Saturday afternoon, sometime in the afternoon, we'll have a Jukai ceremony, lay ordination, lay initiation. Which many of you who have raksas have already done. And... And how many people? Six people. And the two of Manuel's twins. Yeah, it's great. They were so touching. They don't know German, of course. And they practiced for... Asked me in English if I had ordained them. Did I say practice in German? Practice in English. Yeah. And so I hope you're here.

[01:04]

You're certainly welcome, and I hope you are here to join this important ceremony. I'm trying, you know, and Sukhyoshi emphasized for me to attend ceremonies. Most of the ceremonies in San Francisco were funeral ceremonies, so I attended a lot of funeral ceremonies because the Japanese congregation was elderly. Usually once a month or so. And I was usually the only Gaijin white person there. And he asked me to pursue the physical text of the world in Japan as well.

[02:17]

And I Now, I'm sure you've all been wondering when I went over the cliff on my horse if I landed safely. Well, I haven't landed yet. I'm still in the air. Because, you know, I'm in the middle of doing this research, inner and outer research on what is self in Buddhism. Yeah, and I'll try to explain why I'm doing it. And what the problems are.

[03:33]

I mean, it's always been a problem and now I have to figure out the problem in English so that Nicole can translate it and you can realize Buddhahood. You may think I'm joking, but I'm serious. I'm also joking. But, yeah, what else are we doing? Now, let me say something about, again, going back to what I mean by physical text. Let's call it a perceptual text. Let's call it a perception text. Again, this is a practice that has been developed for 2,500 years.

[04:35]

And as a Zen practice for about 1,500 years. And so there's this emphasis, particularly in Zen, as a teaching outside the scriptures. The scriptures are not our reference point. Our practice, our experience is our reference point. And so there's this emphasis on teaching outside the scriptures. And where does the teaching exist? Well, I mean, my sitting here in front of you is a teaching outside the scriptures.

[05:36]

Because I'm speaking from my experience and from my experience I discover with you. And I'm wearing the Buddha's robe. Or at least somebody's version of the Buddha's robe. So it means my social body is not speaking to you. I've taken off those clothes. And some sense of the Buddha body is speaking to you. And we enclose the lecture in, as you can see, bows, bells, drums.

[06:54]

And I'm also studying this because, as I've said now several times, I'm trying to figure out, what do we preserve here in the West? So I have this stick here. It's really not a symbol. It's an actual mushroom. A painted mushroom. I mean, this is the mushroom, the psychedelic mushroom, Soma. Of Psyche and Soma, psychosomatic. So it represents some kind of, yeah, you can understand that experience. And so here's the little, this is almost like the winter branches, little mushrooms appearing.

[07:59]

Do you read Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland in Germany? I see a white rabbit. Looking for his true nature, the grizzly bear. Hurry up. Anyway. And again, the Yoyoki bowl, of course the main bowl, why it doesn't have a base, is because it's Buddha's skull. Now, I think we feel something using Yoyoki, whether you know all this stuff or not. As I've said, one of the most surprising things is food you'd never order in a restaurant tastes great.

[09:18]

You have no choice, so it's choiceless. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so what are we doing? We're protecting this bowl, which we have to... There's no base because it's Buddha's skull. So we eat to become a Buddha. That's the implication. And this Buddha is then water, again, water is identified with thusness. And the water, as I said yesterday, from the seen world, we pour into our bowls and clean them.

[10:20]

And you know the famous koan when the teacher asks the monk, what have you done? I've had breakfast. What's the name of the monk? Just a monk. He doesn't have a name, he's just a monk. It's funny, there's a plain old monk. So he comes in and he says, what have you done? He said, I've had my breakfast. And the teacher says, have you cleaned your bowls? This is, you know, have you realized anything?

[11:22]

Yes, I've had my breakfast. There should be no trace of that breakfast. So a more sophisticated monk would have said, I've cleaned my bowls, instead of I've had my breakfast. So we take the water from the seen world, clean our bowls and pour the water into the unseen world, ourselves. This thusness which in later Buddhism becomes to represent enlightenment and the Buddha. Yeah, thusness is also, we can say, we can have various words, non-dual awareness. No reference point mind.

[12:25]

so sound like the bells and drums sound is inclusive sound is interior and it's sound perception sound lasts only a moment You hear the rustle of the cloth of somebody's robe. But it's immediately gone. The nature of sound is its impermanence. As you're hearing it, it's disappearing. Sound is impermanence. A sound that goes on all the time. You think, oh, God, shut that off. But the concept is that no one's going to ring the bell. That kind of stays for a while. So when you do a Taisho lecture in a traditional context, it's begun with sound, the drum, the Taisho drum, the Densho.

[14:11]

I don't know if it makes a difference. I could, when I go give a lecture at Hanover, I could bring bells and drums, you know, and every time I talk, I start hitting them. But probably not. But I also, just even in the Gurtigin lecture, I try to establish that feeling in beginning and in speaking. Okay, so now we're still trying to talk about the difference between the percept world and the concept world. And see if we can understand what a non-dual world is. Because... Okay.

