One thing you want to look at is in any teaching or in a koan like this is not only what's in it, but what's not in it. And what's not in this koan? Well, there's two major figures, obviously, an emperor and Bodhidharma. But there's no referenced to Buddha. Here's an introduction to the or certainly a major school of Far Eastern Buddhism. And the Buddha, in this koan at least,

[01:02]

And in the blue cliff records, it's not present. In the Shoyaroku, the Buddha appears in the first koan, but only through silence. So, I think you... can understand what a huge shift in Buddhism the concept of pramana is. Why is it such a huge shift? Because it takes away scriptural authority and the Buddha. There's very little back-referencing to the Buddha as a source of authority. And although the sutras are quoted, still the reference is... Because of this idea of pramana, the reference is your experience.

[02:38]

So this koan, the Blue Cliff Records koan, the one we are emphasizing these days, We're talking about the experience of the emperor and the experience of Bodhidharma. That means that Buddhism The authority, the reference point in Buddhism, is your experience. So let's come back to what I started with in the beginning of the week, that Zen is an autodidactic apprenticeship. Lass uns mal zurückkehren zu dem, was ich Anfang der Woche schon sagte, dass Zen eine autodidaktische Lehrlingsbeziehung ist.

[03:47]

No, as I said the other day, with a little thought you can realize that the first line, the first paragraph of this major book on Buddhism, Introduction of Zen to China, the first paragraph is important. But much of what I've been teaching you, you probably couldn't have figured out for yourself. You need some sort of oral or pedagogical transmission. I could certainly not be Practicing and teaching what I'm doing without Suzuki Roshi.

[04:55]

He gave me teachings and emphasis and permission and so forth. And permission is really extremely important. Without permission, you're very hard to function free of ego. So, I mean, permission and lineage frees you from, this is me doing it. This is and in fact is... The lineage doing it. And you also, of course, are the lineage.

[06:02]

So I have to teach in a way that the lineage flows through Suzuki Hiroshi and me, but flows through you and me too. And the idea of pramana also means that I have to base the teaching in what you find to be true or you can or will find to be true. And what it is also about with Pramana is that the teaching presents itself in such a way that it is based on what you find true and what you will also find true later on. Yes, once. Always seeking what you already know as true.

[07:03]

And trying to find ways to extend that. So, I mean, also, we're not so concerned in Zen practice. As exactly... what the philosophy of Buddhism is. We want enough information only to set sail. The world is round and is it? You say the world is round? Oh. And there are currents and they circle. And let's try it. So you set sail. And you come back and say, I found America, the promised land. And Buddhism is coming from America.

[08:06]

I mean, I don't know. You set sail and you come back and you say, well, yeah, it is round. But the currents, well, they're somewhat predictable. But they're also seasonal, and they don't circle. So I want to tell you enough that you set sail. And I'm hoping you don't sink. So I want to tell you enough that you stay afloat. And you, you know, maybe a little help in navigation.

[09:08]

But you have to find out your port and where you anchor. I might hint that even in the high seas you can find anchorage. But it's autodidactic, really. You have to find out how to sail on the seas of your life. It is autodidactic and you have to find out how you sail in the seas of your life. When you come back to port, and if you've discovered how to anchor yourself, or to be afloat in any situation, and then maybe some next step in teaching occurs.

[10:13]

Okay. Now, I have given you over the years a number of different turning words, wisdom phrases. And the three, I guess, that have stuck that have come up most often for people. One is just now is enough. And this cuts off past and future. And cutting off past and future, it has then a psychological dimension. Yeah, it locates you, settles you in the...

[11:19]

immediate present. So it cuts off past and future. And the other is already connected. And already connected, if you in an acupuncture-like way you use it it's an antidote to the assumption that we're separated and opens you to connectivity opens you intellectually and experientially to connectivity And by opening you to connectivity creates a basis for non-dual mind. To release into connectivity And to release in meditation into discovering that the experienced body is not necessarily located in the physical, only in the physical body.

[13:00]

And the third is to pause for the particular. which is an act of dharmic surgery. I like to please our medical folks here. You know, duration is biological. The present has no duration except a biological duration. And that duration is primarily perceptual. So when you use this term, pausing for the particular, you're stopping, yeah, really, you're kind of stopping time for a moment.

[14:18]

I mean, really, if you use it regularly, you will see you are entering into the experience of time directly. Because experience time is not clock time. Experience time is sort of the quantity of attentional moments you can bring into clock moments. So you change, alter, you open the flow of time into another kind of attentional moments. So when you pause for the particular, if you really work with this, it becomes a habit.

[15:30]

A new habit you inhabit. You hold for a moment in the hand of the mind You hold for a moment in the hand of the mind, as if the mind was a hand. You never said that before in your whole life, did you? No. How easy it is to be unique. And no one else on the planet is sitting on your seat. How unique you are. Okay.

[16:33]

So you hold for a moment in the hand of the mind the particular. And the way you hold it changes your experience of time. And one of the things this koan is asking you to do, at the very beginning of the koan, to hold its particularity for a moment as a percept or an inference. And the cow's horns are really, it's an inference derived from a percept. You saw the cow's horns. And the smoke you either smelled or you saw, so it's derived again from a perceptual consciousness.

