And I brought, someone asked me yesterday to bring those three examples of mine and Tanahashi and Ujjie and Roshi's, just because you wanted to look at it. So I made three copies. So let me say something to begin with and then of course primarily to what you will bring me into the discussion. Because in a way what we see in Dogen and what we see in general in Dogen in Japan of the 13th century in Christian era terms You mean the way he was understood in the 13th century?

[01:26]

Yeah. Well, what he was doing in the 13th century. We may understand better what he was doing in the 13th century than they did in the 13th century. We could say that he was shifting, recontextualizing Buddhism with an emphasis on lay practice. At least in the first part of his teaching he emphasized lay practice, in the latter part he emphasized at some point almost exclusively monastic practice. In any case, he rethought what Buddhism could be.

[02:38]

And And tried to make practice in its fullness and depth accessible to everyone. To anyone. And he began his study, as I said yesterday, his practice on Hiesan, the Tendai or Tendai school of Buddhism. And one of the emphases or teachings of Tendai is in Japanese it's T-E-N-D-A-I and as it's romanized from Chinese it's T-I-E-N-T-A-I.

[03:43]

Not that you need to translate that. That's why I sometimes say Tien-tai, sometimes Tien-dai. I have no control over what I say. Tien-dai. I'm learning vocabulary. I seem to learn a word a year or so. If I only learned a word every time I was translated, I'd be quite fluent right now. Okay, one of the concepts in Tien-Dai Buddhism, which I mentioned for the first time in the Winter Branches seminar, which is the concept of the 3000 coherences.

[05:23]

Now I'm bringing this up not only because I think it can be useful. I'm bringing it up also because to illustrate how small changes, what seem to be small changes, like a new term, can be a big shift in the understanding of the world and Buddhism and so forth. Of course we don't It may be more of an apparent shift, but not so much a real shift, because so much is just carried in the way people do things.

[06:52]

Because what we study as Buddhism is just what's surfaced from people's practices surfaced in language and anecdotes And I think of it that way also because I see it in my own life and our practice here in America and Europe. which I have a certain practice from Suzuki Roshi. And practices I developed and continued within the context that Suzuki Roshi established.

[07:55]

And then I've noticed how over now, I've said 55 years, various aspects of that practice have surfaced into consciousness and into language. And because I feel a huge responsibility to Suzuki Roshi who made such a lifetime effort to bring Buddhism into the West. To leave within our Sangha, developing from his Sangha, as much of the essentials and subtleties as I can.

[09:30]

Hoping that you can and others can over time make sense of these things. So in this statement of mine in this case, through our conversations here in this seminar, I decided to change the second sentence or second part of the statement from for the 10,000 things to come forward to say for the 10,000 dharmas to come forward. So the first half of it says for the 10,000 things and the second half of it says for the 10,000 dharmas.

[10:50]

Okay. I sometimes feel I'm channeling Dogen. Channeling? Channeling, yeah. We say channeling, yeah. In the sense that, not that I think he's, you know, floating up above the, licked him somewhere. But I'm still there. But that I've been in the midst of Dogen's teachings through Sudokirishi and through my own life, so much that I've caught a certain configuration that I feel represents what he would say in English.

[11:59]

And I'm not stating that thanks for the cushion. Thanks for the cushion. I'm not stating this as a fact, but just as a feeling I have sometimes. Because I wonder sometimes why I think it should be 10,000 dharmas instead of 10,000 things. Okay. So let's go back to the 3,000 coherences. It's just a number, right? It could be any number.

[13:03]

32 or 784, we've got 3,000. And the idea is that each moment is constituted from, comprised of 3,000 coherences. Okay. Now, this is a mental posture. When you are effecting and affecting appearances, What's the difference in English? Effecting is to make happen and affecting is to change, to affect.

[14:06]

You're doing that with... with mental postures. You're by shaping your five physical senses to notice appearances as dharmas. um die Erscheinungen als dharmas zu bemerken. And in this case, to notice appearances as not just things, but as dharmas because you release them, you empty them. Und in diesem Fall nicht nur als Dinge, sondern als dharmas, weil du sie loslässt, weil du sie leer machst.

