So the point is really exactly what I was saying last night. That we get these distinctions and mostly we can't do much with them. But to use them and play with them as they come up spontaneously in your language is good. But my presenting the skandhas to you is most of all giving you a kind of permission, as I've been saying. The permission and opportunity to notice your experience in more refinement than we usually do. It takes a while. After you've got the feeling and the sense of kind of general sense of the skandhas,

[01:04]

It might actually take even a few years. But depending on your life and practice, even in a few weeks sometimes, or instantaneously, you can get a feeling for the skandhas. And fast is not better than slow. Not at all is probably not as good as some speed. Not at all would be too slow. Because many things have to happen in order to really sense the distinction within each, the distinction between each skanda. It's like feeling bumps in air.

[02:25]

It's quite hard to feel. What I took a walk the other day near Kimsey, and as I was walking, I found in a flat field, there were different microplanes. I'd walk along and for two meters it would be cooler. If I didn't think and I walked kind of slowly, I could walk around and feel the edges of the coolness right in the middle of a field. Now, if I was doing intensive farming, I would actually plot my field that way and plant different things according to those micro-plants. But that's a very hard thing to notice and it really helps to have a gardener point out that there are microclimates and that's why there's flowers here and vegetables over here or something like that.

[03:54]

Yeah, so it takes, you know, to notice these distinctions of skanda microclimates. It takes a little time to begin to feel them. You know, I suppose I explain some things and sometimes I've heard that I talk about things in a little too much detail sometimes. But it's my own... I guess it's probably my own stupidity and it takes me quite a while to see something unless I really see the turn of it. Mm-hmm. Now someone asked me last night, who's not here today, only could come last night, Zen seems to be about taking care of your, getting to know yourself first, or primarily, and not other people.

[05:24]

It's sort of true. It's true in the sense that your sense in Buddhism is that you can't really know someone else unless you know yourself. And you really have to feel at ease with yourself before you can feel at ease with others. She said immediately, very practically, well, that could take at least ten years. But I suddenly imagined her living in one of those plastic isolation tents for 10 years, getting to know herself and having no interaction with anyone else.

[06:31]

Even while you're getting to know yourself a little better, you can still say hello to other people and have interactions with other people. But it's funny how we think. He said, I'm wasting ten years of helping others by getting to know myself. And in fact, getting to know yourself is very intimately connected with getting to know somebody else. That's part of the subject of this koan. Because we can assume if we looked at the first koan that it's, those of you who have been following this, is really the Dharmakaya Buddha. And the third koan we just did last week is the Sambhogakaya Buddha.

[07:47]

And this one is the Nirmanakaya Buddha. No, again, that's not so useful to most of you, but anyway, I'll say that. Someone else have something they'd like to bring up? Yes. Yes. I took only the two first sentences, which I found very different in feeling, my feelings coming up, but also... You found the two sentences were different. Very different, because the first sentence was very pointed, and the other one, talking about a horse, kind of came up with a fighter.

[08:52]

Yeah, yeah. Who is pointing out the... Yeah. I know that, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. So this big difference made me kind of dream about it. Yeah. So did you have a dream? Well, I did have a dream, but it was only about landscape and about... I was sitting on a horse and trying not to wear this lens. To carry the lens, I just woke up. To wear the... To carry the lens. To carry. But I pointed out. Yeah. Yeah. this different feeling. This morning when I was sitting, I was still in this feeling. It was different. It was my way of pointing, or the real energy the second sentence took me to stay with the feeling.

[09:58]

Back in the first sentence, the energy of the first sentence is totally different than from the second sentence. That's your experience, yeah. Well, the question here, do you want to say that in German? You can talk to me in Crestone English all you want. . The dream I had was on the one hand only a relationship.

[11:01]

We had been together for six years, so you know when I was in Germany, I was very far away and it was a dream come true. And the other thing was the feeling of being a woman, of being a virgin and also having a small dream. Wake up. I heard, yeah, I know. I was pretty mad. I might be. You get mad at the rooster? And then you get angry at the rooster? Now, do you think that might be misplaced anger?

[12:02]

Yes. Have you noticed that you've gotten the rooster angry at you now? Oh. Why do roosters crow? Do crows rooster? So... Yes, Kurtz.

