And I think, you know, just to reinforce this sense of the value of perplexity, to reinforce the sense of the fruitfulness of perplexity. I think that the, as I pointed out recently, I think that the use of the word order and disorder points directly to our delusion. Because the word order implies that order is the basic state and disorder is the not basic state.

[01:19]

And I think it might be better to say the basic state is chaos and this chaos is the is what we call order. So you could tell people we were discussing this chaos. This chaos. So... So in a way you could say mindfulness practices are to remove you from the level of generalization that disguises that disguises dischaos as order.

[02:38]

That's an original definition of mindfulness. And probably should best disappear into the void. Oh yeah, I have to go back to A.B. and A.B. You said that world is created by the way of seeing it. Partially. Yeah, till now I thought the world I perceive is created by perceiving it. So I think inside, outside. That's mine. So I don't understand what you say, that world in my categories, outside world, is created and changing by the way I change my perception. Can you speak German, please? He said yesterday that the world changes by the way we perceive it.

[03:47]

And I have believed so far For us, the world is always perceived. That is, our perceived world, which we can talk about at all, changes naturally by the way we perceive it. But I have a concept inside, outside, that is, my perceived world and the object itself. Now, if I understand what you said, And these questions are great because they are slowing us down from last night. And actually we need to go quite slowly in something like this. And if I understand again what you said,

[04:47]

You said you accept that the way you perceive the world affects the world you perceive. But you're not sure it influences or affects the creation of the world in general. Well, although most people don't even see that the way they perceive the world affects the world much, their own world. With a given little thought, it's obvious that the world you see is entirely within the conditioning of your senses.

[06:06]

If you give it a little thought, it's apparent that the world you see is conditioned by your own perceptual fields. If that's true though, since all of this is nothing but interacting fields, it actually affects everything. But this is not within the way our senses are constructed to notice. It's not possible in the way our senses are constructed to notice it. Or it's very difficult. But I'll come back to that. In response to Yasmin's statement question,

[07:21]

We have to revert to some technical language. because to say that you don't exist and I don't exist but our interactions exist in the common usage of language doesn't make any sense. So we have to technically define what we mean by existence. And in Buddhism it is thought that the idea of existence is a delusion producing, let's see, the usual idea of existence is a delusion producing idea.

[09:02]

So when I say you don't exist, what I mean is you don't have a permanent existence. And I mean that you don't have an inherent existence. And again, I think it's useful maybe to define why these two terms, inherency and permanency, are used. It's useful to define these two words. Because permanent means that the world is predictable from now into the future. We know that's not true. And we also know, if you will forgive me for mentioning it, that at some time you are quite likely to perish.

[10:07]

It's not something you usually say to people. You meet some people at a restaurant and you sit down and say, I know you're all going to die, but let's order some tea. Party pooper. I don't know if you have that expression in German. So in that sense, you are not permanent.

[11:24]

And in that sense, I am not permanent. And also the sense of inherency means that there's no prior essential nature in you that continues until the present. We could say there are only non-random fields of potential. So your genetics perhaps creates a non-random field of potential. Okay. So that's the sense that you don't exist and I don't exist. But if there's an interaction between us, That interaction has a karmic existence because it leads to other interactions.

[12:44]

But it doesn't mean that this interaction will stay forever. No, it also, it just leads to other interactions. The only thing that's forever is the change. Yeah, but change is just a generalization. Okay. Now, but of course, she is nothing but a field of karmic interactions. So it's not just that this is, we could say, a karmic interaction. Your ability to even talk to me is a field of karmic interactions. You and I are fields of karmic interactions trying to translate together. So, I think there's one part of what you said I didn't respond to.

[13:57]

Man and woman making babies. Yeah, OK. OK. We have our three actors sitting in the front row. That's like actors, they always go to the front stage. Where am I? Okay. Let me just say before I go to the mother-child image that, again, I want to point out that what's the use of all of this stuff of what exists and what doesn't exist and permanency and inherency and so forth?

[15:21]

Even if the words don't quite make it clear or get it straight, still, if you hear it enough, it changes the way you function. It changes the way you see the territory of being. And a small shift in that direction makes a big difference. Okay. Now the example of the mother and so forth is just that, to go through it again in another way, is just that a woman is not a mother.

