I'd like to try to give you a little more feeling of mind in Buddhism. I've never tried to explain it or create a sense of it so explicitly as I am today and yesterday. And with your help I think we've come pretty far. Don't you think you have a little different sense of the possibilities of mind and consciousness than you did on Friday evening? First of all, it's quite difficult to establish something so intangible as mind.

[01:05]

But also, then to do it in the midst of, together, a culture where you have quite a different sense of mind. of mind and consciousness. Now, I'll try to take that a couple steps further this afternoon. And at some point, I want to hear from each of you. And I'll pass this stick around. I think we'll have time. The shtok. It's a small shtok. It's a shtok that Suzuki Roshi gave me. It says on it, the Zen cave of enlightenment. So good luck. You know, in this time in India of several centuries, when they were trying to establish the Dharma system, maybe we could call it the Dharma Planck Institute.

[02:46]

What they really tried to do and they set out to do was to discover the elements of existence. Just as the scientific establishment, particularly the physicists, attempted in the last century to discover the elements of matter. And the more they pursued it with electron microscopes and what do you call those things? Electron beschleuniger? Yeah, electron beschleuniger. Linear accelerators. Yeah. They found it was more and more subtle.

[04:06]

And finally it wasn't there at all. And gave it names like charm. Charm? Charm. One of the particles is called charm. Charm. So these folks in India likewise set out to find the elements of existence. But because of the basic assumptions of their culture that were in their feelings, they looked inside the person and they looked for elements that could be experienced by the person. So using meditation as the electron microscope, and using awareness as the spatial accelerator,

[05:09]

These elements got more and more subtle and finer and finally disappeared. They started giving them very subtle names like charm. So a Dharma is a moment of perception. Or a mind moment. Or really anything you can do that's a kind of complete unit. Like to pick this up. If you pick it up with a completeness in the beginning and end, it's a Dharma. And the five skandhas are dharmas.

[06:25]

And when you have for example the reflection of the moon in a puddle In this way of thinking, it isn't so much different than the moon itself. Because the moon itself is a reflection in the mind. The moon in the title is a reflection in the mind. After everything is, you can feel everything in this mind stuff. So reflections and you don't have something more real than something else.

[07:29]

You don't have a system like in the Greece of the real thing and then the attributes. The... the attributes aren't less real than something else. Of course, you'd be very unlikely to send a spaceship to a moon in a puddle. You're a very little splash. You do aim the spaceship at that moon anyway. But when you get there and you bring back some moon dust, have you got the moon? Is menses or menstruation any less the moon than the moon dust? Or the tide?

[08:33]

So the sense of mind appears on everything, appears on every object of perception. So in general, a dharma is analyzed in terms of a perceiver and an object of perception and the joining, etc., But there are even dharmas which have no object of perception like seeing a horse in a dream. Or smelling a flower in a dream is also a dharma. So when you've watched your dog barking in a dream, he's experiencing a dharma which has no object of perception. So anyway, this system became quite subtle.

[10:21]

And I think that the extent to which we've talked about it here in the five skandhas is at a scale that's quite useful in each of our experience. And if you practice with keeping the dharmas in view, keeping the skandhas in view, you will find this actually affects your way of existing after a while. and your sensitivity to the presence of mind in your activity. We could say that another way to define a dharma is if it has the qualities of perception, it's a perception, If the qualities of memory are accessible to it, and if the possibilities of enlightenment are present, I say those are the conditions of a Dharma.

[11:55]

So you live in such a way that this Dharma sense of mind stuff present in your life becomes apparent. And again, it's like my friend Michael McClure, who's a poet, said, it's Charles and I, meaning Charles Olson, Charles and I tried to discover that way of living that produces poems. So how do you choose a way to live so that your spiritual life comes up? So your own spiritual vision is close to you. Not something far away or something for the church. How do you have the confidence or courage of your own spiritual vision?

[12:59]

And to find it on your practice. To find it in your lived life. To find it on your body. So it's always present with you. And this is what dharma, this dharma system or dharma practice is meant to make possible. So the deeper qualities of your life, the deeper qualities and the higher qualities can be present in your activity. Skandhas or dharmas? Skandhas or dharmas? Yes. I could well use the skandhas.

