like in the morning now, recently, imagine what to speak about. Yeah, I think, well, all this is easy. I just start from where I left off yesterday. But then I realize Really, to start off from where I left off yesterday, certain things also ought to be clear that what I could talk about is dependent upon. But what I realized this morning is I think I have to say something more about the mandala concept. The circumstantial, the circum-mandalic principle.

[01:11]

It sounded good? I think it's fine. Yeah, okay, thanks. I mean, everything I just did now is creating a mandala. Starting from, we just chanted in Japanese and then German. And the fact that this came to us through Japan is acknowledged in the mandala of starting the lecture by chanting in Japanese. And as a syllabic and not alphabetic language, it's kind of easier to chant the syllables. And then arranging the okesa.

[02:52]

And the okesa is arranged separately from the koromo and so forth. And of course it's based on the conceptually let's put it Buddha's robe and I offer incense and do three bows and so forth and I have this teaching staff which is more articulated than most as a mandala And why is it a mandala? Well, this is the lotus embryo, and that goes in my hand. So the lotus is, in effect, blooming from my hand.

[03:54]

And here's the lotus bud. And here's the lotus seed pod. And of course the whole concept of, you know, the lotus and muddy water and, you know, The altar is a lotus, either a Mount Sumeru or lotus stand. And again, we can ask, of course, where's the bloom? The bud, the lotus, where's the bloom?

[05:07]

Well, the bloom is us looking at it. The bloom is my using it. my sitting implicitly on a lotus. Now to think of this as a mandala would not be immediately obvious. But we're talking again about a world view where everything is activity. So the mandala is an activity always being established. I remember I His Holiness the Dalai Lama, when I attended his Kalachakra ceremony, the first one he did in Switzerland years ago,

[06:18]

I got to know His Holiness quite well because the first time he came to America, America wouldn't give him a visa because the Chinese communists didn't like him and so forth. So a friend of mine arranged for him to have a tourist visa. And having a tourist visa, in those days he didn't have an entourage, a few people with him, they asked if he could stay at Green Gulch, my temple I I was the abbot of. So we had a week or so more to hang out together. It was fun. He's only six months older than me. Mm-hmm. So we feel sort of at least similar ages.

[07:52]

Yeah, so when I was in Switzerland, he invited me back to watch the mandala being manufactured. And the mandala looks like a flat circle, but it's visualized as a several-story building. And one of the senior people was there, and he'd said, on the fourth floor there, that's not quite right if you visualize it. And after they spend some days with little tubes dropping little pieces, they just brush it all aside. So here, we've made a mandala here which we'll brush all aside shortly.

[09:12]

Mm-hmm. At that time, I had this crisis, you know, in 83, and this was 88. Four, five, something. And he had his oracle. You were reading for me. And the oracle said, you'll be all right. At that time I had this crisis. It was after 1983. When I met him, it was 1984. And he arranged that his oracle would make a reading for me.

[10:14]

And his oracle said, you'll be all right. You'll be all right. He said to me, actually, we were sitting together, he said, you know, we don't really believe in this oracle stuff, but I'll ask him anyway. So, you know, to the extent to which things are integrated in a mandala kind of pattern related to the interior and exterior body. I want to give you an example we wouldn't think of, but maybe for you as a raksu maker, you ought to know. When we put this on, we put it on our head and chant, or we touch these three points, which are Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, or whatever three you'd like.

[11:27]

Then you open it and you put it off. But when you take it off, you reach back here and you reach here. And this point should be where this chakra is. So it's designed to, when you take it off, to teach at this point at the end of the spine and this point is where it is brought into space and then folded. And here, of course, you have the pine needle stitch. Which is a kind of code for it's actually an astrological star shape. Astrological or astronomical? Logical. Well, it's astrological.

[12:56]

It's not necessarily astronomical. Okay. It's a pine needle. You know, in Japan, even when they cut a pine... You and Christian noticed it. In a garden, they trim all the pine needles which point down and just leave the pine needles on the tree which point up. I haven't asked you, you know, that we should... He's in charge of the garden, why not? So it's called a pine needle, but it actually means this point. Heaven and earth, you know, there's a cause. Heaven and earth are connected through the spines. So we don't get into this, you know, the mandala concept evolves through living it for centuries.

