But we changed the location from this other place to here a few days ago. So we kind of have to wait a little bit for people to have time to get over here if there's a few people who show up at the other place seeing the poster. So there's no reason just to sit here. If anybody wants to discuss something or ask a question. Did it have to be the hottest weekend of the year? Some things are not within the control of the Austrian Buddhists. So that question didn't lead anywhere.

[01:04]

Sorry. My feeling is, what I'd really like to do is to do a seminar which was exactly what people, and even lecture, which was exactly what people wanted. But how can I tell what you want if you don't say anything? I mean, there must be something that brought you here.

[02:13]

Some expectation. Or do you expect me to do all the work? and eternal family. OK? Then we will book you. Study yourself and forget about yourself. Not too strong.

[03:17]

It's best, actually, if it's aimed a little bit at a wall or something. Pretend it'll blow all the scrolls. It's good. If we don't, can you talk about the times if there are any other questions? Yeah. Can we what? About time. Are we... Oh, during the seminar? Sure, anything. Yeah, not everyone will be going to the seminar, but I thought we would start with those who want to.

[04:31]

Are you OK? For those who want to, we'll have sitting from 9.30 to 10. And the seminar will start at 10. If you can make it by 9.30 to sit, that's good. And I suppose we'll break about 1 o'clock, something like that. And start again at 3? What do you think? And we'll stop at Ten?

[05:36]

No. Five? Just kidding. Maybe six or something. Five-thirty? Six? Yeah, okay. You mentioned something about some experience of the energy body that you want maybe to clarify. Oh, earlier? Yeah, but not on the first night. He said that he would like to say something about the experiences of the energy body, that he would like to clarify some things. You know, I'm always a little, it's surprising since I do this quite often, I'm always a little shy to introduce Buddhism to people. I think, you know, you have perfectly good lives and a nice city to live in, and why should I bother you with all this stuff?

[06:51]

I have a question. You asked us why did we come here and the question popped up for me. Why do we have to practice anyway? Why doesn't it come naturally by itself? Somebody is coming. Maybe I should just start with talking about this topic a little bit.

[08:11]

The topic that someone chose for the for the title of the seminar and the lecture is to study the self and to forget the self. And this is from a famous statement of Dogen Zenji's. And he was a, most of you know, but a 13th century Zen master in Japan. And a kind of also, he's also considered to be the greatest philosopher of Japan, probably.

[09:21]

And he said to study the self, to study Buddhism is to study the self. And to study The self is to forget the self. And to forget the self is to be identified by all things. And to be identified by all things is to drop body and mind. Now this isn't the usual way we think of studying things. And this is particular to this yogic culture. Even the idea that we can forget ourselves is you know, fairly unusual.

[10:28]

And also that we might be identified by all things. And then what too would be the experience or what would Dogen mean by dropping body and mind? Hmm. We exist here in some way. And it's quite difficult to really notice how we exist here. And in Buddhism, to study the self means to find a way to start noticing what you're doing. And mostly... There's a seat here, Michaela.

[11:51]

Hi. So To study ourself he means to study how we exist. And to be able to notice how we exist. And this is not so easy. It's the problem of how does the eye see the eye. You've got the eyes mixed up there. With the egg. Come in. There's a seat here, I think. And to forget the self means to

[13:45]

move out of the narrative of how we exist. I think if I'm going to look at this statement, I have to define what Buddhism would mean by self. Buddhism means the functions of the self, but also the giving of a sense of permanence to the self. Now, we're intellectually aware that everything's changing. But in our actual experience, our thoughts keep returning to the self. So even if you're a Buddhist and you have concluded or agreed that the self is not something permanent.

[15:11]

Still, in fact, in our actual activity, our thoughts keep returning to our self. And this is an effect acting as if the self were permanent. So it's to notice this kind of thing that Dogen means by to study the self. Now, I have to, should, since this is the topic, go over this sense of the functions of self. And any society, you can't... I mean, whoever you are, you have to function through a self.

