Consciousness needs a larger duration. Awareness can have a more all-at-once simultaneous feeling. So the way Zen understands the fourth foundation of mindfulness is the practice of realizing that everything is a construct And then identifying with the space from which constructs or mental formations arise. And knowing that space then is empty. And so you constantly, as the Genjo Koan practice says, is you're identifying your mind with space.

[01:02]

Okay. Now, I would guess that if you're doing constellation work, The process of it must give you some opportunity to have brief identifications with the space of the situation. And you... You have to trust the intuition of that. You can't think about it too much. So I would think that the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness would be essential training for systemic therapists Part of the regular program. What? That feels tricky.

[02:02]

Well, we could make a short course. Ein kurzer Kurs. It doesn't, this kind of doesn't take any time. Das erfordert keine Zeit. To really mature it takes time. Um das zu reifen, das braucht Zeit. Okay, maybe that's enough. Also das ist vielleicht genug. for the fourth foundation of mindfulness. So. Maybe we sit for a few minutes. in the realm of fundamental reality.

[09:02]

Nothing can be compared to anything else. Oh. Thank you for suggesting we have a session this evening.

[11:27]

Thank you again for translating. Well, I want to seemingly at least start a new topic, the Bodhisattva and Bodhisattva practice.

[12:29]

But first, I'd like to see if you have any, you can give me some account of a feeling for the discussion you had. In our group there was a question especially for me. Yesterday you said that when it comes to the many Yesterday you said you observe the observer who observes the feelings.

[13:34]

Did I? I didn't observe that. Or something like that. So there is a third position and the two. I really can have a feeling for the two, but the third... It's not so accessible to me. Yeah, but you just said it, right? So saying it is like an observer of all three. You have the object. You have the observer. So you're observing an object, right?

[14:37]

But I can notice I'm observing an object. I'm aware I'm observing an object. That awareness is a kind of third position. And I'm not saying there's nothing special if I said that. It's just... I like to make us aware of the observing function and my own experience that every state of mind can have an observer. In other words, the structure, the way a mind works... which has a homeostatic and self-organizing quality.

[15:40]

Once a particular mind is established, the structure of that mind allows one to observe it. Yeah. You can know you're angry. That's an observer. And you can observe how you know you're angry. You can have unlimited observers almost. You can observe your observer. It's like being in a barbershop mirror. But... There's one major theorist around who says that leads to God. Eventually you have a real big observer, but I don't buy that. I think it's just a function of the mind that it can observe. And what's useful to notice that in detail

[16:41]

is to get free of the sense that the observer is always the same observer. Because if you tend to think it's all the same observer always, then you have a sense of self, implicitly a sense of a permanent self. But I think you'll find that the observer which is most involved with likes and dislikes, is the one that accumulates the karma. And the one that you tend to identify as being you, the one that gets hurt and feels pain and so forth. the one who gets hurt and feels pain, or can be insulted. But the observer, the mind of mindfulness, can't be insulted.

[18:03]

Your mind of mindfulness is much too shiny. Oh, is it? Oh. Anyway, okay? Sort of? Yeah, I understand now. Yeah, really, that's wonderful. Anything? Yeah, something else? Yes? You say there are unlimited different observers. Well, I said potentially. Potentially. Potentially. Does that mean, or would that imply that if on Monday during my meditation there is an observer observing my breath, and on Tuesday if I observe my breath, is it the same or is it a different observer?

[19:19]

Might be slightly different. Because you have that feeling, trust that feeling. And you can especially trust that feeling. Because that feeling has to work against an assumption that there's only one observer. But the observer, if you're meditating, the observer of your actions is quite different than the observer when you're not meditating. You know, as I always say, none of this is hard to understand.

