Guten Morgen. It seems to be a nicer day than, or we could say a nicer day than yesterday. But maybe we could open the window for a few minutes and let some of the nice days in. Then we could close it once it's chilled. Now, Heinrich, our host, is also a shakahachi player. He blows on the wooden bamboo flute. He plays the bamboo flute. That's for the students. Yeah, you're a student, I know, but we want to hear you in a little bit anyway.

[01:05]

And I wanted to invite him to... I think a good time would be when we sit just before the break. He could play a little bit for us. In the break? Before the break. And we'll sit for a few minutes and then you can play. So I've just got it now. Okay, I think you can close it now. Okay. Or open it that other way, from the top. Suzuki Roshi had a friend who was a shakuhachi player, not just a student. In fact, he was a national treasured shakuhachi player.

[02:13]

In Japan, the government names certain craftspeople, musicians, potters, and things. And he played small shakuhachis and big, real big, long shakuhachis. He played big and small. and he had him play for us during Zazen. So he visited us several days and each morning when we came to sit, he would play. So in that spirit, you know, I wanted Heinrich to play something for us. The spirit is the same. Yeah, don't be so immodest. What? Whatever we do mostly is okay.

[03:41]

Okay. This morning my message from the ceiling as I came out the door was I can't live if living is without you. So that's too much maybe. We have to be able to live through ourselves first of all. And that in Buddhism is certainly what is meant by truth and reality. But it makes me think of, you know, infants and children because for them, they really can't live if living is without you. But it also makes me think of children and grandchildren, because for them it is actually so that they cannot live without you.

[04:50]

So my little daughter Sophia, she is already in a kind of shock that I was away for six weeks. I was always there before. So I kind of, you know, it's hard for me to be here. I miss her. But you're almost worth it. I mean, no, you are worth it. No, I can't live without living with you, too. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I want to come back to this idea of entities just to start this morning with some perspective.

[05:53]

The sense of living, of a sense of Living without entities takes some getting used to. For, now what do I mean by an entity? Well, again, if you think of this world, this world, cosmos, as maybe some kind of house we live in, Then you have a sense of the world as an entity. And as an entity, it's something. And before something, there's nothing. So you need a creator or some kind of beginning.

[07:14]

But again, in yogic culture, really one doesn't think in entities. So you don't have the problem of, you know, where was the beginning? And you don't have the problem of something must have created this. Because when you don't think in entities, it's more natural to think in terms of a continuous process of creation and dissolution. And on a microcosmic and macrocosmic level. And the particulars are changing and the big frame is changing. So, anyway, if we have a view of so-called outer reality as a continuous process of creation and dissolution,

[08:28]

then I think it's more natural to look for reality and truth in our own process of creation and processes of creation and dissolution. Okay. So then, from the time of, from the beginning of Buddhism, the big problem was suffering. Our own suffering, which is also delusion, which keeps us from knowing things as they actually are. Okay. And the highest good was considered to be freedom from suffering.

[10:19]

And Dignaga, one of the early formulators of Buddhism, said that our own mind is the highest reality. When, he added the caveat, the footnote, when we shake ourselves free of concepts. I mean, sometimes I feel maybe I shouldn't present this real basic Buddhism.

[11:29]

Because how can we shake ourselves free of concepts? Yes, Schüttelfrost. I had a lot of Schüttelfrost when I was in the hospital. You shook yourself free. Yeah, well, I shook myself free of something, anyway. I know a few words. Winterschlaf. Schüttelfrost. You guys are all so smart. I know just one or two words. Sophia has surpassed me so far. And then she corrects my pronunciation. Or she'll say... Papa says such and such, and she'll pronounce it the way I pronounce it, and then she says, we, Mama and I, say.

[12:50]

I'm humiliated constantly. Okay. But if we get a little wedge into how concepts function in us, it's not so difficult to find an opening in which we're free of concepts. Es ist nicht so schwierig, eine Öffnung zu finden, wo wir frei sind. Now, again, let me come back to the simple, but for anybody who does Zazen, I think, understandable example.

