Well, this is the third time I've been here in Luzern. In this... Can you hear okay? In this beautiful city. And we have this question, the vision of Zen in this world. And usually, I mean, in the past, I used to... adapt a question to what I could talk about and to what's possible with an audience of people who some don't know so much about Zen.

[01:01]

But recently I've found the challenge of talking about the question as accurately as I can rather interesting. Yeah. And this question, I mean, there's no traditional answer for it. Because Zen developed in a society where there was Buddhism in general developed in society where there was not really any idea of progress and change as we understand it. So I mean, Buddhism wanted a better society, but mostly it emphasized a better person.

[02:20]

The dynamics that changed society over centuries were so slow, it wasn't thought you could do too much about society. So I've had to imagine from the point of view of Buddhism and Zen, what, as we understand societal evolution now, What would be an accurate vision of society, of Zen in this world? Sounds good.

[03:26]

If you add something, it's okay. I probably would have said it. Thank you. So let me start with a misprision. It's a word nobody knows the meaning of, so we can start with that. Then it means, it has a literary meaning, meaning when you take a literature or a line of poetry and you intentionally or unconsciously change its meaning. intentionally or subconsciously. So there's a phrase used in Zen stories quite fairly often.

[04:29]

She says she's not in love. But the bracelet on her arm is two sizes too big. Yeah. This is obviously a love poem. She says she's not in love, but Sie sagt, sie ist nicht verliebt, aber der Armreif ist zwei Nummern zu groß. Warum wird im Zen-Buddhismus so ein Satz verwendet? Wenn wir das betrachten, was wir traditionelle Gesellschaft nennen können,

[05:31]

Mostly I would say it's based on trying to establish an order. An order based on cosmic order or religious order. And I would say that contemporary democratic societies I suppose the basic idea is to establish sufficient individual freedom so that creativity can be fostered Yeah, creativity which then promotes economic and social progress. Yeah, I would say what we're doing today in much of the world. But Zen would have a rather different idea of an ideal society.

[06:47]

Now, another way to read this title of this whatever we're talking about today is to read it to say when society has a vision of Zen. And so what happens when society does encounter Zen? Zen idea of how we exist. What does happen when a society encounters the idea... What happens when a society...

[08:05]

gets familiar with Zen consciousness, let's say it simply. Or what happens when all of you accept the idea of enlightenment? That all of you might imagine enlightenment is actually possible? And in fact, enlightenment is already a part of your life, whether you know it or not. Now, I think if that becomes a generally accepted idea, it is a big change in the way we think about ourselves. So this happened in the Sui and Tang and Song dynasties in China. Yeah, and that's about the 6th to the 10th or 12th centuries. Well, pretty soon Daoism and Confucianism, which were already present in Chinese society,

[09:39]

And there began to be a kind of mutual influence. And Buddhism came into China, which was an urban, literate, sophisticated culture at that time. Urban, literate, sophisticated. Culture. And not so different from our culture. So Zen had to develop a way... When I say Zen, I also mean Buddhism in general. because Zen was created more or less by Chinese culture. So it developed a way to enter a society that already had established values. And it began to appear in all literature, poetry, cultural studies, began to have the idea of consciousness as understood by Zen in it.

[11:22]

And just the immense effort to translate from Indian languages to Chinese languages influenced Chinese thinking. A more sophisticated understanding of grammar was developed. called Establishing the Sacred Dragon in the Midst of Language. Establishing the Sacred Dragon in the Middle of Language. The dragon is a very positive image in China. It means something like some creative energy.

[12:47]

So the idea was how do you take language and develop language so something more subtle than just describing things can happen. So there are many examples of the influence of Buddhist and Zen thinking on Chinese culture. And they began to develop words like in Japan, Ma, M-A, Which is the character for it is a gate with either the sun or moon inside the gate. And it means something like a pregnant space. And as you may know, Chinese characters, Japanese characters are written sort of floating in space.

