Okay, let's just take your statement that you put something down. What was it that you put down? Potatoes. Potatoes, okay. Usually, we have a game called hot potato. Do you have it in German, too? We don't say... Nobody wants to put some item, say, a parcel. Yeah, that's a game, and you sort of throw the hot potato. So out of his immense compassion and kindness, he didn't throw the potato at anyone else. He simply dropped it. Now, I can take this stick and drop it. Nothing else dropped. So why, when he dropped his hot potato, did other things drop?

[01:02]

Because you were practicing meditation. Were you practicing meditation? Well, it's not dependent, but it's more likely if you were practicing meditation. Because what he had done is not drop the potato. He generated through meditation a potato-dropping mind. And a potato dropping mind drops all kinds of things. It drops horses, dogs, buildings, love, hate. Yeah. Now I'm, you know, last night I listened, I with pleasure listened to the discussion we had on what these words, detachment and engagement and detachment and so forth, could mean.

[02:33]

And I was trying to imagine, yeah, everything you say is quite true. What can we make of this? Or how can we get under this? And, you know, you... Excuse me, but, you know, I haven't been here... I haven't seen you for... Some of you I've seen a few times this year, but most of you I haven't seen for quite a while. And why should I disturb you with some abstruse ideas about practices about Buddhism? I feel it's downright impolite of me. Yeah. So I've been taught to be polite Most of the time.

[03:59]

So what can I say? Why should I change this feeling we have? And we, of course, by our speaking, we created a mind that's picking things up, not dropping things. We're picking up all these words and so forth. So we're in a word-picking-up mind. And we can define them, but we're still stuck in this, or happily inhabiting, this word-picking-up mind. Now, wisdom teaching is how to get out of this word-picking-up mind. And I think everything that everyone said had the feeling in it, the intuition in it, of, yes, I'd like to get out of this word-picking-up mind. And just to remind you, the way I'm speaking is based on, probably metaphorically most usefully, thinking of mind as a liquid.

[05:31]

Yeah, sounded good. And the most common example is waking up in the morning. And the shift from the liquid of waking mind, where your dream disappears, it sinks. And maybe you want to recover the dream, so you let yourself slip back into dreaming mind. And the images of the dream float to the surface. Sometimes it's funny, it's like you've turned off the, you've gone into the kitchen and you came back and the television program kept going on, the dream is at a later stage.

[06:42]

And it was continuing in dreaming mind, but you didn't have the way to look into it. And sometimes you start earlier at a different next night's dream or something. But as soon as you really start thinking about what kind of activity you want to do during the day, you very clearly generate a concept supporting mind. And then the images of the dream are gone. Very difficult to bring it back. Okay, so what we're suggesting here, there's two liquids.

[08:16]

There's more, but we're pointing out two. The liquid of conceptual thinking and the liquid of image association. The liquid of dreaming mind, the liquid of waking mind. Okay. Now, you were sitting, Zazen. And you were somewhat awake. You weren't completely asleep. But you weren't completely awake. So what had you done? You've done something remarkable. More important than inventing the airplane or automobile. Or a computer chip.

[09:21]

Though it might make you richer if you'd invented a computer chip. You've invented a state of mind that you were not born with. We're born with waking mind, dreaming mind, and deep sleep mind. Zazen mind is none of those three. It overlaps those three, but it's not any one of those three. It's a wisdom creation. It's an intentional creation of this yogic teaching. It doesn't mean we don't have flashes of it all the time. It doesn't mean we don't experience it at moments of creativity or...

