So there's a kind of genius to these five skandhas. Not only as a way of studying the mind, and discovering that each one, when you can establish yourself in the room of each one, has its own mind. So you can have, for example, someone talking to you, and you can shift yourself into the third skandha, just perceive what they're saying without thinking about what they're saying. For example.

[01:01]

So you can begin to be intimate with each other through the skandhas, not being stuck in editing consciousness. And not being stuck in their editing consciousness. Although they may feel they're located in their fifth skandha, you know, They're actually in the other rooms, too. I didn't invite you in, but the door's open. But it also is a progression in meditation itself. And was discovered, I'm sure, not philosophically, but discovered as stages of meditation to free you from form.

[02:14]

So that's what Suzuki Roshi meant. It takes 10 minutes to 20 minutes to let go of form. And then let form generate itself. And then you begin to discover realms of interior space, which like music and beyond even, that aren't in normal dimensions. but that are deeply similar and familiar. Okay, so now maybe you can understand the four Brahma-viharas better. The Brahma Viharas are the four unlimiteds.

[03:34]

Unlimited kindness. Unlimited compassion. Unlimited joy, empathetic joy. And unlimited equanimity. And equanimity means fairness or peace or evenness. Yeah. Now, the practice of that is to radiate them in ten directions. That sounds awfully moral. To go around radiating kindness. Oh, here comes that jerk radiating kindness. Let's cross the street. I'll even go in a Starbucks to avoid him.

[04:36]

Starbucks? That's that coffee shop, coffee shop. Okay. What room are we in? Oh dear. Okay. But the reasoning isn't about morality. But how do you roll out the red carpet of your own world? How do you get all parents' Zafus and things spread all over the world? Whether they're red or not.

[05:45]

It'd be great if, you know, when a president came, instead of rolling out a carpet, we put layers of sabotons out. And they walk on the sabotons. Sit down, cross-legged, have a press conference. Please, everyone sit down. So we have basic things, up and down, above and below. They're kind of real to us. Left and right. They condition the space around us.

[06:45]

Although your left and right is different than my left and right in the room, your left is a real left for you. And I think if you explore your space maybe with half-shut eyes, you'll find your left side is a little darker or lighter than your right side. If you start imagining your mother or father, for example, if you want to get into psychological space, you'll find each parent is more likely on one side or the other. So from the point of view of the room, it's the same, but your left space is different than my left space. Trust this experience.

[07:46]

This space is not just simple space. Okay, so Buddhism says, oh, let's get rid of many implied teachings and koans, or there's no up and down and so forth. No left and right. But there's this in-folded space and out-folded space. That are as real as above and below. Yeah. So we get to know this unfolded space. And we get to know this outfolded space. Outfolded from us and folding into us.

[08:49]

You know, that's the bodhisattva space. Yeah, the Nirmanakaya space. Okay, so... Yeah, I probably should stop then. But we're right at the threshold. We're just about to go in. I'm out. You know, supposedly the Ajanta cave paintings, which are 200 B.C. to 600 or something like that A.D., They have a different point of view, which is interesting to notice, from Western painting.

[09:55]

Die haben einen anderen Standpunkt als die westlichen Maler. Western painting has tended to create an optical illusion which you enter the painting. Und die westliche Malerei hat eine optische Illusion kreiert wo man in das Gemälde hineingeht. And Ajanta paintings supposedly these are more an interior space that the artist feels. Which then the painter reverses and paints as if the inside were here. So instead of you going into the painting, A painting comes out toward you from an interior space. So the background is a more womb-like or dark space. Which the figures come toward you from an interior space.

[11:19]

Because the world is seen as an interior space. We don't say it's out there like this container. That's all a space made from interiors. It's exactly the same thinking as there's no time. Each of you is time. So with this view and this vision and this experience, as we are making space like the tadpole, little Nirmanakaya temples, then what do they do? They project in all directions unlimited kindness. It's a symbol or a seed of knowing that you're making the world around you.

