How we've been speaking about Sangha has... virtually nothing to do with robes, shaved heads, raksus, precepts, and so forth. Those are signs of... signs of being part of the Sangha, but they're not the content of being part of the Sangha. And there's a rather, you know, and taking this approach to Sangha, It opens up quite naturally into all the practices which make Sangha possible and are rooted in Sangha.

[01:12]

For Sangha is not just those who practice, it's also the field for practice, the alchemy of practice. And there's, you know, from the intimations and threads that have started spinning in this... There's a lot that I would like to continue with, because it's lovely for me to be here with you. Yeah, but it seems that the nature of the Sangha is it's a wonderful refuge that you always have to leave. I started to, I mean really the seed of Sangha for me was how can I find a way to

[02:25]

be with my friends forever. Yeah. I've done a pretty good job of finding friends to practice with. But it always seems to be, you know... Eventually, I think you find yourself in a space where you are separate but remain connected. And this isn't just some kind of mysterious kind of... invisible threads. But we more and more share a way to be in the world and that continues wherever we are.

[03:44]

But that's true for all of us. I mean for every person. Whoever you love is somewhere in the world walking upstairs or eating food or breathing. And so when you eat and breathe, you can feel this... somehow shared location in the world. Yeah, now... We don't want... The three refuges are also called the three gems or the three jewels.

[04:47]

Die drei Zufluchten werden auch die drei Juwelen genannt. And they're gems or jewels because they... Because first of all they're the truth. They're how things actually exist. Now the challenge is to find out how things actually exist can be your refuge. Koan 82 and the Blue Cliff Records, which Paul Roshi discussed in the recent Sashim. And which some of, few of us discussed with Paul afterwards. Yeah, has in it the, some statement that kind of barren tree on a cold cliff in the wind.

[06:04]

And it's the kind of image of the world which we somehow make hospitable. Das ist ein Bild von einer Welt, die wir in irgendeiner Weise bewohnbar machen. Yeah, when I come out of the Zendo in the mornings in Creston, you know, above us, I don't know, the mountain, we're at 2,600 meters or so, 800 meters. And the mountain above us is like 4,600 meters or something. And it's a... Yeah, you look up there and it's another world. Snow blows off it and if you're up there, you'd be in deep doo-doo.

[07:20]

So we have our little refuge of the Sangha down at lower altitudes. So these three jewels which reflect how we actually exist, that's the idea, And these three jewels reflect how we actually exist. This is the idea behind it. The challenge is how do we make how we actually exist our refuge. The teaching of Buddhism is There's no evil, there's ignorance. Maybe evil is something like ignorance disguised as the good.

[08:23]

Yeah. And the teaching of Buddhism is that most people try to make the way they want things to be their refuge. And the way you want things to be is no refuge at all, if it's not real. Yeah, but don't... Don't think of the three jewels as three little houses to get out of the rain.

[09:48]

And sometimes our difficulty in taking understanding, taking refuge in the three jewels... is that we think of them as little houses and I don't know how to get in. Where's the darn door? And As Micheline said, maybe we have to take refuge in impermanence itself. And that's just exactly right. And the teaching is, how do you do that? But it doesn't mean that sometimes if you're you might come to Johanneshof because you've got a hectic life or something.

[11:03]

You just want refuge from the hecticness. Hectic? Busy. Or because someone died or I don't know. Someone left you. I don't know. You might come here. You might go anywhere, but you might come here. There's one person who practices with us sometimes. A child just had a kind of teenage nervous breakdown, and she asked the child, what would you do? want to do, she said, I'd like to wash dishes at Johannesburg. And last night my daughter Sally, my older daughter, called me at 2.30 in the morning

[12:09]

And I knew something must be wrong. So anyway, she called and said she thought I'd want to know that my oldest friend's wife, and she's also a close friend, Camilla, died yesterday. She's the wife of a person I worked on merchant marine ships for two years with. Yeah, and he was five years older than me and kind of tutored me in lots of basic things. He was certainly a teacher for me. We had nobody to talk to except each other. He was five years older than me and he was like a teacher and a tutor for me.

[13:33]

We went to Africa in the Middle East and we had no one else to talk to but the two of us. So after a while, you know, she was a great person, this woman. Yeah, so I, after a while, was able to go back to sleep. And I found myself dreaming that I immediately went to... Because I left a message on his phone. He hasn't announced it to anyone yet. But I left a message on his phone that I knew and acknowledged it. No, if I was in New York, I'd go there. I can't do it because I'm here and I have to go to Austria and blah, blah, blah. But I dreamed immediately that I went to New York and started washing the dishes.

[14:48]

And agreed to handle the phone calls and, you know, help him through the... this event and transition. And then other people appeared in the dream. And I mean, because I practice a lot, You know, my dreams, I guess you'd call them lucid dreams. Yeah, I mean, I feel I'm aware of my participation in the dream and making the dream. And... Various people appeared.

