I feel I must be in a reversed world. Because you're supposed to be standing over there. Well, why didn't you think of it years ago? So it's wonderful. I was told so. All right. So next year, Michael has to go over there. We should find a way. All right. Your hair grew longer since I saw you last. No, to me. And Norbert, your hair stopped growing. Mine stayed the same, I think. Oh, dear. As I said last night, I always look forward to this seminar.

[01:25]

But maybe one thing I'd like is, again, we have one extra day, which makes the pace different. And also, you know, maybe more than most seminars, I don't know what I'm doing. I feel we're in some sort of catalytic field. And we're all sitting in the same seat. And wondering what the jewel is hidden in the mountain of form. This is an expression from, you know, koans.

[02:26]

And this sense I mentioned last night of feeling... A sense of intactness in the midst of activity. An intactness that sometimes is more intact and sometimes less intact. Or we could say we place ourselves in a movement toward intactness. And that can be understood as an expression of this jewel in the mountain of form. Because it's not just in your body.

[03:34]

A sense of intactness is inseparable from everything. Because we are always in a mandala of allness. Allness, can you say that? So what do you say? All. All. Allness. Well, I don't like oneness. And sometimes Buddhism uses the term totality, which is too inclusive. No, I decided all this works. But I need to be told what doesn't work in Deutsch.

[04:38]

And then I'll really be speechless. Yeah, so because the concept of a jewel hidden in a mountain of form is a sense of a jewel, which is also the mountain. Yeah, so you, It's a, as I said, a kind of catalytic field that we share.

[05:59]

So I thought, is there anybody more coming or is this pretty much it? You know, Alexander can't What? Okay, Alexandra called you and told you she couldn't come? An hour? Oh, she told me. She was supposed to tell you. Her back went out. She has a problem with her back every now and then, and she can barely walk. I said, just we'll put you on a stretcher here, but... But she very much wanted to come because she attended your three... constellations in Vienna and she thought they were totally great.

[07:01]

So she had some imagination this would be the fourth constellation. But it would be great any case if some of you could say something about how you understood this last evening so that those of you who weren't here last evening can have a feeling for it. And I can have a feeling for what I said. Yeah, how it's understood.

[08:04]

So anybody wants to say anything. Even if you don't want to say anything, is anybody going to say anything? Yes. About four or five years ago I heard from you the sentence and I understood the sentence, everything is activity. And I applied it to myself in the sense that I said, everything is my choice. My view is my choice, also the view of the past. and the future.

[09:18]

And this was very liberating for me. And I also applied it to my constellation work. And what I did is that I also reminded the people representing somebody that everything they do is their choice and an activity. That's good. That's what I meant. and then it is successful when every part of the system realizes that it is not a thing,

[10:23]

And what I found and recognized is that therapy and constellation then is complete when every participant recognizes that every part of the system recognizes that it is fluid. And it neither holds him or herself or others that are part of this tight in a certain way. It holds on to it. And yesterday you talked about this, it again. And what arose for me is the wish that whether you could talk more about this bodhisattva attitude

[11:44]

worldview. That it has a political relevance. That by that, we also touch the economy system and the earth. Because we often view ourselves as very passive. You said that this is also a question, also an activity of the world between the two worlds, between the Japanese and the West. And what came to my mind yesterday also in what you said is that you presented this as a choice between these two worldviews, the yogic worldview and our Western worldview.

[13:19]

Yeah, maybe our usual worldview in the West, because the Western worldview is complex and changing. Also unsere gewöhnliche Weltsicht im Westen, weil die westliche Weltsicht natürlich komplex ist und sich auch verändert. Yes, okay. I'm embarrassed to be understood so well. Es ist mir peinlich, dass ich so gut verstanden werde. Nice, nice. Something else, someone else, yes. You were talking about... Yesterday you talked about the word ikigai, which comes from the Japanese. And one meaning stayed with me very much. Ikigai is the reason why you are getting up in the morning.

[14:25]

And this morning I perceived this in a special way because although my body was tired, that there is an inner location of intention And somehow in getting up you can somehow lean into that. That's good. And then it gets easier. Yeah. Don't fall over. Lean into it but don't fall over. He'll do it. When Siegfried talked about activity I somehow related to that.

[15:43]

And what I was touched by yesterday was experiencing activity as a relational activity. And in that, especially the relationship to the body. And this topic to bodily locate, find location for this innermost request. This was a very special experience. And I notice, and only now I'm getting conscious about it, that this has been one of the topics you are bringing up all the years.

[17:07]

And in a subtle way, it's consequential in me. And I notice it above all in my work. That it is important for me to develop this bodily feel in all relationships. And it takes me away And it gets me away from all moral judgments. Okay. Thanks. Yes. For me, yesterday, two points were very meaningful.

