We proceeded in the direction of this topic, attentional awareness, yesterday, and we can't repeat everything we spoke about yesterday. But I would like to find some way to touch on some of it. And I'm going to assume that although these two words, attention and awareness, are familiar to you even if you don't speak English. I don't, yeah. But even if you speak English, I hope the way I use them is unfamiliar.

[01:04]

Because we're trying to reach into, to locate, discover a way of being that's unfamiliar to our usual conception of being in English or Deutsch. You might be able to imagine that I feel a little funny speaking to you about what it is to be alive. Since you all look like you've been quite successfully alive for some time. But I've spent most of all of my adult life trying to figure out what Buddhism means by aliveness.

[02:28]

Aber ich habe mein ganzes, mein gesamtes Erwachsenenleben damit verbracht, herauszufinden, was der Buddhismus mit Lebendigkeit meint. And it's taken me these decades to realize how overlappingly different it is. Okay. Now, yesterday, Gerald, Aisha Hiroshi, brought up the concept of the Buddha body. And then many people started saying, I want a Buddha body too, where is it? Well, actually nobody said that. But there was that kind of feeling. So, Gerald, maybe you could... Gerhard, vielleicht könntest du nochmal sagen, was du da gesagt hast und was dich dann zu diesem Wort Buddha-Körper geführt hat.

[04:18]

Ich hatte gesagt, dass vieles von dem, was Hoshi angesprochen hatte, oder alles, was Hoshi angesprochen hat, I said that everything you spoke about yesterday had to do with the body. You spoke about spine and breath and attention. And all of that is always in relationship to the body. And the background to my mentioning of the Buddha body has something to do with posture. And when I go sit on my cushion I assume the posture of a Buddha.

[05:36]

And it is like assuming the posture of that which you're talking about. It's some other realizing of everything you said in this posture. Okay. How can a posture be so important? So I'm in a posture now. Does that make me any different, better or enlightened? So why would some other posture make a difference? Yeah, that's an interesting problem. So because you brought it up and someone else brought it up too, I thought maybe I should start out speaking about it.

[06:58]

Because somehow the concept of Buddhism as a religion needs some sort of concept of a Buddha body. For me, Zen Buddhism is a kind of science. There's no belief, there's not much. There's faith in the sense that you have confidence in your practice. But it's, for me, again, something like the same motivation of neuroscience, trying to understand how we exist. Or I'm trying to, if not understand, understand, but rather maybe participate in the knowing of how we exist.

[08:18]

Yeah, as you can see, it's really sort of difficult to find words that reach again into what I would like to say at least. Okay. So the neuroscientist is proceeding in the way they do with their, you know, equipment? There are ways of examining the brain, the body, the neurological system, and so forth. And I and we are trying to, as Kural said, to study, examine, explore the body-mind through

[09:47]

the body mind that arises through this posture. The body mind that arises through this body mind. No, you can accept a lot of Buddhism without recreating Buddhism through your own practice. But the fundamental effort that will make Buddhism alive in the West, if it's ever going to be so, is that we recreate Buddhism for ourselves and for each other through our practice. And in particular through what happens in this sitting posture.

[11:08]

This regular sitting process. Again, some of you are never going to really sit regularly. So you can leave now. No. So... So... But being part of a Sangha, even sitting a little, we begin to get a believable sense of this Buddha body that arises. Okay, now I've tried to... I've been trying since yesterday to say, what could I use as an example?

[12:35]

And since I'm here, some of you are from Frankfurt, I thought I'd talk about Goethe. Not that I know much about him. I've read quite a bit of his poetry and not too much of it reaches me. Some of it I like, but again, it's in English, of course. Okay, but anyway, Goethe was a human being. Born of parents in Frankfurt and died in Weimar. He died in 1830 something, I think. 32. Thank you. He died in 1832.

[13:48]

I think he was 84 or 83 or something like that. Anyway, the Buddha is at least at that level the same. He was a person like us. And he had parents. There was no special birth or arising at the end of his life. No special arising at the end of his life? No special birth or arising at the end of his life. I understand, yes. Also es gab keine besondere Art von Geburt oder eine Wiederauferstehung am Ende seines Lebens. Yeah. And he was born in... Himmelfahrt am Ende seines Lebens. Supposedly in Kapilavastu, which nobody knows exactly where it was. Maybe it was on the southern Nepal or northern India, but there are several places it could be called Kapilavastu.

