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Beyond Perception: Experiencing Shin
AI Suggested Keywords:
Seminar_Buddhism_and_Psychotherapy
The talk explores the interplay between Buddhism, Taoism, and psychology, focusing on the concept of "shin" as a condition of mind beyond regular perception and understanding. Various Zen teachings, personified by historical figures such as Zhuangzi and Yuan Wu, emphasize the importance of being present in the moment and experiencing the world through immediate consciousness rather than borrowed or indirect knowledge. The discussion also includes references to psychological ideas from William James and touches on the art of integrating teachings into direct experience.
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Zhuangzi: Zhuangzi's Taoist teachings are highlighted, particularly the idea of perceiving and receiving through vital force rather than just the senses. This philosophy is related to shedding conventional understanding for a deeper experiential awareness.
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William James: Referenced as drawing attention to an unknown sense of reality that hints at a deeper consciousness, which aligns with the more mystical aspects of Buddhism and Taoism.
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Yuan Wu's Blue Cliff Record: Described as a definitive book of Zen, providing guidance on penetrating practice and obtaining freedom of mind through direct experience rather than conceptual understanding.
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Dogen and Zhaozhou: Explored for their contributions to realizing Buddhahood and maintaining awareness amidst ordinary activities, reinforcing teachings that transcend language and conceptual thought.
The talk synthesizes multiple philosophical perspectives to advocate for a practice rooted in immediate experiential awareness, challenging listeners to move beyond reliance on external validations and generalized teachings.
AI Suggested Title: Beyond Perception: Experiencing Shin
Does anyone have something you want to say following your discussion yesterday afternoon? You two have been rather quiet this year. Maybe I'm more mindful. That's a clever excuse. Silence is gold. World consciousness is moving us away. Well, I wish my silence was golden.
[01:05]
Okay, you know, sometimes when I... Often when I speak, maybe particularly with you folks, What do you do? Because folks, yeah, you have to somehow translate. And it's difficult to translate because it's always a little bit funny. Oh, yeah? So guys? Guys, yeah, but it's like... So what do you say in German? Yeah, it's like... But if you have women around, you cannot say... It's like guys and girls. Right? How come this doesn't happen when Christina translates?
[02:06]
Because different is different. Oh, another clever excuse. Okay. So anyway, sometimes I feel that what I say is... Too strange. At least it's strange in contrast to the culture I grew up in. And maybe it's... Maybe it's strange only because it's partly strange to me. Given the various simultaneous lives I try to lead. So I thought I'd do something I virtually never do. Is I'm tempted to say try some golden silence.
[03:24]
But I thought I'd read something. See if I can read in a way that isn't too dull. Okay. So this is a book about Chinese poetry. So first I want to say something about... talk about... things that are somewhat similar to what we've been speaking about. But here, this one is Buddhism, and this one is just Chinese culture. So this one, do not... Zhuangzi.
[04:39]
Zhuangzi is the name. Do not listen... Here, they call it the Taoist activity of simultaneously perceiving and receiving. You can't just say perceiving. And he says... Do not listen with... ears, but with the mind. I say something like that all the time. Do not listen with the mind, but with the vital force, but with The function of the ear ends with hearing. The function of the mind ends with symbols and ideas. But awaken the vital force. It's an emptiness ready to receive everything.
[05:42]
So... By the way, Taoist teachings tend to present things in a fairly simple way. While there's an elaborate and secret craft hidden behind it. And Zen tries to bring that craft more to the surface in the statements. He says, look at that which is empty. In the empty room there is bright light and there is happiness.
[06:46]
But when we walk into the room it sometimes becomes unhappy. And then William James says something that's interesting. He says it's as, you know who William James is, the American psychologist, philosopher. It is as if there were in human consciousness a yet unknown sense of reality, almost an objective presence, A feeling that there's something there pushing on us.
