The moment of arising, is it the moment you notice it or when it happens? Because usually it's the differences. We're only talking about experience. So it's when you notice it. But you notice it before you notice it. But still, this is all experience. If you want to understand Yogacara Buddhism, the world is only experience. We're always talking about your experience. Yes, but also if you... I mean, one practice is to be at the moment, or maybe one fruit of the practice is to be in the moment. And to see that... Do you notice a difference of the sound happening? Do you notice the sound?

[01:07]

It's very hard to make this... But if you notice, if it's still experiencing, you wouldn't know it. Do you know this in German? No, the question was... And when they disappear, the fact of disappearing is also another thing, you know, because it fades and then after we notice that it has disappeared. So memory comes in, very short period of memory. Okay. Okay. If you practice with the four marks,

[02:10]

Okay, wenn ihr mit den vier Zeichen praktiziert, dann müsst ihr auch damit praktizieren, mit dem Aufsteigen von Assoziationen, mit dem Aufsteigen von Erinnerungen. Aber das ist zu detailliert, um darauf einzugehen, um vier Uhr. So give me two or three more minutes. So one of the important things about noticing, one of the advantages of noticing the four marks on sound, or it's useful, I have in my little Japanese house in Crestone, there's this sand, sandy glass windows in the bathroom.

[03:12]

And the trees, pine trees and others outside are always reflecting on it. And as the trees move, as the wind moves the trees, the patterns get darker and lighter and so forth. Darker as the branch or leaf moves closer to the window. So I can really see things appearing and disappearing. So it's sort of good to remember that when you look at anything. So if I look at you again from the point of view visually, I'm not hearing you, I'm looking at you. And I practice the four marks.

[04:13]

I feel you appear. And you're actually changing each moment. So you appear and appear and appear and appear. And there's a little duration there. Thank goodness for your sake. but you're also those appearances are changing but again as I pointed out in the past if I look away over here you're gone I actually have a practice of Not just letting you disappear, but making you disappear. Okay, that's more detailed than we need to go into. The point I want to make here is the disregarded or overlooked not knowing in perceiving.

[05:16]

I'm sorry, the district, I wanna, What I want to finish with is the sense of not knowing that's part of perceiving. So if I hear a bird, I'm just using sound as the best example. As I repeatedly point out, You don't hear the bird the way another bird hears the bird. You only hear what your own senses can hear. So every object points at mind. He points at the object. But still I know there's a big part that I don't know. es gibt noch immer einen großen Teil davon, was ich nicht weiß.

[06:41]

So I'm not hearing the whole of it, I know I'm only hearing a part of it. Aber ich weiß, dass ich nicht das Ganze höre, sondern ich höre nur einen Teil davon. So the limits of the senses are always I'm aware of. Und ich bin immer bewusst dieser Grenzen der Sinne. So I hear... So ich höre Erich, aber ich höre nur einen Teil von Erich. And I see this room, but I know I'm only seeing part of the room. And I know the five or six senses are only small slices of the pie. Und ich weiß, dass diese fünf Sinne... There's a very big space in between the senses. As I say, there's handy telephone calls coming in here. The point I'm making is there's an awareness of the senses are only small slices of the pie.

[07:57]

And even in each sense, we only know part. So part of practice is to be aware of each sense separately. And to know you're only feeling knowing part, and a lot is happening between the senses. And that not knowing or non-knowing, is part of the direct experience of impermanence. And is also what is suggested by reaching for the pillow at night.

[09:04]

Because we're always reaching into the world that's in the dark. And Sophia is doing her best to make sense of this world she's reaching into in the dark. Trying to organize it into predictability. But practice is to return yourself to the sense of living in the dark. And strangely, the experience of living in the dark gives us a feeling of clarity on all sides. Because what you do see or hear becomes very precise and clear.

[10:11]

Like at night you hear a sound very precisely. And you almost begin to feel the stars during the daytime. The stars which are hidden by daylight. As consciousness hides from us much of the world. You begin to feel the stars in your own consciousness. You begin to feel the stars in your own consciousness. So the practice of non-knowing is fundamental to Zen practice. And it's part of what is known by the direct experience of impermanence.

