Yes, Christina. I would like to ask about the concept inter-emergence. You already presented this concept during the last seminar. And I found that I know this term, emergence, from systemic biology through the work of Humberto Maturana and Francisco de Riva? And then I asked myself, And then I asked myself why inter-emergence if emergence already means something new is emerging from complexity.

[01:19]

Then I thought, well, And this, of course, you know, it just means to emerge and enter together. So that's all. So now I'm just curious what you would have to say about or how you understand this combination inter-emergence. You mean, partly you're asking, why don't I just use the word emergence? Well, probably for the same reason I don't just say dependence, I say interdependence.

[02:22]

And Francisco Varela, you know, was it? Good friend of mine and Maturana I only met, but also Stu Kaufman, Stuart Kaufman is one of the founders of chaos theory. And I talked about emergence a lot. So Francisco Varela, this was a good friend of mine and Bertrand Maturana I only met once, but also Stuart Kaufman, who founded the complexity theory. I talked a lot about emergence with them. So, of course, I'm influenced by them and their use of the word. But Generally they use it or I think of them using it at least in a context of in these special circumstances something new emerges.

[03:41]

What I'm trying to emphasize is in all circumstances there is emergence. Everything is absolutely unique. And that uniqueness or newness is always the case. Every... Everything. So it's also a way of saying there's no oneness. There can't be oneness if things are always one more thing, everything's changing. There's no way it can be accumulated into one because that one is always producing another one.

[04:50]

You can have some relationship to the allness of everything. And how to think about that and explore that. I've done a lot of in the last year or two. But allness is... At any moment there's a function of allness, but it's not oneness. And then also I'm using inter-emergence.

[05:55]

Because it's a more exact description of what I understand is meant by interdependence. So inter-emergence opens us up to the whole wide stream of teaching in Buddhism about interdependence. Yeah, so I've always, from the very beginning, said interdependence and interindependence. And I dropped a long time ago co-dependent origination. Because it sounds like an alcoholic family.

[07:12]

And then we'd have to have a Buddhist intervention. But at some point I realized that the development of the term emergence is extremely useful for being more accurate about what interdependence is. But the process of my deciding on intermergence and sometimes just intermergence It's been a process of at least ten years. I'm very slow, but you know. Okay. I find

[08:35]

I find this, yeah, I find this concept very accurate because... Which concept? Intermergence. Oh, good, thank you. Because interdependence still has, carries a kind of static feeling, and the static aspect is, almost feels like a kind of stuckness. This is deep and precious. Don't leave it in words. This is, we said... And inter-emergence really emphasizes the birth aspect and enters me into momentariness. Yeah, I agree. This platform is interdependent with the floor. And as a term, that's very static. It doesn't at all say what the platform is doing to the floor.

[10:02]

Or the floor is going to the platform. Oh, what the platform is doing for me so I can see Michael in the back. Which are all emergent properties. Okay, sorry for all that. Something important. I think what's interesting is that the bigger picture that we're talking about is even though I'm talking about the contrast between Western culture and We have to have confidence in our own language and our own experience.

[11:22]

and of confidence to develop this teaching for our own circumstances. And the concept of inter-emergence also means that the Buddha is not our goal. The Buddha is our starting point. And... Anyway, other things. Someone else? Yes? Christina, there's so many Christs in my life. Christina, Christina, Christos, Christian, you know.

[12:38]

Okay. You talked about absorption yesterday. Yeah. In these three different areas. Mm-hmm. About bowing, too. Mm-hmm. For me, this very much belongs together. And what I'm dealing with in relationship to my clients, and also in relationship to my own life, It seems to me that clients often come with the problem that they have difficulty in absorbing their always newly emerging life, their own aliveness continually emerging.

[13:45]

They have difficulty absorbing that. And so I've been thinking about how can we help our clients and also ourselves to that they can enter into this process of absorbing their own You also said past? Present and past life that is always emerging. Yes. When we do constellations in some way we are externalizing this emerging aliveness, life.

