It's wonderful to be able to go into these things with you. But I always feel we should go over and over them until there's real depth and embodiment. And understanding has flown away. Yeah. Not too quickly with understanding. Hang on to it for a little while. Okay. You know, I do this because I need to. At one time I needed to because it was my psychological and mental survival.

[01:09]

And it changed my life and opened up my life. But it also continues to change and open up my life. And I've gotten used to and enjoy the constant state of becomingness. Being becoming. No, no, that's an English joke. A somewhat dangerous becomingness. And every time you have an insight which can change you or change your life, it almost knocks you down or at least makes you faint.

[02:15]

And I also do this because I love you. I love practicing with you. And I also do it because it's, you know, we're in a dialogue. I'm in a dialogue. We are in a dialogue. with our culture and with our society. And of course it's not as explicit as our dialogue with each other. But Sanghas within a society and practice centers within a society are a dialogue with society.

[03:17]

You know, there's two versions of the blind or one-eyed turtle story. Suzuki Roshi usually told the one-eyed version. Some turtle lives deep in the ocean. I don't know how it breathes, but anyway, it lives deep in the ocean. That's not part of the story, how it breathes. And every hundred years, or some versions, every thousand years, it swims to the surface on a search for self, or I mean a search for enlightenment or something.

[04:19]

And And floating on the ocean is a piece of driftwood. And it has a hole in it big enough for the head of this one-eyed turtle. And most of the time the turtle never finds this piece of wood when it swims back down. And it only tries this every hundred years or a thousand years. But once every huge once every huge millennium huge era concept of time It happens to come up and go right through the hole and to one eye it says, another world.

[05:34]

That's on one hand an image of how difficult it is in populations of millions as we have on this. There's more people alive on the planet today than have ever been alive. All the dead people aren't as many people as are now presently alive. And from the few who swim to the surface and see this world of Dharma are not many. So that's one way to put into perspective what we're doing.

[06:44]

Another is that because of this story, the Dharma is some kind called driftwood. And from that point of view, each of our bodhisattvic responsibility is to scatter driftwood upon the sea of beingness. You can't grab the turtle and stick his head through the hole. But... The turtle would bite you right away. I've been bit by turtles. It hurts. Yeah. Yeah. But at least we can scatter driftwood upon the sea of beingness.

[08:01]

And one of the great things about the Dharma in the West, the Sangha in the West, is that there's so many women are scattering driftwood on the sea of beingness. This is really new. Because in the past, of course, there were convents, but the convents didn't really contribute much to the development of Buddhism. We've inherited a primarily male-generated practice. And that for the first time is actually really changing. Yeah, you could see it at this meeting I was at with the so-called pioneer teachers.

[09:21]

Anyway, you will be the next generation of teachers, male and female. But right now already we're contributing to the Dharma driftwood together, male and female. And I hope we don't go back into convents and male monasteries because we won't develop it together. So this constant state we're in of becomingness is becomingness of women and becomingness of men for both men and women.

[10:38]

Now, if we go over this little... talk I gave you of Suzuki Roshi yesterday? Suzuki Roshi said, of course, he never wrote anything really, little notes and things, but he always spoke, and his spoken words have been remembered or transcribed or something. So this is something he spoke. Reading from his own body. That makes sense. He said again, to stop the activities, to stop the mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind.

[11:55]

It means the mind pervades the body. The mind becomes inseparable from the breath. The mind fulfills the mudra. The mind is not disturbed by painful legs. This is to practice with no gaining idea. Now, he's describing samadhi, the generation of a samadhi. And when I said he's reading his body, he's saying the mind, Then he's speaking about the breath, and then the hands, and then the legs.

[13:12]

And it's the painful legs which turn it into a samadhi. Okay, and our sitting like this is a statement that we are trying to understand through samadhi and not by intelligence. So now I'm emphasizing, I usually emphasize the practice of awareness, the experience of awareness in contrast to consciousness. And in this session I'm trying to make clear what is meant by samadhi.

[14:22]

And what is meant by mind and the space of mind and the samadhi of mind. So in various ways I've been trying to introduce this into our experience. And make it clear enough that maybe it sticks. Okay, so as I've done a number of times, I happen to have here a bell-less bell striker.

