She asks me to... Yeah, you can say it only in English because they all know what happened. Yeah, but Jack... Oh yeah, Jack would like to know. So maybe I say it first in English and then give a short version. But please help me if I don't cover it completely, because it's really difficult to talk about it, what happened in our group, because it was a very dense, complete, touching process. And it started out when Hildrud rose the question, how do I really do that to complete a moment or to perfect a moment? So it was, I mean it felt to me like we established a field in our group and that every person who said something really said something which really emerged not really from that person but from the field.

[01:19]

And we manifested in a way how to complete something by each person's process weaving into this field. And it was a very deep experience for all of us. And areas were touched like trust. How do we experience trust? how we all have the ability to experience moments of completion and perfection, sometimes looking back in our lives. And one person said, yes, these are exactly the moments when we were completely in the presence. These moments then have a clarity and a brightness that also don't change over time and have an experience of feeling of timelessness.

[02:29]

And one person brought up, what do you lean on, really? And Siegfried then just completed it and perfected it by saying at the end, well, if you lean toward one thing, you lean toward everything. And that's the presence. Oh, that was... That's... Is that more or less? She do okay? It wasn't in the book. Sounds nice. Mm-hmm. So we really did manifest something about what was going on this morning, actually unintentionally. And everyone contributed something to it.

[03:31]

It was a very beautiful process. Stirring up something like confusing again between Dharma, therapy what you call Dharma therapy and we find out what it is and the normal therapy and to be something like a Dharma teacher and in this we are looking for what qualities belong to And when we saw the qualities or we find out some qualities to be more in the perception and the trust and things like this, if it's a real changing of the method or if it's only another attitude?

[04:47]

So if it's a changing of attitude, perhaps influence of a good therapy, or if it change really that a Dharma therapist would use other methods. So at this point we rested and we were... Uh, upset. Oh. You were upset? Yeah, the group was complete. For us it was like this, that we thought about the three different things, that these three different terms suddenly took place in space. Therapy as a normal method, so to speak, as you know it in the past, and more dermal therapy as something new, which we first try to define.

[05:54]

and then the Dhamma teacher, and that we then asked ourselves whether, so to speak, methodical differences would arise if one now works more from the Dhamma direction, or whether it only changes the attitude. So that was actually where we ended up at the end, and also in such a ... Well, I was happy that finally something control was there. So I think that if we're going to be genuinely creative here, and come into something new together, and not just improve the old, We're going to have to keep sorting this stuff, you know.

[07:00]

And sometimes this way, sometimes it doesn't make sense, etc. And it's more important, I think, if we come into a feeling of it than an understanding of it. And I was struck yesterday or the day before when Ulrike spoke in English for quite a long time. And then I said to myself, or maybe half aloud, are you going to remember all that so you can translate it? Because if someone else said it, she'd have to kind of remember it all and translate. But when she has spoken it herself, she doesn't have to remember to translate it.

[08:08]

She has to go back to her feeling and let that feeling come into German. So I suspect when she translates well, she actually picks up the feeling of the other person as the root of their words as well as listening to their words. So vermute ich, wenn sie gut übersetzt, dass sie sozusagen das Gefühl aufnimmt und das sich dann übersetzen lässt. Also mindestens so sehr wie einfach nur die Worte übersetzen. And of course I do that. If somebody is speaking, I kind of walk into the feeling and then I listen to her translate and I join it to the feeling I had when the person spoke. So partly what I'm saying here is that I have fairly clear feelings about what I'd like to talk about with you. To follow up on where we're at right now.

[09:25]

But I only have sketchy words for it. So let's say I have six or eight sort of feeling places. And I would like to kind of like speak about each of them and try to give some words to it, but I don't know if I can. Because this is, while it can be quite clear in my feeling, it's quite slippery in words. But I'll try. As you know, I always try. And we're supposed to stop at 6.30, is that right? yeah okay we'll see okay but I can we continue tomorrow now one of the things that happens when you just picking up on what this immediate discussion when you're more in this physical space

[11:02]

You do remember what comes up is primarily a flow of memories when you're in the present. Like you said or someone said, there's these brighter or clearer moments you still can remember and you felt good in and they were when you were completely in the present. So this embodied space carries embodied memories. And it doesn't carry mental memories so much. So your space becomes again a more embodied space in this way. Okay. Now When the continuity... Let's keep coming back to this thing.

[12:37]

When the continuity stream is breath, body, and phenomena... I think we understand that and we have a hold on it. Okay. So the stream of continuity is in breath, body and phenomena. Let's just call it the embodied stream. When your continuity is an embodied stream, it doesn't carry your personal historical baggage. when your sense of identity and continuity is in a thought stream, it's constantly carrying all your personal baggage that's in thoughts.

