Is there any discussion that was repressed yesterday or not stated? Or is there anything from last evening's constellation? It should be impressed upon us or expressed. I love it that I have no idea what you're saying. I live in a continual mystery when I'm here. Yes. Yes. Is there a difference between placing oneself into immediacy and presencing?

[01:08]

Bringing into the present, presencing. Well, I think you could say, I don't know. I mean, these are just words, right? So you could, I'm sure you could say that placing yourself in a immediacy is a form of presencing. Yes, spouse. This presence is in relationship to emptiness. And does it happen within emptiness? Does it happen in the space of emptiness? Why not? But emptiness isn't a thing.

[02:14]

So you can't have a thing, it happens in the thing of emptiness. Emptiness is a way of experiencing things. Yeah. But I like the word, I don't know, presence in... In English means pre is before to be, before the essence of, essence is also to be, E-S-S. So it's to be in the presence of being, is present. So to be in front of is-ness. Also vor der Istheit.

[03:18]

Isn't that nice? Yes, Andy. Yes. I experience coming together and increasing density also of questions. You mean among us? Yeah. Like, you know, the thing you put a liquid in in the kitchen so that it doesn't go all over the place? A pitcher? No. A container? No. No? It's not a... A sin?

[04:19]

A spout? A spout. What do you call it? Anyway, I know, yeah. We're making the water thicker. I know what you mean. Yeah, narrower, yeah. Faster. Faster. A funnel. And today when walking up the hill, I found a question which brings it, which is the center of it for me, and it's not the question itself, it's the unanswerability of the question. So there are two statements which are in confrontation to each other.

[05:27]

And the one is the universe doesn't exist without me. Thank goodness. And the other is the universe also exists without me. Who says? That liar. Anyway. Yeah, no, I understand. So there's a dilemma. Yeah. Yeah, I feel that, you know, and some of you have pointed it out, I feel, and some of you have pointed it out, that this seminar has maybe more practice emphasis than in the past. dass dieses Seminar eine stärkere Praxisbetonung hat als in der Vergangenheit.

[06:42]

And if that's the case, the increasing density, or as I say, a-tensity, would, there's no such word, but anyway, a-tensity, would suggest that. Und wenn das der Fall ist, dann würde die zunehmende Aufmerksamkeitsdichte, und das Wort a-tensity gibt es natürlich nicht, würde das bestätigen. Mhm. And so what our job here is, if we notice this is, how do we enter into the increasing density? Okay, so someone else? Yes. Today during meditation I got the feeling that emptiness is connectedness.

[07:51]

And within this feeling, while feeling this connectedness, I felt this enormous and boundaryless tenderness. Yes, emptiness is the outcome of a teaching of interdependence. No point you can grasp there. So, What you are pointing out, Hiltud, is that it's also compassion.

[09:13]

Okay. I'm using in my own thinking the term, phrase, relational time. Because if I just use the word time, it sounds like this big abstraction of Einstein or something, space and time, etc. So I would, because time is, we could say that simultaneous relationships are space Successional relationships we could call time.

[10:38]

Okay, so, and Buddhism emphasizes the vastness of this complexity. Not the eternity of time, but the vastness of time. So if you were involved in Buddhist practice in the time, in the chanting and in sometimes koans, they speak about a kalpa. And sometimes it's translated as an eon. But eons or eras or eons are mere seconds in relationship to a kalpa. A kalpa, one definition of a kalpa is a bird flies over Mount Sumeru or Mount Everest with a piece of silk in its claws.

[11:56]

And it draws that piece of silk across the top of Mount Sumeru. Once every hundred years. And when the mountain is worn to the ground, that's a kalpa. So a short kalpa That's a long kalpa. Also, what is a short and what is a long kalpa? Well, I'm trying to tell you. I just told you what a long kalpa is. Are you trying to calculate? No, calculate. I mean, yeah. The word is kalpa? K-A-L-P-A. I like how exact you are. anyway so a short kalpa is colorfully described you have a hundred square container filled with sesame seeds

[13:28]

And once every three years you take one out. That's a short kalpa. I mean... But it is... relational time. It's not some abstraction of time. It's actually measurable by how often the bird wears down, you know, etc. So it's not really conceptually much. Go ahead. Yes. That's what science calls an operationalization. Okay, fine. But carbon-14 decay is sort of a similar concept. Carbon-14 decay. In pure carbon, there's 14 disintegrations every minute per gram of pure carbon.

