I love seeing all of you here, each of you here. And since there's quite a few people I don't know, many I know, but quite a few people I don't know. Maybe I should start, you know, in some basic way about what we're doing. And I should say that what we call the prologue day means a day we can talk about anything. We don't have to speak about the topic. Tonight we're supposed to start speaking about the topic. But now we can speak about anything we like. And if anybody, oh, you've got a good system.

[01:26]

Anybody needs a chair, that's fine too. Well, you know, we're not doing religious Buddhism here. Wir machen hier keinen religiösen Buddhismus. We're doing praxis or practice Buddhism. Wir machen hier praxis oder praxis Buddhismus. But we don't entirely ignore the religious side of Buddhism. Wir tun nicht diese religiöse Seite des Buddhismus völlig ausgrenzen oder ignorieren. Because we want to be part of the larger world of Buddhism. Weil wir auch Teil dieser größeren buddhistischen Welt sein möchten. But I've spent the last more than 40 years trying to sort out what parts of the more religious side of Buddhism are, you know, beneficial parts of practice Buddhism.

[02:35]

I don't know the answer, but we're always negotiating some line. Ich kenne da die Antwort nicht, aber wir verhandeln da immer irgendwie eine Linie. In the seminars I just did in Berlin and in Rastenberg in Germany, in Austria. Und in den Seminaren, die ich hier gerade gemacht habe in Berlin und Rastenberg in Österreich. There's very little of religious... Da gab es sehr wenig von sozusagen religiösem Buddhismus. And here there's somewhat more. Und hier ist davon etwas mehr. But still it's... And I'm happy to speak during the seminar anytime with any of you about, you know, where we draw the line. Und ich freue mich jederzeit jetzt oder auch während des Seminars mit euch darüber zu sprechen, an welcher Stelle wir da so die...

[03:44]

But still, for me, the more chanting and the altar and offering incense and all, wearing a tiny Buddhist robe, are all, for me, the more religious parts of practice which make sense as practice. But for the most part, I would like you to think of this as not, what we're doing here is not even Buddhism. We're learning from the teaching of Buddhism. But we're learning, yeah, I hope, things that help us study ourselves or know ourselves.

[05:09]

And I'm always struck by how young our civilization is and naive our civilization is. And how long it takes us to learn simple things. You know, although there's efforts to show that meditation has been part of Western culture, and various Catholic saints are kind of used as examples, but For the most part, I would say that meditation as a practice has not been explored in the West.

[06:25]

Some unusual individuals came to similar views of mind and body. But, yeah, that's more by chance and genius than by a developed, widely understood practice. Although... Thomas Merton, who was the leading Catholic monastic in the United States for some decades, said that he found that Catholic monasticism and Zen meditation produced a similar kind of person.

[07:50]

I find this, yeah, probably somewhat rather true. Well, the same kind of person, but not exploring oneself in, you know, really anywhere near the same kind of way. No, I'm not... I'm not saying this to make a comparison. I'm just saying this, that to do this is actually something new and unusual in our culture.

[08:52]

Even among, although Buddhism is rooted in the fruits of meditation, Even among Buddhist schools, Zen emphasizes meditation far more than any other. The emphasis is, let's not just let a few meditate and produce a teaching for us. The emphasis is more, let's all meditate and discover the teaching ourselves. You know, I mean, again, I'm surprised by how long it takes generations, centuries for us to notice something or make it, you know, a general societal or cultural understanding.

[10:24]

I mean, Socrates, of course, said something like, know thyself. But still, many centuries later, recently, Freud could take a whole new approach to knowing oneself. Und so viele Jahrhunderte später konnte Freud immer noch einen ganz neuen Zugang zu finden, was man unter Kennedy selber verstehen kann. A way of personal interacting, creating a similar state of mind, Using a somewhat meditative posture, in his case half reclining. And a mind that's not quite conscious, that we call free association.

[11:28]

And he found the healing effect, the power of bringing things into consciousness. Now, it's interesting that for Buddhism, feeling consciousness is a big part of the problem. Bringing things into consciousness, yeah, that does have a power. And I like Sophia, our four-year-old daughter. A few months ago in Crestone, she said something about that she wanted to come to get in bed with us.

[12:52]

And we said... I said, I don't remember you were speaking to her, but we said something about she could, but she was scared because you asked about was she scared of her dreams or something like that. Yes, and she said that sometimes her dreams scare her. But when she opens her eyes, they're just air ghosts. So, yeah, making things conscious does make a difference. Opening your eyes. But the job of consciousness is to make the world predictable. And implicitly makes us look for permanence. And to see things implicitly or explicitly as permanent

[13:54]

Or hopefully permanent is technically in Buddhism delusion. So Buddhism wants to find a way to negotiate around or through consciousness. In this process of knowing ourselves. What Buddhism has decided to do is to emphasize attention and to develop attention.

[15:16]

And to understand that attention is separate from consciousness. Und dass man verstehen kann, dass Aufmerksamkeit etwas vom Bewusstsein getrenntes ist. For instance, when you're going to sleep. Zum Beispiel, wenn man einschläft. If you get up in the night and you can't go back to sleep. Wenn man nachts aufwacht und dann nicht mehr einschlafen kann. Or even at the beginning of the night you can't go to sleep because you're thinking about things. Oder sogar am Anfang von der Nacht, dass man nicht einschlafen kann, weil man über Dinge nachdenkt. And your mind engaged in consciousness is the problem. But the problem is also more in more detail is that you're giving attention to consciousness.

[16:23]

for example if you can pull your attention away from consciousness and bring your attention to let's say a dream you were just having And then let your attention flow into the dream. You'll probably go to sleep. I spoke at Berlin and Rastenberg about the four so-called four noble postures.

[17:52]

It came up there because in the first seminar I did in Rastenberg we were speaking about the four foundations of mindfulness. And the way I emphasized the importance of the four foundations, the four noble postures, The emphasis I gave to the four noble postures. It's something I've said before, but actually it struck me. It's something I have to make clear. So I brought it up again in Berlin, and now I'm bringing it up here. Und deshalb habe ich das in Berlin erwähnt und jetzt mache ich das noch einmal hier.

