I'd like to start out this morning with anything you might like to speak about. Yes. I have a question about practice. You told us about the tools of one-pointedness and observing what there was coming. None, yeah. But in my experience I have the feeling there is sometimes a contradiction, because when I try to be one-pointed, for example watching the breath and fixing the tension or the horror, if I'm successful, there's not much coming up. And when any thought comes up, I can get rid of it.

[01:03]

When I come back, I'm watching my breath. Of course, there is some observing in that, because I watch and can't come back to my brain. But could you tell me how to work off those points? Deutsch. Ich habe das Gefühl, dass die zwei Werkzeuge der Einspritzigkeit und des einfach Beachtens, was einfach hochkommt, teilweise You mean when you are able to concentrate on pointedly on your breath or something What do you mean nothing comes up?

[02:18]

There's only the watching the breath. And is that rather boring or something? You'd rather do something else? Sometimes it makes me happy. There's nothing else to care about coming up. What's the problem? What's the problem then? But you think it's suppressing something. You said this in German, I think. Okay, that's right. Sometimes when I'm not so happy doing that, I have to suppress things coming up, like thoughts or imagines. And I can do that when I'm going back to concentrate on my work. But I'm suppressing them and I do not let them come up. That's the contradiction I made. I guess I would say that if you feel you're suppressing something,

[03:45]

you maybe should shift to this non-interfering observing consciousness. Again, the basic practice in Zen is this uncorrected mind. To just let what comes up, comes up. Now, in the sense, when you Just let what comes up, comes up without responding to it. Just noticing it. That's a kind of one-pointedness, except it's the field of mind that you're holding in concentration. But again, at that point what I would probably do is look at the feeling of what... I would try to open myself to whatever is going on and definitely not try to repress it.

[05:00]

One of the powers of... of meditation is you don't have to repress or express. You can just let things come up and not have to act on them. And when you're really completely free of any fear of acting on them, more and more things will come up. And at this point, then you'd be observing the patterns. And if, for instance, then there's something that is bothering you, Something comes up that you feel uneasy about.

[06:09]

Then you could bring the skill you have to stay with your breath to that which is bothering you and just rest on it. And sometimes it's useful then to form a question in relationship to it. And it can be quite simple. Like, what is it? And then you bring that question as a kind of intent. And stay with it during your day. I don't know if this makes sense to you, but, yeah. Yeah, it is... When you use a skill like one-pointedness or meditation to cut off your thoughts, this is not good, I think.

[07:33]

There's nothing wrong with your thoughts. The problem is the degree to which we identify with it. Identify it as the world and identify it as us. And my own experience is, the more you free this double identification from your thinking, The more free and joyful and creative your thinking becomes. Because it's quite a burden for thinking to carry this double identity. A doppelganger. Yeah. Okay.

[08:44]

Of course. Even subtract. Only for me, because I'm used to stand things by intent. And when they say, okay, I'm counting or I'm watching the breath. That's what you do. I try to stand it. Stay with it. And stand it. And I see that's not the best way to manage it. No, it's not. It's interesting, in English, we would say you stay with it. When you say you stand it, it means it's very painful, but somehow you stand it. Yes. Following from yesterday, I also found that in looking at things in psychotherapy,

[09:49]

concerning these right views, which also can imply wrong views. And notice the difference looking from systems therapy? All theories are hypotheses. Hypotheses, yes. And at the same time a parallel to Bateson came up, who sees this right view and wrong view as a learning of first order and second order. And personally it feels good to me to unfold these two together somehow and not have this polarity of one and the other.

[11:14]

Following up on my question of yesterday, while we were at lunch, I had this feeling of understanding. Of clarity, sorry. I noticed the point is not so much the feeling, But I don't really can make the difference when I'm able to take responsibility for For the moments of clarity and when it is something which just comes to me as an intuition.

[12:53]

And I notice I don't have at this point any connection to this self or non-self, and I feel insecure in that. Is it sufficient in the way I'm dealing with it? The real thing. Yeah. No, I understand. I mean, if I saw you fairly often, not once a year or so, probably to everything you said just now, I'd say yes, that's all.

