So how was your discussion yesterday? Yes. So we asked ourselves, who is sitting here and discussing? That we quite quickly arrived at the body. Said how important the body is. And at the kindergarten, preschool, children react with the body before they react with speech, with language.

[01:05]

But at the same time, in the education, one participant spoke of the strict evangelical education, where the body is badly attacked and can be overcome. And while an education, and one of the participants here spoke of the severe evangelical education, and in the education the body is rather considered as something like bad or... Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that the body is drive driven. What is this? Driven by greed, sexual greed, desire. Greed, hate and delusion. Yeah, the overall... Yeah, I understand the picture. Driven by that.

[02:12]

Yeah. One of the participants said that she was quite content and she rather sat behind her servant and let everything happen. But also we asked ourselves, looking at the course of our life, who made or did the decisions? But we didn't know an answer to that question. Isn't it great?

[03:16]

We don't have an answer to such a basic thing. We did it, we don't have an answer. That's interesting. Okay, someone else. Yes. Hairdryer. Yes, we also have... And we dealt with how to get into contact with the signals of the body. Apart from being sort of finding oneself in an unexpected or dangerous situation. And there was the realization that you actually notice a body signal, but it passes.

[04:24]

And we noted that usually you get and receive a bodily signal but you just pass over it, put aside. And afterwards something unpleasant happens which would have been able to avoid if I had watched the bodily signal. And also the question appeared, what actually is the body and does the brain belong to it? I would like to put up another question and that's about the term identity.

[05:35]

And the document, the identity document, it's called Identity. It's written on it. Identity card. Identity card. Oh, yeah. And it said that this person who was born in 1941 is still the same person which is in the tent now. Yeah. Yeah. That's what governments hope. And we found that the mind is working with different ingredients One of the ingredients is what is called here the I-agency. And my experience is that the experience of identity is a split.

[06:59]

One part of the experience is that the I, which is experienced, doesn't get older and is still the same. Another part is also there which experiences that it's different. That the person who was born in 1941 is only in a limited connection to the one who is sitting here now. Yes, and between these parts there is a certain tension. And sometimes the older one has to tell the other one, that's not the case, that's not like this. Does the younger one listen?

[08:32]

Okay, so we should do a seminar called Zen Identity, Western Identity. We should do a seminar on his identity and western identity. Not a bad idea actually. Okay, thank you for your observations. Yes, Tara? We talked about ourselves and I think we also found that we may not have the same definition of this term. We were talking about the self and found that we most probably don't have it for the participants in the group not have the same definition of self. And we noted that being free of self we probably don't know but it's more about less and more self.

[09:37]

That's a good start. For me, starting again, for me the self is the localization which brings together, joins all my experience, erfahrungen und... Yes, from my experience. I have the feeling that I need this imaginary idea of a place that brings together these different parts that I experience on different levels and integrates them.

[10:45]

I find I need this notion of a localization which just brings together joints and gathers all my experiences and ideas and so on. And that's why it's hard for me to give away this self. So less this I-identity than somewhere this, so to speak, yes, it's this place here, so the one that's somewhere out of place. So it's hard for me to give this self away, which for me is not the same as self-identity. Instead of saying, I go or I breathe, I should say, just go or just breathe. And then I could actually start this breathing.

[11:51]

Because it's just that I should, instead of I go and I breathe, should it go, it goes, it breathes, so they can get it out of this localization. Yes, and I just notice, It's very difficult to explain, but it's something like a jump into the abyss. Into the abyss. The abyss, that's, you know... I find that I experience the body less as a localization, less than my imagined localized self. The body can dissolve, can connect with others, can go up in breathing, but still I need this notion of self.

[13:01]

Experience of self. It's more a notion. Now, I understood that it would be difficult to let go or give up this self, but I didn't understand how that's not self-identity, at least that's what he had translated. Yeah, also... I am aware that you are not yet able to let go of your self-identity, or rather, as I understand it, there are two things for you, yourself and self-identity. Yes, with self-identity I understood more ego. I understand that as a special part of the self that hopes more for its history than for the greater self. So that I can say, okay, this is my personal experience, but it is simply limited.

[14:24]

The ego says, this is my personal experience and so it is. And this, to understand myself more, I can reflect, yes, that's just in this context, but it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to. Self-identity, I mean more the part of the ego, which sort of insists on this is my story and this I have experienced and this and that, whereas the self is more a larger, wider... A way of integrating and not a way of comparing or something like that. Yes. Yeah, I think that... Well, I love the... how you're able to notice yourself, Tara. This is great. I think it's an important point to note that we really do need for ordinary living a a way to explain ourselves to ourselves.

