I guess what I'm doing these days is trying to teach you how to teach yourself Buddhism. I mean, I should always do that, and I think I am always trying to do that. Because no one can do it for you. But also, you know, I don't, you know, I only know some of the layers on what I'm doing. And I notice layers that appear by implication over a while. And one of the things I notice that is informing what I choose to speak about

[01:03]

and in this case it's what i said what i noticed is that i'm emphasizing teaching you teaching yourself but That must mean that on some level, underneath, I think the end game is in sight. And the endgame can mean retirement. Or just a stepping back on my part to see what you do. Of course, it may be anticipation of the final endgame.

[02:26]

And often when I say things to you, I think you sometimes take it as correction. And maybe sometimes it is if I've told you the same thing four times. Or for 20 years. But usually it's that I'm trying to For me, from my side, it's instruction and not correction. Because what I'm trying to do is establish within us, within our shared practice,

[03:29]

patterns, ways of acting, that are, you know, fundamentally arbitrary usually, whether you bow to your cushion or not is fairly arbitrary. Whether you have a key to start your car is not arbitrary. But maybe starting a car and starting Zazen with a bow to the cushion, there may be some comparison. You're traveling or staying. I'm sorry, I lost you. With a car, you need to start the car with a key. And maybe you need to start zazen with buying your cushion to travel somewhere, which in the end you just stay.

[05:00]

No wonder I lost you. No wonder. You know, artists, painters, poets, etc. Often have physical acts they feel they have to do in order to start writing or painting. The eraser has to be parallel to the edge of the desk or something like that. Or they need a particular brush or a particular pencil. Or two cups of coffee.

[06:04]

I notice we have rituals like that, you know, and we're not painting or writing poems. We're just getting ready for Sazan or getting ready to, etc. But these arbitrary physical acts, and usually they're physical, not just mental, physical acts, In my experience, living in the art world in New York of writing and painting, Virtually everyone has such physical rituals to get themselves shifted into a mind where they can write or paint. And of course they're basically arbitrary.

[07:09]

But we as a Sangha and as a lineage tradition establish certain little physical acts, which may be served, hopefully served, to entangle our dharmas. I mean, you know, like entangle electrons and stuff. No, I don't know. Bell's theorem. But entangle is usually, don't we want to unentangle them?

[08:11]

Well, in developing a sangha, we want to be a little entangled. Oh, okay. It's, you know, just as an aside, it's an interesting term to me because this physicist named Bell, Joshua Bell, is that right? I forget. He's about my age, maybe he's a little older. But he first, everyone thought it was kooky new age science, showed that two atoms or two electrons who are connected when they're separated... one on the other end of the galaxy will wiggle if this one wiggles. And the connection occurs faster than the speed of light, which supposedly nothing occurs faster than the speed of light.

[09:24]

And now that the facticity of this has been established, in contemporary physics it's called entanglement. So it's just, I mean, no one understands really how it's possible, but it is the way it is. And nobody really understands how that can be, but that's how it is normally. But it's an example of this underlying, inconceivable reality in which we live. So we have these little things we do together.

[10:43]

So, for example, if I say to Keith, when you're the tenkan and you come in to the zendo before the robe chant, And you come in a nice pace without rushing. And you go to sit at your cushion. And... And you're going to sit César and not cross-legged. because we're all going to do the robe chant.

[11:48]

No, if I say to Keith, or I say to Keith in front of, embarrassing him in front of everyone, And now that he's half shaved his head, I know he can handle it. Vanity is just gone. That probably, when he crosses the ma board, he should bow just before it. and then step in and sit down and say so. Now, for me, I'm not correcting you from my point of view. I'm just giving you instruction.

[12:50]

And not just you instruction, because if you do it that way, then other people will tend to do it that way. It's interesting. This is an example of something I would talk about in practice period more likely than in five-day Sashin. And another reason I feel it's instruction and not correction is I'm not even sure that we ought to do it that way. But it is part of my attempt to establish a shared, consistent, interrelated pattern of Dharma practice. Consistent, interrelated.

[14:14]

And consistent and interrelated means that in a way I'm trying to, once you know the patterns, these are consistent in other ways. Another thing, how do we do this? I have to think, well, how does it fit into other patterns, etc. ? And it will be slightly or significant. very different perhaps, but maybe not significantly different, in other lineages and schools. But if you're someone who wears your heart on your sleeve, How do you say that in German?