[20:25]

It simply requires familiarity. And a recognition of the assumptions you have that make it hard to understand. Okay, something else. Yes. Yes, please. What we were doing is in our group we tried to look at how we are doing this in psychotherapy. And the way I'm working, and I also know some colleagues of me are working, is that we start working with the third foundation of mindfulness most of the time. And what concerns me is that I often have the impression that we wander with them down to the second and first round table and that often the work in the second round table

[21:51]

And what I think we are doing is that we go then down through the second and to the first foundation of mindfulness, and that only the work in the third sphere makes it possible for the client to go down and feel free to be in their body. What is bothering me, because we have now heard that the first foundation must also be the first, so that it is also possible that I have the feeling that in psychotherapy we always make a change. So what I'm dealing with now, because you said you should start with the first foundation and do this first. And my experience is in psychotherapy, we start in the third and then we go down and back up and down again. So it's like a movement between the three stages or spheres.

[23:07]

And also in my own practice and work and relationship to myself, I make the experience it's like that. You go up and down this way. That's natural. But natural isn't necessarily the path. So naturally, if you're speaking to a client, they... They relate to their thinking and feeling and what their mood is and that they are upset. That's why they're there, partly, usually. So it's unavoidable that you start there. However, for the practitioner, the practitioner in a way also starts there. But the practitioner knows, I can't really understand the third skanda until I develop the first skanda.

[24:33]

So the practitioner keeps working on the first skanda, first foundations, Yeah, and really works on the third foundation after developing the first two. However, of course, there's simultaneous awareness of all three. You're a live human being. The Buddhist practitioner, the serious Buddhist practitioner, would do exactly the same thing you're talking about, except they would intentionally put much more emphasis on the first foundation for quite a while.

[25:40]

But you can't do that with a client unless you're going to turn them into practitioners. But you know, the kind of thing I would consider doing if I was a therapist, As you know, when you go to the airport, they say, did you pack these bags yourself? Yes, I did. And you were just saying yes, and I put all my guns inside too. Yeah, can I answer? No, they make you answer every question. No one else has tested except Sophia. But I would work some routine questions that they know you're going to ask every time. I mean, I'll consider this.

[26:53]

Oh, uh, what? It is like that. Where are you? People ask me all the time, where are you? And they mean these days, etc. I say, sitting here. Yeah, it's a stupid Zen answer, right? But in actual fact, it's... What occurs to me, I'm sitting here, or something. So you ask, what are you doing? And you ask, where are you? And you get them to say, I'm sitting here. And what are you doing? Well, today I'm breathing. You create some ritual where they have to, okay, I'm sitting here, I'm breathing, talking to you.

[28:02]

These formulas can actually have an alchemical, as I said earlier, quality. And then Okay, then you might start talking. And keep trying to talk in a way that you get the person to bring it back to what they actually feel, etc., while they're speaking and so forth. Yeah. What I notice when people speak to me is they may say quite a bit, but they only felt this part. Does that make sense? So then I relate to the part they felt, not the other part. I want to say something to my favorite topic, contact and communication.

[29:15]

So if I'm trying to feel about these foundations of mindfulness, So my feeling is if I enter deeply into them, it's difficult for me then to go into contact again. And also on the other hand, if somebody deeply enters it, it's difficult for them to establish contact. If they deeply enter what? To get in contact or to... No, but if they deeply enter what? Their body, their... I don't know if it makes a difference.

[30:27]

What does deeply enter mean? That's what she translated. It seems that you enter a very personal inner space. It doesn't matter with what you're dealing with, the body... Yeah, yeah, I understand. So I ask myself, is it okay that way, because it's just a personal... Or whether it's also necessary to be able to look at the world and establish contact.

[31:31]

Well, for example, I, in a sashin, I don't sit the whole sashin. Sometimes I like to or would like to. I particularly feel the need. I'd just like to sit every period. But if I do, I can't give lectures. I'm too in the sashin and in the experience of everyone to have a place. It's kind of strange. You'd think maybe the opposite. But it's also true that occasionally I've had to leave a sashin for some reason for an afternoon to do something, because... Frank at the house distiller needs something.

