Before he finished talking to him, tears were streaming over his jaws. And that's the seventh point or something. And the teacher immediately said, go to sleep. Then he woke up suddenly and he wrote this poem. And this poem is an unpacking of, and that's good enough, of this teaching about the fox. So we can come back to the poem. I think now would be a good time to take a break. And I haven't forgotten what you said.

[01:27]

So maybe 20 minutes? So we can have lunch a little earlier. This poem of Bai Jiang's Truth's naked radiance cut off from the senses of the world, shines by itself, no words for it. However, this is a poem in words. And Daito Kokushi was enlightened hearing it, the words of it. Daito Kokushi. Is that right? Yeah. It's a kind of cookie.

[02:29]

It's Schlag und Kokushi. Daito Kokushi was enlightened hearing this poem. Which was repeated some centuries later in words. And then he immediately composed a poem in response in 16 meters or something. Although Bai Zhang said it's not in words. And he performed an ordination funeral ceremony for a fox. So obviously the physical world is here, foxes, words, and so forth. But in Zen, even words become non-words. So I'm... You know, if we go to lunch at 12.30 or even 1, to talk about this a little bit is going to take some time.

[04:03]

Or I can just talk about it from a number of points of view... different surfaces. Instead of thinking or being critical or trying to understand, maybe if you pay attention to my words, but mostly See if you can feel my, excuse me for saying so, feel my mind. Or rather, feel our mind. So I'd like to talk at this list a little bit. Mm-hmm. A karmic restructuring.

[05:14]

I presented this picture a little incorrectly yesterday or too simple. The first mind is the distracted, leaking mind. The second is concentrated on an object of perception. The third is maintaining the concentration without the object. And the fourth is being able to bring the object back into that state of mind without losing the concentration. Now, zazen mind is most definitively the third and fourth. And from a zen point of view, vipassana or insight is establishing this concentrated state of mind in which objects don't disturb it.

[06:35]

Now, if you study your own personal history in that state of mind, you restructure your karma. The flow of events in your life flows outside of ego and flows outside of such categories as unconscious, non-conscious and conscious. So you begin to see things float and the first two or three years often of meditation are this floating of your narrative and widening of your story in a big kind of theater of mind.

[07:43]

This is what I call the practice of counting to one. Because you never get to ten, you barely get past two. And this is an important practice for Westerners because we have all this stuff, narrative, story of our life that we should look at again or have passed before us. Now, the way you act... based on this and of realizing the precepts and such things, then further perfumes your tendencies, your views, your memory, and memory surfaces in the present in new forms.

[08:48]

I'm sorry. Yeah, that was hard to translate. Your present acts... the present blossoms, flowers, the taking of the precepts, perfumes your tendencies and your views and memory and transforms how memory blooms in the present. And fully you discover that you have been and are now more and more of a Buddha and more and more of a Bodhisattva. Even if this is not fully true, it's true enough in the way it functions that we can say it's true. Buddhism says we aren't born a blank slate. We're born with a direction in ourselves and the forms of mind that leads to life.

[10:00]

And we enter that direction. And in the deepest sense, that direction leads to enlightenment. Now the taking of the precepts. These are really important in Buddhism. Because as I said in this piece I wrote with a few too many words within the tree planters. The intentional stream of our mind is present all the time. And how you enter into and transform and put in the service of enlightenment the intentional stream of mind is the precepts.

[11:06]

And there's both the following of the precepts and the taking of the precepts. And when you take the precepts, it's considered to be actually the initial act of enlightenment. Now it's an act of enlightenment because it's a moment in which you see your life and take responsibility for it. You're willing to turn your life around. And that act requires practice, an act of enlightenment requires practice to unpack it And we could understand the development of Buddhism as unpacking this initial act.

[12:22]

Now this sense of giving the precepts is so fundamental in Buddhism. is that what's going on in this koan is that Bajang is giving the precepts to a fox through a funeral ceremony. You know, when I first went to Japan, I found these fox shrines right beside the Buddha on the altar in many temples in the mountains. And I was amused and sort of critical. It seemed awfully superstitious. What I didn't understand is that mountain temples, particularly far from the patronage of a lord, They had to accommodate themselves to local customs, local religious practices and so forth.

[13:40]

And the indigenous practices of Japan were a kind of shamanic, shamanic practices related to animals and things like watersheds as a deity. So that sometimes these animals or the local deity of a place would appear as a person and ask to take the precepts. So it became a kind of ritual act in which even the physical world and the animal world also were accommodated in this radiance of truth.

