Marie-Louise grew up with an Ethiopian family, practically as her own brothers and sisters. And one of the daughters, who's sort of like her sister, Marie-Louise's sister, And one of the daughters, who is de facto something like her sister, with her three daughters, and her mother, decided an hour ago to drop by to visit. It's kind of a madhouse up there. They're too young to get me to send them here to sit. I remember I got my daughter when she was first daughter, when she was about three or four to sit for one period.

[01:07]

She wanted to sit, so she came and sat. She said, after five minutes I thought of everything I knew and then I couldn't think of anything for the rest of the time. So I just sat there with nothing to think about. I wish I could do that. Okay, what I'd like to do is, you know, this is the third day, right? I'm not counting, but I think it's the third day. And what I'd like to do is see if I could create some kind of fabric that you could roll up and take home with you. I'd like the weave of the fabric to easily weave into your own experience in life.

[02:19]

And I like the pattern of this fabric to somehow connect with the Buddhist teachings so you could see how it's located. Now I have a feeling of this, but can I sort it out with some clarity? Maybe it'll take the next two or three lectures or two or three lifetimes, I don't know. But I'll at least start today. Yeah, so I'm spending an inordinate, unexplainable amount of time. Yeah, on these two sentences of Dogen.

[03:34]

Yeah, and I'm doing it, of course, partly implicitly because I'd like you to be able to also take a couple sentences and explore them in this way. And... And as I've told you before, mentioned before, that Dogen said that it doesn't take extensive study to understand Buddhism. Only a four-line verse, he says, is enough. Yeah. That in itself is a remarkable statement. Particularly for a school which has more literature than any other Buddhist school.

[04:50]

And is a teaching outside the scriptures. But it is basically true. Now, why do certain phrases catch us? That itself is worth examining. Because they catch us for one reason, because somehow there's something in us Yeah, like, what did I say last night? Is there a truth that even the ancient sages have not spoken about? Is there some truth in you you can... that you don't know.

[05:57]

There's a truth in you, but you don't know it's there or know how to act on it or feel, express it. But often a particular phrase or teaching sticks to us. It may not make sense, but we read it over and over again. What is this? Or it comes up later. And usually it's because it's sticking to some truth in us we don't yet know the way to. And the fact that the phrase sticks to us usually means that the phrase somehow has in it the means to uncover

[06:59]

or find the way to this truth. Or the phrase may stick to us because it's just got a heck of a lot more in it than is apparent from the first reading. Nor often. Both are true. It sticks to us because of something inside ourselves. And it also may stick to us because there's a lot in the phrase that we can't quite see yet. Yes, and this is how you read and study when you're on the path, teachings.

[08:17]

You read at the speed at which sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, you can realize or explore as fully as possible at that time. So now I'm coming back to this phrase of Dogen again, continuous practice, da-da-da. And I'm looking particularly now at the two words, continuous practice. What is continuous practice? And I also thought today, maybe I should speak about, why not, enlightenment. It's the third day. It's now or never.

[09:45]

It's always now or never. No, it's not always now or never. It's always now or now. Okay. Now... I don't want to get mired down in a discussion about this elusive, ever-present enlightenment. But occasionally I should say something about it. Or start to say something about it. Okay. Well, first of all, enlightenment is an experience. And it's, you can say it's a universal experience. But it doesn't have a universal content.

[10:51]

I mean, you can think of Jungians, if you're in... if you're in Jungian therapy, they say you have Jungian dreams. And if you're in Freudian, you have Freudian dreams. And I think that's pretty much true. So the way you analyze... And look at your dreams, then starts influencing how you dream. Even dreams, which seem so different than our, often so different than our usual life. Yes, they are not so different. And they are shaped by our life and also by how we look at them, think about them and so forth. And if you start to practice, you'll have practice in dreams, in Buddhist dreams.

