No, I spoke for a while. Is there anything we can discuss? Yes. Yes. You said that a lay practice also needs monastic parts. How do these monastic parts look exactly? What is the exact meaning? Is it more in the person or is it in the retreat possibility that you have through a monastery? What is exactly the connection between monastery and lay practice? You said that lay practice needs to have a part of monastic practice. And my question is, what exactly is monastic practice? What is it that seems so important to have such importance for lay practice?

[01:09]

Is it the people or is it the fact of retreating into a monastery? I'm asking myself the same question. I mean, somebody who's done both or knows masochistic practice could speak to it, but maybe I can speak to it too. I mean, I should be able to, you know. But let me see what Angela has to say first. I wanted to add a question to the question. Because very often when I work with someone in psychotherapy, I have the feeling this person needs a group. Here we are. Here we are.

[02:14]

And many people say I'm so alone and lonesome. And just a lonely one. Yeah. And it is as if the ceiling comes down on my head. Yeah. But on the other hand, the trust in groups is so low that people, even if it is a therapeutic group, do not go there and reject it, out of fear and bad experience. At the same time, there is no trust in groups, so very often, even with psychotherapeutic groups, people do not go to their group sessions, because they do not trust them and they don't want to go. And psychotherapeutic groups and organizations are well known for fighting with each other and dividing into groups that fight with each other. So we haven't solved the problem how to live together yet. Even couples have, I've heard, problems.

[03:26]

Yeah. They've never heard before. Yeah. Well, I should do two things. I should give you a little more information about it. And then maybe we can try to speak about what constitutes monastic practice. Und dann können wir vielleicht versuchen, darüber zu reden, was monastische, also klösterliche Praxis ausmacht.

[04:30]

But let me say, most simply, have you ever done a sashin? Lass mich einfach mal fragen, hast du ein Sashin gesessen? Okay, a sashin is an example of monastic practice. Ein Sashin ist ein Beispiel für klösterliche Praxis. And sashin is different than the way you usually live. Und ein Sashin ist anders von dem, wie du normalerweise lebst. And it has some effect on our practice. Just studying that difference already, you're quite far along. But some more information. I would say that Most lay person's practice develops most... The most significant difference in a lay person's practice is before and after Sashina.

[05:48]

I have a friend, and somebody has been practicing with me 19 years, and he's never done a Sesshin. He's scared to do it. But he actually is making practice work. But it's clear it would make a difference if he did a Sashin and he's capable of doing it. So Sashin would make a difference. But my experience is, when we started a lay Sangha in Europe, in the first years, I don't think I did a Sashen until 1989.

[06:49]

In the first years, I think I started in 1989 to lead the Zeshin. Before the first Zeshin in Maria Lach, we had a self-developing Sangha. House Distilled in Roseburg, where we took it for three weeks a year. And I would say that that was a qualitative shift. From no sushines to sushines. And then, yeah, okay. And it was for me too, because one reason I didn't do Sashins is I knew if I started doing Sashins, I could never leave Europe again.

[08:05]

At least until I had a successor who could continue. Because it's simply not responsible to start people on the path through sushins and then leave them behind, abandon them. You can't do that. So when I started doing Sashins at Maria Lark, it was a decision, okay, I'm going to be coming to Europe every year. And as some of you, many of you, some of you here would remember, the sangha really developed through the time we had at Haus Destille.

[09:08]

And that led to Johanneshof. And I would say the Sangha has developed more dramatically through Johanneshof than through doing Sashins. And it seems that even if you don't go to Johanneshof or visit there rarely or never, I'm not sure why I'm answering. I mean, it's nice you asked the question and I'm answering it, but I'm not sure it's of any interest to the most of you, but I'll continue since I started. It's interesting in that it's curious, at least.

[10:20]

Why? I mean, it surprises me why it makes such a difference. How the Sangha has changed into an adept lay Sangha through Johannes Hoff, it surprises me. It makes it clear that the teaching is institutional. If you look at the lineage in the koans, it's all a lineage of institutions. And most of the teachers, their name is not their born name or their Buddhist name, but their name they took from the temple or mountain they taught on.

[11:40]

But look, in Europe, you have the institution of universities and Goethegen and Max Planck Institutes. These institutions have, they carry something. And different Max Planck Institutes, for example, have different reputations. Okay. So there's somehow, there's a connection between lineage and the context in which the teaching occurs. Sorry, I missed that.

[12:43]

Well, you were in the middle of a glass of water, so it's understandable. It seems to make a difference. Just a kind of teacher wandering around teaching isn't the same as a teacher with an address and a place and a practice that goes together. I wouldn't have known this in 1960 when I started. I've only discovered this. Yeah, okay. So for some reason, the institution makes a difference within the Sangha, even for those who don't participate much in the institution. Now, there seems to be a big difference between Crestone and Yanisov.

