Yeah, real answers, convincing answers to, you know, these questions. Yeah. And I always feel somewhat It sounds like a sort of self-important word, but humbled by how difficult it is to answer these questions. And in a way, how terrible it is to answer them. if you can answer them.

[01:10]

Because sometimes the answers maybe undermine someone's way of really thinking about the world. It's a heck of a lot better than Buddhism. Unless we're talking about Buddhism as a way of really fully practicing, Of course, now Buddhism has some kind of coinage in the Western world. It's a kind of almost fashion, even celebrity fashion. Yeah, and I suppose that's part of some kind of cultural change.

[02:32]

Yeah, I'm not much interested in that. I'm interested in how we can actually practice this. Now, if we're going to speak about Buddha Nature, we also have to speak about emptiness. And emptiness is a word I don't like much. I don't use much. It's like enlightenment. It's just, you know, enlightenment makes everybody feel good, and emptiness makes everybody feel bad, and no one understands either. Or if you expect enlightenment and it hasn't happened, that makes you feel bad too. I think we can probably accept that there's our habit of permanence and there's relative impermanence or relative permanence rather

[04:13]

And it's probably helpful to have a view of, I think, probably helpful to have a view of relative Permanence, yeah, relative impermanence, relative permanence. I think we treat the, I mean, the ecology movement is relative impermanence, relative permanence, impermanence, relative impermanence, relative permanence. And you see, these words don't stick to anything. But the ecology environmental movement is certainly, geez, an improvement over the way people thought of the world when I was a kid. And that's, it's a fundamental shift in our worldview, actually. Hasn't penetrated all of our thinking, but it's, yeah, it's happening. But from the point of view of practice, understanding that things are impermanent

[05:33]

It's not that important. What's important is the experience of impermanence. The experience of interdependence and the experience of emptiness. So, you know, by speaking about entitylessness, I was trying to give you some access to, practice access to the idea of emptiness.

[06:58]

But let me try now from a little different way. Okay, imagine I'm standing here beside this permanent pillar. Which some of us are happy it has a relative permanence during the seminar. Yeah, that's good. Relative permanence there. It certainly will last through the seminar. One thinks. One can't be absolutely sure. The World Trade Center, they were fairly sure. That certainly has caused a lot of problem in the world.

[08:01]

Anyway, So I'm standing here beside this pillar. And a fly is flying around. And, you know, I can see the fly. How do I see the fly? Because I see the fly against a background. That's pretty clear, isn't it? If I couldn't have a fairly stable background, I couldn't watch the fly. So the fly is, yeah, changing. And I can perceive the changing of the fly because it's something that's not changing.

[09:02]

But if I really look at... what is not changing. Actually, I've established that as a background to the fly movement. By my experience, by my example earlier of scanning. So I'm scanning around and there's the ground and there's the pillar and there's the wall and, you know, Nymphenburg and so forth. But in fact... This background I have established.

[10:08]

And it too is impermanent. And the pillar also is just moving a lot slower than the fly. Now, if suddenly there were hundreds of flies or bees... Once I was chased by killer bees I was up pretty high on a mountain, and the group I was hiking with was way down below. And I saw several of them start this strange dance, and they were dancing around down the path. And I thought, really, it's wonderful. I didn't realize particularly those people were so spontaneous and free.

[11:12]

I was very impressed. I thought, wow. Liberated. Then I realized something was biting them or chasing them. And in this little building there, there was a building and you could buy a Pepsi-Cola. This was near Machu Picchu. So I... I found myself in the middle of this too. Some people got it in their hair. They didn't get it in my hair. Some people had the bees in their hair and it took them some hours to get them out. But somehow I didn't get bit. I danced my way through the... But about eight people, I remember, got really bit a lot.

[12:23]

But in the midst of those bees, you can't establish a background. So you can't see any bee. But if I can establish a background... I can see at least one or two bees. But, so what's real here? There's the bee and there's bees moving around. And the bee has a location because I can establish a background. But the background, to various degrees itself, is also moving, just at a different rate than the bee. And if you've been practicing, probably it helps to have been practicing.

