And you've kind of threaded the needle with mind. A word is a product of the mind, obviously, not so much the body. So when you count your breath, you're in a way threading the needle of a word and going one stitch, two stitches. I mean, attention is an aspect of mind. So how do you grab hold of attention and bring it to touch the mind, caress the mind? And one way to caress the breath with the mind is to thread awareness with a word.

[01:08]

and use the word to pull awareness to the breath. And after a while, you don't have to use a word anymore. Just there's a kind of field of awareness that you bring to the breath. And this is actually an important shift. When you feel the field of mind or field of awareness and not just the contents of awareness. Now, these are experiences everybody has. But when you meditate, you begin to see them more clearly. And you begin to be able to stabilize yourself in them.

[02:24]

Okay, so that's enough. Yeah, go ahead. little experience with what you described, when I do it intentionally with some word or mantra, but with upcoming thoughts, just appearing, what to do in that sense. You mean thoughts that just come up? Yeah. What Roshi just described, I can understand a little in relation to a word or a sentence, like a Nismantra. But if thoughts can simply emerge, what is there with the interweaving? Yes, the difference between sticking and weaving.

[03:29]

When is it a purifying process and when is it sticking together as always? Okay. If I understand, you're saying Okay, it's clear you can bring a phrase to your practice, to your breath. Yeah, okay. And it's clear you can count your breath. Of course, you all understand the big, deep question here is why can you bring your attention to your breath easily. So easily. Anyone can do it. For a few breaths or a few minutes. But you can't do it for an hour. To answer that question is to come into the heart of practice.

[04:33]

So you can, let's just say, one can imagine or do, bring a phrase or a number to a breath. But all these thoughts that just flow in us when we're sitting, what connection do they have with breath? Well, none. But you can bring a connection. You can begin to feel your breath in the midst of the distraction. Don't try to get out of the distraction, but feel your breath in the midst of the distraction. To feel your breath in connection with the distraction. Like right now, I have a... pretty conscious and also subliminal sense of my speaking is in the pace of my breath.

[06:02]

And I often feel like a bellows, you know, a bellows where you start a fire. I feel we have a big blazer bag here. And we're... Fanning the Dharma Fanning the flame of the Dharma I mean, I'm a little romantic, but that's what I feel Yeah, somehow every time it's Nanchuan.

[07:18]

I come around to Nanchuan about five minutes before we have to end. Poor Nanchuan. Still waiting. Maybe I say something about it. It's interesting, all these guys lived quite a long time. Nanshan lived 87. And you can imagine how old that was in those days. When the average lifespan all over the world was in their 40s or in their 30s. Of course, there's always been a certain percentage of the population who've lived a long time. What we have now is medical science has extended the life of the early dyers. But it's also clear that practice does generally make you somewhat healthier.

[08:28]

It didn't protect me too well from this flu. But that's okay. And Shido lived, what, from 700, who wrote the Sandokai. He lived from 700 to 790. He lived 90 years. And his teacher, who was the disciple of the sixth patriarch, the sixth ancestor, he lived 87 years. And Zhao Zhou was a real long one. He lived 120 years. And that's my goal, 120. I think it's the upper limit.

[09:29]

But during this flu, I began to doubt it. But I don't want to leave you right away because you're so great. I don't want to go immediately. I find you all great. Anyway, Nanchuan And Zhaozhou, who was the disciple of Nanzhuang. Nanzhuang was the disciple of Matsu. These are all the most famous of the early Zen masters. Really the small group who basically created the teaching we're practicing. created it not because they're smarter than us created it because they had a deeper sangha so anyway then Zhaozhou asked Nanzhuan, what is the way?

[10:50]

And he said, not mind, not Buddha, not things. This is pretty far out. Not things. You know, how can you say not things? And if you say not things, how can you say not Buddha? This is And not mind. This is taking everything away. And Matsu himself, when asked, What is Buddha? He said, Mind is Buddha. Yeah, but Nanchuan, his disciple, says, Not mind.

[11:51]

So what's going on here? So maybe if it's not mind and not Buddha and not things, perhaps it's knowledge. Or it's God. Or it's awareness. But Nanchuan also said the way is said consciousness is not the Buddha. Knowledge is not the way. Okay, so earlier today I tried to give you a feeling for this experience of weaving mind and phenomena together. Sitting there in the window next to the empty space where the summer tables are usually.

