So after finding various ways to speak about this bringing attention to the body, I would say that simply we're bringing attention into the body and not just to the body. And we're discovering the areas of the body that are open. to attention, receptive to attention, and those that are not. Does somebody want to say something? I'd like to have some discussion at this point. Yes. I was wondering, you said before that Something like to notice the difference between the parts of the body that are being attended to and the parts of the body that are not being attended to.

[01:26]

How can I know the parts of the body that are not being attended to? Deutsch, bitte. You said earlier that one should notice the difference between the parts of the body that are noticed, i.e. that are directed towards attention, and the parts of the body that are not directed towards attention or from which no attention arises. And I just ask myself how to notice the parts of the body that are not directed towards attention. Well, very simply, I mean, you can bring attention to your right hand. Your left hand can receive the attention. Or vice versa, you can bring attention to your left hand. The right hand receives it. You can try to have it equal, equally. They're both filled with attention.

[02:27]

But inside your shoulder, it's harder to bring attention. Or the organs of your body, it's hard to bring attention. Or just when you're finding your posture, you find certain areas of your back you can feel, some areas of your back you can't feel. So part of the practice of finding your posture. Now notice I say finding, not making your posture. Um, you um, are exploring and developing the ability to have your body filled with attention.

[03:51]

And when you formally practice the four foundations of mindfulness, Bringing attention throughout the body, inside and out, is part of the practice. But you can practice that to some extent every time you sit down. And part of noticing A part of bringing attention to the body is noticing where attention doesn't reach. And then forming an intention to widen, open up the areas where attention doesn't reach.

[04:54]

And sometimes you can experiment with it. By taking an area that you can easily bring attention to. And then finding an area it's difficult to bring attention to. And then really noticing the difference. So that you can feel gradations of the difference by noticing the big contrast. Okay, does that answer your question? The reason we shave our hair off is because we can't bring attention to the... Okay, what else?

[06:27]

That's enough. Someone must have something to say. Am I the only person who's allowed to talk here? Just a question, could we talk some more about the alaya vishnana and contemplation during the seminar? Okay, I'll see.

[07:28]

I have to find a way to enter it through what we're talking about. Yeah, in relation to the sangha and what you said at the beginning. Okay, that's a good idea. Thanks. Anyone else want to say something? Okay, I guess it's my job. Oh, thank you. I don't know exactly what I want to say. But what's sort of grabbing me is who is it who directs the attention? And how can I let attention direct attention? Because for me it's more or less a conscious decision where to leave the focus of my attention.

[08:44]

And the feeling I have when I sort of let go, I lessen that mindfulness, then thoughts appear. And then I have to take a conscious decision to go back to my breath. And then I have to take a conscious decision to go back to my breath. If it is possible, so how does that work, that attention directs attention? No one knows.

[10:05]

This question, maybe I can help you answer it. But you really have to answer it for yourself. Because just hearing doesn't convince anyone. Because we have such a vivid experience of a you being present. And I think I don't know enough about linguistics, but I think you, in English, is what's called a mass noun. A mass, like a mass of something. A noun that, furniture is a mass noun, I believe. You can't have furnitures. Ah, yes. I don't understand much of linguistics, but I think that's at least a material main word in English. You don't have rices, you have rice.

[11:19]

It's a singular, but it's plural. There were furnitures all over the room and several rices. And there's not exactly any rule for it, except it's the way we treat mass so-called mass nouns, I think. So I think we have an experience of you as a kind of mass noun. Yes, I don't know if this is helpful to say, but we don't divide it, we think of it as a unit. And most of us don't notice, oh, I mean, to some extent we notice, but not as much as we might notice, I'm a one kind of person you at work, another kind of you at home.

[12:38]

another kind of you in the morning, etc. And we don't notice as much as we might the differences. Because when we check up on the you, when we notice that we're a different you, in a sense, when we check up on it, we bring all our narrative history to the checking up and it seems to be the same old you, it's just different in the morning. So I think part of the problem is in the language

[13:39]

how we identify the pronoun I or you. And part of the problem is that when we observe the agency of you, We noticed it with our narrative history. So we affirm that it's, oh, that's me. Now, I don't mean we should not have The feeling, this is me. Yeah, we need that feeling to function. But when you're bringing, when you're noticing how attention works, I can't remember exactly how you put it, but some ways you put it were useful.

