You talked about tracing your moods, emotions and thoughts back to the source. And when I do that, it makes more room, it gives more room to make new experiences. When I see the source, so to say, then there is more room. An open up for spiritual experiences and other information. Yes. My question is, how do we function? In order to do that, I can get older and become a nun. And in the course of that, what I just taught, what I just said was that I sort of developed medial abilities as a medium.

[01:16]

And so my question is how do I deal with that? How do I make it sort of part of my daily life and activities? Yeah. And what is an example of mediumistic, medium ability? I can read thoughts and I can sort of see things, certain things. Is that what you're hiring? Yeah, healing? Mm-hmm. So you're asking how can you include this in your life? Well, it seems to me it is included in your life, that it's happening in your life. The question then would be, how does it affect your worldview, your sense of what's happening in the world?

[02:37]

Because to various degrees, we all have an experience of the world, which is not exactly the way everyone else experiences the world. And practice tends to emphasize those differences. But practice also makes us feel more inclusive of the world with others. And more connected, as your experiences would. and more connected to your experience is good.

[03:41]

I think the way, at least the tradition, in Zen is, and in Buddhism in general, is, you know, like last night I spoke about the precept, do not take what is not given. You have to kind of be careful not to take people's thoughts when they're not given. And to not let it become part of your identity so much as your... way to be connected with and beneficial to others. So that's the general framework or view in which one develops some kind of yeah mediumistic powers in relationship to others.

[04:59]

And I think many people who do body work of various kinds find they're actually in a healing process with the Some people very strongly and some people mildly. Okay. I don't know if that's helpful to you. Hi. How's Ireland? He was just in Ireland too. Okay, anyone else? Someone else? Yeah. sure what you meant in the morning time by saying that this state of mind may be the way sleeping and meditating that they get sort of restored or stuff like that?

[06:18]

No, I said, yeah, Deutsch bitte. Well, sort of. I said waking up, dreaming and non-dreaming deep sleep. I didn't... No, I said those three. Yeah. And then when you add meditating, it tends to harmonize or balance the three. Put them in a more healthy relationship with each other, a more better proportion. Yeah. Yeah.

[07:19]

Now, in Russia, we were discussing about that. They had films, and I'm not sure what you think about it. The one was, one of us said that this probably meant that they get more equalized in the way that the borders between them, the states, yes, the different states, get less time, yes, Maybe then another thing was maybe they detected maybe that's more alpha wave to us. That was the one thing. And the other one's maybe that they get even more distinctive from each other. In the sense that when you're sleeping, you're really sleeping and not thinking or dreaming. And when you're meditating or being awake, to everything very strictly and distinct from the others.

[08:23]

Yeah, I'd say all three theories are true. Except I'd be a little wary of the alpha wave idea, but, you know, that's a contemporary, modern idea. Yeah, I'm against such ideas. It makes any sense to be against alpha waves. Show me an alpha wave. No, because it simplifies, it turns the idea of meditation into some kind of physiological experience that can be measured by machines or something. Yeah, OK.

[09:32]

All right, fine. Thanks a lot. Someone else? Yes. Yes, that one still makes experiences through meditation, and one tries to learn relatively little, or to keep the spoken word as serene as possible, and I actually made this experience again this year in the Johanneshof, so in two weeks in the practice period, and what actually surprised me was that I really I am interested in the spoken or taught knowledge, and yes, that learning really is about sitting or about sharing in the community, in the sangha or so. You said about meditation needs lots of my teaching in the beginning and my experience now being two weeks in Johanneshof was that I'm less and less interested in the verbal teaching and that I make my experience directly through sitting, so to say.

[10:44]

Good. I don't have a job anymore. I'm sorry. No, no, it's good. It's the way it should be. Okay. Someone else. Yeah. I think it's important to realize that there come also what you said difficult times with practice and with this picture of the cathedral maybe in the beginning there's a cathedral with solid ground and then sometimes you see the ground is not so solid it starts moving everything and sometimes it starts breaking and Sometimes no stone remains on the other end. Instead of the cathedral, there's a big black hole. So I think sometimes it's really helpful to have some support to also jump in this hole and also explore this.

