Yes, please. You spoke about vertical and horizontal, and then about mind and consciousness, and this back and forth. It's a kind of seesaw. Do you have seesaws? What do you call them? Well, the seesaw is a... The concept is like... You know, I've said in Zendo, where you sleep is where you sit.

[01:04]

And that concept is identical to basically why Japanese houses, you sleep and are conscious in the same rooms. So this concept of the interplay and interweaving of mind and consciousness, is not only carried out in the Zendo by having a meditation seat large enough, at least for some people, to sleep there as well as sit there. The schedule for the three months and the way in which you relate to the others during the three months can be understood as an interplay of arising out of

[02:35]

encouraging an interplay of mind and consciousness. One nice thing about this Shadil location for our seminar Although it's a fairly modernized, nicely fixed up compound of buildings, it still has the flavor of a timber-fraying building. And what is one of the differences of a timber frame building from contemporary wood stick framing?

[03:57]

A timber frame building is usually built by a few people or even by the people who live in it. Now bringing up this as an example, is my attempt to find a mosaic or collage of examples which give the feel of a different time. Different time. A different kind of time.

[05:12]

Because when a few people build a building, it has the flavor of them working together to try to build it. When it's built by contractors and all the supplies come from Siberia or some place. It's built in a different kind of time frame as well as wood frame. Now I'll try to come back to that point again, but I don't want to... Just because Tom asked me this interesting question, I don't want to fly off into another lecture.

[06:20]

But I haven't forgotten because you have the vertical support of that column. All right, someone else. Yes, Suzanne. I noticed something and you said in the beginning that you're entering with us into a discussion. I know this expression of yours but I think today I grasped or understood something For me it felt like being in resonance

[07:48]

Something that is like an innermost request which starts answering. Another kind of time. Yes, go ahead. So it gets into movement and finds word constructions maybe. That was one thing and then something else I noticed.

[09:12]

I noticed that I closed my eyes. Which before I usually didn't dare doing. Because I thought in this eye closed posture I would fall asleep. And I had to be awake. Very awake. Conscious wise. Yeah. Sock it to me. Now I dared bring this to a different level. And there this swinging arose. And shoveling. Seesaw?

[10:33]

Schaukeln oder schaufeln? Schwingen. Yeah, okay. You said shovel. Because it's similar. Not shoveling, the seesaw. Seesaw, yeah, swinging. Seesaw, yeah, swinging. Yeah, that is swinging. Sehr gut. And this is very blissful. Oh, good. I don't mind creating a little list. I know it's selfish, but you know. Selfless, selfless, selfless and selfless. Anyway... Yeah, if I can enter with you into your inner discussion, then that inner discussion will continue after the seminar.

[11:44]

And then I don't have to feel so badly about seeing you go away because I know I'm lurking and hiding in your inner discussion. Swimming along. Someone else. Yes. Since a long time I am interested and occupied with what is my innermost request. I am in search of it. And so far I've always only discovered what it's not. That's a step in the right direction.

[12:50]

Now I ask myself if there is perhaps a wrong way of searching. Now I'm asking myself if there is a wrong path of search and I've taken that. or if I have a kind of image how that's supposed to feel when I found my innermost request and that makes me doubt and that makes me despair up to almost a fear

[14:02]

Almost getting sort of frightened of sitting. Yes, it can be like that. Yeah, it's a kind of sad. But the question you're asking is more, you know, it's like for a doksan situation, right? I can just be specifically with you. But it is important of course, as I said, to notice when it's not. It's not what. When you notice it's not what you want, it's not your innermost request. And notice that it's not and have the courage to not pursue that path anymore. But also, you know, again, just to jump a little bit, I'm emphasizing the extraordinary difference between the vertical and horizontal.

[15:32]

And dreaming mind and waking mind. And this posture, a sitting posture, which attempts to join the vertical and horizontal posture. Yeah, I'm emphasizing how powerful this is. But at the same time, it's still only a posture. And maybe one of the things we have to do in Zazen is use the posture first of all to get strong enough to be there for whatever happens.

[16:39]

Because there's no question that if you really seriously begin to bring your life into zazen, And Zazen is about shifting your worldview. Then it's going to be scary. Yeah. So that's as much as I'd like to say right now. Anyone else?

