Yeah, now if you had time for lunch, a good lunch. And I tried before lunch to tie up some of these strands that we've talked about since yesterday. There are still some strands and questions floating in the material. But I wanted to present the sense that the alaya vijnana which is translated very commonly as storehouse consciousness

[01:05]

which in no way is actually anything like a container or comparable to sometimes some views of the unconscious. but rather it is an activity that is germinate through your own activity. And so your own daily activity in the particular minds you're in calls forth your knowing. And that knowing is the most of what you know is not conscious. So mind... of awareness or a mind concentrated on the, well, perhaps a mind in which the continuum is aliveness, calls forth more of what you don't know.

[02:40]

Or rather, that's not right, but what you know but isn't activated in your superliminal knowing. And to express that, there are various ways of expressing that. Yeah, one of the, I think, useful ones in this context. Yeah, Dung Shan has asked, this is a koan 98 or something in the Book of Serenity. Among the three bodies of Buddha, which one does not fall into any category? And I think for our discussion here, we don't need to know what the three bodies of the Buddha are.

[04:01]

Except to the extent that, for instance, the sleeping body calls forth a different mind than this upright standing up body. So in Buddhism, different mental and physical postures are called different bodies. So you could say what among the three minds of the Buddha But we wouldn't say it that way. Because we're always talking about embodied minds. Minds embodied in your aliveness. Or minds embodied in your activity and so forth.

[05:21]

Okay. So anyway, when Dung Shan was asked by this rather sharp questioner, Among the three bodies of the Buddha, which one does not fall into any category? And Dung Shan said, no, he didn't say that. He said, hmm, I'm always close to this. Er hat gesagt, dem bin ich immer nahe. Okay, now, again, a koan like this generates a, what I call often, wisdom phrase. Okay and the koan is designed to be

[06:26]

Well, like we said yesterday afternoon, a compressed rationality that forces words into their vertical dimension. And when you can read it, practice it through the verticality and not the horizontality of the words, The koan does have a particular place it's going and presenting that you can find confirmed when it all starts to fit together. But the point of a koan or the work of a koan is not just within itself, within its own extent.

[08:01]

But it also is about what happens when the phrase, the wisdom phrase it generates, is placed into your own continuum. Okay. Now, it takes some skill to maintain a phrase in your continuum. Some people have a hard time doing it. And it always surprises me because much of what we actually do is about this, about certain viewpoints that are held in our continuum.

[09:13]

But in any case, it's a skill one gets better at as you do it. And so for this phrase, I'm always close to this. And I think some of you have worked with this because it's one of the koans I mention most often. So whatever you look at, whenever you notice something, Whenever you feel appearance in your sensorial field, it might be just seeing this Zafu here. I say, in this case myself, I would say, I'm always close to this. In diesem Fall würde jetzt ich selber dann sagen, ich bin dem immer nahe.

[10:23]

Or I hear her voice and I feel, oh, I'm always close to this. Oder ich höre ihre Stimme und sage dann, ich bin dem immer nahe. And you'll find if you try such a phrase, it actually functions within the direction of the koan. By attuning you to a mind that does not fall into any categories. For example, as we said this morning, no before or after, self and others and so forth. And a mind that does not fall into any categories calls forth what I'm calling subliminal cognitive knowing. It's not just passive stuff.

[11:29]

It's actually a knowing that we have access to through generating a mind without categories. Generating a mind without categories. Now, somebody told you, oh, please, generate a mind without categories. Say your uncle or aunt is doubtful about why the heck you're practicing Buddhism. You say, Tante, just develop a mind without categories. Well, it's a prescription no apotheker can fulfill. But if you could get her to say I'm always close to this or get yourself to say it it interiorizes the world.

[12:36]

Yeah, I mean, it really generates a non-dual feel for the world. It's amazing how words, independent of, well, anyway, how words can direct our attention. The example I often use is the difference between if you say, who is breathing? And you say, what is breathing? Yeah, not too different. Three letter and a four letter word. At least in English. And yet there's a different feeling when you say, what is breathing? And surprisingly, they're like little magic wands, these phrases.

