You know, there's a kind of what I call ceremony space, which is activity-defined space, which I think is, you know, ends up to be an expression of the Abhidharma. There is something like a ceremonial space, a kind of space that is defined by activity. And that is ultimately also an expression of the Abhidharma. Just like we bow together. Or we do service in the morning. You're stuck in the activity. I talked about this the other day, actually. And... You're stuck in the activity and the activity leads you.

[01:02]

Much of our life is like this. I mean, I just took some... I'm leaving Tuesday and I've got to... So I took some clothes out of the washing machine that I put in this morning. But I didn't, and I definitely, I took them out because they just sit in there, but I definitely was not going to hang them up. Takes too long. But I took them out, and before I knew it, I hung them all up. The activity just led me. Yeah, and it's not... I use another example. You know, they confiscate your... I have a little pen knife I carry that they confiscate when you fly.

[02:17]

And I've discovered you can't put them in the outer pockets of the suitcase because they tend to go through the outer pockets of the suitcase in America, not in Germany. So I threw it in a little... I didn't have time... put it where I usually put it, so I threw it in a little plastic bag which has a bathing suit in it. Then when I was unpacking, when I touched the plastic bag, I thought, oh, I have to look for the knife, it's in the usual place. But it wasn't in the usual place. It was in the plastic bag. But the plastic bag, when I touched it, my body knew it was in there, but my mind thought it was where I usually put it in the suitcase.

[03:21]

Through ceremony space, which is a kind of knowing that's, as I started to say two weeks ago, it's a kind of knowing that's conductive through material, through activity. And you're more aware of it, more participating in it, in the units of experience. I don't have to think, oh, I'm not going to hang up the laundry. I just... Follow the impulse to take it out of the machine and see where that goes.

[04:37]

No, if you think about it, you can think of a lot of things that are wrong with this. You'd never get anything done because you'd always be doing things where your body led you. That actually might not be so bad. But it's... But when your consciousness is in units, memory and activity function through the body in a way that includes the usual way we function through the mind.

[05:50]

It's a shift you have to sort of learn to do. And when you And it is a little bit of difficulty when you're making the shift. It takes a while to make the shift to this functioning through the body, not through thinking. And Dogen teaches not only to think non-thinking, But how to trust the thinking of the body. Okay.

[06:53]

Now, this... Well, let me just say I had dinner with three friends the other night. who didn't know each other. So I didn't really think about it, but I knew my job was to create a conductive situation. How can you two know English so well? Oh, you mean I'm really an English teacher? Yeah, okay. Okay, so... So I noticed myself doing it and I didn't interfere with it. And it wasn't manipulative.

[08:13]

It was just a kind of affection for the three people. So I discovered, you know, like when we go in the Zendo for service, we all go in the same way. We bow and run, etc., you know. You don't have to translate that. So I found that they all sat down, of course, with three chairs. And I found I moved my chair so it included the other three chairs. And as soon as I did it, their chairs came under the control of my chair. In other words, the way I put my chair, they suddenly found themselves in a shared body sort of, where we were moving our chairs together.

[09:22]

I don't know why I'm telling you this. Excuse me. But it's fun. I mean, again, I've pointed this out a few times. Somebody took a movie... Many, I don't know, it seems like yesterday to me, but it was in the 60s, I think. Took a movie of a group of people in an audience. He made the movie. He made a movie of a group of people, just, you know, an audience, and he just had a film going. Sorry, again, he made the movie or he had it go? He just had a camera set up, which was filming.

[10:26]

And then he slowed it way down. And he slowed it way down because he was trying to study something. He was a sociologist. And he noticed at a certain speed everybody's actions was coordinated. Yeah, I mean, as soon as the kind of, the guy started, whoever's speaking, started speaking, suddenly a coordination came in and everybody was in the same rhythm. If you lifted your hand up to scratch your thing, somebody else shifted, it was in the same patterns. This is Abhidharma teaching. That in fact we move in experiential units.

[11:26]

I call it a factic unitary consciousness. Factic is Heidegger's word meaning facts, factual. Factic unitary experience or consciousness. I call it a factic unitary consciousness. So what Abhidharma is trying to teach us, a big part of what it's trying to teach us in this yogic body, is to move in to this factic, unitary experience. Unitary by unit, I mean not one, but a unit, a pulse. Pulse, pulse, pulse, yeah. Okay. So when Dogen says to complete that which appears, it's basically the same idea.

