I'm really happy to see each of you. And that you came on this pre, so-called what I call pre-day or prologue day. It's very nice, thank you. Because it gives, somehow it gives... seminar of greater depth if some of you, for me, some of us start on Friday and then continue with the larger, presumably more people on Saturday and Sunday. And as you noticed just now, on this so-called prologue day, I don't like to start with zazen.

[01:09]

Yeah, but strangely, when we start this afternoon or tomorrow morning, if we do start with zazen, I like to come in after you've started zazen. So the assumption here in my actions and the... an assumption... arrived at and confirmed through my experience. What does that mean, it arrived at? It's an assumption I arrived at through experience. Yeah, and is that we are different persons if we're meditating than if we're not meditating.

[02:17]

And that has to be one of the themes of the topic of this seminar. So now when I came in the door, Roland was standing in the middle of the room and he was saying, Are you ready to party? And by the time I sat down here and looked at Roland, he's blissed out. So he made this transformation really quickly. Okay. Really, there is something like that going on. So the winter branches in the Crestone program, I do a tea show in robes and everything in the morning and something more like this in the afternoon.

[03:45]

This is always my experiment. And now, for instance, I brought... And I haven't put it on yet. But now is the time to put it on. Why not? I could do it sometime. If Roland is blissed out, I can be too. Normally you put this on your head. Which is the same place in ceremonies we do wisdom water from.

[04:49]

And And it's one of the signs of developing meditation or maturing meditation that you, yoga experience, that you begin to feel an itchy, funny feeling here. And it certainly goes with a certain mind of practice. And when you get used to when that feeling appears, You know, it's almost certainly you're in a different state of mind than usual state of mind.

[05:51]

Or perhaps it's the new usual state of mind. And you're probably, if you notice, one's job is to notice if you're a practitioner. But you are in a different mode of mind. And that mode of mind is also manifest in a different, a feeling of greater unison and connectedness with others and phenomena. And then if you notice the physical characteristics of this mode of mind,

[06:58]

Yes, your spine is lifted and your breath and spine seem to be in the same mood. They like each other. So when we put on Buddha's robe, either the small convenient one or the larger one, we put it customarily on this spot. Yeah. And it's an enactment or reminder That this robe is an expression or goes with another kind of mind and body than our usual mind and body.

[08:45]

Yes, it feels good. I may sit here for a while as the robe is having its effect on me. Oh dear, maybe I should put it on each of your heads too. You want to borrow it? It's a small charge. The hotel last night, they tried to charge me to get for the Internet. I thought, it should be free. Yeah, being also a normal citizen of our society, I had to pay my bills and taxes last night. But right now I'm experiencing another kind of wireless.

[09:50]

Right now I'm experiencing another kind of wireless. This is a hot spot, no. Okay, then you take it down and you put it on your self. Then you have this little special stitch in the back which is kind of astrological and connects your spine to the stars. Long way. Pine needle stitch. Okay, so there's some assumption here is in what I do and what I'm teaching and what we're practicing.

[11:23]

Is that there is a real difference between our usual state of mind and our yogic, what shall I call it, meditative, there's no word that quite covers it, Buddha mind. Now, it can be easily assumed by the uninitiated That what we want somehow is Buddha-mind all the time. Yeah. We have a little title of something, Buddha-mind all the time. Yeah. Doesn't sound the same in German, huh?

[12:43]

All right, well. But that's the view of an inexperienced person. Because Really it's about the relationship between a so-called usual state of mind and a Buddha mind. And so let me use during these days probably the Buddha mind. Not with the sense that you're a Buddha or it's a god-like mind or anything, but I don't have a better word. And by using Buddha mind as a term, which I just decided to now, I'm clearly making a distinction between that and what I'm calling usual mind.

[13:58]

But I'm also trying to make, by connecting it with usual mind, making it more usual. It's different than usual mind. Usual is maybe a good word because it's the mind we use most of the time. That's hard to say in German? Because usual mind and the mind you use are two different words? Yes. Really, I know so much about yoga. The word that I'm using is close to habitual. Okay, the mind we inhabit.

[15:00]

Yes, it's related. The spirit that we... This ordinary spirit is the spirit that we inhabit. I just found out yesterday, Ralph, that you introduced her to Gebser, which helped change her life. It's the bow of gratitude, which is part of the ceremony. Yeah. So I would like to, part of what I'm assuming doing now, singing and doing now, is trying to make Buddha mind more usual. It may be distinguished from our habit mind,

[16:01]

but interrelated with our habit mind. And that interrelationship is our practice. So you're not trying to replace usual or habit mind with Buddha mind. You're trying to develop the relationship between habit mind and Buddha mind. Now it's partly as simple as a shift from left brain to right brain. I would be fairly sure that if you wired me up or petted me with PET Yes, medical doctor.

[17:27]

Say that a little more clearly. Positron emission tomography. Yeah, positron emission tomography. Yeah, I know. And somebody's at the door, I think. Do we have it locked or something? No. Okay, somebody's proceeding past the window anymore. Sorry to bother, to get you off your son in eclipse now. So if something is happening like that, at least with my guess, it's the experience of being reminded of this, let's call Buddha mind, reminded of this Buddha mind.