[14:20]

Yes. Is it the same? The skandhas are a... Do you want to say that in German? Skandhas are a doorway into the dharmas. Also, die skandhas sind sozusagen die Torbögen in die dharmas hinein. And the skandhas themselves are dharmas. But it's like a way to recognize and bring into the presence of your life these dharma realities, these dharmas. Okay, now with that as a brief introduction, and I'd like to go a little further into that, but not for a moment, I'd like to hear again from you guys. Now I know you, I think you had, someone here had a question about teacher. I had it yesterday. Yeah, do you want to, you still have it today?

[15:22]

No. Do you want to ask it for everybody's benefits? You answered it, but perhaps it's necessary to hear it. I asked yesterday, which meaning has a teacher in Zen? I, of course, get asked this quite a bit. And so I'll let Ulrich answer. She's blushing. Anyway, I'm blushing too. Now that you mention it, I'm blushing even more. Well, a teacher isn't a guru.

[16:27]

In Zen. The teacher is really a Dharma friend. And it's very important to have Dharma friends. I don't know almost anybody who's accomplished practice without having one or two other people who practice with them. And a Dharma friend is somebody who you can hear. They say something to you and for some reason you hear it. So a Dharma friend could be some old man you met years ago who said one thing to you. Or a woman who leans over to you in a pastry shop and says something to you suddenly for no reason.

[17:30]

And a Dharma friend is somebody who can hear you when you say something to him. So a teacher is usually a Dharma friend like that, but somebody who's just had more experience at practice. And is really willing to go through this with you. They may not do much, but they're present. And paying attention though it may not seem like it sometimes. And if the teacher knows what's happening with you, There's a saying of a chicken when a chick is about to be born.

[18:43]

The mother, you say peck? The mother pecks in. But she only pecks in after the chick is pecking out. And when the chick is pecking loudly enough, the mother pecks. So a good teacher is supposed to be like that. Your ear looks where I was pecking. Sometimes it doesn't work. You miss the egg and the yolk comes out. The other morning at breakfast at the little hotel we're staying at, I came down very early.

[19:46]

It was still dark. And the breakfast was all set out in the dark with coffee and little thermos suits and little meat and cheese and all that stuff. And on top of every dish of cheese, an egg. No, I don't know. Poop, it was raw. So I checked all the eggs. Every egg on the table was raw. I mean, in Japan they serve raw eggs, but not in Germany. So I had this, when the woman who runs the place, Frau Hauser, right, finally came down with the, what are you doing here in the dark?

[20:50]

And I said to her, and she looked at this plate full of raw eggs. I said, I was checking you and I don't know what... So I tried to ask her in my death journey to fry the egg. But it didn't work and I got another soft-boiled egg in 15 minutes. So, did you want to add something? Do you have any idea what a teacher is? Without getting too personal, thank you. Well, the most important thing for me or in my practice is the aspect of a Dharma friend.

[21:52]

Someone who is on the way with you. And that it always remains in the field of view that you are on the way together. But on the other hand, you are also willing to become such a teacher with a teacher. To really go into teaching and then stop, to really ask a lot of questions about the external structures of this student, to just accept it and let it in. So both together, that's what I want from the teacher. I won't ask you what you think. Later, maybe I'll ask. Maybe I won't. Some other question? What does it mean to transmit something from heart to heart? Snore. Some other question?

[23:04]

Yes, what about enlightenment? What about it? Is it... He popped, you popped a big question. Everybody thinks. Yeah. Next week in the seminar. It's going to be on sudden and gradual enlightenment and Riku is selling tickets later. Does it make a difference in my practice whether I use a mantra or basically practice what we have been discussing?

[24:18]

Whatever you do makes a difference. Does it have a different effect? Yes, yes. Is it a negative effect? No. He's a mischievous guy. I don't know what he said, but I know he's mischievous. Well, this is just sitting in your own way, just kind of sitting the way you are. Some old funny sitting or something. Nasty. Nasty sitting? That was my kind of poetic translation.

[25:52]

I think that caused a little confusion. Well, how would you describe this old, funny old sitting? What old funny sitting? Always fresh and new. sometimes you get covered with moss it's cool and lichen you know But consciousness… What are we doing here?