[14:55]

And that's an accurate measure up to 60,000 years. But 60,000 years, I mean, that's... Nothing in relationship to a kalpa. Or the Doppler effect of the red shift and the blue shift of stars which don't exist anymore. We could say these are all examples of relational time. It's not time as an abstraction. It's existing outside us. Carbon 14 is time. Red or blue shift are measures of time. Relational time. So So again, the ten times of Huayen concept.

[16:34]

The past, present and future. The past and present and future. And we know that if we look at it as relational time, there's been many histories of Vienna written. chronicling one thing, the life of poor people, or the life of the aristocrats, or the life of the buildings, but there could be endless histories. The history of the Schmidts. And which branch of the Schmitz? And which branch of the Schmitz?

[17:35]

Yeah. Anyway. So, what all we can do, and is the ten times, the tenth time of the YN concept, is this instant, which, if... has to contain all of them. Where else would they exist? But if time is relational time, how are we going to relate to it? Well, clock time is a useful coordinate A useful coordination. And I ended the sitting at exactly 10. Pretty close. Assuming she started at exactly 9.30. Yeah, because there's the magic of 30 minutes.

[18:50]

But We are in a much more complex web of relational time than that. So I tried to point out some ways we can notice relational time. And you may find some of these useful and you may want some different ones. Und ihr findet vielleicht manche davon hilfreich und vielleicht wollt ihr auch andere haben. There's no fixed, you know, this is, I'm just telling you my experience in the context of Buddhism, but there's no specific Buddhist teaching like I'm telling you. Und ich sage euch einfach meine Erfahrung im Kontext der buddhistischen Belehrung, aber es gibt keine buddhistische Belehrung darüber eigentlich.

[19:58]

It's such a vast situation, we can make it up as we go along. Through your own usefulness of it in your own experience. It's Buddhist in its emphasis on its vastness. And it's Buddhist in its emphasis that there's no outside structure to it, it's just this. Okay, so one I pointed out was Bodily time, physical time. Successional time as your own body. Your heartbeat. Your breath.

[20:58]

Your metabolism. And also the sensorial time you discover by practicing with a phrase like just this. This is not insignificant. Because the way in which you find yourself located in just this, just this, just this, as Gerhard did yesterday, walking in the forest. He found a pace or rhythm.

[22:00]

Pace is a stretch of a leg. He found a pace or a rhythm. A rhythm is a flow like the Rhine is a flow. And none of these words are quite right, but you discovered, let's say, a pace that felt fundamental to you. And had been fundamental to you as a child. So this is, you know, each of us in different circumstances will have a kind of sensorial pace that we ought to know, I think, also in relationship to our bodily pace, our... body's pace.

[23:01]

So one thing I'm saying is that one relational time to notice is the time that arises through the bodily activity. Okay. And a second relational time I pointed out, but all of these things overlap a little. It is contextual time. And We're here, this seminar is contextual time.

[24:04]

And I think when you do a constellation, it establishes contextual time. And that contextual time has to be honored, I think. Some constellations are long and some are short. That's not necessarily predictable. And I think in a constellation you have to be particularly sensitive to the, do you say protagonist, the person it's about? Protagonist? Representative? No, what are you saying? Protagonist? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But, okay, so that's the second time I pointed out Also das ist die zweite Zeit, die ich hervorgestrichen habe.

[25:21]

Contextual time. Okay, but now we could also then have, I pointed out also, gestural time. Und gestural time is, you know, resonant field time. Like when I sat down next to Andrea. And we created a resonant field which excluded the rest of you. emphasize the resonant field that's here. So a contextual field, a contextual time also may be a resonant field. And the difference would be, if we make a difference, contextual time is limited to the context.

