And this guy, this last guy he interviewed, just talked and talked and talked, right? And finally Ron said to him... It's very interesting what you say, but isn't there any silence in Hasidic Judaism? And the guy said, Oh, yes, but we don't talk about that. Well, when there's less of an observer, and again, the time we can experience it most clearly is, I think, going to sleep.

[01:20]

As long as there's an observer, it's very difficult to go to sleep. And I don't know why I have this physical habit, but I know that when I release the observer, I also release my cheeks and my mouth. And I don't know if I should tell you these things. You know, I draw them all. I, for some reason, go like that. And as soon as I do that, I know to turn on my slide and go to sleep. Because for some reason the observer goes away as soon as I have this physical motion and I stay awake enough to know then to turn over on my side and sleep.

[02:41]

It also helps if you have to take a ten minute nap or something, you just kind of absorb the observer. Now, is there consciousness in the usual sense? There is not self-consciousness. But there's knowing. Self-consciousness. Sounds okay to me. Anyway, there's not self-consciousness, but there is knowing.

[03:43]

And I tried to express the other day that this sense of a presence is also a kind of knowing. Now I've tried to study all these different things, but I haven't figured everything out. But there's definitely a knowing, but it's a contextual knowing. And it's contextually retrievable, but not consciously retrievable. When you're in that context, the knowing of that context in the past surfaces. But you can't reach it with ordinary efforts to remember something.

[04:57]

And this kind of difference is fundamental to Dogen's fully engaging with body and mind. Fully engaging body and mind. He means non-dualistically engaging. So there's no observer in the usual sense. But there's a knowing in the acting. Okay. Something else. Yes, go ahead. Is there a point where this kind of knowing stops?

[05:58]

Well, if you're alive, no. But if you're dead, yeah, sort of. But that knowing, strangely, that knowing may be communicated to someone else when you're dead. Because people pick up contextual knowing from another person. But as long as you're alive there's some kind of feeling. I mean if a person is in a car accident or anything still there's some feeling or something. And within that there's some kind of knowing. And in this feeling there is also a knowledge.

[07:07]

We can analyze it more finely, but that's enough for now, I think. Okay. Something else before it becomes five to six. Yes. This topic of the five skandhas bothered me a bit at first. I was first annoyed by this topic of the five skandhas. It's the first time you've heard it? At once I had the feeling it's not sufficient just to practise zazen. You used to feel it sufficient just to practice it. It was, but now he doesn't feel it's enough anymore. I'm sorry. What?

[08:26]

René? Yeah, please. I noticed you're one of the ones leaning on the wall in the back. Yeah. What's the sense of analysing the structure? Why do it, for example, by the observer? Why don't I go outside into the rain and feel the rain on my skin? Why do I need this structure of consciousness? You don't.

[09:44]

Go outside in the rain. Yes? It's partly correct what she says. She's always partly correct. Hey! I have great difficulties to interest myself in these things. When I was in school, they wanted that I learn French grammar. And there was this past tense which I felt, well, this can't be French. Does the French always live in the present?

[10:46]

Yeah. Yeah. I would like to interest myself in it, but I barely succeed. You're all going to make me weep. Okay, so I've more than any other particular teaching over the last ten years, I say ten years, I've given you the five skandhas.

[12:12]

Maybe it's been useless. Yeah. Just do Zazen. Why isn't just doing Zazen enough? If you just do zazen, it's good, you know. Do you find yourself really free of problems, moods, mental afflictions? Yeah. I mean, zazen is pretty powerful.

[13:14]

And if you use sesshin and long sittings and so forth, you can find very deep, satisfying states of mind. And you can increase the likelihood that a chance insight will give you some enlightenment, some realization. This is a rather big question. I don't know if I can respond right now and in a short time with much clarity, but I'll give a few minutes, some minutes to it.

[14:30]

And if you know much about the history of Zen Buddhism and the history of Buddhism, Whatever I say here follows along a lot of controversy and development within Buddhism itself. So what would I say to you if you say you really want to, your practice really wants to be just zazen, you, to heck with the skandhas.

