And at this absolute moment, he has no lifespan. Everything is as it is. Another aspect. So when you dissolve subject-object distinction, you enter the realm that the diamond-citrus-tine dictates. If I look at and I say, no lifespan, no self, no person, I take those concepts away. I'm going to be much more present to her than any other way. And Dignara, who lived from 480 to 550, 540, as they say, the common era.

[01:22]

That's a polite way to say the Christian era. He said that perception is cognition without conception. Perception is cognition or knowing without conceptualization. And that's just what I've been talking about. But that's quite interesting. Way back then, this guy And we're still trying to work with it.

[02:33]

How can you perceive without conceptualization? How can you enter into knowing without conceptualizing that knowing? No. This is one of the secrets of practice. And what if you chant the Heart Sutra every morning? The Heart Sutra is rooted in this. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no heart. No eyes, no ears, no tongue. Only this. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. Okay, so everything comes in through the perceptual apparatus.

[03:35]

But if we can free it from conceptualization, which is what no eyes and no ears means, Suzuki Roshi says that everything as it is, to know everything as it is, means to negate everything as it is usually. I'm sorry, this sounds like this, but this is the way it is. I apologize for Buddhism. And what's interesting about it is there's no generalization of emptiness.

[04:43]

There's no generality, non-duality. Non-duality and emptiness are human acts. Because non-duality and emptiness are human acts. Just like duality is a human act. To perceive separation and distances and so forth are an act of our, the way we function. As the Sandokai says, myriad streams flow in darkness. Right now in this room, myriad streams are flowing in darkness.

[06:02]

That means flowing outside, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. Yeah, like there's a lot of television stations and handy phone calls in here. They're flowing in darkness. You can't see them, smell them, taste them. They may make us crazy, but... So we don't know what's flowing here. And it's not in the ordinary realm of duality as we perceive things. So we have to think of emptiness as an antidote to substance. And non-duality as an antidote to duality. So Hans, to perceive Hans Pedro in terms of the distinction of self and other is absolutely necessary because it gives me the opportunity to dissolve that

[07:20]

into non-duality. So at this moment, this present moment, Hans Pedro and I can have a moment of non-duality. And he's cute. Okay. So with each one of you, I can have a moment of non-duality. But that doesn't mean there's some kind of philosophical thing, non-duality. It's emptiness is form, form is emptiness. We should say each emptiness is each form. Each particular form is that particular emptiness.

[08:43]

This is a process of knowing. Non-duality and emptiness are part of knowing. And I think this fact is of what emptiness and non-duality mean is generally overlooked. We change it into commonly a generalization of somehow everything is empty as like, I don't know what we mean. No one knows what that means. So substance gives me an opportunity to perceive emptiness. Duality gives me an opportunity to realize non-duality. And non-duality gives me an opportunity to realize duality.

[09:56]

It's just that we usually forget the non-dual side. So reality isn't non-duality. Reality is the process of simultaneous duality and non-duality, which is your present moment. I shot this one. I thought I could be faster. What's that? Okay, so we have four, five, and six. And we actually have seven and eight.

[10:59]

But seven and eight are the teachings that are truly non-dual. And I can't list them unless they appear from this field. Because I can list six, but the others... It depends on the moment that we recognize it or not. So four, five, and six are as obvious as the six-fold was. But let's leave them blank for now. And have a moment of silence and then a break.

[12:03]

Perhaps 4, 5 and 6 will give you something to discuss. It could be a guessing game. So what do you have to tell me?

[13:11]

Well, discussion parted into two parts. The first part was on a more abstract level to try to grasp or to understand what is emptiness. My feeling was we didn't get very big results. The second part was that everyone was asked what he subjectively understands as his moment.

[14:20]

And that was more, not graspable, but more tangible in the room. And very interesting for me. Good. Okay, what else? What's next? Yes. In result of group five, we didn't agree on a speaker. It seems the people who sit in the front row are the people who are willing to speak. Wir haben festgestellt, wie schwierig das ist, ohne eine gewisse gemeinsame Praxis über Dinge wie Leerheit, Augenblick oder dieses Eintreten,

[15:37]

in den Augenblick oder über Samadhi oder Nirvana zu sprechen. Now Hans has to go on. He goes on with Micha. Yes, it was like that, that we... In Mosnagnath. It was difficult to find a common language. The topic was a lot... What is the point in how we can get rid of these concepts?

