Of course, there's always, when I meet with you here in Kassel, there's always a kind of, anyway, a relationship, whether I'm teaching Zen or whether I'm relating Buddhist practice to psychotherapy. And of course, since I'm not a psychotherapist and I am a Zen practitioner, I'll be, I have to speak about Zen practice. But how can I speak about Zen practice, and I'd like to speak about Zen practice, in relationship to psychotherapy? Which is the main way the Western world understands mind and body. And the relationship between psychotherapeutic practices and Zen and Buddhism have been inseparable from the way Buddhism came into the West.

[01:34]

And my translator here is not a psychotherapist, but she has a... Her education was in psychology. How would I say that? No, that's good. Okay. And years ago, Tsukiroshi said to me, I need to know more about psychology and psychotherapy. And he knew quite a bit about Western philosophy. But not so much about psychology. So I, from my limited knowledge, tried to give him a sense of what it was about. And at one time I even organized at Esalen a special seminar on, I guess, Zen and psychotherapy, something like that.

[02:57]

Sometime in the 60s. And that we had the head of the American Psychiatric Association or something like that be the presenter. And the... like the moderator? No, he was the main person, other than Sukhrishi. He was supposed to be teaching Sukhrishi psychology. That was my plan. And the head of the American Psychiatry... I don't know what that is. Psychiatry Association, probably. I could do that because my very good friend Michael Murphy is the head of Esalen. But unfortunately at that point in the history of society psychiatry and psychology and Zen.

[04:10]

This guy knew nothing and was quite inflexible, didn't know. He was a nice guy but he just was like he was talking about furniture in another house. But unfortunately at that time this speaker didn't know much about contemporary psychology and psychiatry and it was a bit like he was talking about furniture in another house. Yeah, so in some ways, I mean, really I depend on you to give me a feeling for, which you do every year, when I should emphasize Zen practice more and when I should emphasize the relationship more. Yeah, and the relationship thoroughly interests me, so it's good if you can help me articulate the relationship. And virtually all of you know that I think that we should emphasize the differences more than we emphasize the similarities.

[05:27]

And I think it's helpful to remember that the emphasis in Buddhism is on what I call mindology and not psychology. Now, I asked Karel this morning, he still works as a psychotherapist and was trained as a psychotherapist. But he's also been practicing Zen since 1983 or something like that. And he's gotten taller over the years. He's grown more and more. And I asked him this morning, what would you like me to speak about today?

[06:52]

And he said, what is the difference between or similarities between mind training in psychotherapy, psychology, and mind training in Zen? And it's actually something I thought about a bit in the back of my mind. Yeah. I don't know quite what, and this is again where you would have to help me, to what degree there is mind training in psychotherapy. So I'm happy to be educated by you.

[08:05]

Those of you who are therapists, those of you who are not therapists, don't try to educate me. You can all educate me. I need as much help as I can get. I imagine, you know, if somebody was extremely compulsive, compulsive thinker, thinking something like that. The therapist would have to give him or her some kind of training in cutting through or lessening the compulsive thinking. So I imagine that case by case there's aspects which are a kind of mind training.

[09:08]

But overall, I don't know if there's any kind of, throughout all the different approaches, psychological approaches, is there any sort of general sense of what kind of training the mind needs, if any? Yeah, okay. Now, I myself object a bit to the idea of training in Buddhism. I mean the English word, the feeling of the English word at least, of training in Buddhist and Zen practice. And I'm very fortunate the last few weeks and on over and today to be traveling with my old friend, fellow practitioner David Chadwick. And he practiced with Sukhiyoshi too, and he was at Tassajara in the very beginning of Tassajara's practice center that we founded with Sukhiyoshi.

[10:52]

In the mountains. Yeah, and we had three-month, two three-month practice periods per year. At first, I think the first year there was only one. Then after that we... And David also, by the way, spent much of the last 19 years gathering and accomplishing an archive of Sukershi's teachings. So at first people, in the very beginning, people called the three-month practice periods training periods. And I changed the name as fast as I could to practice period.

