It's very nice to be sitting with you again. Or just here with you again. I say again because this is the first day I've sat since the beginning of January, pretty much. Because... I think as most of you know, I just had a radical prostatectomy. From the perineum, which means I feel like I gave birth to several babies. I feel I might give birth to another one in a few minutes, but now I'm able to sit. We'll see how long I last anyway. Yeah, we're talking subject is the body and the mind that was picked for this seminar.

[01:04]

In most of my adult life, I've been a person who virtually has not taken any medicine at all. Maybe I've taken an aspirin four or five times to see what it's like. But I've always been more interested in being sick and seeing what happens than in getting healthy quickly. Does that make sense?

[02:28]

Yeah. I'd rather... You know, see what I can do with the flu with my mind and body. For example. Then try to cure it. It's okay to be sick. I never minded being sick. And because of my attitude, partly as a result, I've really seldom been sick. So I maybe was overconfident in my healthy body. Which might be 90% genes and 10% Zen.

[03:31]

I don't know. How do I know? I just have this one body. Or do I have this body? Or am I this body? So anyway, I think if I'd caught this earlier, this prostate cancer, before it was so virulent, I would have tried various things to see if I could affect it by my intention.

[04:32]

Yeah, but by the time I was found out what was going on, it wasn't accessible anymore to my mental powers at least. And when I first found out, I called my family. And told them, yeah, about it, what was going on. And I have a 40-year-old daughter and a 24-year-old daughter. And my 24-year-old daughter called me up and said, she's from San Francisco. And said, get your feet on the ground, Dad.

[05:41]

None of this Zen stuff. None of this making an example of, you know, Dad, no, do the operation. She said, I know you meet once a year at Esalen with people discussing survival after bodily death. She said, I don't want to meet you after bodily death. Get your feet on the ground, Dad. Okay, okay. So a group of... doctors and others in the Dhamma Sangha all tried to research what I should do and so find a good doctor and so I did the operation.

[06:48]

And it was actually quite interesting. It was a whole new experience. I've often gone to hospitals and been with people who, of course, had cancer. And I've been with people while they died of cancer. So I didn't have a feeling of why me. I had a feeling of why not me, too. They've had the courage to go through this, so I'll see if I can go through it, too.

[07:51]

Yeah, and I've often had the feeling when you go to the hospital, you've got to be willing to feel like you can change places with the person. I feel if you have too much the feeling, boy, I'm glad that's not me, you're not much help to the person. So now I have to see if I really meant that. Or did I have to eat or operate my words? Do you have that expression? If you say something you don't mean, you have to eat your words. It comes back to you. But actually, once it was clear I should do it, it was just something you do.

[09:08]

So I'm mentioning all this partly because the cover of Time magazine right now is a person in yoga posture, and it says, heal the body with the mind, or something like that. I didn't read it. So I'm here as a practical example of somebody who's been meditating many years, And there are a lot of examples where I've been able to heal myself by my intention. But practically speaking, sometimes you have to be practical.

[10:08]

I think Dogen died when he was 54 or something like that. Maybe he had prostate cancer. Who knows? In those days they didn't know. Joe was sitting in a car, Conway, and a tree fell on him. If he had a little warning, he could have shot his mind up there and stopped the car. Yeah. So it's really, it's a nice feeling to sit here with you. Thanks a lot for giving me the opportunity. And I notice some of you are new to this place and probably to Zen practice. And when I see new people, I always think, oh, how funny it all must look, all this bowing and chanting and robes and stuff.

[11:54]

Oh, my God, I didn't say that. I said, oh, my goodness. And if you'd come to a seminar in Paris, Hannover, Berlin or something, we wouldn't have any bowing and chanting. Somebody might bring a Buddha figure to the room. But you find Buddha figures in jewelry store windows and things. But you don't see people bowing and chanting in jewelry store windows.