[11:50]

Somebody who tells you, yes, it's OK here. And I was wondering the last time what's going on with me, because sometimes I have the feeling I don't know anything anymore. And when you were talking about the three mouths, no, I just realized, oh, I'm in contact in . And just sometimes it's really difficult. OK. . I think it is important to point out that with the practice, with the sitting, difficult times can come. To stay with the picture, with the cathedral, maybe at the beginning with the central cathedral, the solid ground, then suddenly everything comes into motion and you realize that the ground is not so firm at all and sometimes everything really breaks down and sometimes it is so thick, like a deep black hole.

[13:01]

And then to really go in there now, to go into the hole and to continue to explore it, is sometimes really helpful when you have support there at the moment, because it is also very difficult. What I have noticed in the last few years is that when I started to think about what was going on, I felt that I didn't know anything at all. I didn't know what was really going on. And now that I have actually started to talk to Roger about it, about these three marks, I have realized that I am in contact with immortality. And that is sometimes quite difficult. Well, I think that when one goes through periods like that, and if one goes through periods like that, and generally everyone who practices really seriously in the sense that you're

[14:15]

your practice is a transformative practice, or it's changing you in fundamental ways, you can go through pretty difficult times. And I think For some people it's more often, some people less, but I think in general for somebody who's really practicing thoroughly, as I said, it would happen in the first year, two, three, four years, something like that. Yeah, and I think that in general, you just, it helps to be in a, first of all, helps to be in a

[15:20]

structured practice situation. Or you have a regular practice you can do and you can just do it no matter what the situation, no matter how big the hole is. Or no matter how for example, you might get overwhelmed by fear, just unbelievable fear that you can't imagine how you're going to live through it. But if you can just stay in the middle of it and not turn away from it, usually it loses its power. Now I remember once I was When I was, well, first I have to tell you a little about a bicycle accident.

[16:30]

I used to ride a bicycle every day to Zazen. Every, yeah, like 4.30 in the morning. And then I would ride the bicycle after. After Zazen, I would ride back home, have breakfast, and then ride the bike down Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, to the bus, which I took to the university, where I was working for the university and a graduate student. And then, after Zazen, I went home and had breakfast, and then I went along Telegraph Hill, to the bus stop, to take the bus to where I was working. Well, one morning, you know, it's a certain skill to drive in San Francisco because there's so many hills. To go to here, you have to go through all the different valleys, otherwise you're going up over the hills. Yeah, so I left after Zazen.

[17:31]

I was on the way home. So I went away from Sasein, home. And... you don't need to know the names of the streets, but anyway, I'm coming down this hill, and I'm holding back, it's a one-way street, and I'm holding back to catch the light. So, just as the light changed, all this traffic, like Cossacks, are coming down, you know, they all race to the next light, right? And so I went through the light ahead of the traffic, because I was holding back, and I was going down the next hill, and I had this second-hand old bike. I'm telling you, I hadn't thought about this for a long time, but it was quite a dramatic little accident.

[18:33]

So I was out ahead of the traffic with four rows of cars coming at me and the front fender came loose and locked the front wheel and threw me into the air over the bicycle. So I landed on my elbows and I still slid down there and the bicycle sliding after me and all these cars coming right behind me and it was dark still because it was early in the morning and the lights, nobody saw me. So I just, as soon as I hit, I rolled underneath the cars that were parked. Then I got up and got my bicycle and locked it to me, but I couldn't bend my elbows.

[20:12]

Here's my doctor. Anyway, my elbows had liquid in them and I couldn't move them. So I couldn't move the bicycle either. It was finished. But I locked it for some reason. Then I went home, you know. Kind of in a daze. And then I went to the hospital and blah, blah, blah. And shortly after that, Sukhiroji had decided to stay in the United States and be installed as the abbot head of a ceremony called the Shinsan Shiki ceremony as head of the Yeah, meditation center. Short before, short after? After, a couple of weeks after. So this is just an anecdote.

