So it seems to me that we have identified a territory of self in practice or and a territory of self in practice which is particular to practice would hardly would be invisible to a non-practitioner yeah So does anybody have any comments about anything?

[01:06]

I would like to tell a story which I would call for the invitation to practice. Four years ago when I was in Crestone for the practice period and I went there earlier and the Rahat Sesshid was taking place. And during Sashin I was the third cook for lunch and was not so happy about the situation. I went to hear Rashi and said,

[02:07]

I find that I'm treated in the kitchen as if I had never entered a kitchen before. And you answered in friendly and tender being like kind of bending towards me or inclined towards me. Only if you have problems with your self-confidence you can go to therapy anytime. Then you took out the sword of wisdom and said, A bodhisattva would of him or herself or of others never think like that.

[03:26]

And that really kind of threw me down or cut me down and I had to get out fast. Sorry, now I find out. And I went back to my cushion. I remember that two years before that I had decided not to tell my story of suffering to anybody anymore. And what I found out in that whole time is that sitting on the cushion is as well as lying on the couch.

[04:55]

and you called it the narrative self and I've told my story to myself and I managed to take on different perspectives. So that these basic assumptions with which I had lived my life, that these assumptions were questioned, have been questioned. And it became less and less interesting to listen to myself. So this biographical story has come to a dead end or it has kind of quieted down or something.

[06:12]

What I discovered then, and Zazen is very physical, that a kind of energy and physical experiencing is still noticeable. And that is interesting and nearly exciting to go there and hold it and observe it. And without pushing myself too hard, I think that this part, which could become even more painful, because I went through this story with myself again, And I would say that the part of me who or which can look at it has become stronger because I went through my story by myself or with myself.

[07:37]

And what I manage better now is to just cut off my views or what's going on with others. and that I can take myself more seriously in what I experience and that I have more courage to go to these dark places. Thank you. and I'm looking for finding unwholesome states or dark energies.

[08:47]

Is less grasping for a self or an identity than telling one's own story to oneself all the time. And I'm very grateful for that meeting four years ago with you. You're welcome. Thank you. Someone else? Another question, the title of the seminar was also the freedom of the self, the freedom of self, and at the moment we are still talking a lot about the self and its different expressions,

[10:01]

So the topic of the seminar is the freedom of the self. But up until now we've mostly talked about the self and its different aspects. So my question is, will we at some point talk about the freedom too? Have we maybe already talked about the freedom and didn't notice? Yeah, Tuesday. Yeah, I noticed we haven't talked about it yet either. But it is only Friday. Yeah. I've come here with two questions. So I find that this, I mean, kind of makes a lot of happen within me and one question has already been answered.

[11:34]

The question was practicing with heart in Zen. For the example with the baby, which for me also means to hold one's pain and suffering or other's pain and suffering in the same way. This example has moved me very much and I understand that that really is the way to practice. and the practice of mindfulness can take a lot of effort.

[12:44]

And this effort has to do with it. So there is this way full of effort where one also tenses a lot, and then the relaxed way like holding a baby. It seems to me I have to go home and take that as a practice, like holding a baby. But I also hope to hear more about it the next days and that I've understood you correctly.

[14:05]

Okay. How was your tall son who was once a baby? Yeah, you know, 40 years ago this month, I started with Zen, but I was three days or seven days pregnant with him. So it's a gift. He's 40? Yeah. My goodness. I was pregnant with him three or seven days, and I started with Zen. So pregnancy and... My first Zen encounter was this month, 40 years ago. And this is a gift, an anniversary gift to myself. But he's earning money. Paying for your seminar, I hope. No, not yet. Maybe. It's a good idea. Well, what I'm interested in is not hearing my own voice.

[15:11]

But if I can use my voice to increase, articulate the territory of practice, Yeah, this I feel good about. So maybe tomorrow, starting, we can have a, I can do a review of the territory of practice that we can call self. But I would like you to, between now and tomorrow, Not necessarily take an inventory of all the territories of practice with the provisional self.

[16:42]

Yeah, I mean, I'm using the term now provisional self in contrast to real self. I think we can say Buddhism denies the existence of a real self. And we can have a general understanding of the word real. It is applicable enough. So maybe we can speak about the real self in contrast to, I think the good term is the provisional self.

[17:47]

Okay. And then we can take Stefan's suggestion of some time ago, earlier today. What about big mind and small mind? Now, I think that most of us who've practiced for a while have some feel for the idea and experience of big mind. And then we could also try to give some experiential definition of big mind. But maybe some of you can give me a definition of big mind.

[18:53]

Does anyone have the daring to define big mind? Oh, Stefan, you've got yourself in trouble. A mind which does not judge, does not compare, a mind free of... A free-flowing mind? That's pretty good, yeah, not bad.

[19:57]

Anyone else? Someone else? I mean, you're also totally familiar with big mind, but you can just tell me right off, right? Are you all going to fail? You're going to get an F. Yes. A mind in which The objects I perceive are also perceived as mind. Yeah, that I would say is a characteristic of an entry into big mind.

