As you can see, I made a list, kind of list. A sequential list. And I probably would like to revise it a bit. And prove the English in the latter part. And reading the English correction, especially from the last part. There's an idea, two terms that I haven't mentioned, that I did mention last weekend, I think I should bring into this weekend. Let me just sum it up. Which are very, I think, very important ideas.

[01:00]

Yeah, and... Okay, so one of them is vikalpa. Eine davon ist vikalpa. And the other is sankalpa. Und das andere ist sankalpa. Okay, vikalpa means your past. Und vikalpa bedeutet eure Vergangenheit. If you want to spell it, it's vikalpa. Und wenn ihr es buchstabiert haben wollt, dann ist es vikalpa. Sounds really different. I'm just kidding. That's not the alphabet. I know somebody who was, you know, in a small way enlightened. They went to New Jersey. And they went to Michigan for college. And they thought it was very strange.

[02:34]

Everyone in Michigan had an accent. And it took him a little while. He was not too swift. And he suddenly realized he had the accent. And it was a kind of enlightenment experience for him. Yeah, okay. So I had this continuous enlightenment with him, you know. So habe ich mit ihm diese kontinuierliche Erleuchtungserfahrung. Okay. Anyway, V. Kelpa, not... It means your past experience. But it means the nature derived from your past experience. In other words, you don't just have past experience. In addition, that past experience is continuously being glued together in a pattern we can call

[03:54]

your past nature. And so sankalpa means something like your past nature in the present, or the nature that you derived from the situate immediacy, that leads to enlightenment. So what's interesting about it is it means the nature derived from your past experience. So you know the experience of the Bodhisattva, something like he or she feels there's

[05:04]

swimming in the light of the present. And floating in the present is the past. And sometimes you go through little If you swim in a lake, you go through cold spots and warm spots. Suddenly you swim through a cold spot, ooh, that's my past. Maybe you swim through a warm spot, oh, she was beautiful. So it's like that. And also you can feel in this manifold aggregate You can feel how the present will form a past that leads to enlightenment.

[06:21]

So we could say that the present is the territory of enlightenment or something like that. And practices, zazen, turning words and so forth, is in the present you can feel the future forming. Now, the future forming is not considered to be a future that's productive in some way, like be successful or smarter.

[07:25]

Swimming in the present, you feel feel the present that will lead to less suffering and enlightenment. And that's almost as good as being successful. Yeah. Okay, so again, what kind of liquid is this present? What kind of light is this present? And how do you swim in it? How do you bring the light of attention into it? You know, one of Dogen's most well-known phrase is to think non-thinking.

[08:39]

It means many things and scholars often say they don't know what it means and so forth. Let's at least keep it simple initially, which means what it says. Use thinking to interrupt thinking. For example, when I told you yesterday, moving my leg and it kind of hurt and wouldn't go into place. So instead of thinking about it, I changed the context in which thinking occurred to the yoga of the present moment.

[09:41]

And then my leg went into place. And now I haven't been able to get it out. I'm just kidding. Um... So that's an example of using thinking to think non-thinking. Yeah, I used the thought of the yoga of thinking. Each moment. To non-think. Okay. So that would be an example of in the midst of the present, are you thinking or are you non-thinking or are you... present through your horror, or are you present, you know, etc.

[11:02]

So let's go to the list of constituents for now. So I said, what is operative? Functioning, working. and part of this situate immediacy. The senses. As long as you're alive, there's some kind of feeling, Perception. Yeah, like waking up. And then what we could say is what occurs is simple appearance. And then in that simplest appearance, let's say you can bring a percept to it.

[12:35]

You notice a shape on the wall. And then you bring a mem sign to it. On the wall turns into a light which you could And I should probably put cognition in there after men's science. Because Percepts create one kind of presence. One kind of consciousness. And cognition creates another kind of cognition. And for most of us, they're mixed all the time. But there's actually a difference between percept derived consciousness and

[13:46]

cognitive derived. This is my experience, but it is also a traditional distinction. But we can say attention is something in addition to... Then there's attention. So you have a simple appearance of... The present. And then you have an appearance of the present which arises through perception, mem signs, and cognition. And then you have more focus. That appearance here is a synonym for the present. And within the

[15:03]

manifold appearances you can focus on one or the other. You can focus not only can focus without a self, but you can also focus through and as the operant self. No, I'm using... I'm using the term operant self. Because I'm trying to find a way to not treat the self as a unit. But clearly an operation, a function, a process. And it would be nice to find a term that When we say it to ourselves, it's so obviously a process, an activity, as say the light of a flashlight is an activity or process.

[16:24]

And of course, process within the wavelengths of human seeing. I think it's 4,000 to 7,700 angstroms or something like that. But outside that there's light, but we can't see it. It must be the same word in German. Yeah, but I'm not very familiar with the Armstrong. Your buddy is an expert on light.

