Okay, what should we talk about? Yes? über die ganzen Gelöbnisse, die wir in den Sprüchen und Zitaten den ganzen Tag äußern. I'd like to know more about the vows, which we kind of express through the whole day in these sentences or chants we do in prayers and things. Ja, ich bin fertig. Das Bodhisattva-Ideal ist ja... Das Bodhisattva-Ideal ist ja... Eigentlich nicht. ...gegeben, nicht vorgegeben, sondern nur der Bodhisattva. it just there it is Bodhisattva idea exists but it seems like in Zen this Bodhisattva wow is something very pivotal and if we recite this several times a day just right now do you take it like a real wow somehow or is that symbolic

[01:04]

More symbolic. Rather. For example, what words? Exactly, but the Niyas that we all awake together and this comes for me as an expression of the Bodhisattva vow. And if it says here, I vow to... No, this one. Decent beings are numberless. I vow to save them. That's one. Yeah. That's actually not to laugh about. No, no, but don't you think it's a good idea? No. You don't think? Well, I think it's a good idea if everyone could be enlightened together.

[02:25]

I'm not against it. Yeah, me neither. But the vow is something else. No. Yes. No. You want to translate yes and no? I understand your question. I think I understand. But let's say we vow to realize enlightenment with one person. Is that a good idea, too? My question, or the answer, whether this is a good or bad idea, I would rather like to postpone until I have really a little bit better understood what the Bodhisattva ideal and then tradition really means.

[03:28]

And then I can still think about it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, well... What it really means, I would have to think about your practice, you know, but in general... Perhaps your feeling is that you shouldn't take a vow that you can't fulfill. Is that a question now?

[04:32]

Yes. It's not, at the moment that is not the decision. I want to know and I want to understand and then I see further. It's not whether I could do it or couldn't. I just want to know what means it. Is it really meant directly to take a vow to become a bodhisattva in this life, or maybe in 50 lives, or what else does it mean? In this life. You must understand that Ayya Khema thought about it differently, and I was her disciple. How did she think about it? She said there was no vow at all, and she couldn't understand why anybody wanted to come back when he has already reached nirvana stage, because... If you then die physically, then you go into the universal consciousness. And out of universal consciousness you can act and not direct. You have just so much to give, also so much power, goodness,

[05:37]

I don't know the real world. You have so much to give to the world when you are part of the great universe consciousness, that there is nothing better than that. And why would anybody in the world come and want to save other people when you can't do that out of the nirvana? Not specifically person by person, but just as a contribution to the universe. That's her opinion. I think that's probably true, Theravada. That's how I learned it. Now... She said she couldn't understand those Tibetan people. Yeah. Well, I don't understand it the way she does. I know that. And I don't think Zen in general understands it the way she does. It's much simpler than that. There's no sense of a universal consciousness that one enters or anything like that. Strictly speaking, I don't think in Theravada Buddhism there's such a thing, even though she may have taught it.

[06:53]

But in any case, these vows are quite simple. We should vow something that's beyond our power. It's more like an intention, perhaps. So we have this intention. And we chant these things to remind ourselves of this intention. That's all. Thank you. Okay. Something else? But I haven't understood by the bodhisattvas yet.

[08:11]

Yes, well, be patient. Yes. Excuse me, but I don't understand some parts of your teisho. Yesterday, you mean? Yes, no... In general. Especially in the last seminar in July, I had... Now, what should I do with these parts? I don't understand. If I think about it, I'm beginning thinking. How should I handle with... Well, it's... How do I deal with the parts that I didn't understand in a workshop or seminar? When I think about it, I'm back in my mind, so to speak. And what parts, for example? this bubble of emptiness creating mind.

[09:17]

Bubble of enlightenment, you mean? When the fish jumps out of consciousness into awareness, you make a picture and a flip-flop, and it was too high for me. Well, if I... You know, I'm trying to... Creating an image or something, just trying to... give you an image and a feeling of something. If it's not useful, forget about it. If it sticks with you, then let it stick with you. And as I've been saying, mindfulness thinking about mindfulness as a way of thinking. In other words, I want you to recognize that the process of holding something in your attention

[10:23]

without thinking about it, is in fact a kind of thinking. In other words, it produces results like thinking produces results. So your effort is to hold such a teaching or image in place. And... And let the world think through your mindfulness. So you probably will accumulate quite a number of things that you don't understand. And you kind of hold those in your attention, either clearly in your attention or just in the background.

[11:40]

And perhaps other lectures or study or zazen will open some of them up. I can't guarantee that everything I say makes sense. But on the whole, I think that what I keep trying to present is various aspects. of things which come together, which I think probably come together, when you have enough parts of the picture that it starts to make sense. But at least that's my intention.

