I heard that yesterday you had a good seminar, which makes me happy. And I heard you, at least one of the things you spoke about was the idea, the concept of divergence. in contrast to convergence, as I also spoke about the other day. And if you could feel the difference between convergence and divergence, and you could feel maybe that Yeah, divergence was a little harder to accept. Yeah, divergence in our life, every moment is divergence. It's a little bit like we're on a cart and a carriage.

[01:05]

No, we have horses and the horses aren't yoked together. Of course, yoke is at least the most common sense of a shared etymology with yoga. and the horses aren't yoked together and they're going various directions, you have to hold the reins. So they're going divergent. Better gather the reins up in your hands. And so if divergent feels a little uncomfortable to you, again, as if your life is, as I also said, will be incomplete. And perhaps even the fullest sense of a life fully lived, or the sense of a life fully lived is accepting and being in the midst of its incompletion without being disturbed.

[02:08]

To die with relish, wonderfully, in the middle of incompletion. I mean, what could be more incomplete than death? I mean, no, it's... It doesn't complete anything. Except you're completely gone, unless you believe in heaven or something. Gone, gone, gone beyond. Now, of course, there's also convergence and there's also we do complete things in our life and we want to complete things in our life and, you know, that's satisfying, etc. But even those things, if you study them that you have completed, they lead to other things which aren't completed. So incompletion is a process. Completion is a process. But from the point of view of Buddhism, the worldview of Buddhism, the concept of divergence and incompletion is more fundamental than completion and convergence.

[03:36]

And even... That's from the basic view of Buddhism. Not one, not two. But even if, you know, they were equal somehow, if your habit is completion, then you ought to contradict it with incompletion. If your habit is to think in terms of convergence, a hope for convergence, then you ought to contradict that substitute the view of divergence. This is the way we practice. You're not stuck. You know, I think supposedly the Sixth Patriarch said when he died, his last advice was, if you want to know how to teach, whatever they say, tell them the opposite. Something like that he said. That's his basic idea of being in the midst of all views, because that's interdependence, the activity, the functioning of interdependence.

[04:52]

Okay, so now if you do have a sense of, hmm, this idea of divergence is a little... Yeah, it's a fresh idea or a scary idea, a little hard to take. And you notice that you feel more comfortable with convergence. Well, what you're doing is you're looking directly into your views. This is the Eightfold Path, the beginning of the Eightfold Path, right views. And right views starts as a practice with finding out what your views are. Well, so, knowing this now, that to have a feel for, to notice that you're more comfortable with convergence or implicit ideas of oneness or unity or something like that, then you have actually started a process of developing right views.

[06:01]

Isn't the most fundamental thing you can do? get a feel for your views and feel for alternatives. Your views are to feel for the perhaps deluded delusion within your views or dependence within your views. Okay. Now let's shift from views to habits. Not so different, but look at it differently. So instead of a substitute view, we're substituting divergence for convergence, you have an alternative to your habits. And what most basic habit we have is self-referential thinking. And even if you know and really have thought about and contemplated and accepted Dogen's, I find, extraordinary statement, the now of continuous practice is not originally possessed by the self.

[07:23]

He even says, without this continuous practice, now doesn't exist. So there's no here and now without continuous practice. Think about it. To me, it's absolutely true. Is it true for you? So let's just stay with the now of continuous practice is not originally possessed by the self. Okay, so you've incubated that, contemplated that. But still you find yourself involved with self-referential thinking and it's mainly probably, I mean surely because you have conceived of your past through self-referential thinking. And you've anticipated your future through self-referential thinking.

[08:25]

And if you've mostly laid down your past through self-referential thinking, conceived of your past through self-referential thinking, anticipated your future in terms of self-referential thinking, the present doesn't have a chance. The present's just measured by, boxed in by, hardly existing within the precondition and the anticipation of The definition of past and future through self-referential thinking. So Dogen's statement, you know, can't quite cut it. You have to shake yourself somehow. Okay, so it's pretty, it's, you know, as I've just said, it's virtually, it's very difficult, let's put it that way, to try to change a habit so deeply embedded in the past and future.

[09:40]

The future hasn't happened yet, but we're embedded in it. The easy thing to do, the easier thing to do, the way practice starts, is to find an alternative way to view ourselves. No, English doesn't give me a chance. An alternative way to view ourselves, an alternative to self-referential thinking, as a way to view ourself... I don't have a chance. Well, maybe I can say an alternative to viewing mind as body self-referentially would be to view mind and body as presence. Hmm. It's another word. Divergence is another word.

