The tradition in teaching is it always begins with a question. It's a relational thing. It's not like I have a bunch to say, so I'm going to sit here and say it. Are you peering out, Gisela, because you can't hear or can't see? Hi, there you are. Um... Yeah. So I assume you've come to Sashin because you're asking, what is your life? And this peculiar institution of Sashin is really a way to ask, to respond to this question, what is my life?

[01:08]

And asking also, what could my life be? Bob Dylan has a song, What Good Am I? Yes, what good am I to others and to me if I have every opportunity and yet I still fail to see? And if my hands are tied And who tied them? And why?

[02:21]

And where was I when they were tied? Yeah, this kind of existential question we, Bob Dylan can ask in a song, we can ask here in Sashim. Wenn Bob Dylan so eine existenzielle Frage in einem Lied stellen kann, dann können wir das auch in einem Session. We've had lots of opportunities and yet still sometimes we fail to see into our own life. Wir hatten jede Menge Gelegenheiten und trotzdem gelingt es uns manchmal nicht oder wir versagen dabei, in unser eigenes Leben hineinzuschauen. Whenever I... start a seminar, for example, not a Sashin seminar. I have a feeling of something's already there, but I can't quite tell what it is. I usually start with a phrase, a word or two, an aspect of a practice.

[03:41]

But I suppose if I was giving a talk, which I occasionally have had to do, once even in Belgium, to a high school class, I would pick some teaching or practice that has content and boundaries. dann würde ich eine Lehre oder eine Praxis auswählen, die sowohl Inhalt als auch Grenzen hat. But you're not high school students. Aber ihr seid ja keine Gymnasial- oder Realschulschüler oder so. You have adult, engaged, existential lives.

[04:41]

Sondern ihr habt erwachsene, eingebundene und existenzielle Leben. Was there a problem? Engaged is a problem. That's okay. But Germans are always engaged. We are always engaged. Yeah, okay. So, yeah. So I don't want to waste the opportunity, the laboratory, the opportunity of practicing with you in a seminar or a sashi. Ich möchte diese Gelegenheit oder dieses Laboratorium mit euch in einem Seminar oder einem Sashin zu praktizieren nicht verwerfen. So if high school students, you know, that's different.

[05:43]

But if you're you, as I know you. Oder verschwenden. Also mit Gymnasial- oder Realschulschülern, da wäre das was anderes. Aber so wie ihr seid, wie ich euch kenne, I want to know where you'll take me. Because I will start out with... Yeah, I'm speaking about this because I think that something like this happens in a Sashim. So I start out, as I said, with a phrase or two or an aspect of practice. Yeah, and it's sort of living in, I can sort of see it, it's kind of present, but it's living in my invisible rooms. And I try to introduce it to your invisible rooms. And see if you welcome it as a guest or a visitor.

[07:05]

And I suppose it's been living in my invisible rooms and sort of moving into yours. Or maybe it's, you know, say, hey, I'm a guest, or maybe it's saying, hey, I'm family. And ideally, we, you know, find ourselves in one house or one apartment. And the teaching begins or practice begins to take shape living in your invisible rooms and mine. Somehow I can feel or I fancy I can feel.

[08:21]

Do you understand that? No. I fancy I can feel means I imagine I can feel. That this practice teaching is taking up residence in your invisible rooms. So anyway, that's how I approach a seminar. And as I said, I feel something's there and I want to find out and I think we can find out together. I like Dogen's only a Buddha and a Buddha can understand. We need each other.

[09:28]

But for me, a sashin is different. Because in a sashin, I don't... When I start a sashin, I mean, I seem to be starting a sashin, so that's now. I don't know where. I'm not going towards something I can feel is there. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what exactly I'm doing even. I find myself sitting on this platform, which I thought was going to be over there, but it's fine here. But for me, a sashin should be hard enough that you're not sure you have the capacity to do it. And if sashins, you've done lots of sashins and they're easy for you, it's good if you do it at a level which stretches your capacity.

[10:44]

It's kind of like approaching a cliff or the edge of a cliff or the face of a cliff. Yeah, and it's way too steep to climb. And it's way too high to jump. But somehow in Sashin, sometimes you... Find yourself on top of the cliff looking down or find yourself in the air over the edge. So in a sashin I wonder, what will happen? So I'm announcing I don't know and maybe you don't know either.