[12:55]

And feeling all of this implanted in the mind. And giving you in this way the practice I so often give you. To know that everything you see points at mind as well as at the object. So we have to come to the point where we can get a feeling for what I said about the oxen. In the ten ox-herding pictures, this is about the seventh or something. It's so good that we have a place called the oxen so near.

[14:07]

Johanneshof is the right place. Anyway, I had to be able to say that. in this week, practice week. So you can perhaps hear, not mind. Not Buddha, not things. Because not mind doesn't make any sense as a teaching that this is the way. Unless you know the practice of everything points to mind. Everything is an echo of mind. So if you have this practice, then you can say, ah, not mind. Not Buddha. Not things. So this doesn't mean that the way is something other than these three things.

[15:32]

It means the way is the actual practice of not mind, not Buddha, not things. In other words, it's like When I want to go somewhere, I practice with no place to go. It's the same dynamic. When your practice gets deeper, so you have the practice of more adept, so you have the practice of mind points at everything. Then you take that away, not mind. So the way becomes... not mind.

[16:33]

A big space opens up. And then we practice with Buddha the sense of maximal greatness. The way in which not only does the ideal posture of zazen affect us, that the ideal human potential No, not Buddha. Not Buddha. Not even things. So here we have an openness to the continuity of being. or the space of non-being. So these phrases like many and one, not one, not two, the intimacy of the Sandokai, the intimacy of the many and the one,

[17:45]

of sameness and difference or perhaps equality and difference and the more you can feel yourself in that and lost not knowing exactly where to go but to be in the middle of these You open a seam to wholeness. It becomes a kind of crossroads or juncture. A conjunction of the mystery and form. Or all at onceness and particularity. And that's the true human body.

[18:59]

The true human body, which isn't just located here. You feel this seam open. To wholeness, to all-at-onceness. So Dogen says, entire universe is the true human body. Once you open this seam to the one and many, everything is one, same, and everything is different. There's many things and somehow there's one mind. Once you open this seam, where are the boundaries? So Dogen says, The entire universe is the true human body.

[20:01]

What a far out thing to say. realistic, practical thing to say too. Once we have this shared practice reality, the whole universe is the true human body. And he says, The appearance of the true human body liberates beings. So the more we come into this opening the seam to all at onceness, To be in the intimacy of one and many. The intimacy of not one, yet not two.

[21:04]

We are one. There's a taste there of the appearance of the true human body. And it can liberate us. And there's this causal connection between causation and enlightenment. But I really didn't speak about enlightenment yet, I'm sorry. Yeah, but it can wait. No, it can't. But at least we'll wait to talk about it later.

[22:16]

For a moment. It's so good to be practicing with you. What a big space is the mudra of your hands.

[23:28]

What a big space is this Dark, windy, rainy day. Dogen has a one-line poem. Dark rain on the roof. Ain't none of them. Thank you very much.

[25:04]

And I'll start Doksang this evening again. Okay? Okay. Gerhard told me, you're all in a good mood. With some exceptions. Because I told you this morning you were all enlightened. Oh, that helps, I guess. So what would you like to talk about, speak about?

[26:20]

In our group, we came to a subject I found important, I found important and interesting, Zazen practice and partnership. That means that the question, how does the problem… You mean a spouse or…? You mean a spouse? Could be a business partner or a darned-up partner. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, okay. How is it with our partners? How far can we go back together, or understand each other, or meet in this practice, or how far is it very far away?

[27:25]

And I think that has a great influence on the practice. Okay. I think it has an influence on the way of practicing. Having a partner. Yeah, how the partner thinks about it and how he reacts with it. Yeah, there must be many, depending on the partner. Yeah. So this is just a general kind of discussion Or is there something specific you're bringing up? Well, we didn't speak about it generally. Everyone spoke about his own situation. Yeah. But, well, it's a general subject to... Yeah.

[28:28]

I didn't have a general theme. Oh, just the partnership, okay. I left it completely open. You're all my partners. That's how I feel. Not spouses, but partners. Dharma partners. Dharma brothers? No, no. Dharma sisters, Dharma partners. Well, I think there's two... In all the years I've been practicing, I would say there's two things I notice. Many spouses who don't practice view practice as a competition or threat. Usually the other partner gets over after a while.

