Well, since I've been undergoing this treatment, I've been missing chances to, the time to practice with you and talk with you. So I thought, maybe if I'm here on the weekends, Sunday afternoons, when it's possible for the house, we could have some kind of meeting. Yeah, not the public lecture, just those of us who live here or near here. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I thought maybe to maybe do it in this strange location would change the, you know, give us a different feeling.

[01:10]

Because in a way I'd just like to talk about practice with you more than give a lecture. And so I'll say something for a little while and then we can have some discussion too. Yeah, my lower half was just about getting better when I started the radiation treatments. And now they're trying to fry me on a daily basis. So it's a little uncomfortable, but I'm all right. They took a whole bunch of... They're going to narrow the focus this week. So they took a whole bunch of x-ray pictures to reprogram the computer.

[02:36]

So after all these x-ray pictures from both sides, I said to the technician, I said, well, how much radiation do I get from these x-ray pictures compared to a treatment? So he started to get out a pencil. I said, no, just guess. But on the piece of paper I've been lying on, he started calculating. And he said, oh... you're getting way more than a thousand times what you just got.

[03:45]

I'm really getting fried, but actually I feel not like a sausage or a hamburger. Yeah, and I assume I'll be all right. And an old friend of mine, Rita... Stiegelmeier Buchi, if you're... Only Buchi. Oh, yeah, okay. For me, you're also Stiegelmeier. That's a good German name. A Bavarian name. It's Bavarian? Anyway, Rita and her... husband were part of a small group of people that were at the beginning of the San Francisco Zen Center.

[04:48]

The majority of them were painters, artists. Rita's husband was the most radical and mystical maybe of the painters. But at some point Rita returned to living in Switzerland. She's Swiss. But it was, you know, often we'd go down to a little house that... Pam, one of the persons, family owned on the south of San Francisco. And we'd, you know, practice there, just be there for the weekend and often do Zazen together, etc.

[05:57]

And we'd, you know, practice there, just be there for the weekend and often do Zazen together, etc. And some of us had the sense of, geez, how could we continue this into the future? How could we live near each other or practice together? Although not all of us continued to practice together. Most of us continued some relationship with Zen practice. And in my own experience, actually, it was kind of the first Johanneshof or first practice center.

[07:02]

And Mike Sophie, who lived here for a year, her father was one of that group, Mike Dixon. And him. And her present mother, her actual mother, not her present mother. And Mike's first wife was the woman, and I edited Then Mind Beginners Mind. And Mike's first wife was the woman with whom I edited Then Mind Beginners Mind. So these early relationships, you know, really establish a lot of the glue and elan, spirit of practice that continues.

[08:18]

Just as an anecdote, quite a close friend of mine for a lot of years was a man named Huey Newton who founded the Black Panthers. We were quite close until he got too much into drugs and other things. But I asked him... We were just talking about the Black Panthers, and it was a worldwide organization all through the 60s and into the 70s. I said to him, how many people are really...

[09:21]

really are the blue of the Black Panthers, make it work, etc. And he said, oh, maybe there's ten. More or less. So the relationships we have in a small group, if they're precious and strong, they really shape the next decades. Then we, you know, anyway, that's enough said about that. But when we When you decide to practice, you're deciding to choose a life.

[10:51]

Or you're faced with the possibility of choosing a life. And you're choosing a life if you really see the potentials of practice. Yeah, you're choosing a life that's in the most fundamental sense. Because you're choosing the mind that lives this life. No, I think that for most people that's a radical idea, a radical decision for sure.

[12:00]

Because we think, well, we can choose this or that career or this or that, you know, job or place to live. But... We don't think we can choose the mind with which we live this life. And if we can choose the mind with which we live this life, we're also choosing in significant ways the world we live in. So we're not just choosing a job or place or career, but we're actually choosing the world we're going to live in.

[13:13]

We are not only looking for a job or a career, but we choose a world through the Spirit in which we want to live. Yeah, so we're not choosing to be a professional football player or scientist or something. We might make such a choice. It's okay if you have the capacity and interest. Yeah, but we're rather choosing in practice, we're choosing a life anyone can live. Not just the life that you, because of your particular capacities, can live. Why would we do this? Well, partly because we don't see ourselves as so separate from others.