[16:40]

And what happens when we get rid of these concepts, when we enter these moments of pure perception? What my feeling was that what I found and uttered that can be somewhat fearsome, these moments, and I thought this gave a certain direction to our group discussion. Fearful or fearsome? Or maybe both. There are moments of fear. When these concepts begin to disappear. It's a personal thing from me for a long time.

[17:42]

Another person said she doesn't know this fear. At that point, people started to say, we don't know what they're talking about. I have that feeling sometimes. And one question more was how can you put experiences into words because it's also sort of formal and abstraction. Okay, yeah. The cause of the discussion was that at the beginning, no one wanted to say anything.

[19:05]

Then very slowly it got in the furthest. At the end, it was very fluent. We didn't want to stop, although no one exactly knew what the other was talking about. But we were very fluent. But the interesting experience was that we're approaching each other and when we would continue with this, we would find something of a common language or shared language. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yes. Which group? Group two. Who numbered the group? Well, one started, then came five. We counted among ourselves. We are kind of running in circles

[20:19]

and then at some point finding out that this running in circles is caused by concept. So we all made the experience, and described different experiences, that sometimes we find ourselves turning in circles with some problem-solving, For example, one of us, she explained if you argue with your husband and it all starts at a certain point, it gets more and more complicated. At some point you don't even know where you started. And it's all wired up in a concept.

[21:38]

For example, in a conversation with a man, with his husband, that you start at a certain point and the whole thing gets more and more complicated and you don't know where it's coming from. and we thought then about concepts to get out of this concept circle and we got some answers and then we thought about whether there are concepts or something like concepts how to get out of this concept circle of hell is there a devil circle? How we can, how we can, how we can, realized that we finally got out.

[22:51]

So this is one of the signs for the fact that we got out. Good. That was all. Please. I speak German. The woman who mentioned it told me that it was such a bodily feeling to be broken out of this concept. It was a feeling that she felt in her body. We were talking about how we feel or how we know that we have come out of this concept, from these constraints or whatever. And she described it as a bodily feeling. Trying to check on whether we sort of left concepts, one woman described that she had that as a somatic, as a bodily feeling. When she knew, then she was out of concepts. Okay.

[23:52]

And our question was, where is concussion? German, please. Another question, how can we perceive the other outside of duality, if what we think is always just our thinking? I don't understand how we can overcome duality. When we can only think our own thinking, we are able to think how can we leave this duality, how can we perceive the other person and get rid of this duality, out of this duality, when our thinking is so limited.

[24:55]

No one else. I think I can say something about the fourth group. We tried to be systematic in the short term, theoretically speaking, and then we quickly became personal. We tried to describe in the direction how to define one's own momentary perception and what possibilities there are to change this perception or how it can change and what happens then. We started with rather theoretically and with concepts and left this soon and came to reports of own experiences. And what is it when we experience this moment, how can we also change and alter this perception?

[26:06]

Right? Yes? The main question was, what is the moment somehow to just... I mean, it's a kind of a simple question I've got so long. I deleted, also unanswered. Deutsch, bitte. Okay. Anything else? At first we were a bit unsure what the topic was. Then one of our colleagues helped us and asked where the emotions belong.

[27:12]

Is there a place or a special tone that is 4, 5 or 6? We needed some time to explain what emotion is. Is it meant to be? Is it separated from it? Is it a part of the body? It was part of our discussion. We started and weren't quite secure what we were going to say, but then a person brought up emotions, where do emotions belong to there, and do they have a fixed place, are they part of mind, what are they? That was some of our insecurity. That there is a psychological part of emotion which is connected with memories. And another part where this goes beyond and where this is probably part of every cell which is just perceived, you know, conceptualized.

[28:28]

Beyond the ego. We talked a little bit about it. Someone said that the body, that a lot of things are in the cells of the body. We talked about that very much is really in the cells of the body, which can be sort of evoked like emotions, for example. There is this experience without you naming it.

