I mentioned, oh, hi, I'm glad you're here. Yeah. When reservations are, people are made so many months in advance, often plans change in the months, and then there's cancellations, and then there's flu going around. So we're a moderately small sashim. But I found myself aware of what a complex, layered mandala this Sashin is. No, I'm introducing the word mandala in a specific way just now. And I started to say... that I sometimes point out, how long it takes me to sit down and straighten my robes and get my legs bent.

[01:26]

And I'd like to share with you what it's like to start getting old or maybe being old. And because, you know, until a few years ago I just sat down and all my robes fell into place. And now they're getting all tangled up. She thinks it's funny. Not true.

[02:36]

What? Not true. Not true? No. Oh. Thirty years ago, I remember, they took... But it's much longer... No, it took longer than now. No. That was by design, not by physicality. And your memory is long but short. Your memory has lengthened over the time. Because in those days nobody took long to do all that. But it's also that in a yogic culture everything is designed to require a lot of attention. So there's no spandex robes.

[03:40]

And it's like the orioke. It takes a lot of attention, you know. If you start having conversations with people while you're doing it, you'll probably drop your bowls. And the implicit assumption in the culture, and why I'm bringing this up partly, is that the main... capacity you want to exercise culturally is attention. I noticed that when my daughter was going to school in Japan. They required her to carry all her books back and forth as a first grader in a heavy backpack, thick leather backpack.

[05:01]

Because she should have an attentional, physical relationship with her books every day. They weren't meant just to be read, they were meant to be handled, too. And we asked, why didn't she just leave her books at school? And they said, no, no, and the backpack teaches your body posture. At some point I recognized one of the gates to practice in the West was to recognize that there's gates between our two cultures, East Asian yogic and Western culture.

[06:17]

And to experience these shifts and differences really was how to open this practice to ourselves. How to open this practice to ourselves. So recognizing that, it's interesting, I recognize that clearly just about the time Sukershi suddenly told somebody and then said to me, you're going to Somebody came up to me and said, I hear you're going to Japan. I said, I am? And this person said, well, Suzuki Roshi told me you're going to Japan. And I said, oh, really? So I crossed the street, where I happened to be, and went upstairs, and I said,

[07:22]

Am I going to Japan? He said, yes, I'd like you to go to Japan. I said, okay. And he was, what I would call, he was changing the context or context versation. And A conversation is a turning around, a turning together. And a context is a weaving together. And he clearly changed the context of this conversation I was having with myself. So the kind of opening meal we had last night

[08:43]

is a time when you're creating the possibility for us to see each other and continue conversations that were started before and realign ourselves in this situation. And during the conversation at the table I was at, we talked a bit about restaurants and so forth. Restaurants, to me, are one way one can have conversations. Now, I spoke... When I was in Crestone, just a couple of weeks ago, two of the new people were sitting Seza with your legs back, back turned instead of crossed-legged.

[10:19]

And I thought maybe I should say something to them because they seem to want to make this a lifetime practice. And if they want to, I thought they should at least explore sitting cross-legged. Because energetically they're quite different. And I know this because I have very stiff joints and it took me a year and a half or so to learn to sit just half lotus. Of every day sitting, several times a day. Yeah, so... So anyway, when I started talking to them, I thought, really, there's four postures here I should speak about.

[11:39]

And what I'm explaining here is how this, what I'm calling the four postures of Zazen, How it simply evolved from my giving some zazen instruction after some years, usually other people do it, to these two guys. Now, why did I say, usually, you know, I was... known in the early days, in the 60s, in the San Francisco Zen Center, if I gave Zazen instruction, it was about three minutes or four. Some people would take an hour and a half, but me, I just... Okay, fine.

[12:43]

So, so, so. That's exactly what I said. And because, as I said recently, the The style of pedagogy in Buddhism, in Zen Buddhism, it's like you give a kid a guitar who's four years old and you don't tell him what it's for and he's never heard it played and he has it for a couple of years and he figures out, hey, you can make noise with these strings. And it's not just a place you can put the kitten inside because, you know, it makes a mess and then it's hard to clean. And then after a year or two, somebody plays the guitar in front of the kid and they, whoa, wow, this is extraordinary.