[10:24]

concentration and so forth. But the sustained development of it, permeated by intelligence and awareness, is a yogic creation. And if you don't have any interest in this, you have no point in practicing, except that it may make you feel generally better. But if you want to practice seriously, you've decided consciously or subconsciously, yes, I would like to develop this fourth mind. Any questions at this point? Are you still with me? First of all, if I wanted to explain to you what water is,

[12:16]

Und zunächst einmal, wenn ich versuchen sollte, dir zu erklären, was Wasser ist. It's much easier just to give you a glass of water. Es ist viel einfacher, dir einfach ein Glas Wasser zu geben. It's hard to, well, it's wet and it's jiggly and, I mean, it's real hard to describe. Es ist schwer zu beschreiben, es ist natt und es wackelt so herum. But it's quite easy if I... So really, you have to experience it to know what it is. Also wirklich musst du es erfahren, um zu wissen, was es ist. And you have to experience it to have the conviction sense of its power and satisfactoriness. I can also say it's zazen mind. I can also say it's... A gate to the momentariness of every mind.

[13:27]

Which are never the same. So then the gate to the infinity of mind. I could give you definitions all afternoon, but that's probably... So I'll put something on this flip chart. Now, part of what I'm saying here is to try to work toward understanding a very simple statement of a man named And he was one of the first of the people who tried to bring very precise, logical analysis into the book.

[14:31]

And he defined perception as cognition without conceptualization. No, I think at first, why? This is not so easy to understand. How can I perceive something, look at you without having a conception? So I would say that all of later Buddhism is developed on opening this up.

[15:54]

And what I said already about the difference between dreaming mind and Waking mind is already part of the answer. Because dreaming mind is a mind that doesn't conceptualize. It makes images, but those aren't really concepts. They're not being agonized. I can look at the beautiful purple and yellow flowers out the window. And I can just walk onto them. Walk onto them. Without thinking about them. that is there and my mind can rest in.

[17:14]

I see them and I know them, but I don't accept them. Now that's all sort of skill. Again, we may do it occasionally, but to do it as a sustained way of observing, I mean, okay, it's a wisdom, we can call it a wisdom statement. You'd like to enter that wisdom statement into your consciousness. Now, consciousness is a conceptually structured generated mind. Consciousness is a conceptually structured, conceptually generated mind.

[18:21]

So it basically can't understand this statement. Or it can't make sense of it even to understand. But if you take this as a wisdom statement, then you have to embody it or enter it into your continuity stream. And the usual way to do that is to repeat it. Keep bringing it back into your life. And strangely, if you keep repeating something, it changes from being a word into a name. then it starts dropping out of the sentence. You could say it starts sinking out of language mind. And it begins to become physical.

[19:29]

And then begin uprooting your perceptions. And influencing your perception, it begins to pull non-conceptual mind up into your daily activity. Again, like you have two soups on. What's called beef stock, beef bouillon, is a conceptual mind. Chicken stock is the... So you begin to find, because you keep taking a piece of chicken and throwing it into the beef stock, the chicken stock, which is down at the bottom of the pan, starts coming out into the beef stock. So more and more as you look at dreams and talk to people and so forth, a non-conceptual mind begins to surface in your conceptual mind.

[20:45]

And a non-conceptual mind brings dream things with it. And often brings unconscious or non-conscious things. So a simple thing like this done thoroughly has a profound effect on how you function. I can check them out before the break. Maybe we can sit for a couple of minutes.

[21:49]

And afterwards, after the break, I'd like to have any questions you have about this, because it's important for us to together try to make sense of this. And please don't say, start your question with, this is a stupid question, but... Because the more stupid and sort of like, what's that question? It allows us to really see what's going on. Okay. Coming back at quarter after 11 is OK?

[23:26]

All right. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Now we have to decide for sure what time we're going to eat, which is the next door. They're ready at what time? One o'clock, I think. And it takes about an hour to eat. Is it ready at 12.30 if we... Not quite ready. One o'clock. Okay. Okay. Okay, that's fine.

[24:30]

Yeah, would you... Would you stay in me? Not to stay in me. Yes? Not in the evening at all. Go until the afternoon, maybe. Let's first find out how long the break will be. So if we go from, if you eat from 1 to 2, when would you like to start? 2.05? 3 o'clock? 4 o'clock? 2.30 for the two of you. Oh, we have some. 3 o'clock? 3.30? 3 o'clock. Going, going, going.

