When I came in the door, I felt really good because you're all here. Now really, I've been thinking about the idea of world, and I want to speak about it today. And when we talk about world, I think we implicitly have to ask also the question of self. Because they belong together, the self and the world. There's two sides of them. dynamic, and it made me think of that tiny little moment in one of the lectures when I was speaking and saying, you know, the self, I don't know, for years I just didn't know what to think about it, how to wrap my conceptual mind around the idea of self. What is it that we're talking about? So today I tried to talk about But you know this, that you're all here, this is kind of... When we talk about the world as appearance, it's not so clear that you will all be here.

[01:13]

You enter and then, oh... They're all here again. It's a warm feeling. There's a kind of continuity between moments of lecturing to the next moment. Even if it's a week apart, there's some... Those moments somehow connect more than moments of... the moment of being in my house preparing for the lectures and sitting here. You know what I mean? It's kind of weird how... You can see a friend two years after you saw him the last time, saw her the last time, and it's as if no time has passed. There's a continuity between those moments, not between, you know, moment to moment, and then it's like I was like two years. No, there's no time in between. Isn't that strange? I want to fold that into my thinking about worlds. Maybe there's a continuity between the world of meeting a friend, that's one world, and then there are other worlds. And that worlds are, that we think worlds are stable, you know, this horrible disaster in Japan is showing the whole world that

[02:33]

The world that we create and think of as stable and hope to be stable is not stable at all. And the emotions and anguish that comes from that kind of instability, this is, I mean, in this very particular situation that the world is witnessing right now and that millions of people are immediately involved in, we can be reminded of what Buddhism is talking about when it talks about impermanence and the desire, the deep desire that the self has for stability. So worlds, world. You know, because I talked about the world of appropriation as opposed to the world of, as opposed to or also in relationship to the world of intimate immediacy.

[03:41]

What is a world? And I often find it very helpful from our own practice and also thinking to be very clear about the conventional understanding of a term like world, and to see if Buddhist teachings connect with that conventional understanding or are different from how they relate to it. So I want to say that out loud, even though it may be completely obvious to you. I think the conventional view of the world in our culture is that a world is an assembly of things in space. And the world is the totality of those things. I think it's a pretty simple concept and it's extremely powerful.

[04:46]

And it's also rather convincing. I mean, reverse it. Think of taking every thing that is part of that totality away, one after another, each thing taken away, and then you end up with empty space. So space is that empty container in which the world is put together as an assembly of things. And to think of the world this way allows you to analyze it, to think about, oh, things are put together this way, then you can put them together in a different way. And space, and we can add time, allows for this assembly and reassembly of things. You may say, you know, after listening to Baker Rashi for a long time, you know, you may say, oh, you know, I've started to think about the world as activities, not as entities.

[05:50]

It's not an assembly of things. It's, you know, it's an activity. It's actually more than just activities. It's interactivity. That's what the world is. And, yeah, you know, that's a different worldview. And... Hmm... I like to think of my own existence now in relationship to worldview as, yeah, you know, there's different layers of my being. And I'm just going to simplify that there's a conscious layer and there's a non-conscious layer. That non-conscious layer has many other layers, and the conscious layer has also many layers. But just to simplify, in the conscious layer, I've started to think about the world differently. I can now, when somebody asks me, what is the world, I may say, no, it's not an assembly of things. It's an interactivity.

[06:51]

And what happens on this non-conscious layer? Has this new worldview actually penetrated there? That would be really nice if we could just start to think about it differently, and then it's also already embodied. But, you know, it seems like, and I'm just stating an experiential fact in my life, it doesn't seem to be that way necessarily. I mean, it's like you can notice if you have a problem with anger, let's say, like I do sometimes, you know, then... Or you could have this conscious intention of, you know, there's this type of situation that pushes my button. This makes me... I'm going to not be angry now anymore in this type of situation. And then the situation arises, and boom, you get angry again. Well, it's kind of weird. You've thought about it a lot. I mean, it's all there. All the good intentions, all the...

[07:57]

right thoughts are there and, ah, again. You know, and that can happen actually quite often. Could be rather frustrating. I think in traditional Buddhist terminology, you would, in addition to conscious thoughts about anger and not being angry, you would recognize that there are seeds and that those seeds have a different continuum, and that when certain conditions arise, those seeds start to sprout and bear fruit. And how to work with those seeds underneath all the conscious discursive thinking is, you know, is a rather different matter. Anyway, I'm saying this to maybe sensitize us to the fact that when we start to think about what the world is differently, it doesn't necessarily mean that we act already from that worldview, that that worldview is already embodied.

