It's one of the hardest things to learn, because there's a certain trick on how to do it, at least in Japanese sewing. And the reason is that when the energy body is in the process of awakening you don't want the back of your neck touched. So your neck is supposed to be open, your feet should be quite breathing. Men shouldn't wear tight underwear. All affects the way your energy works.

[75:58]

So it's even built in, nobody knows in Japan why all collars are made to sit back off the neck. So you want to earn in Zazen probably just to take care of your body and feel all parts of it equally. Okay, so this practice of a simple practice of noticing that your breath breathes itself. If you want to study that, you study the feeling that goes along with breath breathing itself. You notice the feeling or state of mind you have when breath breathes itself.

[77:07]

And then you turn that into a little jewel That's why the Buddha has jewels often in his or her hand. Then you put that jewel in your treasure box. And later in your Schatzkiste. Maybe we should do a Schatzkiste seminar. Anyway, you put this jewel in your Schatzkiste or whatever it is, treasure box. Yeah, man legt es ins Juwel, in seine Treasure Box. And then next time, next time there's the possibility of breathing, breathing itself, the memories there in your Treasure Box.

[78:09]

Okay, so you can learn, when you notice something, you can learn something if you remember the feeling of it in the feeling skanda and feel it in your body. So anyway, this is the main kind of memory practice that's used in Buddhist practice. Now the other, in addition to leaving yourself alone, with studying how you leave yourself alone when your breath breathes itself, let me say one more thing about leaving yourself alone.

[79:14]

You begin to let every part of yourself alone. Because all parts of you have a mandala-like quality, meaning they're self-organizing systems. So you leave your heart alone. You really have the feeling that your shoulders are doing their own zazen. Hi, shoulders, are you ready to do zazen? Are you ready to do Zazen? No. So, when you sit down and do Zazen, you ask each part needs.

[80:18]

Are you ready to do Zazen? Yes. On the sixth day of Sashin, you ask me that? Etc. Okay, then this other aspect is breathing. Is when your breathing breathes itself, it's no longer carrying emotional and psychological baggage. The spiritual breath is breath which doesn't have psychological and emotional baggage. So this sense of residing in your breath body is also residing in a breath body that you leave alone. A breath body that is its own mandala. So studying the mind ground is planting seeds.

[81:50]

Okay, so the way that you study, the way Matsu studies the mind field or mind ground actually brings forth teachings. From your own personal history. Brings out the spiritual dimension of your own personal history. So again, if certain memories have a quality of mind or awareness or almost a bubble of light to them, A question in Buddhism asks, you are being the text of Buddhism. How do I bring this bubble of awareness into my daily life? Coming close to the state of mind which, when you look back in your memory, you see certain events in a kind of bubble of light.

[83:10]

It's a little bit like you were taking the feelings, Gandha, and awareness And dissolving your life experience in that awareness water. So all your experience is available in this awareness. So that's why I called it a pre-conceptual experience. territory of lived, realized experience. Now, this is what Nanyue means when he says, the mind, the reality I, And this is what Nanue means with I.S.I.

[84:15]

or I? I.Y.E. I.Y.E. And this is what Nanue means, the eye of reality? Yes, the reality eye of the mind field sees the way. And this mind field is a mandala and has its own, shall we say, primitively, self-organizing awareness. And in this way you're more and more able to turn yourself over to your spiritual history, your spiritual reality. So you could also call this highly developed intuition. It's kind of what we call flashes of insider intuition, developed as a way of existing. So intuition or flashes of intuition or when a scientist breaks through something in a dream

[85:24]

It's thought to, we would say in Buddhism, that it arises from the pre-conceptual matrix territory. of your realized experience awareness. And that's... That's realized through the practice in this koan of seated Buddha and sitting practice and your seated person coming together in one mandala of personal and Buddhist, personal and spiritual vision. and this is the practice of you as Buddha and Buddha as you so as I said earlier in the Sashin is it you who decided to sit or is it Buddha who decided to sit

[86:37]

You both decide. And I hope you both continue as one. And I'll be very happy to meet you. Okay, now... I've been practicing since I began taking vows for almost 30 years now, 29 years. And in the last 20 years or so, my understanding hasn't changed so much. But my ability to recognize my own practice my ability to recognize my own practice has changed a lot.

[88:01]

And my ability to manifest the practice and articulate it has changed a lot. And these teachings, some of these teachings I've given you during the session, I've never expressed before, I've never given anyone before. So I'm very grateful to you helping me do this. Thank you very much.

[88:56]

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