Here we venture into the space of each other's minds. How outrageous. I thought, because my host suggested it, Maybe I would speak a little about dreaming, dreaming mind and dream time from the point of view of Buddhism. Yeah, I mean if it's okay with you anyway. And I would first like to know what you'd like me to speak about or anything you have, any thoughts you have about yesterday or tomorrow.

[01:10]

But first I would like to hear what you would like me to speak about or any thoughts you have from yesterday or thoughts about tomorrow or so. Some of you who haven't said anything might say something. You know who you are. Yes, oh, there's one. Yes. Can enlightenment cause a psychological crisis so that you completely break down and then how to deal with it? And then it's not enlightenment.

[02:15]

But enlightenment-like experiences, some people have, particularly people borderline People have insecure egos, have a sense of self, have enlightenment, light experiences which can be very deluding. But enlightenment-like experiences and people with, for example, borderline symptoms or in general people who have insecure ego structures or insecure limits or something like that, sometimes these people have enlightenment-like experiences, but they can lead to madness. And Buddhism certainly recognizes that some enlightenment experiences are deluding. Particularly enlightenment experiences in which we could say the mind is enlightened, but there's no embodiment of that enlightenment.

[03:19]

Then they're very clear and everything they say is wonderful and present and now that their life's in the midst. But chaos, a mess. Chaos is better than a mess. There's a way out of chaos. The important thing is to practice within the limits of your strength. And to gradually through practice increase your strength.

[04:21]

and that you gradually increase your strength through the practice. Okay, anyone else? Someone else. Did I hear you yesterday making a distinction between mind training and practice? And if there is, what's the relation or the dynamic between knowing and unknowing? And unknowing? Yes, or not knowing. Also in the therapeutic aspect. For me, I use the word practice in a very wide sense. It's the best word I have found.

[05:48]

I've examined it for years and decided it's the best word. Training I don't like. They train elephants, they train horses. It's terrible the way they train elephants. Anyway, but implicit in some of the practices are are effects which are in effect mind training. But they're more mind training in the sense like driving a car trains your mind to be alert in a certain way.

[06:57]

Yeah, and you become a better driver if you know how to hold your mind so you hold the car in a dark curve in the evening. Yeah, but you don't learn to drive a car in order to train the mind. Unless you're Niki Lauda. So it's built into the practices, but that's, you know, it happens through the practices. I made that kind of distinction. Built into the practices. That's all. That's good enough.

[08:11]

Okay, well, that I said. So now, knowing, unknowing and not knowing, what do you mean there? I have the feeling that training is something that you can do, even in a therapeutic situation. And practice would be non-doing or letting go. And it just interests me the difference in therapeutic events. Deutsch, bitte. Übersetzt du dich? I had the feeling that training is something you can do and practice has something to do with letting go and not doing.

[09:15]

And I was interested in the therapeutic effect of both approaches. Well, practicing includes various forms of letting go. You could call that a training to let your mind go. But I would prefer to call it a way of practicing, an attitude within practicing. And I presume an analyst, I mean, if I'm in Doksan, I have to, in a sense, train my mind to be attentive in a certain way. And to absorb details that I wouldn't remember after the doksan, after the session.

[10:18]

But I would remember it next time in Doksan. So that's a kind of training, but in the midst of Doksan there's an openness with no ideas. Ideally, anyway. I'm using Dokusan as an example, which means to go alone to a meeting with the teacher. I'm using Duxan as an example because I can only imagine what it's like to be an analyst. Okay. Someone else? Rahindra?

[11:51]

Rahimu. Rahimu. Okay, Rahimu. You just spoke about the body of enlightenment, embodiment, and I liked that. You spoke about embodiment of enlightenment. I liked that. And I'm still very much concerned about the question, or rather the idea of Freud, that the ego is a bodily ego. and what I'm still concerned with is this idea of Freud's that the I is a... The pronoun I. Yeah. Is a body I. Yeah, I don't know the context in which Freud said that, so I don't know what he meant. But maybe somebody else could... In the I, no, in the I of Freud, the gap is actually foreseen. This, yes, Distance, teaching, or teaching of thought, and how does the teaching connect with the physicality, with the body-feeling?

[13:02]

In Freud's eye, it somehow pre-assumes the gap and the emptiness within that space. And now, how does the gap relate to the bodyfulness or the feeling of the body or something? Well, let me not try to respond to Freud. Let me try to respond to you. What do you mean by the gap between the perceiver and the body or something like that? Maybe the gap within chronological thinking. The gap within chronological, like the gap between words? Between thoughts?

[14:06]

The gap between thoughts. Oh. Well, I don't know, I really don't know how to speak about that in relation to embodiment as you are But certainly in a sense what you do with practice is you shift to the space between words in speaking and thinking. Your sense of location is the space between words and not the words. Someone else? Yes. I was interested yesterday also in the differences between psychotherapy and spiritual practice in general.

