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Active Mindfulness and Unbiased Perception
AI Suggested Keywords:
Winterbranches_2
The talk explores the nature of mindfulness and perception in the context of Zen practice, with a focus on understanding the concepts of activity and the biases in perception. The speaker discusses the text by Hande Witt, probing the term "active" mindfulness and its role in liberating the mind from biases. The conversation delves into the examination of dharmas, exploring whether perceptions can be truly unbiased and how they are perceived in states of consciousness, especially during meditation.
- Hande Witt Text: This text serves as the basis for the discussion on mindfulness being "active." The speaker analyzes the implications of mindfulness transcending biases in perception, questioning if a completely unbiased state is achievable.
- Wittgenstein's Contributions: Referenced for understanding perception, Wittgenstein's idea that "there's nothing that tells us it's being seen" is used to illustrate the philosophical challenge of recognizing perception beyond objects.
- Jinpa's Zen Model: The practice of debating as a form of Zen discussion is highlighted, with Jinpa's extensive practice as an example of engaging with dual perspectives.
- Charles Warren Clark's Interpretation: Introduces Clark's 19th-century suggestion of dharmas as "elements of existence," commenting on how interpretations are influenced by scientific atomism and are corrected within the talk.
- Jean Locke's Tabula Rasa: Discussed in relation to human consciousness and the concept of duration, contrasting scientific and experiential interpretations within Zen philosophy.
AI Suggested Title: Active Mindfulness and Unbiased Perception
Good morning. One of the questions I asked yesterday, it's my own research as much as anything else. Would you, you know, and I don't Would you want to have just discussions like this and not also more formal teisho and zendo, etc.? Does it make a difference? I don't know. I'm just asking maybe. I don't know if I expect a specific answer, but... My question was also in the larger context of what was the context in which these Abhidhamma teachings were developed.
[01:02]
But we didn't get very far yesterday, because I talked too much, in the hearing from each of you or some of you on what struck you in this Hande Witt text. Well, I suppose now we have to add the discussion we had yesterday. So, you spoke, is that right? You spoke. So, David? There are many things in this text.
[02:23]
Limit yourself to three or one. I refer to the sentence we already picked out. That this mindfulness is in those moments active in which we are not biased by our experiences. And for me what's stuck out is the word active. The mindfulness which is in this moment active, which is active in this moment.
[03:23]
Then for me the question is what is active? Or what makes it active? And in my practice I find out that the way Roshi suggested to look at it that if I look at things as an activity, I can bring them into this what's called being active. And this being free or being loosened from this biasness happens if I see things as activities? When he doesn't see them as entities anymore, when he doesn't see things as entities anymore, the biasedness gets loosened.
[04:44]
In some level it's easy to understand that in the head. For me, I was surprised and I found it interesting that he says in this sentence that the mindfulness is active. Now again, since it doesn't exist in English, I have to depend on you. If I was reading this sentence, I would ask that question, too. What does he mean by active? And I'd try to find out in the rest of what he's saying... if he makes clear what he means by acting.
[05:49]
But I'd also wonder if he says only when your mind is unbiased or something like that. He says that, right? Now, is he, throughout his text, it's hard to tell from one sentence, but throughout his text, is he assuming it's possible to have a completely unbiased mind? If he's assuming that, then that's a problem in his own understanding. I'm just asking a question. I mean, I'm just talking about how to look at a text. Because you want to know whether you can learn from it or not. You can learn from a flawed text almost often as well as you can from a good text.
[07:12]
But you do want to see if you can feel or see into his own, whoever the author is, own understanding and own biases. Because, of course, what you implied makes more sense, that the mindfulness self in its practice simultaneously lessens bias. You want a practice that does that. Man möchte eine Praxis, die dieses tut. You don't want to practice. It only works in ideal circumstances. Man möchte nämlich keine Praxis haben, die nur unter idealen Bedingungen funktioniert.
