Thank you for being here in this winter branches program. And we'll see if we can get some buds to grow on these branches. Or we'll see if, when spring comes in your life, You know, even at my age spring may come whether the branches blossom. I always remember Harry Roberts was this white man who grew up with the Indians because his father was a trader and he just left them there with the in the northwest of America.

[01:03]

And he was struck by the fact that the Native Americans who got into Indian practices Well, you can say religion, but the idea of these practices where religion was created out of politics. Out of politics. Yeah, because the Indians were being, you know, badly mistreated, for sure, by the American government and society. And then some smart Native Americans said, but these white people, they have religious freedom.

[02:15]

Maybe we'll call our practices religion, then we'll demand freedom. And then this very clever Indian said that if we call what we do religions, then we would at least have a little freedom. Was that clear, what I said? I hope so, yeah. It's not originally a religion, but... Well, they didn't think of it as a religion. No. But we have a legal category called religion. Yeah, and so when they called it religion... Then they had some power. Outwardly, they had more freedom. Yeah, then they could go to court and say, hey, we've got religious freedom. This is a religion. It is. They made use of the idea, yeah. Well, you know, Buddhism may be somewhat like that. The Abhidharma is the least religious. Yes, it's not really a religion at all, of all aspects of Buddhism. It's best defined as a kind of mental or mind-body science. Anyway, when these young college-educated Native Americans got interested in their own religion or practices, they studied, you know, in anthropological literature and so forth, they studied

[03:46]

their Indian culture and practices. But they studied it in the ways that interested them. And that interested anthropologists. And as Herr Dr. Konze said once, I like Herr Dr. Konze. I knew him quite well and I like his name. Yeah. And... Here Dr. Kunze said, a healthy culture gets rid of anthropologists the way a dog does fleas. Meaning you can only study cultures which are dying or falling apart. A healthy culture, there's no entry into it. So these young Indians were studying a particular aspect of their own culture.

[05:10]

What was their culture? And Harry Roberts would have said, using this metaphor, that for most of them, spring never came. What this means is that what he meant was is that when you pick a young man, sometimes a young woman, to receive the medicine teachings, And you pick them on the basis of certain physical characteristics, vitality and alertness. And then you teach them everything, whether they want to know or not.

[06:17]

And then, as the way Marie-Louise is trying to teach Sophia the violin. She doesn't always want to practice. Well, we tell her she can quit, but she says, no, no, I don't want to quit. But sometimes, naturally, she doesn't want to practice. But Harry's point was that if you learn it all, when spring comes or when a crisis comes in your life or conditions come in your life, may all come together. So I used to give, I think, maybe spring-like lectures, and maybe I'm going to give lectures now like a winter wind.

[07:18]

Snow will pile up on your shoulders. A few weeks ago we had snow covering these windows. I should have been here then. But actually, I'm not really capable of being too wintery, so don't worry. But the point is, you know, once you have the feeling for this and you're committed to it, you try to get the whole picture of what it's about. We may come into practice through The parts that interest us.

[08:34]

But if you want to continue the practice, you begin to look at what the whole picture of this is. And traditionally, the Abhidharma was only taught to the elder. practitioners, elder monks. And it was only taught usually to those who had a commitment to make this the whole of their life. At least at the center of their life. And it can be at the center of your life as a layperson, I believe. And maybe it's particularly suited as a practice to be at the center also of a lay person's life.

[09:42]

Now, if you've been reading something about the Abhidharma, you know most of what I might say in an introductory way. But we should still have some introduction. So if you start to practice, if you practice Buddhism, or if you practice, let's say, meditation, whether you like it or not, you're entering into the mind. You're entering into, maybe better to say, the body as well.

[10:45]

Yeah, because you begin to see the interrelationship of mind and body. And then inevitably, I think, if you're sincere, your practice is consequential. And you're drawn into, what is this? interrelationship between mind and body. As soon as you're in that position or that wondering or that questioning or even that awe An awe at a kind of, like feeling you're in front of an altar, which is your own mind and body.

[12:00]

Or maybe not your own, but mind and body. You know, this all started, as you probably know, somewhere between the 5th century before our common era, in the beginning, before Christ, so-called. And all this, you know, began around the 5th century B.C. And up until the 5th century, about after Christ, or so-called our common era. That was a relatively long time ago. you know, amazingly sophisticated and, yeah, we still can learn from it.

