I've come to spend this weekend with you. And I guess you've come to spend the weekend with me too. And with each other. And the title is The Dance of the Western Self and the Buddhist Self, right? I don't know where I got that. But I did think it up, it's true. What I've been concerned with a lot the last few years, and particularly the last year, is how really how to practice Buddhism in the West and how to recognize the Western identity at the same time.

[01:03]

So I've been... I've taught here last year, I believe, the five skandhas. Isn't that right? And there'd actually be no harm in doing that three or four more times. Certainly I keep learning from keeping the five skandhas in view. But I've also taught recently the eight vijnanas. which are the practices of the fields of consciousness. So I'm going to try to avoid actually this weekend teaching the five skandhas or the eight vijnanas.

[02:42]

It may actually be hard to avoid it. because it's central to the practice of Zen Buddhism, and certainly central to how you find your identity in practice. But I'd like to try to take a different approach this weekend. But if some of you want to ask me about it or bring it up, I'll try to teach it to some extent or for a few people. Okay. Now I have to ask the inevitable question. How many of you don't have any experience with Zen meditation?

[03:44]

Two, three, four, five. Okay. Okay. Do those of you have some experience with some forms of meditation? I don't. Some of you are shaking your head, so you don't. Well, that's wonderful that you're willing to try this out. So for... Those five or so people, either later this evening or tomorrow morning, I'd like to just meet with a few of you and give you some suggestions on how to practice meditation.

[04:54]

Now, let me tell you a little bit of what I'd like to do during this weekend. I'd like to have a little more meditation than I usually have had in seminars. And probably we won't sit longer than 30 minutes, though. And if we do, or if 30 minutes is long, you can sit in a rest posture, whatever you want. I find that when I'm sitting with a group of people where some people aren't so experienced in meditation, And if ten minutes is about as long as some people can go, I find my legs start hurting after ten minutes.

[06:09]

And I think, I've been sitting all these years, why are you hurting? And then I realize my knees are very responsive to your knees. you can hear in the back way back there yeah okay because sometimes the window open it's all right Now, I'd also like to keep some questions before us during this weekend.

[07:32]

And one is, what is the relationship similarities and differences between what I will be trying to teach and Western psychology. And I'd also like you to try to have a sense of how you identify yourself. Now, let me say, I am not an academic psychologist. And I'm not a trained therapist.

[08:39]

So what I say about Western psychology is not going to be exactly right for somebody who's trained in these things. And I would hope that if you have some feelings or something you want to say, you can just say it during the seminar. I don't think we want to argue, but we do want to try to understand these things together. And arguing is okay, but it's probably more productive to see how we can come to a common understanding. Now, I do know quite a bit about Buddhism. So I'll try to present as clearly as I can how Buddhism functions in giving you a sense of identity, surprisingly enough, and as a practice.

[10:15]

Now, it seems when I look at Western psychology, It's even the term psyche doesn't exist in Buddhism. And the word psyche, as some of you probably know, comes from this psyche in Eros, this story. And Psyche joining, uniting with Eros when the jealousy of Aphrodite is overcome. And I think actually the jealousy of Aphrodite also means the yearning we have for something undefined.

[11:42]

Now, even in this word psyche, which some psychologists use as equivalent to soul, And sometimes virtually equivalent to anima. There is a sense of story in the word psyche. When you look at Jung and Hillman and others' archetypal view of psychology, it's the archetype and the mythic or mythos base of archetypes that shapes the psyche. So it seems to me that in Western psychology, the story of ourself is very important.

[12:51]

Now this may be a good division of labor with Buddhism. This Buddhism isn't particularly concerned with the story of your life. Buddhism, if I wanted to say, is more a mind-ology than a psychology. It's a study of mind and consciousness and awareness. And I really can't find a word for it. I've tried various words. Mindology is okay, except the ology part comes from logos. Logos, it means word, reason, thinking.

[14:01]

So maybe we need mind-nology, not ology. In Germany you actually say Geistwissenschaft. Which means mind? Mind, knowledge. This is like a nolo-contendra, a legal term. You don't contend with. So the nolo is not. So this is mind, not logos. Mind not word. Mind not based on words.

[15:03]

So how do you practice, how do you find your, because Buddhism, you have to find your identity, you have to find a way to function. But in Buddhism, it's not found through words and not found through your story. But since we do have a story and do have words, psychology can take care of that part of us and Buddhism can take care of Another part of it. So I'll try to give you as much as I can a sense of what Buddhism means by mind and how we reside in that mind. Now again, in this seminar, I'd like to go slow enough that we can actually understand as well as possible as we go along.

