I'll start off with something. But if we're weaving our personal narrative, if your personal narrative, each of your personal narratives, So I shouldn't be the only person telling the story. Because this is your story. How does this affect your story? And for those of you who are therapists, the stories you listen to all the time. It's the back door man. Sorry for being late.

[01:17]

It's all right. It reminds me of a song, though. There's a man that comes to our house every single day. He goes around the corner and parks in the back. And this little boy sings it. He says, I want to grow up to be a man who comes to our house. Good morning, Ralph. Good morning, Rusty. There's a man that comes to our house every single day. So we all have these personal narratives. And if you're a psychotherapist, you listen to personal narratives all the time, and it's necessary. And I said yesterday that the main thing perhaps we're doing through practice is bringing, weaving awareness into awareness, attention, into our personal narratives.

[02:22]

But I suppose everyone, any therapist for example, the idea is the same, to bring awareness, into your own and your client, if you're a therapist, personal narrative. And I assume that for therapists, but maybe for everyone, it's actually exactly like that, that the idea is to give in to your own personal story or to the story of the client. But the Buddhist emphasis here would be how to do it physically.

[03:42]

How to bring attention, how to bring awareness into your life and specifically into your personal narrative. into your personal narrative. And so, again, I'll just review the implications of what I said yesterday is first we bring attention to attention itself. And let's call that a concept. Und das können wir, das ist ein Konzept, das können wir konzeptieren, oder eine Lehre.

[04:53]

Als Praktizierender bemerke bitte die Aufmerksamkeit selbst. And often in Buddhist practice and Zen practice, it's a concept-craft, concept-craft kind of rhythm. We talked about that this morning. We said that well. I said it well? I'm glad. This is my job. Yeah. Except it's more mind work than hand work, but it's okay. Okay. So, then to develop attention. And to develop attention as a continuity.

[06:16]

So first, if we're going to bring attention, awareness into our personal narrative, First we have to know what attention is. And we have to develop this attention we're going to bring into our personal narrative. And the simple steps there are using the body, using the breath, et cetera, as ways to develop attention not just as concentration, but as a continuous presence. Und die einfachen Schritte hier sind, den Körper und den Atem und so weiter zu benutzen, so dass wir die Aufmerksamkeit nicht einfach als Konzentration entwickeln, sondern als eine kontinuierliche Präsenz.

[07:26]

We could call that maybe a continuously engaged mindfulness. So now there are various ways to bring attention into your life and activity that are at the center of Zen practice. But the next conceptual recognition is that attention is the active an active aspect, an active dynamic of mind.

[08:29]

Attention is not simply an aspect of consciousness. It's an expression of mind. Why do I make that distinction? Well, very simply, you can have like in a lucid dream, but you're not really conscious. Or I can be conscious of what's in this room, but I can bring attention to Andrea or attention to Gerald. Oder ich kann mir zwar, sagen wir zum Beispiel, dieses Raumes hier bewusst sein, aber die Aufmerksamkeit kann ich speziell zu, auf Andrea lenken oder auf Gerhard.

[09:33]

So maybe it's an agently articulated stream within attention. Within attention or within... Within mind. Also vielleicht können wir sagen, das ist ein... I imagine she says to herself sometimes, we figured out ways to say this, why do you have to say it a new way? Is that true, sorry? Yeah.

[10:35]

It was clear before. Why does it have to grow? Be clearer, wasn't it? You have to muddy the water as well as be clear. Ich verschmutze gern das Wasser und zusätzlich dazu, dass ich auch gerne klar bin. You want to muddy the water to see if the fish knows how to swim clearly. Not that we're fish, but we are at least aspects of our mind are like fish swimming in water, looking for clear water. So this conceptual shift which I'm mentioning now is the recognition that attention is a dynamic of mind. And that mind is the... that the senses are... are...

[11:45]

let's call it dynamics of mind. And so that, again, whatever you experience externally is actually an internal experience. So that conceptual shift, we started out bringing attention to attention, that's a concept. We practiced that Primarily, initially, by having the intention to bring attention to the breath. Hauptsächlich und anfänglich haben wir das dadurch praktiziert, dass wir die Absicht haben, Aufmerksamkeit zum Atem zu bringen.

