I'm always surprised when you come back OK, there's nothing we can depend on Really there's absolutely nothing we can depend on. We can't depend on your health. We can't depend on our parents. If we're lucky, we can depend on them a lot for a long time, but still, in the end, we can't depend even on our parents. We can't depend on youth. We can't really depend on our job.

[01:01]

What can we depend on? Yes, we have the word in Buddhism, the refuge. Can we take refuge? I don't know if that's a good word. Maybe we could say haven or harbor. Or sanctuary. Sanctuary is like... Yeah. Yeah. I suppose when we come right down to it, if there's anything we can depend on, it has to be the moment by moment particular. On each moment, we can kind of have a... dependence on the particularity.

[02:43]

And we don't know even, you know, what the next moment will be. And, yeah, there's always going to be the next moment. that we die. In the new Bob Dylan album, he has some line like, everyone's losing if you ain't already there. Everyone's losing if you ain't already there, if you haven't already lost.

[03:48]

He also says, your days are numbered, and so are mine. Yeah. So if we're going to depend on the particular, how do we get there? The particular, what's the particular? The immediacy of the particular situation. What is the immediacy of our particular situation? Well, it's our mind and our body. There's no particularity, no immediacy without a mind and body.

[05:01]

Yeah, but what's our mind and body? And what kind of mind and body can we depend on? Well, you know, it's understood that maybe if you really understand how things actually exist, you certainly don't want to depend on how things don't exist. That wouldn't be very dependable. We want to depend on how things actually exist. But how do they exist? In a radical momentariness. Can we have a mind which

[06:01]

is present to this momentariness. Even if we can't exactly depend on such radical momentariness, where in fact each moment is unique, Unique because it's unique, but also because each moment could be a moment you die in. Then you'd be sure it's unique. You wouldn't have any doubt about it. But it might be a moment that you catch a cold or something.

[07:21]

I think if we... If we want to have a kind of sense of what the absolute means. Like, you know, practice period at Creston is the way the schedule is, the way the life is. As we could say, it's most true when it's rooted in the Absolute? And what do I mean by that?

[08:25]

Well, you know, like the other day, early in the practice period, the person ringing the wake-up bell... Was late. And nowadays at Creston, there's a corruption creeping in. Telephones. So the person who was late, there weren't so many people there. This was actually just before... So the person telephoned quite a few people. Hey, it's everything late. Can you get up? This person didn't understand that the practice period is rooted in the Absolute.

[09:32]

We can't get up late or early. We get up when we get up. That's all there is to it. You might be a little embarrassed that you got up 15 minutes late. But we're not connected to the rest of the world. We don't care what clocks We don't care about what time Denver is. Just get up and ring the bell. And then everybody gets up and then we go to Zazen. Who the heck cares whether it's on time? Yeah, he comes and apologizes to me later. But basically, you just get up and then we just do Zazen, we have breakfast.

[10:55]

During the day, if we're getting phone calls or something, we have to kind of adjust our schedule to other people's schedules. But when you die is when you die. You can't say he died early. You could say it in relationship to, oh, my cousin was going to come. But... In the absolute sense, you die when you die. Early and late, don't apply to it. And likewise, and we try to do the practice period that way. Wake up, bell rings, we get up. We don't think, oh, it's time to die. Yeah, so there's a sense of this uncompaired immediacy.

[12:00]

Incomparable. So this, in a way, doesn't exactly make sense to say we can depend on that, but we can depend on it. And if we do depend on that absolute radical immediacy, our life has the quality of a life that doesn't need to depend or not depend.

[13:13]

So we could say, this is Dharma, and we take refuge in the Dharma. Yeah. And there's some directionality, too. What is this mind that we can depend on? That's a mind? Well, I think we have to say it's a Buddha mind. A mind of a fully realized eightfold path. And a mind that has the directionality, the direction, of wanting to be moving in the direction of most fully the kind of person you want to be.

[14:31]

If we have that kind of mind, we can die with satisfaction. Even if the 45th arrow is as far as we've got. So we can depend on that mind, too. We can take refuge in... All the various things meant by Buddha mind or Buddha nature. And we can't forget other people. And the mind that arises through other people. And is contaminated by other people and by us. Yeah, so what kind of mind

[15:46]

feels comfortable with each person you meet. Whoever it is, we feel welcome. We're not threatened by others. And we deeply don't want to threaten others. This mind we can also depend on. Or take refuge in. Or it can be a kind of sanctuary or harbor. No, I bring this up because a path and a refuge are something similar. Yeah, we take refuge in the particular. We stand in the particular.

