Now, some of you may bemoan the factoid or the fact. No, sorry, just the fact. Factoid is an artificial fact, something that looks like a fact but isn't. A faux fact. A faux, it means false, a faux fact. So you may bemoan the faux fact that this is lay practice. Because it's lay practice, I have to keep repeating myself. Because, you know, trying to bring all of us, as we say in English, up to speed.

[01:04]

But actually, when I practice with, meet with those people I practice with most often, consistently and for the longest time, we go over these basic teachings, same ones over and over again, even in more detail. So now you can be very glad you're doing lay practice and not this inner circle, which is boring. But we really only talk about the same thing. But the point is that we need to establish, and I'm trying to establish, A consistent point of view.

[02:25]

A consistent or integrated and yet evolving point of view. Because not that it's right or wrong, as much is as important as that it's consistent. Involving. because there's a power in a developed point of view. And if I can develop a clear point of view about practice using English words, and with your help, German words, then it will, I think, not only help you practice, but the next generation can develop my point of view much better than if it's a kind of not-so-clear practice.

[04:05]

because, you know, it's very clear that I am in the midst of an evolving Buddhist tradition in the West. And we are, we all are, And this is not the last word. This is only part of something that's developing. I'm trying not only to practice with you, but I'm also trying to help your and our practice develop. And it certainly works. Yeah, that's enough.

[05:14]

Okay, someone wants to bring something up? If someone has something, I'm happy to... a little bit at least, speak to whatever you bring up. Yes, Neil. You said it's about noticing what's happening. So I found that, I'll say this in German later, I found there's different, not ways of noticing, but different realms of noticing. For example, if I'm hasty or greedy, I say, like, Neil, calm down or be quiet. That's one thing. Then I may have this, you Neil, calm down. Yes, sir. And I have sometimes this field feeling where I sort of, I notice myself, but from within. And then I had a very interesting experience. When I started practicing, I wanted to have absolute clear head, and I had to drink alcohol for about at least eight years, not a drop of alcohol.

[06:22]

So then eventually a friend said, let's have a... drink of sake. I said, all right, why not? I got fairly drunk, and then I discovered, fairly. And the interesting thing was, then I noticed there was a clearness around that, which, the feeling was I could get as drunk as possible, but this clearness wouldn't go away. It wouldn't leave. And this is sort of something, yeah, it was noticed. Yeah, but don't drive. I'm not afraid the content will give you away. Just notice that because of having a little bit too much, there's this... And then there's also this talk about the observer, which I... Very often the observer is mentioned and I can't differentiate that.

[07:24]

What's it about? Could you... Differentiate what? Where does the observer come in in relation to what you said about noticing? Well, the act of noticing generates an observer. but ideally the observer doesn't get drunk. Up to a point, one of the measures of practice is to be able to drink a lot and not be affected by it. You know, in the symposium, you know, they get drunk. Only the tragedian doesn't get drunk. Everybody else, the comedians, the comedic playwriters, the snacks, etc.

[08:28]

I didn't understand this. Who gets drunk? The person who writes tragedies gets drunk next to last. The philosopher gets drunk, doesn't get drunk at all. The comedic, the person who writes comedies... Everyone understood that. In some language that was clear. Now that presumes, let's say, that they all drank. Maybe, you know, Socrates was, you know, throwing his drinks in the garbage pail or something. But I mean, one can still get drunk. And one can still damage the body drinking.

[09:42]

So we're not going to use this as an excuse. Yeah. No, but I understand what you mean. It is different. After a while, something doesn't get drunk. And we could ask you, who or what is that something? Yeah. So maybe that should be the next seminar. Who or what doesn't get drunk? Who or what doesn't get drunk? Really? Is it that? It'd be like that. And there'd be an asterisk. Vegetarian meals served with alcohol.

[10:44]

Of course, the alcohol is vegetarian. It might even be organic. You have someone else? Yes. What about the so-called superego, which is also observing, continuously judging or praising? Is it a part of the ego or is it also something external? These are distinctions Freud made. And I don't see there's any reason we have to treat them as real.

[11:49]

There seem to me to be distinctions based on the warring Victorian family. With the father representing the superego and no one getting along with anyone. And one difference in Buddhist thinking is all these distinctions are actually the same thing folded out and it can fold back together. Buddhism wouldn't make distinctions that are at war with each other and can't be put back together. But that doesn't mean we can't have a critical superego functioning in us. You know, they say that if you go to a Jungian analyst, you have Jungian dreams, and Freudian analysts, you have Freudian dreams, and so forth.

