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Beyond Sensory: True Perception in Buddhism

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The talk focuses on the Buddhist concepts of perception and the role of the senses in understanding experiences. It examines the first skanda of form and challenges the common interpretation by dissecting how perception involves not merely sensory input but also discrimination, meaning the separation of an object from thought and world. The discussion includes a contrast between true cognitive recognition in Buddhism and linguistic interpretations in Western thought, emphasizing the significance of true understanding as going beyond conceptualization. The concept of "mana" is also explored as a central aspect of Buddhist psychology, focusing on the comparative nature of the human mind and its implications for spiritual practice.

  • "Skandhas" in Buddhist Teachings: The five skandhas are analyzed as they relate to perception, emphasizing that initial sensory awareness does not equate to true perception, particularly within the Buddhist framework.
  • Role of Manas in Buddhism: The concept is further explained, relating the function of the mind to the separation of thought from object and the implications for understanding the self and world.
  • The Alaya-vijnana: Identified in Zen as playing a pivotal role when manas turns inward, impacting the path to enlightenment by addressing internal divisions.
  • Han de Witt's Interpretation: Critiqued for a rigid interpretation of Buddhist philosophy, stressing the importance of understanding both internal and external worldviews simultaneously.
  • Zen Practices and Koans: Discussed in relation to teaching moments beyond literal interpretation, highlighting the importance of context and personal insight.

Referenced Works and Concepts:
- Skandhas: Explored as a Buddhist framework for analyzing perception and cognition.
- Manas and Alaya-vijnana: Key concepts discussed for their roles in mind function and enlightenment.
- Koans: Used to illustrate teaching methods that go beyond analytical understanding.
- Han de Witt: Cited for a critical approach to explaining Buddhist philosophy.
- Brahma-viharas: Implied as a positive focus in developing equanimity and empathy against the backdrop of comparative thinking.

AI Suggested Title: Beyond Sensory: True Perception in Buddhism

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Transcript: 

Good morning. Good morning. I think I have to say something about this first skanda. Because, as a number of people pointed out, when you first noticed something, obviously the senses are involved. Yeah, and the object is almost no longer an object perceived because it's already a perception. And we do use perceive in English at least to mean to be aware of something through the senses.

[01:15]

Directly through the senses. But the second meaning is to understand, to apprehend. Sorry, the second step is... The second meaning... Maybe if you step forward a little, but if it doesn't make... Then I see you more. If you see me more, rather see me than hear me? No, if I can do both, if I want to. Okay. And the word, actually, per, the per part means thoroughly, and the sieve part means to grasp. Also, bei Perzeption heißt, per heißt vollständig oder gründlich, und sept heißt...

[02:15]

To catch, to capture. The word hawk comes from this root. Yeah. And the word habicht and perceive in the Vishjana is used in the same way to both to perceive and also simultaneously to discriminate. I don't understand the word discriminate. Because we say to make distinctions, right? Okay. Is that the same in English? Yes. Okay. And manas is the function of mind which separates one thought from another.

[03:30]

And in separating one thought from another, it separates the thought from the object. And separating it from the object is, in effect, separating it from the world. So Manas separates one thought from the other and separates the thought from the object, and if it separates the thought from the object, that's, in effect, separating thinking from the world. So you're thinking about the object, about the world. Peter, how are you feeling? It's nice you're here, though. We missed you. And Munin, you moved toward the front.

[04:43]

Yeah. That was a different Munin back there? No. And David, you changed sides. She took your place. Okay. Okay. So, again... This is a system of noticing. If you think it's a description of the world, then you're seeing the world from the outside. So it's a way of noticing the world. So these are terms. Okay.

[05:45]

Now, perception is used here to mean when you separate the information from the senses into a thought or a discrimination. You're separating the thought from the object and then turn it into... No, right here, I'm just saying... Perception is to separate the... Okay, let's start over again. Sorry. It's all right. Perceive is used in two senses in English. To receive something from the senses. Or rather, for the senses to receive something.

