Peter, tell me something. Oh, there's something about up there. Tell me what you'd like us to tell you. I'm going to show you a little bit of therapy. Go on. As a person, me, Prajnatara, this fictional person, being asked, why don't you read the scripture? Why don't you read it? And he says, breathing in, I do not dwell in the realms of the non-ego. Breathing out, I do not get I am not caught by myriad circumstances.

[01:04]

I'm not caught by myriad circumstances, by the many circumstances, by the phenomenal world. Why don't you read the scripture? He says, written in, I cannot dwell in the realm of my Breathing out, I am not caught by a mere hidden certain thing. And then it says, I recite this sutra many thousands, hundreds of thousands of times today. Now, that's a simple enough statement, you know. Here, you know. Let's just take the main part. Breathing in, I do not dwell in the realms of mind and body. You at least have to achieve that.

[02:07]

Breathing in, I do not dwell in the realms of mind and body. Breathing out, I am not caught in the very second thing. The commentary to the column is several pages. And then we talk about breathing practices, many things, talk about religion, we talk about Belgium, and so on. In any case, there are immense, there are a lot of teachings in this statement. And we can look at some of the statements, some of the questions that arise around this statement, just to see the relationship between establishing view and .

[03:23]

Now, as soon as you say something to yourself, Not dwelling, not attached. Breathing in, not attached. Breathing out, not attached. That would be a very simple breathing. Breathing in, not attached. Breathing out, not attached. Or you could say breathing in, quite true. Breathing in, not quite true. Breathing out, not quite true. That would be another simple breathing. But as soon as you say anything with your breaths, You're not doing just what you're breathing anymore. It's not the chemistry of breathing. I mean, you have to breathe for the chemistry that happens when oxygen goes in. When you say, well, this process, this chemical process sustains your blood. When you say breathing in, You've got a different chemistry.

[04:32]

You have a theory. You have a teaching. You have an attitude. Isn't that great? It's not the same as plain breathing. You've added something to your breathing. What have you added? You've added, I feel quite free. But in any case, you've added an attitude to the chemistry of the people. And that attitude affects you. That attitude becomes part of the chemistry. So what attitude are you going to bring to your breathing? And what attitude do you bring to your breathing that allows you to sustain that attitude, retain that attitude throughout the day? So he says, now why does he say, this practice of not dwelling in mind and body, breathing in, not being caught by myriad circumstances,

[05:57]

He said, this is a sutra I recite continuously a thousand times. How is breathing in that attitude a sutra? In other words, how does the world become teaching? How does the act of breathing become teaching through breathing a certain way? You may go to a movie. You can go to any movie, V-ray movie. Just go to the movie theater and go, it's actually an actual film noir.

[07:08]

It's a really great movie about Chicago gangsters that all people wearing hats and walking down the streets, they're wet. But you may go to such a movie and sit there and kind of watch it and feel something and make a decision about your life. Isn't that true? When you go to a movie sometimes and you can't think, gee, I've got to quit my job. I think I need to disappear for a while in a hotel and not let anybody know where I am for a week. You have some idea. When you do that, the movie's talking to you. And then somehow, maybe not what the director told me, but somehow you're using the movie to talk to you. Isn't that nice? Well, that's a little bit of private art.

[08:12]

That there's a way of breathing for the world to start talking. What you do during the day is talk. Now, we may be moving to do that. But not from that view. Now this is a kind of peculiar place. And Mike found it. There was nothing else available. He looked around. He called how many sectors? Oh, about 30 or so. And he found this one. By chance I found this one. It was an old radio station. It was an old watching post from the Germans during the war. Watching for planes and things like that and trying to shoot them down. and it was converted into a youth hostel after war and has been so for 34 years and then the last few years the people who ran the youth hostel took it over themselves and made this very nice center out of it.

[09:28]

Now if you're a Buddhist You don't want to find really great places, and this place may be too nice. And because you want to go some, you don't want it like a kind of simple version of the Taoist. He goes to a beautiful place with a waterfall, and he feels a little happier in the waterfall and does his meditation. And he finds a beautiful place and gets into it. But a Buddhist finds a garbage dump that used to be something else, and he, by his practice or her practice, tries to make the place feel better. So we have a mixed blessing here. From some way, a little bit of a funny place. In other ways, it's quite practical. There's this little village down there. And yet, we're up here in the sand dune. And you can see the ocean right across the valley here.

[10:34]

So from one side, it's a pretty tall house. And then from the other side, it's that way. It's kind of . Sand and the ocean. Is it the ocean itself? It's the North Sea, yes. The North Sea. And when I wear my robe, there's a cloth that I spread out, which I'm not going to show you my robes here in the machine, but it has a shape when the cloth is spread out like this. It's shaped like that, and then it comes out like that. And we fold it. We fold it, and I fold one part of it where the top of the other makes them lend out.

[11:41]

The teaching that is taught is that every place is the bottom line out. Every place is the spot of enlightenment. So, wherever I spread that out means there's no this place where you realize enlightenment or discover yourself, discover how this world fits. So this particular place here has particular characters. But it also has the characteristics that you get. Now, I'm talking about this not just because we have to be here, and we're interested in architecture, or we're here for three days. We might as well make a festival.

