And then there's the Zen way, which is to, after you learn some basics of concentration, bringing, counting and following your breath, basically you don't try to concentrate at all. you try to maintain your posture and one of the reasons more than any other Buddhist school there is such emphasis on posture Because if you really just emphasize your posture, you can really let your mind be completely free. Yes. What you said about caring... Isn't it like what you said yesterday, the difference between a field consciousness or the experience of a field and the inside-outside distinction?

[01:19]

So if I have a field experience, I cannot care because I'm connected to it. And if I have an inside-outside distinction, I can quite easily not care, because what is outside, I don't care. Yes, okay. What you said reminded me of what Roshi said yesterday, namely the difference between this field experience and these two differences, to have a field experience and to have an inside-outside difference, So I would like to say a couple of things and then maybe we can take a break. I would like to say a couple of things and then maybe we can take a break. Let me explain how I use the word attention, intention and so forth.

[02:23]

Intention is a... Intention is a view. At the root, let's say, at the root of your mind are views. And Buddhism is most concerned with your views. And that's why vows and intentions are important because they're ways of working with views. So, views are those attitudes that are at the root of your consciousness before thinking arises.

[03:36]

Okay. The example I gave during the seminar is that space separates. And if you have a fundamental view that space and distance separate us, when perceptions sense perceptions and mental conceptions arise they'll be controlled by that view. And they'll reinforce that view. And sense information to the contrary will be denied or feared. If you have a view that ghosts are not possible, a ghost could walk through this room and you would

[04:38]

Not, no, couldn't be. If you view, if you think that every room has a resident ghost, then just by an open window you say, did you see the curtain move? Now an intention is for example to develop the open yourself to the possibility that space connects. And it has a radical different sense. If this is something connecting, is it mind or what is it? So it's a big change to think that space connects. And sometimes you can feel, I mean, if you put your hands together, sometimes you can feel a little spongy material in your hands.

[06:07]

If you're good at it, you can bring it out quite far. Okay, so the intention... is not a view. And the intention then is rooted in something somebody told you or wisdom or some intuition. You have an intention to be a good person. Okay. Now, that intention has to have has to be activated. Attention is the activation of an intention. So, say that I repeat to myself space connects I have an intention to repeat that but I can only do it by attention by saying space connects now I'm making this quite I'm making this kind of ridiculously simple but still the framework is there

[07:34]

So you have an intention and you keep repeating. And that effort to bring attention to the phrase, okay, is attention. And that effort So attention doesn't necessarily mean concentration. It's just you direct that sense of awareness and consciousness towards something. Now the object of that attention can be a specific thing or everything all at once. Okay. I'm leaving out the word mindful so far. Okay. Now, you can say a square. Let's take a simple thing.

[08:43]

You can say a square. Oh, we have a... Hey! Hey! Flipchart, I'm flipping out here. Okay. This is also quite simple. A square is four sides. I should be having here and they stick on to such a safe thing. But a square is also, you can think of it as four dots. If you think of it as four dots, then you can also think of it as five dots. Because the square is generated this way.

[09:44]

Because a square is generated this way. And what is the fifth dot? The fifth dot is the center. What else is the fifth dot? Because I stood here and drew it. You can't have a square unless something makes it. So we can also think of the square as, as the center which goes both up and down. When you just say a square is this, that's mental space.

[10:47]

When you say it's five points, it's physical space. Because the physical space There's various ways I can suggest this to you. The physical space doesn't forget that I drew it. And let's say that before neighbors For a farmer, a farmer before the neighbors. So when you have neighbors, you make your field where water is between the farms. But if you have a big estate,

[11:48]

or you're the first person in what someday will be Colorado you can make your field any size you want you're grazing your animals and then you decide they have to go this far then there's something over here and the field is created from the center And in a more physical sense of space, there is always a center the center is the power which makes the square exist so every dot has a square in it or a circle because as soon as it moves it starts creating something so This is just a little fun exercise.

[13:18]

And it's really in Asia, they think of a square as having five, made of five points. Because they have this bodily culture, it's rooted in the same traditions as Buddhism. Where you never abstract things, And the square is just this thing in some kind of flat mental space. You never forget that someone drew the square. Or the square is generated out of some physical reality that you put your cattle down and you want them to go this far, this far, and it makes the field. So if you see four people there's the euphor right here. A nice group. So if I'm used to practicing mindfulness Now I've gone from attention to mindfulness.