[13:07]

But I noticed that actually when you read the introduction, case, commentary, edit, verse, and so forth, there's no difference. I mean, they're talking about the same thing. So I find it a little confusing to make these distinctions in the first place. Which distinctions? Of introduction, case, commentary. I mean, these various little parts. You mean you just like the case and nothing else? I do notice the distinction between this part. Oh. Well, because, for instance, Kisla said, pointed out this first line, the single mote of dust arises, the whole earth is contained. And that feels different to her than with a single horse and a single lance, the lance extended.

[14:39]

Now, the question is, are these different or are they the same? Or is one the consequence of the other? So they're put together in a little bit jarring way. They seem different, but they're not so different. There's another koan in the Blue Cliff Records where Shui Feng says, if you lift up a single mote of dust, the nation flourishes. And if you don't, the nation perishes. And the commentary says, that's not the business of his school. So anyway, I can't say that, but I don't think I could at least work with a koan unless I had these distinctions.

[15:56]

But you're right that they do say the same thing over and over again. Someone else? Yeah. For me, the first sentence which came up, which said hello to me, was, getting the beginning, he took him the end. And by following that phrase, I noticed the Jerusalem Quorum, there are always two things. There is the object and the subject, and there's the beginning and the end. There's a word on it, like in the prayer, or the blade, and the sanctuary. Is that the story of the koan, the connection of the two things? Yeah, yeah, of course.

[17:00]

You want to say that? There's a question of merging, and on the other side there's a question of stack, or of pointing, which is not merging, or is it merging? Yeah, you want to say that, Jeremy? The first sentence that enlightened me was this, getting the beginning, you took in the end. As I followed this, I noticed that you took in the beginning, you took in the text, there are always two things, subject, object. at the beginning and at the end, the earth and the clouds or the grasslands and the salvation and the fact that this is the topic of the Quran, the connection between the two. Yeah, are you partly referring to last week when we talked about unity, differentiation, merging?

[18:01]

Yeah. Well, the first three koans are about emptiness, the presentation of emptiness and merging with emptiness. This koan continues from those three But in a pretty fundamental way changes the topic. This koan is about activity. And it's somewhat different than the idea of merging. So the question here is what activity is both a beginning and an end. Okay, so I can tell you the story of why I chose, please bring me six flowers.

[19:24]

And used it here. Story some of you have told before. I had a friend named Harry Roberts who'd been brought up, he was a white person, but he'd been brought up in a Native American Yurok tribe. You know, he was an agronomist, kind of university-trained agronomist. Agronomist. And started the first native plant nurseries in California and so forth. But he was also, in his own life and with a few disciples, a medicine man. And one of the stories he told about his teacher, Robert Spott,

[20:33]

If you're familiar with anthropological literature, he's Kroeber's main informant about Native American medicine teaching. Now, Spott might say to someone, somebody would come to Spott and say, would you accept me as a disciple? I'd like to practice medicine with you. And Robert Spott might say to the person something like, oh, Fine, I will consider this, he'd imply, when you bring me six flowers. No. If the person asking hesitates or goes somewhere and looks for the six flowers, he or she is not acceptable.

[22:04]

If when Robert, when Spot says to him, please bring me six flowers, without hesitating, he immediately picks six blades of grass or anything near, immediately hands them to him. Then he's accepted. As a beginning at least. So what is that state of mind that knows not to look elsewhere? And that's part of this koan. What is the state of mind that knows even can't look elsewhere? But at least the state of mind asking to practice medicine can't look elsewhere. Of course there are states of mind that can look elsewhere, but now we're talking about a particular state of mind, a particular kind of activity.

[23:42]

Now I'd like to talk to you about something, but But I think if I start to delay our break, I think we need a break. Now what I'm trying to do here is, both from your questions and your comments, and also from some kind of stories or examples I can find, I'm trying to give you a feeling for the territory of this koan. And the territory of this koan, which is also your territory. Because if we don't find out an overlap between your territory and the koans, then there's very little hope of understanding it together.

[24:57]

So this is a kind of adventure together in discovering a possible way of being. Possible in general for human beings and possible for you. And as I said last night, this koan doesn't have many handles. And the surfaces it presents to us, the divisions, surfaces, structure it presents to us, are not the real structure of the koan. Which, for the most part, is obvious. But what is the structure of the koan is something we need to discover.

