I'd like to have a kind of working session on how we understand this koan. And how you, what you make of or understand this practice of thusness and big mind. and also how these seminars work for you and how you'd like to continue practicing in the future. So if anyone has anything to offer, I'd like to hear it. My practice at home is that I listen to the tapes and I remember the situation in the seminar.

[01:24]

and this works quite good for me oh really that's good yeah so how often do you listen like once in a while in your car in the morning so you listen to 10 minutes or something and then sit Good, I hope I said something interesting. Okay, thanks. I mean, you are alive, aren't you? Something's happening, you know? Well, we had a very lively discussion yesterday in our group.

[02:48]

It's always when I'm not there, though. Yes. And I liked it very much. And I also like to exchange the views and practice people do. And, well, I don't know. I would like to hear more from people in this situation also so that we could exchange our experience also in the big group. Yeah, Deutsch. And in continuing our practice, In my opinion, this should be more developed also in the small groups so that we can

[03:55]

Yeah, I think so too. And one difficulty I see is that there are new people and there are somewhat more experienced people in every seminar. And you present the teaching and it's maybe for the beginners a little bit difficult to step in. That you just have to throw yourself in, because beginners sometimes have more intuitive sense of things than more experienced people. As a... Second, what I find is that in the seminar there are always some people who are new to sitting and some more experienced. And Roshi presents a teaching, which is perhaps a bit difficult for the beginners to get into. And he says, on the other hand, the beginners just have the courage to jump into it fresh. And you can.

[05:10]

You can't study Buddhism on your own, really, or even just with a teacher. It's really necessary to have Dharma friends and, as we say, study from the side. Yeah. What I would like is to live more days here. This place is so wonderful place. And so maybe like we had a few years ago, one week, that was very nice. Maybe different hearts, so people can join. They don't have to attend all part, but just to be here for one week would be very nice. I'm very comfortable with myself. Oh, yeah. You can get off from school and things for a week. Aha.

[06:35]

Okay. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. the theme of the weekend. And now it's more different topics and some very important things like atheism and stuff, only to scratch. And this is sometimes confusing, I think. So I prefer to have more concentration on one thing, but go speak. Yeah, okay. Deutsch. I remember that in the early Seminars it was more of a theme that would be discussed more intensively.

[07:40]

And in recent times, it was a common theme, but then also on different pages, there were important themes, for example, the idea of transparency. Yeah. To the contrary. I get the feeling that it becomes a little more fluid. The not understanding, understanding is much stronger. Both are much stronger. You say, you mean. I mean that the unconsciousness is more involved.

[08:48]

No, in the seminars. I was here last year and this time. And what I really like this time is that we always come back to emptiness and the teaching goes into it and resonates in I didn't feel it at first, but after a few years I started to notice it.

[09:52]

I didn't understand anything because I just felt something. I understood some things after years, which came from my mind, and suddenly I understood. Good. That's great. I think that's the one possibility to... It's a bit of a peace of mind But I don't think it would be possible to have a more mixed approach.

[11:17]

Discussion, then sit again and then listen again. So that there is a little bit of a circle that is mixed and that doesn't stand out too much. There is the one possibility that Hans describes, you always come here and listen and take it with you. And the other possibility and also a danger is that it stacks in the words. And so Christa suggests that there should be a circle maybe of discussion and you talking and meditation. And it goes around and then makes a mixture and it becomes more and more. In other words, you're suggesting that we all sat more in a circle, and I was part of it, and it was in English and translated and things, or just in German?

[12:19]

Perhaps we should also... Participate. Yeah. Okay, let me think about it. Yeah. Thank you. If there is a certain amount of time, for example once a week, where everyone is sitting together, but not in the same room, then everyone is sitting together. This might help people, because they know that at the same time everyone is sitting together. I would find it very interesting and good if there would be a time once a week where we all would sit in our place, wherever we are, so that everyone knows this is the time all the people are sitting.