[13:56]

They're like little magic wands. Zauberstäbe. Yeah, those things. He's an old magician. Which reminds me, my daughter Sally, when she was five or so, wrote a letter to Santa Claus. Das erinnert mich daran, dass meine Tochter Sally, als sie fünf war oder so, da hat sie dem Weihnachtsmann einen Brief geschrieben. Dear Santa. Da hat sie geschrieben, lieber Weihnachtsmann. Please give me a magic wand. Bitte gib mir einen magischen Zauberstab. And she really said, and a machine that tells me what I don't want. Das stimmt wirklich. Und eine Maschine, die mir auch sagt, was ich nicht will. She must have been six, I think. Couldn't have been four, I think. If you have a machine that tells you what you don't want, you don't need a magic wand. Anyway, these little machines, these little machines, these little phrases... I like magic wands because this phrase, I'm always close to this, begins to affect how attention...

[15:16]

is given to the world and what's given back through that attention. Sorry, I think you have to repeat that. These little magic wands, these wisdom phrases, somehow are even in a foreign language and translation, give attention to the world in a way that gives the world back to you. Okay. Now, partly what I'm talking about here by implication is how can we trust, I don't know what word to use, a bodily knowing Well, it's partly a craft. You get used to it. And you trust how you enter a situation

[16:35]

In other words, the felt sense. At least as I would work with it, it's just a starting point. It's what happens to that felt sense on the washboard of daily life that begins to guide you. Because I'm still thinking about what Nicole said earlier. How can she trust a felt sense when other parts of her say you should do something different? No, I, like Ralph suggested this morning, would probably... I never know what I'm going to do in Doksan, but probably in Doksan I'd ask you, can you give me an example?

[18:03]

Yeah. But I would never myself ignore a felt sense. Yeah. Okay. Anybody want to say something? Yes. Yes. You spoke of the spirit neither before nor after, and you mentioned that it is clear to everyone that there is no such thing as a present, because we are now in a very small time frame of the past and the future. Stop, stop, stop. You've talked about the mind that doesn't know before and after, and you've also talked about this idea that's actually quite clear, I think, to everybody, that the present doesn't actually exist because it's composed of such small, small things that it doesn't exist, ever smaller.

[19:22]

If the present does not exist, because it is infinitely small in time, then nothing actually existed in the past, because there have always been these infinitely small presences, and in the future it will also be something different. There is, well, one reason could be, and that is my question... Stop! I like she's very direct. Stop. Stop in the name of love. I thought you'd break my head. Um... If it's the case that the present doesn't exist because the time units are infinitely small, then it must be the case that also the past doesn't exist because that also must consist of these infinitely small time units. And it's the same with the future. It's ever infinitely small time units. And then here my question comes in.

[20:24]

So would the conclusion be allowed that there is no past and no future or in other words that time actually doesn't exist? You couldn't be married and feel that way. It was a thought, not a feeling. A wife, a spouse would never accept somebody who thought there was no past, present or future. Who wouldn't accept that? A spouse. I mean, practically speaking, yes, in some fundamental sense you can live that way.

[21:30]

But that would be called an extreme version of fundamental truth. But we also have to have the practical truth of, you know, Meeting your wife and knowing you told her to meet you at 12.30. And right there is the basic teaching of the two truths of Nagarjuna. But, I mean, just as the present exists because, although at each moment it's past, it still exists because you have an experience of duration. What is it? The saccadic scanning.

[22:30]

That scanning process is creating a present which stays in place for a little while. And your past is an accumulation of those durations, the experience of those durations. Yeah, so these things flow together. But that's enough for that, not for now. By the way, what I said, I always trust a felt sense. That's not true. Sometimes I have a clear felt sense before I go to bed that I shouldn't brush my teeth.

[23:33]

I'm sleepy and I know brushing my teeth is going to wake me up. Ich bin schläfrig und ich weiß, dass wenn ich meine Zähne putze, das wird mich aufwecken. So there are felt senses I've learned most of the time to ignore. Also gibt es bestimmte felt senses, die ich gelernt habe meistens zu ignorieren. Okay, but now there are other felt senses that I think we know what I mean, you know what I mean, that I do not ignore. Aber da sind andere felt senses und ich glaube, ihr wisst, was ich meine, die würde ich nicht ignorieren. Okay, something else, somebody else. Yes. I've thought about what you said about the continuity of aliveness in the field. And what you now just said about the trust that I find for myself to be very important.

[24:55]

And my question up to now, and I'm not so sure, it might dissolve right now, but my question up to now was, is this trust in mind number one, is that a trust in a field, in trusting a field? Which exists outside of me, independent of me? Or is this a trust, a trust in my own limited construction, Or is that a trust into my own limited construction? Or is both of that simultaneous? But I know from experience that sometimes I feel this very clear resonance and then afterwards I wonder what has just happened right now.

