Now, it's pretty hard always to talk about such abstractions as reality. But I felt you all did seem to be very well in the discussion you had. And I think the point of the discussion would be just to have a feeling that there are other possible realities, And that different realities inhabit us simultaneously. Just look at how different people can be at work and at home. Sometimes they're loving at home and miserable bosses and sometimes they're, you know, great at work and terrible at home.

[01:06]

And it's also useful to see that these realities are right here in front of us. So what does that mean? Well, maybe we could go back to Thoreau. Reality is a text. And it might be a text in different languages or a language we can read differently. And some of us, because if reality is a text, we're not just reading it, we're writing it as we're reading it.

[02:18]

And some of us are better writers than others. Or some of us are just more careful writers and will take more time with the writing of the text of reality. And we may have the feeling or sense perhaps even to read it more carefully. more carefully or read it more slowly. And some of us may have the ability to both read it slowly and to instantly read it, seeing it all at once. Now, if all of those things I just said have some kind of truth, and you let yourself into this truth, then it may change or affect, hopefully, how you feel yourself in reality.

[03:49]

Now, and you and others have pointed out the problems with the word reality. That's also something we should see. Du und andere haben darauf hingewiesen, auf das Problem, was wir mit dem Wort Realität und Wirklichkeit haben. And I don't know what the problems you have in German are. Ich kenne eure Probleme, die ihr im Deutschen damit habt, nicht. But I know that in English reality is, it's, yeah, it's a hard word to get around. Also ich weiß, dass im englischen Realität ein Wort ist, das sehr schwierig zu erfassen ist. Because it generally meant, used as a synonym for what's true. A movie based on real life is a documentary. We saw a wonderful documentary the other day about an island off the coast of Ireland. Wir haben einen wunderbaren Film zusammen gesehen, eine Insel vor Irland.

[05:10]

The Men of Iran? No, Aaron. Aaron, yeah. Do you know the movie? No. Yeah, it's quite good to see. Also, der heißt der Film Mann von Aaron. Kennst du den Film? Nein, ist aber ein guter Film. It was made in 1920 or 30 or something. And he was one of the, the filmmaker, whatever his name is, is one of the creators of the whole concept of documentary films. But the whole thing is completely staged. I mean, it's based on real people in real life, but it's all staged. It's a kind of, as they say, poetry. And some people who live there see it and they think, This has nothing to do with us.

[06:18]

And others say, are inspired and feel, oh, he's got the inner core of our life. Perhaps like the way if you live in the same town with... Hölderlin. You might find he's describing a different town than you think you live in. So what's real? But we still use the word real life on these reality shows now. And I don't know, but the center is always broke. We don't have money, and so we've arranged for this seminar to be a reality show.

[07:18]

There's actually hidden cameras. That's why I'm taking such... I'm not even sure I'm... I'm stuck. So if it's a text, what's between the words? What isn't written down? Is there a language that we haven't discovered yet that could perhaps also describe the text of reality? Buddhism assumes something like this. And to... And to develop your skills as a meditator is also to find yourself in new ways of reading reality or finding yourself

[08:39]

newly and differently read by reality. As Gerhard says, the more you feel something like this, you really feel you're in this mystery. As we talked about during the prologue day, the mysterious female. Because the name of this place, our Japanese name, is Black Forest Temple. Genrinji. But Rin means forest, and forest also means the sangha, or those who practice together. A forest is different than a single tree. And how the roots and trees support each other.

[09:58]

And then the gen actually means black, but it means reddish green. Black. And it's come to mean mysterious. Or the dark sky at night from which dawn appears. From which all things appear and hence Female or mystery or the source of the 10,000 things is called the mysterious female. Also, aus dem alles auftaucht... the 10,000 things out of which everything appears.

[11:00]

So we went to this kindergarten meeting the other day. And Marie-Louise, if they ask you where you're from, Marie-Louise said, don't tell him you're from the mysterious female Sangha temple. We're already a little bit strange, but accepted in this neighborhood. But really when you do practice dropping body and mind also means dropping the languages of reality. You're dropping the reality of body and mind. And then you're also practicing

[12:02]

You're doing all those things. Practice is dropping body and mind. So you're dropping the languages of body and mind. The front and back and up and down. And the way we generally generalize reality. Yeah, and if you can get out of the boredom of sitting in a repetitious way. And if you think this reality is a container, you're going to be bored in zazen. Because there's not much contained then in your zazen.

[13:17]

But if you think your zazen or reality is a mysterious female, this may be quite a lot more interesting. Or the mysterious male, if you like. In any case, a text in which the words fall off the page and the page itself expands. And yet you have to find your center in it somehow. Some time after we, I don't know, last September, October or something, when we first got back to November, October, November, when we first got back to Cresta, Yeah, well, I know it's all, you know.