[13:58]

Lass mich zurückkehren zu einem einfachen, aber für jeden, der Zazen praktiziert, nachvollziehbaren Beispiel. Of hearing an airplane. Ein Flugzeug zu hören. Now I think one of the reasons we notice this more in Zazen because our sense of centeredness and our sense of continuity is more in the body. We kind of have a bodily site, location. When we're located in our thinking, it's virtually impossible to even see that concepts are part of our experience.

[15:02]

concepts and categories we think in are not something added on they're part of our experience so one of the first things you can maybe value about sitting zazen. Even though you haven't fully established your sense of continuity in, as I say, breath, body, and phenomena, you have enough sense of continuity a bodily location to, yeah, it's the sound.

[16:05]

It's as much a sound as it is an airplane. And I said yesterday, you know, when you think of it as an airplane, you're kind of putting a sweater on the pullover on the airplane. Seeing all these little airplanes flying with sweaters and... Luftpanzer. Delta. Delta. But actually in this early Buddhist teachings, a concept is called an enclosure. An enclosure. Yeah, yeah, I know what it is, but I don't remember the German word.

[17:19]

Einschluss. Einschluss, yeah. Einschluss. Einschluss. I've schlushed more than once. And it's the enclosure of concepts that turns the world into generalizations where we start to see uniformity in the world. Now, again, please don't think that because I'm proposing an alternative way of perception, I'm proposing a better way of perception.

[18:26]

In some ways, what I'm proposing is, I think, better. But first of all, it's different. And both, in fact all our forms of knowing are useful. But if we want to get at the truth, early Buddhism decided we have to get at it free of concepts. Now, as you know, at least in my lifetime, I've been doing this quite a long time. And I'm still surprised, amazed at how radical real Buddhist practice is. Okay.

[19:37]

Now there's a basic idea called a pramana or a valid cognition. And it's, you know... It actually goes back to maybe the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era, in which there was a school called the Nyaya school. It's like, Nyanya. That's a way of saying no in English. Yeah, people say, will you do that? Yeah, yeah. Anyways, the Nya Nya school. Sounds funny in English.

[20:42]

Nine, nine, yes. And then it goes through, you know... Vasubandhu and Dignaga and Dharmakirti. Not that you need to know these names, although we chant Vasubandhu in the morning service every day. Dignaga, Vasubandhu, and Dharmakirti. They're extremely famous folks in the Buddhist pantheon. And I'm partly mentioning them, and not just for the scholarly context, but because I really want to emphasize that this is a human creation, not a revealed religion.

[21:45]

And these people try to work out, well, if we want to know things as they actually are, we have to have cognitions which are true or valid. No. This idea of a valid cognition is quite explicit in Tibetan practice and more implicit in Zen practice. But it's part of Zen practice, too. It's just put in a little different way and in more ordinary language.

[22:49]

So a valid cognition is basically perception without concept. So let me just, because the topic of our seminar is truth, I feel I ought to introduce at least this idea of a valid cognition. And give you a feeling for it, if I can. And the sense of hearing the airplane without putting a name on it or very easily taking the label of the sweater off it,

[23:57]

Isn't entry for you? I'm just laughing about the idea of a pullover. The only time we use pullover is when we say, pull the wool over your eyes. Because we don't call it a sweater, but to pull a wool over your eyes means to deceive someone. Yeah, so it fits. Yeah. Okay, now let's say that you're writing... Okay. Okay. I'm just going to give it to you in as brief a form as I can. If there's a fire, it can burn you.

[24:59]

If you have a concept of a fire, the concept can't burn you. So the concept is less real than the fire. Now, these guys weren't stupid, so they thought about a lot of things. So they said, however, if the concept has an inferential causality... Testing our scientists. More my language. Yeah. But you said, if the... If the concept is used inferentially or as inference or to reason from experience.

