Let me give you a simple example of a difference between a processive culture and a descriptive culture, a prescriptive culture and maybe a descriptive culture. One of the first things you're taught in sitting practice is that when you first sit down, you can walk back and forth and to right and left and then settle your posture. And I think it's quite natural. Most of us, and I did for years, take it as a description. In other words, that's what I saw.

[01:08]

I'd sit down, I'd rack it forth, etc. But it's not a description, it's a prescription for finding your posture. So the description is code, I think the best word is code, a code for finding the process in which you find your posture. Und diese Beschreibung ist insofern so was wie ein Code dafür, dass du den Prozess entdeckst, der es dir ermöglicht, deine Haltung zu finden. So it includes leading forward or leading backwards or twisting your head or stretching your arms.

[02:11]

It's just code for do something physical to locate your posture. So I use that as a simple example that all of these teachings are codes for entering into the process the deployment, the operation of the teaching. It's like all the teachings are, okay, it's starting a race. You get down, you put your knee down, you get ready, get set, go! And then you do the teaching. So often for us, we just follow the description and don't follow the assumed prescription.

[03:25]

And what we often do is that we only follow the description and not the instruction or the... How can I do this the best? Not the process that implies the instruction. I guess this is called, this weather is called old lady's summer, something like that. I just learned that, yes. She's German, and I taught her. I mean, with a little help. In America, we call it Indian summer. Because maybe only the Indians enjoy it. I don't know. But I call it old man summer. Yeah. You know, we never know what's going to happen, of course, and I just found out this morning that Sophia, who loves horses... We never know what will happen next.

[05:02]

And I just realized this morning that Sophia loves horses. Because it crests down in places. She's lived around horses. She's developed a real love of the animal. And she's pretty skillful at riding. And I guess, I don't know what happened exactly, but I got a medical report this morning. And she was on the ground picking up something or something, and the horse reared. And the hoof went and hit her arm and hit her face. And she was taken to the hospital. But her face is okay and her arm isn't broken. But these are close calls. When a horse hits you in the face, it can be the end.

[06:02]

And I don't know exactly what happened, but I just got the medical report this morning that she somehow had something on her calf and then a horse with the hind legs hit her on the arm, on the wrist and in the face and she was taken to the hospital. Yeah, when she was little, about, I don't know, six or so, she was riding and a horse threw her and she ended up under the horse with a horse dancing around her. and didn't step on her, but nearly. And when she got up, she said, put me back on the horse. I thought that was great. Als sie sechs Jahre alt war, ich weiß nicht genau wie alt, da ist sie mal geritten und es wurde vom Pferd runtergeworfen und ist dabei unter dem Pferd gelandet und das Pferd ist neben ihr so wie herumgetanzt und hat sie aber zum Glück nicht getroffen.

[07:18]

I remember everyone was scared because it looked like the horse was going to step on it, but somehow it didn't. But she likes horses so much, she's partly trying to choose a college which would be near horses. She likes physics and horses. I was a little afraid after last day's show that you might not let me back in the Zendo because it was not very understandable. So I asked Nicole, is anybody there? Are they going to let me in? She said, well, they've all left, but... The door's open. The door's open. So let's try to imagine... Did you know nothing about Buddhism?

[08:50]

You have no guidance from the teachers, etc. From the teachings. You don't have any idea why, Heidegger says, you've been thrown into the world, why you exist, how you exist. And often the stories don't make sense to you. The stories that give meaning to what we do. But I am I think almost everyone has some psychological or paranormal or non-normative experience that leads them into practice.

[09:52]

That seems to have been the case with Yuval Harari, who recognized when he was 12 or 13 or 15 or 16 or something that he was gay. And he was very funny. He said, I saw this a while ago, he said, artificial intelligence could have told me that earlier than I knew it. And an interviewer said, how could that be? Harari said, well, all one had to do was track my eye movements when I was at the beach.

[11:09]

Then the interviewer asked, how should the artificial intelligence know that? And then Harari said, the only thing she would have to do is to follow my eye movements when I was at the beach. And he said, when I knew I was gay, I knew the stories were wrong. The stories that religion is telling you. That's trusting your own experience. And that kind of radical trust of your own experience is necessary for practice. Is Max here? No, he's sick.

[12:12]

He's sick, oh. Because I know somebody in Austria who decided to, in effect, be a Buddhist when her dog died. And the Catholic priest said, she said, will my dog go to heaven? He said, dogs don't go to heaven. She said, I'm through with religion. Dogs can't go to heaven. If dogs don't go to heaven, this is not my story. So really Buddhism is asking us to, if we can, Just trust what?