[18:13]

The first was... The first was to find the knowledge why I'm getting up in the morning. And what makes it worth living for me. And I think the older I get, the more intense this search becomes for me. And the older I get, the more intense this search is getting. And this search hasn't come to a close yet. And I console myself with the sentence, the path is the goal.

[19:17]

Mm-hmm. And the second point from yesterday was to install a point of attention in the body. And I made the intention to take this up into my practice and to find this point of attention in my body, which I haven't found yet. And yesterday, during meditation, I had a quite funny experience. And this, it repeated this morning.

[20:19]

So universe sent me a fly. So this fly moved around from one point on my head and face to another. Looking for this spot, yes. And I thought, well, exactly like that is my discursive thinking. And I was looking where is this point where I could accept the fly. So that I can shift the attention from the fly to this point.

[21:31]

And I continued this today in meditation and found a connection to the breath and dealt with the difference between the concentration on the breath and the concentration on the point of attention. And this morning I continued on this and I found attention to my breath and I tried to find out what is the difference between the attention to the breath and to this point of attention. And my feeling was that both are somehow like coming home. Yeah. But breath is something which I can direct to certain and different parts of my body and it's something flowing within me.

[22:42]

And that's the awareness point But this point of attention is a point of one-pointedness. And attention is directed in a very exact way on it. So where this came together was to direct the breath into this point of attention.

[23:45]

Now I would say that what you are showing me is what you've decided is this is the point. Because not only did I feel that in you here, but you kept putting your hand here. The whole conversation you kept putting your hand here. it was important for me not to mention and not to verbalize the point I'm sorry but I'm your other half and I was able to do it so you're breathing from this point I think Two things from yesterday.

[24:56]

The first thing, somehow it was a little bit like magic for me. You started with the concept that when stepping on the floor you feel the floor coming into your feet. This is also a concept. And you end it in the sphere that is without concepts. This is the trial where you actually begin on a stand and tell a story.

[26:08]

So I'm asking, that's how it happens with you. And then I'm asking myself, how did this happen that you're entering at this with concepts and then you end up without concepts. But without concepts is actually also a concept. But it has a different power, different dynamic. And the second thing is more something I feel and I noticed that it made me sad.

[27:18]

This connection between living long and this inner request and health. Because I for myself I wouldn't like to make this connection or connect this with Zen. For me, Zen is more like this kind of carpet where I don't have to make connections like that. And maybe it's also connected to the Austrian history. I don't know. It doesn't feel so good for me.

[28:20]

In particular, what doesn't feel so good? I'm asking you from what she said. In particular, what does not feel so good? Maybe you can, then you have to answer. Yes. Because it raises the association if somebody is sick, well, the reason is because you didn't find your inner most request. Oh, I see. Yeah, I agree with that. You have cancer because you're a bad person. But we can't carry any such ideas to an extreme.

[29:24]

You are sick because you ate potato chips all your life. Well, that's probably true if you ate potato chips all your life. You can blame your stupidity for eating potato chips all your life. So there's some point to a good diet. Life is too complex to say I'm sick because I didn't have a good diet or something like that. But it's good to remove blame and shoulds from most of one's thinking. Yeah. Someone else? Anyone else? Yes. Hi, Angela. So a similar topic arose for me, but maybe from another direction.

[30:44]

Because you presented this Ikigai somehow as a human... ... Like an acceptance of life, a life principle. Yes. And later on there was this sentence which was very powerful for me that sorrow and fear sometimes are more powerful than our vitality. And I referred this to my occupation as a doctor. What I often see is that sickness is somehow like a shift of the energy to the sickness and to the sorrows.

[32:12]

And I see it as a basis for getting healthier or finding health to make this shift back to the vitality. Yes. Well, I would say that one of the things that we're emphasizing here is the fact that we have a choice. But you don't have a choice unless you see you have a choice. And you believe you have a choice. Somebody asked Linji, Rinzai, what is Buddha? He said, Buddha, Dharma ancestors, they're just terms of adoration. He meant they don't refer to anything except that we want to adore something.

[33:28]

And he said the three realms, desire, form and formless, nothing but the furniture of your own house. Nothing but the furniture of your own house. So this means you have a choice. You're moving your own furniture around. Now, As Siegfried pointed out, I've been speaking about the consequence of seeing that everything is an activity and not an entity.

[34:39]

For several years now. And partly, I'm just finding words. It took me you know, a long time, maybe two decades, to really see I should just use the words activity and entity. We need to find some way to notice things in our activity. Okay, so now what I'd love to do is pretend I'm not speaking about activity anymore.

