Does anyone have anything you want to say or suggestions for what we might speak about? And I have... Yeah. Yes. I'm here for the first time and I think it's very interesting. And I partly find it really interesting. And on the other hand I ask myself, where does it all come from? Where does it end? On the other hand, I ask myself, what is all this about? Where will it end? Where will it go?

[01:01]

I want to add something. we, or I, or whatever triggers me to do more, to sit more, to study the mind more. And then I ask myself, or I say to myself, In the end I have to force myself somehow to do things again and what for and where does it lead to?

[02:08]

It seems to be something that I know to become a better therapist, to become more spiritual, there's not much difference to what I know already. Like it. Just thinking about the program we had yesterday. I have the feeling that it's light and playful and there's the sentence, nowhere to go, nothing to do, as a contrast, so to speak.

[03:29]

I'm covering this. It's a little bit more like I say yes to what and who I am right now. The rest, sometimes I feel I push myself. Well, what you've said is my concern. I'm very hesitant to, as I said earlier, I'm hesitant to sit with... I find it uncomfortable to sit with people who find it uncomfortable to sit.

[04:34]

Unless this is the decision they've made. If they just happen to be here and we're sitting and I think, oh... That's why I let you decide the amount of time, 30 minutes or whatever. Okay, so in a similar way, I really have a hesitation about bringing up things that I don't see that at least some of you, even if there's only one or two, but there's more than that, who won't have the context to carry this forward. And that's one of the reasons I'm changing my schedule next year to only do two seminars a year in Europe.

[05:48]

So I'll do one. It looks like what they're working on is I'll do three one-week seminars At Johanneshof. During the six months I'm in Europe. And then outside of Johanneshof, I'll do one in... Austria and one in northern Germany, maybe Hannover. So I can really just really mostly talk with practice with people who have Their life is arranged so they can continue the development of the practice.

[06:54]

So I don't want to speak about anything that makes you or anyone else feel, oh, do I have to do these things to become... Your life, you or everyone's life to me looks great. I don't want to interfere. So I would like to speak about things that are only specifically useful to those of you who are therapists. That's not so easy to do. What I think is useful is in a context where then I have to explain the context and then pretty soon we're in a big territory.

[08:08]

Now, three or four people, Ralph and two or three other people, told me before lunch that... So many different ways of looking at psychotherapy are here. The one thing we have in common is an interest in Buddhism. Just talk about Buddhism. But I don't want to ever convince anybody to practice Buddhism. If you do it, that's your mistake. I'm speaking about my feelings.

[09:20]

I don't know if you understand. No, but I'm just speaking about my feelings. Yeah, so... But I also hope that... Well, if I can make what I'm saying interesting enough, it might amuse you while you're here. And I don't know how to make it interesting except to speak about what's really thoroughly interesting to me. But what does seem to be the case sometimes, what I hope and what my intention is, is some of the things become seeds which later let you notice something or develop something.

[10:24]

Over the years, what I've been doing now, some decades, is I find the most fruitful thing to do To make practice understandable. To work with our overall world views, attitudes and so forth. So I'm glad you gave me an excuse to say all that. Do you want to add something to what I said? I just tried what we heard this morning, namely this room of

[11:36]

While I was listening to you, I was trying to practice the mind, space, with contents and without contents. Oh, good! It was a big help. We've made progress already. So I have some... From what we've spoken about so far, I... There's something I think might be, you know, I can feel like I could bring up, but let me wait a minute and see if anybody else wants to say something. I have two questions.

[12:49]

One is that David Bohm talks about the state of mind in which feelings, thoughts, physical sensations are connected and related to another without... The implicate order. Without the running over the ego. Usually the ego, the eyes... thought as being the connector and that's why we think it's so important. But if not the I, who is the connector or what connects? German, please. Okay. David Bohm plays for a state of mind in which physical sensations, thoughts, feelings, etc. are connected and connected to each other without the I running. Normally we experience the I as the connecter, the agent, and that's why it's so important for us to ask ourselves, if the I connects, who or what connects? The second question is, you talked about awareness, consciousness and all these things, always in terms of space, almost.

