And what this does, this repetition of no, the sense of it is that it opens you up into original mind. It opens you up into the unmarked, the world without categories. Because you're not saying no to the world, exactly. You're saying no to the categories. Now, if you practice with a phrase like, I'm always close to this, it's just a version of practicing with mu or no or nine. And my practice, you all know about it, some years of no place to go and nothing to do.

[01:03]

As a version of I'm always close to this or mu. Mm-hmm. Now coming to this third attention or fourth attention of interior attention. I don't really know at this point how much detail I should go into on this one because it covers much of Buddhism. This practice is part of Yogacara teaching, meant to create interior space.

[02:09]

But in general, when you begin to feel things inside you, hear things inside you. So you don't so much hear Ruth's voice or my voice with your ears. You hear it as if it were inside your body. And we've talked about this experience a lot But the development of this experience which opens up interior space in a sense of brightness and clarity and absence of separation allows you to receive and give attention to the world in a different way.

[03:20]

And as someone said before the break, do we already know these things? I think it was Yasmin. Yeah, we already know... We're already familiar with... In a sense, I could say we are already familiar with all of Buddhism. In a certain way, we're familiar. At an experiential level, we're quite familiar, shall we say. But we actually have very little way to notice these experiences.

[04:33]

And sometimes when we do notice them, they're just isolated. They're kind of something interesting or nice, but they're isolated. So what happens when you start practicing is those, as I've often said, those experiences of being a Buddha that are in your past begin to come alive. Or ways in which you have seen the world non-dualistically but not really recognized, you suddenly start recognizing. And I would say that when you look back, when you're sitting zazen and various memories come to the surface, when certain memories come up repeatedly, not a... Well, some memories that come up repeatedly are associated with serious ego blows.

[05:56]

I don't mean those memories. I mean memories that are the opposite of that. And these memories often come up without any pain associated with them. And they just seem to be moments of clarity. And they're often associated with an image of the scene in which they occurred. You not only remember the event and feel the event, You can see the room or the people or the trees or street where it occurred.

[06:56]

I'm pretty sure that almost always those are moments of non-dualistic perception in which you and the world felt like there was no separation So the more you practice zazen, the more those turning points, they're often turning points, those kind of experiences renew their vitality in your personal history. You could do that. I don't know whether that's right or wrong. Okay. So as I said, to begin to make sense of this move from the imaginary world to a world in which you begin to experience non-dualistically, the result of this is through

[08:44]

turning your attention, giving your attention to the world in a different way. And I could even say receiving attention from the world in a different way. And when you're in the state of just accepting, And in a way we could say this practicing with nine or no is a way of creating a freedom from categories which creates a more subtle or accepting state of mind. And in this you begin to create a kind of equality in the world.

[09:58]

You're not saying this is good or this is bad. And this feeling of just accepting the world, or being present in the world without making distinctions or categories, you get a taste of in zazen. And you can begin to bring it into your feeling through practice in your daily life. So you get familiar with the feeling and then that feeling is present in how you do things.

[11:17]

And as you begin to, again, through the practice of seeing that the world is a construct within your senses, Again, a kind of intimacy and closeness is developed. It doesn't mean again that the world is not out there. It means you've become experienced at seeing the world inside yourself. seeing how the world is constructed in your own sense fields. And when you do this and practice this and notice this, you're also creating a kind of interior space.

[12:24]

And you begin to feel the world differently. So the world, this subject-object relationship changes in that there's much more interaction. So this is what I mean by this fourth, is it the fourth? The fifth, yeah, fifth attention. Mm-hmm. Now maybe the sixth attention, which we'll leave till after lunch. So the last few minutes before lunch, why don't we sit? So we have about... An hour and a half or two hours before we end, depending on coffee, tea breaks.