[17:23]

We can say the particular stands in us. What posture do we have when we let the particular stand in us? What is the particular? The vehicle of the particular are our senses. The instrument, instruments of the particular are our senses. Yeah. So, but what, how do we, how does wisdom understand the senses? Wie versteht Weisheit die Sinne?

[18:37]

Well, it understands them as the twelve ayatanas. Sie versteht sie als die zwölf ayatanas. But in Buddhist thinking, we have six senses. Why are there twelve senses? sense fields. Well, because the arising of a field related to a sense organ depends on an object of the sense. And the object of the sense is not just any old, you know, just neutral.

[19:46]

All objects are the same. If you, when you look at each tree or a tree and a stone, Basically you could be looking at anything. You're half dead. You have? If you look at a tree or two trees or a tree and a stone and you look the same way as a camera might you're half dead. At least the way Buddhism looks at it. Buddhism will then understand that a different camera arises for each object. Or maybe not a different camera, but a different film. Yes, so it's a mutual field that arises.

[21:05]

So we can feel the tree from its side. The idea of two fields that arise means we can also understand that we don't have to only feel from our side. I shouldn't only speak from my side here. To what extent I can. to what extent I can, I want to feel the Dharma from inside you. And I want to speak now from inside you as well as from inside me.

[22:23]

So my resources are not limited to my own. Yeah, so there's even in this understanding of the ayatanas, the simple distinction that six sense organs and twelve sense fields Yes, so just the simple distinction, the simple target created by this allows us to be open to a different film on each perception, a different mind that arises.

[23:44]

For example, obviously the mind of music is different than the mind of looking at stones. But perhaps if you could bring the mind of music to looking at a stone, you might paint a painting like Cezanne or Pollock or something. So this simple distinction again not only raises the awareness of a different mind, a different film on each perception, this simple distinction, not only And brings us to notice a different film on each perception. And brings us into the uniqueness of each perception.

[24:49]

Also makes us notice the tree has a film. or our friend, film not only from the past, but a film of the immediacy. So this kind of understanding is an understanding of the particular in Buddhism. Yeah, and so, but is it really just the sense organ that... The ear which hears? Yeah, I mean, not all the ears, bones and all that stuff.

[25:51]

They don't hear anything. It's the mind that accompanies the sense organ of the ear, that allows the mind, that allows what we know as hearing to appear. Yeah, so now what we've got is the recognition of the two sense fields. But also the mind in which these sense fields arise. And this mind has a name. Why not? Mano vijnana. Now what an interesting distinction.

[27:01]

Weber told you about that before. But this distinction allows you to notice something. The mind that accompanies hearing doesn't think. Denkt nicht. We can call it the mind of pure appearance. And now here we're back to the five dharmas. The mind of pure appearance. Now what happens when we can rest in, pause in this mind of pure appearance. There's a kind of bliss or joy. Yeah, now to make this more accessible,

[28:04]

Let me come back to the common experience in zazen. Common, but really pointed out in the Suram Gama Sutra. that hearing in particular allows us to enter in to the bliss of the Sambhogakaya. Okay, now we don't have to These terms are new to you, don't worry about it. But what happens in zazen, if you just hear something, you're not thinking, you just hear your own hearing, as I say. And I'm convinced that somehow these birds sing during zazen.

[29:26]

They sing because they like being heard. Do they sing just out of instinct? Do they sing just because they're selfish? Singen Sie, weil Sie selbstsüchtig sind? That's common, everyday Freudian thing. Everything we do is because we're selfish. Das ist so eine freudsche Ansicht, dass wir alles nur tun, weil wir selbstsüchtig sind. Such a narrow view of us human beings. I think the birds are just singing out of high spirits. And because they know they're blissing out the zendo. Why not? If they also have a field of perception, they can probably feel themselves being heard.

