A haramaki. It's called, in Japanese, a hara-maki. To wrap around the stomach. Haramaki. During the Second World War, the Japanese prisoners of war kept asking for haramakis. And Americans thought to put a sweater around your stomach in the middle of, you know, the heat of the... But finally they did it. Once they did it, all prisoners' health improved. Yeah. Could you open a window so we get a little air?

[01:01]

Now that he has his . Thank you. So I tried this morning how it gets away from self as an entity, and self more as an activity, a function and a dynamic, our activity.

[02:07]

Maybe we could say the terrain of the self. So now, can you share with me any or speak to me about any feelings you have about this territory? And maybe you can now share a feeling or an experience with me that you have over this territory. Yes. during sasen sometimes I have the experience that the observer is not not continuous but it's it also can happen that another observing whatever it is observes the observer and it's quite fluid actually so it's not especially in sasen it's

[03:30]

Yes, it becomes more like a liquid state and nothing is fixed. Yeah, I agree. So even if there's many observers and one watching the other... I wanted to say, when Sasen comes, I have made the experience that this observer is not something unchangeable or something certain that is there, but there is also another observer who observes this observer and it is a very fluid and un... Sometimes people's contemporary philosophers say that because you can have an observer of an observer, and you can have an observer of the observer of the observer and so forth.

[04:57]

Sometimes you get such a big observer. You could say the whole universe is a kind of observer. And so you end up with a kind of proof of God or Godhead or something. But I think that this is a mistake in seeing each observer as an entity. Instead of, as you expressed it, as a fluidity of changing positions. It's a completely different field and I decide the subject when I say I realized when myself started to change in the last five years that this isn't an entity in that sense as it was, but it's a dynamic function which makes others react different than they reacted before.

[06:22]

The response, I think I'm a little more on the subject, but I still want to ask, because I hope it fits in somehow. I've noticed since the last five years that my mindset, Well, from right here it sounds right on. But let me ask you, you didn't say, as I've noticed over the last few years, I've changed. Something has changed, which is... And dynamic process.

[07:35]

This, what you described, I feel must be the case, because I react then that people from long ago and people from few years ago, I have done something and do something continuously to them and with them, which makes the whole thing different. And I feel that actually could be part of what you mean. Deutsch, bitte. I tried again to make it a little shorter, because it is difficult for me to express myself. I have the feeling that this dynamic, this process that I have become, draws the other people in and makes a whole. Well, it's exactly what I mean. When I was speaking to this fellow, Okay, I'll come back to that.

[08:42]

Now, but I want to examine what you said. Not what you said, but how you said it. At least in English, it would be common to say I seem to have changed, or I notice I've changed in recent years. My friends seem to relate to me differently. Okay. But you didn't say I as the pronoun. You said myself seems to have changed. Okay, now that's already... a big difference to say it that way. And you didn't say yourself, and you emphasized it wasn't self as a... I don't know.

[09:56]

Anyway, you emphasize self in the sense as an activity, process. A process of interaction. Okay. Okay. So it's interesting when we say I, when we make it a little more subtle and say my self seems to have changed, or the activity of self seems to have changed. Now, do you identify with the self, or is there also an I who has changed? What I realize is that I'm still the same, but some process proceeds and makes the reflection a different one.

[11:05]

The person is still the same, but what happens in here, in here, and in here is completely different. That makes me be so astonished, but it's still me. So I reflect about these in the world. The animal, it's a different thing. I get so touched by an animal. I never did before. And human beings. So I'm still I. I remember something of me. But that whole process of the reflection towards the other and me too is changed. Okay. So, Deutsch bitte. This separation, I still seem to be the same person to my amazement, but what happens when I feel, think, feel, appear, that has changed. So the wandering is not in me, I am still me, but it is the world how I reflect to the other, but also how I reflect to myself. That means I am in a different process.

