I had a report from the Buddhist police that you didn't start at three. I was bribed. You were bribed? The police were bribed. Oh, the police were bribed. You know, I didn't come here... I'm not here to try to... As usual, to try to get something outside of me that's inside of me. Excuse me. I'm not here to try to get something that's inside of me out. This is, you know... A fine thing, a wonderful thing for me to do. Because I really, I just have a chance to be with you.

[01:02]

And explore some of the most serious things in our life. But, you know, we're in our own lives. We're so... In our own lives, even though we try to do the best to make things work and understand ourselves... Often we don't make too much progress. Yeah, I suppose because we're so rooted in our own habits. Molded by our habits.

[02:03]

And molded by and rooted in a situation that's hard to change. Now that's true for everyone. It's true for practitioners as well as, you know, as well. And practitioners, one reason practitioners practice is to, you know, using that phrase again, loosen the grip of our life on our life. Or zu lockern. Zu lockern.

[03:04]

Okay. Our life is in the locker. Unser Leben ist im Schließfach. Oh, I don't know. Rilke has the key. He has a poem about, a statement about, we should treat our life as locked boxes. So I have to bring up, I try to bring up some things. That might change our state of mind. What might change or create a situation that isn't how we usually expect things.

[04:14]

Create a situation that isn't so predictable. You know, I wish I could do things like while we're sitting here, I could move the door over there. So when we all got up to leave, we'd say, wasn't the door there? We'll have to get over there. Yeah, so, and that kind of befuddlement and freshness can happen if our viewpoint gets disoriented or changes. And sometimes we can then look past the obstacles in our life, because, hey, the door is in a different place.

[05:23]

So I thought the discussion we had before lunch was quite good, and if anybody wants to continue it, it would make me happy. I thought the discussion we had before lunch was very good, and I hope some of you want to continue it. Yeah. The idea, don't invite your thoughts for tea. It came to mind, why not have a tea party and look at them closely and realize that it's not a thought. So watch how the thoughts are coming. Watch out. I think it's the problem how we handle them, how we deal with them. So the thoughts are not the problem. How is the problem?

[06:26]

In German, please. When Koshi said that we should not invite our children to tea, I thought, let's have a tea party and have a look at the children. And then they are not so dangerous, if you know that. Whether we like it or not, most Zazens are in fact a tea party. And eventually, that's true, it doesn't make any difference. Oh, it's a tea party today. Someone else? If there are thoughts, is there consequently a thinker?

[07:47]

No. I mean, there's a mind, a body, etc. But are the thoughts... It's really a complicated question. So what do you mean by a thinker? But I think the most useful way to respond at this point because most of us assume there's a thinker it's more fruitful to say there's no thinker. Didn't somebody write a book recently, A Thinker Without Thoughts or something? Stephen Batchelor. No, no, Mark Epstein. Mark Epstein. Mark Epstein? Oh. I didn't know he was... Okay, anybody else?

[08:58]

I have the book. I haven't looked at it. I don't know whether it's here or in Colorado. Thoughts Without a Thinker. Now that's a post-Buddhist title. It wouldn't have been written when I was a kid. I cannot keep my attention just on the breath. There are two different possibilities. Either I go into discursive thoughts or it's something like It's hard to tell. Like a kind of whining, so like more than a field.

[10:05]

I often have a picture of a mirror where everything is inside. The breath, the breaks between in-breathing and out-breathing, my body, other people, and it's just the feeling that this all happens and I don't have to do anything with this and it has nothing to do with me or something like this. So I can't describe, but it's more than the birth. Okay. Deutsch, bitte. So I always have difficulties to direct the attention to the breathing, so either I just go away in thought, or it's more like when it expands, so it's quite difficult to describe, I often have the feeling that there is a gap in which everything is in, or much more, the breathing, the breaks between the breathing, me, my body, the others, and also the feeling that it's just all happening, that I don't have to do anything with it, and that it actually has nothing to do with me.

