You know, I talk so much about Sophia during lectures, maybe we should just listen to her. So she's the source of what I'm talking about, so maybe we should just let her speak directly. Thank you for translating for me. You're welcome. Yeah. So first of all, thank you all for being here and doing so much. And accomplishing so much. I mean, it feels transforming, so much that's happening. Yeah.

[01:02]

And it gives me... You know, some of you are not people I've practiced with much. Some of you I haven't practiced with much. Or at all. So I thought maybe I should give some kind of basic lecture. I don't know if I'm capable of doing that. So, anyway, let me start with Sophia. I watch her, of course, as most of you and many of you know, putting her consciousness together. Her sense fields. Yeah, an ability to bring and give attention. give attention.

[02:12]

And now she's trying to find her balance. And as I spoke, as I said in Berlin the other day, She has taught me something recently about both attention and intent. Attention I... In the night I was awake and so I was looking at her. And it was completely dark. No, she was asleep. But as I brought attention to her, she suddenly put out her arm to touch me and then turned her head toward me.

[03:26]

And I've seen things like this often enough that I don't think it's just by chance she did it. She felt the attention. Yeah, and that made me immediately think about so-called artificial intelligence. The kind of attempt to... to understand consciousness logically, and then to say what constitutes much of consciousness could be duplicated by a machine. But no one says a machine can give attention. And attention is, I think, something beyond consciousness.

[04:35]

And then about intent. Intent. Again in the middle of the night a while ago. When she was just learning, just two or three days had been learning to crawl. I accidentally bumped her head. Just very lightly. She didn't wake up. Or only wake up. Or? Or only wake up.

[05:37]

She didn't only wake up. She jumped up and started crawling. She was totally intent on crawling. So consciousness and crawling are the same thing. Mm-hmm. So again, here I'm speaking about attention and intent. This is as basic as you can get in Zen practice. But I haven't said anything yet that requires us to know anything about Buddhism. My example is just a little baby. Or it could be you. You can be your own example. And making yourself your own example, we could say is Zen practice.

[06:37]

Or we could say, yeah, Zen says this, but this is also something independent from Zen practice. So I thought of all of this partly because how we're engaged in taking care of this building right now. And the grounds and so forth. So... Now that Sophia is trying to find her balance, the object of that balance seems to be the material world, the textures of the world. So as soon as she can sit up, she starts... examining everything.

[08:04]

She can't do that so easily when she's on her stomach or back. So sitting up also frees her hands. Yeah, I know. Some anthropologists say that We're really meant to be on all fours like monkeys. And we have so many back pains because we shouldn't be standing up anyway. We should be crawling around. Sophia has never listened to these anthropologists. Sophia has never listened to these anthropologists. She says, I don't care what you say, I'm standing up. She wants her hands free.

[09:07]

Then she examines the textures of everything. And preferably something she hasn't examined before. So her toys are mostly completely boring. And she's discovered César. That's the posture you sit on your legs. Marie-Louise calls that her working posture. So you're sitting like César sitting in what we call César. Like Japanese people sit in their houses. Yeah, it's an ancient meditation posture. So somehow she's discovered it and that's where she's really intent, she sits Caesar.

[10:12]

And she's engaged in the material world. Yeah, so now I'm shifting to, you know, since I'm afraid I'm only an English speaker. Yeah, I'm shifting to the not just looking at Sophia, but looking at the words that I'm using. So I would say that Sophia is really engaged with the world. So then what's the difference between that and Zen practice?

[11:15]

It's similar and there's differences. So I look at the word engage. I'm sorry, I can't do the same thing in German. Ich schaue also dieses Wort engage, engagiert sein. And the prefix N means to put into, not just in, but to put into. Und diese Vorsilbe bedeutet hineinlegen, nicht nur einfach darin, sondern hineinlegen. And gauge means to promise. Or to vow or something like that. So it's a kind of word meaning intent. And the word attention means to stretch toward.