[09:12]

And I'm wondering, what would it mean to have an embodied worldview of the world not as entities, but as interactivity. What does that, what kind of world emerges from that? Sometimes you know it's difficult when you don't embody something you almost feel like you can't talk about it. I mean, do I fully embody a worldview of interactivity? Probably not. Because they're giving me permission to talk about it. No way. You know, Zen is always about, you know, you're embodying what, you need to embody what you're talking about. At the same time, we still have to use our thinking to, I don't know, prepare the soil for seeds, for different seeds, the seeds that we want to plant that can then sprout alternatively.

[10:16]

So I do feel we need to make a few things pretty clear to ourselves if we want those seeds to sprout. Because another experience of mine, which I've already mentioned, when you start to think about these things, you know, the self, the world, how do you penetrate this stuff? So elusive, conceptually, it's like you can't pin it, you want to, but it can't be pinned down. It's too, I don't know what it is, it's too close to home. It's too much what we are, so we can't sort of distance ourselves and see it, or I don't know how to describe the problem, but I can feel it very clearly. Thank you. It takes a real effort to find the right words to think about it. So when you have a feeling like this, it's kind of confusing to talk about these things.

[11:21]

I can see in myself that there's a tendency to just skip over it and say, like, I don't know, can't deal with it, it's too complicated. And then you're just back into your normal worldview because that's what's there anyway. So the world, at least on the embodied level, is just back to being an assembly of things in a container space. So how to stay engaged with the challenge of this worldview is also what I'm talking about, trying to talk. The world as an assembly of things in a container space, the implication is that the world is the same for everyone, and then we have subjective perceptions and interpretations of it. You can see if you agree with that.

[12:25]

Because this is how we talk about it. There's an objective reality, and then there's subjective interpretations of it. And so all our worlds are different, but just because we have sort of subjective interpretations of it. But the world itself is one and the same. But in, I would say, modern evolutionary theory, as well as Buddhism, which is a kind of interesting correlation that emerges in our culture right now, it's quite different. The idea is that an organism and its environment co-evolve in a way that each organism has a very specific world to itself. And in Buddhism, I think the immediate entry is when you look at the traditional teaching of how sense perception works, you have the organ, sense organ, the sense object, and the consciousness that arises from their meeting.

[13:34]

But the object is described as that which has the capacity to impinge on the sense organ. So what the object is, is already defined in relationship to what the organ can perceive. Are you following that? It's not that we're picking up everything in the world that can be picked up visually. No. What we see as the object, what the eye has as its object, is what is defined by the capacity of what the eye can see. So we can't see infrared light. I mean, if you extrapolate that to hearing, tasting, smelling, you can see that what we actually perceive is just carved out domains from possibly infinite ways of perceiving. And clearly, you know, biologists have studied the vision of birds and flies. I mean, the implication is that all these beings

[14:40]

live in different worlds. And how have these worlds emerged? I mean, evolutionary theory would say they have emerged through a co-evolution. I actually often think about how can this immense complexity of what we are have possibly emerged from from, you know, matter. I mean, where does matter, and you can, these are endless questions, but an eye, you know, how does an eye evolve? I mean, at one point, if we can trust this theory and don't think of a creator god, there were only these one-celled organisms floating in water. And then, through a miraculous process, eyes evolve. Not just in humans, in myriads of different beings that all have their own worlds, eyes evolve.

[15:49]

How does it happen? Without being familiar with what biology thinks about it, I'm thinking about it in sort of, it's almost like that cell, or a bundle of cells, one area starts to have sort of light sensitivity. And that sensitivity to light makes a difference in this organism's being. It must make some sort of advantage. I don't know. I'm imagining you're floating in the water and part of you is sensitive to light, which is probably the sun. And then you float. I don't know. You follow the impulse of the of this sensitivity to light, and then there's more food or something, you know, and then natural selection plays its, you know, game, and then there's more of these bundles of cells that have this ability to be sensitive to light, and they're going toward it, or away from it, depending on where the food is.

[16:56]

And then this structure that is sensitive to light starts to be... it begins to refine itself, to do more of the same thing. It's like a positive feedback loop that happens, a recursive patterning that starts to evolve the eye from one cell that was a little bit more sensitive to light and sort of nudged the whole organism. You know, the organism started to use that sensitivity. I mean, when you think about it, it's absolutely fascinating that we should have a world in which these processes happen continuously all the time, continual feedback loops of recursive patterning that fine-tune everything to everything all the time, that create worlds. And so this view completely reverses the idea that there's one world out there and we have subjective interpretations of it.

