It's something sitting which we don't really know what it is. And certainly one of the most profound questions you can ask of yourself is simply and repeatedly, what is it? And if you can generate that open state of mind of what-ness, or what is it, you may be able to more easily recognize that sometimes Buddha-awareness surfaces in you.

[01:04]

You may not know it all the time. It may be a gross or less developed form of it. But you're on the exact same continuum of what we mean by the Buddha. The historical Buddha and the principle of Buddhahood. It is the occasional surfacing of Buddha awareness. Or the freedom from the habitual constructions of Buddha. Mental constructions I mentioned, those eight veal pockets, eight kalpas.

[02:19]

When those constructions are less present, there's more Buddha awareness. Sometimes we hear our teacher, our friend's voice at the meeting of three. And an entrained consciousness arises. And sometimes we carry a pitcher of fresh, clear, pure water. Thank you.

[04:06]

Where surfaces in each of us differently and at different times. But together we create a Buddha field. Where it's easier for us and for others to discover the surfacing in themselves of this Buddha awareness. This unconstructed awareness and unstructured awareness. as well as the vision of maximal greatness, the vision of compassion, and so forth.

[07:06]

That was a short quarter of an hour. Fourteen minutes. Since we have to pack, is that right? Maybe we should take a break. It starts now. No, I'd like to know, does anybody here have to leave at 3 o'clock? Two people. Anybody have to leave at 4 o'clock? 5 o'clock? Okay, so maybe we'll try to finish. I mean, we can't finish at 3, I don't think. Did I say 3? You said you have to leave at 3? Before, oh. Now.

[09:02]

You make me unhappy. Who has to go right now? No? So maybe we should take a little shorter lunch. And say that lunch, we start the break now. And do you have time to pack if we started again at 2 or 2.30 instead of 3? Two is okay with folks? Because there's a couple things at least I'd like to complete what we started with the pure body of reality. Then we'll end when it feels okay to end and when people have to leave and stuff. I wanted to thank Ulrike's doctor for giving her 10 days off for her operation on her hand. He insisted she needed a vacation.

[10:19]

And so because of that, we are able to enjoy her presence and translation. So we can thank her doctor and thank Ulrike too. Thank you. I knew I couldn't do it without her. And without you. Okay. Is there anything anyone would like to bring up?

[11:20]

Is there anything that you would like to discuss? Yes. I have a question. I have a question, and that is, what do you mean by swimming? For the first time in your life, there were real patients who followed you. And I am interested in whether you now have something to do with Buddha, whether you can now swim. I didn't quite understand that purely acoustically. I was interested in the jumping of these objects, which Dr. Goetzmann also mentioned, with these assistants, because you don't have assistants, that you go in there and then look at the bar and then look at the bar. And that is related to the possibility of being big, to be Buddha. Sometimes we sit, sometimes we sit in front of the Buddha. I don't know if I understood you exactly what you meant, but do you want to translate it yourself? Yes. It's changing.

[12:38]

Yesterday you mentioned you don't have an assistant because of certain points for you. And I see this changing to look, once you look there, and then you go there. What can I practice at home to get deeper into this, now I'm a Buddha, now I'm God thing? How can I see it? How can I realize it? Sometimes I have the feeling I'm with it, sometimes I think I'm with it, but I cannot stabilize it. Yes, it's the nature of it. I think the more you make yourself a receptacle of what is it. And receptacle is a receiver?

[13:40]

Yeah, a container. And you can actually stabilize yourself in this... in this what-ness without needing to grasp at definitions. And the more you can find some stability in that, then you can be more open to many Gordons as well as an awareness we could call a Buddha awareness here. You know, people ask me, are you Richard Baker? They meet me, you know. Or they ask me, are you Baker Roshi? And I don't intend to be clever, and I don't intend to give some kind of Zen answer, but involuntarily I say sometimes.

[15:06]

And I'm not really trying to say something, you know, unusual. It's just I really do find myself sometimes Richard Baker and sometimes I don't know what I am. So I... Actually, I'm more... resting in a not knowing what I am than I am in having an identity. Okay, something else? We had a funny little discussion here just before you came, because we talked about the cake and taking things and stashing things away, so you're not blessed with anything.

[16:23]

Squirreling, squirreling things away. And I said, well, it looks like I'm a greed type. I used to be, I think, an anger type, so maybe I'm improving to be a greed type. So... Somebody said, well, wisdom, you talked today, wisdom is when you transform the bodhisattva practice of anger into wisdom. So if you transform greed, what's the outcome as a bodhisattva practice? Yeah. I think it's compassion. And delusion, if you're delusion type, that transforms as Another kind of delusion, I don't know.