[12:46]

That's also true. But rather, let this way of looking at things is Buddhist practice. In fact, when I, when you're walking in Buddhist practice, I have the feeling that my step, that I let my foot out, I have the feeling, Some of these things are kind of dumb to tell you. I mean, I'm a little embarrassed to tell you. Some are kind of mechanical or weird or something. And it's usually learned by feeling it from the people. But when you walk, you have the feeling that when you put your foot out, you're not sure the earth is going to be there. And it's like a moment of, as if you're stepping off a cliff.

[13:48]

You reach out, and it's not just, You've got that feeling of walking, this feeling of walking, but each step is you don't know quite where it's going to land. And then you feel the ground, and you actually feel a little bit of your skin touching, and then there's pressure and then your bone touching. It's not just like that. And there's actually training in walking. And the way you see it most clearly is in no place. In the tea ceremony, And kabuki, the way they walk, it's what it's taught. But the basic feeling is that you're walking and you're stepping out. There's a kind of moment of, it requires trust. Is it, will birth be there? You step in the earth, you see. And then, and so, The first poem in the same book is what they call in the book, translate, The World-Honored One.

[15:15]

I call it Mr. Who. world I'm going to be the child for sure on this to prove that they were in this to who were more of our morning bullet a sense the sea that gets to the seat that Manjushri who was the outside wisdom that behold the kingdom The king of dharma is thus. But it gets down from the seat. And then the commentary says, that Maitreya Sri, he's always leaking. He said, fine, he said too much, talks too much. Part of this call, and that's the first call in this book, is that

[16:19]

You are always, it's not just when a woman gets up on a seat, you are actually always finally in a seat. Right now I should be in a seat. In that sense it would be correct. So when you say I don't dwell in the realms of mind and body, it actually shouldn't be Mind and body, what it means is body-mind. Not dwelling in the realms of body-mind. That not dwelling in body-mind is also another way of saying find your seat. But this time it's expressed as not dwelling. Now, if you want to practice Buddhism, and we have a lot of time, we can look at these things in detail.

[17:41]

Actually, to practice, you have to look in exquisite detail. Why say not dwelling? The other thought is finding your seat. The practice, okay, is right now each of you is finding your seat. You know, whether you're sitting up like this, you know, or sitting like this, it doesn't have to be a special posture. You know, you sit like this. You can have a feeling of fire in your seat at that point. Now, that sense is called dharma. And what dharma really means is to experience things in experienceable units, or to do each thing completely. Okay, now, we want to spend a little time on this, but I want to say, as you step behind your foot, you also step into this room.

[19:04]

Now, with good terms, I often say, as a kind of phrase that helps practice, I believe, is that space not only separates us, space also connects us. And that's something to fight. Space with connecting is separate. Quite a different way of looking at it. But also, let me put it another way, space is fractal. Now, fractal is a word from fractal geometry, which I'm just using. But what I mean by that is that each of you, it has, in fact, its own space. Now, this room was sitting here. We were making this room model. We came in and we sat kind of with a circular rug, so we sat in a circle.

[20:08]

And now we sat sitting in this corner. So from the point of view of a generalization, this room is a square with a couple of pillars in it. But from the point of view of Buddhism, it's, and I think a good article too, it's actually made, it's a room experienced from standing in a doorway. It's a room of parents from this corner. It's a room of parents from looking in the living room. These are doors here, leaf doors. And so the room itself has many points of view from which it can be experienced. And we see it, like if you look at a cathedral, you can see that, I mean, the word sacred in English means dedicated to a single person.

[21:13]

And in a cathedral, you can see in the way it's made, the cross, the main aisle on the two sides, and then the center part of the altar. Each part, often you have a different kind of architecture, but it's very defined. And you can see that the room exists from back here, exists from over at this point, exists from the altar, and there's a change in surfaces. The altar is a little bit higher and so forth. That sense is put there because the space is sacred and spiritual and has a particular purpose that's defined it. But from the point of view of Lutheran, all space isn't that sacred. It's just you don't see it that way.

[22:21]

Now, you're sitting right there. No one else in the world is sitting there. That's a completely unique place we have. It's very easy to be unique. There is no one else in the world that can hear you. Now you are a student taking a seat. Now we can all turn to But again, we think, oh, I'm here in this room, so I could sit there, I could sit here. No. That's one truth. I can move over here, I can sit there. That's true. But it's also true that I'm in this place. It's absolutely me.

[23:24]

And when you walk in this room, As soon as you're standing in the room, already there's several rooms. There's the room to your left, there's the room to your right, there's the room to your front, there's the room to your back, and there's the center. So when you come in the room, there's already several rooms in this room. It looks like one room, but that's just because we think that way in general. When you examine this room like a child life, it's meant to be. And a child will feel like they're playing. Here you'll notice the children will play here, they won't play over there. They know there's many moves in this room. But I think if you ask the baby what the mother, the baby doesn't really care. Her mother, the baby knows her mother's breast, her mother's stomach, her mother's arm, her mother's smell. I think a baby, when it's very little, you should imagine it's a foot. Since they smell them, they don't think that's mother, they just know that particularity is something that's related.

