A feeling of your behavior. I don't know. It's so hard to say these things. a feeling of your behavior as touching the world. Okay, and third is patience. And patience you can also add, you know, it's patience dash listening, the ability to listen. And it also means patient with the causes of the world. Patience to let things happen. It also means the patience to endure, but more deeply it means the patience to look at something and let it happen to you.

[01:04]

Most people, when they ring the bell first in service, you're supposed to start zazen with three hits. So there you go. That's not bad, actually. But that's okay. But generally, they're not letting the bell, they're not hearing the bell. They're hitting it one, two, three. But you'd usually hit it and you feel the bell for a while and let the sound happen. And then at a certain point within the sound, you hit it. When you try not to use your hand, you try to let the The stick just hit it.

[02:27]

That's just an example of letting things happen. So in this sense of wholeness, I'm emphasizing these teachings as they emphasize, point out, that differentiation that leads to wholeness. And effort, we talked about that last night, a smaller group of us sat and talked for an hour and 20 minutes after the seminar. And effort means not only the ability to make effort, But to know what the world is in which you're making effort. You can't make effort if you don't know kind of world you live in.

[03:41]

As I said last night, if I want to push Neil a little bit or make an effort to... I have to know Neil is there and I have to know where to put my hand and so forth. So effort is also a study of your view of the world. And then meditation, of course, is this yogic experience which allows you to enter these territories. And finally is wisdom. Prajna. Which means... Prajna is sometimes described as all-knowing.

[04:51]

But that means more like to know things from many points of view. but also to know things from their own side. Sukhya used to say that, and I couldn't, you know, one of those things he would say, and I couldn't get exactly, I could hear it, I couldn't get exactly what he meant. You should know the tree from the side of the tree. I barely knew it from my side, so you know that. So, but it's not really in the... a teaching like that isn't in the words. And you have to wait until suddenly you realize that there's not many ways to say this, and this is one way to say it, but it's not accurate.

[06:07]

To be complete, the parts have to be complete. But what are the parts? Each thing you do. Okay. So if I pick up this bell, again, it's a series of separate motions. Well, It's like a child burning things. I'm going to pick up the bell. So I have the feeling I'm going to pick up the bell. That's complete. Other feelings don't come in. So, and then I move my hand to the bell. And then I give the bell, I listen to the bell a minute, even with my hand, and I feel the coolness of it.

[07:10]

Because I don't just pick it up, you know. I move my hand to the bell. I touch the bell. You know, you can see in Western... versions of calligraphy, people will do kind of Japanese style calligraphy and they'll take the brush and they'll go, you know, something like that. Yeah. And it's either made with one mental image or it's made with one physical image. But there's no such thing in Japanese or Chinese calligraphy. Always, the first motion is the brush touches the paper. then you start to move the brush then you move the brush then you stop the brush then you lift the brush that's actually what you do and so all those parts are noticed and it makes a very different line

[08:24]

It touches the paper. That makes one kind of ink splot. You start to move. That spreads the ink a little. Then you move. Then you stop. And then you lift off. And there's many ways to lift off. And the way you lift the brush away from the paper changes the whole look of... Everything exists in parts. Do each part completely. That's basically what the word Dharma means. To see the parts of the world and give each part its due or each part its completeness. Okay. Now... That's somewhat related to this practice I gave you, of intactness.

[09:32]

But the results are a little different. Okay. So... I think you should have a break, so I'll just finish this long sentence. So if you practice in the sense of doing each thing completely, so if you practice with a sense of completeness in the body-mind, intactness, And you can find that any way you want, like how your posture is or pausing for a moment or whatever. Or making your eyes soft in your head. Or creating a kind of awareness in your scalp and cheekbones. There are various ways. And so you And you begin to notice this language.

[10:46]

This language speaks to you about intactness and allows you to feel intact. Okay. So when you start feeling intact, Everything around you feels intact. When you look at something, it's like you are looking at your own body. I couldn't exactly explain why. But the street, you can feel the hardness of the street or the floor. And it comes up through your legs as a kind of energy. And it's also soft. You feel your own softness in walking. And the ground doesn't feel separate from you.

