How are you, Keith? Like a tea show. Well, then I have to create one. You were in our conversation last night and then suddenly you dematerialized. I suddenly realized you weren't there beside me. Hmm. Okay, we're going to welcome Andreas and Gregor into this ongoing practice period and the sashin for the two of you. I should say something. You haven't been listening to tapes right along, right? You haven't listened to any recordings or anything like that? Yeah, so I should give you some feeling what we've been speaking about.

[01:08]

And gives us all a way to kind of get a sense of what's going on as we try to figure out what it means to, what it means and can mean to be alive. Das gibt uns allen ein Gefühl dafür, was hier stattfindet, während wir alle dabei sind herauszufinden, was es bedeutet und was es bedeuten kann, am Leben zu sein. I mean, one thing that distinguishes this animal that we are from most other animals. Ein Aspekt, der dieses Tier, das wir sind, von allen anderen Tieren unterscheidet. We have more choice over our habitat. The botanist, you know, the scientist. Yes. Because we can make choices.

[02:09]

And our state of mind is a choice too. We have these remarkable choices. And four of the choices we've been speaking about this practice period It's when you sit down as the model situation. Did you say four as number four? Yeah, number four. Okay, good. Yeah, but it can be... At any moment. But let's say in zazen you notice your spine. But working in the kitchen or walking on the path, you can also bring your spine into awareness.

[03:33]

Aber auch wenn du in der Küche arbeitest oder am Pfad arbeitest, da kannst du auch deine Wirbelsäule ins Gewahrsein bringen. And you can bring your spine into awareness in a way that generates awareness. Und du kannst deine Wirbelsäule ins Gewahrsein bringen auf eine Art und Weise, die Gewahrsein hervorruft. Awareness again, of course, in contrast experientially to consciousness. So that's the first of these four postures, positions. Is to notice the spine. And the second is to bring attention to the breath. And not just to bring attention to the breath but also to inhabit the breath.

[04:39]

And to inhabit the breath with a sense of completion. And I should say something what I mean by Adding the word completion. And the third is your mental posture. Which is in the biggest sense compassion or noticing interdependence. Wisdom postures. And it also can just be to notice whatever your state of mind is at this moment. Because to notice whatever your state of mind is at this moment is a choice and it creates a mental posture.

[06:08]

No, it's a rather big, I would say, philosophical question. Why do we intervene, intercept our modes of being alive? Yeah, why do we do it? Well, we can do it. That's what's remarkable. But we also... Maybe there's a why, too. But I don't know if tigers or hippopotamuses or monkeys sort of say, I think I'll notice my spine. But I don't know whether to say tiger or crocodile or ape.

[07:17]

Crocodile, did I say that right? I said hippopotamus. No, that's sepia. They're both in the water. And they both eyes stick out. Creatures in my head. Yeah, that's right. You said neopter. Yeah, this is her dream mind. Suddenly all hippopotamuses become crocodiles. I'm sorry. Crocodiles. But after a while. But maybe a cat, a domestic cat, when it stretches before it lies down or gets up after it gets up, is noticing its spine. In any case, Buddhism is based on this kind of interception and interruption of usual consciousness, for example. Interception, is that also like a crossing? To intercept is to cross.

[08:35]

To cross, yeah. Intercept. Yes. Okay, another sentence again. Sorry. Yeah, that's all right. I intercepted you. Yes. With the word interception. We intercept a particular consciousness. And the whole emphasis on enlightenment practice is to intercept, you know, we can even say our neural networks, our habitually created neural networks. Okay, so the third position or posture I'm mentioning is your mental posture. Ideally, to be at ease. And the fourth posture is spatial posture.

[09:37]

Now, I haven't found a better way to describe it than that. But... Yeah, but it works well enough to have the sense that you're also located within a field. And you are part of that field. And that field is in the process of being made all the time. And you are part of the making of that field. So that's what I mean by a spatial posture. You feel yourself as a location within a field. No, these four all, if you get in the habit of these four, they fuse.

