Koan 66 in the Shoyaroku. The question is, what is the head, like heads or tails, what are the two sides? What is opening, what is the head, is the question. And he answers... Opening the eyes and not seeing the dawn. Opening the eyes and having no idea of what time it is, where you are, or anything else. If you need to think, you can think, but basic state of mind has a complete interruption of conceptual thought. Wenn ihr denken müsst, dann denkt. Aber der grundlegende Geist ist nicht unterbrochen durch konzeptuelle Gedanken. And that enters your continuum. That is your continuum.

[01:02]

Und das geht in dein Kontinuum hinein. Das wird zu deinem Kontinuum. And conceptual thought interrupts that. Now, is that a good state? I don't know. It's an incognitive state, but not an incognizant state. It's an incognitive state, but not an incognizant state. Now, I brought this up because if you're studying Buddhism, you think, what the heck are they talking about, incognito and incognito? What a minor distinction. I'm in the wrong practice. Yeah, but how to bring whole worlds into two words? Aber wie kann man ganze Welten in zwei Worte bringen?

[02:28]

An incognitive state, you're not conceptualizing, is not perceiving, but there's an inseparable knowing and awareness. Now, in cognizant state, which in Zen texts is often warned, this is a danger in practice. You don't have conceptual thought, but you don't have any knowing of anything. And what's the fundamental difference? Such sasen experiences can lead to an incognizant state. If the needle of self-consciousness is resting in thought, if that's where you establish your continuity,

[03:33]

Practice can lead you into a kind of dead end. So it's the shifting of your sense of continuity out of thought. is essential for all developed Zen practices. So I think it was David Chadwick who asked Suzuki Roshi. I can't remember exactly, but he said, you know, I'm in a terrible state and My life's a disaster. And Suzuki Roshi gave him the expected answer. He said, Not sitting zazen is like winding your clock but not setting the time.

[04:54]

Your clock runs, but you never know what time it is. But setting the clock It's like doing zazen. He meant if you do zazen you really know what time it is and your life will not be in a mess. And if it is in a mess, you'll solve it. Thank you very much. and the day when I will be able to control it completely, and I will be able to break the bondage of the Bible over the world.

[06:45]

Thank you. Ne'ahuachua, Yonah, Ne'ahuachin, Yisrael, Yeshiv, Tatei, Matzoran. I am the Lord of all, the Lord of all, the Lord of all, the Lord of all. I am the Lord of all, the Lord of all, the Lord of all, the Lord of all.

[08:45]

Yes. Today we have the same translator. Or maybe we have the same lecture in a different translator. So there's these words, you know, I guess I use them like bliss, clarity, non-conceptuality.

[09:57]

Es gibt so Worte, die ich verwende wie Verzückung, Nicht-Dualität, Klarheit. As technical terms, als technische Begriffe, that are expressions of experience. Die Ausdrücke für Erfahrungen sind. Mhm. And as related, the three related, there are three ways to stick a word on one experience. One area of experience. That fit into a... of maturing practice.

[10:58]

Now, it takes this kind of... perfecting, actualizing our practice, takes a sustained yogic effort. Yeah, and I don't think only monks can do that. Oh, in fact, some people, being a monk is a cop-out. A cop-out means you don't have to do it because it looks like you're doing it. What? Okay, let me put it in other words. Because you become a monk, you think, oh, now I can relax. Yeah, but in any case...

[12:00]

it's more likely for someone who fits their life into practice than someone who fits practice into their life. But we have these experiences, you know, intermittently. Sometimes we have some bliss-like experience. And sometimes... We have experiences of clarity. And even, as I often say, sunbathing, you may have experiences of non-conceptuality. Or in your zazen, or just occasionally.

[13:11]

No. Those are tastes. It's a kind of knowledge. But putting those tastes and knowledge together to shift from a world known through experiencing continuity and And a world known as a continuum. And here I'm just taking continuity and continuum and continuum. trying to shift our awareness into them.

