Prologue day before the seminar somewhat more formally starts in the evening. as more a kind of consciousness day or talking day. And so I initially didn't have Vazen at the beginning of the period of the morning time. But enough people sort of said, couldn't we still have sitting at the beginning? So we had, what, 15 or 20 minutes of sitting. But even that amount of sitting may have numbed you. Or sharpened you, I guess. Please, do you have any comments on what we've spoken about so far? Did I hear you saying not losing the stiffness in the movement, not rejecting the movement in the stiffness, covering all the postures which brings together all possibilities of moving the body in daily life?

[01:40]

I didn't say that. But I could have said that. Deutsch, bitte. Habe ich richtig gehört, wenn ich gehört habe, als Essenz seines Vortrages. Die Stillness, also die Stille des Sitzens in der Bewegung nicht zu vergessen. and not to return to the still movement in the form of thoughts and feelings, so that you could have a continuum in the five postures that the body takes in the 24 hours of life. And then he said, I could have said that, but I didn't say it. So I didn't say that, but I could have. The main metaphor in all of Buddhism is motion and stillness.

[02:50]

Their mutuality and their difference. And the way you put it is a more formal way to say it. But I'm trying to find more awkward ways to say it. More awkward and sometimes, I hope, more accessible. unbeholfen, aber dadurch hoffentlich doch zugänglichere Art und Weise. By being signaled by our Buddha ancestors in Morse code. Und da tun die Buddha vorfahren in Morse code. Be careful what you say. Sei vorsichtig, was du da redest.

[03:52]

I don't think they knew Morse code, actually. Ich glaube nicht, dass sie was von Morse code verstanden haben. Okay, someone else. Yes. I say it better in German, I don't know it better in English. I have understood it in such a way that consciousness and attention should be two different things. I have always understood it in such a way that attention is a part of consciousness that observes consciousness itself. understood that attention and consciousness seem to be two different things, but so far I thought that attention is a part of the consciousness and sort of contributes to consciousness. Observing, observing. Yeah, genau. Observes consciousness. Of course. Ja, klar. That's true. And that's clearly the way our culture emphasizes attention.

[04:56]

But attention can also give attention to things other than consciousness. And attention can give attention to attention itself. So in this real basic teaching of the four foundations of mindfulness, we're bringing attention, first of all, to our, not our body, but the activity of our body. And we're bringing attention to attention itself. And in a sense, you're strengthening attention. You're developing attention.

[06:04]

You're physicalizing attention. So it's not just mental attention. And so it can be used more widely as a tool and as a quality of life. Because attention is both a means and an end. And an what? And an end. And end, i-n-d. Yeah. Do you have that expression, means and ends? Our pro-translator is right here. What do you call him in this conch shell? Souffleuse. Souffleuse. Souffleuse, yeah. In the theater, the guys who sit down there at the stage tell you when you forget.

[07:15]

The actor forgets his text. Promptor. Promptor. But you have to be a little box right here. That's what she said. If Otmar was here, you know, he'd make one for you. And you could actually tell me what to say to... Okay, someone else. Thank you. In following up on this, when you're talking, and in particular when you brought our attention to what Charlotte Silver was saying, I felt a merging of bringing my conscious awareness to the concepts and also my physical attention to the feeling of your words in being with Charlotte Silver. Okay. Okay.

[08:30]

You can't prove it if I don't translate it, right? He can check up. Valid, yeah, okay. Yeah, many, Rosemarie. So, indem ich dem zugehört habe, habe ich ein Verschmelzen von dem Bewusstsein und den Konzepten empfunden, So I find in being in a situation like this in a seminar with you I'm conscious of dividing my physical attention to your presence and the feeling of the word And my mind tracking it through, making a note. Making a note in your notebook.

[09:32]

Making notes. And I find that taking the notes is the way for me to make what you're saying physical through my hand. So I feel in this observation, for me, there's a merging of my physical attention and my conscious awareness. And it's different than if I go to a university and listen to a professor.

[10:38]

That's how I started practicing. In college, I went to Paul Tillich's lectures. He was a famous Protestant theologian. Some rather smart guy who was an alcoholic and head of the philosophy department. He was that or another one? No, Tillich had other problems. I can't remember his name actually. But anyway, both of them weren't speaking, they weren't what they were saying.

[11:40]

And I was so struck when I met Suzuki Roshi because he was completely what he was saying. My father was a pretty good pianist. And he used to sit around making both fingers. He'd just tap his fingers so they all could make separate, you know. And I remember thinking, that's quite interesting. And I tried to learn how to do it so you could... have right hand and left hand equally. So I didn't... I didn't learn how to play the piano from him. I have somewhere like minus zero musical ability. But I learned to release one's fingers.