[13:09]

At least I haven't noticed it. So what am I trying to say here? Well, that Buddhism and especially Zen practice is a study or study, let's call it, of the body and the mind. It's a kind of science of the body and mind. And you can approach it, we can approach it pretty much that way. But if you decide to practice, and by the way, I'm open to, especially during this pre-day or prologue day,

[14:19]

It's a little bit smaller group than it will be from tonight. I'm open to whatever we want to discuss or any questions you have. Like, I use the word practice. The basic question is, what is practice? And it's not an easy question to answer. So I'll skip it for now. But when you do practice meditation or practice mindfulness, at the point that we find we really want to practice with others,

[15:44]

Let's say we begin to have experiences of body and mind that aren't in the categories of our usual experience. We find we feel things a little differently. It's strange. Why should just meditation or mindfulness change our experience of the world? But it often does. And it often is in categories that we can't really name, not something that's unfamiliar to us within our own culture.

[17:04]

And it's small things, nothing big. There's no big deal I'm talking about. You know, a small thing is... An example I very, very often use is that you begin to have a feeling that space connects things. Instead of a feeling that space separates things. Well, that's a small thing. But it's actually kind of hard to notice because our cultural view is that space separates things. They have an interesting ad on TV now. For Alfa Romeo. They show a picture of four little babies, quadruplets being born. And they show a second picture of them as little girls and pictures of them in high school.

[18:41]

And then suddenly they show one of the girls, they all look alike, one of the girls, probably the same girl, one of the girls driving an Alfa Romeo. And she's having a wonderful experience. And the other three girls are sort of business people or something. One is in a serious meeting, I don't know if any of you have seen this, from CNN. And anyway, the three other women, young women, are 20 or so, they're in these meetings. And they begin to feel the experience of the girl who's driving the car.

[19:45]

So one of them sitting with all these bankers, and she starts going, whoo, whoo, whoo. And then the car races by the ocean and the ocean splashes, it's a little erotic, and the ocean splashes up all over the place. And the three women in the meetings go, and all the men look. Well, this is actually the first, let's call it, popular culture recognition that space connects. No. Because it's been, you know, there have been a lot of studies with twins, and twins have an amazing somehow connection, even when they're separated at birth.

[20:57]

So here's a sort of cultural recognition of that. But sometimes through meditation you experience such things. That's a little strange. You meet somebody and you feel connected immediately instead of having to establish a connection. And then if you have what we call way-seeking mind, you might ask yourself a question. In what way am I already connected and in what way am I already separated?

[22:05]

Now, when this feeling of connectedness becomes explicit, you really feel it. I remember when I first felt it, I felt like I was a fish in an aquarium. Because you notice when in an aquarium you see the fish swimming around and they relate to each other and the real or fake seaweed moves around in relation to the fish, etc. So you can feel the medium of the water connecting the fish. So I began to feel some kind of medium of connection. You know, I've noticed a lot of things like, well, the tidal movement and the tides and our reproductive cycles are all influenced by something.

[23:47]

There's no strings up to the moon. So there's some kind of connectedness that's going on that's not noticed in our language and usual way of thinking. So at some point I had to recognize that I had a cultural idea that we were already separated. When I saw somebody, there was a view I had that I was separated from that person. Okay, the view takes... The view I can... The view is in my body, but it surfaces, it can surface as words.

[25:11]

Also diese Sichtweise, die ist in meinem Körper, die kann aber durch Worte an die Oberfläche kommen. As an assumption that I'm separated from this pre-given world. Als eine Annahme, dass ich von dieser... So I thought, at some point I thought, well, maybe I can shape an alternative view, an antidotal view in language. like already connected. So then I tried, every time I met someone or looked at anything or had any perceptual activity,

[26:14]

I said to myself, already connected. Strangely enough, just saying this made a difference. Actually, many differences. But maybe I should just, if you're interested, let you explore that yourselves. See if in your own language or your own way of speaking to yourself, with sufficient mindfulness, to develop the habit on each perceptual occasion to accompany that perceptual occasion with an antidotal view to the already present taken-for-granted view.

