Michael Podgorczyk just finally admitted that he didn't understand anything that I said in the early days. But he just thought I was cute, so... So it's really a big nose. It's all right. I didn't say gross, sir. You just said nose. Yeah. See, I keep track of the translation, you know, certain key points. All right. Yeah.

[01:01]

So those of you who are new to me today who are here, what don't you understand? Diejenigen von euch, die heute das erste Mal hier sind, was versteht ihr nicht? Or what piques your interest? So now I'm listening. Yeah, why not you? Can you say it in German first, please? Yes. that it isn't just there as a constant.

[02:16]

What made me come here today is one thing, I really like the place. Yeah, I do too. And the other thing is I've felt for a long time a longing for Zen practice, but I haven't really encountered a teacher yet, so I thought this would be a good combination. Okay, thank you. Yeah. I think all of us, me too, have a conceptual problem with the idea, the fact, let's call it, that space is not a container. And, I mean, I've spent quite a bit of time finding ways to say that so it's convincing.

[03:45]

But even when it's convincing, or you're convinced, it's hard to recognize it in your activity. We can understand that this forest is made by the trees. Now we can think, oh, it's made trees in the space that was already there. But the idea that the space was already there is, from the point of view of contemporary physics and from the point of view of yogic understanding, is not correct.

[05:01]

Yeah, and even so, then you could say, well, the planet made the space. But something made the space. It wasn't there. You could say in a way, what is your name? Ni ko? The word for two in Japanese is ni, so now we have ni, ni, ko. Yeah, now watch. Space did that. Gravity did that, so we could say gravity is space. And all these trees are functioning through relating to gravity.

[06:08]

So then you might ask, what's the cost-benefit of trying to think about these things? And our sociologist professor back there agrees. That's Eric. Yeah. But so that maybe we can think, and this is, to me, what you said is a real question statement. Because even if we get it that it's the case, why bother?

[07:11]

And I can't, there are many aspects here I'd love to speak about. They're just sitting right here in various forms waiting to turn into images and words. But I can't say it unless I have the feeling you can receive it. So what I'm trying to do partly in creating this... You know, we have way-seeking mind, right? The concept way-seeking mind. And basically what Christina brought up earlier, way-seeking mind. But since, as her hubby pointed out, Everything is interdependent.

[08:27]

What we really have is mutual way-seeking mind. Or way-seeking in English, way-seeking mutual mind. And as I've been saying recently, To call ourselves human beings is really divisive. Because to say we're human beings implies there's something called non-human. And animals are non-human. Trees are non-human. But beets are non-human. Like red beets? Yeah, red beets and other colored beets too. But we ate beets today because they're mutual beings.

[09:40]

So human beings is a seriously divisive term. And the tribal definition of human beings is consuming Europe right now. And some of the refugees aren't really real human beings. Now, of course, there's differences between peoples, no question about it. And there's differences between cultures. But if you see everything as mutual beingness, you make different kind of decisions. How do we realize this mutual beingness is way-seeking mind?

[10:52]

Now, every year this hill gets a little steeper. I don't know if Giorgio's lifting the building up or what's happening. He's capable of it, you know. And this year it got the same impression. Well, we're kind of getting older at the same speed. Yeah. And this year it seemed to be actually a little steeper than before. I mean more than other years. But when I'm walking up here I'm walking within the space that I am. Okay, so I feel that space is walking.

[12:12]

And I feel the filling of space with each step. And the consequence of that is I feel the space I'm walking in is the same medium which I also am. Now, I think that's implicitly what yoga teachers are trying to get you to get. You are the space that's forming these postures. So if I can, I will come back to the cost-benefit. Okay, someone else. Not fair, let me do all the talking.

[13:35]

I just want to add to space that one difference is whether one locates oneself in consciousness or in awareness. The consciousness somehow starts creating order, it starts creating a container. It cleans it up and it starts creating a container in which things are in it. And when localizing oneself through awareness, then space as a concept actually isn't really there, but what's there is interiority.

[14:41]

It's much more permeative and also... Permeating. Is that what you mean? Yeah, it's permeating. And also... You can't make up words too, you know. I can't make up words. Because then I don't understand you when you make up these words. Welcome to my world. Oh, thanks. Yes, sir. And also more like a riddle. I don't know if they still have, yeah. Mysterious, thank you. That's it. Michael is a lighting designer. And you're presently lighting the interior of the cathedral. And when you walk by the opera, you're walking by his lighting design. Your sister. Both.