[14:20]

Now, I want you to know that I don't talk about Sophia all the time, only because I'm madly in love. I don't want to bore you with my love life. But because she's my current study. So I'm watching for instance this crawling away and then coming back. I played some Tibetan music for a Buddhist ceremony for recently. She tried to keep looking at me to see if it was coming out of my mouth.

[15:24]

She doesn't understand electronics. You know, this car we... came with a guidance system. We got a car. Someone else had ordered but didn't want. And the guy who guides us here and there, we call Wilfred. And when we arrive here, Wilfred says, you have reached your destination. We're waiting for Sophia to say,

[16:26]

Who else is in the car? Because he talks to us regularly, you know. At the roundabout, take the second exit. And he knows everything. And she looks around. So when I played this Tibetan stuff for her, every time an unusual horn or some kind of other came in, She looked to Marie-Louise for like, oh, what's going on here? Is everything all right? And then she'd get brave and look back at me to see how I was making these sounds. She looks, there's an expression in Buddhism, looking at you like a deer listening to a lute.

[17:55]

She has this kind of look, you know. So she again establishes this continuity. And she has to establish it particularly through transitions. But also what I notice, she already has what I am quite sure are bliss body experiences.

[18:59]

If you saw one of the farmers here, Running down the street. Waving his arms and giggling and etc. And you'd think he found a million Deutschmarks. Or just fell in love or something. But she's like that a lot. But it's most common when she's establishing her continuity through us. It's harder for her to have that what looked to me like a bliss body experience if she's separated from us.

[20:03]

So she already, I think, knows the experience. It's quite precious. But what happens when she's away from us? You can see why she wants to come back. So the point I'm making here is it's not just a loss of continuity or establishing a biological continuity. But this bliss body or Sambhogakaya experience Aber diese Erfahrung des Verzückungskörpers oder diese Erfahrung des Sambhogakaya is also disturbed by separation. Die wird auch durch Trennung gestört. And as you've heard me speak, I think animals have Sambhogakaya body experiences.

[21:07]

Und wie ihr mich schon sprechen gehört habt, glaube ich, dass auch Tiere diese Erfahrungen des Sambhogakaya Körpers haben. It might make being an animal Better than being a human. That's why some just like our dogs and cats so much. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. So we have these experiences. This is something, you know, our capacities. But now I'm shifting what I'm calling today a shift from continuity to continuum. Yeah, now when I give you some phrase like... you will die.

[22:13]

We all know we're going to die. But if you take it as a medicine in a phrase, I will definitely die at an indefinite time. You're experimenting with your continuum. In other words, you know you're going to die. This only appears sometimes. Most of the time you forget about it. Its presence in your continuum is discontinuous. In fact, you don't really have a continuum, you have experiences of continuity. And one of the things that's happening in practice is you're establishing a continuum.

[23:16]

And I sometimes say initially it's like a background mind. And sometimes Sashin can force you into an experience of a continuum. It's something mysterious. I don't really know if we can biologically or psychologically explain it in contemporary thinking. But it's a fact. At some point, usually in Sashin, when your continuum is established, it suddenly becomes much easier to do night sitting. And if you get four or five hours or less sleep, it doesn't seem to disturb you the same way. So, you know, we... create a kind of deprivation situation here in Sechin.

[24:45]

Ja, mildly depriving, because we can get at least six hours sleep if you want. Also nur einen... But still, you can make use of the schedule. And you can try night time, night sitting. Which is interesting too, because it's a contrast. the mixing of all the minds. And in nighttime sitting, your mind is only mixing with those who've also made the same choice. So a little different kind of mind gathers in the room. Sometimes more fragmented. Sometimes more intense.

[25:48]

Sometimes I come in at night at 10 or 11 and see how it feels. Hmm. So you can use the schedule to create the more likely to just shift into a continuum from the experience of continuity. And this, when you have this experience, it feels like you're awake during the night. You're asleep. You go to sleep. You sleep a few hours. But normally it feels like you're sleeping in a tube of clarity. Like some kind of like the air around you becomes more clear, like a day, you know, after the, it's rained or something and everything is bright, you can see a long distance.

