Is there anything anyone would like to bring up? To deepen our conversation. Or even to make it more shallow, if you like. Oh, good, a shallow one. I would like to ask something really simple. I'm currently very simple-minded since I just had two weeks vacation. And I was on the island Corfu with Biodanzer, where we danced every day to very nice music. And you didn't include me. I didn't mean... Who do we have to work with on that?

[01:18]

There were 12 women and we had... I'm working on it. And my sense was that we had a nice, we had a kind of, can I say mind field, consciousness field. And I'm wondering if that was something like this without words. And then there is a second question, namely that outside there was a gardener from Albania in front of our open doors, with whom we did not speak a word, but who was practically always in our field from outside, as if he was in there. So whether he now also belonged to it, when he somehow connects to this field outside, because he started to move and he ...

[02:19]

So there was some sense of a shared field in the room. And then there was also a gardener from Albania who worked outside the house. And there was some sense of belongingness somehow. He also started moving to the music sometimes. And I wonder if... But there was no conversation with him. But I wonder if the field that was established among us with dancing, if that could also extend to this person outside. Why not? Yeah, I hope the guy didn't plant the wrong things while he was dancing. I don't think so. Of course. I mean, that's why we... have dances and theater and all kinds of things to create that kind of field. And my impression is ecstasy creates that kind of feeling for people and stuff like that.

[03:31]

Yeah. Ecstasy, you mean the drug, or you can ecstasy as a word? Both at the same time, I don't know. I read an article about it the other day in America, at least maybe in America, I might be here too, it's called Molly. So I would like to make the question a little bit more uncomfortable. So far so good. So if, so to speak, also through music and through such good events, so to speak, such a field can be created, then I find it even worse, because it is also used in war zones, that it still falls back and is always so stable, so to speak.

[04:42]

So this good sense of belonging that arises, Because if it is the case that music and so forth dancing together creates such a feel then I think it's even worse that in in areas where this is used as a way to establish peace, like, for example, in war zones, and then there are offers to start creating peace again. Music is offered, people dance together, but then so quickly that can all fall apart again, and people are back to war. That's what you meant, right? Yeah. We were asking some very deep questions I thought it was going to be shallow.

[05:48]

And that you think I have something to contribute to such a complex question, I don't know, but I'm happy to try. We have almost two days left. Tomorrow's nothing but dancing. Do you remember Martin at the Alpbach conference? The guy who either first devised ecstasy or promoted it was at the conference. And there was a Rajneesh disco next door. And I guess we danced there, didn't we? More than enough.

[06:57]

At the... The hotel on Knob Hill in New York. I mean in San Francisco. In the hotel Knob Hill in San Francisco. I was... There was some big meeting about Russia and stuff like that. And this woman the wife of a lawyer I think I think she was the wife of a lawyer and they were at this conference or this meeting. I'm just telling you this is an anecdote because you're over here. Ich erzähle das nur als Anekdote, weil du da bist. And she said, do you remember me?

[07:59]

I said, no. Dann hat sie gefragt, erinnerst du dich an mich? Und dann habe ich gesagt, nein. She said, we danced in Altbach. Wir haben in Altbach zusammen getanzt. And her husband looked a little like, what's this? Man hat so komisch geguckt, was ist jetzt da los? Well, the question is, I mean, certainly this works. And the military uses it too. All of these motions, they march together. All of that, it builds a mutual resonant body. But in a yoga culture like Japan... You can see that the no plays in particular, no theater, this example I gave earlier of each movement is an appearance,

[09:09]

Yeah, and the person moving bodily feels it as an appearance in a way that's deeper than the experience of self. It's like, can I say this hand is myself? I guess so. A version of it belonged to my father and mother. And you all have pretty similar versions. So it's, in that sense, the movement as an appearance feels as anonymous almost as your hand feels.

[10:23]

And what a no-feeder does, and the training to be a no-actor, N-O-H, is to slow down the movements as appearance so it appears in everyone in the audience. if possible. And one of the interesting things is that almost everyone in the audience who comes regularly has the play memorized. And you can see them mouthing the words as the actors go along. It's like if everyone went to a Shakespeare play and everyone had all the plays memorized.

[11:42]

So what the... What the actor in a no play is doing for the participants in the audience is offering them his bodily expression of the language and the movements. of the words. So they go not for the play and the words, they go for the engagement with the actor's movement.

