Well, I can see you much better now. Except the first row is still kind of dark. So do you have anything you'd like to discuss? Yes. Yes. Sometimes when I try to force attention. Yeah, go slowly. Sometimes when I try to force attention. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. then I sometimes feel more tense than before.

[01:03]

Yeah. When you do something like this, you're interfering with how you usually function. So it's going to disrupt things a little bit. And so in any way you can expect a little disruption or a little tension or anxiety even from practicing. So practice requires a degree of faith in it. You know, you're not using drugs, you're just your body and your mind. So there's no reason your body and your mind should hurt you.

[02:18]

In fact, we could say that practice rests on a deep sense of trust. A trust and faith. In other words, we're born in the world this world and with this each of our own body so if we don't trust that what will we trust and so perhaps the first practice of meditation is just to see if you can trust your body and mind but then you hear your heart beating and you think it might stop someday and you get nervous so you kind of begin to explore a feeling of trust and a feeling of just being at ease

[03:24]

So that's response to the second half of what you said. The first half, I wouldn't, I don't remember exactly what you said, but I wouldn't make too much effort in attention. It's not so much about will as it's about willingness. In other words, what's important is your intention. And to let the effort come naturally out of the intention. So if the intention, if you can keep reminding yourself, bringing yourself back to an intention, then you don't have to force attention. So one of the basic practices of Buddhism

[04:42]

is to hold a teaching in front of you and just hold it and see what happens. Yeah. Something else? Yes. Could you comment on the need of social activism beyond personal transformation? I'm Well, let's see here. We lost one person already. Buddhism this is a big issue and there's a worldwide movement of socially engaged Buddhism and partly it presumes that Buddhism is not interested in social activism

[06:12]

and is not interested in social activism. I think that's mostly a mistake that Buddhism developed in Asian countries, which changed very, very slowly. There was no idea of social progress. This is an idea that's developed in the West, that you can change society itself. Asian Buddhism assumed you could only change the person, you couldn't really change society. And this is an extraordinary idea and mostly gift that the West has given to the world that society itself can be shaped. Yeah, and so now Buddhism is in the West.

[07:36]

It is involved in thinking about how society can be shaped. Yeah. And I think in this developing planetary culture, Buddhism is likely to be an implicit part of the attempt to generate a planetary culture. Buddhism is likely to be implicitly in the background of how we develop a planetary culture. But given that Buddhism is now in a society where we think we can shape society itself,

[08:37]

Now we have to look at how would Buddhism do it differently than it's usually done in the West. Yeah, and I've thought a lot about this. But I don't think I can really... It's a little complicated to respond to. But I think that perhaps I'll find some way to sneak it in in answering other questions. Somebody has something else? Yes? How did you come to this way of living? I suppose I asked myself the question, what's going on?

[09:58]

Yeah, and I happened to be brought up in an atheist family. And I just began looking at what, you know, what various ways answered that question. For me, Buddhism was the one which acquired the least belief and seemed the most possible. But also, it in the end is more deeply rooted in my Wanting to discover a way to live without a feeling of separation. From you and from myself. So, that's today's answer.

[11:00]

Yes, something else? In this connectedness with others and with yourself, you are closely connected to other mystical traditions and religions. Is Buddhism or you as a Buddhist connected to other religions or mystical traditions? How do you relate as Buddhists to these other mystical and religious traditions? Hi. How are you? I don't know. I mean, each one of you is a mystical tradition.

[12:04]

Yes. But I can say something about this feeling of connectedness. Because if we look at how not self as an entity but self as a function. Now self as an entity is a delusion. But self as a function is necessary. You can't function without a self. The immune system is a self. It knows what belongs to me and what belongs to the fly or the horse or something. So one of the functions of self is separateness. Yeah, another function of the self is connectedness.

[13:22]

And the third is continuity. And I talked earlier about continuity. Changing your sense of continuity changes how you function. Okay. Now once you see that there's three main functions of self you can see you can change the emphases among them. Now we mostly function through a concept of separateness. And there's lots of reasons for that. Part of it's cultural and part of it's sensory. But let's just take as I often say I'm sitting here and you're sitting there.

[14:25]

And I assume we usually assume that space is separating us. That's a cultural idea. Space also connects us. But it's not something we can perceive in the usual way we think three-dimensionally. But we are, in fact, all connected. I mean, the moon is affecting our reproductive cycles. I don't see any ropes or electric wires to the moon. So we're actually in a field of connectedness. Which is what I was saying with this sense of not the present as a container, but the present as presence. Okay. Now, if I have a sense that when I'm looking at you, we're already separated.

