I was fine last night. You sure you were the high point. I suppose I should start out with some soil review. And these two seminars are here in Rastenberg. Yeah, my feeling overlapped more than usual. Because the topic definitely, partly because they're right next to each other, but partly because the topic was mine.

[01:01]

And I'm particularly interested in craft art practice. Yeah, at the same time I always have some reluctance to speak about something I've spoken about in a specific way recently. For me it's truer truer in the sense that when things are truer in the world. Yeah, and also have more interest, more interesting and fun and also. If there's no repetition.

[02:03]

Yeah, but of course, since we're talking about our life together, it's repetition. Creating sandcastles in the air. Do you have that expression? Yes. Don't worry, they don't fall down unless you let them. Yeah, and for me it's a somewhat different dynamic when I'm speaking to regular practitioners who I expect to be practicing a certain way in the next some years. And much of what I speak about then is actually intended for the future when they debate with themselves about practice.

[03:31]

But when I speak with you, I somehow have a feeling I have to make it useful. And how can castles in the air be used? When I say for instance, like I did yesterday, imagine an invisible structure in space which you let yourself down into. Let yourself down into as if maybe into a swimming pool and then look at things through this water. And your imagination alone cannot make it real.

[04:32]

But if your imagination is supported by the situation, Okay. Okay. Now, Yogacara Zen assumes that It's good to know how things actually exist. The more you actualize how things actually exist, which usually means you are combating or active cognitive ignorance.

[05:42]

The elimination of active cognitive ignorance through establishing more clearly how things actually exist. Of course you realize, you know, I just put it as a little caveat. How things actually exist is a black box. We can't really say what actually exists. But we can, if we have an experience of being free from suffering, free from conflicts, etc., then perhaps it's closer to how we actually exist.

[06:52]

Yeah, I think Nagarjuna, or some traditional teachers, one of the tests of whether you understand emptiness is whether you become more compassionate. And I think Nagarjuna or some of the traditional teachers, one of the tests they did, whether someone is realized, is whether he or she was or is empathetic. Okay, so it's assumed by Yogacara Zen that it's worth the effort to establish how zones actually exist. Because it becomes the seed for realization or enlightenment. And, you know, as Siegfried brought up, it's where, as in Suzuki Roshi, you can anchor enlightenment in this way.

[08:10]

And, you know, And it creates a base for acting in the world more effectively. It has mysterious alchemical effects because it begins to transform us and our... life in the world. And this is the adventure of finding out what happens. And it takes away the basis for a lot of neurotic Okay, so this year I found

[09:22]

been speaking implicitly about how I've spoken about consciousness in the past. But I've added this here, which I haven't spoken explicitly about before. That consciousness is It's a tapestry web of concepts. It's not just that the world is seamlessly out there as it appears. appears through memory-based concepts. And what doesn't fit into those memory-based concepts, we don't see.

[10:40]

Again, I don't... me as an imaginary therapist, I imagine some sort of interplay, dissonance of memory-based concepts. Let's try to look at how empty the world really is. And try to understand the usefulness of this concept.

[11:41]

And try to understand the usefulness of this concept of emptiness. Now let me say that the emphasis that consciousness is a web of concepts, entered Buddhism, I don't know, centuries after the Buddha. And the absorption of the implications of that transformed Buddhism into Mahayana Buddhism, one of the seeds of Mahayana Buddhism. The process of absorbing this knowledge transformed Buddhism into Mahayana Buddhism for centuries. This knowledge was the seed for this transformation.

[12:43]

I always think of Allen Ginsberg started his famous poem, Howl. I have seen the best minds of my generation But in the generations in which Buddhism developed, it developed through the best minds of each generation throughout Asia. It was the only gain in town. So it took them centuries to absorb the implication of this is, we're not seeing the world as it is, we're seeing concepts.

[13:53]

Now I'm assuming that the best minds of Austria and a few German minds will have to take some time to absorb this. And certainly in my own life, you know, more than 45 years of practice, it takes me years to first notice something and then understand its implications. And then more years before I can speak about. I'm here trying to be a shortcut. But even a shortcut can be Certainly, every time I take a shortcut in Vienna, I get lost.

[15:07]

It looks like this cute little street goes to the left and then suddenly starts going, I don't know, way back where I came from. Okay, so we have, you know, the question again, the question again. why if everything immediately passed? Do we have an experience in the present? What constitutes the present? Okay. I think this is a question you need to keep asking yourself.

[16:31]

Our senses present us a present. Isn't that enough? Well, let's hear it. Why not? Who cares if it's, you know... Well, for most people it doesn't matter. But if you're constructing yourself In what present are you constructing yourself? If you want to be a therapist from a Buddhist point of view, which might be a whole new way to enter therapy, it might be helpful to recognize that you and the client or the group are simultaneously creating the present itself.

[17:40]

We usually assume the present is a given. We all have the same present, here we are. So why does the present have duration and space? And I would say, let's call it no duration. No externalities space. Now, what is that? This glass. Yogacara Buddhism does not say that objects don't exist.

