Of course after I talk for a while I always like to hear from you. So you can get ready to say something. Or maybe don't get ready and just say something anyway. But first I think I should say a little bit more. Now I'm trying to speak about this in a way that's fruitful for our practice, but also for those of you who are newer to my teaching and to Johannes Wolf, To allow you to position yourself, feel yourself in the particularities, in the possibilities of practice.

[01:11]

Because I feel what's happening here in the introduction of introducing of Buddhism and Zen to the West. In effect, there will be a re-envisioning of the Western worldview. Re-envisioning? Yeah. A vision, envision again. Also zu einer neuen Visionsbildung der westlichen Kultur kommen wird. There's no word in English as re-envision. There's envision, but re-envision is a re-envision.

[02:27]

There's no word in English as re-envision. That's part of what we're doing. Actually, our words don't cover re-envision. Western words don't cover very well the territory of meditation experience. So what I think will happen rather independent of the practitioners. but catalytically related to practitioners being part of the society, there'll be a re-envisioning of the Western worldview. I mean, it's happened. It happens in the West.

[03:27]

It happens. It happened through science in the last two or three hundred years. And now I think it's going to happen through Buddhism in a way somewhat related to science, but not entirely. And I think, second, there will be a re-conceptualization of what it means to be alive. Reconceptualization of what it means to have a fruitful, satisfying life. And third, I think there will be a repositioning of ourselves in relationship to others.

[04:47]

Now, undoubtedly, during the course of these three days, I'll come back to these three But right now, let me speak again about seeing the world as appearances. Now, basically, in this speaking so far, let me say as I... emphasized now fairly often recently, that the Zen tradition is primarily one of meeting and speaking. The koans are all dialogical instances of meeting and speaking.

[06:07]

That's what we're doing right here, meeting and speaking. With each other and in the the context that can develop through the feel of a mutual presence. So already we have quite a few Zen Buddhist dynamics going on here. And what I mentioned, of course, before our break, was what I called the dynamic of accepting and questioning.

[07:11]

and accepting in the larger context of questioning. Okay. Now, another essential characteristic of Buddhism is to see, to feel, to know, to notice the world as appearances. No. That's intellectually understandable. That there's this moment by moment life. But it's actually quite difficult to experience it.

[08:29]

And that's because the dominant modality of mind is consciousness. And the job of consciousness is to make the world predictable. I say that over and over again. But you really have to get that into your into your system. The consciousness is constantly fooling you. Consciousness is the most useful form of delusion. We have to know the world as predictable in order to function. If you're driving a car, You don't want to question, is that really a tree in front of me or not?

[09:46]

Or a person or a red light. Is that really a red light? You can go to jail with this kind of idea. So basically we live in a habituated world. And we have to. There is really no choice. But you can notice the habit of consciousness making the world predictable. And we can notice our wanting it to be predictable.

[10:48]

The more unpredictable it is, the scarier it is. Je unvorhersagbarer sie ist, desto erschreckender ist sie. Aber in ihrer Nichtvorhersagbarkeit gibt es eben Möglichkeiten. So it takes again some time to notice the world as a sequence of appearances. And it's a little arbitrary to call it appearances. No, I'm presenting the problems because otherwise you'll after a while say, it is mostly continuous, so what is he talking about?

[11:51]

We have lots of overlapping continuities in this room. Each of you has, you know, obviously... been reasonably well brought up. You're behaving appropriately. If we had a three-year-old in here like Emily at Crestone she would be running around and looking out the window and lying down here and so forth. Now, if you all did that, it would be quite difficult. I wouldn't, you know. I'd wonder what you'd all been taking. So there's the continuity of our culturally determined behavior.

[13:14]

There's this floor and ceiling in this room we've changed immensely, but still right now it's got a lot of continuity in it. Not going away. So, and there's a different time frame. The ceiling is a different time frame than my glass of water. It's already disappeared. Okay, so when you see the world as appearances you are somewhat arbitrarily deciding on the boundaries of the appearance. I mean, sometimes I say In answer to what is the world. It is location.