[11:12]

Which is part of both the first and the eighth of the Eightfold Path. So now, what I've tried to do is bring some more advanced practices in Buddhism into as a habit, a way of living into the world into what's implied by the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path is a way of looking at our life. Now why do we choose to look at it this way? That we'll start discussing this evening.

[12:16]

So thank you for being patient with my struggle to say something. Thank you for joining my struggle. Where is the difference between impermanence and emptiness? Later. In this sense, there's not much difference. Okay, so we're supposed to start with dinner at 7 o'clock? Yes. Dinner at 7, and then we have the seminar at 8.30 for a while, for an hour or something. Well, good evening. Good evening. So, as you probably know, some of us met this morning and this afternoon to begin our conversation about the Eightfold Path.

[13:24]

Yeah, now I've done this three times to have this pre-day. And I'll see, of course, during this seminar, if it makes any difference. But I think the... Those of you who weren't there didn't miss out on anything. There were no secret teachings. At least none that anyone noticed. And... But I hope everyone benefits because... I can't talk about these subjects in any way that interests me unless the mutual feeling we develop together opens up the teachings.

[14:46]

So in a way we started that feeling and hopefully it will continue into our seminar. Yeah, now most of you know Gerald Vaishita and his wife Gisela. They've been the mainstay at Johanneshof the last five years or so. And now Gerald is going to take a kind of break from formal practice. Which is a tradition to sort of... have some fallow time. And he was at Crestone for the practice period.

[15:48]

And after the practice period, just a short time ago, I did the transmission ceremony with him. And the transmission ceremony is a ceremony that really begins tonight. Any time you start to practice. And so I can begin to tell when a practice is... When a person is bringing their life to practice. And when practice begins. to a thorough way transform their lives.

[17:00]

And when that happens, you begin to hear the teachings differently. So we could say that's the more implicit process of transmission. But there's also a more explicit process with a ceremony at midnight. Magical things like that. Like reaching for your pillow at night. And Gerald mentioned when he first came to Creston something he's very familiar with but it always surprises him.

[18:04]

How different the lectures are at Creston during practice period than they are in seminars. And what's the difference? Well, I don't really know because I feel about the same during the lectures. But if I think about it, maybe the difference is something like looking at a brush stroke in a painting with a magnifying glass. Yeah, instead of talking about the painting, we talk about Maybe just a brush stroke or two.

[19:11]

But in practice, when we have three months together, when we have three months together, What? You hummed like I was humming. He doesn't even know what he's translating. When we have three months... Yeah... of living a life which breaks the habits of life. So you try to, the schedule is about being different from the way you usually live. Mm-hmm. people begin to experience the brushstrokes of their own life.

[20:23]

We can understand a Dharma as a brushstroke. When you Each dharma is one brush stroke that makes the painting of your life. And also when you're together for... three months like that, some kind of common body is generated. And that's not just a nice thing to say. Actually, they've studied people who practice together, and very quickly the metabolism of everyone practicing together comes into some kind of resonance.

[21:25]

Yeah, so you... Yeah, so there's... a kind of familiarity you don't have to even acknowledge. Just a feeling of already knowing, as I say, already connected. Yeah, maybe it's perhaps like falling in love or being in love. And you begin to notice things. You know, like when you've fallen in love, you notice things differently.

[22:30]

Everything takes on a certain... And I think it's somewhat like, maybe something like the story Christiane told us today. May I say, refer to it? Mentioned today when she was living in Marseille and she was 10 or 12, something like that, between 10 and 12. It somehow occurred to her as a little flash of enlightenment or a little experiment to her. something more fundamental than that. That there were three stops between where she got on and the harbor. School. Okay, school, yeah. In Marseille, I saw the harbor. Yeah. From school to the harbor?