[27:06]

You feel like some kind of brightness like that is surrounding you, but you still sleep. It could be called a clear light experience. It's very similar to when you can again mixing dream mind into zazen mind in the morning. You can begin to see past the dream to the mind, the field of the dream. I would say, you know, I'm not practicing Tibetan Buddhism, they use that term, but I would say this is a clear light experience.

[28:12]

Now, it's typical of Zen. We generally speak about these things only in the context of face-to-face practice. It's such an apprentice system, Zen, and exists mostly within the apprentice system. Unfortunately, much of the teaching you would miss if you don't happen to be at a particular sashi or particular lecture. Because the teaching is organized around the assumption that teachers and disciples live together for around 10 years.

[29:19]

So, you know, Tibetan Buddhism has a hard time in the West. It's very popular, but as a teaching, I think it has a hard time in the West. Because it depends on complex visualization practices and so forth. Zen has a hard time in the West. On the whole, it looks more accessible. But Zen has a hard time in the West because it's based on this apprentice system. Yeah. So again, the Dharma Sangha, as I've been talking, is an experiment in how we mix with these two practice centers, a semi-monastic and lay practice together.

[30:36]

So you begin to have experiences more and more Of bliss, clarity, non-conceptuality. Of a continuum. Yeah, but then how do you put that together? How do you mature all your little enlightments, all your enlightments into... and wake into... into bodhisattva practice. Actualized bodhisattva practice. That's the challenge of our Dharma Sangha. So you have this experience of a continuum.

[31:54]

If you have it. It has various qualities. It has various qualities, one of the most noticeable, is during the night you seem to be asleep, but something is awake all around you. And you wake up rather rested, even after a little sleep. And during the day you have some activity, but you... I feel like you're resting at some, someone said today, still point.

[32:58]

It's almost like you're asleep to ordinary consciousness, but awake to awareness. It's almost like looking in the face of the world. Now, what do I mean by that? I'm just trying to find ways to make you feel something. Now, if I look between Bert and Carolina... It's a different feeling if I look at Bernd's face. Or I look at your face. And we can feel a difference when we look at each other's faces.

[34:01]

Yeah, we know that. And you can feel it with animals. And animals are really rather wary of looking at you in the face. And with some animals it's dangerous. With some animals it's necessary. I'm thinking of the story of Robert Wilson, the music, opera, set designer, lighting person. He's a rather extreme person. And he decided to get away from it all, a vacation or something like that. He needed a break. What did he do? He decided to go all by himself for three months in a tent on the edge of a glacier.

[35:17]

Yeah, it's not something you can arrange at a last-minute travel agent. I don't admit it. Anyway, he was there. I think he stayed three months, near the end of the three months. I don't know how he handled the logistics of staying there. Last day, a very large bear stuck his head in his tent for the last few days. And the bear was looking right at him, and he was looking right at the bear. And he somehow intuitively knew, I better not look away. And he says the bear stayed there for something close to an hour.

[36:25]

And it was the ultimate sashimi. You can have my legs. Just go away. And he says, after about an hour, if I remember correctly, the bear suddenly just pulled his head out and went off. Yeah, that's looking at the face of the world. And the world seems to look back. But it doesn't depend on a face anymore. You begin to have that experience you have when you look in a face.

[37:29]

You begin to have the experience looking at anything. Now, I can't exactly explain it. But it does feel like the world, the particulars are looking back. I'm not trying to say some kind of animistic idea. No, I'm just saying what it feels like. So when you, as this continuum gets established, it's almost like you're face to face in the world. Maybe it's because there's a continuum of awareness. Once you begin to know this, It takes a sustained yogic effort, though you may taste it quite often in Sushin, but the shift from thought continuity to phenomenal continuity to continuum

[38:47]

requires yogic effort. From thought continuity to phenomenal continuity, or body-breath continuity, to continuum, it requires a sustained yogic effort. No. The real fulfillment of this is probably beyond most of us, all of us. But we can come to know it pretty well. It is possible. I really want to make you know this practice is possible. And it's possible. the fact of it and its potentiality also begins to transform your life.