[12:06]

I am still me. Okay. And you seem to like the change. Oh, yeah. And your friends seem to like the change. Well, that's good. Like a sieve? Yeah, sieve. The animal world seems to like to change. There's tigers and lions sitting on it. But that's actually a kind of image of the Zen hermit who is in such a way wild animals feel comfortable. I was once in a huge forest fire. 250,000 acres of forest fire.

[13:09]

It was a very big part of California that was burning. And we had a meditation center in the middle of the forest, and I was involved in protecting it. And we, at one point, a deer and a coyote. A coyote and a deer. came into our compound, exhausted from running, and the deer was lying down, panting, and the The coyote was lying beside him with his head on his leg.

[14:17]

They were friends suddenly. It was a very touching thing. A common danger unites us. Now, can I ask, when did the change occur, or what experience precipitated the change? Did it occur gradually, or was it... Or, you know, was it, you noticed when it changed? I couldn't stay where I was before.

[15:20]

I was working in a job where I worked from early morning to late night organising classical music concerts. And I met a man and I went with him. He was very ill. and he got healthy and then I stayed in the country. So I had no time for thinking or... I read a lot, I always loved poetry and music, but I had no time for other processes. So I came to this country place, which is too touristic. And I like country when it's solitude and nature, but not when there are so many people there who... Who also think it's beautiful. Who also think it's beautiful. That's a trouble with tourists.

[16:21]

It made me so depressed. So I closed in to the bathroom and cried for an hour because I just couldn't stand this whole system. And also my new family, we didn't share interests at all. So I was against them and they were against me. I was not liked. And when this got worse and worse and worse and worse, and I was really like in a cage. And I had everything. I had a good life. My wonderful profession was impossible in that place. And also my friends were so far, and my family. I was like closed into that tourist traffic center with a sick husband who couldn't get healthy quick.

[17:26]

So we took two years until he got over the cancer. And then it went worse because while he was still sick, he was brave and a very wonderful person. When he got healthy, he became so difficult. He found me too different. to mad, you know, my and whatever. So there was, from all sides, the contrary to, like, in all sides, the openness was on the contrary. Everything was closed. And then I went to Nora for one of those evenings. I heard, . And I went up to Cecilia and forgot my umbrella at my place. And somehow she said to me, the old lady, that Christiane is going to come. And I was always curious. And then she did come, and I did listen to a conference, and then I thought, that's exactly what I need.

[18:29]

And so I came here once, twice, five times, eight times, nine times. And already at that time, the alienation came. Damals schon die Entfremdung in der unangenehmen, spießigen Welt war nicht mehr so schlimm nach den ersten vier Jahren, fünf Jahren. And then, last year, the first Zen courses came. You and then later on, Porsche, back to me. Und dadurch gemerkt, jetzt bin ich schon so weit, dass diese Fremddrohung, that the threatening of the alien becomes just kind of small. Gradually, but from the moment when it was the worst, I met Nova and then Christiane, and they came one after the other. So it started ten, twelve years ago, and the sort of relief is only in the last two years, three, four.

[19:35]

Okay. Danke. Thank you. Well, I'd say that in this context, the whole thing is, what, I know the word's a little funny, but an enlightenment experience. And the fruit of the... The fruit of this change, which you see reflected in the world around you, is characteristic of the fruit of an enlightened experience. And if you'd been practicing more during that whole time, the experience might have, yeah, there might have been somewhat different direction it took or it might have opened up a little differently or something.

[20:58]

But in any case, I would describe your experience as well. And I would describe it again in this context because enlightenment experiences are, or the various versions of them, are just something that happens to us. It's not necessarily Buddhist. But Buddhism wants to zen particularly, wants to create conditions where it's more likely and particularly want to create conditions which allow the experience to unfold.

[22:00]

As it's said sometimes, I mentioned the other day, I think, enlightenment is an accident. But practice makes you enlightenment prone. Makes you accident prone. And enlightenment or some enlightenment experience, like intention, is a kind of intelligence. So if you hold a certain intention, it makes you notice the world in a certain way. And an intention, a deep intention of compassion and wisdom lights up the world.