[17:37]

Patience, perhaps. I forget there's a system, you know, but you can also discover it by thinking about it. So next time you're greedy, don't tell me you're practicing compassion. Okay. Something else? Yeah. Can you say something about intention? I realize that It seems to be a quality which has to be established to correct a state of mind, to change a view or to go ahead. Well, what I do think I should talk about, but just to kind of give a round off what we started with,

[18:48]

There's this sense of, as I said, these mental constructions that arise from our unconscious. And let me say that an unstructured or a non-constructed consciousness... It's not like losing the structure. It's not like a nervous breakdown. Although it can make you a little nervous if you find the usual structure you depend on isn't there. Yeah, I mean, a nervous breakdown is more like you don't know why you should go to work or everything's quite mixed up or your structure is more bent or mixed up.

[19:58]

You can't get things in order for yourself. You don't have the energy for your life. So the feeling of this ability to have an unstructured consciousness is, as I said, very refreshing. We can come back into structure with much more clarity. Now, this sense of an initial state of mind is a mind that is not yet structured. It's like this phrase from the koan we discussed last year, hold to the moment before a thought arises.

[21:02]

And as Julio and some others have mentioned, they're recognizing, and they've recognized in this seminar, that it's a physical sensation to hold to the moment before thought arises. In other words, mental states are more accessible, they have more of a handle, a physical handle, than a mental handle. Now in other seminars, or I don't know when, we've talked about how practice can bring us to experience the overlap of mind and body. And coming to develop that overlap, then you can hold a mental state physically.

[22:17]

And when you can hold a mental state physically, you're not only just holding that mental state, you're beginning a kind of thinking with the mind-body, not just with mind alone. I think some of this discussion can be rather difficult or seem rather too much because there's too many ideas here which are unfamiliar to us. And ideas which rearrange the structure of how we put words and images together is very exhausting. In any case, we have this mind before thought arises.

[23:49]

Or various ways, various teachings or gates to access this initial and initiating mind. And coming to know this initial mind, that initial mind can also be where a very basic intention lies. And that's the basic idea of the thought of enlightenment. Is it such a big thought that all other intentions can be subsets of that thought? Or something that disagrees with that thought? So part of practice is to discover your innermost intention. And one way to approach that is the intention that is already there.

[25:17]

Another way to approach it is to discover the intention you feel most comfortable with. I mean, you might say, I have an intention to always steal things. And you probably, even a real thief wouldn't feel comfortable with that all the time. Occasionally he likes to pay for a cup of coffee. Okay, so we could say that person would feel comfortable with stealing some of the time. But if you carry that to a logical conclusion, at some point, this person or a person would feel most comfortable if they never stole.

[26:26]

Or if you have a rebellious nature, you would say, well, I'll only steal when I fly first class, which is only rarely possible. I paid so much for this ticket, I can take this towel. But, you know, one of the qualities of a Buddha is unguardedness. You never have to guard your speech or your body or your thinking. It means you can trust the spontaneity of your natural activity. What, even stealing cookies?

[27:46]

Anyway. Could I have another translator, please? You get tired Sunday afternoon, I can see. Anyway. So, one of the qualities of a Buddha is to commit no acts or inappropriate actions that need to be hidden. She can't translate this, so maybe someone else should translate it. Is there something you haven't told me? Okay. So anyway, you can see that with this kind of process, you can move toward the intention that you feel comfortable with.

[29:07]

And that's the meaning of taking the precepts, is to move toward intentions in body, speech and mind that you feel comfortable with. And it's funny, as water seeks the lowest level, one of the metaphors of water is, in addition to those I mentioned, is that it pervades everything through seeking the lowest level. Yeah. So... As you develop a more, an intention you can feel deeply comfortable with, towards yourself and toward the world and toward other people, that intention finds the bottom of your mind.

[30:19]

And in a way that intention leads you to this initial consciousness. And that initial consciousness is where thoughts, feelings spring from. So now they can start springing from each other, but originally they came from this initial consciousness. So practice is to return that, your emotions, feelings, thoughts, to that original consciousness. Now, in Collins, you can see that sometimes what the teacher is actually saying is, in effect, return your thoughts and actions to your original consciousness. And as I said, this initial consciousness can also not only move toward form, it can move toward emptiness.

