Maybe I should speak about more about the structures of consciousness and how the awareness, the repeated awareness, knowing that we are conscious of consciousness, that we can rest in a consciousness of consciousness. And that, as I said, is perhaps certainly in the larger sense, in an infant, the beginning of Buddhism or the beginning of the wisdom

[01:02]

range of teachings which includes Buddhism. And how through consciousness we can again see the limitations of consciousness and see the possibility of transforming consciousness, actually changing the structures of consciousness and Then we could speak about things like, you know, it's good to ask yourself questions that confound you a bit, like, what's the difference between being the consciousness of consciousness and concentration? It's quite different. I think you can feel, know that it's different, but if we try to explain why concentration is different than consciousness of consciousness. Yeah, it's perhaps difficult and fruitful. But actually I think, I don't know what I'll do tomorrow, but actually I think right now I'd like to speak in some ways about what kind of world we live in, what kind of world we want to live in, because that's really what Sangha is about, making a decision about what kind of world we live in.

[02:24]

What kind of world do you personally live in? And what kind of world do you want to live in with others? Because that's the root of Sangha and the courage or confidence of Sangha. The Sangha, we could say, is those who make the decision, who feel the responsibility to know what kind of world we live in and to know what kind of world we want to live in and to do everything possible to make that possible. I think so, and it takes a long time. You can know that, you can hear that, you can hear it, but it takes a long time to get that into your guts and see perhaps that there's no other alternative to a life which has the possibility of realization And such a decision is what I've just described as a way to speak about the Bodhisattva Baha and the juice of bodhicitta.

[03:40]

But you can't just kind of inject yourself with this juice. You've got to actually feel in yourself a responsibility for what kind of world we live in. And a recognition that we have a choice and the world itself is changeable. You know, I think my sense is, not that I really know much about it, but that we're from a genetic tribe that actually wiped off the planet other humanoid types that weren't quite so aggressive as us. And so we're the We've survived through aggression. And we've eliminated perhaps gentler genetic tribes. Yeah, it doesn't make me feel good to believe that, but you know. But you know, are we, if that's the case, are we, is that our fate?

[04:50]

I don't know. And I'm also speaking now about September 11th. And as you know, or most of you know, and it's not very interesting actually to know it, but Mark and Rika and Marie-Louise and I were all there in July in the Marriott Hotel at the World Trade Center, the small, pretty big building, but small compared to these two towers, right in between the two towers where we had breakfast and et cetera. You could touch the two. They were big things, I tell you. probably the two buildings were equivalent to probably more than all the skyscrapers in downtown Frankfurt. So it's like the center of Frankfurt was wiped out. And then there was this Buddhist conference there, and so they were there and staying there. Yeah, and... I think we could say, oh, this event has made us tactfully aware that the world is a sangha.

[06:06]

If it's not a sangha, it's not going to survive. What do I mean by a sangha? What do I mean by a bodhisattva? A bodhisattva is one, I would define a bodhisattva as one who insists on being enlightened with others. who's only willing to be enlightened with others, who only, who knows that it's not possible to be actually enlightened without being enlightened with and through others. And the Sanghas, those who know that and try to act together to mix their life streams or to recognize that there's no way in which our life streams can be entirely separate from others' life streams, You know, we could say that's what's happening. We have a violent mix of life streams.

[07:07]

But if we see everyone, that's one vision and view and understanding of Sangha. Sangha is each person and all persons. And if so, does that mean, what do we do? Does that mean you yourself are not? Well, I don't know. It's a being from this genetic tribe, we do defend ourselves. And if someone comes up, you know, I do everything possible not to, you know, I mean, every way, and have chosen to be a pacifist in terms of the relationship with the U.S. government and so forth, when they tried to draft me. But, you know, if someone tries to attack any of you, I'm certainly going to defend you. You can be sure of that. If that's what's necessary. There isn't an alternative. Or if someone says to me, I'm going to do such and such to Sophia because of who her grandfather was or because she's half American or I don't know what, you know, I'm going to defend her.

