Well, I've been trying to, as often in the beginning of a conversation, I muddle around a bit, a lot. And, yeah, so I'm trying to... Mostly from a Buddhist point of view because that's the only point of view I really know much about. See if we can come to some shared sense of what we mean what. It would be nice if we could come to a shared sense of what we mean by the present. Yeah, and I'm trying to suggest some ways of looking at the present. And the presence of the past in the present.

[01:21]

Yeah, what presence there could be. But I really need to know how you're feeling about this or what you think about it, before I know how to go forward another two or three centuries in Buddhist history. We're around the third century CE right now, and it would be nice to get up to the fifth or sixth. Okay, so, anyone.

[02:31]

As I say, who will be second? Nicole. Nicole, by the way, have you all met her? übrigens habt ihr alle Nicole schon kennengelernt she is sort of a nice person sie ist irgendwie eine nette Person and she just was at her last practice period und sie war in der letzten Praxisperiode in Creston and she often very effectively translates for me und sie übersetzt mich oft sehr effektiv ok so now translate for yourself und jetzt übersetzt dich selbst So when you ask the question how the past is in the opposite universe, then I have a very interesting experience about it, which is really difficult for me to explain.

[03:41]

And that is that I then perceive, that is, I get the feeling of my body in condition as it is in the opposite situation. When you ask this question of how the past is present with all the present, I have an experience that really helps me to understand that experience, which is the sense of kind of stepping back and feeling my body conditioning being interwoven with the immediate situation. It's a sense of being a little bit more transparent and feeling my possibilities as well as the pathways that I literally choose. There is also this feeling that the way I am conditioned becomes transparent to me.

[04:43]

I have the feeling that I can see through the mirror. Just like the way I normally behave But I have questions about this concept that you are actually using in your science. What I've noticed is that there are so many different things that I bring into the situation, not just things that I connect with objects or that I associate with objects, but also more fundamental attitudes that I bring almost generally into situations.

[05:49]

So it's not just associations with the objects that were there, but also with regard to the mental attitude that I had in my situation. So what I'm wondering is, how to use that concept of learning science to differentiate my experience more. And I'm asking about the boundaries of that concept, because when I break into a situation, it's so complex.

[06:54]

There are things that are related to psychological desires and things that are related to associations that I have because of past experience. Well, it's a bit long for me to try to figure out how to respond to all that. It's good if you can encapsulate it, but next time. But what do you mean by that you step back and notice your own conditioning? How do you do that? First thing I do is I locate myself in my sense fields and relax here. live from a world of thoughts.

[08:16]

And then I just allow for the sense impressions to have space and to kind of touch my mind or this person within my mind so that they really go through. It sounds like you've been practicing Zen to me. Yeah, well, that's a pretty good example of trying to enter the present in a way that's not taken over by MemScience.

[09:24]

Okay, that's what I'd like to say now. Who else? Yes. I'm still thinking about how we talk about the past. Yes. The first thing which comes to my mind is that there is not such a thing as a past which would exist by itself. There are two pasts, one that is over and one that is not over.

[10:29]

And the other thing is that something we have to deal with in our everyday practice of therapy, that there are two kinds of past. One past which is past and one past which is not past. Okay. And which is still present. Okay. And to the first one again, that there is none at all, is that we are constantly choosing And referring to this first past which not actually exists, that we are somehow constantly selecting or making choices and more or less, So we select, that's the way I understood it, we select which kind of Memsigns we are taking into the present. No, mostly we don't select.

[11:42]

I mean I'm not selecting to see this as a bell. I can do that. Actually, it's instantaneous. It's part of noticing this object. Yes, but especially in the psychological area, in the field of therapy, I try to teach someone that at the point where he affects his personal story, it is no longer so automatic to do it in one way. Yeah, but actually in therapy, the core, one of the important things is just to teach a person or to let a person see that he or she doesn't have to do it on a particular point.

[13:03]

the way he or she has always been doing that. So that's the point in therapy. I'm just trying to understand. I can see that if I like or dislike the bell, I can notice I'm adding like or dislike. But that's a kind of second stage. And what is the past which no longer exists? Und was ist diese Vergangenheit, von der du gesprochen hast, die nicht mehr besteht? For example. Kannst du mir ein Beispiel nennen? Also, warum ich das unterschieden habe zwischen der, die jetzt gegenwärtig ist, und der, die vorbei ist? Also, da, wo ich... Ah, sorry.