[23:51]

I had you going to a harbor, but maybe I should let you tell the story. Anyway, she thought it occurred to her. to have the feeling, or maybe it was deeper than a feeling, that when she reached school, when she reached the last stop, she would die. I felt that going to school sometimes. But I don't, I'm not making fun, I'm just making fun. So... She found, when she did that, that everything during that bus ride was extremely vivid and clear. And I don't know why, but somehow...

[24:54]

The practice period does that too. Of course I don't want to idealize it. There are people who don't get along and various things happen. But still... For those who really immerse themselves in the practice period, something like what I'm saying happens. So by doing the my experiment and doing the pre-day is to see if we can come a little closer together to this feeling of Being aware of the brush strokes of our life. And the canvas is something like the feeling that develops among us. And many things will appear in that canvas.

[26:06]

Brush strokes we hadn't imagined. And the Eightfold Path, I think, is a way of studying, observing the brushstrokes of our life. So I put these on our flip chart. So if you actually want to practice this Eightfold Path the first step is actually just to get familiar with it.

[27:10]

Get familiar so you kind of know them like your ABCs. Yeah. ABC, DFG, it's sort of like equal person, whose intentions speak. So it just becomes kind of so familiar that you inadvertently without much thinking observe these things in your life. Now this is the earliest Buddhist teaching and follows the Four noble truths. The fourth of the four noble truths is the Eightfold Path.

[28:15]

The Eightfold Path rests at the foundation of Buddhism. And it's inseparable from all the teachings of Buddhism. It's assumed And all the teachings of Buddhism. And it's also a kind of deep common sense. So even if you don't think of yourself as a Buddhist or a practicing Buddhist... It's not bad to become familiar with this eightfold path. But I think we can ask, why a list at all? And why this list?

[29:27]

Why a list? And I think to practice really, you know, Dogen said, don't let the sutras turn you, you turn the sutras. And as Dogen said, He means you have to feel yourself at the root of the teaching. That you would have thought of this teaching if... that you would have thought of this teaching if you would have thought of this teaching that at some point it feels that basic oh yes of course that's the way it is Yeah, but then if it's going to become familiar to you, if you're going to discover it,

[30:48]

as if you yourself could have made it, then you really have to ask some little basic, simple questions. Why a list? Why this list? Why this list? What's the usefulness of looking at our life in these categories? Yeah, I speak quite often. And I always have some kind of activity, we can call it conduct. And I have a job, I work somewhere. Why does my job become, my livelihood, my job become part of the basic teaching of Buddhism? So, yeah, we already live this way already.

[32:15]

Why make it a list? And why bring our attention to... to the activity of our life. Anyway, if you really want to practice thoroughly, you ask yourself sort of dumb questions like that. Some of you, probably many of you, have read the Castaneda books. one of the things that the books are criticized about doubting them was that Castaneda asked Don Juan such stupid questions the feeling I would have asked him the reader I would have asked him much more intelligent questions But actually one of the things that made me think at least much of it is quite authentic teaching.

[33:24]

Is the dumbness and the simplicity of the question. Because if you're really doing this, you want to ask some little basic questions. So, you know, as you found out this afternoon already, and some of you noticed before, I find it somewhat unavoidable. to speak about my current subject of study, my daughter Sophia. Some of the things we spoke about today, this afternoon, is her habit of trying to make sense of the world.

[34:36]

And I don't know quite why she wants to name what she notices. Because it seems to me that before we even Um, It is mysterious to me, actually, because before we even at least had any sense of using language in a way that she noticed. Which she began asking what must be a universal way of asking a question. Huh? And she's really insistent.

[35:41]

Anytime there's something new, she goes, huh? Good translation. It's universe. So, you know, if she comes down into a room and there's one new thing in a room of several hundred objects, whoa, without a moment's hesitation, huh? Huh? Huh? Yeah, and after six or eight times, she sometimes, you repeat the name, repeat the name, and finally she... And after you have repeated the name seven or eight times and she has listened to it, then she is satisfied and turns to something else. Or it's a vase.

