Heat kills you. So there's a koan like this. Why don't you go to a place where there's no hot nor cold? Dongshan is assuming his monks, his disciples, are grounded in the four foundations of mindfulness. So they have the possibility of realizing a place where there's neither hot nor cold. Now another big support here is still sitting. Eine andere starke Stütze ist stille Sitzen.

[01:07]

This is not easy to do. You know how difficult it is just to sit still and not scratch. So still sitting is a big... learning to sit still is a big part of practicing, actualizing the second foundation of mindfulness. Here we also have the gate, this is the gate to, gate to non-self. Now again, a simple practice like this A common sense practice like this, the genius and the power of it is in the thoroughness with which you practice.

[02:42]

It's not something, you have to do it like you're going to save the world. Could we really get to... How can we expect other people, of course, to be reasonable if we can't even get to a place where we can look dispassionately at things? We can be passionate about realizing this place free of likes and dislikes. Okay. Now, Why does this really come after the first foundation of mindfulness?

[03:47]

It comes back to this difference of noticing a difference between the palm of your hand and the heel of your hand. Again, such simple things. Okay. So let's call what I tried to... This is stuff. We can call this stuff. It's different than this stuff. This is some kind of alive stuff. But it's alive in a variety of ways. And if you, when you notice you have, so particularly in some places, you get stuff plus something.

[04:54]

Let's not give it a name. Let's just say that when you practice the first foundation of mindfulness, you begin to feel a kind of presence in your body. Yeah, like again, looking at Sophia with some kind of attention, she turns her head toward me, sleeping. What is that presence? But we feel in the heart area, too. But actually, as you start paying attention to the body, there's a kind of plus quality for all parts of the body.

[05:58]

And as I said last night, you can sort of call that Something like the body-mind. I don't know what... Why do I call it a mind? Because it has a quality of knowing. There's a quality of apprehending. of apprehending in a way that's a kind of thinking. There's a kind of awareness to the body. And sometimes I give the example of if you're carrying a bunch of things and you fall,

[07:04]

Like you trip. Much faster than you can think, you save yourself and save the packages. That's the kind of body mind. It's not your thinking mind. So I don't know, you know, there's no way I can really talk about this much. Maybe I can just say, if you can feel the difference between the palm of your hand, the center of your hand, and your fingers. If you practice the first foundation of mindfulness, you begin to feel that kind of presence throughout the body. And we can call it also in Buddhism something like essence of mind. Before thinking and distinctions and so forth are added.

[08:32]

And before it develops into consciousness. Now, Sophia is articulating this through her sense fields and now through things like nine, yes and no. And she can perhaps... It's... It's present there before it turns into likes and dislikes and yes and no. It's not very developed, though. So this basic awareness develops through your sense fields.

[09:41]

But then through the process of socialization, culture, it primarily gets shaped into consciousness. And that consciousness is so effective and so useful that we begin to identify with it. And our society wants us to identify with it. And if Sophia doesn't identify with it, I can't correct her. Yeah, I can't say you're a bad girl. Well, I actually don't want to say that, but how do I say, please don't do that?

[10:46]

So somewhere in this like and dislike is where nine and yeah function. So some nines, I might say, have to do with something that's dangerous. But inevitably, most of the nines are going to be of what my preferences are. I like doing that. But can I feel the difference when I speak to her? So I can't feel a difference, and she's soon going to lose the idea that there's any difference. And, you know, kind of pernicious forms of that, Gregory Bateson's double bind, When the parent confuses no and yes, may be some precondition for schizophrenia.

[11:59]

So this is an extremely important territory. But how do you get yourself into it? Through the first foundation of mindfulness. The thoroughly practiced, ardently practiced First foundation of mindfulness. Okay. Now, in zazen, when you're sitting, and like say there's itches, if you try not to respond to the itches, you're actually moving yourself back closer to this essence of mind.

[13:25]

So don't scratch is a very, I'm scratching, very powerful... If you do scratch, you scratch with a lot of awareness that you're scratching. But when we're sitting, we don't scratch. So such a simple, simple suggestion as don't scratch moves you into this mind outside of preferences where you don't care whether it itches or not. This is also what Sashin tries to push you into by putting you in a situation where you're either going to hurt like heck or you're going to find a mind that isn't caught by pleasure and displeasure.

