And then they lose the ability to speak other languages. Especially me. So shifting from signs to names to words that fit into sentences. And as words fit into sentences, her differentiations become possessions. Yeah, not just feeling possessions, but conceptual possessions. Everything becomes mine. And she's taught me that nine... is not a number.

[01:06]

You get my little joke. Nine is not a number. It's her last day saying, nine, nine. Yeah, no, she's separating herself. And so she separates herself and comes into a certain autonomy, which is healthy. But the things of the world become something she can possess, and that has something to do with The structure of language. Now she's trying to sort out those definitions. Things can be received and they can be given. And so forth.

[02:16]

And this is a kind of dynamic of self. Are things received or given? I always like it that the second precept is is not do not steal. But in Buddhism, it's do not take that which is not given. I like that. Do not take that which is not given. Mm-hmm. So Sophia is certainly, if this lecture and this reading I've done is correct, the left brain is becoming more clear. more active and maybe more dominant.

[03:26]

So what are we doing when we practice meditation? One of the things we're doing is suspending thinking. I think that that's not... It's better to put it that way than to say we stop thinking or don't think. We suspend thinking and we, I think, in that make the left, the right brain more present in our Thinking and acting. It could probably be studied. You could probably study somebody meditating and see if that's the case.

[04:30]

But it may be that meditation actually brings us in a way back to the stage in infancy when the structure of the brain is being developed. And supposedly the mother's brain also is being structured at that time. Although an adult's brain is less plastic, it's still somewhat plastic. So that means if we're going to look at the wisdom of self and non-self, we have to notice the ways in which we remain the same person. But we don't want to force on ourselves the idea we're the same person. We don't want to force the presence of the present into a thingness by insisting on the continuity and semi-permanence of self.

[06:01]

So if we really want to practice with the idea in Buddhism of self, a sense of self, as we say sometimes, that covers everything, a sense of self with That's not always the same. As we can feel that when we meditate.

[07:03]

And then we can feel our habits make us sometimes be the kind of person we don't want to be. So when we see that, we can imagine perhaps changing our habits or changing functions of self, the way terrain of self, and even the way we're biologically structured through our habits of self. I think that the Daily practice, unfortunately daily practice.

[08:06]

I'd like to be able to say to you, well, yes, a little meditation goes a long way. And that's true. It's like a little medicine. It might help. And certainly meditation and contemplation in whatever doses you take it is helpful. But if it's going to interact with your deeply held habits, It itself has to be a habit. Or a place you inhabit. We inhabit our habits. So if we do get in the habit of sitting... Once or twice a day.

[09:14]

Five or six or seven times a week. It begins, something begins to penetrate into our habits, into the very way we're structuring. Then it begins to penetrate into our habits, some more fundamental or primordial way of being begins to surface. Okay, once we recognize that self is a construct, then a self is constructed through our personal history and our culture.

[10:18]

So what happens when we, in a way, Something that can be constructed can be deconstructed. So what happens when we start looking at the parts? Well, other potentialities arise. Of course, if you deconstruct something, you only have the potentialities. your potentialities aren't just infinite, they're limited to the way it was originally constructed. And still there's a freedom of potentialities. And those potentialities have their own power, not limited to... the way you have been habitually acting.

[11:29]

And you can feel in yourself some new, a kind of life coming forth. And we'd have to say a new kind of being, sense of being. Hölderlin [...] us said something like, if we give to each hour its lyre, the lyre like a heart,

[12:34]

heavenly beings draw near. No, I don't know exactly what he meant, although I like his poetry. But just think, if we give to each hour, each moment, its song, its music, it draws closer something to us. Heavenly beings draw near. As I said, Intention lights up the world. The intention is a kind of intelligence. And that's the wisdom part of our topic. The wisdom of self and non-self to light up the world through these possibilities is the practice of Zen.

[13:47]

To get started maybe. So we're supposed to meet tomorrow at what time? 10? 9.30? Okay, we can meet at 9.30 tomorrow. And breakfast is at? 8, 8.10, 8.15. So 8, 8.15 to start? Is that what you say? So they'll be sitting here? You can explain. Thank you for translating. So just put up your hands if you can't hear very well.

