Good afternoon. Yeah, I don't know when this was, this isn't, oh yeah, this is live streamed, right? In America, but in Europe, later. So I'm walking over here, and I've heard the drum, the Dharma drum, and then the denture bell, and I feel like, oh, geez, I've been doing this for years, I'm used to doing it. I never know what exactly is going to happen, but I'm used to doing it. But then I came in and there's this light. Wow. Oh, gosh. We're also streaming. I kind of forgot. And... I'm getting a little used to it. But... You know, from the earliest times, the Buddha was, one of the main issues that was discussed is what is the relationship between the practicing monastic or itinerant wandering practitioners, monks,

[01:24]

and lay people or people who weren't practicing. Because like any profession, you do it, it makes you different. It makes you different than you were, and it makes you different from others who don't do that practice. It could be being a philosopher or a medical doctor or a craftsman. It makes you different. So what about this difference that arises through meditation and Dharma practice and people who don't do it? Well, anyway, this was a main defining factor in the early days. And there's an implicit view that we're all of one substance, not substance in the sense of substantial, But substance in the sense of we're all, you know, at an atomic level, we are all one substance, sort of.

[02:31]

It's differentiated differently at the level of our existence. And also there's another sense that it's not only are we all of one substance, but That's a kind of technical term, substance. But we're also in the midst of a shared circuitry. Now, of course, I'm just using an English word from circle to circuitry, and it's now used mostly for about electricity and, you know, wiring the buildings. But it's also a concept, a view, we can use that makes us feel something. It's not that it's exactly true, like is Christianity exactly true or Confucianism exactly true.

[03:33]

No, they're views which affect how we see everything. better watch out, you better not shout. Santa Claus knows what you're doing. He knows when you've been sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows when you've been bad or good. You didn't expect this, I know. Good for goodness sake. Well, this is a concept from Christianity and Saint Claus that we're watched, that there's some kind of happening thing and we teach our children that through Santa Claus mythology so it's you know it's a so anyway the concept of in Buddhism is there some kind of shared substance or some kind of shared circuitry, where no matter what happens, the interconnection is so interpenetrating that whatever happens here also to some degrees happens elsewhere.

[04:50]

So that concept of there was a shared circuitry between lay practice and meditation practice, dharma practice. If you are a dharma practitioner, you may emphasize it more than others, but still there's some kind of connectivity that it becomes part of the inner penetrating world. So this was codified as merit. So temples, like a heiji, have a gate for the emperor, which means nothing but a statement. And it's got beautifully gardened, and it's quite a wonderful gate. But it means what we're doing here helps Japan, helps the nation. This is a concept of merit. So from the beginning, the concept has been, no, merit has its own, you know, if you're into reincarnation, the merit is blah, blah, blah.

[06:01]

But the emphasis is, for us, it's more like, yes, there is a shared circuitry, and here it is. So in a way, our... I just noticed this today, that streaming is a kind of merit. We're sharing the practice here, and I'd like to share what you're doing more, but right now we're sharing this practice with you, this 90-day on-go, this 90-day practice period. we're sharing with you so you could participate in this practice. And so the concept of merit is now somehow online practice being shared with others and with non-practitioners. So actually it's doing this is really conceptually

[07:02]

the same as the Buddha, concerned with how lay persons share the practice of the monastics and adepts and so forth. Now, I wasn't going to talk about that, but anyway, I saw this light, and I saw the light, and I released this light. Now, at the time of the Buddha, There was a monk named Vakali who was seriously, quite seriously ill. And the Buddha, the historical Buddha, as the story is told, went to see him. And Vakali, because there's a big, there's an emphasis on shared presence and gestural space in practice. And what we've done most of our decades here is face-to-face practice. Gestural body, gestural body, facial, etc.

[08:10]

Practice. So Vakali said, having been ill, said, I really miss seeing you. He said to the Buddha, I miss being in your presence. And the Buddha said, Oh, Vakali, what use is it of you to see this old impermanent body? What is it use of you to see this body? And then he said, Vakali, when you see the Dharma, you see me. And when you see me, you see the Dharma. Now that's a statement from the earliest time in Buddhism. What does he mean? When you see the Dharma, you see me.