[15:14]

This may happen naturally. But if it does happen naturally, it happens intermittently naturally. Only now and then. So... But when you make a decision that you're going to do this most of the time, this requires a mental posture. And the decision to do it is an act of wisdom. And the decision to do this is a gesture or an act of wisdom. Like the Genjo Koan says at the end. The wind, air may be everywhere. In other words, enlightenment may be everywhere. But to make it work, you have to fan yourself.

[16:21]

You make your own wind. Okay, so you make your own wisdom. Yeah. And that decision to do it may, I say it may arise naturally. And that decision to do it may, I say it may arise naturally. Now, what is the case is that practice shows itself.

[17:24]

In other words, as part of what this Ganyu koan is about, is your life situations are also koans. You don't have to go to Matsu, Vajra, to find a teacher. Es ist der Fall, dass die Praxis sich zeigen kann, dass deine Lebenssituationen selbst ein Koan sind, so dass du nicht unbedingt zu Matsu oder Baichang gehen musst, um einen Lehrer zu finden. Als Sukhiroshi den Genjo Koan in den 60er Jahren gelehrt hat, da hat er darüber gesprochen als den Koan des Alltagslebens. But he also said, it's usually thought of that way, but it is also, etc. And one of the things that distinguishes Dogen's Soto approach... Is there 100 koans or 3,000 koans or something like that?

[18:35]

There's an unlimited number of koans. Because koan then arises through your ability to look at your experience in a way that you can resolve it through the kind of practice which is koan practice. Okay. So if you practice and you realize certain, you find yourself in certain modalities of aliveness, in a sashin or after a sashin or after a couple of periods of zazen or something like that.

[19:48]

And you notice your experience is different when you're emptying each appearance. And it's different than when you accept each appearance. And then when you start seeing that, you fool around with accepting and settling into and see if that's different from accepting and emptying. And through that alertness, and Suzuki Rishi used to say so often to us, I want you all to be more alert And since the Japanese can't say L, I thought he was always saying he wants us to be more our heart.

[20:54]

Our lunch. And you feel it. And usually Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes the Bodhisattva Theravada and early Buddhism emphasizes the Arhat. So I always thought, he wants me to practice more early Buddhism. And it took me months to realize he was saying alert, not our heart. but I've learned a lot from our hearts. So from that point of view we begin to teach ourselves subtle differences. And as you know, subtle differences repeated become huge differences after time.

[22:17]

Okay. So generally, I think our habit, our habit, constructed in our durative present, even if we do develop the attentional skills to notice the the mix of the cosmos as individual appearances. Yeah. And we're establishing the idea of the cosmos as an established order, and we're always establishing local order in the midst of global incoherence.

[23:20]

We have to order our environment in order to function it. Okay, and that is already a structure of noticing. Now, again, when I say all this, I think, I've almost said nothing so far, and it's all been preparation to say something which I'm not going to get to until next year, etc., and I wonder if you're patient and done, okay. Very elegant today. But I think if I share with you my own process of trying to present this informationally to myself through language, you will maybe understand it better yourself.

[24:35]

Okay. So at each moment we are structuring because there are mental postures in noticing appearances. And usually we're temporizing appearances. By temporizing appearances, It's lucky I don't have to say some of those German words. I can barely say the English one. I'm bringing the momentum of time into my perception of appearances.

[25:58]

Indem wir verzeitlichen, bringe ich... into your appearance into my experience of an appearance I assume it's arrived from a cause I assume it's arisen from a momentum from the past And I assume it's going to be carried off by a momentum of the future calling us to it. And that is somewhat true. But it locates you in consciousness. But if you imagine that each moment is not simply causally and temporally framed, But instead, you're noticing the 3,000 coherences.

[27:12]

So the 3000 coherences again, as I said yesterday, I'm sitting on the platform and the cushion and the newly stuffed cushion and the floor and the ground and this property which has been taken care of for generations and so forth, they are all simultaneous coherences. This 3000 coherences means something like I said yesterday. I sit here on this cushion, on the new cushion, on the pedestal, on the floor, on this being that you have been taking care of for generations. All these are coherences. And we usually take the coherences for granted as somehow the present that's out there, the world out there. But if you have a world that's conceived of without an exclusive center, A non-exclusive center.