[07:54]
More deep and more inclusive than any of the particular senses by which current psychology works. supposes reality to be revealed. Particular senses by which current psychology supposes reality to be revealed. Then this commentator says, I guess what I'd have to call quasi-mystical state. is often described as shin. That's what's interesting about a term like shin.
[08:56]
It's actually a common literary term. But it means a condition of mind that has entered into the inner feeling and activity of things. I do things with shin, not with my eyes or any sense. He says all literary and art theorists, Taoists, Buddhists and Confucian alike, have made Shen the pivot of their theoretical formulations. And then they quote someone else. In the beginning, suspend vision. Bring back hearing.
[10:16]
Now, when they say something like that, they mean do it with each sense. Like I said yesterday, sense fitness practice. Yeah, they don't want to be pedantic and say, do it with the eyes and then do it with the ears and then do it, etc., So hearing is often used to represent each of the senses. In the beginning, suspend vision. Bring back hearing. Then lost in contemplation, no one knows how to translate that word, but then lost in contemplation. Reach out for contact. Let Shen reach out for contact. There the mind glides into millions of miles of space.
[11:32]
In Chinese, any large number means endless. Ten thousand things, etc. Then reaching the full feel of things, a glimmer gathers into luminosity. All objects are bright. Brightened and clarified. Each object lights up each other object inwardly. Yeah. having practiced Buddhism for quite a long time, 40 years or so.
[12:41]
This is actual experience. Now, what's the difference in a culture which supports this, and the poets and the artists and everybody supports it? It doesn't sound so strange. You have some support for it. You don't feel like a weirdo talking about it. Or like you're bragging about some special experience. But it's interesting to me that William James and others had an intimation of this. James talks about feeling this wanting to be released. But he doesn't have Buddhism or Taoism or any teaching which lets him
[13:44]
release it. The highest kind of poetry is that which does not tread on the path of reason. nor get snarled in following words. The excellence of this poetry is luminosity, transparency, like the sound in air, the color in form. So that's all. And I just happened to open it here, sorry.
[15:12]
Abiding in concrete things, knowing their constant growth and change, we come into a sense of affinity with no burden and no struggle. A thousand forms take their form. So again, as I'm talking about trying to embed us in the particular, he says abiding in concrete things. Well, reading, we lost one person already. Okay, so this is almost over. Don't get impatient. This is Yuan Wu.
[16:14]
This is Yuan Wu's little book, actually. Yuan Wu, who is more or less the author of the Blue Cliff record. He lived from 1063 to 1135. 1063 to 1135. 72 years. So to catch up with him, I've got another 72 years to go. He's a late, in terms of the great definitive Zen teachers.
[17:23]
He's quite a late Zen master. But the book, the Blue Cliff Records, is... I would say the definitive book of Zen teaching. So this is some letters he wrote to people. He's speaking about people who actually do this practice. They penetrated directly. They made themselves. It's not natural. They made themselves. Completely unobstructed, 24 hours a day. Their realization, which we could think of as experience of Shin, pervaded all directions.
[18:39]
Their experience was rolling up and rolling up and rolling out. Gathering in and releasing. So, if you can actually bring your attention to your breath 24 hours, it begins to happen without effort. You feel you even sleep within your breath. This is possible. This is not something out of reach. He says he criticizes other teachers who aren't prepared. He said they create clichés and bury the sons and daughters of other people's families.
[19:50]
They're like folk, people who wet the bed with their eyes open. He says, enter into enlightenment right where you are. He also says in a similar way, realize Buddhahood right where you are. Reign in your thoughts Concentrate your awareness for a while. Do not set up before and after.
[20:58]
Or here and there. That's like I said the other day, if you hear about somebody in the Himalayas in a cave, you're setting up here and there. Can you imagine having a mind where there's no here and there? Where there's no sense of before and after. That's what it means, realize Buddhahood right where you stand. And then you penetrate to the profoundest source. You cultivate this realization until you attain freedom of mind. Here there's no understanding to be found. Much less not understanding.
