Let me just shape some shots at the topic. All right. When we meditate. And you get sort of good at it. Or you do a Sashin, say. And you're really concentrated in the Sashin. Sometimes clarity settles over you.

[01:02]

An astonishing, perhaps, clarity settles over you or settles in and through you so that you're aware all the time. And you know the kind of awareness you have sometimes when, say, that you're standing somewhere and you feel someone looking at you from the back. And you turn around and there's someone staring at you. Well, I think it happens nowadays most commonly in a car. When you're driving and suddenly you feel and you look over and somebody's looking right into your car. I call this awareness, not consciousness.

[02:08]

And it actually becomes a kind of crystal-like field around you. And sometimes, for example, most commonly it would happen to a person, I think, in Sashin. They can be clear all night, even when they're sleeping. Somebody can come in the room, there can be a conversation with the person. And you can stay awake, stay asleep, or wake up and go back to sleep, either one. And the next day you can say to the person, yeah, you came into the room around three, and I remember we discussed such and such, but you stayed asleep.

[03:12]

And it's a kind of, it's a mental clarity. It's awareness. It's being awake even at night. Awake to what's happening around you. It's like there's several fields here. There's one field that my consciousness is perceiving and is able to be self-conscious of. I can be conscious that I'm conscious. I can't be aware that I'm aware. If I'm aware that I'm aware, it turns into consciousness. So I can be conscious. I can also be aware.

[04:14]

So it's like another layer or field that feels and knows but isn't self-conscious. Just as it can be present when you're asleep at night and present to what's happening in the room even though consciousness is asleep It also, when you're awake, can be present in the room without consciousness needing to be asleep or awake. Now, does that make sense, whether you experienced it or not? Does that make sense as an image? Okay. And in addition to consciousness and awareness, Each of our sense fields is apprehending.

[05:45]

And there's an interrelationship among these three, but they're not all the same. I can be conscious of what you're doing but I can also hear the cars without observing I'm hearing the cars. And if I look at you I feel something from each of you which I know seasons seasons my consciousness and awareness. And if I turn and just look at the flowers, I don't have to think about the flowers, but just the presence of the flowers also seasons me.

[06:54]

So when I look back at you, I bring a kind of flower mind to you. And I bring a sangha mind to the flowers. Okay, some topography like this is always happening. And through practice you get more and more able to primarily be aware but not interfere with awareness. Okay. That could be a partial description of what early Buddhism meant by the Buddha is one who is awake. Okay. Later Buddhism would say that's not enough.

[07:55]

That is a good experience. There's some realization in it. But it... I have to search for some way of saying what I feel. Research. This experience is not passive, but from the point of view of later Buddhism, it's too passive.

[09:12]

And it's more the fruit of practice than the... evolvement of practice. And it's nice to be that way. If you've had this experience, it's quite good. You feel good. You feel clear and present and healthy and so forth. And pure. This kind of clarity is purifying. But are you really helping others? Are you able to bring this seed of gotra, of germinating seed into your life with others, into the sangha?

[10:17]

I think in this kind of experience I'm just shaping something here. Dharmakaya is present. This wide mind is present. Non-dual mind is present. Buddha mind is present. But is Sangha present? Is Dharma present? Not really. Okay. So in order to create the idea of a universal Buddhahood, And I use universal with lots of quotations around it.

[11:24]

And in order to practice in a way that the potentiality of everyone's Buddhahood is there, the emphasis on the Tathagata Garbha developed. In other words, within this clarity, now the emphasis is on being present to the process and which each moment arises in you and is transformed in you and expressed. And that each moment arising in you and being transformed and expressed

[12:33]

and let go of and discovering knowing is something that can't be known Or is only known in the moment of knowing. That's essential to this idea of thusness. It's known only through itself. It's known only as itself. Yes. So it's instantaneous and unique.

[13:38]

Now the more you know this instantaneous and uniqueness, the more you are in the non-repeatability of each moment. And the non-graspability of each moment, then you're deeply in what's meant by non-duality. This is then the expression of emptiness. Of shunyata, another word that's up there. Okay. That as a practice not only matures you, but it's contagious. Other people feel it. And it brings other people into this process. Now, if I'm just clear, it doesn't affect you so much. But if at each moment I find all of us together unique and non-repeatable, and all of you inseparable from my moment, so there's also the idea of all-at-onceness.