[15:24]

It's a bell striker without a bell. I don't know if it's looking for a bell or not. So anyway, so if I ask you to concentrate on this, you can become concentrated on it. Mm-hmm. And if I take it away then you can stay concentrated. And now what is the object of your concentration now? Mind itself. And that's a samadhi. Okay. Okay. Now, I often say you can bring this back into that field now and examine this from the field of samadhi instead of creating the field of samadhi.

[16:30]

And that's a way of generating a mind which is a flow of intuitive insights. But say I don't bring it back into the field. You've got this transparent balloon of the mind which is soon deflated. Okay. I can give this, I've been doing this kind of demonstration for close to 50 years. And I don't think many people who I've done it to, it must be a few thousand, they're walking around in Samadhi right now.

[18:01]

They don't even remember the bellless bell striker. Glockenlosen Glockenschläge. This is fun. But if we can make this your painful legs... You discovered that this field of mind, if you could sustain your concentration on it, it melted the pain in your legs. Dann könntet ihr herausfinden, wenn ihr es schafft, dieses Feld zu halten, dass das eure schmerzenden Beine schmelzen könnte.

[19:06]

Then you might remember it as a samadhi. Dann könntet ihr es vielleicht als samadhi erinnern. Be able to remind it as a samadhi. That I cannot do in German. Okay. Now, I've talked, I've often said to, you know, because we get busy. And we're in a kind of world of where everything is manifold, multifold, multiplying, and it just divides us. Yeah. And it's something both Kant and Nagarjuna speak about. An experience we can't synthesize. And we often feel invaded by other people.

[20:17]

Our boundaries are, you know, we feel people can invade our psychic safety zone. And it feels like other people are invading our psychic safety zone. So I've often said you've got to find the difference between armoring yourself and sealing yourself. And armoring yourself, you know, it sort of works, but it usually doesn't work. People find a way in. Okay. But sealing yourself, now what do I mean by sealing yourself?

[21:25]

Okay. Now we have Suzuki Roshi saying, to stop the mind is not to stop the activities of the mind. And he says the mind can pervade the body. Okay, now I think I should say something before I go on about mind. What do we mean by mind here? How do you do something with mind? Okay, now I spoke about the experiencing interiority. Now, in just seven days, I can't do much about the agency of self, self as location and body and so forth.

[22:28]

Or self as circumstances. Or self as the skill to shape circumstances so circumstances make decisions for you. Yeah, and so forth. Okay. Anyone interested? Someday we'll talk about it. Okay. So, I spoke about the interiority. And we feel that interiority as a space, often a visual space. And some people have said to me, doesn't for them have walls. I understand that. But if you get used to being in that space, it does have near and far.

[23:50]

Some things can appear in this space which are very far away. And you can go to them in this interior space, the things that are far away, or you can bring them to you, bring them into your, what is experienced as closer. And the more this has a kind of near and far and an interiority like a room, and it's interesting that in Deutsch, room and space are the same word, Okay, so I can think of this interior mind as a space.

[24:53]

So it's very common in Buddhism for sometimes the word mind is used, sometimes the word space is used. And it allows us, when we call mind space, it allows us to relate to the space in the way we usually function, think and so forth. It allows us to relate to mind as space. And we can't think mind, but we can think space. Are you still with me, more or less? Oh, okay. I don't know if I'm with me. Yes, I'm with me. Bell-less striker disappears.

[26:22]

Okay. If I have this space I... Now I need it again. Now if I have this space I've created, mind that... that concentration is mind, right? You're concentrated on this, now you're concentrated on mind. If I say now take that mind and breathe into it, that's harder to figure out how to do. But if I say, take that space and breathe into it, breathe into it until you really feel concentrated within that space.

[27:25]

and then take that space and put it in your gut and then move it up into your shoulders and the top of your head and then circle it in the chakra circle Now what you've done is you've taken the concentration of mind, turned it into the concept of a space, moved it into the body and turned it into a samadhi. It's a typical yogic skill. which because we've been practicing together 20 or 30 20 years most of us here 15 or 20 and we see each other a few times a year we can talk about these things eventually

[28:47]

But if I moved into Mahakavi's beautiful kitchen, he wouldn't want me there too long. He has a nice kitchen in his house. Okay. So do you see the usefulness of calling mind sometimes space? Okay, so that's also what Sukhiroshi is doing. He's talking about the mind that we can call space pervades the body as space. You can identify with the space of the body and then turn that space into mine. And feel it on the breath and feel it in the mudra.

