Of course I would like to hear anything that you found interesting or confusing because I'm trying to find out what I'm doing and I need your help. And maybe somebody hasn't said anything yet. Good. Thanks for being so brave. You helped me. I just want to tell that I, from my perspective, yes, it is the more I think about something, and I hear that from you here as well, that helps me to see it again in that direction.

[01:01]

The more I think about something, in the beginning it's totally detailed and complex, More and more, I think about the most important things. I hear from your side, even if I have nothing to do with Buddhism or meditation, if I come from that direction, I see that we are connected. I would like it. It'd be good if you said what you said in German, in Deutsch, but also it'd be nice if people spoke first in Deutsch, because then I can feel what you say, even if I don't understand. Well, for me it would be good, so what you said, what you said, it would be good if you could also say it in German. And if we speak to each other, it would be good if you speak German first, then I can feel or get a feeling for what you say, even if I don't even know what you're actually saying.

[02:08]

Okay. Well, I think it's very interesting. From my perspective, I have never had anything to do with meditation or Buddhism. I look at it from a completely different point of view. I make the experience, no matter what I wear and look at it now, at first it is terribly complex and detailed. Okay. Okay. Well, I try actually to say a little.

[03:10]

I don't try to be complex, that's for sure, or complicated. But I try to offer too many simple new things to absorb at once. Not hard to understand, but new things take a little while to get familiar with, as you just said. But my feeling is, and it happens to me, is If they are understandable, but there's too many at once, they're like time-delayed capsules. Time-released.

[04:13]

Then they release it some other time. Oh yeah, that. Oh no, I see what that is. Okay, someone else? Yes. Hi. Start in German. He always starts with hi, so I'm . I'll start in English, because that's . Perhaps you could join up some dots of things that you mentioned. One was sort of what you said about yoga culture, meaning sort of trusting or experiencing . The other was sort of moment to moment awareness, acute awareness. And the third was psychedelics and tripping.

[05:15]

And my question is as follows. When I sit in meditation and my awareness, it sort of drops in the body. It goes somewhere else. And it gets quite trippy, quite easy. With or without psychedelics? Well, you know. Or maybe that's because of it. But what I'm wondering is, can you maybe... Say something specific about how you approach going into your body in meditation to get to that point of moment to train that process. Oh my goodness. Okay. I can try. Do it. Yes, so it's about three individual topics. One was the topic of the yogic culture, that is, that one warms through the body rather than through the spirit.

[06:26]

The second was this sharp attention from moment to moment, which is not in the chest, but somewhere else. And the third was the topic of psychedelics, which had a significant warming effect. And my question was about how to do that exactly. If I meditate myself, When I sink into my body, I sink my perception deep into my body. It's a feeling, a reality. And it becomes very psychedelic very quickly. But I just wanted to know, that's the place where my perception is from moment to moment. And for me, perception through the body. But I just wanted Come back next week, won't I? when I'm here for a month.

[07:49]

Okay. But I would like to respond to what you said, but I'd also like to have some more comments from others before I start responding. Focus. I am looking for a clearer view on what I understand to be activity and what I understand to be change. Or maybe better put, of course, what I can experience as. For example, the barrel or the platform.

[08:52]

So activity, is that just the attributed function? Or is it like the inner makings of it, like the molecules and the physical properties of it? Is that called activity? Sure. It's all relationship. It's all interdependence. And that interdependence is a kind of activity. But we're not trying to speak the truth. We're trying to speak directions. So the word activity is to give us a direction away from entities. It doesn't exactly mean everything is an activity, but it's contrast to entity.

[10:22]

So it's a way to get yourself away from thinking in entities. Also ist es da, um dir zu helfen, davon wegzukommen, in Entitäten oder festen Dingen zu denken. And then, when you're not thinking in entities, you notice all kinds of aspects of things which you wouldn't have noticed before. And you're noticing is Also a form of activity. Like, we wouldn't need the word change if we didn't believe things didn't change.

