Good morning. I seem to always start with what's happening to me in this process of speaking to a screen. I guess I feel I have to give myself permission for what I'm doing. But what is happening to me is you, finding ways to speak to you who I don't see. At least I see some of you though, this is good, except the bright lights are a little bit bright to see you either. Yeah, and speaking to you who I don't see and don't know how often you'll be present in successive talks, I am speaking more fundamentally in some ways, maybe, than I ever have.

[01:32]

and in the effort to looking at practice as fundamentally as I can for your sake, I find I'm trying to answer questions I've been asking myself for centuries, well, I mean decades. But maybe for centuries, because they're questions that our generational lineage has been asking for centuries. And I suppose when we enter a new phase of a new context in which practice re-evolves, re-develops itself, we have to ask these fundamental questions.

[03:13]

Yeah, and it sounds like a big deal, fundamental questions, but really they're very basic, simple questions that are rooted in fundamental assumptions. So last week I mentioned three particular yogic practices that I didn't know before I met Suzuki Roshi. And then I spent the rest of my life trying to look at those three and others too. Yeah, and I recognize that those three, implicit in my bringing them up, those three are not only extremely basic, but they're also monastically evolved practices which can be displaced or introduced into Zen lay practice, adept lay practice.

[05:10]

And the three were simply zazen, the distinction between contents of mind and field of mind, and the phrasal path or wado practice. Now the gestural path and the, so far barely mentioned, the path of interiority are monastically evolved practices which are rather harder to translate into lay adept practice. And the path of interiority These two, I'm only mentioning two right now, but these two both require a recognition of more basic assumptions and a variety of yogic skills.

[07:04]

But right now, I feel there, at least right now, I don't yet know how to make these two paths, which I'm mentioning now, these two paths more accessible. I have to find a way to conceptually, accessibly express them. And I think it's probably going to turn out to be easy. I just haven't discovered how to do it yet. I guess I'm telling you this, saying this because I'm promising more to come if I can figure out how to talk about it.

[08:40]

Or I'm expressing how much I want to share this with you and I want to find a way to do it because it's so extraordinary and exciting to me. Okay, so let me go back to zazen. Now, I would like to speak about zazen practice right now in a way that not only illuminates zazen practice or refreshes how we talk about it, And also illuminates, if we can call it an illumination, also illuminates or explicates perhaps a bit, instrumentalizes how we can realize the field of mind.

[10:07]

And the field of mind is, of course, in contrast to the contents of mind. And the teaching, and the third thing I would like to, just by this one example, also illustrate or raised the problem of, that agency and self are not the same thing. Self-agency and non-self-agency, how can I put it, that not all agency is self-agency. Now in this inner debate I'm having with you and with myself, and just to cause a problem,

[12:03]

If one of the three marks of existence or aspects of existence are change, suffering, and no self, Who the heck, if there's no self, who the heck is doing this practice? Who is following or not following the precepts? Or how do we initiate or develop intentionality if there's no Well, if there's no self, then we have to think, yes, maybe we have to separate agency from self.

[13:24]

Yeah. You know, in yogic Buddhist culture, the ten directions are not a location where you are. It's not a directional location. That's not quite... Anyway, the ten directions point towards you. The eight compass directions and up and down. They point towards you. It's not somewhere you can go to. So this is a way of looking at it, which isn't just a simple difference, because it turns the ten postures, excuse me, it turns the ten directions into a mental posture. And as a mental posture, the ten directions can also be felt as a wado.

[14:58]

So if you are the ten directions, if you start to walk... In any direction, there's some intentionality there in directionality and intentionality in the walking, whether you like it or not. Now, what the challenge and the problem I'm presenting here, if there's no self, is somehow everything all at once, the instantiation of everything all at once, somehow fundamental agency? Now, I'm presenting this also to say that there's some things like this, what I just presented, we can't, it's a real problem, but we can't actually answer it without really simplifying it into something trivial or nonsense.

[16:52]

We can't verbally, languagedly get to a conscious understanding of it, but we can instantiate it or make it into something we feel the actuality of it in our actions. Okay, so I'm just saying this to give you a feeling, too, of how Zen practice, which assumes that ultimately there's no explanation, there's a certain amount, there's an epistemological understanding up to a point, but ultimately there's no final answer.

[18:14]

So how do you enter into a situation as practice where there's no final answers? So here I'm basically speaking about the dynamics of the phrasal path, which are, in this case and today, the mental posture and the hua dou phrase that's processively entered into your activity. Okay, so now I'm getting way ahead of myself.

