Well, they haven't called me from Creston, so I hope they're confident they can go ahead with this cremation. Also, sie haben mich aus Creston noch nicht angerufen und ich habe das Gefühl, dass sie damit zurechtkommen mit dieser Zeremonie zur Verbrennung. So I think we have a pretty good idea of the ingredients practice. And then, as I said earlier, we have to practice also to know how to put the ingredients together. And it's helpful to know what ingredients are prior conditions.

[01:04]

Prior conditions, not for necessarily your own happiness. But prior conditions for the ongoing development of Buddhism as a wisdom teaching. In other words, Buddhism is... We're not functioning within a world which assumes there's one truth.

[02:07]

And so Buddhism assumes that it's one approach to being in the world. And we may on our own or with the help of a variety of teachings find a satisfactory for us way of being in the world. And for 2500 years now, Buddha has been trying to develop a particular way of being in the world. That is as open as possible and unlimited as possible.

[03:14]

But still, it's a particular way, a particular path. So in that sense, there are some things which are prior. And they... create the conditions for practice to develop over and through your lifetime. During your lifetime. And one is the knowledge that, as I mentioned earlier this morning, that all mental phenomena have a physical component and vice versa.

[04:20]

Even to the extent that this may not be absolutely inclusively true, it's a very helpful way to begin to observe mind and body. So by assuming and discovering that all mental phenomena have a physical component which not only creates a kind of keyboard or dial Like you can sit down and dial in Zazen. And there's a kind of keyboard, for instance, of the five skandhas you can...

[05:21]

bring one or more together in different ways. That means skandhas are a tool which allows you to see and understand that consciousness is a construct. That consciousness is a construct. And then, see, she knows this, but she forgot. She forgot I said it, but she already knew it. Okay. But then knowing and experiencing that consciousness is a construct, and you see how it's constructed, then you can begin to participate in the construction.

[06:42]

And in participating in the construction you can go way beyond just understanding that it's a construction. Okay. But also, again, knowing that all mental phenomena have a physical component, That way of observing mind and body makes elements of mind and body open to absorbing attention.

[07:58]

Okay. So that's one description of a kind of prior condition. Okay. Another is when you start bringing attention to attention, another basic, instead of just to the object of attention, you bring attention to attention itself. Now, I say this again as a basis or a prior condition of practice. Because it's not something you just understand and then go on to other things. You really have to get good at it. You know, my daughter Sophia

[08:59]

That was obvious from toddler age. She had a musical capacity, which I don't have at all, for example. So very early, at three or four, she decided she wanted to play the violin. And she switched to the cello because she liked hugging it. But she also could just make chords on the piano and I can just go... But she just coasted on her talent. Her teachers were always impressed, but she hadn't practiced at all.

[10:25]

But now suddenly at 13, she wants to relate to the piano in ways that depend on her practicing. So Hannah Marie Louise asked me to tell you, she really wanted to be here and meet with you. Hannah Marie Louise, this is good. But her father had arranged a trip for Sophia and her. was just ended and now Sophia wants to really practice the piano. So in short, they're not coming to Austria. I have to go back so quickly.

[11:43]

I only have a day or so here myself, independent of the seminar. But the point I'm making is she's discovered that something she wants to do with the piano, she can't do unless she practices. But Zen practice is much like that. For a while, Zen practice just carries us, if you decide to do it. And then we may get to the point where we're actually free of mental suffering. Or you get to the point where you just feel good all the time.

[12:54]

Then actually a kind of physical joy begins to permeate the body. And when this happens to a practitioner, they sometimes come to me. And they say, well, this feels nice, but there's a dark side. Where's the dark side? Because bad always comes with good, or good always comes with bad. And that's our cultural predilection. Buddhism has no such idea that the other side of good is some kind of bad.

