Well, I heard the bell and I thought, it's for her. No, for me. And it's raining. No, no, I'll ask Nicole to give the lecture. But, I don't know, here I am. Yes, but now I'm here. And, you know, I'm wearing these Raksus. They were Suzuki Roshis, but for him they must have been, he only came up to here. I used to think he was bigger than me, but when I saw myself in photographs, I realized I was a bit taller. I used to think he was bigger than me, but when I saw myself in photographs, I realized I was a bit taller.

[02:28]

And I, anyway, for him they were rather ceremonial, big Raksus for special occasions. But, anyway, they're easier for me to wear than Okesas sometimes. I hope you don't get bored with my references to aging so often. But it's something I find quite amusing and interesting. You know, one thing I've pointed out, small things that really make a big difference, for example, in Buddhist yogic culture and in East Asian yogic culture in general, you don't dress the body, you dress the posture.

[03:38]

But one of the things I've often said is that in an East Asian yogic culture, you don't dress the body, you dress the posture. And one of the most obvious examples of it is the way the collar is supposed to not be against the neck. And one of the most obvious examples of it is the way the collar is supposed to not be against the neck. So it's the spine mind, as Koan 3 speaks about, the spine mind which supports the sky. So there's a feeling that this is a kind of oval, and your head appears with the spine, and it supports the separation of heaven and earth, which were once together in Chinese concept.

[04:47]

So it's part of the feeling that your body is making space. It isn't in space, it's making space. So it's part of the feeling that your body is making space. It isn't in space, it's making space. So it's part of the feeling that your body is making space. It isn't in space, it's making space. And as I pointed out occasionally before, the pine needle stitch is really a kind of stellar or star astrological sign. Yeah, so not only do they dress the posture, they also dress your attentional body. And so your clothes are designed to require attention.

[06:16]

So that ideally, the way the robes sit on the body, the white collar is always very precise and so forth. So that ideally, the way the robes sit on the body, the white collar is always very precise and so forth. But what I've noticed is, and I never would have thought this, I couldn't typically have thought my way or noticed it until it happened. But what I've noticed is, and I never would have thought my way or noticed it until it happened. For example, the different layers, there are different layers on top of each other. And for example, you're not divided in the middle by a belt, but with the robe you have the feeling as if you were in a sleeping bag.

[07:41]

But now, getting old, it used to be when I sat down, all the robes were in place. Now I sit down and they're all tangled up and I can't untangle them. And if I wear an okesa, it's one more layer of, can I get these old straight? And right now my kimono should be under my feet, but it's either behind me somewhere. And right now my kimono should be under my feet, but it's either behind me somewhere. I would need an event here that would take about 10 minutes to straighten up.

[08:50]

But at least I can still sit straight and I got on the cushion pretty well. So I thought I ought to unpack what I've been saying recently, that Zen is the practice of actuality more accurately than the practice of Buddhism. So I thought I ought to unpack what I've been saying recently, that Zen is the practice of actuality more accurately than the practice of Buddhism. That's an example of the emphasis on the practice, what I'm calling, of actuality.

[10:05]

Now it may sound easier to practice actuality than Buddhism. I don't have to read the books and figure out all the levels of teachings. No, we just practice actuality, that's simple. Now it may sound easier to practice actuality than Buddhism. I don't have to read the books and figure out all the levels of teachings. No, we just practice actuality, that's simple. Well, it has something to do with distinctions like dressing the posture rather than the body. Assuming the way you dress helps you realize a potentially realizational body.

[11:21]

Assuming the way you dress helps you realize a potentially realizational body. Assuming the way you dress helps you realize a potentially realizational body. And to imagine the body in a kind of sleeping bag, the upper body, is also a simple way to maintain the body temperature. Something to do with consciousness or something like that?

[12:26]

You wouldn't know what she's called. You wouldn't know what she's called, okay. I wouldn't either. That's a Dagmar. There's the real Dagmar. Daggone it. But it's like I said the other day in our rather lengthy house meeting, I'm sorry. You do not know your birth date from your sensorium, from your actual experience. Somebody has to tell you your birth date. And birth dates are a part of governmental control of us, state craft.

[13:38]

And birth dates are a part of governmental control of us, state craft. You want to be able to identify each one of these creatures called us. Any names, of course. But you began to experience categories. Because your caregivers, some of us are parents, hopefully, began to treat you in certain categories. Relate to you as certain categories. Because your caregivers, some of us are parents, hopefully,

[14:42]

began to relate to you as certain categories. You were cold or warm or hungry or not hungry. It was night or day or you were sleeping or awake. And these categories, I mean your parents or your caregivers would say, oh, so and so, little cute wonderful Dagmar is hungry. Look, I think she's hungry. But she didn't know she was hungry. She knew she was hungry, but she didn't know the name of hunger. So she began to be treated in categories like she's hungry or she's not.