[13:57]

And that became more emphasized through the influence of Buddhism. Because space is thought of connecting and not separating. Even the word Ningen in Japanese, which means human being, actually means the person who's matured through the space between people. Now that's an interesting idea. That we're matured by understanding the intersubjective space between people. And the emphasis is on maturing ourselves. consciousness and awareness, not on so much on maturing and developing intelligence.

[15:14]

So this is a very, again, a very different emphasis when a society emphasizes consciousness rather than intelligence. In other words, that consciousness itself is more intelligent than intelligence. The more you develop your consciousness, there will be an intelligence in the way you function The more you develop your consciousness, there will be an intelligence in the way you function that surpasses usual measurable intelligence. Yeah.

[16:21]

So, okay, I'm trying again to deal with this question that Rene and I evolved. And Gunda. With faxes and telephones while Gunda was at the Zen, may I say, practice monastery in Colorado. We're at 2,000... How many meters? 600 meters. That's about the altitude here? So we can look right across from Colorado to Switzerland. The rest of the world is... Down below there was something.

[17:26]

We tried to imagine what kind of question we could deal with that would be interesting. And they left me the problem of trying to make it comprehensible. So if we really do look at what is the vision, how does the vision function in society? How does a vision function in you? In other words, if you have a vision of the possibility of enlightenment, is that going to change how you do your job or educate yourself? or bring up your children.

[18:32]

So if I try to now imagine what We don't have a society based on a cosmic or religious order. And we don't have a society which emphasizes only individual freedom for the sake of progress. How in Western society is a Buddhist and Zen vision going to come into the society or what would it be? I suppose first would be the idea that each person Ich nehme an, dass am Anfang die Idee stünde, dass jede Person, jedes individuelle Bewusstsein, oder jedes individuelle Mind, Bewusstsein ist ein wenig zu eng als Begriff, als Wort.

[20:03]

Jeder individuelle Geist hat das Potenzial der Verwirklichung. has the chance of maturing itself, maturing its consciousness. Now I'm going to use consciousness to mean awareness, a wide sense of mind. And the second aspect would be, I think, that each individual matures his or her consciousness through the consciousness of others. Of course, if you speak language, German, English, you're actually functioning in the consciousness of others.

[21:16]

But Buddhism makes this much more specific and inclusive in that you really do have a sense not just of speaking with others, but the whole field of awareness that each of us is, and that right now we have some kind of shared awareness now in this room. So from the point of view of Zen, which emphasizes everything is practice, you'd make this an intentional awareness, you'd feel in yourself, yes, I develop through the development of others.

[22:29]

Okay. Then from this, then the third point, would be that society itself develops through the consciousness, awareness of each person. And that consciousness and awareness, the consciousness and the evolution of consciousness, would mean not only that it develops and changes, but it's possible to know things as they actually exist, and it's possible to be free from emotional and mental suffering. And that the more individuals who experience this, the more society itself will evolve.

[23:49]

Have you followed me so far? Anyway, this, again, simply... Buddhist idea would be that society rests on each individual consciousness. And each individual consciousness rests on the whole of the societal consciousness. And the more that's recognized, And that in Buddhism is what compassion means. The more that's recognized, the more enlightenment of the individuals is possible.

[24:53]

Enlightenment is an accessible possibility in the society itself. Yeah, okay. I can't go on forever, right? So, the first sense of society then would be To develop a society that supports the idea of realization. And to understand language and philosophy and so forth, so that the possibility of enlightenment and realization is understood. I think that's actually happening, in fact, in Western society. Yeah, we haven't changed society much, but the thinking is going in that direction for many people.

[25:55]

And from this point of view, Buddhism isn't a religion, it's a kind of way of viewing the world. Which particularly makes sense in our present scientific culture. Okay, so it would be unthought that if we could create a society based on realization, the possibility of realization, there would be, let's call it a realisational society. That realisational society would be a process in which what would we call the second, it's a two-fold process, I'd say.