[28:47]

Non-exclusive, okay. This is also a test. I have to center myself non-exclusively. Is there a different adjective other than exclusive that you could use? Well, generally a center, there's a center and a periphery. But in the Tendai way of thinking, which is also what Dogen studied, everything becomes a center. As soon as you think of centers and sources, you're basically ending up thinking in a theological way.

[29:52]

Sobald du anfängst, über ein Zentrum, ein Mittelpunkt und Quellen nachzudenken, gehst du letztlich in eine theologisch denkende Richtung. And it's difficult. My hand needs to help. Yeah. The words are right there. I see you read them. You've got a little text for it. This is clever of you. You've got invisible notes. Okay. So I say non-exclusive center meaning there is an experience of center but it's not a center which excludes anything. What I'm trying to emphasize here and develop here is the way in which small changes make a big change. And a symbol that's built into a simple view of dogons, that there are unlimited komons, is a real big shift.

[31:03]

There was a huge shift away from the Buddha and the Indian Buddha ancestors to the Chinese exemplary ancestors. And with Dogen to a shift that the teaching is everywhere and Buddha is everywhere. Now, how is that manifest? How does the craft of the moment articulate this? How does the craft of the moment articulate this? I always find a little problem with handwork.

[32:31]

Because I just mean craft and I don't mean you have to do it with your hands. Well, I know craft is handwork, but I hear hand. Well, I mean, I'm not really complaining. I just hear handwork and I think, hmm, handwork. Yeah. Okay. So if you bring, if you're developing as a practitioner, as a mature practitioner, you're developing the habit that you inhabit of noticing the... the mix of ingredients as separate appearances.

[33:42]

Okay. And in that noticing, taking away the sense that these are things or entities. And you're seeing them as activities. And also say to yourself, functions. Activities may be just activities, but they also may have a function. And often they have a function or we give them a function. Now, if we see them as a function, an activity, their activity, as long as they're active, so they have no substantial physical reality.

[34:44]

So you notice every appearance, and in noticing it, you release it as emptiness, not into emptiness, that's just a receptacle somewhere, but you release it as also emptiness. And you notice them as activities and then you let them go as emptiness. You don't let them go into the emptiness as if the emptiness was a condition in which you can let something go, but you let them go as emptiness. Now, as part of that releasing, you're not just removing self-interest or something like that. That becomes too simplistic a problem. You're removing the assumed structure of temporal momentum.

[36:08]

The things are arriving from the past and going into the future. nämlich dass die Dinge aus der Vergangenheit kommen und dann in die Zukunft gehen. And one way to do that is now have a mental posture of the 3,000 or innumerable coherences. Und eine Art das zu tun ist, wenn du jetzt eine geistige Haltung einnimmst von den 3,000 oder unzähligen Kohärenzen. Yeah, okay. So if you do begin to have the mental posture, which Tendai is suggesting we develop, of the 3,000 innumerable coherences, that recontextualizes your experience. If you're still following me, by recontextualizing your experience, you're changing your relationship to time.

[37:35]

Und wenn du deine Erfahrung neu kontextualisierst, neuen Zusammenhang schaffst, dann veränderst du deine Beziehung zur Zeit. So you're not any longer seeing yourself in a time frame of arriving and going on. Dann siehst du dich nicht mehr in einem Zeitrahmen, in dem du ankommst und dann weitergehst. So again, the radical statement of the Dhamma Sutra, the Bodhisattva has no concept of a lifespan. That's far out. Just think about it. The radical statement of the Dhamma Sutra, that a Bodhisattva has no concept of a lifespan, that's really extraordinary. Think about it. Now, how do you surgically remove the idea of a lifespan? Well, it's a kind of surgery.

[38:48]

You're cutting out the momentum of time from your experience of... You're lessening the momentum of time in your experience of appearances. And you're locating appearances really now as arising from a multiplicity of coherences. And that then locates and affects you as you feel yourself in a multiplicity of coherence. And that also then becomes a merging of foreground and background. Foreground and background disappear because it's all a mixture of coherence.

[39:50]

And now you're creating the outcome chemistry and dynamic of a field. And I feel that I said to Christina earlier we would have a break at 11, at 10.45. It is exactly 10.45. I'm completely impressed with myself. What time is it? What? Yeah, I'm a timeless time. So I should, we can just stop here afterwards or at some point between now and four o'clock we can look at the alchemical dynamic of the field.

