I'm introducing all these categories. And there's quite a few we haven't introduced yet. Like memory. Character. So forth. The experience of oneness. So what in the midst of this, which what I'm suggesting, of course, is at this stage, the best we can do, I think, is to identify some categories, that we can notice.

[01:04]

And then we notice them in relationship to the continuity or continuum of self. And then we can assume that that I imagine some guy sitting in this little thing in the air. It would be a lot quieter if he sat at his desk. She thinks that's a helicopter with patients who had an accident because the MHH... Yeah, but it didn't sound like a helicopter.

[02:14]

It didn't sound like a helicopter for me. That's true. Where I live in Freiburg, we're right near the Uniclinic and one helicopter after another. In Freiburg, we live right next to the Uniclinic and one helicopter flies past us after the other. On the one hand, you're glad someone's helping. On the other hand, you're sorry someone's hurt. Okay, but the assumption, one of the assumptions of Buddhism is you cannot know yourself through consciousness. You have to find some other medium of knowing. And And the basic medium of knowing in Buddhism we could call, as I've said before, an incubatory process.

[03:44]

Yeah, so it's not an unconscious where the contents consciousness can't deal with, they're suppressed. But a non-consciousness which is always sorting and working. And making sense of what happens to you. So maybe that underneath working that's always trying to make sense is actually Self. Process.

[04:51]

That's in Buddhism called the alaya vijnana. So maybe we could say the self is the alaya vijnana. But I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that's a possibility. Okay. So as an incubatory process, I'm suggesting various categories which allow you to notice the process and continuum of self.

[05:56]

What happened to your neighbor? He left for quitting, but he will be back tomorrow. Okay. Does he live in Göttingen? No, no, he lives in Hamburg. Oh, I see. He lives in Hamburg. Yeah. that these categories, it's amazing, but you create categories consciously. And you make those categories a kind of target with language.

[07:01]

And you realize the language isn't the target, but the language is the directions, the arrows. If you think the language is the target, then the language becomes definitional. Wenn du denkst, dass die Sprache das Ziel ist, dann wird die Sprache zu etwas Definitiven. And is not incubational. Und dann ist es keine Ausbrütungssprache. But if the language just points in the direction of where attention can gather, aber wenn die Sprache nur in die Richtung zeigt, wo sich die Aufmerksamkeit sammeln kann, then that attention, attention, where that attention gathers, which may overlap in many categories and leak into other categories, becomes an incubational process in which somehow we live the answer to a question

[08:15]

There are useful questions to which there are no answers. But that useful question incubated can sometimes become a lived answer. That was pretty good, wasn't it? Never thought of that before. I never said it exactly like that. In Buddhism you can be proud of yourself. It doesn't always go before a fall like hubris. Yeah, okay. So what do you have to say? You all have a responsibility. Yes, Dr. McKnight.

[09:39]

As a new beginner, old practitioner, I would ask you, where we are with the categories, that you say a few words about the difference between yourself and I, because in the West, as we are being raised, especially with the psychoanalysis and its further development, because it is simply not always clean for us. I don't care. He's my usual translator here. But he's getting deaf, so I, you know... Thanks to you. What? You gave me a lovely hint. I did to get a better machine? Yeah, than you once. I now got also respect to you. See, I can give medical advice too.

[10:41]

See, I can also get medical advice too. Well, I'm glad it works better. Now maybe we can start translating together again. As an always re-beginning elderly practitioner, I would love you to please say something to the differentiation between the self and what we call I, the big I. The pronoun I. The pronoun I, especially being brought up in the West with the psychoanalysis and what came out of it, what developed out of it, especially with IP brought up, my mother was being analyzed by BSH, BSH, psychoanalytica, Mitchell himself, and I'm just, you know, soaked by this. So this differentiation would help immensely. So you were soaked in your mother's psyche.

[11:46]

And you expect me to have something to say about that? Unsoaked. Send you a towel. Throw in the towel. Throw in the towel means you're defeated. So someone else? I haven't forgotten. Yes. Yes. I was very happy that when you and I first met this morning that we greeted each other with gassho. Yeah. Because I was a little worried that I'd meet you up there in the cafeteria and you'd ask me, how are you doing?