[36:44]

Yes, it's a vase. Then you notice she's asking more times than usual. She's up to 20 times or something. You notice that, yes, it's a vase, but it's a little different than the other one. It has something... butterfly on it. Then you say, it's a vase with a butterfly. And she'll stop asking it. And I also noticed that she, I saw a bird fly. She has this word, I told you before, I warned I'd repeat myself. She has this word for... that she got from blue jays, which make a kind of sound, kind of a bird.

[37:49]

I wish she picked a nightingale or something, but she picked a blue jay. We don't have many nightingales anyway at Preston's. Anyway, so I thought... that she was naming a bird or birds. And I noticed after a while, yeah, I just assumed that. Why did I assume that? Because I had the that she was naming things. So I thought that's what she was doing. But then one day a bird flew overhead over the house and she saw the shadow past the window.

[38:56]

Now the shadow doesn't look much like a bird. It's just a kind of dark spot moving. And through the window, she went... She somehow... I mean, we'd have to think, oh, that must be a bird and... That was the shadow of a bird, but she's not naming the bird, I realized. She's naming the activity. of birds. And that actually spreads rather widely. And I discovered, as I mentioned also, that when she hears sounds or something she can't see, something she can't point to,

[40:05]

She sticks out her tongue. So, and Marie-Louise is quite fast at noticing that she suddenly sticks out her tongue, and Marie-Louise says, oh, that is an airplane. And there's a funny kind of irony to it, that this tongue with which she cannot yet speak, or can't speak language yet, she points out what she can't speak with her tongue. Okay, so I... Yeah. So this pointing out, I also notice she begins to point out patterns.

[41:14]

And she begins to expect predictability. Now in the early days, months ago, she didn't expect predictability. Everything was different. So nothing was predictable. So she saw glass Candlestick, a glass vase, and a drinking glass. Each one seemed to be an extraordinary jewel-like object to her. And every time things were different. And I don't know whether she's seeing the shape or seeing the material, I don't know.

[42:27]

But, yeah, so nothing held its space, held its shape or... Nothing was an entity, everything was new. But I really saw that she's now seeing and expecting predictability. When she touched a lamp we have, it's just on a very thin wire. And when you touch it, it bounces. And when she touched it this time, when she used to touch it when she was eight months old, it didn't disturb her. But she clearly expected it to be solid like other lamps. And there was a look of terror on her face. The same terror I've seen when she has fallen backwards off a bed.

[43:30]

Or stepped on the floor, which she thinks is solid, but there's a cloth on it and slides out. So now she's very careful on floors if there's a change in pattern. Okay, so the point I'm making is it seems to be extremely basic for us to point out the world. To try to identify the world. In her case, first of all, identifying overlapping activities. And then begin to see them in some kind of relationship.

[44:53]

Like she's trying to, she now knows the difference, but while it took a difference between seeing the understanding or seeing the difference between a glass that has water in it and a glass that doesn't have water. And she used to pick up a glass with water in it the same way she'd pick up any glass and there'd be water everywhere. So she's beginning, though, to see function, not just objects, but the function of objects. And she's also studying the function of a father. The other day, we live in this quite old building.

[46:06]

Somebody around the door put this little cheap sponge rubber insulation. And while I was talking to Marie-Louise, I was right beside her, In a moment, she'd stripped all of it down. And there was one little section about this lawn left. And I'm trying to teach her that there's something she does just because we say not to do it. She knows Hais very well because she's experienced it. I could say it was Hais and she wouldn't have touched it. But as a Buddhist, I cannot lie. So I said, don't do that.

[47:31]

She touched. I said, don't do that. Then I gave her a little hit. Don't do that. And then I watched and she was studying me very carefully. I've become the object of study. What am I doing? Put your finger up to see what I would do. I didn't hurt her. She's looking at me very carefully. She wasn't looking at the thing anymore. So we not only have some deep sense of identification with the phenomenal world. And to somehow express or recognize that identification.

[48:32]

With some kind of discovery of differentiation. Then she begins to look more carefully at what connects these objects, function or material and so forth. Or some objects are different because I say don't. Okay, so here's a very ancient teaching. Which has survived now for decades. 25, 26 hundred years. Which says, notice your life in these categories.