[22:10]
It's not in the categories of understanding or not understanding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then they say things like, strip off the sweaty shirt clinging to your flesh. Okay. That was yesterday. Okay. This work is located precisely in your own inner actions. It is just a matter of being in the midst of the interplay of the myriad causal conditions. Let me come back to that in a moment.
[23:24]
Here's how He criticizes people who take too easy a view of Zen. He says, as soon as I speak to you, I've doused you with dirty water. Doused is to put water on you. It would be even worse if I put a twinkle in my eye. Or raised an eyebrow. It's a whole teaching about secret body signs. Or I wrap on the meditation seat or held up a whisk and demanded, what is this?
[24:32]
And shouting and hitting, that's even more obvious. He says, oh, this is just a pile of bones on level ground. It's funny how somebody, this is a long time ago, how clearly they speak to us though, even in their images. Then he says, some people hear this kind of talk, Zen is just, you know, doing the dishes and carrying water and wood. And they jump to conclusions, claiming... I understand fundamentally there's nothing to Buddhism.
[25:45]
It's there in everybody. I spend my days eating food and wearing clothes. Has there ever been anything lacking? And Juan Luz says, and then they settle down to the realm of unconcerned ordinariness. Far from realizing that nothing like this has ever been part of the real practice of Luz. So here's the way he put the same thing. This work is located precisely in your own interactions. It's just a matter of being in the midst of the interplay of the myriad causal conditions
[26:49]
every day, in the confusion of the red dust, amid favorable and adverse circumstances, amid gain and loss, And yet being able to appear and disappear in their midst. Without being affected and turned around on them. without being affected and turned around. But on the contrary, being able to transform them and turn them around. For example, Dogen says, don't let the sutra turn you, you turn the sutra.
[28:15]
Then he quotes Zhaozhou. During my 30 years in the South, The only times I mixed mundane concerns. And by that he means something like borrowed consciousness. Into my mental activity. were during the morning and noon meals. That means these folks, Zhao Zhou and Yuan Yu, have to be really familiar with and present in their mental activity. The only time I allowed Unmixed, borrowed consciousness into my mental activity were morning and noon meals.
[29:25]
He says you must not mix the poison of wrong knowledge and wrong views into your food. Step directly into the scenery of the fundamental ground. As you hear sounds and see forms, you don't give rise to grasping or rejecting. That's the practice of the second foundation of mindfulness. You don't get caught grasping or rejecting likes and dislikes. And then with every move you have a road to go out on. Then he tells a little Zen story. Which I think I can repeat because it gives you a sense of of how Zen stories work.
[31:01]
I've heard a monk ask Zhu Feng, I've heard tell that you met Yan Shao in person. Is this true? Zhu Feng says, is the wheat in front of the mountain ripe yet or not? Okay, so that would be like if someone said to me, oh, I heard you really knew Suzuki Roshi. And this is a person that's clearly setting up before and after, here and there. So I don't want to point out, I'm right here in front of you. Do you know what the ripening of time is? There's no ripening of time looking back at Sukhiroshi. So he says, is the wheat in front of the mountain ripe yet or not?
[32:19]
Meaning, of course, this guy isn't ripe. And then he's then young. Yuan Wu says, if you can recognize what Zhu Feng is getting at on the intimate level, if you can recognize what Zhu Feng was trying to say so intimately, you'll understand what practice is. Okay, I'm almost done here. I emphasized yesterday, to really see, to actively be aware that everything is impermanent.
[33:29]
All things are set on a non-abiding basis. The non-abiding basis is based on nothing. It is based on non-abiding. If you can reach a thorough moment-by-moment realization of this, never straying from the non-abiding, then all things are suchness. And you Last one. Das letzte. When there is continuous awareness from mind-moment to mind-moment.