[32:35]

Sometimes when I come back, it's a little difficult to feel the sashin again, so I have to stay somewhere. So I have to walk around, I have to feel people in various ways, not just from my own sitting. So I suppose you have to devise ways to feel fully, deeply in, connected, etc., and also have some place to speak, relate to, contact from. I think in my experiences in Doksan is I hold two places at once. One place goes with the person and the other place stays with me.

[33:49]

So, okay. Something else? No other comments on what happened in the discussion? I was dealing also with the same question that Unni's question. When you were talking now, we are doing a kind of body work. It's coming from Iraq. There are always three questions in the beginning. It always begins with the same thing. It always begins with fear, the body sitting, the weight of the body, and the body breathing.

[34:57]

And it's like, sometimes they say it loudly, and so sometimes it's the same, but it really helps to... To remember that this is the beginning. Yeah, all the sutras start out with a formula of the Buddha comes back from his lunch, washes his bowl, washes his feet, sits upright. Okay. We also do a kind of body work. This is the type of primal body work. And it always starts with the same challenge. You don't feel that the body is sitting or standing or lying, what it is doing, but that the body is lying down and breathing.

[35:58]

And at the beginning it seemed so strange to me. I thought, what do I have to do? It seems strange to me. And now it's... Yes. . In our group we talked about where Buddhism and psychotherapy parallel each other and where is the point where Buddhism goes beyond psychotherapy. And that we sometimes make the experience, when we talk to colleagues and talk about Buddhist foundations, that it sometimes looks so superficial.

[37:05]

Yes, we already know that from there and we know this concept and that concept. And sometimes when we are talking with some colleagues about the fundamentals of Buddhism, they say, well, that we know from this work, and we also are familiar with that. And Gerald helped us a lot with really getting where the differences are. Yeah, well, Buddhism's been around for 2,500 years or more. And all of the... intelligent people of the entire society had no science or anything to work on.

[38:06]

They just worked on Buddhism. Yeah. And so naturally it's quite a lot happening. But I wouldn't say it's beyond, I would just say it's different. Just as a use of language, I'd say it's different. And I don't know, it seems to me so commonplace that people will say, oh, I know that from this, or I know that from that. I talked once I spent a whole afternoon talking with two Jungians and one of them had known Jung and the other had been president of the union in America And I knew them moderately well.

[39:24]

I'd go to their house and have dinner. And one afternoon, because they always expressed an interest in Buddhism, So I made an effort for, I don't know, four hours to try to answer their questions. Basically, everything I said, they said, oh, Jung already knew that. So they couldn't hear the difference. But there's also the famous Herr Dr. Konze could not actually deal with people who practiced. Nor could Alan Watts. Their life was defined through what they did and practice was a challenge to that. Konsei thought, in this age of degeneration, the only role for a Buddhist is the scholar.

[40:37]

And he was not able, because it challenged his own identity too much. Take practice here. So I think whenever you're dealing with somebody whose work is tied up with their identity, they're not going to hear something that changes them. And if you push them, you hurt them. Or you make them mad at you. Okay, what else? Yes. Oh, you. I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead. This was my experience during the discussion yesterday. The fact that I was so much identified with psychotherapy

[41:49]

The fact that I was generalizing and I wanted to find the similarities and not the differences. And then I experienced this radical letting go of this identification. And then it was possible for me to see the difference. And I almost had the feeling that this is the main thing or the center of Buddhism. Just to give up assumptions? Identification, yeah.