[11:36]

Is this a good feeling for you or not a good feeling? So you have this good feeling. It sounds good to me, too. I wouldn't mind. And then you also have the feeling you... can't keep your attention or have your attention stay on your breath. Why do you make a connection between the two? Yeah. Well, there may be, but mainly I would say... Mostly it's two different things.

[12:39]

Yeah, so we sometimes have one might, and through practice more often you have the state of mind or mode of mind similar to what you said. And I think what you're saying is that in this mode of mind you described, your experience is that it is a field of attention or attention rests in this field. It's in that sort of the case. So it's an example of attention resting in place. One of the fruits of practice is attention eventually rests wherever you put it.

[14:01]

And that's one way to give a definition of one-pointedness, so-called one-pointedness. But I'm told that one-pointedness isn't such a good word in English. In German, it's way worse. Yeah, I know. In Berlin, it came up that it's way worse. I guess that's everybody's taught in school to concentrate and be one-pointed. I like that. and it really looks like a pointed something rather like yeah it's like the person who's working a desk you come up and talk to them they don't even know you're talking to them if that's one pointedness I've never achieved it it uh

[15:35]

Yeah, so we need some other way to describe it in English, especially in German. It's not only that your attention seems to... rest in whatever the situation is. Attention itself isn't passive. But attention itself is a dynamic of the situation. A gestalt of the situation. And a gestalt which changes the gestalt. So in the midst, when attention is, it's very hard to find words to describe something like this. But when through practice or good luck, the situation is inseparable from attention, it is sort of like watering a garden.

[17:26]

Suddenly the garden you're observing or in the midst of starts to grow. So it's not just like you're turning a light on a situation. It's like the light itself, if we call it that, is plant food and nourishment and sunshine and so forth. So, okay. Then the bringing of attention to the breath is related but different or different. is related, but as a practice has a number of results or fruits.

[18:41]

Can you say that somewhat differently? It's a practice which has its own results or fruits. Okay, the whole thing, but it doesn't matter. I said that the practice of bringing attention to the breath is a practice in itself which has its own fruits. So basically the ingredients are And as most of you know well, because I've spoken about it often, let me just say that in this practice of mindfulness and meditation, When you loosen up the hold thinking and habits and emotions have in our life, you can see things more like a mosaic.

[19:48]

Or a gestalt. Of which you can like participate in moving the parts around. So you have a feeling you're participating in your own life. So, again, the ingredients are you have an intention to bring attention to the breath. And in bringing attention Attention to the breath. As you know, you can only do that when you shift your sense of continuity out of thinking into the body and breath.

[21:23]

So thinking becomes a tool or something you do. But it's not where you find your identity. Not where you find your life. It's not where the self functions. Now, as you know, again, this is a really big change. If you can bring your sense of continuity from moment to moment, out of your thinking, so it's not established in your thinking, but rather rests in your thinking, than in your body.

[22:34]

And in phenomena. Now, the word phenomena in English means to shine. The root of it means to shine. And we usually think of the word phenomena as just meaning, oh, the stuff, all that phenomena. If you look it up in the English dictionary, it says, that which is known through the senses. And literally, the etymology is to bring things into the light of the senses. Und jetzt ganz wörtlich in der Etymologie heißt es, das, was im Lichte der Sinne scheint. Erscheinungen. Ja, that's interesting.

[23:36]

We have the word appearances are things which... Scheinen. Scheinen. Ja. Erscheinungen. Ja, okay. Well, that's nearly the same meaning. Appear, apparition. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I haven't... I'll just look up appearance, but appearance... Things that appear within the light of the senses is what phenomenon means. Now, how they appear and what appears and how you relate to the appearance is another aspect of practice.