[08:24]

I have no question about that. so is this event in I mean we can look at the causation you know America's own malevolence in the world we can look at to England and Germany's role in creating Israel you know they didn't partition Scotland Say, okay, all you Scots, you move because somebody else is going to live here. You have a heck of a lot of angry Scots right now. Or if we kind of cleared out Bavaria. Not a lot of angry Bavarians. So you can understand. We can understand the Arabs, the Palestinians' feelings, but...

[09:25]

But still, is this act in New York and Washington proportionate? Or can we deal with it as simply the result of our own... Is there proportionate causation and disproportionate causation? Or some act that's out of proportion? You know, I'm bringing this up to say I think This is now part of our world. I think it's the, I don't, you know, all the newspapers say so too, but I think it does define our world in a way none of us expected. But though when I saw it, I watched it on television, you know, because a woman, a friend of ours from Paris called us up crying on the phone and said, turn on the television, turn on the television. So we turned on and saw this one tower smoking

[10:26]

I have a friend in New York who watched it too on television. He was right next to it, but he also saw it on television. And we watched the second plane hit. When I saw it, I knew... I've expected something like this. I've expected something like this for a long time, because I understood since I was pretty young. how easy it is to do this. And it's easy to do. People are capable of doing things like this. So in some ways it didn't surprise me. But at the same time, when that building, which I was just so recently in, collapsed, I was as open-mouthed as you can be to see that happen. I mean, that's a huge... I don't know if you've all been there. I've eaten in the restaurant on top of it a number of times. And then the second one.

[11:32]

So on the whole, I think we're behaving with more moderation than I expected. I'm glad that the fourth plane did not hit the White House or Capitol. I think we'd be in a much worse situation if that had happened. So, so far, people are rethinking it. I think, actually, probably calling it a war was a smart move. Because if we call it a war, it means, oh, we can think of it in terms of the Second World War or something, five years, six years, or longer, instead of trying to... So that allows some patience or moderation of some sort, I think. But I don't know, our Anyway, I feel it could be worse.

[12:38]

That's my feeling. So... And I think, you know, it's... You know, I'd just like to say I think it could be, it might become much worse. Anyway, so what am I talking about? Well, this does, I think, define us, this generation. And bodhisattva, in contrast to a Buddha, a bodhisattva is also about defining yourself through your generation, through your own era. A bodhisattva has no meaning as a practice if it's not a practice within your own era, within your own historical period. Now, what's the roots of compassion, bodhisattva life, of sangha?

[13:45]

I think I agreed the seminar at the end of January in Boulder to try to together talk about compassion. Isn't that what I agreed? Well, what's the roots of compassion? Well, one is the classic root of compassion is the experience of mother's love. Now, nowadays people, so many people don't have a very good opinion of their mother or their experience with their mother. But in any case, what we can imagine mother's love to be. But the meaning of that is some, it can't be just an idea. You have to reach into yourself for some experience like mother's love or something where you felt some kind of pure, committed, accepting love. If you don't have that kind of root, it's difficult. Another root of compassion, of the Bodhisattva practice, the Sangha, is the search for what's good in

[14:59]

In the old western sense of the good. The search for the good. What's good in human beings? What's good in our life? What's the good? And so I think real practice presumes that you yourself are making that search. That you're open enough committed enough, free enough from your own psychological meanderings. Sometimes Zazen does that. You start seeing Zazen, it's like the waters of karma receded. So you can begin to see clearly and say, okay, what is the good? And I think what this... September 11th event also says we have to rethink our world.

[16:05]

And unless we're willing to rethink our world, we can't expect our leaders, whoever they are, to rethink the world. And if we can rethink the world, maybe they can rethink the world. But if we can't rethink the world, they can't rethink the world. I think it's incumbent upon us not to say, oh, what are they going to do and criticize them or something, you know, or they ought to do. Our job is to each of us, I think, to rethink the world. What kind of world do we live in and what kind of world are we committed to seeing? Of course, the bodhisattva is also one who accepts the consequences of insight, who accepts the consequences of wisdom and is willing to change one's life, or transform one's life, or work within life, through the consequences of wisdom and insight and realization.