[25:33]

Let's see if we have one to two, three. I think it should be 3.30 or 4.00. Am I right? Which one? 3.30 or 4? 3.30. He runs the tape recorder, he mentioned. Okay. 3.30. So, and, and, okay, you have to leave around 4, though, or? Oh, if we start at 3.30, we'll probably continue to 5.30 or 6.00. All right. And what about dinner? No, okay. So 6.30? All right, good. Or it could be 6.15 or something like that. Okay, great. No.

[26:44]

I mean, yes. Does anybody have something you'd like to bring up? It sounds like, by the way, for the break we need 45 minutes or 40 minutes. Next break we'll decide. Yes. I have a question about . Definition seems impossible because this would be . I'm sorry, start again. Definition is impossible because this could be a . Okay. But maybe I won't care to describe the conditions when something overtakes us, for example, in Sydney.

[27:49]

Would you agree that that's the case when things stop and Linking or linking? Linking. Linking stops. And we are awake. The more conditions, that must be good. OK. Deutsch? Bitte? . Well, sometimes Zazen is defined according to the limitations we've presented. Manchmal wird Zazen so definiert gemäß dieser Beschränkungen, die du vorgestellt hast.

[28:58]

Da es eben nicht konzeptualisiert werden kann, dann sagen wir, was immer passiert, während du sitzt, das ist Zazengeist. In diesem Fall ist die Bedingung einfach das Sitten. And that's actually a rather healthy and productive attitude to have. And the definition you went on with further is still aiming at defining Zazen mind even if non-conceptually. And the process of zazen mind is the process of not defining.

[29:58]

So zazen mind is the activity of not defining. So that's different than aiming at a definition that's non-conceptual. That makes sense. Yeah. I want to rise and go away from satsang. Is that included in satsang? Yes, that's included in satsang. Because it's the process, not exactly what you think. Okay. Now... I know this sounds slippery. Yeah, and it is kind of slippery. But... Once you get the feel of it that you're talking about a process, not a thing.

[31:21]

And the fruits of the process, not the... I don't know. Let me try to feel with that. I'll come back to it. OK, somebody else, come here. I wouldn't be doing it if it didn't. Mm-hmm. Now I'm meeting with him.

[32:23]

I don't know why, but I'm meeting with him. That is a joy. Dogen defines zazen as self-joyous samadhi. And in a way, you could say the distinction between early Buddhism and later Buddhism is a shift from an emphasis on cessation to bliss. And I want to try to say something about that in a little bit. speaking about mosquito beneficence samadhi.

[33:24]

Which is you brought up yesterday. Yeah. When we practice , then that means . Each time we are sitting , That does not mean that like the concept of there's more you practice something, the better you should do it. That only means that you're very often enthusiastic, but you don't, to improve your competence in that, correct? Yes and no. Yeah, okay.

[34:26]

Because in fact, there's some improvement. And Zazen is a skill. And you develop your skill. Yeah, I'll come back. Something else? Yeah. I'm thinking about the work with koans. Is the koan a bridge? Sorry. I'm thinking about the work with koans. Is the koan a bridge between the mind of definitions to the mind of Sazen? Do you not speak German?

[35:27]

Oh, yeah, okay. As I understand it, it's a matter of being very precise and to look at the terms and so on. Koan practice. I have to ask something very stupid. What means zazen in German? Well, it's a Japanese word. And za means just to sit. Like this is called a za-pu. Pu means cushion and za means sitting cushion. And these places, many stores, sell zabutons.

[36:36]

Futon is a spread-out thing. So the F becomes a B when you add it to za, and zabuton, which is a spread-out sitting cushion. So the za doesn't just mean to sit. And zen means to be absorbed by that sitting. So it's absorbent sitting. Which is translated as meditation and it's not really accurately translated as meditation. Okay. She asked because we said we are sitting sasen. Yeah, but that's trying to... We've turned it into an English word.

