I think we have a topic of the traditional and contemporary sangha, is that right? And I'm going to try to avoid talking about it until this evening. We'll see. I'll see how successful I am. Of course, I mean, I'll start out saying something, which is that Sangha, of course, is about how we practice with and through others. And we can say that, I think we can say that, looking at the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, that that the Sangha is a Buddha.

[01:21]

Sangha, you say it the opposite way. It's all right. It's okay. In German, maybe you say it that way. I said the Sangha is a Buddha. How do you say it in German? Yeah, you said it the other way. Sorry. Or maybe I said that. Okay. Who knows what I said? Okay. And the Dharma is a Buddha. Yeah, and we can say, for each of the three, we can say something like that. And for all these three, we can say something like this. And the Buddha is, etc. And the Buddha is, etc. So I'd like to try to understand that during this seminar with you.

[02:27]

But in the simplest sense we can say that Sangha is those we practice with. So what is the practice which allows us to be a sangha, be part of a sangha? And Thich Nhat Hanh, I think he said once that that the next Buddha might be a Sangha. And I discussed once with the Dalai Lama, actually, that perhaps we can understand the Bodhisattva as the... field or larger body of the Sangha.

[03:30]

But these questions we ought to explore in the context of our own experience and our contemporary life. But first of all, what is practice and what is practice that makes a sangha? And I think that's a little different from a question of what is your practice that makes through which you realize yourself. Or we could say people have in mind some conception, I'm practicing to become a Buddha.

[04:36]

There's a famous koan about that in Matsu and the Tayo, etc. But we could also say, why not? I'm practicing to become a sangha. Yeah. Now, I just was in Rome for a week. Yeah, I just came there, came from there a couple days ago. And I went, yeah, because I was asked, first of all, why I went. But I accepted because, you know, I thought it would be nice to see Rome. I've never been to Rome.

[05:36]

But mostly I went because, you know, quite a few of my friends were there. And people, persons I looked forward to spending some time with. And a couple of people that I didn't, well, one I did know, but I had forgotten about him, forgot that I knew him. Who wrote a book recently called Why Birds Sing? Yeah, well anyway, I got the book a few months ago and I enjoyed it. then this guy I knew had written it and I didn't know that. And somebody else had written a book on Gödel that I liked too, was there. So anyway, it was... Yeah, quite good.

[07:02]

It's a kind of, for me, a kind of contemporary sangha. Because the overall concern of the conference was what are the boundaries of the mind? Or what, how can the mind be free of boundaries or... transform its boundaries. And there were a lot of, you know, half of them were neuroscientists, neurobiologists. Yeah, and I had to be on a panel with an old friend of mine, Luigi Luisi. And I have to be on the podium with Luigi. Luigi Luisi. He might be Italian. Nero Luigi Luisi.

[08:03]

Who's a neuroscientist? Anyway... And the son, who I've known since he was a baby, another old friend of mine, Bill Thompson's son, was on the panel with me. And Bill, Evan's father, gave us Crestone, really, and now has come back as of a couple of months ago to live at Crestone. So we gave him the little house that Gerald and Gisela had built for themselves. We call Staff One, and it's now the Founders Hut. We gave him the little house that Gerhard and Gisela built, which is actually called Staff One and is now the founder's hut.

[09:10]

Yeah, and Evan is, you know, basically a philosopher. And Luigi, a practicing scientist. Practicing scientist who practices Buddhism. So we each had half an hour or so. I'm telling you this because it's a kind of dilemma for me, these situations. It's the same word in German, dilemma. Because they both gave very intellectual talks Both of you gave very intellectual lectures. And the whole setup, you know, there were, I don't know, 500 people or something like that.

[10:31]

The whole setup is, you know, with microphones and simultaneous translators up in a booth somewhere. The whole emphasis is on what you say. And I'm much more interested in how you say it. Because I don't have much to say, so I have to sort of feel what's going on. You can't feel anything. There's all these bright lights and people. And everybody uses PowerPoint. And everything's huge. And then there's just little me with a microphone. Yeah. So after all the PowerPoints were turned off, I was last. No one wanted to be.

