or experiences. Feelings. Yes. I am an important person here because I am interested in the subject, but also Mir ist eben zum Bewusstsein gekommen, dass ich, als ich Mathematik studierte in den Anfangssemestern, ein Lehrer hatte, ein Professor, der sehr brillant alles an die Taten schrieb. So one of the reasons that I'm here is of course because I'm interested in the topics but also what just came to mind for me is that when I initially studied mathematics I had a professor who was really brilliant and he wrote everything up on the blackboard.

[01:04]

After a while I realized that he literally word by word was presenting the teaching book of his Master. He had an eidetic memory. he had memorized it, and that for me was a good reason to know why it didn't interest me anymore. And around the same time I had a professor for quantum mechanics and he was also a crucial figure in the discussions at the time.

[02:16]

And when I saw him lecturing I could see how he was in the formulas. He didn't have a plan. He knew where he wanted to go, but it was coming from the moment. Okay. I hope you think I'm like the latter. And what I can see is that you do have something you want to speak about, but then you just let it come, and that's what I'm noticing, that it's about embodying words.

[03:20]

And maybe sometimes even to be surprised which words come out. I am always, not always, but very often surprised. Inner quantum mechanics. Die innere Quantenmechanik. All right. Thank you, Rainer. Danke, Rainer. Who else? Yes. I don't understand what you say about arrival hinders arrival. And also the example you gave, I don't understand it. I don't see what you're saying. Can you say more about it? No. Okay. Questioning hinders questioning.

[04:21]

No, I mean, after 50 years, that's the first example I've ever thought of, and it didn't work. So, fifty years from now, ask me again. Arrival hinders arrival and you will find that I haven't arrived. I stopped arriving. A very impressive example that you gave about the way to move in the world and to perceive every phenomenon exactly for oneself, for example, color, this is green, there is a car, and that is a certain

[05:30]

I thought it was a very interesting example, what you said about stepping out of the front door, noticing the color, the car, and so forth, and that that is a different way of being in the world, of being in our daily lived world. And at the same time, from my experience, I think that in most people in the cultural circle, the way we see ourselves in the world is not the way it is, but the way it is, which is more of the type, when does the bus stop and when do I have to be there? And that for most people, that's not the way that we are in the world. That for most of us, we think, well, when is the bus leaving? And that we think about the way that time is made into units and that we plan accordingly. It's a much more rational way.

[06:47]

And what you say about Dogen's statement, the way that you're expounding on it, I find that really touching. And at the same time, I'm wondering whether the worldview of these Zen pioneers, whether that's really adequate for the world that we live in today. Well, I... Is the world today the measure of adequacy? I think it's in pretty bad shape. But maybe you didn't say adequate.

[08:10]

Maybe you said, does it work in the world today? That's a quite different question. Buddhism assumes that it's possible to have a vision of the world. and a vision of yourself and to live the vision of the world that may not be the vision others have. It's a dramatic stepping out of your particular world and culture, et cetera, and saying, hey, There's a world where Buddhists can live or something.

[09:10]

And my own feeling is, you know, I'm a pluralist and I'm willing, whatever the world is like, it's okay with me. I mean, it has to be. What other choice do we have? But for me, I think it has to work in the world. I have a very negative view of what's going to happen in the next 100 or 200 years. But I think some human beings will continue. I think we don't think it will work. And so I think that the way to approach it, since because we don't live that way, we think it won't work.

[10:48]

And because we don't imagine we could live that way, we don't think it will work. But I think the only way, but it's worth trying on for short periods of time. Okay. So I take another statement, don't I? Locate yourself fully in immediacy and consider this the entire universe. Okay, so this is from a challenge from the 13th century in Japan. Das ist eine Herausforderung aus dem 13.

