Responding to some of the questions or comments during this break, someone asked or said, why do I always or so often say this isn't esoteric? When esoteric its etymological roots are that just means to look inside or something like that. But in English it's actually used to mean what's known only to the few. An elite or a cult. And its synonyms are mysterious, arcane, all words which mean not easily understood or can't be understood. So in that kind of common usage in English.

[01:12]

What I'm trying to say is this is able to be understood. But also, I mean, in practice, in Zen practice, the two rules are First two rules. Or the initial mind is always acceptance. Whatever the situation is, the first accept, whatever it is. And you might want to do something about it, but you will know more about what to do if you first accept it. And the second is accept, give highest priority to your actual experience. And certainly don't believe in Buddhism.

[02:24]

Follow what your experience is and see if that happens to be similar to Buddhism. Follow what your experience is and see if that happens to be similar to Buddhism. Or if Buddhism helps you explore your actual experience. Meditation and mindfulness are simply ways to explore your actual experience. And to extend your actual experience. Okay. Now we have, I think we can identify something like we have a personal self. And I think we have a social self.

[03:34]

Who we are in relationship to others. And I would say that we probably also have a societal self. Who we are when we look at the government or society, politics and so forth. Public identity. Then our identity with others and then our private or personal identity. I think if you look closely, you'll see that although they may be related by values and so forth, they're still somewhat different. And And we might say practice is in a way to make these three more and more transparent to each other. And using the word value reminded me that Tsukiroshi said, It's not that each thing has reality.

[04:48]

It's that each thing has value. Now, that's a very simple statement, a casual, off-the-cuff, so to speak, statement of, yeah, a Zen teacher. But it reflects a very different conception of the world than if you look at each thing as having reality. Now let me review and extend perhaps, I hope, some of what I spoke about last year here. I tried to define self in relationship to consciousness.

[06:11]

And yeah, there's lots of reasons I want to do that. But certainly one of the reasons is that if you're practicing Buddhism, there's a lot of confusion about what it means to be free of self or to have no self, etc. What does it mean? What self are you free from? Or is it possible to have no self? Or could we say there's something called non-self? Anyway, this is a territory that I think you have to deal with if you practice regularly. Okay, so I just said that... Consciousness is a function of mind.

[07:27]

The definition of mind is more difficult. But if we accept this realm of knowing, we can call mind, Within that is consciousness. Already this definition means, as far as I'm concerned, and what I discover in practice, is that consciousness is not the whole of mind. Consciousness is not the whole of knowing. Okay. That's already a challenge.

[08:34]

If consciousness isn't the whole of knowing, then what other kinds of knowing are there? Practice is really, you could say, the pedagogy of Zen practice is wrapped around trying to answer that question. What other kinds of knowing are there beyond or other than consciousness? For most of us, what do we have? Dreaming and intuition. And they both reflect a knowing wider than or other than consciousness. Okay. Consciousness is a function of mind.

[09:48]

Self is a function of consciousness. So self doesn't... The territory of self, where self swims, is in consciousness. So that means... the whole of your life or living is not tied to self. If consciousness is not tied only way we know, and self is a function of consciousness, then what kind of knowing is outside of consciousness? And what is the mechanism instrument of that knowing.

[10:57]

So again, maybe we have a personal self, a social self, a societal self. Then we have the sense of relationship that appears through what-ness instead of who-ness, And then maybe there's a Buddha nature or Buddha, is a Buddha in there somewhere? Certainly our social, societal and personal self is not Buddha. And if the territory of our personal self is consciousness, And if the territory of our personal self is consciousness, what is then the territory of the Buddha self, if there is such a thing?

[12:02]

Okay, now I'm saying this because I want to focus on the territory of practice or find the focus on which we can practice. Yeah, and I want, if you do meditate, practice mindfulness. I want you to be open to noticing any kind of knowing. Then you have to wonder what notices. And if this noticing is not limited to self, Then in meditation you want to see if you can notice without making it part of your story.

[13:14]

So that's why gaining ideas are such an affliction to practice because They try to put everything in terms of benefit to yourself. Okay. Consciousness is a function of mind. Self is a function of consciousness. And if we want to be contemporary, as I say, ego is a function of self.

[14:15]

Okay, so what's the function of self? Well, as we've often discussed, it supplies itself. As a function, we have to have a self. We have to function through something we can call self. I mean, Buddha has a self. I'm sorry. And you always knew it. If self is what supplies a sense of difference, separation from others, like the immune system knows what belongs to you, then self is what supplies a sense of separation and difference. Self is what supplies a sense of self.

