Well, we spoke this morning in what I would say is a very basic process of knowing. And I want to sometimes use the term epistemic Because it means, I'm using it at least to mean a process of knowing that's not necessarily conscious. And in one of a number of other words, Usually we say in other words, but there are so many other words.

[01:18]

So I said in one of a number of other words. The, just the process of being alive. is a process of knowing. But not all that knowing is available to our consciousness. But it is available to our living or it's inseparable part of our living. And perhaps we could describe Zazen meditation mindfulness practices and incisive practices of wisdom.

[02:20]

as a way to bring the wide scale range of knowing into our living. Now, one thing I do want to try to reach to during our seminar is what as I said earlier before lunch what role does a clarity of knowing yeah probably primarily conscious knowing and languaged knowing, but also intuitive bodily knowing, what role does that have in our... the soundness, the solidity, the soundness, the accuracy of our experience.

[04:00]

These are questions explored by Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Buddhist, teachers, etc., for generations. But I think there's no reason we can't explore it, too. As a process of knowing. Mm-hmm. Now what I'm emphasizing here is not just the experience of knowing as a, like I know something, but rather a process of living with accuracy and satisfaction.

[05:14]

And I don't know exactly how to express this. But an important idea in Chinese thinking, Asian thinking in general, is how do you read phenomena? And in the recent winter branches about the Nanchuan and the cat, probably in the end the main point was How do you read phenomena? In other words, did Nanchuan threatening to kill the cat induce a unknowing

[06:16]

And not a knowing that had a particular length, any length of time. But a knowing that was a change of direction. So the world was different. from that change of direction. So we might be able to say that transcendental, imminent, extraordinary experiences are not so important in themselves from a Buddhist point of view. Now, from some mystical approaches to knowing, which in Zen is also a mystical approach to knowing, But some mystical approaches to knowing are more apt even most.

[07:50]

and some so-called mystical approaches emphasize the importance of the so-called mystical experiences. But Zen and Buddhism in general emphasize not the mystical experiences in themselves. But how they change the direction of our life. Almost as if you were turning a corner here in Hanover. But you don't want to stop in the corner and enjoy the corner. You know, the rest of the traffic doesn't like that. You want to keep going. So such a extraordinary or meta-ordinary experiences, which sometimes are very ordinary experiences, but they do change our direction.

[09:24]

Their importance is in how they change their direction. Okay. Change perhaps how we bring attentiveness into the world. How we bring attentiveness into the... I don't know what other words to use for it except the mutual dance of phenomena. As... Again, I need to find examples.

[10:34]

Perhaps the way a botanist would look at a forest. Or someone with a green thumb looks at a garden. You need to know what's happening in your garden by just walking through it. You can feel in the health of a forest or lack, that something is changing in the forest. Pollution, insect, water. or some combination of all of them. But the person who can, in the sense that I'm talking about for the Chinese, like the I Ching, The I Ching is a way of reading phenomena.

[11:39]

You look at the forest and you know it's turning on this thing. This is the axis. This is the... leverage your axis point. The insects are a problem because the water is actually the problem. So how do we act in our life with this sense of Reading our situation. The ingredients of each situation. Of our circumstances, what stands around us. The ingredients of our situation. without our even knowing it, allow us to take the next move.

[12:57]

I mean, this is a way in which, for example, say that you have practiced lucid dreaming. Or you have the experience of lucid dreaming. The lucid dreamings are not, our dreams are not treated as knowledge. Or prophecy. But it's part of like Zazen mind. Zazen mind and subtle consciousness and the epistemic dreaming we can call lucid dreaming are all affect the awareness in which these minds dream.

[14:00]

float or are expressions of. So in a way lucid dreaming or lucid zazen begins to inform beginnen dann das Aufmerksamsein zu informieren und informiert den Aufmerksamkeitsgeist. Der Aufmerksamkeitsgeist So this intentional mind, you know, at any moment there's an infinite number of things happening.

[15:18]

I mean, at least if you think of things as relationships. Because the number of relationships in this room are infinite. Yeah. So if you're thinking in entities, there's a limited number. But if you're thinking in activity as interdependence and inter-emergence, Reading this situation Yeah, is the... reading the world in this way, is the activity of a

[16:23]

mature attentional awareness. Now, this may all seem... Marlene, you were like an animal. It's all right. You can stand up, you know. But it was kind of great. I wanted to get down and go with you. We were like two cats. So, you know, I just riffed a bit here. Now, it may not all have been understandable. Of course, I think it's completely clear and easy to understand.

[17:54]

But I do remember how difficult it was for me just to sort out, as I said earlier, self and no self and non-self it took me a long time I mean literally years and decades to sort out a way to use these words to awaken my experience So not just awaken my mind, but awaken my experience. But this is the Sangeet. process we're involved in and why it's good that we, I think, that we stay together for so many years just in this room.