[26:58]

Consciousness… That's the difference between consciousness and awareness. What is the difference between consciousness and awareness? Most of you know my standard definition of consciousness and awareness. Consciousness is the site of cognitive activity. And awareness is what keeps you from wetting your bed at night. You're not conscious, but you don't wet the bed. And if you're a little kid, you don't become conscious until you're in a warm puddle. Or awareness is what allows parents to say sleep with a little baby and not smother it.

[28:02]

And awareness is also what makes it possible for parents to sleep together with a little child and not to squeeze it. And you can sleep with a tiny little baby that just your arm would kill. And somehow all night long you make space for this little baby. But you're not conscious. Or as I said earlier, awareness is that mind which knows what time it is without setting the alarm. Okay, so we could say that you could say that awareness and consciousness you could say that awareness is consciousness without content. But actually that's not true.

[29:24]

That would be a kind of nice scientific way to look at it. But there's mind and there's contents of mind. But you take away the contents of the mind and you have emptiness. And emptiness has no qualities. But it's not true. Emptiness does have qualities. Like a friend of mine, Marie, that's Marie Lillis, is a mathematician, and she's identified 27 so far different kinds of zeros. Eine Freundin von mir ist eine Mathematikerin und sie hat 27 verschiedene Arten von Null festgestellt. For example, 1 plus 0 equals 1. So 1 plus 0 is gleich 1. That's 0 with nothing there. That's the usual idea of 0. Das ist also die gewöhnliche Vorstellung von Null.

[30:25]

Also Null in dem Sinne, dass da nichts ist. But 1 times 0 equals 1. Or what is it? One times two times zero? No, one times zero is zero. Yeah, one times zero is zero. Is zero with a different kind of quality than just nothing's there? Because it did something. It turned one into zero. Mm-hmm. So we discussed, she asked me the number of different kinds of emptiness I could identify. So I'm not feeling competitive. Only identified seven or eight. Okay. So consciousness is a... Let me have to backtrack.

[31:42]

Are you ready for this or shall I do it later? I think we need a ten-minute break or something. Because if I launch into this trying to give you a sense of consciousness and awareness, it requires a lot of work on your part. And it requires some work on my part. Because I've got to somehow create the feeling with us of this ephemeral thing called mind. And hold it in place in your minds.

[32:56]

And then talk about it. While you're paying attention. So, I'm not sure I'm ready. Yes, so another question maybe. Yes. You have to leave at 4 o'clock? I wish I'd known that. I asked earlier if anybody had to leave in any special time. Okay, because I ended a whole Sashin once just because one person had to leave mid-Friday.

[33:57]

That's, you have to leave it prepped up, that's in ten minutes. Well there's no, we can't have a break, when we take a break you guys are going to leave. That's what Daniela suggested. We have to break now so they can leave in the break. Well, we'll have to break at four. Oh, well. How am I going to do this without your help, Horst? How am I going to do this without your help, Horst? And we were going to chant, and then we're going to do the famous schnorr chant. I think the others can't handle it. Yeah, OK. So any other questions before? Yeah. Can we stop? You've asked quite a lot of questions. Yeah. So let's see if somebody else has one.

[35:11]

And then if nobody else has one right away, I'll come back. Yes? Well, you mentioned before the lunch break very briefly when karma appears. And this was very quickly done. And so I wonder if you could repeat this. What have I said? But I do want to talk more about this last one, karma accessed. But I will after the break, if I can. What did she say? You know, I get... She translates so smoothly that I'm beginning to think I'm talking English and I don't need a translator.

[36:19]

And then she starts saying different things and I'm saying... Yes, I have a question for the inner and outer teacher. My first question was the formulation. The rare learning begins when the inner teacher of the outer teacher teaches the inner teacher. The inner teacher of the outer teacher teaches the inner teacher. That is the question. How can one get access to that? Since the last session, I have the question, what's the difference between the inner and outer teacher, or how does... No. You said real teaching begins when the inner teacher or the outer teacher teaches the inner teacher. Just what she said when I was not understanding? That's what I said. Yes. My question is how can I get access to my inner teacher?

