The next step is to notice the imbalance in our sense perception. We human beings, and particularly us Western human beings, give predominance to eye consciousness. And we subordinate the other senses to eye consciousness. So the first step is to free the vijnana practice. is to first free the five or six perceptual modes from the conceptual process. And that makes it possible then to free each vijnana from the domination of one.

[01:12]

Okay. There's two pedagogies going on here. One is the process of maturing and developing ourselves, the craft of developing ourselves through wisdom. The other is the process of realizing wisdom. Zen as a practice in general emphasizes the realisational process. The other was always there with any of the adept masters, but it was more in the background.

[02:14]

In the West, I think we have to bring the craft of wisdom more into our practice. And not just allow it to be assumed we're all doing it. So that's the craft of the Vijnanas that I'm speaking about. As a realisational process, we can look at the Suram Gama Sutra which says that Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, realized enlightenment by subordinating all his senses to hearing. Now, do you understand the different pedagogy?

[03:28]

One is to look at all the senses and work with each one. Another is to just take one aspect And with a deep intention carry that one aspect as far as you can. And that can precipitate an enlightenment experience which opens up the other aspects not fully to realization, but fully to development. Have you followed what I said? Have you tuned out? It's not very hard. It's just that it's kind of like this and like this and like this. And at some point you get mentally tired and you think, oh, shit, what's that sound like?

[04:34]

Scheiße. I said it, though. Anyway, okay. She purifies my translation. Okay, so I think we should stop in a minute, but... So the second step is to separate and practice each vijnana. So no one is non-subordinate to another unless you choose it to be that way. So you're hearing in this room as fully as you're seeing in this room. And you're proprioceptively embodied in... physically knowing, feeling the room as well as hearing and seeing it.

[05:36]

And you're smelling the room as well. Which means you know a lot that people don't like you to know. Or sort of, this person just exercised and didn't take a bath. This person is having their period. This person is rather angry. You can smell anger. And that's all a topography right here too. It's usually subordinate to... We've almost in our society eliminated smells. You douse your body with every known thing. The markets are all wrapped, everything is wrapped in plastic.

[06:42]

It's nice when you go in so-called third world countries, they smell. For some reason, we have really subordinated smell. Okay, to go further with knowing... All right, let me just try to end what you... Okay. Our human intelligence is used to analyze the world. And an example of it is what I'm going to try to talk about today.

[07:47]

The shift from the Buddha as the one who is awake to the Buddha as called the Tathagata. So the early Buddha is one who is fully awake. The later Buddha is one who is fully thus. Now I'll try to make clear what that means. And it's a shift that could only come about through intellectual analysis. Or a process of being in love, or as I said yesterday, enlightenment exists, love exists. Why aren't we always in love? Yeah. Why aren't we always enlightened? So through the meditation practice, there's an intuition of the world.

[08:49]

And in some people, there's a realization of the world. Let's just call it that. Through the compassion of our Dharma ancestors, they saw this realization of the world as a capacity of potentiality for all of us. Okay, so they tried to understand from the point of realization how to see the world from the point of view of realization, both to transform your knowing the world and to create the conditions for your realization.

[10:15]

Okay, so when you take the way the five senses or six senses in Buddhism, And you then use those senses through the vision of wisdom. You know the world differently than just your eyes present it to you. We tend to see what's called panoptically. That means to see like a camera. I take a photo here, it shows all of you here. And we tend to now see that way. But in fact, we don't see that way. You take a picture of a distant mountain, it's really far away in the camera, but when you're standing there, it's right in front of you.

[11:24]

And I'm actually looking in many little groupings, the way that couldn't be photographed. And all of this is happening in me in a way that couldn't be photographed. So in a way we free our eyes to see more subtly by freeing them from views. The main problem is not our eyes. or our senses, but our views that shape how we perceive. Okay, I've said too much. So let's take a break. Till 11.25. So let's sit one minute at least. So Avalokiteshvara brought all her attention and energy into knowing the world fully, thoroughly through hearing.

[14:11]

I admire you for sitting through all this not you maybe in an hour I admire you Because I don't really think this is particularly hard to understand. But I'm guessing it takes mental energy. At least it does for me. To keep these things clear so that you see their relationships. Is there anything you'd like to bring up? Yes. Would you please say a few words about how the posture influences the perception and how we could possibly improve our posture so that the perceptual process is changing?

