These kids running around, they're getting along so well. Marie-Louise thinks that God bent down and agreed to play with her. Someone gave me this T-shirt. The minister of silly walks. The minister of silly walk, yeah. I'm the minister of... Ministers. I'm the ministry. I'm the minister of silly sitting. John Cleese. John Cleese?

[01:00]

Yeah, that's who that represents. but I don't think Sukriyashi Mai is being uncomfortable this actor? a fish called Wanda he's a very nice guy you know him? he's great as an actor he's very funny he's also a gigantic man oh cute Yesterday I overlooked, or didn't get around to, recognizing Volker, who was going to say something. Do you want to say something today? The time passed. When you were going to say something, I didn't recognize you.

[02:04]

Did the time pass? Well, I told you afterwards. And the lecture was a good answer. Okay. It exceeded all my dreams of an answer. Well. Okay, so someone want to say something? Does anyone else want to say something? I tried my best. These two. I'll just try it. The question was, how do we practice breathing? And what's new about Mr. Skowron? The question was, how do we practice with breath and aren't there any news about the koan?

[03:14]

No, no, no. Any news? Is there any news thing about the koan? Oh, what? Oh, that's what he meant. Okay. That. That. What is... new thing is the koan bringing into the breathing practice. I want to say what moved me is also in our discussion. I observed in these days. When I... when I follow the breath and then there are different degrees or different ways to accompany the breath.

[04:31]

If I follow the breath, there are different maybe degrees or ways in which I can follow the breath. If I say this in a kind of a coarse way, I can do this with a very strict attention or something like that. So what I can also give is more power or something to go with zest into my posture.

[05:38]

At some point I have to then let go. And then I've noticed, made the observation that then the breath somehow recedes into distance. The letting go of the breath, the way it does that is, the different ways of how it recedes or something, depends if it was done sort of forcefully or if it was in a refined breathing. So this kind of idea is getting into my mind that this is sort of like a conditioning.

[06:52]

Maybe to speak in an image I could ride on the breath like on a horse. This image will not help me. So with the conditioning I mean I put my attention onto the breathing. And when I let go of the breath, then remains the attention. That's enough, maybe. Yeah, good, thanks. Someone else? Yes?

[08:14]

I found it very exciting what the group I was in, not my group, obviously, thought about. I'd like to do it in English if I may. Sure. Just the group's English. And the first thing that happened is we're talking about breath. Will you translate yourself, though? Yes. Then you can just go on. Well, she wants you to translate. I love you to translate. I'll try and make it right. Okay, great. Stop me if I don't run the monologue, please. The first thing that happened is that somebody said, if we're talking about breath, we should be sitting upright. So the first thing that happened... The first thing that happened is that if we're talking about breathing or practicing, we should be sitting upright. Mm-hmm. and something about the right attitude of the body bringing about the right attitude of mind. And we had a part that When you are in a difficult stage or you go through illness or something like that.

[09:37]

When you are in stress. That you go through your breathing back into the position and back into, I'll interpret it as mindfulness. that you go into your posture and into mindfulness by means of breathing. Which brings us to he only knew the iron spike holds up the sky hard. So for me physically it was like you are this and then you start breathing and in order to breathe you have to sit upright for the air to go into your body and then you stop thinking about the silly things or your illness and then you're back up. So that's where the counting can help. Doesn't mean you should count all the time, but maybe to bring you back.

[10:38]

Counting, bringing you back to following your breath. and there comes the counting of the breath, and you don't have to do that all the time, but the counting helps you to be in the process of following the breath. We had a part about lying down if you are ill and you cannot sit anymore. And we had the idea of maybe using the beads to bring you back into breathing because it's much harder lying down than when you can connect your spine to the skull. We had the idea that if you learn to play an instrument or singing, then breathing is a very, very essential part of this learning process.

