Good morning. Good morning. In effect, this weekend, we're wondering what our wondering what our own mind is. And perhaps we're more thoroughly recognizing that we can actually Study the mind.

[01:02]

The mind can observe the mind. It's like the conceptual problem of how does the eye see the eye. But some many centuries were given to develop this ability. And strangely or at least surprisingly, I think, For some reason. The closer we come to directly experiencing the mind, the more we have the feeling of knowing actuality, reality as it actually is.

[02:24]

I don't think it's an obvious conclusion, but that's the experience. No. If we accept, I hope you accept, it's possible to... I don't like the word observe, but let's use it. Observe the mind. Something more subtle than suggested by the word observe. And you know, there are contemporary scientists and research psychologist.

[03:53]

Let's get to and philosophers who say it's impossible to observe the mind, your own mind. You're always fooling yourself. At the same or similar level to when you're very sure your memory of something is complete, accurate, and it actually is not accurate. So we fool ourselves about the accuracy of a memory And in a similar way they would say we fool ourselves about our ability to observe the mind.

[05:07]

Well, they're right, they're correct in that it is a kind of special procedure to be able to do it. Because usually, I think, I mean, I would say the main problem is just that the many aspects of mind get mixed up into one kind of consciousness. And we are also this weekend looking at what constitutes our relationship with others.

[06:29]

What really is Your relationship to other people. Was ist eure wirkliche Beziehung zu anderen Leuten? Friends and strangers. Freunden und auch Fremden. Friends, strangers. And now we have a third category. Freunde, Fremde und jetzt haben wir eine dritte Kategorie. Bodhisattva relationships. Bodhisattva Beziehungen. Is it really a third category? In what ways does it overlap with the other two categories? Strangers and friends.

[07:32]

Unbekannte und Freunde. Fremde und Freunde. And if it's a third category, to what extent do we already know this third category? And if it is a third category, how do we establish it? And if we do establish it, whatever it is, how would it influence our relationship to friends and strangers?

[08:36]

There's few things that are more important than this. So we're talking here about our relationship to mind itself, and our relationship to other people, And perhaps even to the phenomenal world. And how are these connected? Just raising these questions is important. Important in that a question truly raised a question you really feel the validity of, begins to give you information from your heart.

[09:51]

millions of moments of experience. And your experience tends to fall into the categories implied by the question. and either support the question, further clarifying it, or perhaps it shows that it's a false question, blind alley. And all of these basic questions, whether they come from yourself or from Buddhism, Yeah, from looking at the world, we should ascertain for ourselves whether these are real questions or

[11:06]

False questions. And if they're real, we have to have the courage and character to accept the answers. Which often means, as Rilke says in that poem, the torso of Apollo or something like that. he ends the poem with, you must change your life. And any real question has that as part of the question. And Are you willing to pursue a true question to the point that it expects you to change your life?

[12:39]

Change doesn't have to be scary. who may be able to keep the same job and the same spouse but you might have to change the way you think about the world. Now someone asked me yesterday, I always say, what do you want me to talk about? And someone said, could you go back to what I mentioned early in the seminar. Is there or what is the difference between personal friendship and bodhisattva friendship?

[13:47]

And what's the difference in the practice of the two? So, you know, that question, I think, can be a... basis for what we talk about today. But do any of you have any other questions or problems you'd like to bring up from our conversations? internal and external, yesterday and Friday evening. Yes. I wanted to ask you whether there is one of the parameters of bodhisattva practices, especially especially valuable in our times?

[15:20]

Or which one needs more, a deeper understanding to practice it? There are bodhisattva practices Well, what is your intuition or feeling? I mean, your question arises from somewhere. Well, number one is generosity. And generosity has, in our culture, a specific meaning, like giving arms, basically.

[16:27]

And I wonder whether this is really the deepest point of practice. with this parameter, what means giving and receiving. Okay. The first of these perfections in the practice is called generosity or giving. In our culture, this is always easily associated with a feeling, something like almsgiving. I would like to ask you, if you can go into it again, what giving and receiving actually has to do with bodhisattva practice? Well, it sounds like you're suspicious about generosity. And perhaps you're feeling some other...

