You know, I don't feel I'm here trying to teach anything, particularly this topic. The challenges of lay practice in the West. Mm-hmm. And on the one hand, I'm a little afraid that we talked about this implicitly for so long. It may be a little tiresome for you. But At the same time, it's what we're immersed in. So what I'm trying to do is identify the situation we're in and then look at

[01:04]

what that means for our practice. So of course and obviously that one of the challenges of our practice lay or monastic in the West are the Western worldviews themselves that we've grown up with and embodied. And of course then also the yogic worldviews we're getting, we become familiar with through the teachings but also simply through zazen practice.

[02:30]

And then we have the problem and kind of wonderful skill of shifting between these two world views and in order to shift between the two world views which are sufficiently different and don't exactly overlap, is a kind of coding of each. Coding, like a code. I think one is okay.

[03:50]

I think one is okay. Thanks. And I think I will have to explain what I mean by coding. Okay. So it's Western and yogic worldviews. and the skill of shifting between them. And that men and women, of course, are equally practicing in the West, much more so than in Asia. And then we have, as I discussed yesterday, the attractiveness of the North Atlantic world secularity. I mean, as I said, our secular world is developed now in a way that has not much to do with religion for many of us.

[05:03]

And is complex and satisfying. I mean, we have some advantage in that we're basically studying Chinese Zen Buddhism. And Buddhism came into China in the midst of an already highly developed urban literate culture. And then there's the fact in the West that the primary medium of continuity The default medium of continuity.

[06:27]

Standard? Default. We use the word default in German as well. It comes from computer. I know, but what... Well, prior to computers, but... Can you just say default? I can say default, I think. All right. Okay. I can say it, too. It's iMac NPC. It's iMac NPC. Oh, yeah, both. I mean, it's not... He's in the PC world, I'm in the Mac world.

[07:30]

But we both wear Roxas. Yeah, and... And the most problematic for me is... multi-generational lineage succession. And that's a problem not just coming into the West. It's a problem particularly if we have a primarily lay practice. As I said yesterday, how do we develop when we're primarily practicing in our separate lives, effectively, I think effectively. Sorry, that has thrown me.

[08:34]

When we're practicing in our separate lives, I think effectively, doesn't mean we have a mutual understanding. it doesn't mean, for example, that Erhard and his wife and his daughter and his son-in-law all have the same understanding of practice. Or maybe you do. No. And we talked yesterday about maybe Neil and Carolina do to some extent, etc. And now we have Ulrich's niece here. We've got a lot of family zen going on here. But But even if we're families, we don't have the same practice, of course.

[09:52]

So individuals are going to practice differently, even in monastic practice. So you have to develop a program for lay or monastics of a mutual understanding of at least key teachings. A mutual understanding of, a shared understanding of key koans.

[11:00]

I mean, I got that, so basically I could have, not as effectively or as nicely, but I could have given Suzuki Rishi's lectures. And even when I did Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, we came to parts of Suki Roshi. Oh, you write those parts. Suki Roshi's working together on Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. We'd come to sort of transitions or we needed to say something here. And I'd talk to him and say, oh, you write it. So what I try with the folks who are at least living with the custom is keep going back and forth until on key teachings we have a mutual understanding.

[12:11]

Now that doesn't mean that the practice is necessarily better just because it's mutual. So an individual lay person's practice on their own may be equally effective, happy-making. But still then, how do we pass the teaching to the next generation? This has been a problem for 2,500 years. Muso Soseki, who was the great Japanese Zen garden designer, and who felt that the transmission of the location where practice occurred

[13:37]

The definition, the articulation of the location where practice occurred was part of the teaching transmission. But he was extremely insistent that the teaching practice itself remained very clear and one didn't get distracted by the beauty of the gardens and so forth. But this... tradition that the mandala of the location is part of the practice is something we should understand.

[14:59]

And that's of course in the background of our having basically worked out the purchase agreement for Hotz & Holtz yesterday. And this is in the background of the fact that yesterday we basically worked out the purchase agreement for Hotz & Holtz. become a mandala for the transmission of the teaching for lay and monastics. Well, we have the opportunity. And we have what I see as the adventure of seeing if we can make it happen.

[16:16]

I think we've done pretty well at Crestone, actually. I don't know if Crestone has the ingredients which will allow it to survive, but it will It has the ingredients for transmission practice. I mean, these are not problems for most of you. But they're definitely problems for me. Because my main obligation, if I have any obligation, is to have successors. And if I can, I think it will develop the overall sangha. And Erhard's grandchild will have a place to practice.