[37:25]

Listen. I think the Western sense of soul as the suffering soul that you listen to, which is also in Buddhism the feeling standard, is part of the inner teacher. Now, after the Sashin the other day, it was a religious holiday, as you remember. I went to the cathedral at Maria Lack. And I was quite touched by the ceremony. We just happened to walk in at the time of the ceremony. And there were three Catholics, one Protestant, and a Buddhist infidel.

[38:40]

There were three Catholics, a Protestant and a Buddhist... And it was quite beautiful. The cathedral was quite beautiful, Romanesque. Romanesque. Romanesque. Yeah, Romanesque. And the monks had on their black robes and the priests had on various kinds of, you know, like plumage of birds. It was really beautiful, the cathedral in Roman style, and the monks wore their black robes, and the priests wore their colorful garments, like the feathers of birds. And I felt pretty at home. I know how to do all that stuff. And I have great big robes, brocade and hats.

[39:56]

And I sometimes wear them for certain ceremonies. And... Anyway, I was just touched to see these guys. There weren't enough girls, but to see these guys. I like Buddhism because men and women can practice together. You don't have to look so hard for your feminine side. So anyway, I felt very at home with these guys. But what struck me too is the way Jesus lives in those people. And how the genuinely religious people I know, a Christian religious people, Jesus actually is a kind of presence in their lives.

[40:58]

It's not the historical Jesus. But it's the Jesus that can live in a person's life. That's like what kind of camel gets through the eye of the needle. How does the historical Jesus get transformed into a Jesus that can live in your life? And there are millions of people in this part of the world that have found various ways to have Jesus live in their life. And then, I'm sure this Jesus that lives in their lives is a little different in each century. But just as what kind of Jesus that's not exactly the historical Jesus can live in your life,

[42:14]

What kind of person do you have to be to allow the presence of a spiritual dimension like Jesus live in your life? And this is the practice of the Bodhisattva or Mahasattva practice in Buddhism. Or as I was talking in Sashin, the practice of seated person and seated Buddha. Now what kind of awareness and consciousness do you need to allow a personified spiritual dimension live in your own life? How do you locate your own spiritual vision with the Buddha or Bodhisattva that lives with you? Now this is a capacity we have.

[43:37]

Movie stars live in some people's lives. And some political leaders, bad and good, live in people's lives. So it's a dimension we have. How do you use that dimension to bring your own spiritual vision into reality? And that's part of the work of discovering the inner teacher. And then your inner teacher, which is a capacity of each person, can learn what to teach from an outer teacher and an outer tradition. Okay, let's have a break. Oh yeah, one last question since you're for leave. Do you know that the monks of Maria Lach sit Sazen? No.

[44:51]

They do. Oh, really? No wonder I felt so at home. Yeah. Do you know where I like frogs? And I hear some of the frogs out here want to have a zendo here in Okay, let me try to give you a little more feeling of, again, this sense of mind and consciousness and awareness. Now I'm going to try to give you this picture. Partly because it's interesting to me to try to figure out how to talk about this in Western terms.

[45:55]

And I think that my own practice might have moved a little more clarity if I'd had a clearer picture of what was happening in practice. So I give these things to you as a kind of seeds. Or as dharmas. And in that sense of dharma is a kind of memory you have that opens up when the conditions are right. We talked about how your chronology is one version of your history.

[47:19]

And you have an identity, a sort of time identity. In other words, you have an identity when you look at yourself from the point of view of time. Now, if you only looked at yourself from the point of view of time, you'd think there was no other choice, so you wouldn't say, I have a time identity. But you have a very useful, you can have a very useful identity which expresses the dimension of time in our life. Now, whatever you do, whatever you are or do, there's a certain quality that's particularly yours. Suzuki Roshi used to say that each Zen teacher had his own style.

[48:57]

And that each student has a style that permeates whatever they do. But this isn't thought of as a fixed or permanent identity with continuity. But it's a kind of signature. But, you know, you can sign different kinds of contracts. Different kinds of documents. But the signature remains the same. So there's a certain dimension or signature that each of us has. I said that when you practise zazen, you're in a different kind of time.

[50:15]

Where several hours can seem like a couple of minutes or a couple of minutes can seem like several hours. And I call this the sticky stuff of time. And that your history is stuck here and there in this time. And you can observe it from the point of view of zazen. It's almost like you immerse yourself in this sticky stuff of time. In this sense, time is a certain dimension of consciousness. And various things float into view. Something that happened in your childhood, say, make the example simple, that you'd never thought of before. And it's not part of your chronology.

