We just chanted, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Well, I'm not quite the Tathagata, but that's what we chant. And, well, yes, I am the Tathagata. What am I talking about? The Tathagata just means one who comes and goes. So I'm certainly one who comes and goes. I'm only here for three weeks, actually. And... Yeah, but it's also a name for the Buddha in the widest sense because everything comes and goes. If we try to give a name to the universe, universe or cosmos or cosmetics, no, cosmos, it's still a noun. But the world, the cosmos isn't a noun, it's an activity. And the best we can say about it, this is what comes and goes, appears and disappears.

[01:07]

But maybe we should say not just taste the truth of the Tathagata's words, but digest, live through, grow from the Tathagata's words, the teachings of Buddhism. And that's really what I've been trying to speak about. You know, I'm getting old enough to think about changing how I practice with the sangha and retiring or changing how I... Anyway, changing how I practice. And so I... want to, in a way, go back to the basics with the senior practitioners. But then I find also I'm here with quite a few of you I don't know who are here just for the summer or just now for a few hours or an hour. And so it makes sense also to speak about the basics.

[02:17]

But the basics are never simple. If you look carefully at the basics, it's pretty subtle. Yeah, I mean a tree, the basis of a tree is its roots. But if you look at the biology of the chemistry of the roots seeking water and nutrients and so forth, this is pretty complex, as complex as anything gets. And then how the heck do the roots turn into a fruit? or into our oxygen. Something I wrote recently to the Dharma Wheel participants. Yeah. Well, to discover how the roots, let's call the roots of basic teaching, how the roots turn into a fruit, a shiny fruit, this is

[03:21]

something we have to, as the tree has to grow into it, or the fruit, whatever, the plant, we have to grow into it. But where we put, how we put our roots is very, is, yeah, a big deal. Or the definitive deal. The last time I was, this is the second, I think, next week. On Tuesday or Wednesday we'll speak once more before I go back to Europe. But last week I spoke for the first time here since May. And I started out with the... a worldview... a concept we're usually something we take for granted.

[04:34]

Because something that we take for granted is there prior to the teaching. So in a way we have to plow what we take for granted. And so the teachings can grow in fresh soil not in what we take for granted our world view so what I said last time was that we have a world view of that somehow we're complete or that we that behind the scenes of everything changing there's some oneness going on or theological control or some kind of unity. We really don't want the world to be outside our experience. So in ancient, not so ancient, recent, if a volcano suddenly blows up, and as they do every few hundred, every few thousand years, and are earth-changing events,

[05:46]

Every few hundred years, actually. Every few thousand... Many thousand years, there's comet events where a comet hits. They just discovered a new crater in Australia, which is much of central Australia, I guess. And such an event is earth-changing. There's even a... You know, look at that small Iceland volcanic eruption, which interrupted for weeks... all the air traffic in Europe. But what am I talking about? What's this got to do with? Because these are, you know, from our point of view, accidents. It's my karma that the volcano blew up, you know, where I was on a plane flying over the past Iceland to England. I think we have to call that an accident. And accidents are outside, are explaining the world through ourselves.

[06:54]

What I'm speaking about again is the really profound unpredictability of everything. You know, it's possible. I don't expect it. Don't get nervous. Don't run for the door. But a comet could hit us right now. Boom. Very unlikely, I agree. No, it wouldn't be great, but it would be surprising. Yeah. So we need to find the world predictable because it's nearly impossible to function without that. Our consciousness itself works to establish predictability. But if you're a meditator and you begin to function outside of usual consciousness, knowing the world through a kind of feeling-knowing awareness, that feeling-knowing awareness isn't structured to first of all look for predictability.

[08:09]

It basically just looks the way things are, or notices the way things are, So a meditator, somebody who does Zazen, particularly unstructured meditations, one reason Zen practices emphasizes fundamentally unstructured meditation, because as soon as you add structure to meditation, you're adding predictability. So you have this problem of Zen, how can you structure And unstructured meditation, because, you know, I'm in a meditative, traditional meditative posture. That's a structure. But I use the structure to release myself from mental, emotional structures. And when you get used to it, it's like kind of a vacation.