[15:55]

Now, the Eightfold Path, the first teaching of the historical Buddha, starts with right views. And Next was right intentions and right conduct and so forth. And way at the end is right mindfulness and wisdom. And meditation. So the basic teaching says, what comes first are our views. Okay. Now, if I have a view that we're already separated, that's present before I start to think or perceive, all my perceptions will reinforce that idea of separation.

[17:05]

If I change this view and say already connected, so I take the phrase already connected out of the kind of directionality of language, A language tends to collapse the presence of mind. And language by the way it's constructed has a directionality toward the future. So language is always collapsing the mind. but you can take a phrase out of language and just hold it as a phrase like already connected so I look at you and I feel already connected and if I develop a habit of saying that already connected

[18:12]

It begins to erode already separated. Now I'm presenting this as a craft, you know, not philosophy, as a craft you can do. It's a kind of philosophy, but a philosophy that is also a craft. So you take a phrase already connected and you will find your perceptions begin to reinforce the feeling of connectedness. You'll begin to feel you're living in a world which is getting you wet. You won't feel you live in a container so much. You'll feel you live inside things. Just by changing a habitual view. So then when you meet another mystery, you say, hi.

[19:25]

Already connected. That was a rather... That was a rather long answer, I'm sorry. Something else? Yes. An agenda that may not seem connected at first sight, but I'll add this. Thank you that you introduced us into the world of the smelling beings. Beings are also beings that are working on the sense of smelling. Yeah. in this area here there are living more pigs than people yeah and it's very sad that we never see one now my question you're not promising to bring one next lecture are you okay yeah

[21:13]

Did I understand that correctly, that the identification of self, you connect with democracy? I didn't quite understand it. Could you say more? Democracy and pigs. Well, we'll see what happens here. Okay. I'll try to keep this simple. Present day society is too complex to be governed by a king or an elite. it needs the energy and input of everyone and you don't give and people only put their energy into things if they have choices basically people vote

[22:26]

so if a society a democracy is self-governing it means that each person has to govern him or herself in a certain way in a monarchy you can have more freedom you can do whatever you want if the king or queen doesn't like it they say off with his head But in a democracy, we all have to govern ourselves. We have to be little sort of citizen soldiers. So there's a kind of what I see as a collusion between commerce, media, and government. A collusion between commerce, media, and government. Commerce, commercial activity. To give us a sense of choice, but a choice which isn't very meaningful.

[23:53]

Like the choice between a hundred television channels is not much of a choice. So the way contemporary democracy works is to create an externalized sense of identity. Mm-hmm. And then we treat pigs badly. Because we only think of them in terms of how it affects commerce and so forth. I don't think we can solve all the problems. But Buddhism also considers the way you change things as you change the culture. You have to start with changing the basic world we imagine.

[25:07]

So the first step is to bring your attention inward rather than outward. And this is not so easy. For example, if we start having thoughts we don't think anyone else has, we often go to a psychiatrist. And if you begin to have thoughts Experiences and thoughts you don't think you can share, most people get anxious. And as long as you believe all your thoughts should be shareable with others, basically you're controlled by a social idea of self. And meditation, where you develop a deep inner trust and inner attention, requires a freedom from this self tied up to society's idea of self.

[26:23]

So I think democracy is the great thing that has happened in recent years. As we now realize we live in one shared environment. And we have a concept of a shared common humanity. This is actually quite new in the world. And it's the basis for, I think, the possibility of remarkable change. I think it's now possible to create a world that works for everyone. But it's going to change a different... We have to envision ourselves and the world differently.

[27:48]

So I think democracy and contemporary civil society has tremendous possibilities, and we enjoy amazing freedoms, but we don't always have the inner freedom we need. Now, pigs, I actually think, I don't know if this makes sense, we have an idea of something called the bliss body. where there's a feeling of gratefulness of blissfulness yeah feeling of connectedness and when you stop identifying with your thinking so much what's technically called non-referential joy begins to happen

[28:51]

I mean, you feel joy for no reason. It's not Christmas, Easter. It's not your birthday. Something must be wrong. I feel so good. This is non-referential joy. Yeah. And Probably deep sleep is similar. Deep non-dreaming sleep is a kind of joy and ease. My opinion is that animals are probably in a kind of bliss body all the time. It would be hard to be an animal if you weren't. That's a joke. But I actually do think that our thinking capacity interferes with a basic bliss in aliveness.