[14:10]

Because I understand to some extent and feel to a greater extent what you're speaking about. And so I would wait for some opportunity to, when I see this appearing in you, to respond at that time. And also, you have a mixture of... you know, systems theory, Gregory Bateson, you know, Buddhism. No Buddhism? No, listen. So that's rather a kind of hodgepodge. Cool. Gregory Bateson was a good friend of mine, by the way.

[15:42]

We even took care of him the last months of his life. So I had many interesting conversations with him. But let me respond to a little bit of it, maybe perhaps indirectly. I was struck by something I read recently about a scientist. And I'd never heard of this fellow, but he was described as one of the most brilliant four or five or six scientists of this generation. I guess he's probably 10 years older than I am. And he got the Nobel Prize for some work he did in his 20s. But from his 30s into his 50s, he was quite crazy.

[16:46]

And then in his late 50s, early 60s, he began to come out of the craziness. And he... And his craziness was very involved with political ideas and paranoid ideas, all kinds of things. And he's at Princeton, I believe. And... Someone said to him, now he functions pretty normally. Why did you believe all these crazy things? He said, because the ideas that came to me in science, no matter how far out they were, I knew they were true by a certain feeling. He said, when other thoughts came to me then, with the same feeling, I thought they were true.

[18:09]

So he said, I really had to learn how to discriminate more finely between the ideas which were true and the ideas which weren't true, even though both gave me a feeling of validity. And this isn't a question one can answer easily. I think that until you have a sense of what's a valid cognition, you do have to compare your ideas to societies and other peoples and sort of make a practical idea of what world you're going to live in.

[19:19]

And for me it took a while to work this out. Because I had a sense of and perceived a world that was different from what most people perceived. But I didn't know how to make sense of this in relationship to others. I didn't know how to make sense of this in relationship to others. And so it took me quite a while to kind of determine how to accept as valid and how to proceed on a path of validity. But certainly part of the process is, again, this simple thing of taking your sense of continuity out of your mind.

[20:24]

your sense of continuity and this double identity out of your thoughts. And to have more of a confirmation of where you are through physicality of yourself and the phenomenal world. And then extend your vision through that grounding. As I spoke in Linz, I believe I talked about a vision and faith in a known potential. A vision or faith in a known potential. And a grounding, simultaneous grounding in an ascertainable continuity.

[21:41]

And simultaneously anchoring in an ascertaining. Ascertainable means to actually make sure. This is actually good. I've ascertained that. In a continuity that can be secured, that can somehow be secured. So... That make sense? So developing an ascertainable continuity. Your thoughts are not an ascertainable continuity. They're very slippery. So you want to work with your senses. The five elements. and phenomena, and the wholeness of mind itself. Something else?

[22:47]

Yes? I've been thinking about something you said on the first day. You used this room or this space here as an example of historical and cultural continuity. On the other hand, you said that this base is only relevant due to the people or the users that bring the energy into this base. My question is what kind of spaces or artifacts or things would the same mind or the true mind create, would they be things or spaces that are without narrative character? Would they be completely neutral? That's a good question. Deutsch? Someone said to me that my description of feeling the room was

[24:02]

perhaps too intellectual. And it's interesting to me to hear that. Because for me it's, you know, if I said, climb that tree and climb some tree, climb that tree and climb it in a certain way so you feel the tree's own presence, For me that's no more intellectual than the grocery stores down the street. But perhaps I didn't give a feeling of what I meant. But what you brought up is actually what's behind the arrangement of temples and gardens in Zen spaces.

[25:28]

Or even everyday things, not necessarily temples. Yes, but that's where they have thought it through particularly. I wrote a little piece once for some reason. I think I sent it to Marie-Louise, in fact, an architect, on realisational space. And there's two main ways in which temples are configured. One is an overall mandala pattern.

[26:39]

And in Zen temples they tend to, particularly in Japan, the mandala pattern is present like the Buddha Hall somewhere and the kitchen is somewhere and so forth. They try to obscure the mandala so that they keep putting you in places that make you stop. And then when you move to the next area, you can't predict what it would be. And there's a whole sense of you create the walk, so you create a certain pace, so that it's the pace in this area that's maybe slightly different from the pace in this area.

[27:40]

And then they create paths that don't go the shortest distance between two points but sometimes a long distance between two points. I'm trying to figure out how to do that at Crestone, for example. The Zendo is here. We have a new little building here. And most people walk from the building down here through here. So I want to make this much farther away from here. So I'm creating paths that go this way. So when you're here, you don't really know where this is.