[17:11]

So, you know, we have this khan, twenty, of the Shoyaroka, which I've talked about, oh, now and then, and sometimes extensively. over some years now, because I think it's central to our lineage and central to the practice, shall we say, the practice of Sangha. And what is it? You know, the colon is a simple one. Di Jiang and Fa Yan. Where are you going? I'm going on pilgrimage. Where are you going? I don't know. Not knowing is nearest. So it gives us this phrase, not knowing is nearest.

[18:21]

Di Jiang says, not knowing is nearest. says, I don't know where I'm going. You know, that's a funny turn, you know. He doesn't know where he's going, but he says, not knowing his nearest. Well, what's the pilgrimage? The pilgrimage is the search for Sangha, the search for ultimate friendship, the search for the good. You don't go on a pilgrimage just, you know, to find a better job, you know. Pilgrimage is the search for the good. The search for other people who are searching for the good. So somehow the koan comes to, yes, this search. Not knowing is nearest, so Yeah, let's just apply that practically to rethink our world right now.

[19:36]

Well, if you rethink in the present categories of the world, you end up with the world we got, which is clearly on a big scale not working. So we may be rethinking our world within the feeling of not knowing. Aristotle says all human beings want to know. That's the root of human life and society, Aristotle says something like that. So here we have Buddhism, not knowing is nearest. But still it assumes the impulse to know, to be conscious of, to be aware. Buddhism says also that awareness is most

[20:45]

developed, articulated, matured through mixing one's knowing with others' knowing, through generations and in our own generation. This is certainly my understanding and experience. That's why I'm sitting here with you, practicing with you. Now I like, you know, there's a very funny There's a very humorous, if you know the koan, there's a very humorous part of it is. It says, a face as big as a slat. You know, a slat, a flat piece of wood. And it says, the five senses designate five territories. And that's an interesting remark. Now, I don't really... gone into that so often I don't know if I want to go into it again but I do like the little funny poem poem I mean little anecdote or whatever you call it story where the mouth says you know it's like a cartoon the mouth says my responsibility is eating and speaking it's very proud of itself the mouth and what are you doing above me knows

[22:08]

And the nose says, among the five mountains, the central one is the most honored. I can at least talk about that. And so the nose says, and what are you doing above me, eyes? And the eye says, we are the sun and the moon. We reflect and illuminate. But what are you doing above us, eyebrows? And the eyebrows say, ha, ha, ha. Think how funny it would look if we were underneath you. So then the koan says, in the eyes it's called seeing, in the ears it's called hearing, What is it called in the eyebrows?

[23:11]

Yeah. Not knowing is nearest. What is it called in the eyebrows? So here's a definition of Sangha as those who know the world is not contained in the seemingly seamless senses. These five senses, and six if we include mind, each describe a partition of the world that our brain puts together seamless, but in actual fact is only five territories. And a lot's going on outside the territories. Just to give a simple example of today, think of how many handy cell phone calls and television channels there are right here in this room. that's outside the territories of our senses. There's a lot of other things going on. We don't know what's going on. So part of the mystery or incomprehensibility of this is the Sangha is also those on a pilgrimage knowing the world is not fully within the senses.

[24:30]

And we've also been speaking about language and this kind of special use of language. And when I came out to come over here, I said hello to Mark. And Mark said, just now is enough. Playfully. I was... So I said, the formal affair is about to begin. Anyway, so we could play around like that if we want to, to get in the habit of recognizing that language binds. A word has no meaning except in the context of other words. A word is bound to other words and language itself binds us into a way of seeing. The Sangha is, the Sangha is those who know the world is also not contained in the binding, in the bounds and boundaries of and binding of language.

