Yeah, usually I have something in mind I could speak about if you don't say anything. But today I have nothing in mind. I'm completely dependent on you. So we may have lunch early. I don't know. But I thought I'd read something to you just to warm us up. And I brought the book, actually, to show you that it really isn't a book. It's not something I just made up. But I... And I read this last time, the last seminar, because I find it quite extraordinary. Master Wulun Hsu said, If you want to get to the bare essence, what's most essential with nothing added, you could say.

[01:37]

If you want to get to the bare essence, it is the mountains, rivers and earth that discover it for you. Again, I always say you have to contrast that with our usual way of thinking. This is from Koan 81 of the Book of Serenity. How could be possible the mountains, rivers, and earth discovered for you?

[02:56]

Yeah. So, I mean, maybe some kind of mind we're not used to is needed for the mountains, earth, and rivers to discover it for you. And then this quotation goes on. If you enter by way of Manjushri's door When you enter through Manjushri's door, Manjushri is the bodhisattva of wisdom.

[04:00]

So if you have the mind of wisdom as anthropomorphized as Manjushri, All conditioned things, all conditioned things, earth, wood, tile, stone, awaken your potential. All conditioned things, earth, wood, tile, stone, awaken your potential. If you enter by Avalokiteshvara's door, that's the bodhisattva of compassion,

[05:07]

If you enter by Avalokiteshvara's door, in all sounds and echoes, Avalokiteshvara is the one who hears the cries of the world. Avalokiteshvara is the one who hears the cries of the world. If you enter by avalokiteshvara doors, in all sounds and echoes, even of clams and spiders, you discover your potential. If you enter by Samantabhadra's door, these three bodhisattvas are often presented together.

[06:24]

Manjushri Avalokiteshvara and Samantabhadra. And Samantabhadra is just is-ness or thus-ness. Neither wisdom, it's wisdom and compassion, but just as is-ness. Sometimes you can say Samantabhadra is the bodhisattva of luminous practice. If you enter by Samantabhadra's door, you arrive without taking a step. And then Master Wolong Shih says, I use these three doors to provisionally direct you.

[07:50]

I use these three doors to provisionally direct you. I use these three doors provisionally to direct you. Like using a broken stick, like using a broken stick to stir the ocean. Not great. Using a broken stick to stir the ocean. Making fish and dragons. Fish means, of course, fish. Dragons means all that we can't account for.

[08:54]

Fische und Drachen. Fische sind einfach Fische und Drachen sind all das, was sich nicht erklären lässt. making fish and dragons know that water is their life. And then one song, who is the compiler of these 100 koans, makes a comment about this comment. Wang San commentiert jetzt diesen Kommentar. He says to give you a hint of where to go and actualize this statement of Master Wulun. He says, if you always know the source of motion, if you know the source of motion,

[09:58]

If you always know the source of motion, of stillness, of speech, of silence, of going and coming, already you're not wasting your time. then you will not waste your time. Okay? Okay, so now what should we talk about or discuss?

[11:27]

I mean, that's a hard act to follow, I know. Do you have that expression? Yeah, I don't think so. A hard act to follow. Hard act to follow bedeutet, wenn jemand eine tolle Rede gehalten hat, ist es schwierig, dem nach was zu sagen. Tough act to follow. You can clap. But Jack was up to it. He said, but you can clap your hands. Yeah, okay. What's interesting to me is that in Tibet, they follow in a way more closely than China did, the genius of Indian logicians, Buddhist logicians.

[12:44]

In Tibet, Buddhism is philosophically beautifully articulated in Tibet. And particularly Dzogchen and Mahamudra are very similar to Zen. And in fact Nowadays, a large number of scholars think that probably it's a Chinese influence of Zen that is part of the development of Dzogchen.

[13:53]

And conceptually, the practice is really similar. Preparatory practices, though, are different. But the genius of the Chinese is their Buddhism came into an already developed, sophisticated literary culture. And the poetry was at the center of literature for them. And poetry almost always drawing images from nature.

[15:00]

So that the teaching of Buddhism is reflected through a kind of poetic jewel. And a jewel which they've made the different facets, surfaces. A rather irregular. You turn it in the light one way and you get one picture. You turn it in the light the other way and you get another picture. And so it's meant not to be understood, but to be turned and turned and turned over a period of time, and eventually the reflections start making some kind of coherency in you.

[16:23]

So the coherency is not in the text. It's going to be in, if it is going to appear at all, in you through a process of reflection. It's interesting. It's like people from a thousand years ago talking to you. And you have to learn how they want you to listen. So they, in a way, make it.

[17:33]

So you have to make it your own. But, you know, I think our life is a process in the midst of what's basically unfathomable. Trying to make it our own with others. And make it our own, even through others. Yeah, so I don't have any idea if all of this helps you with all of this Buddhist stuff, but I enjoy it. Partners in the pleasure of Buddhism.

