And I will perish. But what happens between us in this combined here-ness doesn't perish. It continues to be part of what's happening. Mm-hmm. Okay, so if I exist here through your existing here in this more subtle sense, then if there's a Buddha somewhere in the room, one of you, or sitting in the back kind of unnoticed, If that Buddha sitting in the room is here, then that Buddha has to be here because I'm here.

[01:07]

And I have to be here because the Buddha is here. So if a Buddha is possible, it's possible because I'm here. Because we're not emphasizing the causes that led the Buddha to get here. We're emphasizing that the possibility or fact of a Buddha is. That fact and that is-ness is inseparable from us. Okay, from that point of view, you must already be Buddha. Okay, now, that was just a little riff or example to give you a feeling of the difference in the worlds that evolve, to give you a feeling for the different worlds that evolve,

[02:34]

when you emphasize the simultaneity of causation over the sequentiality of causation. So again, just a train went by, or now there's somebody walking on the platform back there. If I see this from the point of view of Dharma, there's a timeless quality in what I'm seeing. It feels like it's always been that way. It's maybe like the end of a movie where you see somebody walking on a train station platform. And as if with the feeling that this person's always been walking on the train platform.

[03:50]

Or the feeling that this is sometimes you. Okay. Now the practices of The earlier Buddhism and later Buddhism are not really very different. But the world they viewed the practice occurring in is different. For example, in the earlier Buddhism, they felt that a person could become enlightened whether anybody else was enlightened or not.

[05:06]

And you could look for causes, historical causes in that. historical conditions. The world at that time didn't communicate. In Buddhist time there wasn't much communication between one part of the world and the other or even one district and another. And I believe literally thousands of dialects were spoken in really different languages. From village to village you couldn't speak the Gita. And the sense of, to go anywhere, find anything out, you had to walk or, you know, mostly walk.

[06:20]

You lead a life in a situation like that, sort of aimed at yourself. But Mahayana Buddhism developed when there was a much greater sense. Technology hadn't changed much, as far as I know, but there was a much greater sense of everyone else. And a kind of social, moral and spiritual awareness developed that said two things which seem to be contradictory. One is, this world is so interconnected and we are so much a part of the world that you can't be enlightened unless other people are enlightened.

[07:29]

You can't be enlightened all by yourself. As long as there's one other person suffering somewhere, you can't be 100% enlightened. And that is that's an idea. A kind of idealization. But practically speaking it's true. You may not be that affected, although you are, but not that directly affected or immediately affected by all of the people dying of famines and civil wars in Africa. But without examining how that suffering spreads around the world,

[08:50]

That there is suffering always right around you. May I say about Max? Ulrike's mother's friend is in a hospital now in Mannheim. And they, how old is he? 69. 69. And they gave him two new valves for his heart. So he's in a iatrogenic bind. Iatrogenic means a medical establishment caused illness. Because this heart operation was remarkably successful for a person of his age.

[10:02]

But to make the heart valves work, you have to give him blood thinner. And the blood thinner has opened up all kinds of cancer in him that keeps bleeding that they can't stop. He said, Four or five operations in two weeks, trying to stop the bleeding. And he's in a kind of hell. And now maybe they will transfer him to a hospital and let him die. He had a hard enough life, too, given the circumstances he grew up in.

[11:02]

So here's this suffering. You or I or Ulrike can't be enlightened in some way that ignores that suffering. That ignores how that exists in her and in the world. So it means she either has to push it out of her mind. If she does that, she can't be enlightened. You can't exclude anything and be enlightened. So then the only alternative is she has to include it. All right. So if she includes it, then she can't just she can't be totally joyful all the time.

[12:41]

If you think of enlightenment as the opposite of suffering, or freedom from suffering, which is sort of how it's defined as freedom from suffering. So that means she has to absorb the suffering. And live with it as her own suffering. And I do too in some way. And now you may be able to feel it also. You may have circumstances in your own life that this reminds you of. So whatever enlightenment is then, in the later Buddhist sense, it has to include suffering. So the later development of the idea is you can't be enlightened independent of other people. Now, if you can't be enlightened, fully enlightened, if no one else is enlightened, now the earlier Buddhist idea was, I or you could become enlightened,

[14:10]

And we could live in a certain way and help people and be of inspiration and so forth. But we had to control our circumstances quite a bit to make sure it didn't get too out of whack or out of control. So we practiced meditation a great deal. We walked very slowly. We lived in monasteries. We didn't handle money. We had servants who paid for things. Yeah. So Mahayana Buddhism, and you can see it in the koan, says, get down, get down.

