As you know, I particularly enjoy meeting with you each year. But at the same time, more than with the usual seminar, I wonder what to do exactly. Because you know you're not you're not crashing Zen most of you in some formal way. So then I wonder what should What really can I do or can we do together that's useful?

[01:02]

Useful to you, but of course it's always useful to me for some reason. Yeah, and I could start out with where we left off in the last seminar. Because we had this topic, mind, which is somewhat related to what you're interested in, concerned with. Yeah. And how we look at mind in Zen practice is particular to, of course, the nature of meditation practice.

[02:18]

And then in the framework of of freeing or lessening suffering in our human life. And how we can free ourselves not only from suffering, but also how, you know, I kind of hate to use the word enlightenment because it's so misunderstood, but pedagogically the practice is based on enlightenment. And of course we suffer from separation, but also, and I actually hate to avoid this word, namely enlightenment, I hate to use this word, enlightenment, realization, but of course there is also a pedagogy of enlightenment.

[03:36]

I mean, I suppose none of you would pass up enlightenment if it occurred. You wouldn't pass it up if it came along. But practically speaking, no. You know, we don't expect, if we are a therapist, our clients to, at the end of a year, achieve enlightenment. And it's probably not wise for us to assume that after a year or so we'll realize in life. Yeah, so, you know, if we're What framework are we in here if we're talking about practice or Buddhism or psychotherapy?

[04:51]

So is there... Let me ask, is there something you... individually or together, that's new for you this year and the way you think about psychotherapy and the way you think about anything. For me, there's various new things that have, you know, new things I've come to and practice that I'm happy to share with you if we can find some way to get to it. But is there any particular interest you bring to this seminar this year?

[05:57]

Anyone have something to say? So same old saying, we'll just do it. I mean, something always happens. At least I find something always happens. It's okay. Why don't you help me out and give me some direction? Yes. For me, in my life, something occurred, or a word occurred, which is important for me.

[07:09]

A word? A word. Yeah. And that was the word complete. I have the feeling that several things came complete and there are several and I ask myself why is that so is it because I am getting older or because or is it more as or because of experience, growing experience, because a space opens, a new space opens. And maybe it would have also happened without doing anything and adding anything to that.

[08:12]

And my question would be how to complete things and how to know when things are complete because when you work with people, for instance, it seems to me that at a certain point you're also and you somehow new things arise and you somehow I think we would trip over from this completion. Trip over? Overflow? No, in the sense of you somehow in some spaces and then you're moving out like you know I have the idea. I got the idea anyway. Drip, we wouldn't say drip over, probably.

[09:21]

Dip over. I understand. Okay. The translation is incomplete. Yeah, I understand. Now, is this a case of you feeling more complete, or when you do things, they seem to be more completed than they used to be? Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. In the last seminar I suggested some qualities and aspects of mind that the practitioner would Yeah, it's useful to notice.

[10:24]

And there's a whole territory of territory that I don't know there's no word for in English and maybe the word I was closest to something like aliveness and maybe Various words are used, vigor, vigor means strength, vitality, energy. And it would include the ability to feel something being completed.

[11:27]

Okay, so, thanks. So, we'll sign. Vivian, say, yes? I'm developing a quite different approach towards what's the state of the soul. Not in the sense of destiny, but in the sense of... Somebody has a hard life. I am open and curious how people shape their lives. I'm open and curious how people create, structure their life, cope with their life.

[12:56]

previously judge these forms of coping with lives less and less? And I am experiencing them as various kinds of possibilities to structure or to cope with one's life. As if coping strategies. And more and more I let myself be led being led by clients, to support their visions. And this can be rather unorthodox at times. And this approach is very fascinating for me.

[14:28]

And I think this is very much formed or informed by this, by the Why do you think so? It's so much this letting go of my own structures and my own thinking and how things are. Yeah, I said in the last practice period, much Christians...

[15:33]

I was, I said something about the, the, yeah, you don't, um, the territory in which you move toward another person. Let me say ideally. I don't mean just ideally, but let me say ideally. Okay.

[16:46]

Is that a rapport is established before a connection is established? And I had a feeling when I said something like this in the practice period that for the most part people understood what I said. But then it came up in a seminar I did in Boulder after the practice period. And one woman who... She said something like, but she wasn't at the practice.

[17:50]

She said she didn't like what I said because she said something, just sounds like psychology, she said. But she meant some kind of popular psychology of established rapport or something. Okay. And I realized how easy it was to misunderstand what I meant.

