There's some insecurity. Where in you, when you feel the effect, tell me how you feel the effect? No, not the affect, but the effect, the effect. Is the word not... She is understanding like... Affection. No, the effect. The effect, the effect of this emotion. So do you suppress the emotion or the effect of this emotion? That was his first question. If you notice it, you perceive it and then you don't suppress it.

[01:04]

Yes, this is the question. If we want to communicate this with Paul, you have to be a little slower. Because I'm not sure I understand, by using the word effect,

[02:08]

means something happens to you. If it's in the midst of your life, suppressing it comes up someplace else. So it can't. So part of, for me, the attitude, the posture inside sitting can almost be like a cauldron where we can burn those things. But it means having a trust in the container.

[03:13]

If it's the effect, something outside, it's different. So sometimes you can... Zazen can be this cauldron and a laboratory. So there's an experiment and one of the things that your life gives you is this emotion. And today I mix this. And it's burning in the pot. But it means having that trust in the container. So sometimes in zazen you can go crazy. You allow yourself to do that.

[04:37]

So when you use the word that you suppress, that's where the slippage is for me. Because I'm now understanding differently. Do you have that sense of a cauldron? Do you know that? I never thought of it that way, but now that you talk about it, I know what you mean. It's when Baker Roshi spoke yesterday about his practice.

[05:41]

One of the things that you can do is you can really treat practice as a laboratory. Because ultimately practice, Suzuki Roshi used to point at his nose. He used to go, practice goes this way. So you have these tools you've developed. And the parameters are tools. And the four stages of mindfulness are tools. And in particular with this cauldron, mental one-pointedness. The fifth parameter is a tool. And you can make something. And you can take it apart. And it all happens right here. But it means having some experience and confidence in using the tool.

[07:04]

And allowing. So the other thing about practice for me is stability. And treating Zazen as an insane asylum. Allowing yourself to experience anything. You can only do it if there's that stability. So when you sit down, I won't move. And then sometime maybe you have to move. But you move with a feeling of stability and not moving. So the way for me I can do that is I wait.

[08:12]

Maybe one breath and then I move. Zazen can also be a spa. A vacation. So when that comes up, you can wrap it in a package and put it over here and go to the beach on your cushion. But it's really up to you. I was dealing with two different entrances to mindfulness practice.

[09:44]

The one, Vipassana. And the other one is Zen. There is the observer, which is outside, and the observer from the outside is not so much there. He is taken away. And we try to find out how the practice is different. So in sitting there is not so much difference, the teaching is different. And one person said in the words, awareness and mindfulness is an understanding of it.

[10:49]

Awareness, that's more the Zen, way to mindfulness. There is not so much active enforcing and mindfulness. It's more included. We were not so certain about it, but there may be more included activity, the activity of looking at it, of observing it. For me, in my history and my own practice of my trueness, it was important because the Theravada, it puts some, well, Leistungsdruck, you want to accomplish something. This was imposed on me through the Theravada way.

[11:51]

I've done a very little bit of Vipassana sitting. And I called Baker Roshi after the sitting. And I asked him if I understood the difference. Because I had a little bit of this. And I felt a bit ashamed that I had such a reaction. And he didn't validate that I had that reaction. But he agreed with the perspective. And as you talk, I remember that feeling. And the feeling is, people kept talking while I was sitting. And when they weren't talking when I was sitting, they would tell me what to do the next period.

[13:20]

Sorry, I didn't understand. They would tell me what I should, the content of my next period of sitting. And I can feel my body memory of the feeling. Somebody's messing with me. And Roshi said, yes, that's true. In Zen, this lineage, there's a basic confidence and respect for each person's enlightenment. And directing somebody too much may not sometimes show respect for that.

[14:24]

So people who gravitate to this kind of practice may at times not feel comfortable in a Vipassana practice. But what's so interesting, not in this kind of context, but at Johanneshof or Crestone or a monastery, Zen has a form for everything. How to walk through the door. How to go to the bathroom. But nobody tells you what you should be experiencing when you do it. Vipassana doesn't do that. There are very little forms. Even for a forest monk, maybe not so many forms.

[15:49]

But very detailed instruction directing your experience. And I think both can be efficacious. But I feel into this lack of result bitter. Our group also talked about the observer during mindfulness.

[16:58]

And then, I mean, if true mindfulness has an observer or if the observer becomes one. We are another group, but we talked about the same point. And we found out that a kind of observer is built up if you are mindful that this loses itself if the pace of things gets too fast.

