Okay, we'll rerun the tape and start over. I don't know if that's possible. Okay, so what I was saying is I thought that with some shifts in worldview and some insights, I would just... that would be it. And from then on, I would just live the Buddhist viewpoints. But I'm still discovering 50 years later That it's taking me all these decades and I'm sure as many more as I have years left, not decades.

[01:04]

That for these shifts in viewpoint to penetrate the layers of being the layers of societal and cultural and personal being has taken all this time It is still taking time. And also I discovered that I can't do this without friends. And you are the friends. In other words, I found that not only is doing it together gives it the kind of power and potential depth necessary.

[02:40]

Power and potential depth. but also the comradeship, the mutual support is psychologically necessary. And I think we discovered that, noticed that in the practice period we just did, which she was the head monk at, or head monk, Yeah, which Peter and Evelyn and Vicky joined too. And Susanna. Yeah. And I think that the

[03:40]

Because most scholars are not practitioners, though some certainly are. It's probably partly that, but there hasn't been much recognition that what China actually brought to Indian Buddhism was the practice of doing it together. So even though we're, as I And to see what most of the persons, we're trying to find ways to do it together as well. Now, today we're getting started a little slower than, or differently at least, than I usually do. Because as most of you know, on this prologue day, Thursday, Friday day, before the seminar, it kind of officially starts tomorrow morning.

[05:28]

Yeah, I like to, you know, not have Zazen in the first period, Because, at least symbolically, I want to just meet with you prior to your good sasen. But today, one of the reasons I'm a little delayed is that And Ross, who is one of the practitioners at Crestone in Colorado. Father just died. And then, as soon as they get back, she and her husband from Washington, D.C., where he died, Mark's father died, her husband's father.

[06:47]

And tomorrow morning, they're going to do the cremation. And in Crestone, they actually pile up a bunch of brush and burn the body themselves. We didn't start this. I would have been happy to do so. It was just started by the community some years ago. As I told you in the car, it was first done illegally. And we jokingly called it Neighbors Burning Neighbors.

[07:48]

Because there's a program, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, that helps the people in trouble and have problems. So this became Neighbors Learning Nations. So they made it legal. They got permission from the state and they've got a big cremation platform and so forth. And tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. they're going to cremate Mark's father. In temples all over Japan, I've never noticed, and I've been in China enough, in temples all over Japan, in the back, behind the temple, there's a place to cremate.

[09:01]

monks and villagers. And I haven't asked Giorgio if we could find a place here in case somebody dies during the seminar. But there's no danger of starting a fire here. Everything is so green and wet. In Creston, it's high desert, so one cigarette butt can burn the whole mountain. Anyway, the problem is, my problem is, not yours, is that nobody at Creston knows how to do a ceremony at the center. Because Christian is in Boulder and soon going to come here next week and be here for the next seminar.

[10:10]

And Mark is an ordained person, but still nobody there knows how to do these ceremonies. And it's one of these things we have to sort out in the West. Because the way in which the Soto Zen lineage has developed. The ceremonies are mixed up with the doing of the rituals of ceremonies is mixed up with tantras.

[11:13]

And before you... And normally, before you train to show somebody how to do ceremonies, they've already received transmission. Because some of the concepts are about how you affect people at a distance and so forth, and that's not supposed to come later in your practice. So I had to do it by the first time such transmissions of tantric ceremonies has been done by email maybe. This is happening now.

[12:17]

Yeah. So I wrote about 15 pages last night. You know, you have to light the pyre and you have another way to light the pyre and you have to make certain gestures and move through the gestures. I had to describe all that, you know. So about 5 this morning I get it sent off. Because you can't say tomorrow morning they're going to start the fire and they don't have to know what to do. So anyway, it's for me an interesting problem.

[13:21]

And I'm sure they can do it. About four people are going to be involved in creating an altar from the cremation table. And sometimes the whole, much of the community comes, the Creston general community. But so far, and I've been to two or three of the local communations, Nobody has any idea what to do except pile up brush and light a fire. And then everyone just stands around. But how to bring all the people who are standing around into standing within the ceremony?

[15:04]

That has never been done before in Christa. That I know of. So Mark and Nicole is there now. Nicole Baden. We'll see how they can do this and engage the community too. Dogen, the 13th century Japanese Zen teacher, who, as all of you virtually know, is a major figure in our lineage in Japan, he didn't seem to do the funeral ceremonies and things.

[16:06]

For Dogen, it was more like the actualization of a wisdom practice. And the religious, so-called religious side, he didn't emphasize. But because of various things, I won't try to explain. A couple of generations after Dogen, the more religious aspects that we've also inherited became part of the practice. And we have to decide, of course, here in the West, to what extent we want to include religious practices as part of our practice.

[17:20]

But there's no question that when you look like you can bring order into situations, or whatever we would call this, people come and say, hey, will you do my uncle's funeral, or will you marry us, or something. But it's no question that if you can bring order into such situations, that people will come and say, can you please do the funeral ceremony for my uncle? Now, last year, I am in the annual regular Dharma Sangha Austria seminar, this one. I didn't speak about bodily time and textual time.

[18:22]

I don't think much at all. I don't. I did in the psychology seminar. But at least if I look at my notes, it's not until Sunday in the second seminar emphasizing psychology that I spoke about it. And since then, and even in the psychology seminar, I spoke about physiological time. Contextual time. Gestural time. and gestational time.