[06:46]

But when the senses, when you receive something from the senses, is that two steps? There's the object, there's the senses. So the objects, the senses receive something from the object. The senses receive something from the object. Die Sinne empfangen etwas, also das Objekt und die Sinne gibt es. The senses are aware of something. Die Sinne sind sich über etwas gewahr. Okay, the second is to know what to discriminate about what's been... Und das zweite ist das Wissen des Diskriminierendes unterscheiden. Okay, English uses it both ways. Das Englische verwendet es für beides. But the word really means the second way, not the first way. And Buddhism only uses the term in the second way. So just because you hear something doesn't mean you've perceived it in Buddhism. And so you seem to think that because you've heard it or Heard it, it's a perception.

[07:53]

It's not a perception in Buddhism, nor really in English. And the way we use the word in English, I don't know what you use in German, but the way we use it in English is not about the world. It's just a term that we used. So if you start thinking this is a description of the world, then you've made a category error in Buddhist thinking. This is simply a way to notice the world which is beyond conceptualization. Okay. Any problems with that? So when you first notice it, it's not a perception in this sense. Okay, that's enough.

[09:26]

I've said it over and over again. We talked about that when you're, let's say, you're waiting for dog sun and you clearly hear the bear ringing. But in fact, you didn't ring the bell. But you clearly heard it. Okay. What is that? You're confused. But it sounds very clear sometimes. No, I don't know. It's... Entschuldigung, ja. Wir haben darüber auch gesprochen, dass man manchmal, wenn man in Deutschland wartet auf Deutschland, dass man ganz klar die Glocke hört, dass Roshi sich gerade geschlagen hat. Was das ist. Well, there is white sound, and in white sound you can hear anything and so forth. If you really want to come to Doksan, maybe you hear the bell all the time. Maybe if you hate to come to Tok San, you hear the bell all the time.

[10:31]

Someone else? Yeah. So what term do we have for that noticing? Because for me this has always been perceiving. But I'm sorry. But what we're talking about here is far subtler than language. Many of the things we experience don't fall into any linguistic category. And you don't want to limit your, in any way, that's part of the point of this, not to limit your awareness to the categories of perception, conception and language.

[11:42]

And that's lost if you think of the first knowing of form as perception. And what I call it is noticing. You notice it, but you haven't yet perceived it. You haven't yet grasped it. For us, perception is a funny word. It means wahrnehmen, taking for true. So that's a good second word. Well, but you should change the word into taking for maybe true. Because, I mean, one of the problems with language is that every word is a vowel.

[12:47]

Because when you see a tree and you say it's a tree, you're in a way vowing in yourself that that's real, that's a tree. That's why I often call it treeing. You maybe should put maybe in front of everything. Probably. One of the stages of practice is when you see everything as relative. You still see it as real, but you always see it as relative. And that generates a particular state of mind.

[13:59]

So now how can I say this? That is helping, really. Oh, really? Okay. One thing about these practices, there's our usual way of thinking. Okay, and our usual way of thinking has habits of designating. habits of noticing, habits of perceiving. And so our usual way of noticing results in a whole lot of ways to fly through the world, to fly in your thoughts, to be present in the world.

[15:00]

All the subtle things that are part of our life. But in a way, they... they kind of are related to the terms we use. They're related to how we divide the world up. Okay, so now you encounter Buddhism. And it's not just that, I mean, Asian people, though Asian culture has adjusted itself around Buddhism a lot, And sometimes it's hard to see the differences if you're an Asian person from the way you were brought up. But strictly speaking, An Asian person, a Chinese or Japanese or Korean or Vietnamese, everyone I know is from Asia who practices.

[16:17]

The practice of Buddhism is still different from the cultural assumptions that may be rather Buddhist. So we have an advantage in the West in a sense because we can see clearly this way of dividing up the world is rather different than we did as a child. But don't think the differences are the teachings. The differences are differences you establish, you practice.