[14:55]

There's still pleasure and displeasure. It may still hurt. But the first step is to free yourself from liking and disliking it. And you can notice, you know, There's a difference between, well, Jesus hurts like heck. I don't swear. But, yeah, it's okay. It's okay. And you can notice when you don't like it. As soon as you have the feeling you don't like it, then you start not liking the person who's going to ring the bell.

[16:04]

I'm sure he's sleeping. And he doesn't care about one half minute. I care about one half minute. So like and dislike lets a whole lot of stuff come in. How do you find that distinction? In ordinary circumstances it's pretty hard to find. If you find that you can withdraw likes and dislikes, the great way is not difficult. Only don't pick and choose. When you have a mind that doesn't pick and choose,

[17:05]

It just stays in place. It's not running around trying to find something more interesting. That shift from away from likes and dislikes, So it's just pleasure and displeasure. Is the gate to not feeling pain at all. And people in Sushin often notice suddenly for no reason, there's no pain for several periods. And when people come and speak to me about it, it says, well, I had several horrible days in pain, and then there was these three periods in a row, all afternoon, no pain.

[18:31]

And it seems like magic. But if you noticed very carefully, you probably freed yourself from like and dislike shortly before the pain disappeared. And that shifts into suddenly, because you're not being damaged, you're just, most of it's mental pain, just goes away. And there's some discomfort. But there's always some discomfort. But then after a while you start thinking, hmm, three periods, I like this. Oh, suddenly it's gone.

[19:44]

As soon as you start liking it, you're back. So the practice of sitting regularly is also an intrinsic part of practicing the mind. Four foundations of mindfulness. Okay. Yeah. Am I making any sense? So do you have anything you'd like to bring up here before we go to lunch? I have a problem listening.

[20:44]

To me? I don't know, that's perhaps my problem. When I concentrate on thinking, I lose the other half. When I concentrate on thinking, I lose the other half. When I get into the other half, then I have difficulties to link what you're saying to my experience.

[21:51]

Today it's already improved, but yesterday was horrible. I'm sorry. I think the best way to listen is just to be a wall. Don't think, just let it be like the breeze or air or something. Let's see if you can pay attention, give attention to it, but not think about it. And later, a kind of thinking process may start. I'm not trying to speak in a way that you can think about it.

[23:02]

But strangely, if I don't feel a coherence in what I'm saying, I can't speak. So I have to speak about in a way that you could think about it if I'm going to speak. Even though I don't expect you to think about it. I don't know why that makes any sense or why it doesn't. It's more like to be in some sort of immediate consciousness. Okay. Ich habe gemerkt, diese Unterscheidung zwischen dem Wahrsein und Achtsamkeit, die ist irgendwie verwaschen worden. I noticed that the distinction between mindfulness and awareness is somehow unshaped in me.

[24:18]

Is awareness a tool to practice mindfulness? Well, first of all, again, of course these are just words. And you can't try to define them too much. They're more directions. You know, and the... The way I am making these distinctions is based on my practice. And it's partially based on Buddhist technical terms. But you simply can't bring Buddhist technical terms into English or German.

[25:22]

Rarely can you. Okay. And even if you could bring it into English or German, we're a different kind of person. I used the example of the sound of one hand the other day. This sound of one hand, it seems like some kind of, what the heck is that about?

[26:28]

But if you're in a culture where the right hand always feels the left hand, you do things with two hands. And as soon as I pick that up with my right hand, my left hand is involved, even if it's not touching it. So there's both hands, each hand feels the other hand. And then each hand feels that it could pick this up. So the picking up is not really very important. It's the potential to pick it up which is important. So the potential of clapping is in both hands. Now, when you're in a culture which has that kind of body feeling, which also is rooted in the first foundation of mindfulness... The sound of one hand isn't some kind of peculiar philosophical thing.

[27:44]

I like it, and if you've heard this little anecdote, somebody asked Suzuki, you know, in Western philosophy, if a tree in the forest If a tree in the forest falls down, and there's no one there to hear it, is there any sound or not? Sukhriya, she said, it doesn't matter. So much for all of that. So it's really hard to bring these terms in and we have to figure them out for ourselves.

