me observer. Other feeling. Now the me observer... alienates us from our immediate experience in lots of ways. By reminding us too much of who we are. And the me observer also in some ways alienates us from much of our past. Because the me observer only draws into the present those associations under its sway. under its sway, under its authority, under its power.

[01:04]

So part of practiced life When life begins to have, when practice begins to have its own life, we feel something, maybe some, the ground of being trembles a little. You know, I've often recently been spoken about how time is discontinuous. Yeah, the time of infancy and the time of adulthood are really different times.

[02:07]

And these different times, each of our different times, exist simultaneously with each other. But space also is... The space of awareness is also... A differentiated topography. Like time, it has fulcrum points where you can make something happen. You know what fulcrum is? No. Where you put something down and you can lift it. This is a fulcrum point. I'm the from I'm he built I need to come to the end homes would I ever told you that with the at first sir the sheen nothing comes near yeah I'm Nick test points where there's a gathering and and releasing this kid I'm and skip top home to was I'm a see Simon gibt und I'm and most last you know Mary maybe to me observer is

[03:43]

less strong. We can start feeling a kind of topography of the space around us. Dragons and snakes are mixed in ourselves. Three by three in front, three by three in back. So our light, you know, mindfulness and meditation bring our light onto the stage of the present. And then practice begins to have its own life. And we feel we occupy this some kind of alive space now.

[04:50]

It's not just the same as this kind of space where you just put objects. Each object makes its own space. So you notice something like this, some funny things, you know. Your body feels a little different. Yeah. How do you catch this uniqueness? Wie fängst du diese Einzigartigkeit ein?

[05:59]

One way is to interrupt the me observer with doing something like substituting an ancient Buddha. Ein Weg ist, den ich beobachte, zu ersetzen durch so etwas wie den alten Buddha. Another way is to use a phrase. Ein anderer Weg ist, einen Satz zu benutzen. All the... Virtually, I guess, all the classic Zen phrases are meant to cause this kind of interruption. Like, just now is enough. I'm always close to this. Not knowing is nearest. And maybe we could make up a phrase right now. I don't know how to say it.

[06:59]

This, just this once. Or exactly this. Some way in which you can kind of peel the habit of predictability off the present moment. Interrupt the habit of permanence. So you feel the uniqueness and wide presence of each moment. Not separate from your usual life. But flowering in the midst of your usual life. No, I said the other day you could use Dharma surgery.

[08:02]

Yeah, and I think we could go back to where we started on the pre-day. Working with the five dharmas and the four marks. We can think of them as surgical tools, entering appearance, entering appearance and stopping at appearance. So again, maybe you have to find some phrase or something so you can stop at appearance.

[09:15]

This is, you know, pulling the Dharma curtain aside. Before the whole process of naming and discrimination starts. So the first three dharmas are appearance, naming, discrimination. And the fourth is right dharma or right knowledge. And the fifth is suchness. Suchness is also the experience of wisdom itself.

[10:21]

And it's just at the end of this little short list. where you can pry open the experience of appearance. Yeah, so, okay, so now you're trying to notice when something appears to you. In any one sense. In any one of your senses. So it appears and you just Pause, wait for, let appearance itself happen.

[11:25]

And you know that appearance is not the object itself. That's your experience of the object. And yet you don't let that experience Get named. Or if it does get named, you stop at the naming. And rest in the naming. And then maybe peel the name off. And if it goes into discrimination, which is our usual habit, our ancient habit, from birth, almost.

[12:33]

Anyway, we Notice something, we name it, we think about it. The five skandhas are thrown into full gear. But right here you intercept it. That's why I called it surgery, not just because Volker's here. You can draw the line of the four marks. In the middle of the habit, you bring in right knowledge, which we're calling now the four marks. As you stop phenomena at appearance,

[13:45]

or if you can stop it at discrimination or naming, wherever you want. Whatever you notice, you notice there's a noticing, a birth, there's a beginning. And as I always say, if I look at you, From my point of view of my experience, again, you appear. Then if I turn to Gisela, she appears, you disappear. Sorry. So we're just now talking about our own experience, not our assumption that there's a semi-permanent world out there.

[15:01]

I notice that not only do you appear, but there's a duration. And then it changes. And I let it change. I don't try to hold on to it. Not only do I let it change, I let it disappear. And that operation is called the four marks. And you just try it sometimes. Yeah, one day I was, you know, I won't tell that anecdote. You know, these bathroom windows which have a ground glass sort of... What?

[16:24]

Windows in bathrooms or showers which have kind of a ground glass. Yeah, these windows in bathrooms which have kind of a... I don't know. Cloudy. It's called something in English. I can't remember the name. Anyway, in Hotuan, a little building at Crestone. There's such a window. It's often windy. It's cold there now. Twenty below centigrade in the morning. They went out for a picnic. It lasted 10 minutes. Everyone turned right around. Yeah. Anyway, there's this window, and it's... The branches of the shadows of the branches are reflected on it.

[17:37]

And I like watching it. Because it's usually windy out. So the branches come into focus. Sometimes they're quite black and precise. Sometimes they get fuzzy as it moves away from the window. So they move up and down and come in and out of focus. There's a little birth of each pattern on the window. It has a certain duration.

[18:44]

It dissolves. And in myself, I release it. You know, my experience is everything is like that. You can notice it more clearly in this kind of example I gave you. And you can sensitize yourself to noticing it. So if I kind of practice a little bit at noticing it, When I'm walking, I begin to see trees not reflected on the glass, but the tree itself. Has such a pattern. So, yeah, and I find being with another person is like that.

[20:02]

Even with Sophia, my little daughter. I can feel that she pays attention to me and I come into focus and she goes away and she's interested in something else. And even if I bring my full attention to her still, there's some movement in that attention. And if sometimes we hold each other's attention for a moment, From a good part of a minute.

[21:19]

For the depths of this little new creature. Some looking occurs. Yeah. Yeah. meant it to awaken some fresh depth in myself. So all I'm trying to say here is practice makes it more possible to kind of open this Dharma curtain to this Buddha ancestor's room. And while we may practice in more of our, as I say, usual life, comes on to the stage of the present.

[22:25]

Somehow when that happens, we begin to feel some more subtle life within us and our situations. And we can say that's noticing the Dharma. And by establishing a basis, Noticing when practice begins to have its own life. We can use a phrase. Not knowing is nearest. or the presence of an ancient Buddha, or Dharma surgery, to open up how things actually exist in our senses, forming our consciousness.

[23:45]

in a space and time that's not simply measured by clocks. That begins to flower in our practice life. Yeah, that's enough for this week, maybe. Thank you very much.

[24:32]

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