[16:07]

Both. I mean, yeah, pod pod. As a by the pod pod. Yeah, pod gorchek, pod and pod gorchek. Yeah. When you are imagining lighting for a space like the cathedral or any place, or some would be different than others, Wenn ihr euch vorstellt, eine Beleuchtung für den Dom oder für irgendeinen anderen Raum zu gestalten, der anders ist als andere. Do you have the feeling that you're lighting it for conscious seeing or lighting it for awareness as well? Or do you feel such a distinction? Hast du dann das Gefühl, dass du das für das bewusste Sehen beleuchtest oder auch fürs Gewahrsein? Arbeitest du da mit so einer Unterscheidung? Of course, first of all, the function has to be there.

[17:09]

But what we've taken a long time, but yet we've learned eventually... is that we first think or actually feel a lit space. The lightscape. Okay, the lightscape. And only then, as a second step, look into how we can realize that. And the starting point is always from feeling. Yes. It has emphases and directions and it's much unconscious. Why are Buddhas so often gilded? Gold. Because they are lit by candles. Yeah.

[18:25]

So this distinction between awareness and consciousness, which he's brought up, is already a problem. When I look at translators and other people who write about Buddhism, I don't know anybody who's really clear about distinguishing awareness and consciousness. I mean, you see somebody uses consciousness a lot and then suddenly it doesn't quite work, so he says awareness, but he hasn't really articulated the distinction. I think the, and I can't, in our little weekend re-articulate all the distinctions I've been making for 55 years.

[19:55]

You might think at the end of the seminar that I tried, but no. But right now in this seminar so far I've defined awareness as our knowing animal nature. Aber bisher in diesem Seminar habe ich Gewahrsein als unsere erkennende Tiernatur definiert. The elephant in the room. The elephant in the room. And I'll come back. Yes. Ich habe bei so einem Zuhören immer die erste Faktion genommen, dass es einmalig ist, vom Raum her auszuklären, Just in listening, I've been wondering, starting with space and looking at

[21:03]

our subjective experience of space and have been wondering what really makes space, what is space about, the subjective experience of space, and have now come to that there's something about many possibilities. To have possibilities. To have possibilities. Okay. Maybe here. So to have the feeling that I have possibilities or options that I have leeway to play with, but that that's also an inner experience. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in a situation like this, where people come to you, who have no room left, so no option, where they feel very tight.

[22:32]

And that makes the symptoms look very bad. that oftentimes in my work, people come to me who feel that they have no space, who feel that they are constricted. As a therapist. Yes. And that also, that feeling of having no space, feeling constricted, oftentimes leads to the symptoms that people have. Yeah. Do you believe? And so from my own experience, I keep coming to the conclusion that space really is freedom. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why the concept of emptiness, which is not the same as space, but the concept of empty is a dynamic which opens us into freedom. And that's also a reason why emptiness, and that's not the same as space, but that the understanding or the concept of emptiness opens us into the feeling of freedom.

[23:41]

Okay. I've been hesitating a bit because I've noticed that this is the first time I'm speaking with you since Neil has died. And for me this is like new. And like something is different in you and in me. I've just noticed that I have to name this or mark it before I can say anything else. With the room... About space, for me there is a strong connection to this bubble of freedom that you spoke about.

[25:02]

although space is such a multifaceted phenomenon in practice. I experience it in so many different ways. Also just the way Andy spoke about space and the way that people enter a space and how space changes through that or not. And how any movement basically does something with space all the time.

[26:22]

And that's also what creates the connections again when everything is moving and probably moving. Yes, and then there is also the other thing, which again has to do with what you spoke about earlier, with the differences. And then the other thing is, and that has to do with what you spoke about before about the shifts. Because they, for me too, have something to do with space. There are many different qualities. I'm interested in shifts. That's because we just were dealing with shifts so much. Yeah. Because on the one hand there are intentional shifts where you just kind of pause or you bring your attention to breathing or you just walk or something like that.

[28:03]

Yes. And then various things happen. Sometimes then from that a new shift arises and sometimes not. Or sometimes there is a shift that arises all by itself. And what I would be interested in is you've spoken about three ingredients in a shift, and that's something I would like to hear about more. I think I haven't quite gotten that. Well, it's just simple. There's A and B, and there's what happens in between.

[29:04]

And there can't be a shift from A to B or B to A unless the in-between has no views. So the in-between space is the shift. The in-between space of no views, it was what makes the chemistry or the catalyst of the able, it enables the shift, but also enables the freedom from views. Eric doesn't quite agree with me. Oh, thank you at last. Because he thinks about things so much.

[30:10]

And so well. And so well. Now, I haven't forgotten you. But Nicole, the other Nicole, you've been interested in Zen, but have you practiced Zazen? Yeah. Okay, now zazen, we could describe zazen as a practice to discover stillness. Unless you bodily discover stillness in yourself, you can't see stillness in other things. Dogen says something like, only a Buddha can recognize a Buddha.

