It's obvious that Eric has changed. Do you understand why they left? No? Okay. Some of you do. Anyway, Christina had pneumonia recently and she thought she was strong enough to come to the seminar but she's not feeling well so they went back to Wien. And it's funny, you know, having them gone, I feel... Sorry. But anyway, having them gone, I feel some part of my voice is gone.

[01:04]

Yeah, my noticing this is part of my study of why... why I feel so clearly that what I'm saying is very influenced by each of you. So I feel some of the content of my voice, something like that, is gone. Yeah, because I'll replace it with you. It's okay. But it's always different. And a different translator is also our voice. Yeah, I mention this also because I hope those of you who are new to practicing with us or being here with us will find an excuse to say something during the seminar.

[02:20]

and I particularly enjoyed last evening I enjoyed hearing the two of you say something I feel very good when our practice is developed together I particularly liked the discussion after I left. Yeah, I couldn't understand a word, but it was fun. Anyway. Okay, so... Yesterday... I started the seminar, I started the so-called pre-day with the title being The Minds of Zazen.

[03:43]

But I also thought of it as The Minds of Zen. Which is a almost certainly related but also a different topic. And somehow yesterday I talked about the minds of Zen more than the minds of Zazen for sure. So maybe yesterday was not the pre-day, it was actually the post-day or the after-day. Yeah. So today I'll start with the minds of Zazen. And to do that, I think I should start with zazen instructions.

[04:59]

Because zazen instructions are basically mental postures. And I make a distinction in general between position, a position and a posture. I would say a posture is a position with a mind in it. Or a posture is a position which can have the mind in it.

[06:04]

As I say, if I sit like this, you know, it's a position, but there's not much mind in it. I always feel so funny when I do this. Would someone bring me a beer? But if I put my mind in this position, it turns into something like this. And a posture is something too that affects the mind, but also that you can maintain. Yeah. I mean, even though this posture is sometimes difficult to maintain, this one would really be difficult. And Zen and Buddhism in general is a form of yoga. But it's a yoga in which

[07:11]

which the emphasis is primarily on mental postures, which are also physical. And the usual thing, what we mean by yoga, are physical postures primarily, which are also of course mental. But for Buddhist practice, primarily just this posture, this physical posture is emphasized. Now Eric, since some of you are fairly new, Eric asked me to say something yesterday, and I did, about zazen posture. So... I guess maybe those of you who are new came to the right seminar.

[08:45]

Because the topic requires me to say something about zazen posture. But I'm speaking about zazen posture as a yogic posture. A yogic mental posture. Okay. Now, a basic assumption I have to mention regularly is that all mental phenomena have a physical component. And all sentient physical phenomena has a mental component. Okay. And that, I mean, that's rather obvious.

[10:12]

But we shouldn't take it as obvious. We should take it as an invitation to notice the physical component of mental postures and vice versa. Okay, so it's an invitation to notice how the how even subtle mental changes have subtle physical components. And of course, I can say those words and they, I presume, make sense.

[11:13]

But to actually... notice subtle physical components of subtle states of mind. You have to... Christian? You have to... I've developed some degree of stillness of mind and body. Now one of the definitions of mind in English is that which observes the thoughts.

[12:18]

In other words, if you're thinking and you observe that you're thinking, that which observes thinking is mind. And it also comes from a German word, I think, something like gemeint, G-E-M-Y-N-T, an old German word. Which means to think or something like that. But the word, the etymology of the word is sort of memory and thinking and what is turned in the mind. So it means something, I suppose, essentially, the activity of awareness. Okay. So anyway, it takes some practice to have the mind really able to observe the states of mind.

[14:01]

In any case, what I'm saying is that I don't know whether we'll really have time to look at the various Zazen instructions. But the most basic Zazen instruction is don't move. And this is, again, you know, if you sit and you sit with others, you see they don't move, so you sort of don't move too. And don't move is different than some sort of suggestion to sit still. I mean, if you say to kids in school wiggling around in their desks, sit still, that's not quite the same as don't move. Don't move is a command.

[15:17]

And it's a, you know, if you come into a Zendo or somebody tells you, talks about sitting, it's obvious or suggested that you try to find a posture in which you can sit still. And find a posture eventually which you can feel more and more at ease. And in fact, in which you feel more deeply at ease than you can in any other posture. And more at ease than you can feel sleeping, for instance. And if you can come to, for some lengths of time, deeply feeling at ease in zazen, you'll also feel almost for sure, for sure, I can't speak for everyone, but I'm sure,

[16:44]

more at ease when you sleep. It's like your body learns what it feels like to be really at ease. And that at ease, then once you have the feel of it, you can feel it again when you sleep. And you can feel it again. Sometimes you're sitting in a room in an office and you look out the window and you can at that moment allow yourself to feel deeply at ease. And you can go back to whatever you do. And I specifically sort of Pavlovian side to me.

