The not yet come Sunday seems to be already arriving. Seems to be in the process of arriving. You know what I mean? You can say this is Sunday, but you know that's not true. Where does it begin and end? Did it begin with the storm and wind we had during Zazen this morning? Or the rain and breakfast? And if you can see that this see how more accurately I can say the not yet come Sunday is in the process of arriving, then perhaps you can apply that to any unit of time.

[01:11]

If it's truthful or makes sense about Sunday, it makes sense about one hour or one minute. Because arriving takes no time. Arriving is arriving. Dogen goes so far as to say, arriving hinders arriving. Anyway, so that's all that. So perhaps it is Sunday, we can notice it's Sunday. And entering comparative, derivative time. And allowing associations to come in. Ah, we can say this is the last day. If we could only forget it and continue.

[02:18]

But as you will probably remember, then we can discuss the schedule. Do any of you have to leave early? Earlier than what? Earlier than five. You're driving to Berlin tonight? At dinner. And I hope you don't have to perform surgery tomorrow morning. Of course. Whoa. I'm calling up and cancelling appointments with my friends in Berlin for Monday. Deutsch, bitte. Er meint, er fährt heute Abend los und muss aber bis Berlin fahren.

[03:19]

Und nachdem er Chirurg ist, macht sich der Roshi ernsthafte Sorgen um seine Freunde, die morgen repariert werden. Okay, well anyway, please leave as early as possible. It's a long drive to Berlin, I've done it. Once I did it through Dresden before the walking down. And I had to enter Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie. And my translator had to enter through another gate. The logistics of that were complicated. Do you drive through Dresden, or how do you go?

[04:29]

No, I drive on the west. I see, the former west, the former west. Okay. And I ask because, you know, we could sort of move lunch around and have a longer morning and a shorter afternoon and end at four or three or... So dinner is not part of the seminar tonight, right? No. Okay, that's fine. So lunch is the last meal, right? No, I know. With you, everything is possible. So, but lunch we could have a little later if we wanted, right? Okay. Tell them, yeah. So we have to decide now. What would you like to do? That's good.

[05:38]

But Lent isn't so far. All right. So... Yes? 1.30? 1.30? It's not so bad. Then we'll end with lunch. Now I would like to hear something, as you might imagine. About your discussion yesterday. So I would especially like to hear from people who haven't said anything. I always feel a seminar is incomplete if there's been one silent voice. You all have enough silence when you're not talking.

[06:46]

Okay, but at least I'd like to hear from one person from each group. But Anastasia and I were a group of two, but we don't have a spokesperson. But you larger groups, please. I'm waiting. Yeah. Why not? Some of the issues that came up... It seems that Buddhist practice is dangerous. in that as we begin to apply these practices to our daily life, it seems to have an impact that sometimes appears to be disruptive to our circumstances or environment.

[08:07]

So the question arises how to proceed with practice when it seems to be the order. Okay. Someone else, yes? You looked like you were about to speak. Can you talk a little bit about scandals? I think a lot of things you get over it. Yeah, Deutsch, bitte.

[09:21]

Or you speak Deutsch, bitte. Because I'm always asking myself, why should I do this, to come over these scandals? to back to the light, as you say, because the scanners are here, and the television whatever is here. So it's also a moment to get over the scanners, to get to the scanners back. Like a subject. Okay. Why do I do it? That's good, that's true.

[10:35]

Okay, something else? Yes, we have talked about it a bit. How it is possible to combine your intergrant, We spoke about how you simultaneously can be in the big mind but also in the conceptual world at the same time. So we had this image that there could be a kind of net, and underneath the net would be a big water.

[11:59]

So we could kind of let the net sink into that water, so that the big mind kind of penetrates through this net. And at the same time the net does not dissolve. And the net stands for the five skandhas. Sounds good to me. It's hard to swim in a water full of net though. Yeah, okay. And in the same group we spoke about feeling yourself as the center or centering, how that differs from somebody who is neurotic, who also sees himself as the center, but who shuts the world out.