[14:07]

Mixed up. Translating from German into German. Da kann ich es noch einmal sagen. I am not really sure what you are now meaning and what you are referring to. You said there is past that exists and past that doesn't exist. I mean, it was in the sense of there is a past which is past, and there is a past which is not past. Okay, what is the past that is past? Caesar combing his hair. Was ist die Vergangenheit, die nicht vergangen ist? Caesar, der sich seine Haare frisiert. Die Vergangenheit? Was ist eine Vergangenheit, die vergangen ist, im Unterschied zu einer Vergangenheit, die gegenwärtig ist?

[15:12]

Was verstehst du unter dieser Unterscheidung? I am only referring to the past in the sense whether it's present in the present moment. Oh, in the present moment. But it's present somewhere in a person's body or life or something. Otherwise it has no relevance. Okay. Jack, Hans, you're right. So referring to what Andrea said, in therapy there are certain paths or certain issues in the past where you have the feeling, I am at peace with it. There is no longer a conflict with this path. The so-called design therapies are the closed shapes that in the background

[16:26]

For instance, in Gestalt therapy, there are these whole or complete, there are these complete Gestalt, where there is this chorus, where there is a chorus of well-sounding voices. That's what it's technically called. A Gestalt chorus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, good. And in contrast to that there are these open Gestalts which are somehow, which always try to come to the foreground of the scene and always are some kind of needy and need something. So they're seeking completion in the present.

[17:33]

I've noticed a few. So I think that that was what Andrea could have meant. I don't know whether I'm right. Is that what you could have meant, Andrea? Yes, when it fits somehow. Okay, good. All right, thanks. Yes, who else? Yes. Well, I come somehow from a different direction. I come from practice. Well, as I understood or absorbed Zen Buddhist teaching, the point is somehow to explore new territories and to somehow be able to find new territories.

[18:45]

For instance, when one is taught new things like sasen, where one can make new experiences. And also, as Nicole pointed out, to rest into the sense fields, in the sense fields. These are territories and realms which we normally don't notice and which are normally also not accessible for us. So, parallel to the self, new ways of being, new experiences, new fields of experience develop

[20:00]

And I'm not describing this as if it would be like this, but that's my experience. And what I didn't hear, and maybe I didn't hear it because I didn't listen, is what does Buddhism say to these things which occur on and on, over and over again, and which cause suffering? I would say which appear again and again. And this... So she would say appear, not occur?

[21:20]

Also für mich ist dieser Punkt, den du mit diesem MemScience aufbringst, den finde ich sehr wichtig, mit dem Zusammenhang. And for me in this context, the point you were making with this MemScience is very important. Weil ich glaube, dass das genau, das ist so ein Berührungspunkt, wo die Praxis auch dazu etwas sagt, wie man mit diesem And I think this is an important point, these mem signs, because this is something how we can deal with How we can deal with these things which appear over and over again. And my question would be, how can one deal with mem signs which appear over and over again?

[22:26]

like compulsive thinking or something like that, or as I said last night, repetitious patterns or something like that? last seminar when we tortured ourselves with the self tortured ourselves well that's the expression in German I don't know how you say it in English enchanted ourselves quite a different feeling Well, we somehow painfully have to deal with this idea of the self. Some people said, why do we deal with this painful thing as the self?

[23:42]

Because it's so difficult and it's also so painful. So why are we... Why are we creating it at all? I mean, it's just... Not why are we creating in the seminar, but why do we create it in ourself? Yes. Well, then stop creating it. Just give us ten steps. Make my fortunes. Ten steps to getting rid of the self. You can ghostwrite it for me, I'll share the royalties. I can only translate. My question is more modest. I want to know how to get rid of the self, but how we can deal with the mem-signs.

[24:43]

I mean, in some senses, we could say, as I've said, that the self is the ultimate mem-sign. Okay. Now, when I'm listening to you and listening to myself, I'm trying to hear how I can glue this together. We're too early in the seminar for me to know how to glue it together. So mostly I think I can only speak to the mosaic of what's appearing. I'm just a translator. Yeah, I have to sort of find a part, something, I have to respond to the mosaic she brought up.

[26:19]

I think if... just this much. If one has the experience of noticing appearance, that skill is at the center of all So you have the idea that it's possible. Like the example I use quite often from the from a koan where it says, just hold to the moment before thought arises. Just that statement is a remarkable challenge.

[27:34]

To hold to the moment before thought arises? Thanks a lot. What else is new? But it's possible. And really not so difficult. Probably we already do it. We just don't notice that we do it sometimes. If you notice it, you get the feel for it. If you notice that you already do it, then you can notice the feeling that accompanies already doing. So we start with the possibility. And then we generate an intention to realize the possibility. And this intention actually develops, refines our attention.

