This is part of what I want to speak about actually. This looks like face-to-face practice, face-to-face teaching. There's your face and here's my face. Da ist dein Gesicht und hier ist mein Gesicht. Also ist es doch Praxis oder Lehre von Angesicht zu Angesicht. Aber es ist halt nicht Lehre von Angesicht zu Angesicht. Es ist eine Art Pornografie, nur ohne Kuscheln. Without the mutual database of mutual embodiment.

[01:09]

Without the huge mutual database of actualizing embodiment. Without the huge mutual database of actualizing embodiment. Yeah, I call it something like very thin informationally impoverished technology. Very thin informationally impoverished technology. I call it a very thin informationally impoverished technology. It creates the sensation of connectedness, but it's more sensation than actual informationally rich contact.

[02:17]

Das schafft die Empfindung von Verbindung, aber es ist eher nur eine Empfindung als ob da tatsächlicher Kontakt wäre. So with Nicole and with others in the Sangha, I think I'm actually approaching and will, I think, complete a book after some decades of approaching it only. Because I, and I think maybe since the future of in the West and with our global nearness and separation, the future of practice is going to include this kind of streaming, screaming, no, streaming technology.

[03:39]

And because I believe that the future of our practice here in the West, this screaming, or no, not screaming, but this streaming technology will be part of this practice in the West. So maybe if there's an actual book that could be sort of part of those of you who are committed to this can find, I think there's more embodiment, at least in my experience, in a written text than there is in this visually thin technology. And that's why I think that maybe a book would be quite good there. Because at least in my experience, there is even more embodiment in a book than in this information-arming technology. And that would be for those of you who are committed to this path or have a connection with this path.

[04:46]

Okay, it would be natural for you to think that I'm giving you a Buddhist talk, a Buddhist lecture. And that would be, and that's true enough. But actually, I'm giving you more instrumentally, or actually, I'm giving you a talk arising from my own practice. And arising from my own effort to practice with you through this informationally impoverished technology. And I'm speaking through what arises, too, in a

[06:08]

rises through the presence of this evolving Sangha. Yeah. And it rises through your practice right now and what your practice might be. And I'm trying to establish a context with you. This context, I am a I am a part of and am the context and the context of the persons I practice with here.

[07:32]

And the context of you in your living rooms or wherever you happen to be. And realistically, I can only speak from this context, this kind of establishing a context, discovering a context. You know, I'm not just talking about this technological process. I'm really talking about moment-to-moment practice. So this, uh, I've, I've been feeling recently that I, I'm, um, yeah, um,

[08:35]

Suffering from a kind of delusion of intimacy with all of you practicing. In letzter Zeit hatte ich das Gefühl, dass ich an einer Verblendung, an einer Illusion der Nähe, der Intimität, der Nähe leide. Eine Illusion der Nähe mit all denjenigen von euch, mit denen ich praktiziere. So I've been practicing, as you know, and me again, those of you who are participating with us here, with phrases for decades. Yeah, but in the midst of personal shifts and... needs, one has to rediscover the phrases you need to use or make new phrases.

[10:02]

Aber inmitten von persönlichen Veränderungen oder auch persönlichen Bedürfnissen muss man die Sätze, die Sätze, mit denen man arbeitet, immer wieder neu entdecken. Nietzsche says something like, concepts are not a gift from a dowry from some kind of wonderland. Nietzsche sagt, dass Konzepte nicht so etwas sind wie ein Geschenk aus irgendeinem Wunderland. And it's not enough to polish them yourselves.

[11:03]

You must rediscover or make new concepts for yourself. This fairly simple statement, seemingly simple statement, is very similar to what one has to do in practicing in the new world of realisational dharma. Let's look closely for a moment at what Nietzsche is saying, more than implying saying. Concepts are a dowry from a kind of wonderland.

[12:14]

Are gifts a dowry from a kind of wonderland? Dowry is the same as a gift. What's the word dowry? A dowry is what you give a bride from the bride's family, usually for marriage. Okay. So he's saying you can't look at these concepts as a wedding gift from your culture. that you just accept and go on as if you were married to the culture. And he's saying that the culture which gave you these concepts is a kind of wonderland.