[35:46]

And then after we finish, you'll find out, oh, he was talking about activity. Okay. You know, I've been emphasizing recently to just see that space itself is an activity. You can see the activity of space. Oh, I'm going to ruin my bell. And just the weight of this bell is activity. So you think this isn't active, but in fact I have to hold it, or its activity will start taking over. So we could say in a way that gravity is an activity of space. Also könnten wir sagen, die Schwerkraft ist eine Aktivität des Raumes.

[36:58]

And you may say this bell is inactive, but the weight of it is its activity too. Und ihr könntet sagen, die Glocke ist nicht aktiv, aber auch das Gewicht der Glocke ist ihre Aktivität. Okay, so now I'm trying to find other words to engage this concept. And the word I'm going to suggest now is the word engage. It's not translatable. Engage? How do you translate it? You can't translate it? No. It's not in English. It's difficult. It's not easy to translate. Well, I know that, but... That's funny.

[38:03]

I either have to conclude that you are always engaged so you don't need the word or you're never engaged so you don't need the word. Maybe it's just you're so always engaged you don't need the word. But in English the word engage means to pledge. Also, im Englischen bedeutet das Wort engage... So you're going to get married? ...zu spüren oder zu geloben. Engage also... Geez, I have to find a different word. No, it's okay. Verlobung. Sich verloben. Okay. If you're deciding to get married, you're So we are always getting engaged with everything.

[39:04]

That's what you know. The iPhone to the rescue. Thank you, Steven. Well, I think it's interesting that it's so difficult to translate it. Because it points out that you are part of everything if you engage. And usually our idea is that we are not part of the external things. Etymology also means to call into accord. So in my experience, for instance, if I'm walking, let's say I'm walking on the path.

[40:16]

So if my activity is an engagement, I'll just use the word engage and then we'll think about how to translate it later. So if I use the word engage. So I take a step and I'm engaging the earth. And I feel like I'm not just taking a step to go somewhere. I'm taking a step to engage, to wed myself to the earth at that moment. I'm It's not that I feel separate and I'm noticing I'm now connected.

[41:34]

I'm noticing that I'm already connected. So I'm not noticing connectedness, I'm noticing already connectedness. Okay, so as I'm walking I... I'm engaging everything all at once. And I'm engaging the earth. Let's put it that way. And simultaneously I hear a bird singing. As happens often in this forest. The bird is also engaged. So I experienced the bird singing and flying as an engagement with the earth. So I feel engaged in the same field.

[42:48]

Yeah. I don't know if that comes across meaningfully. But If everything's an activity, then we need to engage that activity, engage in that activity. Yeah, now, I wrote down how Dogen tries to express this. Because what we have here, and I'll print it out in a larger piece of paper, because I'm very definitely speaking about my experience.

[43:56]

But I'm also trying to speak about my experience in relationship to the teaching. Okay, so Dogen says, let me just do one part of this statement. We place ourselves fully in the midst of immediacy. You can feel maybe I'm always in the middle. We're always in the midst. I'm always in the middle. Now again, you have to find a way that this concept doesn't lead to thinking, but leads to observation. And as some of you know, I spell the word noticing in English with a K.

[44:58]

So I'm making a distinction between just the usual way of spelling noticing without a K. When there's a knowing in that noticing. Now, this is my trying to make English work for ideas that don't fit into English. Now, the challenge of how that works in Deutsch, I leave up to... She's up to the task, you know. And to us all, I think.

[46:12]

Now that means, what Dogen's trying to say is that you, at each moment, you're placing yourself fully in immediacy. You're nowhere else but immediacy. And then he says, and we consider this the entire universe. So you are stepping in the world In immediacy. And simultaneously you know this is the entire world. We have some idea of the world. There's Vienna and Wien is over there somewhere and Hamburg somewhere else.

[47:20]

Well, that's true. If you're buying a ticket, you probably aren't, you know. A train or plane ticket. But if you're not planning a trip, this is the entire world. Yeah. Okay. So I'll read you a little more explicit statement he makes. And as I said, I'll print this out, so if we have a flip chart somewhere, yeah, we can... I don't need it now. I know, but I have to move my leg. You do? Why is that? because of this truth we must study that the myriad things the ten thousand things of the entire world the hundreds of blades of grass that's just another way of saying everything

[48:44]

that each of these things and each blade of grass is one by one the entire world. Now, here again you have a choice. This is not exactly true. It's not the entire world. But from the point of view of interdependence, it's an instantiation of the entire world. An instantiation? An instance of. It's the chaos theory butterfly effect.