[11:25]

The word change exists just because we happen to usually think things don't change or we don't want them to change. And the word change wouldn't exist and we'd have words like pace or proportion or things like that. And then there wouldn't be this word change. What would it be? We would have words like tempo or proportions or something like that. I think it's mainly about the perspective and not necessarily primarily about the experience or the perception, the perception of it. I think it's primarily about the view and maybe not so much about the perception of it. Okay. My turtleneck.

[12:30]

Yes. I started in Dutch, but then I started in English. I have come more and more to be inside the last couple of years that for me meditation is more attitude than separate activity. Because I feel that, for example, when I'm in a difficult situation with a person, they could go into a conflict, for example. Or in a situation which creates fear or whatever emotion. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. Thanks. then I'm still learning.

[13:55]

I'm still learning to be aware, as closely as possible to be aware of what I'm doing, what I'm feeling in my body, and then take distance, let's say, and that is meditation in action, I would say. Okay. I said when I feel what is happening to myself, also in my body, then it's easier to take a little distance. Okay. Okay. So you two already connected colleagues here. I'll try to respond to both of you once in a few moments. Okay. Yes.

[15:11]

Hi. I'm here for the first time. I'm here for the first time, too. And so I'm grateful for your invitation to say what's confusing. Okay, please. This event has become a topic. This is a topic that is very uncomfortable for me, because many Zenis do not want to have anything to do with psychotherapy. For me, the question is now, what has been said about it, or is it the speciality of a Zen practitioner? Which is that this event had a title, which is actually, that was the subtitle, what you just said. It was Weaving Your Personal Narrative, and then it said Zen and Psychotherapy, right?

[16:14]

And so now I'm wondering, what have we said about that? Or is that the specialty? And I thought that was an interesting combination, Zen and psychotherapy. And what have we talked about that? Or is that maybe the specialty of your particular way of practicing Zen? You can have your money back. Thank you. Or a rain check. Do you have rain checks in Germany? I don't know what that is. When a baseball game is rained out, they give you a rain check and you go to the next baseball game for free. Yeah. Well, it's basically a problem of one day. Morning and afternoon.

[17:20]

Because I'm not speaking, you know, I don't have, I haven't written out a text before I came and now I'm speaking from memory. Where I could cover a lot of topics. But what I do is I try to, I have several possibilities that are kind of like little energy centers that I'm feeling. And then I try to feel if there's resonance enough in the room for me to speak about that. And then when I decide there is enough or could be enough of resonance, I have to build a kind of platform first.

[18:30]

So when I do speak about it, it's understandable. And she thinks about these things a lot more than I do, many of them. And she's a Train the psychologist so maybe you can just respond to it. Nicole thinks about many of these things more than I do. Maybe you can answer that. I can actually say something about it. Ich habe mir heute Morgen tatsächlich die Frage gestellt, was ist denn der Unterschied zwischen meiner Erfahrung von Zen-Praxis und meiner Erfahrung von Therapie?

[19:47]

Ist hier irgendjemand, der nur Englisch spricht, oder kann ich einfach auf Deutsch? Ach ja, das ist richtig. I'm happy not to understand. So I'm wondering... I've been not understanding for years. Is there anyone else who only speaks English? Just go in German. Yeah, but I need to know if there's anyone... No, don't worry about it. Just go in German. Okay, fine. Okay, also... I asked myself the question this morning, what is it like when you really start from scratch? What do you try in psychotherapy, which doesn't even exist as a single direction this year? There are the most diverse schools that have the most diverse approaches and tools and directions, so there is no such thing as therapy.

