Zen as a philosophy or as a way of observing the world thinking about the world actualizing the world the effort of Zen as a philosophy is to examine all unexamined presuppositions. And all the suppositions about the world are examined primarily in the light of everything changing. That's partly because we function practically in a world that's implicitly permanent.

[01:02]

And the job of consciousness is to fool us and make us think the world is permanent. Fool-less is too strong a word, but from the point of view of wisdom, fool-less. But practically speaking, we function in the world, as Tara said, as predictable. These are the so-called two truths. Now, in addition to examining the unexamined, which if we don't, we just live in the world that we take for granted.

[02:07]

The world of cultural relativity, public sentiment, and so forth. So, you know, we have to function in this world with others. But it's only practically how the world exists. And if we're going to actually experience the world, we have to know the world as close as possible to how it actually exists. So one of the efforts is to, as I said, examine the unexamined presuppositions.

[03:36]

And since I'm I've never spoken... I'm speaking about the present as an intentional, attentional object. And I've never spoken about it just this way, so I'm experimenting with you on how to speak about it. Okay, so... The main technique of examining our presuppositions, our worldviews, is partly the philosophy of Buddhism, but primarily it's the use of turning phrases. And I call them wisdom phrases, turning phrases, etc.

[04:52]

And they're also called Wado in Japanese and Chinese. And that Wado, it means getting to the root of worries as mind. But turning words, by repeating them, we're turning them in ourselves. And they really do turn us too. And turn the world, in fact, surprisingly how effectively. And turn us around in the world. Interesting, if anybody wants to do a study sometime, which has been done partly in Silicon Valley.

[06:01]

which has been one of the most concentrated places of cultural transformation and intelligence in every small location. And behind it is... almost publicly known, is considerable for my Buddhism and LSD. Steven Jobs says it's right out. It's Buddhism and LSD which turned me around and made me look at everything differently. So if you can turn around a few people, the world turns around too, listens to music differently, etc.

[07:12]

So Buddhism takes very seriously this process of practice as a world-changing event and not just a personal event. Okay, so let me just give you an example of such a phrase. Now, I'm jumping around a little bit, but it's okay. So in Buddhism, let's say in Zen practice, philosophy whispers in your ear what you practice with turning words. philosophy whispers in your ears so philosophy whispering in your ear says you know everything is changing even if it doesn't look like it even if it doesn't look like it and as Tara said even if you don't experience it

[08:42]

You listen to this whisper. And you try to find ways to actualize the whisper. Okay. Okay, so everything's changing. Everything's interdependent. And interdependent is also interpenetration. And we can use a contemporary word, interemergence. Okay, so how can you experience inter-emergence? So let's create a phrase. Okay, now I can only create one in English. So I use, for example, to work with inter-emergence. I work with just now originating.

[10:03]

So I look at this floor and I say to myself, just now originating. And I know, of course, it did originate through And I saw it originating. And we bought this inexpensive wood, which is so beautiful with all its knots. So we can see where the branches originated. But that's just intellectual knowledge.

[11:05]

But if I say just now originating, the fact that I know something about it having actually been built is in the margins of my mind. But when I say to myself just now, originating, do I really have a feeling of noticing it in a way I wouldn't if I didn't say that? And I'm bringing attention into the present as an event. And I'm bringing attention into the present as duration. Yeah, and I can feel it. originating in my perceptual, sensorial, mental field.

[12:19]

And I can feel my... I can feel the present again as an attentional present. So I'm defining in this process of whatever I happen to say now, I'm trying to give different definitions of the present. or perhaps different locations of the present. And I think you'll see what I mean if I can say what I'd like to say. If I can say what I'd like to say, you'll understand what I mean by locations. Because the present doesn't exist. Only your experience of the present exists.

[13:41]

So you have a durative experience of a non-existent present. It's magical. Magical. Magi. In America, that's a form of powder you put in soups. Magi. Magi is magic. Okay. Magi. So, if the present is non-existent, and it's only a duration, duration established by our senses, and as a duration established by our senses, it's a kind of location. But I think you'll see it's actually several locations that actually don't mesh.

[14:44]

Or only partly. And we could say subtle practice is to actualize these locations. Notice them first, then actualize them. We could describe the present experience of duration as a platform. Or we could, a launching pad of the future. Yeah. Okay. Now, if it's only duration, Does this duration have any function?

[16:06]

Hat diese Dauer eine Funktion? Or does this duration have any structure? Oder hat diese Dauer eine Struktur? Okay, now let's look at the structure, look at otherness as a structure. Lass uns mal das Anderssein als Struktur sehen. Alterity sometimes you can say. That's right, alterity is probably the same word in German. Otherness. Okay. Now, the world as object is the past. And also, as I said, the past inhabits the present. Die Vergangenheit bewohnt die Gegenwart. What is the address of the present?

