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Experiencing the Zen Mind Anew

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Seminar_Original_Mind

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The talk focuses on the concept of "Original Mind" in Zen philosophy, emphasizing the importance of experiencing mind moment-to-moment to better understand its elusive nature. It contrasts different perceptions and practices of consciousness in Zen versus Western philosophies, advocating for the experiential understanding of mind over theoretical constructs. The talk suggests that true understanding arises from direct experience and mindfulness, exploring the idea of how varying conditions affect the mind from moment to moment.

Referenced Works and Concepts:
- "Original Mind" (working title for an upcoming book): The anticipated book will focus on explaining the concept of original mind, which is the title of this seminar as well.
- "The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac: This novel is mentioned as a possible inspiration for seeking Zen experiences in Japan.
- Visions of Zen Masters like Matsu, Nagarjuna, and the Buddha: Their teachings are referenced to emphasize that personal experiences validate philosophical inquiries.
- Sixth Patriarch's Poem: Discussed in the context of mind, suggesting that the physical mind’s mirror and the act of polishing (cleansing) are illusory.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein: Referenced for the idea that everything seen is not inherently linked to the perception of mind, thus emphasizing the necessity of awareness in mindfulness practice.
- Sati and the Buddha’s Dialogue: Used to explore concepts of consciousness and the continuously arising nature of original mind, as described in Zen tradition.

AI Suggested Title: "Experiencing the Zen Mind Anew"

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Good evening. And thank you, Christiane, for having us back here again. And I guess there's some people who aren't here yet, right? For tomorrow. OK. So I have to figure out how to start and I have to start again tomorrow. But we're always starting so it's probably all right. And thank you Eric and Christine who's not here and Michael for organizing this. You're welcome. And it gives me a chance to come to Austria.

[01:05]

And this is Marie-Louise, who also happens to be my wife. And she also happens to, by accident, start translating for me recently. And you'll find out if she's any good during the seminar. But she doesn't know all the Buddhist terms and Zen terms and practice terms like Eric and Christina do. We're really good translators. But we'll see if she can learn them as we go along here. Or make up substitutes. And an old Dharma friend and fellow practitioner of mine is here, Dan Welch.

[02:11]

So he went to Japan, how old were you? Twenty. I always have the fantasy you read the Dharma Bums and left for Japan, is that right? What was that? He read the Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac's book, and got on a boat to Japan. And how long were you there? Two years? Two years. And then when he came back, he was a little tired of Zen. And he built a chair half the size of this room. And he sat like a sculpture out in front of his house in Berkeley. But I recognized his experience and everything and I tried to talk him into meeting Suzuki Roshi.

[03:23]

And so he practiced with Sukershi a long time. And now continues with us in Crestone and wanted to see what's going on here in Austria. So I'm very glad you were able to join us. Yeah. In fact, we had a Buddhist wedding too, and he performed it. So we've been married on every continent. Yeah. So the title of this, given to this seminar, I think is Original Mind, is that right?

[04:35]

And it also happens to be the title of the book I hope to finish this year for sure. So it may take a whole book for me to explain original mind. But I hope not. But I can't say much about mind really unless you decide to observe, notice your own mind. And we're not talking just about consciousness, but something larger than consciousness. And something that includes Anything we can call mind.

[05:52]

So I think part of this weekend, these days, we have an extra day this year, don't we? Yes. Usually we start on Friday evening, but to start Thursday evening, let's see if we can, with a little more time, discover the practice of these things better. Because what How the study or observation of consciousness differs in Zen practice from Western philosophy?

[06:53]

There's no theory that's taken seriously unless it's practicable. And when you practice mind, you find you might have to change your theories. So I'd like in a kind of primitive way, if it makes sense, to explore this with you. Yeah, it's gonna give you... So you're gonna have to give some time during these days to noticing your own mind. As right now, what's happening in my speaking is in your minds.

[08:12]

I mean, we're all sitting here in this room and have a sort of coherent picture of This room, but it's in our mind. Now, Wittgenstein said that there's nothing in the scene that tells you it's being seen by mind. You can ignore mind almost and just think it's all out there. So if you want this to be practice and not just theory, You have to see, feel that out there simultaneously in your mind.

[09:27]

When I breathe in, I can feel the air is in my chest. I can feel the my chest responds to the air. But when I look at you, you're coming into my mind, but I don't have such a clear physical sensation of it. So I think we have to find some way To remind ourselves, you can't say that in German so easily, regeist. Everything you see, the information from perceptions, points to the object. You have to remind yourself that it also points to mind.

