Okay, well, we only have a few minutes before lunch. So, does anybody have anything you want to share from your discussion that came up? Okay. Yes. I think an important point which came up in our discussion was that there should be something like a mindfulness quest. A mindfulness quest? Stress. Stress. Maybe you could talk about mindfulness in relation to equanimity. Also ein interessanter Punkt, der für mich aufgekommen ist in unserer Diskussion war, dass es eigentlich so etwas geben sollte wie einen Mindfulness, also so einen Achtsamkeitsriss.

[01:15]

Also ich muss jetzt achtsam sein. But to say no mindfulness stress, won't that create mindfulness stress? She won't even translate it. I don't even know how to translate this. Mindfulness stress. Here lies mindfulness stress. Do you mean no mindfulness or no mindfulness? I don't know what I mean. I feel stressed just thinking about it. Okay, any other contributions?

[02:20]

I find it important which words you apply to your meditation. You talked about the difference between watching and paying attention or having attention. And watching is, for me, there is something and I watch it. And attention is more like every field. And whatever comes up in this field, like you held up the stick, whatever comes up into this field, it comes into my attention. I find it important to describe my own meditation. I observe, I am attentive. When I observe, then there is something and I observe that. And when I observe, then it is just like Roshi, who brought this example with the bow. There is a field of observation and whatever enters this field is in my observation. And for me it is a freer feeling than to say I observe.

[03:28]

And another thing was regarding entering the everyday. A nice picture is to weave the mindfulness into the everyday. And also like in your piece, you said, you talk about the basket. Life is a basket, and we weave the mindfulness in it. And another thing that has appeared in our discussion is the living. So we actually live into this attention, into life. That is also something that can be done in a relaxed way. And in one of his pieces he talks about the core of our life. Yeah, the three teachings are called the three baskets, actually. Let me just comment on one part of what you said. I think Christina's

[04:41]

Completely right. You do have to discover, and part of the path is your own discovery of the views which make your zazen work, or the views or language which makes your mindfulness work. The word attention in English itself has problems in it and also usefulnesses, and it means to stretch toward. But it's still probably better than looking at or observing. Or watching. But... A tension?

[05:53]

Yeah, why not? Or a peeping Joan. Anyway, an intention is to abide in the stretch. The ten part means to stretch. You stretch toward or you abide in that stretch. But maybe the best word of all is just awareness. Bring things into awareness. But you're welcome to use English words, but probably you'll use German words more often. It's possessed to be your own discovery. But as I said, Zazen is important, but the view of Zazen is more important. And then mindfulness is a development of the view of Zazen. Something else?

[07:07]

We had in our group the word, we discussed a little bit the word attention that we translate in Germany with achtsamkeit and that it has more of a, maybe it would be better to translate in English as being in a state of appreciating something. That is the German translation. That's good. So this is together, you also think this is part of attention. Yes. Really to appreciate and respect everything that comes to you. Yes. You can't force it. But one of the experiences of practice is, you didn't say that in Deutsch. Yes, we have also come to the point, with attention, that this actually also means attention, that is, to be in a state in which you pay attention to things that flow into you, in which you pay attention to them. And Roshi also said that this is already the case, but you cannot force it.

[08:21]

So you cannot say, now I pay attention, there is nothing like that, that is an experience. This afternoon I would like to speak about the fourth foundation of mindfulness, which is the investigation of dharmas or mind-body-body-mind attention. And one aspect of that is the seven factors or seven limbs of enlightenment. seven factors or seven limbs of enlightenment. So it's a good chance to teach these seven limbs of enlightenment this afternoon.

[09:25]

I'm trying to make those of you who have to leave feel terrible. But one of the funny things that happens, you brought up the question of, you know, you have a bad dream or a bad state of mind and then an anxiety and how do you, what do you do? But one of the funny things is if you keep just... bringing mindfulness to the anxiety, bringing mindfulness to the bad dream or the good dream equally. A strange gratitude starts to appear that you can't force, but it just starts happening. And it's very much like the appreciation Eric mentions.

