If we're looking at what is the common basis for compassion, it's impermanence. We're going to die. We're going to be sick. We're getting older. Mm-hmm. you're going to die at an indefinite time. And even if you were quite happy, we're still in a condition of being conditioned. So suffering may be too strong a word even. We're in an indefinite, constantly conditioned situation. And basically we spend a lot of time trying to do something about that.

[01:05]

And establishing a job, a life, a career, an identity and so forth. So the awareness of impermanence is a basis of compassion. But an awareness of impermanence is also a basis of wisdom. And if we look at the wisdom practice, we'd have to add a basis is non-graspability. So a basis of wisdom practice is both impermanence and non-graspability.

[02:10]

Now, what's the difference between impermanence and non-graspability? Okay, well, they're closely related. Yeah, because everything's impermanent, everything's changing. So really, it's like we're all exchanging baby clothes, as I said. Because there's no, you can't really hold on to anything. And as you get older, you're more aware of that. You start giving things away. Yeah. Or as I like to use the example of Sukhiroshi putting on his glasses. And saying, thank you for letting me use your glasses.

[03:22]

You know about my tired old eyes, so you let me use your glasses. It's true that glasses are something invented in Italy in the 14th century, I think. been the cause of much of the productivity of Western society. Because it lengthened the workload. Before glasses, around 40, you couldn't do accounting anymore. couldn't read much. So it's a huge enterprise to make glasses. They belong to society. So he was right. These are your glasses. So when you feel that way, you have a different sense of possession, of permanence.

[04:57]

One of the vows of compassion is to repay the kindness, we say, for the sweating horses of the past. Each of you is the end of a long lineage of human beings. And while you might be a jerk, All your ancestors weren't jerks. Many of them contributed to this world we live in.

[06:03]

So you take a vow to repay the kindness to each of you for everything that's come before you. It's true. What I say is true. But can you feel it? part of a wisdom practice is to come to feel this kind of I'd like to repay kindness to each person so you take these vows to repay kindness or you take a vow that as I said yesterday That you would want everyone to be free of greed, hate and delusion.

[07:04]

Free of being caught in the pendulum of likes and dislikes. And you hope that all beings are free of suffering. And free of the causes of suffering. Now, you want to give that vow more oomph. Of course, when you take the vow, as I said yesterday, for another person or for all beings, you're taking it for yourself, too.

[08:07]

Now, if you want to give that vow more oomph, you say, not only do I wish people were free of suffering, I will take on the burden to free them from suffering. When you make that vow, it changes how you relate to people. It may not change. It's not like you suddenly fly to some country and become a barefoot doctor or something. It's okay if you want to do it, that's all right. But that's not what this kind of vow means. It means right now in this situation,

[09:09]

And there's enough happening right here for us to try to actualize this vow. Thank you. So what... Roots of compassion and wisdom are slightly different. A search for the good. A search for the truth. The experience of being free of self for a moment. The most common way we feel it for practitioners is in zazen.

[10:31]

Compassion, I said it's traditionally, and in fact, mother's love or something like that. But once we get to the basis for the practice of compassion and the practice of wisdom, they begin to overlap. The reality, the actuality of impermanence. And the actuality of non-graspability. Okay, so what do I mean by non-graspability again? That's where I was. Now, Western philosophers... Barclay, Kant and most of recent, fairly recent philosophers have recognized in various ways that all we know of the world is our perceptions and conceptions.

[11:50]

But I would say from a Buddhist point of view, they didn't know what to do with this insight. Because they didn't have meditation practice. I think it's that simple. And to turn this awareness into a continuum The awareness that everything that we know is a perception or a conception. And beyond conception and perception. Okay, so a wisdom practice is to become continuously aware that everything you see points at mind as well as the object.

[13:24]

So it is a wisdom practice that you recognize that everything you see points both at the object and at the mind. to make yourself continuously aware of that. Now again, Wittgenstein at some point says, there's nothing in this scene that tells me it's seen by an eye. I have to actually intentionally remind myself that actually I'm seeing you. Ja, also ich muss mich immer wieder mal daran erinnern, dass ich euch sehe. Ja, so wisdom practice is to remind yourself. Und weisheitspraxis ist, dich zu erinnern. So if I look at Mahakabi, I know I'm seeing my seeing of Mahakabi.

[14:26]

Und wenn ich Mahakabi anschaue, ja, dann sehe ich mein Sehen von Mahakabi. You just remind yourself of it. I'm knowing my seeing of Petra. And hearing our lovely translator. I'm hearing the hearing of Maya's voice. Okay. And that These perceptions come together with associations and form conceptions. And all of this is not graspable. I can't grasp my seeing of you. And I can make the seeing of you more clear or less clear.

[15:29]

And I notice actually if I make it more clear, proprioceptively my body changes somewhat. And a little bit like from the corner of my awareness I can create a weak observing eye. that can notice that I'm seeing and can notice that it can be more precise or less precise and so forth. And that also then changes my state of mind. This is all moment by moment changing and not graspable. If I go in the kitchen, from the point of view of wisdom, the kitchen just appeared.

[16:40]

Upstairs in the attic where we live, There was Wolfgang Graubner, our carpenter next door, builder next door, turned this attic into a kind of little apartment. And he put in a water pipe. So that allowed a little toilet to be there. And I moved in. On the other side of the toilet wall, there was a sink. And I used the sink as my kitchen. But since I got married, I tried to make a kitchen. So there's a kitchen made there.

[17:51]

It wasn't there before. Yeah, but in this kitchen we've sort of changed. But it's really a kitchen when it's being used as a kitchen. Yeah, and so... Before we bought this place, it was hardly used as a kitchen. The whole thing was falling apart in there. Now that we use it, it's become more of a kitchen. When Gerald and I walk in after the seminar is over, the kitchen is all alive after Zazen, too. So what I'm aware of, and it's obvious, but it's not so obvious to be really aware of it.