[14:41]

I'm mindful not just of each of you separately, I'm mindful of the space you create. I'm mindful of the field you create. Now if you're a movie director you have to be. For example if you show two people sitting at a table like this You think one is about to say something difficult to the other. But if you show them sitting together with soft curved lines between them, you think maybe they're about to fall in love. So those shapes are actually existing between all of you.

[15:42]

And all of you are constantly changing those shapes. And there's a kind of elasticity and energy in that. No, so I can teach myself to bring attention to the field of the flowers and a sort of center of the whole arrangement. And I can get in the habit of bringing my attention to each flower as the center of the arrangement. So I can get in the habit of looking at each one of you as the center of this whole group.

[16:57]

And actually a kind of center shifts. So you can start feeling somebody over there speaks and I can see the energy move this way and somebody else is thinking about something, they don't even say anything, I can feel the energy go that way. So when you begin to not... Mindfulness is a combination of bringing your attention to your walking, thinking, whatever you're doing, breathing. Developed mindfulness is to bring your attention to particular things without losing a sense of the field.

[18:05]

So mindfulness would be each object is always... absorbing the field and generating the field. And we can't forget something else, though. It's all happening in your mind. So mindfulness is also to be mindful of the mind which is observing. So mindfulness would be to have each of you centered. and do not lose a sense of the field and that all of that is in my own mind and all of this is simultaneously in each of your minds yeah so that's just sorting out the vocabulary

[19:07]

So why don't we have a break? Does that work with your spouse? Yes. Okay. And with little Leopold. Yes. He's a cute, happy little guy. Yes, he is. Proud father. Always. Okay. Thank you for translating. What? Oh, let's come back at 20 to 12. And how's Leopold, Julius? Oh, they're both asleep, I hope now. You see, working mothers can practice and even translate.

[20:34]

Except their teacher keeps shrinking and then getting bigger. So, shall we continue the discussion? You had something you brought up. Do you translate yourself, or should I do it? I already have a question for you. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I wanted to ask you about the fact that you can't separate the two of them, that they belong together, and that you can't separate them from each other. And I wanted to ask you about the fact that you can't separate them, that they belong together, and that you can't separate them from each other.

[21:43]

Do you want to translate for me? Yes, please do. You want to say, yeah? Can you say it in English? Yesterday you talked about space and time, and you said we can just separate these two terms, and I asked you why should we try to separate them, we can't do them together, if there is a light for it. What would you say? Light. What about darkness? When you look up, it's darkness, it's black, but there is white. There's light. When someone says there's a flashlight, it points it to another thing, and there's nothing. I see nothing.

[22:46]

But when the people see it, I see the light. I can see light. Maybe I see darkness, but I can see the darkness being light. That's good. I like that. In fact, the Sandokai says, don't see darkness as darkness, don't see light as light. Well, I mean, no philosopher so far, no philosopher or scientist can do much beyond describing some aspects of space or time. You can show there's a relationship. What's interesting though is that to me is that you can't separate them. as I said it takes time to get from here to there but you can't I don't think not only do I don't think can you simply merge them I think the I prefer the emphasis of of

[24:16]

Of not trying to find a unified concept for them. Okay. At least also, this is my own feeling, but also it's hard for me to separate my own feelings after all these years from what's the... teaching as well. But certainly I can only teach and practice those aspects of the teaching which have become my own feeling. So in this case both my own feeling and the teaching the emphasis is to look at the numerous particularities of space and time. And in general, to resist any reduction to an abstract space, or a container space.

[25:43]

And one of the things I like about the preposterous Big Bang theory, hard to imagine, I mean, I guess it's measurable and backward predictable. But it's an unbelievable idea. That everything was like tinier than that and then suddenly in a few seconds everything was as big as this. Yeah. So science says so, so we say okay.

[26:50]

And I don't say it's not true, I'm just saying it's an unbelievable idea to believe. But then I'm amazed that airplanes don't fall down. Even though I have a general understanding of aerodynamics. But one aspect of the Big Bang I like is that it didn't happen in space. in space it created space as in the expansion so I think the way I imagine that is putting both hands in one dishwashing rubber glove It's the heck of a way to wash the dishes. It's not a very good way to wash the dishes but if you pull your hands apart that's space. And we're doing that all the time.

