If I keep going back to the feeling when I started practicing anything like we're doing here didn't exist in Europe or America. And really for me it's miraculous that we can you and I, we together, can sit here and speak about these things and speak about them with, you know, a lot of mutual understanding and to large degrees practice these things. Yeah. What this will mean in the long run, I'll let you find out.

[01:04]

What? What all this means in the long run, I'll let you guys find out. Okay, but I think we have a date in a cafe, don't we? You get postponed two or three times. Yeah, so I call this, maybe I should call it the cafe construction project. Of course it could be the Zendo or any place, but I'm calling it the Café Construction Project. And... And I'm calling it that because to really point out that this is anywhere.

[02:13]

It could be the Zendo, but it doesn't have to be a Zendo or a Sashin. So maybe you're schlepping down the street. And maybe by yourself. On the way to a cafe. And maybe you're footing and flooring a bit as you're going along. You're feeling your foot appear as you walk. And the sidewalk or whatever is coming up to support you. Okay, so you arrive at the cafe. And you find some kind of seat, a table, sort of maybe a little bit out of the way. And perhaps you order a coffee macchiato or a latte or a melange.

[03:21]

A cappuccino. Yeah, and then you... see the cafe as a construction. A construction done in the past. Now there's, you know, walls and floor and so forth. And I actually think it's useful in an exercise like this To really take some time and notice how this space is put together.

[04:22]

Who knows, you might be asked to design a café sometime and you're all prepared. So then you, second, you look at it as it's presently under construction. Yeah, how they've arranged the chairs. Yeah, and where they put paintings or whatever on the wall. So now you're making a point of noticing that the café was constructed, but now it's actually at that moment in the process of being constructed. It's being constructed just by you choosing a particular table and sitting at it.

[05:25]

And it's being constructed by the waitress or waiter finding a way to pass through the chairs and tables to get to you. So it's presently under construction. Okay, that's second. And then third, you notice that... you're constructing it. Because you've noticed some parts of it more than others. And you can take a look at what you've noticed and then look around to see what you haven't noticed. And that perhaps there's a

[06:36]

Person way over there you didn't see. Also constructing the cafe. Probably he's not as aware of it as you are, but he's also constructing it. There's a restaurant I've been going to in Freiburg for 30 years or something. Es gibt ein Restaurant in Freiburg, in das ich schon 30 Jahre lang hingehe. Somebody brought me to it when it was just opening years ago. Irgendjemand hat mich dort hingebracht, als es gerade eröffnet wurde. So a few times a year I have an Italian, usually Italian, mostly Italian food, Italian meal there. Und ein paar Mal im Jahr habe ich dort meistens italienisches Essen. And in 30 years, they haven't changed the paintings. So every time I come, I look around to see if maybe they've changed the painting.

[07:53]

And they're kind of boring paintings. But also my looking around to see if they've changed it is constructing the space. Yeah. So... Yeah. So I'm noticing that it was constructed, that it's presently being constructed. And that I'm constructing it. Now, this kind of simple exploration I'm doing here is exactly what is meant by the Buddhist practice of interdependence. Don't treat the world as entities. Treat the world always as entities. Being under construction.

[09:09]

And that you're part of the construction process. And maybe while you're doing that you can sort of notice the continuum of mind. Because there's the content of mind as you're looking at this and that. And there's, as you shift to notice something else, there's the pre-content mind. Now, conceptually, you can understand that. But to experience it takes a little bit of maturity and practice. To feel, before you notice something, the pre-content mind.

[10:12]

No, I call that to myself prior mind. The mind before content appears in it. Or the feel of the mind with content in it, but the simultaneous feel of it before content. And then you can really just investigate this, explore this, simply by going to a cafe and following the simple steps I'm suggesting. And if you do that every now and then, you'll find that yourself in a place where the mind is very vivid.

[11:37]

Now the vividness of mind, and I'm also speaking about the brightness and clarity of mind, is vivid because you're not making comparisons. Now you're making distinctions, but you're not making comparisons. Now this distinction between distinctions and comparisons, you have to kind of explore too. In the Doxan room there's one window that has an instruction in German, that I'm not supposed to open it. But I have opened it occasionally, and then you can't close it very easily. But, you know, actually... Because somebody took the trouble to write something and then I know I'm probably not supposed to do something.

[13:04]

But basically I just noticed that there's a window I'm not supposed to open. Now there's an implicit comparison to windows that usually do open. But I'm really not making a comparison. It's just a distinction. There's the window that I don't open. So, I don't know, you have to find some way you can notice distinctions without letting comparisons appear. Because as soon as you let ordinary comparisons appear, you're in the weaving of ordinary consciousness. And there's no samadhi. And there's no clarity and vividness.