[13:42]

And you aren't establishing the continuity of the world through your thinking anymore. Your sense of continuity is in your body. You're just standing there. And suddenly I would say, using a kind of technical term, you're in non-referential space. As an actual experience. You're suddenly in a no-location location. Everything that's locating you There's no background. And it's not that there's no background to some kind of intellectual or philosophical idea that everything's changing.

[14:46]

But you... Feel how you yourself created the background. And suddenly, there's no location. And this is, can be, a kind of an enlightenment experience. And what we could give a short definition of enlightenment, as I did the other night, it's suddenly turning around in the midst of your views. It's usually sudden. Suddenly you feel free of your views. But one kind of physical experience of it, you don't know where you are. Everything is really relative. Left, right, up, down. Then you re-establish yourself and you have to create some kind of location.

[16:06]

But you feel yourself creating the location. And when you meet somebody, you're not in a container with them. The container is also a location, a background that you're creating. So any one of you I meet, I'm creating a location. And I try. I'm not very successful at it. I try to have no thoughts about the situation when I'm talking to somebody. No comparative thoughts. Enough thoughts to have a conversation, perhaps. But no idea of the person I'm talking to as an entity. I find it quite difficult, actually, after... Four decades of practice.

[17:31]

To take out of my experience an implicit sense of entity-ness. So there's no person in front of me. There's the wide experience of eyes. Of warmth. I always feel the warmth of the person I'm standing next to. And there's the presence of, actually, the chakras and so forth. And there's everything contained in posture. And I find that a difficult... space, territory to stay in.

[18:36]

I like it, but I find it difficult to be there. Very quickly, I don't make a kind of breathing effort, I slip into entities. This person, that person, we're going to talk for a few minutes, how long are we going to talk, etc. But when I'm in that space, let's call it in that space, sounds like hippie talk. When I'm in that space... There's a quality of timelessness. There's no sense that this conversation will have a beginning or end. Ayya Khema, the other night I spoke at the Ayya Khema Center.

[20:03]

And Gerhard very kindly gave me a couple of her books. So I like to open books here and there and just start reading. And she tells an anecdote about some guy who had a fight with his wife. And she got really pissed off. And she put on her best clothes. I don't know why she put on her best clothes, but I'd get nervous. She put on her best clothes and her jewelry and nice shoes and she left the house. So the husband was completely distraught. chased after her couldn't find her in the village and saw a serene imperturbable monk and he said to him did you see a beautiful woman with her hair all made up and jewelry on go by

[21:22]

He said, no, I didn't. Did you see anything? He said, I saw a set of teeth go by. He said, I saw a set of teeth go by. This is almost like a joke, this story. You can't really imagine a monk saying, I saw a set of teeth go by. Which set of teeth? How many fillings? Although that is how they identify you in car accidents and things like that. But I saw a set of teeth go by. But there's some kind of truth in that. Because when you drop the sense of entity-ness, you really have a number of sensations. Teeth, breath, eyes.

[22:40]

Then you really have a number of feelings. Teeth, eyes, breathing, posture. You don't turn it into an entity. You just let it be what your experience is. I actually find this a more accurate way to be in the world. Now I constructed this little story of standing by the pillar and seeing the fly and the need to establish a background. Now one of the characteristics of Mahayana practice is it emphasizes the emptiness of things, not just the emptiness of self.

[23:56]

And the emptiness of things is, yeah, like to really see that the process of knowing this world of thingness And is a process in which you establish a foreground-background relationship so you can have an experience of the present as duration. So the fact that the world actually exists this way is of some importance. But what's important from the point of view of practice is you experience yourself in a space with no reference point, creating reference points.

[25:05]

So we could call it non-referential space. Now my first experience turning around in this space experience was much simpler. I was walking down Pacific Atlantic Island. Nice, I was walking down Pacific. Which means peaceful. Pacific Street in San Francisco. Washington. No, excuse me, Washington. It's no Pacific, wasn't it?