[18:54]

Why are there four noble postures? Weshalb gibt es vier edle Körperhalte? This sounds kind of silly. Das klingt doch eher dumm. What's behind making such a enumeration? Was steht denn dahinter, dass man so eine Aufzählung macht? Why is one posture more noble than another? It's a distinction actually between, I don't know what words to use, and I don't know if it works in German very well, but in English it works with creating two separate terms, position and posture. I don't know if it works in German. There is this distinction between what we have introduced in English as a term, position and posture. So something like position and posture. Okay. And I instructed

[19:54]

By watching a Noh play or a Kabuki play in Japan. And I, one of the first things I've, I've gone quite often, one of the first things I felt was why is it that you could take a picture at any point of the actors and it's an extraordinary picture. And the first thing that really struck me was why you could take a photo of these actors at any time. And that's always a perfect or beautiful picture. You know, it's very hard to capture a dramatic picture, but any picture you took, just snap in your camera. A thousand times you'd get a dramatic picture. And I realized that they are moving not from position to position, but from posture to posture. And what does that mean?

[21:19]

It means what I'm calling a posture now is a position of the body that you can fill with energy. You know, for instance, if I sit this way, it's pretty hard for me to fill this with energy. You look terrible. And if I try to fill this position with energy, with a bicycle pump, you know, I'm in a different shape. And you can see it in the martial arts, which come from yogic cultures. They are teaching more and more refined postures that you can fill with energy. And the basic feeling is in this yogic culture that if you find yourself, I don't know how to say it, but filled with energy all the time,

[22:42]

Dass wenn man sich so wie vorfindet, dass man die ganze Zeit mit Energie angefüllt ist, dass du gesünder sein wirst und dich stärker fühlst. So the four noble postures are those for reclining, standing, walking and sitting. Also diese vier edlen Körperhaltungen, das sind liegen, stehen, sitzen und gehen. I remember Charlotte Silver, who was one of the pioneers in the United States, the pioneer of the teaching of sensory awareness. I've had several women teachers, and she was the first and one of the strongest teachers. Ich hatte einige Frauen als Lehrerinnen und sie war eine der ersten und auch eine der beeindruckendsten oder kräftigsten.

[24:09]

And she was strong. She lived to 102, I think. Almost. I think 102. Also sie war wirklich stark, weil sie hat bis, ich glaube, 102, also 101 auf jeden Fall gelebt. I was sitting with her, with Sophia, meaning 102-year-old woman. No, at this point she was about 90. No, 101. 101 when you were there? 99, this other thing happened. So when she was 99, I was sitting with her and we were talking. She was like a 14-year-old girl, very thin and completely alert. Yeah, that was when she was 101. That was when she was 101. I need her, you know. I said to her, you know, Charlotte, I had several girlfriends small enlightenment experiences with you.

[25:11]

And she pulled herself up to her full height and said, what do you mean small? And she said, what do you mean small? But one experience, and to show you how small or life-changing an enlightenment experience can be, small and life-changing. I've been used to being in meetings and all kinds of things. People say, okay, now in school, let's stand up. Stand up. I always can't resist saying, I find out that everybody in Germany stands up in the morning in bed. Also, das kann ich immer nicht mich zurückhalten, zu bemerken, dass man in Deutschland nach dem Schlafen direkt aufsteht.

[26:27]

We get up, but generally you stand up. Also, wir wachen erst auf und dann stehen wir auf, aber ihr steht direkt auf. Okay. But anyway, she said, this first time I was with her, aber sie sagte, und das war das erste Mal, als ich mit ihr da zusammen war, And her presence was a big part of what she said. And how the words came one after another. The words in themselves a physical sequence, not a mental sequence. She said, come up to standing. And suddenly, when I stood up, I went through a series of postures to get to standing. It was as if a physical territory was suddenly opened to me.

[27:34]

When before I'd just gone from two physical positions with nothing in between. And suddenly a whole territory of existence, living, between sitting and standing, was revealed to me. So this was a good example of bringing attention through language. And you can think of language as wiring to carry attention.

[28:36]

So she was able to, in a sense, physicalize her words. That the map, the topography of coming up to standing was already in her words. So there was a physical attention carried in her words. I would say there was a spine in her words. that carried me up along and through my spine to standing.

[29:59]

And I'd recently started practicing with Suzuki Roshi. Months, so it was all about the same time. So I'd had enough baby mindfulness or beginning mindfulness dass ich vielleicht genug Baby-Achtsamkeit oder Anfangs-Achtsamkeit hatte, entwickelt hatte, so dass ich diese Topografie, das zum Stehen kommt, spüren konnte. Um diese Topografie And it was clear it wasn't a position of standing.

[31:13]

It was a posture of standing I found from inside. And a posture I was always negotiating. And a posture I was always So these four noble postures are rooted in an assumption that we can live in this world always in some reclining, walking, standing or sitting Immer in irgendeiner liegenden, stehenden, sitzenden oder gehenden Form. And that each of these four can be knowable and noble.

[32:15]

Actually, knowable and noble are the same root. Und dass jede dieser Haltungen kennbar sind und nobel sind und im Englischen ist wissbar und noble stammt von der gleichen Wurzel ab. And we can find in each of these four ways, four postures in which we live, four positions, territories in which we live. we can find within these territories the posture which we can fill with aliveness. So the point in this feeling It's not, for example, that you walk down the hall to get from point A to point B. But that you walk down the hall in a way that you feel the posture of standing and walking.

[33:34]

And another teaching that's in such a little thing, when we look at another culture in such a common phrase, when we look at such a common phrase, We can see really the difference, the cultural difference, the background. Wenn wir so einen gewöhnlichen Satz anschauen, da können wir wirklich den kulturellen Unterschied vor so einem Hintergrund sehen. A different mind goes with each of these four postures. ist nämlich, dass jeweils ein andersartiger Geist einhergeht mit jeder von diesen Körperhaltungen. It's very clear, it's very difficult to go to sleep if you're standing.

[34:46]

Es ist wirklich sehr eindeutig, dass es unheimlich schwer ist, im Stehen einzuschlagen. Unless you're a horse. Außer du bist ein Pferd. Unless you're driving. Oder ihr fahrt Auto. So reclining lends itself to sleeping. And sitting lends itself to meditation. And this was so thoroughly understood in the culture. That the Japanese never brought chairs into their houses until very recently. Because you should support yourself in your sitting. So even when people got old, and couldn't sit very well.