[14:15]

And instead of feeling located in the field of mind you feel yourself located in the thoughts of mind and the thoughts of mind They spend all their time saying, karma, come here, come on. What makes me feel bad? Won't it appear? I could almost say that in German, right? Anyway, it's like that. So you notice when karma starts being called up, hey, what are you doing in this cafe? You should be out working or something. You just, there's distinctions being made. There's mental activity, but not comparative mental activity. And then, fourth, you can notice that the café is constructing you.

[15:39]

Und als viertes könnt ihr bemerken, dass das Café dich konstruiert. I mean, you chose this café, perhaps, because you've been there before and you kind of like it. Du hast das Café wahrscheinlich gewählt, weil du vorher schon einmal dort gewesen bist und du das irgendwie magst. And you kind of like it because in the past, when you've been there, it's constructed you in a way that you like it. So it wasn't only constructed in the past and constructed in the present. Also es wurde nicht nur in der Vergangenheit konstruiert und auch nicht nur in der Gegenwart. And constructed by your noticing it. Und konstruiert durch dein Bemerken. But it's also constructing you through how you notice it. Aber es konstruiert dich auch durch dein Bemerken. Another waitress comes over and says, what would you like? Excuse me, I'm constructing a cafe. I'm back when I'm finished.

[16:40]

I mean, she'll never forget that, you know, she'll think you're an interesting customer. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, let me introduce the idea, which I have spoken of occasionally in the past, of body points. And it's related to, you know, finding your, discovering mind in the hands and so forth. And it's part of the footing and flooring. What you're trying to do is you're trying to establish a bodily continuum of mind.

[17:42]

Or a body-mind continuum. Okay. So the points I use are my feet and the soles of my feet, my hands and the palms of my hand, and my spine, a lifting feeling in my spine, And my upper torso, particularly the shoulders in this area, whether it feels open or closed. And the mouth. The tongue, which is always tasting the world, whether you notice it or not.

[18:45]

Die Zunge, die immer die Welt schmeckt, ob du das bemerkst oder nicht. And sometimes, depending on your mood, your mouth will be dry or not, etc. Und manchmal, abhängig von deiner Stimmung, wird dein Mund trocken sein oder auch nicht. And I find the antenna of the cheekbones important. Und ich finde die Antenne der Wangenknochen wichtig. And then the top of the head. Oh, and also the neck. Das oberste des Kopfes und auch den Nacken. And the top of the head, the feeling you're breathing there. It's easier to remember all these things than to figure out how to operate a smartphone. It's easier to remember all these things than to figure out how to operate a smartphone. Yeah, and this will make you smarter. So you have a feeling of walking along carrying the top of your head. And you can almost feel a little flame there.

[20:04]

Yeah, I mean you read the menu, you turn your head so you get some light on the menu. It might burn the waitress. But you feel this, like there's something happening, the presence of the body, the body as presence is arising. When you're walking, you're walking within the field of the body. And so now on the fifth aspect of this cafe construction crew, is that the way you sit in the café is the way you sit in the café.

[21:21]

If you sit with your spine pretty straight, now you have to be careful. I had a student years ago who was blind. Well, she was nearly blind. And she would go to work. She worked as a secretary. How the heck she did it being blind, but she did it. She had a dog and all that stuff, but sometimes she just decided to take the bus without a stick and without a dog. And she found on the bus everybody treated her as blind. And she tried to figure out why. And she discovered it was because she walked very straight with her spine straight. As soon as she stooped a little, people treated her as sighted.

[22:35]

Because we all stoop a little bit to kind of put our tail between our legs so that we're in a shared space with others, not too demanding. Wir alle gehen etwas gekrümmt, so wie mit dem Schwanz eingeklemmt zwischen den Beinen, damit alle wissen, dass wir dazubehören zu dem geteilten Raum. If your back is too straight, people think he's a king. Und wenn dein Rücken zu gerade ist, dann denken die Leute, oh, er ist ein König. A monk or a blind monk king. Ein blinder Mönchskönig. So you have to be careful how you shape the space in the cafe with your spine. And you definitely do shape the space.

[23:36]

So you notice the various body points I've mentioned. And perhaps how you practice the six parameters of meeting the waitress. Because she will then carry your feeling in the cafe. So this is the cafe construction project. And you can really just try this out. And go as far as you can along it, you know, until you get bored, and then read a newspaper or something. But if you try it out, you may suddenly find yourself in a completely new world.

[24:53]

in which you're in the world in a different way. You reconstructed the world and reconstructed yourself somehow. In the koan 81 of the Shui Roku, Zen Master Chö says that Samantabhadra is the Bodhisattva who enters without taking a step. and this entering without taking a step is like returning to the one who doesn't move or finding yourself in the cafe suddenly transformed through you and the cafe being reconstructed

[26:19]

You've entered a practice realm, a bodhisattva realm, without taking a step. And you have established a sense of a mental continuum. in which you can feel the flow or fluctuation from content and no content and vividness and clarity The Clarity Café. Thank you very much.

[27:19]

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