[15:07]

And the taking of a precept which then is present in your life as a kind of a point, measuring point, really has an effect far beyond what the specific precept is. Now, Hinayana early Buddhist precepts are very different than Mahayana precepts. The Hinayana precept of do not kill And the Mahayana precept of do not kill. Dogen says are as far apart as night and day.

[16:12]

And if you follow the Hinayana precepts, you're breaking the Mahayana precepts. It was understood that strictly in Mahayana. And the difference is that the Hinayana precepts are karma-reducing precepts. And the Mahayana precepts are enlightenment-inducing precepts. So in Hinayana, the images from the Mahayana point of view is that you... try to reduce or eliminate karma in your life. And the whole Mahayana Bodhisattva idea is you enter into people's karma. If a person's a fisherman, you become a fisherman and take life. If the person's a thief, you become a thief with them to enter into people's karma.

[17:18]

To enter into people's karma willingly, to practice with them, to enlighten them, is very different from trying to reduce your own karma. So the taking of the precepts or the ritual act of transformation is central to Buddhist practice. To the extent that Bajang makes this temple on this mountain home by giving precepts, and funeral ceremonies are precept ceremonies, to a fox who's a person who's lived on the mountain for 500 lifetimes.

[18:32]

So the question for ancient Buddhists would be, how do you make Kassel a Buddhist city? Or how do you give your client a ritual act that transforms their life? And there's a whole study in Buddhism of what kind of ritual act in what situation transforms a person. Now, one of the things that characterizes Mahayana Buddhism and the Bodhisattva precepts is the precepts for layperson and monk are exactly the same. They're completely different in Hinayana Buddhism.

[19:35]

So in Mahayana Buddhism, the lay person and the monk are really versions of each other. Their basic goals, inner requests, mental direction are the same. How they follow them, how they're an example to others, whether they shave their head, those are other questions. And as enlightenment it's important that you take them with somebody. You just don't take them to reduce your karma. You take them with and in the mind field of another person. So it was felt that really before you take the precepts, you should spend at least a week, was the custom, with the teacher and take them at the end of that week of practicing together.

[20:45]

Now this relates to monastic practice. Now some of you I know would like this Buddhism to be simpler and non-intellectual. Non-intellectual. And there's a certain also in the West, because Buddhism, because religion comes from the grace of God and conversion experience, it's in a different category of, it's a different territory than Buddhism is in a culture. I want Buddhism to be a life study. I want it to be deep enough that I'll never reach the end in my lifetime.

[22:13]

And I want us, if we all do it together, we'll never reach the end in our lifetime. And we'll all find our own place and there'll be enough left over for others to inherit it. To inherit the practice and the work. So really, I do feel we're in a big, changing, developing stream of which we're all the stream itself. Now, on the other hand, Buddhism is also very simple. Because everything is an entry point. And if you just fully 100% take any entry point, the lifetime study opens up. and the beginning is exactly as fulfilling as the end okay monastic practice no let's look at realization why is realization there as a separate thing

[23:34]

Because meditative experience is experience. Philosophical study, contemplative study is understanding. Realization is neither understanding nor experience. It's a change of direction. You may turn your car around and you may experience the turning around, but the new direction isn't an experience. And it's not understanding. You're just going in a different direction. So enlightenment experience in Buddhism is a turning around at the deep seat of being. Understanding may help you actualize it.

[24:59]

Experience may help you deepen it. But it's neither understanding nor experience. Okay. Now, mind transmission and monastic life are closely related. Okay. Now let me try to tell you about what monastic life is in Buddhism. I don't know really what monastic life is in Catholicism and the limited extent that it's in Protestantism. It's probably experientially very similar, but in conception quite different. Monastic life is whatever life, the rules of monastic life are meant to be not moral,

[26:00]

They're not about, you know, what's nice behavior. They're not about the sutras or something. There's only one. I mean, the tradition is there should be no rule in monastic life that's not conducive to enlightenment. And to live together to support each other in this realization practice. So it's actually, it's a lay life designed for realizing enlightenment. It is not based on that worldly life is bad. It's not that worldly life is polluting, contaminating or karma-producing. In fact, the whole point of monastic life is to be able to go back into ordinary karma-producing life.