[13:13]

And if you feel yourself as the center or part of the whole thing, then you get much more open and tolerant to other people who also themselves are centers. Then we also talked about it. We wanted to know the difference between experiencing yourself as the center and someone who is a neurotic who also does it. Where is it now healthy and sick? I can't say it well, but somehow if you see yourself as the center, or as part of the whole, then you are open enough and tolerant enough to accept that he is also the center. And those who are neurotic, so the difference we defined is like the neurotic person kind of everything looks to him and the other person everything goes out from that person you know it's kind of

[14:16]

Yeah, sounds like a center of a whole of centers. Maybe like the knots in a net again. But not the center of a hierarchical system. Yeah, that's actually good. Yeah. What was the last thing you said? Um, just that direction that it, uh... And after that?

[15:32]

Nothing. Nothing, okay. I don't remember. Okay. Okay, something else? I don't see... I see everyone's sort of looking away from me. So I just want to give the essence of what we spoke in our group and we had this question, who is it who meditates? Yeah, good. You're not expecting me to answer that, are you? I don't know you that well.

[16:33]

Is that all you talked about in your group? No, no, no. So, yes? Nobody else? Don't be shy. Yeah, at the beginning there was a one of the group members said that you cannot get along with you kill the fly. This was the first point and then finally we came to the decision that she should have taken personally as the president, right? We did. Yeah, in the group discussion, one of our group members said that she came in with the idea of killing the president with the moshi.

[17:44]

And I gave the recommendation to Christiane that she should kill the president with the moshi. And then we had some discussion how to put your immediate mind, your concentrating on a certain person. Then we used the clove. Clover? Rust. So when does the association start after the perception? And this was the main subject the rest of the time, how we can get along, that you do not associate, for instance, when you look at the cloak, that horse is like a good cloak. Or I remember when I cut the grass at home and I had a clove on the head like this. And so we just tried to find out when it's the right time to cut the film and don't let it go by itself further on and further on and further on.

[18:52]

So the third scandal is the last point of view and do not go into the fourth one if you do not want to get into association. This was, I think, the main subject. Did I forget anything? In the end, we tried to find out from which moment the association begins and when the deception begins. In the second skandha, which is associated with pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feelings, it's the first contact to image. So if you look at this cloth, when this is grasped by the feeling, from the feeling neutral, good and bad.

[19:58]

And then the next is the perception. And how can I interrupt that, that I don't go, slip into association? And the typical association we have is horse eats clone. So what do you mean with the clone was out, clone was out getting into the horse? So they call it Skanda work. Oh, good. Thank you. We also talked about how some people in our group are able to experience, or were able to experience, not to center into self, center... Yeah, what it is to say. And what came up were childhood experiences where you just somehow really enter the moment and

[21:01]

and get lost in the moment, and the adults wake you up of this. And other examples was painting for Disneyland, and what I found very interesting, traveling for Christiane, that you allow, that when you're traveling, you allow yourself much more to be open, to be somehow, yeah, you allow your personality to be free somehow. and I realized that I was not so ready to center around your personality. What we talked about was, we talked about different people, how it is possible for them to not be so much about themselves, but to centralize their experiences, to be more open, to be transparent. What you get is a team experience, that you really go up in the moment and, for example, that you are torn out by an adult.

[22:07]

Then, for example, I talked to Gisela about her experience with painting, that it is also very important for her. And what I found very interesting, Christiane said that painting is a very strong experience for her, that she is simply more open and Thank you. Thank you. So we spoke about that the teaching is a very big treasure and that we're allowed to look into it. And then we had this feeling not even the slightest thing we can get hold of and it just swims away again.

[23:28]

So what we said, we may be able to kind of get hold of a practice instruction, and this we may be able to practice, and then perhaps one day the things come swimming back to us. Yeah, I hope that teachings are a little bit like fish maybe, that's good. And they die in consciousness. They die. They perish. They become blue, green, chartreuse. And for me it's like that the teachings are like a very good food or meal, you know, and you eat it and something will stay in your body. Yes, but, yeah, let me go back to saying, I think that maybe the teachings are like fish.

