Okay. So as I started to say, and I'll start over again. Hello, each of you. Nicole has been my translator for years and a shared developer and evolver of this practice. And in her own right, in her own left, she's an accomplished and good teacher. And I would like her to feel free to comment sometimes, or whenever she feels like it, on any points I make during the talk.

[01:21]

In a way, she does this in German as part of translating, as some things need some explication in order to translate. And so I'm inviting her, when she feels like it, to do the same in English. But I know when you're a translator you just have to kind of let it happen through you.

[02:28]

And to shift out of that to comment is not necessarily easy. Now, Buddhism in general, and Zen very specifically, is a lineage teaching. And the lineage teaching is a succession through history from the Buddha's time until now. And a succession which is conceptually cooperative.

[03:29]

I mean, there's no heresy really in Buddhism, but let's say it's conceptually cooperative. So it's not a revealed teaching as truth, it's an evolved teaching through practice. So it's developed and evolved through individuals and through the mutuality of the Sangha and each generation. And we can call that the vertical succession through history.

[04:51]

But we can also conceptualize it as simultaneously a horizontal succession or a horizontal lineage. And that's us. We're this generation accepting and deploying and making use of the teaching. and see how it works in our culture. Our culture starts, the premise of our culture is different from the initial premise of East Asian culture. And the concept of The concept of lay life in relationship to the potentiality of monastic life is very different.

[06:41]

Just that the lifespan has doubled and the death rate is much lower and our general health is better and the complexity and material stability of culture in the West at least is much more developed. that changes the whole role that monastic practice, the compression of monastic practice, might play in today's culture, or can play in today's culture. Okay, well that was long. Sorry. Yeah, maybe. Let me see if I can put this together. Sorry. Okay.

[08:07]

Actually, let me check this. You're saying that because of how much lay life has changed, the role of monastic practice is really different? Yes, how monastic practice can fold lay life into it and enfold in lay life is different. Ja, also die Art und Weise, wie das klösterliche Leben das Laienleben aufnehmen kann und die Art und Weise, wie sich ein klösterliches Leben wieder in ein Laienleben hineinfalten kann, all das, also dieses Zusammenspiel, ist anders.

[09:08]

And since I'm wholeheartedly and lifetime committed to this this moment of this horizontal evolution of Buddhism. I want to be as clear as I can Deshalb möchte ich so klar sein, wie es mir möglich ist, so klar wie möglich darin zu sein, eine Praxis vorzustellen, die ihr konzeptuell erfassen könnt und die ihr in die Erfahrung hinein übersetzen und in der Erfahrung spüren könnt. Okay.

[10:17]

So we are biological beings. And we are cultural beings. And our biology is a fact. We're not cacti or dandelions or dragonflies. I made up my own three things. I don't know if that's what you said. You can make up whatever you like as long as it... Yeah. But our culture is cultivated... But our culture is cultivated. It's not a fact. It's a fact, but it's not a fact like our biological identity is or beingness is.

[11:30]

Culture is cultivated by parenting, socialization and education. Our culture is cultivated in the sense of something that develops. Our culture is not in the same way a fact, something fixed, like our biology, but our culture develops through the way we are raised and how we are cultivated through how our parenting is and what else. It's parenting and... Lots of ways, but primarily parenting, socialization and education. Also durch unterschiedlichste Arten und Weisen natürlich, aber hauptsächlich durch die Art und Weise, wie wir erzogen werden, wie wir ausgebildet und gebildet werden und wie wir sozialisiert werden. But it's also cultivated or conceived of as being able to be cultivated by Buddhist, by wisdom and by Buddhist wisdom.

[12:34]

But a culture can also be cultivated, can also develop further, at least we want to understand it that way, that a culture can also develop further through wisdom and Buddhist wisdom. And we know we're not only cultural beings because we can make choices. We have the agency of choice. While agency is one of the bases of identity, primarily it's a dynamic of choice. Whereas this concept of agency, the feeling of being something that decides and acts, an agent, although this feeling of being something that acts and makes decisions is the basis for the self,

[13:55]

And you have a choice of how you cultivate your culture, your inherited culture. You ended the last sentence by saying, although agency is the basis of self. Oh, it's also primarily a dynamic of choice. Okay, and this agency of choice is called in Buddhism way-seeking mind. In other words, when you recognize that your culture is a culture always in the process of cultivation,

[15:13]

In other words, when you realize that your culture is a culture that is continuously in the process of further cultivation and further development. And when you recognize that you're in the middle of this construction project, And when you realize that you are in the middle of this construction project... Then you decide, you may decide, geez, I'd like to live in a way that benefits the environment, benefits all beings, that benefits the way the future is anticipated. Now maybe it's a good point to bring in what I call the four tenets. Or I could call them the four conditions for or alchemies of realization.