[19:38]

And since then, over the last year, as I've tried to develop and deepen this teaching, I've decided to call physiological time simply bodily time. And I've dropped gestural time. And I've joined gestational time into a way of understanding the Ilaya Vijnana. And Dogen speaks about how past time, present time and future time flow through you simultaneously. Now, you know, this is a concept.

[21:05]

But it's also an experience that you begin to notice as you're noticed more vividly than just kind of knowing about it. They become something you feel the presence of and participate in the presence of. And part of the development of meditation is to come into these mutual streams of time. But if we join this to the Alaya Vishnayana, then we have to look at how this happens with our sense of no subject-object distinction, or no experience of a subject-object distinction, sometimes, in which you feel inseparably connected or part of the so-called physical little.

[22:26]

Okay, so these are... considerations I've had during the last year of trying to develop this as an accessible practice for us as laypersons. And one of the things that I did say during my this seminar last year was I quoted Dogen saying sometimes sometimes I enter an ultimate state and offer a profound discussion, and simply hoping you, the assembly, are steadily intimate with your state of mind.

[24:01]

Now, explicating or unfolding this sentence was really what initiated my discussion of these bodily time, contextual time, etc. And in a way, when I do something like this right now, when I say this, I kind of want your advice. Is this, you know, one thing if we're together three months, but if we're just now, some of us meet once a year. Is this something that's even fair to bring up and expect you to participate in?

[25:08]

But if we're going to do this, try to actually practice thoroughly in this wisdom stream, We somehow have to engage, practice it at the level at which it most deeply and thoroughly functions. Okay. So let me, before, I guess we should have a break pretty soon. Let me just look at this phrase again.

[26:28]

Several phrases making a very dense sentence. Now Dogen, when he says what's translated as sometimes, He just doesn't mean well, occasionally, now and then. He means there are various times we inhabit. Now that's already a complex idea. Right now, what time, of the various times that are possible, what time are we inhabiting? And is the time I'm inhabiting a time you're also inhabiting?

[27:33]

Und ist die Zeit, die ich bewohne, eine Zeit, die auch ihr bewohnen könnt. Okay. So that's the first concept. Also das ist das erste Konzept. Among the possible times, I, A, A. Unter dieser Vielzahl möglicher Zeiten, ich, A, A. Now he can be One of his names can be I-A-A. Like I could be I-Crestone or I-Rastenberg. And I think I do notice that I'm a slightly different person in Rastenberg than other places. And I think you may notice you're slightly different in Rastenberg than otherwise.

[28:46]

Susanna was just in the winter branches and she surprised me by saying she was coming to Rastenberg. Which I thought was good news. And, but I... I feel in what she said that maybe she feels that in Rastenberg she's a little different person than she was at Yanisov in the Winter Branches. And those are the kind of distinctions practitioners ought to notice. It's not just that I go to Italy or India on vacation and I'm a different person. But if there's no uninterrupted continuum in the world, if there's no uninterrupted continuum, then actually each moment, as over and over again we say, is an appearance and slightly different.

[30:28]

And so how are you now and then How are you able, how can you notice the slight differences of moment after moment or now and then? Okay, so Dogen says, among the various times that are possible, I, Ehe, among the various kinds of persons I can be, enter an ultimate state. Which means he enters a particular samadhi.

[31:29]

A particular kind of concentration which could even in its non-differentiation can have characteristics. And one of the most likely characteristics is a strong feeling of no subject-object presence. No I-pronoun thinking. No thinking about things. Okay. I enter such an ultimate samadhi And through that samadhi, I offer a profound discussion.

[32:53]

And by saying discussion, he means, I'm saying something, but actually we're all in a mutual interior space discussing it. And although I'm offering what I'm calling profound discussion, I'm not expecting you to try to understand it. I'm only expecting you during this duration, at this time, to maintain a steady intimacy with your mind. I'm not expecting you to try to understand or remember just a steady intimacy.

[34:06]

Ich erwarte von euch nicht, dass ihr versteht, einfach nur ein fortwährendes, eine beständige Nähe mit eurem Geist. And so this also would be another example of a yogic skill to be able to maintain a steady intimacy with your state of mind. which doesn't mean mindfulness of consciousness means a non-arising, a steady intimacy with the mind when there's a non-arising of consciousness. When you hear this, at least if I heard this when I was 20 or 30, I would have thought, geez, no one said this in college to me.

[35:15]

no professor said don't try to understand what I'm saying just be steadily intimate with your state of mind if they had I probably would still be in graduate school So anyway, I think it's useful to look at these things. I'm not asking you to understand it. Just be steady in your state of mind. So let's take a break. Thank you. Thanks for transitioning. Thank you. How long?

[38:21]

20 minutes or 30 minutes? 30 minutes? It's so short. It's a 17. It's a quarter to 12. It's a quarter to 12. It starts again. Right. Don't forget. Okay. Very important that your breath is recorded, you know. Should I do it too?

[39:21]

No, we should do it together. Yeah, of course it works. There it is. And then Andreas will try to edit it out. Well, I think we should start with any questions you have about the simplicity and density of these statements of Dogen, my own too. Hi. Do you have the feeling that the word discussion is the best explanation of what is going on with the people?

[40:47]

Well, I don't know the Japanese so I can't tell you. But I think I don't find a problem with it in the overall feeling of the statement. And what problem do you feel, Hanna? Coming from this bone idea and looking at the word discussion, it's really more like mind playing with people versus dialogue where something is flowing through Yeah, okay.