[28:06]

We're sort of creating space like that here all the time. And the Buddhist understanding is that there is no sort of container space here. There's space we're always generating. But there's a tendency to think there's some space out there and it goes on after I die, etc. Yes, something will go on after each of us dies. I hope so anyway especially if you die soon because I'm planning to stay alive for a while but after I die it will be different Maybe not measurably different, but different.

[29:07]

Especially different for me. Okay. So I tend to... You notice there's optical space. And maybe there's... For example, when we see in European cities representational space. And I would say that where you see all of these statuaries and fountains with statues. Of military people on horses and naked women spouting water in them. This is representational space. Who's the power, who conquered it, etc. And it's interesting, in Asia you don't see any space defined by statues and stuff like that.

[30:11]

Not in most of Asia. Then you have represented space. Like in the 1500s, the king of Spain said all Spanish colonial cities have to have plazas of a certain kind. so Taos, New Mexico and Santa Fe, New Mexico are both built around plazas that are still there and represent what space is and then you have biological space Some kind of cell swimming upstream in a glucose gradient.

[31:19]

This cell doesn't know what's going on, it's just eating and swimming. That kind of space is going on all around in us. And it doesn't interest me so much to try to combine these. I like to kind of differentiate them. As someone says, I like to paint six fingers on one hand. What do you mean six? At least a thousand. The palm has a thousand. There's actually a koan. Why does the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara have so many hands and arms? Sometimes presented with a thousand arms. And young men said, oh, it's like looking for your pillow at night.

[32:31]

This is good, isn't it? You've got my, no. And then there's practice space. and then there's space and the immediacy of space that arises through mindfulness. Then there's the space of string theory and twelve-dimensional or ten-dimensional space. Ten or twelve? Both. Some theories are ten, and they're all folded in. We don't see them because they're folded out of sight, those dimensions. We can mathematically imagine them, but we can't visually imagine them. So from the point of view of practice, I look at the space of many centers, the space of one center. But I think it's...

[33:35]

I've asked myself the same kind of question you asked. And tried to find, I remember I said to Sukhiroshi once in a car in the 60s, after some months of thinking about this, I said, there's no time, there's only space. I was driving. He said, yes, there's time. So then I had to start all over again. What else? I could continue my list of different kinds of spaces because it is amusing to me, but I'll stop. I have a different question. When sitting? Some of us feel a very strong heat in the body, in the lips.

[35:04]

You feel very strong heat in the body sometimes. I don't know how to deal with it. I feel fear when this comes up. Yeah. May I say? That when she yesterday fainted, she felt this heat coming up in her body and thought she might faint, so got up and went out and fainted. This is her social training, not to faint with people, but go out in the hall and faint. Zen training is to just faint in the middle of everything.

[36:10]

But at Creston we have to be a little careful because we sit up pretty high on a platform and if you faint... But heat is definitely something that happens in practice. And there's so many ways I could speak about it. I'd have to talk really particularly with you about what the experience is. But generally, as our thought body our thought shield drops away now I can to give you an example of that if your arm is asleep and you can't find it you know And then you find you can move one finger.

[37:21]

Suddenly you know where your arm is. But you don't know where your arm is, you only know where the image of your arm is. Because just because you can move one finger doesn't mean your arm is awake, it's still asleep. But if you can locate any part of it, then you know where your arm is because you have an image of your arm. So one of the teachings in Buddhism, some of the teachings are about how to Free yourself from thought coverings. And one of the meanings of that is that we have a thought image of our body as well as our physical body. And our thought image controls our body. Now, with practice, you begin to crack open, literally crack open

[38:25]

that thought shield. One aspect of that is when you're sitting you begin to feel no boundaries. Or you don't know where your hands are. Or say your thumbs are slightly apart. And you try to bring them together. And they seem to be, you know, like the sun and the moon. Where the heck are they? And they're about a month apart. But if you look, they're, you know, right next to each other. And as our energy changes as well, and functions in the more chakra-like system, this changes the sense-based thought image body.