[11:50]

And the car, you know, the car or the trash bin or whatever, it's like you're looking at something that belongs to you. It's very strange. You do this simple little practice of attackedness, And pretty soon everything looks like it belongs to you. Like it's part of you. And the more developed sense of that is it starts to look at you. This is pretty close to what Suzuki Roshi meant by seeing things from their side. You feel the other person or the wall or the whatever looking at you as if you were doing the looking. So this practice of intactness begins to create an actual sense of wholeness in the world. And this sense of wholeness is present with us just like the primordial mind is present with us.

[13:05]

In fact, this sense of wholeness or intactness is one face of the primordial mind. The sense of wholeness which is always with us is one of the three parallel lives I mentioned. A parallel identity like reading a novel that goes with us. But we really don't know what it is. It's ultimately mysterious. And you feel its mysteriousness as you sometimes feel it belongs to you. And this sense of wholeness or mysteriousness can actually be where a very deep sense of your continuity as a living being resides.

[14:23]

So this sense of intactness becomes a sense of wholeness Intactness with the world and a sense of continuity with the world and continuity within your own life. And self and personality arise as particular expressions and manifestations of this wholeness. And this experience is developed through practicing patience, generosity, recognizing how we exist, and so forth. I think that's enough for now. So let's take a break till 4 o'clock or 4.10 maybe, 4.05 or something like that.

[15:25]

Then we'll finish. I'd like to end with sitting, but not right now. We have a little time. I think that after what I've just said, I don't know if it makes sense, I would like to have any carpentry that's available. Some of you haven't said anything yet. And maybe you're holding back for the best or the last or holding back hoping the seminar disappears.

[16:49]

So, but I would like to have something from you. We do the last two points after effort. They still come. Oh, you mean in the six parameters? Meditation. Meditation and wisdom. She stopped at effort. Oh, it's a good place to stop. Do you know what he said? Upstairs, you mean? No, right, in the break.

[17:49]

I told you, yeah. I said, but I don't understand anything. I have come to listen. Those words. Yeah. Show me the way. Mm-hmm. Anything. So, my problem. Well, I admire your patience at staying here for two days. LAUGHTER You are American. I paid for it, so... LAUGHTER LAUGHTER Well, it sounds like you're like the person who puts too much money in the parking meter and then won't drive his car away. But what else did you say about the feeling of the strangeness of the world?

[19:13]

You're an anesthesiologist. Yes. Maybe we should do an act together. The two of us. And we could take turns putting each other to sleep. And then we could announce, isn't the world strange? So what could I do to make this more useful or understandable?

[20:17]

Does anybody have the feeling that what we've been talking about does speak to you or does make some sense to you? Yeah. And you're a beginner too, right? Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, I realized that you can come to these conclusions, to some of them, if I'm lucky, through practice. Yeah. But they make sense as being a goal to where you want to go. I mean, so I understood that. Okay, good. Want to say it in German? So we can work, all three of us can work together. You understand, you don't understand, I don't know what's going on. Okay. Yes.

[21:33]

For me, it's like a language of which I didn't know one word when I started. And there was no dictionary, there was no teacher. The only thing is that I felt the intensity, and maybe by means of the intensity, My time I learned the one word or the other, very slow, not very distinct, coming from Thara and coming to me. For me it is a little bit like when I look back on the last year, as if I had approached a language from which I knew not a single word, and there were no people either, and there was no Amazigh. And through the intensity of the experience, Do you mean when you first began to start listening to yourself or when you first began?

[22:36]

Just one year ago, yes. And so now it's beginning to make more... come together. It makes more sense. Yes. Well, I began senseless. Really? Yeah. And I had no problem. To say that, I had no problem beginning senseless. It's funny, I could feel that you understood from the beginning. Well, my feeling may be, but not my... Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm trying to make it so simple. Or maybe I'm trying to make it complex enough to be useful.

[23:37]

Yes. For me now the problem starts every time I have a seminar with you. I start to think I'm free from that kind of truth. When I start my ordinary life, I miss something very much. So it's a kind of vacuum. I try to fill it up with meditation or reading, but, you know. Yeah. Do you want to say that, Muntoish? In this sense, I don't... I'm speaking with you, with everyone here, But I'm also trying to teach you the language I'm speaking as I'm speaking it.