[35:56]

They still had little props, little chairs, but basically chairs that helped them find their own posture. As I've said, when the Chinese introduced chairs, you know, quite long, centuries ago, And you've all seen Chinese chairs, these flat bottoms and curved arms. Die habt ihr alle schon gesehen, sind sehr flache Sitzfläche und dann diese gebogenen Armstützen. They're exact copies of Buddhist ceremonial chairs. Das sind exakte Kopien von buddhistischen Zeremonialstühlen. Meant to be sat in, cross-legged or in an upright posture.

[37:00]

And this yogic sense of the posture as energy aliveness and healing even, awareness, healing, whatever, was so taken for granted that chairs were always used, almost always, for people to sit cross-legged in. I'm not saying you should all throw your chairs away or get flat, uncomfortable chairs or something like that.

[38:01]

But I'm just trying to give you some background. on how the exploration of the possibilities of mind and of knowing oneself was rooted in a wider cultural understanding as posture, as having an intelligence and awareness in it. Als Körperhaltung, die eine Intelligenz und ein Gewahrsein enthält. For example, again, just in calligraphy. Zum Beispiel nur in der Calligraphie. If you want to use a brush full of ink. Wenn man einen Pinsel voller Tinte verwenden möchte. And make a kanji that looks like anything. Und wenn man ein kanji machen möchte, das irgendwas gleich sieht.

[39:06]

It's a series of gestures. Ist das eine Abfolge von Gesten? And if your posture isn't good, kanji won't be good. Und wenn deine Körperhaltung nicht gut ist, dann wird das kanji auch nicht. And they talk about the spine in a kanji. Und sie sprechen sogar von diesem Rückgrat dieses kanjis oder dem Rückgrat in diesem Schriftzeichen. And you have the brush. You have your spine and your posture is in the character. If you're sensitive, you can feel the posture of the calligrapher in his calligraphy or her calligraphy. So in this yoga culture, Which has been developed by Buddhism and which Buddhism has developed in.

[40:20]

One of the tools of knowing oneself is the posture which allows you to know yourself. A posture which allows you to study yourself. And widens and opens the territories of existence. Waking and sleeping and meditating. Im Wachsein, im Schlafen und im Meditieren. And so forth. But now it's time to open to, I think, a break.

[41:20]

So let's have a break. Thank you for translating. You're welcome. And we'll continue in sitting posture. With some obscure advice about how to sit. If you care to try. The day before the seminar somewhat more formally starts in the evening. as more a kind of consciousness day or talking day.

[42:25]

And so I initially didn't have Vazen at the beginning of the period of the morning time. But enough people sort of said, couldn't we still have sitting at the beginning? So we had, what, 15 or 20 minutes of sitting. But even that amount of sitting may have numbed you. Or sharpened you, I think. Please, do you have any comments on what we've spoken about so far? Did I hear you saying not losing the stillness in the movement, not rejecting the movement in the stillness, covering all the postures, which brings together all the possibilities of moving the body in daily life?

[43:44]

Yeah, I didn't say that. But I could have said that. Deutsch, bitte. Habe ich richtig gehört, wenn ich gehört habe, als Essenz eines Vortrags. Das Stillnis, also die Stille des Sitzens in der Bewegung nicht zu vergessen. and not to return to the still movement in the form of thoughts and feelings, so that one could have a continuation in the five postures that the body takes in the 24 hours of life. Then he said, I could have said that, but I didn't say it. So I didn't say that, but I could have. It's the main metaphor in all of Buddhism is motion and stillness.

[44:53]

Their mutuality and their difference. And the way you put it is a more formal way to say it. But I'm trying to find more awkward ways to say it. More awkward and sometimes, I hope, more accessible. by being signaled by our Buddha ancestors in Morse code. Be careful what you say. I don't think they knew Morse code. Someone else. Yes.

[46:04]

So I understood that attention and consciousness seem to be two different things, but so far I thought that attention is a part of the consciousness and sort of contributes to consciousness. Observes consciousness. Of course. And that's clearly the way our culture emphasizes attention. But attention can also give attention to things other than consciousness.

[47:05]

And attention can give attention to attention itself. So in this real basic teaching of the four foundations of mindfulness, we're bringing attention, first of all, to our, not our body, but the activity of our body. And we're bringing attention to attention itself. And in a sense you're strengthening attention. You're developing attention.

[48:11]

You're physicalizing attention. So it's not just mental attention. And so it can be used more widely as a tool and as a quality of life. Because attention is both a means and an end. And an what? And an end. And end, E-N-D. Yeah. Do you have that expression, means and ends? No. Mittel und Zweck? Prima. Vielen Dank. Das ist einerseits ein Mittel und andererseits ein Zweck. Our pro translator is right. What do you call him in this conch shell?

[49:11]

Soupleuse. Soupleuse, yeah. In the theater, the guys who split down that stage tell you... The actor forgets his text. Promptor. Promptor. But you have to be in a little box right here. That's perceptual. If Otmar was here, you know, he'd make one for you. And you could actually tell me what to say, too. Someone else. Thank you. In following up on this... When you're talking, and in particular when you brought our attention to what Charlotte Silver was saying. I felt a merging of bringing my conscious awareness to the concepts and also my physical attention to the feeling of your words in being with Charlotte Silver.

[50:30]

Okay. Okay. You can't prove it if I don't translate it right. He's checked up. Well, I felt a melting of consciousness and the concepts and a melting of what you experienced and what you said about Charlotte Server. So I find in being in a situation like this, in a seminar with you, I'm conscious of dividing my physical attention to your presence and the feeling of the word. And my mind tracking it through making a note.

[51:44]

And I find that taking the notes is the way for me to make what you're saying physical through my hand. So I feel in this observation for me is a merging of my physical attention and my conscious awareness. And it's different than if I go to a university and listen to a professor. That's how I started practicing. In college, I went to... Paul Tillich's lectures, a famous Protestant theologian.

[53:09]

Some rather smart guy who was an alcoholic and head of the philosophy department. He was that or another one? No, Tillich had other problems. I can't remember his name, actually. But anyway, both of them weren't speaking. They weren't what they were saying. And I was so struck when I met Suzuki Roshi because he was completely what he was saying. My father was a pretty good pianist. My father was a pretty good pianist.