[26:22]

But within contextual time, there may be a resonant field for a the people in the constellation, for example, that continues for days. And as I said the other day, I don't know exactly when, this idea of six degrees of separation, And the amazing way we keep meeting people related to each other. And... Anyway, I think that we can think of the path as a series of resonant fields.

[27:51]

If you take the precepts, if you try to live through the precepts, I'm just making an example here. If you enter into practicing this world view of interdependence without any intention you'll you'll feel comfortable with somebody who walks down the street towards you who has the same worldview. You might say, I notice you're completing every step as you walk toward me. Are you a Buddhist? No, I'm a dancer, and this is the strangest approach anyone's ever made. But I do think something like that is functioning all the time and explains most of the mystery of the interlocking resonance.

[29:31]

There's millions of people and yet there's interlocking resonant fields. One of the strangest, which it's hard for me to explain, let me mention this, is I had a close friend who was Australian. And I wanted to give her a present. And I didn't know what it could be. And a German woman, a painter named her. artist named Ulrike something or other. She's fairly well known I think. Showed up at Crestone.

[30:33]

And she wanted to make a kind of painting from some of the rocks and dirt of the Crestone mountain. And she's gone around the world doing this. She picks a physical location she likes, and she makes her paints from the dirt of that place, and then makes a painting made from that site. So I liked this woman and she stayed at Crestone for a few weeks. So I said, I'd like to see some of your paintings.

[31:37]

So she showed me a particular painting. And I said, yeah, I'd like to give this to my friend. So I gave it to... I bought it and gave it to this woman. And... I said, it was made from a beach. And she said, where? So I asked Ulrika, what? She said, oh, a particular beach in Australia. And it turned out that this was the beach this girl grew up on. And much of her life revolved around what happened on that beach. I thought, oh. And she just sent me a photograph. It's over her, 30 years later, it's over her dining room table in San Francisco.

[32:39]

I sent her the other day, do you still have that painting? She said, yeah, I sent you an instant iPhone picture of it. So the resonant field of Beach sand. I don't know. I'm not saying I'm explaining everything. This is at the edge of the unexplainable. Andy? So I already got an answer to my question. Oh, good. I related it to synchronicity. Yeah, it's a kind of synchronicity, Jungian-like synchronicity.

[33:51]

Yeah, okay, so there's bodily vibrational time And then there's contextual time. And then there's something like intrapersonal resonant fields. Which we could also consider a kind of gestural time. Yeah. And then I also pointed out the fifth, I suggested, was gestational time.

[34:55]

Or ripening time. Or banana and avocado time. The layers of relational time in which we evolve as a person. Yeah. So anyway, those are five within the vastness of what... within the vastness of relational time, these are five categories of relationships we can notice. And I think noticed in a way that we can participate in them and give some things the gestational, incubational time they need, and be sensitive, of course, to contextual time when it's not clock time.

[36:11]

And to be bodily aware of how we are time. Yeah, something like that. So, and it's become the time to take a break. I don't know how that happened. So, I mean, one thing we could do afterwards, after the break, if you'd like, we could have maybe, since we're emphasizing practice a bit, We could have before lunch a review of the five skandhas.

[37:22]

Ulrike, who's not the painter, you'd like that? Please. I've not seen an ear-to-ear smile in a long time. Or maybe relational time can be continued too, since we're unavoidable. The 15th koan in the Shoyaroku begins knowing without speech.

[39:21]

It's called silent discourse. Spontaneous revelation without is called hidden activity bowing at the front gate walking down the hall these have a reason but what about dancing in the garden And wagging the head out the back door. So this is a, once you have got the picture of this vast network of time, which we relate to relationally,

[40:27]

That context puts this introduction to koan 15 into perspective. knowing without speech, without speaking, is called silent discourse. And spontaneous revelation without clarification is called hidden activity. Now, these would both be examples of hidden gestational processes.

[41:38]

Even spontaneous revelation is still a hidden gestation. activity going on in your life. But then bowing at the front gate walking down the hall these are in the context of contextual time or clock time. we can understand clock time as often being contextual time. But then what about just for the hell of it, dancing in the garden? Or wagging the head out the back door? This is asking what kind of actions aren't in this causal web of time and just appear.

