Mike Boss had to leave us because his father had a stroke, technically. It looks like his father may deteriorate quickly, the hospital says, and went back to see him. His father is 76, is that right? Seems young to me I've just about finished Oksant I think two or three more people to see. And four, and then I can start, I can just see anybody who wants to come, if anybody wants to come a second time.

[01:05]

Maybe we need to do two sashins in a row. One where you just sit by yourself. and one where I do doksan for seven days. Now yesterday I stepped out of Sesshin mind a little bit in order to speak about Sangha and Dharma friends. and the importance of a Buddhist way of life and Dharma friends in developing the practice, and how really the next step in Europe, now that teachers do come here, is up to you guys to take the next step in making practice develop here. And that's true in general, not just you, just in Europe in general, as I see the situation in Europe.

[02:17]

But I must say I'm impressed with how many of you, one, are able to practice alone, or able to practice with a number of teachers, or a mixture of teachers, Buddhist, Sukha, Hindu, Christian, And somehow you make it all work. Maybe America is called the melting pot, but maybe Europe is the spiritual melting pot. So anyway, I'm quite impressed with how well you do. Okay.

[03:42]

All right, now I started all of this sashin talking about nest building and camping out on your meter square. And accepting and the practice of accepting Accepting and reconciliation with the world In the sense that you can't really change your world out there. You can make things better or worse, but you can't really resolve your world except by bringing your world into you. And resolving it within you, within your own experience.

[04:52]

Sorry, that's not easy to do. Usually we have the idea, but then we try to fix it outside. Me too. I do. And then you fix it outside and it doesn't get very fixed and you hurt more. I don't mean. affected and fixed outside, but basically you have to reconcile with your world within your own experience. Wow. I couldn't have done that.

[06:15]

And that brought us to how do you see your own experience? Then we talked about, you know, you can actually see It's not Kaiserin. Kaiserin. In the marketplace, disguised. In America, Kaiserin is a car. Now, no longer is made, but it was a car. Um... To see the Buddha or the Kite in the marketplace requires being able to see in an instant. Okay, so this instant point awareness we could call it. Okay. So this is partly why I said that Buddhism is not verifiable.

[07:32]

Because from generic awareness generic in other words an awareness that sees in generalities generic no, generic like Like in Albuquerque, Albuquerque is a generic American city. Serious road is generic. It's a typical genus, G-E-N-U-S maybe, genus. How do you translate that? Typical of the species of genus, I know. Typical. I didn't realize that.

[08:36]

Where did it cause problems? Generic mind sees in generalities and generalizations. And from generic mind, you can't understand the world that's seen through instant point awareness. It's a different kind of perception. in which interior exterior boundaries are different in which actually space and time you wouldn't call you don't have categories of space and time you have moments of instant point awareness which includes space and time they're not separated up

[09:47]

And time and space have a topography. They're not a big kind of clock wandering in space somewhere. So that when you, as I have often said, when you sit zazen and it feels like a few minutes or it feels like an hour, what it feels like is what it is, not what the clock says. Okay. This discussion of how we see and of how we see our own experience brought us to the practice of one-pointedness.

[11:01]

Since we talked about so many things, I'm trying to make it a little clearer today. Now one pointedness I spoke about and talked about at such length, because it's actually both a very fundamental and basic practice in Zen Buddhism, It's the fifth of the six paramitas and the eighth of the eightfold path. So it's a culmination of Buddha's early teaching of the eightfold path. Effort, mindfulness, concentration, following right livelihoods, speech conduct, and so forth. Yeah, it was different.

[12:12]

And so... And this concentration is most aptly described by one-pointedness. Okay. But Zen emphasizes concentration as a field much more than one-pointedness. Okay, are you all more or less with me at this point? Okay, so we get ourselves to field consciousness or field concentration. So in Zen, one-pointedness does not become the main form of concentration or the goal of concentration, but a technique or tool of concentration.

[13:31]

So one-pointedness is confusing because, one, as I said, it's fundamental and at the same time confusing. Confusing because it tends to imply and is easily understood as meaning one pointedness which excludes all other points. As a technique to produce samadhi? that's the most narrow definition of samadhi that is a technique of purification to get rid of the thoughts you don't like and maybe make more room for the thoughts you like but zen feels that doesn't work very well

[14:57]

In fact, this whole emphasis on the moon, well, let's let me run through the moon bit, okay? Shantih. Shantih. Shandao is asked, when the moon is full, where does the crescent go? Now you understand this is a discussion about is everyone enlightened or not. Okay. When the moon is full, where does the crescent go? And Shandao says, when you see the crescent, the fullness of the moon is concealed.

