I'm sorry, I came in later than I expected because I got involved in the construction project next door. Maybe you could take a moment and go over and tell them if they do get done what they're doing, they can come in during the seminar, if they want to come in. Thank you. Today I'd like to emphasize practice as a craft. I don't find just saying Zen practice, at least in English, conveys conveys what I mean by conveys fully what is meant by practice.

[01:16]

At least in English there's a difference between saying the practice of cooking and the craft of cooking. And I also, you know, we started yesterday morning. And we talked, I'd say, primarily about the relationship between individual practice and institutional practice. Yeah, maybe today we'll be emphasizing the individual practice and yesterday the emphasis was more on institutional practice.

[02:29]

And so I'm a little bit reviewing for those of you who weren't here yesterday. By institutional practice I mean like a sashin is an institution. How it's done, the tradition we inherited from China and Japan and so forth. I mentioned yesterday that there was this kind of wonderful, radical and conventional, really, a Chinese monk who was studying in You're not studying in Denver. He's studying at a university in Denver. And he joined us for meditation and so forth. He doesn't sit with the kind of rigor that we sit. He said, you know, with his backpack in here.

[03:54]

Quite happy. But what excited him was that it all sounds the same like China. The bells, the drums, the mokugyo, etc. Yeah, we're doing the same thing we're doing, he said. I said, well, yeah, we inherited it from you. And what I said yesterday, the institutional practice really is why we have the teachings. And what I also said yesterday is, of course, that we have the teaching as an institutional practice. how the practice are given to us and how they continue.

[04:58]

I also said that it's the institution of practice which gives us an identity as a practitioner. An identity we can maintain and continue in our lay life. I always think of Brian DeCamp. He's one of somebody who's been practicing with us Oh, how many years? 20 years or so in Creston. He's only young, but it's been 20 years. He seems young. And he's a mountain climber. And he just started doing things in his daily life with two hands. You know, in Zen you tend to do things with two hands.

[06:05]

And it's common in the yoga culture whether you're a practitioner or not. So he meets with a group of male friends once a week or something like that. And he would pass the salt with two hands, you know, or the coffee or whatever. And he was... And it was his way of continuing his identity as a practitioner in the midst of, you know, without saying anything, in the midst of his ordinary activities. He said it took about three years before someone said to him,

[07:05]

Why the heck do you always do things with two hands? I said, oh, that's my practice because I'm passing myself to you and not just the salt. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I like that. So it gives us a feel for an identity we can locate with others and in our lay life. And it's institutional practice which also gives us the chance to meet each other, to meet other practitioners as we're doing here. And a chance to meet teachers and translators. And it also establishes forms of practice we can bring into our lay life.

[08:31]

And it also establishes forms of practice which can become our life. Okay, so it's in that sense I'm using institutional practice. And I think what the Dharma Sangha in Europe and in the United States is is an exploration of the relationship between institutional practice and individual practice. Nicole, where are you hiding? Oh, there you are. Nicole has been living at Crestone now for four years? No, a little more than three. Okay, more than three years. Yeah. And now she's probably going to live here, we hope.

[09:49]

But she's also has a feeling for her lay life that led her into practice. But even if she lives here or Crestone, you have to pursue your individual practice in the midst of institutional practice. And so, Dr. Dobson, knowing you, of course, I feel your individual practice in the midst of institutional practice. So there's always individual practice. How can this, Johannes of Hudson Holtz, support our lay practice, primarily lay practice? So we're trying to create a location.

[10:53]

And the creation of the location is a very ancient consideration. Where do you locate? A city. Or your house. And I said this morning at the end of Zazen, I said an unseen inner location. And so... For me the question is how do we create, how do we locate an unseen inner location?

[11:56]

And what's called wisdom practice or Manjushri practice is how the old how to fold the entirety of location into yourself. Fold, experience an unseen inner location. And become familiar with feeling located in this unseen inner location. And one of the things I said too was that for Westerners, I think the two most important mental postures

[13:05]

is to incubate the practice of pausing for the particular. Get in the habit of flow of pause. Does that make sense? A flow of pause. In which the world continuously appears as mind. This is the best way to penetrate the deceptive world given to us by consciousness.

[14:28]

Consciousness as it establishes self and permanence or semi-permanence. And the other thing I mentioned was to really develop the habit of seeing everything as an activity. At least in English, an activity, not the activity. Okay, so I said even a stone, you know, people say, well, a stone is not an activity. Well, so I brought a stone. Where is it?

[15:30]

It's in here somewhere. Here's a stone. It was on my desk. And you can see it was an activity. A lot of geology going on there. Yeah. And it's still going on, but it's slow. Yeah, okay. But... It's in my hand, right? And I can feel that I'm interfering with its activity. I can feel the pressure of its wanting to be active. And if I take my hand away, then... It became active. So gravity itself is the activity of space.

[16:41]

I emphasized yesterday that space itself is an activity. And that's really important for the Zendo we're making. Or we may make. What kind of, can we make a Zendo which becomes a sight of unseen inner experience? So right now, this stone, I'm giving it a location. So somehow, I mean, my hand is giving it a location. And somehow, I would like us together to give a location to our practice.

