So, are there anything you'd like to bring up? You know I love hearing your voices. Yes? One question. So, if I've right understood you, it was so that we can get to this feeling of intention and connect through this sort of These all living beings. Seriously, they feel all this and they are... Why don't you say it in German? If I understood it correctly, it means the core to this feeling of connectedness and intention. Intention. Intention, yes. What he explained, that we feel everything between two people. I can't do that either. I understand. The basic idea is that you have to say to yourself that all people are the same.

[01:13]

that you come to this intuition by feeling everything that exists in the world. Yes, that it is no longer such a moral idea or an intellectual one, that everyone is equal and we somehow belong together, but that it is really on an experiential level. So the question was what connectedness means again, I think. I'm sorry. So was that your question? So maybe I should translate it again to Roshi. Yes, might be good. Is the connectedness, is it rather than this idea that we are all the same or belong together, is it just this feeling of, you know, of...

[02:31]

this shared body or mutual body, is that what we mean, the connectedness in Buddhism? It's the pencils, this now, yeah.

[03:43]

It's not the gas stove. Though I may... We don't know what those pencils are soaked in. But anyway, if you understood what I said or had a feeling of understanding through what I said, This is a manifestation or taste of our mutual body. Or a taste of connectedness. But from what I understood you to say, you have the right idea. But you also had a couple other questions, I know.

[04:46]

Do you want to ask them? Yeah, sure. So... The first question is how we should practice it. It does not come from oneself. We have to practice this ability. and how do you practice it? I am just a beginner and I would like to know how do you practice it, in the best way or in the most correct way? What is the right way? I have heard a lot about discipline. What is the right attitude? The question is how do we practice all this and how do we find the right intention and how do we find enough discipline and should we practice with a teacher or how do we just start about or go about this?

[06:21]

And you said at the break that some people say to you, oh, you should just do what you feel, and some people say you should have some getting up early or something like that. What did he say? He just added something. He just added something. Just some movies. She thinks I secretly know German, you know. If I'd known, it would make a big difference. Yeah, I know, but still. That's out of respect. This translation of wisdom, meditation and discipline.

[07:29]

The word discipline in our cultures has the feeling of forcing something on ourselves. Something military or something like that. But discipline really just means to do it. In this wisdom meditation and to do it. But do it is the craft of doing it. And doing it means to do it in a way that's effective. So this is something you have to decide, but you can also get some look at the tradition of what makes it, what is the craft of practicing.

[08:35]

So as I said earlier, talking about service, chanting and so forth, usually it helps to do it in a way that doesn't fall into our regular schedule. It's outside our usual habits. That you make it a new habit. Because basically, again, look at the basic. We are born with the mind of waking, dreaming, and non-dreaming deep sleep. And we have a habit, life habits, based on actualizing those three minds. So we go to bed at a certain time and so forth. But in practice you're trying to discover a fourth mind that unites those three and is wider than those three.

[10:02]

And although this fourth mind is not in the realm of our sense experience, you know it's there because something unites our three minds. So you have to have some basic schedule. You have to find some schedule of practice that's as basic as going to bed and waking up in the morning. So... So this is for you to discover what... Usually it's something like getting up a little earlier. And you have to make it a habit. A habit as basic as brushing your teeth or having a meal or going to bed.

[11:06]

If you don't make it a habit, it will never reach very deeply. The word habit means habitation, where you live. So it has to become part of where you live. And if you believe in this fourth mind, then you develop a habit until this fourth mind appears. And the problem with doing practice when you feel like it, If you do practice when you feel like it your ego controls your practice. Because your ego won't let you do practice when it interferes with it.

[12:18]

The word ego and bully mean the same thing. So ego and bully, bulle, bedeutet das Gleiche. A bully is like the kid in school who takes your hat and won't give it back or who hits you. Do you have a German word for it? Do you have no bullies in Germany? This is a great culture. Der Bösewicht. So you have to... if you have a schedule that you follow... Excuse me. Is anyone out there? Help. See, I'm learning to be a clown.