[28:55]

And then you create paths which have to do with how often people greet each other, pass each other in the past. There's lots more, but that's some of the basics. But what I said is partly related to feng shui. You know, it's an overlapping way of looking at things. But there's a certain energy or field or feeling I have if I sit here. And it's different if I sit here. And it's different if I sit here.

[30:02]

And there are definitely some points in this room which everyone knows are more powerful than other points. And I try to sit in a room and I try to avoid sitting in the most powerful spot. Because that in some ways takes my own power away. But if I sit in too negative a relationship to it it's very hard to make the seminar work. So one of the first things I do when I walk in a room my body tells me where those spots are. And then I find some place to sit in relationship to that pattern, but not in the center. Now, the more you feel that with your body, every space nourishes you. If you don't feel it, you can be in places and the room will draw power out of you.

[31:19]

So that kind of sense comes from this sense of alignment. Now if we have another... We talked about right views yesterday. Let's talk about an enlightening view. In the eyes it's called seeing. In the ears it's called hearing. What is it called in the eyebrows? Now that doesn't make computational sense. But if you stay with such a statement, and you begin to feel it, and maybe if you work with the elements, you begin to see how your skeleton is part of your perceptive territories,

[32:35]

For instance, in my body, my cheekbones particularly are little barometers. Yeah, barometers. And I can feel differently in here than back here. And in meditation, I can track things with my cheekbone. And I can tell how connected I am with a person and where I feel this way. And then there's other places that have sensations that have to do with how I'm speaking and what I'm teaching and so forth.

[33:42]

This is a whole territory in Zen we almost never talk about. Because it confuses people. But maybe with this exceptional group it's okay. But this is related to feeling a sense of alignment. So So I mentioned nourishment and completeness and the other two words to work with that are holes or tunnels are alignment and attunement.

[34:48]

And so I worked with alignment for instance for five years under all circumstances virtually I kept my backbone straight Und ich habe mit der Ausrichtung zum Beispiel fünf Jahre lang gearbeitet, indem ich unter allen Umständen mein Rückgrat gerade gehalten habe. I virtually never leaned back in a chair. Ich habe mich wirklich niemals im Sessel zurückgeliehen. I mean, I was slept, you know, and I slept always, and I always, for many years I slept never on my side, just on my back, and I used to balance something on my forehead. Ich habe... Yes, all night. Now I'm a sloppy, lazy practitioner. I still hold something at night often, but I seldom balance something. Maybe I should try it again.

[35:55]

I haven't tried balancing anything for a long time. But sometimes a coin, it's easier with a coin, if you put a coin here, and see if it's there in the morning. But it means you have to track it, you have to feel it. And if you change... Well, I don't have to go into details. But this turns your backbone into a kind of antenna. And believe it or not... Oh, I can take this one. That's part of what this is about. This represents a certain kind of... astrological or energy pattern right here at this point where you lift up through your backbone. And it suggests a kind of alignment with everything at once and with each person you meet.

[37:06]

So you're always working with, at least in more adept practice, you're always working with this alignment, feeling postures that appear through states of mind and then drawing them into your body. Feeling postures that appear through your states of mind. And then drawing those physical postures into mental postures. Yeah. Maybe I'm getting a little too far out here. I apologize if I am. No. But as I said, partly this imperturbable mind you learn to hold in your hands. And that's part of the mudra, learning to hold the mudra.

[38:12]

In zazen, no matter what happens to your mind, your mudra stays quite good. And you build up a feeling of mind in your hands. And then you see if you can continue that feeling during the day. You don't have to work with any of these things. It's just up to you. I'm giving you a grab bag of practices. And you can take your choice or do nothing. Whatever makes you happy. But if you work with this phrase, take it seriously.

[39:16]

What is it? In the eyes it's called seeing, in the ears it's called hearing. What is it called in the eyebrows? What is it called? Somewhere where ordinary senses don't reach. Yeah. And, you know, for me a very important phrase which led me into this practice of this koan I just gave you was my Dharma ancestor, Dungsang, a story concerning him, where it was asked Somebody said, do you hear the teaching of insentient beings?