[42:07]

Is this a distinction in Deutsch too or just English? Yes, it is about that I am not concerned with dialogue, as David Bohm describes it, and he looks at these words again and says that discussion is actually a word that comes from breaking down from the spirit. Versus dialogue means more a huge spirit. Okay. I would say that while Zen as a school is profoundly dialogical, the discussion in this case means turning it over and over in your own mind. Just as we might all take various points of view and keep turning the points of view over, we're not so much trying to make a connection, a dialogical connection, but turning it over and over to create a kind of field where seeds can be planted.

[43:38]

But if a practitioner came to meet a teacher in Doksanse, Sanse, would teach you not expect discussion, would teach you expect dialogue. Does that make sense to you, Hannah? Don't stick to one of you too much. Okay, someone else.

[44:39]

Sorry, it's a crystal clear. Yes. I have a question. And when you start talking, I find myself in a state of listening that's different than when I'm just listening to someone talking in the outside world. This is the inside world, yeah. Yeah. And from the statement, I was wondering, does this imply that the things being said in those moments or at those times... are kind of a co-creation, that they're only being said because of listening, or that they're... It's better to be like... But listening is directly to what's being said, or what can be said.

[45:55]

Could you say that instrumentally in Deutsch? Also ich merke, dass wir hier zuhören, weil Herr Bosch spricht, dass das eine andere Art von Zuhören ist. I spoke about it outside, and I just put in the statement that what is being said in this situation, how it is in this context, whether it is also complicated, that this kind of connection is also necessary for what is being said to arise, whether it should be high or low. I think that's a good and subtle point that you've noticed. I would say I don't want to speak to only what you can hear. Because that would limit what I could say. But I want to, if possible, establish a field of listening.

[46:56]

Which you can listen to what I say. and I also can listen to what I'm saying and then as you say we can establish a mutual field of listening Which then leads me to say things that I didn't know I would say. Okay. This is what makes it fun.

[47:57]

Okay, somebody else? Yes. Yes. When Dogen says, hoping that you are... Intimate? Steadily intimate with your state of mind? Yeah. The precondition for that would be that within me this state of mind weaves.

[49:04]

Weaves, yeah. Absorbs. Absorb, weaves? Yeah, maybe weaves, yeah. Absorb, I don't understand it. Absorb would be to be open and inclusive and just let it come in. And the word Zen is probably best translated as absorption. So in that sense, Zazen is sitting, absorption. And I think it's useful to look at each word in its fullness. Yeah, one of the you know one of the When there's a problem, people notice things that they wouldn't notice otherwise.

[50:30]

So, for example, now kids don't study cursive handwriting so much as they used to just a few decades ago. Because they're using a keyboard. And it seems like, you know, people study it, compare it, etc., but it does seem like, and I would guess it, well, it would be the case. that the physical act of making the word with your hands rather than just typing it out you're more shaping it out

[51:44]

affects how you think. And learning to handwrite seems to affect your thinking positively. And supposedly... learning to write computer code also has a similar effect as handwriting. Because you have to give attention to each unit. Then you have to think about the consequences downstream, as they say, as well as exactly what you're doing.

[52:59]

And the Japanese school system noticed years ago, not so long ago, four or five years ago, that the kids weren't learning the Sorbonne anymore. what is it called, the English word, when you have little beads and you move the beads? Abacus? Abacus, yeah. In Japanese it's called a soraban. So what they, in Japan, very commonly until very recently, when you have SIDS calculators, before calculators, Everyone learned to do their adding and subtracting on an advocacy.

[54:00]

And then when you get good at it, you visualize the abacus. And you can do it in your head. And I've seen, you know, when I lived in Japan, I've seen competitions among people who can do it in their head best. It's quite an exclusion. They'll say, and you have to establish a certain rhythm, how you say it. So say that this is a competition among us. So I say 252. And then in some rhythm like that I say 252, 735, minus 43. And at some point people can't

[55:12]

do the calculation anymore. Some people can get up to over 200 numbers and just get the number exactly right. Well, it was discovered, they've studied these kids, that When you can make the shift, first of all, learning the Sorbonne or the Abacus helps you learn to think. But when you can shift to visualizing it, it really helps you learn how to think. As this fits in with Dogen, sometimes some kind of minds And Japan is very aware, and East Asia as well.

[56:49]

As I've said often, they always assume the plasticity of the brain body. And that if you want to have a complex brain, you want a complex language system. So for the more sophisticated Japanese, and I've said this various times, but when MacArthur, General MacArthur, insisted on simplifying. He was the head of Japan when the Second World War, Japan was defeated.

[57:54]

He wanted to simplify and even create an alphabet instead of characters for Japan. And so that's the time when they limited the number of kanji for public use, like newspapers, to 2,000. Das war die Zeit, wo sie die Anzahl der Schriftzeichen für die öffentliche Verwendung auf 2000 begrenzt haben. Still, to learn 2000 kanji and its permutations still means that kids don't really read newspapers until they're 12, 13 or something like that. Und auch bei 2000 Zeichen mit allen Abwandlungen, die dazugehören, 2000 Zeichen bedeutet, dass Schulkinderzeitungen erst lesen können, wenn sie ungefähr 12 sind.