[10:40]

Everything that happens sort of appears in a field, a wave of gratitude. Just, oh. OK. Anybody else? One thing we discussed in our group was that being more mindful in the daily life also has consequences, like being confronted with the discontinuity of our life, that it will end, that we will die, and so on. So the question was, why can we avoid... Naturally, to being mindful and why we have to cultivate it and relearn it.

[11:47]

And it's because it eases this final pain of being. We don't know. You have to wait till the final moment, you know. Yes. Yes, yes. When I hear this, it makes me want to speak German. or understand German. As I always say, I love coming to Germany because I can be silent. I don't have to have much conversation. Sometimes I wish the U.S.

[12:50]

Congress had decided on German as the national language for America. Then I could be silent in America too. Except I probably couldn't have been born in America. But when I hear your conversation, I immediately wish then I could participate freely in your German conversations. Okay. Anybody else? Please. Pretty please. Yes. Yeah, when you flip the pages? Look, oh yeah, yeah.

[14:05]

And you have a white paper, but you see two red panels. And I said, this must be the thing. You put the stick away, and I still see the sticks there. So everybody says, no, it's... No, there's something wrong. So I don't understand why there's something wrong. Is there something wrong? I didn't... Yes, I see a red parrot too. Now, if you recognize the red parrot is empty, you're in the same place. It's empty. Yeah, it's gone. It's gone. It's empty. So now you're in the same place. Yeah, but you have the same field of concentration. Yes, that's right. You've got it. No, no, I'm going to stop.

[15:12]

So when you speak that way, I feel like a parrot. I'm just... So since the kitchen is waiting for us, I'd love to have more discussion, but we can have some really interesting discussion after the... Yes, and there is a list back there where you can sign up for cassette ordering. I'm glad not all of you had to leave.

[16:48]

And so, but I still think probably we have to still have your afternoon travel arrangements, so we won't try to take too long, and I didn't have a sit for too long. I'd like to see what I can do to make this to illustrate for you, show you how fundamental this practice of mindfulness is and also how accessible it is to each of you. But I'd like to continue with any discussion or anything anybody wants to bring up before I get too absorbed.

[18:13]

It's now or never. Could you please illustrate what you mean when you say in a sasen practice, practice following a thought to its origin? Could you please illustrate this simple sentence a little bit more? Could you please illustrate the sasen instruction following a thought to its origin? Could you please illustrate the sasen instruction following a thought to its origin? I'm trying to get myself replaced. Well, following a thought to its source is basic Zen practice.

[19:18]

And I think for us, in the West, it's perhaps pretty close to the main psychological tool, given the way we construct the self. Because it works not only in Buddhism in general, as Buddhism sees the mind, But it also works for us to study our own mind, western mind and our western narrative self. We're so used to a narrative self it's very difficult to imagine not being bored by a non-narrative experience of being.

[20:29]

So anyway, this practice of following a thought to its source is a very useful tool for us. And it's a skill that's not... It's a simple skill. I mean, you can understand what it means, but it's a skill that's not so easy to come by. Because what you're trying to do is to get at the source of your mental formations. So that you're actually in your present. For example, a simple example, mostly when you get a headache, you receive the headache as you don't know what the source of it, you're just in the midst of a headache.

[21:45]

But I would venture to say most headaches have a trigger. At least there was once a time when you didn't have a headache. Or the headache was less, at least. It depends what you call a headache. Being alive may be a headache. Okay. So, if you can notice when the headache actually first, what triggered the headache, that's being in the present. By the time you're in the midst of the headache, you're in your present, but it's actually your past.

[22:46]

Do you understand the difference I'm making between these two kinds of present? Well, you actually move into, yes. I'm defining the present now as the moment things start. Yes. In other words, our mental contents are at the moment of inception. Also unsere geistigen Inhalte in dem Moment, wo sie zusammengesetzt werden. And this present, source present, we could say maybe, is discovered through the practice of following a thought to its source.