[15:37]

Literally, it says, get down. In the weeds, in the mud. And there's lots of phrases in koans saying he's in the weeds or mud. And sometimes that means he's deluded, he or she, and sometimes it means he or she's enlightened. Because we're both in the weeds and mud, so it can mean either. Okay. So this later sense was you can't separate yourself from others. You can't live in a way where you have to control your circumstances.

[16:44]

So you go from an idea of exclusivity or excluding things in the earlier Buddhism to inclusivity, including everything. I want to stop in a moment and have a break. Let me just finish this idea. So, first of all, in the later Buddhism, because of this growing social, spiritual and moral awareness, that you can't separate your condition from others. So if there's suffering in the world, you also suffer. But it also means, and this is the other side, the idea that seems contradictory, if there's suffering in the world, you also suffer.

[17:55]

If there's enlightenment in the world, you're also enlightened. So what is the interplay between enlightenment and suffering in you? And the Bodhisattva practice is first of all to become aware of that interplay that's already in you. So let's take a break and have some interplay with water, toilets and things like that. So for 15 or 20 minutes or so, 20 minutes say. One thing I'm trying to introduce to you is the

[19:30]

sense that there's various ways of looking at things, and that without excluding any of the ways you already look at things, you can add ways of looking at things. I mean, the most common example I give is, I see space as separating us. But I can also see space as connecting us. So you can add that as a way of looking at things without excluding also understanding and feeling that space separates us. Now, what I'm trying to introduce here is that you can have an initiatory way of looking or a base way of looking.

[21:08]

That you can actually choose to emphasize one or the other. Or you can see that you emphasize one or the other. Now, even if you don't practice early Buddhism, don't practice Buddhism. Even if you don't practice the methods of early Buddhism, The sense of looking at the world in terms of a karmic sequentiality is very similar in the West and in early Buddhism. Except that we tend to, because we're in a theological culture, turn karma into destiny.

[22:14]

Karma is not destined. Karma is just how you relate to and store your experience. And karma is particularly about intentional activity Something that happened to you accidentally is not part of your karma. It may become part of your karma, but it didn't necessarily arise from karmic actions. When you think of it as this interlocking system where everything, then you're in a sense of destiny. Okay, but this sense of looking at things in terms of causality is the same.

[23:49]

But the sense of looking at things in terms of Dharma or the simultaneity of each thing And simultaneity and independence of each thing is not characteristic of the way we normally look at things. But we do sometimes look at things that way. We have that experience. In Buddhism, in koans where they say, before your parents were born, That is a kind of code phrase, which means timelessness or seeing things in their absolute independence. After your parents were born is a phrase which means to see things in terms of their momentariness and their causality.

[25:05]

Okay. What I'm expressing here is there are various ways of looking at things. The Eightfold Path, the first teaching of the Buddha, starts with views. And that means basically you study what your views are. If I look at that train as the train that goes to Dortmund, and so forth, then I'm looking at things in terms of since my parents were born. If I look at that train with the mind of before my parents were born, then I've made a sort of shift in the way I've chosen to make a shift in my view.

[26:25]

Now, if you emphasize that view as the initial way you always look, so when you first look at anything, you look at it with the eyes of before your parents were born. And then you look at it with the eyes after your parents were born. That's a kind of practice and the initiatory state of mind actually is very important in how your life goes. And so if I take this space connecting or separated, if I first see you and I feel space connects us, that would be the initiatory state of mind. And then for practical reasons, because I have to pass you this glass, I think of how space separates us.

[27:56]

But I might pass the glass with the feeling of making space connect us. That's almost like I was drawing space out into this glass and stretching it to you. Or I could feel your space drawing the glass to you. So you can make shifts in the way you view things without excluding anything. So the first practice is to study your views. The second practice is to decide which view you want to be the initiatory.

[28:57]

For instance, an affirmative state of mind or a negative state of mind. Or an indifferent state of mind or a state of mind which has choice. These are all very fundamental choices in the way your whole life and your psychology go. It's about the craft of this sea of consciousness in which you live. So the first practice is your views. And then your second practice is to decide which view should be your initiatory state of mind. Okay, then your third practice is to make the various views simultaneous.

