Since we're all going to disband shortly. And since you'll be leaving too. I'm so grateful each of you has been here and that you too have been here. And I would say in the way I've been speaking these days, we have created together, let's call it, a bodily space. And I think what's come out of this particular seminar is the recognition that we could call zazen meditation a bodily space. Now, why bother to rename it?

[01:02]

Zazen means literally sitting absorption. But so we can maybe feel that sitting absorption, let's call it a bodily space. And as I suggested this morning in Zazen, not just the idea of a bodily space, but an experienced bodily space. An experience that's clear enough, substantial enough, That we can transfer our sense of location to it.

[02:22]

Usually our sense of location, of course, is our thoughts or feelings. But very often our thoughts and emotions are framed in self referential thinking. And what's important to notice about this self-referential thinking? Yeah, first, it's just to notice.

[03:24]

And even to take an inventory. How much is a service you can, like those people you see in pushing clickers as so many people go by in the city, you know, so many people. So you need one of those little clickers, self-referential things, self-referential, self-referential, self-referential. Yeah. But if you can notice the quantity of the inventory, an inventory of self-referential thinking, it means it can also be more sometimes and sometimes less. And if it can be sometimes less, it can be sometimes nearly zero. And nearly zero, we can find out, we can begin to notice when it's less and when it's more.

[04:39]

And then you may discover if you think of yourself as a bodily space, You may, that thought or image alone may reduce self-referential thinking a lot. So we're recognizing that Maybe there's some use in noticing zazen as a bodily space. And moving our sense of location and identity out of thoughts into this bodily space.

[06:04]

And then what I'd say is what we've also noticed is that the constellation is also a bodily space. a shared bodily space and a mutually created bodily space. Now, shared in English means that Something like you open yourself, you take part of yourself and you offer it to others. And I think the focus of a constellation is a person has to be willing to do that.

[07:16]

This is the courage and heroic aspect of being willing to face a constellation, really. In which you don't know what will happen. And mutual in English means it's reciprocal. It's done by both participants. So then the participants with the focus create a mutual bodily space. No, I'm suggesting that, you know, to whatever extent you want to carry this with you during the next days or the rest of your life.

[08:44]

Whatever you like. You work with this sense of... this... this... this... Not my bodily space, but this bodily space, just now. We could even say the yoga of this particular moment. Now you may say, oh, you know, this is repressing myself, you know, I want to be myself, I don't want to be a bodily space, this sounds terrible. But I think if you try it, you'll find the bodily space is bigger than the self. Sometimes the self floats in the view, but it also floats out of view in this bodily space.

[09:53]

So here in the constellation we have a mutually created bodily space that can flow in and out of our own bodily space. Now, for us as adults, Probably the most demanding and intoxicating bodily space is having a lover. And without a lot of oppositely gendered bodily space, the human race would die out.

[11:16]

But sometimes the need for a lover robs us of our own bodily space. We're always yearning for this other person's bodily space. So this, you know, it's just common sense. to know your own bodily space as fully as possible. And you're going to know your own bodily space more if you can loosen your identification, loosen your need for self-referential thinking. Und du wirst deinen körperlichen Raum besser kennen können, wenn du dein Bedürfnis nach diesem selbstbezogenen Denken lösen kannst.

[12:40]

The experienced bodily space is a measure, the degree to which you experience is a measure actually of how much you can let loose of self-referential thinking. It doesn't mean the self isn't a way we function. But it doesn't have to be the only way we function. And as I often say, your initial mind, the mind that's present with each appearance, Your initial mind, it's better if it's not self-referential thinking.

[13:51]

It's better if it's maybe feeling a bodily space. And we work with that in many ways in Zen practice, but let's just right now just talk about it as a bodily space. Many people often feel psychically invaded by others. They lose their sense of identity, of self, of boundaries when others are around, particularly certain kinds of people. And I'm often asked, how can I protect myself from the other's psychic space?

[14:54]

Well, it's usually they have their psyche and their bodily space mixed up. You can kind of have your self and your personal history and all one way of functioning. But if you can open yourself at the same time, allow this bodily space to envelop and sustain you, You don't feel so invaded. And it works much better if you do have a lover because your lover has another bodily space to love. And there's much less insecurity in the relationship.