[24:35]

So in a sense, there are many things that are mother. When we get older, we say, oh, that's my mother. That's my mother. But for a baby, I think there is... different experiences that aren't necessarily put together. They're all linked. So what is this room? We've come into this room. And I came in several times. You walked around before we started. And then I was in here with you. And I was in here with Mike. And I could feel different rooms appearing from you being here. But Mike being here and myself, I began to feel several rooms being here. I hope I'm not disturbing you.

[25:40]

But now, we're all here. We've made a very complex movement. Because each of you is at least a universe. Each of you is an extraordinary being. And each of you has a space that you are. So although my space, what did you mean? OK. In the sense that space connects, my space connects with . but also my space acts through wisdom. And in some ways, my space to one another is captured through wisdom and then through you, because I use a particular space, and then you are a particular space, and then together we make a particular space.

[26:44]

Now, this space is not manifested, But if you and I pay attention, we can begin to feel the space happening between us, which can include others or exclude others. Now, that space is there whether we manifest it or not. It's there no different. It's a space between you and . So there's a space between Ramadatta and myself, there's a space between myself and you, and a space between you and Ramadatta, and my space to Ramadatta goes through you to Ramadatta, goes straight to... So we have quite a complex event here that is experienceable at a non-conceptual level. If I think about it, it's gone. And I can discuss it conceptually, but I can't experience it directly conceptually.

[27:53]

If I think conceptually, then space separates conceptually. But non-conceptual space can. This is a territory of being that is almost completely overlooked enough to say Now, when I say this, is there spirit? Is this what arises from something? Technically this is called the establishment of view. And in the koanons, for instance, it's referred to as the unique breeze of reality. The unique reason Zen has a particular way of speaking. And this sense that if we wander over here in this room, at another level, we are in a subtle space that has many parts.

[29:03]

For example, tonight in the dark or at sunset, you may want to walk up to the hill. Now, you know that when you walk up to the hill, your mood affects how it feels when you get up there. And I believe the two of you did it together. We walked up together. If you walked up separately, your experience would have been somewhat different. If you walk up together, it's a little different when you're together. From the Buddhist point of view, those are two different spaces. But in fact, they're different. We tend generally to say, oh, this is space. It's there before we got there. But it wasn't there before the trees got there. It wasn't there before the sand got there. And the trees make the space.

[30:07]

But also, if there's two of you, it makes the space. It's different than one of you. And that's obvious because you say, let's go with your friend and you want to go up there again. But I don't think we think it, we tend to think about it as, oh, it was nice to do that with my friend. You don't actually think you've changed the world. But when you're there with your friend, you're in a different location. So we actually practice together this group of people can practice or can have some experience or some understanding, whatever, to speak in, that can never be repeated. Completely dependent on being September, in this particular weather, with this particular

[31:12]

number of people. So, to find out who did enter the uniqueness of each situation is kind. They would feel the uniqueness of each situation throughout the day. And to feel that is called the unique breeze of reality. Reality, the breeze means there's a movement in it. And when this unique breeze of reality touches you, you feel a breath. You feel, eh, this is my, this is, I can't say I see, but. It comes as it's supposed to be going in. At each moment, you're exposed and .

[32:18]

So what I'm saying, and we should end now, I think, is discuss the schedule. While we're here, to practice, if you want to find out this place. Not you're thinking about it, not what kind of room this is, but when you walk into this room, tomorrow morning it will be a different room than tonight. And if you're the first person in the room, you know it will be a different room than when there's a crowd of people in it. But Buddhism let me think of it as a different room. When somebody else comes in, It's not just an electrician comes in, they bring a different room into the room. This way of thinking, again, it's part of what I would call an establishment of view.

[33:26]

So when you're sitting in zazen tomorrow morning, you have a sense of the absolute uniqueness of the seeing and the sin. Not anymore. Now, we have to figure out some sort of schedule. We're going to have three meals a day, is that right? Okay, hello. In order to have teaching work, it's helpful if there can be a kind of theme in what we talk about this weekend.

[34:39]

I don't have to wait for a translation. And maybe Buddhism is a little bit like a lake or something and you throw a pebble into it and the pebble makes circles. And so whatever we throw into the discussion this week or into our weekend and into our Maybe we'll make some circles. If it does, it stays with us better than if it's a lot of disparate or separate things. In our discussion, I'll try to recognize what underlying theme we're talking about and also That's good enough.

[35:50]

Now, I started speaking last night a little bit about the many rooms in this room and the sense of another way of looking at space and experiencing space. Sometimes I get a little tired of hearing myself say the word space, but in Asian culture and Buddhist culture it's primarily organized around space as the primary dimension of being, while Western culture is organized around time as the primary dimension of being. And that's something that we have to keep reminding ourselves of in various ways. because it's not intuitively familiar to him. So as I said last night, there's this kind of other way of experiencing space, and I spoke about that in terms of experiencing the details of things.