[17:25]

But what flies from those differences, the result of those differences, the state of minds that arise from those differences, are another kind of bird. And those things that can't be taught. I don't know how to really say this clearly. Let me... I don't know. I'll try various things. If you eat an apple... Become an apple person. Doesn't mean you have to buy a Macintosh.

[18:33]

Okay. So you're not an apple, but you're related to the apple you ate. If you eat a pear, you're not a pear, but you're related to the pear that you ate. And the teaching is not the pear. The teaching is really what happens when you eat the pear. And I can't teach you what happens when you eat the pear. I can only show you the pear. But clearly, some of you, when you come to Doksan, and I can see in addition, know, experiencing what happens when you eat the pear, sometimes you don't even think it's connected with the pear. Okay, that may not be clear, but I can try other ways.

[19:40]

Let's say, okay, Carolina. You were going to say something earlier? Okay. Anyone else? Yes? Yes. When I asked something to an experience I had in Zaza, the bell started ringing. The sitting period was 40 minutes. And I sat upright. I don't know. I started just sitting. Then I don't remember anything. And after 40 minutes I heard the bell ring again. I didn't sleep. I'd like to know where I was.

[20:47]

If there's something that's beyond, outside of those scandals, because I wasn't sleeping. Where was I is my question. Well, it seems like you took a bite of the pear. It looks like you might have bitten off a bit of the beer. You see, if you ask, does that happen, how does that relate to the skandhas, in a way you're thinking the skandhas are the teaching. This is what, when you notice the world this way, many things change in your experience. Time can shift, space can shift, and so forth. Okay. Yes. Another problem I sometimes have, for example, also with texts like Hahn de Witt, when these scholars take Buddhist ideas or Buddhist philosophy and they say, that's the way it is.

[22:13]

For example, we had this discussion at the beginning, there is no wall or something like this, it's just in mind. So what I, and the way I can come closer to that, for example, there is this Buddhist philosophy, we are not born into the world, somehow a world is born with us and without my dying also this world is dying. So there is no, actually there is no world without me or my world doesn't exist without me. And you mentioned now this is somehow, this is not... The teaching is about how to get there, to eat that apple, not the apple itself. But what I want to know is, and that what also helps is this simultaneity, to say finally both is true. Both. What are the two?

[23:14]

Yeah. There is a world there without me, and I'm born into the world, but there's also a world born with my being born. Yes. He can say both are true. Both is true. Yeah. But in your experience, what counts is the second one. The second one is... Your experience. Yeah. But many scholars, they don't go into this to me. They say, well, this is how Buddhist... That's how Buddhism sees the world, or that's Buddhist philosophy. Well, when you notice a scholar, does that be suspicious of what else they say? Deutsch bitte. Deutsch bitte. We had this discussion with the wall, is the wall there, or is it really just a thing that appears in my mind? And the whole thing has already happened to me more often, where I just got stuck in a state like, I was not born into this world,

[24:25]

with my birth my world will be born and this world will also disappear when I die and there will be no world left. And then I ask myself, and it helps me to understand this, when I simply both statements as simultaneously correct, parallel to each other as correct. One does not exclude the other, and this cannot be understood with our thinking. With my thinking I can only understand that there is only this or that. But like Han de Witt, he doesn't go into this simultaneously, at least I haven't encountered this, I haven't read it yet, but he just says, this is Buddhism and there is only this, and he would then say, there is only this, with your birth the world is born and with your disappearance the world also disappears.

[25:41]

And what did I say? Do you want to translate what I said? When you notice a scholar does that kind of thing, be wary. But then you would have to be wary of virtually all scholars. Sure. Going away from the scholars, going to the teacher, to our lineage, where does this simultaneity come in through the teaching, for example, in koans or in sutras? Where is this simultaneity? Well, you'd have to... Well, let me respond in two ways. One is, you'd have to show me in a koan or some teaching where it's not present.

[26:47]

And second, there are many things simply taken for granted. Okay, now, if I say to you, this is simple, but anyway, if I say to you, this is not a glass, is that a true statement? You say it's not a true statement, okay. Well, that's because you think it's a statement about the glass. From the point of view of Buddhism, it's a true statement because what's true is I made it. No, it's not for me.

