Well, it's a very happy occasion for me to be back here with you this year. Twenty-some years or something like that. Maybe it was yesterday, I don't know. Or at least one. Thanks. And I hear from two people now it's going to rain. So it sounds like getting ready. Well, it'll make it cooler. I every year try to bring into our discussion, I mean not only, but very often, conceptions and practices of the body

[01:21]

which seem to me related to consolation and family therapy. And such conceptions are of course not limited to relationship between Buddhism and psychotherapy, the difference between the view of the West and the view of yogic East Asia, about the body, It's probably, let's say, the most significant difference between the Western worldview and the Asian worldview.

[02:35]

And And although it's simple difference in emphasis on one level between mind and body. And the difference in emphasis is although The emphasis on each is deeply complex and produces a different civilization. I said the distinction is simple, but the emphasis on each is complex. And we can learn a lot, and both these two cultures can learn a lot from each other.

[03:43]

And I'm over, you know, about 50 years now, continuously trying to find ways to enter into this difference of experience. And to make use of the difference. Not just a difference to be forgotten about, it's a difference we can make use of in our study of For here we have not only the subtlety, complexity, immensity of our own culture, Over the last two or three hundred years, and especially the last decades, we've

[05:01]

found that there's some millions of people who've been doing body research for us. And we've been doing research for them. Western science is one of the fruits of our research and emphasis on mind. So this exploration of this research that's been going on for a couple of millennium, mostly without us, I think is the most incredible resource available to us to deepen our own way of knowing and thinking. Now I don't say that... Now I don't... How can I put it?

[06:28]

I don't think we... On the one hand, we can only, how can in our once-a-year meetings over 20 years or so, how can we go into it very deeply? As I said, it's something More than two millenniums of research by millions of people.

[07:28]

Yet certain essentials rise to the surface. And I think that I've mentioned now and then, but I really think much of our interest in the And although I'm emphasizing, because it's what I know, the relationship between the two through Buddhism, in these seminars I'm not primarily emphasizing Buddhism, but rather the relationship and the differences.

[08:33]

And as I started to say, I think that for the most part, our own interest or recognition of the value of the differences Because these two cultures have been subtly growing together for some centuries. And it's clear to me that lineages in painting, poetry, science, philosophy have led me to my recognitions of yogic culture.

[09:37]

Now, I'd like to start with some of what I spoke about in the a little bit, at least for now, of what I spoke about in the seminar we just finished on last Sunday. And a seminar which would get more of an emphasis on Zen practice. But also, but the topic ended up to be, much of the topic ended up to be a discussion of lay and monastic practice. Too much probably for some people they told me on lay and monastic practice.

[11:05]

But I think it's useful to have done so because that's the context in which we're practicing as Westerners. And certainly my own practice, it looks like it's starting. I don't mind. We can all sit outside if you'd like. No, no. If it bothers you, close the door. Oh good. I like it too, yeah. Certainly my own explorations, I would say, come from a monastic basis.

[12:08]

But my articulations, to a large extent, come from practicing with laypersons. But my articulations, to a large extent, come from practicing with laypersons. If I need to speak louder because I'm competing with the rain, let me know. Okay. So I'm trying to find ways in which well, let me start and say that the concept of non-dualism is at the center of all Buddhist practice.

[13:13]

And although emphasis on non-dualism is a much more commodious, I don't know why that word comes up, easily fit together, commodious part of yoga culture. It just means it accommodates to each other. Yeah, but I know it's a bureau in Europe and a toilet in the West. So although it is a commodious, non-dualism... It is a more... The culture of yoga culture accommodates...

[14:27]

the concept of nondualism much more easily than our culture. Still, very much of Buddhism is about going beyond the commodious concept of nondualism and really realizing non-dualism. So in various ways, I'd like to at least talk about that as much time as we have this evening. And since I never know quite what we'll talk about, but still, let's assume it'll come up more during the seminar.

[15:33]

And although I never know exactly what we will really talk about in the end, let's assume that this topic will appear more often during the seminar. Okay. A little refresher or rehash Mind and body are obviously inseparable. And yet, we experience them. and can experience them separately. And not only can we experience them separately, we can use that separateness as one of the means to unite the experience of mind and body.

[16:48]

We can use the differences as one of the means by which to weave mind and body together. So again, I'm emphasizing here using the differences. Experiential differences. Now in a parallel way, mind and let's call it mind-body and phenomena, circumstances, circumstances, in English, what stands around us, are inseparable.

[18:06]

floor, air, food, etc. Perception, sensation. Okay. Are so interrelated, let's say they're inseparable. There's no, we're not living on the moon. We can't be on the moon unless we bring little parts of the earth with us. So although mind, body, mind and phenomena are separate, are inseparable, they can be experienced separately.

[19:26]

And when you see the world as a container, you really are seeing it, because of that attitude, as separate. But again, we can develop this difference into an experience of... not-tuneness. Now, I say not-tuneness because in this way of thinking there's no oneness. We say classic phrase is not one, not two.