[15:48]

I want to explain this to some extent or try to talk about it to some extent in the context of the history of Buddhism. I want to do that because one, the same questions that have occurred over a thousand years occur in our own individual practice. So it helps us really know the questions. And also, if you know something of the history of Buddhism, You'll know also better how to answer your own questions. So now, in this session, I said I would try to talk about self.

[16:53]

Now, I've spoken about self's I know, the last 45 years, the last 20 years in Europe. And sometime in the late 80s, 90s in Europe and in America, I developed this teaching, the four functions of self. Yeah, for a long time only the three functions of self, and I decided we have to have four of them. I'm not planning to add a fifth. So as almost all of you know, it's separation, connectedness, continuity and meaning. I think this is really essential for us to practice, to understand this.

[18:11]

To understand that the function of self has to exist, otherwise we can't exist. But seeing self as a function and not an entity allows us to practice with the functions of self and transform self through how they function. And as long as you see it, understand it, and practice it as a function, as functions, it will loosen your sense of self as an entity.

[19:23]

Okay, so this I think is essential for our practice here in the West. The most common example I give is your immune system has to know what belongs to you and what doesn't belong to you. That's the sense of separation of self. I mean, self, that's a function of self to establish biological separation. Since most of you know this teaching so well, I won't go into it now. Okay. But to know that the self is a function does not teach us what selflessness is.

[20:42]

Now I don't want to use the word selflessness because I don't know how it is in German but in English it means to [...] put aside one's own self in order to help others? To be altruistic. What? To be altruistic, yeah. Yeah, same thing. Same thing, okay. So the selflessness of the mind stream, which we're talking about in Buddhism, isn't caught by the word selflessness. So let's create a new word. Self-gone-ness. Self-abwesenheit. Selbstgegangenheit. Gone, gone, gone beyond.

[22:03]

Self-gegangenheit. Self-gegangenheit. It's not perfect. Well, self-gone-ness isn't perfect either. It sounds kind of weird. Yeah. How are you doing? I'm self-gone. Yeah. Yeah. But it's better than selflessness. The absence of self, that's too mechanical. What is self-gone-ness in the mind stream? Because self-gone-ness in the mind stream is thusness and is the definition of Buddhahood and enlightenment. Sorry, I'm still struggling with the word.

[23:12]

Okay. I've gotten this. Just use self-confidence. Okay, yeah. That's better. And now you have to repeat the sentence. I have to start over again. Anybody want to do it for me? Let's see. I'll try. selflessness or self-gone-ness in the mind stream is identified with or is the same as Buddhahood and enlightenment. And thusness. Okay. So we're trying to approach thusness with some depth of understanding. Yeah, and Tathagatagaya, Tathagatakaya or Tathagatagaya, means the thus-gone body. And the Tathagatagaya or Tathagatakayagaya means the...

[24:16]

and tathagatagarbha means the womb embryo thus coming, going. What does gaga mean in German? It's the same in English. I'm Gaga for Buddhism. Tathagata Garba. Garba means womb and embryo. Tathagata is the biggest word for Buddha in Buddhism. It means the one who thus comes and thus goes. Es bedeutet derjenige, der so kommt und so geht.

[25:28]

So it means thusness. Also bedeutet es so halt. Okay, so there's a heck of a lot going around this little word. Es ist also eine ganze Menge los um dieses kleine Wort herum. But it's the same word as the. In English. The book, the person, the window. That's thusness. Aber es ist das gleiche Wort im Englischen wie der Artikel. Also der, die, das. Oder so. It's like cognition reveals itself. In other words, when you cognize something, you not only cognize the object, you actually also... The cognization of the object reveals that you're cognizing that the mind's doing it. But delusion is to just see the object, and wisdom is to see the mind seeing the object. So this is one of these little big differences.

[26:39]

Okay. So So if I teach the four functions of self, you understand that self is not permanent, that it's a function. But it doesn't teach you self-gone-ness. There is still subtle self-identification and self-referencing in the mind stream.

[27:48]

This is exactly the problem that early Buddhism had. It taught that the self was impermanent and non-independent. While the Buddha was sort of everlasting and the Buddha was independent of the world. So now, one of the most important teachings of all is the five skandhas. And every morning you chant the five skandhas in the heart sutra. No eyes, no ears, no nose. No impulses, etc.

[28:50]

No, that's the vijnanas. So, no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousnesses. Okay, now, in the early Buddhism, these were defiled. These were conditioned. No self is found in them, but they're still conditioned. So the Buddha, enlightenment, separated you from these defiled conditions. But these five skandhas, which again start the Heart Sutra, in Mahayana Buddhism become the entry into selflessness. So the early Buddha, in early Buddhism, the Buddha is one who has undefiled dharmas, accumulates undefiled dharmas.