[10:49]

So when I look at you, I'm seeing the mind that arises through looking at you. This is obvious. But most people don't spend much time noticing it. Practice is to spend a little time noticing. Now, who here doesn't have any or little experience with meditation? Oh, okay. And also, if anybody wants to, you're welcome to sit in a chair.

[12:08]

And perhaps, are there chairs available? Yes, there are. And stools. Are there big comfortable chairs with arms and everything? Maybe I get one too. I had a friend who meditated for years more Hindu style. And he really, he was, I mean, he meditated, I mean, it's crazy, hours and hours a day. But he had a very big, soft chair he meditated in. So I used to call him the lofty, softy. And finally I get him down out of his chair.

[13:21]

Now he doesn't sit quite so long. Yeah. Now one of the illusions we have is that consciousness and mind is some kind of permanence. That if I look at you, you know, I'm seeing my friend Dan. If I look at Mikael, I see my friend Mikael. And I may have the feeling that the same mind is seeing them.

[14:23]

But I think if you feel that, you're operating out of ideas and not experience. Out of an idea rather than actual experience. While it may be hard to notice, when I look at Dan, a Dan mind arises. And if I look at Michael, a Michael mind arises. And they're not exactly the same. In other words, the consciousness that's arising is influenced by what causes it to arise.

[15:29]

No, of course you know that. You feel differently walking in the forest than walking in downtown Wien. You feel differently listening to music than listening to, not listening to music, say. But I think we think it's the difference between the music and the forest or something. We don't think it's so much the difference in the mind that is generated by the forest. then we think less about the fact that this is the spirit that was created or produced through the forest.

[16:39]

I mean, if you just now, I don't know, you can't all look out, but if I go from looking at Dan, for instance, and when I feel the mind that arises when I look at Dan, and then I switch and feel all of you simultaneously in my mind, I mean, at least my body actually changes somewhat. I can feel physically I'm a little different in the face and so forth. So there's a mind that is generated by trying to feel all of you without looking at anyone specifically. And then there's the mind, which changes as soon as I look at Dan specifically. Okay, and then if I switch from all of you to the forest,

[17:44]

We're kind of in a tree house here. Kids in a tree house today, this weekend. But when I switch to my tree house mind, it's again different than what I feel all of you. ist das wieder anders, als wie wenn ich euch alle spüre. Okay, so right now we've got a Michael mind, a Dan mind, an olive mind, and a tree mind. Also jetzt haben wir den Michael Geist, den Dan Geist, den euch alle Geist, und den Baum Geist. So that's four. Das sind vier. Just in the last few minutes. Bloß in den letzten paar Minuten. So how many minds do we have? Also wie viele Geiste haben wir denn? Well, strictly speaking, you have as many minds as there are moments.

[19:02]

Unless you kind of force your mind into some kind of generalization. And we often do. Our views Get us locked into a certain kind of mind. Usually a mind tied to words and thoughts. And comparisons. Okay. So I'm just saying a few things trying to make us think together about mind. Okay, then we can make this a little, we can give a little more definition to this by asking, in what mind do you find the continuity from moment to moment?

[20:20]

In what kind of mind do you feel is your real mind? When you identify yourself as yourself, are you thinking about yourself? Or are you perhaps not thinking? Just feeling comfortable? Or feeling loving? Yeah.

[21:25]

So one of the things I'll try to do tomorrow is I think if we're going to take such a big topic as mind, which is also so elusive, it can't be found. It's... We need some tools. Or how can the mind really see the mind? Like how can the eye see the eye? Yeah. So I'd like to, you know, maybe what I speak about tomorrow is what I could call the five fundamentals of Zen practice. So maybe if I went through the five fundamentals, as I would define it in Zen practice, we can get some sense of how we can begin to notice our mind

[22:32]

and have some more direct participation in our mind, so we can feel that we're more at the source of our minds than the victims or product of our minds. More than the victims or products of our mind. For certainly if we can participate in our minds better, and feel how our mind and body are related, we then have simply more choice about how we exist from moment to moment.

[23:54]

Yeah, I don't know how to say it more clearly this evening, but we keep trying to find ways to say this so it's clearer. So I think it'd be good to... We'll have to do some meditation practice. I least want you to have a taste of it. Those of you who it's fairly new. Yeah, and what's the... For instance, an interesting question is, what's the difference between mindfulness practice and meditation practice?

