I'm trying to shape a Zen practice here for you. Which you can hold in mind and feel in body. Which will allow you to develop your practice in whatever circumstances you're in. Although I've said all you're doing is bringing more attention to the life you already have, And if you can bring attention to the life you already have, that very attention can transform your life.

[01:05]

But what kind of attention is this? Well, first of all, it is the intention to be uninterrupted. So Klaus said that there was no goal, but in that sense it's a kind of goal to see if you can approach an uninterrupted attentional stream. Now, the kind of attentional stream, and particularly a potential uninterruptible, uninterrupted attentional stream, can probably only become real to you through zazen.

[02:28]

Because we could describe zazen as the practice of an attentional stream. Did you say in or attention? Attention. Now, you know, at this point somehow in the way I'm teaching, I'm trying to speak about the basics. I'm trying to speak about the basics in a very basic way. So you get the basics clear. Okay. Okay, so let me say again, then I'm afraid I can't really present a Zen practice through which you teach yourself Zen.

[03:52]

Let me say that again. I'm afraid that I can't really present a Zen practice through which you teach yourself Zen. I can't present it convincing to myself in a way without saying it requires zazen. Now, it may not require zazen, regular zazen, but that's not such a bad idea. But it requires some experience of zazen. Okay, now the ingredients of zazen are, again, quite simple. You take a posture, in which you are erect, but you can be lifted up posture, but in which you can be at ease.

[05:11]

And it is a posture very similar to lying flat on your back. As you mentioned to me this morning at breakfast, you have this experience of horizontal Zen. I am not a bit doubtful. And I don't say that. Ironically, I know that my first wife, after doing zazen for some years, began to do zazen regularly in bed. And the problem is often, usually, most of us, we... fall asleep, not just sort of asleep, really asleep.

[06:28]

So Zazen is a way to, the Zazen posture is a way to not fall asleep. Or it's a way to fall asleep and hopefully not hit your head. Okay. So it's a particular posture, lifting through the spine, etc. ? And it is, again, the mental posture of don't move. Now, what happens? When you try to sit and you also have the mental posture of don't move, Wenn du versuchst zu sitzen und dabei auch die geistige Haltung hast, bewege dich nicht.

[07:45]

Now in a way I'm presenting this to sort of contextualize what Silke said earlier. Und in gewisser Weise stelle ich das so dar, repräsentiert es, um Zusammenhänge zu schaffen für das, was Silke vorhin gesagt hat. Because when you sit zazen and you hold the mental posture, don't move. Okay, now you have two potential streams of continuity going on here. The one assumption here in this attentional craft, is that we can't really function as living beings without an experience of continuity. ist, dass wir als lebende Wesen nicht wirklich funktionieren können ohne eine Erfahrung von Kontinuität.

[09:00]

In fact, most of us believe that so thoroughly. Our body, our mind, for its own sake, keeps going back to thinking. Yeah, but what Zazen teaches you is that shows you, teaches and shows you that There are other ways to establish continuity than in thinking. Now, don't move, although it is words, it's not thinking. Und bewege dich nicht. Also, obwohl das Worte sind, ist das nicht denken. It's a command or, again, a mental posture.

[10:01]

Das ist so eine Art Befehl oder Gebot, ein Gebot, oder, wie ich gesagt habe, eine geistige Haltung. So, if you have established this posture, so you can, as you get better and better at it, after a while you can sit pretty well. But look at me. I mean, I've been sitting now 55 years. And I can't sit full lotus. Even at the best of times, I was only able to sit full lotus in a hot bath. Melting my joints. And then, but I got pretty good at listening either way about after 20 years or so up to about 15 years ago. Then I had eight weeks of radiation treatment in Freiburg.

[11:13]

And my joints have never worked the same again. Why, I don't know. So now I can sometimes sit, I can sit this way, half lotus, right half lotus, but I didn't have to kind of put my leg out of joint to put it here. But, you know, so it's not so easy to learn this posture. And I'm very stiff-jointed anyway.

