Yeah, now because there's this big congress in Hannover at the present time, it was very hard to get hotel rooms. And the hotels raised the prices to the point where they're unaffordable because the Congress is in town. So Andreas found a fairly nearby Airbnb. So we're staying in the air of a young woman who doesn't have a single book except two cookbooks, no desk, no desk light, but lots of photographs and hearts and things like that.

[01:02]

So, you know... So I feel I'm trying on a different life. And I guess the problem is, as I hear from Andreas, is that she wanted to move back in about noon today. And he talked her into waiting until later in the afternoon with a little extra money. With my charm. Charm and money work together often. Anyway, she kindly agreed to come back later. But still, I have to move out.

[02:03]

That takes forever. So we don't have so much of an afternoon possible. And I'm told that five or six people have to leave after lunch. Or leave this afternoon, is that correct? Okay, so maybe we should just stop... No. So maybe we should kind of just... ignore lunch and just have some sessions now, and then break, and then we can all go to wherever we want to go. This is my feeling. This works for everybody.

[03:05]

And you can find places which are closed for lunch on Sunday. You can find closed restaurants after two. Yeah. Open. We can find open restaurants. Oh, really? Yes. Or I cook for you. That's good. We stay. Yeah. So should we just have one session now and then break till next year if we have a seminar next year? Yes. Yes. It depends on how long we do now. Oh, okay.

[04:05]

What do you recommend, 15 minutes or two hours? Two hours. Well, let's start. You know, I said... that I'm obviously made this my path in life. And I don't have any other path. And given that, I've stumbled along here. And quite a few of you and all of you to some degree have made this your path or part of your path.

[05:07]

But you've also had the challenge of making a regular life your path and practice your path. So that all puts us in rather different places on the path, as I said before. And then we have the Sangha, which is a shared path. And sometimes the shared path is a stream with some directionality. Sometimes it's a big pond and everything's coming into it, but it's not going anywhere.

[06:09]

I think in some ways it's a pond and a river simultaneously. But what I would like to hear from you... Am I just talking in the air when I talk about what I've been talking about the last two days? And maybe I've been doing this so long it's just amusing to listen to me. It's not relevant, but it's amusing. But am I actually speaking to your practice in a relevant way? That's what I want to know.

[07:11]

I mean, to some degree, I'm talking into what I've been calling an imaginal space, which anticipates your practice. Or has some dimensions of your practice. And maybe that's helpful as your own practice is both pond and stream. And maybe it's only a subliminal imaginal space. I think that's OK, too. But I do have the question, because if I'm going to continue this, I mean, this meeting with some people, sometimes on an annual basis,

[08:28]

would help me to know in what ways I'm, in a relevant way, speaking with you. Aber es würde mir helfen, also wenn ich mit diesen Treffen weitermache, mit einigen Leuten, zumindest einmal im Jahr oder auf jährlicher Basis, in welcher Hinsicht ist das, worüber wir hier sprechen, relevant für dich, für euch? I appreciated in the last discussion we had, I mean the discussion led by Nicole just now. Und was ich geschätzt habe in dieser Gesprächsrunde gerade eben? Even though you don't know each other, all of you don't know each other. Still, there was a shared openness and trust. So anyway, I'm now listening to see what you recommend I hear, do, say, etc. And now I'm listening to what you recommend, what I recommend, what I'm talking about and what I should do and so on.

[09:59]

You can just, as you said, that picture once for me, as if he comes here, once a year or I meet him at the seminar, that's for me. I just have the image. You come here once a year. For me, it's like a big inspection of the car. If I didn't have that once a year, then my car at some point would stall. It's sort of like TÜV. It's like TÜV, yeah. It's like TÜV. And of course, I also sometimes go to Johanneshof, or to Sechenitz, or to Gerald. And without these things, I think I would lose practice.

