I sometimes wish, particularly when there's someone new here, like hasn't been here the last few days, like the three of you, I wish I could catch what we said the last two days. I almost cut the conversation. And then just give it to you and it will unfold. And also, of course, I hope The little we can do in three days on such an immense and ancient subject could also unfold in you in the coming days and, yeah, lifetime.

[01:05]

In fact, there's a whole Buddhist idea that the whole world is like a map that can be folded up. And the map is exactly the same as the world. And it's a macrocosm, microcosm idea. Yeah, you can... It's like... in some particle that appears and disappears. Everything is the big bang.

[02:18]

But there's a lot in Buddhism that is conceived of as being folded up. And it's not an accident that that many of the origami masters in Japan are Zen teachers. And in the part of the transmission ceremony in Buddhism, is the folding up of the papers that represent transmission. And the papers you work on are as long as a human being. At least as long as a human being in the 13th century.

[03:38]

In Japan. And the folding up is so complex and somewhat counter-intuitive. That it takes at least two people to do it. So you have to have help. So the best I can do is really Find some of the folds here. The best we can do is and perhaps if you hold it in this discrete moment by moment activity of mind and body.

[04:48]

The moment-by-moment activity will actually get its fingernails or something, underneath the folds and open things up. If you imagine yourself as a continuity, these teachings will stay folded up. The moment by moment activity which unfolds them and adds things to them, won't happen.

[05:51]

You'll just stay in your back pocket. If you conceive of yourself as a continuity. But we are some word you can use, continuous. We're continuants, but we're some kind of linked continuant. Now we're looking for, I think all of us are looking for new models We are all looking for new models of behaviour. New models of behavior, acting, thinking, being.

[07:06]

And it's, you know, it's not because you're wonderful, unusual people only. Und es ist nicht nur deswegen, weil ihr wundervolle Leute seid. It's because that's what's happening in these days. Sondern es ist einfach, dass das heutzutage passiert. It's clearly the models we've inherited and our parents and grandparents had already were too folded up. Sondern es ist so, dass die Modelle die unsere Eltern und Großeltern gehabt haben, dass die bereits zusammengefaltet waren. to fold it up and don't sort of compute anymore for us.

[08:14]

And I think it takes a historical period to let us start, you know, unfolding the models we have and seeing that, hey, there's a whole lot of, they don't work when they're unfolded. And it's scary. Ground of being or no ground of being. I think of one of the most brilliant people of all times, Isaac Newton. He changed our worldview. But he spent most of his lifetime working with very esoteric Christian worldviews. Which a contemporary scientist of our generation would be unlikely to do.

[09:22]

Why is that the case? I would say it's because he has to work with the worldviews, the models of behavior and acting that he grew up with. It took a few generations before the worldview implicit in his science began to unfold in people's lives. So, not only are we at a time when the worldviews we've inherited are hard to unfold, But our information about the world is so rapidly increasing that we can't inherit it all. And that seems to be the case in the past when there's a kind of shift in world views.

[10:57]

That it was preceded by... a big jump in information about the world. And one of the big jumps in our world is not only science and information technology and so forth, But this several thousand year old parallel Asian culture, which has only partly influenced Western culture, It's suddenly flowing into our world views and information, etc.

[12:14]

I walked by the eating place when I came up here this morning. And the cooks were having a coffee clutch. And as I walked by, I said, you have me a coffee clutch. And they said, yes, we're taking a break. And as I went by, I overheard what they were discussing. Qigong. Qigong. Well, this is Rastenberg.

[13:27]

But not long ago, Qigong was an unusual topic for a coffee clutch. So all of this is coming in. What are we going to do with it? So I think we have to start, let's start from one of the beginnings. In Vedic times, in India. they at some point began trying to look at what is the essence or core of a human being. I use the word human being. I don't actually like the term too much. But I don't want to use in English mankind.

[14:35]

It offends my feminine nature. So anyway, human being. Okay, so the first thing they noticed and emphasized was prana or breath. The idea seemed to be that, yeah, breath disappears when you die, and if it's not there, you're just stuff. So breath must be somehow the essence of a human being. We certainly have the same idea embedded in words like spirit, which means breath.