[40:17]

Okay. Again, it got to be five o'clock before I got started. But it's not quite five, so... Now, if I say, as you know I have said very often, space connects. And I expressed various ways to practice that or phrase it. Now, you know, I would like you to get the feeling again of these great translating projects in China.

[41:34]

Because if they did the equivalent of take a word like... in Chinese it might mean space, separates. And they take that Chinese word and they translate it They use a Chinese word which means space separates. But they use it in a context where space connects. And the average Chinese begins to shift from space separates to space connects simply from how the word is used. You've transformed the culture. translate certain ordinary English or German words and begin to use them differently, use them in a different worldview than they are in German or English.

[43:00]

We begin to change our language. our personal culture and our shared culture. And we have a small shared culture in the Dharma Sangha. which interacts with the larger culture. And that's, again, the basic idea of Sangha. It's not that the whole society is a Sangha, but Sangha is small optimal wisdom groups which affect the whole of the society. So it's transformation through differentiation, not through uniformity.

[44:12]

Okay, now... Maybe the two most key things I have tried to present you through the... through... as expressions of gratitude to my teacher. Our space connects and to do things with two hands. These may be the two most transformative things that I have spoken about. So let me riff this two hands for a moment. You know, this comes from Sukhiyoshi saying to me, or saying, when someone asked him what he notices in the West, What do you notice being in America?

[45:25]

that's interesting to you. He surprised everyone. He said that you do things with one hand. When you start thinking about it, you realize that's why Chinese and Japanese teacups don't have handles. Yeah. And you can then begin to understand the logic of the oriochi. In other words, doing things with two hands. And how the two hands are also our stomach, our chakras, our body. So the logic of bringing two hands together is also not different from the logic of bringing something into your body, putting it down.

[46:40]

Okay. But it's not... It's not the... It's not the... mechanical fact of doing things with two hands. Und es geht hier nicht um den mechanischen Umstand, dass man die Dinge mit beiden Händen tut. It's the feeling of the other hand in each hand. Es ist das Gefühl der anderen Hand in jeder Hand. Okay, so when you take the setzu, the cleaning stick, out, when you, zum Beispiel, den setzu oder den Löffel rausnimmt, let's say the cleaning stick, I put this hand here and take it out. I don't actually use two hands. I just put this hand here and I take it out.

[47:43]

When I put it there, I put this hand here and I move the Setsu toward this hand, which is outside the bowl. But if I'm here sitting and I pick up something like this, I may actually not do that. But when I pick it up, I feel the activity with this hand, even though this hand may not move. Okay, so when you get the feeling of this yogic body of where each hand is two hands. The left hand knows what the right hand is doing. And you can notice that

[48:45]

like we're trying to work out how, when I come in here, and he's going to ring the bell, Dieter, that's the Doan, and as soon as I'm there, and we have to do something together, Dieter doesn't, Doan Dieter, doesn't wait until we do something together, the relationship is established right away. So I come there, and Dieter puts his hands like this. Actually, I don't think it's necessary to keep them there. You acknowledge the relationship, but then you can have your hands in a normal position. There's some tradition, and we have to work it out ourselves, of how to establish this feeling.

[50:01]

And then, when he rings the bell, when I bow or go up here, whatever, It's appearing out of the relationship. It's not a separate act. And then when I bend over or when I go up here to the altar or do something and he rings the bell, then it doesn't happen because of that, but it doesn't happen out of the act. So as the right hand feels the left hand, the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. So there's a feeling of the Doan and the Doshi know what each is doing. And the relationship is what is expressed, not the activity.

[51:03]

Do you see the difference? Okay. No. My father was quite a good pianist. And you could see the keyboard in his hands. He had a way of just doing something where you could feel an independence of all the fingers. Maybe a good surgeon, for instance, you can see that he can tie a knot with his thumb and forefinger. So what I'm saying here is that not only is the left hand present in the right hand, the activity of a hand is also present in the hand.

[52:06]

Okay. So if you have that kind of culture, Okay, wenn ihr diese Art von Kultur habt. Now take Hakuin's famous koan. What is the sound of one hand? Dann nimm jetzt Hakuin's berühmtes koan. Was ist der Laut der einen Hand? We approach it something like one hand makes a sound and there's no sound. Some intellectual idea we have. Okay, so, but if you are in a yoga culture, the left hand is already in the right hand. And the sound of clapping is already in the hand. The potentiality is there.

