But that doesn't mean that you can necessarily teach, except by example. And that doesn't mean you necessarily understand what happened. Okay, so the second stage then is bringing an understanding into your foreground mind. And making clear to yourself what actually you mean by original mind or whatever. And by making it clear then not only can you practice with others with more power, but it begins to influence how these practices have functioned in you. And they begin to function in you with more depth and more clarity.

[01:20]

And so that's why, in a way, usually the idea in Zen practice is, after ten years of concentrating only on practice, And you're fully, during those ten years, come to a full clarity in the present. And you're not bedeviled anymore by your own problems. And that's usually considered to take about ten years of just practicing. And if you start at 18, you're 28 or 30, it's not so bad. But if you start at 40, it means you're 55 or 60 before. But one of the most famous of all Zen teachers is Joshu or Jaojo.

[02:22]

And if I remember correctly, he didn't start practicing until he was 65. Is that right, 65? No, it had to be younger, 45 maybe. But then he was with his teacher for 40 years or something like that. But he happened to live to 120. Mm-hmm. So he had a huge effect, but he was, let's say, mature. So I'll look up the dates, I forget. But in any case, since I'm a late starter, that's why I'm hoping to live to 120. Okay. So then after ten years it's usually considered you can start the process in which teaching then develops your own practice.

[03:46]

And you're supposed to not start teaching until you're clear that you won't harm anyone else. Anyway, this is the ideal. So the point I'm getting toward here is all of this process really makes sense only when you integrate and confirm these things in yourself. Okay, so I think it's quite interesting for me to try to get my approximations out in English. And then Ulrike says them in German. And then you hear them in both languages. And then you have to relate them to your own experience.

[04:57]

And I think that that process is probably pretty good. Okay. So that was, I just wanted to say that in relationship to, since we're entering into looking at Buddhist terms and my English versions of it, etc., I wanted to say that, so I used you as an excuse. I think when I say fundamentally together, it would be better if I said we are fundamentally defined through each other. So even if you live in an apartment all by yourself and you never see anyone, you're still fundamentally defined through other people. Now, the idea of original mind is that you're defined through original mind, not through other people.

[06:20]

And that's the big emphasis in Zen practice and why Zen is considered a single lifetime practice. Because your identity starts from nirvana and ends with nirvana. And nirvana can be considered one way of describing an actual turning around in yourself through original mind. One of the qualities of a person who isn't defined through others Of course, every human being is defined through us. But whether the taproot is or not, that's the difference. It's the taproot of your... Tap root?

[07:40]

No, in a tree there's lots of roots and there's one root, that's the tap root. Okay. If the tap root is rooted in original mind, or rooted in suchness, and I'll try to define suchness, probably it'll be tomorrow morning, Then, for example, one of the experiences you have is you can be with one person or a hundred people and it's very little different than standing in the forest. The presence of other people doesn't deplete you or... nourishes you. So that's why a good teacher, they can be with hundreds of people or one person and they're always pretty much the same.

[08:42]

And they don't go back to the room saying, oh God, I've got to be alone. They feel alone all the time. Well, they feel together all the time. So that's what I mean by fundamentally alone. But I don't know, again, I say it, I don't know, I'm just trying to find a way to describe it, and just now saying... to be defined fundamentally through others is better than saying fundamentally together. Excuse me for going overboard with my answers. Yeah, so what else? What else is there?

[09:54]

Controversy. Controversy? The difference between psychotherapy and spiritual ideas, and how much a psychotherapist is also a spiritual teacher, or can be. There are two different positions or approaches. One is that spiritual quality plays a role in every literature and can be achieved as a branch of the world. The other is that a spiritual path or at least at least as an attempt to illuminate something else, which would be more spiritual. So if you stand on the cliff, someone will push you down, which I don't want to do today. Of course I don't want to do that either.

[10:55]

spiritual path always goes through a crisis, through a night, and a therapist tries to strengthen that I, so to speak, or to heal, or to complement a bit, to support you, to question this I. Who is this I? Who says it? To go behind this I. To let go of what you do not go through a great crisis, usually. There was also the opinion that it is misguided when you say as a psychotherapist that you are spiritually alive, but exactly this crisis, this darkness that most patients in one way or another, I think, are in charge of, and you can't even consciously design such a process yourself. But I don't know if I gave that right again. One opinion is that this is a continuum, and the other opinion is that there is a break, this relationship to the ego.

