It's wonderful that we can, for me at least, that we can spend this weekend together. But in terms of what I'd like to accomplish during this weekend, The weekend is almost ended before I can start. Because we have this morning and then this afternoon. It would be nice if you could have a discussion. Then there's tomorrow. And we... And I hear we have to end sometime in the afternoon. And I want to present the entirety of Buddhism to you between now and then.

[01:02]

Or at least enough that you can function within the dynamic of Buddhism from now on. Okay, so just before we had our break, I said, you can, noticing these categories, you can transform, change the self. What if I say you could transform the self? Who the heck is this you? Is this the self we're trying to transform?

[02:03]

Ist das das gleiche Selbst, das wir ja gerade versuchen zu transformieren, zu verwandeln? And then I thought, maybe we can solve the problem by having a fifth category of self. So I added a fifth. Agency. Agency. But she says it's hard to translate. Okay. What do I mean by agency? Well... One of the things we have, one of the experiences we have, I could call, again, trying to find words, meanness. Not meanness, but meanness. Sometimes meanness is meanness, but that's another problem.

[03:26]

Eine der Erfahrungen, die wir haben, das ist die... It's on a round trip, I mean. She's doing her own thing. So I try to be myself. That's up for negotiations. And sometimes this I-ness is also a community, but... Community or community. Height? Okay. Now, I've been looking at that rug on the wall there for 20 years. How long have we been coming here? Usually 10. Oh, yeah, okay. And mostly you don't see it, but I see it.

[04:29]

And it's got a certain amount of information in it. But anyway, when I look at it, I have an experience that it's my experience. And even if you look at it too, I still have my experience of that rug. That's part of what I mean by me-ness. It's my experience. Yeah. And there's a kind of field of me-ness in which we feel we... have a sense of ownership of our own experience.

[05:40]

And we also have a sense of another kind of sense, which I could call I, the pronoun I-ness. I'm the one who acts. I am the one who can act. transform the experience of self. Okay, so an I-ness and me-ness have to interrelate. Because I have to be in every society to some extent responsible for my actions.

[07:07]

In every society you can be punished for your actions. And you're considered to be responsible. Unless you're clearly schizophrenic or something in some way or a split personality and you're not responsible for your actions in the usual sense. But in general, you're held responsible for your actions. So that implies a... a continuous self.

[08:20]

But now, I don't know exactly, but I think, for instance, if somebody in the United States does something 50 years ago or 40 years ago and is recently discovered, like a murder or a... huge robbery or something, we still feel in America that you can prosecute that person. And I don't know exactly what the legal situation is, but basically, if someone committed a big crime 40 or 50 years ago, a murder or a big robbery or something, then we have the feeling that even after all this time, after 40, 50 years, these people are still being taken into account. They're still responsible. Now, I would like to study in a yoga culture if that's still the case.

[09:23]

I would say in a Buddhist culture it's not the same. In other words, if you committed some crime and then you lived for 10 years in a completely normal way, well, nobody would think about it because you've changed. There wouldn't be the sense that that self is still the same self and it still should be punished as an example to everyone. It would rather be an example that you can reform and change. Okay. So what I am saying here... Is that we can have a fourth, fifth function of self.

[10:35]

I would call agency. At least in English. And agency would be the experiencer. Or the observer. And the learner. So one of the functions of self is to create the possibility of an observer. An observer who experiences. And who can learn. So in that sense, the experiencer who learns can learn to change the self. Okay.

[11:45]

Now that would be a kind of Buddhist, that would be definitely a Buddhist way of looking at this. Okay. Okay, well that's enough. The observer or the experiencer. Observing is a form of experiencing. Now, the problem here is that the observer seems to be always there. As soon as I do anything, the observer is there.

[12:50]

As soon as I say anything, experience anything, the observer is there. So we have an experience of the always there-ness of the observer. And we think that experience of always-there-ness means it's always there. But it's only an experience of always-there-ness. It's not the fact of always-there-ness. Now, the idea, zazen, zazen means sitting absorption.

[13:50]

Zazen, zen means absorption, basically. So sitting absorption... means the observer is absorbed. There's no longer an observer. There's experience, but there isn't an outside place for that experience. So I think one of the most difficult, I mean, Buddhism emphasizes non-duality. And I try to teach And Zen tries to present teachings that are experienceable.

[15:02]

One of the differences between Zen as a school of Buddhism and mostly all other schools of Buddhism And one difference between Zen as a school of Buddhism and literally all other schools of Buddhism. Zen doesn't present teachings that are philosophical or logical, etc., unless they're also experienceable. The verification of a teaching is that you can experience it. So I'm always trying to find ways to present the teachings, sometimes logically and philosophically, but only then if I can show you they're experienceable.

