In other words, simply a master narrative is like, if you bring up some insight from meditation in a yoga culture, everybody says, oh, yeah, that makes sense. But if you bring up a similar thing in the West, people say, I never heard of that. It can't be true. And there's no shared practice that continues a teaching or an insight. But it seems to be happening. Now, I'm still with you as usual. So I'm giving an example of what was for me a lineage I feel I'm continuing.

[01:11]

Which is? By the way, Suzuki Roshi had this insight himself before he came to America. He said, I don't have time in the 10 or 15 years left in my life to find a Western disciple unless that disciple is already prepared. And his own astute insight was that Probably the best preparation for an American would be New England Transcendentalism. And if you look at William James and Henry James and Emerson and Thoreau, there's an amazing parallel to what we're doing. And in the West and in Europe you can see it in Heidegger and Wittgenstein and so forth.

[02:37]

Probably, perhaps apocryphally, Heidegger said when he was first encountered Zen, oh, this is what I've been talking about all along. LAUGHTER I'll have to check the web to see if he really said that. In any case, one of my forbearers is Ezra Pound, the poet. Then there's also Gary Schneiders, who is the protagonist in Jack Kerouac's book, The Dharma Bums. In that book, he's called Jaffe Ryder. So this beat literature, which is also a broken lineage or lineage leading toward Buddhism.

[03:41]

I'm bringing this up because I'd like you to look at your own lineage in the West and say, what has brought you to being here in this room right now? Okay, one of the insights of Ezra Pound And I've mentioned this a couple times in the last week or so. Was what he called, he was one of the main creators of what was called imagist poetry. And I always, when I was in my teens and twenties reading Ezra Pound, I couldn't understand what images meant, because all poetry has images. And I wasn't able to understand it until I saw that it's a word used to break the lineage with earlier poetry.

[04:52]

Prior to Pound, poetry was thought of as like maybe a vase. Like a vase called a sonnet. And if you wanted to, if you had feelings which were poetic, you had to pour it into this form. And poems weren't poems unless they had a certain form and scanned a certain way. And what Pound said is, look at the image itself. And if you bring attention to the image, there is a form in the image that will unfold.

[06:08]

And this was also an answer to people who said, free verse is arbitrary, it just has no form. And Pounce and others said, no, free verse has form, but it's form which unfolds from particular words and particular energies. So a poem true to that internalized form is also a poem. Now, that is very similar to virtually exactly similar to the Zen use of language.

[07:11]

If you take a phrase that may just appear, a feeling may appear, and on the surface of the feeling are some words. And maybe the surface of the word surface is this mind is Buddha. But that's only one of the possible word surfaces. And if you stay with that word surface It often will turn into a feeling which has no words. Or it may appear first as a feeling without words. And you can interject that feeling into your state of mind or the words that come with it. And if you're practicing thoroughly, you bring attention to that feeling,

[08:22]

And you allow the state of mind to appear, arise, which is consonant with that feeling. And you continue to sustain attention with this new mode of mind. And this is the basic process of realization. If you do this regularly, it transforms how you put yourself together. And it sometimes brings up other words, and it brings up other things that you didn't know were there, as you said it's new. So we could say this is practicing with big trust mind. As we bring attention to attention itself, we bring trust to mind itself. we trust mind as it appears at this moment in this sight-centered self, S-I-T-E.

[09:56]

So we could say practice is to bring your psyche-centered self Together with your sight-centered self. And sight-centered self would be the self which is engaged in detail in the physicality and particularity of this moment. And when you feel that, There's a deep trust that arises. Okay. So let's have one minute of sitting and then we'll have a break. Might be 59 seconds.

[10:57]

Thank you. I'll come back to you, Peter, after the break.

[12:53]

Okay. And it's ten after... Peter? By answering Gisela's question, you made a distinction between enlightenment and wisdom. What is the difference? Ask me at midnight when we're alone. But wisdom is the view of the world as it actually exists. Enlightenment is the realization of that.

[14:11]

So that it transforms your life. But you can have wisdom views prior to enlightenment. There weren't wisdom views, we could have no teaching. The recipe might be wise, but the taste is not there yet. The way you answered my question about the Yogacara Buddhism made me think that mind and body are two separate things in Buddhism, and I wasn't aware of that up to now.