[27:53]

But just so that you're, but to go back into it so that you're so established in mindfulness and in a sealed state of mind that you can turn around ordinary life. Now what is, again, let me ask the question, what is monastic life? I would say it's no different than the cancer doctor who says to the patient, well, I can give you medicines and I can operate, but really you have to change your life. So the cancer doctor who recommends to a patient, well, you better change your diet. And stop smoking. And you ought to stop states of mind or behavior that deplete your energy. Now this isn't probably yet by cancer doctors or other doctors really developed, but basically what they're recommending is a monastic life in the middle of lay life.

[29:08]

So what I'm saying is that monastic life in China, Japan and Tibet is not the monastic life, a direct heir of the monastic life of the Buddha. Just as the precepts are really different in Mahayana than in conception, in Mahayana than in Hinayana, And Mahayana Buddhism is the Buddhism not for monks. It's defined formally as a Buddhism for laypeople. So why did they choose again monastic life? Because as they brought these streams of the teaching together, the precepts, karmic restructuring, meditation, A philosophical study of your views.

[30:24]

The transformation of language and culture into an enlightenment culture. and the transmission of sealed mind to sealed mind, which can't exactly be understood. You feel it in another person and learn it in an apprentice like osmosis. To really make that happen. And not over explain it all as I'm doing. And to create the conditions to let it happen osmotically. They said, let's live together.

[31:35]

And let's bring the momentum, the pendulum of our individual lives so that they begin to swing together. And let's do it for two or three years, maybe ten years. And then we'll all go different ways. As it's said, we say we're born in the same lineage, we die in different lineages. Okay, now am I saying, try to complete here, am I saying that there's no Buddhist practice without monasticism? In some ways, sort of, yes. But really, no. I'm saying that if we understand why how we live is the most subtle way to realize anything, You have your physical body and you have your mental equipment.

[32:52]

But these come together in what we could call a lived body, a lived life. And if that lived body is sort of out of sync, it'll kill your physical body. So how to take care of the lived body? The ultimate precepts and teachings are about how we live everyday life. So I would think the therapist may also say, hey, you can come see me once a week or once a day. And you may have certain understandings or insights.

[33:59]

But the therapist may want to say, like the cancer doctor, really you have to begin, if these things are going to subtly emerge in your life, things we don't even know about yet, how you live is what's important. Nowadays, it's quite obvious in cancer that how you live affects your longevity. On Buddhism, one of the marks of realization is that you have bliss, clarity, and you're free from troubling thoughts. But this candy is only the beginning. But it's very good candy. And bliss, clarity, and free from troubling thoughts doesn't come just from some kind of understanding or looking at what happened to you as a child or something.

[35:12]

Nor can it arise just from some big enlightenment experience. It arises in the details of your lived life. So our practice together as therapists and Buddhists is to really begin to study and actualize our lived life. So this is one of the territories, I think, for therapists and Buddhists, is what is a lived life, a realized, lived life? And that arises from our meditation experience. And that makes our meditation experience possible. The kind of understanding experience that not only develops your lived life, but develops your life with others.

[36:15]

So that's as much as before lunch I can say about this. So why don't we sit for at least a few minutes? Thank you for translating. Now, when I was talking before lunch, I think I may have sounded like I was emphasizing monastic practice more than I was. Historically, I'm certainly saying that has been the emphasis.

[37:47]

But the point is really your lived life, how you live your life. That's the point I'm making. If those of you who've practiced with Thich Nhat Hanh Those of you who practiced with Thich Nhat Hanh must have noticed how slowly he walks. And if you've ever been with him, not in a seminar, just in an ordinary trip up a stairwell in a building, He can hold up a whole lunch hour crowd trying to get back to their offices. What is he doing? He's practicing monastic life in ordinary life. Er praktiziert monastisches Leben in einer gewöhnlichen Lebenssituation.

[39:14]

Nun, ich würde jetzt nicht empfehlen, dass alle von euch anfangen, so langsam zu gehen. Es sei denn, ihr könnt eure Freunde erleuchten, sonst werden einfach die Freunde schneller vorangehen. But the point is, how do you really bring a feeling, which is what Thich Nhat Hanh is basically doing, is living as a monastic in ordinary life. Even though he's emphasizing lay life, he's living like a monastic in lay life. So I think each of us has to find our own way. I've suggested at one of the recent seminars is that you find a way to walk that nourishes you.

