Good afternoon. Tomorrow, there's some things I can speak about. That, yeah, I'm looking forward to exploring with you. And it's always an exploration. And as I often point out, to the extent that this is a personal exploration, you helped me in that personal exploration. Because somehow your presence gives me permission to think about things that I wouldn't just sitting at my desk say. Weil irgendwie ist es so, dass eure Gegenwart mir die Erlaubnis dazu gibt, über Dinge nachzudenken, die ich, wenn ich jetzt einfach an meinem Schreibtisch säße, über die ich nicht nachdenken würde.

[01:17]

Und wenn ich meinen Schreibtisch verlasse und Zazen mache, Zazen gives me permission to think of things that I wouldn't think of sitting at my desk. Think of things isn't quite right. Because I don't think my way to these things, these mental formations that appear. I notice them. Or I create ways in which noticing occurs. Or I create ways in which noticing occurs.

[02:18]

Or, you know, like I would never see this. I'd sit at my desk and think, oh, I'm noticing, you know. But then, but if I think, if I notice these mental formations myself, I am As I speak them, I think, well, geez, I can already see lots, because there's an inner debating process going on. I see lots of gaps. And try to make, for anybody, try to make sense of what I'm saying. So then I try to fill in the gaps for your sake.

[03:28]

But filling in the gaps for you makes me start filling in gaps I hadn't noticed myself. So I'm continuously surprised by what a difference it makes to be in the midst of face-to-face practice and teaching. And I thank you for that. Yeah. And if the I'm saying mental formations because I don't want to say thoughts. If the mental formations that appear in zazen are different from the ones that appear at my desk and are different from the ones that appear when I'm speaking with you

[04:45]

then there cannot be a permanent self. Because circumstances change the self that notices mental formation. Because we can say it has to be a different kind of self, at least a modulated self of some kind. Because what can be more basic than the mental formations that appear that show me what the world is? Okay, so then we can say, let's say there's a, let's call it a reflexive self.

[06:18]

There's definitely not a, I mean, basic teaching in Buddhism, there's no permanent self and no inherent self. Now, I don't know how that comes across in Deutsch. But a permanent self would be a self that's the same moment after moment. And an inherent self would be a self that's present from the very beginning and you're just working out your fate. And Buddhism says there's no inherent self. As well as no permanent self.

[07:23]

And in most people's experience, they're quite willing to say, yeah, I don't have a permanent self. Well, various experiences have occurred to me and I change and develop. But there's a kind of embedded inherent self in us. An interesting that I say in us. In what? In who? In us. Where is that? In us. I mean, it's in this pocket right here. Because it's very common for us to think, oh, that's the kind of person I am. If you think that strongly, then you have a sense of an inherent self.

[08:34]

I'm that kind of person. I'll always be that kind of person. And most of us have a significant degree of inherency lurking in the shadows of the self. Maybe I should have taken up theater. That was a reference obscure to all of you because that was a reference to, there was a radio program called The Shadow Knows. That was before TV. Even before computers.

[09:48]

There was a time before TV. And the program would say, nobody knows that. And then you'd hear this eerie voice say, the shadow knows. The speaker on the radio said, no, nobody knows that. And then you hear from the background, eerie, what does eerie mean? Eerie? Eerie? It's a lake, Lake Eerie. No, eerie means strange. Ghostly? And then there was a ghostly voice from the background who laughed and said, the shadow knows it. Yeah. So you can sort of try to examine your way you think about yourself to notice the degree to which you believe in an inherency. And we like the concept of inherency.

[10:54]

Because it gives a storyline to the narrative identity, the narrative self. Because in one sense we have a narrative identity, a story about us that our parents told us and we tell ourselves and we live out that story. Weil wir in gewisser Weise so eine narrative Identität haben, eine Geschichte, die unsere Eltern uns über uns erzählt haben, die wir uns erzählen. Und in gewisser Weise leben wir jetzt diese Geschichte. Und wir leben in dieser Geschichte. Und wenn du beleidigt werden kannst, dann lebst du in dieser Geschichte. And I mean, of course, all of us can be hurt by somebody.

[12:19]

But if you're hurt because somebody just doesn't like you, It's painful because they don't like you. But if it's painful because they don't understand you, that's a little more like you want them to know what your story is. Now I'm wrapping on about this. Und ich gehe da jetzt mal weiter. Because I'm trying to unwrap, excuse me, I'm trying to unwrap a way to notice the continuum of self.

[13:21]

Weil ich versuche, eine Art, wie man das continuum des Selbst bemerken kann, das versuche ich auszuklamüsern, auszupacken. And as I said, tomorrow I will have certain things I would like to speak about. I'd like to speak about them because I find them exciting and interesting. Ways of noticing the self-continuum. In a way of transforming and supplementing the self-continuum. That comes from meditation practice and Buddhist teachings. But today I don't want to go there. Today I just want to sort of muddle along with you and in myself. What's funny?

[14:22]

Muddle along with you. That's funny. When I say it, it's funny. I guess it's funny when I say it too. How the heck do we notice this invisible self? Which is the world for us. It's the self which notices the world. So the self notices the self-world. And it doesn't notice what's not the self-world.

[15:27]

I mean, even if I notice coat hangers, I know what coat hangers are. So there's sort of something I've used, put coats on and so forth. So it's not simply just information. When I was in a hotel the other day and the guy who brought the luggage of myself and my wife and my daughter up to the room whipped into the closet, opened the closet real quickly, took out four hangers, hooked them together and made a chain, which then he hooked on the door, held the door open so he could bring the luggage in. I never would have thought of that.

[16:38]

I said, that was a clever way to keep the door open. Oh yeah, we have to know these tricks, he said. That's not my kind of clothing. So now you have to give it a little bit of thought to notice that really the way we typify the world is a reification of self. Jung seems to have had a rather peculiar idea toward the end of his life. It seems that Jung had a rather strange idea towards the end of his life.