[13:47]

Everyone who's done both, say so. And I don't know quite really what the difference is. Schedule's nearly the same and so forth. It's more remote. That's the most obvious thing. But if we look at the Sangha, let's say there's about 200 people practicing pretty regularly. If you look at the individuals who've made a choice to make practice the primary Dimension of their life. It's almost 100% people who've made the decision that crystal mountains and center during a practice period.

[15:07]

dann ist es hundertprozentig der Fall, dass diese Menschen diese Entscheidung in Creston während einer Praxisperiode getroffen haben. Ganz ehrlich, das überrascht mich. Denn aus meiner Sicht sind Creston und der Johanneshof ziemlich das Gleiche. Okay, but they're different. And one of the differences is we don't have practice periods at Johanneshof. Because it's simply not at present big enough. Okay. In hectares, not in rooms. Okay. Anyway, I don't know. I'm sorry to bother you with all this, but you know, It's something I'm thinking about and you brought it up.

[16:19]

I'm not blaming you. It seems that somehow something happens in practice period for some people, not everyone, is that whatever lay life could offer you is less interesting than practice. That's an amazing decision. I think. Lay life is pretty interesting. Movies, Mick Jagger... Beautiful people, books to read. How did Mick Jagger do that?

[17:23]

Anyway. Anyway, somehow they decided that practice is more satisfying than any other way of life they know. And they're willing to go without all the things, the benefits of lay life. And that's what it means when you say, okay, I'll do this, I'll take care of Johannes off, or I'll live at Crestone, and I'll just take care of the practice, or start a group in Göttingen. Now I don't think everyone in the world should be practicing Buddhism or living in a monastery. One, I wouldn't have much to eat because we need farmers and we need somebody to keep the internet going Also, ganz offensichtlich, wir brauchen ja Leute, die Essen produzieren oder das Internet unterhalten.

[18:50]

We need some multitaskers. Wir brauchen auch multitaskers. Okay. Any case. I don't know really why, but it does seem to be the case. But let me at some point come back to that, speaking about articulating what seems to be one of the things we're talking about, articulating consciousness. But before I speak about that, I would like to have some more discussion. Please. I have another question. We were talking in the break, we were talking about... Can you start with George first? It's better for me, and I think others too. Okay. We talked about it in the break, and the question is, in psychotherapy and in analytics, are there many conversations about the story of the person, more or less?

[20:02]

So in the break, we talked about the fact I'm an analytica, so he's not a therapist, but an analyst. Psychoanalyst. Okay. So you're an MD too? No. Oh, you can be a psychoanalyst without being an MD in Europe? In the break we were talking about the fact that in psychotherapy people talk a lot about their personal history. I think this is necessary, but the question is whether this narrative self-history can be fixed and how to use this dilemma, whether there is a suggestion to solve the dilemma. And I think it's important that they talk about their personal history, but the question is, does this talking about the personal history kind of confirm this narrative self?

[21:21]

Reify it. Reify it. And the question is, what can I do about this dilemma? Yeah, it must do that. And what can you do about this dilemma? first to recognize it as a dilemma I would presume but I let me when I speak about articulating consciousness let me reference what you just brought up For now. Okay, so let me, if anybody else wants, I hope somebody else wants to say something. I get tired of hearing myself. Just in time. So this morning you said something like the seed that was planted in the past

[22:41]

Sometimes it causes suffering in the present. Sometimes it causes other things too. But there is also suffering in the past that I didn't cause myself, but somehow that was put into my birth, into my cradle. So at some point I notice consciously that that is the case. So I've been going this path of suffering for such a long time. How can I change that?

[23:50]

I'm charmed that you think I might be able to answer your question. Well, of course, I don't know what your cradle was like. This is what she said. And certainly if one has alcoholic, abusive, schizophrenic parents who both commit suicide, it's a difficult life. I've never known a family that bad. But nearly. So you didn't cause that. But it's still your experience.

[25:19]

So from the point of view of Buddhism, it's still seeds that have been in the soil of your consciousness. and not just in your consciousness and in every level of you or somebody. So I'd like to keep that in mind. And if we do speak about consciousness, which I guess we will, maybe let's see if our shared understanding of consciousness from a psychotherapeutic and Buddhist point of view gives us some entry to your question.

[26:23]

Okay. Anyone else? I would like to confirm that this practicing with turning words has been very important and very effective for me. And it kind of concentrated my mindfulness practice in everyday life.