[08:15]
Yes, you can. Could we discuss the word biased a little? Yeah. To make it clear, because now befangen and biased... That became the same word, right? ...we take for granted. Befangen in the German word means being entangled, influenced by, and not neutral. Yeah. It's the same as being biased? Biased is pretty much that, yeah. It's always a good choice, Michael. Okay. This morning I read it again, the text. Then I tried to just find out how all this functions within me. And at first I kind of contained myself to just see it within those five perception organs.
[09:18]
The five senses. The five sense organs. And my feeling is that there is a state that is neither unconscious nor conscious. And I have a feeling that there is a state that's neither conscious, sort of, but not unconscious or non-conscious. And there I think it's like a filter in the mind that pretty autonomously filters stuff out that ought to come into the foreground. And in this moment an object already gets named. And my feeling is that only in this moment can I intervene with my knowledge and give a direction in which my perception and my impulses run.
[10:55]
So then, in this moment, I have the feeling that's the moment when I'm capable of intervention and giving a direction in which these things develop. I can either let this process run unconsciously or non-consciously, or I can intervene and put a different or contrasting view to this normal view. To your usual habit. Okay, good. And that requires indeed a conscious activity. and at the moment I have the feeling that it is easier for me, for example, to release myself from entity in meditation when it is about myself,
[12:30]
And at the moment I feel it's easier to free myself from entity what concerns me, entity of myself, in meditation. It's more difficult with the outside world to do this. So you find it easier to practice this in meditation? In meditation to feel myself as an activity, as an entity. I feel it's more difficult with other people. Yeah, yeah, of course. I'll try to refrain from commenting every time or we'll never get very far. Since we're dealing with this text I'm not feeling well and I can just report from my own emotions at the moment I'm very not agitated but like agitated, excited, something in between.
[13:37]
In a good sense? I don't know. I still try to find out what it is. I assume that this knowledge, that it is related to this knowledge that I know, that I live in my world, that I am very alone there, I think it has to do with that recognition that I know that I'm living in a world in which I'm very alone. That I don't know what's outside. I project, I perceive. There's something I call I, which takes reference to things. And he describes it here. And I'm kind of afraid of taking it seriously.
[15:00]
If I take it seriously, the consequence would be for me that I can't continue living as I do. They know what the table is, that I can drive a car. And swimming starts kind of swimming. Floating me. It scares me. At the same time, I think it's exciting. But I come to a point where I think, if I take it seriously, I have to take it seriously. I still have 30 years left. I don't think it's much.
[16:02]
I've meditated for 20 years and nothing much happened. It's a thin layer. There are moments where I am this being where I think I'd like to go to. I can feel a wholesome life. I don't know how to call it. the text makes so visible this discrepancy for me 99.9% everyday life this knowledge that I actually know which I don't follow That I love objects. I love consuming. I love relations. I love this illusion. I want to have this illusion.
[17:10]
I don't want to let go of it. Though I know that I have to let go of it at least latest when I die. At the last minute. I'm going to wait to be enlightened at my last minute. Yes. Well, I mean, you know, even if you see, view everything as impermanent and so forth, most people can still drive a car. And tables still support teacups. But, you know, this isn't especially different from what I've been saying in seminars in Hanover. Why does the text affect you differently than the seminar?
[18:16]
I can't forget it. The seminar is easy to forget. Most people read a text and they can't get it, but in a seminar they have more of a feeling for it. Maybe I should you both pass out a text. Christoph? For me at the moment in conjunction with this text I'm most interested as of where does perception start?
[19:20]
I think that the very first step of perception is not yet a real perception, in the sense of the word, but that a choice is made, what comes into my senses, what I perceive. Take care that I do it right. There's already a selection process. Yeah, it's a selection process before the first step.
[20:38]
And in this context I'm interested in And it is mentioned in the text somewhere. Is the I, I mean, not the I-ego-I, right? Is that perceivable? It's the ego-I. It's not the I-I. No, no, the ego-I. Okay. If I could perceive it or wanted to perceive it, it would be perceivable within the experience field, or what they call experience field. The fact that I must be in the field of experience in order to be perceived is impossible because I cannot be the perceiver and the perceived at the same time.
