When this place came first and everything was connected, I spread out in all directions and realized that I can be much more myself the more I want to be connected. I can really be what I am, and when I connect emotionally, Dog bites Bodhisattva. Yeah, but your intuition was probably is correct, I think. that if you really were open without any obstructions, it's less likely that mad dogs will bite you.

[01:06]

Yeah, well... You'd have to study exactly what constituted your openness. And that's what is interesting about practice, is you get the ability to observe the subtle ways we're open and not open. I just... Well, it depends what you mean by connected. It's not increasing. I think it's quite the afternoon now, and all this shit runs through my head.

[02:17]

Suddenly, as it came closer and closer and closer, I realized that all this noise passed through my head. So, that was a multi-step connection. I felt in this moment, I felt really connected with the noise, and I was the noise, it was me, and... It was not there, but it was knowing. So that's what I mean by connection. If I am the connection, I'm disconnected. In English, I know your experience. But in English, we couldn't use the word disconnected. We'd have to say at the moment of connection, a feeling one with, I was free from it. because disconnected technically it's okay but it means something negative so maybe you should say what you said in German I don't know what to say.

[03:24]

And as I was saying, the space between the film and the morning, that noise, clack, clack, and the room always letting it dry up, that's what spread in my head. When I turned it back, clack, [...] And that's exactly... That's exactly the reason why Buddhism, in contrast to some other meditative traditions, doesn't try to create a perfect environment for meditation with no sound. No disturbance.

[04:46]

Now let me give you one example coming back to how you started. Just to give you an example of a different way of looking at something basic. We say, which way is north here, roughly? Okay, so we say north is that way. And we'd say south is, all that is down south. And the directions mean it's over there somewhere. Now, Buddhism doesn't talk about the four directions, but the ten directions.

[05:51]

And it's north, south, east, west. And then the in-between, south-east, north-east, south-east. That's eight. And then up and down. Those are the ten directions, but they're all thought to be moving toward you, not away from you. So in this way of thinking, when you point out the south, you point out what's coming toward you. Yeah. And that's just a slightly different way of thinking about it. And up and down, the down is supporting us. We're sitting on the down. I'm sitting on a lot of down. And the up is heaven or whatever, but it's coming into us. And when we feel that, we feel, like you said, quite free. And it's the same thing with your breath.

[06:51]

being exposed to it. This is what I felt. I always think of the wind. I can feel it. It's there. I remember always the first time I felt like peppermint coolness. Peppermint coolness? Yes. We have the beginning of a poem here. Somehow it's my world, and it's coming out of me. And I only have to be open to let it out and to feel it. But being exposed to the world, meaning the world is always there, and it's coming up to me, and I just am able to feel that it's there. This is good. Deutsch, bitte. How do you like the story? Oh, I see, I said that these ten directions, that they all come to an end and are not there somewhere, but come to an end, it is the same with the golden wind.

[08:21]

And I always thought that it is this life wind and breath that comes out of a day, and you are open to feel it or not. I remember the first time I felt it, it was like peppermint. And now to hear, to be exposed to this world, because the world is there and I am open enough to feel it. That at some point, when I am mature enough or so, it comes out of me, now I am, now I have achieved something. No, that is still there. Thank you. Exposed in the peppermint wind. So let's sit for a moment or two. And then we'll have a half hour break. Thank you for translating.

[10:45]

You're welcome. Space collects spilled water. So like Zen on the waterbed. I'm sitting on a waterbed. Now, I'm not teaching you anything new.

[11:55]

If we go back, say, to Dharmakirti's teacher, Dignaga, who was one of the formulators of Yogacara teaching, And Buddhism is basically a Yogacara teaching practice. Zen Buddhism is. Dignagas, he lived from, taught at Nalanda University in India. He taught at what university? Nalanda. And he lived from 480 to 540. So that's quite a while ago. I think in civilizational terms, yesterday. In civilizational terms, yesterday. Because one of the points I really think it's helpful to know is that we're at the very beginning of civilized life.

