Yeah, and for me, as you know, this is also always an experiment. How we do this? What should we do? And we don't have a densho inosama in the other building? Was it being hit this morning? No, we normally hit only one densho. Oh, well, we have in the past, but not in both places during practice period sometimes. Anyway... We had it just here in the box. It's... Sorry. All right. Anyway, I don't like to use a clock, so I go by the Densho bell. I couldn't hear it, so that's why I'm a little late. So let's have a Densho bell over there.

[01:06]

I mean, the idea is here we're trying to have a monastic-like morning, practice period-like morning, Where you go by the immediacy of the situation, which is the bell and things, and not your mind or clocks. Yeah, okay. So maybe I'm just being stricter than I was, I don't know. And the main complaint I have about this format of a more of a practice period situation in the morning and more of a social seminar atmosphere in the afternoon after lecture

[02:08]

And the main complaint I have in this format, where there is this morning-like practice period and then a social afternoon or time after the lecture, is that we really have practice silence up until after the lecture. In the last two or three years, the complaints I hear is no one much does it. And maybe it would help instead of trying not to speak, Take your attentional location out of your head and thinking. and shift it to the space that you're occupying.

[03:15]

As I said during the last seminar, one of the basic kind of simple rules in a Zendo is you don't look around. You develop the habit of turning off the curiosity, the mind, etc., which wants to look around. And you limit yourself to just the feel of the room. And you make that enough. Unless some emergency happens, but basically that's enough. Now the topic for these days is the Vijnanas. And there's a lot of different versions of the Vijnanas.

[04:56]

But the classic Yogacara version is eight Vijnanas. And since Zen is principally a Yogacara practice, that's what we'll look at these days. Now, I think that the first thing to look at is not what the content of the vijnanas are, but what the concept of the vijnanas are. And what world the Vijnanas, the eight Vijnanas, imagine. Because the Vijnanas, as conceived in Yogacara,

[05:57]

are a description of the entirety of the world. So I think that it behooves us, first of all, to look at it that way and see if we agree or can imagine this is a description of the world. And when we look at the vision, we can see that it also imagines what a human is. Yeah, no. I just said human. I didn't say human being. Because the Vijnanas don't really imagine us as human beings. The Vijnanas imagine us as human perceivers.

[07:31]

Now, again, these just words, I mean, of course we're going to say human being. But being implies a continuity of existence, which Buddhism says happens but isn't fundamentally how we exist. And so if we're going to look at the vijnanas and really look at what they can show us, Wenn wir uns die Virginianers anschauen und uns wirklich anschauen, was sie uns zeigen können, we shouldn't look at it as just more of what we already know or just added to what we already know.

[08:59]

Dann sollten wir sie uns nicht vorstellen als einfach nur mehr als das, was wir schon wissen. Because most of what we already know is assumed to be unreal. by the teaching of the eight vijnanas. Again, we're back, as we discussed last week, to the basic of knowing the world as a succession of appearances. And until you really get that and practice that, Buddhism is just a practice that makes you feel good. Maybe it makes you feel good, I don't know.

[10:03]

Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, let me speak to you from another realm. I'll speak to you from a realm which knows dog mind as well as human mind. So let's say we have a canine, canine? Canine is a word for dog. Okay. That's why in the military it's called K-9 with the dog core. I don't know the word. Canine. Just a dog? No. Oh, okay.

[11:05]

Canine is a dog. So a dog. Okay, so dog. Dog perceivers. Dog perceivers. Dog perceivers. All right, so we have canine perceivers. You can call it hunt perceivers. I don't care what you call it. We have canine perceivers. Also wir haben Hundwahrnehmende. And here is this happy canine perceiver whose ancestor hung around the campfires of the Neanderthals. Und hier ist dieser glückliche Hundwahrnehmer, dessen Vorfahren an den Lagerfeuern der Neandertaler rumhingen. And by the way, we're all a percentage of Neanderthals, but mostly we're, you know, what was the other human types? What? I'm just, I can't come up with a word. Neanderthal? The other word. Homo sapiens.

[12:07]

Homo sapiens, yeah. Homo saps. I mean sapiens, yeah. And we're more descended from Homo sapiens because we could run faster than Neanderthals. I think this has nothing to do with the Virginianas. Maybe it doesn't. Because, I mean, Neanderthals were supposedly much stronger and could beat the hell out of any Homo sapiens. Well, Neanderthaler, da sagt man, die waren viel stärker und konnten jeden Homo sapiens verkloppen. Supposedly, two Neanderthals could take down a...

[13:13]

Elephant of that time, what were they called? Hairy mammoths. But because we could outrun the Neanderthals, they'd be out of breath and then we could beat them in. But because we could run faster than the Neanderthals, we got them out of breath and then we were stronger again. My ancestors, my Hund perceiver ancestors, hung around the campfire and enjoyed a mutual endorphins with humans. And now I live in your living room. And, yeah, but I live in an old factory Olfactory?