[12:27]

And make the world around you the kind of world you want to live in. Not just here at the Johanneshof. But try it at your job. Try it in your apartment. So when people come in, they feel some kind of kindness and equanimity. So there's, for the Bodhisattva, there's this, which is you, can be you. The bodhisattva is an activity. It's a way of knowing the world. So the more you have this feeling of unrolling, unfolding interior space, which is I've often taught as the movement of Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara, of unfolding interior space,

[13:57]

and folding exterior space back in. There's this movement with our breathing, with our talking. During the lecture, I'm unfolding, and yet I'm also folding back in my experience of you. And when I fold back in my experience of you, a few minutes ago it said you can talk a little bit longer. Right now I folded it back in and it said, hey, stop. Thank you very much. With the warning of the path of the Buddha. Sujong ensegando. Om yinsegando. is is

[15:30]

The path of the Buddha is unsurpassable. I encourage you to follow it. Ha ha ha. Thank you.

[17:28]

I believe that the truth of today's events will be revealed. So Geralt suggested for this morning that we have some sort of mixture between Taisho and discussion.

[19:03]

Maybe first I give a teisho and then we have some discussion. But I don't know, we can mix it up more. I can speak about some things and then we can have a discussion right away. Well, I think in this room it's more possible to have a discussion than in the Zendo. So we've been talking, speaking about studying consciousness. Knowing our consciousness. And you can't really study consciousness unless you experience consciousness.

[20:14]

Maybe we know the air when we feel the wind. So to feel the wind or activity of the mind, the main ways are the practice of mindfulness. The mind and consciousness is like a muscle. And if you exercise it, it gets stronger. Yes. So let me again review. In this case, let me review mindfulness practice. So the main traditional territories of mindfulness practice are the body, feelings, the mind, and phenomena.

[21:36]

Yeah. Pretty obvious. Yeah. But they're considered in early Buddhism were considered a full path leading to one place. Four paths leading to one place, it was said. Namely, nirvana or enlightenment. Mm-hmm. Maybe this is a bit like having, as I said earlier, one book.

[22:45]

All you have for your lifetime is one book. You read it more carefully. Read in a different way. And it's also written, such a book would be written in a different way. And these are four paths leading to one place. They really have to become paths for you. How you walk your mind through the world. So, you know, but again, it's pretty simple. You just take turns bringing your attention to your, let's say, body first. Inside and out. Just till you feel your body permeated by mind.

[23:59]

And it is... The best image I can find for it is liquid. It's kind of like there's a difference between a body filled with mind and a body that's not. And there's a difference in your own sense of mind as knowing if what the mind knows includes the body. Yeah, and I don't mean knowing like being a body worker, knowing about the body. Yeah, just sitting next to Maya. I'm not thinking about Maya.

[25:07]

I'm just sitting beside her. And probably it would be a waste of time to think about her. Or her hair is shorter now than it used to be or something. I'm just sitting here for six days, almost a week, a full week. And there's some knowing of Maya through that. But you're sitting next to your body all your life. And you just sort of get to know the body, the shoulders, lungs, etc. You get to know it by bringing attention to it. And always it's traditional in Buddhism to bring attention to things with a sense of also observing its impermanence.

[26:15]

And observing that it often is suffering. And observing that there's no self. No permanent sense of self in the body. So you notice its activity. Like that. And with feelings, too, you notice in the category of feelings, you notice emotions, everything that isn't thinking. Your moods and so forth. So you just get familiar with it. Again, you're not trying to change them, you're just getting familiar with them.

[27:20]

And getting familiar also means there's the archaeology of acceptance. You're sort of By keeping bringing your attention to things, it's almost like you're digging, stirring yourself up. And in these lectures, you know, it's funny sometimes to me to give a lecture every day. You know, I don't actually have much to say. It's just pleasant to practice with you. But so I can practice with you, I have to think up something interesting to say. But mostly I can just stir up your thinking a bit, maybe.

[28:20]

Yes, or remind you about practice. Remind you about practice. So when you bring attention to your... mind to your feeling, for instance, and moods. It's a little like putting something on a low burner. Just your attention changes it a little. That attention is always shaped by acceptance.

[29:31]

If your attention is critical, if there's a background in your thinking of such and such a kind of person, Your attention doesn't penetrate very far. So you just want to see what's happening here. And if you're involved in whether what's happening here is good or bad or superior or inferior or something. You never find out much about what's here. So it's said that one of the things you have to do to practice mindfulness is to develop the ability to rest your attention wherever it is.

