To maybe go somewhere. She's getting her feet wet. Do you have that expression in German? Plunge break, please. You too, you're ready. Okay. So we have this simple image of you're angry and you're noticing your anger. Okay. So maybe in a sort of superficial sense we think, well, there's... There's the anger and there's the absence of anger.

[01:07]

Now, we would tend to think that way if we think in terms of separation. But if we think in terms of interdependence and interpenetration, two basic Buddhist ideas, there's difference but there isn't separation. So there's only connectedness. So it's not an absence of anger, it's a different space than the anger is happening in. Plus, if you're observing your anger,

[02:08]

if something is observing anger, where is that observation of anger located? So, basically what I'm saying is you have two things here we can notice. One is the anger and one is the... the space from which you observe the anger. Now, from the point of view of point of view of practice, or whatever, Buddhism. There's no absence, there's only connectedness.

[03:23]

So, in other words, you have two minds here. One mind that's angry, or supports anger, and one mind that is not angry. But does support some sort of observing function. Okay, so now I'm just trying to make this conceptually simple, not because we're stupid. But because you, you know, the worldviews are located in very simple differences. There's a big, simple difference between, for instance, our numbers and letters.

[04:24]

Which could all be made of pieces of wood. What could be made? Our numbers and letters. But you couldn't make a Japanese or Chinese character from wood because it's held together by space, not by... Aber das Gleiche könnten wir nicht mit japanischen Zeichen machen, denn die sind durch Raum sozusagen zusammengehalten, diese Linien. So if you're learning Japanese and Chinese culture... Also wenn ihr euch mit japanischer und chinesischer Kultur beschäftigt und sie lernt...

[05:29]

you're feeling the space more than you're feeling the character. Because it's the space you establish which connects the character. Okay, one other interesting difference between us and... us and them, is that we, again, have this idea of a natural or some inherent identity. In Asia they have no idea of natural, no idea of inherent identity. No, compared to us at least by comparison. If there's no idea of inherent identity, Then identity is a construct.

[06:43]

Then you want to construct as complex a person as possible. So you want the society, the culture, the language, the writing system, everything to be as complex as possible. If you simplify spelling, simplify the language system, you're simplifying the human being. So the simple idea they have, if we had a language system with, you know, 200 letters in the alphabet instead of 26, hey, we'd make a more complicated person. Luckily, smart people can create as much complexity as they want. So it's not an absolute difference, but there is an average difference. And Asian people have a significantly higher average IQ than Westerners.

[08:10]

140, 120. So the average is different, but the range of the lowest and the highest is about the same. The range, the average is higher in Asian countries. Most highest IQs and lowest IQs are about the same in both cultures. And I think this is simple. I don't think it's that there's some biological difference at different noses. You know how Asian people indicate Westerners? They say, cat eyes. We go like this, you know, and they go like this.

[09:11]

But in any case, the idea is... We're constructs. So you want the culture to construct complex person. But you can see all that in just the difference between our letters and their letters, one united by space and one united by, connected by separation, needing to be connected. So what do we have here again? We have the anger or the emotion. Let's call that content. Then you have the absence of content.

[10:24]

The absence of content is also mind. Okay? Okay, if it's also mind, wenn es ebenfalls Geist ist, then you can locate yourself or live in the absence of content. Who wants to live in an absence of content? You couldn't convince anybody to do that. I still laugh inside about this woman who asked me a while ago, It's so boring to pay attention to your breath. It's not interesting to pay attention to your breath. And the other person said, the only way to make your breath interesting is to smoke. but if you know something about breathing hey it's okay just as it is in fact breathing a certain kind of breathing is very related to a mind free of content

[11:41]

Okay, so let's say that now we have This idea, there's a mind free of content and there's content. So let's say now that there's a field of mind. And the field of mind can have content and the field of mind can be free of content. I mean, I should qualify it on more or less free of content, but I'm just trying to make it simple. Okay. If you have a mind free of content, Let's just imagine it's possible and satisfying.

[13:07]

Then you can have an imperturbable mind. And it's a common expression, to achieve an imperturbable mind. And that's a Zen expression, this... A mind that's stabilized independent of the content. We could also call it then original mind. Original in the sense that it's not at birth or something, but prior to other minds. Now, an example I use sometimes is the difference between chanting and... Reading.

