I wonder if maybe we should be sitting sometimes in a circle with this being part of the circle. Of course, there's no way that this formation doesn't direct the energy in this direction. But it also allows me to direct the energy. Yeah. And one of the things that is characteristic of a contextual world.

[01:02]

In other words, if we, you know, as in environmentalism now and then deep ecology and so forth, accept a world, basically a world with no outside, But when a culture has been practicing a no outside for centuries, I forget the word when a area has developed its maximal potential in growth, plant growth, etc. Anyway, all the possible niches get filled with insects and plants and plants affecting it, etc.,

[02:17]

maximal growth he's called anyway um we're looking at a yogic culture which is at its maximal growth in a way and we're at an early stage i will uh And what I'm assuming here is that our two cultures of West and East mostly developed from independent assumptions about the world. And now, with some resistance, they're both developing interrelationships.

[03:39]

But when you have a contextual culture, And words then become, they're not stuck to entities, they're contextual. And as the context changes, often the words float into the new context, if it's a related context. So I can speak about this as space. But I can also speak about space as energy.

[04:52]

So, in other words, because I feel the space is a kind of energy, the word space gets carried over to energy, energy gets carried over to space. Now, what I'm saying here is I really probably should have waited until tomorrow. Because I think, as most of you know, the concept of the ālaya-vijñāna and my entry to it, calling it gestational time, It's probably all in all the singular most important. significant concept in relationship to Constellation Therapy?

[06:17]

No, I know that while a quarter of a century ago our discussion started starring constellation therapy, then called sculpting, Now there's a more complex therapeutic landscape and that complexity is also present here. But But the concept of the Alaya Vishnayana is, I would think, for practitioners also indissolubly useful.

[07:40]

This is... I'm just fooling around. I mean, I'm testing your translation. It's such an essential part, you can't dissolve it out. But even the concept of sculpting is a concept that space has attributes. That you can do something with space.

[08:42]

And again, in this culture which assumes it's all inside, and all is activity, then space itself is an activity. It's not a void or a container. I think it was the philosopher you mentioned the other day, Blaise Pascal, who who denied that nature abhors a vacuum. Blaise Pascal denied. Aristotle said nature abhors a vacuum, but Blaise Pascal, in other sense, had said, no, vacuums are possible.

[09:48]

He's an engineer. He knows these things. He doesn't like emptiness. So what I'm speaking about here, I'm using Ma, the concept of Ma. We talked about it quite a bit in practice period. And I talked about it here as well. Yeah, but not the same way I will talk about it today. So Ma is the kanji, a character for Ma. is a gate with the moon shining through it.

[10:58]

That's funny, you know, if you make a kanji, if you write it, unavoidably you feel the kind of roof, the walls, the sides of the gate, the moon, you feel the moon in the space, and your hand conveys some of that. then you can feel with your hand the roof, the side walls, the moon that shines through this gate, and it is inevitable that the hand feels something of it. Yeah, but you just can't do that on a keyboard. But I suppose since we seek articulation, maybe we'll find other ways using a keyboard to articulate our mind and body.

[12:13]

Yes. So some of these things I'm speaking about are part of the dynamic of the alaya-vijnana, which I want to speak about. Okay, so generally the word ma is translated as interval. Or is spoken about as the possibilities of experiencing and articulating in-betweenness. But if you feel that, well, so one of the attributes of space

[13:23]

It connects. Space connects. It's also that space separates. And space also divides. And space can also be layered. Now you can look at this as the behavior of people. But I can behave in relationship to this vajra. throw it to Paul so he could catch it or throw it to Paul so he couldn't catch it, either way. So this has some attributes which are independent of my behavior.

[14:43]

So space also has attributes, possibilities that are independent of my behavior. but they can affect and effect the way I behave. So if it's assumed that every connection establishes or separates or divides a space, Every connection can... Every connection... Every space can be a connecting space, a separating space, or a dividing space.