[16:12]

And the self functions to... For instance, your immune system is a form of the self. It knows what belongs here and what doesn't belong to this body. And you know this is my voice or not your voice and so forth. We have to be able to make this kind of separation. And then self also functions to notice connectedness. And third, self functions to give us a sense of continuity.

[17:15]

And for most of us, this is, I think for us in the West... Self functions through showing us our separateness most of the time. And it functions as a refuge through its narrative continuity or narrative unity. You kind of have to see this. You know, I sometimes get a little tired of explaining this because most of you who I practice with know this well. But you really have to see the relevance of this before you can make sense of what Dogen is saying, for instance. Because if you find the refuge of continuity, Who you are moment after moment in a narrative of yourself there's no forgetting the self.

[18:35]

And in fact, I mean, no matter how much you practice Buddhism, etc., if 80% of the time your thoughts go back to, I'm this, I'm going to do this, I want to do this, you're not really in the territory of Buddhism. Also, wie immer du dich mit Buddhism beschäftigst, wenn du 80% der Zeit damit beschäftigt bist, zu sagen, das bin ich und das muss ich machen, If you're working with that, then you're in the territory of Buddhism. And even if you're working unsuccessfully as most of us do, you're in the territory of Buddhism. Okay. If you're going to To explore this constancy of self-regarding thoughts, you have to find some way to have a perspective on this.

[19:53]

one of the sharpest ways to do this is to practice meditation and really notice that the that most of what you experience as self is within a narrative of thought and images. Now, again, you can hear this intellectually, but unless you have some experience of some other way of experience of how thoroughly this is just thoughts. And a real and repeatedly confirmed experience that you're not only thoughts.

[21:06]

And it's very hard to work with this. Now, as I mentioned, I want to start partly in this seminar with where I left off in Linz, where I just did a seminar recently. But one of the most common advice for sitting practice that Sukhiroshi gave, is don't invite your thoughts to tea. Yeah, it sounds nice. But, you know, usually we don't explain things, we give you a simple image like this, which has quite a lot in it.

[22:12]

Which is, if you don't have to invite your thoughts to tea, it means there's a mind bigger than thoughts. Because in some way, you're not inviting your thoughts to tea. Now that raises a second question. Who's not inviting them to tea? Then you have to start dealing with the witness of the mind. Then you have to start distinguishing the witness from the sense of narrative self. Then you have to start observing whether you energetically turn toward the witness as much as or in a different way than you turn toward the narrative self. You can see we're already in a mess.

[23:36]

There's no real way to sort this out intellectually. You can actually only do it if you have a physical experience of states of mind. You've got to be able to kind of physically sense the difference between the witness and the energetic presence of thoughts. And we can refine this further the sense of location, like if I put my mind in my breath, this is a sense of location, again, that's different than the witness or the narrative self. So Dogen's When Dogen says to study the self, he means this kind of process.

[24:49]

Sounds good, whatever you're doing. Oh, well, it was going fine. Okay. No, I mean, I think it's worth mentioning this because you can do this if you want to. I think it's virtually impossible to do it without meditation practice. You need a developed sense of physical stillness and mental stillness.

[25:51]

But, you know, anyone can do it if you want. I mean, almost anyone. I'm sure all of you could do it. But your intention to do it has to be there. And that intention has to be consistently reinforced. Okay. So now we've touched a little bit on what Dogen means by to study the Self. And so let's look at to forget the self. Now, to forget the self has a lot of ways to look at it.

[27:02]

But for most of us, and certainly in the beginning, it means to shift our sense of continuity from... To shift our sense of continuity to somewhere else other than narrative thought. In other words, we've got to have some sense of continuity to function. So let's find a different place to experience continuity. And the most basic... is to bring your attention to your breath away from your thoughts.