[13:27]

Or maybe we're not yet at the beginning if you look at Kosovo. Yeah. I thought of this you know because I interviewed my mother recently who's 94 so I was asking her about things she's telling me what it was like to be a girl it was great to talk to her so I asked about her aunts and her grandparents and so forth and her awareness of people and life and life pretty much as she knows it goes back to the 1850s I mean, she's not that old, but her great-grandmother and so forth.

[14:34]

And I think some of you, if I keep practicing with you, will be alive in 2050 or much later. So that's 200 years. So we can think in a way of consciousness awareness units of 200 years. And I think if you explored each of your family and background and it extends back and forwards about 200 years. Yeah, well, 10 of those units bring you back to the time of Christ. And not that much happens in a 200-year unit. I mean, consciousness, it takes a lot of 200-year units to make a fundamental change in consciousness.

[16:00]

So I think we're at the beginning of civilization of learning how to live together. as I put it, to learn how to live functionally together, but fundamentally alone. Most of the success of Western culture is based on living fundamentally together, but functionally alone. Now, what I mean by that is that if you look at your own consciousness, it's constructed from other people. And you're always checking up on your consciousness how it's like other people's. And I think we can hardly imagine anything else.

[17:11]

So this is one reason we're so susceptible to other people's kind of negative and positive feelings. Because our consciousness is constructed from other people. But when you are constructed in that way, it's necessary to live functionally alone. So we are productive as a society by giving each person their own private space to live alone and be crazy and then go to work and be normal. And this is the great challenge of Sangha as a teaching and practice in the West. Because Sangha is postulated on being able to live functionally together easily. Because you experience yourself as fundamentally alone.

[18:37]

Now, what I mean by that is if you're with 50 people or one person or a forest of trees, your experience is nearly the same. because you're sealed as I said or you have an experience of original mind or primordial mind and that's exactly what the golden breeze means To be resting in original mind. Original mind is not constructed from other people. It's open to other people, but it's not constructed from others.

[19:37]

So this was known by folks like Dignaga. and they he and many others who constructed this world view of Buddhism first of all very simply they had experiences through meditation of a world view more fundamental than their particular society or culture. So they said, hey, this is great. How do we show this to other people? So Buddhism developed basically from that sense. Okay. Not only how do we show it to other people, how do we introduce it, infiltrate it into the culture?

[20:43]

How do we practice societal acupuncture? And how do we teach it in a way that the individual can sustain it in the midst of a culture that's not like that? That's basically the teaching and position of Buddhism. And you are people. I am a person. who has decided to try to understand this and realize it. Or perhaps you're interested. It can't be just, oh, it's natural, it's primordial, it'll come to me without effort.

[21:46]

You have to make a decision to bring a wisdom culture into your life. And you have to make a decision of how to survive and sustain that. and to what extent you can make it easier for others in the future by introducing it into our culture that's your decision and I hope you make the decision because then I have more friends that I can practice with and I have more help And since I'm getting old, you have to carry on. I haven't done so well, so you can improve.

[23:00]

So she's already training this morning at break Leopold. teaching him pure connectedness at least that's what Freud thought another good Austrian another good Austrian So how do we look at how we're put together? How do we look at our culture and our own mind?

[24:06]

And how do we kind of lift up a layer of our own veneer? Veneer is like plywood, layers of thin wood on top of another wood. How do we lift up the layers and put some wisdom culture in? So Dignaga had a way. His little wedge. Are you following me now? His little wedge was to define perception as knowing without conception. As perception without conceptualization. Okay, so now you have to spend a little time with something like that to figure out what that means for you.

[25:30]

And can you use this little wedge? Because if you can open it up, it's like a little, not only a wedge, it's also a funnel. a funnel like you yeah and a trister and then you can pour in lots of teachings and stuff like that yeah so perception is knowing or cognition without conceptualization And again, I'm saying it in English, she's saying it in German, and you have to find how this makes sense to you. So again, all right, we have this sense, idea of space connects. And we kind of put that in our background mind and let it mix our soup.