[31:46]

And this is an unstructured consciousness or unstructured awareness, which is partly realized, to refer to what I said this morning, by realizing a non-constructed consciousness. Do you understand? That you construct through ideas of I, mind, pleasant and unpleasant. Yeah, so although you don't need to know these things, as you practice more thoroughly and you try to understand really the dynamic of how we work. There's knowing awareness, there's unknowing awareness.

[33:00]

There's non-constructed and unconstructed. There's various kinds of awareness which are not consciousness. Okay, so now to go back to if we have these unconscious karma-produced, habit-produced mental constructions, let's have some intentionally produced constructions. Yeah, okay. Now, I don't want to answer the question, who is intending? We do have the experience of being able to intend not to steal.

[34:01]

No, and as well as intending to see that as mine, we can also say, hey, I don't have to think of that as mine. So you're actually always working with this kind of weaving. Okay. The framework, what is suggested by the pure body of reality is to create a very big picture of where this weaving occurs. To create an antidotal mental construction. and a realisational or enlightening mental construction. So I've already mentioned this mental construction in relationship to the Buddha.

[35:19]

You imagine the Buddha as maximal greatness. That's what you envision. And then the second thing is you imagine a relationship to this vision. And that a relationship to that vision is found in this experience between seeing your consciousness, whatever it is, as always less refined than the Buddha's. And we could call this a deep intention or an enlightening intention. Because the effect of such an intention on you is enlightening. Okay, so now let's in regard to the Sangha or regard to other people.

[36:35]

This is a deeper way of understanding what we take refuge in when we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Okay, Sangha. The vision is to envision all people at once. No, we talked about that earlier. When you think about the atmosphere being polluted or something like that, and so you turn off the electric light, this is actually a form of envisioning all people at once. Because you're concerned with the planet we all live in and the planet Paulina will live in and her children will live in and so forth. So the environmental crisis has taught us a lot about the possibility of envisioning all sentience at once.

[37:46]

Now, this is somewhat arbitrary. You might be the kind of person who wants to envision all ants, you know, or all insects. Fact of human beings, I'm going to envision all insects. It probably would be a good thing to do and would have the same effect. Wahrscheinlich eine ziemlich gute Idee und die hätte den gleichen Effekt. Aber da diese Visionen sehr mächtig sind, könnte es sein, dass euch ein paar Fühler wachsen. So, you know, I'll let you choose.

[38:56]

Your fellow countryman Kafka, I mean, he, you know, got into one. He's not really a countryman, is he? He's Czech. He wrote in German, though, didn't he? Habsburg Empire, anyway. Okay. Okay. But there is a quality of knowing and bliss associated with this idea which would suggest to you that this is a valid knowing. In other words, the more you find you can really hold all sentience as a kind of presence, you feel blissful, you feel very comfortable. And the experience of it suggests that it's a valid knowing in that it is confirmed by that which is known.

[40:15]

And the practice of Buddhism has been built up through such instances of valid knowing. Okay, so now you've worked on, you've decided to give yourself a Christmas present early and work on this vision of everyone, all sentience at once. And holding that vision, which is... one of the capacities of our mind and our body, you see each person as an individual manifestation of that sentience. So if I imagine all sentient life at once, I also imagine it as my extended body.

[41:52]

And then, when I see you, I say, hey, there's myself in another body. I see you as an individual person with an orange sweater and red hair and things like that, and I've never had red hair. I sometimes say I've had blonde hair, but I'm lying. But still I have the feeling of you're me in another body. Or if I were in your body, I'd be like you. Like I always have the experience when I see all those dogs in Travemünde. If I was a dog, I'd be just like that. I wouldn't be a talking human-like dog because I'd have hair and little paws and... So I just fulfill my dog nature.

[43:09]

So holding this vision, you then experience each person as a version of yourself in their own unique way. This vision is really helpful because it reduces anger a lot. It's so hard to get angry at yourself, you know. It just makes things nicer. You tend to treat everybody a little bit too nice, maybe. Okay. So now that we've had this in vision, what is our relationship to this vision? Well, our relationship is what a relationship of benefit for each person.

