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Embracing Awareness Through Impermanence

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This talk explores the concepts of impermanence and awareness, emphasizing the distinction between object permanence and the clarity of awareness. It discusses the practice of acknowledging the ever-present clarity of awareness, regardless of whether the object of perception is clear or not, as a means of understanding and practicing impermanence. The discussion highlights the emotional responses to not understanding, and how awareness of these responses can lead to a more profound comprehension of impermanence and change.

  • Lotus Sutra: Mentioned in relation to the concept of teachers perishing to allow space for successors, underlying themes of impermanence in teachings.
  • Dogen's Teachings: Referenced in the context of transcending teachings through direct experience, such as sitting in meditation, to explore the practice of impermanence.
  • Four Noble Truths: Cited to indicate that the understanding of impermanence is a foundational element of Buddhist practice.

The seminar also includes a discussion on the differentiation between ego and self, exploring how the concept of self should function without relying on permanence, also contributing to the discourse on impermanence.

AI Suggested Title: Embracing Awareness Through Impermanence

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Sleety wet snow. Sleet is wet snow. Icy snow. Icy rain is sleet. And I look out another window and it's kind of sunny and bright and the snow is shining. So we know we don't have weather permanence. But still, in each window, I've got a different kind of day. Okay. So the habit of object permanence is deeply, deeply ingrained in us. The habit of object permanence and... the habit of permanence. And also we have the problem that the words don't point in the right direction.

[01:03]

For example, I start talking about the clarity of confusion. But if you just see that we're not talking about the clarity of the object perceived, Aber wenn ihr versteht, seht, dass wir nicht über die Klarheit des wahrgenommenen Objektes sprechen, sondern wir sprechen über die Klarheit des Gewahrseins, das das Objekt sieht. If the object happens to be unclear or something you don't understand, the clarity of arising awareness is about the clarity of the awareness, not the object.

[02:12]

So if you don't understand something, you have a clear awareness that you don't understand it. And that's a different ballgame. Well, that's from baseball. That's a different situation. And when you really accept it, it's weird, you understand things so much better. Because if somehow the clarity of awareness penetrates the not understanding. But if what you notice is the not understanding, then all kinds of emotional attitudes come in. I don't understand.

[03:32]

I'm not smart enough. I got a C in this subject in high school. Or fear arises. Yeah. But if you just notice the clarity of the awareness itself, all of that baggage doesn't come in. And there's some kind of joy in that. Because awareness really is always clear. So you have the joy of the always arising clarity of awareness. So this is the good news. The joy of the clarity of awareness.

[04:54]

Okay, now, please, give me some reports from you. Oh, let me stop. I didn't go back into stages, what I meant. Say you go, say like in a place like Crestone, which is something close to wilderness. Or you're in some kind of virgin forest, primordial forest. And you're hiking in it. And so somebody else, you know, is going to go hiking in it. And you say, well, let me give you some hints. And somebody else is going to go hiking in it. So you give them some advice. First you'll notice that you just get used to walking in this kind of...

[05:59]

where there's no paths. Yeah, it takes a few days just to get used to walking in this place where there's no paths. And then start noticing the paths of the wind. And the paths of the animals. Maybe when the birds are silent, when they're not silent. Yeah, and then begin to feel the paths that ask you to move through the trees. You almost feel the path is ahead of you, asking you to come toward it. And then your energy starts telling you what to do.

[07:27]

It takes about a week to get to that place. That's not really steps. It's just What happens if you do this for a while and then it leads to doing that and so forth? So I might be giving you some description of stages. Here's what happens if you do this for a while. Maybe it helps to have some confidence and some help in noticing what will happen. I'm not giving you a map to the forest. But just some sense of what will happen to you, a map, you know.

[08:28]

Okay, that's enough. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Please, tell me something. Yes. Thank you. We chewed on the topic for a long time. It remained somewhat cumbersome. You couldn't swallow it. Es entstand eine Frage über die Übersetzung des Begriffes impermanence.

[09:47]

It arose the question of how to translate this concept impermanence or this word. Bei zwei Arten von Assoziationen wieder durchgerechnet. two kinds of associations that arose through that. One side was the experience of age, death and sickness. With all the feelings and emotions that are connected with that in life. sadness, but also finding the beauty of aliveness.

[11:09]

The other side was more dynamic. impermanence as something that has more to do with the dynamic. For example, in the experience of a shift in the localization of consciousness? Yeah, sounds good. Happen, happen, happen. or just when things appear and appear uninterruptedly.