[27:20]

Because we don't have an idea of some static society we're aiming for. In this view of the world, I'm sorry to tell you, We don't know where we're going. We want to know more and more where we are. But the sense of a path means to know where you are and to trust that where you are leads mysteriously to what you should be doing. And in fact, most of us live that way. We can't really explain how we get to be as old as we are and what we're doing. But a society like this would emphasize being more and more open to a mysterious evolvement.

[28:30]

So you'd have, on the one hand, you'd try to develop a realisational society. And within that, as more and more people understood the possibilities of realisation, And in fact we're realized society from within would mysteriously evolve. then we don't know we can't know what that evolvement would be maybe as monkeys didn't know they turn into us so we don't really know in the short or long run what Who could have imagined even the way technology has changed things just in the last decade?

[29:58]

So this would be a society open not so much to economic and social progress, not so much to progress, but to an inner evolution. of how we understand what a human being is and how we experience our life and that's partly in this bracelet because the sense the way this she says she's not in love but the bracelet is two sizes too big is used in Zen to mean to be in a culture, but to be somewhat separate from it and involved in a personal evolution.

[31:08]

Like the way, in every society, probably marriage, the institution of marriage is different. And the ritualized behavior of husband and wife is probably different. But the experience of falling in love, I bet, is pretty much the same in every culture. What happens to you after you fall in love, that depends on your culture. So there's some sense we speak in actually literature and Buddhism of the original heart. of going back to the heart that falls in love and that's some universal experience and we also talk about original mind as the field or essence of mind

[32:23]

And not the contents of mind. So now Chinese poetry is read so that you experience, you're meant to read each line and feel it and sort of enact each line. So when you read the bracelet on her wrist is two sizes too big, you feel it sliding around on her wrist. And you feel the effort she has to keep making to not let it fall off. And you wonder what's happening in the space, the big space in the bracelet.

[33:46]

All the love making that's going on or whatever. And the bracelet is also like a sort of prison handcuff. She's tied to her lover and tied to her society. And yet there's some kind of freedom there, too. So this poem, this little funny line, misunderstood line, Yeah, it's meant to suggest the person who practices in a society, both part of the society and free of the society.

[34:47]

And caught not just in the practicalities of one's career and life, but also caught by the ecstasy and bliss of being in love. Maybe if I come here again next for a fourth time, You'll all be wearing bracelets, too. Yeah. Okay, so the description on the end of the description of this lecture... The final part of the description says we either cook our karma or get cooked by it.

[36:13]

Okay. Now, I don't think in the time we have available I can do much justice to the complexity of this question of the vision of Zen in society. Yeah, but I can at least suggest some things for you to start thinking on your own. What does it mean to imagine the possibility of enlightenment in yourself. And what does it mean to imagine that you can actually evolve your consciousness and not just develop your intelligence? And so then we can ask, how does this Zen consciousness develop or evolve?

[37:38]

How do we begin to really imagine ourselves in a space with others that evolves us? Because, I mean, I can study the facts of Chinese history on my own. But I can't study my mind independent of being present with you. So it means I have to find a way to be with you and with gunda, And Rene and Coco and each of you, if I'm going to imagine also evolving my own consciousness and our societal consciousness, So how do we cook our karma?

[39:02]

How do we create a karma fluid zone? Or a karma free zone? Okay, so what does karma mean? Okay. It means that we may run out of time. Karma means the patterns, memories, patterns, mostly patterns you have developed through your lifetime. Zen primarily emphasizes the karma you've developed that's part of your lifetime. So karma is when I sit here and look out at you.

[40:03]

I see faces, clothes, so forth. Yeah, but if I was from Mars, I wouldn't know whether those clothes are part of your skin or not. I wouldn't have any idea really. So everything I see is based on prior knowledge of clothes, fashion, you know, sex and so forth. Yeah. Etc. And so I can't know anything, see anything without all these associations. So karma is all these associations which establish the present moment.

