Thank you for being here. And I'm sorry about the seeming confusion about what we mean by a pre-day of the seminar, whatever we call it. Just let me say that, first, I think it's not clear how it's in the brochure. So maybe I'll try to make it clearer next year. What I mean by, let me say again, what I mean by a pre-day is that the people who happen to be, first of all, who happen to be able to come on Friday, not just from Friday evening, some people can't.

[01:15]

So the seminar... And my mind starts tonight, Friday evening. So there we just started the subject of the seminar. The mind of Buddha. So I said in the In my mind, the seminar starts this evening. What do I mean by that? And so if it starts this evening, what the heck are we doing now? Well, on one hand, I want a more traditional sense of a seminar, university-type seminar.

[02:16]

Which, at least as the way it's used in American universities, is it's a small group of advanced students. engaged in research or intensive study, and they share the results of that research and study with each other and with the teacher. So I'm going to feel free to just call on you and say, What's your definition of mind? Yeah, so anybody who wants to leave now.

[03:23]

Okay, and I mean, the word, it's fairly obvious from its... where it has fairly obvious roots. It means to sow, like to sow seeds. It means a seed plot. I think in German it means a seed plot. A place where you plant seeds, like a plot of land. So a seminar is a place where you exchange ideas. Yeah, and I can't really do that so easily once the regular, what we call a seminar, starts this evening.

[04:27]

Because we have to develop a topic. And develop it so that some kind of conclusion on Sunday. Yeah, but here we can play around more. So what do we mean by mind? And what Other words are associated with mind. Like if I say, I might say, my mind... So now somehow self is connected with mind.

[05:42]

And of course we have the German-English problem. Yeah, yeah. Mind, I mean, mind is not, I don't think, can be accurately translated by geist. So we have the mind of the Buddha, mind of Buddha. Yeah, how do we... How do we play with that? There's the words, and you came to this seminar and it has this title. Maybe you'd come whatever the title is. It's nice to come to Johanneshof.

[06:50]

But still you read the title and you think, geez, that means something. What do we think it means? I have a big book upstairs called The Companion to Mind. I think published by Oxford University Press or Cambridge. It's a pretty big book. It's a classic book, it says, for anybody who wants to study the mind. So I got it a few years ago and never looked at it. So I thought, okay, I'll look up the word mind.

[07:54]

They don't define the word mind. They talk about mind and body, mind and brain, but they don't define the word mind. I think we have to have some kind of definition. And dictionary definitions won't help us if the dictionary definition is different from our own experience. The philosopher David Hume said when he turned his mind on his mind,

[08:59]

He could only identify a bundle of things. Kind of a mishmash of perception, feelings, and so forth. What are we? Yeah, what are we? Yeah. What is our own experience of mind? Now, the classic way in Buddhism to exercise, classic exercise to approach the idea of mind... and the idea of self and so forth, is this fourfold proposition.

[10:06]

It is Es ist. It is not. Es ist nicht. Neither is nor is not. Es ist weder noch. It both is and is not. I don't think we have to pay too much attention to the latter part. It's more philosophical. But I think it's a useful exercise to take the first two. It is and it is not. And we usually know words through what they're not. Rock is not a tree. And through its qualities or aspects. Yes, sir. We can try to look at what is the mind and what is not the mind.

[11:27]

Yeah, and we can try to look at its qualities. And the part of the mind the process of looking at the mind, what it is and is not, is to bring our attention into what is nearest. There's nothing nearer than our mind. Yeah, but it's quite hard to notice that which is nearest. So on this day, before the seminar officially starts this evening, Yeah, I think we can see if we can at least bring our attention, our attention, is that mind?

[12:54]

Our mind in closer to, to what? To our mind? to our activity at least. So we can ask in this exercise, Is the body, for example, is the body the mind? Well? Yes and no. Is the body not the mind?

[13:58]

Well, it's hard to answer yes and no. Is the consciousness the mind? Mind, I mean, the usual use in English includes the unconscious. Is the brain the mind, or...? You know, I just met with some scientists, neurobiologists and so forth in Venice. It was not supposedly on consciousness and perception. But there was no mind in the conference. I mean... I mean, no one took care of anything. It was in this big...

