field of mind that somehow generated this moment between each one of us that's something unique it's not necessarily the way it is always with another person Bodhisattva practice is also at each moment with each person to feel in them that aspiration, that mutual aspiration. Even when they don't know it themselves. To be able to respond to that, recognize that, while at the same time you have a usual way of relating to the person.

[01:09]

Of the usual way of relating to a person. The two are going on at the same time. A recognition of the mutual aspiration and an acting in the usual way. That is to plant the seed of one's own Buddha nature as well as the other person. Something like that. What time is dinner? Oh, really? It's just made up of a simple dinner?

[02:21]

8 o'clock? 6.30? What time did you expect? 6.30? Too early? Too early? He wants to eat at midnight. Well, why don't we have a break? And most of you would guess I'd like you to maybe break up into three smaller groups afterwards. So I'd like you to have some discussion in your own language. And some recognition or discussion with each other. about what we've been talking about but also about this sense of the particularity of experiences

[03:22]

Maybe you don't try to generalize into familiar experiences. Or the times you may have recognized someone as this kind of person you'd like to exist on the planet. If only for a moment, it's some kind of treasure, I think. Because it's also a mutual recognition. We can use that as a seed outside the way we usually think of our life. Or do you have a sense of your own life going forward or happening in a territory deeper than our cultures?

[04:44]

deeper than our job or our marriage or whatever? Or can we make our ordinary life also touch that? Because unless we discuss that with ourselves, and in the sense of a mutual aspiration, it's useful to discuss it with others, Unless we discuss something like this with ourselves, explore something like this with ourselves. We can't really have an idea of what Buddha nature means. Something very intimate to us and not in any usual category.

[06:11]

It's something we have to actually intentionally actively bring forth. And actively bring forth. Okay. So it's, let's say it's five o'clock. So we'll meet again at... Welcome. Welcome. Several people mentioned to me that the morning break after breakfast seems a little long.

[07:13]

I always like it when it's not so formal and we have a chance to talk with each other. But still, maybe it is. So tomorrow we'll start at 9.30 instead of 10. But also, as it's Sunday and the last day, we'll almost surely stop earlier in the afternoon. I've been, you know, this topic of Buddha nature is surprisingly elusive.

[08:29]

Elusive means hard to get hold of. Well, I think it's fundamental to Mahayana Buddhism in distinction to early Buddhism. And if you read various commentaries, nobody knows much about it. Nobody knows what it means. And different schools emphasize it differently. But everyone knows somehow it's true. Yeah, but it's hard to speak about. But you know, as an actor, A good actor to portray someone who they're not has to find aspects of that person in themselves.

[09:41]

and then use that as a seed to develop the character they're portraying. And that's a lot like the enactment or visualization side of Tibetan Buddhism, of Tantric Buddhism. The enactment side, the visualization side of Tibetan Buddhism. But it's also part of Zen Buddhism. Yeah, of course. Because we have to find in ourselves the source of this teaching. Yeah, so that's what I've been trying to do. Now we have to know where to plant this seed, as Andreas pointed out.

[10:55]

The seed of mutual aspiration. Now you two don't know what I'm talking about. That might be very important that you don't know. It might be the opposite too. Important that you, well, whatever. So, but first, is there something anybody wants to discuss with me now? From your discussion yesterday or anything? Yes. In sitting in meditation, my experience is my mind and my body coming together.

[12:01]

And then if I can wholly stick with that, a third quality becomes present. And that's the quality that is capable of compassion. In my daily life, I'm striving to have that quality, yet it's much easier to find it when I'm sitting in meditation, especially with a group of people. So my question is, I find many times, you know, irritation when daily life with other people, or other manifestations of unconsciousness. And my question is, how can I have that everywhere, not just for me? German, please.