[49:57]

You all know that, right? The butterfly wing causes this and causes this. Well, that's all physically, environmentally true. So Dogen is anticipating that in this statement in the 13th century. That this is true, but it's not in our immediate experience usually. But the wisdom choice is to bring this into your immediate experience. Each blade of grass, one by one, is the entire world. Then he says, with this lively view. I like that, with this lively view. Is lively a positive word in German?

[51:04]

Very positive. I have a lively translator. With this lively view our practice begins. Each thing is the particular thing it is Jedes Ding ist das ganz besondere Ding, das es ist. Each blade of grass is its blade of grass. Jeder Grashalm ist sein eigener Grashalm. And here he's anticipating good old Heidegger. Und hier antizipiert er unseren guten alten Heidegger. Who I would love to read because he teaches me how to think. Den ich so gerne lese, weil er mich zu denken lehrt. Each blade of grass is its blade of grass. Each is being time. And each being time is all time. Then he says, which I think just this sentence is useful, not a thing in the entire universe is missing from the present time.

[52:21]

As I said it, cottage gas. Not a thing in the entire universe is missing from the present time. Observe and meditate on this deeply. So if you do have that feeling, that this is the entirety of everything, it relates you to the entirety. And the bird singing becomes your own experience. Not exactly just your hearing of the bird, It's not much different from a mother feeling the conjoined aliveness of her baby.

[53:27]

It's not separate from her. And we know from studying the brainwave patterns of both baby and mother that it isn't separate. They're like something mutual is happening. Well, with this kind of view, something mutual happens with trees and birds and things like that. In a shared pulse the world's heart is beating in you. So this is also everything is activity. Okay, maybe we should have a break. Yes.

[54:46]

Does happen mean? Oh, I'm learning so much German after 30 years. I'm sorry that I'm orally AUR impaired. Yeah. I'm used to it. Thanks. I want you to hear this as different from your usual way of thinking.

[56:20]

And I think if we hear it as... trying to make sense of it in relationship to our usual way of thinking, we're less likely to understand it. Then if we emphasize, maybe it emphasizes difference. Even if you don't think it's so different, it's probably good to emphasize it's different. Like our immune system always tries to make sure everything fits in and belongs to us. Mentally, we try to make ourselves immune to new ideas. And protect ourselves from it.

[57:32]

Because who knows what the consequences might be. It might be a fatal virus. It might change our world. But what we're trying to do, and one of the reasons, of course, we practice and sit, Is that we can ingest new ideas. To eat, to ingest. And not get sick. and maintain a balance which is bigger than any particular cultural balance.

[58:33]

The koan 92, which I referred to indirectly a little while ago, of the Shoyoroku, says we need to master the spell of human languages. Master the trance, maybe then, of human language. Yeah, so... It means human languages cast a spell over us, a trance.

[59:36]

And we have to see that the human language is just furniture in our own house. Yeah, so we feel, we can feel the trance of the words, but we don't, we're not, we also see around it, we're not taken in by it. I've always liked it that in English you say you spell a word, you make the word into a spell. It's just letters stuck together and then suddenly turns into a tree or a turtle. Okay. So I presented or I thought about or used the two little poems recently of Basho's.

[60:43]

And I mentioned at least one of them in the last seminar. And one of them is sitting quietly, doing nothing. Spring comes. Grass grows by itself. Now I think it's fairly easy for us to feel this little poem. And it's in several units. Sitting quietly. And they're all like, each unit is an activity. Sitting quietly. doing nothing, spring comes, grass grows by itself.

[62:08]

Now, this is simultaneous causation. In other words, these units, typically in haiku, these units and Asian poetry, or Chinese and Japanese poetry, these units are simultaneous. They're sitting quietly. which is simultaneous, not successional, simultaneous with doing nothing, which is simultaneous with spring comes, which is simultaneous with grass grows, by itself. So it's both, we could say, a kind of... a kind of simultaneous causation.

[63:19]

Not a causation that this comes first and this comes second and that leads to this, which is third, etc. Because if we're really going to practice the dynamic of interdependence, We have to see that interdependence happens simultaneously. Now in the last seminar I spoke about the field of mind. Not a phrase, concept that's unfamiliar to you. And yet to develop the consequence of this concept we could spend several seminars. But the length of the seminar would be only limited by our attentional capacity.

[64:46]

I mean, I can only read a page or a paragraph sometimes of Heidegger. being in time at once because my attentional capacity doesn't extend to the next page. Each page, each sentence is so demanding of attention that I can only have so much. Okay, so I'm emphasizing here the field of mind. A necessary concept if we're going to understand the practice of interdependence. So we have these simultaneous units sitting quietly doing nothing and they influence each other.