[15:00]

And Dharmakaya is understood as an all-at-onceness. And it's a lot like Bell's theorem. Over there on the other side of the universe or the multiverse you affect this quantum entity Which was once engaged with another quantum entity. Whatever you do to this one happens to that one. That's the idea of simultaneity or all at once. You could also express it as timelessness. It feels like everything's in place and stopped.

[16:13]

And we can have that experience even though we also have this experience of successive time. Because in fact, while things are being influenced by this moment coming this moment followed by this moment followed by this moment. It's also the truth that this bell is impossible without the floor. And the floor is impossible without Kassel. And Kassel is impossible without Europe. And Europe is impossible without the stars. I mean, you can't take one part out and have these parts.

[17:13]

So in fact, there's a simultaneity going on. And all at onceness. And to be open to that all at onceness, it's also the function of awareness. And siddhis, you know what siddhis are? Charisms. In Christianity they're called charisms. And Buddhism cities, meaning like mind reading or something like that. Unusual powers. The realm in which like two people separated at a distance as twins sometimes have the same dreams. This functions through somehow the non-locality of everything. But non-locality doesn't seem to happen all the time. It happens to us only occasionally.

[18:14]

But the sense of the Buddha as omniscient is the sense of developing this openness to all at once. Which doesn't occur unless you let each moment appear and disappear. Appear and disappear. and experienced or known only through itself. It's not comparable to anything else. So practices of acceptance and so forth and equanimity All lead us more and more to the point without grasping we can accept each moment known only through itself and let it go.

[19:46]

It also means to be free of vanity. Vanity is involved in thinking something over there is more interesting than you. So you'd like to make this, that better in that way. So to think, anyway, that's I think the dynamic of vanity. To think some other point is better, so you try to make yourself better than other points. So this sense of the Dharmakaya means to be free of vanity. So the ordinary precepts of common humanity have this deeper meaning of being able to practice realization. So I'm at the sort of upper or lower limit of my language.

[20:59]

And So I can just say that the developed idea of Sangha is rooted in the practice of thusness in a way that incorporates others into each moment. If I practice thusness, in the way I've been trying to express it, I know that Norbert is inseparable from my thusness.

[22:00]

And even Angela is sometimes not separate from mine. And even Angela and you and Maya and Eno are sometimes not separate from mine. It's not that I'm just in favor of Norbert. Okay, something else. How could there be anything else? It makes a funny sound. It's like a dragon is grinding its teeth. Okay. Yeah. Can you tell us something about the joyousness of the sage?

[23:07]

Cheerfulness, yeah. Sages are usually cheerful. But it does assume Somebody said I went too fast in all this. The Dharmakaya, for instance, assumes an experience of bliss. And there's a kind of, you know, I remember when I studied

[24:11]

philosophy to some extent in college and university. You have Mills and Hobbes and other folks. And some start from the idea that human beings are basically good and some start from the idea that human beings are basically evil. Buddhism assumes that there's a rightness to everything. That things exist and function through a kind of rightness. I don't know what we can call it. And that when that rightness is there there's an experience of bliss for no reason. Sometimes it's called non-referential joy.

[25:35]

Nothing happened, but you feel good. Something's wrong. Why do I feel so good? Something bad must have happened if I feel so good. And then you start feeling guilty. I feel good and the others don't. I feel so good because the others don't feel so good. I'm special because I feel good. So none of that works very well. For some reason, you can notice that sometimes there's just a welling up of blissful feelings. And simply, if you have a choice between happiness and sadness, why not choose happiness? The thing is, most of us don't have the choice.

[26:35]

Or we have the choice and don't know we have the choice and have chosen sadness. I think that's more common. It's that we don't know we have the choice, but in fact we've chosen to feel bad. And you feel if you choose bliss, you feel not responsible somehow. But just think of all the people in the world that are suffering. What do they want? To feel better. So why don't you feel better? Lead the way in feeling better. Be a good example of the possibilities of feeling better. The sage is cheerful because the sage has a choice. And because the sage is in, I think as I understand it, the sage is primarily

[27:59]

identified through the field of the present. And when, again, taking Vajrapani, when the mind is in meditative equipoise, it does not conceive of anything and only observes the clarity and joyousness of mind. So meditative equipoise is a way of introducing yourself to the clarity and joyousness of mind. That results from not conceptualizing. So you can think of meditative equipoise not as a result, but as a pedagogy.

