There's a story of a Zen master named Zui Gan or Zhu Yan, but the Japanese version is easier to say, Zui Gan. There's a story of a Zen master named Zui Gan in Japanese. In Chinese, he's called Zhu Yan. It doesn't make any sense. Sui Gan is good enough. And Sui Gan always talked to himself. He'd say, Sui Gan? Yes. Are you awake? Yes. Don't be fooled by others. Don't deceive yourself. No, no. He was considered a little crazy, but that's what he did.

[01:02]

So someone else? Yes. Yes. So what I found interesting in the discussion group for me was that I have a particular concept of practice And I found out that there are various kinds of concepts of practice, what people think of practice. I think there was a lot of discussion about what might be the right concept of practice.

[02:14]

And so what I think, or what I would like to do, is that what I experience and realize in my meditation, that I can bring as much as possible into my everyday life from these experiences and these realizations. Yes. And I pushed myself in this direction, and this also created a certain pressure, a certain tension in myself, because my expectations, the level of expectations I had, was very high. And then I thought maybe it would be good to be more accepting, and also when my state of mind is not at an optimum. Good time to start.

[03:58]

And on the other hand I also have the feeling that I'm somehow suffering when I don't have this clarity suffering in the sense of mentally and physically suffering if there is a lack of this clarity. I'm sorry. Sometimes it is a pleasure to take an open path, even in everyday life, even if it is up and down, even if it is very close to each other, it is also a pleasure to be able to take this path. It is also a pleasure to take this path. And my experience is that sometimes I succeed to have some kind of like a thread which is running through my life, a thread of practice, and I'm able to maintain or to stick to this thread, although my life is rather turbulent.

[05:32]

But then sometimes this thread also breaks or is torn apart, and I'm not able for weeks to find this thread again. Yes, okay. Thank you. The best way to practice is probably, you know, to have no expectations but just to do it. Like, you sleep every night, whether you have a good night's sleep or not. You don't say, geez, I haven't been sleeping well recently, I think I'll stop. You still go to sleep? Okay. So when practice is that sort of much a part of your life, you just do it.

[06:43]

That's the best. And there's an aspect of practice which has nothing to do with intention or effort and so forth. Which is there's a quality in us of... a daily experience in it of non-dreaming deep sleep. Yeah, and I think that we need some of that, enough of that every day that we sleep it. But when you do zazen, it tends to surface into your daily life. And part of the skill of zazen is, and part of the skill of uncorrected sasen, is being able to let this non-dreaming deep state of mind, which is usually blocked by both consciousness and dreaming minds,

[08:04]

to surface in. It's like a deep calm stream of water coming to the surface of a rough stream. And my experience is it's always there. But if I don't do zazen, for say, some days, it sort of sinks out of sight. If I start doing zazen again after two or three days, I feel it start surfacing in my life again. And much of the... Realizations through practice, well, the Dharmakaya, things like that, join with this deep mind which rises to the surface when we sit.

[09:34]

So there's a kind of physiological quality to practice It's really almost independent of any intellectual or insight aspects of practice. It's a bit like, you know, if you're really exhausted, it's hard to think about things. You've had a good night's sleep. you know, there's a physiological quality then to your thinking that's affected by a good night's sleep. And part of the wisdom of this yogic practice is that it yokes consciousness to this deep, still mind. Yoked, like consciousness. Yoga and yoke.

[10:57]

Yoga is to yoke two animals together. It yokes consciousness to this deep, still mind. This deep, still mind that already exists, whether you practice or not. One of the things I see in people who take sleeping pills is it seems to shut their consciousness down so that they have the sensation of sleeping. But I think it doesn't allow this deep, still mind to come into their sleep. And it increases the kind of nervousness that doesn't let them sleep. By the way, I didn't say, a couple of people understood that I said that genes didn't count.

[12:27]

No, but of course we have genes, we have basic starting conditions. But The degree to which our mind creates our mind and our existence creates our existence goes far beyond the starting point. Okay, someone else? Yeah. I think I'll try to give a summary of this discussion. Do you want to do it in German or English? One, in both, yeah, whatever way you want.