[16:33]

A woman has the potential of being a mother. Most women can make babies. But it takes the interaction with the child to produce the mother. And the baby's main job is to turn you into a mother. Because it's in some ways quite helpless. But it is more skillful than most kings and queens. Because it turns its parents, these two great creatures looking down at it, into subjects. Please go get me this. Yes. Please straighten my covers, yes.

[17:48]

So, babies are very powerful in that they turn their parents into subjects. So... So... So in that sense, using that image, situations are always, I mean, when I'm talking to you, the way you speak to me and the way I speak to you creates a relationship. And anyway, that's clear. But that's the way the world works. We create relationships and those relationships begin to make everything happen. So I think it's getting close to the time.

[18:49]

It would be good to take a break. I don't know. Quarter to eleven. Let me bring up Linji or Rinzai's statement about this. He said very succinctly, very precisely and clearly, that he said, in the field of the body, in the field of the body, of five clusters, meaning the five skandhas, Okay, I'm going to repeat the whole line several times.

[19:52]

You don't have to repeat it every time I repeat it once you've translated. So, in the field of the body of the five clusters, there is a person of no rank. In the field of the body of the five clusters, there is a person of no rank, grandly revealed, without a hair's breadth difference. Without a hair's breadth difference. Who goes in and out of the portals of your face. Who goes in and out of the portals of your face. meaning the perceptual release, just a code for your perceptual fields, who goes in and out of the portals of your face.

[21:10]

Why don't you see this person of no rank? And then he says, the... mind is without boundaries and covers everything. So he points out very clearly the very problem we're having in this discussion. Why don't we see this person of no rank? No rank means no marks or no defining permanent characteristics. Now, this is koan number 38, I believe, in the Book of Serenity.

[22:16]

And I suppose if some of you would like copies of it, we do have a blank copy of the book here. And is there a Xerox machine somewhere on the property? We could make copies if anybody wants to, would like to look at the koan. But I like the vina bandha. Worry about that. Okay. Now, Okay, I think we've made some progress. So when we come back I'll try to go into this a little more, a little differently.

[23:25]

So I'm going to ring the bell, but not for Zazen, just to stop for a moment. Just to stop for a moment and then we'll go over. I've been looking for a reason why... an example to use for why this is so difficult to understand or to get a feel for. Hey! Will you have a voice?

[24:32]

Start speaking from above. And so poking around I thought I could use Darwin as an example. It's a Remarkable, as has been pointed out, that such a seemingly simple way of looking at things took so long for anybody to notice. I mean, we've had some great people around who are really good at noticing things, like Newton and Galileo and so forth, and none of them noticed natural selection. But the changes that reflect natural selection occur over thousands and millions of years.

[25:58]

And that our brains are just not designed to perceive change at that scale. I mean evolution itself has designed brains that don't perceive evolution. And the only way we can really support evolution with evidence is through the fossil record. The record of fossils. I'll start again. The only way we can really find physical evidence for evolution is through the fossil record.

[27:05]

But in the type of perception I'm speaking about, there's no fossil record. Now, I think evolution in some senses is counterintuitive and goes against common sense. By counterintuitive I mean it doesn't the evidence doesn't appear to us in the way our senses work. And by it goes against common sense, I mean that it is not part of the way we culturally and consensually see the world.

[28:28]

We see ourselves, and to make it simple, a monkey, and we say, you know, we don't see our cousin. And that's partly because we see generalizations. We don't see the magnificence of the monkey and the magnificence of ourselves. And we don't see the greater magnificence perhaps of the field of being that both of these create and exist in. No, in some ways the way in which everything changes is is also not the way we can perceive, the way our senses work. The way in which everything changes is not perceivable to our senses.

[29:45]

Let me use the example of what Rilke's poem, That Star These Thousand Years, is dead. The star is in the past and we are only seeing the light in the present of it. Now, you're not as far away as a star, but you might like to be a star. No, you're not as far away as a star, but you are still far enough away that I can say actually you're in the past. And the light is reaching me. But you are in the presence of my sense field.