[11:07]

They become, they join each other. So lifting up through your spine becomes an awareness of breath. The awareness of breath becomes the feeling of the presence of mind. And the presence of mind becomes the field of awareness. So with these four, you're interrupting our usual kind of just... non-conscious activity, with a kind of experienceable

[12:21]

entry into aliveness. Being is just a generalization. Beingness might be a little better. Yeah, but the ing of being helps. I'm sorry, I'm causing you problems. But aliveness, you can feel your aliveness. And then you can actually activate your aliveness with spine, breath, mind and spatial posture, field. And they become markers of your aliveness.

[13:37]

Instigators. To instigate is to initiate. Okay, so we've also been speaking about the two truths. It came up, I guess, in the seminars, and then people suggested that I speak about it, and I have for a couple of day shows. And Otmar spoke about it in his tea show. And so forth. So, I mean, the two truths is conceptually very simple. We tend to think of the world as predictable and it's necessary to think of it as predictable.

[14:58]

Predictability is one of the things that makes our world functional. But we know it's not predictable. Yeah, it's only relatively predictable. And sometimes it's irreverently and non-relatively unpredictable. Sometimes it's completely unpredictable. Thank you. Irreverently unpredictable. Okay, so we know this is the case. So you have to sort of discover how to have the functional truth of relative predictability And usually an implied permanence.

[16:09]

and what we could call the fundamental truth of things are not predictable. Now this idea in various ways has existed in Buddhism from the beginning and Nagarjuna gave it the most strongest articulation as a teaching. And then the Yogacara has developed it and emphasized it as three categories and so forth. As I said the other day, Sotashu is five, five ranks, five categories of the two truths. Okay. Now to make this your practice you really have to have to develop sufficient uninterrupted mindfulness, as much as possible uninterrupted mindfulness.

[17:55]

So that you notice things as you notice when you notice things or assume things are entities. And for Gregor, who's pretty much completely new to my way of talking about these things, a couple of distinctions I make all the time are between awareness and consciousness. And between seeing things as entities or activities. And we really have to interrupt our culturally and experientially conditioned mind, bodily mind.

[19:17]

So we can distinguish between seeing things as entities and activities. And I think this distinction between entity and activity is probably the most open Dharma door to the two truths as the way you are alive. And this distinction between entities and activities is, I think, the most open Dharma door to the two truths through the way we are alive, how we live. So again, but to do that you need a pretty in-depth practice of mindfulness.

[20:17]

So you notice your bodily mind existence as it's happening. And that requires a kind of slowing down experientially, but not in any kind of obvious sense to others. A slowing down of how you experience things. Now all these teachings, like the five skandhas, etc., all require a slowing down to notice them happening. And this really, this just process of slowing down experientially really transforms us.

[21:36]

And there's an interior, interior? I'll use the word for now, slowing down. Okay. Now, our breathing is iterative. It means it just keeps going on. What? Well, just say it keeps going on. When Sophia is on her pogo stick... You know what a pogo stick is?

[22:45]

She's jumping. You know, she was physically... I mean, every place we live, there's ropes hanging down from the... You know, she's too big now, but ropes and ladders hanging down from every ceiling. I had to push him aside to get to have breakfast. It's like being in a jungle. But I used to think I was Tarzan, but now I'm just Zen. Anyway, she would get on her pogo stick for an hour. And I could say, stop jumping. But I can't say, stop breathing. You just can't say that.

[23:55]

It's like you can't say stop being alive. Stop living. But one of the entries into Dharma practice is in a sense to give breathing a completion. And I'm putting it this way because we think of breathing as just going on. Now I'm explaining why I said you bring attention to breath in habit breathing and complete breathing. Because one of the things you're trying to do is bring the experience of completion into your every moment living. Yeah, I'm kind of fanatic about it.

[25:20]

Yes, I see the window handles only partially closed. I always go by and I close them all the way. Even though it's already closed, I still close. Because I, in a way, took a vow a long time ago to complete everything. So I really, you know, I put the top back on the toothpaste and things like that. Some people don't. It can be a huge battle in a marriage. Mm-hmm. But, you know, if I'm sitting here, my hand is on this staff that was Suzuki Roshi's.

