I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad some of you who I missed yesterday are here today. And to prepare for your arrival today, since you missed yesterday. To sort of see if we could together, without me, account for what I... Presumably said. So I would also like to participate in this hearing of what I said. I quoted E.M. Forster. yesterday, who said, how can I know what I'm thinking until I see what I said?

[01:20]

So I'll write it to A bit of talking. I want to see what I said. Police. Yes. I have a question. If we start with a question? Okay. Which was not... which was not very clear to me in your lectures yesterday, or in the lectures yesterday, was how you used the term marker in two different ways. As I understood it.

[02:20]

I used poor marker in the way it seems in dance, particularly ballet dancing. To be a physical gesture, which represents a movement in dance. So that... the dancer doesn't have to go full out through the pirouette, they can just make a movement like that. Maybe we could have an example. I've never liked the thumbs up gesture. But that's become so ubiquitous, it's almost impossible to...

[03:35]

repress entirely. So I just go. And everyone understands. Which there is a marker for this. But it's also a marker for not liking this. The definition is not a problem. I mean, there is no problem at all. But you also used marking in a different way in your lecturing before noon. This definition was more like noticing, like that you are setting a mark in order to notice what is happening more than lately.

[04:56]

Yeah, but that's also, to me, the same. So in the first instance, it's just making a mark, like if you're a marker, and you mark something. But in the second meaning, it's representing something. So it's standing for something instead of doing it. And so I would be happy if you could explain this a little bit. Well, let's just say now it has two heterogeneous definitions. Yes. So yesterday you were talking about acting as a Doan and with the Tsuki Roshi.

[06:15]

So as far as I understood, you have this inner posture that you don't accelerate your pace. A mental posture. That's not an inner posture. That's what she said. She said inner posture. Yeah, well, I just changed it to mental posture. Okay. So not as inner posture, but as mental posture. And connected to that, there is this Mifitamite. Okay, and in parallel to that, there is this respect that the body finds its own peace. So I think that they coexist in parallel.

[07:45]

On the one hand, there is this mental posture. On the other hand, I don't expect the body to fulfill it. Yeah, okay. You expect the body to be... The mental posture becomes one influence on the body. But not the controlling influence. And the body is also influenced by what the other chantries are doing and what... how your arm is, and so forth. And we also know that the body cognizes more quickly than the mind. So the body is more responsive. So the body is more responsive. So athletes have to do this.

[09:11]

If you're playing tennis, you have to let your body, not your consciousness, be part of it. Incoming. But for me, this is really somehow about being right on the limits. It's a very fine line. Because when I am practicing, for instance, and I want to establish my harbor, .

[10:13]

So to what extent I'm trying to focus on this intent and let my body do it, or to what extent I'm focusing on establishing that and put more energy into this kind of intention of establishing it? In practice, primarily you put energy into the attention, the intention more than the doing of it. Sometimes you may consciously do it by draining the sense of personal location out of the upper body. And then sometimes you just have the intention to do it and you let your body explore it with the intention, with the mental posture, but the body then does what it wants.

[11:39]

You don't want to let the body do what it wants? Anyway, there's lots of examples of this in Japanese crafts, but let's go on if we can. Because I'm also interested in what you heard, not new questions, which I'm happy to respond to, too. Also, es gibt noch einige Beispiele dafür in der japanischen Kunst, wie das ausgedrückt wird, dieses Verhältnis zwischen Intention und Körper. Aber ich möchte mehr von euch hören, weil ich, obwohl ich froh bin, auch das zu hören, mehr von dem hören möchte, was ihr gehört habt, als das neue Fragenauftrag.

[12:42]

So what I have heard was a kind of definition of practice object engaging [...] object So what I heard is a definition of practice, which I mean, can sich einlassen und verbinden mit Objekten ohne Zentrum, und das öffnet für mich neue Dimensionen. Und ich habe gehört, mir ist festgeblieben, der Ausdruck, uninterrupted and what also stayed on my mind was uninterrupted practicing and that this is only possible without comparison and with authenticity in each moment okay

[14:15]

Yes. The last time you met, you used the term incubatory trajectory. And I, this morning, feel like the projector. What I heard you say yesterday is different this morning than it was yesterday. Okay. And the most important thing you said yesterday at this most down trip, it was, thank goodness. And it felt like being given back something a very gentle expletive for an expression of appreciation which does not come from discursive understanding. And as I followed into this in depth, I felt myself like a pupil coming back to the teacher to ask you, can you please give me back the personal programs I need to if I want to investigate consciousness fully? Please. When we first met in Johanneshof, he had a term, which is difficult to translate into German, an exhausting flight.