[23:51]

Und diese Quellengegenwart, wie ich sie einmal nennen möchte, entdeckt man dadurch, einen Gedanken zu seiner Quelle zurückzuverfolgen. Now if I look at, and I'm quite concerned with, how the Western psyche and how Western psychology interact with Buddhism. I'm wandering a bit from your question at the moment. One thing I mentioned last week was that My own feeling is that the Western self is posited on a relationship to a meta-identity. In other words, the Western self does not feel complete unless it has a relationship with Jesus or God or nature in a big sense, or some bigger identity than your small self.

[25:00]

So that without some super-identity or meta-identity relationship, the Western self tends to implode or kind of limp along in anxiety. So Buddhism may work for the way Asians in a yogic culture formulate self, but it may not work so well for us Westerners. At the level of values, morality, awareness, it works fine. But at the deep level of how we're constructed, it may not work so well. So what I have to look at as a Buddhist teacher is, in what way can Buddhism in the West satisfy this need of the Western self?

[26:32]

For the average practitioner I don't think it does satisfy. Now, if we looked at mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness as a house, in this house, this house works very well for practicing, studying the Western self or studying Buddhism or whatever. Now, we could say the tool or instrument of mindfulness in our psychology is, again, I'm coming back to this practice of following a thought to its source.

[27:41]

If we imagine that mindfulness is a house, The instrument is this practice of following a thought to its source. Okay. So, now this really cannot be done in ordinary mindfulness practice. It virtually has to be done in zazen practice. You can in your daily life be more or less aware of when things arise and so forth, but to really see it in detail you have to be sitting still. So this is an example where you can't just practice mindfulness, you have to also practice zazen.

[28:51]

Now, it's very simple. When you're sitting, if a thought arises or you notice a thought, the practice of mindfulness is just to notice the thought, the emotion, etc., Now you can carry that a step further and say, where did that thought come from? Like you ask, where did a dream come from or anything else? So you say, well, it came from that previous thought. And you actually try to trace it back. And at first you can't get very far, usually. At least that was my experience. And you get to this thought and then it gets all tangled up in this. And you get to this thought and then it gets all tangled up in this.

[29:52]

And often there's a level shift. You can follow it back three or four thoughts, but then it actually appeared from a state of mind or a feeling level. Or it occurred from a sound you heard. Or perhaps you trace back the headache and it was when you were in a drugstore and saw a man in a green coat. So from then on, every time you see a man in a green mantle, you think, oh, here comes a headache. And you see a red parrot instead. So basically that's the practice of following a thought, and I can't tell you any more about it much than that, but that you develop a skill in following thoughts back until you're pretty sure where they arose.

[31:15]

In a sense field, an inner or outer sense field, a vijnana. Or in a skanda shift. Now, if you practice mindfulness and have developed mindfulness, this becomes much easier. Because to follow a thought back to a thought, pretty soon you're so mixed up, because the thought is following the thought, which is following the thought, and pretty soon it's really difficult to do. But if you can create a field of mind, the field of mind sees very clearly the steps.

[32:20]

And if the field of mind is stabilized, there's even a kind of ripple, a kind of vapor trail of the thought. Like wondering where a fish came from. You see a little piece of seaweed move over here and a little sand is turned up over there and you can see where it came from. So it's much easier for the water to follow the fish than for another fish to follow the fish. So you're making a transition. We can use the classic similar example of waves and water. Your waves are your thoughts and emotions and the water is mind itself.

[33:41]

Now if you take the sudden practice approach you deeply know that every thought and emotion is also water. Every wave is also water. So you don't only try to follow the waves back and see that it's also water and the waves... You just go directly, wave to water. That's also the style of Zen practice to try to... That's also the style of Zen practice. Okay, so now it's up to you. Anyone else?

[34:43]

Yeah. I have a very practical question. How can I get a feeling for time at home, like 20 minutes or 40 minutes, so I don't have to use a stopwatch to time my sitting periods? Use a stopwatch. Or use a stick of incense. Or sit for ten minutes longer than you want to.

