So this morning in Zazen I mentioned, pointed out that we were putting on Buddha's robe and we were assuming we were taking the posture of the Buddha. And we were defining the robe as a field far beyond form and emptiness. Yeah, that's already pretty far out. A field far beyond form and emptiness. Und auch das ist schon ziemlich außergewöhnlich, zu sagen ein Feld weit jenseits von Form und Leerheit.

[01:12]

Yeah, that's using words to get somehow past definitions. Und das ist eine Weise, Worte zu benutzen, um irgendwie jenseits von Definitionen zu gelangen. But to chant and to take Buddhist posture, put on Buddhist robes. What are we doing? Simply, what are we doing? Well, obviously, we're creating definitions. As I said, you get up in the morning, you come from various places. rooms and beds and so forth, and we come together in the Zendo. And then we define what we're doing, lifting our hands together and chanting together. And these are definitions.

[02:24]

So we're starting the day with certain definitions. And again, now we're trying to get into the habitation of, inhabitation of practicing Buddhism. Which means, again, I keep emphasizing that everything is a process, is processive.

[03:25]

So it's taken for granted that these definitions are a process. And so it is assumed that these definitions are also processes. The three A's or the three words that I emphasize in this period of practice are aliveness and allness and activity, which I've been emphasizing for some time now. So these three words are... are again processes you have to deploy or operate.

[04:40]

You know, to say the word operate, to say the word deploy, is just to emphasize that's what activity means. Activity is something that happens, and your happening is part of it. Yeah, so maybe it's better to call these definitions redefinitions. We're redefining our... usual experience. Aliveness is a definition in contrast to a redeployment of the experience of the assumption that we exist or that we're being.

[06:06]

So you want to experience how these redefinitions are redefining. Yeah, I mean, zazen is just about sitting there and letting whatever happens, happen. But we start with definitions, putting on Buddha's robe. Then we start with the five skandhas. What are the five skandhas? What a redeployment of our experience. We have an experience, the world, consciousness, etc.

[07:30]

And the skandhas are a redefinition of that assumption of of the world we know through consciousness. So conceptually, And five skandhas are saying, consciousness isn't the way the world is, it's a construction of the way the world is for us mutual beings. And if you look at it conceptually, what the five skandhas say is that the way we see the world is not how the world is, but it is the way we construct the world together as beings.

[08:38]

And it's a way to notice what happens when we do zazen. We start out, as you know, with consciousness. Getting into the room, sitting down. And then when we're sitting, finally assuming the Buddhist posture. And we have nothing to do, you know, no place to go. We're not supposed to move. And when consciousness has nothing to do, sometimes it relaxes. So you enter the field of associations, memories, and so forth. And then you feel how these associations and memories and things that construct consciousness have a beginning and an end.

[09:48]

And they're rooted in memory. And rooted in perceptions. And then you begin to notice the triggers of associations And then you begin to feel how a perception of your legs hurt, or as I said, there's a tractor going by or something. These perceptions create association. And then you begin to feel how you can reduce how perceptions lead to associations. And Dogen says to practice the way is to study, study yourself.

[11:18]

By Dogen heißt es, den Weg zu praktizieren, bedeutet das Selbst zu studieren. So in the five skandhas you're studying consciousness, which then generates self. Und in den fünf skandhas, was du da studierst, ist das Bewusstsein, aus dem dann das Selbst hervorgeht. Yeah, and so now you've discovered that, oh, geez, when I take away consciousness and then I alert associations and then I focus on the perceptions which lead to the associations... And the more fully this happens, the more fully it happens that you can just feel perceptions. appearing, appearance through perceptions.

[12:46]

A kind of bodily bliss, bodily relaxation or ease appears, is generated. Yeah, and then maybe you say, geez, this is better than consciousness. At least I feel better. I feel more full or complete or something like that. So by taking away consciousness and then finding the line between associations and perception,

[13:50]

You find yourself in a bodily mind which makes life worth living. So now we have the... the look at, are we talking about something that's a continuous experience or an experience which opens a door? So once you have this sense of ease and The bliss of simple aliveness. It opens a door or a window.