[40:19]

I don't hear it. And the teacher said, although you do not hear it, do not hinder that which hears it. So that's another enlightenment phrase you can work with. Although I do not hear it, I won't hinder that which hears it. Something else? In a way we've covered enough ground in the seminar so far.

[41:28]

That we could finish really this morning and this afternoon just by kind of having a discussion together. But probably I should present the next two. The fourth one you already know. Which is to change the ground of thinking. Now, that's just what I've been speaking about. To move your sense of continuity out of this double identity with your thinking into your senses, into your body, and into your body's relationship to phenomena.

[42:46]

Now, one of the things you do when you do this, and I gave you a number of things that happen when you do this, is you change your karma receptors. Karma is created and stored and attracted to the points at which you identify. So if your experience is being processed through a sense of identity, a narrative identity, it will be your narrative identity that will create your karma.

[44:02]

Everything that happens that you then store is stored in relationship to the identity point. If you change the identity point to your sense field, Then you begin to have karma and experiences that relate to your sense fields. And you will find you have a whole history in each sense field. But it's only accessible to you when you move the identity point into the sense field. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? I mean, everybody knows that. You'll go outside, and you'll notice a smell, and it's the smell of Boston or Munich or I don't know what.

[45:03]

On a rainy day, you know. Something like that. Hmm. And the way karma works, when it works through your sense fields and your body, is much more of a kind of purification process. And regular meditation in which for the first, usually a couple of years, you just let things come up. That's also a purification and restorage process. Because all of this stuff has been created primarily through your thinking mind, your consciousness.

[46:10]

And constantly there's a flow of various kinds of memory into consciousness. Mostly in the same categories they were before they came up. Usually with a little more baggage from their passage through consciousness. Now, if all these contents come up and they come into a non-discriminating awareness, if they come into the liquid of awareness instead of the liquid of consciousness, they are rearranged and then stored differently. So you actually are changing the way in which your story is known to you. So, yeah.

[47:40]

I have a question to this, what you said. So if you perceive the world more with the senses, for example, smell or sounds, then So for me, there is a great kind of thirst for life that I feel. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so to decide what to do then is not so easy. Have a glass of water. You mean you might get in trouble?

[48:44]

Oh, of course. Well, maybe you need to practice letting everything come up and not having to act on it. And you know, I don't want to bring up anything new at this point. But again, let me just say, most of the time we are in our thinking. And even when we meditate, most of the time we're in our thinking. So this is some of the relationships you can have to thinking. Now, you can just leave it alone. But you're leaving it alone in the mind of Zazen. That's different.

[49:55]

It's like you're getting it wet in a different way. It's in water instead of yogurt. Or you can start observing its patterns. And then you can also intercede in it. You can bring some wisdom thinking into the middle of your thinking. Okay, and the next is you can change the ground of the thinking by moving the karma receptors. And fifth, It can change the nature of thinking itself. One of the things Dogen talks about, is he says this expression, firewood is firewood, he takes from Nagarjuna.

[51:21]

If you have firewood and you burn it, you have ash. That's quite natural. But he says, don't think firewood is the past of ash. Because firewood is firewood and ash is ash. Firewood has its own stage of existence, which is independent from the stage of existence of ash. He says, don't think that ash returns to firewood. Like they say in chaos theory, you can't get the perfume back in the bottle. Unless the person wearing the perfume is a very good gardener. So Dogen says, don't think that death turns back into birth.

[52:42]

So each thing has its own stage of existence. Dogen and the Zen emphasis is really just fully be in that stage of existence. Now again, this sense of, when you first hear it, firewood is firewood and ash is ash, it's a little hard to understand. But my most common example of this is that pig is not the past of pork. Pork is a human history of meat eating applied to unwilling pigs. So why we eat meat It has nothing to do with pigs.

[53:48]

It has to do with our human habit of eating meat. There's the whole history of pork and meat eating. Yeah, and that's why we're on Fleischmarkt Street. We would have done the seminar somewhere else if we were discussing a different, you know, company. So, and pigs have their own past, present and future. And a forest has its own past, present and future. And this wood is not the forest. So, Dogen's emphasizing, be in each thing in its absolute independence.

