And he said, it took me 10 years to realize it was possible. He said, I heard you all those years, but sometimes I said, oh yes, it's possible. And then it started to be the case. Yeah, and I know in my own practice, I mean, I did all the practices for years. But it took me quite a while before I actually realized you can establish continuity in your breath. Now, I could, if I just say this much to you and we disband now, I would be a serious practitioner with you.

[01:01]

I really don't have to tell you anything else. That's enough for the next ten years. But we're supposed to hang out together too, so I have to think of something else to say. But this is a lot if you... if you... if you... can come to this residing in your breath body. So let me go back again. First you have inhales and exhales. The top of the breath and the bottom of the breath. two lungs two nostrils long breaths and short breaths and weaving the mind in that so you just get some experience at doing that and in knowing the various ingredients of breathing

[02:45]

And you get experience at weaving the mind and the breath. And then being able to rest in the breath, breath outside of thought. And then you begin to bring breath into your thinking. But that doesn't really happen so much until you begin to establish a continuity in your breath. Until you've established a continuity in your breath or a breath body, thinking will take you out of your breath. So maybe this sense of finding each thought rooted, rather than thought leading to thought, each thought is rooted and then the next thought appears.

[03:51]

Okay. I can't do it for you. I can just give you the ingredients. Suggest both patience and an image of completion. Okay. Yes. Yes. Couldn't it be that if we make a difference between continuity and discontinuity and try to separate them both that we end up in a trap?

[05:11]

I don't think so. This is pretty basic to what we're talking about. So I'd like to let the seminar respond to that more than specifically responding now. So, but I'll come back. Yes? When you talk about dropping body and mind or belief, I have the feeling that Zazen changes certain things and you realize, oh, I dropped that or I suddenly had this belief. But when I'm really in a problem or in a crisis, I have no faculty to drop or to believe.

[06:36]

So my impression is that it's very passive. I mean, you do the sitting, and then you just look what happens. But any time I really want to let go like this, yeah, no faculty, like no arms, no hands to drop anything. OK. Dorit? When it comes to letting go, I realize that sometimes you realize that it has happened, but in the moment when you really need it, there is no possibility for me to do it, so there is no activity that leads to it. It feels very passive then. That's a little different than what you said at the break. Yeah. So, if I respond to both. Yeah. The world is held together by a certain glue.

[07:39]

And it's a glue we all agree upon. And if we don't accept the common glue, we have some problems. If we don't accept the common glue, we have some problems. And as you know, I've said many times Our Western self is primarily constructed in shareable space. Even our private thoughts are essentially a kind of public space because we want them to be not qualitatively different from other people's private thoughts.

[08:40]

In our culture we have the freedom to be separate from each other, but not much freedom to be different from each other. And if you start entering or having experiences that are completely unfamiliar or different from what you imagine human beings have, you start feeling crazy. And you might be crazy. I can't promise you you're not. But there are more alternatives than that you're crazy. And the nature of practice is you enter non-shareable space or experiences.

[10:15]

And the reason you have Dharma friends and a teacher is your Dharma friends and your teacher intuit or share that non-shareable space with you that can't really be shared or discussed or something. Now when Jung went through his personal crises and began to have images and dream images and all kinds of things that he recognized as you know, not theologically permittable. He dealt with it by making it a universal shareable space.

[11:17]

For him, conceptually, it still had to be shareable. And that may be true, also true. But from the point of view of Buddhism, it's also non-shareable, unique and non-repeatable. Now, when we're practicing, one of the things that happens is Zazen changes the glue. The glue starts becoming unglued. And in English at least, to become unglued means to go crazy.

[12:32]

So, But this may happen to you even if you don't practice zazen. You know, you're brought up to believe the world as it is and you look around and you do things and then you suddenly look at it and you say, hey, this glue is pretty thin. And all these people say they're doing these things and want you to join in the belief that they're doing that, but you know they're actually doing something else. And sometimes it's shocking what they are doing just below the surface or under stress would do and all agreements are off.