[30:48]

So we're in a kind of world in which everything is falling away into the past and yet our sense fields, our I field, creates a sensation of the present. And we are interacting with each other. There's photons going back and forth. And I suppose with the light from the star, there's photons. But we can't draw a real conclusion that each of us are stars falling away into the past, from my point of view. On reappearing in the present. No, when I say this, it sounds like nonsense. But it's again that it's very difficult. There isn't... It's just difficult to understand.

[32:05]

Now, the word in Buddhism for conventional... the conventional world has three or four roots. And one root means that it's... that... that the word conventional means covered over. Sometimes a more complicated word, occluded, which means clouded over. You don't have to translate. So in one sense it's covered over or a kind of disguised or, you know, anyway, like that. And a second root is that there's a consensual dependency.

[33:09]

And the second root is that it's a And this is distinguished from what I said yesterday, a consensual attention. A consensual dependency means that we have a tendency to form our views through dependency on other people's views. And there have been quite a lot of psycho-sociology tests which demonstrate this. Like if you get five people in a row and you say... is he holding something in his hands?

[34:23]

But I'm not. She says yes, and he says yes, and she says yes, and she says yes, and then you, you're not part of the game, and you say, yeah, I see it too. The disturbing quality we human beings have. So the second sense is that we have this tendency to be consensually dependent, which hides the world from us. So you could say the Sangha is to try to create a different kind of consensual dependency. Or to create a consensual attention where we decide to free ourselves from consensual dependency by consensual attention.

[35:32]

And the third sense of this is that since the way our senses work don't allow us to see how the world really is, we tend to think in generalizations and symbols. We can only think in simplifications. And the fourth is which also is really included in the third is language itself. Language itself as an agreement about meanings hides things from us. So when Buddhism speaks about the conventional world, it means the world is defined through these four characteristics. Now, one thing that's important in this And the way this is defined is that there is an element in this decision about... There is an element in this definition of conventional which says that consent is involved.

[37:14]

We are always giving our consent to a certain way of seeing things. And that makes a big difference between the ability to see the fossil record, which is not within our realm of consent. We're designed to see change over a day or two, decades maybe, maybe a century, but we can't see change on any greater scale than that. But if in a sense we uneducate or re-educate our senses, we can begin to see more closely, we can be more in touch with how the world actually exists. So we could say you're making a shift from seeing reality to seeing actuality.

[38:26]

And you can make that distinction in German pretty simply, just by using... Now again, this becomes a special definition of these words because we could say that actuality is reality. But I'm using reality to mean that perceptual activity which reifies the world. Reifies? Reifies means to make concrete, like... and reifies it in terms of seeing things as having an inherent identity and a permanent identity and practically speaking this is one of the two truths we have to see things this way to function

[39:47]

And most of the details of our life, well, no. Most of the details of our common life depend on this way of seeing. But the details of our, I would say, most of the details of our psychological life and our spiritual life exist in another way. So the question is, how can you change the way you pay attention, give attention to the world so that you see actuality rather than reality? And eventually can make the shift from actuality to reality and reality to actuality fairly easily. And you do it every time you fall asleep. You are shifting When you sleep, more into actuality and not in reality.

[41:18]

In the special way I've defined these two words. Can I try to give you two other words? The words of the hospital hero, described in German. The difference between reality, the real reality, And the reality. Because it's more beautiful than the present. It's the work of the correlation. It's just a piece of reality. And we leave it to reality to give us the ability to write it. It's beautiful, it's strong. No, it's not strong. It's a bit scary. Yes, it's a bit scary. It's a bit scary. Maybe you could say it in English. I don't know. I've had this discussion with Hanspeter Doris.

[42:38]

You can translate easily. I think that I know that I need, when I'm trying to discuss these things, Well, mainly I need an anchor in a non-graspable sensation. An anchor in a non-graspable sensation.

[43:39]

But I also, it's very helpful if I can have an anchor in a word. That allows me to put the anchor into the ocean and sometimes put the anchor up into the sky. Because it's actually quite difficult unless we find some kind of phrase that allows us to stay in contact with the way we usually think and letting ourselves into this other way of thinking. So, what is the difficulty in seeing... How can I put it? What is the difficulty in seeing change? And to really see change means that you see that there's nothing there.