[54:15]

And he used to sit around making both fingers. He'd just tap his fingers so they all could make separate, you know. And I remember thinking, that's quite interesting. And I tried to learn how to do it so you could... have right hand and left hand equally, you know. So I didn't learn how to play the piano from him. I have, you know, somewhere like minus zero musical ability. But I learned to release one's fingers. So that they could just be independent.

[55:16]

When I went to the Near East, I found people had play beads the same way. They would be talking, but another part of their body would be on the beads. And when I went to the Middle East, I saw that people had this kind of play line or something, or play chains, and they were talking about something, and at the same time the body was doing something next to it. Okay. Prayer or play, you said. It's prayer beads. No, in the Near East they're called play beads because they just play. Okay. Someone else. Ich versuche also in meinem Alltag den Atem zu holen. So I try in my everyday life to follow my breathing. For instance in my work when I sit in front of a patient and I listen to him.

[56:21]

So then I continued watching my breath while the patient is speaking. And then I noticed, well, I'm actually halfway in my attention with myself and just not 100% with the patient. And then I felt like this is not good, you know, I'm not a hundred percent focused to this person who's telling me something. Oh, yeah. What can I say?

[57:35]

Do you say in German, follow your breath? The word follow, like following a dog or a cat? What do you say? What do you say? So it's both. It's to follow or to observe. Okay. It's the same word? No, two different words you can say it. Okay. But it's not exactly the same meaning as running behind a dog on a leash. That's hinterherlauf. That is something where we have a word which creates a distance as which you follow. That would be walk behind. It's not the same as follow. Yeah, I myself almost never say follow your breath. I would say stay with your breath.

[58:41]

Or rest in your breath. Or bring attention to the breath. Mm-hmm. But let's say we say stay with. Let's say it that way. Then if you stay with the situation. So if I was, as I often am, I'm sitting with somebody. I stay with just the situation which includes the person, the room, etc. And you can listen with focus, you can listen sort of like it's just a field.

[59:45]

Da kann man entweder fokussiert zuhören oder mit einem Feld zuhören. And I might bring attention to breathing. Und es ist möglich, dass ich Aufmerksamkeit auf das Atmen richte. But I wouldn't do it in a way that I lost attention or connectedness with the person. But I also might find that our breathing was together. Someone called me up the other day who my mother is just about to die.

[61:01]

And asked me if I had any suggestions of how for her to be with her mother. And there's various teachings or practices, how you establish physical contact and so on. And how you, what attitudes... might be in your mind, or what intentions you might have. But the main medium is breathing with the other person. The initial thing you do before you establish anything else is you breathe with the person.

[62:05]

And that if the person's breathing gets excited, you let your breathing get excited too. But if your breath is hooked together, Theirs may get excited, but then you can pull yours back down and it calms the person. Now, I think in ordinary situations, you don't want to be this manipulative. But if you're really used to having attention rest in your breathing, without any intention, it almost automatically includes the other person's breathing.

[63:23]

Maybe we'll get into this later, and I'll speak about it in this basic idea of emphasis on what we are, not who we are. Vielleicht können wir später darauf eingehen, wenn wir ganz grundlegend einmal darüber sprechen, was wir sind und nicht wer wir sind. I'm not quite clear about the distinction between attention, focus on attention, and mindfulness. Also der Unterschied zwischen Aufmerksamkeit, die auf sich selber oder auf Aufmerksamkeit gerettet ist, und eben Achtsamkeit. What exactly do you... Mindfulness, if you're mindful of attention, that would be giving attention to attention.

[64:37]

What do you mean by that? If you are attentive to attention, then it's the same as being attentive to attention. Okay. Is that good enough? Yeah. It's just sometimes these words come very fast behind each other and even I can't really keep them straight. Oh, really? Yeah. Because they sound almost the same in German. Auf und acht and keit and stuff. So it's not so... There's not much difference in the German between them. They come fast. The translator should speak slower than I do. Also sollte die Übersetzerin langsamer sprechen als ich das tue. You know what, I just, let me just mention one thing that occurred to me a moment ago. I don't think it's an accident or coincidence.

[65:42]

Also ich möchte etwas sagen, was mir gerade eingefallen ist. Ich glaube, das ist nicht ein... when Xerox Laboratories developed the mouse, the computer mouse. I went to Xerox Laboratory several times to see what they were doing. I don't know how we got permission. We had to go through all this security. We practically had to be searched to get through several layers of security. industrial security. And this real smart guy named Alan, something, I can't remember now, had developed most of these ideas early on. He was kind of one of the geniuses of the early computer world. And no one knew what to do with these things he developed.

[66:52]

Which is one of the things is the mouse makes you do things with two hands. And it doesn't surprise me that Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak, who were both practicing Zen at the time, got it, let's make a computer that you use your hands in your thinking. So this whole idea of using icons and both hands, they picked up on, But still, for many people, they prefer the keyboard and, you know, so forth.

[67:57]

But it's actually a kind of different mentality. Okay, someone else? Anyone else? Yes. I am fascinated by the fact that we can direct our attention. I am fascinated by the fact that we can direct our attention. Thanks. The example you gave with not being able to fall asleep. The example which you had was not being able to fall asleep. And then when you mentioned that we can actually observe our consciousness.

[69:00]

There we're observing that which in our culture is sort of understood to be the source for our decision making. And it is not it and we can observe it. We can observe it just the same manner as we can put our attention on a sense impression. Without thinking and in that sense without consciousness. So that what surprises me now is who or what decides on what attention is focused.

[70:22]

It's so clear to me that in some sense it's, or mostly it has something to do with me. But I do not know what it is any longer. Well, I think you should be amazed that we can direct attention. It's unbelievable that we can direct our attention. And I think it's equally hard to believe or interesting that we can use language to direct our attention. I'd like to speak about how I think this wiring develops. But before we go there, Someone, when I was in Berlin, told me they went to, I think, a lecture by a kind of a woman neurobiologist from England.

[72:02]

I guess she gave a talk in Berlin or something. And this person went to the talk. And he was impressed as one should be, I think, with the current study of the brain and behavior and neurobiologically. And this woman is also quite interested in Buddhism. And she was impressed herself, he said. Because wherever she lives in England, every day she drove home from work to where she lives. She came to a crossroads.