[14:21]

Topography. I have... [...] I can be on the far side of the living room and I know the couch inside and out. In fact, the couch doesn't even have an inside and out until I jump on it. And I can smell the cloth, the outside cloth of the sofa. And I can smell the inside stuffing. And if it has springs like they used to, I can smell the metal. And I can smell the keys that Jane lost down into the couch a year ago, taking a nap.

[15:46]

And I can even smell Jane's skin on the keys. I don't really know why she walked around with them all the time. It's important that she lost them. She was able to replace them, I noticed that. And I like these. I don't know why they can replace keys, but you know, it's something I couldn't do. But in any case, I live in this olfactory paradise with no inside and outside. And I can smell the mouse turds in the couch and the martyrs in the ceiling.

[16:53]

So, you know, I don't know what humans do too well, and I really don't understand what cats do. And, you know, I don't know about insects and all those other animals. But I know my world of animals. immediacy, the immediacy of that's given to me through being a Hund perceiver. Now, this Hund perceiver, living in the midst of the immediacy defined through his or her sensorium,

[18:05]

That there's actually this entire world and universe was created by spelling my name in reverse. from dog to god. Now we might look into this incredible gargantuan delusion of this dog that thinks there's a dog god that made everything. I mean, it's just unthinkable. Now, for the creators of Yogacara teaching, it's also unthinkable that somehow human perceivers created everything.

[19:30]

So even the idea of a dog being instead of just a dog perceiver is not thinkable. But because we don't live in immediacy so much as a layering of memories, Unmittelbarkeit leben, when you say as, does that mean we live more in a layering of memories? We humans, almost sapiens. Yes, sondern wir leben eher, wir als Menschen leben eher in einer Schichtung von Erinnerungen. But from a Buddhist point of view, the layers of memory and so forth are, ja, they're,

[20:36]

But they don't really establish a continuity of... They create an illusion of a continuity of being, but not a fact of a continuity of being. But they don't really establish a continuity of being, Basically, we live within as human perceivers. No, I think we as contemporary persons in our Western culture We have to explore what we mean by beingness and the idea of beingness is somehow cosmically resonant with the entire universe.

[21:48]

the entire universe or God realms and so forth. From the point of view of the visionaries, we are simply human perceivers. Existence has to be existence, a continuity that we exist as entities or something, has to be understood from the point of view of we're fundamentally human perceivers. Existenz, also das Dasein, muss fundamental, grundlegend verstanden werden aus der Perspektive, dass wir menschliche Wahrnehmer sind. So, the Vijnanas ask us as an antidote to the concept of existence and beingness.

[23:00]

Und jetzt fordern uns die Vijnanas als ein Gegenmittel zu... Yeah, asks us to imagine maybe we're just human perceivers. And if we are in the most fundamental sense human perceivers, How does that affect our experience of beingness and existence? So these teachings, when you really look at them, aren't just added to what we know, they challenge everything we know. You can't just glide along happily in your sense of who you are.

[24:05]

We're asking here what you are. Okay, so the vijnanas are related to, of course, the five physical senses. And the mind also as a sense. Because the mind also creates the sensorium in which we live. So we have five, we have let's say six base consciousnesses or six base senses.

[25:08]

There's five physical senses. Now the important thing to notice in this and think about is these five senses are separate. A deaf person can't hear, but usually they can see. And their seeing is separate from whether they can hear or not. I mean that they affect each other, but they're still separate. And a blind person can still hear and smell and so on. So the first step in practicing the Vijnanas is for you to experience each of these base senses separately. And you can do that, and monastic life is partly set up to help you do that.

[26:16]

You try to emphasize one sense primarily for a while. and then switch to a second sense, and then see how they overlap, and so forth. Okay, so the Vishwanas are teaching, which says, we are, first of all, live within a world we can define as, entirely as immediacy. We'll live and die within this immediacy. We'll be sick and healthy within this immediacy.

[27:18]

We'll be in love or in hate or in whatever within this immediacy. And how is this medium? We live in it already. That's a fact. But how is it constructed? Okay, so the Vijnanas are a study of how it's constructed. And it asks you as a Buddhist practitioner to reconstruct how you're constructed. To reconstruct it. How you're constructing.

[28:31]

Yeah. As we're reconstructing this building. Okay. So you notice that you have... Let me just say about mind as also a sensorial domain. All five physical senses depend on being part of the mind in order for you to perceive anything. And as the five physical senses arise from contact, the consciousness as a generator of your sensorium here is part of

[29:41]

as I said, each of the five physical senses, but it also can produce ideas and memories and all kinds of things on its own. That's one of the problems we have. It's out of control. So we're going to Right now we're not going to look at Vijnana number 7 and Vijnana number 8. We're looking at the first six Vijnanas. And each one is rooted in a base sense. A touch, feeling, smelling and so forth. And each one is rooted in a base sense. And touch isn't just simply touching things, it's also the whole body knowing the world.

