Understanding from Christina that the topic was attentive attention. Led me in a different direction than attentional awareness would have led me. That was the other supposed to be a topic, right? Funny way. So anyway, attention would have led me in a different direction. But attentive attention, which I never would have thought of somehow, has been kind of fun. As I said, the poem of a title.

[01:02]

So let's start with attentive attention. That there's various degrees of attention. And if all we've got is ourselves, Zen practice starts with studying yourself. Not yourself, but whatever we might call other than self. Use attention to study your activity, your body, your mind, and so forth. So first you study attention. Then second, I would say you study your attention in meditation. And then you study the difference between your attention

[02:19]

when you're meditating or because you've meditated than before you meditated. These kinds of distinctions are important. And noticing the distinctions makes a big difference. We can also study the difference between sleeping and waking and the transition into sleeping and waking. And then I think we can study attention to attention. And if you do that, what you notice, I hope, what probably happens is attention to attention develops attention. Changes attention.

[03:51]

Okay, so we discussed that in various ways yesterday and the day before. Okay. So I would call that the period of practice in which you just are studying yourself in the larger context of practice, but basically you're studying yourself. It's not particularly teachings. Let's say that you're studying yourself in the context of Buddhism and practice, but you're not bringing in teachings so much yet. And I think we should be doing that continuously throughout our practice.

[05:00]

Noticing, noticing. Yeah, okay. Then at some point, that allows us to effectively bring in teachings. So you're not giving attention to just what's already there, your breath, your waking and sleeping and so forth. You've added meditation to your life, but still you're studying how meditation becoming part of your life affects your life. And again, exploring that and really establishing and noticing that exploration and seeing what follows from that exploration is the basis of our practice.

[06:20]

And ideally, at some point, you yourself are ready for teachings or the teacher notices you're ready for teaching. Or you begin to be open to the teachings that are happening. And for various reasons, the teaching we first start giving attention to is in our Sangha, it seems to have developed as being the five skandhas. And maybe prior to starting the five skandhas, let's say that there's a period of studying, observing, bringing attention to the life you have or are, which in a way any intelligent, caring person might do,

[08:07]

Yeah, let's also add, you start bringing attention to appearance. And developing the skill of attention to appearance is... I can't say how important that is. And what follows from that. If you haven't developed the attentional appearance, It's very difficult to have the skills, yogic skills, to bring attention effectively to the skandhas. And here we could say, starting with the skandhas as bringing teachings into the study, we have the possibility, and what's also happening simultaneously with our discussion for instance now,

[09:48]

is the awareness that we have a kind of Dharma Sangha curriculum. Now it's not, I didn't, you know, before I came to Europe, I mean, when I came to Europe, I didn't plan to teach or anything. It just sort of evolved. And I certainly didn't sit down and think, well, we ought to study this, this, and this. But I found, as I've said, one, I had to explain more than I did in the States. Not only because in the States I was speaking, as I've said, primarily to people who'd done practice periods at Tassau, And it was significantly different because I didn't even let someone go to Tassajara until they'd been practicing with me at least five years.

[11:14]

And then I didn't accept someone to go to Tassajara unless they could have the resources or an intention to stay for two years, at least. So there's some several hundred students in regular practice there in those days, all had done practice periods virtually. Well, that was a very different context than coming here and nobody, most people I started with hadn't had very little experience in Buddhism. So that I started just doing what it seemed I needed to speak about in order to start finding enough shared practice that we could develop.

[12:33]

And five skandhas was, in a way, started the first aspect of the curriculum. So if we are developing a dharmasaga curriculum, I think next after the skandhas was practicing the six and eight vijnanas. Each sense and so forth. And then there was practicing with the four elements. And I haven't been emphasizing that in some years, but that getting a real feel for that really helps your practice become a bodyful practice.

[13:53]

So that was, I would say, the skandhas and the vijnanas and the four elements are kind of a unit of practice. And then a more developed practice of the appearance, which can only really start once you've developed a sensitivity to the world as a series of appearances. And to articulate appearance we would start now with the four marks. You get the skills to establish a beginning point so that there is a feeling of appearance starting.

[15:20]

And that can be done quite mechanically. To enter these practices, it often just can be very simple and mechanical about it. So I can turn and look at Daniel. And then turn and look at Krista. And I can feel this shift when I shift to looking at Krista and then back to Daniel. Like some of you noticed, Susanna noticed the difference between my sitting there and sitting here. But I notice a difference between looking at Daniel and looking at Krista. And then I notice that when I look back at Daniel, it's already a difference.

[16:57]

And I'm trying to find a word for that. And the best word I can come up with is uniking. Because it's a repetition which is a unique... I tried uniquity, but that sounds too much like iniquity. That doesn't mean anything to you. Anyway, so a repetition which is a unique... And the practice of appearance really happens when you really notice uniqueness. And repetition of a practice doesn't really take hold, incubate and hibernate. within you, as you, until you can feel the uniqueness of each moment.

[18:17]

So now we're looking at the four marks of the dharma. And now we're looking at identifying what, because Buddhism could be called Dharmism instead of Buddhism. Maybe we can call it now Sanghaism too. But if it is really a Dharmic teaching, what is a Dharma? A Dharma is an appearance when you appear yourself. with the Dharma.

[19:17]

So you've developed the skill to notice birth or appearance. And then duration. And then dissolution. And those three actually are just happening in the world. If I look at a tree there, the tree in the window, whatever that tree is at any moment, Its entirety-ness, as I call it. In contrast to its entity-ness. And maybe in the afternoon I can speak about entirety-ness. At each moment the tree has an entirety-ness. And in our experience it has a brief duration.

[20:20]

And then the tree is different. The wind blows or whatever. And then those three are sort of like the... It's just the nature of change. But I add dissolution. The four marks add dissolution or disappearance. So the four marks are appearance, duration, Dissolution, which happens by itself if you look closely enough. And then disappearance, that you create an ending point.

[21:26]

A kind of tabula rasa. Okay. Now, dharmic Buddhism starts with the skill of the four dharmas. with the skill of the four marks. And that's enough to prepare us for lunch. Because lunch will appear It will have a certain duration. It will have a dissolution called digestion. And then it will disappear. We can study the four marks at lunch. Then we can start with the five dharmas after lunch.

[22:27]

Okay. What? I don't know. Three-thirty? Didn't we agree three-thirty? We should end at four. We should end at four? Who says that? You say it. The expectations. I never read it. All right, let's start at 1.30. No. 2? 2.30? I don't know. Pick a time. 2.30 maybe. 2.30? Okay. Okay. Felix has spoken.

[22:55]

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