I know that's often hard to recognize and in fact most of us have too much of others but part of Zen practice is to find out how not to have too much of others Which means you find a way to be sealed S-E-A-L-E-D but not armored. And you have a sense of the treasures of body, speech and mind.

[01:07]

And how we meet, you meet yourself in body, speech and mind. And you meet each other in body, speech, and mind. So one of the things we do in speaking is meet each other in our voice. And in chanting, one reason in the religious side of Buddhist practice, and that you chant without a kind of cognitive process going on, it's just chanting.

[02:09]

is that you're finding a way to meet each other within each other's voice. And usually you're chanting some form of Buddha's words. And so you're meeting each other In a sense, chanting is you're meeting each other in your own voices and in Buddha's voice. You know, Buddha is like a mother. And your mother doesn't really care so much about what you say. She just likes to hear your voice. In fact, there's a koan in which one of the capping verse, like I said last night, that's used in koan practice is the simple phrase, little jade, little jade.

[03:37]

And this comes from a poem in China, Chinese poem. In which a woman is pretty sure her lover is hiding in the garden. and she has a servant named Little Jade. So she calls out her servant's name, not because she wants anything from her servant, but so that her lover hiding in the garden will get a chance to hear her voice. So in some koans, the response of the student is, little jade, little jade. So I'd like our discussion to have that kind of quality.

[05:04]

It's not so much that you say something interesting or intelligent. I'd just like to hear your voice. Whatever you might have to say. And if you say something intelligent too, that's great. But that's secondary. So somebody else? Yes. Yes. uh... I come from Schleswig-Holstein, that's kind of north of Berlin, kind of from not so much urbanized area as Berlin.

[06:29]

And when I came into Berlin, I was really struggling with the vibrations of the city. I really perceived it as a barrier almost for the lecture and very hoping that I can cut through this today in seminar. Yeah, that's what we felt coming from Weimar. It was so nice to be in 1920. And one thing Ulrike said when we first got to Berlin, we sat in a little guest house and had some sort of food. and there in Weimar there aren't so many shops and the city hasn't been repaired in a long time most of it but people's faces and bodies are full of life And here in Berlin, there's lots of cars and shops and everything, but people look kind of intimidated by it.

[07:56]

Although they just, we went into it just before 10 o'clock, a Hortens small supermarket, I mean department store. There's a big Hortens in Heidelberg, isn't there? So here's a little Hortens. So I, everyone was, I mean, the whole town is dark except this little, this shop is open just before 10. Everybody's in there shiny and walking around excited. And we said, how long has this been open? And I think they told us four days, it just had opened.

[09:11]

And everyone was quite excited. People had real Deutschmarks. It's a Must be like if you bring the first Sony Discman to a Polynesian island which you've never seen. For one Sony Discman you could probably buy the whole island. Come back with lots of Polynesian statues you could sell for a great deal of money. But I think that there's a quality to our contemporary civilization that it's become too complex for most people.

[10:16]

And I think in America a lot of the homeless problem is not only Reagan and the economic policy of the United States is that for a lot of people this society is just something they can't do anymore. And I think unfortunately a lot of people are going to fall by the wayside in are going to fall by the wayside as our society develops. But I think there are ways in which you can find your own territory in a complex society without losing yourself. And I think that's one of the advantages of Buddhism coming into the West, actually.

[11:37]

Is that Asia has had a very dense, complex population, urbanized population for a very long time. I mean, Kyoto on a quiet Tuesday afternoon is busier than New York Christmas afternoon, or Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas shopping. And I'm not hoping that we become like that.

[12:44]

But the point I'm making is that Buddhism developed partly in a civilization where people needed to survive in a great deal of complexity. And in fact, I often describe Zen as a large population urban shamanism. And the sense of going to a cave or going to the mountains in Zen becomes finding out how wherever you are is your mountain and your cave. So right now, my sitting here isn't much different than if I was in say, Bandelier in New Mexico, where the Native Americans lived in little caves carved into the sandstone mountain.

[14:04]

They were very cozy. You have a ceiling about this high. And a little smoke hole. And a blanket over the opening. Isn't that where you are right now? Can't you feel it around you? And you can let your friend come in. Lift up the blanket so high. Okay, something, somebody else. With others? Yeah. I'm still dealing with what we discussed in Heidelberg at the seminar, like five skandhas, and I don't seem to be able to really transfer that into my everyday life.