[14:27]

I mean, in the morning we chant sutras, kanji, zai, boho, satsuki, uji, and so on. And if you don't know the chant, the sutra, you have to read it. Okay. And what you notice is that you're present in the room, in the chanting, differently when you're reading it than if you're chanting it. It's like your presence is shrunken if you're reading. And... And if you can learn to chant without... If you can learn to chant without reading, you feel your presence expand.

[15:45]

It feels like it contains the presence of others in the room. Yeah, now these are different minds. Okay, now again... We all sort of know they're different minds. And we make use of different minds, artists, musicians make use of different minds. But without a mindfulness and meditation practice that's part of the culture, you don't develop these modes of mind as the path of being. Yeah, you think it's something that occurs when I play in an orchestra or something.

[17:03]

Okay. Okay, now say you've learned to chant. And maybe sometimes you don't know it perfectly, so you have to read it, the middle part or something. Now for some reason I use this example a lot. I rather like this example. One person goes out and a different person comes in. And you were both sitting on the couch yesterday, so it was fine. So you went out and he came in and you're sharing the love seat over there. The tidy leaves.

[18:18]

I spell that. Okay. So you don't know the chant perfectly, so you have to switch from reading to chanting. And you can actually feel the difference. You can't go directly, you have to stop for a minute and let the chanting take over. So again, what do we have here? We have the mind, the bodily... rooted mind that chants. Also, was haben wir hier? Wir haben den im Körper verwurzelten Geist, der rezitiert.

[19:19]

And the mentally rooted mind that reads the chant. Und der Geist, der mental verwurzelt ist, der liest. And it's a little bit hard to negotiate the transition. So that's one part of this example. Another part is that when you're chanting, The body is mostly doing it. And you can think about other things. You can feel the presence of the chanter shrink when they start thinking about other things. So I can always feel who's thinking and who's not thinking. Their presence shrinks. But you can chant very well while you think about other things, even better sometimes.

[20:19]

Okay. Now, if you try to think about other things while you're reading the chant, that's quite difficult. Because the mind is filled with the content of reading and it's very hard to get other content going at the same time. anderen Inhalt hinzuzufügen.

[21:24]

So what conclusions do I at least draw from this simple example, which I think all of us have experienced or could experience? We could view it that in consciousness filled with content it's hard to create a separation. But in the bodily awareness, you can... you can think about other things.

[22:27]

And continue your chanting. Yeah, much like you can drive and think about other things while you're driving. Now, the way I would think about that is the fundamental mind is awareness. And the fundamental mind can observe itself because mind can observe itself. Now that doesn't mean the ability of the mind to observe itself, to do two things at once, is I or who or an observer. I mean a first person observer. It's just that the mind can observe itself. So I would say that consciousness is a subset of awareness. Okay, we've still got these two things, and now these two things are getting a little more complex.

[23:46]

Now, awareness, if consciousness is a subset of awareness... it's also the case that consciousness can separate itself from awareness. And then the observing function of mind, particularly the observing function of mind that accumulates memory, karma, narrative, history, etc., is removed from awareness and it floats free. A little bit like consciousness can float free of awareness and float free of the body.

[24:48]

And it has no place to go, so it docks itself in consciousness. Docks itself? So most of us and much of our psychological problems are because consciousness is separated from awareness. And our biographical self is limited to and stuck in consciousness. Okay, now I've never exactly said this this way. So it may not be so clear, usually it takes me saying it quite a few times, trying it out, before I can make it clear. But in any case, the remedy, the word remedy has M-E-D in it, which means both meditation and medicine.

[26:07]

So the... remedy is to weave mind and body together. So much of practice, paying attention to the breathing and so forth, is to weave mind and body together. Because it's much easier to heal the self which is joined to the body than to heal the self which is joined only to consciousness.

[27:08]

And partly I'm responding to what Angela brought up yesterday. Now it seems to me lots of contemporary The therapies implicitly or explicitly understand this because they keep working with the body, with the feelings, feelings that come up with ideas, etc. And if we use enfoldedness instead of as a metaphor for what we aren't conscious of, instead of The unconscious is a container. then we can see that the content-free field of mind can be the original mind or prior mind

[28:16]

for various minds which can unfold. And the main ones are minds related to percept only or non-graspable feeling only, or associations. Can you say this again? I heard what you said, but I don't get the connection. The minds that can unfold in this prior mind are minds rooted in The sensorial realm or in feeling, non-graspable feeling or an associative mind or consciousness itself. And also dreaming mind and so forth.

[29:43]

But that's again a way to speak about the five skandhas. So that's a sort of picture of the mind, the minds, the potential of mind as emphasized in Buddhist practice. Rilke says something like, the world is large. Who says that? Rilke. Rilke says, the world is large. But in us, the world is as vast as the sea. So if I look here at you, mind is filled with all of you.

