He's very particular with this forest. And the bird's path affects everything, the insects, everything. So again, for the bird to have a path through this forest requires the entire forest to create this path. So whether it's the bird path or our discussion right now, or the dinner we're going to have shortly, it's most fully realized when you open yourself to this field of potential and actualization.

[01:02]

To this field of realization. Now, in fact, we're always open to it. And in fact, we're always participating. Otherwise the world wouldn't function. A Buddha is just one who makes it conscious and then lets it work through him or her. That's an approximation of an answer to your question. If something happens to it, we don't know how we're going to react to it. It can't be predicted. And how we react to it is what the world is.

[02:11]

So our wisdom is this ability to be open and know that at this moment we're generating our world and the world. And it's extraordinary that, in fact, a few people make a difference. In our whole society now, with so many people on the planet, a few people make a difference. And that a few people make a difference means everyone makes a difference. I'm sounding like a preacher. I'm sorry. But it requires a certain kind of energy to try to make something like this clear, so I'm sorry. And I don't know if I make it clear, but I'm trying. So how this is expressed as an idea in Buddhism

[03:12]

Und wie das als eine Vorstellung ausgedrückt wird im Buddhismus? And we have lunches, dinners at seven? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Don't worry. We'll stop and then I'll eat. Don't worry. Okay. The way this is described and the way this teaching is put forth in Buddhism, is to think of this. This is the world. Or the universe or multiverse. And what you call it makes a difference. For instance, we tend to think of the North is over there, the South is over there, etc. But in the way this yogic practice looks at it, there's ten directions. What is a square?

[04:32]

Now, we generally think of a square as four dots. And we can connect. That's mental space. In yogic space, a square is always five. Why? What have we forgotten? Who drew it? Me. I'm the fifth dot. So there's always a fifth dot.

[05:33]

Okay, so the square is like that. But in physical space, if you're making a square, say you want to raise your cattle out there somewhere, It's generated from the center. Oh, there you are. Your cattle can only go so far. So a field comes, but it's generated from the center. Okay. So Buddhism always talks about the ten directions. Because any point like this is not only, its power is not only that it's here, it's connected to heaven and earth. And there's a big difference in looking at the directions that way, because in this way, the north is coming towards you. And the heaven is coming towards you.

[06:35]

So there's ten directions moving towards you, not outskirts. Okay, so this point at which the square is generated And this is completely connected with the Buddhist view of how things exist. There's no generalizations. There's only particular. All of this is a bunch of particulars that come into certain patterns. But it's still a particular. Okay, so Buddhism says, let's not call this the stuff out there. Or the universe.

[07:39]

Is it really a universe? Anyway, they call it the Tathagata Garbha. And Tathagata Garbha, Tathagata means thusness. Or coming and going. And garba means both womb and embryo. So it means that this is, every particular is a seed. And the whole situation is a womb. And it's all inside, there's no outside. So at each moment, you are manifesting the potentialities of this womb. Yeah. So there's no passive universe in this way of looking at it.

[08:42]

Dogen sums up his teaching as in this one phrase, the Genjo Koan, is to complete each thing that appears. to complete each thing that appears, knowing that each thing that appears is simultaneously particular and universal. Now, ultimate reality is, in Buddhism again, called suchness.

[09:57]

And what is suchness? It can be loosely defined as seeing the sameness of each thing. Seeing everything just as it appeared. But more particularly, it means knowing Let's go back to this sense of this uniqueness, the non-comparability, non-repeatability of each moment. Which in fact means everything can only be known through itself. that knowing something only through itself is such.

[10:57]

If I know you only at this moment without any comparison, in a way I can't explain to anyone else. But definitely becomes part of my experience. That's such an... And that can't be predicted from past time or future time. It totally can only happen this now. And so Buddhism tries... It's a radical teaching, Buddhism. It's tried to develop itself so it can be a big teaching for lots of populations. But it's rooted and continued in this kind of teaching I'm trying to present with the sense in each generation there have to be some people that actually discover and live in this world of suchness.

