after some discussion at lunchtime we decided to probably have after the break small groups so we can discuss these things more intimately and easily And how they make sense to you. Yeah. And you just did the five seminar emphasizing the five skandhas. And I think you can see that the five skandhas are just a practice of noticing appearance.

[01:01]

Noticing appearance in five categories. And to give you a sense if you develop the skill of noticing appearance within, through, as five categories. Und um euch ein Gefühl zu geben, wenn ihr die Fähigkeit entwickelt, Erscheinung in den Kategorien der fünf Skandas zu bemerken. You find yourself... You find your own experience articulated in the world's terms.

[02:11]

Dann findet ihr eure eigene Erfahrung, wie sie... And you find the world articulated in the terms of your own experience. So something appears. And first you notice its form. And what's important about that is you can kind of stop there. And just find yourself located in the forms of the world. And then you can realize you have some feeling.

[03:24]

And you can have a feeling of liking or disliking or just neutral. But the most subtle is just neutral. As long as you're alive, there's some feeling of being alive. So we can call that neutral. non-graspable feeling. And then you can notice that you notice it through one of the five physical senses. In this case, a little Chinese gourd. which also has a mountain on it and a monk on it and stuff like that.

[04:35]

And on top of the monk's head, there's a little tiny monk. I don't know what the heck he's doing there. He just landed there, I guess. Or it implies some kind of complex identity. Maybe it's Goethe's poet mind being. Hi. And it rattles. So you can hear it as well. I don't know what these are. I found them in Freiburg.

[05:39]

And the guy in his little store was so pleased I liked them he practically gave them to me. Yeah, but I could never draw anything so detailed and nicely as that. So I can notice it in these different categories. And then in the category of associative mind. I can have the associations of the store in Freiburg, I've purchased it and so forth. And all kinds of other associations. And then it can be conscious. I'm conscious, I'm holding it. And one of the, so I just mentioned that not to teach the five skandhas in any detail, but just to show that the skandhas are the most ancient and basic of all Buddhist teachings, is really just a practice of noticing appearance,

[07:02]

in categories that articulate the world to us. To articulate the world for us or through us. It's just a practice of appearance. Noticing in five categories related to how we experience things. And noticing that we don't have to rush through, rush through in a sense, the five skandhas to know it consciously. We can stop and enjoy it just as sound or visual appearance, etc., Wir können innehalten und das einfach als Klang oder visuellen Eindruck genießen.

[08:18]

And I brought up last year, before I went to the States, this word Hishirio. Und letztes Jahr, bevor ich in die USA gegangen bin, habe ich das Wort Hishirio erwähnt. One of the most basic and sort of unfamiliar words to us, unfamiliar concepts to us. But it is an expression of what's really meant all the way back to the most ancient 2,500 years ago teachings of how to know without thinking. Aber es ist ein Ausdruck dafür, eines der ältesten Lehren dafür, wie man wissen kann, ohne zu denken. And I often try to suggest it by saying noticing, but I spell it with a K, so it's connoticing. Und ich spreche darüber oft als ein wissendes Bemerken.

[09:21]

Im Englischen kann man diese Kombination machen, wissen und bemerken. Connoticing without thinking. And again, and I don't think I want to go into it much now, but we have this attentional awareness. And the main dynamic of attentional awareness is attention without thinking. Und die wichtigste Dynamik des aufmerksamen Gewahrseins ist Aufmerksamkeit ohne zu denken. What you need to know is that attention without thinking is not an attention, is not attention without knowing. Aber was ihr wissen müsst, ist, dass Aufmerksamkeit ohne zu denken, das bedeutet nicht Aufmerksamkeit ohne zu wissen. So the dynamic of knowing without it going through the usual conscious thinking and naming, which is not a kind of ignorance.

[10:26]

It's a kind of knowing that's more subtle than when your knowing passes through the categories of consciousness. Then the categories of thinking are primarily naming, languaging, comparative concepts, and so forth. Noticing, comparative. And thinking about it usually in some reference to how it benefits or affects ourself.