[73:23]

One was the fast way and one was the pretty way. And every day she had a problem. Which way shall I go? And it continued for years. And one day she decided not to decide. She just pushed the accelerator and went one of the two ways. And she said it worked very well. Well, I was amused by this because this territory of exploring the decision-making that's non-conscious It's one of the main territories of practice. That was great that she... We have an expression in Zen, when you come to a crossroads, take it.

[74:30]

Which means either fly or something. Well, we also... we have a tendency to equate observing mind with observing self. And assume that if there's the act of observing, there's an observer. And this is simply not true. And practice makes sense only when you really discover there's an observing mind which is not an observing self.

[75:45]

And it changes the whole territory of know thyself. Okay, so anyone else before I try to say something? Yeah. Could you say a little bit more about this energy you bring up the body? Is it something like feeling to be alive? Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to find ways to speak about these things. And I'm kind of clumsy.

[77:00]

But the clumsiness may not be bad. But I love seeing all of you here, each of you here. And since there's quite a few people I know, many I know, but quite a few people I don't know. Maybe I should start, you know, in some basic way about what we're doing. Mm-hmm. And I should say that what we call the prologue day means a day we can talk about anything.

[78:02]

We don't have to speak about the topic. Tonight we're supposed to start speaking about the topic. But now we can speak about anything we like. And if anybody, oh, you've got a good system. Anybody needs a chair, that's fine too. Well, you know, we're not doing religious Buddhism here. We're doing praxis or practice Buddhism. But we don't entirely ignore the religious side of Buddhism.

[79:17]

Because we want to be part of the larger world of Buddhism. But I've spent the last more than 40 years trying to sort out what parts of the more religious side of Buddhism are, you know, beneficial parts of practice Buddhism. I don't know the answer, but, you know, we're always negotiating some line. In the seminars I just did in Berlin and in Rastenberg, Germany, in Austria. There's very little of religious Buddhism. And here there's somewhat more.

[80:36]

But still, it's... And I'm happy to speak during the seminar anytime with any of you about, you know, where we draw the line. But still, for me, the more chanting and the altar and offering incense and all, wearing a tiny Buddhist robe, are all, for me, the more religious parts of practice which make sense as practice.

[81:41]

But for the most part, I would like you to think of this as not, what we're doing here is not even Buddhism. We're learning from the teaching of Buddhism. But we're learning, yeah, I hope, things that help us study ourselves or know ourselves. And I'm always struck by how young our civilization is and naive our civilization is.

[82:46]

And how long it takes us to learn simple things. You know, although there's efforts to show that meditation has been part of Western culture. And various Catholic saints are kind of used as examples. But For the most part, I would say that meditation as a practice has not been explored in the West. Some unusual individuals came to similar views of mind and body. But, yeah, that's more by chance and genius than by a developed, widely understood practice.

[84:04]

Although... Thomas Merton, who was the leading Catholic monastic in the United States for some decades, said that he found that Catholic monasticism and Zen meditation produced a similar kind of person.

[85:05]

I find this, yeah, probably somewhat rather true. Well, the same kind of person, but not exploring oneself in, you know, really anywhere near the same kind of way. No, I'm not... I'm not saying this to make a comparison. I'm just saying this, that to do this is actually something new and unusual in our culture.

[86:07]

Even among, although Buddhism is rooted in the fruits of meditation, Even among Buddhist schools, Zen emphasizes meditation far more than any other. The emphasis is, let's not just let a few meditate and produce a teaching for us. The emphasis is more, let's all meditate and discover the teaching ourselves. You know, I mean, again, I'm surprised by how long it takes generations, centuries for us to notice something or make it, you know, a general societal or cultural understanding.

[87:39]

I mean, Socrates, of course, said something like know thyself. But still, many centuries later, recently, Freud could take a whole new approach to knowing oneself. A way of personal interacting. Creating a similar state of mind. Using a somewhat meditative posture, in his case half reclining. And a mind that's not quite conscious, that we call free association.

[88:43]

And he found the healing effect, the power of bringing things into consciousness. Now, it's interesting that for Buddhism, feeling consciousness is a big part of the problem. Bringing things into consciousness, yeah, that does have a power. And I like Sophia, our four-year-old daughter. A few months ago in Crestone, she said something about that she wanted to come to get in bed with us.

[90:07]

And we said... I said, I don't remember you were speaking to her, but we said something about she could, but she was scared because you asked about was she scared of her dreams or something like that. Yes, and she said that sometimes her dreams scare her. But when she opens her eyes, they're just air ghosts. So, yeah, making things conscious does make a difference. Opening your eyes. But the job of consciousness is to make the world predictable. And implicitly makes us look for permanence. And to see things implicitly or explicitly as permanent

[91:09]

or hopefully permanent, is technically in Buddhism delusion. So Buddhism wants to find a way to negotiate around or through consciousness. In this process of knowing ourselves. What Buddhism has decided to do Is to emphasize attention.

[92:31]

And to develop attention. And to understand that attention is separate from consciousness. Und dass man verstehen kann, dass Aufmerksamkeit etwas vom Bewusstsein getrenntes ist. For instance, when you're going to sleep. Zum Beispiel, wenn man einschläft. If you get up in the night and you can't go back to sleep. Wenn man nachts aufwacht und dann nicht mehr einschlafen kann. Or even at the beginning of the night you can't go to sleep because you're thinking about things. Oder sogar am Anfang von der Nacht, dass man nicht einschlafen kann, weil man über Dinge nachdenkt. And your mind engaged in consciousness is the problem. But the problem is also more in more detail is that you're giving attention to consciousness.

[93:38]

For example, if you can pull your attention away from consciousness. And bring your attention to, let's say, a dream you were just having. And then let your attention flow into the dream. You'll probably go to sleep. I spoke at Berlin and Rastenberg about the four so-called four noble postures.

[95:07]

It came up there because in the first seminar I did in Rastenberg, we were speaking about the four foundations of mindfulness. And the way I emphasized the importance of the four foundations, the four noble postures, The emphasis I gave to the four noble postures. It's something I've said before, but actually it struck me. It's something I have to make clear. So I brought it up again in Berlin, and now I'm bringing it up here. Und deshalb habe ich das in Berlin erwähnt und jetzt mache ich das noch einmal hier.