[13:33]

And I suppose we have two topics. The sixth of the six attentions. And the absolute. This should keep us busy. Or we could stop now. Or we could stop now. And this is the first time I have been graced by a brother and sister and husband and wife translating teams. So this is a unique seminar. But before we get into these two things, we should discuss a little before I finish. I'd like to hear the questions from yesterday afternoon or this morning that we didn't get to, that the groups came up with.

[14:56]

Or did we meet them all? No, I see something happening over here. Anything? No? Your's was mentioned. You want to say that in German? I'll try to, if I can, make that clearer this afternoon.

[16:07]

Something else? Were there any dissenting opinions in the group who didn't share in the question the group came up with? Yes? I was answering Ulrike. Yes, Ulrike? Oh, I see. Okay. No one has anything? So we should just go on? Yeah. The mastery of awareness. Yeah. I think that for the master, all of this takes attention.

[17:34]

That's how you see it and feel about it. Okay. Anything else? Yeah. That's not a personal question. Okay. When all those models, I think, as I see it, you talk about unique concepts and starting with C, and I don't understand why you stress faith there. I saw you earlier before lunch, when I said faith, you went... Yeah? To me, faith is worse than a concept, because it's a concept that I can't even see, but I believe, you know, that I don't even make up, but I say, I can see it, but I think it's there. So faith is even worse in my eyes. You want to say that in... Yeah, I have... I have to ask you this, because it's all...

[18:40]

I have the feeling that it's about seeing things as they are and not having any concepts. He spoke a few times about faith. That one should simply believe that it leads to something and so on. That's the opposite for me. Well, faith in Buddhism is quite important. But it's not faith in something you don't believe in or something that's hard to believe in or that there's no proof for. The word used in Japanese for faith is daishinkan, which means great faith root. And it means faith rooted in intellect or intelligence or reason and in experience.

[19:51]

So it means you come to a conclusion that, say, Buddhism is a good practice for you. Now you can't make absolutely certain it's a good practice for you. There might be a better practice somewhere. But at a certain point you decide yes, this practice is the best I've found so far. Or it seems pretty good anyway. So you make a decision. You make a decision that even if it isn't a perfect practice, you will perfect it. And you make a decision to even to the degree to which you don't understand some things, you understand enough to trust it.

[20:56]

And then you just have faith in it. But it's not blind faith, it's a kind of faith with your eyes open. But the chemistry of faith is necessary. If you always practice the level of, well, I'll practice as long as this makes sense, you'll never do it fully enough. The alchemy of practice won't really start. Does that make sense? Do you understand what I'm saying at least? Yeah. I mean, it's like you're alive, so you have faith in being alive. You don't have any choice, in a way. So, might as well have faith in being alive.

[21:57]

Or do the life you have. And that attitude is faith in Buddhism. I have to have a lot of faith to sit here teaching you guys. If I really say, is this exactly right? I don't know. I just have to engage myself in a kind of trusting activity with you and see what happens. Okay. Anybody else wants to bring up something before we go ahead?

[23:01]

Yes. Oh, Walter, of course. I don't know whether it's important. In the seminar, the question of pain and being non-permanent and AB being permanent is something clearly understood. Of A being non-permanent and AB being permanent. It's not exactly permanent, it's part of the karmic world. It's not exactly permanent. It's part of the karmic world. In other words, let's see, how is it put in the Nagarjuna? How is it put in Nagarjuna? See if I can remember. Something like, technically, because this does not exist, or because this is without essence, and that is without essence, this and that appear.

[24:50]

Because this is without essence. And Yasmin is without essence. Just because there is no essence. We make something together. The perception or this conversation with you. In other words, appearance is always an interaction. And you are a mass of appearances. And it may not be possible to understand this. In other words, the words are very clear. And if you think about it, what I say is... I am saying what I'm saying. But the question is, can you feel it or not?

[26:09]

And that may take some months or something like that. It's possible that I'm just existing in interaction. That's all. That's exactly. Yes. No, it was just... Yeah, okay. All right. Well, I'm glad you know you don't understand. Because like, as Gregory Bateson used to say, it's terrible teaching Americans because they always agree with you. Well, let me just finish this tape. See, Gregory said, you know, you say something to somebody, what should knock them on their heels. Yeah, and they say, yeah, groovy. And they haven't, it hasn't affected them at all.