[15:31]

I would say, yeah, good. That's fine. But, and if again, if we were in a traditional practice situation, Yeah, where even Teisho is pretty limited. Lectures. Then, whether I spoke about the skandhas to anyone would have to do with if they came to a point where this was a good practice for them. But my effort here in Europe especially is to develop a lay, adept sangha. Yeah, and I don't know, you know, it's nice that quite a few of you come regularly and I see you fairly regularly.

[16:56]

And you come as long as it's useful and interesting and then you disappear. I don't see you for a few years or something. The largest Dharma Sangha is the Sangha which I never see. People I saw quite often for two or three years and now I haven't seen them for five years or something. I hope at least in some times they carry this elastic floating sangha with them. But for most of us practice is something we utilize. And we carry it to the point where everything is going pretty well for us, but we don't carry it much further.

[18:12]

Some people, a few people will practice because they want to come to the end of practice, at least the end as far as they can in this lifetime. So, you know, we chant in the morning. No eyes, no ears, no mouth, etc. No form, no feelings, no perceptions, etc. Here is this most basic abbreviated sutra. The epitome, the quintessence of Mahayana Buddhism. You should know something about it. Even if you're not ready for it, it should be available there.

[19:38]

So part of my feeling is to keep making these teachings available and then when you need them, maybe they'll be there. If you don't need it, it's just one of those things. Now, can I also, or in addition, even if you don't need it, make it seem relevant to you? Okay. So let's delve back into Buddhism. Delve? You know the word? To explore back into... Yeah. That's It always amuses me.

[20:45]

Sometimes I say a word that's fairly unusual in English. I say, do you know that word? And they say, it's exactly the same in German. Okay. I suppose if you don't really have a kind of interest in... If you just want to experience yourself, maybe you just do Zaza. If you want to explore yourself, maybe you use the skandhas. Or maybe you have to have as many problems as I have to want to use the skandhas. Okay, so again, delving back into Buddhism. We're in a world that has no psychology, in our sense.

[21:46]

And you have various kinds of religions that are somewhat similar to Western religions. But you have a large group of people somewhat equivalent to the Western scientific establishment. A large number of people who really decided to, as fully as possible, explore what it is to be a human being. To know thyself in the act of becoming thyself. So they really tried to, first of all, observe and study their own consciousness.

[23:11]

And they didn't just study their consciousness because it's interesting to know about it. It's always tied to freedom from suffering and the realization of enlightenment. It is always connected to free oneself from suffering and to realize enlightenment. What does the... Okay, so I may be... Maybe I'll have to... If it feels right, I'll maybe speak about this a little bit tomorrow. But instead, I'll carry this a little bit further, making it more complicated. One of the things you discover... Well, let me say, if you do really see how the observer, the witnesser, is a function of the structure of mind, it's really much easier to be free of any sense of a permanent self.

[24:51]

then you're not terrified by the loss of self. But because self is no longer an identity but a way of functioning. And it's a way of functioning that often interferes with functioning. So you just have more knowledge, more participation within yourself. Okay, now, when you explore with the senses, when you notice your own senses, and to some extent this happens anyway through doing zazen. Zazen is such a wonderful basis. And maybe along the lines of what Beate was speaking about.

[26:17]

You often, I think when you do Zazen, you begin to hear sounds differently. And it can be very blissful just to hear a sound, a bird, a bell, whatever. And you can say, well, this is just a quality of zazen experience. And then you can say, how do I bring Zazen experience into my ordinary activity? Well, sit cross-legged on the bus. It's rather hard to do unless you understand Well, let's put it this way.

[27:24]

It's easier to do if you really understand why the sound of a bird blisses you out. Why does it bliss you out? Because you're hearing your own hearing. You're no longer hearing the bird, you're hearing of the bird. And for some reason that's quite blissful. And that's clearly what you've generated then is a field of hearing activated by the bird. Zazen has pushed you into that, but it's quite independent of Zazen. You can listen to me right now this way. You can hear your own hearing of what I'm saying.