[25:15]

And they swim in the waters of mindfulness. But you bring them into consciousness and they sort of gasp on the beach. Or they go into winter schlaf or summer schlaf. And then when you're mindful enough, they swim back in. And some of them are golden like you. With your yellow sweater. There's a whole koan about the golden carp. Es gibt einen ganzen Korn über den goldenen Karpfen. Christian? Da war noch ein Punkt. So we too, as emergency doctors, we made this experience.

[26:16]

You and Peter? No, no. You too. That we are in this situation with the highest urge that you have to act now. urgency that you have to act. So then it can happen that we just perceived form and no feelings, no associations, just nothing.

[27:19]

We're just like stuck in form and we cannot act. And that's a kind of... So that's a kind of very awkward, almost torturing kind of feeling. And I kind of... Wait, you taught me the word when you breathe really fast, yes? Hyperventilate? No, wait, no. You kind of, you just struggle and you gasp and try to get on the beach somehow and you hope you get to the beach to... Then we had this question, how can you choose of these separations of the skandhas? Okay, I hope I get that.

[28:28]

So what we thought is when you're able to kind of separately perceive the skandhas, this makes you able to think in making new connections and to, out of that, be much more creative. Lateral thinking. Lateral, associated thinking. I mean, you see this, lateral thinking means it relates to something to the side. Not in the system, yeah. So specifically, when you feel frozen and unable to act, what frees you to act? But you do act because there's urgency. So at what point do you act? In spite of not being able to act, I act.

[30:03]

It only makes it strange to me. What would you say? For me it is so that I realized that if I do not act, that it is something like, I call it, the soul is not my body, and I realized that these people die and that there is a connection between my not being able to act and my under pressure. So for me it was an experience where I realized that these people have died too. Do you translate yourself? Terrible. I didn't quite understand it. Do you feel that they died and then you can act, or do you feel yourself out of your soul, outside of yours? In the moment, where is it? In the moment when I just perceived form, I made the experience that this shape, yes, this form, is kind of without soul, yes, and that this is not acting, because it's just only form which remains.

[31:19]

Ah, so this experience derives from the experience that this form, even after operation and reanimation, they died, you know, so this experience made them only to... And this experience has allowed them to become pure form, for you, a little bit. Yes, the fact that I am pure form is also an experience, you know, that I am not an angel, I am an angel. Okay, so it's my experience that this pure, just form or pure form Yeah, okay. So she noticed that this kind of form is the just form that so underneath this just form she knows that person is dying so she doesn't act, you know, something like that. You know they're going to die anyway.

[32:28]

No, they are kind of... It's her interpretation of why she freezes, that she thinks maybe because I've seen them dead so many times after all the effort, so I freeze because I see them already in form and... So there's an association that comes in with previous situations and now then it makes you freeze, yeah. I also think that the trigger to get into this form experience has something to do with... Irritation heißt auf Englisch wütend. Das mache ich immer falsch.

[33:29]

So that there's a kind of disturbing experience in the surrounding. And that makes you... Which you cannot kind of work through or work with and you cannot categorize it and then you freeze. That's a kind of a chicken-egg problem, you know. It's just this openness, the openness to preserve the life of so many living things. So maybe this openness to all these many disturbing situations you're in, or is it the other way around? This is interesting to me, because so far I've seen that athletes in sports and people like mountain climbers and sometimes business people involved in where they have to make a lot of highly consequential decisions.

[35:00]

And doctors too, but especially a number of times, emergency room doctors. In highly consequential and highly charged situations, often processes become visible, which we could call the skandhas. And my sense of it is, we usually make decisions through consciousness and associations. And in highly charged situations, you don't have time to do that or you don't have enough information.