[30:46]

You're the content. If I look at the night sky, it's another. It's filled with the night sky. And the inwardness, the vast as the sea, can be filled with you or memory or the night sky. And the inwardness, Okay, I don't know if that was useful. Somebody want to say something? I would like to add the question to what you just said. The question about the unconscious. So the saying something is unconscious depends on the context.

[31:56]

the context for Freud was the neurosis the situation of the analytical free association free floating tension at the unconscious very briefly is the The repressed childhood. Yes, I understand. Repressed childhood. That's the unconscious, yes. The Buddhist context is meditation or zazen. The Buddhist context then is meditation or zazen. Yes. What you describe with awareness, that's my question. That's a good question, what you're describing as awareness.

[33:19]

Could one not say that this space, this awareness, the big mind, as Suzuki Roshan says, So the big mind or awareness is, like Suzuki Roshi describes it, is unconscious? It's not repressed like Freud says, but for most of the people it's unconscious. The practice of Zazen has the purpose of creating this awareness. So the idea of this practice is to develop this awareness. In other words, you're saying, is the emphasis in Buddhist practice and in Zen meditation practice to develop this awareness?

[34:20]

Absolutely. I looked up in the text of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, there is a place that has always occupied me. It is under the title Beyond Consciousness. Can I read? Of course. Usually religion develops itself in the realm of consciousness, seeking to perfect its organization, building beautiful buildings, creating music, evolving a philosophy, and so forth. These are religious activities in the conscious world. But Buddhism emphasizes the world of unconsciousness. Unfortunately, I... Let me just... Yeah, go ahead.

[35:26]

Do you want to say that in German? I'll translate it briefly. Usually, religion develops in the area of consciousness. and try to perfect the organization and build beautiful buildings and develop music and bring forth your philosophy and so on. These are religious activities in the conscious world. But Buddhism emphasizes the world The best way to develop Buddhism is to sit in zazen, just to sit, with a firm conviction in our true nature. Well, I'm trying right now to get legal possession of that book. Because I'm the literary executive.

[36:29]

And Weatherhill went... is bankrupt and liquidated. And my contract says, I own the book if they're liquidated. But another publisher has just said they own it and they've started to publish it, so I'm suing them. It's kind of outrageous because they know I have the legal right, but it's worth a lot of money, the book, so they're just doing it.

[37:36]

So I feel Yeah, well, let's see what happens. I've never been in court before. But anyway, if I get possession of the book, I will change that word unconsciousness to non-consciousness. Because much of the English in that book is my English. So I chose at that point my English. What do you say? What word do you say? I used unconsciousness. I mean, he probably used it too, but I confirmed the use. So I would now say non-consciousness or awareness or something like that.

[38:37]

And I feel quite free to change such things because... That's the right of lineage. I did it while he was alive and I can do it while he's dead. What are you guys going to do to my work? You already have some ideas. It would reduce the confusion, of course. Yeah, it would reduce the confusion. And it would be more accurate to what he meant. And this change would be more accurate in terms of what Suzuki Roshi meant.

[39:41]

Okay, thank you. Yes? I'm wondering if this space of being is comparable to what Wilhelm Reich calls ergonomics. I'm thinking about if the space of awareness is something like William Reich was talking about, all going to meet. I don't know. Maybe. I haven't read Reich in many years. I've been in an organ box, though. When I was in college, someone made an organ box. Yeah, but... He was a rather strong influence with some people when I was in my late teens. And I don't know at present how his ideas are understood, so I can't answer that. But it's, you know, Wilhelm Reich is closer to Buddhism than Theodor Reich.

[41:00]

That who? Another Reich. Although Theodor Reich did a book with D.T. Suzuki and Charlotte Selber. I'm just joking here. It's very helpful if you're talking about this sense of location, the possibilities there. And it plays quite a big role in two areas of my therapeutic work.

[42:03]

Where do I locate myself as the initial mind who opens the relationship and the space? The session. The session, yeah. If I manage, and this is something that is very important to me, to bring people into contact with this further spirit, that is, from the content, not so much to the content, So it's very important for me if it is possible that people don't cling so much to the contents but more identify with the space. And if it's like something that's very important and adds to everything, and if it's possible to leap over this edge, then the world is different.