[29:35]

And there is also this split, that the head or the mind immediately names an experience without you leaving it. We talked about this split, which acts liberating in the experience of the moment. I experience something, what you said, that the freedom aspect of just experiencing something, a moment, and not naming it, the feeling of freedom like that. What was the first thing you said? And the tendency of the mind to name and conceptualize everything, every moment, and becoming free of that. Yes.

[30:50]

I sit in the grass and a subtle wind is blowing and what happens then? Do I just enjoy it or do I just name it? All the wind is doing this and that. For me personally, this is how my personal core emerged, which I then brought into the group, where it is simply about death and death. Where I then said, And then came what became for me or appeared what became for me a personal account about dying and when I have the real experience that my body is and can be dying, Yes, this is a possibility that arises on all levels, the mental, the emotional, the emotional, or when I say I experience in the outside my mind, which I observe, that I can also let it die, so it is an act of liberation.

[32:02]

That can be an act of liberation when I can, in every level of emotions or mind and so on, when I can let this die also then, then this is really a liberational effect or experience. Okay. Thank you. Yes? I would like to add, [...] I noticed that most of us have such very, very specific and different ways of using words and what we meant by the body or mind or where is emotion, where does it come from, what do we actually mean by it, including, of course, the present moment.

[33:18]

So it took pretty much most of that time to just come to a moment where we could begin to relate about what we really experienced. And for me personally, the word body was like, that I missed this, with the physical sense of the present moment. Okay. Someone else should say something, want to say something. I couldn't work very much with these terms, they were too abstract for me. What terms? Emotions, emotions.

[34:20]

Cellular. Cellular. Cellular. personally I just there was a little sense to it but principally it remained empty for me okay We considered also if the moment has a spatial and time aspect or if it's something just we rest our eyes on. It's a good question. In that context we also discussed if we make the moment or we just be in the moment somehow.

[35:29]

In that context we talked about whether we make the moment Yeah, good, thanks. Hey, we're developing a context. We also discussed his perception. So if we make the moment, then there is no, somehow, there is no perception about conceptualization because it's somehow a concept that we, out of, let's say, a picture of a big throw, would pick something out and stop it for a moment and say, okay, this is a wave or a process or a deadline. So we through concepts about talk, words, or things, or make a conscious thing seem to be.

[36:35]

And then on the other side there was the question, can there be perception without conceptualization? Can one see things as they are without getting at them? Okay, in German, please. If you present it like this for a moment, is there a vagueness without a concept? That is, if you take a moment, if you take a moment when the vagueness is contained, Jeanette? Yes, a lot of context.

[37:56]

For a long time I had this conflict, what he is talking about. There is one way of learning where the mind reflects on what is said and tries to find some kind of comparison or some kind of understanding through experiences of the past. And then there is another part of me There is no learning with sense of understanding of the mind. There's a learning for the body, but it cannot be named. And the two, for me, are really a conflict. They're not integrated somehow. And so there seem to be two kinds of learning, one through experience and in a non-conceptual way. and learning through understanding concepts and reflecting with something I already know, but it's not really learning.

[38:59]

I don't know. I'm kind of confused. Deutsch, bitte. Deutsch, bitte. I have a conflict where I see two kinds of learning. One kind of learning is through my mind, which tries, through any kind of experience I have had in my life and which I have also read, to understand the new that has been told to me. And I am often frustrated when I cannot classify this experience. And then there is another part of me Good, okay. Yes? We agreed in our group that everybody is perceiving the, the or his moment differently, personally.

[40:08]

We are sort of cracking our heads about all this point. Charlie gave us a very good example. A fly was sitting on Ivo's foot, Charly was sitting on the table, Charly jumped down, grabbed the fly. He had a completely different feeling than Ivo, who almost got a scratch. And we all watched the scenery and Ivo took it from another point of view. there was a fly on Ivo's foot and Charlie jumped down and put his paw on the foot and Ivo had the feeling as if he would have been scratched and everyone at our group perceived this incident differently. Okay. Okay, let's speak about this as personal practice and sangha practice.