[37:44]

And so then we put it in English sentences and treat it as a noun. But in Japanese you do the same. You talk about doing sadhana. To say something definitive about koan would take a little while. For me, these Tang and Song dynasty teachings, which is what they are, are so far at least of teachings that I have access to. of teachings that I have access to, the most complex and evolved statements about the human condition and potentiality that I know of. The root of koans is to take either phrases or images

[38:51]

To confront you with either wisdom phrases or wisdom images. In such a way that it precipitates understanding. Like the rain falls down precipitates. Something else? Leonard, don't you need some cushions or something? This is okay. Because we have these little, there's plenty of these if you want. Okay. For now, okay. You still distinguish? Well, I'm not sure that I can. Oh, I see. Okay. And then you mentioned interpenetration and interrelatedness. And may I remember that you mentioned a third one, but I can't remember what it was.

[40:08]

I just said interdependence and interpenetration. Okay. Can you please give some more explanation of the difference between those concepts? Mm-hmm. Well, Interdependence is an idea that's not much different than an environmentalist would have. Interdependenz, das ist eine Vorstellung, die nicht sehr, die unterscheidet von der Vorstellung, die ein Umweltaktivist hat. I mean, it's very thoroughly understood and its implications are worked out for us psychologically and emotionally, but it's still basically a kind of environmental type idea.

[41:11]

Es ist eine Umweltvorstellung, apart from psychologically, Its psychological and spiritual and so forth aspects are developed in Buddhism, but still at root it's an environmental kind of idea. Yeah, that the insect depends on the, et cetera. But interpenetration is that each mosquito includes the whole ocean. Each drop of water is also the whole ocean. Now that's not understood in a kind of mechanical sense, but more if you were on Mars, say, and you found a boot Yeah.

[42:22]

Or you found a blade of grass. You'd have to know that somehow the whole earth was present. A single blade of grass can't be there unless the whole earth is there to make blade of grass possible. Yeah. So this sense of the... Or it's also understood as an all-at-once-ness. That the all-at-once-ness of this moment is dependent on everything all at once. But those are ways of trying to get at a feeling for the idea of interpenetration. But I'll try to come back to it in a moment. Okay. What else? Yes. I have a stupid question.

[43:39]

To conceptualization, is it only possible to have language concepts or do we have other concepts too? Also meine Frage ist, gibt Konzepte nur in der Sprache oder haben wir auch andere Konzepte? No, not only in language, but it's a little hard.

[44:41]

But in this sense, a concept is understood to be something that substitutes for or interferes with direct perception. or interferes with. For example, if you look at a flower and you say, that's a flower, that's a concept. And then what I perceive is the, oh, that's such and such a flower. There's nothing wrong with this. But it tends to cut off the direct perception. Now, if I think of an example. Say you're walking along and you hear something in the wood.

[46:09]

And you don't know what it is. But then in the shadows, you see it's a deer. At least it's not a bear. And at Creston we have bears, so you might feel more relaxed. So as soon as you name it, you tend to drop it. Particularly when the name is part of a sentence in thinking. Besonders dann, wenn diese Benennung Teil eines Satzes ist und des Denkens. And our thinking tends to be future-directed. Language thinking. Unser Sprachdenken, das neigt dazu, Zukunft gerichtet zu sein. So as soon as you name something, it's brought into the sentence structure and off it goes into the future. Also sobald man etwas benennt, geht es in die Satztruktur und verschwindet in die Zukunft hinein.

[47:11]

I drop a little past, okay. Kann auch in die Vergangenheit sein. But generally, yeah, it may create an association of the past. But in terms of your responsiveness to it, it's how I'm going to respond in the future. It's like dropping something in the Rhine at full flood, gone. So, but if you withhold calling it a deer, then you pay attention to the sound in an entirely different way. Now if you make this deer into an image, you don't call it a deer, but you turn it into the same kind of image that stops you from looking at it, then it's not language, but it's still a concept.

[48:24]

So part of this practice is, for example, if I'm looking at you, I refrain from deciding whether you're a deer, a bear, or a human being. That's pretty simple. But that's what the Diamond Sutra says. The Bodhisattva does not perceive a person a self, a living being, or a lifespan. Now, of course you have a lifespan. I'm sorry to remind you. But if I... And to say you're not a living being... means that in the act of perception, I don't perceive you as either existing or not existing.