[12:16]

And these two things really feel quite different. And both were stimulated by this idea of impermanence. Yeah, that's good. Now what are the two, so we can all be clear, me too, what are the two things that feel quite different? I try this in my very personal words. It feels different when I try to feel into this kind of shift, shifting, and experience impermanence in that. Or when I deal with the topic of death, for example, Or when I look into or deal with the topic of death and notice that it kind of awakens some kind of blues.

[13:40]

Okay, thank you. Yeah. I would like to add the concepts. You were in the same group or? Yeah. Okay. We're on the one side, Chile. With Beate. So change, impermanence and change, and on the other hand, transiency. Permanence and change and transiency. Impermanence and change on the one side and impermanence and transiency on the other.

[14:50]

And death. And death. Really, transiency is not quite... Transiency is the same as change in English. I think it's in... Yeah, in German this one, I translate it as impermanent, which is not permanent in German too. But then there's another word that is Vergänglichkeit, that means things perish or they don't last. It's a different kind of expressing the same thing, but it has a different angle or a different feeling. So people use that also as a translation for impermanence. Yeah. I think in English, when you say things are transient, it kind of emphasizes that you're sort of not so transient. And everything is going by. Like out the window of a train or something. My friends are dying.

[16:01]

The old neighborhood's gone. I'm still here. But it's very close. It's the same feeling of Vergänglichkeit. That's the congregation. Maybe René can say something because he took one of the two positions. He was in the same group. You're feeling transient today. No. Help you. We began to talk about the limitedness of human life. About death, like death reminds us that we should live. And I didn't quite agree with this kind of view and tried to emphasize the impermanence in the sense of momentariness.

[17:23]

So both poles were present in our discussion. And we have something quite new here. It seems we have two poles of impermanence. LAUGHTER Usually it's permanent and impermanent, but here we've got something more subtle here. This is getting toward higher mathematics. Okay, I think I've got the feeling of it. Okay, so someone helps you. Yeah. I think I have a problem with finding or getting hold of the practical aspect of practicing impermanence.

[18:55]

I have no problem with thinking up thought experiments of how you can explain all that. But I do have a big problem with how to practice the object impermanence. When I put a cup somewhere, it is in its place tomorrow. If you're not married, it's... Maybe if you were... Are you married?

[20:08]

Are you married? Maybe if you were married, you'd understand impermanence better. Yeah, but I think I understand what you mean. And... Yeah, so I will try again. I'm going to try some or all of the rest of this practice week to kind of make this clearer. Okay, someone else? How's your back, by the way?

[21:11]

Getting better? Oh, good. It's not permanent, this injury. It's not... The example for the knock-off. Oh, good. I hope so. Yeah. In this group, we also talked about the difficulty of the concepts and how to really study these concepts. How can we do that? There was an example, there was an example In the conversation a new concept came up for somebody And we said maybe through that we can study how your own views or concepts are.

[22:34]

By the arising of a new concept allows you to understudy concepts. And then the question arises, how do we perceive change, instability? With what? Where? How? And the question came up, how do we perceive change and impermanence? In which place? Only in thinking with words, or is it a wholesome process? Do we do that also with the body? For example, when I meet a person for the first time

[23:49]

Maybe through meditation, through practice weeks or sesshins like this, maybe it's possible to establish a wider field of awareness. To notice that. That's the idea. Yeah, das ist die Idee. So, okay. Ja? I was in the same group, too. ... I think we often ended up with death when we asked this question, how can you deal with these concepts, or how can you go beyond the concepts?

[25:00]

Sorry. I don't know your name, but you were also in our group. This one group is really taking over. Is this a very talkative group? Okay. Go ahead. He brought up his practice, which is what's going to happen when I die tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow or in three days. Yeah. And I think we need to have a strong ego or a strong practice.

[26:25]

You're saying that or you're saying that? Yeah, okay. To be able to ask this question or to work with this question. Yeah. I don't know if a strong ego is the right thing, but we do need some kind of strong, stable sense of self. An impermanent, functioning, strong self. Thank you very much. I liked one example in our group of how to practice impermanence. For example, when you meet people and you have the feeling you don't like them so much and you meet them again?

[27:41]

To try to not let these feelings come to the foreground so much, but let them be in the background, and to act with more openness. So that's something you can develop or show itself. OK, good. . I have just a question for understanding. The difference between ego and self came up a few times this week.