[30:28]

But whether that's true or not, they're singing. to us and for us. Because that's our experience. So for us, that's our experience. And when we just hear our own hearing, often it's accompanied by bliss. But even your breath, it's something... Yes, something not too bad. So the mind of pure appearance is a mind of bliss. That's why in the five dharmas, suchness is the fruit of the five dharmas.

[31:56]

The experience of suchness is accompanied by an experience of... something we can call blissful. Or a variety of satisfactions that aren't in the dictionary. A variety of satisfactions you have to discover for yourself, not through language. Okay, so now we also have here another way to speak about Buddha mind, Buddha nature mind that arises on the particular. So again, another entry into the teaching of the three refuges.

[33:01]

Okay, so we recognize the mind that accompanies each sense. That accompanies each sense. Before it's captured by consciousness. The naming that leads to discrimination. Not necessarily the naming that holds us in place. Okay, so now we've got two sense fields and recognition that there's a mind that arises with each sense. Now this mind that arises with each sense on its own is also called

[34:26]

the sixth sense. Maybe it's connected with our kind of, at least in English, we talk about he or she has a sixth sense. But we don't really, you know, in Buddhism, It's a system of six senses instead of a system of five senses. Because it's not about the sense organs, it's about the grasping of an object. Yeah, so we don't have... So when we emphasize... Perception is the knowing of an object. Then mind also falls into the category of one of the senses.

[35:38]

For you don't grasp a mathematical object by sense. smelling or tasting or seeing, you grasp it by the sense, mind sense. Yeah, so... mind that arises on each sense, is a mind that also can arise if the object is a concept. So I can know these flowers again.

[36:48]

By color, smell, etc. But that they're in a vase and held in water is a concept. I don't really know that by smelling or tasting or something like that. Ich weiß das wirklich nicht durch das Riechen oder das Schmecken. My daughter would try to know that by tasting. Meine Tochter würde versuchen, das zu wissen durchs Schmecken. Or pushing it over or whatever. Oder dadurch, dass sie es umwirft. I told you this, my experience of being in a castle and a dog handle. Being in Kassel. Kassel, the town, the city of Kassel. Ah, Kassel. Kassel. Kassel. I speak a dialect. You know, I'm staying at Norbert and Angela's. And, you know... In America, they have these doorknobs like this.

[38:06]

I prefer the German doorknobs that you push down. But they said, you know, while you're here and staying with us, you can stay in the rooms we use for therapy. They're both therapists. So I went to push the door handle down, and instead of down, it went up. And my first thought was maybe they're trying to drive their patient, their clients, crazy. But you know they have this big dog and I... It was clear because the dog learned by experience to push the handle down.

[39:07]

But he hadn't learned by his sixth sense that you could push it up. He might have discovered it, you know, but he hadn't yet. Yeah. My daughter would discover it right away. But dogs have certain lovable limitations. So that's a... I understood... right away to push the door handle. Through the sixth sense... Did you have the idea of a sixth sense in German, too? Oh, we have a seventh. Another gold for the Germans.

[40:09]

Wieder eine Goldmedaille für die Deutschen. But I don't think I thought about it. Just door handle, one wrong way, dog, oh, it was clear to me. I don't really think it was that I thought, oh, there's a dog in the house and a duck. I just saw the two together like, go ahead. Like the sun, when the sun sets, it gets dark. I don't have to think about that. Oh, the sun setting is probably going to get dark. Because the sun setting and the getting dark are one concept. And there's a kind of thinking like that.

[41:32]

The door handle was an incomplete concept. I didn't have to think to complete it. I just had to notice. No, I'm not trying to create a new kind of psychology or something like that. And I don't even care if I'm exactly correct in what I'm saying. What I'm trying to do is say that the mind of this mano-vijnana mind knows and understands in a way that really isn't about thinking. And when you can stabilize the mano-vijnana, And also then is called the wisdom of clear comprehension.

[43:02]

Rooted in, you hear something, you see something. The mind that arises with that is the mind of clear comprehension. At least it's a mind of clear comprehension when it's rooted in impermanence. When it's rooted in the Dharma. When it's... recognizes that everything changes, is impermanent, is empty, has no fixed nature. In a way, those concepts are present in the knowing. When those views, in the Eightfold Path, like, are present in the known,

[44:12]

We say the mind of pure appearance and the mind of the so-called sixth sense is transformed into the wisdom of clear comprehension. Yeah. So what am I trying to do here? I don't know. I think I'm trying to show you how the most to me extraordinary teachings of Buddhism and of Zen and of Mahayana Buddhism are rooted in the most basic teachings of Buddhism, like the Eightfold Path. So as I spoke about speech as the way in which we relate to things.