[42:51]

So it's an introduction to a rather well-known koan in which Yangshan, who studied with Guishan, And Yangshan is coming up from the fields. And Guishan says, where have you been? And Yangshan says, in the fields. And then Guishan says, how many people are in the fields? And Guishan doesn't say anything, he just stands with his hoe.

[43:52]

And then Guishan says, on South Mountain there are many people gathering tea or something. So this is... a case in which you in which different levels of activity are being exemplified. And expressed. Okay, and it's said in the koan somewhere, Gui and Yang, Gui Shan and Yang Shan. Gui and Yang, a guide for a thousand years. Gui Shan and Yang Shan are guides for a thousand years.

[44:56]

So this is like a koan or a relationship you can wear, like the poem. And these Tang Dynasty Chinese Zen practitioners are part of our if you're a practitioner or part of your identity. So here's another example. We have a 2,500-year lineage. Which 1,000 years of it, we don't, in the first 1,000 years of it, It's kind of made up who studied with whom. But there was a clear passing of a worldview and teachings like the five skandhas during that thousand years.

[46:10]

And the next 1,500 years bringing it up to our day is an actual pretty historical person-to-person lineage. So here you have, in the context of this vastness of time, ten past, present and future of the past, etc., How do you locate an identity throughout, in this case, 2,500 years? And if you were in the practice, what exactly was going on between Guishan and Yangshan becomes something that's going on with me and you right now.

[47:37]

And one of the most basic and continuously presented teachings is the five skandhas. And no one wrote it on the board for me. I'm teasing a little bit. Oh, I've done this so many times with you.

[48:45]

Or with somebody. Consciousness. Associative mind. Much as Freud's teaching pointed out. Except only mind. Non-graspable feeling. Okay, so I can say something here in five minutes or five months.

[49:49]

but let's keep it short. A short kalpa. Okay. Consciousness of course is, we can look at this as a way of practicing entering zazen. In other words, this is a concept of the self which doesn't include the concept of the self and is conceptually thought to be inclusive of everything that happens to us. Everything that happens to us happens in one of these categories. And if we see that when we investigate that, then you can begin to see the relationships between these categories.

[50:58]

And you can begin to see the independence of the categories. Okay, so naturally enough, if you're going to practice Zazen, you probably get to the Zendo in consciousness. So we're starting to sit down in consciousness. And you begin to release consciousness. And releasing consciousness, you enter a kind of wider mind. not organized or edited by consciousness. And there's just associations. Related and unrelated associations.

[52:14]

Maybe spontaneous revelation without clarification. And it's a kind of hidden activity that you start to notice. So I would say that probably most people when they're doing meditating are in associative mind. Imagistically or conceptually. They're coming from both sides. Imagistically or conceptually. Images, imagistic images. Also in Glingon or? Conceptual. Conceptual.

[53:18]

So you have conceptions coming up, you have images coming up, and you have the space between and around the images. And it's a fruitful time of meditation. And more and more the space between, distance between, distance space around between the images or conceptions, thoughts, are bigger and bigger. And you feel you're in a space, mostly a space and not so much the associations. And some associations then you can begin to explore by bringing a certain kind of attentional density, I call it density, a certain attentional density to a particular image or concept.

[54:31]

And such an image or conception or thought will often open up like, you know, iconic Chinese box, one in another, one in another. So like the experience we can have of a dream being within a dream being within a dream. So you, in other words, what happens in this first stage of Zazen It's not just the field of associations that arise from your day and your life and blah, blah, blah.

[55:35]

But by shifting more to the space of mind, away from the images and concepts, etc., Certain concepts or images sometimes self-select, if that makes sense, and become very vivid. And by allowing attention to rest wherever it happens to rest, you can sort of half allow and half choose, like in lucid dreaming. Which image to explore.