[28:24]

Which is something strangely like my experience of reading Faulkner. When I said, oh, this sentence must be for human beings. So I read the sentence within my own mind, hearing my own mind reading it, something like that. Yeah, the people have been having trouble saying these things for centuries. As in hearing one's own hearing, I could feel my own mind understanding. It's like the senses rose up in the water of my mind. They were no longer in the book. And the water of my mind itself is understanding.

[29:58]

So, if you actually can hear me, and there are teachings about how you listen to a lecture, If you can actually hear me by hearing your own mind hear me, you'll have a way of knowing and understanding that's very different. And once I can sort of, if I can slip you into this kind of experience,

[31:05]

Then I can carry you into an understanding which I can't get when you think this voice is coming from out here. So Zazen introduces us to the mind of Zazen. and to a certain kind of experience of ourselves very directly, unmediated. But when we study that unmediated mind, then that mind can be present any time, not just in zazen. And the skandhas are one way of doing that. And it's interesting for me for you to say it's complicated.

[32:14]

It seems so ridiculously simple that I can hardly believe it. That this immensely complicated thing we are. The most complicated thing known in the cosmos. And our consciousness, one of the effulgences of... cosmic effulgences. That has two meanings, effulgence. It means something that flows out and also means garbage. Yes, it's consciousness itself. And somehow there's almost a quality of everything is permeated by a kind of mind or consciousness.

[33:16]

And so this most subtle and complex thing we are in our consciousness is That you can have a door into that. Which only has five aspects, simple aspects we can all notice. One, two, three, four, five fingers. That's not complicated. Five fingers. Five skandhas. It could be ten. It could be eleven. I mean, this is really simple. Given what it opens you up to. Okay. So now we'll make it more complicated. I hope I can follow you.

[34:23]

Yeah, you can. What's interesting is when you begin to see the structure of mind, you begin to see the limitations. If I draw this vase and flowers, I can't draw everything. There's something left out. If I look at this vase as carefully as possible with my eyes, there's something left out. If I listen to the vase, because I hit it or something, it's a different sound in different places. Or if the wind would blow over its opening, Well, but still, I can't hear everything of the vase. There's something left out. Okay. So whatever sense I use, we all know that sense can't fully know that base.

[35:38]

And also, as I've often pointed out, there's a lot in between the five senses. I can touch it. Cool. I can see it. I can feel its absence of sound, which is an oral dimension. Cool. So the absence of perceiving it is also a dimension of perceiving. So I can really know this quite well with my five senses. But as I said, if everyone here was blind... We could feel it and smell it.

[36:45]

But we'd never know what it looked like. There's no way anyone here, if there was no seeing, could describe what it looks like. What if there's a seventh or eighth sense? That can know something else about it. As I say, there's lots of handy phone calls in this room and television stations. We don't have a sense which can reach that. That's in between the senses. Okay, so when you begin to see how the mind functions and you're really participating in it, and you really exhaust, really have a clarity and you can really see things and feel things, At some moments or through developed practice, what you're aware of is what's left out.

[37:57]

You're also aware of what's left out. So if it's a simple thing, fairly simple, flowers and a vase, What if I look at Frank or Sankin or Akash? If I try to hear everything, there's something left out. If I were to draw you, it's still something left out. So I'm always in perception aware of how much is left out. Even though I know Peter and now know he has several names, I'm in awe of Peter, kind of awe, because I'm also so aware of what's left out.

[39:06]

And even if Peter knows himself, or I know myself, I know of what, even in the, no matter how much I know myself, I know a lot is left out of my own knowing. But that also all that's left out of Peter by my knowing and his own knowing is also inseparable from the form of Peter. ist dennoch untrennbar mit der Form von Peter verbunden. That's also one way, a door to understanding emptiness. Das ist auch eine Tür, um Leerheit zu verstehen. Emptiness is awareness of what's absent. Leerheit ist wissen über das, was fehlt.

[40:18]

Absent in our knowing. but still part of form. So if I relate to Peter with always the feeling there's a tremendous fullness that's absent, a fullness that's absent, It's like I don't hear the vase. If I'm really fully present, my not hearing the vase is part of my knowing the vase. So I never can pigeonhole someone.