[24:52]

And I'm hoping that then you can start speaking this language to yourself. And letting the world and other people speak to you in this language as well as the usual language. That's my hope. That's my hope. Yeah. Ich würde gerne ein bisschen darüber hören, wie man mit Energie beim Meditieren umgehen muss. Und ich habe den Eindruck, da fehlt mir irgendwas.

[25:54]

Und ich habe mal gehört, dass man die Energie fließen lassen soll, also die Arme runter und nach unten nehmen. Und ich würde mal gerne hören, wie du das siehst. Manchmal fühle ich mich auch nicht irgendwie genug geerdet. Also das ist nicht der Fall. I'd like to know how to deal with energy and I've heard that energy is supposed to flow through you, through your arms and so on and how to deal it. I would like to hear something about it and sometimes I don't feel grounded, so to say. Well, the basic practice is to become aware of the four elements first. Which is to say, to become aware of the stuff of you. But first is kind of the earth part, the bones, the real physical stuff. And you actually spend some time kind of in meditation Just feeling, sensing the stuff of you.

[27:04]

Yes, in many ways I've referred to that directly, indirectly this weekend. But in Zazen you specifically feel how you're on that cushion and so forth. And then you use your breath to move through your body. And your imagination. Say that you imagine your fingertips are tingling. As if you moved aliveness down into your fingertips. Then you move that feeling up through your arm or somewhere.

[28:05]

So you get so you can sort of travel through your body with some kind of attention, a tingle or feeling of energy or something. And the vehicle of exploring your body is attention to some part of the body. Imagination. The fantasy? Not of fantasy and imagination. Yeah, fantasy and imagination is more similar than in... In German, yeah. Yeah, also Vorstellung. Fantasy, you have a fantasy, it's fine, yeah? And your breath. Den Atem. And... That's enough. There was a fourth. I forget. And then you begin to look at the liquidness of you.

[29:16]

And liquidness doesn't just mean the water. It also means the sense of flexibility, fluidity, flowing in your body. Almost like a fluid in contrast to solid. Like you can feel something go up the side of your face or down or something. And these things are happening to you, we just don't notice it. And the third is to recognize energy or heat or warmth. And my guess is that's where your practice is right now.

[30:30]

That your energy is awakened but blocked. And again, if you notice these things, you begin to find that, like somebody was saying, pain or scratches or itches or something. The itching also often is tracing out pathways as your energy starts to move. And you'll find you're actually itching at acupuncture points from the inside. And if you... You know, sometimes you can actually feel a person's body, and you can feel there's a pattern, if you hold your hand near a person's body, there's a pattern of heat or cold, different spots.

[31:37]

One spot right there will feel a little warm, like with him, and even through his clothes, and makes my palm tingle. And more up there. And down here it's a pool, almost it's pulling heat out of my hand. And you can notice things like that. So there may be a feeling of a band around your body where... everything seems to stop at that point. So usually that means that your energy is awakening but it can't move yet freely in your body. Now there's various ways to practice with that. Okay. I'll give you a small example.

[32:51]

Say that you are tired. And you'd like a cup of coffee. Or it's the afternoon and you don't know, you want to change the pace of the day, so a good cup of coffee would be good. That's fine. I mean, I have a coffee machine I travel with, I set up in hotel rooms. That's fine. Recently I've been using it less, but I do use it. But more basic than that is you say to yourself, before you have coffee, you can have the feeling I would like to have the feeling that the coffee gives me from inside. Without the coffee. And if you're still sleepy, tough luck, that's the price of the experiment. It's not going to work instantly. So whether you want a cup of coffee or a beer or a cigarette or whatever, you can ask yourself to find, or if you're eating food and you wish it was saltier, you can find the salt in the way you chew the food.

[34:22]

And it's wonderful when you can start finding what you need inside. But you have to have faith it's possible. And you have to try. But if you do, little practices like that are one of the main ways to awaken your energy. And then the fourth of the four elements is space or emptiness. And you begin actually, in a very practical sense, feeling the space of your lungs.

[35:24]

Instead of counting your fingers, you start counting the spaces. You feel how the ribs need their space. And you begin feeling how the space around your body, you move in and create. So this is a very basic practice. You can see it in all the traditional books. Start out with the four elements. And it's just a way of getting familiar with the way you actually exist. Was that understandable? Yes. No, I got it. You did all right. Great.