[29:36]

What do you mean gets over? Gets past it, doesn't bother them anymore. Like getting over being sick. Particularly if you convince them you'd be an absolutely miserable partner if you didn't practice. So for three days you don't do zazen just to show them and then you scream and you break them. And then they, please do zazen today. No, I'm exaggerating, but sometimes it's like that. Yeah, that's one. But, you know, the over... Well, one other thing in relation to that. If... There is a danger if one person practices and the other does not have some kind of practice.

[30:51]

It might not be Zen. It might be yoga or tai chi or Sufi or something like that. Sufism. Because a person who practices develops in a different way than a person who doesn't practice. And after five or ten years there are significant differences. You don't share the same world or interests. And sometimes people speak to me about... Maybe I mentioned it earlier in the seminar. I can't remember. Speak to me about... how to be a couple and also both practice together, like Gerald and Gisela do, say, here.

[32:00]

Well, there's two overriding facts that shape and define Western Buddhism more than any other. Which are completely unique in the history of Buddhism. One is if you took some kind of idealistic, imagined traditional position, and said that there should be really no couples practicing together in monastic-like positions. If you took that view, all the Buddhist groups in the West would fall apart. Because everywhere they're held together by couples. Like Gerald and Gisela.

[33:11]

Like myself and my wife in all the first 20 years of Zen Center. Like at present at Zen Center, Reb and Rusa, Norman and Kathy and so forth. Most of you don't know these people, but in the new abbot, Linda Ruth Cutts and Steve Weintraub and so forth. But every group you look at, the people actually stay the longest. are the couple. And the other thing, if you took the women out of Western practice, it would be almost zero. It would be almost zero group. Not only would the population in Buddhist groups at least be cut in half,

[34:18]

But half of the men left would get bored and leave. And I don't know, maybe if you took all the men out of the Buddhist groups and left women, they'd be happy. I don't know. But the role of women And Buddhism has never been so prominent and inseparable from the whole practice. In fact, sometimes I'm quite ashamed I'm not a woman. Because I would be a much better teacher if that was a woman. Because we especially need women teachers. So perhaps that may be the last generation of male teachers. And then men have the good opportunity to practice with women.

[35:46]

You know, I practiced with Charlotte Silver for quite a long time. At the same time I started with Suzuki Roshi, I found it just absolutely fine to practice with a woman. It didn't make any difference to me. So that's maybe enough on partners and couples. So what else? I would also like some real precise questions about the teachings I put on the board. I really want us to understand how these things work. So, yes. Yeah, it's not about this, what's from there, but anyway, we were talking about many interesting things, like the bubbles of experience, but so much of the thing that I wanted to get a little clearer for me is this part of bodhisattva vow, because we were talking about practice also affecting of this, I vow to save all sentient beings, and

[37:21]

One idea was that we have to look for the enlightenment of the others because we are all connected and we can't get enlightened alone or only for us. And I think Frank, he had this feeling of, when I get it right, that you're helping the others to get enlightened. It was another kind of idea. the helping of the others is not necessary, because when you get something, when you get a teaching, you have to give it to someone else, you have to have a flow through you. And my question is, because I found this idea good, but when I'm honest, when I hear this, I think, oh, it's too big, I can't... I hear it like, when I work with this phrase, like a... turning word or something and say oh I vow to save all sentient beings I first feel it's too much I can't do it it's like a moral thing I have to do also I know it's not meant this way but we had also the question why we have to what's the reason for this vow I don't know if I get it right but um

[38:44]

What's this part of Buddhism meaning that is getting outwards to the others and saving the others? I want to hear a little more about it. Okay, Deutschbitte. We talked about self-sacrifice in the broadest sense of the word, that we should practice saving other beings. And the idea was that we have to do it anyway, because we can't do it alone, but we can do it with everyone. The other idea was also that if we get this teaching, we have to pass it on or that it is of course also justified somehow. And I also have a problem with this, to praise it, because it seems very great to me and sometimes I feel it as a moral challenge, even if I think it's okay in principle, but I don't like it. And Frank, would you want to add something in your own words to this? It was almost right, but I would maybe add that I find it important to look at this part of completeness.