[12:16]

So intent practice is about how we stretch toward things. In a way, we're doing something like that working here, of course. But we use the word engage like you're engaged to be married. It means put into a vow, into a promise. And it also means to occupy, like you engage in an apartment. And it also means to mesh or put together, like you engage the gears of a car. We use words like this loosely, but if you look at the wisdom at the root of words, it's like this.

[13:34]

There's so much, you know, I mean, English, you know, is just a dialect of German with a lot of French words. So you have the same roots to words pretty much as English. Yes, so how can we literally, with such a strong word, engage our attention?

[14:54]

Engage our intent. Yeah. And so far, again, I'm not speaking about Buddhism at all. Really, not much about Buddhism. Yeah, now, when I say you give attention to or pay attention to... Now, I've always had a little problem with, like, especially pay attention. I have enough trouble paying my bills, let alone paying attention. But the root of what paying means to bring peace to. Peace, pardon. Yeah, so, and... Give is interesting.

[16:10]

It means form. It's come to mean just giving something. But it originally meant form as a relationship of going toward and coming toward. It meant both giving and receiving. So that's very sophisticated, not to think of this as an object, but to think of this as only a form through looking at it and having it come back to you. that instead of thinking this is an object that this is a form like there, out there the form is in the perception of it I mean it's like in Greek times Plato's emphasis was something like this stick, was an imperfect replica of an ideal form.

[17:27]

And that, you know, if you happen to understand this relationship that way, It changes how you know the world. Because this is always something less than the ideal form. The perfect forms in heaven or someplace, you know. And no matter how carefully I made this, it still gets something wrong with it. So you're trapped in an imperfect world. You can carry that to ideas like original sin and so forth.

[18:50]

Now, the shift in Buddhism is a very small shift, but a very interesting and powerful shift. This is perfect. This is perfect. It's your perception of it that's imperfect. So that's it. You're in a different world immediately. And this is a moment. A moment of looking at it. A moment when it was made. And if you can really look, engage your attention, the so-called imperfections bring you right to the moment when the craftsperson made it. And the kind of stick it was. So you go back to the particularity of the moment it was made through the particularity of your perception of this moment.

[20:16]

So its perfection is Is it the fact of it? All of the problems occur through how you perceive it. Now, I tried to speak not very successfully. I tried to speak not very successfully. in Berlin, about a Buddha field. About, is this world paradise or is it some kind of hell? Yeah. Sartre, you know, in his play, said that hell is other people. But maybe heaven is other people too.

[21:21]

So Buddhism is all about here we are in this material world. How do you know it? Do you turn it into some kind of regime? regime some kind of forced schedule? Do you turn it into some place to take your vacation? Or do you turn it into some place where you know other people? And then as soon as we try to make it a place where we know other people, certain rules come in.

[22:24]

I mean, the basic human unit is something like 30 people. If you find people living in the jungle somewhere or something, they form units of about that size. Bigger than that, people don't get along. But you need a pretty sophisticated understanding of what this space is to allow thousands of people to get along. So Buddhism is also about what's this space here? A realm of suffering or a realm of nirvana?

[23:44]

This is the most fundamental question you can ask yourself. The most fundamental question you can ask yourself. Now, when you ask yourself such a question, it's still... kind of deep common sense. But it's still, you know, pretty, but it's also the edge of Buddhism. Sometimes I say Buddhism begins when you can't answer the question. When you can't answer the question. So then you need some wisdom tradition to help you enter more deeply into these fundamental questions. So if we just work with to pay attention, to have the feeling of bringing peace to whatever you look at,

[24:46]

Or to give attention. If you realize that is recognizing its actuality is the relationship. This really doesn't exist. In some independent way. It only exists through complex interdependence. I give it existence by looking at it. I give it existence by using it. If you really understand that, you understand emptiness. Because I can grab this. But I can't grab the relationship.