[11:56]

Jahrhundert in Japan. What does he mean by locate yourself fully and immediately? Was meint er damit? Verorte dich vollständig in der Unmittelbarkeit. That takes a little while. Das braucht einige Zeit. And immediacy is a good word because it means no in-betweenness. In, no, immediacy, in-between, no in-betweenness. So locate yourself in no in-betweenness and consider this no in-betweenness characteristic of how everything actually exists. Okay. Now I think for most of us the only time we have this kind of experience

[12:59]

is perhaps in Sashin. Have you ever done a Sashin? So in Sashin there's a schedule, right? And you, on the second or third or fourth day, you're not... wondering if you can sit another period. And as you walk down between the cushions to your cushioning if it's really necessary. Oh, the cushions are black. I can see that. See how the floor feels under my foot. So Sashin sort of forces this way of I could say this way of appearing or this way of arriving on you.

[14:24]

But we don't want to depend on Sashin for this. But of course we don't want to be dependent on a sashimi for something like that. So I'm sorry to take so much time on what you said. But sometimes I like to just listen to several and then come back. But this, I think, takes a little bit of a moment or two because it's so important to speak to. I'm convinced at least that if you try it out for short periods of time which you can do it then becomes possible to do it all the time.

[15:55]

And I think one entry to it is the word appearance. From the point of view of Buddhism, everything is an activity of interdependence. ist alles eine Aktivität der wechselseitigen Abhängigkeit. Not a philosophical fact of interdependence, an activity of interdependence. Nicht die philosophische Tatsache der wechselseitigen Bedingtheit oder Abhängigkeit, sondern eine... But a... What did you say? An activity of interdependence. Eine Aktivität der interdependenz.

[16:58]

And... And the word interdependence is not a sufficient translation of what is meant. It's not just interdependent like some kind of machine depends on the different parts. the parts also inter-emerge. There's an inter-emergence. The parts are creating each other in their interaction. So in English I say inter-emergence, but you can say inter-emergence. Also im Englischen sage ich intermergenz, aber man kann vielleicht interemergenz sagen.

[17:58]

Or interindependence. Okay. Now, Buddhism assumes that's how the world exists. And it means that everything exists as a series of appearances, like particles, molecules, atoms, something like that. And Buddhism could be called, more accurately perhaps, Dharmism. And the most simple way to understand dharma is as an appearance. So for us, experientially, these dharmas are appearances. And each appearance is unique.

[19:10]

Because each appearance is new. It's not a repetition. It looks like a repetition, but actually it's new. I mean, just obviously right now. This particular configuration has never existed before. With Ulrike sitting here and Martin over there. And Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. With my saying, Gerald, more or less accurately, this is a completely new configuration.

[20:26]

And it's already different than a moment ago. Now, most of us, because we live in consciousness, which the job of consciousness is to make the world predictable, And if consciousness noticed that everything is unique, it couldn't function. The world wouldn't be predictable. Because in fact, the world is not predictable. I know enough about many of you here to know that your life has turned on many big unpredictables. Illnesses, accidents, love affairs. Okay. So somehow, if you want to live the way the world actually exists, you have to discover a mind in which each momentary sensorial connectedness is unique.

[21:53]

And one of the signs that your practice is working is you find yourself in a field of flowing uniqueness. Not that you just know it intellectually, but that's what you experience. So, first of all, I think it's better to live in the world the way it actually exists, if you can. Okay, now, you also have to live in the world as others have framed it, and you, out of compassion and out of practicality, we live in a world shaped by your culture and so forth. Du musst aber auch so in der Welt leben, wie andere die Welt gerahmt haben oder verstehen oder so.

[23:21]

Und zwar aus Mitgefühl heraus, aber auch aus praktischen Gründen heraus. And Buddhism deals with this problem by saying there's two truths and they're both true. One is the conventional truth and one is the fundamental truth. And just to simplify it, The shared, particularly in today's world now, is we live in a shared planetary time established through the declination of the Earth and so forth. And in that time you can be out of time and late for the bus and so forth. But in fundamental time you can't be late for the bus.

[24:23]

The bus went by. You say, the bus was early. I mean, I'm, you know, the bus was, I know, hell with the bus. Chandrakirti says, you take your own body as your reference point okay so the way I can suggest that for us is we have a sense of being located in our own bodily time As I often say, you can't have no time because you are time. If you say you have no time, if you believe it, it's delusion.