[54:48]

Where each thing has its own past, present and future at this particular moment. This is a big shift of the state of mind. Attention is not running now toward the future or into your narration. Your attention is coming right here. Now, to change the nature of thinking, how do I express this? I spoke about it in, I think, the Johanneshof seminar in February or March or something. February. February, yeah. So since you were there, maybe you remember better than I, or would you just give the teaching on this point? I don't think so.

[55:49]

Oh, shucks. What did I say impermanence meant? In practical terms. It means that the main example I gave you was it means that each moment is unique. Unique and fleeting. So when I look at you and my thinking is based in impermanence, what I see is a constant, you know, to use language, something like a constant flashing.

[56:53]

So I see this moment, the expression, feeling of what's happening each moment in me. When I really just see this, the thinking is no problem because it doesn't go anywhere. It's just appearing. So you take the power out of the... You take the... Thinking isn't taking temporal energy and carrying it. I don't know how to explain what I mean. Let's just say that you see through thinking. Thinking becomes transparent. So when you do that, you've changed the nature of thinking. And it's very closely related also to the practice of seeing mind.

[58:10]

If I look at this, attention points to the bell. Okay, and three-dimensional habits have me project that as an exterior object. It is in fact an exterior object. There's no question about that. If I throw it at you, you'll know that way. Okay. But what my mind has done is create an image of the bell and then project it onto the bell. One of the things that interests me is if somebody throws a ball to you. Your mind does an immensely complicated, if you try to do it in mathematical terms, calculation of the art so that your hand comes up and picks it up.

[59:19]

And the mind is probably taking the projection and the information and calculating exactly where it will come to. To get a robot to do it would be probably beyond what any computer can do at present time. To have all equipment necessary to photograph the ball coming would be pretty difficult. It's up there with spacecraft. and have all kinds of unpredictabilities occur. And then your body just, without any effort, catches it. Okay.

[60:23]

So, for all those reasons, we project the image back onto the bell so we see the bell is here. Now, but the bell also points to the mind. So it points at the object and it points at the mind. Every act of seeing points at the mind. Every act of hearing points at the ears. or points at the mind, or the aural counterpart of sound. So fundamental practice is to be aware of your mind in every activity. So when I see you after all these years of practicing I'm more aware of your image in my mind than of you being out there. And that also changes my energy. And it makes my thinking transparent.

[61:24]

So then I can think, but my thinking is always being absorbed into my mind. And I know I'm working with how intensely I see you or draw or, you know, etc. And you can, it, it, you actually have to learn how to kind of put a little veil over that because it can be too much sometimes if you... And people get the wrong ideas sometimes. So that was my question. What kind of images does this kind of mind produce? If you're going to make an object, is it different than an everyday perception? You mean of the bell or you, you mean? Well, if you're going to make a bell, for example, and you are aware of this attitude towards the exterior image.

[62:55]

If I'm a bell maker, you mean. Yeah. What's that bell going to look like? That was my question. From the external imagery that that kind of consciousness is. Yeah. OK. George? No, it's just the question of how, when you master this mind, this abstraction, that you see what you see internally, then it seems, if I understand this correctly, or if I have a certain distance, to know what an object would look like if it produced such a consciousness. This sense of craft is, you know, I can only surmise. Surmise? Surmise means to guess, yeah.

[63:57]

I can think it through only from my own point of view, it means. But I do know something about, in fact, not a small amount, about the craft tradition in Japan that's very related to Buddhism. And I know there's a difference. You know, you see these bells around a lot in stores for 25 dollars. But this one cost about 125 or 175 dollars. And the difference is, and this is signed, The difference is, the craftsman who makes this works with a feeling of how he wants it to affect people. So each bell for such a person will be slightly different. So he will... have a feeling of how he wants it to sound.

[65:26]

And how he wants it to sound in people. And he wants it to have several different sounds depending on how you hit it. How do you turn a piece of metal into that? He has to keep holding this feeling while he's working and let something very subtle tell him what to do. Like I knew a cook who was considered one of the best chefs in America. And he would create an image every night he made a new dish. He didn't repeat himself. And he'd create an image of how it would look on the plate. And how people would feel eating it.

[66:29]

And then he would cook toward that image. So I think this bell is made by a person working toward the sound. And so in that kind of way you use You know, I said enough, right? So it's time, at least time for a break. So let's sit just for a few minutes so we can hear the bell. If you listen to the bell, you'll see it has quite a complex sound. And it has an interesting irregularity. It starts and then stops abruptly and then it starts up again and sings. So these are practices just for you and for your own joy to make use of them when you want.