[15:02]

echoey church. You had to use microphones and amplification. And everything echoed. And there was no chance for minds to come in contact. It was even hard for words to come in contact. It was echoing all the time. And we were really supposed to be talking heads, I mean, without any musical ability. I don't quite know what it means, talking heads. It's just all you see. Very definitely the Buddhist tradition is you don't, When you're speaking with people, your whole body is present.

[16:34]

You don't sit behind a desk or a podium. So they had this big table which stretched to the edge of the platform. And I was tempted to just get up on the table and sit cross-legged. But you need some New Age people around before you can do that. So I tried to sit at the edge of the table on a chair. But the chair was sort of halfway off the platform then.

[17:37]

So I had to lean like this to keep the chair on the table. So I had to lean like this to keep the chair on the table. Yeah, it wasn't so good a situation to have much contact with each other. So it's interesting to me that these brilliant people were unable to create a situation where they could actually have contact with each other. Or the organizers at least thought, although we're talking about consciousness and perception, We really think that's only about words.

[18:39]

Because that's all. It was impossible for anything to be conveyed that wasn't intellectual. And one scientist, a nice guy, I rather like him. We have some friends in common. And then a friend, a really nice guy. We have a few common friends. said, and he's more open than some of them, said that, well, there's certain parts of the brain which don't develop until a child is seven years old. And there's a part of the brain that doesn't develop until you're seven years old.

[19:48]

When there's lesions or some kind of damage to that part of the brain. The effect on people is they lose their moral sense of right or wrong. So the conclusion is that children don't develop a moral sense until they're seven. So some other scientists came up to me and said, This guy must have no children. My children certainly had a moral sense before they were seven. But it's not the attempt to find a physical basis for mind. It's the attempt to find a physical basis for mind.

[20:56]

So all they can identify is, you know, when a part of the brain is damaged, that must be the brain that, etc., Although that may be the case, clearly a moral sense develops much, much earlier. So I just present this anecdote. To say there's tremendous confusion about what is mind, consciousness, and so forth. And people get stuck in their theories. Don't just look at their actual experience.

[22:00]

At least David Hume, the philosopher, looked at his own experience. So we can ask ourselves, is the mind the brain? Well, there's obviously some relationship. Is the mind not the brain? So you can apply that, this little is and is not, to mind and matter and so forth. Mm-hmm. And I think, although it seems maybe a little bit silly, such an exercise, it's actually, if you do it, it's quite fruitful. When you're meditating, it's especially fruitful.

[23:27]

Is this body the mind? Is the self the mind? What's the relationship between self and mind? And so forth. Maybe when you wake up in the morning, you hear the wake-up bell. Someone wants me to wake up. I agreed to wake up. This body doesn't want to wake up. But the body is... We sleep for the mind.

[24:34]

We don't sleep for the body. There's lots of ways the body could get rest. But we need this mind shift from... What do I mean by that? Mind shift from waking consciousness to dreaming or sleeping. And people who don't have this shift and just kind of stay half awake all night have a terrible time. So it's the mind that needs to sleep or... Something like that.

[25:41]

And yet it's the mind which is telling us to get up when the body, which is also the mind, wants to sleep. At least we need to become very familiar with these differences. Yeah, if we're going to think about the mind of Buddha. The self of Buddha. The consciousness of Buddha. This mind is the Buddha's mind. My mind is the Buddha's mind. Mein Geist ist der Buddha-Geist. Is it? I don't know. Ist es? My mind is not the Buddha's mind. Mein Geist ist nicht der Buddha-Geist.

[26:46]

What do we mean if we say things like that? Was meinen wir, wenn wir solche Dinge sagen? Now, for an English, what does an English speaker mean by mind? Was bedeutet jetzt einem Englisch Sprechenden dieses Wort mind? Yeah, I told you what a lot of, when they asked a lot, I often told you what a when they asked a lot of kids what the mind is for, what their answer was. Most of them agreed what the mind is for is to keep secrets. Anton, you're an English speaker. How would you define mind? When you say mind, what do you mean? thinking as you speak really, but I was thinking as an English speaker I think it is the result of the brain, the result of the body.

[28:09]

Yeah, I understand that. But if somebody said, what is the experience of mind? You know the experience of dreaming, say. What's the experience of mind? It's the idea that there is an I in the self. So you'd connect the sense of mind with the observing quality, which we call self often.