[51:43]

Or very indirectly. It's sort of like in Zazen when you're looking horizontally out into time. Maybe it's a little like we have to describe planets away from us in terms of light years. Although the light of the star is present to us, actually the event of that star was some time ago. And the light of events from our past is still reaching us today. You can even turn in your posture, you can turn toward time in a certain way. Almost as if you're looking at time approaching you. And in that sense, as I said earlier, you can feel the implications of the possibilities of events arising.

[53:07]

Now at some point you can change your point of view and instead of looking at the contents of this thing from childhood that floats by, You look at the stuff of consciousness itself and away from the contents. You look at what the stuff is stuck in rather than the stuff. Now it's kind of hard to look at this stuff because it's invisible. So you kind of have to feel it. And you can notice certain things about it. You notice right away that only in certain states of zazen or concentration

[54:11]

Do these things float into your practice? And mostly they don't. But sometimes these things just come up. What allows them to come up? Well, there's a quality of consciousness That supports things. And that ripens things. And the quality of consciousness which has intent in it. And you can direct intent into your consciousness. Now if you imagine that this consciousness has a certain heat.

[55:17]

Now heat is actually almost a synonym for consciousness in the sutras. Now why do they use the word heat? Instead of just saying, say, concentration. It's partly because our life is a quality of heat. A dead body is cold. A conscious body is warm. But also heat has many degrees. And when you are... When you are, say, let's just imagine you're in the state of zazen. And you're kind of able to see sort of horizontally into your this time stuff. And the light of various events in your life is coming to you.

[56:30]

And then imagine yourself being a cook. And you can turn up the temperature. You start cooking these events. So you're in a way ripening or cooking the events in your life. If you could imagine, you could change the viscosity of this stuff too. Then various things appear depending on the viscosity. Now here I can give you the difference between awareness and consciousness. Consciousness, we could say, I'm just trying to find words to make this sort of clear. If you imagine consciousness is at a certain temperature and a certain viscosity, it allows cognitive activity to happen.

[57:55]

And if you change the viscosity and the temperature, Cognitive activity can't happen. So awareness sort of rejects cognitive activity. And if you bring cognitive activity into awareness, you immediately shift the temperature and you switch to consciousness out of awareness. But if your awareness, if you're able to, the word dharma means to hold. If you're able to hold or feel this awareness with enough presence and stability, then thinking doesn't disperse awareness.

[59:08]

A different kind of thinking occurs. This is what Dogen means by think non-thinking. And what does move through this kind of this awareness viscosity is images. So like these are different kinds of emptiness. An emptiness, because if you take away the contents of consciousness, you have a field, and that field must be the same as awareness. Yes, the experience of concentrating on the field is very similar. And both we call emptiness. But in Zen and Tantric practice these are different kinds of emptiness.

[60:12]

And the kind of emptiness we call consciousness or the field of consciousness supports cognitive activity. And awareness doesn't, and awareness supports a kind of imaginal comprehension. Now, small mind means the contents of the field of consciousness. Big mind means the biggest possible mind which includes the minds of the field of awareness and the field of consciousness. Now I didn't speak about really the four foundations of mindfulness or the five realms of sense perception.

[61:19]

Which are also minds. But we've done quite a bit for two and a half days, so... Now, so let's just assume there's the field of awareness and the field of consciousness. And there's the feeling field of the second skanda. And so forth. So there are various minds Various fields. And so there are shifts. It's possible to make a shift between various fields. And it's also possible to make a shift from the contents to the field. So there are boundaries.

[62:20]

And when you're concentrating and you suddenly feel very concentrated suddenly, maybe you were thinking, you suddenly weren't concentrated, were thinking of something else, and come back and you're very concentrated. And you can feel that concentration. And then you notice it and you lose it. That's just an example of a boundary and a shift. What you've done is come to a boundary and made a shift. But for an adept, there are many such boundaries and shifts. What kind of person can get through the eye of the needle? What kind of person can get through to make these shifts? Or to stay present in these different minds? One of the keys in what Dogen mentions is the samadhi of personal enjoyment.