[26:15]

It's always empty, always appearing and disappearing. So in Buddhism we say the fundamental nature of this is its emptiness. So when you give attention and receive There is emptiness. Yeah, that's also a kind of common sense. The truth of it's in the word, the root of the word, to give. Ah, but now to stop and say, hey, it's more than just a word. I can transform the way I know the world. I can transform my suffering and discover a freedom from suffering. through really understanding the root of the word to give.

[27:37]

To take that and acknowledge it is wisdom, and then we're really talking about something like Buddhism. So again little Sophia is engaged in this material world. And what is the root of the word material? It's obvious. Mama. It's actually baby talk. And in Latin, maman means breast. Yeah. I mean, for Sophia, the material world is something, since she's nursing, something like breast.

[28:44]

And I think Marie-Louise can tell the difference when the baby's full attention's on nursing and when it's not. So somehow this word material, matter, material. It's almost universal in all languages that mama means something like mother. It's like, mmm, mmm, good. The ma part also means good. That's if... Mm-mm-good was a joke partly because in America there's a... We have this candy, M&M's, and the advertisement is mm-mm-good.

[30:01]

That's an M&M. This mm-mm, that was a joke in America. In America we have this ad for M&M and that's the slogan for it. There's something, some ad like that. Yes, I'm trying to find the spot. Good, like in the word matin, morning. Good means something that comes at the right moment. It's good through arriving at the right moment. And that's dawn or morning. And that's where the word mature comes from. When we mature, we ripen. So I don't have to know anything about Buddhism.

[31:05]

I just need an etymological dictionary. Yeah, like Sophia is always saying, mmm, good. Yeah. So material, like we're working here, we need materials to do it. So it's not just materials. It implies the source of these things, the substance. So writing materials aren't just like the pen, the paper, etc. carpentry materials, the wood and the tools and so forth.

[32:15]

So even the word material has in it the activity that makes it happen. Okay, so now, if I bring attention to things... Yeah, that's the practice of mindfulness. And we bring attention, as those of you who have tried to, with some details, practice the first foundation of mindfulness... What do we bring our attention to? That's what the teaching of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness are.

[33:27]

Over thousands of years, what has been decided, many, many centuries, what has been decided as the best targets for your attention? The target is your activity, just as you're sitting now, how your hands are, your shoulders. How the space inside your body feels. So the activity in all ways, you can notice that. And then another target is your breath. And that's a lifetime.

[34:34]

And that's a lifetime. My mother just died on Monday. She was 95. And set for some institutional iatrogenic stupidity on the part of the hospital or rehabilitation center she was in. Yatrogenic means doctor or hospital caused disease. She'd broken her hip. Or cracked her hip. She'd fallen down in the night. And so they had her go to a rehabilitation center to get the use of her hip back. And there she caught a cold, which they didn't treat, and turned into pneumonia.

[35:36]

Pneumonia? Pneumonia. Yeah. And they didn't really treat that. And she's just one more old person. She's just one more old person. So my sister tried to get her out of the center to a hospital. And, you know, I mean, I'm critical, but I also accept this is the way the world is. They get paid by keeping her there. So they didn't want to release her.

[36:55]

And they didn't want to be criticized for not treating the pneumonia. But my sisters insisted, and they finally sent her to the hospital. Yeah, and not to the hospital my sister said, though. They sent her to a hospital which they were affiliated. And the nurses apologized to my sister, said, we haven't treated her, I'm sorry, and we're doing this, but I'm not even supposed to say this. But my mother's 95, you know. She thought enough of all this nonsense. It's time for me to die. She saw enough. She said enough of all this nonsense, all this trying to be alive.

[38:09]

So she said in effect to my sister, this is entirely too much trouble, I'm going to die. So she was completely clear and conscious and just decided to die. So she died through her own intent. Which in a way is the best kind of death. When the time is ripe. Yes, so she died. Waited for my brother to come and so forth. So despite the kind of stupidity of the institution she had a good death.