[21:14]

Anyway, so I had been practicing to beat the drum, this big drum. I had to beat as he was coming in. And I was up in a balcony and I had to watch him beat this drum. But I still wanted to continue doing it. Even though I was in two casts, I had cast. And I'd made from children's baseball bats, I'd made two drumsticks. So I decided I was going to still do it. So when the ceremony happened, I was in my cast. So I moved forward a year and a half or so.

[22:20]

I was in a pretty big crisis. I... I didn't think I could get through the night. And I got up and I, at midnight, walked across the city to where Sukershi lived. And I looked up at the temple, the center of the temple. And his windows were dark. And I stood there and I think, what am I going to do? Knock on the door? What do I do when he comes downstairs? And I asked myself, what should I do now? Should I knock on the door? What do I do when he comes down? But somehow it was good to stand there.

[23:30]

I stood there maybe almost half an hour. Then I walked home and went back to bed. But I was, you know, I was I thought I looked fairly normal. I didn't think it was so obvious how I was at that point suffering. But either that morning or within two or three mornings, as I was leaving, as I told you, we left and bowed to Sukhyoshi and Right where we turn to go to bow to situation. Without saying anything, he'd found those drumsticks and put them right where I would see them as I went out the door. So it was incredible.

[24:43]

I looked and I said, he clearly knew what was happening with me. And he said, do you remember the drumsticks? You used them even when you couldn't move your arms. So having that kind of support, for me it was necessary. Someone else. Okay, so I'll start where you started us. Okay, so now I said, first this morning we talked, last night we talked about

[25:48]

ways of thinking, that kind of thinking that arises through, is rooted in meditation practice. Okay, now, and then in the morning we spoke about the ways in which introducing zazen, the still sitting posture, into your life. Into your practical and personal life. Without Without much teaching other than some understanding of how to sit. And how that becomes the basis for the development of practice.

[27:00]

And how much just the induction of the posture into your life can transform your life. Now, one thing that I didn't mention this morning, I just forgot, that I would attribute to this introduction of the sitting itself into your life. Yes, I think you begin to have or you do have the experience of mind itself, the presence of mind itself. Yeah, I mean, the one example that I always give is hearing, hearing. And again, the simple example is like during meditation, you hear a bird, but you hear, you're hearing, hear the bird, you don't just hear the bird.

[28:21]

And there's a strange intimacy with the bird or automobile. Yeah. A strange intimacy with the bird because The bird is somehow in its own space. And you're in your own space. Yeah, and... although you're only hearing what you can hear of it given your hearing, and the bird is singing for other birds who hear differently than you do, but somehow the bird is in its What did I say this morning?

[29:43]

Protoplasmic field, and you're in your own protoplasmic field. So somehow, you said it very fast, and somehow I'm noticing that what you're hearing is limited too, isn't it? It's not a limitation, but limited to your hearing. Yeah, is a... Somehow... you feel a resonance with the bird, almost as if the bird is singing, and why not, singing for you. Okay, so one of the things I didn't mention this morning was this sense of the presence of mind as I'm seeing mind when I see you.

[30:55]

I'm not just seeing you. And one of the things that I didn't mention this morning was the presence of the spirit Now, I think that experience can arise just by introducing sitting practice into your life. Without, again, much teaching other than enough to know how to sit. Okay, now one of the points I made this morning was that, as you pointed out, is that I said that waking, dreaming, and

[31:58]

non-dreaming deep sleep, what I call birth minds, because we're born with those minds, are somehow come into a better proportion or balance with each other Through just sitting. Okay, so now I said that in the afternoon after our lunch I would try to speak about our more fundamental life that's part of the life we already lead, but not so manifest, not so obvious to us.

[33:03]

Not so visible. Okay, so again, I'm making this distinction between just introducing practice into your life without much teaching, as is the custom in a monastery. And if you're an alert person and you are alive to what's happening through the introduction of practice into your life. A whole lot can happen. Now, and as you pointed out, Even during this period, it's good if you have the example of a teacher and the example of a sangha and so forth.

