I think it comes to a quality of peace and, I don't want to say equality, but something like equality, which is completely new to me. Quality, equality. Okay. Anybody else feel something was left out? Yes. Okay, question. Did anyone feel much different between women's experiences and men's? Do you feel a big difference between the experiences of women and men? Yes. I think so. Why do you think so?

[01:06]

I felt it. We don't talk so much about our experiences. Yes, somehow I have the feeling there was a difference. We were only two women, but the two women, that was me and her, and we were, I think, ready to go there, to say, oh, and there was something beautiful and holy, and there I felt connected. Well, I can tell you that from my experience of seeing in Doksan thousands of people, really thousands and thousands of people, women almost always have a more realized feeling and... feeling experience of the horizon of Zen practice than men do.

[02:20]

They come to it faster. I mean, not a lot, but I notice it. But this may be cultural, but men, it changes men's life more. In other words, the men, if they have a certain experience, they decide to change their life on the basis of it. And maybe with women, because they come to it quicker, they are that way more already, so they don't have to change their life so much. And of course men, women, it changes their life too.

[03:34]

But men tend to more make a decision, oh, okay, then I'm going to do this. And that may be cultural. But in any case, it's not that big a difference, but it's the pattern I've noticed over the years. And also, I've had quite a lot of students who are Japanese or Chinese or Japanese or Chinese or Korean. Their experiences in meditation are dramatically different than ours. You know, it sort of wipes me out. I can't believe it when I see the difference. And I would say that the main difference is that... the culture of Japan and China seems to create interior space more than our culture does.

[04:47]

There are two differences. I just mention it to you because it might be interesting. I think there's two main differences. One is people will say, well, they sound like they're talking about the inside of a large theater or stadium or something. They sound like they're talking about the inside of a large stadium, a Chinese or Japanese person. This happened here and then it moved over to here. And then there was this big clear channel and things moved this way and colored lights appeared. And then flowers opened up and then on top of the flower a little Buddha appeared and things like that. You know, it's like reading a Buddhist text.

[05:59]

That's what you're supposed to have happen. It doesn't happen much like that to Westerners until they've been practicing quite a while. I don't think it's a qualitative difference. I just think it's a difference. And also... Particularly Japanese people, they don't ever think about their experience. They seldom ask themselves questions like why or what is it or etc. They immediately start trying to do something with it. Their first reaction to the thing is what they intend and what they want. Their first reaction to it is in the categories of whether they want it or don't want it, or whether they intend it or don't intend it.

[07:02]

So they'll say something like, well, I increased my intention to something and then this happened. They won't say, what does it mean? Or why did I have it? It's just interesting, it's different. It means they live in a different skandha. I think they live in the feeling skandha. We live in the thinking skandha. But you should live in all the skandhas, so let's not just stick to one. I don't think that's the occasion.

[08:02]

Of course, but I know Westerners who've read all those texts and studied chakra diagrams and, you know, etc. They don't have any experience of it. Ulrike, can I say what you said? Ulrike said, it's not good to compare these things at this point. It makes us feel rejected. And if that's the case, I'm sorry. What I'm getting at and what the sense is for me is how much these experiences arise within our own language, even though they're outside our language.

[09:35]

And the point I'm making is that it's just that, that even though these experiences are outside language, they still are a kind of, they come into our language and they are a language. And I think that what it felt like from from the groups and what you said is that although there's a common experience here, it's pretty difficult to talk about. There are many things that are easier to talk about. So here's something that's central to each of you and sometimes one of the most important things in your life, or among the most important things, and it's that we don't have much recognition of it in our culture.

[11:00]

And even in the average church, there's not much recognition. But we find out talking to each other, it's not so uncommon. Now what Zen is trying to do is give you a language that allows you to have another kind of contact with the world and yourself. So what I mentioned earlier was the... what I call five or six dharmas, I can write my name.

[12:28]

The first is naming. Then we already talked about that a little bit, as you know. The second is appearance. And in much the same way as naming, if I pick this bell up, if I name it just bell, You have no other associations, just bell, just the name only, bell. Now, say that I withdraw the word bell and I just say, and I just have the appearance of it. You don't have name, just bell. whatever is the appearance.