[28:54]

What do you mean by that? So, Nico adds, okay, there is the I, the ego and the self, so maybe there are three concepts. What mean you? What mean I? Good point. What I mean. Well, when I say ego, I usually mean, maybe we could say, the selfish self. The comparing sense of self. And when I use the word self, I'm saying something more like... a sense of location.

[30:13]

With not necessarily any comparative sense. So that, for example, I know that I'm speaking and you're not speaking. That's not ego, but it's a sense of self. It's a sense of the location of this speaking. And the problems of ego are sort of psychological problems. Problems that arise through the sense of what is this location that's speaking and that what we what we do with that sense of location.

[31:30]

One thing we do with it is create a kind of comparative ego. What we do with this sense of location of the observing That's what Buddhism is dealing with. Buddhism is not really concerned with ego. It's a contemporary idea. But, you know, it's a little hard to speak of it because we have so many, you know, Jung uses self in one way, Freud uses ego. I can't speak about with all the psychological schools how they use these words.

[32:31]

So that's a kind of primitive introduction of... Yeah. Can you differentiate function and concept? In self? The I or the self that there are functions that interlock or work together. And ego more in the sense of self-image or self-relationship?

[33:46]

No, that's good. Thank you. I think in practice we really have to see the necessity of – and I emphasize this all the time – that we do have to have the functioning of self if we're going to function. But we don't have to have that as a concept which gathers all our memory and attitudes and hopes and fears. So we could say we're shifting away from the concept of self to the functions of self. Okay. Is it permanent?

[34:49]

How can you ask that question? Troublemaker. Yes. I was not in that group. In the other group, I was in a different group. I'm not trying to report. Just give maybe one or two... Maybe in Deutsch? Maybe do it in German and then speak in English afterwards. I have been in a group. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I wouldn't know that, though, so it's... I hope you don't mind. It's easy. No, no, go ahead. I do.

[35:52]

I think we had sort of after a good discussion or exchange of thoughts, we had a kind of clarity in an intellectual way of impermanence. And then we returned to the question, but how the heck do we practise it? For me, it seems to be much about letting go, to practise impermanence. To me, the point is to let go. So how do we practise that? And if you say, I want to let go, in fact, you're holding on. So it's a koan. And sometimes... I feel, well, I managed to let go right now, and in the moment I realize I just let something go, I'm holding on again.

[37:29]

So it's sort of permanent. It's a permanence of impermanence. The permanence of... To me seems that you always have to repeat. You never manage, you never arrive. letting go or you never arrive at impermanence. That's how it seems to be. It's one thought I came up with from the discussion in the group. You have to continue practicing, not letting loose. That was one thought. No, no, I understand very well the predicament Predicament?

[38:46]

No, I don't quite know how to say it. The word predicament. The situation you're in that there's no solution. The dilemma, you can say. You know, Dogen says arrival hinders arrival. Yes, somehow we have to come to a kind of non-active, non-passive doing. Where relaxing does itself. Where relaxation happens to itself. Something like that. I was in the same group as Alexander. And what I found interesting in that context was to find out that passivity has two aspects, at least emotionally.

[39:52]

I was in the same group like Alexander, and what I found interesting is to find out that impermanence has emotionally two aspects. It seems to me that we should also look at what is past, what we have lost, death, illness, and what is taken away from us. It seems to be that the one has to do with the past, with what we have lost through death. And the other aspect is directed forward, towards what becomes possible, because something is no longer there, because space is created and creates new life. And the other one is directed to the future, when things make room for something else when they are not anymore, that they give room to a new life.

[41:08]

Things make room? or something else when they're not themselves. No, when they start to be, when they end to be, when they disappear, when they are impermanent. The thing is that a person who has died, a person who is very close to me, after the sadness, the sorrow, there came a feeling of gratitude that all of a sudden there was a new space for something, something entirely new happened in my life. So I was not necessarily so very deep, not in the thought of the nasty and the mentioned as not the power that it was, That's the positive, the optimistic aspect And then we made this connection to the beginner's mind that we are always beginning Yeah, that's true.

[42:25]

Teachers are not supposed to live forever. They have to perish. There's a whole thing in the Lotus Sutra about it. The teacher has to perish so that successors have some space. So you don't make me die, I go to Crestone for a while and then you forget about trying to get rid of me. So you don't need to bring me to death, I go to Crestone. You don't need to get rid of me completely. Yes. I would be interested in how the transience relates to the spiritual states. I'm interested how impermanence is related to states of mind.