[26:43]

Okay, now we're putting something else in. Is it possible to perceive without conceiving? and I think one reason in the 60s people or any time I suppose people like to take psychedelics and because psychedelics in contrast to a lot of other drugs doesn't just make you feel better or worse it makes you perceive differently And often one of the experiences makes you perceive without conceiving. So you look at a wall and you don't see wall, you see this surface, a live surface.

[27:59]

And Dignaga is speaking about something quite similar. The practice of withdrawing conceptualization from the perceptual process. So I look at you, for example. You're nice to look at. And I don't think woman or man or anything. I don't let the conception form. I just look at you. And if I find, if I don't create any conceptions, man, woman, old, young, there's a timeless quality. And a wonderful... pleasure just to look at you but we have to be careful because it can get too strong so let's look over here now because normally we don't take those frames away except in extraordinary circumstances so you have to learn to take the frames away but not be too obvious or people think oh this is too much

[29:24]

So this perceiving without framing in conceptions, I think you have the idea. I don't think it's unfamiliar to us. What probably is unfamiliar is that this is a wisdom. This is wisdom. What is unfamiliar is if you develop this In your experience, you transform yourself. Yeah, and that's what these guys discovered. Not just the experience, but the effect of maturing experience. Of developing the experience. Yes, you will. state of mind.

[30:44]

It's in contrast to what our society teaches us. The culture we have. And it's in contrast to every society. Not just our society. It's kind of a culture, but it's a culture that duplicates the original state of mind. If it's a culture, it's not the original state of mind. Yes, in German, please. My question is whether this state of white, which is created in such a place as space, is actually white. Buddhism is a wisdom culture, let's call it that.

[31:45]

And it's a wisdom culture in that it is related to survival cultures. And I would say survival cultures are cultures based really on how do we get enough food and housing and so forth. It's a wisdom culture which adds a room to your house. Then you learn to live in that room. And from that room you remodel the rest of the house.

[33:11]

But the fact that you use a culture to free yourself from culture doesn't cause the freedom to be acculturated. Doesn't cause the freedom to be acculturated. If it did, there'd be no hope. Okay, so, what is your name? Gudrun. Gudrun, okay. Um... You know what, I'm trying to learn occasionally how to pronounce German.

[34:15]

What's interesting is German has more consonants and hard-looking sounds than English. And the softness in English comes from the 50% of its vocabulary being French. But in German, you pronounce these sounds, which in English would be hard in a much softer way than we say them in English. Like I say, Johannes Hoff. And people say, no, Johannes Hoff. So I'm trying to develop an ear, a primitive ear for the softness of German consonants. Okay, so we can say Gudrun. Gudrun. Had this experience of feeling open. okay but if we analyze it from a Buddhist point of view you probably had an actual experience of being open but you also had a conception of being open because you said oh I'm so open so the dog closed that

[35:42]

Der Hund hat das geschlossen. We could call it Dignaga's dog. So this is exactly what Dignaga would recommend, is to have the experience of openness without the conception of being open. And this is a wisdom teaching, an experiential realization. And a craft. A geistwerk. I mean handwerk. Yes? Correcting mind. So what you do is you go through another basic practice, but this one can't correct you to get to the incorrect.

[37:04]

That's right, exactly. Deutsch, bitte. ... [...] That's right. Something else. You said that our conscience is constructed by others. Consciousness. Consciousness. And who started to construct? Mom and dad. No, but in the whole history, I mean, Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, mom and dad.

[38:05]

Or... This kind of dad, I don't know. Shut up, little... You ape. Yeah, I mean, it's not a question that can be answered. But somehow, and it seems natural, we've developed a culture of survival. And it also has... It also has... Poetry and philosophy and compassion and religion. Religion. But they're not the basis of how we're constructed. They're antidotes to the problems, to answer the problems of how we're constructed.

[39:06]

And I think if you have children, you can start with trying to change the way your children know the world. I used to watch Japanese... I lived in Japan for quite a few years. And Japanese women constantly complained about Japanese men. They're never home and when they're home they hit us and blah, blah, blah. And then they bring up their little boys to be Japanese men. So it's hard to get out of something like this. Anyway, it would be a whole other subject if I entered into that.