[12:14]

It took me forever. And as I've told you, Suzuki or she, one morning came by and said, why don't you just sit at home? It's too difficult. I looked up and he said it over my shoulder. I ignored it. Okay. So anyway, you try to develop this posture if you can. Second best is Caesar with your legs back. Fifth best is the chair. Okay, so then you establish this mental posture, which isn't thinking.

[13:35]

Also dann stellst du diese geistige Haltung her, die nicht denken ist. An intention not to move. Und die Intention, die Absicht, dich nicht zu bewegen. Just by doing that you're already developing a mind, what I'm calling now, a minded stream. Allein indem du das tust, entwickelst du bereits das, was ich jetzt einen minded stream, also einen geistesdurchdrungenen Strom nenne. You're holding in mind, don't move. Du hältst im Geist dieses bewege dich nicht. And you sometimes move and of course your body is functioning and so on. But mostly consciousness is asking us to move. Wondering when the bell's going to ring. And wondering about the things I have to do as soon as the bell rings. So all of those conscious questions and also anxieties and recriminations, you criticize yourself.

[15:02]

The so-called psychological or self-referencing stream So what this simple act of sitting with the idea of not moving, the intention not to move, reveals to you that you function through a continuity established in thinking. And as we're speaking about basics here, it is, the question here is, when you, if you are counting your breaths as a, At any point it's useful, but mostly as a beginner.

[16:13]

Counting your exhales usually up to 10 and then starting over again. But you can only get to three. Or you maybe get to one over and over again. So then the question arises, and it's a real question. Why is something that's so easy to do for a few breaths so difficult to do for even ten? And the answer is very simple. Because we establish our identity in the continuity of conscious thinking. weil wir unsere Identität in der Kontinuität des bewussten Denkens erstellen.

[17:32]

I mean, the thinking usually isn't even very interesting. It's just it gives us the continuity of identity. Not that you're thinking profound thoughts. What we think is usually not even particularly interesting. It's just that it gives us the experience of our identity, the continuity of our identity. And usually we don't think deep thoughts. What does this expose to you? What does this simple mental posture of don't move expose to you? that we have to establish our identity, our usual identity, our usual life through thinking. And if you lose that continuity for some reason, it's a kind of nervous breakdown. So we really have huge energy. In maintaining the thinking continuity.

[18:46]

So this don't move becomes a real challenge. And it makes your attention go under consciousness. So you find yourself sitting, I don't know metaphorically, under consciousness. It's not understanding, it's under consciousness. It's almost like you're, you know... Nowadays the world is full of movies, electronic sounds, radios, and obscure beaks.

[20:00]

In fact, there's a repeat of the Spielberg-directed Columbo. Yes. Which is supposed to be the best one. So you're somehow for a few minutes in the still water under the waves. Du findest dich irgendwie ein paar Minuten lang in diesem stillen Wasser unter den Wellen wieder. But the waves, they're up there and you can kind of ignore them, but they start waving at you. Come back up here. Die Wellen, du kannst sie zwar so ein bisschen ignorieren, aber die sind immer noch da oben und die winken dir zu.

[21:10]

Jetzt kommen wieder zu uns zurück. Yeah, and some of them turn into beautiful waves. males or females. You know, if you resist that, you know, they turn into, you're going to drown down there. Okay. After a while, the don't move allows you to stay under consciousness and find another way to breathe continuity. Erlaub dir dieses Bewege dich nicht unter dem Bewusstsein zu verweilen und eine andere Art von Kontinuität zu atmen.

[22:17]

Du findest sogar, dass dein Atmen unter dem Bewusstsein eine neue Art von Kontinuität herstellt. Now, This is a tremendous recognition if you recognize that it's a tremendous recognition. Wow! There is another way to establish continuity than in my thinking. That simple recognition and the implementation of a bodily continuity And the implementation of a physical continuity is the main way we free ourselves from mental and emotional suffering.