[53:20]

Is this obvious or am I making sense? So that when you say, so how can, like I might say space connects, Hakuin, so wie ich sage, zum Beispiel Raum verbindet. Hakuin was introducing into Japanese culture this feeling of that in the hand is already the sound. Okay. Yeah, now maybe we've run out of time. What I want to what I would like to give you a feeling for is in the wisdom mind which is a continuum of [...] acknowledged impermanence, you feel things appearing and disappearing.

[54:48]

It's almost like there's a line between the visible and the invisible. Like you're awake and yet the mind of sleep is just around the corner. Wie wenn ihr wach seid und der Geist des Schlafes ist gerade ums Eck des Wachseins. And you're asleep and the mind of awake is right around the corner of being asleep. Oder ihr schlaft und der Geist des Wachseins ist um die Ecke des Schlafens. There's no corner, I don't know how to say it. So if I hold this stick up, and then I put it down, where did the stick that was here go? Now I start thinking I'm nuts. Could be. Could be. One way is to say, oh, this stick went down here.

[56:14]

But Nagarjuna said, Dogen said, firewood is firewood, ashes is ashes. Firewood has its own past, present and future. The stick in this position has its own past, present and future. And when it goes down here, that's not the future of this stick. The stick at this point is a network of relationships. It's different when it's here. So where did it go? It went around the edge into some kind of invisibility. As the sound of one hand is just around the other side of the hand.

[57:15]

So this sense of a continuum, of impermanence, rooted in, I'm definitely going to die at an indefinite time, this continuum, this looking in the face of the world, It also has this quality of being a space that falls in and out of the visible and invisible. It may have a name for a moment. A name appears if you use it. But originally this was a back scratcher.

[58:30]

Or maybe one of those paper horns for New Year's. So it accumulates different names, but it's not limited to those names. It's like I look again into Sophia's face. or I look into your face any one of you and there's a moment of contact almost a kind of burning it's almost too much a kind of intimacy actually actual intimacy And then it goes away. But you feel it's right there, ready to appear again. So it's not like it goes away, it's just like it's around the corner. So this is the world of the sound of one hand.

[59:44]

Which Hakuin tried to give us some way to feel. It's also rooted in doing things with two hands. So much for today's talk. Thank you very much. I have never been able to stop myself from praying to the Lord.

[61:02]

I have never been able to stop myself from praying to the Lord. I have never been able to stop myself from praying to the Lord. I don't know.

[62:20]

Jūko tsujūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjūjū May God bless you. Hmm. Well, this precious time is slipping away.

[63:53]

So diese kostbare Zeit verfliegt langsam. Is it the sixth day or fifth day? Is es der fünfte oder der sechste Tag? What day is it? Sixth day. I understand sixth. I was going to give the fifth day lecture today. Oh, did you see our new, you had to have seen our new living room out there. It's embarrassing. We look middle class and rich. But it's really beautiful. Yeah. Beate Oldag started two years ago? One year ago? More than one year.

[64:57]

More than one year. One year? Oh, it seems like several. You walk down the hall and she'd come up behind you. Want to contribute to a couch? And she's been persistent. Yeah, and she thought she was going to get maybe one couch. But then this furniture shop in Waldshut said, we have some second-hand furniture somebody's giving back. You can get it cheap. Two-thirds off. I think we still owe something, but anyway, they bought it, the two Beatas bought it.

[66:05]

And they were going to deliver it in a couple of weeks. And they told the furniture shop, we want it to be here for Sashin. So the guy said, oh, okay. How can I resist two Beatas? And they sent a truck to the south of Zurich. Is that right? Even. Where? To the lake. Oh, and they got the furniture and brought it up today. Yeah, so I've given them both permission to finish the sashin on those couches. Yeah. But you have to take care of Sophia.