[12:01]

So practicing brings about the skill at the end. So we had somebody who'd been practicing this for a long time saying, I was sitting at a relaxed position at the dinner table with my family and suddenly I could feel how my stomach, my heart, this part of the body was going in and out like a ball and how I suddenly was aware of this and I thought, who is breathing here? And we had an example of someone who was sitting with his family for dinner and suddenly felt his belly go out and in like a ball and then asked himself, who or what is breathing here? And then a loss of this again. Maybe that's kind of stopping and returning to purify.

[13:18]

Working on that one, I think. Sorry, I have to pick up my notes and see that I don't repeat myself too much. And I'd love to get to the final part, which was I'm interpreting this, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, because I find it quite important. Going into breathing means letting go of old patterns and thus having to follow a new path. Which means you can't control it with your consciousness anymore. She has to let go. Sounded complete to me. Someone else. In our group we tried to answer the first question.

[14:35]

And different practice types of forms were mentioned. Everyone knew about counting. And also the following of the breath was very important. And some emphasized that the end points of the breathing as a concentration point. More than the act of inhalation and exhalation does it.

[15:36]

And some describe working with a prolonged or extended exhale up to where it is an exhaust Aus Erschöpfung oder so geatmet, dass er erschöpft wurde? Aus Atmung erschöpft war. Okay, so the practice was exhaling until there was nothing to exhale any longer. Ja. Interessant war dann der Aspekt der Atempraxis oder die Atempraxis seine eigene Atmung Interesting was then to relate in a maybe dialogue or something one's own breathing to someone else's.

[16:44]

Someone had an example of attending to a person dying, and this person was in a coma. And this accompanying person did not know, wasn't clear of how to make a contact with the person in coma. And with an advice to concentrate on breathing, she had an opportunity to be in contact with this person by being able to create a contact with breathing, her own breathing of the person. And somebody gave this person advice to do it through breath.

[17:53]

And through being aware of the person's own breath and of the dying person's breath, there was an opportunity for a contact. And the effect maybe was an unexpected expansion of experience. At what point was there unexpected expansion of experience? That this was a possibility, or to realize that this contact is possible. Oh, with the person in the coma, yes. That's true, I think. Okay, thanks.

[19:04]

Yeah? First I would like to say that this lecture this morning was Really unbelievably outstanding. I thought the first two were okay. I'm glad this one is even better. Thanks. I still like a few compliments now and then. In our group we also discuss probably similar themes than the other groups. One subject was habits. This morning you spoke about a container of habits.

[20:14]

This morning you spoke about a container of habits. [...] And what really was kind of supportive or helpful for me in the group, to see how difficult it is for all of us still to work with breathing. Even though I know it from myself, it is somehow relieving. And it creates more acceptance to experience it again from others. Even though I know it for myself, it gives me relief and it helps me to accept that myself, that others have similar problems.

[21:17]

One aspect with which I was a little more concerned is, and there is also the question, So one thing I studied a little bit more is that our brain is supposed to make patterns and construct meaning and I assume that this is logical And I assume that this is a biological disposition. And then socially this is even formed further. Oh yeah, okay. Food. So maybe one of the problems with the problem to relate to our breath might be our brain and consciousness

[22:35]

I think the way to work with it is to see how consciousness itself interferes. You're a therapist. Do you find that you non-consciously or something like that sometimes find yourself in a breath relationship to the client? It's more often the case that consciously I try to establish that.

[24:02]

So you notice a point at which you can or you intend to do it and sometimes it happens. Usually I try, attempt that consciously in the beginning of a session. I see, yeah. I think that seems reasonable to me. Good. Now, if what David said is the case, which I think it is the case, and Arnie Mandel has established it being the case, that you can have a lot of communication with somebody in a coma, and particularly one way is through... sinking your breath, S-Y-N-C-H, with the person. What does the S-Y mean? Sink. Okay. And one thing you can, most people who are who are experienced practitioners virtually always have a breath relationship to the person they are talking to.