[15:35]

And he said to me, watch out, stand still. I felt like a projectile today. What I heard yesterday is not what I heard. And the most important thing he said to me yesterday was, no, no, he said, thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. It felt like something was being returned to me. You have the pronouns. There are It's best if the functions of language, not the functions of self.

[17:03]

So, Anybody want to say something about what was the discussion like you had last year? So it reminds me a little bit about about working on a cohort in the group. First it was a little bit slow and it took some time before people said something. And then I found it quite interesting that each and everybody remembered different things and different aspects of what we said during the day. And like part of the puzzle, everything came together in the end to a more complete picture.

[18:20]

Thoughts. Not entirely centered, but... Did some people hear the same thing differently? So I considered this a very precious meeting last night. So first I was kind of skeptical whether that would work in such a large group.

[19:25]

It can happen. It can happen quite often that you lost some time in kind of discussions and disputes and it can't be accomplished that things are just brought together, we'll say to the day. And often after a lecture of yours, I feel nourished like after a warm summer rain. I couldn't say anything content-wise what you said. And it was awesome yesterday.

[20:33]

And yesterday it was awesome how it was possible to correct all these things and really to remember in a mutual effort what was there yesterday. Yesterday you said that you from the description of the relationship between body and mind so that you somehow arrived over the years that this relationship is more open between body and mind in the phenomenal world, in the phenomenal world.

[21:43]

And I am asking myself whether it is necessary to experience that, whether you have to have an experienced body and mind. In order to be able to see that the mental posture also influences the body. So in this sense there is absolutely mutual dependence and influence because what I experience as a physical experience also has a kind of influence on the medical posture.

[22:56]

And therefore there needs to be a very fine tuning of body and mind because you allow your body to influence also the In order to be able to let the body go, it needs a kind of thinking. In order to be able to distinguish what originates from the mind, what comes from God, and from the phenomena. Yeah. Yes, yes.

[24:12]

Christa was using the ear last time, but she didn't have something to say. Yes? I'm not sure. So I would like to say something concerning different interpretations of what you said yesterday. We didn't talk about that yesterday evening, but it came up during breakfast. And maybe these two interpretations are not exclusive to each other. So it's about the sentence you already wrote in 3.10.

[25:15]

It is, how can I know what I'm thinking about unless I see what I said? My interpretation was that I can only... That I only am able to think in a language, I can only think in categories. That's the way I interpret the gist of this sentence. Regina is a very different person. [...]

[26:17]

Regina is a very different person. [...] Only the meaning of results from them, the being can be so clear, so visible. Only after this. So I don't think that it's the meaning of something different. But it's the space which is connected to that. Okay, I didn't... I don't know the context in which he said that.

[27:27]

But, you know, you can imagine to some extent, because I've read a lot of Forrester. But I think... I used that quotation to mean rather in a similar way to Foucault, Michel Foucault saying, writing writes writing. You may think about what you're going to write, but the actual writing of it sometimes becomes more subtle than what you're thinking at first. And to some extent, the act of writing with the body douses the mind.

[28:32]

In other words, I find that, for example, myself, that there's... there's implications in my thinking that I don't have to make explicit. in the thinking process. But the process of writing kind of delves into that process of writing. makes those implications necessary to put into the writing. And leads to quite a, sometimes quite a much more elaborated text than I'm thinking. Or to what I'm, you know, I... I have a general idea of possible things I might speak about when I come in to talk with you.

[30:28]

But I often find that in speaking it draws out things that I No, I asked you, too. I don't know. Eric and I together sort of asked you to do the discussion last night, have the discussion last night. Maybe it's the cousin of breaking the small groups, as I can learn. Sometimes I don't do. I've forgotten the last few sentences. You know, we have this custom in Europe, particularly in Germany and in America.