[43:02]

Yeah, that's certainly part of it. And it is astonishing on what kind of subtle level you have your identifications. Yes. Yes. I would like to report something personal. Yesterday I experienced how from seminar to seminar like a shift in experience or a slow shift in my position. So if I take the two parts of our seminar, the psychotherapy and Buddhism,

[44:15]

Now and then I get the feeling that my main point is to really grasp or realize what are the similarities and bringing them together. That's like security and like a home base, when I experience that. And then there are moments, and in this seminar this was the case yesterday, where I have the feeling of experiencing something of an incredible radicality of Buddhism. And then there are moments, and it was the case yesterday, that somehow I can feel and experience what a radical other position Buddhism takes, and this is also frightening for me.

[45:42]

And yesterday, it was like, as a psychotherapist, what I'm doing is like establishing the I help to establish the self, I'm doing it in myself, and I help other people doing it, like making healing, like everything is okay, like you establish a world in which everything is okay. And then there is this experience, this radical opening in Buddhism, this radical... to dissolve this world in which everything is whole and...

[47:03]

So to deal with these two things is my topic at the moment. And interestingly, this is connected with the experience of the first foundation of mindfulness with my experience of my body. Yeah, okay. Well, if you help someone, a client, establish a sense of self, That's what she translated. That you can establish a sense of self doesn't imply that self is a construct. Okay, so if a person is able the client, to handle it.

[48:25]

It might be good for them to notice it's a construct. And then they can really feel they're making a decision and participating in what kind of person they want to be. Okay. So I think, I would guess one could go that far with some plants. You can go farther with yourself, but with the clients you don't. But I doubt if a client, unless they became a practicing Buddhist, could go so far as to reconstruct themselves as a bodhisattva. They probably have to construct themselves on what they've got there. And you probably can't challenge them to shift the basis or the functions of self.

[49:46]

To change, say, the sense of continuity from self to the body. but maybe you could add that but the sense in Buddhist practice is you take continuity out of thinking and self I'm making this simple but then you take it to your body So your thinking is where you carry the sense of continuity. It's in your body and in your breath. Then you begin to not even need the sense of continuity at all. or in your body or breath, you can shift to some sense of Dharma moments.

[50:52]

With the assurance that there will be a next dharma moment without the necessity for continuity. Then you can shift to emptiness. That would be a bodhisattva practice. But you still need a practical, functioning self. So I think seeing the whole picture, the way Buddhism looks at it, you can take those parts of it, which help the client have a greater sense of actuality. I mean, I think that if you have a sense of, if you're working on yourself, et cetera, the more you have a sense of how things actually exist, the better. But these more, let's say, radical practices require the four foundations of mindfulness and the skandhas and all kinds of things you're not going to do with a client.

[52:18]

Yeah. But you can be, I think, in the same picture. Okay. Yeah. If I listen to that and also relating to the discussion in our group, I think what could be interesting or somehow exciting. Thank you. to do with clients during next time?

[53:24]

To notice when they come in and when you start the conversation, in which kind of perception do they invite me to come or go in, to enter? And also in which state of mind do they invite me to enter. And also to observe, because always in therapy you have to have some differences which guide your observing. And to observe how far you have to go from this level where you started the conversation to awareness of the body, for example. And to take it on as a practice, as you are with your client, to observe what kind of, how you're traveling along, which path are you going together.

[55:00]

And to see how one's own... To see which states of mind I have the permission from myself to enter and which states of mind I get permission from my clients and which states I cannot enter because it doesn't give me permission. Because there are some clients, they only give you permission to remember your own body feeling. And there are other clients, they also cooperate in other experiments. Do you ask a client, do you say to a client, oh, there seems to be a state of mind that you won't let me, you don't give me permission to enter?

[56:42]

That's a good idea. So let me ask you a question. Do you do individual therapy? Mostly. And some group therapy? So how many hours a week would you actually be seeing clients? Five or ten or three? A busy week. Only the individual? I'm asking about individual first. So it's always mixed with little groups and big groups.

[57:52]

So how many hours would you guess you do in a week? Individual and how many hours of group? How many hours are you doing therapy? I'm just interested in the craft of this. Forty hours. Forty hours a week. Whoa, that's a full-time job. How many hours do you have for yourself? Or for Siegfried? Yeah. Okay, that's a lot of time to be with people. I suppose it's about the same for the rest of you? For me, yes. It's about the same? Hmm? Okay. Will you say something?

