What does it have to do with you? identity the feeling of identity for me has to do in which what room I am and with whom I am together with which what person yeah And I can't find one identity in myself because it's always depending on one situation. I'm a female person, I'm a mother, I'm a wife, daughter. It's always different.

[01:08]

There's not one identity. Difficulty is to weave this together, not to be one level, but multi-leveled. Mm-hmm. because we talked about of the body. Also the body, my physical body is feeling differently whether I'm with my husband or with parents, children, physical body feels different too.

[02:11]

And it's difficult to grasp all this and I have not yet a feeling and also I don't know should I try or should I try to grasp this in one? Do I have to really grasp it or should I do it? Let's see if I have an answer here somewhere. Well, on the one hand, I think it's intrinsic to practice and to a field of sensitive mindfulness.

[03:24]

that in every situation we are a slightly different person. At the same time, you don't want to have what we call in English, at least, the hostess personality. Which is to always adjust yourself to others and have no experience of yourself. That's a very unhealthy, physically and mentally. So how do you have this experience of many selves and at the same time not turn into a person who has no base or something. Where you're nothing but a daughter or a wife or a hostess.

[04:33]

I think... I think the more you have an experience, if we go to what we've been speaking about, of awareness, and these various circumstances and circumpersons, appear in a big space, which is experienced as your identity. Yes, but I wanted to briefly answer Maureen, because she just spoke to me. And they wanted to answer Maureen because she addressed me.

[05:46]

And also adding to what you said about awareness. And I've found it an astonishing ability of thinking that an event which I experienced five years ago, it can sort of boil up to such intensity now. That's one extreme. The other, not extreme, but the way out of this, That's where awareness comes to it. And the being and staying in awareness. Well, this is just thinking.

[06:56]

And thinking, am I the same person as I was five years ago? That's what I need awareness for. To see that or experience it is just thinking. Well, the Diamond Sutra, of course, says a mark of a bodhisattva is no sense of a lifetime. No self, no lifetime, etc. But we do have an experience of a lifetime. But Wisdom is to also not have an experience of a lifetime.

[08:06]

So it's not that you never have an experience of a lifetime. That doesn't make any sense. But your more fundamental view there's no lifetime. At this moment, there is the becoming of this moment, which is not in comparison to what you were or what you will be. And through the practice of wisdom, That becomes the dominant view, but not the only view. And when you have such a view, it works in you in a certain way. Okay. So, We've been speaking about awareness.

[09:31]

And I'm, as I said, continuing this also because of, speaking about it also because I'm continuing what we spoke about in the previous seminar. I want to find things that bring the Sangha together in a common understanding. And I want to find things that I can continue from seminar to seminar. An experience of awareness in contrast to consciousness is one of the most basic. And the emphasis is perhaps somewhat unique to our Dharma Sangha lineage and practice. So it becomes one of the keys for our teaching lineage as it develops.

[10:50]

No. Okay, so I think that most of us may be convinced that if awareness is, if what we're calling awareness is present when you fall down and it immediately functions faster than consciousness, then we can accept that it's always present. But that doesn't mean most of us experience it as always present. Now, because you don't experience it as always present, does that mean you just forget about it? Those are for... religious geniuses, it's not for me.

[11:58]

No, the genius of this practice is also a translation of the word daimon, Socrates daemon, which is something like the guardian angel, which of course in Christian culture became the demon. So the sense of a daimon has been kind of tried to rubbed out in our Western civilization. But this would be very close to what Tsukuyoshi called your innermost request. Now, what we're speaking about here now is that we're pasting together to some extent a sense of a Zen self.

[13:02]

Or a way of functioning through Zen practice that substitutes for self. So, The genius of practice is to decide that this daimon, this awareness, is always present. We could call it a confirmed belief. In other words, while you may experience awareness in some emergency moment, as Peter said.

[14:21]

But you don't experience it all the time yourself. Now practice then would be to believe that it's always present. Not a belief from a revealed book of truth. But a decisional belief, a belief you've made by this... by a decision. A decision you feel is confirmed by reality or by how things actually exist. So you have a confirmed decision belief that awareness is always present.