[12:03]

Whether fundamental way of knowing is in this uniqueness at each moment. They may do other things, but they fundamentally know in this way. That's why Dogen speaks also about the total exertion of each dharma. So someone asked me at the last seminar what I meant by bringing your energy to each moment. And the best thing I could say is you bring your energy to each moment as if you're ready to act. And that's one of the technical terms in Buddhism, to be at each moment ready to act. Now, this doesn't sound like some kind of passive, laid-back, quietist teaching.

[13:06]

And it's not. Not at its core. Okay, at each moment we're sitting here, I'm ready to act. And so are you. And otherwise babies couldn't be generated. At each moment when there's this egg there, it's, whoo, better watch out. And in that sense, every moment, it's this kind of possibility of a limited fertilization or an extensive fertilization. And what's great about this? Not predictable. That consciousness evolves.

[14:25]

One of the great things I like about Zen is that most Buddhisms give you a map, a very sophisticated map, but they tell you where you're going. But Zen emphasizes, well, here's how you go, but we don't know where you're going. It assumes the evolution of consciousness and the evolution of society. And again, a scientist friend of mine who is a complexity theorist, one of the two or three creators of the field, He says, if you look at the potential combination of the way our brain functions and body functions, etc., we're at the very... minutest beginning of the possibility.

[15:36]

So the brain and the brain itself is malleable. So I think we're in a very fluid, extraordinary situation. And I think it's wonderful we don't know what it's about or where it's going. Und ich denke, es ist wundervoll, dass wir nicht wissen, worum es geht und wohin es geht. Yes, practically speaking, I know how to take the train back to Johanneshof. Ja, praktisch gesprochen weiß ich, wie ich den Zug zurück zum Johanneshof nehmen muss. But in a deeper sense, I don't know what's going on here. Aber in einem tieferen Sinne, ich weiß nicht, worum es hier geht. This could be Mark. Das könnte der Mark sein. I don't know what's up here. Ich kenne dieses Zeug gar nicht. What I do know is at each moment something appears.

[16:36]

And I know I can bring my energy to it. And I know I can have a feeling of completing it. And I know I can feel nourished or depleted by it. And I know I choose to feel nourished. And I know that sometimes I may feel depleted for quite a few moments. Then I just accept being depleted because that's what's being given to me. When I have a choice, I choose nourishing. I choose completing. And what is this process of, as Dogen says, completing that which appears? Well, actually, it's an enfolding. I'm bringing in information from my threshold consciousness and from everything that's here.

[17:51]

Tons of information is coming in. And a lot of it's streams flowing in the darkness. And it's enfolding. It holds for a moment and becomes uniquely my own. We could say it goes from interdependence to suchness. To an absolute independence. And then it's unfolded. And in Zen, the The first movement is called, is personified as Manjushri, to move inward to wisdom. The second movement is Samantabhadra, the body of bliss. It is the bodhisattva who enters without taking a step. The reaching into yourself. Dogen says, the blue mountains are always walking.

[19:10]

Don't doubt this walking. Don't think just walking is any different from your own walking. Okay, if I stand up, I'm just standing. Am I a stone? I'm always coming in the sand. I'm not just standing here. I'm in the activity of sand. I'm in the activity of walking. I'm in the activity of standing. I look forward, and I'm still coming in this activity of standing with something I recall walking. Dogen means the mountain too. It's mountain being. The mountain is coming yet to being a mountain at each moment. There's no sort of thing out there, oh, the mountain. The mountain is coming into mountaining just as I'm coming into standing.

[20:31]

So that is also Samantabhadra. And when you really do that, you find at the most fundamental level where there's no duality, we experience bliss. Suchness is also bliss. So the first looking of Buddhism was the cessation and negative view of Buddhism. This is the positive view of Buddhism. where there's this infolding, a holding in suchness or non-duality, where the subject-object distinction disappears. and bliss arises in you, actually arises in you, and unfolds into your actions in the world. And the outer movement is called avalokiteshvara, or compassion.

