We are here because we are practicing Buddhism. Or because perhaps at least we are interested in practicing Buddhism. To explore, investigate the possibilities. Or you practice sometimes, maybe only during the Hanover seminar. I mean, not too many of you. In any case, what are you getting yourself into? Now, as I said yesterday, and I would like to have some kind, and I will have to have some kind of review of yesterday, Which I would like several of you to help me with the review by saying something about what particularly struck you or what surprised you or engaged you.

[01:22]

But, you know, there's no There's no bump of belief or acceptance or something like that. You have to go over to start practicing Zen Buddhism, at least. So we could say Zen practice is just a way to continue what you've been doing with more awareness. Look at what you've been doing with more scrutiny, more awareness, you know, the same.

[02:25]

But looking more carefully at what you're doing is a transformative, can be a transformative experience. Aber sich sorgfältiger anzuschauen, was man getan hat, was man tut, auch das kann eine transformative, eine verwandelnde Erfahrung sein. Now this is in the larger context, which I mentioned yesterday. Und das steht in dem weiteren Zusammenhang, den ich gestern erwähnt habe. That you really, Zen practice is to teach yourself Zen. What I can do is hopefully get you started, make some suggestions that get you started in this scrutiny or this study or observing.

[03:53]

And as I said yesterday, it's only struck me recently that I ought to make explicit that I'm not teaching Zen. I'm teaching you how to teach yourself Zen. I somehow thought that was obvious, but it hasn't been. And for those of you who were here yesterday, about half of you, Sorry to repeat this, but maybe I can repeat it in a way that's useful. It only struck me, really, that I should emphasize that you teach yourself Buddhism

[05:07]

Which is also why I think that Zen is a practice suited to our primarily lay life in Europe and the United States. As most of you know, Zen, while conceptually a practice for laypersons, in fact has been transmitted through monastic practice. So somehow circumstantially, my life work has become to try to make sense of how we can have a monastic and lay adept practice.

[06:45]

And it is... And so it's beneficial to us that Zen practice is conceived of as something that you do, you can practice in any of your, at whatever your circumstances. And it helps us that Zen practice is understood in such a way that no matter what your circumstances are, you can practice Zen in all your circumstances. So let me just bring some phrases into what we're doing. In sit from koan 20, in walking, in sitting, Just hold to the moment before thought arises.

[08:03]

This isn't just accidentally phrased this way. And walking means lay life or whatever your circumstances are. And in sitting means zazen. Now sitting also means usually monastic sitting. But you can also sit anywhere right now. Yeah, but then the trick is how do you hold to the moment before thought arises in walking and sitting or sitting? In such a statement is already a great deal of information about the existence, the kind of existence assumed by Buddhism and Zen practitioners.

[09:19]

Such a statement already contains a lot of assumptions about being, about the existence that Zen practice or Buddhism has. Because it assumes there's some kind of knowing that exists before or not included within consciousness. Because if you're going to hold that suggests some kind of knowing, hold to the moment before consciousness, before thought arises. So the implicit wisdom or teaching here

[10:32]

Also ist hier die, implizit daran ist die Lehre oder die Weisheit. Can this awareness we bring to our existence include a knowing which is not simply consciousness? Also kann das Gewahr sein, dass wir zu unserem Wissen, nein, can the awareness that we bring to I started out saying what we're doing is simply bringing more awareness into our life. And can that awareness include... A knowing that's not within consciousness. So I started by saying that what we do here is simply to bring more awareness into our lives. And now the question is, can this awareness that we bring into our lives, can it contain a kind of knowledge that does not belong to consciousness? Now, if you're going to bring yourself into the, we say, craft, but you say in German, Handwerk, right?

[11:53]

So maybe it's a mind work, no? It's an attention work. The intentional work of craft is Zen. Also können wir in die Handwerkskunst im Zen oder die Aufmerksamkeitskunst, die Geisteskunst im Zen, you need to really know that's a possibility and not simply an unconscious, as people are always talking about, it comes from the unconscious. That doesn't really, isn't, it's better to say from the non-conscious perspective. Now, what I'm talking about here is the larger framework of the larger framework of our lived life that's assumed by Buddhism. And that larger framework is, you know, in the simplest sense, called the Buddha.

[13:15]

Okay. So, you know, the title of this seminar is something like Close to This, right? Yeah. What? The first title was Close to This. No, the first was Intimacy and Otherness. Oh, yeah, the second title. The first title was Intimacy and Otherness. I know I'm the cause of the title change, but I don't really know why. Let's just take, let's start.

[14:24]

Some beginning that occurred sometime last year. Intimacy and others. Yeah. Yeah. And if we're in this practice together, one of the qualities of the practice and actually conditions for the practice dann ist eine der Qualitäten dieser Praxis und tatsächlich auch Bedingungen für diese Praxis, wenn wir schon Worte verwenden, ist ein Aufmerksamkeitsfeld zu jedem Wort zu bringen, ein verkörpertes Aufmerksamkeitsgefühl erfällt.

[15:33]

No, I don't know, of course, how it works in Deutsch, but intimacy generally is ideally intimacy with yourself. And that intimacy can be extended to someone you love or family, children. But still, every married, every spousal couple knows, and parent knows, and children know, that we don't all exactly understand each other the same way. And we get used to it. We just kind of function within this territory of mostly otherness and some intimacy with ourself and some internalized otherness which separates us from others.