[18:55]

The kitchen is a construct. And the use of it is part of its construct. So when I walk in, the kitchen has appeared. That's what I feel. The kitchen has appeared. And then I look at everybody and I think it's so nice they're making the kitchen appear. And those of you who are architects will have the experience of building something, then you go to somebody's house that you've designed and they're using it. Whoa, look, they actually use it. But wisdom practice is to be continuously aware of that non-graspability. Yeah, that, I mean, the kitchen is a physical object.

[20:01]

But it's use. What makes it a kitchen is not graspable. Once more, I have to start again. Its use is what makes it a kitchen. And that use is changing all the time. Every morning it's somewhat different. And that difference is not graspable. And then we have what's beyond the senses. And you know there's a little joke in one of the koans about the nose, mouth, etc. And it says, you know, the mouth says, what are you doing above me?

[21:05]

And the mouth says, what are you doing over my nose? I speak golden words and you just stick out there with a runny nose. Yeah, but I occupy the higher position. And then the nose says, what are you doing up there, shining eyes? And the eyes say, I don't know what, but we look down on you, you know. But the eyes say, what are you doing above me, eyebrows? And the eyebrows say, imagine what you'd look like upside down. This is an, I think, the Shoyuroku case 2020. And this is all to make fun of the fact that we see the world as seamless.

[22:28]

So this koan says, in the eyes it's called seeing. In the ears it's called hearing. What is it called in the eyebrows? Which means that it's an illusion that the world presented to us by our senses is what the world is. Just think, I mean, the example I always use, just think how many handy phone calls are in this room right now. And television stations. Our senses can't We don't have the senses to notice that.

[23:43]

So Buddhism assumes there's all kinds of things going on that are outside the five or six senses. And then it's assumed that the closest we can come to that is the body is a kind of divining rod. Divining means godlike. And what a divining rod is. When you find water. So what it's called in the eyebrows means can you by relaxing the seamless world of the senses, seemingly seamless world of the senses. I'm trying to make some problems for you to translate.

[24:48]

I see. Okay, once again. By relaxing the seemingly seamless world... Also, indem wir die scheinbar... Seamless is without seams. Without seams. Ja, nahtlose... we begin to turn the body into a dowsing rod or divining rod. You begin to feel between the senses. So this is also non-graspable. So you're always aware you're in a world which is only partly being revealed to you. And what is being revealed to you itself is not graspable. And it's all impermanent and momentary. So you establish a continuum of impermanence and non-graspability.

[26:10]

So that's a mental continuum. Okay, now that mental continuum of impermanence and non-graspability we share with everything. With each person. And that's the basis of compassion. It's not that you just share others' suffering or you can reverse feel their suffering. You feel the non-graspability or emptiness of each moment. We can take non-graspability to be an experiential word for emptiness. Because of the impermanent, non-graspable world we live in,

[27:11]

We feel compassion, or we feel the same basis with each person and all phenomena. So then, through compassion and wisdom, you establish a continuum you feel with others. So then it's not such a big deal to feel their suffering or their joys or whatever, empathetic joy, etc. Because this awareness of a common basis doesn't just click in when a person is suffering. Wisdom practice means to be continuously aware of this common basis. And to actualize this,

[28:26]

You actualize it. The actualization practice is your presence. Your awareness of this continuum of impermanence and non-graspability. That's inseparable from all things. This is what the Heart Sutra means by form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And the path of compassion and wisdom is this, as some of you have mentioned, is this pulse of drawing, folding everything in Feeling the sameness of everything.

[29:47]

And emptiness of everything. And then folding it out into differentiation. Into compassion. So from that point of view, as a Buddhist, when I shifted justice to a position not as fundamental as compassion, Wisdom tells me underneath justice, more fundamental as a base, should be both compassion and wisdom. This awareness of a common basis shared basis of impermanence and non-graspability. And we realize because when we feel this non-dual continuum, that that continuum is also a continuum of blissfulness or joy.

[31:14]

So the very awareness of the suffering rooted in permanence which makes us not find continuity in the fragile consciousness, but to find a continuum of awareness, in which the content of that awareness is the impermanence and non-graspability of the world. We entered this through the door of suffering but we experienced it through the world, the windows of bliss or happiness.

[32:26]

So the very awareness of suffering, of the condition of impermanence, et cetera, turns into a freedom from suffering through joining compassion and wisdom. And then you actualize that through deeds like, very precisely, the six or ten paramitas. because it needs to be actualized in your presence and in your deeds.

[33:27]

And even if they're as simple as opening the doors for people, such a simple deed changes So much it's hard to believe. Okay, so I think that's enough for this seminar. And we have a few minutes, so why don't we sit? I feel I left a lot out, but that's the best we can do right now, I can do right now. Oh, shucks. Discovered. Thank you.

[34:52]

So I hope you have a feel for the structure and possibilities of practice. And that's always rooted in your life as it actually is. which through your intention and your search for what is this world, the search itself gives you the basis to transform the world.

[38:39]

At least the world you live in, the immediate world you live in. That's not separate from the whole of the world. Thank you very much for all of you being here.

[42:55]

Thank you for your wonderful attention. It helps me a lot. You did help me a lot during this. It's not possible for me to do it without your help, actually. You're not just an audience. I couldn't do this. I couldn't feel into what we're talking about very well. I only wish those of you who didn't say anything had said something. I think it improves the whole... You owe it to the group to say something. But I'll forgive you this time. Thank you very much. And thank you for translating.

[44:01]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_77.96