[41:22]

You have that expression? Put someone in a category. Because I know there's so much that I don't know. Now, when I develop the habit of being open to what's absent or not within my ability to know, I'm always surprised by people. People I used to be tremendously bored with, you know, because I'd categorize them, I know what they're going to say next, you know, et cetera. Now, through practicing the skandhas and so forth. I find myself in awe of these people.

[42:23]

I stand there, whoa, this is fantastic. And they themselves feel released. Because you can feel when somebody has categorized you. Yeah. So my point to making it more complicated is getting really familiar with the skandhas and so forth, the faculties of mind, opens you to what's left out of knowing. The job of our senses is to give us a seamless view of the world. All the information is here. Wisdom is to know that the largest part is absent, then realized Zen practice is to act in that absence.

[43:52]

Now, once you get that, you can understand lots of the seemingly... conundrum-like phrases in koans. It's through your practice you've come to the limits of knowing And suddenly been able to find a way to act within beyond knowing. To act within beyond. We're getting the same kind of expression.

[44:53]

Okay, well, I think that's good enough for this evening, this afternoon. Thank you very much. Again, let's sit for a moment. Mostly because I just like to hear this bell. So what should we talk about?

[47:34]

The return of the Jedi. Yeah, the return of the Jedi. Did you discuss the change in schedule tomorrow? Okay. This morning. This morning. Yeah.

[48:35]

It's wonderful that five people want to take the vows Even though each of the five has made this vow inside previously, still to do it with each other is different and something wonderful, I think. And in the end, that's what this practice is all about. It's to come to such a deep intention that we're going to do it.

[49:40]

This kind of intention that really makes practice work. That we're willing to say so in front of everyone. And with everyone. And go through such trouble as to sew this. It's a lot of work. It can take a woman One month to one year to make it. Take a man one month to five years to make it. Yeah. So please, some report from your discussion. Yes.

[50:50]

I'm from group four and I was asked to ask the question I had in the group. The question I had was whether I can relate secondary consciousness to the third skandha and borrowed consciousness to the fourth. Borrowed consciousness is the fifth skanda.

[52:00]

Borrowed consciousness is consciousness, you know, if the fifth skanda is consciousness. And the first is form, if we're counting that way. then borrowed consciousness is the fifth of the fifth. It's the most unrooted of consciousness. But not everybody understands borrowed consciousness, maybe. Okay, so secondary consciousness? Yeah, it might be useful to relate, and I never thought about it much. So immediate consciousness, we have borrowed secondary and immediate, right?

[53:20]

If you understand, everyone understand this. The best. Okay, so I'll just be very quick. This is just about consciousness itself. It's not about meditative states or anything special.

[54:28]

Just taking a walk around here in these nearby forests or anywhere. And you just are walking along with the feel of the situation, not thinking about anything particularly. That's what we call an immediate consciousness. And if you're walking with a friend, And the friend points out something like, oh look, they're clearing brush over there. We could call that secondary consciousness. And then you might go back to just walk. Your mind, feeling of mind, returns to immediate consciousness.

[55:41]

Okay. Then your friend says, hey, we've, example I always use, we've got to go back and, I've got to go back and make some phone calls. Okay, so then, whoo, you're up here. Then it's difficult to go back down. And you can see the difference between the presence, the kind of mind you have when you're thinking, oh, I've got to do this and I've got to do that. This might be closer to being in fundamental time. In this one, you're in comparative consciousness. Okay, now the important thing to notice here, because you'd also be in a borrowed consciousness, of course, and notice something, and then you'd go this way.

[56:52]

So this is a consciousness which... The importance of a distinction like this is these two ideally are rooted in the immediate situation. So they're nourished by your actual situation. Yeah. So if I'm just walking along and I notice something, I notice these flowers, even though I'm starting to think, I'm thinking about something in the immediate situation. So I'm nourished by this situation.