[26:04]

So I need to kind of talk around it a bit and just find some things that prepare us to look at the world of this koan. So I'd like us to, it's 10.55. Maybe till 20 after 11 we can have a break. And Monica, what time is lunch? One o'clock. One o'clock, okay. Okay, thank you very much. Okay. Does anyone have anything you'd like to bring up? Did I have a question? Yes. It leads back to last night about what you were saying about calm, about... Yes, it has something to do with what you said yesterday evening about this calm spirit.

[27:20]

To abide, as far as I understand it, means to remain with or to stay with. And yet one of the basic tenets of Buddhism is that everything changes. There's nothing fixed. So how does one relate to the other? That's why we have dharma. Again, very simply, David's correct that Buddhism says everything, absolutely everything changes.

[28:26]

But again, very simply, the word dharma means to hold. As I said recently, the present is a dharma. Our experience of the present held a moment in our sense field is a dharma. There's no actual way to measure the present. It's something held in your sense field. So the sense in Buddhism is to not do something that denies everything's changing. In that sense, if you believe in this abiding as permanent, then you wouldn't be practicing Buddhism.

[29:29]

So our experience of being is the verb, being. There's a kind of duration to being. It is. So we're always talking about it is. And the Buddhist teaching is that it is and it is not. Okay, now within that is and it is not, where do you rest? So part of being is a sense of continuum. Und Teil des Seins ist ein Gefühl für ein Kontinuum. Okay, so where is that continuum? Und wo ist dieses Kontinuum?

[30:40]

That's what these koans are all about. Where is that continuum? Und damit beschäftigen sich alle diese koans. Wo ist dieses Kontinuum? Now, Peter brought up a little while ago about this sense of, he brought up the word merging. Und Peter sprach das Wort verschmelzen an. And it says a little further on the koan of the merging of subject and object. Now, what we talked about last week was the merging into emptiness through differentiation. If you divide things one way, sort of A, B, G, 7, you might not be able to merge that differentiation into emptiness. In other words, if you divide your experience some ways, you get stuck in the divisions.

[31:56]

Buddhism is about how to differentiate your experience so it's serviceable. So your experience can merge into emptiness. Now, if you say that if you divide your experience into A, B, 3, You can merge that differentiation into emptiness. And that's of course what the skandhas and the vijnanas are about. They're ways to differentiate experience so that they merge into emptiness.

[32:57]

Now, what should be clear that different... Now, some differentiations don't merge into emptiness. Some differentiations merge into emptiness. But it's a different emptiness. Und es ist jeweils eine andere Art von Leerheit. The emptiness that arises from a differentiation of AB3 will be different than one that arises from BCM, say, I don't know. Ja, eine Leerheit, die von dem Verschmelzen von AB3 entsteht, ist etwas anderes, als wenn ich ACD und so weiter verschmelze. Now, maybe what I should say here, because it's also part of this koan, is that awareness tends to be neutral.

[34:02]

Now, I'm using awareness to also mean undifferentiated consciousness. But compassion is not neutral. compassion is a force a cognitive power so what we have here is we've been discussing emptiness and awareness so forth now we're talking in this koan about compassion now when you bring compassion into the merging into emptiness, you have a different ball game, different soup. Okay. So now if we're talking about the merging of subject and object, this is not the merging of differentiation into emptiness. Although you could say that subject and object can only merge because of emptiness.

[35:27]

But here we're talking really about an experience of subject and object as a unit, not as the unit which is also emptiness. Now, it's very commonplace nowadays to talk about mind and body are one. And in medicine now, people try to give visualization practices to people because your image, your visual image affects your disease. So the commonplace of mind and body are one, for many people now, mostly is a nice idea. And when you're trying to use this idea and use visualization, say, as a part of a medical treatment, this is a step beyond just having a general idea that mind and body are one.

[36:40]

But it's a little bit like a light flashed into mostly a dark house. You don't really know what the house is like, but you've discovered that you can try certain things. You don't know the territory, but you can walk into it a little bit. That makes sense. What a koan like this is telling us, and it may be too much for us. We may not want to know all this. What a koan like this is telling us, hey, what is the real territory of mind and body as one? How can you realize that? And how can you actually experience it? Now, the sense of our life, our inner life being a craft, is very, for many of us, is kind of an anathema.

[38:09]

Anathema means something that we don't like or goes against our grain. I think the only people in our society, except some psychologists, who are concerned really with the craft of being are artists. And mostly, their concern is limited to the production of art. And in fact, even this craft of being is so poorly understood even by artists usually that at least many of the artists I know in New York who are considered among the greatest actually paint while they're drunk.