[30:39]

It's generally translated as one-pointedness, but that suggests some effort, some effort, full effort of concentration. No, it's more relaxed than that. Put your mind there, and you're too bored to put it anywhere else. 600 years ago, Longchenpa, a Tibetan adept, really summed up all of Buddhism as just feeling at ease. So if you can just feel at ease. And I would suggest that you trust your life up to this point. Don't think, oh, my life has been a mess up to now. Now it's going to improve. That doesn't make use of your life.

[31:54]

If you'd say, trust me, I've had this life. Whatever I've had is what I have. Maybe it's good to believe in God. And trust God. God got me here, and God will get me out of this place. You know, I've been reading about babies and all. And this book of Barbara Duden's again. Yeah. In earlier times, people just trusted what happened. If you had a miscarriage, it wasn't considered that it should have been a baby. We should have prevented the miscarriage. I think there are even names for miscarriages

[32:58]

what came out, which wasn't a name for a baby, it was just something that should naturally go away. I don't know, but in any case, if you want to make use of your life up to now, Also, wenn ihr wirklich Nutzen ziehen wollt aus eurem Leben bis jetzt, vertraut ihm. Aber vertraut auch dem, was ihr wollt, wie euer Leben sein soll. Und habt den Mut, euch vorzustellen, wie ihr euer Leben haben möchtet. So with these kinds of attitudes, you bring trust to just what's here. And mindfulness, mindful attention, penetrates your moods if you have trust. Like that. And then you bring your attention to thinking and in-between thinking and so forth.

[34:29]

And then you bring attention to phenomena. Yeah, but how do you bring attention to phenomena? I mean, how do I bring attention to this bell? Of course I can bring attention to it by hitting it. But then I have to... What is the experience of hitting it? If I bring attention to the bell, it's also my activity. So attention to phenomena means attention to phenomena as dharmas. That's how phenomena appears to us. Yeah, on each moment. And this sense of things appearing on each moment is the study of dharma.

[35:42]

And mindfulness delivers the world to you. If you practice these four realms, And the next level is not just bringing mindfulness to the body. After the body is awakened through mindfulness, you bring bodyfulness to the body. The body itself is a kind of attention. Likewise, you bring something like feelingfulness to feelings. And this opens you to the world.

[36:50]

Brings you into the world. And brings the world into you. This is quite an experience. And one of the kind of ball bearings, and one of the wheels of this ball bearing is this little... It reminds me of a story, but I won't tell it. One of the things that allows mindfulness to bring you into the world The moment brings the world into you, delivers the moment. Yes, UDS, United Dharma Service.

[37:52]

United Dharma Service. is to feel that each thing is its own time. To feel time is dharmas. Yes. And mindfulness kind of calms the world. It's like, excuse the example, patting a baby or a cat or a dog or something. Yeah, mindfulness kind of calms down the world.

[38:53]

And the text of the world begins to be clearer. You feel yourself reading, being read by the text of the world. There's a kind of patience and ripening, as I spoke about time in this, too. Ling... somebody, I think his name was Ling Jung, was... studied many years of Buddhism, 20 years or so. He was walking in the mountains and... past some remote village, and some peach blossoms, he saw he was enlightened.

[40:02]

He said, and he wrote something, for 20 years I've been practicing Zen. And one glimpse of peach blossoms and all doubts are gone. This is, we could say, the fruit of mindfulness. Finally you and the world are just moving together. Anything can cause you to feel free in the midst of everything. That kind of maturing of yourself and the world is the activity of mindfulness.

[41:06]

So I would encourage you all to practice mindfulness in every situation. Not just being alert, but rather just infusing your situation with attention. Yeah, maybe that's enough for me to say. No, the question is, do you have anything to say? After that little review. I would like to know what is meant by phenomena in Buddhism.

[42:18]

In this case, in the four fields of mindfulness, it means seeing the world as dharmas. Okay, so now you're asking what is it meant to say? But it is interesting why phenomena is dharmas. Because our actual experience of the world is dharmas. Our kind of generalized, like generalized time, or a generalization, we don't experience things as dharmas. When you look closely at the world, it has no duration. We give it duration mentally.

[43:26]

Basically, we make it predictable. Making it predictable is to make it kind of permanent. So it might be better, instead of always translating impermanence as impermanence, to translate it as unpredictable. So phenomena means to really be present to the world as you know it. No, what I've given, what I've suggested in the past as a kind of way to get a feeling for dharmas.