[13:05]

When I sit in meditation, then my thinking comes together with the body. And when I stay there, And if I stay with it wholeheartedly, then sometimes a good quality comes, presently. And that is the quality that makes feelings with me. My question is, it is important to me to have my daily life and not only when I go to meditation, because that is my whole motivation, that I can use my daily life. Let me just ask experientially, when you feel something like through meditation mind and body coming together, and you call it, you say there's a third factor that arises,

[14:30]

And you name that third factor compassion. What is the feeling of that third factor? When it appears or when the feeling of mind and body are more together. It's something that is present. and observes everything else, and everything else is included in it. And it's capable of compassion. It's not only compassion, but that is capable of compassion. When this quality comes, then she is able to observe everything in me and to include everything and is able to feel it.

[16:04]

But it is not only a feeling, but it is also a feeling. So Buddhism develops out of trying to answer such questions. Historically, it develops out of trying to answer such questions. And it personally develops best in one's own life through noticing such questions and committing oneself to answer them.

[17:07]

The noticing of such questions The noticing of such experiences indicates that you have the capacity for practice. Your decision to answer them means that you have the character passion for such a practice. And if you commit yourself to answering them, Yeah, often compassion is required to answer them.

[18:09]

Because it's hard to have the energy to answer such subtle questions for oneself. But when you realize you're answering them also for others, when you answer them for yourself, then we can have the strength and energy to practice deeply. This is part of what the basic Bodhisattva insight is. We can only practice deeply for ourselves when we practice also deeply for others. So the most important thing I can say in response to what she said is just what I said.

[19:32]

Which is that, is to present, is to reframe what she said in the context of practice. Because it's the kind of question actually only you can answer for yourself. Nämlich das ist eine Art von Frage, die du nur für dich selbst beantworten kannst. Yeah, but still I can give some help, suggestions. Natürlich kann ich trotzdem eine Art Vorschlag machen. One suggestion is to notice not the way you language it or name it. To notice not. how you language it or name it. But to notice the actual experience. So instead of trying to bring compassion into your life, you try to bring that experience into your life which sometimes is compassion. So your experience is something you call mind and body coming together.

[20:49]

And accompanying that is some kind of softening and wider mind. Perhaps then you can bring that softening and wider mind into your daily life. How do you do that? Okay, you memorize the feeling. Or you body arise the feeling. I come back, something I find I should mention every time.

[21:50]

All mental phenomena has a physical component. All All sentient physical phenomena has a mental component. It means that every state of mind you can physically experience. And your body can remember that physical experience. And from that you can generate a state of mind. So you can remember, get a kind of bodily memory of this softening and this wider mind. And you find ways to recover that feeling in ordinary circumstances.

[22:57]

And that's often easier if you establish it If in the midst of your being busy, you establish a mind rooted in perception only, and not so much rooted in mental formations, as I had mentioned or explained yesterday. It's a little bit like shifting a car into neutral. It's like shifting a car into neutral. You can understand the form of form skanda if you know that teaching.

[24:00]

Or you can understand pleasant, unpleasant, neither. That place where you can just look at things and it's neither pleasant nor unpleasant. We can think of that like this neutral in a gear shift. We can use it as a place to shift into other gears or shift into other states of mind. It's very difficult to shift from third to fourth directly or fourth to third. You have to go into neutral and then into third. Do you remember if you've Yeah. Maybe when you're fully enlightened, your mind is in fluid drive, but from ultimately... Yeah.

[25:22]

So you can, if you let yourself, it's not difficult to do actually, let yourself come into a mind of perception only. Like these beautiful flowers. Which I put here because they were just so pretty out there in the dining room and I just thought they'd look nice here. And they were in the way of the flip chart, the other ones. And I thought they might make the translator happy. So if you just look at these flowers, like with an immediacy, without thinking about it, You hardly know they're flowers. From that, And if you do that, like in your kitchen or wherever, or something like equivalent to that, it often opens you to remembering physically state of mind and sadhana.

[26:46]

Which you can't do through the mind of thought formations usually. You know, Socrates said, know thyself. Yeah, I didn't know Socrates. I don't know really what he meant. But... In Buddhism, in the lineage of Buddhism, it's a little bit like if Socrates had a disciple, had a disciple, had a disciple, and his commitment was actually to generations, not to just his own culture. To his disciples and not just to his own culture.