[23:44]

You don't want to block off the emotional reality of your life. But you recognize the neurotic, compulsive, other aspects of your psychological self-referencing stream. And you have a more fundamental relationship now to what's going on. What's the secret of the basic practice of mindfulness? For example, to be mindful that you're angry. As the four foundations of mindfulness go, All these practices, all these most basic practices at least, are based on this simple distinction.

[25:09]

Is that you recognize the flow of your life, and this becomes more and more deeply understood, is not simply in consciousness. not only in consciousness. So let's take to be mindful that you're getting angry. Okay. Oh, jeez. I seem to be a little angry. That annoyed me. No reason for it to annoy me, but I get angry and I'm still feeling angry. Well, now I'm more angry. You just, oh, okay.

[26:11]

Now I'm really angry. But what's happening? You're observing that you're angry. The observing mind isn't angry. It's just observing the anger. Der beobachtende Geist ist nicht ärgerlich. Der beobachtet nur, dass da Ärger ist. So, well, at some point you recognize I can shift my attentional focus from the anger to the observing of the anger. And that possibility becomes more and more possible as you practice the foundations of mindfulness. And at some point you realize Hey, I can just shift my attentional focus to the field of mind and not the anger.

[27:31]

And you make the decision to do so. This is to recognize the stage of practice and make the shift. Let me just go back to Zazen for a moment. So you have recognized in order to sit without moving for 30 or 40 or 50 minutes, You have to withdraw your experience of continuity from thinking. dass du deine Erfahrung von Kontinuität aus dem Denken herausziehen musst.

[28:35]

And if you don't, you're always thinking about what to do and moving, etc. There's a kind of mental and physical moving going on. Und wenn du das nicht tust, dann denkst du immer darüber nach, was noch zu tun ist, und du fängst an, unruhig zu sitzen und dich zu bewegen. Es ist immer irgendeine Art von Bewegung. You're only pretending to sit still because you're mostly in the waves. And the sitting is hard work and you feel uncomfortable and so forth. It's not just easeful sitting which could go on pretty much indefinitely. So what you've got here is you've got a minded stream of the intention to not move. And you've discovered a bodily stream, which we really should talk about more, which the body just is sitting there.

[29:36]

What has to be alive somewhere? Why not here? So you have a physiological stream generated. Or even we could say biological, because you're creating new chemical and electrical pathways in your metabolics. So you've become aware and developed the skills of a minded stream and you've developed the feeling for an embodied stream. And you found out how clearly the presence of the self-referencing stream is disturbing.

[30:52]

Not necessarily disturbing in itself, but disturbing if you want to establish or feel your continuity simply bodily. So what Zazen does is gives you an awareness, an experiential awareness of these three streams. And there's something that's doable. And it's quantifiable. Measurable. You can notice when you don't have a uninterrupted attentional stream.

[32:23]

And there's no penalty for forgetting it. You can just go back to it whenever you happen to notice, hey, I've lost this sense of an attentional stream, and now I go back. Now, if you can really feel this and identify yourself in this overlapping activity, shared activity, these three streams, notice these three streams. Then the minded stream and the bodily stream can begin showing you how we actually exist. Okay.

[33:34]

Now, Nicole has mentioned to me a couple of times in the last few weeks is that she has been exploring in her practice the distinction between a percept and appearance. And this has interested me. But for me, I don't, you know, when I say percept or appearance, I pretty much use them interchangeably. Because if I notice that I'm perceiving this as a bell, The percept that I notice the percept is already an appearance.

[34:41]

I might say this is a percept or I might say this is an appearance. Also könnte ich sagen, das hier ist eine Wahrnehmung oder das hier ist eine Erscheinung. But you are making a distinction here, which might have to do with Deutsch, it might have to do with you, and you're noticing a shift, and the shift is important to you. Could you say something about it? Sure. I'm trying to get out of teaching. Will you translate? Because you all speak German? No. Oh, see, we need help here. Okay.