[26:07]

Washington Street. And I'm just walking along. I've been practicing about six months or a year, not too long. Yeah. And it was a nice day in San Francisco. And it's often foggy in San Francisco. Because the very hot valley of the Great Valley pours its hot air through the opening of the San Francisco harbor and hits the ocean air and it's foggy all the time. The hotter it gets in the valley, the foggier it gets in San Francisco. But it was a nice day and there was just this one cloud. And I was thinking, what a beautiful day and look at that sweet cloud.

[27:17]

It's right there over that building. I was at the edge of going down a hill. And suddenly, I had an experience of non-referential space. From a simple recognition that the cloud was over that building from one point of view, over this building from another point of view, over... and over me. It wasn't anywhere. It was all in reference to things which were changing. And I felt a tremendous release in myself Yeah, some kind of muscular, cellular level. Of all the ways I'd held the world in place,

[28:21]

but didn't need to anymore. Suddenly that I could let the world do its own thing. And it was all one kind of fluid situation that we were part of. It's like, as I said the other day, if you're in a swimming pool. And sometimes, you know, you're in a hotel swimming pool, which usually nobody uses and it's... Nobody else is in the pool. Then some guy comes in. And he just jumps in the other end of the pool. And you're trying to swim laps. Suddenly his waves are coming along. And suddenly his waves are coming along. Well, you're not separated from this guy.

[29:55]

You're in the same water together and he's making waves. If I see him in the hotel lobby, I don't feel that way. But after this experience of non-referential space, the hotel lobby is kind of a swimming pool too. Just the feeling you have in the swimming pool that this person, you're in the same situation somehow. It's an experience that... Sometimes in Zen it's called sameness. Oh, God. Sameness, you can't... Gleichheit. Gleichheit, okay. You know, Andy Warhol, the artist, had 30 cats.

[30:58]

And they were all named Sam. I think it was his little joke for Sam and Sam. Hey, Sam! And all 30 cats arrived. And there's quite a charming... children's book written by Andy Warhol's nephew called Uncle Andy. Andy Warhol's brother was a collector of junk. And they would sometimes just surprise Andy, the whole family arriving at Andy's townhouse in New York. And since I lived in New York at the time Andy Warhol was there too, and I know something about what that townhouse was like, I can't imagine ordinary people arriving by surprise.

[32:04]

But according to this charming children's book illustrated by this nephew of Andy Warhol. Andy was a very generous host and got them all doing things in the And he had 30 cats named Sam. That's how I found out that he had 30 cats. So there's this experience of sameness or we're in the same situation somehow. And as I said the other day, I believe if you practice with who?

[33:07]

Or what? What is this? What am I or who am I? Whatness opens us more into a sense of the sameness with others. Okay. You've had a number of really, I think, important questions. Yes, Verena. Do you want to ask any of them, one at a time? Or make some comment? Because I liked what you said. One question I'm really talking to you with is If I always try to overcome duality by practicing and seeing, doubt-making entities and so on, what is the world then for?

[34:36]

I enjoy duality sometimes, and it must have any sense that there is duality. So is it just the sense that I come in the end to an end and say, wow, now I see duality, the sense of duality, or what is it for? So why is it that? So my problem is this. The world is dual, and because there is duality, I always try to overcome the duality, to practice duality, to not see it anymore. Why is it there? Well, maybe you could practice with the simple phrase, just now is enough.

[35:41]

Because in some sense, just now has to be enough because you have no alternative. But if you're hungry or you have to go to the toilet, just now isn't enough. So there's the mind in which just now is not enough. And we could call that the world of dualism. And then there's the actual experience that just now is enough. Not just because you have no other choice.

[37:06]

Because suddenly you find yourself perhaps through recognizing you have no other choice. Aber du findest dich vielleicht dadurch, dass du erkennst, dass es keine andere Wahl gibt. Zum Beispiel bist du spät für eine Verabredung. Und der Bus steht in einer Verkehrsstau. Es ist nichts, was du unternehmen könntest. Es ist zu weit zu laufen. So you relax. We all have some experience like that. But that is an experience that just now has to be enough. I can't do anything about it. But the experience itself is another kind of mind. If you discover the mind of just now is enough, it's deeply relaxed mind. There's no place to go, there's nothing to do. And you feel, you're likely to feel deeply at ease.