[96:09]

Why are there four noble postures? Weshalb gibt es vier edle Körperhalte? This sounds kind of silly. Das klingt doch eher dumm. What's behind making such an enumeration? Was steht denn dahinter, dass man so eine Auszählung macht? Why is one posture more noble than another? It's a distinction actually between, I don't know what words to use, and I don't know if it works in German very well, but in English it works with creating two separate terms, position and posture. I don't know if that works in German. There is this distinction between what we have introduced in English as a term, position and posture. So something like position and posture.

[97:14]

Okay. And I struck By watching a Noh play or a Kabuki play in Japan. And one of the first things I've done quite often, one of the first things I felt was, why is it that you could take a picture at any point of the actors and it's an extraordinary picture? The first thing that really struck me was why you could take a photo of these actors at any time. And that's always a perfect or beautiful picture. You know, it's very hard to capture a dramatic picture, but any picture you took, just snap in your camera, a thousand times you'd get a dramatic picture. And I realized that they are moving not from position to position, but from posture to posture.

[98:19]

And what does that mean? It means what I'm calling a posture now is a position of the body that you can fill with energy. You know, for instance, if I sit this way, it's pretty hard for me to fill this with energy. You look terrible. And if I try to fill this position with energy, with a bicycle pump, you know, I'm in a different shape. And you can see it in the martial arts, which come from yogic cultures. They are teaching more and more refined postures that you can fill with energy. And the basic feeling is in this yogic culture that if you find yourself, I don't know how to say it, but filled with energy all the time,

[99:57]

They're going to be healthier and feel stronger. So the four noble postures are those for reclining, standing, walking and sitting. I remember Charlotte Selver, who was one of the pioneers in the United States, the pioneer of the teaching of sensory awareness. I've had several women teachers and she was the first and one of the strongest. I had a few women as teachers and she was one of the first and also one of the most impressive or most powerful.

[101:24]

And she was strong. She lived to 102, I think. Almost, maybe. I think 102. She was really strong because she lived to, I think, 102, so 101 in any case. I was sitting with her, with Sophia, meaning a 102-year-old woman. At this point she was about 90. No, 101. 101 when you were there? 99, this other thing happened. So when she was 99, I was sitting with her and we were talking. She was like a 14-year-old girl, very thin and completely alert. Yeah, that was when she was 101. That was when she was 101. I need her, you know. I said to her, you know, Charlotte, I had several... small enlightenment experiences with you.

[102:26]

And she pulled herself up to her full height and said, what do you mean small? And he said, what do you mean small? But one experience, and to show you how small or life-changing an enlightened experience can be, small and life-changing, I've been used to being in meetings and all kinds of things. People say, okay, now in school, let's stand up. Stand up. And I always can't resist saying, I find out that everybody in Germany stands up in the morning in bed. We get up, but you stand up.

[103:34]

Okay. But anyway, she said, this first time I was with her, And her presence was a big part of what she said. And how the words came one after another. The words in themselves a physical sequence, not a mental sequence. she said come up to standing and suddenly when I stood up I went through a series of postures to get to standing It was as if a physical territory was suddenly opened to me.

[104:50]

When before I'd just gone from two physical positions with nothing in between. And suddenly a whole territory of existence, living, between sitting and standing, was revealed to me. So this was a good example of bringing attention through language. And you can think of language as wiring to carry attention.

[105:51]

So she was able to, in a sense, physicalize her words. But the map, the topography of coming up to standing was already in her words. So there was a physical attention carried in her words. I would say there was a spine in her words. that carried me up along and through my spine to standing.

[107:14]

And I'd recently started practicing with Suzuki Roshi. Months, so it was all about the same time. So I had enough baby mindfulness or beginning mindfulness dass ich vielleicht genug Baby-Achtsamkeit oder Anfangs-Achtsamkeit hatte, entwickelt hatte, so dass ich diese Topografie, das zum Stehen kommt, spüren konnte. Um diese Topografie Körperhaltung des Stehens finden zu können. Das war ganz klar, dass das nicht eine Position des Stehens war.

[108:29]

Es war eine Körperhaltung des Stehens, die ich von innen heraus gefunden habe. Und eine Körperhaltung, So these four noble postures are rooted in an assumption that we can live in this world always in some reclining, walking, standing or sitting Immer in irgendeiner liegenden, stehenden, sitzenden oder gehenden Form. And that each of these four can be knowable and noble.

[109:30]

Actually knowable and noble are the same root. Und dass jede dieser Haltungen kennbar sind und nobel sind. Und im Englischen ist wisbar und noble stammt von der gleichen Wurzel ab. And we can find in each of these four ways, four postures in which we live, four positions, territories in which we live. we can find within these territories the posture which we can fill with aliveness. So the point in this feeling It's not, for example, that you walk down the hall to get from point A to point B. But that you walk down the hall in a way that you feel the posture of standing and walking.

[110:49]

And another teaching that's in such a little thing, when we look at another culture in such a common phrase, when we look at such a common phrase, We can see really the difference, the cultural difference, the background. Wenn wir so einen gewöhnlichen Satz anschauen, da können wir wirklich den kulturellen Unterschied vor so einem Hintergrund sehen. A different mind goes with each of these four postures. ist nämlich, dass jeweils ein andersartiger Geist einhergeht mit jeder von diesen Körperhaltungen. It's very clear, it's very difficult to go to sleep if you're standing.

[112:01]

Es ist wirklich sehr eindeutig, dass es unheimlich schwer ist, im Stehen einzuschlagen. Unless you're a horse. Außer du bist ein Pferd. Unless you're driving. Oder ihr fahrt Auto. So reclining lends itself to sleeping. And sitting lends itself to meditation. And this was so thoroughly understood in the culture. That the Japanese never brought chairs into their houses until very recently. Because you should support yourself in your sitting. So even when people got old, and couldn't sit very well.

[113:11]

They still had little props, little chairs, but basically chairs that helped them find their own posture. As I've said, when the Chinese introduced chairs, you know, quite a long, centuries ago, And you've all seen Chinese chairs, these flat bottoms and curved arms. Die habt ihr alle schon gesehen, sind sehr flache Sitzfläche und dann diese gebogenen Armstützen. They're exact copies of Buddhist ceremonial chairs. Und das sind exakte Kopien von buddhistischen ceremonial Stühlen. Meant to be sat in, cross-legged or in an upright posture.

