makes sense to you. Exploring and thinking about whether this is a... Buddhism is... How can Buddhism be a science? The ways. I only hurt myself. Excuse me. Really? Please don't translate that. We get a direct transmission. Okay, now I'm ready. What are the ways Buddhism can be a science? And I'd like to continue to explore this with you, at least some, if you're willing and it makes sense to you. Because if you are practicing, interested in practice, exploring the idea of practicing, In what context are you exploring this practice?

[01:13]

Are you exploring it as a religion in which to some degree you have to believe or accept? Are you discovering Buddhism through your own practice? Following some of the guidelines or suggestions of that are Buddhism. Now Dogen said, don't let the sutras turn you, you turn the sutras. Now that is a reference to, in one sense, an experience

[02:14]

a practice rather of Japanese and I presume Chinese Buddhism. It's the sutras, the teachings were written down on long pieces of paper that were folded like an accordion. And once a year, as far as I know, it's only once a year, they take them all out of their boxes. Which are usually cedar or keyaki, I know, hinoki. boxes which inhibit infestation by insects. Hinoki. Hinoki is the In English, Port Orford Cedar, but it's actually not a cedar, but it's the main building wood in Japan, and the main wood used in our new Zendo in Johannesburg.

[03:57]

Inoki is, in English, Port Orford Cedar. In German, I think it's the tuya tree. The tuya tree. But both hinoki and cedar, often it's used in closets for this reason in Europe and the West, inhibit the infestation of insects. So the sutras are taken out once a year from their boxes. And it takes a little bit of skill to do it. I've done it. It's not easy. You take the sutra this way with the cover top here.

[04:59]

And you lift the sutra like this and it unaccordions in a big circle. And then you bring it down this way. And there's lots of sutras and lots of boxes of sutras and you have a lot of monks all together doing this and they all do it at slightly different speeds. So they open it and you... And when you take another one... And everybody's doing different... It's quite an event. You don't have to dress... But it would be good to watch you still.

[06:17]

And that's called turning the sutures. And it's the same concept, basically, as a prayer wheel. Where you have the sutra rolled up in a thing and you have a little weight in it. And Suzuki Roshi's temple in Japan, Rinso-in, which his son has now, his grandson, was I think rather unusual and then had a big building about as wide as those three-fourths the width of those two pillars. Which was a library entirely built probably eight size, I don't remember, built on a ball bearing and you could turn the whole library.

[07:26]

So that was turning the centuries, you could turn the whole library. Yeah, and it's also a reference on Dogen's part to... I think with Vasubandhu, they began to say the truth of Buddhism is not rooted in the... The truth of Buddhism is not determined by the sutras, but determined by evidence and verifiable experience. And there is again the emphasis of Dogen, who, I think, started with Vasubandhu, who says that the truth of Buddhism is not in the sutras, but in the evidence, so to speak, and in the possibility to verify one's own experience.

[08:38]

So it would take me some thought and study to think about why, if Buddhism Zen has been released from verification by being verified by the sutras, why it isn't already called a science. And we'd also to look at our own Western tendency to think of the Bible as revealed teaching. Und da müssen wir auch unsere westliche Neigung anschauen, dass wir die Bibel als eine Offenbarungslehre bezeichnen. And we return to the teachings, even of Dogen, as if that's going to verify our experience and make it true.

[09:53]

Und wir wenden uns auch den Lehren, zum Beispiel auch der Lehre von Dogen, zu, als ob das dann unsere Erfahrung bewahrheiten würde. What are the boundaries of Buddhism? Is it just anything we want to say? Now when Dogen says, don't let the sutras turn you, you turn the sutras, he means, don't let my teachings as well turn you, you discover my teachings through your own practice. Now, so you experiment with the teachings until you make them your own before you say the teachings are such and such. So my obligation as a Zen teacher in particular is not to present anything that I haven't experienced myself.

[11:15]

And if I present something I've heard, I would say, well, this is what I've heard. It's said. I haven't confirmed it yet myself. Now, since I'm a living being, more or less, if I say I've confirmed this in my experience, it means you can confirm it in your experience. So if you just read it, you can't be sure you can confirm it. You don't really know in the same way that it's confirmed in someone's experience. So these face-to-face seminars and teachings we do together are at the center of Zen as an experimental practice.