[31:05]

Yeah. So, and a realm of, a mind realm arises... When there is the base sense contacts something. Okay, so the base auditory sense, a mind of hearing and sound arises when you hear a note or a tree or wind or something. Also, der Geist des Hörens entsteht, wenn dieser Grundsinn des Hörens zum Beispiel einen Ton hört oder einen Baum hört oder so. Or you hear your own field of hearing, whether there's a sound object there or not.

[32:09]

So for the adept practitioner, you first locate as much as possible your immediacy in each sense. And you recognize that the five physical senses are giving you only five portions, five parts of a totally complex world. Ja, und weil wir die übereinander lagern, haben wir ein Gefühl von Kontinuität. convincing.

[33:23]

It seems like really what appears. So we have to, as practitioners, serious practitioners, we have to break through the habit of seeing continuity as the main appearance Breaking through, seeing continuity as the main appearance, müssen wir dadurch brechen, dass wir die Kontinuität als die Haupterscheinung wahrnehmen. To training yourself to see the world as a train of successive appearances. Und uns angewöhnen, uns antrainieren, dass wir die Welt als einen Zug, eine Abfolge von Erscheinungen sehen.

[34:29]

Now there's lots of ways to do this and I'm always speaking about it. But now we're speaking about the Vijnanas. And this title, this subject was suggested to me because Atmar and Nicole and the Sangha here are trying to develop a study program. And this title was suggested to me because Otmar and Nicole and the Sanger here tried to develop a study program. And others will be able to be followed, pursued, studied through our website. You're getting so modern, I'm getting confused. So if Zen is primarily a Yogacara practice and teaching, then the most basic way to start with the experience of appearance is with the vijnanas.

[35:48]

And the first thing is to take the layering and appearance of continuity away as much as you can. layering and appearance of continuity. And look at each sense field and the object of contact and the sense organ. which occur as six slices of the cosmic pie. But it's a huge pie. And your six slices become what's called in Vijnanas, 18 dhatus, 18 realms.

[37:12]

So I think for me it's useful to use the sense organ as one realm. The contact domain, the sound, the smell, the color, etc., which is a kind of domain, a territory. And that generates a mind realm. At least in English there's a difference between a domain and a realm. I don't know about you. Hat jemand eine Idee?

[38:22]

Bereich, Domain, Realm, Bereich. You can use whatever you want. Domain is the territory you rule. The Realm is the ruling. So I use Domain and Realm. Okay, I have to think about it. Gebiet vielleicht. Das eine ist Gebiet und das andere ist eine Gegend. So there's the domain which you hear, smell, taste or touch. And that creates a field of consciousness or bigger, a field of mind. And I think traditionally too, the easiest way to initiate an experience of the separateness of these 18 Datus, is to listen to music.

[39:23]

Yeah, and some maybe even experimental music. There's a note, there's a sound, there's a hammer hitting a board, you know, something like that. when there is a sound, a note, or a hammer hitting a board. Hespos. Hespos is a German composer who makes music out of a bunch of sounds. H-E-S-P-O-S is his name. H-E-S-P-O-S, Hespos, ja. Der Musik aus jeder Menge Gegenstände macht. So what's interesting about it is the sounds that follow from one another are unpredictable. So if you hear a hammer hitting a board and then scraping along something or other, you end up thinking, is this a schreinerrei?

[40:30]

It is a Schreinerei. Then you hear a couple of chords on the piano. Oh, maybe we're in a symphony hall. And then you hear a few chords on the piano and then you think, oh, maybe we're in a symphony hall. Each unpredictably related sound, juxtaposed or paratactically juxtaposed, calls forth a different sound domain. So it breaks the continuity of appearance. And you can begin to hear into each sound.

[41:45]

And feel the mind that appears on each sound. If you get familiar with this, you don't have to do this, you know, forget about it. But if you want to practice yoga, chara, zen, you know, and we want to do this together and there might be some benefit, let's do it. You know, I was reading the other day that a lot of Buddhist scholars actually don't believe you can free yourself from mental suffering. I recently read that a large part of the Buddhist teachers actually don't believe that you can free yourself from mental suffering.

[42:51]

In their life it's just unimaginable to free themselves from mental suffering, but they write books about it. But you can mostly, in fact, free yourself from mental suffering. And this has something to do with discovering how to reconstruct yourself in the immediacy in which you live. But you have to find some craftsman, craftsperson-like way to enter into this way we're constructed. So that would be a good topic for your discussion this afternoon, maybe, if you want.

[44:06]

Do you have any experience of how to reconstruct your sensorial immediacy? And that would be a good topic for you this afternoon for the conversation. Do you have an experience of how you reconstruct your sensory immutability? Okay. Thank you.

[44:23]

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