Do you think you can hear from there, Paul? Yes, I can. Thank you. Or you could just give me your hearing aid. No, that wouldn't work for you. That would be misplaced kindness. Roshi suggests that Paul could just give him his hearing aid in case he can't hear from behind. But that would be a misplaced kindness. That would be entity thinking because I would think the hearing aid had to hear. Hello, hearing aid, how are you? Okay, how are you, hearing aid? Okay. Sometimes I wonder, though, how I talk so much. Just came from giving this talk this morning.

[01:03]

It was okay. You know, it was kind of fun. But I'm so much, you know, usually if I'm in a seminar, I can't do anything else. So I know this sounds a little zenny, but I don't feel like I'm talking exactly. In order to try to do this with you as often as I do, we do, I have to concentrate on my feeling. And if my feeling is clear, then I just extend that feeling, clarity, into speaking.

[02:06]

And then the words disappear back into feeling. So it's by paying attention to feeling, not so much thinking at all particularly, that I find something to say. Now this is actually an application of the teaching of Nagarjuna. I don't know if I can make that clear today, but maybe I can. And by the way, thanks for letting me change the schedule today. But I also had the imagination having discussion in the mornings might be nice.

[03:09]

And somebody asked me, I mean I'm often asked, you know, in your lectures there's a presentation of so much, what should I... What should I practice? And maybe I said this already, but I feel like maybe I'm presenting an orchestra. And you can choose what part you want to play. It depends what instrument you're good at. But as I've said, I'm also not speaking because of our lay sangha that's not centralized. I'm also speaking to you when you're not here.

[04:29]

Or I'm trying to, anyway. I mean, I want... I hope that what I'm presenting is circumstantiated enough... No, it's okay. Okay. Does it go on? No, it's circumstantial. Does it go on? Well, we'll see. Let me check my feeling. Circumstantiated. I never used that word before. I don't even know if it exists. It must exist. That when circumstances appear that are similar in your activity, you, oh, yes, isn't that what happened in the Okay, now, this paying attention to your feeling is sort of paying attention to the embodied mind.

[05:33]

the more mind and body are woven together. The more feeling, the more it is feeling that is the knowing which most includes mind and body. Now, do you notice that when I say something like that, I have to say it a certain way? I have to say it a certain way that she can translate. Which means that I have to say it in units that somehow work with German language. And when I used to be translated into French sometimes, I really have to speak in different units. And it takes me a little bit to get a feel for it.

[06:54]

But it's interesting. After all these years, I can't speak anything in German, but I can speak in the units that can be translated. Not bad, huh? Okay. Okay, so So among the orchestral possibilities of dharma phrases, etc., among the possibilities of the orchestral dharma phrases, One could choose.

[08:18]

Yeah, you can, as I often say, you pay attention to the one that catches you or something like that. But there's what I would call a deeper way to do it. As you're feeling, it's a kind of flow of mind, body and phenomena. And your experience in the immediate situation. That... That... that flow usually has a kind of questioning in it.

[09:39]

Because we're encountering things all the time. And we don't, if you're at least been intelligent and sensitive, you don't understand everything you're encountering. If you're intelligent and sensitive, you don't understand everything you're encountering, what the consequences are, etc. So if you can check your feeling, the shape of your feeling, I don't know, something like that, What do I feel these days?

[10:41]

The last few weeks, what have I been feeling? That kind of question. And if you get some experience at this, usually there's a question. There's a question that's a dynamic within your feelings. And that question then becomes your practice. And that question often you can join it to a particular teaching or practice or phrase. Now, the indeterminacy of the clarity and indeterminacy of feeling is also the teaching of Nagarjuna.

[11:48]

Okay. Now, enough people have told me that this hair-threading of negations is, you know, not the greatest thing. Yeah, so maybe we should go back to, in the winter branches, we should go back to the Abhidharma. So that's what I'd like you to discuss if you have some kind of forum on the internet about the winter branches. Shall we continue with colon 6 for the next three meetings or shall we go to the Abhidharma or what shall we do? I'm happy. I think I'm happy to do whatever you want. Okay. Now, what I still would like to try to do in this last day show

[12:51]

is to try to show you that what Nagarjuna is offering us is a tool. And it's called negation and nirvana is called cessation. And enlightenment and negation and cessation are somewhat interrelated whether you want it to be or not. So you ought to experience, play around with what's the difference between affirmation and negation. Also solltet ihr damit herumspielen und euch fragen, was ist der Unterschied zwischen Bestätigung und Verneinung. Affirm everything you see. Bestätige alles, was du siehst. Negate everything you see. Verneine alles, was du siehst. The flower is not red.