[21:59]
So if the eye, the ego eye, is not perceivable within the experience field, is that the case because the perceiver and the perceived cannot be noticed or perceived at the same time? My question is, Doesn't everything start with my very own perception? Okay, does he say that the self cannot be seen in the perception field or something like that? That's what he says. No? You don't think so? Some people think so, some don't. Okay, well, this is what I gave the example yesterday.
[23:04]
This... of Jinpa, who's the main translator for the Dalai Lama, who I spent a week with just now. His practice for 11 years was 4 or 5 hours a day of debating. That's a kind of model for discussion in Zen practice. And we don't emphasize it much. In the sense I don't do what they used to do at a Heiji in the middle of the service.
[24:10]
the abbot or whoever's leading the service will turn around. Everybody's chanting. He'll say, Peter, what is your question? And then you have to get up immediately, go to the back, and make a question. And I answer the question, or if it's me, and then you go back and everybody... Then he finishes the service. He may do... Just became a Christian. As a... Generally, when I was there, it was usually sometimes one person No more than three people you would ask to, and you just point.
[25:17]
Anyway, so while we're having our discussion, we should be, if much is possible, debating the point that Christoph just brought up, or Peter brought up. Debating means we take both sides. We feel it from Christoph's point of view. Do I feel that or do I feel slightly differently? But you have to feel it from the person who's saying it's side. You can't really debate with a person unless you feel what they mean because you can't anticipate what they'd say next otherwise. So, sometimes something else emerges if we do this in ourselves too, yes? So I had some frictions with that sentence we mentioned yesterday that from Buddhist point of view objects exclusively exist only as mental constructs
[26:47]
I needed to find the right level for that. I make the experience that I interpret the world in my experience field. Beyond this, we discussed that a wall does exist, and I stick to my example here. So my conclusion was that there is as well this as well as that. So there is something immovable out there and there is my interpretation of this thing. experience and perhaps interpretation, but experience.
[28:14]
So in Buddhism I thought they emphasized so much the impermanence, that there's no entity. And then I thought there must be a second set of rules Everything comes back That what we call tree has never disappeared from this world Call sun has always come back. Every morning we've never made the experience that it doesn't come back. Everything is impermanent and everything comes back and that it comes back and that things always return is never mentioned, maybe just very seldomly mentioned.
[29:29]
This Yogacara, Chidamatra approach to Buddhism, which Zen is, is not sort of English philosopher Barclay's type idealism. It just is the emphasis for us in our human experience. All we know is our human experience. So that has to be noticed first. And usually people notice the objects first. So to quote Wittgenstein, a quote I've often mentioned, he says, in this scene, there's nothing that tells us it's being seen.
[30:46]
So for this location as the perceiver he also says somewhere Wherever I am, I'm in a particular location. This would also be a Buddhist sense of self. That even if you take away all self-referential thinking, there's still a location always. So while there's nothing that tells me it's being seen, That's the usual way of looking at the world.
[31:54]
Practice is to remind of this location. that everything being seen is being seen by our senses and our mind. So much of practice is how do you remind yourself of that. And it's true, the wall's there. And there, but it's also true we may remove it. And it wasn't always there. And someone told me, I read once, that all the trees in England except one have been brought to England. Yeah, the different kinds of trees.
[33:05]
And even around here, I'm sure, most of these trees have been moved around from various locations, trans, you know, etc. So... In addition to things being impermanent, most of the things you see are also affected by human beings deciding about the world we live in. Munin? struck me the most was the difficulty to be
[34:07]
In English, unbefahme. In Dutch, we have a word. As you do, in the context of a little child. Just time looks at the world. That's the word what is in the text and what we call now unbiased in English. So like beginner's mind or something like that? And since I live so long already, I'm carrying around with me lots of experiences that I ask myself if it is possible to see to see the world, to experience unbefangen.