[39:56]

Because I think that situations become complete not only by themselves or by an accident or by something very nice, but through myself, that I'm somehow responsible or I participate in this completeness of a situation. In this way I also understand the bodhisattva vow that I'm But if I want to come in this present cause, in this conditioning, the conditioned, then I have to participate in situations in the way of completing them, nourish them. I said it somewhat differently in the group, but this was important. I would add to this that I am concerned about this completeness, about which Roshi talked a lot.

[41:02]

Because I believe that if situations are to become complete and experienceable, then I myself have something to do with it, then I should somehow influence all this completeness. And that is an important point for me in this Bodhisattva construction, because I believe While it's not the custom to speak with practitioners about your meditation experience, Except in Doksan. But in some context, it's okay to speak about your meditation experience.

[42:02]

I think in the context of discussing your practice, And I think it's okay for us to, unless that's what we're doing, is discuss our practice together. We discuss our practice together. And I think it helps us to also see the possibility of practice and the priority of practice. Sorry. It helps us see the possibility of practice and the priority of practice. Because, again, let me say that practice really is...

[43:05]

transformative in our lives when it's our first priority. Which means you bring practice that whatever you do, you don't necessarily change what you do, but you make what you do practice. And then you can ask, what would motivate you to do that? And that is the bodhisattva vow. Which isn't just a kind of moral idea, it's a kind of ache in you, an ache in yourself. I remember once when my daughter Sally was very little. She, we were, my wife at the time, Virginia, and I, was married to her.

[44:12]

More than 20 years. And I just spoke to her last night. And she... We were looking at pictures in Life magazine of the Vietnam War. And they were so horrible that Virginia was crying. And Sally came over and she was, I don't know how old, but before we went to Japan, so three or something. And Sally came over and she turned the pages to where the war wasn't in the magazine. That quite ordinary thing for a child to do is the bodhisattva vow.

[45:34]

She wanted to end our suffering. So she tried to take the cause away. But it wasn't like she wanted to hide other people's suffering from us. Because I'm sure if any of the people pictured in the magazine were there, she would have tried to just automatically, without thinking, tried to help them. Yeah. So the bodhisattva vow means the purity of something that simple. It's not about something general or big, you know. It's really just about how you are with each person. Because, I mean, Buddhist sense of reality is so complex and enfolded that it's bigger than any view.

[46:50]

The Buddhist view is like there's multiple worlds folded within worlds. And the only reality to that is each precise moment. Even genetically, it's... the way in which our genes are shared throughout the world and how fast in 100 to 200 years one English sailor's genes are spread throughout China. So even at a genetic level, we're... So complexly interrelated.

[47:54]

But aside from that, all we have is each each. There's not all. And already this is a challenge, how to be present. with each moment and each person equally. And it's interesting, you know, the more you are present or available to be present to each person, your world gets better. Not only in yourself, because you don't accumulate a kind of implicit guilt because you separate the world into people you lie to, people you know.

[49:02]

But people get your feeling. And you go someplace and people are smiling at you all the time. You're not doing anything except walking down the hall or walking through a store and people start smiling at you. You don't even have to talk with them. The closest experience I think people have of that is being in love. People sense when another person's in love. And they are always usually nice to them.

[50:04]

So, instead of being in love, in Buddhism we try to be in compassion. Now, as Frank said, bringing this... I'd really like you to get this dynamic of what appears and completion. Ich möchte gerne, dass ihr diese Dynamik versteht. Es entsteht etwas und es wird komplettiert. And that completion includes whatever you're doing, whatever situation you're in. And when you feel complete, Other people feel complete.

[51:12]

Or are more likely to feel complete. Already this is the bodhisattva activity. But it is a shift when you actually can handle your own incompleteness. And sometimes you sacrifice your own completeness. for the sake of others' completeness. And this is a big shift in development in one's practice. And it's again expressed in the koansis. being in the weeds. Okay, what else? I can come back to some of this, but I'd like to not talk too much if possible.

[52:17]

Yes. Come on, you have to come up with something. You take care of people all the time, don't you? You take care of people, don't you? And he was shopping this afternoon in Herrschrieb. But usually when I left a nice area and house like this and went into the real world, I had difficulties.

[53:24]

This is the real world. Now I don't have these difficulties anymore. I could, so to speak, jump into a big city and have the experience of this direct experience I have here. I could have that too. Good. Yeah. And the second thing was, when you spoke to me about the plagues, And the second list because you said you're taking care of people.