[28:01]

This sentence fell apart. Oh, it did? All right. It's still there, but it's not holding. I'll start over. Okay, thanks. Let you try out for yourself. Probiert selber einmal. And it requires a sufficient mindfulness, attentiveness. Und das bedarf einer ausreichenden... Aufmerksamkeit. To be present when you notice something. Dass ihr gegenwärtig seid, dem etwas bemerken oder wenn ihr etwas bemerkt, dass ihr dem gegenüber aufmerksam seid. But you can just take real strong examples like you look at a tree and you notice the tree. Also wir nehmen jetzt mal ein ganz grobes Beispiel. Also dort ist ein Baum und ihr bemerkt, dass da ein Baum ist. Or you are about to meet somebody new and so you remind yourself to accompany the meeting the new person or noticing something with a phrase in your own language or your own way of speaking to yourself.

[29:19]

already connected. It's best if it just becomes a feeling you have of noticing connectedness rather than noticing separation. And when you do that, really, it's strange. The way the thinking mind works, it has to edit. Part of the mind called the manas is the mind that edits perceptions. And you have to edit perceptions to think about anything because you need some kind of focus. When you change the editing process, you start noticing things that have been edited out.

[30:50]

all your life. Like ways you're connected instead of ways only that you're separate. Okay. So when you begin to have experiences, just maybe like the one I just spoke about, that, I mean, it begins to, in small ways, challenge your view of the world. then you start wanting to often practice with other people.

[32:11]

Because although you can't talk about these things usually, you can feel the other person is already there, already in a similar place. Then how do you practice together? Okay, at that point, bowing and chanting start. You have to have something to do. And you don't want to do the usual things. You have to create some sort of slightly different way of being together so the old habits don't take over.

[33:15]

Yeah, so why not bow nine times together? Or to chant something which you have no idea what it's about. Oder etwas rezitieren, von dem ihr überhaupt keine Ahnung habt, was das soll. But it's nice to hear the other people's voices. Aber es ist ganz schön, die Stimmen der anderen zu hören. So anyway, that's how what looks like a more religious side of practice develops. Und das ist das... But I think deeper spiritual and aesthetic reasons for it. But for now, and for basically my approach as teaching mostly in a lay context, Is to teach Zen Buddhism and practice Zen Buddhism with you as a kind of body-mind science?

[34:41]

Okay so far? Ralph isn't sure. So we could start now with Nietzsche, maybe. He says that one of the biggest blunders of Western philosophical reflection... Blunders? A blunder is a big mistake. ...is to separate mind and body as... ontological entities or separate ways of being or something. And through the repetition of history, they've come to be taken as different.

[36:11]

They're taken or accepted as different. I remember some famous scientist, I think Edward Teller, but someone that famous, he's the person who invented more or less the hydrogen bomb. He's a pretty big fat guy, wasn't he? Remember? I think he's a pretty... You're almost as old as me. Anyway, pretty big fat guy. And he said his body is just a platform for his mind, something to carry his mind around. I don't know why he needed such a big platform. But I think he's... had probably thought that something like some science fiction movie, his body could be in a Petri dish or in a glass jar in a laboratory and it would function just as well.

[37:49]

But I don't think some famous scientist would say anything like that nowadays. Because as they say, the hottest topic nowadays is the study of consciousness and mind and body, etc. So, and then there's the Alfa Romeo ad. So they wouldn't say such a thing as, my body is just a platform for the mind. No. Body, I believe the word body in its etymology in Western languages is a brewing vat, like what you'd make beer in or something. But one of the words for body in Chinese means a share of the whole.

[39:07]

Now just think of that as a different cultural view. Your body is a share of the whole in contrast to it's a brewing vat. How can we speak about the body and mind in a way that relates the two rather than separates them. And we don't have to be twins. I saw in the newspaper today or yesterday that a point...