[20:40]

It was a very common phrase of Suzuki Yoshi. Not two-ness is not oneness. You look at things one way and it's It's not one. Look at it another way and it's not two. So let me call a attitude like not two, not one, a collaborative concept. It got a bad name during the Second World War because of people who collaborated with the enemy.

[21:46]

Der Kollaborateur hat einen schlechten Ruf, weil das im zweiten Weltkrieg eine Unterstützung des Feindes war. But it literally means to work together, co-labor. And this is an idea I want to emphasize during our days together. So, we have worldviews. Asian yogic culture has worldviews. Buddhism has worldviews which are versions of yogic worldviews. Okay. Our worldviews operate invisibly for most of us.

[22:57]

Die Weltsichten, die operieren für die meisten von uns auf unsichtbare Weise. You, Horst is there and I'm here. I think so. Horst ist da drüben und ich bin hier. Jedenfalls glaube ich, ist das so. And as I pointed out for many years, we assume the separations. That space separates us. Our culture strongly emphasizes the separation of space. Yoga culture strongly emphasizes the connectivity of space. If we emphasize the separation of space, we think we're in a container. You're in different parts of the container.

[24:08]

Now we're going to have to find some other word because we don't have words for a non-container space. As I've said, one of the classic ideas in Buddhism is interdependent. But to keep it fairly simple right now, we could say a better translation would be inter-emergent. It's not just that you're over there and I'm here. Actually, a Something new is happening by our both being present in this situation.

[25:31]

Something that's never happened before. And if you notice it it tends to be more noticeable. It tends to happen more. If you don't notice it You don't, and it tends to happen less. So if we're going to explore other worldviews than our own, we have to take away their invisibility and make the world views more visible. Okay. Now I'm constantly trying to find ways to do that.

[26:34]

Now, right now, I would suggest, again, as I did in the last seminar, is that you use the word, and I'm going to suggest during this week, these days, you use the word inseparable. Or some version in German. Also, ich schlage vor, dass ihr während dieser Tage das Wort That means on every occasion, on every noticing, and this is already to be present on every notice. Is developed not just by being more attentive, But developing the yogic skill to bring attention to attention, which develops, evolves and transforms attention,

[27:57]

until it can be more present in the myriad minutia of our experience. Now, the more you're present in the myriad minutia of your experience, of circumstances, you begin to articulate and experience this connectivity. To articulate and experience. So we need to have some kind of like if we take the word inseparable, and every time you notice something, you say inseparable.

[29:17]

First of all, you're training yourself, literally, to notice. To more and more see the world as a flow of appearances. which from the point of view of physics and Buddhism, the world is a flow of appearances. So the more you're in the world as a flow of appearances, you can begin to bring wisdom or worldviews to these noticings. So you can bring inseparable to these noticings. Yeah. Should I go the next step or not?

[30:37]

Why not? Now one of the truisms of Buddhism, is, of course, that everything changes. And that everything is momentary or a flow of appearances. This moment is already past and then And this moment is already future. Already past, already future leaves no dimensionality to the present. And yet the past doesn't exist and the future doesn't exist yet.

[31:41]

So all we have is the disappearing present. So we have to start wondering how to experience the present. Okay. So if we call it the present or now, the present is stuck between the past and the future. The word the present, the concept of present, is defined through its two sides, past and future. So I think the most useful word, at least in English, to use is immediacy. And im-mediacy means no middle.

[32:57]

No in between. And it doesn't have the concepts of past and future on either side. Okay, much of the technology or practices of Buddhism is to begin to experience this immediacy. There's no middle. Or nothing in between. And if there's nothing in between, we have something like non-dualism. Und wenn da nichts mehr dazwischen ist, dann haben wir so etwas wie Nicht-Dualität.

[34:07]

And if we are in the midst of inseparable circumstances, wenn wir uns in der Mitte dieser untrennbaren Umstände befinden, And the more you recognize that you're in the midst of inseparable circumstances, the more you discover that the so-called agency of self The accumulated personalized observer. is actually much more an agency of circumstances. Circumstances create most of the choices we have. Most of the non-choices, most of the givens.

[35:25]

Okay. So now what we're trying to talk about is what is... Okay. A dharma practice is the experience of the world in parts. To notice, appearance, appearance, appearance, that's to experience things in parts. And much of the enactment rituals that characterize Zen monastic life, for instance.

[36:27]

Like when I came in, I bowed to the cushion. And then I turned around, I bowed to the room. This is what I call an enactment ritual. Because you're finding a physical way to notice the world in parts. If you establish your continuity in the mind, in thinking, you it's almost impossible to experience the world in parts.