[14:46]

So it makes a kind of, to some of us, a kind of common sense to live a life which, yeah, perhaps anyone can live. Excuse me? So it makes a kind of intuitive sense, common sense to try, to some people, to try to live a life that anyone can live. Common sense. But what is a life that anyone can live? I mean, because, you know, obviously not anyone can live any life, but still something in that feeling, in that direction. But let's say then a life, what I mean is a life based on how we actually exist. Yeah, but then what do we mean by how we actually exist? A life that actualizes us.

[16:11]

What's lies? Lies of Jane. That actualizes... Oh, that... So a life that actualizes what? And our actual life that actualizes us. That makes... fills us out or puts us into action, so to speak. Yes. How do we actually exist? And this kind of choice is, I would say, the fundamental act of compassion.

[17:25]

If you see it, if you don't see it, it's not either compassionate or not compassionate. Once you see it this way, then the fundamental act of compassion is the life you choose to lead. Now, you can do that and be a football player or a scientist or something. But you have to ask yourself practically, how... How can I discover how we actually exist?

[18:30]

Yeah, and it also means you've made some decision about the world we live in. Mm-hmm. I think Frank Sinatra said something like, he forgives anyone anything that gets them through the day. That's understandable. And it's compassionate to accept this view. But it's not the choice of a bodhisattva. The bodhisattva choice is to choose to choose the world you want to pass on to others.

[19:50]

It's not to be satisfied with just making do in the present world or getting through the day. But rather, is this a world I'm satisfied with? Certainly for me, growing up in the Second World War, it was not a world I was satisfied with. Yeah, although I didn't grow up in Europe, I still grew up listening daily to this war and this unimaginable to me world. And now we're in this present war, which makes me physically sick every day.

[20:57]

Yeah. And I hope it changes our political system. But at the same time, strangely, I find the war quite interesting. Even if it makes me feel sick. But is this a world that I want to pass on to Sophia or pass on in my living to anyone?

[21:57]

For me, I want to... In fact, Sukhiroshi, in a way, taught me to go along with the world. I was, at the time I met Sukershi, I was refusing to participate in the group. I wouldn't have a job. I wouldn't put money in the bank because I didn't know what the bank would do with it, and so forth. I wouldn't vote, et cetera. That's the way she said, come on, just be a little more normal. But at the same time, he said, Live the world you want to live in while you live in the world that is.

[23:18]

Yeah, and I failed terribly at this. But still, you know, Johanneshof is an expression of trying to live in the world that I want to live in. So we have two choices, basically. You can choose the the life based on the culture in which you live? Now, you can't choose a life free of culture. There isn't any such thing.

[24:25]

And culture itself and our familial family, familial and societal aspects of living actually shape our mind. Our familiar ones and our societal, familial, and cultural. Our ingrained cultural habits are our mind. As I've spoken before, if the rare cases where a child doesn't learn language They're crippled. Their brain, their mind doesn't develop. So if our very culture and the phenomenal world itself shape our mind, then the phenomenal world is shaped by our mind in turn.

[25:49]

And this is a circular process that goes on until we die. How can we get out of this circle? Or how can we transform this circle? Although we can't choose a mind that's free of culture, we can choose to develop a mind that's free of culture. That, in the deeper sense, is the choice of practice. And how can we choose a mind free of culture?

[26:57]

Guess how. The only way that I know of, and certainly the only way Buddhism understands, is through meditation practice. To simply say you can know, to put it simply, you can know the field of mind itself free of contents. Then you begin to have a choice about what are the contents of mind. And you can begin to change how you perceive, how the phenomenal world shapes you. then you can choose and shape what you see and how the phenomenal world shapes you.

[28:13]

You can come to feeling and knowing of the source of mind from which the contents of mind arise. You can get a taste of that. You can move in the direction of that. And that source of mind is what's called or pointed at by phrases like original mind, The face before your parents were born A face before your parents were born, of course, would mean a face, a mind free of your culture.