[17:26]

Yes, but that's more thinking then. Okay. So the operant cell then tends to turn the present into self. Well, or we could even say the present becomes a narrative about oneself. Yeah, and then what's also present, of course, is the past. And the past is thought to be present in the present as the Kalpa. As functioning in the present, as who you were and who you are.

[18:27]

When the observing mind is identified with self, there's no separation. But when the observing mind is not identified as self, then you can feel your previous self in the pool, in the liquid of the present. Yeah, and I said the past occurs as narrative self-history and as non-self-history. Now, I tend to... my imagination of constellation work tend to identify with the constellation process as a kind of extrapolation or portion of the mind of meditation.

[19:49]

In everyday circumstances. And more mature mindfulness. is not just bringing attention to the present, but bringing the uninterrupted mind of zazen or meditation or samadhi into everyday circumstances. For the sake of conversation or this discussion, let's just use the word samadhi. So the bodhisattva ideally is located in samadhi, but participates in the activity of everyday life. It's almost like you could feel a kind of pool of stillness in the water.

[21:33]

It somehow is so still, it's not disturbed by the activity of the water as usual activity. So in that regard, I tend to think of what one does when one is making a constellation. Now, I'm not saying this really for... primarily, really, for you as... those of you who are systemic therapists.

[22:43]

I'm saying it because I'm selfish. Because I'm very interested in When, if I can manage a field of samadhi in the middle of circumstances, is it something like constellation work? This is interesting. Now, if I can create this samadhi in the middle of ordinary activity, does the past flow up through this column of still water? So in some way, does constellation work you know, the kind of ritual of how you enter a constellation, create a kind of unified concentration, which is another word for samadhi,

[24:01]

There are many modes of mind which are considered samadhi. This would be one. So, again... Does the ritual of establishing a constellation allow the past of a person to not only flow back into them, but flow into the present in a way that other people can feel it performatively. Okay. Now, the second thing I put there.

[25:17]

Which I... The rather telegraphic sense in English isn't perfect. So maybe you could just translate it. Excuse me. There's actually no word unperceivable. It should be imperceivable, but sometimes I like unperceivable. All right. The imperceivable or unperceivable and or unthinkable you can't think into surrounds us.

[26:19]

This imperceivable This darkness of the unknown also influences us. And even though it's imperceivable and unthinkable. Yet it is to varying degrees known and acted upon by our body in a wider field than the five senses and consciousness. Much of our life, our life outside a sense of ownership, our life with others,

[27:35]

through the past and accompanied by the probable and improbable. You could say the likely and the unlikely. We could say implicit and explicit. Is he to us? That's the most important word, I think, in this thing. It's keyed to us. What do you exactly mean? It's sung in the same key. We may not perceive it, we may not be able to think it, but somehow it's sung in the same key. It is key to us interdependent within.

[28:54]

Part of and interdependent within. The subtle world of causation that flows from past to future. Future to past. present to present. Is that okay? What? You understand everything. Okay, good. That's why I'm here. Can I ask a question? Yes, please. What's key for me is somehow the feeling I have is when you said ritual.

[30:17]

Because What is strange is I did some constellation as a representative and also for myself and I also did it on, not on a chess board, but with, I think with stones or something, or with, like, like you were dowsing. Yeah, you take some from a board. Yeah. So it works with the board and it works with people. And Kristina also told me that she did only two weeks ago something with stones, her family with stones. And the feeling I have is that the most important thing is somehow you get, you make a certain kind of ritual which opens you up somehow, which gets you out from this thinking and which, yeah, as you describe it, gets somehow, you open a channel or something.

[31:32]

Mm-hmm. And being brought up Catholic, I think it could be, I mean, if you do a ritual, it can be, if you do it really sincerely, it can be any ritual. Mm-hmm. Because some, for instance, even the ritual... when you walk around the bowing mat during the service. So I think the thing is somehow to enter into this stage, into this state. Which is the non-thinking state. And from this it flows. So I would appreciate, thank you for that.

[32:43]

Anybody else who has any thoughts about this or what I'm talking about? Are we on the same page or at least in the same book? Yes, secretly. So a ritual provides a certain sequence, a certain sequence for the body. And that facilitates to enter into the present or the embodiment. The most simple example that many of us have experienced is getting married. It's very difficult to tell another person you love them forever.

[33:49]

as powerfully as you can tell them in a ritual. A marriage ceremony takes 20 minutes or 45 minutes or something. the time between now and lunch. And it changes your life. All the rest of your life you'll say, I was married. I mean, even if you're divorced three weeks later. But you might live with someone two or three years and you might later never say, I was married. Don't even mention that you lived with someone two or three. And it's the ritual that makes the difference. Yes. So you asked whether we are on the same page, but for me it was somehow like this link to music, like Fuge, Bach.