[14:20]

And ingredients. There's a location. That location is boundaries. And there's ingredients. And I use the word ingredients very intentionally. because ingredients can be noticed in different ways. A good cook can go into a kitchen and find, well, here's what the ingredients are, and make a good meal. A less good cook says, well, We have these ingredients, but we don't have these, and I can't make something without this, etc. So at each moment there's ingredients.

[15:21]

And the more present you can be in the midst of those ingredients, The more you can cook your moment, as I used to say often, I sort of stopped saying it, but anyway, you either... cook your karma or get cooked by it and for the meditator there's more ingredients than for the non-meditator and the more now we also if [...] If consciousness is a form of useful delusion, then what modality of mind can we know the ingredients?

[16:30]

Well, the word I use for this modality of mind You don't have to speak faster than me. Is awareness. And again, this is a basic aspect of how I... find it necessary to present Buddhist teaching. And awareness is... How is it different from consciousness? It's accepting the world at each moment without thinking much about it.

[17:46]

And it's more a field of awareness than a thinking about awareness, consciousness. And I think physiologically it's almost certainly a right-bodied mind. A right-bodied mind. A right-bodied mind. I don't like to say right brain and left brain. Even right-bodied mind and left-bodied mind is already an oversimplification. But it's much better than

[18:48]

right brain and left brain. And to the extent that we use these neurological distinctions, I would say there's no question in my mind that extended meditation practice changes the balance of right-bodied and left-bodied minds. And the more mature your practice, the more dominant right bodied mind is. Now this puts enlightenment into a very particular perspective. You can have really nice, beautiful enlightenment experiences and it's better than most experiences.

[19:59]

And we can give them a lot of credit. And some of us who don't have them can feel a little lousy. And wonder when they're going to arrive. Yeah. But enlightenment or not, enlightenment doesn't make you right body minded. It may open you up to that, but it takes time to develop right-bodied dominance.

[20:59]

And one of the things I'd like to do during this seminar is demythologize enlightenment a bit. So the One thing that happens in meditation is you begin to feel the difference between awareness and consciousness. And we can say the experience of meditation It can be understood as a dynamic or a parallel of the five skandhas.

[22:01]

As you sit down in the midst of consciousness. It's more or less consciousness which gets you to the zendo and the cushion and you hear the bell, etc. But once you sit down, you kind of let yourself slip out of consciousness. And you get to be in a kind of mind of associative mind. And it's the mind that Freud changed the Western world with. Because Freud noticed that in the half reclining, reclining sort of meditation posture.

[23:04]

if he could induce through his own mental postures, if he could induce the mind of free association, Dramatically he discovered people knew things in the mind of free association they didn't know about themselves in consciousness. So this associative mind, which isn't structured by consciousness, knows things. And you can actually practically use this associative mind to think through rather complex aspects of your life.

[24:25]

And if you happen to be a mathematician or something, you probably can use this mind to see associations that consciousness doesn't in its habit of predictability doesn't notice. And then you can let go of associative mind and begin to rest in the sensorium itself. Hearing, smelling, tasting, etc., but not thinking about things. You just receive the world in its beauty.

[25:41]

You just receive the world in its beauty. And that beauty is experienced as blissful and full of ease. You know, in the early Indian yogic culture It was thought that each of us needed non-dreaming sleep every night which was blissful and integrative and although we weren't conscious of non-dreaming deep sleep It was offered to us by sleeping and was an essential of a healthy human being.

[26:52]

But what Zen Buddhist and Buddhist meditation does It brings this blissful, integrative ease of mind into our semi-conscious daily life. It becomes an accessible resource.