[57:58]

My mind is rooted in this situation. As soon as I'm thinking about, I'm going to make phone calls and, oh shucks, I'm going to do this and that. I forgot to send three Valentines. then you're in a comparative consciousness. And unfortunately, our whole educational system teaches us to stay in this consciousness. To how much I know, I know that such and such is this and that, and there's so many... That's all borrowed consciousness. Not rooted in the present situation. And so you feel depleted. The more your mind can be rooted in immediate or secondary consciousness, you tend to not feel depleted.

[59:08]

At the end of the day, you still feel fresh and nourished. So what's really the case is not that this is immediate consciousness, the lying is immediate consciousness. As long as your thinking tends to be rooted in the mind of the immediate situation, then you're nourished even if you're thinking about something. So in that sense, Boreal consciousness is quintessential fifth skanda. But immediate consciousness might be some mixture of the third skanda and the fourth skanda.

[60:13]

I think it's useful to take a teaching you understand and relate it to, see if it makes sense in relationship to another teaching. But it doesn't make sense to try to map one teaching on top of another. That's trying to teach Buddhism as a philosophy. As a practice, The subtleties which occur in practice are too complex to map on another teaching. Yeah. So does that sort of answer your question? Okay. Yes. Yes. Am I still in the immediate consciousness when I'm, for example, out here in this mountainous area and inspired by the fresh air, for example, blue sky, and then I remember having been in the Himalayas and remember that situation.

[61:53]

Where am I then? It's not about what you're thinking about. Deutsch bitte. I am still in the immediate consciousness, for example, when I am out here in the mountains. I am outside, it is morning, and through the fresh air, the clear blue sky, I will now remember the Himalayas, where I have been before, and then I have the picture in my eyes. It's not about what you're thinking about. It's about the mind in which the thinking occurs. No. Why this is actually a quite useful teaching. Why this is actually a quite useful teaching. And one in which His Holiness the Dalai Lama also presents. is that you can feel the bump going over the line to secondary or going over the line from secondary to borrowed.

[63:07]

So you know the difference between the mind you have when you start thinking about phone calls and the mind you had while you were just walking. Doesn't that seem possible, imaginable, that you can feel the bump? Okay, once you can feel the bump, it becomes more and more pronounced. After a while it's like hitting a big bump at high speed in a car. The bump gets more and more obvious. And then, knowing the bump, you can start staying in one mind or the other. You can feel it. So the practitioner isn't trying, I would say, to stay in samadhi all day.

[64:24]

But tends to try to stay in a consciousness rooted in the immediate situation. That's really what you're teaching yourself to do when you practice mindfulness. Paying attention to your feet, to your walking and so forth. Your mind begins to be fused with the immediate situation. And it tends to, even if you think about something, return to the mind of the immediate situation. Yes. I am interested in whether the thinking, if one has the intention to think and to always return to the situation of the body, and then think again, whether that is also the immediate situation of the body, or where that belongs.

[65:46]

I'm interested if I'm intentionally thinking about something and then return back to my body sensations or feeling of my body and switch between the two. What's this? Is this immediate consciousness? Yes. I mean, I don't know. You can tell me, but probably, yeah. Oh, good. Yes, but I want to know if it's in this. Yeah, in this, yeah. And the more your, let's say, speaking is related to your breath, and you feel your words on your breath, You also feel your words in your body.

[66:49]

The words are physical events. When your words are physical events, you're in immediate consciousness. And just if your words can be physical events, So your thinking can be physical events. It's a little different kind of thinking, but it would be thinking within immediate consciousness then. No, you can just do zazen if you want. I'm teasing you. But if you have a teaching like this, It helps you bring the fruits of zazen into your daily activity. You really just notice when your mind, your activity is rooted in the immediate situation and when it's not.

[67:52]

And notice how you feel at the end of the day. When your mind has been not rooted, in contrast to a day when it has been rooted. It's a kind of intelligence, I think, to stay in immediate consciousness. Fundamental intelligence. It's interesting, you know, in Asia, health and intelligence are closely related. It's thought that intelligent people know how to stay healthy.