[16:15]

Because you inevitably always have your own bodily space. And it's aliveness itself. And it's deeply satisfying. And it allows each of us to be open as we've experienced in situations like these constellations. Yeah. Now let's... Do you mind if I speak about you, Guni, in the third person? So if we observe, it's not really you, I know, it's just a third person.

[17:19]

But if we look at what Guni's doing, at least what I would say she's doing, she's actually generating a bodily space, that the constellation can move into. If she didn't do that, we probably couldn't do it. And then if you've noticed how she stands like Athena herself, Her feet are like Greek columns on the floor. You know, you can leave the room for a little while. And she's got a toga on, you know. Okay. Okay. And she holds the bodily space for the constellation and for all of us.

[18:38]

And the doing of this is exactly what's involved with learning how to do a ceremony in Buddhism. To hold the bodily space in which the ceremony, the marriage, the funeral can happen. He goes through some motions for 20 minutes or 30 minutes and suddenly you feel married. And the rest of your life you say, I was married, or I am still. So the ceremony occurs in some kind of timeless space because it lasts throughout time. Und diese Zeremonie, die bewegt sich in einem zeitlosen Raum, weil sie sich über das ganze Leben hinweg erhält.

[19:56]

So a constellation is a kind of ceremony and often a catharsis which holds us and can be with us through time. Und Aufstellung ist eine Art Zeremonie und Katharse, oder? Catharsis. Now we can observe Guni. And we can say, is she always like this? Is this something she's learned from doing constellations? And if it's developed in her and through her, through constellations... And if she finds it healing and integrating for others, does she find it healing and integrating for herself? Yeah, I would suspect one of her guides, her muses, in doing a constellation, is that she stays...

[21:18]

within it being healing and integrating for herself at the same time. So she's not just performing a ritual or a practice, a process she's learned. But she herself is in this theater discovering a plot. Sie selbst ist in diesem Theater und im Entdecken des Spielablaufes. And it could never be done on a stage. Das könnte man nie auf einer Bühne machen. With an audience. Mit Zuschauern. Because it requires everyone's participation to find to discover what's happening because it's being written why we do it. Denn es bedarf In some ways, it is a kind of theater.

[22:39]

But a theater of our bodily space. And what is the most fundamental of all bodily spaces? The parental-child relationship. You may mature by discovering that your mother and father are separate persons, let's hope. And they live and lived their own life in their own particular conditions.

[23:43]

And you live your own life in your own particular condition. So, yeah, the mother and father and child, those roles are our roles. And they change. But somehow the bodily space remains. The shared bodily space remains. When I think back on my friends, even about 50 and 60 years ago, All of those which were good friends, I remember their bodily space.

[24:54]

And if I see them now for some strange reason after 50 years, they usually look quite a bit different. But the bodily space is remarkably familiar. Yeah, I don't know if you've noticed the figures in our Zendo. But very typically the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are somewhat naked. And we have the female figure on the left. She's, I mean, a tremendous bodily power the way she's sitting. And every time I'm in the zendo, I stand in front of her and Her bodily space flows into, you know, feels like it, excuse me, flows into mine.

[26:15]

And the reason that the, I mean, you never in Buddhism see the head of a Buddha or a bust or something like that. It's just not done. The whole body is always shown. I remember my high school was filled with the principles of the past all cut off at the shoulders. Of course they didn't have bodies. Or at least they pretended to the students that they didn't. But Buddhists, you know, they sell them as antiques and things cut off, but that's sort of robbery. So a Buddha that is kept over centuries and people like it and take care of it is one in which you can feel the bodily space of the Buddha in your own bodily space.

[27:32]

Now, so in the constellation work and in this weekend, we've learned, I think, I've learned something about bodily space. And one of the things I tried to say yesterday afternoon is that we can make theories, not to explain, but to help us notice how we exist. In one theory, certainly, we have in Zen, Buddhism, is that we know more than we know. Maybe, again, there's this Causeless angst which presses on our consciousness.

