No, it's a special privilege and pleasure for me to have joining us for today, anyway, my two daughters, Sally and Elizabeth. And my old friends, Mike and Delcy and Tom and Kamala. And my special friend, Mac, if he's here. Where are you? Oh, way back there. Okay. Mike and Delcy's big son. Yeah, and then there's also, of course, new people joining us this week.

[01:01]

And most of you know, of course, this practice... we're calling it a practice month, is an experiment. And very much an experiment. I don't know how I really will have to see how it's going to work to have some people here for one week, two and three, etc. We have to see how this works, if some people are here for one week, two weeks or three weeks. And so far, I mean, I don't know, if we try it next year and so many people come, it will probably continue. And I don't know, but if so many people come next year, then we will probably continue with it.

[02:06]

But, you know, so now I'm supposed, we have the theme of the first three weeks, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And this is the third week, so this week we should speak about Understand better Sangha. Now, to some extent, to a great extent, of course, how we understand Sangha is part of understanding Buddha and Dharma. Because I'm speaking about these three in the continuum of the threefold refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

[03:09]

The... sociologist brilliant sociologist clifford geertz um says that um said something like the purpose of the humanities is to extend the range of the scope of human discourse.

[04:11]

And of course, part of my motivation, and I think all of our motivation, is in studying Asia, yoga culture, Zen Buddhism, is to extend the realm of discourse into this yogic culture. And this kind of extension is part of... of course, what's happening in the contemporary world. But because of the nature of Zen Buddhism, we're also speaking about Extending the realm of human consciousness. Or awareness.

[05:12]

Or being aware. recognizing the possibilities of consciousness and awareness. Now, Zen Buddhism is about... It's not about... Insights. It's more, I don't know, again, you know, it's always very difficult to find which reaches to the point I want to go.

[06:13]

And that's Eric's job to find if German can go there. But I have complete confidence in Eric. Oh, you all understood. But even more so, I have confidence in you. If you hear it two times, and then you hear it a third time in your own whatever, maybe the fourth, fifth, and sixth will be closer to the truth. Because this is again, like I said in the first two weeks, this is a kind of what I call an Apache language.

[07:13]

The sense that a conversation is not complete in itself. but is a building through images, a building of images, which continues after the conversation is over and the real conversation goes on through your talking with the world. So a real conversation, yeah, sort of goes on forever. So we're trying to enter this conversation. And we come back to it in our meditation. And we come back to it when we come to lecture or do sashin.

[08:18]

And this conversation reaches into us and reaches into our society. Okay, so now, right now, this is a way of looking at conversation and an essential part of understanding how to work with koans. But it's something different than our usual way of looking at things. So if we're going to extend our our discourse and our consciousness and awareness, we also have to look at our language, how we use it, how it limits us. And how it can be used out of the context of language to open us up.

[09:30]

And then we have to look, too, at the ideas or views that underlie this different sense of the world. For example, we spoke about When we spoke about dharma, we spoke about the body. The dharma body and truth body. I say truth body because when we notice this body, we have an experience of something true, something true. Yes, so to open us up to this kind of feeling, experience, I think we have to again have a different view of the body.

[10:37]

Not as a brewing vat, but as something more like a... As I said, a share of the whole. Or something that extends. What did I say? It's like a pancake. You pour a pancake into the pan and it extends out. Sometimes it makes a funny shape around other pancakes. So we can also understand if we don't create the duality of mind and body and recognize that in a yoga culture There isn't clear terminology to distinguish mind and body. So if we imagine that... When you pour, well, let's just say mind, consciousness, I don't know what, pour it.

[12:21]

into the body. There's no outside, but I'm trying to use some image like this. And it pours down, but it pours into the shapes of hands and legs and so forth. And I can see that in my littlest daughter, Sophia. It's like she was extending out from her solar plexus into her legs and arms and head. But, you know, The way she moves, she's reaching into the full range of the pancake. So we have the pancakes here, and then it extends here.