[39:19]

And they were good people trying to help her actually. But she's no longer in this material world. I can't walk to her anymore. There's no physical place where I can locate her. She's no longer engaged in the physical world. She used to be. Almost always in a good mood. and ready for anything. What is this material world?

[40:20]

So if I give attention, while I'm still here, before I disappear too, before you disappear, while you still can engage in this world, so there's these various targets of your attention. Your activity, your breath. The qualities, we say the four elements, the qualities of physicality. Each part of the body, inside and outside. And now as an intentional practice if you do that until you feel almost no distinction between inside and outside. You're really weaving mind and body together.

[41:44]

engaging attention throughout the body and the physical world. So now again, coming back to giving attention, it's almost again, here's little Sophia trying to find her balance. And there's a relationship between her balance and her hands. The more she can have her balance, she can bring attention through her hands to something and use her finger and thumb. Finger and thumb. And there's a visible element to the hands. And there's also an invisible element.

[42:56]

It's almost now she can, because she has physical balance, can bring these sense fields and attention. and intent and consciousness all together in a kind of little point, a ball. And almost then you can bring that ball into an object or into another person. Or the eyes of another person. Now, I don't know how anybody would know this, but I read somewhere, that if the parents have a lot of eye contact with the baby, there's a connection all the way up through adulthood, more with the child.

[44:03]

I don't know how they would know that, but it sounds like it should be true. So you can gather your sense fields, your attention, your intent, So you collect your senses, your attention, your intention, I gathered it and made her turn toward me in the night. It's a powerful thing, actually. We don't even understand how powerful it is. And then you bring that ball of attention to the object The body of another person, the eyes of a person.

[45:07]

It opens up in the object or the person and comes back to you. So there's this kind of matured giving and receiving. Now, what have I done here? I've said, okay, you bring attention, you pick targets for your attention. Targets like your breath are most fruitful. And then you have some image, some image of what you're doing. It is a ball that you bring into an object and let it spread out.

[46:12]

Spread out and come back to you. Okay, now what is this target? Dogen says the target is the true human body. Now this might be uncommon sense or wisdom or the fruit of Buddhism but it's gone all the way through all these centuries up through Dogen and Dogen turns it into a phrase that's rests on all of Buddhism. Yeah, rests on all of Buddhism. rests on all of Buddhism.

[47:26]

The statement rests. But almost now it's returned to a kind of simple common sense. Or deep sense. We're so intimately connected with everything. We're so... This world of textures that we're exploring. The Dogen calls it the true human body. He actually said, the entire universe is the true human body. Wow. Wow. Where is this guy coming from?

[48:42]

Well, it's better than calling it the universe. It's not just one verse anyway. And that turns it into some kind of generalization. So let's call it something extraordinary. Everything you see is the true human body. Now we're somewhere in the territory of Buddhism now. But you bring this attention to to whatever appears, knowing somehow it's the true human body. So now, instead of looking at this as an imperfect replica of an ideal form, Which is an idea which creates much of our Western world.

[49:55]

To the Buddhist world, the yogic world, where this is perfect. And our effort is not to make a better object, but to transform our perceptions. And Dogen says the most powerful way, fruitful way to transform your perceptions And Dogen says that the most fruitful way is to see everything as the true human body.

[50:56]

And now you can practice Zen by using that as a phrase. Everything is the true human body. Now, Paul Rosenblum, who's part of our Dharma wheel, who's doing a seminar for us in Dharma Sangha in Vienna right now. He was in Berlin. And he said, you know, I've been practicing with, for the last some months, every day, every moment, as much as possible. With the phrase, the entire universe is the true human body. And he said, it'd really make me happy if you'd give a lecture on it. And I said, I'll see if one appears.

[52:09]

So it appeared today. But he's not here. Yeah, but he can walk here. And maybe he's here. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank. May our intentions be the same throughout every being and every place.

[52:44]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_74.62