[49:36]

Yeah, now most of us will, if you're practicing, perhaps you Start with six or seven. You begin bringing some mindfulness to your activity. But really what we bring our attention to, our mindfulness to, Aber dem wir wirklich unsere Achtsamkeit schenken, is really first of all 3, 4 and 5. Das ist vor allem 3, 4 und 5, die Sprache, die Führung und der Lebensunterhalt. So we enter this list as a path Through three, four, and five.

[50:41]

And those are the easiest ones for us to notice. We can sort of think, why doesn't the list start with three, four, and five? So one of the mysteries of this list is it starts in the middle. What starts with three, four, and five? Yeah, so what's the third list? The first of these three is speech. So how do we bring our attention to our speech? Well, at first we bring our attention to our speech by just noticing what we say.

[51:43]

In a simple sense, whether we use our language correctly. Whether we swear or not. Whether we say kind things or unkind. And that's an important one to start noticing. Is what I say kind? Or how often do I say things that actually are unkind? Or how often do I say things that... in which I feel I'm expressing a certain superiority.

[52:57]

And you can begin to feel the difference in your energy when you say something which you, don't feel so good about. Or when you say something that makes another person not feel good. Well, once you do that, you're already practicing the second of the Eightfold Path. Because in noticing your speech, you're beginning to notice your intentions in speaking. And when you notice... how what you say, how it makes you feel, whether you feel energized or nourished by what you say, or whether you feel depleted,

[54:20]

Now you're already passing the sixth of the eightfold path. So you can begin to see the eightfold path falls into itself. Okay, and To really bring attention to our speaking, the most thorough way to do it is to bring attention to your breath. And to feel your breath in your speaking. And begin to notice the difference when you feel your breath in your speaking. Yeah, that takes a little while to really get used to.

[55:40]

But after a while, if you always feel the way exhales and inhales are part of your speaking. Again, you feel a different kind of energy and presence in yourself. when your breath is in your speech. Yeah, and you can practice with your handwriting too. I have a habit of paying attention to the first part of a word and the last part of the word. So my practice is to... See if I can bring my breath and attention evenly throughout the whole of the work.

[56:48]

When I was 20 or so, I practiced for a year or or writing with my left hand. No one could read my notes. I don't know why they didn't fire me. But it was quite different to try to bring attention to the writing through my left hand. People who do this kind of thing are people who end up practicing. I don't know why practicing is... appeals to some people and not to others.

[58:05]

Somehow we're aware of the experience of ourselves. Yeah. You know, we saw once a A Swiss chimpanzee on television. Not an Austrian chimpanzee, it's okay. Because it lived in the Basel Zoo. Okay. And they showed this chimpanzee herself. It happened to be a female. On television, but, you know, with the camera, she's seen herself. Right. And she was perhaps smarter than the other monkeys, other chimpanzees.

[59:23]

Maybe more neurotic. Or maybe it's just because she was female. But she's the only one who noticed that it might be herself on the TV. And she looked at it quite a bit. And she did various things. But it didn't convince her at first. And finally she stood on her hands and brought her feet around her arms and waved with her feet on the screen. I'm fairly certain she'd never seen another chimpanzee do this. So she immediately knew it was she.

[60:24]

She immediately began. No, that's not true. I made that up. But she immediately began looking at all the places she can't see. She looked inside her ears. Then she looked behind her ears. Then she rolled her lips back and looked all in and ran her finger in. Well, this is the kind of person who practices. For some reason, we want to experience the experience of ourselves.

[61:27]

So this is a way to do this. It's a kind of chimpanzee mirror. And so the question is, what kind of attention do you bring to your speech? Und es ist dann eine Frage, welche Art von Aufmerksamkeit bringst du deiner Sprache gegenüber? And when you ask that question, You're already down in the seventh and eighth of the path. This is about what kind of attention you bring. Now, you need some kind of oral teaching about this. Or you need to really see that this is not just a simple list, but... A list of activities.

