I don't think I've ever, well, except on some flights to Japan, ever been jet-lagged so long. Yeah, maybe it's, I think it's somehow the tiredness left over from the radiation treatments mixed up with the jet-lag, I don't know. It's lucky to some extent I've realized a mind that can stay awake while my body's asleep. Yeah. But maybe I just left my heart in San Francisco. I mean, in Crestone. My little girl, Sophia, says, at first, the first few days, she...

[01:01]

When Marie-Louise said I was in Johanneshof, Sophia said, no, no, he's just through this other door. Look, we can open the other door, he'll be there. So Marie-Louise convinced her that, no, I have to fly to get back. But now, every other day, several times a day, she says, Papa should fly. And yes. Well, you know, we've never been separated since she was born, basically, so this is quite unusual for her. But my heart's also here in this sashin, don't worry. Yeah. So I was thinking, how can I... put into perspective some of what I've been speaking about.

[02:23]

So maybe I can create some kind of overview, interview, overview. Vielleicht kann ich ja so einen Überblick, so einen hineinblick, einen inneren Blick kreieren. And let's relate it to, could be started this way, two bodies, two minds. Und lasst uns das beziehen auch, weil wir so angefangen haben, zwei Körper, zwei Geisten. Two languages. Zwei Sprachen. Two breaths. Zwei... That's a good way to start. Because, you know, we started from one cell and divided it in two, and once you have two, you have many. So this two allows some interaction. And Buddhism teaches everything changes, and everything changes is only possible when there's at least two.

[03:24]

So our transformational practices requires two. So let's start. What are the practices? Yeah, yeah. Meditation and mindfulness. And meditation rooted in stillness and non-doing. And as we spoke a while ago, non-doing is the basis for meditation. is rooted in or assumes a mind without preferences.

[04:41]

Now, of course, if the building's burning down, you ought to have some preference, like to rescue the people who are still asleep or something. So a mind without preferences means a mind that functions that way even most of the time. Yeah, as Dharma practitioners, we prefer a mind without preferences. Don't let the words confuse you. You know what we mean. Okay. Then, yeah, we need probably an essential... We're talking about essential ingredients.

[05:43]

Wir sprechen hier über wesentliche Zutaten. Ingredients literally means to step into the pot. Ingredients bedeutet wörtlich in den Topf hineingehen. To step and to enter. So, you know, we're in transformational practice. Certain kinds of ingredients are necessary to make the right enlightenment soup. In what practice? Sorry. Transformationalist. It's a good thing to forget actually. I'm sorry I said it. We can put that under your picture too. Could be a whole list of subtitles, captions.

[07:03]

He's going to take the precepts tomorrow, so we have to, you know, get him ready, make fun of him. There will be hazing this evening and then a bachelor party. No, no. Hazing is like when you go to school and they make you do dumb things, you know. So the second thing we need, vows, intentions. Because in a world where everything changes, you need something that holds, that continues. So, practice is rooted in intentions. The intention to practice, the intention to stay alive.

[08:24]

No matter what. Or perhaps the intention to practice is the intention to stay alive in the best way possible. Yeah. So all of practice and the development and maturing of practice is rooted in intentions or vows. Symbolically taking the precepts. Which is about to stay alive. in a way that benefits others and yourself as one of the others.

[09:36]

Nevada Stay Alive the way we'd like people to be alive. So we have the practices, as I said, and we have the vows. And then we need the tools. And the tools are... The tools are attentional tools. Intentional, yeah. They're not... You don't... In the beginning years of practice, you don't have these attentional tools fully.

[10:39]

The main ones are... One-pointedness. The ability to put your mind somewhere and it stays there. That's also related to intention. Das steht auch mit der Absicht in Beziehung. And the second is a non-interfering, observing mind. Und das zweite ist ein nicht eingreifender, beobachtender Geist. A non-interfering, observing awareness. Eine nicht eingreifende, beobachtende Beobachtung.

[11:41]

We could say when it interferes, it's consciousness. When it doesn't interfere, it's awareness. Kind of simple, but something like that. And two or three people in Doksan spoke to me about experiences that are like in certain states of mind, say the host mind, or in certain samadhis, you can have thoughts which observe the samadhi or the host mind without interfering with it. Now that's related to the two languages. Now that's also related to the difference between an observing self and an observing mind.