[41:06]

And shape the present moment so we can only see it a certain way. and karma is primarily made in consciousness and it comes back to us in consciousness and that consciousness reinforces it and the one reason dreams are so peculiar sometimes sometimes just strange and sometimes feeling like something truer than usual, is because our dream consciousness didn't create our karma. So associations are much freer to combine as they wish.

[42:08]

I think you have to understand that Zen Buddhism assumes through studying the mind that we have different kinds of minds and for simplicity's sake you can understand there's different kinds of liquids And the different liquids cook your karma differently. I say you can call ordinary consciousness beef stock. And maybe we can call meditation mind chicken stock. And so if your many karma then is associative thinking,

[43:26]

If all these associations appear in beef stock and they were primarily made through conscious acts then they taste like beef and they look like cows or whatever. Yeah. I don't know what I'm talking about here. Okay. But when you meditate, it's like you produce a mind that you weren't born with. You should understand that Zen practice and Buddhist practice is trying to give you a mind you weren't born with. You were born with waking mind, dreaming mind and non-dreaming deep sleep. And Zen is trying to give you a fourth mind

[44:37]

which is overlaps waking, dreaming and deep sleep overlaps consciousness and unconsciousness and can observe oneself and the world without interfering with the observation And it cooks your karma differently. And it creates a state of mind where you're rather free from your karma. You can begin to make decisions about... Rune, if I do this next year, I'd rather have the room lit like this. So we can see each other. So I'll ring the bell. Is there anything you'd like to speak about? You all came back to hear someone else speak about something?

[46:33]

I have a question. What are you wearing there? That's my bag. Your bag? It's a slang expression in America. That's my bag means that's my job or that's my work or something. So it looks like a bag, but actually it's a small version of Buddha's robe. And when I'm supposed, when I teach or something or give a lecture or a practice zazen, I usually wear this. Something like this.

[47:35]

That was an easy question. Coco? Coco? How do you view as then teaching Christianity? Well, I'm living in a Christian culture. So there's no way that I'm not working with the views of the larger Judeo-Christian culture. So Western culture is inseparable from Judeo-Christian culture. And there's some differences, for example. In Western culture we tend to think of things having a prior cause leading to the present moment.

[49:02]

And in Buddhist culture there's more of a feeling that there are Virtually an infinite number of causes happening all at once. That converge on the present moment. So that at this present moment whatever I do brings causes together. So there's various differences that you can notice and it's helpful to feel the differences. Yeah, and I can primarily relate to Christianity as a practice. And as Thomas Merton, who is probably the most famous Catholic monastic in the United States,

[50:12]

He wrote a lot of books and was well known. He said that he feels more in common with Buddhists who practice than with non-monastic Catholics. He found something similar between Catholic monasticism and meditation. But I also find that I know a One Catholic in particular who really has a very deep practice of God's love. And if I try to understand what he feels, what he does, he feels almost everything is an example of God's love.

[51:26]

not almost everything, everything. But the only way he can realize this unconditional God's love is for him to, for he himself to practice unconditional love. And when he practices and feels a deep appreciation for everything, and an unconditional love for each person he meets, he then feels God's love flows through the situation and through each person.

[52:40]

Now when Catholicism is understood as a practice like that it's very similar to the way attention and compassion and compassion are understood in Buddhism. But, you know, I've not studied really Christianity except growing up in the culture, so I'm pretty dumb, I'm sorry. And I happen to like meditation, so I've been doing this for 40 years. So I really don't know much else. Even this, I'm on the edge of not knowing. And even with this here, I'm at the edge of not knowing.

[53:52]

Something else. Yes. Yes. How do you see chances for us Western grown and bred people to practice then and to understand it because we have such a different background? Oh, very good. Yeah. Because we have a different background. A friend of mine, Tanahashi Sensei, he says that in Japan it's best to be a Christian. In America it's best to be a Buddhist. Because you see your own culture more. And I think for many Christians Christianity gets lost in the woodwork.