[12:23]

I didn't want to go be trained. It sounds too militaristic. I just want to sit and relax and bliss out. And practice is really a form of there's somebody climbing through the window. In the break we can find a seat for you somewhere. Now whether we use the word training or... Let me use the word training today.

[14:01]

Because within practice there's implicit training. And training, at least in English, means to... Like a train, you know, a choo-choo train. The Deutsche Bahn. It's to get you on the tracks, get you in a certain direction. Yeah, I mean, we have the Dharma-Bahn, DB. Yeah, okay. Now, there is an implicit training within practice because there's a clear conception in Buddhism, fairly clear anyway, and fairly clear throughout all of Buddhism, of what the mind is.

[15:22]

And what the relationship of mind and body is. And what are the potentials of that relationship. So because there's a clear sense of mental, of, let's say, cognitive and perceptual processes, the presence of these clear sense of ideas about cognitive and perceptual processes, means that the teachings and the practices are designed around relating to those processes or changing those processes.

[16:29]

And affecting these processes. Okay. All right. So I like to start with basics. To get us all on the same page. And because basics are kind of refreshers, reminders. Because basics are also where we can all start. and where I'm always starting over and over again. Because one thing I can say as a kind of reminder, this is not just about the way mind and body and cognitive and perceptual processes exist.

[17:56]

It's also about how the world exists. And how the world exists, from the point of view of Buddhism, is very clear. It's momentary. It's a momentary flashing into vastness. And if you don't really know that or know how to experience that, from a Buddhist point of view, there's no therapy that's really going to work. Because it's not just about how the mind and body function, but also what is phenomena itself. Okay. And I also like to start from basics because basics are the roots of all advanced practices.

[19:00]

And if you look at the basics very carefully, you find all of Buddhism. So let's start with the first koan given to many practitioners. Now I'm using this as an example of implicit mental training. And the Mu koan is, does a dog have a Buddha nature? Mu, no. And Mu means no. And it also can mean emptiness. And I remember when I did practice the Mu Koan with Yamada Mu Mon Roshi. Mu Mon is the gate of Mu. Yeah.

[20:37]

I mean, you know, he said Moo. He said, you know, blah, blah, blah, Moo. So I said, so from then on, I would see him every now and then. I would really recreate the way he said Moo. And he said something, and then Mu said something. And from then on, every time I met him again, I always recreated the way he said this Mu, so to speak. And, you know, I didn't know what Mu was. It was just two letters. In English it's two letters, in Japanese it's one character. So the only Mu I had was the Mu he gave me. And I didn't want to think about it or figure anything out or add explanations, so I just gave him his Mu back. He'd say, Mu, and I'd say, Mu.

[21:38]

He'd say, Mu. It sounded like a barn. And then after that we go to the hot bath. He particularly loved hot baths. But if you practice Mu, the practice of Mu is to bring Mu to each appearance. So first of all, you're learning you're beginning to discover the world as appearance.

[23:01]

And that's a kind of training. Because when should I say moo? Do I say moo every time you smile? Why not? I mean, when am I supposed to say moo? When I first wake up in the morning, moo. Okay, that's good enough for the whole rest of the day. No, you kind of get up and you sit down and then... Oh, muh, okay. Then you put on your shoes, maybe, muh, etc. And I could say muh in every hand movement she has. Muh! Okay, just by having the instruction to say Mu, you have to start saying, when the hell do I say it?

[24:22]

So it engages you with appearances. Because that's what it does. And in engaging you with appearances, it is cutting off, negating, interrupting the chronic chronological thinking. So usually I say chronological because much of our thinking is about the past and the present and the future. What happened, what might happen, what you hope to happen, you hardly notice what's happening.

[25:27]

So you bring, by saying mu, you bring attention back to what's happening. So, in effect, it's a negation. Or an interruption of our usual stream of thinking, self-referential or chronological or whatever. Now, I think maybe during these two days, I can introduce the idea of negation. I'd like to also introduce the idea, which I didn't mention much last year, I think, of incubation. No, I asked Angela last night. They gave me a very good... Norbert gave me a very good squash soup.

