Now I'd like to say something about, you know, to complete some of the things we've talked about in Sashin. Something about the world we practice in. Because on the one hand, we have this... very kind of childlike intentions to benefit people. Although these don't work when they're just kind of a borrowed consciousness or something you should feel. Like I should be nice. I want to be nice.

[01:04]

I am nice. Sometimes. So there's a range in there of should, want, am, and so forth. And these sincere views work and are sincere when they're built up out of your really examining how you feel. And the point is not to adopt the Buddhist view. You can do that if you want, but even if you do, you should build up your own view. By studying yourself. And working toward the most inclusive view you can come to that feels genuine to you, that is genuine to you.

[02:09]

And definitely accepting all the exceptions to your inclusive view. And studying the exceptions. Yeah. On the other hand, at another, you know, well, on the one hand, we have these kind of fairly childlike sincerities. They're rather hard to come to, actually. And then on the other hand, we have this craft of consciousness within the world that is extremely subtle and needs cultivation. So there's a teacher named Pan Chan. And he said, there is nothing in the triple world.

[03:25]

Where will you find mind? On the other hand, at another time, Yan Min said, within heaven and earth, Amidst space and time, there's a jewel hidden in the mountain of form. So these two things seem to contradict each other, but really a matter of your bringing, if you want to practice with phrases like this, bringing such a phrase home. There is a jewel hidden in the mountain of form. And within the triple world there is nothing. Now, the triple world is one of the ways that we divide up... Buddhism looks at where we live.

[04:50]

And I want to say that I'm grateful to find out how many of you have found the idea of borrowed consciousness secondary and primarily useful. Not only because it's useful, but also because it's a gate to seeing the layers of consciousness within us. So the triple world is the world of desire. Die dreifache Welt ist die Welt des Begehrens, des Egos, wenn du Dinge magst oder ablehnst. Und wir bringen also sehr viel Zeit in dieser Welt. Und das Problem mit mögen und nicht mögen ist, dass dadurch Veränderung eingefroren wird.

[05:51]

So anyway, that's the first of the triple worlds. The second is neutral. Or just form. Just to perceive things as they are without like and dislike. Or equanimity. And we talked about that this is possible. And an example of it is just this kind of feeling is incorporated in like the way we do the service in Aoyogi. An example of it is just when somebody serves you. You just bow. And it's not a matter of whether you like the way they served or didn't like the way they served, etc. And there's not an expression of anything.

[07:25]

It's just you bow not to them, but with them. And it's a kind of... There's a kind of neutrality in it. So anyway, the second of the triple worlds that you can live in, that it's possible to live in, is a world that isn't shaped by like and dislike. And this doesn't require getting rid of the ego. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, how can you get rid of something that isn't there? Yeah.

[08:29]

He dissolves something that's not real. Yeah. But actually, we can put the ego aside in this world of just perceiving form or equanimity. And the third realm is meditative states. Or formlessness. This is usually as a formula. The triple world is desire, form, and formlessness. To make it more practical and not so much a formula, I'm giving you this commentary. So formlessness, the realm of formlessness, practically means the lived body. Not the structure of your body, but the lived body.

[09:41]

Things like borrowed consciousness, secondary and so forth. These don't exist in the world of form, and they don't exist in the world of desire. Or, well, that's a little extreme to say that, but when you develop the insight into consciousnesses, you reach consciousnesses which are formless. So, of course, these three overlap. But when the question was asked, what do you call the world? Or what world do you live in? Here they're speaking about, one answer could be the triple world. And the question for a practitioner is, can you learn to live, to know when you're living in the desire realms, and then second, when you're able to perceive through equanimity or outside of like and dislike,

[10:59]

And this is supported by bare perception, by studying the skandhas and so forth. And third, can you begin to experience interior consciousness? And the more subtle lived body in which we also live. Okay. So I think if we know this much in practicing and coming from the Sashin, this is quite a bit. And it's like, what happens when you simply name your in-breath and out-breath? Or you name borrowed consciousness, which is something very familiar to you anyway. But when you begin to name it, you suddenly see how it's energetically different.