[54:54]

And in Japan many Buddhists have... They don't see Buddhism because it's so similar to their culture. And a big part of Zen practice is to see the contrast between your inherited views, cultural views, and wisdom views. And koan practice in Zen, the most unique part of Zen practice, is built around contrasting wisdom views with our usual common sense views.

[56:15]

So when our views are in more contrast to wisdom views, it's easier to practice with them. So we have a disadvantage in that it's not so familiar to us but we have the advantage of seeing it more clearly as a distinct practice. Sorry, that was a rather long answer. How do you define your personal goal in your life? To sit here with you. This is a quite nice thing to do, actually.

[57:22]

I'm getting old, so... I'm getting older. If every day I can have a nice experience of sitting with people like you, this is quite good. And I have the personal wish, I suppose, to engage my own experience through practice. engage my own experience of life through practice. When I realize what, excuse me for saying so, this is modesty, what a failure I am. But I then have the pleasure of the intimacy of small success and a lot of failure.

[58:26]

So to stay in that situation is also a goal of my life. Yeah. But I'm not going anywhere. Yes? For everyone else, gracious. That's a complicated question. Then ask her. I just translate. I would like to know how you connect your spiritual engagement, involvement with just being a human being.

[59:45]

I've been on a certain path for so many years. And in the course of the years I found out that it's necessary to listen to myself as a human being. Gewissen, I heard the word before. I came into some conscious conflict. Yes, because of my spiritual and religious engagement and the attempt to accept myself as a human being and to let my consciousness speak through my humanity. because my spiritual engagement and my attempt to be a human being and to accept myself as a human being and to kind of let myself be human to allow my consciousness to express itself through my humanity leads to moral problems that leads to moral problems

[61:10]

Moral problems with the society and with the outer form of my spiritual engagement. Yeah, yeah, I think I understand. But I don't... It's not a problem I've had. Maybe a little bit, but not much. I always feel completely... It's like a totally usual person. And when people think I'm a little strange, I think, what's wrong with them?

[62:15]

I'm not strange. Yeah. But there are certain, let's say, dynamics in Zen practice, which maybe are part of my attitude. which in every situation you're accepting a potential upward movement in the situation and an improvement in the situation or perhaps a greater clarity in consciousness Then at the same time you accept whatever is there without comparison or correcting or something like that.

[63:17]

And also my practice is, though I'm not very good at it, to try to put myself slightly lower than each person I meet. Because we have a habit of trying to generalize and think we understand the other person. So I find if I allow myself to feel that the situation is a little bigger than I can understand. I often find it is. And I learn something. And also... You know, the way our society is, even in its most confused aspects, still, this is what we human beings do.

[64:30]

So compassion and practice is to go along with that while at the same time inside yourself you try to feel other possibilities. Of course, if there's a chance to actually improve something, you try. But mostly you have to improve it in yourself. I don't know, that wasn't a very good answer, I'm sorry. The idea of realization in daily life sounds so big but it must be very simple if you say that we all can do it.

[65:40]

Where do you find it every day? Well, it's not so, it's an easy question to practice. It's a hard question to answer. Because first of all, there needs to be the assumption that in some fundamental way we're already enlightened. And that's a view you have to inculcate or develop in yourself.

[66:46]

It's like knowing that falling in love is some kind of universal experience. then it's also like if we could know just how we exist in the simplest way, it's something universal. So the phrase I suggest people practice with very often is just now is enough. Of course just now is not enough. You might be hungry for lunch or for fresh air or for falling in love.