[14:28]

Anyway, I watched Sophia, who at that time was... It was September, two and a half. September, two and a half, less languaged. Yeah. And it's pretty clear to me that her conceptual ability precedes her language ability. And it was clear to me too that the templates of self she would try on. The templates of how she's supposed to respond to a situation. The templates of how she pleases us or is able to communicate with us. And we have this rather big dog, this great Pyrenean mountain dog.

[15:36]

You know that old joke about, Mama, Papa and I went fishing and we caught a huge fish, didn't we, Papa? Yeah. Well, it's sort of like that, but our dog is really, you know, his father's name is Horse. The head of this dog is, you know, like this big. Anyway, he's a great dog, very sweet and gentle. But we'd just gotten back and this dog bounding up and his tail cannot, you know. Cactuses. Cactuses, lamps, everything. Flower pots. So I was speaking to Sophia and

[16:37]

The dog came bounding up. And Marie-Louise was saying something from the kitchen. And I saw Sophia unable to deal with all the stuff at once. And I watched her compose herself first. she actually kind of pulled herself up almost as if she knew something about Zazen pulled herself up I could see kind of energy rising in her and once this all happened you know like that long a good translation and then And then, as soon as it kind of like, you could feel her body composed or centered, she then tried on the different templates of how to deal with what was happening.

[17:52]

And this composing ourself in each moment is something, yeah, close to what Buddhism means by the Dharma or Dharma. Now, I spoke yesterday about, you know, Where do you find the entity? Yeah. I often use the example of hearing in Zazen an airplane. And not identifying it as an airplane. But just what do you hear? If you don't identify it as an airplane, sometimes it's the music of the spheres.

[19:07]

And sometimes it's, you just feel the air. You feel the way the air, what happens to air when it carries a sound like that. what happens to the air when it carries sound or sound. So, Suzuki Roshi was asked by someone years ago, And Sukhirashi said, it doesn't matter. So much for Western philosophy. But you do, is it the airplane or the air?

[20:32]

The airplane sound is not possible without the air. Yeah, so where is the entity? Yeah. Is the moon's reflection in the pond also the moon? Yeah. If you're not involved in representational thinking, yes, the moon in the pond is also the moon. And when a woman speaks about she's in her moon, sometimes we say, that's also the moon. And our months are moons. And our months are moons. So is it true there is a moon, but it's a different way of thinking when you think of all the ways something exists as the thing.

[21:56]

So this becomes a bell when there's air to carry the sound. Wouldn't be a bell on the moon. So when you really get the feeling for entity-lessness, This is also emptiness. So the search for an entity... like the self or the search for any entity, is part of the practice of realizing emptiness. Because when you really confirm that you can't find an entity, you suddenly, whoa, does reality shift. If you really convince that you can't find an entity, then there really is a change of reality.

[23:25]

It's not like the physicist, We're trying to say, if we know reality as the way I've been talking about it, how can we live that reality? If we know reality as entity-lessness, How are we going to live that? Empty reality. Empty of permanence or empty of of entities, but full in every other sense when entities are taken away.

[24:42]

Enlightenment is a reality shift. Define enlightenment that simply. So if enlightenment is a reality shift, maybe it's better to just stay in the dark and hope Zazen turns the switch. Where's that switch? When is enlightenment going to turn on? But it probably helps to know that darkness itself is also light. Now Hinduism's view, which is some kind of not our Western view,

[25:46]

And Hinduism also sees everything as changing. But they have a sense of an unchanging reality behind the changing reality. And their practice and And pedagogy is based on that. And the word dharma does mean that which holds, in a sense, that which doesn't change. That which doesn't change. And so, but Dharma is what holds relative only to everything changing.

[27:01]

Dharma still also itself changes, whatever it is. So although you can't find any entity, There's always a field of relationships. Although you can't find an entity, there's always a field of relationships. That field of relationships is not an entity in itself. But it is a pattern. And that pattern changes. But it also, in a way, presents, shows forth the object.

[28:06]

But it also, in a way, presents, shows forth the object. So one of these basic conundrums in physics is that a particle, when you measure it, becomes a wave. Sometimes it's a wave, sometimes it's a particle. But that's exactly, I mean, for us who practice, what we see is the object in a field, the field in an object. So to see that everything's changing is to see things in relationship to the field in which it appears and then melts away again. Sorry.

[29:07]

To say that everything changes and to really develop this, the fullness of what it means that everything changes, is to see entitylessness and to see that always though present, there's a field and that field as well as the object can be apprehended understood can be well not understood can be received and that the change is also the shift from the field to the object the object to the field That sounds awfully philosophical. And somewhat inaccessible. But you're all doing it right now. I see Beate. I know there's two more Beates around. Three. Three? Only three more?

[30:11]

Yeah. But it's not as if Beate is alone in this room. There's also all of you here. So although I see Each of you in a particular way, simultaneously I feel all of your presence. It's inescapable that we're doing this. It's inescapable. Now all practice does is expand the sense of the field. and allow you by not being by not primarily identifying the world through thinking defining the world through thinking yeah I can think about Beate or Jutta, but I can't think about the field.

