Thank you all for coming. And can you hear me way in the back there? Okay, good, thanks. So this evening is the start of a seminar of Friday, Saturday, Sunday So I'm going to try to speak in a way that has something to do with starting the seminar. But also, many of you, quite a few of you are new to me. Maybe you're new to Zen. I don't know. So I should try to say something about Zen practice that makes sense if you know little about it.

[01:07]

And so möchte ich etwas über Zen-Praxis auch erzählen, auch für die, die wenig darüber wissen. Und auch wenn ihr etwas darüber schon wisst, ich werde über eine Art Zen zu praktizieren sprechen. So I think this is called something on the poster of the foundations of Zen practice. Something like that? The fundamentals of Zen practice. The ground, maybe, of Zen practice. Well, there's no ground in Zen practice, so that's a problem. We try to get around that by talking about the groundless ground and things like that.

[02:28]

Yeah, we'll talk about that tomorrow. So, yeah. Not all of you are going to do Zazen. But I still think I have to speak about Zazen. And even if your practice is primarily mindfulness, I think probably it's good if you have some experience of zazen. So here I'm speaking both about the basics of zazen practice

[03:29]

Also werde ich über die Grundlagen der Zen-Praxis sprechen. And the basis of Zen-Praxis. Und die Basis der Zen-Praxis. So let's start with Zazen. Also lasst uns anfangen mit Zazen. Yeah, I mean, we don't know what's going on. Everything's changing. Wir wissen nicht, was vor sich geht. Alles verändert sich. The world is particularly these days showing one of its most ugly faces. I think it's a time we have to rethink the world. Or re-proportion the world. But it's hard enough to rethink our own personal life. Or to find the right proportion of or the proportions

[04:47]

Of our own life. Yeah, so somebody said a long time before Buddhism. Yeah, if everything's changing, why don't you just sit down and see what happens. So Zazen is something like that. Everything's changing, so let's... Be still. It's not so easy to be still. Yeah, now, the posture, this particular posture of zazen is not a posture you're born with. It's a choice to sit in this posture. So we can say, let's say it's a wise choice.

[05:49]

So we could call it, and I would call it a wisdom posture. Yeah, and it allows you to study your mind. I really, I mean, I really, now over 30, 35 years or more, I've often said, can we do without Zazen? If you really want to observe the mind, it's almost impossible not to have zazen. zazen means sitting absorption. Something like that. sitting absorption.

[07:14]

And what characterizes it from other forms of contemplative meditation is you're not really contemplating anything. Yeah, in Zen it's sort of like a practice of not correcting. So you just sit down. And you don't correct. It sounds sort of stupid. But It's not stupid if you trust somehow things, there must be something right about the way the world is. And Zen particularly appeals to people who have some feeling the world, there's got to be something right about the way things are, is.

[08:23]

And related to that is trusting, yeah, just trusting the body, the intelligence of the body. Yeah, so you sit down in the midst of your life. The posture is particularly designed for immobile sitting. But even if you can't sit really, really still inside and out, There's advantages to sitting down in the stream of your life. Strangely, you begin to create a new stream of your life.

[09:27]

It's almost magical that something so simple can be so powerful and influential. So, you know, we don't have all evening. I mean, we don't have only a small part of the evening tonight. So let me go on to say that what does Zazen do? Well, one of the things it does, it kind of gathers the mind into your own presence. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And in fact, if we sit with others, you know, once a week or with friends or something, you find that zazen gathers your mind together with others' mind.

[10:46]

Yeah, now, by mind, I don't mean thinking. Or I mean something like bigger than thinking. Yeah, it sometimes certainly includes thinking. But... You know, tomorrow, the next day, if you want, we can try to come to some shared idea of what mind is. Yeah, you all think you know what mind is, probably. Maybe you do. But in fact, it's hard to translate mind into German. And what is mind in Sanskrit and Pali is not so easy to translate into English or German. So what is this mind?

