You know, since the 60s, I've had to speak every now and then in conferences of which the subject is psychology and Buddhism. And it's usually fairly interesting to have something to say and have some ideas. But it doesn't go very far. It's usually a process of giving permission to each other to think about psychology and Buddhism. Well, I think, I mean, I don't know of any experiment like what we're engaged in anywhere else in Europe or America.

[01:07]

What is the relationship, really, what can be the relationship between therapy and psychotherapy and They're both about meeting and speaking. Or if you include in speaking, not speaking. And as you have noticed, probably all the koans are about meeting and speaking.

[02:07]

I mean, so there's meditation and there's mindfulness practice. Then... also, meeting and speaking? Okay, so what is this meeting and speaking? Or what is this non-social meeting? There's this non-social meeting in the context of healing. But it's probably the... Yeah, that's probably, that's the surface and probably that disguises other reasons for meeting and...

[03:17]

non-social meeting. Yeah, you can call it all healing and maybe it ends when there's a feeling of healing. But independent of any goal, there's what happens when two or more people in a non-social situation have a relationship. Non-social also means not necessarily within the usual rules of relationship. And so there's a honing, honing?

[04:35]

Honing of relationship. And a practice, it becomes a practice. praxis in which we evolve as well as heal. In that sense of all the various professions, disciplines in the West, psychotherapy is the closest to Buddhist practice. So there's a lot of contextual similarities, but there's also a lot of differences. And as we can see, the similarities allow us to explore the differences.

[05:44]

I'm not a person who thinks that the Zen teacher, Buddhist teacher, should also be a psychotherapist. And there's a lot of psychotherapists in our Sangha. Maybe it's the biggest demographic group. But maybe the second is computer software programs. People concerned with how the mind works. Okay. And if I do have a disciple who could also be, who's a therapist, who could also be a Zen teacher, I can imagine it's possible.

[07:03]

I would make, I would want the If I would support that person as a teacher, I would want them to have a non-psychotherapeutic relationship with practitioners. Now, why is that the case? I won't try to answer that question. But it's an interesting question. I feel very clearly about it. And yet we have still this... unique and contemporary, certainly unique in Buddhist history, but unique in contemporary Western culture.

[08:07]

This little group we have had here for 20 years. Now, I'm not trying to say what we're doing is important. It might be. That's not my point. My point is what we're doing is unique and real. Wir haben hier die Bedingungen dafür, weil wir es tatsächlich tun. In jedem und jeder von uns zu einer Art Partnerschaft oder vielleicht sogar Synthese zu gelangen, of this interaction and interrelationship of psychology and mindology.

[09:22]

Psychology and Buddhist thinking. Yeah. And I think that given the work we're working with this time, It's incubating. And we don't know where it's going to go. And some from the original group have come for some years and then stopped. And some of us find ourselves still engaged. So I think that since Mithul has come from Johanneshock just now, but also Creston practice period and having lived both places for a while,

[10:36]

And primarily practiced Zen for the last 10 years. But also recently finished some sort of master's degree in psychology at the University of Oldenburg. And so she nicely knows a lot more than me about something. And so I would ask her if she could say a little something or why the heck she's here. Are you going to translate for her?

[11:50]

Are you going to translate for yourself? You can just speak German. I can just pretend I understand. That wouldn't work. That's what he knows about. Some people don't believe I don't, but they're wrong. Yeah. Oh, and she needs English translation too. I'm glad to have a Hungarian simply here. Maybe you should be sitting here. One reason why a group like this is interesting to me has to do with just the way you talked about meeting and speaking.

[12:50]

So how are we meeting and how are we speaking with each other? So I noticed that meeting in a practice context is based on a dharmic way of being together. So what do I mean by that? It's momentary. And the deepest feeling I have about that is that we breathe together. And there is a feeling of discontinuity in these relationships.

[13:51]

So how I feel connected, how I feel close and connected to the people I'm practicing with, That has nothing to do with a common story. It's not about sharing a story. But it has to do with sharing space. And I notice that this makes me develop in a certain way in encounters. And I'm noticing that that's the reason why I develop within this meeting in a certain way.