[49:47]

So we could simplify it and say it's a kind of timelessness. I perceive you outside of comparison. Comparisons of whether you're living or not living. Vergleichen darüber, ob du lebst oder nicht lebst. And so forth. Und so weiter. Yeah, okay. But he was next. Yeah? The question which follows for me is, is it still possible to act? Am I able to act? If I don't know, is he a bear or a deer or a human being? Don't I need concept to be able to act?

[50:56]

Not to be able to act, but be able to think you do. Okay. Now, I don't want to try to answer all these right away, if I could. I don't want to try to answer everything that's come up here. Even if I could answer everything that's come up here. Because we have to stew in this a little bit. Yeah. Does that make sense? We have to kind of know what this is all about. Okay. So I'm going to try to interpret inject into the conversation some things that may make it clearer as we go along until tomorrow. But now the stewing process is good. But unless you really stew about it, you don't really come to any subtle sort of feeling of what it's about.

[52:12]

Okay. Someone else. I want to continue with your concept in language and so with familiarity. It's very different if you know a piece of music or if it's the first time the way you hear it. So it's this knowing also a sort of concept, because you anticipate the rest of humanity, the Ukraine, whatever comes. Yeah, that would be a concept. So it's just another level of language, you see? Yes. Because it's structured by human beings, so it's a version of language. I wanted to talk about this area of conceptualization and also trust or acquaintance.

[53:23]

For example, a piece of music is completely different when you hear it for the first time or when you know the song and you already expect it to come later. I don't think we need to make the emphasis on that music is a language. If the familiarity, a mind in which things are familiar and predictable, is the same as a concept-generated mind. I mean, I can remember times like coming out of Tassajara where I had been for some weeks or months. And one advantage to

[54:24]

over Crestone and Johanneshof. At least at that time, there were no phones, no electricity, no, you know, anything. No heat. So you really were, you know, I didn't even know what century you were in after a few weeks. Mm-hmm. And when you came out, sometimes I had to drive to the city, then you had to go up on the coast there to about 5,000 feet, which is not very high compared to Crestone, which is 8,600 feet. But still, sometimes it was like going through the Antarctic because there'd be deep snow and blizzard. I mean, it was like you took your life in your hands to drive out sometimes.

[55:50]

That means you almost can be, you could almost die trying to get out of there, which sometimes was close. And you'd get to the other side and you could turn the radio on in the car and suddenly a song you knew thoroughly would come on. And it was like a choir of angels had appeared. It was a note, absolutely precisely. And that's because you really do generate another kind of mind, and not through the concept. So concept is only one designation for generating a kind of mind, a particular kind of mind.

[56:51]

When we were in Japan, with you and up in the country hall. And then we went to the coffee shop and there was a video of the Rolling Stones. And watching this, I couldn't get it together as music. It was just a pile of talent and tones. And it was very strange. Yeah, sometimes that experience is called sitting in a heap of sound and form. It's a heap of sound and form you don't know quite what any of them are.

[57:51]

Mm-hmm. And we're all right now sitting in a heap of sound and form. But we're engaged in a process of putting it into order. Okay, you want to say something, Jan? Mm-hmm. What is perception? And what is reflection? And maybe my question is, can you dispense of reflection? And in the example you mentioned, will you have something? Only a bearing, nothing else, nothing extra.

[58:53]

So from your point of view, I'm surprised. I expected you to be now cognizant. Well, cognizant... I think we're getting kind of tangled up here again. But cognition here in this means just knowing. Distinguish from conceptualization. And when you're in a non-comparative state, there's a kind of timeless feeling.

[60:05]

When you say no lifespan, there's a kind of timeless feeling. It's like everything is stopped and there's no, there's only here. To talk about this kind of thing, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so, Customarily, it's done on a much slower basis. Maybe about even a seven-day sashimi, we might talk about 10% of this. And the Sashin gives you the experiential basis to be kind of open to it.