[25:32]

Yes, okay. Someone else? Yes. So I want to add from our group to those subjects we've heard. In this koan are a lot of very concrete instructions how one can work with breath. Such instructions exist when you learn to play a musical instrument or when you learn a sport or any other physical activity. and such instructions exist when you want to learn an instrument or some kind of sport or anything, other physical activity. And I think everyone can make the experience that this ability at some point in the body

[26:50]

And then later you notice that you don't need to think about those skills any longer. They're just there and without those skills it doesn't work. Nevertheless, the question arises, if we observe the breath or whatever the instructions are, how to practice with the breath, and we do nothing else or very much and practice it, how to do technical sports or music, And we're not doing much else. We're trying to do these instructions like you do an instrument or sports. But still, the question is, it doesn't get this understanding that it doesn't work any other way. But still it doesn't get to that point where it just gets so natural or so easy that it doesn't go without it anymore.

[28:05]

You don't reach this point ever. I think that's a good translation of what you said. this feeling it's just there and without it doesn't work. It still seems sort of maybe I'm interpreting this turmoil a little bit. But just to observe the breath, it still needs a different attention to stay with the breath. And that's also a question. It doesn't become so natural. You can sit on a pillow for years and you have periods even after years of practice it always requires a particular attention there is never this kind of ease to it that it just doesn't work without the skills.

[29:14]

Without attention. Yeah, and then, you know, there you can practice for years and you have these thousand periods still where you at the end think, oh my God, there was something else. Oh yeah, the breath, you know. So I think one of the things that makes it so difficult is that gooeyness of thinking, that identification within this thinking. Yes, okay. I would say that although, no matter how long you've practiced, it always makes a difference when you bring attention to the breath, intentionally bring attention to the breath. You're bringing attention to a very different kind of breath than when you first started. And you bring the attention to a completely different breath than the one you had at the beginning of the process.

[30:31]

I have a very basic problem and a very basic question about what you have just cut in there. I have a very basic question to exactly that which you just mentioned. I can learn all kinds of physical abilities or patterns of movement or patterns of action. I can learn all types of movement patterns or activity patterns. And in sleep, really exaggerated in sleep, I can ski and I can operate. I can fly. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. And this picture always comes to my mind, this very simple picture, Rashi, that you have always made.

[31:32]

I concentrate on a stick and take it away and stay in the field of the mind. And I always have this image of the teaching, you said you have this stick and you concentrate on it, you take it away and you stay in this field of the concentration. So I concentrate on the breath, I take the breath away and I stay in the field of the mind. So I concentrate on the breath, I take the breathing away and I remain in the field of the mind. Either I concentrate or I don't. There's nothing in between here. Don't you find that sometimes when you concentrate and then you relax, sort of like the escapement of a watch, when you relax, you suddenly become more concentrated?

[32:44]

The point, though, I wanted to make... Okay, well, let's continue. Someone else, this is good. Yes, yours has? Hoping you'd say so. So for me the hinge nest image is very present with me. From nest it feels like protected and safe. So the threshold between inhaling and exhaling and exhaling and inhaling I don't need to do anything. And it feels sort of like safe enough that I know it's continuing to breathe.

[33:59]

And then I had the idea that I'm kind of good or stable with my tummy or something, that I can practice non-breathing, contrasting the stopping. Yeah. Okay, good, thanks. Yes. I've been waiting for you too, Christa. Okay. Here you are. I'm very grateful to this koan that it allows us to speak about breathing. Back to the base, like first grade or something like that. And there's a very great interest and curiosity listening to each one of you, what you say.

[35:19]

For me it's not easy to speak about it. Because I have so diverse, different experiences with breathing. It's easy to describe or label. So for me it's a different type of breathing if I'm in an everyday situation or if I find myself in Sasa.

[36:29]

So the breathing in my everyday life sort of turns starting to turn into continuity but this is sort of what I would call it a habit breathing or a background breathing. And it's sort of like always there like an accompanying friend or something. But at the same time, thinking is possible and activity is possible. So it feels like it's always close to my side and quite easily I can bring it into the foreground. And that always changes the activity or the situation.