[14:03]

You know, if you just think it, oh, a mandala, a circle, okay, young and, you know, the dreams, that's it. I first actually encountered this, strangely enough. My growing up, I would say, occurred in high school and college simultaneously as being part of the New York painting world. Yeah, that's another story, but it's the case. And, you know, the New York painters at that time were called abstract expressionists. And it's just a word that writers about the painting scene, I don't know who created the word, but I could probably find out.

[15:38]

But anyway, it's not accurate. Abstract means taken away from the physical and made mental or an idea. And their painting was entirely gestural. And it was a rejection of European easel painting. And the concept sort of easel painting, and these New Yorkers or Americans and some Europeans minds, If you're representing the world...

[16:40]

often in a three-dimensional technique, vanishing point, etc., you're representing the world in this shape, this flat surface. Yeah, but these New York painters, all ten and... more years older than I was, 20 years, 30 years. But there were mostly people I knew and hung out with. They saw it more like sign language for deaf people. It was gestural. I think of when I speak about it now, I think of somebody asked a Native American, American Indian, a Native American, what's this design?

[17:56]

Where does it come from? And he said, that's a particular tree if you looked at the root pattern from underneath. Whoever does that? A worm. But that's an imaginal space. And the artist... the Native American artist, feels the presence of the roots as we imagined it, and this tree is different from that tree. And I think right now, the anecdotes could get out of control here, but I'll try to restrain myself. This is Harry Roberts, who was trained as a Yurok shaman, though he was a white man. Iroquois, right?

[19:16]

Iroquois, I think. Iroquois, Y-U-R-O-C, from the American Northwest. I think. It doesn't really help much, but okay. Anyway, Henry something, a, I'll just say Iroquois, I'm not quite sure, Iroquois. Shaman. Yeah, or medicine man. Yeah, medicine man. He would look at the trees at Green Gouch. He lived with us for years. He would look at the trees at Green Gouch and say, oh, this one will blow over because the roots are bald, and this one won't because the roots are extended. And he could feel it. And when big storms came, some of these trees just... And they go a little further into detail, which is probably extraneous. In the Dokusan room, there's a scroll of Bodhidharma that Andreas Hagen gave us.

[20:33]

And I used to have a 15th century Bodhidharma very similar to that that was, I think, stolen from me. And they often show the Bodhidharma with the kind of shape at the bottom. His head is here and then they have this shape at the bottom. And the shape looks like he has his knees up or something. And Bodhidharma did not have his knees up. At least not in iconic paintings. But my experience of these paintings, and there are many, many of them, like this illustrative, is that somehow the There's a feeling that rises when you feel this curved shape coming up and then the face.

[21:48]

And the feeling brings you into the experience of the face. And Marlene, what's your last name? Kliefert of Hiddensee. I like the Hiddensee. I chose a bowl of hers for the incense burner in the duksan room. Which has the same curves and colors as the Bodhidharma school. So for me, when I offer incense before you guys, guys and gals, you're all guys, all gals, come to Tok San, I feel I'm offering it in the middle of the Bodhidharma.

[23:03]

So because there's a felt interpenetrating relationship, That is the mandala as activity which is related to experiencing the interiority of the physiological body. I'm going to run out of time again. It's like those serial movies, The Mark of Zorro and things. The Mark of Zen, The Mark of Zorro.

[24:06]

I used to watch where the horse is about to go over the cliff, you know, and it says, continue. It's like those serial movies, like Zorro, where whenever the horse jumps over the cliff, it says, continue. And, you know, the bull whip thing, when she makes a Z. Oh, makes me think of Harrison Ford. He was supposed to do something, and he just got tired. You know the story, I think. Over and over again, they filmed this thing, and they never got it right. So Harrison just on his own pulled out his gun and shot the guy. Yeah. So we left it in the movie like that. Yeah. Okay, so there's the physical body.

[25:27]

And in the mandala concept, the physical body is a spatial activity. And it's a physical external activity, but organized from the spine. And the extent to which that's the case is expressed in asking Zen folks to always carry a stick. How do you carry it? Are you aware that you're creating space and carrying this stick? And when it's put down, are you creating space? And with the sound, is it one, two, or one sound? So when we bow with each other, we're creating space from the physical posture, not the physiological posture so much, the physical posture.

[26:45]

With the altar, with the jisha offering incense, handing you incense, we're creating space. And at the altar, it's clear you're creating, ideally, some kind of realisational space. So the accomplished practitioner never loses the feeling that they're creating realisational space all the time, in the kitchen, wherever. And establishing that realisational space is first priority, not the food. I'm sorry, I mean. If you're the tenso. I gave a look to Matt.