[16:19]

And when you see the full moon, the crescent disappears. Mm-hmm. And Yunyan says, as in our lineage, in fact you chanted him this morning, Hi Yunyan, how are you? He said, when you see the crescent, you can feel the fullness. And when you see the full moon, the crescent is there. And then Dao Wu, his Dharma brother and actual brother too, said, when you see the crescent, it's not the crescent.

[17:21]

And when you see the full moon, it's not full. Now these are all actually practices and schools of Buddhism. And none are to be neglected. And they're also in our lineage again. Dung Shan's five ranks are really based on this way of thinking. The five ranks are often presented in Rinzai as the teaching after the koan teaching. Now there's another possibility here which is in this kind of teaching is it's called, oh, what about the double moon or the second moon?

[18:27]

It's like, if that's based, I mean, one place this term, double moon, turns up is yin yang and dao wu, or sweeping, one of the sweeping The other one comes by and says, Boy, you're busy You should know there is one who is not busy And so his brother says, oh, double moon. And his brother holds up the broom and says, is this a double moon? So, I'll leave you that on So, double moon means technically in Buddhist language Is there a fixed reality behind this reality?

[19:42]

Is there a fixed moon somewhere that isn't the moon that is in phases? Is there space and time that this universe happens within? Someone said, the universe is... A mask of the universe we put on the unknown universe. Okay. Okay. Okay, so basic, these are all Zen masters talking here, and this Yunyan and Shandao and Dao Wu.

[21:07]

And what they're saying is that don't aim just at the full moon. And an example of Buddhist psychology in this koan is one person says to enter the full moon is to think you can turn your body back to your parents. So to be thinking in terms of the full moon or some perfect enlightenment is like wanting to go back into the womb again. So in this understanding, the phases of the moon are the full moon. That is the tantric side of sense.

[22:18]

So you're not trying to purify yourself of the phases of the moon. So you're not using one-pointedness to get rid of bad thoughts or something like that. They're all phases of the moon. But how do you practice Buddhism if you feel shitty all the time? Technical Buddhist terms. Or you just have compulsive negative thoughts or something. I mean, I've had the problem myself.

[23:22]

So how do you get out of this? Now, one-pointedness sounds good but the Zen masters say uncorrected state of mind, oh shit Do you have any idea, Roshi, what my uncorrected state of mind is like? I don't care, uncorrected state of mind So how do you practice? Mouth scenario. Oh, you don't have to translate. The vow to realize Buddhahood. with each person you meet.

[24:35]

The vow to realize whole being with each person you meet. How are you going to do that? This is to form your life through a single thought. Not your practices. Part of it is one-pointedness. You hold this practice in place with one-pointedness. Just like you can hold, some of you hold your hands, you can hold your hands just there for an hour. Or you can allow your body without even holding it you can allow your body to be still and the stillness holds itself. So you can hold the presence of this feeling of each person I meet is me.

[25:40]

And the basic practice of the paramitas, generosity, is to keep giving this feeling to each person you meet. It means also to see the best side of each person you meet. That doesn't mean not to see the worst side of people you meet. You also see the worst side. You don't use that as an excuse to point out the worst side all the time to everybody. That's called gossip or putting others down to put yourself up.

[26:59]

But you see the worst side but you act on the best side. You give them the benefit of the doubt. You make a teacher a teacher by treating him or her like a teacher. You make a person a Buddha by treating him or her like a Buddha. And you make yourself a Buddha by being able to treat someone else like a Buddha. Again, it doesn't mean you're blind to the world. It just means you've made this kind of decision, this vow to treat each person as much as you can like a Buddha. It means you try to see each person that you meet as a brother or sister or father, mother or friend or lover.

[28:03]

Sometimes we practice with three people. You imagine in your zazen that your absolute worst enemy is sitting beside you. They're the most boring, dull person you can imagine. Whenever they're around, you can feel your skin peeling off when they're just around. Or then you also imagine the most delicious friend you know. You can hardly keep your hands off. You want to have dinner with every night. And then you imagine a stranger. And you try to see what the difference in feeling is.