[15:21]

Is that like that? As I put it the other day, if you have a view as was common 20 or 30 years ago, Wenn man eine Sichtweise hat, so wie die vor 20 oder 30 Jahren üblich war, that mind and body are separate, are two, dass Körper und Geist getrennt sind oder zwei sind, this view will interfere with your practice. So wird diese Sichtweise deine Praxis stören. This view will interfere with your realization of the relationship.

[16:25]

So the view that mind and body are separate would be called a deluded view. But if you view that mind and body are one, this is also a deluded view. And this will also, in more subtle ways, interfere with your realization of the relationship. In the Buddhist view, mind and body are a relationship which must be cultivated. Now, oneness is not only a theological idea, but also implicit in the tendency we have to think toward permanence.

[17:30]

Once you recognize and accept that mind and body are a relationship that must be cultivated, like the field out there of the farmer is not one, What the field is depends on how the farmer decides to cultivate it. So there are many fields there. There might be a field of alfalfa or apricots. So you have to decide whether you want alfalfa mind or apricot mind. So once you see it's a relationship, then you understand what practice is about.

[18:44]

The Chinese word for body, I think, means something to be cultivated. But we think of body as a thing. So then the question becomes, what body and mind do you want? So now you see why we need wisdom. How do we make that choice? Can I throw a little biology in here? Yes, please. A short side note from biology. I am currently teaching evolution and the most difficult thing for the students to accept is really that our body is not something solid, which is simply there and given, but that our body is also something that has to be cultivated in a completely biological sense.

[19:52]

In biology we call this the phenotype. It changes all the time depending on the environmental conditions or what we do with it. It's as simple as a biological law. And they don't understand that because in our society the idea that the body is something solid, like a manual or this mechanistic thing that is still in medicine, in patients or so, it's very difficult to fight against it. Yeah. I'm just saying in biology I teach evolution right now and the idea of a phenotype, how our body is shaped through taking care of and through environmental influences is a concept that's almost impossible to get into the head of the pupils, because this idea that the body is something fixed, like a mechanistical thing, is so pre-posed to our culture.

[20:55]

It's such a good example, you know, about the circle we're in in our society, you know, and the views that delude us. Good. Yes? When I met you the second time, it was on the conference on Buddhism and Therapy. You were speaking, and suddenly I had the impression he speaks about a lineage, a Western lineage I follow since 82, and that's called focusing. And some days later, I think some people know what focusing is. Some days later, I found some folks in some school are in focus. And I read your name there, so I think you know it. Maybe, yes. And when Gisela spoke about her process, again I thought, oh, that's focusing. And then you were describing Yuvashara, and it's similar.

[21:57]

It seems to be similar to me. And I want to ask you if you agree and where you put focusing inside of this, I think, bigger system of Yuvashara. Well, I only... We are German, please. I was very excited when I met him for the second time at this conference on therapy and Buddhism. I noticed he was writing something that I had known for a very long time. technique, a psychotherapeutic technique, as I see it here, and the focusing circle. And when Gisela just told her process, I thought, oh, there it is again. And then she wrote, who wrote it, Luka Scharab, and I thought, that doesn't exist, that's so similar. That's what I have here, so to speak, as a focuser. Well, you know, I know a little something about Buddhism.

[22:59]

And from the inside, as much as I can. But I don't know other practices and teachings from the inside. So I don't like to try to make comparisons because I can't do it with any accuracy I can trust. So I would suggest this is your work. You're getting a taste of Buddhist practice and you know focusing and you can see how they interrelate. And it might be interesting to look at the lineage of focusing as a teaching and see where it comes from and if it has some Buddhist influence in it already.

[24:02]

And it would be nice to see where the focus comes from, and maybe there is already a Buddhist influence. For instance, most of the stuff that has come out of Esalen, Gestalt, has lots of Buddhist influence. Let me bring up a historical note in the sense of evolution. Clearly things evolve. But that evolution meanders. Sometimes we go backwards and sometimes forwards and sometimes sideways. We could say that philosophy on the whole from Greek times has evolved in its logic and preciseness of its thinking.