[12:51]

Rooted differently. In a similar way, I think if you really see this distinction of the triple world, You can begin to, it gives you a permission and an opportunity to begin to notice it in your practice. And to recognize that you actually do live in three different worlds that are simultaneous. Yeah. And the purpose of sashin is to sit yourself down in the midst of these three worlds. Until you're kind of forced into recognizing them. Or else. It's a kind of cruel practice. But very... Amazingly smart that somebody figured this out.

[14:16]

I could never have thought this all up myself. I, as a teenager, didn't think my career in the future is to keep 50 people sitting still for seven days. I would be considered both a sadist and a masochist. So, if I'd suggested such a thing, they would have sent me immediately to several therapists. But since I inherited this from the mind of the ancient Buddhas, I can lay this extraordinary trip on you. Better get laid on me, too, so, you know. Okay. A number of you have told me that at certain points in the session your pain seems to disappear.

[15:43]

Or your relationship to pain changes. Or you relax in such a way that suddenly it's different. Now you've discovered something. And if I try to describe what I think you've discovered, as I would say, you've discovered... How can I put it? You've discovered that... That's a kind of creative vocabulary.

[16:45]

You've discovered that not all parts of your body perceive, feel the pain. Actually, the pain is a kind of generalization often based on a visual image of the body. After all, it is information in your nervous system. Telling you about something happening down there or over there or up there in your knees. But when you perceive your body suddenly outside of generalizations, When you're too tired, too exhausted to hold the generalizations anymore, you give up. Okay, knock on the coffin. I suddenly thought of your dream. Should I say it?

[18:14]

She had a dream that she died. I'm telling you her dream. She's translating. Why don't you chant in Japanese and I'll chant in German? I really find it funny when we chant in Japanese, English and German all at the same time. So I might as well tell you a dream. It's just as crazy. Okay, anyway, she dreamed she died. And she felt, she said, oh, the most wonderful dream. I said, after she told me some of the details, not many people would think this was wonderful. And the feet were gone. And she took and kind of cleaned up the skeleton, scraped all the extra flesh off and made it all white and pretty. And then she went swimming.

[19:26]

I said to her, without your skeleton? No. Yeah, she said, I guess so. She was very cheery, I must say. Now, this is a kind of Sashin dream, I think. Anyway, we come to a certain point where we just kind of die inside. Or give up. And often it's accompanied by experiencing ourselves at a much subtler level. Outside of generalizations. And you find that there are many, many, many parts of you not involved in the pain.

[20:27]

And you can just sit there completely outside the pain. And of course, having relaxed helps too. But it's also the case that you're in your body outside the pain. But as soon as you start thinking, oh, will the period end soon or something, the lid body that is experiencing the pain reappeared. And then you say, where did that guy who didn't experience the pain go?

[21:27]

And you can't find him or her anywhere. But it means not that you've become real macho and you're enduring pain. But you become more subtle. So to increase this subtlety, various forms of practice with form were developed. Now, I feel I'm launching myself into something I won't be able to get out of, but here I go. Now, I've talked about often that dharma practice means to practice doing things in units, experiencing things in units.

[22:42]

And that's because that's the only way we can experience things, if we're going to experience outside of generalizations. And it's also a practice of... It's the way the senses work. Yeah. When you even look at a scene, which a camera doesn't, you are seeing lots of little sections all the time. So you can see a mountain, like at Crestone, you can see the mountain right above you and the tree right there, but when you take the picture, the mountain's way in the back. Und in Creston kann man also den Berg direkt vor seiner Nase sehen und der Baum ist auch da, aber wenn man ein Bild macht, dann sieht der Berg aus, als sei er sehr weit weg.

[23:47]

Because your mind and eye is putting together many pictures at once to give you the experience of the view. Und der mind und die Augen, die setzen nämlich viele Dinge einfach gleichzeitig zusammen oder nebeneinander, um die Erfahrung zu machen, dass man also etwas direkt erfährt. But we also practice through experiential units. Because it's a practice of completeness. And it's a way to rest the mind and body by doing each thing in units. And I've given most of you many examples of that in the past. But it is also a way to bring concentration and consciousness into the world.