[27:15]

They just said, yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah. I understand that this is the same that you draw yesterday with AFB and field attention. But could you explain again why, in your opinion, there can't be any field attention if the AFB are still there? I mean, if we both could be essential, why shouldn't it be possible? I think it's best if I go on and see what you can make of what I say. And the same for, I'll see what I can do in relationship to your question, Florian, too. And the same applies to Florian's questions.

[28:17]

I can't say much about the sixth attention. The sixth attention I call the foundational attention. But it seems like no attention at all because I mean basically the physical body. And the physical world. Now, how does the physical body and the physical world give attention to us without the mediation? How does the physical world and the physical body give attention to each other without the mediation of consciousness?

[29:17]

And there's a kind of tyranny of consciousness and awareness. In other words, we try to understand everything through the medium of consciousness. And we try to say the body is... Understandable or something through consciousness. But maybe consciousness is understood through the body. Or maybe bodies directly understand each other without consciousness. And of course this brings up the question of what you mean by consciousness. But when you do, as someone brought up, hara practice, and you put your mind in your hara, and your attention in your hara, you're trying to awaken this area with attention.

[30:30]

But eventually, hara is itself knowing without your bringing consciousness to it. In other words, our body is the fastest part of us. Our consciousness is slow. Awareness is quite fast, but not as fast as the body. This is the opposite of what we usually think, because we think of the body and material stuff as slow. But our bodies know things immediately in this room, which it takes a while for either consciousness or awareness to know. So, The only access that I'm giving you in the main access, traditional access, is the practice with the four elements.

[31:44]

And I gave a kind of meditative talk on each of these four elements in the weekend, in the midweek seminar. And it might be useful to listen to the tapes. I certainly can't do that again right now. So it takes a little time to... to awaken these four elements of knowing your solidity and your fluidity or cohesion. only connectedness and heat and fire.

[32:59]

That's the fourth, a third, and the fourth being space, air, movement and so forth. The gas-like, the expansive element within us. If you get so, you can kind of feel those that they have their own identity. You can also start feeling them in the world. and uh... And anyway, if you practice these, you'll find something out through your body. And this is something you'll have to find out for yourself because although you're inseparably engaged in it, although you're inseparably engaged in it, it's not one of your...

[34:07]

It's not a resource of your... How can I say? It's not awakened yet. I don't have any other word than that. Okay. Now, if I take the Absolute here... Let me say in the most radical sense it means death. And in one way of understanding this is samsara and nirvana. Samsara is life as suffering and nirvana is death and freedom from suffering. And as Dogen says, life passes through death to freedom. And... Okay, so then we have... And I'll come back to that.

[35:39]

This is something I can state or quote Dogen on or something, but I'm trying to find a way to give you a feeling for this as practice and how we exist. Okay. Let's take the practice of non-duality. I think we all see that non-duality is a way of seeing the world. And There's various ways to approach non-duality. The more you think non-conceptually, you're doing more non-dual thinking. The more you Think non-conceptually.

[36:58]

You are thinking in a non-dual way. And the more you think in the level of feeling consciousness, you're thinking or acting in a non-dual way. Now let me go back a moment to someone brought up, they didn't understand change which doesn't change. Maybe the image of water will help you. There's still water, say, completely still water. But still water has, even the most still water has the potential of change. And that potential of change is part of its identity. It's different than iron, say.