[17:43]

Yes. What is your name again? Beate. Beate. Ich wundere mich etwas über... I'm a little bit surprised or wondering about the choice of words with request and inner discussion. I am a newbie because I got to know Zazen only at the beginning of this year and how I got to know it There is less a request than a research, which I experience here. And the experience that I immediately experienced during the first sequences in the Sendo was that the truth for me, the moments when I think, yes, there it was,

[19:03]

So for me the sequences that happened early on in the Zendo was the experiences of not thinking and no words. Before I put so much power into energy into thinking what I want and what I should be doing and so on and I found this so that it didn't need any words, that what is happening with this posture. I didn't understand and recognize it, it was there.

[20:13]

So then something that happened to me in one of the sequences, it wasn't like a recognition from recognizing, but I call it a re-feelness, because it was about feeling what suddenly was there. Yes, and that's why I think we talk so much about talking. We talk so much about talking. so for me this sort of goes passes by this what I've experienced as so unique or special in Zazen okay are you going to be here till Sunday? Okay, why don't Sunday afternoon you ask me the same question?

[21:16]

And we'll see if we've touched on it in... Because, you know, in my attempting to enter your inner discussion, And I could say your inner noticings, connoticings spelled with a K instead of an N. A noticing which is a knowing. Yeah, I mean, wouldn't I do a seminar?

[22:18]

And this just... I never did seminars in America. But when I first started coming to Europe in 1983, and... Germans, Europeans, but Germans and Swiss and Austrians went to seminars every weekend. Psychological seminars, yoga seminars, etc. Shouting, screaming seminars. What was that called? Scream therapy? Yeah, we had them sometimes in the next room. Fifty people screaming at once while we're trying to do Zazen. So, you know, in that context, I could have said, okay, we'll have a weekend of silence.

[23:30]

But no one would have come. I can be silent at home for free. But if I say it's a sashin for a week, then I can be mostly silent. And I probably give more individual lectures in a weekend seminar than I do in a seven-day Sashin. And so those of you who are coming may come to practice period. Und die von euch, die möglicherweise zur Praxisperiode kommen... I will give less lectures in practice period than I do in a session. No, that's not true.

[24:36]

Da werde ich weniger Vorträge halten als in einem Session. Naja, nicht ganz wahr. In practice period there's a lecture every 2, 5, 7 and... 2, 5. Twice in... Two, five, seven, and nine. No. Anyway, I give about four lectures every ten days. That's the custom. Okay. So, for me, what you brought up is an interesting question for me. And I'm sometimes criticized for these seminars because I talk too much. In fact, I just had a discussion with Andreas about it, and he said, it's okay you talk too much.

[25:39]

He didn't say that, but he was more tactful. But what I've decided to do and as part of lay practice because I cannot talk much when I'm living with the people I practice with. When I'm living with the people I practice with I don't have to talk much. As my wife, she was saying, she thought, well, she'd practice that with me. She didn't say that, but, you know. Anyway. What I've decided... is that because I don't live with you most of you is I try to in a weekend seminar because I probably see people maybe twice a year or three times or once in a weekend seminar

[27:02]

I try to enter your inner noticing or discussion. So the inner debate we have with ourselves, well, this about that, well, what about that, then that means... I try to give you enough material to keep your inner debate going for a year. And that's really true. I really try to do something like that. And some people think it seems like it's successful sometimes. Okay.

[28:15]

So I may be wrong, but maybe you should come to a Sesshin. Anyway, Sunday afternoon I'm expecting the question. So I think that during this seminar, I'd like to speak again in a new way about the concept and practice of time. And those of you who are in Austria know I started the topic in Austria. But right now I think it's the most useful thing I can give you. And that relates to this vertical or horizontal. Yeah, and I made a contrast, and as Tom Paul pointed out, the contrast between consciousness and mind.

[29:34]

And usually I'm making a distinction between consciousness and awareness. So in making these distinctions, I'm trying to give you ways to notice your experience. You've got a horse on the legs there. Yes. Don't fall over. Hey.

[30:41]

Oh. No, not two people have to go in there. It's okay, you're forgiven. Now when you teach a child, which is common for us to do, as we say in English, to learn your ABCs. It's interesting to me in German, you don't have, in America we don't eat pig, we eat pork. In English, we don't eat pigs, we eat pork.