[63:47]

Which is the practice joins you with the samadhi of Buddha's enjoyment. Now, why is this joy emphasized? Because joy arises for no reason. The U.S. Constitution has the pursuit of happiness. One of the rights of Americans is to pursue happiness. Usually to Los Angeles. But joy can't be pursued. It arises spontaneously for no reason. And as I've said many times, at that point you say, what is it?

[64:48]

What's the meaning of this? Do I deserve to have this, etc.? Then you've moved out of joy into causation. And actually into another kind of memory. So you learn just one trick of this, is to learn to stay present in joy. There's a certain bliss that occurs on your practice after it gets more relaxed. And sexuality and orgasm are actually considered just little intonations of this bliss. And you begin to kind of let, not with a feeling of guilt, well, this is really original sin. But you allow yourself just to immerse yourself in this bliss. It feels great. Maybe it's only a few moments or even a few minutes in zazen.

[66:06]

But it's so, you know, just, it makes life seem, hey, this is what it was supposed to be like. And I made the distinction earlier, I made the point of appreciative discernment. And the best distinction I can make between appreciative discernment and critical discernment is the way we're able to appreciate babies. Almost everyone likes babies. And babies like other babies. And baby puppies recognize baby humans. And when you look at a baby, a baby lion, you think, oh, jeez, totally true. But you look at the adult... I'm sure I would appreciate each one of you as a baby.

[67:12]

Your mother could deliver each one of you to me now as a baby, Ed. Just talk. But as adults, I don't know. Okay, the way you look at a baby is appreciative discrimination. But the way you look at adults is critical discernment. So appreciative discrimination means the ability to simultaneously, without giving up critical discernment, look at each person with appreciative discernment. Without looking to doubt, without losing that ability to feel them like you would if they were a baby. Now, if you cultivate appreciative discernment, Which means you appreciate the differences.

[68:44]

Like if it becomes dark and cold and rainy at 10 o'clock in the morning. Instead of saying, oh shit, it was sunny at 8.30. That's okay, but that's critical discernment. But appreciative discernment is to say, hmm, ah, rain. So anyway, you practice that. You don't force it on yourself as a goody-goody. But the more you have this sense of bliss or joy, and appreciative discernment, and friendliness, a kind of immediate friendliness, it makes it possible to make the boundary shifts. When you're depressed, you can't make any boundary shifts.

[70:03]

When you are really angry, there's very little movement. And in critical states of mind, they're very useful, but there's not much movement. So these other kind of more joyful states of mind That's one of the reasons the basic Buddhist practice is this inner smile. It may not appear on your face, you look like Mona Lisa all the time. You have crowds of people walking by you. But you feel this smile in your body. So in this way, if you practice in this way or cultivate this inner smile and allow these joy to arise in your activity and in your zazen,

[71:16]

All together, this is referred to in Buddhist teachings as pliancy. You can feel a kind of pliancy about the person. And if you straighten their back, their back feels kind of soft and they respond. And when you straighten your back, then something reverts in the back. It feels soft. Some people's back, when you try to straighten it, it feels like a major German railroad company broke their back. The Berlin Express is going to come down their back. So this cliancy is in a kind of atmosphere and attitude and in your physical feelings.

[72:23]

Your hands will be soft. Now maybe you've noticed after zazen, if you've sat well, your skin feels like a baby's skin sometimes. So this isn't just ideas. Actually, your skin is more like a baby's skin. The more you sit, you know? I mean... I mean, I'm 70 years old. I'm lying. I'm lying. I'm a failure at this, but anyway, I'm fine. So I think you get the idea. But this is fact I'm talking about. It's something you can do.

[73:25]

And strangely enough, these states of this quality of consciousness... is developed by the quality of your attention and by concentration and by intention it's mysterious but you can intend these things so in that sense I'm really answering your question Everything is mantra. All language is mantra. All the vows you've made as a child that you were this or that kind of person are mantras. What's important is to be careful what mantras you're chanting.

[74:26]

What mantras you're holding in the mandala of being. So the practice of the five skandhas is to attempt to get a kind of human microscope into the process of perception and the establishment of consciousness. And every action is a seed of consciousness. There are no actions which escape being seeds of consciousness. There's no casual moments. That's what karma means. But you have lots of moments, so take it easy. Enjoy yourself. So, On each moment you're making consciousness.