[69:06]

And trust your feeling in approaching these practices and in opening yourself to the alignment of the world And the attunement we can feel with the world. And how all of this together makes us feel nourished. And on each moment completes us. Firewood or ash. So why don't we come back at 10 to 12?

[71:48]

Now would you like to have a... Tell me, would you like to end this afternoon? Does anyone have to leave early? Okay. Shall we go to 5 or 4.30 or... Five? Okay. So shall we start lunch a little early, like 12.30? Or shall we start at 1? Well, let's play it by ear after the break. Okay, so I see you at 10 to 12. Thank you. Often in seminars I ask people to get in smaller groups and discuss something.

[72:55]

But we're a rather small group and so this is our small group. And we don't have so much time to do things, but I again appreciate the discussion we've been having and anybody else wants to bring something up. Yes. Yes. Interfering and non-interfering mind, or practice. There is still confusion in me concerning interfering and not interfering practice. For example, if I don't do anything, I have the feeling my mind stays in a certain level.

[74:10]

It's just a bit muddy and I would not reach anywhere else if I just didn't interfere. In general, I feel that it is also quite good to use methods that I know of in Theravada Buddhism or Tibetan Buddhism, where you do something, where you either visualize or try to hold on to a certain state. Whether this now contradicts the other method that only observes. I also find it useful to use methods which I got from Theravadan Buddhism or from Tibetan Buddhism. For example, visualizing something or trying to stay at a certain point or at a certain stage. Is it a contradiction to the non-interfering? Yes, it's a good question.

[75:11]

First of all, since almost everyone has some mixture of practices. A melange. And so I think it's fine to use what, if you have some thing you've developed from Theravadan or Tibetan Buddhism, it's fine to use it in your Zen practice. But the still, the bigger, if that's used within the bigger thing of going back to this state, uncorrected mind. So how can I express this? First I have to be able to get up.

[76:15]

You all understand this more or less, I guess. It's just ways to relate to your thinking. There's already present. there's already present a certain kind of dynamic and things come up and you don't interfere with them but you return to a state of mind there's a tendency to return to a state of mind where things don't come up

[77:35]

In other words, if you give energy to what comes up, then mind tends to go toward where you give it energy. But it's a little like if you have some guests in your house and you don't tell them to leave. Du sagst ihnen nicht, dass sie gehen sollen. But you don't offer them tea or coffee or anything either. Aber du bietest ihnen auch keinen Tee oder Kaffee oder irgendetwas sonst an. And you definitely don't offer them a bed. Und ganz sicher bietest du ihnen nicht an, hier zu übernachten. After a while they'll leave. Most guests will leave. Die meisten Gäste werden nach einer gewissen Zeit doch gehen. We have an expression in English, here's your hat and what's your hurry? Wir haben einen Ausspruch im Englischen, hier ist dein Hut und was ist die Eile? Do you have something like that in German?

[78:39]

No. You know, you say to somebody, here's your hat, and what's your hurry? Here's the hat, and what's the hurry? I like that expression in German. Something about a hat? No bigger than this? Yeah. So groß mit Hut. Yeah. So groß mit Hut. Mit Hut. How does it translate? That big with hat. Oh, he's that big with his hat. No, I think that's very funny. Oh, gross me toot. All right. Um... Yeah. So if you don't invite your thoughts to tea, there's a tendency for the guests to leave, the thoughts to leave.

[79:43]

So guests come up, but you leave them alone. And so there's a tendency to keep returning to the empty house. But sometimes, and you just trust what happens, you follow the guests. Not only do you ask them to tea, you ask them to go out to an Italian pizzeria. When you do that, you observe. And then if you want, you can bring some intention in. These are not strict rules. You have to do really what you want. So you can decide, I'd like to know where these guests came from.

[80:46]

They weren't here, and then suddenly they were at the door. But you can actually develop the skill to say when they actually first appeared in your mind as a feeling or mood or... But you can really develop that you discover when they first appeared in your mind, maybe as feelings or thoughts. That's the pattern of studying. And if you find some blockage in your obstruction, then you work with interceding in you. It's a kind of craft you have to learn. Now, I don't say that... And uncorrected mind is the only instruction. I just say it's the main posture of the mind. Now, we can understand Zazen as a spa. And a laboratory. A spa. A spa, a laboratory, a hospital.