[19:05]

I don't know, fix some hundreds of years of our practicing together. Shared practice together. If we don't count the time you went home between seminars. Okay. Now, what I want to... Well, let me use another. She's not here. She had me at long lunch. But I was responding to something she said. But you're also her, so it's fine. And not just to what she said. if I say we're always in the middle we're always appearing in the middle of things right now you've come to the seminar and you've come into the middle of a conversation

[20:40]

Yeah, a conversation that's been going on a converse-reversation. Mm-hmm. And conversation means the converse, the interplay of reverse and converse. A reversation that's been going on in me in a long time. It's an inner dialogue or conversation that's been going on with you for a long time, both through practice and through your life. So we're all in the middle appearing in the middle now of a mutual conversation.

[21:52]

At least they buzz now. They hum. Now there's something that our senses don't reach. There's a phone conversation waiting to talk to you that's here in the room somewhere and we can't grab it. It's outside the realm of our sensorium. And I'm going to pause for a minute and you'll see why in a moment. There, there's the reason why I paused. I started to speak to something you brought up earlier. And I said, I don't know if I can go on unless you appear.

[22:57]

And there you are. You all waited. Well, we didn't. We were going to go ahead without you. So, okay, so we're always in the middle. We appear in the middle of things. Now, that's, you know, you may think I understand that. It's not very important even. Or you may think, it doesn't even need understanding. It's just obvious we're in the middle. But if you... If you... are intellectually precise.

[23:59]

Or cognitively perhaps precise. It's actually a transformative statement. If we take it to mean there's only the middle There are no endpoints. There's no beginning and there's no end. If there's no beginning and there's no end, there's no comparison. And if you really know where there's only the middle, a middle without endpoints, then you understand the Diamond Sutra saying the Bodhisattva has no concept of a lifespan. A lifespan, of course, requires endpoints. At least one beginning point and

[25:04]

Yeah, the endpoint, yeah. I guess there's going to be an endpoint. Must be, yeah. Yeah. Let's keep it a secret. Okay. So if there's no comparison, there's no end point. Yeah, then, you know, I have a daughter, Sophia, who just flew to California yesterday by herself. I mean she had an airplane around her. And I remember she had a beginning point. And I'm certainly glad she's safely now in California with my middle daughter. So, you know, I can intellectually understand that they're saying that she has a life.

[26:19]

She has a life that had a beginning. But if we're not thinking in generalizations and comparative concepts, if we're only engaged in swimming and experience, when you're swimming, if you're swimming, You better swim as long as you can swim. You don't stop, say, oh, the end points over there, I'm going to stop now. No, no, you better just keep swimming. So if there's only middle and we're only swimming, and there's no end points, then there's no beginning, no end, and there's no life span. Lifespan is some sort of generalization.

[27:26]

The fundamental truth is experiential engagement. Okay, so this is an example. I'm using this as an example. Of what I mean by being cognitively precise about something. really recognize there's only a middle without endpoints, it leads to a different way of being in the world. Where comparative thinking and so forth are really quite secondary. Okay. So I again present that to you as a kind of, maybe not a turning word, but a turning experience.

[28:52]

There's only a middle. And so you want, if you're going to say something, for instance, in the seminar, if you think, well, is this relevant or not, you're not in the middle. You're thinking in terms of endpoints. If you just trust something's coming up in you and you bring it into the middle, Now, this is a way of introducing. I want to continue with this you know, what can't be known, what is the Western world, what is them, what is self.

[30:12]

I want to continue with this. And I'd like to continue with What are the constituents of self? Because if we're going to read the forest of the West and East meeting and read the forest of our own life in the middle, in the midst of own life as Westerners in the midst of Zen practice. The point that will Most tell us about this forest.

[31:16]

Is our... understanding of the constituents of self. Now experientially I want you to put aside any Buddhist ideas of non-self and no-self and so forth as nonsense. And concentrate, focus on your experience of self. Can you imagine not having experience of self? How would you locate yourself in this room and how would you know how to get here?

[32:19]

So let's really see if we can have Attention resting on the experience of self in all its complexity and vividness and subtlety. Notice its various facets. Notice its various facets. Okay. But I'd like to concentrate on today, on one aspect. Self as the imagination of the self. Imagining myself. And maybe we can even play with the language here.

[33:22]

George Steiner was a quite wonderful man to read. He spoke about Shakespeare's language. As being so much as surpassing all other writers, which in English is the case, because every word was... Each word... for him were possibilities. Was a possibility. So, in every sentence, each word had senses going out from it in all directions and he chose

[34:27]

particular possibilities. As if he, as if he, and then the possibilities that were not followed on this would reappear later in the next sentence, or later in the play. So we can bring the awareness of language not as naming, but as possibilities. Yeah, and certainly your names don't limit your possibilities. So let's just say imagining myself.