[41:37]

And compassionate practice. If our practice is about reality, And if we know reality partly through our thinking, then we have to clarify our thinking. If you are this lovely person who has no interference of thinking in your perception of reality, then you don't have to clarify your thinking. If we can imagine such a possibility. So how do you clarify your thinking?

[42:58]

I think you have to have an intention to do it. And I would suggest that you take time every now and then to... To sort of think things through. And in the background of practice, it's good if there's always the question of what is it? There's a sense of what? Why? And sometimes that turns into thinking things through. And it's good to also let this thinking occur in zazen. It's one of the good things to do in zazen, believe it or not. It's to let these questions float up into the space of zazen.

[43:59]

I mean, Freud's technique of free association is a kind of meditation process. So he had people lie down on a couch or something initially to kind of... be in a kind of meditative space, half sleepy. So you, in a way, in zazen, sometimes you're free associating. Now, I think you don't want to do this all the time. But Sometimes you want to let this happen when questions come up. With this feeling of what-ness and also a feeling of wanting to clarify your thinking.

[45:13]

Now, if you go to business school, say, good business schools in Europe and in the United States are trying to develop a common language to speak about organizational problems and so forth. And if Asian business people want to communicate about these things. We tried to learn from Japan, now Japan's trying to learn from us. There has to be some development of common terms so everybody can talk to each other. Just like in psychology too. What do we mean by self or persona or so forth? Ego and so forth. Okay, and likewise in the physical sciences. There has to be some kind of mutually agreed upon terms.

[46:35]

So when you begin to get closer to clarifying your thinking, you'll find, I think, that Buddhist terms and teachings can begin to help. Because a lot of this has been thought through in the past. And there comes a certain point in your own thinking, in the development of your own refinement of thinking, That suddenly you realize the teaching talking about just where you're at. And I'm impressed with the discussion you guys have been having. Because that's pretty much, this is a real discussion.

[48:05]

You know, you may not have a sense of exactly where the accurate emphasis is, but you've got the basic discussion going in yourself and among each other. What is a moment? This is a real question. I mean, when you really see that where you're living is in the immediacy of the present, then what is the moment is a real question. Now, at that point you begin to develop terms as well. When your practice is more, perhaps can we say, compassionate, strangely enough, that's when you start developing terms.

[49:10]

because we have to have some shared way to speak. And Zen, in my opinion, is posited on the evolution of consciousness. In other words, some forms of Buddhism really are giving you maps of what realization is and what the mind is like. They may be very sophisticated and wonderful maps to the subtle city within the city of yourself. But they still assume they know what this subtle inner city is. I think Zen is interesting in that it assumes we do not know what consciousness in the end is or where it's going.

[50:29]

And Zen is interesting because it assumes that we don't actually know what consciousness is or where it is moving. And the understanding of Zen is, of course, that everything is changing. To mean there is always an infinite newness going on. that the uniqueness of this very moment can lead to new possibilities of consciousness that no Buddha or anyone has ever experienced before. Which means that we're evolving Buddhism right now. So then the question I always ask myself, why are these guys, as I've said before, in the Sung Dynasty and Tang Dynasty so great? And my view is, not because they were so great, but because their sangha was great.

[51:57]

Because they really had this relationship going over several generations of disciples talking to each other, knowing each other, etc. And the temples weren't far apart, different mountains and so forth. I don't remember exactly what Hieizan and Koyasan... The two main mountains in Japan were Shingon and Tendai temples. But in Koyasan, I think there's a few hundred now, there were, I think, a few thousand several hundred years ago.

[52:59]

Temples. Temples, in one mountain. And all these guys are practicing and talking to each other. And the disciples are going back and forth. And that is, I think, the most creative type of situation for Buddhism. Okay. So I don't think there's been any kind of shared sangha like that over the recent centuries. My dream is to bring something like that back in the West. exactly how to do this and not make it too wordy or too much talking.

[55:05]

And begin to have a conversation that's embedded. in our bodies. So we begin to feel what each other is saying more than understand what each other is saying. And either bringing up how can we have if we make the moment how can we How can it not be a conception? We can try to understand that to give ourselves permission and understanding can give us permission to open ourselves up To feeling knowing without conception.