[59:00]

Me? Yeah. In your discussion or whatever happened, a report? Well, at the moment I'm thinking I'm so glad that I don't do 40 hours, because I did it myself, but see, girl... Well, someone else who hasn't said anything, say something. Since yesterday I also note something changing within me. And it feels, I would describe it like sadness.

[60:21]

And on the path, looking at these four foundational elements, I notice in myself like going astray or something. So I feel in myself that I tend to, whatever it is, like immediate, secondary, borrowed, I try to put it in a drawer, like to just get it somehow and then put it in a drawer. Yesterday, when you spoke about the fourth foundation and about the phenomena and how the changeability, it was different.

[61:57]

It was like it was flowing into my experience. There was this connection to this sentence about the secret of the world. So I really feel deeply touched by that and also feel my tears sometimes when I'm sitting. Yeah. Thank you. It's... In ancient, in the old Buddhist texts, it was thought that tears were a sign of understanding. Yeah. And Guni, you were going to say something?

[62:58]

I mean, a moment ago, didn't you have your hand up? It was a little bit similar to what Michael tried to explain. What I feel in this seminar, there's something for me, something very different going on. I don't know. But there is something that I feel, in some way I feel more clear about the teachings. I had the feeling I had more foundation than I could find out with what you taught in the school. And on the other hand, I feel a growing kind of stiffness.

[64:03]

at the same time being touched and being very still inside. So... Yeah? Okay, just... Yeah. Yeah, each year you make me feel like I did something that wasn't too bad or it was okay to be here. And often you say, oh, it was better than the previous year. I don't understand it. To me it's about the same. But even Christina said last night that she thought I was being more clear or it was coming out more easily or something. Yeah.

[65:05]

So it may be just that we've been doing this long enough that it really is getting more familiar. And perhaps I'm teaching a little differently. And perhaps... What? Never the same. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. And perhaps the topic this time turned out to be something close to what you're critically close. Yeah, but it's helpful for me to have some feedback, not as a compliment or something, but just as... In fact, that doesn't help usually. But to know...

[66:06]

how well this works for you as a group and as individuals. Yes. To the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, I noticed in my practice that it's like, I mean, there is acceptance at the basis of the Four Foundations, so I wonder somehow why there isn't a zero point like acceptance. Because I feel acceptance really opens me up for acceptance for everything. It opens me up to my body, to my feelings. It's like from this level I can really start practicing that. Yes, in German, please.

[67:08]

Well, let me say something before we take a break. To start on this sense of a bodhisattva practice. Let me try to define what a bodhisattva practice is. more or less what I think a bodhisattva is. It's a person who Usually it's devoted to practice, devoted to meditation. What does that mean, to be devoted to meditation? It means that you've come to the conclusion that meditation should be as important to you as sleep. Yeah, I used to think that, you know, I heard that whales don't sleep.

[68:43]

They sing together. I mean, how do they really know what whales do? But anyway, and they seem to sort of rest in pods sometimes with one person observing. Maybe that's sleeping. But anyway, I had the idea that maybe it would be nice not to sleep. And I went for a lot of years sleeping two or three hours only a night. But now I think that the kind of complex beings we are, we need to sleep. It's not just because we're tired. But I think a bodhisattva is one who decides, yes, we also need to meditate.

[69:52]

It's a decision from wisdom, not from birth. The wisdom decision about what kind of people we are and could be. Yes, so the Bodhisattva is devoted to meditation or mindfulness or practice. The bodhisattva takes the precepts. As most of you know, the precepts are not Buddhist even. They're just kind of human common sense wisdom. But it's a Buddhist teaching in a sense to make it conscious and make it intentional, not just take it for granted. Yeah, and then to learn to hold the precepts in front of you as part of your consciousness.