[10:43]

I'm... You know, I'm trying to get out of the prison, the sentence of sentences, the prison of habits of language. But should I start to use language? Now, there's a word intention, I-N-T-E-N-S-I-O-N, spelled just like intention, I-N-T-E-N-T-I-O-N. An intention with an S is, I think, a fairly technical word within linguistics. And it means the sense of a word, not what it signifies. Now, I think the classic example is Venus. Venus in the evening is the evening star. Venus in the morning is the morning star.

[11:45]

Well, they're both Venus. It's both the same. It's both Venus. But the evening star has a different presence. A different sense. The morning star. Three wise men, etc. No wonder they could follow it morning and night. The morning star has a different presence, a different sense. And the word that's used in linguistics, I guess, is philosophy, is a different language philosophy, is a different intention with an S. So at least if we have, if I'm using English words, we can expand the word to the sense of the word. And the sense, if you feel the sense of divergence, the intention, as well as the intention of divergence, yeah, then you can start feeling it as a view.

[12:58]

So I'm now speaking about presence as the sense of presence, the presence of presence. Again, I have this word presence, so I'm trying to use it. I don't have too many alternatives. We have the alternative convergence and divergence, etc. But, you know, that's not the whole territory of our human experience of the world. These are just words I can start using to make us notice our becoming as beings. So at least we can use the sense of the word, which is more than what it signifies. Okay, so presence. So I'm suggesting we substitute For a sense of self or self-referencing, we bring attention to presence.

[14:06]

Now I'm also saying that because presence and attention are both ways in which consciousness functions. But like now, they don't entirely belong to consciousness. So you bring attention to presence. Now I spoke about the other day, feeling the presence of otherness or the presence of another person. And in the Oryoki practice, let's go there. It's a chance for each of us to feel the presence of whoever's beside you, around you, and way over there too. Hardly know who they are, but maybe. But you feel their presence. Now, why do I suggest presence? Well, you know, I'm looking for an alternative.

[15:11]

Why did I choose to self-referencing? The alternative to self-referencing, presence. I chose presence for a lot of reasons. One reason, it's the initial way we actually probably most of the time know another person. You go into a department store, you know, you're looking for a clerk, there's several people standing around not doing anything, and they look, they have little badges on, or you know, they all have the same kind of coat on or something. And so you think, who shall I ask? Well, probably you're deciding by the presence of the person, even more than the gender of the person. You know, whether they have a presence appropriate to the job and a presence you feel is open or you can relate to or something. So probably you're, we actually, much of the time, without even noticing it, our first impression is presence.

[16:15]

So now what I'm suggesting is to create an alternative, we talked about an alternative to views, to create an alternative to our habit of self-referencing, let's take presence. As I said, because it's probably what we knew initially anyway, so let's make it more intentional and conscious. Now, I think you'll find if you do bring attention to presence and maybe to feel the presence of another person, and maybe you can start or it helps if you feel the presence of yourself. And a way to do that is to bring attention to the breath. And if you bring attention to the breath, you tend to generate presence. You can feel when another person has presence, and probably if you could really sort of micro-know them, you'd see, even from a distance, that that presence is there somehow, settled in their breath.

[17:38]

Now, I don't usually like these signs, you know, outside churches, Protestant churches. It's kind of packaged religion, because I'm sure they have monthly newsletters which suggest on your Bible billboard you can put such and such a statement. The funniest one I ever come across was one which said on a billboard out in front of the church, if you're waiting for a sign from God, this is it. I thought that was okay. What the heck? But usually they're kind of nonsense. But the one the other day I saw in front of our little church out here was, if you're all wrapped up in yourself, you're a very small package indeed. I thought that was okay. If you're all wrapped up in yourself, you're a very small package indeed. Well, it's true. You're a heat sink.

[18:43]

If you're all wrapped up in yourself, if you're all with this self-referencing thinking, even I'm going to be enlightened, I'm a Buddha, I want to do this and that, why am I being disturbed by all these people? Boy, you get smaller and smaller. The presence of the world around you kind of disappears into you. Now, would you bring... attention to the breath, and this allows freedom from self-referencing, it starts a process of substituting or an alternative to self-referencing, you actually feel bigger. Feel bigger. It's funny, you know, if you're into... Self-referencing is basically a form of comparative thinking. Myself, that person, whatever. And you get smaller. But if you really feel presence, and you feel others' presence, you feel connectedness.