[12:45]

But I learned to release one's fingers. so that they could just be independent. When I went to the Near East, I found people had play beads the same way. They would be talking, but another part of their body would be on the beads. prayer or play you said it's prayer beads no in the near east they're called play beads because they just play they just hold them so they're called play beads in the near east play beads Okay, someone else.

[13:58]

I try in my everyday life to follow my breathing. For instance in my work when I sit in front of a patient and I listen to him. So then I continued watching my breath while the patient is speaking and then I noticed, well, I'm actually halfway in my attention with myself and just not 100% with the patient. And then I felt like this is not good, you know. I'm not a hundred percent focused to this person who's telling me something. Oh, yeah. What can I say?

[15:26]

Do you say in German, follow your breath? The word follow, like following a dog or a cat? What do you say? So it's both. It's to follow or to observe. Okay. It's the same word? No, two different words you can say it. Okay. But it's not exactly the same meaning as running behind a dog on a leash. That's hinterherlauf. That is something where we have a word which creates a distance as which you follow. That would be walk behind. It's not the same as follow. Yeah, I myself almost never say follow your breath. I would say stay with your breath.

[16:32]

Or rest in your breath. Or bring attention to the breath. Mm-hmm. But let's say we say, stay with. Let's say it that way. Then if you stay with the situation... So if I was, as I often am, I'm sitting with somebody... I stay with just the situation which includes the person, the room, etc. And you can listen with focus, you can listen sort of like it's just a field.

[17:36]

And I might bring attention to breathing. But I wouldn't do it in a way that I lost attention or connectedness with the person. But I also might find that our breathing was together. Someone called me up the other day who her mother is just about to die and asked me if I had any suggestions of how for her to be with her mother.

[19:04]

And there's various teachings or practices, how you establish physical contact and so forth. And what attitudes might be in your mind or what intentions you might have. But the main medium is breathing with the other person. The initial thing you do before you establish anything else is you breathe with the person. And that if the person's breathing gets excited, you let your breathing get excited too. But if your breath is hooked together,

[20:16]

Theirs may get excited, but then you can pull yours back down and it calms the person. Now I think in ordinary situations you don't want to be this manipulative. But if you're really used to having attention rest in your breathing, without any intention, it almost automatically includes the other person's breathing. Maybe we'll get into this later, and I will speak about it in this basic idea of emphasis on what we are, not who we are. Maybe later we can talk about it in more detail, what we are and not who we are.

[21:59]

Neo? I'm not quite clear about the distinction between attention, focus on attention, and mindfulness. The difference between attention to oneself or attention and mindfulness. What exactly do you mean? Mindfulness, if you're mindful of attention, that would be giving attention to attention. What do you mean? If you are attentive to attention, then it's the same as being attentive to attention. Okay. Is that good enough? Yeah. It's just sometimes these words come very fast behind each other and even I can't really keep them straight. Oh, really? Yeah. Because they sound almost the same in German. Der Auf und Acht and Kite and stuff. So it's not so... There's not much difference in the German between them.

[23:05]

They come fast. The translator should speak slower than I do. Also sollte die Übersetzerin langsamer sprechen als ich das tue. Let me just mention one thing that occurred to me a moment ago. I don't think it's an accident or coincidence. Also ich möchte etwas sagen, was mir gerade eingefallen ist. Ich glaube, das ist nicht ein... when Xerox Laboratories developed the computer mouse. I went to Xerox Laboratories several times to see what they were doing. I don't know how he got permission. He had to go through all this security. He practically had to be searched to get through several layers of industrial security.

[24:08]

And this real smart guy named Alan something, I can't remember now, had developed most of these ideas early on. He was kind of one of the geniuses of the early computer world. And no one knew what to do with these things he developed. Which is one of the things is the mouse makes you do things with two hands. And it doesn't surprise me that Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak, who were both practicing Zen at the time, got it, let's make a computer that you use your hands in your thinking.

[25:17]

So this whole idea of using icons and both hands, they picked up on, But still, for many people, they prefer the keyboard and, you know, so forth. But it's actually a kind of different mentality. Someone else? Is there anyone else? Yes. I am fascinated by the fact that we can direct our attention.

[26:22]

I am fascinated by the fact that we can direct our attention. Thanks. The example you gave of not being able to fall asleep, The example which you had was not being able to fall asleep. And then when you mentioned that we can actually observe our consciousness. There we're observing that which in our culture is sort of understood to be the source for our decision making. And it is not it and we can observe it. We can observe it just the same manner as we can put our attention on a sense impression without thinking and in that sense without consciousness.

[27:45]

So that what surprises me now is who or what decides on what attention is focused. It's so clear to me that in some sense it's or mostly it has something to do with me. But I do not know what it is any longer. Well, I think you should be amazed that we can direct attention. It's unbelievable that we can direct our attention. And I think it's equally hard to believe or interesting that we can use language to direct our attention. Now, I'd like to speak about how I think this wiring develops. But before we go there, Someone, when I was in Berlin, told me they went to, I think, a lecture by a kind of a woman neurobiologist from England.