[15:30]

I just said it the way that it's not a... We don't have that expression. You don't have that expression. I think it's understandable. It's understandable. You wear your ego or yourself on your sleeve. Then you think, oh, he's correcting me. And in front of everybody. So, you know, I'm hoping you don't care about those things. and I hope that you don't mind these things. Okay, now... Okay, so the Doan. The Doan. We've talked about the Tenkan, now we'll talk about the Doan. We've talked about the Tenkan. And next is the Tenzan. No. Okay, so the Doan is sitting there behind the bell. And here, what I'm trying to talk about here is a way to understand the underlying, the way we act within the assumption and fact of, the way we act within the assumption and fact of

[16:47]

of an underlying inconceivable reality. And this is a term from Yuan Wu. And I think it's more useful in its potential interrelatedness than Buddha nature. And as I said to you, in Dzogchen they call it the vast expanse. And sometimes I call it not entirely satisfied with it, but I call it allness.

[18:00]

Yeah, and in the most common term that's equivalent is Tathagatagarbha. And you all know what that means, right? Would you keep your eyebrows down, please? To talk at a garb of memes? Geez, I talk about these things. Where's Andreas Hagen? We need him from those 1990 lectures. This is just, if he happens to listen to the tape, he gets a thrill. Thank you. So, Tathagata is coming and going. Tathagata bedeutet kommen und gehen.

[19:14]

It's a way to create a... Everything's changing. Alles ist im Wandel begriffen. Okay, that's the basic view of Buddhism. Das ist die grundlegende Sichtweise des Buddhism. Now we make a slightly powerful shift from everything changing to coming and going. Und jetzt machen wir eine leichte, aber kraftvolle Abänderung von, dass wir sagen, alles ist im Wandel begriffen, hin zu, kommen und gehen. Okay, so now everything changing becomes coming and going. Alles verändert sich wird nun zu kommen und gehen. So now we have everything changing is something you observe more or less from as an outside perspective. And what we have here is that this sentence, everything changes, is something you would say if you observed it more or less from the outside. Everything changing now by calling it coming and going happens inside you, because you're coming and going.

[20:16]

Und dieses alles verändert sich, der Wechsel hin zu kommen und gehen wird jetzt plötzlich zu etwas, was in dir geschieht, weil ja du kommst und gehst. And garba tatagata, garba, garba, means simultaneously womb and embryo. So it means, or we can understand it as meaning, that the activity of coming and going is simultaneously womb and embryo of everything. Now that's a word which you can enter. Now the word world, where do you enter the word world? In a world, maybe.

[21:23]

Or what about universe, one poem, universe? Well, that doesn't help you much. And cosmos, that's sort of related to cosmetic. So these words aren't, they're not... If you think God created the world, you don't have anything to do but live it. But if we have two choices, The world was either created or it's in the constant process of creating itself. And long ago Buddhist thinkers, practitioners and others thought If you have a world that was created You have a lot of problems.

[22:39]

Conceptual problems. What was before the beginning? Does it have a border? And what's on the other side of the border? So Buddhism decided, yeah, everything's in the process of creating itself. I mean, we really can't know whether it was created, but we can know it's creating. And we can't really know whether it has a beginning or it's endless. We think in terms of beginnings and ends. As I just spoke about the end game. But if you say everything at the beginning, you have a lot of conceptual problems.

[23:57]

It's a lot simpler to say it's beginningless. Okay. So Buddhism made these choices. And one choice then is it's in an endless process of creating itself. And that's reflected in the term coming and going womb embryo. Because you can feel yourself initiating things and incubating things. And you can feel the movement of your life, inward and outward and so forth. Okay, so one term is Tathagatagarbha.

[25:09]

Another is now underlying inconceivable reality. And in a conversation with my botanist-biologist friend Peter Nick, He called the allness an irreducible complexity. And that's just as good, too. Okay. So the dawn. How are we doing? So the doan sits down. And I can remember, you know, I was a doan, as some of you know, for, I don't know, two or three years continuously.

