I'm very happy to be here with my constellation of friends. And perhaps new friends among this constellation. And of course I've had quite a lot of communication with Christina and Michael Blumenstein. And they naturally enough asked me to say something about what I might talk about. And since the topic is something I'm continually, the possible topics are something I'm continually exploring, I wrote them several versions.

[01:12]

I don't know what version they chose actually. The version they chose is in Deutsch. But one of the things I said in one of the versions was to establish a body of mutual resonance by reconceptualizing the self in the flow of the present. Okay. Now I can say those words. And she can translate them better than I can say them.

[02:26]

But actually it takes a fair amount, it would take me a lot of time to really say what those words mean in the context of the yogic culture. I could also say reconceptualizing the body in the flow of the 10,000 things. Now the word myriad in English is usually translated, I mean 10,000 things in Japanese, Chinese, is usually translated in English as myriad. But as some kind of interesting conjunction, the word myriad in Greek means 10,000. And 10,000 is somewhat different than the generalization many things.

[03:44]

10,000 things are this interactive present right now. It's not a generalization. And Thomas Latke, I believe, yesterday said, in Japan, they don't say, I love you. They say, being loved. And this is really a significant difference. It's a worldview difference. Because instead of a world made up of entities, I and you we have a world made up of activities and one of the things you have to do to really practice Zen with any seriousness

[05:07]

is learn to substitute any concept or feeling of the world as made of entities with activities. And this requires bringing that into your your mental and physical activity. So, reconceptualizing the body in the midst of the activity, the interdependence of everything. And so to feel yourself almost like you're in the flow of situations all the time and there isn't anything else but the flow.

[06:09]

But it's not a flow as continuity, it's a flow as moment after moment after moment. Now I'm not trying to teach you anything or show you anything about Zen Buddhism. unavoidably since I've been doing this all my life I can't help but do it to some extent but my intention is I'm always modeling a constellation in my mind So I'm speaking to this constellation modeled in my mind, modeling in my mind. That the sense of being in a constantly changing interactive situation

[07:23]

It would be essential to be an effective constellation therapist. Also, in some sense, at least I feel everything is a flow of moment by moment constellations. This right now is a constellation I'm trying to speak into. Now, Zen is a teaching, it's a practice, but maybe the main emphasis I should make is it's a craft.

[08:48]

And I think as a craft, it overlaps with the craft of seeing the world in constellations quite a lot. Now I'd like to try to present two things this morning before the break. One is to say something, a traditional approach to moving the experience of continuity into the body. Much as Hayashi-san yesterday was wanting us to do it in how we discovered our stillness and movement. And how well she demonstrated discursive thinking.

[09:57]

From again, from the point of view of entering the world as I'm speaking about it. entering the world of your, our aliveness, your experience of continuity has to be shifted to the body. As long as it's in discursive thinking, you're not in Well, I have compassion for you, but you're not in any sense in the world that I know.

[11:02]

Now you see this vividly when you try to count your breaths in zazen. And you know, you count to three or four and then you start thinking about something. Often you only get to one. I call that the practice of counting to one. But what's interesting is what's so easy to do for a few breaths. One or ten or twenty even.

[12:04]

But it's so difficult to do continuously. Now, why is something so easy to do for a few breaths or a few moments so easy to do, so difficult to do continuously? And my own opinion is My own experience. It's because we, particularly in the West, establish our self-continuity in discursive thinking. We know who we are moment after moment through discursive thinking. This makes us prone to karma, suffering, comparisons, all kinds of stuff. So how can you get attention away from discursive thinking?

[13:24]

Because self-joint attention establishes your continuity. Okay, but attention doesn't have to be joined to self. And I think also what Hayashi-san was suggesting is that you study how attention functions in your aliveness and in your movement and stillness. Because if you can bring in any way the way she suggested, the way I'm suggesting, you can bring attention to the body and to your movement and physical and mental activity. Like water running down a mountain finds various channels.

[14:43]

So if we can take the water of attention out of the usual stream of discursive thinking and keep bringing it back to the body. It begins to find new courses, new paths within you. Now the traditional way to do this in Zen practice. And again, I say it's in Zen practice.

[15:48]

But nothing I'm talking about really depends on your knowing anything about Zen. This is about our individual and shared aliveness. And the recognition that you're in a particular worldview and there are alternatives. And one of the things I'll be trying to do today is present alternative ways to view the body. Because just knowing there are alternative ways changes the way you experience your usual way.

[16:50]

And makes you open to other ways. Okay, so this traditional way is you form an intention. And this is so basic that many of you who I know well have heard me say this before. I'm sorry, but... but sometimes it's fun for me to say the same thing because it feels so different okay you form an intention to bring attention to the breath that's all the key is the intention Der Schlüssel ist die Intention.