[21:35]

That's probably enough for dinner. [...] Yeah, but much, much less. Sure, there's activity, you're alive. Yeah, but mostly it's self-referential, developed through your thinking process. And a thinking process which is highly edited by the manas part of the mind.

[22:59]

We have manas, citta, and various parts of the mind. And practice is to change this initial editing and shaping part of the mind. Yeah. So the new input is coming into the senses rather than by... It's coming in through an interaction with the whole of phenomena in it all at onceness. You've opened the alaya vijnana to phenomena in the world. You're really creating a new kind of person. It's a process to create a different kind of person that we all intuitively know already. In some way, we function this way already. And we have flashes of it. But to bring it into a sustained way of being

[24:01]

is a practice of realization. And then the blue mountains are always walking. So tomorrow I'd like to speak about the pure body of reality. And I like the phrase. Because I imagine someone, you know, somebody's uncle saying, why are you practicing Buddhism? And you'd say to them, oh, to know the pure body of reality. Oh, yeah, okay, great. Or you explain it to someone that way. But maybe we can come to, it's a fantastic, the pure body of reality. This positive Buddhism, the later Buddhism, is to assume the presence in our lives of the pure body of reality.

[25:27]

And there's a koan about it. And this is a praise used in the koan. So last night I gave you bring your attention equally Tension and energy equally each moment. It changes the surfaces and depths of your life. So now I'd like to give you this phrase, the pure body of reality. What is a teaching that makes sense of a phrase like this? And can it make sense or have any power in our own lives? Okay, so let's sit for a minute or two, and then we'll... And what time can you share your singing with us?

[28:05]

I think after dinner. Okay. And you're a person? Yes. And she's rehearsing Norma right now for the Vienna Staatsoper. Yeah, and I don't know if you could sing that or just whatever your favorite is. Okay. Okay. Once I had to dance in a Japanese temple.

[29:12]

No, I didn't have to dance. You and Eric had to dance. Is that right? We were in a Japanese temple with Roshi, a friend of mine. He said, you're from Vienna. Will you waltz for us? And we're in this temple with these precious paintings on the wall and, you know, doors that pop out if you push them. And we had this extraordinary many-course gourmet vegetarian meal. So somehow Mikhail was there. About 12 of us. We all tried to hum the proper music. And she and her husband danced. And I... It was great.

[30:17]

I think it's never happened in a Zen temple in Asia before. It was another one of those unique events known only to itself. Thank you very much. I remember some events of yours. No, not only do you. Okay, good morning. Thank you for singing for us. It was so extraordinary. I wonder how can a human voice do that? Really? And I've sung many times in the shower, and nobody's ever discovered me.

[31:18]

In fact, once when I was first married, I was singing while I was shaving. And I said, my wife's name is Virginia. I said, Virginia, and no answer. I said it two or three more times, no answer. So I went out in the kitchen, and this is the honest to goodness truth. She was behind the counter on the floor laughing. So you can see why I was so amazed last night. I teased Alessandro this morning.

[32:34]

Yeah, saying, I wish he hadn't revealed the truth yesterday. That this has no application to daily life at all. Yeah, I wished he hadn't said it. Yeah. But the fact is I actually believe it does. You know, next time I do a seminar, if I do a seminar here again in Luxembourg, I would like to consider anyway with you doing it for four days instead of two and a half. I'm sure that some of you couldn't come because you have work, but it's getting harder for me to talk about something that we need to go into and discuss with each other. It will make two and a half days.

[33:46]

So maybe we could start Friday at noon or something. Anyway, it might try. Maybe it's three people. We have a good time. I don't know. So is there anything you'd like to bring up? Yesterday you talked about to complete a moment. And I would ask you to explain more in detail what you mean with complete.