[13:41]

You can imagine bags of anger, trauma, anxiety, personal bitterness flowing along in the thought stream. Impatience. And somebody says something to you And for no reason they puncture this bag of anger shit. Because you didn't know it, but it was just floating along in this person's thought stream. And you made them a little bit angry. But you didn't make them angry hundreds of times in the past. Yeah, okay. Now, the more you're in the embodied stream, your experience is that you are time.

[15:41]

Because you're in a kind of timelessness and you're making your own time. That's what being embodied is. Mm-hmm. So if somebody disturbs you, you're not impatient. You don't feel they're taking my time, I'm too busy or something like that. Because at that moment you are time and what's happening is time. So what comes out is patience. It looks like patience. But actually this is as good as anything else that might be happening. What are the six paramitas? The qualities of Bodhisattva. One is patience.

[16:46]

So the more you're in an embodied stream, the more what comes out are these qualities of the bodhisattva. The more you're in a thought stream, What comes out is your personal history, created over a long period of time. And you may feel quite impatient when somebody disturbs you. Because you're not living in that present, you're living in some kind of future-directed present that you're trying to maintain. Okay.

[17:46]

When we do zazen, this is a posture big enough for two. Okay. When you're doing zazen, it's, as I always say, it's a dialogue between your posture and an ideal posture. And you're accepting your posture just as it is. But you can feel the kind of demand or request of an ideal posture in it. And if you sit zazen regularly, sometimes something takes over your posture. And it feels very clear. Something comes up through you and you sit in a way that goes beyond your ordinary posture.

[18:49]

Isn't that true? You know what I mean? That's then the ideal posture or Buddha's body taking over. So when you create a Dharma position, you create the possibility for Dharma to appear. We take this posture, and all the Buddhist statues are in this posture, because this posture allows a Dharma body to appear. When you're just here at ease intimate with yourself intimate with others and this is what we mean by a Buddha body Okay, so that's why I say this posture is big enough for two.

[20:26]

Sometimes it's you inhabiting it, sometimes it's something that transcends our usual sense of you. Okay. Now, when we begin to act and live an embodied stream, an embodied continuity, sometimes we experience the quality of sameness. Each thing has its own presence. Each thing you can feel its interdependence. Each moment is, let's say, when you're not in the thought stream or you're in the embodied continuity,

[22:16]

What you experience is interdependence. And that interdependence is also you. But you are a live, sensing being. This is not passive. This is an activity. And this particular moment you enfold in yourself. And you hold it a moment. And you unfold it. This is what Dogen calls the exertion of each moment. The effort or the energy. Okay, so each moment is not just something like this.

[23:25]

It's an infolding, a holding, and an unfolding. And it's an infolding into the manas, or into your experience, into your field of mind and body. And to, again, to become one with just what is given to you. So that this, to become one with what is given, is the practice of Dharma. You could call this a Dharma position or a Dharma moment. So this is bringing us into, through the impermanence, embodiment of continuity, we open ourselves to the Dharma stream of momentariness.

[24:34]

And these are not just little moments that go by, they're moments of infolding, holding, and unfolding. And a feeling of becoming one with the moment. What this one is, you can feel it in yourself. And the more you find yourself equally like that, that is actually called suchness. This activity of each moment without initial discrimination is called sameness or suchness. And there's a feeling of nourishment in it. Or beneficence or goodness.

[25:42]

And that's exactly the description of the body of Samantabhadra. The body of Samantabhadra is one who experiences sameness, beneficence and goodness on each moment. So by the simple act of shifting the sense of continuity out of the thought stream, into an embodied stream, you open yourself to the Dharma position of a Buddha body. The same when you do zazen. Okay. Now how can I come into this from other angles? Let's just imagine each of us is in an embodied street.

[26:51]

Our sense of continuity is in our breath. Our sense of continuity is in our body. Our sense of continuity is in phenomena, in things as they appear. You're all breathing. I can feel my sense of continuity extend to your breathing. I can feel my sense of continuity. My body, I can feel Rika's body and Siegfried and yours and yours as present here in my body stream.

[27:56]

And with Christine and Gunda, there's also this phenomenal connection stream we share. This is already a Buddha-type position to move the world and yourself into a common stream. If I'm in a thought stream, I can't do that. I can think Buddha's thought stream is this and Siegfried's is that and yes, but there's lots of comparisons and differences and so forth going on which don't let that thought stream widen. The thought stream doesn't stop. Sometimes it just settles into the sand of phenomena. The sand of the breath.