[15:15]

And I wouldn't want that we sort of look at my biographical story in such meeting. or that I talk about how I feel or where I come from emotionally in a meeting, a practice meeting. But in order to develop my personality, I do need somebody, a partner. Just a moment. Where something develops through a certain continuity and a shared story.

[16:29]

This... this kind of partner or other where I can take my biography and make it part of the relationship. And in a space like this, I feel there is room for both of these, and both are invited. And I find it interesting when Roshi spoke about this bodily space, we're populated by person. That wasn't clear to me in the same way as it was yesterday.

[17:42]

It's no accident that it became clear to me in this group. So I'm noticing that something's, these are the reasons I'm coming here. I'm noticing that something is possible here that's That's a new way of developing my personality and my character.

[18:49]

That sounded like an ending statement. Oh, that's great. And, of course, I also want to ask Christian to say something. Yeah. Not only has Christian been thoroughly engaged with the evolution of his own practice. But also, and also, he is interested in philosophy and psychology. But there's also the engagement with his friend, Frank. And what I've noticed over the years is often people's practice develops in relationship to not a teacher only, but another friend.

[19:57]

I've noticed over the years Yeah. In my case, you know, for instance, I've explored practice continuously from the beginning, almost from the beginning, with Michael Murphy, this old friend of mine, founded Esalen. In my case, I've explored practice continuously with Michael Murphy, this old friend of mine, founded Esalen. but we find our life and our practice also located in our friend. We find our life, we in general, also find our practice and our life located in and through our friend. So over the years, Frank, every now and then says to me, my friend Frank, you know, my friend Frank, and I think, oh, who am I going to get to know this time?

[21:05]

So your own interest in psychotherapy and constellation work has been also his interest. So will you translate for us? Ich will mal ganz kurz damit anfangen, wie ich in die Zellenpraxis hineingeraten bin. I want to briefly start with how I came to practice Zen.

[22:13]

That was a time in my life when I did not feel alive. And later I thought that what I lived through there was a kind of depression. But some kind of peculiar depression that I did not really experience as depression. And then I fled from my life. Then I fled from my life. Simply by changing the place where I lived and going to the States for a year. And that's where I encountered Zen practice.

[23:30]

And something caught fire there. . was a synthesis of all my interests that I had already at the time. Also my interests that came through Frank, who already was in my life at the time, but only, I met him only for... Together we began to explore the world phenomenologically. Really asking questions with everything you met. About everything. About everything. Absolutely. But the context in which that happened, which was the university and our friendship, there was no practice.

[24:40]

There was not that which now we call practice. And I keep asking myself that question, what does practice encompass? What does practice encompass? and somehow it's a physical relationship to the world, from which one explores the mind, And the insights one draws from that, we can let them give feedback to embodied beings. Yes, and that has changed my life, made me alive and also healed me.

[25:58]

And that changed my life and made it more alive and I would say also saved my life. And now I just continue that because it's so nice. It just feels good and right. But I also know that on this path, I had to jump over hurdles. I don't know, something meet difficulties. And these points, psychotherapeutic instruments really helped me, tools helped me.

[27:23]

Also, to an extent where I would say to an extent so that I would say that without these tools that without these tools maybe I would not have known how to how to jump over these hurdles.

[28:27]

I don't want to speak too much. But there's something about this question still being active or alive within myself. How these two fields, therapy and practice, can work together. And also within the context and culture into which Zen practice is being planted. Because it's important to me as a practitioner to find a way to function in the world as it has taken shape in the West. Because there's no way for me to take myself out of that and at the same time still feel complete.

[29:51]

I do like to withdraw myself or to take myself out of that world, but not fully. I also want to participate in the game. And there is a wisdom somehow in this field of psychotherapy. And there is a wisdom somehow in this field of psychotherapy. And there is a wisdom somehow in this field of psychotherapy. how one can re-enter the world in a healthy way. In a healthier. And this has for me something to do with the movement into a spirit that only appears to do.

[30:58]

This is a practice movement. And for me it has to do with a movement into this mind of appearance only. It's a kind of practice movement. and how from there one can start living in structures again and take on a structure with more freedom. Thank you. Thank you both. You know, when Christian and I first started here after the break, we both bowed to our cushion and turned around and bowed to you.