[35:44]

Or if there's a church bell, start 20 minutes before the, you know. Yeah. I was just thinking for a moment of the relationship between the clock tower, the church tower, ringing out the religious hours, connection of the days of the week with astrology and so forth, and how we have a certain way of time that actually when you practice meditation you're somewhat freeing yourself from.

[37:10]

But one thing it's good to know is there's no such thing as I don't have enough time. And one thing you should know, something like, I don't have enough time, it doesn't exist. In a practical sense, if someone is waiting for you, yes. But inside, you are time. As long as you are alive, you have all the time in the world. Okay, anything else? You know, we're the important people left, so it's just us guys.

[38:16]

We can have a good time. We can do whatever we want. Whatever you like, we can do. Okay, you want the fourth foundation? And the seven, okay. Okay. You want to say anything, Ulrika? Do you want to say anything? Do you have anything you'd like to add? At some point maybe it would be useful to share a little bit how we practiced mindfulness and the kind of little advice you gave us over the years how to do that. Okay, you want to say something now? Yeah, why not? Okay. It's now or never.

[39:20]

Stop it! I never know all the words, but I know a few lines. In 1986 I met him again in a seminar in Frankfurt. We all sat there and he came in the door. Then he just sat down and took three or four minutes, only his robes. He used to wear his traditional sit-up robes in his seminars, which he only wears today at the Sishinan or when he lives in Creston. I had never seen anything like that. That someone comes in, sits down and takes his time.

[40:22]

The way he sits down. And at that moment I had a very intense feeling that actually what he would say now, from now on, that it is no longer important, that I have already received a teaching. And this kind of teaching he has in the next few years and in many seminars always further unpacked. And quite astonishing things that have come to light. And one of the things that stuck with me in the seminar at the time, I don't know if he said it exactly like that, and if he didn't, he could have said it. And... I mean, just forget about practice. And I sat there, and then the translation of it, and it was suddenly such a term salad of attention, of attention, of awareness, of consciousness.

[41:45]

And it all went through my head, and then I thought, well, if he thinks that I can't practice anyway, that's okay, but I just like to watch him. I watched him for quite a long time and intensively the last few years. And he never really talked directly about mindfulness or what it is, but he often gave us small orders, for example. Yes, if you really want to practice, then if you go through a door, you should always take the first step over the threshold with the foot that is closest to the door handle. And I don't know how often I heard that, until I really practiced and did it regularly. It doesn't matter if I went to a seminar room or to a supermarket or got on a train.

[42:47]

And you can get a lot of attention if you get on a full train. But that's great. That's... Something that doesn't make sense at all, that only in the sequence of these everyday activities, which are sometimes very hectic, you suddenly add a habit that is outside of any framework that you have other habits. This is then a new habit that does not come from the self or from the ego. You practice it. And every time you do it, something is held back. And you also have a little success experience when you have done it. And you shouldn't just go there and say, oh, I forgot it again. And then you offer yourself and the inner critic gets food again. No. Even if you have forgotten it, you can always start with the practice from the beginning.

[43:51]

Yes, I would say that for one or two years I have practiced this very intensively. Just such a small thing. And yes, I think each of you can find something like this throughout the day. and make it a habit. Actually, living together in a Buddhist practice community is based very much on such built-in little points of attention. For example, when we go to a radio station, we bend over. It's not so much about what it means and the whole psychological thing that is connected to bending over, but it's a moment of inner holding. And in the moment when we bend over, we can look at our breath. And so I just want to encourage you, with such little things that are easily overlooked, just to start practicing.

[44:59]

And maybe again to hide it, I like to do that very, very much in the meantime. And sometimes when I'm in front of a group of people for whom it's more unusual, I'm a bit shy to do that too. But I want to do it again for you, or with you, because the whole mindfulness practice and what mind is, I feel everything when I put my hands together. And if I really do this with care, then I can really feel this elixir that Roshi spoke of between my hands. And I can lay them together here in front of my, as Baker Roshi always says, my treasure chest, my heart chakra.

