The door didn't look anything like yours. But one name had an A in front of it. So I thought maybe B-O-L-K-E was one of your last names. So I pushed that button and this man and his wife appeared. First the man appeared. Then the woman appeared, backing him up. And they realized I was a refugee from America. And they realized I was a refugee from America. And so I was going to call a taxi and get the taxi.

[01:05]

They were going to call a taxi for me. And then although he was the dominant person, she was actually saying, you can try that. So she really was taking charge from her narrative. So he agreed, but he also had trouble reading them out. So he agreed, but he also had difficulties reading these cards that Gerald made for me. But she began telling him, this one is a one-way street, and you have to remember, that's a one-way street. She said a one-side street. Is that German? No. But she meant a one-way street. So she always said to him, this is a one-way street, so you can't drive like that.

[02:11]

And so, yeah. Yeah, okay. So anyway, this nice man brought me here. The taxi driver was nice too, and I gave him a good tip. So, let me just start somewhere, okay? so weaving our personal narrative whether we like it or not we have a personal narrative yeah and the question is can we change our personal narrative rather late in the life of living our, performing our personal narrative.

[03:14]

And I say performing because I think there's as well as a genetic element to our personal narrative, there's also a performative aspect. And as I say genetic, I'm obviously saying that to him. even our gender is performative to some extent. Yeah. So let me try to look at it from a Buddhist point of view, how Buddhism would look at it.

[04:21]

Also, lass mich da mal draufschauen aus einer buddhistischen Perspektive, also wie der Buddhismus das betrachten würde. Because we can bring Buddhism into this question of how we weave or re-weave our personal narrative. Wir können den Buddhismus in diese Frage hineinbringen, wie wir unsere persönliche Geschichte weben oder neuweben. I think first we have to start from just simply recognizing the obvious that we do have a personal narrative. It's instilled in us from infancy. And by our parents or caregivers if we are adopted.

[05:35]

And by our culture and our education. Okay, now I'm saying such basic, obvious things. Because I really think when you look at a topic like, geez, I've got this personal narrative, one really has to assess the basics of it. We all know if you happen to be adopted shortly after birth, you'll end up with a personal narrative which is different from your siblings or even twin. That means, if you just bring somebody to another set of parents or caregivers, or you bring them into another culture, they develop a different personal narrative.

[06:53]

And as I've been mentioning recently, if they are brought up in a language, a gestural language system, a bodily gestural language system like in East Asia. Then in our Western culture, we are thinking to the extent that it's formed by writing and reading. And in our writing and reading, our letters and words don't consist of space.

[08:11]

Space is only a background. And one of the things I've recognized from early on in practicing and then living in Japan As spatially creative and originating beings, East Asians and Westerners are rather different, actually. Originated. And, okay, yes, in German maybe similar, space-creating and producing beings.

[09:13]

In this aspect, East Asians and Westerners are very much different from each other. And, as I mentioned before, we can all reproduce with each other, all those who are humans. But our bodily mind systems of functioning within phenomena can be quite different. All that means is that you are more than your personal narrative. Was das bedeutet, ist, dass du mehr bist als deine persönliche Geschichte. No, I think that all of these things... You have a nice house. Thanks for letting us be here.

[10:18]

Es ist ein schönes Haus. Danke, dass du uns hier sein... Yeah, I think... To make practice work, it has to be practiced. But it has to be practiced within the context, framework, atmosphere of real practice. real recognitions. So anything Buddhism might say, or Zen, or I might say, will be pretty much irrelevant for you unless you actually accept that you are more than your personal narrative.

[11:34]

And that that Recognition that you are more than and other than your personal narrative. Means that it's possible, it might be possible to discover what and who you are beyond your personal narrative. But most of us are so psychologically indebted, karmically indebted to our personal narrative. Aber die meisten von uns stehen so tief psychologisch oder karmisch in der Schuld unserer persönlichen Geschichte.

[12:39]

We're always trying to prove that we're right and we are right and we will be right, etc. Und dass wir immer versuchen zu beweisen, dass wir Recht haben oder dass wir Recht haben werden und so weiter. You know, somehow we invest our identity... in our personal narrative. Makes sense, but we need to recognize that we do that. Wir investieren unsere Identität in unsere persönliche Geschichte. Und das macht ja Sinn, aber wir müssen erkennen, dass wir das tun. And that investment, and we expect results from that investment and not too many losses, means that we really almost can't get out of our personal narrative because we're invested in it. What was the last thing you said? Because we're invested in it. Yeah. So, I mean, if you think, I mean, I'm saying it, but if you take it too strongly, oh, well, I'm going to change my personal narrative, you're going to actually not do it.

[13:57]

So let's look at it, you're going to take a vacation from your personal marriage. I think all of us are willing to take a vacation. To vacate your personal narrative for a little while. Oder dass du deine persönliche Geschichte für eine kurze Weile mal suspendierst oder freisetzt. And that's actually what Zazen is. It's a little vague. You can imagine I would say that, but it's also true. Und das ist eigentlich, was Zazen ist. Ihr hättet euch jetzt denken können, dass ich das sagen würde, aber es stimmt auch. It's a way we can take a vacation from our personal narrative. It's a possibility or a way how we can take a vacation from our personal story.

[15:09]

So I would like to suggest, I mean, in Buddhism we talk about, in Zen particularly, what's translated as original mind. And it's been a very important concept in my practice, you know, imagining there's some kind of mind being that one can go back to and find some kind of origin of our humanness that's not culture bound. Und das war in meiner Praxis ein ganz wichtiges Konzept, diese Idee, dass es ein ursprüngliches Geistessein gibt, zu dem man zurückgehen kann, etwas, was nicht kulturgebunden ist.