[18:13]

There's actually an infinite number of worlds that are absolutely specific to each organism. Absolutely specific. There's overlap between the species where the organism is relatively similar so that the world is also similar. Plus, these are the biological perceptual constraints on how an organism can create a world. And in our human world, cultural concepts are introduced into this making of a world I mean, I think they're introduced so deeply into the layers of our cognitive existence that they affect even the layers that are relatively uninvolved with linguistic activity and conceptual ideas.

[19:26]

When I perceived the altar there, I have to actively fold away from knowing it's an altar. That knowing is already there. Right? So it's already folded in. So it's so much part of our world that it also immediately creates this boundary of, oh, this is this and not that. But once you have this worldview, each conceptual constriction is surrounded by other possibilities. And the perceptual constraints that are given just biologically, that are a biological fact, that we can't see infrared light, But when you enter into it conceptually, when you feel into it, you can feel beyond those boundaries the mystery of the complexity of the world.

[20:33]

Yeah, so much. I want to do something that I've never done. I want to read something to you. A whole long quote from Dogi. Because usually my practice is to only quote what I can remember. And there's a reason for that, because when that unit that you can remember, you can practice with, the unit you can't remember, what are you going to do with it? Read it again? Maybe so. So, but this time, because I was thinking about worlds and I was reminded of this, I find astonishing section from the Mountains and Waters Sutra, I thought I should read it. And, well, I think I also want to read it because the intention here for me is not necessarily to practice with it, but to just let it sort of sink in or let it accumulate as a, as a view.

[21:40]

So Dogen says, if you want to read it later, Mountains and Waters Sutra and in Kastanash's translation is section 12. All beings do not see mountains and waters in the same way. You know, this is medieval Japan. This is not modern evolutionary theory, but all beings do not see mountains and waters in the same way. Some beings see water as a jeweled ornament, but they do not regard jeweled ornaments as water. What in the human realm corresponds to their water? We only see their jeweled ornaments as water. Some beings see water as wondrous blossoms, but they do not use blossoms as water. Hungry ghosts see water as raging fire of pus and blood.

[22:42]

Dragons see water as a palace or a pavilion. Some beings see water as the seven treasures or as a wish-granting jewel. Some beings see water as a forest or a wall. Some see it as the dharma nature of pure liberation, the true human body, or as the form of body and essence of mind. Human beings see water as water. Water is seen as dead or alive depending on causes and conditions. You know, this is, Dogen is commenting here, I found, on a commentary that some Indian Buddhist scholar made on a treatise that a sangha wrote, Yogacara, one of the founders of the Yogacara Buddhism.

[23:45]

It's interesting. When you look at the original comment, it's very straightforward. It's like just, you know... Gods see water as jewel ornaments. Humans see water as water. Hungry ghosts see it as pus and blood. And you look at the details, Dogen really expands it. Fish see it as a palace. The original comment says, he says, dragons see water as a palace or a pavilion. There's real freedom in this, how you, you know, in the possibilities here. So he says further, thus the views of all beings are not the same. You should question this matter now. Are there many ways to see one thing? Or is it a mistake to see many forms as one thing?

[24:50]

You should pursue this beyond the limit of pursuit. When I read that phrase, I was reminded of my own thought. You can pursue it intellectually, and then how do you pursue it beyond that so that it reaches into these other layer of your existence? You should pursue this beyond the limit of pursuit. Accordingly, endeavors in practice realization of the way are not limited to one or two kinds. The ultimate realm has 1,000 kinds and 10,000 ways. When we think about the meaning of this, it seems that there is water for various beings, but there is no original water. There is no water common to all types of beings. But water for these various kinds of beings does not depend on mind and body, does not arise from actions, does not depend on self or other. Water's freedom depends only on water.

[25:55]

This is, I find, really extraordinary. But water for these various kinds of beings does not depend on mind or body, does not arise from actions, does not depend on self or other. Water's freedom depends only on water. Therefore, water is not just earth, water, fire, wind, space, or consciousness. Water is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black. Water is not forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables, or mind objects, but water as earth. Water, fire, wind, and space realizes itself. Well, water as earth? I think he's starting to talk about emptiness or something, right? For this reason, it is difficult to say who is creating this land and palace right now or how such things are being created. To say that the world is resting on the wheel of space or on the wheel of wind is not the truth of the self or the truth of others.