[12:04]

What is in common, what is the difference between spiritual teaching and therapeutic? And there were two positions. And one position held that there's a continuity and that every good therapist is also a kind of spiritual teacher and that good therapy means that the spiritual dimension comes in and draws the perspective. And the other position that there's quite a difference because a spiritual teacher, if you stand on the edge of a cliff, will push you down, and a therapist won't do it? You can trust me. to make it more clear that a therapist helps you to maybe develop, enrich, enlarge your ego, and a spiritual teacher

[13:17]

helps you to ask the question, who is this ego? Who is thinking? What is behind this me which thinks? And often, this induces a kind of crisis in the dark and the light. And a therapist wouldn't do it and would also not be able to take responsibility for such a process. And those were the two positions we had in the group. The client doesn't give him an order to do it, to do such spiritual work that you acknowledge you're not able to. Yeah, contract. Can you define spiritual for me? I think you agreed upon that, that Greg said that it's spiritual, it's in every kind of word, but maybe that's a little bit different than the path through, in direction to enlightenment.

[14:38]

But there's a certain gap between spiritual and... enlightenment practice, which can track the ego through this particular method. And we have said that there is perhaps a difference between spiritual, which is an extension, or something very personal, and between the... The spiritual path, so to speak. The spiritual path, so to speak, in the direction of enlightenment, which also dissolves the ego a bit, or pushes it away, or even breaks it. But that was all in the I would define spiritual maybe to live through or to discover a life-enhancing morality. I would also say it's to live in authenticity and harmony with oneself.

[15:56]

And third, I would say it's a realisational practice. It seems to me it's at least those three. And it seems that if it's those three, maybe we could think about it, could add a fourth aspect. Any therapist is trying to do one or two of those. The goals of transcendence or realization or enlightenment are not necessarily spiritual life. And then there's a shamanic aspect, of course, to practice too, which is spiritual, but it's another dimension in addition to spiritual.

[17:07]

What do I see going on is a lot of Buddhism in the West, particularly the Theravadan Buddhists, are mixing Buddhism up with psychology. I think on the whole that's a mistake myself. And I don't know if we want to take the time now because that's not our point. It's a digression for me to try to say why I think it's a mistake. To go off in a tangent, to go off in another direction. There's regression and digression.

[18:34]

And I can see that if you have a therapeutic relationship to somebody, it's very hard to have a practice relationship with. Because the whole process of transference and the disciple or the client caring about how you feel about them, etc., interferes with practicing the person. And the whole transmission and also the need of the client to find out or to make a good picture or to be loved by therapists, that disturbs the relationship in practice. I mean, a good part of the time, I mean, when you're practicing with somebody, you're waiting for... I mean, you don't care, in a way, what kind of mess they're in psychologically.

[19:53]

Right. I mean, as long as they're functioning and not suicidal, you know, it's okay. If they're, you know, say, like I've experienced sometimes somebody gets quite depressed or something, And I see practice isn't working for them and probably psychotherapy wouldn't work. They're just down. I may say, just go do something else. But when you're practicing with someone You're waiting for those moments when you can communicate another dimension of existence.

[21:00]

And that you wait till that's just for sometimes possible for a moment. And that rearranges the person in a way that then they can work on their psychological problems, perhaps. But it's a different approach than a therapist takes. I mean, I can just give you another example. I've mentioned a number of times. Sukhriya, she stopped looking at me for a year. I was with him, but he just didn't look at me. I bowed to him and he kind of bowed to me, but it would be pretty hard for a therapist to do that. For a year you'd come and you'd sit there for an hour and the therapist would put earplugs in, look out the window.

[22:15]

But what happened to me during that year was very good. So there's quite a few aspects that are simply different. But that doesn't mean, I would say that a therapist is engaged in a spiritual process and certainly part of it is they themselves being a spiritual person. But their being a spiritual person in their own development doesn't mean their therapy is a spiritual process. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just saying what occurs to me. I don't know if it makes sense.

[23:21]

But I do know that people in our Dharma Sangha who are therapists have to not relate therapeutically to people if they're going to be able to practice with them. Just like I have to decide whether to be friends with a person or practice with a person. If I'm friends with a person, if I decide I'll be this person's friend, it almost... certainly means I can't practice with the person. So I might see somebody I really like and could hang out with, but if I see they have a potential for practice, I will be a little unfriendly. I won't be friends with them. Not exactly unfriendly, but sort of disconnected or a little distant or something. And some of what I'm speaking about comes into this perfecting the personality discussion, which we should start eventually.

