Guten Morgen. I'm sorry I was late. I got up early, but I got engaged in how to make the practice of Dharma accessible to you. And suddenly it was 9.30. Yeah. Anyway, good morning. So we're awaiting the next report. Yes? I have something like a question. Okay. the feeling of now, when I'm sitting, of being like, like outside, and something, also my body is sitting, so my mind is, I don't know, well, it's feeling like completely the body is sitting.

[01:33]

Like a container. It's as if the body would be a container. But not containing anything. No. They come back and I have a little bit of fear that they will come back. So, it's something new. And before it turns left, so inside it turns left, and the hands turn up, but I have it like this, and the hands feel like something else. Sounds okay.

[02:37]

If you want to keep practicing, you probably have to get used to such things. You have this kind of incongruous sensation, Usually are more common in the first couple of years or so of practice. Yeah, especially the experience of not quite fitting. I think it's good to really understand the five fears. The fear of loss of livelihood.

[03:38]

Of reputation. Fear of death. The fear of unusual and unknown states of mind. And the fear of speaking before an assembly. And it really means that If you're hooked into your society so that your fear of loss of livelihood, etc., etc., you can't really practice. It doesn't mean that you... don't take care of your livelihood or your reputation.

[04:44]

But if your identity is deeply tied up with your reputation, livelihood, et cetera, you can't get free enough from your inborn culture to really practice. And you can hardly answer an inner request, innermost request. If you don't feel free to change your life the way you make your livelihood, etc. So usually in these Buddhist lists there's a dynamic in it. So in this case it's from livelihood to reputation.

[05:48]

And then death, disease, etc. And then we're really into practice. Unusual states of mind. Of course, death is an unusual state of mind. Maybe it's not much different from any other state of mind, except you know there won't be more states of mind. Well, if you know you're dying, you know... And... Fear speaking before assembly means really the willingness to teach a new way of being if that's what occurs to you. And the fear of speaking before a meeting means really that you have the courage to learn about a new kind of being and being if you have had this experience.

[07:18]

And it also practically means willingness to speak out against your government, if that's what you think. Courage to really be who and what you are. And in the middle of that, the unusual... It's really because if you practice you begin to find my body isn't what I thought it was. What are the boundaries of in my body. Is this also my mind? These new experiences begin to not fit into our definitions. There's often some kind of fear or what's going on here, etc.

[08:42]

Not the main thing, it's more you have your seat, you found your seat. Yeah, you just let these things happen. Death, loss of reputation, Goodbye. It's actually traditional to die in sitting posture. It's really embarrassing when you sit and you gather everybody and you're supposed to die and then you don't die. Come back tomorrow. Sorry for all that, but I thought it might be good to say it.

[09:53]

I'm still waiting for the report, sir. Nobody dares give a report after the two extraordinary ones. Be modest. Be modest. Just tell us your report. Okay. No, you speak in English. Or maybe you speak in English and I translate. We certainly decided after a few weeks that we couldn't come here. This is so much more private. Also ist das mehr meine private Interpretation von dem, was in der Gruppe passiert ist, als so etwas wie ein offizieller Gruppenbericht? I very much appreciate a large difference in people.

[10:57]

Also ich habe diese Gruppe sehr geschätzt, weil die Gruppe sehr unterschiedlich war und eine große Bandbreite von Leuten, von verschiedenen Leuten dabei anwesend waren. What was like a difficulty in the beginning to understand And what it looked like at the beginning, how difficult, a difficulty or a kind of difficulty, because we used different words and terms. Consciousness is something you talk about with the founders. So the consciousness, we can easily talk about it, we can easily put it in a kind of box and define it.

[12:09]

So we found it difficult to talk about the consciousness until the point where we found metaphors that match how we can speak and compare. You have to use the word intuitive. But you didn't use intuitive. Okay, I'm sorry. I accept your apology. I think we came to the agreement that awareness is something we experience, it's not something we think about.

