Thank you for being here again this morning. Now I've presented this phrase, the golden wind, title of our seminar. And I tried to give you some sense of what that means within the Buddhist Zen tradition. But I believe that these phrases have a power of their own, as I said in the beginning. That's not easy to explain.

[01:04]

I remember one of the first seminars I gave in Europe... I guess early 80s for some reason we used the phrase because there was a courtyard next to the room we were meeting this court courtyard courtyard yeah you mean that seemed twice as long as what i said um you know kind of garden besides yeah and uh Anyway, somehow we use the phrase, the rhododendrons in the garden.

[02:12]

And I still have people come up to me and they say, they see me, oh, I haven't seen you since the rhododendrons in the garden. So I can't explain. Exactly. Why these? Sometimes. So maybe I'll see you next year or sometime and you'll say, oh, the golden wind. Also ich kann das nicht erklären, aber vielleicht sehe ich euch nächstes Jahr wieder und ihr werdet mich anschauen und jemand von euch wird sagen, ah, der goldene Wind. But what I'd like to start out with this morning is coming back to the reality of having your attention in your breath all the time. I want to give you the confidence that it's possible.

[03:16]

And I want to speak about it, and I'm speaking about it not as so much part of Buddhism, just as a simple habit. a habit you learn like standing up straight or something like that so you have a your child tends to slouch you might say stand up so you could say the same thing to your child oh it's your tension with your breathing And if you said it often enough to the kid, probably this is not advice to a parent. Not necessarily, anyway. I think eventually the child will just develop it as a habit, as standing up or eating a certain way.

[04:29]

And I don't think there could be a better habit to develop it. I should say something about Why I think it's such a good habit, but let me go on a bit. Another good habit, which is related, is the practice of mindfulness. just to develop the habit of being mindful until it's just a habit and we have little rules to remind you in Zen like when you stand your feet You know, your feet are this far apart.

[05:43]

Your ankles. And it's just, you know, eventually you get so you can stand that way virtually all the time. And your body doesn't forget. It doesn't stand like this. Or like this. No, I'm not saying this is a habit you should develop I'm just saying to develop mindfulness you need some kind of you know little way you teach yourself another habit we have that comes from monastic practice is to always step through a door with the foot nearest the hinge And normally this isn't taught, you just notice, like I noticed that my teacher did it. And when beginners start doing it, you notice they walk up to a door, you know, and then they do a little dance.

[06:59]

I do even do the little dance sometimes. And as I have said, attention is like, we could say it's like a muscle that you develop, that you exercise. It's a kind of power. Attention is the most important single thing in your life.

[08:03]

What you bring your attention to is what you become. So attention, intention, attention. mindfulness. All these are intimately related and shape your life. Sculpt your life. You're sculpting your life with your attention. Your life is always Emerging. Right now, your life is emerging. No, we can ask what sustains our life. We can also ask what allows our life to change.

[09:04]

So we're sustaining our life. But life is also to let your life change. And that has to do, as I said yesterday, with energy. So the third thing I would emphasize is this bringing your attention your energy and attention equally to each moment. Now that's also simply a part of mindfulness. If I'm going to be mindful, I have to bring my attention to the situation. Now, Now each moment has a topography.

[10:28]

And you notice that topography by what you bring your attention to. I mean, say that there's a... You're watching television. And there's a group of people on the television. You'll notice your attention will go before you think to one person rather than the other three or something. Or then you can make an effort to who are these other three people but as soon as you relax your attention goes back to the first person. So before you even think there's a topography, your body is noticing. So to bring your attention equally is also to bring your attention to just what appears. Now this I can't explain more because it's a craft you come into through repetition, through practice.

[11:52]

But the more you have an intention to give attention equally to each moment the more that attention develops surprisingly the more there is energy for the immediacy of the moment. This is simply a science of... The way I'm talking about Buddhism here, it's really an inner science. It's not much about religion. So does anybody have something you want to say before I go on?

[13:19]

I'd like a little reassurance that I'm talking to someone. Is anyone out there? I would like to say something. The attitude of mindfulness, I mean, I was always wondering when you see this, the first impression you have about sane people or some sane groups is they are rather stiff and rigid and mindfulness is something like you have some guardian behind and says, be mindful, be mindful, be mindful. But my feeling is that the attitude of mindfulness is more like relaxation.

[14:23]

So you can relax and it's not to be more on guard, it's not being on guard, it's being just relaxed. German, please. My first impression of mindfulness is, I mean, it sounds more like in German, mindfulness, it's like when a policeman stands behind you and says, be careful, be careful, be careful, but for me it was like that. Yes, even the word awareness, which I prefer to consciousness, I like the distinction to consciousness.

[15:28]

In English, Awareness is rooted in the word wary, to watch, to guard yourself. And if I'm practicing with people who... who... say at Crestone, become quite stiff in how they do things. I make fun of them or I try to get them to relax or I try to get them to be stiffer. Yeah. Yeah, but what you say is right.