[13:14]

And sophisticated why, how? Because it came out of four or five hundred years or so of meditation along the path that the Buddha started. And some think it came out partly was influenced anyway by the mnemonic devices, memory devices, mnemonic devices for remembering teaching orally. And it seems the key terms they used to remember how to recite a sutra seem to coincide with some of the lists within the Abhidharma.

[14:33]

But the general motivation was to take away the literary embellishments or the and the narrative scene of the sutras. And reduce or bring out from the sutras the essential... philosophical and practice aspects. So it was taught to those who were embedded enough in the teaching that they didn't need the kind of literary aspects and the kind of narrative story of the sutras.

[15:55]

And they wanted to learn these key elements much in the way that you might learn them to orally present a teaching, a sutra. Because the mnemonic devices that help you remember what to say next Aren't so different than what helps us notice our own mind. And what's interesting is, you know, that's pretty long time ago and so people don't really know what happened. But it seems that a number of independent schools of Abhidharma schools developed.

[17:14]

At least seven developed. Because when a Chinese pilgrim went there, he came back with seven schools of the Abhidharma he learned in India. When a Chinese pilgrim went there, he came back from India and reported about the seven schools of Abhidhamma. But only two survived today. Savastivadins and Theravadins. Well, if really seven or more independent schools develop, seemingly not influencing each other particularly, this must be very basic to Buddhism. And its development parallels the development of the Sangha. And the development of monastic centers.

[18:43]

Because the monastic centers and the developed Sangha had the resources together to study and develop this teaching. So while its seeds may be in the teachings of the historical Buddha, its development and articulation is dependent on It arises through the sangha trying to help each other. So again, if you practice and you start to meditate, you find yourself entering into the body and the mind. What is the mind?

[19:58]

What is sleeping mind? What is consciousness, etc.? And we have, you know, Bodhidharma defines mind as that knowing where language doesn't reach. So if you notice knowing beyond language, he says now you're seeing mind. Knowing. No, that may be useful to you in practice. Sure. Notice mind articulated and also tangled up in language.

[21:03]

And to notice mind, knowing that goes beyond language. My own experience is that I probably noticed things like that when I was younger and before I started to practice. I certainly noticed experiences that no one told me existed. They weren't in the school system and so forth. But I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't know how to return to them. Etc., etc. But this statement of Bodhidharma would have given me some feeling about Mind in a wider sense, just if I'd heard that.

[22:23]

And we can say Bodhidharma's statement is basically an Abhidharmic impulse. And Abhidharma usually is translated to mean something like... the higher Dharma as doctrine, the higher Dharma, higher teaching. So we can say that Bodhidharma, mythological or somewhat historically real, or whoever ascribed this to the figure of Bodhidharma, had what's called an abhidharmic impulse.

[23:24]

But really, I would say that if the Abhidharma school did not precede Bodhidharma, he or whoever ascribed that to him could not have ascribed that to him. In other words, Bodhidharma comes after the development of the Abhidharma. So this which we can take as a fairly simple statement probably depends on the whole development of the Abhidharma. To point to something that's mind and not consciousness and not language It's a very sophisticated thing to do. And particularly to be able to do it in a context which assumes enlightenment, realization and practice.

[24:54]

Now, I mean, you know, we drive a car. Most of us do. I always admire those eccentric people who don't drive. I think it's a wonderful sense of renunciation or incompetence. I've had two, one poet friend and one painter friend, both who just refused to drive. I had to drive them. This was fun. Sometimes right through red lights trying to talk with them. But let's say we drive a car. Most of us, we know the interface between the engine and us. This is kind of a clumsy metaphor, but I'll continue.

[26:03]

We know the interface of the steering wheel, the dashboard, nowadays the inboard computer. Yeah, but if the car breaks down... And you don't know anything about the engine, you may be in some trouble, of course. So the Abhidharma assumes that we may break down. It assumes that consciousness... as a kind of interface with mind and body. That's already an Abhidharma insight to call consciousness an interface.