[12:31]

But still, for instance, I teach the five skandhas. I teach the second skandha as non-graspable feeling. But virtually all the texts teach it in a very simplified form as either pleasure or pain. But literally all writings teach this in a very simplifying form than either... What did we say? Joy or sorrow. Joy or sorrow, yes. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Yes, we end... You have pleasure and pain in Germany? A lot. I'm coming to live in Germany.

[14:07]

It sounds good. Pleasure and pain around here. But of course, if you look at it a little more, they say pleasure, pain are neutral. And neutral extends pretty far. In any way, I think it functions better for us within our paradigms to speak about it as non-graspable feelings. Now, people who are experimentalists in Buddhism would say, well, that doesn't conform to what the Abhidharma says.

[15:12]

Yeah, but of course that's in science too. People don't agree with... What some other scientists said, and they may be right, but later they may be shown to be wrong, etc. But that's also true for science, of course, that someone may not agree with what another scientist says, for example, and then it turns out later that one of the two is wrong, for example. But I would say that trouble with Western Buddhism at present is too conformist to the teachings and not experimental enough. Now, along this vein, and what I said before lunch, and I asked you before lunch, is there anything you'd like to...

[16:13]

comments you'd like to make about our conversation or discussion. I have a comment and I think it really is a science because the states of mind, the experiences are, can be repeated. If we sit here together and this is something like a practice field, then this can be repeated over and over again.

[17:27]

Yes, but very specific samadhis are modes of mind. They can be discovered again. but to actually mechanically repeat them again is pretty difficult. Don't you think? Did you translate? Okay, yeah, now I'm good. Someone from the Marx-Planck-Institute has studied different probands with core-spintomography, among other probands, people who have now practiced 8-sensitivity practice for 10 years with people who do not do that. They had completely different patterns in their minds.

[18:30]

and then also Buddhists who did a certain practice in tomography, so to speak, and then the pattern changed. So there is evidence that it is actually repeatable, at least some experience. I just recently listened to a lecture where someone from the Max Planck Institute investigated several subjects and compared... Meditators. People who've done 10 years of mindfulness training. And their brain patterns were quite different from people who didn't do 10 years of mindfulness practice. I'm sure that's true. And also investigated Buddhist practitioners who, while being in the two, in the MRI, implemented, did a certain practice. And as they did the practice, their brain activation again was completely different.

[19:32]

So there are also hints that experiences can be repeated. Yes. [...] What's being repeated here, isn't that the measurements? Because actual experience is not exactly the same when it's repeated. And that seems to me to be the main difference, that they are trying to verify things by taking measurements, and that is repeated.

[20:36]

Yes, okay, yes. I would like to talk a little bit about the counterpoint. For me, when I take the word science, I don't know how it is in English science, of course, it also comes back to this word knowledge. I would like to start a counter speech here, because when I hear the German word Wissenschaft, which in English is science, I don't know if science also refers back to, as the German does, to the word knowledge. and wisdom. I don't know why we are talking about this word, the term science. The Tibetans will enjoy the whole history of the Middle Ages. For me, there is a big difference without a bridge between knowledge and wisdom.

[21:51]

I don't know about without a bridge, but anyway, you're right. Why do we speak about it as a science? Tibetans, for example, would be happy enough to just talk about skillful means. I think you are doing the same thing that we are doing here. You just call it a smart means, so to speak, unnatural. So I think in the Tibetan tradition, they are in a similar vein, but they talk about skillful means. But when we talk about science, science to me always has something to do with an explanation of the world.

[22:54]

And I would really be afraid if we were to say that through the MRI, for example, through image, how do you say? image tomography that then we can suddenly explain and lighten it. Well, no, I haven't done that yet. It's a possibility, but it's not something I'm doing. Well, I'm not so worried about fears of where it may lead. I'm just trying to cause trouble. And I don't really care what the Tibetans say.

[23:57]

or anyone else I only care about what I experiment with and I don't want to take the time but I think skillful means is a yes practice but it's an important part of our practice but it's not it doesn't cover what I would like to stir up with the word science I know a person, rather well-known person, I won't mention his name, no, but he's unbelievably skillful at manipulating his states of mind. You can hook him up to wires, which he has in his room. And he can sit there and move the dynamiters at will.