[40:53]

This Christ is looking at me. I don't know what it means, but I accept him settling to it. Thank you very much. That was fun. It's a little blip in me and then I sort of take the blip apart. And then I... And you helped me take it apart, so this is interesting. Well, I think let's leave the field, the alchemy of the field to the future. Later in the day or something.

[41:55]

And this morning what I was saying, I've never said before. And then I think, how could I practice all these years without knowing? And then I recognized that actually I should have... am talking about this because I have been practicing all these years, I just have never articulated. But the articulation, though, then begins to affect how I practice. Though I've been doing it, articulating it makes it different. And then I think, there's some people who should have been here because how can they practice without knowing this?

[43:09]

But of course, you... This may make sense to you, because you've already been practicing it too. In any case, do you have any comments? Yes, Hans-Jörg. This is a concept thing, that didn't fit me. So this concept with the coherences, that to me sounds excitingly likeable. Sympathical. Yeah, sympathical. I don't know if the questioner is able to understand what I'm trying to say.

[44:15]

And I don't know if the question I'm having, whether that's really a fruitful question or makes sense to ask. Let's try. And so it's about the connection to the concept of the Allayat Jnana. For me, this concept of the Allayat Jnana feels like a kind of equality in the moment. which for me the concept of the coherence is it feels like and kind of equal and equally um um yeah yeah i get the picture yeah uh within the present yeah

[45:26]

And then it's in terms of the concept, something like where... Okay, so the concept of the alaya jnana I sense as if there is an almost universally present background storage in which things can be stored. Okay, and then when things appear, then they just join into the flickering moment. Okay.

[46:39]

But what I have difficulty with is the background building, the background structure. Of the Avijjana or the storehouse? Yeah. Well, it's more like a garden than a storehouse. And your experiences, which, at least in my sense, and I feel that, you know, we're still exploring how to speak about the live agenda and still exploring how it is part of our practice. But I think of it as kind of its further articulation and development as a practice as kind of the next step as I see it in Buddhism. So we can think of Laya Vijjana as more of a garden where there are seeds and traces and microclimates.

[47:44]

We can imagine the Alaya Vijnana more like a garden where there are seed grains and traces and microclimate zones. Okay. So let's continue the discussion, but that's a mutual contribution just now. Yes, Krista? Yes. So I wonder, why do they say 3,000 coherence and 10,000 things, 10,000 dharmas?

[49:09]

There must be some kind of difference between these. I'm joking, yeah. But it's not so good. Well, say 10,000 about everything, it gets boring. But as a part of this, this is, that these concepts are not to begin with, like the insects quiver. I have some feeling as if these terms are something like lights which the insects go towards. Can you fix it? Because it's kind of the same. So, like, you know, like, the light from in my ear, you know, So that it's not fixed terms, but aspects of ever similar processes.

[50:21]

Yeah, that's okay. Is it better if we flip it over? So I have these three terms now, dharmas, then the term contextualizing, and the term coherence. And I would now be interested in hearing about differences between these aspects. Okay. We want to resist turning these terms, which have arisen from our practice, and use them to create a philosophical system.

[51:25]

or assume they should somehow constitute a philosophical system. It's more important to put them back into our practice. Wichtiger, sie in unsere Praxis zurückzuführen. And see how they function, see what happens. Und zu schauen, wie sie wirken, zu schauen, was geschieht. Yeah, so really the experience of the difference is what happens when you put them back into your practice. Und wirklich die... Can you say that again? I'm grateful that English is just a German dialect. Yeah, it's a little more different than Swiss German.

[52:43]

Well, I don't know. Some parts of Austria, you seem to speak something quite different, too. I find people from northern Germany can't understand the local dialect around Johansson. But in any case I have a feeling of how a word like coherence functions in my experience. Whether this word functions in your experience in a similar way I don't know. Or whether the translation into a German word functions.

[53:44]

Anyway, it's a miracle that we're doing this together with my being monolingual. It's a miracle that we're doing this together with my being monolingual. So I'll think more about what you said and maybe it'll be part of the discussion. But thank you. You want to say something else, it seems? Yes. I would already be satisfied with the subjective connotation. What subjective connotation? How it works, how it functions within your practice, within your understanding.