[35:29]
Yesterday I saw Leo going home after morning meditation. Then I thought, what I call Leo. It has something to do with how I perceived or experienced Leo. Whom I'm seeing now, I don't really know. I don't know. This is one question. Another question is that Han David says that almost in every almost in all experience of the senses the mental the mental fear the
[36:40]
So the mental kind of process is everything I see and hear and so on. And I'm interested how this works, functions within me. to see it more clear. Okay. Yeah, the... Creators of the Abhidharma tried to do this in a way that had no sense of self implied. No metaphysics, no mythology. No implied underlying substrate. So the only way to work with this is to keep trying, as it sounds like we're doing, to find it in our own experience.
[38:09]
Okay. Now, did you meet in small groups or one group yesterday? One. Yeah. And did you come up with a question of some sort? What was the discussion, roughly? Is the wall there or is the wall not there? Do I bump into the wall or is there a connector that goes through or something like that? Yeah, it seems to be there. Okay, then I asked for three volunteers.
[39:13]
Who's the volunteer for the five dharmas in the... Yeah, we have now altogether four volunteers. Do you want to know the name? Well, who's the volunteer for the five dharmas and the five... Four dharmas and the five. Five dharmas and the four marks. Until now, no one. We have a volunteer for the eight dhyanas, for the five skandhas, for the four noble truths, and another one for the dhyanas. Yeah. Anybody for the five dharmas? Four marks. I don't know what it is. No one knows what it is, huh? I don't. Four marks. Okay. You can do the four marks then. Roughly. Yeah. Okay. Let's see what happens roughly. No, you have to go... Yeah. You can move that back, I think, about two-thirds of a meter.
[40:26]
Whoa! They're painting. Just appearing? Yes. Duration. Going away, as they call it. Disappearing. Well, it's a dissolution. Disappearing.
[41:31]
Disappearance now. And what do these four marks mark? They mark... They are... They mark every dharma. Every dharma in the mind appears as the duration disappears and is gone. And what is a dharma? A dharma is a... Wait, the people need a translation. Oh, translation, okay. Do you do that? Yes. Well, the four characteristics... These are the properties of a dharma.
[42:38]
That is, a dharma, a mental event or a reality unit, or simply a He tries to define the Dhamma right now. He says it's maybe a mental happening, a unit of truth, something, all kinds of words he has. Not truth, but reality. A reality unit. But peers in mind and but we perceive as reality. Oh, okay. Maybe. Just a state? A state? What is a state? A state of mind. They're trying to do the Dharma now. A state of mind, like, is your state of... I see... We have to know what we both mean by a state of mind.
[43:47]
In English it means like I'm in an angry state of mind. Is that a dharma? Yes, it can be, but next to other things as well. Okay. Anybody else define a dharma? This is a definition of a dharma. Okay, so how would you define a dharma in addition to this or in relationship to this or in relationship to your own sense of it? I don't know. To come to a point where you experience things as it is, without the self. And when anger is part of that, as it is, then it's part of the Dhamma. Okay. Someone else, yeah? Do you say it in German?
[44:48]
Yes, so things come as they are. And when anger... If you can see it as how things are, then it is a dhamma. I think that we don't know what dharmas are. And so we have this practice to make ourselves more precise in observing teensy little things. So we're trying to learn to see how they appear and disappear, and we get more and more sensitive to noticing... super small units. Because if you say what a dharma is, then it's like, I don't know, such a big figure so fast and we can't notice it, right? So that's what I thought, it's something real fast. I say we don't know what dharmas are and that's why we have this exercise to see what appears, holds, dissolves and disappears.