[18:45]

Nobody? They just went on. Okay, sorry. Can you say the sentence again, please? to be reminded of this Buddha mind, and you don't have to use my primitive puns. That's so cool. It's so cool? Yeah, it's cool. Oh, really? Oh, my goodness, I don't even know what I'm doing. You can feel it back here. Oh, really? Fantastic. The back row is always, you know, where the less expensive seats are. They're really engaged. So this reminding probably is actually to some extent a shift from left-brain dominance, language, etc., to right-brain dominance, spatial experience.

[20:08]

So to awaken this spirit, this remembering, that is probably a transfer from a dominance of the right hemisphere to a dominance of the left hemisphere to a dominance of the right hemisphere. Okay, so again what I'm trying to establish here is that there is really a difference between the habit or usual mind based primarily on the way consciousness functions. Yeah, and And this mind based, let's say through awareness and more spatial sensitivity rather than chronological sensitivity.

[21:12]

Your sense of time shifts. Instead of time being primarily succession, one thing after another. Time flows into the situation and disappears into space. And there's almost a stopped feeling of everything being in its place. Yeah, now, you could say it's easy for us to brush these things off like it's just an experience. Like we try to make kids not be scared of movies.

[22:18]

It's just a movie. Hi. Thanks for coming on Friday. So, Nico, before you came, the last some minutes, we've been exploring, you know, in effect, what you just did, which is as a lay person with a

[23:27]

family, two daughters, spouse. Yeah, and a commitment to that lay life. He also just on Sunday received not just lay ordination, but priest-monk ordination. Which is part of it, as I just said, putting, in his case, the full Buddha's robe on his head. And also saying that, and then putting on robes, you know, not just the Buddha's robe, but to close it, go with it.

[24:55]

I'm sorry to be talking about you. You just arrived and you wanted to sneak in anonymously, quietly sit in the back, but, you know, sorry. I know when I was first ordained, were you there, David? Yeah, I was. Yeah, it was like 110 degrees or something weird. July 4th. Yeah. And at the opening of Tassajara, the night before, I felt like a sacrificial sheep or something like that. Night of the 5th. What? Night of the 5th. 5th. July 5th. Could have been. Anyway, we had the opening the next day, and I was ordained the night before the opening. Oh, the night before? Yeah. He's my witness. I travel with him for testimonial, you know.

[25:59]

But I did feel like a sacrificial lamb. Now I'd say a sacrificial mutton, but, you know, sacrificial lamb. Do you have the distinction? You must. I don't even know. A lamb is a... A lamb and a mutton is an old male sheep. That was a lamb then. Now I'm more mutton. Oh dear. Oh dear, what am I talking about?

[27:05]

In any case, there's probably a right brain, left brain shift that you experience here. And you also experience it here. That's why there's chakras and stuff like that. So again, my point is that there's a real experienceable difference between the body of the Buddha mind and the body of the habit mind. Now, I would say that we're born with the potential of both. But, you know, to be a member of a family in a village and so forth, you have to develop your habit mind.

[28:21]

So then that means, if that's the case, and you've probably been the case for... thousands of years. I don't think there's any sort of mythic, pure, original state. So probably it's always been the case that we have to change our habits to know a non-habitual mind. We have to change our habits to know a non-habitual mode of mind. And I think that's what you're doing by participating in the seminar. And I'm doing by participating in the seminar.

[29:44]

It's exploring how we change our habits so that we inhabit also, sometimes, Buddha mind. Okay, let's just assume that sufficiently for this seminar we've established, we've accepted, I've established that there is a difference between usual mind and Buddha mind. And although we sometimes call Buddha mind original mind, it's not original unless you originate it. It's not original unless you originate it.

[31:10]

Yeah. And so that means you have to make a choice. And so how do you make the choice? Why would you make the choice? Why would you sustain the choice? These are the decisions of being a layperson or a so-called monk. Okay, so we have the title of this seminar, which is, I don't know, too complicated for me to remember. What is the title? And I probably thought it up, right? Or no, was it your idea? I stuck myself with this title. Okay, what is it? You don't remember either. The way in the Sounds like a TV weekly program.

[32:22]

Isn't there some television program like that? What's it called? Sex, oh well. Really, that's Monday's session. Okay, so the way in the city and the way where? I think it's city path, mountain path. Oh, really? Oh, I like that. Okay, so let's call it city practice, mountain practice. Okay, then we have to think about what do we mean by city and what we mean by mountain or what it covers. And I mean, part of what I'm trying to speak to is why is city life so attractive? wohin ich versuche zu sprechen, ist die Frage, warum ist das Stadtleben so attraktiv?

[33:43]

Now here I'm making a link between lay life and city life. And lay and city life and a sense of individuality. So I think, you know, I need to explore this, and I hope that you're willing to, in this laboratory of this seminar, explore this with me. Because the survival... of Johanneshof and Crestone depend on it. So now I think it's about time for a break. Because even breaks are required for survival. Thank you very much.

[34:42]

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