[17:52]

You hold, you establish the intention. Du hältst und du stellst die Intention her. You don't worry too much about whether you're successful or not. Du kümmerst dich nicht so sehr darum, ob das dir gelingt oder nicht. If you can forget about it. Du kannst es vergessen. All you do is keep restoring, supporting the intention. Now, this concept of how I'm using intention assumes a worldview of the 10,000 things. Because you're holding the intention in the stream in the flow of the myriad or 10,000 things. The way you might hold a stone or a flower in a stream and watch how it's affected by the stream.

[18:53]

Most subtle things you have to do this way. It's a form of incubation more than a form of understanding. Now, I use the word incubation. So one of the words for the world is 10,000 things. Now, one of the words names, and this is Buddhist. In Buddhism, a name for the world is the Tathagatagarbha. The world is not, nor the cosmos, a thing.

[19:57]

It's a womb embryo coming and going. Now, if that is all there is, the biggest name we can have for things, it's a coming and going. within what is simultaneously a womb and an embryo. So if you can think, feel the world has this kind of fertility of incubation and seeding and so forth,

[20:59]

You feel yourself in the world differently. So you maintain this intention to bring attention to the breath. And of course, attention goes back to discursive thinking. And it's not because your thinking is so darned interesting. It's just that's where you establish your continuity. So it can be a scary moment, more than a moment. People have nervous breakdowns when their continuity is lost. And he's trying to re-establish your continuity, wash the dishes, get a new job.

[22:17]

And here I'm saying, pull your continuity to the breath. And it snaps back. But if you keep holding this intention, eventually it snaps like a gummy band to you. And suddenly, When it goes away, it comes back by itself. And finally just rests in the body. And your continuity is in your breath. And your breath is a kind of alchemical process stirring the 10,000 things.

[23:19]

And the more your breath is settled, your attention is settled in the breath, then, of course, it's your body breathing. As well as your mind breathing. And so the continuity becomes settled in the body too. And the body is in continual interaction with the phenomena. And so your experience of continuity is not only in the breath and the body, you also discover it in phenomena at each moment.

[24:38]

Now, what you are is you have established yourself within immediacy. There's still past and future. But the past is continually inflected by the immediacy. And the future, as they say in Chinese, you don't go into the future, the future comes to you. The future comes to you in a tenual unexpectedness. It makes the way you look at and plan for the future different.

[25:55]

Okay, so that's pretty much enough for that. But let me say, if you do shift your continuity to breath, body and phenomenon, it's a psychological revolution in your life. You've changed dynamically how The functions of self function. And the functions of self are also junctures with the world. So it's through these junctures with the world that we know the world and the world flows into us.

[27:02]

So that's the first thing I want to say before I break. The second thing is, I want to say something about a term I use quite a bit nowadays, mental postures. Now the way I use the word mental posture, excuse me, the way I use the word intention, you have an intention to bring attention. This is really I would more accurately call it a mental posture than an intention. Now this concept, as far as I can find words in English, and hopefully she finds words in Deutsch,

[28:09]

For these worldview differences, mental posture is a very useful one. Okay, now let me give you at least some simple examples. Okay, so you're doing Zazen. And you're sitting as comfortably as you can. You find a posture in which you can feel relaxed and alert. But that's not just a physical posture. It's informed by a mental posture, don't move. Don't move, don't react.

[29:19]

You hear a big noise, just... Okay. Now... We can see don't move as a instruction to develop your zazen posture. But we can also see your posture, your physical posture, as a way to develop the one who doesn't move. In other words, you develop by sitting and holding the mental posture don't move. Now I'm using the word in English, posture instead of position.

[30:29]

Because position is rather arbitrary, it's where something's placed. Weil Position etwas ziemlich willkürliches ist. Das ist, wo etwas platziert wird. And it's an outer placement. Und da geht es um eine äußere Platzierung. And the meaning I'm emphasizing with posture. Und die Bedeutung, die ich hier mit diesem Wort Haltung betone. It's an inner placement. Es ist ein inneres Platzieren. You feel your posture. Du spürst deine Haltung. Now this inner posture of not moving eventually becomes a inner bodily stillness that stays still in all situations.

[31:31]

It might at first first hearing it sound crazy or impossible. But someone asked a no actor, N-O-H, a Japanese theater. A no actor, what's the secret of the art of being a no actor? He said, in the middle of movement to be completely still. And when you're still in the middle of movement, also if you can, if the constellation therapist If she or he can be still in the midst of establishing constellation, that inner stillness opens up the past and future and the present in new ways.

[32:41]

Okay. So you can see that don't move isn't an intention. Let me try to make that clear. An intention is something you do. Usually in English that's what you mean. It's something you do. And a mental posture is just something you hold in place. It's like an enclosure. And within that closure of not moving, you do move, etc., but you're always in the enclosure of not moving, trying not to move, accepting moving, trying not to move. Maybe it's something like a parent telling a child, don't cross the street without me.