[13:34]

You can teach me some more later. If you have a regular schedule in which you sit, say, meditate, Then when you're sick or depressed or whatever it is, you sit still. Then your whole life comes into your practice. So in this sense, that's knowing how to do it. That's the craft of doing it, which then looks like discipline. One of the most pernicious ideas around about practice is that you can practice anywhere. Pernicious?

[14:39]

Pernicious means negative or damaging. It's of course true you can practice anywhere. But is it the same kind of practice? Absolutely not. I can live my life practicing quite happily in a job or doing whatever I want to do. And I'm quite happy. But if I practice and practice find a habit of sitting, and I study the teachings with power, my practice evolves much more deeply and dramatically.

[15:43]

And then if I practice with others, that's even a larger quantum jump. I mean, what I know in about practice be almost nothing if I didn't practice with you. So there's just no, I can practice anywhere, but to think that's the same practice is a form of delusion, you know. Well, you can practice anywhere. That's just an excuse. Well, of course I can practice everywhere, but to think that it would be the same practice is a form of self-deception. There's deeply maturing and productive practice, and then there's practice that makes you feel good. If I didn't know this to be true, I wouldn't work so hard to establish a place like this with my friends or Cresthams. I would never be able to show you how to read that section of the Diamond Sutra if I just practiced living in a city somewhere, doing my daily life.

[16:58]

It doesn't mean, you know, I still believe in lay adept practice. Which means I don't believe that monk's practice is real and lay practice is some dilute form you give to people to make them happy. And that's the tradition. Dilute for the lay people, serious for the monks. And I'm trying to create some mixture here. You had another question.

[18:13]

To practice it, maybe we need a teacher or a cook who can say us what we are doing right, what we are doing wrong. To make right what we should make right and who looks after us. Well, I hope so. But the teacher in Zen is our relationship. You know, in some sense I'm the teacher. I have been doing this for 40 years. But the teacher really appears through our relationship. And something that comes from our mutual commitment and that we generate together. And if you generate that kind of teacher, it becomes internalized and even after your physical teacher dies, it stays with you. So that's the meaning of lineage.

[19:32]

That this mutually generated teacher is passed through the generations. Mike, you had a question? Why is... what you said this morning about livelihood, and just now again brought onto me with a very slow learner, I think, because it has taken me 12 years to find out that the livelihood I had, the profession I had, was diametrically opposed to living the vision of Buddhism. For the last year I have been thinking, what have I been doing wrong?

[20:36]

Am I such a bad Zen student that I cannot make any livelihood okay? And I've come to the conclusion that with some forms of of livelihood are simply pernicious, or leading astray. So, it gave me great support that you have some... you just have something to the same extent. And I feel somehow supported by that. Well, maybe what I want to share is with people who are at the point where they think their life is not in accord with the vision they have for this, is that maybe they shouldn't take 12 years as I did.

[21:38]

I don't know. It took me longer. So I'm glad I heard you say that. Looking at you, I'm thinking, shall I try and... I have now discovered what a slow learner I am. The words of Roshi about the work he does and his life experience. They also made it clear to me that for 12 years I tried to bring my work into a sense practice, although my work was actually so diametrically opposite to this sense practice. Now I see that it is not possible to combine the two. And I feel supported that Roshan has spoken in this sense.

[22:41]

I am sure that it is a wrong idea to practice this everywhere. And that not every unit of work is good. And to put it in a different setting is not a good idea. Well, the... Well, the Buddha taught this also very early on in his teaching, the Eightfold Path. His very first teaching.

[23:52]

And in many ways you could say everything we've been speaking about so far is contained in these first few Eightfold aspects of the Eightfold Path. But it's right or complete or perfect, perfecting. So perfecting or right views. Intentions, conduct, speech, and livelihood. And unless you get all those together, you don't have the energy for practice. When you have, let's say, nourishing or accurate views, And you intend those in your speech and your conduct.