[13:55]

Okay. So I finish it in English. It's okay, good. All right, good. That's fine. So really strong stuff. With care, yeah. And, yeah, as far as I remember, that was my biggest reaction. Is it yet to come to this practice? But I remember he said that it's a problem to stay with him. And he seems to be a kind of person making a new project out of it, because he said he could write a title. And we admired it. But I think it was, for me, it was the premier. The second part was to have, this was the kids' section, like three young powers of the area here. But sometimes it's not so clear how to do it in everyday life, especially when you're with a doctor and the kids are getting, I don't know... Petitions, yeah.

[15:08]

Petitions, yeah. I wish there was a practice vaccination. No, I don't wish that. Go ahead. The third section was a different one from the energy as far as I remember. It was the female section. Gisela Gisela Gisela reported from her experience and this touched me very deeply and Gisela did not make the quote that you said yesterday she said she had a Friday morning a very strong experience and was despised and was convicted but

[16:19]

life and death. It is very personal for me. And what I lived out, it was at the end, she was very clear about her intention to be alive. Okay, thank you. I think that like yesterday, we had so many arguments, the people were also there. And I remember, I was three years old at that time, and I could not do the practice. And the first year, the first year, I was there, and the second year, I was there, but it was difficult to go through the whole year. And I was the one who organized it somehow, so I wrote it down so that I could hear it. The second year, I had a fever at the bridge, who told him that it was clear to them that they wanted to go right into the party, but that it was not always easy to do it.

[17:28]

And then there was the story of being a doctor, and the children came to inject, and that is then somehow a difficult day for what is the right thing to do to bring all this together. And the third section, that was the women's section, and most of the time, personally, I would like to start with Gisela. Gisela. Yes, thank you. She told me, and that is why I am one of the other parishes, and the special thing is that Gisela was a very personal person. She was asked to live her life to the fullest, to be ready to live. And she was also very shaken in the past and had for herself a very clear feeling of being ready to live. I would like to add something to that. I think it's difficult in the turbulences of our life to continue with changes of our consciousness, like for instance awareness, awareness from our speech, awareness of our contact, and so on.

[19:13]

Yes, I understand. Especially then when the pace of our existence is getting faster and faster. Therefore I think it's a necessity. I think it's necessary to create certain signs or even certain posts where you say, okay, from nine to ten I want to be aware of my speech and to stick to this kind of program. And to schedule that for periods where it seems more feasible from your daily activity, with the hope that it spreads throughout your entire day.

[20:23]

And this is my program, as Eva tapped it. Yeah, I think it's right, actually. We have to use such kind of devices. And it's part of what I mean when I say practice works in homeopathic doses. If you take a You know, even a short time, like 10 minutes or so to walk from here to the room. Or as I say, going upstairs in a building or something. If you... Use that time to really find the pace of your body and mind and so forth. It does spread throughout your day. Yeah. I sort of schedule things, okay, for the next three weeks I'm going to concentrate on this something.

[21:35]

Yeah. in a hotel, if it's possible, I almost always take the stairs. Andreas? So I can remember three aspects of our conversation yesterday. So one of them is I already practice to put my awareness on speech and on bread. And I realized it's very difficult for me, but when I succeed in doing that, I speak about half less than I normally speak.

[22:51]

That's maybe not good for some of us. And the other thing was to look at the different folds of the eightfold path as kind of mirrors. And then I thought, what are my views? What are my views about my views? What are my views about my intention? What are my views about my livelihood? And then I realized maybe 90 to 99% of all what I reviewed was cultural inherited, so second order consciousness. And only a very small part was from my own experience.

[24:08]

And something I struggled with was when my daughter, she said she doesn't want to go to school anymore. And I accepted it and I said, it's okay. And it was really a hard inner struggle for me to realize what do I want, what am I doing here, what is my view about it. Thank you. Yeah, Peter. Also, do you want to translate yourself? Yes. Okay, I also want to add something from our group, please.

[25:11]

First of all, I would like to say that we found two examples. Yes. to realize the Eightfold Path in everyday life. So one example was, I brought up one example from a manager who changed his life from one day to the other. And Christiane also brought a very beautiful example. And it was about the manager who got an advice from . How he could integrate practice into his busy life.