[14:09]

Die Blume ist nicht rot. Nor is the willow green. Und auch die Weide ist nicht grün. The flower is red and the willow is green. Not what is the difference in meaning, but what is the difference in experience. If you come along and you're shown the terrible word, the tetralemma, you feel a double dilemma. I mean, in English, tetralemma sounds like something that crawls in the garden out of sight. There goes a tetralemma! Stand upon it. Negate it.

[15:11]

But don't think about it. Just practice it. Try it out. Okay. Now, very often, 40-some years or something like that, I've been using the bell stick. It's the handiest thing around. It's the handiest thing around. I can hold up the microphone.

[16:11]

And so often I've held up the stick. And I've suggested, you concentrate on it. And you can concentrate on it. And of course, it's an example of the yoga practice, traditional practice, one so-called one-pointedness. So you bring your attention back to it, bring your attention back to it, bring your attention back to it, and finally it tends to stay. Now when it goes away, after a while it tends to come back by itself. Okay. So now, say that you've developed the ability to concentrate on it. And you've developed the yogic skill, you can put your mind... Any place you put it, it tends to stay.

[17:17]

But aside from that, you're concentrating on the stick. And as I say, I take the stick away. But you stay concentrated. Now what are you concentrated on? The field of mind itself. How did you get there? By negating the stick. All I've done is negated the stick. And so one pointedness you discover is actually field pointedness. You've just taken the stick away, negated the stick, and you suddenly experience the field. Oh, that's not so bad, is it? You've affirmed the field and negated the stick.

[18:19]

Yeah. Now, what is the most basic koan we're given in most schools of Buddhism? Moo. What is moo? It's the practice of negating the stick. It's the practice of what happens when you bring moo when you incubate mu on each occasion. And it can't be thought to. You have to incubate mu on each occasion. And through that incubation, a field appears and not just a field so the four propositions did you say not just a field too and not just a field so the four propositions are not much more than this what's Gute's finger okay

[19:52]

All right. So you can take, oh, what's the five ranks? Most of you know the five ranks. And here we're studying appearance. And I'm really spending almost this, I have spent virtually all of this seminar on the four propositions. Even though the koan says beyond the four propositions, you cannot understand the koan without practicing the four propositions. And they're as simple as this and this. Okay, so to speak about the four propositions, I have to give you some kind of instructions about appearance. So that's what I've tried to do anyway.

[21:21]

Okay, so let's look at one of the teachings of appearance. Okay. This is from the Lankavatara Sutra. The so-called five dharmas. things appear. What is our immediate inclination? To name it. Okay. What's our next immediate inclination? To discriminate about it. I don't like this. I do like this. You know, et cetera. Okay. And what's the Fourth dharma.

[22:26]

Right knowledge. Wisdom. Nagarjuna's tool. Negated. What appears? Suchness. Five easy steps to suchness. Appearance, naming, discrimination. Ah, so you can now enter into the process. These five dharmas allow you to notice the process of appearance. Now, I've said use simple examples. And you have to go slowly. And the only thing we hear in Crestone, it's pretty silent there, are airplanes every now and then.

[23:33]

It's really, really honest to goodness, one of the most remote spots in the entire United States. The lower 48, as the Alaskans say. Okay. But it happens to be directly over the Los Angeles-New York route. So we hear the morning flights about to arrive in Los Angeles, etc. So it gets so boring in such a silent place. Oh, there's an airplane. Wonderful. And so you practice, as I've said, peeling the name off. What's that? Nagarjuna's negation. Nagajunas fanainu.