[28:48]

And just in this seminar I changed a little bit the way I speak about awareness. So let's say that consciousness is clearly about distinctions. And as soon as you start making distinctions, and the SCI in consciousness is the same root as scissors, So consciousness means to cut into parts. And as soon as you divide anything, you have two, and from the two you have four, and from the four you have eight, and so forth.

[29:57]

And then as soon as there's division, you have structure. And that structure, the more we identify with that structure, the more we don't know anything outside the structure. So we could say that mindfulness is a practice of non-structured awareness. You're using thinking to decide, oh, I'd like to practice mindfulness.

[31:01]

And you use aspects of your personality to decide it would be a good thing to do that. And you make an intention. So a lot of ordinary way of thinking and so forth is part of this. But at the moment you give attention, there's no thinking involved or very little. There's the coolness of the glass. There's a kind of feeling, non-graspable feeling toward it. So through mindfulness you're awakening essence of mind, I would say, something like that.

[32:03]

It's like you're awakening the field in which consciousness occurs. We notice distinctions. So it's hard to notice non-distinctions. But mindfulness begins to take you out of only knowing distinctions. Does that help at all? Yeah. So I'm occupied with how does thoroughness evolve

[33:06]

And intention, yes. Sometimes I think it's a psychological process which arises by suffering. Then I thought that the location might be this fundamental thirst. Thirst, yeah. The thirst foundation of mindfulness. I know it. That's the area I'm looking for. That's the area where I'm searching.

[34:31]

That's good. Keep searching. I mean, that's really, if I was a real Zen teacher, that's all I'd say. But since I'm not, I'll say some more. Mm-hmm. But once you get these categories, intent, thinking, mind, you just have to keep seeing until they come together for you. But the real root, I think, in the end is compassion. Compassion in that you really care about yourself and care about others.

[35:39]

More powerfully than anything else. And at the same time, the other side of compassion is, one side is caring and the other side is the real awareness of suffering. You know, say we have a plan to do something, we've got to get something done. How quickly we can stop caring about the people around us because we've got to get this thing done. Instead of really paying attention to, well, if we don't get this done, I care about the people I'm with more than whether we accomplish this or not. Somehow that really caring for yourself and for others and your state of mind,

[36:47]

the more that's your first priority, almost your only priority, then the easier it is to have intent. And the easier it is to see the need for intent. Because by deciding your first priority is not losing your state of mind, you then start seeing how often you do. How often preferences and so forth take you over. So let's sit for a few minutes, then we go to lunch. Of course we have preferences.

[41:19]

But our home can be our fundamental mind. Which can be quite free of preferences. The fundamental mind is this place where there is no hot and no cold.

[42:43]

This is called the first principle in Buddhism. Zen Buddhism. The second principle is our rational, active mind. And how we how we express ourselves through this second principle. And that's transformed when we know the first principle. Mind free of likes and dislikes. Is there anything anyone wants to speak about?

[44:22]

Yes. Are these steps of mindfulness not very close to the skandhas? Awareness and form. How do you, well, first of all, in German, please. Yes. My question was whether these two steps of mindfulness are no longer very close to the skandhas, as far as awareness is concerned, awareness form. associations and so on. Well, how are they close? What way do you think of them as being close?

[45:25]

A method to approach what is meant in skandhas, which is depths where consciousness arises. Truths. Well, you do. Yeah. Deutsch. Well, there is a kind of arising or an awareness of this body consciousness, body awareness. But that's more a starting point for the skandhas. Skandhas are really to give you a chance to experience the formation of consciousness. And the skandhas are the foundations of mindfulness.

[46:40]

are to bring mind and body together sufficiently, completely enough, so that you can observe the functioning of mind. So you can observe the functioning of the, not of the formation of mind, but of the formations of mind. Okay. No? They're really, I mean, they're all in the same territory, but their point is quite different. What do you mean by dynamics?