[44:53]

Okay, but what is there? What is there is a field of a multiplicity of mutual co-arisings. What is there is being as dependent co-arising. Yeah. So... Okay. So I need to create a term for this. So I don't have to say, being as a field of dependent co-arising, which maybe we call it bofa.

[46:00]

Being as field of dependent, I don't know, we need a technical term, bofa maybe, but that's a little too close to ufo. Okay. Okay. And why is it difficult to see one of the reasons, well, let's go further, the difficulty of seeing a being as a field of dependent co-arising? Okay. Because you're not only seeing it through your own choice by undoing the cultural consent. You're not only seeing it through undoing cultural consent. Do you understand cultural consent? Yeah. We have a consent to see the world a certain way. Yeah. You have to undo that consent in order to see the world a certain way.

[47:06]

Yeah. you have to undo that consent in order to see. So you in a way made a choice to undo cultural consent. Yes, Ulrike? That's right. I want to say that in Deutsch. Yes. What were you going to say? This brings us back to something you said last night.

[48:19]

I put some thought into this. When you said that our way of perceiving the world through our senses, the path evolved in terms of evolution on a survival scale, on a physical survival scale. Now there's this other way of looking at the world, which is also quite necessary for those few, that sort of upheld the way of looking at the world in a way necessary for the survival in terms of spiritual awareness. Why was it necessary in the first place to make them so divergent? Or why did they evolve so divergently? Okay, Deutsch. that our art device is characterized by the senses, by the evolutionary development of the senses, which, on the one hand, make up the overwhelming in the physical realm.

[49:20]

In parallel, there is a type of device to be considered that is not physiological, therefore not impaired or impaired by the senses, And for the few, when he experienced it or when he was on the way to enlightenment, it was necessary and directly regarded as a deposition of thinking as spirituality. So that this way of looking at it is not characterized by not being able to survive in the physical realm of spirituality. Well, I suppose the answer is, and of course nobody knows the answers, but I suppose the answer is... ...is that... physical survival is prior to spiritual survival.

[50:31]

Spiritual survival may be in the end have to do with may have in the end spiritual survival may have more to do with our ultimate survival. Okay, but since physical survival is prior to spiritual survival, and it is actually a really full-time job, All you have to do is be out of a job and realize how difficult it is. And so over the millennia, physical survival is so demanding that our senses have developed primarily to accomplish that task.

[51:42]

And I think that's what Ulrike means. But the fact that we still dream and sleep means that we also have preserved or continued ways of perceiving that see actuality and not just reality. Okay. Now, let me go back to why is it so difficult to see change as a field of... No, no. Why is it so difficult to see change dependent co-arising.

[52:49]

And to know our being as dependent co-arising. And I would say it is because the that First of all, as I said, you have to make this choice going against consensual dependency. And then what you see through this choice is millions of unacted upon choices. So what you see is change that doesn't change and that's very difficult to see. Because our senses are developed to perceive differences, not samenesses. So what you actually have is this field of dependent co-arising is a field of potential change but very little actual change.

[54:04]

Or changes in which the difference is so slight that we are unable to perceive. Okay, what is the importance of this? Once you see that it's a field of potential change, you can interact with that field. But if you don't see that it's a field of potential change, you can only act within generalizations and simplifications. So the real difficulty is seeing change that doesn't change. So what we see is permanence. That makes that sense? It took me a long time to think of how to say that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. your emphasis on impermanence and the unruly concept, but you use the concept, the unruly concept, of reflexivity.

[55:53]

Of what? Of reflexivity. Yeah. So, for instance, when you use evolution as concept for a client, Well, I see that the problem that I'm using concepts to undo concepts. I don't see quite the fossil record example. Ich sehe, dass ich Konzepte verwende, um Konzepte aufzulösen, aber ich verstehe das mit den Fossilrekorden. And maybe you ought to say what you said in German, too. Okay. You said in the end that nothing you have got, because in the end you've got nothing in your hands.