[26:02]

So if the concept is used... How should I say this? In other words, say that you have the idea of fire as a concept. And because of the fire as a concept, you build your house of stone. Then the concept of fire had an effect. So that also is a valid cognition. Das ist auch eine wahre Erkenntnis. We could call it a weak valid cognition. Aber es ist eine schwache wahre Kognition. Okay, now, say that you're riding your bicycle. Let's put a concept on that sound. It sounds like a car. So you pull your bicycle over. That's a valid cognition, a weak valid cognition, but essential. If you think, and then when it goes by, you think, oh, that's a Volkswagen bus.

[27:20]

Yeah, that's a cognition, but not a valid cognition. Or if you think, That's a BMW, those expensive cars. That's not a valid cognition. Why is it not valid? I mean, it's an accurate cognition. It's not valid in the sense that it doesn't enter you into the immediacy of the present. And the immediacy of the present is what is true. And all experience, all forms of knowing arise from experience. When they remove your mind from the immediate present, their cognitions, but not considered valid in the sense that they enter you into the present.

[28:52]

When you move with the mind, They're not considered valid because they don't enter you into the present. So we could call a strong valid cognition when the cognition is of new knowledge. Or when you notice each thing in its uniqueness or singularity. Because in fact, everything is unique.

[29:54]

There's no real repetition. It looks like repetition, but it's actually different. Weil alles ist einzigartig. Es sieht aus, wie wenn es sich wiederholen würde, aber es ist einzigartig. Now, the usefulness of consciousness is it gives us a predictable world. Und die Nützlichkeit von Bewusstsein ist, dass es uns eine vorhersagbare Welt gibt. But the deluding aspect of consciousness is it tends us to want the world to be permanent. want the world to be predicted. So a valid cognition in the middle of consciousness is an antidote to the consciousness always wanting to find things So valid cognitions is a way of perceiving that takes you sort of out of consciousness.

[31:08]

And now, for those of you who have studied the five skandhas, it takes you into perception only. So what if we also, a subtext of our seminar has been what is concentration? And again, Yuan Wu says that once you've understood the gist of the teaching,

[32:30]

Concentrate continuously without breaks until the womb of sagehood develops. Now that concentration continuously is not again something you do consciously. But one of the things we can understand continuous concentration to mean is to be continuously engaged in the present. And to know when you're thinking about something else, what you have to do tomorrow or something, you don't lose your engagement in the presence.

[33:35]

You don't get carried away by your thinking. You're just thinking that as a kind of technical thing you have to do. So a valid cognition is not just a way to find something that's true. It's a way to enter yourself into a continuous experience of the truth. It's almost like taking the skin off an orange. You know how an orange looks? It's kind of a little fuzzy once the skin's off. In a way this process peels the conceptual skin off the present.

[34:44]

And we feel presence as a kind of rawness. Now, I don't like this comparison, but I think in wartime, things like that, people feel the presence as a kind of rawness. And when I've talked to people or about war in Europe and Americans having been in war too. Many talk about a positive aspect of it, which is they mean a kind of rawness of the present and a comradeship with others.

[35:58]

And when you have a feeling of the rawness of the present, The skin of concepts of uniformity has been pulled off the present. Everything is quite unpredictable. You don't know quite what's going to happen next. And even your friend. Yes, most of us behave in very predictable ways or we get thrown in jail or something.

[37:03]

But my closest friends, I can't really predict what they're going to do. It's always kind of like, whew, I'm in a kind of surprising territory. And I like that feeling with the people I practice with. I've practiced with a long time. There's a kind of, ooh, what's happening here? Whoa. So I think, I mean, maybe an artist is somebody who the skin of the present is so pulled off, they have to paint it or something to put the skin back on. But then they also paint, perhaps, so that they can go back into that raw present.