[15:43]

Then I'll try to speak louder. And if three times your hands up, then you have to sit on my lap. Everyone's got their hands up now. Yeah, I have to share my lap. Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning. If we can answer this question, which is the title of this seminar, The wisdom of self and non-self. We've not only explored, we'll have explored much of Zen Buddhism. But we've bridged or transversed the considerable cultural divide between Western and yogic cultures.

[17:17]

We will have. Let me say, I think the two most misunderstood aspects of of Zen practice and Buddhism in the West. You're speaking so loud. I'm trying to. Is it OK in the back? OK. But it's somehow strange to speak so loud. The idea that Zen practice means to stop your thinking is... very misunderstood idea.

[18:21]

If, as we say last night, we suspend our thinking, etwas zurücknehmen, dann ist das schon ein bisschen besser, als mit dem Denken aufzuhören. Und wir können auch sagen, hör auf damit, dich mit deinem Denken zu identifizieren, und das ist schon besser, als diese Aussage mit dem Denken aufzuhören. I could ask why is it so misunderstood, even by teachers, and I think it's because they They're teaching a received teaching, not a realized teaching. And things get simplified or turned into generalizations.

[19:26]

That practiced might work. But... Yeah, what can I say? Like misery might make you understand something. But you understood it sort of just by the force of your suffering. Aber du hast es einfach nur deswegen verstanden durch diese Kraft und durch diesen Zwang deines Leidens. Aber es macht keinen Sinn, jemandem zu sagen, wenn du das verstehen willst, dann musst du einfach leiden.

[20:46]

And sometimes Zen teaching is simplified in such a way. And I'm struck by Ji Bo, as I mentioned last night, a 16th century Zen teacher, who emphasizes the craft of practice and Zen as a Buddhist practice, much more than earlier Tang and Sun dynasty teachings. And I think that's just because, in a way, conditions were more modern and literate.

[21:54]

And probably less face-to-face. Because Sung and Tang Dynasty teaching assumes that Teacher and disciple have years, usually about ten at least, of face-to-face teaching. I asked Giorgio and Christiana if we could perhaps stay here for ten years, but they're not sure it would work. So since they've said it won't work, probably we'll have to find some other way to practice together.

[22:55]

And part of the problem with this is What is meant by thinking? Now, I'm speaking about this not only to, you know... enter us into this subject. And by the way, I'm sorry I went so fast last night. But I guess I... I don't know why I did, but I guess it was in contrast to their slow pace of the day.

[23:55]

And I just decided somehow to get a lot of things started and then hopefully slow down. So I'm bringing this up again. Thinking and not thinking and so forth. To enter us into this topic. But also because we can ask, what is self when there is no thinking? Because one thing we really, if you want to really make any sense of the idea of non-self or self.

[25:09]

You have to really understand what you mean by self. And then, with that work done, you can look at what does Buddhism and Zen mean by self. Now, if you're, say, sitting in meditation, and an airplane passes overhead, and you think or have the thought, oh, that's an airplane. Is that a thought in Buddhist terms? No, it's not. Is it thinking in Buddhist terms?

[26:10]

No. Why isn't it? Well, we could say, because primarily it's an observation, all observations are not thoughts, which takes temporarily the form of A few words. So how can I say, at least in English... kind of get a feel for the difference. Well, if you start thinking about the airplane, then we could call that thinking. Now, thinking about, we suspend. Is the mind free associating, you know, that Freud emphasized?

[27:30]

Is that thinking? Not really. It's things floating up in terms of sometimes, often words, but it's not really thinking. Okay. Again, let me look from another angle. Why isn't it thinking? Because thinking is an activity which generates a kind of mind that supports thinking. If you have occasional thoughts Thoughts that don't generate the mind of thinking, they're not thoughts.

[28:43]

Does that make sense? So there's a certain kind of... As Dogen says, think non-thinking. Among all the Dogen scholars, and many of them practice, none of them I think understand what Dogen means by that. And I think it's probably because they haven't really sorted out for themselves what is thinking. Mm-hmm. Now the other misunderstood thing, not just in Zen, but in Buddhism as a whole, is somehow practice means to be free of self.

[29:52]

Or to have no self. Or to be always selfless. I don't know. People ask these questions. And What Buddhism means by being free of self, we have to really look and understand what Buddhism means by self. Yeah, but we can't get very far into that unless we first of all define all the forms which self takes for us.