[27:31]

Sorry. That sounded like German to me. Yeah, it was German, sorry. I used different words and phrases for the first time in Santa Fe. And I remember the small story which you told that at some point you were running after a bus and you really where I've been trying to catch the bus and then suddenly you had this phrase in your mind, nothing to do and nowhere to go. And that was one of the first deep experiences I had practicing with you.

[28:44]

Because it made clear to me that I can have a mind of having arrived even when I'm running at high speed. Okay. And ever since then, practicing with turning words is part of my practice, has been part of my practice, and still is part of my practice. Okay, well good. I think you shaped that into a story that never happened. I thought if it worked for practice, it's good. But it's true that I worked for a long time with the two phrases no place to go and nothing to do. And I would say, I don't think I mentioned, but I would say that probably the Dharma Sangha as a practicing lineage uses turning words more as a practice than has ever been done in Buddhist history.

[30:30]

I don't know of any extent that I can know of use of phrases like this extended into all kinds of circumstances and not just limited to koans. It's been done in the past. And I think it's happened because of confronting the paradigms of the West. Und ich glaube, das ist so geschehen, dadurch, dass ich und wir die Paradigmen des Westens konfrontiert haben. Und eine fortgeschrittene Laienpraxis entwickelt haben. And the big question, of course, is... And the big question, of course, is... While I think that we, in general, there's...

[31:54]

In Buddhist history, 2,500 years, within Zen, there's no lay lineage which has ever survived. Okay. Only monastic lineages have survived. Okay. So the big question is, I think we have, for various demographic and societal reasons, developed an adept lay sangha. I think it's amazing. But the big question is, can an adept lay life lineage survive? Can the teaching be transmitted? And what form will it take?

[32:56]

It's not possible for me to live to see it happen. But I'm kind of will hope one does. You want to say something? I find these words very interesting. What do you mean? That they have a physical effect. So that they don't... For me it's particularly interesting that these turning words have a bodily component. That they trigger bodily processes, be it energetic processes or emotional processes. For example. For example, just now arriving. For me, it's an aspect of weight.

[34:20]

For example, my pelvis is emphasized. That you sit really hard. That these are forces that pull you down, for example. So I can feel powers or energies that pull me down and I feel something heavy in the lower part around here. or the word embrace has a feeling here in the area of my heart and in the arms. I wonder if you are even closer to it, if it is even more effective When you talk about these physical aspects, for example, being in the pelvis or in the heart, how does it feel to be in this physical width? Isn't it still a step further away?

[35:24]

There is a medium way to get there, but isn't the physical level even more immediate? What is the effect? My question is, wouldn't it be more direct and closer to the body if we said, pay attention to the feeling in your heart area or in your hip or wherever, and as if the words are further away. Well, I got the first part, but now the further away I'm not. So the further away, like that's a turning word, that as if the word is further away. And if we could make it more explicit and say, just pay attention to the feeling in your heart area, wouldn't that be then more useful or more direct?

[36:29]

Okay. Okay. Well, let's not make a comparison. Let's just do both. Okay. We don't usually... This is interesting to me. I never thought of it exactly like this. I did say earlier, pay attention to certain points, so of your feet, the top of your head or something. And sometimes I say, put your feeling at the back of your eyes or something. And we do expect you to notice whatever is going on in your body.

[37:40]

But we try to not We try to let it mostly happen with the practitioner and not tell the practitioner what to feel. So I might say, notice how you feel, not how you think. But I wouldn't say to pay attention to the heart area or something like that. But I would say, and that's part of the practice of the jhanas, and we talked about it in Hanover a bit, You do practice with bringing attention to every part of your body.

[38:45]

Just as in itself is a practice of filling your body with attention. You could say the posture of Zazen is the posture you can most feel with attention. And then that attention is further articulated by exploring all the organs and so forth. And that would then include the heart area and the circulatory system and so forth.

[39:48]

Very mechanically, you just do it. But your body then becomes permeated with attention. And you really can notice things like a headache appearing or notice things, bodily changes. And your body becomes open to feeling in a way that's not if you don't do this practice. But this is, you don't say pay attention to the heart area except in the context of paying attention to everything. At least I don't. As a practice. But your comment about the bodily component of these phrases is very accurate. Okay. Now I should say something about that before we end in seven minutes or something like that.

[41:21]

That way I can be just in time. Or I won't have enough time and so then I can't say it. Or I have to compress it so it's so small it opens up in you later. My fantasy at least. Okay. I think to put this in a context that part of using turning words is part of developing a stream of mindfulness. Continuity of mindfulness. And it's the developing of a continuity of mindfulness that allows you to make use of turning words.