[43:29]

Here in Johanneshof you notice a certain state of mind, but then in your own private life it's not so permanent. But the fact that you re-experience it here again and again shows us that it is permanent. Well, not permanent, but... Yeah. It has some continuity, a resilience. It has a continuity. Resilience reappears. Resilience means it has some strength or resistance. Okay. Yes? Is that? Yes.

[44:29]

Okay. Okay. We started a little late, so we can end a little late. We can actually end any time we want. Yes, go ahead. I want to say that transiency or impermanence doesn't mean that things disappear completely. That it can also only be a change. Mm-hmm. Because I find or I think that when you hear that impermanence or transiency, or also the way we talked about that in our group, it sounds like things disappear completely.

[45:55]

And they don't. At least not all of them. Yes. And I don't want to give a summary. We started out very personally. How we experienced impermanence in our own life. And it was much about death and loss. There were various

[46:59]

Aspects, there was a multitude, I wouldn't say it was a discussion, but more a conversation. At the very end, I had the feeling that with all the things we had discussed, we had always assumed that there was something that was experienced and permanent. In the end, I had the feeling that in talking about all of this, we always assumed something that is experiencing all of this. And that is permanent. And that only ends with death. And so in me this question came up in how or in what way is the self permanent? Or when you look for it there is nothing that is permanent Sounds like you understand it.

[48:33]

In our experience, we have an experience of some kind of permanence of self, but when we look for it, we can't find the self. But if I can, I'll come back to this. There's one more thing I'd like to point out. At some point, during the conversation, a thought came to me that I had brought in. It reminded me of something that Roshi taught me at some point. I was reminded of something that you, Roshi, said that everything is changing but there is something that stays or remains. So I brought that into the discussion and then from the group I got the response that you really have to be careful to not cheat yourself.

[49:39]

Yeah, that sounds good, not to cheat yourself, but what do you mean? You shouldn't hope that something stays or that there might be an exception in your case. Yeah, solidity is actually a kind of frivolousness. Indulgence. Indulgence. Kind of indulging yourself when you believe in solidity or permanence. Indulgence. Indulgence. Indulgence. So, Moritz, do you have something you could say for us?

[51:03]

Well, first of all, I really had a hard time with content. I've been permanent. And permanent. And then... The first thing that came to mind was that recently I thought about death. And through that this became more clear for me. That when I really imagine that every moment I could die, then I really have to or should live differently. You understand this problem pretty well. Yes?

[52:27]

I wanted to add to this thing that you have to be careful not to cheat yourself. The thought is when you intellectually deal with this idea of impermanence, that this is a form of controlling your fear of impermanence. When you intellectually deal with the problem of permanence, it's a form of trying to control. It can be a way of controlling my fear or the existential help

[53:38]

to control this existential helplessness when you face your own impermanence and death. Yeah, that's true. That's true, but I think that's... Yeah, we can say that's the first step. And the attempt to control impermanence is somewhat better than believing in permanence. And through trying to control, understand, accept permanence, we learn something. One of the five fears is the fear of death. And another of the five fears is the fear of unusual states of mind.

[54:59]

Yeah, and this is also, they're very closely related because death is a state of mind or being in which you're out of control. But in Zen, there's a kind of tradition of being in control when you die. You know you're going to die, but you decide how and when you die. Or you participate in the process. You can't really control it, but you can participate in it. Okay. Yes. In our group, a similar thought like Hans mentioned came up.

[56:09]

I would like to precise that a little bit. the fact that we are, since the time we can remember, that we are in the center of our experiencing, you can't really deny that. the perception of ourselves changes in the course of time. But it's a fact that we persistently perceive ourselves.

[57:13]

Maybe it's true that around this effect the self is just built up and that this is an illusion or a delusion. Ich kann keine Veränderung in diesem Faktum sehen, dass wir uns als Zentrum unseres Erlebens wahrnehmen. Ich kann keine Veränderung in der Tatsache sehen, dass wir uns als Zentrum unseres Erlebens wahrnehmen. But I can see that this fact has changed, that we are experiencing ourselves as the center of our experiencing. No one denies that. That's true. what in a simple sense all Buddhism says is that the self is permanent is a delusion.

[58:34]

It's undeniable that you have a You're the center of your perceiving or knowing. And people who don't know that usually are in mental hospitals. But there's all kinds of subtle forms of permanence that we don't notice. So anyway, again, we'll try to come back to this point, if I can, as we go along. And that's a good way to put it. We're the center of our experiences. And that's a good way to express that we are the center of our experience.