[24:39]

Okay. Okay. So, if you have the intention to bring attention to the breath, first of all, you're learning to more and more rest in intentional mind. And not in discursive mind. So just the effort to keep, oh, can I have my attention brought to my breath, is to change the usual mind we're in into another mind. just to bring, have the intention to bring attention to the breath, as a kind of habit that you repeat, is to bring, is to, one fruit of that,

[25:56]

is not just that you bring attention to the breath, is that you are bringing yourself out of discursive mind into intentional mind. And once you're more resting in intentional mind, you can shift that and attention to your breath. And at some point it becomes possible that you don't even have to bring it back. It comes back by itself. You don't have to bring your attention back to the breath. It comes back by itself. And after a while, just naturally, naturally, rest in the breath. Of course, there's always a dialogue going on, a kind of dialogue.

[27:11]

With attention shifting here and there. But the reference point, the seat of the breath, keeps returning, the seat of attention keeps returning to the breath. Attention has found its home in the breath. And we came for a party. Yeah, if you want. Okay, so if you... Let's go back to sitting zazen. If you bring attention to... If you sit down to do zazen.

[28:17]

Generally, you bring, naturally, attention to your posture. Are you sitting? Are you sitting up straight? Can you lift up through your backbone? Can you find a posture for the legs which allows you to have your backbone pretty straight? Not so much straight, but a lifting feeling through the backbone and up through the spine and top of the head. Now, for most people on the planet, it's easier to sit what's called seiza, like rosemary sitting. So Japanese lack of furniture and robes and kimonos are designed around that posture.

[29:28]

And literally, the culture made an implicit decision to design their houses and clothes around the necessity to do, basically forcing people to do this plushie. And of course many people also sit cross-legged. So both are meditation postures. This cross-legged and this cross-legged. I don't know. Was more adept. You can have Frank. You have Frank?

[30:40]

That's all right. Please, Marlies. I could sit full lotus instead of half lotus. So far I've only managed it for a few moments in a hot tub after 20 minutes. But I still struggle along with my profession. So you're creating a more firm foundation this way. Now the most important part of zazen posture is your backbone, not your legs. But the legs want to give you the kind of support that you don't have to use musculature to hold yourself up.

[31:55]

So the geometry of your posture holds you up. So then you have to find the right thickness of cushion and so forth. Because you want your back to be... straight easily without having to pull it up all the time. But one advantage of the legs, too, is you get confused what's left and what's right. And that's good. I always give this example. If you try to aim from the outside, it's very hard to figure out which finger to move.

[32:56]

That's the simplest example I know that we have a thought body that we feel from outside and not feel from inside. So if I could cross my legs twice and put my toes together, that would be really a good position. But you're also folding your warmth together. Okay, so the first step, usually, aspect, let's call it, of sitting is attention is brought to the posture.

[33:56]

And attention is usually then also brought to the breath. But I'm suggesting, earlier I talked about attention as a kind of conduit or wiring, circuit. Attention or attention? Attention. But attention is also a kind of switch. Like a light switch. But you have to kind of hold the light switch down for a while. It takes a while before the light comes on. So maybe if we could hold the switch down long enough, these lights would start coming on.

[35:08]

But meditation is something like that. The beginner holds down the switch for about a year or two and not much happens. Or sometimes it makes the switch. So anyway, when you bring attention to the posture, and let's say the breath too, what you're doing is holding down the switch. And you eventually switch from consciousness to awareness. And suddenly you feel a special feeling. The boundaries of the body somewhat disappear or do disappear.

[36:16]

And, you know, if you want an easier practice, you can't explore indefinitely, but it's easier. Die man nicht unendlich erforschen kann, aber sie ist leichter. Get in the bathtub and wash your feet in the dark. Es geht in die Badewanne und wascht eure Füße im Dunkeln. If you're in the dark or close your eyes and wash your feet. Wenn ihr im Dunkeln seid oder die Augen zumacht und dabei euch die Füße wascht. You know, your hands are washing your feet. Dann waschen eure Hände eure Füße. First of all, your feet are no longer down there. They're right in front of you. So your sense of location of being up here and the feet are down there kind of disappears. And the subject of the hand touching the object of the foot. can shift and suddenly the subject of the foot is touching the object of the hand.