[25:17]

Why don't we just practice mindfulness? What does meditation practice offer us that mindfulness doesn't? So it would probably be good to have a meditation period voluntary, early tomorrow morning sometime. So what time will breakfast be? Ten o'clock? I'm just teasing. No, I know, but what time did we have breakfast last year? We had breakfast at eight. And we started at 9.30 or something? Did you write it down last year? You don't remember. Before breakfast, yeah.

[26:25]

Yeah, I know, but what time did we start the seminar itself? I think we started at 9 o'clock. One hour breakfast should be enough. Uh-huh. Who is going down and coming up too? Yeah. Okay. Okay, so seven, so if we had breakfast at, if we sat at 7.30, then we're finished at... Fanatics. Yeah, we have a bunch of religious nuts here. Okay, so let's start out, let's start with one period first, and just to figure out the schedule.

[27:29]

So if we started at 7.30, And had a, do we want a 40-minute period or a 30-minute period? 40. Okay, 50, 40, okay, 40-minute periods. Okay, so if it went from 7.30 to 8.10, then we could have breakfast around 8.15. Then we could start at 9.30. Yeah, okay. You want to enjoy the trees and things. Okay, so then... Then if we have two periods for those who are really feeling like volunteering. Yeah. We could start the first period at eight, no, at seven.

[28:30]

Well, one we could do is we could start a period at seven for 40 minutes. And go from 7 to 7.40. And then at 10 to 8, we could have a period for half an hour. And at then 8.20, And then we have breakfast at 8.30. Then we start at 9.30. And then we have an hour for breakfast, just as you said. I try to conform. Well, so I think a 40-minute period and a 30-minute period is enough. So people who aren't so used to sitting can come for the second period for 30 minutes.

[29:38]

Now, does anybody have any objections to that imagined schedule? What? What about chanting? No, no. No. At midnight there's chanting here in the room. Hi. You missed dinner. But you haven't missed any of the seminar yet. Nothing important, I guess. Is that... Eric, you won't be here because you have to drive from Vienna... We can, yeah. Yeah, why don't you write it.

[30:40]

So seven is sitting. 740? 740? Kenyan, yeah. Brake or Kenyan? Brake. It's the noisiest. It's like back in school with chalk. Is the baby here? Tomorrow. Another day. Hi, Peter. It's nice to see you. And 9.37 o'clock.

[32:03]

Very good. You could have put it in German. That would have been all right. I know the schedule already, so I could have... No, thank you. Is it too dark for anyone here? Is it okay? I don't know. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. No, I think it's all right. So what I've been speaking about before you came is that if we're going to speak about something like the original mind, we have to first get some idea of what is our own experience of mind and what our own experience of consciousness is.

[33:56]

And I'd suggest, you know, not only do you notice how different really mind is from moment to moment. And notice that your mind isn't just like a camera taking picture after picture. But the quality of the film changes with each shot. I don't know how to explain what I mean by quality of the film, but anyway, the film changes with each shot. So anyway, this is something you can try to sense and feel in your body.

[35:13]

And just feel how when you walk to your room here, does everyone have their room? Not yet? Soon. Soon, I see. Well, not soon unless I stop soon. And you all have flashlights to walk back in the dark? Maybe we'd better stop soon. But in addition to noticing your mind, especially if it's dark as you go down to find your room, Please see if you can notice you're falling asleep. Often there's clear physical signs that you're about to fall asleep.

[36:38]

And we're sometimes conscious of and not yet asleep a little bit after these physical signs occur. And we still are conscious sometimes to some degree after the physical signs of sleep have started. The other day, Marie-Louise is holding her instant new grandson I've awarded her with a grandson who's five years old. Almost four years old. It was one of my wedding presents. And so... And so she was holding this little boy.

[37:57]

And he was nodding off and kind of sleeping or trying to sleep or exhausted. And suddenly at some moment he went over a little edge and he was asleep. And she could feel without question when he went over that bump. But we all go over some kind of bump when we go to sleep. So you can start studying your mind as you go to sleep. And if you want, tomorrow morning you have another chance as you wake up. I think such study has to be made if you're going to make any sense of the idea of practicing with your own mind. Also, diese Untersuchungen müsst ihr machen, wenn ihr auch nur irgendein Verständnis davon haben wollt, was der Geist ist, oder wenn ihr mit ihm praktiziert.