[37:42]

Very recently I had no experience. That was pretty radical and I'm very happy about it because I'm going to try to apply this. That was in a was a little bit aggressive in that atmosphere. So I couldn't leave, but I didn't have to contribute much to it. I just was there. And I decided... And I somehow seem to have decided to entirely go into the breathing and forget all the rest.

[38:59]

It was a new experience. and on the other hand to get to know everything about aggression and discomfort. So it was one leg to remain connected and it was the other one to actually still get it what aggressive stuff and things were going on. And for me that came from the sentence And it just came out of the phrase that his iron spine was holding the sky and he didn't know that his brain fell to the ground.

[39:59]

This had something to do with his radicality. I think that's enough now, but there would be immensely much to be spoken about, breath and experience that goes with it. Yes, good, thanks. Yes? So I feel similarly and for me I'm very happy that the breathing has such a base in this koan. Many things from our group have been mentioned.

[41:06]

For me the phrase of the turtle heading for fire So for me, breath and practice meant to be more alert. But the image of the turtle might mean not to feel but still do it or something. And so for me at this new experience I always thought if I don't make emotional experiences that they're blocked.

[42:07]

And with this sentence Is that more of a fearlessness? Just being without feeling and yet being present? And with this phrase it makes it less frightening just not to feel and still be there. And I was just reminded of what Krista said in this situation. Just to be present with one foot and on the other side So this Christus thing reminded me of one foot to not be involved in the other one. not to be not to be more alert and involved.

[43:17]

And still this basis of that I should be able to follow the breath more during my life is not yet there. So for me, I cannot tell us yet that first sentence, but I enjoyed being there. Many old teishos come back to my memory. So what is mind? What is foreground? What's background mind? What is if it's neither foreground nor background? That first part. And then, in the second part, the turtle is something useful for me, but it also connects me with my fear.

[44:44]

And I mentioned this in our group. And I did mention this in our group, and I think I didn't get much feedback on it, but really sometimes I just have fear. I don't know how to describe it, but the turtle gives me the courage, but also the challenge to run into the fire and burn it. This morning I thought, the handling is like a turtle tank, only it is empty, the turtle is burned. So, the turtle...

[45:46]

sort of suggests, recommends to just walk into the fire and just burn up. And this morning, sitting Zazen, I felt like that my hand is like the shell and the turtle has burnt up. Good. Have you ever, when you felt fear coming on, Have you ever, when you felt that the fear was building up, decided to let it come as strongly as possible, even exaggerate it, and just be in the middle of it? She is never so long that I can watch her, It's never so long that I can observe it. It's momentary holes.

[46:59]

Yeah. You might try to exaggerate it sometimes. Because, you know, these various emotional things that we are constructed by are constructions. And sometimes we have to, there's no way to get around them. You have to just let them deconstruct. And knowing how to sit through difficulty, which is part of Sashin, It helps you just stay in the midst of something like that until you're on the other side. Yeah, but you have to feel like you have to do it. Because it can be scary. Naturally. that you want or can do it, because it is of course very frightening.

[48:12]

This often comes with a state where the breath is so free, and this state can also lead to the beginning of time. It often accompanies this very fine breath, and it can be maybe the state of before the beginning of time. Okay. Gerhard? For me, something surprising happened in our group. Someone spoke about breathing experience. And this person was interrupted by someone else asking, do you feel what you're talking about?

[49:14]

And suddenly it was so clear to me that the breath is something that we can talk about, very loose, but it doesn't make much sense if we don't include it in our speaking and our consciousness at the same time, because what we do while speaking is breathing. So for me it was interesting to see that we can't very easily just talk about breathing, but you can't really do it if you're not connected to your breathing because speaking is breathing. It feels like speaking in this group here about breathing allows us to speak about breathing in a different manner than otherwise. And just speaking about it brings me more to my own breathing.

[50:38]

At the same time, I'm listening to the tuner, and he can't do anything but tune, otherwise he loses it. And this in a very different way, it makes it kind of arriving here than it has been in the previous days. Okay. Yes, Gisela? I've been waiting for you too. Yes, I can easily relate to what Gerald said. I came a little bit... I think that's the right word.

