Does anyone have any remarks or comments on what we've discussed so far? Yes. The remark that existence means the remark of suffering, we have to, there are some preconditions to that, say. From another viewpoint, existence is existence.

[01:03]

And one relationship or one condition is that we sort of, we settle in permanency and it's constantly shaken, this view. So that when we focus on the change in our mind, the question is, how far does suffering, existential suffering, still take place? So that when we would settle in impermanency, would existential suffering still be existing, or still work, or still be there? If we really accept impermanency, then would we suffer? In the existential sense. That's what you're asking? Yes. It's different.

[02:29]

You know, the Dalai Lama, the most common thing he says in lectures is, we all want to be happy. And then he'll say, the second line will be, isn't that true? Don't we all want to be happy? So existence is not just neutral, like existence is existence. Existence, in fact, is we want to be happy. And if you have a toothache, it's nice when it stops. So there's no getting away from the fact nor could we live or function if we didn't prefer some kind of satisfaction or pleasure to pain. Yeah. So existence is existence and it is also...

[03:36]

It functions through trying to make things better or, yeah, to work or something. And it often doesn't and we can, yeah, so there's some kind of suffering. But if you expect... suffering or expect change, expect as you say. And you have developed a non-comparing mind. But if you're sick, you're just sick. It's not suffering. Yeah. Because you really don't compare. Your mind is always settled in your exact situation.

[04:54]

Now that's a little different from expecting suffering. Or expecting change. And that difference would be worth exploring. So, someone else? If I look at what we talked about yesterday from the outside, it's like a, you could say, like a, yeah, When I look at that from outside, what we've been talking about yesterday and today, it's something like a second or third socialization.

[06:07]

If we take the mind as it sort of normally functions, there is deception and suffering, delusion and suffering. And we set up now, we go and set up new parameters where from we sort of educate ourselves. We set up these like the three marks.

[07:28]

We set up new parameters and sort of expect that this accident was we've been talking about yesterday. Accident? Accident. Yeah, accident. Oh, that, yeah. That accident. So we expect that accident. There's no insurance for that one. Or assurance. So far I can see the practice as my experienced practice. Therefore I assume the practice as my experienced practice? What I miss is this... Maybe this will come in your performance, where these great fields of the unexpected open up.

[08:36]

What I'm still missing is that, and you may yet be talking about that, where these big fields of unexpectedness open up. We don't know where we're moving to, we don't know where this leads us, what to expect, and actually the disappearing of all these parameters. We have an educational system here which, looked at from outside, has a tendency to eliminate itself.

[09:46]

You mean the Buddhist educational system has a tendency to eliminate itself? Why don't you say the latter part, the main point in English for me, your English. I'm quite familiar with your English. So we have this so-called educational system I was talking about, which in the end needs to be taken away. It's not eliminated. It just somehow takes itself away. You mean the three marks are taken away once you've realized them or practiced them or something? And these ideas of the three marks get in the way of realizing them in the end. Well, I do think you get to a point where there's no more teaching.

[11:03]

But I don't think it eliminates the teaching. It's just that you don't... The way you live your life is... teaching enough, or something like that. But the way the teachings function is changed through practicing them. In the sense that suffering no longer is suffering in the usual sense. Existential suffering is pretty much eliminated. But I still wish the world were a better place.

[12:18]

I haven't given up on that. Okay. For me, the three marks are nothing more than the complete task of the self and of his expectations. For me, the three marks are nothing more or less than the complete giving up of the self and of all expectations. Okay. And when that is achieved, when that is fulfilled, then the three marks are no longer of importance. And when that has happened, when that has taken place, the three marks are of not much more meaning. They've lost their meaning.

[13:22]

Well, the need to practice them has been eliminated or ends. They may have lost in English their meaningfulness to you, but they haven't lost their meaning. I had a talk about an hour on the phone the other day with, you know, a extremely successful, shall we say, businessman. And he functions in the world, he thinks, as a realist. He's a really very nice guy. I like him a lot.

[14:48]

But any idea of hope or improvement is just ridiculous to him. The world is as it is. People are greedy, they're confused, they're deluded. You just have to understand that and make your business work and make money. And he does that on a big scale. He's one of the richest men in the world. And when I talk about Buddhism, he thinks, yes, Buddhism is a kind of realism. But if I talk about idealism, or maybe things could be better, or could the world improve, he just thinks that's ridiculous. But I don't think it's ridiculous. I mean... From my point of view, Buddhism is not Buddhism.