[15:24]

Whatever you said is just perfect. I'm practicing acceptance. Once I tried to... You know the story. In Berlin, when I was... giving a lecture and the translator I kept trying to accept what the translator was saying. But I could see that everybody else wasn't accepting what the translator was saying. So I finally said what are you translating? He said Karma biting mind. Well, I was saying calm abiding mind. And everyone had an image of some little computer game, Pac-Man, by the way.

[16:44]

Karma. But with Neil I can accept. Yeah, if you can't tell the difference between my voice and your voice and your inner voices, you're probably going to be in a mental hospital. So self, that's one of the functions of self. Another is it supplies connectedness. And it supplies continuity. We have to have some continuity from moment to moment or we also think we're crazy. Now, Buddhism doesn't really practice change much the sense of separation, actually.

[17:46]

But it strongly emphasizes and changes the way we experience connectedness. And it even more clearly changes how we experience continuity. Mm-hmm. And self is also the glue of memory and the present. In other words, self is what makes sense of things in terms of our story. Memory in terms of our story and what we see in front of us. So self is also what makes our experience relevant to our story.

[19:00]

And that, yeah, that continues, but through practice we're not limited to identifying with our story. So one of the things, maybe it offhand just seems impossible. How can we have an experience of the world not in our story? And self is also then not only the agent of memory, it's also the agent of karma, through which we accumulate karma. Okay, so... Now, for this to make sense to us, to each of us personally, you have to start noticing when self is more involved and when self is less involved with your

[20:31]

And if you think in generalizations, you can't notice these things. But the more you think in terms of the particular things, The moment by moment appearance. Your consciousness rests on things. Your consciousness rests in the particular. Then you can notice more when you think, oh, that hurts me, or I like that, or I don't like it, etc. All the personal things of comparison of ourselves with others, etc., When are those strongly present?

[21:39]

When are those weakly present? And there's definitely a topography when self is real strongly present and when it's weakly present. And I think most of us will find out we feel better when self is weakly present. You feel clearer, more open, more compassionate, and so forth. But when we're threatened or fearful or anxious, then self is usually more strongly present. Okay. Now, one of the things, again, I've mentioned, because I have to start from this point, is how breathing, how we establish our continuity in thinking.

[23:10]

Basically, we think the world. In many ways, and I talked about it in various ways yesterday, too. Again, using a question as a wedge... Bring your attention to your breathing. It's very easy to do for a few minutes or a few moments. Very difficult to do continuously for a long time. So the wedge question is, Why, if it's so easy to do for a short time, is it so difficult to do for a long time? Because we establish our continuity in our thinking.

[24:14]

And if you bring your attention to your breath, You can only do it for a while and then your attention has to go back to your thinking. It's a survival mechanism. You've got to know if a tiger is about to leap at you. Which my daughter Sophia is convinced is going to happen at any moment. Our friends from Budapest here, One of the persons practicing with me, Akash, is from Budapest.

[25:25]

He took care of Sophia once. And he told her that monsters live in the mountains or something like that. I don't know, I can't remember why he told her, but she was quite scared to go outside. So Marie Louise told her, no, monsters only live in the mountains in Hungary. Because Akash, you know, so now we're going to Budapest, she's going to... We can't tell her Budapest is in Hungary. But Sophia is always going, all right. But if you think, if a tiger might leap at you, you better be conscious. So you're thinking, your attention better be in the perceptual field.

[26:26]

But if you're doing zazen in a zendo with a closed door, It's unlikely that a tiger is going to loop at us. Yet our attention still goes back to our thinking. So this is a survival mechanism out of control. My point is here that You could ask, if Buddhism wants to weave mind and body together, and also bring together awareness and consciousness, why didn't God do that when he created us? What an oversight! Well, I mean, in Buddhism we wouldn't ask that question.

[27:43]

But we could say, you know, try not to be philosophical and just say that if you understand that self is a survival mechanism, To be in the context of our story and our experience. To know the difference between a tiger and a cat. But when self becomes identified with When consciousness becomes strongly identified with self, with our self-interest, then we get out of balance. I would say that the more strongly you identify with consciousness from the point of view of Buddhism, this is delusion.