[38:17]

Relieve it and re-enter it. So Buddhism says you don't have to be a warrior. You don't have to be an artist to enter the rawness of the present. Just be a Bodhisattva. So this simple thing like what is a valid cognition is really meant to enter you into the rawness of the present. And then perception is a kind of double appearance or triple appearance. The double appearance of perception means And this, again, goes back to the fifth and sixth centuries of our era.

[39:43]

As a basic condition of Buddhist practice, is that on every perception is a double appearance. The object and the perceiving mind. So this valid cognition also means that on each perception there's the appearance of the object free of a concept and the appearance of the mind. If we call it a triple appearance, then you see the concept and discard it. That's the third appearance.

[40:52]

And that's not just inconsequential, because that's an activity. Und das ist nicht nur inkonsequent, also das ist eine Aktivität. Because you see the object. Weil du siehst das Objekt. You feel the mind, you know the mind that's perceiving. Du kennst den Geist, der es wahrnimmt. Looking at you, I know my mind is perceiving you. Also wenn ich euch anschaue, weiß ich, dass mein Geist euch wahrnimmt. I feel you physically. I mean, I know, as I say, I know you're separate people out there. But the out there is also in here. So that's for me a kind of fuller way of experiencing. And then I feel the mind by habit tending to put a concept, a sweater on this, on you, on the groove.

[42:04]

So I take the sweater off. And the act of taking the sweater off or the concept off reveals me and the object. Und dieses Wegnehmen von diesem Überstülpen, das öffnet mich oder zeigt mich und das Objekt. So form and emptiness is a process of noticing both at the same time. Ja, und da werden beide zur gleichen Zeit bemerkt. So the activity of taking the concept off reveals formlessness or emptiness or direct perception. Now, that's been a basic tenet, a teaching of Buddhism since, articulated in this way since a few hundred years after the Buddha's death.

[43:27]

Is that all valid cognition is a double perception free of conception. And this is something you can just get in the habit of doing simply by reminding yourself to notice the perceiving mind. And we all need a little candy. So let me say that also we're entering into a feeling of bliss. So take it or leave it. So maybe it's a good time to take a break soon, to have some canned tea.

[44:45]

We've got the most chocolate cookies I've ever seen in my life. They can put chocolate on every form of cookie. tun überall Schokolade drauf, auf jede Form von Keks. My daughter Sophia butters her bread on both sides. Meine Tochter Sophia, die schmiert Butter auf beide. Since that's normal as an extra side, let's put butter on that side. And then, if possible, she puts chocolate on all four or five or six sides. It seems to be a German custom to give babies chocolate milk in a bottle. But we never do it in America, but everyone does it. So in the middle of the night sometimes, Papa, cacao.

[45:53]

So, now's a good time, I think, to have a break and maybe, I mean, a little sitting before and maybe you could play something. Pretty please? I tried. So, first I start with our sitting. Zuerst fangen wir mit dem Sitzen an und dann spielt Heinrich. Oh. um um

[47:00]

um um You know, Dogen, or excuse me, Dogen and Nagarjuna, Nagarjuna said that we should put our mind in bamboo. Dogen and Nagarjuna said that we should put our mind in bamboo. And he said it's as difficult as trying to get a snake in bamboo.

[48:30]

What he meant was to put our breath mind in our spine, in our backbone. Our backbone, which is something like bamboo. So the shakarachi has a special place in the Zen world because it's Why we see bamboo in which we put our breath mind. And even the snake of the chakras. Thank you very much. So beautiful.

[49:55]

Saul Bellow, who's an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for, no, the Nobel Prize for Literature, also won two Pulitzer Prizes. He said, perhaps on his Nobel Prize address, Perhaps humankind can't bear too much reality. But neither can humankind bear too much unreality. Too much abuse of the truth. Yeah. I really would like us in the next time before lunch to have some discussion.