[32:06]

Yeah, and I was struck, you know, oh, she has. We're doing a strange thing. But it's very basic why we do it. Because the bow assumes a groundless world. It doesn't have to, but in Buddhism it does. A groundless world in which you have to locate yourself. So you locate yourself By, okay, wherever you are, you locate yourself.

[33:16]

As a way of locating yourself. Not just thinking it, but you can just think it. But it's possible you're actually bodily inactive. As a habit of... Whenever I'm driving along, whenever any case, but it happens most often driving, you see an animal that's been killed. I always give a little bow while I'm driving to the insect or the dog. Yeah, and it's, for me, an acknowledgement that we're in this life and death situation all the time.

[34:30]

And it's, you know, I'm not still bowing out of some religious respect so much or anything, but just I want to acknowledge life and death. I don't want to just think it, I want to enact it. So the two questions I'm bringing up here implicitly is how do we locate ourselves? And how do we validate our experience? And these are fundamental questions that I think you can ask yourself.

[35:32]

Do I locate myself through my job, my career, my family? That's normal, we do that too. But you're locating yourself in something pretty ephemeral and impermanent. Much of the common tragedy of nuclear family life. Not all families are tragedies, but the psychotherapist sees a lot of families that are tragedies. And the poor child growing up is... trying to locate themselves in this tragedy.

[36:41]

And is there any other way we can locate us? And however we locate ourselves, we're locating ourselves Yeah, the momentary. So Buddhist practice has a little ways of locating yourself in the momentary. very intentionally in the moment. So you don't try to locate yourself in the semi-permanent.

[37:44]

I mean, you do, of course, locate yourself again in your job, your personality, your family, and so forth. But that's always considered to be secondary and dangerous. More dangerous than the obviously impermanent. Mm-hmm. So this is a kind of aesthetic Dharma choice. Dharma choice. Aesthetic. Aesthetic. Yeah, this is a kind of art. It's a kind of art. To locate yourself moment after moment in the moment. And that's also what Sukershi meant by his

[38:47]

saying reality cannot be caught by thinking and feeling. Moment after moment just to watch the breath and the posture. That could be moment after moment just to locate yourself to find location in the spine and in the breath. No, I think maybe we can have more of a feeling why he adds, this is true nature. Yeah, I mean, if everything is ephemeral and changing and so forth, momentary. Yeah. then whatever true nature is, it has to be true to the momentary.

[40:08]

What are you? You're a physical location. And what is the clearest example of this physical location? The activity of the breath. And the firmness of the spine. And in English, firm and dharma have the same etymology. And you can actually join this attention to the activity of the breath.

[41:12]

And the posture as most accessible through the spine. You can have a feeling of breathing into and through the spine. Now, if you incubate this, just watch the breath and the posture. Just watch the breath and the posture. And you start to bring breath and spine together. Well, you start incubating the whole chakra system. Subtle breath, which is energy, which begins to move and find meridians through

[42:12]

and then discovers or opens up the meridians. By bringing attention to the breath through the spot. Which begins to define for yourself what aliveness is. And almost every Buddhist list of the ten lists, the five, that, et cetera, one of the items in the list is energy or effort or intent, et cetera. But this really just means in various ways in the context of that list to talk about aliveness.

[43:37]

In that context of that list, how do you tune, tune, tune, discover quietness? So incubated attention to the breath and spine. becomes attention to the subtle breath or energies we can also call aliveness. Okay. Now, when you get in the habit of of this attention to the breath and the spine.

[44:48]

In this world, always on the edge of unpredictability, on the edge of chaos. In dramatic circumstances, like all those poor people on that French airline. But without that kind of horrible situation, still we don't know. And what do you want to locate yourself in? It's nice to have a place you can go to and unlock the door and get out of the rain.

[45:55]

They sometimes burn down. Other things happen. Nowadays the bank wants it. Because you want to judge. But your spine is always there. No one's got the key to your spine but you. Okay, so I'm imagining again, of course I'm starting a constellation in my mind all the time. I'm always starting one. wieder so vor einer Konstellation eine Aufstellung anfange. Ich fange ständig Aufstellungen in meinem Geist an.