[56:45]

And sometimes just like looking in a telescope in the wrong end. And sometimes the usual end. And you find things that One particular thought or image is often, it seems like an infinite number folded in together and you can begin to unfold. So this becomes a very useful territory to explore how the mind functions. So after a while you become very familiar with how the mind functions. And you can feel in ordinary circumstances with something comes up, a person, an idea, a feeling. that it's loaded with layers.

[57:55]

And so, in a way, the practice in zazen of inassociative mind shifting to the field of mind becomes a way that, for example, right now I might shift to the field of mind without noticing you all as relationship with each other and not noticing you as particularities. So in that field of mind which is present right now, I'm used to the experience from the field of mind of associative presence in zazen.

[59:15]

And as Adi said, the musicians who get really good at it practice a lot. I think based on studies done at Harvard in the 70s or 80s in which they studied how much people practiced. And then that smart young man named He's written a book on Proust and on Blink. That guy based his book on the Harvard research done in the 70s or 80s. In any case, then somebody comes up with this 10,000 hours

[60:17]

But it does seem that something like that happens to achieve mastery. So there is definitely an incubatory gestational process. And as discussed with Christina a little bit ago at the break, I think the idea of gestation connected with gestating a baby is only from the 1500s. The word gest means to carry, to ride a horse or something like that, to be carried. So I have a watch here, which I've been using recently. Given to me by a friend who I was in the merchant marine with as a job in the

[61:40]

Gosh, late 50s. Before all of you were born. Well, maybe not Horst. I don't know. Anyway, we were walking through San Francisco and he saw a store which had watches and he said, I'll buy your watch. And then he bought it and he had our names put on the back. So our two names are there. So it kind of gestates with me. I'm carrying it. And we went past a shop and there were watches and he said, I'll buy you a watch. And our two names are on the back of the watch and now I wear this watch. Okay. Yeah, and all I'm saying is it makes a difference that I've been doing this for 55 years.

[62:52]

Something happens when you just keep doing it. And as I said the other day when I mentioned something similar to this, I said I always am a little embarrassed when I say that because after 55 years I should be a better example. But as Dogen would say, I have my Dharma position. Dogen has this phrase, Dharma position. which is conceptually woven with the only time you really have is this time. So each moment is your dharma position. And your time of taking responsibility for how you exist and how you exist with others and how you exist within the embedded environment.

[64:14]

But if you do, sit zazen regularly. And the regularness is a big, you don't do it when you want to, you just do it when you want to or not to, want to or not, for 30 or 40 minutes a day at least. How many minutes? Seventeen. How many people are in the fields? So somehow, again, if you do it when you want to do it, it doesn't have much effect on you. Then it's controlled by your self-person. So it has to occur outside of your usual time. let's say in your fundamental time so you schedule your fundamental time as well as your clock time and after a while you just get really familiar with how the mind and body work

[65:53]

And that mostly happens in associative mind. And part of associative mind is the experience of the field of mind in which the associations happen. So, you know, I'm not a student of Freud, but I would say that Freud seemed to, if I know a little bit, emphasize what the associations are, not the field of mind in which the associations occur. And Buddhism is clearly interested in all of the ingredients, and one of the key ingredients is the field of mind as well as the contents of mind. Again, as we spoke in the last seminar last weekend, this experience, a detailed experience of a field of mind and a contents of mind,

[67:04]

And now that you recognize these are two experienceable categories, you can shift your location from one category to the other. You can shift your identification from the contents of mind to the field of mind. in your ordinary activity, not just in sasana. And then when you shift your attention from your sense of identity and location from the contents of mind to the field of mind, This is a very simple shift, a very conceptually simple shift. But the consequences are immeasurable.

[68:25]

One of the first things that happens after a while the contents of mind now don't arise primarily from your karmic circumstances. The contents of mind now arise from the field of mind. And when the contents of mind are arising from the field of mind, the relational dynamics of the contents of mind are very different than when the contents of mind arise from your karmic circumstances.

[69:30]

So it is, we could say, in Western terms, a psychological process of Was that little riff understandable? Okay, so that is a fruit of the shift from consciousness to associative mind, which allows a shift from contents of mind to the field of mind. And then the third, whether you count from the bottom or top, The third skanda is percept only mind.

