Yeah, how nice it is to meet with you all together. And I'm a little embarrassed to wear these great big golden things, but as I've mentioned before, they were Suzuki Roshis and they fit me because they were special occasion ruxes, which I inherited. And in my aging incompetence in sitting, it makes it easier. So what we've been speaking about in the Doorstep Zen, especially today, is Yeah, how we're going to continue.

[01:23]

What is transmission? In addition to individual transmission, there's also lineal transmission. Lineal? Like lineage? Lineage, yeah. Mm-hmm. And so this, our meeting, what we discussed this morning, the meeting we're having, we're calling Doorstep Zen at present. is a way in which the present lineage in this time, in this horizontal lineage,

[02:34]

And I won't go into the details I mentioned this morning, but for us as a Sangha to discuss practice the way we do is rather unusual. And it sounds like we're just... having a discussion. But there's a kind of refinement of how we do the discussion, which has developed over the last 20, 30 years. But there is a kind of refinement in the way we conduct the conversation. And this refinement has happened over the last 20 or 30 years.

[03:48]

And I think there will be a necessary part of the lineal transmission of essentially lay practice. Yeah, there's somewhere in between a graduate school seminar and a coffee clutch. And so, you know, maybe we could say Dharma transmission can be writing and what I'm going to try to do is not only write more but make more available what I have been writing for some years. And perhaps a Sangha transmission will be partly this shared discussion we have, perhaps using a site like this or using a practice center in Berlin or Vienna or someplace.

[05:02]

And it may seem a little strange to you for me to say, but I think Buddha transmission, of course, is a lineage successor to lineage successor. And the Sangha, which is also understood as the conditions through which a Buddha might appear, So Buddhas appear through the occasion for a Buddha to appear. And they're more likely to appear if there's a Sangha to notice them and support them.

[06:19]

So one of the physical aspects of the world which helps a Buddha to appear is a practice place like this. And a practice place which has, you know, like we do, statues of the Buddha which call forth the potentialities of Buddhahood. Yes, and without the kind of gathering places we have that exist and that we are creating, it's hard to develop a continuity in practice. So, although Buddha is understood, as I've been saying, as a hyper-object, Buddha is understood as the potentiality of Buddhahood extended in space and time.

[08:02]

And Buddha is understood, as I said, as a hyper-object, or as something that is expanded in space and time. And how you create that is how you make the potentiality more likely and how you let this potential become more probable. Yes, this is by creating places, places where the practice can develop. So we're doing this for ourselves, but from a Buddhist historical point of view, although we don't like to think, from a historical point of view, we're doing this for our society.

[09:26]

Because part of Buddhism is to save all sentient beings or to benefit all beings. It's really to recognize that all of us are some kind of hyper object with the potentiality of realization. Because if in Buddhism it means to save all feeling beings and so on, then it basically means to recognize or to realize, to recognize that we are something like a hyper-object, something that is expanded in space and time with the potential to realize. Veda of ten directions in three times. And the Buddha of your individual practice. Which, whether you know it or not, you're always approaching. Then just awakening to our innermost request of what kind of human being do we want to, if you ask yourself and you feel yourself, what kind of human being do we hope exists in the world?

[10:54]

That's the voice of way-seeking mind. Voice of Buddhahood. Which actually is everywhere and everywhere. and articulating in us. Yeah, so... Yeah, so we're here in Europe practicing together.

[11:59]

And as I also mentioned this morning, I found coming to Europe I had to present the practice in more hopefully elucidating detail. And one of the turning points for me is when I thought, well, you know, I have to deal with this. Buddhism is about non-self. And one of the turning points for me was when it became clear to me that I had to deal with this fact that Buddhism is not about self. Yeah, and we sort of have some really rather unexamined idea of what self is.

[13:11]

And culturally confined idea of self. I think in English there's about 80 ways to describe a person who's a drunk, a drunk self. And I think in Japanese there's about 60 ways to refer to self. So I thought, well, first of all, let's examine what we, in some cases, we can come to some agreement about Self. Let's examine self first of all. So I thought to my unexamined self, I thought to myself,

[14:13]

That's going to have to stay in English. That's going to stay in English. I thought to myself, what are the functions of self? I mean, self has a function. Obviously, our immune system is a form of self. Obviously, our immune system is a form of itself. The job of the immune system is to know what belongs to us and what doesn't belong to us, so we don't eat sand or drink gasoline. The task of the immune system is to know what belongs to us and what doesn't, so we don't eat sand and drink gasoline. So the first function of self, and I thought about this, I think I thought most about this maybe when I was teaching at the Sufi camp or someplace like that years ago.