[43:25]

That's where the Buddhist practice has given me a lot of tools for my work and myself, And that's something I brought into my psychotherapeutic practicing. I would like you to stay in this field when you continue talking. and for one being in his biography in my biography and then work outside of that So you started to talk about this just before.

[44:53]

So you'd like me to stay in this field for the rest of the day, or you'd like me to talk about this field for the rest of the day? Okay. The mythological, partially mythological Bodhidharma, the teilweise mythologische Bodhidharma, defined mind as where the senses don't reach. definiert mind als etwas, wo die Sinne nicht hinkommen können. What he meant, he really wasn't defining mind as only where the senses don't reach, but where you notice mind.

[45:57]

Und so wie er Geist definiert hat, meint er nicht, dass Geist nur das ist, wo die Sinne nicht hinreichen, sondern er versuchte, He means if you fully physically go into a sense of, say, seeing something or hearing something. You can really look at something, but at some point, description or senses are less than the actual looking. When you look at something, then it may be that the senses and everything are less important and also less far-reaching than the real, current seeing. Okay. So, he meant, in that... You can notice mind, the field of mind.

[47:07]

Now I could also say that right now I use the word before non-graspable feeling. but right now in this room there's a feeling and you can't say what it is but you can feel there's a presence here that's that's here and you can't grasp it because it's more subtle than the senses And you can't grasp it also because it's at each moment unique.

[48:07]

Somebody goes out of the room, it's different. Somebody comes back in the room, it's different. Somebody has their hands in line with their backbone, It's different. So it's tangible but not graspable, something like that. If you try to think it, you can't. It goes away. It disappears. Okay. Now, it would be easy to ignore such a thing or hardly notice it. It's ephemeral and not graspable. But from the point of view of practice, it's the single most important thing happening here. On several... I mean, we all know it's sort of, oh, there's a nice atmosphere at that restaurant, or there's a nice... feeling with that person, we'd say, things like that.

[49:38]

Now, the difference, what you're pointing out, I think, and Ralph, too, is that from the point of view of practice, this is the most important thing, and it's where the information is. It's where all the information is. And what you said, and Ralph, too, that's the... It's what makes the information possible. So from the point of view of yogic practice, this is where you want to be located. So the more we're cooperating here coming to something, coming to some common agreement, we first of all come to a shared non-aggressible feeling, which does speak rather mechanically,

[50:39]

establishes already a connectedness, which starts connecting everything we speak about. We don't try to do it with our mind, we try to do it first of all with this Now, this is also the... Let's say again, we only have today, and I can't develop this too much, so let's just say simply it's the medium of intention. So if it's the medium of intention, It's not the medium of discursive thought.

[52:05]

So that means it's the medium in which you can work with your views and transformative intentions. And... and The word that's with me is sensitive, and I don't know... It's where you can develop a sensitive intention.

[53:11]

And it's where, in Ralph speaking, where the sensitive practice of mindfulness develops this... non-graspable feeling. And I was reading Damasio recently whose I find that most of... All in all, I find him the neurobiologist most useful to read. But he doesn't seem to know anything about meditation much. He's culturally quite sophisticated. So there's some things he doesn't quite get, but he... But there's a lot he gets, you know.

[54:24]

You know, it's useful to, you know, I'm not saying that I know what he knows. I'm just saying that there's some things he doesn't quite get because he doesn't know practice. For example, he's surprised and he thinks there's a physiological base to emotions that is as uncontrollable as sneezing and coughing. And he was very surprised by a pianist woman who could withdraw her feelings from any physiological expression. who could withdraw her feelings from physiological expression and put them back into the situation.

[55:35]

But if you get used to identifying with non-graspable feeling, You can easily absorb your emotions into that, or let them open up into it, and so forth. Now, again, I'm getting a little bit away from psychotherapy, but... Okay. Actually not. She says. Yeah, okay. It's what really works in psychotherapy. It's not the realizing or the naming it. And it's the space between the client and the What happens between us in the transference, counter-transference and the space of awareness and loving and being there and truth, that is what really works in therapy.

[57:00]

All the other things are techniques or... What works in therapy is the real relationship between the therapist and the client, the transfer, the counter-transfer, the space, just to be where you are, to feel relaxed. It's often not... What works is the relationship. That's where therapy takes place. Okay. We have an image of two bodhisattvas. Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. And Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom. And they represent a pulse of folding this field in, which is called wisdom, and opening this field out, which is called compassion.