[46:01]

And I can feel this relationship and this elixir. And I can hold it for a moment. And I can breathe. I can breathe in and I can feel my breath flowing out of me again. And I can put my mind in my hands and feel my mind in my hands. And I can feel the warmth of my hands and maybe that one hand is a little warmer than the other. Use a tape recorder instead of a watch. Well, you know, I've told this story of many times of Sukhya Rishi and the two hands.

[47:12]

You didn't mention that, did you? No. And it's a good example of, well, basically the story is, almost many of you know, is someone asked Sukhya Rishi, what's it like to be, what do you notice being an American? He said that people do things with one hand. And I noticed from then on that, because that's why Japanese and Chinese cups don't have handles, because it requires you to use two hands. It's a small expression of a yogic culture. So I note, then I began to watch Tsukiyoshi, and I did anyway, but I noticed that he virtually always did things with two hands, and our Oryoki way of eating the three bowls in Zen is entirely based on doing things with two hands.

[48:29]

And not only doing things with two hands, but doing things in a circle. And bringing things into the field of the body and then out. Now, this is a feeling of mind in the hands, like we talked about the mind in the left hand or the right hand. And if you feel the mind is in the hands, maybe as a painter you have to feel the mind in your hands to paint. If you feel the mind in your hands, then you know you're passing mind to the other person, not just the cup or the object. So you, I mean, I could make this into a kind of, you know, fantastic four comic book kind of thing, but if you pick up something with this kind of feeling, and I'm going to give it to Eureka, say, I'd bring it into my body almost like to charge it and then turn and give it to her.

[50:13]

And when you begin to do things like that, you're now creating not just, you know, we had thought body, and we had breath body, and then we had mind body, and now we have body mind. So everyone talks about mind and body are related and mind and body are the same, etc., The technique in Buddhism is to move, as I said, from thought body to breath body to mind body. And then to develop a body-mind. And then to weave mind-body and body-mind together.

[51:36]

That's Dogen again. We study the body with the body, etc. Now another example of talking about that. Instead of You're talking just about mindfulness of the feelings. You begin to have feelingfulness of the feelings with no observer. You don't just have mindfulness of the body, you begin to have bodyfulness of the body. Now, understanding that, you can understand better when somebody says mindfulness of the mind. Because that means a non-dualistic mind without an observer, just like bodyfulness of the body means no observer.

[52:43]

And this is considered a purification of mind and body. to sometimes, without any feeling of anxiety, to rest in an objectless state of mind, or state of mind in which there's no observer. Or everything is observer, or we say, self covers everything. Now, just as I can say that I pass my mind to Ulrike on the salt and pepper or on the bell or whatever it is, So you can practice it during your meals with somebody.

[54:07]

Not only just toasting, you can secretly toast them with the salt and pepper. Now, if I look at this rose, I can see the blush of the rose, the shadow of the rose. If I can have the shadow or blush of the rose in my mind and I can have my mind in my hands then I can have the blush of the rose in my hands. Now We don't usually experience this, but really, if I'm looking at the rose, and it fills my mind, it also fills my hands. And they all actually teach that as a way of painting in Japanese Buddhist culture, is you work with till the pine tree is not there, and then you paint...

[55:27]

You might tell us that anecdote from last week of somebody who put something in your hand and they asked you to close your eyes. Yeah, it's the same idea. So why don't you tell us that little example? Yes, a friend brought me something from a trip and asked me to close my eyes and to open my hand and to hold it. And that's what I did. And I felt this very gentle touch of something and it was like air or a breath of air and I couldn't and he asked me to hold it for a while, and then something very amazing happened, because whatever was in my hand became really alive.

[56:33]

After a certain time, whatever it was, I started to get really warm, to get a pulse. And in the moment when I could just let go of this effort to find out what it is, I just had the feeling that it was a heart that I was holding in my hand. It beats. And that was an incredibly beautiful experience. And at some point I asked him, can I open my eyes now? So he said okay, and then I look and then there was a pressed ginkgo leaf, not a ginkgo leaf, a ficus leaf from the Bodhi tree in India. Now, we would understand that it's not the leaf so much that made her respond, as it was the mind in the hand of the person who handed it to her who had the leaf in his mind and conveyed it directly hand to hand.