[40:46]

Something else? So what we're doing and what I'm trying to do is see where this leads. So we started out with the golden breeze trying to see where that leads. So I'd also like for this separating perception from conceptualization. And we saw where that leads when Giulio thinks about it. So if any of you others have some sense of where it leads for you, what conclusions do you draw from this? This is helpful to all of us to talk about.

[41:48]

It's not so easy because we have a habit of joining perception and conceptualization. But it's not so difficult either. Because once you see it's a habit you can begin to notice when you don't do it. And you can begin to change your habit. So that you more live in or find yourself in a conceptionless world. And it sounds weird, actually. I look at you, for example. And I don't think any conceptions.

[43:07]

But I can look at all of you and not think or feel any conceptions. And as soon as I let myself feel that, free myself from conceptions, immediately my backbone opens up. It's strange. It lengthens. And my breathing changes. Why does my backbone open up? Well, there's a kind of relaxation that comes with resting in conceptionlessness. You see, we don't even have adequate words for something like this. Conceptionlessness is kind of like a pretty awkward thing to say. Well, that's because we only have conception. We don't have conceptionlessness. And also my back opens up, lengthens.

[44:20]

Because I immediately start aligning myself with you. Aligning myself with this phenomenal phenomena, this phenomenal world we live in. So if I don't locate my mind in frames or conceptions, then immediately my mind, my body goes out of formulations, mental formulations. into physical formulations. And I begin to live in a physical space, not a mental space. And one of the teachings, like living in a monastic life, much of it is based on edging people into, forcing people into living in physical space or bodily space rather than mental space.

[45:34]

I'm looking at you and feeling you proprioceptively, your presence. But everything I see is memory. I can see you, but as soon as there's any conceptualization, it's memory. Because the distinction between a man and a woman is based on memory. The distinction between orange or black or red, those are all distinctions based on our experience with formulating our perceptions. And if I could really just peel all the conceptions off I might experience just darkness.

[46:38]

So sometimes we speak about utter darkness instead of light. Instead of clear light, we say utter darkness. And you all know there's much going on in the darkness at this moment. There's the surfaces we're perceiving But there's a lot of connectedness going on that we don't perceive, but it's happening. We call that one, sometimes, the myriad streams flowing in darkness. This is Eric Griester. Dharma partner and also husband of Christina Someone said recently the most misunderstood part of Buddhism Is the degree to which it's philosophical or even intellectual in comparison to other religions?

[48:00]

And I would say the primary reason for that is there's nothing outside the system. In other words, there's no outside creator. There's no place for an outside creator. So everything has to be inside. So if everything is inside, we have to adjust it from inside. Although the idea of original mind is a kind of outside. Because we shape our life with our mental formations, if you just look at your own life, whenever you had to make a decision or anything, you're dealing with mental formations, what I should do, what I can do, etc.,

[49:40]

So we have to have a teaching which deals with those mental formations. So that's a little introduction and apology for this being so philosophical. But it's also the power of Western Buddhism, because we don't take the conceptions of Buddhism for granted. And because we don't take them for granted, they're very fresh and powerful for us.

[50:42]

So before I go any further, do you have any conceptualizations? Anything you'd like to speak about? If you succeed to destroy all your concepts, is there any suffering left? If you succeed to destroy all your concepts, is there any suffering left? If you succeed to destroy all your concepts, is there any suffering left? I never said we should destroy our concepts. I said we should free ourselves from only conceptualizing.

[51:44]

That's very different. If you don't have some concepts you couldn't get through the door you just walk into the wall. So we have to be very precise here. I mean, so many people think Buddhism is about stopping thinking. It's nonsense. You know it's nonsense. It's possible to have experience free from thinking. But sometimes you get that sunbathing. What is the best antidote? Yeah, it does Buddhism cannot free you from physical suffering

[53:03]

No matter how enlightened you are if I hit you over the head with a hammer it's not going to feel too good. But Buddhism... The point of Buddhism is to free you, as you're pointing out, from mental suffering. And in particular from what I guess we could call existential suffering. But if you're a modern bodhisattva with a baby, If something happens to your baby, even if it's cold, you're going to suffer. Isn't this true? So that's also a kind of mental suffering that Buddhism won't free you from. So the All Buddhism can do is free you from the suffering that's caused by delusion.