[31:11]

And this would be parallel to only stillness can recognize stillness. So if you... So the cost-benefit for a minute... What happens when, again, I'm trying to remind us that we're exercising, like a muscle almost, attention every time we bring attention to something. And if we keep the context here of shifts, one of the shifts in the beginning practice and the basis of practice is the shift from attention to things to the shift from attention to attention itself.

[32:34]

So when I see this bell, I see my attention to the bell simultaneously. And when I see the striker, I see my attention to the striker. Now the bell is different from the striker. But there's a sameness to the attention that allows both bell and striker to be felt. So if I see this, I see it and this attention. And if I see this, I see this and this attention. And this attention and this attention are overlapping.

[34:09]

Okay, so we're not talking here, if you start thinking about space as an object, Also, wenn du anfängst, über den Raum als ein Objekt nachzudenken, oder eine Voraussetzung, ja, okay, aber das ist nicht wirklich eine fruchtbare Art und Weise, darüber nachzudenken. Wenn du über Raum als Erfahrung denkst, then the space of this, the attention of this to this and the attention to this is an experience of a dynamic of attention or a dynamic of space. Now, the door dynamic, the gate, the door dynamic in Japanese culture, to space as an experience.

[35:30]

And almost the word for space is proportionality. So I feel the proportion between you and me, and me and you. What is your name again? Matthias. Matthias, right. Nicola Matthias. I feel a different proportionality here. And the simplest gate I know to enter this is to begin to notice how space connects, not just how space separates. And one of the dynamics going on right now in this experienceable, experiential space is like Krista is speaking to me. And she's speaking in Deutsch.

[36:45]

And her body is speaking to me in a universal language. Well, not really universal, but I'm familiar with it. And she's giving me a translation of what you say. And then I'm speaking in English and so forth. That's actually an activity of space. There's a triangulation going on here. We're defining space through this different way to create a meaningful space here. Now, this may not be Buddhism. But it's the bodily mind space in which Buddhism developed. And it's the easiest way to enter into the practices and craft of Buddhism.

[38:03]

And the very entry that's necessary can be a 360 degree shift. Matthias? Yes, as you said before about the relationship between space and that you can create a space, I thought of this story, this urban legend of television devices that don't work at all if you don't look at them. How you've spoken about space and how we're creating space made me think of this urban legend of how TVs and how there's nothing in them when you don't look at them.

[39:07]

So there's nothing, no show running when you don't look at them. Where it's difficult to prove the opposite. Well, this room right now is full of endless movies. Netflix is everywhere. Yeah, I see Harrison Ford. Peter Lorre. You don't even know Peter Lorre. But we don't have the right receivers. But a bit of a serious aspect of it is perhaps that awareness is not only a passive sense world, but there is obviously also a creative component, isn't there? But a more serious aspect to that is how awareness is not just a passive sensory capacity, but it sounds like there's also a creative or generative aspect to it or not.

[40:22]

For sure. For sure. And that's characterized by, and I'm just using this to say this is not all my making it up, Yeah. In Koan 52, which I've been referencing a lot recently, it talks about the seal by which something is established as true. But then the koan says, but what about the seal on the other side of the elbow? To be continued. So I'll come back to that, because it's great.

[41:33]

What a concept, what a metaphor. Yeah, okay. Someone else? Yes. You've already spoken. Okay. Mir ist etwas eingefallen, was ich so faszinierend finde, und zwar wie du von der Proportion gesprochen hast von Matthias zu Nicole. I've realized something or seen something that is really interesting to me. When you spoke about the proportion between Matthias to Nicole, da ist mir eingefallen, dass in einer wirklich I remember that when someone is very good at directing a theater, She's an actress, so I'm terrifying everyone.

[42:42]

Once word. I mean this from the point of view of the audience. Then the stage, the space of the stage becomes so visible in its vitality and in its alive. It's incredible. It's incredible style. It's crystal clear oftentimes, the relationships, the voices. It's fascinating how each step defines. It really becomes clear in that. Yeah, and I think my own impression, having been peripherally connected with the theater in various ways, is a good actor is somebody who gets or is born with the feeling of space as a kind of plastic medium, which they move the space, they move the whole audience when they just turn their body.

[43:52]

I think if you made a study of politicians, a very large percentage, if you forgive me for saying so, are not known for their brains. But they have a bodily hold on the space. They walk into a room and everyone knows. You haven't said anything yet. I mean, it would be okay. Yeah. In German, yes.