[57:52]

Not by the leaf, but by mind to mind in the hand. So this is all examples of the practice of mindfulness. Okay, so now if I'm going to start on the fourth foundation, I have to do it fairly simply, but maybe we should take a stretch and stand up mindfully. If you get the basic sense of mindfulness, clear and you can pretty much follow this practice on your own because there's a certain coherence to it and you don't have to have too much instruction but you know enough.

[59:05]

Now much of the teaching of all of Buddhism is in this last category of mindfulness of the dharmas. We could say that practically everything I've taught the last four or five years in Europe is mindfulness of the dharmas. So none of you have made the eight conditions of Ananda. I don't have to repeat all that this afternoon. Thank goodness. But I'm willing to try, except, you know.

[60:15]

Okay. So, by the way, the word shadow reminded me that when you don't treat everything equally, anxiety, wholesome thoughts, debilitating thoughts, etc., Many thoughts fall into a kind of shadow. We pay more attention to or are more conscious of and agreeably give consciousness to some thoughts and less to others. Those thoughts in the shadow actually become rather dangerous. They're the first step of one of the first steps into the unconscious. Or less conscious.

[61:21]

So there's a kind of... There's a kind of... When you have an object-subject separation in your mind all the time, you begin to have a shadow-light separation, and you begin to have some thoughts valued and some thoughts not, and so forth. So there's a great psychological wisdom to the practice of mindfulness of giving equal light, equal weight, equal attention to everything. Now as I've implied, there's a progression from mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feelings, and mindfulness of consciousness. Now, presumably through this practice of mindfulness, you've developed the skills to stabilize a field of mind.

[62:32]

Then you can begin to study the constituents of mind. How mind... We talked about breath as a body-conditioned thing. Now you're studying mind, body, phenomenal world conditioned things. And you're using analysis, just as we used analysis to say, hey, let's start with the breath and the body. Now we're using analysis to say, how does our mind actually function? How do our senses function? Well then, this mindfulness of the dharmas is to see how the mind and the sense fields arise. And central to this is the five skandhas.

[64:08]

I think it's the most pivotal of all the teachings relating to the constituents of mind. And Ula Nanda, I mean Ula Rika here, Ula Nanda, could easily teach us the five skandhas now if we, you know, plied her with gifts and roses and things. Basically, the study of the skandhas and the study of the vijnanas and the elements are the study of mind-body phenomenal world conditioned things.

[65:09]

And I really, you know, that would be too much to teach those things. It takes quite a while to get them. Basic practice is to begin to study how thoughts arise and disappear. And you can teach yourself the vijnanas. As I said at the beginning of the seminar, vijnana means to know things through their parts. Basically the same meaning of the word analysis. So you take some walks and you isolate each sense field and try to experience it separately without an observer. And you take your walk and you feel the walk with your eyes closed or you do it with your eyes open or you do it with just your ears.

[66:45]

Then you begin to see that different sense fields are more or less culturally conditioned. When you see that you have a history like firewood is firewood and ashes is ashes, you have a history, an A-U-R-A-L, oral history, that's different from your visual history. And there's a taste history going on. There's actually a taste to this room, but we are so used to having an observer, we don't taste the room. And your consciousness, one level of your consciousness is very connected to your mouth, throat, taste, because you'll notice like if there's a lecture and one person coughs, five people cough.

[68:04]

Or you're anxious, your mouth becomes very dry. I begin to wonder if she's translating what I'm saying at all. Are you? Yes. Okay. I really am going to have to learn German. As you get more independent, I'm going to have to figure out what you're actually saying. But I like trusting you. Everything... No. And also you notice that sometimes when you need to clear your mind, you actually swallow. So there's a physical dimension to the sense fields and an inner-outer physical mind dimension to each sense field.

