So what problem do you have with anything I said? What problems did we have with anything I said before the lunch break? Yes. I am not very clear about the difference between giving the associations a free space I'm not clear about the distinction between giving a big space for associations to be enforced and to think about things. Do you see that I can notice this without thinking about it?

[01:01]

I can think, oh, that's my bell, that's a bell, that's, etc., I think I want to be careful with it because it's a crystalline structure of metal which makes it ring, but it also will crack if I drop it. That's thinking about it. Scarce, logical, one thing follows another, they fit together. But if I just notice it, even if I'm not looking, and this appears in my mind, I can just notice it how it appears without doing anything to it. Okay, so there are mental formations, but all mental formations are not thoughts.

[02:21]

But just perception only is the third skandha. Yeah. Well, it's... But... But in associative mind, things are arising from the mind related perhaps to the sensorium, but rather independent of the sensorium. In associative mind, the image of a bell might appear. But in percept-only mind, the sound of the bell would appear. So the percept-only mind is limited to perceptual input.

[03:33]

Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes. I mean, I like what you're asking. It's good. Okay, so I perceive the spell. Yeah. Oh, yeah, such a bell I've already seen two years ago in Hamburg. That's starting to think about it. So now what could be an association in that context?

[04:34]

So what could be an example of an association? Well, that could be an example of association if it just appears without your thinking your way to it. That could be an association, what you just said, if it just shows up without you thinking about it. For me, many people take a sentence from Szywion Topa, as far as I remember. In that context, a sentence by Chögyam Trungpa came to mind. Who said that about Zen meditation, you give your cow a large meadow to eat. He's quoting Suzuki Roshi.

[05:52]

And that I understood to be the fourth scandal. Suzuki Roshi doesn't say so. But you understood it that way. Because I wrote that book, sort of. I mean, I edited it so carefully. His book, but I, you know. Yeah. Well, it's really not so important what you designate it as.

[06:54]

What I presented before lunch was a way to notice the mind. We can call it skandhas if you want, but we can use the framework of the skandhas But what's important is you start noticing your mind in this way. And there can be some, you know, well, maybe that's the fourth. But still you're noticing your mind in a certain way. What is the difference? These questions are quite... I like them. So say that I have to give a lecture.

[07:59]

Okay. I might say that I'm going to give a lecture or I'm probably going to be asked by somebody. Please say something about the five skandhas. Or the six skandhas, if you, you know. So I think, well, he made a mistake when he said the six skandhas, but that's an interesting possibility. So if I think about it, I can't figure out what could be a sixth skandha. But if I take a nap, I often take a nap. Or I... Or I... If I think about it, nothing will happen.

[09:15]

But if I feel myself in the mind of free association, the bell I saw in Hamburg might pop up. And I might, oh, a bill in Hamburg popped up. Ah, that's the sixth gun. But I didn't think my way to it. It just popped up. And if I start thinking about, oh, yeah, not only I see one in Hamburg like that, there's a nice shop I like in Zurich, and they have one like that, then I'm thinking, When we speak about it, because we're speaking with words, all of it tends to move toward consciousness, because consciousness is about words. But the more you experience it, the more it's just another category.

[10:28]

I mean, Say you fall in love, right? Happens. Probably too often. I don't mean you, I mean any one of us. Or it doesn't happen enough. And suddenly, I must be in love. It's just a strange feeling. The words are the same, the description's the same, you're still standing on the street, but something's different. You see the same objects, the same street lamps, the same bus, but the bus seems different.

[11:35]

It's taking your cheer away. It's taking your cheer away. And you never noticed that to bus means to kiss. Is that a German joke? So suddenly it's a, here comes that bus, oh. Oh, there comes the bus. Anyway, so it's not exactly like all you love, but it's different in the sense that everything's the same and yet there's a real difference in how you feel. So you can't explore this through words.

[12:37]

You can use words to point at the process of exploring, but you have to let the exploration happen experientially. Du kannst Worte benutzen, um in Richtung dieser Erforschung zu zeigen, aber du musst die Erforschung aus der Erfahrung herausvollziehen. Also wenn wir beide darüber sprechen, was sind da jetzt ganz genau die Unterschiede, dann fängt das an, sich in das Bewusstsein hineinzuziehen. Okay. Thank you. That was good. Danke, das war gut. I just thought yesterday evening, I might have created a construct, how exactly to separate these two scandals.