[15:35]

Now, that's also the most basic way to practice with enlightenment. It's not very effective to practice, I'm going to achieve enlightenment, I'm going to achieve enlightenment, how I have not achieved enlightenment yet, and who has. But the way to practice with the potential and... and fact of enlightenment with the sense that enlightenment is always present. Even though you don't experience it or haven't experienced it still it's not in the future it's not in the past where is it? The only location that's possible is here.

[16:51]

There isn't any other location. So you practice with the feeling that enlightenment is here and so it doesn't matter whether you attain it or not because it's here already. This is a kind of concept if everyone has Buddha nature. But, you know, we want the concept of Buddha nature without an implied sense of self. Like Myokin Roshi pointed out, the Parinirvana Sutra, presents an eternal self, which is, you know, if you like conundrums, you can practice that way, but mostly in Zen we ignore it.

[18:04]

If you like conundrums, you can practice with the Parinirvana Sutra, but in Zen we mostly ignore it. What are conundrums? Conundrum? Yeah. Please. A conundrum is a puzzle. I thought it was a more common word. Okay. Okay. So if you take the view that enlightenment is always present, but you have no interest at all in attaining enlightenment, both because it's already present, And because desires to attain it interfere, it creates a bad state of mind.

[19:20]

And it really starts being a self in comparison to others. I want enough. But if you believe... A confirmed belief based on practice. That enlightenment is always present. The present begins to cooperate and show you it's the case. And if the present is revealing Buddha's body to you or revealing enlightenment to you, then we could say this is a different concept of how you organize experience as self.

[20:34]

Now, in the last koan again, the last seminar again, the koan of nanchuan in the cave, Right in the beginning, there's a little anecdote about a Chan master, Zen master, Yuan Tong Xu. Almost. Yeah, and he saw two monks talking. And he went up to the two monks and took his staff and hit the ground several times.

[21:39]

And said, a piece of karmic ground. Okay. Now one of the things I find remarkable about the six paramitas, the bodhisattva practice, well first let me say if you think the way I teach is complicated or better read the Maha Paramita Sutras, Because it assumes that at every moment all the teachings are present in mind as confirmed belief. And I'm only suggesting a few things.

[22:51]

Okay. At the same time, the Prajnaparamita Wisdom Sutras translated by Herr Dr. Konse, I find remarkable in that they define the primary site of practice.

[23:52]

As Agatha pointed out too, what happens between two people or several people? Although you have the fruit of many samadhis in your body and mind, still the actual sight of how a bodhisattva becomes a bodhisattva is the encounter with another person. So in a sense we have Zazen in our monastic life which we can share sometimes. And you have the unending possibilities of encounter after encounter with another person.

[24:56]

And so let's just take some One example, which I also spoke about in the last seminar. To establish with each person establish in yourself with each person a non-discriminative even state of mind. You're not comparing, discriminating or anything. You're trying to see if you can just have an even state of mind with each person you meet.

[26:00]

You could practice with, like, it's the five senses meeting the five senses. Or like the openness in which we can meet a baby, which we have trouble meeting. Equally meaning an adult that way. So you say, this jerk was once a baby. No, no. And then you feel better to it. Anyway, it takes a little bit of effort to do this. So you develop this, really, and it does happen. Until you just meet each person with an even mind without any comparisons or discrimination.

[27:25]

Okay. And these are described, as we talked about the other day, in terms of weak heat, medium heat, strong heat, summits, etc. And one of the main shifts is when your even state of mind induces an even state of mind in the other person. Can your even non-discriminating, non-comparing state of mind be so that it induces or opens the other person into that mind, in themselves.

[28:38]

So what I've said for the last... four minutes is enough for the rest of your lifetime. Really. But it's I think a completely radical idea that the perfection of a human being is accomplished through Perfecting yourself in relationship to others. Perfecting yourself in relationship to others and through that perfecting others. If we really practice that, then civilization has a chance.

[29:47]

Now I'd like to speak about what I call the non-conceptual shift. The shift into non-conceptuality. No, this is very simple. Easy to do. And quite extraordinary at the same time. Okay. Start with a simple example. You're doing zazen, or I don't care, any point where you have some focused attention.

