So what we then started to have been talking about is making perception more physical. What's the physical territory of perception of the world, not the thinking territory? And we talked about the breath, the body. the senses and so forth. Okay, so that's where we're at pretty much right now. So now we're looking at the physical territory of knowing the world. And knowing the world as everything changing. How can we not just have that as an idea, but as an experience?

[01:04]

So now we're talking about appearance. And not just seeing that things appear, but also how do we participate in this appearance? And if you're going to have, and let's emphasize this because we're trying to develop a common vocabulary and experiential territory, Yes, let's speak about again this field perception. What's the difference between entity perception and field perception? Okay, one of the distinctions I'm making is field perception is more physical than entity perception.

[02:13]

No flip chart. Well, tomorrow. So, Entity perception is quick and mental and goes quickly to mind, goes quickly to naming. And naming goes quickly to discrimination. So the process of entity perception turns into naming, turns into discrimination, so fast you don't even know it's happened. And that's the teaching of the five dharmas and the four marks, how to interrupt this process.

[03:20]

Field perception, I don't know, the best word I have for it right now, is more physical and takes more time or a different kind of time. You've got to let things, for field perception, you have to let things gather. Okay, now I translate the Genjo koan to mean that, to complete that which appears. And that's a phrase I'd like you to have in the foreground of your noticing all the time.

[04:50]

Complete that which appears. So you notice things appear and then you have a feeling of completing them. And that's the briefest definition we could have for, one of the briefest definitions for certainly, for sure, we could have for a dharma. A dharma is things are momentary, they appear, and we complete them by noticing them. Okay. Now, again, for us practitioners, that should just be our habit to... find things appear and have the experience of their complete, their coalescing, their completing.

[05:59]

But now I'm saying let's also, emphasizing field perception, Let's also let appearance gather. This is something that for those two of you, I guess, and me, who were at the practice period at Crestone, I tried to... I spoke in a somewhat different way about it. To let things gather. to let the field gather.

[07:06]

If every object is actually a subject to forces, subject to all the factors of interdependence, then in a way you have to let that gather. You feel it. And that's why Oryoki practices, we pick up the bowl and bring it into our hara, into this field of our body. Because it's not an entity in a container world. It's a relationship. So you treat it like a relationship. You don't treat it like an object.

[08:20]

So you pick it up, put it down and so forth. And again, as usual, this is a culture like this. usually does things with two hands. Because it's very different to hold something with two hands, as you know, than just one. So we're speaking about simply how to engage appearance. I often speak about pausing, another phrase I've used is pausing for the particular.

[09:28]

You feel the particularity of each thing and you pause for that particularity. And the more there's again a physical presence in the knowing of the world, You're finding the pace of the world as things actually exist. I'm throwing various phrases out, various words out. Ich werfe hier einfach verschiedene Sätze und Worte aus. And I don't expect you, if I throw out too many, for you to intellectually follow it. But maybe the accumulation of images or whatever, some of them will stick. So this habit of pausing, of letting things gather, is part of this

[10:54]

letting the text of the world read you as well as you read it. So it may be that it seems slower than straight-out mental entity perception. So much more is happening in this way of perceiving, I think, I feel, that it's actually faster. And there's a feeling of satisfaction, of nourishment in this way of knowing things, I find. And my even shorter definition of a dharma is when you feel nourished by perception, you're probably experiencing things in terms of dharmas.

[12:18]

So my even shorter definition of a dharma is when you feel nourished by perception, So let's go back to this guy coming out of the forest. I would say probably what you have, it's quite simple, is in effect you have something equivalent to a field perception of the person rather than an entity perception.

[13:30]

And as I said, if I shift from perceiving the particular, Of what perception? Okay, I can perceive things in terms of naming and discrimination. So, I can perceive things in terms of naming and discrimination and comparison. Sorry. naming, discrimination, and comparison. And that's almost entirely a non-physical mental world.

[14:39]

If I try to bring my body into it, then I can really see the particular and just absorb the particular. Now if I shift from the particular to the field, that's not shifting from naming, comparison and discrimination. But rather going from the particular, a bodily experience of the particular, the uniqueness, to the field. Then I know that feeling of knowing the field.

