Does anyone have something you'd like to say in relationship, for example, to what Nicole said, looking at her own practice in some detail? Yeah, I say that partly selfishly, because it really helps me to know in what detail, you can put this craft of practice together for yourself. And I think it's useful for others to feel how we are in the same field of practice.

[01:13]

Yes. I would like to bring that into context with what you said yesterday about the different stages of learning. Also, ich gehöre zu diesen dummies, die geglaubt haben, es gibt tatsächlich keine verschiedenen Stufen, vertikalen Stufen des Lernens. I am one of the dummies who actually believe that there are no vertical steps of learning. Mm-hmm. Stages. One of the dummies. So modest of you. Ich habe für mich eher die Erfahrung gemacht, dass es ein horizontales Erweitern ist. And the experience that I made is more that there is some kind of horizontal sense of expansion.

[02:20]

And it occurred to me again that when Nicole told me about her experience, that I had a feeling for it, that I had an understanding for it, that I was surprised, so that it was not a new realization, but rather a feeling of what is in me. And when Nicole spoke about her experience, I was surprised to find myself that there was some feeling that this is something that is also present in me, and I was surprised to find that. So that it is not a realization where I now say, wow, now I have learned a new vocabulary or made a next learning step, but what is new or what is an expansion is that this is really a process of

[03:30]

is festzustellen, dass es ein Prozess des Lernens ist. Also, dass es nicht selbstverständlich ist, dass das schon immer da war, sondern wahrzunehmen, dass das Teil des Lernens ist. Ich versuche es mal. Ich korrigiere mich. So, it wasn't the kind of the insight or the experience was not so much, oh, wow, now I've learned a new vocabulary word or something, or now I've made a new step in my learning process, but more the recognition to find out how much it is a process of learning, or that it's not something that's just a given or happens by itself, but it being a learning process. Okay. So if I've been looking for these steps for a long time, where do I stand in my learning process, beginner, advanced, I don't know what, is that, as Nicole reported, more of a away from the focus, what else do I want to learn, or where am I not yet, more of a, now I use the word shift, more of a shift there

[04:54]

So when I used to, how I used to locate myself in the sense of where am I in my practice, a beginner or advanced or whatever, To listen to what Nicole has been saying, it's more the shift that happens for me is to not so much look at all the things I would like to learn or something like that, but more to be able to reflect on the processes that are already part of my experience. Okay. That's good. Yes. Yes. Yes, when I speak of steps, it is difficult for me to make an effort to take steps step by step, so for me it is more like leaving something behind.

[06:03]

When I think about steps, for me it's difficult to want to strive for and to advance on a step ladder or something like that. Yeah, that's good. Better to be happy with whatever step you're on. But for me it's more a sense of letting go of something, letting go of something. Sometimes from the poets or the composers or something, I find something that touches me. I recently was given a book by Beckett and although, and then I found out it wasn't actually Beckett, but it was from, it was about another author. No. Someone who did poetry according to the Maximes of Champfort.

[07:28]

One of the Maximes was, I don't know what I learned. But what I know now is something that I intimate. More a feeling. Okay, good. I think so too. Yes? I have a question that's been lingering since yesterday. Okay. That has to do with these streams of attention. Yeah. And I'm trying to I have a question that has been bothering me since yesterday. It is about the flow of attention. If I come from the underlying stream, then the streams of attention seem to not really matter so much, since they might not be real anyway, I'm thinking.

[09:11]

And therefore I have a hard time navigating what to do with a tangent stream to dissect them in three different streams. Do you get my question? Maybe, we'll see. So, if I look from the perspective of the currents below, then I have the problem that I have the feeling that these currents of attention are not that important at all, because they are probably not real anyway, I think. Well, first let me say it's not too useful to concern yourself with whether things exist or not. In a fundamental sense of permanence, nothing exists.

[10:21]

But within our experience, there is experience. And it's useful to notice this experience as a succession of noticings or moments or, you know. Yeah. So your succession of experience, if we stay with the metaphor of being under the waves, is different than the succession of experience when the waves are... forcing you into their succession. So is your experience of the sequence of experience, if you are in this metaphor under the waves, in the streams below, then your experience of the sequence is different than if you were in the sequence of the waves, which then force you into their own sequence.