[25:43]

What means the Sangha? is those who know to meet people within language and also outside the bounds of language. That's a kind of skill you have to... A lot of Zen is about how to know, be together outside the bounds of ordinary knowing and language and the senses. So there we have a kind of interesting through Zen practice, through this kind of teaching, we have a kind of interesting sense of what the Sangha is. Now, yes, we can say a Sangha is all people. Each person you meet, every person. But the Sangha is also not just each person. The Sangha is also a practice of knowing one's life stream not entirely separate from each other person's life stream.

[26:53]

And how does one know that? How is Sangha a practice that's present with each person? And of course that's most specifically the practice of the four Brahma-viharas and the six parmitas. But leaving those practices aside and speaking about the recognition... In a sense, the Sangha are those who, again, recognize the world is not limited to the senses, and the world is not within the bounds only of culture and language.

[27:56]

In fact, the Sangha traditionally was a political institution outside, somewhat outside, the political definitions of a nation. Because it recognized it's rooted in realization and enlightenment. And so it's a little different culture, a little different world. And we get a feeling for it. Also, there's this kyōgai, this sense of place, the privacy of place. Again, Momon Roshi, only a sparrow can know the kyōgai of a sparrow. So as we talked, Dan and I spoke, I remember driving up in the car to the Boulder Seminary where I spoke about each of us is his or her own time. and each of us is in a ripening time. So I would say also that Sangha is one who recognizes that each person is not in clock time, that's relative, the relative world, but the absolute time of their own time.

[29:10]

There's a little poem. Sitting by the window, you know it's Zen poem, sitting by the window, I don't remember all of it, but leaf after leaf falls. It's autumn. Each in its own time. Even autumn leaves, each fall in their own time. So again, to give you, you know, you've been through this before, but to remind you, I think the easiest way to get a feeling of this is to recognize, like, Sophia's in her own time. She's not in the clock time of us. And you as a child were in a different time and it was a different time. It's not just an illusion. But right now each of us is in our own time and we're all ripening. Now what's that mean to the Sangha or to the Bodhisattva?

[30:18]

It means that each of us is in our own ripening point or actualizing point. And knowing that and feeling that and have the patience to be present for each person's own time. Which is not only within relative clock time. It's also the practice of knowing the world as Sangha. Let's put it that way. The practice of knowing the world as Sangha. And also that's, you know, I can say we can understand the ten directions that way. A simple compass direction, you know, like out there is north and out there is east. But rather, you know, we say ten are the eight, you know, north, northeast, east, southeast, etc. The eight directions, but they're coming toward you. or not out there, coming toward you.

[31:19]

And the feeling, this kind of yogic vision, is everything is coming toward us. This is kind of the world as interdependent and interpenetrated. So each moment is being defined by all other moments. And that feeling is each direction comes toward us, and then there's the tenor, the up and down. But the up is pouring into us, and the down is pouring through us. So that is a kind of visualization, like a deity visualization in Tantric, Shingon, Buddhism. That's not unrelated to Kyogre. Place as consciousness is not unrelated to each of us, is our own time. So we try to make a place here which has its own privacy in the sense that I can't fully know your own time or your own consciousness place.

[32:35]

but I can recognize you more fully knowing that and being present for that. So the practice of the Sangha is to be present for it. Don't just think everyone's in your time. That's something aggressive. The practice of being present to each person, waiting, the patience for each person in their own time, Each person in their own place defined through the everything all at once coming interpenetrating, interdependently defining each separate person, thing, object. So the practice of the Sangha in this sense of the pilgrimage of your own search for what is good might turn out not to be Buddhism for you.

[33:45]

I don't think you want to search only in terms of Buddhism. You want to search for what you yourself think is the good for you, for others, for yourself together with others. And then see if Buddhism helps. Does Buddhism help? There's a recognition of what kind of person you want to be on the planet. You're understanding that you have to be that person. Does that help in your search for the good? But this is such a vast search, such a search in the small spaces that with what we started this session with, the aura of each particularity, that we can say it's not knowing is nearest.

[34:52]

If you know it somehow, it's already dead. So not knowing is nearest assumes a movement and search. What kind of world do you want to live in? What kind of world do you want all of us to live in? May our attention equally penetrate every being and place.

[35:33]

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