[39:17]

And then if you're going to have a sense of original mind, what could be your usual mind and original mind? What could this all be about? What a strange idea, original mind. It actually is quite a strange idea. If you don't just take it for granted, oh yeah, it's two words together, it must mean something. Also wenn ihr das jetzt nicht für selbstverständlich nehmt, da sind zwei Wörter zusammengesetzt, das muss schon irgendwas bedeuten. Aber es muss für euch etwas bedeuten. Das ist auch eines von diesen sehr grundlegenden Begriffen in der Zen-Praxis. Vielleicht ist das ein guter Moment oder Augenblick aufzuhören.

[40:17]

So this is just a little introduction. And you will introduce your minds to me tomorrow. And tonight you'll find now your original room. Because your original room is waiting for you somewhere, thanks to our host. And to our organizers. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming. It's a great pleasure for me to be here in this room again. You seem like a nice group of people to spend some days with. Yeah, and thank you for translating. As most of you know, I like you to sit closer rather than far.

[41:43]

So if during the seminar you snail yourself forward, but it can be done gradually. And since quite a few of you weren't here last evening, I should review a little bit as we snail forward. While we're eating here. Yeah, as I said, I should review at least a little bit since some of you weren't here.

[43:12]

First to thank our hosts, Christiana and Giorgio again. Somehow you make things rather wonderful. Beautiful food, beautiful building. Nice people to take care of us. Thank you. And Michael and Christina and Eric for organizing this. And letting me come to Austria again. And Marie-Louise for being willing to translate this sometimes hard to translate stuff. Are you starting out with things that are hard to translate?

[44:26]

Yes, it sounds like it. And again, as I said last night, I'd like to speak about what I could call the five fundamentals of Zen practice. But I think before that, I should look again at this title, Original Mind. Yeah, and before we look at the original mind, we have to look at mind itself. And I don't know if there's ever been a satisfactory definition in any language of mind. Not in English, and we can see English and German don't quite match.

[45:37]

And then we're going to try to add in definitions of mind from one or two thousand years ago or more. But it shouldn't be that impossible. It shouldn't be that impossible. Because Buddhism always starts with experience. It doesn't make hypotheses until there's experience. And then the hypothesis based on experience may suggest directions in which we can understand or experience the world.

[46:37]

and may suggest practices by which we can extend or deepen our experience of the world. But those theories and practices are always checked up again by experience. And we can't check up on those experiences with Matsu, Nagarjuna or the Buddha. Und wir können nicht mit Nagarjuna, Matsu oder dem Buddha unsere eigenen Erfahrungen überprüfen. Weil die sind ja jetzt gerade nicht hier, um uns zu helfen mit unseren eigenen Erfahrungen. Deshalb können wir nur mittels unserer eigenen Erfahrungen Dinge überprüfen. And some people think there's enlightened adepts somewhere around who know and we should do what they say.

[48:04]

You know, maybe that's partly true. But that's not really... Maybe that's some kind of popular Buddhism, but that's not really adept practice Buddhism. This has to be realized through your experience, not what somebody else knows. So in the English at least we can take the K off no and get back to now. And at least in English we can use the word no, which means to remove the k, and then it means now, and it means now.

[49:09]

You can say genau. Genau, that's precise. Our English teacher back here with us. Okay. Yeah, the fellow named Sati, supposedly, or purportedly, said something like, it is this consciousness that is reborn. And the Buddha said, supposedly, please clarify what you mean by consciousness. Sati was about to answer and the Buddha interrupted him and said, now what is this consciousness?

[50:12]

So not only is Buddha making, suggesting to Sati to look at his own consciousness, There's a handy phone call floating in the air somewhere. It's normal these days.

[51:14]

So he was suggesting obviously that sati study, observe his own consciousness. But he was saying, he interrupted him before he responded. So he interrupted him as consciousness was about to be born. Was about to take form. Yeah. Dogen calls this the not yet arrived consciousness. Which is always arriving. The not yet arrived consciousness isn't in the future. It's not yet arriving all the time. I'm not trying to make this complicated.

[52:40]

This is just the way it is. It's very hard to stick into words, but we can try. And it's a very old tradition to stick it into words. And then to say the words are confusing and deceptive. Which of course they are. But then you have to look sort of around in between the words. But if you don't look around in between the words, you can't find what's between the words. Just like without form to look around in between, we couldn't find, if possible, emptiness. So as he was about to answer, the Buddha said, what is this consciousness? At that moment about to be reborn.

[53:56]

So is original mind perhaps the moment before consciousness takes form? Mm-hmm. We have this custom of doing little bows. And you know, it looks religious. And it can be that feeling. But it's also just bringing your hands together. Bringing your energy and attention together. And making a little pause. As I say, like Coca-Cola, the pause that refreshes.