[12:52]

Yeah. Yeah, I was saved that embarrassment. Yeah, zum Glück wurde mir die Feindlichkeit erspart. Es ist so, dass ich dann diesen Punkt einfach... Because I often times then get tempted to speak from my personality and my story, my history. I had a shocking experience with a Hindu teacher who was kind of ruthless in that regard. who said, when you greet someone, you are not greeting that person, that being, but you are greeting that relic in your memory.

[14:01]

Okay. Was ich mich frage, ist du die Geschichte, über die ich mich definiere, auf die ich mich auch reduziere, wie kann eine Geschichte dennoch So what I'm wondering is the story that I define myself through and that I also reduce myself to, how can such a story go beyond itself? What are wholesome or healing stories? I'm working with very depressed people. You're working with very depressed people? I work with them. I see.

[15:04]

And they tell awful stories that can't be healed. Yeah. So is it a kind of mercy? Because I feel that when I come here, what I experience is that the baker shares wonderful cookies with the sangha that I enjoy very much. You mean upstairs or this thing? Yeah, yeah. We're all in locked rooms and I'm throwing keys around. And I'm hoping you give me one of the keys back because I need it. So what I actually want to say is that you speak with words and in this respect it is also a story.

[16:24]

But somehow I experience it as very holy and of course beyond the words. It is nice to see this very subtle spiritual distinction and discrimination. So you're speaking with words, and in that sense it is a kind of a story, but it's a healing, a wholesome, holistic story. And what I'm noticing is that I enjoy very much all these subtle, small distinctions that you're making with words. But it would stay, if it was just the words, it would stay in the mental realm, but it does go, touch into something deeper that I cannot name.

[17:29]

I hope so. Das hoffe ich. Yeah. So you like the sort of cookies, you like Buddhist cookies better than Hindu cookies? Well, I mean, I am actually trying to distribute a number of cookies that you can't erase. So that your search engine from now on only finds wisdom. Are they called cookies in German, too? Yes, cookies. Okay. Because the incubatory process is a kind of search engine. Yes, Dr. Walker. You said this morning to deepen one's intention and that somehow, well, it didn't quite surprise me, it's more like it hooked me somehow.

[18:55]

And then what appeared for me is something that has accompanied me from the beginning of my practicing Zen. And initially it felt like something that was really cut into my flesh, that it was this feeling that really what you are to do is to become so that you don't have any intentions. Before I got to know you, I had read a pocketbook by Deshimaru. And this recklessness plays a big role. Before I got to know you, I read a small book by Deshimaru, and the term of, of not having, he said, no gaining ideas, of not having any goals, that was really a key concept.

[20:45]

Yeah. And somehow it came to me that behind it was probably only this self-hidden, so to speak, which brought along this term of recklessness. Because I had the feeling that it actually affects the self, which can always stay in the background. I have to say something else, which has a legitimacy to stay in the background and not to have to decide in certain things or not to be responsible. So the feeling for me was that what this is, is that the self is somehow in the background and through this is allowed not to have to take responsibility for certain things and to just stay in the background, not feel it has to decide certain things.

[21:46]

Yes, and it was also transported, I think, from an old... an old-fashioned mystification, like inherent nature, that certain things are just below it and that they somehow get through there. And along with that came this kind of old belief and some kind of inherency that is underneath and that then certain things can flourish. In the foreground it is more about making a conscious effort, making a conscious decision.

[22:54]

And since for me many things have fallen apart and deconstructed, now what's in the foreground for me is more the feeling of making a conscious decision, a conscious effort to do something. Okay. So in other words, you're in a life situation where you... want to have some goals, you think you need some goals, and yet Deshimaru Roshi and Suki Roshi both said, no gaining ideas. No, this is just a problem. That's not the problem. No? Okay. So what is the problem? No, it does come up then. Oh, there is no problem. It's more that you said that you need to deepen your intentions, while in the past I used to think that intentions are not important.