[61:09]

Because you've got to feel the interlinear quality, the many folds of the situation, and not turn them too quickly into ideas. So I think we need a more experiential basis and more examples we can shield. Ich glaube, wir brauchen mehr erfahrungsmäßige Basis oder mehr Beispiele, die wir spüren können. So let me say something about this mosquito beneficence samadhi. Also möchte ich etwas über den mosquito wohltuenden samadhi sagen.

[62:13]

Okay, so mosquitoes are buzzing around you while you're sitting. Die mosquitoes schwirren um dich herum, während du sitzt. And you're not supposed to scratch. And this can be quite annoying. I've had many experiences of it. I've even had experiences where every place where your robes are creased, mosquitoes line up and bite you right through your robes. And there's people standing behind you to beat you if you move. I'm not recommending this, but not necessarily a thing. You're not recommending it.

[63:16]

Yeah. So what does happen if you refrain from scratching or shooing them away? If you can actually refrain from it, first, it's quite good for the mosquitoes. They get to fill their tanks freely. and go on their propagating journeys. That's why I call the mosquito beneficent samadhi. This is very good for the mosquitoes. And also, if we can refrain from chewing them away and scratching. And usually they're gone, but by the time you feel the bite, usually they've already gone to somewhere else in your head.

[64:16]

So you go like this, and they're actually over here. And by the time you feel them, they've already stung you and are already on another place on your head. And it does, if you refrain from, as I said, scratching, slapping, and chewing away, you can enter into a very clear state of mind. And what have you technically done then? You've broken the connection between thought and action. Because normally if a mosquito is there, there's an immediate tendency to act. If you break that connection, when you're so pushed as mosquitoes can push you, you enter really technically a samadhi from refraining from this act.

[65:33]

Okay. So if I tried to draw this, So this is a person. That's the character or kanji for person. Okay, and this is an object. Okay, so if you are, say you desire, this is a desirable object.

[66:46]

So you are, you are having some desire for this object. And there's lots of little small desired molecules going toward the object. And so you, by willpower, you pull it away. And at that point, time of pulling your attachment away. You create some sort of little samadhi in here. Because you have an experience by pulling this away, you break the connection between thought and action. And you create this kind of samadhi.

[67:52]

So we could say that this is an example of the general idea that if you have desire for something and you pull it away from it, a kind of clarity appears. And that's true. Like resisting the third cookie. Or resisting the first cookie. Whatever gives you the feeling. That's just the normal part of life. Okay. Zazen itself by one of its main instructions, asking you not to scratch, is basically creating a mosquito-well-turning samadhi. Because the more you can sit without any movement, outer and inner, you open yourself up to a dimension of mind that's not connected with acting.

[69:13]

So in the early part of that, then that becomes a kind of psychoanalytic process. Because you have this confidence that you won't move no matter what happens. So any level of murderous thought or whatever it is can come up. So anything, any human being in the planet is up to you to some extent and that can come up. Or even the dimension of craziness. And by this kind of embodied confidence of sitting without an opening, you can sit without being threatened that you're going to this contagion. Sorry? You can sit without being frightened that it's contagious.

[70:24]

Okay, so, but it also, after you get past the psychoanalytic process of it, And as I've said recently, you in effect have recapitulated your personal history over a couple of years. You enter a state of mind that's filled with the potential of action, but the freedom from acting. So, basically, Zazen can teach you something very similar to resisting scratching in the field. Okay. You know, I noticed that Paul Repps was an early Zen pioneer.

[71:31]

And he gave a talk once at Zen Center back in the 60s. And I was always a little suspicious of these folks who didn't, you know, didn't seem to really know much about practice. But it's a simple thing. There were flies on him while he was taking a lecture. And he was able to do a simple thing. He just let them walk around. And Bernie Allen seemed very relaxed that we make them go away. And it was clearly in person. I could see he wasn't a person who was in a reactive state. All right. Okay, so now this is more a view of early Buddhism, which is the emphasis on cessation. Okay, now later Buddhism would look at it more like this.