[34:40]
Wenn es ein kontinuierliches Gewahrsein von Geistesmoment zu Geistesmoment. Now, already he's not saying moment to moment. He's saying mind-moment to mind-moment. Und er sagt hier nicht von Moment zu Moment, sondern er sagt von mind-moment zu mind-moment. So what I've been emphasizing this... these days is this continuous awareness. Feeling yourself embedded in a sea of awareness. When there is a continuous awareness from mind moment to mind moment that does not leave anything out. and mundane reality and enlightened reality are not separate, then you will naturally become pure and fully right and meet the source on all sides.
[35:44]
That's all. But it's somewhat similar to what I've been talking about. I'm not making all this up. Other people have done this. And it's possible. And they write about it very clearly. It's pretty clear what they're saying, don't you think? But it expects the consistency of practice. Every moment you stray into delusion, stray into habitual ways of thinking, give yourself over completely to habitual ways of thinking, without the simultaneous knowing, you actually ensnare yourself in your karma.
[37:24]
Reinforcing it. And making new karma. So, you know, it's almost mechanical. You just have to... Mechanical in the sense you really just have to bring the sense... It's a construct all the time to yourself. It's not a very poetic word, construct. But I don't know another word. And you're in the midst of this construction. Okay. Almost time for a break. Let's sit a few minutes and Then we'll go to the remaining foundations of mindfulness, I hope. Even though Yuan Wu and Zhao Zhou lived a long time ago, they lived in a way that they could be companions today.
[39:25]
And of course we're each other's companions. Outside and beyond our personalities and differences. And you all especially know this. And somehow that opens us to the presence of these realized companions who walk and practice with us and touch our own realization. Ordinary and extraordinary.
[40:54]
Gewöhnliches und außergewöhnliches. Non-ordinary. Nichtgewöhnliches. Just this. Nur das. Just this. Nur das. No here or there, before or after. Kein hier und dort, kein davor und danach. this mind is not somewhere else this life is not somewhere else So, I see you in half an hour.
[43:13]
So, is there anything anybody would like to say? I'm thinking about a question what we discussed yesterday in the morning you said the difference from being to being from moment to moment is special You said that Zen emphasizes in particular the difference between moment and moment, person and person, and everything.
[44:18]
Emphasizes the difference of each moment and each person in each sense. No two branches are the same to Raven. And in this emphasis it struggles against or tries to argue against this tendency of generalization. On the other side, in psychotherapy, I see many similarities, and I think that's similar. But if you want to... If you want to give to surpass some techniques, some teaching, you have to reach back to similarities, to generalization.
[45:54]
Like when you're sitting cross-legged, you have a very stable sitting conditions. So how does this fit to the idea of no two branches are... The same to radium. The same to radium. Can you say that again in German? If you want to pass on something, you have to go back to general experiences or knowledge or effects. For example, when you sit with your legs crossed, it is a very stable sitting position. How does this fit together with the basic message Yes. Can I add a question to that? Yes, I think it is similar to you. Yesterday you described borrowed consciousness, secondary consciousness and immediate consciousness. And at the same time you emphasized that one should stay in the immediate consciousness and then move from the immediate consciousness to the secondary, that this is the movement upwards and not from the borrowed consciousness downwards to the secondary consciousness.
[47:09]
And now it is the case that all teachings are also borrowed consciousness at the same time. And the question is then, how can it come about that one can receive something that comes from borrowed consciousness with immediate consciousness, So my question is, yesterday you had on your flip chart this immediate consciousness, secondary consciousness, and borrowed consciousness. It's a way it should be and you come and you go into secondary consciousness not to remain in the board consciousness and to go into secondary consciousness and Now if you have any teaching or if you find take for instance that book so it's forward consciousness it's but how can you practice that you take word something that comes from world consciousness like any teaching and
[48:19]
and you take it with your immediate consciousness and you're not remaining in the borrowed consciousness. So you don't stick to theories and think about it, but you can really feel it and live it. For some reason it makes me think of a candid camera I saw once. It's a program, you've had it in Germany too, where they have a... And this guy's sitting, he's got a cup of coffee. He drinks a little bit of it. The guy next to him takes a donut and reaches over and dips it in his cup. And the guy looks. He orders another cup of coffee. And he pushes this one open and drinks the fresh one in it.