[20:49]

But maybe we can say that psychology and psychotherapy is a phenomenon that has developed in Western culture. The form of therapy that we first know. And in that respect, as far as I know, if anyone wants to disagree with me, I'd be happy to, but from what I've seen so far, I would say that most therapeutic directions, in principle, within Western cultural ideas, so very basic assumptions, a few of which we have discussed today, For example, a basic assumption that we are separated from each other. Or that space is something that separates us from each other. That was an example for a cultural point of view. And if I now simply, just like what Jadis said earlier, what is perhaps a meaningful contrast in which you could feel yourself,

[21:55]

between a Zen practice and a therapeutic question or a therapeutic direction, where there is a contrast that somehow makes sense, that you can explore well. What I find there for me is a good therapy. So if I want a therapy for myself, ask myself what I actually want, then I would say then I wish for something that helps me to find a physical-spiritual integration. and to explore my idea of spiritual and perhaps even in the figurative sense of physical health. I would be able to search for this from therapy and I would then wish to find a way to an ethical life. So to find a way, when I notice that sometimes I experience my actions as unethical or not as my own, with my own conscience, not in harmony, then I would now wish that therapy can help me to live so that I can live with my own conscience.

[23:14]

live in harmony. These are the basic impulses where I would look for answers in therapy. If I now look at what the Zen practice does, which I have not yet found in therapy so far, then I see two perspectives and experiences. One is a basic assumption that Buddhism has, namely that the phenomena are empty. This is a basic assumption, this concept of emptiness that we encounter in Buddhism. What does that mean exactly? Well, he can talk about it again now. But in principle, a basic assumption that the phenomena, everything that exists, is empty of its own being. is a reference to what he just mentioned, to mutual conditioning, to mutual dependence.

[24:20]

And this understanding in one's own experience can be an experience of non-duality, the feeling of not being separated, and not just connected. This is something that I can well imagine from my paradigms. I am connected to you and now I am connecting with you. The concept of non-duality is, I am not separated from you. And that's another exception. And these two, these two tracks somehow, to bring that into your own life, that's something that I find in the Zen practice. and what I believe goes beyond the Western approaches to therapy. The concept of emptiness and then the question how and also the craftsmanship. How do I bring this concept, this teaching of emptiness How does this unfold in my experience? How is it perhaps already present in my experience? And how do I live it then? What kind of life and what kind of path does it lead to if I live out of an understanding of emptiness?

[25:25]

And the same with non-duality. What kind of path and what kind of life does it lead to if I live out of a basic experience of non-duality? Just as a keyword. No one applaud for me. It's OK. The younger generation. Yeah. So what I've been trying to do is give you permission to recognize that there's other possibilities of aliveness and beingness than are available to consciousness.

[26:33]

And you know, I can only say so much in such a short time, so I'm basically kind of giving you permission to explore this for yourself. That's what I hope to do. And the permission also is that you can see that I'm still alive and surviving and functioning sort of, so it can't be all bad. And the topic of Zen and psychoanalysis and Buddhism and psychoanalysis is you can make simple distinctions like one tries to work with what happened in the past and one tries to work with being present in the future in a very particular way.

[28:01]

You mean specifically analysis or therapy? Therapy. Und diese Unterscheidung zwischen Zen und Psychotherapie, da kann man vielleicht ganz allgemeine Aussagen treffen, so einfache Unterscheidungskriterien finden, wie zum Beispiel, dass das eine versucht zu schauen, was in der Gegenwart los ist, während das andere eben auch Ursachen in der Vergangenheit mit einbezieht oder so. But over the last 50 years, Zen and psychoanalysis have influenced each other a lot So it's much, much the picture of what therapy is now is not, doesn't fall into such simple categories. Yeah, but if you're a cook, you can talk to other cooks about how you make certain sauces But if they're not a cook, you don't know what's being talked about.

[29:19]

So there's some things I can't talk about here unless I have a very initiated group of people. Insofern gibt es auch einige Dinge, über die ich auch gar nicht sprechen kann, es sei denn, ich habe eine sehr bereits initiierte oder langjährig dabei seiende Gruppe von Leuten. But let me speak about what my two colleagues here brought up. Yeah. I don't know if I can talk, speak about it in a way that reaches what you've asked, but let's see. at least touches what you asked, if not reaches.

[30:37]

What you brought up. Okay. One of the things that still sitting meditation does, is through the movement toward stillness, or through the increasing stillness, your stream of narrative consciousness, you're no longer fully in the stream of narrative consciousness. And so the, what could I say also, the performative continuity of consciousness is, you're not within that performative stream.

