Now I think what we're doing here is, again I don't want to make it too heavy, but I think what we're doing here is something sacred. Yeah, and I sort of joke around and maybe sometimes I'm Richard Baker and sometimes Baker Roshi. Because I want to give us ways out but also hold us to what seems to me extremely important.

[01:05]

You know, we're practicing meditation. What these experiences What the experience of meditation holds for us is not anticipated by our culture. I think if you practice in Asia, there's a general cultural understanding. Probably you'll experience this, this and this. if you meditate. We don't have that kind of cultural expectation.

[02:09]

Plus, we're bringing meditation into a way of being a certain kind of person that hasn't been brought into this kind of person we are before. So I want to be careful to... whatever we come to, as much as possible, we discover ourselves together.

[03:14]

And I never know quite how to do it, actually. I mean, it's always somewhat new to me And I'm assuming it's, for some of you at least, quite a bit newer to you than to me. Because what we're trying to look at is what is the territory of our Yeah, living experience. And is it the same as we've assumed? Or is it wider or different or both wider and different?

[04:17]

And when we actually look into these things, do we change how we ourselves are shaped, configured? Yeah, I think we do, and that's of course what enlightenment means. But where are the doors to enlightenment in our culture? They might be different than the doors in another culture. You know, and we also... Rumi's poem for many years I knocked on that ancient door and it would not open and finally after many years of knocking it opened and I found I was already on the other side

[05:31]

There's a truth for sure to that. So we may change how we're configured, shaped, how we experience things. But somehow we're also already there or it wouldn't be possible. And that's the idea of Buddha nature, that we're already there. But we don't know it. And we don't know how to put it together. The pieces are there, but we have to put them together. Somehow. Let me ask you, why did you ask me yesterday when I'm Richard Baker and when I'm Baker Roshi or Dickie Bird?

[06:53]

I think it had something to do with the picture of the wolf in the sheepskin. You don't really have to explain. I'm just curious. So if you Think of something you can bring up later.

[08:14]

Does someone else want to bring something up? Julio. Is there an individual Buddha nature? Enlightenment manifests differently. Therefore there must be something like an individual Buddha nature. That is so. Could it be that there is a universal matrix out of which this individual Buddha nature sort of evolves?

[09:15]

We have some big questions here. I don't know, I wouldn't, I don't want to say there's any kind of universal matrix. Because that's basically a theological idea. We have Jung's, what's he say? Universal consciousness, what did he call it? Collective consciousness. I don't think there's any such thing. I think that's a Swiss Protestant idea. But at least, anyway.

[10:17]

I don't know the answer to these big questions. It's just I've decided to take a certain position because it makes the most sense to me. Now, Sukhiroshi used to say, as you know, we each will have our own enlightenment. It's somewhat unique that he said that. But it's also characteristic, I think, in a fundamental sense of the approach of Zen. Which is Buddha is the beginning of our practice, not the end of our practice.

[11:17]

As I said the other night, we say in Zen we are born in the same lineage and we die in a different lineage. That means that realization for us might be something different than for the Buddha. So I would say there's no universal enlightenment. And I would say there's no universal Buddha nature. But would I say we have an individual Buddha nature? Well, individual is a pretty loaded word. I would say that when you have some experience of what I think we can call Buddha nature,

[12:24]

You really feel the sameness with other people much more than the difference. Now, whether that sameness is exactly the same, no, it's not. But the territory of it is the sameness with not only other people, but also with the so-called physical world. But that last statement I made can only be understood if you don't think in entities. If you think of us as a process or something like that, then that process is everywhere present. Okay. Yeah. When he asked the question, I had an idea of his question, and I don't know if it is the same, but I just tell it.

[13:44]

Well, you two were sitting right beside each other, so... Yes, it is... I thought what he meant was when you are speaking from your Buddha nature, for me that means something like you just forget in a way yourself, you are some kind of suspended in a kind of stream that comes in from outside and you just let it flow. And so you see what comes in and it appears in yourself and you express that. And that I see as a kind of expressing your Buddha nature. But when you start thinking, I am Richard Baker and I am this good and that, then you lose immediately that kind of stream and you are back in your personal idea. And I think his question was, how are you here in your position?