[27:48]

It's a statement I made. I made the statement. In other words, the statement doesn't exist separate from the first person stater. This is the activity of Manas. Manas separates things into separate thoughts and separates the thoughts from the object. So we tend to take that as a statement about the object. And we look for the truth of the statement about the object. A more yogic way of looking at it. is any statement is made by a somebody.

[29:06]

So if you want to look for the category of truth, you look for it in the somebody, not in the statement. Okay, so if we're all sitting here and you can see that's a glass. And I assume you're not three years old or two years old and not schizophrenic. So you all know it's a glass. So if I say it's not a glass, I'm making a contrapuntal statement. I'm making some statement that for some reason I want to convey this is also not a glass or I want to convey something. Now, you have to recognize that you can't read koans because people will...

[30:11]

say the opposite of what it sounds like, but they mean all kinds of things. You have to understand from the context what it means, not by analyzing the statement. You have to understand it in order to understand Croans. They simply say the opposite of what it is. You shouldn't say the statement You shouldn't study the statement, but you should study the context. Okay, so if I say, the flower, this is a famous statement, the flower is not red. Does that mean the flower is not red? It has nothing to do with whether the flower is red or not.

[31:24]

It has to do with how you then experience the flower after you say the flower is not red. So if I say, the famous statement is, the flower is not red nor is the willow green. And what do you feel when that's said? Something like redness and greenness. So the statement is true. So this is just the way it is in Buddhist thinking. Don't always know that there's a person saying this. Then you have to think, what did the person mean? You don't ask what does the statement mean.

[32:29]

You ask what the person means. When you say that this is true, then I immediately slip into this mind of testing if this is true or not. Why is it a matter of true or not true? It's not a matter of true or not true. But when you say it's true, this statement is true, then you somehow evoke and awake this point of testing. It's a new statement. I can work with it. Yeah. It's an answer or not answer. Okay, yeah. So I would also put away this true statement. The question of truth. Okay, but I'm making an example. Normally I would say, this is not a glass.

[33:53]

I wouldn't say, is that true or not? I'd say, this is not a glass. Or I'd say, you are not Buddha. Or somebody presents something extremely intelligent to me and I say to them, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. That's what a Zen teacher should do. But if I do it, people take it seriously. As long as you take it seriously. Okay. There's the word manas we've discussed. There's also the word mana. And in both Sanskrit and Pali, it means conceit. No, conceit, to be conceited. To think you're important.

[35:04]

All right. Okay. But really what it means is to be preoccupied with comparing yourself to others. Okay. Preoccupied is a good word. Before you think of other things, you think of this. This is the first thing you think of. When you meet someone, the first thing you do is compare yourself to them. You compare yourself in the three categories. You're good, worse or equal. You might think equal is, well, that's better than saying I'm better or worse. And in some context, that's true.

[36:20]

But in this context of comparison, it's the act of comparing, not the result of the comparison. So the act of comparing leads you to express yourself to others in comparative terms. The way you make a statement to a person. The way you construct your statement.

[37:27]

Or the tone of your voice. Suggest that you're above me or you're below me and you make sure the other person's in a particular place. And if it's even in your mind, just in your mind, that you're comparing, other people feel it. And this is thought to be the main source of all the lack of virtue in all the kleshas. Think about everything that we think about as non-virtue and it's related to comparing oneself to others. Denkt einmal, dass alles, worüber ihr nachdenkt, nichts mit Tugend zu tun hat, sondern alles mit Denken, was auf euch bezogen ist, zu tun hat.

[38:40]

Okay. So, if I in Dokusan say to somebody who tells me something intelligent, maybe I want them to examine it more. Maybe I want them to really be sure without needing my confirmation. Or maybe they can't be sure it's true unless they hear it from me. So I could say, you know, you just aren't intelligent enough to do this practice. If that hurts you, you are involved in mana. You're immediately comparing yourself to others.