[70:35]

And here is when you really start experiencing samadhi. And because each percept arises As your experience. Without associations. And now the space of mind becomes blissful. And you begin to be in a state of mind where in ordinary circumstances, everything has a kind of shine and beauty and a feeling of blissfulness. And Dogen would call this a Dharma position. So consciousness is a dharma position, associative mind and so forth, perceptive is a dharma position.

[71:57]

So although these things relate to each other, And as a shift from consciousness to associative mind, etc., each one is also its own realm. And as we well know, for most people, consciousness is the primary realm they know. And by beginning to know associative mind and perceptive mind as physically real as possible, as physically and experientially as real as consciousness. It begins to transform consciousness. Because you feel the ingredients which make consciousness.

[72:58]

But because consciousness is like an accumulation of these ingredients. But we don't usually see the ingredients from which consciousness has been cooked. So once you experience these, you begin these other four skandhas. Isn't it great? Her back is turned, she knows exactly what's going on. I'm just guessing. So once you start experiencing the

[74:20]

consciousness as not the way the world is, but a heap of ingredients. And these five are called skandhas, and skandha means heaps, the five heaps. Okay. So, first step, the only mind for, I think, Zazen practitioners is the most fun. Und ich glaube, dieser Nur-Wahrnehmungs-Mind ist der für Sasein-Praktizierenden, der am meisten Spaß macht. Alles ist klar und präzise. Die Welt endlich so, wie ich wollte, das ist es. And then non-graspable feeling.

[75:29]

And often this is translated or presented as emotion through the Abhidharma, like and dislike and stuff, and I think that's in the dynamic of the five skandhas a mistake. Okay. And non-graspable feeling is the As I have often said, right now in this room there's a feeling that we can't grasp. It's not in the context of like or dislike or neutral or something. It's just a presence we've established. which was affected when you two came in from opposite directions.

[76:35]

Or it's affected by everything that's happening right now. And the point of view of the skandhas It's the most inclusive thing that's going on right now. Even though it's not graspable and momentary and at each moment it's not only non-graspable but different Still, in my experience, it's where most of what's happening here is happening. Okay. So part of this practice of knowing the field of mind is also not different from entering into non-graspable feeling as the primary dimension of knowing.

[77:56]

And the primary dimension of being with the world, embedded as the world. Now, I've presented this as a way to enter Zazen. And to use zazen as a way then to explore how the mind-body functions. And then that also is part of how we function in the world. There's in no way limited to sitting on the cushion. It's an investigation which continues in your all the activity of your lived life.

[79:11]

Now I can speak about it in reverse. Okay, so I said yesterday we talked about placing yourself fully in a medium. So let's understand that in its simplest form. The simplest form we can illustrate. Yeah, depict. So I step. We can understand that step as form. In other words, form appears when I stay. Form is all these things around us.

[80:31]

Form is the activity of forming. Form is the activity that forms. So we could call being, be forming. We can also think of it as a dermal position. At this moment, The ten times are present. I can consider this my mental posture. I can consider this the entire universe. Or the entirety of a constellation. So say that I just practice with each step is form.

[81:39]

And I feel the life, I feel the floor is cooperating with me. Yeah, so stepping is forming the world. Now, at this moment, I can hold back the other four skandhas. Well, you can't really hold back so much non-restful feeling. But some kind of feeling appears on each step. But you can think of each step as a stepping into a samadhi this form.

[82:47]

As much as possible the other four skandhas don't exist. There's only this big space you're appearing. So you get used to with every step big space appears, form, the first skandha. Now here you're trying to use your body to actualize a teaching, five skandhas. So as you step, you feel this big space, empty space appears, in which anything can appear. One of the teachings of I pointed out other times, but again, like in the Zen do doing a service.