[21:02]

When you get in the habit of noticing all objects are mind objects, it becomes an entry into big mind. And this is not just an English term, big mind, it's Sukhiroshi, kind of made everyone aware of. But it's a direct translation of Dai Shin, which is Dai is big and Shin is mind. But, of course, Shin... doesn't exactly translate as mind.

[22:14]

Because it means something more like mind known through the heart. Mind not through the thinking of the world but mind through the feeling of the world. So you could think of big mind if we tried to put it into comparable words. of the world as mind. Knowing the world, everything we perceive, is known through the mind.

[23:24]

But that knowing the world as mind So it's a feeling of the world as mind. Literally, shin means mind and mind-heart. So here there is an emphasis on feeling or holding the baby. But the mind is in its source a relationship. And it's one of the reasons you don't, I mean, you have this, we always talk in the West about heart, to do things with heart, etc.,

[24:39]

And heart is more important than mind or something like that. Why don't we talk in Zen more about love and heart and things like that? And it's a little bit hard to... because we value thinking, because we value a heartfelt approach to the world, or a world in which the primary and the highest value is love, And I would say that Buddhism is not different from that. But it's not described that way.

[25:48]

And it's not described that way because Buddhism emphasizes so much that everything is a craft. Again, that there are no entities. There's only activities. So you don't So to do things with heart in Buddhism would be more the activity of welcoming relationships as not so much defining the world as something you love but something that you relate with

[27:02]

in which self disappears, or the dynamic of the relationship itself is is the territory of practice. And so it's not so much as you come to it with heart, as you come to it with the discovery of the relationship. A discovery of the relationship without separation. Okay, yes.

[28:47]

You just talked about the self and love and the separated self. So what about big mind? Yes, I'm also guys. And doesn't big mind incorporate an attitude which includes courage, modesty, wisdom? Well, I want to be careful not to add those words like medals, that you put a medal on yourself.

[29:59]

Now it's courage, now it's courtesy or modesty. Or to think that if I'm modest, I will enter a big mind or something. But if we try to describe big mind in a way that enhances the noticing or practice of big mind, if we try to describe big mind in a way that makes us notice big mind as already present, or that we can practice or allow big mind. Since a characteristic, as has been pointed out already, of big mind is that it's not a comparative mind.

[31:16]

And not being comparative, it would have what we in the West might say, oh, he's modest, or she's a modest person. But it really doesn't arise from, oh, it's good to be modest. It looks like modesty because you're not comparing. And it looks like courage because there's nothing to fear. You already feel included by that which otherwise you might fear. So there's a little more I could say in this vein.

[32:19]

Is that a heart? In this vein. But first let's, I want to see if anybody else has something they'd like to say. Yes. Again having to do with attention and mindfulness. Attention which is directed towards something. is compared to the kind of attention which is less directed and more like a field?

[33:25]

directed attention is more made and takes more effort and at the same time it's more narrow since we were talking about the big mind well I think that the way we look at attention in the West. It's related to somehow related to focus. Or concentrating. and concentrating in a way that creates a connection with something and it excludes things that it's not concentrated on.

[34:44]

And this seems natural to us. But that's not really what one pointedness means. One pointedness is not about focusing. or a narrowing. It's like the ability to rest attention on something effortlessly. And then it stays there effortlessly. So you make an effort in your in developing this.

[35:51]

It's a little bit as if you didn't know how to float when you were swimming, when you were in the water. So you keep sinking, so you have to keep swimming. But at some point you discover a certain way of being in the water where you float without effort. My mother was good at this. And she'd always say, why are you all splashing around? Why don't you just float like me? She must have had exactly the right body weight versus something or other, I don't know what. I mean, in Maine, where I was born, the ocean is very cold.

[37:10]

Around 20 minutes, you turn blue. And you can run on the water like Jesus did. Because it's so cold. But my mother could just get in the water and march and just float, you know. What I just told you has very little to do with the topic. Of course, this has little to do with our problem of acetylcholine. Yes. But in the case of one-pointedness, one is on one thing, but one does not perceive other things at the same time. So the question is, in this one-pointedness where attention rests on one thing, what about noticing other things? The whole field is present. So I can let my attention rest on you but nothing is excluded.

[38:38]

I'm using the word floating instead of flowing because big mind is not a flowing really, it's more of a floating. I am still missing the right word here. So let yourself be worn instead of flowing, because the great mind does not flow like that, but let itself be worn. Many, many years ago, when you were studying, For many many years when you started teaching there was a problem how to translate one pointedness. So there is like a Buddhist term in German which we use but it has this direction in it because it's kind of the word in itself has like a sharp point.

[39:51]

And the feeling is that in the word one-pointedness that is not the case. So there was a suggestion not to use like one sharpness but one bluntness. One dullness describes a lot of people. Well, maybe I understand the problem and maybe if we did an alternative translation it could be resting awareness. I used to try to avoid using the term one-pointedness because it was two-pointed.