[12:10]

And if your practice is deep enough, you'll begin to have teaching dreams. Really, your dreams will teach you things it's pretty clear you don't know, except they come out in dreams. And in the record of Buddhist, no, no, Protestant conversion experiences, That William James, the philosopher, lists the phenomenological description of the experiences, is there virtually identical to Buddhist enlightenment experiences?

[13:18]

But the content is Protestant instead of Buddhist. The outcome confirms Protestant teachings instead of confirming Buddhist teachings. So you can be enlightened Yeah, within your... I'm using the word enlightenment and you'll have to see how I'm using the word enlightenment. Remember, the Buddha is the one who is awake. Yeah, but we say the Buddha was enlightened too. What's the relationship between awakeness and enlightenment?

[14:25]

I think for the most part, let's concentrate on awakeness. Okay. Now, If you can be enlightened within Buddhism or within Protestantism, and I think that's true, and that's one kind of enlightenment. And then you can be enlightened outside of your teaching or practice. And there are certainly Japanese Buddhist teachers who are considered to be enlightened, and they're really enlightened within Japanese culture. And then there are some unusual people who are enlightened outside of their culture, and they're more like each other than their birth culture.

[15:30]

And within Christianity, the most common example of an often cited example, is Meister Eckhart. And he seems to have enlightened pretty clearly, I would say, and outside of the framework of Christianity. He was born in Gothenburg in East Germany. And he was charged numerous times throughout his life with heresy. And he was asked to recant.

[16:39]

But his disciples loved him, even if he did recant. His disciples did what? Loved him, even if he did recant. They didn't. They were warned, don't follow him, but they said, we like him. Okay. Now, if you're a bhakti devotee, your enlightenment is full of love and bliss. If you're a Zen enlightened person, you're crisp, cool, and here. Or something that's good. Like a cracker. Anyway. So there's a content to enlightenment.

[17:52]

And the Buddhist content to enlightenment, very simple we could say, most simply we could say, is wisdom and compassion. And so the teachings of Buddhism are... How can I... Let's see how I can say this. In a way, again, enlightenment is an experience. And it seals... The teaching. And opens up the teaching. Or seals the world and opens up the world.

[18:54]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, there's certain characteristics of the experience that are pretty much universal, whether an artist has them or a Buddhist or a bhakti devotee. And enlightenment can be... big or small or narrow or inclusive. But there's not much that can be done to help a person, Help a person very much have an enlightenment experience.

[20:06]

And Buddhism attempts in a way to... through the practices of wisdom and enlightenment, create the content of enlightenment, which increases the likelihood sometimes, of your sealing that teaching with enlightenment. Or opening up. and maturing that experience through the practices and teachings of wisdom and compassion. Now, Dogen says that the... We just did a precept ceremony the other day.

[21:15]

The initial decision to take the precepts, the initial decision to practice, is an enlightenment experience. Now if we understand that to be true, Then most of us, whether we've taken the precepts or not, I would say, in deciding to practice... are working within some kind of framework of enlightenment. Whatever this enlightenment experience is, it can be quite invisible to us. But all of us, I think, stepped in the door. Now, how do you open that up or mature that?

[22:34]

How does that become the way to mature other enlightened experiences that you may have had and some of you have? These questions that I'm posing just now are part of the background of the pedagogy of Zen Buddhism. How to make the teachings anticipate and express enlightenment. Okay, so let's just go back to wisdom and compassion. So let's think of wisdom now as view. Yeah, wisdom is a... An accurate view of the world.

[23:54]

Enlightenment is a shift in view. And a shift in view which one experiences as irrevocably true. The qualities of insight or intuition is it just feels true. So let's think of Wisdom as meaning view. And a view which from all points of view including experientially feels and is in every way you look at it true. But it is a shift in view. So one of the things the teaching is trying to do, and the koans clearly try to do, is to express the teachings so that you shift your view.

[25:13]

The shift in view itself is a little opening. So sashin is also an attempt to get you to stop walking around, stop thinking, sit down, and maybe... you're more open to a shift in view. How do you notice a shift in view? How do you let a shift in view infiltrate? It's continuous practice. Okay.