[15:45]

In named categories. But before the categories are named, there's categories. Of night time, day time, hungry, not hungry. So I think very early on the infant begins to feel that the world is some form of predictability. And the parents or caregivers out of necessity or intelligence begin to create predictable patterns of relating to the infant. And the parents or caregivers out of necessity

[16:51]

or intelligence begin to create predictable patterns of relating to the infant. Sometimes out of care, they develop predictable patterns. The infant begins to have a sense of the world. The infant begins to have a sense of the world. And that the infant is living in some sort of, the shape of the world has some predictability. And that the infant is living in some sort of, the shape of the world has some predictability. No, I can say in English something like,

[17:54]

the baby begins to know, the infant begins to know, the world has an always there-ness. the world has an always there-ness. Whenever there's a crib and you open your eyes and there's something that you begin to know, there's an always there-ness. Now, that's what I'd say in English. Now, there may be some slight difference between there and here in German. Yeah, no, it's different. What I'm doing is different. Yeah, okay, well, good luck. Yeah, thanks. I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing.

[18:58]

Please, yes. Okay, so maybe, and I'm going to play with these two words, maybe there's, in a Buddhist nursery, there would be an always present here-ness. Does it make any, can you make this distinction, here-ness and there-ness? Yeah, now I'm starting to do what you're doing, and now it works. My hands are cold. They are. Yeah, really cold. Warm them up. Oh, I have to say something. Yeah. Okay. Now, I think the baby, the infant, is taught very early

[20:06]

a kind of the world is out there or the world is in here. Yeah, and in general, there seems to be in Western culture more emphasis on the reality as an out-there-ness. But for Buddhists, it's more the world out there is an in-here-ness. So let me just play with that for a little bit, and then I'll try to say why I'm saying this in terms of unpacking actuality.

[21:10]

Now, part of what I'm saying here, and I won't be able to follow up on this, because this is a one-off, this lecture, I guess. No? Depends on you. Well, you're the one that asked me, and you're busy. You're leading the practice. I'm a guest. Okay, now I forgot what you said. Oh, you won't be able to follow up on these things. You can follow up. Okay. Okay. So, if we want to, you know, if practice is the practice of actuality,

[22:15]

we have to really find some way to notice our experience. And words, as I've been implying by talking about infants, after a while, first there's categories you begin to look, and then pretty soon the categories are named, and a view of the world is built into the names. Okay. Now, examples of this Zen being a practice of actuality are statements like,

[23:27]

This very mind is Buddha. Well, how do you know what that means? Do you know what mind is? Yeah, I mean, this very, what is this even? This, thus, suchness. This, this, this, thus, suchness. So, the study of actuality is, you know, you're living in actuality, but studying it as practice is a challenge. Okay.

[24:34]

So, if you're going to practice with this very mind is Buddha, for example, you have to say that phrase to yourself, because you're kind of, it's like, you have to start as if you're an infant, and your experiences are unnamed, you're hungry and so, but you don't know what hunger is, except it, as your experience. And one of the requirements for somebody to do Zen practice is a pretty high degree of, of noticing. So, when you say to yourself, as a repeated phrase,

[25:56]

and koans also use this repeated phrase as a way to practice, you say, this very mind is Buddha. And you watch what you feel, you notice what you feel when you say, this. And you notice what you feel when you say this word, this. What does this word, this, do with the field of perception? So, you say it in German or in English, but I can only give you examples in English, but then, is. What happens when I say, is?

[26:59]

Now, neurologists are all trying to figure out what mind is, but we're trying to figure out what mind is from our actual experience. This very mind is Buddha. Now, if this very mind is Buddha, we don't need Buddha. We have a mind, all we need is this very mind is capable of awakening. So, to practice Zen, you really have to have an absolute, I'm sorry to use such a strong word, absolute conviction that everything you need is here.

[28:06]

You have to get rid of it, or at least get past the psychology, oh, I'm not very smart, or my parents didn't like me, or I was the third child and they didn't want a girl, and all that stuff. If this very mind is Buddha, then you need to have an absolute conviction that everything you need is here, including enlightenment. But right now you're not saying, well, what part of my here-ness is enlightenment?

[29:27]

You're just, to heck with enlightenment, you're just noticing what your here-ness is. Like this morning I said during the first period of Zazen, your inner living space, and your outer living space, which is primarily consciousness, and your inner living space is awareness and consciousness. Now you can ask, well, what is awareness? Somebody sent me, from Crestone or Boulder recently, sent me a diagram. Awareness is this circle, and consciousness is this circle, and knowing is this circle.