[51:31]

But I wanted to add, just since we were talking about forest fires earlier, I wanted to tell you, I promised I wouldn't, but tell you an anecdote about forest fire. By the way, what's burned in this fire in California is 300,000 hectares. We're trying to figure out the calculation, but that's what it is. So I'm meeting every year for nearly a week once a year with a group of about half of us, cosmologists, scientists, and so forth, evolutionary scientists, neurobiologists. So we're looking at biological, genetic evolution. But also cultural evolution.

[52:57]

And the scientists particularly, their life is based on finding, on looking at the evidence and drawing conclusions. But there's some disturbing and friendly tension in the group because the more serious of traditional scientists who all have the advantage of also being extremely intelligent and looking down on us mere mortals. they have a very difficult time looking at any evidence that doesn't support the scientific worldview.

[54:04]

Their whole research, their work, their... position in the scientific community is based on a particular world view. Yeah. And to some extent I share this scientific world view. But, you know, partly I'm there as a kind of wild card. Wild card? A wild card is in the deck Well, a joker can be, any card can be a wild card. Any card that you say, that's a wild card, it's there. Trumpf. Trumpf. I'm not a joker.

[55:22]

I don't have a head between, you know. Anyway. Okay. So I... So my job partly in the group is to kind of like push the envelope a bit. But, you know, it's difficult because I accept a lot of things that aren't part of the scientific worldview. Aber es ist schwierig, weil ich viele Dinge akzeptiere, die nicht Teil sind der wissenschaftlichen Weltsicht. But I keep them in a special category and I don't really let them influence my worldview too much. Aber ich belasse sie in einer bestimmten Kategorie und lasse sie auch nicht allzu viel Einfluss nehmen auf meine Weltsicht.

[56:29]

Because I just don't know. Maybe I don't have the pardon, I don't have the courage maybe, but... Mostly I don't know how to do it. Yeah. But it's certainly a number of things that aren't part of the world view or what led me to practice. But because I've been thinking about it recently, having just come from this meeting with these evolutionary scientists, I just didn't, since we were talking about forest fires, I'll tell you this the way I do. And because we talked about forest fires, I'll tell you this anecdote.

[57:35]

In this fire, there were 250,000 acres burning. It was, as I said earlier, the second largest fire in California history at that time. This present one is the largest. And they wanted to evacuate us, and so we went out briefly, and then we went back in around the police lines. We set up a whole system to save the monastery. And there was even some danger, just to put it in perspective. In Southern California, a monastery in a canyon, the monks had smothered because the fire pulled all the air out of the canyon.

[58:35]

In a canyon, the monastery and the monks were stung by fire. So Tassajara is in a fairly narrow canyon, so we were somewhat worried about that, among other things. But because we were in there, they found out we were back in there and we wouldn't leave, they sent in one forest ranger to help us. And we did what's called backfiring on a couple sides of the valley. And there were, by the way, 8,000 forest fighters fighting the fire and there were airplanes and there was a whole airport and it was like some kind of military operation. So at some point we had the monastery saved and our little house at the other end, 15 miles on the other side of the ridge, was then in danger from the fire.

[59:54]

So we went, a group of us went out, about 15 of us, carrying chainsaws and things like that, to go over a different route out of the forest and go to the place. First I tried to drive out, and at the top of the ridge We were driving under flaming trees that had fallen over the road and I drove right over a log that was afire. Luckily I wasn't in the car you rented for me. Zum Glück war ich nicht in dem Mietwagen, den du für mich gemietet hast. And then we couldn't get past, so I had to back up over the same fiery log. And the two or three vehicles we turned around finally went back down in the valley. Also wir konnten auch nicht weiterfahren. Ich musste zurückfahren, also von diesem Baumstab runter wieder und dann rückwärts den Weg.

[61:19]

Since the dirt road was closed, we had to hike out. So we're hiking this group of about 15 of us. So we went over the ridge, we crossed a stream. We were all quite exhausted. I hadn't really slept except for naps for two weeks. The present was pretty raw. And smoky. And you'd find things like a deer and a fox and a mountain lion all kind of sleeping in the same kind of just exhausted way, not attacking each other or anything. So there was a kind of comradeship.