[24:57]

And then in a non-harming livelihood. A livelihood in which you can feel the sky of sentience. then the energy is available to you, which is the sixth of the eightfold path. For meditation, mindfulness and wisdom. If we look at... like what we were talking about, is that you can understand the discipline or craft of practice to realize, to come in accord with or to come into knowing this fourth mind.

[26:02]

As you know, Buddhism is rooted in a recognition in India, pre-Buddhist India, that these three minds were born with, so could there be a mind that connects them? And such a mind would necessarily be outside of consciousness and ordinary perception. So we can know it by induction But then we have to have it as a faith or a vision. So practice is often thought to fall into this pattern.

[27:14]

And it's in Japanese a formula, Shigegyosho. Which is you start out with a faith or a vision of sentience. Or that this fourth mind must be possible. And this fourth mind, let's call it the fourth mind or original mind, Can't be somewhere else. Where could it be? It has to be here. It has to be here, but we don't know it's not within the realm of ordinary perception. So it's a kind of faith. And if you don't have that faith, really have that faith, enlightenment is just a mirage.

[28:23]

If you have that faith and that faith that it's not separate from you, that it's already here. But it's not in the categories in which we normally notice things. So then you can work with a phrase like, already here, already here. So you see how faith and understanding work together. So let's say you work with already here as faith. Or a vision that this is possible. And more this spatial thinking, not time rushing into the next moment thinking.

[29:23]

So you take as a turning word, like a koan phrase. Already here. Already here. You just keep saying that out of faith. If you say it because you intellectually think, it won't work. It has to come from a kind of faith or vision. It has to come on each breath. You will not be able to continue it unless you actually have the faith that this fourth mind or enlightenment, whatever you want to say, is already here. If you mostly doubt it, it won't be powerful. If you sometimes doubt it, but more deeply you are faced, then you keep saying, already here. Or just now.

[30:32]

Or the phrase I often give you, just now is enough. Now, if you keep having that faith that you keep bringing that vision, you hold, one of the main practices of Buddhism is to hold something before you. To hold in your presence. So you hold that and that begins to precipitate understanding. You see little glimmers of the truth of this. And then you begin to practice those little glimmers. And then enlightenment is almost a sure thing.

[31:32]

And you get your bottle of oil right here. No, I'm just kidding. And if we look at this other formula, hearing, thinking, practice... It's like you ask me, Edward, you ask me a question. And it's based on trying to hear what I'm speaking about. Or we look at... To read this the way I did is to hear this. To really hear it. And it means a hearing rooted in the body and in the phenomenal world. It's like if you can read a book and you can read a book for its content.

[32:35]

But you can also read a book for the mind of the writer. And if you read with power, you enter in right into the mind of the writer. And you can even feel what the writer was thinking and didn't write down, but it was the background of what he said while he was writing. And if you learn to read that way, then you can almost know what the writer is going to say, no matter what topic is brought up. That's what Buddhism means by hearing. There's a word in English.

[33:53]

We have the word perception, of course. But we also have a word, percipience. Just say percipience. Which means to perceive with the power of understanding. And perception is very kind of passive. And there's a kind of delusion in our American culture, at least, that perception is something that just happens. And the word percipient most people don't even know. But it means to perceive with the power of understanding. So that's hearing and then... Thinking is the kind of thinking we've been doing, like about the Diamond Sutra.

[34:58]

This engaged thinking. And I've been reading recently the biographies of a number of scientists, and quite a few of them, contemporary scientists, do all kinds of, they don't know yoga, but they do physical things to kind of ground their thinking in their body. And they develop various quirks that they discuss with each other. Well, to make my thinking relevant, I have to do this. I stand up and I jiggle for a while and then I sit down and think or something. But these things, thinking mathematics, is about the physical world. So we send a spaceship up and it passes Mars just when we think it will and so forth. I mean, it's totally extraordinary that we can do some calculations here on a piece of paper and it passes Mars just when we expect it to.