[34:51]

Well, there's no way that words can reach into it. So the words have to be something that is a hint and a gate. Now, I've often said that if you want to get a feeling for what a dharma is, just when you're doing something, ordinary things, Like say walking here back to your room or whatever. See if you can walk in a way that feels nourishing. Because you need to explore this territory until you actually feel nourished by each thing you do.

[36:07]

And it's a kind of, I think you'll find it, it's a kind of letting yourself rest in the moment. That doesn't mean you have to walk slowly. But maybe you discover it first, walking slowly. Or finding a pace where you're not going somewhere. And you can use a phrase like always arriving or just now arriving. So you're trying to, in this way, by doing the basic practice things like this, you're using language out of the, you're using words out of the context of ordinary language to just point you at things. So when you look at something, you try to rest on it a moment until you feel nourished.

[37:37]

I used the phrase yesterday to lock in. You feel not so much that what you're looking at is something you're looking at, but something looking at you. Now this is also a taste of dissolving a subject-object duality. Now why I'm connecting the two. I want you to realize that these kind of big Buddhist categories like being free of the subject-object duality, or emptiness or enlightenment, are all momentary or unnoticed aspects of our experience.

[38:37]

And if they're not, they don't have any meaning. So, or the Dharmakaya body. It's the highest form of Buddhism, or highest idea in Buddhism. But when you are sitting zazen and you can't find your hand, you're having a taste of the dharmakaya. When your boundaries, you lose a sense, Dogen says, dropping body and mind. This is a taste of the Dhammakaya. I mean, look, a lot of us have been sitting for years and years. We don't have to measure ourselves by some imaginary adept in the past. I think we need the confidence that whatever Buddhism is talking about is here in our own experience.

[40:03]

Now, tasting the Dharmakaya, is not the same as a sustained presence of all-at-onceness functioning in our lives. Hey, did you do it? I don't know. You know something about it, don't you? Yeah, I'm stopped. Okay. So just when you feel locked in for a moment in a perception or nourished by a perception, this is one of the faces of suchness. Now, the other example I give often is the sense to complete things.

[41:14]

So if I'm going to pick up this bell, for instance, I'm in a pace within myself where I recognize that I'm going to pick up this bell. And I allow a certain completion to that feeling. and then I reach out to the bell and that's a complete and then I feel the coldness of the bell and that's a moment of completion and then in embodied space I don't just pick it up in a straight line I pick it up and move it into my body.

[42:18]

And usually into a chakra. It's like where the Japanese and Chinese hold their tea cup. As I always say, that's why they don't have handles on their cup, so they can use two hands. Know what you're thinking. And it's like a child. If you hand something to a child, they usually take it into their body. They just don't hold it out there and look at it. They pull it into their body where they empower it and their body. And so, as I always say, if you just... All your... More and more of your actions are complete at each moment... At the end of the year, you're going to feel more complete. If all your little actions are non-dharmic actions and kind of half done, you're going to feel half cooked at the end of the year.

[43:28]

Half done. Half done. So in little practices like this that you bring into each moment, you discover the shape of a moment. So you could say the shape of a dharma is known through the feeling of something completed and something nourishing. So you bring the same feeling into to complete what appears. You don't know exactly what it means. But you use the phrase to direct yourself. And to explore it. And there's a lot of, you know, even in the Japanese crafts, the teachers usually don't teach you certain things.

[44:40]

Like Mr. Raku makes Raku bowls. He told me he doesn't teach his son how to do really the main glazes. The son has to discover it on his own. And then there's also some creativity in what happens. Because you discover it a little different, a new way. But there are many things that can't be shown. You have to discover it. But I'm sure Mr. Raku's son says, oh, I got it. What do you call it? An aha feeling. Aha.