[14:55]

Is it a constant fight or is it... Vielleicht sollte ich es noch auf Deutsch sagen. Ja, bestimmt. Okay. When he asked the question, it seemed so similar to me, and I thought to myself, maybe the question is meant that way. I imagine it like this, when you are in your Buddha nature, then one actually forgets oneself in a certain way and one is hung up in a stream that comes to one from the outside and where something arises within oneself and one constantly follows this stream and expresses oneself. And I understood his question as follows. How does he deal with it? Because as soon as you start referring to yourself again, you immediately lose this current from the outside and you are no longer in this Buddha nature. And how is it now?

[15:57]

Is he constantly in this current or does he always have to fight back and forth between his own and what ... and this ... simply following? Yes, I presume you are speaking also from your own experience. Yes, maybe something like that. I think that's enough. Yeah, someone else? In Christian relations, the body is shown more as a prison for the soul. In bioenergetics it is said, I am my body.

[17:21]

It's equated. What? How far is it the same? And I would like to ask you how this is looked upon or described in Zen as far as, is it the same? I am my body or not, or different? Okay. Wittgenstein said, famous for saying, the The human body is the best picture of the soul we have. Then I suppose Buddhism would say something similar. But I don't want to say we, speaking as a Buddhist, and also I don't want to say that the body is me. Because that's again a sort of entity.

[18:36]

Maybe I could say the body is also me. So sometimes we experience ourselves through the body, sometimes through the mind. So practice is a lot about this relationship and how we establish this relationship. relationship of body and mind, which is both one and two. Or if not two, at least we can experience ourselves with one emphasis or the other. Okay. Yes?

[19:53]

If you no longer see the objects as entities with increasing knowledge, then there is the danger that certain I don't know. With growing experience and less and less on now experiencing things and people as entities, Is there the danger of losing respect, losing warmth probably?

[21:00]

Wait a minute. If you don't experience people as entities, you might lose warmth, you might lose respect for the other person? That's a question. Oh, that's a question, yeah. Okay. Is there the danger? Yeah. As a result of that, maybe even a bit of killing, murder and war are easier to fall into because, for example, you only have to And even more, could there be the danger of being killing and war more accessible if you don't see the so-called enemy not as an entity but as his teeth or his arms or whatever and separated?

[22:09]

I just killed a set of teeth, you mean. Well, let me just comment, first of all, on what you said. This kind of thing that you've brought up is really important to notice in practice. Because certainly if we have developed habits, which we do, of relating to people, let's say, as entities... And that is the way we tend to express our respect, our affection, and so forth. Then we may, in practice, actually be held back by certain fear. Jeez, I won't respect people the same way. They'll become... some kind of process that's not really, that's just not important.

[23:38]

And that will hold our practice back. The five fears are fear of loss of livelihood fear of loss of reputation fear of death fear of unusual states of mind and fear of speaking before an assembly. That means the willingness to speak out in your culture, to take a different point of view, and so forth. And we would say that, you know, Sukhiyoshi always said, we need to discover our innermost request.

[24:47]

And just to do that is a kind of practice. But we can't really find our innermost request as long as we're tied to our culture by a fear of loss of livelihood. By fear of loss of reputation or fear of death. Nor can we really enter meditation if we fear unusual states of mind. Or unpredictable states of mind. And then if we fear to be that person we become through our innermost request in front of others.

[25:56]

I know people who hide their Buddhas when the cleaning lady comes in. They don't want the cleaning lady's Catholic and Romanian or, you know, you want to be nice to her. Maybe mine not wearing robes now is a... It's some sort of, not so different. But because of that, that's one reason I keep a shaved head and often have beads. Yeah, I want to be unconcealed. Okay, again, I'm not promoting monastic practice, but I'm using it as an example.

[27:05]

Monastic practice is a safe place where you can let go of your habits of how you respect people or don't respect people or whether you bump into trees or not. So you have to find some way as a lay person, practicing seriously, how do you create some territory for yourself to explore the possibilities of being? You have to find a territory for yourself to explore the possibilities of being. But if your intention is to do so, you can do it somehow. In whatever life you have, I think. Strangely, I've known a number of people who had to go to prison to explore the intentions, their possibilities.