[27:51]

Somebody nowadays could say, I know the mind of Socrates because it was passed to me from so-and-so and it was passed to so-and-so. This is something different about yogic and Asian culture from our Western culture. and our culture. This passing of things face-to-face. Dogen says it has to be face-to-face, actual people with each other. No, so then maybe we could say what Socrates meant. But what the Buddha meant. Certainly the tradition of Buddhism means that we're familiar with our own mind and body in the precise way I speak.

[29:14]

We notice that from certain states of mind we can more easily shift to other states of mind. It sounds mechanical. Maybe it doesn't sound spiritual. I'm sorry. But if I want to move these flowers here, I have to pick them up and put them here. And when the Buddha... Sits down to begin the Diamond Sutra. As I've said, he washes, cleans his bowls. Washes his feet. Sits upright. Establishes his mind in mindfulness. And then teaches tzik.

[30:25]

It's almost like the world comes through him like a lens. Because washing his balls and his feet is part of his world. And that shines through the lens of meditative mind and opens up into the sutra. And lots of scholars say, oh, this is just a formula with which you begin sutras. And they kind of tack it onto the beginning of every sutra. As if it means nothing. But maybe the scholars are avoiding what it means. It's an alchemical formula. Unless you yourself enter this mind, you can't understand the sutra. So, I don't know.

[31:43]

You actually have to eat and carry the flowers and notice the appearances of mind and so forth. the appearances of mind, and so forth. But more specifically during the seminar today and tomorrow, I will try to answer your question. Because you've asked what is fundamental to this whole seminar. It's where do we plant, how do we plant and nurture the seed of compassion. Wo und wie pflanzen und nähren wir den Samen des Mitgefühls? Something else.

[32:47]

Etwas anderes. You had more than one question perhaps. Du hattest vielleicht mehr als eine Frage. That just isn't in Mexico, right? In Mexico, I say, completely new people, not even familiar with me, you know. Completely new people, not people even familiar to me. And I say, do you have some questions? Half the group has got questions. The farther you go north in Europe, the less and less the questions. In Norway it's so cold they can't get their arms up. Yes. Andreas? In our group we talked about meeting people or meeting people that left a big impression on us.

[34:11]

And we also noticed that books can leave such an impression. They might even... steer your whole life into a new direction. Maybe it's not so much the book, but more the mind of the author that I feel that... Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's the thought. And another phenomenon was that you said that And another phenomenon we talked about is why we go to such meetings like this or meeting with Sandar people. Maybe we find something or something is talked about, you know, People talk about how we actually wish to be.

[35:31]

I want to speak a little bit today about Shantideva. Who wrote the Bodhicharya Vatara. with a guide to Bodhisattva's life, or it's translated as sometimes entering the path of enlightenment, which I think was written for lay people. But it's become one of the main texts in the whole of Tibetan Buddhism. Within Tibetan Buddhism, it's the main source for practices and teachings and compassion.

[36:39]

And His Holiness the Dalai Lama often refers to it. So it's anyway a significant text in Mahayana Buddhism. And the sense of meeting face to face. shanti davis starts out you know with the well At the very beginning of his text, he starts out with one of these things that's just in the beginning that most readers skip. He says something like the leisure and endowment. Leisure means to not have to do anything.

[37:58]

The space to look at things carefully. Endowment is difficult. Endowment is like somebody gives a college a lot of money and they don't have to raise money because they have an endowment. Or you have an endowment of energy and intelligence. How would you translate endowment to? All my Buddha. Endowment also, he means the conjunction of circumstances, the right conditions. The leisure and right conditions. the leisure and right conditions can bring welfare to the whole world. Yeah.

[39:06]

And so this, when the leisure and right conditions are there, you shouldn't miss the opportunity. Okay. And then the next little paragraph says, as a lightning flash can illuminate a cloudy night, the power of a Buddha or the power of circumstances can for a moment turn a person toward the truth. Okay, so what does he mean? Then he goes on with the whole teaching of the parameters and so forth.