[09:13]

When you see me, you see the Dharma. Now, I don't know, suppose there was a nurse or some kind of doctor at that time in the room, When Vakali looks at the nurse or the doctor, does he see the Dharma? And what is the seeing that sees the Dharma? Is it some kind of special kind of seeing that sees the Dharma? That sees Buddha as an ordinary person and also somehow sees the Dharma? What's going on here? I mean, this ought to be penetrated. When I see you, am I seeing the Dharma? When you see me through this camera, are you seeing the Dharma? I don't know. What kind of seeing sees the Dharma?

[10:16]

What are the units of the units or something of the Dharma that are Now when we chant in the meal chant in the morning and at lunchtime, in the evening we don't chant because it's the so-called medicine meal, which is an extra meal brought into the tradition in cold climates where you thought, I guess you do need another meal in the evening. But in the morning and the noon, we chant. The Buddha was born at Lumbini. He was enlightened at Bodh Gaya. He taught at Varanasi. And he entered nirvana at Kusinagara. And then we say, now we open Buddha's eating bowls.

[11:16]

What's the import of saying this? Every meal, at least every morning meal and every lunch, we say that. We just say it, but you actually feel your way into it. The Buddha was born at Lumbini, wherever that is, India, somewhere. The Buddha was taught. enlightened at Bodh Gaya, taught at Varanasi, Crestone, someplace, you know, Yohannesov, and died at Krishnagara. And now we open the Buddha's eating... Well, why do we open the Buddha's eating bowls? Well, the easy answer is because he can't. He did. So are you opening the eating bowls for... Are you really present in the meal when you... Open? Oh, yeah. The Buddha can't open these eating bowls.

[12:22]

So I'm going to open eating bowls. So again, what's the import here? Well, of course, it's that the Buddha was a human who died. And Christ was a human who died. And there's a connection there. Christ is a human who died. The Buddha is a human who died. And yeah, and now the eating, now we're going to eat. But, of course, it's also, you also have a birth date. We don't have death dates yet, but we have a birth date, and we've lived various places. So, clearly this is a statement being made, that you... and the Buddha are humans. And being enlightened at Varanasi, where is Varanasi? No, enlightened at Bodhgaya.

[13:24]

Taught at Varanasi. Where is Bodhgaya? Bodhgaya is... These simple parts of our monastic life are meant to be in-depth existential questions. What am I doing here? And you had a kind of way-seeking mind seminar yesterday. And I... This morning I straightened one of our new practitioners' posture. His posture is pretty good, but I felt I should bring some attention to it. And I said, whispered to him, that think of the spine as a kind of tube.

[14:31]

an opening at the coccyx, and it didn't go into so much detail, and that spine reaches all the way up to the brain stem, and then really the feel of it to the crown chakra, to the crown of the head. Crown of the head. Well, that's a visual image. Now, Buddhism, we have vocabulary, right? And I say I'm using a word as a term. But Buddhism is a kind of, well, vocabulary, okay, but it's a kind of, I don't know, the word I would use is viewcabulary. It's a viewcabulary. Because Buddhism is really about views you bring into your lived life and into your posture. as I emphasize over and over again, Zazen is not Zazen unless you also have the mental posture of don't move.

[15:42]

But Buddhism is really a vocabulary. It's about views that you bring into your activity and situation. So circuitry is a view. Yeah, does it describe the wiring, this wiring maybe, the wiring between? No, but it's a view that lets us feel and act within our connectivity. So one of the... Turning word phrases, wados, I've suggested to you, is that we have built into ourselves that space separates. One of my earliest transformative insights. And one day I just recognized that's a cultural idea. Space, whatever it does, it also connects, or it's whatever, you know.

[16:50]

But clearly it's a cultural idea that separates. So when you meet a new person, you say, your immediate view is we're separated. Let's change that. So let's establish a view in ourselves of already connected. So I've been practicing with Laurie lots of years, and she's now the Tenzel in the kitchen. And when I first met her years ago, I felt already connected. Don't know if she felt that, but maybe a little bit. But now when I go in the kitchen, it's not like she's on the other side of the kitchen. I walk into the kitchen, I feel that already connection. And that already connection isn't something from the past. It's an already connection happening right now in the kitchens. That's what monastic practice is. That's what living in this 90-day Ango is. already connected, immediately changed.