[54:51]

Okay, I will try to do that. Yes, Richard. I make it easier for me to find a picture of this word coherence and then let go of coherence as emptiness. I find it easier when I can find an image for this word coherence and then to release the coherence into as emptiness. And I imagine it as something like, as if from a formlessness like water, spontaneously a form arises. In this moment when the form is formed, it then sinks back into formlessness.

[56:01]

And that at the moment when the foreign has risen, that then already it is released back into the water. Okay, well. It's already water. It just stays water. If we use the metaphor. And so at this... In this way it has a reality but no substance because it changes. That's why we teach emptiness. And if I, in my daily practice, if I compare things like this, then I can apply it better.

[57:16]

Okay, if you think of things like this, not compare things like this. Not compare, but make these distinctions. Rosa? I want to ask a question about what you said towards the end about merging foreground and background. An appearance is like something comes into the foreground. And is it that then that merges with the background so that that becomes a field? Yeah, like that. Again about the terms, about the terms is then in your understanding, Buddha Dharma is that the same as Dharma with a particular way of particular emphasis?

[58:42]

I mean, why don't we just say Dharma and why do we say Buddha Dharma? I would say that, and why would I do it? I would say that Dharma contextualize is a word which is contextualized in our experience. And when you say Buddha Dharma, it means it's also contextualized within the framework of Buddha's teachings. And then it also makes it clear that if it's contextualized within Buddhist teaching, then it's contextualized as being a cogency or condition of enlightenment.

[60:01]

It makes sense. Because to every Buddhist teaching you bring three guiding principles. Every Buddhist teaching is in the context of potential enlightenment. Every Buddhist teaching is in the context of freeing you from mental and emotional suffering. And every Buddhist teaching is in the context of knowing things as they are because we should know things as they are. Which means changing and interpenetrating and so forth. It makes the dynamic of Buddhism so different to the dynamic of science.

[61:12]

Because science would maybe just want some knowledge. Buddhism only wants knowledge that does something about these three things. We study consciousness not only because it's interesting, we also study consciousness because the study of consciousness is also a way to transform consciousness. Okay. Did you have your head up a minute ago? Well, yeah, I was wondering about what Richard brought up. Yeah. Because I have a similar image, but slightly different, and I'm wondering about it.

[62:41]

Is that coherences with that in that image mean more like the interferences of different, not interferences, but overlapping the interference, like if you had in that pond out there and you had various things moving at various times and then you watched the surface and then at any particular moment you could take a snapshot and then you'd see particular patterns interfering at certain moments. But coherences, do you need to translate that? Yeah. Also the question was in Richard's picture I had the question whether this word coherence whether it is something like when we look at this pond and there is a lot of activity and then at any given moment there is a certain pattern on the water surface of the things that are happening there. And whether these interferences, these moment-to-moment patterns, whether that is what is called coherence.

[63:47]

And in the concept of coherence is the idea, concept, that we notice things that are likely to be coherent and we don't notice things that are likely to be incoherent. Okay, so then we notice what is not coherent primarily when it conflicts with coherence. Okay, and then we can have, are we limited by noticing coherences in order to free ourselves from temporal momentum? If we want to know things as they are, the concept of temporal momentum, the mental posture of temporal momentum, limits us from noticing the field of coherences.

[65:07]

noticing coherences. But then we have to ask, do noticing coherences limit us from noticing incoherences. Then can you also develop practice in a way that incoherences become part of your practice? And this is how practice develops. I think of Albert Hoffman, the Swiss who said, what the hell, I want to taste this stuff, and whoa, it was LSD.

[66:33]

And he just did it by accident, I think. He didn't really know. He just was, from what I know a little bit, other scientists thought he was a little nuts because he tastes things. And that little taste transformed San Francisco. It caused a lot of havoc and a lot of other things. And led me to organize the LSD conference and not take LSD. And the regents of the University of California to call me a communist. Because they thought only a communist would interfere with the University of California by organizing a conference on LSD.

[67:45]

Anyway, so you never know what's going to happen from an incoherency. Okay, someone else. You were going to say something, right? Oh, I'm sorry. You were first, didn't you? Okay. I would like to ask, when you use the word coherence, the relationships between the particulars, What quality would you name the relationships between the individual, the particularities?