[17:00]

Or I could call them the four conditions for or alchemies of realization. And the first is that transformation is possible. Yeah. And if you don't think transformation is possible, transformation probably won't be possible unless it happens in a car accident or something like that, which can shock you into a transformation. We could say the groundwork of transformation is the accumulation of nanomoments that you notice. And they accumulate in such a way you say, oh, really, this is different than I thought it was.

[18:24]

We could say that transformation and real change is something like an accumulation of tiny moments that line up and where you suddenly say, hey, wait a minute, this is all different than I thought it was. And the second tenet is that it's possible to be free of mental and emotional suffering. It doesn't mean you don't feel grief, for example, but you can allow the grief to happen to you because you also simultaneously know you're ultimately free of it, even though you're completely inseparable from it. Es bedeutet nicht, dass du nicht so etwas wie, wie sagen wir, Trauer oder, na, wie sagen wir, ich kann gerade nur an Trauer denken, Trauer oder...

[19:36]

And if it is possible to be free of emotional and mental suffering, not emotional experience but emotional suffering, And because or if it is possible to be free from emotional suffering, and by that I don't mean to be free from emotional experience or to want to become emotionally inexperienced, but to be free from emotional suffering. In a way, it's up to you to prove it's possible, because if you prove it's possible, then it's possible for others, likely to be possible for others.

[20:42]

Okay, if that's the case, then it's partly up to you to prove that it's possible, because if it's possible for you, then it's also possible for others. And the third is, it's possible to live in a way that's beneficial to all existence and the allness of everything. The third assumption is that it is possible to live for the benefit of all sentient beings and the entire existence, as far as possible, for the benefit of the entire existence. And you hold that as an intentionality which works in the foreground and background of everything you do. If you hold yourself as some special little island in the world, the chemistry of realization, the alchemy of realization is not there.

[22:00]

If you behave or understand yourself as a small island in the middle of the world, a separated island in the middle of the world, then the chemistry or the alchemy of realization is not possible or not present. And the fourth tenet is that it's possible to live as closely as possible to how everything exists. And that means in this day and age, To live in the recognition of the engaged or intergaged materiality of the sentient and insentient, so-called insentient world.

[23:10]

Heutzutage würde das bedeuten, in der... Okay, well, this is not only difficult to understand, but also impossible to translate. Heutzutage würde das bedeuten, in der wechselseitig aufeinander eingehenden intergaged... And inter, what was the second one? No, but intergaged? Is that what you said? Intergaged? Yeah, I said intergaged because, you know, it looks like I'm making up a word, and in a sense I am. But inter is an English unit, and gauged is an English unit, like engage. So it's really not a stretch to say intergaged because it allows us a more experiential connection with this intergagement. Okay. Let me try to put that together in the vein of your wanting me to feel permission, right?

[24:21]

Yeah, okay. Let me go one step back here. Please do. We're in the middle of the fourth tenet. And just one comment that we've discussed actually, you and I have discussed, is you just now phrased that as it is possible to live as closely as possible to how things actually exist. And, you know, for me at least, I prefer to speak about to live in accord with. Okay. To live in accord with how things fundamentally or how they actually exist. Now I translate the second part of what you just said, but you need to help me here.

[25:36]

The inter-engagement is between materiality and The intergagement of your way of relating to the world doesn't separate sentient and insentient, so I call it intergaged materiality. All right, now I got you. Now I can say what you want me to say. Because, you know, this is material. Yeah, okay. Let me translate. Also, und diese vierte Grundannahme, im Einklang damit zu leben, wie wir und die Welt tatsächlich existieren, bedeutet heutzutage anzuerkennen oder zu erkennen, dass wir, das bedeutet die Trennung zwischen fühlenden Wesen, and non-feeling, so-called non-feeling matter, to lift this separation, but to recognize that what we are is also matter, and the multidimensional relationship and the way in which matter produces something that feels, and allows something that feels to enter matter, inter-engagement,

[26:58]

Okay, thank you very much. Now, I've said this quite often in various ways, and now I'm saying it not only as engaged materiality, but inter-gauged, because I really want this point to come across, because unless you keep repeating it to yourself and recognizing it to yourself, you fall into your cultural habits of making the distinction, the sentient, insentient distinction. And I have said this point so many times now, but I repeat it again and again, because I believe that if we don't face this point again and again, namely that the feeling, to be a feeling being and matter, that these two are not fundamentally separated from each other, You always have to face that, otherwise you fall into the cultural habit of separating these two fundamentally from each other.