[40:24]

5.05% of the world's male populations descend from Genghis Khan. 40 million people, something like that. Genghis Khan, he was out there with his buddies. But there's some Y chromosome that's only found in certain populations and it seems to have started in the Mongol population. So we're all related to Genghis Khan, Charlemagne and Eve. Somehow we're twins. So what is this connection we have with each other and the connection that is also our own body-mind connection.

[42:00]

So really, you are your body and mind. And we can name them separately. I suppose my speaking reflects my mind, though my lips are doing it. I suppose my ear is pretty purely body. I can cut a piece off without too much problem. But then the ear is shaped to allow me to hear. Anyway, we can give different names to the body and mind, and it's useful, I think.

[43:08]

And yoga practice, yogic practice, Zen is a form of yogic practice. And yogic practice or practice, and Zen is a form of yogic practice, gives body and mind different names. But the names are like two doors to the same, to a shared room. I mean, in yoga culture you would say body and mind are not one and not two. You can experience them rather separately and you can relate them. There is obviously a relationship.

[44:23]

And that relationship can be developed. It's a relationship that can be cultivated, developed. And that's what Zen practice basically is, the cultivation of this relationship. And somehow this recognition that occurs that this relationship that one cultivates between body and mind is The same territory, surprisingly, as the relationship between us and other people. Okay, and we have the question, what way are we connected? What way are we separated? And then you have the moral and existential question.

[45:24]

Which do you want to emphasize? The connectedness or the separation? And say you decide to emphasize the connectedness. And really do that. What's the consequences in your life? Well, maybe it would be a good time to take a break. And in this, what I call a pre-day, a prologue day, mostly we're not meditating together, except it looks like we're meditating. These are little fireside chats.

[46:38]

Fireside? You know, in America they have fireplaces and you sit and have... That's why I'm still over here. Just to kind of like... free associate about this question in ways that we can bring us into the seminar. Okay, so let's take a half hour break. I did pretty well, didn't I? Thank you for translating.

[47:42]

Okay. If you've understood, got a sense of what I was talking about, you're in the middle of Zen practice. Because if you have a sense of How, if you get the sense from what I said, is how our views, usually taken for granted views, shape our perceptions and cognitions, and recognizing then that the world we know is the world we perceive and cognize,

[49:16]

Can you explain, cognize a little bit? conceive, conceptions of, or relate in thinking. Thanks. Because it's necessarily shaped by our views, our perceptions and conceptions. What is it? Because our conceptions and perceptions are shaped by our views.

[50:46]

Views that are taken for granted. But for the most part we don't know we have. That And because our perceptions and conceptions are shaped by our views, if we change our views, we change the world we perceive, conceive. It means we don't live in a pre-given world. It means we live in a world of multiple possibilities.

[51:47]

And we can discover some of those possibilities. Okay. If you get that or accept that, Yeah, then you have one of the basic views of all of Buddhism and yogic culture. That the world we live in is so complex and multifaceted. that there's a fluidity to how we can know it. And I would say the development of civilization and of culture is the

[53:10]

awakening to the fluidity of the world we live in. Now, when somebody like Freud says that we have a basic aggressive instinct, Wenn jemand wie Freud sagt, wir hätten einen grundlegenden aggressiven Instinkt. Ja, maybe for us, most of us it's true. Also vielleicht ist es ja für die meisten von uns der Fall. In addition to, as all of you know mostly, my 40-year-old and 24-year-old daughter, I have a 23-month-old daughter. And all of you and she are among the reasons I did the operation. I'd like to see her into college or university at least.

[54:43]

Although her name is Sophia, she's not always wise. She's sometimes pretty aggressive. And if Marie-Louise doesn't spend much of a day with her, as yesterday when I had to go to the doctor's, The next day is revenge. Okay, so maybe we do have a basic aggressive instinct. But I think if we're not careful, we're assuming a pre-given human being and a pre-given world.