[30:30]

So I simultaneously act with the sense that both space connects and separates. Or I simultaneously act, seeing you arise karmically and seeing you arise dharmically. Or seeing you arise causally or seeing you rise in a simultaneity now. No, I can say, just for example, if you choose to perceive dharmically rather than karmically, if you choose to perceive the world first of all with the eyes before your parents were born, the world is much brighter and lighter.

[31:35]

Then you can darken it if you want. Okay. Now, that's real basic teaching. I just You know, in Chinese Buddhism, the style of Chinese commentarial studies, if you take a 400-page sutra, It's got the title and then 400 pages of text. The Chinese will do a commentary on it. And they'll do a 400-page commentary, say. And the first 300 pages are on the title.

[32:37]

And the last 100 pages are on the text. And partly this is maybe just a Chinese peculiarity, but it's also the emphasis on views as opening up all the rest. And these titles get very dense because, particularly in Chinese, you can translate them with with these visual written characters and you can put many different things into a character and which character you choose to describe something.

[33:43]

Okay. So say somebody says, what did you do today? You say, oh I went to the movies. Now the I that went to the movies is not exactly the same I as if you asked yourself, who am I? So you ask yourself, who am I? Then you say, I'm the guy who went to the movies. Well, what went to the movies? Well, a lot of stuff was walking along the street. All this stuff bought a ticket and then went in and sat there and watched the movie.

[34:48]

But it's really hard to figure out what this stuff is that actually went to the movies. So we ask ourselves, we use commonly, I did this, I did that, but we don't often know any more about that I than you know what the word Bodhisattva means. I mean, the eye that went to the movies was also a bodhisattva, but you probably didn't notice that. Now, say that you have, you can see that there's various ways of viewing the world. And you see that the importance of this initiatory state of mind, which in Mahayana Buddhism would be mostly characterized as being affirmative,

[36:12]

Dharmic. Inclusive. There's another, I just forgot the adjective I wanted. Anyway, we'll come back. But if you make this... Oh, indifferent. Indifferent, inclusive, affirmative. Okay. And I think this indifferent may need to be explained a little bit to you. Because strangely enough, indifferent is closely related to compassion. Okay, so you can see there's various views of the world you could choose.

[37:25]

Well, which initiatory state of mind are we in now? But then you can ask, who made the choice? How was the choice made? What was your intention? Out of what intention did this choice arise? And the choice arises from intention. So the second study or the equal simultaneous study with views is the study of your intentions. Okay. Be simple so you don't have to, you know.

[38:42]

I have another word up here. Tasagata. Is that big enough for you to see? I'm trying to be a good teacher here. Okay. Tathagata, depending on whether you understand this as one A or two A's. And when you put these two words together, you might drop the A. Und wenn wir diese beiden Worte zusammen schreiben, dann könnten wir das A fallen lassen. It means thus, go on one way, and thus come the other way. And add to those strange secrets.

[39:49]

Come together. Ja, also einerseits so... What do they call the cigarette? Stuyvesant? Peter Stuyvesant. You can do a vacation if you smoke enough with this Zen monk in Kyoto. I know the Zen monk. Okay. Okay. But what's really characteristic of Buddhism is it means both simultaneously. And Tathagata is the biggest name for Buddha. And it means Buddha has gone into nirvana. But it also means he or she has come into samsara.

[41:10]

Now, bodhi, you know, usually translated as I said in my mind is just a terrible word. I did a seminar last year here on sudden and gradual enlightenment. Which may have gotten a little too bold and dense here. ordinary practice. I'm going to poison myself. If I faint up here, you know, if I'm passed out, apparently. Okay.

[42:13]

Although it's such a common, you know, it's one of these basic things, sudden enlightenment and gradual enlightenment, if you're practicing, we need to discuss it occasionally. And the same is true of this, of the idea of bodhisattva. Okay, now let's try to translate this more kind of guts only. Sattva means stuff, but more it means something more like aliveness stuff. The oranges, you know, can kill you. Alive inside.

[43:18]

Now I'm writing this obvious stuff down, partly in slow media, I'm not just showing you these words. It also means strength. It also means will. Intention. So, if you are the I that goes to the movies, and you say, what is this I that went to the movies? Well, you have to include all that aliveness stuff, not just who you are in relation to your parents and education. All this aliveness stuff that walks along the street. And sat in the theater. And according to the movie, you cried or laughed or had these strange feelings.