[31:45]

We have this tradition in Germany, but also in America. Weekend seminars. And There's no such traditional parallelist weekend seminars in Chinese Buddhism. So I used to find, now I'm amazed, I used to find that after, well, first of all, I didn't start on Friday, except sometimes Friday night.

[32:45]

And then we'd have a couple periods of discussion, units of discussion. and lecture in the morning. And then Saturday afternoon we'd have small groups. Now I can't understand how I thought What I presented in the morning could be discussed in the afternoon. Now, maybe you, I don't really know what your experience is from 10 years ago, but now, if you happen to have been around 10 years ago, But now I feel what I'm saying is so dense and packed.

[33:51]

that it would be very hard to unpack in the afternoon if it were your first acquaintance. So it's like Sunday afternoon we have small groups, then we have to meet Monday. So I did extend the weekend to Friday, certainly Friday morning. And sometimes, like yesterday, a surprising number of you come on Friday. But why... I mean, I'm doing this because...

[35:15]

Talking with you is better than typing. Talking with you is better than typing. But also I'm doing it primarily because I want to introduce these possibilities to you. But I have a matter concern. Which is... We should keep it spelled both ways. Anyway. Anyway. Which is how could this be useful to future generations?

[36:55]

Because the primary mental posture I was given by my teacher is to have a successor who can also have successors. Okay, so in other words, I want to present these things. They've been so useful to me. And I have no particular interest in publishing things. interest for some strange reason in being known by people I don't know.

[38:02]

But I have an interest in knowing you and being known by you. Which we could say is the topic of the seminar. The receptivity of the Bodhisattva. So I, at some point, although I had no interest in publishing, I have a great interest in the interaction face-to-face interaction with others but sometimes in the last ten years or so I've recognized that I'm stuck with the responsibility of being one of the

[39:02]

early practitioners of Buddhism in the West. So to use an image, I guess. I found myself trying to hack a path through the forest to a clearing. Yeah, and... So because I've been working on this path and a path within the paradigms of the West, I've accounted for an obligation to share what I've discovered. And the main way I want to do that is for you to share in the discovery.

[40:28]

And the main direction, the main effort I want to make is to share this with you, what I think is a continuous practice with you. And also this practice what to say to this practice with others, what to say. So like something like last night's discussion. So it was really a discussion from yesterday. And again, can we have a process of having a mutual understanding? Is it possible to have a process, a practice, You know, Dalai Lama's main supporter, translator, who worked as his bookstores. Some can't, I'm not good at pronouncing, or something like this.

[41:39]

But he spent, I think, 12 years in a monastery doing this arguing stuff. That's 12 years of daily trying to develop a mutual understanding. I mean, it's just one night of fitness. So, it can't be helped. So, you know, I'm not asking you to... to that, but like last night, was it useful?

[42:56]

Should we make it part of the seminar every Saturday? How can we make use of this weekend seminar format, particularly to Western Buddhism? So I enjoyed this very much. Last evening it was a very nice atmosphere in which we shared. I think it is also a good opportunity for people to come back and to feel welcome, not because they have missed something, but because they have come to see it again.

[43:59]

And I think it's a good possibility, particularly for people who were not at the pre-seminar, to be able to listen and other people have to feel welcome, although they weren't there on the first day, and to learn from other people what was said. And what I would like to add to what you said, which was very interesting, was that where I have the feeling that we have a gap, and where we also have such difficulties. And in addition, it was very good to see by mutually sharing what was understood, where are the gaps, where are insecurities, where do we not really know what was meant. And also what was not repeated, what was not said.

[45:05]

And particularly what was said very often was this question. What was not said and what we could not share was the way you understood space. And that was are particularly important when we can open our worldviews or the receptivity of the Bodhisattva. And the answer which was particularly important for me was your saying that Susan doesn't stand up in the same room twice.