[27:03]

Such a statement is based only on a small view. People speak this way. because they think that it must be impossible to exist without having a place on which to rest. To say that the world is resting on the wheel of space, people speak this way because they think that it must be impossible to exist without having a place on which to rest. Anyway, I think this is quite extraordinary. So I want to look at this one. But water from these various kinds of beings, for these various kinds of beings, does not depend on mind or body, does not arise from actions, does not depend on self or other. Water's freedom depends only on water. You know, I would have thought exactly the opposite.

[28:10]

I would have thought water depends on mind and body. It depends on actions. It depends on self and other. Because I had just settled onto this worldview when I pulled out this, I just settled onto this worldview that somehow we are creating our very specific world through recursive patterns of how our mind functions, how our body functions, how exactly we interact with the world. And most basically that it would exist on the notion of self and other. And that this is actually what creates the world. And then he says, no, how water is perceived by all these various beings does not depend on these things.

[29:17]

The freedom of water depends only on water. oh, I have to be very grateful for Dogen to pull the other, you know, here you have an alternative worldview, and then he pulls that out of your, from under your feet too. But when I feel into that, the water that does not depend on the conditions of the organism that makes its world, when you release water into what it is on its own, That's real freedom. That is sort of looking beyond the closure that the mind, or beyond the closure and the appropriation, as we've called it, for in releasing water into, I don't know, the ungraspability of what it is on its own.

[30:26]

Partly why I feel I wanted to speak about this, and I wonder how you are following my words, is because I think when we think about transformation, It's bound up with our desire to change our world, to change the world, to do something about the world. Transformation is already intentionally bound to the transformational end. Do you ever feel that in yourself? It's like, oh yeah, you know, practice is not just happening for itself.

[31:49]

It's already bound by the ideas of transformation that the self produces. So it brings me back to the self a bit. I wonder what delusion is, you know. In Buddhism, delusion is very connected with the idea of self and that this idea of a self is a problem. But how, when I look into this, how can the self be a problem? It's like the world, this is where the world starts, right? There's this bundle of cells and it makes a ring. and it distinguishes itself from the world, and then it starts to structure its interactions with the world according to its own terms, that's already some sort of closure and self.

[32:56]

It appropriates the world, you know? This comes in, this doesn't come in, How can this be a problem? This is how life works. And it seems to me that we have to be clear about that life works through creating boundaries. Without such boundaries, no cell survives. But that in addition to those boundaries, there is a conceptual fixation that we place on top of The idea of the self is our desire to make this situation stable, predictable, and controllable.

[34:05]

But the cell, just because it has a boundary and a closure, is not in complete control. It actually continues in its recursive, interactive patterning with the environment. It continues to be completely dependent on that environment. And if poison sweeps through the water, the cell is completely vulnerable. So again, I wanted to say partly why I think I want to speak about this is because I sometimes think we're trying to instrumentalize the teachings for transformational ends that the self hopes to achieve. I do that. You can investigate if you do that. Whereas it's almost like

[35:12]

Whereas I think transformation occurs when there's insight into, and Buddhism teaches this of course, when there's insight into how things actually are, meaning how it's not correct or delusional to fixate the idea of the self and try to make the world controllable from this place. but to have insight that you are part of an interactivity that cannot be grasped and that cannot be tied to the desires of the self. It's almost like delusion is not just to not just see, don't see correctly, but to actively contribute to a construction of the world so that it seemingly serves the desire of wanting it to be controllable and stable and so forth.

[36:33]

It's not just that we have the wrong worldview. We're actively using it to try to construct a world that serves the desire that we have that we don't even understand. Anyway, that's what I'm thinking these days. And if this talk was too conceptual for you, then I'm looking forward to a seminar where we can make it tangible. But it opens up a whole territory for me of things to think about and to engage in practice, and I hope it does that for you, too. In the same Mountains and Waters Sutra, Dogen says another extraordinary thing that I found.

[37:56]

This is very short, and I end. Turning the object and turning the mind is rejected by the great sage. Explaining the mind and explaining true nature is not agreeable with the Buddha. seeing into mind and seeing into true nature is an activity of people outside the way. Now he's completely nuts. All these things in traditional Buddhism are described as exactly what you're supposed to do. Seeing into your mind and into true nature is the activity of people outside the way. He is completely nuts. And then he says, as a counterpoint to these three statements, he says, there's something quite free of these understandings.

[39:01]

What is that kind of freedom? It's like if we don't even bind our activity to the transformational end of whatever we call it, seeing into mind, explaining true nature, understanding the object. If it's not even bound to these sort of ends, there's something quite free. May our intention equally penetrate.

[39:55]

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