Thank you again for your patience with my trying to express these teachings. The electron microscope transformed science. In Newton's time, there was lots of, for example, speculation about minute particles and so forth, but no one could see minute particles, so it was just speculation. And I believe Newton and others at the time said there's no point in speculating about them because they can't be part of experimental science. And the electron microscope transformed all that, transformed botany, biology, physics, and so forth. And in somewhat analogous way, meditation has transformed how we know the world and how we see the world and how we think of the world.

[01:11]

Not just meditation itself, because meditation can be just a way to achieve well-being and more integration and calmness and so forth. But meditation in the Buddhist sense is a way to examine the world. And so it's not about achieving well-being, though there's nothing wrong with well-being. It's much more about realizing non-being. Now, Let's just leave non-being and we can talk about it some other time. But right now just let's say it means there's nothing you can grasp. Okay. So most of the comments I've heard again and still as last time about what I've said so far have turned on what I mean by contextual flow.

[02:21]

And so I think I should look at this very simply. Whatever you practice, you're bringing that practice into your context, your body, your mind, et cetera. So I think the better we really understand the context the better we know how to bring a teaching into the context and what happens when we bring a teaching into our lived, living context, our beingness. So context, you know, means literally, text means to weave, kan means together, so it means to weave together.

[03:24]

So now somebody might say the context of the zendo is that it's between the main house and the dormitory and hoton or something like that. But that's a misuse of the word. To generalize use of the word at least. Because it's much more, The word should be, where is the zendo situated? Well, it's situated, its site is between the dormitory of Hotohan or something like that. If you said the context of the zendo is there are a number of junipers and pinions around it, then you'd really be speaking maybe from a fire prevention point of view that the junipers and the pinions and our cedar kinhin deck are all very volatile and they may interweave at times when we would prefer they didn't.

[04:36]

Okay. So I'm using, so what I'm speaking about is how I'm using the word context. I'm using it for what weaves together. what weaves together moment after moment, which we could call contextual flow. So I think it would be helpful for us as practitioners to build up the sense of context step by step. And it's quite, you know, useful simply to do a simple exercise of always noticing the context. Because what you're wanting to shift to in practice is to a point where you always see the interdependence of things, the interrelationship of things, and more subtly, the inter-emergence of things.

[05:43]

But we have to start with seeing a context. And that's, you know, not different than also seeing activities instead of entities. So by shifting or by developing a habit of always seeing, which is a normal thing to do, to see, and everybody does it to a greater or lesser degree, to see things in a context. It would be dumb if you didn't. You couldn't, you know, etc., But now we're taking this, seeing things in a context as not just a convenient way to look at things, but as being the very nature of the world itself and the territory of practice. So if we want to start with context, let's just start with seeing what your situation is, how you're situated or what's around you.

[06:47]

Your circumstances, what stands around you, circumstances. So what stands around you? Well, you know, like right now it's slate floor. Each of you, each of you and all of you and the Buddha and so forth. Okay. Now let's make the, you know, just make this a simple exercise. What we want to do is really look at what the ingredients of the context are. So now we've got the circumstances, which you can't really say they're weaving together much, but anyway, the circumstances. And the next ingredient I'd like to add is your body. And your body as... You feel sick, you feel good, or you feel anxious, and it's not so clear when anxiety is the mind and when anxiety is the body and so forth.

[08:03]

Your stomach hurts. I just talked to Myokin Roshi from Budapest. Just called me just before the lecture. He was very sick during the... He comes to Yonassav quite a lot, and he was just quite sick during the... holiday season and kidney stone and other things. So that's part of his, the ingredients of his, particularly for most of the holiday season he was pretty painful and sick. So that's an ingredient in addition to the circumstances. Okay. So your body is we can add as an ingredient. Okay, now we add the mind. What you feel, what you think, what thoughts are there, anxieties again, compulsive thinking, or whatever.