[40:16]

Now, when I say all the rules in a Zen Buddhist monastery are based on realizing enlightenment. This might sound kind of rigid or something to you, I don't know. But actually it's the freest form of rules for a monastery. Because most monasteries are based either on creating rules that reduce your likelihood of creating karma. Or they're ascetic. meaning their purpose is to restrain the senses. Zen Buddhist monasteries are spare, but they're not about restraining the senses.

[41:27]

Generally, people eat pretty well. Even in Japanese monasteries where they had a rather strange diet, it wasn't about restraining the senses. It was just about having a diet similar to the farmer's. So I'm not suggesting that you, again, create a lot of rules for how you live. But I am saying that historically, it's been over and over again reaffirmed that how you live your life is the main form of practice. Now, to talk about this sealed sense of consciousness,

[42:39]

I think it's a little bit inaccessible because it's dependent on first realizing or being experienced in samadhi. And second, being able to maintain a samadhi be able to maintain samadhi even when you have objects within that field of attention. So for those of you who are new to my teachings, And for the sake of those of you who are particularly therapists, I think I'll ask Ulrike to go through the three minds of daily consciousness. Because of all the definitions of consciousness I've given, it's the most accessible to people.

[44:04]

So would you do that? And I can relax. I'm looking forward to the days when I can do seminars and I can relax and you will all teach. And for daily consciousness we could also carry awake consciousness, because Bosch has developed this definition in conjunction with the different forms of consciousness such as sleeping, waking and so on.

[45:44]

These are the conditions of awake consciousness as we experience them during the day. And these two conditions are, first of all, tangible consciousness, Secondary consciousness and conscious consciousness. In English, read it, secondary and conscious. And to explain this a little bit, I would like to give you an example. And on the way home from the restaurant, I tried to participate a little bit, because it is always easier to explain this. And I sat down on such a small place from the church for a moment and tried to go into the immediate consciousness.

[46:45]

And the immediate consciousness... It smells, it hears and in general it feels, but in a sense that the sense organs are involved. It certainly does not think and it does not compare. I sat there on the bench, closed my eyes a little, but there was still some light coming in. I said to myself, I want to go to church, I want to go to church. I smelled the wind. I smelled a light smell of the city air.

[47:46]

I felt the hard bench underneath me. And it was a very pleasant and exciting state. And this is a consciousness that opens up very well. Then I opened my eyes a little further and looked at the church and slowly let go of the process of thinking. So the secondary consciousness begins to think. but it is only information that comes from the inevitable situation. I thought, aha, this is a church, a beautiful church. I looked around, saw the trees, said, yes, the ground, the stone floor, and let myself enter this immediate consciousness, into this secondary, information from the depot.

[48:57]

And the interesting thing is that when you try to make this difference clear and rest in this immediate consciousness and gradually start to think about the immediate situation, then you have to put a lot of effort into this birth consciousness. And can you imagine what birth consciousness is in such a situation when you sit on the bench? Many tourists ask me how old the church is. When was it built? Was it destroyed during the war? Where did I see the last church? And so on and so forth. So here is an information that is really familiar, so an information that someone must have said at some point that I cannot have from my own experience or that I can go from the immediate past there. And this is information from outside.

[50:30]

and our culture, our educational systems, how we grew up, train and mainly form this born consciousness. But this consciousness that is very energy-intensive, we lose energy there and often we have to distract ourselves somehow, either by sleeping or with some stimulants, with a glass of wine or whatever else you have to get used to, in order to finally get rid of this energy loss that arises. And really learning in the sense of Yes, in the moment being, in the present moment being, it is when we want to go back this way. And why is this immediate spiritual awakening a little bit like the seventh spiritual awakening? Because we are really only here in our mental field and have a very direct access to our mind.

[51:38]

Yes. Yes, you could also learn that through ophthalmology. But on the other hand, the unbuildable consciousness, for example, in the child, or the consciousness in the child, there is a certain process of achievement, which is done through the brain, so not in comparison with the unbuildable consciousness, which learns consciously, for example, through a meditation practice. In Sazen we also try to get out of this unbuildable consciousness and go back The impermanent state of consciousness, if you experience something, you can feel an energetic source. And the easiest way is If you take a look at the level of the secondary consciousness here, because it is also an overall consciousness, because you have the choice from here, simply to go back, so to speak, up to the current,

[53:13]

Here, we are being nurtured, we are being brought out, or we are also being brought into the conscious consciousness. I would now like to make it clear that the conscious consciousness is bad. Certain tasks in everyday life, in one's profession, politically and so on, can only be fulfilled when one is in conscious consciousness. It was also given to him as a gift. He is an intellectual. Here we really receive a gift from our culture. All the information that has been collected in this culture. It is a really terrible place where you only live here. Our normal identity, also our ego, is here. Yes, in the born or fallen consciousness. And through the practice it becomes possible for us not only to live here, not only to have our identity here, but also here.