[29:13]

As you become more sensitive and inhabit your bodily space, You notice, well, one thing, it doesn't have clear boundaries. It sometimes extends and sometimes is drawn in. And sometimes it feels pregnant with something. And sometimes, as we just saw, it has a hole in it. Sometimes it's got little wobbles where a crocodile is singing its song. And we begin to listen to the fluctuations and pulse of our bodily space. Now this is a kind of theory.

[30:26]

But as far as I'm concerned, it's a theory that has, truth has been proved. But if we had a somewhat different theory, it might also be true, and we might find our experience flows into that theory. That's the problem with theories and language in general. We make the shoe fit. Even if our toes are all cramped up, we need to shoe fit. So we also have to be free too of theories. You know, there's a... famous koan or a koan that's important to our lineage.

[31:41]

And again, let me just say that we have the bodily space of mother and father. And we have the bodily space of a lover. And we have the bodily space of friends, as again we just saw. And the more you know that, you can feel in any situation with anyone this ready-to-be-shared bodily space. And on the same level, though not the same container, there's a bodily space of mentorship which is equally strong with parental and spousal. There's a bodily space of mentorship.

[32:57]

As mentorship, yeah, mentor. And so we in our culture don't know much about this bodily space of mentorship. But in yoga culture it's very developed. And what we're doing here is as a Sangha is coming into through meditation some shared bodily space and shared with our Dharma ancestors in the past. This is a kind of, as I say, horizontal and vertical flow of a bodily space.

[34:05]

And we could say a Bodhisattva is one whose bodily space is always open to each person. Yes, so we have this koan from a thousand years ago or so. And Fayan asked Dijan, this is the 20th koan in the Shoyuroku, the Book of Serenity. So Dijan says to Fayan, where are you going? And Fayan says, I'm going around on pilgrimage. And he says, and Dijang says, what's the purpose of pilgrimage?

[35:21]

And Dijang says, I don't know. And Dijang says, not knowing is nearest. So he didn't say, not knowing where you're going is nearest. He said, not knowing the purpose is nearest. What is the purpose of pilgrimage? I don't know. The purpose is not knowing. Now, how do you work with such a thing? In Zen practice, we work with actually very simply the words. Words are a powerful tool to direct your attention. As an example I often give is, if you just say,

[36:24]

What is breathing? You feel something. If you say, who is breathing? You feel something else. They're both words starting with W, at least in English. And yet, they're just two little words and they direct our attention in actually significantly different way. So you say to yourself, not knowing is nearest. You first say it like a mantra. And then you begin to say it on perceptual noticing, on appearance. And you can reverse it.

[37:40]

Nearest is not knowing. And near as a word in English, nearly, actually meant to be careful as well as close. Near in English means two things, careful and close. It was nigh at first, drawn nigh and then drawn near. We have the famous koan of Bodhidharma.

[38:41]

The emperor said, who are you? And Bodhidharma says, I don't know. Yeah, and we can understand that there's no substantial self. So he says, I don't know who I am. I'm not even Dick Baker, you know, etc., But what he's more subtly saying is to the emperor, draw near. Come here. Yeah. Come hereby. Because when we know, we separate ourselves. If we ended a constellation knowing, there'd be all separation. And I'm sure Guni protects herself from knowing.

[39:41]

I mean, I may know quite a lot about the people I practice with. But I refrain from knowing. I hold back knowing. Because that creates, you know, Something predictable, something separate. The shoe starts to fit. But if I can hold back from knowing, and you don't know what's going to happen next, and things happen that are surprising, you give a person freedom. So I would guess again that Guni follows a kind of movement from her bodily space.

[40:49]

And a folded out shared and mutual bodily space. We can do this in our ordinary circumstances. The constellation just teaches us something about doing it. So you can work with the phrase, not knowing is nearest. It takes away knowing. And it creates, it actually creates nearness. And another kind of knowing can suffuse our bodily space. We say sometimes, the flower is not red, nor is the willow green.

[42:05]

I think that's enough. Thank you very much. I love bowing into our shared bodily space. And to the extent that the body is a bodily space and extended, The experience of that is you actually bring it together in your hands, lift it up and offer it. Offer it and in the process to some extent make a mutual and shared bodily space. In which we live our lives. From the past and in the present.

[43:34]

As we've seen so vividly these three days.

[43:36]

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