[29:49]

I guess she gave a talk in Berlin or something. And this person went to the talk. And he was impressed as one should be, I think, with the current study of the brain and behavior and neurobiologically. And this woman is also quite interested in Buddhism. And she was impressed herself, he said, Because wherever she lives in England, every day she drove home from work to where she lives.

[30:54]

She came to a crossroads. One was the fast way and one was the pretty way. And every day she had a problem, which way shall I go? And it continued for years. And one day she decided not to decide. She just pushed the accelerator and went one of the two ways. And she said it worked very well. Well, I was amused by this because this territory of exploring the decision-making that's non-conscious...

[32:04]

It's one of the main territories of practice. But it was great that she... We have an expression that says, when you come to a crossroads, take it. Which means either fly or something. Well, we also... we have a tendency to equate observing mind with observing self.

[33:05]

And assume that if there's the act of observing, there's an observer. And this is simply not true. And practice makes sense only when you really discover there's an observing mind which is not an observing self. And it changes the whole territory of know thyself. Okay, so anyone else before I try to say something? Yeah. Could you say a little bit more about this energy you fill up the body?

[34:11]

Is it something like feeling to be, feeling to be alive? Yeah. Deutsch bitte. Yes, I'm trying to find ways to speak about these things. And I'm kind of clumsy in it. But the clumsiness may not be bad. Because we may be able to, as I said earlier, feel our way into something which is clumsily said than too well said. Sometimes translators, I'll come up with four ways to say something.

[35:16]

Three clumsy and one pretty good. And the translator will choose the best one and only translate that. But often for me it's the several versions. that are more important than the one that sounds better. That doesn't mean I'm not always trying to find better ways to say things, but the process is more important than the solution.

[36:19]

Yeah, I'm trying to, right now I'm trying to work with subjective objects and objective objects. Maybe we'll come to that later. So, the... One way I've been trying to approach this is to look at the words in Japanese to be interested in something. Like the word to be interested? Well, one Japanese word for to be interested in something.

[37:21]

And another word to think about something. And to be interested in something, even in English has some unnoticed power. Because, for example, inter-est really means inter-est, to be in between being, to be in the midst of the connectedness of being. est means is, inter-is-ness. I spoke about the way in which the calligrapher, an Asian yogic calligrapher, that the calligrapher's posture is reflected in the posture of the character.

[38:44]

And recently I've been pointing out that there is also gesture in our language. In Japanese, you have to, in Chinese, to be a scholar, In a field you may know 20,000 to 30,000 to 40,000 kanji. The mind itself can't memorize that many. Und dass der Geist selber ist nicht in der Lage, so viele auswendig zu sagen. It's only possible through bodily memory. Das ist nur durch körperliche Erinnerung.

[39:51]

And if you look at a Japanese person or a Chinese person, you ask them a kanji, they'll go, oh yeah, that one. Wenn man sich einen Japaner oder einen Chinesen anschaut und sie nach einem gewissen Schriftzeichen fragt, dann machen sie immer so etwas und dann sagen sie, ja, das da, ja. And you may notice that you know many people's phone numbers in the dialing in the hand and not in your head. You think of them and start the process of dialing and you dial the right number. So now, being such a bodily culture as Asia and is East Asia. They really emphasize the gestural dimension of language. And we don't so much. We're more of a mental culture. And I'm not saying one's better than the other.

[41:13]

Both produce civilizations which are prodigious and innovative and unique. But it just so happens we're living at a point where these two civilizations are really overlapping. And each of you is a CEO. A CEO. Yeah, not commanding officer, but an example of civilizational overlap. So each of you is a CEO, so not a business manager, but a... The commander of civilizational overlap.

[42:15]

CO usually means commanding officer. He's the CO. CO heißt auch der kommandierende Offizier. Dienstheim der Offizier. And so the other version is it? Civilizational overlap. Sondern es ist der Zivilisationsüberlapper. You might also be commanding officers. Vielleicht seid ihr auch Dienstheim der Offiziere, aber... But, you know, in an English dictionary, nevertheless, nonetheless, however, and but, conjunctions are all more or less translated the same. Also im Englischen ist... Nichtsdestoweniger und trotz und jedoch und so Sachen bedeuten fast alle das Gleiche. Und ein Lexikon kann fast überhaupt keine Unterscheidung treffen zwischen diesen Worten. But if you look to the gesture of the words, you can feel the distinction.

[43:20]

But, however, nevertheless, there's actually a gestural quality. You can discover it in yourself. However, but this gestural quality for most of us is lost. But I see that people who practice meditation and mindfulness begin to have this gestural feeling in their language again. Okay. Okay. All right, so Heidegger, good old Heidegger, he says, He's always useful.