[25:13]

And he has a certain kind of physiological enlightenment. And he has a a dramatically clear insight into teachings, history, so forth. And he's often, you know, find him on YouTube and things, but he's not really enlightened in a good sense. His relationship to his technical skills is rather egotistical. Ego-centric, among other things. But anyway, he's a nice guy.

[26:30]

Which is more important. Yes, Ralph? That's something I've thought about myself too, to think of it as science. Because currently I have a lot to do with science at university. And what science, the criterion for science is the possibility to intersubjectively verify. But for me it seems to make sense to look at the intra-subjective Is there such a word in German, intrasubjective?

[27:57]

Yeah, just like in English. Not yet. I mean, it's the same... No, it doesn't exist in English. Yeah, but you can easily make it internal subjective. Yeah, I've never... I'm the only person I know who's ever said that. Okay. But maybe in German it's said there, more common. You say it sometimes. Yeah. And Raph says it. For me it makes sense. Yeah, I know it makes sense. This is an intrasubjective event right now as well as intersubjective event. Yeah. Does that make sense to everyone? No. Drew hasn't got there yet. Just that we view the I perspective, the intrasubjective perspective, as a path of insight. I see it that way and the specialists, the experts for it are people who practice it, like us for example.

[29:03]

And my feeling is that you could benefit from each other if you look at the I-perspective from the outside and put the I-perspective next to each other. And that they can fertilize each other. And I feel like there would be something fruitful about paralleling or putting next to one another the perspective of looking at phenomena from the outside, the it perspective, and looking at phenomena from the subjective perspective. Especially when we're talking about something like consciousness, which clearly does have both a third-person perspective, an outside perspective, as well as an inside perspective. or when we're looking for methods, or when we're talking about methods to examine the same thing from the outside and also from the inside.

[30:22]

Well, the problem with this kind of topic where, as it goes along, It ends up to be churned around too much through thinking. And we lose its, I think, myself, we lose its complexity when we think it at the speed at which we can think it. My own feeling is that, bringing this up like this to myself and then sharing it with you, It's going to take me about a year of letting it be part of my activity before I come to any conclusions.

[31:40]

Now, as I said earlier, Thank you, by the way, for joining me in this discussion. Okay, and as I said earlier, we can add, you know, the word receiving and releasing or accepting and releasing, something like that, to each inhale and releasing to each exhale. And you can play with what word to use. And you can see if by saying receiving, receiving becomes welcoming, accepting. It's interesting that the word in Japanese for yes, hi, H-A-I, it's romanized as, actually just means I hear you.

[32:54]

Yes. And I think that's not just a quirk of Jacqueline's language. Are you feeling well enough to continue or translate? If I'm not disturbing you too much with my constant noise, then I'm not... I'd like you to get better. I mean, we have a hard-of-hearing translator right here. What? He suddenly has a cough, too. I'm a gnome. I don't think it's just a twist or something, a special feature of the Japanese language.

[34:14]

Where was I? I don't think it's just a quirk of a Japanese name. Oh, yeah. I think it's that it actually comes from yogic culture. Which is that the first reaction is just to accept and recognize that you've accepted. And that may be a yes, but it may be just I've heard you. And you have to have the subtlety to wait a moment to see if the I've heard you turns into a yes or no. Supposedly, now we're going a little beyond basic teachings in Zen, but supposedly some outsider means a non-practitioner.

[35:31]

He came to see the Buddha. The actual historical Buddha, at least. That's the story. And he had a live sparrow in his hand. And he said, it must have been a pretty tiny sparrow. He was a very big Indian guy. Just very naturally, I'll just get this. He said, is this sparrow, he said to the Buddha in my hand, alive or dead? And the Buddha supposedly got up and went into a door and stood sideways in the door with one foot on one side and one foot on the other.

[36:47]

And he said, am I entering or leaving? Now, we could just take this as something like a... What's the scientist's name's cat in the box? Schrödinger. Schrödinger's cat. Is the cat alive or dead? Or we could look at it as, is it a particle or a wave when you measure it? And what the teaching here in Buddha Straddling the Gate is, Straddling the gate, straddling the doorway.

