Yeah, I'm humbled by the complexity and subtlety of our topic. Our topic of the continuity and discontinuity itself. Humble because this has been a subject of discussion for centuries in the Buddhist traditions and Indian traditions. And also Indian traditions, in Buddhist and also in... Yeah, and then each of you have an experience of self, I think. And an experience that is inseparable from your lived life and the development of yourself.

[01:20]

And somehow your individual experience of self is has to be part of our discussion. In fact, there's the boss. I wouldn't wait for anyone else.

[02:43]

Do I have to wait for them too? And the... Although the... hundreds of years, really, of debate and discussion about self and non-self. All of the discussions as practice have the same starting point. There's no refinement through practice Of what we mean by self and non-self.

[03:46]

Until you have considerable direct experience and observation of your process of self. In other words, well, it's good you came anyway. So it's not just that we have what seems to be a continuous experience of self.

[05:04]

Das haben, was zumindest eine kontinuierliche Erfahrung vom Selbst zu sein scheint. That's not sufficient basis for starting the refinement of the practice of self and non-self. Das bietet nicht eine ausreichende Grundlage, um damit zu beginnen, was wir die Verfeinerung von the refinement of the process of self and non-self. Now I've decided not to just speak about non-self, but to rather speak about a process of self, non-self. In other words, I'm trying to come to a definition with you, even though it's been centuries trying to come to a definition. Let's be daring enough at least to try to come to a definition of self.

[06:12]

Or a definition rather of the process of self and non-self. And see if we can do this by tomorrow afternoon. So again, whatever the practices and teachings of self and non-self, they all begin with your study and observation of your own self-process. So, not just the experience, but observing the experience. Okay. All right, so we need some means to observe the experience of self and non-self. Okay. And of course, to observe is to bring attention to.

[07:40]

Okay. Now, before I go there, what do we share? We all share some experience of self. Uns allen ist irgendeine Form von Erfahrung von selbst gemeinsam. We also share being, I think most of us, part of Western culture. Uns ist auch allen gemeinsam, dass wir Teil einer westlichen Kultur sind. And most of us within that are, it looks like most of us are German. Und zumindest auch darin sieht es so aus, die meisten von uns aus Deutschland. Okay, so that's that much we share. But there's some kind of sharing like that we have. Of course, each of our experience of self is going to be somewhat different.

[08:45]

Now, we also share, most of us, I mean if you're here at this seminar, an interest at least in Buddhism. And the majority of us also have an experience of meditation. Okay, so meditation, just the practice of meditation over some time. may give us a more differentiated experience of self than most people have. And also the practice of meditation may in addition to a differentiated experience of self, give us an opportunity to the tools, the instruments, the skills to observe self.

[10:28]

So, while I'm emphasizing that we need to have a direct, carefully observed experience of the process of self, Although I'm saying we need an experience, a directly observed experience of the process of self, whatever your life experience has given you, We also need to have the, in order to observe the self, and let's say the non-Buddhist self, we need Buddhist yogic skills to observe the self.

[11:48]

Buddhist self or the non-Buddhist self. Yeah, so, yeah. Anyway, so here we are, this group of people, us. who we are trying to think about what is our, know something about what is our experience of self. And probably the most developed tools of doing it over the most length of time, centuries, are Buddhist tools of observation. Yeah, the Buddhist tools aren't anything exactly exceptional. They're shifts in emphasis and shifts in concept. Yeah, for example, obviously to observe you have to bring attention to what you're going to observe.

[13:21]

No, but part of the craft of practice is the skill with which you can bring attention to things. And further, that the use of attention as a skill develops attention. And if there are particular brain areas which articulate or are the source of attention, The base of attention. Those, if there are such brain sources, those neural paths or something develop through practice. Wenn es jetzt solche Quellen dafür im Gehirn wirklich gibt, dann entwickeln sich die neurologischen Pfade dafür, auch Bahnen dafür, auch durch die Benutzung.

[14:45]

Also beginnt der Prozess, das Selbst zu beobachten. So to observe the self may be a process of transforming the self. But we still need something. How do you observe the self? And what context. And so forth. Now yesterday morning in the prologue day of the seminar, the prologue day is a day we can be playful and irrelevant. And find completely unimportant things to say.

[15:51]

And unimportant things to translate. So I, yesterday, at the beginning of the seminar, I got up and I just walked around the room. I couldn't do it now because you're too many people. Okay, so I walked around the room. And obviously, somebody walked around the room. Some person or some persona walked around the room. So what is all this stuff about non-self? Someone walked around the room. And we also know that we have the names of people from the past.