[26:18]

What was that? You feel a resonance with what? With a field outside yourself? A very, very deep resonance or maybe even a very deep connectedness with others, with the world. Maybe it could be called non-dual. Okay. I have to find the thrust of what you're saying. Because there's quite a few different things you've said. But when you said in the beginning was a field outside yourself. There's no such thing. Except on the other side of the moon.

[27:19]

I mean, anything you're experiencing is a field inside yourself. Now, the degree to which you feel resonant with that can be a kind of pulse. It can be more or less or, you know, etc., But it's not outside yourself. I mean, it might be outside yourself, but it's not outside your aliveness. That's exactly the question. The object, the phenomenal objects are outside of me, but I can only perceive them in the relationship. But that exactly is the question. The phenomenal objects are outside of me, but I can also perceive them in a relationship.

[28:24]

This object is... I mean, even if I hit my head with it, it's not outside me. Because the only reality this has at that moment is its contact with my head. So we don't, at least in Buddhism, we would never say this object, yes, as a physical thing it's separate from us, like the other side of the moon, I said. But the moon is affecting our... our reproductive cycles and so forth. This bell is separate from me. And the way Andrea knows it, it's separate from me. But in every way I know it, it's not separate from me.

[29:43]

And that non-separateness can be experienced as non-duality. But that non-separateness can also be experienced as separateness. But non-separateness is actually still separateness. I mean, it's actually still non-separateness. Separateness, well, you know what I mean. So when we externalize the world, which the senses do, we create a kind of... much of our fears and so forth are rooted in the externalization of the world.

[30:46]

If we don't externalize the world, Yeah, that doesn't eliminate all anxiety. But it dramatically changes your relationship to fears, anxiety, the sense of the future, etc., Yeah. It's like the whole world where nice moms and pops and they are coming over to comfort you. You still are crying, but it's so nice to have the world as a mom and pop. You feel supported all the time. Okay, someone else. Yes. I've heard a lot throughout these two days that also answered my question about identity that I had in the beginning.

[32:10]

And for me it is again and again about aspects of energy with what I hear. And I sit with Gerald and Gisela and Gerald often says that in Zen it is essentially about cultivating life energy. I sit with Gerhard and Gisela, and Gerhard often says that... And he's as tall as you are. And Gerhard often says that Zen is about cultivating life energy. And now I'm interested in the question, what is life energy? And now I'm very simply interested in the question, what is life energy?

[33:24]

Do you have to... late in the day in the... I'm sorry. Every time I look at you, I think of my tall daughter. So I think of this story when she was sitting in her, excuse me, proud papa, you know. She's sitting in the car seat. Why the heck she was in a car seat in the front seat? I don't know. I guess in those days you could be in the front seat. And she was swinging around and nearly hitting the dashboard, because she was asleep while I was driving. So she was just missing the dashboard. And I said, Elizabeth, watch your head. And she said, you watch it, I can't see it. And I said, Yeah.

[34:45]

Now, you could say, no, she was a very clever girl. But I don't... It may be that she is quite, you know, clever. But it's more that kids don't like generalizations. So she doesn't have the feeling watch your head means something other than to watch your head. She heard the usual way, watch something, and she said, well, It's like the other day I said to Sophia, and it was kind of similar, I said it was the big game between Germany and somebody. This is my seven-year-old.

[35:50]

I said, everybody in Germany is watching this game. And she said, no, they are not. And I said, what do you mean? She said, the players aren't. Well, again, this sounds very clever. But she's probably thinking, Papa said, everybody in Germany is white. Well, there must be sick people. There's some who don't like football. She's going through it, and then she looks in the television and sees it. Well, they're not either. But what I'm saying partly is that a Zen practitioner doesn't like generalizations either. And as a result of not getting caught up in generalizations, which really describe the world in terms of entities,

[37:04]

Yeah, and so I'm always close to this. I'm not going to get caught in categories. Okay, anyone else want to say something? Maybe connect it to this. Sometimes when I sit here and listen to you, I don't hear the words in the vertical way. It is like I hear... A horizontal way or vertical? You don't hear them in the horizontal way. I hear syllables. And it's sometimes a real job to put them together to make a meaning. But it's also fun to just look at one syllable. And it's the same when I came back from the Sishin. I couldn't read the newspaper. I read it, but I couldn't make a meaning out of it. Just nothing. But then I had to write a report on a client, and I could do it very well.