[68:58]

Would you call that something like, I don't know, resonance? Yeah. Is it kind of tuning or resonance? I mean, we'd have to have these boards fit together, or... it wouldn't work as a floor. But we could be kind of advanced and build a building where there were holes in the floor But then you'd have to make sure people had eyes. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm asking because there's a term by Antonovsky where he uses the term coherence more in the sense of healing, getting a holistic move, getting better.

[70:09]

Yeah, I would like to heal my heel. And I'm walking as coherently as possible. But I don't know how this philosopher uses the term, but there are probably some relationships. Okay. Christa? Okay. Now that you've described, brought out the concept of coherence again. In the sense that we tend to select the aspects that fit together well, that we like, and that have some kind of pleasant... Yeah.

[71:21]

Well, yeah, but let's not just assume it's in terms of... Self or pleasure or something like that. Also, they just simply fit together, whether they give us pleasure or not. The fitting together dynamic is wider than just whether it gives us pleasure or not. Trotzdem war es gemeint, als dass dort der Blick jetzt mal mehr geht und die eher unangenehmeren Phänomene eher ausgeschlossen sind. But yet, was it meant as that? Yeah, or it was meant the way I understand it, that that's more where the attention is drawn, where the eyes are drawn, and that the unpleasant aspects are more excluded.

[72:35]

No, I think the idea in the entendai is more philosophical. It's not psychological. It's that if we notice things in the usual sense of Buddhism, which emphasizes causality, As the Four Noble Truths start out with their suffering, and suffering has a cause. So a causal framework is in all of Buddhist philosophy. And Tendai is a rather later school, later Mahayana school. And they emphasize that it's not simply causality, the situation itself is a dynamic. So it's to notice the immediacy of the situation, the configuration of the situation, equally with any causal aspect.

[73:59]

So it's a philosophical or wisdom position and not a psychological position. I don't notice this floor because I like it, dislike it. I notice it because it's part of the meat situation. And I don't notice it just as background, it's also foreground. It's like a good photographer can have everything in focus from the way back to the front of the picture and not just some aspect in focus.

[75:12]

So in such a photograph, there's no background. It's all foreground. Unless you yourself establish a foreground-background relationship by saying, The statue in front of the grass is more important than the grass. But Dogen would say, ah, the hundred grasses, that's Buddha. Yes, I expressed it badly now, because I didn't mean it psychologically, but obviously it is understood that way.

[76:13]

With the word coherence, the term all-at-ones-ness immediately came to me. For me, coherence only means that if everything was included, one would get the term all-at-ones-ness. So the question that I have is the association I have is all-at-onceness when you use the term coherence, that the term coherence includes an all-at-onceness. Simultaneity. Where everything arises simultaneously at a given moment. Like that. Thank you. Those iPhones. These are iPhones.

[77:13]

What else? What time, Christina? 12.30. 12.30. Okay. Yes. I noticed two things. Yes. I found it quite interesting and I've never heard it like this before. the development from Indian Buddhism to Chinese Buddhism, and then Dogen, who thinks about how can it be practiced in a lay context, and then later thinks about how can it be practiced in a monastic context. And one can understand it as an intellectual concern or question.

[78:17]

in the sense of, okay, I don't know what else to do, so I just try to give it a new twist. Dogen was saying, geez, I'm bored with Buddhism here, I've got to give it a new twist. So he looked around for a new twist. Well, I don't know about that, but go ahead. I often times experience that one would just think of something new just in order to have something new. But the question that's interesting to me is the question, how can it fit into life? How can this teaching be taken, brought into one's own practice, and then also transform the teaching?

[79:30]

And that seems to be something that on the one hand occurred in the 5th or 6th, I don't know, something century in China. And now Baker Roshi described that about Dogen. And it might still not matter to us. But what is so strange here is that the situation But what I find so interesting is that we today are in such a situation that we can ask ourselves, okay, we live in the West, we live in a completely different society. We have a completely different idea of what it means to have a self. And we can ask ourselves, okay, we can take these teachings, listen to them, we can ask ourselves how do they fit into our lives, look at how they transform our life, And I'm hesitating a bit to say it like this.