[16:56]

Yeah, during sitting. Well, the first level, your posture, is really your backbone. And a lifting feeling through your backbone. And so you want to create kind of support for that, so we fold our legs. Which also concentrates our energy and heat. And that lifting feeling up through the back of the head begins to open up the channels for the more subtle postures. where you feel a sustained energy coming into your posture accompanied by a simultaneous relaxation.

[18:07]

I think the only thing I'd add to that definition of zazen is the... Well, Rajanapani... No, Vajrapani... Vajrapani... says... When the mind is in meditative equipoise, when the mind is in meditative equipoise, completely balanced, it conceives of nothing and only perceives knows the self-joyous mind, only knows the clarity

[19:40]

The joyous clarity mind. Yeah. Now, when the mind is in meditative equipoise and doesn't conceive of anything, then it notices outside conceptual habits. And one of the keys to meditation is to begin to notice what doesn't fall into any category of cultural experience or language. And to notice with confidence and without fear. So that's today's five-minute definition, description of zazen.

[20:50]

With the help of Vajrapani and Ulrika. Anything else? Something else? Yes? I'd like to come back to our talking about the Sangha in our group yesterday. I would like to bring up one point that came up in our group and for me that resonates with the experience I had last year at Johanneshof in the Dialogos seminar with David Bohm.

[21:54]

At Johanneshof? Yeah. We had a seminar in the February last year in Johanneshof. Oh. Not with David Bohm. David Bohm has since died. Yeah. But somebody does his dialogus work. Oh, I see. Okay. Because I was wondering how you managed that. You were in a profound meditative equipoise. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. And above all this thing where he says it's about such a shared meaning or common meaning that can emerge in such a dialogue. What I understand is that this is also the case in the sangha, that there is such a common meaning, not only takes place through language, but is on a much deeper level. And the importance of it, as David Bohm calls it, That we work like this in general, that we identify with our opinions and then when we talk to each other, we argue about our opinions.

[23:24]

And rarely the assumptions behind it come into the language. And even more rarely something that is really in the background, so to speak. Yes, and I think that's what I wish for and that's what I think is important in a Sangha. And I also notice myself how shy I am to do it over and over again, or how I am self-identified with what I do. Sometimes I think it's almost a necessity to do it. David Bohm, who developed this kind of work, which we practiced in the seminar we had at Johanneshof, talked a lot about the shared vision that's behind a lot of our life together, and particularly a shared meaning. and that this shared meaning is the basis of our life together and yet it's very much in the background and what is in the foreground is our personal reasoning and identifications and our individual kind of conduct and so forth.

[24:41]

So the point is to sort of get through these layers that are in the foreground and move through these layers back toward this shared meaning that fertilizes our life. And I forget that myself often, and yet I feel somehow this resonates with the feeling of sangha. Okay. That's enough, isn't it? The shared meaning is not simply there, but has to be developed in the process of revealing yourself to others. Yeah, that's good. The difference... I'm often very shy to do it myself, to reveal this.

[25:44]

You're trying, though. That's good. The practice of Buddhism is to change those shared meanings and to change those views. And the Sangha are those who have changed their views into those of Bodhisattva practice. But I suppose the root of all cultures is the seed of caring. And I think we could say that everything we're doing is an unfolding of caring. The parents care for their little baby. Mm-hmm. And when we look at something, these flowers for instance, we look at them, our interest is a form of caring.

[27:06]

So one of the words I put up there in the list was gotra. And I would interpret that word gotra meaning the evolvement of the seed of caring. Into a lineage. So it most means something like gene and lineage. As many of these terms actually are both the source and the result, they mean both. So the gene of human society is, let's call it the gene of caring. And that only makes sense as a lineage, a lineage which unfolds as compassion. You could say that's one definition of Buddhism.

[28:18]

But how do you unfold compassion? That's what Sangha is. Those who are trying to do it in this way. So we really all have a pretty complex shared meaning and view. And many of them are contradictory. I remember in school I found it strange. I was told to care, but I was told to do better than others in school. I never liked it. I felt it was something dishonest to say both to me as a child. They used to say, hitch your wagon to a star. Hitch your wagon, tie your wagon to a star.