[72:56]

You have the person. You have the object. And you have a lot of things going toward the object. Draw a pattern here. So you have a little thin line of let's say a wisdom consciousness. And you have a big line of this kind of consciousness. And through practice, you kind of make this go down to there. Pretty soon you have only a wisdom consciousness. So the wisdom consciousness doesn't have any problem with the object. It all feels transparent.

[73:56]

So there's no reason to pull yourself away from the object. Why is there no reason to pull yourself away from the object? Because through wisdom practice, it's perceived or known now as non-graphic. So because it's non-graspable, how can you be attached to it? OK. So let me try to give you some kind of feeling for this shift. Easiest thing to do is to speak about our sitting right here. Okay, I've been in this room a lot of different times. And I been with many of you in many circumstances.

[75:14]

But as you give it some thought and it's obvious there's a very there's an absolute particularity to this moment. There's nothing in this moment that's anything like that's identical or like previous moments. And this moment is not the same as previous moments or the moments this morning or last night. So the reality of this moment, the only reality that's really here is this moment. No, but can I be present to this moment? The uniqueness of this moment. Do I actually feel this moment as unrepeatable, non-repeatable? Now, Dogen speaks about the total exertion of a single dharma.

[76:39]

Exertion effort. Exertion of a single dharma. So dharma in this sense is the momentariness of this moment. Now, so what's going on here is basically non-graspable. I can't explain to any of you that what's really happening at this moment is such and such. Because we're already quite a few moments down the line while I'm trying to say the sentence. So I can't know this moment conceptually. I can feel it. I can allow myself to relax into it. you can find a kind of... relax into a kind of openness and simplicity.

[78:00]

But it's a different kind of mind than a mind that tries to grasp it conceptually. Now, I can look at you with my eyes and I can hear you and so forth. Ich kann euch mit den Augen anschauen und ich kann dich hören, und so weiter. But if I stop and think about what I'm seeing or hearing, I'm not actually in this immediate present. Aber wenn ich aufhöre und beginne darüber nachzudenken, was ich sehe oder höre, dann bin ich nicht mehr in der Gegenwart. No, but I do have to function in this, you know, I have to say something. And I have to wait until she's finished translating? But right now I'm not thinking at all about what I'm saying. There's practically not a thought in my head. I feel something in my stomach. And then something is coming out of my mouth. I mean, there's clearly thinking processes have to be involved.

[79:09]

Mm-hmm. Hard to explain. But you do have the sense that this moment is a dharma. It's not graspable. And Dogen's, the Sandokai rather, speaks about the myriad streams that flow in darkness. And the sense of that is, you know, I can look at you and hear you, etc. But there's a great deal flowing here that's not in the realm of the five senses.

[80:12]

And what you're hearing me say and what I'm saying may be what you were thinking of asking me or something like that. Where is that coming from? I mean, there's some kind of interpenetration here that you can't just call interdependent. Now, normally, again, if I look at you, I will have a sense of self or other. I'll say, you're over there and I'm here. Or if you start to speak, I'd think, well, I know what he's going to say now. If I think that way, then I am abiding in distinction between self and other. This is normal. But as a wisdom practice, I can dissolve that sense of self and other. I like the word bless. And in traditional practice, every time you pass someone, you give a little bow.

[81:47]

Basically, what you're doing is a physical gesture in embodied space. You're bringing your field together. Your aura, if you like. You bring it together at this chakra. Now, if you're in mental space, it's just a routine gesture. If you're in embodied space, it's a kind of movement in a liquid. When you bring your hands together to here, and then you kind of let yourself dissolve in the action with the other person. And the word blessed is the same, etymologically, is the same word as to bloom or flower, to blossom.

[82:49]

So this wisdom practice is each time you meet someone, let this non-duality blossom. So even though I can listen to her, I can feel a kind of dissolving of the self and other distinction when I look at you. And when the self's other distinction dissolves, even momentarily, and again, this is parallel to the idea of there's your posture and there's the ideal posture. So it's not that it would be better to be non-dual.