[40:09]

What does he mean? He goes on with the teaching of the parameters and so forth. But this first thing is quite interesting. It refers to what Andreas just said. Of course, let me speak to the first part of what Andreas brought up. The way books can turn the direction of our life. Yeah, that's certainly true. But really developing the path with assurance, not just turning toward the path, it's understood requires face-to-face transmission. To really make it fully part of your life stream.

[41:21]

But it's not just... face to face, one person and one person. So what does Shantideva mean by the leisure and endowment? Leisure means enjoying a human existence. Having unimpaired sense faculties. Unimpaired. Yes, something we forget, but here we are enjoying unimpaired sense faculties.

[42:34]

Yes? Yeah, yeah. No, we do. We are enjoying unimpaired, look at these flowers. Yeah, looking at them all the time. Yeah. How hard it is to hear the Dharma if you have impaired sense faculty. Yeah, and another is the leisure of knowing about Buddha. Or believing that it's possible to encounter a Buddha. I think that's a hard one for us. We can study Buddhism, but can we really feel we could encounter a Buddha? If you can't feel that, maybe you're wasting your time trying to practice Buddhism.

[43:35]

You wouldn't see a Buddha if he appeared, or if she appeared. Or you'd think, oh, that's just a man in brown on a plane to Mexico. Yeah, another leisure is a good friend. The leisure of being with good people, rather. The leisure of being with good people. Another is the leisure of spiritual friends. I think we have good people here. And we may have spiritual friends here too. And then the opportunity to hear the Dharma.

[45:01]

So this is an example of the way a Bodhisattva uses language outside the context of language. He just says the leisure. But then you have to know what he means by leisure. To be with good friends, to be with spiritual friends, etc. So that's what I think we have here. Maybe that's why we're here. Vielleicht haben wir das hier und das ist vielleicht auch der Grund, warum wir hier sind. Yeah, that's more than the topic or what we're talking about, to just be here with this possibility. Es ist bedeutsamer als einfach nur das Thema, einfach hier sein.

[46:01]

Yeah, what I mean by mutual aspiration for the two mutual new people. Did you come together or just by chance? I tried to put it in the sense that if one would to imagine the kind of person you really want to exist on the planet. If you somehow, from childhood or from somewhere in your heart, you still wish such a person existed. you can't expect someone else to do it for you. So it becomes a mutual aspiration because you hope such a person exists and you also have to have the courage

[47:08]

the heroic courage to imagine that you yourself could also be that person. And that aspiration cannot be just realized in your own life stream. It has to be realized in the mutual life streams of yourself with others. And I would say that that's a seed of the Bodhisattva vow which we can find in ourselves. Without thinking in terms of Bodhisattva. But just thinking in our own heart what we'd like the world to be like.

[48:21]

So I've reduced that or turned that into the term mutual aspiration. So now what we're speaking about is where do we nourish, how do we nourish the plant, that seed of mutual aspiration? Okay. Now you're up to date, sort of. So let me just finish with Shantideva, this beginning of the Tai Tu of Bodhisattva's life.

[49:26]

So before he gives all the teachings of the Paramitas and so forth, he establishes where these teachings have to occur. What are the conditions like the Buddha sitting, washing his bowls, establishing himself in mindfulness? What are the conditions in which this teaching of the Bodhisattva path can be heard? Well, it's heard in a moment of time as short as a lightning flash.

[50:31]

And it's not a lightning flash that just happens to occur and you happen to have noticed it. It's a lightning flash that You have to be able to notice and act on when it occurs. But it's a lightning flash which also occurs when the right conditions are there. And you are... part of establishing the right conditions. Like if you bring certain things together, you're liable to get an electric spark. You don't have a match and you have to have fire, you have to have a piece of wood and rub it a certain way and so forth. So what are the circumstances from which this lightning flash can be generated?

[51:57]

To in yourself hold realistically the vision of a Buddha. This mutual aspiration which integrates it with our own possibilities, potentialities. And good friends, good people. Spiritual friends. And unimpaired sense faculties. And being present to and hearing the Dharma. He's saying all the teaching means nothing unless you create these conditions. If this really is going to be part of your life stream,

[52:58]

more fundamental than anything else in your life. So we are all trying to create those conditions. So I think it's a good time to take a break. So let's sit for about one minute. Or just any position you're in. Peace Planners, which is very good.