[35:44]

Ja, es ist das so zu benennen, Wahrnehmung und Erscheinung, die dazu sagen, da liegt eine Unterscheidung, das sind einfach meine Worte, um einen shift zu lokalisieren. To call it this way, this is an appearance. These are my words to locate this. To locate the shift. To locate the shift. Und die Frage finde ich... Unterscheidung von was? Ja. Okay. What I just said in German is to use these words, perception and appearance, is just my way of locating the shift I'm talking about in language somewhere. Okay. And I just ask myself the question, when I listen to Roshi, then at the most different places there is actually always this shift towards

[36:53]

I listen to Roshi, I put myself to the question, is there an interiority? Yeah. So I do the English too. Okay. I'm used to that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, movement or displacement. You have one experience and shift into another kind of experience. That's a shift. The perception itself shifts.

[38:00]

That you have a different kind of perception. So, as an example. If you... Yes, the perspective. So, shift can... Exactly. What exactly shifts is... That depends on where you shift. But shift, first of all, is just that a change takes place. Yes. I use the words, I'll start very simply, I use the words simply when I see any object, then I call it a perception. And with the word perception I simply describe that it is the very common sensory perception. This is Neil, then I also have names for it, I know them all, this is a bell. And the way I'm making this distinction is I'm calling perception when there's just a sensorial event. And usually I'll have names for the event, like this is Neil or this is Abel. And then when I look into what is the feeling of perceiving, what's the experience of perceiving, then I notice that normally

[39:06]

The world seems normal to me, as I have learned it. It's all outside. Daniel is different from me and the bell is different from me. And there is also a feeling that everything has its own place in the world that I have learned about categories and culture. So and then what I'm noticing when I look into that feeling is that I'm noticing, I'm perceiving kind of, I don't know, maybe the normal world, the world that I've been raised into, which other people are other. And there's a sense of, you know, they are out there and I'm in here. And things are also categorically fixed. Like a bell is, this is a bell and you can hit it and then it makes a sound, but it's not necessarily anything else but that. It can be a teacup, but the tea doesn't taste very good. So there's a sense of things, I know where they belong, a sense of categorical fixedness.

[40:30]

Okay, and when I look further, I notice in this experience that I'm not really satisfied. It's actually quite simple. So when I look into that feeling, another presence I can feel in that feeling is that I don't... an absence of a deep satisfaction. I notice the absence of a deep satisfaction in that feeling. There's a feeling that it's finally there. Finally. So, not infinitely. Yes, also. Yes. It's like... I think like... I feel like... It's somehow okay, but... Yeah, it's kind of just an unease or some sense of, okay, well, this is how things apparently are, but it's not, it has to be something else. Yeah, some feeling of lack, maybe.

[41:35]

Yeah, just some, okay. So just some information that some other way of connectedness or of depth has to be possible. Okay. And there comes this, that means I'm actually looking for some shift. So that notion makes me seek some sort of shift, which I don't know exactly what that shift is, but I then know I'm seeking a shift. Okay, and in Roshi's teaching, over the years, I've been looking for this word appearance as a turning point in his teaching.

[42:38]

He always says that you perceive things as appearances. You have to learn to perceive things as appearances. So I've just identified in your teaching over the years this word appearance as like a turning, a crux in your teaching. You keep saying you need to teach yourself how to perceive things as appearance. And then of course the question arises well i'm perceiving everything already so when in your teaching would it be accurate to call what i'm perceiving an appearance And then it's actually quite simple, because I know the definition, which I have now often heard. In principle, an appearance is a perception connected with the perception of the spirit.

[43:44]

So, since I know the definition through having listened to you, I just make myself aware of that. An appearance is a percept joined by mind. Simultaneity of sense of percept and mind. And intuitively, I immediately notice that this question of what this could be, it immediately goes into resonance with my search. And something like that also solves the motivation for me or a real intention to keep going. So when I hear that, I do notice, and that's significant for me too, that you're mentioning mind in that way, that that, for me, unknowingly sort of, don't exactly know why, but that it enters a resonance or a junction with what I'm seeking. So there's that, that motivates me then, or creates the power to have that intention to follow that shift.

