The Arab who receives it finds himself among thousands of millions of Kaipas and rare notes, because I can receive and preserve them in the highest level in Syria, and I believe that I am able to experience the truth of the Talaq Salah. I am sorry to have kept you waiting, but my body doesn't follow the schedule very well anymore. I am sorry to have kept you waiting, but my body doesn't follow the schedule very well anymore.

[03:37]

But I really like to continue with you, so thank you for inviting me today. Yes, thank you. I really feel we are together in trying to develop this Dharma and this Sangha in this world. I really feel we are together in trying to develop this Dharma and this Sangha in this world. And I find myself innerly, I keep reviewing, what's this all about? And I find myself innerly, I keep reviewing, what's this all about?

[05:09]

And I think for most of us, we start with Zazen and the practice of mindfulness. And I think for most of us, we start with Zazen and the practice of mindfulness. And to just do it, that's what it's all about. But sometimes, and this is what I do, I keep finding myself reviewing, where is this happening? And how is it happening? And what is happening? So let me just take those three words, where, what and how.

[06:22]

That's the Sesame Street. Now you're singing the Sesame Entry Song. I didn't know that. There we go. Hey, we are all brought up on Sesame Street. Not me, but you know. What did he say? He said you were part of it. Which part? All these big fuzzy guys. That's who we were thinking of, I think. Oh well. Yeah, so where. And we're practicing where everything changes. And I've discovered over these years that it's very useful to look really carefully at simple things.

[07:50]

So if we were going to have a motto for Zen Buddhism, it would be, everything changes. But the motto is not, some things change, it's that everything changes. But the motto is not, some things change, it's that everything changes. And everything changes, that's a completely different statement than saying, some things change. Because when you say, some things change, it means there are some things that don't change.

[08:58]

But that's not what Buddhism says. Buddhism says, everything changes. So you almost don't need the word change, because there's nothing that doesn't change. So we could maybe have, change changes everything. Or change changes changing. So when you look at that, Yeah. Carefully you recognize you're in a different world. You know, So,

[10:11]

If I, I've done this not for a while, but occasionally I do this. If I take these beads, You look at them, Yeah, and then if I swing them, it's much harder to observe them. And if I'm moving too, it's really hard to observe them. So what does that tell you? Look at that simple example. That you need a reference point. And the first reference point, when I do this, is attention. Okay, if attention is the reference point,

[11:18]

What do we notice? Even if I leave these, don't swing them around. And ask you to bring your attention to it. Your attention will, Your attention will go to it for a little while, and then it does something else. So here I'm speaking about our practice as a construction project. You're not born, you're born under construction. Yeah, okay. And you're not clearly, you know, you're not born with a trained or stable attention.

[12:22]

Yeah, if everything changes, we can hardly, and the word Dharma means to hold. So what holds in the midst of everything changes. So that's the very, you know, you couldn't have a more basic question in our lived life. What holds in the midst of everything changes. Because if something doesn't hold, you have no reference point. So you need to discover a reference point. Not a reference point like, you know, I'm supposed to go to school or, you know, the tree's still in front of the house that wasn't cut down.

[13:37]

You need an inner reference point. And at lunchtime, Tom, my old friend, who's sitting here, and has been part of this in various ways since we started. And at lunchtime, Tom, my old friend, who's sitting here, and has been part of this in various ways since we started. And at lunchtime, Nicole was there, and we talked about our confusion about where is right and left. And I said, well, I could only remember where left and right is because I have a little mole right here. And luckily on my left foot too, so I didn't get too confused. So people say, which is the left? Well, you know, there's north, south, and here. Oh yeah, this is the left, okay.

[14:58]

And you said you had something like similar. Yeah, that told you that was right. But that's not, yeah, that's right? Yeah, that's right. Okay, are you sure? I'm sure. And Tom had some similar kind of left-right thing, wasn't he? Oh, freckle. Oh, this is good. We need a reference point. And then you turn around, and left and right have turned around, or have they turned around, or, you know, it's not very stable, this left and right stuff. And then you turn around, and left and right have turned around, or, you know, it's not very stable, this left and right stuff. So if you look at anything thoroughly, then you notice that you need a reference point, even if everything changes.

[16:04]

And what you then try to do is to find this reference point in your experience, and not in reference systems. So let's say, here you focus, or you look at it, or you focus on something. And you notice you can't focus on it for very long, you start thinking of other things, or whatever. But you have an intention. And the intention also can be a reference point. And what is the intention made from? Is it made from wood or beads? What is intention? Where does it come from? And what is the intention made from? Is it made from wood or beads? What is the intention made from? Where does it come from?