[30:03]

And it would be nice if we felt a real common humanity with pigs. Enough. Okay. Maybe we should stop soon, but somebody else wants to say something. Yes. You talked about the realms of body, breath, and phenomena. Yes. Yes. And I'd like to know what you mean by phenomena and how you work with that. These are territories of practice.

[31:22]

They're not meant to be exactly philosophically clear separations. Yeah. So this is phenomena. And so you bring your attention to exactly what you're doing. Walking, smelling, etc. So you find yourself mindful in the activity as it appears. Okay. Another territory of mindfulness is the body. How the body feels. And another is your breath.

[32:26]

So there are things you can put your attention on. That's all. You can also bring your attention to your emotions. and feelings. Now an important one I didn't mention because I thought maybe it's too much for our first meeting is you can bring attention to phenomena you can also bring attention to the body and you can bring attention to the breath. So these are territories of mindfulness. And they're also territories or ways to establish continuity and presence. Now there's a fourth main one. And that's the field of mind itself. Okay, maybe I should end with this one.

[33:36]

Okay, so I'm looking at you. All right. But actually I'm also looking at my own mind. You're appearing in my mind. I'd rather like my mind, actually. So I'd rather like you. Because you're appearing in my mind. Okay, so if I look at you, I have all of you cause a certain kind of mind to appear. And if I look at Gunda, Gunda, a rising mind, appears. Yeah, it's not so bad. And I look back at you and a slightly different mind arises. So anything I see or hear makes me also see and hear my own mind.

[34:37]

And a wisdom teaching is a teaching that reminds me of this. It's again like, how does the eye see the eye? Okay, so if I hold this stick up, and you can concentrate on it, we could say you have a stick arising mind it arises on this stick now it's quite a practice to bring your mind to the stick it goes off again but after a while it goes off less And then after a while, it goes off, but it comes back easily. And after a while, it goes off and it comes back by itself. And after a while, if you put your mind there, it just rests there.

[35:54]

And those are the stages of developing the yogic technique of one-pointedness. And if you have that it changes your life just to be able to do that. Because you can just bring your attention to your breath and it stays there. It's like a permanent vacation. Now, so you're concentrated on this. And let's say I take it away. But you remain concentrated. So what are you concentrated on now? The field of mind itself. So instead of, like I said, attention concentrated on attention, we have mind concentrated on itself.

[37:10]

And that we could call samadhi. Samadhi is mind concentrated on itself. And then we can bring this stick back up into this samadhi. And you can observe the stick from a field of concentration. And that field of concentration is another kind of continuity. So I can experience a continuity in my breath. and body and phenomena. But phenomena is also always arising as mind. Like if you hear a bird, you don't hear the bird the way another bird hears that bird.

[38:11]

You hear the bird the way you hear the bird. And basically, you're hearing your own hearing hear the bird. It's very important to know that. If I know that I'm seeing my own mind see you, Even if I get depressed, I'm going to be depressed in a different way. Because I can see it's my own mind that has all this gray stuff, you know. It's not you or the world. I can brighten up my own mind. Yeah. So... the most fundamental field of continuity, his mind itself, not the contents of mind, but the field of mind, the space of mind.

[39:23]

And in Buddhism that's technically called vastness. means when I see you I see you but I see my own mind arise and that opens me to feeling your mind arise and there's a kind of mixing of our minds I'm sorry I apologize but if I'm thinking I don't know that But if I let myself feel that, then I know a great deal immediately that we're already connected. And all these little things, if you can find the right word or flavor to bring to it, And every word has a body feeling that goes with it.

[40:45]

And every state of mind has a body feeling that goes with it. And the body is more accessible to us than the mind. So say you could get a physical feeling of already connected. So you can use the physical feeling or you can use the phrase. And you can practice this anytime. You have a beautiful city to practice in it. Wonderful mountains. A lake. My mother wrote me a letter once many years ago and reminded me of one of the first things I said when I was a little kid. And we lived on a lake. And my mother found she'd written in her diary or something that I said to her, Why does our moon

[41:49]

I like it. Our moon. That was kind of good. Why does our moon swim across the lake at us in this way? If you begin to realize everything is mine, you'll find the whole world swims across the lake to you. Thank you very much. And thank you for transferring.

[42:35]

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