[37:09]

And so maybe continuing with that same sense of the details of things, we can speak about our posture in meditation. And several people have already asked me about meditation and about posture. Also, looking at you, you all have a variety of postures. Maybe we can talk about it a little bit. First of all, do you have any specific questions about posture you'd like to ask me or ask everyone? I would like to know if my leg always gets pumped after 20 minutes. Gets what? Numb. No, no, no, no. Will that go off after a while? Maybe. Yeah.

[38:15]

You asked something. You brought up about your arms or pain or something like that? Yes, I felt a lump of arm this morning. Six times or less. Maybe it has to do with bringing my shoulders stretched. Mm-hmm. Okay, anybody else? What is the meaning of the pain? It's just painful, that's all. I mean, is there some good result that comes from the pain? Probably. Well, you do it to yourself. Yeah, that's one reason it's actually beneficial. Well, I'll speak about it. I'm listening, and I will speak about the subjects that have come up so far. Anyone else have something along this line about pain and posture and pillows and people?

[39:17]

Pain, people, and pillows, yeah. I have something in my back, and I feel it in my back. Yeah. But I think I see it in a way I like to see it. Is it a problem? Because I see people sitting with their feet under. I don't do that. I think it's not a problem. Okay, yeah, I hear you. Of course, yeah. To experience yourself, yes. Because it's very important. What you said, yes and no.

[40:25]

Sometimes when I sit, my shoulders are a bit loose, or my jaw, and then I correct it slightly, but I wonder if that's good or if I should just leave it, like it was when I started sit. These are all good questions. Similarly, I'm all the time busy with correcting myself. Yeah. It's amazing how complicated or rather complex a simple thing like posture is. But sometimes if I sit in a kind of close position, I think that it feels as if I'm sitting in my good, in my... But it's strange.

[41:29]

I have no idea if this is... If it is or not, yeah. Yeah, I understand it. I completely understand. I like hearing your voices. Anybody else? Mike, you've become an expert at adjusting your posture and trying to get so you can sit down more. Do you have anything to say about it? Well, when I started meditation a long time ago, I never got off because I always was meditating on a bench. For some reason, I've always had a feeling that it's kept me more in my head, in my thinking. Now that I'm trying to get down, I have the feeling it's more one flowing hole. It gives me more stability. I've even come down to sort of a quarter lotus position now, but it feels good.

[42:38]

You haven't reached the half lily yet. The half lily. Lily is used in funeral ceremonies in Poland. I used to call my posture the hat lily, because it nearly killed me. The lowest posture was a long ways still, I thought. It kept really good. You started to say something, somebody? I am wondering, thinking of posture makes myself, makes me quite ego-oriented, like object, checking. I'm sort of trying to find a sense of sitting in a way that I don't... interfere with experiencing space, or that I'm a part of space, or that the inner and the outer are sort of more connected, less of this right, that right.

[43:51]

That feels sort of goal-oriented. I want to get off this me. I'd like to do something about it. Yeah, I understand. It's part of space. Anybody else? It's changing all the time. It's going around. It's bright and it's happy. Like that little red guy on your shirt. You see the pin on your shirt. Well, that's also a compliment, like posture on the inside. Like, I mean, I think about myself and I let it. But the same thing is like if thoughts come in, I think, well, should I let it come or should I not? I mean, it's the same thing.

[44:54]

The things you can cross on the inside are a lot more difficult for you. I have difficulties in breathing when I'm sitting so straight, so I'm just breathing till this point. When I'm sitting like this, I can breathe with the whole body. If I feel straight, I have the same feeling. Okay. Okay, well, let me speak a little bit about posture. And I'll try to create a kind of picture of posture from the point of view of Zen Buddhism.

[46:02]

And if anyone wants to interrupt or add something or whatever, you can do that. But first of all, You always have your own posture, whatever that is. And that's what you have to accept first, that you have your own posture. And not only do you have your own posture, sometimes your own posture or... Well, let me put it another way. Sometimes you always have your own posture. Sometimes a posture which is rather odd may not be your own posture. It just has to be the posture you're in. It might not be Buddhist posture, but it's the posture you're in. You can become very concentrated sometimes in a rather funny posture.

[47:05]

You might be sitting like this and be very, very concentrated. Or you might feel you're sitting like this, and you have no idea how you're actually sitting. You might be sitting like this, but you feel like you're sitting like this or like this, and you feel completely concentrated. Probably it's better not to straighten yourself at that point, not to try to correct your posture. Just be concentrated. Now you should know that this kind of concentration is not like a watchmaker's concentration. It's not mental concentration. It is first of all a kind of physical concentration. Your body just feels all of one piece or you don't know the boundaries of your body and that that physical concentration is first of all what is meant by concentration.