[18:49]

So now I'm actually really run out of anything to say. I am intrigued by what you have to say because there is something I read in a book I would like to share. He has a French woman, Fabienne Verguet, who went to China in the 80s to learn about calligraphy. In 1980s. No, 80s. 1880s. 1980s. 1980s, yes. 1980s. And she had a hard time finding masters of calligraphy because the cultural evolution had pretty much sidelined them or eliminated them.

[20:19]

Or killed them. Or killed. And they conveyed to her that one stroke of the brush implies the mountains, rivers, like what you were just saying, and that years of practice are needed to... You can develop this feeling. I remember once I was working with a calligrapher and he said, when you take the brush off the paper, you have a distant feeling of landscape.

[21:30]

So he taught that at the beginning, middle and end of the single line, you have a different feeling at each point. And it's hard to do that with a ballpoint pen. With a brush full of ink? Yeah, maybe so. Yes, Christine? When you talked about the three different times...

[22:34]

I had a hard time understanding anything of it. Really? This is terrible. But I was floating in a feeling of an atmosphere that I know from sitting with clients. And after your talk, Kirsten talked with us about the three times. This was yesterday? Mm-hmm.

[24:02]

Mm-hmm. And now after reading from this koan, suddenly I see what's beautiful about our work. We have the possibility of experiencing a shared time with people we work with. And sometimes it's not clear whether is it the client going through a process or is it me going through a process or it's not clear who's going through a process. Or whether it is a larger movement or happening that we participate in.

[25:21]

Yes. So if I add that from what the koan says that we are informed by mountains, rivers, spiders and so forth. It's very touching. Maybe we can constellate this koan today or tomorrow.

[26:32]

Okay, either some of what I read or the main case, maybe. Okay. Also, das, was ich vorgelesen habe, oder vielleicht sogar den Fall selbst, die Geschichte, die die Vorrat gibt. The cases usually are, you could call them constellations. And you have to feel them that way before they open up. Okay. And thank you for your welcome. Anyone else? I mean, not anyone, someone else. Yes. I have a similar feeling.

[27:33]

As Christine expressed, it's like this coin is like a gift. And before you mentioned the jewel, I had a similar image of a room with all those doors. And in any case, there's this great gratitude, you know, And there is a part of me where it touches me personally, because my illnesses, especially the second round, I think, are in a state of is-ness. Yeah, what I want to share, the illnesses I'm dealing with, particularly this second one now, is pushing me into a state of is-ness. ...

[28:55]

It's a gift or a kind of breakthrough to something that I feel in some ways prepared for, but it's not something you can really do. And regarding our work, what came up before this inner held attentional space, when you spoke about the horse whisperer, That's what I thought, that's exactly what I'm doing. And that it's really about that, that there is no such thing that is seen from the outside, neither in the client nor in myself.

[30:10]

And this work invites me in without interruption and I can only go if we create from within without interruption, that I carry in this vision and this quality. I want to leave everything to you. Can you say that again in a smaller accent? Yes, yes. That I have this visual... Also dass ich in der Arbeit diese Sichtweise, dass wir uns von innen heraus ununterbrochen erschaffen. So this view that we are always creating ourselves from the inside. Dass ich das in die Situation mit dem Patienten hineintrage, dieses Feld, dieses Feeling,

[31:30]

To carry that feeling into working with a client, that's a great pleasure for me to be able to rest there. I feel at home there. And it seems like there's not more that needs to be done. Because whatever happens, happens from this process that occurs. Within this process, yeah. Thank you. Guni, you can't be silent all the time. I mean, Walter can, but not you.

[32:36]

Yeah. Similar feeling to what Christina said. Yeah, this koan is very touching. There's a beauty that penetrates the whole body. And it's actually drawing me into silence.

[33:46]

And it's there as if one is all these things that are mentioned. And at the same time, fixed contours are dissolving. Yeah, so right now. Okay, thank you. I feel moved. The sense I brought up, one of the things I brought up was this experience of inner potential space. in contrast to outer attentional space.

[35:04]

But although both are spaces formed and held through attention? Is it possible that when you are working with a client or creating a constellation, you might do it by holding inner attentional space? and letting that do the work, or something like that. trusting that this inner attentional space knows more than discursive thinking, or something like that.

[36:17]

Yes, Norbert. Is the Buddhist teaching an attempt to describe experience in such a way that the description doesn't interfere with the experience? Yes, for sure. In fact, to leave key parts out of the description so that you have to discover it. And it's actually been a kind of problem for me, teaching in Europe to primarily with lay people how to do this.

[37:45]

Because the custom in Japan is you do it or feel it in front of the student or other practitioners. But you don't explain it. But that really is an assumed monastic context where you're living together. And I mean, you might in front of a student, I don't like the word student, but anyway, practitioner,

[39:06]

who clearly wants to know a certain kind of mind, And you don't even, you don't bother with the problem unless the person actually is all, really wants, needs to solve this mind, reach this mind. You would bring this mind or bodily feeling into yourself at various times with this person. And they usually don't notice her unless they're quite alert.