[54:22]

Do you have a question? Yes, when I am in meditation with Herzenbruch, where I have associations that I see satiated or thoughts that I have a certain distance from. Is that secondary or immediate? In the moment when you, for example, interpret, in parallel to the perception of these images, I would say you are here. But if you go back a little bit over this energy threshold, then the pictures just pass by, for example, there is no interpretation. You can also practice it a bit. So if you sometimes go with people you don't know well, and then it can happen that all these different states of consciousness somehow

[55:25]

and disappear again. And often you are with the people you love the most, where you intuitively come to an agreement, to walk with each other, to go and to be here. And that's what really is an incredibly deep experience, when you walk next to Thich Nhat Hanh. Then you would never come up with the idea to ask him, yes, when were you born? Or where did you come from? Really, you simply enjoy being in this space that he creates through his immediate consciousness, from which he mainly learns. And then it can happen that a slight tingling occurs in the secondary consciousness, like, oh, nice weather today, or, yes, it's cold today, for example. And then you notice, it's going in that direction now. And often you find it disturbing. If you are suddenly asked, where do you come from, where do you go to work, then you are here and you are not here.

[56:30]

You lose energy. And for therapists, I could also imagine, the work will then be interesting with the client. The client will also move in this direction. Now, I don't know what she said. I can guess about some of it. But for those of you who've heard this teaching before, Christian or Ruth or Beate or others, Hildegard, is there anything already left out or is there a point that could be made? I'm not quite clear with the answer to the question, but when you're sitting and you perceive your thoughts,

[57:40]

as if they wouldn't be your thoughts, as if they would be something detached. It happens, thinking happens, and you look at it, whether you are then in immediate consciousness or because you have thoughts still in more consciousness. For me it feels like a special form of immediate consciousness, immediate consciousness of the interior process, Maybe you can ask the question once more in English, or I can translate what you asked. Then can you repeat it once more again? I have to look at my own thoughts or associations. I see, so to speak, that someone is passing by.

[58:47]

Sometimes I go around and then I go a little further and then I see that someone is passing by and then I start to think. So I ask myself, of course, what to do next. Yeah, the question was, if I'm in meditation, just watch my thoughts pass by, but I'm not really involved in my thoughts, I just watch my thoughts. Which kind of consciousness am I then? First of all, these three consciousnesses are, as the tradition is, and as I'm teaching them, are minds of daily consciousness. They're not about sasen mind. And... I make distinction between awareness and consciousness.

[59:48]

Between background mind and foreground mind. Between interior consciousness and exterior consciousness. And sealed, wounded and completed. We could try again to map all these on top of each other. But these are more like you have one liquid. And that liquid may be at different temperatures or viscosity. And you can pour it in different containers. When you pour it in three containers, it functions the dynamic a little different than when you pour it in two containers.

[60:51]

But it's nearly the same liquid if you give it, if you say that sometimes it's more concentrated than different temperatures. Now, Bill Thompson commented to me that he wanted to be, because he's a cultural historian, and the idea that most of what he thinks about is borrowed. He said, let's call it gift consciousness. There are so many wonderful gifts we have in our culture. Of course, he's right. But he's making the mistake, or he's not familiar with the way of thinking about it, of defining these consciousnesses by their content, and they're not defined really by their content, they're defined by their qualitative viscosity.

[61:57]

So you establish a state of mind by the content. Once that state of mind is established, it has its own self-organizing continuity. So once you establish, say, secondary mind, let me try to give you a simple example. You're speaking about, say, vipassana meditation. If I'm speaking about it because I just read it in a book and I'm talking to you about it, the information is borrowed and the state of mind is created and borrowed.

[63:03]

And when I speak about what I have just read in a book, then the information is borrowed and also my mental state is borrowed. But when I practice it, although originally I only had information that was borrowed, and I am now quite familiar with it, Then while I'm speaking about it, if it's coming out of my experience and what I'm seeing in front of me, particularly among people, that's secondary consciousness. So if I'm also in that state of mind and I start talking about something else, it will have a quality of experience in it because it's brought into that state of mind. Now, if while I'm speaking about Vipassana meditation, I'm actually experiencing Vipassana meditation, then I'm much closer to not only secondary, I'm more like in immediate consciousness. Now, immediate consciousness is not awareness.