[13:48]

Before there were names, there were appearances. You know, there's a tree. Before there was a name for a tree. So the way you're trying to get back at the roots of language and naming, where these things arose... You're basically trying to break the connection within your description. Now, if you practice with, if you study and practice with koans, Not in just a koan, not in a system where you're just supposed to break through on this or that. But you really immerse yourself in one koan fully.

[14:56]

Really these teachings like naming only or appearance are right in the koans. Okay, so appearance is the second skanda, I mean the second dharma here. So it means you, just as you might practice lifting something and feeling it completed, Or you might reside on your breath. Or name something. This is a long breath. Or bell. You sound a little like a child or something. It's like meeting an American Indian in a movie. Window.

[16:09]

But you do. You look out the window and you see wall. And you don't think just wall. Then maybe reflection of the chestnut tree in the window. Do you see that when you do that you're breaking the connections between your usual way of describing things? You're not getting rid of anything, you're just stopping the way things are connected. Yes, Neil? Same, what we practice, the same sort of perception, what we practice with direct perception. Oh, yes, this is the specific that I taught in some seminar. You mean? Yeah. The direct perception is a practice closely related to this, yeah.

[17:09]

Yeah. But you see, here it's understood as part of a system of dharmas. Yes. When I look at this, immediately my thoughts start and say, oh, velvet, golden, oh, yes, it's a bell and you hit it. And, you know, they start. So I am asking, how can I stop them or not, you know, just have little breaks or more space? Because they are there. Yeah. Do you want to say that in German? Well, the description of the world that our culture gives us is so convincing, that as soon as you put energy into any act of perception, all your energy rushes toward that description and reinforces that description.

[18:38]

Until finally that's the only way you see. You actually have to make an effort to slow that down and stop that. And it's not really so difficult. It needs some repeated effort and a belief that it makes sense. Now, it's interesting to me that two or three people mentioned a question of trust came up. And it may be danger, some danger. Yes, to make practice work, you actually really do have to trust it. And to make zazen work, you have to trust zazen. And you have to trust it even if it's kind of dry and, you know, doesn't give you much, there's not much excitement in it.

[19:58]

And that's for a purpose, because if there's some excitement in it, it's too interesting, you get interested in it. Yeah, and the teaching isn't supposed to be all that interesting. Buddhism is a little too interesting. Because, you know, I hope that you, you know, it would be nice if you trusted me and what I'm teaching. Really, I'm trying to make you trust yourself. You have to say it in some real fundamental existential way. Here I am, and this is it. I've got to trust it. What other choice do I have? And then what have I got here? My bottom on a cushion.

[20:58]

My stomach on top of that. Two breath rooms. And maybe at some point you find your Schatzkiste. And then you have thoughts. And your breath. And then you notice you name things. And then the name immediately, it's soft, it's velvet or it's brocade and it's a bell and so forth. And then if you say, oh, wait a minute, look. And you try to reside in just the appearance. The light on it. Well, whatever the appearance is, and then the next one and it's six o'clock I think right so we'll stop in a moment or so

[22:18]

Can you read my printing all right? Discriminations and associations. Now, as she just pointed out, that's normally the way the mind works. But again, here you're breaking the compartmentalization or the connections. So, you've started out and you've just named it, ah, bell. Now, appearance. And you may use naming as the practice to enter the stage of appearance. So if you start thinking about it, you know you say appearance.

[23:38]

Appearance. Now, one thing that's interesting at this stage is often when you mention appearance, you shift to actually the light on something. Now, two practices I can give you right now that anticipate what I will talk about tomorrow, we'll talk about, but I'll give it to you now. And again, we're talking about where do you live? Where do you reside? It's possible to reside in just light or just sound. Now, as I said, you... What was your name?