[34:12]

That's I think better described as trying to establish a mental posture in the child. That they embody. So as soon as they get to a street, end of the sidewalk, they feel, oh, don't cross the street until mother or father is here. But they're not walking around intending not to cross the street. The mental posture comes up when they're at where they could cross the street. The last example I want to make of a mental posture. For now. Who knows?

[35:47]

I've been sick the last few days, but I'm getting better talking to you. Talking with you. Okay. While I'm speaking to you, I feel the field of you. The all at once-ness of you. And I'm not thinking about you. No comparisons. I'm just feeling the field of you. And it's a mental posture. It is a mental posture. A bodily mental posture. Because I can feel this field, and I can not think discursively about this field.

[36:57]

In fact, as soon as I think discursively, I lose the physical feel of the field. Okay, but the mind is always, you know, as Hayashi-san said again, moving around, doing things, you know, et cetera. So what you do is you... when the mind moves, you bring it to a particular. So I'm just describing something. I feel the field of you in which there are a multitude of appearances, not just the number of people you are, So there's not I and you, there's being loved.

[38:09]

Or being constellated. Okay. And when I shift to a particular... I don't direct that particular. As I release the field, a particular appears. Like your badge, which I can't read. And then I go back to the field. And then I go back to you sitting there with your watch in your hand. I don't know why it went there. That's where attention went.

[39:10]

And so I go back to the field. And then way in the back, that green and the white necklace you have on, I don't try to control the particulars. I allow something to happen through the particulars on their own. Again, this is a practice relating to attention. What is attention? Do you think attention is just sort of a dynamic of consciousness? Well, it can be a dynamic of consciousness. But it's also separate from consciousness.

[40:15]

Not only can I have the feel of the field, consciousness can move to particular, attention can move to particulars, or I can move attention around. within the field and once I have a bodily knowing of attention I can bring that attention or discover that attention in zazen when I'm not in any usual sense conscious Or I can hold the physical feel of attention. As I go to sleep.

[41:20]

And I study going to sleep as much as I study Zazen. More. I go to sleep more often. Well, almost the same. As you go to sleep, there's a little bump you call. And the externalized consciousness of the day disappears into a little dot and disappears into the body. And then... As you go to sleep, you can, if you have some yogic experience, hold that, the physicality of attention over the bum. and then you can sort of be a kind of special consciousness all night long now this stuff isn't new to all of you but it's a rather different world view than I was brought up in

[42:48]

and although I had and what probably led me into practice momentary experiences of these things establishing them as a way to be alive required yogic practice and a shift in worldviews. So I'm trying to stop in one minute or two. Okay. So the field, well, that's not so bad. I started a quarter, I'm doing okay. So the field, the bodily field is a mental posture. To then allow mind to shift to particulars without associations.

[44:13]

Particulars. Sorry. without associations and without comparisons. This is a little more difficult to do as a habit than to bring breath attention from discursive thinking to the body of breath. It's a little more difficult to do than just to bring attention to the breath. But it's a comparable shift. And here you're shifting from a field of mind as a mental posture to particulars that arise without comparison and associations.

[45:38]

Now, if you get in the habit of doing this a lot or regularly, you dramatically change how you know the world. Because you're not thinking the world, you're creating a field of attentiveness That knows the world. That receives the world. Yeah, and it's more like a flow of insights than discursive thinking. A flow of noticings.

[46:47]

And where does this flow of noticings come from? Well, it comes from the immediacy of the phenomenal world. And it comes from the field of knowing the field of knowing the field of cognitions that's been going on in the background of your life since you started to crawl and language the world it's calling forth another territory of knowing uns ruft einen anderen Bereich des Erkennens hervor, das in deiner Erfahrung, als der, der in deiner Erfahrung und der Erfahrung, die mit dem Bewusstsein verbunden ist,

[47:50]

In the background of consciousness, this field has always been functional. So through this little practice of a shift from the field to the particular, you open yourself to this other dimension of knowing. other dimension of experience that is not necessarily consciously related but related to the deep beyond consciousness and beyond self experience. And my feeling is constellation therapy somehow has discovered a way to call forth this field of knowing.

[49:12]

Into a particular way. Into a particular way. Of calling forth the body of mutual resonance. Okay. So now let me suggest a little exercise. I was told maybe I could do this. So maybe just Turn into groups of three. Just turn toward whoever's next to you. And see if you can experience this shift from field to particular. Yeah, three or four minutes. Three or four people.

[50:29]

So what I'm suggesting is you look at the other two or three people in your group. What I'm suggesting is you look at the other two or three people in your group. is that you look at the other two or three people in your group and see if you can feel the field of them. Yeah. In yourself. And also their field. And is there a mutual field to some extent? experiment with that for a few moments or so and then experience shifting to a particular particulars that appear without comparison or association

[51:40]

and see if you can feel that and then go back and forth between the field and the particular and then see how you can move attention around And then when we go for our break, see if you can carry this a little bit into the break. You can keep the physical feel of the field while in conversation, taking tea or coffee or something. That's my suggestion. Good luck.

[52:30]

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