[58:59]

I don't know exactly what age, but it's later than we American kids would learn to read newspapers. If they were interested. So in Japan, a scholar will know 20,000 to 30,000 characters. That requires training your mind. It changes your mind to do it. My daughter, sadly, is now in her 50s, as you know. went to school in Japan from kindergarten through third grade. And one of the things they required her to do is have a rather heavy leather backpack, not plastic.

[60:03]

And you had to carry all your books back and forth. You couldn't leave any at home and you couldn't leave any at the school. You had to carry them all back and forth. To be kind of the weight of knowledge. It was considered to develop your posture and develop your physical relationship to the books. Yeah, okay. So how did I get into all of that? But Anyway, there's an emphasis in Zen practice in the physicality, the physical dimension of mental phenomena.

[61:24]

As I have often said, one of the truisms of yogic culture is all mental phenomena have a physical component. And all sentient physical phenomena have a mental component. And Yogacara Buddhism specifically assumes this depends on So this is an interesting dimension in this prologue day is just to sort of get us on the same page. So tomorrow we can roar. What about that? Stumble. Stumble. So a scholar of Yogacara Buddhism treating it as a kind of philosophy even a philosophy you actualize doesn't assume

[62:52]

that the prior condition for the practice of Yogacara Buddhism, which is basically Zen, is that you have studied and feel and become familiar with the physical component of of modes of mind. Then we tend to do it anyway. You sit down on zazen and you locate yourself physically and that physical location then generates a certain kind of mind. This is a sort of mind which is both.

[64:12]

body and mind and phenomena. So I think we notice, if you chant in service, I think you notice, I notice, that if I know a chant by heart, do you say in German, by heart, No, auswendig. From the inside out, you see. Oh, well, that's okay. Somehow, from the inside out. Yeah, from the lungs out. From the inside out is probably more accurate than by heart. Say you know the chant quite well. Or say there's a new chant we haven't done for a few months, or you've been away.

[65:26]

And you know it by inside out. But some parts of it you don't quite remember. So you pick up the sutra card and then you have to interrupt the mind that knows it from inside out. And switch to a mind that reads, a more conscious mind. And the conscious mind doesn't know it from inside out, it knows it from outside in. So you have these two modalities of mind sort of in dissonance. And then you just let release the consciousness and suddenly... something knows what the next syllable is.

[66:57]

So in this East Asian yoga culture, which assumes there's no predictable continuity, And if you really live your life with others and generationally, assuming there's no predictable continuity, Then you start developing a culture which is more rooted in moment by moment particularity.

[67:57]

And rooted it more and more, moment by moment, difference. And so what's confusing when you first start studying Buddhism is many words have lots of different meanings just depending on the context. Words are much more contextually defined, more often contextually influenced than in English words. Much harder to create a dictionary when the words are contextually defined. So that's part of what we're talking about here. that in a statement like Dogen's, each word, each phrase, even each syllable, carries its own meaning.

[69:25]

And carries its own meaning in a way that is different from its meaning confined to the word. And I can give you some examples of that, but not right now. Someone else? Yes. Well, I noticed that in this sentence of Togen's, the I and your state of mind is somehow emphasized. Your own state of mind?

[70:27]

No. Listener? No. Yes. He says, I am. And he says... Deeply, profoundly intimate with your state of mind. And at the same time you said without so much of a distinction between subject and object. I said that, yeah. He didn't say that, I said that. Yeah. So he points to each one's state of mind and intimacy with the state of mind. Yeah. You want to say that all in German? And at the same time, Roshi said that there is not such a strong distinction between subject and object. And yet, Dogen refers to this deep familiarity with one's own state of mind.

[71:32]

We can say, you know, now that we've spoken about the state of mind which knows things from inside out. And the state of mind which knows things from outside. We just discovered a way of saying it, outside in. Western culture, I would say, since Western culture, I would say, since Greek times, has placed emphasis on the mind that knows things from outside in. And the worldview reason for that is they felt the world itself reflected an outside-in reality.

[72:46]

The world itself was representative of an outside-in way of thinking. In other words, the fundamental definition of the world was outside. Defined by God or by some interpenetrating unity or something. Now, thinking that way, that there's an outside interpenetrating unity. It's very useful. But it's also useful to look at it from the other point of view. And this is what I'm always emphasizing is I'm sorry so often.

[73:58]

And when the determinative emphasis is on inside out, it changes how things are ensembled, how things are put together. Okay. So we could say simply, for the sake of, again, trying to get some way to grasp this conceptually, The Buddhist culture assumes that the determinative priority is the outside-in mind. The determinative priority

[75:00]

is the outside-in mind, not the reverse. The mind that knows the world by heart is the more determinative, forming mind than the outside-in mind. Now, if you give priority to the inside-out mind, you teach your educational system is going to be different. You teach people the abacus and then you teach people to visualize the abacus. Because the mind which can visualize the abacus knows the world in gestalts more accurately than the mind which thinks about the world.

[76:24]

So part of the skill of yogic practice which we can learn through discovery and learn through zazen is not just to learn your part in a play or your role in an opera or a chorus. but to have that state of mind which does know things from inside out, to be always present, both foreground and background. And so this is another way of saying the two truths of Buddhism.

[77:51]

To see the world in a fundamental sense or to see the world in a conventional sense. Know this simultaneously and give priority to the fundamental mind of wisdom. Okay, so now everything is crystal clear. Evelyn thinks it is or isn't crystal clear. Okay. Now maybe there will be confusion when I talk.

