I know how difficult it is for all of you, most of you, to take the time from your usual life and its obligations to come here for these days. So, for me, these are precious times with you. Now, you know, before the Tay Show, this is what we call a Tay Show, as you know, I was thinking maybe we should not have a Tay Show, just have discussion, continuing the discussion of this morning. Yeah, because we barely get started. And I spent a good part of the time, in effect, giving a kind of tesho.

[01:01]

So we could have had a discussion now. But then, should we change a rhythm we're establishing each day? What does the rhythm of the day have to do with what we understand and how we understand? Then what's the difference between the discussion and notation? Maybe we should just have a rhythm of discussions and no teisho. We don't have to put on our robes and sit here and chant and so forth.

[02:18]

So then I ask you, does it make any difference? Should we in the West Stop all this stuff of putting on robes and raksus and chanting before and after speaking. This is a real question. Should we continue in this way? I mean, we have to, I feel, keep... This question has to be acknowledged and asked... over and over again because eventually, if we don't, people will just do whatever is most convenient. I don't really know the answer. I do know that this is what I do.

[03:19]

So, now I'm saying this in the context of some of the things I want to say about our study of the Abhidharma. Now, The Abhidharma is what, something about the second century BCE to the, let's say, fifth century ACE or CE. So let's say its main period of development was something like 700 years. And how did it develop during these 700 years? Let me again remind you of Jin Pe, Jin Pa, saying, for 11 years, every day, for four or five hours, he debated.

[04:53]

That's the main practice. That is the main practice. I can't imagine doing that. And I can't imagine if I said, OK, we're changing the practice, guys. We're all going to debate here every day for four or five hours. I... Maybe we'd have hundreds of people here, but I don't know. I think things like this are worth considering. Because it's not in the ancient past.

[05:56]

This was done in his lifetime. He's not so old. He's quite a bit younger than I am. Now, I would say that I, in a way, I'm in a continuous debate with what's in front of me, what's presented. Now, one way to practice with that, which is a traditional Zen way, To quite aggressively question each moment it appears. What is it questioning which expects an answer? Was ist es, fragen, dass eine Antwort verlangt?

[07:08]

That's a device, an approach used in Zen Buddhism, particularly for young, new monks. I find I've tried this to some extent, but most lay people simply can't do it because the context of their lay life doesn't allow them to do it. It doesn't lend itself for... Well, if you're doing a job and you're working in an office or a hospital, then you can't be... You have to do what your job requires. If you're a therapist, you can't be saying to the patient over again, what is it? What are you? Who are you? You can't, you know... The patient, the client wants you to know who he or she is already.

[08:22]

And they're going to trust you. So I think the wider Zen tradition is the initial state of mind is a mind of acceptance. But within that state of mind of acceptance, is always the question, what is it? But it's a question answered with whatness. Which we can also understand as suchness. Now, you may think these are... Why add either of these two to your mental state?

[09:35]

Because it's assumed that your mental state moment after moment is creating your world. The process of creation didn't happen in the past, and now you're just coasting along on the created body. You coast along on the created body. Now I'm reflecting on some of the discussions of this week and sharing them with you. And one of the questions, and it was Nicholas Humphrey, who I became very fond of, brought up.

[10:58]

He did. the mind has to exist in the way it now exists in order for us to perceive sensations, colors, sounds, etc. So the mind had to exist in the way it now exists in order for us to perceive sensations, colors, sounds, etc. And he says, I don't know if the majority, but he implied the majority of neuroscientists think that yes, the brain had to be as it is through evolution before we could perceive sensations. No, but he says, he thinks, it's the perception of sensations which created the mind. So then mind is not the same as brain in that sense.

[12:26]

Mind is not the same as brain ever. Okay. If it's rooted in the phenomenal world, which the physical world is, I think we have to assume, it's rooted in the mind and body and phenomena. Can you say it again? If it is rooted in the... If the mind... is rooted in the brain. If we think of it in those terms. I think in any science we have to think of it as being rooted in the mind and the body. And I would say also the phenomenal world. Okay. Now, Nicholas doesn't know anything about meditation.