[18:10]

If things happen very rapidly, then we cannot notice any observer. Is it that we are not mindful in these situations? Are there two different kinds of mindfulness? If a cup is inadvertently knocked off the table. And you grab it. Where is the observer? So if you're looking in a certain place for an observer, you have the observer package, how you want the observer to look. We used to call it Zen slow.

[19:39]

Zen slow. You do everything very slowly. And it's like having your teddy bear or your blanket. That's my observer. But when you catch the cup, there's some awareness present, but in a different way. It's very useful to develop the first kind of Zen slow observer. But most of you will be leaving here. And you may not be able to have your observer with you in that way. So this is a great luxury. So I can hold my glass with two hands and people don't think I'm like an eight-year-old child with a big glass of milk.

[21:10]

You can experiment with things here. But when you get on the highway, maybe you can't. So again, this is the stabilizing practice. And even for maybe one minute the whole weekend you had that feeling. Maybe one breath. But it's a place to begin. And then you can go back to that. So mindfulness can sometimes be a crutch. But it can help us walk. So... The term Buddha, the name Buddha, comes from the root buddh, which means awake in Sanskrit.

[22:41]

And that's the fourth of the perfections, the paramitas. So the mindfulness, the concentration, is the fifth. And if you have the awakeness, you can develop that mindfulness. But to just focus on the mindfulness without the awakeness, they're all interrelated. Sorry? They relate to one another. Does that help what you are... I still don't understand it fully because Eric yesterday told about his job that all day long he's in this work.

[24:10]

If you are 100% in a job and you do it 100%, are you then mindful or not? And you are not conscious that you are doing this. If you are 100% doing it and you are not conscious about it, are you then mindful? You are 100%. Do you always have to know what you're doing that you can say you're mindful? I am. Because if you work with computers like I do, it's not that I'm unconscious, but... But after five hours I'm waking up and I know that I was there, I worked, but I... Is it mindful or isn't it?

[25:11]

Let me move the example. I go to the movies. And it's dark. And there's just the screen. And then there are the opening credits. And I'm... And then the movie ends. So am I mindful? If I'm not present and aware of this situation, the other seats, the feeling in me, That's not mindful. So there has to be a certain body mindfulness connected, the body physicality feeling.

[26:15]

There needs to be conscious awareness For me, there are states, samadhis. Samadhi means mind focused on itself. it may not have a physical component so I don't want to say it always has a physical component but for me 99% of the time so absorption with a fullness of presence doesn't have to have the observer for that mindfulness, that mindful awareness. So if that's there, it's helpful. But it doesn't have to be there.

[27:17]

All the time I'm moving this from one cheek to the other. Somehow a radical, very radical form. And it came to my mind clearly when Eric talked yesterday how he is really deep in his work and then he comes home. And I also know this very much for myself. And I've tried to brew in myself how I can talk about that. And I decided to say it like, I think it's a mistake, an error, that we ourselves are in the center of our activity. And as long as you don't And if we cannot see through this mistake or error, the mindfulness in its absolute undividability, you cannot recognize or realize it.

[29:06]

Mindfulness cannot be divided, it's whole. There is no hierarchy between us as the center of our activity and that outside of us. There is no hierarchy between which we are devoting ourselves to and that which we are not devoting ourselves to at the moment. At the moment where we think the one thing is more important than the other, we are not mindful. I like what you said. And we can be mindful when we're not mindful.

[30:17]

We can be mindful of not being mindful. So what you bring in not dividing our experience, you don't have a crutch anymore. But some of us may still need it. So there's something called step ladders in. So you do this, and then you can do this, and then you can do that. But I think it's very important to see the crutch in relationship to that for which it can be used. to see the crutch in relationship to that for which it can be used.

[31:22]

And what happens with stepladders in is the good teacher takes the ladder away. So what I hoped to... end my talk with this morning, is all these lists, even the parameters, which we should be very respectful of, can't contain this kind of experience. Yet it's something we can do together. And that's useful. I appreciate what you say very much. I also liked very much what you said, because the thought and feeling which came to me when you talked about cinema and the movie, because I like so much going to the movies, because I'm really fully in the movies,

[32:55]

And there is the people around me and the cinema is around me. And not because I'm sitting alone in a corner and watch the movie. It's not the same. It comes together. And although I'm really fully into the movie, I'm still mindful. It's still there. That's good. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. For me this is really a big difference what I meant between a movie and what I do in my work. Because the work for me deals with mental constructs. I enter my work, and there is this text in front of me, and I have to do this, and I have to do this phone call, and if I did that, then I can work with the text in that direction.

[34:07]

And then I have to do that and call this person. And how I communicate with other people so that this work can So we all work together to make this mental construct. But we also communicate in a certain way that we can make this. And in that I am in a specific relationship with my body. It really can draw myself into it, and after five hours I really don't know what happened.