[27:55]

We don't have to sleep to reach. And we can find it present in all circumstances as your practice matures. We can find it in all possible circumstances if it approaches our practice and develops. speaking about developed practice a little too much. But I think the significance of what I'm saying is we get to develop practice very quickly. if we look carefully and we question, and when we decide, for instance, to notice appearances, and we see that consciousness doesn't allow us to notice appearances very easily,

[29:20]

Consciousness doesn't allow us to rest in the differences because it notices the sameness, the predictable aspects. But we live in the midst of consciousness, define our life primarily through consciousness. And we live in the midst of our habits. And Yet we can make use of those habits to see if we can get ourselves out of our habits a little bit. you know, when I was 18 or 19 I was working at a restaurant on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

[30:33]

And, you know, the restaurant had a sort of house near the restaurant where the waiters slept. And I was in, I can remember very clearly, the lower bunk bed. and suddenly I woke up in the middle of the night and the waiter above me was sleeping and I sat there on the side of the bed and I don't know why but I had this kind of like what am I, kind of question. Or I just woke up with that question and I said, I'm an American. Yeah, and my ancestors have been in America for eight or nine generations.

[32:06]

Yeah, we forgot Europe a long time ago. Not really. And I sat there, but I said, I'm an American. But I couldn't figure out what that was. I didn't know what it was to be an American. I had nothing to compare it to. I hadn't been to Germany yet. But even if I had been to Germany or Mexico or Japan or some place, Really, I didn't know what it meant. How could I know it meant to be this so-called word, American? Now, as part of my demythologizing enlightenment, let me say that I would call this an enlightenment experience.

[33:21]

And I think it's the kind of experience many of us have had. And what makes it an enlightenment experience? Well, in this case it was a real shift into not knowing. And a shift into not knowing that didn't leave me. And we have many of these experiences which do leave us. And I say often that these experiences which seem to leave us are encapsulated in little clear bubbles.

[34:31]

And one of the things that leads us to come to meditation or come to Johanneshof or something like that is there are just too many bubbles floating around us. And we can feel some blockage, but we don't really know what's going on. And sometimes when we start to meditate, it's almost as if the bubbles pushes into meditation. They sometimes begin to pop. So we ask, in my case, When I couldn't answer the question, what is an American? Then I couldn't answer the question, what am I?

[35:44]

Then I couldn't answer the question, what should I do with my life? Because how do you plan a life when you don't know who the hell you are? Or what you are. Well, you have to, you know, I more or less finished college. But I actually did leave just before graduation. Because I didn't want to the depth of my feeling of not knowing, as I didn't want, you know, I'm not recommending this to any of you or to any of your children, it's just my own peculiar path. I felt I have to keep this openness.

[36:48]

And if I allow myself to have a college degree, it will suggest that I should do this now, etc. And I simply wasn't free enough in myself to both accept the degree and also be free. It took me five or six more years of kind of freedom, which wasn't actually very free, before I could sustain that freedom and at the same time take on the responsibilities of the world. It's nice to see you.

[38:00]

Same, same. Oh, same, same. Good. Okay. Now, one of, maybe we can tie up, no tie up, untie much of what I'm saying. By saying that one of the basic practices of Zen in particular A turning word practice.

[39:03]

Turning words are closely related to knowing the world as appearances. The turning word, very simple practice of what is it. And I think it's the most basic of all the turning words. And you just develop the habit of whenever noticing occurs, And at first noticing in the sense that you have the opportunity to say, what is it, might only occur every few days or something.

[40:17]

But you develop the habit of asking, what is it? Now, you're using the words here not as definitions I'm not defining this as a bell, but I'm using words to direct attention to the bell. But I'm developing the habit of directing attention outside of definitions. So I'm directing attention, what is it? Really deeply developing that habit is underneath all the koans.

[41:24]

So if a teacher asks you, what is it? I mean, if you're going to play the classic Zen games, you say, oh really, and you pour some water in it and drink it, it tastes terrible. I've done it. Doesn't it look like a teacup? Or you just ring it because what is it? It's a bell when I ring it, but until I ring it, it might be a teacup. Okay. This is taking a little longer than I thought, but anyway. Okay.

[42:33]

So what is it? So you get used to asking this question. While I'm speaking now, I'm saying things that appear And I can feel what I'm saying in my breath and body. But even in the midst of speaking, I don't know quite what it is I'm saying. I'm sorry. It came all this way and I don't even know what I'm talking about. And I'm a little surprised. So often I learn a lot doing this because I say things like,

[43:34]

You know, some of what I'm saying is familiar to you, but it's actually, to me, it's rather unfamiliar too. So I'm saying, what is it? Yeah, this room. You sitting in front of me. I don't want to say, who is it? That's less interesting than what is it. And I can't, just like I couldn't know what I am as an American, I can't really know what you are. I mean, I can feel your presence. And of course, you're... You're happening within my mental and mental sensorium.