[19:30]

Let's go back to zazen. And today I want to speak about zazen as the practice of two attentionalities. Two attentionalities. You want three or four, but we'll come to that later. Two now. One is you bring attentionality, as most of you know, to your spine. Well, I don't know if it's... Is it important in German?

[20:31]

Attention-ness? All right. What's the difference in English? If I bring attention to something I'll have to think about how to express the difference. If I bring attention to something, I'm bringing it very specifically to that. If I bring attentionality, I'm bringing an already developed field that feels everything as in a field of attention, and then the particular thing within that field. Oh, you don't. You just are very concentrated and to the point, huh? Okay. I'll have to explore the difference.

[22:06]

I mean, we say there is clearly a difference between, in English at least, a person and personality. Oh, good. I'm glad to know. Okay. Well, this is fun. Okay, thanks. All right. So the two fields of attentionality or of attention... One is you bring attention to your spine. And that tends to bring attention to your whole body. It pervades the body with attention. And you bring attention to your hands. And just the fact that you're bringing attention to your legs, and your left leg and right leg are kind of overlapping, changes the way your body works.

[23:21]

and hands overlapping and thumbs touching. Deep sleep is a biological fact. And deep zazen is a biological fact. And if you don't have much deep sleep, as well as peripheral sleep or whatever it's called, it affects your day and your living. And deep zazen has a profound effect on your on your lived life. So all these little separate instructions are ways to engage the body's potential deep zazen.

[24:57]

Yeah. And there's also, particularly in Zen practice, a trust that the body knows what to do. I don't know what words to use exactly, but when there's a certain attunement, overall attunement within the body, the body is healthier and functions with more power. The body functions with more power and authority. And it isn't the feeling that you're doing it

[26:28]

consciously making it happen, you're creating the conditions that let it happen. Yeah. I mean it's, you know, the whole sudden and gradual enlightenment question. The basic underlying assumption in that discussion is enlightenment is always present, but it's only present when you create the conditions that let it happen, or the conditions happen that let it happen. I'm sometimes quoted as saying, enlightenment is an accident and practice makes you accident-prone.

[27:59]

But I first heard that turn of phrase, I think, from the Maharishi. And I think the Maharishi got it from someone else. But anyway, I'm happy to take a little credit for it because I use it. It's true. Okay, so you're creating by bringing attention to your hands and your feet and the organization of your posture, primarily lifting through the spine. you're creating a field of attention or field of attentionality.

[29:20]

Okay, and then the mental posture of don't move also then develops its own field of attentionality. Now the feet... Oh, you're back. You disappeared for a moment. Now I probably should say something about a mental posture. Okay. So stand up is a concept. And it has content, which is, it means don't sit down or be attentive vertically, etc.

[30:36]

Something like that. It's a concept, but it's not a mental posture. Okay, now when Charlotte Silver said to me one day many years ago, come up to standing. Now, come up to standing is a mental posture and not a static concept. Mental postures have legs and a nose.

[31:37]

And we can think of their two legs. One of the legs is intent. And one of the legs is its processive. So there's an intent to come up to standing. And there's a succession of postures all the way up until finally being standing. And once this was told to me by, mentioned by Charlotte Silver, whose teaching was called Sensory Awareness, This mental posture of coming up to standing is a gestural posture and opened me into what I now call the gestural path.

[33:02]

And right away when she said that, I noticed a succession of four or five postures that happen as you're coming to standing. And after then bringing that mental posture into awareness, that process of posture into awareness, I noticed there's many little steps involved. And I could even say each, the succession of postures each have their own presence. And the own presence of each successive posture is actually also developing intentionality.

[34:38]

And when you get as old as I am, the number of postures you go through to stand up get more complicated and more difficult. Russell and I understand that. Yeah, okay. Okay. So again, here we're in a yoga culture which emphasizes intentionality more than intelligibility. Attentionality Yeah, I meant attentionality is emphasized more inclusively than intelligibility.

[35:56]

Yeah, and here we have an example of the difference between intelligible and intelligibility. It's not important for now. Well, good. It wasn't intelligible to me, though. Yes, that's true. But in general, there's a certain amount of intelligibility shared between us. No, intelligible means you can understand it. Okay.

[37:11]

Yeah, okay. Okay. So the So come up to standing, again, is a mental posture, not a static concept. It has the two legs of intention and... processively expressive, expressionable. And it has a nose. In other words, it's a kind of investigatory, investigative instantiation.