[16:09]

Can you say the last part again, please? Only if they're experienceable. And not like experienceable from memory, experienceable now while I'm speaking to you. So my discipline is to present teachings that are experienceable and in the midst of it experience them enough speaking to you so you can feel the experience. One of the most basic experiences, conditions of practice referenced in all koans and so forth, is non-duality. But non-duality is very hard to teach.

[17:22]

Because it's not experienceable. If you experience it, it's not non-dual. There's no one who experiences non-duality because there's no experiencer of non-duality. I mean, sometimes I'm desperate. Okay, so maybe by the end of the day today, I tried in the winter branches to give a feeling for what is the experience of non-duality.

[18:25]

Maybe I shouldn't say the experience of non-duality, but rather the condition of non-duality. So when Yao Shan is asked, what do you do sitting there? And he says, I'm not thinking. Or I think not thinking. And the monk says, well, what is this? Not thinking.

[19:42]

And he says something like, no, I'm thinking. Non-thinking? Yes. Non plus thinking. Thank you. The phrase usually used and quoted is to think non-thinking. In other words, He's using the word to think to mean you've created a situation. Through thinking you've created a posture of non-thinking. And that non-thinking we could call non-duality.

[20:45]

But there's a condition of knowing, but not an observer of the known. And that observer of the knowing, that observer knowing without an observer that unobserved knowing still is the most powerful modality of knowing. But how do you get there so you're no observer of knowing, but you create the condition of knowing? You see, I have no No experience of, no linguistic resources for saying this.

[22:21]

One thing I noticed in Japan, I lived in Japan in a little house with neighbors for about four years. And off and on for 35 years I went back and forth to this little house from the United States. So I'm pretty familiar with Japan. And I used to listen to the parents, the mothers usually, um, [...] disciplining, responding to, talking to their kids. And one of the categories was, no, don't do that. That's not very strongly emphasized, but that's one of the categories.

[23:49]

Another category is you can do this. That's more strongly emphasized. But then there's a whole middle category where there's no response. And then there is a whole palette of the middle category on which there is no answer. And the child asks for this, this, this. And the mother just ignores it as if it doesn't exist. The mother says neither no nor yes. So the kid says, what the hell is going on? But eventually the kid thinks this possibility doesn't exist. You don't even have to say no to it because the possibility doesn't exist.

[24:53]

That's sort of related to how you teach non-duality. So traditionally the teacher allows the practitioner in Zen allows the practitioner to discover a territory which isn't in any category of yes or no. And that's kind of hard to do with Westerners. I mean, I may just give you another, I'm not sure I can make this really very excessively clear, but I spent, I remember a Japanese man came to visit, we had a little house on the ocean up facing toward China.

[26:03]

It was an abandoned village meeting house because they built a new one. And they just gave it to us. And we had it for many years. And a group of about 12, none of you who went were here. About 12 of us went from the Dharma Sangha once years ago. but I remember a young Japanese guy came and visited us once and we took the train back to Kyoto and we sat beside each other completely conscious awake and active Mentally, I mean, present.

[27:26]

And honest to gosh, I don't say God, honest to gosh. I swear by gosh. Probably an Indian's guru. Anyway, he probably said in the four hours or more trip on the train four words. And I sat beside him and he was there and the window was there and things were going by out the window and I kept thinking, And, uh... Afterwards, he said, oh, that was wonderful to spend this time with you.

[28:53]

That was, you know, he implied it was exciting and interesting. But it takes me a long time to have a disciple who I can just be with for long periods of time and not have need to say anything, define anything. But it takes a long time until I can have a student with whom I can spend a lot of time without having to say anything. Westerners always expect some kind of input. To establish connectedness. But if you're already connected, you don't have to establish connection. You can just be on the train for five hours, sitting next to each other, blissed out.

[29:55]

And if you say, are you blissed out too? That's too much. Yeah, okay. So, excuse me for rapping so much, but, you know. So, what would you like to say? Recently, I've been asking myself the question a lot, who was Huining? Huining. Huining. I've looked for literature and not found anything. I just know that there's this koan with him. But if I look at these categories, the categories of self, functional self, I feel like I've been looking for him within these categories.

[31:12]

But I haven't really grown much smarter through it, because I know so little about him, and I would really like to know more about who he was. Because the context in the koan, the way it's presented, is pretty peculiar. Well, first of all, yes, I understand the problem. But first of all, asking who Wei Ning is is like asking who is Indiana Jones. There might have been a person like Wei Ning. But for all practical purposes, he's not a real person. He's a literary creation, fictional creation in the Sung Dynasty about Tang and previous dynasty teachers.