[11:54]

So anyway, Zazen allows us to begin to observe mind. Yeah, and you know, we're born with the minds of waking, dreaming, and non-dreaming deep sleep. So zazen is about the posture of zazen as a wisdom posture. Is there a mind that's other than or wider than waking, dreaming and non-dreaming deep sleep?

[13:17]

Mind is very connected to posture. Der Geist ist sehr verbunden mit der Haltung. It's very hard to really sleep if you're standing up. Es ist ziemlich schwierig zu schlafen, wenn ihr steht. Unless you're a horse. Außer ihr seid am Pferd. Or unless you're driving a car. Oder ihr fahrt einen Wagen. But usually we know it's a heck of a lot easier to sleep lying down. There's a posture of sleeping. And there's a posture of waking. This is a posture somewhere in between. Yeah, you get to know this posture well. Yeah, you can sit pretty stably without too much effort.

[14:53]

In a way you can, yeah, kind of go to sleep. Some people carry this too far. Me often, you know. My body says, to heck with wisdom postures. But you can get to find out how to have your body awake in a certain way and also almost relaxed, maybe even more deeply relaxed in sleep. Aber du kannst die Haltung so einnehmen, dass du wach bist, aber auf eine Art auch tiefer entspannt, als wenn du schläfst.

[15:57]

Also ein guter Teil der Praxis ist, dein Wohlgefühl zu finden, dich wirklich entspannen zu können. And you know, one thing that zazen does is makes us notice how unrelaxed we are. So zazen helps us gather our mind. And this posture actually helps us mix our minds. One of the reasons we, in a practice situation, we most often sit early in the morning, is simply because you want your zazen to be sleepy. You want to mix the minds of sleeping and the minds of waking.

[17:16]

Almost like two liquids or streams of slightly different colors or temperature flowing together. And you can feel the difference in temperature or viscosity. So the more you become familiar with this, you find out that really we're talking about a fourth mind. A mind that overlaps for sure and is not... just the same as the minds of waking, dreaming, and non-dreaming deep sleep. So Zazen gathers the mind and mixes the mind And we can also say it purifies the mind.

[18:51]

Or it starts a process, something like purification. Or you can begin to notice your mind can have a tremendous clarity. And it can also be completely befuddled up with thoughts. And if you do Zazen, you really begin to see the difference. But you begin to feel the difference. And you can feel when there's this clarity of mind in contrast to a distracted or confused mind.

[20:03]

And at first it's a kind of battle, and the distracted mind always wins. But if you sit pretty regularly, the clarity of mind begins to win. So that's, I would say, you know, one of the basics of Zen practice is Zazen. And I've described Zazen as a basis for the teachings and practices of Buddhism. And the second basic of Zen practice, practically speaking, is simply bringing attention to the breath.

[21:13]

And I can never emphasize this enough. And it's the easiest thing to do in the world for less than a minute. Any of you can do it for a few moments or maybe a minute or two. But to do it for 24 hours or continuously is quite difficult. So it's worth asking the question. Why is something that's so easy to do for a short period of time

[22:16]

So hard to do for a long period of time. Is time different or what's the problem? Well, what happens? We keep going back to our thinking. Isn't that what happens? Yeah. Also, was passiert? Wir gehen zurück zu unserem Denken. Why do we keep going back to our thinking? Wieso kehren wir zurück zum Denken? It's sometimes interesting, but oftentimes it's not very interesting. Also, manchmal ist es ja interessant, aber häufig auch nicht. Even if it's pretty bad, dumb, awful thinking, we still go back to it. Auch wenn es ganz dummes Denken ist, aber wir kehren dahin zurück. Why is that? We must like it or something. Yes, that's probably true. But I think more fundamentally we establish we're actually going back to our continuity.

[23:36]

How we establish the continuity of our identity. I have a new little daughter. I have two older daughters, older than many of you. But somehow I've become a young father. But somehow I became a young father. And I enjoy it very much. And those of you who come to the seminar will see that I can't stop talking about her now and then. And she's seven months old now. And I'm watching her try to establish her continuity.