[15:53]

So then I'm contemplating who died. Because this is some kind of personal sangha for me. So it's interesting, I mean, for me, interesting is the right word, inter-est means to be in the middle of is-ness. I realize this is some kind of larger body of people that are tied together. And I sort of took an inventory of them in the dream. But somehow there's persons you know and then there's groups of persons who make kind of separate persons who are made up of several persons.

[17:00]

I don't think I'm nuts. It's just the way it is. There are groups of persons and then there are The group of person is like a person in itself. A group is a person. Because this friend of mine, whose wife this is, has helped make me up. He's part of this person you see sitting here. Now if I look at all the persons from which this person called me is constructed, Wenn ich mir alle diese Menschen angucke, oder diese Personen angucke, aus denen diese Person, ich genannt, die hier sitzt, gemacht wurde.

[18:03]

All those persons that make me up. Parents, siblings, teachers, so forth. School teachers. Yeah. As I said yesterday, Proust and Joyce and others. Tarzan. Tarzan? Yeah, Tarzan. Okay. I like to swing through trees. Okay. All of them somehow came into an internal sangha when I took the precepts. When I met Suzuki Roshi, which then became within a year my taking the precepts,

[19:05]

Somehow what you could call my inner narrative personal sangha was born. The relationship between people became clearer and clearer. Now, sometimes it's, you know, the teachings say, and I avoid teaching in this way, is that what you establish through zazen is a purified mind and body and so forth. Because of the implication of that is kind of like rejecting the impure and blah, blah, blah. I don't emphasize that in practice. But in fact, what happens if you practice after a while?

[20:12]

is that even if someone betrays you or somehow trying to make your life difficult or you don't get along with for some kind of real basic reasons. They don't appear in your inner Sangha in a negative way anymore. You don't find them like, boy, I could really wish some harm to that person. You know, I... Maybe they could die young. They just don't have thoughts like that. Somehow because you're in the habit of seeing everything as a construct,

[21:34]

You just see that they've constructed a way of relating to you that, I mean, may be negative, but it's just a construct. And you see around the construct. Maybe it's a little bit different. Maybe it's a little bit similar, rather, to how we feel about babies. Yeah. I mean, most of us rather like babies, I think. But what does W.C. Fields say? He said, a man who hates babies and dogs can't be all bad.

[22:48]

Yeah. What was it that W.C. Fields said? Can't be all that grim. The public probably wasn't true of him at all, but anyway, so let's say there are some people like that. But in general, we respond to Dogs and cats and kittens, babies, you know, in a positive way. Aber allgemein reagieren oder antworten wir auf Hunde, Katzen, kleine Hunde, kleine Katzen, Babies, also freundlich. But we don't respond to adults so freely. What's the difference? If you really know the mind of the signless and the wishless,

[23:50]

Then you always see around the construct to the qualities of the person that's there as a baby or an adult. To see this way is also what is meant by Sangha. So, interestingly, or interestingly, Sangha purifies our inner Sangha and transforms our outer Sangha. So the yogic skill to train yourself in is to see everything as an activity.

[24:59]

To not see entities, but to see activities. And I think we have to keep reminding ourselves of that. I don't know what words you use in German, but that's the best words I can find in English. So, when you think of the three jewels, you don't see them as entities, you see them as activities. And when you're able to take refuge in impermanence, That's the teaching of the Dharma. And when you're able to take refuge in impermanence, and to know the fluidity and potentialities of impermanence, yeah, and... And to go through, I'm using the word alchemy a lot, to go through the alchemy of investigation and cultivating the awareness of impermanence.

[26:42]

To cultivate the awareness of impermanence. to investigate and cultivate the awareness of impermanence is the catalyst of enlightenment and Buddhahood. The Buddha is one who is born through the awareness and cultivation of impermanence. Yes, and as Peter pointed out, the hairdryer, I don't need one but I need him that's our little joke with each other

[28:10]

That in practice you're always aware of your failure. But you could also put it another way. You're just aware of your limits. Or your actual situation. There's no failure unless you compare. So, just noticing what's happening without comparison is also the dynamic of practice. And if you do compare, and we do do compare, you you transform that into the practice of maximal greatness. Okay, and the practice of maximal greatness is to take pride in whatever you do. Well, that's not quite right.

[29:36]

That's too general. Also, you can't practice unless you can feel shame. That's the tradition and my experience. If you do something you don't feel good about, you feel shame. If you don't feel shame, there's no hope. But in general, if you make an effort and you don't succeed, the practice of maximal greatness is to say, well... I didn't succeed, but I did pretty well. It was a little better than six years ago. And I made that kind of shitty remark to that person and a little egocentric I was. And I...