[34:08]

It helps to practice with others. And you can go through some things with more support, of course. Okay, now what I'm saying is this sense of a fundamental life And I don't know what to call it exactly, that's what I'm calling it today. This is more in the context of, let's say, monastic practices. Or Sashin practice. Now, I kind of hate to say that because I don't want to be saying to all of you that you're not doing real practice unless you do monastic practice. But what you do makes a difference.

[35:10]

I can't pretend it doesn't. And in the 45 years now I've been practicing with people, I know almost no one who has made a decision to make their life, instead of bringing practice into their life, they bring their life into practice. Yeah, the difference, I know almost no one who's made the decision to bring their life into practice instead of the reverse. who hasn't been in monastic practice for six months or a year or made the decision to okay this is just how I'm going to live I'm not going to do anything else this is what I should do somehow this kind of decision

[36:24]

almost, you know, I can try to figure it out, there's so many examples, but mostly I can see it happen after a person is one or two practice periods at least at Creston in the past at Tassajara. So monastic practice does make a difference. In fact, I see it. I'm always surprised. And this is part of the history of Tsukiroshi being in the West, too. He was not happy with either of the big monastic centers in Soto, in Soji-ji and Ehe-ji. And his feeling in America was, I'd like this practice to be for lay persons, young persons, old persons, whatever.

[37:44]

And I'd like to see if it would just work in lay life somehow without any monastic practice. After, let's see, it came in... About 1959 he came to the United States. And by 1963 or 64 he was starting to look for a place, a monastic practice. And I was, you know, eventually I was helping him look and helped him find or found Tassajara.

[38:47]

But before that, you know, I just accepted we don't have such a place. At one point somebody offers us some land by Russian River. And I was amazed at how astute Sakyurashi was. Astute, intelligent, accurately intelligent. We looked at this land. It looked like nice land to me. And after we left, he was like, okay, the water's going to be like this, and a storm of this will happen. And he really had a real sense of what that land was like and why it would or wouldn't work. And then we drove back to San Francisco.

[40:05]

I was quite sleepy because I had this pretty big difficult schedule. And it seemed like I had to drive so I was actually kind of a little bit sleepy. And he was sitting behind me right up close talking to me. And then we passed the big Frank Lloyd Wright Marine County Civic Center, which was just being built at the time. And, you know, I liked the building and I'd gone out there on regular visits watching it being constructed. And I liked the building, and I was there often and regularly to see how it was built. And as we drove by, I said, well, maybe we can have a monastery that looks like that. The security behind me said, oh, no. He did not want a monastery to look like that.

[41:13]

So there went one of my plans. Oh, no. Okay. So... Starting again, we talked about bringing these three birth minds into proportion. Now, one of the things you can do in monastic practice is you create a situation. But again, let me say that before we got Tassajara, I forgot to mention that I didn't think we'd ever have a monastery. So basically I pretended San Francisco was a monastery.

[42:18]

I felt the need for a monastic practice so I just turned my life in San Francisco into a kind of monastic practice. Then by accident on a picnic with my So that by accident on a picnic with my wife I drove into Tassajara and then I brought Sukershi down. Okay. So one of the things that monastic practice can do And one of the things that the monastery practice can achieve, and that is in a way like a sashin, but sashin is more of a monastic practice for laypeople. A monastic practice is not like a sashin so much.

[43:19]

It's more like normal life that's different. And you don't have any choice, really, very little choice about what you do. And that's kind of difficult. You have to get finally into a state of mind where it doesn't matter what you do. As long as your heart is beating and you can breathe, it doesn't matter what you do. Likes and dislikes, preferences, must be just... That's very hard, I think, to get there without monastic practice. You know, a good monk, you can just pick up, put them down somewhere and leave them and come back a few hours later and they're still there.