[38:04]

We can see at the level of our perception that water is always, even still, has a potential of change. But if you experience your life in minute detail, you see that everything has a potential of change. Even if it doesn't change. Okay, now... So there is a dual way of perceiving the world. or a divided way of perceiving the world in other words you can see the world as divided or you can see the world as undivided and another simple example of that that I use very often is I can see space as separating us

[39:11]

Where I can see space is connecting us. And if you shift to seeing space as connecting things, you actually start feeling space as a fluid. And it causes you to act a bit differently. Okay, so seeing space as connecting things would be to begin to see the world as undivided. Okay, now the question is does non-duality, does duality through practice become non-duality? In other words, well let me just say it that way.

[40:13]

Does duality become non-duality? The answer to that question is no. These are two different ways of perceiving. And so you can perceive non-dualistically or you can perceive dualistically. One does not become the other. Is that understandable? Yeah. Can I perceive non-dualistically and dualistically at the same time? Or is it something that you either perceive one way or the other? You either perceive one way or the other. Now, it might be that your body can be in a non-dualistic space while your mind temporarily makes a dualistic space. conversation or something.

[41:24]

But again, you're attempting to make this too real. We're not talking about things like this. It... that... You can perceive non-dualistically and you can perceive dualistically. And you shift back and forth between the two. That's what's important, that you're making a shift between non-dualistic and dualistic. Now, if you try to figure this out like... In all the possibilities that the words give you, you just end up in a tangle of words. In other words, I can move the words into lots of different combinations and turn them into problems.

[42:27]

But from the point of view of practice, I'm suggesting certain things. It's maybe like playing a piano or something. Yes, you could hit the keys with your elbow and chin at the same time if you wanted to. But probably you wouldn't develop the facility eventually to play the piano really well. But it might be an additional little thing that you could do on stage every now and then. So I'm trying to give you the categories which will help you become an adept. But I'm not trying to give you a completely worked out philosophical system dealing with all the possibilities.

[43:41]

But that's what the Abhidharma tries to do if you want to study it. And there are literally thousands of distinctions. What if you're thinking non-dualistically and you have an odor of smell come in while at the same time you're tasting something, what is the consciousness that's produced? Then you have huge charts showing all these things combining. So they're very legitimate questions, but they're more intellectually interesting than useful for practice once you get a sense of the picture. Yes, Eric? Yeah. Not a property for you. Well, when I use the words divided and undivided, then I can be talking about a quality in the world as well as a quality of the perceiver.

[45:20]

And at one level, at a molecular level, say the world is quite separated. But at an atomic level or a smaller level, it's undivided. And even these divisions that we perceive at our level of perception are not really real separations. There are temporary separations that allow further combinations. So our job is, each of us is a temporary separation. And our job is to take care of this temporary separation.

[46:27]

And it means you should dress nicely, you should wash your face, you know. As Trungpa Rinpoche says, you should ornament empty space. LAUGHTER So in the morning you can have that. And I told you often the line of a poet friend of mine who says, he gets up in the morning, he looks in the mirror, And he says, I don't know who you are, but I'll shave you. Okay. Now, you know, just a little aside for a moment here. I've been thinking and I talked to a few people last night about what kind of seminars I should do in the future.

[47:43]

And I think at least I'm going to consider doing seminars in which each seminar is on a particular koan. because I'm reaching the upper limit of the interactive possibilities of subtlety in the teaching. You want me to say it again? Because I'm reaching the upper limit of the interactive possibilities through which subtlety can arise in our understanding. And koans actually bring in a much greater degree of subtlety. Then we can produce here just in conversation and with a few teachings.

[48:53]

Because what a koan does is take two or three of these teachings and interrelate them in takes two or three of these teachings and interrelates them in a form of an anecdote involving two or three people with a few scraps of poetry thrown in. So it's like a surface that we can enter because it's familiar to us. But then you find you're engaged in teachings in a you find you're in the midst of teachings in a very engaged way. Or I can only do this because of the maturity of the Dharamsanga practice in Europe at the present time. So I'll give it some thought when we make next year's schedule.

[49:54]

Okay, so the important point I'm emphasizing here is that you can perceive dualistically and you can perceive non-dualistically, okay? And it's not important to eliminate dualistic thinking so you only think non-dualistically. That would be a repressive thing to do. The point is that you are able to shift from dualistic thinking to non-dualistic thinking.