[19:56]

You're not comparing. You feel others' presence and your own presence, and you feel the presence of the world. Somehow you feel bigger and stronger. There's still otherness, but the otherness is a presence of connectedness. I'm just using English words, very simple words, but I'm just putting them in a little different way, saying things that are very simple. But when you feel and enact presence rather than the smaller package of being wrapped up in yourself. So, again, let's go back to our yogi practice here. Brought attention to your, to the breath and to the eating bowls and you're in a kind of sync, sync, this is a different sync, S-Y-N instead of S-I-N-K, synchronicity, synchronousness with others.

[21:15]

And you feel the presence of others. I find, as soon as we start chanting Vajrojana, Buddha, etc., you're calling up the presence of the Buddha, of the Bodhisattvas. Somehow, when you feel the Sangha, those we're eating with, as presence, as presences, Well, it's almost like the Vajrayana Buddha starts eating with us. Samantabhadra. Sambhogakaya. Somehow, each of your presences is stronger than, you know, than any ideas I have about you. And somehow, just calling up Virochana Buddha becomes presence within our presence.

[22:19]

Presence allows us to call up the presence. And we can even feel it's like we can, by noticing others' presence, we can more easily sense others as Buddhas, potential Buddhas, aspects of Buddha. And what is Buddhism but an alternative to self? The idea of a Buddha, the idea of possible to be a Buddha, it's an alternative to self. So we're not quite there yet, so let's make the alternative presence. And the alternative to self-referencing, if it's presence, presence allows, it suddenly becomes a medium or a space or a field of immanence in which Buddhists can be present too, bodhisattvas. The Sambhogakaya body, the Dharmakaya body has presence. The Nirmanakaya body has presence.

[23:22]

So I'm using the word presence as an alternative to our self-habit because it calls forth attention, calls forth presence as an aspect of attention and presence as the bodhisattvas, Buddhas, the bodies of Buddha. Now, I think I should... go through treeing etc I have a few minutes to do it I mean you all know my riff about treeing and so but I'd like it to it to be a practice we're here with these wonderful juniper and pinyon trees a kind of human sized forest it doesn't dwarf us these trees scattered here in the snow and the rain and the buildings.

[24:43]

So first of all, another big habit we're trying to change, view, world view, is we're trying to shift from entities to activity. Entities to activity. You can notice the habit of seeing entities. The notice The habit of seeing implicit permanence, expected predictability, and so forth. If there's predictability, there's convergence. Well, there is some predictability, but in the more fundamental sense, in the more dharmic sense, in the more dynamic sense, there's unpredictability, non-predictability. Okay, so let's shift, see how we can shift from entities to activities as a new habit we inhabit, as I say.

[25:52]

Okay, trees. Trees are, they're activities, they're treeing. So, every time you see a tree, see treeing. If you start seeing treeing, you start seeing the activity of the trees, bugs, wind, branches, snow on the branches, so forth. You just get in the habit of noticing activity rather than entities. Okay? So then, you begin, if you see the activity of the tree, You also, necessarily, without even looking too closely, see the stillness of the tree. Because, as I say, the leaves keep returning to, gravity returning to, stopping and starting again. Why? Because the tree has a stillness, it's rooted.

[26:56]

You can feel the roots, you can feel the trunk, you can feel the stillness. The activity occurs within a space of stillness. So there's a field of activity, but that field of activity is occurring within a field of stillness. So, you get in the habit with my practice of treeing. Every time you see a tree, you feel its stillness, and you feel its activity. And you feel the merging of the field of activity, because they're exactly the same. The field of stillness and the field of activity are exactly the same. So now you have the field of immense. Activity is possible. Stillness is possible. And if you feel the stillness of otherness, the stillness of the tree, it calls forth your own stillness, your own silence.

[28:03]

So just seeing a tree as activity brings you into your own silence, your own stillness. the field of imminence, the space, the presence, the presence of the tree. So presence is not just only an alternative, a lucky choice of an alternative to self-referencing. But it's an insight, a penetration into things as they actually exist within a field of imminence. You begin to be within yourself and the tree and otherness within the field of functioning of interdependence.

[29:13]

not entirely selfless, but still an experience of selflessness of presence with a momentary otherness of the world. Okay. Got something better to do? May our intention equally penetrate.

[30:03]

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