[36:11]

But that's because this thinking on a piece of paper is connected with the physical world. So you have to get your own thinking grow down into your body. And into the phenomenal world. And that's part of this visually based thinking. And then we discover practice. I think we've had enough for this morning, don't you? I would like to give you a couple other examples this afternoon of this way of thinking that I think might be useful to you, and let's have some conversation and let's... What's the word?

[37:26]

Re-enter slowly. So, let's see, it's 10 after now, and we're going to eat at 12.30. And what time shall we get back together? But who has to leave early today? Anybody? What time? questions that you'd like to ask? Yes. Can regular sitting become a habit? It's good if it does. But one thing you said is that one should change habits to see what we do, if I understood you right.

[38:52]

Yeah, there's dead habits and there's live habits. But in the sense that habit is where you live. For instance, a writer has to develop a habit of writing. If it becomes a habit, there's no life in it? No, obviously that's not good. Or if it becomes a bad habit, Like it's where you sit zazen and smoke and drink. Smoking and drinking is fine because I'm doing zazen while I'm doing it. Some other serious question. At least you'll get a serious answer like that.

[39:57]

Yes. You explained to us a vision being like the base for our practice, like a starting point. What about if that starting point is suffering or pain? Deutsch? Well, the basic, in that sense, the vision of Buddhism is that there is suffering. In a very deep idea of suffering, not just simple suffering.

[41:00]

And that there's a cause of suffering. And that if you really do the work related to the causes of suffering, then there's freedom from suffering. So the vision would be that there is a freedom from suffering through the path. But again, practice is always first of all acceptance. Yeah. Is there something else? Just add those. What exactly does it mean not to study ahead of your practice?

[42:03]

Because if you finish a book on Buddhism, you meet some territory which is unknown to you. And even if you read the few lines of the Heart Sutra, you will meet, confront territory which is unknown to you. So always, as soon as you read some Buddhist texts, you're somewhere, somewhere ahead. So I heard this, wave leads wave and wave follows wave, but just to say, reading should not be way ahead of your practice, somehow doesn't make total sense to me. I mean, I can see that excessive reading doesn't make sense, just to read and read and read and not digest. Okay, my question is, what it means that our study should not be far ahead of our practice. Because as soon as you take a Buddhist text into your hand,

[43:07]

Well, I like there's a Catholic practice where you read a line and let it send you. Send you. Somewhere or... Yeah, I don't know what... Like you read a passage or a line or two and then you put your head back and you just feel it. You let the feeling of it come into you, even if you don't understand it.

[44:10]

And it's something like that. I mean, I most specifically studied the Lankavatara Sutra that way. In the early 60s, 61 or 62 or so, I took the Lankavatara Sutra and I read about a paragraph a day. And I didn't go on to the second paragraph. Until I'd tried to practice that paragraph. And usually by the next day and bringing into zazen, I could get a feeling of that paragraph and then I'd go to the next paragraph or next half page.

[45:22]

The paragraph didn't make... I couldn't find it. I did the best I could, and only when I'd done the best I could did I go on to the next paragraph. And more and more the paragraphs that didn't make sense began to become clear and so forth. And some I decided were just stuff written there. They weren't, couldn't practice them, but most things you could practice. And it took me two and a half years to read this. And I studied nothing else really during those two and a half years. And it's the basis for much of what I'm talking about today. Because I came into that sutra in a way, many other things I've read as part of being in graduate school, I never understood in the same way.

[46:54]

And I read the Diamond Sutra that way and I read the Heart Sutra that way and other teachings. And I went through most of the koans that way. And I went through Suzuki Roshi's lectures that way. Every lecture he gave, I went through afterwards and during, and every point I didn't get, I went back to him and asked. But I'm not saying this was so good. I was desperate and miserable, thought I was going crazy, so I had to try hard. So my study came out of a lot of suffering, which I don't wish on any of you, so please study in a relaxed way.