[15:17]

Now we have talked a lot about psychopsychology and psychoanalysis, but what has currently been very common in psychotherapy in the last decade are goals and solutions. And we spoke a lot about psychoanalysis and depth psychology, but what has come into psychotherapy within these last years are also goal-oriented or solution-focused approaches. You mean you do three weekends in a row in order to know your mother better? My question is more about the goal and where a therapist should focus in order to go into the general geography. It's much more about focusing on what the therapy should be about, the goal of the therapy, rather than going back into the biography of the person.

[16:36]

I see. So you establish, the two people establish a goal. Yes. And I see it as very effective in the field of therapy. And at the same time it seems to me to be further away from what we actually define as a spiritual path. So to have no goal. Yes, that's what you call incubation. And I wonder if I can prove my clairvoyance to be good if I accompany them in a very target-oriented psychotherapeutic way and at the same time create something like a high attachment to And I experience that as being very effective in psychotherapy, that the two people focus on the goal. But it seems to also be contradictory to what we speak about in spiritual practice with no attaining idea or no... And I wonder whether I'm actually helping my clients by, in some sense, also creating a rather high attachment to what they are focusing on as an achievement or something.

[17:50]

Yeah, but a goal could be a technique to no goal. In other words, I imagine an analyst might have the analisand, is that what you say? The client and the analyst might establish a goal together. It gives you something to work with and maybe a sense of progress. The analyst might also feel the real goal is something else. I can't say that he or she is not ready for that real goal, but I'll work with the real goal too. And if the analyst is also a Zen practitioner, they might also have a third goal, which is, I'm going to move this a little toward practice. Anyway, I don't see any harm in using a goal.

[19:11]

I mean, all of Buddhism arises pretty much from the four noble truths. In the background of all the teachings of the Four Noble Truths to free you from suffering. So from that point of view, Buddhism is a kind of therapy. therapy for how you know the world too, as well as how you know yourself. Last night I happened to see a the two of you in a restaurant where I was having dinner.

[20:42]

And Ralph brought up that he feels in this seminar we're doing that perhaps we're... we're getting closer to the relationship between psychotherapy, psychology and Buddhism. That may be true. And I'd be happy if it's true. And since I was told yesterday you already have dates for next year. It would be probably helpful to me if between now and next year you had some discussion within yourself or with others. Wenn ihr da in euch selbst oder mit anderen eine Unterhaltung, eine Diskussion haben könntet?

[22:03]

Are we closer or not? Ob wir da jetzt dichter rankommen oder nicht? And are there themes that would be useful to explore more thoroughly or deeply? Gibt es Themen, bei denen es nützlich wäre, wenn wir die noch gründlicher oder tiefer erforschen? I mean, I'm doing this because I feel you're comrades in the arms. No, comrades in the dharma. Okay. Okay, so let me say something about dreaming. Now I've... Often spoken about non-dreaming deep sleep. Because it's a way to understand Zazen practice.

[23:09]

And of course we're always talking about waking mind or consciousness. And I've established a distinction between awareness and consciousness that is more more established than I know anybody else who speaks about Buddhism. And I speak about the distinction between awareness and consciousness. Because that is a real distinction for me in my own practice. But I think it is also important for me, at least distinction here in the West,

[24:11]

Because I have to deal when I'm trying to notice my own experience. I can notice my experience and I make, my intention is to notice my experience without attaching words to it. But I find at some point I do attach words to it. I attach sometimes a whole bunch of words. I sort of try to think sometimes just... typing on the computer. And I'll come to something I want to say and I don't know how to say it. And sometimes I'll try four or five, even 20 different words. and see which one sticks.

[25:33]

And then often I decide on which one sticks because like when I'm speaking to you now, I find I use that word and not one of the 17 I had thought I might use. And I trust the experience that you're helping me decide. Okay. And then when I have to speak about it with you or with others I practice with, I have to find how to speak about something with words. And I also want to find a word I can take away as well as I can put in place.

[26:38]

And the words I choose have to do with the boundaries between words. Because words don't exist independently. Like I said, a telephone doesn't exist independent of other telephones. So the vocabulary available to me shapes how I identify practice. So perhaps for reasons having to do with English and Indo-European languages, I've made a distinction between awareness and consciousness, which perhaps in Sanskrit you don't need to make.

[27:56]

Yeah, there are many words for varieties of consciousness in Sanskrit and You know, we use mind, awareness, consciousness, few. For instance, there's a specific word for the positive mind that arises through negation. We don't have any such refined vocabulary like that. Okay, so. Okay. So anyway, I make a distinction between awareness and consciousness. And I find it necessary in order to speak about practice.

[29:11]

All right. So I've often, again, let's start over, spoken about non-dreaming deep sleep. Yeah, we could just call it deep sleep, the mind of deep sleep. Now, why have I spoken about that? Well, first of all, again, this all is based on the pre-Buddhist idea that we have three birth minds. Or at least capacities that we are born with. And as far as I know and confirmed for myself through Alan Shor's work and other people, you're not exactly born with them, you're born with the capacities. Throughout the third trimester, for another 18 months or so, the capacities of the brain are mostly formed.