[32:28]

Er ist eine literarische Kreation der Song-Dynastie über Figuren der Tang-Dynastie und früherer Dynastien. For instance, the most famous Zen master of all is Matsu. Zum Beispiel ist der berühmteste Zen-Meister, den es jemals gab, Matsu. And Matsu is in the Song-Dynasty koans written in the Song-Dynasty. Is a dramatic, powerful, you know, 30 bulls, you know, Zen master. Thinking and acting out of the box. But they have discovered actual transcriptions of lectures he gave in the Tang Dynasty.

[33:36]

And his lectures are very much in the box. And his... Very traditional Buddhist lectures you can hear everywhere. I mean, when you were in the Tang Dynasty. So did you mean before when you said acting and thinking from a box? Out of a box. Yeah, I said out of a box. Oh, I understood. In the box, okay. In the koans, he was always portrayed as someone who fell completely out of the frame. But when you look at these transcripts, then... So the koans are primarily a literary creation, a pedagogical literary creation of what I find extraordinary depth and complexity. But if you had to look at them that way, you can't go back and see who the original person is.

[34:59]

By Dogen's time, we know something about Dogen. And now you can begin to see how Dogen developed. He himself developed. And how he emphasized one aspect of teaching and later changed his mind and emphasized another aspect and so forth. Anyway, he was an actual person we can know something about. But you go a few hundred years earlier and you don't know, really. There's no records, very little records.

[36:07]

So the way Huang Neng is presented in koans is all we've got. And it's constructed so you have to deal with that. And see how that functions in you. Yeah. Okay. Someone else? Yes. But I would like to say why I should not speak. There are several ways to bring someone to silence. Really, I should not speak right now.

[37:11]

Well, then stop. No, but maybe I should speak anyway. Oh, then go ahead. And also say why I shouldn't speak right now. Oh. Because there are many ways. Okay. I feel the same way much of the time. I feel the same way. One way of making a person shut up is to ask them to shut up. Another is to ask them what their philosophy of life is. Another way is to answer all questions before they've been asked. When I came here by bike, I had a lot of questions. Yesterday I thought that Socrates had tamed Plato, but Aristotle has never tamed him.

[38:16]

He is the worst of them all. I had a lot of questions yesterday, and I thought coming here on my bike, I thought yesterday we talked about Socrates and we talked about Plato, but the one we did not speak about is Aristotle, but he's the worst of all. I mentioned him this morning. I'm trying to keep up with you. Yeah, Aristotle was, so to speak, Aristotle is the one I meant to mention today because he's the one responsible for the fact that our language is built in such a linear way. The term context comes in, the syntax that we have contextualized, of course, our world.

[39:25]

But in this world there is also something like Mange Gödel, who describes that there are sentences in a system that are indecisive, from which you can say Man kann beweisen, dass man sie nicht als wahr oder falsch herausstellen kann. Das kann man mit Sicherheit sagen. Okay. So the word context and syntax that's important and Aristotle and he made the world through words like this. But in this world, there's also someone like Goethe who would say that there are phrases, sentences that you cannot decide upon, you cannot say whether they are true or false. We also believe with Aristoteles that there is only one God. With Aristotle, we also believe in the tertium non datura, which means that we either think that there are facts that exist or do not exist, but there is nothing in between.

[40:49]

So that the quantum physicists then thought about introducing a more valuable logic. But... So that quantum physics has thought about introducing a manifold of plural logic. I don't know what it's called. Well, I'm interested that that's the way it is. But I don't think we have to blame Aristotle. Let's leave that aside and just notice how we exist. Someone else wants to say something. Yes? I always try to observe the self from a point of view where there is as little self as possible. So, for example, I will try to locate myself through the body.

[42:11]

But something is unclear to me. I can observe thoughts or whatever appears. Yes. But then I also get the impression that the self somehow completely penetrates the body and interwoven with the body. So that the body will, for example, make a gesture or a movement that's also coming from habit, let's say. Sure. But then you can only study the self from the self. Of course. But if you can create a hiatus where there's less experience of self, you can begin to observe the difference when there's more.

[43:25]

sense of self. So once you really see it's not an always there sameness, you can begin to observe it. So if you can see that this is not an ever-present existence, then you can start to observe it. Okay. Someone else? Yes. I would like to come back to the question of who and what. And then also the question of who with the self-concept, the buddhism and the I would like to return to the question of who and what that we spoke about yesterday. There was also Neil's question of the concept of the self and the I in Western thinking, psychology.