[48:11]

Maybe we should have a formal way of asking questions. Everybody's in the middle of the person. You take your robe off. Because the question's for everyone. Yeah. Oh, you have a question. This isn't fair. You have an inside line here. Oh, I can withdraw. No, no. My question is pointing at the ceiling. Namely... So that the culture and civilization and my own ego aspects don't get through. How, yes, how do I succeed or what supports What is supporting the process of sealing?

[49:39]

I have difficulties not so much in my zazen or when I'm on my own, but when this other part of compassionate being with others and all the other factors come and so this affect and diminish my ability to seal. Do you mean that In ordinary situations, you find the interactions, you lose some sense of, you leak or something like that? Yes. That's a little different sense of sealing than I meant, but I've used that word before to speak about that. But, you know, if you... What can I say?

[50:39]

The more one's sense of mind doesn't stray from the breath and the body, the more you're not disturbed by other consciousnesses, other situations, etc. Say that you get a disturbing letter. Your house has just burned down and your bank lost all your money. You think it might be that, you don't even want to open the letter. Well, I mean, if you can't throw it in the wastebasket, then you open it, and if your breath can stay under the structure of consciousness, Probably doesn't affect you much.

[52:11]

You can feel yourself lose it by the nervousness of the letter, but as soon as you're breathing and your body are not caught by this mood, it's not a problem really. So such a letter is actually useful. I'll write you one. Because you immediately experience how you lose it and what you can do to keep from losing it. It's really through the problems that you learn how to do these practices. Okay. Someone else?

[53:12]

The hub of consciousness. Is this the continuous consciousness? Yes, the continuity of consciousness. Is this the hub? That's what I would call how the hub of consciousness is established, where you find your continuity. Yes. That's how I would define it. Yes. When I sit down here and let my knees do their own work and my upper body and then maybe the impulses to move me do their own work and my breathing and my thoughts and then also the observer, what is left? When I let my knees do their zazen and my thighs and all the other parts and then my feelings and so, and also the observer, so what's left then?

[54:34]

If there's something left, you ask it to do zazen too. You might add that to your list. Everything that's left, do Zazen too. You're not trying to squiggle around to who's doing this stuff, are you? Not really, but sometimes I wonder if there is something or not. Is this just mind then, or... I feel that there is something, but I can't grasp it. You're alive.

[56:33]

And there's a responsiveness. And there's an experience of knowing. And there's a context. And those together through those you act in various ways. And we... Yeah. But there's no... I think if you look closely at each of those contexts and the more you're in that particular context with less reference to the past, You can't say there's the same self functioning. So I don't think you can... You can't say that there isn't some experience of someone doing something, something being done.

[58:05]

But you can say that what functions like a self is impermanent, different at different times, Yeah, so like in zazen you might make one decision and your ordinary mind, usual mind might make a different decision. So in what sense is there some bigger way both are organized? Didn't you follow me? Well, it, it, yeah. Let me leave it at that point, okay?

[59:08]

I have to find some way to speak about something about it. Okay. I mean, all Buddhism says is there's no permanent self. There's certainly the functioning, a self-like functioning. But if we suspend... Well, anyway, it's too complicated to try to... I have to think of a simple way to speak about it. Okay, something else. Yes. When you spoke earlier about the second foundation of mindfulness and pleasure and displeasure, this point, for me acceptance came as a question of what role does acceptance play in helping to stay in it and not in the like and the dislike.

[60:09]

When you talked about the second foundation of mindfulness, when you were speaking about pleasure and displeasure, it arose in me the term acceptance and how acceptance prevails you to going to likes or dislikes. Prevails you to go... Or... Prevents you? Prevents you, prevents you. Yeah, prevents you. How acceptance prevents you from falling into... Yes. Yeah, sure. Acceptance is an attitude that is part of every, all practices in Buddhism. Acceptance, trust, ease. You can't do any practice without a feeling of initially accepting what's present, trusting what's present, and feeling some ease in it.

[61:20]

Someone else? I have a feeling I like sitting in the area of non-duality. On the other hand, it should be needed to... What should be needed? Yeah, thoroughness. Thoroughness, oh yeah. When you... Deutsch bitte. You translate so much. ... When he likes to sit and says he is busy in this non-reality, and on the other hand there is this thoroughness necessary to stay on the way, doesn't these two contradict?