[51:40]

So for me, I want to add to Gerhard, because it fits for me, I came a little bit curious but also insecurely to my first winter branches. I read the koans and I thought like, I can never manage this. What did I get myself into? Sorry. And this talking about the breathing really helps me to localize myself and always when I kind of question or doubt myself, What do I do?

[52:57]

Is it right what I do? It feels good, but is it also good? And now I say, I'm here with Adel and... So I'm asking myself what I'm doing. Is it right? That it feels right, but is it right? And then being here, seeing people with very similar thoughts, you know, it really helps me speaking about the breathing and really made me arrive here. Yeah, it says in the Koran, the door moves spontaneously without being pushed. Not in the categories of right and wrong. Primarily we spoke about the experience with the practice of breath

[54:04]

Of course, we have all experienced or experienced these different relationships in the West, or have already experienced them, with counting, with following, with stopping, contemplating. Most of us have some experience or did do these practices, counting, following, holding, something, concentration. Interesting was the first one, counting. It's very difficult. Several found it rather difficult to count higher than one or two. Counting to one is a very basic practice. There were some kind of ways around it.

[55:20]

Count backwards from 100 down. Up to 99. I tried to count again in the last few periods, because there were also some in the group who had a version of counting, which was either uninteresting, So in the last few periods, I've started counting again. And there are people who think it's not dignified and only for beginners. I don't know any such people, but, you know, yeah. But I have this... But there is an aversion against the counting.

[56:24]

Really, Suzuki Roshi, I remember, said to me once, he almost very often counts for the first ten minutes or so. I mean, he was a beginner. He wrote a book called... And another aspect that is important to me is that if you don't intervene when you follow the breath, or let's say, if you pay attention to the breath, you immediately have a grip on it. For me it was very important to emphasize that when you follow the breath you don't influence it because as soon as you follow it you have sort of a grasp on it. But then because then it becomes my breathing that I am breathing. so you can also see that stage in those turning or points of the breathing the top or the bottom if they go smoothly or if they're bumpy but on the other hand

[57:43]

On the other hand, I'm also more relaxed because the whole thing is not such a big deal. Or it's not a big deal. It's not that significant or something like that. In evaluation, I would say. Yes. Something really shook me in your talk today. Give me a big insight. You said that every word in a sutra, in a koan, but also every breath can be a window. Is it every word in a sutra or a koan or each breath can be a window?

[59:05]

Or it can be an image or painting of things that are already now or wish or assume. Also, I have a lot of different experiences with breathing and I've learned a variety of different techniques with it. And I'm skilled in observing breath. But I noticed when you said that And I had this I saw how much I make use of the painting.

[60:31]

How little I have the courage to open the window and just go for what I don't know, or go with what I don't know. It's really not knowing where it goes. And it's like Katharina says, it needs courage. And I'm very grateful for this hint. I have used these pictures very often, also these paintings, in order to make me feel better, when I was sitting alone with others, observing and using the breath, with pictures, So I used these picture paintings.

[61:34]

I used them together with others in Zazen, whatever. I knew what I want or what makes me feel good and I used these. But each one knew and not wanting anything. Yeah, yes, question? I was also very touched by your teisho this morning. Not yet grateful. I'm patient. That's fine. I also feel like a gallery owner. I have pictures all over my walls. I feel like a junkie.

[62:46]

I feel like a junkie addict. I feel so stripped. I feel so stripped. I just see that I sit here I see, I sit in zazen and dwell with my pictures. Yes, it is what you say, a question of courage. And I absolutely don't involve myself with breathing practice. It's happening somehow. It feels like living with these mirrored sunglasses on the inside.