[13:20]

So you're developing attention by embodying it in the breath. Also entwickelst du die Aufmerksamkeit, indem du sie... And you're developing breath as a vehicle for attention. Okay, so that's the craft part of developing attention. And the next... Conceptual shift then is to recognize that everything you know, see, experience is actually mind or attention. Und der nächste konzeptuelle Shift oder Wechsel, Sprung oder so, ist dann zu erkennen, dass alles, was du siehst, that everything you see is mind.

[14:22]

Okay. So first you bring the attention to attention. And now you're bringing attention to the mind, which is the sensorial field. And then you start practicing that. Now at this point we're at what would be considered generally rather advanced bliss. But I'm just giving you the frame, the conceptual practice shifts that cover the first ten years of practice. Now, what I'm assuming here is to see these several conceptual shifts in itself is a concept, overall concept, which functions within us to give us a kind of confidence or...

[15:39]

sensitivity to the whole pattern. And then it's important to see that these different conceptual shifts, these conceptual deposits, that the whole thing itself is also a concept, that it serves to trust us and also to give a kind of sensitivity for the whole process. Okay, so now you're, you conceptually have recognized that All experience of the exterior world is actually an interior experience. I mean, this is easy to understand. It has to be this way. But to actually conceptually recognize it and make it part of your experience is not so easy.

[16:48]

That's practice. So let's try to find some words to make the distinctions. You see the leaf moving on the tree. That's the usual way our senses externalize the information. Das ist die gewöhnliche Art und Weise, wie unsere Sinne die Information entäußern, veräußerlichen. And now your practice is to internalize the information that actually your mind is itself creating the movement of the leaf.

[17:49]

is if not your mind participates in creating the movement of the leaf. So you feel now the leaf moving instead of just seeing the leaf move. Jetzt spürst du die Bewegung des Blattes, statt dass du die Bewegung des Blattes einfach nur siehst. Now Dogen says... Sorry, Dogen says, Confucius says... Dogen says. Place yourself in the midst of immediacy. That's a concept.

[19:03]

You imagine that this location of immediacy is where you are, and it is where you are. Das ist ein Konzept. Du erkennst, dass das Konzept der Unmittelbarkeit der Ort ist, an dem du bist. Und das ist ja auch, wo du bist. And then consider this the entire universe. A second concept. Consider this the entire universe. So literally, I mean, what Dogen is suggesting is you try this on. It means something like no other location mind. Can you develop attention in this way? That right now, as I'm speaking and here with you, I know that I have to take the train to Freiburg and Janusau tomorrow.

[20:15]

And such things. And such things, but they're really kind of like information I've read in a newspaper. My intentional engagement is, and it takes time to make this happen, intentional engagement is 99.9% only here. Meine Aufmerksamkeitsbeteiligung findet zu 99,9% nur hier statt. This is a little bit like another way of speaking about uninterrupted attentional strength. Und das ist eine etwas andere Art und Weise, über einen ununterbrochenen Aufmerksamkeitsstrom zu sprechen. Here we have an uninterrupted imperturbable attentional location.

[21:22]

And this kind of experience is often anthropomorphized as a Buddha figure. And a bigger Buddha figure called Akshobhya is defined as the one who is able to have an imperturbable attentional location. So again, this is something you don't have, because we have all kinds of things. Our narrative stream is telling us all kinds of things. But to know that an imperturbable attentional location is possible is important to know if you're practicing Buddhism.

[22:31]

Okay. Now, If you have this experience of what wherever you are is happening within you as well as outside you. Wenn du diese Erfahrung hast, dass alles was passiert in dir passiert und auch gleichzeitig außerhalb passiert. The categories in which it's happening for you are inside you. Then you feel the leaf turning in a mind space. I don't know how else to say it. And you're developing a mind space which replicates the external human world.

[23:56]

We don't know about a dragonfly's world, but the external human world. And this locates you in immediacy. It locates as if you are the immediacy. And that places you as if you are the immediacy. I would say that it would be nice to feel this way all the time and it's possible. Pretty close to possible. I would say that it would be nice to feel this way all the time and it's possible. But if you just develop the yogic skill to have this now and then, once or twice a day or once a week. And to have it happen occasionally as zazen period. Just Occasionally experiencing this can change your life.

[25:20]

Das gelegentlich zu erfahren kann dein Leben verändern. Here comes along your narrative story happily and it runs into the wall of immediacy. I can't get through this. It's too immediate. You know, we say in Buddhism that emphasizes causation, cause and effect, or cause-cause, which sometimes causes are called the next. But one of the concepts is the immediacy is called 3000 coherences. So it's not just a simple cause and effect.