[14:54]

It's like the so-called light at the end of the tunnel. This is the light which has lots of windows and consciousness. In the midst of consciousness, you can feel these windows of ease and joy. Maybe as a useful aside here, in the West we emphasize our individual self. Im Westen betonen wir unser individuelles Selbst.

[15:59]

And Hinduism, Vedic Hinduism, emphasizes an Atman, or Atman, which is a kind of self. But Buddhism emphasizes anatman, no self. But really, atman and anatman are very similar. Again, I'm just playing, I'm looking at definitions. We're at the root of the background, the foundation of what we're doing. There's no escape from definitions, so let's use definitions which are always somewhere in our experience.

[17:05]

But let's use them wisely. and let's use it wisely. So, Artman is a kind of self, but it's not really your individual self because it merges with a big self. Yeah, and it merges with a kind of oneness. And Buddhism took a step down. It's a next step.

[18:19]

It's like there's Vedic Buddhism and then there's early Buddhism and then there's Mahayana Buddhism. Yeah, so Buddhism says, oh, well, yes, but maybe it doesn't merge with oneness, the self. The self merges with, what could I say, non-ness. And in Buddhism it is said, this self, maybe it does not merge with a unity, but, how can I say it, it merges with a not-ness. And what is a field far beyond form and emptiness, this is a way of saying non-ness. Because Buddhism would say, well, maybe it's a simplification, but Buddhism would say non-ness.

[19:22]

merging with oneness, that oneness exists as a continuity over endless time. But from Buddhist point of view, even that continuity over endless time doesn't exist. Aber der Buddhismus sagt, dass selbst diese Kontinuität über die endlose Zeit hinweg nicht existiert. Es gibt nur Nichtheit. Okay, now, but when you begin to feel that... If you feel you're in a world which is absorbed into oneness, you'll feel differently than if you feel you're in a world which is absorbed into nonness or non-graspability, the signless.

[20:32]

I'm not sure, but something like that. It had many sides. It did? Yes. Well, so I'm wondering about a definition that we can use for this ango, this practice period. This lay, basically, adept lay practice period. And I use the word adept, really.

[21:39]

I am really impressed with our individual and shared practice. But there's no... But there's no... But we all know right now, for instance, Gunda's not here because Renee is having a prostate cancer operation. And Max left because his pretty young uncle died for a few days. And various of us, Krista and Sylvia, had to leave. Now, this is extreme.

[22:42]

Dogen, when somebody's... I forget whether his mother was dying or something. The monk left to be with his mother when she was dying, and Dogen dug a six-foot-deep hole where his sitting practice was, and he was never allowed to come back. Well, if we did that, Otmar would get very tired of shoveling. I'd like to do that. We could hardly walk between the buildings. There'd be so many holes, including mine. Wir könnten kaum zwischen den Gebäuden hin und her gehen, weil da so viele Löcher wären, inklusive meines.

[23:50]

So we're doing something different. Also wir machen hier was anderes. But we can feel the emphasis on being inside a practice period. Aber wir können trotzdem die Betonung spüren, was es bedeutet, in einer Praxisperiode zu sein. The Tantra is to come inside a practice period. So when you leave traditionally, for instance, you even leave for a few days, you do a day of Tangario, at least a half a day, depending on circumstances, when you come back. So how can we together and individually feel the inside of practice period? The phrase I'm using is to give myself, give yourself over, give yourself over to the inside of the un.

[25:08]

Give yourself over to the inside of practice. So when you come back, give yourself over, if you've gone away, to the inside of practice. And even those of her here can help the ones who left briefly to, by you yourself feeling, you're giving yourself over to the inside of practice. Now, I can only give myself the feeling, I can only feel the power of this in English.