[16:10]

It's a wisdom teaching that should be part of the curriculum. The world curriculum. Yeah, and I expect you to all go out and do that. You know, one of the most famous Zen masters in China, Da Wei, is the root of, one of the roots anyway, of Neo-Confucianism. And in China, I think it's, I don't know what century, it's, I don't know, tenth century, eleventh century in China. They revived Confucianism, so it's called Neo-Confucianism. And the leading teacher of Neo-Confucianism was actually a disciple of Dao Wee. And Dao Wee basically said,

[17:12]

teach Buddhism and call it Neo-Confucianism. So, of course, within a generation, a lot of people realized what he was doing, and then he was attacked as really a secret Buddhist. But one of the things he taught, which I... might like to speak about today is the difference between the examination of things and things examined. And that became a motto of Neo-Confucianism, this practice of the examination of things and then what happens through things having been examined. That does relate to mindfulness, but it's a...

[18:28]

Can we get there by Sunday evening? Monday morning. Someone else? Yes? If you work with the Wind 3 Marks and really come to the point of overcoming suffering and accepting transience, then it is one person who has achieved it. But we are connected to each other. Does this also have an impact on the people in the world? Or am I still connected to the leaders? When we really should, with the three marks, sort of overcome suffering and sort of accept transiency, if I realized that for myself, I still would be one person who had realized that, and being so connected with everyone else, it would be in the world, what sort of influence, effect, or what would that mean to the world around me?

[20:08]

well if this is the way the world is no one's going to realize it if you don't I mean from you as the individual I mean if you can realize it it means others can realize it I mean that's the first If I can't realize it, how can I expect anybody to realize it? So that, I think, that is part of the Bodhisattva vow. The recognition that you have to do it because someone has to do it. And if you can do it, others can do it. And if you know that, and you know it's possible, like if I talk about Buddhism from a book, it won't make any sense to you. To the extent that what I'm talking about is convincing, it's rooted in the fact that I know it's possible.

[21:24]

So just the presence of you knowing it's possible and living it makes it possible for others. But as you say, we're not separated. And one of the problems in realizing something like this is we're among people who don't realize it. And our mind is not separate from others. And one of the practices, particularly of Tendai Buddhism, is to reconceptualize the mind as inseparable from others. So you reconceptualize the mind so you think, my mind is not separate from others' minds. And my mind, or this mind, is not separate from the Buddha's mind.

[22:35]

And the Buddha's mind and my mind, this mind, are equal. Now, it's not important whether that's exactly true or not. What's important is what happens when you practice The reconceptualization of the mind is not being a lot of separate minds, but as a connected mind. Okay, so it works both ways. If you have to relate to your family and your friends and... everybody one meets, it's hard not to take on their mind. And one of the qualities of one of the If everything's changing and there's no permanent self, then when we go to a Spider-Man movie, if any of you have, you don't come out necessarily as Spider-Man.

[24:09]

If you have no self, you might just be so impressionable, you come out as Spider-Man. For a while, until you see another movie. Then you become James Bond, 00 Zen. 00 Zen. I confess. He just confessed that when he sees such a movie, he does come out as 00 Zen. For a moment, yes. That's what happens when you give up the self. Anyway, there is the problem of practicing how do we relate to others and then compassionately. To be compassionate is to have the mind of others. But to be compassionate is often to have the mind others could have. And that's communicated. Whether it's

[25:21]

our minds are exactly the same as others, they are definitely connected and we can feel it in the body. And one of the moves the Buddha made, and if we understand non-self in a historical context and not just or no self in historical context and not just as a practice for ourselves. That the Upanishadic view of self at the time of the Buddha some kind of permanent everlasting self somehow stuck in a caste system. And if you look at the historical evolution of the Buddha's teaching, he wanted to contrast Eliminate the sense of a caste system, the fact of a caste system.

[26:57]

Any one and two. contrast Buddhist teaching, his teaching, with Upanishadic teaching. So he made one of the three marks of existence. No self. No permanent self. Now, if he hadn't been inflected within his own culture... Inflected? Inflected, like... Influenced, yeah, somewhat. Inflected, yeah. He might have presented the idea or teaching of no self in a different way. Sophia came to me the other day and she gave me a stone.