[18:07]

You don't have to translate the bark. In any way, it's the same, almost the same. I sort of trained myself or asked myself to... feel this ease whenever I looked at the sky or out of wind. And I also did it whenever my elbow touched the table. So if I was, what are you doing here? Thanks for coming. You know, it's funny when I see people out of context, I think. They belong in a different context.

[19:08]

Yeah, so I... If I'm sitting doing something, if I felt a little something distracted, it looks like I'm resting, but I would put my elbow on the desk and I'd use that as a signal to just feel at ease for a moment. You know, Cornelia was just at Johanneshof. And I looked, I've only seen her here.

[20:12]

And I saw that, who is this young woman? What is she doing? I really couldn't place her for the longest time. Though I know her quite well, but only as an Austrian. But then I sometimes don't know myself when I wake up in the morning. Okay. So, when we go back to the instruction not to move, and it's an absolutely necessary and basic instruction, inseparable from zazen,

[21:24]

And it's almost, you know, I always want to present Buddhism so it's not entirely dependent on zazen. And zazen means sitting, za is sitting. Like this is a zabuton, it's a spread out sitting mat. So wie das hier ein Sabuton ist, also eine ausgebreitete Sitzmatte. This is a Zafu, it's a sitting cushion. Und das hier ist ein Zafu, also ein Sitzkissen. So this is a Fu, which is spread out, Futon. So and the Zen really means absorption. So zazen is sitting absorption. Yeah, okay. So when you're sitting,

[22:39]

You can sit fairly easily and not move for a short period of time. But to make this instruction real, we have to make it difficult to not move. So generally, we human beings, we have to sit at least about 20 minutes before it really becomes difficult not to move. And it's generally considered that it takes somewhere between 30 minutes and 60 minutes to really learn not to move. Yeah. And... It's like Sashin is... Sashin, seven days of sitting... There's psychophysiological reasons why Sashin should be seven days.

[24:23]

Or at least five days. What happens in five to seven days simply doesn't happen in three. Okay. But, you know, one of the most effective ways you learn to move or die, not move or die, we have a saying in kids have a saying, cross my heart and hope to die. Do you say that in German? No. It means you're telling the truth. I really do mean that. Cross my heart and hope to die. When I started practicing Zen, it turned into cross my legs and hope to die.

[25:25]

So there's psychophysiological reasons, it seems, that it takes between 30 minutes and 60 minutes regularly to really learn how not to move. Okay. Now... So this mental posture, mental concept of don't move, you bring to sitting. And it's not necessary to do sashins to learn this.

[26:50]

To discover still sitting, I think sitting once a day for 40 minutes is probably sufficient. Now, in a way, what you're doing is subduing consciousness. Subduing. Defeating. Subduing is like if you had a wild horse and you want to tame it. That's like subduing it or something. Subduing. And because it's consciousness that wants you to move primarily. And how can I... I'm trying to find a way to speak about this.

[27:58]

Maybe there's the you of you and the you of others. If I say to Richard, that's me. No, that's Richard. If I say that's you, or you, I point to you, you feel I'm referring pointing to you, naturally enough, because I am. But I'm actually pointing to the you of others. I'm pointing to you as a social construct. Because thought finds its home in language, as someone said. In a community of discourse.

[29:13]

And you finds its home in language. Yeah, it's a personal pronoun. And it used to be in English thou, thine, thy and so forth. And actually, thou was related to the German du. But in the 14th century, about 1400, I guess, 14th century, the English got rid of thou, thine, thy, et cetera. There's no formal or informal or objective or subjective case for you. It's all plural or singular.

[30:14]

You covers everything. Okay. So when I start on something like this, I feel I'm sounding crazy. Anyway, when I say to Sophia, and Marie-Louise and I say to Sophia, she says it more than I do, actually. Don't eat with your fingers. I say, don't eat with your fingers in restaurants, and Marie-Louise says, don't eat with your fingers ever. And she almost says, these aren't your fingers, these are my fingers. Why do you think those fingers are your fingers?

[31:25]

They're my fingers. Yeah. But we're trying to teach her to be not her own you, but to be the you of others. And we're going to win. And we better win or she'll be unemployable. We have to win. And she'll help us win. But I also like her feistiness. Her obstinateness. Obstinateness, all right. Anyway, because she's trying to protect herself from the you of others.