[29:17]

Is that what you mean? Is that what you mean? It's, yes, a personal perspective. Sophia right now has got a very unstable state of mind today. Yesterday she was in a good mood all day. Usually? Yesterday she was in a good mood all day. Today she's in a terrible mood. He puts on a sweater and she asks me to zip it up for her. When I try, she says no. And when I say, do you want me to do? Yes. But yes, no, it's impossible.

[30:17]

So I could probably say she has an unstable sense of consciousness. Yeah, probably it's what's going on with the development of consciousness that's the problem. Maybe I'm inaccurate to say today she's kind of, her mind's kind of fragile. I should probably say... She has a fragile consciousness today.

[31:23]

No, I mean, this may, for you, most of you German speakers, this may sound kind of boring to discuss it like this. But if I do look and say, yeah, she's not, her mind isn't unstable, because I would say, When I say that, I mean there's a genetic basis to mind. Say it again. There's a genetic basis. No, no, before. If I say somebody's mind is unstable, it sounds like I mean a genetic basis. And we have phrases like of stable mind and body. Which refers to kind of basic health of mind and body.

[32:27]

Now, excuse me for teasing you, but I know the Irish mind and the English mind are quite different. How would you define mind? And with a brogue, please. With a what? A brogue is the Irish kind of accent. Dialect. First of all, when I told you to ask me, and then I wanted to say, I don't know. But then I thought, that's a little lazy.

[33:31]

Only Bodhidharma can get away with that. And then I had... a picture or an idea and that it's the field on which perception And then I had a picture or an idea that it is the field where perception is perceived. Like a screen for a film where the film appears? No, I don't think so.

[34:31]

It's a much more diffused feeling than a kind of film. I see. It's a much more diffused feeling than a screen. Okay, yeah. I think something in that area is close to what Buddhism means by mind. For me, I guess I'm an English speaker too. So I should answer too. And I guess for me, if I really just say mind, and I think back to even long before I studied Buddhism, what do I mean by mind? I think it's possible for me to remember back that far.

[35:50]

It seems to me I would mean by mind something clear. I wouldn't think of, if somebody says, is your consciousness clear? Consciousness has always some sort of structure. I could say it's your thinking clear, but that means it's the result of your thinking clear. So I'd mean something like you had said, maybe a field... in which things happen. And which can be clear, maybe like clear water or something like that.

[37:09]

And we use such expressions, you might say, like you can take a glass of water that's muddy and... put it on the table and after a while the water becomes clear. And I think sometimes when we do zazen we have some such feeling. But while we're sitting, something settles and we feel more clear. So if that's at least part of a definition of mind in English... Is that what is meant by the mind of Buddha?

[38:11]

Yeah, because if we don't have some idea what the mind of Buddha might be or could be, how do we design a practice which gives us the potentiality of realizing the mind of Buddha. And the passing of The teaching from one person to another is called mind-to-mind transmission. We wouldn't say consciousness to consciousness transmission.

[39:19]

Because I think we'd agree that if you say Is mind consciousness? No, it's related. Is consciousness mind? No, it's not. It's not the whole of mind. So if I say mind-to-mind transmission, use mind, And then he translates it as Geist-to-Geist transmission. Does that make sense? Does it feel right? So what would you say, Gerald? How does that feel, Geist-to-Geist transmission? It's a little weird. But what would you say in German to be something similar to mind-to-mind?

[40:26]

I would use heart. Heart-to-heart transmission. That would be closer to what I feel. Okay. And the word in Chinese and Japanese for mind is also heart. The relationship of heart and mind is mind. Something like that. Anyone else have some reflections on this? Yes, please. Um... I don't think that Geist is too bad.

[41:26]

It is a word. At least the way it was used is that it has a very wide range in German. So it actually depends on... It wasn't used very much in this century. And so it's quite open to what we want to do with it. It has a... wide range of significance. So if you put it in a certain context like here, and you speak of the Buddha mind as Buddha Geist, it starts to absorb these feelings because it's quite open. That's my feeling. So it's almost like a decision I make that this word can be appropriate. Since we don't have another word that is It is the closest at least, because heart is already like a metaphor. It is possible to use it if we open up to its meaning, that we give it in our context. Yes, I think that the word has a lot of meaning, because it has not been used that much in the last century.