[13:56]

That makes sense to me, but somehow it's also kind of limited. Would that be, from the Buddhist point of view, another way of talking about, I don't know, time or effects or causing effects or energy? I don't know, no idea, but maybe you have an idea. The second question is that Becker-Rosche always speaks of consciousness and awareness in terms of space. And the question is whether there would be other possibilities from a Buddhist point of view to talk about this, perhaps in the area of cause and effect, energy patterns or ... I have no idea. Okay. Someone else? I'm not ignoring you, yeah. I have two very different questions.

[14:58]

I have two very different questions. One is, what is the consequence of seeing to the unconscious as a container or as an infalt? What is the consequence of this? What is the consequence of seeing to the unconscious as a container or as an infalt? Why is that so difficult? This is a funny word sometimes, to fold in. It has different meanings in German. And the other question is very personal. And the other question is very personal. My little son had some time ago, so it's already a bit back, he cried bitterly and cried and cried from the depth of his soul and saw that he had to die and his parents had to die and that everything was in vain. So my son some time ago really cried very hard when he realized, he's 12 I think.

[15:59]

Now he's 12 and he was 10. That he in some time future has to die and his parents also have to die. And it was very deep coming out that everything is really impermanent. And then after a while he said, Mom, and my biggest fear is that God is a fairy tale. I was very happy that I had a Christian background to hold, give him support. What would you tell him that goes through your mind as a Buddhist and a Buddhist father? What would you give him as an answer to tell him? Well, I don't know if I'd give him an answer, but I'd certainly accept.

[17:12]

I suppose I would say that's the way it is. No answer. I mean, I told some of you that I didn't tell you the story of Sophia and Easter. Well, it's such a... Sophia, who's four, wanted to know a few months ago, what the heck Easter is all about. Marie-Louise, having gone to good Catholic or lousy Catholic boarding schools, felt she tried to explain Christmas and Good Friday and And she said, the Easter was when Jesus rose from the dead.

[18:20]

And Sophia said, what did you say, Mama? Easter was when Jesus rose from the dead. And she said, the Easter was when Jesus rose from the dead. She said, but Mama, he must be the only man who's ever done that. And Marie-Louise said, well, that's the story. And Sophia said, but Mama, is that story true? And... Marie said, well, that's the story. And Marie-Louise said, I mean, Sophia said, well, when they come to nail me to the wall, I'm going to Egypt.

[19:22]

Woher hat sie das genommen? Also wenn sie kommen und mich annageln wollen, dann gehe ich nach Ägypten. Aber in welche Richtung ist denn Ägypten? Sie wollte den Fluchtweg sehr klar haben. And responding to your unconscious, the metaphor of the container. I think that, well, first of all, the idea of the unconscious is all over the world now. It's a fact for most people. And so I think if you know it's a metaphor and it's useful as a metaphor, you just use it. And if you find the metaphor of enfoldment more useful, you use that.

[20:40]

Again, knowing it's only a metaphor. What's interesting, I think, is that how metaphors carry attention. And as does language. But a metaphor is more like a computer chip than just wiring. It's a very complex conveyor and transformer of attention. So an intention is also a carrier of attention. Now, let me mention two... So now I'm just talking about Buddhism now, and what I think is common sense.

[22:15]

No, there's no idea of natural. So everything is something that might become natural, but it becomes natural through practice. So in a culture like that, You know, everything is something you're participating in. It's an emergent property or something like that. So there are practices. Like you practice something like... Noticing without thinking. And the example of the anger is such a thing.

[23:22]

You're noticing the anger, but you're not thinking about it. And practice would be now, I notice each of you. Without thinking, I just notice you. And it's a kind of trusting of the senses. You asked what organizes the implicate order. Basically, it orders itself. And practice in that sense is to let it order itself. And when we learn how to let things organize themselves without interfering, you have more an implicate order than an explicit order.