[31:52]

You eat the actual animal, we just eat the name for the animal. You're much more straightforward. Bring me a pig. Bring me a pig. We wouldn't say that in English. And you also, you don't say your A, B. We say the name for A, B, and C, and you say the sound. Oh. Yes, when I spell things for German people, they say, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. So when you teach a child his or her ABCs, Wenn ihr einem Kind sein Alphabet beibringt, oder ihm das 10 beibringt, was macht ihr da?

[33:10]

You're teaching them our Western temporal world. Ihr bringt dem Kind unsere westliche Zeitwelt bei. So when a child goes to school and somebody says, yeah, Greek is the first period. And mathematics is the third period. Ah, period like in the lesson, right? Yeah. You understand, oh, in the morning there will be Greek, in the afternoon there will be, or later in the morning there's mathematics. Now the problem with my trying to talk about this is it's so taken for granted by us that we can't see that there's an alternative.

[34:13]

But this is actually a successional time. And successional time is the activity of consciousness. that there's one thing follows another. So the vertical time or the time of standing up is the standing up in the world of activity in which things happen one after another. It does not emphasize simultaneity.

[35:33]

It emphasizes things happening one after another and each one replacing the previous. It emphasizes It emphasizes one thing happening after another, and each replacing the previous. But actually, if you're studying mathematics, maybe you should be studying Greek and Yukon, too. and they should be taught simultaneously or in some interwoven way now most novels narrative novels occur over a period of months or years But James Joyce wrote Ulysses, which is a rather big book, about one day, 24 hours.

[37:01]

So his decision to write about the simultaneity of one day is a sign that we're moving into another kind of worldview. So if you have vertical time where you have to stand up, and you have to do things, and there's the activity of things, this is called consciousness. And if you want to get out of that consciousness, and it's obvious you do get out of that consciousness by assuming the horizontal.

[38:09]

Another kind of mind appears. Kind of mind. Kind of mind. A different kind of spirit will appear. It will be fully horizontal. It will be an association, not a follow-up. A follow-up spirit or time will make me. Because dreaming sometimes makes a follow-up. But dreams are mostly a kind of inter-holding-like events. You know, I think it's important. It's quite different. Another internet. Yes, another internet. I'll do it. Yeah, it's... But... It's also another part of mine.

[39:12]

But it's also a different kind of guy. So the horizontal bow is another kind of guy. So the horizontal bow is a different kind of guy. So the horizontal bow is a different kind of guy. and not have 100 horsepower and not have simply Simply kneel and sit on the floor. You can lie down in your bed or on the floor. Lie down on the floor or on the floor.

[40:21]

Okay. You can lie down on the floor. No, for, yes, you prefer, um, yes, uh, lacrosse. Actually, probably, you can lacrosse muscles and so you can lacrosse the guts and so on. I've said so. Mm-hmm. And you have to, um, often catch me when And you can... Because... Because... Now the... The... [...] Well, this what am I for? I want to know more about myself or let's say about myself.

[41:36]

What I know about myself. The world when I really need self from consciousness. from consciousness abuse without being abused. Well, I sort of lie in place or horizontal my ass and then I sneak up in vertical horizontal. I mean into the horseshoe. So, I... [...] I imagine titles of the books sneaking into the verge.

[42:45]

Without falling asleep. So, have some zazen. Don't fall asleep. Or, you don't find yourself. Find consciousness. So the instructions... While the basic instruction of IT will close your eyes. Well, the instruction in Sazen is that the eyes should be closed.

[43:53]

Because the eyes are closed eyes. Close eyes. So you keep them open and not too much. [...] So, did you guys just go a little bit left and left about your, your come out here forward? But I, I find out that actually to explore the mind, investigate the mind, you say also to sometimes, yeah. In fact, from time to time, not to have from time to time to have from time to time. But I've come upon a new problem. I do a problem.

[45:07]

It's not that I try to become conscious. I have dark muscles appearing. And I find me a computer in my head. I took a half cup of coffee so people may sleep. I'm sitting like this, but I'm actually looking at something. I have to look because I love to look. I try to get myself back up, and then I want to still look at what's down there. Okay. All right, so we have concept then as a posture. And the mental posture which accompanies the physical is move.

[46:28]

In the second, actually a quite different cult. A different cult. I don't know what to say. Or a mosquito on your landing field. A morse code. And there's a fly. A fly. In your ear. These are all experiences I've had.