[12:44]

So all I can say is I hope it works for you. Okay. Yeah. Yesterday you taught about continuity. about continuity of thinking and continuity of tradition which we try to bring to a continuity of breath. And I thought about the word continuity and I tried to translate it for myself and I came to the conclusion that I would translate it with feeling at home feeling at home in in my in thinking and feeling at home in my tradition and

[13:50]

try to shift the feeling at home to breath. I don't know whether it's a right translation, but if so, I would like to ask you whether you had a special intention why you choose the word continuity, because I have some difficulties just to associate with this. Okay. Deutsche... Yesterday, at the TED-show, there was the talk of... Continuity. Continuity in thinking and continuity... also in our own traditions, so everything that we feel at home, and that we try to bring this continuity in our thinking or in our traditions to a continuity in our breathing.

[15:05]

and then I tried to translate this continuity for myself and came to the conclusion that I would translate it for myself as a feeling of being at home in thinking or feeling at home in my tradition, and now I try to feel at home in breathing since then, and then I wanted to ask Roshi I think if you have a sense of this as feeling at home, It's okay. I actually don't think it's a sufficient translation, though, for what I mean.

[16:15]

But still, we're not... You know, the translation is... Feeling at home may be more accurate for you in most circumstances. Feeling at home may be a way for you to enter what I mean. So if it's a way for you to enter, then it's a better translation for you. But in all circumstances I couldn't use that translation. In most circumstances I can use the word continuity for what I mean. And my use of the word what most people are quite familiar with, is from my emphasizing self not as an entity,

[17:31]

But self as a way of functioning. Yeah. So, in that sense, self as a way of functioning The job or function of self is to supply us with a sense of separation. As I always say, your immune system is a kind of self. It knows what belongs to you and what doesn't belong to you. So in some way we have to function like that. And we also have to have some idea of connectedness as well, some experience of connectedness.

[18:59]

And that's also a function of self. And then thirdly, we need a function of, we have to have an experience of continuity. Okay, from moment to moment. And if you either look dharmically or philosophically at this world, which exists scientifically like this, So when does past end and future begin? Everything I said now is in the past, right?

[20:03]

And this just started to enter the future. But we do have an experience of duration. How do we establish an experience of duration? How we establish an experience of duration is central to Dharma teaching. Buddhist teaching. So, one, we have a sense of duration. On the one hand, we have this experience of duration. How we work with that sense of duration, creating it and dissolving it, is again central to Zen practice and Buddhist practice. In addition, we have a psychological need to establish some sense of permanence, not just duration.

[21:07]

Okay, so usually we establish a sense of continuity and duration in our thinking. Now, an adept practitioner does not establish a sense of continuity in their thinking. But such a practitioner might feel at home in their thinking. But they don't have a sense of continuity there. Or even a sense of identity. But they can feel at home anywhere. So that's an example of why I wouldn't use feeling at home. But when you feel more at home here without a sense of concentrating your thoughts, that might be close to what I mean.

[22:41]

Okay. Yeah. I mean, the big point here is the shift from entities or sense of permanence to function. Yeah, to function. Okay, yeah. Yes? Yesterday you talked also about consciousness and awareness, and I would like to ask you again, as I understood it, consciousness means to know and to know an object, and awareness is not knowing and no object.

[23:57]

Deutsche Bitte. Well, you know States of mind do establish themselves. And tend to be homeostatic, as I've said, and self-organizing. Okay, so we can say that there's a fairly clear distinction between states of mind.

[25:09]

But at the same time, our consciousness, our awareness consciousness is a kind of mix. So one way of thinking about it is as a direction, a movement in a direction. Consciousness is a movement in the direction of more distinction. Awareness is a direction toward less distinctions. So in your own knowing, you can feel the difference between a movement toward more distinctions and a movement toward less distinctions.

[26:18]

For example, I can look at you as all of you sitting here. And I can, moving toward more distinctions, I can feel each of you as a separate person. with particular names and gender and so forth. Or I can tend to let the names peel off, float away. I can feel more the presence of the room. And I can actually physically, physically feel the mind.

[27:25]

And which say, I look at these flowers. And I can say the word flowers to you. But in fact, I don't have any idea that they're flowers. My majority of my experience is just a presence. That sense is more like awareness. Okay. Now, that's discussing a movement within consciousness toward awareness. If you were dreaming and you had a lucid dream or you wanted to study a dream while you were dreaming that would be a movement toward consciousness within dreaming mind. But, okay, but, so let me go back.

[28:40]

Say, again, as I often point out, observing your waking up. You can feel consciousness lock in when you wake up. One of the qualities of consciousness is it has a consistent sensory impression. It is based on a consistent sensory impression. So when you wake up, you can see the five skandhas occur. There's feelings and impressions.

[29:48]

And then there's clear perceptions. Yeah, that was the wake-up bell. That's a car going by. Before, while you were still sleepy, the car going by and a bell, they don't make a consistent impression. As soon as they make a consistent impression, it's pretty hard to go back to sleep. In a sense, consciousness locks in And from then on, once you take a nap or something, it mostly notices distinctions. Okay.