[24:49]

It's a little bit, you know, it's like... molecules got real complicated. And finally, we have carbon and various forms of life. And finally, we have complex beings like ourselves with simultaneous layered consciousness. which can reflect on itself, which can create an observer consciousness, and then through that observer consciousness, and we can bring the observer and every other kind of consciousness back into the phenomenal world.

[26:08]

It's the peculiar power of us, and it's the Buddha power, really, ultimately, of us human beings. We human beings with a reflective consciousness bring the consciousness back into the world And obviously transform the world. And if we do it with as little subtlety as we're presently doing it, maybe destroying the world. So I actually feel that our study of consciousness is a part of... becoming subtle enough to undo or teach people how to undo the damage.

[27:11]

If there's still time. Okay. So, The way we bring consciousness into our activity is through the ability to concentrate on units of activity. And the study of this is intrinsic to Buddhism. and has been developed in ways I will talk to you about. And it's a little bit like an artist may be trained to see a certain way.

[28:14]

A Buddhist adept is trained to bring mind and body together. I mean, if we're going to talk about there's no mind-body dualism, This is a nice idea. And you may, in various flashes, by experiencing, practicing just now, realize this. Some things can be realized. Some things have to be cultivated. And they go together. And there's cultivation before realization and there's cultivation after realization. And I'm talking to you about what can be cultivated. And if you're going to join mind and body, You have to join mind and body.

[29:34]

You have to join mind to body. And body to mind. And mind-body to the phenomenal world. Because in the larger sense, your body is part of the world. Your mind is part of the world. So as usual in Buddhism, these things start out quite simply. Okay. For example, you practice with how physical objects relate to the body. And you practice this in a number of ways. Mostly you're dealing with the boundaries between yourself and a physical object. And you practice seeing the space between objects. And you practice seeing the moving boundaries.

[30:54]

And so the first is practicing seeing physical objects in relationship to your body. And that also means in relationship to various parts of your body. In other words, if you start, I mean, I really, it sounds like, you know, pre-nursery school. Here's some blocks. Now you can play with the blocks and see how they relate to your body. And you can pile them up. So, but here we're actually, in the Buddhist practice, they're asking, okay, you've got these blocks. But there's a difference if the block is held at your stomach than if it's held at your chest. And you can see that carried out in the oriochi in the different places you hold the bowls and so forth.

[32:12]

So anyway, you begin to notice your relationship to physical objects. And this includes, of course, desire. You like this object, you don't like that object. And as I said, when you like and dislike, there's very clear boundaries. But actually, when you don't like and dislike, the boundaries are more subtle. It's just like between two people. If you have a feeling you like this person and you don't like that person, then the boundaries are quite fixed. you always treat this one that way and you treat that one that way.

[33:20]

But we all know, both on the national, international scene and also on a personal scene, sometimes our enemy of one year is our friend the next year. So who's our enemy and who's our friend is always changing. So it's considered that if you can have a sense with another person where you treat them where there's a neutral space where like and dislike are possible, then the boundary can shift. Nun, wenn man aber jetzt in Betracht zieht, dass eine Beziehung zu einem anderen Menschen neutral ist und dass innerhalb dieser Neutralität mögen und ablehnen vorkommen können, dann sind aber die Grenzen viel beweglicher. So, as you know, sometimes in Sechin you may be angry with someone in the Sechin. Und wie ihr wisst, es kann im Sechin vorkommen, dass man auf jemand ärgerlich ist. Or at least put out or annoyed.

[34:20]

Oder zumindest also etwas verärgert. But two days later that may change. Aber zwei Tage später kann sich das ändern. So this sense of neither like nor dislike is again a sense to let the boundaries change. No, I don't... Okay, so the second way in this practice of relationship to form or mastery of form, it's called the eight masteries of form, As you begin to notice the relationship of forms not only to your body, but to all other forms. That's the first two, and the second two are similar. But you begin to relate to forms in terms of their lack of boundaries. First only to the body and then to the body and to all other forms.

[35:40]

And this means to perceive in more of a state of samadhi. And then the last four are two, sounds funny, to look at things in terms of colors. Blue, yellow, red, and white. Blue, yellow, red, and white. And I haven't practiced it enough to really know if it makes that much difference what colors. But this is actually quite an interesting practice. So when you're walking through the landscape here, the obvious one to practice with is green. So you don't see trees, you don't see the pond, you just see green.