[16:21]

So I'll go much slower tomorrow. Now the word mind, the most common word for mind in Buddhism is citta. Which means all the aspects of mind. And everything that goes with any... I mean, when I look at you... What is your name? What's your name? Tina, that's right.

[17:22]

When I look at Tina, Tina is part of my mind. So, mind isn't something in the brain. Mind is something that includes the body and everything I perceive and everything that affects me. It's actually where we're living. Now, so in the one sense mind means all those things that together create mind. And it also means the unity of mind. The ability to experience a unity of mind. Mm-hmm. Now to say something about meditation.

[18:43]

And I'd like us to sit some this evening. But the basic practice of Zen is uncorrected mind. So you are not correcting your mind because you want your mind to be as inclusive as possible. And you also want your mind to be as absorbent as possible. Now, Hinduism, which has this idea of self, of Atman. And Atman is originally related, or part of the root of the word is breath, like the word spirit, the root of the word is also breath.

[19:50]

The word atman in Hinduism, or the teachings before Buddhism came about in India, united the self with both the individual self and the universal self. And the direction was the individual self, the movement was toward the universal self. Buddhism said there's no self. Or rather, there's no permanent or inherent self. And no universal self. And the effort in that was to, particularly in later Buddhism, that we had to not go beyond the world, but we had to go through the world.

[21:07]

So in that sense, Buddhism is more like soul than spirit. Yeah, it's all the same word. It's all the same word? Spirit, mind. Really? You don't make a distinction between spirit and soul? Yes, we say soul, Sele, and spirit, Geist, but it's the same word as for mind. They're both the same word for mind? Spirit and mind have the same word in the translation. Okay. Yeah. Because I would almost say that Buddhism is not really a spiritual teaching. But I could also say then it's fundamentally a spiritual teaching.

[22:18]

But we have all these words in our, at least English, soul, spirit, self, Psyche, anima, unconscious, conscious, your script. And no one knows how they all relate to each other. And different schools have different theories. Buddhism, it's took some centuries, but Buddhism's got it pretty well worked out, what they mean. Jeez, if I'm not careful, I'm going to be teaching the vijnanas again. I'm doing my best to avoid that.

[23:18]

Mm-hmm. So when we practice meditation and you are just sitting there, I mean, you need to do something, so we pay a little bit of attention to our posture. And you pay some attention to your inner posture through counting your breath or paying attention to your breath. But after that, you let whatever happens happen. And your sense of anchor in that is your posture.

[24:21]

And the effort to sit still. And the effort without making too much effort to pay attention to your breath. Mm-hmm. So if you can do that, and you do it like, especially if you can do it as a habit on a daily or several times a week, eventually you'll begin to gather your mind. dann werdet ihr irgendwann euren mind sammeln und versammeln können. Or drop the your and gather mind. Und vielleicht sollten wir das euer fallen lassen und nur sagen, den Geist sammeln.

[25:23]

But the trouble with this, and again I'll try to make this a little clearer in the next couple of days, aber die Mühe, die man jetzt damit hat, und ich werde versuchen, das während der nächsten zwei Tage klar zu machen, is that to really gather the mind you have to be able to not grasp at things. Now, a lot of the practices are to move you toward a less graspable reality. So one of the points of meditation practice is to begin to sense yourself in a way, in a more subtle way.

[26:34]

Because if we're not looking at naming, then we have to look at something that we don't grasp with names. So Buddhism has developed some sort of large practices that increase your subtlety in the way you are. And one of those teachings are what's called the Four Unlimiteds. And one of these is, the first one is unlimited friendliness.

[27:49]

Now this isn't really, this is a moral teaching, but the point is not the morality of it. The second one is empathetic joy. And the third is compassion. And the fourth is equanimity. Which also means, this translates as indifference. And it sounds kind of funny, because it means you've got to look at things and not really care what happens. Es klingt ein bisschen komisch, aber es bedeutet Dinge zu betrachten, aber im Grunde sich nicht wirklich darum zu kümmern, was passiert. Or to begin to have a sensation in which no sensations which are neither pleasant nor sad.

[28:55]

Oder dass man anfängt Empfindungen zu haben, die weder freudig noch traurig sind. Or neither restlessness or excitation or depression. So you're trying to, by getting a kind of sense of this fluid you live in, let's call it a fluid of mind, you're trying to get a sense of this fluid without... without dividing it up into parts too much. So one of the most direct practices of this is in meditation. You're trying to just be as whatever happens, let whatever comes up, come up. And the word for this equanimity means to completely see, but to not react to.