[16:41]

And if you're 25 years old and brought up in America and New England and the Midwest and U.S. colleges and so forth, Even if you move to California, which for Americans is the promised land, where everything can be re-originated, where everything can be re-originated, And still it's obvious Californians are Westerners. So some sort of concept which allowed me to feel it's possible to find a freedom from at least a vacation from one's culture.

[17:48]

Just some concept that showed me the possibility to find freedom or a vacation from my culture or the way I was shaped by culture. But I prefer now maybe saying originary or maybe even originating bodily mind. Ich ziehe es jetzt vor, eher von einem originating, originary, also eher sowas wie einen urspringenden Körpergeist zu sprechen. Because it's not, there's no sort of original mind in some kind of... innate sense. Because instantly after you're born, you're already

[18:53]

in a process of acculturation. But we can approach this, you know, iconic original mind. And I think a more useful concept is an originating, that at each moment you're actually originating yourself. And as Ellen may have been saying when I was first here, in some funny way, we have at each moment is an originating moment and we can decide to confirm the weave of our personal narrative or we can decide to look between the weave, within the weave.

[20:21]

I'm not trying to give a lecture here. But I'm trying to create a way in which at least I can participate in a discussion about our personal narrative from the point of view of Zen and Buddhist practice. So we have to have some shared recognition that it is possible to re-weave or participate in the weaving of our personal narratives. That our personal narrative is not fate, fated.

[21:32]

It sure may look that way. And it may have elements of built-in kind of fate. Sie hat vielleicht Elemente von einer Art darin nistendes Schicksal. Aber im Buddhismus wird eher das Ausmaß betont, wie sehr die Geschichte neu entspringt. And the degree to which it's not just a story told by consciousness, woven within consciousness.

[22:35]

So possibly we could say the sense, bodily sense, the sense... of our sensorium, the sense which is most maybe free of acculturation is touch. And I'm not just looking at, you know, that we're born and then we're acculturated from infancy. And I guess there's at least a Western worldwide recognition now that even gender is on a spectrum. Even genetic gender is on a spectrum.

[23:38]

And the degree to which, as Judith Butler points out, gender is also performative. The degree to which the story of ourself as a male and female is witnessed and performed and confirmed from infancy on. And our genetics may actually not go along with that performance. The spectrum of our genetics may be different from the spectrum of our performative gender. If I'm making any sense now, I don't know.

[24:46]

I hope. So what I'm speaking about is maybe we can even imagine that our aliveness is even free of gender. And we can begin to locate an experience of aliveness which is not yet gendered or accultured. But we have to start somewhere.

[25:52]

And so I think the easiest way is to, the most effective way, what Buddhism assumes, is to start with the body. And I think Descartes asked, how do I know these hands and feet and so forth are mine? So, I mean, if we start with the body, then as some kind of starting point, we have to start with posture. And I was reading Ralph Zwiebel. You're there, hidden behind. A paper recently.

[27:03]

And it's a brilliant, interesting observation and analysis of an American... TV series called In Treatment, isn't that correct? And it's shown in Germany too? Really? I don't really have television, so I've never seen a television series. I saw a couple episodes in Colombo. I like this kind of disheveled way of... And there's some kind of iconic, or at least seemingly are meant to be iconic therapist named Peter something, right?

[28:15]

Paul Weston. Paul Weston? Oh, Paul Weston, yeah. And one of Ralph's main points seems to be that the couch is gone. But maybe the mental posture of the therapist is still present, if not the couch. Posture, couched posture of the horizontal sort of posture of the client. But that maybe the spiritual attitude of the therapist is still there, if not the horizontal attitude of the client.

[29:17]

So, I mean, Buddhism would certainly assume that a mental posture, as Ralph has also pointed out to me, in... What's it called? I always say associative mind in... What? Free association. Free association. The mental posture of the therapist is crucial. I don't really know how much taking the couch out of the in-treatment series is important. But at least you can't take physical posture out of Zen practice. So, I think we should take a break soon.

[30:19]

But let me say that when we sit down, we take a physical posture. Joined to a mental posture, as I'm saying so often now, of don't move. die mit einer geistigen Haltung, und das sage ich in letzter Zeit sehr, sehr häufig, die mit einer geistigen Haltung bewege dich nicht verbunden wird. And then you transfer attention from consciousness. Und dann überträgst du Aufmerksamkeit aus dem Bewusstsein. The simple intention not to move and to sit for a specific length of time takes the body out of the personal narrative of consciousness. Now, if you can do this, and some people are mostly sort of thinking in their personal narrative while they're sitting... But the yogic attention in Zen, particularly, to posture, is really take the body out of your personal narrative, woven in consciousness.

[32:02]

Aber die yogische Aufmerksamkeit besteht wirklich darin, den Körper im Sassen aus der persönlichen Geschichte, die im Bewusstsein gewebt wird, herauszuholen. And if you really can do that, you're at least weaving awareness now into your personal narrative. We can say you're weaving various kinds of awareness into your personal narrative. And And one is simply the awareness that you're more than and other than your personal narrative. And that awareness then The resultant awareness that you're more than and other than your personal narrative gives you a kind of alchemical chance

[33:39]

to re-weave or participate in your personal narrative in a new way. So... Let's stop right there now that we know we can wave awareness into our personal narrative. Okay. Thanks.

[34:21]

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