[11:38]

Sometimes in Buddhism the waves are called the event stream or something like that. And the being in the water underneath the waves is called the mind stream. And in this sense, the mind stream is something like pure awareness itself, which still requires a certain attentiveness to it. Yeah. Or it tends to shift up into the waves. And it takes a fair amount of practice before you have the skills to it doesn't shift into the waves. Sometimes it's considered a kind of pliancy or flexibility to be able to go from the waves to the still water and back and forth easily.

[13:00]

Because we function in the world in the wave stream. Weil wir in der Welt in diesem Wellenstrom funktionieren. And you relate to other people in the wave stream, we could call it. Und man setzt sich mit anderen Menschen über den Strom der Wellen in Beziehung. But you can also simultaneously be in the stream of stillness. That sounds strange, but something like that. Particularly when you're with another person. Even though they may not experience this still stream, It's still the way it is.

[14:23]

And you can, if you can locate yourself simultaneously in both, then it awakens this also in the other person. Or it tends to. Okay. Okay for now. David, you're not entirely, well, you're rather new to this, but not entirely new. Do you have any, as something of a beginner, what is your experience here? David is the son of an old friend of mine.

[15:27]

Who, when he was how old, a teenager? Yeah, he used to take care of our apartment in Santa Fe, in Freiburg. And then one day he decided to visit us in Johanneshof and it was all over then. And now he's in law school. So the Dharma is called the law sometimes in the sense that it's how things actually exist. So what are your feelings in all this? Why are you here? I have a lot of questions that are fundamentally on my mind, but a lot of them are first of all difficult to sort out for me.

[17:02]

I have many questions that are on my heart to be asked. But first of all, I just need to, there's a lot of things that I feel I need to sort through. Basically my feeling is that it takes a long time for me to experience things before I'm really at a place where I can ask a precise question. Because when I was in the film studio in Johannesburg, I had the feeling for the first time to make physical or perceptible experiences through the sitting practice.

[18:07]

But the reason I'm here is because the last time I visited Johanneshof in February, I, for the first time, really felt, had the experience that I could, through sitting practice, was making specific experience, perceivable experiences. And the question that's been on my mind for a long time is the question, how can I continue meditation practice in my daily life? And I think that, also related to what Nicole said, I have the feeling that I often make the mistake of trying to bring the practice into everyday life through thoughts.

[19:21]

And I have a feeling that I oftentimes make the mistake, somehow relating also to what Nicole said, I feel like I'm oftentimes making the mistake trying to bring practice into my daily life through thinking. I would be very interested in how to integrate this practice into the artwork. There are many different approach methods, but for me it doesn't seem to be quite the right method. For example, by making yourself aware again and again. And I keep wondering, what could the method be? It seems to me there are many different methods to bring practice into daily life, but mere repetitive phrases, like turning phrases or something, that doesn't seem to be, just through making oneself aware or something, that doesn't seem to be quite the right approach.

[20:46]

To make things especially slow or to be able to breathe for a second, I just have the feeling that it is not the same experience as the experience that I have under circumstances and in the middle of the session. Or also to bring myself back to breathing or to do things especially slowly or something like that. None of that seems to me to really bring me to the place where I'm at sometimes after sasen. Okay. Okay. If you want to say something more, yes, or I'll just, I'll absorb that. Well, let me wait and see if someone else, the people who don't like to say things tend to sit toward the back.

[21:52]

But that's why I'm on a platform, because I can still see you. Ulrike? Yesterday, the sentence followed me for a very long time, which only came into my mind with the three streams. Namely, that this concentration, or this identification with the Self, directs the attention to a very specific way of breathing. And that affected me a lot, especially yesterday. So the thing that keeps working in me is something you said about the three attentional streams yesterday and again also today, which is how the identification with the self referential stream, how that seems to influence the other streams.

[23:14]

That's something that I'm concerned with. Because I feel like I am putting the attentional stream into a particular kind of service which in the end is not helpful for practice. I hear you. Thank you. Gerald? Ich möchte über einen kleinen Ausschnitt sprechen, wie ich das was passiert studiere. I would like to speak about a small excerpt, how I study... Excerpt? Exercise? No, small piece.

[24:15]

Okay, I understand. How I study what I'm experiencing. This is a detail I give with my attention to my breathing. That's one detail. I bring my attention to breathing. And connect that breathing stream with the spine. And then I'm withdrawing from attention the level of mind which you said that's what we identify with? And bodily the feeling is something like I'm withdrawing energy from that mind.