[42:32]

And when you use it in a certain context, it is as if you are making a decision, that it is suitable. And the heart sounds a bit too much to me, already according to a metaphor, while the mind maybe comes first. You shook your head when I said that. What's your thoughts? When I said about Geist and Geist transmission. I'm not a native German speaker. I've been here for 25 years. And I feel a very different context between mind and mind. And also between mind and heart. I don't know how to define it.

[43:55]

Okay. Yeah, no, that's a real problem. What would you say? Well, for me, it's... Geist would translate spirit. Yeah. Yeah, and if we said, and geist is related to breath, as the word spirit is related to breath... Geist is related to the word breath. No? Thought it was. I'm told it is in its roots. Spirit is definitely related to breath. Does anybody know the etymology of geist? Kennt jemand die Etymologie des Wortes Geiste? I can look it up. Okay.

[44:57]

And we wouldn't say spirit-to-spirit transmission. That would feel kind of funny. Wir würden nicht eine spirit... At least in the use of the word today. Also spirit würde man nicht in dieser mind-to-mind übertragen verwenden. Jedenfalls nicht, wie das Wort heute gebraucht wird. Andreas? Okay. Instead of saying geist-to-geist transmission, it does make sense to use it as an adjective and say it is a sort of mental, that's maybe what comes called a mental transmission, but then mental doesn't work as a translation. Yes. Yes? There are also the stories of the world.

[45:59]

Okay, so in the myths about how the world came into being, the German word Geist is used, and you say the Geist of God is above the waters. In the Greek version it was breath. The Greek version of the Bible. And then it was translated as Geist into German. I see. I think the difference between Atom and Geist is that one is in context with the personal and Geist is in context with the impersonal. Okay, I think breath is related to something personal, whereas geist is rather something impersonal.

[47:11]

Yeah, okay. What would you do in Hungarian? Because they translate the mind as something knowing or consciousness. When I was there in Budapest, yeah. But the answer is translated. The title of Suzuki's book has Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, something different, with Geist, but it has more, it's called Salem. The book by Suzuki Roshi, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, uses a different word. It's closer to the German word Geist, Selm. The feeling I have is more... The feeling I have with that is more... This is more towards ghost.

[48:25]

Ghost, yeah. Ghost to ghost transmission. But in the book itself it was translated differently. Oh, no, I... But in the book it's... Buddhist ghost, come. We need your transmission. Yes, so the Buddha ghost, please come. We need your transmission. Nicole, what would you say? I associate something totally immaterial with it. I would define Geist in German through its opposite, which is Materia. Okay. That's also what I would say when I remember how I thought about it as a child or as a young person.

[49:52]

I think it's from our religious tradition. I think that the Geist leaves the body in in the process of dying. And I have seen people who didn't move, who were dead, and the essence must have gone away. And that's supported by ideas like the soul is in the body and the soul rises up to the heaven.

[51:07]

But is Geist also a translation of soul? Exactly. You have a different word for soul. It's really that you have three, you could say, body, soul, and mind. So it's quite a... The way the mind is understood in our culture has, in my opinion, been very limited in the last few decades. Yes, and how Geist is understood in our culture was narrowed down quite a bit within the last decades because natural sciences have took over so much. And then only consciousness is accepted as consciousness, how it's created by sense perception.

[52:09]

And all its derivations, like ideas and so forth. And everything else, like a dream, for example. And everything else, like a dream, for example. And we, as children already, we are educated to sort that out through a saying we have in German, for example, that dreams are foam, yeah, it's like we say. Bubbles, foam, okay. Yes, yes. So anything, depending on real subjects, or what I can see or feel and measure, is some kind of form. So, everything that you don't agree with...

[53:26]

So I think that the term Geist and its wide range of significance is shrunk down a bit. Okay, well, I don't think we can come to a real definition of mind in English or some kind of shared definition in English and German. It's probably impossible. And the study of mind and consciousness and so forth was considered, you know, not... not worthy of an academic's attention 20 years ago. Now, for various reasons, it's the hot topic. But still, no one really, none of the learned and very intelligent books written about it

[54:39]

Yeah, they don't agree. Let's put it that way at least. We can look in these books for stimulating ideas. But for Buddhism, we have to... For the practice of Buddhism, we don't start from neural space, we start from mind space. Neuro? Neuro, like neurological. What do I even mean by starting from mind space? Well, one of the mantra-like Zen phrases you can use in practice is, this very mind is Buddha.