[65:51]

A spring comes Grass grows by itself. And by itself refers to everything. Sitting quietly by itself. Does it by itself. Doing nothing does itself. Spring comes and does itself. And grass grows and does itself. Okay, so here there's a kind of releasing into the environment.

[66:52]

Everything is noticed and has a causal simultaneity but simultaneously you allow it to happen by itself. So in a way we can say there's appearance and there's allowing And then there's accepting. And then there's equalness. So if you're going to practice appearance, which is at the center of what dharma means,

[67:53]

You need some way of being in the world in which things appear. And you notice the world as a succession of appearances. And there has to be a kind of time in there in which the appearance is allowed. What happens? And then you accept what happens. And what happens has to be viewed with equalness. Which is also one of the meanings or realizations of equanimity. You have the experience of equanimity

[68:57]

Of evenness. Because nothing disturbs you. Because you view everything as equal. Oh. And that's sometimes called simultaneous mind. Hard to say simultaneous mind? There's the word simultaneous? Yes, but it means equal time. Equal time mind. Good, that's good, I like that. Equal time mind. Yeah.

[70:02]

So, now simultaneous mind is a technical term. Means that when you view this as an object, you simultaneously view it as a mental object. mind appears on the object. No, I've said this many times, but you really have to get the habit. As this is an object, And you're noticing the object. It's only possible because of your sensorium and your mentality and your mentation. So the appearance of the object is always an appearance of mind.

[71:04]

And that has to be for Buddhist practice to develop with any depth, you have to always notice mind on every perception. So it's an absolute habit of you. I see my translator and I don't just see Christina I see my mind seeing Christina and in the beginning I see Christina more than my mind but if my practice is mature I see my mind more than I see Christina Because I fully know what I'm seeing is my mind seeing Christina, not Christina.

[72:17]

Then I know that there's a mystery. Because she goes way beyond my mind seeing Christina. Okay. Now these are the kind of mindological habits that are at the center of Dharma practice. Okay. I mean, excuse me, to me, when I say these things, though I've said them often, my experience is I'm saying them for the first time. Because they're so hard to make It's a habit you inhabit. Denn es ist so schwer, das zu der Gewohnheit zu machen, die du bewohnst.

[73:21]

That I'm re-minding myself for the first time. Dass ich mich erinnere wie zum ersten Mal. Okay. Okay, now the other little basho poem. I have a question. What? You have a question? I have a question. Which son? Oh, the bigger one, yeah. The bigger one. And then we entered the apartment and we were just in the in the hallway. And Julius turned around and asked me, is Buddhism for you a religion?

[74:28]

And then because he didn't answer immediately, he said, or is it a philosophy? And then because he didn't answer immediately, he said, or is it a philosophy? Because I attended your last seminar. And not because of that, but because I had to give an answer. Well, can I interrupt? Yes. He wonders if it's a religion. Yes. And he wonders if it's a philosophy. Yeah. And he wonders if it's because she's a bad mother and doesn't stay home with him. That's in the background. Yes. And in the background is also that he wants to find out what we're doing, Erich and me.

[75:31]

Okay, so I answered him, for me it's a practice and an experience. And then I said, because in Buddhism the most important thing is the experience, and it starts with a sense experience. And then what I said is, and also Geist, what we in the West understand as Geist, in Buddhism it's a sense. And this mind sense, has as an object ideas or concepts like the eye has as an object something you can see.

[76:49]

Und dieser mind hat als sein Objekt Ideen oder Konzepte genauso wie das Auge als sein Objekt etwas hat, was man sehen kann. And now I wonder, did I go too far with that? That I described mind as a sense like... So this means in that way it's part of the body. Thank goodness. Yes. So for me there is some territory for a shift in that, included in that, because still I somehow consider mind to be somehow outside the body culture. And that's why I'm bringing this up. Yeah, okay. Mind is conceptually a sense in Buddhism

[77:51]

Because it's a source of how we know the world. We know the world through hearing and seeing and smelling and tasting and touching. And every one of those senses is accompanied by mind. So there's the accompanying mind with each sense. But there's also a mind which brings up associations and so forth that aren't in the sense field but are in your mind. So the concept of the senses as the sources of our experience, mind is one of the senses. Now, a mind as a as mental formations can have very little bodily, it's part of the brain, it extends to the brain is at the center of what we call mind.

[79:54]

Certainly an indispensable part of what we call mind. We can think about things and have very little bodily contact with the mental formations. Yogic practice is to... Notice that everything starts with feeling, non-graspable feeling. And that feeling can take the form of emotions, caring. And that feeling can be the basis of thinking. So we could say that yogic practice is a process of physicalizing your thoughts.