[44:40]

But I can only know what my mental sensorium reveals to me. And not all of what you are you know, nor is it in my mental sensorium. So there's always a mystery. There's always something that isn't in the boundaries. And when you really feel this, it changes your relationship to everyone, to each person. When you are in a mode of predicting, You think each person is, oh, he's that kind of person and she's that kind of person and so forth.

[45:54]

But when you feel you don't really know. And you get in the habit of not really knowing. Each person is an incredible revelation. It's like the Grand Canyon appears in front of you. Whoa. Or a god. Yeah. Bodhisattva. So the habit of what is it leads you to whatness. That things change. are their definitions, but things aren't only their definitions.

[47:01]

Things are also, you can't say what it is. It's because you can't say what it is, let's call it what-ness. And when I feel the what-ness of this bell, or this glass, etc., this new platform, the whatness of it is not limited by the definition of it. Okay, so if I feel the whatness of things, simultaneously with the form of the things, And the habitual form of the things.

[48:08]

And yet feel simultaneously the what-ness. Okay, what's the central idea of Buddhist experience? Thusness. What is thusness? Whatness. What is whatness and thusness? Emptiness. Because when you experience things free of their definitions, as if there's an unlimited space here, unlimited time, This bell can be almost anything. It's pretty much limited to being a bell. And somebody made it and I think they even signed it. He had to say, well, this metal could be a bell.

[49:22]

And it's this sense it could be a bell, which is its hotness. And I can use it as a bell. So now, What-ness or thus-ness is a word for the experience of the world outside of the definitions of the world. So you see very quickly, we've gotten from, was ist die Welt, to, um, uh, The essential dynamic of Madhyamaka Buddhism, which is seeing the world as thusness, which means simultaneously as form and emptiness.

[50:29]

Okay, so the seminar is over. We've covered Buddhism in a pretty good way. We've gotten to the basics. Even cheering, you just got here and it's all over. Anybody want to say anything? I'm sorry I went on at such length. I got it unwrapped up and now we can unwrap it. What is it? I have the feeling that it is important that the questions have a certain quality. my feeling is that it's important that the qualities related to this question have a certain the questions related to this have a certain quality when I ask myself what's two by two when at last will be lunch time

[51:58]

Then it's more difficult to make this experience with you, Roshi mentioned. My experience is that what is necessary is there is a certain liking or wishing for these kinds of questions. I would have to like asking these questions which are difficult. And I must have a liking for what could happen to me when I ask these questions, because asking what is two by two is relatively risk-free. Two times two, you mean? Two times two, yeah. I like not to know what happens.

[53:22]

Absolutely, yeah. I have to like that something happens to me when I ask what I can't estimate beforehand when I ask these questions. I have to like that I don't know what I will be saying the next moment. Even it may be possible that nonsense comes out. That's my risk. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's also true that practice attracts people who find themselves asking themselves these questions.

[54:27]

But it also happens that people sometimes just get stuck in their lives. And when they begin to have the courage to ask themselves these questions or if somebody suggests they ask themselves these questions, If they can handle the unpredictability, they start to feel better. Someone else? It has to do with what Frank just said. In my case and as far as I know many other people they came to practice because they asked for the purpose or sense or meaning of their life. And I would say that you don't really like the question, it is somehow a necessity, because you are so dissatisfied with the life you have, but you can't somehow pin down what it is that you are dissatisfied with.

[55:49]

It is when you are not content with your life, you... I can do it myself. I'm sorry. So I think it's not so much that one likes this kind of question, but it's a necessity. Somehow one is discontent with one's life, but one cannot really pinpoint what it is, why one is not content. We're not the outer... circumstances are pretty good and no one understands why what what is your problem where is your problem everything is great and you cannot explain it you cannot explain it to yourself nor to others but somehow you are discontent and you don't like it at all but you start asking these questions and then if you're lucky you find something like Buddhism yeah Okay, someone up first.