[62:50]

So as I said, Sophia is naming activity. We could rename this or add to this. The activity of use. The activity of speech. The activity of behavior. The activity of livelihood. The activity of effort, energy. So how do you look at the activity of speaking? Again, a very thorough way to do it, a good way to do it is to come into the breath in the speech.

[64:00]

This is very practical. It's a little hard to do it when you're busy and you're talking first. Well, if you want to discover the wisdom of the Eightfold Path, you make a decision that I will speak always in a way, as much as possible, that I feel breath in my speaking. And what happens? Breath in your speaking becomes a door for the body to be speaking. So your speaking begins to nourish the body.

[65:07]

It's almost like a well, an artesian well where the water springs up clean. Speaking becomes some kind of wonderful process where the body feels purified in our speaking. Now, if the body feels purified through our speaking, if we can find that way to speak, then the Eightfold Path is really coming alive. And we can feel Our behavior, our conduct transformed by our speaking.

[66:16]

And then we feel our behavior, our leadership is changed by speaking. And vice versa. So that's a little taste of the practice of the Eightfold Path. And a beginning to the answer Why this list? Why are these things mentioned? And Why are these things mentioned together in this order?

[67:25]

These kinds of questions bring a teaching alive. Und diese Art von Fragen machen die Lehre lebendig. So why don't we sit a few minutes? It's been an hour exactly. Thank you for translating. You're welcome. We have a dog, a new dog living with us in Creston named Igor.

[69:26]

And Igor is nothing but attention, alertness. Wach und Aufmerksamkeit. She doesn't bring attention to her darkness. Aber sie bringt keine Aufmerksamkeit ihrer Hundeartigkeit gegenüber. Sophia brings attention to her... Sophia-ness. Aber Sophia bringt ihrer Sophia-artigkeit Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber. She spontaneously laughs at herself sometimes. And humor is a way of observing ourselves. Again, the Eightfold Path is a way to observe ourselves.

[70:28]

What is this life? Not what someone tells us. Not some philosophical ideas. But what is this life when we bring attention to it in this way? How does it transform our speaking? How is each of the eightfold path its own path? Yes, so we'll continue.

[71:32]

See if we can continue tomorrow. Thank you very much for this evening. Thank you for bringing your attention to this eightfold path. It makes me very happy to be here again with you and with those of you who are new. On this romantic evening, And I think Michael can tell you something about tomorrow's schedule.

[72:36]

Why not? You're going to go knock on each door tonight. We sit in two periods in the morning. You can come to the first and the second or the second or the first and the last, exactly. It starts at 6.30 a.m., then we sit for 40 minutes until 7.10 a.m., then we do a 10-minute slow or fast meditation. Till breakfast will be at 8 o'clock. Yes. And the serious frivolous ones can come at 8 o'clock, you know. And we'll start the seminar at 9.30.

[73:53]

Okay. And this is okay with Giorgio and Christiane? Okay. Again, thank you very much. Feeling done. Feeling done. I'm feeling good. Guten Morgen. So I've been trying to find a way to introduce the Dharma Sangha practitioners in the last few months. The depth and the extent of the practice of the Eightfold Path. It's such an early teaching, I don't know why I've come to it so late, but anyway.

[75:00]

Perhaps I think, although it's in some ways a practice for lay people. And it can certainly be understood that way. But it's also a practice in depth for the realization of freedom from suffering. Now that in itself is an extraordinary idea. We don't have to go any further. Is it possible to be free of suffering? Is it imaginable?

[76:10]

And what kind of suffering? What does it mean? Well, that's the most fundamental statement of Buddhism. is that there is suffering. Suffering because everything changes. Because things are impermanent. Because we're subject to disease. Old age and death. What do they say that... Some expression, life is a terminal illness or something like that.

[77:16]

No cure or something like that. So how do we live in a... How do we find a way to live when our life is so subject to sickness, mental suffering and so forth. So the Four Noble Truths, the first is that there is suffering. The second is that there's a cause of suffering.