[48:17]

Mental concentration is important, but it's secondary. It doesn't make much sense to say secondary, but it is... I think for our conversation we can say it's secondary to this sense of overall physical concentration. My English is okay. I don't know really the difference between mental concentration and bodily concentration because I think I have to... Bodily concentration is to be aware of what I'm doing with my body but not thinking of the last day. No, bodily concentration is not to be aware of what you're doing with your body. Your body doesn't know what it's doing anymore. It's just concentrating. So I don't know that. You don't know. You feel it, but if you think about it, you lose it. Now, it is possible to think about it and not lose it.

[49:25]

It's also possible to become very concentrated in a funny posture and then straighten yourself without losing that concentration. But you have to be more experienced in sitting to do that. Normally, as soon as you notice it, mentally or physically, you lose it. Okay, so what I've said so far is, first of all, you accept your own posture, whatever it is. Second, sometimes you can be concentrated in any kind of posture. Probably better not to interfere with that feeling of concentration. But you don't have to get attached to that feeling of concentration either, and sort of stay like this for the next three hours or something like that. You can feel it, and then if you feel like straightening yourself, straighten yourself. Okay. At the same time as you're accepting your posture as it is, you're being informed by Buddha's posture.

[50:31]

Now, it does make a very big difference how you sit. It makes at least as big a difference as whether you put an acupuncture needle here or here. Your body is a very, very sensitive place. tuning device, cosmic tuning device or something. And what you do and exactly how you sit is intimately connected with your state of mind, emotions, thoughts and so forth. Now it's not only connected because you have actually a relationship of parts here. Now I spoke about... details yesterday evening, and I'd like to stay with this sense of details. And the word detail in English means a part known within a whole.

[51:35]

You know what it means. But it's the part in relationship to the whole. Now, generally, If you're feeling tired, you want to sit down, you just sit down in a chair, any old way. But actually you don't sit any old way. You sit in a way that anybody who can read bodies can study, could even know how much emotional stuff you have in your back, how much psychic energy you have in your body. whether there's psychic energy in your feet or just in your hands, it's apparent. So you think you're just sitting down on a chair, but you're actually, your whole body is able to be read out or read by somebody who can read it.

[52:36]

So first of all, I mean, so now what I'm saying is you may think there's a natural posture, but there's no natural posture. However you sit is a reflection of what your personal history has been and so forth. I keep seeing problems and ways of misunderstanding what I'm saying. I want you to realize this is a very precise connection, but at the same time, a very loose connection. Make sense? In other words, that there's a precise and intimate relationship between all of you, your mind, your body, each cell, etc.

[53:42]

But at the same time, there's a lot of play in that. There's a lot of flexibility. And you don't actually see... In other words, at the level at which most of us perceive our body and mind, we don't notice much difference between here and here. You have to become more and more sensitive before you can see there's a difference. There's still a lot of play, but the... I mean, if... I mean, I can feel my fingers. of my lower hand with my upper hand. And I can feel little bumps as I go over them. And I move my hand. But I've just been practicing a long time, and space is something that can be felt. But there isn't that much difference between being here or here or here. But there is a difference. But to feel the difference takes a little while of practice, if not for anything special.

[54:44]

Okay, now when you are sitting, you are, I think the, okay, let's go back to it. You sit down in a chair, you just sit down in a chair. Now, if you're in a yoga culture, you might begin to say, okay, I'm sitting in this chair, this finger is in this posture, this finger is in this posture, my elbow's in this posture, this is this posture, this is this angle in relationship to this, but we don't do that. It's not in our culture. We don't think that way, etc. But actually, each part of you has a posture. Now, we don't pay attention in detail to our posture unless you start doing something like meditation. And in Buddhism, there's a posture for every part of your body. Now, Zen particularly emphasizes this because Zen uses posture and meditation as the main vehicle, not the biggest vehicle, but the main vehicle of practice.

[56:20]

Other schools of Buddhism use other things. Zen tends to use posture. And it's used because it doesn't require any special teaching. You can study your posture all the time. Your body's available to you. The state of mind that studies the posture is a teaching. But your body's just, I mean, as long as you're alive, you've got this thing, which is also you. What did you say, the state of mind? Which studies the posture. Is a teaching. Is a teaching. Yeah. The mind is teaching when it studies the posture. Yes, or learning. But if I have a daughter, right? If my daughter's doing things, she's just doing things around the house, if I say to her, if I make her in some way notice how she's doing things around the house, that's a teaching.

[57:26]

So how you notice what you're doing is teaching. I hope I'm not being too simple, but I really think to get these things clear at a very simple, basic level is, you know, I'm always doing it. I mean, I've been doing this for 35 years and I'm still deepening my understanding of postures. Okay, so every part of you there's a posture for. What is the basic overall things you're doing when you're meditating? You're trying to have your body interfere with itself as little as possible. So if I lie on my side, on my shoulder, this shoulder's turned this way or something.

[58:37]

If I sit like this, this is usually, for most people, closing you off. So you're attempting to interfere with your body as little as possible so that each part is independent. You're also trying to concentrate your heat Heat and consciousness are closely connected. Being alive and dead is a difference in heat. An alive person is a warm person. And your state of mind and consciousness are connected with your body's heat. General people who meditate can, if they do in Tibetan, can keep themselves warm, can sit in the snow and and dry them out and all that stuff. I mean, we don't have to learn how to do that, but the ability to maintain and participate in your body thermometer and temperature is something that comes about if you practice.