[24:40]

Roland. Oh, that's right, Roland, yeah. The song of Roland. Roland doesn't exist. And the way Roland does exist, both interdependent and interpenetrated, we can't see. So I can't reside in interpenetration, although in fact I do. I can't I can know about interpenetration, but I can't see it or feel it. So the way Roland actually exists as an interpenetrated, interdependent being, I can't see or feel. But if you practice residing in light, Now, you've got this ability.

[25:46]

You don't have to reside in the names. You don't have to reside in the associations. Actually, I said that wrong. You don't have to reside in the connections of naming to the object. You can reside in name only. Okay? So that's a dharma. Because you can reside in it. As soon as you start making connections, you can't reside there anymore. You can reside in the appearance. But not when it immediately leads to, oh, that's a nice bell. And the other, so when you see something, you say, well, let's just take this room. But it's easier if you're, to learn this, it's easier if you're in a place like standing on your back porch where there's a lot of trees and leaves and the light is on the leaves and streams through.

[27:08]

You can shift your kind of sense, like you shift it to your breath, you just shift it to the light. Man verlagert jetzt sein Gefühl, das man mit dem Atem hat, zu dem Licht. In the same way, you can make the shift to sound. Auf der gleichen Weise kann man jetzt die Ebene verändern und zum Klang hingehen. There are quite a lot of koans that really reside, that turn on these points. Es gibt ziemlich viele koans, die sich mit diesen Wechseln beschäftigen. Yes. Now if you get in the habit of every now and then just shifting your residence to sound, without discrimination,

[28:10]

whether it's shouting, children's voices, cars. There's a tapestry of sound. And because at that point you're in here, you're not naming it. You don't say it's an airplane. Or kids. You know it's kids, but you really don't. Just something in your ear. You're hearing, hearing itself. Which is a very basic practice, to practice hearing, hearing itself. Or you just notice the light on everything and not the name of everything or what the object is. You just notice the light of everything. And you'll find that there's actually a kind of continuum of light and a continuum of sound.

[29:29]

And you can be involved with things and feel your continuum in the light, not in the specifics. Now, I don't know if you can see the value or... value or possibilities of this, but it's very basic and quite subtle, actually, of Buddhist practice. And again, it's something that you try, you know, once a day or something, every now and then, or if you step out and Herman's back, you're going to be a line of people wanting to go under your back porch. And many priests. there's going to be people lined up to go on his back porch and have this spiritual experience.

[30:35]

But you can also go to any park, any tree, any lake. And... And while you're doing something or talking to a friend, you can feel yourself simultaneously merged with the light. So there are times when it's easier to do that than others, and you find a time once a day, so you have to be near a tree to try it out. That's one of the reasons what these two practices that I just suggested to you is I think one of the reasons people like sunbathing.

[31:39]

Or two of the reasons. You're lying in the sun and you can just feel the light just goes right through you. and you begin to reside in the light then often sounds become nameless but you hear birds and people talking and you don't have to react to them and when people do that they're actually doing something very close to a meditation on a continuum of light and sound And if you practice that a little each day, you suddenly will find at some point that you begin to have a kind of experience of the world that's a continuum rather than broken up all the time. And so we could say that a meditation on the continuum of light and of sound are two more gates to Dharma City.

[32:54]

Okay. Now, I'm not going to go any further except to say that with this practice of discriminations and associations of the Dharma, you also disconnect it from appearances or anything else. It's just you notice all the associations that appear. And then that will lead to the next two or three dharmas. I don't think I'm sure that I translated this right because I didn't really understand. Okay. That you disconnect discriminations and associations from appearances. Okay, and then this leads to the next three dharmas. Okay, so that's enough for now. And since this could easily end at 6.30, I'd like us to take at least five minutes to sit. And we won't end before 6.30. Now, I think that we look at the one question that would be in the background is how does Buddhism differ from psychotherapy and therapy?

[34:56]

One of the big differences is there's no therapist. That's really quite a big difference. The idea of a therapist is, trained therapist, is, I think, only Western. Of course, there's always been an uncle or an aunt you talk to. Or a mentor, you know. Do you have the word mentor, same word? But mentorship, which is a basic human kind of thing, is not trained psychotherapy.