[14:14]

Look what that guitar can do. So the style of Zen teaching is the Japanese style, is minimum explanation and you explore for yourself. Yeah. Okay. So, but when I was talking to these two young men, I realized I'm speaking about why this posture makes a difference throughout one's life and throughout one's practice. So I mentioned these four postures.

[15:22]

It took me only about ten minutes in that case. But since then I've been taking a lot more than ten minutes to speak about it. And also I find, I'm trying to tell you what, I'm sharing my practice with you. Because it's a way to participate in your practice. And I'm sharing with you how this my own exploration and how I am encouraging your own exploration.

[16:30]

And at my age, which is always a present factor for me now, is I'm trying to find ways to summarize, in a way, aspects of practice, to summarize aspects of practice in a way that's accessible to you as primarily lay practitioners. Yeah, and so as soon as I try to do that, I see that lots of other things have to be brought into it because it's all an interdependent contextual process. So I asked several people from the first session that ended yesterday,

[17:44]

Should I speak about the four postures again? And I spoke about it too in the Koan seminar. And each person I spoke to said yes. I mean rather strongly said yes. And for me speaking about it with you it evolves, develops in a way that's different than when I just speak to myself about it. So after last night's conversation at the dinner table I dreamed. So let me say something about dreaming. One thing at a time. I think for the first five years, after the first one or two years, I didn't dream at all.

[19:22]

Now psychologists often say that everybody dreams, they just don't know it. Well, I am quite certain I didn't dream at all for about five years. And it was a time in which I was only practicing, we could say, I was only practicing for myself. And I had no, all my attention, intentional energy was in practicing, evolving my own personal practice. That was from about 63 or so to 67 or 68 or something like that. And then I started dreaming. And I was always quite surprised. Why am I dreaming, you know? And I know it coincided with, when I look back, I know it coincided when I began to have an internal conversation with our society, yeah, the world, about what the heck is this practice we're all doing?

[20:56]

So I had this dream last night. And it was a A couple I know well and pretty, from my point of view, pretty new friends, but 12 years or so. But I have real engaged conversations with them and particularly him. So first the conversation about the four postures started in their kitchen where they'd made

[21:58]

And maybe it wouldn't surprise you, maybe I shouldn't tell you, that puns occur even in my dreams. So everyone ate, the three of us, the meal was quite extensive, but I only ate lettuce, and it was like, let us speak. Die Mahlzeit war ziemlich, es war eine ziemlich große Mahlzeit mit vielen Sachen. Aber ich habe nur Salat, im Englischen lettuce, gegessen und es stand für, lass uns sprechen. And I kept saying, why am I eating only lettuce? There's other food. And I kept poking lettuce and eating it.

[23:06]

Lettuce, lettuce, yes, lettuce, meat. And then he went into the other room, and I was going to join him, and I realized... he turned into every person, and each of you. And then I wondered in the dream, because I was observing myself dreaming, I was wondering in the dream, why when I went into the living room, Did he turn into every person, into each of you? And I realized, because this person, my friend, doesn't have a living room. He has no conversational space in his house apartment, which is quite a big apartment.

[24:12]

Because the only alternative he has to his family eating space is his research as a scientist. So then I realized in the dream, I was really dreaming about what is the context which allows generational conversation. And why would I keep talking about and developing the same topic from a few weeks ago in Crestone through the Cohen Seminar and the first Sashin if it wasn't really a generational conversation? And then it was clear that from me, exploring this practice with us includes this sangha space as a place for generational conversations.

[25:45]

Yeah, so in my mind, we're also in an imaginal space. Now, You don't have a word like imaginal. You have imagination. Yeah, that's right. But our imagination is different from your imagination. Oh, well, I hope so. Okay, so I'm introducing the concept of imaginal space right now. Maybe I'll just use it in various contexts to see if I can develop the concept contextually. Then in imaginal space, dream space but actually how I feel right now is that this isn't platform I don't like platforms but I guess I have to have one this is a couch and I'm at this end of the couch kind of curled up with talking with you

[27:41]

And Nicole's at that end of the couch. I don't know how she is. Maybe she's curled up too, I don't know. No, I'm not. You're more formal. I'm sitting up. And Atmar is here and Erich Ino and Mahakali. Oh, there you are back there, yeah. And David and the Ravi Welsh contingent is here. The Welsh gang. In the last session, the Gerald Weichede gang contingent was here.