[26:24]

So that only on one second of his day, when he, because he said, I don't have any time to practice, I have such a busy life, and Krafft-Gurkheim said, why don't you just take the key from your car and in the moment that you put it in the incination, ignition, and he said, And in this moment, he should ask himself every day, who is the person putting the key in the ignition? Svigran. Svigran. Who is it that's putting the key in? Where is the Svigran? It's good, yeah. And after one year, this person came to Krav Tur, came again, and he was completely changed. This is good. I recommend this to everyone.

[27:33]

It's the key to practice. One of the keys to practice. And then I would like to add something more. And it fits very well to what Andreas said. That in everyday life one often comes to several intentions which somehow contradict themselves, or it seems that they contradict themselves. And I take Andrea's example, which I like very much. To do the best for my child by providing her the best education as possible.

[28:45]

And on the other hand, there is this decision of hers not to stop going to school. And this is a kind of a conflict which I am dealing with or I'm thinking about through the entire seminar so far. Because all the hours I'm sitting before this flip chart and I'm staring at the word integrating. And those contradict very often. Yeah, that's what we find out. And very much helped me What you said yesterday, if you come to a fault, just accept it.

[30:13]

Just take it. Just take it. Take it. Take it. Yeah. It's easy to accept it. Yeah, it's okay. Although it's no solution at all. I understand. Thank you, Peter. I like it so much to talk to you this way. I learn so much. Yes. I'm ready to learn some more. And what I'm going to say, I already said in the group, but I had somehow the feeling that it wasn't accepted so much. So this is a second try in a more bigger audience. And I want to repeat words of Martin Luther.

[31:24]

Yes. And he said, your faith should be strong, but you should be courageous in your sinning. It says, glaube fest und sündige tapfer. Bravely sin and be strong in your faith and sin bravely. Yeah, and I thought I'm somehow in line and I'm in accord with Martin Luther in this way. To believe very strongly and to have strong faith in the Eightfold Path.

[32:31]

But the most important thing is to try, to try it and to make an effort also. And also to be courageous in your failure. Good. Martin Luther might have done better in a tantric framework like Zen than in the Christian framework. If he really did practice that. Thank you. You do have to put yourself on the line. The line means to to put yourself in a situation where the consequences count. Okay, so is there anyone else that I missed?

[33:35]

Yes. Same name as me, right? So I would like to add To add or to continue or to comment on that what Richard said. So and we had discussion also afterwards about why I had the feeling that he is so much dissatisfied with his practice because he doesn't reach his high aims in the practice. And in this discussion we reached somehow together to the point where there is this, where we reached that accepting as a concept.

[34:56]

So that when you are in a state of acceptance that you can accept, so that's the way I am, so that this state or this ability of acceptance can help you in your way and bring you further. Yes. Yes. it turned out that accepting the word, that it also triggers something new, because they also go from me, they think, okay, accept, and I realize, but I can't accept it, yes, so that's also like, we're actually stuck again, so accepting can also be a challenge for us. Let's use the other hand. Accepting in itself can become, if it turns into a concept, it can become again some kind of expectation.

[36:17]

So that there is this danger, it's somehow, OK, now I have to accept it. And so what my resolution was yesterday somehow was that it's easier what you said about uncorrected state of mind. So uncorrected state of mind is somehow a term which is easier than accepting. Good. Well, I think that's an important insight that when acceptance turns into some sort of expectation,

[37:29]

It's no longer acceptance. You're on a program of some kind. We should have a break in a few minutes. Is there anybody who would like to say something? Yes. So we had a similar discussion in our group. So and we had this picture that also we should accept ourselves the way we are, but we had this picture that our expectations should grow slowly, slowly like a flower, like a plant.

[38:33]

And I like this image. But in my deepest inner, I am not so satisfied with it. Because there is also a kind of delusion, of self-delusion connected to that. Because my big question concerning this Eightfold Path is How can I deal with my expectations, with my intentions? Sorry, intentions. How can I invigorate my intentions?

[39:37]

Okay. Yes? Yes? It's very difficult to say it before it's gone. So what goes through my mind is courageous, then your example of the Hamada cup, the broken cup. And activities. And intention in contrast to or in connection to having no intention, intentionless, better word. It's not, but it's... I understand.