[27:58]

And she said, I'm giving you this stone. And she said, I'm giving it to you for you yourself. I said, really, that's sweet of you. Thank you very much. And I have the stone on my desk. Who was she giving it to? She said, I'm giving you this to you for yourself. Well, practically speaking, we have a self. And my instructions to, instructions, instructions, my suggestions, my teachings to Sophia, that I kind of like in the background of when I talk to her. The first is, Your first obligation is to stay alive.

[29:27]

Your second is to take care of your body. Your third is to take care of your state of mind. Your fourth is to develop your relationships with others. And fifth is to educate your mind. And sixth is to educate your body. So those are my basic views. And when I'm talking to her, they kind of inform how I respond to her. And certainly I've got to take care of the body and the mind before. educating the mind and body.

[30:28]

So I'm putting mindfulness ahead of education in the usual sense. And I'm saying that educating mind and body, pivots on and really comes after developing your relationships with others. Now, when I say this to her, who's taking care of her body? Am I in effect creating a self? What kind of self am I creating when I give her this teaching, obvious teaching? So here I'm bringing up arguments against the idea of no self. What kind of self do we have, really?

[31:52]

Okay. Now, somebody else want to say something before I riff on? Yes, go ahead. I was thinking about the point with no self all the time since yesterday. and practically it doesn't seem to me as long as we live in a body with ourselves. And what you mentioned yesterday, the way that your mindfulness did educate your consciousness. Could it be with other words? If you don't see self so small, your mindfulness has changed yourself in such a way that it became much larger. much more with not so much borders, with a better relationship to your own self.

[33:21]

Could you say it that way, or am I wrong somehow? I mean, you did change with mindfulness, you did change your relationship to yourself, you did widen it up, and so this did change the whole world. Of course, that was all said in the home language. Of course, it's not a matter of right and wrong. It's a matter of refining how we look at this. And I would like to speak, maybe if we can in this short seminar, more about this sense of self. And in regard to in particular what you just said, Sukhirashi often spoke about the self which covers everything. And I think that's what you're speaking about.

[34:58]

And just in a simple sense, the conception of the Buddhist marriage ceremony. Marriage ceremony. Wedding ceremony. As marriage is an extension of oneself to another person. Of course, a marriage wouldn't work if you just disappeared into each other. One of them might like it. If the other disappeared into them. For a little while, then you get bored. So somehow we maintain a separate identity, but we also have a shared identity.

[36:00]

And that's extended to our children. And the concept of the Buddhist wedding ceremony is that that's Don't stop there. Extend it to everyone you meet. So the Buddhist wedding ceremony is conceived along the lines of what you were speaking about. Anyone who gets married, Let's have a big ceremony. Sangha is a big marriage ceremony. We're all married. But I'd also like to discuss, is there a core self?

[37:13]

I think we all experience a fact of a core self. How does that relate to the three marks of existence? Let's not just accept these teachings without really looking at it. Is it true for us? Okay. Someone else? Yeah. If you're saying our Buddha nature is as good as any Buddha's Buddha nature, so we have the means or the tool from where to explore. You mean in German, please? If our Buddha nature is as good as any Buddha's Buddha nature,

[38:15]

Let me see if I understand you. I said earlier the Tendai practice is to imagine one's mind is equal to Buddha's mind. And you restated that as one's Buddha nature is equal to Buddha nature, Buddha's nature, all Buddha's natures. Okay, that's first? All right. Now, There's a difference between saying Buddha's mind and Buddha's nature.

[39:23]

At least in English. And there's quite a lot of criticism of Yogacara and Zen Buddhism and so forth's idea of Buddha nature. as basically sneaking the idea of a self back into Buddhism. So, So Buddha-nature as a term is important, but it's also problematic. The awareness of now-ness. Mindfulness.

[40:36]

Well, you're going too fast for me. So I would prefer to say right now at least, Our mind is not different from Buddha's mind. Okay, so if we say it that way, what was the next step you said? We could say this is the core from where to start the investigation about how to relate to self and others. Yeah. Yeah, it has to be part of our... if we're going to take the teaching seriously.

[41:41]

That is an understanding, and especially that as our experience is... is one of the bases from which to study the self. I'm sorry to redefine what you said, but I'm really trying to be as clear as possible in English about what we're doing. And I'm really... want to be careful in just using Buddhist terms, which we accept without really looking at them in our own thinking and language. But your point is right, I think. I agree. For now, at least. I don't mean I'll disagree later. I just mean I'm sure you have more to say. Anyone else?