[17:08]

What is the address of the past? Was ist die Adresse der Vergangenheit? The present. Die Gegenwart. What is practice? Was ist die Praxis? To release the past from the present. Die Vergangenheit aus der Gegenwart zu entlassen. Because the subject is always I was. I was such and such a person. But the more the present is an encounter, this I was may not be who you are. You might be someone who spontaneously burns up. That happens. Who was that person? Who was that person that spontaneously burned up? This is not an I was. So you don't know fully what's going to happen in the present.

[18:22]

And the uniqueness of the present does not have to be dramatic, things like that. So we're never an I will be, but we're also I could be. We are never? We're not an I will be, but we are an I could be. I'm just playing here with our 40 or 50 or 60 minutes. There's various ways to look at things. And you can like ponder the relationship between self and identity and the simple pronouns, I, I was, I am. And see what the pronouns call forth, which is perhaps different than self-referential thinking.

[19:26]

Okay, so I may use a phrase like, just now originating. And often I've used the phrase, I've suggested it to you often, already connected. Because as some of you commented, there's a sense of a mutual mind as well as an individual mind. And the more your initial accepting modality of mind Yeah, is already connected. You're going to perceive connection much more than you will if your initial state of mind is already separated.

[20:27]

And there is spatial separation. But that turns into a cultural formulation, a cultural construction of already separated. And our manners, our behavior, and all things are all based on the concept already separate. And that's not a fact. It's a cultural construct. We're joined by all kinds of things, the mutual mind, the moon.

[21:47]

From consciousness we experience separation, from awareness we experience connectedness. So on every encounter of a person or anything else, you can feel, initiate that encounter with already connectedness. It makes you feel intimate with people and situations. Because you start noticing, as I've often said, your perception comes after your views. In other words, if you have a view of already separated, that's what your senses will confirm.

[22:52]

If you change your view to already connected, your senses start noticing connection. So right now I'm playing with, working with already originated Just now originating. And sometimes I say originated, originating. Because it's already there. And yet my encountering it is a process of originating. Just now originally. Okay. Now. The... Let's again look at the structure, as I said, the of the new mind.

[24:18]

The word the establishes otherness. It turns the bell into an object, the bell. And then it turns me into a subject who sees the bell. Okay, now the world as object is always the past, disappearing into the past. The world as subject is beingness and going the other direction. It's like being in a train station. The train is leaving.

[25:20]

And then the platform is leaving because you're going somewhere. and then the station is leaving and then the road is leaving under your car and then the gasoline is leaving into the atmosphere and you are in a sense going into the future So subject and object are passing each other in the present. And that creates a context for continuity and beingness. Continuity. In other words, I know this is all slippery.

[26:36]

And it's using familiar words in an unfamiliar way. And the words keep slipping into their familiarity like I was. And I'm trying to hold them in a context briefly where they have an unfamiliar use. And the more you can bring attention into the And the more you can create an attentional present, the more you can stay with this bubble in the air I'm making here.

[27:44]

Okay. But what I'm trying to do is say that if we bring attention into this durative present which doesn't exist, And we bring it into this otherness of subject and object. It also gives us the... We're in the territory of the present where we can release the past. And if we can release the past, the present becomes commencement, it becomes commencing, it becomes uniqueness. And the truths which are unique can appear. like being able to look into a scene, feel into a scene, and see what's old disappearing and what's new appearing.

[29:01]

Now, I can say all these words. I seem to be doing it in fact. But for you, if you start bringing attention into the present as an object, Okay, now one of the phrases I've given you very often is to pause for the particular. Okay, now if you pause for the particular... Sensorial particularity. Again, when I say to you, use the word treeing instead of tree, as much as you can in any, in, in Deutsch, add ing to, to, to nouns,

[30:13]

so you begin to see all nouns as activities, as verbs because the tree of course is not a generalization of tree, it's a particular tree which is a particular activity and the bird pecking away at the tree Und der Vogel, der da oben auf dem Baum umpickt, is picking away at insects, which are somewhere in the bark. Und der pickt nach Insekten, die da irgendwo in der Runde sitzen. And now, is this originating in some way? Well, it's certainly happening. But if you took it away, you took enough of that away, there's the Humpty Dumpty effect and everything starts falling apart. Do you have Humpty Dumpty in German, too? I don't think so. I don't know him in England. Or Hair Dumpty.

[31:28]

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's men could put Humpty Dumpty together. See, we actually have a common culture. Should I try to translate it? No, no. You could sing it, hum with us. I'll try. Okay. So, when you start to bring attention into the present the present as an activity the present as presence so that you get in the habit of feeling the presence feeling the present feeling the presence of the present. All these words I'm saying will start to, I think, make some sense. Okay. So I, again, often said, use the phrase to pause for the particular.