[13:57]

You can learn from all kinds of bad experiences but it doesn't mean you have to have bad experiences to learn. Okay, so let's just say you're completely or relatively free from mental suffering. So now you think, okay, I've accomplished Buddhism, now I'll do something else. And the concept of understanding is sort of like that. Well, I understand a cruel counting now. I don't have to do anything. Well, I know where Newton was coming from, and so... So that's a common use of the word understanding.

[15:00]

Once you understand something, you've completed it. And this is not at all what we mean by something close to understanding. Okay, so the practice of bringing attention to attention. as one of the bases of developing practice. Okay, and then you establish a condition of continuous attentional absorption. I know it was a little bit much.

[16:19]

You establish a condition of continuous attentional absorption. And Okay, now, the fruiting of what Eric said, for instance, occurs when there is a continuous attentional absorption. I don't know what other English words to use. It's a continuum, but not a continuity. And it's attentional.

[17:37]

And... There's no outside to the attention. There's no observing the attention. The attention is absorbed as everything at once. No, these are action experiences that we can discover and actually develop and realize. Okay. Then I think the word we want is something like, instead of understanding or even understanding, is the word I use very often, is incubation.

[18:53]

And then I think the word we want to use, instead of understanding or even standing inside, is breeding. Breeding. Breeding. Yeah, I'll smoke then. I'll smoke. Yeah, that's the one. I'll smoke. Yeah. Is it exactly the translation of incubation? I don't think... But what is the cube? What is the cube? A cube? Incubation. Incubation. It's like when you incubate an egg until it hatches. Yes. But is there something like a container? Does it involve some holding or some embracing? I mean, I could say germinating, or I could say... There is gestation involved?

[20:10]

Yeah, I can say gestational. Okay. Okay. So, incubate. Now, in English, why do I say incubate? Because, at least in English, it allows me to emphasize that it's an intentional act. If I say, you gestate it, that's in English, so you can't really say that.

[21:12]

You can say, plant it. And when you plant it, you don't ask, is there a container? But you can ask where you plant it. Yeah, and that's what I've been trying to get at with this concept of gestational time. So there's a kind of trust and... A trust because you want to trust, maybe. But a trust also because there's no alternative to trust.

[22:13]

I mean, distrusting just, you know, kills the baby. Mm-hmm. This is really a culturally very unfamiliar idea, I think, for our culture. Because it means there is something because it appears. And we don't There is something because it appears? Because it will show itself. And in Germany, that doesn't happen in Deutschland.

[23:22]

No. We have to do it or we have to get it somewhere from you. I think it's a culturally undefined... You mean there has to be an actor that does it to make it happen? Like pregnancy? Like God created the world? If it's pregnancy, you always have to go to the check-up. But not to check out. Yes. There is a combination, a mixture of active maturing or manifestation, where there is no word as doing something which is involving

[24:26]

by itself, doing something without any control on what's happening. I think in our culture, controlling what we're doing is very important, so it's hard to understand a thing without being able to control the process. If you can control what you said. If you can control what you said. So Eric and Eva don't agree.

[25:26]

So in literature, there are the terms of becoming and gedeihen. Grow. Okay. That definitely blooms. No, you have to make a yeast dough. You have to control the surrounding and average out. You can't sit in the dough and make it grow. Yeah. Deutsch, bitte.

[26:30]

I had it all stuck up in dough and I turned it into a morning roll with sesame seeds on the outside. So, I think we should at least talk about it. But of course, there are so many things that are not at all possible. For example, in literature, for example, I don't want to go into too much detail, but if you look at the February, I really don't like it. It's a very serious topic. The problem that we face in trying to translate these two different worldviews Well, first our history is, at first we think the worldview that we grew up with, our birth view, is how the world is.

[27:40]

And then at some point we discover that our worldview is just a particular view. I remember somebody who was... This is a very simple story. A very intelligent young man living in New Jersey who had a feeling that a spiritual life was a possibility and he seriously considered becoming a rabbi. And then he went to... A rapture. A rapture. Well, when you're about three or four, there's all kinds of books that show rabbits talking.