[28:56]

And in the last session, the Gerald Weichede gang was here. And Gerald and I met in 1983 in Davos. And started a conversation then, which is still going on. So with the contingent, the Vashida contingent, The conversation with each person also includes my conversation over the years with Gerald and his conversation with each of the practitioners who have come here through him. And with this Gerald Weissel group, the contact to each individual member of this group includes the conversation that Gerald and I started many, many years ago. And this conversation can also be found in all his conversations with his students.

[30:02]

I don't know when exactly we met, but in the late 70s? 78. 78. And when our conversation started, I don't know, some years later. A long time later. 2003. Oh, this is just yesterday. So my conversation with Ravi, and with those of you who are here through Ravi, includes Ravi, etc. And then there's those of you who started practicing at the Haus de Stille in the mid-80s. Yeah, like Mahakari was the cook there for three years, right?

[31:15]

And now I'm the breakfast cook. You can't get away, can you? So then there's the psychologist here who I keep hoping will have an explicit conversation, but I don't think it'll happen until after I'm dead. But there's an implicit conversation going on. And I guess you mentioned the other day we've been practicing together for 30 years, right? About... And there's Petra who got me to come to Hamburg years ago. I don't remember what year, but... 89. 89, okay. So this is why I'm pointing this out, is we have a very complex mandala, layers here, a layered conversation here that's quite complex.

[32:23]

So how can I speak? How can we have a conversation that's going on within each of us? And I'm hoping to prompt. Okay, so the first posture is the physical posture. And the first posture is occurring what in the Shoyu Roku in Koan 88 refers to as the luminous screen. And the phrase in the koan is, it's difficult to turn around, to turn the body around outside the luminous field, outside the luminous screen.

[33:33]

Now here's a term, the luminous screen. Which in the koan, taken for granted that people sensitive to yogic culture will understand what that means. So now I'm speaking about the luminous screen. Which means consciousness. Okay, so the luminous screen of consciousness. Now, I find such a term extraordinary. I mean, the concept hardly exists for us. So the term the luminous screen of consciousness, of consciousness I've added, but that's what it means, means that you know the world, or each of us knows the world,

[35:09]

primarily through consciousness, through our sensorium. But to characterize it not as the world, but as only a luminous screen in which the world is reflected, implies clearly states clearly really that the world primarily exists outside of consciousness Das impliziert ganz eindeutig, oder es sagt sogar direkt, dass die Welt hauptsächlich außerhalb des Bewusstseins existiert. Und das Bewusstsein als eine Beschreibung der Welt zu verstehen, das ist eine grundlegende Verblendung. Very useful.

[36:33]

Okay. So then the simple phrase is to turn the body around, to turn the body around outside of consciousness is difficult. Which means you have an existence outside of consciousness. Yeah. So right now, I'm here, but outside of my consciousness, the world exists. For all of us, differently. And similarly and differently. Now you can see why nirvana and enlightenment are often conflated.

[37:34]

Because the real realization that you're existing outside of consciousness is enlightenment. And when you die, you re-enter the world outside of consciousness. So we say you went into nirvana. Okay. Okay, now I'm speaking about this because really when I speak about the four postures, then the first is the physical posture. I'm mentioning it.

[38:50]

I'm speaking about the physical posture within the screen, within the luminous screen. which is also a luminous field that includes everything, everything that's within consciousness. So that the developing the physical posture of Zazen is to develop how you function within the luminous field. Now, if that sounds complicated, I'm sorry.

[40:00]

It's just the way it is. It's not complicated. I mean, it's just the way it is. Maybe it's complicated. But we're talking now not about well-being Buddhism or, you know, etc. Mindfulness makes you happier and healthier and groovy. We're talking about realisational practice, transformational practice. And this is a realisational space as well as a conversational space of a certain kind. And that's why the Buddha is there, because this is a realisational space. So what occurs in this room should be in the context of the potentiality and the actuality of realization.

[41:24]

And this is an imaginal space and a relationality space. And this is an imagination space and a relationship space. Thank you very much.

[41:45]

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