[28:51]

Yes, with consciousness. Identify with consciousness. Buddhism would say that's a dual illusion. Jeez, did I really just say that? My translator is checking up on me. Yeah, I said that. You trying to get me in trouble? I said that the more we identify with consciousness as the realm of knowing, et cetera, only realm of knowing, we could say that's a technical definition of delusion. Okay. So what happens, one of the constants of practice is to find your breathing

[30:06]

Rather, to find your attention in your breath and your body and not in your thinking. Now, what you've done when you've done that and you've made a remarkable change... It changes what makes you anxious, changes your psychology, changes whether you ever feel lonely or not, etc. It's a huge change and a doable change. But it's not just doable by effort. It might also be a durable change, but we'll have to see. It's a doable change, but it can't just be willed. Because if your view of the world of consciousness and self... Don't permit the change.

[31:35]

No matter how much you will it, you're not going to change. Again, this is why the Buddha's first teaching starts with right views, because our views really control our perception and what we know. So you can't really practice deeply without working with your views. And again, enlightenment is a shift in views, not a shift in what you do. Okay. Okay. So we're trying to answer this question, why is something so easy to do for a short period of time so difficult to do for a long period of time?

[32:45]

If you see and you feel how you keep returning to your thinking as what the world is, then the whole entire being will not appear before you and nowhere else. Because we already know that consciousness, if you accept my definition, we already know consciousness is not the whole of knowing or the whole of being. So if we want to widen our knowing beyond consciousness. So what we usually call intuition is just a continuous flow of insight.

[33:49]

Then we have to stop identifying with the world through thinking. And every time your attention leaves your breath and goes back to thinking, you know no matter how much you intellectually understand impermanence, you are trying to establish the permanence and continuity of the world through thinking. Okay. Now, what is the function of consciousness? What's the job of consciousness?

[34:52]

The job of consciousness is to supply us with a predictable world. Again, as I said, we want the tree to be out there tomorrow or tonight or right now. When you look up at a tree, there's this beautiful tree and the leaves dance in the wind. Are they in the container of the sky? They're actually making the air. They're in the air and making the air. When I went for a walk this morning, At 8 o'clock, I found the swans were mostly still asleep. I thought, what am I getting up so early for if animals don't even get up so early? And there the swans had their head, you know, back. Tucked in their wings.

[35:53]

And I wondered, what is the dream of a swan? I mean, cats and dogs dream. I mean, swans must dream. Maybe they have ugly duckling nightmares. I dreamed I was an ugly duckling. The job of consciousness is to give us a predictable world. To see the relevant, repeatable patterns. Yeah. It's necessary. It's a survival mechanism, if we put it that way. Yeah, it's beautiful and it's wonderful. And also, the job of consciousness is to give us a cognizable world.

[36:54]

A world we can understand. And the job of consciousness is to give us a chronological world. A world we feel in the sequence of past, present, future. When Dogen says, time moves from future to past, He's not talking about a consciousness world. Okay. And the job of consciousness is to be the territory of self. Okay. So when you identify with consciousness, because the job of consciousness is to make the world predictable, we are implicitly accepting the world as permanent.

[38:08]

And predictable. So if you do... Do this doable thing of repeatedly bringing attention to the breath. What you're doing is you're bringing it away from thinking. And it snaps back. And you pull it back. And it snaps back. And you pull it back. Some will is involved in this. More than will, intention. An intention you trust. And an intention you also believe it's possible.

[39:18]

I tell you it's possible. I guarantee you it's possible. Every, you all get a testimony, testimonial at the end of the seminar. Eventually, at some point, your breath, your attention, your intention to bring your attention to your breath, the attention rests in your breath and your body. And then your attention really rests in the particularity of the world. And not in the generalizations that thinking functions through. Thinking basically generalizes everything. Trees, you know, etc. In the Sencha tea ceremony, usually the tea ceremony that most people are familiar with is the matcha tea ceremony.

[40:32]

There's also a Sencha tea ceremony. Matcha is powdered instant tea. Which you make very slowly and they call it the tea ceremony. But sencha is the leaves. Not powdered up. Rolled by virgins in the morning. I mean, no, it's not... It's sort of like that, actually. They hand roll them, they pick them in the spring, and it's usually young girls. Anyway, when you make such tea, at the end, when you pour it out, there's always drips. And the drips take forever.

[41:35]

And you get impatient. You're not going to drink those little darn drips anyway. It's like eye drop. But the ceremony is you wait until there's no more drips. But when you get in the habit of doing that, you start feeling the pace of the world as it actually exists. What are you in such a hurry to drink the tea for anyway? It's bitter. But it's very hard to be patient.