[13:08]

So Dharma practice is to notice appearance. And you can't really notice appearance as long as you establish continuity in the thought. And you can't really notice appearance as long as you establish continuity in the thought. While you're doing things, you know that everything's changing, etc. But really you feel a continuity underneath. Or you assume a continuity. That assumption alone is powerful enough whether you experience continuity or not. So one of the teachings... I don't know.

[14:14]

Okay. One of the ways I make use of the Abhidharma again, knowing it's a several century creation I look to it for definitions. For instance, often the word faith is used as one of the ingredients of enlightenment or a practice. But what does faith mean in Buddhism, in the Abhidharma?

[15:20]

It can't mean belief. So what does it mean? It can't mean belief. So you look it up in the Abhidharma. And everything is defined as an activity. So faith means the kind of trust that lets you set forth in a flood to find dry land. It's the ability to be resolute, to make a decision to do something. That's nothing to do with belief. But it's faith that if you make a decision and you persist, you may accomplish something. So it's the trust necessary to set forth.

[16:36]

Okay, so, and it's interesting, one reason I like the etymology of words in European languages is When you look at the etymology, the word is almost always defined as an activity and not as a token or a symbol. So the etymology of faith in English... Also die Etymologie von faith, also Vertrauen im Englischen. Is the trust that allows you to wait somewhere. Like you decide to live somewhere, I trust this place, I trust I'll be safe here.

[17:43]

So in English, basically, the root of the word faith means to wait. And wait requires trust. Somebody is half an hour late to meet you at lunch and you have faith and you wait. So they both mean trust, but one in Sanskrit or in the Abhidharma is the trust to set forth and the other is the trust to wait. And in the various factors that lead to enlightenment, which include concentration and mindfulness and equanimity and tranquility,

[18:45]

One of them is wisdom. But in this context, how is wisdom defined? Wisdom is the courage and willingness to investigate states of mind. Now, that's different than saying, oh, he's wise, or this is wise. Now, you can say, oh, and one of the list is wisdom. How the hell do I imply wisdom? Am I wise or not wise? I told you the example, but not to all of you, that they told a group of students in secondary school That if they studied math, it would make them more intelligent.

[20:21]

And they described the synaptic plasticity of the brain and etc., And how using the brain makes it, etc. And the other group just said, you know, they all think they have a certain IQ and they have a certain intelligence and they just left them alone. Immediately, the group had been told that the brain develops, the math improved, they got better. And over two years, they really got better, and the others just went downhill. Because they thought, I'm only so smart. And we know kids very early on

[21:24]

Kindergarten decide whether they're intelligent, whether they're beautiful, etc. And then they believe that the rest of their life. Yeah, I used to think I was beautiful, but then I saw my nose once. So I never look in the mirror from the side. Okay. So when you define wisdom... not as being wise, but as in the courage to investigate how we exist, hey, then you can start practicing that. And that's what both Rika and Agatha... implied that you get to a point where you need courage to continue the investigation.

[23:03]

And that courage and willingness is the activity of wisdom. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, You know, the four foundations of mindfulness are one of the Abhidharma lists. It's worth study. We've studied it often. Our practice is based on it. The 37 wings of enlightenment, I like it, you know what I mean. There's many great lists in that. It's worth studying, the 37 Wings of Enlightenment. Or if we look at the Four Noble Truths, we're suffering. What is the cause of suffering? They give one cause.

[24:03]

They give a whole bunch of different kinds of suffering, but one cause of all of them. What's the one cause? Craving. Okay, but how do they define craving? Craving is the craving or desire for pleasure, pleasurable things. Sehnsucht ist der Wunsch oder die Suche nach angenehmen Dingen. Okay. There's three. The second one is craving for continued existence. Davon gibt es drei. Das zweite ist die Begierde oder die Sehnsucht nach fortdauernder Existenz. And the third is craving for annihilation. Well, that's a pretty powerful definition of craving.

[25:29]

And you can practice with it. Yeah, but if somebody asked me to define desire, I wouldn't have defined it that way. Maybe after some decades of living I might say something like that. Hey, this Abhidharma was developed over, again, let's say 500 years, could be 800. Over 500 years a group of yogic practitioners decided that our suffering comes from one cause. With three aspects.

[26:34]

Desire for pleasure. Desire for continued existence. Desire for annihilation. Okay, is this Freud's death wish? Yeah, so then I think Yeah, I'm willing to say if this bunch of wonderful guys... That's a quote from Keith Richards. Somebody asked him, what do you think of Mick Jagger? He said, he's a wonderful bunch of guys. Someone asked him, what do you think of Mick Jagger? And he said, he's a wonderful bunch of guys. Okay, so this wonderful bunch of guys over 500 years decided that these three are the causes of suffering?