[13:24]

So it's in a circle. It's like a rubber band that you put together and... Still as a circle. So, this is an idea of the body as something that extends... Yeah, that extends. Yeah, so then, once you really get that, and the body isn't a container, a brewing vat, Then you can really get a sense of why ritual is so important in Chinese culture and Buddhist culture.

[14:27]

Then you get out of the boredom of your container. Like when we... One of the reasons we chant every morning, the ritual body or the ritual of chanting, allows this not just overlapping of mind and body, but the overlapping with each other and the world to be tangible. Now to practice this, this is, again, a practice not just of insights, Und Praxis ist wiederum nicht nur eine Praxis von Einsichten.

[15:32]

It's a doing of insights. Wie kann ich sagen? Es ist ein Tun, ein Machen, ein Agieren von Einsichten. Okay. Yeah, which includes a relinquishing of your previous views. To let go of. Even a renouncing of. The body as a container. Then you need a special language. It's ordinary language. But it's ultimate language at the same time. So one of the things that characterizes... A person who does the sangha. A person who is, yeah, okay, is their use of language.

[16:33]

Their use of language in a conventional way simultaneously with a or ultimate way. Or the ability to use language in which you feel two views... present at once. So I can speak about the body with you knowing how most of us in our culture think of the body. At the same time I can feel the body standing as is possible.

[17:35]

Yeah, and extending in ways that you make possible or don't make possible. Of course, we know this already. We know how we feel sometimes that someone's open to us, someone's close to us, and so forth. Yeah, and that can be a... That's an observation. It can also be an insight. When you recognize, hey, this is not just they're open to me or not open to me. It's actually a This shows me a different body. Yeah, a body that overlaps with the world. Or you can't even say the world and you, the body. It's kind of one place.

[18:45]

Now, if you had that insight, you start to actualize that insight embody that insight you repeat it you find some way to repeat the observation repeat the insight again to let the world talk with you not just something with the brain You're acting in this extraordinary, mysterious, intelligent presence. Not just the present, the presence. Now, again, having some feeling like that is to be. a member of the Sangha.

[19:54]

So What I'm going to try to work with this week is what characterizes, I don't know, a member? How do you become a member? Yeah, a fullness of the Sangha. How do you become a fullness of the Sangha? One is a different image of the body a different experience of the body than our usual experience and a a a process of making insights.

[21:11]

You're not waiting around for the muses to poke you with an insight. You're in a process of acting which is rooted in insight. And flowers in insight. And it's a way of not thinking in language and thinking in your brain but thinking in the world. Now, we say... the teaching of insentient beings. Now, this is a perfect example of a Zen phrase. What the heck is an insentient being? Yeah. It doesn't make any language sense.

[22:24]

And then the teaching of insentient beings. Okay, so here's somebody put this phrase together. It goes back to Dung Shan and before. And believe it or not, it was one of the turning points in our entire lineage. One of the turning points in Dung Shan's realization. What is the teaching of insentient beings. You can't penetrate this with language. But this isn't meant to be a puzzle. It's not a riddle. That's looking at it from a language point of view. It's to use language as close as possible to The truth body.

[23:31]

To actual experience. Or what can be actual experience. Or what can open us to the experience. of insentient beings teaching the Dharma. So, you know, you just have to keep facing it. You know. Hello, insentient beings. Where are you anyway? Yeah, what are you teaching today? You have to be kind of silly and keep asking such silly questions. Yeah. If you keep asking, it's a process of Insight.

[24:40]

Or it's a doing or an enactment of insight. Which is, you know, like releases you in, like you could feel the mind of an artist, feel the painter in the painting. Yes, you can feel the realization, the insight of... this lineage in this phrase. This is as close to an accurate statement as can be made. No, it's nothing special, actually. Yeah, I mean, actually you... already have many experiences of the teaching of insentient beings.