[39:48]

the sense-based thought, image, body. So these kinds of things actually happen to us. And through just sitting these things happen. And And then this heat energy changes. And often it feels like it's coming up through the body. And other things can happen too. So that's just saying something general, but best is to see if you can sit through it and find some awareness in the middle of it. And the best attitude in general toward things that are new to you in zazen is welcome. Okay, what else?

[41:26]

What else? When you sit or when you communicate on a certain level with each other you also have the possibility to influence the other person. that you can influence yourself on a different level. And I have to admit, every now and then, with the positive people,

[42:28]

When I try to manipulate people in a positive way, only in a positive way, is it Yes, can you do it if you practice Zen? Is it okay to do it? Well, there's no way not to influence. In general, depending on the situation, well, let's see, how can I start this?

[43:41]

I suppose overall the tradition in Zen, I will speak about it as a Zen Buddhist tradition, is you relate to people in the ordinary way everybody relates. You may try to, through mindfulness, listen to them more deeply. And you may practice the paramitas of generosity, patience and so forth. And you may practice the four unlimiteds of empathetic joy. friendliness and so forth and if a person is with you you may if you see both there when a person is with you there are always a mixture of of

[45:20]

of rising and sinking or negative and positive elements. And you choose to relate to the positive elements usually and not the negative elements. I mean, if you're the teacher or you have some special permission, you may then also relate to the negative elements. Okay. Now, if you're in a teaching practice relationship with someone, And they have given you tacit and explicit permission to have a more intimate relationship.

[46:29]

To have a more intimate relationship. Then you listen to the person more with your body and chakras and so forth than you would otherwise. Then you might, if the person seemed to need it, you might try to generate a particular state of mind and communicate it to them. But you don't tell them you're doing this. And you don't try to influence them. You just, if they get it, they get it. If they don't, they don't. Because you still want to leave everyone their own freedom.

[47:30]

So when there's this special relationship, in Zen practice, that's kind of the rules of the game. And if you started using some special connectedness with others to get your own way, some people do this and it's powerful, but in the end it's not very good and it probably makes everybody sick. But in Japan they have this kind of idea. Business people have some word, what is it called? For instance, if there's a group of business people sitting around the table and there's Germans, Americans and Japanese they always put out yellow tablets, a glass of water and a pencil.

[48:37]

And it's a kind of theater. We know how to be Western. So you're sitting there with your glass of water and you're supposed to be concentrating on the paper and taking notes. while the Japanese are all concentrating on their hara and they try to establish connections with the other Japanese in the room under the table with their hara and they actually think there's a business it's written down in business manuals Which they assume that Westerners can't read. Again, I'm simplifying this a bit, but anyway, this is this general idea. So afterwards, the German and the American business people are sitting down.

[49:54]

One of them says, you know, I kept trying to bring up this controversial point, but every time I brought it up, I didn't have the energy. But the Japanese have always decided before, let's not let that point come up really. So they try to pull the energy out of the room and into their stomachs when there's any possibility this topic would come up. The Japanese definitely think they have a kind of shamanic subculture that Westerners don't get. Maybe it's partly true. I'm only a country boy from America. What else?

[51:01]

When you were talking about your daughter and before that when you said that for you even to say that you're going to practice then for the rest of your life is to weep. I was envious. I thought it must be so nice to have such a powerful dedication. And I was sure I would want that, or your daughter would want that too. And then you tell her, of course, you should do what you want. And don't care if it's directed towards anything. Well, you have... and verified your life in such a strong way. And also when you were talking about mentally ill people, you know, to drain us out from deep down, when you said, um, mildly neurotic people, well,

[52:07]

who don't really care about anything at all. And I think many people are like that. I would say that I'm mildly neurotic, and I think not caring about anything at all comes from fear, and it's a disease that many of my generation have. Of Polish? That's what I said, excuse me. When Sergio spoke to his daughter and told her what kind of problems she had, or how he tried to find a study for her problems, I thought about what he had said before, or even said in relation to his Zen practice. It is also new to say that he would be too weak to practice Zen for the rest of his life, I envy him for this power, this dedication, and to his daughter, of course, she should like to do what she wants and not worry about which goal is the right one, but as I said, I envy this dedication for one goal, and then I also said, as I said earlier,

[53:29]

spiritual or mental people who can deal with these people, who can help these people. Richard said that if you can't help people who, so to speak, have a mild neurosis and don't know exactly what they want, or don't really care about anything, or don't have any real love, and I am glad that I feel addressed and I think that for many of my generations it is something that we envy or that we are looking for, a kind of commitment to something that is so perfect. Yes, exactly, and how we I'm sorry. No, I didn't see you on TV. Well, particular examples are important.