[14:52]

But still, he's a person born in a particular place at a particular time. Now, let me define, you know, this is just a little exercise. Let me define Goethe as primarily a poet. Now suppose Goethe, some human being that's part of our lives, has been part of our culture. Suppose that he discovered that when he wrote poetry, There was a kind of poet's body which came to the fore.

[15:57]

And it wasn't simply he as a historical person, etc., A kind of poet's body that probably other poets in other ages and even other cultures realize. And then supposedly he thought, well, you know, just as important to me as writing poems is passing this, the knowledge, the access to this poet's body to my disciples or friends or cousins or something.

[17:03]

And then let's further imagine that Goethe discovered that this poet's body, when he really looked at it in its most essential sense, it was free of the usual suffering, mental suffering that he had as a particular person. So then let's say he decided this free of suffering body that I've discovered The most important thing I can do for others is not to write poetry so much, but to pass this free from suffering body on to others.

[18:34]

Because I see this suffering all around me. And I see it as a cause. And now I've discovered that there's a way to be free of mental suffering. So now, how can I create a way in which I can show this to other person, help other people realize this free of suffering body? Wie kann ich jetzt also einen Weg schaffen, der anderen Menschen hilft, diesen frei vom Leid seienden Körper zu verwirklichen? Ah, yes, the Eightfold Path. So, he finds a way to show people the way to this free of suffering body.

[19:44]

Now, if Goethe did that, we'd call him a Buddha. The eightfold path counted in German. Yeah. So basically that's the conception of what the Buddha did. And I think it's imaginable that such a thing is possible. Well, Buddhism assumes that such a thing is possible. Maybe in some ways it's a little like in Christianity the Holy Spirit, which I guess can be realized by any Christian.

[20:49]

I don't know much about Christianity either. But it's interesting that this consubstantial body, three bodies and one God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Aber es ist vorstellbar, dass diese Dreifaltigkeit, die drei im Grunde genommen Körper, der Vater, Sohn und der Heilige Geist, dass das ein Großteil des Christentums zugrunde liegt, oder dort im Zentrum steht. My family in New England was Unitarian which is not Trinitarian. So I thought, you know, two, one, ah, I'll be a zero-tarian.

[22:03]

So I'm sort of a zen zero-tarian. Yeah. So part of this process is attentional awareness. The catalyst, the elixir, the dynamic of generating this free from suffering body Yeah, whatever. ...is related to attentional awareness. Okay. Now, you know, I... The magazines are full of now, you know, over full, as far as I'm concerned, with articles about meditation.

[23:36]

It's even better for you than exercise. And combining the two, you're, you know, a running Buddha. Die Zeitschriften heutzutage sind voll, von meinen Augen auch übervoll, davon wie gut Meditation für einen ist. Und es ist sogar besser als Sport zu machen. Und wenn man aber die zwei, wenn man das beides macht, dann ist man ein laufender Buddha. So I was thinking yesterday and today, what are some starting points or shifting points? Shifting points. Yeah, it's always difficult. Veränderungspunkte, Verlagerungspunkte. And, you know, what can I say in this, yesterday for some of you and today for most of you, that would, in a little bit tomorrow, would be useful to you in your own life and in your practice.

[24:42]

And in particular in your ordinary life, lay practice. Okay. So one of the keys is to see things as appearances and appearances in which you are interactive with that appearance. And then an understanding of what appears. And what appears is an activity. Appearing itself is an activity. And whatever appears is an activity and not an entity.

[26:01]

Now, again, this is one of those habits we need to develop as a practitioner. To see things as activity. Each unit is, let's call it, it's an activity unit and not an entity unit. And for you who are for the first time are fairly new to what we're doing, the distinction between entity and activity may not be so clear. And I don't know how clear it is in German. The words are the same. Oh, well, that's convenient. But entity in German is less common than in English. Okay. For those of you who are new here, or maybe not so familiar with what we do, the difference between activity and entity is not so clear.

[27:14]

And I don't know how clear the difference is in the German words. Now, I will follow up on this discussion with why this distinction between entity and activity is important and so forth. Yeah, and other considerations. But right now I try to emphasize primarily the fact and act of appearance. Okay. Now, When anything appears, this watch or this stone, what also appears?

[28:27]

The mind that notices the appearance also appears. And that's called the dual arising. I mean, obviously, I can't notice this stone unless I have a mind, you know. I held this stone up for the Buddha behind me, and he said, I'm already stoned, I'm not noticing it. So the only dual arising there were they're both stoned. I mean stones. Okay, but if this arises in my attentional field, my attentional field has to also arise. Now, any practicing Buddhist doesn't get very far in practice until they always experience mind arising.