[44:40]

Because experience does come in units. I mean, if I look at Gunda, there's a series. If I took a photograph, she's frozen. If I take a whole bunch of photographs and run them fast, she looks like she's moving. But actually my mind is taking snapshots. Yeah, and putting that together with some kind of continuity of memory but if I look at Akash or look at you each one is quite separate so to get a feel for that as dharmas is to feel each perception is in a kind of completeness.

[46:00]

So if I look at you and I look at you for a moment and in that moment I feel a certain completeness, we can call that a dharma. Another way, as I say, is you feel a certain nourishment. So if I look at Gunda in a way that I feel nourished, oh, thank you, Gunda. Thank you, nourished. That's also a kind of sense of a dharma. So if I were to give a practical instruction of being mindful of phenomena, you're actually being mindful of phenomena when each moment has a sense of either nourishment or completeness or both.

[47:11]

When you're not feeling either completeness or nourishment, you're probably not being mindful. You're just looking at something or thinking about something. Again, it's a kind of physical feel you get for things. Remember the other day how I said each word can have a physical feel? Where you can think with a kind of muscle or think with a kind of physical feeling in your thoughts. It feels like your body is engaged in your thinking.

[48:20]

In that sense, your body can be engaged in looking or walking or whatever, gazing. Think about when someone gazes at you. Or you actually feel they're looking at you. Yeah, that's quite different than they just kind of look, you know. And there's a... It's almost hard to look at a person when they gaze at you. You think, what do they want from me? But I think, although it's not very scientific, though they've done studies, you're sitting in a car and you feel someone looking at you.

[49:27]

You turn in the next car and somebody is sitting there looking at you. So there is really a physicality to looking that can be felt. That's sort of the territory of mindfulness of phenomena. So, if you're... really fully realized you probably have to wear big thick sunglasses and things so you don't disturb people around you. Oh, you have to pull your eyes in, you know. You don't want to look like a celebrity, you know. Okay, what else? Yeah. What is the Dhamma? What is the Dhamma? That's what I just said.

[50:35]

It's a little unit. A unit. In early Buddhism, dharmas were thought to be something like atoms, molecules or something like that. And then after a while, I mean, Buddhist philosophy advanced enough to think that there was no indivisible unit, just like in physics, there's no indivisible unit, finally. Even though the word atom literally means can't be broken. So Buddhism shifted from a unit of the world to a unit of experience. A unit of experience.

[51:42]

But first shifted from a unit of the world or material to a unit of experience. Because, I mean, if you try to think about past, present and future and time, it's completely mysterious. It's amazing we have any experience at all. How long is the present? At what moment in the present does the future start? At what moment in the present does the past begin? Or end? We're like on a little bright knife edge. But we can't explain that. But we do have some experience of moment after moment. Of duration.

[52:55]

So Dharma practice is to experiment with that moment of knowing. To extend its duration or to shorten it. To complete it. And the Genjo Koan, we can translate the title Genjo Koan to mean to complete that which appears knowing everything is simultaneously universal and particular. Universal should be maybe interpenetrating and particular, independent and particular. Yeah. So if you know everything is...

[53:57]

interpenetrating and yet somehow particular, and only momentary and yet experienced, if you've examined this world enough in your experience to know this is true, then the only possible response to that is to complete that which appears. You don't just kind of Oh, it appeared. Oh, great. Hi. You're a participant. So the Genjo Koan is a facet teaching of Dogen about how we complete that which appears. Yeah. Okay. Yes. I was just thinking about fantasy and phenomena.

[55:17]

When you say this example, I don't know. Who's going to speak in English? What did she say? Oh, so what do you mean by fantasy? Yeah, it's a question. Okay. Well, probably I mean making something up which maybe I have experienced, but I have not experienced. I don't know. Yeah. Well, it's, you know... You'll confuse your friends. Yeah, I prefer not to make things up myself.

[56:26]

Strange enough, without my making something up. So there's illusion, delusion, things as they exactly exist, etc. So I started to say one of the background attitudes, realizations of mindfulness practice is to be able to rest your mind gently wherever you want to put it. And also to free yourself from assumptions. So that you don't come into each moment with prior assumptions. Good or bad assumptions.