[30:18]

Now, this is such a fundamental idea in Buddhism that it's sometimes called detachment, it's called various things, meaning different parts of the idea. But the point is not to be indifferent to the world, or neutral, but somehow to develop a mind continuum which is outside of liking and disliking. And again, I always have to remind you that all of this in Buddhism is something that you do sometimes, not all the time. In fact, you can practice in homeopathic doses. I mean, if you practice just small little bits, it weaves into the text of your life.

[31:25]

Okay, so you know you have this text in your life, you have this weave of your life with threads going this way and that way. And some of the threads are not threads, there's just the space between. But even these spaces are part of the cloth. And also in this cloth is strands of joy and, of course, sorrow. And And one of the things that characterizes the historical Buddha is that he realized enlightenment not going beyond the world, but in the midst of sorrow and joy.

[32:53]

So this practice of equanimity is to try to, which I'll give you some more sense of again tomorrow, is to, while sometimes we have likes and dislikes, And what mental excitation and sometimes we're depressed. And this isn't a state of mind to try to get rid of depression or ordinary happiness. But to find a state of mind that's absorbent of these, of both. A little bit as if you could, when you saw the waves of the ocean, you could simultaneously identify with the water, whether it's the shape of waves or the calm ocean.

[34:22]

So when we're practicing meditation, physical zazen, again, you're trying to sit with letting everything happen, but without acting on what happened. And if you do that, as I said, regularly, you don't just stop reacting to things. you begin to sense a state of mind that's deeper than reaction to things. And that is called equanimity. Okay, so let's, can we sit for a few minutes and then we'll take a little break.

[35:35]

Ulrike asked me to, or suggested that I teach, because she has to translate this all the time and is so exposed to it. And she'd be interested in seeing me speak about the relationship between the Western self and the Buddhist self without so much emphasizing the five skandhas. So here then, with this sense of dance, we have the sense of the movement of the self. Mm-hmm. And the movement also can refer to, or I can take it to refer to, the turning in the basis, the turning around in the basis of self.

[37:10]

As if you were a magnetic field and you suddenly reversed that magnetic field. Buddhism is again a teaching about mind and consciousness, not about your individual story. So it's about how do you exist within your mind and consciousness. And how do you consummate your identity? Okay. So Ulrike, in a sense, has offered me an interesting challenge. And, you know, so today I'm so deep into

[38:13]

what this is and I feel it so intimately that I can't figure out exactly what angle to come at it so you can get a feeling of it too I will but I have to sort of feel you guys out a little too And I've been teaching so much since mid-April. Let's see, May, June, I don't know, I must have given 60 or 70 or more lectures so far. And I don't like to repeat myself, so it gets hard.

[39:23]

And some of you I've practiced with quite a long time, so I'm trying to see what territory I can take this understandable work for you. The problem is I may avoid being too simple, and then that's most of it. It's usually better to be simple. It is usually better to be simple, and I may avoid being too simple. Because the practice always opens up from the basics. But you have to be able to hear the basics. So, So is there anything anybody would like to ask or suggest or direct me towards?

[40:37]

Is it possible to write down these four unlimited practices? Sure And secondly, how do they differ from the commandments, like you have to obey them? Tomorrow I want to get into these things with more detail, but I don't have time this evening. But I can certainly write those four down. I'm not getting it wrong already.

[42:05]

That's empathetic. I started right at the sympathetic. So it's sometimes called a four in measure. Unbegrenzte Freundlichkeit, dann unbegrenzte, also empathische Freude, unbegrenztes Mitgefühl, auch in Atem mitfühlen, Anteil nehmen. And the first one, the unlimited friendliness can also be generosity. Now these are, again, a kind of morality. But it's really not that it's good for others that you're this way.

[43:18]

In fact, your friends may get annoyed at you if you practice unlimited friendliness too much. Go practice friendliness somewhere else. That's what she says to me sometimes. No. You know, you can have long conversations with telephone operators and things like that. How are you? Are you in Alabama? But you're practicing this for you.

[44:39]

And you're practicing it because there are ways... We have the terms form and emptiness. And I've been distinguishing that recently by using the words the undivided mind or the undivided world and the divided world. Now, I could also say the undivided mind and the undivided mind. the divided mind and the undivided mind instead of world. This does not mean that there's some kind of world out there that's divided and undivided. It means there's something out there that's a mystery. And that out there is also in here.