[59:44]

Okay, so the reason we sit this posture is partly for the stability of it, but probably more because it concentrates heat and makes you more concentrated immediately. As soon as you're sitting, you know, like this, or on a bench, it can be fun, but your body, even if I sit this way, which is probably the second best meditation posture, Even if I sit this way, my body has to work a little bit to keep my toes warm. And there isn't the same kind of way in which your body all fits together. And also in this posture, which is good, you have to use much more musculature to support. The structure of your body doesn't support your back. You have to kind of support it, and you tend to do this.

[60:49]

You have to keep making an effort to straighten your back. So when you sit cross-legged, if you can, you don't have to, but I think it's important to understand of why we sit this way, so that if you find it necessary to sit in a chair, you can sit in such a way that you do maintain your body heat in a concentrated way. So when I sit this way, I bring my body together. Now, also, I will use the word energy. And when I use the word energy, I'm not using the word to mean something the doctor or scientist can measure. but there's no word for it other than energy. But there's a kind of energy that is also enhanced when you sit with your body folded together. Now, most of you, or many of you, are sitting like this.

[61:55]

This is okay to sit in various postures. If you're doing it in Zen practice, we don't usually sit this way in Zen, but you can't. If you're doing it, you don't want to sit in a way that pulls you forward. So if you sit way out like this, you've got to really have your back straight. I don't know how it works. With us Westerners, our proportions are different. But in any case, you want to have your arms where... Ideally, then, you want this part of your arm parallel to your butt. So you want it right at your side. Then your hands go where they go. Generally, we put them here. Now, the reason we put our hands here, again, is the channels, which become more developed as you sit, of energy or subtle winds or whatever you want to say,

[63:05]

In Zen, we don't usually talk about it. We just show you postures, and then we let it happen. And I feel that most people either get too involved or not involved enough, or they don't understand this. So if you put your hands together, you complete one of the channels of energy. So your feet are together, your hands are together, and your hands can be together anyway. You want but important together and the most classic posture is you put your fingers overlapping and then you put your thumbs together. Now, is this all okay? What I'm talking about? I mean, what do you mean by too involved or not involved? Um, some people really get into the chakras and, and, and, very interested in the chakras and energies and all that stuff, Kundalini. And Zen really feels that's not good to do and I feel it's not good to do, unless that's your specialty, your healer or something.

[64:15]

And Zen doesn't want to develop the chakras independently of all of you developing. And they'd rather they develop through your life and your posture than particularly concentrating on them in a certain way. But many people think Zen is just sitting. And they just sit and they don't know how to notice their own practice developing. And so many people in the West sit for 10 years, 20 years. Basically, they feel better and their life is probably enhanced, but they don't go very far. And then they get bored or they wonder what's happening or practice isn't a real resource for them anymore. And one of the problems is there's a big division in Buddhism, which isn't specified very clearly, between what's called transmission Buddhism and mercy Buddhism.

[65:20]

Mercy? And in general, lay people are taught what's called mercy Buddhism. And most of Buddhism taught in the West is mercy Buddhism. In other words, you give a simple, non-adept version of Buddhism. but quite good. And if you understand it deeply, it's the same as the depth of Buddhism. But you don't have the monastic situation or it's thought that lay people don't have the means to practice the depth of Buddhism. And there's other reasons. There's reasons of not... There's a tradition in Zen you don't teach things that people can't do. You don't ever present Buddhism to somebody who doesn't already sort of understand what you're talking about. And you just don't, because you don't want to make them feel separate from you or different from you. But what I've discovered is I think it's, I feel that it's also, yes, it's compassionate on one side, on the other side it's patronizing.

[66:24]

So I'm trying to find some course in between. where within lay practice I can introduce adept practice in ways which people can make use of them. Adept practice? Adept? What is the word adept mean? I don't know. Adept? spiritual learning. Carl Lewis is an adept track and field. Yoga would probably be an adept. Aha, to be adept at something. Adept at something, and used in Buddhism to mean somebody who's accomplished at the inner teaching.

[67:30]

Aha. Also in the sense, not in the sense of student, adept. No, well, a student may be doing adept practices, but an adept would be, I would say that there are some Zen masters who are not adepts. Hmm. Being enlightened doesn't mean you're an adept. You're making translation complicated. Yeah. When we have a word like this, let's discuss it. Isn't it sort of a scientific understanding, in the Eastern sense, really knowing the detail? But being accomplished in them, having realized them. The siddhis, the siddhas are adepts. And... But I would say that most Zen masters who are good teachers are also adepts.

[68:46]

May not be apparent, but usually they are. And most monastic practice is adept practice. It's taught in a special, in a certain way, but it's within monasteries. So you said a master who is enlightened is not an adept? He may be, he may not be. And if he's not, is he then a pratyekabuddha? Well, a pratyekabuddha would be one way of saying that. A pratyekabuddha is a person who's enlightened by accident or enlightened through circumstances, but can't teach because they don't really know what happened. But you can't say they're not enlightened. And you can be, just to be practical about this, enlightenment is a, depends what you mean by enlightenment.