[16:52]

The Buddha, Matsu, Wangbo, Dongshan. These are all, I mean, the stories about them, at least they're different people. Are they different selves? Or do we know them because they were so good at being non-selfs? I'm just trying to... Maybe I'm starting to be like the prologue day. I'm just saying things to cause the problem. Anyway, someone walked around the room, and usually most people think that was me.

[18:09]

And when I did it without explanation, people immediately came up with explanations. I'm going to open a window. Or I'm going to greet somebody who's late. So there's various ideas. One of the ideas no one thought of, I think, And one of the things you do when you meet a Buddha is you circumambulate him or her. And also I might have been demonstrating in Buddhist terms, not in what happened here in Europe, a swastika.

[19:11]

A swastika is a symbol of all Buddhist temples in Japan and in Korea and China. And turning one way it means compassion and turning the other way it means wisdom. And the swastika also means the 10,000 things, the myriad things. Because clearly, aside from its, again, bad reputation in Germany, It's a cross. But it's a cross, maybe like some Christianity has a cross. With a different history, but still a cross.

[20:21]

And it's a cross which moves. So it has little wings. So it's, this is really classic Buddhism because there is a point, but the point's always moving. Because the point that's always moving is the 10,000 things. So the swastika represents, and actually the word means something like well-being in Sanskrit. Yeah. So maybe I was just compassionately circumambulating a Buddha. Now I'm fairly sure no one thought of that.

[21:21]

Most of you thought I was going to talk to Volker or something. But you had various ideas came up. And they came up from your... from your past experience. So, I mean, there's no such thing as experience of self without past experience. So that noticing that you looked for an explanation, those of you who are here, is an example of self trying to explain the world to you. And even though I just did it, right?

[22:23]

Still, my just doing it came from my wanting to find some way to practice with you. So that's in a way just noticing what comes up when in situations is a way to notice the activity of self. And just to observe what happens, what occurs in certain situations, that is a way of observing the activities of the self.

[23:23]

Is your first reaction to things a fear? Or caution? Or openness? It can be anything. And one of the ways to notice the psychological constitution of self is to notice what your first reaction is to whatever appears. In psychological tests they ask you things like, have you ever crossed the street to avoid meeting someone? I always thought that was the weirdest question because it never occurred to me across the street to avoid meeting someone. But once when I think I was in my 40s, I did it just to see what it was like. Quit paying attention to the squirrel.

[24:46]

You're so cute though, isn't it? So in your first reaction you can see a certain psychological pattern or something, accumulated experience being present. And one of the most basic practices I suggest to you is to use the first encounter with anything. As a practice. As a juncture where you can bring in Buddhist practice. Now, there's a teaching that I mentioned yesterday that Vasubandhu talks about, which is closely placed attention.

[25:48]

Now this is a refinement of how we give attention to things. So a closely placed attention is a way to bring a teaching into momentariness. Now the idea of the dynamic or craft of closely placed attention makes no sense unless you assume the world is constantly changing. Es macht keinen Sinn, es sei denn, du gehst davon aus, dass die Welt sich fortwährend verändert.

[27:19]

That the world is a flow of momentary appearances. Dass die Welt ein Fluss von momenthaft auftauchenden Erscheinungen ist. So how do you bring a teaching into a flow of momentary appearance? Also wie führst du jetzt eine Lehre in einen Fluss von momenthaft auftauchenden Erscheinungen ein? You create, as I've said, a mental posture. Buddha is a yoga of physical and mental postures. Okay, so you create a closely placed attention to certain junctures where two things meet. So there is a juncture every time you meet someone. So Vasubandhu says, use that juncture to bring a teaching into immediacy. And Vasubandhu says, So the mental posture, very basic, simple stuff, I say, meet everything with a yes or a welcome.

[28:46]

Begegne jedem mit einem Ja oder einem Willkommen. Yeah, for some people this is fairly easy to do. Und für einige Leute ist das ganz einfach. I was always perhaps such a person as I was. I always met everything with maybe, but I can change maybe into welcome. But there are people who meet another person with I'm not ready to meet like you yet. If your mental posture changes self-mental postures, I'm not ready to like you yet, and I probably never will. Prove yourself. If that's your attitude, well then, welcome becomes a psychological revolution. The ripples in the mental pond continue for years.

[30:11]

So the ripples in the mental pond have reached 11.35 when you were sitting for half an hour so maybe it's a good time to look at the ripples in a cup of coffee alright

[30:38]

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