[13:14]

For me it was a very interesting switch of position of words and position of thinking. I always considered consciousness to be something solid and awareness to be something abstract. And these into a softer position. Where is it something you can experience, and how is it something you can define abstractly in a box? And now it has turned around. Now the reality is something you can experience, and the consciousness is something you can easily define, and then you can also put it in a box. That was a superior report. No, it's good. I liked it. And I'm heartened, actually.

[14:26]

Heartened? Heartened. You feel good. Heartened means you're warmed up. And as Christa said last night at the meal, It's very different discussing these things than it was some years ago. You hear these things and you have your habits. After a while the habits start Communicating with the teachings. And you start inhabiting your habits differently. So anyway. Yeah. So I was also in this group.

[15:41]

And we also talked about the difference between awareness and mindfulness. But there was also some kind of confusion about these terms. And then we reached the point in our discussion that mindfulness might be an activity which leads us into awareness. And then we were also talking about mindfulness practice and then we thought that by the practice of mindfulness we are enabled to experience things anew every time, fresh and anew.

[17:00]

By the practice of mindfulness We're unable to experience things new every time. Or able. It enables us. Sorry for... That's all right. So like you mentioned it some time ago, the washing machine of the present, the law. Did I say that? All right. And then we are... And then... And then we were also talking about the second aspect of mindfulness practice, that by mindfulness practice you connect yourself with things and phenomena, and by that you also connect yourself with the world.

[18:07]

Yeah. Okay. Something else? Yeah, that's good. Thanks. In the beginning we had difficulties with different minds. Because people had quite different conceptions or thought quite differently about that. So some people thought that there are different minds, like how do I feel at my job and how do I feel at Rustenberg. This is a layer vision, isn't it?

[19:21]

Or what Roshi used, or... Somebody thought that the mind is somehow like a hard disk for a computer. Yes. And then we also discussed the host mind and the guest mind. So I think that's for the moment. Yeah, maybe I should...

[20:22]

In a simple way, define mind. And images like the hard disk in default position and so forth are all somewhat interesting. Sometimes useful. And it actually is a more complex metaphor than what's available in the past. The problem with it is it's completely impersonal. A computer just gathers information, we could say, in that way. But as I'm going to try to speak about later, the gathering information is tied to gratitude, to cupidity.

[21:29]

But as I will point out later, this collection of information is connected with attitudes and feelings such as gratitude or cupidity. Cupidity means greed. Yes, so self-interest, greed. I think my computer is grateful when I turn it on in the morning. Anyway. Okay, mind is simply a... When whatever mind you're in, we could describe as homeostatic and self-organizing, our own organizing. Homeostatic means it tends to maintain itself.

[22:47]

And again, a simple example. Sleeping mind. Your alarm goes off. and maybe if you really want to stay asleep you don't hear the alarm or you think the alarm is the telephone and you don't have to answer it that would be homeostatic or unorganizing it it decides the That mind decides the alarm clock is not important. Once waking mind gets started and you start thinking about your day, it's very difficult to go back to sleep. And when a mood, for instance, you're saying an angry mood, everything is influenced by that anger.

[24:01]

You could say that's an angry mind. And everything is influenced by that anger. you could define mind in some different way if you want but I think this is a useful definition for practice because also you can find yourself in a mind in this definition of a mind it will also have a bodily component. An angry mind will feel different in the body than a joyful mind.

[25:01]

A sleeping mind is located in a different place in the body than a awake mind. So you can work with the minds through the physical component. Now, there's also mind in a general sense, meaning all the ways we know. And there's also big mind. But from the point of view of practice, the definition of mind I gave you is, I think, the most useful. Und ich glaube aber aus der Perspektive der Praxis heraus ist die Definition, die ich euch für Mai gegeben habe, die nützlichste.

[26:16]

Susan? Okay, that's all right. It was the first time. My third time. Oops. I have a feeling I really could go a lot faster. Also, it was a good perspective to go. Mm-hmm. Same here. Mm-hmm. And the other thing I have a feeling at the end of the conversation that we differentiated between a shape of mind, stage of mind, which is a next level of the first distinguishing of like professional mind, case mind, meditation mind.

