So someone sleeps in the office tonight and gets up, yeah. Yeah, and then you find him or her black and coffee or something. So, um, let me sort of finish the sentences I was starting when the alarm went off. And then I would like to start the review of the Abhidharma through you as we started yesterday with the one of the main points of the winter branches that you guys do the teaching.

[01:06]

If spring is ever going to come. Okay. But I'm pointing out how fundamental the Abhidharma is for all of Buddhism. In other words, it's an attempt to sum up the Buddha's teaching and to make it practicable. So that when you see the Dharma, you do see the Buddha. Or to say it more accessibly, when you see the Dharma, you see the Buddha activity.

[02:08]

Mm-hmm. And also this summing up of the Buddha's teaching during the first 500 years or so after his death has become the basis for all later developments in Buddhism. And if we really just understand, you know, the few things that I happen to teach, and let me say that it's not just, I know that many of you read books on Buddhism, etc., But the very nature of this practice requires face-to-face presence to really get the teaching.

[03:18]

But then, if you have a understanding of Buddhism as a whole or to a larger extent, then Buddhism becomes a resource for you beyond what I happen to teach. So that's why I suddenly felt compelled to do something with more and more study than I have been doing. You know, I am very impressed with how well you understand and develop the teaching actually in your own life.

[04:21]

But I really want you to be able to continue it in yourself and with others. And I can't do this forever. I joke and say I think an exception will be made in my case. So far an exception has been made. But Volker told me he couldn't guarantee that the exception will continue indefinitely. Some people want me to retire or live in Crestone. For example, my wife. But I'm here. Even more than usual. We're stuck together for a while. Anyway, you see my desire, because the teaching is more important than me, so I want the teaching to continue.

[06:00]

Okay. So not only am I trying to present the Abhidharma, enough so that you can make use of it yourself, But I'm also trying to make it clear that you already are engaged in Abhidharma practice. Sondern ich versuche auch klar zu machen, dass ihr bereits in der Abhidharma-Praxis teilnehmt. So, one of the first assumptions of Buddhism and Yoga Abhidharma practice. Und eine der ersten Annahmen des Buddhismus und der Abhidharma-Praxis. That it is a different reality.

[07:02]

Let's call it reality. It's not exactly the right word, but a different reality than our usual reality. And more fundamental than our cultural and societal reality. Well, is it really, or is it just another culture? Well, Buddhism itself is a culture. But it's a culture that points at a fundamental, experienced reality. It's rooted in how we function in a more fundamental way than our cultural way of functioning.

[08:03]

So Buddhism would assume that probably Polynesians, Australian Aborigines, yeah, the Chinese too, and even Americans. Yeah, are all Chinese. Buddhism works equally well underneath the culture of all three or four or whatever number of cultures you want. Okay. So one assumption that we are enacting right now is this posture related to this mind of this other reality.

[09:22]

You may not experience it as really another reality. Because of course it's interrelated with the reality you usually function in. But as I always say, if you find that you make different decisions when you sit zazen than when you don't, That's a different reality. When you find you develop the ability to study yourself in a new way through zazen, then in the usual mind, this is a different reality.

[10:25]

And as your practice matures, this different reality becomes more different and clearer. And then as your practice continues to mature, It merges with your usual way of looking at things. And in effect re-educates your usual way of thinking about things. We could say you become aware of consciousness and right brain functioning more than before. And then that awareness educates consciousness.

[11:42]

And then these different emphases are developed in different ways. What I just gave you was a very brief version of a fundamental Soto teaching of the four ranks. And a related, similar Rinzai teaching, Linji teaching. So the first assumption here is that we've all assumed this posture. Yeah. Okay. And assumed a slightly different mind. taken on a slightly different mind and knowing that by doing it we'll further develop this mind and the second assumption is that somehow our minds are

[13:09]

well, how can I put it, just as the, our social reality is a shared reality, our societal reality is a shared reality, and that Shared reality is the main way our reality develops, our social, societal reality. If you grew up as a wolf child or a Kasper Hauser, you wouldn't develop a shared societal reality. And if you had grown up as a wolf child or as Kaspar Hauser, then you would not have developed a shared social reality.