[69:47]

But let's just say that enlightenment as an experience which turns you around, which transforms things, which alters your relationship to suffering, is an experience that anyone can have. It's not related to Buddhism. But it's not permanent. Well, it may be permanent, sure. Yeah. But you may not be able to live within it or manifest it. Yeah, that's what I mean with permanent. But Protestant conversion experiences, and I've often pointed out, if you read them in William James or in other places, it's exactly like Satori experiences. And in what they experienced... There's psychological enlightenment, which you have an insight into your life, your story, how you work, how you function.

[70:51]

Many people think that's enlightenment. In Buddhism, that's not enlightenment. It's a kind of enlightenment. Then there's enlightenment, fundamental enlightenment, in which you realize the sort how mind arises, how you exist. It's more fundamental and bigger than your story and your self and your personality. And that experience is not so unusual, and people have a taste of it often. And then there's the capacity to receive that experience, and there's the capacity to manifest that experience. These are four kinds of enlightenment, we could say, because the capacity to receive the practice which is part of being in a debt. And the capacity to manifest it are closely related. The more developed your capacity to receive the experience is, the more smaller enlightenment experience you need.

[71:53]

You don't need a big truck driving through you, you know, in the... Because you've got a big garage. Even at the 747 drives in, it looks small. So what we're trying to do is, in Zen practice, is teachers trying to do is, one, it's just to get to know you. in this circumstance or any circumstance, then to create the possibility or conditions where it's possible to realize the mind. And also, simultaneously, parallel, trying to create the capacity to receive the experience.

[72:55]

Okay. We're talking about posture, not enlightenment, but here we are. Okay. So, I'd like to finish with posture before we take a break, but maybe we can't. Continue. I was going to say something about breathing. Well, for you or for me? No. No, about breathing. Do you want me to say something? No. Oh, you say something. Yes, you want him to say something. No. About breathing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I will, but that's a little bit farther along down the line. Oh. First, we're just dealing with the outer posture. So there's this sense of concentrating your heat and your energy and creating a connecting your body together.

[74:11]

And this kind of connecting your hands together, putting your legs together is also part of putting your tongue at the roof of your mouth. Roof of your mouth. Behind the whole tongue or just the tip of the tongue behind the teeth? Well, as much as you'd like. Generally, you rest your target method. And that also completes a channel as your psychic energy or subtle energy starts to develop. Now, generally, it's taught to you to just do it. That's the first level of explanation. The second level of explanation is that it inhibits saliva from forming, which is true. When your brain starts settling, doing less conceptual thinking, The emotional part of your brain becomes more active and that causes your mouth to get wet and your mouth can fill up with saliva. So that's inhibited by putting your tongue to it.

[75:16]

And it's not usually explained that it also connects your psychic energy channels. Those are the reasons. So there's a posture for your tongue, there's a posture for your teeth, there's a posture for your eyes. Posture for your nose, ears, and so forth. And there are other postures for each of these objects, and there are inner postures. Okay? So I think that when you're practicing, you should see your body as a whole bunch of different postures. And I would suggest that you do each thing very, get in the habit when you sit of doing each thing very precisely. In other words, if when I go to sit gently, not always gently, I bow to my cushion. And that's just a recognition of the space.

[76:24]

I'm sort of stopping for a moment. And Dharma practice has many stops in it. Like last night I said about reaching under your foot, there's a little stop. You feel each thing completely. So if I step off here, I step off, but I've had a feeling that I've completed it. But you don't see me walking around for the whole time. So, if you don't, you can just be natural. But there's a healing that I've completed. So, I bowed the mic. Now, again, when you bow, you're actually bringing the energy of this chakra together here. And when you bring your hands up, you're bringing it up into awareness. Now, again, most of us are just willing. But if you keep doing this, at one point, you'll find just doing this purification but we don't have the ability to notice it, but it's actually happening to you.

[77:31]

And when you do it this way, it's actually difficult. And generally, we don't just do this. The posture is you bring your hands together here in front of you, which is one vasya. And you can see, try it. This is one thing. But try it here and then lift up to the knee. It's a little different feeling. And those differences, you begin to notice. I don't know if you can experience the difference, but there's some difference. OK. Now, also when you're sitting zazen, as mentioned in the same as with the prao, you want your arms a little not against your sides, a little away from your side. Now, again, characteristic, you can see it in Japanese, is everything is given a little space.

[78:39]

When I put these things down, I put this, I don't, and the cushion has a very definite up and down to it. And we often do this. And you almost never see that in Asia. Because this is independent. So this independent, you always recognize the independence, and you give it, you don't touch it, you give it its own little space. So your arms have their own little space, a little way from the body. And when you do the gas shuttle, it ups up. Now I'm not trying to teach you to be religious. I'm teaching you to do this kind of bowing. I'm just saying that this step arose not out of delusion, but out of ways the body operates. And that's why religions all do something like this. So then I would sit down, and for me, since I sit down breaking out easily, I'm stepping back.