[36:28]

What's it like to always be putting people to sleep? Wonderful. When they talk too much, it's wonderful. When it's an interesting person, it's a pity. Okay. So does that partly answer your question or respond to it? Thank you. You're just getting to know you, I mean getting to know yourself, that's what you're doing. A singing translator. And then, if you get nothing from this seminar, if this is new to you, the awareness-consciousness distinction, if you get nothing from this seminar but the awareness-consciousness distinction, if it's new to you, that's a lifetime.

[37:35]

If you get a lot. Maybe you can start to notice when you put a person out in an operation, whether awareness is present in some way. You're putting their consciousness out, but maybe not their awareness. They may feel they're floating at the top of the room. Or they may be able to report later everything people said. Or that you may watch them responding to things going on in the room. even though they don't know they're responding. So you have a great opportunity, which the rest of us don't have, to study the presence of awareness.

[38:38]

You have a daily experiment going on with moderately willing volunteers. And it's legal. In the 60s, you know, you're in trouble with these experiments. Okay, anyone else? Yes. I had a very strange experience last year on my holidays, and I was sitting in the ocean. When you made this big, I mean, between awareness and consciousness yesterday, I remember this suddenly when we were talking, and what happened was I was lying on the water, and it just came in my mind to try to get the flexibility of the waves into my backbone, or to

[39:47]

to let it happen that it can be as flexible. Yeah, as the water, yeah. And I don't know why, I just tried. And while I watched what my body feeling was, the waters disappeared. I realized I had no feeling anymore where my borders are. And at the same time, I realized that I was somehow a point I don't know, consciousness or awareness, who notice what happens.

[40:55]

But it was so small. It was just like a little point. And when I yesterday asked where I am in this moment, it arises again, who is I in this moment? Because when I had this experience, I had the idea it's no longer me. What I can say I to it. I understand. You know? You want to say it in German? Yes. to try to see if my body could be as flexible as it could be if it just let itself go. And my spine can be flexible as it can be. And while I'm trying it out, I feel that my body can adapt to it.

[41:57]

And I just take what I experience or feel. And it was a very nice feeling. And while that's happening, I realized that I no longer knew where to start and where to stop, that my senses were no longer in order. And while that was happening, I realized that there was a point that was perceiving it all, perceiving it very consciously. And suddenly I had this feeling, I can no longer say if it's still me. I didn't know how to name it, what it all perceived. But I perceived it exactly. Can I go swimming with you? It's really, you know, it's great. It was somehow, as a child, somehow a curiosity.

[43:09]

I realized it, just to try this. I had the idea, why couldn't I be like fish? Yeah, no. Something like this. And then it starts. The courage to try it is great. And I think the intuition comes from awareness. And it's, you know... John Muir, who was a famous naturalist in the United States. What is a naturalist? Somebody who studies nature and so forth. He Muir Woods and all that. Exploration of California, much of it was done by him. But he writes about a point where he started up climbing and he was on a cliff. And he got to a point where he couldn't go up or down.

[44:10]

The spots below were too small to get to going down, and up above there were no handholds. And he froze. And he was terrified. And there was no way up. And suddenly another sense of perception appeared. Everything became very clear and still. And he saw things as if everything was magnified. And he saw slight just shifts in the weight of the shape of the stones that spoke to his body. And he moved his body along the stones But that's not consciousness it does, that's awareness it does. And in an extreme situation, awareness can just take over and command you.

[45:16]

So that extreme situation can be like an enlightenment experience or give you a taste. But Buddhism says, why wait for an extreme situation? Practice zazen, be ready for the extreme situation. It's not easy, no. But, you know, when you've had, have you ever sat down, I mean, done something like been in a car sitting in the passenger seat with leaning back? And the roof of the car, you know, sometimes in some cars, there's lots of little holes in plastic.

[46:33]

And you're not thinking and you're not quite asleep, and suddenly you can see them magnified, and it's like in a different space. You don't interfere with it. That's awareness seeing, but sees differently than consciousness. This kind of little experience people have, some people notice and some people don't. And some people pass it off and some people wonder about it. Something else? Yeah. I don't want to say that, but I can say that if you do something like this, for example, teaching, you will feel a little suppressed, so that the people are so bound, and they are particularly sensitive and then come up.