[59:56]

Yes, go ahead. So what is the relationship between the center of experiencing and the self that is changing, that we also experiencing as changing, that we are experiencing as changing? You don't really expect me to answer that before dinner, do you? I mean... Yes, we do. Well, I hope that you enjoy a short fast until tomorrow. That you enjoy a short... Fast. We'll break fast tomorrow morning.

[60:59]

You understand, that's where breakfast comes from. To break the fasting of tonight. I think it's very precious we're having this conversation. There are not many opportunities in a lifetime to have this kind of conversation. And with people like you. You want to say something more? Maybe it's not necessary. Tomorrow? It's a small thing. I'm against the tradition of not quoting anybody.

[62:00]

Do we have such a tradition? I wanted to bring in a definition. I try to keep in mind how Stern put it, that to feel the self is to feel is a feeling of organizing or organization. Yeah, I think from that you can derive a lot in terms of this question.

[63:05]

Well, all these different ways of saying it, kind of help us get a deeper feeling of it, even if we did not sign anyone. I thought of a simple way of practicing impermanence. Don't die now. But there is a Zen story about that. And then the other guy says he understood dying but he didn't understand emptiness. He was good at dying but not good at understanding. Yeah. We had a cup outside there. We had a cup on the table. So our habit usually is that a cup is a cup is a cup.

[64:23]

But a cup really is only a cup when we use it as a cup, meaning we are drinking. That's correct. Before that it's only a heap of material, matter, yeah, sorry. And when we stop drinking from it and have washed it, then it's not a cup anymore, but again just matter. And when we stop drinking, using it for drinking and having cleaned it, then it's again just matter. Yeah. So it's really a very impermanent trouble. Yeah. Then maybe then later somebody uses it as an ashtray.

[65:32]

Yeah, it's true. Hmm. I think that's a simple way to practice impermanence. Yeah, actually when you notice that things exist through their functioning, This is the practice of impermanence. Yeah, and I can give you an example of my own experience of this. I had a Hamada cup. I had a Hamada cup.

[66:42]

The Hamada is the most famous craft potter of Japan. National treasure potter. And someone had given me a Hamada cup. And though you don't need to know it's valuable, but it's probably a few thousand dollars for just a cup. But in those days, no one knew Hamada was so famous or anything. It was just a cup someone gave me. So I liked it a lot and I used it. I mean, I knew it was a good cup, but, you know, I didn't know it belonged in a museum.

[67:44]

And I had it on my desk. My little daughter, who's now 39, came in and Knocked it off. It broke into a lot of pieces. And I remember sitting and watching it fall in slow motion. I saw... And I knew I couldn't get it. It wasn't possible to get it, so I just watched it. And my first thought was, oh. Now it's something to be cleaned up.

[68:47]

I had no thought, oh, the cup is going to be broken. I didn't say gut, but yeah. Anyway. So it was just to clean? That's what you'd say, yeah. To me it was, oh, something to be cleaned up. It gives potters a chance to make another one. And if I care enough, it's something that can be repaired. But I noticed that I had no trace of attachment to the cup. And I realized, yes, my practice of impermanence has come to some fruition.

[69:50]

And I did get it repaired a few years later, and it's more beautiful now than it was. Okay. Now, I want to just make one point in relationship to the Samae o Samae, if I can, before we stop. Because I'm worried about you guys reading this thing and having a not clear experience of not understanding. Okay. Okay. Now, please also see this in a historical context, which Dogen is also trying, not just to present Buddhism here, but to say, even though we're separated by countries and centuries from the historical Buddha,

[71:11]

sondern auch zu sagen, auch wenn wir über Jahrhunderte und durch Länder vom That we are separated? Separated by countries and centuries. From? From the Buddha, historical Buddha. We're also not separated at all. So he says, to leap over the heads of outsiders and demons... Outsiders means non-believers. All the various viewpoints in the world. And demons mean something like... I was in Freiburg the other day, and outside of this coffee shop where I was, there's a kind of statue of somebody with fish scales.

[72:28]

And fish scales, I don't know really what the statue is, but it looked like some kind of representation of the mountains and the waters or something like that, some kind of... And the popular imagination in Dogen's time was like here in the Black Forest there'd be certain forces and you know you have to placate the forces of this area which is different from the forces or spirits of another area. And a popular idea at the time of Dogen was that here, for example, in the Black Forest, there are certain forces that you have to placate, that you have to seduce these forces.