[54:24]

Okay. And I had said in the group that the bodhisattva ideal was not present enough. I thought it was too much completing myself. Yeah. And I'm in a situation where people do need me and I have to take myself back in order to help others. So I think I'm in the right situation there where I work. Yeah. Let me say again about not only discussing practice with each other and the value of that, but also just what we're trying to do now is talk with some preciseness about practice.

[55:39]

Are we talking about when we complete what appears? Are we talking really about completing ourselves? Are we talking about completing the situation, which almost always includes other people? So if we can speak and develop a clarity... with me and with each other, then you can speak to yourself about practice with greater precision. And especially because your language is German, it's so important for you to talk with each other about these teachings. Because I make a big effort to be clear and precise.

[56:58]

It's taking me a long time. a huge effort to try to be clear. Yeah, I don't say effort by any, I regret it, it's wonderful, but it's It's been a full-time job for me for 40 years. Because I see how easy it is to be confused. by practice and go in slightly wrong directions. And I found, I started out thinking I would make this effort to be clear for you. But the effort to be clear for you ended up clarifying practice for myself more than I could do it by myself.

[58:17]

And we're doing something quite wild. I mean, we might as well be in a cave up in a remote mountain. Because in the midst of this culture, We're trying to settle, there's a phrase of Dogen's and Katagiri Roshi like, to settle the self on the self. But to be more precise, that means to settle oneself on the non-dual self. Even if you're up in a cave somewhere in the mountains, still you would be trying to settle the self on the non-dual self. So, someone else?

[59:42]

Beate? Yesterday you said These old Chinese guys found out so many things, not because they are smarter than we are, just because they have a deeper self, they had a deeper self. There's no one touching it. Well, I mean that the Beagles are not John Lennon. I mean, you can't imagine Mozart and Haydn and Bach and Beethoven without imagining the others.

[61:06]

And I can't... There's no way I would be able to... practice I mean how can I put it if I was practicing primarily on my own all these years and with Suzuki Roshi as inadequate as I think my practice is and I wish I'd had the sense to focus entirely on it earlier in my life. Still, my practice would be far less developed if I hadn't been practicing with you. It's simply not comparable.

[62:20]

And the more you develop in your practice each of you, the more I develop and the more all of us develop. In fact, I don't want to tell you this too often, but you are responsible for my practice. If you want my practice to get better, it's your responsibility. This is true. This is in fact true. So I yearn to live to 120, because by the time I'm 100, you guys will be so wonderful that I can bask in your light.

[63:20]

So please, this is my plea that you all do this. And I mean if we just take examples like contemporary science. There are more scientists alive today than have lived in history. And the advances in science are inseparable from so many people working together. And strangely, even when they're not talking to each other, Significant discoveries are made simultaneously, even on the same afternoon, in different parts of the world. Some kind of field is created, which is created. And it's also can be limiting.

[64:35]

So you have to keep re-evaluating the field. And Buddhism tries also to do that in the field of the Sangha. So when I look back in Buddhist history, Most creative times are when there was a group of people, fairly large, all in a lot of connection with each other. And that's simply what I'm trying to do here in Johanneshof in Crestown. I'm trying to be part of and help create a Sangha. I wrote something down.

[66:09]

It was too complicated for me to just say it. The practice is moment after moment the renewal of the moment of death. That's what you had said. And I would like you to explain a little bit more. How is the connection to objects and the realization and seeing and feeling of objects? I get the first part, I think.

[67:17]

What do you mean by the connection to objects, for example? I practice and I imagine I'm in a situation of being empty. Then I come back into reality. I have contact with objects. How is that possible on the base of this emptiness? Okay, that's a good question Well, I think it's helpful to have some practice of retreat or an inner calmness or stillness or emptiness.

[69:03]

Yeah, and this is particularly healthy or helps you develop in the early part of practice. And one of the reasons we created a place like this, Crestone, so that you have a place to go that supports you in doing this. And that's one of the reasons why we founded Crestone and this place here, to help you The teaching of form as emptiness is not that there's some special place emptiness and form is somehow opposed to that. The teaching is that form is exactly emptiness and emptiness is exactly form. And there's no emptiness without form and vice versa. Yeah. Sorry.