[39:17]

They can only activate this territory. and take interference out by getting at least some or quite drunk or stoned. This is not entering the territory. This is like changing your state of mind by hitting yourself on the head with a bell. It doesn't, it works actually, but you know. You have a limited access to, you know, to the territory. Okay. Oh dear. So, In order to explore the territory of being, mental stabilization is necessary.

[40:34]

So the first practice of Zen is physical stabilization. And as I described last night, through physical stabilization, mental pliancy arises. And mental suppliancy isn't something kind of generally related to categories we have like taking a nap. Mental pliancy is a particular state with definite signs that indicate you've entered that state. So it's a kind of, there's structure to it. There's a beginning and an end. It's a territory, like a microclimate. You can walk in the cool or out of the cool area.

[41:34]

Okay, and then through mental pliancy you realize physical blissfulness and ease and then from that ease physical pliancy arises And then mental bliss arises, and this is the ground of mental stabilization. So the first effort is to just achieve some physical stability. To become still.

[42:46]

Now when that stillness is really established, as David mentioned, calm abiding mind, then you can use that calm abiding mind as a way to now not be still, but to explore the world. To explore being. That's a little bit like getting on a bicycle and riding around this village. If you walk around this village, you'll discover some things. And if you ride a bicycle around, you'll discover other things, other byways, little places. But if you drive your car around, you won't discover much. You'll be out of the village before you know it. And it's kind of hard to explore in a car.

[43:50]

A car requires you to have to go somewhere. Cars demand goals. And states of mind are like that. Some states of mind demand you to have something you're doing. Zazen is more like bicycle mind or walking mind. You're just noticing little things. Okay. Now the point is, I'm talking about here, is this sense of exploring yourself and noticing yourself. And part of that background of zazen practice is to realize mental stabilizations.

[44:52]

Because with mental stabilization, you can begin to actually explore being. Now, the kind like Neil brought up, exploring the five skandhas. Now, the five skandhas can't be explored through mindfulness practice in daily life. You can't be still enough. You have to get off your bicycle, stop walking, sit down in the village and watch the village go by. And after a while you become familiar with the five skandhas and you can then get up and walk around the village.

[46:11]

Und nach einer gewissen Zeit wird man mit den fünf Skandals vertraut genug, dass man aufstehen kann und im Dorf um ihr geht. Und diese Art von Unterscheidungen, die kann man jetzt mit Hilfe dieser geistigen Stabilisierung sehen. I noticed something really surprising to me during satsang when the sirens went, because I realized for the first time that actually the sirens only affect me in my state of mind, that the birds weren't affected like that. I mean, they completely continued chirping and singing as if nothing happened. And I remember once at the Session when the sages went in the middle of the night, for me they always bring up a lot of images, fears, traumas from the war and the stories I grew up with.

[47:25]

So all of a sudden noticing that the image that the whole world stops when the sirens start, that I totally fooled myself and always had fooled myself. I mean, the birds are not affected at all, or the plants on some level. And the first time I understood why, because I'm then in broad consciousness when I hear them on some level. And the birds aren't. I mean, they are in their immediate consciousness, and it doesn't affect them. They don't have all this stuff around it. And it was so beautiful and kind of freeing myself. So it was a distinction I was, I think, able to make because I was in size and was able to hear this not in dream mind, but these associations are also helpful, but just in size of mind. You want to say that in German when the bell is allowed for you?

[48:27]

Bye. When we heard the sirens while we were sitting, I noticed for the first time that the sirens only touched me so strongly. And I also had a very strong experience with the sirens while skiing, where the sirens went off in the middle of the night. And siren means for me a lot of stories that I heard as a child from the war, where the siren alarm was announced. I noticed for the first time that, for example, the birds were not touched by it at all. They continued to twitch without a reaction in the same way as if there were no sirens. And I also understood this difference, which Roshi explained in the last seminar, between the protected and the immediate consciousness.

[49:36]

And I just noticed that in a way, I have kept myself to myself, in which I have always believed that when a siren rings, the whole world will be stopped for everyone, and that this is simply a false perception, because I am in this hidden consciousness, and while the birds, in my opinion, are in this immediate consciousness, and simply let it pass through as perception and continue with what they are doing right now, namely twitching. It makes me so happy that you understand these things. When any of you understand it, I don't know why I get happy, but I get happy.