[82:08]

A madhouse. A retort. A retort. What is a retort? A retort is a chemical thing, not when you answer someone back. It's a chemical thing in which you, like a cauldron, cook something in chemistry. So sometimes you do zazen just because it feels good. In that sense, it's a spa. You just feel better if you sit. It's like a cosmic shower on a hot day. I'm getting a little new age here. And sometimes it's a laboratory for the inner science of studying the mind.

[83:14]

And sometimes it's a hospital. You notice how you get sick, how the flu happens. If you're working on some serious illness, you can work on the illness. Du bemerkst, wie du krank wirst, wie eine Grippe aufsteigt und wenn du wirklich krank bist, dann kannst du mit dieser Krankheit arbeiten. And you bring a little different intention in each of these or you're noticing something different happening. Und du bringst eine unterschiedliche Intention in jeden dieser Bereiche hinein oder du bemerkst einfach, wie etwas Unterschiedliches passiert. So here you work on your mental and physical health. Und hier arbeitet man an seinem geistigen und körperlichen Wohlbefinden oder Gesundheit. And here you allow your weakness to come up. And your anger and your craziness or whatever. And you learn to dissolve the boundaries between unconscious and conscious. And then the retort is, it's a real, sometimes it's a fiery place where you burn away some of your karma, where you

[84:27]

sit in very painful states of, you know, during long periods of meditation, etc. Sometimes it's just a field where you can relax. And this is more like the field of mind. So I would say those are the six main areas I can think of that actually come up when you practice. Does that make sense more or less? And in fact, we do do that. We kind of study our health or we study how our mind works. Okay. Now, I would say that, again, I'm going to respond to your question. that there are two dynamics to Sazen practice.

[85:41]

One is there's a gradient. The gradient is like the slope, the water. The gradient determines how fast water flows. And there's calm crescents. which means growing, means gathering in, and growing together. So these are two built-in dynamics to mind. There's a kind of gradient as there is for water. And in zazen, there's a tendency of the mind to move toward greater stillness. Greater concentration, greater clarity, and more inclusivity. So if you tend to get stuck at some level, you keep trying to allow this gradient to move toward more silence.

[86:45]

Do you understand? And that's partly an answer to your question. You don't want to concentrate in such a way you interfere with this gradient. That kind of makes sense as a dynamic within your practice? Does it make sense for you as a dynamic within the practice? The second one, gathering and growing. I don't know what it is. I thought I'd wait for a little.

[87:49]

I want to ask if it isn't an example of interfering mind if I don't let things come up. If you don't let things... I don't, yes. Yeah, that's interfering. Yes. If you... German, Deutsch? Yes. But if you let things come up if you don't let things come up then just observe that you do that and observe what happens when you do that. There are basically no rules beyond becoming more aware. So if you want to study what happens when you don't let things come up Then observe that. Then you punch somebody, you know. I haven't been letting things come up for a week, you know. I don't know why I hit you.

[88:51]

Something else? Yeah. I have a question concerning the relationship of practice and about the, yeah, about the connectedness to teaching and to group, to peers. Do you want to? I want you to translate this for me. Could you translate what she just said?

[89:52]

What she just said? It's a question to practice about the relationship of student and teacher and to the group of people practicing together, as I understand. You're asking should you practice with others or should you practice with a teacher? It's very important to practice with others. I would suggest anyone who's serious about their practice, they find some way to practice once a week or something with others. And if possible, you have some relationship with a teacher. A teacher has to be a known potential. A teacher gives you some feeling of practice.

[91:15]

And that gives one confidence in one's own practice. But what really teaches us is the relationship between the disciple and the teacher, or the practitioner and the teacher. And the relationship is primarily one in which, you know, you do sesshins together or you have doksan together or meetings together. It seldom includes social contact, although it may when you've been practicing together quite a while. And the kind of feeling that's generated between the two people is actually what the teacher is. So the teacher is a mutual effort of two people. And there's a gradient in the relationship.

[92:31]

In other words, at first the gradient is this way, and eventually the gradient gets more a peer relationship, and if the student's good, it gets this way.

[92:40]

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