[57:17]

That's right, that's why we have this… As I guess you've answered your own question, because you've ended up with emptiness. I think you asked the question, I answered it, I think by emptiness. Bye. Bye. Would you agree that something disappears from our senses, somebody dies or in another way, that this doesn't necessarily imply that it starts to disappear? Using your example of the star, as we know from physics, stars can continue to exist in another form when they disappear from our senses. You mean like black holes or something like that? I mean, is this building... This building isn't old enough to be filled with the black holes of ghosts. This building is not old enough to be filled with the black holes of ghosts. Black archetypes, for instance, continue to exist.

[58:21]

We can still have access to them on a different level. Or we can spiritually exist in a different dimension or a different kind of... Do you want to say that in German? For example, if you take the example of a star, then we know from physics that stars can also exist in a different way, depending on whether we place them in our senses, for example in a black hole. Well,

[59:25]

I can't respond to everything you brought up. And it's a whole kind of sideline and parallel development within Buddhism. And sometimes much of it is just put into the category of the intermediate world. The many dimensions that we intimate or experience that are not replicable or identifiable. And also in the sense that, you know, in this world that is mysterious but not mystic, many things are possible.

[61:06]

But it seems, yeah, I mean, it seems like something like that's possible. Now, in very specific sense, what you brought up as an archetype, the mahasattva is a kind of archetype. In other words, if we distinguish between a mahasattva and a bodhisattva, A bodhisattva is born, if you want to get technical about it, at the sixth bhumi. Bhumi. That's when you go through hyperspace and you go bhumi. There's ten bhumis, which are the stages of But the bodhisattva is a possibility for you.

[62:10]

And in some ways, depending on how you look at it, we're all bodhisattvas. Which means we live in a world of ordinary person subjectivity and Buddha subjectivity. But the Maha Sattva means that in the way I'm using it, is that together we create the mold of a bodhisattva. Just as in a way our culture creates the mold of a human being.

[63:10]

and then we fit ourselves into that mold and cultures can create demonic or angelic molds or a whole culture or a nation can go kind of crazy creating a mold which for some reason resonates with some dimensions of the ordinary person And the big idea of a bodhisattva or mahasattva is that together we create among ourselves the possibility of a bodhisattva identity and we begin to find ourselves moving into that identity. And I had this very discussion with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and he agreed with my way of looking at it. Okay. Now we're supposed to have lunch in 15 minutes or a little more. So I'd like to try to, you know, at least settle our discussion a little bit here.

[64:50]

I think that we've made it pretty clear, I've made it as clear as I can anyway, that this field of coal of dependent co-arising which is a field of change potential not of change so much but of the potential of change is not easy to perceive because of our consensual dependency, because of the way our senses work, and because of our tendency to think in generalizations and in language.

[65:54]

But this field potential of this field potential being is how we exist in actuality. But we also have to hold that field potential being together in some way. It can't be just random. So you have a non-random field potential of change In which if you look very closely, each moment is different. Nothing is identical to anything else. Even if the next moment is exactly the same, its field potential of change is different. In other words, this might be the same here and the same here.

[66:55]

But if it were going to change here, it would change differently than if it changed here. And that makes it different. Because if it were to change, it would change differently. So from this point of view of looking at things, there is no duplication in the world. Every moment in this seminar is completely different from every other moment. But we create an illusion of permanence because the majority of elements don't change. They could change but they don't. And if that weren't true, we wouldn't be here. Okay. Yes, Balter.

[68:03]

If our sense is structured in a way how we perceive the world and is determined by evolution to make it sure that we survive, probably this way of perceiving is sealed by some kind of fear of death. Absolutely. You want to say that in Deutsch? That's a good observation. If we perceive things in this way, if evolution, which ensures survival, is connected, then it is probably also connected biologically with a fear of death, which, if we see the world differently, will automatically be built into the world. And in many shamanic traditions there is the initiation of a shaman who is also connected to the world differently, with a natural experience, which is connected to nature.

[69:12]

And I think, if we start to see the world differently, that we could or will have a form of natural experience. All the zazen instructions like uncorrected mind are all ways of saying let go. But kind of craft-like ways or operative ways of saying it so you can actually do it. And you can do it in the various realms of being. Okay, now this afternoon I would like to come back to the next three attentions and look at how we can give consent to another way of perceiving that brings us very close to recognizing being as a field of dependent co-arising.