[114:15]

And this yogic sense of the posture as energy aliveness and healing even, awareness, healing, whatever, was so taken for granted that chairs were always used, almost always, for people to sit cross-legged in. I'm not saying you should all throw your chairs away or get flat, uncomfortable chairs or something like that.

[115:17]

But I'm just trying to give you some background. on how the exploration of the possibilities of mind and of knowing oneself was rooted in a wider cultural understanding as posture as having an intelligence and awareness in it. Als Körperhaltung, die eine Intelligenz und ein Gewahrsein enthält. For example, again, just in calligraphy. Zum Beispiel nur in der Calligraphie. If you want to use a brush full of ink. Wenn man einen Pinsel voller Tinte verwenden möchte. And make a kanji that looks like anything. Und wenn ein kanji machen möchte, das irgendwas gleich sieht.

[116:21]

It's a series of gestures. Ist das eine Abfolge von Gesten? And if your posture isn't good, kanji won't be good. Und wenn deine Körperhaltung nicht gut ist, dann wird das kanji auch nicht. And they talk about the spine in a kanji. Und sie sprechen sogar von diesem Rückgrat dieses oder kanjis oder dem Rückgrat in diesem Schriftzeichen. And you have the brush. You have your spine, and your posture is in the character. You have your spine, and your posture is in the character. If you're sensitive, you can feel the posture of the calligrapher in his calligraphy. So in this yoga culture, which has been developed by Buddhism and which Buddhism has developed in.

[117:35]

One of the tools of knowing oneself is the posture which allows you to know yourself. The posture which allows you to study yourself. And widens and opens the territories of existence. Waking and sleeping and meditating. And so forth. But now it's time to open to, I think, a break.

[118:35]

So let's have a break. Thank you for translating. And we'll continue in sitting posture with some obscure advice about how to sit. if you care to try. The prologue day before the seminar somewhat more formally starts in the evening, as more a kind of consciousness day or talking day. And so I initially didn't have Vazen at the beginning of the period of the morning time.

[119:38]

But enough people sort of said, couldn't we still have sitting at the beginning? So we had, what, 15 or 20 minutes of sitting. But even that amount of sitting may have dumbed you. Or sharpened you, I don't know. Do you have any comments on what we've spoken about so far? Did I hear you saying not losing the stiffness in the movement, not rejecting the movement in the stiffness, covering all the postures, which brings together all possibilities of moving the body in daily life?

[120:59]

I didn't say that. But I could have said that. and not redirecting the movement in the form of thoughts and feelings, so that you could have a continuation in the 5 postures that the body takes in the 24 hours of life. Then he said, I could have said that, but I didn't say it. I didn't say that, but I could have.

[122:02]

The main metaphor in all of Buddhism is motion and stillness. Their mutuality and their difference. And the way you put it is a more formal way to say it. But I'm trying to find more awkward ways to say it. More awkward and sometimes, I hope, more accessible. by being signaled by our Buddha ancestors in Morse code. Be careful what you say.

[123:03]

I don't think they knew Morse code. Okay, someone else. Yes. I say it better in German, I know it better in English. I understood it in such a way that consciousness and attention should be two different things. I have understood it so far that attention is a part of consciousness that observes consciousness itself. So I understood that attention and consciousness seem to be two different things, but so far I thought that attention is a part of the consciousness and sort of contributes to consciousness. Observes consciousness.

[124:03]

Of course. Yeah, of course. That's true. And that's clearly the way our culture emphasizes attention. But attention can also give attention to things other than consciousness. And attention can give attention to attention itself. So in this real basic teaching of the four foundations of mindfulness, we're bringing attention, first of all, to our, not our body, but the activity of our body. And we're bringing attention to attention itself.

[125:10]

And in a sense you're strengthening attention. You're developing attention. And you're physicalizing attention. So it's not just mental attention. And so it can be used more widely as a tool and as a quality of life. Because attention is both a means and an end. And an what? And an end. And end, E-N-D. Yeah. Do you have that expression, means and ends? No, it's not good. Mittel und Zweck?

[126:15]

Prima. Vielen Dank. Das ist einerseits ein Mittel und andererseits ein Zweck. Our pro translator is right. What do you call him in this conch shell? Souffleuse. Souffleuse, yeah. In the theater, the guys who sit down there at the stage tell you when you... The actor forgets his text. Promptor. Promptor. But you have to be in a little box right here. That's perceptual. If Otmar was here, you know, he'd make one for you. And you could actually tell me what to say, too. Someone else. Thank you. In following up on this, When you're talking, and in particular when you brought our attention to what Charlotte Silver was saying, I felt a merging of bringing my

[127:22]

conscious awareness to the concepts and also my physical attention to the feeling of your words in being with Charlotte Sullivan. Okay. Okay. You can't prove it if I don't translate it, right? He can check up. I felt a melting of the consciousness and the concepts and a melting of what you experienced and what you said about Shah Rukh selber. So I find in being in a situation like this, in a seminar with you, I'm conscious of dividing my physical attention to your presence and the feeling of the word.

[128:36]

And my mind tracking it through making a note. And I find that taking the notes is the way for me to make what you're saying physical through my hand. So I feel in this observation for me, there's a merging of my physical attention and my conscious awareness. And it's different than if I go to a university and listen to a professor. That's how I started practicing.

[129:56]

In college, I went to a Paul Tillich's lectures with the famous Protestant theologian. Some rather smart guy who was an alcoholic and head of the philosophy department. He was that or another one? No, Tillich had other problems. I can't remember his name, actually. But anyway, both of them weren't speaking. They weren't what they were saying. And I was so struck when I met Suzuki Roshi because he was completely what he was saying.

[131:12]

My father was a pretty good pianist. And he used to sit around making both fingers. He'd just tap his fingers so they're all could make separate, you know. And I remember thinking that's quite interesting and I tried to learn how to do it so you could have right hand and left hand equally. So I didn't learn how to play the piano from him. I have somewhere like minus zero musical ability. But I learned to release one's fingers. so that they could just be independent.

