I haven't spoken about intersubjective and intersubjective, partly because I haven't worked out to the degree at which I can feel I can really productively, usefully speak about it. Yeah. Now, intersubjective space, we could say, somewhat similar to the unconscious. I think this is a genuine contribution to our culture of Freud. And although other people had the concept before Freud, he made use of it in a way that has affected the world.

[01:17]

But then they made the typical Western error, I think, in projecting it back into the past, sort of what was Caesar's unconscious, you know, things like that. I think it's a fact of all times and all people everywhere. But the unconscious is, at least as I understand it, is conceived as being something particular to you, to an individual. Now, Jung had said that the uncollected unconscious, I would have been a little more in agreement with him than the collective consciousness.

[02:37]

And the unconscious is primarily related to consciousness, what can be or not be in consciousness. Okay. Now, so in Buddhism, and when I talk about Buddhism, I use non-consciousness. But we also have a neutral identity. And it's our intersubjective identity is in a shared or not shared continuum of shaped by culture or shaped by your identity, your personal identity.

[04:06]

Now, Buddhism is attempting, Buddhist Zen practice is attempting to relate to you individually your neuro-anatomical biological identity. Yeah. Go ahead. And, of course, also your personal identity, which I think has to include your psychological identity.

[05:08]

Okay. Now, you also have a mutual identity. And that mutual identity is mostly non-consciously functioning and non-consciously developing. And Buddhism says, let's develop that non-conscious interpersonal identity or that non-conscious mutual identity together.

[06:12]

Oh dear, non-conscious, mutual or interpersonal. And that's what schools do. By the way, just looking again, the difference between Japanese and Westerners. Of course it's a spectrum, but if the spectrum is born with an identity and born with no identity, we're on the spectrum of born with an identity. A woman losing a baby by miscarriage or an abortion, no one thinks a person in Asia has been killed. Of course, it's a spectrum.

[07:28]

So obviously it's genetic, you know, it's like a robot. It has a genetic identity. But Basho, the famous... first really famous haiku poet of Japan. On his first, he has written a book about journeying through Japan, I forget what it's called. And on his first day, he finds a baby in a box along the path. And he writes some poems about it and leaves it.

[08:34]

It's something we'd have trouble doing. But the Japanese would say, unless it has two parents, unless it has a village, unless it has... It's not going to have a chance. It's difficult enough that if a baby has already been abandoned by the village and abandoned by the parents, he didn't have the means to take care of it. So there's no sense of orphanages and things like that. I'm not saying this is good. I'm just saying that's how they feel. But in Japan, the view is that if this baby doesn't have two parents and doesn't have a village, then it doesn't have a chance to survive anyway. And if it was already rejected by the village and by the parents, then Basho doesn't have the means to take care of it. And I'm not saying that's good. I'm just saying that's how it was looked at there. There's no such concept or system of orphanages there.

[09:39]

On the spectrum between nature and nurture, they're way on the side of nurture. You now named a cultural difference to write a few poems and then leave the baby there. But does that, from your point of view, also have something to do with practice? Nothing to do with practice. It has to do with Japanese culture. And I'm told that sometimes somebody will jump off a bridge in China. And people will see it happening, and they'll just, well, if he's decided to kill himself, no one tries to stop him.

[10:54]

He just jumps. Right in front of everybody. Anyway, so there's a strong emphasis on, so when you go to school and when you're an infant, they feel you're starting pretty much from zero. They feel you're starting from, and the culture is shaping you. So it's very difficult to establish bloodlines in Japan, for example, because if some neighbor is more like your son than you are, you give him your name and he inherits your house and business.

[12:16]

I don't know. These are just anecdotes, but they're anecdotes which don't make sense. I'm not always giving you anecdotes that make Asia look great. These are anecdotes that are hard for us. So, for instance, there's lots of restaurants in Japan which were started by the son of Mr. Suzuki, but he really wasn't Mr. Suzuki's son. He was Mr. Suzuki's best cook. He takes on the name of Suzuki and he starts a restaurant called Suzuki's Other Place.

