Is this five days? Don't count. Well, thanks for still being here after five days or six days or seven days. I always, about this time, think we should go on for another five or ten days. Excuse me also for keeping you waiting just now, but someone asked me a question this morning and it... threw me into a, I don't know what, but to try to see if I can answer this fairly simple question in another way I have tried before. Vladimir Nabokov says that a true artist never takes anything for granted. And I realized that in some of the things I said yesterday, I took some things for granted, and I wasn't being an artist or a very good teacher.

[01:09]

So the problem is, when I... Again, I'm just discussing teaching, practicing, and so forth. When I... feel something through, think something through, often it seems like, to me, because it takes me so much time or effort, it seems like I could probably give a lecture for three or four hours on it, and then I get to give the lecture and it's actually only one statement or two statements. It took me a long time to get to it. And so there's nothing to say. So that might happen today, we'll see. And other times I have a little blip that only takes one moment to think of, and I get down here and it would take me a week to talk about it. Because when you start unpacking the blip, there's all this stuff in it. Unpacking is a hermeneutical term, which means take a phrase like in the Bible, Scripture, and you begin to unpack the phrase, and you produce a whole book.

[02:19]

So I started out this session saying something like, I'd like you to have no system. I said systems tend to try to work like machines, and I'd like you to just have no system. And Buddhism is actually, you could say it's a kind of various kinds of system. You know, the current theory on how biological evolution occurred with little cells taking residence conveniently in some other cell, and then pretty soon developing a symbiotic relationship, and then the two of them start living together. Then a complexity arises through first being neighbors and then taking residence one within the other, and then the residency becoming permanent. Maybe what happens when you go to a monster. So Zen practice, Buddhist practice, is a number of systems which have taken residency in each other.

[03:35]

And they're not necessarily consistent. That's what I like about it. And I also asked you, like Rousseau, to tell yourself the very thing you'd find it most difficult to tell someone else. We think we know the things that we find it difficult to tell somebody else, but it's not the same as telling yourself. And I also wanted to talk about what I'd call wishing gem body or wishing gem mind, wishing gem practice or mantra practice, co-op practice, turning word practice. I don't know if I'll get to that today. If I don't, I'll talk about it. So the question someone asked me was this sense of awareness that keeps you from wetting your bed at night.

[04:43]

Do I really mean unconscious consciousness? Or is it your anatomic nervous system which keeps you from wetting your bed? Autonomous. So what it made me start thinking about is the kind of basic difference in Indian-Asian cultures to ours. For Consciousness now, this may sound a little philosophical, I'll try to make it not too philosophical, and often when I work something out, think something through, it takes me a while before it becomes less philosophical.

[05:46]

I can make it more sort of normal and natural, or more correct. But consciousness, unconsciousness is a conceptual difference, not a categorical difference. Now, the difference between a category and a concept in this sense is a good apple and a bad apple, say, is a conceptual difference. But a good apple maybe and a poison apple is a category difference. So fairy tales often deal with category differences and not conceptual differences. When your old grandmother gives you a poisoned apple, it's a category difference. Not what grandmothers usually do. Or when Jack climbs up the beanstalk. Is that a story in Germany? Germany too? Do you know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk? It's one of the main English fairy tales.

[06:48]

Jack is supposed to go to the store and eat. He spends money instead, like a waster on some seed, magic seed. Instead of coming back with the bread or the bacon, they plant the seed and this beanstalk goes up to heaven. And so he climbs up it and he finds this giant up there. chicken, like golden eggs. But in any case, but in any case, it's pure shamanism. I mean, disguised in a fairy tale. It's climbing up the rope, you know, or the snake. But anyway, it's pure shamanism. In shamanism, you use a visualization process where you imagine a rope and you climb up it into another world. That's a category difference, not a conceptual difference. Now what we're doing in Zen practice is when I ask you or practice asks you to begin to look at your thinking and thoughts arising, feelings about things and the way you think about yourself, trying to locate a self.