[23:08]

And an enlightenment experience of some kind makes us notice things we might have overlooked before. So some people would say, oh, fate put Christiana in your path. But the Buddhist view would be, Christiana walked past you many times, but you didn't notice. But the Buddhism would say, Christiana is very often... And what you noticed also then drew something out of Nora and Christiane. So that would be an example of self and... big self or something, functioning to draw the world into us and us into the world.

[24:24]

Same time it's interesting you said, the process of self has changed. But I'm the same. So what is this I'm and what is this process of self? Yeah, if you want to respond, sure. The way my mind and heart that I call the self. I produce these things, but they become self, independent. They work on their own in a way. I do still work in there. This is my person, my brain, my heart, my something.

[25:25]

But that thing which is the boat between me and the world and the I and the me, for example, these are two different things. I reflect the me and I reflect the world and the process of reflecting has changed. I do not think that I really changed. I don't know. Okay. Yes, I think I am the same person, but the process with which I see the world and myself and think about the whole thing and look at it and then let it come, the process is different. So only this bridge between the old me and the whole world, including myself, I do not think, has changed. It is wider and deeper and Well, I don't think we need to discuss it any more. That's a pity. That's a pity, okay.

[26:28]

I would like to say something. Yeah, but let me translate what I said first. Okay. But it's contradictory. I don't think we need to discuss it any more. It's contradictory to what you want, but the translator is supposed to, you know. The translator has no desires. Well, some translators do. Anyway. But we're in our ordinary circumstances here. had touched on a problem of Western philosophy and psychology has never solved. Just trying to deal with the I that hasn't changed when the process of self has changed. Which is the self and which is the, you know.

[27:29]

Okay, so, but the point is, although we can't explain it perhaps in It's too subtle for our language. We have this kind of experience all the time. So we're functioning in a much more subtle way than psychology and philosophy often say. So practice is making us more familiar with the territory. It might improve our ability to describe the territory. I mean, at lunch Volker told me a little anecdote that's related to my speaking about the Australian Aboriginal woman is that he lived in Austria in a village where half of it had been abandoned.

[28:55]

And the kids all played in these abandoned farmhouses. But virtually never had accidents. But the city kids would come out in the country in the summer and they'd play in the same houses and have lots of accidents. That's more or less what you said, isn't it? Okay, well, this... Presumably, the city kids in the... country kids had the same country mouse and the city mouse. Do you have those stories? You don't look like a country mouse.

[30:05]

Had the same language. But... Maybe not in Austria. Anyway, but the familiarity with the world they live in was very different. So what kind of knowing is familiarity? And that's important because I want to speak about noticing without thinking. And when you notice and don't think, it becomes... kind of knowing.

[31:05]

So now I'm trying to establish that there's a knowing which isn't thinking or consciousness. Or consciousness in the usual sense. Okay, now the translator has his time. Yeah. Well, I had an interesting experience under the shower two days ago. This sounds like the beginning of a joke. I had an interesting experience under the shower two days ago. No, I was standing there and the water was running down and I was thinking, that's interesting. I had this experience that I'm thinking a lot. And this thinking is some kind of secondary knowledge. And at the same time, probably because standing under the shower is a rather bodily experience. For most of us. Yeah, for those who have a body.

[32:09]

And I was thinking, For me, most of the time of my life, this thinking world, which is based on thinking, because it's not only that you think, but then, as you said, with these words you can differentiate. Then you can start, when you think and you have certain categories, then you can start building things with thinking. And it's a secondary world, almost. And then I had this feeling of, but there is also this primarily experience, this bodily experience under the shower, and there's not much me and I with this body. And I suddenly had this feeling... I don't have to identify with this thinking and this world I can create with thinking. I can shift and can identify with my body and with the experiences of my body and with the world which is experienced through my body.