[12:20]

But yet I have a feeling that yeah, there is A Buddha there who maybe knows. Maybe there's hidden in what we don't know a Buddha. And somehow in our own clumsy way we Hands tied, we approach this possibility of what our life might be, could be. We can ask, who is sitting, this is a shame.

[13:21]

And we can also ask, what is sitting the sashim? And what is easier to respond to? Yeah, your body is sitting the sashim. Your breath, your legs. Your back, your spine. And your thoughts and attitudes, too. But if we ask, who is sitting this Sashin? Well, if I ask myself, from my point of view, who's sitting this Sashin? Well, I probably know your name. I might have forgotten it. But still there's a who I sort of know that's sitting in the sashin.

[14:46]

I might know your job or profession. I might know something about your feel, a feel for your character, for your... Resilience, strength, energy, presence. Know your unsureness. Equivocation. Equivocation means vacillation or this way or that way. Doubt. Okay. Yeah, but there's also the who that only you know. The wholeness, the wholeness that only you know. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. your experience of your legs, back, breath, etc.,

[16:06]

And usually after a while the who which is sitting doesn't like the what which is hurting. And who thinks, what the hell am I doing here? And what asks the same question. But as the session goes on and you just continue, because somehow intention can be stronger than who? So the who might want to give up. But the intention is somehow rooted in something deeper than who. But the intention is somehow rooted in something deeper than in the who.

[17:33]

That's funny, no? Where is that intention rooted if it's deeper than wholeness? And after a while, a whatness begins to take over. The fact of how you feel, breathe begins to take many more units of attention than wholeness. And that's an interesting thing. Maybe this happens in crises in people's lives and so forth. But Sashin is an institution that can bring us into... And the immediacy of being not possible almost any other way.

[18:41]

And we could say that maybe what-ness begins to refine who-ness. And we can say that maybe the what-ness begins to refine the truth. What-ness and who-ness begin to come together more. And this is an extraordinarily important location. Not, yeah, maybe it feels like some kind of satisfaction or enlightenment or togetherness when what-ness and the who-ness really come together. But when you over time begin to live a what-ness, which is also who-ness, or a who-ness, which is rooted in what-ness,

[19:59]

Your life has a location and stability which is unparalleled. I don't know any other way to get there. Your life has what? A location and stability? Yeah, that's good. I would have said the same thing. Okay. One of the most basic practices is to realize what I can call non-dual mind. As you develop the attentional skill to have mind and breath the same location, Wenn du die Aufmerksamkeitsfähigkeit entwickelst, dass Geist und Atem derselbe Ort sind.

[21:26]

Or attention and breath the same location. Oder dass Aufmerksamkeit und Atem derselbe Ort sind. You begin to have the attentional skill, because by bringing attention to the breath, you're actually, it's a kind of fitness gym for attention. In this yogic world, you're not born with all your acorn-like possibilities sprouting. In diese yogische Welt hinein wirst du nicht mit deinen... Acorn ist so wie eine Eichel, oder? Da wirst du nicht einfach hineingeboren mit all deinen eichelartigen Möglichkeiten, die sich in alle Richtungen hinweg ausdehnen. Where your acorn is planted makes your genetics. It makes a huge difference.

[22:27]

And how you take care of it. And so you just don't have a given like an IQ and attention. These are just conceive of yourself as an entity. I mean, we are so imbued with entity thinking that even when attention is obviously an activity, conceptually we turn it into a kind of entity activity. We have this unit called attention. But really what exists is attention and everything that it attends to.

[23:39]

And what exists is also fused within attention. So when you develop the skill of... No, this is just basic practice. But it's basic practice for advanced students like you. Advanced practitioners like you. Because I think that's really what we need to do more in the Sangha now. Look at basic practice in a more advanced way. So when you bring attention to the breath, you're refining attention and refining breath. Breath begins to be able to carry more attention.