[18:52]

So now let me go back to ideally. Again, I say ideally because it sounds too difficult to do. But I don't think it's so difficult to do. But part of making... Maybe I'm going into this too soon in the seminar, but I'll continue. Your intention is to establish a feeling of knowing the person or the situation from their side.

[19:59]

Have you feel a kind of subject-object distinction lessening or disappear? But then the rigor in it is that you actually don't go forward with the connection until you feel this. But So the discipline, a kind of discipline, is you establish the connection on the other person's terms first and get permission by that for you add anything to the situation.

[21:06]

Sounds like you were doing something like that or heading in that direction. Does someone else want to say something? Is there anything from the seminar we just did that you think we ought to bring up here? Yes. The seminar was pretty good, I thought. It went pretty well. Yes. Very much so.

[22:21]

On the one hand, I found that the elements of practice were very helpful. Helpful as a practitioner or just helpful as a... and being alive. I really think that practical examples you gave are really helpful for me as a therapist, but also with working with clients and for the clients. for instance to create or establish the initial mind with acceptance and also this alchemic habit which is connected to that

[23:36]

Alchemy, alchemy, alchemy, chemical alchemy of like habit. Okay. Uh, uh, what's it called? Uh, Because this element of acceptance bodywork, particularly in the bodywork I'm doing, when we talked about this acceptance and letting this acceptance, that I have the feeling that there was something about the acceptance, something alchemistic happens in the moment

[25:03]

So my feeling is that before this sinks into this awareness, somehow alchemy is happening. When an alchemy When a sensation is accepted or when there is acceptance towards a sensation. When change is happening, streaming is happening, change is happening. So I would really like to hear more about these processes. The second thing is this gently noticing.

[26:14]

These qualities of noticing, this gently noticing. So this noticing, qualities of noticing, but I would also like to hear something about which modes of language do not disturb or interfere too much in this field of awareness. The third thing was this really nice story about this bowl and the oil. So actually, I didn't get the whole story because I somehow was left when there was this noticing that there is not enough oil in the kitchen or something.

[27:46]

So I really would like you to repeat the story. What did you do? You went to the toilet? We started thinking about something else. Okay, this picture of this ball, the oil, was very strong for the last few days, but I realized that I skipped or forgot about the rest, so okay. Well, that tells you something about images. Yeah. OK. And these last qualities of mind, would you put on the flip chart? OK. What I find in myself, well, let's say that if I'm speaking about whatever I speak about in Sesshin, or a practice period, it's grounded, you know, in a shared...

[29:12]

modality of mind that arises through practicing together. It doesn't just arise from practice, it arises from practicing together. So I've assumed a a ground or perhaps a water that we share. A little bit like if you take a boat and put it in the water and it usually floats, you know, you... float in the water.

[30:28]

And I find, hello, hi. This is too extreme to say, but if I find I speak to a lay group of non-practitioners, and I'm inexperienced enough that I take the same boat and I put it out in the water, it just crashes. And I find myself sitting in a boat on dry land looking up at the people. I'm supposed to be saying something to them. And there's no water there. It takes me a few years to figure out what to do.

[31:59]

Yeah, even a decade or so. And I discovered that for Lay people are people who don't practice regularly or with each other. Helps to have some emphasize the craft of practice more than the understanding of practice. So I started developing specific crafts that help make the boat float to get some water under it. So then I find You know, some little thing I emphasize as paying attention to.

[33:22]

I find some little, I emphasize. And then I happen to mention it in a session or a practice period. Where I thought there was lots of water. And there's less water than I thought. And I find actually the little practices are quite useful. They become oars that you can row the boat with. The whole thing has led me to emphasize the craft of practice more. than I used to.

[34:24]

Look, for years I took for granted people understood they had to establish an initial mind. And I assumed they understood how to go about it. But then I found that actually people have been practicing years, actually. In the context of practice they did it, but they really don't get it. So, the way I emphasized establishing initial mode of mind in this last seminar was, you know, somewhat new for me to be so explicit.

[35:32]

So, you know, and that seems to have been useful. So, I mean, what I can do, I mean, if it's, those of you who are in the seminar, I can either bring some of that up again, if it's You think it's useful? Christa thinks it's useful. Or you do. I can... But also I can take it in some directions which we didn't do. Since I don't know what I did anyway, so probably. So Christian, is there something that stays in your mind? mind from the practice period that you'd like to have some idea I might bring up?

[37:03]

Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. That's a mass period of birth. The what territory? The territory you already started. Oh, yes, yeah. It's a mass period. That's the territory of Sanctuary. Yeah. It comes in. Well, it's significant. Mm-hmm. So that's okay with you? Yes. Okay. And... Do you want to say something? [...] Is this something you think of?