[57:33]

But good assumptions are better, usually. And third, to stop the habit of liking, disliking, right and wrong, and so forth. And finally, to get in the habit of dissolving that which appears. So you not only complete what appears, you also at the same time dissolve what appears. And it's just a habit you can develop. And I don't think there's much room for fantasy there. But if you like fantasy, please enjoy yourself. But no, it's fantasy. And then the thing is, if you get in the habit of liking fantasy...

[58:35]

Or things to be the way you want them to be. Sometimes it gets harder to distinguish between, even for yourself, what's fantasy and what's not. What do you mean by dissolving what appears? To let go of it, let's call it that. That means simply when I look at you, something appears there. A fuzzy white nimbus. I looked away and I just... Gone, gone, gone, gone. Yes. I don't understand this dissolving liking and disliking.

[59:58]

I think it's sometimes very useful not to like something. Yes, because I have to make distinction what is good for me or not good for me also. And we have it always, I think, with taste or healing. So we have these little reactions which are like animalistic, really, like not to want something or not. Little babies have that habit. Trying to get me involved in a fantasy, right? Trying to get on my good side, I can see. I'd like to say something about whether you like it or not. I've said that animals have such reactions, and it's also very meaningful for them sometimes to be able to distinguish what's good for me or not good for me.

[61:00]

I don't know. I mean, I don't put sand in my gas tank. So I do make some basic decisions. I don't like to put sand in my gas. I had water in my gas tank once. It almost killed me. In the middle of an autobahn in the middle of southern New Mexico, a totally deserted place, in the middle of the night, my car stopped right in the middle of the freeway. And then I got out, looked around, and lights of cars were coming away in the distance, and they were never going to be able to see me. So I got in. Finally, it started for a moment, pulled over to the side.

[62:15]

Yeah, so I don't like water or sand in my gas tank. But still, my basic perception is not framed by liking and disliking. If I look at these flowers, let's say, well, I have the experience of liking them, but it's not something that, you know, just happens. And I suppose if they're arranged funny, I might move the arrangement a little. Everybody knows I move things all the time, right? But like when I go in the zendo and I find I start to bow and the incense burner is over here and the Buddha is there.

[63:20]

I don't have much experience of disliking it. Well, it's just over there, so I move it. We do have to discriminate. But it doesn't have to be, our initial way of thinking doesn't have to be liking and dislike or preferences. Preferences should be a secondary thinking. I think there's some term that Sekhida uses, first nan and second nan. Maybe first nan is just acceptance.

[64:25]

So what else? Yes? Does this mean that we have to invent truly the world again, everybody for itself? Oh, yeah, of course. Or a fork. And if I look at it as if I would see for the first time, I see, And perhaps I consider it's a very precious thing. It's very skillfully made. So I could try and put it in my hair because it looks beautiful. Exactly. I expect to see you next time with two forks. Not here. Not here. Don't go to a job interview with forks in your hair. Where to put those boundaries to consider somebody as crazy or not?

[65:46]

Well, let's stick with the fork. That's an easier question. Yeah, I mean, actually lots of Akohan work is involved in just this thing. What do you call this? a watch but that wouldn't be a sufficient answer you'd have to use it as a watch to call it a watch because it's not a watch until you use it as a watch so if the teacher held this up you could say, well, I'm not going to call it a stick. But when I see you looking at the watch, then asking me, I would call it, I mean, that's what I did.

[66:51]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're going to be a lawyer, we have to have a jury here. So, if I held this up and said, what is this? If you took it out of my hand and said, oh, Roshi, it's almost time to end Doxa, then it's all right. So a fork is a fork when you use it as a fork. Until then, it's just some sort of nicely made object, or maybe not so nicely made object. And you can get in the habit that you don't know what things are until you use them almost. Yeah, you sit down at the table, it's just a whole lot of things reflecting the sun.

[67:53]

What are we supposed to do now? Oh! It's like that. It makes life fun, you know. But I don't think it's crazy because you know how to eat. You know how to use the fork. It starts being weird if you use the fork and your neighbors see you and go... You thought this was a fork, you know. Then you might... be considered hospitalization. I think I know the answer, but I'll ask this question anyway.

[68:55]

But isn't there a danger that will slip into don't worry, be happy? Yes. Thank you. Don't worry. How's that song going? Don't worry, be happy. Okay. Why worry? I don't worry. Occasionally I do worry, I have to admit. But I associate don't worry, be happy, that attitude with a complete irresponsibility. Also ich verbinde diese Einstellung, not worry, be happy, mit der totalen Unverantwortlichkeit. Yeah, so what was that like? You can't support that, can you? Why not? I don't support total irresponsibility, no.