[39:42]

You're immediately involved in this word mana, not manas. You're immediately involved in comparing yourself to others. I've discovered in the West, you cannot do this. People have ego wounds and they last for decades. He put me down. But they don't say, I trust the relationship so that I won't feel put down. I just feel, what is he doing? He's saying it's not a glass and it is a glass. So when the koans are full of the teacher saying somebody's an idiot... And they mean the opposite.

[40:50]

Or they might mean, who knows what they mean. The only people I can do this with are people who there is such trust in the mutual relationship that they trust that no matter what it is. The only ones with whom I can do this are the ones with whom there is so much trust in this relationship that anything can happen. So, I say, I can't be your teacher. People take this personally. Instead of trusting the relationship and trying to figure out what's happening. I don't need to go into all this, but I'm just showing that this sense in the vijnanas is a really deeply requires a certain kind of practice.

[41:55]

The practice of the Vijnanas requires a deep practice at how you identify yourself in the world and with others. So strictly speaking, to practice the Vijnanas well, you have to stop comparing yourself to others. It doesn't mean in some way, sometimes don't compare yourself, but it just means it's not the mode of your, it's not the main mode of your relationship with others. Okay. Yeah. Do you have practice for that? How can I practice that, to learn that? Well, maybe in the tea show today. But simply first you have to notice how often you compare.

[43:03]

And that's mindfulness practice, to start taking, monitor or... an inventory of what percentage of my thoughts are comparative thoughts. And it's not that the comparative thoughts hurt others. They may, but that's not the point. The point is, it hurts you. It drains energy from you. It prevents you from being nourished in your relationship with others. Das hält dich davon ab, in der Beziehung mit anderen genährt zu werden.

[44:06]

So in this manas and mano, mana, there's a lot of teaching right there. In diesem manas und mana, da steckt eine ganze Menge Lehre drin. And the alaya vijjana is there in the, particularly the Zen way of understanding, that manas turns around to face the alaya vijjana. Manas turns around and it turns around when it stops separating. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Does it also have to do that you separate yourself from others every time you make a comparison? You do, of course. But then I asked myself, what's left to teach? Because also this physical activity like we have so often in the Koran, the teacher beats him or cuts the finger off.

[45:16]

I mean, that's not possible in our Western culture. Yeah, that's not. You really are pissed. Yeah, you're really pissed. It could happen, yeah. I used to use a stick and doksan. Yeah, first at my German class. So then I ask myself, what is left to teach? Because in this koans, a lot is beaten and the stairs are knocked down. And this physical activity, we feel quite quickly as addiction, and where we certainly have problems accepting it as a teaching. He says, if we get hit, it's reprimanding, and it goes to all kinds of channels, but not there where it should go. Yeah. I mean, I used to use a stick in Dokusan.

[46:19]

And there's one case I'll mention. A person I loved and I cared about, and he was involved in a situation where suddenly he got totally into rationalization. Into rationalization. So only during the period of rationalization, I've started beating him on the back. Just to cut off the rationalization. I didn't hurt him. But it took him 10 years at least to forgive me. He remembered that and he didn't... So I just finally stopped using the stick.

[47:30]

But, you know, I don't know why I was willing, but I remember Sukhriya, she did things to me, like I've told you before. Once he grabbed me in front of the whole sangha, threw me down on the floor, and he was a little guy, and began beating me for about four, three or four minutes. And said, you should understand under my anger, you should understand under my anger. Like that. And I just was, okay. I don't know why I did that, but Suzuki Roshi grabbed me in front of the whole sangha and threw me on the floor. He was really a small guy. He sat on me and spat on me for four or six minutes. He said, you should understand that under my anger. It was like he said, this is not a glass. Wie, das sei kein Glas. I just, okay, this feels interesting. Okay, das fühlt sich interessant. I have one difficulty still to understand this with this comparison.