[24:48]

At present, her continuity is almost inseparable from the biological continuity of her mother. Also im Moment ist ihre Kontinuität fast nicht trennbar von der ihrer Mutter. But she's in the last month and a half or so learned to crawl. Aber in den letzten anderthalben Monaten hat sie gelernt zu krabbeln. And she's a jet crawler. I have to race to close the door at the head of the stairs and things like that. But suddenly she realizes she's quite far away from her biological continuity. Yeah, she turns around and races back.

[25:57]

Yeah. We had to give her a shot recently, one of these, you know, sort of zombies. When I was a kid, if you got a Coke with all the flavors in it, it was called a zombie. So then now they give these cocktails of shots, you know, so you get about... Six diseases protection at once. And this third one weakened her a bit. So for a couple of days she had more trouble than usual with transitions. With losing her continuity. As we can see clearly when she wakes up and goes to sleep.

[27:08]

What it looks like to me, she clearly loses touch with herself or with her continuity. What's been interesting to me is to see how clearly this function of self, of establishing continuity, is more real for her now, I would say, than establishing connectedness or separation. And this sense of continuity is closely connected with her own sense of physical balance.

[28:09]

Okay. At some point, and I'm interested as we take care of her... How we're going to relate to her continued development of a sense of continuity. From moment to moment. But if you study yourself, I think you'll find you need a sense of continuity in your thoughts. If that's interrupted too much, if you look this way and you look that way and you look back and everything was gone, you'd feel something weird is going on.

[29:11]

Well, when you bring your attention to your breath, You're actually interrupting the flow the usual way we establish continuity. And you can do it for a few moments or a minute or two. Hard to do for longer. But after a while, you can do it for longer and longer periods. And it's not exactly like you're making an intentional effort with your mind, like counting breaths. It's more like you have a sense of your posture right now.

[30:25]

And all day long, if you're in a meeting or talking to somebody, you have a continuous sense of your posture. Yeah, that sense can be developed yogically. But we still have a sense of our posture. After a while, we begin to have a sense of our breath in much the same way. Your breath is as present to you or more present to you even than the sense of how you're standing or sitting or something. When you've really done that, you've made a really huge change in your life.

[31:39]

Because you've shifted your sense of continuity from your thoughts, your sense of identity from your thoughts to your breath. And to your body. And you're really stepping into the stream. Yeah, stepping into the path. And breath also is the best way I think to weave mind and body together. When you bring attention to your breath, You're bringing mind to your breath.

[32:43]

And attention is a really powerful thing. And I would, you know, not think of it as just some sort of like some version of consciousness. Again, let me use my current study as an example. A month or so ago I was awake looking at the little baby asleep. And I'd been conscious for a while. And I decided I'd get up. So I got up on one elbow and looked at her. And I looked at her for a little while. And then I decided to really direct attention at her.

[33:44]

As soon as I did that, she put one arm out and touched my shoulder. And then she turned her head, still sleeping as far as I could see, toward me. And much the way we can feel somebody behind us sometimes, you know, they're directing attention at you and you can feel it. Science says it isn't true, but most of us know it is true. So that attention is a very powerful aspect of mind. What you bring your attention to in the end is your life.

[35:20]

So if you start using the breath as a vehicle of attention, vehicle of mind, actually it's like a loom. You're weaving mind a shuttle, you're weaving mind and body together. And it actually also begins to establish a pace. It's hard to translate. And you can, you know, much of Zen practice is actually an inherited pace that goes back generations. Through the pace of the breath you begin to open yourself to the pace or flow of dharmas.

[36:39]

The pause, which is a part of each moment. But even the shape of each moment. So now we have zazen, gathering, mixing, purifying the mind. Allowing you to observe the mind. And when it's clear and when it's obfuscated. And now you have the practice of bringing attention to the breath.

[37:41]

Weaving mind and body together. establishing a pace, a kind of proportion. When you see a Chinese painting, a typical Chinese painting, there's a little guy somewhere about so big, and there's a little chair And so this little guy sitting on this little chair. And there's a little hut in a window. And then there's a garden. And then trees. And then mountains usually behind the trees. The subject of the painting. Proportion. a world that's in proportion.