[50:41]

Because I sometimes feel like, geez, well, I won't tell you what I sometimes feel. All right. I used to have a problem of... When I go to sleep at night, if my arms were up above my head, I couldn't find them after a while. I don't have any explanation why that happens. I don't think it happens to everybody. Maybe I have low blood pressure or something. I don't know. I'm just weak. In any case, I have actually damaged a few rooms because of that.

[51:43]

You damaged? I damaged several rooms by sleeping in a hotel or someplace and my arms would go to sleep. And the phone would ring. I'd say, oh, my God. Where are my arms? And I'd jump up and forget that I didn't know where they were. And they'd go... And lamps would get knocked over and water glasses... So I learned to kind of check out. Now I always try to keep my arms down. But I learned to check out now and say, OK, I don't think I know where my arms are. They have to be around you somewhere. And then I'd try to find some sensation, you know, if I could move one finger or feel something in my elbow.

[53:02]

As soon as I could move one finger, then I could discover the whole arm. And I might not know the other arm, but with a little effort, I could use what I found from the first arm to discover the second arm. Okay. Now, we... I'm trying to find something that's our common experience, or at least somewhat common. Now, if you continue the practice, as I said yesterday, establishing mental stabilization, tastes of mental stabilization are... that you're not necessarily achieved mental stabilization, but tastes of mental stabilization are accompanied sometimes by you don't know where your body is.

[54:24]

You can't tell where your arms are or where your hands are. And sometimes the boundaries of your body are gone. Now what's going on here? It's actually worse than what Buddhist culture does to study these things. Are you just having an experience of not knowing where your hands are, say. Of course you are, but really you're not. Of course you are, but really you're not. Of course you are having an experience of your hands not being there. But that's really not what you're experiencing.

[55:27]

You're actually experiencing the absence of a continuum which supports the image of the hands. That's quite different. Okay. So, here I am sitting. I mean, you know, I've discovered, I found a little point here and it allowed me to bring my arm back. Okay. I didn't experience every point of my arm. I only experienced one point. So what does it mean the one point allowed me to reestablish? It allowed me to re-establish my image of the arm. Once I had the image of the arm, I could locate the whole arm. Now, that's something you can study if your own arm goes to sleep. You don't have to be practicing meditation. But to really notice it, probably meditation would help.

[56:57]

But what I'm pointing out here, you don't have to be esoterically in some kind of advanced state of mental stabilization. You can just have your arm go to sleep in a hotel. So, what do we conclude here? Sorry to be so simple, but I have to be simple, okay? Our experience, maybe I can put it this way. Experience. Can you see what I'm doing? Yeah. That's fine. Experience.

[58:01]

Excuse me, can you describe? Figure. Figure, yeah. That's what my computer did yesterday. It crashed. I knew I was having problems when different typefaces began peering on top of each other. Experience is based on the body. Not everyone would accept that, but basically Buddhism is based on that idea. And we're having a meeting at Karstum soon with people who are concerned with chaos theory and artificial intelligence and so forth.

[59:04]

And one of their concerns is that you have to start out that all sensation is based on the body. You can see here that the teaching here is little experience and big experience, both of which are important. What are You probably think the simple way to say it is that our experience of the body is not based on the

[60:15]

Does that make sense? No. No. I was hoping it would not. Okay. Because... Our experience of the body is based on an image of the body. Image of the body is the container of the experience. For instance, I kept on my arm until I had the image of my arm. At least you hear what I'm saying.

[61:20]

Yes, Martin. Why do you use the term image? An image of a mission. Yeah. Well, the body has a shape. I could say a sense of the shape of the body. OK. So maybe I should say it again. Our experience of the body is based on our image of the body.

[62:26]

So what happens when you are doing zazen and your body disappears? that the continuum which will support images is gone. And as soon as that continuum is gone, then your experience seems to reach, doesn't seem to have boundaries. Okay, so now mental stabilization allows you to create serviceable states of mind where you not only can feel distinction between the five skandhas, And the difference between karma biting minds and karma digesting minds.