[30:59]

So the first practice, the first work, is a familiarity with your own use of language. The Meaning you give to these words. And we started that yesterday. I think we should continue. Now someone said very aptly and... Yeah, very aptly.

[32:06]

Apt means acutely and so forth. That they had changed, they could see that their structure of the self, the process of the self had changed. The process of the self, this change in the process of the self was reflected in the relationship with other people and with the environment and so on. But then this person said, but I'm still the same, or I remain the same. So what, I mean, we all might say this.

[33:18]

But what does this person mean by I? What does this person mean by I? If you can see that your process of self-activity, self-formation has changed, but then you say I remain the same, is that I also another kind of self? Now I'm just trying to create problems here. Because if you don't, we have to figure out some way to notice how we use words. It took me a long time to get us to, in practice, separate feeling from emotion.

[34:22]

In English, they're conflated to almost be the same word. But if they're the same word, you can't explain the skandhas, for instance. Okay. Scandals. Oh, you don't have to worry. It's a scandal. No, you don't have to worry about it. But I'm glad you noticed. So, one thing I'll say is we're... In Zen in particular, we're speaking about, always speaking about experience.

[35:30]

If you have no experience, Of a sutra? It's not a sutra for you. It's just a bunch of ideas. Any part of Buddhism that you haven't experienced is not your Buddhism. You can believe in aspects of Buddhism if you want. It may be convenient for you. Might make your life better. And we could say, yes, you're a Buddhist.

[36:30]

Because, yeah, but you're not Buddhism. And Zen wants you to be Buddhism, not a Buddhist. Especially the emphasis in Zen. So the rigor of understanding. So this is rigor. Rigor means... Seriosity. Seriosity? No. Is that a German word? Seriosity? Yeah, the rigor means... to do something with thoroughness and discipline. is to go no farther in your practice than your experience.

[37:49]

And if there's some aspect of Buddhism that is interesting to you or you have some resonance with, you don't... I don't know how to say it. I'm... you hold the potentiality in front of you, but you wait for experience to reveal it to you. And in that way, you're most likely to have the teaching open up to you. So in strict Zen practice, there is no belief. You never go forward through belief, you only go forward through experience. In Buddhism is your experience of self.

[39:10]

Okay, so then we can ask a question like, does self continue through the night? Do you have an experience of self during the night? But I also said self is... That which melts. So self is, here we're emphasizing self not as continuity. And certainly not as something permanent.

[40:15]

But self which melts into each moment. Melts into your lover. Into your child, into your friend. And reappears. Now, this self as that which melts is a different sense of self than we usually have. Now, if we speak of self which melts, then Buddhism has such a self. The emphasis in Buddhism is only on There is no permanent self. Not that there isn't the activity of self, the function of self. Dynamic of self.

[41:23]

Now how do we define these things? Okay, well we get lots of words that mean versions of self. If you look up... soul in the dictionary it says the immaterial part of you that is permanent and separate from the body and If you look up psyche, it says soul or spirit.

[42:27]

If you look up spirit, it says soul. When you start going in circles. So the dictionary doesn't know how to define these things. And psyche is, of course, the name of a beautiful young woman who fell in love with Eros. And Eros happens to be the son of the the god of love and the son of the god of love and beauty, Aphrodite. And Aphrodite then somehow has become the god mediating function of consciousness and unconsciousness. What does that have to do with the young woman who fell in love with Eros?

[43:45]

You know, I, you know, How did we sort these things out? So we have psyche, we have soul, we have spirit, And we have the pronoun I. And we have ego. Self. We probably can think of some others. How do you use them? Well, we could try a little exercise. We could say, Let's take a place instead of a person. Now, I don't know how you say these things in German, but there's a different feeling for each in English.

[44:50]

I could say in English, what is the soul of Rastenberg? I have some feeling what that might mean. And what is the spirit of Rastenberg? What is the mind of Rastenberg? Now you're having trouble. What is the psyche of Rostenberg? That doesn't make any sense. Even in English, but not entirely. The psyche of Rostenberg. That would be how it affects you. What is the mind of Rostenberg? What is the mind of Rostenberg? So anyway, you have to try out, because these words mean something to you in your habit.