[15:28]

And the only thing, or the only skandha I'm managing is the feeling skandha. Good. That's the most important. That's the most important thing. And the form skanda is probably more important, and maybe I can deal with the form skanda in this seminar a bit. It's quite a project to introduce the five skandas to you. And last summer, when I was teaching in Europe, Once the five skandhas came up, just what just happened, happened, happened. Somebody from the first seminar that it came to, that the five skandhas came up, came to the next seminar and reintroduced the idea. So almost every seminar became a discussion of the five skandhas all the way to Bali.

[16:47]

And I suppose I could spend the rest of my life teaching the five skandhas. I suppose people are still discussing id, ego and superego. What is it? What is id, ego and superego? Yeah, still discussing that. And so, I would say, just to give you a sort of picture, a larger picture of what we're doing in practicing Buddhism, I would say that our Western ego, from the point of view of Buddhism, is made up of four points.

[18:19]

One is the territory of world view. Our basic assumptions about what the world is like which condition the fundamental perceptual process. By the time you've gotten perceptual information, culture has already determined what you see and don't see. Your perceptions aren't natural, they're conditioned. Okay, so that's world view. A simple example of that again would be whether you perceive space as connecting or separating.

[19:40]

That's conditioned by your culture. So if I see myself separated from you right now rather than connected, but when I see you, that's conditioned by, not my eyes, but by my culture. I'm sorry you have to do all this work to say all these things. I just say them. It's just a work. Sorry. So one is worldview. Another is unconscious. And a third is primary processes.

[20:41]

And a fourth is secondary processes. No. I'm not trying to... I'm not describing this in... really in anybody else's psychological terms. This is just what I see. And I'm using terms that other people use in similar or different ways. Now, what do I mean by secondary and primary processes? Say that in America, I don't know whether in Europe they want to, but in America little kids often want to be firemen. And firemen are kind of attractive and they wear uniforms.

[21:43]

And they do good work. They help. Who can complain about anybody who puts out fires? It's a nice job. Not hurting anyone and it's exciting. So the primary process of firemen is to put out fires. But firemen may be firemen because they love fires. In fact, the firemen may sit around the fire station playing cards, being bored until there's a fire. And they may be joking, saying, God, I hope there's a fire this afternoon.

[22:44]

Just as long as it's not my house. There's a moral problem there, you know, actually, when you hear a fire engine. You always hope it's not your house. Which means you hope it's someone else's house. You can really get yourself upset at hoping it's someone else's house. And then you can feel grateful there's firemen anyway. In any case, the primary process of firemen is to put out fires.

[23:49]

The secondary process may be they like fires. Now, occasionally you have an arson who is disguised as a fireman. Arson? Arson, somebody who sets fires. And this actually happens every now and then. They go out and set fires and go back, turn in the alarm and rush out to see the fire. In this case, his primary process is being an arson. And his secondary process is being a fireman. So I call this primary and secondary processes and not unconscious because the firemen are probably pretty conscious of the fact they like fires. But this love of fires and the excitement of it is controlled by the primary process of putting them out.

[25:04]

Okay, so all of us are in the midst of actually primary and secondary processes. You have a primary process being here in this seminar. And a secondary process of all kinds of things about each other and what I'm doing and you're doing and what your neighbor's doing and so forth. So in every situation, there's primary and secondary process that shift And you may have secondary processes which are really the main reason you're here. Okay, is that fairly clear as a simple example? Now let me just say something about why you're here.

[27:00]

I think you should honor why you're here. As I said last night, that our life is confounded in mystery. Founded in mystery and founded through mystery. In waking consciousness and sleeping consciousness. And if you know anything about meditation, also in meditation consciousness. And I think your motivation in coming off the streets of Berlin into this room is to various degrees a recognition of the way your own life is founded in mystery. And you're here to explore that.