[44:23]

You know, this is kind of true. Yeah, it's just enjoyable to be alive so you just stand there. A blissed out robot. Yeah. Anyway. Okay, so monastic practice can create this situation where you yeah, you have eventually just Whatever it is, you do it. And strangely, this also creates a tremendous security. You don't have to worry. Somebody's going to feed you. You don't have to worry. You can bump into trees, nobody minds.

[45:26]

You can't lose your job. All this is real helpful. And in that security, you can let yourself go. bump into trees or change. Ways that you wouldn't dare to behave if you had a job and stuff like that. And there's a kind of silence that develops between the members of the Sangha and especially in the teacher-disciple relationship. There's a kind of deep silence of friendship.

[46:27]

of already knowing, of not having to make any effort. In fact, if there's social behavior like, hi, and how are you? This is really frowned upon. I mean, if you're a new student, if you want to be friendly, that's fine. But... You're too friendly. Oh, no. It's a... But, you know, social behavior is just not... doesn't work. So you're quite free of also social behavior. You're just being alive, getting through the day. And usually you have a little less sleep than you need. And one of the first advice Suki Roshi gave me is get a little less sleep than you need. It will help you, you know.

[47:40]

You don't have any time to be emotional or worried about things. You're too tired. So you're getting maybe five or maybe, if you really make an effort, six hours of sleep. So you have to learn to compensate. Yeah. Whenever I say these things, I think of anecdotes, you know. We can't have a whole afternoon of anecdotes. Yeah. So, But what happens is these three birth minds begin to overlap. Because basically you're depriving yourself of... Both dreaming sleep and non-dreaming deep sleep.

[49:01]

So, dreaming sleep is forced, pushed into your meditation. And your meditation is pushed into your And you begin to have more a kind of lucid, knowing dreaming. Now, it depends on the practitioner, but eventually you may even basically be kind of conscious all night But you're asleep.

[50:02]

Really asleep. But you know the whole room. People can walk into the room and talk to you. You can have a conversation with them. They go out and you stay asleep. No, I'm not saying this happens to everyone. But it's fairly common happens to people who enter into practice really as, this is my life. Do we have a break in a minute?

[51:09]

Okay. Now, okay, so the three theories you have I'm talking about now. And, you know, again, I feel a deep... pretty deep resistance in me to talk about this because I should only talk about this if you decided to go into monastic practice. And I am not interested in... I want you to define the practice in your life as sufficient. And if you're crazy enough to think about coming to Crestone and say, well, then we can talk about these things.

[52:10]

Or you'll find out. I don't have to talk about it. But I don't know, I have this topic of why sitting, and it's the last seminar I'll do here, so what the heck. Maybe I'll leave behind some problems. Okay, so you can imagine that the division between dreaming, waking and non-dreaming deep sleep are much reduced. And one of the things we can say about meditation practice is that probably we could say is what happening is non-dreaming deep sleep is surfacing into our meditation.

[53:14]

So now whether everyone has these experiences or not, now whether anyone has these experiences or not, But the way the life is structured, the way the schedules are structured, the way it's thought about, is to make these experiences possible. And to put you in a situation where you, in many ways, psychologically, you have to kind of give up. It's one way your fundamental life is born.

[54:32]

Okay, so dreaming mind, waking mind, and non-dreaming deep sleep begin to be territories of which you're both more conscious and more aware. Now this is an ancient idea in India, more ancient than Buddhism. But you can create a fourth mind a wisdom mind that overlaps the three birth minds. The fourth mind, I don't say overlaps completely the three birth minds, but it overlaps a lot.

[55:36]

And the result is you begin to feel really in possession of your own life. Settled and imperturbable even in your own life. Okay. And this fourth mind not only is a mind that in significant ways overlaps the three birth minds, it is also different in its own way. Now this morning I spoke about bringing this posture of sitting into your practical and personal life. Now I'm speaking more about the developed context of practice

[56:37]

Bringing, transforming or adding a wisdom mind into your life. And then, if we have time, we'll speak about how teaching relates to that. Now, and if you understand this, you will... if you have a feeling for this or experience of this, you will also then have much more immediate understanding of where these koans are coming from and so forth. Now, we don't want to, and I don't want to, because some of these, you know, if you look back at these guys who... were teachers, often very good teachers.