[45:54]

Okay. And, of course, breath, inspiration, expiration, etc. Breath is also a word for spirit. Now, one of the... For spirit. So I'm just continuing before I break. And I'm just continuing before I break. I think in our actual experience it's not confusion.

[46:55]

But if we try to speak about it or put words on it, it's confusing. But I have to speak about the actual experience of the Zen practice in English words. What do they mean to you? Well, I'm trying to narrow the definition. Like by saying, we're talking about self as the experience of self. What is the experience of self? Now, one of the things I think we call the self is the observing self.

[48:08]

The sense that we have an observer. But Buddhism simply wouldn't call that the self. That's nothing to do with what Buddhism means by self. Das hat nichts damit zu tun, was Buddhismus als selbst meint. The observing self is a function of mind. Das beobachtende Selbst ist eine Funktion des Mind. The observer is the mind functioning, that's all, it's not the self. Der Beobachter ist der Mind, der arbeitet, aber sonst nichts. However, in certain minds, if we have different minds, as we do, The observer becomes autobiographical. The observer begins to collect information, past and project into the future. But that's a function of the mind as observer which collects or accumulates history. Functioning through your accumulated history itself

[49:09]

But it's also a dimension of mind. Okay, so I think that's enough confusion. Hölderlin. Hölderlin. I'm so impressed with my daughter. She speaks German so much better than I do. She can say, Bach, Bach. I'm sorry, I meant... He said something like, the poet writes... Hölderlin sagte sowas wie, der Dichter schreibt, so dass er, oder sie, so dass er seine Geschichte und Erfahrung verstehen kann, durch das Verstehen von anderen.

[50:36]

And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to understand what I experience through the understanding of you, through the experience with you. He also said, as I mentioned last night, we need to bring to each hour a lyre that whose form and song brings near heavenly beings. And Ivan Ilyich, who died quite recently, you may know.

[51:54]

I felt very lucky, too, because two weeks before he died, I got to spend three days with him, and he was quite vigorous. We walked all the way downtown and Raymond and so forth. The last thing he said to me, just before I left for wherever I was going, He said, let's write a paper together on why Christianity and Buddhism are not religions. Maybe that's what I'm doing right now. But he liked a particular poem which said he wants hours which have lost their clocks. What is self when hours have lost their clocks?

[53:07]

Okay. So let's have a break Machen wir eine Pause. Let's sit for a moment first. Und sitzen wir vielleicht vorher noch einen Moment. Amen.

[54:49]

to bring song and not clocks to each hour. Or we have the case, the golden body exposed in the wind. Well, let's try to create some kind of definition here.

[57:30]

I leave it up to you to sort out your own definitions of these words. And to notice also, I think, the ones which you have the most investment in, the most cathected energy in. Yeah, okay. So let me just say that Consciousness in Buddhism is a function of mind. Consciousness is not the entirety of mind. Consciousness is a function of mind. Self is a function of consciousness.

[58:41]

And ego is a function of self. So I think we'd have to start, well, let's not try to start with the definition of mind that's more difficult. Let's start with the definition of consciousness. Now, these are not philosophical distinctions, but experiential distinctions. Now, I think the way we define things Mostly non-consciously. Mostly we have inherited definitions we take for granted. Yes. Like Marx saying the forms of the senses have been a labor of love, created over generations.

[60:08]

Recognizing that Even the way we perceive the world is something that we have inherited. We create. So consciousness is a function of mind. What is the job of consciousness? The job of consciousness is to create a predictable world. You can't function without consciousness. a high degree of predictability.

[61:10]

The job of consciousness is to create a predictable world and a cognizable world. So, consciousness edits out the mystery. Consciousness ignores what isn't understandable. Now this doesn't mean consciousness is some bad guy or something. If you think of it in terms of functioning, then it's the right tool for the job. It creates Its job is to establish a predictable, cognizable world.

[62:31]

And to maintain that. And self is, as I said, a function of consciousness. The function of self is to establish a personal history. The qualities of self establishes your personal history. And it projects into the past and future.