[38:03]

Okay. It's not that, well, it might be one or the other, but we don't know. The teaching is that there's something between one or the other. So then the sense is, are these electrons, when you measure them, waves or particles? For a Buddhist scientist, he might... not that I can do the mathematics of the experiments, might imagine that, well, it may actually exist in ways we can't measure. But when we measure it, it's in one of these two ways. For a Buddhist scientist it would be, although I can't do the experiments and I can't do the math for it, one would think that there are ways that we can't measure, but if we measure it, then it exists either in one form or in the other.

[39:19]

So it's not just a question of alternatives, it's a question of in-betweenness. And what is in-between then? What is in-between two points? Now how you'd work with such a thing in Zen practice, it's like you add to the inhale receiving, and you add to the exhale releasing. You enter into your, the, the, the, pace and process of meditation in the pace and process of noticing.

[40:39]

Now, when I say that, like when I say bring attention to your breath, that presumes you develop the attention that you can bring to the breath. So when I say bring attention to the pace and process of mentation, It means to bring attention more specifically to the world as appearances or as dharmas. Okay, excuse me. Meditation.

[41:43]

Is it the entirety of mentality or is it specifically meditation can also just be a formation of thoughts? I'm speaking about meditation as a formation of thoughts. But now I'm saying that in order to be effective has to be anchored in the metabolism and the breath body. It's meditation. but it's mentation rooted in the breath. So you can ask some kind of question like, what is in between two points? And you want the question to be specific and vague at the same time. Do I mean those two points, these two columns?

[42:43]

Or do I mean two points which are simultaneous? And it's not clear which of how many aspects of in-betweenness we should explore. But a question like this asked neuroanatomically engages with phenomena as parents. then werden die Phänomene, die Erscheinungen, die Phänomene dabei als Erscheinungen eingebunden.

[43:44]

Man lässt sich auf die Phänomene als Erscheinungen ein. And the connoticing which happens, which is my word for a noticing which is a knowing, und das wissende Bemerken, das dann stattfindet, connoticing, also ein Bemerken, das auch ein Wissen ist, So the connoting is, it gauges knowledge. And the activality, I can say actuality, but maybe activality is more accurate. I'm just causing a problem for the translator, you know. The activality or actuality of immediacy. Because the assumption is, if it's known, it's known in and through actuality.

[45:03]

So how do you become the probing tool which discovers the in-betweenness that goes beyond alternatives? Und dann ist die Frage, wie wirst du zu genau diesem Testsensor oder so, diesem Sensor, dass das entdeckt, was immer dazwischenliegt. Now, despite all this thinking, talking we've been doing, What I'd like you to come away with from just this conversation so far is this is a neuro... The best word I could use for it is a neuroanatomical practice. It actually changes you physically. Your brain works differently, your body works differently, your brain-body relationship is different, etc.

[46:28]

Dogen says the person who is practiced regularly is a different kind of human being than a person who doesn't. So you're entering into a transformative practice that you are the practice and the participant. And then practice becomes the courage to notice the changes. To notice and acknowledge the changes. And not make something of them in a comparative sense to who you used to be or other people.

[47:33]

But just to notice as part of the experiment which this practice is. How you're feeling, how you're doing, what's happening. And really It happens whether you notice it or not, but noticing it, the craft of noticing it, becomes part of its evolution and development. And koan practice, for instance, zen koan practice, is rooted in the experience that, an experiment of, that if you add a statement, phrase, syllable, to the bodily mind activity,

[48:50]

It has a kind of alchemical effect as changing lead into gold. Yeah, something like that. Now I say something like that because I don't want to be too definite. Because you can see in the word high, there's implicit in that word is indeterminacy. So it's not a yes, it's an indeterminate response.

[50:08]

And indeterminance is what you convey first and not the yes. One of the small nuisances of getting old, is that words like indeterminacy, I go through all my scientific words, which one is that one? It's all indeterminate and all indeterminacy. Sometimes I turn to her and I say, do you remember what my name is? It's not that bad yet, don't worry. Well, it's time for a break. I remember that.

[51:06]

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