[79:46]

That's one thing, that's a particular detail. And then I stop and I go, this is me. And then the next is, I have a whole routine. This is the next step. Radio. And then I sit down and I bring my spine to the cushion. I don't just sit down. I have a feeling of a kind of light or energy in my back. and I bring it down to the cushion, and I find my back on the cushion first, and my leg's there. Then I take each leg. So that's one, for me, that's one posture. And the next posture, I take it, and whether you take your leg this way, your foot this way, this way, how you do it, actually, you'll begin to feel

[80:53]

30 minutes later you're sitting. So you have to get to know whether you lift from the ankle or whether you lift this way or whether you lift this way actually makes a difference later. So I bring my foot up and I make sure my sciatic nerve is not being crushed and I find my posture the best I can. How is that nerve crushed? I mean, I know what happens when it does. Well, you have to just see how your bone comes across the corner of the pillow and so forth. It's better to sit back on the pillow because you have more support in here. The edge of the pillow comes across right where your bottom, your leg bone joins your hip. You can numb the nerve there. And then if you do it too much or you do it in a bad way, you can actually get sciatic damage to your nerve.

[81:58]

So I would suggest you sit down and you just practice with each item. Then you feel your body. And then your arms at your side. And then you bring your hands in. And you do however you want, and then you sit. But I would see each posture, each separate thing as a separate posture, not thinking of yourself as a whole so much. I do this, I do that, my mouth, eyes. Now, one of the reasons we sit facing the wall Of course, practically speaking, it's easier for you to straighten your back and to see you. And we also generally line up in a line because... I'm afraid this all sounds a little corny, but it's very useful that your right hand and your left hand are separate.

[83:08]

It allows you to drink tea and to do this thing. It's also quite useful that they're joined. So in a similar way, it's quite useful that you and I are separate. But it's also quite useful that we're joined. But the way we're joined isn't as obvious as through the arms. It's obvious that my hands are joined. But it's not so obvious that we're joined. But when you sit in a line, And you actually, just the way we line our ears up with our shoulders and our nose, tip of the nose with our navel, so forth. You don't have to do all those things. I'm just giving you more details of the posture. You line your shoulders up with the person beside you and your back up with the person beside you. And if you do that, you can begin to, after a while, feel the person beside you more directly.

[84:14]

Now, another reason we sit facing the wall is because you develop the area behind your back. If you sit facing the wall, facing into the room, it's going to dead space behind your back. And you see what's going on in the room, that's kind of good, and you feel a connection with people. And that's actually quite a good way to practice, and the Rinzai school does that, sits that way. But in my school, we sit both ways, but we also sit usually, most circumstances, so that the back has to feel the room. And it also gives you a kind of privacy, your own world to sit, you know, you're not too involved with what's going on. in the average optimal distance from the wall.

[85:20]

Usually the general measure is you wouldn't be closer to anything than arm's length. You wouldn't be closer than arm's length. And generally, you have about a meter for your space. And you'd leave the cushion a little bit. You wouldn't have the cushion touching the wall, usually. So you'd have a little bit of distance, so the wall would be here. And it depends on the light, and the cactuses, and the plants, and you know. Now, all of these things of posture are in the context of what I first said.

[86:30]

First of all, you accept your own posture. Second, you're informed by these other teachings, concentrating your heat, having your ears among your shoulders. But you're not always kind of correcting yourself. You do the best you can at the beginning of the period to be straight. And then you sit. Now, you sometimes find out there's ways of straightening yourself from inside. You sometimes find out after halfway through the sitting that you felt straight, you did the best you could, but with the increased consciousness of sitting, you suddenly find your back straightens up a little, and then your neck opens up, and then your head is different. Then your energy works too. But you actually can't do that when you first sit down because you're not conscious at a level which allows you to make that final adjustment. You're following my English? Yes?

[87:31]

Yes? No. No, sometimes I have to concentrate. Sometimes there's a cut. It's okay. Okay. Yeah. I can feel your response time to what I'm saying, and it's slower than if all of you were native speakers, but it's still not so slow that I think we need a translation. You don't want to correct yourself all the time. You want to be able to pay attention to your posture and simultaneously forget about it. So just always forgetting about it isn't it.

[88:35]

But like you can develop a way of concentrating which isn't interfered by noticing you're concentrating, you in the same way need to develop a way to be able to pay attention to yourself and forget about yourself. But in general, in sitting, you're not, aside from correcting yourself maybe at the beginning and near the end, you're not doing a lot of corrections, or in the middle maybe. So I think that's enough for now. And we can have a break, and then perhaps we can talk about breathing a bit. Yeah, about eyes. Okay. Anything you want, just ask. And when we come back... After break, I don't think we have to sit in a straight line. We might want to sit for a few minutes just here. And by the way, this morning, before breakfast, we sat for 40 minutes. And at 10 o'clock, we sat for 30 minutes, just in case you're interested in how long you've been sitting.

[89:41]

So I think there's probably tea or coffee or something.

[89:48]

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