[49:31]
And then the guy reaches over and puts the donut in a new cup of coffee. He says, I gave you my cup of coffee. What's wrong? He says, it was cold. He says, it was cold. So we want to dip the donut of the teaching into the warm coffee. Into immediate consciousness. Okay, but I got your question, I think. I didn't quite understand... the relationship between going back to teaching and the similar to the stability of sitting.
[50:49]
Or maybe that was another one. Any teaching that somebody teaches has to be legitimated to any experience that has functioned or has taught any today. And not only with one person, but maybe with a lot of persons. It has to be proved, you mean. Proved, yes. So that's a generalization, isn't it? Or is there a different generalization that is used, I think, when you say to make it different from seeing all the different things that occur? Well, Felix, kannst du es noch auf Deutsch? Maybe the example with the sitting is a bad one, but if you teach something and pass it on, then you pass on something that worked for one person and also proved to be effective.
[52:01]
In the same way, Mr. Florian, you call on several people, and that brings us together to a teachable, passable behavior and a kind of technique. Okay. Okay, all these practices are kind of arts. And you have to make sense of them, you know, as you do any art, you try it out, etc. Okay. Now the classic example of borrowed consciousness is I can tell she's younger than I am by looking at her. But I don't know her birth date. I can only know her birth date through her telling me and her parents telling her and the culture setting up a system.
[53:11]
Birth dates and such things are useful. But if we identify with that comparative mind, that there's somehow a hierarchy between us because I'm older or something like that, Like the Diamond Sutra says, no idea of a lifespan. So that's a way at the other end of not even noticing we're older or younger. So the question is with the teaching, not that it's a generalization, You know, if I scratch him, and I scratch him ten times in a row, it still may be irritating.
[54:27]
But it's not a generalization to say it's usually irritating. Particularly if I put usually. Or it's a generalization, but it's not a deluded generalization. So, I mean, naturally make, you know, saying a tree is a tree is a generalization. But sometimes that's useful. So the question is, how do you take a statement and bring it into your immediate consciousness? How does any teaching, as he says, how do you bring it into immediate consciousness?
[55:31]
Well I told you Yuan Wu's dates were 1063 to 1135. I don't expect you to turn that into a mantra. It wouldn't be very effective. So it's borrowed consciousness that belongs in borrowed consciousness. But if you took no before and after, It's okay. It comes from a book and it's maybe a teaching, but you can use it. So some of the art of practice is how you take something out of language, out of the implicit syntax of language, explicit syntax of language, and turn it into something that can just be repeated.
[56:51]
What? I do it. You do it. Finally, I do it. Of course. I take it from the moral consciousness. I choose where I do it in the moral consciousness. I teach it. And then I prove it myself in my heart practice. Is that what you are doing? Yes, so, Felix? That means, I have a word consciousness, from word books, from which I introduce myself, and bring it into my art, the practice, and test it out. Roger Prümer, Ars Primaeus. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Can I respond to this first, or is it all together? It's related. Can I say it's borrowed consciousness? Because in this poem you said, mind moment after mind moment. So is it borrowed consciousness?
[58:03]
I mean, if it's written down, it was a mind moment of this person. And if I take it up, it's a mind moment. You cannot say it's my mind moment. Let's say it's my mind moment. So mind moment, mind moment. So I'm just asking the listeners whether you can even say it's borrowed consciousness, because this person who wrote it, Roger, somehow read out this poem where it went from the mind moment to the mind moment. So not moment to moment, but mind moment, mind moment. And this person wrote it, and it was a mind moment for this person. It wasn't a borrowed consciousness. And I can also bring it into a mind moment. That's just in my mind. And it doesn't actually come from borrowed consciousness. So that was my question. What does a mind moment mean? Das ist ein besonderer Moment.