[13:21]

It's literally called Suzuki's Other Place. And, for example, there are many restaurants in Japan where it is said, ah, this is the restaurant of Suzuki's son. But it is in reality not Suzuki's son, but it is simply the best cook of Suzuki. And then the restaurant of this best cook is called the other place, another place of Suzuki. Yeah, so family and family culture is more important than family genetics. Die Familienkultur ist wichtiger als die Familiengenetik, das Familienerbgut. Okay, so that was just a little aside, an anecdote. But school is part of how we develop people intersubjectively. Aber die Schule ist Teil davon, wie wir Menschen intersubjektiv entwickeln.

[14:22]

Now the monastery also is monastic practice and similar ones. In some Asian countries, everyone's supposed to go to the monastery for a while. Und die klösterliche Praxis ist auch sowas. Es gibt einige Länder in Asien, wo jeder eine Zeit lang ins Klöster gehen sollte. And the emphasis is more on intra-subjective training or development. than intersubjective. And I suppose part of the reason why military schools and marine training camps in the United States and stuff like that try to beat the hell out of you so that you're so vulnerable that they can train you intersubjectively as well as intersubjectively. Ich glaube, ein Grund, warum in Militärausbildungslagern zum Beispiel, die einen so kurz und klein machen und einen auch zusammenschlagen und so einen bis ans Ende bringen, damit sie einen auch intrasubjektiv trainieren können.

[15:35]

And we are people, this is an important aspect to think, we animals can be herded. I believe you can't herd zebras as easily as cows, and you can't herd cats very easily at all. We can be herded, otherwise there'd be no military, there'd be no armies. With the right training, people are willing to go and get killed with their friends. Okay, so we see this in North Korea, the herding instinct. And we see it in many countries.

[16:38]

Okay. All right, now, Zen tries to, and this is where I don't really know how to talk about this, but Zen, the monastic practice is based on intra-subjective training, not inter-subjective training. I think playing in an orchestra, for instance, is probably intra-subjective practice. And I think, for example, to play in an orchestra is probably an intrasubjective practice. And I notice, for example, that the practitioners in our Sangha who are musicians and also play in an orchestra, that they grasp certain aspects of the practice faster than many others. Now, maybe we could say the intra-subjective practice is the sensorial body.

[17:53]

The sensing body. The intrasubjective practice, or did you say intrasubjective body? I said body. Okay. What I think some people have, not everyone, but when they do practice periods, and it's related to Sashin's, but it's usually much more distinct feeling than realized feeling than in Sashin's. They share a mutual identity with each other, or they may share a mutual identity with each other, which is stronger than actually how they feel with their family. And most of us think, well, you know, if you don't know it, you think, well, I already know this, or I don't have to go to practice period.

[19:09]

But it actually doesn't happen unless you are in practice period. Now, who is taking care of the Dharmasanga? In Europe and America. Who made the decision, hey, this is the life I want. I think in every case, it's someone who's done six, eight or more 90-day practice periods. So you think as an individual person you could make a decision, but probably you wouldn't unless you have this experience of mutuality, which seems to be at more depth than any other experience you've ever had.

[20:27]

So there's some kind of aesthetic connectedness. Aesthetic is, I think, the right word. It's connected with beauty, a depth of feeling, a depth of things are okay somehow fundamentally. It doesn't mean, unfortunately, that everybody in the Sangha gets along.

[21:31]

That's another conundrum. But if I just, you know, I just came to Europe, right? I came with empty hands. I didn't expect to do anything. I didn't expect to teach Buddhism. After a while, people started asking me to give a talk or do this or that. And pretty soon, after a few years, I finally agreed to do a Sashin and so forth. But the people turned to me and asked if I could hold a lecture or do this and that. And after a few years I finally agreed to do a show. So I didn't have any plans.