[38:54]

Chairs were even thought of, for instance, as the mediator of proportion. The chair was thought of as the mediator of proportion. And coming into a mind and body closely connected to the breath is also a mediator of proportion. And one of the reasons the world is showing such an ugly face these days, I think, is because it's thoroughly out of proportion. ist, weil es völlig außerhalb von Proportion ist. We don't really live in proportionate... We'll never live in equal relationship to each other, but we can live in proportionate relationship to each other.

[40:02]

Wir leben nie in gleichen Verhältnissen, aber wir können in proportionalen Verhältnissen miteinander leben. Meaning we can feel each other and the world through ourselves. Das heißt, wir können einander und die Welt fühlen. So this aspect of pace and breath is not incidentless, central to the practice. Central to the practice. Okay, so what's next is... We're doing okay? Mindfulness. Okay. Now, what does mindfulness do in this way I'm speaking? Trying to establish, present the basics as a basis.

[41:06]

Well, mindfulness begins to establish a continuity of mind. the mind that you discover in the body and in the breath, that's not captured by ordinary habit consciousness, not captured by Not captured by habit consciousness. And not captured by past or future. It's a kind of attention and presence released into the present.

[42:09]

Yeah, and you begin to see mind on everything. If I look at Maya, I hear her. I'm hearing my own mind hearing her. And if I see you, I'm seeing You're within my mind. I mean, you're out there, but you're in fact for me in my mind. So mindfulness lets me start to see my own mind on everything. So when you give attention to something, it points at the object. But with a little practice you recognize the object points back at mind.

[43:18]

So you begin to weave the phenomenal world together. Really begin to have a mind stream. Yeah, woven in which present... Yeah, yeah. There's a profound feeling of connectedness. and sufficiency. Okay, so three of the basics here are this zazen and Breath practice and mindfulness.

[44:30]

Mindfulness. And you begin to... They all are kind of intimacy with yourself and the world. And it's outside our habit culture. Now it's not so much that we're finding freedom from anything, But we're finding freedom within the world. That is not limited to our usual consciousness. In fact, one of the aspects of breath practice is to develop a stable way of breathing that's not tied to the structures of consciousness.

[45:54]

And usually when we breathe, our mind is affected by anxiety or tension or whatever. Our breath reflects our mood. One of the basic practices you do with a person who's dying is to try to link your breath with theirs. And then when they often start to panic or whatever, You can bring your breath along with theirs and then bring it out of their panic, out of the structures of their consciousness, and they calm down.

[47:20]

So we have these three basic practices. Zazen, breath and mindfulness. And the next two I will be brief about. One is the way you enter insights and teachings into this new mind-body stream. And the fifth, what are the teachings you enter into the stream? When you see how the teachings are meant to be entered into this kind of body-mind stream,

[48:43]

Very simple practices. It almost seemed like nothing. Suddenly, whoa, you could really, really, something else is, I mean, it's great. Yeah. And what I'm trying to do these days is, um, You know, I've been teaching or practicing with people in Europe now since 83. In the last five years, more and more I've practiced with people at Johanneshof. And I still do this occasionally in Münster or Berlin or someplace. But what I want to do now is begin showing how various teachings work together.

[49:58]

To move to a new level of practice. But it's very difficult to get people you only see occasionally to all know the same teachings so we can bring them together. It takes a year or two or three to get even one or two teachings, so quite a few people know them. And anyway, that's what I'm trying to do these days, is find a way to start at this stage of practicing in Europe with all of you, is put some of these teachings together. And that's what I'll try to do the next three days.

[51:12]

And we have the basis already this evening established. The mind, there's a body-mind, there's a mind-mind, and we putting together this body-mind stream. And this is the point where you really are not just bringing practice into your life. But you're bringing your life to practice. Yeah, that's enough for this evening, don't you think? Pretty basic stuff, and I'm sorry that I may have repeated myself for some of you. Yeah, but it's a pleasure to sit here with you.