[69:27]

And each sense field has a history. There's a tremendous amount of information right now that you've all accumulated about each other's bodies, which you don't know how to process because you try to process it through a thought body. And that's why falling in love is so terrible, because it crushes the thought body. And you hardly know what you're doing anymore. And your body starts telling you what to do. But if you're not in your thought body, your body is always in love, sort of. It's one of the problems with practice actually and the confusion is it pushes us into a love space or compassion space which we confuse with when we fall into it.

[70:55]

Okay. So, in brief, the contemplation of the dharmas means the contemplation of those unique, non-repeatable moments that are also own-organizing or self-organizing, which are the real karmic-dharmic moments of interconnection, but they're non-graspable and instantaneous. They're instantaneous. And the developing the ability to follow a thought to its source is very close to developing the ability to be present at these Dharmic moments.

[72:22]

And these Dharmic moments... She doesn't understand the meaning of dharma, dharmic moment. Okay. Dharma, Buddhism is, except for the image of the Buddha, Buddhism would be most accurately called dharmism. So a quick history. Initially, very early in Buddhism, they thought of dharmas as actually a kind of atom. The smallest unit of which everything was made. Which couldn't be divided further. And that's what the word atom means.

[73:39]

Atom literally means can't be divided. But in fact, it can be divided. And that's what the Buddhists found very quickly, that you can't say there's a unit that can't be divided. And the full recognition of that through the Buddhist think tanks throughout India coincided with Nagarjuna teaching emptiness. The unit is really emptiness. It's infinitely dividable. So then it became more like a perceptual moment of a one thirty seconds of a second or something like that.

[74:45]

They actually kind of measured it. Which some psychologists have measured the smallest perceptible moment that human beings can do. And it's almost exactly the same time the Buddhists came up with. So that was the second... sort of definition of Dharma. But presently Dharma is understood just as I expressed it. It's a non-repeatable unique own-organizing Selbstorganisierend.

[75:46]

Et cetera, like that. Impermanent. Impermanent. Non-graspable. But because I don't exist and Eric doesn't exist, as permanent beings we don't exist. But instantaneous relationships between us exist. They're not permanent. They have no inherency. But they produce dharma and karma. If they free you, we call them Dharma. If they entangle you, we call them Karma. And those moments occur in our sense fields, in our mental fields, and so forth. And the world is understood as Dharma. Actually, this is how it exists. Now, if you know the world through self and narrative, etc., you never experience dharmas.

[77:09]

So the teaching of the skandhas and the vijnanas and so forth is to repackage your experience of self in containers that allows you to understand Dharma. Now, all form is emptiness. But only some form can realize emptiness. So the last seminar we did was on Ruka's suggestion, the teaching of Dogen to drop body and mind. But the usual body we have, we can't drop.

[78:24]

So the first question we have to ask to study Dogen's teaching of dropping body and mind is what body and mind can we drop? So that's the teaching of the skandhas, the vijnanas, and so forth. Got it? That's all of Buddhism? You're all going to get a... Rinpoche, Ph.D., you know, high boo-boo in Buddhism. Stamp. Ulananda. Thank you very much. That's a new name. I like it. Ulananda. Sometimes I call her Uli Buli Dayosho.

[79:30]

We don't tell you what she calls me. Uh-uh. Okay. So the five, the seven, or the three limbs of enlightenment. Depends on how many I remember without looking them up. So, this says, I started out saying today that we have this Socratic injunction to

[80:39]

and the injunction of mindfulness itself to recognize everything, to accept everything as it is and recognize it as yourself. Now, there's also an assumption there that everything is present in each moment. Dogen says there are myriad grasses and myriad forms on the entire earth. Grasses is often used to mean, in Buddhism when you see the word grasses in a koan or something, it usually means the 10,000 forms. So there are myriad grasses and forms in the entire earth. And Dogen says, and yet also, each grass and each form is the entire earth.