[17:29]

one of the parameters is a better entry. So which one do you prefer? Well, I think the first one has a specific impact in my life. from, I think, what is an ethical approach to the world. But giving and receiving here, because it's so much tied to a self-concept, it seems to be something which is not easy to grasp at this point. Okay. Good, thank you. Deutschbitte, I appreciate your question. I have repeated again that I am interested in what he says about this topic of giving and receiving.

[19:00]

The problem, he says in effect, I probably had a suspicion in this practice, would be that giving and receiving is always a self-concept. If you have an ethical claim to be free, or if you are in a profession that has a lot to do with giving anyway, I would like to deepen that. Yeah, so I will thank you. It gives me a good excuse to speak about the parameters sometimes. Yes, you may have. Okay, I've come to the conclusion that I think in the realm of my choice and panic are much more powerful. self-practice, the way I proceeded, a lot of times, you know, uncorrected mind observing.

[20:10]

For example, in the Bodhisattva practice, if I meet somebody, I can start observing all my negative feelings and I say, oh, this is interesting, this and that. Instead of just saying, okay, I made the choice. The moment I make the choice, it's there, so I have that power. And I feel that the emphasis on not correcting and just, you know, being kind of a scientist, you know, sometimes, I wouldn't say it's a waste of time, but sometimes, you know, you spend a lot of time instead of just making that choice. And I feel that there is certain conviction there. Yes, okay. German, please. I am very happy that you are in Brussels. [...]

[21:13]

I know you wouldn't say it's a waste of time. But you suspect it might be. Yeah, overall, It's good to have questions that are hard to answer.

[22:28]

Because if they're hard to answer it means they're hard to answer so no wonder you're having a problem. Yeah, but overall Buddhism, Zen practice is rooted in intent. Rooted in vows. But how do you have intention and vows which don't imprison you. How do your vows and intentions reflect how the world actually exists.

[23:34]

So that's one of the first problems in adept practice. And then How do you practice without the assumption of a predicted outcome? Some practices, some Buddhist practices, they're quite sure they know where you're going. But Zen happens to assume the world isn't fixed like that. The mind may also evolve. the mind does evolve.

[24:54]

It may be what Buddha realized won't be the same as what we realize. For some, a lot of Buddhists, that's a very radical statement. Because they have give a belief to the Buddha's enlightenment. Like that's the north star of Buddhism. Zen says, hide yourself in the north star. And everyone will find you.

[26:00]

But Zen assumes the evolution of mind is more subtle than heading for the North Star. So uncorrected mind is a practice within a larger paradigm or framework of vows. So how do you have vows and intention which also permits the evolution of yourself and of mind itself? Anyway, that's to frame the problem, present the problem.

[27:22]

So, to the extent which I can say more about it, we'll see what happens later or during the day today. And afterwards you can tell me if you're satisfied or not. We'll have a sign up sheet here. Satisfied, very satisfied, not satisfied at all. Yes. When you talk about mind, watching the mind, is this something like a... final goal or isn't this next question arising what about mind watching the mind watching the mind or something like this or who is watching how is the way going on from mind watching mind yeah well thank you then I'll speak about it and just now have Deutsch sound and just now have Deutsch sound

[28:35]

On the subject of the spirit that observes the spirit and can keep it in this state, should one see it as something like a, perhaps a narrow-minded goal, or does the question arise, yes, what about the spirit, who observes the spirit, who observes the spirit, or the question of who or what observes what? My experience is that it is very difficult and it's connected to your question to just stay with the mind who observes myself talking hearing me talking right now, for example.

[29:41]

And it's very slippery, it's like trying to catch water or so. or hold it like a drop of water and the physical feeling, and maybe that goes towards your question, the physical feeling is that a kind of, although I can grab it, kind of feel myself put into a tube or so like concentrated or so that gives physically an answer or points towards an answer physically. So the feeling is, or the question is, I don't know how to say it, it's like, the answer is the doing it, somehow. So I experience it as very difficult, for example, to observe the spirit that now listens to me as I speak. And it feels like the attempt to hold a drop of water,

[30:45]

And the answer lies more in this physical experience of being concentrated or to get a feeling of a physical direction. So the question cannot be answered philosophically, but the answer to the question lies in the doing, in the doing itself. And I find it difficult to put that into words. Well, I would say I understand your question as a practice question. But the imagination of an infinite regression of a mind that observes a mind which observes a mind, etc., you can really only state that philosophically.

