Yeah, I'm having vocabulary problems. And I hope I can... You'll see what I mean by vocabulary problems as I go along today. And... But I'm very grateful to... that you're willing to be here and share my vocabulary problems. And... I get so concentrated sometimes, a kind of concentration, sort of like at the edge of thinking, that like just now, and I, you know, I'm getting ready to come here, then I wonder why I have two Kuromos on. This is a Kuromo, right? So I put this on and then I put another Kuromo on. And then I look in the mirror.

[01:02]

I have two karomos on. Why do I have two karomos on? You know, it's early onset Alzheimer's. I mean, I don't think it is yet. But anyway, so I have two karomos on. But I know you are happily sitting zazen, and Christian is in the warmth of the entry to hotuan, so I could put on three karomos, you know. Yeah, but you know, when you look in a mirror, as I looked in the mirror and saw I had two corollas on, first I couldn't believe it. Do I do? No. Oh, yeah, I do. I'm seeing a representation of myself. I'm not seeing myself. I'm not seeing what's seeing the representation because that can't be reflected. So in a way, that's, you know, I'm... in a presentation of myself, but not a representation of myself.

[02:07]

And when I shift to a representation of myself, I see, what if you've got two Karomas on? I'm looking for a second rope to tie it in. Now, you've all come here to renew your way-seeking mind. You're practicing because of way-seeking mind or path mind, and you're here to refresh, renew, figure out where the path is again. And you know, the big conundrum of my life is what's the difference between, excuse me for boring you with it, what's the difference between a path and a monastery? and a path in your daily life. And I think to be honest with ourselves, we're really going to have to look at what... If there's only... You know, we're in democracy and equality and everyone's equal, etc.

[03:26]

But maybe some things aren't equal. Maybe if we're And I think we can only develop good adept lay practice if we're honest with ourselves and if there is really a difference whether you do zazen or not and whether you do zazen in practice for some time in a monastic setting. On one side of me, I think there's no difference. I think you can live, practice in a way that there's no difference. On the other hand, I think there's a big difference. But the big difference can allow us to... If there is a big difference, or what the big difference is, can allow us to... understand lay practice better more accurately and fully okay so that's in the background as you know of my exploring practice my practice and practice with you now there's a

[04:51]

There's the enlightenment by accident stories, you know, like the classic one is the tile falls off a roof, Japan, China, hits a bamboo, makes a loud noise, and the person is enlightened. And this is called a Pratyeka Buddha, if it's an enlightenment of a Buddha, but it's understood as the Pratyekabuddha can't teach. Because the Pratyekabuddha may be a Buddha, but the Pratyekabuddha doesn't have the craft to practice, doesn't know how they got there, doesn't really know the path. Although, the tile hitting the bamboo is a example of path mind. Because path mind is what leads you to think.

[05:57]

In other words, what I want to say things, what I say is not so important. What's important is if it makes you think. Now what the bamboo, the tile hitting the bamboo does, is it interrupts thought. And that interruption, and this is a classic story, so we can understand the story as representing, being a sign for accidental enlightenment, or for the interruption of thought, which can lead to enlightenment. And so the interruption of thought is one of the conditions of enlightenment. So that's what that story's about, that example's about. And it's involuntary. It's not voluntary thinking.

[07:03]

So voluntary thinking doesn't lead to enlightenment. Involuntary thinking leads to enlightenment. Or involuntary noticing. Now here's my vocabulary problems, or one of several I'm having. Do I call it thinking? What am I going to call it? And you don't have this problem, really. I mean, not to the degree I do. Because you can just be in the midst of your practice. You can be in the midst of the world as it presents itself, and you don't have to worry about how to represent what doesn't need representation. For me, it needs representation because I have to talk to you about it. I have to, but it's kind of fun. So we're talking about, and finding words, the difference between presentation and re-presentation. Discursive thinking is representative thinking.

[08:10]

It keeps re-presenting the world in the way that's familiar to you. So discursive thinking is a problem because it's often primarily self-referential thinking. But it's also because it's representational thinking. Keeps re-presenting the world as it's familiar to you. Now the etymology of think could be, no one knows for sure, but one of the possibilities is the word think means to present the appearance of something to oneself. The appearance of something to oneself causes you to think. Okay. But we also have what I could call, let's call it self-think. Self-think is when oneself, when appearance presents oneself, how do I say it?