[13:24]

And I think that's quite natural, because if you begin to create distinctions... where you didn't have distinctions before. They become a kind of language for you. And then you notice your experience in terms of that language. So it's useful to develop a language which is fruitful in the way it affects your dreaming and thinking and so forth. Different languages reveal different things, but Buddhism would say, what language is most integrating? Not necessarily revealing, but most integrating. So I mean the emphasis in Buddhism is not much on analyzing dreams, but on integrating dreams.

[14:43]

and on developing lucid dreaming. Okay, so that's enough talk on things like this unless somebody has something you want to bring up. There's many of you who have been silent, who I'd like to hear from, but we have to stop sometime. Okay. So I said I would speak about the five skandhas. So what I've tried to establish, create a feel for right now.

[15:58]

Is this dimension of attention being brought to attention? A practice being developing and investigating an observing mind and to investigate our usual mind. But I'm also trying to establish together with you for this short time we're together some kind of shared and mutual mind. At Crestone, we try to do that for three months. And there's a tremendous power to that. And it's interesting, we're not trying to do it for six months, we're trying to do it for three months.

[17:01]

So there's this acceptance of the way we exist, but let's try something on for a while, is a Buddhist way of looking at things. And there's a tremendous, wonderful power when a group of people for three months discover, generate, develop a mutual mind. And, you know, that there's a certain, you know, form to it that has a beginning and end.

[18:22]

And we just did the, just before I came, we did the Shusso head monk entering ceremony. And the chuseau enters at the point the practice period has settled in a certain way. And then the way we all enter with the chouseau. You can feel when something settles down and there's a kind of silence, a different silence than when the room is empty. A physical silence. And then using that physicalized or physical silence we use the exorcism and ritual of the She's so entering ceremony.

[19:39]

Just step forward in that physical silence. Yeah, and one of the things that I've been interested in trying to speak about is ritualized space or ritual space. Because I said earlier that Society possesses our attention, most of our attention. And that is done mainly by ritualized space. Christoph does wonderful theater for children. But he creates a ritual space. You get everyone to stay still while you... The audience will slow down while you speed up time.

[21:01]

And lots of things happen in a short period of time in a stage. TV and magazines use this to then... sell you things. And the only way I think we can fight this ritualized space that takes over our and shapes our desires, is to find out how to create our own ritual space. If Sophia, my daughter, is captured by the ritual space of American high schools, she's in trouble.

[22:11]

So I have to create a ritual space Marie-Louise and I in the Sangha, a ritual space that's more powerful than what already television is faster and more interesting than the living room. And Marie-Louise and I and the Sangha also try to create a ritualized space that is more powerful than what happens on television and in the magazines. Okay, so I really feel, you know, that was a little riff, but I really feel that we are creating right now a certain kind of ritual space. That's what this practice center is all about. So I'd like you also to notice not only investigating mind and your usual mind, but the mind that arises through our internal and external discussion and the rhythm, schedule of this place.

[23:29]

I'm sorry, I could tell it was too long. So I want you to notice not only your investigating mind, and your usual mind, but also the mind that develops through the practice of this place the schedule the meditation and our internal and external discussion okay now What are some of the tools of noticing?

[24:44]

Now, I would say let's just take two teachings, the four foundations of mindfulness. The foundations of mindfulness are, let's say, ways of developing the territory of attention. Of attention. And the five skandhas also do that. They definitely do that. But they also simply are ways of noticing. Okay. Now not all of you know what the five skandhas are.

[26:06]

They're in the menu of the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra is a kind of menu of practice. Okay, one of them is the five skandhas. And in the Heart Sutra that we chant in the morning, in English at least, it's form, feelings, Perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. Okay, now impulse is, I think, an element of it, but it's much more accurate, I think, to call it associative thinking. Now, the rigor of this teaching is that everything... all of our being space, our living space, is included in the five skandhas.

[27:27]

And the basic teaching of it is that consciousness is a construct or a artifact developed through an artifact, a made thing, through form, feelings, perceptions, and associative thinking. And that there's no self included in these five. We can discover everything that happens to us without necessarily having a... These things are all always present.

[28:49]

I don't know how to say it. Self comes and goes as a function. And self can be understood as a function within the five skandhas. Okay. Now form is the most difficult to understand. Because form is emptiness. But that's also the clue to how to understand it. So if I'm going to speak about that, that means I have to speak to you about the experience And if I want to talk to you about this, I have to talk about the experience of emptiness. Probably the most difficult topic in Zen Buddhism.

[29:53]

Can we do it in this little short seminar? Should we try? Are you up to it? Yeah! I feel like Howard Dean. I feel like Howard Dean, but let's not get into that. Okay. How to make it accessible, the experience of emptiness? No, I just don't know. I was thinking we talked about emptiness this morning, but here we are now, and we're ending soon. So one of the experiences of emptiness is the experience of absence. So now if I joke about it, you already have the experience of the absence of the teaching of emptiness.