[46:25]

But what is very difficult to talk about and to experience is how to experience space. And how can I turn, how can you turn this into a territory of practice. And also the connection with how can you experience parts What came to my mind, what I remembered when we talked several years ago, how the family developed as an early child, as a baby. It was a little bit of a mind, a little bit of a body experience. He described several years ago how mine extends into the body.

[47:33]

And I also remember my own children. And there is a stage when they are not quite eight weeks old. where their limbs are alien to them. And I already told this once, but I think it's very remarkable and important, that's the reason why I repeated this, that they don't know that they're on fists and therefore hit themselves in the face and start to cry because they don't know how to control it.

[48:38]

And for me, that reminds me or shows me that our physical experience is actually something which is learned. And we have learned it to such an extent that now we are completely unable or it's impossible to us to remind ourselves that this is learned and perpetuate. And the point I want to make is not that we should hit ourselves in the face with our own fists, masochists. But I think you also gave us permission to leave this inhabited, or learned, containers, and to experience something different.

[49:45]

So that's in territory I would like to listen to. So we're in various ways discussing the process of practice and understanding and so forth. And this is also the topic of the seminar. The Bodhisattva question is, how do we know ourselves and how do we know others? What is the process by which we can know ourselves more effectively and others more effectively? That is the concept and practice, teaching of the Buddha.

[51:19]

Okay, since it's 11. It would probably be reasonable for a compassion to have a break. That's also what you said for practice. So we'll see what happens after the break. Thank you very much. Look at it.

[52:48]

Hello. So as I started out yesterday and said that after years of emphasizing the usefulness of noticing the difference between yogic and Western worldviews, And it's a particular advantage we have in fact over practicing.

[55:31]

As an Asian person. Because we can define enlightenment as a worldview shift. a worldview shift that sticks and stays with you. And a worldview shift in Buddhism to an acceptance and realization of how things actually exist. And how things actually exist can mean anything.

[56:47]

Delusion, we could say delusion is how things actually exist for most people. In the case of Buddhism, how things actually exist means to know how things exist in their interdependence and interindependence. And as I say, in a more accurate translation, would be inter-emergence or inter-mergence. Because, you know, just for the sake of the topic,

[57:50]

conversion experience in a religion would be a worldview shift. But it would be, from the Buddhist point of view, not a worldview shift properly into But phenomenologically it's the same. It's a similar experience. So we're trying to use practice and use the teachings of Buddhism and to create the possibilities of ships and understanding.

[59:32]

Now, So let me bring up a few examples of worldview shifts, shifts in understanding. And can open up what's best. And the few things... And open you up to your own experience in a new way.

[61:02]

And you can open you up to a more natural understanding of the teaching. One is just a simple example, kind of a simple example, is I'm wearing this red shirt. And I'm not wearing it because Regina has nearly the same color. But I have a scarlet. But because this morning when I woke up I don't usually wear this color.

[62:08]

I actually wear black and blue. But I generally practice letting my body make decisions. So I generally let My body chooses what I'm going to wear. And sometimes I think, this is going to be kind of funny, but then I just do it because my body decides. And it's related to what Thakur Prada put up, to hitting Mopekyo and chanting. Is... is the role of mental postures in allowing the body to know its own thinking.

[63:17]

let's say, decisional thinking. Okay. This is, you know, I've talked again about, you know, your body knows it's going to move your arm before the consciousness makes the editing decision to let it happen. And again, it's about that your body... But we try to maybe for safety's sake glue body and mind together. And we could say practice is also for us Westerners loosening up that glue. So you can find little ways to allow the body to do its own decision of thinking. This sounds maybe silly, but in all these years of practicing, I still find myself needing to allow the body to do something.

[64:54]

And I, you know, I must be the terror of the door. Terrorists aren't necessarily terrible. Well, the general feeling is, for instance, you don't hit the bell this way. I think that we are increasingly talking to... Because if I use my fingers,

[66:13]

It's my mind getting the doubt. So I want to let the stick do its own thinking. It's, yeah, so you hit it so that Maybe the concept is like letting it bounce or something. When you ring the bell, it sounds different than when you ring it with your mind. In the tea ceremony there is this unbelievable distinction. Between the three main schools.