[54:37]

And delusion is about how you misconceptualize the world. Yeah. What a wonderful thing to be thanked for. How can I communicate in a non-conceptual state? We could also ask, how do you not communicate in a non-conceptual state? The question of how do we communicate in a non-conceptual state assumes that communication is conceptual.

[55:43]

But there's all kinds of communication. As... She noticed when I looked at her taking away conception, there was a feeling of communication. So then you have more... Then you have questions like... How do you prevent conceptualization from interfering with communication? Or how do you notice non-conceptual communication? Do you see how quickly we get into what are fundamentally philosophical concepts? trying to talk about this.

[56:52]

It's easier than fixing a car, though. I think the average car mechanic has to know more about karmic the engine then we have to know about buddhism to practice buddhism effectively but we do have to get certain things straight even in the midst of the bent There's a Zen saying, the bent does not hide the straight. Yes. Yes. My experience is not so much the concept, but it's really about the gaining idea we have.

[58:09]

I experience, if I really look, I feel that making concepts is a very natural function of what might be. And, for example, when there's something that is very conceptual, but it has no gaining idea, it feels very Irish-y. And the problem arises when you run it with the gaining idea. In German, please. In my experience, it is the concept that hinders the intention to achieve enlightenment. In my experience, it is the nature and we who have already established ourselves. The people who have done it unintentionally are very close to me. Okay.

[59:38]

I understand what you say and it's true. I think it's true. So we produce thoughts. I don't know. What I'm debating is if it's worth trying to sort this out, but I'll try. So I'll just say a number of things. There are some of the thoughts we produce we could just call news reports. I feel good. I don't feel good. It's barely a concept. It's just a news report.

[60:50]

Buddhism does not have much problem, Zen practice. When I say Buddhism mostly, usually I mean Zen practice. Zen doesn't have much problem with thoughts as news reports but they do initiate tend to initiate a particular kind of mind the more you produce the more you know yourself through thoughts the more you generate a mind of thought. Okay, so again, if you think of mind, well, let me, okay. Sometimes I don't like to go over these things so often. This is a weakness of mine. Because I'm so afraid of boring you.

[61:53]

But much of what we're doing is first of all developing an inventory. Okay, an inventory, a list, an inventory. A list or an inventory of experiences, states of mind and so forth. And I'm trying to give you an increasing inventory of Buddhist terms, then terms. At some point this inventory turns into a vocabulary. Okay, so what do I mean by that? So if you teach it It's okay, I don't mind.

[63:03]

They're the frogs going crazy against. Dogs. Those frogs we noticed at lunch sound like ducks. Yeah. So if you teach a child some words, like one, two, three, four, five, you know, fearful, I mean fear. you've taught them a list, a kind of list. It's not exactly vocabulary until you teach them first or ein and einer and so forth. In other words, they can't fit those words into much until they begin to see how it works in language.

[64:14]

So I'm giving you a list and then you begin to develop it into something that you see how it fits together. So one thing I've talked about a lot is seeing mind as a liquid. Okay. Conceptually, it also becomes an experience. So in this developing of vocabulary, let's go back to the simplest experience of mind as a liquid. You're not yet fully awake in the morning. Perhaps the alarm has gone off. but you want to stay asleep and while you're asleep you're still sort of half dreaming and as long as you turn back toward the liquid of sleep dream images are floating in it

[65:34]

But at the moment you say, oh my God, I've got to get to the office and I've got to do this and that and so forth. And you begin hearing the dogs outside and the frogs. And you begin to say, those aren't ducks, those are frogs. and that's the neighbor's dog and my dog and you know you almost cannot go back to sleep dream images don't float in that mind So that mind supports conceptualization. That the sound you hear is a Frog, not a duck.