[17:24]

How old is she now? Six. Six. And she loves being here, but she's not in Zendo much yet. Now part of what we're talking about, yesterday and now, is how do we clearly share a meditation practice. And it was clear yesterday in our discussion that at least everyone who spoke, meditation practice has made a difference in their life.

[18:34]

And a pretty big difference. Okay, now, how the teachings can extend and refine our meditation practice. and can develop ideally the distinction between practicing and not practicing. Now I think the biggest difference, right now I'm emphasizing at least, the biggest difference for practitioners of Buddhism is to see the world as interdependent.

[19:51]

Now, this is fairly obvious. And since Rachel Carson, and I don't know who she is, most of you, but she wrote the book Silent Spring, which started the environmental movement in the United States and in the world. And it is hard to believe that our entire Western culture was so stupid and didn't see that things were interdependent, didn't see that you put DDT in the... It's going to go everywhere. It's in the oceans. I mean, we just... Anyway. It's amazing how powerful a worldview is

[21:03]

If most people in Europe, and eventually America, think the world is flat, everyone thinks it's flat. There were a few people who watched a ship sink out of sight and the last thing to sink out of sight was the mast. And they thought, well, maybe the world's round. Yes, do you understand? No. She still thinks it's flat. When you look at a ship, Yeah. You're standing on a dock or on another ship. Yeah. The ship disappears, the deck goes down first, and pretty soon the mast, and the last thing that... Oh, when it goes... It goes over the horizon, yeah. Okay, I was thinking of a sinking ship. Yeah. And that has nothing to do with the horizon. No, it sinks past the... I think... I'm sorry.

[22:24]

Maybe it was sinking too. LAUGHTER Many, many thousands and thousands of persons saw ships do this. But very, very few had the courage to say, I don't think the world's flat. Well, I see the sun come up in the morning, it must be flat, and then it goes over there, you know. So the worldview was that the world's flat and so the sun rises, not the earth turns. So we have to be very careful with our worldviews because they take over.

[23:31]

So even though everyone agrees, I mean, the American Tea Party doesn't agree, but everyone else agrees, I don't think they drink tea. I think they drink coffee. I wish they drank tea. Yeah, it might be better. Anyway, sorry, I'm getting carried away here. Okay, so... Everyone, most people, at least governments, pay lip service to environmental interdependence. But what interdependence

[24:48]

and I prefer the word inter-independence, means for the Buddhist practitioner is quite different than just ideas of process and... things are connected, but really you think in terms of entities and yeah. So what I'm speaking about now is what does it mean to see the world in terms of interdependence, interindependence instead of entities? And this is part of what I mean by coding.

[26:07]

Our cultural code is to see space, as I point out too often, as separating, and to see objects as entities. Okay, so the way we can begin to enter into, in this case, yogic worldviews, is to develop our own code. And so I use this tradition of Zen phrases, incubated, repeated Zen phrases, is to change the code which locks in a worldview.

[27:57]

As soon as you see entities, then you see space as an envelope. space as a container and a neutral container. And as I said yesterday, the generation of philosophers and scientists prior to us And to deal with the fact that there was no longer a given world. A God-given world. Or a world that was here. Now it's too

[28:57]

It's a little hard to explain why there's no prior world. And because we've lived in a world that's prior to us. So maybe I'll try to come to why that's an important idea. Vielleicht komme ich noch dahin, wieso das eine wichtige Vorstellung ist. But we also assumed until recently that space and time were givens, they're absolutes. Aber auch bis vor kurzem haben wir angenommen, dass Raum und Zeit absolut waren und gegeben waren. That space exists whether we exist or not. Dass Raum existiert, egal ob wir existieren oder nicht. But space exists because everything exists. And everything exists because space exists.

[30:19]

So it's not that space and time just exist and things happen in it or don't happen in it. So if you have, this is, you know, how can I make this less philosophical and more related to practice is what I'm wondering. I hope I can find a way to do it. Okay. But just the idea that things are entities brings all of this into play. So if you don't see this as an entity, you see its reality, its actuality, is its activity.