[44:32]

He says something like, we hold our life too tightly to observe it directly. And it's true, if we do hold our life so tightly, that all observation is the observing self, then the observing self can't observe the observing self. Yeah. So we need to loosen up our are tightly held existent.

[45:34]

And the most dramatic and powerful way that I think has been discovered by human beings is the process of sitting still. To sit still for a particular length of time That's the secret of meditation. It's not meditating itself. It's sitting still for a particular length of time. Not for as long as you want. We don't want self involved. But for a particular length of time. Doesn't mean you can't sit as long as you want. I mean, there's no Buddhist police spying on you.

[46:35]

There's a Dharma cock right outside. There's a Dharma cock right outside. You can do exactly what you want. That's one of the open aspects of Buddhism. There's no heresy in Buddhism. It's not possible to be heretical. Any monk in any monastery, if his views are sincere, they're accepted. He or she might not be chosen to be the successor. Because there has to be the mutual understanding.

[47:36]

But there's no heresy. And Buddhism is developed through a lot of sincere views. We had, you know, when Tsukiyoshi was first living in San Francisco, it was the 60s. And New York School of the 40s, 50s, and 60s of abstract painting. And Japanese artists were starting to do abstract paintings, which were also rooted in calligraphy. But no longer representing. And someone asked him, do you like abstract painting? And he said, oh, very much.

[48:57]

And so the person said, well, why do you like it? He said, because it's a collection of sincere drops. So I think what I should say now, I should give you Suzuki Roshi's, you know, as a review. Main Zazen instruction. Which is, don't invite your thoughts to tea. Good, okay. Now, if you examine this, Okay. First of all, it's easy to do. Like bringing attention to the breath is easy to do.

[49:59]

And when you see something that's easy to do, it's fruitful to always to ask, why is something so easy to do so difficult to do over a long period of time? It's easy to bring attention to the breath for a short time. Difficult for a long time. And answer that question, you discover a lot about Buddhism, because Buddhism has been about answering that question. And we can... fairly easily for a short time, not invite our thoughts to tea.

[51:02]

Okay. Now, if you examine the statement, though, we don't invite our thoughts to tea, But we do invite the thought not to invite our thoughts to tea to tea. So clearly it's thought one and thought two. They must not be the same kind of thoughts. Thought A prime and thought B prime. So don't be confused by the words. The words are extraordinary.

[52:02]

And we can use them to direct attention. But most of the time we can't use them to describe what we find. What we find is more subtle than attention. More subtle than language. In fact, Bodhidharma, good old Bodhidharma, defines mind as when you bring your sense, a sense or senses, fully to something, language only goes part of the way. When the senses reach beyond language,

[53:03]

And he says that's when you experience mind. Okay, so we can call the thought, not to invite our thoughts to tea, A mental formation. But we shouldn't really call it a thought in Buddhist thinking. Okay. So let's make a distinction then between intentional thought and discursive thought. And scan it, or parse it, or whatever the word is, bring an intentional, have the intentional thought, have the intentional thought, not to invite discursive thoughts to tea.

[54:37]

Okay. Now, what have I just also done here? I brought a concept to the basic territory of practice. Yeah, a metaphor or something like that. And metaphors and concepts, Nagarjuna really is strong in pointing this out, are part of the practice. But not discursive thinking. Except as part of decision-making. To sort things out. Dogen described discursive thinking as that part of the mind which helps you make the decision to practice. But that's not practice itself.

[55:42]

Okay. So Louise has to go pick up Sophia in a few moments. So my translator is disappearing. I have my backup here. Did you see how his back went up? My backup. Okay, he heard the vertical words as well as the horizontal words. Okay, so just that. that there's an intentional thought to... So we should notice that... Let me start again. That intentional... An intention brings up a different mind than discursive thinking.

[56:43]

Which means you can have a choice to identify, find your identity in intentional thoughts or discursive thoughts. And Buddhism says, For 2,500 years, there's a better choice. Among these two, one's a better choice. No, let me just for a moment respond to what you said again. It's a little bit like filling each cell with aliveness. And you get a feeling for doing that. And it's part of the whole process of weaving. Mind and body can be experienced separately.

[57:45]

And they can be experienced together. And the way they can be experienced together can be cultivated. And that's another way of speaking about practice. Buddhism and Zen in particular is a particular way to weave mind and body together. And open the body, even in a cellular sense, to aliveness. It changes your experience of time.

[58:49]

And it also, from a Taoist point of view, is one of the secrets of longevity. You make each cell filled with aliveness, and it lives longer. That's one of my promises. a warranty I sound like a salesman here used body salesman okay so you have to go I'll ring the bell oh you both have to go all the moms have to go okay thanks very much I like the vividness of this group.

[59:47]

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