[69:00]

Okay, so what else? Yeah. I wanted to say something to the lecturer this morning. Oh! Yeah, I found that very, very helpful. It was very helpful. We wanted to know whether something changed in their understanding from yesterday to the day after your talk. Something changed in me or changed in you? Changed in whom?

[70:03]

In the group. Or in the group, I don't know. That's why we had the return of the Jedi. There was a change. Some of them got even more confused. Oh. And others, they got clearer. I could have expected something like that. Yes. For me, what was very important was to see you moved yesterday. Moved yesterday? Yes, touched. I was touched yesterday? During the seminar or...? No, just because you were... I was?

[71:28]

I guess I wasn't in immediate consciousness. You mean when you shot me down? Oh, yeah, well, I always feel touched. I wouldn't know what to say otherwise. We saw that you were somehow sad about our not understanding, but that opened us up. And I think we grasped the importance. Oh. Okay. Okay. And we listened very differently today to your play show.

[72:44]

I have to get sad more often. So it's a crazy guy. Now I'm sad. And we tried to film examples of where we are and where we are. and we tried to find examples. When are we in Vilcskanda? Good. And what impressed me was what Taro said. And I was impressed by what Taro said. Oh. Tarutara. I call them T and T. You can't say T and T. Tara, Tara, Tara. Yes. In the seminar which you gave

[74:05]

that the people should put into the five heaps everything what they experience during the day. And she experienced that the self, the ego, started dissolving and getting another form. And it was interesting for me to try this out. Are you going to? Yeah, please. Okay, good. Yeah, you might become Tara.

[75:23]

I mean, Taru. These two keep dissolving into each other. Yeah. Okay. Someone else. In our group, I found interesting what Pico was telling today. It was very different, and I was interested in what Peter told. He told about his meditation when he was watching his breath, and that he comes into a state where he feels, oh, that's me, in a very pleasant, joyful way, and that this feeling of himself and I, I hope... It's a difference of eyes and a moment.

[76:27]

What Peter said was interesting. When he does breathing meditation, when he observes his breathing, he gets a different feeling of feeling and feeling himself, and he experiences it very joyfully as normal. And this feeling of I is something completely different from any other feeling of I. And the other thing was what Alan told about music, and when he listens to music, sometimes in meditation he's also hearing music, and then he wants to switch off the music, and he does, and I say, I don't do that. So I was interested in this because I also sometimes hear music also. I only let it be. The other thing I was also asking about is, what is dream mind?

[77:43]

Because when I meditate, often there comes a lot of pictures after a time, and in which skandha does one put the pictures? Is this form, association, or is it whatever? Isn't it important where one is at the moment? I'm not so cathartic, though. Well, I suppose if I were going to... Not everything that you experience I had a cup of coffee.

[78:48]

Yeah, it's some mixture of images, perceptions, etc. I suppose if I were going to think of it in terms of the skandhas as a progress within meditation, entering into meditation, I'd actually think of it as closer to the fourth skandha. Because if there's not really associations, but more of a flow of images, I would think of them close to non-graspable feeling. Okay. Yes? Please be sad because my question is so silly.

[80:10]

Why don't I be silly, you be sad? I like that better. How can I prove to myself... Prove to yourself. How can I make sure in which skanda I am? Especially as you told us in the morning about the skandhas during meditation, I thought of course I would like to be in the fourth, but maybe I'm always in the fifth, and sometimes if something happened in the body, One thing changed, and I hope very much this moment is a part of the third, but maybe it's appeared and it shows. I don't want to cheat myself. Deutsch, bitte. This morning during the lecture I thought to myself, maybe I would like to be in fourth place, but maybe I'm always in fifth place.

[81:37]

And when something moves in the body, I sometimes think, maybe I'll do a little third place. But the observer, how do I get neutral? Go on. I would be interested to know that in relation to meditation and in relation to our perception of the other life, the other practice. What you're saying It's like thinking, I have to sleep in the bedroom. So I can't take a nap on the couch in the living room.