[24:29]

You're sitting here and you're sitting here and I'm sitting here. What's ordering us? First of all, there's just simple location. Okay. So thinking without, I mean, noticing without thinking. Wahrnehmen ohne zu denken. Or we can also say, a little more precisely, as they say in a koan, hold to the moment before thought arises. Und wenn wir das ein bisschen genauer beschreiben, wie es in einem koan beschrieben wird, an dem Moment festhalten, bevor die Gedanken aufsteigen. Okay, so what's that? Was ist das? Well, first of all, you can't do it unless you practice mindfully.

[25:37]

So in this sense, is this Buddhism or not? This is just a kind of science of how we perceive. And strictly speaking, Zen especially isn't a religion at all. It's a kind of science of how we know things. But once you hear the words, hold to the moment before thought arises, there's a kind of energy, attention carried in those words. The phrase goes on, and look into not seeing. Seeing, not seeing, then let it go. But that's a little unnecessary.

[26:46]

The important part is hold to the moment before thought arises. So a practice I would give my client if I was a therapist is every time you think of it when you enter a door Stop in the doorway a moment. Pause in the doorway a moment. I like to point out in English the word for entrance is entrance. Yes. And so if when you come into a door, you pause for a moment and feel the room, don't think the room.

[27:54]

So these are just habits you develop. You open the door, you just feel the room, you don't think the room, and then you can think as much as you want. Through such little Pavlovian techniques, you're getting used to or opening to something closer to initial mind. And closer to being able to imagine or Act in, hold to the moment before thought arises.

[28:58]

Okay. And then just let thought arise or whatever arises. And you're beginning to find how each moment is actually an appearance. Now, another yogic practice is to just look at the particular in the field. The field and the particular. Don't think you already know how to see. All you have to do is look around, your eyes are going to do the work. Which is already a habit of seeing, it's just a lazy habit of seeing. Okay.

[30:13]

You see how lazy I am at German. Anyway. He's been telling me 20 years, please learn German. I stopped saying that. 15 years ago. Okay. His compassion began to overtake his concern. I can barely speak English. I'm struggling to see if I can fit this into words. So you just get in the habit, as I have naturally, it's a natural habit to me, I notice, without thinking, this particularity, and then I feel the field of view as an object, and then I notice the particularity.

[31:24]

Also, mir ist es schon... And this is a very fundamental way of seeing in Buddhist practice. It takes many forms. And the most fundamental metaphor in Buddhism is motion and stillness. And that's done unrelated to form and emptiness. Okay, so you look at a tree. And if you have this feeling of the field of the tree and the specific of the tree. Now, a tree is usually ready to move or moving.

[32:27]

And I always find it, for some reason, deeply touching that trees have different microclimates of movement. One part of the tree moves quite a bit, another moves very slowly. And I feel, I experience it again and again as very touching that trees have different microclimates But even in the various movements, there's stillness because they're all sharing the same root system of trunk. So in the movement of the leaves returning to the stillness of the trunk, you can feel the stillness. And if you practice this way of seeing of field and particular, it's a practice that relates to what?

[33:42]

seeing a tree and knowing its stillness in its movement. And then with individuals you can feel their movement and also their wishing to return to stillness or even their true nature. Sukhiroshi used to speak about some innermost request we have. Some way in which, you know, not something mysterious exactly, just... a request to feel deeply comfortable, let's say.

[35:01]

So when you are with a person, you can feel one part of them wants to be their true nature or inner request, and another part is caught expressing all kinds of other things. So you can relate to people in, I think, a deeper way, a more connected way, with, you know, the help of this simple act, way of seeing and hearing and so forth. And I think we can connect much deeper with people and get much deeper contact when we practice this practice.