[14:25]

Now we have the kind of myth of the individual religious hero who does it all by himself or herself. But the second assumption we're exhibiting is that this is actually something that's developed together. There's a vertical lineage from the past that flows into the horizontal lineage and then the horizontal lineage flows back into the vertical lineage. So that's the second assumption that's implicit in our being here. Okay, and those assumptions are the basis of the Abhidharma. Okay. No, I don't want to say any more.

[15:43]

I already said there was an awful lot of few sentences. Who's next? Yes. I have a deep respect for the unausgesprochenen, for the ungesagten. I have a deep respect for the unspoken. A respect for the coming into being and the process of coming into being and the silence of the sendo. And this process of coming into being, I can observe that very well in my work with children.

[16:49]

Of developing. The Abhidharma-Lehre, I understand it as if I am moving into a house. I understand the teaching of the Abhidhamma as if I was to move into a house. And I dislike houses that are filled with artificial flowers and schmaltzy teddy bears and these things. You know, we've taken them out of the Zendo when you were coming. We had a little teddy bear on each cushion. We have teddy bears on every pillow.

[17:53]

I would like to have more space, more air, just like in the broadcast. And that's nice to see in the houses. At the moment I'm working with the phrase either just this or less is more. Well, I like to have more space, just like in the Zendo, and I like to see that also in the houses. And at the moment I'm working with the phrases either just this or sometimes I work with less is more. Wenn ich zum Beispiel ein Kind beobachte, also zum Beispiel wir machen Beobachtungsverläufe oder Protokolle, dann gehe ich nur in die Beobachtung dessen, was das Kind tut. For example, when I observe a child, we are having protocols of child processes and then I go into just observing what the child is doing.

[19:05]

Ich gehe nicht in die Interpretation, Schlussfolgerung oder Bewertung. I'm not going into interpretation or conclusion or judgment. And what I learned by this is how to see more clearly and how to see the child more clearly. I understand why you put the Abhidhamma teaching at the beginning and see a connection with this teaching and the koans and the sutras. I can see why you put the Abhidharma in the beginning and I can see a relation and a connection to the sutras and the koans. The Heart Sutra, for example, is a very deep sutra which contains the Buddhist teaching of wisdom.

[20:12]

The Heart Sutra for me is a very good example, a Buddhist sutra which contains the wisdom, the teaching of wisdom, wisdom teaching. And I miss the vows. For me, the winter branches are a question of the heart and the conscience and not whether I could or should participate. Of course, it depends on whether you accept me or not. So the winter branches for me are a question of the heart or matter of the heart and of conscience and not a question of acceptance. Even though you accepting me or not depends on me participating.

[21:21]

But finally we are sitting together. We have been sitting together for eons. Yeah, I sort of remember. So what are the plastic flowers? Where did that come from? It's everything that's extra, all the stuff that I do not want to deal with. Like some of the Abhidharma? No, but I prefer to just choose one or two or three things to work with and not everything all at once. Yeah, that's what... I mean, this is a compilation of 800 years or 500 years.

[22:41]

Like science, you don't do all science. You take some aspect and work with it. And the process you described is... looking at the children is basically an Abhidharmic process. And the Heart Sutra is nothing, you could say it's an Abhidharma menu and recipe. I am also not good at learning by prescription or planning. I pay attention to what comes to me or how something develops.

[23:42]

That's why I appreciate working with children, because I also learn a lot from them. Also, I have difficulties with working according to a prescription or a plan, and that's also... And that's also why I appreciate the work with children so much, because that's how I work with them. Yeah. I want to say, not so much in relation to what Ingrid said, but that sometimes there's the feeling we can practice without concepts. I want to emphasize that we cannot. To practice without concepts itself is a concept.

[24:48]

Like I said yesterday. So we can practice when we start the process of analysis, of observation of our actions, our activity. We start without the concept of what we're looking for. In other words, we don't use a concept to... We don't predetermine what we're looking for by looking through concepts. We're not doing that. Yeah, we don't do that. But the idea that looking itself might be fruitful is a concept. So we look within the framework of concepts and then we use the framework to free ourselves from concepts.

[26:11]

The Zendo itself is a very complex concept. I mean, it's got doors and walls and floors. Those are all concepts. And then how we've transformed that room into a place that feels like a place to practice is done through certain concepts. And then how we transformed this room into a room that feels like you can practice in it, that all happened through concepts. How the altar is configured and so forth. I would like to add something to the work with lists, which we have already discussed yesterday. I would like to add something to the discussion we had yesterday on working with lists.