[38:19]

I could write very well. It's amazing. Yeah, it's like that. Do you translate yourself? Sometimes when I sit here and listen to Roshi, I don't hear his language in the horizontal way, but I hear syllables. And it's my job to bring them together, to replace them with words that make sense. And that's how it went for me after the last session. I couldn't read a newspaper for days. I just couldn't get over two sentences and make sense out of it. But I could write very well. I could write a report. I wrote in an hour, which I usually need three hours for. It was very precise. And it was also more this, more this. Yes. I have one remark. Of course. I have the experience that when I, for one reason or another, look through e-mails or something, I recognize those that I wrote after the sashin.

[39:36]

Often I recognize it in the way the words. Oh, really? Yeah. Very clearly, actually. Well, I'm following. I have some idea about what I ought to say. But I often don't know the way to get there. And often it's really a felt sense. So I hold that felt sense away from me. I mean, you know, sort of... I hold it away from me. And then I sort of speak toward it. And I really am paying attention to syllables. So you're hearing what I'm doing.

[40:47]

And I'm paying attention to the syllables, which take the form of words, and then I often say things, I think, geez, I never thought of that before. How did that come about? And often I develop a teaching, often because I'm with you. In the field of you, something happens. But to do it, I have to trust the felt sense and hope I don't say anything ridiculous in the middle. Aber um das zu tun, muss ich schon irgendwie dem Failsense vertrauen und darauf hoffen, dass ich nicht irgendwas lächerliches mittendrin sage. Did some of the questions you had in Sashin, because I talked about some of this in a somewhat different way, but, you know, have there been a good continuation here of it, or has it reinforced it or something?

[42:04]

For me, it was the question of continuity that was there. actually quite new for me. And to give this an anchoring in experience, in aliveness, in contrast to in consciousness and all that, this is a real erweiterung. Extension. And I thought you were more clear about it now. Deutsch, bitte. For me, the question of continuity was important. It has already appeared in the course of history and has continued here. For me, it was more of a foundation because we to anchor oneself in the aliveness, in the vitality, and to develop it there, to establish it. That somehow clicked with me, because I only know it as a reference to rational thinking, to memories, to pictures, to concepts that interrupt the process of being.

[43:17]

Okay. So from my point of view, I feel I've said about as much as makes sense for us to try to absorb. But if there's something more you want to bring up that we can further our discussion through your own questions, please, let's do it. We don't have to stop yet, but we could. But if there is still something coming from you that might raise fruitful questions through your discussion, then we can still talk about it. So we don't have to stop, but we could already stop. Yes, sorry. So you are talking about living, continuity, and now also about trust in this continuity, or about the expectation. Yesterday we talked about continuity, aliveness and trust and also about there's a trust or an expectation that this aliveness will continue also further on.

[44:40]

Now I could say from a psychological point of view that if somebody doesn't have the trust that the aliveness will continue then that person might get afraid. Or when somebody is at a hurt place in their aliveness or the aliveness is hurt somehow and the person expects that to go on forever, then I would expect that person to become depressive. I can explain this from the concept of consciousness, that is, the history of life, the biography. Then it is like this trust and function of consciousness.

[45:42]

And psychologically I could explain that through the concept of consciousness, through the biography, through their history, so that trust is a function of consciousness then. When I sit down and am in a state of awareness, this awareness body, I also have some kind of expectation. So it forms an expectation and who or what then decides whether I have faith or not, where does it come from? But when I sit and develop this awareness body, then also I can see that I have a kind of expectation or an expectation is formed. And then my question is, what decides whether I can trust or not trust, whether I do trust or not trust?

[46:46]

Well, I think everything you said in most ordinary circumstances, that's true what you said. But to expect aliveness to continue, you have to have a comparative idea of aliveness. Yeah, and my own feeling is, and experience is, when I don't have any comparative idea, I don't have any expectation that aliveness continues. I'm alive now, or something's alive now. And that's what I meant when I said, you'll be alive as long as you're alive. Because I know I'll be alive as long as I'm alive. This sounds crazy, but anyway.

[47:55]

I don't have any fear. If my aliveness stopped right now, I mean, I don't care. Why should I care? It's been good up to this moment. And the more fully I'm alive right now, I don't have some, oh, it'll be better in the future. I don't have any such feelings like that. It's going to be worse in the future, I'm almost sure. Even if nothing happens, it's going to be worse in the future and it's called old age.

[48:58]

So, okay, trust. How do I find an entry into that? I suppose that... Yeah, and one of the characteristics of a bodhisattva is there is no fear. And... I mean, you know, we could have a seminar on trust, but... Very good.