[47:36]

These are all experiences I've had. [...] Because if you don't accept whatever is present, you don't accept righteousness. That one is not a piece of tears. Bringst du automatisch wieder Dreck. So simultaneous, so the dreck of such is a kind of institutional trick. The institutional nicht-kratzen is sozusagen ein Wissenanweisungstrick.

[48:37]

And, um, doesn't it? You can't really get the pollution to lose. Sometimes you can actually finish the principles of politics. That's a nice way to put it. That's how it ensues. So he will attract mosquitoes. He will. That is just stupid. That's just stupid. Guys. That's just stupid. And then. And then. Simply. A mosquito. In. In. My. Out. And also, I agree with my own feeling is you become just not and skills. Be conscious of saying, here I am. Is it hot? It's acupuncture flies.

[49:49]

Acupuncture flies. [...] and sometimes you think To really come to be able to not look and not scratch. You know, and not scratch. Not, not, not. Like a warrior. It's like a warrior. It's like a warrior. It's like a warrior. I think you're a warrior because you don't scratch things, is it?

[50:53]

Or if you had to, you'd like somebody who's not. You had to, you'd like someone. What I'm getting at, of course, is ABC1 creates, teaches you a sphere of mind. Mental structures. And the cunt is not exactly real, not meant to be real. The cunt is not exactly real. The cunt is not exactly real. The cunt is not exactly real. So we're really not time to define in Zazen.

[52:08]

It's time to define. Basic. It's time to define. [...] and you use it in practice, then you don't actually have to turn it out of the analysis, but follow it up. in a feeling of simultaneity and what does simultaneity require?

[53:10]

mindfulness awareness awareness We could say it's an attentional time, but not a thinking time. So you're shifting into an attentional time. Because you can't... Simultaneity is all at onceness. And you can't think all at onceness. You can only be aware of all at onceness.

[54:11]

You can only be aware of all at onceness. So a Buddhist culture which emphasizes simultaneity over temporality is emphasizing simultaneity. to say it again, a worldview rooted in simultaneity rather than in successional temporality. A time that stays rather than a time that goes. You know, I don't identify with being an American.

[55:45]

In fact, a kind of early insight, almost enlightened experience when I was young, I was working in a restaurant on Cape Cod between my freshman and sophomore years of college. And I woke up suddenly and I thought, who am I? And I put my legs down on the floor and sat there. I had no idea how to answer the question. And I thought, here I am, about 18 or something, and I can't even answer the question, who am I? So I got there and I thought, well, at least I'm an American.

[56:46]

And then I thought, What the hell is an American? I don't know what an American is. I've never been out of America, so I know of no way to compare. Okay, but one nice thing about America, and I'm not sure there are many, but one nice thing about America, but it's a lot bigger than most Europeans think. The good thing or the country? No, the country. One good thing about America is summer vacation. Really, it's three months long. And it's very different than a few weeks where you take a vacation with your family.

[57:49]

Yeah, it's the time of lakes and trees and fish. And if you study American novels, they're mostly about summer vacation. Because time stops and stays. It's long enough. Summertime and the living is easy. Fish are jumping. And the cotton is high. You know, this is not my career, you can tell. But it really is a time, kids, I don't know about now, but when I was young, summer was when time stopped. there was no pressure to do anything no activities were given to you you were just left alone to do what you want for three months even summer camp for two weeks was an interruption

[59:24]

So we are talking about here Zazen as entering an endless summer. definitely another kind of time. A time when consciousness is released. And when consciousness is released, Now, the way I'm using these words is consciousness is a content of mind.

[60:37]

Consciousness is a content of mind and you're releasing yourself from consciousness And you can begin to investigate to observe, to accept mind itself. which is not consciousness. And when you know big K-N-O-W, when you know something through mind directly and not through consciousness,

[61:47]

You know it in a very different way. You know it as a kind of recognition or truth. So now you're knowing things in a different way than you know them in consciousness, and that knowing outside of consciousness begins to reframe or unframe your life. One thing most, now that's the end of what I want to talk about today. So now just a little riff.

[63:02]

Is that a riff coming? What I just said was a little more than a riff. So now just a little more than a riff. Are you two got some communication going? For her, I want to tell you. Yeah, go ahead. I'm just teasing. May I ask a question? Absolutely. If I have listened carefully, at least I won't talk about it. So now we've come close to circle. We've come full circle. So now I'm going to try it just in German.

[64:08]

Yeah, that's better. Forget about your notes. The beginning question was, it's important to find the innermost request. So the question arose in various ways, how do I find innermost request? Even if I repeat the obvious, All right.