[31:30]

And you relate to it in terms of its activity and not its entity-ness. And if you relate to it as an activity instead of its entity, entityness, you change your worldview. Then you have to change the way you perceive the world. Dann musst du auch die Art und Weise, wie du die Welt wahrnimmst, verändern. You have to use your senses differently. Dann musst du deine Sinne anders nutzen. Whoa, I think we need a break. Ich glaube, wir brauchen eine Pause. But not yet. Noch nicht sofort. Okay. Now, of course, conventionally this is an entity.

[32:35]

Where are we going to store the bell? In the cupboard. We don't think, where are we going to store the activity? Because everything, our language, it's all about entities. In our language, everywhere, it's always about entities. You actually have to, and Chandrakirti and all these folks are great ancestors, are all about how to change the coding from entity to activity. If we find a way to make a shift to knowing things primarily as activities.

[33:38]

Our default position becomes activities. Okay. Then we're relating to relationships and not entities. And as I said yesterday, if you have three books, there's six ways to organize them. Three times two times one. But if you have 15 books, that's 15 times 14 times 13 times 12 times 11, etc. That's 1.3 trillion ways to organize 15 books. That means there's just an endless array of relationships.

[34:52]

An infinite array of relationships. How do you function in that? How do you perceive that? How do you perceive relationships rather than entities? Among Westerners, I find musicians who play in orchestras are most likely to get it quickest. Because you have to... Again, I'm trying to find... incubatory phrases or a coded language that makes a paradigm shift for us. Yeah, like I've done with instead of already separated our usual way of thinking about the world, we change the code to already connected.

[36:26]

And if in every situation and every person you meet, you feel immediately the default position is already connected, the world starts being different. Now, the default position in a yoga culture is already connected. And you get a variety of flora and fauna of connectedness. It's not that ridiculous. Yeah, so you have to pare down the connectedness. But here in the West, we have the advantage, and in this case, let's make it an advantage, of a Western worldview, we've already separated it.

[37:34]

And let's turn that into an antidotal view of already connected. Okay. Now if I am here with you, And as I pointed out a number of times, I can have a modality or mode of mind in which I only perceive particulars and the field. So my mind, attentiveness of mind rests in particulars or the field.

[38:40]

And you can, it's a yogic practice or a practice to develop this skill. It's that you're not thinking discursively. You're not thinking about anything. You're almost using the mind as a way to feel, not as a way to think. So you feel the particular and you feel the field of mind. Man fühlt gewissermaßen die Einzelheit und man fühlt das Feld des Geistes. Okay, so I can shift from a particular the bell or your hands or whatever to the feel of the field of mind.

[39:48]

The field of mind, but the feel of the field of mind. And if I feel the field of mind, I feel all of you separately and together in a way I can't reach if I think about it. And I only know what to say next when I feel the field of mind. Or the field of mind feels you. You know, some people, when they get a massage, their back is being massaged or something.

[40:58]

And various memories appear. When you touch this part of the back and it makes you something that you hadn't thought of for years appears. It's a kind of territory like Freud discovered with associative mind. Associative mind knows things that consciousness doesn't. And the body remembers things that consciousness doesn't. And a very typical phrase, of course, in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism is the 10,000 things. The 10,000 things means, that's sometimes translated as myriad, But myriad is a generalization.

[42:11]

And I like 10,000 things better. There's many more than 10,000 relationships here, but it's a good thing to say, 10,000 relationships. Well, when you feel the field of mind, it's being massaged by the ten thousand things. You feel the relationships. So Dogen talks about non-thinking. Non-thinking is not not thinking, it's the mind which feels and doesn't think.

[43:13]

But for a variety of reasons, we emphasize the mind that thinks. Aus verschiedensten Gründen betonen wir den Geist, der denkt. The mind is also the sixth sense, a feeling organ. Der Geist ist auch der sechste Sinn, ein fühlendes Organ. We have five senses in mind. Wir haben fünf Sinne und den Geist. In yoga culture there are six senses and mind is one of the feeling organs. So this is a big shift in worldview. Because if you're going to live in a world and know it as relationships, as activities, We don't want to just live in it as a blind duck quacking your way through the crowd.

[44:26]

Quack, quack, quack. You want to swim in the relationships. I don't know what I'm talking about. So swimming in the relationships requires the establishment of a field of mind. A field of mind that feels the relationships. So we actually use our mind differently to be in a different world view. Okay, to be continued. Time to take a break. Sorry, went on so long. And I, again...

[45:17]

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