[46:58]

And when I started, I started from my spine, my breath. Because I've incubated this for so many years, you know, I wrote that English of the book of Sikhi. I edited his lecture book. So it's, yeah, kind of something we could call natural for me. So I'm starting this imaginary constellation or talking with you right now. Yeah. If attention, English requires me to say my attention, but it's not really mine, it's all of our attention.

[48:00]

Yeah, so if I say, when we say my attention, if I'm my attention to the spine, to the breath. If I've done that so long, it is what's natural to me. Potentially, I see you sort of like I see myself. So I have some feeling of your spine and your breath. Yes, as Nicole said, she feels something like breathing together. That's experiencing. I don't mean to point out, but conspiracy means to breathe together.

[49:16]

In English, it means to pray to. It's a conspiracy. So now, If I begin the constellation of sitting here with you, or just a conversation with one clerk in the apotheke, What's behind the counter? Is it a person? A mask, a persona? Really, first of all, for me, it's a spine and a breathing spine.

[50:17]

Hey, breathing spine, would you fill my prescription? I don't say that, but. And the persona is a mess, but the persona is secondary. But then I encase the persona from the spine and the breath. So a Buddhist constellator might be thinking that way or feeling that way. But that might be the initial constellation. mental and bodily posture.

[51:25]

And when you feel this way, it's almost like the Tension to the spine is a kind of antenna. And each of you are antennas rather separate from your personality. And you're sending and receiving. And that sending and receiving is not It's only partly in the territory of consciousness. So Freud asked this question, which is, transform Western culture?

[52:26]

What is under consciousness? Hidden or behind consciousness? And is Sophia asking, why don't I know how I see? She's asking, why is my knowing hidden from my knowing? These are very basic questions. How do you put yourself in the midst of these questions Which is another way of saying everything's impermanent. But there's a kind of overlap now with psychology.

[53:27]

Instead of just saying, how do I locate myself in the middle of impermanence? Instead of just saying, how do I locate myself in the middle of impermanence? How do I look, now you're saying the same thing but in a kind of psychological way. How do I locate my whatever self. In what's both hidden and concealed. Now, if the world is whatever we call the world, I like Wittgenstein saying, starting the Tractatus, The world is all that is the case.

[54:48]

If the world is all that is the case, you know, pretty much close to what you just said. Yeah. And the world is all that is the case, but it includes the concealed and the hidden. What do we call the world? Well, from a Buddhist point of view, The sense of an external world is what's momentary. What is momentary. causal, and what is knowable.

[56:14]

Now, this is a description of the world which assumes that most of the world is hidden. Das ist eine Beschreibung der Welt, die davon ausgeht, dass der Großteil der Welt verborgen ist. But if we can notice the momentariness of what appears, aber wenn wir die Momenthaftigkeit dessen, was erscheint, bemerken, and we can notice that it's causal, it has enough affect and effect, und bemerken können, dass es Yeah, and it's somehow knowable. Not just cognizable, but also knowable in a larger sense than just cognizable. This becomes a kind of reference point. In other words, what's the external world? That's where you have your job and your education and stuff like that. But it reduces but doesn't lessen to.

[57:40]

Reduction is not necessarily a lessening. Reduces but doesn't lessen to. To momentariness. I'm not getting that. What? I think the structure of the sentence is not getting through here. Okay. How would you say what I said in English? It just was so broken up that I couldn't catch it. I'm sorry. Okay. There's the world of your education and your family and... institutions and so forth. And what does that reduce to without becoming less? It reduces to or becomes momentariness. causal, in the sense of effect and effect, causal also means context,

[58:52]

And it's to some extent knowable. Okay, by context, what do you mean? We can ask, what's, someone pointed out, a... Note is not, a tone is not a note. In music. It's like my distinction between a name and a word. A name becomes a word in the context of a sentence. And a tone from a musical instrument or a bird becomes a note in the context of other notes. But as Lusthaus points out, you can't ever have a tone independent of a context. If there's no other notes, no other tones, it's still somehow independent.