[09:16]

When oneself appears, not when appearance appears to oneself. And now most representational thinking, thinking keeps presenting the self to the self. Now I'm trying to find a way to speak about past mind, involuntary thinking, of course uniqueness, blah, blah, blah, and all that. And I'm speaking and I want to keep speaking and trying to find a way to speak about field and feel, the feel of a field of mind. And what's that about? I had a funny dream about it. I read to Sophia the other night. She's supposed to read a certain amount of time, and so we took turns reading Harry Potter. It's actually kind of fun to read to her.

[10:21]

So it's, you know, it's all this world. It's just beyond the, you know, this woman has a gift for writing at the edge of what's possible. Just possible enough that kids can identify with going over that edge. So I'm reading it and there's an artist, you don't need to know all this, but it was kind of interesting. There's an artist who, named Joseph Cornell, lived in New York and made Cornell boxes. I used to know his, see his work quite often. He was alive when I was in New York. So I had this dream, I had a Cornell box in my arm. But what was interesting is, and it really came out of reading Harry Potter, I had this Cornell box in my arm. But when I looked at it, I could turn it into space and make it disappear. And really, it was a version of what I've been thinking about. And one of the things I've been thinking about is trying to speak about, and this was an example for me of teaching for me about it, is what's the difference between feeling the world and...

[11:34]

thinking the world. Okay. And these are such innocuous words, feeling and thinking. I mean, they're just ordinary words and they're, you know, and I don't want to find some technical terms for it, if there are technical terms for what I'm talking about. So we've got the problem of these very ordinary words that we are so used to and it's almost impossible for us to rethink these words. I'm asking us to make an attempt to rethink these words, feeling and thinking. And the thinking world doesn't disappear. Very hard to make the thinking world empty. But the feeling world, if I feel all of you, and I really do feel, find the feel of all of you, is where I have to give this tesha.

[12:53]

If I think you, I don't know what the heck to say. I have to feel. But I don't mean feel you like psychologically, know you or something like that. I mean, that's okay. But I'm talking about feeling the world as presence. Now, the world felt as presence, well, that's pretty ungraspable. It's very close to emptiness. So let me go back to something I'm trying to explore in this context which I mentioned before to notice the background and then to notice the feel or space and then to notice emptiness and how these are a kind of progression, a kind of erasure of borders So now I'm speaking about the three worlds of Buddhism, the kamadhatu, rupadhatu, and arupadhatu, and the jhanas.

[14:12]

Okay, now it's very often the koans say the three worlds, and et cetera, and Rinzai, Linji, people, somebody asks about the three worlds. He says, what are you talking about the three worlds for? The three worlds are here. Rupadhatu. Okay, so let's just look at them simply. Rupadhatu is the world that's sensorially defined and delimited. Defined, you understand that? Delimited means that it's described in a way that limits it. So the sensorial world is a world that's defined by the senses and delimited by the senses. And that's called the world of desire. But it's not, you know, when you read the world of desire in Buddhism, you think it means that you have, you know, overly attracted to, you know, other people or something like that, or overly attached to objects or something like that.

[15:25]

But it really, in practice, means Do you live in a sensorially defined world in terms of how you feel and what's good and bad and so forth? Or are there other possibilities? Now, as we've been speaking, the path is also all about choice. It's about involuntary thinking that gives you choice, that makes you think. The intelligence comes after the observation. So, you know, the vocabulary problems are it's a thought that makes you think, but it's not a thought that arises through thinking. Oh, what do I do with all these words that mean the same thing, but I'm using them differently? We can feel the differences if you're Allow yourself to feel the differences.

[16:28]

And this is also a past mind, to feel the differences. But if I say them, the words conflate them. Okay. So maybe I'm trying to find a word like alter thoughts. Not thoughts of this alter, but A-L-T-E-R, thoughts that change. Thoughts that change things. So, you know, I've got discursive thinking, applied thinking, just in what we've been talking about the last few weeks. And now, alter thoughts, E-L-T-E-R, or edge thoughts. And in my own mind, I use edge cognizing. Cognizing the edge. Or the thought that causes a change. And the thought that makes you think. means not representational thinking, but something that appears, maybe, that surprises.