[73:37]

So demons means all those forces that might be against us being here. And become a true person inside the Buddha's ancestors' room. And this is sitting in meditation posture. And this transcends the most intimate and deepest teachings of the Buddhas. So it means not only are we We're also separated by all these sutras and teachings and so forth. More intimate than the teachings. Is to sit and zazen. And like you brought up the relaxation. To really explore relaxation and all the dialectic of, you know, we can't, we can't, or how do we, we can't make ourselves relaxed.

[75:01]

We can't know that through any teaching. We can only know that by exploring it ourselves. So Dogen says to be in the Buddha ancestor's room transcends the teaching. This means to be in the middle of your own experience. So then he talks about is being in the middle of your own experience sitting in the mind or sitting in the body and so forth. Okay, thank you very much. And I'll, during zazen this evening, do doksans for those who are coming to doksan.

[76:21]

One thing that's different about this practice week Using a practice week, there's five or six requests for doksan. In this one, there's, I don't know, 35 or something. Are there 35 people here? All right, thank you. Thank you for translating again. You're welcome. No one ever applauds for me. They always applaud for the translator. Now, did I get you to do that or did I...

[77:28]

Vujojinjen mi myon no wa yakuse ma no diyo ayo koto katashi Varema keno shi yuji suru kanto yotai. Varema keno shi yuji suru kanto yotai. Varema keno shi yotai. Thank you very much. So returning to our theme or description of this practice week.

[79:30]

We have, yeah, what is it, the life of practice or something, a practice life. Then we find out that practice has its own life. Or brings our own life onto the stage of the present. Yeah, I don't know quite how to describe this. But I think when we practice, especially in a situation like this, or in a session, for example, Yeah.

[80:40]

It's like that, you know, usually our life is kind of busy and concerned with details and so forth. And But when we practice, somehow more of our life comes on stage. And if we bring up something like... Impermanence. Yeah, I mean, all of us are familiar with this idea. We know we won't live forever. And we've had friends and family who've died. So impermanence in its most vivid sense, meaning our own death,

[82:06]

is quite well known to us. Mm-hmm. Still... You know, on a daily basis it's kind of off-scene. We keep many of the implications of it kind of off-scene. And certainly the fullest, deepest implications of it we keep off-scene. Now you know in English the word obscene actually means off-seen.

[83:38]

So, obscene is what we keep obscene. Yeah, but it's not that there's something obscene about impermanence. But it still is something that the dynamic of it is kind of kept out of our active life. So it's kind of interesting that we bring up this unavoidable idea of impermanence. Perhaps even in Buddhism we keep it off-scene a bit. Yeah, it's stuck there in the Four Noble Truths.

[84:55]

It's the essence of the Four Noble Truths. Yeah, the basis of all Buddhist practice and teaching. Yes, but I think we prefer to talk about the bliss body or something like that. Even though they, in fact, are closely related. So we, you know, so as part of this, what's our practice? Life and death. What does the word Dharma mean?

[85:57]

Dharma just means to recognize thoroughly impermanence. Yet we, yeah, so, yeah, and we know, more or less we know this. And it's certainly an unavoidable part of Buddhist practice. And yet when we bring it up onto the stage of the present, perhaps we find it a little disconcerting. Disconcerting. Concerting means it fits together. Disconcerting means it doesn't. It's not in concert. disconcerting.

[87:05]

And I, you know, I got the feeling from a number of you that there's a kind of, you know, a little disturbance in this. I'm trying to create an image here. What have we got? We've got our usual life, busy life. And our busy life keeps some aspects of our wider conventional life off-scene. So zazen is mindfulness and zazen, it's very strange they're so powerful. Particularly in the beginning.

[88:13]

We learned to resist them after a while. Or most of our life that can be pried into the present. Pried? Like you pry open a can of peanut butter or something. Pry open something. To... Yeah. So the aspects of our life which can be pried, loosened, brought into the present, Just zazen and mindfulness kind of pry the off-scene parts of our conventional life into the present.

[89:13]

Yeah, later on in our practice, we need more than mindfulness and... and meditation to pry our life into the present. Where's maya? Well, there you are over there. I thought you were sitting there. Because I was thinking of how to translate this. Yeah, we need mindfulness and meditation equipped with more powerful tools, more powerful teachings.

[90:26]

But in the early stages of practice, mindfulness and meditation bring our wider life onto the stage of the present. And you feel things that you haven't felt for a while. And remember things you haven't thought of for a while. Speaking about stage, sometimes a theater or a dance or a movie can do something similar.

[91:26]

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