[44:21]

And if you look into that, this aliveness stuff did these things out of a kind of intentions, strengths, etc. So Bodhi means something more like clarity or pliancy. I don't know, what word do you, the feeling of when things are right, clear, connected, soft, something like that. Lipidity? Limpid. Limpid. I don't know. Don't worry. Hallucin. Is there another word?

[45:37]

I don't know. They're unusual words. None of the words, and a lot of the words in English have a negativity to it because we see these qualities as a little bit weak or something. And I chose clarity and pliancy because clarity emphasizes mental quality and pliancy emphasizes the physical stuff being kind of feminine and soft. You don't have to worry. I'm not going to poke all over your head. They just know him quite well. OK, now. Bodhisattva then means the clarity, aliveness, fluidity of this stuff that we live in.

[46:54]

And this aliveness stuff is not separate from the world. As we were just talking, you mean you eat food? And from the dharmic point of view, my arising and your arising are simultaneous. Okay, so in this sense, we could call this stuff here, we could call this stuff Suchness. And we could call this thusness. Now this distinction I make. Because the suchness of something sort of emphasizes that, and the suchness emphasizes that.

[48:16]

So the suchness of Ulrike is sort of the, it looks inward toward her. You can sort of feel your own suchness. I don't know if you know what I mean. But the thusness of Ulrike is how she arises momentarily. How she's constantly interacting with the universe. Now, this distinction is not that important. I'm just showing you we don't have words for these kind of distinctions that bodhisattva practice is.

[49:40]

Okay, I think we've done about enough for now. Now, what I will have to do in the afternoon is discuss the three bodies of Buddha and give you a feeling of how the three bodies of Buddha, from the three bodies of Buddha, the Bodhisattva arises. And how the three bodies of Buddha are also your actual experience. Again, you may not notice it, It may not be a large part of your experience, but the concept of a Buddha has no meaning if it isn't also your actual already experience.

[50:56]

So we have a kind of the Buddha experience The Bodhisattva and you are actually interrelated subtle ideas about who you are. And the way in which intention functions in you, And how powerful intention is, unconsciously or consciously. And how intention is so fundamental to us that in a deep way we are an act of imagination. Now, the active imagination has an identity in the world. And you confuse the identity in the world for your realness.

[51:58]

Because the intention is hidden from you. Or not clear or unconscious. But when you can shift from seeing your realness as your manifestation in the world to the intention which is within the manifestation, Then you're at the very center of bodhisattva practice. And maybe we can look at some practices Again, let me invite you to share with me and with others how you understand these things.

[53:21]

Please, without changing your posture, just be quiet. Just be quiet for a moment. Ulrike translates for me all the time. And I can't really fully understand her energy in doing this week after week here. But I'm very grateful for it. Also very grateful. But she often doesn't know what I'm talking about because her cheeks do the translation, not her mind.

[54:52]

She's even discovered she can visualize or think about some other aspects of the practice while she's translating what I'm saying. She's getting so good at it, she even subtly influences me to say things and then she translates. But sometimes she likes to listen to what's happening and not translate. Take a break. And recently when I was teaching in Zurich because of the hospital emergency her sort of stepfather is in, A person, may I describe her as a wonderful person, volunteered to translate for me.

[56:20]

And so she happens to be here today. So I asked if she would translate some and give Ulrike a break. And Helena is, her native tongue is not German. But how old were you when you moved here? 16. So her native tongue being English, she knows colloquial expressions and so forth in English that you'd know if it's your native tongue. But then she has to find ways to say those things in German. And I think this is actually important because you have to remember that everything I'm talking about is translation. Not only is the English a sort of translation of the Japanese and Chinese and Sanskrit and so forth.

[57:37]

But it's also, there never was an original. I mean, Buddha himself was a translation. The translation of his experience. So the original is always you. So when you translate, you're giving a person a kind of target or suggestion, but then you have to find it in yourself. So in that way of looking at things is essential to this teaching. So I actually, when I go back to the United States, I get kind of, there's no translator, this is funny. Because I like the feeling of someone translating and then you translating in yourself.