[51:05]

Okay, now, in the Heidelberg and the Berlin seminars, which unfortunately there's no tapes of, I tried to establish why there was... I tried to establish the sense of an exterior consciousness and an interior consciousness. Okay. Now, the important thing here is not to become an entirely interior consciousness only person. The point is, as I'm making, it is being able to shift from interior consciousness to exterior consciousness. And to see aspects of each in both.

[52:12]

Okay. The point in Buddhism, again, is not to be detached all the time. Der Punkt im Buddhismus ist nicht die ganze Zeit losgelöst zu sein, nicht verhaftet zu sein. Der Punkt ist die Möglichkeit zu erlernen, nicht verhaftet zu sein. Und aus diesem nicht verhaftet sein, sich wieder an der Welt zu beteiligen. So you're not caught in the world anymore, but engaged in the world through knowing not detachment. Does that make sense? Okay, so then the next point, the practice, this mental yoga is to practice the shift from detachment to engagement.

[53:22]

Translating stretches the short-term memory. Stretches the short-term memory, you can say in German. He said it certainly does. So now I talked earlier about mental yogic practice. So from the point of view that I'm coming to right now, Physical practice is zazen and what arises from doing zazen.

[54:30]

So the second stage would be the establishment of yogic insight. And that would mean beginning to know how you create interior space. Beginning to re-educate exterior space or exterior consciousness. Beginning to be able to play concertinas on the six attentions. Yeah. Okay, this would be yogic insight. In other words, you can begin to function through the developed and more subtle sense of consciousness.

[55:35]

So you're working at the point of yogic insight, what I'm calling yogic insight, you're working with how you perceive and how your mind works. Okay, all right. Now, at the point of what I call the third stage, sort of a mental yogic practice, you begin to practice this shift from interior perception to exterior perception. From detachment to engagement. Again, not exactly attachment to detachment, but detachment to engagement. Now, can you see that when you're practicing engagement and not attachment, Engagement has within it the quality of detachment.

[56:48]

The flavor of engagement is detachment. You understand that? The flavor of attachment is not detachment. Okay, so the flavor of life is death. And we can say the flavor of death is life. So in this practice we enter life and death. So it's not, in other words, you go through various stages of working with death in your practice. And the initial practices are knowledge and attitudes.

[57:54]

First you get so that you really know you're going to die. I'm certainly going to die. That's what you practice with. And perhaps the next stage would be that you accept that you're going to die. That takes you, those two takes four or five years. And then you begin to feel that you're willing to die. That's another ten. And then you're ready to die at any moment. We won't count the years for that one. And then finally you have the feeling of dying. You're able to let go of yourself with the experience of just as if you were going to die.

[59:21]

Go away. Now, you can practice that in psychological terms and so forth if you'd like. But if you practice the sense of emptiness of mu of the multiplicity of dependent co-arising, you actually are through this process coming to, without knowing it, the experience of dying. So when you really enter life and death as one activity, it's possible to enter an experience which can only be called the merging of life and death. So, you are moving, knowing this experience, you are moving now in a kind of similar shift from life to death, from death to life.

[60:53]

And I don't have the ability to say And even more clearly what that means. But we can go back to the shift from duality to non-duality. From inner to outer. From compassion to wisdom. And wisdom to compassion. And detachment and engagement and so forth. So that process, as I said, non-duality does not become duality. But they eventually merge. And when they merge, when inner and outer merges and duality and non-duality merge,

[61:54]

That is the absolute. So, from the point of view, I mean, that definition I don't think helps you much. But I think you can understand the practice of I think you can understand the practice that realizes the absolute. Because I can't tell you what realizing the absolute is like. But I can point you in the direction. And it's technically defined in ways, because no one knows how to define it, as beyond life and death. Beyond duality and non-duality. Okay, the Yogacara definition of the path It starts with objects, you perceive objects.