[29:19]

It seemed like a crazy thing to do. And you'd get nowhere. Anyway. So there are... But, you know, there are ways to play with these things. For example, in Japan, where they have a complex relationship to... the way they describe their complex relationship to achievement and caring. For example, they have races among the kids where you can't tell who won. So they start, my daughter went to a Japanese school, so I used to go to these track meets and watch her run. And she was pretty fast in short distances, but she's asthmatic and not so fast in long distances.

[30:36]

But she had the advantage of being bigger than the Japanese kids. But none of that makes any difference. Because they line about six kids up in a row, and then they line up about every few meters another six kids. And then they shoot a gun off. And everybody starts running like mad. And in the end, they're all in a crowd. Nobody understands who won or anything because... So there's no clear beginning, so nobody could say they won. And they had another game which amused me, is they had a red team and a yellow team, I think.

[31:41]

And the red team had red hats and the yellow team had yellow hats. And there were red balls and yellow balls. And there was a basket at the end of a pole. So one of the red team guys and one of the white, yellow team gals. It's mixed boys and girls. Held the stick. And everyone else tries to get the red balls in the basket. So they're all throwing red balls up like mad. And the yellow people are trying to throw yellow balls, but sometimes they pick up red balls. And they create a wonderful environment of a rainfall of red and yellow balls. Because most of them don't get into the basket. But finally there's some in the basket.

[32:42]

So they bring the basket down. And then in a kind of dramatic way they count the balls. So the red hat falls. throws the red balls up in the air, and the yellow hat throws the yellow balls up in the air. And they throw them up together. So they're going, Ichi! That's one. Ni! That's two. And pretty soon, around 14, there's only red ones going up. Because the yellow ones are gone. So there's 14 yellows and there's, you know, 17 reds. So 14 yellow and 17 red. And the red team is really proud and they shout and they lift their hats.

[33:43]

And then everybody turns their hats inside out and they're yellow on the inside. If it's red, it's yellow. And then they put them all back on heads and then they start again. And they have a game and there's competition, but there isn't clear winners. So it's a kind of interesting way to play with the contradictions of achieving and making an effort. I think this development of that operating system over the Internet Where thousands of people can send in their suggestions is quite interesting. It's a kind of example of that. I forget what it's called. You know what it's called? What? Linux. Linux, yeah, that's right. Okay. Okay, so I should try to make sense of these things I've been talking about.

[35:03]

It might be possible. Okay. Now, if I say that Sangha is such and such, Such and such, so and so, yeah. It doesn't mean I give you some definition. But I don't think you can practice it. And you will remember it's an ideal or sometimes you'll feel close to other people, but it doesn't mean that much. Like, I mean, families have a connection, they feel a blood connection, although they often don't get along with each other. But there's still some connection with your brother or sister that you feel even if you hardly like them.

[36:06]

And they may be politically way on the other end of the spectrum from where you are. But still, there's some connection. And sanghas like that, I mean, we're very different, those of us in the sangha. And one reason I love practicing is if I have a social life, which I hardly have, but the extent that I would, I only know people that are like me and that I like. I like spending time with people that are not like me and that sometimes I don't like. Unfortunately, I like most of you, but all of you as far as I can tell. But still... But still, independent of liking and disliking, there's some connection.

[37:31]

And that I find much richer than my friends. Though I like my friends, of course. So this connection, let me say that today what I'm emphasizing is this connection is suchness. Or thusness. I prefer the translation thusness. Also ich bevorzuge die Übersetzung das so sein. Yeah, etymologically I prefer it, but I don't need to explain that. Also etymologisch bevorzuge ich das, aber es ist nicht nötig das zu vertiefen. Now I would say if you want to if you want if you imagine yourself as part of the Sangha the first step would be to take the precepts.

[38:52]

And the precepts are not even Buddhist. They just commit you to a common vision of humanity. What we teach children. Don't steal, don't lie, etc. We teach our children, but we often don't practice it ourselves. But we would still teach our children not to lie. So Buddhism says, teach yourself too not to lie and steal. This is not childish. This is a serious matter. Thank you. That this basic humanity that all societies seem to have is we have to consciously commit ourselves to.