[33:17]

So I think... I think that's a difficulty in practice or in life, to make this shift, to realize there is the secondary world I identify very strongly with, also because of my profession and so on, but this is only, and it's not necessarily true what I am thinking. I mean, it can be quite different from the world as it really is. And that was quite fascinating to see that and to know, okay, you can make this shift. That was pretty long for a translator to remember, but can you translate? Also, diese Erfahrung, die ich da gemacht habe, war interessant insofern, weil ich in meinem Beruf sehr viel denke und mich sehr mit dem Denken identifiziere.

[34:21]

Und das Denken ist an und für sich ein harmloser Prozess. Ich bin Soziologe, also ich arbeite wissenschaftlich. Die ganze Zeit, das heißt, ich sitze vor meinem Computer, denke, schreibe, schreibe, denke, lese und baue so irgendwie eine Welt auf, die dann sehr unabhängig werden kann von dem, was wirklich ist, weil man ja einfach, so wie der Roshi sagt, man arbeitet mit Worten, man kann es einfach differenzieren und dann kann man neue Dinge bauen. that can be very much separated from what really is, or what really is, in the early days. And then I somehow had the feeling that there is another way of perceiving the world. Ja, es ist irgendwie wie wenn es zwei Möglichkeiten gibt. Das eine ist eher so entfremdend vom Körper und von der eigenen Erfahrung. Das andere ist eher bestätigend. Bestätigend und ja, das war irgendwie diese Erfahrung.

[35:24]

Ja. Ja, gut. When you finished the story, or finished, came to the conclusion, you said there's this bodily experience. We usually construct a thought world. But we have this bodily experience which is not in the thought world. And you said, I think it's hard to But you had to describe the experience with, I think. We have no way to say, I body. But... Actually, Zen practice tries to find ways to say, I body, so you don't have to say, I think.

[36:35]

Without the I. Yes. Yeah, it is. No, we're finished. At least, we're never finished, but you know. We will fly. When you talked about this dilemma this morning about the I, the me, the self, I realized that this is something I struggled with for a long time. And I come up with a lot of solutions

[37:38]

But none of them is useful in a practical sense. And during this discussion I came to this idea of why do I have to work with this head? That doesn't mean that I want to switch off my head. I want my head to work in a way that it says, this is a problem where you use your head and this is one where you don't use your head. Yeah, that means that my head has a certain dominance and a certain power in a certain way. That doesn't mean that I get an idiot, but it means that I get with my head in a kind of metallogical, in a meter position.

[38:54]

A meter position. And the result of the play is what you get. And from the feeling I can cope with that, naturally I know this different position that I have in me, the ego, the ego which is very ambitious and wants to succeed with things and accomplish something. So in a way, I let it happen. Yeah? And I also want to listen.

[39:58]

I also want to listen to what is said here. And when you say something, I want to listen, because from this listening, something is happening, something is coming up. In former times it was said in wo? Okay, okay. The third step was you close the book and you are finished and you are now a master and you can do it. So that's not something I want to do. I don't want to finish it. I want to continue and to listen. Because it creates something. It makes something to happen. So I don't try to get a logical solution.

[40:58]

Yeah, this is why I'm doing this, because something happens to me too. There's a classic book written 1930s or something like that. I don't remember the name of it. I read it 40 years ago or something. And it's written by a British colonial administrator. Captain somebody or something. And he wrote a book about losing his head. And he had an enlightenment experience through being as an administrator in India or someplace.

[42:01]

And he wrote a book about it for two or three years and having no head. And you said a secondary world. Well, Actually, the Zen terms are the first principle and the second principle. The second principle is the world we create with thoughts. And the first principle is The world is always dissolving into impermanence and emptiness. And which is always unique and not repeatable. So, If you said to somebody, I mean, I'm just making this up, what was your experience?

[43:19]

And they start to say something about it. The teacher might say, you're falling into the second principle. How do you express what your experience is without falling into the secondary world of thoughts and so forth? Yes, Gisela. Gisela. Ah. I don't know what it's like in English but when I say to myself I arrived at some point then everything is okay I just have to watch that I don't lose this feeling

[44:29]

This sentence of I am, it covers everything, also this opening. And you use the word arrive, mean like when you arrive here, or you feel like you've arrived. Yes. I often have this feeling everywhere, but I somehow developed this feeling here, in this place. I used to be a dancer and I always had the feeling I can die because I had a wonderful life. But this was an I without an I am.