[46:01]

That out there is everywhere. And the way we're put together, we can perceive it as divided and we can perceive it as undivided. But normally, we can only perceive it as divided. And that's primarily because, particularly for us, our culture is defined in the eye consciousness. And that's mainly because our culture defines us through our eyes. Yes. Okay, so if you, when you do meditation, again, one of the basic things that you probably notice is after five or ten minutes, you begin to hear sounds differently.

[47:39]

Now, this means you've shifted usually out of the eye continuum or consciousness into the sound continuum. We could say you've had a channel shift. Man könnte sagen, ihr hattet einen Kanalwechsel. And you hear sounds differently. Und ihr hört Geräusche jetzt anders. They sort of go through you. Sie gehen sozusagen durch einen durch. Just the piano. Just for me. So, but you're not supposed to, if you want to hear that sound, you don't think, is this person good at the piano or bad at the piano?

[48:41]

It's just something that's in your ear. You don't even have to identify it as the piano. Now, when you make that shift out of eye consciousness into more the field of sound, You're also beginning to listen to yourself differently. Now it's a little hard to maybe to notice, but I'll try to point some of these things out because I think in the long run it's helpful. That this shifting out of the eye consciousness into emphasizing hearing more is a kind of qualitative shift in mind.

[50:03]

And that qualitative shift is not just applicable to sound, but also applicable to how you sense yourself. So When you begin to hear in that way where you're not so much hearing, oh, is that a good piano player? Is that a person taking lessons or whatever? The more you are thinking about, it annoys me, I wish he'd stop playing, et cetera, you're more in the divided world. The more you don't care, the closer you are to the undivided world. So when I tell you, you know, see space as suggestive, see space as connecting us rather than separating us, That's a basic statement of moving more toward the undivided world than toward the divided world.

[51:37]

Now, if you practice friendliness toward people and toward whatever, You're doing a practice that moves you more toward the undivided world than the divided world. Now, there's many ways to perceive, there's many ways the world may exist. Now, we perceive it in certain divisions. The German language and German culture divided up a little differently than English language and English culture. You can see it that spirit and mind are the same word in German and not in English. But in general, European languages including American English divide the world up pretty much the same.

[52:51]

But Asian languages and Asian cultures divide the world up in significantly different ways than we do. But they still divide the world up. So you might have all the different European ways of dividing the world up. You might have the Asian ways of dividing the world up. And certainly the Korean way is different from the Indian way. And Indian is even closer to the West than to Japan, at least in some ways. And then there may be cultures that are not yet defined, which will divide the world in ways we don't know yet.

[53:59]

But if there's so many ways to divide the world up, There must be a way to not divide the world up, too. And Buddhism assumes identity must include how you divide the world up and also how not to divide the world up. And the basic problem of self in Buddhism is these so-called two truths. Of the world as divided and the world as undivided. And this is referred to as relative and absolute, form and emptiness, and so forth. And the basic... The basic dynamic of identity in Buddhism is to move the location of self to the undivided and from this undivided identity to realize the divided.

[55:38]

Does that make sense at all? No. Sometimes it's said that we have three natures. And one is called the imagined. We can say one is relative or other dependent. The second is imagined. And the imagined just means you think the world exists as it appears.

[56:55]

And we have a tendency to want to absolutize things. We have a tendency to want to make things real. And if you only perceive the divided world, you slowly begin to believe the names of things, the descriptions of things are the way it is. Now, in the first one, the relative or other dependent, you see that the world is a divided world in relationship to an undivided world. Now, the relative and imagined are both the same.

[58:21]

It's just that from the point of view in the imagined world, you don't recognize the undivided world. So the first effort is to recognize this world as relative, as changing and so forth. Now, what is your name? Konstantin. Konstantin. Okay. Now, Konstantin, I hope you don't mind my saying so, you're not permanent. I hope that doesn't come as a surprise to you. Okay. So, if Konstantin is not permanent, And if we look at him carefully, there's no inherent identity.

[59:35]

And he's caused by many factors. At least two parents. And lunch and the clouds. So many causes have come to produce Augustine. Constantine. And yet, those I see you as, the way I see you, you don't exist. The way you exist is the result of many causes. I can't see those many causes. And you also exist through many simultaneous causes in that this whole everything now is interpenetrating to make your life possible.