[13:41]

And it can be very disillusioning and shocking. So when you start playing with the glue, of society and human agreements, whether you do it existentially from your own observation or through meditation, it's serious, it's startling. And sometimes feeling that freedom can be elating. And sometimes the feeling of things, the glue being so thin, you can go through some pretty dark times. So the question is then, if you start this process of looking at the glue and seeing through the glue,

[15:08]

You have to find, it's helpful to find, some other way of establishing continuity or a glued feeling or a there-ness, here-ness feeling. That's one thing that mindfulness practice and meditation practice are trying to do. And as long as you haven't established that, it's rather difficult to find how you rest in yourself and in the situations of the world. You're probably all the kind of person who's going to have this problem whether you meditate or not.

[16:26]

What meditation does is make the process more coherent and makes it sometimes, it should speed it up a bit and give you some antidotes. Mm-hmm. But the more seriously you practice, the more seriously you have to practice. Yeah. So here we are, wandering around in, you know, samsara. In the floating Dharma Sangha monastery. It's now swimming in the Sinsheim slaughterhouse. So, these are our people. Okay, something else?

[17:37]

How do you deal with the Western kind of continuity in identity and the yogic kind, which is from a different crowd? you kind of choose, or how you bring it together, or how you... German. And how do you deal with the Western continuity of identity that we are used to, in order to and with the East, which is also famous for its presence. The Father remains with this identity.

[19:10]

We go together, or we live as if we both were. I would say that that question has been informing, as a sort of subtext, been informing most of what I've been talking about for the last year or two. And... I believe that if you practice with honesty with yourself, you can make that transition. If you sort of play around with practice, you may find you can't really make the transition.

[20:26]

But maybe it will give you more... Mindfulness can also strengthen the continuity that the Western self uses. Okay, so just let me say, as I've said, bringing up something from last year, is what are the functions of self? I would say that the functions of self in any culture are threefold. It has to supply separateness. So I have to know this is me speaking and not you. If I can't make that distinction, as some people can't, I'm in deep doo-doo.

[21:45]

So one thing you can actually practice with is how you experience separateness. I'm here and you're there. I know that's Ulrika's voice and this is... No? Yeah, this is my voice. And your immune system is one of the ways we establish separateness. The immune system knows what belongs to you and what belongs to the environment. And in diseases like lupus, the immune system gets quite confused. I think in lupus, the immune system starts thinking that what belongs to it doesn't. And starts rejecting itself. Yeah, we all do that.

[23:00]

Good part of the time, actually. Yeah. Okay, and then another function of self is to supply connectedness. To give us the way to let us... Give us categories or ways of experiencing acknowledging connectedness. Because at the same time I feel separated from you, I also feel connected to you. And they're very mixed up and simultaneous. But there's a difference. And I think it's also helpful to study and notice or at least connectedness, feelings of connectedness, how you feel connected and so forth.

[24:04]

Now the third aspect is continuity. How we experience continuity from one moment to the next. You know, like when you're under stress, you say, I can get through this, I can do this. That I is usually based on a story of who you are, you're a strong enough person, and so forth. Okay, now we can also look at Buddha nature, which is then discontinuity and a different kind of coherence and so forth. So I think if you study connectedness, separateness and continuity, it also will help you open up into or recognize or feel Buddha nature.

[25:13]

Because again, it's a question of... The Heart Sutra says... no eyes, no ears, no nose, etc. No sound, no smell, no taste. But that first means that you practice the skandhas nivijnanas so that first you know eyes, ears, nose, etc. It's the basic idea of form is emptiness, but what form is emptiness? What way of knowing form allows you to know emptiness?

[26:31]

If the form is karma, you don't know emptiness. If the form is dharma, you easily know emptiness. Now, when I studied with Suzuki Roshi And I'd have to say I'm still studying with Suzuki Roshi. I saw three realms of practice with him. One, it was clear to me that he was an enlightened person. So I didn't know how to study his enlightenment, but I could hang around anyway.

[27:50]

When I first moved to San Francisco, I had the image of maybe I'll find a Chinese Zen master somewhere. but he'll only speak Chinese and he'll be surrounded by hundreds of people and I'll have to stay always 50 feet away. So I had some idea that 50 feet away would be good enough. So when I met Suzuki Roshi and I could be five feet away, I thought, hey, this is like a miracle. But I didn't know what to do, so basically I hung around. And he gave me a pretty hard time.