[36:03]

You might say that I'm a trained mentor, but I'm not a trained therapist. I mean, naturally, I mean, grown up, in this society and done therapy and studied therapy. I know something about it, but I'm not a trained therapist. And I think one of the gifts to the world that comes out of Greek culture and Christianity is this particular concept of individuality, This particular concept of individuality which has led to modern democracy. Herman, how's your heel doing with all this sitting? It's okay. I have... You have a special position, so it's... Oh.

[37:22]

Just until recently, his heel was all in a kind of little cast. Yeah. Good. Okay, but it seems like this post-industrial individuality requires a mediator. Even individuality in Christianity was defined as you are individual because of your relationship, your individual relationship to God. So it was a kind of supported individuality through your relationship to God. And the priest fulfilled some of those functions.

[38:26]

And I think psychotherapists have replaced priests. I mean, within the larger cultural package, priests and confession and psychotherapy are part of one stream. There's no such tradition in Buddhism. Okay. What Buddhism tried to do is to construct a way in which, because Buddhism is about individualism, In the group cultures of Asia, it's very clear that Buddhism is about individualism. What Buddhism tried to do is construct a... to see the world in such a way that the individual could free him or herself, by him or herself.

[39:42]

And these teachings I'm trying to give you this weekend, and I'm doing better than I expected I would do, Maybe you're just a very good group of people. I don't know. But somehow I feel that what I'm saying is coming out of you as well as me. So what I'm the teachings I've been trying to give you are about this way of doing it yourself. So what are the ingredients? You've got them. Okay. Now, one of the images of Buddhism is of the Buddha or enlightenment is the moon. And the moon is obscured by clouds often.

[41:11]

And the sense there was that if you could get rid of the clouds of discrimination, dualistic thinking and so forth, Then you'd realize the full moon, or you'd realize enlightenment or Buddhahood. But this image was discarded in Mahayana Buddhism as the primary image. It's a secondary image, but not the primary image. Am I speaking in the proper units for you to translate? I'm still a little clumsy as usual in the morning, but I think I'll roll up. Yesterday, last night after the seminar, we took a walk around Kumarlika. And I explained to Ulrike and we practiced the eight Vishnayanas.

[42:26]

And so that she could translate them today. So we need to produce a lake in this room so we can all walk leisurely. This is the main, this is one of the central teachings of the Lankavatara Sutra. Which is said to be the teaching that Bodhidharma brought to China. Bodhidharma is the Indian guy who supposedly started Zen in China. Okay, and realizing that, when we were walking around Kumarlanka, I realized it was the Kumarlanka Vatara. And we were on the Vijjana path around the Kumarlanka Vatara.

[43:32]

Okay, so the image of the moon was replaced by the image of the sun. And Buddha is likened, Lotus Sutra and other places, as like sun consciousness. Now, what's the difference between sun consciousness as a metaphor image and moon consciousness? The moon is obscured by clouds. But the sun makes clouds. The sun penetrates everything, even through the clouds. It's creating the air that makes the clouds and penetrating into the plants and so forth. So the idea of the moon being obscured by clouds and you have to get rid of the clouds in order to see the moon is a principle of exclusion. And so... If you don't have to get rid of the clouds, if the clouds are part of your realization, then this is a principle of inclusion.

[45:14]

Such a shift makes a very big difference in the teaching. Okay. Is that reasonably clear so far? That's the same thing with this one, when a man is a mirror, the one who only wants to clean the mirror, and the other said, there's no mirror... That's right. Basically the same idea. Even the sixth patriarch, who's the sixth person after Bodhidharma, one of his disciples said... the fifth patriarch... one of the fifth patriarch's disciples said, you have to clean the mirror. Der fünfte Patriarch, das ist der fünfte nach Bodhidharma.