[63:49]

It is like that. But to know that is big. So let me, we should end soon, so let me say something a little bit about breathing. And I haven't spoken as much as I would like about refinement. So this is at least one part of aspect of refinement to which I'd like to speak about. Is that After you've developed a habit of having attention as part of breathing, which is developed partly by sometimes very intensely paying attention to your breath, even for a full afternoon or for two or three days,

[65:38]

Or trying in various ways during zazen. But it's probably most developed as a continuous practice by having an intention and lightly bringing yourself back to it whenever it occurs to you. You strengthen the intention and then let the intention do the work. And that's partly what's meant by spontaneously it moves. After a while it becomes pretty much continuous. And then it's something, I don't know, I'll try to describe, it's something funny, kind of funny, funny, funny, strange.

[67:04]

It's like your attention, it's like your attention is accompanied by breath. That's what my mouth just said. But what I wanted to say is, it's like, what did I say, your attention is accompanied by breath? What I wanted to say was your breath is accompanied by attention. But what my mouth said may have been more accurate than what I wanted to say.

[68:06]

In other words, both are in what I'm saying but maybe both are more present or better hidden in the way my mouth said it. Okay. And this feeling of breath attending, breath attention attending to things. It's a bit like a bodily attention. It's a bit like a physical attention. A very fine-grained physical attention. It's like a fine-grained physical attention.

[69:21]

that I can't say is either attention or breath, but something new, alchemically created by breath and attention, which actually carries a kind of knowledge and knowing. There's a, you know, when people study memory, sociologists, psychologists, they have terms, I forget, the one for like, you know how to ride a bicycle, it's called performative memory or something like that. I can't remember the term. It starts with P. Procedural memory I think it's called.

[70:45]

You haven't ridden a bike for years, but you get on it, there's a procedural memory, and you do it. But there's many things much more subtle and pervasive than bicycle riding that are remembered by the body. And so one of the questions here in the background of this koan, and as part of what I've been speaking about since February or so, As related to the word memory, but doesn't fall into any of the categories that we mean by the word memory in English.

[71:50]

But rather let's call it now, what calls forth your experience? What calls forth our memories? What calls forth your accumulated experience? Oh, so a particular smell, like cut grass, you know? It calls forth memories. It calls forth experience. But there's some way in which breath attention is part of the world that it calls forth things, calls forth experience

[73:03]

Gestalterfahrungen. Gestalterfahrungen. Gestalt, I mean interrelated complex events that create a gestalt. Und unter Gestalt verstehe ich gegenseitig verbundene The smell of a flower might do that, of course. But what I'm speaking about is in each situation we're in, there's a gestalt of each situation. And the gestalt of each situation is more likely called forth, your experience, your related experience is more likely called forth through this fine... tuned breath attention.

[74:31]

You know, in cell phones, Maybe some still, but cell phones customarily have had in the old days little aerials. Sometimes you pulled them out, sometimes they were just... Yeah, but now cell phones, at least some cell phones I've read, the whole case is the antenna. And it's almost like this granular fine quality of breath and attention is like one of these aerials, which not only calls forth your own experience, but is receiving the situation in a way beyond or outside of the six senses.

[75:55]

It's almost like you activate an aerial, an antenna, that tunes into and tunes the situation. As your experience, Christa, in the group, there was some aggressive atmosphere. Undoubtedly, your experience bringing attention to your breath, affected the atmosphere of the whole room. And in a way, this is... You know, I love the word crepuscular.

[77:31]

It means the granular evening light. Also, ich liebe dieses Wort crepuscular, und das bedeutet dieses kernige Abendlicht. This fine, granular attentiveness, antenna attentiveness. Diese ganz feine attentiveness. mind, thoughts, breath, and we could say that's what the latter one, purification, means.

[78:33]

Breath begins to polish and refine how we know and how we perceive. Yeah, okay. So maybe we can have a moment of sitting. If you bring attention to your breath, usually your posture gets better. You're going or leaving or? Cooking. Cooking, okay. I said I'd be quick and I wasn't. And bye. Now I think one thing we can maybe see in koan practice is even though it's sort of like obfuscating and frustrating,

[80:28]

still has a subtlety and complexity that comes through even in the English or Deutsch, that allows me to have the territory to say something like I just said, or this morning's tesha which I wouldn't say in a usual seminar.

[81:19]

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