[81:50]

So this is another kind of truism of Buddhism, that each moment, each flower, if you lift it up, is the entire. So each thought includes, or each emotion or feeling, includes everything. You just don't notice. Because you have a particular point of view, etc. For example, I am quite sure it's true, but it's also a kind of position of Buddhism, that each one of you has, let me put on my glasses to make sure this is true, each one of you has the history of a Buddha within you. Yes, it's true. Let me look again. One guy is leaving. He's getting nervous. Oh, no.

[83:18]

Enlightenment. Okay, and let there be light. As we say, you haven't connected the dots, that's all. And when you practice Buddhism, like in those paintings where you connect the dots, you know, drawings, When you enter in meditation, not only the conscious and unconscious elements begin to appear, but the non-conscious elements from the laya-vijjana begin to appear. You've had moments of freedom and openness which are characteristic of the mind continuum of a Buddha.

[84:33]

But your narrative story has not allowed you to notice them. And when you start practicing meditation, you begin to connect the dots. Now, this idea is behind the practice called the seven factors or seven limbs of enlightenment. It means if you can bring to each moment the clarity, the... I'm trying to create an English term here. Mind, the comprehension of the... Basically, it's three words, clarity, mindfulness, comprehension.

[86:02]

And that means, for example... as we looked at the flowers, to feel the four noble truths, the path and the suffering and the freedom, etc., in each perception. When you do that, you also discover that each moment, each dharmic moment, also includes calmness. Also can include samadhi. That's one of the factors. There's two factors now, mindfulness, clarity, mindfulness, and calmness or samadhi. Mindfulness is one?

[87:12]

Yeah. Comprehension you forgot, I think. No, no. One of them is the mindfulness of comprehension and clarity. That's one. And that's a practice you develop through mindfulness practice. Now another of the seven factors is calmness of mind. This means a calmness of mind based on samadhi. Based on being able to let everything go. And a third of the seven factors is to notice in your moments ease and joy. Even in the most disturbed moment, somewhere in that field, if you're not too narrow, there's also ease and joy. And this is a lot like the image of water.

[88:23]

The nature of water is stillness. Even in the biggest wave, why it's such a big wave being pushed by the wind is because it's trying to return to stillness. If you took the wind away and things, the water becomes calm. But that's also going on in you. In each moment, no matter how disturbed you are, there's a quality in it that's moving toward joy and ease. So you're beginning again to, through the practice of mindfulness, notice these subtle factors

[89:27]

in your each moment's perception. Without the practice of mindfulness, it's almost impossible to notice these things. Another is concentration or absorption. It means that each moment has the possibility of being an act of absorption or integration. Like in this room, there's many factors at this particular moment, there's particular ways this room can be integrated. If I'm a very good teacher, I can reach and take hold of all the strings touching everything and create a feeling of integration in the room or a feeling of relaxation.

[90:42]

So each dharmic moment can have the quality of concentration or absorption or integration. Another is equanimity. This being free of opposites. Even when you're caught up in opposites, the possibility is there of being free of opposites. Is that seven yet? Five. Equanimity, concentration, joy, mindfulness, calmness.

[91:55]

No, that's concentration. Well, look, if you get a fifth, five-seventh of the way there... You have to go? Yeah, five sevens is enough. See you later. I hope I see you later. What are the second of two? It's not important, obviously. I mean, no, it's very important, but I've forgotten. One-pointedness? Yes, one-pointedness. See, she guessed without even knowing. One point is the ability to bring your mind to rest on something without it going off. And the seventh is called the mysterious ingredient that's in every good soap, you know.

[93:00]

I forget what it is, I really didn't. So... Mindfulness. No? I mean, throw in compassion, you know, it's okay, but it's not... Yeah, it tastes good, you know. All right. Let's just, let me, I think we should end now. And I could go look it up if you want, and I'll come back. But let me say that I left with you a little bit of confusion, I think, earlier when I said that this image of Dogen's of the ocean and yet the harbors and the et cetera.

[94:18]

What Dogen means is the world is simultaneously a jewel and a palace. It's a palace of endless rooms. And you don't begin to know them all. And it's also simultaneously a jewel in which all the facets are there.

[94:43]

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