For those of you newly arrived, I decided this morning to just use this prologue day to speak about some basics of practice and emphasize that when The basics of practice are practiced thoroughly. They open up into the whole of the teaching. Yes, so maybe the second aspect I can speak about is the idea, the custom of counting our breaths. So why bother to count your breaths? Do you really need to know how many breaths you have?

[01:03]

But then you lose count at ten, so you don't know how many breaths you have. Or most of us lose count at one or two. And we can call that the practice of counting to one. One. One. You didn't translate that. No, no, no. Hames. Hames. Okay. But after a while, it's possible to...

[02:07]

Count to ten quite easily. And you're doing two things, really. You're bringing your attention to your breath, which is bringing your attention to your body. And so you have an intention to bring your attention to your breath. And you're beginning a process of weaving mind and body together. Sewing perhaps with the needle and thread of the breath, mind and body together. You're also bringing your thinking into the rhythm or pace of the body.

[03:19]

And as a result, you begin thinking more, feeling your thinking in your body. And this is one of the manifestations of... of the practice of counting your breaths. And in many, many ways, the secrets of practice are contained or entered through the door of breath and body. You become more truthful. Do yourself and to others when your body is in your thinking.

[04:34]

As I point out, it's why lie detectors so often work. Because it's quite difficult for the body to lie. So the more your thinking is embodied thinking, Which is almost always, I mean is always, I'm convinced, more creative and more stable thinking. You also... Don't lie to yourself.

[05:36]

And we can call it the weaving together of mind and body. Yeah, we can call it realizing a truth body. So this is one of the, if you want to look at it in the context of the Eightfold Path. It's the entry, real entry into the practice of the Eightfold Path. Now, you're also learning by counting your breaths. You're also learning one-pointedness. And it's one of the main yogic skills.

[06:40]

To be able to put your mind, your attention somewhere, and it stays there. This is closely related also to discovering stillness, to entering into stillness. Because as long as your mind is jumping around, you can't be still. So can you rest your mind on stillness itself? Mind rested in stillness is one definition of samadhi. And mind rested in the enfoldedness of which is a deeper definition of samadhi, mind which encompasses enfoldedness and doesn't have to unfold it.

[07:55]

Again, going back to one-pointedness. Yeah, it takes a while to learn the skill. And there are pretty clear stages of it, you'll find, that parallel the traditional teaching of how it develops. As you mind, Your attention is on your breath. And then it goes off. And then it comes back. And then it goes off. Like that. But after a while, it gets easier to bring back to your accounting.

[09:16]

Aber nach einer Zeit wird es einfacher, deine Aufmerksamkeit zum Zählen zurückzubringen. Yeah, and that's the second stage. Und das ist dann so die zweite Stufe. And then after a while, it comes back by itself. Und dann nach einer Weile kommt das Zählen von selbst zurück. And that's the third stage. And then eventually, wherever you put your mind, it just stays there. And this is somehow very relaxing. It's like I put the non-entity of this bell down stays there. It's got no place to go. It's got nothing to do. We can imagine it's quite happy. And the mind is like that. You put your mind somewhere And it's quite happy just to be there.

[10:29]

Now you could say, oh, but my mind likes excitement. And while I'm driving, I have to listen to the radio. Or music at least. And talk on the phone. Because, you know, I'm one of those ten track people. Multitasking at all times. And we can understand that's often, you know, definitely a kind of intelligence. But why does the mind need this distraction?

[11:36]

It's not just that you're getting things done, it also needs the distraction. Well, of course, it's boring to have your mind just sitting there like a bell that's unrung. But of course it is also boring to have the ghost sitting there like a bell that is not rang. But how does the world actually exist? It exists in movement and it exists in stillness. And the mind resting in stillness is also a mind which is gathering the world. The word stillness Interest in English. It means among, to be, est and inter.

[12:46]

Inter is among and est is to be or being. So interest means to be at the center of being. And the word Paul Rosenblum likes, the Japanese word, I think it's kori, means this or just this. But if you look at the character, the kanji, it actually means inside this. So we could understand then another way of defining samadhi. Samadhi is the mind that gathers the world into itself.

[13:51]

And dharma means, you know, of course you know, that which holds. And it's a very big question, why is there duration at all? If what I just said is in the past, as fast as I speak, it's disappearing into the... disappearing? Anyway, it's past. And the future is... Why is there an experience of duration? What is the experience of duration? This is at the center of Buddhist practice. For how we exist, even if we're sitting at a desk or giving a talk or... you know, reading a book.

[15:01]

What is this duration in my speaking entering into your duration? duration is enfolding the world just now. If this is what's happening right now, it's certainly activity, but simultaneously it's also samadhi. If it gathers in. And as I said, the thingness of this bell, whatever it is, when I was a kid, I only knew bells that had little handles and you hit them and they went click, clink, clink, you know.

[16:04]

And if I was shown this, I would think it was a container for paperclips. And say, well, what? Geez, this paperclip holder has a nice sound. And I thought, oh, this container for... So. the idea that it was a paper clip holder would gather. So I think the word thing actually is rooted in an etymology of that which gathers.

[17:03]

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