[62:37]

I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, you know, pleasure, displeasure is going to always happen. Yeah. And so if you enjoy sitting zazen, you feel some kind of less dualistic feeling? Yeah, that gives you a taste of a fruit of practice. And a taste of practice. And that becomes more and more the whole of your life if your practice is thorough. Otherwise it's just a little vacation trip. Okay. Well, two things I'd like to bring up at this point before we have a break.

[64:04]

And that is one aspect of the foundation of mindfulness, first foundation of mindfulness, is the awareness of your body and the awareness of the death of your body. The awareness of the impermanence of the body itself. And so... That can bring into more awareness, more consciousness. That you're going to die. And that you're definitely going to die.

[65:05]

Now I'll add the word definitely Because, you know, it's not just an idea that someone told you you're going to die, or you've maybe known a couple people. And you don't live in the kind of feeling that somehow an exception might be made for you. Sometimes we kind of feel that way, that somehow there's going to be an exception made in our case. So the first foundation of mindfulness, by really feeling your body, your heart and everything, you realize it's all just, if you're real lucky, it's working.

[66:18]

So part of the first foundation of mindfulness can be the practice of the impermanence of the body. Okay, now we all know on some level we're going to die, of course. How do we say that to ourselves that we really get it? We have to say it in a way that we can feel it in this mind stream we've established by zazen, mindfulness, and unison with the breath.

[67:30]

So it's like a kind of phrase written for a particular kind of audience. And the audience is your, I get tired of using the same words, but your body-mind stream. And two, there's two ways I've found that are useful to say it. The awareness that you, the feeling is, I'm certainly going to die. And you say that to yourself.

[68:37]

Until you feel, yeah, okay, I'm certainly going to die. The next step is, I'm willing to die. You can live your life so that you're willing to die. And both Christianity and Buddhism have this in common, that Christ and Buddha were persons willing to die. Und sowohl das Christentum wie auch der Buddhismus haben da eine Gemeinsamkeit, dass sowohl Jesus wie auch Buddha bereit waren, willens waren, zu sterben. And we could have a title of a book, The Man Who Is Willing to Die, Who Was Willing to Die.

[69:38]

Ja, but there's a second phrase we can add to that. I'm certainly going to die, but I gladly remain alive. So I think in practice the three stages are, first of all, the awareness of the certainty, Second, you become willing to die. And third, you feel ready to die. You get really so you feel any moment's okay. And you get there when you feel you've got nothing to lose.

[70:41]

Or you don't feel any clingy. Okay, but the practice I'm suggesting now is, I would base it on a different phrase. I'm definitely going to die at an indefinite time. Yeah. So the indefinite time is the practice. We don't know when we will die. We've had a lot of evidence of that recently. So now, if you can find a phrase that works for you personally and works in your own language,

[71:52]

you find a way to repeat that to yourself. I'm definitely going to die in an indefinite time. And every moment becomes that indefinite time. So this feeling is the root, I think, the fundamental root of the practice of impermanence. Because if you can really feel and accept your own impermanence, It makes it possible to see the impermanence of everything you own, see, do, have, etc. Often we can't see the impermanence of other things. We don't want to recognize that because it could remind us of our own impermanence.

[73:17]

So we try to build a world around ourselves that we try to build as if it was permanent. So then related to this first foundation of mindfulness is the stability of having the hub in the body, breath and phenomena. ist die Stabilität, diese Narbe in dem Atem und in den Phänomenen zu haben. You can begin to practice without much threat or fear. Noticing the impermanence of everything on each moment. Now, that is a practice that starts with the first foundation of mindfulness and is the main point of the fourth foundation of mindfulness.

[74:32]

Okay, now the I've really tried to give you a feel for the first and second foundations of mindfulness. And I don't want to go into the fourth much at all. And I don't want to go into the third except for enough to make the second a little clearer. Now the third foundation is the mindfulness of feelings, emotions, attitudes, and so forth. So you can begin to see the formations of the mind if you've established yourself in the second foundation of mindfulness.