[17:47]

That the whole Earth was just a projection of a UFO. And why he thought the spaceship was more real than the Earth, I have no idea. Yeah, but just imagine the spaceship said, there's Andreas. Beam him up. So Andreas is beamed up to the spaceship. And everything's totally different. All things are hung together with cord hangers. I mean, nothing is the same. Very quickly, Andreas, even though he's an extremely flexible, reflexive guy, Although Andreas is an enormously flexible and especially reflexive guy, he would still be lost.

[19:04]

He wouldn't know what his self was or what the world was. He said, no, I would be fine. I'd be in charge of the spaceship already. Within a few hours. Or he would say, no, I'll just take over the whole spaceship within a few hours. What we're talking about, nobody has solved this problem. There's no philosopher, nobody has solved the problem we're talking about. There have been a lot of smart and astute thoughts about it, which we can use as toothpicks and chisels. But really, Zen says you just have to start observing. Find ways to observe the self until you know the self as an other as well as your way of functioning. beginne das Selbst so lange zu beobachten, bis du es sowohl als das Andere bemerkst, sowie auch als das Eigene.

[20:32]

What does it mean to know... Sorry, no, as an other as well as a way to function, right? Yeah. Also sowohl als etwas, das Andere zu bemerken, als auch als eine Art und Weise zu funktionieren. Usually the self is the limit of our universe. We see all the contents but we don't see ourselves as one of the contents. And we're a content and you're a content and something's happening. So to see yourself as just one of the contents And to let that really penetrate. It's like the dictum to bring attention to attention. Now we're bringing attention to the self. Okay. That's that little bit.

[21:50]

No, I didn't intend that. I don't know where it came from, but it's your fault. I wouldn't have thought about it. So take responsibility. You're one of the contents here. You may think you're just, it's just like that sign I saw outside of, you've heard me say this a number of times, outside of Dortmund or someplace. There was a construction zone. And it had a big sign, a billboard, somebody had written on a billboard. You think you're in a stow. But you are the stow. These are hard things for us to think.

[22:57]

Hey, I'm not in a stow, I am a stow. Very happy to be a stow today. How about you? We're a content here. And as a content, we all have responsibilities. And that responsibility is not the same as thinking, I'm the universe and I'm just in a style, I'm not the style. Sorry, can you repeat please? If you just think you're the limits of the universe, Which is really kind of what's going on when you function through the self. Then you don't think you're a stow.

[24:00]

You're just in a stow. But So you don't have any responsibility for the stow. But strangely, when you recognize you are the stow, then you recognize you have a responsibility. So you can't simply be an observer in this seminar. Do you think you can come to a seminar, sit in the back, not really be part of it? You're wrong. You can play that game with yourself, but you'll always be an ineffectual, unimportant person. I'm of course exaggerating.

[25:18]

But not entirely. A realized person knows in every situation they're part of the realization. There's no way out. Even if you're a flaneur in the crowds at night, selbst wenn du einfach inmitten der Massen in der Nacht flanierst. The flaneurs of the Parisian streets, Baudelaire and all that, flaneure der Pariser Straßen, are part of what creates a city. All these are parts of what creates a city. Don't interrupt me, I have a responsibility as a flaneur. Unterbrich mich nicht, ich habe eine Verantwortung als flaneur. Do you know what a flaneur is everybody?

[26:18]

It's a creation of, sort of, of lighting cities at night. Because before there was street lighting, oil or electric. Rich people traveled in carriages. Nobody was on the streets. It was dangerous. And so only so-called upper class or rich people went out at night. Once there's street lighting, then ordinary people aren't working, they can go out at night. Then there was the excitement of all these people on the street. And the flaneur was the observer of the excitement.

[27:39]

Yeah, I don't know, that's... photo truth. Yeah, so I'm trying to create scenery for the reflexive self. Okay. Now, what else... Breath is also obviously some kind of continuum.

[28:41]

You keep repeating it as long as you're alive. Your heartbeat is some kind of continuum. And of course the whole operation of the gut and the organs is a continuum. Most of it we don't notice. Yeah, I mean, in fact, when you start really noticing your heartbeat as a meditator, it can be kind of scary at first. But, I mean, when you notice your breathing, it's not so scary. There's another one coming. But when you really notice your heartbeat... Maybe there won't be another one.

[29:45]

You have no control over it. It seems like you have no control over it. But part of meditation practice is to begin to know, feel the functioning of the organs just as part of being alive. And as stress affects your organs, so does the organs in the midst of an intentional presence affects the organs usually positively. Makes you healthier. And you're more aware of how fragile it is and how easy it is for it to be out of balance.

[30:53]

Okay, so I've been trying to speak about how to notice the continuum of self. And how to notice breath is also a continuum. And you can be aware of your heartbeat, but generally it's not so easy to do or as effective as a practice as being aware of your breath. But what is another constant? Obviously the body is another constant. Then the question is, is the body as a continuum, what's its interrelationship with the self as a continuum.

[32:27]

Now, when we came to the hotel, Andreas picked us up at the train station. And so we came into the hotel, which has changed its name. It's the same hotel, they're just paying somebody else for the name. In other words, it's a franchise and they changed from Mercure to What is it called? Windham. Windham. Windham. So I guess it's basically a different reservation system, but the same hotel. So for some reason, I said to Andreas, do you want to have a cup of coffee or join us for a few minutes?

[33:41]

the coffee I almost didn't pay for he said I have time and he said I have time because as you've taught me I am time you said something like that right but most of you I haven't taught you that you are time so now do I have time to teach you that you are time Let's find out after we have time to take a break.

[34:28]

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