[25:25]

And then I am trying to, and this is difficult to describe, but then I am trying to perceive that mind, this mind, which no longer is fed with attention. And it changes, and I can almost bodily feel that. It changes through it not receiving any more attention. It is as if he is learning, changing, waking up. But it is all in a very hard to describe space of very open boundaries. It is as if it becomes empty, changes, awakens, but all of that is happening within a space that's difficult to describe without boundaries.

[26:46]

I wanted to share this with you because it would be interesting And I wanted to share that with you because it gets interesting if then I add a sense field, like hearing, a sense of hearing or a sense of seeing, into that mind. As if I'm putting the sense into this field. And senses seem to start having a different kind of quality through doing that. Just a small part, since you asked us to report on how we study.

[27:47]

Yeah, thank you. I had last year in a Sashin with Paul one of the most intense experiences I've had through practicing. In the whole context of the session. This happened while cutting carrots. Sounds like a Zen story.

[28:52]

Sounds like a Zen story. And so it was like I was just following the accomplishment I tried to let the knife, as much as possible by itself, find the best way for cutting. And it really did end up becoming more and more easy and it worked better and better. And the sense of success was very, very quickly spread from just cutting into everything I did.

[30:13]

As if I was learning from things how they need to be done most successfully. [...] And it worked literally with pretty much everything, walking, standing, breathing. A dynamic that expanded into everything. It was a very satisfying experience. A taste of aliveness that I have never had before. That dynamic lessened eventually.

[31:17]

But I think there was a clear taste of what practice can be. It was a clear taste. A good taste. Yes. I would like to emphasize once again how happy and grateful I am that you have recently pointed out the smallest details of the practice. I would like to emphasize how happy and grateful I am that most recently you really have been pointing out the most minute details of practice. And from the example that Nicole described, it became clear to me that of course I followed my breath, of course I went in connection with my back and did all of that,

[32:24]

without being so clear about it, I actually always waited for something to happen. And in that example it became clear that you can do it yourself, so to speak. Of course I did something myself, but it has always become clear that the responsibility for the success of the practice is actually here with everyone, for everything. So in listening to what Nicole has described, it became clear to me that, of course, I have been following my breathing and have been paying attention to my spine. But as if beyond that, I had simply hoped that something would happen all by itself. And what became so clear in this example, what Nicole described, was that I can really make that shift happen. It's the responsibility for the success of practice, for it to work out, is completely with myself.

[33:32]

There are steps I can do. Well, I'm sorry. I tried to do it for you, but... Thank you. Yes, I guess. An important aspect of my practice goes in the direction that Gerhard described, that when I, so to speak, breathe through the attention into the furniture cabinet, and then at some point I realize that the identifiated self with the stream of thought is always moving back and forth. an important aspect from my practice, as much in the direction of what Gerald has been describing, that there's attention to ... ... That when I bring attention to breathing and to the spine, and then I can watch how it keeps swapping back into thinking, into the identification with the thinking stream, and then I can watch how it keeps going back and forth.

[35:00]

And eventually I started recognizing that I was beginning to melt mindfulness into the activity of thinking, away from the contents of thinking into the activity of thinking. That for me was a very important shift. That also helps, especially when thinking is very dominant. And then I start feeling as if the activity of thinking is like a sense organ, as if I'm beginning to feel that activity.

[36:13]

Yeah, it's just like a sense organ. It is a sense organ. It is a sense organ. And then it's quite easy to shift back and forth. This is an honest man. To shift back and forth. Yeah. Why don't you be patient and kind? So, again and again this question appears that when we follow the attentional stream, in some sense we are witnesses.

[37:15]

And the question that I think has arisen for all of us is how can it be that we as witnesses do not watch on the stage, but at the same time on the place where the action takes place. And the question that I think all of us must be having is, how can it be that as the witness, we are not just sitting in the tribune? Jury box. Yeah, like that. I mean, where all the people sit. Bleachers, yeah. Oh, the bleachers. But instead are part of the field where all the activity is happening. Yeah. How is it not just a mental function, but how do I simultaneously perceive my full aliveness? More recently I've been experimenting with authentic movement. That's a method where you let the body do its own thing.