[70:20]

Could you open the window again, please? Are you getting overheated? They're getting cold sitting over there. Yeah, I'm sorry. Well, okay. Sorry. He's got a big sweater on him. Okay. Thank you. So maybe I can give a little example or exercise of the perception of emptiness. And let's see if I can remember a stanza of Vasubandhi. By the non-perception of duality, the form of duality disappears.

[71:29]

And when the form of duality disappears, I can't remember the disappearance. Anyway, get the idea, I think. What is the perception of non-duality? Our world is formed by the perception of dualities. So in a way, Buddhism is really very simple. Look at it as simple. Look at it as practical. Look at it as something that's possible for you.

[72:42]

And don't be fooled by fancy terms like the perception of non-duality. Let's take this little phrase I gave you earlier. The flower is not red, nor is the willow green. You have some experience of that, don't you? Maybe you have an experience of red, even though I said the flower is not red. And what's the difference? I think there's some difference. When you say the flower is red, you have a feeling of saying something factual. And there's a flavor of comparison.

[73:44]

There's a flavor of comparison. between red and other possible colors. But when you say the flower is not red, there's no flavor of comparison with other colors. Maybe you don't quite feel that, but I think you might feel it. So this phrase of not mind, not Buddha, not things is the activity of the perception of nonduality. Now, if you just develop the habit of removing the subject-object distinction,

[75:04]

Now maybe I can try to give you some more examples. I'd have to think about it a little bit. But all of these, the practice again of there's no place to go, when you're going somewhere, is the practice of the perception of non-duality. When you complete what appears, when what appears is just something ineffable, without substance, I mean, it's just something that appears in the feeling of the situation. And your completion of it is the perception of non-duality.

[76:24]

Because it doesn't feel complete if you complete it in comparison to something else. So the experience of completion is the experience of non-duality. I've never spoken exactly about it this way, so maybe it's not so clear what I mean. If you... If it's... If you have a choice. And we're talking about, as I said, you have a choice between past cause and present cause. Past cause is real. There are lots of past causes which affect us. And really to... have an understanding of present cause is a wisdom teaching.

[77:37]

And it's pretty sophisticated. And if you can't really have a sense of present cause unless you've practiced mindfulness. And so... You make a wisdom choice when you decide to give primacy to present cause over past cause. So that means you take into account past causes But they're always taken for you in the midst of the present situation.

[78:45]

Without much emphasis on the future. Ohne viel Wert zu legen auf die Zukunft. Just trying to be present in the immediate situation. Einfach versuchen, präsent zu sein in der gegenwärtigen Situation. Now when you're present in the sense of one and many. Und wenn ihr so gegenwärtig seid im Sinne von dem einen und dem vielen. And now let me say that several ways. Und das möchte ich jetzt in verschiedenen Arten ausdrücken. One and many. Eins und vieles. Not one and not two. equality and difference maybe that's one of the most accessible each of you is different and the walls are different the windows are different but at the same time

[79:48]

I can't say one of you is more important than the other, or this wall is more important than the window. So while I also know the difference, I also can perceive a certain, it's just a there-ness, a here-ness. So how does the here-ness or saying-ness or equality. fit together with difference. When you really feel that, it's an experience of non-duality. And that experience of non-duality is also an experience of intimacy. Like maybe when you say the flower is not red.

[81:01]

You have an experience of intimacy with red. So it's interesting. We're taking the habit of language. and using it to create experience of non-duality. And if you keep doing this, if it becomes a wisdom practice, you suddenly will find yourself in a different world. The more you actively find a way to perceive non-duality, It enters you into another world.

[82:04]

And this is what teachers like Vasubandhu and the Diamond Sutra are all trying to show us. So if I look at Michelin, And I feel no person. No black. No Schwarz. No Michelin. It's a... there's some kind of experience that's not the same as I just identify you as a particular person. So with each of you, if I take away the distinctions as I look at you, It's an action of taking away the distinction. Now, you may think that's kind of artificial to have an action of taking away distinctions.

[83:09]

But when you're used to it, it's so relaxing. Because actually we are all involved in an immense action of making distinctions. You take it for granted. You're constantly making distinctions. All these people are here, and they're different, and they're dressed differently, and they think differently, and they think, and I'm in this room. I mean, you're... A billion distinctions are weighing down on you. And you keep trying to walk through a room, trying to get the distinctions out of the way. Yeah. And when you can just relax, no distinctions at all. Permanent vacation. With pay. Yes.