[36:03]

My own feeling is you have to be totally present to the form then flood the situation with feeling and then let your body act. You have to trust. You might make a mistake, but you have to trust. Anyway, something like that is my experience. Not that I have such crucial things to do as you do. You can tell the story of this woman who got stuck on the stone or the man who climbed the mountain. John Muir was a California naturalist. John Muir was a Californian...

[37:26]

Can we say here ecologist or naturalist? Naturalist. He's responsible for the vast western United States park system. And he was climbing a mountain. And he got up on a cliff and he couldn't get off. He was stuck on this slope and there were no handholds. And he sat there for about, I don't know, half an hour or so. And then his eyesight changed. And he could see slight slopes of... and using these finger holes and feeling the shape of the surface he could shift his weight and get off he was also the kind of guy who somebody would say a storm is coming

[38:37]

He rushed out of his cabin up into the forest and climbed to the top of the highest pine tree he could find and ride out the storm. I have a friend who's a Buddhist and Taoist practitioner. And he created a little, I don't remember for how long, a year or two, a little retreat hut for himself at the bottom of a canyon. I think it was a very long time he stayed there. Yeah, a year or two. More even, maybe three or something. A long time. And it was so difficult to climb down there, he himself couldn't climb down there.

[39:59]

And a couple times or more, visitors who came to see him fell and they had to have helicopters take them out. And the only way he could get in there was he'd come from his ordinary thinking and mind of walking through the forest. And then he'd sit at the edge for he said usually half an hour. Until some kind of power took him over and then he would let that take him down the cliff. He wanted it that way. But it made going home or going shopping rather time consuming. Yeah. Something else, yes.

[41:24]

We talked about the observer, how he changes from what he observes to the next and with what mind he observes. with the sense that the observer itself is changing. Okay, good. Yeah, I agree. Okay, so you said if you kind of settle into a field, then there's also something which notices.

[42:44]

That's good. Now I know the experience very well. But since nobody's ever brought it up before, maybe I've never been in such an advanced group before. I've never spent any time thinking about how to talk about it. It's like maybe somewhat like the, what is the observer in a lucid dream? So maybe I'll come up with some way to talk about it. Yes, or you just... We also talked about that it's... very difficult, especially in daily life, to learn to see what's going on, like the five skandhas.

[44:06]

And also that... It's difficult in monastic life too. Yes. It's difficult anywhere. It also came up that it's important to get a taste of it. If you slightly know how it tastes, then you can... sort of detect the taste also in a more complex composition. Like if you know how a spice tastes, a certain spice, then you can tell it from a very complex dish. And to get feelings and taste for things, that's very important. Good, I agree. that one access is to get a feeling and a taste of it.

[45:31]

If you have the taste on your tongue, then you recognize it again in more complex combinations. So just as you know if a spice tastes certain, you can taste it in a drop or so, although many, many other tastes are also included. Okay. Yes? We had an example which I think is very telling or good. So if Peter paints something, paints nature, so he copies nature.

[46:31]

So he puts the colors just beside each other, just the way they appear in nature. And that he does that without concept. Without the concept of the form he's looking at or he's painting. Maybe he's not seeing a form. So would you... Was that a good description? Is this a good description? Yes. This is not alone how I can paint, it's an artistic approach. ...to make it alive in the brain and in the senses.

[47:56]

And if an artist can draw or draw... the importance of the concept was given to him, because all the concepts, all the associations, as well as a symbol of the lines that exist, already had a concept, form and form, a representation and a form. Um... So if you want to paint something, you kind of rest or pause in the form and you don't let associations and perceptions proceed.

[49:06]

it's like surfaces touch each other and that's more it than if you take somebody who paints with lines because if you need lines or lines are already a concept of something and in the nature there are no lines it's just that kind of surfaces which touch each other So I left out some things, but I got the idea. Okay. Peter, you weren't quite finished? Okay. Maybe you have an idea of what you need. I think I have three. I think I have three. So now I noticed when Christa describes her experience as an emergency doctor that she's also somehow only in form and feeling and she has to act upon this situation and for an artist it's similar.