[08:13]

Although it's not stated in philosophical terms, usually, though it is in various ways and co-ons, you're actually looking at categories by which you think and define yourself. And so if we think of consciousness as being rationality, linguistic coherence, or the coherence of language, meaning, intelligibility, and so forth. What you're doing is you're beginning to wonder about meaning and intelligibility and etc., and how you organize your experience and how your world arises. Now, in Asian cultures, and I believe in Native American too, social order and personal order are considered to be coexistence, inextricably causal.

[09:33]

Why is that important? Well, I think it's nice to know, I suppose, if you're practicing Buddhism, when you practice personal order, you're practicing social order. So there's no mysticism in Buddhism in the sense that the mystic outside the system. And I suppose the logic, and I really don't know much about Christianity. I mean, I think a lot like a Christian, Judeo-Christian, because I grew up in this culture, but I really don't know much, so I... I apologize if I get it all wrong. But it seems to me the popular way of looking at things in Judeo-Christian culture is that God is outside the system, but everything else is inside the system. And there's no need to be an outside the system.

[10:38]

except in sort of God terms. Making sense. But in Asian cultures, it's considered healthy for society to be outside itself. I think one thing you can see in, to be more coherent about this, I have to think about this some more, but one thing you can see in Western society that it does, Western society doesn't really say it's superior to other societies. It says it's exclusively the right society. That's very different from saying you're superior. That other societies are less good versions of us or something like that. or they're mixed up. And 4-0 St. John's here in Santa Fe and Annapolis, which is quite a good school, has the great books of the world. They study the great books of the world, and there's not one single book from Asia.

[11:43]

Now, it would be very strange if Japan studied the great books of the world, and they're all Japanese. But no one at St. John's thinks it's strange that they call the great books of the world Well, I've given them a hard time about it, and other people have. In fact, they brought me in as a temporary consultant to develop a year of Asian Studies. It's hard for them, though, because it's not an easy shift, because just as an apology for St. John, is they ask the students to study the text in the original language. And every instructor has to be able to teach every course. So they have to study Greek and some other European language. And every teacher has to be able to teach Greek, as well as read in Greek, and know basic music, and know basic mathematics, and so forth. So now the whole faculty at St.

[12:45]

John's is studying Sanskrit and Chinese. Because they all have to be able to teach Sanskrit and Chinese if they're going to have a program. So they're all complaining, I hear. Okay, so Asian, going back to India, feels that society is a category and not a truth. Culture is a category and not a truth. Consciousness is a category, not something that's exclusive, inclusive. So it's thought that to be a free person, free human being, you have to know the inside from the outside. And if you have individuals who know the forms of society from outside society and then choosing them, you have a healthier individual and a healthier society.

[13:52]

That might be fairly clear. So whether it's Chuan Tzu or Nagarjuna, Chuan Tzu and Lao Tzu, Nagarjuna, they are all giving systems which are outside of society. And then you, from that, step back into society, in effect. And that society should have an outside. Society should have a corner where you can see around society and see that it's not the whole of everything with the truth, but one version. So you need individuals who see that your society is one version. And such individuals will have higher personal sanity and make a society with a higher sanity. That's, anyway, the basics. So, you can begin to see the link with the vow to save all sentient beings.

[14:55]

That the practice of Buddhism is simultaneously saving all sentient beings. So that social order and personal order are, as I said, inextricably linked. Could you hand me the champ there? Now, as I said yesterday, I'd like you to start out with chanting, because I like to go from the intelligible to the inintelligible. So you start out, and you're thinking about things between here, part of the sashing, you're wondering when I'm going to get here, and then suddenly you have to chant this. Ucho, jin, jin, mi, myo, no, ho, wa. How's that? And then, when you do find the English, it ain't that much help. An unsurpassed, penetrating, and perfect diamond is rarely met with. Good. Well, here we are. Even in a hundred thousand million kalpas, and you have no idea how long a kalpa is.