[26:15]

Every morning was a doan. And sometimes in the afternoon too. Anyway, so when I sat down, I concluded that my mental posture was part of the activity as well as my physical posture. Da habe ich geschlussfolgert, dass meine geistige Haltung Teil der Aktivität war, so wie auch meine körperliche Haltung. So first I established my physical posture. Also habe ich zuerst meine körperliche Haltung hergestellt. Discovering my spine and awareness. Und indem ich meine Wirbelsäule im Gewahrsein entdeckt habe. And then I established a mental posture.

[27:18]

And the mental posture usually was, I mentioned the other day in Zazen, something like entirely new day. No. You know, when I'm chanting sometimes. I find myself, because I've got to do something soon, I find myself thinking through something while I'm chanting. And I suppose we all do that. Sometimes it's constructive thinking through and sometimes it's just kind of bored or you're annoyed or something. And when I notice it, I bring myself back to inhabiting my attention.

[28:20]

And then the chanting sounds better, I think feels better, and I feel more satisfied. So the other phrase I've come up with recently, just so obvious, but it takes me all these years to come up with it, is to inhabit your attention. Yeah, so I would sit down as Doan. Inhabit my posture. Or the posture. And then form a mental posture of And then Sukhiroshi would come in to do the three bows.

[29:43]

And I always felt a kind of exultation when he was there. Not just because he was such a nice person. But because the role of teacher existed. And he fulfilled the role so well. And it was so essential for me that there was such a role and that I found a teacher. My mental posture became when I hit the bells. An announcement. I felt I was announcing, Sukhiroshi is here.

[30:47]

I felt I was announcing, Sukhiroshi is here. It wasn't like... It wasn't like... And it was like it should be strong. We're in the midst of something that's powerful and real. Oh, I forgot. I did it three times. Yeah. All right. So... And also, part of that is you establish a spatial posture. Now, here, what we're talking about here is a kind of tantric aspect of Zen practice which is hidden in the details. So we don't in Zen visualize deities, etc., particularly.

[31:49]

But we visualize ourself in activity. Yeah, Zen developed in parallel to Tantrism and in succession. And it's incorporated those practices in visualizing yourself. Now, if you think you have an inherent nature, etc., then you can't visualize yourself because you're already somebody and you're lousy or wonderful. And Usually we swing back and forth.

[33:03]

Today I'm lousy, but really I'm secretly great. Okay. But So the attitude is, you know, I have this nature or identity that I, you know, we do have some kind of identity that's been developed and accumulated over the years of our life. And we do have to pay attention to that and take care of that, and psychology applies to that. But also we have

[34:05]

openness or fluidity which allows us to imagine ourselves as a deity. Aber wir haben auch die Offenheit oder die Flüssigkeit die es uns gestattet uns als eine Gottheit zu visualisieren. Or to imagine ourselves sitting with an awakened spine, welcoming the doshi, bowing it in the center of the room. And as if we can sometimes discard our accumulated personal identities. It doesn't mean you erase or get entirely rid of your accumulated personal identity.

[35:31]

But sometimes it's very healthy to have momentary times and throw it away And zazen is a chance to at least sometimes feel you've thrown it away. Now your psychological nanny will come back and say, hello there. But you can momentarily throw it away. Deine Psychologie wird schon wiederkommen und sich wieder melden und so, aber du kannst sie momenthaft wegwerfen.

[36:33]

And that changes the dynamic of how your psychology works. Und das verändert die Dynamik, wie deine Psyche sich verhält. So, again, we're being Doan. Also nochmal, wir sind Doan. You sit down and establish your physical posture. Du setzt dich hin und stellst deine körperliche Haltung her. For this particular occasion, you establish a mental posture. Und für diese ganz besondere Gelegenheit stellst du eine geistige Haltung her. And instead of sometimes an entirely new day, you can have each of you realize your practice. And then you... I don't know why. I concluded very early or I realized or experienced very early that my mental posture was as influential in the situation as my physical posture. And it's also considered the practice of purity.

[37:38]

To sometimes have a mental posture which is perfectly complete and not distracted. Manchmal eine geistige Haltung zu haben, die vollkommen vollständig ist und von nichts abgelenkt ist. We could even call this the primal samadhi. Das könnten wir sogar das... When you feel the world in your senses. Okay. So back to being Doan.

