As you can see, I'm experimenting with wearing raksus these days. So I'm experimenting also with wearing some of Suzuki Roshi's that I received from him. And when I came down the stairs and could meet the Jisha with her incense, she said, oh, you've got your party dress on. So I thought it was my basic black dress. Probably. I always thought it would be my basic black. So phenomenology, the observation discipline that more or less started as a discipline with Husserl?

[01:11]

Yes. So phenomenology, the observation discipline that more or less started with Husserl. Yeah, and it's mostly it was German at first and then became French and then throughout the Western world it became a philosophy. And it's very recent, it's from the early 20th century. Und das ist eine noch recht junge Disziplin aus dem frühen 20. Jahrhundert. But it's what really, what is a big part of making Western Buddhism possible. To think about Western... Yeah. Es ist aber wirklich einen großen Anteil daran, den westlichen Buddhismus zu ermöglichen. Yeah.

[02:13]

So the word phenomenology literally means logos and phenomena, so it's the study of what appears. Phenomena means what appears. And Buddhism doesn't... Buddhism starts from the study of what appears. And the Buddha was a person who studied what appears. And in Buddhism, the study of what appears is called the Dharma. Now what I'm doing here in these days, the latter days of practicing with you,

[03:19]

I'm not only speaking about the teaching of Buddhism, but the construction of the teaching of Buddhism. Because the path means you're constructing your own path. So the study of Buddhism is to study and develop the construction of Buddhism. Yes, so again, it's an observational discipline, let's call it that. But it grew up in a culture which assumes things are rather static.

[04:34]

There's things out there and there's this thing which is looking at it, smelling it, like that. But the dharma of studying that which appears developed in a culture where there was no universals, no outside space, and only this. So we could say Buddhism studies what appears, yes, but it also studies what appears, and it develops what appears, and it evolves what appears.

[05:41]

Is there a difference between develop and evolve? And it transforms what appears. And that's because there's no sense of it being a static situation. It's a field which has not yet appeared, a field of potentialities. So when you study what appears and you're studying what appears in what you assume is a field of potentialities Then as the study develops, it evolves and draws out things that hadn't appeared at first.

[06:54]

That which is yet to appear begins to appear. Okay. A mouse, a mole or a mouse or an earthworm knows its environment. The mole and the earthworm feel all the dirt around it. But we don't feel our environment.

[07:57]

It feels like it's invisible. It's at best air and a little wind. But we could say that our environment is the tissue, text and tissue of spatiality and temporality. Wir könnten aber sagen, dass unser Umfeld das Gewebe, der Stoff von Räumlichkeit und Zeitlichkeit ist. Yeah, so then we can ask, could ask, how do we make the tissue of spatiality and temporality appear? My eldest daughter grew up partly with this in Japan. Now I guess 55.

[09:06]

The first conceptually intact sentence she uttered I was walking upstairs with her. We lived in a third floor in Germany, a second floor flat in a narrowish building in San Francisco. Yeah. And it was, you could, it was three long flights of stairs. And you could see, when you're at the top, you could see all the way down to the ground floor.

[10:16]

And I've mentioned before, Grand Pechi, who died recently, lived on the first floor, who practiced with me in the earliest days with Sukershi, when he had this stick, which he gave As I've said, this staff, which is partly a backbone, a spinal, partly a gesture, And partly just the natural grain of the wood. And then curved, so it seems to turn inward. Which is also on some staffs the mushroom soma, the psychedelic mushroom.

[11:35]

Which Alice in Wonderland used to nipple on. Oh, no, back to the subject. Yeah. So she got to... I was carrying her in my arms. She was... I don't know, when you first start speaking, how old are you, two or something like that? And we got to the top of the stairs. And she suddenly said, complete sentence, when you're down there, it's a long ways up here. And when you're up here, it's a long ways down there.

[12:54]

So if I'd been more sensitive, I would have realized that maybe this means she's going to be an artist. Because she experienced and described this unit of space, which has two ends, a here end and a there end. And it's reversible. Yeah, like that. Yeah. So I think artists are often people who are gripped by the there-ness of things which can be here-ness. And I think that artists are often people who have taken hold of the there-ness of things and know that this there-ness can be a here-ness.

[14:06]

Cézanne wasn't a particularly good draftsman. Draftsman? A drawer. Cézanne wasn't a particularly good draftsman. But he was exceedingly good at making vereness, here-ness. So there are people who can draw better than Cezanne, but they can't draw a there-ness, so it feels like a here-ness. Yeah, in English, this homophonic, homophones of their, T-H-E-I-R, and their, T-H-E-R-E, may be related, really, to this feeling that their is also, belongs to you, is their there. I'm joking, but I'm not just joking.

[15:24]

What I'm saying is that there are resonances within language that go beyond the first level meaning that you sense And it leads you toward them within this field of potentialities. So how do you make a there-ness feel like a here-ness? And I think this is actually, you know... Anyway, I'm trying.