[44:17]

Obviously, you don't want to have a relationship of harming each person. Of harm? Of harming. You don't want to harm each person. It feels better not to want to harm anyone. And so the opposite of harming them is to benefit them. And enlightenment is just a word which means the greatest benefit you could do for another person. So this is where the thought of enlightenment comes from. And then, of course, if you want each person to be enlightened,

[45:19]

Or if you want the greatest benefit for each person, you probably have to recognize you are not yet capable of being of the greatest benefit to each person. So logically, if you want to be of the greatest benefit for each person, you have to first be a person who can give such benefit. Which the logic is clear. Obviously, you have to become enlightened in order to help others. So that is this vision and the relationship to the vision as it pertains to Sangha. And the last one, and these are kind of, we could call these spiritual or psychological ways of working with your own mental formations to benefit yourself and others.

[46:41]

Okay, now as pertains to Dharma, which means the phenomenal world in its particularity and all at onceness. Okay. First of all, you envision the world as a habitat for Buddhas. As a habitat for people fulfilling their greatest benefit. And this is sometimes expressed again in the koans with the phrase like, find me on the hundred grasses. Recognize the emperor or recognize the Buddha in the marketplace.

[47:43]

So you begin to actually have the feeling, well, when we go into the town here or into... Munster, Buddha might be in the marketplace. Sometimes she's in a certain children's store in Munster. Anyway, so you... And so... Part of this, then, recognizing this habitat, is to see the world as one bright jewel. Or the pure body of reality. And so, what is your relationship to this? To discover the Vajrachana in yourself. to discover the pure body of reality in yourself.

[48:51]

Instead of imagining you're John Wayne, say, or Marilyn Monroe, imagine you're the pure body of reality. But it's just as much as you could imagine being a Marlboro ad you can imagine being the pure body of reality. So when I said, when you asked earlier, how do you know this or manifest this, leave yourself alone, let it manifest. But don't grasp at it. Don't try to hold it. In the short zazen we had before lunch, I said, like a weaving, let various Buddha mind or Buddha awareness surface in you.

[49:52]

Well, I was saying that I kind of saw a herd of dolphins coming up at various times in the water. And in all of us, as we're here, various consciousnesses are surfacing in us. And to hold that as a vision that allows the greatest freedom, we can call the pure body of reality. Something like a body you actually feel contiguous with your own body. Yeah, next to or overlapping. You're co-extensive with your own body. So that's the end of this seminar.

[51:06]

We ended where we began. And I hope it's been very useful to me. I hope it's been somewhat useful to you. If it's five to three, yeah. So can we sit for a few minutes and then we'll end? If there's something anybody strongly wants to bring up, that's fine.

[52:09]

Thank you very much for your teaching. Oh, you're welcome. It helps to be thanked. Sometimes I wonder, is this making any sense? If you thank me, I think, oh, well, maybe it's all right. Yes. Well, enemies are considered the best teaching because it's the biggest challenge. The enemies are considered the greatest benefit because they're the biggest challenge. It's not a challenge I've always met.

[53:27]

But I'm getting better at it. I have never... I had a difficult time meeting. But I'm getting better at it. But the most traditional way is to imagine... the person who's your enemy as a baby. Say like Paulina. It's very hard, yeah. She says, don't bring me any more Zen lectures. I get... My daughters used to complain all the time. I lectured about them. So... And then you imagine them as, like Pauline, and then you imagine them as one-year-old and two-year-old and...

[54:40]

until you get to the age where you begin to not be able to feel good about them. But then you try to find that point where you can feel good about them, at least in some way. It's a kind of mechanical procedure, but it's actually helpful. But also another approach is to feel grateful to work on noticing the gratitude for the things that have occurred as the result of having an enemy. Things like that. And it doesn't change the fact of this person maybe trying to hurt you, but it changes your mental attitude about it.

[55:49]

Okay. I hope you have no enemies on this planet. And if you have any, they are soon to be enlightened. And if you want to send them to, get them in the Dharma Sangha, we'll all work on enlightening them. May all enemies be enlightened. This would be a good mantra to work with. something else. Thank you.

[57:44]

so Thank you very much.

[65:55]

It's nice to be with you all again this weekend. I'm very sorry that I won't be back until September or something like that. But you're of course all welcome to come to Cresthout. Maybe if we get Johannes off, we can find ways to, at least I hope we can find ways to spend more overlapping time together. And I hope it doesn't sound too corny to say this, but we can't envision getting Johanneshof in terms of you doing it or I doing it, instrumentally or financially. It has to be something we do with each other. In a larger identity than just ourselves.

[67:10]

With each other, for each other, and for our larger society. And if that kind of feeling and vision guides us, I think it will turn out okay. Thank you again for translating. My pleasure.

[67:47]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_75.19