And when you speak to another person even more subtly, as if they're not even center, but a kind of zero point which has no circumference. they become very shiny and bright. You can't even say quite what they are. This is a very different way of perceiving than thinking there's something out there that can be accurately represented. Yes, we can represent We can represent another person to some extent. So we have names. And we assign seats.

[01:02]

But that doesn't say much about you. Each of you is an entire universe. I mean, you yourself don't even know what you are. Seven days of sitting here doing nothing and still stuff is happening. But everything is like this. To recognize in your own view your own kind of at the level of the philosophical ghosts in you When you think that there's something out there to be represented. You think there's something out there to be understood. And you think that's fundamentally true.

[02:02]

You have just created the territory in which you will live probably all your life. Again, from certain points of view, from the point of view of accomplishing certain projects, yes, there are realities to be represented. But those representations are in a vanishing point toward a certain goal. And we imprison ourselves and we imprison each thing we perceive that way. We are not in a project. Your friend is not a project in service of your ego. We're swimming in something that is changing.

[03:39]

It changes in ways that mostly let us function pretty well. We might say we're all falling more or less at the same speed. This whole room is falling through space. And we have the illusion of permanence because we're all falling at the same speed. And every now and then one of us raises a pigment. It's lucky, lucky world. So we start speaking this new Zen Buddhist language with our bodies, our minds, getting rid of our philosophical ghosts.

[05:16]

And we begin to start feeling refreshed in our own presence. And maybe other people will start feeling refreshed and freed by us. Ideally, when somebody comes to see you or you meet someone, they feel freed by you. This is the practice. It's hard to realize for all of us, but this is the practice of emptiness. No eyes, no ears, no nose. It means to free each thing. And you have to have the deep love of non-attachment. And the kind of faith, the absolute extraordinary faith and love you need to free everything.

[06:31]

The extraordinary trust you need to free everything creates the presence of compassion, love, and why Buddhism says wisdom and compassion are the same thing. But compassion and emptiness are the same thing. Because the act of emptiness is compassion. Without this trust and love, you can't release everything. And so the creative stage is when you're beginning to learn this language. And slightly restructuring the way you're put together. And you have to exercise this language.

[07:51]

You have to find other people to talk to about it. Or to walk around. Or to cook in the kitchen. And just the way something is handed to you feels different. And something is handed to you maybe with the feeling that we're both falling in space. And Dogen says, treat the world as if it were your own eyesight. So you begin to act in the world as if with the understanding that the ordinary world you see is interpenetrated with the Buddha land.

[09:02]

So there are several ways to try to change the world. One way is to look at the external world as it's represented and try to change the way it functions. And we have to do that. That has to do with feeding people and so forth. But we also have to change the world by stopping representing it. And that can be done simultaneously. And this is what is meant by creating a, or seeing a, what I mean by seeing a Buddha land within the ordinary world.

[10:14]

Recognizing this pristine awareness. Recognizing everything with no center, no circumference. or sometimes okay, seeing everything as its own center. So koans, practicing together, cooking in the kitchen together, are always in this creative stage of developing the language. of awareness and this interpenetrating Buddha-land. And if you only feel it now and then, Other people only feel it with you, or you can communicate it only now and then.

[11:29]

It still becomes immediately part of the language. And the fulfillment stage is a stage you guys are also in, and me too, which is you're beginning to have the taste of it. It's beginning to fulfill. The language is beginning to produce changes in you. And to give you a sense of the way Buddhism looks at it, I can say that the next stage would probably become a generational stage. You don't just experience this language. You don't just have the experience, the reality, the fulfillment of this language sometimes.

[12:33]

You're not just learning to speak the language. You're actually able to generate this within yourself. And generate it more and more continuously. And we can be in this lifetime, you know, not a great Buddhist, but at the edge of the generational stage. The next stage is maturing it. Continuously manifesting it. Dissolving it all. We'll leave to some great Buddhist. We will leave to some great Buddhist like you. No, we will leave this to be done by some greater Buddhist than us.

[13:48]

But just at our level, learning how to speak this language is pretty good. And if society can solve its problems at its representative level, And also an inner realization of fundamental reality, which is always present, never represented, only presence itself. This can be present in a culture more and more. That can be more and more contemporary in a culture. And if it is, I think it makes a big difference. No society has achieved it. And even societies which are Buddhist only achieve it sometimes.

[14:58]

But you can have periods of enormous health in a society when it's achieved, I think. But I think it's possible to do what history hasn't done in the past. To create enough of the population which is conscious and aware in this way. And to create a large enough part of the population that is aware of this. It will be a living reality in the midst of a culture. And I think this will have practical effects, like how people are given food. And, you know, I feel, coming back to Sashin, the more I do Sashins, I sometimes really hate it that it causes, that it's so difficult for us sometimes.

[16:28]

But I don't know any... But our habits are so strong that to get out of this simple... You almost have to be forced out of always representing, thinking everything is out there somewhere. And much of the pain really is various forms of an inability to relax into this awareness. Ulrike was saying, how many sashins have you done? Eight. Eight sashins. Ulrike was saying, she's done eight sashins. And she doesn't train in between the sashins like a runner for a marathon.

[17:46]

So I have an image of you out on the street in a little platform with your legs crossed. So she's in not much better shape to do a sashi now than she was four or five sashins ago. And so what's different? Why is this Sashin easier than the third Sashin? It's really not that she's more physically prepared. Her attitude, her view of reality is different. I know in the midst of hurting legs, it's hard to believe. And it isn't entirely.

[18:56]

But it has a lot to do with it. So as much as I hate causing you to suffer, I also, and it's not just me, you came here volunteering. Still, it may be necessary to do something difficult like this once or twice a year. If nothing else, the pain purifies us, cleanses us out. Well, today I can't really say what I want to say. And I've exhausted Ajuti's fingers. So I just, you know, it's like when you're talking to a friend and he's talking to you, you don't want to hang up.

[20:18]

That's how I'm talking now. So I think I'd better stop.

[20:32]

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