[78:54]

Okay. So there is at least a three-dimensional weaving. Weaving, yeah, okay. Visualizing the abacus, there I stumble at the word visualize because visualize keeps me at the eye. For me, it feels like dancing. Like the kanjis also seem to dance and float with each other. And remembering the entrance code for a door to enter into.

[79:57]

This is a way of movement where the fingers know which direction to go. And as well, visualizing the path the fingers have to go. And also, if you are tapping certain numbers, and the keys do a certain sound, it's also associated to the sound. And hanging within this weaving of shadows together. For some time I have been wondering what do directions do. What do directions do?

[81:18]

What kind of directions? Are there directions? Do you mean compass directions or traffic directions? Are directions like alignments? And my feeling was, this only happens if there is a center. And sometimes, sometimes, from time to time, when I am in a state, there is no center, there is a non-centered state. And sometimes, now and then, I'm in a state where there is no center, where there is movement, aliveness, and the center is changing so fast.

[82:26]

So it's just aliveness. Okay. So maybe there are no directions. Well, but you drove me here yesterday. And I'm glad you had some sense of direction and we'd still be out there somewhere. So I'm glad you had the modality of mind that was directional yesterday. But I have a problem with this with my wife. Because she has lots of maps in her mind. She's one of the most skillful people that I've ever known. And she assumes that if we're going from point A to point B, we should know how to get between the two.

[83:49]

And really, I somehow don't care. And fairly recently, I spent several hours in the city driving around thinking I'll find my way eventually. I could look on a map, but I don't want to bother. You know, it's like a woman is supposed to be like that, you know. And I made another turn, and I know this turn must be wrong, too. And I made another turn, and I know this turn must be wrong, too. And I made another turn, and I know this turn must be wrong, too. What city was that in?

[84:55]

I did this recently. I didn't get what city it was. It's very recent, though. But I discovered Tassajara that way. I said, where did this road go? But you do have to have both. And eventually I had to figure out because I was getting way late for whatever I was going to do. What you're right and what I'd like to speak about today is what you do in a world, if the world is actually interdependent.

[85:57]

And inter-emergent. There's no fixed boundaries. And with no fixed boundaries or margins, then there's no center. And if there's no center, how do you find yourself centered? This was a discussion for two or three hundred years in Buddhist. And since we're looking for a reference point right now, what time is lunch supposed to be? Do you know this is your place? One o'clock?

[87:00]

Usually. So thank you for what you... But the problem with visualization, it doesn't mean sort of conscious visualization. It means you can hold in mind a pattern. And that holding in mind allows a flow of awareness and knowing through the pattern. Bodhialization. Bodhialization. But instead of visualization, what do you visualize?

[88:15]

Well, you could say that, something like that. But if you think about the abacus, you can't visualize it. You have to see it and just let it do it. Okay. Someone else? Yes, one second. Giorgio's first because he was here before any of us. Giorgio is first because he was here before all of us. I find it very interesting, this old view, this Buddhist view from inside out.

[89:17]

Our culture is a culture of doing, and it thinks it has to bring everything in from outside. ... [...] At the newest research or not even the latest research from quantum physics is that through our mind we create reality. And I think this change, this change of how, the way you enter, could also bring forth a change in society. Because believing that it has to come from outside, it creates resistance.

[90:56]

And from inside, we can influence the field and the field influence the others. And maybe this could be a way to what more peace, to create peace. Well, I completely think you're right. And I hope it's as effective as it was. Ich denke voll, dass du recht hast und ich hoffe, dass es so wirksam ist, wie es nur kann. I think we can make it in our lives. Ich glaube, dass wir unser Leben da hineingeben. Yes, we can. In your quote from Dogen, I also like that you say, on two different ways the state of mind awakens from itself, describes a higher or lower state of mind. I noticed with this boat of Dogen, that Dogen approaches the mind or the state of mind in two different ways.

[92:17]

First, from himself, he is in his highest ultimate state. And he hopes that his students would be most intimate with their state of mind. Steadily intimate. So I noticed this discrepancy and it seems that what he hopes from his students is some kind of an instruction to approach this higher state of mind. Because it's not this ultimate state of mind, you cannot grasp it.

[93:34]

But if somebody tells you, be steadily intimate, So this gives you some kind of practice instruction how to approach it. Because this is something which you can imagine. It's closer, it's a direction. It's a direction for mindfulness. And it leads somehow in a samadhi-like state.

[94:36]

Yeah, okay. I'd be wary of calling one mind higher than another mind. Even though Buddhism often does that, presenting teachings, I think it's more useful to think it's just different. Or it's more concentrated. So let's try to recreate the situation. Assume that we're in that situation. Okay. I've been practicing pretty much continuously for 50 years, more than 50 years. And given that how long it's been I'm a complete failure. And Well, not complete failure, but it's... But at least I've been doing it for a long time with a growing gestalt of concentration.

[96:19]

So you have not, most of you have not been practicing as long as I have. And you've been doing other things too. Even if, like Paul Rosenblum, we've both been practicing nearly the same length of time. Ryuten Roshi. But still he's had a different trajectory of life than I have. So if he were here he also would not be necessarily defined by the particular state of mind that I'm lecturing from.

[97:33]

He also, even if he was here and had practiced the same length of time as I ever longer, he still has a different trajectory to his life. Trajectory? So it would not be productive of him to try to identify, perhaps or something like that, the particularity of my state of mind. So what Dogen is imagining is something like he's holding up a particular shirt Ja, that each of you have never seen before.