[30:36]

I had to write back and say, this can't be diagrammed. Yeah, I mean, this is some kind of Western cognitive, I mean, it works in many situations, but for what we're doing, to cognize it as a diagram, all the nuance is gone. All the spectrum, the spectrum of, yeah, okay. You do better, you finish it. But this is a typical Western way of thinking, to put something in diagrams.

[31:40]

But this is a cognitive way of grasping it, and this is helpful in many situations, but if you do that, then you lose all the nuances, or you lose the spectrum that is folded in. When we practice Zen, then we are in an experiential culture, and not in a cognitive culture. In a cognitive culture, you end up with, it must be created, so you have to have some kind of space from which things can be created. In a cognitive culture, there is the basic idea of creation, and then you always need something like a space from which everything was created.

[32:43]

What is the most important teaching in Buddhism? That everything is changing. There is only changing, and changing changes. There is no thingness. So to say everything changes is like, things start with a thing, and then the thing changes. That's not right. It starts with changing and ends with changing. So let's play a little bit with the word nearness and there-ness.

[33:54]

Did you say here-ness or near-ness? Here-ness and there-ness. So you're trying to, like an infant, before things are named, you're trying to get to the place before things are named, and so you just say here, or here-ness. So you're trying to get to the place before things are named, and so you just say here, or here-ness. And you're of course seeing, and while you're saying this, there's visual going on perhaps, hearing is going on, proprioceptive sensorial experience is going on. And while you're saying here-ness, there's a certain feel to saying here-ness.

[35:10]

Okay, so then switch and say there-ness. Okay, so you say there-ness. And when I say there-ness, I feel the Buddha in the altar there, and the Shakyamuni standing, and the bell, and things like that. There-ness. But there's also a kind of presence, which I can't say is the bell, or the Shakyamuni, or the Amitabha Buddha. There's a kind of presence or field in which that happens, and maybe we could call that mind.

[36:19]

Okay, so now I'm still playing and I switch it, so now I'm saying here-ness. And looking at the Shakyamuni, the Amitabha Buddha, in the center of the altar, if I say here-ness, the field, the presence sort of turns inward. Now I'm suggesting, if we're going to practice actuality, you really have to look at the words you're using as experience. If we're going to practice actuality, you really have to look at the words you're using as experience.

[37:34]

So we're exploring not naming, but then exploring naming, but not naming too strongly. So we're exploring naming, and then not naming, and then again naming, but not naming too strongly. Okay, so your actual experience is more than the Amitabha, or the Shakyamuni, or the bell. And let's call that more-ness, well, let's give it the name of mind. It's not the bell, it's not the Buddha. Let's call it mind. It's not the Amitabha, the Shakyamuni, or the bell. There's something more. Maybe there's more than one, but the main reason right now for calling it mind is we have Matsu, or the statements like, this very mind is Buddha.

[38:46]

So we're trying to define the words that we've inherited from our lineage. So now maybe you can, saying this often enough, sitting in your room or something, just fiddling around, you've got to do something, you know. So you practice with their-ness and the feeling of presence. The word presence is a kind of unrefined word for mind. So you begin to feel, when you say here-ness, you begin to feel an inward-turning mind.

[40:08]

And when you say for a few minutes, four or five minutes, or one or two minutes, you say their-ness, their-ness, their-ness, you feel an outward-turning mind. And when you say for a few minutes, two or three minutes, their-ness, their-ness, you begin to feel an outward-turning mind. And this was basically the first thing Suzuki Roshi taught us back in 1961. Which is called the granting way and the gathering in way. He kept telling us, I mean for about a year or two years, he kept talking about koans in terms of this inward-turning mind and outward-turning mind.

[41:21]

And then he identified them with Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and Avalokiteshvara. They often put together in the same altar space. And Avalokiteshvara is the outward-turning space. The Bodhisattva of Compassion. And the inward-turning space is Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. So we're using concepts from Buddhism in our practice of actuality. Is that wisdom and compassion are two very basic, intrinsic expressions of aliveness.

[42:42]

Is that wisdom and compassion are two very basic, intrinsic expressions of aliveness. Now what's the German word that you and Christian made up? Verlebendigen. Yeah, so there we are. Okay, see, this whole lecture is just to support that word. We can't get much more basic than this. Is that, and you can begin to not only practice this sitting in your room, there-ness, here-ness. When you're with people, you can feel, do I have an outward-turning mind? Do I have an inward-turning mind?