[35:28]

This is also nourished by a certain excitement. And it's also very satisfying. The interesting is that after some time, I'm just tired, I'm really depleted. Thank you. I think that is not mindful. Maybe mindfulness would mean that the relationship between the mental constructs and the body stays intact.

[36:28]

so that after work I'm not exhausted in that way, so that I notice. So that I notice I need a break now and I'm making a break. So that that excitement doesn't pull me across the border of my physical capabilities. Now I want to give a very somehow stupid but very effective example for that. If I have to go to the toilet, I go to the toilet. And I don't say, I postpone that sometimes. And that's just an example for all the other needs which come up. If I go to the movies, I really don't want to be mindful.

[37:53]

I just want to really experience the movie. I want to be sucked in by the movie. When you're working, do you want to be mindful? The problem is... The problem is, the question doesn't put itself. This pull is so strong, That you really can't resist to it. That's why I said yesterday you can put on your computer, breathe, and after some time you just forget it. That's why sasana is so important for me. What I really liked about what you just said was that you felt depleted.

[38:55]

Which is like a flag. And Pekaroshi has talked a lot about nourishment. So maybe another way of indicating if you're being mindful is that you feel nourished. Sometimes when I'm under pressure from work and I have A lot of equipment. So two terminals and a telephone. And people needing me to approve something. I can almost feel my mind being two feet ahead of me. My mind is not in my body and it's leading me two feet ahead of me.

[40:05]

And I stop. I just stop. And that's being mindful. Coming back here. And I try then to relax the shoulders. It's not easy. This is a privileged position to say, now I stop.

[41:09]

If I'm in a birth process and the woman is pushing and I say stop. Take a breath. It's clear to me, but... I'm saying this again and again because I notice. Sometimes I get the feeling we are pretending as if we could influence everything with our breath. Sometimes I also have this feeling that I can make a decision. She can't make a decision. She can. She is able to. You can. And sometimes I have the feeling there is a decision coming through me, going through me.

[42:20]

I noticed this is also a space which opens for me when you talk about your work. When Christa started talking yesterday I had the picture like taking mindfulness Like one tree in a forest. And what are the names of all the other trees? I have two thoughts which I would like to come in with. First what you said and also about the observer.

[43:35]

I really liked how you expressed it and I asked myself When being aware where I direct my mindfulness and where I don't direct it to, where does my body end? Because we talked a lot about the body. I am a physical body. I am a family body. And also for my grandchildren, I am a society body. and in my profession or in my Austrian society. At the same time, I'm the body of humanity. How can I direct my mindfulness to this last scope? The second thought The observer, the inner observer, in our culture, there is an instance which somehow builds with it.

[45:05]

This is from science, gewissen, gewissen, conscience. And isn't that also an observer? And this... It starts when you get conscious as a child, and it goes through several stages when you develop it. And maybe for some time, I use this as a crutch for some time to regulate my doing and not doing. It's always a decision. And every time it requires a decision. So I ask myself, at some point will I be where I can, I don't need this instance anymore, this conscience.

[46:13]

That you don't need a conscience? That you don't, that you don't need a conscience. as an instance which regulates what you're doing. So the first piece, with mindfulness of you as the culture body, is that correct? there's a feeling that you have of being part of something wide, not being limited by this. And being present in that is being mindful or aware of a different kind of body than this body.

[47:15]

So how to be mindful is through following that feeling, not focusing on the shoulder. So the only way I can relate to that is by entering into that feeling. But I see the shoulders in that body. I see the shoulders of the many women then you should feel into those shoulders. If that's what you feel, that's what you should focus on. So if there's an articulation,

[48:28]

Because mindfulness needs details to be mindful of. That directs the attention to those details. I wanted to talk about the big scope of consciousness on the one side, this one-pointedness, to really be focused on one detail. With your physical senses, but also mental perception?

[49:56]

On the other side, like you said, in the cinema you also can have this big scope where you realize the movie and all the people around and the seats. I think there are many possibilities which can be covered from this focus and also the wide perception. you can only focus on breath so that breath fills everything also to one point in this breath you can also go to the back side of your mind And notice everything which is there.

[51:09]

It's not only that one thought arises. How I experience it that several locations at the same time they arise. And it's like with martial arts. And in martial arts, there is also a very narrow glance and a wide glance, so that in the wide glance you see everything which the eye can see and beyond that also the shoulders, and the back has an eye. So it's also like a play between concentrating on one thing and having everything, observing everything. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, I thought Michael was going to comment on your question because I didn't finish.