[42:58]

We're supposed to end fairly soon. Yeah. Another question to Transiency. Yeah. Yeah. When the seminar is finished, I go home and I see my family and my children. On Monday I go to work. How can I bring myself to say, perhaps this isn't there anymore? Your family, your job and things you mean? When I was young, I used I've never believed in God.

[44:19]

Never once for one fraction of a second in my life. I don't know why. But I used to pray. So I would get down by my bed and pray, sometimes. I always told you you were supposed to do it. I mean, not by my parents for sure, but somehow I thought you were supposed to do it. So it wasn't so much... praying to a God, it was just the posture of sincere wishes. So I already realized that being on your knees was probably better than standing. And my prayer every time was, that my family and my parents and my brothers and sisters would live longer than me.

[45:30]

Because I couldn't... I couldn't stand there. I didn't think I could live through their dying. But now I'm just the opposite. I don't even want to think things because you know thinking sort of almost like magically makes them more likely to happen but now I'm surprised when people are still alive it's just that's the way my my consciousness after these years of practicing works. I'm glad they're alive, but it's more like I'm glad they're alive than I'm, you know, like that.

[46:37]

Yeah, and I'm glad Yohannesov is still here. When I arrive, you know, and Atmar picks me up at the airport, But I'm actually somewhat surprised. And I'm always expecting Johanneshoff and Crestone to disappear. Really? And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I go back to Crestone and everybody's left. Really? That's how I feel. But it's also the basis on which I work very hard to make sure Crestone lasts forever. I'm surprised to be alive right now. But a couple years ago, a lot of you helped me be alive, so thanks very much. Something called aliveness is here.

[47:45]

And it seems to last, I don't know, seems to last for a while. So let me use the last, you know, I guess I... I'm supposed to end at 12.45, but I think that that may be too long for our legs. I'll try to be less than that. So if you've been following, and I just want to say this, just, you know... Yeah, that's reason enough. If you've been following what I've been trying to say or develop as a basic teachings for the Dharma Sangha, I've defined consciousness The job of consciousness as to present us with a predictable world.

[48:55]

A predictable, knowable, cognizable, predictable world. knowable and cognizable. Is it hard to say knowable? No, it's the difference between cognizable and knowable in German. Oh, they're virtually the same in English. Well, it's very, very much the same, so the difference is different. Okay, so predictable, knowable... chronological, or sequential, and meaningful world.

[50:03]

Okay. That's, I would say, how Buddhism defines consciousness. And we have to define, we have to use consciousness that way to function. But if you only know consciousness that way, it's the main way we're deluded. Because as I often say, if consciousness presents us with a predictable world, our car is still parked where it was. And the trees are still where I left them when I... went to the States some months ago.

[51:15]

In some sense, they're still where I left them. When I came back last time, our neighbor had taken down quite a few of them. But if I believe that, and consciousness needs to make me sort of believe it, Expected. That's delusion. All right. And delusion is the main source of suffering. So consciousness itself, by its nature, is the agent of suffering. So what now? What am I talking about today? I'm talking about mindfulness transforming consciousness. Transforming consciousness... so that we now assume change and unpredictability.

[52:33]

So in effect, what do we end up with? In effect, what do we end up with? A two-fold consciousness. The consciousness which, on a practical sense, is relative. We know when you call consciousness relative, you're saying you know its predictability is not true. Okay. How does that relate to awareness? How does that relate to the root metaphor of motion and stillness? So if our usual way that we view the world because of the nature of consciousness is as predictable is to know the world as predictable

[53:51]

And on every practical sense we have to function as if the world were relatively at least predictable. Okay. We want the world to hold, to be predictable. But everything's changing. But what knows the change? A mind that holds or is predictable. So, without going into more detail, the three marks of existence are a catalyst for realizing, to put it simply, that

[55:15]

imperturbable mind. So the shift from the sense of permanence is from the world as permanence to the experience of a mind that's still in relationship to everything else that changes. I think that's enough for now. basically just introduced the idea. And we still have to, I think we have to come back to it if we want to make sense of this. So why don't we sit for a few moments? You can see how your still mind relates to your uncomfortable legs.

[56:49]

The translator has to change his legs because otherwise he would fall still. Sakyurashi used to say, sometimes he'd give very long lectures. If your knees are in your ears, you can move your legs so you can hear. Because no one wanted to move during lectures, so pretty soon no one was hearing anything except, can I last?

[57:41]

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