[18:48]

Objects exist. But they say the objects have no externality. What are they trying to say by making this concept? If this glass ends up on the side of the mountain, what is it then? Molecule fodder. It's just going to disintegrate and become molecules. It's Externality as a glass has no existence unless I use it as a glass.

[19:53]

Okay, how I usually just say the job of consciousness. And as I usually say, the task of consciousness is to make the world predictable, cognizable, chronological, and contextual in a meaningful sense. and think for it. And consciousness then, if we accept that that's the job of consciousness, which is to establish conventional truth. Another very simple idea that Nagarjuna introduced into Buddhism is there are two truths.

[20:58]

conventional truth is that the world is predictable and we have to function in a certain way. But it's not, though... although it's not how things actually exist. Because things are not predictable. At least we don't know which one of you is going to die soon, live a long time, or... What will happen to you? And this glass doesn't know whether I'm going to smash it or drink from it. But we can't live unless we assume a certain predictability. And because we can't live unless we assume a certain predictability, this is also true.

[22:16]

So that's one truth. But the fundamental truth is everything is empty. of any inherent or permanent existence. Now, these two truths then get developed by Like in the Soto lineage, they become the five ranks. In the Rinzai lineage, they become the four positions of self and other. And so forth. Each school made use of these. And now then, if you really say, okay, these are two truths, how can these two truths be present in us simultaneously?

[23:31]

And how do we live How do we develop a way to live in full awareness of the presence of these two truths? Better say in English, fully in the presence of these two truths. And again, These have a salvic and sociological aspect. Only they free us from suffering. Do they, are they rooted in the mind? And seldig, salvation.

[24:31]

Ah ja, und wiederum haben die so einen Erlösungsaspekt im Sinne von, helfen sie uns, uns von Leiden zu befreien, und sind sie in Erleuchtung verwurzelt. And concepts, conceptual concepts, conceptual consciousness is the medium for self, memory, and language. And it's language which participates in reifying the concepts of consciousness. And language is, you know, Impossible without consciousness.

[25:36]

That's where we name things. And you can see in dreaming mind, which is not consciousness, not completely independent of consciousness, but things get mixed up. Three people combined as one person with a name that none of them have. The conceptual, when you dream about a cat, you're actually dreaming about something else. This is fruitful and wonderful. But it's, you know, they're not getting the dream.

[26:37]

But it's not anchored in the conceptual web of consciousness. So this as a glass, a named glass, and as an object of use. I don't know what I'd use it for in a dream. It has its sentient reality in consciousness. Yeah. So it doesn't have an external fundamental existence. Okay, so what I'm trying to say is we're sitting here with each other. And the floor is cooperating with us and so on.

[27:53]

She pointed out we're all falling at the same speed, so it looks like we're somewhere together. We find... and the floor is falling with us at the same speed, conveniently. And that's what's actually happening. The Earth and the Sun and the solar systems and the solar systems within galaxies You couldn't block the course. Or like those parachutes. stay together for a while before they open their parachute. And after lunch. I'm going to open your parachutes.

[28:59]

And I'm abandoned again. I need a therapist. Okay, so even the present is created by us. And that present has no external. I mean, it has no existence outside our cultural creation. And I think again that from, you know, small unimportant differences, like the German person hikes in the Black Forest, as if there was a left and a right.

[30:15]

And the English person? walks as if there was only front. And Japanese people, there's nothing behind them. They won't back up cars. I'm looking too, of course. Normally, if they get in traffic and they could get out of waiting five minutes by backing up, they won't. I'll just stay and then only go forward. Forward. I mean, if you meet... What do Japanese people say to each other, particularly monks? What do they say? They don't say, hello, it's nice to meet you.

[31:33]

How are you? As you pass each other, you say, . That means persist. . All day long, they only say you should persist. Okay. Really? And it drives you nuts again. I'm going to persist. It's really good. This basic idea of there's no backing up and you only persist is pervasive throughout Japanese culture. And I would maintain that it creates a different kind of architecture and social and public spaces.

[32:49]

So even within our sentient human culture, we have different bodily spaces. And so we design our life through them. These insects flying around here. Some of them are so tiny you can barely notice them. You see a silken wing. einen kurzen Aufblick in einen seidenen Flügel. Sometimes I almost think I say things in a difficult way just to see what will happen.

[33:52]

But mostly I've learned how to say things in German so they can be translated. In English so they can be translated. In my English German. And when Marie, who was here the other day, translates me in Belgian into French, I really cannot speak French. in the way I speak for German translation. It takes me an hour to shift into how you can be translated in English from English into French. I can't speak like I can speak in front of a German audience, because it takes me an hour and a half to find out how I can be translated from English into French and how I can speak in a way that can happen.