[09:10]

So your body might feel vigorous and your mind might feel anxious. You know, I don't know. These things don't... Sometimes body and mind are synchronous and sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're conflicting, etc. And it actually is quite... First of all, let me say, just to think of things and ingredients is already a big step in practice. Someone said to me, mostly, my body is one of the objects. It's also your location. It's one of the objects of the world. Well, to think that way is a big shift from thinking, this is me, this is myself, or this is... Et cetera. So to think of your moods as ingredients... And not me. This is a big step. And the more and more you can just feel the ingredients.

[10:17]

Okay, now we have something much more subtle. What is feeling the ingredients? If the ingredients aren't you, what is the... What's feeling the ingredients? Okay, so now you... have a more subtle sense of what we call self, or big self, or the observer. And if you remove this sense of, as I said the other day, agency from self, or it's not only self, you begin to have a subtler idea of what Buddhism means by freedom from self. Okay. So now we've gotten pretty far just by looking at what the ingredients of the context are. Okay, we've got the circumstances, situation, we've got the body, and we've got the mind.

[11:24]

Association, thoughts, memories, worries, etc. Clarity. So you get used to being in the midst of these ingredients. Now, just to also get used to being in the midst of the ingredients is already, if it has a lot of clarity, is a fruit of meditation practice. Not so much identifying with the ingredients, just being in the midst of the ingredients and feeling how this interaction of body and mind, which they're always interrelated even though sometimes they're conflicting. So you begin to really develop an inventory of when they're conflicting, when they're overlapping, when they're synchronous, and so forth. And just by doing that, you begin to actually take care of yourself better.

[12:27]

you get much more sensitive to when you're going to be sick, how you're sick, how you accept sickness, or moods, or whatever. And it's in a context like this that the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness really can develop instrumental power. If you don't have this sense of the ingredients of it, The ingredients of a context with presence, one of the ingredients, it's very hard to make use of, you know, a practice like, intellectually it sounds fine, but a practice like four foundations of mindfulness. So a practice, again, like the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, really functions through a developed practice, a developing practice at least, of meditation and mindfulness. Okay.

[13:30]

Now, so let's say that... we can increase the ingredients or widen the ingredients by not just talking about the contents of the body at any point, feeling, how you feel, etc., but let's talk about the attentional body. Now, one of the ways that's useful to practice zazen or to understand the practice of zazen or to develop the practice of zazen is to think of it, of when you sit, that you're filling your body with attention. And it's a useful thing to say to people who aren't really likely to develop meditation practice much, but want to make use of it when they can, is you speak, and we can try, like you're filling your body with attention. Usually from the bottom up. Like attention as if attention was a liquid. And when you bring attention to the body,

[14:36]

this more kind of openness or vitality or something in the body. And you bring it up, as I've said before, into the corners, into the corners of your shoulders, corners of your shoulders, tips of your lungs, top of your head, into your cheekbones, facebones, torso, legs, feet. Now, if you have this practice of developing an attentional body, and you feel the difference, because if attention really does rise in your body, your posture gets better. And that attentional body, you develop a new habitation, a new habit you inhabit, develop a new habitation in ordinary circumstances of an attentional body.

[15:41]

So now we've widened the ingredients to an attentional body present in the circumstances. And then, of course, there's the practice of mindfulness, which usually is an attentional mind. I mean, intention... Attention is the secret ingredient of practice. And as you do this, you're also, of course, not just bringing attention into the body, you're developing attention which is brought into the body. So by developing an attentional posture, you're developing attention and you're opening the body to attention. It's almost like the cells, each little cell gets feeling good when attention is brought to it. The full moon of Basho.

[16:44]

The attention begins to penetrate the cells of the body and the cells respond, hey, like they were thirsty for attention. Aren't we all thirsty for attention? Well, that's a somewhat different subject. Okay. So now let's say you're pretty aware of the ingredients of body and mind and the interweaving of the ingredients of body and mind, which then are context. Okay. Okay. So now you can bring a practice into that. You know, I talked about at the New Year's Seminar, bringing no place to go and nothing to do with. See, what happens? You're bringing an intention to repeat no place to go and nothing to do into these circumstances.