[13:33]

3 a.m.? 7 a.m. ? I'd like to make a commentary on the teaching itself. As I'm a teacher, also, I'm very impressed by the way Richard Baker, every year so far, has succeeded in pushing me into utter consternation and confusion for at least two days running with a final apotheotic climax, which was a kind of... Yeah, sort of understanding everything that happened before or during the seminar. I call this very profound teaching. I don't know whether it was deliberately or whether it just comes out this way, but anyway, it's just the way I experience it every time. For two weeks, I'm almost lost, and I feel a candy of me in structure and sense in all this, and at the end of each seminar, it's as if it was rounded off again as a system that works in itself, although it was only turned out a bit different.

[14:45]

I mean, this thing has sort of decreased the way they record on practice. But I don't think it's, I think it's just, it works differently. But I would like what we have. Maybe there are any synonyms, but we didn't record so much, we didn't emphasize water to give a concept, but focus on one aspect of the business. I think it's more strong with that now. But it's still part of it now. Okay, yeah, thanks. There's also one aspect which I would like to have more. It's a bit of a political thing in the world. And we are all a part I understand the world and our profession, and there are many things which we have to handle with, and I think that Buddhism and practice also shows a way how to build buildings.

[15:50]

What I have to comment is that I don't have one single thought, so I must commit that in mind. Contradictions. There is something that strikes me a little bit. The access of the populism to our political tussle, to our occupations, which have been established everywhere. There is a mistake. You just wrote me a hand, okay.

[17:00]

I just would like to share an experience during meditation today. I already spoke about this, you have a small mind, you have a big mind, you have a mind which is also thinking, and you have a mind which is not thinking, more feeling, more intuition. Today I have the feeling that when I step into this big mind I feel my body, or I'm looking at my body as if I were another person. In this big mind it's more you are in your body and you feel your body from inside. And in this thinking it's more that you look at your body. It's as if other people are looking at you. So that's the first thing I can say.

[18:33]

Yeah. No, I think that's right. Deutsch? I like this teamwork. Yes, I just want to share an experience I had during the mediation. And that was, that when you, that there are these two states, on the one hand you think and it keeps going on, and on the other hand there is a feeling of fulfillment. That was interesting. I noticed that if you are in your own state, where you feel intuitively, then you are stuck in your own body. In the other way of thinking, it is more like if someone else were to look at the body. You are much more divided from the body. But it is also a different, I don't know, a different discourse of the body. When we think about the body.

[19:34]

Well, maybe I will use, if somebody else has something to say right away, I'll use Eric's statement to say a few things, get started. You know, I mean, I feel you, you know, I'm, what I do here in these seminars, I come here because of you. My job in introducing Buddhism to people is pretty much finished. And it's not something I sort of like consciously decided that I, but I just don't teach in a way that is evolving from my commitment to introduce people to Buddhism.

[21:01]

Do you understand what I mean? And I've done that a great deal. And so I just don't find that I do that, that's all. And so what I want to do is just continue practicing. And my practice is also inseparable from practicing with you. But I want to practice with you. And how to do that when I see you only once a year and so forth? What do I do? What should I do? And you understand that traditionally and probably Intrinsically, traditionally and intrinsically, Buddhism is taught in a much... Adept Buddhism is taught in an almost casual process.

[22:42]

You may have intense sashins and experiences, but really it's just basically, traditionally living together. Or having periods of time just being together, at least, if it's not all year long, at least for some lengths of time. Then everything can take its own pace. And you can, for instance, much of what I'm teaching, as I said, you only teach when a person's in this, what I call the second stage of practice, where their practice, their own inner practice is differentiated.

[23:45]

So if I talk with people who aren't at that point yet, then I have to talk in a way, as someone said, you get a feeling and you don't know, but you have a feeling and that feeling works as a seed. So that means I have to present things in ways that simultaneously accede and simultaneously articulate the difference in some way for others. Now, when it says the bodhisattva enters the weeds, Doesn't mean the bodhisattva with a kind of high-minded aloofness because he sort of was a little too lazy to become a Buddha.

