As usual, most of you asked to have small groups this afternoon. speaking in German and also to speak from your own experience. But let me say a few things first. Even joining, you're sitting here for a few moments. I feel a kind of soft space. Yeah. A receptive. space, almost as if there was a cushion under me, under my knees.

[01:11]

I mean, there is a cushion, but I don't know. And I feel this soft space. And when I feel this soft space, is when I also feel a kind of mutuality with you. When I started this morning, I said I'm a little shy to speak into your consciousness. Yeah, and I do feel that way, and that was true this morning. It's not exactly different now. That's also true. But the also true is important, the also.

[02:16]

Because what is also true for me now is I don't feel so much I'm speaking into your consciousness. And then I feel I'm speaking into a shared space which includes your individual consciousnesses but there's also a feeling of overlap. Now there's a book that I know people at Johanneshof are reading, Metzener or something, a German name, The Ego Tunnel.

[03:25]

And I haven't... I haven't studied the book at all yet. So I don't really know what his thesis is. But the cover of the book says the legs don't... itself doesn't exist. And I suppose from a neurobiological point of view, maybe he's looking for evidence. In that sense, he's right, maybe, or at least neurobiologically right. But I shouldn't speak about it from just looking at something on the cover. I should give him more credit than that, which I will do.

[04:26]

Twisted. Buddhism would certainly say the self is an illusion. But the self is not an entity. Maybe Buddhism would say it's a function. Because certainly, again, if you read the large... Prajnaparamita Sutra. It repeatedly calls on the practitioner to do this and that. Yeah, to, for example, meet each person with an even mind. Well, how do you meet each person with an even mind without some sense of self as agency?

[05:44]

But aside from that, I think this list I put up here And could you mind if you move it so I can see it? A little toward the wall. Well, that's good. But let her see it too. Can you see it? Okay. Thanks, that's fine. Thank you. Sorry to disturb your cross-legged. I think that for most of us, we would say that this, you know, at least particularly the upper part is

[06:50]

is universal. I don't care whether you're a Buddhist or any other creature. If you touch your forehead, there's some feeling. And so forth, a sense of location, observation. So if this list is obvious, And let me come back to that in a moment. Although Buddhism would say that certainly the self is an illusion. But the experience of it, it's an illusion as if it were some sort of unit.

[07:54]

Except, as I've said the other day, self keeps sneaking back into Buddhism all the time. And sometimes it doesn't sneak in. Sometimes it bangs at the door. And when it bangs at the door, it's called Buddha nature. Here I am, Buddha nature. Here I am. But certainly the experience of self is undeniable. So what do we do with the experience of self?

[09:01]

What are the modulations of the experience of self? Okay, now let's go back and take this list that seems mostly obvious and universal. Then where, how, if it is universal, then there can't be all these different cultures with different senses of self and so forth. Where are the entries? Well, I mean, an obvious and a perplexing one is the shaman who travels a great deal, a great distance from his body.

[10:06]

Well, I know some people who feel they do this. So what do they have? Then they have somehow their interiority can move in the exterior world. While their body remains in a trance state or something on an army cot. I don't know army cot. So they have two interiorities or at least one that can travel and an exteriority which stays in place.

[11:08]

And then we have the widespread belief in reincarnation, which is also one of the main ways self sneaks back into Buddhism. Some kind of interiority goes to the next life, or as if there were a next life. But when I say there's some kind of soft mutual space here, that's some kind of Shared interiority. And am I now not speaking into your consciousness, but speaking and we're speaking together within ourselves, within a shared interiority.

[12:21]

Yeah, now interiority is also Another entry, you know, I mean in many, in more group cultures, you don't feel your interiority belongs to you. It belongs to your culture. I think in Western history, St. Augustine was the first person to really talk about the interior and the soul and the exterior. I've read anyway that Plato, maybe twice in all his writings mentions any distinction between inside and outside.

[13:28]

Certainly in many cultures anyway, your inside is almost inseparable from your outside. The polis, the city, the state is your inside as well. And when we all drive on the right side of the road, The correct, you know, is the right side. Yeah, anyway. Not the side we get hit on. What are we, how our culture is interiorized there. And for Americans who cross the street whenever they want, It is very funny to be in Germany and find people standing at 3am at a red light.

[14:37]

with nobody around waiting for the light to change. And if you say anything about it, they say, well, it's a bad example for children. And I look at windows to see what children are looking out. Oh, no. Well, if you carry this a lot further, the interior and exterior differences begin to blur. And in many cultures, the husband, the wife, the interiority of the wife belongs to the husband. And in Gelscher's, the interiority of everyone belongs to the polis.

[15:46]

So it seems to be a particular, the degree to which we think the interiority belongs nearly entirely to ourselves, seems to be primarily a cultural creation of Christianity. Buddhist cultures don't have this strong sense of the separate individual responsible for him or herself. And in fact, Buddhist practice in Buddhism Well, I should have said Asian cultures.

[16:53]

And within Asian cultures, Buddhist practices are considered to be developing the individual that's separate from the culture. In Asia, Buddhist practices are seen as developing individuality. Which amused me in the 60s. Because I felt I was demonstrating a... a practice of individuality, Buddhist individuality. But our center was considered one of the main communes

[17:59]

in America because of the interpersonal skills of the Sangha interpersonal interpersonal skills and because it came from Asian group culture It wasn't seen as a practice of individuality. It was seen as a practice of communality. And the San Francisco Zen Center had the reputation of being the longest lasting commune from the 60s and in American history. It was written up that way. So what in Asian cultures is a practice of developing individuality separate from the culture.