[26:15]

You can't really bring, if you've got a habitual way of living, you can't really have a view that's in any way significantly different. Unless you sneak it into your habitual views. Or infiltrate it. So koans in many of the teachings are to keep presenting a view to you, one that sticks to you preferably. So it begins to change your view. And since whatever your habits are, they're views, We need to create a new habit that puts new views into your stream of awareness.

[27:25]

Looked right. Yeah. Okay. So, continuous practice. Okay, so now let's look at compassion. What is compassion? We can simplify it to say, what does it mean in our practice? And practice and compassion really, I think, the key way, the door to look at it is connectedness. And... And many people, when I'm teaching in the West, of course, which is about all I ever do, ask me about love.

[28:38]

Buddhism really emphasizes compassion, not love. And Love is part of it, but it's more a sense of feeling connected with others than feeling love for others. So it's a feeling of connectedness and acceptance. But in that acceptance, a kind of leaving the other person alone. But that experience of connectedness doesn't stop. So it's more a love which is connectedness and acceptance.

[29:47]

Maybe it's more like the love you have for a child where you let them have their freedom but you feel profoundly connected. So, you know, it's the same territory, but it's a different emphasis within the territory. And why is it like that? I don't know. Next session. Yeah. Okay. Okay. If compassion is connectedness, what's connectedness very close to? Yeah, continuous practice would be connected practice. So continuous practice is a way to say, hey, through continuous practice, we have the opportunity to realize both wisdom and compassion.

[31:04]

To realize both reason and compassion. Okay. Probably I should stop there. Okay. That was only one request. No, I will stop. No. I'll be back tomorrow. Same time, same station, same translator. Okay, so what are some of the examples, briefly, of continuity of practice.

[32:11]

Because also one of the aspects of this is in addition to perception and how you perceive but what you perceive the targets of your perception the targets of your perception are very important And that's a conceptual content. I can look at this bamboo and I can notice all kinds of things if I'm just plain old noticing. But if I'm a Buddhist, I'm noticing and practicing the teachings, I'm noticing the activity. of the bamboo.

[33:16]

But I'm noticing not only the activity of the bamboo, I'm noticing that all there is is activity. If you've got little ears and covered with hair and you bark, you're probably a dog. I mean, there's not a human being inside a dog. A dog is a dog. A dog is the activity of a dog. There's no such thing as a dog. There's just the activity of a dog. And there's no such thing as bamboo. There's just the activity... Yeah, that must be bamboo because it has the activity of bamboo. It's not made of plastic. I hate going into Oriental restaurants and finding plastic bamboo because then I wonder about the food.

[34:18]

I hate going to an oriental restaurant and seeing plastic bamboo, because then I start to wonder what it has to do with food. That's probably frozen, flown in from China. So if I notice the activity of the bamboo, and I simultaneously notice that there's no entity called bamboo, there's only the activity of the bamboo dependent on simultaneous causes, So bamboo isn't own-powered, it's other-powered. Does that make sense? So if I notice the interdependence of the bamboo, that's not just simple noticing, that's noticing through wisdom. And if I notice the activity and the entitylessness of the bamboo, then I'm noticing emptiness or impermanence.

[35:42]

So in the practice of awareness, there's there's wisdom that influences how we practice. So, continuous practice means to continuously notice entitylessness. Or to continuously notice that it's being perceived by a mind. Or to continuously notice the breath. Or to continuously notice a present which comes toward you.

[36:55]

Which requires a different pace to let the present come toward you. A certain kind of patience. What is the first of the six parameters? Generosity. Discipline. Patience. This patience which is to let the present come towards you. So if we start looking at the wisdom and compassion of continuous practice. I hope we're beginning to create together this fabric or rug or path you can take home.

[37:58]

And when you roll it out in front of you, you find it's woven into your own life. And you can see the Buddhist teachings in it as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. May God bless you.

[38:42]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_73.75