[48:11]

Something else? Yes? I'd like to ask something in relation to what you were saying now. So you did it for ten years, so we don't need to do it, we just listen to what you did. Yes, but Suzuki Roshi did it for all his lifetime, and I had to listen to him. I did listen to him. And... Yeah, I've been doing it now 40 years about, and I'm just beginning to understand some things. But I like it. I like something you can study all your life and not come to the end of. That's why the vows are to save all sentient beings.

[49:36]

Who'd want to save only three? Or four and a half. Yes, what else? Shouldn't we go into this text more profoundly too? Yes, yes. Why not? Can you say it again in German? Please. I asked, if Berke Roshi has done this for 40 years or so, and it overcomes us, so to speak, whether it also leads us to deepen this text or so, Yeah, you have to find some text that speaks to you.

[50:50]

And then it's good to stay. I mean, I'm trying to throw a lot of seeds out. So that when you study, things will begin to make sense because you've had a feeling for the larger picture of Buddhism. But it's much better to study something closely than generally. Maybe it's too much. I put this on the flip chart here. And I also Xeroxed it. And look at it. You thought you were getting off free this afternoon.

[51:58]

And I thought what I'd give you is another example of reading a text. And since I didn't know how much detail I'd go into it, I just in Xerox enlarged this. And since I didn't know how much detail I'd go into it, I just in Xerox enlarged this. So I'm giving you this partly from what you just said as a kind of example of how to study. And that is from this book. It's one of the two main collections of 100 koans. This is the very first koan. I talked about it when I was here in February, I believe, or March. So in this book, it's the very first koan. And it's the very beginning of the very first case.

[53:49]

And it says, it gives it this big title, The Highest Meaning of the Holy Truth. And, you know, if you want to... exercise your body, you have to find what physical exercises are most suited to the body. So in Buddhism we are looking for what mental, we could say, what thinking is most suited to the mind. Now, I think when most of us read this, something like this, we think of it as a kind of, again, poetry.

[55:11]

Or a kind of symbol. But it's actually a kind of map, a map of thinking, a map of the mind. So we can also assume if this is the very first part of the very first koan in one of the two most important books in all of Zen Buddhism, This is not starting off lightly. So I'll give you something here.

[56:15]

So let's take this first unit. Now, they could say, When you see smoke coming out of the house, you know the house is on fire. But this is very specific. When you see smoke on the other side of the mountain, But this is very specific when you see smoke on the other side of the mountain. So this is meant to be a kind of image. So you have smoke, you have the mountain, and you have some guy standing here, right?

[57:17]

There is the smoke and then the mountain and then a guy who is standing on the other side and looking. You can see why I talk and don't draw. So this is an image which you can, like we hold a turning word, like already connected. Already here. Or Thich Nhat Hanh with his walking uses something like arriving. But there's also turning images. images you hold. So now, this is a kind of thinking, and you know, when I meet with Chinese people and Japanese people in Doksan, they think more in images than we do.

[58:34]

Yes, and this thinking in pictures is a kind of thinking, and when I have Chinese or East Asian people in Doksan, then they actually always come with pictures rather than with anything else. It surprises me again and again, but they just bring a different kind of problem, so they bring pictures. And even, as you can see, these visual images, they float in space. I mean, this is floating here, that's floating there, that's floating there. It's a different way of looking at things. So what you really have here is the field. So... So this kind of thinking comes out of the meditative process of this yogic culture.

[59:37]

And with an image, you can cover more ground or literally cover more space than you can with an idea, a consecutively unfolding idea. So I tried earlier to give you a feeling of how you work with the sense of space, the sky of sentience, space as sentient. So what you have here is causation. Everything's changing. There's a fire. And there's someone who sees the fire. There's somebody who knows that everything is changing. And it's way over there, so it really emphasizes interdependence.

