So we can't do too much in the next 20 minutes or whatever we take. Let me try to be fairly simple. We have the sense of an underworld. We have the sense of the underlying mind and we need something like that to have a sense of continuity from moment to moment. We already have such a mind. And in this yoga culture, which which conceives of the self as a structure and not an entity.

[01:17]

I use the word entity to mean something that has a more or less permanent reality. Entityness is more or less the opposite of emptiness. It stretches the language. But I wonder why there is such a word like entityness. In English? Yeah. I mean, it's easy to stretch first. If you make up first. It's a word that can be easily made up in English though.

[02:24]

It's probably not in the dictionary. The rules for which you can make up words are much stricter in English than German. Really? In German you can keep adding things. It's about this long. Okay. given the view of yoga culture, you can decide. It's a choice. It's a real choice. Like if you're weaving a fabric, you could say, I think I'd like a little gold thread here or red thread.

[03:28]

There's still some rules for the weaving and for the loom, but still, you have a lot of choice. The craft of practice goes this far. So we'd like to replace the underlying mind. If the underlying mind is the mind that's prior to perception and that shapes our perception is where we the facts of the world reside, like the assumption that the world is more or less permanent, or that we have to function in the world

[04:49]

So much as if it were permanent, we more or less identify with it. Okay. How are you going to replace it? The way you replace a mind is to develop an initial mind. That's just the word I use, an initial mind. Now since The world actually exists in moment-by-moment appearances. You don't have access to that momentariness of the world. Bastards. Briefly present and then it's the future becoming the present.

[06:03]

And how long is the present? Well, it has no dimensions in time because it's either second in the past or fraction of a second in the future. But we have an experience of an initial mind. I mean, excuse me, but we have an experience of duration. And understanding the experience of duration, how we create the experience of duration of presence. It's one of the entrances to the experience of entry. because this duration is essentially empty it has no substance but we do have an experience of duration and this experience of duration

[07:19]

is connected moment by moment by an underlying mind. And because we have an experience of duration, there's a beginning of that experience or an initial mind. So what I suggest as a way of practice, most of you have heard me say it often, use doorways, entrances. So just get in the habit of Pavlovian sense of using a doorway. Yeah, as I might use the spudger. So you can use the doorway To stop.

[08:43]

And try to break the connection with thinking mind. And... The most important thing is to break the connection with thinking mind. And then find a substitute for a moment. So say you enter a room. You stop at the threshold and don't think. And you just say, feel the room. Feel it with even a sense of respect. That you're entering something. And then enter.

[09:44]

So you get a feeling for the whole space or all the people or whatever there. And you do something like this as a habit until you're beginning to actually initiate weaving in an initial mind. Until you have an initial mind, you can't really have an experience of dharmas. Because dharmas means that moment by moment appearance. And you can't have a feeling of appearance unless there's an initial mind.

[10:45]

Because appearance has a beginning. So now the four marks or the various teachings about this emphasize both the beginning and the end. And most of you know the teaching of the five dharmas and the four marks and so on. Now again, the overall kind of press release for Zen Buddhism. It's a separate transmission outside the scriptures and outside culture. A teaching that points directly at mind.

[12:04]

And you could pass through a lineage, a very special state of mind. As you can see expressed in Castaneda's books. A very special state of mind that only a few, practice a certain kind of shamanism or whatever, we'll know. No, we could say that what's transmitted in Zen Buddhism is also a special state of mind based on thorough practice based on realization and thorough practice of meditation. And not easily understood or even noticed by people who don't practice meditation.

[13:07]

But the discipline of Mahayana Buddhism is that even if there is this especially transmitted state of mind it has to be in its fundaments Shared with others. And certainly shareable. So while most people may say to you, how are you? It's a nice day, etc. Hello. It's nice to see you. In a perfunctory way. Profunctory means just a formality.

[14:08]

You just do it automatically. Yes, your simple practice as a bodhisattva is to make that salutation, that greeting a real reference onto this shared world. Okay, so you're introducing by some physical acts, like the doorway. An initial move. Which allows appearance. And I can, you know, practice it. For instance, looking at Gerlinde. And then I can close my eyes and look at you.

[15:23]

And there's a break. And then I can turn and look at you. There's a break. But I can also feel that break. even if I look at you repeatedly. Now, if I get in the habit of that, my mind doesn't tend to see you the same way all the time. What sees you newly each moment notices differently. Uniqueness each moment. My father had a mustache. All his life. I mean, not when he was a baby, but... But he had one and one day he came down to breakfast and he shaved it off.

[16:37]

And none of his family noticed. You just saw the same old father, you know. And then he finally at breakfast said, do you notice anything? No. I shaved my mustache. Oh, you didn't. I mean, we saw the usual person we saw. We didn't really see that his mustache was gone. Okay. Now, what's the importance of this initial moment? First we could call it an entrance mind. It's the entrance to bringing views into the mind. When you use a gate phrase, a wado, like the most popular ones that we use are just now is enough and already connected,

[18:01]

I shouldn't say partner, what seemed to be the most effective. That enters into us through an intentional and initial mind. It's like putting a new It's also a basal mind, a basis mind. A basis for appearance. And it's also a basis or context for consciousness to arise. So you can have a choice about from what consciousness arises. You wake up in the morning.

[19:21]

You may be dreaming or you're sleepy. And then you think of something. I've got to go to the office to do something. And those thoughts wake you up and are also the context of your consciousness for the day. You could also wake up and chant, say. So the initial mind becomes a moment-by-moment basis for consciousness. So it's rooted in a deeper mind than just... Driven by a discursive consciousness.

[20:33]

Or driven by self-referential thinking. So that it's not that you don't have self-referential thinking. But the self-referential thinking or the productive thinking, whatever it is, occurs in a larger mind that's not dependent on thinking for its Aspects, quality. But this thinking apparently in a larger mind, which is not... It's a much more brutal, creative, invented mind.

[21:34]

And we can also call this a threshold mind, this initial mind. Because now we can see it can be the threshold of consciousness appearing. The threshold of objects appearing. The threshold of memory. The threshold of karma. The threshold of self. Now you all know and we all know that like when we go to work at the office we're accidentally You can think it's a surface difference, but it's more than a surface difference.

[22:35]

The more you have this initial mind as a threshold mind, the more you are a participant in memory, karmic formations, etc., coming into this next moment. And how self and consciousness arise in each moment. So this... development of this initial mind becomes a basis for mental activity, becomes an entrance into mind by which you can transform mind, and becomes a threshold

[23:50]

in which you can participate in your mental and physical activity. Now the development of this initial mind is grounded, is most easily developed is grounded is most easily developed in a sensorial baseline and so this initial mind is also the mind we most share with phenomena and other people And so the initial mind becomes the sensorially located initial mind, becomes our discontinuous underlying mind, continuity through discontinuity.

[25:10]

Because discontinuous, because it is brushed by the paint, it is painted by the brush of phenomena and other people at each moment.

[25:40]

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