[67:10]

So a number of people have spoken to me about really taking to heart this... being continuously expressed in your breath. Yeah, and I realize I haven't, you know, I could express this a little more clearly. Because it's not like, I mean, being attentive to your breath the way you count your exhales.

[68:11]

I mean, you know, the development of attention to the breath To the exhale and the inhale. Yeah, to the... upper part and lower part of the breath, to following the breath, to feeling the breath throughout the body. It's something that covers some years, too. So it's more like driving a car. I wouldn't, if I said something about be concentrated like driving a car. I don't mean paying attention the way when you first learn to drive a car.

[69:12]

After you get experience driving a car, you can drive and talk to someone. listen to the radio and so forth and still drive. But I don't know if you can make a phone call and change a CD at the same time. But anyway, you know what I mean. So maybe it would be better to say a continuous attention to the breath is something like a continuous attention to your posture. We learn to stand up. If, you know, when you're, say you're in a meeting, and you're talking about something, you know what your posture is like.

[70:49]

That's not the kind of posture you'd have in a coffee break. Anyway, you're aware of your posture throughout the day. Be aware of your posture driving. And in that way, in something like that, you're aware of your breath. Aware of your breath may be like it's part of your posture. Now, I still want to try to give you a feeling of this mutuality.

[71:49]

And Chinese culture assumes a kind of mutuality. Even the character Ren, which I think means humanity, Und sogar dieses Schriftzeichen, Ren, das Menschheit bedeutet, I think it's a person plus the number two. Ich glaube, das zeigt eine Person und ein Plus und eine Zwei. So it means something, it could be translated maybe co-humanity. Und es könnte dann so übersetzt werden, so wie gemeinsame Menschheit. Humanity is always a relationship. Weil die Menschheit immer eine Beziehung ist. Again, this... I think the example was good of the feeling of the right hand in the left hand.

[73:02]

The feeling of both hands in each hand. Or the feeling of when... the Doan and the Doshi are doing service, there's a feeling of a relationship, of mutuality. It feels more like the sound comes from the relationship of the bell, not from the bell. Of course, in fact, the sound doesn't come from the bell. The sound comes from the relationship of the bell. striker to the bell. And your ear in the bell. The sound is a relationship.

[74:03]

And that relationship of the Doan and Doshi also is reflected in the sound of the bell. Now this is all obvious, this is true. But we don't actually automatically think that way. We would say to ourselves, oh, there's the sound of the bell. But You could say there's the sound of the relationship of the Doan and the Doshi. And that would be a more Dharmic use of language if you reframed ordinary thinking to yourself in dharmic terms.

[75:14]

My usual example is to change tree into treeing. There's no such thing as a tree, really. There's treeing. The insects certainly know it as treeing. Okay. Yeah, now, I'm still also, I'm always trying to speak about these things so they're accessible to you. And I try to do that by either illustrating how something is familiar or how we probably already know this.

[76:31]

Or how we can understand something in one context and then shift it to another context. Now I realize this, what I ended with yesterday, that this sense of space is not only connected, connecting, But space is folded. before and after are folded together. Maybe I make this sound too mysterious. Or too magical. And yet maybe it is somewhat magical. Like a magician who can fold a coin around through its fingers and it keeps appearing and disappearing.

[78:03]

But the coin is always in his or her hand. It only appears occasionally to us. But again, I think it's easy to understand. But the shift probably we don't get until we experience the shift. No, I'm not trying to say today that the shift is good. You don't even know what the shift is yet, but, you know... I'm not saying that the shift, which you don't yet know what I mean, is good or bad.

[79:17]

Maybe I'll make that case next session. This session I'll just talk about the shift. And say it happens, and it's kind of interesting. I realize there's quite a lot of things that happen in practice that seem problematic. You know, some of you have discovered that there are certain minds, ways of being that look exactly like every other... look exactly the same as any other mind or way of being, yet there's such a different emphasis in the scene that you actually have to learn new ways of functioning

[80:43]

in a situation that looks identical but is experienced differently. Yeah, and as I pointed out to someone, there are koans exactly on this point. But until you get on the other side of the shift, you don't see... what the koan is about. You understand the koan in your own categories of thought. One of Linji's main criticisms of Zen students. Was that they tend to make up their own ideas from the outward elements of language.