[98:43]

And it's sewn and soiled. Schmiert. In ways that are particular to this particular shirt. But each of you is actually a washing machine. Okay, and each of you has a lot of your own laundry already in the washing machine. Different experiences, different trajectories of life. The way we're most likely going to get on the same page in the same book is for you to start your washing machine going and then be steadily intimate with this.

[99:54]

Like you're looking through the little glass door. And then when you open the door, out comes the shirt that I'm holding up. And still, because there's no predictable uniformity, it won't be the same, but it will maybe fit. Okay. So maybe this is a fit time to stop for lunch. It reminds me of when you gave your lecture at St. Francisco and the recent paper one year ago. Oh, it's a couple years ago, yeah. Well, I don't know. Yeah. Well, anyway, there was a person introducing you.

[101:12]

There was a person what? Introducing you. Oh, yeah. And he said something which was a lot of truth to me. And he said... something like, I want to invite you to listen to the dialogue of St. Arthur Baker Roush. And I thought, that's interesting. Are there many dialogues? Are there different dialogues? What is the particularity of the dialogue of St. Arthur Baker Roush? So is this what you mean by what Richard said? Yeah, in effect, yes. And they were accurate, and there was a political dimension to what this person said. But... It was an accurate description of the Dharma. We each have our own Dharma. As Suzuki Roshi used to say, you each will have your own enlightenment. If you think... Enlightenment is some universal state which is the same for everyone, then you're in a theological world.

[102:28]

You're in a world with a center and with predictable continuity. So the emphasis to Zen schools is not that Buddha is our goal. Buddha is our starting point. That's very different conceptually than saying Buddha is the goal. Because for sure, all of you have had experiences the Buddha never had. And how you free yourself from mental suffering. And how you discover a fundamental but not predictable mind will be unique to each of you.

[103:34]

You... but not predictable, will be unique to you. Oh, your eyes are giving me the same color as your hair. It's great. Well, kind of a luminous light. All right, thanks very much. Oh, Giorgio. Please look at the sun. Sun watch. Sun yoke. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One or three suns should be, if it's built in the correct way, exactly in between these two.

[104:50]

Well, I can't see it unless I take a selfie. I don't know how to do it even. But I have the phone because I may get a call from Creston about the funeral ceremonies. I'm embarrassed to have it near me. But within the time frame of, within the galactic time frame, These things are fairly predictable. But I hear that the Milky Way and another galaxy are going to collide pretty soon. But mostly, they'll just pass through each other.

[105:54]

Because they're mostly space. But some planets might change orbits for another star. And the Earth should be punished for its human intervention. So I hope it ends up being orbited by another star. I don't know what I'm talking about. Well, I got quite worried when I read this. But the article said at the end, it's 200 million years away. So I felt, okay. So we'll have a little galactic predictability for another 200 million years. And this building may still work at three o'clock. This means we might meet here at three o'clock.

[107:06]

Oh, is that a good time to do it? Yes, sure. Okay. Is three early? No. Okay. Thank you all. Each. Matias, have you met everyone? Oh. I know some. You're not the one I came with. It's Matthias who's never been here before.

[108:07]

And this is Vicky who's never been here. Hi. Never been here before. I love you. No, I think I left my rock suit over in the breakfast place on the table.

[109:40]

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So what is the thing that struck you the most that we discussed dialogue about this morning? Well, I guess nothing. Oh, Eric. Just when you were thinking... So this is quite simple to do this.

[111:02]

You don't have to do this as a human. You stay with your body, if you know it or not. And you experience whatever is there. And that makes it. So thank you so much. Tomorrow you did the lecture. Yes, go ahead. Yes. Okay, in Deutsch. I hope it struck you in Deutsch as well. So, just as Uschi came in, I would like to say that in this case it is very simple that you simply immerse yourself in these destructive thoughts, but that your body and your body remains a phenomenon and remains a character in a way.

[112:18]

Yes, I'm glad you've realized how simple Buddhism is. This is what you said is quite true. Doing it is, you know, something else. Peter. This is intimate with your own mind or with your mind. I try to feel out where this leads, this statement, being intimately, steadily intimate with state of mind. So when I did this, it's close to what Eric just said.

[113:40]

It's the phenomena appearing. It's the wind. The wind coming in, the birds I hear, your voice I hear, not even following what you say. At some point, it's just the voice. And it really came up very suddenly with... I'm not it, but now it is me. This feeling is coming up that it's me. I'm here now, but it's still centered around my me. It's me. And then sometimes I experience that there is a shift possible. In this state, when you are very close with your mind and this phenomenon arises, and having it as part of you, there is sometimes this shift, It's hard to describe, but it's something like, this is so, sorry, this is so, and so, as if I were moving behind the emptiness, behind the summit, behind the emptiness, where the

[114:52]

So sometimes it's like stepping back behind emptiness, and then the self is not here anymore. So this feels different. And it can shift in a certain way during sasen. And this is, I am making experiences with that kind of arising. But my feeling is also that being intimate with my state of mind, this is also the kind of a passageway.

[116:01]

It's possible to pass through it and something changes. So what comes, it's nothing to expect and it's not even clearly a kind of space. It's a kind of space, but not in a way I experience space usually. Yeah, I would say in English it's maybe a kind of passageway that you pass along through, but not through it, but pass along it. Okay. Someone else? Thank you. It's quite simple.