[46:19]

Einer seiner Schüler hat einen Spiegel. What is it? You have to clean the mirror. The fifth patriarch's disciples said that. Der Schüler des fünften Patriarchs sagt, du musst den Spiegel putzen. And the sixth Patriarch, who was the main successor of the fifth Patriarch, der der Hauptnachfolger des fünften Patriarchen war, Said there's no mirror, there's no stand, there's no need to clean it. And this is the principle of uncorrected state of mind. Uncorrected state of mind. This is an apocryphal sutra, the Sixth Patriarch, made by the Ox Head School probably, but still it's a basic teaching of Zen Buddhism. Apocryphal?

[47:20]

It's made up, but he manufactured it. He said the Sixth Patriarch did it. Somebody something wrote in the name of the Sixth Patriarch, and the Sixth Patriarch never wrote it. But in the end, all these things are apocryphal. The Lankhapatara Sutra is a sutra meant to be said by Buddha, but of course some anonymous guy wrote it down, you know. It's just us guys doing this. Okay, so I think that I ought to continue with what I was doing here yesterday, because otherwise, I think if I can give you a visual picture, you'll have a better idea of what this practice is, okay? Now, if I turn it sideways, you probably can't see it in the back, right?

[48:22]

Or can you see it? You can? Okay. You know, my toy is... Like magic. Okay. So I, for some of you, I've taught you the five skandhas. And that, those are, and I'll just make them simple, form, healing. And I'll just make them simple, form, healing. impulses, associations, consciousness.

[49:41]

Okay. Now, these are the five standards. These are considered the constituent of self. And it occurs in koans, like there's a koan where somebody, the teacher says when a young man comes to practice with him and says, where are you from? And he answers, since I've forgotten the five skandhas, I don't know. That means what he's saying is, or he might say, I can't locate the five heaps, because five skandhas also means five heaps.

[50:50]

Now, someone asked me yesterday, are you really outside yourself when you're residing in your breath? Of course not. I mean, your breath is, you know, not exactly outside you. But you're outside your script. Or your description of yourself. Okay, so the five scoundrels are like that. If you put self over here, You learn, because there's no idea of self here. So you begin to locate everything that happens to you in these five skandhas, and you shift out of self into the five skandhas. And I call this the lifeboat of the five skandhas.

[51:51]

Because in the ship of self, if you want to mend the ship of self, you need a lifeboat to sit in while you mend the boat, you know. Okay, so it doesn't mean you abandon the ship of self entirely because you need that to function in your society. But the letters for ship of self are SOS, so you're asking for help all the time. Do you have that the same way? SOS? Anyway, okay. So, but these two are empty, and so he says, I made the ship from the ship itself to the five khandhas, and they are also empty and unabandoned.

[53:06]

Okay, now the question is, if we've got... a world which is basically a divided world and an undivided world. The sense here is that the world is in some way whole, and yet we divide it by language, our activity, etc. The image used in Lankapatara repeatedly, which made a very powerful impact on me, when I was studying this in 1961, You have the deep, still ocean, and it's blown into waves. We live in those waves.

[54:09]

So the question is, what stirs up the waves? And how can the waves know the ocean? So if the undivided world is the deep still ocean which the waves can realize at any point because the deep still ocean doesn't go away when the waves are there And that's sudden enlightenment. But it's also these things, these practices, this description is meant to describe the world in such a way that the waves don't forget they're part of the deep still ocean.

[55:20]

And we always forget. And I think, as we saw yesterday in our group discussion, we barely have a language for, that's recognized, for the deep, still ocean. When we talk about it, it's... What can be the most powerful experiences and intimate experiences for us, we have a hard time remembering and realizing any way they fit in our life. Okay. So the sutra is about the waves. And how the waves are the oceans. Okay, now this, the next is the, I guess I'll put here the eight vijnanas, v-i-j-n-a-n-a, and a little over there.

[56:43]

Okay, now this consciousness is vijnana. Okay. Now, vijnana means... The vijnana part is to know. Der jnana-teil bedeutet wissen. And the vi part is to break up into parts. Und der vi-teil heißt in Teile aufbrechen. So this means to know things in their separation. And it really means to know things together. So you have to know the separation, and then you can know them together. How do you know things together is basically the question. How are the clouds also part of the moon?