[45:40]

So you keep trying to complete the moment, and at some point you feel, there's a lot of physical things that go with it. Things drop away. And it's often, there's suddenly a bright clarity in a bigger space. Mm-hmm. Now, Dogen talks about the way sometimes as Dokkan which means the way as a circle. And the circle is the perception, the infolding, holding, outfolding. It's a kind of circle. So instead of thinking of the way as over time or space, it's just this moment circling into you and out of you.

[46:45]

Sorry, that was a rather long response. Tut mir leid, das war eine ziemlich lange Antwort. Noch etwas? Completing each moment, going into each moment makes a difference of leaking and not leaking. In Deutsch? Das heißt, jeden Moment vervollständigen und jede Aktion des Tages vervollständigen, What Michael is pointing to is one of the early experiences in practice that you leak And technically it's called outflows, cutting out flows.

[48:03]

And usually we're so kind of, the levels of mind and perceptual activity are usually so mixed up, not so mixed up that we don't function pretty well, but mixed up enough that we can't see how we function. And I think what often happens to people in the first one or two sashin Is it sometimes for the first time in their life, after often a few days of difficulty, you feel settled in yourself? and complete in a way that's almost unnatural.

[49:15]

It's so refreshing. And there's no way this can be taught. It has to happen or be shown. So shina is a kind of extreme practice to bring us into this. And it's one of the basic preparatory practices of Zen Buddhism. You know, somewhat like doing the 100,000 vows in some ways. Then you leave the Sashin, and you feel everything, that completeness, it starts leaking out of you everywhere. Every bright headlight, too bright. The cosmic electric lawnmower is going across the sky. And somebody asks you what happened, you try to tell them what the sashin is like, and then everything leaks out.

[50:35]

So you learn how to speak about something or come out of a sashin without leaking. And again, it can't be taught easily. Und wiederum, das kann nicht leicht gelehrt werden. The difference between being sealed so you don't leak, but not armored to protect yourself, is something that's quite hard to explain. Der Unterschied, vertiegel zu sein, sodass man dieses Leck nicht hat, und nicht gepanzert zu sein, aus dem Bedürfnis heraus sich zu schützen, das ist ein sehr kleiner Unterschied, den man selber herausfinden muss. I didn't mind your effort, boom. So what Michael is pointing out is this, getting a feeling of when you leak and don't leak is very similar to feeling complete or nourished.

[51:45]

Okay. Now I'm really speaking about this practice of the craft you can let yourself into. No more truth for us this morning, Alessandra? . Yeah, do you want, yeah? . Yes.

[52:58]

Okay. If I understand your English. Yes. I think I understand, but why don't you say it now in Deutsch? Okay. Well, let me start from somewhere seemingly unrelated.

[54:03]

I think when we read a novel that we get engaged in, we become engaged so that become engaged because the author has the ability to create characters, protagonists, who have the ability the feeling of unpredictability and subtlety of actual life. And such characters engages. And they may be quite different from us.

[55:33]

But I think if we're really involved in the book, we find the author has, through his craft or intuition, embedded aspects of ourselves in the person who seems so different from us. And we begin to see our own patterns. And sometimes it's like when you meet somebody who annoys you. Yeah, often they have similar patterns to us. And what we're annoyed by, really, is not that we don't like them, is that they're revealing our patterns, or they're making them too obvious.

[56:34]

But to open yourself to a kind of sensitivity to everything speaking to you, and not making this sense, as I said earlier, of the innermost request so serious, but being able to laugh at the way we are. So I think the other side of being annoyed by seeing your own patterns in other people. Yeah, it's okay that they're that way, so it must be okay that I'm this way. So one side of it is that you come into a kind of healthy criticism of yourself. The other side is, oh, it's okay. And it's like also there's people I think we all know who we feel carry some of our own fate.

[57:53]

Sometimes it's friends that you haven't seen for quite a while, but you feel that you are supposed to work out your fate with them. But even when you see them, you don't have much contact with them, though. Yeah, but then still they're in you, and they carry somehow some of your fate. Okay, so what I'm speaking about is this first, shall we say, couple of years of recapitulating your life. All this unconscious and non-conscious things come up.