[56:04]

If we repeated that, what do we mean when we say that? And you know the famous story, somebody says, my teacher always said, this mind is Buddha. So a monk comes and says, your teacher now says this mind is not Buddha. And he says, I don't care what he says, this mind is Buddha. So you can work with this mind is not Buddha, you can work with this mind is Buddha. What are we doing when we practice this worship? Okay, so we have this day, we can fool around like this.

[57:07]

We'll have to get down to business tonight. So let's take a break now. And, yeah, so maybe, do we need 20 minutes, half an hour? So, 11.35 we come back. Okay. One strange thing I find I do on the, this is what we call the pre-day, is that I don't ask you to do zazen before I start speaking. But except for Friday night, I don't, during the seminar, I want us to sit together before I speak.

[58:30]

So, you know, I don't think about things much. I sort of just do things. I don't think about things much. I sort of just do things. It doesn't work in any normal professional life, but in my life it works okay. So I'd rather notice what I do rather than plan something. I don't ask you to sit before we start. But in the seminar, I ask you to sit. As we discussed in Hannover, I don't join the sitting until after a while. So I can look at my actions and I can say that my actions are actually

[59:34]

showing me what I call mind. So we have to look, I mean, I think in practice it's good to look at... How we act, assuming something indefinable... We can call mind or geist, perhaps. And So why don't I have us two thousand at the beginning of the pre-day?

[61:26]

I guess it's because I want us to be in the midst of our ordinary mind. Our usual sort of thinking mind. So here I'm using words the word mind to mean a mode of mentality or a mode of thinking. Now, how do I usually define a mode of mind? Anybody remember? That's one way, yeah?

[62:42]

It's liquids. A liquid? I often call it a liquid, yeah. It has a liquid-like... To distinguish one mind from another, I sometimes say it's like two different liquids. But I have defined it this way hundreds of times in Europe. I think I should resign and go back to America where no one remembers anything anyway. I define a mind, a mode of mind, as being homeostatic and self-organizing. So if I say a thinking mind, what do I mean? I mean thinking... a mind characterized by thinking, which tends to stay thinking, and tends to organize itself around its activity.

[63:54]

Now, if this was a real seminar, all of you would have researched that and have examples of it and so forth. I don't know, somehow. I don't see you all enough, only a few of you. So, again, the usual example, when you're asleep, your mind wants to stay asleep, so it's a sleeping mind. And it's... organizes the structure and contents of sleeping mind to try to stay asleep if possible. Now how would you say in German a thinking mind or a sleeping mind? What word would you use? A sleeping geist?

[65:16]

Okay. I think you have to use something like state of mind that sounds more familiar. So you'd say a sleeping state of mind. And what's the word? Well, sleeping would be a state of mind. You could call it a sleeping state of mind. Okay, so if sleeping is a state of mind, what's the word for state of mind? Okay. Okay, he says the word geist doesn't fit in this connection. But we can... A sleeping state of consciousness. I've had those quite often.

[66:19]

But Bewusstsein, the translation for consciousness, in German has more the feeling of being present, because Bewusst means more something like aware. So I think Bewusstsein is not so bad, actually, although we use it as a translation for consciousness. Okay. And you said that in Czech, what tells us? We have some equivalence to mind. It's the difference between guys, also duch and mister, is mind, and it includes the productivity of brain, but also emotion, also the global feeling and also thinking together. Okay. Okay. Could you say it in German? Yes, we have an equivalent in Czech, we have an equivalent in Mainz, which is called Missal, and that is a difference to the spirit through, and it is difficult to express, it is a certain...

[67:29]

The state of consciousness includes both the activity of the brain, the thinking, but also the feelings and the emotions in the body. Mind is a certain state of consciousness, not consciousness, but consciousness. I will just use Geist now until we come up with something. Why don't you just use mind as if it were a German word? Okay. You prefer to use Geist. I do, but it's because I think it's strange to... To throw in an English word. Yeah, because you have to completely... It's like a mind switch. But I do whatever you like. No, no, you can use Geist if you want.