[57:44]

Okay. So the eight vijnanas are eye consciousness, ear, nose, mouth, body, Mind. Mind. Impulses. And impulses. And repository, storehouse. And the storage room.

[58:45]

And all of this is consciousness. Consciousness. One, two. Okay. Now that seems pretty obvious. We all have eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc. Okay, now over here I'll put where we started yesterday. The six dharmas. Now, I want you to tell me afterwards if this is useful or not. Name. Any appearance. Discrimination. You should try a little bigger.

[60:04]

Okay, sorry. Sorry. Somebody has binoculars. Do you have binoculars in the back? There's a practice of meditating on a hair pore. So if you have binoculars, you can meditate on a hair pore. Okay. Now, the basic sense in this practice to turn naming into a dharma was to disconnect naming from appearance, right? The basic practice for those of you who work with the five skandhas is to slow down so you have a perception of this stick and instantly you have a consciousness.

[61:08]

But you can slow it down so you have the form, the feeling, etc. And so you can see associations arise and then associations produce a consciousness. The question here is, This is how this arises in terms of... One way is a sequence, a perceptual sequence. Now, one of the keys to understanding this is this emphasizes the field of consciousness. So this, this arise, this consciousness, the field of this consciousness is this.

[62:10]

And you can see that here, impulses comes third, fourth, and here impulses comes after mind. Okay. Now I'll try to give you a sense of walking along Kumarlanka. Okay. The lagerhaus, where the beer is. Pilsner Palace. Okay. Now, our consciousness would be to see this room,

[64:06]

separate from hearing, smelling, etc. To reside in eye consciousness. Now, again, this takes a little time to appreciate, But it's something you can practice, like Ulrike and I did taking a walk. And Ulrike, if you have anything to add from the discussion on our walk that I don't happen to mention, you can just say it. Okay. Now, the sense of a field of consciousness is, this is my eyeball. This is an object of perception.

[65:08]

Now, vijnana means the practical, graspable ways we perceive the world. Where our descriptions arise and these consciousnesses prior to description. Okay, so in other words, this is the object, this is the eyeball, but there's a field of consciousness here, field of eye consciousness. So you're emphasizing not the object that you're seeing or your eyeball, you're emphasizing the field of seeing. Now, I suppose a person comparing this to psychotherapy again would, instead of going to the therapist three times a week,

[66:10]

would perhaps three times a week have a walk around the lake, practicing these specific things, not just looking around and enjoying it, but a kind of practice to get at how we are put together. Okay. So I'm looking at this room along with you. And I just feel blue coming in from the rug without any sense of it's rug or blue or anything. It's just It's appearance here without naming. I don't know if it's blue or not. What I know is that this creates eye consciousness. So the field of eye consciousness also includes things that have never existed before, but they are just images that arise in the field of eye consciousness in interior space.

[67:50]

When I hear Ulrika's voice or birds or whatever, I hear them within eye consciousness. I don't hear them anymore like exactly hearing. It's like my eyes hear them. Because residing or abiding in eye consciousness, that's where I'm located, Whatever happens, happens in the context of field of eye consciousness. This room is filled with a kind of liquid light, too, that has no color. So you practice for a while, occasionally, with just eye consciousness, not ear or any other kind of consciousness. As if eye consciousness were the whole of your consciousness.

[69:33]

Then you shift to another sense. So we'll do ear. And as I said, this is, of the eight vijnanas, this is considered the most powerful for realization is ear consciousness. The sutras go into this in some detail, for example. Entering right concentration in the eye organ. Emerging from concentration in the field of form. showing the inconceivability of the nature of form. That means that you can't name it, it's not actually conceivable. Unknowable to all gods and men and women. unknowable because only you when you're really in the midst of eye consciousness no one else can know it but you entering right concentration in the field of form

[70:57]

and emerging from concentration in the eye, without disturbing the mind, knowing the eye is birthless, without origin, in its nature empty, null, and doing absolutely nothing. Yeah, it's like no place to go and nothing to do. And then it goes on, entering right concentration in the ear faculty. And emerging from concentration in the field of sound. Distinguishing the sounds of all languages.