[45:54]
I know it. As fast as a vigorous man or something can see all the skies or the stars in the sky. Something fast, a big number like that. I don't know. It seems like you're striking out in the dark here. The smallest unit of perception is sometimes described as the snap of fingers. Or in a star-filled sky, when a strong person scans quickly across the sky that one star is the unit to
[47:03]
smallest unit of experience. And you could say that, oh, you don't have any unit of experience with such a small star. But actually, if the star, if it's not so starry, it feels different when it's packed with stars. Like a creststone in the desert sky. Man könnte sagen, dass man nicht in der Lage ist, solche kleinen Wahrnehmungseinheiten zu haben, aber in Wirklichkeit fühlt es sich trotzdem anders an, ob man jetzt einen Sternenhimmel mit weniger Sternen sieht, als so einen wie diesen Wüstenhimmel über Crestone, der vollgestopft ist mit Sternen. Is such a minimum unit of experience a dharma? Ist jetzt so eine minimale Einheit von Erfahrung ein Dahmer?
[48:05]
Das kannst du nicht machen, das nimmt alles auf. Denkt es jetzt jemand, dass es so sein kann? Deutsche. It has to do with perception through senses only. Okay. Christoph? I say that it would only be called a dharma when you bring a mental or mind unit into this perception of that minimal, tiny unit of perception. I would also say something similar.
[49:09]
It depends in what state of mind you are at that moment. Because in Samadhi you can notice much smaller units than in, let's say, everyday mind Okay, yes I would say they are the smallest units of the current field of experience The current field of experience So I would say it's the smallest unit of experience of an experience moment. Okay. That's a little circular, but yeah, okay. My question is, if it's a dharma, when it becomes conscious, you know?
[50:14]
If it's only a dharma, if it becomes conscious, so if it appears on stage and disappears and is gone, right? The other question is if it's only one Dharma after the other or if you have overlapping kind of differently scaled Dharmas. For instance, if you listen to the rain, you can hear the single drops and you can here I notice the rain appearing in the mind, staying, and then if it's gone, disappearing, and then it's gone. So it can be a long time and a very short time also. Okay. Anyone else want to contribute? Deutsche. Also, die erste Frage war das, ob ein Dama unbedingt
[51:18]
Okay, anybody else? Andreas? and that helps me to work with it. And then I can start to investigate. It helps me to say, I'm going to stop, look at what is the moment, what is missing in the field of experience, in this moment of experience and then in this experience unit that I can even notice. I also find that very dependent on how careful I am or not. But the work with the Dharma itself helps me then So for me that you said each moment is a dharma helps me very much.
[52:27]
I said that? So first I have to, it helps me see what, I have proof of that. You have proof of that, huh? Yeah. So first I look at what is a moment and then I look at what do I perceive in this moment and then I look at what mindfulness I have in those moments. And Han David said that each dharma influences the next dharma again. And then you say that phrase of Deutsch heißt es, jedes dharma ist durch Leerheit gekennzeichnet. So this is kind of helpful to kind of stop this unconscious flow and to look at it more precisely.
[53:35]
Okay. So you're... Are you... Voting perhaps for a Dharma as a unit of time, as a moment, a unit of time? For me, it's the content of the shortest perceivable moment I can have. Okay. You know, the fairly well-known example of somebody asking Suki Roshi, when a tree falls in a forest...
[54:40]
and there's no one there to hear the branch or the tree fall, is there a sound or not? And as most of you know, he answered, it doesn't matter. But we could ask another question. Is there a Dharma or not? Because you can obviously say there was a sound, maybe insects or birds heard it. But a more exact question is, is there a Dharma or not? And the answer is no. Yudhita? If I can notice something, and everything that I can notice, I give to it what appears, I give it a duration, or it has a duration, and it depends on our noticing.
[56:07]
And at the same time, when I am careful, I see that everything, that different things appear, and... If there is a noticing, right, then I can notice that things, that I can notice things and that they come up and they have a duration. So they have a duration and the dissolution and disappearance and all that. That's why I think it always requires a noticing. And if the noticing is there, then a dharma is there. Similar to what Judita just said, I find with practicing mindfulness that my noticing gets more subtle.