[09:14]

To be free of emotional and mental structures Once a day, 30, 40 minutes, or a few moments of 30 or 40 minutes is a deep, can be a deep relief, deep satisfaction. Yeah. So I characterized our last time that we... want to see ourselves as complete, maybe the seed, the seed, the oak tree is in the seed. Well, yeah, but this ponderosa pine that Russell planted here gets the runoff from the roof. It was in the tree's karma. Well, anyway, and this one over here doesn't get the runoff from the roof. And it's, yeah, over here.

[10:16]

It's now just beginning to take hold. We could even think of the runoff from the roof or the location of the soil, even for two ponderosa trees planted at exactly the same time. One is four times the size of the other or more. As a kind of software, wisdom software. Alan Watts, the I guess nowadays you have to be older to know who Alan Watts was. But anyway, he was the most popularizer of, a serious popularizer of Zen Buddhism. And he understood extremely well why the West needs Zen Buddhism. He wasn't a... He didn't study Buddhism himself so much, but he understood very well how Buddhism worked in the West.

[11:22]

And he wrote a book called The Wisdom of Insecurity. So we even could say that insecurity is a kind of software. If each of us, and I used with great reluctance, and for the first time in my life, that we could think of ourselves as computers without software. We're not complete until we find the software. And what's important about this metaphor or image, to the extent it has any significance, is you, we each, have a choice of the software we download. Windows? Mac? I mean, Steve Jobs studied Zen, so I choose Mac. But, I don't know, Windows, Mac.

[12:26]

But you want a software which allows you to develop, and I think a software which... is based not on belief, but how things, as close as we can come to how things actually exist. And we want, as I said, we want things to be predictable and we even have contradictory views. Yes, we understand on one level, but on another level emotionally we want things to be explainable somehow, not out of our control. But the problem with trying to explain everything as some kind of fate, then when something happens to you, you get sick, you blame yourself. What did I do wrong? It may be just chance. It may be just genetics. Of course, we influence our genetics, getting run off from the roof or practicing in a monastery or living in the bubble of the West where we're pretty safe.

[13:39]

So anyway, I've been thinking about how to look at basic teachings. And the one I decided to, why not start at the most basic? And the most basic is that everything's changing. Everything's changing. Now that's really to rigorously accept that everything's changing means really everything, means there are no universals. There's no universals of time and space. Even time and space are contextually actuated. But we don't have to go that far. Just let's try to imagine that we want to, we decide to with our, you know, common sense and intelligence.

[14:50]

We want to get a little bit freer of needing predictability. I will love you forever. Well, it doesn't happen very often. I have a secure job, maybe. My health is pretty good. Well, maybe. Yeah, so much, I mean, the second ennobling truth of Buddhism is the truth of suffering. And suffering is very much of our suffering. Not our pain. If someone hits us with a hammer, there's pain. But our suffering about why that person hit us with a hammer, our suffering is, much of it arises from we wanted more predictability.

[15:54]

We didn't want somebody to hit us in the head. We expected our job to last. We expected our health to last and so forth. So how can we function practically speaking through predictability, relative predictability, that deep down or fundamentally we expect unpredictability. How do you shift a view? And none of these teachings, Buddhist teachings, mean anything unless you find out how to make them experienceable, experiential. And to make them experiential, you need a technique, an applicable technique. So the basic teachings are inseparable from the basic techniques of practice. Well, the most basic technique is meditation, and it kind of tricks you because it's better than chocolate.

[17:04]

After a while, if you get used to sitting, yeah, it's satisfying in some way. For some of us at least, nothing else is. And it makes everything else more fine-tuned, more tuned in. Yeah. Yeah. And then, if you do start practicing and you find it sort of satisfying, you don't know what it's about, but yes, you end up functioning outside of consciousness, outside of usual consciousness. And that has a kind of bliss, joy, satisfaction. You slip out of consciousness into a kind of wider field and a wider and wider field. So that's one technique. But you still have your world views.

[18:09]

And what we should know about world views, which is very interesting to know about us human beings, is world views exist, happen, prior to perception. That's one of the most important facts for a practitioner that I know. And what do I mean by that? It's a great boon, benefit, that views are prior to perception. But it also fools us because we think the way we perceive things is the way things are, because our eyes don't lie, our ears don't lie, etc. Well, they do lie. If our worldview is a lie or our worldview isn't really how things exist, then our perceptions will confirm our worldview.