[15:10]

Okay, so you are... You bring attention to what you're doing. If you let that attention go and to do what it wants... And you said, it goes then to your thoughts. And you start thinking again. Now, why does it go back to your thoughts? Because it starts feeling, where's you? It gets lonely, so it has to look for your thoughts to discover you. I'm not saying this is exactly your experience. But it's in this territory one has to notice the differences.

[16:37]

And you want to notice the difference between what I can say, the observer, and the you of self-referential thinking. Let's say for now, the pure observer without self-referential thinking is closer to what you actually are. than the you of your narrative history. But we notice through the you of narrative history So we don't notice the wider dimensions of the observer, etc. And it's very difficult and slippery to talk about this.

[17:51]

Because our language isn't constructed to let us talk about it. But again, I think it's useful to use the difference between what and who. But again, I think it's useful and helpful to use this difference between what and who. It's to really feel, you know, what is breathing? Ask that instead of who is breathing. And if attention, you do have to go through the point at which attention leads you, just you go back to thinking. The point you've made is exactly why Shikantaza is so difficult. Because as soon as we let go of shaping our practice, we seem to start practicing. So we've got to have the patience to just let whatever happens happen, including just ordinary old thinking.

[19:41]

Now say you start thinking. Do you then bring yourself back to your breath? Because you're supposed to be bringing your attention back to your breath? Or do you bring your attention back to your breath not for any rule, But because there's something unpleasant about being in your thinking and it's more pleasant to be in your breath. Now if you're doing it because it's more pleasant to be in your breath and in your thinking, this is not you doing it exactly.

[20:56]

In other words, your thinking is saying, I don't like this too much. I'd rather be breathing. Your thinking is saying that? I'm sorry. Thinking is... Yeah, thinking is saying that. Thinking is its own little person. I'm going to kill, what's it called? Yeah, the guy inside the radio. So... When the thinking itself pushes you toward the breathing, this is like attention leading itself. So the central command is getting the message from thinking, I'd rather be breathing.

[22:00]

But in this case, central command isn't making the decision, really, it's just forwarding the information. Do you see the difference? In practice, you're more and more feeling you're moderating things, but you're not making decisions. And the more you get that experience, the more self-referential thinking drives away. Oh, okay. No, it's good because I have a whole new way to talk about this, but I'm saving it for later.

[23:17]

And I really have to figure out how to say it. What is it Issan Dorsey, when he was asked, somebody asked him in Shuso ceremony, I think. Why do we vow to save all sentient beings? And he said, we're saving them for later? Yeah, yeah. It was like... [...] Yes. When I hear you, I thought maybe it's interesting not to decide either I give attention to or let attention move itself, but to study more the relationship between these two.

[24:28]

When I listen to Hoshi, the idea came to me, perhaps less, And this is coming from a feeling I have often if attention is moving itself, sometimes it's just my conditioning happening, because it's like attention is coming like along with the conditioning. And if I switch just back to giving attention then it's controlling and so how to meander between these two possibilities and how to find a place from where attention can move itself not from the conditioned.

[25:41]

You know, I sometimes imagine an outsider. Listening to this conversation. Who's busy with his career and all that. What are they talking about? Conditioning and all that. There's a... capping verse I've always liked about, I can give you the two mandarin ducks I've embroidered.

[26:45]

Es gibt ja so einen Vers, was heißt capping verse? So I can give you these two mandarin ducks I've embroidered, but I can never show you the golden needle with which I made them. Yeah, but this is exactly what, you know, when your mindfulness, your megapixel mindfulness is developed enough, you can notice these kind of things. And you can begin to change your deeply ingrained habits ingrained in how we have learned to function in the world. And ingrained through our use of language and through our culture.

[27:55]

And really, you don't need to sit a dozen sashins. You just need to really, when you sit down, notice exactly what's happening. Of course, a dozen sashins may help you notice exactly what's happening. But its fruit is noticing what happens just when you sit, just now. So, yeah, one sec. This friend of mine, David Rosenberg, who wrote this book, Why Birds Sing, David Rothenberg, he wrote the book Why Birds Sing.

[29:04]

Rothenberg. He plays also, he's not only a philosopher, but he plays the clarinet and other instruments. Yeah, and he... sometimes plays with birds. And there's one bird that particularly sings with its mate. They sing back and forth. They respond to each other. So that bird particularly seemed to respond to his playing the clarinet to the bird. He also played in Australia with a lyrebird, but I gave a little demonstration of that at lunch the other day. With what?