[32:03]

I only said the performative continuity of consciousness. Because basically you're performing your own narrative. And meditation releases you. Still sitting absorption releases you from that performative activity. And you begin to notice things differently. Noticing is a form of knowing.

[33:38]

Das Bemerkten ist eine Form des Wissens oder des Erkennens. And as I say now and then, I spell noticing with a K, so it's connoticing. K-N-O-W-T-I-C-H. Aliveness is a form of noticing. And the more fully you're alive, in the sense of the more of your attentional stream and attentional field has depth and articulation, sensitivity. Je vollständiger du lebendig bist, in dem Sinne, dass je mehr dein Aufmerksamkeitsstrom eine Tiefe und eine Feinfühligkeit, eine Sensibilität, eine Empfindsamkeit entwickelt hat.

[34:44]

You notice more things, which is also a connoting. desto mehr Dinge bemerkst du, und das ist gleichzeitig auch ein erkennendes Bemerken. There is no way to notice without being kind of knowing, but the degree to which it's a kind of knowing can be enhanced by practice. Es gibt kein Bemerken, ohne dass du es nicht gleichzeitig, dass da nicht auch gleichzeitig irgendeine Form des Erkennens dabei ist, aber das Ausmaß, zu dem du das, was du bemerkst, Now, while I'm in this bathysphere, Or the expression. It's like one of those reverse smileys. Yes, that's true. Bathysphere is those things they let down into the depths to... Oh, that again, the tauchglocke, the diving down.

[35:47]

Yeah, right. Okay. Also, wenn ich in so einer Tauchglocke bin, So you've been dropped down in this diving bell underneath consciousness. And you can see that you don't have to swim in consciousness. You can just float in this bigger space. Und du kannst sehen, dass du nicht im Bewusstsein schwimmen musst, sondern dass du einfach in diesem größeren Raum schweben oder fließen kannst, dich treiben lassen kannst. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course, but because sometimes there's more information in metaphors than words. Ich spreche hier natürlich in Metaphern, aber manchmal in Metaphern stecken da mehr Informationen drin als in Worten.

[36:48]

And so you're floating in this and you can say, hmm, it's wonderful. I can even breathe down here. And you can look up. I don't know why up or down, but anyway, look up, let's say, and you can see the narrative stream going along and you think, jeez, I don't want to be part of that all the time. And then you can look up. I don't know exactly why you think it's up there. No, as soon as you go to the surface, you need continuity, and consciousness is going to give you this kind of consciousness, the kind of continuity that consciousness was. So then you can say, guess I'll go up to the surface when I've established a different kind of continuity.

[37:49]

And the most worldwide, all religions, ancient cultures, way of establishing the sacred spirit or even a name for God is the breath. And worldwide, in all cultures, religions, how the holy, let's say, the holy is created, whether it is now the achievement of God or whatever, in all traditions, you find that it works towards it, that it is focused on it, over the breath. Yeah. So you can say, okay, now I'm going to establish continuity in the breath. I'm breathing down here in the breathing sphere. I mean the bath is real.

[39:07]

Yeah, so I'm going to swim to the surface on the braided rope of breath. But breath could use a little help. Sometimes breath gets kind of weak and frays and stuff. I want to give continuity a little help. And the other, particularly in a yoga culture, most powerful way to establish continuity is in the spine. So what I do in every meditation, or even right now, I lift up from the cossacks through the lumbar area to the atlas and what's it called?

[40:33]

Axis vertebrae. And to really locate breath in the activity of the body, I create the feel of breath, which we can call vital breath and not actual air. Right. feel of breath.

[41:38]

So I extend the oval of breathing to be now a feeling of an oval that's going up my spine. So while I'm speaking to you now and feeling breath in the speaking and in the pace of the breath related to what I'm saying and the feel in the room, And while I speak to you now and feel the breath, the pace of the steps, the rhythm of the breath in relation to the feeling in the room and the spine.