[40:36]

And you might even, if they're working in the kitchen, you might go up while they're cutting carrots and bump them and then do something. Or you might finally get anything. And it's like, please, I wish you'd get what I'm trying to show you. You might... in the midst of doing something, suddenly... And then look at the person and look away.

[41:39]

See if they get it then. This is the approach I learned with Suzuki Roshi. But he but and in Those days in California, most people had had months or years at Tassajara Monastery. But when I came to Europe, there was no Tassajara, no monastic experience, a variety of approaches, etc., So I found I didn't make progress in practicing with people until I started explaining.

[42:41]

So then I've spent 30 or more years trying, exploring how to explain without taking away discoveries. And people who, discovery really, I mean, something gathered through explanation really gives you the sensation of understanding but not the experience. And even if you yourself want an explanation and need an explanation, this is not going to work.

[44:28]

You have to be willing to live within a state of inconclusiveness without trying to understand and let the state of inconclusiveness function through your daily activity to reveal, if it's going to reveal, the unknowing. Du musst bereit sein, mit einer Unabgeschlossenheit zu leben und diese Unabgeschlossenheit hindurchwirken zu lassen durch die alltäglichen Umstände. Und dann kann das eine bestimmte Erkenntnis offenbaren. So if you really want to know too much, you're too strong and you want to know, you're not going to know, except partially. Because you really have to be satisfied with not knowing. Because in the end, it's all about not knowing.

[45:50]

Okay. Someone else. But in the end, you're only pointing to mountains, rivers, springs. I give a little more explanation than that. Yes. I'm stumbling over all kinds of things, but most prominently over this inner and outer. And the second thing I'm stumbling over is the creating.

[46:55]

about this inner and outer I'm wondering where is the what's the difference where is the distinction so there are more dangers And listening and resonating here with what was said, I had this image, okay, there are things that are closer and things that are further away. To feel when I work with clients what is coming, What's arising out of my time or time of my ancestors or out of my inner dialogue?

[48:03]

What's coming from the person across from me? But it's not such a difference, or what is the difference? It seems to me it's just a different location in the space, but why are we calling one inner and the other outer? What's the difference? Well, it's a little like the difference between a loaf of bread before you put it in the oven and after you put it in the oven. Or it's like waking up in the morning. What is the difference between dreaming mind and waking mind?

[49:08]

And for practitioners at least, and I think for everyone, that distinction should really be studied. You practice waking up and then stopping the process and going back into dreaming. And then letting it be waking again. And as soon as it's there to be waking, the involuntary dream images sink out of sight. And then when you go back into the viscosity of dreaming mind, the images start to float back up. And the discursive thoughts disappear, like when you take something out of your little line of things and it goes poof and disappears.

[50:35]

Yeah, so if you get to know that feeling, it makes it relatively easy to go back to sleep. because you learn to generate that viscosity of mind we call dreaming mind. And then you discover because I've explored this a lot you discover that you can go back into the dream you were in and pick it up if you intend to you can pick it up where you left off

[51:55]

But that's often an interruption because the dream is actually often going on anyway even though you're not part of it anymore. When I was a child, I used to spend a lot of time washing dishes. And they would say to me, Dickie, aren't you through with the dishes yet? Dickie, are you done with the dishes yet? And I would have a glass and I'd be looking at the silverware under the sun. I don't know why, but I could do it for an hour. I could do it for an hour. And that sort of light, even during the day, you can bring the viscosity of mind and sort of look down and see a dream going on underneath consciousness, the way the stars are underneath the cloudy sky.

[53:39]

Yeah, that's right. In the awake consciousness, you can look down and notice that a dream is happening, just like the stars under the clouds. then if you know the viscosity of dreaming mind, or the particular viscosity that's generated by attentional inner space, you can bring that into a resonant rapport in the middle of working with a client. Now, I'm not a therapist, but I see people in doksan. It's called doksan, face-to-face meeting. And one of the skills required at Doksang is that you don't remember what happened in Doksang when you're not there.

[54:45]

So if a person in Dzogchen tells you he or she is going to get married, say, that's exaggerated, but more or less true. Because you know, because in Dzogchen you want a modality, a mode of mind that reappears related to that particular person even ten years later. I know the word. Okay. In other words, say that I do doksan with you.

[55:57]

Like remembering that I sat in your lap last year. What a moment. And If I saw you two years later or two weeks later, that feeling would come up in Doksan but wouldn't be present outside of Doksan. It's a mind that isn't present in consciousness but somehow remains, not exactly timelessly, but it remains for a long time and is called forth only in the situation with that person. But, you know, sometimes I might forget what happened in Nogsan too.

[57:01]

But in any case, the feeling is and much of the work is in a time like that. And it's like generating a particular mind that works with a client. and not all clients maybe, and being able to recall that bodily and reproduce it. Okay, did I answer your question? Okay, let's have a break.

[57:48]

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