[36:06]

Okay. Now, someone sent me recently a bunch of little black... You may have seen it. Somebody sent it in a fax machine. Some little black lines and four dots in the middle. So, Yudita gave it to me. He said, you're supposed to stare at these four dots. Oh, I hate this. I always find it a little annoying. They're kind of schmaltzy always. I was prepared for a little schmaltz. But I said, okay, I'll stare at the four dots. And after a moment I saw, yes, there was Jesus Christ. And it just was a fleeting moment, but there it was.

[37:08]

But what you're really supposed to do is stare at it, and then look at the wall, and a circle of white light appears, and Jesus appears. And what you really should do, you should look at it even longer, and then look at a white wall, and then a So I should have been Buddha, but it was all right. I accepted it was Jesus. Okay. And the second time I did it, I... followed the instructions and saw the light. And then I did the same thing a second time and really followed the instructions and then I saw this light at the window. And if you look at, and I examined these shapes, it's pretty difficult to see how the hell someone figured out that this could... Because only through this staring and way of perceiving does it turn into Christ.

[38:18]

Otherwise it's just not there. It's quite hard to figure out how it's there. Now, when I'm looking at you, I see a lot of objects. None of you look too much like Christ or like Buddhists. But in fact, there's a mesh of stimulus here. I assemble into objects. So what is the process? I mean, there's some foundational memory, operational memory. Now, it's an operational memory That's developed through my personal history.

[39:34]

It's developed through my personal history. And the culture I live in, the photographs I've seen. If I lived in the Australian wilds, I would have a different... foundational or operational memory. So these little shapes on the piece of paper you stare at, even that is related to some kind of operational memory. So I'm assembling all the time this operational memory which isn't my autobiographical memory even though it coincides with my personal life.

[40:52]

It's my memory, but it's not my biography. It just coincides with my life. In other words, I can't function unless I can give meaning and context to things. But that meaning in context is not just supplied by a who or a autobiographical self. Okay. So from the point of view of my experience and what I'm speaking about, we're always assembling the world, gestalting the world.

[42:08]

stellen wir die Welt zusammen, gestalten wir die Welt. And Dogen says, when the elements arise, which he means when things assemble, the I, the pronoun I, the self, does not have to be one of the elements that arise. Das Ich muss nicht ein... So the arising itself is a kind of organizing process. The self can be part of that arising or not. And he says, to make things a little more complicated, when the elements dissolve, the element of self doesn't have to disappear. Okay, but here's the main point, our purpose.

[43:21]

The element of self does not have to appear when we assemble. from the mesh of stimulus, an object. So, by perceiving, hearing is a construction, construction site. Someone told me there's a German movie called The Self is a Construction Site. Life is a construction site. It wasn't a big hit in America. Okay. Okay, so now, how do we know it's a construction site all the time?

[44:36]

How do we remind ourselves it's a construction site all the time? How do we participate in the construction site? This is only a way of saying everything is impermanent. Now I've gone a little bit past what I want to say about intentions, and maybe I'll come back to that after the break. But I just want to hit the bell. So you listen to the sound. I'll see if I can get this across. The sound of the bell, by its own aspects, I can't say nature, but let's say aspects, establishes its impermanence.

[45:49]

Here is the sound that's showing you it's in permanent. Now. If I say the sound of the bell establishes its own impermanence, strictly speaking, there's a fault in saying it that way. What is the fault? The fault is, it implies... something might be permanent. There's nothing that's permanent. So it's in a way a false statement. That's my problem, always with the word constructivismus and construction, because it always says that there is a constructor.

[47:18]

Yeah, I know. In earlier times we say it's something growing. Okay, growing. Okay, so it's now after it. I always have huge problems with the word constructivism, because it is always close to me, there is a constructor. So now I'm just a demo and I think it's much nicer to grow the old word or something like that. Okay, now, what's the difference between the sound and the physical bell? I can smell the metal molecules, but I will never be able to smell the bell away during my lifetime. Getting smaller. So this is going to last a very long time. Probably it will last as long as human history, up to now. Now, what's the difference is the system-dependent clock here. It's a different clock than the sound of the bell.