[24:10]

Oh. No, that's not true. I mean, the precepts, the vows, to save all sentient beings or to benefit all sentients, are intentions. But I think that in Buddhism, again, I think you can take fairly simple examples and see them as representative of many things. So we take the precepts.

[25:23]

And we receive the precepts from another person. And we take and hold the precepts. And these rakshas, and you have one, we took precepts together. But within the thinking categories of the West we don't follow the precepts. You hold the precepts in mind and let them affect you but you don't try to follow them exactly. So you notice what happens when you intend to follow the precepts, but are intent to respect the precepts.

[26:24]

It's hard to find the right words. So we shape the mind with intentions. We shape our actions with intentions. And wisdom intentions. And the very emphasis on shaping the mind with wisdom is based on the assumption and also the fact as far as I'm concerned that we have no inherent social identity or psychological identity.

[27:54]

We had a certain instinctual identity but that's not the primary emphasis in Buddhism is on the the non-inherency, not the instinctional. So we shape ourselves with intentions. But you accept the outcome. So you're always accepting what happens and not invested in the outcome. I mean, if you're trying to get a job, for instance, as Marie-Louise is now, my wife. you're disappointed when you don't get a job.

[28:59]

But your identity, and hopefully hers, is not invested in whether she gets a job or not. Of course, our identity is reinforced by our circumstances and activity and so forth. Unsere Identität wird natürlich von unseren Umständen und unserer Aktivität und so weiter immer wieder bestärkt. But you don't want to invest your identity in such narrow things as your job or what people think of you and so forth. Aber es ist besser, wenn man seine Identität nicht an so enge Dinge wie zum Beispiel welche Arbeit man bekommt oder was andere Leute von einem halten, wenn man die Identität nicht so daran haftet. These are small distinctions, and they're distinctions rather difficult to make because English doesn't want to let me make those distinctions because English doesn't believe what I'm saying.

[30:06]

Das sind ziemlich kleine Unterscheidungen, aber das Englische, das Englische und das Deutsche, die gestatten es uns nicht, diese Unterscheidung wirklich zu treffen, weil diese Sprachen, das Englische und das Deutsche, nicht an das glauben, was ich sage. Okay, that's as much as I can say about that. So viel kann ich dazu jetzt sagen. Yes, Andres. It doesn't have to always be the same people. I know you assume certain roles and his job is to ask questions, but maybe... Yes, Andres. Yes. Yes, Andres. An essential aspect for me is the incubation of situations and what came to mind for me is from the Makahanya. Also in relationship to sensing the self or the continuity, continuum of self.

[31:28]

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara recognized in deep concentration that the five skandhas are empty of their own being. And was freed from all suffering and distress. Free from all suffering. In English, maybe you're not so free in German, I don't know. And the sense of being penetrated by emptiness, to bring that sense into incubation. Then I don't necessarily feel that I have an answer, but it just brings a different quality or a different sensation into the process. Now, maybe to sort of close today, I should say a few things.

[32:51]

But I'm still, I'm very happy to be interrupted. I mean, maybe. No, I'm very happy to be interrupted. And you can bring up anything you'd like. I'd like that. I have a question. I didn't understand why we speak about self-continuity. You want to speak in German first? Why is it important to speak about self-continuity? Why is it unimportant? I never... I had this word in my mind. You never thought of the self as continuous? Yes. I never used this word. The word self or continuous? In connection. Well, that's good. You're lucky.

[33:53]

But I think that If we really examine ourselves, there is usually in most of us an implied continuity of self. then there is actually an implicit continuity of the self in most of us. I mean the sense of ownness. This feeling of ownness.

[34:54]

that in the midst of your experience, the experience belongs to you, it's your own. That develops a sense of continuity. After the seminar, you may feel, again, tell me your name. Lena, L-E-N-A. You may think you're the same person in the seminar tonight. You may think tonight you're the same person that was in the seminar. That's probably actually not true. From the Buddhist point of view, it's probably not true. Yeah. It's like somebody who has a job, at work they're one person, at home they're often another person.