[11:28]

So it gets incorporated into a kind of self-stream. Which is necessary. I mean, we have to function that way. But it's not the most subtle way of functioning. The more you can let consciousness, unless you need it as a tool to think or solve a problem, je mehr du das Bewusstsein, es sei denn, du brauchst das als ein Werkzeug, um zu denken oder um eine Aufgabe zu lösen, je mehr du das Bewusstsein so wie ruhen lassen kannst, vielleicht nicht einschlafen lassen, aber doch irgendwie schon so etwas in der Art, completely alert in an awareness that notices but doesn't grasp through usual consciousness.

[12:50]

And the more you don't think of this as a container container you're living in with a bunch of objects that are real somehow or Real enough to cause trouble. But more you just feel yourself in a field of awareness and letting that field speak to you Then you're more in a place where intuitive thinking becomes all of your thinking.

[13:51]

I think many of you will notice it as the kind of way in which you have more ideas about practical things, what you're going to do next, but ideas you wouldn't think your way to, but you appear in your feeling. So the yogi functions in this field of attentional awareness. Present, but not present through thinking about. Yeah, so I thought I should at least say that much. And I can certainly, I'm certainly open to any questions about anything I've said.

[15:05]

And your questions very often are extremely helpful. Help me notice things that I, you know, I see it, I hadn't seen it from that point of view yet. So one of the things that interests me is, do you get the sense that we're living in a field of, maybe we can say yogic ingredients? But we don't use them yogically. And Zen practice is trying to get you to use them, notice them, yogically. And for example, again, knowing things within the pace of the senses.

[16:20]

Thinking tends to generalize things. I mean, it does generalize things. Yeah. And assumes most of the things are unimportant and out there somewhere. And this way I'm suggesting that you notice things sensorially. at the pace at which each thing you feel sensorially. You know, I mean, as an athlete might. Being an American, if one of you feels American and throws me a football... There's an American, throw me a football.

[17:36]

And you have, I mean, I better catch it or it's going to hit the translator. So I have to relate to the translator. sensorial happening of the football coming. So we can think of there's a possible consciousness which rests in the physical activity of the world I said it kind of consciousness and that was a kind of Freudian slip. Because what I meant was a kind of attention, but these words, attention, consciousness, even in me they overlap.

[18:44]

For example, I just came down the stairs. I can locate attention in the entire process of coming down the stairs. And not have any attention going to thoughts. It goes into perceptual noticings. I have to walk down the stairs. And, you know, the feet have to, as I said recently, there's a feeding in flooring.

[19:52]

There's an attentional feeding and the flooring meets the feet. Now, if I've been practicing, how can I say it, developing this attentional field, I develop, hmm, It's like you change the viscosity of attention. You know, like molasses or honey is rather viscous and water is less viscous. And honey, you know, doesn't penetrate a piece of cloth as much as water does.

[21:09]

But some mist or less viscous liquid can penetrate more into whatever the situation is. So as you develop, extend and refine attention, it penetrates more fully the body, more thoroughly the body. So attention itself changes, and the body changes to absorb that attention. And if we imagine that an activity has boundaries, I mean an activity does have boundaries, but let's imagine and let's think about it, notice that it has boundaries.

[22:22]

Those boundaries are simultaneously spatial and durative or temporal. And although you can't really separate the spatial from the temporal, We as humans can feel the spatial sense of an activity. And then we can feel its repetition. Its duration. Its temporal quality. And we can find Attention rests in the boundaries of whatever activity you're doing.

[23:26]

Und wir können herausfinden, dass Aufmerksamkeit innerhalb der Grenzen der Aktivität, in der ihr gerade euch befindet, darin ruht. And now through your experience, attention can so fully occupy the boundaries of any particular activity. And continue its occupation throughout the duration of the activity. There's a sense of your attention rests in the world as activity. And you've so developed this, there's little attention, there's not much attention left over for discursive thinking.