[15:53]

I think the etymology of soul too is related to breath. So there's similarity there, of course. Then they also had the word atman, which meant self. They took to mean self. But It's translated as self, but it really means what's the essence of being a human being. In the word Atman, though they used it as self, they actually used it as essence of what it is to be a human being.

[16:56]

Although they used Atman as self, No. What if your parents had said to you implicitly, instead of saying you have a self, if I said to Sophia, you have or you are the essence of what it is to be a human being, that's very different than saying, you know, take care of yourself.

[17:58]

take care of your essence of what it is to be a human being. I mean, I can just hear Sophia saying, oh dad, don't be so zen. But it's different. She has to discover what the essence of it is to be a human being. And then she can ask me. Papa? She calls me in America Dad. In Germany she calls me Papa. Dad, what is the essence of being a human being? Thanks for asking.

[18:59]

So in the category, in the Vedic category of Atman, which is really the essence or core of being human. It's both breath and body. And sometimes the word atman is used clearly to mean body and not to mean the usual sense of self. Now, we're not even going to deal with so far what Buddhists mean by anatman, there's no... Body, breath, self. It'd be great if we can get there this afternoon but maybe next year.

[20:19]

So this year's seminar is self and next year's seminar is non-self. And in 2010 it's nonsense. Okay. Now, let's look at, as we talked the other day, about the monastics and scholastics of the Middle Ages in Europe. That's maybe the same one. At least it's a cousin.

[21:20]

Some people never learn. Or perhaps he just, he, she likes tea. And it's a rare tea fly. Okay, if we again go to the monastics and scholastics of the Middle Ages. Who I'm convinced, along with Colin, C-O-L-I-N, Colin Morris. The discovery of the individual. He wanted to know the name of the book. Which I find convincing. The scholastics and monastics of that time were also flooded with new information about the world.

[22:33]

And whether they were German or French or Italian, they shared Latin as their common language. And the monks were beholden to the hierarchy of the church, not to their local communities. Okay, so they thought the core of being human was thoughts. Language. Yeah. In any case, let's take that that was a significant emphasis.

[23:55]

If you think that the self is contained somehow in thoughts, In the beginning there was the word. And if you are trying to refine yourself through your thoughts and you identify the continuity of thoughts with the continuity of self, then you become a human being in this case, according to Lise. Bernard of Clairvaux and others, self-knowledge means studying your thoughts. Okay. Now, what did the Vedic fellows think?

[24:56]

They thought that cultivating the essence of what it is to be human, was to cultivate the breath. And I think we can say cultivate the breath body. Well, both are probably good, cultivating your thoughts and cultivating your breath. But it creates a different worldview. Now, these scholastics and monastics of the Middle Ages, They thought this was a created world.

[26:13]

And somehow separate creation. And as we still have today, nature is not necessarily seen as us. It's something we can cut the trees down, exploit, etc., But the relationship to the world, the universe, etc., for these Vedic for these Vedic philosophers and practitioners was a macrocosmic relationship. That we are a version of the world and the world is a version of us.

[27:16]

That's very different. It leads us to a different way of being in the world. Okay. I like the way okay turns into good. And since OK was created by a German in Chicago, supposedly, named Oskar Knopf or something. It's one of the stories. And I'm sure Oskar actually said Gut. Now when I've mentioned to you the yogic exercise of shifting from the particular to the field, So I notice Rudy.

[28:38]

Is that right, Rudy? I notice Rudy. And then I go to the field. Or I go from the particular to the all at once-ness. Now in English we translate all at once-ness as universal. There's not much relationship to universal. It's a generalization. But all at once, this is something you... can experience, relate to.

[29:46]

So if I do get in the habit and assume this is a way of thinking, This is a way of observing. And not only a way of observing, it's a way of developing the essence of what it is to be a human being. Buddhism, what I'm doing here is taking very simple things and trying to put them together. relate them, contrast them.