[45:12]

in relationship to the shift and to space, how you spoke about. What's present for me right now is the difference between outer perceived space and inner space and or interiority. Yeah. and this shift back and forth that can also dissolve concepts. And I find the same thing in breathing, in exhaling and inhaling, and actually a shift between the two. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I would say in line with that, that the grid of the breath of what I call hailing, because if I call it breathing in English, everybody thinks they know what breathing is.

[46:46]

So if I say hailing, inhaling and exhaling, with a pun for to call to hail somebody, that's In relation to what you say, I would say that what I call hailing in English, when I just say breathing, everyone thinks they know what breathing means, but when I say hailing, it's also an expression in English with the word for calling. This attentional muscle, let's call it a muscle, it's way more than that, but let's call it that. The Buddha's earliest teaching, historical Buddha's earliest teaching, as far as we know, is to give attention to the, not the breath, but the inhale and the exhale. And again, to put this in a personal historical context, it took me years to realize that it was the difference between the inhale and exhale is what you're paying attention to, not the general act of breathing.

[48:13]

And then it's not just the kind of mental image I'm inhaling and exhaling. The attention is brought to the physical movements, which are an inhale. And the physical movements, which are the exhale. And by bringing attention over and over again to each hail, you're joining hailing, you're joining attention to the activity of the inhale. And then you're using the activity of the inhale for the breath to penetrate the body.

[49:32]

And the breath penetrated body through the exhale is not the same as the breath penetrated body through the inhale. Yeah. So as, again, here we're back to the cost-benefit. As your attentional craft And attention itself develops a bandwidth. You understand bandwidth? Like a rate. It also develops a band depth. And so this intentionally developed bandwidth and band depth knows the world in something more than three dimensions.

[50:57]

Yeah, in my notes I put 3D+. Or I put exponential 4D. Because I don't have any words for it. And if I describe these trees to you from the point of view of how I felt when I was 25 and how I feel at 82... My description of the tree is the same. But my feel for the tree is I see it multidimensionally. Somehow, each leaf has its own separate presence, spatially, and it's almost like I'm inside the tree simultaneously.

[52:16]

Now there's a rule that I'm not supposed to say these things to you. Because the rule is you don't say anything to anybody unless they already know it, at least partially. So you have to get everyone in the neutral field before you can say certain things, otherwise you make people feel, well, I don't understand that yet. But this is my last Rostenberg seminar. And so I'm out of here and I can't be held responsible. Yeah. But the evolved attentional sensitivity, you can imagine, must make a difference.

[53:35]

It can't be described, but it can be discovered. We live in this present. But actually, there's various presents we can live in. So we have this feeling that somehow there's some... If it's not time and space are universal... We human beings somehow are all equal in that we're all able to know the same.

[54:38]

But from a yogic point of view, it's not really quite true. The source, perhaps, is the same, emptiness, but the fruition is different. multi-valenced. So may I say you're a doctor and you're a gynecologist. Okay, now, nowadays with the Me Too movement and blah, blah, blah, I don't know, women and men are supposed to be equal. And it's almost illegal now in America to imply there's a difference. but if everything is an activity okay then our thinking is an activity and it's not just the mind that thinks the body thinks body and mind are a spectrum

[55:53]

Körper und Geist sind ein Spektrum. And if we think through the body, und wenn wir durch den Körper denken, we think through the activity of the body, denken wir durch die Aktivität des Körpers. We know the world through the potentialities of thought and of consciousness. But if we know the world through the potentialities of thought, The potentialities of the world make most thought possible. Wait, I didn't get that. The potentialities that the world offers us, to plant a tree or whatever, shape what we think.

[57:17]

And the potentialities that the body can imagine shape what we think. And the woman's body in the world has different potentialities than the male's body in the world. So when males think through their body and females think through their body, the thinking is sort of different. It's not the same abstract thinking as what we're saying. And now that I can feel and see that, I feel the difference in this field of male and female world we live in now that we're gendering the world finally realistically which I could see from youth but it was

[58:42]

couldn't even suggest it without being thought weird. Okay, so in this now more openly gendered world, we can now also look at the worlds that different genders create to live within. If you're born as a male, yeah, that's some kind of genetic information. But then if your parents dress you as a boy, Now the culture comes in and treats you like a boy.

[59:59]

If some families have dressed their boys as girls, the Reformation, well, this is interesting. When we make the act of gender determination by clothes, we establish identity that resonates or doesn't. Now until I started applying activity to everything, it took that application before I noticed how men and women think through the potentialities of the body differently. And I've always felt short-changed because I can't make a baby.

[61:00]

I'm not sure I would have chosen to have a baby, but if you could make a human being inside yourself, whoa! So I know I'm missing out on something. But now I realize I'm missing out. I can't even think through my body like a woman. I do my best, though. It must be time to have a break. Thank you for translating.

[61:58]

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