[25:02]

Or mildly attached to life or attached to helping others. that he wanders in the weeds being nice to people, but actually he's got clear vision everywhere. Entering the weeds means you enter the confusion too. You don't hold yourself apart with some special practices of non-attachment or something like that. I like a story I mentioned a couple of times about a basketball player. I can't remember what his name is ever. But he's famous for moves almost always different, very complex moves, which no one can figure out what he's doing, and then he puts the ball in the net.

[26:16]

So someone said to him, a journalist said, how do you plan these things so they fool people? And said, if I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't fool people. Just because I don't know what I'm doing, they don't know what I'm going to do. And so I... I'm not trying to just, at this point now, I'm not trying to just teach you things. There's many things I could bring out and use the board, but I want to work with something on you and I don't even know what it is exactly. And I feel we are working on something and something's gotten started. And then my practice is to see if I can find a way to put words into it to bring it out together.

[27:33]

Or to put words in and in addition a certain amount of time sitting together and breaks and so forth that allow us to find out something in practice and in each of us. Now the problem with, as some of you pointed out, being two and a half days, And also not all of us being at the same level of articulateness in practice mean I'm forcing things sometimes. It means I'm forcing things sometimes. I don't like to force things. I remember Sukershi once gave, in the middle of a lecture, he suddenly stopped and he said, I have the feeling I'm fooling you.

[28:45]

Because almost nobody knew what he was saying. So then it's like you're telling a big lie. Nobody knows what you're saying. So it makes you feel weird. And if you're talking about something jewel-like or intimate, there has to be a kind of interaction where you're destroying the teaching. That's one reason I'm not enjoying public lectures these days, because I find myself talking about things and I feel I'm pouring dirty water on it, because I'm not talking about it in a way that I'm engaging with the audience or the people who are there. Yeah, and it's not that I... I mean, I do have some skills at giving public lectures if I have to, sometimes occasionally, but... That's not what I'm doing when I do this day after day.

[30:10]

I'm just practicing with you. I'm just practicing with you. So that's different than if somebody asked me to come give a public lecture for some purpose, then I can kind of say, okay, what would work for all these people? But that's different than just doing every day something together with people. This is the last seminar of this year, so perhaps one reason this is coming up And the earlier seminars are always, for me, easier to do because I'm starting fresh with people. But by the time four or five have occurred, some people have been to all of them and some people have been to some and some people have been to none.

[31:14]

It's actually a little more than I can put out in a clear way. So anyway, but I do this because of you and because you keep coming back and so, okay. But I want you to understand it's not just an obvious thing to do. I mean, I'm not just, somebody gives me a schedule at the end of the year, if I follow the schedule. One day I'm going to say, I'm not going to follow the schedule. Okay. So let me come back to this sense of non-attachment or thusness.

[32:19]

Maybe I say a few things and we take a break. I think what Eric mentioned is accurate, is that for the most part our ordinary consciousness is outside of things. It sees everything from outside and is defined and shaped. Its structure is such that it can only see things from outside. Now, the main thing that culture does, the main way culture shapes us, in my opinion, is that it gives a structure to our consciousness very shortly after birth. And different cultures

[33:21]

give a different structure from infancy on. And in my journeys, I would say that in general, most Westerners have fairly similar structures. And in Asia, it's also more similar to each other than to us. So there's two main civilizational structures, and then there's lots of small Australian Aborigines and things who are different than both. Buddhism and yogic practice is one of the ways Asia developed a common consciousness structure. Taoism borrowed its whole Kundalini stuff from India and Tibet, India and China.

[34:45]

They all borrowed and worked together to develop a similar way of viewing the world. Then there's been borrowing from west to east too, and east to west. And if you look in our Western tradition, if you look in the Hermetic tradition, and sometimes in Goethe and other people, you can find things that are very similar to Buddhism. But it was a tough road for those guys. Bruno was burned at the stake for presenting what he called Egyptian teachings. He was burned at the stake.