[30:43]

You know, I feel some shame about making that remark. But I didn't say all the things I could have said. So you feel a certain pride. Well, I at least didn't say those things. And then you say, that's the first part of it, and the second part is you say, but a Buddha wouldn't have even said that. So there's a feeling that, well, I did as well as I could, but I could have done a little better. So now... Okay. Here, Peter. And... To take refuge in impermanence,

[32:11]

and to recognize and to join with others who take refuge in impermanence, is, you know, the seed of sound. And we help each other in this way. Now, when you notice that for us, usually for our Usually, when we start practicing, we notice there's some difference. I remember a woman I knew who was a partner of one of the a medical doctor who pioneered the research into dyslexia and so forth, not dyslexia, anorexia.

[33:27]

And he was one of the early western Buddhists. He had this woman scientist he lived with for I don't know. I don't even know if he's still alive, but anyway, he lived with her. And because she was with him, and they came to visit me at some point, and because she was with him, she was sort of trying to practice. Osmotically. And she told me, well, I don't really notice any difference. But everybody at the laboratory in the university where I work is much nicer to me than they used to be.

[34:31]

And she really noticed that people started treating her differently, but she didn't really notice much difference, but there was that difference. Now, I'm not trying to sell you Buddhism. I've got a used Buddhism here. It's only been around for 2,500 years and it's discounted. Yeah. But I'm just speaking about what our experience is. Because most of us wouldn't continue practicing unless we felt the difference. It's the difference which helps us practice. Helps us continue practicing. People People enter the downward sloping learning curve.

[35:47]

Do you understand that image? First the learning curve is like this and then it sort of goes like this. That's the learning curve. Yeah. When they're still looking for the difference and it doesn't happen, then you have to deepen your practice in some new way. And when the teaching comes in to play more strongly, And often this flat learning curve or downward sloping is when we're consolidating the experiences from, the initial experiences from our practice. Und diese sozusagen absteigende Lernkurve ist ja dann vorhanden, wenn wir die Erfahrungen oder Erlebnisse, die wir von Anfang sozusagen in unserer Praxis hatten, konsolidieren.

[37:01]

And then, feeling the difference, we find ourselves wanting to practice with others who also feel this difference. So Sangha develops quite naturally through friendships, accidental associations, as much as any study of Buddhism. Let me go back a minute and just say that getting this news about Camila's death last night, getting the news, I felt good that I was here with people who

[38:59]

locate themselves in the world in a similar way. Yeah, and the Dharma Sangha literally means something like those who practice the truth. So certainly impermanence and death is the truth of our existence. So now what's the difference between a sports group or a political group? Or any group that has some common interest. Well, they really are joined by a common interest.

[40:08]

And that can be very, you know, a common activity. That can be very... Yeah, it's wonderful. And what joins the Sangha is, I would say, that those in the Sangha locate themselves in the world in the same way, in a similar way. So, I mean, I think, you know, I've said enough. But I'd like to add a little bit more. You know, a way of looking at practice.

[41:09]

And I used earlier the signless, the wishless, and emptiness. And when you look at such words, concepts, philosophically, it's like, whoa, they're way up there somewhere, far away from my a failure as is, you know, my non-maximal failure. But when you're in the midst of practice as a craft, such things are not so far out or far away. Okay. I don't know if the ingredients are present here for me to go very far in this, because we've been going in a somewhat different direction in this seminar.

[42:34]

But I talked about, you know, that the Sangha is has a bodily dimension we can feel in others. And it has a breath, speech, unsaying, taking away saying. dimension as well. And you can begin to feel that as it appears, notice that as it appears, just because you're practicing, you notice you speak a little differently, you relate to the reality of the words you're saying a little differently.

[43:43]

And you feel the engaged... constructing that goes on when you're with other practitioners. And you begin to feel presence more than content. You find yourself relating without even planning to to the presence of another person more than any signs, how they're dressed, what they say, etc.

[44:49]

And when you feel that, you're practicing the signless. And you feel you don't have any desires for them. Just as they are, it's just fine. You don't have any desires for them to treat you a certain way or not treat you a certain way. They're just present. And at first it comes as little taste. And then it's more and more present. And as you feel that, you're practicing the wishless. These are basic Buddhist concepts. Wishless, sign was in. Mm-hmm.

[45:50]

And when you know, as I said earlier in the seminar, everything is in flux and is basically changing, a construct, being constructed and being deconstructed, you realize there's no point of view. Well, Chief Plentykoop says that when my people lost their point of view, from then on nothing happened. point of view, their hearts fell to the ground. And they couldn't lift them up again. Basically, they lost their point of view that gives meaning to things. And after they lost their point of view, their feeling was, nothing happened, nothing happens.