[28:03]

Now this is, you know, Any place you go they'll say pay attention to your breath. And it's a nice healthy thing to do. It's smoking without cigarettes. But what's really going on is you are, if you keep bringing your attention to your breath, you're simultaneously taking your attention away from the narrative self. Doesn't mean you're getting rid of it or You know, I hate you. You're just giving it. from other attention.

[29:09]

You're giving it less attention. And you're loving it a little differently. You're thinking maybe there's some other things to love in addition to myself. So when you bring your attention to you develop the habit of bringing your attention to your breath. This is a pretty deep effect. Because if we look at these three functions of self, separation, connectedness and continuity. What you're in fact doing in addition is shifting your sense of continuity into connectedness. And the yogic sense of self functions primarily through

[30:12]

Separation and connectedness, not separation and continuity. So you're deepening what connectedness means to you. I mean, if you sat down and took an inventory of the ways you're connected with other people, my guess it would be a pretty sparse list. I'm nice to people, you know, things like that. But except for immediate family, I don't think most of us have a real... tangible sense of connectedness with others. But in fact, how we determine who we are is through locating ourselves through others.

[31:30]

So one thing we'll be trying to look at Saturday and Sunday is how do we locate ourselves through others? And what are the possibilities? Locating ourselves through ourself, through others, or through mind itself, perhaps. Okay, so when you shift your sense of continuity to your breath, you're moving what I mentioned, this object of attention, or rather, let's call it this sense of location, you're moving energetically a sense of location out of this object.

[32:38]

narrative self, to your breath. Well, this is actually a kind of alchemy. Because you're taking mind This sense of location is mentation. Please come in. I think you might be able to sit on this person's lap. I don't know. Oh, thank you. It's seen better days. Well... Are you comfortable?

[33:58]

No, I... Go ahead. So when you bring this sense of location to your breath, you're actually mixing mind with your breath. Now, if you do this occasionally, when you meditate, etc., well, it has some effect. But if you actually Find the ability to do it 24 hours. Now again, not many people do it, actually. But what could be easier? You're always attentive.

[34:59]

You're always breathing. Just put them together. If you can't, it means in effect you believe in the permanence of self. Or you really find it more interesting than your breath. That makes sense. Most things are more interesting than your breath. Yeah, so maybe at first you have to have a little faith or it doesn't come naturally. It requires a little logic to do it. And probably you won't do it unless you find it somewhat satisfying. But what you're really doing when you practice mindfulness and meditation is you're also tapping into

[36:03]

what long before Buddhism was noted as non-dreaming deep sleep. These Indian philosophers before Buddhism thought that non-dreaming deep sleep was a kind of necessary bliss That we forgot when we awoke more thoroughly than dreams. And I can't, you know, since we forget it so thoroughly, I can't tell you if what they said was true or not. explanation of what they thought it was, which I can only assume they know the same way that I guess I know what it is, which is that the experience of meditation

[37:29]

when it is really free of thoughts, is similar to their description of this non-dreaming deep sleep. And similar in that it begins to be an experience of Now, I know in polite society it's improper to talk about bliss and things like that. So, excuse me for mentioning it, but it is one of It's the best way to live. Excuse me, this is interesting. Why should it be a taboo? I don't know. I don't know. But that's another lecture.

[38:38]

So breathing practice actually, probably if you don't have this experience of bliss on your breath, it's pretty difficult for you to continue when our thoughts are so interesting. And are so much about what's most interesting to us. Mainly the self. So also when you're doing this simple thing of bringing your attention to your breath, and when you're not doing it just periodically, you've actually got a physical feeling of it that you know the physical feeling of it like if I have the physical feeling of it now while I'm speaking the sense of breath and voice are connected the more I know this physical feeling and the more I find this