[59:06]
But das ist eher eine Frage, die du, Roger, stellen solltest. He asked, what is my moment? And I said... Oh, I know. Yeah, and I said, that's a question you shouldn't address to me, but to Roger. If you say moment... Also, wenn man Moment sagt... It's a generalization. This moment, that moment, et cetera. So Zen folks are always trying to interrupt your usual generalizing process. So you say a mind moment, emphasizing that each moment is inseparable from the mind that we see. You can see this typical kind of situational use of language in the story.
[60:21]
I heard you tell that you met Yondo in person. Now, if he says, no, I didn't, Or he says, yes, I did. He's answering in the context of the language in which the question was asked. Or if he even says, You should know that I'm standing right here in front of you, and it's ridiculous to think about somebody in the past. That may be a correct answer. But it's an incorrect answer. Because it continues the mind that asked the question incorrectly.
[61:37]
So he changes the mind into a mind of something growing, grass, wheat. So it's more important for... him to change the mind of the person in front of him, that is to answer the question. So he says, is the wheat in front of the mountain ripe or not? And then maybe he means, this is the mountain. Because a realized person is often called a mountain. Okay. Are we still going along? Okay. Maybe the problem here is in my drawing.
[63:05]
This is not something real. If there's anything real here, it's the line. And this line, if it's rooted here, It has the quality of that. So, we were speaking about it last night outside. Like these flowers they are saying. If I generate a mind of... Yang Wu lived from 1063 to 1135. And someone met this guy.
[64:11]
And oh yes, there's flowers over there. Those flowers are in borrowed consciousness. It has nothing to do with the flowers. But if I'm standing here talking with you, a great day. Those flowers are beautiful, so bright in the lights. That might be in immediate consciousness. Do you understand? Don't make this real. Don't make this real. So, something else? Yeah, Rashi raised the question. It popped up.
[65:17]
Knowing, you said in the first day, knowing is not a real practice, in a realm of a real practice. Knowing? Knowing. Understanding. Oh, that's different. Then it came up, how about feeling? Where does feeling belong in terms of understanding or in terms of knowing? Is it knowing or is it not knowing? What do you think? I think both. Well, I mean, we're just, we're really trying to... Excuse me. Go ahead. Deutsch bitte. Yesterday, in the group, it came up that at the beginning, on the first day, I think, he said, understanding or knowing is not a real practice.
[66:22]
And that is built on the word, or the feeling, or even feeling, what is that? Is that knowing, or understanding, or is it not knowing? When a feeling comes, when we are in the feeling, Yeah, just because you can use a word as a synonym, I know that, I understand that. In that sense, they're virtually the same meaning. You simply can't be confused by that. We have to look at the way know is different than understand. Wir müssen herausfinden, in welcher Art und Weise das Wissen und das Verstehen unterschiedlich sind. If you let them slip together, we can't have any intelligent conversation at all.
[67:26]
Wenn man sie zusammenfallen lässt oder sie ineinander verschwimmen lässt, dann können wir keine intelligente Diskussion führen. Okay, so what I'm always trying to do is use the words in their most different way. Was ich immer versuche zu tun, ist die Worte immer in ihrer... And then I'm often trying to turn that use of the word into a technical term. So I use the word know in a sort of technical sense. To mean the experience of knowing through feeling or... Non-consciousness or etc. Non-consciousness, feeling or whatever. In other words, being alive is some kind of Something like knowing.
[68:30]
A dead person doesn't know anything. Sophia knows something. But she doesn't have understanding. So I try to use knowing in a general sense of I don't know any other English word. Like if you, this sense of Shen, which we mentioned before, is an experience of knowing, but not an experience of understanding. Understanding has a feeling of grasping it. I know you're in front of me. It's not the same as saying, I understand you're in front of me.