[17:33]

And because it surprises, it makes you think. Now, I've often said, just to kind of have a starting point sometimes, I say the most basic vow is to stay alive. And many of the Buddhist texts start with versions of, you need protection, you need food, you need, etc. Okay, let's say that the most basic desire is to if I try to teach Sophia, is to stay alive. That's your first job. But the second vow may be, how do you stay alive?

[18:38]

In what world do you stay alive? In what world do you stay alive? And that's the practice. That's past mind. In what world do you stay alive? Okay. Now, what's the difference? Where's the choice there? Most people choose to stay alive in the worlds that others have defined for them. Stockbroker, physician or something. So it's defined and you decide to be alive in one of those worlds that's already defined. But that's not the path. The path is the daring, the courage, the she-ro, the he-ro, the... I don't know, you know, some sort of, you know, big words, because not too many people do it. Or you just have to be a little crazy. Maybe it's better to be... easier to be a little crazy than to be a hero, or more honest, perhaps.

[19:42]

Or she-ro. But to choose that which has not yet been represented, To choose what appears, not what reappears. What appears and makes you think. But what kind of thinking is this? This edge cognizing that makes you notice or interrupts. And then, because it's a surprise, you bring intelligence to it. You bring wisdom to it, you bring feeling about it to it. So the path is a series of surprises. I mean, Dogen expresses it as one continuous mistake. One continuous series of surprises, which you don't quite

[20:51]

to complete that which appears, which you don't quite complete, but that not quite completing one continuous mistake is the path. And yeah, there's a psychology there. The willingness to make a mistake is the path. If you want to be accomplished in an already established world. You don't make mistakes or you don't do it as well or something, but you're trying not to make mistakes. But the path is the willingness to make mistakes. Where's the floor? So And most of the represented worlds are interesting, already established worlds are interesting, because they're defined within kamadhatu, the sensorially defined and delimited world.

[22:11]

You'll have health insurance, you'll have food, you'll have a roof over your head. These are all, you know, I'm not knocking these things, I'm glad we have a roof over our head. And, you know, we have to manage this place well enough that we can keep it heated and food on the table and so forth in the bowls. But that's, you know, being alive, enough to eat. as the six flavors, meaning sometimes the six flavors means the six tastes in food are necessary to keep you alive. But that's not the same as defining and delimiting your world to what's sensorially defined.

[23:16]

Okay, now what is a rupadhatu? The form world. Well, I think we can, if we want to bring this home, we can make a simple distinction. Don't invite is rupadhatu. Discursive thinking is kamadhatu. It's not somewhere else. It's right in your practice. You can feel, as I've said the other day, I think, the difference between the you-ness, the me-ness from your own point of view, own experience, of don't invite, don't move, and going off into discursive thinking, which is really going off into a sensorily defined world of representational and self-referential thinking, but representational sensorily representational.

[24:29]

So as soon as you really notice the difference between the you, the experience of some location, some observer, that's posturally identified versus thinking identified, it's the difference, it's an entry at least, to the difference between rupadhatu and kamadhatu. What mind appears, what you appear, when you really don't invite, what breathing appears. what body, what energy, vital body appears. Those differences, those are choices of which world you want to live in. So Rupadhatu really establishes the world, is the world established primarily in meditation and you have the four jhanas and etc.

[25:41]

You can study it if you want. But the rupadhatu is the world, I'm here. Who are you? I'm here. Who are you? What are you? I'm in this situation. The form of this situation is always present. Now, so now let's try to get a kernel, a seed of a rupadhatu. Formless, the four formless realms. And they're the erasure of boundaries. Okay, you know, we've got this koan, Gute, holds up his finger.

[26:44]

You probably all know the koan. It was important to go on with, for me, with Sekiroshi. We talked about it. We were in the midst of it together for some time. So if I put up my finger, Gute answered all questions by putting up his finger, supposedly. I mean, that's again one of these classic stories that are meant to unfold. How can you answer every question with a finger up which doesn't point at the moon or does point at the moon? Well, you might recognize, and it might be a kind of involuntary thought, you suddenly recognize that it's always a different background. Even in the same place, it's a different background.