[26:33]

And I feel a certain completeness in the action of putting the hands on it. And if I lift it up, I do it in a way that feels complete. And for example, if I lift it up this way, it doesn't feel so complete. It feels more complete if I lift it up in relation to my spine. Mm-hmm. And if you bring a feeling of completion, as I've said many times, into everything you do, in small things, if you straighten your posture, you straighten it in a way that you feel complete as you do it. Now, here I'm bringing a conception of completeness into my habits.

[27:59]

And as Lakoff points out, the sociologist, you are really entering into and changing your neural networks. Okay. So, Dharma practice, Buddhism is Dharma practice, is to bring a sense of completion into your actions. And because this is neurally networked, it's not just mental conceptual habits. It's deeply embodied habits.

[29:11]

You cannot approach these things just through thinking. You have to change little physical daily habits. And Chinese Zen is particularly not just about individual awakening, it's about bodhisattva awakening. And bodhisattva awakening means you do this practice with and through others. And that's why we have sashin and practice period and place to practice together. To create the sort of laboratory-like field of bodhisattva practice.

[30:20]

Okay. So if we practice the four marks... What are you asking? He found a word for marks that's different from what we have been using, that I thought was really good, but I can't think of it. All right. And the four marks are birth, duration, dissolution,

[31:22]

and disappearance. The first three are a kind of science, as you know. In a world where everything is changing, interdependent, interactive, etc. In fact, things appear, have some sort of duration and dissolve. And we don't have to add disappearance. But we add disappearance because it's us doing it. It becomes a dharma when you release it and don't just let it discontinue on its own. So dharmic practice and our rituals are rooted in the idea of completing each thing.

[32:46]

You bow to your cushion and then turn around and you sit and settle. Okay, so while breathing just goes on, hopefully for a while more, Dharma practice is to give breathing a beginning and an end. Bringing attention to the breath is also bringing attention to each breath as having a beginning and an end. Aufmerksamkeit zum Atem zu bringen bedeutet auch Aufmerksamkeit auf eine Art und Weise zum Atem zu bringen, dass der Atem ein Anfang und ein Ende hat. And you can feel a breath from the first inhaling.

[33:47]

Und du kannst einen Atem vom ersten Einatmen anspüren. And bodily you learn to breathe with the diaphragm and not with the upper lungs. And you develop a deeply ingrained, ever-present habit of feeling the breath rising through the body. You're actually inhaling, but it feels like it's coming up from below. It fills up from below and then you exhale. It fills up from below and then you exhale. That develops a kind of circle. And that circle becomes in itself a spatial posture.

[34:59]

Which is you articulated also when you do the bells, you hit the bell. as if it were happening in a circle. And as you develop the feeling of this breath as a circle, an oval, you spread that, you widen that oval and it becomes a circle. We call it subtle breath, but it's actually kind of energy coming up through the spine and down through the front. Now, what am I doing here? You know, babies breathe, you spank them on the bottom, and then they start to breathe, hopefully, and, you know... But here, if you want to be a baby Buddha, you start noticing your breath in this new way.

[36:12]

And I'm clearly, clearly bringing a conception to the breath. And it's a conception rooted in experience. Because breathing does feel that way. But by turning it into a conception we further articulate the experience of breath and we further articulate by bringing a conception to the actual experience of breath, that conception then refines and affects the actual breathing,

[37:21]

and actually can transform the breathing in ways to be considered at the next teisho. Okay, but let me just say a couple things. And now it's clear what we're going to speak about next. We can have some footnotes here. Okay, so you're breathing in this sense of an oval. And the oval begins to have its own life Even though it's derived from the experience of breathing, it begins to have its own life.

[38:34]

And begins to awaken the kundalini and the chakras and so forth. And it's usually best if it comes up the backbone and through the front and down. And that is also one of the basis of in-depth mindfulness. So you have the experience now of each breath having a beginning and an end. So at every moment when you have brought attention to the breath and inhabited it and released it and a new breath appears you're entering With your body the world of things appearing.

[39:53]

And Dharma practice means really to notice appearance. The four marks and the two truths are about noticing appearance. Now, for the sake of the schedule and your legs, we'll stop here. Thank you for translating. You're welcome. Is that harder than usual? No, it was easier than usual, but I'm more tired than usual. Okay. Thank you for watching.

[40:45]

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