[15:54]

Divided space. So... I mean, it's useful to experiment with this. One of the most simple experiments you can do is social space. And as you know, in Japan you can get close enough to smell people or feel their bodily warmth. In Germany you don't want to get that close. Usually. You want a deodorant and all kinds of things to protect yourself. Tell me again your name. Lowly Love? Lilo.

[17:13]

Yesterday I felt permission after she was sitting next to me caressing her tummy which has future generations in it too. I felt permission to gently touch her tummy myself Thank you very much. In Japan, you can do that to a strange woman that you don't know. I mean, you just can't imagine doing it. 9-11, kids. You call the police. I've done it. I've walked into an elevator and a nice young person's there. Oh, you're having a baby, yes.

[18:15]

Oh, fine. So explore how close you can get to another person and talk to them. without them falling in love with you or you know something disastrous happening. So if every connection establishes a space Or rather, through every connection, a space is established. You want to establish a connecting space, a wholesome space, a generous space. You said connecting genders and the third one?

[19:48]

Because part of sila, I mentioned sila early in the seminar, as the word for discipline. That's one translation, but a translation of greater depth is harmony or enhancing wholesomeness. Because from a Buddhist point of view, the point of having discipline, developing and an intentional order of mind. Sorry, I didn't get it.

[20:56]

If the point of discipline is basically to structure the mind so it can hold attention and intention. Yes. then the ultimate purpose of that really isn't violence or hatred or something. The ultimate purpose of that is wholesomeness or to enhance or encourage or harm it. Okay. So that if... Say Paul comes to visit me. Upstairs in my little apartment in Johannesburg. I assume a space is created by your coming to visit.

[22:00]

And I want to acknowledge that space. So when you come in, I usually would bow to you. And when you leave, you go down the stairs and I stand at the top of the stairs and we bow to each other. So I developed this habit in Japan. Because you stay attentive to the person until they disappear from sight. And so often I find myself waiting. Somebody's disappeared into the crowd in the front of the plaza in Vienna.

[23:04]

There was a Japanese person. They would finally turn back and wave. Just as they disappeared down the subway. Yep. Western people don't do that, usually. But I stand there five minutes or four minutes in the person. But I don't feel lonely. So if, you know, I'm going into more detail with this probably than is useful or interesting.

[24:17]

But it's all in the details, as they say, so here I go. And what I've illustrated before for you is that Let's say that I do, Paul does come to visit me and I greet him. My assumption is that I'm space and he's also space. And in the no plays, N-O-H, it's spelled N-O-H, no plays. And in the no theater, In the Ze Ami, who is the codifier and creator of the craft of Noh, primarily. Ze Ami. Ze Ami, who developed the Noh theater, the structures for it.

[25:25]

As I mentioned the other day, Q comes from quandary, quand, wind, and Shakespeare used to say Q, meaning wind, now you can go on stage. Yeah. Well, I get about a third of it. Q is the first letter of quant. Quant. Yeah, quant base when. Yes, okay, so quant is the Latin word for when, and that's the first letter, that's the Q, and that's why Shakespeare used Q as, so to speak, Q is the trigger in theatre, when you get on stage, or when the next thing happens, that's your Q to do something, Now you can go on stage.

[26:28]

I just explained. So this... This Ratsu that Sukhavashi gave me is a cue for me to practice Buddhism. And how I cue myself with it is I put it on top of my head or touch my... and then that's obvious, a kind of chakra kundalini type action. So the cue then goes on, I touch the starting point, so a chakra, a connection to Kundalini or the stars. So it's a kind of spatial gate to a layering of space. In the Oriyoki practice, the first bowl is called the skull bowl or Buddha bowl.

[27:47]

So it has no base, just like the top of his skull. So it represents a layering of space. This is the space of the ordinary walls and eating of the tree. You heal yourself to always bow before you pick up the other, what we represent through the skull. The outside just looks like a ritualized behavior. But it's no more ritualized behavior than actually taking, when you're in a certain state of mind, taking a few deep, slow breaths to change your state of mind.