[45:39]

This acceptance This acceptance of impermanence, that makes this feeling of I am. And the I am is a good feeling? Yes. So I am and the sense of arriving are nearly the same? Yes. So arriving then is not so important anymore. I am is important. I am means I am in everything and everything is in me.

[46:42]

And everything is in me. So everything is open. Yeah, but sometimes when I'm getting to stress, I'm prone to lose that. And then I'm happy and glad to come back to that and to find it again. I've never seen you to be very stressed. Not in this place. Yeah, when I see you. And you're feeling, I've had a good life, I could die at any time. Is that the same as I am? No, it has this trust, this confidence.

[47:46]

I like to live, but there is this confidence. Yeah, okay, good. All of those statements you've made and the way you expressed it are really... There's teachings that turn on those very expressions you used. And I would say the practice with death starts with... I'm certainly going to die. And that's just getting used to the idea. And then after a while that shifts, or can shift, to I'm willing to die. And you... Yet I gladly remain alive.

[48:53]

And then the third stage is, I'm ready to die. And it's practice. You can work with, I'm certainly going to die. Saying that to yourself. for some years probably. Then you can practice with the possibility of just being willing to die. And eventually you come to that. And then I'm ready to die. Generally When a person comes to feeling they're ready to die, everything feels complete and you really feel no boundaries. Then you experience something very similar to it. You express something very similar. Thank you very much. So I also want to tell something.

[50:15]

Sometimes when I go to the supermarket shopping, I'm thinking what we really need. So before I'm going to the supermarket, I think, okay, what are we going to need? And sometimes I'm forgetting the clip of paper where I'm writing it down. The grocery list. Yeah, grocery list. So I've been doing an experiment for a short time. I just go, I let my body go and interestingly enough, I suddenly stand in front of a shelf and I turn around and my gaze directly falls on it, for example, on the mire.

[51:28]

And then you say, yes, yes, why? Okay, and then I'm doing a little experiment in some time. I let my body just walk through the supermarket, and then I stop at a certain shelf, and I open my eyes. The grocery store people say, there's another one of those Zen nuts. Yeah. Okay, and I open my eyes and I see a certain herb I need. And I see, oh, this herb, and I need this herb, and pick it. So, I hope not that it's so obvious. Yeah, I hope not that it's so obvious, but... It is really interesting to practice for myself, without thinking, to do something and to function. And also that I have the confidence that things will appear at the right moment.

[52:37]

But for me it's this little experiment like practicing to see what happens when I don't think, just let my body lead. And it's also a kind of practice to see whether then the things pop up which I really need. The interesting thing is that our children notice it, what I'm doing, and they start smiling. Do you actually keep your eyes somewhat closed or are you just walking in a kind of like a feeling? I don't have them closed. I just walk in my feeling but I don't look around. You haven't been arrested yet or anything?

[53:42]

And Rachel, go ahead. So, the interesting thing is that I am nourished by that, so I'm not kind of leaking when I'm using energy, but I'm more nourished and I'm gaining energy from that. And, yes, I would... So, this is the first experiment that I do, to make gas. I think I have the right situation to have time to try it out and see how it can still work. And I notice that it is a different body that is present. So that's the first kind of experiment I'm doing in this way, very consciously, and luckily I have the time to do it now.

[55:07]

And I feel that it's a different kind of body that is walking around than usual. I wouldn't say you're experimenting very consciously. In English I would say to be more precise. You're experimenting very intentionally but non-consciously. Now a person who would try and experiment like this is the kind of person who might want to practice Zen too. And maybe a person who practices Zen might try this experiment. And sometimes, you know, when you... let go an effect of the thought body.