[26:25]

It's that every cause and effect is happening in the midst of 3,000 coherences which makes the cause possible. So here comes your narrative stream chugging along. Do you know that children's story? A train is going up a mountain. It's a little tiny train pulling up. And it's got to get over the mountain. And it says, I think I can. [...] I thought I could. I thought I could. So your storyline coming along, I think I can. Oh, 3,000 coherences.

[27:26]

Oh, gosh. Where's my track in the midst of 3,000 coherences? Da kommt deine narrative Geschichte, der Zug deiner narrativen Geschichte daher und sagt vielleicht, ich glaube, ich kann das, ich glaube, ich kann das, ich glaube, ich kann das. Und trifft dann aber auf die 3000 Kohärenzen und sagt, wow, jetzt komme ich nicht weiter, wo ist meine Spur inmitten dieser 3000 Kohärenzen? Ja, so 3000, of course, isn't a number, it's just a... a metaphor for complexity. But it's a metaphor that it's specifics. It's not just many. It's specifics. It's 3,000 or 2,343 or something. Okay, so these are all ways to recognize the process of bringing attention to the craft, the concept and practice of craft, of bringing attention to attention.

[28:49]

Das sind alles Arten und Weisen, um zu erkennen, wie wir die Aufmerksamkeit als Konzept und als Handwerkskunst zur Aufmerksamkeit bringen. And to encapsulate it in one other acu-unit. That's an acupuncture unit. Okay. I don't know what I'm saying. It's going back to another way to look at the body points. is right now you're a conscious person. You have a narrative stream, a personal narrative. which now maybe you have some distance from it with the feeling that I'm more than and other than this personal narrative.

[30:08]

But also right now you're a spine. And you can bring this agent of attention up through the agency of attention up through the spine. And beginners will recognize that they can only get that attention up a few vertebrae or up to your waist or something. And somehow the feeling is, if you imagine, the feeling is that the upper spine is in darkness. And then you can say, that's weird.

[31:17]

Why is my lower spine kind of lit by it? the agency of attention, but the upper spine is kind of not accessible. It's dark. And then if you have a good scientific spirit, Yeah, you want to solve the mystery like Columbo. You're sort of like, geez, I'll see if I can edge this attentional feeling up the spine further each day. So if you notice that, then that's your practice.

[32:27]

It might be a year or two, but that's your practice to see why and how tension can be brought up through the spine. Because here, if what we're doing is developing attention, we really should be able to bring attention into and throughout the body. And this increased attention will affect our personal narrative. Now, Buddhism would say, your spine then is part of the dynamic of your personal narrative.

[33:29]

When I see somebody, strangers in the train station and stuff like that, I try to take away any thought of gender or age or weight or style and so forth. And I try to feel in my body how they are holding their body. And if you feel how somebody is holding their body and how they themselves experience their body, You definitely feel something about their mood. And you also feel something, I feel, about how they think of themselves, what their personal story is.

[34:34]

then you can certainly get a feeling for their mood. But I also have the feeling, I can get a feeling for how this person thinks about themselves and what their personal story is. So the spine becomes a kind of thermometer almost, a way to measure or notice our practice. And to various degrees, and it takes a while, but gradually, incrementally your spine awakens. And so it awakens vertically and it also awakens horizontally in bands throughout the body. And then the feeling of the spine extends up beyond the atlas and axis vertebrae, through the head where there's no spine, up to the crown chakra.

[36:03]

Which can start to itch once you get more feeling of it. Tingle or itch. It's probably not taught in physiology, but it's an actual experience through practice. And you can feel in certain situations, certain people, this begins to be sensitive or tingle, and then you know something's going on with the person in the field of apperception. Apperception? Perception. But before you get there, every period of zazen, it's good to kind of Feel your way up through the spine.

[37:28]

And this unit of practice I'm offering you, you feel spine and mind, the spine-mind, as you give mind to the spine. As you give mind to the spine. And then you, into that field, you bring breath. You're breathing along the spine. In fact, you are breathing along the spine. with the lungs. And that along the spine, breath is also space.

[38:30]

So you can bring the reference point, spine, mind, breath, base, into your wisdom consciousness a few times a day. And it helps locate you immediately. And it helps locate and give a wider architecture space parks, gardens, and so forth in the midst of your personal narrative. So let's have some sort of discussion after the break. Or a mutual conversation. Maybe what I should do is, when the break ends, you should start a mutual conversation and I'll sneak in and listen.

[39:59]

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