[54:59]

So maybe what I said was a little too much general, like it applies to everything. Could you stop the tape for a minute? Listen to this. Yeah. My view of things at present is there are immense possibilities right now in our society. And I think our society is in very deep trouble. And our environment in particular is in very deep trouble. And in some ways I don't think there may be much of a world for my great-grandchildren, say. But on the other hand...

[56:01]

On some other level, you feel somehow it's going to work. It's worked for a long time. But I think that, for example, for my daughter, who's quite smart and good at things and so forth, she's never going to starve. So she doesn't have to worry too much. Somehow she'll survive. So for someone like that, I say, do whatever you like. If you just follow your nose. When you have as big a nose as people in my family, it's pretty easy to follow. And So what am I, what do I say to her, for example?

[57:25]

I suppose by implication, though I don't lay a Zen trip on her, I say what I do say for people practicing. Find in your in your walking, talking, etc., what nourishes you? So I'd say, take the courses, find the teachers who you feel a real connection with. So I'm speaking to her about caring about the teacher she's talking to. Don't just take the courses you're supposed to take. Find who the best teachers in the school are and study with them. So I'm... So I'm definitely not saying things don't matter or whatever.

[58:41]

And I don't think her intention should be the same as mine. So I don't try to convince her that she should do Zen or something. But I do suggest implicitly, do what makes you feel complete, do what nourishes you. And trust where that leads you. So a lot of the people in her school are motivated to become doctors or architects, but she just takes what interests her. And of course the teachers like her too, because she's there, kind of really interested in things. So, for instance, they just asked her to teach one of the classes her last year in school. And that's really because she's just willing to do everything.

[59:53]

So I think this stripping away, again, This question in this koan comes, I told some of you at the break, the first part of the story, which is not in the main case, is this lay adept asks, what about where thought can't reach? This is itself an interesting question. What about where thought can't reach? Now, I think it's wonderful.

[60:56]

When I was in school, I couldn't go to my teacher in high school or gymnasium or college and say, what about where thought can't reach? can't reach. Though at least offhand I can't think of who I could have asked that. Or what's the pure body of reality? I think it's wonderful to have a teaching, a practice where you can ask such a question. So this lay adept asks, what about where thought can't reach? And the young man answered, it can't be fathomed. It can't be understood. Fathom means to reach the bottom. Now, that basically young man has just repeated what the monk the lay adept said.

[62:00]

But there's a tradition in Buddhism to repeat the question when someone asks a question. Because repeating the question establishes connection. It establishes alignment. so the monk pressed further and then said what about when the tree withers and the leaves fall and then from the shimmer of the depths shimmer is when water of the depths Yun Men said, exposed in the golden breeze.

[63:03]

So I think that we do, if you work with this sense of what is my inner request, you really have to keep putting everything down. I mean, I think everybody has sometimes serious or mild suicidal thoughts. The other side of something very similar is to ask yourself, why do I stay alive? Why bother? You know, it's endless getting up in the morning, you know.

[64:10]

I remember somebody told me their first thought when they were little, they were in a crib looking up at their parents. And they remember, they think they remember thinking, does this go on forever? Yes. up and down, smiling, having your pants changed. Really, is this all there is? Yeah, so what I practice is stripping down to, do I want to wash my face in the morning? I went through various periods of time, but sometimes as long as two or three months, of examining, well, of trying to do only what I really wanted to do.

[65:18]

Of not doing anything I didn't want to do. And observing when I did something whether I wanted to do it or not. And only doing things which I involuntarily did. Sorry. Only doing things which I involuntarily did. And only doing things like I would say I don't think I want a milkshake but suddenly I'd be in the milkshake shop and there'd be a milkshake how the hell did that get into my hand luckily I'm not an alcoholic um um So I tried to see, well, okay, how's it feel not to wash your face?

[66:37]

By noon, it's a little unpleasant, actually. So I concluded, usually I like to wash my face. So I slowly built up, rebuilt my life into what I wanted to do. I don't know if this makes sense. Yeah. You look at your own big, strong energy. Do you look at it as something you found, something you built? Well, I had... How should I answer?