[58:55]

And the alaya-vijjana doesn't just carry Freudian unconscious. It carries pretty much everything that's happened to you, but much of it's not recoverable. But as I said yesterday, when that's only part of the thought process, You get into a situation where you really have to work out your own thinking in terms of your own thinking and what happened in the past and so forth. But by this practice of bringing your sense of continuity, into the present, embodied as the present, opens up this storehouse consciousness.

[60:20]

Mm-hmm. Now, this may sound... But every time you try to bring your attention to your breath, body, and phenomena, so you're walking on the path, and you just try to be present to your walking. Again, in this simple way, arriving in your own walking. You're actually at the same time sort of shifting this warehouse into the present. So you have a much bigger flow of information into what's happening to you.

[61:24]

So it's like, may I say, Marie-Louise told me she recognized a dream that she had when she was here two years ago or three years ago. But the situation of being here brought that dream to the surface. We all have that kind of experience. The smell of popcorn or something brings up something. That shows us that in actual fact our memory is also in the environment. And to bring the activity and fertility of memory into the environment is one of the reasons we bring our attention to our breath, body, and phenomena.

[62:34]

One of the reasons we... bring our sense of continuity into our breath body and phenomena, is to bring the whole of our experience into the larger present. Because the present is, in all of its occasions, is part of our memory. Okay. I'm getting long answers this morning. Okay. Now when we begin to have a flow of memory in us, like someone might say, oh, I was sitting out in the sun out there and I felt the sun on the back of my neck.

[64:03]

And I was suddenly thrown back to when I was after a walk with a child sitting in the sun and you begin to notice that in the flow of events that come up with much more power actually kind of strength the more we drag our warehouse of memories into the present, and have it constantly activated by the present, many embryonic enlightenment experiences come up. Or experiences where we were for a moment made a step in our life when we feel something.

[65:14]

And we're often carried by a certain kind of clarity. Or there was an interruption of the flow of continuity. Sometimes you meet someone and your basic flow of what life is stops for a moment. Those interruptions are little gaps. Now, that's also part of our personal history, those little bubbles of light or clarity or interruption. So it's like, you know, the connecting the dot. You know, the kid things, you connect the dot.

[66:19]

Yeah, in some states of mind, our usual states of mind, if you connect the dots, well, that looks just like me. But in some, if you look at the At the dot of your own experience, you connect them differently. Suddenly the Buddha appears. So that in this sense, the Buddha is already part of your own personal history. But only a Buddhist state of mind connects those dots. So the more you connect the dots in the immediacy of the present, some other kind of presence begins to act in it. So what I'm saying here is this flow that's our personal history and our continuity is actually also something we have to enter into with a kind of craft-like sensibility.

[67:41]

And all that can be done in ordinary daily life. Because what difference? You know, I kind of did it by pretending I was in a monastery. The first five years or so of my practice, let's say six or seven years, five to six years, we hadn't found the Tathagata yet. So I just pretended San Francisco was a monastery. It was quite big, but I thought it was a big monastery. Well, then I just did my daily life that way. And when I took walks, I would try to make more effort to practice. So I want to come back again to more specifically the sense of continuity and the seeming contradiction between dharmic moment and continuity.

[69:12]

So I'll come back to that. I don't think I've really answered your question, but, you know... You want to say something? I was dealing with the question. What makes the difference in directing your attention to your breath? Or listening to certain kinds of music, then my perception also changes. I ask myself, when I put my attention to my breath?

[70:28]

Is there another way to connect with phenomena and with people? Other than only by thinking. Wait a minute. Other than by concentrating in the breath or other than concentrating in the breath and thinking? No. Is there a difference if you concentrate on your breath or you are only in the thinking level?

[71:36]

You're concentrating, you're bringing your attention Let's not use the word concentrate. You're bringing your attention to your breath. To shift your sense of continuity and identity out of your thinking. In the process, you're also weaving body and mind together. And you're also bringing your attention to the immediacy of the present.