[28:59]

And this refined, more refined attention then starts noticing let's say, mem signs and percepts appearing. And the simple example I use, you're sitting Zazen and you hear an airplane and you decide to peel the mem sign off the airplane. Was the sound. Ist es, dass ihr Sase macht und ihr hört ein Flugzeug und ihr entscheidet euch dafür, das Konzept des Flugzeugs von dem Geräusch abzuziehen. And that's easy to do. You can notice, oh, I think that's an airplane.

[30:01]

And then you release yourself, release yourself, release hearing, into hearing itself. And the MemSign airplane is way over somewhere. The label. And as I said, when you do that, the... Sound echoes in the sphere of the heavens. It's very clear that when the mem sign, the T-cosy, It's got hold of the airplane.

[31:06]

You hear the sound in the context of it being an airplane. If you take the airplane context away, you actually hear the sound differently. As I say it, it maybe feels like the music of the spheres. Of course, this label is not completely gone. Because if it happens to be an airplane or a helicopter that's about to crash into the meditation building, the label reappears real fast, says, that's an airplane, and you run out of the zenda.

[32:09]

But even if the mem sign is still somewhere lurking, It hasn't taken over the sound. And that's a big difference. Again, another one of my usual examples. The Lankavatara Sutra. It says, here are the syllables. The names and the phrases or sentences. So to hear the syllable is just to hear the percept, the sound of the syllable. Before you add a name to it.

[33:19]

And then before the name turns into a word in a horizontal sentence. Now I remind us of these familiar examples because if you can get a feeling for a number of examples you can begin to extend that to to Eric's voice, to the feel in the room, and so forth. So now the more you get in the habit of feeling the simultaneous, nearly simultaneous presence of the mem sign and the percept.

[34:26]

It lessens your identification with the mem signs. And it lessens the secondary attached associations. This is mine, or this is what I am, et cetera. And when you get into that feeling, Strangely again, you yourself feel more complete. And you feel a kind of power of intention and percept in each situation.

[35:30]

And that changes your perception. Your psychology. How you function psychologically. And how do you relate then to the stories that are... Filaments of stories in your past. And you can much more quickly notice they start weaving into your daily life, or you can just let them go. And even if you let them weave into, just by habit weave into a particular story you don't like,

[36:38]

You know, you let it happen. Then you can see between the spaces in the weave better. Now, without becoming more specific, related to you and your practice, in this context is what I would say. I know someone who has very intelligent person who had repeated bladder infections. And they went to a number of doctors of, you know, Chinese and et cetera.

[37:53]

And at some point after years of this repeated bladder infection, her Chinese medicine doctor told her to go to us psychokinetic therapist. And I don't know much about this. I know if you have a watch on with a battery you can push your arm down easily and if you don't have a watch with a battery on it's very hard to push your arm down. Things like that. It's about the limits of my knowledge. I don't know much about that. I know that if you have a wristwatch with a battery, then you can't lower the arm so easily.

[39:08]

So she went to this guy or couple, I don't remember. And they looked at her kinetically at her body or something. And then they said, they asked her some very... Deeply affecting questions. And then they did a constellation on a chessboard. This piece is your grandfather. And somehow she felt excited. extraordinarily released in the process, and she hasn't had bladder infections since, in a couple of years.

[40:22]

This is the first I've heard of constellations on a chessboard. And I hope her bladder infections don't come back. But I don't doubt her story at all, but I can't say I understand it. But clearly, whatever happened, something of her, this story of her, about her grandfather, I think it was her grandfather, had something to do with somehow present in her body and then able to be articulated on the chessboard. Aber irgendwie scheint es so gewesen zu sein, dass in der Geschichte ihr Großvater verbunden war mit Teilen ihres Körpers und das konnte dann auf diesem Schachbrett artikuliert werden und dann war es vorbei.

[41:39]

Okay. And if any of you have anything to offer about that story, I'd be happy to... Now, I think it's about time for us to have a break. And again, if any of you who were at the recent seminar this weekend. From that seminar, I've introduced MemScience, which is a term I just created. a couple of weeks ago. I'm kind of amused and surprised how everybody uses it as if like karma, dharma, men's signs.

[42:42]

Yeah, I've created a lot of terms. Most of them just disappear. I can't even remember them. But it's the first time I've examined the dynamic of memory in the way I'm doing now. But if there's something else from the previous seminar you think should be brought into the weave of this one. Please let me know. Or let all of us know. And let's have a break.

[43:31]

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