[29:59]

And it's the painful legs which actually usually for most of us as beginners turn it into a Samadhi. Because the painful legs allow you to discover how it becomes an immovable mind. It's like when you're sitting zazen in a sasin. And the period... you've discovered is never going to end.

[31:21]

And your body self in the form of legs is saying it ought to end soon. But your imagined self, which cares about what the guy next to you thinks, won't let you move. But the person beside you is thinking, I wish she would move because then I could move. But the two of you are in this conspiracy. Conspiracy literally means to breathe together, conspire.

[32:23]

You're in a dharmic conspiracy not to move. And suddenly a wonderful space settles on you. Which pervades the body and is not disturbed by the painful legs. One minute they're killing you, the next minute they're far off in the distance somewhere. Now we all know that happens sometimes, but often not often enough. But it happens sometimes. And if you get a bodily feel for that, That's the samadhi which can seal you in the manifold activity of the world.

[33:43]

Yeah. I usually like to stop after 40 minutes, but somehow you guys are so exciting that I keep talking. So I've only got, even if I stop now, I've gone too long, but if I go another five minutes, I'm... Anyway... I'm not very good at math. I leave the math up to the Ina. Okay. Anyway, let me say a couple of things about the Dharma details. The Dharma details fall into various categories. Some Dharma details are meant to get you used to seeing the world as appearance.

[35:06]

Like bowing to your cushion and so forth. And some dharma details are meant to emphasize your experience of interconnectedness. For instance, in addition to the oriyoki, how the oriyoki is designed, etc., There's six kinds of water in the Oryoki service. There's the water that's given. There's the water that's received.

[36:11]

And if everything's an activity and there's no entities, those are two different waters. So there's the water that's given, the water that's received. And then there's the water that's used for cleaning. And then there's the water you drink. And then there's the water you return. And then there's the water that's finally offered to the mystery of earth, plants and subtle beings. If you think of it as the same water, you're thinking in entities. To think in entities is a delusion. From a Buddhist point of view, and my point of view, too.

[37:27]

I happen to coincide fairly carefully with Buddhist points of view. So the Oryoki is designed for many things, and one of them is to show you six kinds of water, which look like the same water. The hot water we finally somewhat ceremoniously pour onto the earth and plants and make available to subtle beings. And then there's dharma details which were meant to establish your location, physical location of your body within immediacy and in awareness. Awareness.

[38:32]

And... And then there's dharma details which are meant to engage you in phenomena as text. Always entering in the middle. And there's dharma which is meant to establish a mutual samadhi of beingness.

[39:40]

That's the bow or meeting or the secret bow. And that relates to actually also establishing phenomena as text. So you feel how phenomena fits together and then can be read as text. So, I mean, this latter one I threw in there just because I knew it would be confusing. I think it's confusing. Because we don't have time to go into it more.

[40:45]

But I wanted you to get a feel for how this Buddhist monastic life is articulated through these Dharma details. The subtlest teachings are articulated through the Dharma details. But I wanted to give you a feeling of how in this monastic practice the Dharma details can explicate or can actuate the subtlest of Buddhist teachings. And as we spoke recently about Nanchuan and the cat, it's really about how to read phenomena. So how to coordinate your activity with other activities?

[41:52]

So I think that if we really develop, want to bring lay, bring dharma practice into our lay life. We have to understand how really the dharma details function in monastic life and what the main categories are interdependence, appearance and so forth. and I've tried to mention a few of them and what I would suggest the lay adept practitioner which is each of you and I would suggest you do is find one or two of these dharma details

[43:04]

that you can weave so into your daily life and begin to practice it inconspicuously in your daily life. Invisibly. With two hands or one breath. And you'll not only begin to articulate the, actuate the imagined bodhisattva. You'll also be secretly floating Dharma driftwood in your office and home. Yeah, just in case there's a one-eyed turtle under the desk somewhere.

[44:25]

That's all, folks. May God bless you.

[44:50]

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