[30:34]

And during the third trimester, so maybe in the eighteenth month or so, the capacities of the brain are then largely expressed. Although, as the current work on neuroplasticity shows, the brain continues to form and is influenced by the way we live. Although, as the newer works on neuroplasticity also show, the brain is still constantly being shaped and formed. And the last thing. Influenced by the way we live. And by the way we practice. Okay. I'm convinced that practice not... I mean, basically what practice does... We're all born with the same ingredients, more or less. You're mostly born with everything you need for practice. Okay. What practice does is rearrange the ingredients so that it transforms you.

[31:49]

If I bring attention to the breath rather than to the thought train, That's simply using our ingredients in a different way. And it profoundly changes you. So mostly practice is about rearranging the ingredients in a way that's transformative. But I'm convinced that in addition, not only do you have more often right brain dominance, but you also change the neurophysiology of the brain and the body. Okay.

[33:03]

But I call these three the three birth minds. Even though they're also developed through the interaction with the mother and so forth. Now I say there's a fourth mind. Which is developed through practice. Which you don't really have at birth. Okay. So let's say you start out with these three birth minds. Okay. Now, one person has these three birth minds. But The one person doesn't have, has experience of the three but not conscious knowledge of the three. And the way they relate to each other can be changed and is partly culturally established and can be established through practice.

[34:06]

Okay, now what is Zazen? In the simplest sense, Zazen is a posture in which you can relax. Believe it or not, that's true. To find a posture, which takes a little while to do, where you don't have to use musculature and effort to maintain. So as soon as you're using musculature and effort, consciousness is involved and then consciousness interferes with what zazen is about. So Zazen is developing a posture where you can be comfortable.

[35:25]

plus it's the concept, don't move. If you don't have the concept, don't move, there's no power to zazen. So you've joined a particular posture to a concept, don't move. Now, that concept at first is you try to follow it, try to observe it. After a while, it becomes embodied. You don't have to observe it anymore. You just fall into sort of not moving. Okay. Now, the stillness of zazen, that you realize through the concept of not moving, becomes a receptor in a sense, something, I don't know, that's the word I decided to use, a receptor for non-dreaming deep sleep.

[37:09]

Okay. So, when you sit, non-dreaming deep sleep surfaces into the stillness of zazen. Mm-hmm. Or we might say, probably more accurately, it induces a similar state of mind in zazen. Now, it was assumed by, you know... The early Indian people, they're a little like Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein says, the world is all that is the case. And his Tractatus starts that way. So if you start with the world is all that is the case,

[38:12]

and you don't have anything outside the world to refer to, then you really have to make use of what is the case. So, thinking in that spirit, the Indian yogis, the pre-Buddhist Indian yogis, Concluded by the sensitivity of their experience and practice, that although we have little conscious or no conscious relationship to non-dreaming deep sleep, it's a necessary part of our existence. It's often understood as the bliss that's... the daily dose of bliss.

[39:23]

I mean nightly dose of bliss. That you need to function. Yeah, so I mean in some practices you... Let's not go there. Okay. All right, so then someone thought, you know, like why are these three minds separate? Can we join them? I don't know how to join them. I'm just going to sit here and be still and have a goal and I won't move until I join them. Some kind of intention like that probably happened over generations. And people discovered that sitting still does change the overlap or change the boundaries between these three minds.

[40:35]

And the particular idea was, can non-dreaming deep sleep, this necessary integrating, healing, blissful mind, can that be more present to us? So they decided, I mean in effect, Zazen, this kind of yogic posture is very effective in bringing non-dreaming deep sleep or inducing a similar mind in zazen. Okay. Am I giving you the units and the okay?

[41:38]

Yeah, you are. You are. All right. Okay. It was also discovered that the stillness of zazen is like a battery. And it recharges you. And you charge the battery of zazen by bringing attention to your breath, attention to your body. And that's primarily a shift from attention to sitting, attention to posture, attention to thinking, attention to attention itself. So the stillness of zazen and bringing attention away from externalizing the world... Sorry, can you say again?

[42:44]

bringing attention away from externalizing the world, bringing attention to the body and the mind and attention itself, begins to weave body and mind together. Well, I won't go there either. Well, we've only got one day left. Okay, so if you do that, The Zazen then is that you charge a battery with a kind of vitality.

[44:03]

Aliveness. And then if you practice a mindful attention during the day, you maintain a kind of feel for that stillness in the background of your daily life. In the space between words and thinking. Then that battery continues to charge you during the day. Keeps its charge in your daily life. Now this is a good example of the metaphor of a battery. It's far more effective than any words I can think of to try to explain this. And it helps you to remember it and to be ever ready.

[45:04]

This is a joke because batteries in America are called Ever Ready. Only David. How is you, Dave? Okay. So, are we ever ready for a break? Because I want to go on about how zazen works in order then to start talking about dreaming. So let's have a break and then we'll resume. If you want to. I'm leaving you in the middle of something so you might want to. The horse is going over the cliff with the cowboy on it to be continued. Next week.

[46:22]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_76.15