[17:53]

Here in this compound of buildings. So we can talk about this more. But it will take all of us to hold the location, this unseen inner location. Now, I gave a very simple example of of space as an activity yesterday, which is I fluffed my cushion. Now, that's such an ordinary thing to do. I'd like to... Use such an ordinary thing to do As an example of not the thingness of the cushion, but the entityness of the cushion, but the space of the cushion.

[19:19]

Yes, so Right now, the activity of the cushion is it's supporting my sitting posture. And it's also, we could say, you know, if I shift it from entity or thing, object, I shift it to activity in space. I can feel the cushion as a space allowing me to sit as the space of the cushion The activity of the cushion is to establish space where I can sit.

[20:31]

So when I turn, as the custom is, you always fluff your cushion if you're leaving it for more than a short time. I don't feel I'm doing some sort of job. I feel I'm engaged. in the activity of the cushion which I'm very grateful for because it allows me to sit here cross-legged so I don't think of it as an object I've been doing this long enough that it's clearly not an object it's an activity I've trained myself really to go against the usual manifest world supplied by consciousness and our language.

[21:43]

I've trained myself by constantly whispering Dharma instructions into my ear. Until everything really is an activity for me. So I fluff the cushion and I stop sitting. and return the cushion to its more invisible state before it reflects by activity. And then as I get up, what am I doing? I'm within the activity of space. I'm walking within the gravity which is one of the activities of space, I don't really feel I'm walking so much as I feel I'm moving within the activity of space.

[23:05]

Which would commonly be called something like naturally responding to gravity. But that's a very different feeling from thinking I'm in an empty container, walking in an empty container. Yeah, to feel you're walking in the kind of liquid Space is a kind of liquid in which the stone sinks to the bottom of the liquid. And I feel myself moving in this liquid. liquid, this viscosity, we can call gravity or space. Now if somebody asks you later, what the heck did he talk about during this seminar?

[24:08]

Well, he spent much of Saturday morning talking about fluffing your cushion. This is very good. I'm sorry I missed it. All right. Practice as a craft. The example I'd like to give you is the practice of the four Brahma Viharas. The four immeasurables. And I think immeasurables is a good... Brahma, Vihara is sort of like divine states, the four divine states. And it's often called the four immeasurables as well, which I think is more obviously accessible for us.

[25:22]

Okay. And we can consider them not only a basic practice, but also as a preliminary practice or a basis practice for the six parameters. Now, the four immeasurables are unlimited sometimes. Unlimited friendliness. Sometimes translated as loving kindness. But I think more accessible is unlimited friendliness. And the second is empathetic joy.

[26:22]

And this is kind of a tough one. Because it means you take joy in other people, particularly your enemies, success. Empathetic joy. Oh, God. Fat chance. Okay, and the third is equanimity. And the fourth is compassion. Now, what is the instruction of this recipe? And I think this is a good example of institutional practice giving you the recipe. Because I don't think you'd think up the recipe on your own. But it is a recipe you can practice anywhere.

[27:45]

So the recipe is you radiate each of these four, which radiating is a kind of cooking. So you radiate each of these in certain directions. You radiate them to the front, to the back, to the left, to the right, up and down, and all around. That's seven. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So you actually radiate First you try to do it in zazen.

[29:07]

After you practice uncorrected mind for a while and you're getting bored, you say, okay, I'll radiate unlimited friendliness for a while. So you actually try to feel unlimited friendliness as far forward as you can. You try to feel it behind you. And then you try to feel it as much as you can to the left. And one of the things you can notice, and I think it's important to notice it early on in practice, is that the space around you is populated.

[30:11]

the space around you is happening. And if you want to check that out, just say, I'd like to feel my mother in the space around me. And she'll probably appear On the left or right. And then you can say, I'd like to feel my father in the space around me. Sometimes they will appear on the same side. Sometimes they appear on opposite sides. And sometimes... One of them doesn't appear. And you can bring in friends and uncles and so forth.

[31:20]

And you find that there are locations around you or within your spatial lived body extensions And you'll find that actually it's darker on one side than on the other side. And then you can try to shift your mother from the left side to the right side, or vice versa. And she won't stay on that side. She pops back to the other side. And she's in the darker side. How'd you get there, Mom? It's sort of like that. So one of the early practices is to clear up the psychological space around you.

[32:21]

And until you do that, you can't really establish a field of mind. Or a clear field of mind. And so you may run into this feeling when you try to radiate unlimited friendliness. But you can usually radiate get a pretty good feeling for unlimited friendliness. And you can also practice it in ordinary circumstances. In an apotheca or department store or something. Just practice. Radiate unlimited friendliness. And if it's working, you'll find everyone's smiling at you for some reason.