[22:41]

And I'm just watching what happens. Who continues to practice? And who makes the decision to continue practice? I don't have much influence on it. I mean, she has decided to continue practicing. But since she was so young when she showed up at Johanneshof, I encouraged her to finish high school. She wasn't even finished high school. It's illegal for you to start that early. It must be a handsome law. Then I encouraged her to go to college and become a scholar and so forth. But she's kept doing practice periods.

[23:43]

It was her mistake. I should have told her not to. So she's made this practically speaking dumb decision and her banker father agrees. Even pays for it. Well, you know, I don't always tell the truth. Yeah. So it's interesting to me, you know, if I hadn't started Tassajara, I never would have found these things out, because I had no intention of starting Tassajara, except because she told me, I need a place for face-to-face practice for people. But since I'd made an unequivocal decision, I would do anything for him.

[24:45]

I started hunting for a place. We hunted together, the two of us sometimes, and sometimes I hunted by myself. And Tassa Hart showed me what happened to the other practitioners and showed me what happened to me. I couldn't have thought my way to it, or felt my way to it, or guessed my way to it. So this is a place where you can develop this a new kind of experience of mutuality.

[26:16]

And you can begin to practice and wake up within this new mutuality. which is called compassion in Buddhism. Now, when I look at a new person shows up, what do I notice? Their eyes don't look around. If their eyes don't look around and their eyes sort of stay in place and they shine more than look, I think, hmm, this person probably can practice it.

[27:20]

One of the things you're taught to do quite strongly in monastic practice or Zen Sangha practice is don't look around. Don't look around the room. Don't look around when you're chanting, etc. So looking around links the eyes, the sensorial eyeballs, to... A person who doesn't look around has disengaged, maybe they're just stupid, but has disengaged the thinking mind from their sensorial body.

[28:37]

They have a feeling of just being present and not thinking present. And zazen and practice really takes root. in the non-thinking sensorial body. Okay, so all that was to establish that there's this non-subjective or intra-subjective body And all of that, as I said, in order to take the position and to show that this

[29:38]

I said non-subjective. I mean that, but it's confusing, so take that away. Intrasubjective body. Intra. Like intramural and intramural. Intrasubjective body. This is just a fact. And you see, I mean, one of the main comments I had from New York when the Twin Towers were blown up. For no good reason, people felt really happy and connected with each other. So I think that it was a mutual awakening of an intersubjective body, and then people feel good.

[30:44]

And I've talked to people who are in the military and in fighting military, not just, you know, in office job. who tell me it was the most powerful, beautiful experience in their life. The companionship was at another level of intimacy. Der Zusammenhalt hat auf einer anderen Ebene der Vertrautheit oder Innigkeit stattgefunden. Now, there's a danger to this, of course, because we're heritable animals. Darin liegt natürlich auch eine Gefahr, weil wir eben Herdentiere sind. If we don't have a culture which takes into consideration or only uses animals,

[31:52]

what's the word, commodifies your intersubjective body. These corporations, by every single moment, they can find to purchase To relate to your greed, your desire, your wanting perfume, wanting a new car, you know, etc. I'd start with a girl's hair blowing in the wind while she looks at a beautiful cloud. You don't know what they're going to tell you to buy, but something. Okay.

[33:05]

Now, this intrasubjective body can also be a tsunami. Tsunami? A bigotry, hatred, racism, tribalism, etc., You saw it, or your grandparents saw it, in Germany. It happened in Germany. Ihr habt das gesehen oder eure Großeltern haben das in Deutschland gesehen. And once it happens, it's like a tsunami. It's out of control. The whole society is swept up in it. Und wenn das mal passiert, dann ist das wie ein Tsunami. Das ist außer Kontrolle. Die gesamte Gesellschaft wird davon aufgezogen oder wird davon weggefegt.

[34:09]

And you can see it again in North Korea. These are individual human beings, but they're not. They think this nitwit with his Ronaldo haircut is a god. Knitwit means a small amount of wit. Knit, you know, really small. Knitwit. Knitwit. Knitwit. Anyway, so Buddhism assumes that one job of cultural education is the education of the intrasubjective body, the mutual body we share, so it doesn't turn into a tsunami of tribalism, bigotry, etc.