[40:09]

There's a story I like where there's some famous Zen master sitting in a tree. And somebody came to see him. Said, you're such a famous Zen master, what are you doing up in the tree? What is the essence of Buddhism? Do good and avoid evil. He says, every child knows that. And the man in the tree says, but it's hard to do. If you stay in a tree, maybe it's easier. And some of us design our lives so that we have a better chance to do that.

[41:10]

And the second, I would say, is let's take this vision of the four immeasurables. And really see if you can radiate this feeling in yourself and throughout yourself. And from yourself. Mm-hmm. And notice when you're not and hold the intention to realize these four immeasurables. And the third would be to realize the practice of thusness. Or the non-duality of mind. Okay, now this is a little harder to explain.

[42:17]

Yeah, I don't even know if it's useful to explain. But I'll make an effort. And I have to start with the simplest things that start with us. And one of the things I point out in almost every seminar is that we're sitting here. And there's a feeling here that we can't grasp. That's different than it was a few minutes ago. And it's absolutely unique. And each moment is absolutely unique. And whether there's cars outside or bells or two more people come in.

[43:24]

Every element affects us. This moment can't be photographed. It can only be known through yourself. And it doesn't have duration. Knowing that moment, which has no length even, through yourself, And through the all-at-onceness of this moment is what is meant by thusness. That's not the same as just being aware. Or it's awareness with depth. And it's sometimes called uncaused. Because it doesn't arise from prior causes, although prior causes are the condition.

[44:36]

It arises through yourself. It's non-manifest until you manifest it. Es ist nicht manifest, sei denn du manifestierst es. But we are all in fact manifesting it. Aber im Grunde manifestieren wir alle das. But there's a difference in the degree to which we manifest it. Aber es gibt einen Unterschied in welchem Ausmaß wir das manifestieren. A Buddha is one who fully manifests it. Yeah. Now, I really do not know if I can make the import of this clear and give you a feel for it. But at least I can try to present it. And again, I think, for me, I find... Every time I practice with this, which is really pretty much all the time, but when I practice it with trying to articulate it,

[45:58]

I find it fruitful. But it's much simpler when I try to speak it out. So maybe I can just riff on it. These practices All assume a certain understanding. And more than that they assume the willingness to practice. Without the willingness to practice, none of this coheres. Now, changing is movement.

[47:09]

And it's assumed, as I've said again, an outward movement and an inward movement. And a distracted mind is also part of a kind of distraction in our movement. Through practice you develop a kind of ability to move out toward the world and toward others. And when you're not doing that, you clearly are pulling yourself in. Now I've noticed it rather naturally in people who are jogging. I was driving a car and I saw a friend who was jogging. And they were concentrating on jogging and their time and all of that. And they really didn't want to stop and talk to me.

[48:10]

Wasn't that good a friend. And I saw this person come out to talk and then really want to pull back here. That's not much different than this movement which is characterized as Manjushri, the inner movement of Avalokiteshvara, the elder. And this also parallels the idea that each Dharma appears and disappears. So again, the central reality that Buddhism assumes Nun, noch einmal, die zentrale Realität, von der der Buddhismus ausgeht, die wir so sein nennen, oder Tathata, ist dieser nicht fassbare Augenblick,

[49:33]

that is caused in the immediacy of this situation. It's not entirely predictable from the conditions. If it was entirely predictable from the conditions, there would be no enlightenment. And things may happen in this seminar that you couldn't have predicted Friday here, Thursday. And that's much more likely to be the case the more you are present in this immediacy. Now, the analysis of the way we, the analysis of what I will call animate existence, or animate space, led the shift in emphasis from the Buddha as one who is awake to defining awakeness as the process of blessedness.

[50:39]

and which you cause reality. You possess reality. Reality possesses itself. It's not, in other words, what is most real here is this moment we're all sharing right now. Each in your individual way. It's not graspable or explainable. And as soon as you grasp it or explain it, that's called leaking or delusion or compassion because you may grasp it in order to share it.

[52:06]

But mostly the millions of moments you don't grasp or explain. And you don't conceptualize. And you've moved yourself out of this laya vijnana, being hooked up to the conceptual process. Now, the laya vijnana is a word for the world. For the human world. The human world which is compiled from perceptions. Compiled from memory and associations. Again, Wittgenstein's statement fits here.