[25:19]

But I wouldn't say initially we've evolved in wisdom. And science has obviously evolved. And athletic performance has evolved. Even without the new equipment, athletes can do things that were not possible 30, 40 years ago even. So our body seems to evolve. But if we look back on Buddhism, I would say that in Tang Dynasty Buddhism, for example, These folks in realization, physically and mentally, far surpassed us.

[26:24]

So that this is interesting. So why is that so? So I think we can look at the conditions that allowed them to come into the extraordinary understanding of our existence. And I am My own experience is that, for instance, when I read, study a koan carefully, I see a level of wisdom and insight which I find nowhere in any Western or Eastern contemporary writing.

[27:33]

Why is that? Are we dumber? Well, maybe. But... But we also have different conditions. We don't have anywhere near as focused a life. And we don't also have the same kind of shared development of understanding. I mean, we have to look at this at this time and these people all lived for the most part quite near each other. It's like one of the persons lived here at Johanneshof. For example, one of the people lived in Johanneshof.

[28:40]

The other lived over at Forest Hat. And the next one in Waldshut. In Waldshut. And someone else lived in Bad Sackingham. And so forth. And they saw each other and sent disciples back and forth among each other. And even there would be a temple here and in Harishreed and so forth. And this created a willingness to open themselves to each other. It wasn't a competition. And to carry forward not only the vertical lineage from the past, but the horizontal lineage in the present. Horizontal of what? horizontal lineage in the present.

[29:50]

And if we can create similar conditions, I think then we also can evolve Buddhism. Okay. Hmm? Yeah, Internet, maybe, I don't know. But the problem with that is it's not face-to-face. Okay. Dogen and the teachers emphasize that something happens face to face that cannot happen in any other way. On the net, the thousand olfactory neurons are useless. Something else?

[30:57]

Yes? I have a question about that Buddhist vision of identification. With your thinking? You said that the main problem is identification with the thinking, and showed five ways of coming out of that. when I am with my breathing then one say I identify with my breathing or I'm only attentive to my breathing and now is the vision not not to identify at all whatever it is or is the vision to be able to be very flexible in my identification. I have a question about the understanding of identification or non-identification from the point of view of Buddhism.

[32:15]

The problem is that we identify with the thinking and Baker Roshi showed yesterday five possibilities to get away or to orient everything. Would you mind, at least until it gets too warm, closing the two windows? Because the tractors are pretty loud. If it's too warm, we can open the door or open the window if you can. Thank you very much. Well, practice is to ask yourself such discerning questions.

[33:24]

And practice is also to traditionally bearing your right shoulder and asking the question, even if you know the answer, for others. Or have a sense of your own process toward an answer. Yeah, and open this question as a field among us. That was the tradition in Tang Dynasty Buddhism to keep doing that and see what happens. So, in short, The answer to your question has to be, as you suggested, flexible.

[34:28]

But already a flexible identification is not an identification. It's a role, more of a role than an identity. Now, I didn't say that these five practices are to alter our identification with our thinking. I pointed out three aspects of thinking.

[35:29]

One is that we identify with our thinking. But that tends to blame thinking. But thinking is just something, a natural thing we do. There's nothing wrong with it. Now, so I emphasized first just this neutral attitude toward it. The sheer quantity of thinking is a problem. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with the TV, let's say, but if you have it on all the time, the sheer quantity of TV itself is a problem. And your mind is like a TV station. about a hundred channels that you can't unplug.

[36:41]

And you don't even know you're paying the bill. So first of all, it's such a powerful and convincing tool that we end up that the tool wags the dog. Do you have that expression, the tail wags the dog? I'm here at your mercy. So there's a lot of thinking. We have to deal with the sheer volume and quantity of it. Second, I pointed out that it's very difficult not to notice it.

[37:44]

Again, it's like going into a restaurant with a... two or three televisions in every corner and reflecting in the mirrors and try to have a conversation with someone. You look away from it and there it is in the mirror. So it's just, it's hard not to notice. And when we have a situation like that, it's difficult to notice other things that are going on. We tend to notice edges. We are equipped with mental and sensory apparatus to notice distinctions, edges.

[38:50]

It's hard to notice centers. Centers without edges. It's hard to notice something soft. Do you understand what I mean? But wisdom is to notice certain soft things. And then in addition, We've got this quantity of stuff we keep noticing and then we think it's us. This is the problem. So I gave you again five practices to bring a little discipline, wisdom and meditation into your life. Now, what is the Buddhist view of our existence?