[38:29]

Okay, so, like, don't move can become Suzuki Roshi's statement, which I have written down here. He's speaking about how to face the... How impermanence can, in unforeseen ways, open up or unfold. So the process of trying not to move or finding ways not to move in Zazen over time, process of over time, through time.

[39:58]

He says, don't move. Don't anticipate. Nothing can save you now because you have only this moment. Not even enlightenment will help you now. because there are no other moments. With no future, be true to yourself and express yourself fully. Don't move, don't move.

[41:17]

just die over and over. Now this beautiful expression of imperturbability arises, develops from not moving in zazen over many, many periods of zazen. Okay, now I'm running out of time as usual. So let's, what do they say, cut to the chase? Okay, so you're doing zazen. You have the field of attentionality, of postural, physical attentionality.

[42:25]

you have the field of attentionality that arises through not moving, through the mental posture of not moving. So, don't move is not just an instruction, it's also a mental posture and a field of attentionality which... overlaps with and becomes a mutual field with the physical field of attentionality. So you're consciously creating this opportunity but consciousness and intention is only creating the conditions.

[43:42]

The real work, the real actionality is being done by these two mutualized fields of attention. Okay, now, when your posture begins to be very settled and your posture is in effect, in fact, doing itself, one of the signs of that is that breathing begins to breathe itself. You're not counting your breath anymore.

[44:56]

You're not bringing attention to your breath, intention to your breath anymore. There's just the experience of breathing, breathing itself. No, you can stop and watch that happening in a way, watch it happening. Sometimes, you know, for the beginner, as soon as you notice you've entered samadhi, the noticing it brings consciousness in and your samadhi collapses. But the skilled practitioner can be in the experience of samadhi and have an observer of that samadhi that doesn't interfere with the samadhi.

[46:12]

And when that happens, you're now beginning to have the experience of the field of mind separate from the contents of mind. The contents, in this case, being samadhi. So I should say the contents of body as well as the contents of mind. Okay, so, and what's happening with this, the many things are happening, what you notice is breathing is breathing itself. And your metabolism is doing itself, and you can feel a kind of throb of your metabolism. Yeah, heartbeat, breath, it's all beginning to tune itself by itself, through itself.

[47:45]

And I tried to imagine what kind of metaphor I could use for this. So, and I thought of a self-driving car. So maybe we should say an auto-driving car, an auto-driving, an automatic, you know, an auto-driving car. Yeah, or own driving instead of self-driving, own driving car. Okay, now imagine I'm the driver of this own driving car or auto driving car. I've been driving and using the shift or whatever, you know, and the steering wheel, and I turn on the auto driving, and I just can sit there and let the car drive itself.

[49:03]

Now, the experience of this is somewhat similar, if I can imagine it. I've never been in an auto-driving car, but I imagine that suddenly you're just released. Your body is doing itself. Your breathing is doing itself. And you can feel something profound is happening way beyond what you could do consciously. So what are you experiencing at this time if I conceptualize the experience? You're experiencing the difference between the contents of consciousness and the field of mind.

[50:32]

And what you're experiencing also is a field of mind in which there's no self-agency. There's agency, but it's not self-agency. Okay, so now you're having a direct experience of what Buddhism means by non-self, non-self agency. Now, when Matsu speaks about the Wado phrase, this very mind is Buddha.

[51:46]

This is a phrase, a Wado phrase, which has legs. So at first, it just means you're noticing mind arises on every object. I look at this. Mind is arising and the microphone is there, but mind is also part of the appearance. So this very simple phrase, this very mind is Buddha. begins to teach you, show you the dual arising of percept and mind. And when this very mind becomes as the Wado has legs, like a mental posture,

[53:08]

when repeating this phrase turns into the experience of an agency-only or self-agency-free mind, And that's what Matsu, the Sung Dynasty Matsu and the Tang Dynasty Matsu, his teachings were revised somewhat, means by this very mind is Buddha, is the mind free of self-agency. So I hope you practice this very mind as Buddha, developing your phrasal path practice, developing and evolving the difference between the contents of consciousness and the field of mind,

[54:50]

and realizing this very mind is Buddha. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for translating. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I can't seem to get into 40, 50. Okay, yes, in 15 minutes or 10 minutes. 10 after is good. Okay. We're off, right? Okay. Okay. I like this better, this earpiece.

[56:05]

I heard some pretty strange noises and when she did something with her hand on her leg, I could feel some kind of noise coming through. Was that too complicated or was it reasonably clear? What? What? Oh, okay. I hope that means I'm improving. No, I knew that word. I just didn't want to play with it. Because what vehicle is actually autonomous except in reference to a driver?

[56:54]

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