[36:03]

I have a teenage daughter. She's 13. I also have to say I have a 51-year-old daughter and a 36-year-old daughter. Just so you don't think I'm a kid. Okay. I have a 13-year-old daughter. I mean, she has a 13-year-old daughter. I remember one of my daughters, one of my older daughters, I said to her once, would you quit making such a fuss? I made you. And her mother's name is Virginia, and Virginia made you.

[37:04]

Yeah, look at your feet. I made those feet. I mean, unfortunately, but I made those feet. So I said, We own you. You should do what we want. We own you, I said. And she said, it's too late now. I belong to me. Whoa, I said, all right, you're more Buddhist than I am. Okay, so we do have this sense of belongingness. And what I see in my teenage daughter is every few months she's a different person.

[38:06]

I mean, all these things are going on in her and she's so... And I think that we could say that a person becomes an adult when they're mostly the same person. She is in what we could call a hormonal flux. but at some point you become more or less an adult and you're sort of the same person and you have a sense of sameness and that sense of sameness is a continuity of self.

[39:07]

So that's kind of worth exploring. And we can think about it more in more depth tomorrow and why it's useful to establish that as a problem. to some extent at least. Now we just finished the winter branches. What number winter branches? 21? 20? 20th winter branches. There's only two years, but it must take ten years.

[40:08]

I haven't been alive that long. In some years we take three. Then I've been a long man. Okay. Let's... Very commonly, and I took three koans, where the question basically is, where did you come from? And it's right there, brought up. Yeah, he's glad I didn't ask. And Rainer, as he said, he was happy that I didn't ask him, where are you from or how are you? So... We can ask ourselves, why... I mean, of course we ask people, where are you from?

[41:13]

If you go... You know, traveling in Italy or America or something, somebody may ask, where are you from? Because they hear the Deutsche Musik in your voice. Yeah, so you might say, yeah, I'm from Germany. But... In a koan which has been preserved for a thousand years, why is this such a crucial question? And they keep asking, where are you from? Don't Zen masters have anything better to say? Where are you from? So what are they really asking?

[42:17]

They're really asking something more like, have you left behind where you're from? In other words, you still think you're from somewhere? Which means, are you still your narrative self? Are you still the same person you thought you were when you were in the South? So you can see it. He says, where are you from in one of the quantities? He says, from the South. And then in this case, Dijang says, well, how is Buddhism itself? And Shushan says there's extensive discussion. So what is he saying here?

[43:18]

He's saying, Are you yourself involved in extensive discussion about who you are? Okay. So we could try to simplify this even more. Wir können versuchen, das noch mehr zu vereinfachen. You can ask yourself the question, who are you? I often say this, then I'll say it again. Du kannst dich selbst fragen, wer bist du? So wie ich das oft sage. Ask yourself, who am I? Dann ändere die Frage und frage, was bin ich? It's just one more letter of a word starting with W in English.

[44:37]

But we feel very differently about who am I than what am I. And in Western culture, what am I is almost an impolite question. The real question is, who am I? But in these koans, the real question is, what am I? So here we have Guishan asks Yangshan, where did you come from? Oh, I came from the fields. Now, what's that? That's a who question, a who answer. I am someone who came from the fields. And really what Guishan, his teacher, wants He wants a what answer, not a who answer.

[45:51]

So to try to tempt him into a who answer, he says, yeah, how many people are in the fields? And Yangshan says, I don't give a damn how many people are in the fields. He doesn't say that. When he asked him the question, how many people are in the fields, He's asking him a who question. And Yangshan wants to give a what answer. He doesn't want to be involved in who is he and how many people in the field and so forth. Well, he just puts his hoe down on the ground. And establishes a location.

[47:03]

A location is a what? And if you get involved with who, you're wandering around in the koan, not knowing what's going on. And then he asks, then... Rather, Guishan says, on South Mountain, there are many people cutting thatch. So now we've rejected the idea of how many people are in the fields. What's the difference between how many people are in the fields and on South Mountain there are many people cutting thatch?