[58:09]

So there's a feeling in practicing with, not with just, well, to some extent anybody you know, anybody you meet, of folding your space in with the practitioner or unfolding it with the practitioner. We could characterize it very simply as unfolding social space or folding all social space in, so the student has no idea how to act, because there's no territory to act in. And some practitioners cannot deal with that.

[59:13]

They don't know what to do. If I do that, they go somewhere else, they stop practicing. But you really don't individuate in Buddhist terms and find yourself until you can operate in this space where there is absolutely no support. So I think that I can imagine if I was a psychotherapist, you would, in a way, roll out different carpets and see what happens. Roll them back up. Ivo? I have a question of understanding. The consciousness is a part of the being.

[60:22]

and recently Patroschi defines it so that it can only belong to consciousness and everything else is only self. And today you said that the medicine is to connect consciousness and truth, to connect body and spirit. And it would be much easier to connect the self with the body than to connect the self with the consciousness. What do you mean by yourself, that you want to connect with the body? Consciousness is a part of awareness and you told recently that you call self only the area which is within consciousness.

[61:49]

and today you said the remedy isn't to connect awareness and consciousness but it's mind and body to be together and it is much easier to connect the self with the body than the self with the consciousness so what do you mean with the Self which you want to connect with the body because I thought it's only Okay, okay Thank you now you can retire it's going to be That's the last line of a koan. Somebody made quite a good statement and the teacher just says, okay, now go away.

[62:53]

Self as a problem. Self as a problem that interferes with practice, with realization and so forth. That's the self. that's identified through swims in consciousness. The partnership between self and consciousness. Self in a wider sense It's not a problem for Buddhism, I mean, not a problem for practice. It's different, maybe we should call it something else. Now, self is used in different psychotherapeutic schools.

[63:55]

The word self is used so differently, you know. Yeah. In some ways, soul, spirit, everything is conflated into self. It is the political self which votes and so forth. In the usual sense, when Buddhism is talking about the problems of self, They mean the self in partnership with consciousness. So Sukhirishi would talk about the self which covers everything. But we have to be careful about how we use the words.

[65:01]

Yes. The space you were talking about of the non-graspable feeling. The space you were talking about of the non-graspable feeling. The space you were talking about of the non-graspable feeling. I realize that since I practice it happens a lot more often to me that I'll be somewhere and when I turn around I look directly into someone's eyes who's looking at me.

[66:02]

But as soon as I try to do it willingly, I look pretty paranoid. And it doesn't work anymore. Then I completely lose the relationship to it. It always happens automatically. But as soon as I try to do it, or even just lift it into some higher network of consciousness, maybe it won't happen. I just look very paranoid. The first question is, is that what you're talking about? Is that in the realm of non-graspable feeling? And the second would be, how can it be possible to enter this field Even though you can't have an intention, or intention you can maybe have in it, but you can't have a will in it.

[67:14]

You can't want it. So the question I have is the first, whether this happens in this field, that it is called an untouchable feeling, and the second, how one can practice it, if one is not allowed to want it consciously, how one practices it. Yeah, a lot of the teachings of Buddhism are to address this question. You know, just working with the phrase. For example, from a koan, but just let's take the phrase out of the koan, not knowing is nearest. Now, you can't do it with thinking, but you can do it with an intentional phrase. And I think you all understand the use of intention in contrast to discursive thinking.

[68:17]

And other related ideas. But I think maybe it would be useful if I spoke about it from the point of view of Buddhism. And again, I still wish we had another day, but when we could really speak about the psychotherapeutic uses for a practitioner and for a client of Buddhist practice but I don't want to speak about it as information I only want to speak about it as as experience or feeling.

[69:25]

And we have to get there. We have to get to that feeling if we're going to speak to it. Now what Nicole mentioned is probably the most classic anomaly being studied by people who try to you know, study extrasensory perception and things like that. And it's not a... It's not really an anomaly because it's a very common experience. But most scientists, at least officially, and Randy the musician, I mean the magician, will all deny it.

[70:31]

It's not possible. But, you know, very commonly you feel someone looking at you, you turn around and they're looking at you. It happens in cars. You're driving and you feel something and you go, oh, this guy's looking at me. And you were picking your nose. how do you know but if you practice Locating yourself in this non... Locating yourself. See what the words make me do. In non-graspable feeling, you feel this much more commonly. You feel this larger somatic body all the time. But then...

[71:31]

can locate you in this non-aggressive field of feeling, and it is already difficult to express this in words, then we know this common feeling of this space and this common being. I think we ought to stop for lunch now. And toilets and things like that. So shall we come back at 2.30 again?

[71:56]

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