[13:37]

The few people he knows in England who meditate are all trying to get a calm state of mind and protect themselves from reality. And he thinks trying to cope with this complex world with a calm state of mind is a cop-out. That's kind of wimpy? Yeah, wimpy. Okay. So you can imagine we had some conversations about that. Also könnt ihr euch ja vorstellen, dass wir da einige Gespräche über dieses Thema hatten. But he doesn't realize that his position, that its sensations which created the mind, that view, is a Buddhist view.

[14:40]

So the idea that what we know from the history of the development of the Abhidharma It was developed over these six or seven centuries in monastic centers by monks. Okay. If it's developed in monastic centers by monks, is it developed for everyone? Well, yes and no.

[15:50]

Now, if it's developed also from, another theory is, is it's developed from mnemonic devices. From what? Memory devices used to help you remember something. What's the word? Mnemonic. Like a public speaker might have certain phrases they remember in order they can give their speech without notes. So from much earlier, maybe from the Buddha's time, these lists were part of making of continuing an oral tradition of the teaching.

[17:08]

Okay, now when the Chinese wanted to study Buddhism, they had to send people to India to sit down, to listen to oral recitations of the sutras and write them down, because for the most part they weren't written down. Okay, now think about that in relationship to 11 years of debating. What I'm trying to do here I said, don't look at this, the Abhidharma teachings, as if it were a car engine and you could see where the carburetor was and so forth.

[18:17]

Yeah, okay. But I'm now saying, also don't think that you can necessarily understand this through understanding. If it's created through practice, it may only be able to be understood through practice. So if you're trying to study this text of Handelwitz, mainly through thinking about it and thinking about it in terms of your own remembering of your own practice this may not be fruitful you may have to take idea by idea

[19:22]

and meditate with it for some days, several periods at least. On the other hand, the effort, pretty clear the motivation behind creating the Abhidharma, And then the later texts, like the Vesudhimagga and the earlier texts, the Vimudhimagga. The Vimudhimagga. One is the path of liberation, one is the path of purity. One is the path of liberation and the other is the path of purity.

[20:33]

And they are attempts to summarize the summarization of the Abhidharma. So the Abhidharma, we can understand, as you probably all know this by now, is an attempt to take the teachings in the sutras and organize them into a system that a person can practice. So it is actually an attempt to make the teachings more accessible and in terms of practice. But still... I think if you try to explain the Abhidharma to most people, your uncle or aunt, who doesn't practice, you won't have too much luck.

[21:39]

They might even intellectually see the point, but they're not going to spend four or five hours debating it or practicing it. Now, if the theory, one of a scholar's theories, that Abhidharma is partly derived from mnemonic lists from virtually the Buddha's time, So if it is like a scholar assumes that this Abhidharma comes from these mnemonic lists, so that these texts can be remembered, Maybe the scholar's got a too narrow view of what's meant by mnemonish lists.

[22:57]

Perhaps these lists are more like, within the mind of acceptance, there's the question, what is it? Can you say that again? Within the mind of acceptance, there's the question, what is it? Perhaps within the mind of acceptance, these lists are present, not just for the sake of being able to recite the sutra later, Perhaps there are also distillations that allow you to practice the sutra. And distillations are lists that allow you to realize the teaching.

[24:16]

That to later be able to gather around with some people in a village and recite the sutras for their edification, Or to recite them back and forth for four or five hours a day with your fellow monks. Maybe it's not just to memorize them, but to realize them. Because Jinpa was very clear. When a group of people start saying it, each one has a little different understanding, each person's understanding is not so good.

[25:21]

when a group of monks are doing this debating, and each has their own kind of understanding of it, by debating back and forth, a higher order understanding, a more creative understanding, appears, emerges from the discussion. Okay. So what we're saying here, what I'm saying here, is perhaps the process of enacting, in reciting, in holding the teaching before you, brings the teaching to a level that cannot be understood from the page. So what I'm talking about

[26:28]

If you want to know this, if you want to realize the Abhidharma, what will be the best approach to realize the Abhidharma? When Western scholars first came on, practicing scholars, first came on the Abhidharma, They saw all these lists. And you know what they called it? A valley of dry bones. Because they had no idea how to enter it, to make it alive. Now, One last thing.