[36:59]

And then you try blue for a while. And you try yellow. There's wonderful yellow flowers by the edges of the ponds and yellow flowers in the lotus water lilies in the ponds. Now, what happens when you practice with something like colors is you're practicing really with no borders. Looks like you're only seeing centers. Now, if you get in the habit of seeing just green, and not the boundaries of the green, it carries over and it begins to develop a way of perceiving.

[38:05]

Now, all of these practices are to get you out of your usual categories of perception. Which is I like or I dislike, I want or I don't want. Or it has certain boundaries that separate it from me. And you perceive the edges of things, you don't perceive the center of things. So if I carry this over and subject Herman again to an experiment, and I just see centers or a field, I just see a kind of outline of Hermann.

[39:14]

And if I don't really look at the details, but I look at it as if I was looking at green or blue or something, it's not a generalization. I'm actually perceiving a kind of field. And it's like labeling my breath. Suddenly I feel differently because I've labeled my breath. I've changed my perception. So as soon as I perceive Herman this way and I feel the field of Herman, And it's not a bad experience. So far. Then, at the same time, I feel this kind of light around Hermann pressing in and coming out from Hermann. And I suddenly see two bright fields, because now I'm perceiving in a different way than how I used to differentiate.

[40:30]

I see everything that's not Hermann and everything that's Hermann as two things. And these two things interpenetrate. And you actually begin to feel a person or a situation differently when you practice with your perception this way. Now, we just have in our culture no study like this, almost no study like this. And it may seem strange to you or kind of inconsequential, but actually it's quite consequential. So what we're doing here... Yesterday I talked about mind-body stabilization. Now we're talking about body-world stabilization.

[41:40]

The way consciousness can penetrate the world. And that means we have to get out of the categories by which we habitually perceive. And one way to do that is to create new categories. And to create new categories in such a way that there begins to be a fluidity that moves in and out of categories. And when you begin to experience your body in different categories than you usually do. Your relationship to pain, suffering, joy becomes different because categories are containers and limit us. Now, excuse me for using my experience of mine as an example.

[43:22]

And I'm not presenting this as important or anything, just trying to find an example. Is... Let me say first that one of my first experiences of practice was I noticed Sukhiroshi lived in a different physical world than I did. ...to the physical world than I had before. And so being the kind of person I am, I tried to say now, what's different that I now know where this point is on two bowls? And one difference is, This was at a point in my practice where a much greater mental mind-body stabilization had been developed.

[44:42]

I was settled at a more physical level. Okay. Then what I noticed is that there's a visual field that you're eating within, right? And what I discovered is when there's sufficient mind-body stabilization, the visual field remembers. Without an observer point. The visual field working with the body remembers. And I don't think this is exceptional. I think when tennis players say, probably I'm not a tennis player, but I would guess that when you're concentrated...

[45:46]

Your body knows what the other tennis player is going to do, that he's going to go to the right or left, before even the body of the other tennis player knows. Or at least before he knows he knows. Yeah, and I think sometimes you may have the experience driving when you're really completely driving without any thought. You may find that the driver ahead of you does what you expected he was going to do. So this is a function of a certain kind of concentration that penetrates the physical world. And what you discover is you don't need an observer point to remember things.

[46:48]

Und was ihr dabei entdeckt, dass ihr keinen Beobachterpunkt braucht, um Dinge zu erinnern? Das Feld erinnert sich an Dinge und es gibt euch dann Bescheid, wenn es nötig wird, bestimmte Dinge zu wissen. Now, let me say something about tea bowls. Because tea bowls are a physical object in which I've given some attention. And come out of the... come out of this kind of culture of studying mind and objects.

[47:56]

Some tea bowls, when you look at them, you feel something in your shoulders. If it's sitting in front of you, It makes you straighten up a certain way. And other bulls, when they sit, they have a certain power, the way they sit, and they make your stomach almost reach out to them. You really have to be in the tea bowls before you talk about something so crazy, I think. Some tea bowls, of course, relate to your lips, some to your hands. Some tea bowls are extraordinary.

