I want to think with you before the ceremony, how what we spoke about this morning relates to the ceremony. But first I'd like to start again with any questions, comments you might have. Okay, you get the first again. Sorry, just to get more prepared, I'd like to come back to the thoughts. So, we have learned that we should take everything that comes. But now I hear here that there are dead thoughts and living thoughts, productive thoughts, unproductive thoughts.

[01:02]

So should we make a difference? To get more confused, what I heard this morning is first was that we should take everything as it comes. Then I learned that there are dead and alive words and thoughts, productive and non-productive thoughts. So should we make a distinction? No. If you stop making distinctions, the dead words will die. They get stronger and healthier. Maybe you can use the image of taking care of a garden. If you just keep taking care of it and bringing your attention equally to each thing, It's like taking care of the garden.

[02:07]

And things start to flourish in the garden. And there are weeds and necessary plants or useful plants. They all decide on their own what to do. You really like to discriminate, don't you? You didn't hear a should and should not from me. It's a little confusing, I know, and I think you're expressing everybody's feeling. And I think this is particularly characteristic of Chinese Zen.

[03:17]

In Chinese Zen there's more than in other forms of Buddhism, I think. There's a trust of the body. And a trust of the intelligence of the body. So there's more of an emphasis on creating a way in which the non-conscious knowing can begin to function. In conjunction with conscious thinking and knowing too. But we have two things here. We have the various kinds of teachings I'm trying to present.

[04:35]

That you can, sometimes it'll make sense, sometimes it won't make sense. Just accept them and let them make sense or not make sense. They sort of go into our background mind. To really make sense of them takes some development perhaps of practice. But from the beginning to end of practice, we just do simple things. For example, bringing your attention equally to whatever appears. Dead words? Okay, dead words. I mean, it's a little, it's like, it's very similar to the idea in the tea ceremony. You spend exactly the same amount of time and care looking at a lousy tea bowl as a good tea bowl.

[06:14]

And I say in the tea ceremony, it's the only way you'll ever really know what a good tea bowl is. But the tea ceremony is like that. Whatever it is there, you just look at it, turn it, etc. And you treat each one as precious. Which means usually you keep one elbow touching the tatami so it doesn't drop any farther than that, if you happen to drop it. And you give as much attention to the preparation and the doing and the washing and cleaning up, it's equally treated all the way through.

[07:16]

And this spirit comes from Buddhism in the tea ceremony. And again, I know you're not all going to give up your usual thinking. And you're often fruitful and interesting thinking. But in the middle of that, in interpenetrating that, you'll try to bring your attention and energy equally to each thing. Yeah. That's all I can say. If you don't want to do it, it's up to you. But then I'm trying to make clear statements like the third Zen ancestors. The great lay is now difficult. Only don't pick and choose.

[08:18]

Mm-hmm. Yes? If you shouldn't pick and choose, I have one question. I always notice if I haven't seen you for several months that I miss something in my practice, and I know you always taught us we shouldn't depend on things, we shouldn't be attached, but could you say something why the physical presence or meeting your teacher is so important in your practice? Do you really expect me to answer that? Yeah. So, Bikaroshi always says we should continue our practice and not become dependent on anything, but trust ourselves and not distinguish and discriminate so much.

[09:35]

But I notice when I haven't seen Bikaroshi for a long time that I miss something in my practice and I wanted to know why it is so important to meet his teacher and feel his physical presence. It's quite difficult to answer. Only don't pick and choose means to have a more stable mind.

[10:39]

A mind which doesn't vacillate between alternatives always. But of course we have to make some choices. I mean, you misunderstand the subtlety of practice if you turn statements in practice into generalizations. There's nothing that's true for all occasions. So I like all you guys, right? So that's why I'm here. I chose to do that. There's no question.

[11:43]

But while I'm sitting here, I don't pick and choose. I mean, I let something else happen. You know, again, this is a craft. And you're making an effort not to pick and choose. I mean, everyone knows you have to make choices. Otherwise, you'd be eating car tires for dinner. So you make, you know, if you push everything into some kind of statement which is obviously not true, you're not practicing. But I'm very glad you've chosen to practice with me. Because I've also chosen to practice with you.

[12:51]

But I'm working with this myself all the time. And as I said the other day, for instance, say that I come into my room. An example I gave is, the dishes need to be done and the laundry has to be picked up. I don't think about it. I just start doing something. I in a way let my body choose. So I have very little experience of making a choice. Suddenly I find myself picking up the laundry. I could stop and say, well, I wonder why I chose that. But I really let my body choose.

[14:01]

And usually my body is very happy to have been allowed to make the choice. I find there's more physical joy in life when I let my body get out of prison. No, I think if you do anything that's very complex, sports and things like that, mostly the choices are made by your body. You're not thinking what to do next. And I find, again, following the same example I gave the other day, for example, that I finished picking up the laundry, Then I realized, yes, I have a guest coming.