[57:49]

They did nothing but. I mean, they didn't live in a monastery all their life, but they lived in a very protected temple situation all their life. I'm not interested in that kind of result. I'm interested in how can we bring practice into our ordinary life and maybe have Sashina monastic practice as part of it and still have a regular life with people. Okay. Now, I'm almost ready to give you a break. I could keep several, I've got several balls in the air here to fly it. You may not see them, but I see them. Okay. So I spoke last night about the kinds of intelligence and

[59:02]

a variety of thinking processes, sometimes called non-thinking, that occur through meditation. What's the second part? That occur through meditation. Okay. And I said how noticing, just process of noticing, something's in front of you and you notice this. And if you look around at the rest of whatever's there, your attention goes back to this. And if you look around at the rest of whatever's there, your attention goes back to this. So just where your attention leads is actually a process of thinking because it leads you somewhere. So that attention is gathering

[60:05]

So if I talk about perceptual posture as well as meditation and mental and physical postures, A perceptual posture would be, again, like I said, to look at the particular and then the field. To look at the particular and then the field. Now, what am I doing? I'm just not looking at you. It's like, oh, hi, everybody. I've developed a habit of feeling you all at once and then looking at something particular. And it's a relocation of attention. And in that relocation of attention, I'm gathering different associations, because it is two different locations in the same situation.

[61:37]

And that makes me know what's happening in the room in a different way than I'd know if I was just thinking about myself or thinking about something else. So we have two kinds of memory here. The conception of memory in the West is a text as text. A text that is somehow in the past you can bring into the present. Okay. Now, in an oral culture, there was, as far as I can understand, memory was like a pool. And then, very quickly, consciously wants to be, tries to be, an oral tradition as well as a written tradition.

[62:58]

And by us sitting here together, we're participating in the oral tradition. And ideally, I would be speaking now to memory as a pool and not memory as a text. Yeah, so you would be remembering things from this weekend in a different way than you usually remember things. And the conception of memory as a pool, I'm trying to make it simple, memory as a pool instead of a text... is the pool is here in the present. It's not in the past. And when the minds of waking, dreaming and deep sleep

[64:00]

begin to be more like a shared mind. Or begin to be more in addition a fourth mind. This is when this pool of memory pool of memory, pool of associations, begins to be much more present in your life. And this is what, much of what is meant by alaya vijnana. It's translated as storehouse or memory, and it's really much more like the cool of associations in an oral tradition. Where the storyteller doesn't know what he or she is going to say next, but what's necessary just keeps popping up from the pool.

[65:25]

So as a lineage teaching, Zen conceives of itself as being both rooted in Memory as a text and memory as a pool. Association. And again, that's one reason we say a teaching outside the Scripture. Okay. So, really the emphasis is on what I'm speaking about, but it's understood that also there's this textual way of being in the world.

[66:43]

Maybe I can give you after the break or some point Some simple example. But basically, this fourth mind enters you into the world in a different way and enters you into the world in a way that your experience gathers in you and in your life differently. And Sukhiro, she sometimes original mind and Alaya Vishnana are names for the same thing. Sukhirashi says original mind is a self-sufficient mind.

[67:44]

Not exclusive, but inclusive, but at the same time self-sufficient within itself. He says you should not lose, ideally you won't, don't lose, your self-sufficient state of mind. Okay, so that's enough for now. Sorry I went on a little longer than I expected. And as usual on Saturday afternoon, I'd like you to have small groups. And I would suggest three, you discuss three things. Discuss anything you want, but I would suggest three things. One is what first

[68:46]

led you to notice a difference between practicing and not, or what experience did you have, what was your experience when you first noticed the difference between whether you sat or whether you didn't sit? Or to put it into two comments, When did you first notice that sitting made a difference in your life? And then when or how did you notice that stopping sitting made a difference? And third... And the third suggestion is when did it occur to you that practice, sitting practice, still sitting practice, could be a transformative practice? And when did you have the feeling of taking possession of the ingredients of your life?