[29:09]

But sometimes it draws up and runs like a stream on the sand. It's very shiny and bright. But you're not identified with it. You're identified with this embodied continuity. Now, I may be going too far, but I'm trying to give you a feeling for this. And when you really touch this occasionally, I think you'll know I'm not going too far. So when... Okay, so far so good? Am I making sense?

[30:12]

Okay. I think to me it's just totally remarkable that such small things make such a big difference and you enter into another energetic kind of world. Open to possibilities you could only imagine before. Okay, so now maybe you can understand better why Suzuki Roshi spoke about the perfection of the personality is the latter stage of practice. Okay, because when your practice is developed and your experience of continuity is firmly embodied Your personality, the interactive personality arises from the field of the present.

[31:33]

It doesn't arise from your personal history. So you begin to have the Buddha qualities or Bodhisattva qualities being what characterize your personality. Because the bags of impatience or likes and dislikes and so forth aren't flowing in the embodied stream. So your personal history now is what you construct is the... Now, I tend to think of, in fact, I to myself call this non-conscious storehouse or unconscious... I call it the threshold consciousness or reservoir consciousness.

[32:50]

Because I don't experience it as something that different from my ordinary consciousness. And I don't experience it with some kind of hard manhole or woman or something, some cover over it. It's more like a threshold or reservoir that's there, ready to pop into consciousness. And I find that when the thought stream isn't carrying my identity, And when I realize that my thought stream does not carry my identity, I'm not so disturbed by what might come out of this threshold consciousness or not. So this threshold or reservoir consciousness, which is the alaya vijnana, is the material from which your ordinary thoughts and attitudes are constructed.

[33:55]

And it is what you construct your personal identity from. Yeah, your personal identity. But that personal identity isn't reified by being your only sense of continuity. So you work on your personal identity, your personal history in a different way. It's not tied to your personality. That makes sense. What Buddhism means by personality, what Sukhyoshi would mean, is what arises right now from this present moment with us. We all laugh together or something. Does that come out of our personal history? Yes, to some extent, but it comes out of something infectious right here.

[35:11]

So, I guess maybe I can't say much more than that. But the more you are The more your habit is to find your continuity in embodiment, the more the personality where your consciousness primarily rests.

[36:17]

Because this is not just about how we're nice to each other. It's where your sense of well-being or your sense of living is resting. It's resting here in the present. It's not resting in your personal history. Your personal history is this reservoir in which you bring associations, reminisces, etc. But you're resting in this present. So your personality is a reflection of your resting in this present. So this is again why we can see why the sage is seems to be in a good mood all the time or cheerful or something because that person is resting in their sense of beingness, aliveness is resting in the present.

[37:39]

So what does this mean for how we develop ourselves, mature ourselves? Well, the maturing of the personality in and through the embodiment of the present is already one kind of process. Okay, the development of our relationship to the Alaya Vijnana to this personal reservoir consciousness and how we know things, think about things, identify things is a somewhat different process then and less highly charged when it's not our experience of continuity and our only experience of identity.

[38:50]

And then there's a clear prior level, which in my mind I call a mythic level, where the mythos of your society Yeah, the cultural disposition of your society and your own genetic disposition are a kind of grid or pattern that's behind everything you do. And there's a clear kind of differentiation of this mythic grid from your personal history and from the functioning of personality.

[40:06]

But when your identity and continuity is carried in a thought stream these all get mixed up together and it's much harder to sort them out. So that's a Buddhist view of personal history, personality and so forth. We call that something like carrying the sun and moon on the entering the way. Carrying the sun and moon on your staff.

[41:10]

Knowing, I can't remember the phrasing exactly, knowing the fundamental transmission. Meeting the secret teacher. So this is the sense of carrying sun and moon on your staff means you're in the embodied present. It's your time. You are carrying the sun and moon on your staff. The fundamental transmission is present. And you everywhere meet the secret teacher. Sounds good. Zen makes it sound good. But also it's nice to see how these phrases and poems in Zen, what they're really talking about when you can get the feeling of sun and moon on your staff.

[42:35]

This is great. Is this also in the meaning of sun and moon as good parents, as what we talked yesterday? Reparenting? You could if you want. I didn't think of that. It's a very psychological approach. So maybe that's enough for this evening. Maybe I can fill in the gaps tomorrow morning. I was at a point, you know, yesterday and this afternoon thinking, I cannot feel out how to bring this into the next transition we need here.

[44:04]

But I touched on it. But I know that I'm frustrated like that. I'm either going to... I'm either going to go through it or get stuck or both. And so that's what happened. I poked some holes and I got stuck too. So I'll let you hit the bell, why don't you? Dumb blondes can hit the ball.

[44:58]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_77.36