[24:28]

Today's Monday, right? I'm used to not knowing what day it is. And we're ending Wednesday? What time Wednesday? Wednesday afternoon or... We have to discuss it because some people have to leave. What time do you... When do you have to leave? At three. At three Wednesday. Yes. Okay. I have to leave after lunch. Sorry. Um... So shall we try to... Shall we try to... Shall I try to end by lunch on Wednesday?

[25:52]

Or if it's three, that's when we would start about... I think the best thing would be when we end at lunch. Maybe we make lunch half an hour later or start... This is for you. This would be best. LAUGHTER I wasn't so precise. Yes. For you and Peter. It's okay to have lunch half an hour, one hour later. I should really leave at the beginning of the afternoon to go on the highway. Okay. So we could, I mean, I don't think we necessarily have to end it it for the two of you, but if we start at 3, then there's not much point in starting unless we go on. So probably we should end at 1 or 2 or 1.30 or something like that.

[26:54]

Then you can skip lunch. For example. Yeah, for example. Okay, so that gives me some idea of what we have to do tomorrow. What else? What's next? Okay, I have to think about how to enter into this discussion of attention and perception and so forth. Perception.

[27:55]

And what I would like to speak about, I have not spoken about in this way before, so I have to kind of sort it out with you. But, for instance, what does Vasubandhu mean when he says, what appears is interdependent, interdependence, How it appears is construction. Or Dogen putting his life teaching really in a two-word phrase, genjo koan. To complete what appears. To complete the particular that appears knowing it's interpenetrated by everything.

[29:12]

Now that's an attitude. It's an attitude toward the present. It's an attitude with which you function in the present. To complete what appears. Knowing each particular that appears is permeated by everything. Now, how do we work with such a thing? One way is we simply hold an attitude like that and see if we can enact it over and over again. And that way of practicing is the basic way of practicing.

[30:34]

You don't know exactly what that's about, but the phrase means something to you. Or Dogen said it, and you have read enough studying about Dogen that you trust it. Or your teachers mentioned it a lot or something. But... really what's going on in a statement like this? What is it? What is it? Where is the present? What is the present?

[31:36]

What is completion? Mm-hmm. Someone asked me at lunch, what is the energy you bring with attention to the present? Well, we know we can have some feeling of energy, but what is it that we... What really do we mean by that? Now I'd like to define this, make it... Okay. One of the distinctions Buddhism makes is between a unconstructed

[33:29]

unconstructed, non-memory-based, I'm making up my own terminology here, unconstructed, non-memory-based perceptions. Okay. And then there's also constructed memory-based memory-based communicable perception.

[34:44]

Now there's a reason for making such distinctions. It's not just as somebody described a text of Vasubandhu's as one of those philosophical texts that counts the teeth of crows. And somebody said to me that I have a tendency to paint six fingers on one hand. And I remarked rather tartly that I need a thousand. Okay. So what would be an example of this unconstructed non-memory based perception? A bolt of lightning.

[35:50]

Or the blue flash. You know what the blue flash is? Green flash. When the sun sets down. And I've seen it sort of three times, I think, about. And I saw it once, but I didn't know it happened. I just happened to see it. It's extremely brief. And it doesn't happen every time the sun sets. And there's a lot of American Indian lore about the importance of seeing it. So to see this green flash is not memory. I mean, I remember I did it, but I can't see it.

[36:53]

It's not constructed from memory. Mm-hmm. So this is considered the most powerful kind and direct kind of perception. But in fact, most perception is memory-based. And I find that if I wait for the sun to set and look for the green flash, the degree to which memory is involved prevents me from seeing. interferes. Okay. Okay, so... There are a lot of papers. So here's an object.

[38:19]

And here's an eye looking at it. Right? Okay, so there's an interaction here. And all in the Vijnana are the process of a sense operating. is described as the organ of perception, the object of perception, and the field that occurs. Okay, so we all know that. All right, so... This we can call the realm or datu of perception.

[39:32]

Okay, so what does this constitute? Okay, if we're going to bring attention to perception, it has to be to this. Okay, what does this constitute? It constitutes, well, the object. But what's this box consist of? It consists of The subjective disposition. Screening processes. We can say editing. And it... Sorry, I just sort of feel it through, think it through.