[17:16]

So you have intention and attention. So obviously these are very basic questions. So you have an intention, and after a while you manage to bring the attention back to the bead chain, or whatever your object of attention is. And as Gerald said this morning, after a while it's like a rubber band. After a while it gets easier and easier to bring your attention back. And then at some point it comes back by itself.

[18:22]

And eventually it just stays wherever you put your attention. And eventually it just stays wherever you put your attention. So you've trained intention as part of your construction project. You've trained intention to be joined to attention. So you've trained intention as part of your construction project. You've trained intention to be joined to attention. So after a while, wherever you put your attention, if you're a skillful yogic practitioner, it pretty much just stays wherever you put it. And that's a huge event.

[19:31]

You no longer have the same kind of psychological problems, psychological things, don't take your attention away. You put your attention somewhere, it stays there. You no longer have the same kind of psychological problems, psychological things, don't take your attention away. You put your attention somewhere, it stays there. And after a while, your attention, what I call it, I don't have words for it, but I call it wrapped around attention. And from when I say wrapped around in English, I also hear wrapped as in rapture. And from when I say wrapped as in rapture, I also hear wrapped as in rapture. Which could be samadhi or bliss.

[20:34]

Which could be samadhi or bliss. So after a while, your attention, whatever you look at, doesn't just rest there, it wraps around it. It almost happens inside it and from behind it. And after a while, when you focus your attention on something, it doesn't just stay there, but it's almost as if your attention envelops it, and as if the attention penetrates it and comes back to you from within. So in this construction project, we're investigating what we're constructing, which is this lived life. So this wisdom practice and the traditions, not just Buddhism, say, well, the first thing to really develop attention is attention to the activity of breathing. And as I say, not the generalization of breathing, but the activity.

[21:55]

And the activity of each hale, as I put it. The activity of the inhale and the activity of the exhale. The bodily etc. etc. etc. activity. And I think it's useful to explore this not just in zazen, but also when you're going to sleep. Because if you can bring your attention and wrap it around the experience of the inhale, and it just stays there. And then you can wrap it around the exhale.

[23:01]

This attention, wrapped around attention, is something wisdom is teaching you. You weren't born with this skill. And these are the tools of the construction project. So again, if when you're going to sleep and you again feel the little bump when you stop thinking and more just in your body, or that body, that bump you have to go over, and you feel it, and you're no longer thinking, but suddenly the body becomes your reference point, and the things that keep us awake, they're not there.

[24:19]

Because your full attention is, and each breath is rather complex, so there's a lot of space for the wrapping around. So my experience is, once you get really skillful at wrapped around healing, you can go to sleep in one or two breaths. And if you don't go to sleep right away, then you have something else to study and investigate.

[25:25]

So you've developed this skill, which actually takes a few years, to just have your attention rest on wherever intention puts it. So you've developed this skill, which actually takes a few years, to just have your attention rest on wherever intention puts it. And now, say that you are concentrated on this, your attention is just resting on the beads, and I take the beads away, but you still feel concentrated. But what are you concentrated on? The beads are gone. You're concentrated on the field of mind.

[26:40]

So in this construction project, you've just created mind, which you weren't born with mind. You were born with awareness, which you turn into consciousness, but you weren't born with mind, in the Buddhist sense. Okay. So now, you're inseparable from the field of mind. When you have enough yogic skill, it doesn't go away. You're there. When you have enough yogic skill, it doesn't go away. You're there. And now I bring the beads back into the field.

[27:43]

But now, the concentration is not on the beads, but on the field of mind. Instead of generating the field of mind. Now, I'm saying all this to you, and us, and me, because I think it's useful to have a sort of big picture of what we're doing, where we're doing it. So, we're doing it in a world where everything changes. Change, change, is changing. And you recognize intuitively that I need a reference point.

[29:11]

So, ideally, and Buddhism is a wisdom practice, it gives you a way, if you're a way-seeking person, this is a way to establish a reference point. Now, this may sound like a bunch of words, but it's a bunch of words I hope can give us a feel for where we're practicing. Because once I've got the feeling, and the beads have arisen in the field of mind, and aren't dependent on the beads. The field of mind isn't dependent on the beads. The field of mind is not dependent on the beads. Then all of you are arising in my field, this or whatever field of mind.

[30:38]

You're arising as sensorial objects. Not as psychological objects. But just you're arising in the sensorial field of mind. Now, if I feel you as my field of mind, it means that the exteriority of this is now an interiority. And that's what Buddhism means by non-dualism. When the exteriority is experienced as an interiority, that's called non-dualism. And, you know, there's some interesting things when you get there.

[32:00]

You find out you can't be lonely anymore. Because you're not separated from anything. Whatever it is, it's just, woo! You don't feel lonely anymore, because whatever happens, it happens in you. Your reference point becomes the field of mind. Or the field of mind as a reference point. Stillness is just one window or door to the field of mind.