[40:46]

Without intention. Without intention. But I think there's a very central point in Buddhism, that is, be without afflictions, or be without... And I... And I think there are two different approaches how you act or how you are in the world. So one approach is that you are acting somehow conscious or unconscious. It's somehow in the middle, a mixture of those. And then you're looking at a certain point. them, evaluating them.

[41:56]

And the other approach would be to be in your activity, in the activity of things and also in your own activity. And this is somehow like a unit. And then it doesn't come to this evaluation all the time. Evaluation. Evaluation, yeah. And it's more unity, the action. And it's more as if it would be of one... And therefore I'm interested in the connection between these intentions which are part of the Eightfold Path and this attitude of being without any intention.

[42:59]

So that you are somehow... The concept of failure is, so to speak, not one that appears to be a hurdle over which you have to climb again and look back on it, but failure is in doing itself, with its concepts, and does not go as something separate from me, it is a disturbing feeling. So that failure is no longer a hurdle, which is always in front of you, and you have to overcome this hurdle, and then you look back at this hurdle, so that failure is somehow part of your activity, and it's no longer a problem.

[44:18]

Yeah. But it is kind of a problem, isn't it? Okay. Well, I think I understand. Yes, I think I understand. Dogen, in fact, said life is one continuous mistake. But mistake, even the word mistake still has some kind of intentionality in it. But this whole question of being without intentions and also having intentions is... A little more than I can deal with right now before the break. But in relationship to what you said, I'd like to say there's a practice I think was useful to express called maximal greatness. Maximal greatness.

[45:21]

Or maximizing grace. And what that is, is you kind of honor yourself. Whatever you do, you say, oh, this is me at this moment. This is okay. My practice is not so bad. and you completely accept that at the same time you say but it could be a little bit better and you completely accept that and there's some kind of tension in that Now there's certain things, and again I'm going to be as brief as I can here, a minute or so. There's a couple of things I find, I think, I find I should, I should mention in every seminar, every time we have practiced together.

[46:32]

Because it really has to become... Some things have to stick to us and really become a habit. For example, one is that every perception points at the object and also points at mind. That should become so familiar with you that everything you look at, you feel pointing at mind. And another thing I always feel I should point out is that we want to break the habit of establishing the continuity of the world in our thinking.

[47:32]

And we want to break the habit of establishing the continuity of self in our thinking. And the best way to do that is to bring your attention to your breath. And we can ask ourselves a simple question. Why I ask it always. Why is it so easy to bring our attention to our breath for a short time? And so difficult to bring our attention to our breath for a long time? Of course, it's partly we're distracted and we etc. But I think the real reason is that we need to establish the continuity of self and the world to feel sane.

[48:33]

And we do it in our thinking. And when we stop doing it in our thinking, it's a kind of something close to enlightenment. When we start letting the world identify itself each moment through our body, and breath, when we don't have to establish reality in our thinking, reality really starts talking to us. So you have to start establishing your continuity in some other way than in your thinking. Because we need an experience of continuity. So breath practice is really the shift of continuity from thinking to the breath in the body.

[49:48]

And it is something simple to do. It might take a few years. But at some point you just find you don't have to think for long periods. You're just... with your breath 24 hours. And another kind of knowing starts. And another kind of way the body and the world seems the same. Well, that's a couple of my So now let's have a break for half an hour. 20 to 12. Thank you very much. Thanks for transferring. Thank you for sharing so much of what happened yesterday

[51:02]

What happened anyway? Good afternoon, good late morning. We have to make a practical decision, which is what time shall we stop this afternoon or... Das ist, wann sollen wir heute Nachmittag aufhören? So, it really depends on if anybody has to leave early to drive along. Es hängt wirklich davon ab, ob jemand von euch abfahren muss, weil er eine lange Strecke fahren muss. You're going to Hanover, but you... I mean, it's not first. You just... But you like to drive at night. If you get a good night's sleep, I hope.