[44:34]

And I always have the feeling that I am mixing two concepts, because I do not find certain areas of the emotional life in Buddhism. So, for example, in terms of relationships and childhood impressions and things like that. I feel like I'm mixing the concepts somehow in my experience. Mixing what concepts? Or concepts from Western thinking, Western psychology that deal with relationships and childhood experiences, the way they form you and so forth. emotional areas and i'm mixing them and i feel like uh maybe because uh in buddhism there is no space where they belong no place

[46:05]

And I find that always confusing, the question, where in life are real conditions that I may have to change? And when is there a situation that really I can only approach by making a mental shift that I can, yeah. Is that right? Yes, as far as human basic conditions are concerned, also basic needs, Particularly referring to real basic human needs. Do I have to deal with them in a real worldly way or is there a way to make mental shifts? Well, it's hard for me to respond Because there's too many aspects of what you're saying.

[47:37]

But it is true that the categories of psychological experience, the who which has psychological problems, contrast to the what, which doesn't have psychological problems, To sort that out, yeah, it takes some time. And for each person, and for you or for Neil or something, it's very particular. I can't speak in general about it. But I can say one difference in emphasis is that Buddhism as a teaching is really not interested in what happened to you in the past.

[48:50]

It's only interested in what happened to you in the past as it appears in the present. So the approach is to keep relating to the present in a way that transforms your behavior or improves it or changes it or something. ist der Ansatz immer, sich auf die Gegenwart auf eine Art und Weise zu beziehen, dass du darin dein Verhalten verändern kannst oder verbessern kannst oder was auch immer. Aber nicht um zurückzugehen und dann die Vergangenheit zu ordnen. However, when you do zazen, often these things come up. And you just become more and more familiar with them, but you don't actually try to... I don't know.

[49:59]

It's something different, the way you do it. You're a Zen teacher and a psychologist. What would you say? And Gerald, you are a Zen teacher and psychologist. What would you say? I have my friends. I have to depend on them. I have my friends. I can rely on them. Just to the last aspect is my experience that the real allowing itself has a holy aspect. And referring to the last aspect, my experience is that to allow for something to occur, that that in itself has a healing effect. without resistance, completely and fully, really recognizing and accepting has a really healing effect.

[51:05]

Yes. This process itself, when it can be learned as a process, And this process, when that can occur, that changes a lot. So learning this process of allowing and recognizing this process as process itself then has influences on everything that happens on the cushion, just the process itself. And we can't actually say what happens and how it happens, but changes do happen on that way. We can't say exactly how it happens or what happens, but on this basis there are changes. Okay, thank you.

[52:09]

Anita? Yes, but that's exactly where I want to link in. If I'm already there, then I have... Yesterday, Jonas, there I could... I don't know if it works or not. And now everything is boring for her. I don't know if she doesn't want it anymore. Maybe I just want to put it aside, to quote, but other things that are useful to me, something that gets me better. So, but when you are at that point, then, yesterday I've heard that at that point I can change things.

[53:16]

And for me it's oftentimes the experience, you know, I recognize something, oh, this is how such and such dynamic works in me. And I'm already kind of tired and bored with it, and I really do want to change it. But then how can I... Then what is that to... Not just accepting it, but really then making a step of changing it into something that suits me better, that's more appropriate for me. Well, I've considered, because of being a Westerner, And a westerner who's rather familiar with psychological processes and the literature of psychology. I definitely in the beginning years of practice developed a way to use Buddhist teachings in a psychological way.

[54:27]

And I've even considered writing a book about it. But since I can hardly write anything, I don't have time to do anything, it's probably never going to happen. Let's assume it's never going to happen. Now, there are things I would like to speak about, but I think we need to create a new kind of foundation for speaking about them. One is, I think that given this topic, I should present the five skandhas in perhaps a rather new way. I'd like to see if I can find a way to speak about different continuums of reality which allow different levels of practice.

[55:39]

So here I'm not speaking about self as a continuum, but reality itself as a continuum. The experience of what we think is real is also a continuum. And to transform the actional domain of phenomena, to transform the actional domain actionable, actionable domain of phenomena. That's in my feeling where I'd like to get to.

[56:53]

But we have to explore more how to get there. So now let's break for lunch. And shall we come back at 2.30 or 3? 4? Is that time enough? 2.35. The boss has spoken. 2.30. I modified a little bit what the boss said, but not much. We're only five minutes apart. I don't know. I don't know. You would have said quarter to three.

[58:14]

All right, quarter to three. 2.45. He always wins. First time. First time you noticed.

[58:19]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_74.14