[55:35]

I recommend you read it. It's very modestly translated. Two teachings I've been emphasizing a lot recently, last some months, six months or more, are the six paramitas and the four foundations of mindfulness. And I think the topic of the Buddha nature requires me to at some point bring the paramitas to your attention.

[56:36]

Let me say that what you mentioned, Tatjana, Of this experience of something you called body and mind sort of coming together. And a third quality or mind appearing. is the main point of the first foundation of mindfulness.

[57:38]

Just quickly to review it and I won't go into it in detail. You have to make one of these distinctions that if you don't make, you don't get it. You have to make a distinction, which if you don't make a small distinction, you don't get the first foundation of mindfulness. And that fundamental distinction, small distinction is, you have to ask, what are you, not who are you. If in the back of your mind is the sense of a who, you won't give it. Wenn im Hinterkopf irgendwie der Gedanke schwebt eines wer, dann werdet ihr es nicht verstehen.

[58:47]

You have to ask, what am I? What is the what-ness of this, not the who-ness? Was bin ich? Was ist die was-heit dieses, nicht die wer-heit? As a doctor, a medical doctor asks, what is wrong, not who is wrong? So wie ein Arzt fragt, was ist... He never goes to the doctor. One of the reasons for that is also whatness you share with the world, who-ness you don't share with the world. The more you know your hotness, you feel, hey the flowers and everyone else in the world shares something of the same hotness. So you bring attention to your activity.

[59:52]

And to your breath. And to the four elements. And to the four postures. And to the parts of the body. If you do it in a traditional way, as a path. And you establish the bodyfulness of the body before you establish the other three mindfulnesses. If you don't understand the emphasis, the sequential emphasis, you don't fully develop the second, third and fourth foundations of life.

[60:59]

Then these things like your activity, your breath, and the elements and the postures and so forth, of the activity, breath, elements, postures, and so on. They're like targets or openings in which you pour attention into your body. And when you begin to explore the parts of your body, internally and externally, You find, yes, it's whatness or stuff, the stuff of you. It's not exactly the same stuff as this.

[62:04]

Nor is the stuff of your knuckles exactly the same as the stuff of the palm of your hand. Nor is the stuff of your shoulder, your lungs, the same as the stuff of this area, the heart area. So we begin to recognize stuff plus something, something subtle. And that's probably what you mean, your experience, of when mind and body come together, there's a third factor. The more we practice with weaving mind and body together, weaving mind and body together through attention, a mind of the body itself emerges.

[63:23]

That's not mentation. That's not thinking. Which is much more open to connectedness and compassion. So when this Audi-mind arises, This is the root of big mind. Or root of the background mind that observes your anger and so forth. And through the first foundation of mindfulness, you establish the body mind. You generate the body-mind. You can say it's already there, but it's not really there or able to be generated until you do this practice.

[64:45]

It's all a kind of cooking. Even Dogen uses the word cook. Cook your practice. You put two things together and add heat and you get something else. It's not the same as the two things. And the development of the fourth foundation of mindfulness then allows the practice of what's called heats and summits. And summits, like the summit on my own. And this is a teaching I've had for two days. And I don't know if I will, but at some point I will. But it's a teaching that it doesn't make sense for me to give you till a large percentage of you have really established the four foundations of mindfulness.

[66:11]

And know well the body-mind So I'm waiting. Because a lot of these practices do have a sequence. They don't really make sense until you've passed through the lens lens of particular teachings. So one of these is the cooking together, weaving together of mind and body. You begin to have the experience of something that arises through that cooking.

[67:13]

And we can also identify it with presence. Yeah. Which actually, you know, an example of presence, not quite the same, is like what I mentioned a few days, a while ago. When you pay attention to mice, mice shut up. We had a whole lot of mice at Crestone a few years back after a big crop of pine nuts, pinyon nuts. And with darn mice, I'd hear them in my room.