[50:39]

You just try to remain in the form and feeling and then you paint. Yeah. In fact, I should have mentioned when I listed people who come to these practices through the exigencies of a situation... Exigencies? The necessities of a situation... Are also artists. Often is the case, yeah. Dan's an artist, you're an artist. Do you have something to add to this? I was listening very deeply to what you were saying, and I was trying to see, for me, lying is in itself something that is happening It becomes in some way form, obviously, because you're putting something on a blank surface.

[51:43]

But it is not necessarily either divided or... It comes fully out of the feeling, but from beyond. It's like you cannot consciously... The minute you do it consciously, it's no longer right. I don't know if you understand. It's more an experience than doubt. I looked out and saw that there was a tree and that there were two classes, so to speak. There are many classes. But that is not a delineation of something, but that becomes like a... A thing in itself, a line, and that when you actually put it in a clear word, that I put it this way and that way, then you are almost finished with the creative, so to speak.

[53:14]

The creative comes from somewhere completely different, and then you put it in a clear word, and then that is the fourth form. Yes, I think it is with the rhythm that you bring me here. And you don't even put the light out of you because it's all on rhythm. So that's something which is the rhythm in you. It's not something you put there, but it's something which arises out of your rhythm. That's how it comes out. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed, as I mentioned to you earlier, I've noticed that many of the, most virtually, of the contemporary painters and sculptors I know work with the radio on to kind of suspend consciousness in the air and then they can

[54:16]

And I would say myself, looking at painters like Picasso and Matisse and others, is that they're painting their enlightenment experiences. and I know my older daughter is a painter Sally I don't know what my younger daughter will be she just graduated from college but she loves to sing she's wondering if she should make that her life but she discovered when she was quite young I don't know how she hit upon it Elizabeth that if she went to a museum and saw paintings if there was one or two she particularly liked she'd go back to the museum and draw the paintings

[55:37]

And she said, it made me see it, to draw it. Like enacting the painting. So the little I know about art is that you explore your own consciousness when you draw or paint. Yes. and it was a really great city experience, that doesn't necessarily mean that many people live with it. And right and left are drawn in the same way as the lupus and the anus. And on the left, as a total proportionally straight line. And on the outside, there are two lines, that is, three block series.

[56:53]

Do you translate yourself? No. Okay. The first week we formed a figure with two lines and then the last week again. Damn, he hates to miss out on anything. Autonomy? Oh, like Alexander Technique or something? Yeah, okay. Okay. I think, say, the last weekend, and this was very strong experience, and these figures were very realistic.

[58:07]

And the other, the Ostrich with the right hand, our own body, and the left hand. And the experience doing it with the left hand was really great. So proportions got much more, much better with the right hand. There was less consciousness in the left hand. Oh, it sounds great. A friend of ours wrote a book called The Left Hand is the Dreamer. Is that right? So I found a Buddha for the cover of her book, looking to the left. It's the only Buddha I know. Yeah, looking to the left. And then I found a Buddha who looks over his left shoulder, and that's for the book cover, and that's the only Buddha I know who looks at the side like that.

[59:12]

So, someone else? Yes. I should say I'm negative side-facing. The question is whether I should not be spending much time in my work on my community and my compassion, or something which I've made almost illicit over the course of this last lesson, which is grievance. And it's a slight thing that I'm sorry to ask you. Also, do you speak German? Yes. Okay. I have a slight negative language, because I'm a We are very passionate about ourselves, about what we are doing. That is quite egoistic nowadays. And for me personally, I think, I have to take a lot more responsibility and work harder, because it's all about me here.

[60:14]

And that leaves me an emotional, slightly negative step. Well, I should do the next seminar on equanimity then. But I think a certain pride in oneself is actually healthy. In Buddhism that is also considered important. By the way, about the fly I wanted to say something Although I took full responsibility to the extent that I can for killing the poor creature. I actually killed it by accident. I thought when I brushed toward it, I thought it would fly away. And I hit it because it was biting me so it didn't want to fly away.