[132:31]

When I went to the Near East, I found people had play beads the same way. They would be talking, but another part of their body would be on the beads. Und wo ich in den Nahen Osten gegangen bin, habe ich gesehen, dass Leute so eine Art Spielrosenkränze oder Spielketten haben. Und sie sprechen über irgendwas und der Körper macht gleichzeitig noch was nebenher. Okay. Prayer or play, you said. It's prayer beads. No, in the Near East they're called play beads because they just play. Okay. Someone else. Ich versuche also in meinem Alltag den Atem zu holen. So I try in my everyday life to follow my breathing. For instance in my work when I sit in front of a patient and I listen to him.

[133:36]

So then I continued watching my breath while the patient is speaking. And then I noticed, well, I'm actually halfway in my attention with myself and just not 100% with the patient. And then I felt like this is not good, you know, I'm not 100% focused to this person who's telling me something. Oh, yeah. What can I say?

[134:51]

Do you say in German, follow your breath? The word follow, like following a dog or a cat? What do you say? What do you say? So it's both. It's to follow or to observe. Okay. It's the same word? No, two different words you can say it. Okay. But it's not exactly the same meaning as running behind a dog on a leash. That's hinterherna. That is something where we have a word which creates a distance as which you follow. That would be walk behind. It's not the same as follow. Yeah, I myself almost never say follow your breath. I would say stay with your breath.

[135:56]

Or rest in your breath. Or bring attention to the breath. Mm-hmm. But let's say we say, stay with. Let's say it that way. Then if you stay with the situation. So if I was, as I often am, I'm sitting with somebody. I stay with just the situation which includes the person, the room, etc. And you can listen with focus, you can listen sort of like it's just a field.

[137:01]

And I might bring attention to breathing. But I wouldn't do it in a way that I lost attention or connectedness with the person. But I also might find that our breathing was together. Someone called me up the other day whose mother is just about to die, and asked me if I had any suggestions of how for her to be with her mother.

[138:29]

And there's various teachings or practices, how you establish physical contact and so forth. And how you, what attitudes... might be in your mind, or what intentions you might have. But the main medium is breathing with the other person. The initial thing you do before you establish anything else is you breathe with the person. And that if the person's breathing gets excited, you let your breathing get excited too.

[139:40]

But if your breath is hooked together, Theirs may get excited, but then you can pull yours back down. It calms the person. Now, I think in ordinary situations, you don't want to be this manipulative. But if you're really used to having attention rest in your breathing, without any intention, it almost automatically includes the other person's attention. Maybe we'll get into this later, and I'll speak about it in this basic idea of emphasis on what we are, not who we are.

[140:56]

Maybe we can talk about it later and talk about what we are and not who we are. I'm not quite clear about the distinction between attention, focus on attention, and mindfulness. So the difference between attention, which is directed at oneself, and attention. What exactly do you mean? Mindfulness, if you're mindful of attention, that would be giving attention to attention. Okay. Is that good enough? Yeah. It's just sometimes these words come very fast behind each other and even I can't really keep them straight.

[142:17]

Oh, really? Yeah. Because they sound almost the same in German. There's not much difference in the German between them. They come fast. The translator should speak slower than I do. Also sollte die Übersetzerin langsamer sprechen als ich das tue. You know what, I just, let me just mention one thing that occurred to me a moment ago. I don't think it's an accident or coincidence. Also ich möchte etwas sagen, was mir gerade eingefallen ist. when Xerox Laboratories developed the mouse, the computer mouse. I went to Xerox Laboratory several times to see what they were doing.

[143:18]

I don't know how we got permission. We had to go through all this security, practically had to be searched, you know, to get through several layers of security. industrial security. And this real smart guy named Alan, something, I can't remember now, had developed most of these ideas early on. He was kind of one of the geniuses of the early computer world. And no one knew what to do with these things he developed. Which is one of the things is the mouse makes you do things with two hands. And it doesn't surprise me that Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak, who were both practicing Zen at the time, got it, let's make a computer that you use your hands in your thinking.

[144:45]

So this whole idea of using icons and both hands, they picked up on. But still, for many people, they prefer the keyboard and, you know, so forth. But it's actually a kind of different mentality. Someone else? I'm fascinated by the fact that we can direct our attention to the example that you have brought, with which we cannot fall asleep.

[145:50]

The example that which you had was not being able to fall asleep. And then when you mentioned that we can actually observe our consciousness. There we're observing that which in our culture is sort of understood to be the source for our decision making. And it is not it and we can observe it. We can observe it just the same manner as we can put our attention on a sense impression. Without thinking and in that sense without consciousness.

[147:13]

So that what surprises me now is who or what decides on what attention is focused. It's so clear to me that in some sense it's, or mostly it has something to do with me. But I do not know what it is any longer. Well, I think you should be amazed that we can direct attention. It's unbelievable that we can direct our attention. And I think it's equally hard to believe or interesting that we can use language to direct our attention. I'd like to speak about how I think this wiring develops. But before we go there, Someone, when I was in Berlin, told me they went to, I think, a lecture by a kind of a woman neurobiologist from England.

[149:17]

I guess she gave a talk in Berlin or something. And this person went to the talk. And he was impressed as one should be. I think with the current study of the brain and behavior and neurobiologically. And this woman is also quite interested in Buddhism. And she was impressed herself, he said. Because wherever she lives in England, every day she drove home from work to where she lives. She came to a crossroads.

[150:38]

One was the fast way and one was the pretty way. And every day she had a problem. Which way shall I go? And it continued for years. And one day she decided not to decide. She just pushed the accelerator and went one of the two ways. And she said it worked very well. Well, I was amused by this because this territory of exploring the decision-making that's non-conscious Das hat mich sehr amüsiert, denn dieses Territorium, dieser Bereich des Entscheidens, des nichtbewussten Entscheidens.

[151:44]

It's one of the main territories of practice. Das ist eine der Hauptgebiete der Praxis. We have an expression in Zen, when you come to a crossroads, take it. Which means either fly or something. Well, you know, we also we have a tendency to equate observing mind with observing self. And assume that if there's the act of observing, there's an observer. And this is simply not true.

[152:52]

And practice makes sense only when you really discover there's an observing mind which is not an observing self. And it changes the whole territory of know thyself. Okay, so anyone else before I try to say something yet? Could you say a little bit more about this energy you fill up the body? Is it something like feeling to be alive? Yeah. Deutsch, bitte. Yeah, I'm trying to find ways to speak about these things. And I'm kind of clumsy.

[154:16]

But the clumsiness may not be bad.

[154:19]

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