[69:37]
So you just have to make those, if you can't make the distinctions, we can't talk about anything, because most of what you're talking about is somewhere beyond that. So I mean, to signal that Zen is doing that all the time, you have little statements like, the flower is not red. Nor is the willow green. But it's funny, when you say something like that, you have a vivid experience of redness and greenness. I don't know, is that good enough?
[70:38]
I would like once again to hear the definition of understanding. Well, non-graspable feeling knows. But I don't know how to translate it any better. How would you say it in German? Well, I just used understanding sort of loosely in that your effort to understand Buddhism is not really very important. Most of the understanding of Buddhism flows from a transformed mind. If you don't transform your mind, no matter how hard, you only got to understand a little bit.
[71:40]
Could you turn the tape recorder off for me? You can't stand under it or over it. You can't overstand it or understand it. But if you practice so you're aware that... Teacher is. It's obvious she's, oh God, I would have given the same answer. Or many times Zen teachers say, he said that, I'll answer for him. Because you're answering from where he or she is coming from. And understanding doesn't get you there. But you can say understanding flows from being there.
[72:59]
So I can't define understanding because it's useful in both contexts. But it's not useful for me to say non-graspable feeling understands. Am I sort of making sense? Jack, you don't... Jack, you don't... We have an expression in English, Jack of all trades and master of none. But that doesn't apply to you. Yeah, go ahead. I do not quite understand.
[74:18]
The only thing I understand... Is it to come to reach a certain state of mind? I don't know how to say it. So to come to a state of mind from which I can understand what you said. Yeah, that's the idea. Yes, I'm not there. Don't work too hard. I think the only thing I really understood in this seminar so far... To reach this first foundation of mindfulness?
[75:31]
Then I can work on that and I will try to remain with my attention at the breath and that I will cry. Good. Did you have the similar experience in the other seminars we've done that you didn't understand? Yes. Did you have a similar feeling at another seminar, that you had the feeling that you didn't understand? No, less. But something else was important. No less, but there were other things important. So in the other seminars, the feeling was much more important to arrive somewhere. Now it's more important for me to feel where I didn't arrive yet. And that's not very funny, but I think it's important And that's not very funny, but I think it's very important.
[77:10]
Well, I actually feel that you understand pretty well. Perhaps you don't know how to bring it to the surface, but I do feel you understand pretty well. And I definitely feel you're here differently than you've been in other seminars. And other seminars, because you're so humorous and charming, perhaps you didn't notice so much what you weren't getting. Yeah, but I actually feel you understand pretty well. Okay, so let me draw some pictures. An attempt at drawing a picture. Really, I need my artist daughter here.
[78:21]
I want to sing. I need my singing daughter here. I can't do anything very well. Okay. So I, this morning, thought I'd like to draw the four pandas of the month. So I thought, okay, where do I start? Okay, I'll start from the fourth foundation of mind. Because it's the state of mind as per state of mind at most people. And I thought of it as being the state of mind before I started practice. So I ended up with a drawing, something like this. So that was my drawing, my experience of the phenomenal world.
[79:42]
It was very predictable. Trees were trees. The future was the future. You had to go to college and so forth. But it was somewhat open-ended. Okay. Then I drew, so that's the fourth foundation. Then I drew a third foundation in mind, which was my mind at that time. And it was pretty much like that. But it wasn't that good a square. Then I drew the third foundation of mindfulness, the second foundation of mindfulness.
[80:52]
So it was something like this. But I could feel underneath it this other, which I'd say now, something like this. And then I draw the body, my first foundation model. It was something like this. Maybe there was a little overlap with mind. But mostly this is mind. So this is the fourth foundation, this one.
[82:04]
This is the third. This is the second. Okay, now let me draw what my experience is since practicing for some time. The first foundation of mindfulness is something like this. That's better. The second foundation of mindfulness is something like this. Okay. The third foundation of mindfulness, I would have to draw this way. And the phenomenal world, like this.