[11:04]

That takes one, two, three months. Maybe before that you start to look at it again with practice. And the other thing is that there is the time in preparation for the seminar, in preparation for the seminar, maybe three months in advance or something, and during this time, it will be okay eventually, during this time is when the seminar already begins. It's the same as in Poland. In Poland, when you're not in Berlin, you're missing a lot, even physically. And I'm noticing that the fact that Paul is not in Berlin this year, I miss that. I mean, I miss that physically. And the next thing here, even when I am at the seminar training, or almost always when I am at lectures from the higher seminars, I often have the feeling that you speak to me completely directly, also to the deeper layers of the practice, and also confirm things to me.

[12:16]

You confirm them, you open them, without this, let's say, encounter, And also the third thing, I feel when you speak to me, when you give a lecture, it's as if you're speaking directly to me and without these openings and these suggestions or directionalities, I just could not continue practicing this. Yes. I feel similar to Andreas. Yes, Andreas is there. Even though I've been involved in breathing work since I was 20, I teach it myself in the meantime, in Chigo and so on. It opens up the way you talk about it to me, and it gives me a new perspective. new views.

[13:29]

And I feel confirmed in many ways what I have discovered as my own development in my work. You also mention that here, yes, and that satisfies us very much, of course. In the discussion that we started, Buddhism as a religion or as a science. Buddhist monks are where I ask myself, what do they actually have from Buddhism, if they are so obsessive, that they have massacres and stuff like that.

[14:38]

So that drives me very much into this whole thing. And on the other hand, I feel myself, I read a lot of newspapers and hear news, I feel very physically this collapse in which we are in the moment in general. And I feel busy. In some respects, it also reminds me of the 80s, where many different spiritual directions, large events took place, in big cities all over the world, also in America. And I ask myself whether it is not the right time to work on this in the next few years.

[15:38]

Angela for herself, where she is working, the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. That would be good, but that's too much for us to do today. Klaus? I said yesterday. That everything that Roshi said, that he said something in me, and I couldn't, because I had lost it, say what it is.

[16:59]

I can only briefly say that... Childhood, until now, went past me and I saw different stations. And I have seen a new purpose or a new context. I have seen purpose. Wondering if a lot of it is just connected with sharing back. To what extent my own decisions are part of it. Sometimes, every thought of him was very close. But you've never seen the sea.

[18:07]

Well, we have been talking about ponds and rivers, and maybe we'll get to the sea. Yes. In the context of Buddhism as a science, I did not think about it at all. Mein Problemfeld in der Schule, also zum Beispiel stilles Sitzen, als ethisches Moment, eine ganze Gruppe, anders auch verankern zu können.

[19:43]

response to how I can integrate practice into my work at school. Come back to these four points that you had mentioned. Yes, you can call it a basis for a scientific investigation of the mind.

[20:52]

Now, when I was studying, I started with and the hardcore sciences, so mathematics and physics, and then he realized that often these stupid, scientific views lead to myths. firm scientific views in the end to rely on with. . [...] I noticed that all this is also built on the subject of society with regard to the completeness of determining how determination works.

[22:09]

So I actually found out that it is also a myth. And this imaginary space is also a myth for me. But despite all I think occurred about It shows up in your thoughts. Okay. It seems to me so far what each person has said has been proposals to fix the world.

[23:37]

Things you could do to improve the world. And of course that may be the fundamental reason we practice. But that's a very big topic and not one I think we can do as a group much about, but individually we can do something about it. But what I come here to talk about is your individual practice. And so far I'm not hearing much about that. So maybe I'm missing the boat in the way I'm teaching. Yes. I keep notes.

[24:51]

Really, things are about feeling. It's got to be. It's just a precision. Everything. Question, is this really good shit, or is it all just science? To feel that it's both pain from at the same time, and when it's beyond my control. But I feel alive. That's really all I can say. So you're noticing your own experience in relation to the five skandhas makes you feel alive in a... That's what I hope.