[15:59]

A kalpa is really long. I mean, really long. You take a page or two to describe how long a kalpa is. Then you've got a hundred thousand million of them. These are category changes, not conceptual changes. But we have it to see and listen to and remember and even accept. And then you vow to taste it. You vow to taste the truth, the Tathagata's words. And they don't just say the Buddha. The Tathagata means really the whole universe pulsing. That's what Tathagata means. It's coming and going. Coming and going. Existing now. So here you have the importance of Yes and no. Ontology means the philosophy of being. And onto is the same root as essence and present and yes.

[17:00]

So yes means being. Present means being. Existence means being. Is, is, is, is, means being. No means nothing and non. Both means non, no thing at all. It denies and says there's nothing and it denies there's something. So no is actually made up of two roots. One, the nay part means nothing and to deny, none. to deny what's there, and also there's nothing there. And the second part of the word no means eternity and age, age, ever, etc.

[18:05]

Words like that. So it means no, nothing, none, to deny eternity or ever or an age uh it denies continuity it's really a strong word it denies continuity and when we use no and yes we don't realize the background of it is a very powerful denial of existence continuity so i don't know what it is in german but i know there's germanic roots to both of these Okay, so no features very prominently in Buddhism. Nagarjuna is full of no. No, no, no, no. And the first koan, when you practice with mu, means emptiness or no, does a dog out of Buddha nature and Jaojo says, mu, no, empty, non, denial. No ontology, no being. It's really a denial of being. It's a categorical category denial.

[19:06]

take that for granted. So you say mu to everything that appears. Mu. Mu. This is thrusting you out categories. To put it in philosophical terms. I don't know. Later you can tell me if this is useful to you. But it amuses me anyway to think something through like this. So when we're practicing, again, going back, the sense of practicing is in the midst of this vow to save all sentient beings is not only that you're being a good guy and you want to help people, but that everything you do is inextricably connected with others. And when you free yourself, you free others. I mean, really.

[20:09]

that what you're doing for yourself you're doing for others. So it puts a much more powerful imperative on practice. So your thoughts are arising, these thoughts arise in language with a sense of meaning and intelligibility and describe your personality and so forth. Again, conscious and unconscious. Unconsciousness is in the same category of conscious. Awareness is not in the same category as conscious. Awareness is not intelligible, can't be accessed with language. It doesn't have meaning in the usual sense. can't be controlled. Consciousness and control are related.

[21:13]

You don't have to use it. Consciousness is something you can have access to. Even unconscious you can have access to through psychology or therapy or dreams and so forth. But awareness you can't have access to. You can use it, you can live in it. Okay, I'm also trying to answer the question which was implied yesterday. When I talked about the arising of mind, when you begin to feel heat or bliss or luminosity appears on your, on your, in your perceptions and in your thinking, a kind of luminosity appears. Or things seem real and unreal simultaneously, and it's not a psychic or neurotic disturbance. As you know, you can be psychologically disturbed and find things unreal, but no. You feel quite sane and calm. Things both appear as real and unreal. This is a sign of mind arising. One of the qualities of a good people, there are many, and I discussed them at length, in the Sesshin Japan.

[22:17]

No, not. one of the qualities which I didn't mention is it makes water look beautiful. If you just put water in a good tea bowl, you really see water. You just want to feel the shape of the water in the bowl, and yet its ability to take any shape, and it takes on a kind of pink or golden or green kind of clearness which has a quality to it. So a good tea bowl, good water, makes even water look beautiful. And there's a quality to the arising of mind like that. Somehow, space itself, perception itself, begins to be beautiful. OK. Still, the question arises then, why? What's the point of this arising of mind, capital M? Well, first of all, very simply, having nothing to do with religion.

[23:19]

is for most of us, consciousness is where we live, where we spend most of our time. So wouldn't it be nice to have another place to live too? I mean, two is better than one, maybe, sometimes. And awareness is another place to live. Now, one of the accepted truisms, one of the truisms of asian teachings is that there's a difference in between as i said yesterday mind and mind and there's a difference between consciousness and awareness though they don't use those words and that consciousness can be transformed and the ultimate therapy is the transformation of consciousness Not the restructuring of consciousness, not the understanding of consciousness, not having a good consciousness, or so forth.