[50:10]

One reason to trust is a simple existential reason. You have two choices. To trust or not to trust. And not to trust is really a bad choice. That's what Christians usually do. What, trust? Yeah, so that's right. So that's why they're patients maybe. Because they don't have patience with trust. Yeah. I was... Yeah. Yeah. First of all, there's the existential alternative that trust is the best choice.

[51:17]

Even if you're fooled, it's still the best choice. But also you can practice trusting your exhales. Just sit kind of like, I don't know, how can you not trust your exhale? I don't trust your exhale. You trust your exhale and then Well, there's an inhale. That's surprising. And at some point there won't be an inhale. But until then, it's, hey, look at that. My trust is rewarded. Every inhale is a rewarded trust. But until then, it will be like, oh, look at this, my trust is rewarded.

[52:27]

Every breath is a rewarded trust. So, Elisabeth, what do you mean by energy? Maybe that's the question. So far, for me, up to now energy is for me something very present but I'm interested in it as a phenomenon something that appears that I can experience It's difficult for me to say what I mean by that, but it's something that's very experienceable.

[53:35]

Experienceable. Yeah, in most of the Buddhist lists, There's energy or vigor or effort or something is in there. Almost every list has some form. One of the categories has some way to say energy. And... I mean, if I sit here like this, you know, and talk with you, are you really interested in Buddhism? I'm not going to convince anybody.

[54:42]

But if I feel like I really want to be present to this situation, if that's an idea, just to feel that, I'll come up. When you asked a question a minute ago, When you started the question, you were back in your chair like that. So the first two or three words were kind of... And then you pulled yourself up and the question came right out like that. So I can say most simply, I guess now, there's a craft of discovering the energy you have. And the simplest thing I can say now is that there is a kind of craftsmanship in discovering the energy that you have now.

[55:48]

And to decide to live effortlessly within that energy. It makes you feel better, makes you healthier. Okay, anyone else? He immediately asked her, and he also talked about death. I said, no, he mentioned it at least once, but it's unimportant. He immediately said, well, then it's probably a little bit of Koukoulouros. That's actually... Stop! Thanks. I have to help her now.

[56:55]

I told my wife about a few things that you mentioned and also about aliveness. And she immediately asked, well, what about death? And started to bring that topic in. And I said, well, yeah, he mentioned that maybe once, but he didn't consider it to be very important. Then she immediately said, well, then that has to be... What? He used a word that I've never heard before. Quatsch? That's a lot of rubbish then. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. And the question I have is what should I tell my wife? What should I answer? Say, tell her it wasn't very nice to say that about somebody she doesn't know.

[58:03]

Tell her that it's not so nice to say that about someone she doesn't know. Well, the vividness of aliveness is that it's always at the edge of death. Yeah, I mean, what I say to my daughter, Sophia, basically from the time she was... born implicit in my conversations or comments or conversations with her.

[59:26]

And I think for all parents, your first job is to stay alive. But don't say that unless there's an awareness of death. And my second lesson is how you stay alive. Okay, so next year, if you come, you'll bring your wife? And tell her I'll talk about death a little bit. But I don't have too much to say about it. The basic attitude in Buddhism is, I mean, first of all, you practice with the phrase, I'm certainly going to die. until it's really like everything is mine until it's clear I'm certainly going to die.

[60:44]

And then you work with I'm willing to die. And the phrase I use is, I'm willing to die and yet I gladly stay alive. Willing, that's a classic phrase, it's not my phrase. I'm willing to die and yet I gladly remain alive. Das ist ein klassischer Satz, das ist nicht mein Satz. Ich bin bereit zu sterben und bin dennoch froh dabei, am Leben zu bleiben. And the third step is, I'm ready to die. Und der dritte Schritt ist, wie kann ich bereit, I'm not so sure how to distinguish willing and ready in German.

[61:51]

Hat jemand eine bereit, ich bin, bitte? Ich bin willens, danke sehr, das ist gut. Ich bin willens zu sterben. And then the fourth step is you die. All right, maybe that's a good place to stop. How was the seminar? Well, he stopped when he said, let's get ready to die. You could tell your spouse she contributed quite a lot to the end of the seminar. And so let's sit for a moment. To sit in the satisfaction of sitting itself.

[63:54]

You are that wished for song. Go through the ear to the center. Right now. Where the sky is. Where the winds are. Where silent knowing is. Wo stilles Wissen ist. Bedecke die Samen.

[64:56]

Sie werden in deiner Arbeit sprießen.

[65:01]

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