[29:13]

That's a kind of nourishment. So if I have this and then I put it on, I feel myself doing something nourishing because I'm creating a layer of space that's more concentrated and nourishing. So it was a little custom of having the Buddha bowl with no base, which means you have to handle it differently because you can't set it down easily.

[30:15]

opens you into the space of that Buddha also ate. And he's now gone, but now I have his skull. I could imagine my daughter saying, I don't want to eat out of Buddha's skull. This is creepy. For us, it's kind of great. Another presence, another space layered in the midst of ordinary people.

[31:27]

Okay, so if I do... I didn't want to meet with Paul. I didn't decide that I see you, so I doubt you. So what is the basic... Sorry, that's a W. I've shown this to you before. But there's a kind of spongy material between the hands, like healing oil. And you bring that together and then you bring it up through your chakras. And paralleling the channels along the spine.

[32:58]

And right to the heart chakra. Same place people in China hold a tea bowl, a tea cup. And bring it up to here. Then you move it into a kind of social space. And if he does it at the same time, he moves into a social space too. And then you disappear into the shared new chakra space. Because I am space as well as I am time.

[34:00]

And to take that space and join it in creating a space for another person. It's an act of generosity. So I don't know any explicit forms in Western culture I'd have to think a lot. But nothing is as explicit as sculpting, constellation practice in this tent. Yeah, whatever. What's the woman from Asselin who's kind of? Virginia Satir and others have somehow found out how to

[35:11]

Now in the Zendo, you have, and we left a little space here, a board on which you eat. And the board is the width of the Oryoki bowl. So where you eat with the Oriyoti bowls, Buddha's bowl. So this represents a threshold. Here, ma represents a threshold. Here I'm stepping into contextual space. And when the known actor is instructed by . stands in the wings of the stage.

[36:43]

In the side stage, yes. And he is pulled to establish bodily time. And he stays in bodily time until the contextual time of the audience pulls him up. Everybody's waiting. Is he going to sing? Is he going to enter in a certain point? It congeals and he feels drawn out. The audience has the expectation, what is he going to do now?

[37:46]

Will he sing or what happens? And at a certain point, the room coagulates and pulls him out onto the stage. So when I step across the ma board, which you don't touch usually, um, um, You're then going over a threshold into what we could call maybe somatic space. Or the space of bodily time transforming into samadhi. into another kind of connectivity.

[39:09]

One of the concepts in Japan for Ma is the place in which the kami, the gods, the environmental gods can arise. The kami can be a watershed. Mm-hmm. A watershed. The watershed of the Donau. They separate. Not where they separate, actually, where the water come together, converge.

[40:29]

Like Kyoto was built in a particular spot in the watershed. So the mountains, etc., feed this watershed, and where that watershed comes together, they built the city of Kyoto. That's it. Any smart person might build a city there. But if you have the sense that the watershed is a kind of protecting God, then you take care of the watershed differently. Okay, so I think that's maybe I've said more than enough. But in practice it would be like you begin to notice, you don't think of space as just empty or something.

[41:55]

You think of space as connecting or bridging or separating or something. You think of space as connecting So I'm sitting here and Siegfried is there. And for me as a practitioner there's a variety of ingredients here. One ingredient is Siegfried. And another ingredient is me. And the third ingredient is the in-betweenness. And I can relate to the in-betweenness by somewhat independently of relating to Siegfried.

[43:11]

Even though it's our in-betweenness. And I can move into that in-betweenness or out of the in-betweenness. And as silence is the absence of sound, Stillness is not the absence of movement. It's the presence of no movement. Stille ist nicht die Abwesenheit von Bewegung, sondern die Präsenz von Nichtbewegung. So these distinctions are very important in Noh theater and I think could be also in Constellation.