[28:03]

Okay. So, as I implied or said earlier, nowadays we have to think of this living in accord with, as living in accord with our environment and with science and the experiential phenomenology of immediacy. And when we talk about living in harmony with how we and the world actually exist, then we have to understand it today in such a way that we live in harmony with the knowledge of science and also in harmony with this phenomenological study, this study of our experience. Okay, okay. So the four tenets are... are aspects of expressions of, can be expressions of intentionality.

[29:21]

These four basic assumptions can be an expression of our intentions, our intentions. Yes. Okay, now, if culture is a construction, it can be deconstructed. And meditation practice is a process or a condition for realizing a process of deconstructing culture. And the meditation practice is a condition for and a process in which we can gain the knowledge of how we can deconstruct the cultural.

[30:25]

I'm beginning to notice how you are identified within and through your culture. nämlich zu beginnen zu bemerken, wie du in deiner Kultur und durch vielleicht die Annahmen deiner Kultur identifiziert bist. And beginning to notice the capacity of the agency or dynamic, the agency of choice. Und die... And to recognize that the agency of choice is not only cultural, it's also separate from your culture. Wahlfreiheit nicht nur etwas Kulturelles ist, sondern auch etwas ist, was du unabhängig von deiner Kultur tun kannst.

[31:41]

Du bist unabhängig von deiner Kultur, frei zu wählen. And that agency of choice, which is the work of the Bodhisattva, and we could even say the seed of what we mean by Buddha, but I won't go into that any more than that. And this freedom of choice is the seed of the Bodhisattva. And we could even go so far as to say that this fundamental freedom to be able to choose is even, we could even say that this is what we mean by the word Buddha. But that goes too far. We are not going to go deeper now. So the main tools Of this deconstruction or reconstruction of a wisdom culture. Die wichtigsten Werkzeuge für diese Dekonstruktion und dann Rekonstruktion einer Weisheitskultur.

[32:41]

Is this agency of choice. Ist diese... This agency of choice. I hear you. This agency of choice expressed through intentionality And manifest as attentionality. So we can say that one of the things that you can do in the inner still sitting of zazen is to notice the intentionality that you have

[34:01]

As John Tarrant Roshi says, to listen to the voice of your own integrity. Or as Suzuki Roshi always said, to discover your own integrity. And feel your inmost or innermost request. And that takes time to discover. It's layered under desires and nervousness and ambitions and so forth. You can practice with trying to take everything away, but what you really are sure you want to do, like brush my teeth or wash my face,

[35:24]

You can ask yourself, how do I want to exist with everything on this planet? Or something like that. Du kannst dir selbst die Frage stellen, wie möchte ich mit allem zusammen auf diesem Planeten existieren? Oder so etwas in der Art. You frame your intentionality as a request or a question. Du formulierst deine Intentionen dann als ein Anliegen. Okay, now what I wanted to do was get to two big primary distinctions essential for the practice of Zen Buddhism.

[36:42]

And I've worked my way toward it, but I'm out of time. So I'll mention the two big distinctions and then maybe can come back to it next week. One big distinction I have made in the previous Dharma Now series is that the assumption that there's a reality which has continuity is a delusion. Continuity, something we need, the algorithmic functioning of the brain needs predictability.

[37:56]

It's a need, and sometimes useful, but it's also a delusion, fundamentally. Continuity is a need, and often useful, but basically continuity is a misconception. So as for the chemistry or alchemy of realization, it's much better to choose a successional path or actuality as an attentional successionality. Actuality as an attentional successionality. A successional attentionality. Actuality as a successional attentionality. Okay, and the successional path or successional actionality allows the free agent of attentionality to function.

[39:38]

And this division of experience into successive moments, this division of experience is what makes it possible for the agency of choice, to have a choice. Because non-continuity or non-continuous, successional actuality lived for a time begins to open up potentialities that don't exist when you assume continuity.

[41:00]

Because if you live from moment to moment in the moment as a moment of attention, as a real moment of attention, then you will discover options. When you live in a world in which everything just continues continuously, then you don't have all these possibilities that open up when you live from moment to moment as attention. So you just have to practice it, practice it, practice it until it becomes natural to you. And this is something that you just have to practice and practice and practice again until it becomes something completely natural for you. And the other big distinction, essential distinction, is you need to be able to separate the content of mind from the field of mind. As all of the teachings of Buddhism depend on successional actuality to take form,

[42:28]

All the transformative aspects of Buddhism and Zen Buddhism depend on being able to separate the content of mind from the field of mind. Yeah, and the importance of that and the dynamic of that and how you practice that, I will start next Sunday. That was my starting point for this talk, but it ended up to be the ending point. That's life.

[43:53]

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Nicole.

[43:58]

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