[29:56]

Now, is that really possible? Yeah, I think it is. And something very close to that is possible. Of course, if you feel that this world is one you do want to pass on and happy to pass on to others or it's not your problem, And you can't imagine not defining your life in terms of the culture as it offers us its choices. Sorry. If you can't determine... If you... Can't imagine... if you can't imagine not defining your life through the choices culture offers us,

[31:11]

Then if you're a person of good character, you choose to be a good person of some sort. That's wonderful. There's nothing wrong with that. But the bodhisattva choice is this radical choice. To choose the world we want the world to be like. but you can't be completely rigid walking around eating only one grain of rice a day and talking about Zen all the time Zen teachers often say to their students who are little You know, today you stink of Zen.

[32:19]

Yeah, that means we should have more secret practice. Yeah, we should be quite accepting of the way we all live. It's not rigid. But our inner practice, our secret practice, is to try to live and show only the world as it actually could be. And this again means a world as we actually exist. No, I think that's enough to say.

[34:00]

So is there something you'd like to bring up or talk about? I'm sorry to talk so seriously about practice. It makes it hard to talk about anything else now. I'm sorry that I talked so seriously about practice and now it's a bit difficult to talk about something else. You spoke about cultivating a mind which is free from cultural notions.

[35:12]

That the practice of meditation is the path towards this. Yes, that's the Buddhist view. My question is, how do you think about practicing a kind of practice of meditation? So I'm asking what do you think about a practice of meditation? So how does it work or what is this meditation which is free from these cultural notions or coinages? Because I know meditation or I got to know it only in the context of these cultural coinages.

[36:38]

The way we chant sutras, for instance. Well, of course, Buddhist culture, the culture of practice itself is a culture. But it's supposed to be a culture, should be a culture that's some contrast with your birth culture. And as a lay person it's hard to do that, but some kind of monastic or semi-monastic practice makes it easier to do that. Yeah, so, well, we chant the sutras, we don't read them so much.

[37:59]

And if we read them, we try to read them in a way that we read them at the pace at which we can practice them, not at the pace at which we can learn them. And it's a question for me, because I'm committed to adept lay practice. Is it possible without some form of monastic practice? Well, obviously I don't think so. The Jodo Shinshu schools in Japan think it's possible.

[39:09]

But their answer then is to lead a lay life, but basically, continuously, if you're an adept, to chant a mantra all the time. So that constantly interrupts the structure of mind. The Zen approach is to, for a period of time, practice in such a way that you change the structure of mind. Now, you have to see certain things to do this. recognize certain things. One is that the mind is structured.

[40:16]

If you don't really get that, then you can't imagine changing the structure. And you have to also, you can't think in terms of of oneness and most religious impulses. Because if you do, then you assume some sort of, usually assume some sort of given mind and given world is the way it is. Which, from the point of view of Buddhism, is implicitly a theological idea.

[41:23]

So the fundamental Buddhist position, though not I would say, but not all Buddhists would agree with me, Is that there's not just one basic mind which you learn to structure? But that the mind is very fluid, almost infinitely fluid. Given the factors of our perceptual modes and so forth. Yeah.

[42:25]

So, if you do really see that mind is structured, that just didn't happen once when you were an infant, It hasn't just happened once when you were an infant. Though that's the most definitive time. But our mind is surprisingly fluid. And we're constantly reifying, reinforcing. Reinforcing or... contradicting the shape of mind.

[43:48]

And Zen's particular use of phrases is to find a way, an antidote to our habits of thinking. So we have to choose some structure to function. So what we need to do is we need to choose a structure which doesn't interfere with knowing the mind as also unstructured. Okay. We have to choose a mind, a structure of mind, that doesn't interfere with knowing the mind is also free of structure.

[44:49]

So we could say Buddhist culture is the attempt to create a culture that doesn't interfere with a mind free of culture. Now, to give some obvious examples, the most classic, if somehow you think the self is permanent, that, as a cultural view, will interfere with knowing the world as fluid. So the type of fluidity is created by this mind of this constant self.

[46:12]

Yeah. A rigidity, a non-fluidity is created by the mind. Or if you think that self is inherent, somehow given at birth or something, and stays the same way. Now, one of the most brilliant psychotherapists in the world is James Hillman. And I've learned a great deal from him. But his most recent book is that somehow we're like little acorns and there's an intrinsic nature we have that unfolds. Although a famous psychotherapist has attacked one of the most serious critics of psychotherapy and psychology, He has attacked them or he was attacked by them?