[56:55]

The question, what is it, I'm going on with it for a long time and the feeling is that like hitting a wall. It's clear that when I take the concept of the bell away and then it's not a bell, then what is it? And my consciousness at once looks for another definition of it and it doesn't find anything, it doesn't find one and I have no explanation what it is then. So I can always point to this wall on the level of consciousness, that I ask myself, okay, I can't answer that differently now, and I actually have to wait until I have a different form of it.

[58:16]

Again hitting and touching this wall of I can't say what it is and they have just to wait to some time making that different experience. I hadn't thought of something better. But you're good at hitting the wall, I've noticed. You don't like it, but you hit it very well. It's often with an insight. Was a great problem in my life and now I don't want to be. Okay, someone else. Yes? If you put the concept of what is on matter or on When you apply the concept, what is it, to a material thing or something solid, it's quite simple.

[59:26]

It's easier to let go of the concept. But when it comes to human beings, a lot of things appear immediately in the consciousness. related to persons, this is just very much stuff which comes up, and it's meshes, and this is nets, and it is connections. Meshes and nets? Like a network. Like a network. Oh, a spider web, yeah. And connections which appear, which are quite... Yeah. I got the picture, thanks.

[60:27]

And when I try to apply this to persons I realize these webs and the walls which I have erected around myself. And it's very difficult for me to, through this all, just make this happen or make this possible. I understand. So let's, I'm not going to try to respond, but that's an experience of all of us, I think. So, someone else? Yes? Yes. I deal with this relation of predictability and being free in each moment to experience that as an activity

[61:53]

And when there is a known frame or a known surrounding, then I succeed more on this, better in this. When there's a known frame? Yes, something which is... Familiar frame, yeah. Okay, yeah. Also zum Beispiel hier, wo es einen Stundenplan gibt, wo ich genau weiß, wie das ungefähr so abläuft. Here, where there's a schedule and we round about know how things are going. Da bin ich irgendwie von diesem Zwang, etwas bewusst zu denken, befreit. I'm relieved of this compulsory way of thinking something.

[63:19]

And this makes me freer, this makes the moment more free and I don't experience persons, people not as history as much. But when I'm in a new situation, for example at work, when something new is introduced, I'm very much in my thinking, within my thinking. So I love monotony. You love monotony. And I repeatedly look down from my balcony or I repeatedly wash my dishes that gives somehow freedom.

[64:34]

It's easier for the presence of the moment or being present in the moment is easier. So in other words if you can have a certain degree of predictability it also gives you a certain degree of freedom. So in other words if someone said where are you going this weekend You might say, oh, I'm going to Johanneshof because it's so monotonous. People ask me, where are you going? Oh, I'm going to the Black Forest again. But we like it to the so again. yeah it's a you know it's not not completely understandable but to some extent understandable of course why a place like this helps with its schedule and its predictability helps us to have a certain freedom that we don't have coping with within the

[65:59]

within the habituation of our daily life. And that's part of, of course, an underlying question we have in our Sangha now. Should we get the property across the street in addition to Johanneshof. One thing that Dogen points out, which I think is very interesting, when he talks about the necessity for 90-day practice periods, he emphasizes the practice, realisational practice is most likely when you practice within a mature sangha.

[67:14]

And it's interesting because it's not an idea of you as an individual develop your practice. It's more you as an individual develop your practice within the context of others' practice. I think the simplest way to make that clear, this emphasis, which I think is a little unusual for us, is if you want to be a writer, say. You can only develop as a writer within the midst of the tradition of writing.

[68:19]

You can't be a writer in a language you just make up. No one could read it. You become a writer by absorbing the language of your time. And the tradition of writing that's part of your culture. You may be creative and different than other writers. But it's only possible within the context of the writing of others. So Dogen really emphasizes it's not you as an individual who becomes enlightened.

[69:21]

Or you in relationship to your teacher. Or the tradition or the practices. But it's you in the context of others also practicing. So if we ask what is the world, One answer, a traditional answer. The world is Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Thank you for making lunch. So we could explore that, but not just right now. What does it mean to say the world is, your world is, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha?