[48:34]

In one way I understand that this comparison separates. to be able to act in the world that we have to compare everything that comes in with something we already have experienced. Of course. But that's just discriminating. This is comparing good, bad, good or bad or equal.

[49:35]

It's a psychological thing, not just an analytical thing. Okay, yes. I want to talk about something else in the little time we have left. I have a I read the Manu Vishnana. That's somehow you corrected that, yes. I didn't understand that. and the lower one was the alaya vijnana.

[50:50]

I understood that the alaya vijnana means everything that is stored, everything that is attached to the body, and also that all that exists paratactically sits on my side and can be perceived that way and can experience some kind of emptiness. Okay. That's a big question. And sometimes mano and manas are conflated. Sometimes...

[52:05]

Let me say that manas is really the thinking, comparing, discriminating part of the... It's where the patterns occur which confuse us or delude us. And mano is more like just hearing, just thinking, without... It's like pure thought or something like that. It's the mental faculty without all of the patterns from your culture and your personal history. faculty without all the patterns from your personal history and your culture.

[53:13]

And it's an interest in Buddhism to separate Like when you hear something, you can just hear it without making associations. So they want a mind sense. Now, it's better to call these sources, six sources, than six senses. Because there are six sources of input. Okay, but I'll try to respond more fully to that, I hope, either in the teisho or tomorrow morning in our last discussion. But since all of us make comparisons to others all the time, the first thing is to notice that it's debilitating. It doesn't really help you.

[54:38]

In some kind of independent psychological world, you may be glamorous, but it doesn't really help you. So... So you first want to just recognize that it's a problem to do it. Second, you want to start an inventory of how often you do it. Then you want to see if you can create an intention, an intention you can really feel, to listen. To catch yourself. And here's where the five dharmas come in. Because you can notice the discrimination, the comparison and catch yourself with right knowledge. if your mindfulness is mature enough, if you can hold to the moment before a thought arises, hold to a comparison before you express it or act on it,

[55:53]

then you can use the energy of that to go towards suchness or to go towards equanimity or the Brahma-viharas. Yeah, you can turn it into empathetic joy. Or you can really notice how you feel when you see a baby. You don't usually say, I'm better than that baby. You just enjoy seeing the baby. But I always think of the time the Japanese family I knew in San Francisco had twins. And for some reason, one of the twins was pretty funny looking for the first few months.

[57:24]

And when people came to see the twins, they'd show the pretty twin twice. They'd go upstairs and get the pretty twin and then they'd go back upstairs and get the pretty twin. That's a little bit like throwing the hammer in. I don't want your damn hammer. So you then start to see if you can have that same feeling you have with a baby toward adults. Okay. I asked you some questions yesterday about how we should continue the winter branches and so forth.

[58:40]

Do you have any thoughts about it? I know Annetta had one, which was, maybe this is what you're going to say, but is that three one week give people more chance to pick two. This is interesting to me, and I'll try to say three things. One is that I am genuinely and deeply impressed and impressed with how much each of yours and other people too, not just the ones in this group, the practice

[59:51]

of individuals in the Dharma Sangha has matured. And how much the overall practice of the Sangha as a Sangha has matured. This is amazing to me and very gratifying. It makes my life worthwhile. The level of having Sophia to live with makes my life worthwhile. At the same time, I've been practicing here in Germany about 20 years. with many of you for a good part of that. And I would expect, well, first, the ones who seem to have made most use of the practice are ones who have actually tried to understand each of the teachings I've presented and work with it.

[61:17]

And I know in my own practice, from the day one, any teaching Sukhiyurashi presented, I worked it all out, I looked at the comparisons to other places, and then practiced it, and then brought it to him. And that may be partly because I was desperate, in bad shape, etc. And it was also because, I think, because Tsukiroshi was month by month maybe going to leave and go back to Japan to live. So for every teaching or lecture he presented, if I was very clear, it might be the last.