[47:50]

When I meet with teachers or female teachers, why is it that my sort of suppressed emotions like anger or furiousness come sort of in a condensed way? When he meets with teachers or female teachers? Yeah. Am I a female teacher? Is that... I hope to be. What? When you meet with teachers in general and in particular female teachers? What teachers? Male and female. You become angry. Yes. I have special training dealing with anger. So it's okay, you can be quite angry at me. That's when we wrote down these three words and parallel to that, Randall, the birthing thing, he thought that he actually belonged up there.

[49:21]

Well, that's why we had both going on at the same time. Well, maybe you get angry when there's something you can't control. And yourself, too. So it's good, probably good to notice. Did you have anything, want to say anything? You. No, behind you. I was just thinking about China Sea, so I was just thinking about I mean, it's what I think of, but it's not things or what she would like to ask. Oh. I understand that feeling.

[50:42]

But still, anything is okay. Randy, do you want to say something? I've never been to a seminar. With Preston, we sit around doing the mission for an hour. Regularly as a part of the schedule and informally as a part of the meeting. And also I've just come from a Sesshin in the house of Shakyamuni. So I'm feeling the difference between that meeting And this kind of gathering, which is somehow has an intensity.

[52:02]

It's not the same, but there is some intensity. And I think somehow this may be a little bit more difficult for all of us. Sashin, there's a very strong structure and a common agreement to persevere throughout the week.

[53:04]

You're in the sneak end. Step out of our cars, we jump out of our suits and we all land in this room. And there are some traps here in a very congenial environment. I noticed it didn't take long before the humor of, let's do a little sitting, every time that was mentioned.

[54:04]

It didn't take long before the humor of, let's do a little sitting, came up. And people laughed at it. During Sashin, that's just about all we do. And after a few days, I think most people feel a little bit defeated. A lot of ambition and desire gets lost in the shuffle. After all, we want to get our money's worth out of everything. So I'm... So in this situation, we are presented with a great deal of... Well, we talk a lot, we listen to a lot, we talk, we talk ourselves, we discuss.

[55:32]

And I think if we did it for a couple more days, a similar kind of defeat would befall us. that feeling of frustration or exhaustion or confusion. Something else. When I first met Roshi, I secretly liked his way of ramming freely through the world with ideas.

[56:55]

I could feel the wind of his passage as he went to and fro. And what we've gotten and what we've missed. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Perhaps it is the intention to just sit, but that might be the way.

[58:04]

Well, hearing Randy's perspective on his first seminar in Europe reminds me that there's no rules about what we're doing. This way of what I'm doing here is developed because of what I... I didn't actually create form, it just happened doing it with you. One thing is I'm not really a believer in two or three day sesshins.

[59:16]

In fact, I won't call anything shorter than five days a sashin. To sit together two or three days, that's fine. But to introduce things that you introduce in a sashin, you need five to seven days to be destabilized and then integrate enough to come out of the sashin. But to introduce things that you introduce in a sashin, you need five to seven days to destabilize and then come out of the sashin. So in these three days I'd rather work with your resistances than your acceptances. Sashin makes you very open and very vulnerable. So a certain space is necessary to go through time, length of time is necessary to go through that.

[60:27]

And also, since we don't live in a monastery, there's no way to present these developed teachings of Buddhism to you. In a slow kind of pace. I mean, as Randy probably noticed, many of the things I talk about here, I never talk about in Creston. Because in Creston, I wait and see what people need or are ready for and so forth. And each person can be in a little different place or I can have a little different relationship with each person. But here we're all together for a short period of time.

[61:42]

So I've taken on the sort of task, and also it's not task in a negative sense, I've tried to present teachings, and except for the necessity of developing a common vocabulary, not repeating myself too much. So more and more of the dharmasangha community is prepared for practicing. And this seems to be happening. This last sashin was the most condensed one we've done. And it's not just because of the sashins, it's also because of the seminars.

[62:50]

But I don't really know. Maybe this forum should stop and I should just do sashins. If you stop coming, I will do something else, obviously. But, you know, there's no precedent for teaching adept practice to laypeople. I mean, although they wouldn't say so directly in Japan, lay people are always taught a very dilute practice. It's not because lay people are looked down on, it's just that it's thought that...