[13:14]

Let's pretend we're not Buddhists. So you notice, here we are, there's something happening, there's some experience happening. But the stories you've been told don't fit. Aber die Geschichten, die dir bisher erzählt wurden, die passen nicht. And at some point you recognize the meaning or the story is added to the experience. Experience is first. Und irgendwann bemerkst du, dass die Geschichten der Erfahrung einfach hinzugefügt werden und dass die Erfahrung aber davor kommt. So, you know, again, you don't know anything about Buddhism, but you've decided, well, I don't know what this aliveness is or... why or anything, but I do know there's something happening, which I can call, let's use the word, experience.

[14:16]

And you start noticing your experience. And... And if you live in Crestone and you hear something in the bushes, it might be a fox and it might be a bear. So you develop, particularly if you're going out for a walk in Crestone in the mountains, you are observant. Because these are real things that happen, bears and mountain lions and so forth. And I don't know if any of you have seen the Le Carre film version of The Little Drummer Girl.

[15:26]

It's quite a good movie. I saw it many, many years ago. But the bad guy in it is near the end of the movie is sleeping. But the good guys have decided to arrest him. And the good ones, they have decided to arrest him. And because they assume that there might be a shooting, they have blocked the roads so that no cars can pass if there is a danger. And she's in bed with a little drummer girl who is part of the people who are trying to arrest him.

[16:33]

And he suddenly sits up in bed. Why are there no cars? I don't hear any cars. And he suddenly realizes that he's trapped. And Gary Snyder, who is the poet, and his academic study was anthropology. He thinks that maybe Zazen was discovered by hunters. Because you have to wait silently for the prey, the animal, to appear. Of course, he doesn't know, but he's just guessing.

[17:50]

He's a long-time Buddhist practitioner, the hero of the book, The Dharma Bombs. So he's just imagining that a hunter may at some point realize that waiting for the animal becomes in itself is a powerful experience. And we could say that maybe Zazen practice is waiting for the animal that will never come. You start waiting for waiting itself. Or you're waiting for stillness. One of the distinctions between Rinzai and Soto is in Rinzai you're waiting for enlightenment.

[18:51]

And in Soto you're just waiting for stillness. And how you make a practice work when you're just waiting for nothing or stillness is different than we can give some kind of story or goal. That is what we can call it. In Rinzai, you're waiting for a goal or a story.

[19:56]

In Soto, there's more emphasis on not waiting for it. There's no story that explains your waiting. So that seemingly slight difference makes the... pedagogy or the instrument, the dynamics of the practice somewhat different. Yeah. And that's also the difference I tried to point out the other day between Mahayana and early Buddhism.

[21:02]

The subtle distinction between Mahayana and earlier Buddhism is that earlier Buddhism is built around the story of the Buddhist life and achieving enlightenment. So the Mahayana say, well, yes, but when you actually observe, you're observing. When there's a story, you're observing is less subtle. So, Mahayana and Zen, in particular, our lineage, how do you develop practice without the motivation of a story? So let's go back.

[22:12]

You've decided stories don't work for you. Every story you've examined, there's no real evidence for it. The only evidence for it is that everyone you know believes it. And people you... People you... Love believe it. And so part of your loving them is to believe what they believe. Jeffrey Kripal is a scholar. He says, that means you have to be a mutant.

[23:12]

You have to be someone who is different from your parents and your society. And Jeffrey Kreipel, a teacher, says, if you take it seriously, then it means that you have to become a kind of mutant. You have to be willing to be someone who is different from his or her parents and society. So some of you may have grown up feeling, you know, I'm not smarter or better or something, but I feel different than the people I love. And that can be very stressful, psychologically disturbing, even crazy-making. So how does this person, again, this non-Buddhist person who just only knows experience, how does he, she establish him herself?

[24:31]

How does he, she establish him herself? Verwurzelt er oder sie sich? Oh, usually you're longer than me and this time you were shorter. She's getting better. Soon I'll talk and she'll say one word. Ah. Like the figures at the gate of the Buddhist temples. One is said, ah. Do you see? The translation was even shorter. Okay. So you've noticed, you've decided, in effect, all you have is your experience.

[25:35]

So then the next sort of insight is you have to explore your experience. And some people won't make that little shift to exploring their experience because it requires trust in your aliveness or belief maybe in your aliveness if nothing else. So none of the stories satisfy you. You non-Buddhist practitioners. But you have some experience. And you notice that If you observe your experience, it's different than if you just have the experience.

[26:50]

If you're walking in the forest or the mountainside of Crestown, you start observing your experience more carefully than... than you would if you were walking in a park, say. Unless it's a New York park. So you may actually recognize that you're observing your experience, but in addition, you're observing, observing. And you may recognize that you're observing your experience, but in addition, you're observing your experience.

[27:55]

That observing is part of an experience and a... Yeah, you know what I mean. No. I don't fully... It's your experience. Yeah. But to observe your experience is a second ingredient. Okay. It goes beyond experiencing. It's an addition to experiencing. So you've noticed that observing is something you're that you can develop.