[24:40]

And when you want to do discursive thinking, As a tool, you draw some of that attention out of the boundaries of the activity and think something through. And while you're thinking it through, you're also educating attention. And when you bring that attention back into the bounded field of attention as the physical activity of the world, that also becomes the infused with the attentional field, which is also where we dream.

[25:51]

So, anyway, it changes how we think and dream. And as I said yesterday, the home base of attention becomes the senses and not thinking. And so wie ich das gestern gesagt habe, der Stützpunkt der Aufmerksamkeit becomes, sorry again, becomes the home base, it becomes the senses and not your thinking. Der Stützpunkt werden deine Sinne und nicht dein Denken. Now this, I just, I mean, excuse me, I'm a little embarrassed I just said all this. Because I think it's a little much for this seminar. In other words, if I'm going to speak about this, I should have started yesterday morning.

[26:59]

But, you know, what the heck, this is what I said, so now you're stuck with it. All right. And it is like when Suzuki Yoshi gave a lecture, He would like the attentional field of the assembly, of whoever's there. To be entirely occupied, engaged, habitating the molecules of the immediate field. hat dafür gesorgt, dass vollkommen die Moleküle, das Aufmerksamkeitsfeld, vollständig ausfüllt und vollständig darauf eingelassen ist.

[28:00]

Because he also then can enter this molecular field. Weil er dann dieses molekulare Feld auch betreten kann. Yeah, as Dogen said, sometimes I enter an ultimate state. He means something like the molecules of the attentional field. And it's just that atoms and molecules are all around here, not limited to any one of your bodies. There's a kind of flow into a shared territory which can't exist in ordinary consciousness. But going now back a couple steps, If you shift to noticing appearance within your physical senses, this is a different pace than noticing the world through the continuity of consciousness.

[29:32]

as I said just before lunch, each sensorial connoting is a unit of experience. And those units of experience create a different kind of succession than the continuity of mental consciousness. And that is then a change of pace. And it's much like the change of pace that's expected in a practice period or like our 90-day practice period we do here now once a year.

[30:45]

Yeah, okay. That's the problem with starting to talk about something right after a nap. I don't know if I brought it into your experiences as accessibly as I would have liked to. But as you know, I think this is a kind of laboratory, what we're doing here. And some experiments get out of control. So, anyway, somebody want to say something? Yes, Fritz? What I meant to say is light years back by now.

[31:51]

Light years back. Well, that was a moment ago. I barely dare to say it, but I will say it anyways after this brilliant lecture. Yeah. in order to get into that space you were talking about. Germans like cars, and cars are the golden calf of the Germans. I'd better get a German car. I've got a Japanese car.

[32:51]

And so most Germans who have a driver's license will know what I'm about to say. ... It's like when I drive the car and I drive it right up to a crossing and intersection and the traffic light is red.

[33:58]

And then I don't need to think about whether to put my right foot on the one pedal and then the left, so forth. It just happens automatically. And I would wish for myself that just like how this is internalized and embodied, and I've called this a kind of a practice reflex. And I wish that perception was internalized as a practice reflex like that. It can be. I think most of you, I mean, we're not doing orioke here. But if you, most of you know what orioke meal eating is. The orioke meal is conceived as exactly what I just talked about.

[34:59]

The bowls, how you handle the bowls, how you get served food, all occupy your full attention. And it's all... But you have to be completely alert while you're doing it. I mean, while you're doing a Yogi, you don't turn, if she's sitting next to me doing a Yogi, you don't turn and say, well, Nicole, what do you think about such and such? And your chopsticks are balanced on you. I mean, you couldn't do it. Yeah. I mean, it's designed so you have to give full attention to the physical, within the boundaries of the physical activity,

[36:08]