[27:47]

Always a different background. Okay. Always a different background. Always a different background. So that means the finger is always different. But then is the background always the same? Well, what we're saying is But there's a, yes, there's always a background. But that always, the background is always different. And the object is defined through the context. It's not resisting definition. It's not resisting separating itself. Separation resists other things. That resists my hand. But when you start seeing the context, the context, the object and the context are constantly merging.

[28:56]

The object is disappearing and being defined through the context, and the context is being defined through the object, and you begin to experience a kind of fluidity of boundaries. It's not just at the same finger all the time. and person, me. I'm disappearing into the boundaries. I'm disappearing into the edges. I'm disappearing into the context. And we're the context. And my teisho is coming out of the context of all of us. And the teisho is being defined through the context. It's merging into the content. And where's the boundary? Well, there's a boundary, but it keeps fluctuating. Now, this is also called formless realm.

[30:03]

Why is it called a formless realm? Because the boundaries are disappearing. I mean, here's this, here's this, and blah, blah, blah. That's all form. But if you experience it from the point of view of the path, of the way, of enlightenment, it's formlessness. It's all merging, intermerging boundaries. is defined through the boundaries, through my lifting it up. Is that stick really there? This stick is my lifting it up. This stick is the blossom that's not there. That's enlightened seeing. That's not representational thinking. That's not what you can see in the mirror. suddenly you're inside the converging, merging, diverging boundaries.

[31:25]

And it causes a stability of mind. It leads to equanimity. Because the only way you can survive with this kind of knowing where everything is rather fluid is if your mind is quite stable, equanimous. So putting up the one finger, akute, is to establish the equanimity of mind that's established through suddenly feeling the boundaries. So this would be, you could say, the first formless realm. when you establish yourself in formlessness because the context and the object itself are the moving of, and now we can feel spaciousness.

[32:37]

The field of mind. That's probably enough. You can see how it's so difficult for me to find words to put into this situation with the words themselves. And much of the path is noticing what can't be languaged. So path mind is to begin to be within the appearance, within the presentation of each moment, but not the re-presentation, the representation of each moment. How do you get there? Getting there is called way-seeking mind. You know, there are these great turtles. I've always been fascinated by these great turtles.

[33:42]

Nobody knows if they actually die, except by accident. They can live a thousand years. I mean, they've found some that live 900 years, anyway. And they predate the dinosaurs. But whatever killed the dinosaurs off didn't kill the turtles off. And these great turtles, you know, they live in a fluid world. And they breathe, but they can stay for, I don't know, hours under the ocean. And they find little water houses or fluid houses. They find a little place under a rock or where there's not much current or the temperature is right, and then they go to sleep. It's their little house. And then later, they're swimming along the South American coast or Australia or someplace, and they've got to find another house.

[34:47]

Their houses are always fluid. But they feel comfortable. They want to have a safe house. They don't want to be attacked by anybody or some other critter in the deep sea. And they want the temperature to be right. But their houses are fluid. And we're called, monks are called cloud water persons. Unsui means cloud water persons. And in a funny way, if we can go through life feeling that we live in fluid house. No, this isn't so fluid, but yet it's always merging. boundaries, time of day, etc.

[35:47]

You know, I mention this because someone recently told me of a frustration dream they had, and I have frustration dreams sometimes. And they're, I think everyone does, it's one of the classic dream forms, nothing works. You're supposed to take the train and the train doesn't arrive and you're supposed to do this or that and it's not there, etc. And these things are very interesting because you're experiencing the edge of identity through possessions, through objects. And when the objects are taken away, you can't find your house, you can't find your bicycle, you can't find the car, you can't find the ticket. Those are all the ways we define ourselves through objects. So such dreams are often very frustrating and sometimes a little scary. And we don't know, sometimes we're just frustrated and sometimes more subtly we don't know where we are, even who we are, because we can't define ourselves through possessions, through objects anymore.

[36:55]

This experience, the dream is showing you the edge of the definition of self through objects. And the wisdom of the dream is asking you, can you stop defining yourself through objects and still find a location, find the equanimity of mind in which the boundaries are all fluid? That's a new kind of identity. And it's the identity of way-seeking mind. Thank you very much. May our intention eagerly penetrate.

[37:46]

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