[48:38]

Everything has a system-dependent clock. Why permanence is such a complex illusion? Because all the things we see have different clocks. And although I'm actually preparing the scene by scanning and making the sense of duration, And when you see that it's just scanning and then I create a sense of duration, that's a no-reference-point emptiness.

[49:45]

There's no reference point, actually. Emptiness. That's one way of understanding emptiness. Okay. So... So we're all in different ripening times. Or at my age, disintegrating times. Okay. No, I'm good. Sorry, I tried to repress that. Okay. So you can hear the bell. So what do we say?

[50:46]

In Buddhism, what we say, what Nagarjuna would say, is you're hearing not its impermanence. But you're hearing its absence of permanence. And that's an accurate statement. Because it doesn't imply there's any permanence. It doesn't imply there's any permanence. Okay, because this also has an absence of permanence. Okay, now, a little bit before... We're going to have a break soon, don't worry. A little bit before, I spoke about how we assemble what we're seeing. Now, I assemble you into individual person's shirts, eyeglasses and so forth.

[51:49]

Through an operational subtextual memory. That means I have a potential image of an object before I see the object, which allows me to assemble it. You all know the story, the movie about the gorilla and the two black and white teams? I've seen the movie. I've never seen the movie. I've heard about it for some years and somebody I saw just a few weeks ago had seen the movie. And it's about 20 minutes long, I think.

[53:08]

And they're told there's a black team and a white team, they're dressed differently. And they're playing soccer, football or something. On this movie, yeah. And you're supposed to count, they tell you, count who's got how many black goals, how many white goals. So she watched the movie and in the end she had to figure, they said, how many goals, so the black had so many goals of white goals. So then the person said, now watch the movie again and don't think about anything. Noticing without thinking. And right in the middle of the game was a real gorilla walking around in the field.

[54:25]

And nobody sees it. I want to see the movie, but now I could never. It wouldn't work, and I could never test myself. What is this? This person who told me this has been practicing a long time, so, you know, don't tell. And yesterday, when I walked... When the small groups were going on I thought I was a gorilla walking through the room. You felt the same. We have seen you. I was trying to... You know, I... I... You know, but I know a real... a sort of example of that.

[55:37]

I lived for 20 years with a Japanese woman who was kind of like the grandmother in our family. And very often, there'd be a lot of people in our room discussing, having a meeting, something going on. And she lived in the Japanese part of the house, which I brought from Japan and reassembled next to her. And like the kitchen was over there. Now the Japanese are used to living in very close quarters with a lot of people. Everybody sleeps in the same room and so forth. She had this magical siddhi technique.

[56:41]

She would open the door and she would lean slightly forward and then not walk in the usual way, lean slightly forward and walk through to go to the kitchen. And I would say be talking with everybody and I'd say, well, like Nakamoto Sensei who just went through the room, no one would have seen her. It happened over and over again. Somehow, she turned off and was noticing. Just went through the room. So the process of seeing... The break is coming. The process of seeing... One of the mudras in Buddhism is have no fear. The process of seeing then has... views and attitudes built into it.

[58:03]

So this is the eyeball, the object and the field of seeing. And the field of seeing is full of views that shape what you see. Okay, so now all of this is just to say you can take a phrase like the absence of permanence. You might say it's ridiculous to look at this bell and see the absence of permanence because there's no aspects of the bell that in my human time are reinforcing that view. Is that too long? Too long. It's ridiculous to look at this bell with the view of the absence of permanence.

[59:12]

Because there's nothing in the aspects of the bell that during my lifetime will show me its impermanence. So it looks like a waste of time. But if you know that your seeing is already shaped by views, then you can bring a view like the absence of permanence into each perception and it really does begin to make you simultaneously see impermanence as well as permanence. Also wenn ihr das wisst, dann könnt ihr, wenn ihr Dinge anschaut, gleichzeitig diese Sichtweise von

[60:19]

Okay. And now the break has just arrived. Thank you very much.

[60:26]

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