Yeah, I don't know what exactly I wanted to do, but I know I wanted to do something. And as I think all of you know too well, my main interest, concern is these days is the survival of this practice. I didn't encounter Buddhism in any serious way until I was in my mid-twenties. And I remember feeling, oh my gosh, I wish I could have known about Buddhism and even practiced Buddhism from, you know, when I was 15, not 25.

[01:15]

And I made a somehow in effect made a vow I will see if during my lifetime I can make it more likely that 15-year-olds or young people will encounter Buddhism in the West. And now with the help of all of you and Ryuten Roshi leading the practice period and residents and staff, I can devote myself more devotedly to this vow.

[02:29]

But the survival of this lineage, which is really... as I said earlier in the year, in the Ango, a teaching lineage, an institutional lineage, and a Sangha lineage. Yeah, and all of that's not separate from whether this practice survives in you.

[03:32]

Yeah. Because if it doesn't survive in you, with all the advantages you've had over three months practice period, etc., etc., you know, it's not going to survive. And how will this place as a physical institution and as a ritual or behavioral institution in terms of... I should turn to my sociologist professor here, friend, because a practice period is also an institution.

[04:44]

How will this place survive? No, how is this place and the institution of practice period be part of how it has been and how will it be part of your practice? Yesterday in the ceremony we said the footsteps of the Buddha have led you here. There's a whole world in that statement. I mean someone, all of us could say honestly to somebody, you don't need a place like Johanneshof to do Zazen.

[05:53]

You can do Zazen anywhere. That's true. But it's true only... Yeah, it's true in a very narrow focus. When I was in my twenties, I could have done zazen, but I hadn't yet seen the footsteps of the Buddha. I mean, I would never think of... I mean, you know, one of Gary Schneider, the poet's views is maybe meditation was discovered by hunters sitting and waiting for animals for a long time, and they found they got into certain states of mind.

[07:00]

And certainly enlightenment experiences are universal. They're not limited to Buddhism. But George W. Bush had an enlightened experience. He stopped drinking. His life transformed, but was transformed in a different context than if he'd had that experience in Buddhism. You're not joking. He had an enlightenment experience. I would never, although I knew something about still sitting and had experiences that led me to sitting, experiences from when I was 10 or 12, young, around that time.

[08:37]

I never would have understood the patient, durative practice of sitting without moving, of still sitting regularly. There are many examples of things I just wouldn't have thought of myself that I saw instantly practicing with Suzuki Ueshi. Now there are certain questions you can ask yourself which have to do with practice surviving in you.

[09:41]

For instance, you could ask among the various schools of Buddhism Most of them teach a rather phased practice. You do these things first, and then you do that, and then that leads to something, etc. And you bring those instructions into your sasana. Zen practice conspicuously doesn't do this.

[10:48]

Conspicuously means explicitly or something? Zen practice doesn't do this. Why? Why? In fact, your practice exists in phases. You yourself experience the phases. So then you can ask, well, if it exists in phases, why don't we teach it in phases? What are the phases? Et cetera. Well that's a very, I mean if you really try to enter into that question, much of Buddhism and the conception of what a human being is in Buddhism, in Zen particularly, will become apparent.

[11:50]

So when I met Suzuki Roshi, I found myself in the footsteps of the Buddha. And if, yes, one can do Zazen without... A Zendo or a Sangha. And it's certainly more likely if you already know about Buddhism. And if you already know about Zazen, how do you already know about Zazen? Because it came from others.

[13:01]

Who are the others? Well, first of all, Buddha is one of the others. And certainly we sit implicitly in the wide field of Buddha's awakening. That's part of our imagination. Okay. So if Buddha is one of the others, then the entire lineage of Buddha ancestors is one of the others. And they, over centuries, and it took centuries to work out the simplest things. They've worked out our teachings, the skandhas, the brahmaharas, the perfections, and so forth. This you wouldn't do on your own.

[14:15]

Okay. So the others, even if you're sitting by yourself, the others are part of your sitting. The entire lineage of Buddha ancestors are sitting with us. And it's impossible to separate our sitting from others. I mean, that's the basic vow, to live within the beingness of all sentience. The more Christian terminology is more like to save all sentient beings. But we could say maybe to live within the beingness of all sentience.

[15:17]

That means you're always practicing with and for others. And that surprisingly is what gives your practice the real power which might lead to various kinds of realization. because you don't have enough personal power for true realization you need the power of others, of all of us Okay. And then there's all those who will sit with us in the future. Or sit or join this practice in the future long after we're not present.

[16:44]

So if you do sit with a friend or two or three people, you're basically starting a send-off. And that's what happened here. Just, you know, something happened. Some of us began sitting together. So the zendo, or the practice place, is the intersection of the two invisible sanghas. One invisible sangha is the lineage of Buddha ancestors. Die eine unsichtbare Sangha ist die Leerlinie der Buddha-Vorfahren. And the other invisible Sangha, which is also here, is all those who will practice.