[53:09]

All perception is interpretation. This is the sum of our experience which allows us to interpret. And as I said, conscious, unconscious and non-conscious experience. And that experience isn't pure experience because it's shaped by views. And the views are prior to the perceptual process. So many of the practices that are given in Buddhism Given without explanation usually, are meant to move the perceptual, are meant to free the perceptual process from views.

[54:21]

And much of this is not entirely understandable at first. So you can have an intuition that makes sense. But to really practice this, you need the energy of faith. At some point you have to decide, okay, this is what I'm doing and I'll just have faith in the practice. And as the practice is maturing you, they begin to make the kind of sense you wish they had in the beginning. But some combination of intuition, insight, understanding, and faith, but not necessarily belief, are required to really practice these things. So Tathagatagarbha means the movement of appearing and disappearing.

[55:48]

of thusness as an embryo. But I also, it used to be translated as womb, now it's primarily translated as embryo. And I think both are useful translations. I'm convinced that embryo is more accurate. But we can think of thusness, this moment of thusness, as the embryo of realization. Excuse me, you can think of thusness as the womb of realization. But there's also a movement here, so this is a direction. In other words, each time you're able for a homeopathic moment, By saying homeopathic moment, I just mean it works in very small doses, very small moments.

[57:24]

You don't have to think, oh, I've got to do this all the time or I'm a failure. Just a moment is enough. Enlightenment occurs in a moment. You change the direction of your life in a moment. So, a moment without duration. You only know it was a moment because you changed direction at that time. So how to bring ourselves into the immediacy and momentariness of reality? That became the vision of Buddhism. And this all arises from attempting to do that. So the more you can bring yourself into this non-dual moment, and again, as I talked about in the Sashin the other day, each object you can call a mind object.

[58:54]

The word object literally means the wisdom in the word object. Means that something is put in front of the mind. Eject means to throw or eject or something. And ob is to put in front of. So an object is something put in front of the mind. And in Buddhism we maybe can call that a mind object. And it's considered that you lift yourself up into the mind object. And lift up has both the sense of energy and purification. So if I really see these flowers, As a mind object revealing my own mind as purple, yellow, green, etc.

[60:14]

And I have no other perception for a moment but that. We can describe that as a lifting up into the mind object of the flowers. This is also then considered a samadhi. And then a source mind. So any mind which is fully just that is also a source mind. Okay. Now, if I do that on each moment, it's understood I'm maturing the Buddha body. Because there's a maturing process in doing it. So that's why it's called the embryo, because it's the direction embryos mature.

[61:22]

So it means we now imagine the world not as the container universe, but a kind of fertile womb that we're all in. We're all part of the same stomach. This outside is actually a stomach. In a womb, we're either digesting ourselves or... It's just a different way of looking at things. And it's more accurate, in my opinion, as a view than thinking of it as some kind of... I don't know, container that we kind of bought around it. My first real insight into this is when I threw a cigarette packet down on the railroad tracks. And I walked a few steps and I thought, I worked in a warehouse and my job was sweeping the warehouse.

[62:46]

And I thought, no one's going to clean that up. I thought, well, why did I put it down there? And I thought, oh, there's an outside. An outside where some God cleans up the trash. Where the trash just disappears somehow. Of course it doesn't. But what I noticed when I looked back was that I thought there was an outside. that was somehow different from an inside. And I had my identity sort of worked out in the outside, and I had my identity worked out in the inside, and I had my identity worked out in the interior. At that moment, all those separations disappeared. So it opened me to this understanding that this is all a kind of stomach or womb.

[64:06]

Each particularity is an embryo if it's understood as thusness. And every particularity is an embryo if one understands it as being so. Okay. Now, another understanding is this Dharmakaya, which is the sort of sphere of activity.

[65:07]

And that is also called the absolute body of Buddha. So This thusness of each particular moment opened up is space. But space is the activity of thusness. So it's understood that the more you practice thusness, As the kind of Buddha embryo, you realize this openness that's unlimited without boundaries. That is an actual experience. It's actualizing experience. And when you do meditation and you sometimes don't know where your thumbs are, you don't quite know where your boundaries are.