[60:08]

in the context of no other notes. And you turn it into a note. Behind this is the idea that there's no raw data. We think. Somehow there's raw data, there's the real raw data somewhere. But the raw data of a bird song is sung for other birds and for the bird itself. And when the bird is heard by you, it's heard within your hearing and within your past, present, and future, which includes music.

[61:37]

And when the bird is heard by you, it's heard within your hearing and within the context of the past, present, and future, which includes music. So the bird song is in the history of birds. And the bird song for us is in the history of our human and auditory experience. For the purpose of our living and evolving, there's no raw data. For the purpose of our living and evolving, there's no raw data. So what's behind this finger? What's somehow more ultimate than the thing?

[62:46]

The only thing that's behind this finger is the context. And it's always different. You started this morning holding up your finger. Whenever I hold up my finger in the same place or a different place, it's always also a context. So how do you... When we hold up a contemplation, which is by holding up a finger, we're also holding up a context. And how do we actualize that context? Okay. So I've described the... sense of the outer world as we can feel located in the outer world as it actually exists.

[64:03]

When we experience it as momentary Contextual. I know. That's the outer world. All the other things are ideas, projections. Okay, what's the sense of our inner world? First of all, the experience of aliveness. Second, immediacy. And non-otherness. In other words, you're not, I'm saying that, I could say connectedness.

[65:34]

But I think it's a wider feeling to say, The other doesn't feel other. So the sense of our inner world may be proceeding from the spine and the breath. is aliveness. When we feel alive and immediacy and a non-otherness. That's when probably we feel most satisfied and alive and Okay.

[66:36]

Now, what's the opposite of those or the alternative of those? Deadness. A feeling of permanence. Um... And a feeling of otherness or a feeling of being isolated in a world where everything is other than you. So now, Christian spoke about the Sangha as a constellation. Hey, thanks for coming.

[67:39]

Did you get here by public transportation? That's smart. This is Robbie Welch. A friend of mine and a fellow practitioner. Who's also a long-time practitioner and also a very long-time psychotherapist. Advisor to business consultants. You don't need to know more, you'll find out. It's better to find out on your own. So if the Sangha is a kind of consolation, it's a consolation in the sense that you can locate your aliveness within it.

[68:43]

You can also locate your deadness. Strangely enough, Your relationship with some people calls forth your aliveness. Some other people, partly they call forth. an area that doesn't work, an inflexibility, a kind of deadness. So if I was a Buddhist constellationist, I'm going to apply for the job. I'm going to apply for the job. I would say, hey, let's create a constellation.

[69:46]

I mean, I'd say in my mind, at least. And I'd try to ritually enact it with concealment. A... a field of aliveness, a field of aliveness mutually incubated, in which you could start feeling areas of deadness. And then whosoever guiding or the wider perspective or mind of the consolation would try to move the consolation into those areas of deadness.

[70:49]

And as I used the term of magnetic flux, you can create an electric field by having a magnet pulsing near it. So you can kind of, by relating the territories of aliveness and deadness, you could begin to perhaps have some enactment of where the deadness is and what comes from it. Yeah, or also where there's a feeling of permanence or an assumption of permanence or clinging to something that might be permanent. Yeah. or where there's a feeling of otherness and not non-otherness.

[72:11]

So where this concept of a Buddhist constellation process has come from is assuming that we are We like to start with how we locate ourselves. In this, on the edge of chaos world. And how we have a sense of exterior world. and the sense of an interior world, an inner world. And when that inner world is most fully accurate and alive.

[73:17]

And it's assimilation of and presence within the so-called It's a simulation of and presence within the so-called outer world. Okay. Sorry. Too complicated again. There's my reference point over there. But my description of the world as momentary causal and other, or non-other, are really

[74:20]

That we need reference points. So this becomes a reference point for when we are located in the world. If you don't feel it's momentary, you're not located in the world. And so on. OK, so let me hit the bell a few times. Oh, my. It wasn't recorded? I'm not sure. Well, it's hidden teaching.

[75:29]

I never told anybody before. It sure was important, but it's also impermanent. It's important, but it was also impermanent. Perfect.

[75:40]

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