[39:53]

In a big sense. If you took an electron microscope and you looked into this stuff here, There's nothing but space. There's molecules floating around, right? And if you look up or out, there's nothing but space. And it's all red-shifting away from us. Okay. And then you can even look at the... If you go from... Our tendency is to try to explain things by going from the mind to the brain.

[41:01]

The brain to macromolecules like proteins and things. And macromolecules to molecules and atoms and subatomic particles. and finally to the four forces, the strong and weak nucleic forces, electromagnetism and gravity. Now, do those four forces explain your life? I don't think so. The tendency to try to explain everything in such a reductionist way even though exceedingly brilliant and powerful doesn't describe our life. I'm grateful for gravity because we're all stuck here on the floor. Otherwise we'd be floating free and we could hardly have a conversation. So the Buddhist view is that each level of organization, there's powers of cohesion.

[42:25]

So we can see this vastness coming down, imagining it like this, and the vastness coming up and meeting. And they meet at this coherence that we perceive as three-dimensional reality. Although we don't see our insides, there's lots we don't see. If the tractor stopped, let's have some window. And at our level of coherence, this is held together primarily by intention and decision.

[43:29]

And if you don't have intention and decision, it tends to disintegrate. For example, the Buddhist view is that we are born with an immense packet of vital energy at birth. But unless you make a decision to live... In a very fundamental way, this energy slowly depletes itself. And it's such an immense gift that it will last 35 or 40 years. But if you don't learn to give rebirth to your vital energy, around 35 or 40 is downhill all the way. You begin to fall apart. So practice is also not just to deal with your identification with your thinking, but it's also to discover how to continuously renew our vital energy.

[45:03]

It's going down real fast. It is not. Sorry. It's what I call, for lack of a better word, our somatic vitality. Vitality. Yes, it is going down here. Hey, I think you better be watching. It may help.

[46:10]

Somatic vigor. If this coherence that we live is ultimately this fluctuation of intention, your intention is the most powerful ingredient in this coherence. So wisdom is also your intention to be in accord with the way things are. Now, Buddhism doesn't deny that there are other realms. But Buddhism doesn't view other realms if there are such.

[47:41]

As other realms which are watching over us and taking care of us, angelically or something. The Buddhist view is mostly you have to come to your own wisdom in these decisions by yourself. Then maybe the angels will help you. Angels are like a good Zen teacher. They wait to see if you get it together. Like the Bodhidharma waited for six years for Wee Kay before he said, okay, now I'll teach you. I hope most of you are not as slow as Wike. And I certainly hope you don't have to express your commitment by cutting off your arm. It's probably an apocryphal story, but we could check it on the web.

[49:10]

Yes, please. You mentioned 35 or 40 years until the vital energy runs out. Is that any kind of physiological data-based information? Well, I look in the mirror. I think it just seems to be what happens to us, but not to all of us.

[50:18]

And I do think it makes a difference if you make a decision to really enter into this life. To accept your living. And I think about 50% of us don't really. They don't make this decision. Okay, I'm alive. I'm going to fully be alive. And you don't know where it's going to go. And don't know what's going to happen. Because this decision means you have to trust your inner daimon, your inner voice. And trust where this leads you, even if it leads you out of consensual reality. And it's the trust of this basic life decision that is the creativity of our society.

[51:25]

Yeah. When you don't have that creativity, you might as well ask the farmer to tell you what to do. Yes. Two things. In psychotherapy I noticed that people for that decision, they need at the beginning of their life or at any point in their life, they need a partner who gives them, who is a dialogue partner, who helps them by seeing them to do that decision. Do you think it's... In psychotherapy I make the experience that this life decision, that it can be made, does the person need, at the beginning of his life, a dialogue partner who welcomes him, or whatever he does with him, so that this decision can be made.