[84:03]

You make each step with a clarity of not knowing. So let's say that Christina is the Mama Buddha, I mean Mama Zen. See, she can just say that without any ego or anything. Okay, so say that I'm going up to the... I know I'm going to the altar. My body knows I'm going to the altar. hundreds of times and I know that there's incense up there and candles and stuff like that and ideally that doesn't show in my posture I stand and I could go any direction

[85:15]

Yeah, I'm getting older and starting to drool down my front. I may start going any direction. Look, I think the altar is a little bit there. I'm waiting for people to say to me, you better stop teaching. So, but still, you do what, and I get to here. And there's a slight pause. Where it's not clear which direction I'll go. Where simultaneously it's clear. And I'm over in my offering sense too. Okay. It's very clear where you're going.

[86:29]

At the same time, it's also you can have a presence that no one doesn't know. So this not knowing mind arises on form. So it's also formlessness. So formlessness arises, the potentiality of formlessness arises. The hidden activity of spontaneous revelation. All possibilities are there, I mean step. And within that mind, non-greifable feeling.

[87:45]

And within that mind, percepts of this. wind, the rain on the roof, etc., can appear. And you feel it appearing. And you feel it arising in this Aum Samadhi of form and formlessness. And then the associations, and then there's consciousness, and then there are new things. But doing the things is still rooted in this form of samadhi. Okay, so that's... There was a fly occupying my seat.

[88:51]

Courteous fly, he moved. So anything anybody want to say?

[90:03]

Make a certain amount of sense? Guni wasn't so sure and then she decided she was sure. But this kind of teaching really depends on a kind of depth of mindfulness so you can really notice these and hold yourself in a certain kind of space, which most people just don't do. I don't know how you could do it without mindfulness or meditation practice. I think you can conceptually understand what I said. but and know that it's experienceable and then you can and the concept as Horst pointed out the other day when he was such a good student

[91:31]

That you make use of the conception and it begins to penetrate your living. And you begin to notice and live this... way of being which has a lot of space in it. Again, anybody? Yes, please. Is this the point of decision or of choice? You mean, can you make a choice about this? Meinst du, kannst du hier eine Wahl treffen?

[92:34]

Ich beschäftige mich auch mit dem, du hast eine Wahl. I'm also always at the same time occupied that at the beginning you said you have a choice. You can decide. Ich erlebe das ja beides. Wir haben in der Kleingruppe gesprochen, eigentlich In the small group we talked about this, that through the connection and through it happening and in spite of this there is a decision. Well, let's say that hidden activity has brought you to be sitting there.

[93:35]

Yeah, for some reason this is your Dharma position. But to actualize it, you have to make a choice. To actuate it, start it moving, toward actualization is a choice. And in some ways that's what's so exciting about it. It's your choice. How exciting. and it requires a certain commitment. Yes. very important little saying.

[94:40]

And it started, if you don't see the path as it meets your eye, how will you know the way when you're going? How do you know when you're going to leave? And the important thing comes now. Humbly, I say to you. You study your history. Humble, I say to you. You study your history. Don't waste time. For you can have time. And it caught me. Every now and then. So I don't know. That's the latter part of the Sandokai written by Shido, who was a disciple of the sixth patriarch.

[95:43]

Now you know the way, don't waste time. Well, thanks for staying. And I have to thank Shido for helping you and me. Okay. He also said myriad things each have their form and function. Myriad things, the ten thousand things, each has its own merit. According to form and function. According to function and location. And that's to empower everything independently, by itself. Everything you. Yeah, okay. Someone else have something to bring into our space here?

[97:02]

Yes. Very often I have the feeling that I'm not able to decide. And just I have to do it. Then I feel like I'm being controlled. that I'm feeling like I would be directed by something different for myself. But I feel exactly these things that are accompanied by the feeling I have to do it. These are the right things or the appropriate things. But if I try in meditation to find access to this source that leads me, and to know what there is to do, I do not succeed.

[98:29]

I cannot... I cannot recall it. Is there the possibility by continuing to practice to find more of an access to that? Yeah, I think many of us sneak up on the decision. We sneak up, get close and decide not to do it. And we sneak up again and we decide not to do it. And then one day we sneak up and we found we've already done it. We don't know when it happened exactly. What's that poem of Rumi's? I knocked and knocked on that ancient door.