[17:59]

Und die andere unsichtbare Sangha, das sind alle, die hier sind, diejenigen, die praktizieren werden. And then there's the horizontal Sangha, that's us. Und dann gibt es die horizontale Sangha, und das sind wir. So the Zendo, or the practice place, is the intersection of the... horizontal sangha with the two invisible sanghas. And where we find the power to practice really in this shared sentience, which life is impossible without. Okay. Now, I was asked to participate through some friends in a conference on on the science of consciousness in Arizona next year.

[19:24]

And about ten years ago I stopped going to conferences. But this has seven or eight of my quite close, long-term friends in it, so I thought, oh, okay, maybe I'll go. And the conference is all set up a long time ago. It happens every two years. But they said, you know, maybe we can ask a few people to say something, so maybe we'd ask you, but you have to send us some idea what you might speak about.

[20:27]

So I tried to write something that I found it quite difficult to do because it has to be a few hundred words and it's got to say something. And as you know, I emphasize the worldview shift that allows you to enter into practice in which there are no universals. To explain what I mean by that, let me say that there was just, I would say, a huge cultural shift which occurred in Paris yesterday or something. A hundred and fifty-nine countries.

[21:43]

I won't name them. Wouldn't you be surprised if I could? No. Um... representing almost the whole world's population, decided on a somewhat agreed upon, I guess, has to be ratified by their countries, global warming, climate response, etc., Well, the science of global warming is convinced certainly the most governments of its truth and its expression on a daily weather basis. Still, a large percentage of the world believes that we live within a container framed by universals.

[23:10]

That time is a universal. It goes on without us. But it actually doesn't. It goes on through us. That space is a universal. That it was there before. That's not true. It's there through our activity. So, I mean, the simplest statement of that is that the Big Bang didn't occur in space. It created the space in which it occurred. That's hard to wrap one's mind about.

[24:36]

But the third universal, most people my age, grew up with, is the earth is one of the universals. It's going to have weather, it's going to do this and that, but it's going to be there forever. We're born in the earth and we die in the earth and buried in the earth and it's going to go on. Es wird schon Wetterschwankungen geben und so weiter, aber die Erde wird immer da sein. Wir werden in der Erde geboren und wir werden in der Erde sterben und so weiter, aber die Erde, die gibt es immer weiter.

[25:41]

Sobald du zugibst, dass die Erde nichts Universelles ist, dann fällt dieses Ganze auseinander. Time? Well, we're not ready to think of that yet, but intuitively you realize time and space also can't be universes. And universals are where gods live. You can't be a creator God and live in the creation. You have to live somewhere outside the creation. Yeah. So all of those people, nice people, smart people, who somehow believe in some kind of universals and a place for God, Simply can't accept that the Earth isn't a universal.

[26:57]

And it's easier, though it's easier to accept the Earth is not universal than it is to accept that space and time are universal. But they are conceptually linked. So, for me, I am interested in practice in the realm of non-universals. But I have to be nice in this abstract to people who practice meditation within Western culture. So I tried to write all the good things about practice within Western culture.

[28:10]

Okay, so let me read you the list. Meditation practice in the West has helped many persons realize a deep-seated calmness. hat vielen Menschen dabei geholfen, eine tiefsitzende Stille zu verwirklichen. So this is beginner stuff. Or maybe not beginner, but certainly basic. So you can ask yourself a question, have I realized a deep-seated calmness? If you want to practice for the beingness of all sentience, it might be good to make a vow to realize a deep-seated calmness.

[29:35]

practice for, can you say that again? If you want to practice for... Practice for realizing beingness within all sentience. Wenn du dafür praktizieren möchtest, dass du das Sein in allem Fühlenden verwirklichst, dann wäre es gut, diese tiefsitzende Stille oder Ruhe zu entwickeln. Which means, whenever you're not calm, you notice, hmm, what happened. Das bedeutet, dass jedes Mal, wenn du nicht ruhig bist, dass du es dann bemerkst. When did that not calmness happen? And then you develop the practice of going back to the trigger. And mindfulness, real mindfulness, means you know when things are triggered. Und echte Achtsamkeit bedeutet, dass du weißt, wann Dinge ausgelöst werden.

[30:52]

Usually we don't become notice things until it's too late. You're already pissed off. Normalerweise bemerken wir die Dinge nicht, bis es schon zu spät ist. Dann bist du schon angepisst. Or you already have a headache. You didn't notice that little ping that happens half an hour before a headache appears. And then you simply adjust yourself so the blood doesn't go in the brain in a way that causes a headache. That kind of attentional work is necessary if you really want to realize a deep-seated comes. That was the first. The second was an interior and exterior attentional awareness. Okay. So that you can explore what is an interior attention awareness and an exterior attention awareness, both of which are sort of a deeper, deep-depth mindfulness practice.

[32:27]

Then a greater integration of mind and body. And that also happens through investigation and exploration. Zazen practice gives you the taste of it. Then you realize it doesn't happen. It's only a taste. And you sort of wonder, why can't that taste be all of my experience? Yeah, I mean, if you experience something for one second, that's, you know, quite good. That could be your entire, every second of your life. That's a fact. With an allowance for certain variations.