[31:54]

If you have an experience of the mind observing the mind, at some point it breaks down. The actual experience. The way the mind is capable of being structured doesn't permit it beyond a certain point. At least that's my experience. And certainly the goal of our practice is not just to observe the mind. But the ability to do it is an essential craft of practice. And to sustain attention is an essential part of the craft.

[32:57]

Something else before we do something else? Yes. I have a question towards the way how to deal with kids. Knowing how many kids you have, I can understand. Knowing that kids have to reach a conceptual level in their life, We were talking about that you have a concept that already includes dismantling this concept.

[34:11]

Is it useful to have that in view when you are together with kids? I think absolutely. You can't exactly I mean you can sometimes find or participate in crucial points in a child's development. Yeah, there's turning points in all of our development and sometimes that gets turned in the right direction, sometimes it gets frustrated, etc. And I think it really makes a big difference if you grow up with your child. They've done studies of genius types and things like that, very talented people. And they have done

[35:27]

And they usually had a continuous relationship with at least one parent from infancy to adulthood. So it seems to help if you're present for the turning points in the child's life. But you can't always be, you know, that's good part luck. But you can... hold present to yourself what you know is true and what you know is wisdom. And if that's held present, it will be expressed subtly or implicitly in what you do.

[37:02]

So the child can learn conceptualization and at the same time aware that it's just a concept. Like I would do simple things. Sophia would say, that's a tree. I'd say, uh-uh, that's treeing. And if Sophia, I would do simple things. Sophia would say, that's a tree. And I would say, no, no, that's trees. It's an activity called a tree, but it's not an entity called a tree. These are the games I played with my first two daughters, at least. And another game I played, some of you know, I told you this. My daughter would come in like today.

[38:06]

Would come in the house. And she'd say, I'd say, what's the weather like outside? I know very well what it's like. And she would say, well, it's raining. And I'd say, What's raining? It's raining. Would you go outside and bring back the it? Get little games like that you can play. Okay, something else? Yeah, Joe. Like with the statement of this ring, what actually do we call mine? Well, the practice is to notice all the things we call it and to see if it's contained in

[39:12]

all the things that we call it. Is it always escaping from all the things we call it? It is not. Is it always escaping? And doing that enough, something happens. Okay. Yes, Yuta. I would like to come back to Atma's question. How do you observe your mind? Yes. And it reminds me, the picture I think was a Spanish painter. And he had painted a family that was standing in front of a mirror.

[40:31]

Sounds like Goya. Anyway, go ahead. And I looked at the picture for quite a while. And in the end I didn't know and am I the observer? Who is the model? The family? Because the family was always mirrored. And that's the way I feel if I think about mind. Okay, good. Well, today, unfortunately or unfortunately, I will have to speak about how we observe the mind. So I'll do that in a little while. The best I can. Okay. So what I'd like us to do now is to take a break. But After the break, I'd like you to break into small groups.

[41:55]

Maybe in this room. We have space out there too, don't we? So maybe four or five groups. Yeah. And I'd like you to ask some questions of each other. Like what is friendship and what is mind? Yeah, like what kinds of friendship do you experience? And what is the mind in friendship? Something like that, just to kind of like get familiar together with this territory. I think we're making I think I feel we're making some things clearer this seminar and part of that is to yeah try to

[42:58]

look together at our own thinking. Because unless we can see our own thinking, we can't see Buddhist thinking. Reminds me of Gregory Bateson saying how hard it was to teach in the United States. Because he said the people, the college students, university students, didn't know what they didn't know. So he'd teach something, they'd say, yeah, yeah, that's great, that's good. But they didn't know what the hell they were talking about.

[44:19]

He would say something that he knew was in contrast to what they believed, but they couldn't see it was in contrast to what they believed. An essential part of practice is to see what we believe. And that's part of the job of the Sangha interaction. So should we only have a 20-minute break and get on with it, or should we have a half-hour break? 20, okay. 10 to 10, or 10 to 11, or 10 to 12. 10 to something, we'll come back. Thank you for translating.

[45:25]

You're welcome.

[45:26]

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