[81:05]

To notice the relationship of feeling, bodily feeling and thinking. And to emphasize that end of the spectrum. And you will find, I think, that you can trust bodily meditation much more than, you know, meditation with very little bodily presence. You know, when I talk about serious thinking like this, relevant thinking I unavoidably have the mental association of Einstein saying is that all his ideas started as a physical sensation.

[82:20]

And when he pays attention to the physical sensation it conforms to an idea. So we certainly emphasize the physical feeling of mind appearing on this bell. Okay. Do you need a mental break? Because it's kind of... I'm sorry, but we have another bit of time to eliminate.

[83:26]

Okay. Okay. So I'm always happy to be interrupted, even by my translator. Notice she's not the translator, she's my translator. Okay, now, I just emphasize, the second poem, which I started and she stopped me, Also, und jetzt das zweite Gedicht, mit dem ich begonnen habe, und sie hat mich dann gestoppt. Yeah, but the poem is about her, actually. Aber in dem Gedicht geht es eigentlich um sie. It's Old Pond. Es heißt Alter Teich. Frog jumps in. I mean, Christina jumps in.

[84:29]

Christina springt hinein. Water sound. Wassergeräusch. Okay. So again, this is the same kind of simultaneous causation. Old pond. Frog. Jump in. Water sound. This is the most famous of all haiku probably. Well known at least. Okay. And this was Basho's Enlightenment poem. Okay. Now, Basho started writing poetry, I think, as a teenager. He lived from 1644 to 1694. 44 to 1694.

[85:39]

A typical length of a lifetime in those days. But amazing how much we're still talking about him. He lived only 50 years. Anyway, he started writing poems as a teenager, I believe. And he was in various competitions, poetry competitions. And he was the judge in one competition where his poem, one of the judges in one competition where his poem lost. He was the judge, one of the judges in a competition in which his poem lost. And he said it deserved to be lost. To lose. He says it was badly tailored. He said it was poorly tailored and the words were badly dyed. No, this is an extremely interesting statement.

[86:57]

I don't know if a Western poet would say that. Because clearly how he was describing the poem is that the form of the poem is not the form of the poem. It's the wearability of the poem. Can you wear it? Does it stay with you? Is it tailored so you don't just put it on once and say, well this looks good and then it looks terrible tomorrow? The idea is it looks better and better as you wear it more and more. So the poem is something you wear. Its real form is how wearable it is. If it stays with you.

[88:25]

Okay. So now what we're talking about here is interdependence. And interdependence as a practice. which is to know everything in its simultaneous, in its, how it's arrayed, located simultaneously. So we could say this is, I don't know, I'm trying to find words, you know, processional time. Or maybe processional space. A procession is we're all standing in a line going somewhere. So that's a spatial concept. Things are in a shared process.

[89:46]

Okay, again, these words don't work so well, but I'm doing the best I can. Okay, now, time is also an activity. Clock time, in this sense, is not an activity. You may be able to experience clock time and know it's time for a lunch or a break or something. But that's not what Buddhism means by time. Now, Dogen uses the word ripening time. No, that's not true. He didn't speak English. So he couldn't have used the word ripening time.

[90:51]

But that's how it's commonly translated, ripening time. In other words, each thing to ripen As time. Now, it's not they ripen through time, as if time existed outside what's ripening. They are not ripening. They're not ripening within or through time. like time is going on separately and time is causing them to ripen their ripening is time I have some bananas in my room and they, while I was away the last few days have been getting darker So they're ripening in banana time.

[92:03]

Yeah, but I have an avocado there too and it's ripening in avocado time. It's a little different. So Dogen says, you don't know anything about time unless you know the difference between banana time and and avocado time. No, I've known Christina for a long time. And Eric. And Eric and Christina have Eric time and Christina time and avocado and banana. And there's probably also Julia's time and Leopold's time. And there's all of us, all ripening in our own time. Now, to understand this, I mean, I think at least you have to start with the idea that you can't have no time.

[93:10]

Relative to the clock and to some other people, you can say, I have no time. But that's a pure concept. It's a pure concept. The clock time is a concept. Of coordinating our relationships. But fundamentally you are time. You can't have no time because you are time. A dragonfly has a different time. It doesn't ever.

[94:23]

I mean, we can think about a dragonfly's lifespan in terms of hour, clock time. But the dragonfly thinks this is nuts. I don't care what those people think. I have my full lifetime. Yeah, and it's dragonfly time. Yeah, okay. So if you can start with really getting that you are time, then what is time? If you are time, what is time? Then I think we have to say it's your heartbeat. Your heartbeat is part of your time.

[95:27]

And your breath is your time. So we could say we have maybe successional time. Now again, I'm trying to speak about this from Dogen and from a yogic perspective. Fundamental time is your successional time. Within your successional time you will live and die. Now, I believe we usually, the normal heartbeat is 60 to 70 beats per minute.