[52:41]

That's one thing. And the other thing that I always observe, what you said earlier about cohesion, is that there are psychological conditions where the person involved has the experience of falling apart. And of course you can describe it as a disease, but maybe, in our system it is usually described as a disease, but maybe there is reality again. In my work as a psychotherapist, I came across very profoundly the insight that, you know, this life decision is much easier or maybe only possible for people who, when they're young, have a partner, somebody they can talk to and have a dialogue with who really welcomes them into the world. And if they're not welcomed into the world, that it's really difficult to make that decision. Like a parent or a friend or a teacher. And my second question is, in my work, I also experience that people have states of mind, states of being that disintegrate.

[53:49]

And that's very difficult for them and causes suffering and so forth. And it's really against the grain of our society. But maybe it actually is really their reality. So what should we do? It's a mirror for reality. Meaningful. Mirror. Mirrorful. A mirror of reality. Of reality. Well, let me leave the second part of your question aside. What you say is completely true. It does seem though that some people have the ability to make the decision almost on their own. There's occasionally kids who grow up in totally horrible circumstances, and yet they have some kind of vitality. They're survivors in some way. But maybe they're so constituted that everything gives them

[54:53]

Their senses give them confirmation. But this is what it means when the sutras start with, almost always, win a son or daughter of good family. It means not that you're an upper middle class guy and... And your robe is particularly well made. But it means through several generations, this basic life decision has been supported. But Zen and Tantrism are also considered practices which can intervene powerfully enough even if you have not had that background. And that's why the friend in practice is so important.

[56:03]

And the Sangha in practice is so important. Because if you're going to make fundamental decisions that don't seem to make sense in consensual terms, you need help. That's why I say we're each other's midwife. I would like to know real creativity, how is it connected with emptiness? I feel it comes out of emptiness. If you feel this, this is good, Deutsch.

[57:17]

I would like to know, too. I mean, trust your feeling here. To sort out this in some way that you can know it intellectually is rather difficult. We have to use words that don't fit so well. But I trust your feeling. But that's exactly what the formula form is emptiness, emptiness is form means. That form is only true when it's a surprise. But what is characteristic of this situation?

[58:18]

The most accurate thing we can say about this situation is that it's absolutely unique. It's not oneness, it's uniqueness. It'll never be repeated again. Even this afternoon it won't be repeated. But our senses don't see it as unique. Our senses, to establish continuity, see it as permanent or repeated. To not see this as unique is delusion. To see it as unique is wisdom. But to feel it and see it as unique moment after moment, most of us don't even have the energy for it.

[59:32]

So you get in touch with your vital energy when you're able to also see this as unique moment after moment. Now you may, someone may drive home. And a deer might jump across the front of your car. And you might turn sharply. into some trees and you probably won't be at the next seminar. And you may have been thinking of other things and what you're going to do next, but the unique moment intruded. So each moment is unique in this way.

[60:43]

And when you drive a car or something like that, you have to be aware of the uniqueness of each moment. So we know this, but we don't bring it into our usual way of thinking. Like when I look over at Peter. My habit is to see Peter as the same old Peter. I know what he's like. Excuse me? I know what he's like. And he always says the same thing. And it's going to come out again the same thing, you know? Okay, I'll listen to your question, Peter. I have my answer all prepared. This is dead.

[61:59]

And it's treating Peter as dead. I'm putting Peter in his grave before he should leave it. And if I feel that way, Peter will say the same old thing. Because I won't give him the opportunity to be anyone else. So the practice of generosity is to give you the opportunity to be different in each moment. So maybe I can use this as an opportunity to speak about the fifth of the practices, which is one of the hardest ones to get the feeling for.

[63:09]

I think we want to end pretty soon, but I'll try to speak to this fifth of these five practices that I have distinguished. The first is, just to review quickly, to leave our thinking alone. Because only through leaving it alone can we begin to find the mind that doesn't identify or reject. Second is to observe our thinking. And only through observing it will you begin to notice that you are a much wider being than you are thinking. And you can begin to see how thinking and the whole structures of consciousness work so you can begin to participate in them.

[64:26]

In this we're kind of inner scientists. Now those two practices are best done in meditation. It's very difficult to do them in your activity. The next three that I have pointed out can be done in mindfulness practices and in meditation practices both. One is, as I said, the third is then to interject or intercede in your thinking. As Gisela gave us a good example of. And the fourth is to change the basis of continuity for yourself.