[43:49]

And when you get more and more used to this, like you're working in the kitchen, you have an outward-turning mind that doesn't lose contact with your spine. And the more you get used to this, the more you can be in the kitchen, and have an outward-turning mind that doesn't lose contact with your spine. And when you are in Zazen, or in the study time, you emphasize this inward-turning mind. And it's so inward-turning that the body and mind disappear, and you have Dogens casting off body and mind. And it's so inward-turning that the body and mind disappear, and you have Dogens casting off body and mind.

[45:07]

So my feeling is that from infancy, babies are taught to emphasize their-ness, or they're taught to emphasize here-ness. So my feeling is that from infancy, babies are taught to emphasize their-ness, or they're taught to emphasize here-ness. I always like it that in English, only T separates there and here. If you write here, you have here there. So for me, that's just fun. It connects it. So for me, that's just fun. It connects it.

[46:10]

In our culture, we have to start emphasizing the turning inward mind instead of the turning outward mind. They're both emphases. We do both, but one culture emphasizes one more than the other. So as I said this morning during the first period of Zazen, there's an inner living space that is not so well-developed in us Westerners. And in average people in East Asia, it's not that well-developed. They have more of a feeling for it than we do. And in average people in East Asia, it's not that well-developed. They have more of a feeling for it than we do.

[47:42]

But a realized Buddhist practitioner, a Zen practitioner, has an equally developed outer living space, an inner living space, and the fusion of the two. Because of this, it's one of the reasons when I first started teaching in Europe, I emphasized the turning word phrase, just now is enough. Because of this, I emphasized the turning word phrase, just now is enough.

[48:46]

And I still believe, even decades later, that this is still an essential practice. Exactly this is enough. There's no alternative to this. Exactly this must be enough. And this really helps you to get into a successive identity, where you have the feeling of existing from moment to moment. And this successive identity is the basis for realization, not a continual identity. And once you establish the physiology of successive identity, Dharma, Dharma, Dharma, moment, moment, moment. And once you get used to developing Dharma from moment to moment, Dharma, Dharma, Dharma, moment, moment.

[49:57]

Then you have to start exploring, how does the thrust of my narrative identity, which is continuity, function within a successional identity. Then you have to start exploring, how does the thrust of my narrative identity, which is continuity, function within a successional identity. It's fun, it gives you something to do. I always say, when you're waiting for the dentist. I always say, when you're waiting for the dentist. Yeah, so I will stop. But I want to add the phrases, ordinary mind is the way. It's a famous statement of Matsus. But it's also famous in a koan, where Nanchuan, Jiaozhu asks Nanchuan, what is the way?

[51:08]

And Nanchuan, the disciple of Matsu, continuing the lineage, the teaching lineage, says, ordinary mind is the way. If ordinary mind is the way, then Zen is the practice of actuality. If ordinary mind is the way, then Zen is the practice of actuality. And then the extraordinary Jiaozhu says, our ancestor says, well, how do I aim for it? And then the extraordinary Jiaozhu says, our ancestor says, well, how do I aim for it? If ordinary mind is the way, how do I aim for ordinary mind? If ordinary mind is the way, how do I aim for ordinary mind?

[52:22]

And Nanchuan says, if you aim for it, you're lost. These guys knew what they were talking about. These guys knew what they were talking about. Or Dogen's sentence, the entire earth is the true human body. She said to me at the meeting the other night. She said, I can't translate anymore. Is that a hint? What's the message? But you take this metaphor, the true human body is the entire earth.

[53:24]

It's like Dogen's metaphor. The true human body is the entire earth. And one last thing I always say. The senses make no distinction between human and non-human. If you unpack your suitcase or if you unpack reality. In my opinion, you can't unpack your suitcase in a canoe. You have to wait until you're in the harbor or in your hotel room.

[54:33]

And your hotel room is either a Western or an East Asian room. You can't unpack actuality in a Western hotel room. If you have the distinctions of human and non-human or things and activity, Buddhism doesn't work. Because this terrible distinction between human and non-human, which is part of the reason we're in the sixth extinction. Is a conceptual distinction from a creator-based culture.

[55:35]

It is not actuality. So just play with your sensorium. Listen very carefully. Do you hear a distinction between human and non-human? You just hear sounds. Do you see human, the books, the shells, the bell? Do you see human, non-human? No. It's all smooth. It's just part of your sensorium. And out there is not reality. When out there becomes relationality, then you can move smoothly between outer-turning mind and inner-turning mind.

[56:55]

I'm sorry, that went a little long. But I only got about so far in what I might say. But just doubt is enough. Thank you very much. OM NAMAH SHIVAY [...]

[58:07]

OM NAMAH SHIVAY [...]

[58:22]

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