[68:06]

It's something I wanted, something I noticed, and something I built. And of course, what we say, for instance, What is a forest? A forest is the bird's path. I think it's a great way to think of a forest. A forest is a bird's path. And it's always changing. And that kind of thinking, for instance, in... in Japanese cities. And I really am not saying Japanese culture or anything is better than our culture.

[69:10]

What interests me is to use contrasts so that we open our own thinking. Japanese try to build cities so that, traditionally, so that when you go between point A and point B, you can almost always take a different route. That's a different concept than our cities where we try to make main roads. We always go to that and we go here. And it's interesting that different cultures have a different concept of how they should put ordinary things together, like how houses are next to each other. So it makes old Japanese cities very interesting, because you can never get to the end of them. There's endless explorations. And I find medieval... or where you can find them still, medieval European cities have a lot of that feeling too.

[70:25]

So, and that's like the forest is the bird's path. And I think if we had a concept of the forest being a bird's path, we wouldn't be so free to cut down the environments of animals. we replant the trees but you can't replant the environment and the path the way in Buddhism is like the path of the birds through the forest for each person it's different Of course, if I look at my... You asked the somewhat personal question.

[71:53]

Not personal in the sense of private, but personal in the sense of particular. And there are a lot of factors. But if I said... I would say that the main text of the context was my teacher and my sense of absolute and unfathomable integrity. Absolute and unfathomable, which means you can't reach the bottom, integrity. So I loved him, but I'm capable of loving various people. When I look back, much of my path came out of loving him.

[73:04]

But it wasn't just loving him. It was this sense of a person who was trying to lead a life like we hope somebody on the planet leads. And I think it's interesting to look into your, let's go back to this innermost request. One way to explore this innermost request in addition to putting all your bags down and only washing your face is to imagine for yourself what kind of person do I wish lived in the world I wish I could meet someone like something yeah And I think when we're children, we have some desire.

[74:25]

I wish there was, you know, there's your mother and father and they might be pretty good. Or very good. But we still have some desire that there be some kind of ideal person out there. And I think that's implicit when we look for it. teacher in college or we look for a friend, there's an implicit hoping this person fulfills certain ideals. But this process of searching never will find such a person until you decide to be that person. Why expect someone else to be that way if you can't expect it of yourself?

[75:28]

So Suzuki Roshi was a person who decided to be that person. He decided to be that person that he hoped someone like that would exist on this planet. So it was a tremendous relief for me to see him. And so with considerable failure, I've tried to do the same thing. And although I don't succeed, still my intention is unrelentingly to try. And to accept my poor representation of the lineage.

[76:29]

Sorry to be so serious. So should we sit and end now? Is this a good time to stop? What would you like to do? Is it too early? I'm happy to continue. But you know, there's a tradition of Zen lectures. The teacher gets up and says, practice hard, be good, and then he goes, sits down and goes back to his room. Yes. And you don't have any teacher anymore? You. You? Well the relationships, when you have a real teacher, even if the teacher dies, the relationship doesn't end.

[78:04]

You can't always find another teacher. But the process of practice itself is teaching. So it's an honest answer when I say, my teacher is you. So please don't forget that. Thank you.

[80:59]

With mindfulness, after a while, it becomes possible to rest your mind in that space before thought arises. It's called something like resting the mind in mind itself. Okay.

[83:51]

The ability to really rest the mind in itself. Well, there's certain skills involved. Like being able to withdraw your energy and sense of identification from your thoughts. Or to be mindful enough to notice the little moment before thought arises. These kinds of skills and practices help. But the root of being able to rest the mind in itself and to rest the body in itself

[88:49]

Is in coming into trusting yourself. Trusting just being alive. Yes, before you die you might like to have a few more minutes. Just to be alive. Oh, you have those few more minutes right now. Just accepting and trusting being alive. There's a deep ease in this. And in that, this ease and trust, Mind and body tend to settle into themselves.

[90:14]

And everything becomes much clearer. And a kind of brightness. Each thing has its own light. Acceptance and trust are not so easy to come into fully. This is our practice and why we practice sasen and mindfulness. And it's the heart of bodhisattva practice. Thank you.

[92:46]

Thank you.

[93:29]

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