[13:42]

It was, I think, this associative field or the associative spirit connected with such an idea of pictures, sometimes also word sequences, shortly before the introduction. These are also I mean, she's good but... I thought yesterday to myself that maybe I have made a kind of construct for myself to distinguish those two skandhas, because what I've done is I've somehow linked certain images or words or sequences of words to this feeling right before falling asleep, which is also filled with images and certain sequences of words.

[14:56]

And now I'm unsure, because at least with this explanation of being in love Yes, okay. So I'm a little insecure now with your examples of this distinctly different feeling you are describing, like falling in love or something, because that's something that I've not experienced like that before. I'm sorry. I do see how in the fifth skanda there is the logical things are connected to one another in a logical way.

[16:01]

So I'm just a little confused about that. I'm wondering if in my imagination about this, if there's anything lacking that in order to work with the skandhas that should be present in that. Without a little more conversation, I couldn't tell exactly what the potential confusion is. But in relation to what Bernd said, let me try this. And see if this helps. There's a... visceral relationship between dreaming mind and the mind of free association.

[17:24]

And a bell might be something you think about in consciousness. And a bell might appear in associative mind. And a bell might appear in dreaming mind. But if it appears in dreaming mind, it appeared as sort of a surprise. If you're thinking about a bell, you know why you're thinking about a bell. If you are dreaming and a bell appears, you wonder, where the hell did that come from? And then... There may be some association with the bell.

[18:28]

Various things might happen. You might hear, I don't know what, but in dreaming mind, it has the feeling of being involuntary. And the involuntariness is part of the consciousness is no... And the involuntariness is part of the editing of consciousness is not happening. So you start making connections that you wouldn't have made through thinking. So I know as soon as I'm starting to go to sleep, as soon as an involuntary image appears, I know I'm halfway there. And I've been jet-lagged, and I'm in a different time zone, and an involuntary image appears, and I think, oh, thank you, I'm going to follow you.

[19:39]

And I go to sleep. And when I have a jet-lag, and I'm in a different time zone, and an involuntary image appears, I think, oh, thank you, and I go to sleep. So anyway, yeah, okay, thanks. Someone else? Yes, Paul. We have talked a lot about spiritual appearances, processes, movements. But in the fourth skandha, the impulse is also said. I would be interested in what role the physical movement plays in the self-continuity, the impulse in particular. So we've spoken about mental appearances and mental processes and so forth.

[20:44]

But since the fourth skanda also is named impulses, what I would be interested in is what role in the self-continuum play physical impulses, actual physical movements? Everything. I mean, you can't separate the mind and the body. So I think it's what I usually say is the bodily mind. And the body is involved with thinking. It's not just happening in the brain. The bodily body is involved in thinking and, of course, feelings and all kinds, you know. And the body is involved with the thinking and the feeling. And that's one reason why Zazen is a sitting posture.

[21:46]

And you start fine-tuning your posture. No, I think that approaches what you're asking but doesn't reach it fully. So you want to come back to it in a few minutes and we'll... Someone... Well, I could talk about something else if there's no someone else. Yes, Lina. What is the connection between yoga and Zen? And why don't we just do yoga practices?

[22:48]

Go ahead. I would say that first of all, what we think of as yoga In the West. But it's in many ways the creation of the British Empire. It's been very definitely westernized and turned into a form of physical and bodily health, which it wasn't in India. Yeah, so what we, when we speak of doing yoga in the yoga studios and all that stuff, it's a kind of already westernized version of yoga. Which is great, why not?

[24:04]

I'm trying to develop a westernized version of Buddhism. But I don't want to develop diluted form of Buddhism. I think the easiest distinction is... What? I was just... Yeah, you talked before I was done. Yeah, but just getting so good, I can just overlap. If you didn't follow everything she said, I can say so. Okay. The easiest distinction is that Buddhism, Zen practice, which is the most yogic form, physically yogic form of Buddhism, It is the most physically yogic form of Buddhism.

[25:07]

Even the Dalai Lama said to me once, you guys sit way more than I do. Even the Dalai Lama has always said to me, you sit much more than I do. Even though he's definitely a sitter. But Buddhist yoga is more about mental postures than physical postures. But I've never, you know, I mean, I'm somewhat familiar with Iyengar and his teachings and I know Iyengar teachers and many of my people I practice with, etc. But still, I don't really know yoga as a practice from the inside.