Du musst deine volle Aufmerksamkeit innerhalb der Grenzen der körperlichen Aktivität halten. And it's made, I mean, the little things, it's a little small, it doesn't fit. It's that you have to keep paying attention. Und die Sachen sind so gemacht, dass es ein bisschen zu klein ist und es passt alles nicht so richtig. Und du musst also immer wieder deine Aufmerksamkeit dort halten. And in Creston we have two more 70 years old along with me. I think one of us is already 80. It's not an old people's home, but, you know. And, you know... A couple of, not me yet, are getting kind of trembly and you don't want them to give you the soup because you're not sure it's going to get in the bowl. So, but when you get used to doing your yuki, you start the meal and then it's over. You don't know exactly what happened. Detail flows into detail in such a way that it's hard to separate out and say, did I have seconds or not?

[37:39]

So ariyuki practice coming from Asia, is completely designed to occupy fully occupy attention in the physical activity. And you can get to know that feeling and at the end of the meal you stand up And, you know, we bow to each other. And then you're in a different kind of space.

[38:41]

But if you do Oryoki regularly, you know that feeling. And you can go back into that space where the physical activity of your world completely absorbs attention. And there's very little, just because of the nature of how your attention functions now, there's very little thought about me and mine and so forth. It's a little like Fritz just said. Okay. Anyone else? Yes. Bernd. Would you describe what you've just talked about as non-dual? Yes. Basically, it's entry into experience, which you'd call non-duality.

[39:58]

But instead of speaking about it philosophically, I'm trying to show it experientially. Yes, Tara. I have a question about how to deal with the skandhas. Okay. If I take this gourd and look at it and want to look at it in the category of form, then what is it that sees it as form? Isn't it first of all that I'm looking at it through consciousness? I understand that.

[41:19]

It all melts into each other. It's hard for me to separate these categories out because when I look at this thing, when is it form and when is it perception and consciousness, don't they all move into one another? That's the problem. Das ist das Problem. And that's what the skandhas are trying to do, to get you to slow down something that happens immediately in your unconsciousness. Okay. Say you're sleeping. And You're not fully asleep.

[42:48]

You wish you could fall completely asleep, but you're kind of awake, but not really awake. Okay? But you're sort of drifting in and out of sleeping. But at some point you start thinking, oh gosh, you know, I've got to go to work and I've got to get up. If I don't get up pretty soon, such and such will happen and I have to make breakfast and so forth. Once that process starts, you know it's quite difficult to go back to sleep. Okay, that's consciousness. When you're in the state where you're just like feeling and maybe dreaming, that's awareness.

[43:58]

And you can get to be familiar with the difference. So right now I know how to bodily shift into awareness without the kind of consciousness that wakes you up. And I can be present here in this room with you, not in consciousness. And I know that when I'm in that kind of field, then people come up to me and say, how do you know I wanted you to talk about that? Well, I do know that when I'm in consciousness, people don't usually say that to me.

[45:04]

So there's some kind of difference in connectivity between people in awareness than there is in consciousness. Also gibt es irgendeine Art von Unterschied, was das Verbundensein betrifft, zwischen Menschen im Gewahrsein im Vergleich zum Bewusstsein. And I think when you practice Zazen, unless you have some feeling of awareness, you can't talk really about what the practice is. Und ich glaube, wenn du Zazen praktizierst und wenn du nicht... So for most of us, when you go to sleep, you let go of consciousness. Or you try to let go of consciousness. Goodbye consciousness, ha ha ha, I'm still here. And finally, it kind of lets go.

[46:22]

And when it lets go, your body and breath, breathing changes. And your breathing becomes involuntary. It's like parents know, when you go into your child's room, you can tell when the child is pretending to be asleep. The breathing, clearly they are conscious. You have to have a little skill to disguise consciousness as sleep. And kids learn how to do it. No. Another example I used to try to make a distinction between consciousness and awareness If I get up now and I forget I've got all these little gadgets and diddlies here and I step on one of them

[47:44]

And I fall straight forward into Neil. In consciousness, I would kind of like, I couldn't be quick enough. I'd fall right, you know, but with awareness, I'd fall into a loving embrace. I'm an excuse. Could we see that? Sure. Now I'm embarrassed. Yeah, you kind of cause trouble. But the case is that when you are walking along and you do trip on the ice, which happened to me the other night up here, Consciousness simply isn't fast enough to protect me. And luckily, awareness kicks in like a guardian angel that's always been waiting for, can't you fall down so I can show you what I can do?