[35:16]

And with Bannon's help, Trump tapped into this in America. Mit Bannon's Hilfe hat Trump dort hineingegriffen in Amerika. And now, I mean, I saw the news the other day at this AFD party. They're so excited. Happy. And then they say, we're going to hunt Merkel. Do they have a hunting license? No, intra. Okay, people find it confusing. Because intra, they understand as it's internal, I think.

[36:22]

That's right. But now we're talking about cultural phenomena, which people think that must be intersubjective. It becomes an intersubjective event, but it's rooted in your mutual inner subjectivity. The one is organizing you individually, externally, and the other is organizing you internally and emotionally. And when Buddhism talks about the dangers of desire, etc., they're talking about mutual desire in this intersubjective space. And when Buddhism speaks about the dangers of desire, for example, then it speaks about the dangers of a common, open desire in an intrasubjective space.

[37:38]

Gedo? Jung once wrote that this development of the MS era, this tsunami, Jung wrote that, for example in the Nazi time, that before such a tsunami takes place there's always a degeneration of mentality like a of mental level of the mental level like it sinks down really and that then a tsunami like that can occur It may be the case. I've never measured the mental level of people.

[38:40]

But what I see is very smart people can get caught up in this tsunami. Very competent, smart people. Anyway, this is enough serious stuff. We should do something amusing and fun. I'm just thinking about Soccer in Portugal and what's going on there. And I also think that maybe a kind of tsunami will happen within the association. Let's see if that's true. I'm thinking of, this is not so amusing, but I'm thinking of Sogyal Rinpoche and what's happening at Rigpa and how here too for a long time such smart and... was supporting the system.

[39:56]

Yeah, that's true. Something like that. Yeah, he had plenty of warning from people. Even the Dalai Lama was sort of hands-off with Sogyal Rinpoche. You know, not everybody knows about this, probably so. Fifteen years ago or something, it was on the front page of the London Times, his behavior. But he didn't take heed. Okay. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry we ended on a kind of discouraging note.

[41:07]

Maybe I can find a way to speak about intersubjectivity and leave the tsunami of bigotry out. But that's the reason we have to educate it. So let's sit for a moment or two. We have six minutes. One of the most accessible surfaces of this mutual intrasubjective body is breathing itself.

[43:07]

It's the breathing itself. And I told this story in Hannover, where when I met Maharishi, my body felt his breathing rhythm right away, without me noticing it. So sometimes when you're with people, just drop your thinking about mind. Just feel you're in a breathing field. Once I came down the mountain from the log cabin in which I live in Crestone.

[44:19]

I didn't have a flashlight. It was totally, totally, totally dark. And I hadn't established a real path yet down to the Zendo. So I was walking along and suddenly I found myself in a breathing field. And I'd been walking along, not thinking about, but just feeling the bushes and the ground as I walked. walked along trying to figure out where I was in the dark. And I found myself in the middle of about, I think it was 15 deer at that time. That was the group that was on the property.

[45:20]

Every year it's a different number of deer. I was really in the middle. The deer were closer to me than Andrea and Nicole. There's always a big horned male deer in the group, too. He didn't see me as a threat, and I wasn't. And I stood there and I thought, I'm in a biological field. And I stood there for a few moments.

[46:25]

What I would say is I was functioning from my Sambhogakaya body and they were more naturally than I in their Sambhogakaya body. So they weren't threatened at all. There's just a Sambhogakaya Buddha, you know, we know a lot of those guys. So I stood there for, you know, like half a minute or so, just sort of feeling the warmth and the organic space that was there. And then they slowly, as I started to move, parted, hardly parted, and I found my way through the small herd and went on to Sitsasana. And then I was in a different organic breathing field.

[47:37]

As we are now.

[48:16]

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