[83:13]
Okay. mind. To finish this drawing, I had to put in the really the third foundation. And it is something like this. Okay, now, can you repeat that again, please? Okay, I will try to explain the drawing. I don't think the drawing makes sense to anyone but me. Okay, so this is the first foundation of mindfulness, meaning that it's not just you know, I have some consciousness of my body. But most of my body is like toenails eaten in cut. Toenails are seriously eaten in cut. In other words, my body is just sort of a platform.
[84:37]
Through practicing the first foundation of mindfulness, my body is alive, it's not a platform. It's inseparable from mind. Now, if I want to treat this as a sequence of a path sequence, Here, if I make this a sequence, I had a very limited idea of my interaction with the world. The world was stuff like fingernails. And within that, I had a pretty I had yearnings, but I didn't know how to express the yearning.
[85:45]
My mind was mostly formed by the culture and language and the timidity of my parents. It's a mild form of thinking. Kids are very timid. And So in that sense, this view of reality also came from my mind, conditioned everything. So if we take it the other direction, This drawing only makes sense if you think of it in terms of the four foundations of mindfulness.
[86:53]
So you spend a fair amount of time bringing attention to your body. You discover a mind that arises from the body but not from thinking. In that sense, this is the first foundation. Now, this is the second foundation. And that's the simple one of feeling, Pleasure, feeling not pleasure. But if you learn not to be caught in likes and dislikes, what does Yuan Wu say? Something other than likes and dislikes, the same idea. If you're not caught by that, this mind of the body
[88:06]
gets to blow up into the third. As a kind of awareness. As I said yesterday, Octopus ink coming in. And you have the essence of mind. So here I'm trying to give you a sense of the craft behind a phrase like essence of mind. Or original mind. and give you a sense that it's not something magical something you already know and it's something you can clear a path for open a path for as Siegfried says interrupting borrowed consciousness And you can have confidence you can stabilize it separate from the mind of mentation.
[89:41]
Because it arises from the artesian body and not from thinking. So you can think of it as water of two different temperatures. Or a liquid of two different viscosities. The liquid that arises through thinking. Shook through some pipe or a hose, you know, full of that it is a liquid that supports all kinds of associative thinking. And it's easily diluted and confused. But this water of another temperature or another viscosity, which you can feel with your body, because you can stabilize it,
[90:56]
you can prevent it from getting caught in borrowed consciousness. As this fellow says, only at lunch At breakfast, did I ever let borrowed consciousness come into my mind? That's possible because you can feel the difference between minds. It's not as simple as feeling sleepy mind. What's the word for somebody who falls asleep a lot? Neurostenic. Neurostenic would be, I think, like you go to a movie and you see something bad happen and you just sort of tune out for a while and come back in when the bad things stop happening.
[92:16]
Or sometimes there's a lot of crisis going on in your life, you just need to sleep sometimes. And you can feel that sleepiness come on. But it's not real sleepiness because you slept eight hours the night before. But it's a kind of sleepiness Because it's containing things you need to dream and not think. Well, you can feel the difference. And you can make a decision if you want. I'm going to think these things, not dream it. Or I'm going to dream it. I'm not sleepy, but I'm going to dream it. Or meditate it. These are states of mind with some gross differences though.
[93:33]
When we're talking about Yuan Wu, he's talking about being in states of mind without being caught by grasping or rejecting. States of mind where you can roll out or roll in. That's no different than knowing the difference between a neurasthenic state of mind and an awake state of mind. It's just more refined. And that refinement comes through, usually for most people, through Zazen, Sashin, things like that. Am I still making some sense here?
[94:48]
So the point here is that you can begin to distinguish between states of mind. And you can begin to make decisions about what state of mind you want to be in. Not a who. who makes the decision. What a kind of feeling. When you put your hand in hot water, it happens faster than who had a chance to decide it was hot water. Something more fundamental than who?
[95:31]
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