[62:25]

But I would say this thoroughness that I did made the big difference in my practice. And the third thing, which everybody can't do because we're late people, I decided I was only going to do this whether I could support myself or not support myself. I was only going to do this. Nothing else is a consequence. So... I don't expect, you know, that's like becoming a monk. I looked like a lay person, but I made that decision.

[63:38]

And it's different, somewhat different with Marie-Louise and Sophia, but I even told my first wife, practice is what's important. I'm only getting married to you if you understand that the only thing that's important to me is practice. I now think that was a rather cruel decision. I mean, my kids are okay. But I wouldn't do that again. So I'm saying this so that, you know, because I was in a sort of unusual situation, I think. Still, what surprises me is... is why this is different than what we've done before.

[64:44]

Because the content is not different. I've presented the five skandhas over and over again in the last 20 years. And every now and then I've tried to say, okay, you present the five skandhas, and people can't. You present the such and such, the Vishnianas. And I would think everyone I practice with could do it. Without hesitation. So what am I doing wrong as a teacher? But Now we're in a situation where people are engaged, and from my point of view it's not that you have more contact with me, because it's not really different than a practice week, not that different.

[65:48]

So what makes the difference in what we're doing here? Maybe it's that actually that we do apply. There is a sense of a choice coming into this. Maybe that results in a kind of commitment to do this over some time. Maybe the commitment makes a difference. But from my point of view, it's not that you have more contact with me. From my point of view, it's you're all talking with each other more. And when I asked... somebody presents the five skandhas, Otmar does it.

[67:01]

Or I say about the four marks, Michael jumps up and does it. That's what makes a difference for me. And makes me decide maybe, because I have been thinking of actually stopping teaching. Because my experience up to now, three or four people are really getting it, or six, and the rest can go on maturing their practice without me. But I'm not kidding when I say when I feel the Sangha is doing it, then I'm rejuvenated. I stopped doing public teaching and teaching for beginners years ago because I did that for 20 years before I came to Europe. I did that for the first few years in Europe.

[68:09]

But I made a decision, you know, that I would only teach in cities which had a one-going practicing group. And in the last few years, I've decided to do less and less seminars outside of Johannesburg. So this makes a difference for me that we're doing this. But I don't really understand what the differences are. Maybe part of the difference is, you know, I'm about, I'm getting old and I'm about to pop off. Check out. Forget about it. Forget about it. So I don't know what the difference is, but let's continue the difference as long as we're, you know... Maybe it's just a question of time.

[69:25]

I mean, the winter practice only can happen after 15 years of beginner's teaching or something like that. It may be, yes, that we're now all mature enough to actually do this. In our group yesterday, the discussion about the winter branches, we had one word that came up from capturing, and I think it's a good description to it. It's the critical mass that makes it. I think when we come somehow to a density of practitioners with some kind of experiences that somehow let create the situation, I think that's the change. It has been different. We also, as a Sangha, you have to help me and as a Sangha you have to do it too, yourself. How do we handle the problem of who is excluded? First example is there's going to be people living in the building who haven't practiced long enough to participate, but do they want to be excluded?

[70:48]

They're out there cooking for us, but we're not... If you have a big sign where there's 50 people saying living in a building, then 20 not participating isn't a problem. But when you have six or seven living in a building and one or two not participating, it becomes something of a problem. If we are a big sangha and 50 live in the house and 20 can't join, it's not a problem. But if 5, 6 live in the house and 2 can't join, it's a big problem. Keep me, Kyle. You'll be the last. I wanted to add something to what Roshi said. It's a chance and a danger. It's a danger, it gets an elitist group stuffed down the Paragastha group. We could call it the mana group. But really what we have to do is eventually

[72:00]

I hope the people in the winter branches are the ones who continue the Sangha and the teaching. And I was just with Brother David Steinder-Rost, who's an old friend of mine, For a week in Bologna, he was there. And we both look rather alike. He's a little shorter than I am, but we both rather look alike. And not once when we gave a lecture together, I wore his habit and he wore my sitting robe. And he's ten years older than I am. But he makes 80 look good. Maybe I will too. We'll see.

[73:16]

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