[78:21]

Yeah, so we're talking about suffering that has a cause. And because suffering has a cause, there can be an end of suffering. Yeah. And the cause of the end of suffering is the Eightfold Path. That's the basic presentation of the Four Noble Truths. Suffering has a cause. And the end of suffering has a cause. And the cause, which is the end of suffering, is the Eightfold Path.

[79:22]

Yeah. So, I mean, let's say that if that's really the case, or possibly the case, the Eightfold Path deserves a little of our attention. And you'll give it attention probably to the extent that you really believe that there is some kind of end to suffering. Now we're not talking about someone hits you with a hammer, it's going to hurt. It might hurt differently if you've realized the eightfold path, but it's still going to hurt.

[80:24]

And when Sukhirishi was dying of gallbladder cancer, He said to me, it feels like someone's torturing me inside. But his mind and composure was always very clear. So we're talking about An end to mental suffering. And emotional suffering. And... Yeah. And a true teaching is usually internal to itself.

[82:02]

What I mean is the resources that the teaching needs are within the teaching. You don't have to bring much from outside the teaching to understand it. But how to make use of its resources? Maybe we need some... of the Eightfold Path being practiced. And some understanding of how to use the resources of the teaching itself. So last night and today, this morning, I'm just trying to make us familiar with the Eightfold Path.

[83:17]

You know, we give equal weight to Buddha, to Dharma, and to Sangha. That means, you know, that while we might offer incense to the Buddha... To this teaching we can also offer incense or bow. Or to our own practice, our own lineage, which brings this teaching alive. In this case it's you bringing it or potentially bringing it alive. Now the resources of a teaching are realized through the practice of the teaching. Yeah, you can make some approach to it with your thinking and so forth.

[84:40]

Yeah, but that doesn't get you very far. Hopefully it gets you started. But you have to really give yourself over to the practice of the teaching. So I'd like to present this at least so that if you ever decide to practice this teaching, some of the means to do it will come up in you, you'll remember. Because for all of us, time is not clock time. Time is ripening time. And there's a time when the possibility of practicing such a teaching ripens. So that won't be the same for everyone or this particular moment.

[86:06]

But part of the way in which teachings are presented present them in a way that they'll be there when you need them. Now this is a... As I said, this isn't a kind of description of life in India at the time of the Buddha. Yeah, they spoke some language. They had a job. They had certain kinds of moral conduct expected.

[87:08]

It's not some sort of sociological list like that. This is, you know, as an adept practice. This is a path out of our culture. It's a path to our fundamental nature. Our nature deeper than any particular cultural or societal nature. Tsukuyoshi, I remember saying in 1962 or sometime, about the time I was first starting to practice, Buddhism has a way of adjusting itself to every culture and taking on the look of the culture in which it's in. But it also has a way of penetrating You know, I have been struck by the most realized Buddhist practitioners that I have met.

[89:07]

from Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, they're all more like each other than they're like the culture from which they're from. This is something quite interesting. You know, there's this story of Mara tempting the Buddha. And it's usually... understood some sort of, I don't know, good versus evil.

[90:11]

But Bernard Foer is quite an unusual Buddhist scholar. His view of it is, I agree with, Mara really is the story of Mara really if you look at it represents the call of our own culture to us the Buddha's you know the story is Buddha's meditating and Mara sends his daughters first of all To tempt the Buddha. And they first of all try to tempt him sexually.

[91:16]

Which says that Buddha can be tempted sexually. Which says that Buddha can be tempted sexually. One is one of the 32 marks of a Buddha is to be sexually potent. But he resists the daughters of Mara. But the daughters also represent family, jobs, marriage. Aber die Töchter repräsentieren auch Familie, Beruf, Heirat. The responsibility of supporting your children and so forth. Die Verantwortung, eure Kinder zu unterstützen und so weiter. So he tempts the Buddha with the fundamentals of our personal life. Also er versucht den Buddha wirklich mit den grundlegenden Dingen unseres ganz normalen Lebens.

[92:23]

Family and so forth. Yeah, society doesn't survive if we don't have family and such things. Yeah.

[92:31]

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