[27:59]

It's part of what I'm saying. The mythology is that the Buddha, shortly after his awakening, in meditation realized and worked out the Abhidharma. But it was too sophisticated for his students at the time. So he went to heaven or some place or other and taught it to his dead mother. Never forget our mother. Okay, and then he taught it to Shariputra, who then passed it on to the other disciples.

[29:01]

Mm-hmm. So what does this tell us, this myth at least? All of these stories I'm telling you. That this was created in meditation. It's not just any old theory. If the way to view the mind It's the way of understanding the mind that arises through meditation. And it can't be taught to just anyone. Maybe your dead mother, if you have the power to go to heaven.

[30:01]

Even your dead mother has enough mother's love to worry about this valley of dry bones. And you can teach it to your best disciple. Okay. Now, if I can, I'd like to say something about the Alaya Vishnana. Because the Alaya Vishnana is a central part of what I'm speaking about. Now, I can't read... what Hande Witt says about the Allaya Vishniana. Marie-Louise read some of it to me.

[31:18]

Now, it has the flavor, in what I heard, of a container. And it has the flavor of a container. from what I have heard. And most Western scholars understand the Alaya Vishnayana entirely as a container. Where does that come from? Of course, for contemporaries, it comes in a big part from Freud. Unconscious is a kind of container. But it's also implicit in our sense of the individual. Our individual created through a personal history and personal memory.

[32:34]

Our individual... Our western idea of the individual... created through personal history and personal memory of that history. This is one of the great biological and psychological creations, no question about it. And consciousness has come to mean the privacy of consciousness. Consciousness has come to mean the privacy of consciousness.

[33:36]

The example I always think of is somebody asked a whole bunch of little kids, what is consciousness for? What is the mind for? And I think you know what the majority answered. What's the mind for? Oh, they were clear to keep secrets. Do we really know what other people's minds are like? We have no direct first-person experience of another person. Mm-hmm. What is the only way in our culture, practically, we have first-person experience of other people?

[34:53]

Novels. Novels, plays and films, but primarily novels. You have the author trying to present a first-person experience to the reader. But the consciousness, the word, suggests a knowing, that consciousness, the word means a shared knowing, not a private knowing. A shared knowledge. Not a private knowledge. No, that's the word. That doesn't prove anything. But I think most geneticists who study these things think that consciousness developed through shared knowing.

[36:22]

Amazing how long it takes for me to explain things. I said to Marie-Louise before, you know, I've got about five minutes to say. It was another reason to have a discussion because then I could listen to your five minutes instead of mine. Okay, so let's finish this on or finish it off if we can. I have another seven minutes or so. Okay. If all early cultures were oral cultures,

[37:24]

And certainly early Buddhist culture was an oral culture. And before Buddhism, cultures... told stories, orally told stories. And what are the oral stories they usually told? Creation myths. What does Homer represent in our Western culture? The first time oral tradition was written down. So we have Homer and then we have Plato and all that, but it comes from this transition to writing it down. But these ideas we're talking about, the Abhidharma, developed in an oral tradition.

[38:31]

And the Zen transmission ceremony is an oral tradition with written notes that aren't passed on. And the Zen transmission ceremony is an oral tradition with written notes and the written notes are not passed on. So what we are living here, in a way, is an oral tradition with notes. That's why Sukershi didn't want his lectures taped in the first years.

[39:42]

Now, when I did the Dharma Wheel meetings for a year and a half or so, we didn't record the discussion. Which makes a different kind of attention. I'm not saying we shouldn't take these things. But we should also think, should we have meetings which we don't take? But in a lay practice, can we do that? We don't have time enough to have those kind of meetings, too.

[40:43]

Already. Maybe seven days is too long. Mm-hmm. But these teachings were developed initially and primarily in an oral tradition. And they were the beginning of writing down the lists from an oral tradition. the Abhidharma represents the transition to a written tradition. Now, if you're in an oral tradition, and most of the all early stories are creation myths, And creation, when they're still oral, the creation as an ongoing process, not something happening in the past.