[63:33]

Or or between borrowed consciousness, immediate consciousness, and secondary consciousness. Now you can also experience states of mind in which images are supported and which images are not supported. Now there's a kind of continuum, mental continuum, which holds the world in place. And holds your own image of your body. And... So in short, without stretching it too much here, when in zazen you feel the boundaries of your body disappear, what really has happened is not that the boundaries of your body have disappeared,

[64:50]

The container, the image, you can think of the image as a container, the image of your body no longer contains the experience. And the image no longer contains the experience because the continuum of mind that supports images has been dispersed. Or moved out of. No, okay. You know, let me change the topic. We don't notice things, like I was saying last night, the rivers of... space in type. And what's interesting is, although it's very easy to see them as soon as you notice them, There's nothing in any of these words or sentences or the content of the meaning that points to the rivers.

[66:19]

So there's nothing in the experience of the body that points to the experience Body-centered experience which doesn't experience the body. Okay. There's nothing... See, I wonder if I'm... But, you know, when you say you understand these things, it makes me happy, but not... Because you just said it. The birds didn't... have a continuum that supported the siren. They heard the siren, I'm fairly sure. But their continuum is elsewhere and doesn't support the siren. But when you hear the siren, particularly in the middle of night, it activates not only a continuum which supports the image,

[67:22]

It's also a continuum. The knowledge supports the image and the sound of the bell, of the siren. It also supports horrible and frightening associations from your past. And then keeps you awake. Now, you can actually hear the siren but not really hear it because nothing in you supports the hearing of it. So your example is about what I'm talking about. These two sentences are somewhat confusing. Shouldn't it be bare experience, or the initial perception of the experience is based on... What?

[68:45]

My sentences are too long? When it's so complicated. Right, that our bare experience, that we actually perceive or have a sensation about something... But then you say here that our experience of the body is based on an image, but isn't our experience later on in this canvas entirely based on images in some sense? Which is why, for example, natives who haven't experienced ships, for example, have been said they can't see the ship because it's not in a particular mental image of what the world is like. So they see it in one sense, but don't see it in another sense. Is that right? It's very interesting right now. I feel I completely understand this, but my understanding doesn't support the continuum which makes it possible for me to translate it. That's very simple. And I can't even translate what David's saying.

[69:49]

I can't even hear it because I'm so involved in the understanding, but I don't have the continuum. Okay, now what's the difference between Ulrike and myself? Let me just say that. What's the difference between Ulrike and myself? I've been doing this long enough to talk to you from the experience of the absence of a continuum and to switch back and forth and to sufficiently establish a continuum in order to talk to you while I'm actually experiencing the absence of the continuum. But Ulrike, in order to understand what I'm saying, has to enter this absence of a continuum But then can't translate it.

[71:02]

In order to understand it, she can't translate it. I feel like, you know, I'm a magician, and I'm doing things like, and you're demonstrating what I'm doing. And now you watch, when I touch her, she will levitate four feet. I promise not to saw you in half. As long as you merge me back into emptiness. Yes? Why don't you say it in German and then you translate for me. Is it also dependent on the body and disappears?

[72:26]

You said our experience was based on the body, but what is it about this ease we feel in sasana? Is this also based on the body, and then does that ease disappear when the body disintegrates? Yeah, ultimately it's all based on the body. The image of the body is based on the body. You have to be alive to have an image of the body. At least this is my experience. Because I don't have any experience of being dead. So I can only say that... Okay. Peter? I have another question.

[73:38]

Maybe by this discontinuity, if I experience it in sitting, it's a mixture of fear and joy. And sometimes it just makes me, oh, I'm happy it's made me pain because the pain helps me in continuity. Yeah. It's just my thinking now. I don't have a question. In other words, you may feel pain in order to establish continuity. Oh, yes, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the ego feels like it's losing and says, at least I can hurt. Guten Tag. Hat jemand da unten in der Straße ein Auto stehen? He wants you to move the car?

[74:49]

What? He said it in an accent, I see. David, maybe you would like to write your version of the sentence up there. How would you phrase it? How would you put it? And you're saying this in German now? I was just concerned that when I come to such points of discontinuity, on the one hand it can be joy, on the other hand it can be simply fear. And I also think that the pain that I feel is simply a help to restore the continuity. Yes, Roshi said that if the ego realizes that it is losing, then it can at least still hurt.

[76:18]

Yes, Gerrit. I have a tendency when sitting, when the contours are gone, then I am not forced anymore. my experience, my experience, to build as a body, and to let it exist, to float. And that was the point. I have the habit in sitting when these boundaries are gone, then I'm not forced anymore to put them together as body, I just let them float. And is that what you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Is there something in the parallel between establishing the continuum and moving through the standards? Or is this related?