[38:48]

Where you do the same thing, where the attention stream of the body falls, so to speak, not in the standing position of the sitting, And in a way you are doing something very similar in that method, which is you just follow the attentional stream of the body, not in the still sitting posture, but in actual movement, you just let the body move. And that helped me find an access to feel a lot more clearly what actually happens when I sit.

[39:59]

Yeah, I understand. It's good. Okay, yes. One thing... on which I will come back now, when it has become clear how much the thinking of organs is physically located. So, one thing to go back to, what became very clear to me, how thinking is rooted in an organ. Yesterday my father-in-law, who is 93 years old, developed dementia. And that really interested me, because what I noticed, he was always very much in patterns. Who am I? What do I like? What do I not like? So my stepfather, father-in-law, my father-in-law, who is 93, is now developing dementia. And I find that very interesting to see he's a person who's always been extremely rooted in patterns in terms of who am I, what do I need to do, and patterns like that.

[41:22]

And now all of that is dissolving. noticing that this is a phase where he seems to free himself from patterns that have always captivated him, captured him significantly, especially thinking patterns. It became a bit clear to me that there is obviously a brain area that has taken over these functions, which is now stopping working. and became clear to me that there must be some brain area which used to have that function and which is now diminished in its activity and working with. That's a very good, very nice development that will help us a lot, that he has developed more softness, more compassion, more openness, and it seems to be a development that even helps him now.

[42:23]

And so one thing that helps us around him feel so compassionate with what's happening to him is that this development seems to make him more open, much softer, more compassionate. So it actually seems to be a development that helps him these days. To old age and Zen began to work together. So, but like you said before, to meet him now, it's much more possible now to meet him with some sense of a meditative layer or something that would not have been possible in the past. Yeah. Well, of course, this is exciting for me to hear these things. And did you want to say something, Anita?

[43:30]

Yeah. Oh, okay. I am a little disturbed by what you are saying. Maybe I'm also down that path. Yes. Because I'm noticing that thinking, thinking for me is less and less interesting in a particular way, all of this stuff that happens up there. On things, I always thought, I have to suppress that. I always felt so double. I'm talking up there, but there's something else underneath. And that's not, I think, always suppressed.

[44:31]

And as if I have a lot more attention to a layer, which I used to think I have to suppress that. There was some feeling that up here is where I'm speaking, and down here is something else, which I have to suppress. And now, down the lower layer is pushing through more and more. taking over more and more. And I feel that it is, I feel it as more and more precious for my life. I used to, in the past, I even used to dismiss myself or despise myself for that because I always had this feeling of, jeez, I'm so double, I'm always double, double layered or something.

[45:44]

Okay. Well, first of all, I like that, which is a bit annoying. When I'm talking to someone in front of me, then I can't keep this lower area permanent. If I speak here, then it's down there. Yes, it's such a situation. It's always there, but that's difficult. I would have liked to change that. Seriously? It hasn't affected your sense of humor. But now I've come to value this more and more. But the only thing that's a little bit annoying about it is that when I speak with other people now, then still I feel I'm speaking here.

[46:54]

And there's the sense down here, but I feel like I'm jumping back and forth like a zigzag. And so that I would like to see change. You can. What I would really like then is to speak very, very slowly, which of course I don't do. This is actually my being. What is up there is also useful, but it is no longer what you cannot eat. This area does not nourish. in order to stay with and continue to really follow this lower line, this lower stream, because that really is more my being.

[47:56]

This up there is also functional, but what's down there is way more what I am that's more nourishing. And it brings me closer to the question of what's my inmost request. I feel like I'm a lot closer to it in this lower stream. I can't think. Let me just suggest that you allow yourself to feel slowly and give feelings their kind of completeness, I think that'll make you stay in that so-called lower level more and not speak so fast. So let me suggest that you feel slower, that you give every feeling a kind of completeness.

[49:04]

And I think that this will help you to stay on what you now call this lower level, so that you don't speak so fast. The other people are already gone. By the time I'm done finished speaking, everyone will have left. When I was at the DVU meeting, Sylvia Rinpoche ended his talk with a joke. He said this guy went on and on and on and people kept after a while started leaving. And finally there was only one person left. This guy said, this speaker says, I'm so glad at least you understand me. He said, no, I'm the next speaker. Thank you for translating.

[50:26]

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