[12:48]

We look like they did ballet so slowly that everyone in the audience could feel the ballet movements and not just see them. So when Chandrakirti, as I quoted earlier, says the practitioner always takes his or her body as the starting point, the reference point, the anchor, then the practitioner with others always starts each conversation, each word in a way is coming from the body or they feel located in the body with the other person.

[14:05]

And I'm not saying we don't do the same thing. But the extent to which we do it is much less conscious and much more intentional. So it's felt that communication between persons in a war zone or in a dance is, if you're going to have real communication, it's established bodily as well as verbally. And as a person who speaks the language well, Gerald, not me, but yeah, pronounces each word as as fully as possible.

[15:26]

Or has a tension in each word. In a more yoga culture, there's a simultaneous bodily language that goes with each word or goes with each phrase. And as you pronounce each word from the beginning of the word to the end of the word and through the middle, That's why I like Paul's name so much. He told me his name was Paul yesterday. And I said Paul, like P-A-L-L.

[16:35]

And then I realized he said Paul. So I've been enjoying that ever since, because you don't say the U in English. So in a parallel and like manner, the gestures or the bodily appearance that goes with language, as you feel the word from beginning through the middle to the end, the bodily appearances that go along with a word or phrase have a beginning, middle and end. And that means you do each one. with a feeling of completeness.

[17:49]

If it doesn't have a feeling of completeness, then it's like mispronouncing a word. Now maybe this is in just too much crazy detail for you. I think I might feel that way if I was sitting there. But I'm sitting here. And this is my job. And to see if I can say something about this significantly different way of being in the world that I've discovered through practice and having a good teacher, et cetera. So if you get impatient with me at some point, just put up your hand and we'll have a coffee break. All right.

[19:06]

Somebody else. Yes. I've read something about Ikebana, and I did not used to take Ikebana particularly seriously. And what I read about it, that is exactly what you just said, significantly differently. I'm glad you're sitting right there. The significantly different way of being in the world, which I didn't know was also present in Ikebana. Because we in the western world like to enjoy flowers in their natural state. A rose in the bush and not cut.

[20:16]

But that the decisive thing in Ikebana is the act of cutting. Not even the arranging the flowers, but the act of cutting. Because through that act, the flower is liberated from this conventional... Time, time span. Nicht befreit, abgetrennt. Abgetrennt. It's being separated from this, yes. It's being separated from this conventional time span of being born and then eventually having two worlds. But that in this being cut off, the time that exists through that is equal to the time and sometimes that you and Dogen have spoken about the presence in that.

[21:36]

And that through that, the intimacy between the state of the flower, the state of mind of the observer, that that becomes possible through that. That through that a neutral state of mind, the way you spoke about, that that can be generated from us. Through that, I understood something. From now on, when I see a flower on the altar, I will understand it as a relationship to this other time that Dogen speaks about. Yeah, I didn't know that the ikebana emphasized the cutting, but that sounds like the Japan I know.

[22:47]

I just remember Nakamura Sensei, the Japanese woman who lived with us for years, used to call herself a Hanadorobo. flowers as well as no theater chanting and so forth. Anyway, a hana is a flower. A dorobo is a thief. And a Hannah de Robo is somebody who hunts through a city for that one bloom in someone else's yard. Hannah de Robo, she'd come back. I'm Hannah de Robo and she'd have this beautiful flower.

[23:50]

Someone else. Yes. Yes, Raina. I have a question. I'm working with depressed people. They ask a lot of questions, and one of the questions that I hear a lot is, how can I love myself? For me personally, I don't have the question anymore, but what can I respond? Well, I think that, you know, I'm not a psychotherapist. I know a little bit about psychotherapy and psychology, but not in my profession.

[25:23]

And I've certainly known people who have gone completely crazy and practiced Zen. It didn't help. But in general I would say that With all of these years I've been practicing, depression is more accessible to practice, benefiting from practice than most other psychological disorders. And I've known a number of, in a couple cases, extremely brilliant people who were quite schizophrenic, hearing voices all the time, began to distinguish when it was their voice and not their voice and practice was able to help them do that.

[26:42]

But the main thing I've noticed with people who've been able to work with Zen practice and psychological problems are people who have quite a lot of energy. And an idea that they might be able to get better. And people just give up. I mean, depressed people often just give up. Look at poor Robin Williams. Yeah. Anyway... There's no simple answer to your question. Or even any answer. But I think I would say the first thing is not loving yourself, just accepting.