[56:19]

You can be shopping or doing something. And you're not sure whether you're standing up or leaning over or something like that. Because you have to shift from the body seen this way to a body from inside. Can we usually decide how we are by our surroundings instead of from inside? But anyway, this is something Yeah, very characteristic of a practitioner to function the way you're talking about. To feel and trust the world rather than think the world.

[57:22]

Yeah, yes. So I also have some experience in recent time which is connected to this moving from the consciousness of identity to this... to this more broader, this more extended self. So I'm doing a lot of public lectures and also plenary discussions where I had three times similar experiences.

[58:26]

I'm sitting on the floor. No, not on... How do you call this? On the podium, yeah. We're sitting on the... And I'm so drawn into what this person is telling me. that I cannot find my way back. So what also is happening is that I'm losing my ability to respond very witty and quick. I'm losing this ability. Who is the person? Who is the person? Yeah, somebody's asking a question, for instance, and I don't realize very quickly who is the person who is asked.

[59:46]

And it's more a liquid movement, and I can grasp and I can find my way back and respond, but it's not as immediate as it used to be. I understand it. It's a tension between being either witty or wise. Are we going to have our quick intelligence available? Or are we going to respond in some way that we can't depend on that? And Regina pointed out something important here. Our Particularly in our culture, our eyes tend to be the dominant sense.

[60:48]

And they turn the other senses into the servants of the eye. Both the EYE and the... And you also often, particularly initially, with the kind of experiment you did. And you might find the same thing. You have to kind of step away from your eyes. So you feel either like you slightly lower your eyes or you... Put your feeling at the back of the eyes.

[61:50]

That reminds me, it was this... I was married by my first marriage. It was a good marriage and we're still very good friends. I was married by Suzuki Roshi. And one of the second marriages he did was the marriage of Mike Dixon and Trudy Dixon. Okay. And Trudy was the person that I edited Zen Mind Beginner's Mind with. She died of cancer at 29. Anyway, the photographs of the wedding.

[63:02]

Generally, wedding pictures are very bright and smiley and shiny, right? Here's this room full of young, serious practitioners. And they're all like this. And they're all like this. It's a very funny photograph. What's wrong with this group of people? But we were all in this mind, Sukhyo, she was producing, and we had kind of... I can't marry you. Makes me think of this. I mentioned the other day, I thought of this friend of mine who said, and he looks in the mirror in the morning.

[64:06]

And says, I don't know who you are, but I'll shave you. You were going to say something? So I had an experience during this night, which I'm still moved by or touched by, but yeah. So I was sleeping in the hammock. And I was waiting and it started to rain. And I was a part of the Cianifest. And I was very fed up and I was not right awake but also not sleeping somehow in the middle. It was somehow like breaking a promise.

[65:32]

You mean the cosmos broke a promise. Yeah. So I was complaining with the gods and now I have to get up and because it didn't look like raining it wasn't supposed to rain. And in that moment it stopped. The rain. It was like magic. like doing magic. And I realized I don't want that. And that there's more behind that because I consider myself as a man of deed in the sense of I'm planning things, I'm implementing them, I'm putting them through.

[66:54]

And I'm very energetic. But sensitivity or feeling, trying to intuition, that's not my kind of business. But also in my work as a doctor, as a physician, I realize or I often have this experience that intuitively I'm noticing something, I'm understanding something. So the patient says, oh, nobody told me that before, and how did you know about that? But I do not consider myself as a sensitive person. And I don't want to rely on that, on this intuition.

[68:14]

I don't want to rely on, to be dependent on this intuition. Because that would mean for me to depend on this kind of sorcery, or it's like looking for a parking lot by intuition and spiritual power. Yeah, but that means I'm happy when it's there, but I don't want to become a sorcerer, a magician. Yeah. Okay, I understand. I have a friend named Michael Murphy who founded Esalen Institute and he's a sports fan and one time he was at a 49ers San Francisco 49ers football game And they were trying to kind of jinx the other team.