[41:08]

And it's characterized by either suchness Or taintedness. So if you really look at the Buddhist practice of attention, you're looking at attention at this very initial stage. And so you can't only bring attention to the object. You have to bring attention also to the process of seeing. So there's a lot of analysis of the process of seeing. So I can, because unless you understand the process of seeing, you can't really bring attention to that process, which is largely automatic.

[42:36]

I don't know if you want this much detail. So... That's in this whole process of construction. Mm-hmm. So I'm trying to figure out how to draw this. So let me say first... First of all, you have, say, one, two, three, four, five senses. Eye, ear, nose, tail, touch. Then you have a sixth sense in Buddhism, which is mind. Because this in Buddhism is trying to, I guess in the West we talk about five senses.

[44:01]

And I think of six senses so much I lost contact with the fact that we say five senses. What was that about? Well, Christine thinks we... I mean, we always talk about, you know, about the sixth sense, but she thought it was the seventh sense. No. But sometimes, in some questions, we also talk about the seventh sense. What would be the seventh sense? Intuition or something? Yes, something like wisdom-based or so. Well, some people talk about having a sixth sense. But they mean usually intuition or something like that. But now Buddhism says these are originators. Okay, so I see the green flash.

[45:06]

It's an originator. It wasn't there before, but it came into my eye. So what the Buddhists are asking is, when does the world first come in? When is there first an interruption of autonomic processes? In other words, we're alive, so there's some kind of aliveness going on. A perception is an interruption of that aliveness. Of course, aliveness includes those interruptions, but it's an interruption of the unconscious aliveness. And creates the possibility of a conscious content.

[46:06]

Does that make sense? Okay, so then mind has to be part of that. Because things do arise simply in the mind without any of the senses involved. There's some kind of memory comes up, something comes up. So Buddhists say you have to include mind. Okay, so here we have mind. That's another. So, noch einer. But that's very different. Aber das ist ganz anders. Because all of these depend on mind in order to function. Denn alle die anderen sind ja von mind abhängig, um zu funktionieren. Your eye is actually part of your brain.

[47:06]

It's part of your brain that sticks out. Und das Auge ist Teil des Gehirns, das also rausguckt. So, you can't have eye perception without a brain. Man kann also keine Augenwahrnehmung haben ohne eigentliche Gehirn. So that means that we have a situation like this. Where this... Anyway, so this mind actually is part of all of this. There's no word in Buddhism for mind. And an object is called a property bearer. Because if you say object, you give it a reality. It's a bearer of properties. And what you perceive, the usefulness of saying something like that, is it has more properties than you perceive.

[48:08]

It shows you some of its properties and you perceive some of those properties but you don't perceive the entirety of the properties. So it adds a mystery to every object. So the object isn't a thing that can be understood, it's a thing that can be appreciated. And this is the process of appreciation. Okay. So, this Mano-Vijnana, or let's call it Mind-Dhatu at this point, is said to have the qualities of a monkey a restless horse, a stick thrown into the air, and something else.

[49:20]

Monkey means it jumps around a lot. Arrested horse means it's very hard to control. And a stick you throw in the air, you don't know where it's going to land. So the mind is always kind of like that. So the point of this is, I'll think of the last one, is our problems begin right here. So, because this mind element is also the condition of these, and at this point, if your mind is rested, every one of your perceptions is going to be already disturbed at the moment of perception. Now it's considered that the cheerfulness of the sage is because the sage has calmed this.

[50:26]

Ha, ha, ha. So, now if I try to continue my drawing... How are we doing with time here? The drawing for dinner is at seven, right? I think it's thirty we said. Oh, we did? I thought we said seven. It's in the mind of those folks downstairs. Food is ice cold. Okay, so I'll just draw something.

[51:31]

We'll worry about it tomorrow. So let's simplify this by saying this is the senses. And what we have here, okay, I'll just put it down. That's the senses. And the senses go into the mano-vijnana. You don't have to worry about it. Let's call it mind. What the Buddhists try to do is to divide up the mind in terms of its functions. And they follow quite... What? The five senses go into the mind. The sixth one. No, all of them.

[52:37]

Don't worry about it. We'll make it clear tomorrow. Okay. They try to divide the mind up into its functions, following certain kinds of rules. And each function has a kind of center, so the functions have a kind of homeostasis. and they have a kind of self-organizing process so they do have a kind of unity of center but still they're just the mind divided up They're not considered real separate parts that you could identify biologically. Although, in fact, there might be some kind of biological identification to some extent. Okay, so from there, excuse my foot, it goes to the alaya vijnana.