[17:57]

You have to be careful. Every time you meet somebody, if you have this view, this mental posture, already connected, sometimes people say, geez, this guy is coming on to me, or what's going on here? He's too familiar, it's too intimate, the space, even though there's a distance or some kind of... So you have to make sure that connectedness begins to have the form of the Brahma-Vihara's friendliness or equanimity or... You know, what is this circuitry, this connectedness? Already connected, that's a view. Already separated is a view. Wow, does already connected make a different life than already separated? Politeness changes, feeling of who you are in the world, how you're connected with everything and person and situation you meet.

[18:58]

I mean, really, already connected will, that phrase alone, replacing already separated, can transform your life for the next hundred years or whatever your lifetime is, going to be, will be, might be. Yeah. So I'm emphasizing viewcabulary already connected. It's a viewcabulary. It's a view. Circuitry is a view that allows us to begin to act and, oh yeah, there's a circuitry that I can feel when I straighten Nathan's back. When I give him a view, an imaginal view, an imagination of the spine as a tube opening up from the coccyx to the brain stem and to the crown of the head, is that imaginary?

[20:09]

No, it's actually at least as real as the bones of the spine. We can't think, oh, This is real. Well, I call this a platform. Is the word platform real? Well, it's less real than this. But platform becomes how I step up on this and how it was made. It was made by my ex-brother-in-law. I call him my brother-in-law, but he's the master Japanese carpenter who built this zendo, this interior zendo for us. And I had to tell him we have platforms to sit on and so forth. So because the word has some activality, actuality, activality, he can act in a way with very, very precise measurements to create this platform, the meditation platforms.

[21:10]

So the word platform has some meaning, but you can't practice platform exactly, at least not without measurements or legs to get up on it. But The spine is what? You're born with 33 vertebraes, and then usually some of the lower ones fuse, and then you've got 24, and they're connected by facets. Oh, I can say all that, and that would be useful for a medical doctor or a masseur like you. But really it's the spine. But if I say it's a tomb with an opening and there's an uplifting dynamic to it, and that uplifting dynamic doesn't stop at the brain stem but continues through the head as if it was a tomb all the way to the crown chakra, that image can be practiced.

[22:24]

The word spine can't be practiced, but the image of the spine as a tube can be practiced, and it can be practiced in the present. So it's a present experience. It's experientially present, but it's also futurely present because it becomes an image of the spine which allows the spine to open into yogic experience through your practice. tomorrow, and the next day, and in the future. So you can see, I think, I hope you can see that the vocabulary is important. The view of the spine as a tube is experientially more real than the view of the spine as a bunch of vertebrae, which you can't really feel, at least until you get a lot more sensitive than most of us are. Now, do I have time to read you this?

[23:31]

I guess so. I opened the... We had the opening ceremony the other day, and I thought the opening ceremony is enough. It was... a day when normally, usually in our monk week, our pre-Christian five-day week, we call it a monk week, five-day partitioning of the moon month, which puts us on a little different schedule than the seven-day one, and that's part of practice. But to get ourselves out, even though in practice In ancient times, the whole society would have been on a monk week type. I think, I'm not sure, but I think. But here, the fact that it's different allows us to disconnect a bit with the rest of the rhythm of the world. We create a new rhythm here that we share in this monk week. So the opening day was a monk week day in which I would, in Anga, the 90-day practice period, I'd be normally scheduled to give a lecture, but I said, geez, we'll have an opening ceremony, and I said something.

[24:53]

I thought, that's enough. So some of you got a, those of you on the other side of the camera, got a... message saying the lecture was, potential lecture was scheduled. Now just let me say, oh well I will, I'm going to talk about it. So what I said at that, some of what I said at that opening ceremony, I might read it because I read it then, and I said I would like each of you, each of us, to imagine you're an alien in a strange land, perhaps an adoptee in a Buddhist world. And you're making it home here. So if we can really get the feeling that we're in a world where

[25:58]

Already separated doesn't make any sense. And if you think that way, almost none of the teachings will actually get you. They just kind of slip by in generalizations. Oh, it's something we chant in the morning at mealtime. No, it's a description of your lived life in this place where we're already connected in a circuitry and a shared substantiality And I would like you to practice four constructs, I said. And I'm mentioning these because I think maybe the succeeding lectures, well, maybe they won't succeed. Who knows? I never know. I would like you to practice the four constructs, but we'll start today. We're sort of starting today with the first construct. First, notice the construction of the world by the senses.