[14:50]

So that's maybe one way of doing that and that's something I'm thinking about. But how do you also do that without constellation? And how do Buddhist practitioners do that? I'd like to comment on what you said, but I'd also like to gather some more comments. Yes, Siegfried. What do you think about what I've done in the experimental constellation work group? I reminded them of different ways of bowing.

[16:25]

And then I had them experiment with what kind of bow felt felt good and what kind of bow was elicited some resistance in the body? Then I let them experiment with a particular kind of particular way of bowing experiment with a bow that was feeling that they felt good about and also a bow that they didn't feel so good about and then I

[17:38]

placed a representative there. That they had the opportunity to bow to in these ways. And then, you know, I split them up in groups and they were experimenting with it. Sounds great. Yeah, this came good. It was good. That's good. What was the feeling of the fruit of it? Either they were making a step, a next step in reconciling, in reconciliation with something or someone they were not able to Or they were noticing what kind of atmosphere the body needs to feel good about bowing in to.

[19:00]

And what would be an example of a bow they didn't feel good about or an atmosphere they didn't feel good about. For example, a dominating father that hit them or something. You can... You can see that an aspect of violence becomes part of the bow. So there are different ways of bowing when you receive a blessing or another kind of bow when you are...

[20:03]

appreciative of a person and honor them. A different kind of bow for greeting. So the bow became a kind of barometer for their attitude. I do think that this... practice of embodiment through consolation is a way to use the use the body as a kind of barometer for for everything yes I'm interested in bowing in the context of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition where bowing is related to ideas of taking refuge.

[21:47]

Also the kinds of things you say together with the bow that's related to creating new pathways in relationship to the plasticity of the brain. Okay. Borello talked a lot about that. In contrast to what came up here as a kind of experimentation that sounds more like a momentary situation, For me, ritual has a different kind of feeling. I'm not seeing the connection yet between this kind of bowing and...

[22:59]

Bowing is a ritual in bowing in an experimental way in the context of constellation. So you're saying that Bowing has a ritual definition that doesn't let it fit into constellation work? No, this context of constellation work is very new to me. I can go along with it. But I'm more familiar with it through the context of Tibetan Buddhism. Well, the ritual is used to produce long-term effects in the sense of new pathways.

[24:29]

How would you say? Yeah, almost like neurological pathways. Can you give me an example? Can you give me an example? It's almost the rituals I have in mind it's almost there is a they're interchangeable because it's because it's I mean, that it is about, for example, in these attempts, where one makes a point that one can be persecuted for years,

[25:48]

I have to do it in smaller segments. I can do it in any segment. So these experiments were shown scientifically that through bowing, certain areas in the brain are stimulated, or other meditation practices which affect certain areas in the brain. . that you as an adult can really change something that you didn't change in the last few years.

[27:09]

Experiments that demonstrate that even as an adult you have the ability to change certain things that is now scientifically demonstrated that that's possible. So, like in contrast to watching TV, watching TV is a certain kind of pathway, and then in contrast... It turns the brain into plastic. I just had the image that people are... The plasticity is out the window. Get up from the TV and your plastic brain and get work on your plasticity.

[28:19]

Okay, so are you suggesting that because bowing redefines the body in some way You can use the openings that are created to inject certain teachings or views. Both the body and also the mind or the brain. Well, I don't exactly know the differences you're speaking about, but in Zen, in contrast to Tibetan Buddhism,

[29:44]

You don't add anything to the physical acts. You don't add anything to the physical acts. So, in other words, when you do meditation, you do add, don't move. But then never, some people do, but generally, conceptually, you never do guided meditations. And you never do, well now you do this stage and then you realize that stage, Zen does not do that. So that's of course my tradition. But it's also conceptually different.

[31:06]

Zen, in this sense, is what you're pointing to, I think, is a significant conceptual difference from the whole rest of Buddhism. Zen is an evolutionary teaching and not a developmental teaching. So if you give a staged or guided meditation, it assumes you know where you're going. So Zen never assumes it knows where you're going. You discover where you go, but you don't know where you're going.