[12:50]

Now one of the great confusions in the commons questions asked about who's doing this is we confuse the observing mind which has a presence and continuity, with an observing self, which has also a who and a doer. There are different kinds of agencies, different kinds of... Now, we could say also that the host mind is... Yeah. The host mind and the observing mind are interrelated.

[14:16]

And the guest mind and the observing self are interrelated. Now we could define nirvana. Let's take some big words, nirvana, you know. It's meaning non-self-referencing condition. As a self-referencing condition. And it's often related to death, dying. The Buddha died in Kusinagar and entered nirvana. When you're dead, there's not too much self-referencing.

[15:17]

So we could say Dharma is non-self-referencing experience. When you experience the world in these momentary and unique, momentary and singular cognitive domains or experiential domains. There's an absence of self-referencing. Each moment arises. This is also another way to talk about it.

[16:23]

Another is the mind without preferences. I guess I'm trying, I end up, I seem to be weaving these, trying to show some relationship between these things. You might have to get the tape if you want to sort this out. But I'm probably going to get confused in here somewhere. Okay. Karma, then, is self-referencing experience. Karma is what changes through self-referencing experience. And dharma is what holds or continues through non-self-referencing experience.

[17:23]

Now, these are not just terms. I'm making up these terms sort of as I'm speaking here. And I'm making up the terms to find words for the experience I create, feeling it this way and then feeling it that way. These terms reflect my experience. So I mean that these terms can be also your experience. I'm trying to say them in ways that they catch your experience, experiences you already have, or experiences you can feel you easily could have.

[18:41]

Also, ich benutze sie auf eine Weise, dass sie Erfahrungen erfassen können, die ihr schon habt, oder Erfahrungen, von denen ihr spürt, dass ihr sie auf einfache Weise haben könntet. Ja. So. Non-interfering observing awareness and one-pointedness are two of the main tools. And now we need an understanding of mind and body from the point of view of how of transformational practice.

[19:44]

Now, there's also restorative practice. Restorative practice is like coming into an inner stability and centeredness. And restructuring and accepting your psychological identity. More practicing, like in a sashin, for the value of the purging, the cleansing. Those I would call restorative practice. They restore you to a wholeness or nourishing condition.

[20:48]

And restorative practice is a prior condition, a transformational practice. But anyway, right from the beginning, we feel the difference between zazen mind and usual mind. And if we try to feel that and feel that and feel that and feel that till we're deeply familiar with it, The difference as it occurs in zazen, the difference as it occurs between zazen and ordinary activity. You know, zazen may be the first time or mindfulness practice that most people even become familiar with their mind and its function.

[21:54]

Perhaps most people just live their culture almost as victims of their mind. Trying to sort out their life in terms of other people's categories. Without really realizing, you have a choice. You can choose a mind that's not the cultural mind. And still live also with others the cultural mode. Virginia Woolf said, other people's eyes are our prisons. Other people's thoughts are our cages.

[23:25]

And that's true to some extent for all of us. And to find your own true self, shall we say, free of other people's eyes and other people's thoughts. And realize what in Buddhism is called your true self. It's one of the overarching concepts of this Dharma practice. And this cultural self and true self is also related dynamically to guest mind and host mind. The cultural mind and the guest mind.

[24:44]

Guest mind and cultural mind and host mind and guest mind. Cultural mind, guest mind, host mind and true self. So when you begin to work with the host mind and the guest mind. You're working with how you're put together. dann erarbeitet ihr damit, wie ihr zusammengesetzt seid, wie euer Karma sich anreichert oder nicht anreichert, und wie ihr zusammengesetzt seid mit eurer Kultur, eurer Familie und so weiter. So this is very fundamental, archaeological and transformational work. Das ist also ganz grundlegende, archäologische und transformative Arbeit.

[25:47]

Sounds good, I think. Yeah, I like it anyway. I guess that's why I'm doing it. I always say, To Marie-Louise, I'm doing the best I can. She says, that's not good enough for me. Thanks. Thanks. Anyway, I'm just doing it. There's still the best I can. So what do I mean by, which I haven't spoken about, two breaths? Multi. Well, there's the usual breath that we can bring our attention to.

[26:57]

And that can bring us into a nourishing relationship with the world and ourselves. And discover a pace where mind and body work together. But if you continue this bringing mind attention to the breath. And your attentional skills now include one-pointedness. You begin to be some kind of kiln, like for pottery. which fuses mind and body.

[28:10]

This practice is also a particular way, there are other ways, of weaving mind and body together. And let's say one pointedness and breath and mind fusing together creates a kind of subtle breath energy. Yeah, now that's a real accomplishment. But it's also not.