[68:33]

Then we're going to have to stretch or expand our sense of Geist. And mind becomes a kind of technical term in English too. For Buddhism it's not just the ordinary use of the word mind. But it is a useful translation, it happens to be a useful word in English for working with Buddhism. So the taste of the word Geist changes a lot Depending on whether it's alone, then it kind of disappears and it's not graspable.

[70:00]

But if it's together with Zen Geist or beginner's mind, then it's clear. How do you translate mindfulness? Wie wird mindfulness übersetzt? Usually we translate it with achtsamkeit. Achtsamkeit. And achtsamkeit has any relationship to geist? Geistfulness, that wouldn't make any sense. For me achtsamkeit coming from a different language is an interesting word because it means the number eight. I always ask myself, what does this mean? Oh, that's just a coincidence.

[71:04]

I don't think so. No. It means the Eightfold Path. Ancient times, they knew the Eightfold Path. It's a symbol in India. Yeah. It's a lying eight. An infinity sign? Yeah. Yeah. I think it has something to do with that. Oh. No, it's connected. I think it's connected with Acht. He's a professor of rhetoric, so we have to listen carefully to him. Like you find in Achtung, or to Acht haben is... Okay. So Achtung. So that's the two mystical... Stop infinitively... Stop in infinity. Alert in infinity. So it's like an awareness you gather, achtsamkeit.

[72:07]

But I think we could also use something like geistesgegenwärtigkeit, which is a German word, which means the presence of mind or the presence of geist. So achtsamkeit, I think it would be a possible translation to say geistesgegenwärtigkeit, to be present. Why don't you translate it that way? I think there's a tradition of translating terms not only here but also in Buddhist literature, so I think it was started this way. We can change it. We're still pioneers here. We can change it. Yeah, okay, so if we're going to look at Again, this mind is Buddha.

[73:24]

The word mindfulness is a useful entry. Because in the practice of mindfulness we see the activity of mind. And if we have the activity of mindfulness, it means To bring attention to. Mainly it means to bring attention to. Okay, so perhaps mind means to bring attention to. Okay.

[74:30]

But if mind is to bring attention to, well, when you're asleep, there's still mind. And you can have an inattentive mind. Then we have to have something like mind is moments of knowing, moments of awareness. then we would have to say that the mind is something like moments of knowing, moments of awareness. What is the difference between awareness and knowing? And does it, there always have to be one who is aware or one who's knowing?

[75:34]

Or can you have knowing separate from knowing your knowing? No. I don't expect us to spend too much time doing this kind of thing. But it's useful to do it. Because you want to sort out what you mean by these things. In English, no one can really agree what's the difference between spirit, soul and mind. And even self. There's some flow between self, spirit, soul, mind.

[76:44]

Now, in Buddhism, we can use the word mind to mean all of those things. Yeah. Now, not in some technical, say, Christian definition. In the sense that soul is something that goes to heaven or passes, leaves your body or something. In dem Sinne, dass die Seele etwas ist, das in den Himmel geht und den Körper verlässt. But what you mean when you say, my soul hurts, something like that, that's in Buddhism you'd call mind. Aber zum Beispiel etwas, wie man sagt, dass die Seele schmerzt, wie tut... In Buddhismus fällt das unter den Begriff mind. Or my spirit is damaged by this. Oder mein... Now there's a famous koan. A young man is asked, what is the body of reality?

[77:56]

Yunmin is asked, Okay. What is the body of reality? The body of reality is a way of translating Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya means space as the body of Buddha. Hey, we're getting ourselves in trouble here. How can space be a body? So the monk says to young men, hey, young men. What is the body of reality?

[79:13]

Ask me some other day, I'm tired. Oh, no, that's a different thought. He says, the six don't take it in. It's not limited to the six. It's not limited to the six. Now, the first reaction is, he means the six senses. You know, in Buddhism we count mind as a sense. Five senses plus mind. But if he meant six senses, why didn't he say six senses? So we have to, it's too superficial to say he means six senses.