[42:29]

And that's one of the problems I see for using it within psychotherapy, is the usual client has not developed a stream of mindfulness. So if a therapist wanted to experiment with turning words, it might be appropriate for certain kinds of therapeutic situations. Also, wenn ein Psychotherapeut experimentieren möchte mit der Verwendung von Wendewertern, und das könnte in manchen therapeutischen Situationen angebracht sein, ist die Frage, ob das irgendwie sinnvoll ist, bevor der Klient einen Strom der Achtsamkeit entwickelt hat. But I would say there are two kinds of mindfulness.

[43:50]

At least, today I would say a stream of mindfulness. And another, acute mindfulness. Not Q-U-E-U-E, but Q-C-U-E. Cue is a cue, like a clue. The cue is, at the bell you do such and such. Oh, okay. A cued, mindfulness that's cued by something. Could I say triggered? Triggered, yeah. If we can find a word for cue, trigger is okay, but it's... Not quite the feeling. But we could say it. I use the German translation. All right, fine. So when you come in this door, for instance, you could use the door, the threshold, as a cue that you stop thinking and just feel the room.

[44:55]

the kind of field of mind of the room and then you enter now this is also to do this this is now part of monastic life and to do this is to establish I mean to do this is All kinds of reasons. One of the reasons is you establish the practice of seeing the world as appearances. You open the door and the room appears. Of course, if I turn toward you, this situation appears. Oh, we're appearing to each other.

[46:10]

How sweet. And if I turn this way, you appear. Now, we don't usually notice appearance that way because we think of this room and the present as a unit. And it's not actually a succession of appearances, it's a container. But if I walk in the door, I can see that as I open the door, the room appears. And that's a step towards seeing everything as appearance. I straighten my body slightly. I feel a different appearance.

[47:12]

I take a breath partly in relationship to all of you breathing. And there's a new appearance. And if I said the second big step in Zen practice is when you establish continuity in the breath, body and phenomena, the third big step is when you always see things as appearance. What happens when you see things as appearance? You also see things as disappearance. you also see things as impermanent.

[48:24]

And what is the main teaching of Buddhism? Everything is impermanent. Everything is changing. Everything is interdependent. All those are versions of each other, interdependence, appearance, and so forth. Now, We don't see interdependence. We can see impermanence. They're changing, things are changing, flowers fall, etc. It's very difficult to see interdependence. I mean, you can see that that candle is collapsing. And yet it's resting on the piano. So that's a kind of interdependence.

[49:27]

But we don't really see that it's interrelated, inter-emergence interdependence. Hmm. interdependent, mutually penetrating, mutual dependency. So that's another step, is to develop to see, feel interdependence as well as impermanence. to see interdependence as well as impermanence. But these are all interrelated aspects or ways of saying the same thing that everything changes.

[50:33]

But you really don't live everything changing until you see everything as appearance. Until you start seeing everything as impermanence, I mean as appearance, impermanence is just something forced on you by old age, sickness and death. What's that funny grin on your face? Sorry.

[51:34]

I don't think I translated very directly. Oh, really? I loved the last part. Oh, really? Anyway, the Buddha became enlightened when he saw old age, sickness, and death. Or his initial enlightenment. Okay. So, Just the simple practice, not so simple, of seeing everything as a continuous flow of appearances changes your relationship to old age, sickness and death. Okay. Okay. So now we're talking about practicing appearance.

[52:35]

Or discovering appearance as the way things exist and as a practice. Okay. Okay. So appearance is a more refined, nuanced evolution of the practice of mindfulness. Erscheinung ist eine subtilere und nuanciertere Praxis der Achtsamkeit. Because what you're mindful now of is mindfulness becomes the flow of appearance. Okay. Okay.

[53:38]

Now, again, just let me say, having your attention continuously on your breath, or, you know, Or knowing the world is a flow of appearance. It's right here available to us. Any one of us can do it. All you need is the intention. And of course that's the hard part. Because there's a lot of things that seem more interesting than that intention. But if that is your intention strongly enough, it will happen. Okay. Now, of course, if you see everything as appearance, the sense... He appeared.

[54:54]

He said, I thought you were ending at 5.30, he says. He's, you know... So I think he's... Maybe we should stop. because he appeared. And anyway, we're supposed to sit. He disappeared. Tricky. You adepts are tricky. Okay, let me come back tomorrow morning. to articulating consciousness through appearance and how these turning words function both in the verbal agreements which are our culture

[56:06]

and also exist in how we articulate dharmas, which again is at the center of Zen practice. And the question of course is, Is some kind of disguised practice of articulating dharmas useful in psychotherapy? I'd kind of like to continue now, but we're going to stop. Yes, actually I would like to continue, but we will stop. Thanks. Thank you.

[57:12]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_76.67