[41:07]

But in recent few years I've been using one-pointedness as a term as an excuse to re-translate it to point to blunt out, I mean point out it's a different word to point out that we can't trust these translations. Because I assume that one-pointedness is a fairly precise translation.

[42:19]

But it's not a translation of the context. I'm sure that in the context it's used in practice, it's more like a resting awareness. And the translator or the scholar who doesn't practice can't know this. Now let me venture to say one more thing, one more few things, before we stop. Now again, I'm trying to create territory in which the provisional self functions.

[43:38]

In what we observe, the observing function is sometimes confused with the idea of self. The observer is the self. And this... And... So I'm trying to find a way to go about this in language. So you can, there's observing. And then there's observing of observing.

[44:41]

But it's not an infinite regression of observing, observing, observing, etc. But it's rather a loop, which is like a spiral, which avoids being a regression because observing is continuously absorbed into what's observed. Weil das Beobachten immer in das, was beobachtet wird, absorbiert wird. So the act of observing is part of the object observed. So dass der Akt des Beobachtens Teil des beobachteten Dinges ist.

[45:57]

And the act of observing The act of observing is part of what makes an act unique and part of the character of the act. So to say that everything is a mind object is to remove objects not only from entity-ness as if they were non-interdependent separate objects objects non-independent or separate through their own creation but the other and other

[47:04]

The object, the perception itself is really the object. He's for. At least for humans and also for dragonflies in their own way. For dragonflies. This reflexive awareness is kind of And I think maybe that's a good way of saying self-consciousness. Maybe it's better to say reef consciousness. Maybe it's better to say awareness. Is it better to say self-consciousness? Because if I say self-consciousness, it impairs what's from self. One way when self-consciousness actually makes self more like consciousness is to create consciousness.

[48:33]

Selbstbewusstsein, zumindest im Englischen, wie der ja eigentlich bedeutet, also ja, des Bewusstseins. It means in self-consciousness, like you're supposed to be, go on stage and you're give a talk and you're embarrassed and you're tough. Und, um, are you listening? Also, self-conscious, um, Englisch bedeutet, to be a self-conscious person. auf Deutsch selbstbewusst, sondern wo man unsicher ist. Some of you unable to speak or ask you for contributions because you're self-confident. Also, ich mögen hier vielleicht nichts sagen, wenn ich unter, weil ihr eben unsicher seid. You think you're lacking. because you think it is yourself that speaks and then you think about how yourself will be understood by others [...]

[50:02]

I can't joke, because consciousness can make you tongue-tied. You tongue-tied. I think I cannot make an echo in German. Do you say tongue-tied in German? I don't know. But self-conscious can also mean be conscious. So, on the one hand, this self-consciousness can mean insecure, or, um, yes, it's more conscious. This is the consciousness. Yeah, like self- I mean, the question was, uh, the glass itself. The glass itself? That's what you say in English. The glass. Um. Yeah, the glass itself, meaning the glass.

[51:04]

And then you mean, Das ist Glas, aus dem das Glas ist. Okay, so I'm saying, but I would like a consciousness. But I would like. Also deshalb sage ich denn. But I would. Reflektorische Grubung. Refle. Lead to an infinite regression. Refle. Kleine. Infinite observer. Refle. Nicht zu so einer. Refle. Endlichen Regression. Because the regression disappears in the absorption. In the. Weil die Regression. In. Weil. Absorption verschwinds. Das. Weil. Okay, so it's a kind of spiral. And a spiral is different from a circle. And a spiral is different from a circle. enters again at a tip point and enters again at a point. Because a point turns and always returns at another point. So it's an absorbent spiral which gives character and uniqueness to each act.

[52:06]

And unique is such a word. Neat. And this is such a word for each act, character and uniqueness. Sounds a little complicated. But actually we're doing that. I mean one of the statics. Neurodically in love. We all do that. For example, we do that when we're not sexually in love. Love allows change with another person. when the love allows us to change ourselves with the other. So, a sense of developing an absorbent intentional awareness. You know, it's not so easy for me to say what I'm saying. I have to keep sticking words in front of what I'm feeling.

[53:13]

And to see it, what I'm feeling sticks to the words. Or perhaps climbs through the words to stick to find other words. But my doing that is way easier than her trying to translate it. Listen to me and then try to stick it through words into another language. I don't know how you do it. I don't know either. But you seem to be doing okay. Yeah, I also noticed I'm getting tired. I noticed you're getting tired. That's why I'm giving you a break by making something really complicated to translate. Okay. Okay. So this sense of attentiveness being absorbent and the result of attentional holding close as absorbent

[54:30]

attentional, holding close, being an absorbent attention, is something we can explore tomorrow. Okay, so let's sit for a minute and then we'll... Professional translators are relieved every half hour by someone else. Yeah, so, but we only have a break every hour, so, you know. We manage. The absorbent presence of attention.

[56:30]

This is worth noticing. If we can. the absorbent presence of attention Thank you.

[57:40]

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