[64:19]

Awareness is a state of mind, I always define it, that wakes you up at 6.02. Present while you're asleep. It's present right now. And it sees the world as undivided. It doesn't divide the world. Immediate consciousness is ready to divide the world. Immediate consciousness perceives difference. So if I'm looking at you, say, I perceive different. I perceive your outline, I perceive your black sweater, your blue shirt, and so forth.

[65:23]

I feel your eyes, but I'm not thinking about your black shirt. Or thinking about your eyes. If I start thinking about you and say, this means maybe he feels such and such, not in a secondary consciousness. If I think, this person over here told me he's really nice. As soon as I bring that information in, probably I shift to Barkha. The reason this is a useful distinction, I think, is because you can actually, most of us, once you see these three, you can begin to experience them. Okay. Now, what characterizes a good Zen teacher, usually, or Buddhist teacher, is that most of the time their home base is immediate consciousness.

[66:33]

They may think sometimes about whether they're doing well or whether somebody likes them or something, but their definition of themselves is very little in this territory. They have to think about such things. It's rather burdensome. Now, if we take immediate consciousness, and secondary, and moral, If your home base is immediate consciousness, when you start thinking about something and you go up like this, that arrow is also immediate consciousness.

[67:37]

This is a very easy transition back and forth between these two. If you're based here and you go into something you know by experience, It's very hard to stay there if you're based up here and you immediately start up here again. And even if your home base is here and you start up and you get into the borrowed, it's very hard to get out. Maybe you have to go to do Zazen to get out. OK, so what does it mean?

[68:44]

It is . Just, yeah, anyway. Could we, could be very helpful for comparison to the therapeutic situation? Yes. I mean, probably one of the main resistances of clients and therapists also, they stay in this borrowed system. It's very difficult to come immediately. That's why Freud had people sit on a couch and things like that. So I think there's an intuitive, or maybe he got it from somewhere, basically Freud picked up that a change in posture creates a meditation state of mind, of immediate consciousness, and then it's much easier for people to free associate and so forth. Although meditative, which is distinguished, this is about daily consciousness, not meditative consciousness.

[70:02]

But even if you have someone lie down, there is a kind of meditation technique in there. Also in pre-associating are more in this... Now the difference in Buddhism would be, I think the analyst often sits aside so that the client can't see him or her or faces a little different direction. What did you say? You said the therapist lies? Who knows? Sometimes sleeps.

[71:21]

And in Buddhism the idea would be that the therapist teacher would sit in front of the client or student and he himself would enter immediate consciousness and pull the other person into immediate consciousness. Or sometimes would enter borrowed consciousness and exaggerate it The student is just kind of, what's going on here? So you see your own mind. Any questions about this? Yeah. When you announced that you were going to talk about these three different states, I thought of this relative world, this absolute world.

[72:35]

The three natures? Yes, this world. And I just asked if there is a relationship or if there is a blind relationship. Yes. Well, Hans thought when I started explaining that I would actually teach a version of the three natures. So since this is in his mind, he wonders whether there's a relationship. What three natures? Relative, absolute, imaginary. It's better not to talk about it. It's better if you know this well. It's better to know this well and know the relative, absolute and imaginary also well.

[73:36]

Then you begin to experience it in yourself. Let me say something about memory. Memory is almost entirely understood in Buddhism in terms of the present. Because exactly how you remember something is, from a Buddhist point of view, far less important than how it's used in the present or transformed in the present. Or how it's used by the present. So things are understood, memories understood, is not just that you remember the flower, but you again remember the seed.

[74:45]

And to remember the seed, and my guess is that a big part of the oral traditions in preliterate cultures was a technique of remembering seeds. And then the image in which the seed would flower. So, for instance, if you want to remember a teaching like this, It's fine to remember the flower or the structure, the three and the lists, etc. But it's much better to remember the feeling you had at the time you heard the teaching. Or the feeling you had from Ulrike or myself. And you store that feeling, and then that feeling spreads the memory through your tissue, through your life circumstances, when something comes up where it applies.