[35:47]

He called it Egyptian hermetic tradition of Hermes Tristestes. I'm glad I'm with such an educated group. Yeah. So, but in any case, the point of Buddhism, as it's developed multiculturally, is to get under the structures of consciousness. And that was Nagarjuna's great drive and that's really what emptiness is about. Now, how do you get yourself out of the way of yourself? In a way, we could say that's the subject of all the koans.

[37:10]

Now, the Mu koan which precedes this emphasizes the particularity of thusness. And this koan emphasizes the universality of thusness. Can you give me the English there? I mean, the way it says, Mount Sumeru fills the universe. If you know on your own how to ride an ox backwards, this means if you can turn around in yourself, And truly have your own way. It would look backwards to others, but it's not backwards to you.

[38:10]

And you'll never stick to following people all your life. When you have a consciousness that sees things from the outside, you're stuck to following people. You only have the consciousness your culture has given you. Or sometimes your particularity or craziness or insights have led you into, but then it's rarely developed. And you... So... The Buddha supposedly said just before he passed on, don't put any heads above your own. And the sixth patriarch said before he died, if somebody asks you something, tell them the opposite.

[39:19]

Okay. Here, The unconcerned surrenderer seeks a criminal name. This means really such profound detachment that you surrender to that you don't even mind being called a criminal. It means you don't just have the name your society gives you. And the moment of capture, he loses his whole body. So this also takes... This is a kind of... I mean, if you do this, you have to be a kind of adventurer. You may not be... Indiana Jones, but maybe you're Indiana Buddha or something like that.

[40:21]

Harrison Ford's become a Buddhist, by the way. Not, I think, because he was Indiana Jones. I don't know. Anyway, so it fills the universe And saying... Well, that's enough for now. This refers to the Avantamsaka Sutra. Avantamsaka. Avantamsaka Sutra. I think that's... I don't know. Hawaiian Sutra. And in which... everything is seen as penetrating everywhere without interference.

[41:23]

Okay, now let me enter this idea or this teaching by saying that sometimes when you meditate you have experiences, you have various kinds of experiences. One of the important things to have the courage of, after you're no longer a beginner, is the experiences you have in zazen are not to be given reality or measured by your ordinary daily life. Egypt, in fact, the koan says, you know, emphasizes this, we're saying something like, three and one do not intermingle. Distinctly clear the road going beyond. Now, every time you have a meditation experience, you say, oh, that's just a meditation experience.

[42:47]

There will be no path in your meditation. So things... Now, I have to be a little careful, because sometimes people take this and make it into something fairly crazy. Or, well, I had this experience in meditation, so, you know, these two... Each one has its own reality. Okay. I mean, words don't exactly... Allow me to be very clear, so I have to use, you know, like a kind of traditional example is, if you feel in Zazen, you're taller, you feel taller than your physical body. You don't say to yourself, oh, that's only a Zazen experience, I'm not really taller. No, you say, in zazen, I'm taller.

[43:56]

Or in zazen, sometimes I'm bigger. And you don't say, walking around, hey, I've been doing zazen, now I'm bigger than you. You don't bring one into the other. Each has its own reality. And you should not measure your zazen experience by your daily life experience. So what you do is each has its own reality and you don't put down one or measure one by the other. At the same time you develop a bridge or a third territory that combines the two.

[45:02]

Okay. So sometimes in zazen you feel your body has no boundaries, you can't say where the whole body has disappeared. It fills the universe. The soul body revealed in myriad forms. He loses his whole body. These are all words pointing to this experience of big mind or thusness in which you experience no boundaries. Now, if you want to develop a mature your continuum, In each of these experiences, you don't conceptualize it, but you store the feeling of it.

[46:16]

I think in Plato's Phaedra, they have the king of...

[46:18]

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