[15:13]

somebody's coming to visit and have a cup of tea. And I realized, it looks like my body remembered they wouldn't have had a seat to sit on if I hadn't picked up the laundry. And then I'm able to wash some of the dishes while I'm making them some tea. I often find the more I give my body a choiceless choice. Does that make sense? I mean, when I walk out that, when you, as I said, when you walk out that door, Do you realize you made a choice? Otherwise you'd be bumping into the wall.

[16:21]

You chose to go out the door. But you hardly noticed it was a choice. Because naturally you go out the door. But much more than we realize is like this. And I often find that my body remembers more things and has more subtlety than my thinking mind. And my job is to think quite a bit. I've taken on the responsibility to try to make practice clear. So I have a habit of trying to think things through clearly.

[17:26]

But I find that the more I can trust my body, my thinking is clearer. So again, this is a craft, a practice. We have to make a choice of which bus we take or plane or something. But between those obvious choices, What this don't pick and choose means. See if you can let some deeper process happening. in the way things proceed. And part of that is just bringing your attention to whatever's there. Sukhiyoshi used to say, Buddha's light shines from everything.

[18:43]

I mean, this is some kind of extraordinary world we live in. And we keep overlooking it because we overlook it. And what you're trying to do is generate a wisdom body. But I'll come back to that. Yes. Oh, excuse me, he was... It's all right. You said that you should use mind in terms of words to address things. And for me there is a question if I use a word like a mantra, do I then get a certain physical connectedness which is over the time always the same and somehow anchors this word, this mantra?

[20:08]

Why don't you say it in German, please? Vegaroshi talked about using words to name things. And my question is, if a word has a physical correspondence in the body, is the question, do I establish the same physical state or the same body feeling over time when I do that? You mean, if you take a particular word, and you repeat it, there's a physical association with that word. No, not with the word, but every thought or word has some bodily aspect. Yes, that's true. And if I continue using a certain word, do I then get over time a similar certain physical, correspondence in my body or anchor a certain state in my body is this.

[21:15]

For example, if I sit in sasen or in yugong sashin and have a certain experience and I connect this with the word, with the term, which I then use later on, can then I re-establish this experience using this word in other circumstances? Sometimes. There's no entities. There's only relationships. So every state of motive mind has a physical component.

[22:23]

Just saying what I said last night. You can begin to know the physical feeling that goes with various modes of mind. And if you take a particular word, every time you repeat it, you develop its physical component. And develop the way it relates, and it's always slightly different. But you do develop, when you use a verbal phrase, such a strong physical association or presence of that word, you don't have to say the word anymore.

[23:37]

You repeat the physical presence of the word. And you can bring that feeling into breath, into thoughts, into seeing, and so forth. Does that sort of respond to what you... And this is what you meant, as you said, using a term to... Yes. You use a term as something to, as a tool, as a focus. But the choice of the term makes a difference. So although asking, saying what is it, is not in some ways the same as saying already connected.

[24:40]

The way you say it makes a difference. Yes. How do you envision the evolution of consciousness? In two minutes. Can I have four? As I've been saying this last week, our history goes back

[25:48]

As a consciously articulated civilization to 2000, 2003, maybe 3000. Which is, as I pointed out, I think a very short time. As I said, Interviewing my mother the other day, who's 94. Her memory going back through great aunts and grandmothers and stuff goes back to 1850 or so. And some of you will certainly be practicing Zen until 2050.

[26:55]

So that's in my sitting here. If I don't measure my consciousness by when my parents, when I was born and the lifetime of my parents, if I visualize my consciousness in societal terms although there's been a lot of changes in the last 150 years still as far as I can tell you read people's you know, stories, you know something about reading their letters. Yeah, they're not so different in the last 200 years. Okay, so 10 of those units brings us back to the time of Christ. Fifteen, no, twelve bring us back to Buddha.

[28:09]

Twelve sort of consciousness units. And again, as I said, my lineage... in historical fact and mythological, some of it's a little mythological, goes back 90 generations to Buddha. So maybe 90 people here almost. Ninety of us say, stretch back to Buddha. That's not very long. Now, as I said, if you play, what's this game called, Silent Mail?

[29:11]

If I start here and around, maybe it'll be quite strange with the time it reaches. But if I spend 10 years making you understand this Buddhist view. And you spend ten years and you spend... It's probably going to be pretty accurate by the time it gets here. So what I want to say is I think our culture is very young. And I think culture, as we know it, begins through people learning to live together. And the generational transmission of the Sangha is one of the experiments in how to live together. How to discover what it is to be human. So on the one hand we have a very old history.

[30:36]

And it goes back, of course, farther than two or three thousand years. At the same time, I think at each point in history, our society and our individuality is very malleable. Because it's all embedded in intentions. What carries the story is shared intentions. a shared vision of what it is to be human. If we change those intentions, if we change the vision, there can be radical changes. So, In that context, I think the way we live actually generates consciousness.