[60:54]

But what do we have in the middle is heaven and earth. The mountain is what represents solidity in connecting heaven and earth. So this emphasizes the horizontal world, time-based world, and the vertical world of timelessness. So if you work with this image, the way you hold a fray is like already... connected already here. If I hold an image like this, I feel the interconnections. There's Michelin smoking over there. And I know there's a fire.

[62:11]

Very occasional. So you feel the interdependence and at the same time you feel this vertical dimension of the mountain. You feel this solidity. So this is also karma and this is dharma. Because dharma literally means what holds. So we look at Geralt there and you see the mountain, see the knees, and then you see the pointed head. And if you look at Buddha statues, like the one at Crestown, they're often a mountain, very clearly a mountain, from the knees up to the shoulders, to the head, to the flame. And the altar is called the mountain.

[63:12]

And the altar is supposed to be Mount Sumeru. In fact, the whole temples are called mountains. Because again, that represents this dimension, timeless dimension of connecting this way. When the world feels stopped. So an image like this, is trying to convey to us a way of visualizing all at once Interdependence and inter-independence. Each thing is absolutely independent and we spend it completely there. There's nothing else.

[64:13]

Or Gerald. Each is like that. And that's a timeless quality. And we can work with that power I suggested yesterday of knowing this moment is absolutely unique and you can feel that power of absolute uniqueness. That's a power. And we can work with this power, as I mentioned yesterday. So if every moment is unique and we really feel it, then it gives us a lot of power. Or you simply feel or find yourself again in the midst of the incomprehensible. So this represents this kind of quality of interdependence and at the same time that which is like a mountain. You can feel that. So that means that, like with you, I can feel the interdependence and the causality and you have to go somewhere later?

[65:36]

But simultaneously I can feel in my backbone a real power. And it feels like it reaches right up and when I feel that I can feel it in you too. And then we can climb around too. So that's this image. Now we have this image. These also can be read practically speaking. We have the farmer over here and over there. He's got these Scottish cows and we can see the horns of the Scottish cows over the fence. And the horns is the main, in Asia, the main animal that allows you to plow and cultivate.

[66:46]

But we also know that the ox not only represents this agrarian image of support, but it also represents enlightenment. It's in the ten ox-herding pictures and so forth. And in many koans, the white ox is present. So this means that when you see the horns... you know enlightenment is there.

[67:49]

So now it means to understand this koan, you also have to live in this, as we said earlier, this sky of sentience. Dogen uses the image of The moon is reflected in the lake. And the moon is also reflected in the dewdrop. It's equally reflected in both. So whether it's just the tip of the horn or the whole ox, enlightenment is equally reflected. And then Dogen goes on to say, but the moon doesn't get wet. And the water is not broken.

[68:54]

So it means even though enlightenment shines in your life, still your life goes on in the usual way. So here she said, if you're a big sake drinker and you think enlightenment will free you, He said, maybe it will change you some, but you're still going to have a hard time walking past the sake store. That's what he meant by the water is not broken. You still have the water and you still have enlightenment. So this image is to try to get you to work with, although you can't make logical sense of it, the feeling that enlightenment is always present.

[69:58]

And that means when I see each of you, if I'm practicing this, I have to feel the possibility of enlightenment there as well as, oh, that Peter's a jerk, you know. But even though I may say that, I've never said that, Peter, but even if I did say that... I would at the same time feel I could feel in my body the power of enlightenment is there in you and to enlighten me too depending on Yes, and even when I look at you, I always have to have this feeling and also be able to feel that the possibility and the enlightenment is really there. Even when I sometimes think that Peter is really such a wimp. As seminars progress more and more, she starts giving her own lectures.

[71:27]

Okay. So this is part one, part two, part three. This is part one, part two, part three. to understand three when one is raised. That means simply in a very practical sense, if I look this up, you understand the other aspect. But that also means that when I look at Ulrika, for instance, There's the object of perception, Ulrike. And there's the perceiver. And there's the field that arises in perceiving. So every time you perceive, you know three. Every time you perceive, you feel the perceiver, the perceived, and the field of awareness that arises.