[26:49]

Pumpkin soup. With ginger. And between bowls of soup, I asked Angela, is there anything from the Rostenberg seminar where I've been meeting with psychotherapists more than 20 years? Is there anything from that seminar I have to bring into this seminar? She said, I should speak about perhaps the Buddhist approach to dreaming Or the Zen approach at least.

[27:53]

So I'll try to do that at some point if we have time. It seems appropriate. Okay. And also I spoke in Rastenberg about incubation, emphasize it, in contrast to understanding. But I don't think I spoke about negation. But let me say it's a very basic... It's been... Since Nagarjuna, it's been... a very developed practice within Buddhism. But it's understood in a very wide way.

[28:56]

If I say this is a bell, But we do that all the time. This is a bell. It's simultaneously a negation of everything that's not a bell. Whatever you point out is a negation of everything you haven't pointed out. Now, why is that useful? Why is it useful to think of it that way? I think it might take me a little while to make this practice understandable. This way of thinking about it understandable. Okay, so Mu is a negation. I say she moves her hand, I say Mu.

[29:57]

I shift my posture and I feel Mu. I shift my posture, I can feel an inner Mu. No, yeah, go ahead. No, no, no, no. I'm trying to keep track of all the moo, moo, moo, moo. Okay. Now, one of the first practices I did, as again many of you know, because we've been hanging out together for some years, Yeah, for some reason I was living in San Francisco and I felt that we needed a monastery.

[30:57]

But I had a wife and a child and a job and there was no monastery. So I pretended San Francisco was just a big monastery. Really? I said, okay, what's the difference? It's just wider streets. And I somehow hit upon saying to myself, There's no place to go and nothing to do. And I was very busy at the time. Because I was assistant head of engineering and sciences extension, full-time job, doing adult education programs.

[32:02]

Yeah, at the university. And I was a full-time graduate student. In Asian studies. So I, you know, really was, and, you know, I had a family and so forth. So, but every time I thought I had something to do, when I had the thought I had something to do, when the thought appeared I had something to do, I negated it. And said, I have nothing to do. But I still did things. But when I negated it, a kind of space opened up. And I did these things in the space, but the space was what was somehow more real than the things. And when I was going somewhere, which was all the time, I didn't sort of going, not going, going, not going.

[33:49]

I didn't do that. But when the thought appeared, I have to go somewhere, I'd say, there's no place to go. Fundamentally, there's no place to go. Yeah, I mean, although I didn't know it, because I was a new practitioner, I was articulating the teaching of two truths. Fundamental truth that everything is impermanent. Changing, momentary. And the conventional truth, which is the way consciousness functions, That things are predictable, chronological.

[34:57]

Meaningful in terms of your past, present and future. And cognizable. Yeah. So those four things are the job of consciousness. Yeah, and you can't function without. But they present the world to you as semi-permanent, which is a delusion. I'm throwing a lot of teaching in here, but it's tough in here, sorry. I'm sorry, it's what I do. I don't know why.

[35:58]

Because I'm always engaged in this myself, so this is what comes out. Okay, so this saying no place to go and nothing to do was in effect a kind of mental training. It was my version of Mu. And it kept bringing me back into my perceptual and cognitive processes. And it made me notice my perceptual and cognitive processes. And it cut off or interrupted processes about I have to do, I have to go, etc. It interrupted them. And that's a practice of negation. And a form of mental training.

[37:20]

It's kind of disguised in the practice, say Mu on every appearance. But it trains the mind within a particular conception of the mind. Yeah, and it's not the only conception of mind possible, but it's the one Buddhism has chosen and emphasizes. So it becomes an implicit training within the conception of mind that Buddhism has found most fruitful. I could say a little bit more about this, but I think you've been sitting here since 9.30. Already 10.30 or 10.45.

[38:31]

And this is not a position you were born to. So maybe we should have a break.

[38:35]

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