[29:11]

It's just when you can bring your breath to your heart and up through your body in a circular way, as many of you can, basically you're in the territory. And this physicalized mind, we could call it, Is a big part or, you know, is the backbone perhaps of the subtle body or this host body. And related to the, you know, simple things like the mind that can be alert even when you're asleep. Now consciousness needs to sleep. Awareness is maybe more like a dolphin mind.

[30:13]

It doesn't need to sleep. I don't know, maybe dolphin sleep, but it seems like dolphins and whales have something. They attune their bodies with each other, but they don't seem to actually sleep. That's what I've read. Harold will tell me it's only 50% true. Yeah, we have to have some peer review here. Okay. And we've talked about the two languages. The two qualities of language. One characterized by discursive thought, by consciousness.

[31:27]

One intentional, non-discursive, dissolving. Okay, now I'll end with the last necessary ingredient. The enlightenment soup. Yeah. Now, Transformational practice as enlightenment practice requires you to walk a path you can't walk. requires you to put into this intentional mix and to hold the most unique way for Zen practice.

[32:36]

So this intentional make? Yeah, yeah, is to stop there, period, okay? The most unique, the way... The way to do this that's most uniquely characteristic of Zen practice, as you know, is this use of wados, or as I call it, gate phrase. In other words, some statement or expression of reality or your practice or something, that you can't follow or doesn't quite make sense, that you can only understand if there's some kind of shift. That has to be an active, intentional part of your practice if you hope, maybe, to realize some kind of enlightenment.

[34:00]

Now the first path you can't tread, the first koan in this enlightenment soup, is that to seek enlightenment, You have to accept yourself completely as you are with no idea of enlightenment. Sorry, it's not the way it is. The chemistry doesn't work. If you don't accept yourself as you are. If you don't care about enlightenment. You just feel, yeah, I don't care about enlightenment, you know. I don't... No, more real than that.

[35:18]

I don't care about enlightenment. As long as I can be useful to other people and take care of myself, everything's fine. That's the basic chemistry. The first level of ingredients. But simultaneously, you really want to understand this practice for yourself and for others. More for others than yourself. Because it's easy to help yourself, really. But then you still feel uneasy if other people are suffering. So the real energy necessary for enlightenment practice comes from extending this practice, this potential freedom.

[36:22]

These possibilities to others. To extend the practice to others. Yes, but the first practice. So to extend this freedom and this potential to others. It doesn't mean there's a missionary sense in you. It means you'll try to be the kind of person you think a person should be. And if that's any use to anyone else, maybe they can... And if they don't get it, then just be happy they're happy the way they are. And if they don't get it, then just be happy the way they are.

[37:36]

Togan said, the truth, this truth, I could play it. Yeah, this is good. This truth exists as objective reality, something like that he said. The truth exists as objective reality. The features of the world are permanent. Gesichter der Welt sind beständig. In spring, the hundred flowers are red. Im Frühling sind die hundert Blumen rot.

[38:59]

The doves cry in the willows. Die Möwen tauben. Tauben kreischen in den Weiden. Okay. Now, when Filden said this, Gikai, his disciple, took this up. Buddhism doesn't say features of the world are permanent. No. Does Buddhism really say that this truth exists in objective reality? And why the heck bring in this schmaltzy, the hundred flowers are red? They're not all red. And the willows are crying in the dark. In the dark. But Dogen said it, so I know.

[40:17]

So Gikai stayed with it. And he, on this phrase, these phrases, he realized enlightenment. Thank goodness, because otherwise we wouldn't be here, because Dogen and Gikkai are in our lineage. I just think the turning of such a simple phrase has a lot to do with us sitting right here. Yeah, Hakun Zenji said, you know, What mind asks the question? Yeah. Is it inside or outside?

[41:20]

Is it red, white, or blue? Or green or yellow? etc. He says, you have to ask on everything. If I talk to you about host mind, etc., you have to say to yourself, what is host mind? Red, white, or blue, etc. This kind of questioning is at the center of transformational practice. And you find it best in a phrase that doesn't quite make sense. This truth exists through objective reality. Or you might take a line from Pessoa, the Portuguese poet.

[42:24]

Rivers flow into seas for which they are unknowingly born. Now that's a lot softer. It's easier to understand. But it might help us melt into this more non-dual host mind. Yeah, I think that's enough. Thank you very much. Thank you for translating.

[43:30]

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