[30:07]

He's a good guy. Super good. But in Mahayana Buddhism, they really say everything's changing. There's no undefiled dharmas. There's no separation from the conditioned world. The undefiled dharmas are also conditioned. So the Buddha is also conditioned. So if you have a conditioned Buddha, what have you got? Thus come, thus gone. I thought I saw him. I thought I saw him. Now, I don't know, that's a little history.

[31:22]

And they had the same problem because the impermanence of the self and the non-independence of the self doesn't establish selflessness in the mind stream. Non-independence. This is the same teaching is the teaching, basic teaching of Buddhism, but it's understood, it pivots the teaching differently. Pivots, like a fulcrum, this is the, it pivots the teaching differently. Okay, so, now what I'm trying to get at is how, in our experience, Do we notice self-gone-ness in the mind stream?

[32:28]

And then how do we develop self-gone-ness? Maybe next Sashin. Okay, I mean, I'm still in this horse going over the cliffs here. Entering the branching streams. How did I get here? Okay, so let's just take one little example, then we call it quits for the day. The simple example I give you often. You hear Kohlbrenner's cow or you hear Kohlbrenner's tractor.

[33:34]

In Crestone you hear the airplanes on the Los Angeles-New York route. If you draw a map draw a line on a map from Los Angeles to New York, it goes directly over Creston Mountain Zen Center. Yeah. So these planes, you know, early morning, it's the only noise, otherwise we're in total isolation. I have a friend who lives in Los Angeles and New York, so I'm doing Zazen, I think. Oh, I wonder if he's getting some orange juice. Anyway, you hear an airplane, you hear the tractor. And there's a kind of immediate awareness, of course, that it's a tractor or an airplane.

[34:53]

But you peel the name off it. You just hear it like it's the music of the spheres. And maybe after a while you don't even put the name airplane on it. It's just Your ears doing their thing. Now, of course, if it started getting closer and closer, as it might crash into Crestone Mountain Zen Center, you'd probably think, hmm, I'd better switch back. I mean, Louise was driving the road here, and Kohlbrunner was coming with his tractor without looking, and those things that lift things, you know, they went right over the top of the car instead of through the windshield where she was driving.

[36:04]

So Marie-Louise drove along the street and the coal burner came towards her with his excavator without looking and the forks went directly over the car instead of through the windshield. Anyway, obviously she survived. But it's good at that point to remember the tractor and not just the sound of the spheres. Okay. So my point is that even though you take the name of it, there's part of the mind that still knows it's an airplane. Mein Punkt dabei ist, dass obwohl du einfach nur den Klang davon hörst, gibt es immer noch einen Teil des Geistes, der schon noch weiß, dass es ein Flugzeug ist. Wenn du es einfach hörst, Ich sage es immer und immer wieder, aber es ist so wichtig, dass ich immer darauf zurückkomme. Wenn du es einfach hörst, it becomes an internal sound.

[37:17]

It no longer references the outside world. You're hearing your own senses. And bliss is associated with that. The more that's clearly the case, the more bliss arises. This is also thusness. Now, the act, the mind's job is to conceptualize. So what are you doing when you peel the name off? You're interrupting the process of conceptualization. Now, we say no eyes, no ears, no nose, etc. in the sutra. We could think that, well, blind people, hey, they're already enlightened.

[38:36]

Yeah, and the Greek oracle was blind, you know. So there is something to it. But the blind person, I don't know, I'm not blind. And I do find, you know, I do crazy things, not crazy, normal things, like, you know, wash your feet with your eyes closed. Your feet are quite interesting, they're a whole world, you know. So, and you go around here, I don't know how well you're doing at not talking, but, you know. If you go around here with almost the feeling of interrupting seeing, what you're doing is not finding seeing.

[39:42]

Now, the blind person doesn't have the experience of interrupted seeing. Eine blinde Person hat nicht die Erfahrung, das Sehen zu unterbrechen. If they touched a plastic petal of a plastic flower. Wenn die die Plastikblüte einer Plastikblume berühren. If they only touched that, they wouldn't know it was a plastic flower. They think it might be something the dentist uses. Wenn sie das nur berühren, dann wissen sie nicht, dass es eine Plastikblume ist. Sie denken vielleicht, es ist etwas, was ein Zahnarzt benutzt. Anyway. So the blind person wouldn't know it's a flower. But the seeing person thinks it's a flower until he touches it. Okay. So it's what I'm sure of.

[40:43]

I'm not sure what level of thusness a blind person enters. But I do know what happens with interrupted seeing. One way to understand no eyes, no ears, no nose is interrupted seeing, interrupted hearing. So it's not only that you hear the sound without names, but you're interrupting the process of naming. So you have the experience of not finding the name, This is also the experience of thusness.

[41:56]

And also we can say non-dual knowing or awareness. And in that non-dual knowing there is no or very little self-referential thinking. And we can say this is the mind of the Buddha. We brought the Buddha into categories we can experience. What is the mind stream of a Buddha? It's the self-gone-ness mind-stream. Where the subject-object divide has dissolved. So that's enough for now. We're going to have to do the same thing over and over again and over and over again.

[43:22]

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