[72:31]

It means to develop a habit that whenever you look at something, you see your own mind looking. Why can we hear these lovely birds in their bliss body? You know you're hearing your own bliss body. then you will hear your own deflection body. You will hear your own hearing. But it also means, if I hold this up, like Gute's finger, there is one. But also there's always many.

[73:38]

There's always the background. If I hold it up here, it's a different background. So I'm never holding up the same thing. Because I'm also holding up the background. And the background and this one and many together make emptiness. So this also means to understand when anything is held up, anything is perceived, to know one, many, and the field in which it occurs. And then the fourth one is to judge precisely at a glance. That means if you know these turning images, these visions, you understand things, you look at things, and it's clear right away.

[74:57]

This also means one-pointedness. When the mind arises from a field, can come to, that's one-pointedness. And then the last part, this is everyday food and drink. This is the everyday food and drink. That's like I've been speaking about nourishing. In other words, the person who understands this way impermanence original enlightenment the presence of mind and the discrimination that arises from this This is what really nourishes the spiritual body.

[76:11]

This patched robe monk means your Buddha body. So that's only looking at half of this beginning. Now probably most of us read the first koan and we hardly spend any time with this. But if you just study this paragraph and try to find yourself with this feeling of interdependence and yet stability, you're practicing all of Buddhism right here. And if you want to study more on your own you can look at it this way. This first half emphasizes the practice of evolved practice of compassion.

[77:34]

To know interdependence and to feel the enlightenment of each person, this is all compassion. To understand and to understand accurately, this is really compassion. Then it says, getting to where he cuts off myriad streams. This is wisdom. This is Manjushri. And the second part is, no, you haven't practiced enough. So that's it. Sorry to give you something else, but... So you don't have to study much, you know, not even a whole sutra, just a paragraph.

[78:49]

But you have to know how to look closely. It's really a kind of inner science. This is not literature. Maybe Lenny has a carpentry manual. It says if you do this and follow... This is a kind of carpentry manual for enlightenment. Nothing is wasted here. So it asks at the end whose actions are these? It's challenging you to be this kind of person who knows this sky of sentience.

[79:51]

So that's I leave you with a lesson I like especially the black line down the side. It's quite pretty. So, anything else or should we just sit for a few minutes? Lenny has a question. Yes, Lenny. When you talk about the other side of the mountain, is that some part of the same reference with the poem, Working at the Pool Mountains, the Pool Mountains, the South Mountains, Manzaka?

[81:13]

Is that the same? Yeah, similar. Or the Blue Mountains walking in Dogen. But the mountain also has the feeling of the other side of the earth. What you can't see or know except by intuition. Crossing over. So an image like this is meant to be worked with. I can tell you something about the image. But if you develop this visual kind of thinking, Or visionary kind of thinking. Develop the ability to hold an image like that. So you feel the interdependence, the changing and the solidity at the same time.

[82:25]

You let that mountain come up your backbone. At the same time you see the world burning. And such an image, if you have the means to stay with it, will show you a lot. So working with images like that in your thinking, like Ezra Pound feeling a poem opens from an image. It's a basic but not well-known way of Thinking that's built into Buddhist texts.

[83:32]

And then will make you, when you read a sutra, understand better some of these fantastic images in the Lotus Sutra. They're not meant to be true. They're meant to be true when you work with them and hold them. A golden Buddha and a ray of light coming out and so forth. You work with that image and it's quite powerful. something unfolds from it. It's strangely, it's visual, but it's actually a kind of physically rooted way of thinking.

[84:52]

Thank you. We can understand the point of Buddhism as to give us the gift of Buddha's wide, spacious mind.

[87:17]

Wide, compassionate mind It's not any farther away than your breath. And that is not further away than your breath.

[88:10]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_74.27