[31:54]

If you practice zazen, You produce this, what we're calling, let's keep it simple, awareness. Now, is awareness there waiting for you to discover it? Not really. If you think it's there waiting for you to discover it, then you basically have some belief in permanence or God or something. They're incipient. In other words, there's a kind of seed possibility. The potential is there. But if you generate and develop awareness and you nourish awareness and you keep finding ways to bring it into your life through doing Zazen and practicing mindfulness

[33:11]

And eventually you maybe give it more? predominance than consciousness. Then you've changed the kind of human being you are. You've changed what it means to be a human being. So, you... Your consciousness is still the way you interact with most people in your society. Atmar is, many of you know Atmar. Ikkyo Dai Ne is his Buddhist name. And he's our head monk at Crestone. And he's a great spirit, as you well know, to be there. And one of the lectures he gave, he mentioned why he likes to do Buddhist practice.

[34:12]

He finds it very interesting that he goes to a Sashin and for seven days he sits beside two people who he's never met before. He doesn't speak to them once during the whole week. At the end of the week, he feels he knows them more intimately than some of his best friends. What's going on? Somehow, If we want to try to explain it, we'd have to say there's some kind of co-mingling of awareness. That quality of awareness in which you, for instance, you feel somebody staring at you from behind and you turn around and they're there. That means awareness extends beyond the physical body.

[35:42]

So if you practice so you develop this, then you have much more direct experience of already connected. Now, if in our society we develop awareness which is always interacting with consciousness, and a consciousness which is, say, different than the consciousness in a yogic culture, you will begin to produce other layers of, what do we call it, of knowing, that are neither consciousness nor awareness.

[36:48]

Okay, so shamatha, going back to shamatha, the standard image is, shamatha creates a kind of clear lake In which you can begin to see the fish. And the fish means inside or... states of mind, etc. And if you are really practicing what is it, which means to free your minds from preconceptions of what it is, You begin to see fish that haven't been identified before.

[37:54]

And you begin to find currents in the water that you hadn't noticed. So the teaching of Buddhism is to also develop a mind which can study Buddhism. To study not only how we exist, but how we're in the process of coming into a new kind of existence all the time. So I don't think it makes much sense to say human beings are like this. They're essentially this way or that way. Maybe we have been up to this point. But whether these are really inborn instincts or something we've generated, my feeling is the seeds are there for many, many things.

[39:09]

And our culture is very young. And we still may develop a different kind of human being, which acts with others, both aggressively and affectionately, in different ways. In both those categories, but in ways in which the emphases are so different, they're really different. Okay. So we're going to have to stop in a while to get ready to do this ceremony. And I think it's best if we take a break just when we stop before the ceremony. So please, I'd like to go on a little bit more and so sit comfortably.

[40:18]

But not much longer, I hope. So I want to give you, try to give you a sense of what this ceremony is about. To give you an idea of what ritual is in Buddhism. And let's define ritual. Ritual means, it's related to the word arm and harmony. It just means to make something fit together. But an intentional fitting together.

[41:29]

Okay. Now, when you ask the question, what is it? In Buddhist terms, you're performing a ritual. It's not, I mean, when you eat your dinner, you're not performing a ritual, perhaps. Unless we eat with Oryoki. And then it's definitely a ritual. And it's a ritual, as most of you know, related to the body, the chakras, how you use your field of energy. And how you are served food and so forth. So it's using the act of eating as a way of developing how we relate to the physical world and to other people.

[42:50]

I have to explore how to talk about this. Let's say for the sake of this discussion that there's nothing natural in Buddhism. Everything is to some degree a construct or generated. I can look at you people right in front of me. And is that natural? Well, I have a way of looking at you. And I've learned how to look at you. I've learned how to look at people. And I know if you look one way, it's a little, you know, it's not right. And there's a lot of constructs in how I see the colors and the shapes.

[44:19]

And there's a lot of training that goes into how I see distinctions. Now I can also look at you and try to dissolve those distinctions. Now is that more natural if I dissolve the distinctions? No, then it's a construct of dissolving the distinctions. Mm-hmm. Okay. So the assumption is that The way we see, hear, think, feel is in large part cultural constructs. Habits developed in relationship to a consciousness

[45:23]

that was developed through interaction with our parents. Now, to just stay within the same vocabulary, we developed this since last night. You're shifting your reference point consciousness and the contents of consciousness to awareness and what we call original mind. The tabula rasa of sorts. The blank sheet of paper which hasn't got anything written on it yet. But if we pay attention to this potential blank sheet of paper, the paper itself develops.

[46:40]

It begins to take the ink differently. And so forth. Okay. So it's assumed that the mind has certain faculties. We can identify the faculties as at least potentialities. And the mind definitely has the capacity to have structure. And we live in those habits. Like you're over there and I'm here.

[47:29]

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