[63:07]

And then through developing your inner cognition you perceive that objects are formed in consciousness. That you realize that everything you know of the world is formed in the fields of consciousness. And you develop the skills of perceiving that way. So objects have gone from being exterior objects to being interior objects. within a field of consciousness. The next step is those objects in the field of consciousness are seen as unreal. This is just not an idea. You see these objects in your consciousness and you dissolve them.

[64:13]

So what happens when you dissolve them? It's not just an idea. There's a shift to another kind of consciousness or something. And then you see even this consciousness is limited and that dissolves. And that can be called death. And it's a process of actually going, of dying. If you lie down and just let go of one thing after another, it's the process of dying. And finally let go of consciousness. But if you stay alive and come alive again at that moment, that's called satori or enlightenment. That's why enlightenment and nirvana are often the same word.

[65:27]

So, and that is the absolute. So, as you can see, dualism does not mean non-dualism. But finding out how to practice non-dualism and mixing the shift going back and forth And when those both merge or disappear, you realize this. And this is not... This is in one sense completely different from this.

[66:32]

Because it's at such a different level of perception, it's not in the same category as these. But it's also at the same time the paper itself. And the room itself. So now we're back to the sixth consciousness. Sixth attention. Okay. Now, what is the use, let me just say, what is the use of this, these kind of categories? Because if you just do Zazen, that's fine, you know, it's great. But it also requires the kind of practice where you shift from dualistic thinking to non-dualistic thinking. It requires the kind of practice of shifting from dualistic thinking to non-dualistic thinking.

[67:39]

And this shifting is a kind of cleansing process or purification process. And if you didn't have a diagram or teaching like this you might make a very serious error. You might try to replace dualistic thinking by non-dualistic thinking. Or you might struggle with that all the time and think you were a failure because you couldn't do it. So without laying out the teaching in this kind of dynamic way, you can't see the importance of practicing the shift from dualistic thinking to non-dualistic thinking. And then you also can see what's meant by, in the Heart Sutra, unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.

[69:06]

This is why a Buddha is such a... we don't have a word for it. At this level, it's virtually unattainable. But if you understand it this way, then you can have enlightenment experiences of called Satori, Kensho and so forth. And you can have many such experiences even. They are really intimations of this but not the full realization of this.

[70:09]

Okay. What do I believe? Well, I believe each of us only partially is likely to realize enlightenment. Yes, I believe three things. I believe all of us to some extent already are enlightened. but as a way of functioning it's quite inaccessible to us.

[71:13]

I also believe it's possible to realize what's called enlightenment. I believe it's also possible to realize enlightenment. And what practically speaking is meant by that is various degrees of enlightenment. But I also believe that somehow this enlightenment exists among us. And it exists among us in some fully realized way. But we're each only holding part of the fabric. But the fabric connects us and everything. And sometimes we realize we're holding the fabric.

[72:14]

Sometimes our arms disappear into the fabric. Sometimes we're almost completely the fabric. But the fabric in its entirety is here. And the most... And many of the sutras deal with the Buddha as one who has fully realized this enlightenment. As the developed and fullest potential of sort of all human beings if all of us were enlightened at once. So each time any one of us has some sense of enlightenment, takes some vows to live our life in enlightenment. We each make this widest sense of enlightenment more accessible to everyone.

[73:29]

So we don't take a break on quite such an inaccessible note. Let me just introduce one other way of looking at this. In other words, this is only going to take about one minute. Is it this... in each of these areas, the imaginary world and the other dependent world, we could say you're maturing your story, maturing the way you perceive and so forth. But practicing with these three, you're also what's called revolving the basis.

[74:56]

You're changing the basis on which you're put together. So two things are going on at once. Through the activity of living, you're maturing your story. Through the practice of shifting your attention from, say, detachment to engagement, and through dualistic way of perceiving to non-dualistic way of perceiving, you're doing another action in addition to maturing your story, you're revolving the basis on which the whole story exists. So you're maturing your life and revolving your life. And these two together are also seen as the dynamic that produces enlightenment.