[70:01]

A little irresponsibility. But what can I say? We're so taught in our... He's an American, but he's lived in Germany a long time. I'm also a Lutheran. Or was. A Lutheran. Oh, yeah. So, yes, these are our values. But let me give you an example of Suzuki Roshi working. We built a a big rock wall at Tassajara in the stream, in the stream bed that had been washed out by a sort of flash flood. And we were moving rather large stones. And they had to be, we had no equipment, you know, except our hands and crowbars.

[71:15]

We had to get them out of the stream bed up into a stone wall and without mortar to put them in and have them stay. Then we had to use big stones to redirect the stream bed so that water that came down wouldn't go up against the sides. It was relatively heavy work. It went on for 10 days or so. From seven or so in the morning until 5.30 in the afternoon. He had long work days trying to get the place going. And Sukershi was, I don't know how old he 65, 66 or something.

[72:38]

Elderly, like me. He seemed old then. He seemed old, yeah. I don't know. But he had the people working with him were all 22 or 23 or something. What was interesting is by around 11 o'clock the men were all kind of I guess the sick issue is still working away fresh as a daisy. So I watched it, right? What? You don't know that expression anymore. Well, in America, we're all fresh as day. So, there'd be a big stone, right? And he'd be pushing it with full responsibility because he already had one finger missing and some other things.

[73:52]

Or bent, no, it was bent like that. I have a friend who has a missing finger right there, right? And kids are always asking him, what happened to your finger? He says, that's waiting for me in heaven. Anyway, so deeply of... So it would be a big stone, and he knows what happens if it falls back on people. And he'd be pushing and directing the pushing, and as soon as it stopped, he'd just be standing there, completely relaxed, not a muscle tensed. And he'd stand there, you know, smiling, not a care in the world, really.

[74:59]

Enjoying the air, and then they'd have to push again. So most of the time... He was relaxed. Only during the moments of effort was he making an effort. The rest of the time he was just relaxed. So there's no reason to care about things until you have to. I mean, you know, you have a lot of bills. The bills exceed your income. But why worry about it till you have to sit down and write the checks? Do anything about it till then, you know? Yeah, kalpas and karmas, yeah.

[76:04]

Okay, anyway, this is kind of silly, but it's true. Okay, what else? It's 12 o'clock, we're supposed to stop, huh? You said twelve. Isn't it twelve? Eleven. Eleven. Oh, we got plenty of time. I just heard a bad word, and it's a terrible word, karma. Karma is a big number. It is? What tapes do you have? Karma was created in consciousness and it is reinforced in consciousness.

[77:10]

And you can have a state of mind that doesn't reinforce karma. If you don't reinforce it, it eventually kind of dissolves. That's a short thing on karma. Yes? I have a question related to... You were talking about looking at impermanence of phenomena within your body. And... I find one thing, also using this other word of interconnectedness, for example, I find it very hard for things, and especially of persons,

[78:11]

I can at least on an intellectual level imagine that things constantly change also within me and within my body but there is still something like for example everything performs a certain function when you use it you have a car where you can fly with or from talking of myself for example I know that it's In this life, it's rather easy for me, for example, to learn languages, and I know other people who cannot do that. And so these things somehow create also... I don't know how to work with this, because this seems to give me kind of solidity. Learning languages? Yet, for example, to have certain things where I think of, well, it somehow constitutes the self or where I say, I can do this and some other person can't do that.

[79:13]

I will never be good in physics or something like that. And things like that. And this is something which seems somehow difficult to work with. Maybe you can give me... German, please. I have a question, how do you deal with transience, the phenomenon? I think there was also talk about transience in the change of the state of the body, or also with what is connected to each other. I have a problem with it that I can somehow imagine in my head that everything is constantly changing and changing, but when I see things now, like a car, a car, you just drive with it, you don't fly with it, or if you look at people, for me, for example, then I know that in this life I feel it.

[80:16]

easier, for example, to learn languages and other it is very difficult for people, they have big problems with it, or vice versa, I will never be able to understand great physical connections or so, then I always stand in front of it and wonder about it, and that gives me such a feeling of solidity or of the I or of the Self, and that is so to speak a function that is expressed again, and I don't know if I can work with it and that a little bit Well some kind of concern like that has come up in you. And so, I mean, if I were you, for instance, I had this feeling.