[62:20]

Okay, so we crossed the stream and we went up and then we're going along a ridge high above the stream, maybe a thousand feet or something above the stream. And all I can say is I suddenly felt something very funny. It was like there was a kind of weird silence. I said, we're going back. To the stream. And I was sort of the boss, so everyone agreed, except one young kid who was a forest professional logger from Canada. And he said he was going to go on and carry the chainsaws.

[63:43]

I said, you are not. You're going to come. You cannot leave. We have to go back. So we turned around. I got everyone to turn around. We went back, took 10 or 15 minutes, 15, 20 minutes to get back to the stream. And so we had a little bit, you know, we had an orange or two, you know, and I don't know what we had, but something, we were eating a little something. And just where we were, they napalmed the whole area. Because they decided there were houses on the far end of the ridge and they decided they had to burn that ridge. So planes came over and dropped napalm on it and burned the whole ridge right where we were. They use it to start backfires.

[64:50]

Now, we all sat there, we heard the roar and looked in the whole thing. But what worldview is that? How did I know that? It's very, my whole body said, something's wrong here. We've got to get out of here. My whole body said, something is completely wrong here. We have to get out of here. Scientists say, well, it was just luck or an accident. But I knew that as well as I know anything, for sure. Yes, scientists say, well, it was just luck and coincidence. But I knew it the way you can only know something. So was I able to somehow see into the future? Clairvoyant?

[65:54]

Or was I able to feel something that the animals knew because there was this weird silence? But then the animals can see into the future. In the forest there, we learned to look at the ants carefully because the ants will tell you what kind of winter and summer you're going to have. Also im Wald haben wir gelernt, die Ameisen genau zu beobachten, weil die uns sagen konnten, wie der Winter oder der Sommer sein werden. But predicting the weather from the ants is a little different than predicting an airplane that might fly over. Aber das Wetter aus den Ameisen heraus vorherzusagen, ist nochmal anders als vorherzusagen, dass da ein Flugzeug nappert. So maybe you've had experiences like that and you think, oh, well, it's just, yeah, it's the way the world is.

[66:56]

It's like that. But if you really do look at our worldview, it doesn't fit. How can we really, in some degrees, in heightened states of consciousness, know something about the future? I meet with another group for again about a week to discuss survival after bodily death. And in those discussions, there's lots of what? I accept as evidence for things that are outside our world view. So this is also in some ways related to our practice. Because this to be free of the enclosures of concepts

[67:57]

It's one of the ways we see things, even if they don't fit into our world view. Anyway, sorry, I hope I didn't waste your time telling you this anecdote. But it occurred to me to tell you. Okay, so do you have something you'd like to bring up that we can discuss before we repast? Repast means to eat. Yes. Yes. I always think of the picture of Munchausen, who pulls himself out of the lake on his own, just like you walk. Just another story tale, like Turtle Island.

[69:25]

So it doesn't matter in the case of going to the truth. So how can we come from conceptual mind really to do this other kind of mind, which is described in concepts? You have to take concepts, so it is... For me, it's a mystery. Now, what language are we proceeding in here? It's actually the story of Niels Bohr, who said, when he... When the quantum physicists at the beginning of the last century pushed the quantum physics, even if they did not know what they were doing, he said, it is as if we are in a dirty water

[70:58]

Dreckiges Geschirr mit einem dreckigen Lappen sauber machen. So, das fällt mir dazu ein. In addition to that is Niels Bohr saying that we are washing dirty dishes in dirty water with a dirty brush. You were clean. Yes. Yeah. Come on. But if you put rain in the mud, it comes out in the spring all nice and clear. Yeah. Well, what the cosmologists say, we can treat as just a story. But it happens to be a story that, to the extent that Buddhism does create an image of worlds among men, worlds very much similar. Yeah, and I think it's a worldview that, cosmic view, that does, is more consistent with our practice.