[28:18]

And if you're smart and practical and realize you're going to die soon Soon as whenever. You'll make the best use you can of this time. And use each other. Each other mystery that's here. to continue this experiment of what is life. This life founded in mystery. Now,

[29:19]

a few months ago, excuse me for saying this probably, when Lutgaard was speaking. Lutgaard's a potter. And while she was speaking, I was thinking, I wish she'd make a good pot from my ashes. A little tiny one. No, no. We're not going to have the fire too hot, so it makes it possible. And I was thinking, what a nice thing for her to do for me if she could make me a nice pot. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not in a hurry. Anyway, it just seemed like a comforting idea. Okay. All right. So we have primary processes and secondary processes.

[30:46]

And we have worldview and unconscious processes. Now, as most of you know, I feel the unconscious, many of you know anyway, I feel the unconscious is a particular creation of Western civilization. I mean, we in the West tend to think whatever we discover has always been there. We go and dig up a treasure and we think, oh, it's been there since Greek times or something. And probably the treasure was being put there as we were digging. So, I feel that the particular kind of ego structure we have in the West, and that we've developed particularly in our industrialized civilization, isn't a boat that can contain the whole of our existence.

[32:03]

The ego is much smaller than our existence. So we keep trying through rationality and so forth trying to give rationality the dimensions of a God to do everything. We keep trying to put our whole existence in this little boat of the ego. And the more the boat gets definite and defined, And the more it's different from the water, the more falls overboard. And then you have unconscious material. And this begins to have an existence of its own that runs parallel to the boat. Okay, this is still all about the five skandhas, believe it or not.

[33:27]

Okay, so meditation practice particularly works on, affects worldview and unconscious processes. But meditation practice doesn't have much effect on primary and secondary processes. It has a limited or marginal effect on primary and secondary processes. And to really work on the Western self and ego, you have to maintain its integrity and redefine it. Because you need a strong ego in order to practice Zen. But You need to redefine this ego so its parts are put together differently.

[34:49]

And it functions differently at a perceptual level. And that's the work of the five skandhas. And the six paramitas. And the four boundless abidings. So we can talk about all those things between now and tomorrow at six o'clock. We can cover all of Buddhism. Right now I think we need a break. So, my goodness, I'm sorry. It's 11.45 almost. Let's have a break till, what, 5 or 10 after 12?

[35:56]

What, is 15 or 20 minutes to go to the toilet and have a cup of tea or something? Okay, so let's say About 20 minutes, which would be between 5 and 10 after. a more relaxed kind of seeing, where instead of seeing things or looking at things, you see a field or a field of things.

[39:05]

So the practice of letting your eyes be still in zazen is also a practice in how to see differently at any time. Is that too long, too short?

[40:43]

And this morning was 20 minutes earlier. Plus whatever you've been sitting before. So we don't have much time between now and when we go to lunch. About 20 minutes. So if anybody's hiding in the garden, I'd like to hear a little jade. So, yes. Do you want to say that in German?

[42:03]

Well, it's not something that can be explained. It's just true. And it's something you recognize after a while. And become quite easy with. And the easier you are with it, I think the more vitality your life has. The exclusion of death from our life, the presence of death on a momentary basis from our life, kills us. But one basic way to practice with it, the awareness, is to feel like you're dying or disappearing on each exhale.

[43:07]

Fifty percent of your time you can practice. So, And you don't care where you go. Goodbye. And usually then comes an inhale. And then you get used to it. Okay. Yes. Yes.

[44:22]

I would like to have some advice between illusion and disillusionment. I would like to find the way to my heart and I would like to find some kind of key to it. That's the advice I would like to have. What do you mean by heart? Primordial or original emotions? We mean different things by heart. I think not just you, but in general people mean different things by heart. Often we mean something more like faith. But the word mind in Chinese and Japanese

[45:39]

actually is closer to meaning heart. And being a mind-heart being a word in a yogic culture, Actually means the physical location. We don't use the word heart just because of its emotional connotation, but actually also because of its physical location. So heart-mind in Asian cultures means something like.

[47:07]

Literally, when you have the feeling of thinking and thinking even. And that sense of thinking has a kind of physical settledness and location. There's more heart in your thinking. And that thinking is actually a cooperative process between what we mean in the separated sense of mind and heart. Now I think the physicality of heart is again a little hard for us to reach.

[48:08]

Because we have such a bias toward spirit and a kind of

[48:13]

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