[63:53]

In lay life you can't really practice. Or you can only do a certain kind of practice. Mostly chanting or mindfulness. But I have decided to try to teach adept practice to anybody who comes. At least as well as I understand it and practice it. So anyway, I'm trying various forms, and this is one of them, and we'll see what happens. And I suppose I could get better at it.

[65:04]

That might help. And I try some variations sometimes. But normally what I do is I say, okay, I'll be at a certain location for two and a half days. What should we do? And I must say, I learn a great deal from you. Much of the book I'm close to finishing, the experience of the book is really my first five years of practice back in the early 60s.

[66:15]

But my articulation of the experience is mostly my experience teaching in Europe in the last four years. And in the seminars more than the sessions. The way I teach in Sashin's isn't so different than it was 10, 15 years ago. Because in Sashin, the whole process of Sashin is a kind of spiritual institution and drama. The conditions are there for doing a certain kind of teaching.

[67:30]

But to have, how many of us are here, 40 people? 35 people? Okay, to have 35 people, as Randy says, get off a bus and show up in this room... Don't help him. First time I count. And by the end of Sunday afternoon, we'll be talking about seeing the bus from the bus's side. Even if you don't understand it, it's pretty far out that we got there. And I could say that. So, you know, something's happening. And someone, every now and then, people ask me, how can you be my teacher? How can I practice with you? And implied in that is how do we do that when we're, you know, I'm always somewhere else.

[68:41]

Well, partly it's dependent on the ability of the two of us to articulate a shared territory. Now, the anti-gleichen-territory. The shared territory. Now we have a shared translation. That's good. Okay. So in some sense, it's just coming to the seminars, we have some kind of apprenticeship relationship. But the real teaching... But there's various levels of a teaching relationship.

[70:03]

And in the most developed sense, there's a shared commitment. And this develops into a kind of open... between two people. With a sense of contact going on all the time. Which isn't necessarily dependent on being in the same place all the time. But it takes time to develop that kind of mutuality and that feeling.

[71:04]

So I actually don't know what to say. I know that I'm open to practicing with you. But again, there's no kind of developed... Like in a monastery, there's a developed way to do it. And here there isn't. So we have to be creative. But mainly you capture some feeling together because the real teacher is the combination of the teacher and the disciple, the teacher and the apprentice. And I think one of the big helps is to have some relationship with other participants in the Dharma Sangha. And as part of that, sitting groups have developed in some cities I go to.

[72:09]

Okay, that's enough of all that. So why don't we sit for a little bit and don't laugh, and then we will end. I think you will find if you can take away from this seminar recognition of the inherent mystery of our existence. You can sense the mystery that arises of things.

[73:11]

The world isn't really graspable or understandable. It's only partly so. I think you'll find if you can begin to feel and recognize this mystery, to acknowledge it, it will actually make you feel more whole. more intact. And when you don't have this feeling of wholeness and this feeling of wholeness or this feeling of intactness, the various parts of you struggle with each other and

[74:22]

come into conflict or create anxieties. It means you don't have a big enough space for your life. Both the interior space and exterior space. So the beginning is to knowledge quite often, even continuously, the mystery of our existence. and let everything begin to speak to you.

[75:35]

I'd like you to come away from this seminar. Is the possibility of moving your sense of continuity Continuity and stability of your existence. Out of the worrisome stream of conceptual comparative thinking. into a feeling of physical and even physical mental intactness. And treasuring that feeling. And even when it's not present, recognizing that it's never far away. Nothing separates you from it except yourself.

[77:01]

And accepting the separation is also part of the mystery and the wholeness. And to accept this separation is also part of the mystery and part of the whole. I can say a lot of things in seminars, partly just because you don't understand.

[78:16]

So then it doesn't disturb you much. Or make you see your life too differently. Then it's lying in wait for you. Waiting till you need it or recognize it. At least that's my hope. Why do I, to end this, why do I ring the bell?

[79:30]

Why don't I just let you all drift off? I don't ring the bell and pretty soon people will start leaving. Because you ring the bell because actually You should notice a difference between this state of mind and your usual state of mind. It's two ways of functioning and we need both. We should see the difference and not confuse them. We bring them together when both are fully developed. We don't bring them together by not ringing the bell. We don't bring them together by not ringing the bell.

[80:52]

Thank you very much. You're welcome.

[82:40]

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