[67:50]

But In fact, just now has to be enough. Because this is all you've got. Each moment is all you've got at each moment. So if your mind is always going like that, then just now is not enough. But if you keep bringing your attention back to this is just fine as it is. If only intellectually you understand, it has to be, because at each moment of your life, this is all you get. But knowing that intellectually, conceptually, can shift can change the shift in attention can change the direction of attention so instead of attention always going this way you can keep it begins to turn this way

[69:20]

and the more it turns this way and the more in the midst of not accepting in the midst of just now not being enough you also find the contradiction that yes in fact it is enough and there's a deep relaxation And that deep relaxation is a taste or the surface of realization. And the more one has a sense, experiences this shift in attention Something erupts in us that we can call realization or is more likely to erupt in us.

[70:36]

So there's two things here, creating condition where realization and enlightenment is more likely to occur Being aware that in some fundamental way we're already enlightened. And third, enacting enlightenment views. So to keep bringing yourself to just now is enough even if it's just an effort you're enacting an enlightenment view. as it is to feel, oh, we're already separated, but we're already connected.

[71:52]

So Zen style is to take a complex teaching and turn it into very simple practices which somehow embody the whole of the teaching. And these two phrases I've given you today already connected and just now is enough. are such wisdom phrases that come in conflict and contrast to the usual habit of human beings in any culture. And I should just add that these views exist before perceptions and conceptions.

[73:02]

Okay, I'll just take my usual example. If I think as we do that space separates us that view exists before I have any perception or conception. And that my perceptions then reinforce that we're separated. But if I begin by a practice to put prior to perception and conception the view that space connects then our perceptions and conceptual processes begin to reinforce that. dann beginnt unsere Wahrnehmung und auch unsere Konzeptionen und Vorstellungen, das zu verstärken.

[74:14]

Yes. Yes. Can you alone, without a group, reach enlightenment? And if you suppose that it would have happened, how do you feel it? Good. Okay, this will be the... I think just now is needing lunch. So maybe this will be the last thing I respond to. Mm-hmm. You asked, is it possible to practice without others or without a group? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Enlightenment is a capacity of human beings. And I see it everywhere.

[75:40]

And I would say that most poets, painters, musicians are actually reenacting an enlightenment experience. And coming back to that experience, reenacting that experience through painting or whatever, is what gives them the confidence and strength to sustain a career as an artist when society usually doesn't support you in doing that. And usually I can, in a particular poet, identify the poems which most describe their enlightenment experience. And I can feel it.

[76:46]

I can feel it in paintings. But what seems to happen is that they seldom mature the enlightened experience. It happened at 18 or 22 or something like that years old. Their painting may evolve, but the experience doesn't evolve in their life much. So enlightenment experiences are fairly common. I'd say that Protestant conversion experiences, which there's been a lot of documentation of them, are basically enlightenment experiences. Protestant conversion. I don't know. But those experiences then are understood through Protestant teachings.

[77:57]

The similar experience in Buddhism is then understood through Buddhist experience. Okay, so what Buddhism has said is, okay, you may or may not have such an experience. But Buddhism is a teaching based on the possibility of this experience. And meditation and mindfulness practices are meant to create the conditions for this experience and are meant to mature the experience. And the relationship to a teacher who already knows these experiences supposedly

[78:59]

And others who do help you mature your own experience. And the pedagogy is very clear. The pedagogy of Zen is very clear to create the possibilities for and to mature The enlightened experience. But Buddhism has not cornered the market on enlightenment. It may have cornered the market on how to mature the experience, but not on the experience. So you're free to have as many enlightenment experiences as you'd like, but if you want to be in a situation to mature them, maybe you want to try some meditation practices.

[80:28]

And as a last note, My experience is that almost all of us have already had many enlightened experiences. But we've encapsulated them. We haven't known quite what to do with them. They were just a nice feeling on a spring day. Or they were associative experiences connected to falling in love. But we didn't know how to let them open up in our life. And sometimes they wait in our life like little bubbles. And when you start to meditate They float into the meditation space and start going pop, pop and clap.

[81:42]

So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. It was nice to be here with you this morning. Thank you for translating.

[82:32]

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