[72:45]

Those things are going on in the simple act of bringing attention to your breath. Now, at first you just do it whenever you can think of it. And as I always say, practice is a homeopathic. It works in small doses. But it doesn't work in no doses. Okay. So you do this when you can. And at some point there's a kind of shift. And it begins to be involuntary. And it begins to slide under our activity.

[74:02]

Like listening to music. Or like, again, as I said, my speaking right now, I feel my breath in my speaking. Now, what does it mean to bring your attention to something other than your breath? The breath is the shortcut. It's the main road. Yes. It's the boulevard to the capital. You can take the side roads if you want. And I can guarantee all of you that if you can learn, develop the habit, of bringing your attention to your breath, being present in your breath almost all the time, you'll find it marks probably the most remarkable change in your life.

[75:22]

Not in such big ways, but many, many little ways that make a huge difference. Now, bringing your attention into your phenomena, if we look at it with more craft, you work with bringing your attention into phenomena through each vision. And since you mentioned music, for instance, and we have put some accomplished musicians here, even a primitive like me can practice for days holding my attention in the tissue of sound. I'll just decide, okay, the next day, for some reason, while I'm doing things, I will keep my attention, my background attention on birds, motorcycles, cars, people's voices, whatever's there.

[77:07]

And this thread of sound or tissue of sound you begin to follow slowly turns into a tapestry. Oh, really? And you begin to find sounds you never thought you would hear. Insects, a leaf turning in the flower vase because the flower turns slightly, you know, or something. And particularly nice to do, for instance, in a place like this, is to take a walk, either in the dark or with your eyes nearly shut.

[78:15]

And follow the path by your nose. Because the path actually smells different than the left and right. And you can find in the dark, it's quite good. It's very dark, but you can actually smell the path when you go down. And I'm not too good at it. I mean, I'm a kind of klutz, you know. Is that a German word? I don't know. It's Yiddish, anyway. I know more Yiddish than German. But, you know, I'm not so sensitive about things. Many people smell better than I, hear better than I, but still, in my primitive way, I can practice Yiddish.

[79:27]

So that's bringing your attention into phenomena. Doesn't again mean you don't still have a feeling of In fact, it clarifies your ability to think, I think. Because thinking then becomes a tool that you exercise to solve problems, but it's not something that you think, oh, that's me. What's your sense of as you? becomes bigger and bigger. And eventually, the self covers everything.

[80:37]

And when the self covers everything, it's another word in Buddhism for compassion. So you feel, if I look at you, I think you're all versions of moon. I mean, I'm sorry, let's lay that trip on you. Several of you said, oh, no, not that. Anything but that. But I also feel a version of you, like I'm a version of you. I'm sorry, but that's what I feel. Though I don't, I feel, I mean, I have a right arm and a left arm. I don't know what it means to say I have, actually I am a right arm and a left arm. Ich weiß nicht, was es bedeutet zu sagen, ich habe einen rechten und linken Arm, denn eigentlich bin ich ein rechter und linker Arm.

[81:52]

Dogen made a point of saying, the earlier text also said, you have Buddha nature. He said, no, you do not. There's no one to have Buddha nature. You are Buddha. Und bei Dogen, da gibt es eben den Punkt, wo er sagt, in früheren Texten hieß es, man hat Buddha Natur, aber das stimmt nicht. So, I have a right hand and I have a left hand. And they're different. And I tend to pick things up with my right hand more than my left hand. And where does the difference end? I don't know. They're different yet. I don't know. And so... What I do to my left hand, my right hand says, but you know, it's funny, I can have the, oh. Which hand hit which hand?

[82:54]

But I feel that way about the world. To say that tree is pretty much like my right arm, I don't think of it as, oh. It's like people are worried about having a baby. I often say, when you wake up in the morning, do you worry that you have a right arm? Oh shit, I woke up this morning, I have a right arm. We just don't think that way. When you have a baby, if you're a reasonably healthy person, it's like having a right arm or left arm or a heart. Finally, I have a heart. Then maybe it's a good time to take a break.