[76:14]

Okay. Why don't we sit still for about one minute? And then we'll take a little break and then we'll end. I really don't think I have too much else to say. I'm sure you, I mean, you probably, you may well have some questions. But I think at this point it's better to compost the questions. Oh dear. But I can give you a... Another example of what we just were talking about, the most famous teaching device of Linji or Rinzai, is called his four propositions.

[77:34]

And the four propositions, the first one is, Sometimes I take away the self and leave the environment. What he means is that in teaching students, his disciples, he sometimes speaks in terms of the objective world, but he removes the sense of self. Or if with an individual student, if the student, he asks the student something, say, if they started to answer from the point of view of self, as they started to answer,

[78:45]

He might make some noise like that. Or he might have a stick like this. And he might, you know, quickly, you know. I aim that way. She's nice, she don't mind. Okay. Or he might say, I spare you 30 blows. I don't hit you 30 times. So he developed teaching methods in which emphasized taking away self but leaving the world. and the second one is sometimes he leaves the self and takes away the world and he responds out of compassion completely to the person's ego As if nothing else existed.

[80:18]

And third, sometimes he took away both. The environment and the person. And the fourth proposition, of course, is he took away neither. So he would give lectures or teach or speak from these four points of view. And you can see these four points of view is also manifested in koans. But this again is not just his teaching device. It's also a practice device in the sense that you can yourself practice these modalities or shifts from accepting both subject and object

[81:29]

taking away both and having that kind of consciousness, or emphasizing the subject or emphasizing the object. So again, I'm just re-emphasizing the point that it's this kind of topography that's the practice. And the topography is a more developed stage than just realizing any one of the parts. So I think you can see that Buddhism is not a teaching about transcending the world. It's a teaching about realization through the world, in which the world itself is our practice.

[82:43]

And you don't realize separate from the world, you fully realize how we exist in this world. And maybe I was a little too strict when I said we don't, this is unobtainable. Practically speaking, unobtainable. Because I think that just as the average person has intimations of, flashes of or experiences of enlightenment, Perhaps without noticing it, perhaps sometimes feeling their life change and they don't know why.

[84:02]

Or just occasionally feeling profoundly at ease. In a similar manner, I think that when you begin to practice in this territory, you begin to have intimations of this. For moments, although you don't reside there full time, for moments you have deep flashes of the certainty of enlightenment. The absolute freedom of enlightenment. And if you just live in such a way that sometimes you have these intimations and you recognize them and at the same time don't know them but are nourished by them then

[85:15]

As one teacher says, it's like pouring a pitcher of water into a pitcher of water. Like pouring water into water. This is... This is quite nice. And it's also quite possible. But I think secretly or intimately we all know this.

[86:36]

But the question is, can we live in such a way that this unknowing is brought into presence in our life? And through that into realization in our life. Well, I, of course, really enjoy being here with you. I'm glad so many people came from Germany to join us in Austria this year. And those of you who I only see once a year, it's wonderful for me to see you. And I think that the seminar house program makes that clear because it's listed us here as buddyhood and the establishment of the two truths.

[87:53]

A buddy is short for, as you may know, a partner or a friend or something. And Jack Kerouac wrote a book called The Dharma Bums. It could... The Dharma Penna. And it could just as well have been The Dharma Buddies. So somehow I think that during this week and during this seminar that we realized a kind of buddyhood. And maybe to some extent we have established or got a sense of and maybe to some extent we've got a sense of this teaching of the two truths, which is so central to Buddhism, and which all the practices are expressions of. And I would really dearly hope that this is established in you enough

[89:16]

That it will continue to work in you. And make your life more satisfying to you. And to your friends. So I said we'd end at five. And that's only in less than 15 minutes. So let's sit for a little while.

[90:07]

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