[99:46]

And it didn't open, didn't open, I knocked. And then it opened and I found I was already on the other side. It's like that. I'm waiting. We're waiting. Someone else. Yes. Is it possible that this transition from percept only mind to non-graspable feeling can be experienced as frightening? Well, if there's nothing to grasp onto, I suppose.

[100:48]

But it's also a very smooth transition it can be because percept only mind is in the field of non-graspable fields. But really just what I was saying earlier, to be in the situation and allow the feeling of not knowing where you are and what you're doing is itself scary. Okay. Yes, lady. Can you view it like that, that you always at the same time are in all of the five skandhas?

[101:57]

And only the effect or attention is in different points? Yeah, but... The non-practitioner in consciousness is in the sense that consciousness is the heaped up pile of the other four skandhas. But to just be in consciousness without knowing the skandhas would be, from a Buddhist point of view, a form of delusion. Or at least would be experientially very different. It's like listening to a CD instead of playing the music.

[103:14]

Okay. Put differently. Yeah. Do I have to decide in a situation in which of the skandhas I am? No, you don't have to do anything. But it's useful to explore each of the skandhas. Partly the exploration... itself is useful, but the familiarity is useful. The familiarity is useful, just getting familiar with the territory. Yes, Suzanne. I tried during those last 12 months to follow up the chain backwards.

[104:32]

Why? To follow up the chain backwards. Why? and then I try to find one step back what the trigger is. So what Roshi made me think is that when I follow her step by step, step by step. What I did, how did this all come? I never liked more than one or two.

[105:34]

I never liked two or three, never. But I keep trying, it's just very... scatterbrained and that's why. That's what everyone says. That's Suzanne, she's a scatterbrain. And that Baker Roshi is a dumb cop. Well, I think my experience was that, I mean, this isn't something I've done in a long, long time, but I used to, any thought appeared, I'd follow it back. Very quickly it tends to merge into all kinds of things, but I found I could follow it back 10, 15, 20 steps. But, you know, I just did it a lot.

[106:47]

Then you get a little better at it, you know. I've told you the story about the brown telephone. Eva says, no, you haven't. No, you haven't. You know, I had this practice of asking myself questions. And the process of asking myself questions itself was a process. At some point I decided that I did decide on some hidden activity level that always I should be in the midst of a question. So I can always ask myself, well, what question am I living now? Sometimes it takes me a while. Often my seminar topics are a question I'm looking for. But often, if you asked me, I couldn't give you an immediate answer.

[108:08]

But if I explored my actions of the last hour or weeks or something like that, Oh yeah, these actions, thoughts are all rooted in this question. And often this question arose from a whole series of things that suddenly coalesced into the question. So then I would often in those days put the question in the foreground of my mind. And I would literally be asking myself, you know, what's at both ends of the pencil, an eraser and lead? What's at both ends of the pencil, an eraser and lead?

[109:20]

If you find the pencil, you can often find the eraser. So anyway, I would have this in the foreground. And I try to stay with it as a presence and a question, which I'd often mechanically repeat to myself for weeks and weeks and weeks. If I always felt if I can answer, if I have an unanswerable question and I can answer it, this is great. I didn't know at the time but Einstein said the big solutions come from the unanswerable questions anyway I had this question in the foreground of my mind and I was sitting And there's all these distractions.

[110:24]

And I keep putting the distractions aside and staying with the question. And then I remember in this mind there was a telephone over to the left ringing. And in the mind? In my mind, yes. Where else? So I'm sitting there and another distraction is there. So, but it kept ringing. I kept staying with my question, but it kept ringing. So finally I thought, I've got nothing better to do, so I in my mind went over and answered the phone. And it told me the answer. So the distraction was the answer. So you don't know what's the distraction and what's the answer.

[111:27]

I said, who are you? Thank you. Yes. All right, what else? Anything? Should we go to have lunch? Should we sit? Anybody got some good ideas? Sit. What? Okay, let's sit a little. Never harmed anyone. I'm impressed with your full lotus, it's great. I can only do that occasionally in a large tub of hot water.

[112:24]

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