[52:14]

It feels good, actually. There's some good mind mixing going on. That's what the word seshin means, actually. When you sit with others for seven days, it's gathering the mind and mixing it with others. And Maya seems particularly good at mixing minds right now. So thank you for translating. You're welcome. I don't know what you said, but... Thank you very much. I guess, should we stop or should we have some... Well, why don't we... So people can leave if they want to without being embarrassed.

[53:24]

Aha. Sorry. So why don't we have a break of, I don't know, 10 minutes or so. And if anyone's here afterwards... please, we'll have some discussion. But please don't come back expecting someone else to ask something. Okay, thank you much. So what should we talk about?

[54:43]

Yes. I have a simple question. Why is the English word mine not translated into the German guise? Is there a special reason for it? Yes. I would be interested in why the English term Main is not translated into German into the German vocal in the translation. Is there a specific reason for this? Yeah, you have to. I can't answer it. I don't know why.

[55:48]

By the way, it's good if you ask your questions, I think, unless you really are overwhelmed by English, in German first, in Deutsch first, and then she can translate for me. Or you can translate it afterwards. Okay, go ahead. Also, es umfasst mehr. So I said that it contains more mind than the German Geist, and he said that then mind is insufficient, also insufficient. Yeah, the word English word is insufficient too. But what I'm told anyway, the English word is fairly wide and loose in its meaning, so it's quite useful.

[56:58]

And I'm sorry that I'm going to try to keep up with my daughter in learning German. I'm slightly ahead of her right now. But I think Geist has a feeling of entity in it. Of spirit or ghost or something like that. I don't know though. Mind can mean everything associated with consciousness, the field of consciousness. Anything that happened to be thought about, noticed, or felt. Anyway, I don't know if we can answer the question.

[58:12]

Okay, someone else? Yes? Yes. I would like to know what the difference is between then and vipassana. There it's also with breathing and with... Do you do vipassana meditation? I did. You did? Okay. Yeah. I was going to say you should say that in German, but it's not necessary in German. Okay. I can't really speak about it because I only know Zen.

[59:18]

But what I hear from others, and we've had Vipassana retreats at our center in Colorado, It seems like Vipassana meditation is much more mentally structured. There are stages. And there's things you meditate on or emphasize. Most commonly, loving kindness. We don't introduce things like that into our meditation. If it arises, we notice it. So we emphasize noticing more than adding something to the meditation.

[60:34]

And from all the examples I've seen, Zen meditation is much more physically structured and very precise, physically. Zen assumes the body is a kind of field of acupuncture points and very small differences make a big difference. But it's often said that within Mahayana schools Zen is the school most like Theravadan Buddhism, which in the West is usually called vipassana. That's the best I can do. But there's definitely a difference and a different flavor. And some people like one flavor, some people like the other.

[61:51]

I get stuck in this one. Yes, way in the back. Yes. She would like to know what you meant by inherited mind. Oh, I meant from your teacher and his teacher or her teacher and back through the generations. Yeah, it's just like my daughter Sophia is going to inherit our Western mind. I'm going to try to fiddle with it, but, you know. You know, things can slip. You know, there's a... a little...

[62:54]

Japanese or Chinese poem, I forget his poem. Sitting by the window. Watching the leaves fall. The flowers bloom. Each in its own time. What could surpass that? But I think if we read it as Westerners, we think, oh, yeah, okay, it's nice. But it really means each in its own time. It means that, for example, my daughter Sophia is in her own time. And it's a different time than mine.

[64:20]

And when you were a child, you remember time was different. Time was different. It wasn't an illusion. The illusion is clock time. Average time is some sort of agreement we have. Actually, each of us in this own room, each of you is in your own ripening time. And they only to some extent overlap. And when you practice meditation, you actually enter in a different kind of time.

[65:25]

When people are on an operating table or in an accident where they nearly die, Find themselves, you know, sometimes having something like their whole life passes before them in a few moments. That's a different kind of time. It's a simultaneity of time rather than a sequence of time. Well, there are different minds. I'm talking about a different mind here. And the feeling of that and the ripening of that is inherited. And when I start playing with Sophia, I try to enter her time, physically and in every way I can.