[38:05]

Yeah. I'm thinking of one sentence or one phrase you said in the seminar in Kassel. I think it must have been last year. But it could be also... This is very encouraging. It's some time. We are all falling through space. [...] And that is something that hit me very much. And in the moment when you said that, it was... This is a phrase which hit me or touched me very deeply and at the moment when you said it, it was not just a phrase but it also manifested or became manifest.

[39:38]

And ever since it didn't leave me. And it also fits to a very personal process, where I have the feeling that I gave up my... coordinates like navigation. And then this raises something to be in the midst of that. Okay. Okay. And then there's another thing in my own personal life, but also connected to my work with traumatized people.

[40:46]

Yeah, this... Yes, at what points in practice and consciousness work, what was good for them and at what points and where it then needs therapy in the sense that it is really about this very personal encounter and how it works together. What do you mean by consciousness work? It's a translation problem, because I can't say it works with consciousness.

[41:50]

It's all about... Okay, so we have some kind of difficulties with translating because of where is this German word, Bewusstsein, which is now tricky to translate, but she is now telling from her own experience which is easier to put in. I like this phrase, . I think I should figure it out more clearly and talk about it tomorrow maybe. All right.

[42:51]

Yes? I would like to add something to Christian's practice period. Oh, good. Or maybe say something. I think Christian was afraid of that. Or say something about his practice. All right, please. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So we used to call each other every one or two weeks and Christian told me what happened. So one day, there was the same door.

[44:02]

And afterwards, there is tea. And Christian wanted to finish what he had done. He wanted to sweep the floor. And then somebody said, no, no, there is no sweeping anymore. Now we have to keep tea. Sounds like something that might happen during practice. And this was some coincidence, or this incident was quite important for me, for my household, and for my children, because since then, I stopped, there was a certain time, then I stopped at the north, drinking tea and... And these producers are quite different.

[45:03]

a different mind because this intermission or this interruption somehow shows how I'm in a continuous mind of doing too much and overburdening and too much stress. Yes, have a cup of tea. Drinking a cup of tea. Yes. Hi. I will tell about the dream of this night. Last night. Last night. I need some kind of expression of my expectations about this seminar.

[46:25]

So I am participating in a group, as is the case here. I start tearing apart my clothes. I'm naked, and I realize that everybody thinks I'm crazy. And as it happens in dreams, I start hearing about the images of my dream. Until I'm landing on the ground of, you know, high open meadows where you keep cows and so. Yeah. So I'm landing on such a meadow with my arm and I'm breathing.

[47:28]

An old woman and a young man approach. Yeah, come in. And they say, please get up and follow us. We are going to have a thousand. Well, we probably have a thousand tomorrow, but you can keep your clothes on. But if you don't, it's okay. That's also a question I always feel. Thank you. What... You know, usual seminars, we have half an hour before the morning session starts and before the afternoon.

[48:35]

And I think we do that here, too. Do you want to continue that? Yes, of course. Well, I don't know. Well... I don't want to force anyone to do meditation until you sign your life away as a monk. But if you're willing, we'll do that. Okay. Anyone else want to say something? Yes.

[49:52]

So, I am occupied with or thinking about or working with a sentence since a long time. Working not, but it is often... Working in you. Yes. And this is the sentence... And this sentence is, if you meet somebody who is suffering, then become his suffering. And in the last seminar you mentioned this sentence of yours, don't sacrifice your state of mind. And I want to say this sentence is working in me now in addition to this other sentence. and I cannot pose a concrete question right now but I would like you to say more about that and maybe I also can come back on that during the seminar and also in connection with psychotherapeutic work

[51:36]

Where did the first sentence come from? Oh, okay. So that's in the book. Well, okay, then we'll have to accept that sentence. Okay. Well, you know, one of these things that both I take for granted and at the same time I'm... Take for granted, you understand? Yeah. Take for granted and at the same time feel... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I mean, these are the things... Well, I didn't know. It's such a colloquial expression. It doesn't mean what the words say. I don't want to be tyrannized by my translator. Yeah. Yeah, I take for granted that phrases work in us.

[53:00]

It's at the same time rather mysterious. Why do certain phrases work? stay with us, and then work in us. Yeah, it's just several words. So what grouping of words works in us, and how can we enhance that? What words are they? Well, actually, these are just a few words, but how do they work in us, and how can we strengthen that? And what presence of mind arises in us when we do work with it? And is it perhaps the case if we're working or stay with a phrase, that we actually sort of osmotically convey some of that feeling to another person?

[54:15]

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