[55:03]

But here you don't have a Coca-Cola bottle, you only have two hands. But if you actually pause, stop, there's a kind of things settle and disappear. So perhaps maybe little physical things you do. can remind you or even bring you into this feeling of original mind. So maybe we should come back to mind as we go along.

[56:29]

And as I said last night, try to get a feeling for mind moment after moment. And to recognize that each moment is a new mind. Maybe it's a little bit like, I've used the example recently of falling in love. We know that, I mean, I would say probably that in all cultures, falling in love is the same. But the institution of marriage is not the same in all cultures. And the way spouses treat each other is not the same in all cultures.

[57:38]

But I think we would all guess that if you fall in love in any culture, it's probably about the same. And one of you handsome men or beautiful women could probably go anywhere in the world and somebody in another culture would fall in love with you. But you probably wouldn't always be able to be married in that culture. So maybe falling in love is like original mind. Falling in love, maybe we're falling in mind. Or falling in big mind.

[58:45]

Now one of the analogies of mind always is some kind of, particularly in tradition somewhat near Buddhism, which suggests that the world you see is like a movie, but behind it there's a screen. And we're watching the movie on the screen. And we should know that the movie is not real, but the screen is real. But the sixth patriarch made short shrift of that. Schrift, it means... I was testing you.

[59:56]

It's a colloquial expression. It means quickly finished with that idea. Because for the Fifth Patriarch, one guy wrote a poem which said, the mind is like a mirror bright and we wipe it and keep it clean. And the to be sixth patriarch, which is, this is probably not a true story, but it's true in its meaning. So there's no mirror, there's no stand, and there's no polishing. Yeah, so there we are. What do we do with that? At least it's nice to have a mirror to polish.

[61:09]

And we may do that and that may be some kind of beginner practice. But after a while you don't know whether the mirror is polishing the rag or the rag is polishing the mirror. I have a very polished rag here. Can you see your reflection in this polished rag? There's another koan about that called Matsu and the tile. But we won't. Let's not get too complicated. But if there's no mirror and no polishing and no stand, what do we do? We're already doing that. Yeah.

[62:10]

So probably we need some kind of sitting meditation. In such a way, sitting meditation arose. Again, simply, if I want to observe this, And everything's moving. I've got to slow down something. Nagarjuna says the mind is like a snake. And it's hard to get stuff into a piece of bamboo. Yeah, but that's sitting meditation. To try to get the mind in your backbone. The mind is pretty slippery. But the body is fairly accessible. So we can sit down.

[63:55]

It's the same too, similar by analogy at least. If I'm moving this around, The water moves. And if there's mud in it, it stirs it up. You hold it still, not only does the mud settle, but the water becomes stiller. So that's quite simple. So if your body becomes stiller, It also slows the mind down.

[64:59]

Or slows down may not be quite the right word. Mind and body come closer together. So it feels slower, like two trains moving about the same speed. So that's the main reason we sit in meditation, so we can study the mind. I don't know if everyone can see this thing here. But we'll leave it here for now. If we find a better location. So the first of these that I made up is five fundamentals. The first of these five fundamental points that I have come up with myself is Zazen.

[66:23]

The second is breathing. The third is mindfulness. And the fourth is wisdom teaching. I can see why this is so sticky. Now I see why you're so angry. And white hair. The five fundamental aspects of Zen practice.

[67:52]

And I think it's useful to review even basics like this. Now you can practice mindfulness as your primary practice if you want. And zazen is a kind of mindfulness practice. But you can't really study the mind itself in the midst of activity. At least it's much, much more difficult. So it's useful to sit down. You can sit in a chair or any way you want. You cannot lie down on your back if you want. But as we said earlier, each mind is a new moment, each moment is a new mind.

[69:47]

And mind is created by conditions. Let's go back to falling in love. Okay. I think usually, I mean, we may be waiting around to fall in love. We may have a permanent screen somewhere in us waiting to fall in love. And the 134 million love songs by last count would make us think that perhaps there's this blank screen waiting to fall in love all the time.

[70:50]

But I think that screen is created by falling in love. And then it might wait for the next one because sometimes love doesn't last. And then the next one is different. So it may be the same in all cultures, but yet it arises through conditions. So falling in love creates falling in love. An original mind creates original mind. Now we'll have to come back to this elusive idea.