[30:10]

The lyre. Lyre? A lyre. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I, uh, just give... I'm sorry, I missed it. We're getting to know each other. The lyre bird, he also did... played with a lyrebird, which... It's a long story. But anyway, who sings a song that takes him six years, him or her, him, I guess, six years to learn. Yes. This bird, I met one in Australia. When I was in Australia, I met one of the lyrebirds. It's a more ordinary lyrebird. But it can imitate... Why is it funny?

[31:15]

It sounds like lyre. Is it a real bird, the lyrebird? Yes. It's a real bird. We don't have it here. We don't have it here. The bird takes six years to learn its song. And I met one by chance when I was in Australia in the eucalyptus forest, which was real boring because every tree is the same. I came back and I said, geez, there's some big construction project going on in the forest. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. And I had the feeling that there was a huge construction site somewhere in the forest and I couldn't find out where it came from. And the people around me say, oh God, that's this lyrebird. It can imitate a chainsaw, hammering, anything. It can imitate a chainsaw, hammering, anything. It can imitate a chainsaw, hammering, anything.

[32:18]

Maybe I should tell you about the lion bird. Anyway, so there's another one that this guy took eight years to make a film of because it's very, very hard to find him and to film him. And this bird is really far out. It's quite... It's quite... We're developing a sangha here with the birds. Anyway, it first sings. Once it gets started in its song, it can't stop. It has to finish it. And first it goes through its repertoire of every other bird in the forest, because it can imitate every other bird perfectly.

[33:41]

And it's supposedly to attract a female. But females only lay an egg every two years. So most of this demonstration is for no reason at all, because years pass before a female hears it. Did you all read the newspaper story about the miner bird who said, Gary, I love you? And this guy said, who's Gary? His girlfriend said, oh, I don't know who Gary is. But she kept, the minor bird kept saying Gary and making other noises and finally came out that Gary was Gary.

[34:41]

her lover. So she left him and the bird and he got rid of the bird. Anyway, this is my neighborhood, so we go on with it. Things for, you know, I don't know, half an hour, 45 minutes. of all these different songs of other birds. Then it starts, once it's shown, it's more powerful than all other birds. Or something, whatever it's showing. Then it starts its own song. And it stands on a group of reeds or vines. And it starts dancing. And it makes the vines shake. And with lots of noises and almost like a drum beat.

[36:01]

Then it gets all the nearby leaves shaking. And then it brings its tail up, which is like a veil. shaped like a liar. And then he puts on his tail, so to speak, and stands up, and it's like a veil, but shaped like a lyre. He puts his tail up and looks through it, dances and sings, and I said, I love you and I'm going to marry you. I didn't really shout I love you, but you kind of wanted to. Anyway, that was all an interlude. So anyway, what David pointed out and showed us, though I'd known it before, but never thought of the connection, is when you listen to some of these birds, they just go... And the sounds are all kind of...

[37:20]

blurred together. But when you slow the bird's song down, it's really very specific notes and very complex notes. Now, no one knows if the other birds hear it with that preciseness. But the bird is making the sound with that preciseness. So I think we could assume that if it makes the sound with that preciseness, then probably it can hear it. So what you hear is a kind of, you know, just a kind of flow of sound. It becomes very specific notes.

[38:29]

And that makes me think that that's a little bit like what's meant by Dharma practice. Because when you're mindfulness extends to each unit of time, as Sukhiroshi said. Something like a dharma is a note, and you begin to hear each specific, and it's not blurred together. And you begin to hear your own, let's say, inner song. And you can begin to see when or how much or how little those notes are strung together by a who.

[40:21]

They have a life of their own. And I remember when Trudy Dixon was, who I edited the book Send My Beginner's Mind with, was dying of cancer, she'd write me letters or send me a tape or something. And sometimes I would write her a letter in a typewriter. I'd also write a letter by hand, and I'd also make a tape. And depending on the medium, I would say different things. So the song you decide to sing also sings itself, writing writes itself.

[41:29]

Yeah. So clearly, even these simple examples, it's not easy to say it's you writing. Also, writing writes you. And it is clear, also with these relatively simple examples, that one cannot say so much that it is worth that you are the one who writes, but that... So you can say one of the decisions you can make is what medium are you going to let live your life? Are you going to choose to write your life, lead your life? I mean, practice is rooted in vows and intentions. There are various reasons we make these vows and these intentions.

[43:04]

But if you have the If you have the wisdom to make wise vows, where does this wisdom come from? your life will be shaped by those vows. So Sangha is a question, is Sangha a medium in which you can shape your life? I think I'm supposed to stop now. I'm supposed to stop half an hour ago. So shall we sit for a minute and then we'll go have lunch?

[44:01]

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