[72:07]

Someone else? Yeah. I like this story about the . And coming from a different background, I often think that economically and socially, we're also . I live in 20%, you know, depending on my interest rate. 20%. 10% maybe. Yeah. I was thinking of the different conditions, the living conditions, and the social conditions, and the price of the world. Yeah. So when we open up to this raw experience to talk about, there's certainly the sense, of course, that's the immediate sphere that we open up to.

[73:30]

And then you have to do it. . which is farther away, and which is not immediately perceptible. In my present mind, this is why the Vedicism was moving along in Auschwitz. At the same time, from that background I was talking about, I sometimes feel that the suffering in other parts of the world is very real and very unique. And I'm often wondering about the way in which this element of not only my thoughts, but other people's thoughts as well, and feelings, how that fits into the picture. Touching with reality and being touched by this reality, we pass us in spirit, but it is the reality that's being us, it's the reality that we're up to this.

[74:56]

And what place does this element have in your thinking? That's something you say. Thank you. In other words, that we live in the West, in Europe, in the United States, in a little island of privilege, and the rest of the world is in pretty difficult circumstances. And a lot of our privilege is dependent on the rest of the world's resources and poor economies. Well, I find it an extremely disturbing moral dilemma. Yeah, I think Ivan Illich said once that he had some kind of semi-precious object somebody had given him that was on his desk.

[76:28]

Maybe I should send the money to some other place. Because that's, you know, a month's wages or something, or more in many places, or years. But then the table I'm eating at in the restaurant is six months' wages. Just the table under the tablecloth. So I can say to the restaurant, I'm taking your table, I'm sorry, I'm sending it to India. No, you're not. So in some ways you can't change the structure of wealth, privilege, etc., because it's embedded in the context.

[77:37]

But there's a great deal more one could, we could do, countries could do. I mean, I'm shocked at America's behavior, in fact. But there is certainly much more that countries can do and I am shocked by the behavior of America. the Buddhist view of how societies develop. We can't spend too much time on this. We'll never go to lunch. You can't change all of society. Because in the end, Ordinary society will be governed by greed, hate, and delusion.

[78:39]

But small groups of people can try to live in a way more appropriately. You can try to live in some optimal way, the way human beings ought to live. And the view is that those small groups trying to live in an optimal way will, over time, influence the whole society. And the view is that those small groups trying to live in an optimal way will, over time, influence the whole society. So the Buddhist view is that there's a dynamic of difference which changes.

[79:42]

If you made everything uniform, it wouldn't work. But I certainly don't think that dynamic of difference justifies America trying to change the Near East. Basically, I don't know what to do. I mean, I was profoundly changed. My life was changed by being in the Near East in the late 50s. I've been invited to go back to Jordan this spring, but I'm trying to fit it into my schedule. Because in some ways I felt happier, more alive, more complex in the Near East than I do in rather flat America.

[80:46]

Anyway, okay, someone else? Not many questions or comments today. I have a question about the valid cognition. Mm-hmm. So I have an idea of what it could mean, but I'm not sure how to put it into practice. So if you say that cognition is a perception without concepts, then the question comes up, where do concepts start?

[81:56]

And they start with language. For example. For example, yes. So, how do I practically stay before concept? Pre-language. Pre-concept. Well, non-duality means the non-perception of concepts. Or thusness, which is such a fundamental word in Buddhism, means the non-perception of concepts.

[82:56]

Of concepts. But, you know, I think just the opening that I suggested by the feeling of an airplane without naming it, or the experience of hearing your own hearing, More than you hear the bird, you hear your own hearing of the bird. These are both entries into getting the feeling of, a way to get the feeling of knowing without concepts. You know, there was a famous calendar after Marilyn Monroe became famous.