[65:26]

Maybe you better take your notes in English. In a request. Not self, yeah. Yeah. Good. We're on the same wavelength. He's a lawyer. He knows what he's saying. He said it's innermost request. Yes, that's right. And the question was, how do we get there? Yeah, right. And even though I may be repeating the obvious, that's what I've been doing all day.

[66:30]

The answer seems to be through zazen, avoiding consciousness, releasing the conflict. of the mind, focus on mind itself so that you know the truth and thereby come to the inner voice request. Yeah, that sounds okay. Did I get that right? Yeah, you got it right. But it won't work. Yeah, I mean, it's a little too step-by-step. The point is, if you're going to know, if you have this feeling of an inner sense of... inner request the several thousand year teaching of Buddhism is that this request arises from a desire to know the mind and not a desire to know consciousness

[67:42]

So the assumption of Buddhism is you have to find some way to study and know the mind And to awaken the modality of mind independent of at least somewhat independent of consciousness, and independent of dreaming mind. And then you need to educate mind instead of just educating consciousness.

[69:04]

What our colleges do is educate consciousness. And what a monastic or residential practice or a lay practice too is trying to do is educate consciousness. we could say is trying to educate mind in contrast to consciousness and educate in the sense that it means to draw out and that this education in the sense of So mind free of the usual thoughts is begun to be noticed and then strengthened and educated.

[70:36]

And again we know that know that the child who we're teaching the ABCs and 1, 2, 3, 2, the time of childhood is so different than the time of an adulthood because it's a time that stays. Let's say the time of childhood is something like from 4 or 5 to 15 or so. And that time that stays can stay with you your entire life.

[71:45]

It's funny when I come here Andreas picks me up at the train. And he picked you up from the train, too. Did he pick you up, too? I mean, this guy is busy now. No. It's like it was last week when I was here. And some of you I only see in the seminar, so it's kind of like time stays and disappears. Now, what I started to say, the little riff I was going to riff, was people speak about Silicon Valley. And you know what Silicon Valley is, right?

[73:05]

San Jose, Palo Alto, etc. And now people speak about, in Massachusetts, there's a particular street that's kind of Silicon Valley of the East Coast. And it also means, of course, where there's an entrepreneurial, often new computer industry type activity. But when you look at really what pushes cultural shifts, what's fairly well known in Silicon Valley people, is its psychedelic valley.

[74:19]

Almost all the people who put together the computer industry were taking LSD and getting their insights from LSD. And Steve Jobs is an example. He said his creativity came from a calligraphy class with Lloyd Reynolds. He took it at Reed College. What's his name? Lloyd Reynolds. And calligraphy is another kind of mind than letters. Yeah, and he said his style that has influenced so much came out of practicing calligraphy.

[75:29]

And LSD was very important to him. And Zen practice. And he practiced at Tassajara and Zen Center, where I was for years, all of its years, about ten years after I left. It doesn't mean that if you want Hanover to be the new Silicon Valley of Germany, you pass out free LSD. And I organized the first and only LSD conference in the United States.

[76:31]

And that's another story which I won't tell you now. But I never took LSD. Because I'd made the decision, whatever this world is, I'm going to study it through Zazen and not through psychedelics. And looking back, I realized this was a pretty significant decision for me. Because I had the feeling, I really want to see if this works. I don't know if it works. Changing my posture and just not move, God. Sorry, I'm not with you anymore. At that time, at that age, that I could think that changing my posture and sitting zazen would be the way I'd study my life,

[77:52]

I could hardly actually believe that. But I thought I have to give it a chance. I suppose because I loved Suzuki Roshi so much. So I wanted to give him that chance too to see if he could have a kind of Caucasian disciple. So I decided to put all my eggs in one basket. And I knew if I took LSD even once, people would say, oh, he thinks that way because he took LSD. And now I find many of the people I know have really developed the LSD scene. Not all of them, but many of them are still giving the same lecture they gave in the 60s.

[79:10]

They're in the psychedelic groove, but they haven't gotten out of the groove. Right. Anyway, what we're doing here as lay practitioners is looking at a shift in worldviews. And it can be understood as a shift in how you experience time and how you experience space, the two main categories of experience. And I'm sorry, especially I'm sorry to you that I talk so much.

[80:16]

But it was fun. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank.

[80:20]

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