[76:06]

So will you remember a song sometimes? A certain tune or one word. And then a certain smell of the day and you find a song comes up. You don't even know the words of the song at first, but they begin to appear. This is like the Dharani of non-attachment. Now in the koan, if you want to look at it a moment. I think without going into it any further.

[77:17]

There's two things I'd like to point out without going into any other levels of the koan. One is, yeah? I'd just like to mention one more thing. Actually, when we hear a police car in a seminar, I think it's always a great support to actually get back into immediate consciousness because it produces this state of alertness and being back in the sense field. And all this thinking process where we get involved and lost kind of stops. So I just wanted to mention that. So we have to thank all the policemen who are helping our meditation. This idea of sealing is a problem because, I don't know exactly in German, but in English it has the sense of sealed off. But in Chinese and Japanese, when they translate seal to mean certain practices, they're really talking about the calligraphic seal that's put on something to say this is official or real or something.

[78:50]

The state of mind that is that I'm calling sealed consciousness, with the sense also of sealed but with a permeable membrane, has certain qualities that are pointed out. that you can experience. It's reflexive, it's responsive, but it is unmovable. It's very responsive, and yet it feels like nothing can move it. Like empty space can't be moved. Things just go through it.

[80:11]

So you begin to have an experience of unmovability. It's called in Buddhism the iron man, but nowadays we have to call it the iron person. Or maybe if we say the iron person, we also have to say, to emphasize the feminine side, unmovable like space. Another experience of this kind of mind is it has no basis. You can't find a basis for it. But it's still self-organizing and imperturbable. It has no fissures or layers.

[81:20]

And no antidotes are required for any kind of thought, troubling or otherwise, that's present in it. No antidotes are required because everything is seen as equally arising from this mind. Now looking at the koan. It talks about this mind when it says something like, had the skill to pull out nails and draw out pegs. Right at the beginning of the commentary, middle of the commentary. This means anything that's troubling or would cause distraction or your mind to leak.

[82:35]

And on the next page, it talks about baby talk, Dada Wawa. Above the added saying, so one in German it must be over here here has to be here so it says down here 10,000 pipes you cannot hear if you have a mind On a solitary cliff without ears, then you know the sound. And this is very much the poem of Bai Zhang. And this is very much the poem of Bai Zhang. Truth's naked radiance, cut off from the senses of the world, shines by itself.

[84:00]

No words for it. So this is emphasizing a kind of, if this mind has no layers, fissures, bases, no antidotes necessary, Then it's not apprehending the world in terms of difference. And one of the practices here, when you begin to feel this, is you see difference, but you feel sameness. You feel sameness on everything. I don't know how to explain this. It's like you fully see the molecules and the atoms. But you simultaneously feel the space of the molecules and atoms. You simultaneously feel the space. And when you begin to feel that, fully you feel the flower different at the same time as you feel the sameness.

[85:27]

You're beginning to develop then a subtle mind body that can perceive non-difference. that can stay present in non-graspable states of mind. This is what we call no mind. And if you have a mind, you cannot hear the song of the 10,000 things. But if you're able to live in the aloneness of knowing your own incomparable experience. On a solitary cliff. And there's no effort to listen. You're without ears. Then you hear this sound. But if you think about it, you don't know it.

[86:53]

So the koan starts, if you so much have the letter A in your mind, you'll go to hell like in a handbasket. Okay, I think that's enough. We'll end it with a little perplexity here. Mm-hmm. And I think, Andrea, you had a question about something. Do you want to bring it up? Yeah, it came up in the list you wrote before, the Hello List. The question was where, if I create this interior consciousness and inner space, and where I do not have to act out of emotions for a person, where do I make decisions for them?

[88:03]

Okay, in German. Since there's no outside rules, Actually, practically we do, as I say in that precept piece, you do follow the rules of your culture and you've grown up with, you have to have some shared guidance. But for a person in the midst of this practice, You follow, of course, for general safety and compassion, the rules of your society.

[89:06]

But you don't identify with those rules. So what are you identifying with? How do you make a decision? If you say emotion, I think maybe that's not so safe. Let's say in the end you have to trust your feelings. And more at the level of the non-graspable feeling, the level of feeling that's present with everything. And And how do you trust your feeling? You move very simply toward what feels most nourishing. Or when you have a feeling of clarity.

[90:07]

And this may sound like a dangerous thing to base society on, or your actions. But unless you have a God who's given you rules, there's no other basis except ultimately what's most deeply satisfying, nourishing, and completing.

[90:28]

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