[16:46]

So, something else? I remember a phrase you said four or five years ago which is connected to that, which was, stop interfering. And could you, I would like to know what you think about it, then self-discipline? It's connected to offering no resistance to what comes naturally. Richard said that for a long time. He said that it's about stopping, actually interfering, disturbing what comes naturally. And I would be interested in what he would say about it. The training with self-discipline and, so to speak, the resistance. These are hard questions to answer.

[17:50]

I mean I can say stop interfering. Or I can say zazen is to leave yourself profoundly alone. But still we're sitting upright and if you're not straight I may come and push your back. And there's no idea in yoga culture of natural. Natural is a kind of philosophical idea that there's some state which is the basic state or something like that.

[18:53]

But in Buddhism and yoga culture, since everything is always changing, there's not this concept of a natural state. See, I think I've returned my hair to the natural state, and he thinks his hair is the natural state. I have a hair don't and he has a hair do. Not very much. And in yoga culture, natural, what they would call natural... is more like spontaneous or free, is what arises from discipline. But the discipline doesn't mean to, in yoga culture means to stay with an intention, not to shape yourself from outside.

[20:05]

I hope that makes sense. I have a friend who is a popular singer in the United States. And she decided when she was three years old to be a singer. Yeah, and she's taken singing lessons and done things, you know. But her real discipline has been to nourish that intention from three years old to sing, not to train as a singer. And she's let her singing take sometimes popular form, sometimes... semi-opera and stuff like that, just what has happened.

[21:26]

Perhaps if she'd wanted to be an opera singer, she would have had a different training. But still her sense of discipline was her intention not the training. So it's a little different kind of emphasis on discipline. So I have an intention to practice and I can't even say the rest of my life because it's not even that's too weak But I don't know exactly where that will lead me. So I just keep doing it.

[22:50]

And I don't particularly have a sense of being disciplined, as you can see. Actually, I have quite a lot of fun. What else? So within that intention to continue to practice, I try to leave myself alone and see how it unfolds. Maybe I can mention at this point this new book of Kaz Tanahashi Sensei's Called Enlightenment Unfolds.

[23:50]

He did an earlier book called Moon in a Dew Drop. But both of these books are... are compilations of Dogen Zenji, Dogen's writings. Is Moon in the Dew Drop in German? Anyway, this new one isn't in German either. Yeah, but it's the kind of book you can just open and read here and there in little sections, so it's not so hard if you know some English. But the title is a powerful political statement.

[24:55]

Because they usually speak about sudden enlightenment or gradual enlightenment. And he presents Dogen's life and his teachings as enlightenment unfolding. And I think if you do practice mindfulness and bringing your attention to your breath. Whether you know much about Buddhism or not, I think enlightenment will unfold in your life. Something else? What is the world attitude?

[26:16]

An attitude of mindfulness? Isn't it a hindrance to be really mindful? German, please. Yes, I know the word. Attention. I don't know what word you're speaking about in German I can speak about the English word attitude but You take off. To show.

[27:20]

To show. Did I use the word attitude? No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in English attitude An attitude is a direction you take. An attitude towards something. But I didn't use the word so... I mean, it has quite a lot of meanings in English. But you need some... Well, let's put it this way.

[28:25]

One of the skills, if we're now talking about yogic skills, is a non-interfering observing consciousness. Observing consciousness. In other words, a simple example, you have some kind of state of thoughtlessness or samadhi. mind is concentrated on itself. And generally, when the beginner then notices, oh, there are no thoughts here, then it's gone. But a yogic skill is to observe samadhi even think about it without interfering with it.

[29:35]

But that kind of yogic skill requires sashin and other practices. I mean, if you really want to stabilize your mind so it doesn't go up and down all the time, the main shortcut is Sesshin practice. But I'm not here to recommend that you become Zen Buddhists. I'm just here to see what we can draw from this practice that's useful to you. So a more developed mindfulness, we could say, is a non-interfering observing consciousness. But let's just develop the habit of being mindful first.

[30:37]

What else? Yes? In German, aufmerken and achtsam sein kind of share the same root. We are quite closely together in the spiritual language. But what is the relation of attention in the practice, in mindfulness? What is added to it? What is done with it? It's not the same thing in German. It's the same thing. There is no difference. What happens with intention in the practice of mindfulness? What happens with intention in the practice, with attention in the practice of mindfulness? Attention is mindfulness. No? Yes. Okay. It's not being said in German.

[31:58]

Sure, go ahead. I mean, to have attention or to pay attention, it can be quite different. For instance, I can be... If I read a text, for instance, and I'm looking for a certain topic, I'm just concentrating whether in this text is this certain topic and all the other things I'm not paying attention to. So it's quite directed. But mindfulness is an open state. I mean, I can, for instance... If I'm mindful to these flowers, for instance, if I just want to see yellow things, then that's attention. But if I'm mindful, I see a lot of things in these flowers. So that would be a difference between attention and mindfulness, because it's more connected with my willpower. The difference that I would not make between attention and mindfulness is that my attention is much more directed by my own will.