[25:41]

If you recognize that it's just a conventional way of functioning, then you say, well, yeah, in conventional time, I don't have time to get to the bus today. But you're located in your own bodily time. And your experience is, where you are is your bodily time. And then we have the practices to know the organs, the lungs, the heartbeat, the metabolism and to be in the midst of your own metabolism. So you don't want the next two days to be an answer to your question. Or not an answer, at least a response.

[27:07]

A reaction, yeah. That's me. Okay, so let's go back to the concept of appearance. First of all, it's a concept. But you want to turn that concept into your experience. Okay. And so what is an appearance? It takes some time to really get a sense of appearance as a practice. It really takes some time to get a sense, a feel for, appearance as a practice.

[28:17]

And a defining practice that defines how you are. So I can look at Gerald and feel he just appeared right now. And I could feel your presence up until this moment. But when I turn my attentional space, including my body, towards you, Yeah, I mean, this is not... There's a difference between looking at him and turning my body toward him. And so if I look at Gerald and my body is in some... and I feel my spine in some relationship to your spine...

[29:18]

That becomes an attentional appearance. Okay, so if I just sit here and I feel you over there, that's also an appearance. But it's not quite the same as an attentional appearance. So the attentional dimension of appearance is part of practice. And that's what helps move it out of the concept of appearance. Okay, so now when there's an attentional experience of Gerald as an appearance, My body is sort of filled.

[30:35]

I've known you a long time. It's not so difficult to do since 83. But my body is filled with... something that comes, appears between us. So we could say, and part of practice would be, I'm establishing a mutually resonant body. And practice period in Zen, for instance, is to try to get people to get a feel for mutually resonant bodies. Okay. Okay, so then if I turn and look at Norbert, my friend, with the hair down.

[31:51]

Yeah. There's a different appearance. I mean, this guy is different. They're both taller than hell. I mean, they're tall. But this is a different experience. So if I let myself flow into this attentional appearance... You might fall in love if I do this too often. Don't be jealous now. He's even blushing. See, a mutual body, you know, blushing and all that stuff. So this attentional appearance, now I shift back to Gerald, Gerald is different.

[32:56]

Paler, not blushing. Okay. So you have to kind of... Experiment with appearance. Now, when I was in Hannover, I gave a little dance of appearance. It's funny, in English that would mean, it only appeared to be a dance, but it wasn't. But in the Buddhist use of the word appearance, it really is an appearance, not just appears to be an appearance. So here's my little dance of appearance.

[33:57]

Which I never did this dance before until yesterday or something in Hannover. And I did it for Paul and Luna and Reiner. Okay, so appearance isn't just my seeing you two in my sensorium. Which also means in practice you've worked with the skandhas, worked with the vijnanas, and you feel the five senses functioning. The five physical senses. Now, right now, my right hand is on my elbow. My left forefinger is against my lips. This is an appearance.

[35:14]

Okay. I feel it as an appearance and it's like you can do when you go to sleep, you can find various ways your arms touch your forehead or touch each other or your legs and certain postures make you go to sleep faster. Some postures, this is the teachings of yoga of course, some postures flow into attentional spheres that other postures don't flow into. So it's no accident, as I pointed out many times, that Japanese people, Chinese people hold their cups here. This is a chakra. Then they don't put a handle on it, so you can use two hands. That's a yoga culture, does things like that.

[36:33]

And then you might rest it here, you might rest it here. All of these are little chakra shelves. So that's an appearance. And if I decide to get up, I move my leg to there usually. My legs tend to go out of joint when I sit, so I have to get it back in joint. So I experience that as an appearance. It appeared to me with a certain configuration. And then the second one, I lift it, put it down. And I tend to, in all my gestures, the gestures are formed by an experience of completeness.

[37:35]

And usually also a feeling of being nourished by the appearance. And if I change my posture and do things in ways that I don't feel nourished, I don't feel nourished. I feel sick. Yeah, so now I have to get my other leg sort of in front of me. I mean, I could try to get up this way, but I'd probably fall. Oh, I know someone who did that once. Anyway, that's why I mentioned it. So I get my other leg out. And then, since I'm getting elderly and my knees don't work too well, I have to help myself up.