[56:19]

And to recognize that we have felt this way before. Okay, we're sitting here. What we're sitting in is memory space. Let's not think about the space of physics. The scientific space. I think we try to turn all space into scientific space. This space we're sitting in right now is a space of memory. In other words, I can't see anything here without a sense of red or blue or green.

[57:33]

That's all memory. And when I look at any one of your faces, there's a constant comparison going on with similar faces and faces that I know from the past and so forth. If your nose was upside down, I would immediately notice it. And that note, I would notice it through memory. Because I'd remember, noses don't look like that. That's how I would notice it looked funny. Now, if you're in embodied space, it's less and less a mental space.

[58:39]

I don't know if I can give you a feeling for the difference between embodied space and mental space. But when you're in embodied space, it's not constructed from thoughts anymore. And you all know you have moments of embodied space. Say the sun on your neck brings you back to a time when the sun was on your neck 20 years ago. I would say that that's characteristic of embodied space and not mental space, if that makes sense.

[59:57]

And there's a whole different flow of associations in embodied space than in mental space. And one of the things we're trying to do in Zen practice is to bring the dynamic of memory into the activity of the present to bring the dynamic of memory into the activity of the present and in a sense open up the warehouse doors and windows Because normally the warehouse of memories, the storehouse consciousness, is tied primarily to the thought processes, thinking processes. And that's considered a very stale and kind of dead situation.

[61:24]

Now maybe I'll try to speak about that with a little more clarity tomorrow. Because if we're going to teach Buddhism, If I'm going to teach Buddhism, I have to understand what's going on. Now, if we together are going to develop a Buddhism that makes any sense in the West, we have to understand why teachings are the way they are. You can just do the teachings. But if you don't understand why you do a teaching a certain way, It drifts. It drifts off base. It's like if you don't understand the, excuse me for using the word, conception behind the orioke practice,

[62:32]

Pretty soon it drifts. Some people pick up the spoon this way, some people pick up the spoon that way. It's just slightly different. But it drifts because the conception behind, the embodied conception behind the hierarchy is not understood. So in this seminar I'm trying to give us a little taste of where the teachings are rooted in an understanding of reality. Okay. Now we have to stop for dinner soon. I believe it's pizza. And pizza doesn't keep. Yes. Is it to sort of return from more a mental instance or a thought mind instance

[64:16]

to the knowledge and wisdom of the heart? Yes, but I would say of the body. The heart is understood not as a generalization, but a very specific way of understanding. But the heart isn't used But neither heart or mind and Zen in Buddhism is generalized. We want to say, make it more general here, I think you have to say the body. And you asked, where does compassion come in? What is compassion? Yeah.

[65:40]

That was a question. I understand. So somebody defined compassion for me. Sure, go ahead. I mean, for me, it is, I can only talk about my own experience, but there's a certain meditation and certain emotions or certain thoughts arise that I, accept them all the way they are, and not say one is bad, one is good, but just take them all. And it's more appealing, it's difficult to express the word, but it's like, when I was a child, and I have a certain way of relating, and I don't know. I can't say English. Okay.

[66:41]

Deutsch, bitte. Try not to say the words in Deutsch, bitte. When I'm in meditation and certain things come up for me, emotions or thoughts that I would normally divide as good or bad or whatever, that I don't judge them, but just let them come, look at them and let them go. And it is a feeling that I only know when I am with a small child, for example, that I simply have a special way of dealing with a child, where I simply do not judge, but where I am just there. So maybe we should, we're supposed to eat at 6.30, is that right? Yeah, so I would, this is, obviously we can't go into this with any intimacy.

[67:50]

Intimacy. between now and 30 seconds from now. And this is too important to... Okay, so let's start up tomorrow. And let's show our compassion for the cook now. Okay, thank you very much. Would anyone like to bring anything up after a night's sleep?