[55:48]

Can you say pre-given or pre-formed? You can say that if you want, sure. No, I don't. As most of you know, I don't think wars are, for example, inevitable. Und wie ihr von mir wisst, bin ich jemand, der nicht davon ausgeht, dass ein Krieg etwas Unvermeidliches sei. Stupidity of this present American administration, excuse me. Und die Dummheit der momentan amerikanischen Regierung. Makes me ashamed of my sometimes being called an American. My prediction is that in 50 years or so, there won't be wars anymore. I don't even think that we're necessarily aggressive. Or there can be such a dramatic, significant shift in emphasis.

[57:20]

that we're talking about a different kind of human being. So, this sense that the world as we know it is rooted in our views. It's obvious that a bird out here knows quite a different world than we do. And without the eye and ear and eyes and ears and wings of a bird, we can never know the world a bird lives in. They live out here in this garden, but they live in a different world than the garden we see.

[58:57]

If we accept that the world is relationships and not entities... So the study of the world as relationships and the fluidity of the world that arises through relationships, is rooted in the practice of meditation and mindfulness. Now, maybe I'm getting ahead of ourselves.

[59:59]

Perhaps I'm speaking as if we were all Buddhas. But Being a Buddha is one of the human possibilities. So it's one of the possibilities we can speak to. Okay, so in what I spoke about, there's quite a few examples of what Zen practice is about. The use of phrases to change one's views, to work with one's views. And so. I'd like to know if any of you have something you'd like to bring up about what we've talked about so far, or what you'd like us to talk about, or whatever.

[61:24]

Yes. How do we get to different views then, if most of them are sub or unconscious? How do we un... How do we get to... Maybe in Deutsch... Wie kriegen wir andere Sichtweisen? Wie bekommen wir zu anderen Sichtweisen dann? Wenn die meisten dann so unbewusst sind, mit Bekanntheit. You mean, how do we notice the views we already have? How do we change views? Or how do we change our views? Get to other views. Yes, that's the basic question, isn't it? So, do you want to know how I recognize which views I have or how I can change my views? How can I change my views? And then he says that's the main question. Next question. No, okay.

[62:49]

So, well, first of all, there's a range of possibilities that have been developed through yogic practice. That's one reason I call this a science. It's not a revealed teaching, a revealed religion. It's a wisdom practice that has accumulated... And we can be involved in its development. You, each of us personally. And it's no doubt that yogic practice, Buddhist yogic practice coming in the West is going to

[63:57]

develop, take new jumps in its understanding. So you do have some possibilities that you begin to intuitively sense through practice. So that's one thing. Also you notice that some of your views if you practice mindfulness everything I'm talking about depends on some degree of mindfulness practice. So if you are practicing mindfulness and you can begin to see in your habits, when you can feel your habits,

[65:06]

taking you over at certain points. And you can feel views behind those habits. And if you can see that sometimes these habits are neurotic or counterproductive, Or cause suffering in yourself or others. You can begin to try to... You can imagine you can change those habits. then way-seeking mind is the word used to really know that you can change your habits.

[66:30]

And if your mindfulness practice is sufficiently developed, you can kind of surgically enter It's not just because I was in a hospital and using expression. You can sort of surgically enter the web, the fabric of your perceptual, conceptual process. and pull out one or two strands or change the strands. In a third, three ways, that's enough. Three always feels complete, right? And third is you begin to develop through mature practice a relatively, let's say realistically, relatively unconditioned mind

[68:13]

A mind without baggage, emotional, associative, personal baggage. And you can begin to see possibilities that are present in your life, even if they haven't been discovered already by this yogic tradition. in a yogic world or in a yogic tradition. At the root of it, your own creativity is the depth of practice. ist eure eigene Kreativität in der Tiefe eurer Praxis.