[53:39]

Now the alaya vijnana is the storehouse consciousness or reservoir consciousness. Okay, that's famous, the alaya vijnana. Everyone knows about the alaya vijnana. Okay. Then from there it goes to citta. Okay. Now, the reason I drew this one this way is this is actually something like this. This is banana mine That the monkey likes But this is called manas And in combinations it's mano This is the Mano-Vijjana.

[55:10]

This is the Mano-Vijjana Dattu. This is the Mano-Vijjana or Manas. It's not important the terms, I don't think. But this is a... Why it's in both places? Because it has prior... and subsequent effect on senses. It both screens and shapes the sensor. And it makes basic differentiations. Like near and far. It's not involved with memory. But near and far is something that has to be differentiated. And whether it's sound or sight or something like that.

[56:12]

Yeah, so this is a kind of constrictor. To constrict, to shrink? Yes, to choose, to edit, to constrict. And this is a constructor. The citta as mind constructs the sense object by bringing memory and associations and so forth. Now, it's sometimes said that if you perceive a flower, here's a flower. Okay, that's a flower. In Manas, right, a flower is like a flower in a breeze.

[57:34]

And there's a kind of wind, right? In Chitta, a flower is like a flower in a vase. Okay. Because by this time, once memory comes in and it becomes a constructed perception, it's no longer rooted in its nourishing, evolving ground. Now, Dogen knows all this. So Dogen is just saying, complete the present, complete what appears. But when he talks about completing what appears, because this is the present. The human present is this.

[58:36]

And this is the process of the human present. And at what point do you and can you bring attention, suchness, a healthy attitude into this. A healthy attitude, cheerfulness into the process. That's enough, I think. What do you think? You mean like a monkey's a bananas being held out and you don't know if you could get it You're pleased with it, but It's like it reminds me of something I don't understand.

[59:54]

Okay. But don't you think it's interesting that these guys back a thousand years ago kind of like really went into this kind of detail? Incredible. Yeah. And really, but you need meditative skills to notice this. But it is truly an inner science. It took me quite a long time to figure out how to draw it. I'll tell you. I just completed the translation. Oh, okay. Well, I'll tomorrow morning try to make some sense of this without going into greater detail.

[60:59]

But I would like you to tell me after tomorrow if this level of detail is useful to you as understanding or practice or something. One of the statements in the koan A monk asks, what is the pure body of reality? And I think it's a great question. But to put it into perspective, can you imagine going to your aunt or uncle or somebody and saying, after all, what is the pure body of reality? They might say, I always knew there was something wrong with you. Are you one of these new age hippies? I mean, what's going on? In other words, somebody says to you, why do you practice Buddhism?

[62:15]

Oh, to know the pure body of reality. Oh, really? But I think when you look at Buddhism more carefully, you can suddenly see the power of a question like, what is the pure body of reality? So what is the pure body? What is the pure body? Exposed in the golden wind. Good. That's a traditional shot at it. Okay. Thank you very much. It would be nice to sit, but I'm afraid we're being rude to the folks downstairs. I'm just looking forward to going further on with that.

[63:24]

Okay. Yeah? I have a question. Sophistically, your left, your picture at the upper, you didn't include the object in the Datu. Does that mean that we don't know the object? Because the object is outside of the Datu. It's just the sense-oriented, the surface of the object, the true nature of the object can't be... Yeah, because the object is outside. You never know about the object. Fully, no. That's important. Maybe you can repeat this a little bit because I already forgot. Now will you remember? I want to get into this more too again, but I still would like if anything has come up for anyone over the evening.

[64:53]

And I'd also like to get through this pretty much before the break because after the break I'd like to speak about the transformation of personality so that it can be part of the discussion this afternoon. So, yeah. First I want to say, you know, on the one hand I feel you can, that this group, these you individuals, can and are already and probably can further develop some kind of Dharma therapy that works within what you're doing or is independent.

[66:12]

And I didn't want to discourage you by what I said yesterday of these guys who practice so many years. And I didn't want to discourage you at all last night when I said that so many practitioners simply do this for a very long time. And Zhaozhou, who lived from 880 to almost 900, was fully enlightened at 18 years old. And then practiced with Nanshan for 30 years, I think. And then for like 30 years or 40 years he visited 80 different teachers.