[40:03]

waking and even going to sleep and even during sleep, what you're in effect doing is physicalizing the mind. So we can talk about, again, the unity of mind and body or the oneness or whatever. Now, let me say again, If you think mind and body are one, this is a delusion. And if you have such an idea, it will interfere with your realizing how mind and body relate to each other. It's a problem in just the same way as if you think mind and body are separate. The ideas we hold about what's going on

[41:12]

are more powerful than our activity action. So the idea you want is knowing or sensing that this is a relationship that's cultivated. So when you bring your attention to your breath, you're cultivating the relationship between mind and body. To bring attention to your breath and your breath... to your body. This is cultivating the relationship of mind and body. There's other ways to cultivate the relationship of mind and body. Athletes have various ways they cultivate the relationship. And in fact a lot of athletes are being affected by meditation practices now and how they cultivate mind and body.

[42:33]

But what we're doing here is studying mind and body cultivating mind and body, so that we can study the self and forget the self. So to actually study how we exist, the self interferes. By definition, the self is always drawing attention to itself. Okay. So one of the first ways to forget the self is to take the sense of continuity away from the narrative self. Okay. You're doing that when you bring your attention to your breath.

[43:48]

And you're physicalizing the mind. And when this sense of location becomes a sense of identity, in other words, now, before, you not only paid attention to your narrative self, you identified with your narrative self. Now through practice you're bringing your attention to your breath, but probably you're still identifying with yourself. At some point when you do it enough and and have a feeling for it throughout the day, you've actually forgotten the self when you identify with your breath as you. Somebody asked the Buddha, who are you? Are you a sage or are you... What are you?

[45:07]

No. Are you a god? No. Well, who are you? What are you? I am awake. What he meant was his sense of identity is in his awareness, not in his thoughts. It would be in the same sense if someone asked you, Who are you? And what came up first for you was breathing person. You might politely say, no, my name is Sam or something. It is not Sam. How do you know that? Your baby's... It's like an uncle Sam.

[46:14]

Yeah, it's like a kid's joke, you know? Pinch me and... No, I won't tell you that joke. But anyway, I got you to say you were Sam. And if you practice enough, you begin, when somebody asks you who you are, you have to sort of think, yes, sometimes I'm Richard Baker. But, you know, that is my given name. I don't experience Richard Baker. It's a generality, a generalization. And I know for convenient purposes this generalization is what I use to name myself. But I don't have any experience of this.

[47:15]

And it's made up of innumerable details. I mean, Vienna is all these details, and you put all the details together, and it's Vienna. Vienna. But we know Wien. Through the details. And I keep giving this spot to people, but you can sit here if you want, or on the floor. Probably right there is good. Why don't you sit there? I've offered that place too often. Probably not. She's getting mad at me. Now, we could say that Dharma practice means

[48:37]

to really see how much we experience generalities. Richard Baker's a generality? A generalization. And so is the self. So you want to withdraw energy from these things which really don't absorb energy. And constantly bring them to particulars. And now we're working with particulars which also give us a sense of continuity and one of the main ones and the most accessible and the one that's most We could call this seminar the craft and vision of the present.

[49:52]

Because I also want to speak about how vision is... in many ways the most wonderful ingredient we can bring into our immediate consciousness. But right now I'm speaking about the craft of the present and the craft of presence. So, when you now identify with this breath continuity as self, in Buddhism we'd say you've forgotten yourself. Now, this also opens you up to other ways in which you can experience continuity.

[51:06]

One is Well, let me stay with the breath a moment longer. One of the truisms of yoga is all mental phenomena has a physical component. And all sentient physical phenomena has a mental component. The body is easier to work with than the mind. It's very... Hard to grab my mind, but I can grab my arm. Buddhism's quite simple. So... If you can develop a physical sense of the mind, so you can feel various modes or states of mind in your body, then you can

[52:17]

then that opens you to establish a sense of physical continuity. You feel your physical presence and your physical location. Now I'm jumping around a little bit, but maybe we'll during the seminar fill in some of the gaps but as you get older some of us are that's happening to some of us it seems to be happening to me more than it used to you have to be usually a little more aware of your energy. When we're young, our energy mostly carries us.