[96:30]

And what's the normal ventilation rate, 10 or 12 breaths a minute or something? 10 to 20. And during meditation, it can slow way down. I've read, and it's also my experience, that there's no phase synchrony of breath and heartbeat. in most people except in non-dreaming deep sleep. In non-dreaming deep sleep there tends to be a phase synchrony of breath and heart.

[97:34]

Now what's interesting about that, at least one thing is interesting about that, is that in zazen you develop, you can develop a phase synchrony of heart and breath. So this suggests, and it's my experience, that you're actually in zazen calling forth into your awareness practice non-dreaming deep sleep. And non-dreaming deep sleep has various physiological characteristics that I read that don't occur in dreaming sleep, for instance. Supposedly your immune system is stronger in non-dreaming deep sleep.

[98:40]

And there's more active cell renewal during non-dreaming deep sleep. So now, if that's the case, and that goes along with non-dreaming deep sleep and sleep studies and so forth, And it's the case that in Zazen, in developed sasen, when you can release ordinary discursive consciousness, and find yourself in a non-conceptual mind, non-dreaming deep sleep, or what is very similar to non-dreaming deep sleep, begins to be your zazen.

[99:58]

And once you have a physical feel of that, that non-dreaming deep sleep or zazen mind can be a background mind even in your activity when you're not doing zazen. Now, this would all be an example of time as an activity. Of what? Yoga culture and Dogen would mean by ripening time. You yourself ripen through this successional time. But your world also ripens. Okay. Okay. So again, you start with you are time.

[101:25]

And then you need to start and sort of notice that if you are time, what is your experience of time? Okay, so let's say it's successional time. Because succession is different from space. Now I tried to make a distinction between processional, the field, as space. Simultaneous causation in an interdependent field. We could even call it paratactic time. Paratactic means just things are beside each other. You put things beside each other and something happens. Two plants beside each other, one protects the other from insects. So there's a simultaneous causation through paratactic conjunction.

[102:54]

You see, what I'm trying to do here is use English words. It's the only tool I have to reach outside the cultural spell of language and reach into an experience, a way of being taught, of teaching. time being time that we don't have words for. Because I think if I can find words that give you a taste of this, the words are the concepts associated with the words. can jiggle us, can nudge us into another way of thinking.

[104:10]

About something so basic as space and time. But in this case it starts with the recognition that you are time. And then you have to start the practice of noticing your experienceable successive time. That there's heartbeat and breath, for example. And then there's your metabolism. And sometimes I make up a word, mentabolism. Because there's also a mental dimension to metabolism.

[105:19]

Okay, so you're in the midst of heartbeat and breath beat and metabolic beat. And you feel that as a location. It's an experienceable location. And what's interesting, if we take various stages of sleep, The slow wave delta sleep, slow wave high amplitude delta sleep, which are characteristic of non-dream sleep, are also characteristic of baby sleep, and children up to about five or six.

[106:28]

and during their waking hours as well as sleeping. This may partly explain why childhood time is so different than adult time. Then if through zazen you feel that your high amplitude slow waves a sense of time. Then you're probably getting a feel for a re-entering of feeling as a child. Fine. Fine. You know, extraordinary if this is the case.

[107:43]

Okay, all right. Practice. Okay. So we start again with we are time. And we start trying to develop the experience. And it takes a little while. But you try to get it right now being time. The empty breath is... The empty breath is by itself. But you're trying to get a feeling that right now the heart is shaking.

[108:46]

Metabolism and mental metabolism is going on. The metabolism is going on. Metabolism. And so you begin to feel in a resonant relationship to you. But a resonant relationship is also a resonant relationship with phenomena. And if I am in the midst of these four, physical time.

[109:51]

Again, if I step on it, there's some giving form to Then it becomes an act of taking time. A gesture could also be a kind of gesture. Well, a man named Henry Bastion gave him in the late 19th century a word kinesthetic. He was a British neurologist. And kinesthetic is movement feeling. It's anesthetic, which is dull, no feeling.

[111:03]

So a gesture is kinesthetic feeling. Now, Henry Bastion lived in the late 19th century. And didn't your emperor live in the late 19th century? And didn't your emperor live in the late 19th century? And didn't your emperor live in the late 19th century? Your emperor. I painted him in the hotel where I'm staying tonight. Now I would say that Henry Bastion had a lifespan about the same as Franz Josef. But I think they're probably different gestational time. But I think she was in a different time.