[30:47]

You can just be lounging out here on a little raft of a deck. And you hear an airplane say. Now it's fairly simple, I think, to hear the airplane and to notice the little gap when you identify it as an airplane. First it might be one of Colburner's cows. contemplative mood. Or you might be just starting up his tractor or something. Anyway, you say, oh no, that's an airplane.

[31:49]

Okay. So you've noticed this sound and then there's the identification. Okay, so you've experienced the adding identification. So you can actually, as I've said many times, peel the name, the label airplane off the sound. And And then you can put it back on if you want.

[33:00]

You can take it off again. And you can... What you're doing then is you're going from sound to concept and from concept to sound. And you can actually practice. Zen practice would be to become familiar with this very simple thing. But again, it's just basic wisdom. It's not even Buddhism. Basic fooling around. It's not even Buddhism. Sound concept. And you begin to feel the difference between what happens to you when it's a concept and what happens to you when it's just sound.

[34:06]

And what you're doing is you're taking the... sound out of the, away from the possession of the concept. So the sound doesn't belong to the airplane anymore, it now belongs to you. So that the sound no longer belongs to the plane, but it belongs to you. And now the sound is not happening in the airplane. It's also happening in you. It's now your possession, your treasure. And your pleasure. Even bliss.

[35:17]

Because there's some funny reason when we take possession of the experiences of body and mind, it easily becomes blissful. Even ecstatic. Ecstatic means out of place. Like obscene means off-scene. And these words tell you you're in some territory that is no longer cultural or So you can go back and forth between conceptual and sound.

[36:19]

And sound, the word concept, the etymology is something like to grasp, to hold, to make pregnant. And I almost feel that when you leave the sound in the concept, it's its own maternity ward. Yeah, it keeps being reborn in terms of the usual way of thinking. So you're taking the... the sensorial experience out of the envelope of the concept.

[37:26]

Now this is a, what I've described here is a a dharmic unit, something like that. And practice is to find such units through your own experience or through our discussion right now. And get to know them really well. So that you really feel And your body knows the difference. And so anytime you hear a sound, like right now my voice, you can feel it as a series of concepts.

[38:39]

Or you can feel it just as sound with no conceptual envelopes. It's not being mailed anywhere. No, it's not that you don't understand what I'm saying if you have a mind of non-conceptuality. If there's still an epistemic process going on, we were discussing the word epistemic the other day. And you could say a veridical process, too. I haven't found it in the dictionary.

[39:47]

Biblical means truthful... in relationship to how things exist. And may I say, you lifted up... With you. For and with. Yes. Okay. We didn't say a thing while you were gone. We've been waiting. OK. So you get very used to this shift from a concept, the envelope of the world, the envelopes of the world,

[40:58]

in this little instance, this little instantiation. And it can be frightening. Because you can feel you're disappearing into this abyss. But if you really get familiar with it in these small instances, you can always just put it back in the envelope. And putting it back in the envelope, putting the world back into its concepts, is also the way we express compassion and love for others and so forth. And accomplish things in the world.

[42:13]

Now we know that not only is awareness and enlightenment always present. Now we know that non-conceptuality is also always present. It's on the other side of every sound. It's the other side of every concept. And you can begin to apply this non-conceptual mind to the practice of the six parameters. So, sometimes instead of a... of feeling the space the mutuality with another person in an even-minded way you can also feel it in a non-conceptual way

[43:37]

You can be standing next to or being with another person, which is a piece of karmic ground. It's a piece of karmic ground with consequences. The sacredness of each moment. So you can... Be with this other person or persons. With this, you can feel yourself shift from airplane or concept, sound, sound only, non-conceptual mind.

[44:58]

And you can just, you know, you can still sort of be a normal nice person, but your feeling is you're in a non-conceptual space. And you can study what happens. And this is the practice of the six parameters. Now sometimes this sense of non-conceptuality is Like a lightning flash. It's instantaneous. It's in the midst of situations where a person is like... Something transpires.