[58:58]

And maybe when I don't have a translator, you don't realize how much it's a translation. So I think it's fun to try a little different way of feeling it out. So I asked Helen if she'd come and translate, she said okay. I just want to say that I live in Switzerland and that sometimes, I hope not, but sometimes there is something that we don't use so much here in Germany. If that were the case, then we could make it noticeable somehow. No, you have to tell me what you said.

[59:59]

I just said that because I live in Switzerland, so there might be a word or two that they don't really use here in Germany. In that case, you have to tell me. But you won't speak Swiss German? No. Otherwise, you need another translator. Okay. In a little while, one of you, I won't tell you which one, is going to come up and start giving the lecture, and then she'll translate it. Now, I think it's an enjoyable thing to just be able to spend the afternoon with nothing else to do. sharing this extraordinary possibility which we are.

[61:01]

This subtle actuality. Subtile actuality. I can almost do it. I can almost do it. So now the words suchness and thusness. I use those words because it's hard, partly because it's hard to distinguish between them. But if I said, at least in English, such I have heard, And I said, thus I have heard. If you know English, it's pretty clear it's different. Such I have heard would mean what you heard. And thus I have heard would mean how you have heard. Das zweite bedeutet, so wie ich das gehört habe.

[62:25]

But what you've heard and how you've heard are sort of parts of one activity. Aber was und wie man gehört hat, sind eigentlich Teile einer Aktivität. Probably actually we, though it is one activity, we don't emphasize too much how you hear something. And there's quite a bit of teaching about how you listen to the teaching. Which I talked about last night, paying attention to the feeling rather than the content. Sounds good. Now, I should mention, this is the first time I've ever started a seminar without giving zazen instructions. But Beate Satva, I mean Beate, who, you know, organized this event here in Münster.

[63:39]

And so does the Boston. She suggested last night we start with Zazen, so I said okay. And then you were all sitting so well this morning, I thought maybe you don't need any instruction. But if some of you have any questions that can be extremely basic about posture, breath, or anything, it's helpful for me to have them and everyone to hear. So if you ask me about any aspect of Zazen, I'm happy to tell you. And maybe you can see from my way of teaching I think the most basic stuff has to be come back to regularly.

[65:07]

Particularly if you're going to also be able to turn that and see Buddhism in its deeper sense. In a way, I'm not talking with you here about Buddhism. But more about just possibility of our human life. Which Buddhism has taken as a task or effort to present. Did you all have a pretty good lunch? Habt ihr alle ein gutes Mittagessen gehabt? Yeah, we found a, we went back to where I'm staying, but also we found a Italian restaurant right on the corner that was empty and quite good.

[66:13]

Italian? Italian, yeah. The Colossus or the Colonus or the... Wir waren gleich in der Ecke in einem italienischen ruhigen Restaurant. Well, I turned this board, I think, so you can see. It's fine that way. If you don't want to sit down. Okay, so suchness and lessness are words that their meaning is very mixed up. And so is Bodhisattva and Tathagata. Although one means the Buddha and the other means one who's decided not to be a Buddha. And you can see here there's a double meaning, simultaneous meaning here of going and coming.

[67:26]

Now Bodhi is the same root as the word Buddha, meaning awake. But here, in Bodhi, usually it has the quality or feel of awakeness. Kind of the water or fluid awakeness. Now, Chinese tends to be a kind of process-oriented language and way of thinking. And the basic teachings and definition of Mahayana Buddhism is primarily

[68:27]

primarily Chinese and Tibetan. And India, though, it's very philosophical. It generally is basically Chinese. And Tibetan. And Tibetan. India, though it's very philosophical and was the home of Buddhism, tends to be a little more structuralist and static in the way it defines things. So you can see that if you look at the way Chinese and the Tibetans translated these words, they translate them so the meaning is even more moving. But as it is, they don't stand still. You can't quite say what it is.

[69:41]

Now let me try to give you a sense of that or a difference. In English, we have a word for tree, and if you do Baum, I believe, in German. And I'll give this example quite a bit. If you really look at a tree, it's not a static thing. It's treeing. Now, our language, I believe all the European languages, tend to be structureless and static. Unsere Sprachen, und ich glaube, die meisten europäischen Sprachen, haben Tendenz, strukturlos und statisch zu sein.