[70:53]

Am I killing anything? The way I'm speaking with this person, am I killing them in some way? The way I'm talking with this client, am I taking what's not given? The second precept is sometimes called don't steal, but it really means do not take what's not given. So the Bodhisattva is one who intentionally practices his humanness in this way. And then the third bodhisattva is one who enters the medium of being. So you don't isolate yourself in a cave or in some kind of aloof state of mind.

[72:25]

You enter the mind of everybody You know, that's symbolized by saying, like, when Avalokiteshvara meets a thief, he or she becomes a thief. She becomes a thief. What's that? You heard that expression in Germany and Austria? Avalokiteshvara is the kind of guy you'd like to steal horses with. And third, the bodhisattva is one who, or fourth, who can experience the crisis of the individual. And fifth, the bodhisattva is one who is part of his particular century.

[73:36]

Yeah, his particular historical period. Yeah, you're not sort of living a Tang Dynasty life. You recognize how you're a Westerner at this time in this society. And sixth, the Bodhisattva sees the possibility of transforming society. And knows that transformation begins inside. Like that. So that's like some basic idea of the Bodhisattva, which is a rather different idea than the Buddha. So I think that's enough to start right now. So let's come back at 10 after 11. Yes. Oh, so we come back at 11, well, 25.

[75:14]

All right, we come back at quarter... Okay. Can you say something? If you have to. No, of course. I want to say two things. One is that it's more... It's very interesting for me that I'm here as an ex-psychotherapist...

[76:21]

Oh, it's a very interesting experience for me to be here as an ex-psychotherapist and now as a practitioner. It's very integrated. Wow, many, many ideas are starting again. That's the one thing, and the other thing... I don't know whether I understand Roshi correctly, but he said the sentence... To reconstruct oneself as a bodhisattva, and I do not know whether I understood him correctly in that. To reconstruct oneself as a bodhisattva. So the emphasis is on reconstructing, and I wanted to ask you what is meaning with that. So there are many associations.

[77:28]

Are we coming back to something we forgot, or are we constructing something new? Maybe both. But reconstruct in English doesn't mean you repair. Yeah. If you reconstruct a building, you can reconstruct it so it's totally different. But in German you have to use a different word. Because reconstruct means to erect it in the same way as it was before. We would say in English to restore. In German it's a problem because to reconstruct a building means to restore it as it was before. But in English it would be a different word.

[78:31]

Yes. If your house burned down, you might say, I'm going to reconstruct it. And I mean the same. But if your house is already there and you say, I'm going to reconstruct my house, it means you're going to completely do it. If your house is already there and you say, I'm going to reconstruct it, it means you're going to completely do it. In translation, sometimes it's the most similar words are the most confusing. Like for years people have been telling me, well, I went and did this and I was so irritated. And I think, why would they be angry and upset?

[79:41]

So somebody says, I went to America and I was very irritated, I think. You're just confused. I started practicing Zen and I was irritated. Okay, you can say something. In psychotherapy, we use the word reconstruct in a very similar way.

[80:57]

Also in sociology, we are using it in a very similar way. But I think in everyday language, you use it completely different. In the sociology, we use the word reconstruct in a very similar way. You asked in the last session for something that we may have found useful. And one of the things that's been very useful for me are that for me they seem to be anchored in the senses, in the sense organs, in the sense objects, in the relationship between them. And though I'd heard about these foundations before,

[82:00]

And although I have heard about these foundations of mindfulness before, anchoring my relationship to them in the senses shifted the emphasis from the content of the experience to more of the bodily sense or bodily feeling of the experience. That's been very useful to me. Okay, thanks. Well, in this amount of time, I can't really say so much about bodhisattva practice. Yeah, but maybe I can sow the seeds of what it's about. It's a complex, fluid idea. In very early Buddhism, the Bodhisattva is only the Buddha before he was enlightened.