[15:37]

But I came up with three functions of self and then four functions of self after a while. Then I came up with the four abstract aspects of the bodhisattva self. And then I developed four aspects of the bodhisattva itself. And then I forgot about what the four bodhisattva aspects are, and even now I forget about what I used to say. But the four functions of self, which I still stay with, and I mentioned it in the letter I sent to the email I sent to the Doorstep Zen practitioners, is one, is the establishment of separation.

[16:41]

We have to do that, biologically and psychologically and so forth. And the second aspect, function of self, was establishing connectedness. And the third is establishing continuity. And we have to do these things. If we establish separation, we also have to establish a way of being connected. Wenn wir Trennung herstellen, dann brauchen wir auch eine Art und Weise, um uns zu verbinden. And then if we establish connectedness, we also establish some kind of continuity.

[18:04]

Und wenn wir Verbundenheit herstellen, dann stellen wir automatisch auch eine Art von Kontinuität her. In November we'll have a Jukai ceremony for... some of you who are in this room. And clearly the precepts are based on a continuity of self. Or at least a narrative in which you think, you know, I'm going to hold these precepts in mind as I live my daily life. So that's establishing continuity. And after a year or so I added a context And now I would understand context in considerably more wisdom than I did used to.

[19:24]

Yeah, and so context for me was, if you're in a context, you're not, you feel yourself, you're on a sofa at home or in the city you live in, you notice things around you and you're noticing things around you, what your chair is in your living room or whatever, because of your own personal history and memory. Did I say all that? Yes you did. quite sure.

[20:38]

And my idea was not to give you a list, but to give you a list of what you ought to examine yourself. If we're going to talk about non-self, let's find out what self is. So I suggest to you right now, again, after all these years, I haven't spoken about this in some years, is notice when you're establishing separation. And notice how you establish separation. And one of the things I pointed out also is culturally we define ourselves as separate.

[21:45]

And in many ways, we have to, teenagers have to break away from their parents and you have to be individuated and come into your own power and all that stuff. I noticed my first two daughters, when they were teenagers, simply did not have teenage rebellion. And I kept expecting, when are they going to start being as difficult as all the magazines say they are? Yeah, and I realized that they were growing up in a community, like growing up in a village, where you're not a child, you're a childhood, you're a small adult.

[23:11]

And at some point I noticed that they grew up in a community in which one was not treated as a child, but rather as a small adult. So I also recommended as one of the antidotes, well also since we, in addition to individuation and all, we actually think space is a gap that separates us. One day I just recognized that's a cultural idea. Dagmar is there. I can't quite reach her. I feel connected by the space as well as some kind of separation.

[24:30]

And one day I noticed that this is a cultural idea. So I suggested... Go ahead. Dagmar is sitting over there and I can't quite reach her with my hand, but at the same time I have the feeling that the room also connects us, in addition to the fact that there is also a kind of separation established through the room. I recognized we're going around in our culture, in a world in which we're already separated. So I changed that. I said one day, okay, let's try as a turning word phrase, already connected. Because even if we are separated in some ways, we are also already connected.

[25:33]

You know, yeah. I remember when I got lost here in the woods, the forest around here. It was a mild, I don't know, summery day outside the forest. And in the forest it was actually quite cold and I didn't have a sweater or anything and it was even hailing a little or something. And I got down in some kind of canyon and I couldn't, none of these little signs saying, Herr Schreed, six kilometers, you know, I was lost.

[26:44]

And suddenly I saw somebody in the distance. already connected. Didn't know who this guy was, but I was already connected. He was probably Andreas, yeah. And when we have big crises, big storm or something, we feel connected, already connected immediately. And when we have a big crisis or something is, for example, a big storm or something, then we feel our connection. So it's, again, I'll run out of time soon, so you examine the ways you feel separated, you examine the ways you feel connected, and you examine the way you establish continuity or assume continuity, even though you know you're going to die someday, probably.

[27:55]

I mean, we think there's an exception going to be made in our case, I know, but... Again, I'm running out of time, but you examine the ways and types of how you feel separated. You examine the ways and types of how you feel connected. You examine how you create continuity. And we all know, even if we know that we will die at some point, even though we might think that an exception is being made for us, The older you get, the more you realize that exception is probably fading. Okay. So what is the negative delusional functions of self? In our process of trying to understand or feel what it means, when Buddhism says non-self or non-duality,

[29:06]

So maybe the separated self, this delusional, is a depressive, isolated self. And an antidote to that is, you know, practicing the Brahmaviharas, friendliness and loving-kindness. And the delusional aspect of connectedness is the comparative self. Always comparing yourself to others.