[45:33]

And and to bring physicalized attention to our speaking, conduct here, the conduct of the bodhisattva, In speech, we're talking about relationship. In conduct, we're talking about the particular. Rooted in the clarity of each sense field.

[46:39]

Yeah. So if your conduct, this conduct, if your conduct is always accompanied by dharma, by the presence that arises through each sense field. and the presence that arises through all the sense fields together. If your conduct is thusly rooted, then you're really in the Eightfold Path.

[47:43]

And you're entering the stream. And now we can also call the eightfold path is a way to be a stream enterer. Okay, I think that's enough for now. I have a little bit more I'd like to say. But I think maybe we should take a little break. So why don't we have five or ten minutes? I'll ring my bell and then we can wind up or down again. Okay, thank you. Thanks for translating again. So it's interesting how some of the most common of all concepts, teachings in Buddhism are really quite difficult to understand.

[49:21]

And I think they're difficult to understand because they rest in practice, not in concepts. In concepts. They're presented to us conceptually, Like wisdom. Compassion. Suffering. But it's not so easy. The end of suffering? What the heck is the end of suffering? Well, of course, let's take the two ends of the spectrum. Pain, perhaps. And suffering. We don't get rid of pain. Someone hits you with a hammer. Somebody hits a Buddha with a hammer.

[50:38]

He has two bumps on his head instead of one. I speak of the truth. But do we get rid of suffering? I would say we get rid of psychological. We can be free of psychological suffering. We can be free of the suffering of moods. Do we get rid of all moods? Yeah, I wouldn't say so. Mm-hmm. Do we free ourselves from existential suffering?

[51:52]

Yeah, I would say so. Do we free ourselves from grief? No, I don't think so. It would be weird for a Buddha or anyone not to feel grief if you lose a loved one, a child, a spouse, a parent. I would think of grief and, you know, I just, again, I have these targets of words I'm trying to, kind of use English words, that's all I got.

[52:59]

I would say grief is more like pain. Being hit by the hammer of bereavement. It's like being separated from bereavement. But, you know, somebody asks, you know, casually, your aunt or uncle, yeah, how do you get rid of suffering in Buddhism? You say, well, I have grief and bereavement. It's hard to explain. But I think we're practicing. We can come to some understanding, I hope. Because it's understanding. meaning or reality is lodged in practice.

[54:22]

Lodged is a good word in English because it can mean you live in practice and it also can mean it's stuck in practice, like you lodge something into the crack or something. Lodge is a good word, and it means to live in practice, but also that something is in practice, like pushing something into a gap. Where are you lodging? It means like what motel are you staying in? I'm staying in the Dharma Inn. It's right down the road here. Quellenweg 4. Maybe we should put a sign up. Dharma Inn. Clean rooms. My former wife, every time we passed one of these cheap motels, would say, clean rooms.

[55:59]

My wife would say, what were we expecting? Then I wouldn't want to be, you know, I've had a pretty easy life. I've had a pretty easy life. But I could say that there's been some moments of suffering. There were times where I would have exchanged any physical pain for the mental pain I felt. But I wouldn't want to, if we call that suffering, I wouldn't want not to know that.

[57:01]

And I wouldn't want to go back there. I wouldn't want to not be able to go back there. And back there means when I'm back there, here. So what does it mean to be free of suffering? Well, The word suffering means in English to feel pain. It doesn't mean to be in pain. And there's some difference there. There's difference between suffering from grief and just grieving. Because the Eightfold Path, of course, in our life of course includes grieving, suffering, anguish.

[58:32]

Sometimes I experiment with the Eightfold Path. As I said, it's good to just get familiar with it. Like all the basic teachings, just to be able to hold it before you. Like all the basic teachings, just to be able to hold it before you or hold it within you. So I, in a very mechanical way, you know, experiment with the Eightfold Path. Yeah, when I start out with a teaching, I have no idea about its subtlety.