[53:42]

There are some rules about how we live. And one advantage of getting a little older, where you have to stay more in touch with your energy, As you discover those rules. Okay, now... Now we're at the third phrase, to study the self, to study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be identified by all things. Now, this is very clear. You've moved your identity out of the narrative self. You've forgotten the self. I don't know how you translate it.

[55:02]

I can barely say it. How do you translate it? Me too. Just have to ask the audience. All right. Okay. So you've moved the sense of identifying with the self to being identified by all things. You've moved the sense of identification with self to being identified through all things. Now we're getting a little more esoteric. Maybe we should leave it till tomorrow. Esoteric stuff is on Saturday. Or Sunday. Let me venture a little bit. First of all you have to find some way to notice the strands of continuity.

[56:29]

Now the basic ones are your breath. your body, the kind of presence, continuity of presence of the body, and working with the senses. Now one of the things I've been suggesting to people recently is to work with in addition to the breath, what we might call the strand of sound, or the tissue of sound. So imagine you're out camping, Brett, in the woods, and you've got a tent. And how nice it is that you hear the stream The wind.

[57:36]

The rain on the tent. It's quite easy to, easier anyway, to... feel sound going on all the time. Now this is a specific Buddhist exercise to again, just like with breath, but now bring your attention for continuity. for refuge in continuity, to the tissue of sound. It's a little difficult to do because we're used to Well, for example, if I close my eyes now, and I open them up, you're still there. I close my eyes, etc. You're still there. This is a very clear sense of permanence.

[58:37]

It's just like, again, if I open my eyes and I see that you're still there. And I'm not struck by the physical uniqueness of this moment. then again, I in fact believe in permanence. To really know what impermanence means is you actually experience each moment as unique. If you don't experience it that way, you're just paying lip service to the idea or... thought service to the idea of impermanence.

[59:43]

So although by... can always say this it remains so that this moment is absolutely unique. And if we all actually know this we'll have a great seminar. Because the flow of energy into this situation if you know it's unique It's a sure thing. But sound is different. Whether I cover my ears, it's always a different sound. Dogs, So you're beginning to find continuity in something that's sporadic.

[61:11]

We all do these things sometimes, so it's no big deal. But if you take, say, let's say, from now this evening for the next three weeks, you make every effort you can, to find your continuity in the tissue of sound. I guarantee you at the end of three weeks your body will know the results. There will be many ways you will know the results. So this is Still the process of studying through forgetting the self. Now we have to have some guide. Wir brauchen etwas Führung. My goodness.

[62:22]

We have to stop them too. I mean, we don't have to, but probably we should. And the guides I suggest most often is to see if you can do things in a way that you feel nourished. I should be speaking to you now in a way in which I'm following a sense of being nourished by speaking. And when I feel less nourished, I should move toward feeling more nourished. And really, is there any reason to lead any moment of your life without feeling nourished?

[63:25]

I mean, there often are. But still, it's possible. And it certainly will be more possible if you find continuity in your breath. But they work together. So if you try to take a short walk or do something and stay with a feeling of nourishment, You'll also find your breath is coming into presence. The study of the self is the craft of the self, the craft of how we exist. Does handwerk have the same sense in German as craft as in English?

[64:31]

Yeah, craftsmanship. But you don't hear the word hand. Handwerk. Yeah, it's work, the hand. Oh, I understand. But craft means much more than handwork. Yeah, but hand... But in German you hear it as craft. Yeah. It has a component of skill in it. Yeah. Very much so. Okay. Because when I hear it translated, that the handwork of... Yeah, I mean, I could talk about that, but that's something slightly different. Okay. Okay. And the other is, in addition to nourishment, is to feel a sense of completeness in what you do. Now I spoke in the seminar last year in Vienna about these four, I mentioned six actually, but tonight I'll stick with four.