[25:50]

Yeah, but you don't notice that that's what it is. Because you don't notice it, you don't open yourself fully to this realm of being. And I shouldn't say being. I should say being, non-being. One word. Not being, non-being. Again, not... Nagarjuna says language is not within the bounds of truth. Because a word is always not the full thing that's named or pointed out. And once it's, as you know, in the service of language, it has to work in that context and it's always less than the truth.

[27:19]

So someone in the fullness of Sangha has this sense of language. And you can feel it when they speak to you. You know, they might say being, but you can almost feel in the background they're also feeling non-being. So now we have another characteristic of someone in the fullness of Sangha. Again, I'm trying to find... language, so I'll use polar non-duality. Now there's a debate within contemporary psychologists, etc., could there be anything such as pure consciousness?

[28:28]

And they say, most would say, there can't be such a thing, it's always somehow conceptual. But what they miss in this is bipolar consciousness. or rather polar nonduality. There's a directionality to Now, I'm using consciousness and awareness simultaneously here. I don't want to keep saying consciousness and or awareness. As most of you know, I define awareness. in a way that's different from consciousness.

[29:32]

So we could even say there's a directionality from consciousness to awareness and awareness to consciousness. Or from consciousness with a lot of baggage or consciousness with Very little baggage. Or the directionality of consciousness again. Consciousness which is picking up baggage. And consciousness was putting down baggage. Now consciousness, which is putting down baggage, that's its directionality. It functions as pure consciousness or Or essence of mind.

[30:41]

Even if it has conceptuality. And consciousness or awareness, which is picking up baggage, functions differently. So another quality of someone in the fullness of Sangha And their consciousness is putting down baggage every chance it gets. And it picks up baggage if necessary. Usually it's a kind of compassion. We pick up a lot of baggage to help each other. But the Sangha Remember, there's someone in the fullness of Sangha.

[31:49]

It's helping you with your baggage. And letting you help him with it or her with it. The baggage. But there's always a little whisper. We could both put the baggage down. But you still pick it up. So this is the activity of a bodhisattva. Pick up the baggage very lightly and carry it for you wherever you want. But always make you aware you can put it down anytime you want. But not to put it down for you so much. Yeah, so we can't go into everything that would characterize someone in the fullness of Sangha.

[32:58]

But let me just mention some basic ones. Which help us relinquish our conventional worldview. If you're practicing in Asia, you also relinquish your conventional worldview. And even renounce your conventional worldview. And to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the act of renouncing the conventional worldview. So let's take some basic things. Space.

[34:09]

Yeah, okay. These are categories, space and time. Big categories in our culture. And practice experience of both categories. that overlap. But let's speak about space. Space, experienceable space, not way out there, but You know, the ten directions, it's not north, south, east, west, out there. The ten directions are coming into us. So the concept of ten directions is a different direction than our compass direction. But maybe the sailor notices that going north is the north coming into

[35:19]

So north, south, southwest, east, west, etc. And up and down. These are the sense of this direction. Find their home here. And they also have these two Buddhist ideas in them, interdependence and interpenetration. And these are experienced through How could they otherwise be experienced except all at once? But how can you experience all at once? But yet, Buddhist practice is rooted in the possibility that the

[36:32]

Die buddhistische Praxis ist verwurzelt in der Möglichkeit, in der Potentialität und in dem tatsächlichen Faktum, obwohl der gewöhnlicherweise nicht bemerkt wird, do experience all-at-once-ness. And we can open ourselves to a mind of all-at-once-ness. So we have to now have a somewhat different view of mind. or recognize there's many potentialities of mind. And so, what is the experience of all-at-onceness? Related to.