[27:08]

But the interface doesn't help you fix the engine. And sometimes, as I said, consciousness defeats itself. Consciousness doesn't describe the world as it actually is. Now, often I've defined consciousness for you. Yeah, it's the job of consciousness to make the world predictable. And cognizable in a way that you can function in it. And chronological. sequential and coherent in a narrative sense.

[28:34]

That's my analysis of consciousness. speak about consciousness as if it were a fluid. I saw on the cover of Scientific American the other day that an old issue would pile up around me. That when you try to actually calculate time and space as one kind of event, It behaves like a fluid. I don't think. But it's, for me... Various modes of mind do metaphorically behave like fluids.

[29:43]

Yeah, and language, self, float in consciousness. But dreams sink in consciousness. Well, this is basically Abhidharma thinking, analyzing consciousness in this way. And my doing it is rooted in my study of the Abhidharma. But is it dependent on the Abhidharma? Well, it's dependent on the basic concept, the basic idea, and the... Awareness that you can analyze mind and body.

[30:50]

But I, we, may be starting an eighth school of the Abhidharma. Because what you should do if we're studying together in this lineage and in my lineage and Sukhiroshi's lineage is our now lineage analysis and practice and experience of consciousness. Similar to? Or the same as? Or very different from the analysis of consciousness in the Abhidharma? Yeah, and maybe if we study the Abhidharma together, we'll open up this analysis of consciousness.

[32:05]

But I found I cannot teach Buddhism in the West without an analysis of Western consciousness. And an understanding how Buddhism as a mindology is different conceptually from a psychology. And I'm convinced if you don't understand these differences, you won't effectively apply Western therapy and Buddhist therapy in some sort of combination in your own work, say, as a therapist. We can also think of this metaphorically something like maybe the computer interface. And the software behind the computer interface.

[33:25]

And again, when you see the interface is somewhat limited, as every culture has a limited interface. How do you change the software? Well, you have to notice it. You have to have very specific terms. And it's not so important if the terms are exactly right or not. Because you're describing a cloud or a fluid. But they should let you notice. They should be a means to notice. So for several years I went over and over again, developing a way to talk about and practice the five skandhas.

[34:41]

And I think for many of you, the five skandhas have been useful. So we point out something that's submerged in consciousness. Also, deuten wir auf etwas hin, was sozusagen in das Bewusstsein eingewunden ist. Yeah, and so the basic technique of the Abhidharma is to use meditation and mindfulness to slow down the processes. Even athletes or violinists slow down the process before they speed it up.

[35:43]

So we slow down the skandhas, the formation of consciousness, and we see merged In consciousness are actually other rather different kinds of consciousness, the kinds of knowing. Which are hidden in the bright light, so to speak, in clarity of consciousness. And hidden in the functionality of consciousness. And yet they're actually more subtle in many ways. wider than ordinary consciousness.

[37:05]

Now the five skandhas actually precedes the Abhidharma. The five skandhas. The teaching precedes. The skandhas and the dhatus, the 18 dhatus, they're earlier than the development of the abhidhamas. But I feel it's the same impetus and the development of the skandhas and the power of the skandhas leads into the Abhidharma. And Dan Welch, you know, was the assistant abbot at Crestone. Who's going to be here with Christian Dillow for our 10-year anniversary. And he's going to try to make in a wood-burning oven a million pizzas.

[38:24]

I'm not a million. A wood-burning oven? Yeah, we're going to have a wood-burning oven, probably burn the building down, but I hope not. Well, that's too many. But we served 70 the other day, and he had to make 30 pizzas to serve 70. And he got them all out. Right at all at the same time. What did he do? He got 30 pizzas out for 70 people all at the same time. Yay! Okay, so if we have 200 people, is that 90 pizzas? I don't know. Some of us just want to go home that weekend. But you have to come help. I could point. I will stop.

[39:26]

Okay. But Dan says, you know, he studied in Japan for years from about 18 or 19 on. And then with Suki Roshi and then with me for years in California. And it's the development of the way we speak about the five skandhas in recent years that he says has really transformed and opened up his practice. And sometimes I say, let's go on to some other teachings. He says, I haven't come to the end of the five skandhas yet, so don't bother me. I say, okay. So I have actually been teaching you as much as possible, or my teshos have been implemented by basically Abhidharma thinking and insights.

[40:36]

So let's continue. Thank you very much.

[40:39]

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