I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, but my body doesn't follow the schedule very well anymore. But I really want to keep doing this with you, so thanks for inviting me to do this today. What's funny? It's your thing. Yeah, but I'm a sideshow now. Oh, okay. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, as I say, I really want to keep I really feel we're together in trying to develop this Dharma and this Sangha in this world.

[01:03]

And I find myself innerly, I keep reviewing, what's this all about? Yeah. And I think most of us, when we practice, we just start to practice. You know, we sit down and... do Zazen or we practice mindfulness, you know, we just start. Those of us who start, at least, just start. There's a few left who don't, but we'll work on that. And I think for most of us, we start with Zazen and the practice of mindfulness. And those of us who start, they just start. Not much more. They just start. Yeah, and just doing it is what it's all about, right?

[02:24]

But sometimes, and this is what I do, I keep finding myself reviewing, where is this happening? And how is it happening? And what is happening? So let me just take those three words, where, what and how. Wo, was, and wie. Wo, was, and wie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wo, was, and wie. That's the Sesame Street. Now you're singing the Sesame Entry song. Wo, was, and wie. Wo, wer, wie, wo, was. I didn't know that.

[03:26]

There we go. Hey, we are all brought up on Sesame Street. Not me, but, you know. I don't know. What did he say? He said you were part of it. Which part? All these big fuzzy guys. That's who we were thinking of, I think. Oh, well. Yeah, so where? Also, wo? And we're practicing where everything changes. And I've discovered over these years that it's very useful to look really carefully at simple things. So if we were going to have a motto for Zen Buddhism, it would be, everything changes.

[04:31]

Wenn wir ein Motto für den Zen Buddhismus hätten, dann hieße das, alles verändert sich. Aber das Motto, das lautet nicht, einige Dinge verändern sich, sondern alles verändert sich. And everything changes is quite different than some things change. Because when you say some things change, it means there are some things that don't change. But that's not what Buddhism says. Buddhism says everything changes. So you almost don't need the word change because there's nothing that doesn't change. So we could maybe have change, changes, everything. Or change, change is changing.

[06:10]

So when you look at that, carefully you recognize you're in a different world. You know... If I... I've done this not for a while, but occasionally I do this. If I take these beads... Jetzt habe ich das schon lange nicht mehr gemacht, aber manchmal erkläre ich das so. Wenn ich diese Kette nehme, und ihr euch das anschaut, und wenn ich sie anschaue, dann ist es viel schwieriger, sie zu beobachten.

[07:16]

And if I'm moving too, it's really hard to observe them. So what does that tell you? That simple example. You need a reference point. And the first reference point when I do this is attention. If attention is the reference point, what do we notice? Even if I don't swing them around, And ask you to bring your attention to it. Your attention with it. Your attention will go to it for a little while and then it does something else. So here I'm speaking about our practice as a construction project.

[08:28]

You're not born. You're born under construction. Du wirst mitten in der Konstruktion oder mitten im Umbau geboren. Ja, okay. And you're not clearly, you know, you're not born with a trained or stable attention. Ja, if everything changes, we can hardly, and the word Dharma means to hold. Wenn alles sich verändert und aber das Wort Dharma bedeutet zu halten. So what holds in the midst of everything changes? Was hält inmitten von aller Veränderung?

[09:33]

So that's the very, you know, you couldn't have a more basic question in our lived life. What holds in the midst of everything changes? Und in unserem gelebten Leben könnten wir keine grundlegendere Frage stellen. Was hält inmitten von allem, das sich verändert? Because if something doesn't hold, you have no reference point. Weil wenn nicht irgendwas hält, dann hast du keinen Bezugspunkt. Also musst du einen Bezugspunkt entdecken. Not a reference point like, you know, I'm supposed to go to school or, you know, the tree's still in front of the house that wasn't cut down. You need an inner reference point. At lunchtime, Tom, my old friend, was sitting here and has been part of this in various ways since we started. And Nicole and we were at lunch there briefly and talking about the confusion we had was where was left and right.

[10:50]

And I said, well, I could only remember where left and right is because I have a little mole right here. And luckily on my left foot, too, so I didn't get too confused. So people say, which is the left? Well, there's north, south, and here. Oh, yeah, this is the left, okay. And you said you had something like that. Oh, yeah, I have this. Yeah, that told you that was right. But that's not... Yeah, that's right? That's right? Okay, are you sure? I'm sure. And Tom had some similar kind of left-right thing, wasn't he? Oh, freckled. Oh, this is good. We need a reference point. And then you turn around, and left and right have turned around, or have they turned around?

[12:12]

You know, it's not very stable, this left and right stuff. So if I do, if you do accept, and I think it's, if you look at things carefully at all, we definitely need a reference point, even if everything's changing. Also, wenn du dir überhaupt irgendetwas gründlich anschaust, dann bemerkst du, dass du einen Bezugspunkt brauchst, selbst wenn alles sich verändert. And you want to establish experientially and not referentially. Und was du dann versuchst zu tun, ist diesen Bezugspunkt in deiner Erfahrung zu finden und nicht in Bezugssystemen. Okay, so, you know, here you're focusing on this, let's say. And you notice you can't focus on it for very long. You start thinking of other things or whatever. But you have an intention. And the intention... This also can be a reference point.