[30:48]

So I've said that there's such an idea as awareness. And I'm... It's a less clear idea than consciousness. It's not a state of mind in the sense that a dreaming mind is a state of mind. It's a mode of knowing in which Consciousness has been removed from it. So I use it in contrast, I use it rather loosely to mean a mind that knows which is not consciousness.

[31:56]

But there are many modes of mind. Virtually infinite. The majority of them occur in what I would call awareness. So, maybe that's enough to say. Except my usual definition to make it something people are familiar with is to say it's like when you wake up at 6.02 in the morning, I always use 6.02. You were asleep, yet something woke you up. We can call that awareness. That's one example of And that awareness that woke you up even though you were asleep is not only present when you're sleeping, it's present when you're in consciousness too.

[33:42]

And the access to that is to reverse the skandhas. I think you're right, Christina, to try to make these definitions clear. Because we're trying to create a language here English and German, that allows us to feel the categories of practice. So, okay, something else? Yes, and I'm also interested in this, maybe not language, but my question is, is it only a question of words, of definitions?

[35:03]

Because when we had the seminar we experienced, at least me, I experienced Something like Markus said, starting with these five ranks, there came up the feeling of a kind of heaviness of the theme. And also the way we tried to talk about it at least began with a kind of heavy or for some people heavy direction. And then we discussed the way we should talk about it or if it's heavy or not heavy and what I'm thinking about and I would like to know from you is what kind of talking, what kind of hearing is somehow necessary to to make these definitions also useful because, I mean, only the definitions are not enough. I think we need also a kind of talking that doesn't stick to argumentations and to this kind of style of discussion we use in academic circles or in these.

[36:12]

Another sense of supporting each other, support the one who is talking while listening to her or to him and also to support in the way we then ask or say also something to it. So that we maybe create a kind of not only language but also kind of speech. I don't know the expression for it, good expression. Do you know what I mean? I hope so. Do you want to say all that in German? I try. What Roshi just said about the language and the definition, to get it clearer, besides these clear definitions, I would also be concerned with a kind of speaking and listening this definition, these clear terms for what we are practicing here, makes sense or makes it effective or makes it work again.

[37:22]

So I think it's a kind of speaking and listening that is different from what I normally know from universities and the kind of discussion and argumentation which is normally done outside of practice. And that's where I wonder what kind of sensibility, what kind of sense of mutual support is necessary to bring together such concepts as truthfulness in contrast to consciousness with our practice. Well, you know, it was suggested to me by fax. Well, I was in Crestone those few weeks. What's some subjects for starting this practice month? So several koans were suggested, and one of the things suggested was the five ranks.

[38:23]

So I thought, five ranks, this is a terrible topic. Let's try it. So I thought, what the heck, we should try it. And I realized I put... Dieter in a kind of difficult position because even though he studied the five ranks and written about them talking about them in the context as practices of practice and as practice is entirely different I think The translation takes some translating. But it's so important to our lineage, the five ranks, I thought, well, we should try. I thought, let's see what happens. So what do you mean by heavy?

[39:59]

What I felt during the seminar was that the five ranks start quite high above all usual experience. So it starts with somehow everything. penetrating each other, interpenetrating. And when we try to take this and to talk on this level, then like now, it's difficult to talk about this. We tried it and it was difficult. This is what I mean with heavy. Some people out of the group got the impression that they maybe, they could feel a little bit... From it, yeah.

[41:01]

Yeah. Okay, good. Well, you know, I made a decision 15 years ago not to learn German. I didn't know that... [...] Roshi said that there wasn't enough time in one lifetime to learn German. Maybe it's true in my one lifetime. In any case, I decided not to. I mean, it's also that I'm not very good at languages. I'm kind of stupid, but it's also that I decided not to do it. When I moved to Japan, I decided to learn Japanese, and within some months I could sort of speak Japanese. I'm afraid, I mean, I suppose I have to learn German. Since I, as most of you know, I will have a child in March.

[42:19]

And Marie-Louise will have one too. It adds up to one child. Okay. And... The child probably already knows more German than I do. It'll be a race I will lose. Or maybe I should learn German. But I actually love being here as if I could be in a, I don't know where, a completely foreign place. Maybe it's my Zen experience of liking not knowing. But I find it much more interesting to go in the shop and not know anything.

[43:20]

It would be boring if I knew everything. And also I have the joy of only practicing with you. I noticed it when I went to San Francisco a few weeks ago. I know a lot of people in San Francisco. They all have ideas. They're all friends. They all have ideas of what I should do and what kind of person I am. They all think I'm good at getting people together and making things happen. So they immediately wanted me to get the old gang together for a meeting with the former governor of California and have a discussion and stuff. I used to have a group that met once a month called the Invisible College.

[44:33]

So I said, okay, so we got about 15 people together and we had a discussion. Then there were people who wanted to come and didn't have time and people who felt left out.

[44:59]

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