[38:09]

So the mind of just now is enough, we could say is a mind part of what we mean by non-duality. And when just now is not enough, which is much of the time, When both of those are true and you know both those minds, we could call that the non-duality of duality. Because non-duality isn't oneness. Aber Nicht-Dualität ist auch nicht Einsheit.

[39:20]

We say not one, not two. Wir sagen nicht eins, nicht zwei. And knowing things are both one and many, that's non-duality. Und das zu wissen, dass die Dinge zugleich eins und mehreres sind, das ist Nicht-Dualität. So there's no elimination of duality. Es geht also nicht darum, das Loswerden von Dualität. Duality is The other side of non-duality. Do you understand what I mean? You get the feeling for it? You don't have to try to overcome duality. Anyway, I think that's the best I can say right now. You had some other questions that maybe in some time during the seminar I can just respond to.

[40:20]

Many of these things we have to kind of have a kind of agreed upon space before we can find a way to answer them. I think we should end pretty soon. Does someone want to, anybody else want to bring something up? Yes, Andreas. I came to my mind today that true nature and Buddha nature, if that's different things, different terms, I think it was this morning when I woke up and suddenly there are different structures.

[41:30]

When I say Buddha mind, a lot of things appear, like Buddha attitude, there is this term, the different marks, characteristics of a Buddha, the precepts. thinking of Buddha mind, I thought it could mean different structures too, like the four marks, like 32 marks, 37, 32, many. The precepts. Is that also a structure that is different from what I just said, true nature? Is it a different structure than what I said, true nature? Yeah. There's 37 limbs of enlightenment, 32 marks. 37 signs of enlightenment. Yeah, okay.

[42:30]

That this is somehow created with the term, too. that this is also done, created by this term, a different term. Created by the Buddha nature. I would say that the more you understand the background of such things and the practice of, the four marks the precepts and so forth and you practice them holding them in your awareness and in your body you're in the territory you're reading the world as text which will tell you or open you to what we mean by Buddha Nature. So let me try one more thing before we go.

[43:34]

We have a waking self. We have a self. What is this self? What is the main experience we have of self? Well, I think probably as an observer. And as I mentioned in this seminar last year here in München, I said we need a distinction between observing mind and observing self. And when we And we don't want to confuse all observation as if it's a who or self-referential observation. If all knowing was the knowing of an observer who was only known through

[44:58]

self-referential thinking, if all knowing, presumed an observer, that you identified through self-referential thinking, that's the case, there's no territory for practice. Okay, so let's go back to sunbathing. I think when you're sunbathing, worshipping the great sun god, O-Tan-Mi, I was meditating once with a friend on a dock. Michigan.

[46:13]

And I was sitting on the dock and meditating and he was doing something else. And he said to me You think you're so good sitting meditating? I'm worshipping the great sun god, O-Tan-Me. This is my oldest best friend. Anyway. When you're sunbathing, I think often you hear sounds, for instance, birds, children, whatever. Pretty much without self-referential thinking. You're not thinking, I'm hearing that, or that's a... this or that kind of bird, you just hear it. And I think people sunbathe often because it puts them in a space that's actually very close to meditation.

[47:25]

Okay. Okay, so there's one sense of I-ness is the pronoun, is the observer. Another is the sense of agency. There's somebody doing the action. And if I look at Sophia, she has a real strong sense of, that's mine. You bring something into the house, she says, is that for me? Not everything is for you, Sophia. Yeah. So I would say that those three are there, a sense of possessiveness or consequence to our actions.