[60:41]

So how you actually exist is through interdependency and interpenetration of many things. So how you exist I can't see. And what I see is how you don't exist. Does that make sense? So the question is, how can I begin to be more subtle that I can sense how you really exist instead of being fooled by my senses which perceive you in the ways you don't exist? I can start reminding myself that you're impermanent. And I can start reminding myself that I'm impermanent.

[62:02]

And I can observe how I have an identity that actually is subtly changing in every situation. Instead of seeking my continuity all the time, I'm willing to see the continuity keep coming apart. So on the one hand, I see myself as impermanent. And I see you as impermanent. And yet I practice friendliness towards you. It's not really dependent on whether you're a good guy or a bad guy. I mean, I'm still capable of being angry at you, perhaps. But even after that, I'll be friendly again. And this sense of compassion in these four immeasurables, I'll try to give you a kind of Buddhist sense of compassion.

[63:21]

Doesn't mean I love you. I might love you, but that's not what compassion is. Compassion means I'm willing to be none other than you. If you're a thief, I'm also willing to be a thief. But I'm also willing to be none other than me. And I may not be a thief. So somehow I'm willing to be none other than me and none other than you. Does that make sense? Well, all I can do is keep coming back to it.

[64:22]

I mean, it's said like when Avlokiteshvara, this is Avlokiteshvara, meets a thief, he becomes a thief. Because Avlokiteshvara realizes that you are no different than him or her. We're different, but at the same time, we're not different. We're separated and divided, but at the same time, we're not divided. Now, in the divided world, we're different. But how we actually exist, we're very similar. And how do we recognize that? And compassion is one way we recognize that. It means you're willing to be in the other person's shoes.

[65:41]

And we practice that. You keep saying, would I be willing to be in that person's shoes? So again, it doesn't mean when you accept somebody, it doesn't mean you're not also critical of them. These things exist simultaneously. You accept them and you accept yourself, even though you may be different. And if you can't begin to find a territory that includes what look like opposites, you never will get into the intangibles of life.

[66:44]

Now, somebody asked me while I was giving Zazen instruction. When you're sitting, how often do you correct your posture? you know, or questions sort of like that. Well, you correct your posture sometimes. And you're informed about the ideal posture of a Buddha. And at the same time, you accept your posture as it is. And that's not contradictory. So just in simple things you explore that territory.

[67:50]

You don't say, oh, my posture is not very good. That's a divided state of mind. But accepting your posture as it is and knowing the ideal posture without feeling attention or criticism in it, you're moving more toward an undivided mind. So again, compassion is to be able to put yourself in someone else's shoes, Without stepping out of your shoes. Because that's in fact how the world exists, but our mind doesn't quite let us do it. Maybe the mother's mind does. And sometimes we say a good Zen teacher is grandmotherly.

[69:10]

I haven't gotten there yet. But a mother may accept her child, but she's critical. I wish she'd do it differently. My son's a thief. But I love him. So it's not, you know, compassion isn't, you know, I love you, which is like doing something to you, but just I accept you. In fact, that acceptance may be sort of neutral. It's caring but, you know, leaving you alone and accepting you.

[70:12]

Okay, something else? Yeah. Why did you say that the intangibles were? I did not get that. I've been explaining these things so much using the five skandhas and the vijnanas that I keep wanting to get up and... You let me up, don't you? I may have to do it to some extent. And then I won't necessarily teach them, but if you ask me questions about them, I'll explain.

[71:19]

Okay. Now, The distinction I'll make here is that perception means to grasp. So the perceived, the seed part, the root means to grasp, and it's a pretty good word for this. So emotion is here, not here. Does that make sense? I hope it doesn't. If I have an emotion, Instead of using you, I'll use Ulrike.

[73:08]

If I have an emotion toward Ulrike, like I'm angry at her, or say for some reason I'm angry at all of you, this is a defined thing. I can come into this room and I'm angry. And I can feel it and I can stop being angry. But if I walk in this room right now and I'm not angry, there's actually a feeling in this room right now. All of us in just the hour and a half or so we've been here generate a certain feeling that's in this room. But I can't grasp hold of that feeling. That makes sense. If I'm kind of gentle, I can feel this, but as soon as I try to take hold of it, it's gone.

[74:18]

So when you grasp hold of things here, this is a more divided world. This is more ungraspable. So our culture tends to define culture in this area in terms of consciousness and perceptions. And Japanese culture, for example, tends to define itself here and here.