[15:38]

When you lose the context of of the explanatory self. Commonly, at least in English, this is called a nervous breakdown. You've lost your job, or some crisis happened in your life, and you just don't know, nothing makes sense anymore. You don't know why to do anything, etc. That can be a quite serious problem. So I think there's a couple of stages as for the practitioner. One is to begin to see your story as you're doing, as a story.

[16:46]

But as a needed story. And you use the story to find yourself within your life. Now, then, as your practice matures, you can bring in ways to make sense of experience that are not... tied to a personal narrative. So I'll speak about that tomorrow. You'll all have to listen at a distance. It looks like a strategy. From this point of view, my experience is that I change my history.

[18:02]

That it is not the way it came to be, but that I adapt it to the context in which I live now. That you change it? I change it. My memory or something, how do I adapt it to my new experience? How do I adapt my history? Internally. I change my story and having new experiences it is changed. You reintegrate them into your new story. And from that, what I tell myself to keep myself upright, to keep it functioning,

[19:06]

I adapt my past experience to keep a picture which is coherent. Yeah, I would call that growing up. In an ordinary sense. But it's a process most people struggle with. And practice really helps that process. And to be able to leave your previous selves behind. Yes, someone else. Yes, Atmar. And we have the question and I myself work along with it with intentions, what we work with intentions.

[20:17]

And I experience quite strongly I make or have an intention. And I could ask, of course, there might be something behind that which influences it. And when I sit in Zazen, and as you described it yesterday, when do I leave the party? When I would listen to my body, I would stand up and go. And my legs, they don't want to be folded up. And there is the intention and there is something like a strong I which we stay folded.

[21:20]

I find it interesting this sort of game where is intention, where is I, where is body. which I find interesting. Yeah, well, there's also, the body may signal an immediate want, but we have bigger wants, which is like to keep our legs folded. Does the body know the bigger want? I think so. That's your intention. But there's a lot of poems, Zen poems, about stretching the legs out. Someone else?

[22:21]

Yes. Yesterday you said that many decisions appear 200 milliseconds in consciousness after the actual decision. And has it been a sort of looked at if the contradictory intentions is that measurable, like what Ottmar said, referring to what Ottmar said.

[23:43]

Well, in the context of the research that's been done to confirm Libet's own research, And in that context, and the research that was undertaken to confirm or continue Libet's research, only very simple intentions like to notice this or that. The conflicted, ambivalent intentions that we all have, that's much more complex. But one of the The Eightfold Path starts with right views.

[25:03]

And the essence of the practice of right views, it really flows from the other seven of the Eightfold Path. But the essence of, if I just concentrate on speaking about the right views, or perfecting views is a more accurate translation. Is it you... Find ways to examine the views you do have, including unconscious or non-conscious views. Trying to nudge them into a...

[26:04]

consciousness or into awareness. And often we have views, you know, we may have a view like, let's make it really simple. The most basic view and instinctual view, I think, for the baby at birth, is the intention to stay alive. And if you threaten a baby with falling or something, they don't like that. But, in fact, many people have not made a vow to stay alive. They vowed either that they don't want to stay alive, really. or they vowed to stay alive only if they're successful or if they're something.

[27:34]

That, let's just, again, we've only got this morning for the seminar. I think everyone should explore their views until their primary view is the decision to stay alive. And then, how to stay alive? And in what relationship to others? That would be sorting out your views. Because you eventually want to come to a fundamental view, and that's called in the last koan, for instance, the true imperative.

[28:37]

That is so true. That it accepts contradictions, obstacles, etc., but maintains itself. But as far as I know, nobody has developed a psychological process to test the true imperative. But as far as I know, no one has ever found a psychological way to investigate this imperative. And this basic work, I wouldn't even call it Buddhism, this basic work that Buddhism lets us remember, Okay.

[29:40]

Someone else. Yes. I'm born, yeah. And to a different time, a point of time where all you others are born. And I die. And not everyone else is dying, but the ones who are staying behind or staying alive go on living in a consensual world, more or less. Which means I'm rather independent. Yeah, okay. That's a fact. Yeah, and at the same time we believe that the self which doesn't change, although the whole life is a process.

[30:51]

And we can recognize it analytically that this is a process, the whole life is a process. Still there remains the I-ness or the ego-ness and Tara says which stays on and Tara says it's an integration, central integration agency. The self gets more flexible when it perceives of itself not as singular but more of different selves. But the belief or the identity of this, that what is observing it, is what?