[117:20]

It's fascinating and also demanding for me is in the statement of Dogen's steadily. This is beständig. Steadily. Okay. Someone else? Yes, Tara. I haven't been here in the morning, but what I'm dealing with and also in connection with this statement is intention. My intention changes. It's not like in the beginning. In the beginning, my intention was more self-evident. It's apparent or natural.

[118:37]

I don't know. In the beginning, it just was there, and it was quite intense, and now I notice I have to focus and even find it again, no matter whether it's intention to be with the breath or with a statement like that. Can I ask a question? And I'm asking myself, what happens without a deep kind of inner intention?

[119:46]

Does anything happen at all without it? Yes, it was a gift from God, that it was done so clearly, and now I have to look at it and work on it. And how I can pass this tool on to other people is my feeling. So my feeling is for a long time this was just there and it was like a gift because it carried me along. And now I have to look for it and it's a kind of tool that I'm looking for. Would you say that you have the same intentions but they're less strong? Or would you say that you... have a more complex intention, or some of your intentions have become automatic, and now you need to find something more subtle.

[120:50]

Would you say that you have the same intentions, but they are less strong? Or have they become more complex and therefore more subtle, so that it is more difficult to stick to them? Maybe both. On one hand, they got in the background somehow, and I'm not so conscious about it anymore. And on the other hand, they seem to be more subtle because of all these teachings and offers. So I have to teach less. Now I asked this question because I thought it might help some of the people who arrived at lunchtime.

[121:54]

So, yes. What struck me was at some point you said you don't have to understand And what I preoccupied with is the body. Because I've been doing a lot of body work, not really a good name for it, I think. And I have experienced that with getting so subtle and enhancing my body, I can really sometimes feel every kind of movement in the cells. I feel that there's such a growing understanding that I'm very differently in the world.

[123:03]

And that I think I have quite a lot of those experiences of subject and object not being different. At the same time that I'm wondering how much conscious, intellectual understanding of the Dharma doesn't need, because oftentimes during a lecture, I feel like I don't understand anything. So the experience I had, that I always do a lot of body work and that is very refined, that I perceive the body in all dimensions, that I have a lot of such experiences of understanding and of this So that was what your dog is. Yeah. Okay. Um, So it seems to me you've said that through the body, whatever we call it, work you've been doing, you've become much more intimate with the lived life of the body in the world.

[124:40]

But you also said you have a deepening understanding. And how would you describe that deepening understanding? Yeah. When you ask that, I'm not looking really easy to understand. But what I feel is... maybe more more presence and less fear in a deep way like being able to just be here and also a lot like shifts in perception like I'm out of nature and I feel like I'm just part of this field and it's not me and

[125:55]

And I feel it's through body experience. That's good, yeah, I understand. Deutsch, bitte. Also, dieses Verstehen, das Verstehen ist für mich, das Erinnerungsleben, das ich einfach nicht präsent war und weniger Angst hatte, Um. We're trying to, with each other now, trying to use words to describe or point to our experience.

[127:12]

And with each other, too. this is good. In general, the custom is in Zen and Japan, you don't discuss your experience with others. Traditionally, you discuss it only with your teacher. But of course, as the sangha matures, people become more peers in the practice. As the sangha matures, the members of the sangha become more peers. and there becomes a kind of development of the Sangha through our shared practice and I think we've actually as a Sangha become pretty good at that and without any sort of competitive feeling

[128:36]

If we were trying to give words to something like the practice of generosity, we could maybe call it no reward generosity. there's generosity without any expectation of a reward or need for a reward. And so that's then considered, no reward generosity is considered to be a sight, a sight, S-I-T-E, for my So we're trying to find words to... articulate our experience.

[130:15]

And in the teachings that we're all participating in, we're trying to find words to direct our attention or make our attention more subtle. And You know, I'm trying to find out how to do that. I only partly know how to do that. For example, if, and I'm sorry, I have to limit myself to English. I don't limit myself, I have no choice. And you said you weren't sure it's understanding. Sorry? She said she wasn't sure the word understanding was what she wanted to say.

[131:20]

And... I think that's right. But again, I'm limited to English in this, and what I can say, but understanding sounds like you're under and holding something up. like there's a truth and you're supporting it. So a more accurate word for what we're speaking about would be maybe understanding. But if I use a word like a made-up word, understanding, it sounds kind of weird, but... the understanding doesn't get at it.

[132:22]

Get at what we're talking about. And as our understanding becomes better, more accurate or something like that, we begin to have the same we begin to have the same ingredients we've had as our practice has been developing. And we have the same ingredients with each other. We've been doing this a long time together, many of us. So then it becomes an emphasis of Then it becomes a process of how you emphasize the ingredients.

[133:26]

Like a good cook has pretty much the same ingredients anybody can have in their kitchen. So wie ein guter Koch die gleichen Zutaten hat wie jeder andere in seiner Küche, aber wie sie ein inneres Stehen mit diesen Zutaten haben, ist der Unterschied zwischen einem sehr guten Koch und einem nicht so guten Koch. So we're kind of, I often jokingly say, you're going to either cook your karma or get cooked by it. But here, you're either going to be a chef of your karma or you're going to get burned in the kitchen. We'll start giving Michelin stars out for practice. Okay, someone else? Yeah, all better. When it breaks for me, it's what do you call it? I'll say anything.