[16:34]

It's actually maybe related to the mother's body. Und ich glaube, dass das auch viel mit dem Körper einer Mutter zu tun hat, mit dem Körper der Mutter. Because the baby, when it's in the womb, the mother is its here-ness. Weil wenn ein Baby in der Gebärmutter ist, dann ist die Mutter das hier des Baby. And then after the infant, the baby is born, the mother, nursing, etc., it remains the here-ness of the baby.

[17:34]

And then the baby goes, the mother goes away for a while. And then she returns. And returns here-ness to the baby. So the baby, I think, feels Well, the mother does return and forms a feeling conception that there's two ends to hereness. There's the hereness returned by the mother and the hereness of the baby. And what's the other, the here-ness of the mother? The mother returns to here-ness to the baby. No, I don't know if this is true.

[18:58]

You know, making this up, if I go along here. But it allows me to try to say something about experiences that develop and evolve through practice. Yeah. And I do think in some ways it's anticipated in early experience. And it's that anticipation, sometimes what I call non-normative or paranormal, seem like, but non-normative experiences that later become a new kind of normative, a yogic normative. So if we're practitioners, we're in a field of experience which is unique in the fact that it's always changing.

[20:04]

But unique also in that it's not always just a rearrangement, but sometimes something new. And then how do you find your balance in a field of something new. And the word balance means to make two things one. Like the two pans of a scale until they're the same. That's balance. So how do you find your balance in the phenomenal world which is appearing and sometimes newly?

[21:30]

It's discovered in the still point, in stillness. Okay. Now, as I said the other day, nobody knows what time is. Ich vor kurzem gesagt habe, also niemand weiß, was Zeit ist. But we definitely know we have an experience of time. Aber wir wissen ganz gewiss, dass wir eine Erfahrung von der Zeit haben. So what have I done? I've divided the experience of time into four categories. Was habe ich dann getan? Ich habe die Erfahrung von Zeit in vier Kategorien unterteilt. Okay, if we're going to study what appears, we have to create... actualizing words which allow us to notice appearance. Actionating is better?

[22:44]

That's not better. No. This anyway. Illuminating? They're becoming focal points for experience. They're not really descriptive words, as I would say. They're focal points that allow you to develop your noticing. So in this wide field of time, what the heck is it? Let's say, okay, we can notice it's sequential, successional, accumulative, and durative. And then in this wide field of time and what the Kuckuck is at all, in it, I say, now we can notice four things, namely that time sometimes has a sequence, that time

[23:58]

Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. Sometimes people applaud for the translator. Nobody ever applauds for me. They realize that the translator is doing a much harder job than me. Yeah. She's going to feel it and then say it. Twice. Okay.

[25:10]

All right. So what are the five skandhas? What five? The most probably useful of all the distinctions in Buddhism. for noticing what appears. And they're somewhat arbitrary. But once you begin to evolve your develop and evolve your experience within these categories, all kinds of things open up that didn't seem to be there before. But when you begin to develop and expand your experience in these five categories, then suddenly all kinds of things appear that were not there before. For example, an ayatana. Okay, so if all we've got is the eyeball.

[26:17]

And I don't even like to use the word seeing, because seeing has all kinds of baggage in it. So what have we got? Let's call it eyeing. And the word for it in Buddhism is door power. Yeah. So the senses are door powers or gate powers. Yeah, so it's not just the eye sees in some physiological way, but it's a power you can relate to. And then a thing is not a thing, it's an actuating, it's a thinging. Oh, look at that thinging.

[27:20]

It's thinging away. Out of tune, but... It's not just a thing, but it's something that actualizes itself. It's a thing. Yes. It's actionating. A thing that... that becomes active. Everything's a process. Some things, stones are long processes. You know, a smile is a slow process, a quick process. So the thing is not just out there, it's a process.

[28:25]

So we're making distinctions and studying, observing what appears. So when you notice, and all you've got is universals taking care of things out there somewhere, there's only this. Your eyeball, eyeing, and the thing is a process. And then what do you notice? You notice there's a third thing. The connection between the eyeing and the thinging.

[29:35]

And it's also an activity. And that's the word ayatana, a sphere, a sphere which arises from eyeing and thinging. And this sphere domain which arises The thing, thinging, is also called, in Buddhist terminology, a domain. The domain of the process of the thing, where it lives. Now, if you grow up in a situation where everything is a process within a field of potentialities,

[30:42]

Wenn du in einer Situation auftauchst, wo alles ein Prozess ist, innerhalb eines Feldes von Potenzialen. You notice things that you wouldn't notice otherwise. Dann bemerkst du Dinge, die du ansonsten nicht bemerken würdest. Like the eyeing and the thinging create a sphere of spatial visuality. Visuality. So you begin by practicing the Vajrasandhas and so forth. You begin to find yourself in a field generated that wasn't there before, but the potential was there, generated by your evolving perceptual attentional skills.