[68:58]

I didn't say a good night's sleep. I had a good one. It implies a night's sleep. Yes. In the Sutra about conscious breathing, or so it is called, the practitioner practices in such a way that when he takes a short breath, he knows that he is taking a short breath. When he takes a long breath, he knows that he is taking a long breath. I understand that. That is why I can only determine afterwards whether I have taken a short or long breath. The Sutra of Conscious Breathing there said the practicing person breathes slowly, inhales slowly and knows he has inhaled slowly, exhales slowly and knows. Now what I don't understand is that the person can only know it afterwards, after he has inhaled slowly or long or short breath,

[70:10]

That's what I don't understand. How does he know it? In the midst of it. Mittendrin. Well, maybe say, this looks like it's going to be a long breath. Well I wouldn't take, I would use the sutras, not so specifically exactly what they say, but rather to give you a feeling to discover it in yourself. I haven't read that for a long time, so I don't remember the context particularly.

[71:22]

But in general, the emphasis on earlier Buddhism is to become a Buddha-like person. And the emphasis in later Buddhism is to discover that in every circumstance, even rapid, short breathing, you're also a Buddha. And so there is a A kind of shift like that in the way all the teachings are emphasized in later Buddhism.

[72:33]

Yes. Yesterday you were talking about the process of perception, and you said that our perception is always conditioned perception. But I didn't catch how you come to pure perception. I want to know how to write this non-dual moment of unconditioned perception. Yes, okay. In German? In German, yes. Please. Herschel spoke yesterday about the process of perception, that our perception is usually always conditioned. And I didn't quite understand how to get to this non-dual, unconditioned moment of pure perception. Now, there may be moments of pure perception.

[73:41]

And we'd have to discuss what that means. But in general, when you think about these things, neither pure perception exists nor impure perception exists. But exists as a relationship between these two poles. That is, you're either closer to pure perception or closer, shall we say, to impure perception. Or more important, you're moving toward pure perception and not moving toward impure perception. Okay. So there's something closer to pure perception, but maybe it's not pure perception. But if we study perception, and I will see if I can do it with you to some extent,

[74:47]

Yeah, maybe we can get a little more feeling for it. Thank you. But you know, I don't know how much detail you want me to go into. The detail can get really... I mean, at some point you say, oh, please, no more. And people suggested, I heard that maybe yesterday I got close to a little too much. You have to help me decide. Sounds like a love song. Yes? Yes?

[76:15]

Let's try it. Let's try it. If it's too much, we can say it's too much. Okay. If it's too much, raise an elbow. Okay. Okay. I have a question about what concerns me, this non-mixing, observing consciousness. And this morning in meditation I realized that there are three parts. There is a physical part that feels pain, which then pulls together and wants to go away, so a change in movement. May I start again, please? Oh, New York. I thought you meant... Yeah, I thought you meant New York City. Not New York. You mentioned yesterday. And this is affecting me quite a lot.

[77:27]

And this morning in meditation I experienced, there are three parts, and one part was this experience of pain, body wanted to get away from it. The second part is a sort of commentator, a witness who just always interferes and says, do this, don't do that, yesterday you said this, now you think this, and so on. It's always commentating on you. And then there is this third part that observes everything, both this physical movement and this commentator. But I notice that I am much more in this commenting, so I am most identified with it. And the question is now, how do I get more to these observing parts? The third part is which observes or watches both. And I find myself more stuck with this commentator.

[78:33]

And my question is, how can I get out of this commentating realm to this what is observing all of it? You're doing okay. Okay. So, that's good. Be to his must. First of all, it's great that you're noticing it. And the ability to notice like that is necessary for developing your practice. The most basic thing is to notice and then to develop an intention to realize, say, a non-interfering observing consciousness and then to be patient.

[79:37]

but to continue to hold and develop or nourish the intention. And often, when you hold an intention in your background mind, And you're ready to act. Suddenly, small opportunities come up to try to realize this. But the main thing is observation and developing intention. Developing and holding an intention. Okay. Anyone else? Yes. The last six years I've worked with dying people and my tendency is to have it as simple as possible.

[81:08]

almost on a physical basis, that I am simply with my present, with my body. And so my idea was to in this way also be as simple as possible not to interpret what's happening and just to be present and if possible even on a bodily realm or bodily present. And that gave me the feeling that this dying or the process of dying is like a liquid over the years, That had given me the feeling that the process of dying is somewhat like a liquid which is eventually pervading my body, so it's not as solid or as solidified. Your own body is not as solidified. And that gave me the feeling that I was in a movement that was contrary to my environment.