[24:24]

Western psychology, I believe, is mostly concentrated, though transpersonal psychology tries to do something else, but transpersonal experiences are also considered a very limited form of intelligence. But I suppose transpersonal psychology is trying to get out of just making consciousness better or restructuring and understanding it better. But Asian cultures, Indian, going back to India, have assumed that you can transform consciousness. And in addition, there's a primordial consciousness or awareness which is not in the same category as consciousness and is called generally sumyata or emptiness. So when you think about Buddhist practice, I think it may be, I hope it is helpful to you, to think it's operating in a whole different kind of structure and group of categories of how we exist and nonexist.

[25:32]

OK. Maybe I can tie this up a little bit now. So first of all, when you're going back to what I've said two or three times, when you're practicing, you're beginning to examine, study, observe the arising of your thoughts, identity, all kinds of stuff. In the midst of that, you find even your whole personality arising. You can begin to see, as you spend time, become familiar, the working of your personality. You can, in a sense, step outside your personality. When this happens, which we'll call stage two, you begin to have a self-realization. Awareness self cognizing awareness, which is independent by that I mean something that's independent personality from the usual idea itself You can have an awareness Itself which isn't just the objects of awareness So first of all you're examining the the objects of

[27:01]

you're examining the subjects and objects of consciousness or the flow of consciousness and your insight. Then you get a self-awareness apart. Then the tendency is for the person to try to restructure their consciousness and improve themselves Now they see the contents of consciousness. They begin to see the categories of consciousness where their own descriptions of the world arise, and then they try to improve that. Now the teacher's job is to deflect you from doing that, so that's not bad, to deflect you from doing that into primordial consciousness, into a pre-linguistic or pre-language consciousness, or a consciousness that is more sensed as more universal. It's a consciousness out of which any category arises or any language arises. And you even feel, you have the sensation, I think it's partly true at least, that it's the consciousness or the primordial awareness or consciousness of nature, of phenomenal world, of beasts, of animals.

[28:15]

Now my point in saying awareness and using this mundane and common but very important example, because it would be terrible if you wet your bed all your life, this example of awareness is what keeps you from wetting your bed. My point is, is this awareness is present already in our life, we just don't, it's not accessible through the categories of consciousness. And it's not unconsciousness. It's not your autonomic nervous system. When you practice sashin, and if you get better at sashin, you'll find, one of the first times people experience this, is that you're aware, but not conscious, all night long. More and more you find it's the continuum of awareness, so you know what's going on all night, but you're sound asleep. You may feel that sometimes, you may feel it a lot, or you may feel it continuously.

[29:28]

And it depends partly on how settled your life is. If you're living in a monastery, it's much easier to feel that. If you're living in the city or have a complicated life, it's more fragmented, the experience, unless you're virtually a Buddha. But you begin to find this glistening kind of awareness. That's presence. and in which consciousness arises, thoughts arise, etc. And it's present during your sleep. And you realize that it's not your unconscious, it's that which is keeping you from being dead. Because there's an awareness that certain basic things can be taught to us in a sense. And what you're trying to do when you practice then, too, is when you're beginning to observe the arising thoughts and so forth and the formation of your personality perceptions, you're simultaneously creating a background mind.

[30:35]

And you begin to see that mostly you live in this foreground mind, and this is a term I use a lot, this background mind and foreground mind. And there are physiological and mental yogic skills I could tell you about to appreciate or apprehend or enhance this background mind, but we can't do everything today, this week. But that's to get you to come back. But to be continued. As you become more aware of this, or have a sense of this background mind, which is where you work on koans, and what allows you to sit finally really still, this background mind and awareness begin to merge. And awareness is another way we can talk about awareness, which is an example I often use, is the difference between seeing space as separating things and space as connecting things.