[27:05]

Get the bodily feeling of what it is to see something. And when you see something and you let your seeing, the activity of seeing, rest on it, the body changes slightly. We're in a neuro-mindfulness, not just simple mindfulness. This brain stem, spine, is a neuro-mind. Is this neuroanatomy? We can have neuromind or something like that. I don't know. We're in a territory of English which doesn't allow us to talk about the experiences that arise from a world where we're already connected. We have to keep finding views that reflect that or words that reflect that, like viewcabulary or neuromind. First notice the construction of the senses and how your five senses are constructing the world right now.

[28:16]

To enter into the actual experience of the senses putting the world together. Now, there's three more. Maybe I'll leave them for another time. The horse of Zorro is going over the cliff. You know, when I give a lecture, a talk, which I know the primary audience is being streamed, like the Sunday talks I did for many of the weeks of this pandemic. I did get my, by the way, my first, as an 85-year-old, in a couple of months, I got my first shot, no, over here, It made me kind of sleepy for a couple days, but I think, I don't know whether it made me sleepy, but I was sleepy in the afternoons afterwards.

[29:21]

But during these Sunday pandemic talks where the audience was primarily streamed, what was happening in me? What did I feel I was saying? Well, I felt I was offering, giving some seeds, maybe even planting some seeds. in myself, because I'm finding this out as I'm going along. But also I hope to some extent I'm planting the manure. You can plant them, I hope. Find the soil. Find the plow. But also I felt I was giving you presents, wrapped up presents, which you could unwrap in some other present. Yeah, that's what I felt. I felt it's how I'm speaking. Yeah, and so then I have to look at, I was looking at what happens to me when I was speaking in the Sashin, the Rohatsu Sashin.

[30:28]

Well, I felt more like it's a seven-day Sashin. All Sashin should be at least five days for the process of what meant by Sashin to gather, the minder to gather shared presence. So then I felt I was discovering strings, sort of seven day long strings, or streams which stream along for seven days, or I felt I was maybe dropping seeds, but not planting seeds, dropping seeds like in a fairy tale to mark the path. That's how I felt in the seven-day Sashim. But how do I feel in the Ongo, this 90-day practice period? I guess I feel I'm establishing a construction site, a construction zone where things will be under construction or under construction, within construction, being constructed for seven days, I mean 90 days.

[31:42]

And I really want, and I think we're going to be able to do it, that I can actually primarily speak to the construction zone, the construction site we are creating here at Cresthill Mountain Zen Center in these days, in these five-day monk weeks. And I'm treating you, hi, as observers. I don't know if you're gaining any merit, but maybe there's some feeling of, hey, I can feel some aspect of practice there at Creston, even here in my living room or wherever you are. So it's a construction site. Let me end with something. I'd save the other three construction sites for later. But, as I said in the opening ceremony, I'm not making all this up.

[33:01]

I am not. We are not making all this up. Listen. Even today, our ancient ancestors, Dharma ancestors, Dogen's teacher, for example, Tendong Rujing said, Speaking about what we're doing. Practitioners of the 90-day Anga. Form the structure of true practice. What is this true practice that allows us to see the Dharma? See the Buddha is the Dharma? form the structure of true... Now this is, I mean, look, there's a few of us here, Tanner, and there'll be a few more who can come sometime. We have a chance to form the structure of true practice?

[34:07]

What the... Do we? Do you? Do I? Am I somehow with you in the midst of A structure? A structure of two parts. Forming? A structure of two parts. Together we're forming? I mean, that's what, you know, Chendong said and what Dogen repeated. And I'm repeating. Form the structure of two parts. What the heaven is that? Yeah. And then Chendong said, and carving, carving a cave in emptiness. What's that? Carving a cave, carving a cave in emptiness. The spine is an opening for our yogic experience.

[35:13]

Carving a cave in emptiness. And then Chendong Ru Ching said, please complete these two things. That's a voice from the past and a voice today. Please complete these two things. Okay? I'm not kidding. Our intention.

[35:52]

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