[24:40]

Attention begins to carry more, reach places it couldn't before. By bringing attention to the breath, you're teaching attention how to swim throughout the cells of the body. And you're teaching attention how to be more and more subtle and inclusive and boundaryless. And attention to be able to function in the subtlety of inconclusiveness. Did that make any sense? Please, say it makes sense. Did you say inconclusive?

[26:13]

Yes. Because this is a mystery. It's inconclusive. Attention has to function in what's inconclusive. There's no conclusion. Yes. Inconclusive. Yes. Inconclusive is the opposite of inclusive. Now you're throwing me off. Inclusive is including, right? It includes everything. It includes everything, yes. Inconclusive doesn't know what it's including. Okay. An inconclusive poem would be a poem so subtle it couldn't possibly have an end or even beginning.

[27:14]

That's the poem we're always living. That kind of subtlety is necessary to find out what's not there in Sashin. So attention refines the breath, and breath develops and refines attention. And refined attention which can stay in place. Because when you bring attention to the breath and it stays with the breath, Denn wenn du Aufmerksamkeit zum Atem bringst und sie beim Atem bleibt, You're also teaching attention just to stay where it, just to rest.

[28:41]

Somebody like. Dann lernst du die Aufmerksamkeit einfach zu verweilen, einfach zu ruhen auf eine samadische Art und Weise. And all those distractions of consciousness and who and what and the pronoun I and so forth, all lose a lot of their power to take over your attention. die verlieren einen Großteil ihrer Kraft, deine Aufmerksamkeit für sich gewinnen zu können. So that the attention can just stay with the breath. This is a basic kind of transformative level of practice. Okay, now this refined attention... can also notice the presence of mind on every appearance.

[29:47]

When I see this stick, and I just see the stick, I'm seeing dualistic mind. But when I see the stick and see mind seeing the stick, And feel mind with the body full mind with the seeing of the stick. This is another transformative level within practice. So another thing, you can kind of lodge in your seeded plowed soil of mind. plowed by zazen plowed by the breath plowed by sitting sashin you can put the seed in that plowed soil now that you know somehow

[31:05]

you can have a full body feeling of the presence of mind on every appearance. Now you've heard my words, these words in English, and you've heard them in German. And if you can form those words into an experiential unit, And seed that in your... implant that in yourself. Not trying to understand it, just plant it. There's a magic there. I mean, if you just imagine it, the imagination begins to grow into... actual experience.

[32:27]

Okay, now if you're developing this non-dual mind, This non-dual mind is much more likely to feel what's not there but could be there in the Sashin and in your life. Let me just give you before we end One little example of what I mean by an entity activity. What I don't mean by that. Yeah, okay. So the Anapasati Sutra. The practice of breath practice is taught in several sutras by supposedly the Buddha and also in the Anapasati Sutra.

[33:30]

And we usually understand that. I've been bringing this up recently. We usually understand it to bring attention to the breath. But it really means to bring attention to the movements and affect on the body of bringing attention to the breath. Would you say that again, please? It's not about so much really about bringing attention to the breath. It's about bringing attention to how bringing attention to the breath affects the body.

[34:50]

If you think it's about bringing attention to the breath, you're just treating the breath as a kind of entity. Wenn ihr glaubt, dass es einfach darum geht, Aufmerksamkeit zum Atem zu bringen, dann behandelt ihr den Atem wie eine Art Entität. But you bring attention to the movements that come from the breath. Aber ihr bringt Aufmerksamkeit zu den Bewegungen, die vom Atem kommen. The movements that come from bringing attention to the breath. And the movement and the quality of the body when the breath is given attention to in quietude. Because it's a systemic thing.

[35:56]

It's like bringing your attention to your heart and thinking, oh no, your entire circulation system is the heart. So you're bringing attention to the whole body breathing. Yeah, and that whole body breathing changes as you develop greater stillness, etc. So now you're studying attention to the breath in stillness. Yeah, it's that kind of detail in practice which begins to reveal the possibilities of what could our life be.

[37:03]

Es ist diese Art von Detailgenauigkeit in der Praxis, die beginnt, diese Frage, was könnte unser Leben sein, zu enthüllen. And who are we facing? And how many whos are there that we're facing? Yeah, okay. Thanks. I don't know.

[37:50]

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