[35:35]

You want to talk about Bach? Well, that was a good choice. That was a nice one. How do you call this fuge, this certain kind of music? No, no. When anyway, the fuge and the center or the theme of the fuge was what is the present. A fugue. Yeah. Okay, and at the end it was more like a crescendo, which I couldn't follow entirely, but I somehow had the feeling at the center of it is the question, what is the present? That's what I hoped for and intended. I don't think that you expected that Wu will entirely understand what you said.

[36:38]

Yes, I do. It's completely clear and simple. I mean, I think if you take this statement and you go sentence by sentence I hope you'll agree with each sentence. The trick is to put it together. I have a question for you. How did you come to this understanding? Okay, when you present your two pages, I somehow get my attack of desperation, which I always get in this seminar, once or twice.

[37:55]

So in the sense of, I will never understand. At the same time, because I had this experience several times, at the same time I trust it will somehow work. It's like Sabina sleeping in the forest. And I'm ready to let myself into this adventure. Okay, me too. Yes, Ulrike? When you talk about understanding, actually I like to not understand or something to give up to understand.

[39:05]

Because it produces this kind of shift in the body and I am able to key in or to get this key. Yes? Oh, yes! So there is a copy, there will be a copy. I think in order to understand this we need a different concept or concept of understanding. understanding in the sense of swimming in what is offered to us.

[40:13]

Swimming in contrast to what we have been taught at school, this flashlight, putting flashlights on things as a way of understanding. Yeah, I think that if you start out with some aspects of something like this and then you swim in the present, which you're doing all the time, and then you begin to notice, well, yes, that aspect is there. Something like that. I think this understanding of our presence is something special here.

[41:17]

So I got the feeling from what you said that the present is somehow something that has an impact or has effect, not in the sense of something that is or that exists. Yeah, weaving. That's right. . And this channel which leads from the past is somehow like knowing or realizing how things are connected, how they come together. Yes.

[42:46]

and which we can experience as a different space, a space with different reference points or coordinates. The operant self, yes. You've got that from last year? Yeah. These somehow are related or come together. Yeah. Yeah, it's like that, yeah.

[43:53]

And because you said maybe there is a different term or maybe we can have a different word for it. I got interested in the word mutual, what it really means, what it actually means. So mutual is a kind of relationship, mutual relationship, but in a certain and in a particular way, which is created in a particular way. And in the dictionary, there was a German term for Muten, which is used in mining. So it seems to be related to technical terms in mining.

[44:59]

In the sense of guessing where the treasure is. Oh, guessing where the gold is. Yeah, that's good. And in the English Dictionary there's also the reference to a sounding line which is where you sink from the ship. Yeah, where Mark Twain comes. Yeah, right. And also a kind of connection in a space where there is no gravitation and no... But still there's a kind of exploration where you ask or you search for the exploit.

[46:29]

Okay, thanks. Yes, Ulrike. For my level of understanding. So last weekend you talked about the synchronic connectedness and synchronic immediacy. And there is also this bringing together in this connectedness of the present.

[47:30]

I often have similar experiences like Sabine just described. when there are many situations when there are many informations which individually make sense but they come in as a punch it feels to me like I have to start from scratch Then I have the feeling as if I would extend. Then there is a spacious experience where this everything has a place.

[48:40]

There is room for... This is my most favorite spot point time in the seminar. So in other words, I should try to create this every time. I do, anyway. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yes? Should I have a quite different strategy to deal with my desperation? Yes? I'm hoping for the tape. Okay. Yes? I have somehow the feeling now that I would, as if I would swim in a melody of the past.

[49:47]

and with a particular atmosphere. And in between there are some kind of solid ingredients. and that's similar to what Nicole yesterday called conditioning and this distinction starts to move somehow Hoping that this atmosphere, and this happens sometimes, somehow dissolves into present.

[51:03]

One of the things you can see that I try to do is that you can read about these teachings. And they're usually just words. And you're outside the words looking at. And for most Buddhist scholars who are writing, they're outside the words too. And you can feel when some of the scholars, and there's a few who are really not only practitioners but good practitioners, and the sentences, if you just read them, kind of shut you out. But if you go with the sentences physically, they take hold of you.

[52:28]

But still, they take hold of you if you're Probably more likely if you're a practitioner also. So what I'm trying to do is primarily using metaphors to kind of translate these teachings into metaphors we can experience or feel, enter into. And it's not a plan of mine. I've discovered that metaphors are what works.