[13:31]

And what is the intention made from? Is it made from wood or beads? What is the intention? Where does it come from? So you have intention and attention. No, we're just starting real, this is obviously really basic. So you have an intention and you, after a while, you keep bringing the attention back to the beads or whatever the object is. And as Gerhard said this morning, after a while it's like a gummy band. After a while it gets easier and easier to bring your attention back.

[14:50]

And then at some point it comes back by itself. And eventually it just stays wherever you put your attention. So you've trained intention as part of your construction project. You've trained intention to be joined to attention. Okay, so after a while, you can, wherever you put your attention, if you're skillful, a yogic practitioner, it pretty much just stays wherever you put it.

[15:52]

And that's a huge event. You no longer have the same kind of psychological problems, psychological things. Don't take your attention away. You put your attention somewhere and And after a while, your attention, what I call it, I don't have words for it, but I call it wrapped around attention. And from when I say wrapped around in English, I also hear wrapped as in rapture.

[16:53]

Ja, und wenn ich wrapped around im Englischen sage, dann höre ich dabei auch, schwingt dabei auch das Wort rapture, also Entzückung, danke. So viel wie Entzückung bedeutet, also Samadhi oder so ein Gefühl von Glückseligkeit. So after a while your attention, whatever you look at, doesn't just rest there, it wraps around it, it almost happens inside it and from behind it. So in this construction project, we're investigating what we're constructing, which is this lived life. So this wisdom practice and the traditions, not just Buddhism, said, well, the first thing to really develop attention is attention to the activity of breathing.

[18:06]

And as I say, not the generalization of breathing, but the activity, and the activity of each hail, as I put it, the activity of the inhale and the activity of the exhale, the bodily, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, activity. And I think it's useful to explore this not just in Zazen, but also when you're going to sleep. Because if you can bring your attention and wrap it around the experience of the inhale, Weil wenn du deine Aufmerksamkeit zum Einatmen, zu der Erfahrung des Einatmens bringen kannst, und deine Aufmerksamkeit die Erfahrung des Einatmens umhüllt und einfach darin bleibt, und dann kannst du sie um die Ausatmung hüllen,

[19:42]

this attention wrapped around attention is something wisdom is teaching you. You weren't born with this skill. And these are the tools of the construction project. So again, if when you're going to sleep and you again feel the little bump when you Stop thinking and more just in your body, or that body. In thinking, the body is your reference point now, not thinking. And if your attention is fully wrapped around inhale and then wrapped around exhale, the things that keep us awake, they're not there.

[20:59]

Because your full attention is, and each breath is rather complex, so there's a lot of space for the wrapping around. And your attention lies entirely in the enveloped breathing and the enveloping of the exhalation. All the things that normally keep us awake in our thinking are no longer there. And every single breath is very complex, so there is a lot of surface around which the attention can envelop. So my experience is once you get really skillful at wrapped around hailing, you can go to sleep in one or two breaths. And if you don't go to sleep right away, then you have something else to study and investigate. Okay. So you've developed this skill which actually takes a few years to just have your attention rest on wherever you put it, wherever intention puts it.

[22:25]

Yeah, and now say that you are concentrated on this. Your attention is just resting on the beads. And I take the beads away. But you still feel concentrated. But what are you concentrated on? The beads are gone. You're concentrated on the field of mind. So in this construction project you've just created mind which you weren't born with mind.

[23:26]

You were born with awareness which you turn into consciousness but you weren't born with mind in the Buddhist sense. And in this construction project, what you have just created is spirit. And you were not born with it. You were born with consciousness. And consciousness usually transforms into consciousness. But in the Buddhist sense, you are not born with the experience of spirit. Okay, so now you're inseparable from the field of mind. And you have enough yogic skill so it doesn't go away. You're there. And then I bring the beads back into the field. And now the concentration is not on the beads, but on the field of mind.

[24:29]

And now the beads have arisen in the field of mind instead of generating the field of mind. Now, I'm saying all this to you and us and me. Because I think it's useful to have a sort of big picture of what we're doing, where we're doing it. So we're doing it in a world where everything changes. Change, change is changing. And you recognize intuitively or, you know, that I need a reference point.

[25:34]

So, ideally and Buddhism is a wisdom practice. It gives you a way, if you're a way-seeking person, this is a way to establish a reference point. Now, this may sound like a bunch of words, But it's a bunch of words I hope can give us a feel for where we're practicing. Because once I've got the feeling and the beads have arisen in the field of mind and are dependent on the beads,

[26:37]

The field of mind is independent on the beads. The field of mind is not dependent on the beads. Then all of you arising in my field, this or whatever field of mind. You're arising as sensorial objects. Not as psychological objects. Yeah, but just you're rising in the field, sensorial field of mind. Now, if I feel you as my field of mind, it means that the exteriority of this is now an interiority.