[59:44]

I just try to do it in some kind of primitive, more mechanical way. So I try to apply the eight-fold path to... various things. Like earlier, I tried to apply the Eightfold Path to this pillar. I just see what I can do with it. Yeah, I apply it to going into a room. Yeah, so, for example, let's take, for example, going to bed. So I decide to apply the Eightfold Path to going to bed. Again, just to exercise the eight categories.

[60:45]

And I just notice what I notice. So I decide to go to bed. And up there, here, I sleep in this kind of wooden tent that used to be where they brought hay in. And it's a little bit narrow. And beside the bed, I have to stand like this to get into bed. When you get up, you have to kind of walk, you know, this way to get past the roof, you know. So I start up just a couple little stairs up to the bedroom. So I say, what are my views of going to bed in this room? So I... So I, oh, it's a big room.

[62:23]

Or it's a small room. Or I wish it were a little bigger. Or I don't like it because it's so small. Or you can't open the window, the one window in the back, because it blows right on top of you if you do, and then you get a cold. But if you don't open the window, it's like a sauna. So these are all views. They're somewhere between attitudes and views. Mostly we can say attitudes occur after perception. views, as in Buddhist means occur before perception. So I'm just I'm just telling you about my little Dharma games.

[63:38]

I've got to do something with my time, right? I'm all there by myself. I'm kind of lonely, so I might play a Dharma game, you know? Dharma spiel. That's right underneath Dharma Inn. We could say Dharma spiel. They're all electronic now. They used to be mechanical when I was a kid. Okay. So, I mean, I say, oh, of course, these are views. Yeah, I'd be nicer if it was bigger. But actually, I like small rooms. I like to create nests. So, anyway, I noticed those are views. So, I mean, I climb into bed.

[64:49]

Now I notice intentions. My intention is to climb into bed. My intention is to go to sleep. Or maybe read for a few minutes before. So I notice my intentions. And then I notice my speech. Well, I've been doing nothing but talk to myself all the time I begin to get into bed. The room is big, the room is small, you know. I'm breathing with it, you know. So there's speech. various thoughts. And I decide to have an intention to dream.

[65:50]

I decide to have a certain flavor of dreams, so I kind of create a body intention that usually affects how I dream. And to me then I'm saying, okay, I'm going to dream. Dream is a kind of speech. I'm talking to myself. And the dream, that's a kind of speech. Then I think, oh, what's the force of the Eightfold? That's conduct. What's my conduct here? Okay, so I guess my conduct is, first of all, my posture. So these days I start out sleeping usually on my back.

[67:05]

Excuse me, these details, you don't need them, but you know. I might as well give you a real example. I usually sleep on my back in the beginning. I used to always sleep on my back the whole night. And I used to carry it so far that I'd sleep with a little Buddha figure on my forehead or a coin or something. So I would support it all night long and not turn over. Some of these Dharma spiels get a little kind of kooky. Kooky means a little crazy, a little strange. But again, you've got to do something when you're in bed.

[68:17]

But nowadays I usually, for some reason, I don't know why, I sleep on my back for a while until my breathing changes. And when my breathing changes, which indicates to me I'm starting to dream rather than think, I turn over in my sleep. So I think about, to me, that's conduct. Where I decide to place my hands. And then I, okay, so now I've got... Well, I'll have to talk about this in the seminar. This is my job.

[69:26]

So I'll practice this for this right livelihood. I'll talk about this little Dharma spiel. And it's my job, actually, to notice these things, how you go to sleep, how your breathing changes. That's, I consider, my job. So now I'm practicing livelihood. So I have this feeling of speech, conduct, livelihood, and now mindfulness. Well, when I intend to dream a certain way that's a kind of practice of mindfulness now it strikes i'm this is just a little quirk because there's a lot of debunking of zen going on these days debunking the other word debunk means to make fun of or tell say it's not true and so

[70:44]

Yes, nowadays there is a... Will Zen be made ridiculous? Yes, for about 10 years or so, I mean 20 or 30 years, most scholars have taken the idealized version of D.T. Suzuki's Zen. For 20 or 30 years most scientists have taken the idealized version of D.T. Suzuki's Zen. And now scholars are saying, oh no, it's really all superstition and self-interest. There's no such thing as enlightenment and so forth. And one of the most brilliant of these scholars really has tremendous... Mastery of scholarly apparatus. Who seems like a nice guy.