[48:16]

So what is the difference between there are many people cutting thatch and how many people are in the field? That's one of the basic questions of the koan. Okay. So as Andreas said, he is time. And he said, I told him he is time so he's just, you know, trying to make me feel good. To tell me he remembers what I said. But I think he's taken it to heart and he feels like, pump, pump, pump, I am time. Now we're stuck in planetary time. and the shared clock of our society.

[49:53]

But that's just... I mean, planetary time is not arbitrary. But establishing it as a universal time for everyone is arbitrary. When you were born, time started. And when you die, your time will be over. I'm sorry to tell you, but that's... If you haven't noticed that yet. Okay. So you are time. You can't be out of time because you are time. If you think you can be out of time, you are in a comparative world.

[50:55]

And you basically think you're living in a container. Of course, in comparison to other people and getting things done and working, answering the phone, there is shared comparative time. That's just like putting on a shirt. I put on this shirt. This shirt is not me. It's just a shirt. I got it in Vienna. No, it's not me. It's just a shirt.

[52:03]

And if you think you don't, if you put on comparative time, You're just putting on a shirt. It's not you. But you may have bought into it. Yeah, okay. But you may have bought into it. Yeah, I had to say it differently. You bought, you mean, you bought, yeah. I said you started believing in it. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay, if you are time. And what is, as I said just before the break, if one of the constants is breath, another constant is the body. As Whatever kind of consciousness you have or awareness or whatever you have, the body is always present.

[53:21]

And yoga culture says, look, establish the primary sense of continuity as the body and not as the who. So how do you establish the body is a constant? Okay, now it does make a difference when the breath is a constant too. You will have your last breath someday. And so the breath is a constant. As we spent the morning talking about, when you bring attention to the breath, it transforms your life. So when the breath is just breathing, yeah, it's just breathing.

[54:29]

When the breath isn't an attentional constant, it becomes the path or it becomes Buddhism. And when the body becomes an attentional constant, you are again entering Buddhism, entering the path. So when we could say that when Yangshan plants or places his hoe, he's saying, dear teacher Guishan, As far as I'm concerned, our mutual resonant body is what I identify with.

[55:40]

The constant for me is our mutual presence as bodies. And neither of us are really interested in how many people are in the field. Yeah, so let's just be present body to body. And Rainer, that's a response to what your Hindu teacher said. Because we can be just present body to body. And when you are present body to body and to the phenomenal world also as the nearer than near extended body.

[56:57]

Mm-hmm. then you're beginning, you're establishing a constant, which is in a dialogue with the sameness of self. Because we assume a certain sameness of self or a certain sameness of oneness. or a certain sameness of character, which is in a contrapuntal interplay with the constant of the body.

[57:58]

Because the body obviously isn't the same. We three elderly gents here know that the body keeps changing. Yeah. Don't we? Yeah. It's not all bad. Okay. So what I'm suggesting here is as you and what was what Andreas was having an instant doksan with me in front of the Wyndham counter of the hotel, is that he has established bodily time as a reference point.

[59:20]

And as he brought up earlier and others have brought up, how do we anchor an intention? How do we anchor ourselves moment after moment? When everything's changing. And if you anchor yourself in the sameness of self, you're in a delusional situation. But if you anchor yourself in the constancy of the body, not in its sameness, because it's changing, but it's always present. So that becomes another kind of anchor than trying to anchor yourself in your identity. Then the continuity of the body and the continuity of the self are in a dialogue.

[60:41]

But you have to initiate the dialogue. And you initiate the dialogue by establishing an attentional presence through the body. Intentional. I lost you. Intentional. Intentional. Something with the body. Continuity with the body. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Intentional. So I use the word time just so that you really sense that you are time.

[61:47]

So you don't have to establish your continuity in an out there-ness. Your continuity is bodily time. And you don't have to feel any pressure or anything. You are time. And the more you establish yourself as an anchor in bodily time, And in all your situations take your time. Because it belongs to you. That then opens you up to other dimensions of practice maybe we can talk about tomorrow. I think that's enough.

[62:47]

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