[112:29]

I'm Henry Badenheimer. More present in us now than Franz Josef. Franz Josef. Franz Josef. Also dieser Henry Bastian, der mag vielleicht immer Bastian gegenwärtig sein als Sitzius. Or there are different layers of gestational time that functions. Es gibt verschiedene Schichten. I am missing. Dieser Gesten tatsächlich hier jetzt in Österreich funktionieren und auch überall. Funktionieren. Which I enjoy reading. It's very definitely, there's such a chance of reading his book. So I'm using gestural time. Gestural time. Or kinesiastral. The heel of movement. So I feel his kinesiastral. And I'm trying to use just.

[113:31]

And I'm trying instead of just. Ripening time. Oh, yes. In. No. We're in. This term phase synchrony. Now I realize I'm introducing a lot of stuff right now. Putting it together, you have to come So I'll [...] come Okay, so there's something called just set the mind.

[114:36]

Is it my relationship with Christina? It's with the thing. Yeah, and my relation to Andrea is gestating. Gestating. If I get out, what form? And when I come down from a platform, I find it. I can still get up. No. I'm still getting up. There are people. What's sitting next to you? The ass. And when I go over it, I'm next to it. Are you f***ing nuts? What is going on? Then our time develops. Time is different.

[115:36]

When I'm sitting here, then when I'm sitting there. So, gestational time is gesture, doesn't it? Saved. From too much attraction. So this was a kind of illustration of gestational time. But even if I don't get down off the platform, there's still gestational time happening. And so there's a kind of resonance that's happening when you enter into successional, experienceable time. Okay.

[116:52]

Now, it's often very perplexing why we keep meeting people all the time, that we have interconnections with other people. You know, there's the movie and the play and the book, Six Degrees of Separation and so forth. There's the movie play and book called Six Degrees, I think it is, of Separation. And in fact, I even met the author of the movie, the writer of Six Degrees of Separation. And for some reason, I have no idea why, I in very independent ways met quite a lot of people in Austria who then later I find know each other and so forth.

[117:59]

This is commonplace. We all know this happens. But it is funny that I know very few people in Copenhagen. So there seems to be, and my explanation for how this happens, In fact, the path, the way, the path, the Tao, is a path through resonant time. is that I'm attracted to, resonant with, certain configurations.

[119:04]

It's like There's a million people, right? Let's take a number, a million. And within that million, or 10,000 people, there are sort of resonant spheres. And those spheres are little attractive movements. If my resonant time, my gestational time, is resonant with what gestates me, so I'm attracted to places my gestation speeds up. And Christina is too, and Andrea is too.

[120:09]

And so these various little gestational movements whirlpools or ponds, are attracted to each other. So the path, the path, the way, is being led by your gestational time. The more you know your successional time, now that successional time is gestating and incubating, You're attracted to, drawn to, similar resonances.

[121:27]

You know, the word for the world in Buddhism, as I've often pointed out, is Tathagatagarbha. And what does Tathagatagarbha mean? The simultaneity of womb, embryo and movement. So we're in a world which isn't just an abstraction world. It's a field of the simultaneity of embryo and womb. Always in movement. And your fundamental time is entering that womb embryo movement. Which I'm calling gestational time.

[122:39]

Which is also to engage yourself with the simultaneity and the simultaneous immediacy. And I would think this has an extrapolation to constellations because there's a simultaneous immediacy. And at least some of you are constellation therapists. And part of the technique must be to establish a resonant field. And then let people move in that resonant field and let it happen by itself. To let the field happen by itself.

[123:49]

So I would guess that this sense of experienceable successional time And maybe attracted to other people who have not only similar or different DNA from you, but also a similar delta wave feeling. I'm not trying to be scientific here. I'm just trying to find some concepts, some words that bring us into this feeling of successional and gestational time. And the flow of your successional time into gestational time and into a gestation with the world itself and others.

[125:03]

Okay. That's about as good as I can do right now. So let's sit for a few minutes. And then we'll have lunch. I think it's supposed to be at one, right? Now the bell is going to... pulse in its gestational time. Its resonant time. And this bell resonance is not separate from our resonance.

[126:30]

This is the kind of world we live in. I think one of the reasons that in Japan, for example, people stay within the sphere of warmth and odor with each other.

[128:12]

They feel more comfortable being in the resonant sphere of another person. And then you really have less to say too. Not much distance you have to bridge by speaking. So this focus on successional and gestational time brings us both into a different world than we usually emphasize and brings us into also a world which we already live in but don't always notice.

[129:16]

But it also takes us into a world in which we are always, but which we usually do not notice. No breath. Your breath. So-called my breath. An interwoven shared pulse of breathing. And heartbeat. In some ways, we're one animal in 20 or 30 bodies.

[130:36]

Not the only truth, but it's also a truth. Wundervoll, wundervoll.

[130:51]

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