[18:01]

And it's a kind of line through, as I've said to someone. I call it a line through when I think about it. And what's the usual line through? The usual line through is self-referencing, self-referential thinking. Just do an inventory and notice that everything you see and do almost is self-referenced. It affects me, I like it, I don't like it. So if you can use an intention to bring, I don't know, this very mind is Buddha, or no place to go and nothing to do, into this contextual flow, you change the contextual flow. And the self-referencing, which usually glues the contextual flow together, begins to be replaced, or paralleled first, and then replaced by the phrase, the intentional phrase you bring in.

[19:14]

You know, the wisdom phrase. It can't be, you know, almost anything could work. I mean, you could try, I love watermelons. But it probably wouldn't work too well after a while. I love watermelons. I love watermelons. I don't know. Some phrases work better than others. So you begin to then, because of the microscope, the dharmic microscope, you can begin to feel what happens when you bring a phrase in. And some phrases are different, some phrases work, some don't, and some work differently than others. And whatever phrase you bring in, you're bringing in an intentional line through. And that line through organizes the ingredients of the contextual flow

[20:17]

Sometimes a log jam, there's no flow. And you can bring a line through and unloosen, loosen up the log jam, the emotional log jam, bodily log jam, etc. You can feel when a channel is opened and the flow begins again, the contextual flow. And you can begin to see if that contextual flow is in a pace with your breath, in a pace with the circumstances around you, in a pace with the people around you. For this contextual flow is related to phenomena, to your situation and so forth. Okay. So now we're practicing Buddhism. the ayatanas and so forth, ayatanas.

[21:21]

And you now widen the context, if you can, to that the outer circumstances are an inner outer circumstances. There's the inner and there's all the outer is an outer, is an inner outer. This is what I talked about in the last taste show. So now you've deepened the ingredients or made the ingredients more subtle because the ingredients, now, well, one practice is you brought a line through, right? Through a phrase, this very mind is Buddha. But now you've brought the experience that everything is known in the mental sensorium, let's call it that.

[22:26]

So everything is inner. Simultaneously, everything that's outer is simultaneously inner, and you begin to experience it. Now that really changes the ingredients. And one way to work with that might be a phrase. I suggested things like feeling, feeling, having a feel of things impacting the mind and body, which you can, you can feel. But right now, and I mentioned other things, but right now, you might practice with unfolding. Just using the word unfolding as a turning word. So everything you see, you have a feeling you're unfolding it.

[23:37]

This is not so different than, or it's nearly the same, as Dogen completing that which appears. Whatever appears, you feel your... It comes to your attention, and then you let it come really into focus, almost like you were focusing a camera or something, and... and widening the... Aperture is widening the field. And completing it to the point where you can release it. So, completing that which appears... or just having a feeling that whatever appears, you unfold. It's another direction, sort of completing it, you're unfolding it. So you try out some phrase like that. This is also a kind of line through, except this is, you know, like...

[24:47]

not emphasizing succession, but a kind of timelessness or a stopping in which everything just appears. You're still working with the context. You're widening and deepening the ingredients of the context. And the contextual flow is now a contextual field. and each moment is more like a field which is wider and wider and then released and the next moment is a field wider and wider. This is still practicing with the context and what I meant by contextual flow. Now I pointed out that this story of Chuan Tse and the butterfly It's not so much about who's dreaming what, but what really is the transition between dreaming mind and waking mind?

[25:57]

Or when Basho says, wake up, wake up, and be my companion, old butterfly, too snugly sleeping. So how do we wake and awaken? dreaming mind into the context because dreaming is going on dream what you know the stars are there during the day it's just you know you can't see them because of the light and the stars of our dreaming are functioning in us even though we can't see them because of the light of consciousness So dreaming goes on during the day, it's just that in the darkness of sleep we can see the dreams more clearly. And during the day the dreams are harder to see too because they're more integrated with what's happening and less, I mean the integration of the day is taken away by sleeping.

[27:01]

So now I spoke about, as well as contextual flow, I spoke about planes and layers. So I'm bringing up dreaming here to kind of say something about layers. Because dreaming, dreaming mind, like we could say that the stars are one of the layers of our sky But we can't see that layer because there's clouds or daylight or whatever. And we could call it a plane too, and by plane I mean a self-organizing plane. It has its own kind of encapsulation or organization.