[80:25]

Or he doesn't only mean six senses. All right, but let's say that this is the, I mean, what's right here in this room right now? What can we call this? A bunch of people talking about definitions. Yeah, in a wooden room in an old building. But isn't this reality? Isn't this a form of reality? Whatever that means. And form is body? And aren't there some interrelationships between all of us and the environment? So when you talk about the articulation of mind in Buddhism, you often call it a body.

[81:26]

Much like you might say in English, the body of medicine or the body of the law is the study of the law or something like that. Study of medicine. All right, so we can say this is the body of reality, at least whatever this is in our sphere here. We're not talking about China or Bavaria. We can... I don't mean they're equally strange. Or America. We have to talk about within the range of our experience. Otherwise we're just talking about theory.

[82:35]

We always have to be talking, in Zen at least, about our actual experience. So a phrase like the body of reality refers to our actual experience. So there's some subtlety here. And we're interrelated with it. So let's call it The body of reality. Or the manifestation of reality at this moment. We could say the manifestation of reality at this moment is mind. In Zen at least the word would be used that way. Okay, what is the mind of the Buddha?

[83:41]

Is it the manifestation of reality at this moment? We're part of the manifestation of reality at this moment. But can we ask what it is? Is there a what-ness to this manifestation of reality at this moment? Yeah, so this monk asks, what is the body of reality? So Yunmin says, he's famous for his short answers. Yeah, he was one of the handful of people, you can say, created Zen Buddhism. He said the six don't take it in. So we have two kind of mysteries here. What is the six? And what is not taking it in?

[84:48]

Well, let's just start with the six senses. We know the six senses don't take it in. Isn't there more going on here than just what you hear? Or more going on than you see or think? Yeah, as you know, there's actually lots of television movies right here. And a few thousand cellular phone calls. So the six don't take it in. Marie-Louise, we have this ISDN line, is that what it's called? And we've had up until now a regular Siemens telephone.

[86:21]

Now we have a Siemens ISDN line. Whenever she uses the handset, separate from the regular... She feels dizzy. Yeah, so, and this isn't a new age fantasy. Because the other phone, she's fine. As soon as this came in the house, she said, I can't talk on that phone. So the six don't take in these cell phones, etc., or whatever, but somehow we do sense wider than just our six senses. So say I look at all of you, and I have this feeling, what is the body of reality?

[87:34]

What a profound question to ask. How amazing to even be able to make such a question. I don't think Charlie, our black cat, is out there walking, what is the body of reality? This is one of the peculiarities of human beings. Another peculiarity is we cook our food. Almost no other animal does anything close to cooking food. Maybe we cook our environment too. Maybe we're cooking up something by saying, what is the body of reality?

[88:35]

But we can ask such a question. And Zen teachers, Zen masters have the chutzpah. Do you have that word in German as well as Yiddish? Sennmeister haben die Chutzpah. Chutzpah, to think they can answer the question. Sich zuzutrauen, diese Frage zu beantworten. So Yunmin says, the six don't take it in. Also Yunmin sagt, die sechs nehmen es nicht auf. This is not meant as philosophy. This is meant to be an answer. Okay, so how is it an answer? Remember, in Zen practice, everything is experience. So what is the body of reality? The six don't take it in.

[89:58]

So I have some experience of, yes, I'm here. but it's more than in my senses. That immediately makes me more alert. I can't relax into thinking or seeing or hearing. So if I really look at you and feel You're more than my senses. There's a kind of alertness. Maybe that alertness is mine. Sixth, let's take it in as... kind of alertness. And, yeah, I want somebody to answer.

[91:01]

One, two, three, four, five, six. Somebody when asked this, heard about this koan, said, one, two, three, four, five, six. Six plus five plus four plus three plus two plus one. I'm just playing around. But... So it means no categories, no numbers, no way of classifying is... takes in the body of reality. So what kind of mind doesn't classify? Now we have, through these two koans, edged a little, edged, pushed, moved a little closer to a definition of mind.

[92:11]

Is that it's something, it's something It's a knowing or alertness wider than the six senses. And it's not found in any... Classification, categories, classification. What would be an alertness without categories? We could say that something like that is the mind of Buddha.

[93:14]

An alertness of Awareness without categories. Now, we got to that fairly easily. We got that by kind of look at some examples. Now, Matsu, the...

[93:37]

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