[27:15]

What I realized in the meantime is this incredible precision and sometimes exhausting differentiation of these lists. what became conscious for me is this incredible precision and differentiation of these lists. We don't have to be precise when you're translating, it's fine. what we are not used to, to observe our perception, our experience in this way. And that is something that we are not used to, to observe our experience with and our perception with. Yes, and even if not all lists are always present in this diversity,

[28:21]

And even if not all lists and their manifoldedness are present all the time, yet they help to sharpen my perception. Yeah. I started to say that... Studying Buddhism without the Abhidharma or studying yourself without the Abhidharma might be a little bit like trying to study chemistry without the concepts of molecules, elements and atoms. Atoms, molecules and elements. And without those concepts, which they're concepts as well as some kind of fact, You have something maybe like alchemy instead of chemistry.

[29:54]

So the transformation of alchemy into chemistry is maybe something like the transformation of Buddha's early teachings into the Abhidharma. We know a little bit more about what we're doing. But there's a kind of alchemy, of course, to Buddhism, too. Now, within chemistry, these concepts of... molecules, etc., are rather fixed categories. The elements, atoms, etc., are pretty much fixed categories in chemistry. But these categories in the Abhidharma are experiential categories. We swim in the categories.

[31:06]

We make our own categories. And swimming in our own experience, we decide whether the categories of the Abhidharma are useful or make sense or don't. The more philosophically derived categories of the Abhidharma often don't make so much sense. Dorothea? Sometimes I do not like to apply the lists so much because they take me into thinking. Good. But still I find them to be helpful because a lot of times they will bring my experience into words, the Abhidhamma does that.

[32:12]

but not in an immediate way. For example, when I'm doing an exercise, I do not connect that immediately to a list. I do not see the list in what I'm doing, but when you then make an example, I can see how this is to some extent what I'm doing. I'm going to focus more on a sentence you said in the last seminar. It's apparently permanent, but... I tend to take a phrase like something like seemingly permanent but then not permanent. Actually impermanent.

[33:32]

Actually impermanent. That kind of phrase I tend to take. That's more likely for me than taking a list. Because I prefer to not go into thinking, but the lists do bring me there. Okay. Without the lists, we probably wouldn't have the phrase seemingly that I made up. Seemingly permanent, actually impermanent. And that list is backed up, and that phrase is backed up by working with the list. Now, it's a way, I made up the phrase as a way to work with the list, to practice the list. So the lists, in the end, are just aids to our noticing things.

[34:36]

Yeah, now you have to teach a baby maybe to go through the door. But we don't have to think to go through the door. We just go through the door. And after a while, these things are just, they're like doors. We don't think about them, but we use them to enter into things. So I like the way you're expressing how you get used to using a list but want to use it in a way that doesn't cause you to think. Okay. But I actually am not using them at all.

[35:52]

I just continue my practicing. Well, when you use already connected, or seemingly permanent, you're actually using the lists. I've just made it easier for you. Yes. I imagine that I am studying parts of the Abhidharma to understand it intellectually. And my question is in the direction of, if I try to practice it, is it useful? I imagine that I'm taking the lists of the Abhidharma to first of all understand intellectually and then my question is when I go into practice, is that useful? When I encounter something as an object or as a perception, then there's the question, is it useful to name these things?

[37:16]

to name them in the way the lists are suggesting. So like you said yesterday that knowing these lists makes it easier to perceive something. So then the other way around, to name something in order to discriminate it or to complete it. Can you give me an example of a name or a list that you might use fits into an example of what you're talking about? I don't know if that's a good example.

[38:32]

I don't know if that's a good example. For example, to perceive one's own states of mind. For example, resistance or arrogance or compassion. Yeah, I think it's, I would say, in general, it's useful to notice when you're angry. And noticing that you're angry is a different kind of anger than just being angry.

[39:37]

And the whole mindfulness of being mindful that now I'm angry, now I'm more angry, etc. It's incredibly astute psychological advice. Because you don't repress your anger, you notice your anger. This is a very different dynamic than any kind of repression or suppression. But the point you brought up in the larger sense, I'd like to come back to in the afternoon. Okay. Iris? This morning I tried to put something that was arising for me into one of the few lists that I know.