[52:37]

So with the second question about conscience, the way I understand conscience, it has to do with those constructs that I grew up with. And I think that it's not the constructs are good or bad, but they may be limiting. And the point of these mindfulness practices is to help us begin to dissolve those limitations.

[53:43]

As to what our experience is. So as to whether, I think you were asking, will you not have a conscience at some time? Is that correct? What is the next step, would be the question. It's a wider kind of conscience. Which is not limited by our personal history or our culture. Or what we think the right thing to do is. Anyway, that's my sense.

[54:52]

I don't know whether I can say this clearly. It's really spontaneous. I don't have such a strong body anymore. The day was so long, I just thought I have to, I'm just falling over. And then I sat down on the floor, on the ground. If I really would be mindful, you are so strong. If I really would be mindful with my body, I would miss half of the seminar. And really I sat down and I thought, the seminar is now, the day after, there is no seminar anymore. There are a lot of people around who could support you or not.

[55:55]

My feeling has to be alive. I have to somehow go over the limitations of my body. It's a very alive question for me. Because of the limitations I feel in my body. And what's possible for me to do physically. And what's helpful to me is to be kind to myself. And by that I mean accepting my limitation and doing the best that I can.

[57:05]

and you were talking yesterday and Gerald asked me if I was tired and I said I was tired six hours ago and I had that same feeling But if I find I'm kind to myself accepting that's my situation and doing my best that's all I can do. So, for example, if I paint, I'm in this strength when I start, but then I forget my body, and what flows out is maybe a very good picture, but next day I cannot stand anymore.

[58:34]

Because my legs, they just couldn't take it. And that starts the difficulty for me. Because I don't notice my body anymore at this process of painting. I think, wasn't it Monet that he hurried to paint the water lilies because he was going blind? And Renoir's arthritis was so bad that he couldn't pick up a brush. So they used to put the brush in his hand. And then he painted. I think he also painted lying down on the ceiling, but it was very difficult for the people around him.

[60:02]

I don't want to be that bad for people around. I hope you take care of yourself. I would like to say something to that. Yeah. Sishin is on the one hand really a physical overwhelm, where you get up very early and then just through this sitting, which is also very exhausting. Yes, you can actually be relaxed, but it's not always relaxed. That means you are really very physically challenged. And I then cooked this Sishin in the middle for lunch. which also mentally overwhelms me. After cooking at 2 o'clock, I was really physically so exhausted that I was lying in bed.

[61:14]

I felt like a young rabbit to whom the heart beats. And there was really only this very small presence. And for me it was very nice, she seemed to just give in to it and really feel me, manchmal Energie habe und wie die Energie wieder weggeht. Und dem wirklich zuzuschauen, so wie dem Wetter. Und das Wetter war dann manchmal einfach mies. Also dann bin ich wirklich ins Sasein gegangen und habe mich kaum aufrecht halten können, weil es einfach so war. Und nächste Periode war auf einmal wieder die Energie da. Und ich glaube, das ist einfach auch what you can see in this field of the mind and can also allow that you are sometimes weak and can really be weak without having to be afraid that it will always stay that way. I also want to make a connection to Eric and what you said and you said and of course what you said.

[62:34]

Now there was so much time and so much was said and I want to come back to the core point. In what Eric said, within me, there was the picture and valuing things. When you said, I just want to be, that I'm not depleted, that I can really feel that that is a need, that I'm not so depleted. On the other hand, Also what Gisela said is that if I'm doing something, I forget myself and my body, and what I am doing or experiencing is fulfilling me somehow.

[63:40]

with some kind of awareness, is there something which nourishes me? Then this is also okay for me. After all these things, I want to be able to say whether I feel, sometimes I feel depleted, sometimes I feel energetically and alive, but I want to say this is okay. One aspect is, this is both okay to be affected in the life. I want to feel out for myself and be able to say, this is okay. I don't want to have the pressure, the pressure of success that I have to come up to some image

[64:48]

or idea. After all, I want to take the spirit of Zen as a gift, as a possibility to grow. But I don't want to serve Zen. So that Zen happens, whatever that means. And in that field, I know for myself personally, I know that I actually I'm inside the being, I am, will be. I want to say that, although I don't know whether it's the right thing.

[66:20]

I'm in contact with Zen for more than 10 years now. And I don't want to say that I'm very eager in practice. not very busy or eager. And if I listen to that, I get the feeling that I'm quite simple-minded. But in spite of that, I take something from Zen into my everyday life. And my everyday life is very full, very stressful and hectic. I almost don't feel myself all day long because of that. And I made it a habit once or twice a day if I make that, if I can do that.