[67:26]

One school has miniature bubbles everywhere on the surface. And the other school has miniature bubbles, but one or two spots of flat reed. And in the other school, And the third has half bubbles and half flat. Okay. But that's very Japanese. And kind of nuts. And it really doesn't make any difference. But the point is, you cannot make the tiny bubbles with your mind.

[68:30]

Aber der Punkt hier ist, dass diese kleinen Blasen nicht gemacht werden können, wenn dein Mind involviert ist. If the mind is in the whisk, you get only big bubbles. Wenn der Mind in diesem Besen ist, der den grünen Tee aufschlägt, dann kriegst du diese Blasen nicht involviert. You have to release the whisk to do its own thing. Wenn man wirklich... At least if you actually got the right consistency of tea and water. It becomes a way to measure whether the amount of tea in the water is the same because the little bubble tells you. So this is not so nutty as it sounds.

[69:46]

I mean, if you drink matcha every day, As, for example, I do. You're doing it lots of times. And you notice when the bubbles are right up to each other. Particularly if you increase the amount of tea and increase the amount of water. then it's more complicated to get the consistency.

[70:47]

But this kind of culture comes out of a kind of yogic feeling for letting the body have its own cognition. And keeping the mind out of situations when it's not needed. And creating a situation where where phenomena can directly influence what's happening.

[71:55]

I read a piece recently about a guy who just returned from living in Seoul with Korea for several years. And he said to come back from bustling Seoul to the New Hampshire house in the woods was a huge contract. But he said, what struck me right away, is he said, bustling so, so. Where you receive and pass money with two hands.

[73:09]

That's the main thing he decided to mention about busy soul. Having lived in Japan for a long time there is some kind of causal relationship between the muscle and the stillness of doing things with two hands. So, thinking with the body. I don't know.

[74:28]

I feel it's too much to say many of these things, but what the heck. Because I'm not promoting Japanese culture. I am promoting yogic culture. For instance, you don't In Zen practice, look around with the eyes. And if you know new people of the Zen, they're standing there. You just do not do that. If you're going to look, you look with your head. There's something suspicious about just looking at you. You're sneaking up on somebody with discursive, judgmental thought. But certainly the eyes moving like this is discursive thought.

[75:51]

And it's different than when you turn it the other way. And it doesn't mean that... You're not supposed to know what's going on, but you know what's going on by feeling, not by looking. Shungro, who is Suzuki Roshi's grandson, was just at Crestone. And they were there for Dan Welch's Mountain Sea Ceremony, where he became the abbot of Crestone.

[76:58]

Actually, my title is Inkyo. But as I've told some of you, Inkyu actually means the shade that is in both shadow and ghost. That means the shade that stays. The shadow doesn't go away. Oh dear. Here comes the shadow.

[78:18]

Wilmot Cranston, the shadow knows. Wilmot Cranston. It's a radio program for television. Another example is the spreading of the mats. Well, anyway, what the situation is that the floor is a kind of grid of slate tiles.

[79:34]

And this is just to use examples. And so the practitioners, in order that we can fit everyone in to bow, we can't have the space too big between mats or too small. So naturally we figured out some way, starting from the altar and going back. So people learned how Where it's supposed to be.

[80:46]

It's charming, actually. after you've been there a few weeks or a few months. Then you try to help the newer people who don't know where to put them. And people down on their hands and knees trying to adjust it just to the right squares and everything. But, you know, this just isn't the way it's done in European practice. Because after they do this, using discursive thinking, one, two, okay, then they bow.

[81:58]

Okay. So there's mental postures and there's physical postures. And there's no natural. It's all art. It's all art.

[82:59]

Because in a yoga culture everything is decision. There's no natural. Is this natural? What's natural? So If you stand certain ways or have certain mental postures and not other mental postures, your state of mind is better. And that if the parts of the body work together better. Okay. So what do you do when you bump? Typically, you stamp with your feet, usually. You measure our body with our body. So you measure your ankles by your wrist. Now it's arbitrary.

[84:10]

But the fact that it's arbitrary Now this is what you teach monks. There's no reason for me to be showing you this. So if you want to tell me later, please cut that stuff out. So because it's arbitrary, why not do it this way? And just because it's arbitrary, it becomes a measure of the attentional space of the body. And just because it's arbitrary, it becomes a measure of the attentional space of the body.