[41:03]

And I couldn't find a place for it. And it was good to just stay with the question of where that belongs. In some sense I stayed more with that which was arising. Not in the sense of the old, but of seeing what happens in my state when it arises. Not in the sense of holding on to it, but just of noticing what is happening to my state when this is arising. And also where it's coming from.

[42:17]

Maybe this is not a Buddhist question. Why isn't it a Buddhist question? You mean where it's coming from psychologically or something? Then why isn't it a Buddhist question? What question is not a Buddhist question? Well, I don't... It seems that you were saying, I felt you were saying more than came through to me. Yeah, but let me say that to... To notice things as appearing is Abhidharma practice. To hold on to it and stay with it while it's appearing or arising is Abhidharma practice. Without the Abhidharma, you wouldn't be doing this.

[43:23]

In the same way. Mahakavi? So does practicing with these lists assume that there is a particular kind of experience present already that allows for us to use these lists? What I mean is that I had to sit for quite a while before I could even start to work with these lists. For me the question was, when I started sitting, I saw a picture of someone who was sitting, from the posture, and that inspired me to sit and I had the feeling, I would like to do that too, to sit like that, because the feeling was, there is someone who is red within himself.

[44:28]

When I started sitting before that, I saw a picture of someone sitting in his poster and that inspired me to start sitting myself because I thought, well, there's someone who has a particular kind of silence in the sitting and I wanted to learn that too. And only then, when I started to use it, did this intellectual work with such concepts come to me, because I had a different basis to start with. And only after I had started to sit, also the intellectual... looking at these things intellectually made sense to me because I had a different base to come from when thinking about these things. Well, that's what I tried to say this morning. The Abhidharma assumes this posture in a mind in order to understand the categories.

[45:44]

But are you making the shoe fit? Do you have that expression? Yeah. You make the shoe fit? Yeah. But are the lists... Do you practice with the lists as if you're going to discover the lists? Do you practice with a list in order to discover the list? Fundamentally, no. But practically, to some extent, you do. In other words, it took them some hundreds of years to work this out. No. Why did it take so long? Well, it takes a long... Even in your lifetime, as I said yesterday, you can only practice a few things thoroughly. And what happens after you practice something for 10 or 15 years?

[46:54]

You don't discover unless you've practiced 10 or 15 years. And then what happens after you practice that for 10 or 15 years? There's your lifetime. And someone else is practicing something else 10 or 15 years and they find out something different. So they tried to put this all together. And the early Abhidharma and still the basic position of the Theravadan Abhidharma is that the external material world is that the external material world and our experience can be reduced to rather, analyzed into rather fixed categories.

[48:10]

But the Sarvastivadans, which was the other Hinayana school. Does anybody ever call you Hinakavi? The lesser Kavi and the greater Kavi. Maybe you do occasionally when you're irritated with him. Hina Kavi? I'm sure I gave you some. No. The two schools that survived from the seven early Buddhist schools so-called Hinayana schools.

[49:13]

The Theravada is the only one that still exists. The Sarvastivadans didn't think that you could reduce everything to rather fixed categories. And their Abhidharma Pitaka only survives in Tibetan and Chinese. And the Theravadan survives in Pali. And the Sarvastivadins sort of morphed into the Sautrantikas. S-A-U-N-T-R-A-N-T-A-K-S S-A-U-N-T-R-A-N-T-A-K-S S-A-U-N-T-R-A-N-T-A-K-S And they kind of morphed or transformed into the Yogacara and into Zen.

[50:23]

But it took a long time to shift emphasis. Okay, we're not from the point of view of these other two Hinayana schools. All categories are not fixed and not graspable. But the basic idea of the Abhidharma was to reduce things down to something close to as simply divided into parts as possible. and although in Yogacara Zen that's us we don't understand the categories as some kind of indivisible unit They are still amazingly powerful to notice these categories in our own activity.

[52:01]

Again, it's all based on the assumption that everything is a construct. If you don't assume that, you don't have the Abhidharma. Okay, now once it's a construct, what are the ingredients? Now there's differing views on how real the ingredients are. But there's still ingredients. So Abhidharma is how to look at the ingredients from which we're constructed. How our experienced reality is constructed. And one of the most fundamental ways it's constructed is we have to have lunch. It seems like a lot of time. Thank you very much.

[53:24]

Thanks for translating.

[53:27]

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