[71:54]

Elusive is always the illusionary, isn't it? No, elusive... Ah, danke. Also wir müssen nochmal zurückkommen auf diese flüchtige Vorstellung. The English teacher's moved there, maybe he should move up here. But I think she's quite willing to receive help from you. Although it's an elusive idea, Perhaps by analogies we can approach it. So thus I use something familiar to us, falling in love. I hope familiar to us. I have a close friend who was about 60 before he fell in love. He says, I thought it was love before, but now I know it.

[73:12]

And when that happened to him, everything changed. His original plans of what he was supposed to do in life and things changed. And maybe original mind is like that. So perhaps you don't want to fall in mind. You might change things too much. You may like to keep the mind you got. But what is the mind you got? And have you got it? And is it making you miserable or not? Maybe we have original joyful mind. Because the original mind is often is in fact accompanied by a feeling of bliss.

[74:22]

So if you lie down flat for practicing meditation, It's pretty difficult not to fall asleep, especially for a beginner. Because this posture asks us to fall asleep. There's a reason why waking mind is associated with standing up. And I always like how in Germany, if you don't wake up, you stand up. They don't wake up, the word is stand up.

[75:25]

That's really the case. All of a sudden the alarm rings, everybody stands up. It's quite a sight actually. So this posture is to find some other posture that's not ordinary waking mind or sleeping mind. for our moment-by-moment mind is so conditioned, we have to find some posture to take it out of the conditioning of mind.

[76:33]

And this is the best pretzel that most people can do. There are strange practices of being hung from the ceiling by ropes and things, but that's a special technique. On the tarot card out here we have the hanging man in the hall of fear. yeah so I mean yeah I'm wandering around today Maybe it's because we have an extra day.

[77:39]

I think I can wander today and start on the Autobahn tomorrow. Download on Sunday. Download on Sunday. So something I, you know, every now and then have to redefine and particularly when there's new people. I have to redefine the distinction I make between awareness and consciousness. Okay. So we've got to remember that all minds are conditioned.

[78:41]

Although Zen is called the practice of unconditioned mind. So I throw that just to make it complicated. But let's go back to all minds are conditioned. And what we're playing with here is holding back What could original mind or unconditioned mind mean? But we can't speak about that unless we speak about conditioned mind. Again, just as you can't speak about emptiness without form.

[79:54]

So, if I say, we have a moment-by-moment mind, and the mind of each moment is conditioned by that moment, that which appears, and then the associations of memory and experience. That's a fact. I think it's a fact. To really know that, experience the fact of that, mindfulness helps. exercising the muscle of mindfulness. Developing mindfulness. Until you can be present in moments. Well, if you see an insect flying in the air, If you don't see its path.

[81:32]

But if it lands in the water or it's a water insect, you see its path. But when it lands on the water or it is a water insect, then you see the path on the water. And when your mindfulness becomes more developed, you feel the path of mind in your body. And you even feel the path of mind, of being in the space that connects us. That's not something you can conceptually grasp. Okay. Now, for some of you, there's a lot of new things here. Any one of them is not hard to understand. But you put two or three of them on top of each other and it's hard to keep them straight.

[82:47]

I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. And I'm only here once a year, so... Or a lifetime. Or at least until tomorrow. Okay, so each moment's mind is, the mind of each moment is conditioned. And passes by, for the most part, unobserved. Floats in a sea of silence. But some moments are noticed. And those moments that are noticed we call consciousness. So consciousness is the contents of consciousness.

[83:54]

The contents of consciousness is consciousness. You said it right. So consciousness only notices the contents of consciousness. It doesn't notice what's in between. And there's a lot we don't notice. As I pointed out last night, pointing out what Wittgenstein said. I did say that last night, didn't I? You did. That there's nothing in this scene that tells us it's seen by a mind. Like your camera. So you have to remind yourself there's a mind minding this.

[84:57]

Do you see the problem I'm having with language? It's not only that it's hard to describe, because it's not a content of consciousness. But our own philosophy has not spent much time working out language for this, our Western philosophy. But what I want us to do is keep coming back to our own experience. So all I'm trying to do is try to create enough kind of thinking, feeling in us that each of you will come back to your own consciousness to your own awareness this distinction that I'm presently working on

[86:10]

So what we usually call consciousness is limited to the contents of consciousness. Okay, but let's say you're walking along. Let's make a perhaps typical scene. It's Christmas time. You have your arms full of Christmas packages. And you're walking on the icy streets of Vienna.

[87:20]

And you slip. And you know that there's a precious glass vase in this one package right here. And perhaps a doll for someone's kid over here. And whatever else. And as you fall, you actually catch yourself and protect the doll and the glass face. How do you do that? And how do you do that?

[87:58]

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