[69:47]

But you have to have the confidence or faith that all these things are possible. Aber ihr müsst die Zuversicht und sogar den Glauben haben, dass all das möglich ist. Or you don't. The power you need to change things isn't there. Denn wenn ihr das nicht habt, ist die Kraft nicht da, die Dinge auch wirklich zu ändern. And sometimes it's quite convenient to remain deluded. I think that we describe most of our lives the convenience of delusion. It allows us to hold jobs we don't really believe in and so forth. Okay, someone else?

[70:50]

I'll try to be shorter. Yes. When so many people prefer to feel that they're separated, they must have gotten the feeling that for some reason it's good to be separated. Why do you think that being connected is good? Well, I would say that the fact of the actuality of the world I would say that the fact of the... Now... Now we have a problem.

[71:55]

Actuality and reality is exactly the same word. No, I think that... I've heard they're different in German. Tatsächlichkeit. So, factuality and actuality. Actuality and... But the two, factually and actually, are very close. Well, that's okay. Okay. Also, dass die Tatsächlichkeit... Again, say the whole phrase again. You think I can do that? Yes. I think the fact or the actuality of the world is that it's an interdependent, connected world. And in effect, I think it takes a lot of energy to deny that. I don't mean that separation isn't also a fact and useful.

[72:56]

I mean, your question is something I've, in a way, been thinking about for 40 years. And I'm always trying to explore it. So how can I make a concise answer? I don't know. Wie kann ich da jetzt eine zusammenhängende Antwort schaffen? I would like to be able to say that civilization is a kind of progress toward more connectedness. Ich würde gerne sagen können, dass Zivilisation eine Art Fortschritt hin zu einer Art Verbundenheit ist. Yeah, we've gone from, you know, for most of human history... tens of thousands of years in groups not much bigger than 35 people.

[74:19]

But we've developed the ability now to live in much larger groups. But as I've often said, how young our civilizations, our culture still is, It's only in recent decades that we've maybe considered women are equal to men. Or seen the value of considering women equal to men. So I take that as an example of immense civilizational stupidity. .

[75:26]

But I don't think we're going forward necessarily. I think the narrowing of what the human being is through consumer culture is frightening to me. You look at the medieval, the cities in Germany and Europe which still have intact medieval towns, villages, etc. ? To me it's clear that they had more sense of connectedness than we had.

[76:48]

And to me it's a culture where beauty wasn't something in museums, beauty was something in how you lived, how you built your house and so forth. And it seems to have been a connectedness built on emotional connectedness. So as a result, it was a culture of immense violence and horrible ways people were treated. More obvious joy and cruelty, things like that. more obvious cruelty and joy.

[77:59]

So I'm glad we don't live in the Middle Ages, though I do like the houses better. Gosh knows what would happen to me as a heretic Buddhist in the middle. But, on the other hand, in the century just past, the 20th century, We humans killed more people than in all previous centuries that we know about. So I don't know, and we kind of like it happened somewhere else. Excuse me for waxing philosophical here.

[79:23]

But let's just keep it simple then. The alternative of connectedness is worthwhile adding to one's repertoire. You know, I had a hard time in Germany when I first came here. Because I didn't get it at first. more than any other place I've been and I've been in quite a lot of places Germans really respect each other's space as a cultural thing it seems and if you interfere with someone else's space they don't like it too much

[80:38]

I thought, jeez. what is this unfriendly place I've come to live? But on the other hand, I'm teaching and practicing in Europe because it's the friendliest place I've ever been. And the Sangha developed, Sangha is those who practice together, And I, because I was in Russia and Poland and Holland and all over the place. England. And very rapidly a sangha developed in German-speaking countries of Europe.