[49:03]

A certain flash of beauty comes out when you turn them because you only see something in the motion of turning them, a certain quarter turn. Now I think this comes out of a study of physical objects in relationship to the body. So I don't know exactly how the potters do this. And Gisela and Lüthgard over there are potters, so I don't know if I'm speaking out of turn. But my guess is that the potter At some point, if he's feeling a certain consciousness and strength in this part of his body, that's in his hands, and that affects the observers when the pot is done.

[50:07]

And in like manner, if you feel the strength of the way the stomach is, and you're working from there on the tea bowl, it will affect people's stomach. So you actually make the object with a different part of your body. So as your mind-body stabilization develops, there's immediately a new feeling of connection with the physical world.

[51:22]

And you actually then can develop a kind of body-world stabilization. And you begin to be able to bring concentration in smaller and smaller units into what you do. It's like your concentration touches more and more surfaces. More and more surfaces of the world and more and more surfaces of yourself. And the more those surfaces, the more subtle and differentiated those surfaces are, the more the world talks to you. Now, an amateur gardener sees not everything going on in the garden.

[52:40]

A very good gardener sees a large number of relationships between plants, insects, time of day, microclimates, and so forth. But not even the best gardener you can imagine can notice everything, all the details. Every little moss, etc. But the wind has no problem. The wind touches every aspect of the garden. The sunshine touches many other aspects and the rain. And you can develop a mind or you can move toward a mind which is like the rain or the sunshine or the wind. And your relationship, the mind-body and mind-body-world joining begins to occur when you're subtle enough to be really stable.

[53:59]

And from that stability, you can begin to be present with many little movements of the world. How the boundaries of the world are not fixed. And as I said, another way, yesterday I talked about another way of practicing with this is to notice the transitions into relaxation, into zazen, into sleep, into anger. And then notice, as we've been talking about the relationship of physical objects to the body, both in terms of centers and boundaries. And the spaces between.

[55:24]

Those three categories, centers, boundaries, and spaces between. And then that opens you up to experiencing subtle movements, very fine subtle movements of energy or winds in your body. So you can move into a body which isn't feeling pain in zazen. Or you can take the feeling in your legs and move it into your backbone and transform it. And this just happens when you become conscious enough and relaxed enough to move consciousness into the smaller surfaces of your lived body.

[56:34]

And then the fourth is when you can begin to perceive space or fields of consciousness. Now, this isn't something, this on the one hand is something you can cultivate, In the way I've been speaking about. And in another way, it's just something that develops if you begin to practice without generalizations. Just sitting. just now, facing things, koan statements of the world, without thinking, but just with a kind of penetrating attention.

[57:36]

And this penetrating attention and intention It begins to, like the rain and the sunshine, touch parts of yourself and the world in ways that changes things. You begin to touch other surfaces of people. And other surfaces of yourself. Surfaces that are there. But that we kind of rush by. Or generalize over. And you can't know these subtle surfaces As long as you're in the categories of like and dislike.

[58:49]

Like and dislike simply aren't subtle enough, aren't differentiated enough. Compassion depends on equanimity. And compassion arises when you are free of like and dislike, or sometimes free of like and dislike. And being free of like and dislike means you've moved into an area where there's movable boundaries. There's a space where you haven't fixed the world into things you like and dislike. And it subtly begins to occur.

[59:50]

A kind of movement. A movement that's possible because there isn't like and dislike. And we call this equanimity. And you make space in your life for equanimity. Well, I don't think I want to start a new tape. It's already, I went too long, I'm sorry. I hope you were all able to discover those parts of your body which didn't feel pain. It's really important to step out of generalizations.

[61:08]

What kind of person you are, who you are, etc. And likes and dislikes which support those generalizations. And I think if you do, you'll find you're a blob of quivering jelly. Yeah. Which is sometimes called a compassionate Buddha. Yeah. I feel we have such a... deep connection.

[62:12]

And we have had on and off such a deep conversation during this session. That right now I don't see how we manage to separate. But you all have such interesting lives that I'm sure you will be enjoying yourselves but remember I'm thinking about you and I will forget about you too but I remember again I don't forget for very long Thank you very much. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

[63:22]

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