[15:43]

I know it. as a mental experience, but mostly I know it as a bodily experience. And that's what makes yogic practice so easy. As you can feel your mind in your body. So then I can shift to a field perception of the particular. Because, as I said before lunch, everything, even the most minute thing, is also a field. When you find yourself free from entity perception, Entitylessness again.

[16:50]

Okay. When I have that feeling, it is the same kind of feeling as when someone comes out of the forest. When I know you, know a person, I feel the field of the person, they're no longer a person, they're being itself. And now, of course, the suchness of being is also a person. But usually, if I think in terms of naming, discrimination, etc., naming, discrimination, etc., I use etc.

[18:08]

whenever you want. Thanks. I see the person but their beingness, their field of being, their suchness is concealed within the person. And if I'm usually thinking, I can't get that sense of beingness out of the inside of the person. Except with babies. Might be good to be a nursery school teacher. Because you see pure being around you all the time and not always, you know. You're all too old for me.

[19:14]

So it's one of these interesting things where What is not concealed is concealed by being not concealed. Being is not concealed. But in its very openness we don't see it. And clearly what we mean by bodhisattva practice is the one who sees being First, initially, primarily.

[20:18]

You know, when I was younger... There were a lot of years when I was younger. You know, I don't feel a bit old, but I guess I'm having to remind myself every now and then. Just think I'll be 70 in two years, a year and a half. That seems fairly old. I never thought 40 was old. I didn't think 50 was old. I didn't think 60. But 70, it sounds kind of old. Shucks. Anyway, when I was way young, like grammar school, I was quite fatalist.

[21:22]

Yeah, the Second World War was on, and it looked like everything was going to be destroyed, and then they built atomic bombs. So I used to wonder, it would be terrible if civilization somehow... the human culture ends in some way. And I mean, really, living here in Germany and in Europe, inside I often weep at what I know about what these cities were like before the bombings and the war. Just unbelievable what was done. But if there ever had been a nuclear war, it wouldn't be so easy to recover. Anyway, I used to worry about what happens if... There aren't books, people, etc.

[22:54]

And there were a lot of movies in those days. Roadrunner, I don't know, funny movies about this. Okay. So it was very important to me that somehow we all continue this culture, science, art. Although that's a very deep feeling in me. Although? Although that is a very deep feeling. At the same time, I was, you know, sometimes jealous that I wasn't a good painter and that sometimes other people were so much more successful than I was, etc. So I had both. I want culture to continue, but how come all these other people are better than me? But they're both there.

[23:55]

They're two different ways of thinking. And what I'm getting at is the fullness of being is knowing being as those who continue. Again we go back to Sophia talking about her doll. Sophia said, this doll is going to live longer than me. I'll die and some other child will play with this doll. She said the doll won't die. The doll won't die.

[24:56]

And Tsukiroshi... Tsukiroshi wrote in one of the things I inherited from him two different things. One, a little dictionary... And he had written and decided, this dictionary will last longer than me. So Sangha is the feeling of those who continue. The feeling of those who continue as being, being. So I'm practicing, but really my sense of what practice is, is those who continue practice.

[26:04]

So I don't really so much have a feeling of dying or ending, but a feeling of continuing practice with others. And if it feels like it's continuing, I can go take a nap. Or a permanent nap. And I'll hardly be noticed. He's upstairs sleeping somewhere. Hit me in the attic, you know. Andreas, are you there, living or dead? There's a comment about that. Living or dead? There's a koan.

[27:05]

It's Dao Wu and Yunyan again. Yunyan says, living or dead? Dao Wu says, I won't say, I won't say. So we have this stream of being and non-being. The stream of being and non-being is being. And this also is gathered there when this person walks out of the forest. This person shows us the way out of the forest but also is one of those who will continue. And this is the mind that lets things gather in the pace of how things actually exist.

[28:08]

This is the Knowing through letting things gather in the pace of how things actually exist. Okay, that's enough, I think. That's the best I can do this afternoon. Thank you very much.

[28:27]

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