[19:22]

An example I hit upon many, many years, you know, it actually is many years ago in lifetime proportions hit upon is that I somehow realized, I began to experience that, excuse me for those of you practicing with me a long time, my mentioning this, I began to realize that space actually is something we're generating and participating in and it connects things. Then I was faced with the fact that my worldview, my cultural worldview, is that space separates. There's a distance between me and the altar. There's a distance between me and you.

[20:28]

No, that's a fact. There is a distance. But is that distance actually separation? Or is that distance actually connecting? In koans you sometimes say, this difference is a distance. And, you know, translators sometimes, this difference is a difference. Well, actually, the difference is a distance. It is different, but we have to notice the word change. So I was struck by the fact, the fact for me, that I had a worldview that says space separates, and in normal circumstances, my perceptions confirm that. It does separate. Now I would relate it to simple things like, I have, as I said the other day, I have a spine, a backbone.

[21:39]

We all do, luckily. A lot of us have problems with them, but we all have one. But I don't have one thinking I have one, but feeling I have many. As I said the other day, my spine is different in the beginning of a period of meditation, different now than when I first sat down, different halfway through meditation. So if I feel my spine, I have many spines. And I can begin to fine-tune my spine. The spine is almost, in fact, is a kind of mind. And, yeah. And so if I feel space, I don't think space, but I feel like I feel connected

[22:51]

And that if I allow myself to feel space, that feeling develops more and more. But my world culture is that thinking is the definer. So thinking space separates, but feeling space connects. But, you know, I didn't have permission. I was, you know, went to college and did normal educational things. And the arbiter, the jury is thinking. But after a while, through meditation practice, I began to find that feeling is more true to how I exist than thinking. And there is a Concept in Buddhism, which Dogen says is the most important single concept in Buddhism, is to notice without thinking.

[24:01]

Well, again, that goes against our worldview. To just notice and not think about it. Notice and not name. Notice and just notice. And in my own mind, I spell that. a German way, K-N-O-T-I-C-E, Knotus. So I Knotus, I don't just notice, I Knotus. And noticing itself before you think about it or name it is a knowing. And it actually is a knowing that you remember. Sometimes we have to memorize the words in the end, you know, etc. But there's a knowing of feeling fields, feeling realms, that also is knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. Hishiryo, the word in Japanese is Hishiryo, which means to notice.

[25:17]

I think it means non-measured thinking, but it means noticing without thinking. Though one of the things you can start to practice, you don't have to be in a monastery, anywhere you are, it's just to see if you can notice without thinking. I mean, many superficial explanations or teachings about Zen are to stop thinking. Well, that's not so easy, first of all. Second, it's not really what it meant. To notice without thinking is a kind of stopping thinking, but you're not stopping and suddenly you're blank. No, you're feeling, you're noticing, you're knowing, but you're not thinking about. And that enters you into another world, a kind of textured world, a connectivity world.

[26:20]

Okay, so if I have a view that space connects, and the way I've presented this most often is to use a phrase already connected. Because, in fact, our thinking mind supplies the idea we're already separated. I meet you, I haven't seen you for a while, I feel separated from you, I have to renew friendship, etc. You know, that's all true. But there's another level where as soon as I see somebody, I'm connected. And you have to actually, if you're a practitioner, you have to be careful with that because you can... you can establish too much intimacy for most people to handle until they know you well. They don't want to feel that connected. Hey, my space is invaded. So you have to, in the West, a practitioner in the West who begins to experience feeling already connected to each thing, tree, bird, person, you have to kind of modify that and...

[27:37]

Western cultural frames so that it fits the usual way of knowing, even though you feel connected anyway. You just don't say, hey, I really feel connected to you. Well, you might. You can get in trouble. Seems rude. Yeah, and it's not the connection of knowing mental... a name or anything. Okay. So you can take, if you establish the view of already connected, space connects, let's take already connected, already connected, your five physical senses will begin to show you that. But if you have the view of already separated, your perceptions will show you the world is, everything is separated.

[28:45]

So if you change the view, you change, it's like a software which then changes how the five physical senses know the world. We trust our senses, but our senses function through our worldviews. So this is all to get to If everything's changing, how can I drill that... I mean, first you have to have the concept. It is a fact that everything is changing. This platform is changing, right? Now it's getting older, and if we don't use it much, the wood will rot and so forth. It's changing fairly slowly. And it's also staying... Staying is a form of changing. Staying is a form of activity. Something stays, it's resting for a moment.