[66:42]

physisch und auf jede andere erdenkliche Art. But there's no way I'm not carrying my, you know, sort of heavy adult male western time into her. Hee hee, pretty little fish. Es gibt keine Möglichkeit, dass ich nicht meine schwere, erwachsene, männliche Zeit in ihrer hee hee Zeit... And don't overdo this translation stuff. Um... And I feel like apologizing every time I approach her. And she says, it's okay, Dad, it's the best you can do. But she will inherit from her mother and myself some kind of Western sense of Western mind. And I will actually try to communicate to her the inherited mind I know through Buddhism.

[68:02]

Okay, anyway, that's the best I can say. Something else. Yes? I didn't understand the part with the proportions. Could you elaborate? Maybe. Well, this is something I've actually discussed quite a bit and been influenced by Ivan Illich. Also, das habe ich viel mit Ivan Illich diskutiert, und ich wurde auch durch ihn beeinflusst.

[69:05]

He lives in Bremen, not so far. For an American, that's next door. Also, er lebt in Bremen, und das ist für einen Amerikaner ja ganz nah. Yeah, so, speed, for example, is... In English, it used to be Godspeed. It meant take care. Und... God's speed, speed, didn't mean like the speed of a train. Speed came in with trains. Before that, if you came by horse, I'm coming by horse, they knew how long it would take to get there pretty much. Things were in proportion to each other. And our society is very much out of proportion. And we've lost a sense of proportion. Like musical notes are related and so forth. If you take a mouse and you change its proportions, its legs won't support it.

[70:30]

Its legs work for a certain small size body. Well, there's a certain, many of the things I spoke about this evening I start to give you a feeling for this worldview of Buddhism. But to really open it up, we'd have to have the more time of a seminar or something. But when you feel the world is in proportion, You do feel a sense of connectedness. Like buildings look like something you can climb on.

[71:32]

Because they have a relationship to the proportions of the body. This sense of each thing in its own time is also connected. in this same world as feeling proportion. Yeah, that's enough, I think. OK. Something else. OK. If to sit Zazen is a wisdom posture, why does it hurt so much after a while? Because your body is not so wise yet. That's true, actually. We have a lot... I'll just give you one example, maybe.

[72:57]

If you put your hands like this, I'm just showing you, a monastic practice is to walk all day long with your hands like this. Not like this and not like this. That's too much. That's too relaxed. A little bit turned up. And arms parallel to the floor. Yeah, it's nothing wrong. It's no problem at all. It's easy to do. Can you imagine on the third day how your back feels? So what's the problem? There's all kinds of memories, tensions, conflicts tied up, woven into the body. And if somebody gets massaged, often they sometimes, during a massage, memories come up and things.

[74:14]

So it's a real interesting monastic practice. I wonder, it would be interesting if a therapist could say, okay, we don't have to have a full hour, I'm just going to say, hold your arms this way and come back in a week. Then we'll talk. Well, when I lived in a monastery... I finally had to decide between karmic holds and a clear hold. So this is a clear hold. So I said I could feel it was going to be a battle. So finally, after about six weeks or so, my back released.

[75:25]

And just by keeping your hands this way all the waking time, and you know how they make you do it? They give you robes with very long sleeves. Die geben euch, ja, Roben mit ganz langen Ärmel. And if you put your arms down, pretty soon you've got half the dust of the, you know, bugs, you know, all in your sleeves. Und wenn ihr die Arme runtersenkt, dann sind bald der ganze Staub und die Insekten drin. So, you know, your sleeves collect karma. Also sammeln eure Ärmel karma. So you have to put your arms up and then your back finally will relax. So most of the pain in zazen is actually mental pain.

[76:26]

Once you have the physical skill of sitting, it's not so bad. And there's other examples. And at some point you find a mind that isn't bothered by pain. But pain as part of practice isn't an important part of daily satsang. Because most people can sit 30 or 40 minutes without much pain.

[77:36]

But if you sit for seven days like a sashin, I hate to admit it, but it's designed to cause you pain. I'm sorry. But you can find one extraordinary freedom from pain, freedom from distraction through it. So this evening I only spoke about the value of short sitting. I didn't speak about the value of long sitting. Yeah. Tomorrow I'd like to speak about the paramitas and the Some of the foundations of mindfulness.