[19:13]

It at the same time has characteristics of a group culture. And going back to the idea of the 90-day practice period, etc., etc., is part of establishing, one of the intentions is to separate yourself from your culture. And one way that's done is there's no social space. I mean, there is some, there has to be some. But my relationship to practitioners is supposed to be, and I find it most satisfying when it's not social. It's only practice. So in this list, interiority has a lot of doors to other ways of

[20:42]

And democracy and the European Union and all that depend on the individual responsibility of the experience of interiority. Yeah. Yeah. And then the advertisers try to capture it. The advertisers try to capture it. I want your interiority. It needs to be more fashionable. And then the other places where there's entries here is knowledge, wisdom, mastery. And there's a difference between knowledge and wisdom.

[22:03]

And maybe I won't discuss that now. But knowledge at least is about knowing more. And wisdom is about knowing in a way that you can transform. Yeah, I don't know how to, I can't find the words for what I would like to say. But mastery is not the point, really. In Buddhism, it's the ability to transform your narrative. It's not about controlling your narrative, but transforming your narrative.

[23:14]

And ideally, transforming your narrative so much it doesn't need control. The ten oxherding pictures. No. Couple more things I'd like to say while we, before we break up into groups. Is one of the aspects of practice, which is maybe not in this list very explicitly, is turning is embodied knowledge, embodied intelligence, and turning your activity over to that embodied.

[24:17]

And I'm practicing it all the time. But, you know, again, like intuition, you can trust your intuition. And as we know, and what I call the Libet Effect, Because Mr. Libet, a psychologist, discovered that if you wire the brain up, the arm is going to... You know all this. There's a significant lag between the brain showing the arm is going to move and the conscious... perception that you're going to move.

[25:22]

Now, as I've talked about before, I noticed that long before Mr. Libet's research, well, ten years before anyway, long in my life, Because what happens if you meditate regularly is the territory of consciousness begins to overlap with what's called unconsciousness, but I would call it non-consciousness. And I simply noticed that my body decided to do things before my consciousness And then my consciousness liked to pretend it was in charge.

[26:28]

And it would delay the decision just to show it had the power. And it did have the power. It could decide to do something else. But in the minutia of activity it was primarily the role of editor, not decider. So now the agency of self is also bodily as well as conscious.

[27:28]

Now, can you trust your body all the time? I I really do intentionally practice turning every decision I can over to my body. I mean, in simple ways. Probably do the same thing. I don't decide whether I'm going to have coffee or tea. I just open the cupboard and whatever I pull out, I have. I don't decide so much what I'm going to say. I just start saying. Even tell. However, The body is actually just one voice among other voices.

[28:33]

When they've had people with the right brain, left brain cut. you have very funny situations. The left brain is enjoying reading something. And the right brain doesn't like intellectual activity too much. So in these two situations, hemispheres are separated. The left hand is trying to throw the book away while the right hand is trying to hold it and read it. And there was somebody else who he would dress himself with his left hand and his right hand would keep on... No. Yeah, and his right hand would keep undressing him. It makes me think of my oldest daughter when she's now 40.

[29:36]

Eight, seven, I don't know. I cannot have a nearly 50-year-old daughter. It's not possible. Anyway, when she was, I don't know, two or something, we were at the San Francisco airport. She just suddenly was naked. And we said... Put your clothes back on, Sally. She said, I said, why did you take them off? She said, doesn't everyone want to take them off? I said, well, maybe so. But we don't do it. So with your right hand, please put your clothes back on, even if your left hand wants to take them off. So the body is only one voice, and sometimes it's the left brain or right brain, but you can trust it sometimes more than reason, but you can't trust it completely. And when I spoke about location here, I spoke about, I didn't really point out that, of course, I mean I did, but I didn't put it on the list, that there's...

[31:07]

spatial location and temporal location. And that should be discussed. But I'm talking too much. I know. I mean, you can only stand so much. The technique is to talk so much that people stop consciously listening and they listen with their, you know, hip bone. You don't even know you're listening anymore and I'm just pouring it in. But I don't really try to do that. I know it's a technique. But sometimes it probably happens anyway. That's why we have sashins.

[32:20]

Only once a day, I think. But I have such fun exploring this stuff with you. And you can be sure, again, I wouldn't be sitting here in an empty room doing this. I wouldn't know what to say. So what questions should we look at? Anybody have any suggestions? Yes. I would like to ask if this list could be a circle or had to be a circle. Yes. Well, we could put them all on cards and shuffle them in any order you like. Okay, so what does your practice How does your practice relate to the experience of self?

[33:41]

I have no way of knowing what you're talking about, since you're going to be talking about it in a foreign language. But I'll suggest that we speak about it. What does practice have to do with the sense of self and experience of self? So I'll leave the next step to you. Your job, what you're paid for. Oh, by the way, I have these pictures of Picasso here. I have them as bookmarks. And Cubist paintings. That's kind of interesting. I'll just leave them here. This person is in two parts.

[34:48]

One part is darkened and one part is more light. And one part seems to be dressing herself and the other, no, I don't know about that. But you know, in Japanese anime and Japanese cartoons, it's very, very common to have a, uh... a, um... conflicted person. To have one side of the face dark and one side light. Or darkness appear in the eye and get bigger and bigger in some pictures and less in other pictures. And if you ask Japanese people about it I've never been able to get an answer from them.

[35:53]

What does this mean that it's suddenly dark on this card? I don't know, it's just normal. But it wasn't there before. Well, the artist just decided to draw it that way. Oh, okay. There is very little consciousness of it, but it's very present visually. And this one's great. Here's this woman sitting there. This is modern self. Here she is, and she's You've got a very complex exterior. You have a complex exterior world until you notice that the complex exterior world is painted on an easel. So she's painted, but her exterior world is also a painting. Oh, okay.

[36:48]

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