[32:09]

That's also a weakness of much of Zen, just so damn boring. Because no one knows what they're doing. So... In this sense, Zen is evolutionary in that it assumes all forms of Buddhism from the beginning assume the plasticity of the mind-body. Even Japanese culture assumes the plasticity of the body and mind. For example, they say the more complex you can make the language, the more complex you make the brain.

[33:23]

That assumes the plasticity of the brain. So when MacArthur wanted to simplify Japanese... The Japanese knew what was going on, saying, don't mess with our brains. You know, General MacArthur, that was a pilot girl I know. That was a pilot girl I know. Or, for example, the recent reintroduction of the Soroban, or abacus, into Japanese curriculum. Or, for example, the recent reintroduction of the Soroban, or abacus, into Japanese curriculum.

[34:27]

Because the abacus, you know what it is, right? They took it out of the curriculum because all the kids use calculators. The little row of beads that you move to add and spread. Hmm? And because first you teach the kids at three or four years old, the abacus. And you learn to add and subtract.

[35:49]

But once you get good at it then you put the abacus aside and visualize it. And when you visualize it it shifts your brain functioning to the right brain from the left brain. And Japanese pedagogy assumes you should educate right and left brain. And you can't visualize a calculator. But you can visualize an abacus, or in Japanese it's called a soroban. And they have actual contests and things.

[36:51]

You can say to somebody who's good at this, the word for it. I can't remember. You say some numbers to a person. Man kann dieser Person ein paar Zahlen nennen. 256, 3,742, 182, .7, etc. And they can go up to two or three hundred numbers and they'll tell you the answer. Und die können also zwei bis drei hundert Zahlen so aufnehmen und dann das ausrechnen. It's like an idiot savant or something. This is an idiot savant. But anyway, the Japanese have now reintroduced, at least in some school districts, the Sorbonne, because kids were losing their right brain capacity to do certain things.

[38:04]

So a left brain-bodied and right brain-bodied And plasticity has been an assumption in yogic culture from the beginning. But in Zen, there's an emphasis on without any description of the embodiment. Sometimes we say, when you do a full bow, you plunge into the box, you disappear into the box.

[39:16]

And there's rules about whether the elbows come down at the same time or slightly different. And you lift your hands this way because Buddha is standing on your hands. You don't lift them this way. So there's a refinement of how the body does it, but you don't add any teachings to it. Then where do the teachings come in? That's a good question. We'll leave it aside for now. Okay, someone else. Yes. Yes. It seems to me that both in the questions from Siegfried and Brigitte, this principle was brought up.

[40:40]

It seems to me that Siegfried used the four different ways of bowing as an instrument to differentiate. Brigitte seems to have pointed to a form of embodiment in Buddhism that cannot really be described but only practiced. What's touching me there relates to what you said last night. To join these two ways of entering. And I'm curious how this will happen.

[42:00]

Okay. I'm curious too. Let's see. Someone else. Yes. In relationship to this topic of Tibetan Buddhism. I found a concept, I think, in the writings of Tartan Tuku. He uses the concept of interpenetration. I...

[43:00]

I'm wondering how interpenetration as a concept fits into your concept of inter-emergence and if that's something that's also meant, if you also mean something like that by inter-emergence. Interpenetration is a teaching from the Hua Yan school. And interpenetration is certainly a Mahamaka, you know, Wayan and mature Mahayana extension of the idea of interdependence. But Zen arises also from Wayan teachings. But inner penetration, I think, is often carried too far as a teaching.

[44:34]

It very easily slips into a theology. I think Tartangs, who I knew, ideas are quite good. And they're one of the most clearly described for Westerners versions of Buddhism. But if you carry inner penetration to the extent some people do, it's basically a belief in God. Yeah, because then it's not just that everything makes this possible.