[67:27]

for one second or part of a second, becoming silent, which is really nothing but just part of a second entering into eternity. I'm silent, everything is there, and then it goes again. And I have the feeling that this is really like a vocation for the soul. I also can do this during a meeting, if everybody is in conflict and quarreling. And I'm silent, I see them all sitting there. And then this second, part of second is over and I feel much better.

[68:30]

That's nothing, but it's there. So that I took that from Zen. And then, and another simple thing which helps me, because there was so much said about emotions, And my feeling is the emotions have nothing to do with my soul. And I really like this feeling that it is that way. The emotions come, they are there. They go. I can feel them. and I can put them aside until the point where I can take them.

[69:34]

I can be angry at home or with my family and I can go to the office and leave this anger at home. If I come home again, I take up the anger again and it goes away. If I can start again. And I also try to teach that to the other people at my home place. You know, let this outside and take it home again with you. Because I'm a lazy person, I try to make it simple for me or easy for me. Because everything seems to be so complicated all the time.

[70:35]

Maybe at home you have the people who are suitable for that kind, but she says no. I want to add something to what Gisela said. I felt like you are worried that you are not mindful enough with your body. I also think that misunderstanding comes up here. I actually imagine that you Because I imagine in the process when you are painting, you are really aware and mindful. Because in this process there is no difference between the objects and you.

[71:52]

For me, this is the highest form, the ideal of mindfulness. Yes, but the body is always left behind. Because I noticed that the body gives signs afterwards that I have tension in my body because I continued and the body couldn't do that anymore. Yes. My picture of that is, if you paint, you paint fully from your body. I paint from my soul. I let it flow. To this topic, it came to my mind, a word from Tobin Senji, to study is to study oneself, to study oneself is to forget oneself, which I think is really to the point of that.

[73:27]

It also says to forget the self is to become the self and to include all things. And then he says, The real tricky part for me. And this leaves no trace. And the no trace continues endlessly. So this is a little bit about what I think you were talking about. And I guess the trick is in knowing when you're taking care of yourself, when you're forgetting yourself, in that way or when you're disregarding yourself. Can you do that again? The forgetting the self of Dogen and the translation is maybe a problem.

[74:35]

I don't know how it is in German. And there are many different ways that it's translated. So I guess what I'm feeling is I'm feeling care for you. So one year ago I felt very bad and I decided not to paint. To look for a dry, warm place. Because I think Yes, leaving no trace. He's also leaving no pictures behind. When I looked for a new place to stay, I found a flat with a big space for painting like I never had before.

[75:41]

I would like to continue on what you said regarding the self. Because it's difficult to use the self in at least two different ways. And at my work this means there are different ways of using one's self. So there's the creativity at work. Maybe this is what you experience in your painting. Much where this excitement comes from is that your own ego is built up from this. You have this project and that project and you are still more important and...

[76:52]

And what helps me is this feeling I don't have to become anything. And then this problem also drops away. But still I want to become something. And that's one side of the problem. So much of that is also self-centered ideas which you have. Self-centered ideas which you have. So the question is, where can you find an anchor? Where do you find your continuity? Does it find continuity in the body of the moment, which establishes itself in every moment?

[78:19]

Or a body of importance and self-esteem? It's easy to build up this body, but at some point it collapses. And many people also help you work on this body of self-esteem. Thank you. I just want to give an echo of what kind of sensibility Zen can develop. It's so important to become somebody, but you shouldn't mistake you for that other thing you became. And with growing and ripening, you succeed in that.

[79:26]

You enjoy that the fruit is coming, a fruit full of life. But you also look at it with a smile, some step back, and suddenly a different quality arises. Not what can I expect from this world, but what is the world expecting? What can I let go through me in this existence? And like the flute of yesterday, escape. What kind of qualities can I let through in the time which is there for me in my systems? This is so strong for me. It's like gestures, caressing goes through the world, looking for people.

[80:28]

It's like hugging. Or it's like stop, insincerity. It's the question, what do I embody in this world? What do I allow to go through? That's also what Gisela said. What do you want to go through? Beautiful pictures? which they bring into the world for the people who see that? Or just do you want to praise the world and be with you? Which kind of music am I the instrument of? This is ripening. You can't do it as a young man.

[81:29]

You have to form your instrument and then you say, I put it at disposal for the music. That's what I want to give. You decide, you say it's like a decision. What do I want to let go through? What I also wanted to say earlier. In the body there is the joy. You just feel, that's it, that's it. That's a symptom which goes through me. This quality, I'm here for this quality. So let's sit for ten minutes.

[83:00]

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