[33:08]

Now, if you establish a habit of pausing for the particular, you're actually doing quite a lot all at once. You're taking the mind out of generalizations because the particular doesn't fit the generalizations. And it's a process of bringing attention to the present as something you're constructing. And when you bring attention to a particular... Because the whole background in particular is waiting to be noticed.

[34:22]

So if I bring attention to the bell, and then I shift it, oh, the glass appears. Or Tom appears. So there's a context of particulars waiting to make this foreground-background shift. So that also is a support for the experience of continuity that's not the same as establishing continuity in thinking. So that's a support for finding the continuity This context of particulars with one particular replacing another particular foreground-background shift is actually an experience of continuity of beingness with the past as objective slipping away.

[35:41]

Which brings you very subtly into the present. in a continuity which supports the continuity of breath, body and phenomena and begins to deepen the experience of continuity which is not continuity in thinking. No, I think I said probably about 40% more than enough. But let me add a couple of things. The practice of shifting from the particular to the field Okay, so I can go from the particular of Tom, Elizabeth, or the bell.

[37:02]

Because when you're noticing particulars, they're all equal. Tom and the bell are equal. They're both equally full. Well, not quite as full. Sensorial experiences. I can certainly spend quite a lot more time gazing at Tom than the bell. That's because he's a lot more particular all at once in the business. But still, the experience of particular, particular, particular is one of a kind of a field of equality. And it's one of the shifts to the non-conceptual field of mind.

[38:18]

where you're feeling the world, and it's a bodily feeling, feeling the world, and not thinking the world. So you're going from the particular to the field as a particular. and you become one of the particulars of the field it's almost like being behind yourself now even if we're not all ready for this Isn't it fun that this is possible with all these simple ingredients? So, In the present we're establishing continuity by the very way we structure the duration present as duration.

[40:05]

But as I said earlier, there's a tension between continuity and encounter. Because encounter is always opening into the new and continuity is always trying to reestablish the past. We could understand this as a subtle dynamic of the two truths. But continuity and encounter are always kind of in a fruitful tension. So the present, the actualizing present, is... The present is actualized through the tension between continuity and encounter.

[41:19]

Okay, so now I'm just going to tell two anecdotes. Well, one I'm just going to quote Gertrude Stein. I'm going to quote Gertrude Stein. I almost quoted her a few minutes ago. She said, a rose is a rose is a rose. Let's leave her quote out for a minute, and I'll tell the other anecdote. Marie-Louise recently saw her old crazy piano teacher on the street in Freiburg. And he didn't recognize her at all, because at 40 she's quite a bit different than she was at 8. But he's quite... She recognized him.

[42:21]

And he's a pretty wild guy. Very intelligent, interesting, studied piano with Michelangeli, the famous Italian pianist. I have some incredible stories I can tell you about him, but not now. But in any case, he gave several piano lessons to Sophia. He lives in near Frankfurt. He told a story about his brother being on an airplane that looked like it was going to crash. And it was in a big storm and they didn't know if they could land. And the man beside him was terrified. Completely lost it, completely scared.

[44:01]

So this man, the brother, said, if you really would like me to, if you write a note, I'll deliver it. So this guy wrote a note and asked the brother to deliver it to his family. This is the tension between encounter and continuity. I mean, we are like that. So, Gertrude Stein's quote is that She said, human nature can't know what the mind knows.

[45:17]

Or doesn't know. For example, human nature, how'd she put it? The mind can understand that if we don't die, there won't be room for new people. But she says, human nature can't understand that. But the mind can understand we have to die. But human nature doesn't understand. And I think that's the problem with the current environmental crisis. Human nature can't quite accept that the world is crashing. Even though the mind can understand that.

[46:23]

And our human nature doesn't quite believe it. Because we believe really in continuity. So that's at the big scale and the small scale we have at each moment continuity and encounter with the unique and the new. And as you release the past, the new mind is always appearing. Since I put it that way, we have to stop. And I'm early. This is embarrassing. So let's at least sit for a moment.

[47:25]

So now maybe you can understand the phrase from the koan. borrowing temporarily acknowledging entering the gateway giving birth on the spot comprehending the gateway so this is a description of the experience of the present as presence or the attentional present You borrow temporarily the ingredients.

[49:37]

You comprehend them as a gateway. And you give birth to the new on the spot. This is a phrase from Koan 20. In the book of equanimity. And Zen's particular way of presenting something that becomes the teaching. Borrowing temporarily. comprehending the gateway, giving birth on the spot. This assumes the world is simultaneously converging and diverging.

[50:47]

There's no guarantor, there's no background at unifying things. There's no unifying background. It's taking care of things. There's only divergence and convergence. Convergence is we water the flowers Sweep the floor What?

[51:31]

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