[11:31]

I was the last. I just started talking as best I can. It's actually quite difficult because I can't feel anything, you know, in the room particularly. But somehow it seems to work. I don't know. There are people afterwards, you know, they want to invite me back and things. But I don't have any experience of it working, of connection. Yeah. So I'm grateful to be sitting here with you. just so we can experiment our way through these topics. I'd like to ask you, but maybe you can just

[12:40]

ask yourself, how many of you, you don't have to put up your hand or anything, how many of you have established a sense of continuity from moment to moment, much of the time at least, in your breath and in your body? Because much of practice really follows from and is based on this yogic ability. Maybe we are talking about a kind of megapixel mindfulness. Sri Krishi said once, when you can sit without any idea of time or place.

[14:10]

There are innumerable little units of time. And one should be in the midst of each of these little units of time. Anyway, he said something like that. And he said, when that's the case, you're actually doing zazen. So maybe I can use this prologue day as an opportunity to talk about And maybe I can use this prologue to speak about Shikantaza. Yes, Shikantaza is S-H-I-K-A-N, Shikan.

[15:17]

Shikantaza, so the letter S-H-I-N-T-A. It's hard to spell, I know, in German. S-H-I-K-A-N. She can. She can. That's nothing but. And ta is precisely. And za is sitting. So nothing but precisely sitting. Mm-hmm. No, I don't speak about it very often, or at least I don't use the term. I prefer saying something like uncorrected mind. And I don't use the term because it's a, you know, it has more, there's a lot of politics in it, Buddhist politics. And that's a way of differentiating Dung Shan's lineage from Lin Ji's lineage and things like that, which is nonsense.

[16:36]

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, Buddhist schools get caught in Trying to define themselves as separate from their predecessors or other contemporary schools and they end up creating slogans which end up oversimplifying practice. And in order to clear up your own direction, you create slogans or slogans that simplify the practice, that make it too easy. Of course. So, or Shikantaza is presented as the best kind of Zazen or the only kind of Zazen or something like that.

[17:50]

But it is certainly in our school what I would call maybe something like a medicine practice. Aber es ist sicherlich etwas, was sich innerhalb unserer Schule als eine medizinische Praxis bezeichnen würde. If you were to do Zazen every day, one period or something like that. Also wenn du jeden Tag Zazen sitzen solltest, zumindest eine Periode am Tag. And you were to do it just as part of your lay life. Und wenn du das einfach als Teil deines Laienlebens machen würdest. Probably Shikantaza would be the most medicinal practice. What would, I think, loosen up your day and life and open up the boundaries of the mind, etc. And it's also a basis for In our lineage it's a kind of basis or stage for other kinds of practice.

[19:11]

Yeah. Okay. Now, if I have this bell, And I look at it. Looking at it doesn't affect the bell much. Maybe it wonders, am I a pretty bell? But mostly it's not affected. It's not particularly vain, this bell. But if I hit it, Well, I don't know what example to use, but when you bring attention to your activity into your body, it's like you were maybe ringing the bell.

[20:28]

So when we sit down to do zazen, You, some kind of you, brings attention to the posture, your posture, who owns this posture. It's not just like you're looking at the bell. It's more like you were ringing the bell. Because first of all, the bell isn't looking at itself. But you are looking at yourself. And so, yeah, naturally, if you're doing that, you're exploring, noticing that there's some experience of a you looking, a you straightening your posture, etc.

[21:56]

And I think that's a kind of experience of you, the creator, And don't just assume that there is such a thing as a you looking at your posture. But... Yeah, but as there is this experience, just notice the experience. But you might also imagine or think about it as if you were mixing attention with the body. It's like the body has various ingredients and you're mixing a new ingredient, attention, into the body. Mm-hmm. Sort of like you might mix something into a soup and you stir it in.

[23:28]

So when you bring attention to the body, when are you mixing attention with the body? Mm-hmm. I mean, you're always, to some extent, mixing attention with the body. In my talk in Rome, I couldn't do this. I couldn't try out various ways of saying it. I think what I'm talking about is not in the words. It's in our trying out how to say it. Getting skillful at noticing what we're noticing. And noticing our own noticing.

[24:44]

The skill in just this territory is the skill or craft of yogic practice. So let's have a kind of zazen instruction. Today I... Oh, you sat her up right away. It worked. You translated it into your podcast. So, you know, okay, so we sit down. And, you know, some rather gently.