[28:56]

I mean, he was very nice to me all the time, it's true. Yeah, but he'd sometimes say to me things like, you came in the door, you better be ready to go out the window. Or as I told you once, for a full year he stopped acknowledging me. One day I came into his room and I did the usual bow after Zazen and he... And I'd look at him, he'd look away. I'd smile and he'd smile at someone else. And I'd look at him, he'd look away. So I thought, I don't know what he's doing, but I'm going to hang around. And after two or three months of this, I thought, oh well, this is his problem.

[30:00]

And after two or three months, I thought, this is probably his problem. And after a year, almost to a year, he suddenly bowed to me and smiled and I thought, okay. We never talked about it. But I saw, you know, there's this, what I thought he must be. If enlightenment has any meaning, this must be enlightenment. I didn't look for his papers. Smokey Robinson has a song. It's something like, I don't know if this is the love that everyone talks about, but it must be love. So I had that feeling.

[31:05]

But I also saw that he was a Japanese person. And some of what he did was motivated by his Japanese-ness. And so I studied his Japanese-ness. And I went to Japan for four years and studied Japanese-ness. And I'm actually half Japanese. My nose is really a lot smaller than this. But it's, you know, Japanese people, when I'm in Japan, recognize me as sort of Japanese, actually.

[32:13]

I know that. They know that. So I also saw that what Suzuki Roshi is was not explained entirely by his Japanese-ness nor by his enlightenment. He was also, I would have to say, the second or third realm of study for me with him was the way, the path, because it wasn't just enlightenment, it was also the path and the craft of practice. And I wish you could have known him. But, you know, in some ways knowing him was almost too easy because you just get this great feeling from being with him and that was enough so you didn't have to practice.

[33:25]

With me you know you really have to practice. But I will try to give you some taste of his practice. So let's for a minute go back to the wine glass or toasting or beer glass example. You are most present when all your senses are present. Now when all are present, you're most present.

[34:46]

And what do you have in the glass? Transcendental experience. I mean, that's what alcohol is. I mean, it's abused, but that's what it is. So you look at your friend or friends and you touch the glasses. And bringing transcendental experience together with all the senses. At that moment a center is created. And that moment it all disappears. At that moment there's no sound, no ears, no taste, no touch, etc. And you feel, actually you kind of feel that when you, there's a moment where everything disappears when you really toast with someone.

[35:52]

So there's the heart sutra. And so we have here the Heart Sutra. And every time you toast, you can feel you're practicing the Heart Sutra with people. But you have to remember, as Arnold Schwarzenegger says, a pump with a mind in it is worth ten with no mind in it. So a toast with no mind in it is worth ten with... Okay, so I want to... say something about the alchemy of the five elements.

[37:03]

And I'm trying to, because when Dogen speaks about dropping body and mind, he means a body and mind arrived at through the past. So what kind of mind and body are dropped? Okay, so when I look at you, let's go back to the Vijnanas. When I look at you, I see a lot of faces, I have to confess, that make me happy to see. So looking at you, I feel something. And I see something I guess I can call you.

[38:15]

And I know some of you, most of your names. And I can peel the names off what I see or I can glue the names back on. So I'm seeing you with and without your names. And I'm also seeing you through the five skandhas. So when you practice, and if you know the skandhas, when I'm practicing seeing you, I also see the skandhas. Your skandhas and my skandhas. It's a scandal, no. I'm sorry. Maybe you should say for the new people, the five skandhas, just one sentence.

[39:26]

Form, feelings, perceptions. impulse or intention or gatherers and consciousness. So this is a practice of not only seeing say Herman, but seeing my mind as I see Herman. And seeing form. And knowing when I see mind, I also see feelings or an aura of feelings, an aura of non-graspable feelings. And I can have various emotions.

[40:29]

And associations with the last time I, if I look at Herman's date at Herman's house, etc., And I can, because I have some experience with the skandhas, I can notice the associations and drop them. And not having the associations all mixed up with emotions and blah, blah, and thinking in my own thing, then I can't drop anything. But having practiced enough with the skandhas, I can drop the emotions or drop the associations or drop the feeling even. Or I can just experience the consciousness.