[29:18]

You can find the territory where you can feel equanimity and equal with each. You keep bringing that feeling in, or some version of that feeling, into your practice with people. into each encounter. And you don't reject your negative thoughts, you just see them in balance in a picture with this other effort. And it's really thought in Buddhism that the practice of friendliness And of joy is the alchemy that makes practice work. If you can't fertilize yourself with friendliness and joy you're always going to be tied up inside.

[30:53]

Now the practice of seeing the world as emptiness or seeing the world non-conceptually Because in a changing world, concepts don't hold the world. So technically, to see non-conceptually means suchness. So you see the suchness of everything. And the biggest word for Buddha means suchness, the Tathagata. So the Buddha exists in this in-betweenness. So you can't see the Buddha in another person or the whole being in another person unless you can see suchness.

[32:02]

Unless you can see non-conceptual. And this ability to see is also the profound form of generosity. To give this feeling to each person you meet, to be able to see non-conceptually, to see suchness. The second parameter is to see form, to give form. One is to see emptiness and the other is to give form. And this also is a bath of purification. To see emptiness, to see non-conceptually, to see suchness is a bath of purification.

[33:06]

You're in a sense bathing in the phenomenal world as empty. And you may feel that sometimes in sashing when you feel transparent as if everything is passing through you. Or as if you feel as everything is touching you and nothing is hurting you. Okay, these are methods of purification in Zen. Not one pointedness which gets rid of thoughts. Why over-made that point, didn't I? Right here. One, two, three, four. It's not so good to be sick in that room because the whole sender can hear you coughing.

[34:34]

Yeah. Do you suppose anybody listening to the tape will get sick? I've wanted during this seminar, during this session, to talk about bubbles. I don't know if I'll have the opportunity, but I may try. It's a little far out, but it's friendly. And I know it's a feeling some of you already have. As I said last night, I really can see your bodies know a whole lot.

[35:38]

But what's the word in philosophy to... to unpack, but you haven't unpacked what your body knows yet. And it takes certain experiences in your life and certain understandings that are on the intellectual side sometimes to unpack what your body knows. To give yourself permission to know certain things. I mean, most of us in Dharma City, the wall hasn't come down yet. Or you've got the names of the streets wrong. So, right now we're on One Pointedness Strasse. Okay, so let me go back to that. What do I mean when I say one-pointedness is a tool?

[36:57]

When you're practicing and you're in the midst of a flood of psychic events, or much sorrow or various kinds of disturbances, Or as I say, sometimes many things float in the sticky stuff of time around you. You can sit like Monsimero or hold yourself. This is one-pointedness. That means if you're going to not invite any thoughts to tea but not exclude anybody from coming to tea So in the midst of that, that's one-pointedness.

[38:05]

Many times in zazen, or in your life, you may have lots of psychic events or information that doesn't fit consensual reality. And you've got to have a way to hold your world in place. This is one point. In Buddhism it says Buddhism is based on the idea that everything changes That's clear, right?

[39:08]

But what is the name for Buddhism? Generally Buddhists don't call Buddhism Buddhism What do they call it? They call it the Dharma What does the word dharma mean? To hold, to uphold, even that is the word throne or firmament. Firmament is what holds the stars in place. Space holds the stars in place. Okay, so how do you enthrone each moment would be Dharma practice. Okay. Okay. Now, essential to this also, once I start down one street of Dharma City, I have to talk about several other streets.

[40:55]

Now I'm trying to keep ourselves in one district of the city. But one thing that characterizes streets of the city is each street leads into every other street. And even cul-de-sacs or dead ends, you can back out of and go down another street. Now dead ends are an important part of practice. The teacher does not want to prevent you from going down all dead ends. But the teacher does want to prevent you from going down only dead ends. Okay. So one idea that's important here is the sense of identity as location.

[41:57]

Someone asked me in Doksan, is there an agent that does the practice? Who decides about one-pointedness? Who does the practice? Who answers when your name is called? Actually, it's not always the same person First of all, it's a very powerful idea to even conceive of a location And it's equally or more powerful to identify that location and powerful also to be able to move that location.

[43:18]

Now this is an elusive idea so I don't know how well I can explain it. And I tried to touch on it in earlier day shows.

[43:45]

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