[52:20]

Oh, yeah, yeah. So what time should we just do like yesterday, or that's a little too late, maybe? We end? Yeah. But then we can't take a break until four o'clock. No. Possibly. Well, we could try. We could take a break and then leave it after the break. The break would be a little shorter. Yeah. So lunch will be at 1, right? And then we eat from 1 to 2 about, and we could start again at 3? 4? 3.30? 2.30? All right, so if we start at 3, then we'd probably go until 4 or 4.30. Is that okay?

[53:28]

Does anyone want it? What do you feel? I'm just here, so I can... And there's no traffic today on Sunday? Or going into Vienna, there's a lot of traffic? Not out holidaying? Okay. Okay. And there are a couple of questions that came up just before, just after I, just when we finished, just today, for the break. And one came from Cecily, so you want to bring it up? What would be the last sentence that you brought about? being the shift component of practice.

[54:34]

And at George Foundation we identify with thinking. My identity, actually, my identity when I'm thinking, and this is probably so dangerous, someone I've got to work with, and I feel like it's so... It's delusionary, it's not dangerous. Yes, I understand. Well, with people, I made experience of this importance of the breath, is that often I take the answer then, well, I have to worry. I get to go, but I think my breath.

[55:38]

And my question, what this state I know, how, Well, actually, I'm lucky also, too. That's the reason why I'm invited. Well, that's so unusual to my ordinary background. Yeah, okay. So, Dirk, can you do that? Yeah, so anyway, for a very long time, I've been watching, you know, coming to the art room, see, [...] What I mean by the speech is that people, when I start to feel that breathing is a vehicle, is a drug, is a type of practice, then the answer comes under the stress, because I don't cry so fast when I'm breathing, when I take my breath in, so to speak, when I'm with the breath.

[57:01]

There was also such a question, a very important question, Well, of course we find it boring because it's another way we defend our continuity in our thinking. But it's also, you know, to try to do something all the time, that's kind of, is kind of boring. But I think it's better if you understand it in the context of your stance. In other words, each of you have a certain posture right now.

[58:05]

And that posture is a kind of awareness. And pretty much we are always rather aware of our posture. And we are always We don't say it's boring to be aware of my posture. Because our posture and our awareness are just one activity. So eventually the awareness of the breath is like that. It's just the posture of being. I mean, at first it's a kind of mechanical, you remind yourself.

[59:07]

But at some point it shifts, and it's just, it's like you don't have to remind yourself of your posture. I mean, sometimes we do, but mostly we don't. So a continuous awareness of the breath is pretty much is equivalent to a continuous awareness of your stance. And of course, And this yogic shift where your attentiveness is to a field of mind also makes it easier. So the background of your mind is aware of your breath, not the foreground.

[60:20]

So I'm just trying to talk about our yogic world here so it gets familiar to us. Okay, now someone else had a question just before we... with yoga. So I have a question directly concerned with the sitting practice. So I have a question I'm trying to go more into my body, to make some kind of inventory of my body during sitting.

[61:24]

And in the last time, it happens again and again that when I start, that something comes forward that is like a branch spreading out. And it's like a branch, it gets wider and And what happened recently over and over again is that when I start with that space open and space widens and space and time are somehow merging in this space. We don't need Einstein. And then, where is... That's where the conflict starts. The conflict is that should I now go into this feeling of this space, spacious feeling, or should I return to my initial practice, which is to make an inventory of the body to

[62:46]

go into the parts of the body. So actually the basic question is, should I have only one practice I decide and I should return to Rinzasen? Or is it possible to go along and to have various things? First of all, you can do whatever you want. There's no Buddhist police. Let's keep the canon. It's an aesthetic decision. You know, it's a decision like a painter might make or a craftsman might make. All practices are in some ways introductory practices. So your inventory is useful to do, but it also can open up Inside the inventory there's magical worlds that appear. So whether you follow them or not is your own decision.

[64:07]

I tend to follow them. I find every zazen, almost, I have an experience I've never had before. And I don't force anything, just something happens and I follow it. And it might be something I explore for some weeks, and it might be something that after a while I go back to some... from other practices or no practice. No intentional practice. No idea of accomplishing anything. And I just enjoy myself. Yeah, why not?