[57:23]
So now I notice things that I didn't notice or could not notice years ago. So I find I get more subtle. And in my everyday life, I'm practicing mostly these days pausing and noticing as subtly as possible what's happening in that pause or in that moment. at least, when I'm very mindful, I can at least differentiate two different things or two different levels. On one level it's what my senses perceive or take in, and the other level, parallel really, is the mental level, that kind of colors what the senses take in.
[58:29]
So, if I would want to say there is a Dhamma that I perceive with a sense, like seeing, Mostly there is also some mental maybe dharma that influences how I see and what I see. And I personally, I find it important to notice the mental part, and that's so very, very difficult. All the mental part really accompanies all the other perceiving or all the other senses, and that really is differentiating the mental part and the sense part. Okay. Bernd? When a German person speaks English, I hear German. Go ahead.
[59:30]
My experience is that through this practice of mindfulness, over the years and further, I can perceive much more, more and more precisely. and that I now mainly practice in my everyday life and practice to stop again and again and to take a break to notice what is happening or is happening at the moment. and sometimes I manage to notice that on the one hand it is a perception of a certain meaning, plus an additional attitude of the mind, or a kind of spiritual, let's say dharma, which is parallel to it and also influences it.
[60:32]
Somehow, I don't know, emotionally colored or so that I just, that it prevents me from seeing it exactly as it is, but to see my version. That this is through such a mental attitude or such a mental influence, so to speak. Thank you. Bert? I have another question, what is a dharma? The example with the tree and the insects, is there also a dharma for animals or is it more for consciousness? Then I have this question concerning the dharmas, referring to the tree and the insects. Is that something that an animal has, dharmas too, or is that something that's only with the consciousness of a human being?
[61:40]
And is it dependent of a mental factor in addition? Can I add a question to that? Sure. Can there not be a Dharma in this forest? Because then Dharma and the forest would already be a concept. I mean, because the dharma and the forest are concepts... Are both concepts. ...are both concepts, so it's a dharma. The idea of a dharma is a concept. No. No? Well, yes and no. I mean, in the sense that all thinking is a concept, yes, is conceptual. The question of whether animals, insects, etc., have consciousness and consciousness that's similar to ours is one important question.
[62:52]
Buddhism in general assumes that animals, etc., much of the world has consciousness like us. Western science doesn't, but Buddhism does. Dharmas are an activity of human beings. Are not or are. They are. Dharmas are not a scientific fact out there in the world somewhere. And you want to say something? And then we'll stop that question. I wanted to add the... I'll say it in German. I wanted to say something to Katrin. I've investigated it. It takes a kind of impulse or intention to even notice the drama and the spiritual...
[63:57]
It needs an impulse to notice such a dharma and I'm wondering where does this impulse come from? Does it need an intention of the mind or something, an intention? And is this intention connected to a concept? Well, you know, yes. I mean, for our practice it's an intention. But deeper than that, human beings are seekers. Human beings, the activity, even if it's blunted, of being a human being is to seek or to try to know.
[65:08]
Wait, wait, I don't get what this blunted means. But the concept or the formed intention we can say probably arises out of a general seeking that human beings have to desire to know things. Okay. All right. Who was at the session we just did a while ago? Okay, what did I say about dharmas in the Sashin? Anybody remember? Text, we're going to have nothing past that text. Well, I spoke about Shabatsky and others who attempted early definitions of dharmas. And actually it's Charles Warren Clark, I think, at Harvard in the 19th century was the first one to suggest elements of existence or something like that.
[66:27]
And he suggested units of existence, something like that. But this interpretation was, and it's been stuck to until today, versions of this way of defining a dharma. But it's influenced by atomism. It's influenced by science trying to think of reality in units. So if you try to think of... Dharmas as the smallest unit or something like that, you're an atomistic approach.