[25:59]

That's the tactical view of the world. It's just to feel this presence. Yeah. There is practice. These are new initiatives. And so from that point of view, just let these fine distinctions between breath and each inhale exist. It's a scandal.

[27:06]

On one hand, but it is covered. That's a nice confirmation, and I'm happy about myself. But every time there's something new in it, something that lets me move. Somebody starts listening greatly. I have fun working with it. And if, you know, it is inhaling, exhaling. Exactly. Yes.

[28:17]

You are a co-creator of my state of mind. And it would be weird if what you say would not have a strong resonance in me. no matter where you speak and no matter how often you meet. And what I hear, I can extend it to the world, to the people I work with and meet. I don't need a big global plan. So I don't even know what you're saying. As in fact, through me and through my full connection into the people that I work with, I am extremely grateful for that. You're welcome. Yeah. Who shares the same practice?

[29:22]

Seminar. When it came to breathing, there was a door that opened a few doors for me. I got a few hints from Boshi on how to best deal with breathing, because it was never so easy for me to locate myself on breathing. And I'm experimenting with that right now, and I hope that it will work. And I hope that that will stay with us. I said on Friday, actually, the question is, how can I implement

[30:24]

That got fulfilled. Speak about breath practice. What kind of breath practice? And you went into such detail. German, the German word has the word inside. And also to internalize it. So that's the best case scenario I don't have to think about. And for me, it's always important to get a memory because I don't see it, because it's a seminar. And also through sitting regularly.

[31:39]

But I keep hearing the recordings. That's always great. Maybe one aspect beyond what we're looking at. And for the significance of my two heart-to-heart, body-to-body, face-to-face. That this encounter, experience, emotion, which teaches and shapes me and also reminds me that it is important that this happens over and over again. And therefore, this is now also a personal thing, somehow I used to know, in the first years I tried to force people to come here, everywhere, where I no longer do. But I should think that we had 60 people here in this year.

[32:53]

And this year, it's not really criticism, but a lot of people didn't come from the North. I don't understand that at all. But I don't think that we all are going to see any real outcome this year. I can't understand it. I can't understand it at all. Because one person said, I would say that one person has to take care of my car because I have to repair my car. And then from the seminar, whatever you're in the practice, you can repair your car because the seminar is only now. What's special about this is the possibility, the opportunity to have a non-verbal contact, the position, how I experience you, how I sense you.

[34:00]

That is completely formative. Yes, yes and no. But for you it's one thing. And it's always like that for us.

[35:03]

I think, why don't I cut myself so consistently? When I actually know that this is it, it's actually something else. No, this is the highest view of reality. I want to. walk this path with consequence because it's too uncomfortable. Focus on what I'm doing right now. I wonder how can I live this aspect of myself in what I do in my life. And then I notice again and again that I can't get it out of me.

[36:10]

And then I have to present it to someone who presents it alive. But I must have the right to do it. You said that you stomp along this path. Is that what you said to me? You said that you're stomping along the path. And I feel like that's... That's a huge under... That's a huge under... That's a huge under... Whoa! [...] I was very young when I came first to work. You have to ask this question of my life, how strong do you want to practice?

[37:10]

At the time, my life was more open. I like to watch my wife. And then I decided against it and asked the question, was that the right thing to do and why? It came clear to me, it's just fucking life. And I couldn't stop that and replace it with practice. And I couldn't stop that and replace it with practice. And I couldn't stop that and replace it with practice. But the last step, not to liberate it, but to liberate it, that runs on the practical level.

[38:14]

I wouldn't have done that on the psychological level, perhaps with help, but not on the psychological level. Sometimes I punish myself for struggling with myself for not having made that decision. I forgive you. And I accept you. Thank you. I'll be there next year.

[39:18]

I don't have to talk about it. And from the last few days by Roshi I have become more motivated for my practice and I am grateful for it. Just have a similar approach or maybe similar insights aside. You haven't said much during this seminar.