[63:32]

And one of the jobs of consciousness is to protect the self. So the activity of consciousness also tries to support the self. edit out again that which doesn't support or would contradict the self. So we can say that both consciousness and self are rooted in certain views of the world. So self again is the medium of memory and how that memory is organized as a personal history. Und wie diese Erinnerung organisiert ist, also eine persönliche Geschichte.

[64:48]

Ja, so... Self is, we can say, a creature of consciousness. But it doesn't cover all our knowing. So this particular self, rooted in personal history, and projects... and projected into the future and the past, which is part of consciousness maintaining a cognizable, predictable world, is the self that Zen and Buddhism wants you to see as not permanent and not limit all your functioning to this self. In a way we could say that

[65:50]

Consciousness also depends on what we could call sense certainty. You're quite sure about what you perceive, what you sense. Percept, certainly. So, if the job of consciousness is to give you a predictable world, you can see why it's implicitly suggests a permanent world. Because the most predictable world is a permanent world. No, I would say conservative people, for instance, politically conservative people,

[67:14]

One aspect is probably they simply need, for psychological and emotional reasons, a more predictable world than so-called liberals. So it gets hard for conservative and liberals to argue. Because they're not really arguing about politics, policies, positions, they're arguing about the structure of self and consciousness itself. And it's hard to give up your consciousness, the way your consciousness is structured. And whether you're, you know, let me go back to Giorgio's table.

[68:42]

I'm not suggesting we all go to his office. The room we're staying in, I told this story yesterday, but the room we're staying in, as soon as Sophia went in it, she said, Giorgio's house. And then we sat down at the table and she said, Giorgio's dish, Giorgio's table. And this is actually a big change in her. Because until recently everything was Sophia's table. So she's beginning to say, Well, this isn't my table, this is Giorgio's table.

[69:47]

So that's an outward movement. Away from naming and language that possesses the distinctions. So consciousness makes distinctions. And those distinctions are immediately a relationship. And those distinctions are immediately a relationship. are immediately a relationship. And what is that relationship? The relationship has directionality. It either goes toward you or toward the world.

[70:49]

And in Language, in English, it's receiving and giving. So there's a sense of you make a distinction and then it belongs to you. Or you give it away. Okay. Now bodhisattva practice is to make your initial mind one always of giving. The relationship is always seen first of all going this way. Now we're talking here about the craft of giving. experience. That through mindfulness you notice your initial expression of something. The initial distinction you make.

[71:56]

So I see Michael. And do I say, oh, Michael is... Does my feeling go toward, I want Michael to be the kind of person I want him to be? The kind of person I want him to be. Do I want to possess him, his definition? And I think we can notice that when we see people, we kind of want to control or possess how they're defined. Or can I give that definition back to... to Michael and be excited by surprise.

[73:01]

Probably you have much in your life that I don't know anything about. So there's always a tendency to try to capture a person or free a person. So that's receiving and giving. But receiving isn't taking. Receiving is waiting to receive. So I said last night that The precept is not to steal, it's to not take what is not given. So on a perception, I can have an initial feeling of giving, and the second feeling is waiting to receive.

[74:01]

And that is the root practice of the six parameters. To be very present in this feeling of the relationship and to the degree it's giving and receiving. So in the mindfulness and craft of this relationship, we can feel Self-appearing. And self being defined. So self here isn't some entity or... Generalization or your personal history. It's being shaped all the time, like a potter shapes a vase or a bowl or something.

[75:16]

And on every... relationship, I'm shaping the self. As you said, the process of self. We're talking about self not as an entity, but as a function and a process. Consciousness, we can also say, wants, as I said, percept certainty.

[76:20]

Now we can't change the overall structure of consciousness easily. But we can change, we can work with the applications of consciousness. Much of the teaching of Buddhism is how you apply consciousness in particular situations. How you bring attention to something. And now we're speaking about bringing attention through giving and receiving. And now we're speaking of it too as an initial mind. Makes me think at one point point I wasn't eating, I was trying to eat less.

[77:27]

Particularly uninteresting food. And so I said, oh, don't give me much to somebody. And Marie-Louise said, he's dieting. I said, yeah. Then she said, but watch, only on the first serving. On the second portion, I... So you can start out with initial mind. And you can be greedy on the secondary mind. But it makes a difference if your initial mind is a mind of generosity and receiving.