[83:29]

And then the Bodhisattva also becomes something almost like an angel, an archangel. And I even, if I remember correctly, I read somewhere historically the idea of angels and bodhisattvas developed about the same time. And angels kind of arch over us from Buddha's time to the future, and they have some kind of protective... And they function something like archetypes. An archetype of wisdom, of compassion, and so forth. Yeah, but they don't, I mean, They aren't given a kind of reality like we tend to give things.

[84:43]

Although they do function for large populations as a kind of protecting deity. They're still more down to earth. I remember a Japanese woman who was asked, I think by Gregory Bateson, I think this is a story Gregory told. This Japanese woman was saying, how much she respected her father. And she said, was your father really such a great person? Oh, no, no, he wasn't such a great person. Why do you respect your father?

[85:49]

In order to practice respect. So that's quite an interesting way to look at it. Not whether your father or mother are good, but you... It's part of a human being to respect your mother and father. So you might be devoted to a particular bodhisattva, not in their real, but you should practice devotion to this. Bodhisattvas can have descendants, human descendants.

[86:51]

Like the Dalai Lama is considered to be a descendant of Avulokiteshvara. Eric, a descendant of Manjushri. Yeah. And that would, you know, we wouldn't say in Christianity, so-and-so is a descendant of the archangel of some... And I noticed the other day, you know, again when I was in Basel, somebody said, what is this you're wearing? And I said, oh, it's a small version of Buddha's robe. And they had a lot of trouble with that. If I can get it, then Marie-Louise explained it to me.

[87:56]

She said, if you went up to a Catholic priest and said, why are you wearing this collar and things, And he said, oh, this is Jesus' robe. It would seem funny to people. But in Buddhism, there's a tradition of enacting, making human. what Buddha did, so you have his hairstyle and his robe and things. So Bodhisattvas have a very fluid identities. And it also becomes a way in the Buddhism that emphasizes practice and not belief.

[88:59]

It becomes a practice of belief. of the fullest sense of what it could be or is to be a human being. And yeah, okay, that's enough for that. Okay. Now I said before what kind of person is a bodhisattva.

[89:59]

And I should have said also in the sixth one about transforming society. The sixth of the ones I mentioned. In the sense that you commit yourself to transforming society, understanding that if it's going to happen, arises through transforming yourself. This also is that you understand the problem of truth in your society. And you understand the problem of truth in the individual. In other words, is the society based on the way things actually exist or not?

[91:00]

Is Dharma understood by the individual and the society or not? Okay. Now, at our particular time in the world, it's a good time for bodhisattvas, because the world is actually in the process of re-envisioning itself. And what's interesting is the elite, I use that word elite in a populist sense, Also ich verwende jetzt das Wort Elite in einen populären Sinn. And the elite of all the world societies are pretty much involved in the same kind of re-envisioning themselves.

[92:02]

Also die Eliten der Weltgesellschaft sind in ziemlich vielen verschiedenen Bereichen And in today's world, they're all rather in communication with each other. Read the same magazines and so forth. Okay, where does the Bodhisattva reside? The Bodhisattva resides in quietude. That means resides in one-pointedness. It's a feeling of quietness where they are. Their mind's at rest. So this is a little like, you know, early Buddhism emphasized the historical Buddha and living in a cave and so forth.

[93:03]

Later Buddhism emphasizes the cave is right here if you rest in quietude. And you rest free from assumptions. You suspend assumptions. And you abandon both accepting and rejecting. Christina spoke earlier about the importance to her of accepting. And of course, this attitude of welcome, yes, accept, is essential, basic attitude in Buddhism. But the Bodhisattva goes beyond accepting and rejecting. And the Bodhisattva dissolves perceptions and perceptions.

[94:26]

Okay. What does it mean to abandon perceptions? It would be like just seeing without grasping seeing.

[94:34]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_75.15