[28:21]

I don't know why. Master of kitchen realisational space. Now he's hiding. Why not? We might as well make life complicated. It gets more interesting. Okay. Yes, satisfying. Okay. Now, physiological posture. First is the... interiority which is established by this kind of Dharma flashlight.

[29:22]

Of exploring your interiority, the lungs, the organs, the systemic dynamics and so forth. And it takes time to get the feeling of it, starting a kind of sense of visual locality inside. And to various degrees over time you can explore much of your interiority. Starting the exploration is already transforming. And the exploration gets more evolved as you go along, more detailed.

[30:38]

I'm speaking about Buddhism now, not the rather narrow emphasis in Zen practice, particularly as written about as sudden enlightenment only. Of course, sudden enlightenment or incremental enlightenment or enlightenments that you don't notice all make this exploration more possible. But they're transformative gates. And as I said last night, outside the gate, inside the gate... see for yourself, explore for yourself.

[31:49]

And then I said, some of this is lines from the Shoyuroku Koan 88. Yeah, and then... it is difficult to turn the body. Turning the body outside the luminous screen is difficult. Now this is, to me, a totally extraordinary statement and wouldn't be possible outside of yoga culture. The luminous screen means your sensorial consciousness.

[32:56]

The world exists outside your sensorial consciousness. The world isn't limited to your sensorial consciousness. When I die, my sensorial consciousness will At 8.40, California time, Graham Petsch's exteriority and interiority disappeared. But the interiority he shared with me and his family and David Chadwick and so forth continues. And even though I'm not dead yet... In case you hadn't noticed.

[34:11]

That which is outside my luminous screen is existing right now. It's not only after I'm dead. Right now, outside my luminous screen is existing. And so then the koan is asking, it's difficult turning the body outside the luminous screen. Because we exist there too, as well as within the luminous screen. So then I said, look, look. Yes, the koan says too, something like that.

[35:16]

Mm-hmm. This is all part of this mandala concept, which isn't limited to the luminous screen of the sensorial field. And One way you find... It's assumed within our Buddhist tantric yogic teachings... Imaginal space.

[36:20]

That developing an interiority of the physiological body is something that's happening outside the luminous screen. And how we enter into the mandala that's not limited to the luminous screen. Okay, so the second physiological body Der zweite physiologische Körper. Is when you have fully internalized, when you experience the interiority as your location.

[37:28]

I don't know how else to say it. You know, I'm very right-handed. If I had to brush my teeth with my left hand, I'd be at the dentist all the time. Or I'd long ago have false teeth. I couldn't do it. I know people who are ambidextrous, I'm not. Though I did for a year try to develop the left side, by writing with my left hand for a year, but it was even harder to read. But at least I do use the mouse on the left hand and the keyboard on the right hand. Everyone, when they look at my computer, they move the mouse, but two hands, I'm facing the computer.

[38:32]

Now, if I want to experience what consciousness is like, functional consciousness, which is what consciousness is really about, I notice the difference between the consciousness of my right hand and the consciousness of my left hand. And if I had to reach my hand, as I do sometimes, like into a dark space under a bureau to find a wire or something, I wouldn't put my left hand, it wouldn't find anything except dust. So my right hand is definitely more conscious. I figure what's going on. I know all the shapes and I can find the wire and unplug it or whatever. Then I can explore the difference between the consciousness of my left hand, which has a different kind of territory than my right hand.

[40:02]

And I can explore the feeling of the right hand doing it or the left hand doing it, holding my right hand. And this way you can actually kind of explore what consciousness is like, feels like. Well, if you could imagine the left hand getting, if I can imagine, the left hand becoming more conscious in the way the right hand is, or the right hand becoming even more conscious than it is now, That is the feeling, best way I can express the feeling, of when the consciousness is interior and exterior simultaneously, it feels like your very conscious body is proceeding in the world.

[41:18]

Could you please say that again? When you feel your interiority as a location, it's like your body becomes conscious the way your right hand may be conscious, but even more so. And you've shifted out of mental consciousness, visual consciousness. to a physicalized consciousness which is not dependent on the luminous screen entirely. I didn't follow through on what I was saying about New York painting, but again, we've run out of leg time.

[42:28]

And Doan already has the bell stick. In fact, he's been shaking it at me for five minutes. No, he hasn't. I'm just teasing. Hey, can't you see my stick?

[42:57]

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