[82:37]

The meaning of death and death has become more and more important for me, while I realized that I can share it less and less with my environment, And what I felt was contrary was my surroundings, my environment. For me, this has gotten more and more deeper and profound meaning. And what was somewhat shocking for my surroundings, other people, was that I was so openly talking about it, so overtly speaking about it. To your friends, they found this disturbing? And my personal construction of my life and experiencing life as suffering, so was this dying somewhat like an end to suffering too? And that was relieving for me. What I have noticed with all the teachers I have been to, is that this idea, that it somehow expresses itself like a sword in me, so that I turn towards life and

[84:05]

It goes through like a sword, so to speak, and says, this is not reality. I don't need to hold it down, I don't need to cement it. Regardless of whether it comes from the level of thought, from the level of feeling, when drama appears, when difficult situations appear, when personalities appear, or which one I choose. So there comes this concept, The other is a mental projection of my mind, so that I can break it down with a sword. The image arose that there is something like a sword which cuts through my mental projections concerning other people. And also I did visit other teachers. I didn't quite understand what you meant with the other teachers. What did that mean for you? And what happens now is that over the course of time I get more and more peaceful, peace appears more and more.

[85:22]

I have to either wait or be more patient, because it also takes me away from the dynamics of life. So my question about creativity or about going outside, it's like I'm always going deeper into myself, like I'm stepping into the darkness. And that's why I also experience that people, they see this retreat, Also I notice that I go, I proceed more and more into myself, more to the dark side, and this affects also my creativity, my dynamics, and people around me notice that, going more and more into myself, into this dark side. The feeling is also passing through a long, long dark night. I can see less, I can feel less, and what I notice is I have to be quite patient.

[86:40]

My question or my deep need is whether Rajeev can give me an idea of where this path leads or whether he thinks that it is a feasible path at all. After all, I have also looked for it myself and I have the feeling that, for example, in the sense of perception, where I notice that I often experience more of this split, First, my deep request is if you can show me or give me some feeling if this way what I'm proceeding on is all right for me. And then what I notice is in myself this sort of split where around me are these perceptions, but inside in the space, on the realm where I am, this is different.

[88:19]

It is not a part, but I abide in another space, not in this perceiving space. So you didn't translate that last part? He didn't want to. I saw that scene. Oh, yeah. Now the latter part of what you said about entering the dark side of yourself or something, that would be better if we just talked about it together. Because I'd have to feel and understand what you mean more.

[89:29]

But the first part of what you said, working with dying people, reminds me of the Zen story of a Zen teacher who meets this guy, who seems quite accomplished, and he says, well, who is your teacher? I don't know. I don't have a teacher. What is your practice? Oh, I don't have any practice. Well, you have the feeling of somebody who has practices. He says, no, but all I know is I've been concerned with the question of death for 40 years. So the Zen teacher says, that's the same.

[90:33]

What you said, and I can't add really anything to what you said, is pretty much exactly the Zen way of being with a person who's dying. In the simplest, you establish first a physical intimacy or a... And, uh... supportive physical intimacy, reassuring physical intimacy. And you join your breathing with the person who's dying. And in your mind you have the genuine willingness to die with them.

[91:50]

And that's the most supportive state of mind for somebody who's dying. And most connecting. So that's not so different from what you're saying. The feeling of joining them in some kind of liquid way I think is accurate. That's my experience. Something else? Yes. You talked about the intention and about developing and nourishing it. This is exactly my personal question. How can I nourish and anchor this intention? In compassion.

[92:51]

Okay, is that enough for now? Questions? So what several people said, but in specific you, through the practice of meditation, we develop the ability to observe ourselves. And then you begin to observe the way the mind functions. And then you begin to develop practices for each of the different kinds of functions.

[93:56]

Now, a kind of example, I don't know, this is a little more detailed. But I want to come back to what Jeanette and you brought up, and I brought up yesterday too. I have to figure out how to draw these things. Let's say we have, again, so this is by year. Now, we also have two more.

[95:26]

Well, we also have three more. Mind. Okay, mind. Then we also have a Manas. And AB stands for Alaya. This is the seventh. That says, a liar. A [...] liar. Now, minus here, one function is

[96:58]

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