[65:44]

As I said last night, part of the problem of identifying with our thinking is we don't know any other way to establish our continuity. We have designed our culture, our governmental controls, and our educational system to get everyone to find their continuity through their thinking. Okay. So you want to find another basis for your continuity. And those are primarily four. Breath. Breath. body and the phenomenal world, the immediacy of the phenomenal world.

[66:56]

And fourth, mind itself. So instead of identifying with the contents of mind, thought, you identify with the field of mind. Now, just as basic as bringing your attention to your breath, which we mention over and over again, is to bring your awareness right to the uniqueness of this moment, the absolute uniqueness. is to bring my attention to the fact not only that you're all sitting out there, but right now you generate a 70-person mind for me.

[67:57]

And that mind is also absolutely unique. And arises because of you. And when I turn to look at poor Peter, I'm using as an example. on this rock is founded and so forth. So I try to be ecumenical. If I turn from this 70-person mind to look at Peter, a singularity arises that we create together. And I can feel the tactile difference between these two minds. There's an energetic difference.

[69:04]

There's a topography of that. Which is different as if I say two different words. And again, that topography of minds, fields of mind that's playing in here, again, we have the olfactory neurons for it, but we don't notice it. So what I notice when I look at Peter or all of you or Ulrike is the mind that arises. And I can feel that mind in my breath and in my chest. And I can feel it in my cheekbones. And so if I find my continuity in mind itself This is energetically very different than finding my continuity in the contents of mind.

[70:33]

It doesn't mean that, as you said, I can't be flexible. I can go back to and to the extent that Our shared reality is important. I then go back to identifying with the content of mind. But I feel the energetic difference. And if I spend a lot of time in... Identifying with the contents of mind, I tend to feel depleted. My vital energy is dampened. And as soon as I shift back to mind itself as continuity, I feel rejuvenated. I feel like an artesian well.

[71:44]

You know an artesian well? It just swells up. So this is a way to be in touch with your vital energy. Okay. So those are the ways in which we shift our sense of continuity away from the contents of mind or thoughts. Or away from our moods. Now, if you're working with yourself in a more psychological way, And you're working with your self-story. Then the various ways you describe yourself in thinking are important. And if you have a constant negative self-image, it's good to work with that. Because that's going to

[72:45]

Or some kind of compulsive thinking that's going to cause you a lot of problems. So one way, and as a Buddhist we should too, we work with our images of ourselves, positive, negative, or whatever they are. And we work with our mental habits and emotional habits. But Buddhism adds the additional practice. of not just working with the contents of mind, but withdrawing attention from the contents, good, bad or indifferent. And when you're identifying with mind itself, you're no longer in a psychological realm. Then you go back into the psychological realm.

[74:09]

And there's this pulse. And this pulse itself is purifying. So now I think you can understand why Zen says Buddhist transmission or realization is the transmission of mind to mind. What's being transmitted is not thinking and so forth. But the direct face-to-face experience of mind as it arises. Mind arises as the condition of content. This is another way to express form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Now the fifth one was to change the nature of thinking itself. So I'd like to end with trying to give you a feeling for that.

[75:24]

Bernd made me... Samadhi support made me some new pillows. And this I pointed out in our mid-week practice. He made this pillow thick enough so I'm taller than Gerald when he sits beside me. Me what? But he made this pillow so I keep falling off. I'm in danger. But this is a paid advertisement for Samadhi support. They're being sold down in the back corner of this... Don't just say cushion, say Samadhi support. It's our first Dharna Sangha business. Thank you very much, Ben, for all the work you're doing.

[76:44]

I feel my samadhi is quite supportive. But when I'm not in samadhi, I feel guilty. If I'm on this pillow, I should be in samadhi. Okay. Now, to change the nature of thinking, Thinking tends to be a vehicle for, again, our identity, our feelings and moods and so forth. It's like a train we can get on. And language itself is an acceleration of that train. Thinking may be the train at the station, but language is what takes the train out of the station.

[77:56]

Okay. Now let me give you an example again of language. If I hold this up and you say, this is a bell, But perhaps it's a tea cup. But if I put water in and drink it, it doesn't taste very good. But it might be a cup or it might be a bell. But this bell has a tremendous presence. And it's not the same as a telephone ring. A telephone ring takes us out of our presence. This enters us into the presence of the bell. But in general, you don't even wait for it to ring or smell or whatever, which definitely has a smell.