[81:58]

Like one might have all kinds of ideas about the sound of one hand without any experience of this mutuality where each hand is both hands. So your ideas just seem silly to anybody who is really familiar with Zen practice. So it takes time to kind of absorb this practice and part of it is stepping out of your usual way of thinking.

[83:01]

So I try to present a teaching and also present the ways to step outside your usual way of thinking. So you can get an accurate... feel of this teaching. At least that's my feeling or idea of what to do, but whether I'm successful or not depends, of course, a lot on you. Okay. So... For example, let's take this sense again of a continuum.

[84:06]

Different from continuity. Because continuity has a before and after in it. Okay. I can think of a lot of questions you might have at this point, but I will go on. Okay, but say that you're driving through an intersection. No, rather say you're out driving in Munich on the night Germany won the World Football Cup. I happened to be in Munich that night. That was some years ago, wasn't it? Anyway, it was a great night.

[85:07]

I'd never seen us. European city, go sports mad. And I wasn't driving, I was walking. But if I was driving and it was night time, 11 o'clock or so, you can't depend on intersections, red lights, green lights, things like that. People were all over the streets. Cars were going backwards on the wrong side. All kinds of things were happening. Cars were parked on the sidewalk.

[86:10]

Okay, so if you're driving, you never know what's going to appear in the space in front of you. You can't say, oh, it's a red light, so there'll be nobody walking here. And there won't be a car going through. But in fact, there might be three people in a car going backwards. So you have to drive like anything might happen in the space. Mm-hmm. I mean, you've got the picture, it's clear enough, I think. But I found when I began to have this experience of what I'm calling now a kind of continuum,

[87:14]

This may sound a little nuts, and that's why I said these experiences are somewhat problematic. Maybe I should make Zen as unattractive as possible, so more of you would go away. Because if you go away, this is probably good. You might find something much better to do than sit around here. Anyway, I would find I was driving on ordinary circumstances. And I would come to an intersection and it would be empty but in my mind it wouldn't be fully empty. It would still be full of the people who were just there. It would be like the space where they had been still had them present in it.

[88:28]

So I had to drive... Whoa! You know, I could feel the presence of... So I would drive through an intersection and I wouldn't hit anybody. I'd think, well, thank Buddha I got through that one. I know. I don't take God's name in vain. I'm a Buddhist, so it's all right to take Buddha's name in vain. That's the expression in English. So I had to get used to the feeling that at any moment anything might be present. That all the things that space could be might be that at any moment.

[89:31]

Yeah. Someone said to me that... when this anthrax stuff, or when relatives or people close to you die, we become more aware of the of the preciousness of life. And each moment becomes quite precious. It's a moment where we're still alive. And all of us right now, we have this moment which is quite precious because we're still alive. Und jetzt haben wir zum Beispiel diesen Moment, der sehr kostbar ist, weil wir alle am Leben sind.

[90:43]

Now, when you really enter a continuum of impermanence, wenn ihr wirklich ein Kontinuum von Vergänglichkeit betretet, this is one of the doors to the experience of non-repeatability, das ist eine der Tore zu der Erfahrung der Nichtwiederholbarkeit, where everything is unique. It's sometimes described in Zen as a dragon enjoying a jewel. The dragon goes down into the depths of the sea and the heavens and comes back with a jewel. And then after all this, it enjoys playing with it. So, each moment becomes precious. And maybe in its preciousness, not heavy or serious, but something playful.

[91:56]

And at the same time, something inseparable from all its potentialities. It's not just precious because it is. It's precious also because it could be... It's almost always everything. So there's this funny kind of shift from, you know, continuity to being everything. The words I would use is something like continuously present.

[93:04]

But present in the way we're present to our posture. And then present to our breath. And then present to a kind of clarity bliss and non-conceptuality. And we learn to yogically to sustain these. No, I can't miss it. I can't let a lecture go by even though it's almost five. Without speaking about... And they say that

[94:04]

You know, in John Locke and Mill and

[94:20]

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