[81:21]

I would first look at it as... I would look at the concern in addition to the topic itself. So it's like the topic is here and then underneath that's a certain level of concern. So then I'd look to see what other topics are underneath the concern. Yeah. Like comparing myself favorably to others or unfavorably and so forth. Because there's nothing... I mean, each of us has our own particularity.

[82:26]

And if you have some talents, you should might as well develop them. But if you think that you give yourself some special credit because of that, then that's not very psychologically healthy, spiritually healthy. But if you... didn't develop your talents because you didn't want to be seen as better than others, and that's just as bad. So, I mean, a lot of people develop their talents or go to school and do things so they can be better than others. That's just not a very nourishing way to live.

[83:31]

So to not develop them for that reason or to develop them for that reason is not a good root reason. But I've taken me all my life to learn English. I don't have any more lives left to learn German. So I'm very glad that she's learned English and German. So in this way we make a more complete person. Yeah, and I feel a little inferior. It's all right. It's so exciting to see superior people. And really, I tell you, it's true. Every time I hear somebody speak German, I think, Well, it's a nice feeling, actually.

[84:48]

Gerald always wants me to learn German. But he doesn't know how much I love him because he knows German. What else should we talk about? I have a question about the five skandhas. As I understand it, they are the tools for everyday practice. Okay, I have a question to the skandhas. And as far as I understand, they are useful tools for everyday life.

[85:49]

But is there also using them in zazen? Yes, I gave that lecture the day before yesterday. About using them in zazen, as stages of entering zazen. Shall I, when I'm sitting, ask myself, am I in the fourth now, in the third now? No, you can. Why not? Look, if you're going to sit a lot of hours, right? Ten thousand, you know. Over a period of some years. I don't mean in one month.

[86:55]

You might as well try things out. Oh, is this the first skanda or the second skanda? But don't spend much time on it. Yeah, for five or ten minutes it's kind of useful. Or to just notice, this feels like the third skanda. Most of studying in Buddhism is a kind of noticing. You have a teaching, like we chant teachings in the morning. In the chanting, there's these various teachings. Yeah, form is emptiness, so forth. And then during the day that's sort of like we start maybe noticing things in that way. And if you accumulate a lot of noticing sometimes it shifts into an insight.

[87:58]

And thinking doesn't lead to insights. So, anyway, you can... The skandhas were probably discovered by noticing how we go into zazen. So it's just a way to begin to structure your... notice the structure of your interior space. But again, it's more like, oh, you notice it a little bit, but mostly you just sit to bring your attention to your breathing, your posture, and so forth.

[89:08]

Yeah. Yeah. that we have discussed in our group. This is the question with the observer. Is there this observer in all, in all film scandals or is there any point where it no longer exists or does it not change? Yeah, I still want to talk about the question which we had in the group about the observer and whether he is present in each one of the skandhas or whether it is changing and maybe absent in some. I can't answer this definitively.

[90:23]

One thing, your skandhas are yours, mine are mine. These aren't real specific things, they're clouds. But in general I think we can discover that every state of mind can have an observer of that state of mind. But that observer is generated from that state of mind. Okay. Now, because the experience of an observer in a particular state of mind is similar to our experience of an observer in general,

[91:29]

We tend to think it's the same observer. So then we generalize it into it's the same observer in different minds. Okay, now in what way would it be the same observer? One way it would be the same observer is it accumulates a similar, based on a similar memory, knowledge or something. Like you see Charlie. And you know Charlie's a cat. Du weißt, dass Johnny eine Katze ist.

[92:40]

So, if you, I suppose, a newborn baby sees a cat, doesn't know it's a cat. Und wenn ein frisch geborener Säugling eine Katze sieht, weiß er noch nicht, dass es eine Katze ist. But after a while you accumulate experience, you know it's a cat and not a dog and so forth. So at the moment of perception, that information is available. But, okay, so let's look more carefully, and if you're in the middle of Zazen, where ordinary conscious mind is suspended, No, you can have, there's lots of different possibilities for what we could call Zazen mind.

[93:45]

You could have a mind where you just see chemical spread, kaleidoscopic things or something like that. Maybe it forms into a landscape.

[93:58]

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