[85:12]

So it's a way for you to notice whether your attention reaches to your feet. I don't believe you guys have... Okay. And as Paul... Pull it out. Sorry, Paul... stillness is where he has to start from. And in everything you do, you have to have a starting point. So in bowing, it starts with stillness. And how you stand allows you to find that serenity.

[86:24]

Okay, so the act of bowing is a little ceremony. First you arrange your body in a posture. And with that bowing, with that posture, you find your stillness. You don't bow until you've discovered that stillness. So, I mean, sometimes, like, you can't, you have to do this sometimes by yourself, but not with others, because with others, you have to find your stillness real quickly, if they're not still. Do you pray by your students? As I said yesterday, you have the feeling of... an attentional space in the whole body, but particularly activated in the hands.

[87:47]

So you bring them back together, almost like something like putty or elastic. And you bring that together. And you relate it to your lower chakra. And you bring it up through the chakras. To the heart chakra. And then you lift it into a neutral space. And the fingers are... about the bridge in the nose.

[88:58]

And, you know, before I was taught how to do this, shown, really, not taught by Sukhyoshi, I was transformed by Charlotte Selber saying, don't stand up. Come up to standing. And it's interesting, you know, that Charlotte Silver and her teacher got together. Which is... between the wars, German and Weimar, or early in culture, body work and psychology and so forth.

[89:59]

Die in der Weimarer Republik, in der Zwischenkriegszeit, in der Kultur von Berlin, in der diese Körperarbeit... which all of that European, particularly German movement was, is really the source of Essel, not Asia. Which I find interesting, that also one of the people in that movement was Hugo Kugelhaus, who partly designed that new building, Hatzenau. who defined a house as a field for the development and realization of the senses. And that's pretty much the concept of a Japanese house.

[91:22]

It's not, first of all, an enclosure. It's, first of all, a field for the sense. These are interesting, to me, cultural differences that we can learn from. so you lift the hands up through the chakras and into a mutual space and then if I really let the body do that my mind creates the conditions but my body realizes it You are much more likely to feel it with your body.

[92:50]

And this yogic way of being is at the essence of bodhisattva practice. No. The spreading of the bowling mats is exactly the same. Or a yogi practitioner in Zen, conceptually the spreading of the bowling mats and the bowling are exactly the same. So if I'm spreading with bowing mats, I stand. I find my stillness. I lift up the mats. And I just spread. It's already folded, so it's a gesture. It's not thinking.

[93:50]

I don't think I'll just go like this. It opens up into three parts. I lift her up and I lay her down. It's a gesture. I have to think about it. I do it. And it's already in third place, so that I can simply spread her out. And I lay her down. And if you're a little shy, then do it at all. But you sleep and get it, so it's just right. It's like when people do the incense. They get those little sticks and they go, just put it in. If it's wrong, it's wrong. If it's right, it's right. You just do. And it's rather important, considered important, that the yogi knows the difference between vertical and horizontal. Somebody will hand you an incense stick this way apparently.

[95:16]

When we put it in, it's exactly straight from all angles. And when you pick it up, the mat, it's the same way. You go down, pick it up, pulls in the three, and you put it under the tongue. So what's important here for us as practitioners is that maybe to, Drop the word doing. And only its forming. Because when you do this, you're forming your mind.

[96:20]

You're forming the body. And you're forming the physical world. And if every time you do something, you find yourself forming the world. And using the world to form the body and using the body to form the mind. Then in the physical world you can find stillness. And spraying the barn mat is no different than opening... a feeling with another person. So again, the question with Bodhisattva is, what is our relationship to others?

[97:24]

Can we really know others? And what does the word know mean? Thanks. But again, we could be laboring upon it. I just did the same thing. Forming the body. Forming the mind. And making use of this form of the own sacral itself. Once I put in the legs and the mind, I let as much as possible stillness create the body and mind.