[41:42]

Or the awareness. And if I can actually experience the consciousness, I can experience Hermann's consciousness. Now when I sit here next to Hermann, I feel something It's not the same as when I look at Jutta. I feel something different. Whoa. Excuse me. Yeah, or Neil. There's some different, maybe safer.

[42:42]

I feel something different when I bring my mind with a pump into it, into looking at Neil. It's different than when I look at Hermann. Now, I have a daughter who I'm very fond of who's 16. Who I always have to say is taller than me. She has a bigger face. It's quite funny, this little baby is now sort of and she's going to school and beginning to you know going to college and all that stuff and so she's sort of wondering what to do you know and being a Buddhist parent I sort of burden her with things Like I subject her intelligence to analysis.

[43:51]

Try to get her to have the sense that she has certain genetic ingredients, memory, And she has energy. And then there's other qualities of intelligence like clarity, intention, character. And I try to give her some sense of how she can bring intention into her genetic capacities as long as, as well as clarity and so forth. And how energy and intention work together and so forth. Now I'm also now trying to teach you something about a certain rigor and clarity in thinking and how you root each thought independent from the next thought.

[45:12]

She'd hate it if she knew I was using her as an example. But this is also, I'm really talking to all of you, but I can't be that fatherly that I start talking to you that way, so I can talk about Olivia. Yeah, but Elizabeth also, when she goes to school or goes home, brings a certain space with her. Now, there's We also can say you have a certain consciousness and you have a certain consciousness. But in Buddhist terms, we're talking about a worldology as well as a mindology.

[46:22]

We can talk about you have a certain space as well as a certain consciousness. Yes, how do I make this anyway? And that space allows you, allows things to enfold into you and you to enfold into things. Yeah, how do I make this? Anyway... And that space allows you, allows things to enfold into you and you to enfold into things.

[47:22]

Now, I have this paper napkin here which someone gave me. And it exists in this room. And I can drop it and it falls on these tables. And it fell through space onto the surface of the tables. But that's not the way Buddhists think about it. This doesn't exist in space. This is its own space. And it changes this space. And this is a different space than that.

[48:23]

That's a different space. And What am I talking about? I'd like to give you, if you could catch a feeling for this, that this is its own space. It doesn't exist in space. If you say it exists in space, you're basically in a theological world with a God. Because then there's an outside and inside. And when I hold this, this is a space, its own space. And it all exists for a non-repeatable moment.

[49:40]

A unique, non-repeatable moment. And that's the definition of a Dharma. A unique, non-repeatable moment. Now, if your mind is outside itself observing you, it exists a different way, the usual way. Okay, that's enough, I think, on that. Now in the Diamond Sutra it says that all beings are non-beings, etc., no beings.

[50:46]

Which is a statement of the middle way. The middle way here we can define as, in Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu's sense, as not being mentally and physically caught in alternatives. In this or that. Here or there. Or good or bad. Or like or dislike. And our mind constantly goes to one or the other. There, here. Like, don't like.

[51:48]

I mean, we're constantly addicted to alternatives. But where is your mind located if it's not in alternatives? I'm very sorry to tell you it's located in unfindability. I should have promised I wouldn't tell you such things. Let me give you... Jeffrey Hopkins' example of unfindability is very simple and good. You come home from the office early. You look for Jutta.

[52:53]

She's not there. Okay. And you look in every room and you're so sure she should be there that you're struck by that you haven't found her. But at some point you say, oh, she's not home. That's being caught in alternatives. Because as soon as you say she's not home, You've established an alternative, home or not home. But if you can stay in the state of mind of, where is she? Without forming this alternative, oh, she's not here. The practice of the middle way means you don't form alternatives. So you stay in the experience of the unfindability of Yudha.

[53:57]

and don't form the opinion that she's not here that's actually a very clear and simple example but can you do it and as long as the mind starts on the one hand you're working with the glue of things the mind still has this habit of alternatives, you will suffer. Yes. But the cause of the alternatives is the search itself. Yes. Okay. So you have to give up the search. Yes and no.