[29:20]

that introduces you to the mind of clarity and joyousness. What Dogen calls self-joyous samadhi. And so once you're familiar, let's say your body is familiar with this mind of, non-dual mind of clarity and joy, it can be present all the time. Or it can be called up all the time. And I think in our normal human practitioners, At first we taste it occasionally.

[30:33]

In sitting probably. And at some other times. But it's almost immediately closed down all the time. Because other views of yourself and the world take hold again. But after a while, and it is a learning process, you're familiar enough with it, you can call it, even if it's not present all the time, you can call it up. So you can notice that you're in a strained, difficult situation. And you can feel yourself in this situation.

[31:34]

Perhaps going into that feeling from external pressures And you're familiar with it. And you might decide it's productive to stay there for a little while. But if you want to, you can just stop. And be here. And let a mind where nothing needs to be added or subtracted appear. And in the middle of circumstances or near death or whatever, this self-joyous samadhi can come up. This choice is present to you. It's as simple as deeply not entering a comparative mind.

[32:54]

And as soon as you're in a non-comparative mind, which you could call a surface of non-dual mind, Like a fountain, joy begins coming up through the non-dual. Okay? Yeah, no, it's true. I wouldn't tell you if it wasn't. And realization for most of us won't be close to perfect.

[33:55]

But even tastes of it are worth it. And if you have a taste of it, And you commit yourself to practice as a priority above other priorities. Other successes and needs. You can give to others the best gift of all. is a mind of clarity and joyousness. And that is the root of Sangha. And becomes that which we can take refuge in. And we take refuge in this Sangha within ourselves.

[35:12]

Within a vision of Sangha. So I have a vision of Sangha. You may not fulfill it. You may not want me to have that vision. You may not want no part of that vision. I won't force it on you. But I'm still going to have it. So I can look at you in various ways. It makes me happy to look at you as potential Buddhas. So nice to be in a room full of potential Buddhas. And Sukhiroshi used to say, no matter who you are, you're always showing people what kind of Buddha you are. Mm-hmm. So I look at you and I say, oh, that's the kind of Buddha.

[36:32]

Not too good yet, but still. I look at myself and say, oh, a kind of Buddha, not too good yet. But I feel I'm a kind of Buddha. I'm just not very good at it. So this is... Better than being Dickie Bird. No, Dickie, that's what she called me earlier, you know. No, it's just as good as being... I'm sorry. It's just as good as being Dickie Bird. Yeah, I don't know. No one should call me Dickie Bird Roshi though. One or the other.

[37:36]

No, you can call me whatever you like. So maybe that's enough for today. Buddhism has meaning only if Buddha is present. It has to be present and possible for us. Otherwise you're studying something that has historical significance but doesn't mean anything here. Please bring yourself into the presence and possibility of the Buddha. of the functioning of Buddha in our lives.

[38:45]

And if you feel the possibility of the functioning of Buddha in your life, that creates a Buddha field. And that's what the Sangha is. The Sangha is People who together create the potentiality of realization. Will make it possible for a Buddha to appear. As Sukhiroshi again used to say, a Buddha appears because people are good. It's not an idea like, oh, the world's in a horrible shape, a Buddha should appear. That's nice to have a savior. you know, come riding up on a white horse on a lotus saddle.

[39:55]

I like that though. I'm on my lotus saddle. With the U.S. Cavalry right behind me. But Buddha is understood to be something we create together. A Buddha appears through the Sangha. And is recognized through the Sangha. A Buddha appears through each of us wanting a Buddha to appear. So, now you have your job as a Sangha cut out for you. Please get to work. But without, not with too much gewissen?

[41:14]

What's the German word for conscience? Gewissen? No, gewissen. Gewissen, without too much gewissen. Gewissen ist conscience, bad conscience or good conscience. Yeah, Germans have too much bad conscience and good conscience. Weder gutes noch schlechtes gewissen. In Doksan, I have more people talk to me about gewissen than anything else. So we want to create a Buddha field. This is our job, but without gewissen. Buddha beyond gewissen. Buddha jenseits von gewissen. Okay.

[42:18]

Thank you very much. Well, let's sit for a few minutes and then we'll end. Let's thank our translator.

[42:31]

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