[66:26]

When the bell rings, you hear it. But you don't know if you can find your body to get up. This is a taste of the Dharmakaya. And that's a taste through meditation. But it's realized as a continuous presence when the understanding that arises through meditation Brought into this particular moment. Where each moment is, as I say, folded in. There's a folding in process. a holding, and the associations and your experience come into it.

[67:33]

And that is called the Dharma. And that's here. And then there's a letting go of it. So it appears, help, Unfold it, let it let go of it. Letting go of it, it's called emptiness, shunyata. Datu just means the realm. Datu is all of this depends on this seed of carry. I read about some tiger the other day. I mean, it's in Time Magazine, I think. There was a flood. This tiger is trying to save its cubs. And it got a, I can't remember exactly, but like it got a couple across with, on a bridge. And then the bridge went out and it got one across holding his mouth and swimming.

[68:52]

And the last one, it jumped on somebody's boat. And it was something like that. So the tiger was thinking. I mean, it's a kind of thinking. That arises out of caring for its cubs. So this is the seed of caring which, as in our human life, The lineage is those who care enough about how we really exist to continue the practice and to teach. And the fundamental teaching is not what I'm doing. I'm standing here by a flip chart.

[69:53]

The fundamental teaching is when you're walking down the street, or whenever you do, you only do this. You only do interdependent and interpenetrating. Only practice this. It makes, you know, I have to be on the phone quite often with operators and people who are, you know, catalog companies and stuff. And even in those circumstances, you could practice unlimited empathetic joy and so forth. I've even had them call me back sometimes. Saying, what do you do? I say, oh, I'm living in a monastery in Colorado. Oh, could I visit? Just because I relate to the person who opened the phone. And I'm trying, I don't want anything special, I'm just trying to practice this.

[71:11]

Or I'm trying to feel the thusness of each moment with that person. Even on the phone, you can feel something unfolding in that person as they hear your words. And some of them are so shut down and have been doing it all day that they don't feel anything. So then you can try something else. And sometimes you can shift it by trying something else. It's snowing here and I'm inside a room. Say something crazy. Anyway, that's enough for now. I can't really make this clear because it's something you feel.

[72:24]

But I'm trying to show you the thinking behind it and the compassionate vision behind it and the observing analytic wisdom behind it to bring the sense of being awake and aware into this actual process of perception and knowing free of conception unless it's necessary to conceive, free of conception in this sphere of potentiality and activity.

[73:25]

It's called both the Dharmakaya and the Alaya-Vijjana. and Tathagatagarbha. So that the sense of everything you are as a laya-vijñāna is, that's the laya-vijñāna. When you join that to seeing the world as this fertile womb embryo situation, through the activity of non-duality, moment after moment samadhi, or thusness, then the Dharmakaya is perfected in us.

[74:33]

And every particularity then of our life More and more is in this wide experience of connectedness. That's called the body of Buddha. And when that is practiced with others, that's truly what is meant by the Sangha. Or the Sangha body. Okay, that's as clear as I can be about it right now. So it's 12.30, I'm more or less on time. So let's sit for a few moments. Although we sometimes sacrifice our state of mind for a good cause, or just in the process of interacting with others, still the basic

[76:50]

I would say we could understand the basic vow of the Bodhisattva is to never sacrifice your state of mind. Because your main gift to yourself and to others is your state of mind. If you sacrifice your state of mind, generally you're not in the end helping others. And it's surprising, you may think you can't live a life where you don't sacrifice your state of mind. But if you have this vision and vow, surprising how possible it actually is to find ways to be in a completing, nourishing state of mind.

[78:27]

And to sleep like a baby. and to sleep like a baby. Well, we thought we'd come back around 2 or something like that.

[79:47]

Should we make it 2.15? 2 is time enough, huh? Okay, and I'm all packed and everything, so I have until quarter to 4 or something like that. I'm sorry I couldn't really convey to you the full import or significance of this teaching. I'll show you the import of this teaching. But since it took, as I said, centuries to make this clear, I suppose it's acceptable that we can't do it in a weekend. But the danger and what I am concerned with is when a teaching like this is presented simply and often even

[81:09]

In science, some things can be presented simply and it's not clear what's behind them. It's like reading the outline of a book and not reading the book. After you've read the book, the outline may sound true, but it's different than the outline before you read the book. And also, of course, this is not usually taught to lay people. It's taught to people practicing in monastic situations. But still I have confidence if we can have a feel for it for the seeds of it. And this whole teaching is based on the idea of seeds. Perhaps they will create the conditions for its maturation in us.