[17:38]

Now, to know three or seven by holding up one, or if it's a trapezoid, I don't know, you know, but is to know a hidden dimension, which is more mentation, a mental sense. I can tell you why I'm laughing. It's not a very nice story. All the pipes have been frozen at Crestone.

[18:41]

So for nearly a month we've not been able to use the toilets. So some hundreds of feet below our house they broke the pipe. broke cut the pipe so Sophia went to the toilet and then holding up one to discover three and we said where are you going she ran out the door ran down the several hundred feet to the end of the pipe and waited It took about ten minutes. Oh, there it is. This is to hold up one and know. Okay. Now, one of the basics of Yogacara Zen, Yogacara Buddhism.

[19:50]

And much of the whole study indeed, even though the Buddha supposedly said early, there's nothing but the Ayatanas. Even although the Buddha supposedly said there's nothing but the ayatanas, the perceptual fields, still the dimensioned, thorough study of perception comes along with the idea of the pramana. in other words how do we know How do we know the world? Okay, so one of the emphases in Yogacara Buddhism is that each sense generates its own consciousness.

[20:52]

Now this is a extremely important idea and comes up repeatedly in the koans. Okay. Now, so when you use the surgery of the surgical procedure of to pause for the particular. You're not exactly just holding each particular in the hand of the mind. You're holding each particular more particularly in the Like you're holding it in the ear or in the eye.

[22:01]

Or in the kinesthetic, proprioceptive bodily field. Like that, for each sense. Okay. Now, I'm trying to give you some sense of what you may discover on the high seas, high seas, I don't know, high seas of the six sense fields. But you're going to have to... make this exploration yourself.

[23:02]

And your own exploration will lead far beyond anything I can say. At first you may think, Well, this goes, what he's talking about goes beyond what I experience. Yeah, but maybe that's because you haven't pushed far enough offshore. Because if you really set sail, you will find out on your own. But if you really pull up the sails regularly, then you will find it out on your own. And if you are really nice, then maybe you will come to Duxon and tell me what you have discovered. And tell me that, and then I will say, ah, that's where you came from. I have only seen it from very far away. Now the experience of holding each particular in its own sense field, you know, much like, again, if you go into a completely dark room and you hear something or smell something,

[24:50]

the region of smelling or the region of hearing becomes your territory. And I'm suggesting, of course, that you develop the habit, I don't know what phrase to give you yet, but of folding the six regions together. in at each moment. Away from the delusion of an only external world. No. One of the things you're doing when you practice pausing for the particular and noticing whether something is

[25:56]

inferential or perceptual knowing. There's a kind of stopped time and there's a kind of Stillness. Now, it doesn't matter really if sometimes our perceptions fool us. Now, a magician might claim, oh, your perceptions often fool you. But overall, if you keep noticing the particular as a perceptual or inferential fact, whatever you do repeatedly, mantra-like, begins to create a mind based on that repetition.

[27:11]

So pausing for the particular, interrupts the mind generated through self-referencing and gathers the molecules of attention and consciousness and consciousness draws them away from this self-referencing mind and they begin to gather around perceptual mind that arises generated through perception. And there's a kind of stillness.

[28:15]

The mind is not so much surface but depth. You begin to see like when you look deep into a lake or to a water in a cave which is totally still. You begin to feel the stillness in each particular. And really, once you begin to feel and see the stillness in each particular, that begins to affect all the way you notice things. Even in an agitated person. There's some stillness.

[29:23]

Even when you're agitated, there's some stillness. Even as I often say, in the ocean wave, an agitated ocean wave, it's trying to return to stillness. So you begin to see movement and stillness. Yeah, this is... And freed from self-referencing, or primarily self-referencing, hey, this is a big change. The world starts to glimmer or seem luminous. Yeah, that's good. Um... you're also, at the same time, beginning to delineate and delimit.

[30:28]

Do you understand? To delineate is to present, and delimit is to show the boundaries of. Man beginnt zu gleicher Zeit auch sozusagen darzulegen und auch zu umfahren oder zu umgrenzen. Ja, each separate. So you're beginning to articulate and develop on each dharmic particularity. You begin to... actualize and define each sense consciousness, which is the primary source of consciousness itself.

[31:32]

So you're beginning to know how you know. And you're beginning to parse the parts of the mind. Yeah. It's a great discovery of Zen Buddhism. That the way to do this is not through philosophy. Or philosophy may help you focus a teaching. But the philosophy is important if it gives you a way to surgically enter your experience. Almost as if you could take your experience for a moment, pull it aside and look in.

[32:36]

And every time you look in, you're actually changing the mind. So you get the habit of pausing on each moment. And feeling what appears when you pause. So it's a pause and a release. It's a pause and a release. Now, I haven't yet figured out how to open up the phrase emptiness, no holdings.

[33:59]

Ich habe noch nicht herausbekommen, wie ich den Satz Leerheit, keine Heiligkeit eröffne. But we've got one Tesho left. There might be a slight chance. But we've accomplished a little up till now. But it is wonderful that here is a whole teaching coming into a new country with the phrase, no holiness, emptiness. Doesn't sound like a good start. That's what we got.

[34:59]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_71.89