[55:18]

And then you're in a state. In a state. Good, bad or indifferent? Indifferent. A state. I think you're still making excuse for missing your plane. No. I was in a snowstorm in a state of unfindability. It's true. I think you're still having the problem of feeling unfound. Well, this question that you bring up of the search is Dogen says when you're rubbing the tile to make it a mirror, Matsu and Nanyue Do you all know the story?

[56:33]

Matsu is in his hermitage and Nanue comes to his hermitage. He says, what are you doing? Because Matsu is doing Zazen most all day long. And Nanue said, What are you doing? And Matsu said, I'm figuring to make a Buddha. So Matsu picked up a roof tile that was nearby and began rubbing it. So finally Matsu looked around and said, What the hell are you doing out there? And Matsu says, I'm making a mirror. I mean, Nanue says, you can't make a mirror out of a tile.

[57:51]

And so Nanue says, when you, with a horse in a cart, when you wanted to go, do you hit the horse or the cart? In the Koran it says Matsu had no answer. But Dogen says that rubbing the tile is the mirror. So he's emphasizing there the search is also the mirror. But, and he also says, when Matsu becomes the mirror, Matsu becomes Matsu. Okay.

[58:58]

So this story, I'm glad you brought it up because I was actually thinking of speaking about it. So I want to say a couple more things and then we'll stop for lunch at one o'clock. In the Diamond Sutra it speaks about all beings are also no beings. And it says whether eight born Wound born. Moisture born. Or miraculously born. And then whether with perception or without perception, with form or without form.

[60:05]

This is pretty typical Buddhism, cover every category. Now, egg-born is also the realm of the things that happen out there somewhere. And we know the world, the egg-born world. The chicken which has a chick from an egg over there in the barn somewhere. And wound-born we know that many things are produced within us that we incubate. And moisture-born is the world where we mix things or create the ingredients where something happens. And miraculously born is something new appears which never existed before.

[61:25]

Now we tend to, if you're not a believer in God, in the good book, we believe in the good genes. The natural, what we usually mean by natural, it's somehow all in our genes or something. But miraculously born means something new appears right now that has never existed before. And that's of course the case. Us, 70 or 80 people here, put this group together and something happens which has never happened before in Buddhism or the world, etc. And in that sense is the sense that this is its own space. It doesn't exist in space. It is space.

[62:45]

As the microphone is space, Ulrike is space, the table is space, each thing is its own space. And you put any two or three things together that haven't been together before, something new appears. This is miraculously born. And it may not follow the rules. Mostly it follows the rules, but it's still quite independent. Now I'd like to, really don't have time, but I'd like to at least come back to the five elements for a moment.

[63:56]

So the first is the earth element. And the earth element means what stays, what stays in place. And there's a certain quality to everything that something stays in place. So this practice of the five elements as related to Zazen, the alchemy of the five elements, is to know what stays in place in you and to know what stays in place in the world. And if there's no glue, or the world is pretty discouraging when you look at it carefully,

[64:58]

So how do you create the Buddha field where each thing is its own space, where in this case everything stays in place? If I know what stays in place in me, that will awaken or touch what stays in place in you. And my staying in place will communicate with your staying in place. That's knowing the world and another person through the element of earth. or form or what stays in place. And this is different than thinking about you or wanting to know you.

[66:16]

This is an initiation in the macrocosm, microcosm practice where what's there and here is the same stuff. So you can know that intellectually or philosophically, but how do you experience it? So the Buddhist practice through analysis, we divide it up into categories that we both, the macrocosm and the microcosm, share. One is what stays in place. and the second is and I will stop after the second and we'll continue after lunch with the others but what's the second is what moves motility so you say the sun gets up in the morning

[67:25]

But you also get up in the morning. I like the German word, you stand up. I always have the feeling that Germans, they're asleep and suddenly they're standing in bed. No wonder it's such a successful culture. They don't even get up, they stand up right away. Now, you generally think the sun gets up because the sun comes up, you get up. But in Crestone since we get up at 3.40 we know that's not the case. In fact we know that the sun gets up because we get up. We get up and after a while the sun says, oh shucks, I'm so embarrassed, and up it comes.