[26:12]

Buddhism primarily uses only one yoga posture. And in Japan, the monks often will practice yoga on their breaks and things like that, but they don't think of it as Buddhism. They think of it as more of a physical exercise or something. Now, what happens when they go into the Zendo in Daitoku-ji or Heiji or someplace? And they've stopped the yoga postures they were doing on their break. What do they think they're doing?

[27:30]

They're sitting down in a yoga posture, but in the middle of a mental posture. For in the simplest sense, zazen is a physical posture that you learn Combined with a mental posture of don't move. And that mental posture of don't move is what gives zazen its power. So in a way, zazen is a posture you're really holding for a long time, but it's a posture you can hold for a long time. Some postures you can't hold for more than about 20 minutes, even that would be long. The five skandhas are mental postures. And if I explore the postures that can arise and be studied through this zazen posture,

[28:35]

Then I can bring those mental postures into my ordinary activity of walking around, running, etc. So through zazen I develop mental postures I can bring into my daily activity. I mean, again, very simply, I can develop a real feeling of stillness. A stillness that's not just simply being stopped or stopping. But like the waves of the ocean, even though the waves are moving and all, the water of the ocean is still still. And as I say, the shape of the waves is water trying to return to stillness. So the mental posture of the wave is to return to stillness.

[30:12]

So if I get a feel for this stillness, and I rest in an inner stillness in myself, Then when I look at you, I can see your activity, but I can also feel your inner stillness. I can feel your own desire, like the wave, to return to stillness. Okay, is that good enough? All right, thanks. So we have this concept of a continuum.

[31:47]

which is related to seeing self as a construct. So the self is a way to establish continuity. You know, it's interesting to me, and I'm sort of changing the subject here, but changing the subject here? Because at least in English, the words subject, object, identity are quite strange. It's interesting for me, and I'm changing the subject here. In English, at least, the words subject, object, identity are quite strange. This group here in the front thinks I'm going to talk a long time. OK, here he goes again. Get those legs in a better position. I may surprise you. Stop right now.

[32:52]

Ich überrasche euch vielleicht und höre sofort auf. Okay. Because subject, the ject part of subject means to throw. Weil dieser ject Teil von subjekt, das bedeutet zu werfen. Like a projectile is something you throw. So subject means thrown under. And I think it comes from Aristotle and other subject, material subjecta or something like that, the underlying material from which things are made. So the subject of a book is the what the book is made from. So the subject of a sentence is that I chop wood. I is the subject. And in German, by the way, those are two different meanings of subject.

[34:29]

Oh, okay. But in German, two different words. Okay, so... Keep me on my toes. Okay. And object means thrown at. And object means thrown against. So I'm the subject which somebody has thrown something at me. So what the hell is the subject-object distinction? Somebody threw something at me and I ducked under. Anyway, it's... Yeah, that's fine. Because in a way, Buddhism would say that we have a reciprocal identity. that if everything's changing, that our identity is always a negotiation with the circumstances.

[35:47]

So it's a kind of reciprocal identity. A reciprocating identity. And it's hard to explore that if you think identity and self is continuous. And it's difficult to explore this if you assume that self and identity are something continuous, continuous. Yes. And as Shin-Shin Mink, I think, has said, the subject is a subject for an object and the object is an object for the subject. Yeah. I think that expresses it too. Yeah, that's good. In German, please. Or Sanskrit, I don't care.

[36:48]

So, in a way, in that sense, you're subject to the object to find out how you're a subject. Insofern bist du ein... Yeah, and then we use a word like identity. Which means the same as something else. But none of you have an identity that's the same as something else. You can have an identity theft. You can have an identical twin. But identical twins are individuals.

[37:52]

And identical actually means same, same. And identical in means can't be divided. So a person can steal my identity, but not my individuality. I stole your individuality. So anyway, these words are a little bit vague about what really is going on. At least in English. In German, you probably get it all worked out. All is klar. Okay. But I still have to use English.