[81:44]

That was very friendly to each other and very supportive of each other. And more like when I spoke in French countries, the smart people would take over and ignore everyone else. And that's kind of tiresome. By Sunday, you have eight people talking, everybody else is sitting there like this. In German-speaking countries, people support each other, and everybody ends up participating almost. And the ones who always sit behind pillars, I usually figure out. So I had to kind of put this together and recognize that there's this respect for one's space.

[83:06]

And once I saw it that way, then I didn't see it as unfeminist anymore. So that's an example of I think a valid or good alternative of separation. Yeah, I mean, if I'm going to fly on an airplane to America or to Europe, I always hope I sit by a German person. Because if I sit by an American person they start telling me their whole life.

[84:09]

And I have enough whole lives in my life. If you go into a restaurant in America everyone... you know, they almost start sharing your food. You know, you don't finish your food, somebody wants it in a doggy bag. But in a German restaurant, nobody notices anyone. It's the only country I know where you can share a table with someone, a tiny table with two couples and no one speaks to any... It's very useful if there are many tables.

[85:11]

And so... But they're kind of looking sideways. But then you finally get up to leave. And the whole restaurant says, Auf Wiedersehen. In America, this doesn't happen. You get up to leave, you leave. No one says goodbye. So the average German in a restaurant is just waiting to be friendly when there's not much chance for contact. So, and I like it better, actually. Anyway, my point is that you can't say whether these things are right or wrong. It's just there are different ways of developing this fabric of connectedness and separation.

[86:16]

And yogic practice brings us into some new possibilities. Okay. Someone else? Gerd and I just talked to each other and since two years we share a sitting group in Hameln So we noticed that we have a connection, maybe not only historical connection with all these people. So we just meet once a week.

[87:46]

We just come for a sitting and just sleep after the group. So it's surprising how well we know each other from just this little contact. We could actually not know each other so well from so little contact. That's true. This is wild. And so then we can ask, what is it that's connected and what is it that's separated? And what do we share with everyone if we notice it? And we tend to notice some things more if we practice together. Okay, someone else? So just went through my mind as a child or a teenager

[88:52]

how important it was to be exactly like the others or completely and specifically different than the others But still there never came this moment of a real connectedness And I remember how much energy this needed to just always be exactly like the others or just contrary to the others. And that made me very sad. Yeah. And seeing that is one of the things that makes us practice sometimes. Okay, anyone else? Yeah. Connectedness is very close to being symbiotic. What does it mean to have connectedness without being singular?

[90:24]

I have said that connection is very close to being symbolic. The question is, what does it need for connection to be singular? Yes. What do you mean by symbiotic? Can I give one? Yeah, please. Losing somehow our own identity or losing a place just where I could say, satisfy. Then the first impression, so to say, You mean you lose your own sense of identity into another person. Something like that. Yeah, that's one of the dangers and fears of connectedness.

[91:50]

And practice definitely addresses this issue. How to have your own intactness and yet simultaneously feel completely connected. Yeah, so I don't think we have time to come back to the process of that, but that's the fact. Okay. Someone else? Yeah. Do we have a choice? Isn't reality just that we are connected?

[92:52]

Is there any choice of not being connected? Because there's interdependence which arises. Yeah, at the level of catching the flu. Yeah, at the level of catching the flu. But at the level of catching the personality, we can be quite separated. I mean, if you recognize connectedness, it's different than recognizing separateness or only partly recognizing connectedness. So perhaps at a biological level, the way in which you might be related to Genghis Khan, you don't have much choice. Something else, yes. How can I be connected to something which is different from different?

[94:04]

I can understand to be connected with what I understand and maybe what I like, but what's so different, how can I be connected to something different? Well, that goes back to the question, in what way are we connected and in what way are we separated? I think we'd say the first step is recognizing, doesn't happen immediately, but recognizing the ways we are already connected.

[95:07]

And the more we feel that, intuit that, recognize that, we enter, we begin to have experiences like Everything is simultaneously absolutely new and unique and yet familiar.

[95:50]

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