[77:23]

Do you want to say it in German? Yes. The point of the skandhas is to break the continuum of ego. And it creates a possibility of other continuums, five continuums. With an underlying basis of non-graspable feeling and some degree of consciousness. Can you read that? Yeah. I don't know whether that's right. Good. What I mean is, I don't know whether I put it into words, but just to use the example, I think we're using it a bit louder.

[78:42]

So maybe I could give an example of what I'm feeling, I don't know if it's right. But there's an example of natives on an island in the South Seas who couldn't see a Western ship. Because in their world image, in their image of the world, ships didn't exist. They weren't part of their normal image. So, in one sense, they had a sensation of the ship. They saw it, in some sense. But their image of the world didn't support grasping the ship. So it didn't enter their experience. What was wrong with these natives? Well, I could ask the same question.

[79:57]

We may be experiencing exactly the same thing in relationship to UFOs. You know, there's a very respected psychologist at Harvard named John Mack who did a some studies starting out feeling these people were having something psychotic or pathological episode. Of having been actually abducted by alien spacecraft and alien beings. And he studied examples, quite a number of people from all over the world. And he concluded at the end of his experiment, or his study, that these people weren't having a shared psychosis, that they'd actually been abducted.

[81:25]

I don't know whether he's right or not. I'm just saying that he concluded, coming from complete disbelief, that something's actually happened to these people that's not imaginary. And a variety of your reactions may be very similar to the natives on this island who had some discussion about, well, I thought I saw a ship. And the other one says, hey, man, people don't float on water like that. And there was even a story about it in the Island Gazette, but no one took it seriously. In the Island Gazette, the Gazette is a newspaper. Yeah, that's sort of what I mean.

[82:36]

But I don't know if I'd say bare experience because I'd say our ability to experience is based on the body. In general. And because of that, we're fooled into thinking our experience of the body is based on the body. But our experience of the body is based on an image of the body. Our experience is based on the body. But our specified experience of our body is based on an image of the body. And you'll discover that if you can begin to have an image of your interior, you can begin to experience your interior. In other words, our ability to grasp experience is related to our ability to create an image of the experience.

[83:57]

And that's what, when people use images to work against cancer in the body, that's what you're doing. So the point is, there's a double point here. One is that it's very useful to notice that our experience is tied to images as a vehicle. And if you change your image, you change the vehicle of experience. So if you want to change your experience of the world, you change your image of the world.

[84:57]

Does that make sense? Yeah. This is too early in the seminar. I don't know, maybe it's too early in the seminar to answer that. And it's, of course, not fully answerable. But it's important. We should come back to it. Yeah. Did you say, you want to say that in German, by the way? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you said it, all right. And did you say what I said? Okay. My question is, when I pray, the Korans refer to the same thing. I think it says, clothing is the door, and the other stops the bell.

[85:59]

Yeah. I mean, yes, I mean, of course, in many koans. Okay, say it. Yeah, of course. But Why are you trying to understand things right now? I mean, we're not trying to understand this so we can accumulate more understandings. Of course, all the koans overlap in many ways. Yeah, but better not too much to get involved with understanding as something you possess.

[87:11]

Okay, so one point is, I'll say it again, is that when you see how experience, the ability to experience something is tied to your ability to conceive of it or your ability to create an image of it. Then you can see that your experience is not fresh. It's always in containers, perceptual containers. And if the sea-going ship or spaceship floats by outside your perceptual containers, you won't see it. And it's been the case with UFOs that most people who do see them are people who don't have very developed perceptual containers.

[88:24]

They're usually hicks. Hicks are kind of country people with a straw, you know. And they're the type of people who'd believe anything. Or nothing. And so when people study them, they say, oh, these guys, they believe anything. Which proves they didn't see anything. Which in fact proves they could see something. Okay.

[89:25]

So the truth of this, the kind of point of this is that if you want to, that you can begin to change how you develop, how you experience things by changing the containers. And that's one of the main points in this koan. Yeah. Now let me just finish this. I said a double point. The other point is that if you experience without containers, you're going to experience the world in another way. So once you see that your experience is tied to containers, you know two things. You can change the containers and you can remove the containers. And that's what this koan is talking about. That's very important to know, that you can change and remove the containers that shape experience.

[90:44]

Okay? I want to add something. If it's really the case, if we can only experience something or grasp something if we have images, that means basically our worldview is based on prejudices. Yeah.

[91:22]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_72.88