[30:47]

And I'm oversimplifying. But if we can feel the contrast and then feel the contrast in ourselves, we can work with it. So, in Buddhism, it's not so much an emphasis on Breath or body, but mind. But mind not as thoughts. Mind as the field of mind before thoughts arise. The field of mind within which thoughts arise. Now, if you experience your continuity in thoughts,

[31:49]

This is different from experiencing your continuity in the field of mind, independent of thoughts. So Buddhist practice would be, how do you establish the field of mind as your experience of thoughts? Continuity and unity. You wouldn't naturally do this. I mean, as a Westerner, I wouldn't have naturally done it. and no matter how much Buddhism I read I wouldn't have got it I got it from Suzuki Roshi it took this person to unfold this with me It's a face-to-face event.

[33:30]

It can't occur on the page, it can't occur on the internet. I find Zen lectures on the internet one of the most ridiculous things I can imagine. So I'm sure they're useful to somebody. I know you're in the theater, is that right? No. I suddenly thought of trying to direct a play by phone. Now move over to the left of the stage.

[34:31]

Ah, okay, direct, okay. Now move a few steps to the left. But if you just grow up with, take for granted, feel it in another person and feel the results in another person, You feel yourself hundreds, thousands of times over a decade or so with your teacher. Being rooted in his presence, mind, which is manifest through the particular in the field, the particular in the field, the particular in the field.

[35:51]

It's like the yoga of the present moment. relates you to a synchronic... Sorry to use a big word. It's not so big for you, I know, but you know, it's big for me. Let's not talk about continuity, let's talk about connectedness. So you have a diachronic connectedness.

[36:54]

Di means through or across. Chronic is obviously time, chronus. Diachronic means So what we're talking about, and I use these two terms because they're obviously related and they sound similar. And I'm using these terms and concepts. To shift how we notice. So what I'm emphasizing now is two realms of connectedness. Okay, the diachronic is memory.

[37:56]

Continuity. We have an experience of continuity through time and a continuity of ourselves in the past, etc. Yeah. And that continuity, I mean, say that you had some powerful experience when you were, I don't know, 10, 20 years ago. And it was. I know it wasn't Rudi's experience or Felix's experience. Yeah. It was my experience. And because it was my experience and because just now because of some reason or a smell or a movie or something it flows back into me

[39:01]

And it flows back into me with an assumed continuity of self. But if I actually think of it as more like I don't know what word to use, a linked continuity. Then I may more likely feel, hey, when it reoccurs to me now 15 years later or something, there's a different observing I or an experiencing I experiencing this. And now we can use computer analogy, it's not a simple link, it's a hyperlink.

[40:25]

It's like going along, it's memory and it's continuity, but this part's blue. And when you look at it, a hypertext appears. So the flow of continuity of self is a complex flow of hypertext appearing at different times. Now, if that's the case, can we have a consciousness wide enough to absorb the hypertext along with the main narrative text?

[41:29]

Actually, consciousness can't do it. The whole job of consciousness is to make the world predictable and cognizable. And we have to bring Other categories turns into this, which are not just categories, but experiential actualities. And those categories, at least as we've been talking about them over the years, are awareness, non-consciousness, the alaya-vijnana,

[42:30]

We can think of So können wir also das Nichtbewusste uns so vorstellen oder mit ihm so arbeiten, dass es das ist, dass alles das absorbieren kann, was das Bewusstsein niemals fassen kann und das uns aber erlaubt, auch damit zu arbeiten. One of the main teachings in Buddhism is something we chant in the morning services at Sandokai, in our lineage. Yeah, and it's just the daily chant. But it's also a transmission document.

[43:52]

Which tries to be taught or presented in a way that that in its presentation between the teacher and the disciple generates the darkness through which most of our life flows. I mean, much of our life flows through consciousness.

[44:53]

And our consciousness if our consciousness itself is developed with pools of awareness in it Our consciousness is refined actually and developed through memory. And it's also constricted and restricted through memory. So another subtle practice question. How do we reform consciousness? So it calls forth our experience in a wider way. Because again the idea is that yes, we notice our life through consciousness.