[68:56]

Certainly from one point of view, you get up because the sun gets up. This is a kind of basic rhythm, you know, the tides, etc., But from the point of view of each thing is its own space, then whatever motivates you motivates the sun too. We're all equal. Ten directions, Buddhas, the sun, etc. The sun is in you. You're in the sun. You're the center. I want you to know that. Then you might be immovable. You're the Buddha. It's hard to know, but it's true.

[70:07]

It's not about vanity, it's about modesty. I'm so modest, I'm only the Buddha. If I say I'm Dick Baker, I'm pretty vain, but I'm the Buddha, I'm pretty modest. So you have to find out this kind of feeling. So when you wake up in the morning, as I've often said, you gather, you allow your dispersed body and the dream space to regather. Then you can feel something move in yourself that gets you up. And it could be an image of the breath body. You could bring yourself into your breath and allow your breath to get you up.

[71:22]

If you practice with these five elements, you can actually feel this intention moving in you that's going to get you up. Now, the intention can be to stay in bed, but you get up anyway. This is not a pump with the mind in it. You're still in bed, but you're walking around like a hungry ghost trying to wash your face. So the practice of the second element is to know what moves in you. Energy, intention, consciousness. And you begin to feel it and know that you can shape it or something shapes it or etc.

[72:46]

So I can not only feel what stays in place in you, I can also feel, by feeling what moves in me, I can feel what moves in you. And I can see these plants here taking water from the vase. And not just see the flower, but also feel the movement in the stem and feel it in my own backbone. Or feel it in my own breath. So this is not knowing the flowers in the usual way of thinking, but knowing them through the movement or this quality that the world shares and you share. So the flower begins to communicate its strength to you.

[74:01]

And you don't just see that bloom, you see the amazing strength in that bloom. Simultaneously based on what stays in place and the water moving in it. These are two aspects of the practice which begin to allow you to feel the world in you. I think that's more than enough for this morning. Now, The newer people, it would be nice if you had some questions like what are the five skandhas?

[75:30]

And I guess some of you did Zazen instruction, maybe? And I think some of you were also at the instructions for Zazen. Anyway, if there were such questions, we could put aside some time to have someone, one of you or Ulrike, you know, try to answer some of these things. You know. I would say that one way to look at what we're doing here is experiential physics. Instead of experimental physics. I mean, there's a quality of what we're looking at is what exists here is not so different from physics.

[76:36]

We're saying, how can we practice it? So we have the field equals the particles, the particles equals the field. In the Heart Sutra we have form equals emptiness, emptiness equals form. So, but, you know, you have to be... It's not so easy to get interested in such a thing, form, as emptiness, emptiness is form. But we're trying to look at how things exist. If we say, you know, there's one, then we have to say there's two.

[77:50]

Two isn't the truth, but one isn't the truth, so we have to say, well, neither one nor two. So, you know, we have the two introductory koans that are usually often given as beginners. The koan of mu, of does a pig have a Buddha nature? Or does a cow have a Buddha nature? Do you have a Buddha nature? And this is more a Majamaka teaching. Excuse me, it's more a yoga chara teaching.

[79:10]

See, I get mixed up too. Now the other sort of initial... Now these are so-called beginner's koans meant to transform... how you compose your mind. But in a way, they're the most advanced of all, too. And the other is, what is the sound of one hand? Now, I'm just giving you a sense of the structure behind or within Zen Buddhist teaching. Because the Majamaka school, represented most clearly by Nagarjuna, who's sometimes called the second Buddha,

[80:13]

emphasizes that all form is emptiness. So the Majamaka school is sort of like an arrow going from form to emptiness. But the Yogacara school, starting with Asanga, And maybe Maitreya Natta. Yeah, Anatta. There may have been... I mean, Asanga supposedly got this from Maitreya Buddha. He was dissatisfied with the Buddhism of the time and how Shakyamuni Buddhism was understood. So the legend is that he had a revelation through the wounds of a dog from the Buddha of the future, Maitreya.

[81:28]

Quite a good story, but I don't know if we have time to tell it during this weekend. Anyway, this dog had a Maitreya nature. But in any case, there may have been a person named Maitreya Anatta who is the real founder, if there's a founder, of the Yogacara school. So, Vashubhansu, the brother of Asanga, of Asanga. See, I can understand what you're saying.