[45:47]

But if you take it so far that everything's included in this, the entire ocean is included in the drop, And obviously different drops of the ocean are different. So interpenetration can become a process of conflation in which everything's included and that basically it's a belief in God. Or something like that. For me it produces more a sense or also an experience of boundaries being an illusion.

[47:13]

Boundaries are just an illusion really. In a particular context. the sense of everything interpenetrates is accurate, I think. But extended conceptually to everything, it's like karma, you know, I pick up this because of something happened in my past, and you know... But I think the practice of embodiment in a constellation is also a practice of interpenetration. This is a very technical discussion. Someone else? Yeah, I'm going to come back to you.

[48:15]

I'm thinking when you were talking about the... You're happy when I'm talking about the five skandhas? die Auffrischungen davon mitbekommen. You heard my rehearsals or others' rehearsals? No, no. First of all, you were talking a lot about my style, so I was interested to come and give you a hand.

[49:17]

All right. It would be very nice to hear your voice again. Yeah, okay. Ulrike? I'm open-ended. Last weekend you presented practicing with these concepts, sensation, perception and conception. ... And the way I understand, I've understood this, is that we're actually, with these words, we're in the territory of three of the skandhas.

[50:17]

The practice you suggested was, you named sensation only. One request would be to maybe go over it again because I wasn't there for Friday in the morning. ... We experienced a situation that led you to develop this practice instruction. Yes. Because the transition from sensation to perception is something that I'm experiencing some difficulty with.

[51:32]

The difficulty with the experience or the difficulty with the concept? To separate. To separate. and the other thing I noticed is that also in constellation work but my professional background is more the body trauma work therapy yeah What does that mean? Oh. Okay. That the process of self-organization...

[52:35]

Self-organization is happening precisely when the client is operating in the territory of sensation and perception. When the percept interferes or the concept interferes? Well, if I do speak about that, which I probably ought to, I probably, as an example, have to use the little story of walking down the hill. Again, if you can stand here. Because it's simple and understandable and it gave me a chance to explain something. Die ist einfach und leicht verständlich und sie hat mir die Gelegenheit gegeben, etwas Bestimmtes zu erläutern.

[54:05]

Okay, so let me first go back to Christina's asking about the... Ich möchte jetzt erst nochmal zu Christina's Beitrag zurückkommen. Okay. Auf Christina's Beitrag zurückkommen. Yeah, since we're exploring this, I won't try to be so complete in my comments. But rather, Yeah, whatever comes up, we can work on it during these days.

[55:11]

So I had the idea of what I called a collaborative concept. And he's decided to use a different term, which is good. Let me say something briefly about it. The sound plays a role, whether it feels round or not, and I find that relatively difficult in this case. So it's about a concept that works in the practice exercise itself, a kind of partner at work.

[56:20]

So we could maybe, that's what I like best, from a partner... ...concept sprechen. Und wir können das auch im Verlauf des Seminars, können sich das weiterentwickeln. Also ein mitwirkendes Konzept oder ein kooperatives Konzept. Und jetzt lasse ich mal dieses kollaborativ fallen und nenne es mal ein kooperatives Partnerkonzept. ... So we're making, first of all, a simple distinction between discursive mental formations and intentional mental formations. And a mind which is a mind which is formed through an intentional mental formation, is not a thinking mind in the usual sense.

[57:31]

We could say it's a mental posture. Okay. All right. So... So if I say that these tantien, these are three tantien, if I say that, that first of all is a concept, a mental posture. Let's first of all say it's a concept. Which can be turned into a mental posture. And it's dynamically different than the chakras.

[58:38]

So both of these assume the chakra system is not how the body exists. Like we have a heart and a kidney. It's a way of describing and activating the energetic dynamics of the body. Something like that. And many Zen teachings assume a five, or usually, but sometimes seven chakra system. But more commonly they assume this Tan Tien system.