[32:32]

And basically she's saying no. I'm not going to move. This is real clear in my mind. I'm not making it too clear to you, Lou. In other words, when you sit and you don't move and you find yourself able to not move, you are in a sense speaking like Christian did last evening. you are renouncing the you of others. And you're discovering the you of you.

[33:38]

You're discovering the you that's not formed primarily through consciousness. du entdeckst, dass du das nicht hauptsächlich durch das Bewusstsein geprägt ist. And what I'm saying here, again, is I'm defining consciousness in an, I would say, let's just say, consciousness is basically what we share with others. Und nochmal, ich definiere das Bewusstsein hier, so wie ich das normalerweise mache, als dass es das, was durch andere geformt ist. Consciousness is the medium of our shared world. And it's in consciousness that language is formed and the self is formed. And when you really cannot move, no matter what, you are actually, it's a kind of renunciation. you're renouncing the you formed through others.

[34:49]

And Sophia is still young enough to want to protect her you that's independent of others. I think if we met at Rather crazy person on the street. Or totally weird in some way. We would probably doubt if we could say you to him or her. Sophia, one day, we were walking in some city and she saw somebody coming down the street, a woman in weird hats and clothes and things hanging all over her. And Sophia said, is she going to a wedding? She'd only seen big funny hats at weddings and things.

[35:51]

But I think meeting such a person You don't feel, if you say, you ought not to do that, the you doesn't reach the person because there's no you there. So the admonition or the command or the instruction not to move opens you to this... to my you, to your own you.

[36:52]

In my case, to my you. This is my you. It doesn't belong to society. I'm going to say the whole sentence again. All right. In the Upanishads, which were written between 800 and 200 or so before Christ, at the center of the practice of this spiritual reality in Upanishads.

[38:22]

This is translated by Sri Aurobindo. One, this is what you want to realize. Eins, eins, das ist das, was du verwirklichen willst. One, unmoving. Eines, unbewegt. That is swifter than mind. Das geschmeidiger ist als der Geist. That the gods reach not. An das die Götter nicht heranreichen, das die Götter nicht erreichen können. This is interesting. Even the gods, and Hinduism had a lot of gods, even the gods can't reach it. For it passes ever in front. It's always in front. And that even when standing passes beyond others as they run. The way I remember it usually is one unmoving that is swifter than mind.

[39:43]

For it passes ever in front. And that standing passes beyond others as they run. So this is pointing to an experience which gods can't reach and the mind and consciousness can't reach. And even when it's still, it's beyond everyone, all other activity. So one unmoving. So the admonition to don't move is to realize this basically discovery in India that Buddhism is also part of.

[40:44]

this one unmoving that is beyond mind that even gods can't touch that even when standing passes others as they run but doesn't fit into any category of movement or activity and it's not defined by others or even by gods and that kind of experience is in this mental posture This instruction, don't move. And it's difficult.

[42:07]

And you find even practicing for a long time, years or decades, that you're always approaching this unmoving. And it frees you from almost everything. And first of all, it frees you from identification with consciousness. And from the point of view of Buddhism, It's the only way you become a really free, independent person. Until you have the freedom not to move, in mind and body, you're not really free.

[43:08]

That's a kind of physiological thrust of all of Buddhism. Now, from what's discovered through this not moving the wisdom that arises through this not moving and which everything else is seen in contrast Yeah, that wisdom can inform everything we do. But if you want to be the source of that wisdom and not just informed by that wisdom, you have to discover that unmoving in yourself and return to it regularly.

[44:08]

Sorry to be so serious. But you all move, right? So you can all not move. It's a simple instruction. In this simple instruction, approaching, not moving. This is the source of Buddhist practice and teaching. So let's not move for a moment. So you have some experience of your body, feel of your body.

[46:49]

And you're adding what's really a mental formation. A concept. An intent. To not move. That's a mental posture. You add the mental intent to not move. To the feel of the physical posture. And if the intent is complete. Absolute. You really intend for at least some period of time not to move. Your breathing will listen to this intent.

[48:05]

Your heart will listen to this intent. Your metabolism will listen to this intent. And every time you sit for the period of time at which you decide not to move, consciousness will lessen, subside some. And there'll be a movement toward not moving. A movement toward not moving. And this settling is the most basic mind, as I said. Und dieses sich niederlassen ist der grundlegendste Geist des Wahsinns.

[49:30]

And within this not moving, everything appears. The more fully you're moving toward not moving, the clearer will be the singing of the birds.

[50:10]

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