[66:48]

So once that occurs, everything that happens in that mind will be concepts. There will be less images. So we have that experience every morning. So the more you have news reports of thoughts coming up, if that's the way you know yourself, you tend to generate consciousness rather than awareness. Good. So there's nothing wrong with concepts, but they do produce a mind that supports concepts. Now, within that mind of concepts, if you have gaining ideas, goal-oriented ideas, Okay.

[67:59]

You begin to create a mind that you are inseparably identified with. Because your fears and emotions and future are tied up in those thoughts. And when your emotions like that are tied up in your thoughts, then there's very little possibility of a shift from concept to awareness. So gaining ideas are a problem in the way they they tie us to our concepts.

[69:02]

And getting free of gaining ideas, getting free of emotional identification with our ideas makes our thinking much clearer and concepts much more enjoyable. But Buddhism also says it's good to in addition to have that have a mind that's free of concepts. Okay. If you begin to understand this as a kind of map I'm trying to make it like a map It gives you more strength in your practice, more clarity in your practice.

[70:08]

Was that understandable? Was that understandable? I mean the way I'm speaking about Buddhism is held together conceptually.

[71:16]

And what part of transmission of the teaching is is for each of you to understand the conceptual framework If you get it mixed up, your practice gets mixed up. And it's a conceptual framework that supports the possibility of non-conceptual practice. And much of the development of Buddhism is about, well, yes, this conceptual framework is good, but in this way of practice it interferes with practice. So there's been a... Buddhism has been a constant refinement of conceptual... of the conceptual... of the conceptual framework.

[72:32]

So let me give you an example. Some forms of Buddhism have very sophisticated maps of how we function. And they say, okay, if you do this, this, and this, this will happen. And they're much better than the maps that come out of a culture of survival. But Zen would say there's still maps. And what's the problem with maps? They presuppose there's no evolution of consciousness. They presuppose there's nothing new. But Zen tries to develop a conceptual framework where you might have an enlightenment no one else has ever had before.

[73:44]

So we often confuse enlightenment as like God. There's one enlightenment and one God. And all enlightenments are the same. And you're either enlightened or you're not. But Zen doesn't, that's a conceptual framework that Zen doesn't support. And I think this is, for me, this has been a very important thing to understand. Because before I looked back at, you know, say, Tang Dynasty adepts, and I looked back and I said, why are those guys so good?

[74:56]

How do they understand so much? And so you look back, well, they're always better in the past and we're just kind of poor dummies in the present, you know. But if you see that there's the possibility of an evolution of consciousness, then there's no reason they should be better in the past. So it's not a dilution, it's a widening development. So now if I look at Buddhism as a positive evolution, Still then I have to understand why the Tang and Sung dynasty masters were so extraordinary.

[76:05]

And my conclusion is it's because of Sangha. They had a Sangha of of a shared development that was the basis of their individual development. These guys all lived near each other, several on one mountain and then a near mountain only a few kilometers away. And they had tremendous connection with each other. So Mike, what is this operating system Linux? Linux?

[77:16]

It's supposedly very stable because thousands of people are developing it all the time. There's not a few smart people developing it. So Sangha is like that if we have a lot of people creatively developing something the teaching develops So this is my vision of Sangha and why I'm sitting here with you I really want us to do this together you had a just before lunch you had something you said which was an observation and question which was quite good could you share it with us ask again about stripping away

[78:24]

I always have the feeling that there are always thoughts that come to my mind, feelings that get rid of me. It is always that the practices are taken away, that I think about it at the moment. It is actually more important to develop a different culture, which is also something I need to do. Actually, every phase is always Is it the same as you said to me in English, pretty much? And this is an interesting observation. And in fact a very large percentage of Buddhism is about removing obstacles. But what's that about? Because I think what you said is you would like to see us build rather than strip away.

[79:34]

Uh-huh. Well, first of all, of course, at a simple level, we have to clear a space in order to build something. And we need maps to an already existing city. But to a city that does not yet exist, there can't be maps. We just have to start building. Now it's assumed, there is a basic assumption behind this stripping away.