[39:03]

So let's say that the usual self continuum Let's call it usually a self-referencing continuum. So the self-referencing continuum is the usual way most people live at least a lot of the time. Yeah, so that everything that happens, it happens, I like it, I don't like it, it relates to me, it doesn't relate to me, this person, you know, etc. Yeah. But there can be another kind of continuum.

[40:23]

So here it's interesting. We're not talking about changing the self. We're talking about changing the continuum. Because we do need a continuum but we don't always need a self. All right. I feel like one of these guys who talks to his hand all the time. I knew a guy like that. He always talked Italian to his hand. I don't know. One time he was walking by as I was opening my garage door. And I had one of those Seppis and they had remote controls that opened the garage door. It was really weird. So I opened the door and He suddenly stopped talking Italian and he looked at me and he said, how'd you do that?

[41:40]

And I said, well, you have this little thing and you push this button and the door opens. I said, do you want to try it? He said, sure. He pushed the button and the door closed. And then he pushed again and the door opened. And then I said to him, yes, look, you have this remote control here and then you press the button here and then it closes and opens the door for you. And then he tried it, he pressed the button, the door closed, he pressed the button again, the door opened. Then he said to me in English, you mean you can open any door? He said to me in English, does that mean you can open any door? I said, no, only this door. Then he went back to talking.

[42:41]

It's like the Rumi poem. Knocks on the door, knocks on the door, knocks on the door, and it won't open. And finally it opens. And he finds he's already on the other side. Okay. Now, one of the... You see, why I'm hesitating here and talking to myself in Italian or Japanese is maybe this is just words and I can't really make it clear as a practice. But one of the main yogic skills of dharma practice and dharma means basically to see the world as a series of unique appearances.

[43:56]

And it takes a fair amount of time before you actually find the world as a series of appearances. And it's another step when you find the world a series of unique appearances. And you have to begin to practice it in a very mechanical way. Okay. So I'm sitting here and I'm thinking of stepping down. But I also want my spine to be happy.

[45:30]

So I stretch my spine a little before I get up. That's an appearance. And I rest in that appearance for a moment. So it's a kind of pacing yourself in bodily time and a kind of spatial field and people who practice and their practice is mature you can see it instantly everybody who really practices knows who else is practicing I see the Dalai Lama I just saw him recently in San Francisco. There's nothing he doesn't do that isn't an appearance.

[46:32]

And you can feel the pace of appearance. Because like in relation to what Paul just said, there's a bodily pace to appearance. As meditation has begun to be... The fruits of meditation... has become part of contemporary sports. Many, some I know for sure, probably many of the most famous runners run in an image of running. They know if they're going to go a one-minute mile or something like that, they've got to do it in a certain number of paces and they visualize it and then run within their visualization.

[48:01]

And running within the visualization makes them run faster. And they know exactly how many steps it takes if they're going to do a one-minute mile. When I do a 20-minute mile, I... So if I'm sitting here, this is an appearance. And I feel it as an appearance. And then when I put my leg down, I feel it as an appearance.

[49:04]

Yeah, and then the other leg is an appearance and there's a feeling of completeness to each movement. And I only do each movement, including just right now, with a feeling of I'm completing it. Now, I often say, use a phrase like, to pause for the particular. And a little more developed, to pause for the paused. Because the pause for the particular is I pause for the flower, I pause for my leg, I pause for the bell. But if I pause for the pause... I'm pausing within the rhythm of the phenomenal world, with or without the bell appearing.

[50:23]

So I could also pause for the aura. And then I could pause for the aura or for the holy light. Or I could pause for the brightness that appears around everything when you feel it very precisely. when it appears very precise. These are all practices that are most invisible to most people. They don't know what you're doing. So now if I stand up, my body is going through a yoga, a kind of yoga posture.

[51:30]

And I pause for a moment and I view all of you as a kind of mental posture. Beautiful, aren't you? And in the sense of a reciprocating or reciprocal or playful interplaying identity, I feel all of you are part of this inworldedness. The word is inworldedness, where you feel the environment is part of you. I'm stretching her. Testing her. It's particularly mean when then you interrupt after such a low phrase. Well, I can say the test was easy. So, in any case, when that comes back to me within this reciprocal feeling, then you appear as part of the not-in-the-world-being, the, how could you say, in-worldedness, in-the-world-being, perhaps.