[68:16]

Dine is a... It's a... It's a... It's a... Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't want to damn any mice, but there were darn mice in there. But as soon as I paid attention to them to figure out where they were in the room, they'd be quiet. So I had to fine tune my mind pretending I wasn't really concentrating on them. So they continue their little nibbling activity. But as soon as I really was interested and tried to ascertain where they were, they all shut up.

[69:36]

Well, science can't explain these things. But there is this sense of presence animals and humans have. You can feel someone looking at you. So I put your experience in the context of Buddhist practice. And that's this practice of the four foundations of mindfulness is someone's attempt to answer your question. Once you begin to have the fruits of the first foundation of mindfulness, Which really is to know the body in the body.

[70:55]

Then the mind that develops from that, you can begin to bring into your life through the second, third, fourth foundation of the mind. You know, this is... Otmar made this one. Many of you know Otmar Engel. From Berlin. And the Love Parade. Yeah. In Berlin, the Love Parade. Well, no, but Otmar's been there. Oh, Otmar was there. I heard it wasn't so many people attended this year.

[71:59]

I was just with Otmar in San Francisco. And one of the first things he said to me was, tomorrow is the love parade and I'm not there. But Otmar has been HIV positive for 10 years or more. And practiced with us all of those years. He said to me the other day, I realized I did something very traditional. I practiced with you and I did so many practice periods in Presto. And I was given a temple. He's head of the Hartford Street Zen Center in San Francisco. In the middle of the gate. I was kind of worried that maybe the stress of taking care of this group

[73:17]

brought on his weakened immune system. But he doesn't think so at all. He says his white blood cell count has just been going down every year and finally he got AIDS. He's quite actually happy in a sense that he got AIDS in San Francisco. Because it has probably the best AIDS facilities and doctors in the world. He says, I went to the doctors. He waited, he said, two or three days before he probably would have died.

[74:30]

He went to the doctors, probably two or three days before he died. He said, practically as I walked in, they knew what to do. And he was immediately treated and put in a bed and given all kinds of stuff and it helped him immediately. And then they asked him, are you legal or illegal? He said, oh, I have a religious visa. So he, oh, then you're legal, so you have to pay something. If you're here illegally, it's all free. That's true in New Mexico, too. When Marie-Louise and I went with the baby, they asked her, are you legal or illegal? If you're illegal, they fill out the forms for you.

[75:40]

So he has to pay a tiny percentage of his doctor bill. Yeah, and then we went to see Philip Whalen, the poet. Then we visited Philip Whale, the poet, and a good friend of mine. And he was head of the Hartford Streets, I know, before Ottmar. And he's now, you know, in his 70s, and he's old, and he needs round-the-clock care. So he's in this pretty terrible, huge, old people's home, where they give you, wait for you to die. Where they give you full-time attention, but they wait, really, to house people before they die.

[76:56]

So he's in a little corner with a curtain around him and many people in the room. And the room is full of people going, It's like a hell realm. But Philip still has some humor. He heard one of these screams came from somewhere going, uh-uh, uh-uh. Philip said, yeah, yeah. He said, yeah, yeah. But it made me think of, don't you have some expression in German, a chicken ladder? Habt ihr nicht so einen Ausdruck im Deutschen, eine Hühnerleiter?

[78:06]

Because life is short and shitty? Das Leben ist kurz und beschissen wie eine Hühnerleiter? Das Leben ist beschissen wie eine Hühnerleiter. Nee, es ist wie eine Hühnerleiter, beschissen von oben bis unten. It's... Well, anyway, I don't think either Philip or Otmar thinks that, but you look at it, sometimes you think, oh, God. And it happens fast. I'm on, no. I'm still alive. Okay, so... There is an expression in Buddhism, insentient beings speak the Dharma. in sentient beings with the Dharma.

[79:18]

And it's hard to know what that means. But it's an extremely important teaching within our particular lineage, Dunchan lineage. Dogan has a whole fascicle on it called Insentient Beings Teach the Dharma. And he says something like the word insentient has awesome and wonders power. There's a number of dialogues that Dung Shan was involved with. Where he said, I've heard the saying, The insentient beings speak the Dharma.