[48:26]

And a sense of acting, I mean a sense of observing. A sense of acting, a sense of observing, and a sense of consequence to the actions. So if that's the, you know, our actual experience of self is somewhere in that territory. What about when you fall asleep? Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're no longer exactly the possessor of your actions. Your breathing becomes involuntary. And dreaming, there's some sense of the dreams are about you, but there's not the sense of you're often the victim of the dream.

[49:42]

You're not able to act in the dream with the consequences you'd like. Yeah. So is that yourself? Now, if we tend to think All right, let's say, okay, you wake up. When you wake up, you return to yourself. Or you're more or less the same self that went to sleep. But is the fact that you are the same self more or less when you wake up mean you have one self? If you tend to think in terms of permanence, you think you were sleeping and you were somewhere else, but now it's the same self.

[50:56]

Really, it's always the same self. But if you tend to think more in terms of impermanence, The relativeness, relativity of everything. It's maybe not the same self when you go to sleep. maybe a wider self, a more inclusive self. Then if you're a person who tends to think in terms of permanence, then you'll think, oh, it's a wider self, but when I wake up, I'll interpret it. Because it really relates to my real self, which is the waking self. But if you don't tend to think in terms of permanence, you might think This wider self is actually really a different self.

[52:20]

Yeah, and maybe the world of dreaming is a different world. And we do some damage to our dreaming self when we always want to interpret it in terms of our waking self. Now some sense of something like that needs to be the case if you want to explore meditation. If you can't find yourself a different self when you're sleeping, so if you've broken the habit of permanence, You'll stop noticing all the ways it seems like the same cat named Sam.

[53:25]

You'll stop noticing all the ways it seems like the same cat named Sam. So wahrzunehmen, als ob die verschiedenen 30 Katzen eine Katze namens Sam wären. To interpret your dreams in terms of the waking self is to try to make the dream self conform to the waking self. Wenn du dein träumendes Selbst von den Bedingungen aus des wachen Selbst interpretierst, dann zwingst du es sozusagen so, sich konform oder dem wachenden Selbst sozusagen anzupassen. And so you'll notice the parts of the dream which are interpretive of the waking self.

[54:25]

But if you've broken the habit of permanence, you'll start noticing the way your dreams really almost have in way almost nothing to do with your waking self. It's really a kind of different world. And that can be kind of scary. I'm not going to go to sleep. No, that's a different world. I might go crazy in that different world. But I think we could say just simply we have a dream self, a non-dreaming deep sleep self, and a waking self. And the waking self functions through establishing a particular kind of present.

[55:35]

And if there's too much self in the self-present, we... Yeah, the world... teaches us some lessons. And if there's too much world and not enough self, we're kind of lost. And if something terrible happens, like your job falls apart and there's a war or who knows what, if the self-present changes too much, you know, people... have nervous breakdowns, commit suicide, and so forth. Because if you're a believer in implied permanence, the self-present can't change too much.

[56:37]

This companionship of the self and the present. But if you accept Dreaming as a different world. And the dream self, yeah. Something different. And the non-dreaming deep self actually is quite close to what we come to in meditation. And if we can explore our meditation without making the observer within meditation And if we can explore our meditation...

[57:52]

And if we can observe our meditation without making the observer conform to our waking self, we might discover that one of the possibilities of being is Buddha nature. And it may be noticed when we don't make the world conform to our waking self and self-present. When we've let loose of the habit of permanence, Wenn wir von der Gewohnheit der Beständigkeit lassen können, und die vielen Potentialitäten und Möglichkeiten sehen und fühlen können, dann ist eine davon ein Buddha zu sein.

[59:15]

Or being within the practice we call Buddha-nature. So let's sit for one minute or two minutes or an unnamed number of minutes. And then we can have an evening. Visualize a point at the top of your head.

[60:35]

And then visualize or feel yourself lift your body up to that point on your head. And let the mind of the backbone take over your, enter into your sitting. Let your inhales come up your backbone.

[61:40]

Feel like they're sliding along your backbone. And sometimes just going past the lungs all the way up to the top of the head. And sometimes go along behind the lungs to the top of your head. Thank you. How good it is to practice with you.

[62:55]

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