[84:17]

And I'll come back to Alessandro's truth after the break. So it looks like half an hour is difficult, but so let's say 11.30. Or let's say 11.28. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for translating again. We're very lucky, by the way. I'm lucky, too. Two flowers, or to bloom. To blossoms or to blossom?

[85:22]

To blossom is to bless. Same word. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Give me a moment. You're making a little part of me. Thank you. And how I'm trying to feel on my way into is how to talk about this difference between later Buddhism and early Buddhism.

[86:43]

And just this distinction that I'm trying to make I have never made before. I'm trying to figure out how to speak about it. I said yesterday a more negatively inclined Buddhism in contrast to a more positively inclined Buddhism. And there's a kind of shift as talked about in books, which I think oversimplify it, but there's some truth to it. From the our heart to the Bodhisattva. and from a vision of enlightenment as carried in the person to a vision of enlightenment carried in everyone.

[88:06]

And the Bodhisattva idea develops also in relationship to the development of an idea of Buddha nature. And the idea of bodhisattva also develops in connection with the idea of the Buddha spirit. Buddha mind, Buddha nature? Buddha nature. And, yes? Sure. Yeah, yeah. The R part as a person? But I don't understand what... Of the same word. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay, so in other words, in Tibetan Buddhism, they view the Arhat as a positive practice equivalent to the Bodhisattva or something?

[89:28]

I didn't know you could pronounce it differently like that. Thank you. But I'm also not speaking about really what early Buddhism is like, but what kind of simple view of it. And Zen, in fact, is among Mahayana Buddhist schools one closest to early Buddhism in its practices. But in its conception, it's very close, as far as I can tell, to both Dzogchen and Mahamudra. So there's a shift from an emphasis on the individual who realizes enlightenment to enlightenment being something that not only is realized for others but can only be realized through and for others.

[90:56]

In fact, the sense of you really want to do something, you have more power when you're doing it for others than just for yourself. Like a mother might defend her child in a way she wouldn't defend herself. I remember two guys assaulted my wife with my daughter who was that time I don't know. Toddler, yeah. Ich erinnere mich, als zwei Männer meine Frau angegriffen oder angefeindet haben, als meine Tochter noch sehr klein war.

[92:10]

She was going up into the projects, the housing projects. Und sie ging in die city projects for poor people. Ja, in das Stadtprojekt für arme Leute. where we had a kind of Zen organization to help the album project. And she went out bringing a bottle of wine and some food for a little party we were going to have. And these two guys assaulted the two of them. And she said she was very clear, she just took the wine bottle, you know, and they both backed off. And she said she was very clear, she just took the wine bottle and they both backed off. So somehow often we have more power when we realize we have to do this to save others.

[93:27]

And this idea begins to extend So enlightenment isn't just carried in human beings, it's carried in all sentience and the whole of everything. And this is not just a kind of concept. It's understood as actually functioning in us. And how can such a thing actually function? Well, the Dharmakaya is linked to an idea of all-at-oneness. And as I said the other day, there's an all-at-oneness at this moment. This moment is at the same time dependent on everything all at once.

[94:39]

Okay. Now there's a big turning point in Buddhism also with Nagarjuna. And he's sometimes called the second Buddha. Elb. And he emphasized a practice of negation.

[95:44]

So I'll take this phrase from the Diamond Sutra. The highest, most awakened mind exists, is present everywhere equally because it is neither high nor low. The highest, most awakened mind is is everywhere equally present, because it is neither high nor low. Now, I think it's good to read this as a kind of prescription. Now again, it's strange, but here's a Buddhism that's trying to now think of everyone

[96:57]

all at once, and each person as carrying enlightenment. That everyone carries enlightenment.

[97:08]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_70.06