[13:25]

Yeah. And so you have to discover them, renew the concepts for yourself. Also musst du die Konzepte für dich selbst neu entdecken oder neue Konzepte erschaffen. Yeah, in other words, the concepts you receive are inseparable from your culture. But if you're entering into a new culture, you really have to re-look at all the concepts you use. In other words, the concepts that you receive, that come from your culture, you have to, when you enter a new culture, you have to look at the concepts from the very beginning and see which concepts you use at all. And Wado practice, the phrasal path,

[14:29]

Und Wado-Praxis, der Wendesatzpfad, verwendet in den meisten Fällen Konzepte, die in buddhistisch-experimentellen Zusammenhängen hergestellt wurden. Or mental postures are a form of concepts with intent and contrast which can make personal and worldview shifts. Geistige Haltungen sind so etwas wie Konzepte mit einer Intention drin, die persönliche und Weltsichtsverschiebungen ermöglichen. So for myself, in trying in the last especially week or so, to kind of really recognize that I need to reform my own processes.

[15:48]

Or some of my own processes. Yeah, so I started looking for a phrase, looking for a phrase. And I tried a variety of phrases. Located in possible futures, located in my relationships with others, located in my own experience to date. Because we're all a work in progress, in process. Not necessarily in progress. It may not be going anywhere, but it's a work in process, if not in progress.

[16:54]

So I tried, as I said, various things. And finally, the only one I found was that mostly works, seems to mostly work. Und schlussendlich, der Satz, den ich dann gefunden habe, der zumindest meistens funktioniert, was now, now, now, my, all at once-ness, war jetzt, jetzt, meine, alles auf einmalheit. Okay. Although onceness has been an insightful phrase with me since maybe almost teenage years to try to have a sense of what's happening, though I thought it was too much of a simplification.

[18:24]

But now, decades later, I find it It had a power I didn't really see at the time. Alles auf einmal, alles auf einmalheit, das ist ein Konzept, das für mich schon eine Erkenntnis, die vielleicht schon seit meinen Teenagerjahren für mich eine Präsenz hat. Aber damals habe ich noch gedacht, es ist irgendwie zu einfach, zu simplifiziert. Aber jetzt in meinen späten Jahren merke ich, dass da eine Kraft in diesem Konzept steckt, alles auf einmalheit, die ich damals nicht erkannt habe. Now, I'm still, of course, talking about the successional path. And what I planned to talk about today, but it looks like pretty sure I'm not going to get to it. was sensorially articulated, successional appearance.

[19:41]

Now, again, in a successional practice, a successional path, Each moment of the successional path is its own articulation. It belongs to itself. And that's, again, a part of kind of wisdom training, is you learn to keep relocating in the successional succession of the path.

[20:43]

So the sensorially articulated a successional appearance. Buddhism is If someone asks, what is Buddhism about? Buddhism is about finding out what kind of reality we live in. But you have to examine such a question very carefully. After long thought over centuries, Buddhism has concluded that we can't know reality.

[22:02]

There's no reality to know, and if there is, we can't know it. We can be it, but we can't know it. But we can know what kind of reality we live in. Not what reality we live in, but what kind of reality we live in. Okay, I'm looking forward to what the difference is. The difference is, do we live in a reality established by the cosmos and by physics and observations and so forth?

[23:06]

Or do we live in a reality that is only accessible to us as the kind of human beings we are? The difference is the question, do we live in a reality that is made up of the cosmos and the laws of nature and observations and so on? Or do we live in a reality that is only as accessible to us as we are humanly created? I call it humanality. I call it humanality. Ich nenne das humanality, also menschliche Realität. Menschlichkeit. Menschlichkeit. Süß. Menschlichkeit. And trying to limit myself to a few topics here, one of the dynamics of knowing what kind of humanality we live in

[24:09]

And that is a first way of looking at it, like Western phenomenology is to say what kind of appearance appears to us. So, what kind of appearance appears to us then is obviously a dynamic of attentionality. a dynamic of attentionality. So Buddhism doesn't just accept the world, the senses and the brain processes show to us. Buddhism says, let's study the process by which the senses present the world to us and the brain edits the world we receive.