[34:56]

Now, these little insects with multifaceted eyes on either side of the head, they create a space which has no external. I mean, they're flying around doing things here you couldn't And they're in a space they're generating, but it has no externality outside of their generating. And when they come up against the window, they can't figure out what it is. They keep trying and trying, and it's like, I don't have a concept for this. We create space just like the insect. So we are creating a present

[36:00]

which is a space that we generate which has no external reality. The first teaching in emptiness is, once you know something about emptiness, is to understand that the present itself is generated It has no external reality. That's already a profound connectedness. We can act in even occasionally Be wild. Or even all the time be wild. If you're one of the Sabine women. Sabine were the women in... She's got a name and she's living up to it.

[37:35]

Concepts work in us. Within this external, within this no externality space, we create a mutually generated space, a literally situated space. In effect, we use this, we use the material I don't need a therapist.

[38:44]

I have a translator. Who even accepts being hit? We even use the materiality of this no externality present. To generate a mutual space. Which we feel held as an interiority. And internal. and acknowledged or confirmed, especially when it's simultaneously held by another. No, and I started out and I said, I don't like saying that to people you don't act until a rapport is established.

[40:35]

No, I don't like to say that because it sounds so simple. You know, I will speak about the Sangha body, the Sanghakaya. I guess it's okay, but I hear people bandying, bandying? Throwing something about easily. Bandying about Sangha body. And I think, I reaffirmed. You became an entity. And then I hear people say how they are fighting so lightly over the Sangha body. And I think to myself, So what I mean by the rapport, let's say the rapport of a bodhisattva, the skill of a bodhisattva is to establish within

[41:40]

with no externality space, a mutual interiority shared by others. And I think that you, We can be budding bodhisattva therapists. And I really think therapists have a wonderful and ideal, from my point of view, chance to practice. Because all therapists Buddhism past the beginner stage. It's developed not through yourself, but through your relationship with others.

[42:54]

So, in a way, that's the... the... The development of your practice is to start supporting other people's practice. And practicing with others. And that practicing with others can take many forms. The most classic form is to be a teacher. The cook is also considered one of the most deep ways to practice with others. And the senior. But this stage of practicing with others is how you develop your practice.

[43:58]

And you have a chance Those of you who are therapists. To have to practice with others. It's great. And I think you should play with the shift of I'm the therapist and then the other person is the therapist. And there's an implicit feeling when you think you're the teacher or the therapist or the boss. But you're a little bigger than others.

[45:02]

And you're kind of looking down. And big, tall people use this to their advantage. Napoleon's have a hard time. So it's helpful to feel as if you were looking up at the other person, even if you haven't been taller. We should have a break soon, I think.

[46:13]

So let me just say, so within this node, to turn it out into space, you create a mutual interior. And that mutual interiority can be as big as this group, or two people, or even one person. And the Ayatanas are aware in understanding how you engage the world in a way that creates mutual interiority. And the Ayatanas are aware in understanding how you engage the world So if I was a therapist, first I would feel whether we share the same no-externality space, and what the differences were.

[47:36]

And this is related to the Buddhist adept calls up a mind-made body or a body-made mind. And then once that common no externality space is felt. Which is established by saying, you know, good morning, or how are you, or how you sit down, and so forth. If I say good morning to you, you immediately know my metabolic rhythms.

[48:43]

So when you talk on the phone with people, first of all you say, oh, and you start to feel each other's breathing space through the phone. Then you can start talking. But you have to establish that first with some small talk. Some people do nothing but small talk. If you call someone and say good morning, then you can immediately feel this breathing space. And before you start talking, you do small talk, say good morning, how are you, then you can start talking. Some people just do small talk. Imagine a New Yorker cartoon. Where two people talking in a cocktail party. One says to the other. Now that we've established mutual metabolic space, let's quit the small talk.

[49:50]

Then, mutual metabolic space, I have a couple more things to tell you. But let me say I went to the Freud Museum the other day. My friend of mine came down from Amsterdam. I told him to hang out for a few days. Wanted to see the Freud Museum. So Alexander Auer, an old friend of mine, who brought me there in 1983.

[50:56]

And it still looked like Freud's apartment. And the Freud Museum still looks like Freud's den. It was kind of furnished and now it's all white rooms except one little space. Back in 1983, when Michael Alexander Howard brought it here for the first time, it was still like a... I liked it better as an apartment. But anyway, they have a display, I don't know if any of you have seen it, of New Yorker, or cartoons anyway, about psychotherapy. But you have an exhibition of cartoons in New York about psychotherapy.

[51:56]

Yes, I have. And there are a few hundred. I don't know. I purchased a book of them because it could be useful. I just remember two right now. I knew the exit. The section called The Couch. And this person is on a couch. And the therapist sits in a little pad. He turns to the guy and says, you swine. Ha, ha, ha. [...] I suppose you must have feelings like that. And the other one was the School of Mob Psychology.

[52:57]

And he was a guy on a couch with a hat and sunglasses. And the therapist says, even though you rob, murder, and extort, you're not a bad person. Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!

[53:39]

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