[61:26]

And so then I saw I damaged it so I thought I better finish it off. But still I'm quite capable of killing a fly. Even though I try to be most of the time a vegetarian, still I don't eat flies. But too many of them buzzing around while you're trying to sleep. Sometimes I warn them a few times and I say, yeah, that's enough. At Tassajara, the Zen monastery which Dan and I were at for some years, as it gets close to winter, the summer flies like to come indoors. And you get your little cabin full of flies.

[62:48]

And then we had debates about whether we should kill them or let the winter kill them, because in the next day or two, the cold would kill them. Because we didn't heat the cabin, so... But there was no really warm place for them to hide. And we decided if we killed them in the cabin, we'd be selecting genetically for quick flies. Then we'd be genetically... If we let the cold kill them, we were selecting for cold-resistant flies. We decided on the whole it was far more pleasant to select for cold-resistant flies.

[63:52]

Well, you didn't have to kill them then. Yeah. And what Michael said is interesting. Because I've noticed that people who read cookbooks... Let's say for Japanese food or some other kind of food. And they don't know what Japanese food is supposed to taste like. They follow the recipes exactly, but it tastes pretty funny. The recipe isn't enough. You have to know what it's aiming toward. I remember we were in Boulder, Colorado recently. With Dan. We had some of that red cabbage stuff.

[65:03]

when we had the red cabbage, Dan wasn't there. And I tasted it and I said, it makes me think I'm in Germany, not Boulder, Colorado. You'd think a little red cabbage cut up with some vinegar could be made anywhere on the planet. But no... This really tasted like Germany. Maybe Austria. So we asked the waitress, waiter, waitress, is the cook German? And she said, no, no, it looks like an ordinary American to me. So she came back a few minutes later, and what did she say? And she said that he'd been training in Germany.

[66:25]

Yeah, he'd been living in Germany for some years. And he got the Blaukraut right. So we can give you these various teachings. But a good teacher gives you the taste of the teaching while he or she is teaching. So when you follow the teaching recipe sometimes you cook the karma correctly. But at some point you have to be able to make up recipes on your own. Okay.

[67:36]

Also you have to get the teaching and practice together at the same time, so it's fruitful. That's right. Okay, that was this discussion. Yes, please. This also reminds me of what Roshi said about reparenting. So we have to learn to parent ourselves, or re-parent ourselves, and that might be a different parenting than we've been parented by our parents. That's a parent. That's a parent. No, that's true.

[68:45]

A parent means it's true. Yeah. No, and we could talk about recapitulation. How early practice is a recapitulation of your life story. So, in effect, you reparent yourself. Okay. It's a kind of psychoanalytical process. And that's why I think in the practice of trying to free yourself from thoughts should not be emphasized for the first couple of years in the West. Because we need to mature our story, because we're Westerners. And I've seen too many people cut off their experience using Zen practice. But that's another discussion.

[70:00]

Okay, I think we need a break soon. Yeah. This was a great discussion though for me at least. I hate to do all the talking. Yeah. All right, so let's come back at 20, let's say quarter to 12. Okay. Thank you for translating. What does it say? Minnie Mouse. It's a big cup, but it says Minnie Mouse, yeah. There's a poem I like.

[71:21]

See if I can remember it. It's actually an Indian teaching story. American Indian. Put sort of in the form of a poem by an American poet named David Wagoner. Wagner, yes. How does it go? Something like stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called here. Treat it as a powerful stranger.

[72:26]

Wherever you are is called here. Treat it as a powerful stranger. You must ask permission to know it and be known. Listen. The forest whispers. It breathes. It whispers, I have made this place. No two branches are the same to raven. No two branches are the same to wind. If you do not know what trees and branches do, you are surely lost.