[44:56]

Okay. I just asked her a little simple question. It's interesting that it's so many-folded. I didn't know it's folded. But I'm almost sure. No, I may go and rest in my room. I'm just teasing you. Okay. So, then the question is, if I stay there really precisely, what... So if I just really stay precisely on that question, what is that supposed to be? What is mind? What is perceiving mind in a moment of perception? When I go looking for the spirit, I immediately realize in my experience that when I look for the spirit, I first have to look in the fields of the mind.

[46:02]

Spirit is clear. Spirit is something that must be present in the perception of the mind itself. So and then it's clear that mind has to be something that appears in the sensorial fields themselves. Mind couldn't be something that's somewhere out there. So it has to be some presence in the sensorial fields. Okay. Okay. And then I look for this presence in the sense perception. And when I do that, I really do that with the body. So when I do that, seek that presence in the sensorial fields, then that is something I'm doing with my body that I can't do through thinking. That seeking has to have a physical resonance. And for me it's like that. I think that's the point where you can't really say much anymore, where everyone just goes on their own research journey.

[47:08]

For me it's like this. I find myself quiet in the silence. So I think at that point, there's not that much to be said, but at that point, one just needs to explore our body. And the way that I'm exploring is I sit still, and I notice the importance of still sitting. in order for a feeling of presence to spread throughout my feeling of perception. Does anybody want to join this discussion? Yes, Silke? For me, it affects my heart.

[48:10]

The moment I take the bell in my heart, that's the shift that I feel physically. So when I'm listening to you, I feel like I can follow that. And the shift that I'm noticing, it's as if there's a point when I'm beginning to feel the bell in my heart. And that is a feeling when I sense a physical shift. But it's not the organic heart, but my heart. Yeah. But not so much the organ, the heart as the organ, but just whatever it is in my experience that I'm calling heart. Okay. For me, it's a feeling of... If you ask me now...

[49:11]

So for me, if you're asking about mind, the experience of mind. Is that a feeling of, it's hard to express, of inner, so to speak, of inner touch. An inner touch. Then I have a sense of some inward touching. Yes, inward touching. Maybe I can say something else. I went through this before. And maybe I can add something. In the 60s or 70s or so, there was this Hollywood movie in which somebody swam as an erythrocyte, I think the red blood bodies, through the body and through all the organs and so forth.

[50:31]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And when I remember that today, I am immediately amazed at how this dual vision is, so to speak, the watching. And when I think of that today, I immediately notice how stupid this dual perspective, this dual view is, as if one was watching everything. . when I tried to approach the different forms of attentional stream. Then various images arose and among other things for me also the image of the blood stream appeared. And that's a practical image of how everything penetrates or flows through the body for one's entire life uninterrupted.

[52:01]

When I try to go into that feeling, then that's a warm and inner feeling and also a sense of flow. And in normal life, one needs a door in order to keep entering. And what's been very helpful for me is the way you've emphasized Hishiryo in recent times. . somehow a feeling of getting up, so basically a liquid movement of the senses and then, so to speak, into the non-optical, other sensory phenomena, i.e.

[53:28]

what is currently appearing, a smell, a noise. And that, for me, is entering into the sensorial other appearances, just whatever happens to appear at that moment, a taste, a smell or something like that. And ideally, of course, that's also connected with some sense of mind appearing. You're a surgeon. A vascular surgeon. Yeah, I'm sorry. Get it straight here. So you have the experience of being in the midst of a cut-open body.

[54:31]

It must require an extraordinary amount of attention to really... It's a life and death situation. And you've done this almost daily for many years now. Now that experience of attention, how has that then affected your opening to Zen practice? I mean, I don't know if this is a relevant question, but it's part of your experience for sure. I don't know if that's a relevant question, but it's definitely your experience. Es geht eher umgedreht.