[65:26]

And Dogen describes this as Ji-Ju-Yu Samadhi, self-joyous Samadhi. It's just a kind of opening bliss of sitting. And has no purpose, no reference to anything other than itself. And in a way we want to realize a non-referential mind. And that might be close to what Christa means by a non-intentional mind. Okay. Yes? I have a similar question. David says, no, David, why is he saying this to me? And somehow it irritates me because... Confused.

[66:34]

Irritate. Irritate is to get... In English means to get angry. Yeah. Because somehow it seems to suggest that we move on to something, a particular state of mind. When I find myself getting distracted... Your English was so clear, I thought it must have been German. When I find myself being distracted,

[67:56]

I don't like that state of mind. And I know physically how an undistracted state of mind feels. I just shift to it. Much the same way if I turn on the radio in the car. If I find the music annoying, I change to another station. If I... Yeah, I mean... That is part of practice too, to make those shifts. And if it annoys me that the radio is on at all because it's distracting me, I turn the radio off. But You know, I don't know.

[69:07]

That's what I do. But I also certainly practice acceptance of whatever appears. These are sort of different strategies, but they can all work within us. But these are all different strategies, but they can all work within us. Something else? Yeah? You talked about when you see an object, you kind of see it and... You see it points to the object and also to mind. And so I'm It's close to the feeling to change perspective. Yeah, you're adding a perspective for sure.

[70:12]

To change. Well, okay, to change. In English it would be about the same. I add something or I change something. But I'm adding more than changing. Deutsch beten. So my question is, before the break we talked about objects, I didn't understand that, so an object, the lake, the lake means object and the object also means people. And my question is, is that such a feeling So now I'm wondering whether I can do justice to the Eightfold path in the time we have remaining.

[71:25]

And I've learned not to, as much as possible, download the last 20 minutes. So let me see, how can we enter this? Now I'm speaking about the Eightfold Path in a way in which I'm trying to give you a feeling for the practice of the Eightfold Path. And I hope to be able to give you some experience of what it is to practice it. Now we might ask why is such a practice so dense.

[72:32]

Well, there's actually a long tradition in Buddhism of making each practice the only practice. And much of Zen is informed by this kind of one practice that covers all practices. But if you go too far in this direction, you get an oversimplification. And much of Zen is taught in an oversimplified way.

[73:34]

Yeah, I mean one of the worst examples, most useless examples is one minute of Zazen is one minute of Buddha. Yeah, if I'm going to teach that way, we could have had a much shorter seminar. I could say, one minute of sasen is one minute of Buddha, good luck. You'd need about a million teachings to make that phrase work. But this is a teaching that tries to cover all teachings. And it's the Buddha's earliest teaching where he really said, okay, this is the basis.

[74:42]

Okay. Now, going back to Karl Schorsky's saying of what Arnold Schoenberg and Robert, how do you say Robert in German? Robert Musial, essentially. They were both trying to differentiate between a world view and a true view of the world. Now, could we get a true view of the world out of this? What about books, ancient wisdom, teachers and all that stuff? Well, Buddhism says all that might be useful. But there's really no reference point outside the center.

[75:53]

And the center is everywhere. Each of you is the center. Where else? I mean, is he the center? Am I the center? So... We can't say, where is the center of the universe? So what are we going to trust? A rock on the moon? In the end, Buddhism says you have to trust this, whatever this is. But then the challenge is how do you trust this? When is this something you can trust? So the eightfold path is in a way we can say a path to that trust. And we can think of Each of these is not studying our activity, studying our speech, etc.

[77:12]

Yeah, but let's say a celebration of our speech, a celebration of our livelihood. Okay, so now let's go back again a little bit When we can bring through the medium of breath, the body into our breathing, and this is a process of body and mind are separate and But we can experience them separately and we can experience them together.

[78:14]

But in general, there's something that isn't automatically together, it has to be woven together. At the level of our physiology, it gets together. But at the level of our consciousness, it's separate. How do we weave it together? And what we experience when we do weave it together, when the most ancient teaching is to use the loom of the breath, You begin to come to something that we can call a truth body. You begin to feel just trust. And you begin to feel gratitude, gratefulness.