[84:27]

Is dualism a problem of the evening land after Aristoteles? Or because it didn't exist before, as far as I know? Or is it generally applied to people by the tendency? Is it the problem of the Western, say, European or Western history and philosophy after Aristoteles, or is it just brought to mankind to think dualistically? Yes. Okay. I think it's our habit to Think dualistically. And we have to, because if I throw this to him, you know, it occurred in his mind. He had to see it as outside him.

[85:31]

Otherwise it might have hit him in the eye. So we have to see our perceptions as something happening outside us. And we forget that it's also happening in our mind. He's able to catch it because it happened in his mind. And if I throw it up like this and it makes an arch, he makes very complex mathematical calculations. really rapidly to catch it. If he were a mosquito, it would probably just fall on him because a mosquito can't make those calculations. Maybe that's not true. Mosquitoes are quite good at dodging me. Maybe that's not true either, because mosquitoes have developed it well to meet me.

[86:49]

So it's a wisdom practice to remind ourselves that it's all happening in mind. That every object is an echo of mind. That's a wisdom teaching. Now, there's a difference between the West and Asia. And between people all over the world there's a difference. But the differences are not in whether they perceive things dualistically or not. The differences are in how they perceive dualistically or how they reinforce dualistic thinking. So the practice of adept practices begin to perceive We shape the world through perception.

[88:00]

So what do we shape the world through perceiving? What do we perceive? What we perceive is dualities. Buddhism says, turn that around. And just still perceive, but perceive non-dualities. And there are many ways that we're doing this, to say complete what appears is a perception of non-duality. To feel yourself in the intimacy of everything is one and yet not one. is a perception of non-duality.

[89:04]

So if I do that again, yeah, it's my hands. But in fact, it's also the sound and the air and you and your ears and so forth. There's not a clear distinction between subject and object. And we have to make a subject-object distinction, of course. This is my voice speaking, not Gisela's voice. But still, just like the... it's not so simple as just I'm speaking. You're hearing, I'm feeling what you're hearing. It's not a simple subject-object distinction. I don't, since this is a kind of not difficult to practice so much, but it's difficult to explain.

[90:20]

I won't try any more right now. But I will say again you have this choice of what cause do you choose. Yes, there's a subject-object distinction. That's one aspect of reality. But there's also a... Freedom from subject-object dualities. An experience of merging or distinctions disappearing. This is called the first principle in Buddhism. The second principle is duality.

[91:23]

Calling it the first principle means that you're choosing between causes. You're choosing between Your world rooted in duality or your world rooted in non-duality? Both are true. But the wisdom pressure... is to give primacy to a world of non-duality. And give that primacy on each perception. Every time you meet somebody, you take away the feeling of self and other. Jedes Mal, wenn ihr jemanden trefft, nehmt ihr das Gefühl von selbst und anderen Formen. Wenn immer ihr trefft, wenn ihr zum Beispiel in Harris Street einkaufen geht, ist es nicht, dass ihr diese Subjekt-Objekt-Unterscheidung ignoriert. Es ist ein zweiter Grund in dem Hiersein eures Daseins. Not only is duality the first perception, the primary perception, it's almost the only perception.

[92:50]

It barely senses the non-duality. But Buddhism says, oh, OK, sense it, but make it the first perception. Yes, so then we have some real practical questions. How do you do this? Two beers. Yeah, three maybe. It does help, actually. I think that's why people like alcohol. Yeah, the third beer is the non-dual beer. I don't know. I don't know. I found it very interesting this morning because I felt very miserable, and my mind was totally concerned with my stomach, and something was going on in my body, and I just felt like, you know, even during zazen, I felt like I should just take off my okaza and walk out here.

[94:01]

This kind of feeling, that something was going on. And then I knew... In your lecture you said, I was still a little busy with my health and then in your lecture you said, there are so many rivers coming together, named rivers coming together and they go into the ocean and then they have no name anymore. And all of a sudden, I mean, it just, I don't know, the mood changed immediately. So studying this, So you get a non-dual stomach suddenly. But I always wonder, I mean, even during sessions when we are listening to the teachers and so, so many moods, you're concerned with your mind in so many moods, then you're totally busy, occupied with, I don't know, dualistic thinking or whatever, but in the moment something hits you in your mind, then it changes completely.

[95:00]

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