[70:48]

They emphasize the thinness of the tree. Sie betonen den Zustand vom Baum. They don't emphasize the activity and impermanence of the tree. Nicht so sehr die Aktivität und die Dauerhaftigkeit des Baumes. And they don't emphasize its interrelated dimensions. So say that we have a word tree, which meant tree. But it also meant not only the leaves which give form to the tree, But it also meant the insects which live and give form to the tree, like little tiny leaves floating around without roots.

[71:49]

And say that it also meant it was a word for cows on a hot day when they stood under a tree. Wie wenn es auch ein Wort sein könnte für die Kühe, die unter den Bäumen an einem heißen Tag stehen. And say it also meant how you feel when you look at tree. Es könnte auch sein, wie ihr euch fühlt, wenn ihr den Baum anguckt. So you could say, you could call sometimes a cow a tree, or I could call you a tree when you had that quality. Now, that's more like Buddhist language, it's like that. And when you read koans, unless you get the hang of that, you never realize that these same words in a different context have completely different or opposite meanings.

[72:52]

None of the words hold still. And maybe if you learn to sit still, you will see that you don't hold still. You think you hold still for being a certain kind of person because you're always moving. So you're moving faster than the aliveness stuff of yours moving. But if you slow down your outer posture, you begin to see that your inner posture is always moving. Now part of Buddha's practice is to shift where you locate yourself from this outer posture in which you think you're stilled to the inner posture where you know you're moving.

[74:04]

One of the Buddhist attitudes is this shift from this external activity, which he means that it stands still internally, to the opposite, the external standing still and this inner activity. So while I'm standing here talking with you, I know that I'm called Richard. I know that my Buddhist name is Zen Tatsu. Zen Tatsu, a friend called me Hatsi Tatsu. Yeah. Well, I know these various things. But actually, my actual moment-by-moment experience is more exactly how my breath feels right now.

[75:06]

And a sense of the solidity of my body. But that solidity itself feels very porous connected with you and the room and the trains and so forth. So by not locating, not having a sense of location so much in my name or representational thought, I have a sense of location that moves around among the sounds and the feelings from you But I don't feel disoriented. I can remember when I first started having shifts of location. I don't know. I couldn't exactly tell you why it would happen.

[76:29]

But I remember it most noticeably happening when I was shopping in stores. Because that's when it seemed weirdest. I'd be at a counter and find something waiting for me. And I have completed talking. And maybe the clerk is gone to go get a piece of paper or wrap the package. And there's a moment when I have nothing to do. And because by this time I did do exactly quite a bit, Without noticing it, I'd shift into zazen. And I'd suddenly sometimes feel like I was going to fall over. Or would things go a little bit black or dark around me? Or I mean, it would be a slight moment of terror because I couldn't locate myself.

[77:47]

I mean, I wasn't really scared, but there's a little bit... I mean, I wasn't really scared, but there's a little bit... [...] I wasn't really scared And this alive stuff was getting there. I remember I even had a haircut once. Which I was very tired. I hadn't been sleeping. I was sleeping two or three hours a night. And the barber finished cutting my hair. And since I knew You know, how to sit straight. I was sitting straight in the chair.

[78:47]

But I was so tired that I went to sleep. But I'd also gone to sleep because I didn't want to make him think I was sleeping with my eyes completely open. upright, completely upright, adding my haircut, and not moving because otherwise you might, you know. Sehr aufrecht, ohne Bewegung, mit offenen Augen. a kind of awake, but also quite asleep, and my eyes staring straight ahead. And I was awakened by Barbara's giving a little scream. Because he said, how does it look? And he held the mirror up in front of me. And he said, And he went, oh!

[79:51]

And I said, oh! So you have to learn from that. Sometimes you can make that shift in a store. And until you're used to it, you think, where am I? Am I going crazy here? Stop the cues that tell you who you are. But acting used to it, it's not disorient. I could explain that more, give you a sense of that more, but just look. Fine. You have a larger sense of location. Yeah.

[80:51]

Sometimes there's a reality limit. that you can move your sense of location, but there's still a limit within that. That [...] you can move your sense of location And over here, we have the Bodhisattva.

[81:52]

That BOS is the Japanese word for Bodhisattva. So I use BOS. Maybe I should have put the Bodhisattva here. And you here. See your little legs. Okay. This is the Tathagata. Actually what this means is the practice of being a Buddha is to begin to know how you appear and disappear. What is a Buddha but wisdom? Or prajna? What prajna means technically or dynamically is this ability to shift your location.