[38:41]

We have a theme here, right? Okay. So you establish your physical posture. And then you establish, at least I used to do it in this order, a mental posture. And then you establish a spatial posture. And I've never used that as a term before, but I didn't know how to explain it without coming up with that term. Und ich habe diesen Begriff vorher noch nie verwendet, aber ich wüsste jetzt nicht, wie ich das erklären sollte, ohne diesen Begriff zu erdenken. Okay. And the special posture is, here I'm trying to talk about how you practice non-duality. Und diese räumliche Haltung, hier versuche ich darüber zu sprechen, wie du nicht-dualität praktizierst. Even if it's momentary, it has a powerful effect. So you establish your physical posture, your mental posture.

[39:50]

And then you feel the spatial posture. The field of the body. The Kesu bell. Let's call it Kesu. The stand. And the room, the zendo, everybody's sitting. And the space that is established between you and the bell. And the space you established between you and the bell is also the bell and is also you. And the space of the room flows into the space of your sitting there and out of the space of your sitting there. Round, round, round.

[40:52]

Yeah, so then you're in this space and you're activating this space this space didn't exist until this moment and when you hit the bell you sort of feel I'm going to ask the bell to hit itself I'm going to have no idea in my mind that I'm hitting the bell. But I'll give you a little help. I'm going to pick up the stick at least. And then you try to release the stick so it just makes the bell ring. sound itself.

[41:58]

And the movement traditionally is always upwards. Almost everyone has a downward hit. And even if you miss the bell, you're like, I didn't even hit the damn bell. That's okay. Look, when we wipe our bowls, even if there's no water, you still wipe the side. The Ino is sitting at the Doan seat, and I bow to his seat, and there's nobody even there, and I'm bowing to it. I might be certified crazy, you know. Okay. So you feel you're making this, and you are making the space ring.

[43:20]

And you can feel the source sense, the senses arising from within. And when the senses arise from in, this is a sign of awareness. And the world feels settled within you. And the world feels settled within you. This is an experience of non-duality. And this way I've articulated the Doan practice is a tantric practice of establishing non-duality by visualizing yourself and the situation.

[44:32]

But now, you had a discussion in the seminar yesterday. And I hadn't heard how this discussion went. But I guess the question or idea was, what has been your own experience of awareness and consciousness? And I thought I might actually speak to that some now, but I haven't gotten around to it. So maybe I have to probably have to give some more Teishos. But since I'm not going to carry this thing here more than once, and it's already one hour since I started, but let me have another moment of your time. That's how I just found it.

[45:44]

So this is a female figure, obviously. She has rather nice breasts. I guess they're nice. I mean, I don't know. But she has completely the iconography of Vajrasattva. And Vajrasattva is the, traditionally, is the inner form of Vajradhara. And Vajrasattva Again? The Vajrasattva is the inner form, traditionally, of Vajradhara. Vajrasattva is the inner form of Vajradhara. And that's already an interesting distinction, that something like Vajradhara, which is a primordial Buddha, which is something like saying inconceivable reality...

[46:54]

And it also could be Vajravidarana, which is another form, but it usually has a double Vajra here. A double Vajra is like an X. And what's the figure called again? Vajra Vidarana. A double Vajra. And all these figures are male. And I really like this one because she's so cute. Is that a sexist remark? And because here's the future of Western Buddhism.

[47:57]

Okay, now, if we look at this, her crown and these floating robes establish her spatial posture. dann können wir sehen, dass die Krone und ihre schwebenden Roben ihre räumliche Haltung herstellen. And the upturned Vajra bell establishes is a silent bell. Und die waagerecht liegende Vajra glocke, das ist eine stille glocke. And the bell, Vajra bell, usually represents the activity of compassion and wisdom. Okay, but here it's turned up, so you're not ringing it, so it's silent. So it becomes a samadhi of always ready compassion and wisdom. The spatial stillness of wisdom and compassion.

[49:10]

And here the Vajra in her right hand is balanced, held vertically on her hand, balanced Parallel to her spine, which is this long torso figure. And over, above her heart. Yeah, so here... Here we have again a kind of representation of an inner form of irreducible complexity.

[50:12]

And her chakras are indicated by her ornaments. And this isn't exactly a natural posture. This is a posture which is in every way a mental and spatial posture. Which establishes a certain mind. The teaching is that it establishes a certain mind that allows you to be an inner expression or connection with underlying inconceivable reality. Why not?

[51:32]

You get something better to do. Thank you very much.

[51:37]

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