[29:18]

Today, it's on tomorrow. Somehow it's more accessible. Anyway, a rabbi. And then he went to school, to college in Michigan. And I mean, this is really simple, but it really hit it. When he was in Michigan, he thought everyone has an accent. Und das ist ganz einfach, die Geschichte ist so einfach. Er ging nach Michigan und dann hat er sich gedacht, alle haben einen Akzent. Und dann ist ihm klar geworden, dass er einen New Jersey Akzent hat und nicht die anderen einen Akzent haben, sondern er hat einen. And he actually had an enlightenment experience. He decided not to be a rabbi. And then he practiced Zen for the rest of his life.

[30:19]

So it just depends. These little shifts can shift the way your mind and body work. So first you think your worldview describes the world as it is. Then something happens that makes you realize your worldview is only one possibility, a possibility. And it then may occur to you that there are other possibilities. I remember when quite a few people first started to practice in the early 60s, One of the fairly common reactions was, now I, which side will I appear from?

[31:28]

Hi. Thank you for coming. Yeah. The fairly common reaction was, well, I've had an insight into a worldview that's in a way makes more sense to me than my own worldview. And so now I will bring these insights back into my birth worldview and improve it or develop it. I mean, I would say 20% or 30% of early practitioners felt this way.

[32:46]

But by the 70s, no one thought that. It's too big a job. Either way, it was too big a job. But some people did become Episcopal ministers or rabbis. I mean, this truly happens. One of the most famous rabbis in America, he died two or three years ago, was an early Zen student of Sukhirishi and mine. But he became a rabbi and then became quite famous.

[33:50]

And Christmas time, he would speak about Zen, Christmas and Judaism on television. Yeah. Anyway, you keep... So this actually had some effect on you. Okay. So you first think the worldview is the way the world is. And then you see there's a possibility of other worldviews. And then you realize you have the power to make the decision. But you do have to bring power to the decision. And I think for most of us who do it, it's a worthwhile adventure. Okay, so there's different...

[35:05]

number of directions I could go here, but let me pick one. Is one of the... Let me start again. It's very useful for me to study the controversies within the development of Zen. And the controversies weren't experiential. And here again, let me use the word experiential in a certain way.

[36:35]

Through practice we establish experienceable and experiential worlds. And the... the verticality, is that the word, the truth of these experiences. Aren't so much that are they universal or are they examples of how the world really is? If you take that view too often, you limit the kind of experiential worlds you can have.

[37:37]

You're entering experiential worlds that are consistent with how the world exists and don't interfere, but aren't necessarily how the world exists. So I'm saying this just that you can have confidence that you're practicing, when you have certain kinds of experiences, The question is not, is this true, but is this a true experience? Okay. One of the controversies was, again, not what we experience, The controversy was not about what we experience.

[39:03]

The controversies were often about how you describe that experience. And how you describe that experience so that it's fruitful for others and for your own development. Now, let me go back for a minute, and I'll come back to this point, and just bring up again the word Tathagatagarbha. This is the most inclusive word for everything that exists. And it's a word that describes everything that exists not as its thingness or

[40:06]

or its container-like qualities, but it describes everything that exists as a complex activity and dynamic. Okay, so the word, and I just discussed this at Winter Branches, I believe, Tathagata means coming and going. But it also means one who comes and goes. And Garbha means both womb and seat. So there's the activity of appearing and disappearing, coming and going.

[41:24]

And there is that every act is simultaneously a womb and a seed. Okay, then if that's a description of the world, not as a universe or multiverse, but as an activity or weaving, as Evelyn used, and that weaving both incubates everything that happens and seeds everything that happens. So the word itself for the world Ask you to be in a certain way in this world.

[42:33]

Ask you to be, to know that every act you do is both a seed and every situation is a womb for that seed. And there's no outs, as I've been saying, there's no outside to this situation. There's only an inside to everything. Okay. So... There's no way to get outside the situation of coming and going and womb embryo.