[31:55]

Is nearly indestructible. And would be destroyed or destructed would lead to madness. If the observer or the central integrating agency wouldn't sort of reappear somehow. But there are moments where the feeling of I-ness is not there. Very short periods. There it was. I saw it. Yeah. You need an ice water. What I ask myself is what's wrong with that?

[33:07]

When I remember a feeling, which was five years ago, which is quite clear, And I have the feeling the one who experienced it five years ago is the same one as sitting here. What's wrong with that? Well, I suppose that the context of what we're talking about implies something's wrong with that, but I don't think anything's wrong with that. So then we have a question, why does this context of practice, as we're speaking about it, imply there's something wrong with that? Yeah. Okay, maybe I can imagine something about that.

[34:17]

Yes, Maureen? What is that? And that's not why it's something different. So the experiences I had five years ago, I can't think of them anymore and I can feel them again. But it will always be a different feeling, a different look back that you also had at first, just this past, which is not in the present moment, in the present moment. It's always a different feeling, a different experience in between. But it's a different feeling what you had from what you had now. If we look at it backwards, the experience must be different. Say that again? I shortened it a little bit. It was a question, isn't it? Now doesn't feel different now than five years ago.

[35:26]

It does not that. Only this little part makes the difference. Yeah, of course. But the more sensitive you are, one second ago felt different. Yeah. How about how? It's American movies, you know. The Indians meet each other. How? They thought the Indians were very philosophical. I have the feeling that there is something, or at least temporarily it feels like that, that there is something more that integrates the different things that you described, Maureen, and also Ottmar, where there is room for both.

[36:27]

Of course, I also know clear memories of what I have experienced, and some things do not seem to change. And the dimming and changing memories too. But it is ... There's a feeling, there's a sort of bigger space where the different aspects of this remembering clearly, seemingly being the same, but also at the same time being different, which integrates all this, where there's room for all these different aspects. That's okay. We will stop in a minute, by the way. In the past, when I had not yet practiced Buddhism, I was also in a state of fear. former times when I hadn't yet practiced Buddhism there were bouts of anxiety when I noticed that I had more than one or different selves and I think our practice and the teaching helps me these different

[38:10]

And the practice and the teachings help me to open up to that, that is, the human aspects. I now can see the things as they really are, which makes me grounded and more localized. It gives me a feeling of safety and security. Can you say that again, please? The localization where I happen to have a body at the moment in the world.

[39:39]

the differentiation of my experiencing the senses which is also a kind of education which I'm doing. And the identifying with the more observing self? That gives more vivaciousness, more vividness, more aliveness. For me, it's about what Roshi said, to want to be alive and to simply do it. Otherwise, there is nothing. And it's about what you said about wanting to be alive and doing this wholeheartedly until it's not more possible.

[40:57]

And it's an interesting question how the aliveness itself appears or shows up. Yeah. And I find it important that this comes into being in a relationship. So it needs quite distinctly two people. And there's a mystery or a secret in these relationships. Yeah. What we say, it takes two to tango, right? It takes two to dharma. Yes. Yes. and yesterday looking back of the history of my life I could experience and from my childhood on not up until not too long ago a few years ago

[42:28]

I have defined it more about other people and about my doing so that I do it without asking myself or myself. And I defined myself more through my surroundings and other people and didn't question me and myself. After a life crisis I heard about psychotherapy that I have to find myself first. and coming through a crisis in my life and psychotherapy I learned that I had first to find myself at all. I don't have to look for it, but it is much easier to perceive myself in silence, through this sense that I had yesterday.

[43:55]

In silence, you say? In silence, through my sense, to perceive myself at all, so that I don't have to make any effort to search for myself. Yesterday it came up to me that I don't have to look for a self, I don't have to seek for a self, just in stillness and through my senses I found it. Good. And I also spoke about it yesterday, a real self or a false self, did I actually live a false self because I lived it foreign? And yesterday we talked about also a right and a wrong self, so to say, and being determined by others in former times, and did I live a sort of wrong or false self? For me it's, I don't mind, I don't care. Good. So I certainly noticed that Maureen and Atmar were going to say something, but I really think we should also take a break.

[45:06]

So, you know, I feel we're in a sacred place. And a sacred place which is also a place to practice. Or to be, you know, let's call it practice. And I'm looking forward to being here again after the break. During the break, I won't be far away.

[45:36]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_74.26