[80:48]

Which is that stripping away is simultaneously the act of building. Not at the level of structures particularly. but in the basic activity of life I mean we're here because there's a constant activity there's no such thing in the realm of living of non-activity there's either activity or obstructions of activity out in that little pond out there If it's a living pond, there's all kinds of stuff going on in that little pond. If it's clear water, absolutely clear, it's dead. Sukhirashi used to say, dragons can't live in pure water.

[81:49]

Mm-hmm. Okay, I want to come back a little bit. But first, before we parted for eating, I said that Buddhism, like other religions, often views God or Buddha as inconceivable. Okay. But Buddhism says, okay, it's inconceivable.

[82:59]

What in our life is inconceivable? Okay, if there's nothing outside the system, we can't say Buddhism is inconceivable because it's outside the system and it's made this. Since we can't conceive of something outside the system, we say it's inconceivable. But Buddhism says it's inside the system. So that inconceivability has to be inside the system. So that inconceivability has to be something we are. Or something in our experience. So Buddhism tries to identify Buddha with that which is known to us in its inconceivability.

[84:08]

So the most common unknown or inconceivable? What did I say? Unknown or known? Known. What? Inconceivability that is known to us. So the most common image of that is space. So Buddhism says the image of Buddha is space. Space is inconceivable. It's what makes everything possible. I can conceive of you and you and you, but space itself is the context in which I conceive.

[85:14]

Okay, so what does it mean to say space is the image of Buddha? So we started out with space connects. And we have the exposed in the golden wind. And we can understand wind more or less as the activity of space. And when we conceive of the body, And we conceive of the body as energy and awareness. That movement in the body is also called wind. And you work with the winds in your body. And this is a word, it's not really a wind, but there's some experience like wind.

[86:31]

Okay. Now, life is not possible without a superfluity of energy. There's no... In a survival concept, you have an economy of scarcity. Or... Yeah, like that. But there's no creativity where there's scarcity. Everything requires energy.

[87:31]

There's no alternatives unless there's an excess of energy. And energy, when energy is released... It creates or damages or something. So the more we all feel we're in our little separate containers, there's not much energy here. The more we're producing a lot of energy and having more a sense of a field rather than an inside-outside distinction. There has to be an inside-outside distinction. Like I'm a container of liquid, of blood. And some people get into we're containers of blood and let's make sure what kind of blood we have in our container, etc. And some people get into but this gets very dead after a while because we're not just an inside out distinction we're also a field

[88:43]

A permeable field. So if I think of myself, the more I think of and act through inside-out side distinctions, I may become very skillful at this. and climb in these distinctions in various ways until I'm at the top socially or academically or something. And I learn how to work those distinctions. But that's normal. It's social skills and so forth. But this is worldly life. It's not spiritual life. So most of our energy is tied up in conceptualization.

[90:08]

And there's a surfeit or plentitude or abundance of energy when you begin to operate, function non-conceptually. So Buddha mind means that mind which operates non-conceptually. But that's only possible when there's an overflowing of energy. And that overflowing of energy is released when you're freed from conceptualization. And then it flows into many conceptualizations. And anyway, so that's the general image of moving from an inside-outside to a... feeling a field and clearing away obstructions and freeing yourself from identification with

[91:20]

with concepts. And then there's this sense of fluidity and creativity. Fluidity and creativity. So one of the things that characterizes a person who is mature in their practice is a kind of unpredictability. You never know quite what they're going to do next. And if you call them up on the phone five times in one day, each time you feel like you're talking to five slightly different people. I don't know if I'm making any sense here, but... Okay, something else?

[92:53]

Yes? What is enlightenment pertaining to the psychological point of view? Of a person? Yes. I think people have enlightenment experiences, quite independent of Buddhism. Buddhism as a teaching Zen is a teaching which says that we are always in the midst of enlightenment.

[94:00]

Not are we only in the midst of enlightenment because where else could enlightenment be but here. But we're also in the midst of enlightenment because we are a constant stream of embryonic enlightenment experiences.

[94:11]

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