[32:02]

And by practicing something like the five skandhas, for example, you suddenly notice how you can be in such an area, in such a sphere, which was not there before, but which could have been there and which develops by developing your ability to pay attention. Perception, again, isn't just a flashlight. Perception is a synthesizing of the seeing and the thinking. No. You realize I've never said this before. Ihr merkt, dass ich das noch nie vorher gesagt habe. I've talked about treeing. Don't say it's a tree. Call it treeing. But I've never said thinging before. Ich habe vielleicht schon gesagt, dass ihr nicht denken sollt, dass ein Baum ein Baum ist, sondern dass das Bäumen ist.

[33:08]

Ich habe von Wegen gesprochen, aber ich habe noch nie von... One moment. Ja. Von... Yeah, we don't have it. That's the problem. We have lots of other things, but no present participle. No. To ding-el or not to ding-el? That is the question. Okay. Now, this is not really far from or the same domain of the here-ness, there-ness which can be reversed.

[34:21]

I think we're always in danger of falling in love with someone who can make their there-ness your here-ness. Ich glaube, wir laufen immer Gefahr, uns in jemanden zu verlieben, der seine oder ihre Dortheit zu deiner Hierheit machen kann. If you can make your here-ness their here-ness, please don't exploit it. What is the danger? So what I'm talking about here is of course the domain of the present. What I am talking about here, of course, is the domain, the area of the present.

[35:39]

The dharma dwelling present, or domain of the present, as Dogen says, ju ho yi. The dharma dwelling place of the present, as Dogen says, ju ho yi. Where you feel the present is not neutral, it's talking to you all the time. It's a text and tissue and texture. And maybe it's the here-ness of the mother and there-ness of the mother and baby are always talking to each other. So immediacy in Zen practice and Buddhist yogic phenomenological practice, things begin to be more vivid. Things begin to be more vivid. They kind of shine.

[36:52]

Or they kind of feel like you're inside them as well as observing them. And appearance and appearing are kind of inwardly and outwardly turning, as I said the other day, tessellating. But tessellating, when I looked it up, means like a mosaic? No, a tesseract. It's from tesseract. Okay. Tessellation is the activity of a tesseract. Okay, all right. So maybe we shouldn't say just tesseract. Maybe we should say finger act. Okay. Yeah, you all understand, right?

[38:02]

So it's finger acting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know what I'm saying. Why do you have to know? That's a good question. So in other words, what I'm saying is this... phenomenal world we are inseparable from. It's a gestural space related to our bodies. When Sally looked down and said, when you're down there, it's a long ways up here. And when you're up here, it's a long ways down there. She was giving the space to bodily objects. And in fact, we experience space as an extended body.

[39:17]

And if that space, which is an extended body, is extended from within, so if Sally said, oh, from within I feel the space, down there and when I was down there from within I felt the space up there. When Sally might have felt it that way if she'd grown up in a different culture. But when you feel the world from within, not from your body that you see in a mirror.

[40:28]

Your outer mirror body is gone. And the koan codedly speaks about things like that. It's like pouring ink at midnight. When you can't see the black ink and you're totally black and you're pouring the ink, you have to feel. So when there's no outer body, you shed it like a snake or something. A snake which now needs your spine to live. You feel... then you feel the spatiality of your own experience.

[41:49]

You see it in others too. So where I could have started, and I'll stop in a minute, which is I've made these four postural attentions or four attentional postures of zazen. Now I wonder why didn't our Dharma ancestors make these distinctions? Because I think they're clearly part of practice and necessary. But maybe because they don't have a strong contrasting and opposing distinction between mind and body. When mind and body are really just considered aspects of each other, it must lead you to experience

[43:07]

mind and the world as mind and body in another way. Among the infinite possibilities that we draw out of the field of potentialities by the distinctions we make. So there's the physical posture. There's the inner posture, the activity of the organs and so forth. The solidity and fluidity and all which joins us to the world. And then there's the spatial interior, the presence of the interiority of the body. And that presence of the interiority I call the imaginal body. Not imagination, imaginal. And this presence of the inner, that's what I call imaginal.

[44:47]

Not a imagined, not an imaginary body, but in German, a... Ich habe aber nichts anderes, ein imaginärer Körper. You know the feel of the imaginable body. You know the feel of the crown of the head from which the Suram Gana Sutra is spoken. Nicht imaginär, sondern imaginiert ist ein bisschen anders. But you're sitting... But your sitting doesn't reach there yet. But as you sit, you adjust your posture so your whole posture moves gesturally up into this crown. So you're using the imaginal body to adjust your posture, gesturally.

[46:06]

And this imaginal body not only becomes the body through which you adjust your posture, it also becomes the body through which you extend your posture. And it's this imaginal body, this extended body, which locates you in the inside of appearance. And I would say that Sally, when she looked down and looked up, she was experiencing her extended body, the potentiality of her extended body. I think that's enough. Dennis isn't sure.

[47:10]

Thank you very much.

[47:13]

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