[80:33]

But I don't hear it. Very earnestly and innocently he asked this question again and again. I don't hear it. And teachers would say things to him like, well, If I heard it, you wouldn't hear me. Now this is an example of Buddhism trying to use language outside the text of culture. Dogen said something like, We need intimate language to hear the Dharma.

[81:35]

Because the path of the Buddhas arises before the forms of the world. So what can this mean to you personally? Now Dogen even says something as peculiar as this. You must, can you see it back there? You must grasp with the whole body. In sentient beings hear, insentient beings speak the Dharma. He says you must grasp this with the whole body.

[82:42]

And he also says, and you must let go of. Insentient beings here, insentient beings, speak that. So he presents something that's almost impossible to understand. What the heck is an insentient being? That's a little euphemism for hell. Yeah. What the heck is that? I didn't use a euphemism. Oh, you didn't? No. I talked about the devil. You did? Hell, I didn't. What the devil is, yeah. Okay. And then he takes it away.

[83:42]

He says, you grasp it with your whole body, something you can't understand in the first place, and then he says you let go of it. Yeah, I think we'd better stop here. I think we'd better study something else. This is crazy. Yeah. How do we grapple with something? Yeah. Surprisingly, if you do grapple with something, like wrestle, and you don't, you know, like, wrestling with a ghost maybe.

[84:44]

You let go of it too. And let you let it inside you too. Sometimes something will come up that you'll notice. Yeah. Now Dogen also says, the world of the coming and going of birth and death. Yeah, he said it. is the true human body and he goes on to say the coming and going of birth and death is what ordinary people drift about and the word drift is packed because the word samsara means something like drifting world of suffering

[86:11]

Drift is appropriate because the Samsara is a turning around. It's where ordinary people drift about and yet it's also where great sages are looming. This is where ordinary people drift around and also where the great wise men are enlightened. So I'm presenting this because this is also a description of Buddha nature. Buddha nature is not separate from the conditions in which we live. Now Yasutani Roshi, who was a pretty famous then teacher of the 20th century, And someone I knew, actually, somewhat, came to America, to Tassara and stuff.

[87:20]

He had a pretty big influence in America because he, for some years, did sashins all over America. He had a great influence in America, because for a few years he organized different Sesshins throughout America. And Maezumi Roshi and Eken Roshi and Edo Roshi all were quite related to Yasutani Roshi. And those three are among the most influential Roshis in America. And he presents or Buddha nature as emptiness.

[88:26]

That's okay. I can't disagree with that. But I feel it's more useful to identify Buddha nature with Tathagatagarbha. No, Tathagatagarbha means... The one who thus comes and goes. The coming and going. So coming and going is coming and going of birth and death. Otmar and Philipp are you know sick or dying. That's part of our world.

[89:28]

Yeah. And these two babies are here. And it's not only the coming and going of birth and death in the world of people but the coming and going of birth and death in you yourself. It's the coming and going of coming into you of the world and releasing the world. Buddha nature is also sometimes called dharmata. And dharmata means the world as phenomena as dharmas. And the world as dharmas also is this folding into oneself of everything and letting it go.

[90:46]

This is what Dharma practice is. To notice that Each perception, go ahead. No, it's okay. To notice, to feel, experience how on each perceptual moment we let or hinder the world folding into us. This moment which has no permanence. And because it has no permanence, we let it go. But because we love and live, we hold it a moment and let it go. This is also the coming and going of birth and death. And this coming and going of birth and death is our actual human life.

[92:04]

The wider boundaries of our body. And so Dogen says, it's actually our true human body. This is a way of speaking about the mutuality of our life streams. We can't separate our life streams. You can't separate them from your family. And we who practice together can't really separate them from each other. We've already influenced each other too much.

[93:06]

And that flowing together of life streams, the more you are open to it through the practice of the paramitas, the more the life streams of everyone you encounter partly flow within you. Ordinary people don't know this is the true human body. And they just drift about in it with lots of ideas and wanting things to be different and so forth. But to be actually here in each particularity, each particular moment, knowing and experimenting with language outside of language.

[94:21]

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