[46:02]

But the flow of our life is much wider than what we can notice. And as the Sandokai says, the branching streams flow in the darkness. That's great. So, I haven't seen Felix for quite a while. And I share quite a bit of consciousness with you. And I don't know what has happened since I saw you last. But I still feel there's been a flow in the outside of consciousness of our relationship. Would you say so? So this is all, what is this continuity? this essence of being human.

[47:26]

Does it flow through thoughts? Buddhism would say that's real restrictive. Does it flow through Breath? Well, that's not enough either. Breath certainly is the esprit, the animator in many ways. Breath is a tool. But it's not the essence. And is the body? No, the body, there's also mind, spirit, etc. So Buddhism would say the essence of what it is to be a human is this contentless field of mind.

[48:26]

Which at each moment is a variety of contents. Und in jedem Moment ist das eine ganz große Bandbreite von Inhalt. Now is the field of mind itself without contents a content? Nun ist das Feld von mind, wenn kein Inhalt ist, ist es dann ein Inhalt. And this has been explored through the emptiness of emptiness. Und das wird erforscht durch die Leerheit der Leerheit. So that's a little riff on continuity. Now we have unity. So I use dichronic to mean the flow through time of Self-experience, the essence of being human.

[49:50]

The flow of connectedness? Through time. Yeah, that's enough. Whatever you said is good. Okay. Maybe instead of just saying synchronic, we should say synchronic immediacy. Because one realm of Connectedness with the past. And now let's be more subtle, not just the past. But our experience of the past. And our experience which generated a previous nature, a previous way of being.

[50:59]

So when you have enlightened experience, or you shift your world view, you feel exactly the same. In many ways. Your experience is exactly the same. But the previous nature which was formed around your experience is now different. So you have the experience that everything is the same and yet everything is different. And you can say then to any person, you're already enlightened, but it's this nature you have which is the problem.

[52:04]

This previous nature. If you only connected the dots a little differently, Now, synchronic immediacy is the connectivity of this moment. Now, if you recognize that This says that both are connectivity, connectedness. That's why I use these two terms, synchronic and diachronic. It's because you can start making decisions. Do you emphasize the connectedness of immediacy or do you emphasize the connectedness of this linked continuity?

[53:17]

And if this is a linked continuity, the links are this synchronic immediacy. Now what do you remember from the past? It's very interesting to take an inventory of what you remember from the past. Yes, half an hour sometime or a period of zazen or something. Or just notice what memories are bright and clear. And I think you'll see that some memories are quite lit up. You can see the scene.

[54:23]

All the details. You can almost put yourself back in it. Okay, so what memories... have affected you most? What memories, maybe because they, at the time, were conceptually understood, they've stayed as part of your memory more clearly than other memories? So now we have another subtle practice question. If this moment is... will be a link in the continuity of being.

[55:32]

How do we, aggressive mindfulness, how do we engage approach engage mindfulness. How do we engage this moment so it widens the stream of being? It's very interesting that children... I'm going to stop in a minute, we've said much. Nun, es ist wirklich sehr interessant, dass Kinder, und ich sollte vielleicht in einer Minute aufhören, weil wir miteinander nicht erinnern.

[56:35]

Nun, es ist ganz interessant, dass Kinder nicht erinnern. Ich denke, man muss zumindest zwei oder drei Jahre alt sein, um Erinnerungen zu haben. At some point, the stream of being as memory widens. And it's usually very close to when you start speaking and so forth. So some kind of interactions and language influence and widen the stream of being as memory. Now, what you might try to notice is your stream of being as memory wider since you started practicing?

[57:43]

In my case it is. Now, if that's true, when you're doing zazen, you don't just sit there trying to be still. But you're widening the stream of being. The Tibetans have a saying. If you want to know what a person's done in the past, Look at his body. If you want to know how a person is going to be embodied in the future, look at his actions now. So this practice I have given you several times over the last few years,

[59:16]

noticing the particular, and noticing the field, and noticing the particular, as the main way of being in the world. And the main way to articulate attention so it's not captured by consciousness. So attention isn't just limited to consciousness. And this changes synchronic immediacy or connectedness. Okay, that's enough to say.

[60:21]

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