[70:18]

And definitely brings us into a more participatory interaction with this field of dependent co-arising. Yeah. Well, you always say the only thing in this world is mutual. Yeah, yeah. But you always talk to us as if there is another person behind the two ways of perceiving the world that can decide, but where is it? I think the person is totally in reality out of evolutionary reasons maybe, but everything I do and see, if I talk I use my senses, so I'm totally in the evolutionary world of reality. You know, when you talk, it's always like, you know, there's somebody standing behind me who's, you know, could switch.

[71:25]

Yeah, I know, it's true. Okay, I don't want to get into that right now. Maybe next year. No, this is technically sometimes defined as the appearer. There's a sensation in this field of dependent co-arising of an appearer, something that appears that makes decisions. And that happens because it seems to be an intensification of consciousness being able to observe itself. It happens because consciousness seems to be able to intensify itself to the point where it can observe itself. Sorry, second part. So it can observe itself. But these can pop up like waves at different points. Now, we have taken this field of consciousness, shall we say, and we've taken one point where it pops up and said, hey, that's our self.

[72:45]

But we can let that sink back in and it can pop up somewhere else. Or not pop up at all. Or pop up anywhere. And the ability to do that is called wisdom. Yeah. Jeez. Okay. Let me tell you another story, all right? And just to end. This is an evening in the life of a Buddhist couple. Last night I realized that Uli is not just Uli, she's UFO Uli. So this is just looking at things from the point of view and I'm shifting away from all of this stuff to looking at practice as a craft.

[73:51]

Because and many of you have been bringing up questions to me which show how how how genuinely you are engaged in practice as a craft. And I love your questions, which are not generalizations, but actually so you're working with things. So Ulrike and I had a discussion which got kind of intense. And at some point she was sitting on this lounge settee kind of couch. Like a maiden in a Roman fresco.

[75:00]

And I was sitting at the desk in front of my little portable computer. And she was behind me. This is just an anecdote really. I don't know what it proves. So I felt like it would be nice to calm the situation a bit. So I found what I did and I sort of noticed it later but intuitively This may sound strange to you, but I will tell you. As I took my kind of location and put it into my back. And then I tried to calm Ulrike down, calm my back down and calm Ulrike down with my back. So I could feel this kind of real connection between her sitting behind me and my back, and I could feel her in the field of my back.

[76:16]

But she was also moving her toes. And every now and then her toes would click, you know, how your neck... I'm sorry. Maybe we should turn all tape recorders off. Anyway, your toes were clicking away, and yeah. And the room, the architecture of the room is such that it echoed way out in the middle of the room. So I could feel her presence in my back, but she was clicking out there somewhere. Now, if she was only clicking where her feet are and it wasn't echoing out, I wouldn't have noticed it much.

[77:20]

So it started to create a dissonance in me. Because my body was perceiving her body in two locations, not one. And what I would say is a kind of danger mechanism came in which interfered with my perceptual field. So while I was sitting here trying to feel the difference between aurica in my back and aurica out there with my ears, and my ears were doing the mathematical calculations necessary to figure out where the sound was coming from, And so what I noticed was I was shifting to do the kind of brain-ear calculations to locate the sound was a different state of mind than my back feeling her.

[78:29]

So I could feel it shifting me out of my back and then I'd go back to my back. So then I thought I would share my observations with Ulrike so I told her what was going on. And then you asked, what did you ask? Actually, when you hear yourself hearing, whether you can still tell where the hearing of your hearing comes from. So then we had to discuss, you know, a whole bunch of stuff in all this. So, at least we had to make these distinctions, which, when I hear, say this is a sound, when I hear this, there's a subject perceiving the sound.

[79:54]

So I hear the object. Now, when I cease to hear the object in the sense that I'm naming it. I know that lunch is ready. And I cease to hear the sound so that I'm naming it. When I withdraw the objective identification of it into the field, I change my consciousness. Okay. Now, So that's the second stage of hearing-hearing. So now it's the subject hearing the field of hearing rather than the object of hearing.

[80:54]

Because you can say I folded the object into the field. But then I can fold the subject into the field And reduce the identification of the subject. Reduce the identification of the subject. And then you have hearing itself. And then there's no appearer. Or there's a kind of a purer which can disappear into the field. Okay, so then Ulrike said something like, well then how do you hear the clicking of my toes, or something like that. Anyway, so this is what Buddhist couples talk about, you know.