[44:17]

Diese Unterscheidungen sind im Noh theater sehr wichtig und ich kann mir vorstellen, dass sie in der Aufstellungsarbeit auch wichtig sind. So in the few constellations I participated in, often there's a stillness. There's not exactly a silence. Or silence may turn into stillness. And then the no actor would extend that stillness into the situation. Because he would assume it's a communication. And one of the things I could have mentioned when I illustrated bowing with Paul The bowing is generating an inner attentional space.

[45:21]

And then bowing that inner attentional space to Paul. Now with practitioners, they sort of know that's happening. With a non-practitioner, they don't know quite what's happening. So it makes a difference whether you know or not. So in a no play, again, and I think this is, like the Yogi, it's an articulated way to talk about this. And of the various theater forms in Japan, no is particularly related to Zen practice. And some Zen practitioners study no to begin to know.

[46:50]

Yes, sir. So what you're trying to do as a no actor, you're trying to accumulate attentional presence. And you're trying to create an attentional space in yourself. And you accumulate that. until there's a certain point where you want to release it.

[47:56]

And you want to bring the audience into the process. So you create a stillness for the whole audience. Which everyone stops and it becomes a non-action which is an action. And then in some way you release that inner attentional space into the audience. Well, now, in no play, it's exaggerated and intensified for an audience. But this concept of space as being able to be compressed and attentional and dividing and separating... This concept of space that can attract attention, that can connect and separate and can be divided,

[49:25]

It's the ordinary, as I say, food and drink of the patch grove monk. But now, after a quarter of a century, we can do these things too. In other words, even though you're not practicing it and you don't have a context which develops the practice, You didn't say repeat, you said reify? I didn't say reify, develop or reify. And we could, yeah. Still, if you have the concept, and you hold it in your intentional space, which is one of the keys to practicing with the alaya vijnana, is you develop an intentional...

[50:44]

You develop a practice of intentional space. And then you let it inform your actions. And you let your actions and the world and phenomena inform it. So as Dogen says, so I could end with Dogen says, and I've tried to pick out over the years certain statements of Dogen that we can, it takes a lifetime to penetrate. So this statement which you've heard before, to cultivate and authenticate the 10,000 things, the ten thousand things to cultivate and to confirm,

[52:16]

And as you know, 10,000 things is usually translated myriad. And as you know, myriad in Greek or so means 10,000. But just to look that we are always in the process, in fact, of cultivating and authenticating. I cultivate this as a bell by taking care of it and ringing it and so forth. And I authenticate it in a sense that it's a bell and that's where it belongs, on its cushion. So Dogen's statement goes on to cultivate and authenticate the 10,000 things

[53:23]

By conveying the self to them. This is my bell. That's conveying yourself to them. Is delusion. So to cultivate and authenticate the 10,000 things by conveying yourself to them is delusion. Then the statement goes on. Because often there's the dynamic of the contrast to help you discover the practice. To let the 10,000 things come forward. And here we have another attribute of space, it can be directional.

[54:48]

To let the 10,000 things come forward. And in this case, since activity is always a space, I need space to be active in. The 10,000 things is another way to say numerated allness but not oneness. So it's not a unity, it's a manyness. And the manyness is a space. And the space is also unity. One of the ingredients.

[55:58]

Space is one of the ingredients of the 10,000 things. So when you, when to let the 10,000 things come forward and there's space to come forward, and for the states of the 10,000 things to cultivate and authenticate the self, a transformed self in the first place. is enlightenment. So this also assumes an attributive space that it can be directional, as we talked about the other day. And the more you have an experience of subject-object-free non-duality, the more the space of the world welcomes you and embraces you.

[57:14]

Oh, I'm a little late for dinner, I'm sorry. So let's have a moment of a bell. Thank you so much for this space we share. And when we go to dinner, I'm going to ask him to pass out Buddha bowls.

[58:33]

No, I won't. When we go to dinner, I'm going to ask him to pass out Buddha bowls.

[58:39]

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