[55:39]

Ich glaube eher, dass Zen die Aufmerksamkeit, wie soll ich sagen, also eine andere Art von Gewahrsein und Aufmerksamkeit entwickelt hat. I think it's more like the other way around, that Zen has developed another kind of attention and awareness. In the dual world, you can of course control processes with a kind of technical attention and learn how to ride and not fall over. Of course, in the dual world, you can, through attention, always manipulate processes, just the way you're learning how to ride a bike without falling over.

[56:40]

Okay, thanks. Yes? I asked myself the same question, because I think that we do things without knowing what we are doing. And in this case, what Volker mentioned, This is something that you touch, so it's something physical. I think that has to do with the physical current, that you are so full in this physical current that everything else is switched off. It's about life and death, but you don't realize that. You are just so full there without reflecting on what is happening. So what we are doing now, we are reflecting, yes. But if you are in such a situation and have not yet practiced it, I think when we are not so much practicing or not having been practicing so much, we do things which We don't know what we're doing, just like now reflecting upon it with your help, what this is.

[58:03]

And this work, I think what Ferk is doing is an extreme form of bodily stream, full concentration, nothing else present, pure concentration. And I think in this way we function anyway, we're just not aware of it. And now we're getting aware of it. Okay. Yeah. Now, we should stop for lunch soon. But Nicole has been practicing since she was 18. She's now just had her 35th birthday recently. Congratulations. And So here she is, she's been listening to me and practicing Zazen probably some thousands of hours. And not listening to me thousands of hours, but practicing thousands of hours. Listening to me a lot of hours, though. Nicole has been practicing Zen since she was 18 and has just turned 35.

[59:06]

And now she has been practicing Zazen for thousands of hours and has also heard a lot from me. Yeah. And here she is, after all those years of practicing or listening to practice, teachings about practice, she's still looking at the distinction between appearance and percept. I mean, what's wrong with you? So I actually don't think anything's wrong with you. But what's interesting to me is that, I mean, first of all, I'd say what you brought up, put it very simply, has three ingredients. As you noticed it, percept, appearance, and the shift. And I'm emphasizing here the noticing the shift.

[60:22]

Okay, she also has, and she went to the university and became a psychologist and etc. So she's had her own life continued from her life as growing up with her parents and so forth. But Zazen and Buddhist practice has allowed her to look at this life as it's developed. And have a mindfulness within her life, a mindfulness which allows you simultaneously to be more engaged and more observant. And of course, now we have her life, we have the engagement, and the observant.

[61:30]

Now those three ingredients are working together. And so at this point, I would say, she can, after all these years, actually refine this experience by noticing the percept appearance shift. And the shift then lets her shift into appearance, but it also lets her to have a way to explore the territory of percept, ongoing perception, and the field of appearance.

[62:32]

And after all these ingredients have worked together over so many years, it is now at a point where it can notice and express this shift in a more refined way between the ongoing perception and the shift to appearance. I don't know, is that a fairly somewhat reasonable description of your experience? Okay, so this is also my experience. In my life of practice. So here, these two persons, this person and this person, and you and Volker and Susanna and so forth, we are in the midst of this shared practice, And it's interesting that the several people I've mentioned have different life histories. Und es ist interessant, dass die unterschiedlichen Leute, die ich erwähnt habe, unterschiedliche Lebensgeschichten haben.

[64:05]

Aber wenn du beginnst, deine Lebensgeschichte durch diesen Achtsamkeitsstrom dir anzuschauen... We begin to have a shared experience that joins us in ways our personal history does not join us. We recognize an awareness and presence that overlaps among us. And here the craft is noticing the shift so that you can explore the territory. You need some kind of reference point to explore the territory of your lived experience, and shifts allow you to do that.

[65:11]

And here the art is to notice this ship, this shift, so that you can explore the territories and these shifts of this ship help you to do that. I always try to have my experienced translators, Katrin, you, go out nearby to help. Yeah, okay. So now it's time to shift to lunch. And Andreas, when shall we shift back into the seminar? Just like yesterday. 3.45. 50 minutes. 245. 245. Okay. Thank you very much. And thank you for translating and expounding on your experience.

[66:17]

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