[67:17]

disciples of Matsu, who was his grandfather's teacher. I mean, his grandfather's teacher, his Nanshuan's teacher. No, his teacher is Nanshuan, Nanshuan's teacher is Matsu. And he then taught, he started teaching at 80 years old. And I think this kind of story is interesting, and also these are the folks who created Zen Buddhism. How really to transform this stuff into a practice. And since I'm a believer in the evolution of consciousness, And I started out with saying that Zen is particular in Buddhism to assume the evolution of consciousness.

[68:38]

But then a footnote or hara note. Why were these guys so good? Why do we look back and say, geez, I mean, when I read them, I can say, geez, how did they realize so much? How did they know so much? And I think the answer is Sangha. The answer is that he visited 80 teachers. The answer is that these guys, in my sense, the answer is, These guys all had these various temples, but they all lived very near each other.

[69:54]

And all the disciples communicated, and then the disciples' disciples communicated, and so forth, over a period of 150 years or so, and that's what generated then Buddhism. Much like Western science, if you study it, there's groups of scientists who all clustered together and produced contemporary physics and things. Nanchuan, for instance, first studied Buddhist philosophy in many schools for years. And then was with Matsu, one of the two or three greatest of all the Zen masters. And then he lived in seclusion for 30 years.

[71:00]

And then finally people got him to come out and start teaching. So what I'm saying, I guess, is that on the one hand we have to go ahead with practicing with others and teaching others. And at the same time I think it's important to have the vision of maturing our practice with others over our lifetime. Now, Yesterday I attached a story to these divisions, these distinctions, the story of my own practicing with them.

[72:03]

And what, of course, I'd like you to do is attach your own story to these things. Because they come to life when you work with them. And I have some problem with the terms. Because basically I have to check this up in my own experience. And the problem with the technical terms is in the several centuries in which this teaching developed, the terms shift in meaning all the time. And Asanga and Vasubandha, who are

[73:04]

actual brothers and Asanga, the teacher of Vasubandhu. I was charmed that Asanga converted Vasubandhu to Yogacara teaching. Because Vasubandhu was putting down his brother's works as singles. So Asanga sent two groups of disciples to answer first one group of questions and then anticipating the second questions. He had another group come in and answer the second set of questions. And then Vasubandhu was converted to Yogacara view. But Vasubandhu was smarter than Asanga. And he understood Asanga faster than Asanga could almost present the teaching.

[74:36]

So Asanga said, you have to make these teachings understandable to people. I can only teach you. But even with these two, they use these terms differently. Yeah, so... I should have tried to figure out how to draw this differently, but I had only tried to... I didn't do that yet. This is... constructed, this is also defined only through itself.

[75:47]

Now, That's what Gregory Bateson would call a metalogue. An analogue is defined by comparison to other things. He used the term metalogue. I think it may not be his term, but I only know it through talking to him. For instance, if I say to you, good morning, that's a metalogue. Good morning is good morning. You can't say much about it. A flash of lightning again.

[76:58]

You can't sort of define it. A flash of lightning is a flash of lightning. You can't say much about it. It is a flash of lightning. I like the supposedly zebra babies. When they're first born. I don't know how they know this. They talk to the zebras, I guess. Supposedly, the zebra mother makes sure no other zebras are near the infant for the first 30 minutes or so, so the baby memorizes the lines on her neck. I guess they don't know by smell. So that... The baby from then on doesn't confuse his or her mother with any other zebra.

[78:12]

That's also, I would say, an example of known only through itself. As you being a parent, perhaps in the middle of a crowd, if your baby starts to cry, you know it's your baby and not any other baby. You know. Anyway. Okay, so what's the importance of this kind of thing? All right. It's related to the concept of karma and the alive is new. Now, there's a problem with this word citta. So let's say citta, but also let's just say thinking consciousness. And let's call this receiving consciousness.

[79:26]

Okay. Now, receive... I'll just do the best I can. What is the receiving consciousness? Manas. Manas. Okay. Now, the reason I'm talking about this is two reasons. One is to try to make clear to you why Dignaga would say Perception is cognition without conception.

[80:28]

Or why Seng San, the third patriarch, his grand teacher, was Bodhidharma. And he's the 30th ancestor after the Buddha. And 30 sounds like a lot, but I want you to know there's almost 30 people in this room. I just want to emphasize again and again how brief this teaching is, and you're a part of this teaching. Again, for example, if we played telephone and you told her something and her something, by the time it gets back there, it's going to be different. But if you very carefully, in the most exacting full way, spend 10 or 15 years telling her, she spends 10 or 15, it's going to be pretty good by the time it gets back there.