[28:06]

If you can get a person in just minor ways to accept and accept and accept situations, Yeah. Okay. For now. Yes. Okay. What I'm interested in again is the trusting and the faith into the field of one's mind. Okay. What came to me when you said that was the word partnership, actually.

[29:18]

Not to partner with something outside of oneself, but to partner with this own field. Okay, so maybe I should say something as I said earlier about being steadily intimate with the field of mind. Okay, if there are any two things they create a field. And if Nicole's sitting here and I'm sitting here and Ulrike's sitting there and Andrea's sitting there, if we create a field, and you too, I don't know.

[30:36]

Okay. Now, the... If you're going to act, if you're going to actualize the teaching of interdependence and inter-emergence, etc., that only the main way that is put into actuation the main way that is put into actuation It's that you perceive, but perceive in English has too specific a feeling.

[31:46]

You sense a field, not the contents of the field. So if I said again that four of us here make a field, when little kids, you know, you count your fingers with infants, I always get them to count the spaces. And I say, are there only four spaces? And they say, well, yeah, only four spaces. And I say, what about this space? So the... Most people might say there's these four people sitting in this corner.

[32:54]

But these four people are also a fifth element of the field. Okay, so the ingredients in this situation are four persons. And the field is the fifth ingredient. And to be steadily intimate with your field of mind means your attentional... your intentional sensing is the field more than the four persons. Now, if Nicole is translating for me,

[33:56]

that her translating and my speaking and so forth like that creates a field from which she's speaking. And so if you really want to hear what she's saying or what I'm saying, you have to also pay attention to the field that's being created by the two of us. And the field is more sensitively responsive to the four persons here than the four persons are responsive. Something like that. Does that make sense? Yeah, I'm just a chunk of flesh, right? I'm just a klutz.

[35:36]

And this feel is much more responsive. And sensitive than this klutz of flesh or whatever you're calling me now these days. Okay, so now Dogen has said to his practitioners, Be steadily intimate with your field of mind. And steadily is related to the word stand, but we can also say continuously attentive to your field of mind.

[36:45]

But Dogen could have said or could be translated as be inseparable from your field of mind. You said before, let me say one thing from what you said before. Please. Okay, now the next sentence. Sorry. No, no, no, I like it. He could also probably have said, or it could have been translated as, be inseparable from your field of mind. Now, that means that even if there's no contents in the field of mind, you're feeling the field of mind.

[37:48]

Like it was a rubber, stretched out piece of rubber or something like that. I mean, I don't know, but something like that. Or if it was like a surface of water which had nothing floating on it. So then, basically what he's saying, because he entered an ultimate state. To be steadily intimate with the field of mind, even if there's no contents in the field of mind, would be simply a technical definition of a samadhi. To be concentrated on the surface, the field surface of the mind, whether there's contents or not.

[38:51]

So Dogen can not say anything and they have a mutual feeling of a surface or field of mind. Also selbst wenn Dogen nichts sagt, dann haben die eine gemeinsame Oberfläche von einem solchen Geistesfeld. And he can start to say something and then stop and ripples go across the field of mind. Oder er kann anfangen etwas zu sagen und dann wieder aufhören und dann treiben so kleine Wellen über dieses Feld des Geistes. Or he can say something ridiculous like, I'm a klutz of flesh and it's just splash. So he's asking them, again, to feel the presence of mind with or without contents. And then if they have that field of mind, and they're just simply being steadily intimate with it, then he can say things which become appearances for them in this field of mind.

[40:33]

So whatever contents then appear are appearances. And you let them spatially appear before you start connecting them. Okay. That's enough to give you a feeling for this sense of to see fields, to see the territory of a situation, not the content of the situation. um euch ein Gefühl dafür zu geben, Felder zu sehen, die Bereiche einer Situation zu sehen und nicht so sehr die Inhalte einer Situation. And then, when a content appears, it appears through and carries the field with it and other things in the field.

[41:50]

Und wenn dann ein Inhalt auftaucht, dann taucht es durch dieses Feld auf und es zieht das Feld mit sich as well as. as well as the other content. Okay, now I should try to look at this experientially from another angle. But after the break. And no one put up their hands for a coffee break yet, so I'm putting them up. Coffee pleasure. Coffee pleasure. Coffee clutch is pretty fun. Isn't that what you say in your coffee? No, we say coffee clutch, but when you say klatsche, say somebody has klatsche, it means that they are nuts.

[42:54]

This is a klatsche. This is a klatsche. Too much coffee. Too much coffee. If it's just this.

[43:00]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_74.36