[65:44]

Nourishment and completeness. And the next two to work with are alignment and attunement. Now, what could I mean by that? This room was designed by somebody. And it was, a lot of energy was put into the design, presumably. And crafts people and masons made the building and made the room. And they had some idea that we might someday be sitting here. Everything they did was so you could sit here.

[67:04]

Everything they did was so I could get up and walk out that door. That's why they put the door there. Now, I don't know if I can make sense of this, but see if I'll try. I don't know if I can make sense of it, but I'll try. Every time I walk get up and walk to that door, I'm making this room. The designer and the architect made the room so I could make the room. They made the room. I mean, the room has no sense unless I get up and walk out to that. Or at least contemplate walking out. And if I don't and we don't

[68:04]

contemplate walking out or sometimes walk out, this room, this building will fall into disuse. I don't know how to say it, but the energy of the architect, designer and carpenter, craftsman, is present in us when we also make the room. So, There's a kind of energy present here that we make by using the room.

[69:27]

It's not just a passive object. We are also making the room. Now, when you feel that, and it makes some sense, and maybe I can try to approach it from another point of view tomorrow. When you really feel how you're located and you feel feel the location, there's a tremendous nourishment in this. You can track your own energy, you know, a little tired or a little sleepy or haven't eaten or whatever. Or getting sick.

[70:28]

Or this person, not you, that person there, this person somehow When I'm near them, my energy is depleted a little. And this person and this person and this person all give me energy. You begin to be able to be in touch with your actual energy. It's a bit like the process some psychotherapists do of sculpting. This room is a kind of sculpture. And if I feel that, there's a tremendous amount of energy, information in this situation.

[71:32]

That's only possible when I find the point where there's a kind of connecting tissue here. So in effect, we sculpt situations. Sukhyoshi used to talk about how being somewhere was like making a garden. At every moment, seeds are being planted. And if it's too windy or the ground's too hard, the seeds blow away or don't take hold. So how are your actions going to fall on fertile soil?

[72:50]

So there's first all these seeds are happening. These wonderful roses here. And how do their seeds, or just the feeling I have, fall on fertile ground here? I mean, these roses should be able to make a difference change my evening at least. And if the roses can change my... I mean, these are flowers, but look at what kind of flowers you guys are. So if these can change my evening, how much more so... Can you change my evening? I mean, you're the most, excuse me for saying something obvious, but you're the most complex thing in the known universe.

[73:51]

You have this simple surface of the narrative self, but that's not connectedness. Connectedness is to know all the seeds that are falling right now, and have the kind of continuity cultivated by the breath that allows these seeds to take hold. But there aren't just these seeds, there's yesterday's seeds. last year's seeds and so forth. And they're sprouting. So I have to water, I'm the gardener and I'm the garden. And I have to water these. seeds and these little plants.

[75:05]

But there also, Sukeruji used to say, there has to be some beauty here. Or some vision in which this garden we really locate ourselves, what should I say, in the human family. I think of koans, which are Zen koans, wisdom stories as an attempt of these folks who put these things together to create a location which to create a way to locate you in the human family differently.

[76:15]

The human family is not government and ordinary society. The human family is what, like in a normal society, father-mother-child family. As I've said, there's some kind of implicit rules that what makes a family work. And what makes children feel nourished. But there's some kind of rules in every moment situation like that. And I think sometimes we have the feeling of being in love when we actually feel ourselves located with one or two or three persons in a new way.

[77:26]

In a way in which we somehow feel deeply nourished. Or complete, complete, completed or completing. So this is what Dogen meant to be identified by all things. Something like this is what he meant. I think that's enough for this evening. And we still have to drop body and mind. But I'll let you do that after the seminar. Whenever you'd like, you can do it. Although I was shy, Thank you for helping me find what to say.

[78:46]

Thank you. And thank you for...

[78:48]

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