[78:32]

And you're beginning to give depth to the structure of consciousness. Now, the structure again, consciousness, If it functions, it has a structure. And if its function is to create a predictable, cognizable world, it's a very easy step to an implicitly permanent world. And if you need... ...percept certainty... Forget how I wanted to say that, so I have to come back to it.

[79:52]

So let's look at memory for a minute. Memory is definitely part of the function of consciousness and self. Consciousness accumulates memory, Ein Bewusstsein akkumuliert Erinnerung, und das Selbst akkumuliert Erinnerung, aber das Selbst akkumuliert eine Erinnerung, die für das Selbst selbstrelevant ist. So memory is woven, we can say, on the loom of the self. But memory is also woven on the loom of the senses. As we all know, memory... pop up to us through the kind of covering of self.

[81:10]

Through the covering of self. And remind us of things quite out of context sometimes. For sure, not all memories in the service of self. Generally, memory is organized to support the self. So we can also find memory that isn't exactly... self of consciousness. Now we might say, for example, that it's Buddha's memory. Because memory which is not related to are the boundaries of self.

[82:29]

Tells us something different about the world. Okay, now let me stop and see if you have to want to bring up something that does this make sense, this sense of consciousness, the function of mind. self as a function of consciousness and ego as a function of self. Ego then being that part of self which only sees things That's relevant to itself. Ego sort of ignores the world. Self is also embedded in the world. But it's embedded in a world that it needs to see as predictable. So that's a general picture of how Buddhism sees consciousness in the self.

[83:45]

Now, in meditation, you're entering a mind that doesn't function Aber in der Meditation betretet ihr einen Geist, der nicht in dieser Art und Weise funktioniert. Ihr betretet einen Geist, der, man könnte sagen, nicht bewusst ist. Das hat irgendjemand etwas, was er gerne sagen möchte. Of mind. Consciousness. A function of self. Part of self, yes. And ego is mostly only directing things this way. Self directs things both ways.

[84:59]

I haven't defined mind yet. I don't know if I will. Mind is much bigger than consciousness. Transpersonal? Okay, let's go back to what I said about percept certainty. Now, I don't remember exactly, but I think Hegel makes a distinction between here-ness and now-ness.

[86:00]

Here is an experience of consciousness. Where we have, let's say again, percept certainty. This is here. Okay. Nowness is in some way a aspect of night or darkness. Okay, so you get up at night. And you're walking in a strange place to find a door handle or something. And there's unexpected stairs. And if you have a child, there might be almost any object on the floor.

[87:03]

And once in my experience, the child... I was working in a completely dark room and I stepped on something soft. It was my daughter. She'd gotten out of bed and gone... That was scary. So, luckily we... practice in Buddhism to walk as if the floor were not going to be there. So you step forward without even the sense of permanence, you reach out toward the floor. And the floor, the coolness of the floor, the rug comes up to receive your foot.

[88:18]

And that's also a practice of impermanence. I can see it in mature Buddhist practitioners. they walk without a sense that the floor is definitely going to be there. Sometimes it's not. Because you're in complete darkness and you're walking. And you're making sure you're not stepping on toys or babies. And you straighten your spine. You feel into your spine so you make sure you're not tipped or out of balance.

[89:22]

And move toward where the door might be and the handle might be. Now I think Hegel would call that an experience of nowness. There's no here-ness. You can't see anything. There's no percept certainty. But there's a sense of... Now, I'm just playing with words here or ideas. Now, that sense of And this feeling of now as bodily consciousness, as bodily awareness, is not consciousness as I just defined it.

[90:25]

But it's certainly mind. Someone else? Yes? First of all, when we spoke here from Vienna, we talked about teaching of self, and Eric told me, self is a function. And really, her reaction was, or not... As soon as I came to work, I actually saw a seat I gave up on. It's so abstract that I can't think of my experience to it. The first thing I would like to say is that when I was a young person, I didn't know what to do.

[91:30]

I didn't know what to do. [...] And one thing it suggests to me is that the way it functions, it's handy like a cage. Yeah. From my experience, I experience that kind of setting.

[92:32]

But I also experience a kind of setting which changes according to the situation, of course, whether I'm with my family or with my dear. And it also changes with Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So my question is, somehow, how can you bring that together?

[93:19]

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