[82:45]

They started from Nagarjuna's position that form is emptiness. But they emphasized that emptiness is form. The arrow goes the other direction. So, what is the sound of one hand clapping? Emphasizes the mind resting in that place before thought or sound arises. But then how do you act from that place? That's the emphasis of that koan. And the mu koan is how in the midst of form do you release it into emptiness? And these both can be practiced.

[83:52]

Now, the teaching of the Heart Sutra is... Let me go to Akshobhya a minute. This is from the Vimalakirti Sutra. Vimalakirti is asked, how did you, you came here to see the Tathagata? How do you see the Tathagata? And how do you find the Tathagata? Now, Tathagata is a name for Buddha. But a special name for Buddha, but let's just say a name for Buddha. And he says, you find the Buddha through your body.

[84:53]

But then he says, it is not in the sense fields. It's not in the five elements. It's not in the skandhas. Okay, so the Heart Sutra does exactly the same thing. It says, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Then it says, the form that is emptiness is the five skandhas, the twelve, etc., you know. But those also, there's none of those either. So it brings them together. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And it says, this is the form that's emptiness. And it says that by saying, there's none of these. And maybe that's a little too much to say all that, but maybe it's useful to have it in the background of your mind or understanding.

[86:11]

Because the Heart Sutra is a teaching about what kind of form is emptiness. So, let's go back to the sense fields a moment. Again. You're always sitting, I have to use someone else as an example here. Okay, so I'm looking out here and I see you and then I see that not only do I see you again but I see my mind. And before I emphasized the five skandhas, now I emphasize the vijnanas.

[87:27]

My mind is also, and my consciousness is also the sense fields. So I see that you this appearance of you, or whichever one of you I'm looking at, is in the realm of my seeing and hearing and feeling with my body and so forth. So what the Heart Sutra is saying, it's not saying there's no nose, no eyes, no ears, etc., It's saying transform the usual way you see the world, grasp the world. Transform that usual way of seeing into the skandhas and the vijnanas. Which you can do. And then you will see that it's empty.

[88:50]

So, if you want to practice this, simply when you have a moment to remind yourself, remind yourself when you look at anything, you're also seeing your mind. I definitely see you sitting there. But I also see my mind seeing you sitting there. Now, I have to, initially in practice, I have to keep reminding myself of that. But eventually there's no effort. That would be a real realization of the practice of mindfulness. Now the initial practice of mindfulness is to keep bringing the mind back to the object.

[89:55]

To your breath, to the world, etc. But at some point there's a shift and I don't have to bring my mind back to my mind anymore. We can say that's no longer primitive mindfulness, but mature mindfulness. You've gone from mindfulness where there's an effort to mindfulness where there's no effort. And I know in your daily life this is difficult to do. Because everything is defined as if it's out there and not your mind. But there's a craft of the way.

[91:04]

And there's also a craft of enlightenment. And tomorrow I think I'd like to give you a sense of the structure of the path from the point of view of the craft of enlightenment. Right now I'm talking about the craft of the way. If you really see, and Western philosophy and psychology recognizes this too, that when you look at something, you're seeing your mind as well as the object. So for Westerners actually interested in philosophy and psychology, this isn't a new idea.

[92:08]

But it's a new idea to practice it. Until you rest in the mind and not in the object. And that's just a practice at the level of craft of re-minding yourself. So you take a little, you know, homeopathic time. Small doses. And you remind yourself, I'm seeing my mind as well as the object. And eventually there's an amazing clarity.

[93:19]

There's a tremendous brightness and preciseness to everything you see. You enter another state of mind which I think all of you are rather familiar with. And everything seems stopped, bright, and clear. And we say, hey, that was a nice experience. I wish, you know, everything, you know, time slowed down a little. What's the word? Updance? Dance up? Yeah, dance. But what we don't do is we don't establish that as the continuity of mind.

[94:21]

Do you see this structure here, the process? You practice this thing, a craft of it, to remind yourself that you're also seeing mind. Eventually you have the experience of shifting, so the mind is based in the feeling

[94:51]

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