[69:20]

Jinxed? To put a spell on. So Michael started going... Well, in the crowd. And pretty soon he had hundreds of people all going... I don't remember whether it worked or not. Somebody said to Michael, Michael, you shouldn't play around with magic. This is dangerous. And the next day in the newspaper story about the game, it said, Michael Murphy falls dead of a heart attack. It was a different Michael Murphy. LAUGHTER But he thought, maybe I was a little bit... Anyway, I understand your feeling.

[70:24]

And... I would say you're sensitive in a perceptual sense, but perhaps you're not sensitive in an emotional sense. And you're sensitive enough, if we use this word in this way, to notice these kinds of intuitions. Okay. And I would say, like I said to Regina, That the kind of person who notices these intuitions, and I actually don't like the word intuition, but I'm using it, is the kind of person who might find themselves in a seminar like this, wanting to practice Zen perhaps.

[71:55]

And I would also say that you're in the hammock, you're feeling of, well, I made the rain stop, but I don't want to live in that kind of world. is actually, again, if we can get away from the big idea of enlightenment, is an enlightenment experience. It's a shift in view which changes from then on how you feel about things. Probably the thing is change things. I understand exactly your feeling of I don't want to depend on this intuition and so forth when you know something about a patient. But that's your thinking mind and socialized mind commenting on another kind of mind.

[73:16]

And when you see it as the product or the fruit of another kind of mind I think you can trust it more. In other words, if I were a doctor, say, I would try to feel the patient. I would let myself feel the patient. In one kind of mind. And for sure the kind of mind which might produce what you called an intuition or a knowing. And I would trust that knowing. But even in ordinary consciousness, I don't completely trust what I observe. And I would simultaneously or... notice the person also with usual consciousness.

[74:38]

And I'd let those two kind of be beside each other. And sometimes, you know, a third kind of knowing would appear. And anyway, I would hold both kinds of knowing, whether they're the same or different. And see if anything reinforces my observation. Like you're certainly getting reinforcement when the patient says, Yes, no one's ever noticed that before. But coming to trust this as another mind rather than as an intuition takes some time. Because you have to, I mean, it's really a process to start trusting something, which does look like, from one point of view, it's a kind of magic or something.

[76:17]

But it's just a kind of knowing that we're actually always in the process of but don't notice. That we are always in the process of knowing but not noticing. Okay. My fear is that it's too much of an ego attack. I don't believe it. My feeling is that it somehow inflates and enlarges the ego in the sense of, oh, that's me in my healing hands. Oh, yes, I understand. But usually when you have that inflation, it doesn't work too well. So that if you diminish the inflation and the ego, this intuitive, so-called intuitive process or other kind of knowing deepens and gets more...

[77:25]

When you get proud of it, you kind of destroy it. That's not always true, but in general it's true. Okay, I think we should take a break. Thanks so much for the conversation. How long are we going to take away? Oh, why not another 25 minutes? They are coming at 6, and I think we are going to start with dinner, and we will start when? Well, I'd like to start the talk tonight around 8. Is that too late? Well, yeah, but then people don't know what to do from dinner. We start with dinner.

[78:28]

No, what the leaflet says is that we start at 6 o'clock, I guess, with dinner. Yeah, but people come, you know. Gradually. Yeah. All right. And also slowly. Okay. So, if we have dinner at 6, and some people arrive at 6.30 and have dinner, 8 is too late. I think we should start at 7.30 then. That's fine with me. All right. And so we'll stop here around 5. Okay. Okay? All right. All right. Good. Thanks. The bodily self would be very hard to get to without our mutual cooperation.

[79:38]

If I decided to speak about the bodily self in a seminar, I wouldn't know how to approach it. I would try various things and I'd feel very lucky if by Sunday I had some territory to speak about it. We got into the territory quite quickly this afternoon. Now, you two had a little discussion about showers and rainstorms, maybe you could start up.