[40:25]

I took a long break. This seminar has given me new insights on the point of breathing and the depth that lies there in a very simple view of life. And I try that for my life or for my problems that I have. Thanks. Well, I tried to... Am I interrupting anyone?

[41:29]

No. I tried to... Imagine, you know, it's like the background of my mind becomes the foreground. And in the background of my mind, I know I'm going to come to Hanover in some days. To see my friend Andreas, Dharma practitioner, fellow practitioner. He's been committed to do this for a lot of years now.

[42:34]

13 years. In England, that's called a baker's dozen. Because the baker, you buy a dozen something, and they put in one extra, so you get 13. So For all these years, when I come here, I still know there will be some new people, and I also know there will be people whose life takes most of the time of their living.

[43:35]

And so in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about, where can I start? Something we all can share. So I said, well, So this background suddenly becomes the foreground and I'm here and I think, okay, I'll start with the nostrils. We all have nostrils. And the nostrils are pretty necessary if you're going to breathe. Now, we could... We can say mindfulness.

[44:43]

That sort of leaves out the nostrils. So maybe we could say instead of mindfulness, detailfulness. You could practice with practice from a sense of detailfulness. Like when I look at these flowers, it's incredible detail. And when I look at them and I look at their detail, I'm really... I mean that sound, excuse me for sounding schmaltzy, but you know I am a little schmaltzy. overwhelmed by the deep I couldn't do this I couldn't make one of these single petals but I feel that when I look at anything that

[46:03]

The leaves, your glasses, whatever. So my inclination is, my being able to create the details of these is way beyond any, I mean, I can't, it's not imaginable. I can only live with them and live as them. So I think at least I could begin to experience my details. Und dann denke ich, dass ich zumindest damit anfangen kann, meine eigenen Details zu erfahren. Yeah, and that's why I started with hearing the word tailor in details. Und deshalb habe ich auch damit begonnen zu sagen, also dieses Wort tailor im Englischen, der Schneider, das Schneidern, in dem Wort Detail herauszuhören.

[47:15]

Noticing the details, paying, giving attention to the details is certainly one of the beginnings of the Zen path. And as I said, the breath is the doorway, passageway into the autonomic nervous system. In other words, we don't think of it this way, but if you start participating in the autonomic nervous system, which is what you're doing when you consciously affect your breathing, You're creating a passageway, an attentional passageway into how you function at the most basic level which is mostly autonomically. Then you create a passage of attention, a passage of attention into the most basic level of how we function.

[48:42]

And that's what the autonomic nervous system is. Most of the time we function autonomously. And if you look at the basic teachings of the historical Buddha, what he's speaking about is not a generalization about breathing or mindfulness. He's talking about the detail of the exhale and the detail of the inhale. And the difference is if you enter yourself through generalizations, mindfulness, breathing, you end up with generalizations which are then controlled by the brain. And the brain wants you to function in a way that is effective. But the way the brain wants you to function effectively

[49:58]

It does not reach the deepest places in ourselves. It doesn't reach where we really want to live and actually do live and then feel badly that we don't live there. So I don't know that somehow the historical Buddha was a pretty unusual guy. And he didn't start with generalizations, he started with particularities. With details. So if we start our breath practice with details, and I thought I should, I think sometimes we just shift in the generalizations.

[51:19]

I thought maybe I really will emphasize the detail, as the historical Buddha did, of each inhale and each exhale. And it's not even the details of breathing, inhale and exhale. is the details of the physical movements which accompany inhaling and the physical movements which accompany exhaling. And you can look that up yourself. There are various translations of the Anapasati or Anapana Smriti Sutra on the internet.

[52:21]

And it makes very clear you're giving attention to the physicality of the breath, not the generalization of the breath. And it says the movements. Now, why does it say the movements? Because even if I say physicality, it's a kind of generalization. What can you notice? You can notice the physical movements that accompany inhaling and exhaling. So what are you doing when you do this? You're actually, as I've been saying, developing attention. But you're developing and refining attention.