[31:52]

I can only kind of feel the field. It's fully present, but not really thinkable. So if I don't identify the world through thinking, I can do that, and sometimes it's useful. But it's not my modus operandi. It's not how I basically function in the world. And because I emphasize entitylessness, you can emphasize something else, but I choose to emphasize that. You know, if I want to be a Westerner, I emphasize entities.

[32:58]

If I want to be more a yogic Buddhist, I emphasize entitylessness. I can do both. I have the choice. I find when I perceive entities, I'm much more neurotic. I'm much more subject to the idiosyncratic aspects of my story. When I emphasize entitylessness, I'm freer, I'm not so in a past, present, future continuum. And not only do I feel more at ease, grounded, safe. Yeah, the habit of feeling the field also then becomes, I feel the field of Yuta, not just the person I might think about.

[34:28]

Because once you get into the sense of things as a field of relationships, It's not just this room which is a field. Each particular is a field. I myself am a field. I'm in the midst of some field right now that is fielding or feeling us being here together. Ich bin mittendrin in einem Feld, das feldet oder fühlt uns alle hier zusammen. And a field which is discovering what to say. Und ein Feld, das versucht zu entdecken, was zu sagen.

[35:29]

Yeah, I'm still this object sitting here. Und trotzdem bin ich dieses Objekt, nur das hier sitzt. And if you took the camera and photographed me, I'm the same as whether I am entitying or entity-lessening. But if you look really closely at the photograph you might see, in one I look a little anxious, and in the other I look more at ease. These are different realities. moving simultaneously in realities. Now, we're supposed to stop. supposed to stop.

[36:35]

And I will stop. But I'll say one more thing. The obfuscated reality we have Obfuscated means blocked or not clear. Obfuscate. is part of the energy of realization. Because it's true for all of us, no matter what culture you're in. You have the habits of your birth culture and the habits of your lived experience, which growing up, as we discussed, are in the context of the child who wants to be an adult and thinks the capacities of the adult are better than the capacities of the child.

[37:58]

And you have the personalities of your parents and grandparents and neighborhood. And so there's no way you don't grow up to various degrees deluded. And there is no possibility at all not to grow to different degrees, confused is wrong, blinded, to grow up. Yeah, and if being neurotic, for instance, is to do things symbolically, which have historical meaning but no meaning in the present, then we could say that a worldview is a shared neurosis. we all do things which are kind of symbolic of the reality we live in, but that reality we live in may not be how things actually exist.

[39:14]

may not be how we actually exist. But there's a tremendous amount of energy. And you can see how, I mean, America's fairly intelligent people. Although some survey indicates that 50% say they've never finished a book. Unfortunately, it's true. Well, But they're still pretty intelligent people, well-informed. They're smarter than dogs and cats usually. And they're all once were Europeans, most of them. I'm sorry to point it out. But how easy it is to manipulate them because they have the neuroses of a particular culture.

[40:33]

In terms of fear, in terms of... Unbelievable. Okay. So we all grow up somewhat deluded. I mean, Europe has in and has had its own delusions. But practice says, Buddhism says, Yogacara says, let's make use of these delusions. And one way that's is that if you, through meditation and through wisdom teachings and so forth, Let's just take a simple one, the gate phrase that somebody brought up, already connected.

[41:40]

There's the assumption that most of us have that we're not connected, we're separated by space. But through practice, through repeating every time we look at somebody or do something, already connected. We find ourselves in a somewhat different world, I think as Gerhard said. But then we go to work or we talk to our friends or our family, call up our aunt, and we have to speak as if we were not connected. I mean, you meet strangers, they don't want you to act as if you're already connected.

[42:40]

So what happens? Sometimes through practice or mindfulness or... The Sangha, you feel connected. And then in many situations you feel not connected. And there's a tremendous energy in that non-connectedness. The whole culture is glued together with this non-connectedness. So it's like you go from connectedness to non-connectedness, like walking into a wall.

[43:41]

But through most of the people you know and work with, the only way you can express your compassion for them, your love for them, is through non-connectedness. And many of your deepest and best instincts are supported by or only able to flourish in non-connectedness. So many of your deepest and best instincts are supported by or only able to flourish in non-connectedness. So, but there's power there. So, you go, you're in connectedness and you go to non-connectedness. Then you go back to connectedness. Then you go to non-connectedness. And the power of the non-connectedness shoves you free of both, and that's called enlightenment.

[44:45]

Shuffs you free of the unconnected. And the connectedness. Whoa! That's called the three worlds of Yogacara Buddhism, the relative, the absolute and the imaginary. And it's the dynamic of those that actually, and the pedagogy of practice is to use that to free people. Okay. You were going to say something earlier, but maybe you could save it to the afternoon.

[45:53]

Gone. All right. Thanks a lot for sitting here. Thanks, team-mate. Thanks for speaking.

[46:12]

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