[98:59]

And then the posture becomes a way to... maintain, help maintain the stillness of mind. So I, you know, you could try something. Right. And, um, Go up to the clerk. But pretend you're going to bow to the person. So you just stand. Your feet are maybe like I just suggested. And you just wait for a moment and wait for a field to develop between you and the other person.

[100:18]

Wait for some stillness in you. And ideally it doesn't become... Abusive. You wait for some stillness in the other person. I need a toothbrush. Ich brauche eine Zahnbürste. Wo gibt es Zahnbürste? I mean, you can use the opportunity to buy a toothbrush to practice, to explore what relationship there can be. Ihr könnt also so etwas Banales wie eine Zahnbürste zu kaufen, da zu verwenden, herauszufinden, was unsere Beziehung zu anderen Personen ist.

[101:43]

Genau. You can also run in and grab a tooth brush on the way to the airport, but I mean, in general you can have some fun exploring what is left of practice. Now let me say a little something about the concept of the Bodhisattva. The concept of the Bodhisattva is inseparable from the idea that there is a difference between people. There are Buddhas and there are ordinary human beings.

[102:44]

So we can imagine that, so try to look at human kind as a whole. There's all these different people. There's tribal units and family units and so forth. And then there's chiefs or leaders or something like that. And then there's sometimes a really exceptional person. What is this exceptional person? Well, I mean, often the exceptional person can run for foreign instead of foreign.

[103:46]

I talk to a lot of people turning their land over to you. Or control the waterways, and they become aristocrats. Oder sie kontrollieren auch die Wasserstraßen und werden dann zu Rade liegen. But sometimes a person is exceptional only for themselves. Und dann gibt es Leute, die sind außergewöhnlich und nicht nur aus eigen Interesse. Where does such a person come from? Is it the genetics of birth? Is it the privilege of birth? It's genetics and privilege which mostly separates the world into classes and so forth. But Buddhism says the differences, the genetic differences and the differences in privilege are, genetic differences are not so big really and the differences in privilege are not

[105:32]

somewhat delusional Buddhism introduces the idea, I mean I suppose teachings do too, but Buddhism introduces the idea that it's really a difference, a really a difference in practice. Lama Govinda, who some of you have read some of his books. Lama Govinda was a good friend of mine and I supported him in the last years of his life. One of the things he says somewhere in his books, Buddhist practice is a way to create a genius. Well, there might be some truth. But Buddhist practice is designed to allow enlightenment.

[107:01]

But I would say that the Buddhist practice is designed in such a way that it allows enlightenment to happen. So what do we have? First of all, we have the conception of the day. Except for a person who appears not through genetics primarily or privilege but through practice, An intentional practice. An intention arising from wisdom. A wisdom of wisdom. intending to know how things really exist, and arises from compassion.

[108:19]

Okay. So, the Buddha is an exact person who arises through Compassion and wisdom. The intention to... Good. There's also a concern in Buddhism for a future Buddha. Buddha and Christ, too, are both persons who die. And because they die, we need another Buddha around. Now it's that before Buddha is Buddha, the Buddha is preparing to be Buddha

[109:43]

intending to be Buddha, intending to practice compassion and wisdom. So that the concept of the Bodhisattva appears. which is enlightenment based on wisdom and compassion. So the Bodhisattva, The Buddha is one who is enlightened, is a realized Bodhi. So the Bodhisattva is one who has the suchness of enlightenment. And so the Bodhisattva is related to the Buddha.

[110:53]

But the Bodhisattva is not yet a Buddha. So the Bodhisattva is one who's... for the sake of others aspiring to be a Buddha. So we have the Bodhisattva leads to the Buddha. And then we have the possibility of the future. And if there's going to be a future Buddha, we have to have at least one Bodhisattva who becomes the future. But as fish lay a lot of eggs, I'm hoping a few survive.

[111:58]

The Buddhism says let's make everyone a Bodhisattva, then we'll have a chance of a future Buddha. Yeah. Your three little fishes could have lost our way. Three little fishes and their mama fish too. Cramming and swaying right over the dam. Who blocked it out of one shoe? I'm getting ready for the evening with Philips.