[47:31]

He's been attacked by them and he's basically said something like a hundred years of psychotherapy means it's been a waste of time. But his recent acorn theory book Which I must admit I haven't read very much of because I don't agree with it. Actually only assumes that psychotherapy is the only thing you could do. Because it doesn't really admit the possibility of changing the structure of mind itself. You're born with a certain structure and you can only work that out during your life. You can change them, but you can't change them.

[48:41]

You can just develop them. You can develop the structures you have, but you can't fundamentally change the structure. Yeah. I think it's actually easier to change the structures of mind than to improve your structures of mind. But if you don't imagine it's possible, it really sounds impossible. And without meditation practice it probably is impossible. One second. Let me just say, it's not that difficult to do this.

[50:19]

But the first thing that makes it easy is your 100% seeing this and making it your intention. If your intention isn't 100%, your culture is just far more possible, far more powerful. If there's a moment of doubt, culture will sweep this intention away. So the intention is the most important. That's why Buddha's first teaching starts with right views and right intentions.

[51:23]

There's no adept practice possible unless your views and intentions are clear. Another example of the, in addition to the permanent, an idea of implicitly sense of the self as permanent. Another obstacle or deluded view from a Buddhist point of view is to see the world as a container in which you live. Instead of continuously actually... situation in which your perception, your mind, is shaping the container.

[52:30]

This physical room may be here. Although we're planning to change it in various ways. But just our sitting in it this way changes it. And the third real obstacle is that we primarily shape our views through language. So every time you use language, you're reifying your birth and familial culture. And the medium of the self is language.

[53:45]

And the medium of the self is language. So we also have to find a way to know the world, first of all not through language and only secondarily through language. It's not so hard to do it again. The hard part is deciding to do it. And then to imagine a life which lets you do that instead of the life our family and culture expect of us. And the deep parts of our self want to. Which one? that our culture and family want, but also we deeply want.

[55:13]

And when you really do, if you really do make this decision, it's not uncommon to weep openly or within for some days. So because you suddenly realize all the things you cherished for so many years and put so much effort in and hope in, didn't mean anything. Or rather you have to give them up. What happens of course is after you make this decision you find you come back to them in a new way. Now I'd like us to take a few-minute break, five-minute break.

[56:24]

I have to go to the toilet. I'm still enlarging my poor little bladder. And then we can continue with a few questions. And Akash is first. So, you can stand up or walk around. Thanks. Well, she seems to have a high metabolism. I get a cookie too. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Not bad.

[57:51]

Shouldn't have said that. Sprung. It's from Sprungly? It's Nestle, isn't it? Goodness. Oh, I'm sorry. Particularly with Swiss people in the room, you have to bow to Sprungle. Okay. Akash? They own each other now. Yes. Yes. As I kind of interrupted with my question, I actually wanted to ask for an example of this changing these structured minds, or changing the structure of mind. Well, the Heart Sutra is our menu.

[59:05]

And it starts out with the five skandhas and the vijnanas. And the skandhas are the most ancient way to see the mind as structured. And to be able to separate consciousness into the, first of all, the parts that make consciousness, And then to see that the parts that make consciousness aren't just parts but are actually independent minds of their own. If you're impertinent, yes. No, I'm just teasing you. Go ahead. No, no, please.

[60:31]

I was being impertinent. How is the interlude of preliminary exercises and actually sitting or the actual seeing things how they really are? Who makes these decisions you've been speaking about? In which world I want to live. How does the self make a decision that doesn't support the self? So it's more like How can I nourish this clarity?

[61:58]

Because Dogen says, just activate the way-seeking mind. Okay, that's true. That's quite nice, but what nourishes this clarity? Well, first of all, activating way-seeking mind means activate the mind of right views and right intentions. If you continuously bring this intention to choose the world that we live in, That's activating way-seeking mind. Clarity nourishes itself. because clarity is one expression of how we actually exist.

[63:19]

In general, we just simply have more energy and more vitality when we live in the world as it actually exists. Why is that? Because we're not fighting with the world. The world itself is nourishing us. So we just feel different. We don't We don't get tired from thinking, talking, walking, not thinking. We feel constantly nourished. No, I don't mean sometimes you're not so busy or so difficult, you feel wiped out or tired.