[29:01]

It's a skill. It's an intentional skill. And you begin to notice you feel more together when you feel attentive or you feel part of your observing. So you want to develop this observing, this attentional observing. And you have to do it when you walk, et cetera, so you don't fall. But attentional observing goes beyond simply giving attention to something. I mean, attentional observing of running, say, goes beyond just giving attention to running.

[30:18]

Okay. I mean, nowadays they... And it comes from Buddhist practice of mindfulness. I know the history of how it developed. There's competitive runners run within their own visualization of their running. ist, dass wenn Läufer um die Wette laufen, dann laufen sie in ihrer eigenen Visualisierung des Laufens. You see, that's not just giving attention to your running, being careful where you run, that's creating a field of attention which you run within.

[31:25]

Und das ist nicht einfach nur Aufmerksamkeit zum Laufen zu bringen, sondern was das ist, ist vielmehr ein Aufmerksamkeitsfeld zu erschaffen, in dem du läufst. This amazing guy who just recently climbed Yosemite Half Dome without ropes in two or three hours or something like that. Dieser erstaunliche Kerl, der gerade im Yosemite Park einen der Berge erklommen hat, ohne Seile, in nur zwei oder drei Stunden oder so. And some of you, I think some of us saw this film of a friend of mine who was one of the first people, he lives in Crestone, half a year, was one of the first people who climbed Half Dome, there were four or five or six of them, and they took, I don't know, a week or something to do it. And there's some particularly difficult spots. I had to swing on a rope to get to another place. Several times they didn't get there.

[32:52]

So this guy, I can't remember his name now. Handsome, young. Alex? Yeah. Handsome young alert man. He spent two years memorizing every move it would take until he internalized every move So he just went up it in two hours or something. And his body knew what to do in each instance without thinking.

[33:54]

And people asked him what it was like. He said it was like a walk in the park. And when he came up over the edge, some tourists were there, and they thought he kind of was taking a picture. They didn't know, and he just climbed it. And he said hello, and they said hello, and he walked along. So let's imagine you're not Alex. But you notice that you've decided that attention makes a difference. Attention to your experience makes a difference.

[35:07]

You don't have to add a story or meaning. And without a story or meaning you feel kind of lost. So you don't want to feel lost, but you kind of notice you don't feel lost, so lost when you are in your attention. So you look around for something to capture your attention. So you walk around with a lit candle all the time, but it keeps burning out. So you can't, this isn't a good solution, the lit candle.

[36:11]

I guess, well, I'm breathing all the time, I'll bring attention to the breathing. And then you notice that you feel kind of better when you bring attention to your breathing. Yeah, and you discover breathing attention. And then you notice that because you've got this kind of mind and belief and that you can notice and think tangentially or relatedly, So again, you don't want a story but you do have experience and you're observing your experience.

[37:15]

Then you notice you feel better and more located without the need for stories and meaning if you just bring attention to the out-hale and the in-hale. And then you notice that kind of the mind that appears when you are resting in attentional breathing is something different. Now, that's a rather subtle difference to notice. But it's not so different from noticing whether it's a fox or a bear, which is there over there in the brush. So when I say that, I mean, this is a capacity of us human beings.

[38:31]

We don't need stories, because we do have attentional skills and the ability to make distinctions. And what I'm saying here is that this is something that we humans can do. We don't need stories at all. But we have these skills, we have the ability to pay attention, and we can make differences. So you notice there's an attentional presence attention to your breathing begins to establish an attentional presence. And then you begin to notice that the attentional presence that mind is a partner of everything that appears.

[39:46]

Now I'm trying to get this kind of drilled into us. That there's a process of attention, and then attention to attention. And then with subtle observing, there's attention to mind as the partner of all experience. And then there's a shift to attention as the field or the mind as a field in which everything appears. And then there's the attentional body which arises through attentional breathing.

[40:51]

So you begin to discover your body is now present in a new way. Your mind is now present in a new way. So you're not just, time isn't just rushing by, you've established a present which you feel yourself within. Now you've got to this place simply by only trusting your experience and not bringing any stories or meaning into your experience. And these begin to be doors into the present. The present is a new kind of time. And the present is a new kind of time.

[42:05]

And we could say that there are two main zones of experience. Zones in which we explore our experience. Zazen is one. Because, you know, as I have said for many times, it's very hard to solve a an algebraic equation if you're running for a bus. A quadratic equation. It's easier if you're sitting still. So certain kinds of things just happen better if you sit still and finally you begin to sit still like the hunter waiting for What about that?

[43:27]

Waiting for stillness. Waiting for stillness. Now, if I was Vicky, I'd say, I'll stop here and we'll look at the operation. The surgeons are on top of me. I'm losing half my liver. Two-thirds. Do I have another taste show I can continue with? Yes, you have two weeks to go. Because we've got to get into experience as information and suchness.

[44:34]

And I'm about two-thirds of the way there. Thank you very much. Thank you for watching!

[44:55]

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