[42:00]

The activity of creation is ever-present. Okay, that is more the model of the Elaya Vijnana. Das ist vielmehr ein Modell für das Alaya-Vijñāna. The Alaya-Vijñāna arose in that kind of tradition, not an individual container kind of tradition. Denn das Alaya-Vijñāna ist in diesem Art Tradition aufgestanden und nicht in einem individuellen behälter Tradition. So the Abhidharma is telling a story of ongoing creation. And then there's, you know, the one part of the Abhidharma is personality types. And I would like you to find ways to awaken your alaya vijnana.

[43:08]

So, for instance, you're walking along somewhere, anywhere. Imagine that situation. And there's fat people and thin people. And middle-sized people. And tall people and short people and middle-sized people. In fact, you have associations with all these kinds of people. We can think of the iPod as an Elia Vigliana machine. Or Muzak. You know what Muzak is? It's the music in elevators and things like that. Everywhere you go, practically hotels, restaurants, there's this music in the background. Placing us in a context of associations.

[44:28]

And removing us from other contexts of association. So I'd like you to open yourself up when you're just taking a walk around in the garden here. To not just the beauty of the flower or the feeling of the grass. But you already have certain associations with grass, the smell and so forth. To really feel all the associations, to encourage associations to come up. You're really in the fourth skanda. Ihr seid wirklich in dem vierten Skandal.

[45:36]

And associations that come from associations, associations are just a kind of infinite progression or regression. Und die Assoziationen, die Assoziationen, die dazu geführt haben, die dann wieder dazu geführt haben, es ist eine unendliche Zahl von Because the container is everything all at once. Now, I think that will change the idea of if there's glaciers, if there's stained material in the container and stuff like that. So now we're talking about what is the transition in manas from alaya-vijnana into consciousness?

[46:41]

What's the transition? Manas is the transition point. So what is now the transition from Malaya Vishnayana to consciousness and Manas is now the transition? So what is the transition? between all the sensory information into association, into being into association. And all the associations back into association. the consciousness of the vijnanas.

[47:48]

This will never make sense to you until you find that experience in yourself. And if you can find that experience in yourself, then you can tell whether handavit is translating these categories accurately. Okay. One last funny thing. Nicholas Humphrey, when he was a graduate student, Nicholas Humphrey, when he was a student in Oxford, his professor, a famous biologist, had cut the visual cortex out of some poor chimpanzee.

[48:49]

And the monkey, the chimpanzee, couldn't see. So he was a young graduate student and this famous professor was off at a conference somewhere. So he went and hung out with the monkey and he named her Helen. And after a while, he found she could see. So he called up his professor and said, Helen can see. And he was at a conference presenting a paper on Helen can't see. So when he came back, he found the professor couldn't talk or wouldn't talk to him. And when he came back, he found out that the professor had stopped talking to him.

[50:08]

What he discovered was what is now called blind sight. The monkey could throw a bunch of raisins down on the floor, and the monkey could run around and pick up the raisins. And it could go up and down stairs. And so forth. But it didn't know it could see. Who didn't know? Helen. Helen had no conscious experience, as far as we know, that she could see, but she could see. There are people who are blind this way, human beings, for some reason of an illness or an injury. And they will tell you they're completely blind.

[51:13]

But you can hand them something and they'll reach out and take it. But they will tell you they're blind. So what is this blind sight if it's not conscious, if you can see? What does that have to do with our practice? So now we're bringing in something from contemporary science into our own study of the Arbidharma and asking a pertinent question. Is it possible that what we're actually doing is sighted seeing and blind sighted seeing simultaneously?

[52:32]

Is there... Do we see and then there's also simultaneously a conscious perception of seeing? Sehen wir und gibt es gleichzeitig ein bewusste... This is the kind of question these Abhidharma theorists were trying to answer. Okay. One last anecdote. When I was in Rastenberg, somebody had given Christian Tern a rabbit called Achilles. Gerhard knows about this. And it was unpampered in a pampers box.

[53:32]

Somebody kept it in a pampers box for two or three years. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they couldn't take it anymore, so they gave it to Christian and said, you can have it, you've got a big piece of property and so forth. So she brought it up to the conference building, took this rabbit, big rabbit, very big ears, and put it down in the... And for three days it ran around in squares. And the third day it looked around. Boom, off it went.

[54:33]

The story is even too obvious, but it's fun. I'm free. But then it was very friendly with everybody. Thank you very much.

[54:54]

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