[53:56]

So refining can more and more enter into the refinement of the details of your actual lived life. And here maybe, here's maybe where Buddhism is a science, which it's not, you know, you're not looking for a goal here, you're just wondering where this experiment goes. And this requires the patience of no goal. The patience of just willing to do this and see what happens. Yeah. So this requires then, too, as this teaching from the Buddha's time, 2,500 years ago, which is actually just a few days, we think, you know, there's so many centuries ago,

[55:33]

Well, I've now lived 80% of the century. Centuries somehow seem pretty short to me. In a couple centuries, there were only two people. If they lived to be 100. So, what... We don't want to go into that. It's not very long ago. In actual human terms of developing a teaching. So let's just say a few months ago, the historical Buddha And he noticed because he cares about you or he would have cared about you if he'd known you a few months ago. If you want to reach into the details of your life, the complexity of this flower, the complexity of your own lived life,

[56:59]

We can ask doctors and biologists and people and electron microscopes, but still, it's not the same as when you find your own life through the details of your own life. Wir können da Ärzte fragen oder Neurologen oder Neurobiologen oder so, dass die mit Mikroskopen nachschauen und so weiter, aber immer noch, das ist nicht dasselbe, als wenn du die Details deines eigenen, weil du dich in den Details deines eigenen gelebten Lebens... So let's start with the details we can notice. We have these resources or this equipment. We have attention. We have breath. We can bring attention to it.

[58:16]

Once a day, a few times a day. We can form an intention to bring attention to the details of breathing. Now then we can think about it and we can say, well, but the Buddha those months ago lived in a slightly different, significantly, but slightly different world than we do. He assumed the location of identity was the body. That's clear from everything you study. That's an assumption of all Buddhist teachings. And as Nicole presented, I think quite convincingly the other day, that we tend to live in a bubble of experience which is really a mental bubble.

[59:44]

If you think your feet are down there, down there in relationship to what? It means you feel you're up here and your feet are down there. But your feet are exactly in the center of you. Particularly when you fold your legs in zazen. So Zakaria used to say, we fold our legs, the left on the right and right on the left, so that we get confused about where our body is and we don't look at it from the outside anymore. So if we do notice that the way the Anapanasati, Anapasi Smriti Sutra is presenting the historical Buddha's teaching,

[60:46]

Assumes that the body is our identity location and not the mind. Or I should say not consciousness. then we need to meet the challenge of shifting our sense of location more and more into our body. And when I speak to myself in English, I immediately say, our body? Who the hell is owning my body? Our, our, who's the owner? And then I try to drop our and the my.

[62:09]

And when I walk around, I try to walk from my body and not from up here. And over time, over repetition and iteration, after a while, yes, you begin to feel the bodies moving, not the consciousness moving. And your body begins to have a certain presence which others can feel. Der Körper hat dann eine gewisse Präsenz, die andere auch spüren können. But when you're located in your consciousness, the presence is drawn out of your body, drained out of your body, and your body becomes just an object to hold the head.

[63:20]

Aber wenn du dich im Bewusstsein verortest, dann wird die gesamte Präsenz aus dem Körper herausgesaugt und ins Bewusstsein gepackt, und dann wird der Körper nur noch ein Instrument, um den Kopf zu halten. Okay. So now you have decided, okay, sounds like a good idea. The Buddha said so, and Baker said so, too. Maybe I will bring attention, when I can, to the exhale and the inhale. And I notice that, yes, there's some sort of interchange here between autonomic breathing and intentional breathing. You're not going to notice this unless you're still sitting.