[37:33]

If you can develop the yogic skill to shift your experience of continuity to the body, you can begin to experience the world in parts. Because your body is nothing but a pulse of parts. Your heart beating. The lungs breathing. Your whole body energetic system is pulsing. So if you establish the experience of continuity in the world through the body, and then you add what we're calling enactment rituals,

[38:45]

Like bowing to the cushion. Yeah, recognizing the cushion, stopping for a moment. And then stopping for the world, for the room. So monastic life is built up, Zen monastic life is built up through monastic, through enactment rituals which you begin to embody, embody, in a transformative way over some years. Until the world is almost like a heartbeat. A week, what did we say? An expression, something. Life and death is only a heartbeat away or something like that.

[40:05]

But life is only a heartbeat away. Okay. All right. So the point I'm making here is if we take... And then I should stop because... It'll take me the rest of the month to explicate what I've just said. To take a word like inseparable. And develop the skill, the attentional skills. To bring it to each noticing. is a way to develop your ability to notice and a way to notice the world in the wisdom light of inseparability.

[41:30]

Okay. But if the circumstances and you are inseparable. The practice of realizing this inseparability is more than just noticing it through the wisdom of a worldview. It's also developing the way you love somebody, hold them, touch them, etc. So how do we hold, touch? Now I've often said to pause for the particular.

[42:42]

This is again like to use a phrase or the word inseparable. like as an intention. It's almost like injecting wisdom into the myriad circumstances. Yeah, the word myriad actually in its roots means 10,000 or it means countless but it also means 10,000. And in Asian culture, they say usually 10,000. But in English, myriad can also be used as a noun. So I like to say sometimes the myriad as a noun, the myriad of the 10,000 things.

[43:59]

Which is a particular way of viewing the world. That there's a virtually, and in fact, infinity of possibilities happening. And they're interactive with you. Interdependent with you. Interemergent with you. Now how to get the 10,000 things working with you is part of practice.

[45:11]

If you see the world as a container this interaction will happen more when you dream, but not when you're conscious. Although artists and poets and painters and creative scientists and all, learn how to think and notice through circumstances. So in the worldview that you're inseparable from your circumstances, when you use a word like inseparable, you're injecting, almost like with a needle,

[46:27]

a wisdom concept into the myriad circumstances. Which incubates through your activity. Okay. Or a phrase like to pause for the particular. Injects the sense of the world is to be known in parts. And to say the phrase help you pause for the particular. Now the last thing I was thinking whether I should go there and I'm right there now about to go there is that Is the parallel idea of a collaborative attitude.

[47:50]

Now, I'll try to limit myself to what I say. For example, there's the Asian or the yogic idea of the hara. And you can spend a lot of time in the martial arts or in Zen practice getting your attention in your hara. But it doesn't really have much effect on you. And it doesn't take hold. Unless you have the collaborative concept or collaborative Knowing. Attitude. That the body already knows, or the body will know, or the body can know.

[49:30]

And if you don't have that attitude, that worldview, as part of the functioning of the hara as a locus of concentration, If you don't have that worldview, collaborating with the experience of your energy or focus in your hara, what the Japanese mean by hara just is not accessible to you. Okay. So now I'm going to suggest in addition to the intentional injection of inseparability. You find a way to establish more connectivity with circumstances.

[50:50]

not just to notice that the world and experience does happen in parts, but you develop skills to absorb those parts. And the Chinese, Japanese, Korean approach includes the chakras, but it's more based on the three fields of sinibar or kantiyan. On the three, what? Tantian, which is T-A-N, T-I-N. And this is more like the view the body is occulting. So there's the lower and there's the middle, the thorax more or less, and the upper.

[52:03]

So if you want to practice this, you wouldn't just pause for the particular. you try in homeopathic doses or as often as you can to absorb from the lower absorb from the middle and absorb from the upper so if I take the L which is here And I try to practice this like you'd practice the piano or the cello or something.

[53:05]

You maybe use your breath and you absorb the bell from here. And then you absorb it here. And then you absorb it from here. And you absorb it by not thinking. Because you don't want to think the bell. If you think the bell, hara is gone. But you feel the bell and you feel it with these three areas of connectivity. and you can practice it with three breaths or three inhales and exhales and you can practice it with a person you see somebody you absorb them first in the lower part of your body

[54:06]

Absorb them with the middle part of your body and you absorb them with the upper part of your body. And you assume that's all you have to do. If you think, I want to think it too, mostly dissolves the knowing of the body. It's like embracing the world. Maybe you embrace it with the lower part of your body and then the upper part of your body. And then you try to refrain from, oh, you're really nice, world. You try to refrain from mental comments.

[55:40]

With the assumption that the body knows. It's the assumption that the body knows and you don't have to know primarily through thinking, though thinking's okay. That allows the inseparability of mind, body and phenomena to function in the way that Buddhism and yogic culture thinks is best. Oh, I'm sorry I said so much. Michael said you probably should say something at 7.30. I thought, oh my goodness. And then I say more than I should.

[56:45]

Because it's kind of too much. But we'll sort it out. It's your fault. When you blame someone else, you have no horror. Hmm? To blame someone else or make excuses is an example of not having hara. So I take it back. It's not your fault.

[57:15]

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