[134:32]

I just sit with my inner stand. Standing inside something. For example, when we were at the Japanese restaurant the other day, you said, we were talking about your character, and you said, he's got a good view of what he's doing. You have to see what your body should look like for me. To wear, yeah. Among the several pairs of glasses, they're the ones I use. make it happen by understanding the context of understanding that liberty is in the root.

[136:04]

Just what you just said. Yes, please. These other people, they don't... So my question is, what is standing or standing? We were with Mr. Bauerbosch and we talked and he said that this body should be carried. And the question was, what do I understand now? That the therapist hears the body, that is, he notices that the body looks like a human being and the body looks like a beast? Or that you have a concept, you say to yourself, okay, it's like this and like that, with the body, with the body. Yes. For me, understanding is something quite bodily.

[137:30]

But as I use the word, I would say that it starts in the head. But when I have the feeling that I have understood something which I didn't understand before, Then it moves through the body and then it's a really satisfying feeling in the whole body. And insofar, I can relate to the word inner standing a lot, or somehow. But it feels a little bit too strict, like standing straight somehow. So it's much more soft and fitting.

[138:52]

It has something fluid. It's like the cloth you're wearing and the cloth you're wearing and the cloth you're wearing. They're all beautiful. It's sort of an understanding with cloth. So, and I would like to add something about body work, because I liked this before. If there is a fruit of these years of practice, then for me, for my own experience, it has nothing to do with understanding. but with something which I learned can be called practice body. I'm feeling quite young, but I'm not so young anymore. Well, by my standards, you're pretty good.

[140:20]

I'm really very grateful that I can fall back on something which I think I feel I can say is something like the practice body movement. During the past years I have been thinking a lot of something that you have talked about a lot. And that is that it's important that during satsang you change your perspective, you change your point of view. And this has not been an act which I could do intentionally.

[141:31]

But this is something that practice has done with me. Okay, good. Thank you. Yes, Krista? I would like to say something about understanding. I would like to say something to understanding. So for me, this has been a process which has been going on for years. And the conceptual understanding is not necessarily the opposite of the body understanding. And the conceptual understanding is not an opposite to bodily understanding. For me, it's a sowohl-aus-auch. It is an opposite to bodily understanding. So it's fruitful in both ways.

[142:51]

One influences the other. And my feeling is that conceptual understanding is important as well. And the deeper bodily understanding, it somehow grows along with the other thing. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Would you start in German? Yes. There is an aspect in not having to understand and only be close to the body. which I would like to point out or stress somehow.

[144:09]

So this is a relief. You don't have to understand, you don't have to do anything. And it just works. And this is a relief because we always have to accomplish something. We don't know we don't. Yeah, okay. Was mich berührt hat heute Vormittag, eines der Dinge, ist die Begegnung mit sechs Leuten aus der Praxisperiode.

[145:12]

What struck me this morning is the meeting with six people, seven actually, of the practice period. You counted me? Yes. And I think it's totally parallel to the topic. And it's so parallel to the topic. Because on the one hand there is this closeness and connection in a certain way with this practice period body. Because there is on the one hand this closeness and familiarity with this practice period body, which somehow has appeared here. And this doesn't need any words. And on the other hand, And on the other hand, we use language to call forth something.

[146:24]

And it's like calling into the forest somehow and calling forth something. Mein Gefühl ist, man kann wirklich ein Wort verwenden, zum Beispiel aus dem Satz von Dogen, um sowas hervorzurufen. And my feeling is, you can use maybe only one word from this sentence of Dogen and call something forth. So wie Gerhard steadily verwendet hat. Just this word steadily as Gerhard brought it up. Yes. I saw you on the trampoline, so it got much tougher. So when you talked, what arose within me was the word allowing.

[147:32]

Yes. And a gratefulness to having gotten permission to let this happen. And sometimes language just comes up. Also in that you are so encouraging. So from this wonderful, which accompanied us in the practice period, Dungschan's statement, it is now me. And the opposite, also through the front with phenomena,

[148:42]

So like in this sentence, so encouraging sentence in practice period, it is now me and the being interpenetrated with phenomena. So what happened for me, that's... For me, disappeared phenomena. For me, disappeared phenomena. For me, disappeared phenomena. Also the for me. Everything you sound is crazy. And something like that, it just works out of itself. And what Tara brought up with intention, with intention, Again and again the question, how much do I have to do and how much can I trust that it just does on itself?

[150:06]

And this turns around. In the practice period, I have been asking you, Roshi, this inexplicably deep trust and fearlessness. Where does it come from? Where does it anchor? Your answer made me laugh immediately. Your intention right now. And I experienced immediately that intention is not something in my head, which I'm aiming at.

[151:16]

But it has to do with this allowing. Yeah, maybe fearlessness is our natural state. So we can't ask where it comes from. We can ask, why is it so obstructed? Can you say it again? Perhaps instead of saying, where does fearlessness come from, perhaps fearlessness is our more natural state, and we can ask rather, why do we obstruct it? It doesn't mean we shouldn't be alert. But this alertness doesn't have to be fearful. And one thing that we said in the winter branches that just finished is that we form an intention to do zazen but after we take the form zazen you stop doing zazen and you let zazen do you it's more like you just said

[153:03]

So you let your body show you sasen. Okay. So you've given me a good field to practice together with you in. So let me see if I can... In other words, I think we need a break. But when I come back, I will come back. I'll try to... Yeah, I'll try to... Also wenn wir zurückkommen, werde ich versuchen.

[154:22]

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