Yes, go ahead. Can you translate for me? So one thing that's... This is the teamwork, I think. So something that I'm thinking about is how, you know, you've described this psychic space that's populated. ... And how it's almost like in a constellation you manifest those people as actual bodies. And my experience from having done constellations is that this actual having these actual bodies present in my psychic space is something like an increased intelligence something I couldn't come to

[01:16]

just all by myself sitting Zazen. So I'm just sort of presenting that as an experiential fact. But then when I think about it, I'm realizing there's some kind of limitation that I wouldn't call... Yeah, there's some kind of limitation. It's almost like certain contents are not available in this associative mind that you presented. They're deeper than that. not really available, but they become available through the bodies of others.

[02:30]

And I mean through the actual bodies, not the imagined bodies. And I think that's a real difference. No, I agree completely. Okay. And we also, I talked with Christine and Frank and Michael during the break, and I think that, you know, the way we have talked about Sangha life, That's, you know, just in practice, that somehow practice doesn't really happen without a Sangha life in which certain constellations as actual relationship you know, a present, because then certain things just can't happen if you don't practice with real bodies and real embodied relationships.

[03:43]

Einfach in der Praxis ist es. Willst du das übersetzen? Ja, das ist ohne das Sangha-Leben, ohne wirkliche Yeah, what I didn't at all mean to say that the practice of working or discovering a populated space within Zazen is in any is in any is an equivalent process but it's a similar process and certainly I would say a related process now as I mentioned Dowson

[04:53]

I'm not a professional dowser. But I discovered I could douse by chance. And just for the heck of it, since not all of you know the story, When I was in high school, I worked 40 hours a week at a grocery store. And I would Go home and have a quick lunch. I had it all figured out how to do it. Get to the grocery store half an hour after school was up. I'm zooming across the parking lot to get to my job.

[06:11]

These guys were walking along with welding rods, bend and L's. Welding is... Yeah, so Schweiß... They looked totally mysterious what they were doing. I said, what the heck are you guys doing? And they said, we're looking for the pipes under the parking lot. I said, really? So I said, I mean, I just thought they were crazy. I'd never heard of anything like this. And they said, well, kid, why don't you try it?

[07:13]

And I was in a hurry, so I grabbed the thing. I said, okay. I didn't know anything. I just walked along with the rods like this and then suddenly they went boing. So I said, I don't know, I gave them the rods and went in. Then I came out later and they dug just where I... And they were all the pipes. So anyway, I... I assume that you can, if you are sensitive enough, you can feel it without the rods. But I think that actually it's not just a matter of amplifying the feeling, actually the rods participate.

[08:27]

And there's a different configuration for dowsing rods has a different effect, I think. Remember years ago somebody came to our seminars for two years to think he was a dowser. And he had plastic rods and he said, do you remember him? Yeah. Nice guy. He has the rods he gave me, in fact. Any case. So I have a friend who does constellations on a chessboard.

[09:29]

And she puts stones and various things, and they're various people, and she moves them around, and she feels resolved with the constellation. So I would say that's a kind of dowsing. Okay. Now, if you take that from dowsing rods to stones and chess pieces or something to real people, you're really making a much more complex event. And it's probably also more dangerous. Because when you're doing it yourself, you still have control. Yeah. But if Guni's doing it and she's got people out there, you never know what's going to happen.

[10:54]

What am I going to find out? Anyway, so I agree with you. Okay, someone else. I like the word incubation and you use it. You like incubation? I like the word incubation. You mean it and you use it. And I noticed that you don't use the word breathe. To breathe? Breathing. Breathing, no. And Christian always uses the translation in the sense, and we don't have in German a discrimination between incubation and breathing, because it's the same word.

[12:04]

And Christian uses the translation as the meaning of breathing, because in German there is no... I have a feeling, because every time it is written, I think it doesn't sound right. I have the feeling that there is a kind of important difference between incubate and breed, but I don't grasp it. Well, in English they are really different. I mean, you could breed chickens, but that wouldn't be a chicken incubating an egg. Can I say something? Sure, of course.

[13:04]

But you don't say an hen incubates an egg. You do say a hen incubates an egg. Yeah, I'm incubating this pillow right now. To breed means to... Can you explain to him what to breed means? Well, if you breed horses, you take two or three different horses, you try to get the best horse you can for the race or something. To breed means to breed. I mean, when we choose our spouse, we're actually making a breeding process. When we choose our spouse, we're actually making a breeding process.

[14:07]

Well, what do we do with it? I guess we have to make whatever term you use, define it as a special term that doesn't mean breeding. No, no. I think it's cleared up because I think the translation I'm using is actually correct. It's what's meant by incubate. Okay. Yes. To my knowledge, the word incubation is, and now that same word, incubation, incubation in German, occurs in the context of alchemy, really. Yeah, and maybe he's cooking up it. Well, the word incubate really means to supply heat to something. And the chicken's butt is supplying heat to the... Yeah, and in alchemy, that is to cook something.