[81:52]

So 30 people making that kind of effort, the teaching stays quite intact. Even if they do shift the terms around. Okay, so Sang San, the so-called third ancestor in Zen, he's famous for saying, the great way is not difficult. Only avoid picking and choosing. Now I imagine, I always feel it's a relief to hear that the great way is not difficult.

[82:53]

But only avoid picking and choosing. Okay, so what's the reason for this not picking and choosing? Yeah, or Nanchuan asked, Joshu asked Nanchuan, What is the way? And Nanchuan said, not mind, not Buddha, not things. What's that all about? I'm trying to get at what these answers are about. And I think... Shwado, I believe it is, said, if there's the slightest idea of good or bad, we'll stray into confused thinking.

[84:24]

Now, of course there's good and bad, and of course Schrader lived his life according to what he thought was good. So again, what are they speaking about? All right. Now... Maybe I can draw it in. Okay, we'll call this receiving consciousness. And we'll call this, or we can call it constricting. That's why I said yes. Editing.

[85:25]

And we can call this, and here's Alaya Vijnana. And here's the act of perceiving. Okay. Okay, now what this editing, constricting, receiving does It's the consciousness which first receives everything. And its tendency is to know things by identifying everything with this. So this is differentiating. and defining. And this we'll call thinking consciousness.

[86:34]

And this is constructing. And this constructs. Excuse me? This constructs and this identifies. No. Okay, I'll go over it some more. I would say that psychotherapy deals with this. Zen deals with this. Okay, because if we took classical psychoanalysis, It's attempting to reconstruct or understand again how we put the world together.

[87:39]

Okay. This is trying to change how we initially perceive things. So this is more like a mirror. And this is more than like a storehouse. So Buddhism says the problem starts here. Buddhism says in many ways the problem starts here.

[88:43]

So there's a tremendous effort in all of Buddhist practice on the initial act of perception. Because things are so defined here that by the time they get to here it's basically the game is over. You can move the parts around But you can't change it basically. So from the point of view of Buddhism, this is the seat of the ego. This is where the sense of ego is created. By having a mirror identity with your past. Now, can I say this again in some way?

[89:58]

Yes. Okay, well, you ask me and then I'll try to do it. These are functions, okay? Mental functions. These are functions... that relate your personal history and initial perception. So here we have personal history plus initial perception. Okay. And this is dealing with the received impression, perception, which is already a flower in a vase. So it looks like a flower, but it's no longer rooted. It's no longer alive. Okay. Now there's another reason for the importance of this. Let me say, it's understood that for a sage... There's no longer a manas.

[91:16]

It disappears. It shrivels up. Because you learn how to bypass it. Okay, so there's two things going on here. Bypassing this And refreshing the laya vijnana. So just buy, pass, and refresh. Now what do I mean by refreshing? The mind divides itself up into functions. And one of the functions is memory. Okay, now, memory, let's think of it as a warehouse. Closed up, without ventilation, stale air, etc.

[92:34]

This is very stale. It's always self-referential. This thinking uses your past, the past used thinking, and you're constructing who you are here. Okay, the more your perceptions are rooted in the present, the more you're not conceptualizing the present, but present in the present as an undefinable reality. You're opening up the doors and windows of the warehouse and the stuff in this constantly is maturing and clarifying itself. So by a constant, by bringing your sense of continuity into the present into the present as body, breath and phenomena

[93:42]

That act opens up the doors and windows of the unconscious, the non-conscious, of the warehouse. So this is the kind of background practice philosophy reason for the tremendous effort to be in the immediacy of the present. If the purpose of Buddhism is to free us from suffering or transform our relationship to suffering, And our suffering primarily arises from our karma and from the many definitions of our self and past experiences and traumas and so forth. It's important, of course, to try to understand those things.

[95:12]

And that is, in a way, the whole... I mean, it's... Okay. Well... One of the things that's happened in the... in the... in Kosovo And in Austria and Switzerland, when all these snows buried villages and things, they bring in counselors and therapists to talk with people so they can not be so traumatized, particularly kids. And they try to get the Kosovo folks, kids, to talk about what's happened to them. They saw their parents shot and so forth.

[96:14]

And you think, yeah, here's this some kind of half-trained person from England flies down to Kosovo to help some person who's had...

[96:31]

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