[80:42]

And what I said was that my feeling is that this secondary, this thinking mind, this observer, as if he were somehow here and also located outside the body. Whereas this physical experience, this physical self, is much more in the body and also leaves very little of the limits of the body, so that it is somehow like on the skin. There is somehow such a ... So what I added is that it's also not very reflecting this kind of bodily mind. It stays on the body, in the body, and it's more as it is. It's not reflected more. It's more like, that's it, or... That's the question that was raised, how to bring the localization into the body, into the immediate, without having to think about it, where it is commented on, or even commented on, observed.

[82:17]

And I would say, according to my experience, it's like this, that this observation or this thinking, that this is also through a certain If it is overshadowed with impressions, that it can no longer follow, then it comes more to this immediate awareness. That is, if you stand in the shower and you feel the water all over your body, then it is too much to really follow it, to comment or to observe. Or when it rains, you can On the one hand, when the speech begins, you hear single drops and strong rain is also the sound, single drops that you hear, but there are so many that it is simply too deep to follow.

[83:22]

That such an overwhelm, often due to a shift in this body, was not prevented. Do you want to tell me something about what you said? I said that Eric brought the question how is it possible to be more in this body experience, the direct body experience, without being a thinking mind. In my experience, it's often so that the thinking mind or the observer can be overwhelmed by by overload. So if you take a shower and the water is running all over the body, it's too much to keep track of.

[84:28]

And also the rain. When the rain starts... Magic. Go ahead. I don't mind. No, I know. You can stop, you can stop. And when it starts, if it's the first drops, you can hear the drops separately, but if it's too much, you will... Yeah, I understand, yeah. So sometimes this is an opportunity to shift from thinking mind to direct experience without controlling it. Well, you do martial arts. And I think to really respond to somebody who might attack you, you can't think too much. I don't do martial arts, but my feeling is you have to maybe hear all the raindrops, but not with thinking.

[85:35]

I have a friend who one of his experiments is with his training partner. They sit cross-legged facing each other in a totally dark room. They both sit there waiting for the opportunity to attack the other. He said you get very Something happens and pretty soon you're in a field where you know what's going on. So martial arts martial arts and sports tap some of this area that's also part of yogic practice.

[86:51]

It's going to fizzle. What? It's not dripping on me, though. You've got to put the window in the other way. Yeah, it's dripping. Right. What can they do to swim? I think when you get more familiar with this, let's say bodily self, it doesn't feel so much like it's on the skin or in the body, but it feels like it's more everywhere at once.

[88:41]

It's where we feel space connects and not space separates. Yeah. So is it like this expression of yours you use quite often, this breath, body, phenomenal world? Do you mean by everywhere? Well, that's in the same... Terrain, territory. And I have to speak about that, so... Does somebody else have something you'd like to add to our discussion?

[89:53]

Gibt es irgendjemanden, der etwas zu unserer Diskussion hinzufügen möchte? So I would like to add something to this issue of bodily feeling. ... When I was outside on this little terrace over there and noticed this little bird, so my first thought was maybe it's hurt and maybe I can help. And then I somehow feel into this bird.

[91:03]

And I think that this animal is going to die. And it's already in this last phase, this very lonesome and solitude phase of dying. And that was a bodily feeling. So that was not something I was thinking about rationally. And it was also very natural. So it didn't frighten me. It didn't frighten me. It was a natural thing. But I think the point is that all of us have many of these experiences.

[92:13]

And many of them are frightening and many are not, because there are different kinds of bodily experiences. ... And whenever there is, when we are talking about this kind of feelings, there is this kind of stereotype that we should trust these feelings. This doesn't satisfy me very much. But because my experience is that if I'm doing something with it, After that, there are all kinds of experiences. These very extreme experiences.

[93:24]

Not the experience itself, but the interaction with the experience. Sometimes it can lead to really harsh feedback and experiences. This is a completely different way than this, yes, it takes a lot of effort and hard work. So I think that's very important, this self-discipline. So my experience is that when I'm doing something with this feeling, then I have this kind of borderline experiences. You bring this bodily experience into a conversation with someone. If I take this bodily experience and bring it into interaction with somebody else...

[94:13]

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