[25:38]

Sondern der Buddhismus sagt, lasst uns mal den Prozess studieren, in dem die Sinne uns die Welt zeigen und wie das Gehirn mit dem, was die Sinne uns zeigen, arbeiten. Wie das Gehirn damit arbeitet. And the key Buddhist term here is Vijnana. Und das buddhistische Schlüsselwort hier ist Vijnana. And Vijnana, I think accurately translated, means to know things separately, together. And Vijnana, correctly translated, means to know things separately, together. And it's the basis on which the concept, polished and renewed, is the basis on which we develop sensorial acuity.

[26:58]

And by which we bypass consciousness. and the process through which we can circumvent consciousness. This is almost a cliché of contemporary Western philosophy. The hard question is, what is consciousness? But in Buddhism, the hard question is, what is knowing when brain processes are bypassed? And this question is in the background of everything I've been saying all this time.

[27:59]

For these recent months. Yeah, and I will continue trying to find ways to respond to it. And the question is a different question when asked by a Westerner than when asked by an East Asian yogic Zen practitioner. And I have to find a way to respond to it as a Westerner. And then maybe we can approach it also as an East Asian yogic Zen practitioner would respond to it. Now, you may again think I'm talking sort of philosophy.

[29:09]

But I know from years of experience that the world you think you live in is inseparable from the practice you can accomplish. Okay, so now let's go back and parse my current and main, and maybe for a long time and a lifetime, Wado phrase. Also, let me now again share this Wado translation, perhaps the translation of my life, my whole life, again. The first is now, and I'm talking about a now actualized within sensorial acuity.

[30:35]

And the now that Dogen points out In a phrase, coincidentally, Nicole used recently and I'm using today. So I'll come back to that now in a few moments. So in this successional parsing, now the next word is my. And my means everything I think I am. Und meins oder meine, das bedeutet alles, was ich glaube zu sein.

[32:03]

Mein ist alles, was ich glaube, was mir gehört. Und mein ist all meine angesammelte Erfahrung und Aktivität. Everything that I locate as my-ness. So when I use this phrase and I say, now my, I feel the whole import of my life, which I've identified with, is in that momentary my. When I say, now my, what I then feel is that everything that I identify as what belongs to me, that all that shows in this now.

[33:07]

It's like the often reported near-death experiences. when a person feels their whole life passes by them, through them, in a flash. And in this other-dimensioned actuality of our existence, Other dimensioned actuality. Where time is different. Where time is different. Like you can, enlightenment can happen in an instance. Transformative insight can happen in an instance. Falling in love can happen in an instant. Yeah, and all that I can feel is my-minus can be present in the instance of this successional phrase.

[34:25]

Und alles, was ich spüren kann, ist, dass diese gesamte Michheit im Moment dieses Satzes gegenwärtig sein kann. And the third word, or hyphenated word. Und das dritte Wort, das hier, oder das ist jetzt hier ein Begriff mit Bindestrichen dazwischen. Alles auf einmalheit. is nothing. It's non-graspable, it's not graspable. It doesn't even last a moment. An instantiation of allness for a moment. But it has an absolute here-ness. So in recent times, recent days, I've been with every step or each breath or every appearance, I find myself in the presence of now my all-at-onceness.

[36:07]

Now and everything and everything taken away. Now let's look, I will take a few more minutes. Let's look at the phrase of Dogen that Nicole taught recently and that I also coincidentally decided to use. Lass mich nochmal den Satz anschauen, den Nicole vor ein paar Tagen benutzt hat und den ich auch zufällig gerade benutze.

[37:10]

Now this is an example of the mutually successional lineage teaching. This is a different kind of successional, right? Than successional path. Well, maybe in German. Yeah, I think it's German. One thing after another. Okay, let me think. I mean, I was to some extent, or as far as I'm concerned in my life, empowered by Suzuki Roshi. And right now, Nicole looks like she's translating, but she's also a teacher who's empowering me right now.

[38:12]

If you can translate that. Yeah, I have to not think, but I can do it. Okay, go ahead. And I and Nicole are being empowered by your practicing and those who will practice. It's an overlapping mutuality. Und Nicole und ich wiederum sind ermächtigt durch eure Praxis und durch diejenigen von euch, die praktizieren werden.