[70:30]

Okay, someone else. I have difficulty with the sentence, what is it, because In the end, at the end, there may be nothing left. That's right. Exciting, eh? So off-rugend. Und dann nehme ich eine Abkürzung. And then I take a shortcut. Und die heißt, wenn mir etwas begegnet oder wenn ich etwas festschreibe oder festlege, When I meet something or I define something, dann sage ich, ist das so? Then I ask or say, is it so?

[71:33]

That gives more ease and more serenity. And my question is, is this possible or allowed? It's allowed. Everything is allowed. It's your choice. Someone else? In the beginning you talked about our Western culture. And the prototype of the western questioner Dr. Faustus came to my mind. And how different our approach to this question is. We take all what we know to forget what we know in the West or in... Oh, Buddhist culture.

[72:59]

Oh, yeah, okay. And to come to an authentic experience. In my experience there was a dialogue between the world of consciousness and the world of awareness. In my experience there is a dialogue between the world of awareness and the world of consciousness. There is a certain compulsiveness within consciousness Then awareness comes and says stop, you will get out of limits And anger may appear?

[74:12]

Awareness comes then, or what? Awareness comes, also not allowed. It sounds like awareness is a kind of policeman for you. Yes, but it is also a very active and lively way to be in the world. Okay, good. Anyone else? Yes. How? Regarding what you said, Agata, the habits, the familiar framework, what we already know, is for me, situations in which you always come back, always look out of the balcony or enter the same room, is an incredibly good way to practice and practice.

[75:27]

the things that don't work, because you always notice where you don't, and then you stutter, or it works better, or something like that. That's why I do this, what you're supposed to do has somehow been addressed to me, yes? So, to practice, to practice, I think it's incredibly good. No, I'm supposed to translate all of this. Thanks. No, no, no, you don't need to. Known and repetitive situations and surroundings relating to what Agatha said, I find a very good way to practice things again and again and feeling the shortcomings and filling all the probable developments. So this is sort of, for me, is a necessary surrounding within that to see or notice differences on developments. That's what I need, actually. Yeah, there's a lot of much more than popular ideas about Zen.

[76:35]

There's a lot of intellect and wisdom required. I mean, you know, when you come to, ideally at least, if you come to a place like Johanneshof, the schedule is set up to help. And if we do a sashin, the sheer thrust of the sashin of sitting so much, does a lot of the work for you. But particularly as a lay person, as a lay practitioner, You have to use your intelligence and wisdom to create situations that are fruitful for practice.

[77:55]

An example I gave when I was, say, 19. And going to college and working in the summer and so forth. The fact of one's age and my age at the time and what happens when you have to decide to leave home and all that. pushed me into this moment, which I sat up in the middle of the night, and with this question forced on me, Out of my usual habits, what is my life? What can I identify as something I know? All right. But usually, if you want to practice, you have to create these situations for yourself.

[79:30]

I mean, in the midst of your habits, which is 99% of our living, because that's We function through our habits. You have to create times. It can be like coming here. Or create times when you take a walk or sit and look out the window or something. And when you try to drop your habits and be in sort of an unpredictable space where anything can happen, Dogen speaks about practice period as unlimited time. So you feel your life, not as, well, I'm such and such an age and I've got another 20 or 30 years, I don't know what. You just feel your aliveness.

[80:40]

Without a sense of lifespan or comparison. And you can try to find that in your meditation practice periods we have here. Just sit in the midst of your senses. As much as possible without an externalized world. And notice when your thoughts start externalizing your world. You may be able to do nothing about it. But if you just notice this embodied habit of externalizing the world in your thinking, Which isn't necessarily bad. We have to think our world through. But sometimes we can step out of our externalized world.

[81:57]

Into our direct experience of whatever we experience. And we can only do that as I say occasionally in homeopathic doses. It does begin to transform our life. It incubates our life. It incubates within our worldviews. Thanks again for translating. Thank you very much. Thanks for all what you said. I appreciate it. It's great.

[83:14]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_70.67