[30:23]

I'm different, I'm better, I'm worse, etc. I know I'm not that worse, but I think I'm worse, or I actually think I'm better. So you have to start dealing with the delusional versions of connectedness. And a very good antidote to that is the Brahma Viharas of empathetic joy. I mean, I'm giving you some problems here, you know. And the delusional aspect, which you can notice in yourself, we all have it to various degrees, the delusional aspect of continuity is continuity established by constant self-referencing.

[31:34]

Maybe you could create a kind of physical trigger that every time you notice you're establishing a self-referential continuity, you raise your left hand And if we really practice this, we might find the whole song walking around like this all the time. yeah and uh The delusional aspect, which particularly is pertinent nowadays, the delusional aspect of a context is to think that our life is defined through a human-only context, separate from the so-called non-human.

[33:06]

It's a terrible concept in Western culture. So, again, if the whole Earth is the true human body. Hans Vossmann pointed out to us yesterday when you walk through a door with the foot stepping in nearest the hinge You're accepting that the hinge, the door, the room you're entering are part of the true human body.

[34:10]

And when you have that wonderful Japanese stew today, one of the best I've ever had, Thank you, Uli. I'm savoring the true human body. Okay. Okay, well, that's enough to suggest practicing with making it our own, in Western paradigms, in Western culture, we have embedded in our grammar, our sentence structure, our words like myself, itself, itself, itself, are these concepts of basically a delusional self.

[35:32]

So it's an archaeological process. You have to dig out the embedded assumptions you have about the world. So when I started this sense of, okay, I'm in Europe now, I have to find a way to speak about non-self. I also realized at that point I can't just teach Buddhism or what I think is Buddhism. I have to teach Buddhism in our culture using new ways to look at Buddhist practice.

[36:33]

If we're going to transmit Buddhism in this culture, We have to use the vehicle of Western culture as part of the transmission. So let's look at what we experience as self and say, can I really? I need an immune system. Can I really say there's no such thing as self? And then, okay, and then when you examine self and you begin to

[38:00]

Then examine the six and ten parameters as in-depth antidotes to delusional self. The ten perfections which go beyond into the potentiality of realization. So I'll leave it up to you to practice with the Brahma Viharas and the six and ten parameters to examine what could Bhulsa mean by non-self. And as a practitioner, doing regular zazen, eventually you start to notice that what you know through consciousness is only a limited part of how you really function in the world through a wider sense of knowing than reflective consciousness.

[39:52]

You begin to notice that awareness is different and wider often than consciousness. And then you'll notice there's a kind of subtle bodily awareness. And then you'll hear about the teaching of the three bodies of Buddha. And you can ask yourself, you should seriously ask yourself, what do those three bodies of Buddha have to do with me, my self-functioning?

[41:09]

And one of the secrets is to really define yourself through the experience of knowing and noticing how you know instead of through a reflective consciousness. So one of the secrets is to start experiencing yourself as a knowing person. instead of a conscious mind. No. My saying that as a teacher means less than nothing, actually, unless you try to enact it.

[42:47]

And one of the secrets is Dogen's word. Secrets is Hishiryo. Yeah. To change the intake valves. Yeah. Change the intake valves. Yeah, which is... Ishiro really means, as most of you know, translated as... Non-thinking actually means to notice without thinking about. If you really develop the skill to notice without thinking about, you'll find out a lot.

[44:07]

Wenn du wirklich diese Fähigkeit entwickelst, etwas zu bemerken, ohne drüber nachzudenken, dann wirst du wirklich vieles herausfinden. I feel, and you know, and really to recognize that all saving, all sentient beings are benefited really means to notice, practice as a hyper-object, as a an activity extended in space and time, which we are a part of. I said that because I suddenly had the feeling I was on a little dock here. Jetzt gesagt, weil ich auf einmal das Gefühl hatte, als ob ich hier auf so einem kleinen Dock sitze. And you were a big Dharma boat. Und als ob ihr ein großes Dharma-Schiff fährt.

[45:23]

And I had a bottle of champagne tonight. And I said, set sail! Ahoy! Bon voyage! Champagnerflasche und habe sie an euren Dharma-Boot zerschlagen und gesagt, gute Reise. Yes. So now I have to get in the water. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank. Thanks for translating. You're welcome. Oh, sorry. Too quick to get off like that.

[45:58]

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