[83:00]

And I think it would help if we could really put it in context of philosophy in general and psychology in general. I think in that context you'd see how radical and innovative this 2,000-year-old teaching is. For this is a process of understanding our immediate situation, which can lead to the realization of And based on the fullest potential of human life, at least one view of the fullest potential of human life. So, let me stop that little introduction and ask if anyone wants to try to clarify this together.

[84:16]

I would like to say something about that. I have now gained a new understanding of Satchinism. I thought so far that it would be more connected to this nothing add, nothing subtract. And then suddenly seeing these things as they are and also with this certainty that it can be something. and then have the feeling, okay, that's how it is. And that's the goal. And Richard has now shown me a new understanding that there is something more brutal or something subtler. And that this satsang is actually this relationship between things that is not... that is not tangible at all. I just wanted to ask that again. That's true. I've really appreciated receiving a new understanding of suchness during the seminar. I'm more connected to it, to the term in the sense like what you said, like not adding anything, not subtracting anything.

[85:46]

and seeing things truly as they are. But the way you developed the theme during the seminar, I realized that underlying its suchness or thusness is connected with the relationships of all things, and that really added a new quality to my understanding what this may be. Well, that makes it worth the weekend. Well, I think the entry of the practice of just this It's also... We could say it's in the realm of the practice of thusness. But when you do such a practice, Often you use it up or you don't do it as fully as you might.

[87:14]

And we're partially satisfied by sort of understanding it. And I think we want to get... If you understand a practice, you're probably not doing it. It's not that understanding, it's not only that understanding interferes. If there is understanding, you haven't understood. But it's so natural, we're so used to. understanding things in order to proceed. I think if we get past that through the doing of a practice, then the practice unfolds and opens up. and keeps opening up.

[88:24]

So just this is not so different, just not adding and subtracting. When you really go deeply into that, you have the moment that's known only to itself. then really nothing is added or subtracted. Then you even have the understanding that it's not caused. Do you understand not caused? It doesn't really have a prior cause. It's caused by your interaction with it. In other words, this moment in me is different than if I just, like, in a coma. And the only... Reality in the end is this inner-caused moment.

[89:34]

That's what Buddhism says is the only reality. And that's a human activity. It's not a passive reception of things. And when that non-passive reception is carried to the point that each moment has a timeless quality, the very mind-body bringing it together purifies it. And it's let go of immediately. And it's not even knowable except in the moment of knowing.

[90:38]

So you don't hold on to the previous moment, you go to the knowability of the next moment. So hältst du dich gar nicht fest an dem entfliehenden Augenblick, sondern du gehst weiter zu dem noch zu kennenden Moment. That's what we all do to some extent, but we don't do it purely. Okay, something else. Yes. You mentioned this morning that there is a different quality in suchness and awareness. Could you explain that a little further, what really the quality is? Different qualities.

[91:40]

Well, what I said is the early conception of Buddha was one who is awake. Now, of what is he awake to or what is the Buddha aware of? So I suppose later Buddhism would say what the Buddha is awake to is the process of the process of thusness. So you could understand later Buddhism as trying to answer the question what the Buddha what the process of being awake is.

[92:40]

And when just being awake, you know, didn't seem to satisfy, wasn't sufficient, wasn't a sufficient way to point at what realized experience is. They began to call the Buddha the Tathagata. So in later Buddhism you have the Buddha called the Tathagata. And the term Tathagata does a couple of things. Because the Tathagata is a description of an experience. It makes it possible for us. So it's not this person back there in the past. And calling the Buddha the Tathagata was what is to point to the essential experience that made the Buddha the Buddha.

[94:11]

I'll come back to some. Someone else? Yes. If this state appears in the meditation of being like this and I lose it again, I mean I want to keep it, where does the way go? I want to refer back to what Norbert said. In the state of meditation I find myself in the state or experience of suchness and then I lose it. So where is my path leading me to then? What next? Maybe no next, no next, no next, no next.

[95:54]

This might be a good practice. .

[95:57]

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