[37:48]

All at once-ness is a word for space. And space understood that way is that potentiality of realization and enlightenment which is the presence of this And we also call Buddha. Buddha or enlightenment is not somewhere else. But there's not only an insight in recognizing that. That's kind of philosophy. There's a deep logic and craft to it. And that's the teaching of Buddha. Yeah, in Dharma we talked about body a little bit. And now we have Sangha. And I want to... Victor Horry, a scholar who studied Zen Buddhism a lot,

[38:50]

points out this use of the word kyogai. Yeah, but let me put that aside for a minute. We'll come back to it. I said space. Now I should say time. It has some order to this. Okay, time. I've been emphasizing this. And I think the way for us to Really notice it. Is to believe what you experience. Not as reality, but as actuality. Believe what you experience and don't put it in the category of generalizations. Average time is a convenience. Average time is a convenience.

[40:22]

A useful convenience. A useful coincidence. But you know... that when you were a child, you lived in a different time. Again, Sophia lives in a different time. And I as a father And that's not so bad if I let her interfere with my time. Which she certainly does. In practical senses as well as every other. But it's a lovely interference. Yeah. It's a different time.

[41:35]

It might look the same on the clock, but it's a different time. So here we have assumed in Dogen, assumed in yogic culture, that average time is a kind of relative convenience. Fundamental time is understood through the gate of ripening. Not just Sophia or young people and older people are in different times. Each of you is in a different time. Each object is in a different time. Each leaf or drop of water is in a different time. So one who is fully in the Sangha is always... feeling this maturing time the particularity of time of everything this is one of the what's meant by thusness it's not this book and this book it's thus book and thus book

[42:53]

This book and this book. If I say this in English, I'm in some kind of generalized world. If I say this person instead of this person, this person, I'm in a different world. Ah, jetzt bin ich in Übersetzungsschwierigkeiten. If I say that? Ja, ja, I just... Okay. Wenn ich also sage, so eine Person statt diese Person, dann bin ich in einer anderen Welt. Ja, ja. So if I say thus person, even if I say the word this, inside I'm saying thus. And this use of language simultaneously like this. without interference so people can understand it if they want to either way or both ways which is characteristic of

[44:09]

of the fabric of all the koans. So if I say this person, I'm feeling they're ripening, they're maturing. And the context, everything is in a kind of interweaving... under weaving of times. Yeah, now let's just see if we can come to an end here. Let me go back to this word kyogai again. It originally meant in Sanskrit the words of... translation in Japanese of a word which supposedly meant the world or place. But it's come in Zen to mean Something like consciousness or awareness.

[45:27]

But it has the feeling of, it carries still the feeling of place. Consciousness as a place. Awareness as a place. The fullness of Sangha as a place. Yeah. a place we invite the world into, which the world invites us into, too, when you're ready to hear that. My teacher in Japan Again, something that Victor Horry points out. As consciousness has a sense of privacy, we can't really know each other's consciousness. There's no absolute mind reading.

[46:35]

But to various degrees, we're present in this presence. But there's a privacy to this place as well as our usual sense of consciousness. So in Zen it's used sometimes, his kyogai is good or not so good. Meaning, the sense of place, the sense of The vividness, the particularity of each place is apparent. So again, going back to Mumon Yamada Roshi, he said, Only a sparrow can know the kyogai of a sparrow.

[47:46]

You can't know the kyogai of a sparrow. And he says, you might think of it, and I know his temple well in this pond with fish in it in the winter. Und ich kenne seinen Tempel gut, diesen See und diese Bäume. You might think, these poor, cold fish down there in that water. Und ihr möchtet vielleicht denken, diese armen Fische da unten in diesem kalten... You can't really know the kill guy of the fish. Aber ihr könnt nicht wirklich das kill guy der Fische kennen. It's probably better that you don't move it to warm water. The fish will probably die. It is probably better not to put this fish in another warm pond, because the fish will probably die. Someone in the fullness of Sangha finds body, time, space, and place. The Buddha realm, the Dharma realm of Sangha.

[48:53]

And there's a fluidity of understanding, conventional and fundamental. And this is the practice again of the Bodhisattva. Yeah, okay. Thank you very much.

[49:13]

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