[83:03]

So in this case the Buddha is shifting from emptiness to form. And when you know more about practice and you have a sense of what emptiness is, and it's not just a concept, You also see how you can actually make a shift from form and emptiness. Now, that's not much different than the Bodhisattva, except the Bodhisattva only sort of goes to here, but never quite gets there. And likewise, you as a person, you go toward the Bodhisattva. And the Bodhisattva goes.

[84:05]

So actually this is a scale of you, Buddha, and the Bodhisattva being kind of in between. And all of them have this quality of movement Even though we sit still, when we talk about calmness, still it's realizing that everything is changing and you're changing. And that's what these words suchness and thusness emphasize. So the Bodhisattva technically is one who could be enlightened, but decides not to be enlightened until you're enlightened. Anyway, that's the general idea. So now let's look at a particular bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara.

[85:43]

which is also kanon, or kanzeon, or kanjizai. Now, if any of you have chanted the Heart Sutra, you will know that it starts out kanjizai, bo satsa, So it's . You don't have to translate that. Thank you. You could say it in a Swiss German accent. I won't try it. Now, this is a bit like, you know, you might, you have different names to your friends. Somewhere between hey you and Schatzlein. So, in this kind of context, the name changes according to the context.

[87:11]

Okay, so Kanon in Avalokiteshvara more or less means the one who hears the sounds of the world. And Kanjizai means the one who hears through intention. or the one who hears through will. Okay, so that's like up here we have who you are is this aliveness stuff. But you look at this aliveness stuff and you do get up in the morning sometimes whether you want to or not. And you do create habits like brushing your teeth.

[88:35]

And you make an effort to be nice to people or whatever. All of those things come out of some intention. And so that intention... is part of the aliveness stuff, the aliveness stuff wouldn't even have had lunch. So intention and will is at the center of this aliveness stuff. So this is one so clarified is her intention that Hearing the cries of the world is their intention. So Abhila Kiteshvara the sutra begins, the reason I'm taking this particular bodhisattva, because each bodhisattva represents a way of practice.

[89:48]

So it's not just an abstract idea, This is a bodhisattva which has a definite kind of identity, personality. Just as you have a specific identity and personality. So Avalokiteshvara is the most classic, I guess, bodhisattva in... Chinese Buddhist, Chinese Tibetan Buddhist world. And so, how that bodhisattva is described represents the most basic pattern of practice.

[91:00]

And the way the sutra begins, was, is a description of who the Bodhisattva is. What the Bodhisattva does, or what the practice is, is who the Bodhisattva is. But you can also do that practice. So if the Bodhisattva is the practice it does, and you can do the practice, then you can be the bodhisattva. Are you glad? I was glad when I found that out. I'm going to have to live another few hundred years to, you know, get it down.

[92:16]

Now, the qualities of Bodhisattva and the Bodhisattva's practices is that they're implanted in this life. And they're implanted in your life. Okay. So avalokiteshvara, the word meaning the one who hears the sounds. So the first practice is How do you hear, hearing sounds? And I gave you some suggestions about that as we were doing zazen for a few minutes and I talked about the birds and the trains. And this sense of the sound ear field consciousness as the primary vehicle of realization is central to Zen practice.

[93:29]

Was that too long? That was a bit long, yeah. I tried to see how you do. You scared me for real. So... What was I saying there? Tell me what I said again. The sound I feel... Yeah. When you practice zazen, I suppose the main aspects of zazen practice are your posture, uncorrected state of mind, and breath, and sound consciousness. And then using language in turning word context. Using language as a turning word practice, a Wado practice.

[94:43]

If you get a real feeling for all those territories, basically you've got 90% of Zen. So Avalokiteshvara, the one who hears, observes the sounds of the world, Was coursing in deep prajnaparamita. Coursing in like a boat courses through the water or a bird courses through the sky. He was coursing in what? Coursing in deep prajnaparamita. Was he in this stream or in this field of deep prajnaparamita? Also in this wisdom, which was beyond all wisdom. Wisdom that has gone beyond wisdom is, of course, another word for emptiness.

[95:57]

Because the quality of emptiness is, a definition, is it has no mark. So there's the emptiness of emptiness because emptiness has no mark, nothing to grab hold of it by. Emptiness cannot be an object of cognition. Do you understand that? Cognition grasps hold of something. It can't be an object of cognition or it's not emptiness.

[96:49]

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