[27:31]

That's great. Deutsche Bitte. I had the feeling at the end of our conversation that we were divided into two groups. It was very interesting for me to say first of all, what kind of spirit do we have? If not which kind, then what kind of spirit do we have? Open-mindedness, spirit of the forest, spirit of meditation, With every report, I feel closer to retirement. Does anyone want a job?

[28:45]

Oh, yeah. No, then I'd be so discouraged I might quit. Yes. So, something came to my mind which might seem to be a strange question. Okay. How do these different kinds of minds relate to the five skandhas?

[29:47]

Well, that would take some time to say something about, but the skandhas basically are a description first of all, about how consciousness is created and structured. And once you use consciousness as a reference point to see the structures of mind which develop consciousness, Once you use consciousness as the point of reference, to begin to understand how consciousness is formed, that then gives you the ability to locate yourself in different states of mind. That's a much better answer than I thought I could give.

[30:56]

Yeah, sure. We had this discussion in our group about what is a mind. And there was one position was, okay, there is one mind which is always present and there are only different states of mind within this one mind. And another position was, there are many, many minds. And I thought that you cannot prove either of both. You just can see what is more useful and you can look at the results from this perspective. And the first one, in my opinion, leads you to a generalization and it's not a very detailed experience, whereas the second perspective would leave you more in a detailed experience of each moment.

[32:11]

So it's more a question of aesthetics than a question of proof which to choose. But my question would be how can you distinguish between the state of mind and mind? Because state of mind would imply that there's only one mind which has different states. Whereas different minds would mean there are many, many minds, but there's a constant change in mind. Well, the first description you gave, I agree with. Yeah, Deutsch. Can someone else translate for me? Okay. So we will try to recapitulate. So we had this discussion about the minds also in our group and it was somehow two schools that had the impression that one school meant there is a mind and there are different mental states within this mind.

[33:14]

While the second school was of the opinion that this one mind is a generalization and it would be better to say that there are different minds and not one generalization of everything. And in my opinion, you can't prove both, and it's actually a question of looking at what results you get if you choose one perspective or the other perspective, and then a question of aesthetics, what you choose. And in one case it leads more to the fact that you generalize and don't detailed and precise experiences at every moment, in the other words, leads to a more detailed perception of every moment. I mean, the great problem is that mind is such an encompassing word, and it has so many meanings.

[34:19]

And particularly, I mean, as you know, in Germany, there are so many meanings to Geist, which has a very transcendental component. Yeah. The holy geist. Yeah, as I said, what you said in English, the first part I agree with. The question, I think, if you're not, Thinking in terms of entities. And you don't have the problem of a motive mind being part of a bigger mind or something. But rather minds with a general territory of sentience, of knowing that we can call mind.

[35:25]

And then we do find ourselves in what we call experientially different minds. And in English it would be better to say a mode of mind. An unfamiliar term to people to say a mode of mind, so generally I say state of mind. But if I were writing this... Technically, I would have to make clear exactly what I mean by these things. Okay. This group has the most reports of any... If you can't equal last night's reports, just give them one after.

[36:54]

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's better. I have a question for you. I have a question. I have a question. Yeah, thank you for developing the definition of awareness.

[38:33]

I think what you say is true. And it would help that... Knowing that, you begin to discover what the Sambhogakaya body is, which is called the bliss body and the reward body. And that's related to a mind and body defined through awareness. And that's related to a mind and body defined through awareness. If the next two groups, we have two more groups, each have four or five reports, we're going to be here till this evening. So I'm basically asking, when are we supposed to stop today?

[39:39]

Some of you have to drive to Wien and Lenz and so forth. Any gift? It says 4 o'clock. Is that okay with everyone? Okay. Yes, to watch us also. It's a long session before lunch. Have a late lunch or... A lunch at 3.30, you mean? No, no, I'm just, yeah. We had lunch at 2.30 or something. Well, I think right now what I would like to do is have a break. And after the break we'll continue and have lunch at the usual time. and then we'll start sort of we'll figure it out we'll start not so long after lunch and we'll have sort of one last session anyway really thank you for

[40:56]

And again, thank you very much for letting us include you in what we do.

[41:13]

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