[28:09]

Once you're in a particular plane, it all looks like it makes sense. It all fits together. But there's planes under that, and that would be layers. So the stars are functioning without us. The mountain here, we could say the blue cloud and the snowy wind don't disturb the mountain. The blue cloud and the snowy wind. The mountain's always there. The blue clouds, snowy wind, whatever, the mountain is there. So from that sense, the mountain is something that's there. Okay. See if I can keep these ingredients clear for you. Okay. Okay. So when you can begin and what happens with meditation, zazen, dynamic zazen, I don't know what we should call it, the so-called dreaming mind and unconscious mind and subconscious mind are more and more open to your daily mind.

[29:32]

You can feel dreaming mind functioning in daily mind. You can feel the kind of association and kind of predict what you might dream about. Or you can continue the flavor and feel of a dream in your daily life. It's kind of like floats around, touches everything. Gives us a context to daily life in an additional context to daily life. So these kind of divisions, barriers between waking and dreaming mind, unconscious and conscious, begin more and more to open up as you can in satsang allow yourself to kind of settle out of the organization of consciousness.

[30:36]

And you feel the field of associations, the field of permutations and so forth. So now, again, I'm just speaking about widening the context, widening what's being woven together. So now we have circumstances, body, mind, And then the fact that it's all that's outer for us is also inner. And then we have the layers and planes of dreaming mind and so forth coming into the context. And that context through practice becomes wider and deeper. And how you bring practices into that context develops along with the widening and deepening of the context.

[31:46]

So here we don't have an electron microscope, but we have the attentional body and the attentional mind and a deeper understanding of body and mind and the widening and deepening of the moment-by-moment context. So now, one of the tools is our concepts. They're like magnifying glasses or something like that, a magnifying glass. You can bring a context, as I suggested the other day, like soft space. So it's very difficult to notice that space connects as well as separates, and that space can be soft or harsh. So if you have a concept of soft space, that's a concept, a concept of soft space, and you have it present in your activity,

[32:58]

you may start to notice that space sometimes feels soft, feels connecting, feels safe. If you practice with yes or welcome, what you're doing, you're not doing a small thing here. Because basically you're practicing with accepting. What does this mountain do? This mountain accepts the blue cloud, accepts the windy snow, etc. So you're kind of making a mind mountain. Yes becomes, just accepts. So the practice of just accepting is your initial mind begins to penetrate. And one of your ingredients becomes an imperturbable mind. An imperturbable mind awakens from yes. It awakens from accepting.

[34:00]

It awakens from welcoming. It awakens from just now is enough. It awakens from this very mind is Buddha. You know, we... In the morning when we start satsang, we say, now we open Buddha's robe, a field far beyond form and emptiness, the Tathagata's teaching for all being. Now, this is what I call a ritual enactment. You're sitting, each of you are sitting, You may or may not have a robe. If you don't have a robe, you can have an invisible robe. It's more subtle. It's far beyond forming emptiness. So you can open your invisible robe or your visible robe.

[35:01]

I don't care. Open them both. What are you doing? You're enacting being Buddha. Now I open Buddha's robe. And then you're sitting. You're sitting in his, the Buddha's clothes. So you're continuing the Buddha in some way. So that becomes an ingredient in your, this ritual enactment becomes an ingredient, like this very mind is Buddha, becomes an ingredient within the context. the contextual flow, the weaving together. So you're weaving a ritual enactment into the contextual flow. And what do we do when we eat? We say, the Buddha was enlightened at, entered nirvana at Kushinara.

[36:10]

Kushinara, there's various words for it. Now we open, the Buddha entered Nirvana, and now we open the Tathagata, the Buddha's eating bowls. So now we're eating from the Buddha's bowls. That's rude of you. Did you ask him? No, we're always asking. And you're eating from his skull. No. You have the more traditional bowl, the reason we, you know, have the regular monk's bowl, put them down here, because there's no base to it because it represents the Buddha's skull. So this is a real ritual enactment of eating from the Buddha's body and eating from his bowls. Sorry about the his, because there's no gender here, really. And you're

[37:14]

continuing his life by eating from his bowls. This is contextual flow. Thank you very much.

[37:34]

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