[79:01]

Yeah, like cheap silverware in a restaurant. It's amazing you can smell the molecules from metal. And that's incredible. My olfactory neurons are working. There's one for metal. It sounds better than it smells. But it's mostly what we do is we say, what's he got in his hand? You say it's a bell. That's the end of it. We say it's a bell and the word goes into a sentence, it becomes a sentence and it goes off into the future. And language is a very powerful stream which plucks the fantastic miracle of each thing out of the air, puts it into a sentence, and off goes the sentence, and we think, oh, that's me, I'm this, I'm going to have a bell, maybe I'll buy a bell one of these days, etc.

[80:31]

Good, very good. So, thinking and language are isomorphic. They have similar forms, although for different reasons. And we get on them and go for a ride. And primarily because we have a tendency toward what I'm calling emptiness, permanence thinking. Yes, and first of all we really have the tendency to keep this thinking unvergänglich. Do we have an air protection camera here?

[81:44]

Is it air raid? It's not 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock. Was the fire or they're practicing? Every what? Every seventh day. Every Saturday. I'm glad you're working and taking care of us out there. Okay. Okay. I gave you an example. My tendency is, the nature of thinking is delusionary. Because the nature of thinking tends toward permanence. Because thinking is based on predictability. So that when I look at Peter, I keep seeing the same old guy.

[82:53]

That's what I call permanence thinking. It's not emptiness thinking. Or impermanence thinking. So what you want to develop as bringing wisdom into your life, The discipline of bringing wisdom into your life, the wisdom that arises from meditation, is that as you remind yourself that this is mind as well as contents of mind, I remind myself that you are impermanent. I'm sorry to say so in front of everybody. But you are impermanent. And you're unique.

[84:09]

And uniqueness and impermanence are two aspects of the same thing. So the more I develop the habit of impermanence thinking, And as much as I like you, when I see you, I also see you as impermanent. And when I look at Johanneshof, I see it as impermanent. As much as I like Johanneshof, I'm quite aware that it might... Yeeks burn down or... And I know if we don't take care of it, it'll fall apart. So we're rebuilding it slowly from inside. But if I don't see Johanneshoff as permanent, Not only does it define my relationship to it in terms of taking care of it and so forth, but it means that I don't invest myself in it in a fundamental way.

[85:37]

I don't invest myself in Peter being the same person all the time. I don't invest myself in my being the same person all the time. Or Rika or my samadhi support. What happens when you do that, when you develop the habit of that, It's like the train in the station got thinner and thinner. Pretty soon it was just windows with no space in between the windows. You can see right through the train, it's just two windows. There's no longer any seats on the train. They've all been squashed. So I no longer can use thinking as a vehicle I can get in and identify with.

[86:49]

So the habit of developing impermanence thinking impermanence is a wisdom view. Again, the three things for spiritual liberation in Buddhism are wisdom, like a wisdom view, like everything is impermanent. The discipline or practice is to bring that into your activity. And that requires intention. And if I have the intention and I keep bringing impermanent thinking into each thought, thought begins to become very translucent. Very transparent.

[87:57]

Like pretty soon the train is not only thin, it's only windows. When you begin to have in your meditation, although you think sometimes, the thinking is like clear water which you see the world through. It glimmers. And it's colorless and odorless and so forth. So that's to change the nature of thinking, not to get away from thinking. So, maybe we sit for a minute or two. Then we will have lunch. And we come back at 3.15? 3.15, okay. Yeah, um 3.15 treffen wir uns dann wieder. Maybe you could open the window since the firemen have rested.

[89:25]

Thank you. It's very hard to see to the bottom of the stream or through the contents of the mind.

[90:48]

The water is all stirred up, choppy. So meditation gives us a chance to discover the stillness of the mind But it's very hard to still the mind. It's easier to still the body. So we sit also leaving our mind alone. And even leaving our body alone. Just sitting straight with some vitality.

[91:50]

Let the stillness of the body come into presence. And the stillness of the body will begin to still the mind. Particularly when mind and body are woven together by the breath. And you can begin to feel the wonderful pleasure of basic mind appearing in our joined mind and body.

[92:54]

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