[59:43]

Which is sometimes just spelled D-A-N-T-I-A-N. Das wird manchmal so buchstabiert. Can you say it again? D-A-N-T-I-A-N. D-A-N-T-I-E-N. And I prefer, though, T-A-N-T-I-E-N. Also ich meine, ich mag das lieber so T-A-N und dann T-Apostroph-I-E-N. Yeah, okay, tan tien, which is more Chinese. Okay, so in this case, we define the lower part of the body centered on the

[60:45]

centered through the hara. And this hara point is about three fingers or it depends on below the navel or inside the stomach. And you discover this by breathing into this On your exhale and inhale, you breathe into this spot. And so the potential for the hara to develop is there. By breathing into that spot, you develop it. And located in your own body. And by a shift in this... How can I say it?

[62:03]

A shift in... a shift in the location of awareness in the body. When you say, my feet are down there, Or you feel your feet are down there. Obviously, your sense of where awareness is located is up here. But as long as you feel your feet are down there, you haven't realized hara.

[63:10]

When you feel your feet are just like your shoulder or anything else, they're just... They're all everywhere. And this sense of the shift in the lowering of awareness in the body, the lowering of the location of awareness in the body, Which is a re-articulation of the body for us. Occurs over some time through regular meditation.

[64:16]

And can occur intentionally to some extent. But it mostly occurs through a process. I mean, now we're really talking about Buddhism, not psychotherapy or psychology. Is the circular movement of the breath out and then feeling like it comes up This circulation becomes this... conceptual, this actual circulation of the breath, but conceptually visualized as if it was entering from Ling and moving up and then out.

[65:28]

becomes the conceptual basis for a movement we can call a subtle breath, but it's not really breath anymore. Which begins to move your bodily energy up through your body, over and down this way and the movement is always this way. And as that develops, your back relaxes in some kind of way. and often a kind of heat will start moving up through your back and sometimes your back will turn into kind of pimples will start appearing on your back as the heat moves up your back And eventually this whole area here starts to itch and tingle and so forth.

[66:59]

And this is a development which takes a little while. of hara. And it also becomes a kind of conceptual experience as the whole body is an oval egg. in which the boundaries extend into space and is sometimes called the Dharmakaya, the space body of the Buddha.

[68:00]

Now, this is much more than I... certainly ever intended to say. But my main point is here, This is not the way the body is, it's an articulation of the body that's a potential of the body. So not only assuming the plasticity of the body, Maybe we can assume the facticity of the body.

[69:03]

In other words, the body, the way I'm using the word, can be factually changed. The facts aren't permanent. The body can actually be changed. The body can... So, now let's just go back to the tantin. You begin to locate this spot. And most people that I see who don't practice meditation have a triangle here.

[70:09]

and they function within this triangle and they feel their awareness within this triangle and they support this triangle with their shoulders And you need to dissolve that triangle. And let your stomach and so forth drop. Not drop this much, but drop. Drop. I remember for years I kept thinking, I could feel my stomach needs to let go.

[71:10]

But it was just built into my mentally structured body. And one day after, I don't know Four years or so of practice? My stomach just went... It was like a huge load being dropped out of a truck or something. And then my back changed. It became soft. My hands and feet are always warm. These things happen through meditation.

[72:11]

So you're redoing your bodies. No, but there is also this conceptual relationship to the process. So what I noticed, for instance, if I try to use the process which I described yesterday in the three absorptions. And I try it with anything, the lamp in my room, the wall, or, you know. So I first concentrate on absorbing the lamp, let's say, with my lower tantrum.

[73:26]

Sometimes it shifts on really concentrating on absorbing it with the thoracic part of the body. Because that sometimes seems easier. And then I shift back among the three. And instead of thinking it, I'm just trying to, as much as I can put it into concept, Instead of thinking it, as much as I can put it into concepts, I'm just trying to feel something with this part of my body, or absorb it.