[84:14]

Someone found that she posed for a calendar when she was young where she was completely naked. That became a rather famous calendar and you found it in garages and automotive repair places. And a friend of mine Mike Dixon, who's the painter who drew the little fly that's in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, did a big painting that was a reproduction of this calendar. It was as big as that rug at least on the back. And there was Marilyn Monroe completely naked out on a blue sky. And he gave me the painting. and I had it in my kitchen and my daughters my daughter and her friends who were at that time about 12 did not like the painting and they wanted it removed

[85:50]

It embarrassed her in front of her friends. So I used to say, why? It's only pink and blue. Because for me, I didn't see it as anything anymore. It just was a large area of pink and blue. And they just, it's not only pink and blue. It's a naked woman. So I lost, I wasn't able to teach them to be free from concepts. So the painting was removed. But it became a joke in my family. Yes, Dad, it's only pink and blue.

[87:04]

I wanted to hear what your question was, but I want to tell you one other anecdote. In the San Francisco Zen Center, it was probably a mistake, but I put a lot of my friends' paintings up. And I had a large abstract painting of paint thrown on the canvas and all by a man named Edward Abadisi. And a lot of the students whose worldview did not include paint thrown on canvas You know, all children can do better than that. So I got tired of hearing this. Tired of hearing about how so many people didn't like the painting. So one time, one morning when everyone is in zazen, I get my jisha and anja, who are the two assistants for the abbot.

[88:34]

I got the two assistants for the abbot. We went and we took the abstract painting down and put the Marilyn Monroe up. And then 4.30 in the morning, everybody's coming down sleepily. Going down to Zazen. So then, before Zazen ended, there was two periods. We came and we took Marilyn Monroe away and put back the... And then people came upstairs from Sassen, and they said, So there were 80 people and half of them saw it and the others didn't.

[89:55]

He's crazy, there was never a Monroe there. I decided not to explain. Okay, so let's have lunch. And Andres, when do we come back? It's quarter to one. Two? And we'll go from two to four. Is that enough time? That's an hour and 15 minutes. That's a 2.15? 2.15 it is. 2.15. Yeah. Viertel nach zwei treffen wir uns wieder. we haven't had much discussion during this seminar less than usual and you look as intelligent as as a group

[92:06]

Perhaps more so, because Andreas didn't let people who weren't too intelligent come. What? He made a test. I don't know why it's so easy to make fun of Andreas. I guess because it's so easy for him to make fun of us. So I would like to see a little bit more, hear your voice a little bit more. Yes. I was, this morning I was thinking, is it feeling or, I start with this, is it feeling a concept? Out of the question you asked Andreas and Gerard yesterday, how do you listen in session and how do you discipline?

[93:28]

So I can say for myself I, during session, I listen with my body because in the way you speak is you give a feeling to us during session which I include. First I include it only or I get it only with my body or I let it in with my body, it's kind of understanding and then I kind of try to catch it with my mind sometimes, but often it's only when you, with a phrase you say, or something, yeah. And there is a bodily concept, there is a bodily feeling, there is something I don't know. I only can... I mean, a little anecdote. While I was, you know, the head of the Zendoe, Johannes Hope, you came doing this, doing a kinhin, you came to me from behind and say, Hey, Gisela, you still go like a duck.

[94:38]

And give me water. Did you have to bring that up? And then you pointed out, everybody else is going like, you are the, you know, you have to go like this. And so I first listened, I listened to you, and I said, yeah, it's true. Everybody else is going like that. It's my fault. So I brought it into a concept. And I remember, I went into it. You were walking like a duck, or you were... Really? With my, yeah, yeah. During Kenya? During Kenya, yes. And so I brought it into... I don't remember this, but, you know, okay. I brought it into... Because you're not very much like a duck, I don't think. I brought it the same time because I felt so responsible for everybody else going like this. And I had to bring over... I had to bring over that feeling.

[95:41]

Yeah. to go in session, to be in session and to step with the space in between. And then what I did, I remember everybody, I kind of laughed about it, but I put it into a drawing above the door, remember? And you came and saw it.

[96:04]

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