[82:38]

Yeah. Oh, this is the living room. I can't sleep in it. You want to take a nap on the living room on the couch? Then it's the bedroom. These distinctions have no reality. These distinctions have no reality. They're for your convenience. There's no Buddhist police around saying... I can see he thinks he's in the third skanda. He's actually in the fourth. A hundred Deutschmarks. You can see while you're meditating the camera flashes. This is just for your convenience.

[83:55]

So whatever you like is the way it is. And if you fool yourself, please enjoy yourself. It reminds me of a story we had in Christen, because we were building our building, and Gerard and I worked on building our little house, and you started talking about the scandal, and for some reason, you know, we got a little bit closer, but knowing a little bit about what you're talking, and Gerard had this little hat, which had four, I don't know, and somebody put a sign in it and opened it and said, Mind Police. On your head? On my head. Oh. You could lift it up, you mean? In the restaurant we have been building for the first few years, and Gerhard had this hat that you could open, and Roshi started to discuss this with us.

[85:00]

So, what else? Yes. I would like to address two things. The first is When I move through these five skandhas... He's being careful because he used to be a judge. And maybe also because of that? How do I deal on one hand with the uncorrected mind?

[86:09]

And how does it get a direction? Is it sufficient to just be open and have the knowledge in the background? Or is there something like this? Interceding. Interceding. I have difficulties to picture that as a cupboard with drawers. with my understanding the observer should be in each one of these drawers but I have also the picture that it's changing in each one of them

[87:24]

And so that the observer loses its ego on this way. Yeah. You mean, so there's an observer in each room or drawer, but the observer is less ego in some than others. Exactly. Okay. You know, I enjoy this discussion. And I don't... We can't make complete sense of it, but anyway, I enjoy it. Yeah. So... If you can see the point of these three distinctions, this can be an entry into the feeling, the possibility of the five Skandha distinctions.

[88:58]

Now, if you want to, the question came up in various forms yesterday. How do I get a feel for the five skandhas? Where do I enter and so forth? Well, there's two approaches. One approach is just to assume this has something to do with you. You already have these experiences of the five skandhas. You may not have separated them out clearly, but you have the experience. So you try to discover something that's some aspect of it that you can notice. Okay, let's just make up some examples.

[90:21]

Say that you've lost something. And you can't, I don't know, your keys, a necklace or whatever. And you, where the heck is it? You know you're going to find it in the last place you look. Yeah, but you don't know. That's an old joke. Anyway, so, but you don't know where to look, you know. Okay. So you try to imagine. It's been gone two or three days. And you clearly can't think about it. So you just kind of sit back in your chair and you think, I was standing so and so. And I must have had it in my pocket.

[91:22]

And then I went into that store, etc. Now, you're not thinking when you're doing that. You're just letting, I was in the pocket, and then I took the jacket off, or something like that, right? It's a kind of free association. And if you start to think, you're lost. But if you just follow the connections, sometimes you, oh, it's got to be in such and such a place. So you know that's a different kind of mind than thinking mind. Or on a sunny day, you're lying out here in the grass in the back. And you just watch the clouds. And you let the clouds decide what your mind is like. And maybe some images come up.

[92:37]

But you're not thinking, you're just, you know, okay? You're in something close to the fourth skanda. You're associated. Now, to give you an idea of how important just this one fourth skanda is, the fourth skanda has revolutionized the contemporary world. Because Freud hit upon it as a method of discovering unconscious impulses. And we had people lie, he had people sort of lie down in those days. I've even seen the copy of the couch in Vienna. It's red, I think. The original is in London. I haven't seen that one.

[93:38]

But the whole world was opened up The whole concept of the unconscious comes out of the fourth skanda. What was discovered through the fourth skanda has changed history, Psychology, philosophy, art, literature, it's changed more than any other single topic. It's changed everything in Western culture. Hat Geschichte, hat Psychologie, hat alles verändert mehr als irgendwas anderes. That's simply from isolating the fourth skanda and emphasizing it. Also nur indem das vierte skanda isoliert wurde und verstärkt wurde.

[94:39]

Can I say anything stronger to make you think maybe the skandhas have some importance? So you get a feeling of something like sunbathing or watching the clouds or finding your lost keys?

[94:52]

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