[46:05]

It is so quick. That both bodies are engaged and then it's gone. It's a look in the eye or a feel of the body. And this can become a kind of dance, as I've been saying, with phenomena. The form skandha, The form skanda? Yeah. One minute.

[47:07]

I'm looking at the form skanda. And the form skanda... has a lot of information in it. The form scandal. I think that now we have the basis to understand the form scandal. Form is the first scandal. And it's form At the moment, it could be non-conceptual or conceptual. When you release form into non-conceptuality, this is conceptual. often an experience of bliss or emptiness, or called suchness, so you can begin to notice how form is both non-conceptual and the ground of

[48:11]

the groundless ground of being as non-conceptuality it's always present too this whole world is not grounded it's appearing and we give it appearance And the form skandha is the point at which we give it appearance. Whatever appears, it appears. You can put a name on it. You can It enters then into causation. It appears with self. Or it appears with reference to self. Or you can kind of divert the appearance from self

[49:38]

to the second skanda. So the first skanda, the moment of appearance becomes a wisdom choice. Do you notice the name airplane appears? Or do you notice self appears? Which is okay. But it's also interesting to shift it to the second scandal. Non-graspable feeling. And then you can allow it to become percepts. And then that can go into associations and into consciousness. And if you get used to that at each appearance of form,

[50:45]

And if you get used to that as a way of going in and out of zazen, Then consciousness becomes a surface you swim in with other people. But you can feel the... friendly depths of associative mind, of percept-only, non-graspable feeling, formed as non-conceptuality. Now through this kind of practice, the self develops in a way that includes each person you meet, includes all phenomenal forms, and the more fully you're engaged with things as they are fully engaged and not separated from things entering into the beckonings of phenomena

[52:37]

beckoning is to come here, come here to beckon, become. Entering into the beckonings of phenomena, it almost becomes too much. You almost can't handle it. It's like falling in love or something. You're not sure you're ready. Or it's almost a kind of orgasmic becoming with everything at once. And you can dance in this and nothing else seems important. As way... Love can be a revolution which takes over everything.

[54:00]

There's no other context. So just the practice of non-conceptuality can enter you into literally ecstatic dance. with phenomena, that nourishes you, extremely nourishes you, and yet you have to do other things, and you know, the postman comes to the door, and you know, Let me say hello to the postman, postwoman. But you know this non-conceptual ecstasis is also always present. And is this, we could say, the yogic self of connectedness?

[55:03]

Okay. Okay, okay. No, I brought two books just for that. One is one of my favorite. Anna Akhmatova. I was reading poems of her to someone, to Marie Louise actually, in a restaurant. And the waitress, who happened to be Russian, came over to the table and said, please pronounce her name correctly. I've forgotten how to do it. But you're speaking about death, Nico.

[56:19]

It made me think of these two poems. She says, I've been on the edge of something. From which there's no tag, no label, no shelf. For which there's no tag. No shelf. And a drowsy, numb thing. A sliding away from oneself. She also says, I'm one foot up the gangway for some journey, which all will take, but not at the same cost. But upon this ship there is a cabin for me.

[57:34]

The wind hangs in the sails and the dread moment soon my own shore will dwindle and be lost. Soon my own shore will dwindle and be lost. Go, self, and here's another. Okay, ready? Get set. Go. Okay. One wildly clear day. This is Fernando Pessoa. One wildly clear day. Portuguese poet. The kind when you wish you'd done a pile of work.

[58:34]

Not to have to do it on some other day. But I caught sight like a road ahead among the trees. Of what? might be the great secret. That great mystery that the false poets speak of. I saw that there is no nature. That nature does not exist. That there are mountains, valleys, plains. That there are trees. flowers, grasses, that there are streams and stones, but that there is not a whole to which this belongs.

[59:43]

There are That any real and true connection is an assumption and disease of our ideas. Nature is parts without a whole. Perhaps this is the mystery they speak of. Thank you very much. Five minutes early. Well, it gives a chance to get into the kitchen. Or the eating area.

[60:46]

So let's listen to the non-conceptual bell. Just for a moment.

[61:00]

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