[75:54]

If you're established in or grounded or something in like and dislike or greed, hate and delusion delusion you really can't study the formations of mind. Only from this place of neither can you study the formations of mind. Okay, now, what I want to shift to is at least begin with the dynamic of the six paramitas. The six parameters are the first three are generosity and discipline or precepts.

[77:07]

And the third is patience. And the fourth is energy or aware energy. How did we translate aware energy? It's a construct. Awareness. It's just a word I made up. It doesn't exist, you know. Awareness. And then meditation and wisdom. And then meditation and wisdom. Okay. Now these are the main bodhisattva practices. Okay, this is the center of Mahayana practice.

[78:28]

And it sounds kind of wonky. Wonky? Well, I better use a different word. It sounds kind of schmaltzy. Schmaltzy. Wonky doesn't mean schmaltzy, but a wonk is a little schmaltzy. Okay. Generosity. Yeah, right. It's nice to be generous, too. But the dynamic is to be present in each encounter with another person. with the feeling that you will give that person what they need. That's a kind of movement this way. And the second discipline is actually about receiving.

[79:30]

About learning. You can't learn from another person unless you have some discipline. You can't learn anything without some discipline. You can't learn to play the piano without some discipline. And discipline also means the precepts. Unless you practice the precepts, you're willing to see yourself and your relationships through the precepts. Then you don't have enough real feeling for other people or respect for other people to fully include them in each moment you're with others. So you can feel the dynamic is to go, is to be open in a movement toward a person.

[81:02]

And to be open to the movement and to receive from the other person. And the patience to just be there. Not rush the process. To allow each thing to have its own time and space. So this is movement this way, there's the movement this way. And we could say that patience is a movement of the two together in one space. And the energy or where energy is the support of that.

[82:09]

Now that's the basic encounter. the basic understanding of the dynamic of an encounter between people in bodhisattva practice. Now, the reason I'm putting these together is to be there in that way with each person you, each encounter you have, is really not possible unless you realize the second, actualize the second foundation of mindfulness. You have to kind of clear the decks. Clear the decks? Of likes and dislikes and so forth, and just be present in this way.

[83:09]

Now, you can say, ah, but wanting to be generous is a like or dislike. Yeah, but now you're taking the surface meaning of words and trying to... put them together and confuse things. Because in the desire to be generous is rooted in our basic wholesome and unwholesome pleasure and displeasure. And rooted in a wider experience of our body and mind. You don't think it's about like and dislike if your right hand cuts the fingernails of your left hand. Or the right hand washes the left hand.

[84:44]

That's not about liking, oh, the right hand likes the left hand. So this sense of generosity is just a word For what I see in Sophia, that she really wants to feel connected with her mother and father. Yeah, it's not something about like and dislike. Mm-hmm. And she really, every person we introduce her to at the, because there's a lot of people around Johanneshof. Jede Person, ja, der wir sie vorstellen und sind viele Personen im Johanneshof.

[85:51]

She really wants to feel connected with each person. Ja, mit jeder Person möchte sie gern verbunden sein. So, anyway, that's enough. Das genügt. Okay, so it's interesting that this practice of movement toward and movement to you and patience and energy are understood to be based on wisdom and meditation. but also are the development and maturing of meditation and wisdom. So for the Bodhisattva, he's not off in a cave, or she's not off in a cave.

[86:54]

Their meditation is inseparable from this practice of generosity and receiving. Yeah, okay. So what I'd like us to do is to take a break. What time is it I didn't bring my watch? Okay, let's take a break until ten to five. And when we come back, let's form into maybe four groups. Nowhere, we can use these other rooms too, I guess. I'll let you organize it. And there should be some more experienced, and if there's a number of newer people, the whole group shouldn't be newer people.

[88:04]

Okay, so what could you speak about? Because I like you, I think it's really important that you speak with each other in the spirit of the Paramitas. And of course that you speak in German. So I think that the possibility of or any idea of this neither like nor dislike, neither pleasure nor displeasure. How you can understand that as a possibility in your own life. And how it would affect some particular situation right now in your life. Of course you can speak about what you want.

[89:21]

I think I'd suggest something like that. Okay. Thank you very much.

[89:26]

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