[33:41]

One person after another coming down the street is smiling. You think, geez, it's a happy town, but no, I'm radiating unlimited from you. Now, if I use the term, if I use the translation loving kindness, at least in English, I don't feel loving kindness for, you know, the clerk in the gas station. Unless she needs it or he needs it. You don't feel it. I don't feel loving kindness toward my... No, toward the clerk in the gas station, I say. I mean, not... If she clearly needed loving kindness, I'd try to supply it.

[34:44]

But friendliness, I can be friendly more easily. Why I'm saying this is because you have to find your own words which allow you to feel these things. For instance, you might be able to feel unlimited friendliness in English, but not in German. I have to go to America to practice unlimited friendliness. Anyway, you have to find your own language for these things. But language, although Zen is a practice free of words and all that stuff, still it's language and words which allow us to direct our attention.

[35:52]

Okay, so now after, you know, a few Zazen periods and a few sojourns in the in the city practicing unlimited friendliness. You start with empathetic joy. And you take some difficult ones. Somebody you went to school with. Who isn't that much smarter than you are. And they're way more successful. In fact, they just won a prize. A prize you should have won. And yet you kind of explore, how can I... feel joy in his or her success.

[37:09]

If you can't, we could say there's quite a lot of self-structures operating in you still. If you can't... If you can't... I mean, it's important to get this straight. So this gives you a chance to see, hmm, I thought I was free of self, but hmm... The structure is still there. And it's not a low fence I can see over. I can't even see over it. Where is the toss of that fence? But eventually, really, if you try to radiate it front, back, left, right, all around, up and down, You find you get over the bump, past the fence.

[38:27]

You really can feel empathetic joy. It may take a few minutes, but you can do it. It's a great exercise. And really, makes visible to you the structures of self. And even if, you know, you can go over the bump and then go back to being jealous. But you've accomplished quite a bit, you know, if you... Cut over the bump for a while and, you know, I mean, shucks. So what you're doing in this radiating in seven directions, you're actually creating one of the things you're doing, a kind of And what you do with it, and a so-called side product of it, is that you're creating a field of space around you, through and within you.

[39:57]

And people, things, objects, the world appears in this space. And you've established your own kind of activating, actualizing space. Yes, and you're also more friendly and you're also more empathetic. But you're also changing the way the senses and mind and body feel the world. Now, like in any recipe, it makes a difference often, not always, which ingredient you use first.

[41:01]

When you put in the olive oil or when you put in lemon or whatever. Yeah, so... You can't really practice equanimity until you've gotten over the bump of empathetic joy. Yeah, because the English word for equanimity is is quite accurate for Buddhism. The etymology of equanimity is Equal animus, equal mind. So, can you have an equal mind feeling for every situation?

[42:03]

This is called sameness or suchness in practice. Because one of the things that happens when you begin to feel mind on every appearance, Every appearance in all its distinctiveness, each appearance in all its distinctiveness, also is mind. And whatever you see is also mind.

[43:03]

And that makes you feel very familiar in the world. It makes you feel located in this world that we are generating. And that's called the experience of sameness. Sameness about everything. A sameness that connects you but doesn't hide the distinction, the difference. And that's the practice of equanimity. And its twin is compassion. So compassion isn't just in Buddhism, just a feeling. Of course, it includes feeling.

[44:25]

Feeling with compassion. But compassion is the fruit of the craft of the practice. So it's, for example, the recipe of the Brahma Viharas. is the way to evolve, develop compassion. Compassion is really free from, or quite free from, self-referential thinking. An equanimity, the equalness of everything that appears opens you to feel compassion.

[45:26]

Unlimited, immeasurable, unfathomable compassion. So this practice of the four so-called Brahmaviharas, divine states, is a way of is a basis for developing the practice of the six paramitas, the bodhisattva practice. Now, I would say, for instance, that the four Brahma-viharas are a recipe or a craft of practice. You discover, learn, literally learn from, not by just intuition, you literally learn from institutional practice.

[46:41]

Who would take the trouble or even think of radiating these things and seven directions unless somebody gave you the recipe. So it's a recipe I've just given you. And you can cook your karma with it. As I say, your karma will cook you. So, but you can practice this, try out this recipe in Zazen here, sitting here now, and wherever you live and whatever you do.

[47:52]

So it's a recipe given to you by institutional practice. But it becomes your individual practice. Which can be practiced anywhere. Now I also say it's the basis for a base for the practice of the paramitas. The main and specific emphasis within Mahayana practice. Now, it may be that the paramitas require more practice more institutionally developed practice than the Brahmaviharas. Now, this may not be so important to you, of course.

[48:56]

Or maybe it's life. Completely important to you, I don't know. Maybe it's completely important. But it's important to me because I have to think about where and when I teach what. So obviously, over the years we chose to locate some of our practice in Johanneshof and now Hotzenholz. And this isn't just my place of practice. It's also your place of practice.

[50:00]

So we have to develop this together. But in addition to it being my practice place and your practice place, I also develop I'm trying to feel out how it can be a place where I can most effectively practice with you. And how others of us who are committed to just doing this for their lives can make this a place of practice with whoever appears. Okay, so let's have a break.

[50:50]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_70.64