[43:39]

So there's no place to hide from your actions or hide from your state of mind. And this is expressed in the condition of continuous attentional absorption. So we could say that Buddhist mindfulness Not so much the popular use of the word mindfulness nowadays. Which is like giving attention to how you walk in the world. which certainly there's nothing wrong with that.

[44:45]

But strictly speaking, Buddhist inner mindfulness, I don't know what word to use. It's more like when you step. What does your step tell you about the world? Mm-hmm. So you're not giving attention to your stepping, you're receiving attention from your stepping. Those are little shifts that are hard to discover without practice and some of the teachings. Okay, so now one of the phrases that was controversial was that

[45:56]

This concept of no thought. Okay, now it's often translated no thought, but it actually means something more like non-arising consciousness. Okay. And non-arising consciousness is sila, or virtue, or discipline, or nothing. And non-arising consciousness is samadhi. And non-arising consciousness is prajna or wisdom. Now, Zen is different than Tibetan Buddhism. I mean, it's extremely similar, actually. But it's much less conceptually formulated.

[47:26]

because the practice in Zen has emphasized concepts that prove themselves through incubation. Okay, so let me slow down right there. Concepts that prove themselves through incubation. So the emphasis in the development of the Zen school was to create a teaching that proves itself through being incubated. That's why Zazen is emphasized so much and not understood. Because Zazen is the main domain, territory of incubation. Now, again... you may free yourself from mental suffering.

[49:05]

But if you don't, and you say, oh, I've accomplished a lot, and suddenly I'm free of mental suffering, this is great. And you decide, yeah, I think I'll stop that then. This is a choice many people make, mostly unconsciously. You know, with less mental suffering, you're not thinking, geez, it's okay for me to suffer today. But more subtle aspects of the incubatory process rooted in the fruit of no mental suffering, don't happen if you don't continue Zazen. So in a way, Zen teaching is as developed so it requires Zazen

[50:12]

to develop because it doesn't develop through understanding. Zazen is... Zen is a school of a path which is developed so that it has been developed so that it develops through zazen and can't be established through understanding. Yeah, and if you try to establish it through understanding, then you have to have another process of incubation other than zazen. Okay, so a mind of no conscious arising. A non-arising consciousness. So now, how is non-arising consciousness virtue and discipline?

[51:52]

That's a relatively big question. I don't know if I have time for it. Oh dear. Let me just say one thing and then we'll stop. And you have to bring all this to everybody tomorrow who joins us. Because she doesn't want me to repeat myself. So Peter will do it with everyone's help, or everyone will do it. Okay. All the five senses, each of the five senses, five physical senses, is also mind. The five physical senses wouldn't work at all unless there was this brain connection.

[52:55]

A brain-body connection. Okay, so the non-arising of consciousness. So the adept practitioner begins to be very familiar with the non-arising of consciousness. Now, why am I calling it the non-arising consciousness? I could just call consciousness mind A and Something else, mind B. But because of the way things work, B only appears through A. It's through knowing the arising of consciousness you know the non-arising of consciousness.

[54:19]

So through the arising of consciousness you know the arising of consciousness. And you know how to allow that arising not to occur. Then you learn to stabilize yourself in the non-arising of consciousness. Then you weave, like Evelyn says, In and out of arising consciousness and non-arising consciousness. And since Eric's here and he's a cook, this is a particular setting on the oven, 425 or something like that.

[55:22]

And setting it at this temperature allowing an interactivity or dynamic of arising and non-arising consciousness, which allows a certain kind of baking to occur. Can you open the oven and you have something? Oh dear, washing machine, oven. Oh dear, okay. You got it? Okay, that was fun.

[56:37]

Yeah. And in the midst of this, please just be steadily in your state of mind. Don't let consciousness arise. But let a kind of knowing germinate. Okay? Thanks again for translating. You're welcome.

[57:12]

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