[73:44]

You may return to this place, but you may return to this place saying here, There's a couple more lines I forgot. But anyway, that's the gist of it. When is the when of time? The when of time. Okay. Now, during the break, also more questions came up about the skandhas.

[74:49]

Now the skandhas again are a way of letting mindfulness speak to you. And through mindfulness, letting the world speak to you. It's the same color luckily. So if we have, let us say, Self, let's start with self.

[75:54]

Okay. Or as permanence. That self as an entity. Now what I suggest as a practice is to next see yourself as function. Okay. Then see self as the skandhas. So then you see self as the five skandhas. Then you can see self, or you can see emptiness.

[77:06]

Then you can see yourself or emptiness. If you try to go from self as an entity to emptiness, it's not easy to do. You can also add continuity to it. But if you can shift to, remember I said, the three functions of self, these can't just be ideas. This is not philosophy. And so it's even best not to try to map these various teachings on top of each other. treat each as something separate. No two branches are alike.

[78:15]

So you really have to, I think all practices are good if you just start with a sense of taking an inventory. So you take an inventory of how you establish separateness. And connectedness and continuity. And don't think it happens in conscious time. It requires patience and repetition. Now, if you're serious about it, you take, say, separation. Let's say for three or four days. Maybe make it specific. Three days. Okay, so for three days, you... decide to notice in mindfulness every time you feel separate.

[79:31]

separate from your feet down there. If you think your feet are down there, you're feeling separateness. You're identifying with your head as your location. See if you feel separate from the buildings beside you. Or whatever. Maybe again this poem. You must ask permission. Treat here as a powerful stranger. You must ask permission to know it and be known. So you ask a kind of permission by repeating separateness.

[80:43]

Yeah. And then try connectedness for say three days. Notice when you feel connected. Which in my experience when I was young wasn't very often. I had a particular forest to glade I like to go to. And I'd go there and I'd be there for a while and I'd feel connected for a moment. A glade is like an opening in the forest. Yeah, and I'd feel glad to be in the glade for a moment. And very soon thoughts would come in. Am I a good person, a bad person, or what's wrong?

[81:58]

But I then wonder, why can't I just let this blade speak to me? But I didn't have the ability. But I'd have a taste for a while of some connectedness that wasn't established by some effort. So I would practice, as I said, just notice connectedness. And then notice for three days continuity. Your need for continuity, etc. Such practice begins to differentiate mindfulness.

[82:58]

One of the qualities of mind is it has the capacity of structure. For some reason, it's almost like mindfulness was a field. If you keep plowing it or cultivating it or watering it, it's invisible but it's cultivatable. So if you keep bringing in, say, self as function, I think then you open yourself up to self as the five skandhas.

[83:59]

And some Buddhist teachings present self as a form of the skandhas to be gotten free from. I actually think that's a mistake. Skandhas is a kind of lifeboat. Yeah, and it even can be a lifeboat to repair self. So what do you say about the lifeboat? Sound is a kind of lifeboat. For us, the lifeboat is just a security boat. We have to see it as a lifeboat. An inner tube. An inner tube in the ocean of emptiness. Our life is much bigger than ego and self. You try to pour your life into the boat of the ship of self and soon it starts falling overboard and gets muddy down there and your boat gets stuck in the mud.

[85:15]

So if you get in the inner tube of the five skandhas If you want to repair yourself and get it free of the mud, you can sort of do it from the inner tube. But your image was quite good, because once you're in the inner tube of the five skandhas, you're partly in the water of emptiness. then it's much easier to free yourself from the five skandhas than from self as an entity. So prior to the Heart Sutra, he says no eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, etc., That's the vijnanas.

[86:30]

And says no form, feelings, impulses, consciousness. That's the skandhas. That know is possible because you've practiced the skandhas and the vijnanas. So knowing, beginning to divide up the unity of perception into the vijnanas allows you to see emptiness or be allows you to see consciousness as a construction, as a formative process.

[87:19]

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