[35:31]

And let's play with that a little. So instead of imagining, I don't know how you do this in Deutsch, I'm sorry, but imagining myself. Yeah. you have imagining my self. So now you're imagining the minus not minus like adding and subtraction, but the minus of self. And then maybe we could just have leave out my and have imagining self. And then maybe we can take out imagining and have imaging self. So what I'm saying is when you come up with a phrase like imagining self, imagining myself,

[36:40]

in our more inward associative mind the words aren't sentenced only to the sentence, the words are not only confined to the sentence, confined also means to sentence, like in prison sentence. he's confined. But in associative mind, when attentional mind reaches into associative mind, imaging and imagining, and myself and my and self, float like little generators in a computer game.

[37:56]

see there's one of them right there and he chose your lamp I don't know she whoa wow elegant that was good can you arrange another it's the second time already oh really I didn't see it the first time okay He said, this is too complicated for me, and he laughed. But you guys can't fly. So last night I... I had a dream. Or I was a dream. And I was in a bookseller, a bookstore, and there were two or three booksellers.

[39:19]

And this isn't a very interesting dream particularly. Just there were two elderly booksellers and one younger bookseller. And I'd been in there three or four times. And I'd established some sort of comfortable relationship with the booksellers. And it was interesting that I had the feeling that in the dream that I've been with these booksellers before in other dreams. But the third time I went in, I looked at some old books, books that people don't read anymore much, or there's only... Not many copies left.

[40:40]

And I... Anyway, it was very present in this bookstore. And the bookstore was quite near the ocean. Much like our conversation last night about your hotel near the ocean. And I found myself in a small boat in the middle of the ocean. And there were silhouettes sort of too far away with no lights of huge passenger ships. And I was quite by myself. But I also, and the waves were pretty big, you know. But I also knew I wasn't really there.

[41:41]

Because I knew, I know I don't do dumb things. I don't do dumb things. In other words, I'm the kind of person who would do that, but I'm too smart to do it. I've got other things to do. Like be in this seminar now. Okay, so... So it was kind of funny to be out in the ocean and knowing I'm not really here. I'm just pretending to be out in the ocean because I don't do dumb things, but it's nice to be out here. And instantly I'd be back on the beach or in the bookseller. And so I...

[42:41]

I was studying the dream while I was having the dream. And so while I was, you know, the dream's going on and I'm also studying the dream. And I said, what am I doing here? And of course in the background of my mind is also the question of... I must be having this dream because I'm going to talk about self in the coming seminar. Because before I do a seminar everything I do is related to the seminar. And so I said what am I doing? In what way is this And it was very clear to me I was rehearsing myself.

[44:00]

I was rehearsing the imagination of myself. Okay. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, if somebody suddenly, I mean, or you suddenly, you're in some situation and you say to yourself, I'm not that kind of person. That's your imagination of yourself. Or you say, yes, I can do that. I can have that operation or I can find my way to that address. And where that comes from is how you imagine yourself.

[45:15]

Now, how could any neurologist studying the brain locate how you imagine yourself in the synapses of, you know, blah, blah, blah? I'm not saying that's not possible. I'm just not even thinking about that. I'm saying that perhaps among the constituents of the self... The imagination of the self is the primary glue. When I'm meeting with people in Dukesan, during Sashina service,

[46:18]

Probably the underlying topic, subject, always is. Subject, subjectivity, always is. How do we imagine the self? And you can read the whole Prajnaparamita literature. Given that the imagination of the self is the primary modality of self, given that the primary modality primary modality of self is the imagination of self, how can the teaching of the Bodhisattva transform how you imagine the self?

[47:41]

And when you see that people are always When you begin to see this, you see that most people are constantly rehearsing their own imagination of themselves. I have a wonderful neighbor I've come to like a lot. Not Peter Nick, I like him a lot too, but another one. I have luck, I moved into this neighborhood where I can write in this little apartment. And then I'm suddenly gifted with these wonderful neighbors.

[48:43]

One of them is not so wonderful, but most of them are wonderful. And this guy is somebody who lived in East Germany. And when he was 18, he climbed over the wall or went over the wall or something in Czechoslovakia. And shortly after that, got caught and was flown back to East Germany. And then spent two years in prison. And somehow got out again and escaped again into West Germany. And then he became, he didn't have any training or anything, but he became a designer. He designed his own life, so why doesn't he design things?

[49:50]

So he does lighting design, he does web page design and stuff like that. And he can seem to stay home most of the time and occasionally help somebody design a web page. But he has to sometimes two or three times a day get on his motorcycle, just ride somewhere. Oh, he takes his, he's got five bicycles. He had a little thin racing bicycle and a mountain bicycle and he goes over the Alps once a year, you know. Yeah, so I could walk out the back and there he is getting on one of his bicycles or on his BMW, brand new BMW, sort of.

[50:54]

And off he goes. He said, he's got his hair all glued, you know, the hair sticks up and gets glued in place. I'd like to try it. I'd like to try it. Anyway, as he leaves, I say, imagining yourself again. Because he's clearly rehearsing himself. He has to do this to feel it. Yeah, and he does these other things, but he needs this glue of I'm riding somewhere. So what's your glue? All right. Let's have a break. Thanks for translating.

[51:48]

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