[49:07]

And you fall down and you don't hurt yourself. So in that sense, awareness is always present, but it's hidden behind consciousness like the stars are hidden right now behind the light of the day. The stars are still there. And if you believe in astrology, they're still affecting you even though they're hidden. So awareness is always present and one of the things that happens with the Yogi and for the Zen practitioner is you shift out of consciousness and function primarily through awareness all the time.

[50:31]

My question is that it disappears and what happens to the sense of time? It disappears in the same way. My question is that if you go into the field of awareness, then what happens to the I and what happens to... The pronoun I? The pronoun I. What happens to the I and what happens to the time, the sense of time, does that also disappear? Yes, it's different. And the observer I is not

[51:34]

entirely gone, but it's on the side. It's ready to come back in, but it's kind of on the periphery. And when that emphasis is there, we call that non-self. And when that emphasis is there, we call that non-self. It's kind of awakening. That's hope. Yes. Neurologists know by now that consciousness takes 500 milliseconds before it appears. Yes. How long does awareness need? How much time does awareness need?

[52:39]

Well, I've never measured it. I've lived it. But I don't know. I wouldn't know how to respond neurologically or something like that. But my experience is, and I noticed early in my practice, That I knew what I was going to do. I was going to do something before consciousness knew it. So that's certainly prior to consciousness. It's almost immediacy. No, immediacy means no in between. But the guy who first noticed that, what is his name? Benjamin Libet. Yeah, he was working in... He was in San Francisco at the time when he discovered this, and I was amused because I had noticed it before I read about his research.

[53:56]

But I read about his research when it first came out. And it was very interesting to me. I felt examples of it before and not been able to understand it. But when I did begin to, through practicing Zazen regularly, And through a kind of inducement of this state of mind, modality of being, through his presence with Suzuki Roshi, I discovered, just by chance, through this interior experience of awareness,

[55:02]

habe ich durch Zufall einfach entdeckt, dass dieses, the interior sense of awareness, the interior experience of awareness, what Benjamin Libet discovered by measuring reaction time and putting, you know. So that was interesting to me because I realized I can explore things from inside which neurologists explore from outside. I think we should stop. Never break. I mean, this is fun. But... What did you do this weekend?

[56:20]

I had some Dharma fun. Okay, let's have a break. What do you suggest? Well, I would say if you talk about do you notice any of these shifts in your own experience? And if you notice them, can you develop them? But, you know, It's good to have a focus, so that's some kind of focus. Oh, that reminds me, I was going to talk about focus.

[57:25]

No, not now. And what is the time now? The time is 4.30. Five. Should we have supper later or so? Nicole? I think we have to. Also, wenn wir uns um fünf dann nochmal treffen in den Kleingruppen, dann sollte das ja auf jeden Fall bis sechs Uhr gehen. Und dann das Abendessen um halb sieben. Wie sieht das aus mit den Umgriffen? Okay, dann machen wir das so. Thank you for taking care of this and I turn it over to you now. Katrin is not here, I can see that.

[58:34]

Oh, okay. Are you leading one? Yes. Okay. She's hiding behind the pillow. Yes, then let's start with Katrin, Nico. Neil, you're the head of the hotel, right? So again, Katrin, Nico, Gerald, Nicole, Dieter, Ottmar. Oh, I already said Nico. Okay, then we'll do six. Markavi, do you also like a vote? Yes, are you in your group? If it's supposed to be. Yes, it's supposed to be. So seven.

[59:15]

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