[27:58]

And that's what Buddhism means by nondualism. When the exteriority is experienced as an interiority, that's called nondualism. And, you know, there's some interesting things when you get there. You find out you can't be lonely anymore. Because you're not separated from anything. Whatever it is, it's just... Okay. Okay. So the reference point becomes, your reference point becomes the field of mind. And zazen, as I've said, is a physical shortcut to experiencing the stillness or the field of mind as a reference point.

[29:27]

Stillness is just one window or door to the field of mind. Silence is also a door to the field of mind. The field of mind doesn't have to be still or active or silent. It's just a background of everything that happens. So I'm conceptually introducing you to the field of mind. This is not neurology or science. This is exploring these things from your lived activity.

[30:58]

How it relates to neurologists studying consciousness, I don't know, that's up to them to figure out. I might be interested in doing it myself, but I don't have the training or equipment or experience. And if I said this to my neuroscience friends, and I said, you're not born with mind, they'd say, huh? What does that mean? But mind is something we generate out of wisdom in this construction project. So I'm again I'm going to define Buddhism as the practice of the individual investigatory practice.

[32:27]

Or the individual practice of actuality. oder die individuelle Praxis von Tatsächlichkeit. I would say this is pretty close to how contemporary traditional Buddhism is developing in the West. Ich würde sagen, das ist ziemlich dicht dran, wie sich der zeitgenössische traditionelle Buddhismus im Westen entwickelt. It's an individual practice of actuality. But it's also an individual practice with others. And that's why we're here. Okay, and the tools for practicing with others are, as you know, the four Brahma-Viharas, the six Paramitas, and so forth.

[33:33]

Und die Werkzeuge, um mit anderen zu praktizieren, wie ihr wisst, sind die vier Brahma Viharas, die sechs Paramitas und so weiter. And then, in an inseparable spectrum with phenomena. Und dann innerhalb eines nicht trennbaren, nicht trennbaren, untrennbaren Spektrums Which first of all takes the kind of archaeological excavation of the view that there's a difference between human and non-human. Which means there's nothing special about us. I could take this wonderful stick, which Tsukiroshi gave me, a teaching staff based on a backscratcher,

[34:49]

It's a teaching step because it reaches anywhere. Okay. And I can throw it away. I can throw it in the pond or I can burn it. And we can do that with the whole planet. I mean, you're all, and everything our culture has been, and poetry, and science, is, I mean, I cry inside when I think it's endangered. Wir sind alle, die Poesie, die Wissenschaften, alles. Ich weine innerlich, wenn ich daran denke, dass all das in Gefahr ist. But it's no more special than this. We are no more special than this stick. This stick is special to me because Sukershi gave it to me. You're special to me. But in the big sense, there's nothing special about us.

[36:09]

So one of our practices, I think, has to be to recognize there's nothing special about us. We're just a materiality among materiality, And we don't know what will happen. Everything changes. Everything changes. And now I want to make a jump or a leap or something like that. And I say it's a leap because I haven't figured out really how to speak about it yet. We live in a field of vibrancy.

[37:19]

The conscious dimension that we live in is very narrow. The biomass as I said the other day, the biomass of bacteria on this planet is greater than the biomass of all the plants and animals. And all those bacteria, etc., are communicating right now. They're in some kind of field of activity that we're part of.

[38:30]

They're outside of consciousness. They're outside of any articulated awareness. But they're not entirely outside of this generated field of mind. So mind-to-mind transmission is the transmission of this field of mind that you're not born with, that you create with others, and that our practice is how do we continue this field of mind. When I look at inspired painters, by their own practice of intentional attention,

[39:42]

They've painted their way into the field of mind. And usually the only way they know how to get there is to do another painting. And I think musicians, musician their way, compose, write, sing, their way into the field of mind. And that's what I find inspiring. There is something universal about it. And when I look at the painting painters, for instance, who have survived over many generations, It's the painters who I experience as having painted their way into the field of mind, which we share.

[40:59]

Now, what I'm going to suggest is that although There's no scientific explanation for some resonant field of mind. I'm going to suggest you try it on for a while. Generate an imaginal field of vibrancy. Yes, science has no way to measure this yet or ever, perhaps. But clearly the teachings of Buddhism are not based on a god, but something you might want to call a god if you had no other words for it.

[42:23]

The fundamental teachings in Buddhism assume an imaginal field of mind that we are located in. field of mind which we are located in and I'm exploring the word vibratory a vibratory field of mind which is the essence or quintessence of everything changing, changing.

[43:26]

And my experience is, and the tradition's experience is, is that when you develop this, let's call it imaginal field of mind, You recognize, you begin to hear, you begin to feel this field of materiality. if you can keep from interfering with it with consciousness and thinking, which again is a yogic skill as a part of this construction project, Everything begins to speak through you in nuances you can sense in your body.

[44:41]

And for not knowing what to call it, some people call it the three muses, some people call it inspiration. Some people call it teaching dreams. But this arises through generating the field of mind as the background of everything that happens. And this field of mind is the background and your reference point. And it's called the Dharma. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[45:40]

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