[26:11]

I can't feel if there's any power in this kind of phrase in Deutsch. But to give, in English, to give you oneself over to the inside, what's that? Where's the inside? The word side in English at least is what's on the lateral, left or right, of an object. So you're on my right side and you're on my left side.

[27:25]

What side am I on? And what's in between these two sides? What's inside? And what is between these two sides? What is on the inside? Again, we have these redefinitions, redefinings. And I think we feel something of it being inside this practice period for 90 days. We can feel it, but it's not exactly definable. We can look at the practice of mind.

[28:53]

The first aspect of mind is it's invisible. We don't notice mind, we just notice objects. And then our practice is a conceptual shift. We begin to notice mind. And we notice it conceptually. And we notice the concept is because we already intimate, we feel already from zazen practice and so forth, mind, the presence of mind. So the second aspect is we notice mind as a partner of every perception.

[29:56]

Objects appear in your sensorial field in mind. And the adept practitioner knows this. And you make sure you know this. And you keep reminding yourself of this. Reminding yourself of this. And pretty soon, after a while anyway, every object has a partnership with mine. It's like a dual appearance. So that's an important stage in practice.

[31:19]

Generally, we don't point it out so much, but it's something when you notice it's happening to you, it's something you would bring to Doxan, for example. And then the more you really live within the habit, you inhabit the partnership of mind with within as every appearance. Then at some point there's a shift and you begin to find yourself within a field of mind, not just a partnership, within a field of mind in which the objects are arising. Perceptions are arising.

[32:27]

And then that's such a very important stage in Zen practice. And you begin to operate, to deploy, to explore this experience of the field of mind. And it's always present. And it's the robe that we put on in the morning, visible or invisible, that's a field far beyond form and emptiness. Yeah, so now you're so used to inhabiting this field of mind, whether objects appear in it or not is kind of irrelevant.

[33:47]

And the objects are not have-able. No reason to get tapped. You can't have them. They're ungraspable. Look here, she pointed this out once simply, took his glasses and he was always forgetting his glasses and he used to forget a lot of things. He had a little room up behind where he talked, like the Doksan room, but he lived up there in a smaller apartment than that before he and his wife It was a little church tower-like thing of a former synagogue. And we'd hear him, because he forgot his glasses, he would hear him go up the stairs.

[34:52]

And after a while he began wearing a rope around his glasses so they would hang on his chest. Then you'd give him a hug if you didn't. He wasn't California huggable. But he was very physical. If he sat down beside you, he sat down with his full body against you. And when I would drive him back and forth to Tassajara, he often would be asleep in my little Volkswagen with his head on my shoulder, trying to steer with one hand, you know.

[36:23]

But he's finding his glasses at some point. He said, these are your glasses. But you know about my tired old eyes, so you let me use them. That's the merging of self with allness or with nonness. That's the non-havability of these glasses which our society has created and he can use. So after a while, when you get so that you're really inhabiting, inhabiting alive, alive Thanks.

[37:50]

Caught yourself. Alivening, enlivening, alivening within the field of mind. Not only do the... Not only do the objects which appear in the field of mind are just from 3,000 causes. But this field of mind you're now inhabiting itself is not graspable, it's not haveable. Mm-hmm. So in this practice of these four stages of mind at first it's invisible. But after you've gotten used to inhabiting the field of mind in which things arise the field of mind itself is invisible.

[39:00]

A non-ness, not graspable. Yeah, like that. A field far beyond forming emptiness. We start every morning with this teaching, which I hope you learn how to deploy, to unfold, and allow its freedom to be your freedom. And that can become also how you find yourself, give yourself over to the inside of this, inside-edness of this practice period. Und das kann auch der Weg werden, wie du dich der Innerlichkeit, dem Inneren dieser Praxisperiode hingibst.

[40:38]

An inside-ness we share with each other. Eine Innerlichkeit, die wir miteinander teilen. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[40:57]

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