[15:41]

It's the same thing, to apply heat. I also use incubate as very close to me. I could use equally the word evolve. Ich benutze dieses Wort brüten, ausbrüten. Und für mich ist das ganz... They mean something different, incubate and evolve. But the attitude in practice is about the same, whether you use evolve or incubate. ...development... ...and... ...and... ...the way he uses the word evolve... ...means that this development... ...doesn't happen on a set goal... ...so an open... ...an open... ...an open development...

[17:04]

I mean, again, I can only do this in English, of course. But the word evolve and develop both have the same meaning to role. But to develop means to roll it up and finish it. You develop something. And to evolve is to let it change, let it continue and don't stop. So you let, you incubate some phrase or teaching. And through the incubation, the teaching evolves into sometimes something quite different that you couldn't have predicted.

[18:29]

And when you don't want to develop the teaching, because that is almost the same as trying to understand teaching. And you want to try Okay, from the heart. Yes. Yes. I liked Frank's image of a shared incubation, yeah.

[19:30]

I have often thought of a constellation as something like a shared dreaming. And not just constellation, it's also, it could be any kind of therapy or counseling, it's like a shared dreaming. And what I really like and enjoy about this term incubation, is that the body is emphasized in it. And because it implies this helping another being to hatch, geboren zu werden, er sagt jetzt zu schlüpfen,

[20:31]

And hatching really also means to come into appearance. And the birthing process is also a kind of releasing. Yeah. And also it's really, it's just funny because I see all of us sitting on eggs all the time. Yeah. Well, I think we ought to pile up straw all around the windows. And get a little closer and warmer. Yeah, I think I like this shared incubation too, and I also like what...

[21:41]

Christian said about the Sangha, what happens when you practice in the Sangha. It's kind of an inadvertent constellation. And Sashin does have a sense of a whole lot of people in a hatchery all lined up, you know. OK, someone else? Yeah. Yeah, I have something to say about this dowsing rod. And you said something like you know we're probably sensitive enough to feel these things without the rod.

[23:38]

And my impression is we feel all kinds of things, but because we have certain filters, it doesn't really penetrate and resurface in our mind. And the rod is something like an opportunity for the body to find a way to articulate itself. Through the filters. Yeah. And I think the constellation is a similar thing where we find a way to articulate ourselves through the body content that doesn't penetrate through the filters. Yeah, I think that's exactly how I understand it.

[24:50]

But also an appearance-only mind, an appearance-only space becomes a kind of something outside or under the filters. And if you have the yogic skill to generate an appearance-only mind, It's strange, you're not thinking. But you start receiving information and giving information that you can't get through thinking. So it opens you to a kind of knowing which is not thinking.

[26:05]

So it's nearly identical concept to your concept, but it's a concept that's been brought into practice. For example, again, A no other location mind. A mind that rests only in this situation and has no other sense of any other location possible. finds itself in the connectedness with things that you can't get any other way. And let me just say from the point of view of practice, Doesn't mean you have a distracted mind and then you have a no other location mind, absolutely.

[27:07]

The realization of this is really a kind of pulse. A pulse of sometimes no other location mind, sometimes somewhat more distracted. at this very place, knows no other place, and then can be distracted. two truths are also experienced as a pulse. So then Yogacara and Madhyamaka and other teachings develop the two truths after Nagarjuna. So like you have a mind which you don't even see as relative, Then there's a mind you experience as relative.

[28:24]

Then you have a mind which is the momentary uniqueness or emptiness. And then you have the mind that pulses back and forth between these things. And then you have a mind which encompasses the pulse. And in Zen this is called the five ranks. So it's shown as a circle that's clear, a circle that's all black. And then a circle which is moving toward black and then a circle which is moving toward white.

[29:37]

Clear. This is a process through some centuries of incubating Nagarjuna's teaching of the two truths. turn it, make it less philosophical and more an illustration of practice or a map of practice. A map of practice, right? Yeah, or illustration. Yeah. Inner GPS. Yes. A ZPS, a Zen Positioning System. Anyway, excuse me, I get a little silly, you know, before dinner.

[30:39]

So, what else? Who else? It occurred to me that this incubation also is related to Dogen's phrase. It has this phrase of completing that which appears. I am familiar with this in my therapeutic practice. Where in Gestalt therapy we have this... idea of verstärken was what you were saying?

[31:52]

Amplify that which is. Yeah, I understand. Okay, good. Did someone, did anyone have any feeling or reaction to my sort of presenting the process of entering into a constellation. As I described it. As a process of perhaps intentionally creating a little chaos. As... So you're interrupting people, you're disassembling people's usual way of functioning. So they find themselves in a somewhat new world.

[33:02]

Did that make sense as a part of the process? Yeah. Yes? I thought about how I would try to introduce clients to this posture, this inner posture. The way you explained it was way too complicated. It was. So the way we do that usually is that we ask clients to contact their intention. then they are asked to let go of or forget all concepts or ideas or images and to focus on bodily sensations.