[47:20]

I would guess that Buddhism developed through many cultural shifts over several thousand years. where people had to really recognize the loss of points of view. And most of human history is about, well, we've lost a point of view, let's establish a new point of view. But some smart people in Buddhism or some subtle people in Buddhism who became Buddhist, more or less, they said, Yeah, we have to find a way to live with no point of view.

[48:47]

And that is the teaching of emptiness. How do you do it? And looking together at how we do it is... And where there's no sangha, the teaching doesn't survive. You can't say it's about great teachers, good teachers. It's about a good sangha. From good sanghas, teachers appear. It takes a Buddha to know a Buddha. Somehow in us, there's some part of us that knows a Buddha because we know it, feel it. It's a possibility in ourself. Part of my decision, big part of my decision to be ordained

[49:51]

A big part of my decision was to let myself be ordained. I loved, liked, was devoted to Suzuki Roshi. And he was not like any other Buddhist teacher or any teacher I'd ever met before, except maybe Shukra Ali. But I recognized that despite how critical he was and I was of institutional Buddhism in Japan, and that he left Japan because of the kind of, to get away from Japanese institutional Buddhism.

[51:09]

It's the Sangha still, it's institutional Buddhism which produced him. There would have been no Suzuki Roshi without Japanese Buddhism. So I felt there would be no Suzuki Roshi in the West unless we have Sangha too. Sangha as well. So our Sangha, the Dharma Sangha, is an experiment between lay practice and some monk practice and Crestone and here to see what kind of Sangha might produce a Suzuki Roshi. and might produce in each of us the way of being alive that Sukhiroshi showed me and others.

[52:30]

So how do you locate yourself in no point of view? How do you feel that no point of view is the truth of how things exist? So let me just kind of venture into one little practice example. Mm-hmm. Study how you put the world together when you wake up. When you wake up, notice the shift from dreaming mind. I say this all the time, but why not? From dreaming mind to waking mind.

[53:33]

You construct a conceptual framework that then defines your day and what you're going to do. and it all fits together when it really comes together it fits together in some kind of sort of rational way that is mostly determined by our personal history. And the fluidity and mix up of dreams and people floats away. And once you put that together, consciousness appears.

[54:34]

That's what consciousness is. And then you take that a step further and it becomes an inactible thing. concept that you put the world together so it's inactable, so you can act within it. The more you notice that, and then go into zazen, if you sit first thing in the morning, you notice how that conceptual interlocking concepts of consciousness begins to have a third or fourth dimension in zazen.

[55:43]

The conceptual, like pieces of puzzle that fit together, the concept of each of the puzzle pieces begins to join in a different way or float together in a different way. Can you figure out how the Zazen mind can change the interlocking concepts of consciousness? And the more you do that, the more pretty soon you have a physical feel for it. Okay.

[56:47]

Then when you're in the world, in the daily life, in your activity, you feel that each thing that appears is a concept. Is it how things appear is as a concept? It's not that they just appear as perception, a sensation. They appear as a concept. You can play with that, rub that, and massage that in various ways by practicing with some phrase like sensation only, non-cognitive sensation only. But if you just notice each thing that appears as a concept, this becomes an experience of emptiness.

[57:55]

Because you feel everything appear As a concept, as a construct. I mean, Evelyn's really there, but what I feel is a concept of Evelyn. Yeah. So what do I know? I know that Evelyn is more than this concept. So there's a tremendous mystery and multidimensional, many-dimensional feeling present in and around this concept. And because I feel and experience, because of practice, the concept of Evelyn appear when she appears,

[58:57]

And if I'm not making comparisons and I'm outside, I'm just at this moment accepting this moment. Failure, good, bad, indifferent, whatever it is, no comparison. until at the moment Evelyn appears, I feel the emptiness from which she appeared. My own emptiness keeps turning into each of you. And so that's in a way, we could say, experience of emptiness as one's own functioning. But also, now let's look at it from another point of view. Another way to speak about the experience of emptiness. When Evelyn appears, or the microphone appears, the bell, the rug, they appear in consciousness as concepts.

[60:39]

But because each one is a concept, and the more you experience this and get in the habit of experiencing this, Everything feels very clear and calm. Everything is simply in its place. And when you feel everything is simply in its place, you feel the space in which everything feels in its place It feels like the emptiness of the world in which things appear. There's a big space around everything. And articulating everything. The form arises from the space and the space forms the form.

[61:49]

The space forms the form and the form forms the space. And that's the heart sutra. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. As your experience, not as philosophy. This is another way to look at emptiness, understand emptiness. And deeply, the Sangha is those who enter emptiness together. No, don't you think that's a good place to stop? So it's lunchtime in six minutes.

[62:57]

So let me ring the bell once and then I'll ring it twice and then we'll, just to hear the bell. I'm only doing this for the musicians at present. It takes four rings to get free here.

[63:26]

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