[72:08]

Which means birds too and so forth. Here, when you develop this kind of consciousness, it's sometimes characterized as when the dragons of the sea shower rain, Every drop of rain can be distinctly counted, discerning them all in a single instant. Now, that is kind of far-fetched, right? But... People do have the experience. Yes? When I said distinguishing the different sounds, this is not discrimination. Okay, let me come back to that. But it's not that unusual that people, when they're faced with death or an accident or something, their whole life flashes before them in an instant.

[73:16]

Und es ist nicht ungewöhnlich, dass wenn Leute dem Tod gegenüber treten oder kurz vor einem Unfall, dass ihr ganzes Leben an ihnen vorbeihuscht. And when I've talked to people who've had that experience, they say it's not like ten big events. It's like everything, you feel it all at once. Und wenn ich mit Leuten gesprochen habe, die dieses Erlebnis gehabt haben, dann sagen sie nicht, das waren jetzt einfach zehn größere Ereignisse meines Lebens, sondern wirklich alles ist in einem einzigen Moment an mir vorbei. So this is non-sequential thinking. to be able to think or know simultaneously. It's expressed here as discerning all the drops of the rain in a single instant. Okay, come. And then they have entering the right concentration in the nose faculty. Discovering and emerging from concentration in the field of scent.

[74:19]

Discovering all the most excellent fragrances of Dharma City. emerging from concentration in the nose, mind undisturbed. Then you have entering right concentration in the tongue faculty. And entering right concentration in the faculty of the body. And the mental faculty. Okay, and each one is described in some detail. And on the next page they have a whole bunch of concentrations, including emerging from concentration in a hair pore.

[75:29]

or entering rather, and then emerging from concentration in all hair pores. Entering right concentration in all pores. Emerging from concentration on a hair tip. Emerging from concentration in an atom. But these appear in the koans, like they'll say... On the tip of the hair, the whole body of the lion is there. Meditate on that. Lion? Lion, yeah. Lion means Buddha nature or something. Anyway, so it's your... You'll find out if you keep meditating that all of this is not as far-fetched as it sounds.

[76:40]

Okay. So, distinguishing... They don't say discriminating. Pretty much the same word in German. To distinguish, you just hear that particular insect, but you don't say, you don't discriminate, it's a good insect, a bad insect, it's an insect, it's just... It happens before the... It happens before differentiation or script or description. Okay, I'd like to finish the senses here and then we'll take a break. So if you want to do this, you practice with eye consciousness. Hear consciousness.

[77:45]

Then, which we've talked about a lot, so... And so now, nose consciousness. So, see if you can locate yourself in nose consciousness. Now, one thing that right after we started, Ulrike said, well, this is clearly a consciousness I'm not located in very often. But after four or five minutes, we began to smell the earth and different grasses and so forth. Particular twigs. And then there's a kind of consciousness, nose consciousness, which you begin to hear things differently when you're in nose consciousness. One of the things we noticed, in each consciousness we walked at a different pace.

[79:01]

So we shift from ears to nose and we'd be walking absolutely together without trying to walk together, but a little faster. So you begin to catch the air, feel the air in your nose. Maybe you can smell your feet. Or your underarm deodorant. or the absence of underarm deodorant. Maybe you can smell whether your person next to you is in what state of mind.

[80:11]

And people's moods definitely have a smell. Mostly we pick it up unconsciously, but if you practice the nose faculty, you begin to be more conscious of the smell of people's moods. Taste. Tongue has a lot to do with a feeling of clarity in your body. If you practice tongue consciousness, you see the difference here between a field of consciousness and the taste of something. We're not talking about that your tongue It's only active when there's some salt or sugar on it.

[81:25]

The field of tongue consciousness is always present. And you modulate it by keeping your mouth wet, by swallowing and so forth. And you can notice how, if you're under a lot of stress or something, or something's challenging you, your mouth may become very dry. So tongue consciousness is very intimately related to the balance of all our consciousnesses. And your tongue consciousness has a lot to do with your posture when you're walking or when you're sitting. Tongue consciousness is closely related to your posture.