[75:55]

And in becoming, slowing your, practicing with awareness and slowing this process down enough, moving out of loaded consciousness, which can't see much, into the field of consciousness, you can begin to see how the events of your life are ripened. And you can begin to see the mantras or basic attitudes and assumptions that exist in this skandha. So you can begin to participate in how you exist. And if you take the five skandhas, And as we've studied them together, you can see that they do not exist without everything.

[77:08]

So the five skandhas depend on the whole world. And the five skandhas are nourished by the whole world. So you can begin to see how you exist with each person and with yourself. And how being or who is doing this practice is not such a simple matter as locating somebody here. You can have a sense of location.

[78:14]

But just as the five skandhas are nourished by this whole world, this whole living being of all of us, Really, who's doing your life is a cooperation between your own intent and this whole living being. That's what Matsu Basho meant when he said, this very mind is put... So that's enough. I didn't really say everything I wanted or tie it up, but if I tied it up, it would become untied. And so I think that's enough. You had a question about inspiration, from the beginning and at the end.

[79:39]

I already had this question on Friday evening, which I should move on to today. Within these five scandals, fantasy and inspiration, the two, for me, fundamentally important things, not only as a musician, but as every human being, wherever he has his place, these are very important elements. Where do they come from? Where does fantasy and inspiration appear in the five skandhas because the thought to express everything that exists? The five skandhas? Oh, in that sense, they're all over the place, but primarily what we mean by inspiration and intuition is the feeling sense. And the reason why intuition and inspiration have been considered specialties, specialties of artists and women, Male non-artists have neither inspiration nor intuition.

[81:08]

It's because our society is scared of the earth god. You know, our society has emphasized vertical spirituality and not horizontal spirituality. And Plato literally banished the poet from the Republic because he feared trance and inspiration. Because Plato's Republic was to be controlled by thought elders through this kind of... So he didn't want anybody in this culture operating out of this skanda. When you operate out of all the skandas, and I can give you the example of common sense again, Nowadays the word common sense means sense common to everyone.

[82:24]

In the old days, common sense meant sense common to all the senses. Or a kind of developed intuition. That was considered a capacity of all human beings, not just artists and women. But we pushed that side away from us. Just like I said at lunch, Socrates spoke about his inner voice. His inner teacher. He called it his daimon. And that word gets changed into demon and the devil in Christianity. So what Buddhism is saying in our culture is There are some things we've forgotten.

[83:39]

Listen to your inner request. It's not lost in the West, but it got kind of pushed to the side. Some people listen to their soul and some people listen to their muses, but it wasn't something everyone did. It wasn't something everyone did. But what I'm saying in short is I don't think inspiration is something that should be special. It's a way of living that allows inspiration to just be part of your life. Okay. Now, again, I didn't do everything, but... Yeah, but I don't want to answer any more questions.

[84:46]

Where's the question? Yeah. Can you wait a minute? What I'd like to do is, because we don't have too much time, is I'd like to pass this stick around. And after that, and I won't respond to anything you say. I just pass the stick around. And you can say nothing and just hold the stick. And we'll accept your silence as a comment. Or you can say the kind of question you'd like to be answered or what you've gotten from this. What got home to you. What you weren't ready for yet. Or what didn't make any sense at all or you disagreed with. Or what doesn't make any sense at all and where you didn't agree.

[85:56]

Anything you'd like. Whatever you'd like. We've continued the explanation of the five standards for a while. Explanation of the Five Skandhas helped me a great deal. I have found that it is important for me to go more into consciousness. I realized it is more important for me to go more into consciousness. These three days were a great enrichment for my life.

[86:58]

I think I got an inkling of what my day was. that you were putting your funding. In German? In German? I want to thank and hope I don't lose anything of the treasures here. Nothing.

[87:59]

This is very comfortable. Mr. Duncan, you're honest. Thank you for everything. I'm ready to go back to Creston. In Deutsch? Yes. I have to go back to Creston. Other than sexy, I would like to know whether it's a bad karma in a new incarnation to come back as a male. That's good, yeah.

[88:35]

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