[42:40]

I simultaneously feel the aliveness of the spine all the way up through, even though it's not passing through the head, to the top of this chakra. Now, then I establish, what my practice is, is to establish certain body points. And I think they can be whatever works for you. But for me it's the three points of the spine, the base, the middle and the top. So those are three points I always have attention resting in.

[43:45]

Three areas. And then I have attention here. Then I bring attention to my two feet and my two hands. And I feel them as fields of presence. And that's what all the mudras about and all those statues with hands like this. And Asian rock and roll singers don't move their hips so much. They're already moving their hands because they heal this space as alive.

[44:46]

And that's what it's all about in all these courage and hand movements, like, for example, Asian rock musicians don't move their hips that much, but they do hand gestures, courageous gestures with their hands because they feel the room as alive. And then I bring attention to the middle of the chest, the heart. And if you look at these statues again, they often, very often, have the fingertips there with a finger distance from the heart. Usually it's always on the left side. And, for example, also in Asian statues, if you look at them, they often have their fingers about here, about one finger away from the heart. You measure the body with the body. And they're holding a seed.

[45:48]

Then they hold, for example, a seed. And the seed turns into a stem which winds around the arm and turns into a lotus flower. And the robes don't just hang on the body like spandex. The robes are flowing in a spherical space. Because that's also the body. So a statue which makes you feel that by looking at it, it's called a yidam because you can internalize it and embody it. So that now when I swim to the surface, I can swim along consciousness and do my thing.

[46:51]

And at the same time, I feel the spine moving in the water and the other body points moving in the water, and I'm really swimming in a spatial field. Sounds corny, I know, new age, but, you know, I just can't tell you what I feel. And at the same time, I feel how the spine slides through the water. And I feel the other body parts that also slide around in the water. And I know that sounds a little cheesy or new-agey or something, but that's how I experience it. I call new age newage. Anyway... So this is all meant to be, it's all part of this yogic culture where the body knows more than the mind. Okay, now for our Dutch colleague. What is your first name? Martin. Martin and Martine, okay, okay.

[48:23]

But neither of you are Marty. Yes, the more, at least from my perspective, you develop this sense of being present throughout the body and in the sphere of space that the body is generating, the presence, Also, ja, meine Erfahrung ist, je mehr du dieses Gefühl entwickelst, im Körper gegenwärtig präsent zu sein und auch in der Sphäre des Körpers, den Raum, der den Körper umliegt, and the more that's anchored in an imperturbable equilibrium, und je mehr das in einer And that is also your view, your attitude, the word you use.

[49:45]

Some version of that, somewhere in the spectrum of that, we can call meditation in action. Das können wir Meditation in Action nennen. But what I've discovered is I... It does this... Let's call it Meditation in Action. It's off the Trungpa Rinpoche's book. Nennen wir das mal Meditation in Action. Das ist auch der Titel von Trungpa Rinpoche's Buch. It does call forth the subtlety of the world. Das... And your thinking becomes a flow of intuitions and insights, not necessarily linear thinking.

[50:48]

Still, I find anyway, the immersion in the metasphere, the bathysphere, where I'm functioning in a really quite more and more a different realm than usual activity. There's a connowing and connoticing that is awakened through the stillness of the body itself, which I don't find happens as fully in meditation and action.

[51:54]

Now I'm speaking in the categories we've established today, but you know, I hope this makes some sense. And Brother David's friend back there wanted us to just meditate. And I'd like to do that. But I felt I should throw some seeds into the bathysphere. But we can all meditate together in different locations tomorrow. So are we getting toward it's almost five. How can I be so timely? Anything else we should talk about?

[53:43]

What? It's a consequence of meditating. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, let me hit the bell. I like to hear the bell. And we can pretend to meditate. And pretense is almost the same as doing it. And we can pretend that we are meditating. To pretend is almost the same as to click. Is your spine meditating?

[55:24]

Can your spine be full of intention, still attention? Can you feel your breath in your spine? Or along your spine? Can you feel yourself dissolve into it? Gives love, dissolves into this almost nothing but space.

[56:46]

Wait, but not thinking.

[57:21]

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