[39:17]

Das ist eine sich wechselseitig überlappende Kraftgabe oder Ermächtigung. And I'm empowered by the notes and letters you write me or comments you make in discussion or just your presence. And all of this which I just have said is in this statement of Dogen's. And I decided to read it rather than just say it, because reading it, I can look at it more slowly and go back and forth in the text in a way that may be easier for you.

[40:20]

So, and this is my version. It's not what you find in the translations. It's very close. I mean, it's, from my point of view, the same, but it's not the same words in all respects. Und das hier, was ich jetzt lese, ist meine Version von dieser Aussage. Es ist nicht die, die ihr in den Übersetzungen findet. Es ist aber ziemlich dicht dran oder in meinen Augen ist es das Gleiche. So, whatever the Japanese word is, it's usually translated as continuous practice. Und ich weiß nicht genau, was das japanische Wort ist, aber dieses Wort wird normalerweise als kontinuierliche Praxis übersetzt. And I'm sure that Dogen, if he knew English and could translate it himself, he would use successional and not continuous. So here's the statement.

[41:31]

Successional practice which actualizes itself. Okay, so this he means practice which is experienced as a successional process, successional appearance. And the successional practice articulated so that it is an enlightenment, enlightening or realisational practice. So his definition here, which for a serious practitioner, an adept practitioner, you try to imagine what would be successional aliveness, which is realisational.

[42:53]

So, successional practice, which actualizes itself, Die Praxis aufeinanderfolgender Momente, die sich selbst verwirklicht, ist nichts anderes als deine Praxis des Augenblicks, deine Praxis aufeinanderfolgender Momente, genau jetzt. In other words, Successional practice, which actualizes itself, is right now also your successional practice.

[44:14]

And then he says, and this is the kind of alchemical phrase in the statement, And then he says, and this is the alchemical sentence in this overall statement. The now of this practice, the now of this, there are many nows, the now of this practice. And then he says, that now, this practice, and there are many different types of nows, that now, this practice, the now of this kind of reality, this kind of humanality, was not initially possessed by the self. In other words, the now does not have to be possessed by the self.

[45:46]

And when the now is not possessed by the self, good luck. When the now is not possessed by the self, it's practice which actualizes itself. And for most of us, it's an incredible realization that the now of our lived life does not have to be possessed by the self. So then the challenge in this little short sentence is, can you in the next 10 years or 10 minutes, I don't care, discover the now which is not possessed by the self.

[46:50]

That's your practice, my practice. Dann besteht die Herausforderung darin, kannst du in den nächsten zehn Jahren oder wie lange auch immer das dauert, ein Jetzt entwickeln, ein Jetzt entdecken, das nicht vom Selbst besessen wird. And then Dogen goes on to say, the word now, when it really is a now, doesn't exist before successional practice. And then he says, the now thus experienced is the seed and practice of all the Buddhas.

[48:08]

In other words, nobody can, in Buddhist terms anyway, can be considered actually awakened unless they know this now, which is not initially, originally, or necessarily possessed by the self. And then he says, and all Buddhas become Buddhas through your practice. And then he says, all Buddhas become Buddhas through your practice. And this here, this is meant when we talk about überlappende und gemeinsame Lehrlinienpraxis sprechen.

[49:28]

All Buddhas are seeded by your practice right now. Die Samen aller Buddhas werden durch deine Praxis genau jetzt gesät. Okay. Alles klar? That gives us something to do I think it's a, you know, oh dear, it's almost always 55 when I'm aiming at 40. You still are? Why don't we just give up on that? Give up on 40? Yeah. Because if we aimed at 55, it would probably be 75. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. It's a bad idea. At 40, I have to start drawing in the possibilities. You're right. You're right. Okay, but we'll meet at 5.10 as usual. Okay, I look forward to seeing you.

[50:33]

And thank you for our crew here making this happen and for you guys sitting here. What a wonderful situation. Thank you, Nicole, and each of you everywhere there. Bye bye. Bye bye.

[50:53]

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