[33:10]

So when I look at the flower street and say, I just want to see the golden things, then I only see the golden things. But when I look at it with mindfulness on the same flower street, then I just see hundreds of things, different things. This is good, I like it. That's good, I like that. I said, if I look at these flowers, yes, yes, they're in the bathroom, roses, green and yellow, okay, they look pretty. But if I paint them, then they give me my energy. Then I really connect with my home.

[34:11]

What helps? Anybody else? You care. So when you're mindful, there's a sense of caring. I like it that in English... think and thank are the same root. And I think that the root of thinking is a kind of thanking. Yes? You look at the flower and you can't think, you give attention to it, it's more like concentration, not attention. Yeah, but where does concentration come from? I mean, concentration, you have to make a decision what to concentrate on. Well, we could define it that way. Yes.

[35:43]

Can you translate that into German? Yes. As the filmmaker said yesterday, somewhere you look with the concept and sometimes you look without the concept. For me, if I look at the flower, I'm mindful. I just see the beginning of the world. I see the sun, I see the future, I see the rain. I see just everybody, almost everybody really mindful. I think that that's a hope. When you start thinking again, you just would stop imagining how this flower is saying to life. There is an aspect of mindfulness to see all the relationships.

[36:55]

But that's a kind of intention you bring to mindfulness. I don't think automatically when a child looks at the flowers, they also think of the clouds. They do or they don't? They don't. But more developed mindfulness with the intention to see interdependence notices the interdependence. What I like about this conversation is... that a simple thing like being mindful, it really is a craft. You actually have to kind of fiddle with what do these words mean, how do I do it, etc. Okay, yeah. Yeah. working on the writings, working with a team, and I had the experience that the classic sense of concentration that I was taught in school is not very helpful.

[38:23]

This means that you concentrate and you have a will, for example, to get an idea, to get a solution, put it in thought, and when it comes up, It never comes, but it's more like an attitude of laziness that makes you. You have to kind of move off and be lazy. And the only kind of discipline that you need is just to be actually there. You will sit down and do it right. And that's the only discipline you need. As soon as you put more of a concentration of willpower in it, it blocks you totally. Yeah, I think that's right. That's my experience in writing with something, too. Deutsch, bitte. I don't know how to say it, but it's nice and fun, because it's like you learn, [...] Yes, and that is also Roshi's experience with writing.

[39:32]

Can you say it in German? Concentration, what is good for it, or what you can fight for, whether you have to have concentration or not, depends on what you are intended for. If it's about everything, then you don't have to be concentrated, because it's fixed, and that's why you don't have to concentrate either. But it depends on the purpose, for example, In the meditation, in the practice, even the counting, you understand, there has to be a way to do it.

[40:42]

It's not always possible to do it in one go without any concentration. That's the way to do it. That's why I always say that it's all about clowning around. I always think of the goal that I have, and then you can use different terms, or different attention, attention, and so on, also from the point of zero. First of all, you have to look at the whole picture. Yes? Yes? Yes. I don't know. When I hear this discussion, I'm beginning to think, is Zen meditation only something for mentally healthy people, or what about mentalistic people, or retarded people, or handicapped people?

[41:50]

The short answer? Yes, it's only for healthy people. The longer answer is it's made for the truly crazy. There's no other hope. Let me just say that what I've noticed over the years if a person can be quite crazy but if they have some belief in the possibility of being well and they have energy and And you have energy and intention

[43:02]

then it may work. But a person who's mildly neurotic and hasn't much energy, and they can't really have an intention, they can't care deeply, I don't think Zen can help them much at all. So it does depend on being the ability to have an intention and to care. If I see that in a person who's quite crazy, I think there's the possibility of working with their mind. If they have caring and intention. And I think what you said is right. Caring is, I mean, maybe the root of everything. And what about utopia? It's very hard, you know, again in English, if I say

[44:29]

to my daughter. See, we have, if she says, well, I might go to, she's in her last year, just will start her last year of college this fall. And she's trying to figure out what she does. And she wants to know what courses... She thinks about what courses to take in college. And I tell her, take whatever courses interest you. Don't worry about a career or a job. That's nonsense. See, that's my... nonsense to say things like that. So she says, well, what shall I do?

[45:52]

And I say, I don't care. But that totally doesn't mean I don't care for my daughter. So at root, I would say, if you don't, you cannot care about various things, but not caring sometimes, like Giulio says, sometimes when you relax, what you want comes through. When you relax, what you want comes through. There's three ways you could practice meditation. One way is to always concentrate. This would be completely dead meditation. Another way is to concentrate and then relax, and then concentrate and relax.

[46:52]

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