[31:14]

Okay. Sophia, the other day I came back from... and I had purchased two or three bottles of vitamin pills, vitamin C and E and multivitamin or something. No, I know I shouldn't say that here because I know the joke in Europe is that all Americans eat nothing but vitamin pills. But we see it as... being more Chinese and extending the diet through tinctures and herbs and things.

[32:16]

Yeah, so she said she wanted to see what was in these... And Sophia said she would like to see what's in these bottles. Well, vitamin pills, I don't know if they are here. It's really hard to open the bottles because they have them sealed with plastic and all kinds of things, you know. You need a hatchet or something to open them. No, I didn't really want to open them. But she said she wanted to see what was in them. And so I opened and took another bottle, selenium or something, out of the medicine cabinet and opened it. So see, just like this, pills, capsules, you know.

[33:19]

And she wanted me to open each bottle. And I finally said, there's nothing in there. Meaning, there's nothing in there but what you saw on the other bottle. But she said, well then, show me nothing. She sounds like your daughter. Well, I said, well, you have the right father to ask that question. Now... Now, if I opened one of the bottles... I did open finally one.

[34:33]

There's nothing but intention. She's balanced on her toes on the... back of a little children's chair so she can be high enough to see where all these things are, and she won't leave that position. Please open. Okay. So now if I'd opened a bottle which she expected to be full, She'd have the experience of absence. It's like if you say you return home and you expect some people to be there, your family to be there, and you get there and the front door is open and you go through the house, no one's home.

[35:44]

You have the experience of absence. Okay. So that's one of the early Buddhist ways to try to make experience of emptiness of self accessible. Now, that assumes that your early practice, your practice has been trying to discover self, discover what self is. Like, what is your name? Elisabeth. Elisabeth.

[36:45]

That's my other daughter. Elisabeth. Questions about self, ego and so forth. So, if you really make an effort, there must be a self. There's some kind of observer here. What is this observer? Is it self? Well, after a while you find there's certainly no permanent self. And you find there's no consistent self. Different circumstances we have a different body and a different self. The kind of self you discover in zazen is different than the kind of self you discover if somebody is criticizing you.

[37:49]

And sometimes self is almost not there. But you have the experience of sometimes functioning through self, but in a more fundamental way being free of self. And so you experience the absence of self. Now, this is an argument of early Buddhism. And Jeffrey Hopkins writes about it as a practice, too. And I think it's okay, and I think it's a little difficult to really get a feel for.

[39:09]

But you can see it depends on your really trying to establish yourself through the self and finding out you can't. You experience the emptiness of a permanent self or a self which you can establish yourself through. And then that experience of the absence of self begins to develop you or mature you, affect you. A development and maturing occurs that can't happen if you Only know and try to establish yourself through self.

[40:21]

So, But the experience of the absence of self, really feeling the absence of self, develops you in a way that we call Buddhism. Okay. Now that's more than I wanted to say, but I have a second example that I'd like to speak about, the absence of phenomena emptiness of phenomena but perhaps I'll come back to that tomorrow or something we'll see

[41:24]

But if I want you all to come to the practice week, I won't come to it until the practice week. Now I'm acting like an advertiser. Okay. An advertiser. Okay, the five skandhas again. Now, if you examine, notice your states of mind. By the way, what I just said is background for coming back to the so-called form skandha. And now I'm saying, you notice that your state of mind is affected by perceptions. And so, yeah, if it's affected by perceptions, then... I should notice my perceptions.

[42:51]

How is my mind that I'm living in rooted in? What are its roots? Well, partly it's associative thinking. Certain things, memories come up. Something, you open a letter and it reminds you of things and your mind changes. And you hear a bird call or a train and your mind changes. So memory changes. and the associative thinking that arises from memory and context, and perceptions, all are ingredients that generate our consciousness.

[43:55]

ingredients that generate, that compose our consciousness. Yeah. And so... The practitioner says, oh, okay, so I don't want to just notice my consciousness, I want to notice the sources of consciousness. I want to participate in the minds that arises that I live within. So the five skandhas are teaching about what you can notice if you want to participate in the consciousness in which you live. What you can notice.

[45:12]

So that you can participate in. the consciousness in which we mostly live. Okay. I think that's enough to say for now. We've sort of touched the surface only. Well, we dove into under the surface, but we came back out. Yeah, gasping for air. So I think this is a good place to stop. And we have to start again tonight. What time? Eight o'clock? Okay. I guess I'll be there. Okay, so let's sit for a few moments.

[46:20]

There are many ways to do that. One of the things we bring attention to is our usual mind. And to the presence and functioning of self in our usual mind. And that's a year or two. But we've put it on the menu.

[47:16]

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