[67:40]
This is not correct. And a dharma is not, if I can correct myself, if I said it was a moment, I hope I said it was momentary. It's momentary, but it's not a moment. Okay, though it may be a moment, but that's not a useful way to define it. Maybe we should, in the future, winter branches always say or readjust the schedule that it goes from 9.45 to 11 or something. Then we have an opportunity to end early. Okay. It's probably better if we need a metaphor to think of the Dharma as a basket.
[68:57]
It's a momentary basket that you weave at that moment and it collects things and that collection of things at that moment as a unit of experience, but it's a collection, it glues things together for a moment, is a Dharma. Okay, so the basket and the things is a Dharma. Yeah. Okay, now, if we try to make use of this metaphor, Which I just thought of just now. You can ask, what is the basket made of? What does it collect? And what's the process of collection? And I hope none of you ask who collects.
[69:59]
And I hope none of you ask who collects. Why is both dissolution and disappearance there? Dissolution is the destruction, maybe. Yeah. It flows apart in that. Yeah. Impermanence. Double impermanence? Yeah.
[71:03]
I think the solution is still a process and the disappearance is the end of the relation to the mind or something like that. Okay. I'm looking at you. There's an observer here looking at you, right? This is a first-person activity. This is not a scientific description of the world. This is a person doing this. Okay, that's why it can't be in the forest. Nobody there. So it's a person doing this. In science, a person's doing the experiment. And until quantum physics came along, they ignored that there was a person doing the experiment and instruments were doing the measurements.
[72:04]
So we can say dissolution is a kind of science. It's just the truth of the world that everything changes and is impermanent. But disappearance is the human act of making a place for the next dharma. If you take Jean Locke's Tabula Rasa, The idea that the mind can be a blank slate. He's thinking sort of scientifically. the mind can't be a blank slate.
[73:09]
There's always what's on the slate, and there's always the slate and the stand and et cetera, you know? So, but maybe he would have understood it better in a Buddhist sense. That was a useful idea at that time in history. His ideas helped create America. His ideas are built in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. His what kind of ideas? His ideas helped create America. America was a kind of tabula rasa. You could start over again and eliminate European mistakes as long as you killed the Indians. So he emphasized the tabula part, but we would emphasize the rasa part, which means to erase.
[74:16]
So that's the erase, the disappearance. Now, is there such a thing as duration? There's interdependence. There's mutual relationships. But is there really duration? Gibt es wirklich eine Dauer? It's immediately past. Es ist doch unmittelbar vergangen. It's immediately the future. Und es ist unmittelbar die Zukunft. So what's duration? Was ist jetzt Dauer?
[75:18]
Duration is our experience. We create the duration. Dauer ist unsere Erfahrung. Wir schaffen diese Dauer. So you really have to work with appearing which is partly science, things are changing, and partly your experience of the appearing. So appearing and dissolution are sort of facts of existence. This sort of exists somewhat independent of us. Well, appearing doesn't, but you understand what I mean, I think. But duration and disappearance are very clearly our activity. Dauer und verschwunden sein, das sind ganz klar unsere Aktivitäten.
[76:24]
So it's entering into and noticing and being present in these four and accepting what appears is a Dharma. Also sich da hineinlassen und zu akzeptieren, was auftaucht, das ist ein Dharma. Okay, now I would like someone to volunteer for the five dharmas for tomorrow. One question, Roshi. Does disappearance really need our doing? Isn't it a logical consequence from appearing, duration, dissolution? Doesn't disappearance sort of appear or happen of its own, out of this process? You just sit around and wait for it to dissolve. Well, I can observe processes like that.
[77:24]
Then eventually it's gone. Eventually. But does it need my doing, the disappearance? That's a good question. We had to leave that for the discussion. I think we have to raise that for the discussion. The question is, if this is put as an activity to stop it, to make room for the next Dharma, is it only... Can at one given time only happen one Dharma? So before this has happened, the next appearing cannot take place? Well, let's leave that to the next discussion. You know, field perception. Yeah, yeah, I understand.
[78:27]
All right. It's over. Disappear. You're dissolving too slowly.
[78:38]
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