[24:47]

You've negated the airplane. Hope it doesn't crash. Then you experiment. You put the name back on. And then you take the name off. And you put the name on. This is really at the center of Zen practice. This isn't just fooling around in Zazen. It's fooling around in Zazen, but it's the center of Zen practice. The sound is sort of like somehow stuck inside the idea of airplane and you take the name off and as I say you have the music of the spheres The sound just penetrates everywhere throughout the heavens.

[25:50]

And you feel it in yourself. It becomes your sound. It ceases to be the airplane's sound. And it is your sound. It doesn't belong to the airplane. Nobody in the airplane hears it. So silent up here. Could I have some orange juice, please? So you experiment with this peeling a name off and on. This is the first two propositions. Now the first two can be understood as just what we usually do. We notice something, we say it is.

[27:01]

Or we say it is not. Okay. And so you just try that out. You practice that. So this is a stick. And you notice you just don't let the habit of naming name it. You establish the stickness of the stick. So the four propositions make you realize that it's not the stick that's there, it's your affirmation of the stick that's there. In other words, you don't try to think these things as some kind of philosophy hidden in the garden.

[28:03]

If you practice the is-ness of things, And you, something that is, you are actually establishing it as is. A stick or... And then one of the permutations... You notice that when you establish the stick... You've negated the background. To establish a stick, you negate the background.

[29:04]

And then you think, well, that's not nice. I shouldn't negate the background. So you un-negate the background. I'm un-negating her language. David, this is not the kind of German you want to learn. So you un-negate the background. And what happens? You establish the background. Maybe you feel it, it occurs to you, because this all is happening in the realm of feeling.

[30:11]

You don't actually think the establishment of the stick, you feel the establishment of the stick, the is-ness. Because you don't just think about the establishment of this stick, but you feel the establishment of the stick, its existence. I can't imagine what should be so important in your life that you can't just play around with these things. Nagarjuna says it's fruitful, so give it a shot. Then you establish the is-ness of the stick. You feel the is-ness of the stick. Then you recognize that that's also a negation of the background. And then you un-negate the background. It wasn't fair to the background. Come on back. Come on forward. Then maybe it occurs to you that you were in the background.

[31:24]

Because if this is the foreground, I'm the background. And then Mu is pointing at you. Moo is no longer out there. Moo is pointing at you. Okay. So somehow un-negating the background brings you into the foreground of the background. Now, this doesn't happen if you think it. It happens if you feel it. If you're sensual enough to feel these things, I'm trying to challenge you.

[32:29]

All of you want to be sensual, I know. Mm-hmm. Okay. So now, let's negate the stick and the background. Let's try that. Okay. Because both and is interdependence. Maybe even interdependence can be negated. Because even these four processes of is, is not, both and, and neither, nor. are dependent on each other. They only exist in relationship to each other. So let's take the whole thing away.

[33:30]

This is the emptiness of emptiness. And what do you find? I mean, the word for it is something like aporia or aporetic. Not operatic, but aporetic. It's not important. It means indeterminacy. Or it means what can't be passed through. Or what you can't fully understand. It's when you reach the limits of understanding. And the limits of understanding are something like mystery or indeterminacy.

[34:30]

So there's no single meaning and there's no many meanings. It's not graspable. And in this indeterminacy there's freedom. It's an experience of freedom from all points of view. Now when appearance appears appearance through this practice Appearance includes what doesn't appear. When appearance beyond our mental, physical, perceptual grasp

[35:38]

And yet through Nagarjuna's tool, you have come to a clarity of feeling and experience. Because if you begin to feel the difference, as I said yesterday and other days, between it appears or negating appearance, the appearance of a background, the shift from background into both and, interdependence. Through these four little musical notes, you hear the tune of everything.

[36:48]

Yeah. You feel interdependence, you don't just think interdependence. And Nagarjuna's tool gives you access, instrument gives you access to this. And you've developed, through this process, you've developed a clarity of feeling and perception, cognition. So appearance and the negation of appearance and appearance and the background are now felt with a kind of clarity. So now indeterminacy is felt with clarity.

[37:56]

The mystery, the limits of the margins of knowing are felt with clarity. Yeah. So Appearance now is felt as including what doesn't appear with clarity. Zong's head is white, Hai's head is black. Yeah, this is the teaching of Nagarjuna. Okay. Okay. God bless you.

[39:00]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_73.8