[53:29]

And metaphors work for me too. When I'm trying to understand something, if I can create a metaphor, then it can understand it better. Now, one thing I noticed I mean, this last practice period at Crestone. And which I've said to you a number of times, I believe, that it's really not possible for me to write and also teach. I mean, when I'm teaching, like during this seminar, I am 24 hours occupied by the seminar.

[54:53]

I just, you know, I'm in a field that we're creating together. And I'm the audience myself of the field. And I can't shift to writing, which is that I'm out of the field and I wouldn't know what to do this afternoon. I really don't know what to do this afternoon, actually, right now. So I have to not teach orally and not be engaged in the schedule with others if I'm going to write. And I think I should write.

[56:08]

Mostly because I enjoy it. It's a nice way to spend my day. So in this last practice period, participants, Nicole was one, allowed me, after the first period of zazen, which is over about 4.50, allowed me to write the rest of the day. And then we had a couple seminars during the monk week of the practitioners discussing the text I was writing. And one couple hour seminar, a monk week, that's a five day week, which I met with the practitioners. And the participants' reaction to the text really helped me a lot.

[57:39]

One of the things I discovered is when I'm a little thinking I'm getting a little too far out, that's mostly what people like the best. But also they pointed out what aphoristic sentence is. tended to let them enter into the text. But also what I discovered is the reading channel is certainly differently open and maybe more open than the speaking, listening channel.

[58:50]

One of the nice things about the For me, living in the Dharma Sangha here in Europe and in the United States, I'm practicing living with people who I've been practicing living with for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years. Mostly, You know, 10 and more years. This is a tremendous field of shared experience. I mean, say there's 30 people here and we've been together 10 years and some more. That's 300 years of shared experience. It's incredible.

[59:51]

So here we have a room in Creston where there's maybe a few hundred years of shared experience. A hundred years. And I give them a written text which describes something which is a written version of something I've orally presented a hundred times during those hundred years. And then they say, it's the first time I've understood it. Of course it's not wasting my time, something else is going on. And I'm utterly convinced that the

[60:52]

oral face-to-face teaching situation is the largest percentage of what makes practice work. But it's still interesting that people have experienced at least some of the teachings are clearer when they can read it. And my opinion about this is that we've grown up reading. We've grown up developing understanding through reading. And we can go back and forth on a text and make it clear to ourselves.

[62:28]

So I'm bringing this up only like, if I just said this, Would you have had the same reaction as if when you see it as a text? So some of you had a sensation of... I find this difficult to understand. If I just said it, you probably would have said, oh, I understand. And then probably it would have been part of you in a way that understanding would have come forth. So there's an advantage to feeling you understand and entering into it with the spirit of, this is a teaching for human beings, I'm a human being, so I must be able to understand it.

[63:39]

But it's also important for understanding to recognize that you don't understand. I mean, what Gregory Bateson said to me once years ago, he found it very hard to teach contemporary college students. Maybe it was especially in the 60s. He'd say something absolutely certain no one in the room understood it or ever heard of it before. He said the students said, man, groovy, that's great. They don't understand anything, but, you know.

[64:59]

So to have the experience of, I don't understand, this is great. Ich verstehe es nicht, aber es ist großartig. Ich verstehe es nicht, es ist großartig. Do you have anything to say, Nicole, since you were present during the practice period and we've gone over some of this? I don't want to put you on the spot. When I just said the way you just presented the teaching in that text related to a lot of things that I've heard, that we've talked about in the context of your book. When I heard that I had a lot of associations that relate to different teachings that we've there in the context of the book.

[66:08]

So this is a very rich text that has a lot of Just a little sentence. You're aware of the past flows into the future. The future flows into the past. The present flows into the present. Just that teaching, I think, can open up. You can use that as an entry to the entire experience. It doesn't have to be practical. Okay, I hope so. Could you say that in German? Yes. or this experience of being noticed in the past, in the future, in the present, [...]

[67:20]

Well, it'll be interesting. I hope that there's a good chance I can finish the book maybe even early this year. Because I've squeezed enough weeks now and have in this summer schedule some open weeks to write. So it will be interesting and the book is done if any of you happen to It takes time to read some of it. How it will interplay with the seminars we've had. You were going to say something?

[68:42]

I feel particularly grateful and nourished for and by that what Roshi taught this morning. And it somehow corrected a few I had or a picture I had that Zen not really appreciates, or pasts, and how the past somehow influences the present and future. And that's connected also to this constellation we are doing where we are actually bringing the past into the present.

[69:44]

Yeah. Now, usually about this point in the seminar, Sometimes there's a suggestion we gather and do a constellation during the afternoon or in the evening or something. Anyway, I don't know what, if you have some idea like that, we should talk about it. Yeah, and I'm open to after lunch, whatever we... I can just continue in some way like I've been doing. But right now, let's have a few minutes or a moment or two of sitting.

[70:50]

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