[29:49]

It's staying in place. So the other side of changing is staying. And the word Dharma means staying. So practice is also to work with the contrast between what stays, as this platform stays, and changes. Staying in place right now, but it will be moved shortly, put under the tongue. And this zendo is staying right now, and until there's volcanoes or earthquakes or nuclear weapons or something we're mostly staying in pretty good shape even as we get older so how I mean it's got to be done rather mechanically and the view that everything's changing for a mature practitioner all

[30:55]

all thoughts, every emotion, your bodily habits, your mental habits are constituted within the view that everything changes. Everything that you experience happens within the wider context, the fundamental context of everything changing. How do you get there? You need a technique. And the basic technique I'm presenting, and I guess the main thing I'm speaking about today, is presenting this basic technique which I call mantric weaving. Mantra, mantric weaving. You have to weave the new view, a new view, a teaching, into your mind. Emotional life into your mental life, into your bodily habits, into your perceptual habits.

[31:58]

How do you weave it? You have to weave it into the field of your activity. Mental activity, physical activity, emotional and bodily activity. Well, luckily we have this secret. Views, the Eightfold Path starts with views. It doesn't start with percepts, it starts with views. Views are prior to perception. So your view ought to be as close to how the world actually exists as possible. Basic view, most fundamental view, is everything's changing. Now interdependence is a word which is the resultant condition of everything changing. Because everything changes, everything is interdependent, related to each other. And as I often point out, interdependence as a word isn't sufficiently subtle or extended enough to really cover what is meant by interdependence, so I always say we need interindependence.

[33:15]

And we need interemergence. Or I shorten it to intermergence. Or we need incompleting. If everything is dependent on everything else, everything is incomplete. Or everything is in a dynamic of completing its incompletion and remaining newly incomplete. Well, psychologically, that's kind of, you know, when you die, you will be incomplete. I'm sorry. You may feel pretty good, I hope you do. But there'll be something you didn't get done. And a lot more probably. You may be satisfied with what you've done, but that's wisdom. So we're incompleting as well as we're interdependent.

[34:17]

and inter-independent, and inter-emergent, and inter-penetrating. Okay, so how do we drill that in? First, as I said, we need a concept, and then we have to drill that concept through our habituation, our habit, our assumption of predictability. So I suggest you add a prefix. Again, this is pretty mechanical, but the secret is its repetitions. So you add the prefix changing. Changing floor. Changing Deborah. Changing Marie Louise. Changing platform. Or you can add staying, too. Staying Deborah, because we see she stays as well as she changes. Changing... Slippers, changing Buddha, staying Buddha, changing Buddha.

[35:22]

If you could work that into all your percepts, all your mental activity, all your assumptions, all your habits, when you step onto the earth, you step with a feeling, it might not be there. That's a very good practice, to step as if each step is reaching out toward the floor or the earth, and the earth or the floor is reaching up to support your foot, which in a way it is. And that experience, that concept of walking like wild animals, I think walk that way, it always looked to me like they walk that way. Walk as if you're wild. You are wild. You know, I've been coming to Crestone for 35 years at least, and I've never seen this much green and this much rain.

[36:25]

And I'm just stunned at the flowers and things that have been waiting 35 years to come up. When is my karma going to work for me? Where's that gentle Buddhist rain of insecurity? Buddha's gentle rain, as we say, which means wisdom. These seeds have just been waiting. Well, there's a wildness in you that's waiting for the wisdom of insecurity. For the fruit that's in the roots that you don't see until you grow into what your particular situation allows and your wisdom allows. So you can just, and you don't, as I say, criticize yourself. Well, I forgot my prefix that everything is changing or staying and I'm a bad person.

[37:31]

No, no. You just forgot it. Oh, but forgetting is a form of remembering. Oh, I forgot it. That means you've remembered. Oh, what a wonderful person I am. I remembered. So now you re-member things changing, floor changing, sky changing, heart changing, breath changing, body changing, body staying and body changing, body staying and body... And if you kind of like build that into your thinking prior to perception, I won't make any promises. Good luck. Thank you very much.

[38:22]

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