[39:00]

But I stand up into a feeling of, yeah, that's enough. I feel it as a unit. We could call it an appearance. And my feet should be the distance apart of my wrist. Oh, good, I passed the test. I made a decision 50 years ago to always stand with my feet the width of my fist apart. That's a Zen tradition. And as Iyengar, who died recently, said, if you don't know where your big toe is, how can you know God? Yeah, so if you don't even know where your feet are, what do you know?

[40:16]

And then, you know, my spine is quite important in my life. So when I stand up and my feet are there, I immediately feel through my spine at the top of my head. And I experience my spine as an appearance. It appears that my body experiences it. And then I turn. And that's an appearance. Et cetera. Now, there's no different than going out in the street and seeing that cars are blue and the sky is a certain way, et cetera. But when I come in and out of the room, you don't notice. I just come in and I, you know, you might notice I do that or something like that.

[41:22]

But it's not... I don't look too weird, you know, I'm sitting down and so forth. You don't know all that's going on in me. But like when I was just in San Francisco recently and I saw the Dalai Lama, very clear, going on in him all the time. The way he walks on, sits down, looks at people, scratches his head. It's totally a flow of appearances, unique appearances. And I'm obviously not the Dalai Lama. But we share a similar practice that isn't Tibetan or Japanese or American practice. It's a yogic practice of attentional appearance.

[42:41]

And I can live that way and get to the bus at the same time you do. So let's take a bus together sometime. We can have a nice afternoon. Okay, someone else. I promise the next one will be shook. Well, I hope I... Yes, go ahead. When Ralph just started speaking, a word came to mind to me that I happened to overhear as I was stepping out of the train or tram. Yeah. One woman said to another woman, threat in German, a little different.

[44:04]

So threat. And then I was wondering whether I've ever used the word, said the word threat. Because in the German word threat means threat, but also there's the word raw in it. And in the moment when she says that, she is actually aware that at the same time she puts all these things in this moment.

[45:07]

And I was wondering why she is using this word. I was wondering whether she's aware that in that very moment she's bringing all of these implications into the moment. She's placing them into the moment. And I think if I can learn as a human being, if I can learn... I say now more carefully, to deal with what I say, then that could have the consequence that if many do that, So if I as a human being can learn to be more careful with what I articulate, and if many people learn to be more careful which words they use and so forth,

[46:18]

then that could also change, then that could maybe cause a change in the world. Yeah, for sure. And, of course, the more you bring your bodily mind attention into your language, the more all the implications of the word flow into the word. That's my experience. in the words, the attention of the body-spirit flows into the words, the more all the implications flow into the words. I come back to the first part of Dogen. I would like to come back to the first part of the sentence by Dovazov.

[47:34]

Sometimes I enter. Sometimes I enter. And what I would like to share is the choice that we have. I have a choice to bring my body and mind together as a choice. And mostly I choose the choice to separate them. You do? All these years?

[48:35]

Now you tell me. And as well as the choice to conduct the separation work in a way that is practiced, that is practiced, so to speak, over and over again, because I have practiced it for years. And since the choice to separate is a choice that I have habituated myself into, a choice that I've... It's a habit which was a choice and is still a choice but habitually generated. that now I can change that I now can choose to change if you notice the shift please notice the shift which you didn't you wouldn't be able to say what you've said if you didn't notice the shift

[50:11]

Okay. Something else? No, you have to pace yourself. But I can always depend on you. Someone else. Okay, it's about time we should... Do you have a lunch occurring here or is it occurring elsewhere? At 12.30 there will be a soup. That's right now. It's broth right now. It's broth right now. So there will be a soup. No, it's broth. It's broth. Oh, it's not broth.

[51:13]

It's broth. It's a broth about to be brought. All right. Okay, it's a broth you bought that's about to be brought. Thank you so much. Okay, so I guess it makes sense to stop. Maybe after lunch I can try to give you a feeling for what a feel for what would be meant by non-duality. An experiential sense. Okay. We meet back at half past two?

[52:23]

Is that okay? That's fine.

[52:24]

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