[81:57]

So, yeah. So, what's interesting is that there seems to be, and it's pretty clear when you're, that this, in other words, what Ulrike said is there has to be then someone who listens or I wouldn't hear the clicking of the, you can't completely disappear into the field. Yeah, and I think this is simply survival mechanism. In other words, let's use very quickly the example of sunbathing. You're sunbathing. And as you know, most of you know, I think sunbathing is a practice on the light and field, on the light, we could say the light device and the sound device.

[83:10]

Thank you. So the sun is strong enough that pretty soon you're really in a kind of light meditation and not anymore in your usual conscious mind. And that triggers also then sound, so you begin to hear the sounds on the beach and so on, you know. And you don't know quite where anything is and you're not locating, it's just sounds and the sun and so forth. But if someone decides to land an airplane on the beach, at a certain level the noise will make you, yeah, better get off the beach, right? And I think you all experience that if you do a sashin and there are a lot of mosquitoes.

[84:21]

Because these mosquitoes are just, they're no problem, right? And then they start coming close. And as soon as you start tracking the mosquito, you're out of zazen mind. Is it going to land on me or not? Is it presently crawling on me on the back of my neck? Is that itch I feel mean it's still there or has it fallen off? And there's two answers. One is to find it's long gone and you've just got a series of bites. Or really go into zazen mind and stop the calculations of the location of flying... blood suckers who are injecting you with de-coagulants that make you itch and of course we do this when we sleep if the noise or something is sufficient you wake up and say what's going on

[85:39]

So zazen mind or this ability to enter into field perception is the same. At a certain point, a kind of survival mechanism tracks sufficiently to pop you out of it. Yeah, okay. Thank you very much for translating. And we're a little late to lunch, but we have to go through the rain. So we eat inside. But we can bring them inside, can't we? Thank you very much. Okay. It doesn't look like I have to remind you to sit comfortably.

[87:03]

If it's still possible. Christine? Oh no, Eric. There is still a distinction. Yes. And Uschi, what was the Winnie the Pooh? I'm not sure if I remember exactly. Well, it's good enough. And what makes this perhaps a child's rhyme? and not philosophy?

[88:15]

Or maybe what makes it Buddhism and not philosophy? It doesn't sound like there's any attempt to answer the question. Just sometimes you ask who is who and what is what. And be in the indeterminacy of that. Okay. Do you have the koan? Does everybody have it or some people have it? Well, you don't have to. I can just... If there's enough, we can perhaps not... Let's just look at the introduction for a little bit.

[89:57]

Just to look at Buddhism's way of talking about these things. Because as Eric, this Eric a few moments ago pointed out that We're using concepts to untangle concepts. What is that? It takes two concepts to tangle? No. Okay, is the first line there, taking a thief for one's son? Anyone want to suggest what that means? Obviously. You can try, nothing wrong with trying. So the sense of it is that our usual way of perceiving the world is a thief.

[91:13]

And we think it's our son or our daughter. And... The second phrase there, taking the servant for the master, the way we perceive the world, we should be the master of and instead we're the servant of. And can a broken wooden ladle be your fossil record? No, no, ancestor's skull. What is a ladle? A spoon, a wooden spoon.

[92:29]

It's nice how this koan, which I hadn't, haven't read for a few years, fits in with what we're discussing. So the broken wooden ladle in Zen ways of thinking represents culture. How we pass to one generation to the next with this wooden ladle. A man-made, a human-made object. Which is certainly important. Because you could have a comment here if I commented, what do you think this koan is other than a broken wooden ladle?

[93:37]

Man könnte natürlich einen Kommentar hinschreiben und hinschreiben, was glaubst du, was das anderes ist, dieses Koan, als ein hölzner Löffel. But certainly a broken wooden ladle is not the same as your ancestor's skull. In other words, what are we really inheriting, the question asks. Was erben wir wirklich? And just hitching yourself to a donkey doesn't do any better. Hitching yourself, tying yourself to a donkey. Not an ass. Donkey. Okay.

[94:16]

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