[75:18]

They emphasize intent and things like that more. They emphasize intent and willpower and willingness more than perception. The point I'm making is that different cultures emphasize different territories of how you locate yourself. And one of the problems with teaching Buddhism in general We'll come back to this tomorrow if you want. One of the problems with teaching Buddhism in general is that there's a tendency to make subtle teachings gross. So if I teach something and your reaction is, oh, I know that, you've just made it gross.

[76:31]

Now, if you can sense it, oh, that's familiar, but you're willing to let it be more intangible. You don't identify it right away. You're willing to let something cook in you. That's more letting the teaching find its own subtlety. That also means finding a more subtlety in yourself. Which means you have to begin to find your identity without grasping at your identity. So, for instance, if you begin to more and more locate yourself in your breath, so you think about things, but when you're not thinking, you sort of tend to reside in your breath.

[77:58]

This isn't residing in your name or your history. It's just your breath. That process is not only freeing you from representational thinking, it's actually making you more subtle too. Mm-hmm. That process is not only freeing you from representational thinking, it's actually making you more subtle, too. And more absorbent. Mm-hmm. Okay, anything else?

[79:11]

Was this the answer to my question as to what the intangibles were? The immeasurables or the intangibles? The intangibles. You mentioned the intangibles. But intangibles are things that are not graspable. Oh, all right. So if you begin to be aware that this world exists now here in this room in an undivided way, almost a magical way, you have to be able to locate yourself in a more intangible way. Could you hand me the flowers? Or hand me one flower, maybe. Now, recently I've been pointing out

[80:34]

a dharma practice called naming. This flower is wired. Is there a microphone at the other end? Okay. Now, my name is Richard. As is, I'm not my name. Am I what names me Richard? Now, in the Bible it says, in the beginning there was the word. Maybe in Buddhism you'd say, in the beginning there was pointing.

[81:58]

Before the word you'd say, hey, there... So the practice of the Dharma of naming and if I hold this flower up and you're looking at it, if you just say flower, And you don't say, this is a flower. You take the grammar away. So you just say flower. And you can say that, just look at it without any thinking about it, just flower. I think it actually changes your state of mind. And if you peel the name off it and just look at the appearance of it, the sensation of it, without any sense of naming it or any idea about it, you just feel the look of it in your body.

[83:16]

Perhaps your breathing changes a little. But when you take yourself out of looking at things in ways that divide things and separate things, so if I'm just pointing this out, By lifting it up. But we're not even naming it. I'm not telling you what it is even. I'm just holding it up. This simple practice is a very basic practice in Buddhism. To begin to look at Although I know you a little bit, I can look at you as if I don't know everything, like I don't know you, but you're there. So that kind of sense moves you more toward an intangible thing that as soon as you name it, it's gone.

[84:48]

As soon as I add grammar, like you are so-and-so, it's more gone. So by practicing in this way, you're returning things to a kind of purity. So doing this, you're trying to find out how you're located in your consciousness. How you're living, where you live is in your consciousness. What is your consciousness? How do you find out what your consciousness is? Well, a little practice like taking the name off, peeling the name off things can begin to give you a sense of the consciousness you live in. And there are many qualities to consciousness that support different states of mind.

[86:03]

So in this Buddhist sense of mindology, you're not repressing something, but you know how to move to another state of mind which doesn't support certain things. or supports other things. In other words, you can move to a state of mind which supports representational thinking like little boats or a state of mind in which the representational thinking is not supported. which the names and such things disappear.

[87:15]

And that's not repressing or trying to get rid of or change. You're just, you begin to sense qualities and topography to consciousness. We could say that this consciousness is like a fluid, maybe. And it has many different qualities. And you live in the midst of it. And living in the midst of it, how do you get to know that which you already are? How do you see the distinctions? Well, the problem is all the distinctions are non-graspable. As soon as you grasp them, you end up in one state of mind.

[88:21]

A state of mind that makes distinctions at a certain level. And everything is experienced as separated. But you can actually have a more subtle state of mind which experiences, it's hard for me to say, because language is about the divided world. But you all probably know how different the world looks as if you're, when you're in love. The world exists that way even when you're not in love. So what do you do about it? Maybe we should do a little zazen and then stop.

[89:29]

Zazen is a way of falling in love. But it starts with yourself, you know? Could we substitute feelings through fluid? Could you put fluid there instead of feelings? Well, yes and no. We can talk about the inner alchemy we want tomorrow, but... So, please... Take a stretch if you need to before you sit.

[90:24]

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