[74:27]

But it's the head, but I'm not thinking. Or I try to absorb or feel with this part. Or I try to absorb or feel with this part. Now, if I do doksan, for instance, where you see a person one-to-one, I find that the person may cue one of the tantians more than the other three. Or if I establish my attention in one of the tantians, it then tends to establish the person in front of me in that tantian. And if I shift during a conversation the emphasis to a lower tantrum or whatever,

[75:35]

It shifts their conversation right in the middle. They change what they're saying. So this is a process of embodiment. and an articulation of embodiment, which can become literally a bodily language with others. And it also will help develop your meditation. But if you're not particularly a regular meditator or something, I think you'll find, go into H&M. Yeah, and the first clerk that comes up to you I do this all the time.

[76:58]

Put all your energy in your in one tantrum and not the other. If you do it right, you can turn the clerks into the most friendly people. Then they suddenly feel physically at ease. Then they suddenly feel physically at ease. And bodily accepted. And bodily accepted without comparisons or criticisms. So, yeah, like that. So you don't have to be in a therapeutic situation, you can be in any situation.

[78:04]

So you asked how the Zen people actually practice it, but this is one example. Okay. So that's a sufficient response to your first, for now, Okay, now the five skandhas. So let me just say very briefly, because we should break for lunch. Let's just describe the five skandhas as a way to notice... Notice the experiential body. Okay. So first of all, and that's consciousness.

[79:07]

And it's usually the fifth, but let's start with consciousness. And let's use this as a way to enter meditation. You're usually starting to meditate, at least consciously, from consciousness. So you're sitting down in a posture which isn't necessarily tied to consciousness. And your...

[80:09]

as when you go to sleep, you're lying down in a posture that's not tied to consciousness. I love it. Krista told me her aunt is 93, is that right? 96. And recently she took to her bed. She took to her bed. That means she just stays in bed. And as I understood it, you go by and when you visit her, you say, how are you? And she says, I'm happy, I'm in bed. Is that right? Something like that? I'm happy, I'm in zazen. Okay, so the posture, we don't sleep standing up usually unless you're a horse. Normally, you won't have to lift one hoof.

[81:34]

I like it. You have to rest this one and then you switch. Anyway. It's easier with four legs than two. So we sit down in a posture which allows consciousness to subside. And you, after a while, learn to let yourself slide into associative mind. Which I always have to say, Freud discovered mind of free association, where his clients knew themselves differently than they knew themselves in consciousness.

[82:49]

So we could call it a field mind. And in contrast to the more linear consciousness, you create a mind that's field-like. So often when I'm talking with you, I... locate my mind in a particular and then I open it to the field and then I locate it to a particular and I open it to the field. And if I establish then a non-conscious field mind of associations, I feel something about like what I should say next, which I couldn't discover in consciousness.

[84:13]

Okay, then I can slide out of something like that, field mind, into percept only mind. A mind without associations, sensorium only. As I say, you hear the bird, but you hear your own hearing of the bird. So you don't experience... primarily the object of the senses, you experience the senses themselves.

[85:38]

So sounds or smells or whatever activate the senses, but not as objects, but awakens, something like that. And this is in contrast to the first, the thinking mind, the field mind, now you have a bliss mind. When really the sensorium only arises, there's a feeling of bliss. Now, from the point of view of Zen, it's very untraditional that I say that.

[86:47]

I don't want to tell you the plot. I don't want to make the shoe fit. The bliss fit. You might discover it. I don't want you in a position, well, I'm not feeling bliss yet. So I'm violating my tradition by giving you a program. What? Anyway.

[88:01]

Okay. Then you slide out of that mind into... non-graspable feeling. Which is a mind of pure awareness. Yeah, and then you shift into a mind of sensation only prior to concept and percept. And that's a mind of an equanimous mind of pure connectedness. So beginning to discover the five skandhas, which are actually quite independent modalities of mind,

[89:15]

From which consciousness is also, in a stage sense, built. And consciousness tends to take over, particularly I think in the way we function in the last few hundred years. intends to suppress the other modalities. But if you get to know them well through meditation, you know them in the sense that you have a mental and physical feel for them. Then you can bring them into your daily activity.

[90:40]

Okay.

[90:40]

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