[113:03]

I'm getting ready for the evening with Philips. I'm getting ready for the evening with Philips. So then the teaching develops to... What is the context of the initial context of the Buddha? It is through his own... power he becomes a Buddha. Through his own analytical exploration of the existence.

[114:05]

But after the Buddha And you have Bodhisattvas. What is the context of the Bodhisattvas after the Buddha? The context is the suffering of so many people. And the suffering of everyone to some degree. We're all subject to disease and And subject to the suffering of other family members. So the concept of the Bodhisattva becomes one who knows, accepts and absorbs the suffering of others.

[115:05]

and makes a decision to not be enlightened until everyone's enlightened. So this is a kind of condensed history of the development of the idea. Now, the question is, is this a model you want to follow? This is really your decision. Now, is it a model like Jesus is a model for Christians. Well, I don't think the Bodhisattva is exactly a model which you try to imitate. The Bodhisattva is a... The Bodhisattva, him or herself, like the Buddha, arises from practice.

[116:51]

So it's not so much as you're trying to be like a Bodhisattva, but you're trying to practice like a Bodhisattva. So not only does the concept of a Bodhisattva absorbing, accepting, entering into the suffering of the world, makes sense to you. It's also the practice of the Bodhisattva, something you are attracted to or can do, want to do. It's the practice of the Bodhisattva that attracts you and that you want to do. And it really means, well, we talked about being in a situation with, and what happens, how this neutral space collapses when you start having self-referential thinking.

[118:15]

Okay, so let's say there's something else we can call multi-referential thinking. And multi-referential thinking would be similar to my image of the universe. un-centered field of object. If there's a centered field, then you're trying to control. Or you're assuming it's controlled.

[119:16]

Or you can't be controlled by divinities or by cosmic order or so forth. Buddhism would say that to imply there's a cosmic order is to do violence to such emotions. And to imply that there's a creator God is to do violence to yourself at my situation. So my non-theological code there is un-centered. And to allow things to be what they are, not try to make them centered or you're the center or something. So let's go back to the term multi-referential.

[120:39]

To be a field of object in religion. With your own sensitivity enhanced by practice, you can feel with space collapses through self-referential thinking. And you can heal when it opens up, when there's, let's say, multi-referencing. And multi-referencing would be a way to translate the word equanimity.

[121:39]

The balance of finding an equalness, a non-comparative equalness in each appearance. So now let's say the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva can feel when the space is opened up flowering through multi-referential awareness. And you can feel when it's collapsing because of self-referencing. That can really feel that difference.

[122:55]

Why do you feel that difference and decide to go one direction or the other? And to feel when others... feel this opening flowering or collapse. So the bodhisattva can collapse his own or her own field and kind of insinuate it into the other person's collapsed field and kind of insinuate it and then open up their own field and open up the other person's field. Such things really don't exist. Just a simple example of when you're with somebody who's dying.

[124:14]

Of course, that means everyone. Everyone's in the process of dying. But when it's closer to the end, the custom is you You're sitting on that person's right side, see? Put your left hand on their shoulder. And the right hand as much as they will allow you on their body. And you just sit there. And you just sit there. Find your own stillness. And then you intentionally join your breathing to this.

[125:18]

And just breathe away everything. And then, because of some pain or some anxiety, they start to panic and breathing fast. You go up and breathe. Then it slows your breathing down. But stay with theirs and you can almost always slow their breathing down. Conceptually that's the same as joining your non-referential space or multi-referential space with theirs or their etc. and feeling a relationship. So the Bodhisattva practice is really an extraordinary, wonderful practice of how we can relate to others.

[126:52]

And as not only a way of accepting and turning into the suffering of others, Also exploring your own compassion. It's thoroughness or fullness and it's limitation. But you know, one way to check up is on your own feelings. When you go to the hospital to visit someone, like me, my wife is now dying.

[127:53]

She's a student. She's not in a hospital yet, but anyway, she's where she is. Can you be willing, really willing, to change places for me? Or if you can't quite go so far as being willing to change places with her, if you could, you completely know you may be next. So the Bodhisattva practice is a very practical practice in the world and truly.

[129:01]

And it's exactly one. Thank you very much. Again and again and again. One word, one sentence after another.

[129:24]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_64.25