[84:09]

Or it's better to be dual. The experience of the self-other distinction allows us to dissolve it. And then you have an experience of non-duality. But it's not an experience of non-duality. Everything is non-dual. At this moment, there's an experience of non-duality. Non-duality is not a generalization. Remember, everything is particular. Everything is particular. Emptiness is particular. Non-duality is particular. So if looking at you, I have an experience of non-duality, and then I look at you, it's a different experience of non-duality. The self-other distinction I dissolve with you is slightly different than the self-other distinction I dissolve with you.

[85:24]

This is what I'm talking about is really what a wisdom practice is. It's a decision to make sense of how we exist. To really see that things are just like they are. And to bring this into the way you proceed. And decide to do this or not, it's a decision. It's not natural. While it may happen in flashes, which gives us intuition of this kind of reality, to make it the practice of wisdom and compassion is a realized intention. and realize through bringing your attention to each perceptual moment.

[86:33]

So now we come back to what I meant with a little perhaps more feeling for, to bring your attention and energy equally to each moment. to become one with what is given to us at each moment. Now, there's no idea of oneness in Buddhism. Oneness is a theological idea and something we in the West are very ingrained in because we think there's some general thing outside this. In Buddhism, this is not a container. There's no outside to it. And that's also part of this idea of inner penetration. Since it's not a container, everything is contained in each particular container.

[87:34]

So to the extent that I become one with what is given to me at each moment, trusting this particularity as it is without saying, oh, it's better tomorrow or the next day, Whether this is shit or, you know, cookies, I don't know. It's what's given at this moment. And you're generating a mind open to what's given at this moment. And there's an activity of becoming one with just what's given to us at this moment. And that the oneness of this particularity, not a generalization of oneness, or a dissolving into non-duality.

[89:01]

Okay, the more you practice with this, the more I feel the particularity of this immediacy right now of this room. then I'm really also speaking to all of you. You're also speaking to me. Because if one more person comes in the room right now, It changes everything. That's a slightly different situation. So whatever this non-grabable moment is right now, it's entirely generated by all of us equally. So in the second picture, you have through experience changed that stream so the attachment part gets less and less and the wisdom part gets more.

[90:24]

So I think we should stop pretty soon, so I'll just give you one more thing. It's not good to go over the edge. But it's good to go a little bit over the edge. I'll give you the list I did the other day. Now, each perception, this is dry, empty. Each perception is sixfold.

[91:29]

Sixfold. Why is it sixfold? Because every object is related to the eye, the ear, the nose, taste. Touch and mind as a perceiver, as an initiator of information. So there's a six-fold asset to everything that you do. And if I perceive Marie in color, I feel a proprioceptive connection, et cetera. But she's not saying anything.

[92:45]

So the absence of sound is part of perception. Well, it doesn't matter that a stone, for instance, is silent, because it's still sixfold, because you know the absence of the sound. It's a sign. A mental representation. Now again, it's obvious that when I'm seeing you, I'm seeing something happening in my life. I know you're all out there, but I'm still seeing you in my own movie screen. These wonderful birds we have found here.

[93:49]

When I hear the birds, I'm not hearing the birds. I'm hearing my own and hearing the birds. Another bird hears something. Another bird. A bird. hears something quite different than I hear. And what's real? What that bird hears or this bird hears? There's no absolute reality. There's only what that bird hears and what this bird hears. What I hear is only in the capacity of what I can hear. So I'm actually hearing my own hearing arising through the bird.

[94:52]

Okay, so all Everything you know is happening in you. It's not to deny the reality of the outside. So it's a wonderful power to know. Because it means that if I'm looking at Leonard, my old friend here, I can brighten the image of Leonard or let it relax or whatever. Yeah, so it's not a depressing day. I can let the depressing day in, but still it's mine. I can brighten the image of Leonard.

[95:49]

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