[25:56]

It's good to find your posture. And then, let's say, as I'm giving in Zazen's instruction just now, Let's say mostly you're not so much trying to straighten your posture. As you're trying to find and ideal posture. Or you're engaged in a dialogue with an ideal posture. But you're accepting the posture you have. Okay, so the conceptual framework is that you're in a dialogue with an ideal posture and accepting the posture you have.

[27:08]

And within that conception, you're bringing attention to the body. And you can do it in some regular way. Like, I mean, I suppose, you know, when people brush their teeth, they usually have some regular way. They start one side or the other side or so. So you may have some regular way, too. and bring attention to the posture. But it's also good to let attention freely roam. Just notice where it goes by itself without your regularizing it, directing it. And just to let it go wherever it goes.

[28:26]

This is also a practice toward uncorrected mind. Here we have a kind of uncorrected attention. Okay, so when attention seems to decide by itself or through itself what to give attention to. Now, who's doing this? What you is moving the attention. Well, we can say that when attention moves itself, there's a different kind of you present, or less of a you present.

[29:36]

Mm-hmm. But there's the observer of the attention deciding, the attention doing its own attending. There's the observer of the attention. Now, what's the difference between the observer of the attention, who isn't doing anything but observing, who hasn't anything to do with the observer of the attention, who isn't doing anything but observing. What kind of you is that? What kind of you is a pure observer without any intention? Or maybe it's an observer which has the intention not to interfere.

[30:47]

So here we're in the territory of Shikantaza. the territory of uncorrected mind. Right away, and we're now only settling, discovering our posture. It's actually very interesting to notice where attention goes by itself. And whether attention feels like it's somehow directed from the outside of your body. Or it's penetrating into the body. Yeah, or it's arising from within the body.

[32:10]

Yeah, and what's the difference between the parts of the body, areas of the body that are receiving attention or producing attention and the ones that are not? And what parts of the body are very difficult to find attention, either to give attention to or to have attention arise within those parts of the body? And what are the parts of the body where it is very difficult to give them attention or to let them develop attention? So here, you know, you've only started, you've only just sat down in this imaginary instruction, imagined instruction. But already you're engaged in the most fundamental aspects

[33:14]

or who or what we are. Yeah, I mean, spending a week with these cognitive scientists... They don't have a common idea of what consciousness is. And none of them can answer the question of who are you, etc. And here you are, here we are, just sitting down, and already we're, what, maybe cognitive scientists from the inside. With a kind of, yeah, it's going to be 40 minutes or so before the bell rings, you've got to do something. You've got to waste your time somehow.

[34:26]

So you might as well notice. Where is attention? What's the difference in the body where attention is and isn't and so forth? The ideal is you can bring attention evenly, part by part, throughout the body. No. Maybe you can notice something when you do a kin-hin, when we do walking kin-hin. We put our thumb in our left hand. And we fold our hand lightly around the thumb. And we put that more or less in the

[35:28]

wherever your arm would be parallel to the floor. And you put the other hand, the right hand, on top of it. And you keep your elbows a little away from the body, about as much as we say as an egg, if you're holding an egg in your armpit. And then you turn your hand up gently. Some people do it this way, you know, and real... But it's too rigid, I think. And our custom is to do it... This is too relaxed, but this is some alertness in it, but not rigidity. Now see if you can have your two hands together so the thumb isn't being gripped.

[36:48]

and the right hand isn't gripping the other hand. See if they can just rest together as if each was independent, but they're next to each other. Our tendency, I think, is usually to make the right hand dominant and it grabs hold of the left hand. But see if you can just have both hands equal, equally relaxed, and just resting next to each other, but neither is gripping the other. And see if you can keep both hands completely relaxed, but so very close to each other that it doesn't grab the other. And if you notice that one hand is grabbing the other, you are very bad.

[37:51]

Well, I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. No, but if you sound... That's fine. One hand is gripping the other. It's okay. It's just fine. But then you might notice to loosen it up slightly. Yeah, so this is the first part of the Zazen instruction. This is the first part of Zazen Beliru, finding your posture. So let's, oh my God, two people are leaving already. And here's a circle of the whole pillar. I caused it, I'm sorry. Anybody else? All right, so let's have a break now.

[39:09]

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