[52:42]

One-worldly. One-worldly. And you defined in-worldedness. In-worldedness is a word used nowadays by a few people to mean that the environment and you are non-dualistically experienced simultaneously. Now, I can say to you, see the world as appearances, etc., and you think, oh, yeah, well, okay, okay. It doesn't mean anything. So I'm trying now to demonstrate appearances. So my standing, this standing here, is an appearance. And I'm moving in the flow of appearance. So if I turn, this is another appearance.

[54:02]

I feel my foot. On the floor, I definitely feel my foot on the floor as clearly as I feel anything else. And the expression of that in koans is the bottomless shoe of the present. You know, when you commit someone's ashes to their grave site, I can see you doing mine now, pouring them into the stone. I probably won't be noticing. Anyway, you don't have any stone at the bottom. It's just dirt. Because it's meant to disappear into the earth.

[55:24]

You can't dig up a Buddhist grave and find the ashes. They're gone. So the bottomless shield of the present means You're so fully in the present that there's no difference between you and everything else. So the bottomless shoe of the present is a Zen technical term for non-duality. Who would know that unless you're sort of a pro? So the bottomless shoe of the present is a Zen technical term for non-duality. technical term for the experience of non-duality. But it's not so inaccessible if you just imagine.

[56:25]

Then say the bottomless shoe of the present. Yi-Wan Wu, the compiler of the booklet records, is more specific. He says, form of mind in which there is neither before nor after. Form of mind in which there is neither before nor after. And I would add to his statement, and neither here nor there. And realize Buddhahood right where you stand.

[57:25]

Okay. So this is an appearance. And if I turn, it's an appearance. And I move within the rhythm of appearance. Each foot, each foot, completely I feel each foot. And if I bow to the Buddha, I bring my hands together. That's an appearance. I stop and I feel that appearance. And if I bring it here, the heart chakra appears in the heels of my hand. And then when I bring my hand up into a mutual bodily resonant space, That hopefully calls forth an appearance in all of us of mutually resonant bodily space.

[58:44]

And then my hands are far apart. And then when I buckle, I disappear into that state. And then I can shift into the practice room here. All that's going on in the practitioner. For the practitioner. Otherwise you're just kind of wandering around in a daze. Pretending to be alive. I mean, I'm exaggerating. It's not that bad. That's a merry-go-round. You thought I was serious, but now you're learning. Okay, now in Buddhism that's technically called presencing.

[60:12]

Okay, so presencing is the practice of allowing appearance to inform you. And now you can create a continuum that's based on presencing. The continuum is a continuum of presencing. Das Continuum ist ein Continuum des Presencing. This is no longer a continuum of self-referencing. This is a different world. Even though it's a worded world in the way I'm explaining it, it's a different world. And that's a kind of... The self-referencing is the lowest order of reality.

[61:16]

And the presencing of appearance, the presencing continuum is a higher order of reality. And there's a higher order of reality than that, which I'm not going to tell you. Ha, ha, ha. Next year. Well, that's not going to be a funny seminar. The Dharma farming Hanover seminar topic for 2015 is the higher order reality of

[62:31]

Anyway, it's such a great thing to be with you guys. Thank you. Thanks for putting this together for us. Thanks for traveling all the way up here and getting out of your job in Krasnoyarsk. You're welcome. I said it would be after four. Five after four. I keep my word. There's a problem in Buddhism with keeping your word. It's one of the signs of character. But for a person who lives in a multifaceted world, at each moment there's so many different ways you can interpret why you're doing something.

[63:43]

So it can easily sound like, well, I did it for this reason, I did it for that reason, I did it for that reason. He doesn't know why he did it or he's got a different story every day. So the more multifaceted your experience is, the harder it is to say exactly why you did something. But if you trust the person's character, in each situation, if the character of the person is exemplary, and you're a Buddhist, they're making the best decision they can for the benefit of all sentience. It looks like they're changing their mind all the time.

[64:54]

So let's sit for a moment. Sit for a moment. So I hope each of you can practice some of these things.

[66:14]

Or one of these things with real attention. And if you do, I think you'll find that one starts relating to all the different practices. Because they all occur in a dharma field that awakens when you practice one aspect. Returning to stillness.

[67:38]

Zur Stille zurückkehren. Now turning within stillness. Jetzt sich innerhalb der Stille wenden. Now, stillness, stilling.

[68:11]

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