[33:41]

A more realistically and inclusively woven personal narrative. inclusively woven personal narrative and that really happens I mean you know Freud gave us the hint by noticing that through associative mind or or free association, people noticed things that they didn't know consciously.

[34:42]

So somebody asked you, what's the purpose of meditation? And you could say, To discover and establish a way of living through awareness consistently and only occasionally through consciousness. Because if there's a greater integration of mind and body, That greater integration will also be expressed through the developed distinction between awareness and consciousness.

[35:45]

Now, the boundary between awareness and consciousness looks something like that. Please remember that. But for practice practitioners, They want to develop that distinction clearly. So it's a wisdom choice. It's not exactly biological. But through meditation practice you realize at some point this distinction has to be developed and evolved And by that, your personal existence that arises through awareness and consciousness is woven into a more inclusive narrative.

[37:07]

And dadurch wird deine persönliche Geschichte, die dann vom Gewahrsein wie auch vom Bewusstsein gewebt wird, wird dann zu einer einschließenderen, einer inklusiveren, einschließenderen persönlichen Geschichte. We're getting close to the end of my list. Also wir nähern uns dem Ende meiner Liste jetzt. So the next thing I have is an instrumental consciousness, consciousness. of psychological processes and habits. By ceasing to identify with the contents of mind, and shifting to identify with the field of mind in which the contents then can be observed. You can begin to see your own psychological head and patterns and so forth.

[38:28]

and begin to do something about it. And finally, a more intimate and connected relationship to the world and to others. Now there's quite a bit more, but I'll stop here. Now let me propose an answer to the question I asked in the beginning.

[39:45]

Why? How does Zen function through stages that you discover through meditation practice but are not explicitly taught? And here we have one of the reasons for the concept of Buddha nature. In a simplistic sense of the concept of Buddha nature, you trust that you have some kind of Buddha nature. But this goes against all of the teaching in Buddhism. Because you have no prior nature that's shaping you like an oak seed. An acorn shapes an oak tree. So it depends, of course, where you plant the acorn.

[41:09]

In any case, we could look at it in a somewhat more sophisticated way. is that when you live your life in the way everything actually exists, what does that mean? That's a black box which could mean anything. But you have to sort of enter it through your own heartfelt connectedness with others in the world. And the feeling in Zen Buddhism is some contrast to other forms of Buddhism.

[42:14]

And one of the ways you can see that distinction is in Zen, Buddha is our starting point, but not our goal. But... So what is... What... What is the dynamic of Zen then if Buddha is not our goal? A trust in how you actually exist. And that's pretty nebulous. But it all depends on you. And your own discovery of how you exist and feel best and so forth. und deinem eigenen Entdecken davon, wie du existierst und wie du dich am besten fühlst, und so weiter.

[43:29]

And really this functions through, the idea is it functions through the vow, again, to realize beingness within all of sentience. Und nochmal, das wirkt durch dieses Gelöbnis, das Sein oder Dasein durch alles Fühlende zu verwirklichen. So if you have a trust that somehow the planet, the cosmos and you all are sort of self-organized or own-organized. Wenn du so ein Vertrauen hast, dass der Planet und der Kosmos und du alles sich selbst organisiert, eigenorganisiert ist. So through Zazen practice, meditation and the teachings, Yeah, you come to, let's see if I can find words. A trust in not original mind, but an originary mind. zu einem Vertrauen, nicht in einen ursprünglichen Geist, sondern einen urspringenden Geist.

[44:58]

Also ein Geist, der in allen Umständen immer entspringt. Und in diesem Ursprung You have to practice acceptance to a profound degree. So at each moment there's acceptance, whatever it is. And then there's the discovery through awareness and consciousness. And you get so you kind of live in that space. And the practice of the Vijnanas is essential here. Because the initial mind is a mind formed through the senses. Appearance through the senses.

[46:14]

Then there's more subtle heuristic appearances. Like if somebody throws you a ball, you're not perceiving the sensorial ball, you're perceiving the trajectory. That's a relationship. And when I was a grocery store clerk, or a mail boy delivering I used to deliver about 65 newspapers every morning in those days you were paid in coins you almost never saw a dollar it was worth too much money So you go into these real stinky houses smelling of sofas which had never been aired.

[47:19]

And people would dump a bunch of coins in my hand for the weekly payment of their newspaper. And I got so I could just feel the weight of the coins and know they paid the right amount and put it in my bag. That's not a sensorial appearance. That's a kind of heuristic calculation. Yeah. So there's a world of appearances that are actually relational appearances, which is a more subtle form of practice, which I won't go into any further.

[48:30]

In other words, when the body and mind are functioning in the world as it is, and as the body is and mind is, There's a kind of basic knowledge that happens to you that's called wisdom. That's also called awakening. Okay. Now I wanted to... Two-thirds of my idea was I'd just sit here and we'd have a discussion. But now I've over-talked. Exactly one hour, though.

[49:31]

That's not too bad. I mean, it is too bad. Okay, yeah. Thank you.

[49:55]

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