[82:26]

It's a little bit like, you know, for some reason our genitals are used for defecation, but they're also used for reproduction. I've always thought it was a strange combination of uses. But each of your senses has other dimensions. as your tongue is just so you can taste your food and discriminate between poison and nourishment. Your tongue also is central to the taste of consciousness. Taste that. And the clarity of consciousness.

[83:46]

I think you'll find if you put your consciousness in your feel, the feel, the feel, the feel consciousness, your eyes will be very clear. Ah, okay. Then you move to your body. And this means the whole proprioceptive quality of your body. And you can start this practice usually by noticing some part of your body that's obvious. You know, like when we were walking, it was how our legs felt. But the first thing that comes to your notice. Then at some point you move to something that doesn't come to your notice, like your elbow. Then you move to the outer surfaces and inner surfaces of the body.

[85:01]

And then you begin to feel an overall, in the solidity of the body, you also feel the pliancy or liquidity of the body. And you begin to feel the mind penetrating the body. And the air, the wind almost blowing through the body. And all perceptions passing through the body. And then now let's move to mind consciousness. Now mind consciousness is The consciousness of the five skandhas, which is loaded consciousness. It's consciousness manufactured from eye, ear, nose, throat, eye, ear, nose, tongue consciousness, body consciousness.

[86:06]

And you can feel the presence of nose consciousness in your mind consciousness. But you feel this big field of mind consciousness. Which can be extended or contracted. And it's inside or out. You can move it to the objects in front of you. And you can begin to feel the field of mind consciousness as independent of eye consciousness. Usually we almost completely link eye consciousness and mind consciousness. so we don't know really what's going on behind us but for example when we were walking with practicing mind consciousness we could feel the trees far up to the right passing through our mind consciousness

[87:26]

We could feel the lake on our left in our mind consciousness. Since this consciousness arose from smell and sound and our body, our proprioceptive body, And if it wasn't only present in our eyes, we could begin to feel, know what's going on behind us. Now, they tried to teach samurais all of this, so you could tell what people were doing behind you, fighting. So these Buddhist practices were adopted to all kinds of things in the ancient culture. But the sense of it here is you don't really know mind consciousness until you know all the elements that generate mind consciousness.

[89:05]

Now, the sense also is here that mind consciousness here is fueled by the first five. In other words, if you want a healthy mind consciousness, you should have a healthy developed tongue, eye, ear, etc. consciousness. And if you do this kind of practice, Everything you hear, smell, nourishes mind consciousness. You actually feel much more energy and presence all the time. So part of the teaching of this is these consciousnesses are the power of mind consciousness or the fuel of mind consciousness. And also, if this is based on a principle of inclusion, not exclusion, you have to create a field of inclusion.

[90:24]

You have to create a field of holders. The wholeness being health and bringing everything together. So you're creating a field of wholeness here, not exclusion, but inclusion. In other words, developing yourself so that wholeness is possible. And it starts with the senses, because that's our immediate relationship to the world. So just as you might go to a gym to practice strengthening this particular muscle, This kind of mind Zen Buddhist practice you strengthen and become aware of each of your sense faculties.

[91:52]

And you become aware of them as a field independent of the object of perception. And you see how those fields of consciousness arise from the phenomenal world and arise from the presence of your friend. then you come close to being able to perceive interpenetration and interdependence. Okay, Neil? Is it possible, for example, to enter the field of nose consciousness on a memory of a snail?

[92:55]

Oh, of course. Nose consciousness includes everything, inside and outside, but we'll come to that next. The entire multi-volumed remembrance of things past of Proust arises from a smell of Hawthorne. Oh, all the volumes of Proust arise from the first page where he talks about the smell of hawthorns. Hawthorns? Hawthorns? Popcorns. Popcorns? Hawthorns. A flower, a flowering bush. Lavender. Why not lavender? Lavender. Popcorn. That's the modern version of Proust.

[94:00]

He smelled of it. And his grandmother. Popcorn instead of lavender.

[94:04]

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