[33:04]

Stillness is just one window or door to the field of mind. The other kind of stillness is silence. It can also be a window or a door to the field of mind. It can be still or active or silent. It's just a background of everything that happens. So I'm conceptually introducing you to the field of mind. And this is not neurology or science.

[34:10]

This is exploring these things from your lived activity. How it relates to neurologists studying consciousness, you know, I don't know. That's up to them to figure out. I might be interested in doing it myself, but I don't have the training or equipment or experience. I might be interested in doing it myself, but I don't have the training or experience. But if I told my neuroscience friends, we weren't born with a mind, they'd say, what does that mean?

[35:17]

In this construction project. So I'm again going to define Buddhism as the practice of the individual investigatory practice. So I'm again going to define Buddhism as the practice of the individual investigatory practice. Or the individual practice of actuality. I would say this is pretty close to how contemporary traditional Buddhism is developing in the West. It's an individual practice of actuality.

[36:29]

But it's also an individual practice with others. And that's why we're here. And the tools for practicing with others are, as you know, the four Brahma-Viharas, the six Paramitas, and so forth. And the tools for practicing with others are, as you know, the four Brahma-Viharas, the six Paramitas, and so forth. And then in an inseparable spectrum with phenomena. And then in an inseparable spectrum with phenomena. Which means, there's nothing special about us.

[38:00]

Which means, there's nothing special about us. I could take this wonderful stick which Suzuki Roshi gave me. A teaching staff based on a back-scratcher. And it reaches anywhere. And I can throw it away. I can throw it in the pond or I can burn it. And we can do that with the whole planet. I mean, you're all, and everything our culture has been, and the poetry and the science. I mean, I cry inside when I think it's endangered.

[39:04]

I mean, you're all, and everything our culture has been, and the poetry and the science. I mean, you're all, and everything our culture has been, and the poetry and the science. We're nothing special. That's all nothing special. For me, the teaching staff is something special, because Suzuki Roshi gave it to me. You are something special. But on the big picture, we're nothing special. One of our exercises, one part of our practice should be to recognize that there's nothing special about us.

[40:16]

That we're just something material, in the midst of materiality. And in the midst of everything changing. And now I'm going to make a leap, because I think it's a leap, because I don't know how to talk about it yet. We live in a field where everything vibrates. The conscious dimension that we live in is very narrow. The biomass, as I said the other day, the biomass of bacteria on this planet is greater than the biomass of all the plants and animals.

[41:21]

And all those bacteria, et cetera, are communicating right now. They're in some kind of field of activity that we're part of. They're outside of consciousness. They're outside of an articulated awareness. But they're not entirely outside of this generated field of mind. But they're not entirely outside of this generated field of mind. So mind-to-mind transmission is the transmission of this field of mind that you're not born with, that you create with others. And our practice is, how do we continue this field of mind? When I look at inspired painters, by their own practice of intentional attention,

[43:06]

they've painted their way into the field of mind. And usually the only way they know how to get there is to do another painting. And I think musicians compose, write, sing their way into the field of mind. And that's what I find inspiring. There is something universal about it. And when I look at the painters, for instance, who have survived over many generations, it's the painters who I experience as having painted their way into the field of mind, which we share.

[44:19]

Now, what I'm going to suggest is that, although there's no scientific explanation for some resonant field of mind, I'm going to suggest you try it on for a while. Generate an imaginal field of vibrancy. Yeah, science has no way to measure this yet, or ever, perhaps. But clearly the teachings of Buddhism are not based on a god,

[45:39]

but something you might want to call a god if you had no other words for it. The fundamental teachings of Buddhism assume an imaginal field of mind that we are located in. The fundamental teachings of Buddhism assume an imaginal field of mind that we are located in. And I'm exploring the word vibratory. And I'm exploring the word vibratory. A vibratory field of mind, which is the essence or quintessence of everything changing, changing.

[46:46]

which is the essence or quintessence of everything changing, changing. And my experience, or the experience of tradition, is that when you create an imaginal field of mind, when you recognize, you begin to hear, you begin to feel this field of materiality, if you can keep from interfering with it with consciousness and thinking, if you can keep from interfering with it with consciousness and thinking, which again is a yogic skill as part of this construction project,

[47:52]

everything begins to speak through you in nuances you can sense in your body. And for not knowing what to call it, some people call it the three muses, some people call it inspiration. Some people call it teaching dreams. But this arises through generating the field of mind as the background of everything that happens. But this arises through generating the field of mind as the background of everything that happens. And this field of mind is the background and your reference point.

[48:59]

And this is called Dharma. We find ourselves in the same way as every being and every place, we are in the same field as the sun, [...]

[50:00]

Love you.

[50:30]

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