[29:58]

And it's very easy to understand this rationally. But to have it be an experiential fact is not so easy. Because it goes against our habits. Yeah, it goes against most everyone's habit, but particularly us Westerners. Okay. Okay. Got that? All right. So you have to form an intention. She's much better at forming intentions than she pretends to be. To notice mind on every appearance.

[31:05]

And you kind of have to do it Pavlovian, mechanically. Pavlovian. Maybe you have to have a little electric charger every time you... Oh, I forgot mine today. Zap! I forgot mine is zap. Maybe if you want to condition yourself after Pavlov, you might need a little electroshocker, which shocks you every time you haven't noticed the ghost. Why are all those people from the Dharma Sangha walking around going zap all the time? What's wrong with those people? It's manufactured by Fitbit. It's the Fitbit Dharma Pulsar. Anyway, you have to do something like that.

[32:19]

I'm sure Amazon care... You have to do something like that mechanically till you really feel mind arising on each appearance. And as I said yesterday in a discussion with Manfred, And as I said yesterday in the discussion with Manfred, that a large percentage, in some ways most, of what look like rituals in Zen practice are really just for us slow learning people. kind of appearance reminders appearance embodyers so that

[33:37]

The life here, in this part of what a place like this is for, is to create a situation where there's lots of appearance reminders. And I said yesterday, you know, simply bowing to your cushion before you sit down is a reminder to stop for the appearance of the cushion. ist eine Erinnerung daran, inne zu halten, bevor du dich aufs Kissen setzt. And to stop for the appearance of your intention to sit. So the cushion appears.

[34:51]

And the mind that intends to sit appears. And it doesn't mean you have to do it in your lay life. I mean, if you're a lawyer, you don't have to bow to your seat in your office before you sit down in front of your other lawyer friends. Although, since I usually either live here or Crestone, where we bow all the time, And the only in between I have is the delta counter. And they've gotten to know me. Here comes the guy who's going to bow to all of us. I'm sorry. Yeah. Although Brian DeCamp is from Boulder and a computer programmer who started several computer companies, software companies.

[36:23]

A friend of Nicole's. I talked about the habit of Dharma practitioners to do things with two hands. And that's a little more discreet than sitting, bowing to your seat in an office. So Brian adopted doing things with two hands. And he had a men's group he met with, I don't know, once a month or something. And after about two years, one of the guys in the men's group said, Brian, why do you always do things with two hands?

[37:28]

Yeah, but... took that long before anybody noticed it. Maybe they felt it. Yeah, and that is a practice of articulating appearance. Since I mentioned that, and that's not a familiar story to some of you, Someone asked Suki Roshi many years ago, of course, what do you notice about being in America? And in California, you know, the pine cones are like this big, and in Japan they're about this big. And often Japanese people say something like, you have those big pine cones and everything, etc.

[38:38]

But Sukhirashi said that none of you do things with two hands. So after he said that, I began watching him. And if he passed, sorry, many of you have heard me say this before, but if he passed like this stone to Nicole, Or the salt and pepper or whatever. He used it as an opportunity to pass himself. So he didn't just hand the, here, you want the stone? There it is. She won't even take it when I do that. He would take it, move it into the field of his body, Not because it's a ritual.

[40:01]

But because the space is also space that he's generating through his own physical presence and mind. The space is part of him. So he brings it into this kind of energy field of attentional awareness. And then turns, doesn't just hand it, turns his body as if there was a light in his chest and he turns it toward Nicole. And you can see she needs a new battery. No, no. Too much. I can't translate. I just replaced batteries in two clocks. So I turn and I pass it. So then I'm using the stone as an excuse and a way of relating to Nicole.

[41:19]

Thank you. Okay. Yeah, you've been sitting quite a while. Maybe it's a good time to have a break. And we can come back to this sense of appearance. And how transformative it is To actually experientially live in a pulse of appearances.

[42:35]

What's interesting about something like this is we is we all live in a pulse of appearances. Or we live in a flow of entities. And then entities could be activities instead of entities. And the Distinction between each momentary appearance could be more emphasized. So what I'm talking about are ingredients we all have. We can just use them a little differently. And think about them, experience them a little differently.

[43:52]

And a body free from suffering might appear. Now, as we'd say in English, that's huge. Well, this is huge and fat. No, I'm not saying... Okay, let's have a break.

[44:16]

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