[78:48]

We'll see what we can do tomorrow. I hope I like you, so I hope at least quite a few of you can come. Thank you very much. You didn't have to do that.

[80:29]

Thank you, but it was alright. Oh, good morning. Guten Morgen. So I usually come in a little after you've started to meditate some. And if it's not at the beginning of a period, you wouldn't bow if I bow. You're supposed to be so deep in samadhi that you know you can't. Actually, there's two rules about it, but let's stick to that rule. And I'd like to... What have we do in this seminar, these three days?

[81:59]

I'd like to keep close to what is your experience. Maybe it's not the same as your experience, but at least close to your experience. So it will help me if you make comments or we have some discussion now and then. Buddhism is a very large range of of practices and teachings. And what ones not only can reach us in our own experience, complement and benefit our own experience, and open us up to other practices and teachings.

[83:18]

What can do all that is not something we can think out. We have to feel it out within each other's, within our experience. I was thinking, you know, that I'm staying at Norbert and Angela's house. And they have one door handle that's goes the wrong direction and up instead of down. And, you know, it was explained to me that the dog knows how to open the door. So he's learned, the dog, he, she, he has learned by experience that he can jump up and push the door handle down, right?

[84:39]

Yeah. But I don't think you can say he has a concept of the door handle. Or he'd figure out how to push it up with his nose. So, you know, he's learned by experience. But he hasn't learned, he doesn't make his experience conceptual. No, I'm not unfavorably comparing this lovely Airedale to my little daughter. But she at seven months already has the concept of door handles.

[85:41]

So she tries anything that might look like a door handle. She tries every possible way to make it happen. So this is really rather ironic for me because on the one hand we need concepts to think effectively. And yet much of our Zen practice is to get ourselves free from conceptual consciousness. So what's that about? What's the difference? There's a Zen Buddhist word I like, kyogai. I don't have any way to translate it actually into English.

[86:56]

It means both place and consciousness. And privacy. It makes me think of... A little group of little kids were asked what consciousness is for, what the mind is, what thinking is for. And they had a lot of different ideas. But they all agreed on one thing. It was for keeping secrets. So there's a sense of this idea of kyogai as a sense of place consciousness that is unique or private.

[88:06]

Yeah, as I said, my teacher in Japan, Mumon Yamada Roshi, says only a sparrow knows the kyogai of a sparrow. We can't penetrate the kyogai of a sparrow. The space-place consciousness place-based consciousness. Yeah, and so too also for our practice here today, these days. Yeah, I want to speak in a way that's, as I said, close, but maybe not the same as your own experience and consciousness.

[89:17]

Also werde ich von etwas sprechen, was dem nahe kommt, aber vielleicht nicht genau eure Erfahrung von Bewusstheit ist. But maybe together we can extend into some kind of Kyogei of our group itself here. Aber vielleicht können wir zusammen das ausweiten zu einem Kyogei dieser Gruppe. Because already this is some particular configuration or particular situation. Is it fall or autumn now? Autumn afternoon? Autumn morning? Yeah. So I think from what I said last night, So, was ich gestern Abend erzählt habe?

[90:17]

And how many people weren't here last night? Und wer war gestern nicht hier? Weren't here. One. Too bad for you. Ganz übel für euch. No, it's all right. It'll be okay. I talked about... establishing a mind stream, a body mind stream that's not the same as consciousness, that's established through the practice of zazen, mindfulness, and breath awareness. We establish something, another kind of continuity. And then we can bring into that continuity

[91:20]

of various teachings. No, I will use, I don't know, this, when I say continuity, now I mean this mind stream, mind-body stream. And what the heck do I mean by that? Really, unless you have some experience of it, it's pretty hard to make sense of the words. So I'm glad we have three full days instead of just two. Because it means we can go more slowly. And maybe feel our way into these terms.

[92:52]

Because if it's not your experience of mind stream or body mind stream,

[93:02]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_75.93