[81:13]

But we are also transforming Buddhism by trying it in our lives and within ourselves. And that I find really quite interesting, And the second point I noticed is that I somehow didn't quite get the key of what you were saying. And I've been wondering, what is he doing? What is he talking about? Well, let me know if you find out. For me, it came together when I thought, okay, well, one could describe it also quite differently. That actually it's also something like the experience and practice of no-self.

[82:30]

So that not the self is at the center. That orders things and time. But that it passes through the self. And it doesn't really need the self. It doesn't need the control of the self. That is quite liberating. Liberating. We are such complex beings, the self is only a small part of how we are actually organized. But it's a big part of our experience because we make a distinction between self, other and others.

[83:30]

But, you know, I appreciate your observations. But did you discover the key? Somehow. What would it be? For me, certain weaknesses are For me, what you spoke about, I would organize through the distinction between self and no-self. But that for me is just one perspective. It could be organized through temporality. Or through substance and coherence.

[84:37]

Well, I think from a sociological or historical point of view, You're right. What's very interesting is how Buddhism is being transformed in the West. But as a practitioner, I have no interest in that. I'm trying to be as... No interest is quite right. It's interesting as an affect, but it's not interesting to me as an effect. I realize what's arising within our Dharma Sangha practice together.

[85:46]

Our ways of speaking about Buddhism, which I think you won't find written anywhere and have no... Your daughter? Hi Judy. Last time she was here, she undressed. No, that was in Johansson. Oh, it's not in this. my daughter would choose that age undressed at the airport in San Francisco. And I said, Sally, we don't undress at the airport. And she said, well, doesn't everyone want to? And I said, well, Well, I don't know.

[86:53]

If we're dealing with reality, maybe yes. Okay. So my effort is to speak as accurately as I can about the feel and content of the teaching I received from Siddharth Hirsching. And I really am a little even scared a little bit that in the process of... doing this I'm changing things maybe in ways that I don't have any sense of what it will really result in. Because I don't think I have any right or special ability to change this teaching.

[88:21]

kid who met Suzuki Roshi who had no idea how to even make my personal life work. And he showed me how to make my personal life work free of the usual cultural And I've learned so much by accepting the teaching and not criticizing it until I really have practiced it. Okay. But of course, if we're speaking about and trying to articulate practice in the West,

[89:35]

Within the way science is exploring the world. And the way psychology in a sophisticated sense explores the identity of self. All that exploration is going to affect Buddhism as well as just using the categories of English and German. because if I say take teaching A and practice it as A prime. Yeah.

[90:50]

Yeah, well, A may be influenced by B, C, and D. But a prime may be influenced by all kinds of things that I didn't know would happen. Because A prime exists in English and European alphabet and A here now exists in Sanskrit or Pali or Japanese. And it's not simply a matter of language. Because if you're in a yogic culture, You simply assume your body is a big part of everything you're doing.

[92:06]

And you don't have a Herman Kahn. Anybody remember Herman Kahn? He was a think tank person. who helped develop American policy of willingness to use nuclear weapons and things like that. And he was rather fat. And dick. What is she talking about? He said, I could just be a bray in a Petri dish. I don't need my... I mean, he couldn't have said that in Japan. No, people think, let's drown him. Okay. But Buddhism is changing.

[93:29]

Well, I hope not. I hope it's developing and evolving and not changing. At least that's my emphasis. And I think Dogen... I think his vision that Buddhism, which is a continuation of the Mahayana vision, which is Mahayana, is really basically conceived of as for laypersons. And one of the ways you see that exemplified is the Bodhisattvas, which is the key figure, have jewelry, hair, and so forth. They're not monks. They're rather exceptional fellows, but they're not monks. But in fact in Chinese Buddhism it's only continued by monastics.

[94:42]

There are no lay lineages which have survived. And that I have to face myself. So I think what Dogen did is he said, okay, this is the Mahayana ideal. I'm going to try to develop this practice and articulate it in a way that it can be for everyone. But I think he, my own feeling is that he never lost that vision. But what he found was that among the practitioners it was the monks who continued.

[95:58]

So at the end of his life he said only a monk can really do this. But I think at that time you either were a monastic and you were a farmer or you were a merchant and you didn't have time to do anything else. So one thing we have now is way more leisure time. So maybe Dogen now would not have come to that conclusion. So I'm with the Dharasanga trying to solve this dilemma that faced Dogen. How do we create a monastic life which is integrated with lay practice? A monastic practice that's integrated with lay practice.