[64:29]

But for a real practitioner, it's fairly rare. Because you have the discipline of leading only a life which nourishes you. You don't want anyone else to lead a life that doesn't nourish them. So there's no reason for you to lead a life that doesn't nourish you. And when you do things that don't nourish you, you're stuck, that's all. There may be some sacrifice for a while because you have a life. You can't just walk out of your situation or job or something completely.

[65:35]

What if your career or job doesn't nourish you? You should change it. If you can, anyway. If you're caring for an Alzheimer's parent, maybe you can. But if you can't, you try to find a way that you do the details of your life in ways that nourish you. As I say, one of the rules ought to be you don't sacrifice your state of mind. To anger or busyness or something. Or to more than one cookie.

[66:36]

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yes. It's kind of a question that's somewhat connected with what you just discussed. We make the choice to commit ourselves to realizing mind apart from culture. But once I make that decision, to what extent do I have control over the course and progress of my practice?

[67:45]

Well, the self, the small self, the learned self, that we don't know we've learned. It's based on our personal history. It doesn't make the decisions. And so we can understand way-seeking mind. Way-seeking mind makes the decisions. So one of the scary parts of this is you don't know where you'll end up.

[69:05]

You don't know where it leads. Like an artist who likes to draw, and you say, okay, I'm just going to draw the rest of my life. Well, you don't know where that's going to, excuse me, draw you. And we constantly have this problem of... Who's making these decisions? Not you, but in general. But that's only a question which has power if we think the self is an entity. And all you have to think of is mother's love. Mothers in the human kingdom and the animal kingdom.

[70:27]

I mean, excuse me, the human queendom. We don't have that. We don't have it in English either. Okay. will sacrifice their own life to save their child. Without even thinking, they just go to save their child. Now, that's obviously a different kind of self. That's the self which includes others. And the bodhisattva is the one who's developed a self which includes others in the widest way or moves in that direction. So we could say this wider feeling of self makes the decision.

[71:32]

And we may feel this wider feeling of self is in some conflict with our usual feeling self. And it may feel like a kind of idealistic ghost or a kind of youthful stupidity. But sometimes an idealistic ghost or a youthful stupidity. We actually feel better. we feel more at ease or more nourished than with our usual self.

[72:45]

So then if you have the character and tendencies that lead one into practice, you know what kind of choice to make. dann wisst ihr, in welche Entscheidung ihr zu treffen kommt. Aber wir stimmen uns darüber überein, dass wir nicht wissen, wohin uns das führt. Aber die Welt an sich ist inherent, die Art und Weise, wie sie ist, unvorhersagbar. And discontinuous. So to decide on a life which is unpredictable is closer to how we actually exist. Of course we want some control of our life and the world around us. We want a world that's somewhat predictable.

[73:59]

I'm glad my cookie is still there. But there's a big difference between wanting the world to be predictable and assuming the world is predictable. Assuming it. And often we choose our life, our career, our marriage assuming somehow the world is predictable. And then to use an English expression, we're often not quick on our feet.

[75:00]

And then we are often knocked off our feet. And we are more often than knocked off our feet. Und dann kommt es viel häufiger vor, dass es uns von den Socken wirft. Knocks off the socks. Knocks off the socks. That's what you do. We are knocked off the socks. Really? But you're still standing on the ground, but your socks are off. I think only the socks are standing. You're knocked out of your socks. Yeah, but those are the days when people didn't wear sandals. I remember Suzuki Roshi once suddenly in a lecture in a late afternoon. Out of nowhere, he just said, Anybody come and try to knock me off my feet.

[76:14]

He was a little tiny guy, you know. If you think you can do it, please try. I'm actually here. And you had the feeling, well, probably we could all gang up and push him somewhere, but we wouldn't really knock him off his feet. I always used to feel he was such a big guy. Bigger than my daughter. And every now and then I see photographs of us together and he's about this big. Remember how small he was? A beautiful, beautiful man, though. Maybe that's enough for today, huh? Anyone else want... One more person want to say something?

[77:30]

Boris? I see something happening. All right. Well, thanks for giving up your Sunday afternoon and sitting here in the corner with me. And I was planning to do this in English necessarily, but thanks for finding a babysitter. Even though most of your English is quite good, I still think it's better to have a translation, don't you? Okay, thanks very much. Thank you for turning the mic on. Thank you.

[79:30]

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