[37:39]

And subject and object can conflate or disappear. Subject and object can conflate this way or that way. Conflate means to merge. You're subject to object, conflate, and you inflate. All the water splashes out of the tub? This is not true. What? Maybe. Okay. So, In that experience, you know, if you just let yourself into it in the warm water, up and down, right and left can all disappear. And there's still a kind of dialogue between what's subject and what's object and what's observing, etc., What that dialogue is sort of in the background.

[38:51]

And there's some kind of spacious aliveness. that isn't the shape of the body. And we could call it an experience of emptiness. There's no reference point. And there's just a sort of field of aliveness when subject and object conflate. And although one can be conscious or observing in the midst of it, it's more what I would call awareness.

[39:54]

And it's a more fundamental state of being than consciousness. And through practice, this fundamental state of being becomes more and more present and underlying and surrounding consciousness. But since the Zendo isn't big enough for 20 or 30 bathtubs, And probably we couldn't afford to keep all the water warm. We just have cushions and people can sit. But you can imagine yourself in a warm bathtub washing your feet while you're doing Zazen.

[41:15]

So you hold this switch of attention to breath and body and posture. And there's sometimes a shift into awareness from consciousness. And now attention can be brought into this awareness without disturbing it. And the way attention can observe consciousness and explore it, now attention can observe with an awareness and explore it Because this awareness is rooted in mind and not in attention.

[42:33]

This awareness is rooted in mind and not in attention. In mind, not in attention. And consciousness can also be rooted in mind and not in attention. And so you can bring attention to either, like two different rooms. Now when the beginner is practicing and you have this sense of awareness or samadhi and you bring attention to it it immediately turns into consciousness. Because in that case, this awareness is rooted in, is not rooted in mind, is rather precariously come to.

[43:52]

Precariously come to. So now if you have this, now we've gone a step beyond what Freud did. Because instead of bringing the contents of unconsciousness, he would say, but I would say non-consciousness and unconsciousness, Into consciousness. We now have developed attention and can go directly into non-consciousness and unconsciousness. haben wir jetzt die Aufmerksamkeit so entwickelt, dass sie direkt in das Unbewusste oder Nichtbewusste hineingeht.

[44:58]

The problem with bringing things from non-consciousness into consciousness is usually like bringing a fish out of the sea. You put it on the beach and it flops around a little bit and dies. And if you pull a dream out of dream time and put it on the beach of consciousness, it's there for a little while, but pretty soon it dries up and goes away. So these yogis of India and China and Japan discovered ways to study non-consciousness and unconsciousness by separating attention from consciousness, rooting attention in the body,

[46:05]

and using that embodied attention to explore the mind of, let's say, simply dreaming, while you're in the awakefulness of zazen, but not the wakefulness of consciousness. So you can see the formation of dreams, dream images and so forth. So you can be in the midst of the formation. Formation you mean the actual happening of the form. And the development of this yogic skill to be present in awareness in contrast to consciousness

[47:21]

Also makes it much more likely that most of your dreaming will be lucid dreaming. You'll be present in the midst of your dreaming as a commonplace thing. So knowing yourself now doesn't mean knowing yourself consciously. Or knowing yourself by bringing things into consciousness. But rather having an observing mind and not an observing self. A fourth mind. Now we're born with, you know, non-dreaming deep sleep, dreaming and waking. And now you can develop through practice a fourth mind which to various degrees can integrate the other three and integrate the other three and study the other three

[48:55]

Including studying the fourth mind itself. The newly generated fourth mind itself. That actually exists in us to various degrees. but is rather ephemeral and only occasionally noticed. Well, that was a little bit of a riff there, wasn't it? I don't know how I got started on that. Trying to give some obscure Zazen instructions. It must be time for a break. Yeah, so let's have a break. Can you say how long, please? It's always the same length. It's either half an hour or whenever I or someone rings a bell.

[50:33]

You know, I really don't like a predictable world. I like a predictable world that you could change. Yeah, okay.

[50:38]

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