[71:48]

I'd never met him. But he went to practice Zen in Japan when he was young and he had some pretty bad experiences. Now he's one of the leading debunkers of Zen. So one of the things he says is that people say they don't dream, but of course we all dream. Anyone who says they don't dream, they don't know, they just forget their dreams.

[72:48]

And he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's just accepting a truism of psychology. So why am I saying this? Because I really want you, when you read and study... is you can't get to it through the teaching. You have to be in the room of the Buddhas and Buddha ancestors. Okay. Because when I used to practice, sleeping on my back all night.

[73:51]

And I slept very little. I used the posture of sleeping on my back with its straightness to actually do zazen all night. I went to sleep, but I actually kind of entered zazen. So I had the experience of the kind of mind of zazen. You can't exactly say what happened then as dreaming. You can't exactly say what happens in zazen is dreaming. Because the dreams don't occur on the other side of that veil of sleep.

[74:55]

The dreams don't occur on the other side of the veil of sleep. The dreams don't exactly happen to you. They... Anyway, it's different. So I would intend to, if I had in those days not much time, two hours or three hours of sleep, I would intend to make use of it a certain way. So that was the practice of mindfulness. When I did that, I was practicing the seventh of the eightfold path. Das war die Übung von Achtsamkeit.

[76:05]

Als ich das getan habe, habe ich diesen siebten Pfad, Achtsamkeit, geübt. By turning my zazen into a kind of... my sleeping into a kind of zazen. Indem ich mein Schlafen in eine Art zazen verwandelt habe. No, I don't ask... I'm not suggesting that you guys, any of you, do this. Ich schlage jetzt nicht vor, dass irgendjemand von euch das so tun soll. I did it because it was a... early stage of Buddhism in the West and in my practice. And I was 24 hours consumed by the possibility of how to make practice work in the West. And to make a place where people could practice. Because I felt, you know, Sukhiroshi's teaching won't last if we don't have a place in which to make it last. That's why I'm so grateful, too, that we have Johanneshof.

[77:19]

Yeah. So at some point I decided to be more relaxed and dream sometimes. Now I know if I turn over, I turn over into my dreams. An extremely interesting dream last night. Unbelievable. I'm not going to tell you, though. It's tellable, but I'm not going to tell it.

[78:22]

But it was interesting when I went into Zazen. I thought that dream was quite interesting. So I decided to look at it again. And again, I'm trying to speak about the way we can actually relate to and participate in our states of mind if we practice. in our states of mind if we practice. So I almost like taking a film clip I know the feeling of the mind in which I had that particular dream. So I ran through the dream again, like rewinding a film and watching it.

[79:23]

That was, yeah. I was amazed again by the dream. So now here we have an interesting reversal. I used to sleep without dreams. because I sort of did zazen during the night. And now I can take the film strip of a dream and bring it into my zazen. So we can't just have some kind of We can't just have a cliché idea that we don't dream and we forget our dreams? I'm also here practicing the eighth of the eightfold path.

[80:38]

Because I'm bringing into this little going into my wooden tent of a bedroom. I'm going into this little wooden tent of the bedroom. I'm also bringing the concentration of equipoise and equanimity. Yeah. I think the equipoise in the original means something like held within a level. A state of mind characterized by desire is a non-equal-poised state of mind. So you bring in a mind from the Eightfold Path of equipoise and equanimity.

[81:53]

Even in this little spiel game of practicing Eightfold Path, going to bed. I think illustrates the sense that the eightfold path is also a stream entering path. And entering the stream If you really enter the stream, if you feel that, know that. That mind of equipoise and equanimity flows in every aspect of your life. And we could say it's being free of suffering.

[83:07]

Even if you have a terrible disease, it's a kind of being free of suffering. So I think if we understand the fourth of the four noble truths, the eightfold path, as a stream entering, That stream entering is a mind, we can say, free of suffering. And it can be present in all our situations, including the most difficult. I've been speaking in your ear.

[84:08]

You've been speaking in mine. Yeah, thank you very much. I think we hopefully have some feel for this practice of the Eightfold Path. Thank you so much for your attention. Yeah, your attention makes it possible. I didn't know I could get here. It's nice to get here with you. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you for our translator.

[84:51]

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