[27:41]

And if I free myself from these three aspects of craving, I can free myself from suffering. If that's only partly true, it's worth a heck of a lot of study. So you start out with noticing whether you want the second cookie or not. Or the fourth or fifth which you know you don't need. So you explore the craving for pleasure. But then you start, can you explore the craving for continued existence? Well, the first thing I told Sophia implicitly and explicitly, as soon as she could hear my voice, which was almost right away, your first job of all is to stay alive.

[28:54]

Not at all costs, but that's your first priority. Yeah, I believe that. That's how we last over the years. But at the same time, can I be free of a desire for a continued existence? Aber gleichzeitig kann ich dennoch frei sein von einer Begierde nach fortdauernder Existenz. Can I continue and yet let go of the desire to continue? Can I do that? Well, yes, you can. Kann ich fortbestehen und gleichzeitig aber den Wunsch fortzubestehen loslassen? Ja, das können wir. What does the Diamond Sutra say? No idea of a self, person or lifespan.

[30:17]

You have no idea of a lifespan. And it also says no idea of a being, living being. Well, then the opposite. Sometimes we actually, implicitly, really, we act in a way, creating situations which are really a desire for annihilation. To notice this cause requires mindfulness. And that mindfulness functions in this factic unitary pulse. In a simple sense like picking up the plastic bag and as I touch it knowing it only took me a moment to realize it's in the bag.

[31:28]

My thinking took me away from the bag, but my practice of pause for the particular allowed me to know it was in the bag. So as you yourself have the wisdom to investigate how we exist, you have the what? wisdom to investigate how we exist. And we can use the Abhidharma to kind of articulate this practice to ourselves. As you have the courage to investigate how things exist, you have to develop this sense that things appear and exist for a moment.

[32:45]

And to really be present in that, you have to give up the idea of a continued existence for that moment. It dramatically increases the way you're engaged. Okay, I can't say much more than that. About that at least. So the Abhidharma is a well let me come back to that point. and say what I've been trying to present to you.

[34:03]

Just now, how you can use it in a practical way to what these words mean and so forth. And with the sense of to make use of it, its wisdom, but to discover it in your own experience. But I've also been trying mainly to present it as a system and not as its contents. But I mean, I'm also speaking about just now how to use its contents. It's a gold mine, a silver mine in uranium. No, anyway. Yeah, okay. But in trying to present it as a system, what am I saying? Okay.

[35:21]

It's rooted in yogic experience. And it has tried, it has, it's an effort, successful effort all in all, to take a teaching and turn it into an accessible practice. And an accessible practice that represents a worldview. So it is in effect the unfolding of a worldview. And It's a little bit like if you could take, well, water is what, H2O.

[36:23]

If you could take two, the word, two hydrogen atoms. And you could take one, the word, one oxygen atom. So you make a kind of mantra, hydrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, oxygen. And you've said that to yourself. People would think you're crazy. Yes. he's taken the new age too far so you're going along and if you could really practice it you turn into water and like when the Buddha was speaking with Shariputra having lunch on the side of a lake

[37:23]

And he gestured at the lake and Shariputra saw an ocean. There's some kind of alchemy like that. Now we don't turn into water by chanting hydrogen, hydrogen and oxygen. But the Abhidharma is so constructed that if you take one of its units and you find out how to embody it, it opens into the other units. Because it's like a world view, like if you took a map and folded it up very, very small and squeezed it in something.

[38:39]

And you squeeze the whole map in each different unit. If you can really get what the units are about, they open you into this new worldview. They precipitate in you this worldview. So they're also enlightenment factors. Okay. So that's the basic idea of the Abhidharma. Is to take the teaching and make it a worldview based on enlightenment.

[39:45]

In which you can practice any one part in homeopathic doses. And it will open up into the other parts. And you'll notice that one of the integrity of the various lists Each aspect of a list folds back into the others. So it allows you to practice with it. But you have to practice with it in this kind of unitary sense of moment-by-moment existence. I mean, you know your existence is going to continue. You're not going to perish at this moment. But perishing or continuing is not the issue. The issue is just what's issuing forth at this moment.

[41:05]

Okay. That's the Abhidharma. Okay. Maybe you sit for a minute. This leaf is a construct that doesn't function to ring the bell. Oh! It opens up.

[41:46]

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