[97:27]

So I'm trying to solve the problem, which I saw very early on, reading Dogen, that Dogen faced. I would say that we now have mature lay practitioners who are as fully engaged in practice, transformational practice, and even more so than most monastics. And so in that sense we've succeeded. But can these lay persons continue the teaching of disciples? Yes.

[98:33]

What you started saying about what you were doing, kind of verbalizing all this. You mentioned before coming from a tradition, a religious tradition where there was no talking. This is absolutely... I have to say, wonderful to hear some of my experiences being verbalized. And it goes vice versa. It was very enlightening when first hearing you. When hearing you the first time, because there it was in words. what my experience was. But it goes back to what I was just going to say. When resolving a koan, I wouldn't primarily work on the koan.

[99:36]

I would just do this concentration thing, and then the solution pops up. And at the same time, it's a so-called solution for so many situations in my life, where things would widen, would open up, with this one ghenpo coming and saying, oh, how deep is the water? And so it goes vice versa. And so I definitely don't think it's like deluding the teaching on the contrary. I think dogging is sitting right here, No, but it's been there. It's going on the marketplace. Like being a doctor, I find myself, I'm not saying I'm giving docs because it's hard to call out, but with my patients, getting into this kind of dynamics, or everybody doing that in their jobs, and that's

[100:43]

And this is kind of a continuation that we really go deeply and profoundly of the teaching. It's not diluting. Well, yes, I understand. And I hope that's the case. And that's my effort to speak about things only to the extent which leaves room for you to develop it on your own. So in a sense I'm doing that with the Genjo Koan. I'm not talking about the whole Genjo Koan, I'm just talking about the first few sentences and hoping that's enough, you guys can do it. But it's also when I learned to practice, I started practicing, developed practice with Suzuki Roshi. And he gave us insights but not explanations. But when I came to Europe, I found out if I taught that way with a group of people who had no monastic experience, I didn't get anywhere.

[102:19]

I had to start being more explicit. Aber als ich nach Europa gekommen bin, da habe ich gefunden, dass wenn ich auf die Art und Weise lebe, mit einer Gruppe von Leuten, die keine Klostererfahrung hatten, dann bin ich damit nirgendwo hingekommen. Ich musste expliziter werden. Weil wir in San Francisco eine Situation kreiert hatten, wo wir drei Zentren hatten, And somebody had to practice with me for five years continuously before they could even apply to Tassajara. And when they applied to Tassajara, they had to have the financial abilities to stay there at least two years before we'd accept them. So everyone stayed two years and many people stayed three, four, five years. And there were 65 people always there.

[103:32]

That's the maximum we could take. And there was always a waiting list of 60 to 150 to stay another two years. It was a very different situation. So I was always speaking to an initiated audience. When I first came to Europe I don't think you initiated the audience at all. It was only the Wiener Band that tried to make things happen. But I thought if they chose me, I'd choose them. So here I am. But this teaching I've given during this weekend, this weekend, if I'm talking to a senior practitioner, one to one, what we've talked about this weekend would be stretched out over a year.

[104:55]

phrase by phrase sentence by sentence and I can't do that unless you all decide to give up your jobs and we live together And that's exactly the problem Dogen has. Genjapon is dedicated to a lay person, but in the end he thought the monks understand it. But I don't find life interesting unless it's a problem. So I like this problem we have of how to continue the teaching together. Yes. But isn't that, or at least for me, it's... It's like the Ganga Koan is meeting me everywhere.

[106:19]

So I'm busy. This is good. Okay, so now how will you continue this with others? You've got a child. What a cutie pie. A very handsome son. You're not supposed to stop at some point. It's now 12.30. Just an idea. Go ahead. Why can't we as part of the study program have each year just two lines all together? The study program is going to be your creation and it's been initiated primarily by her. So do what you want. It's something Marie-Louise suggested to me over and over again about 15 years ago, but I said, I'm not ready to do it.

[107:27]

And she didn't ask me, she just did it. And then she said, the internet has already, our website has already got... And then she tells me, you have to do this because it's going to be on the website. She uses the website. All right, thank you very much.

[107:50]

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