[79:27]

And again, I go back to this word thinking. When thinking becomes thanking. Heidegger has a thing where he talks about... memory, the word memory, originally, he says, meant that contemplative devotion to everything that appears in the moment, including what comes from the past and what might come, what might be in the future. So memory was a kind of contemplation. And here is his book, What is Called Thinking.

[80:37]

Makes the same point, I didn't get it from him, but it makes the same point that thinking and thanking are related. But this devotion to all that appears, all that constitutes this present moment of being, which is a way of saying acceptance, but this devotion and celebration of all that appears appears as the present moment. Is what is close to what is meant by concentration as the last of the Eightfold Path. Okay, now when we bring this concentration Or we just feel this concentration.

[82:02]

Or this concentration begins to arise and it's like an artesian well. And we open ourselves to this arising. And we open ourselves to this arising. Through celebrating the domains of speech, conduct and livelihood. These domains which have been identified in this path from ancient time. These domains which it's very fruitful to bring awareness and attention to. And you begin to generate something we can call a truth body. A truth body that doesn't feel good when it's fooled. First it's only partial.

[83:03]

It's like having an ally or a friend. Or a partner who tells you when you're off base. Yeah, and you may think your partner's right, but you're so... committed to your habits, you don't hear your partner's comments. And you want your partner to accept your habits. But sometimes you listen. Your partner says, hello. Hello. Is someone there? Oh, yes. It's like Sui Gan. Master, are you awake? Yes. Yes. Don't be fooled. Don't deceive yourself. No, no, no. We need to remind ourselves in this way.

[84:39]

And sometimes we listen. And the more we come into developing a truth body, And I'm going to make a distinction between a yoked body and a truth body. But here a truth body. In which body? you begin to notice when there's something that doesn't compute. And the truth body is the body that tends to make us... more likely realize enlightenment. Or having various awakening experiences. Now, I can give you one example that I've mentioned now and then to you. I'm walking along on these abandoned railroad tracks to the warehouse where I worked.

[85:55]

zu diesem Lagerhaus, an dem ich gearbeitet habe. And I had been smoking a cigarette. Und ich habe eine Zigarette geraucht. But since I have told you often I never smoked, I should explain. Und da ich euch immer wieder gesagt habe, dass ich nie geraucht habe, sollte ich euch das erklären. Like Clinton I never inhaled. So wie Clinton habe ich niemals inhaliert. Because it was always so harsh. And I had a commitment to breathing practice. Just any desires I had, I'd try to satisfy through breathing. But I still like the ritual of lighting a cigarette and blowing it through my nose. And I'd come from lunch by myself. And I threw this pack of cigarettes, crunched up this empty pack of cigarettes, threw it on the ground on the railroad tracks.

[87:33]

And my body took one step about and stopped and it felt something was wrong. And I immediately realized it wasn't because I felt bad to litter. I realized there was some kind of perception was wrong. Now I'm going to go back for a moment before I finish the story. I'm trying to fold the end of the Eightfold Path into the beginning of the Eightfold Path.

[88:35]

Because it's only through the practices I've talked about so far you can get yourself at the actual beginning of the Eightfold Path. So let me go to one of the things I find useful to remind ourselves of repeatedly. Which is how views function in us. And the simplest example, the one I I use the same example so it gets clearly into us. We have the... view that space separates us. It's a cultural view. Space also connects us. But if I have the view that space separates us, that a view occurs sequentially,

[89:39]

Before perception. And before conception. So your views will be reinforced by your perceptions. So if your views... If your view is space separates, your perceptions will keep confirming that. What you'll see here smell will be confirmed that there's distance. And then you'll conceive of, on the basis of those perceptions, you'll conceive of a worldview or of a world in which we're all separated. Now, this doesn't contradict the teaching of interdependence.

[90:54]

But it contradicts the teaching of interpenetration. And it contradicts also subtle aspects of our experience that we deny. So if you shift to a view that we're already connected, as I say, then more subtly, your perception will begin to verify this. And you can begin to conceive of a world based on connectedness. Which is the basic worldview of Buddhism.

[92:16]

Again expressed in the image of the Bodhisattva, compassion with innumerable hands and eyes. Okay, now when you do, through practice, Realize a truth body. Or your truth body begins to be an ally. And I would say that there are many ways to realize this truth body.

[92:45]

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