[28:22]

One because they robbed a bank and the other two or three because they were protesting the Vietnam War and were put in prison. And the guy who robbed a bank is just as interesting as the others. I saw him the other day nice to see him. The experience of not The experience of not seeing others as entities is the experience of there goes another version of myself. You really start to feel everybody is a... I mean, sometimes I used to say to myself, there but for a gene go I. Because there's such slight differences really between us, but those differences...

[30:01]

make it quite visible. I quoted last year in this seminar Yuan Wu saying the whole of being appears before you and nowhere else. Die Gesamtheit des Seins erscheint vor dir und nirgendwo sonst. And he also said to practice continuously without breaks. Und er sagte auch, ununterbrochen zu praktizieren ohne Pausen. When we practice continuously without breaks. Also wenn wir ununterbrochen ohne Pausen praktizieren. The embryo of sagehood matures and develops. Dann reift und entwickelt sich der embryo der Weisheit. Now this statement of Yuan Wu's is completely based on Tathagatagarbha teaching and Buddha nature teaching.

[31:04]

I think you can trust that the more you practice and change, the more you feel more like yourself and the more like others. the more you really feel like yourself and like the others. that some of the differences drop away and you feel more like yourself and more like others. And it's tremendously satisfying. Okay, someone else? Yes. I'm sorry you weren't here yesterday. Because I promised you I'd talk about emptiness and then I did and then I looked around and you weren't here and I thought I felt very empty.

[32:09]

Yeah. Perhaps. Perhaps. Our innermost concern, our innermost desire, yes. And therefore I was asked if one could equate the concern with vision. And may I say something? Yeah, why not? This fear, the five fears, for me it is somehow an experience. The fear of ridicule, to be laughed at, and the fear to lose my popularity, and the love.

[33:16]

It started with my own family, with my twin sister even. And I've found out that the sense of human helps a lot to heal this fear. And these arms, what we fear, might come from the arms, and often comes. Also, I've also said that these are the narrowest I have experienced the fear of becoming ridiculous, the fear of, what did I say, of losing my love, of starting and continuing with my own family, with my own sister-in-law, and that I have found that humor is a great remedy. End of the speech. Now see if I can remember.

[34:19]

Well, it's, you know, the phrase innermost request It's not really innermost vision, though it might be. The sense of request is the request for the vision. It's a more sense of an embryonic request that's not yet flowered into your vision.

[35:20]

Or if you have a vision of what a human being should be like and what the world should be like, you would like it to be like, Then the innermost request would be that seed which allows you to yourself fulfill that vision, to become the person you wish people were. Because if you really want a certain kind of person to exist in this world, you hope there's such a person in this world you might meet them someday. Bodhisattva practice simply means you have to become that person.

[36:23]

Don't expect someone else to do it first. Now again, let's go back to I turn my eyes. What? Responsibility. Let's go back to the five fears, livelihood, etc. Of course we have to take care of our livelihood and our reputation, if possible, and so forth. But that should not be the primary way you identify yourself. Now, I think we should take a break in a moment.

[37:36]

Let me just say that there's a lot of questions we can't answer. Most of the big questions. What was here before the big bang? Big Bang itself is a problem. I mean, it's determined by measurements, but in every other way it's incommensurable. If you find believing in God hard, try believing in the Big Bang. All of this squashed into something tinier than, you know, I mean, this is really ridiculous. But it's what the scientists tell us, and I believe them. All right. Or what was there before the world was created?

[38:55]

Or was the world created? We really have two choices. There was a beginning, or it's always been like this. It's the only choices we have, really. People who tend to think in entities want beginnings. It just makes sense to them. Everything has a beginning. Babies are born, etc. But if you tend to think in terms of process, you know... change, etc. Then it's easier to imagine, well, it's probably always been something like this. And just try to think of beginnings before... Such questions cause problems. So Buddhism chose the easy way.

[40:01]

Let's just say it's always been like this. In some version or other. In fact, Buddhism says there's endless worlds in all directions folded inside each other and unfolded. And one of the things we chant is all our ancient karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, from beginningless time, I now fully understand acknowledge or avow? Although we can't really answer these big questions, we can look at what, I mean, what is this existence? I mean, how can, you know,

[41:03]

We can't answer that. But through centuries now of meditation and mindfulness practice, Buddhism has a pretty clear sense of what the activity of self-consciousness, beingness is. And after coffee and tea, I will try to say what I understand about that. Thanks.

[41:36]

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