[70:03]

Okay. Thanks for translating. Okay, good afternoon again. And we don't have much time. I mean, we should end at six or earlier or something. And as you know, I'd like to hear something about the conversations you've had. Could we have at least one not too long report? Should I do it to you for Andreas? Okay. We noticed that how subtle the posture is to influence situations.

[71:21]

Through the experience of meditation, even if you are in a normal situation, where you are filled with unwillingness or emotions, suddenly when you remember, When you are, for example, in adverse situations where there's anger arising, when you remember the meditation posture, you just have to adjust a little bit backwards, for example, just to remember this, and so this recedes. Oh, sounds good. Some person who had never sat before and was in a very difficult situation, we got here to decide between several men. Yes, I did a seminar on Johannes Hufn, which helped her tremendously.

[72:48]

It helped her in deciding between several men. You didn't say that, but it helped her tremendously. We didn't talk specifically about that, but there was a change definition. Oh, okay. Oh, well, that's even the top secret. And some person who started meditating first before he had read the Three Pillars of Zen by Kabbalah Raji, and then he started sitting in the big cupboard. The feeling he had about meditation was very spectacular, but on the other hand he just wouldn't want to stop with it.

[74:06]

He didn't just want to end with it, although nothing very spectacular happened. And some people did notice definitely when they said less, the meaning of sitting less. Maybe it's good to determine the heat yourself and sometimes to sit a little less, because you should also integrate sitting into your life. Someone says it's important that the family has to come along, the friends have to come along, that you don't just idealize it like that.

[75:07]

But you don't idealize the sitting so that you really want to integrate also your family, that the pace of the family and the world around you can adjust, has the opportunity to adjust. So sometimes even it's probably better to sit a little less for a time than just to force it. Sounds okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, now I tried to speak this morning, as I said, about just the simple introduction of this posture, not lying down, sleeping posture, not standing up, walking posture, the introduction of this posture into your life. And it's not something you can think your way to.

[76:27]

You couldn't convince anybody. I mean they know they sleep reclining but you can't really convince a person who hasn't done it that this posture can make a big difference in life. your own life and the life of your society. May I be a little iconoclastic and say probably more than enlightened experience. Do you know who's had an enlightenment experience? George W. Bush. So much for enlightenment. I mean, he's ruining America socially, economically, morally, politically.

[77:34]

And it's clear phenomenologically Protestant conversion experiences are very similar to Buddhist and Maiten experiences. Unfortunately, it can give you a sense of rightness and truth and so forth. So the context in which enlightenment occurs is extremely important. Now I'm talking about meditation practice, not enlightenment today and tomorrow. But, you know, so I will refrain from saying any more. But what I want to emphasize is that in this craft and context of practice, it can make a very fundamental change in how you function, how you experience your life.

[78:47]

And this widening of the experience of the minds of waking, dreaming and sleeping. Or this fourth mind I don't know exactly how to talk about it, of course, but I'm trying.

[79:48]

As a pool of memory instead of a text of memory. Remember last night we talked about intelligence or thinking or knowing. functions through associations, through a field of association or knowledge. So if you change the field of association or the context of thinking, of knowing, you change a great deal. If you change this field of associations, of thinking and of knowledge, then you really change a lot.

[80:48]

Yeah, maybe I should stop now, but let me just say that in this practice you become less of a mystery to yourself. And while simultaneously the world becomes more of a mystery. Let's sit for a few moments and then we'll stop. Thank you for your report. You sound like you had some good material. Seng Chau said, heaven and earth and I share the same root.

[82:48]

Myriad things and I share the same body. You don't think of this as some kind of Zen statement. Think of this as, yeah, maybe a fact. As a fact? What is it about? Heaven and earth and I share the same root. Myriad things and I share the same body.

[83:48]

What practice is this pointing to? What way of being?

[84:18]

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