[42:42]

But this patience is part of entering into the particularity of the world. And finding your own pace in the pace of the world. That's also finding patience your attention in your breath. Thinking moves at a very different speed. Your breath is a particular speed. Now we can ask a second question. No, first I have to say something. It may sound nearly impossible to have your attention almost always, unless you want to

[43:50]

Make a choice almost always or always in your breath and your body. And that's the secret door to the practice and realization of the Eightfold Path. Because that's also in your speech and thinking. Now your thinking is in the pace of the breath. And your speech is in the pace of the breath. And when speaking and thinking is consonant with the breath and the body, I guarantee you, your thinking will be more creative and more consequential.

[44:55]

Another testimony you can get later. And more consequential. Now, as I said, you may think it's impossible or nearly impossible to do, but I guarantee you it's doable. And there's already an example of it. Which I've given you occasionally. Which is it your... attention is pretty much always continuously with your posture. All of you know how you're sitting right now. Your attention may not be with your breath, but your attention is with your posture. And even during the night, your intention is with your posture.

[46:20]

We sort of know where we're sleeping, on our side, back, etc. But what kind of attention is with your posture? Is it really attention? Is it consciousness? No, I think we'd have to say it's awareness. So here I'm making a distinction between awareness and consciousness. And in making the distinction, I'm trying to also... to define it so we can, yeah, define it. Now, if you're not conscious, it's hard to stand up. If you're asleep, it's hard to stand up. But you're aware of your posture when you're sleeping, but it would be hard to stand up. Because you're not conscious of your posture.

[47:32]

You're aware of your posture. Now, occasionally there are instances, I know of one I'm about to tell you, where you can stand up when you're not conscious. This is called sleepwalking. But I know of a wonderful, funny, vivid example of it. We were in About 12 of us went to Japan together. And in a small room of six tatamis, all 12 of us mostly slept. And that means everyone's almost... Overlapping everyone else. And Mikhail Podgorchik was with us.

[48:35]

And he wouldn't mind my mentioning his name. And he's a person who lives and breathes the martial arts. And he... He doesn't sleepwalk, he sleepfights. I mean, in the middle of the night, suddenly, up in the middle of the room. We were all scared. I mean, what do you do? Do you say, sit down, Mitali? Yeah. It was great. We'd all be in our underwears. It was great. And it would go on for sometimes 10, 15 minutes, and then suddenly he'd go back to bed. And the next morning we'd say, Huh?

[49:42]

I didn't even know. He didn't know at all he was doing it. So what conclusion can we draw from this? He's not conscious, but he's aware. And the martial arts is training his awareness, not his consciousness. And as I mentioned to you last night, this... Many of you know him, David Beck. He likes to get with his partner, get in a completely dark room. where they both sit for an hour or two. And neither can see anything. And they see who can attack the other. So it has to be entirely done with awareness, not consciousness. He says, you can always know when the other guy is going to move. Okay.

[50:50]

Now, we think of self as the... How much time do I have? Not too much? Okay. We think of self... You don't have to translate that. We think of self as the chooser of our actions. And in a certain sense it is. And it's the, you know, the observer and the But as someone whose name I can't remember showed in San Francisco in the 60s, if you wire a person up, What's exactly that mean?

[51:54]

It's very clear the arm starts to move before consciousness knows it's going to move. And this has been repeatedly confirmed since. So what does that make the self and consciousness? A referee. Your arm is getting ready to move. But you can decide to reject the movement. But something is deciding before consciousness knows You're going to move your arm. And the martial arts completely depends on being in that territory. Wouldn't you say? Okay. So if consciousness isn't even making the decision, it's just a referee...

[52:57]

What is knowing? Okay, if our body is carrying our awareness and our thinking is carrying our consciousness and you can also see it if you're walking along with a bunch of packages, example I use, and you trip and fall. On the ice or a curb or something. You very, almost always catch yourself, don't break the packages and somehow manage. Without hurting yourself. It's all happening faster than consciousness can think. But you find yourself somehow not hurting yourself and protecting the glass vase you have.

[54:18]

So we can say very simply that the body and posture carry awareness. And in Zen practice, we're trying to use posture to move actually out of consciousness into awareness. And if you bring your consciousness, your attention out of your thinking into your breath and body and eventually it stays there. You are now establishing your continuity with the world through awareness and not through consciousness. And psychology and self are all functions of consciousness.

[55:20]

So you've dramatically changed how you exist in the world. You've unglued attention from consciousness and consciousness. and glued it now to awareness. So I think that's enough to say. So let's sit for one minute or something like that.

[55:54]

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