[64:24]

You can't notice it while you're walking very easily. So it's kind of like your own little portable laboratory. And so you notice that, yes, when I sit pretty still and consciousness kind of drops away and I... feel more in a field like a dreamlike field where there's these associations and stuff. And then you can already see where the five skandhas came from. Because as you let loose of the brain skin of consciousness, and get past the editing and designing that the brain does,

[65:40]

You feel more at home in the body that is also you. And it's a little scary. So it might die. The heart might stop. Breathing is one after another. There's no absolute continuity or permanence you can get hold of. So you really recognize you're a complex event, but it's a fragile one. Better not get hit by a car or even a bicycle coming down some of those lanes.

[66:55]

You begin to bring this detailed, this attentional detail into how you experience your life. And you notice when you do find some still sitting and you find yourself in maybe the third skandha, the clarity of each perception, And now you may really know you're in a sensorial phenomenality.

[67:57]

And now you may really know you're in a sensorial phenomenality. because you know the sounds and the feelings are really within your sensorial field. And so with a little analytical observation, loosening the parts. You notice that you're actually hearing your own senses. You're not really hearing that tractor or that streetcar or that bird. You're feeling the sensorial version of a streetcar.

[68:57]

And that's suddenly very intimate. You're hearing yourself at a very intimate level. And there's often bliss accompanies some kind of new ease and satisfaction accompanies this intimacy. And so you discover a kind of bliss of living itself that's hidden under thinking. So then you may wonder, is it possible to still think I have to do that or that happens and not separate myself from this simple bliss of being alive?

[70:35]

And so you're discovering and developing what's called in the ancient teaching of a few months ago, mindful analysis or mindful analytics. So the simple act of bringing detailed mind detailed mindfulness to the inhale and the exhale. And the movements that accompany inhaling and exhaling. Even if you do it in, as I say, only homeopathic doses now and then, it still brings new dice into the lottery of life.

[71:44]

So occasionally somehow the dice of this new detailed attention appear. And because you've been persistent and persistent and Energy are the same word in Sanskrit. You can begin to feel when your breathing is autonomic and with your breathing is intentional and with it when your breathing is both at the same time with no problem. So now, if we go back to the title of this seminar, breath, body, phenomena.

[73:02]

And as I The background of my mind came into the foreground arriving here a few days ago. I felt how the simple practice of each inhale and each exhale. The first word, breath. opened up inseparably to the second word, body. And through the detailed refinement of attention, you began to find a new body in which you were limited.

[74:06]

And then, one way, And to open that up is to use that new attentional refinement to explore the ways in which consciousness is constituted and can be rebuilt in your own meditative experience. And then even when you're in this attentional detail, The generalizations of brain consciousness

[75:16]

have been released and you this non-subjective observing mind which you've also generated by Zazen practice this non-subjective observing mind can really notice how your body is functioning, how your senses are functioning. And you can allow a certain bliss, a certain bliss and ease, an easiness guide you. And you suddenly find yourself in a context where phenomena isn't outside you. And in English, the words internal and external don't have the same separate meaning anymore.

[76:49]

And you may come to re-spell them the way I do. And you hear the word spell in spell. that you can spell internal instead of I-N-T-E-R, you can spell it I-N-T-U-R-N-A-L. So an external is spelled similarly, maybe E-X dash T-U-R-N-A-L. So internal and external become a kind of Separation between body, breath, and phenomena is a turning process in which the context and you are inseparable.

[78:27]

As I'm here, a separate person. I know that, but it's an interning. And when there's an ex-turning, an outer turning, I feel inseparably engaged with you through sound, touch, the feel of the air, the feel of the room and the cushion and the floor. then I have the feeling of being inseparable with you, connected to you through the sound, through the smell, through the touch and the feeling in the space.

[79:31]

In our own pace, would you the pace which now is discovered with the breath, the fullness of the body pace is also located in the pace of all your bodies. And I don't need anything more. It's enough just to be here with you now. Thank you very much. Okay. So that was a short version of the seminar. Okay. I hope I see all of you next year. Thanks for translating.

[80:51]

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