[34:29]

That's awfully complicated. That's... That would be the translation. No, I understand. That's good. But I guess what I was bringing into it is to do something like that. But to join it or bring into it a little choreographed chaos. Do you actually sort of act it out a little bit with a little bit unexpected moves or ways of standing up? I think just standing behind somebody is already this kind of choreography.

[35:32]

Moving them around in a kind of dark. And all of these things... When you first hear them, they sound complicated. But when you get familiar with them, they just can be there present all at once in your mind and you're kind of acting on them. Yeah, anyway, that's how I experience it. And I would try to say, start a sashin that way. There's lots of rules about how you're supposed to do it, but then suddenly right at the beginning you kind of change the rules and make it a little confusing. That's how it works.

[36:34]

Everybody thinks you're nice because you're not being strict, but actually you're trying to create a little chaos. Like that. I didn't notice that. I would like to add something to this moment of putting one's hands on somebody's shoulders. That's also the moment where you ask somebody to do something. An order is too much. Give him a task. this person then is turned into a kind of tool or a representative for something.

[38:07]

That way this whole person turns into something like a dowsing rod. And this moment of putting the hands on the shoulders is where that transformation happens. Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yes, Michael. But interestingly, it also works without touching the shoulders. . I think there's something that happens prior to that. It's as if whatever the client brings with him or with her is already present in the whole room.

[39:17]

And the representatives are like those dowsing rods that in this particular location go in resonance with that. Yeah. Well, I assumed that there's various ways to do it. How to enter into a constellation. But at least from my experience, it's useful to have some ritual elements And the ritual elements can be somewhat different. But I would guess that there's certain phases that can be articulated by ritual elements.

[40:40]

Let's say there are seven potential phase shifts. Somebody might articulate only three, somebody might articulate eight, some unnecessary ones. I mean, when you're with somebody who's dying. Which is actually true of all of us. Usually you don't make a point of it until... But let's imagine Christian has died.

[42:00]

This is instruction in case you have to be present when I'm dying. I have these two implants recently with my dentist. Now we've laid out sort of like this. And I said, do they melt? I'm not getting that. When I pre-made it. Anyway, so say that Christian is dying, his baby. He's so young. Okay. My experience when somebody's dying, in the room there's a palpable atmosphere.

[43:16]

There's a real thickening of the space. And the custom in Zen practice You usually touch the person on the upper arm and the shoulder or the body. And then you... feel your breathing and the person's breathing, you bring the breathing together. Then you form thought, the mental posture.

[44:18]

I'm willing to die with you. So you really feel that I'm willing to die with you. Or I'm willing to die instead of you. Or I'm willing to continue what you want continued after you. So you have those mental formations. And then you just follow the person's breathing with your breathing. And with a feeling also of releasing, releasing, releasing, release life, you know. And it both calms the person because your breathing helps their breathing when it gets too excited.

[45:33]

And I think it helps the person die. But it's a kind of, it's a similar ritual to entering a constellation. This is the final constellation. Yeah. So you feel You've entered in this mutual incubation. And what you described reminds me of my being present with a midwife helping a woman to give birth.

[46:52]

And it does remind me of situations in constellations when you accompany somebody. And it is as if one is going through something with this other person. And when it is about a conflict, that is the topic of the constellation. And then you need a posture in which everything is included, even the polarities or what is in opposition. And that creates a state of mind in which you forget everything except for this... being present with, this accompanying.

[48:03]

And so in that sense this kind of work, working with a process like this demands a kind of mental posture. That you wouldn't take otherwise or voluntarily. It seems to me that's something like some kind of... That's some kind of involuntary practice with the purpose of letting something come to fruition.

[49:09]

Well, I think that from what you said, it reflects why therapeutic work and constellation practice and Zen practice somehow fit together in various ways. What are these things doing? They're in relationship. I mean, the concept of the bodhisattva is one who enters into an inculpatory process with each person you meet. A process of which is both birthing and dying. And you're willing to go wherever they go. Yeah.

[50:34]

That's beautiful, she said. Yeah. Can I add something? Yes. In the 70s, Leonard Bernstein was conducting a rehearsal of Fidelio. And the man asked the people who were witnessing that rehearsal was an old man called Greenberg. And he was sitting just in front of him. And where the conductor stands at the opera house, there's a little door which you can open and go into a public house. And all of a sudden, Lenny Scott opened that door, went straight to Greenberg, hugged him and died in his arms. He went straight to whom? To that man who was one of the people sitting in the room. And who went straight to that man? Bernstein. Oh, he did, and he died in his arms. It was 15 meters. He went... That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. That's amazing, yeah. Do you want to translate it? In the early 70s, Bernstein held a rehearsal for Fidelio in the Staatsoper.

[51:41]

And there was a television stand behind the door, so that he could do the acoustic rehearsal, by going out into the audience room. Among us 20-30 people sitting in the rehearsal, there is Mr. Greenberg from New York, a fan, who traveled for the performance and the rehearsals. That's an extraordinary story. The ultimate constellation. Leonard, don't hug me. The ultimate constellation. Until I'm ready, please.

[52:49]

Near the end.

[52:50]

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