[31:42]

Now, we take for granted space separates things. Asia takes for granted space connects things. And as I always say, if you want to practice this, it's a big deal. It's quite wonderful to try out from now on that space is connecting things. People are going to get a feel of that, again, like the aquarium. And awareness is the mode of consciousness, we could say, that connects things. Consciousness, and the word SCI, awareness means to be watchful in root, and the root of consciousness, the SCI, means to cut. Consciousness is the awareness which separates. So consciousness, we could call, is divided up awareness. And Awareness is indivisible. The word atom means can't break, but we did break it. But awareness means consciousness that can't be broken or entered by meaning or language.

[32:51]

And it's, again, in Buddhism, assumed that these are capacities, facilities of human beings. So that's what I was taking for granted yesterday. You knew all that. And I said, you, awareness is what keeps you from letting you down. So, now, when you begin to see the categories of consciousness, not just the concepts, so we could say it's a primordial mind, it's a non-conceptual mind, We might better say it's a non-categorial mind. But when you begin to see the categories of consciousness, concepts of consciousness, and concepts of consciousness, you are beginning transformation of consciousness that allows you to move the continuum from your personal continuum, I can say it that way, from consciousness to awareness.

[34:01]

And when you... So you're transforming consciousness as a mode of entering awareness. But when you really enter awareness and realize primordial mind, that transforms consciousness. So the answer to the question, why bother with the arising of mind, is because if you transform consciousness, you begin to know awareness and primordial mind, or original mind, or original face, And you then, from that, transform consciousness. And this is considered the activity of the Buddha, and religion, and our truest human activity capacity. I may be wrong, but that's . And the little I know of this, I agree. Now, enlightenment, or Kensho, first taste of enlightenment, means that you practice in such a way that you don't understand all this intellectually, which may or may not help, but I think it does.

[35:20]

But you are put into situations where you make a jump all of a sudden from consciousness to awareness. It's a very ecstatic, free-feeling experience when you make this jump. It's a little bit like you're practicing. And one way of Zen practice is to say, you see, there's a house here. You can't see it. There's a house right here. Oh, really? And the teacher tells you, there's definitely a house there. And you say, you can't see anything. And he says, go stand by the door. And you don't know where the door is. You can't see. So you're practicing, and you're working with koans. And pretty soon, you say, you're getting closer to the door. you don't know where to get close to the door, but you get so intuitively pretty soon, you know you're close to the door, and by the answers you get to the koan, you still don't see the house. And then suddenly, through the koan or through something, you suddenly find yourself in the house, and you say, woohoo.

[36:25]

But, But the whole time, in the practice, you didn't see the house at all. Nobody explained it. Nobody talked about categories or awareness or any of this stuff. They just kept telling you, you're standing in front of this house, which wasn't there. That's one very basic way of practice. And probably, all in all, the best and most effective. It's very hard to get people to do it because they don't see the house. I mean, if you guys were simple farmer's sons, you had no place to go and no way to support yourself but to live here, and you were stuck here for the next 30 years, that's the way I'd teach you. You couldn't get away. I'd just tell you, do it, dummy. I don't know what he's talking about, but I can't eat anywhere else. I'll stay here. But since you're so sophisticated and well-educated, I have to use other diversions. You understand?

[37:32]

See why I said last night that little verse? Maybe you understand better why I said it. For ten years, I didn't hear. Now I've forgotten the road by which I came. Do you remember? Anybody else remember? Ten years. I didn't hear. Something like that. Now I've forgotten the road by which I came. Only I can do any good at it. Yeah, no. Yeah, the last part is not suitable. Oh, only I can enjoy it.

[38:37]

It's not suitable to present to you. For ten years I... Ten years I... What? Couldn't get home. Yeah, for ten years I couldn't get home. Couldn't return home. For ten years I couldn't return home. Now I've forgotten... the road by which I came. Only I can enjoy it. It's not suitable to present to you. That is the subject of this talk. Thank you very much.

[39:17]

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