[16:55]

And so what the teaching of Zen practice brings to us Yes, oh yes, so we negotiate ourselves within these rooms of otherness and selfness. But the doors and walls can be quite different. And we can perhaps recognize that there's a degree of otherness that isn't actually, there's a degree of intimacy that's functioning, which is not otherness, but that we don't notice.

[18:30]

Vielleicht können wir erkennen, dass es einen Grad an Innigkeit, an inniger Vertrautheit gibt, der nicht Andersheit ist, und der aber auf eine Art und Weise wirkt, dass wir ihn nicht bemerken können. Now, these are all challenges of Buddhist practice. Und all das sind Herausforderungen in der buddhistischen Praxis. In particular Zen practice. Und ganz besonders in der Zen practice. Because again, we don't give you stages to get to Buddhahood. We say, here's Buddhahood, how are you going to get there? Yesterday I likened it to Peter Falk in Columbo. And yesterday I compared it with Peter Falk in Columbo. Everyone knows, I realize it was seen in Germany too, I found out recently, everyone knows that Columbo knows who, everyone in the audience knows, the viewers know what crime was committed and who did it, but Peter Falk as Columbo shows us the process to get there.

[19:55]

I recently found out that Columbo is also watched in Germany. And there it is so that all viewers know who committed the crime. But then the series consists of Peter Falk as Columbo and the process shows us how he solves the crime. So we know, then approach then takes us, okay, here's Buddhahood, what you can do about it. Well, the main way to get there is to develop, as I said, an uninterrupted attentional stream. Yeah. It's only through an uninterrupted attentional stream that you really get to intimacy and otherness or close to this.

[20:58]

But we know of course experientially that it's not so easy, not easy at all to establish an uninterrupted attentional stream. At least I never experienced anything like it until doing sashins. And at Sashin's, as a kind of institution, instituted teaching, As I said, when I first went to, the first Sashin I went to, I just saw that there was a Sashin scheduled, and I didn't know what it was, but I saw somebody

[22:36]

Paul Alexander was attending it, and I thought, whatever it is, I know Paul. He's a painter, and if he can do it, I can do it. I've already told this story. My first sashin, when I signed up for it, there was a list and it said that a sashin would take place. And I didn't know what it was, but I saw on the registration list that Paul Alexander had signed up. And then I thought to myself, I know Paul Alexander, he's a painter and if he can do it, then I can do it too. So I went there and it turned out to be a different Paul Alexander. And I'm not a believer in God, but I found myself saying after about the third period, oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? But I loved Suzuki Roshi.

[23:45]

I was completely captivated by him. So I thought, geez, if this is what he does, I'll try to do it too. And I found after a few sashins, it took more than one, Suddenly I kind of flipped into a channel which seems to have always been there, but I didn't really experience it. Something close to uninterrupted attentional awareness. And I found it went straight through the night, through sleeping and everything.

[24:50]

And it happened sufficiently enough that to various degrees it's never left me. So this is an example of, you know, a monastic addition to my life that I never would. Sesshin is a kind of monastic practice, of course. A monastic addition to my life, which I never would have done on my own without this guy from Japan. And that is an example of a church-like addition to my life. And sashimi is of course a church-like practice. And that is something that I would never have done without this church-like practice and without these people from Japan.

[25:57]

Okay. Now, does anyone here, would a few of you or several of you say something about what struck you yesterday as part of, that you think would be useful to bring up for those of us who are new here now today? Gibt es irgendwas von denjenigen von euch, die gestern hier waren, etwas, was ihr ansprechen würdet, wo das euch vielleicht aufgefallen ist und wo ihr findet, dass das hilfreich wäre, das für die Leute, die heute dazu gekommen sind, nochmal anzusprechen? I gave you a fair warning. Yes. From what I understood now, there is no specific goal. But that a way of locating myself is necessary. .

[27:08]

Because I thought yesterday of the example you brought up about Trump and Hillary Clinton. Colombo, Trump, you know. I was out of control. What teachers sometimes say to their students, yes, that's very intelligent, but somehow I get the idea, I understand it. But sometimes Zen teacher may say to their disciple, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea, but you're not very smart or something like that. I wouldn't, no. But if the person reacts in some funny way, then they aren't very far developed. Yeah, something like that, I see, right. And so when you just spoke about intimacy, I feel very intimate with myself. But when you have not so good conditions, preconditions in your life and then you move out of them,

[28:43]

then what one develops is a very strong intimacy with oneself. But when you've had negative experiences in your life, then you may not have... When you have negative experiences in your life then you may not trust your environment so much and the intimacy with others is not so much there. Then the intimacy with oneself is even reinforced more. And then maybe you're awaiting that something unexpected will happen that surprises you. And maybe there is something like a small surprise or something, so one just has to be aware, develop an eye for that.

[30:11]

You know, you can bring a chair to here if you'd like. It's okay. Yeah, but I don't like to see you so uncomfortable looking. If I were sitting there, I'd have a chair. Oh, you've got your own little folding secret chair. All right. Yes. You spoke yesterday about the question of what has moved me and what would be important for the new ones. About your question, what touched me yesterday and might be important for the people who came today? From my point of view, the attentional stream. independent of what it would mean, what it means that we ought to maintain it uninterruptedly and that in and of itself being a problem.

[31:14]

So you spoke about three attentional streams, the minded attentional stream, bodily attentional stream, and the psychological attentional stream. And that I found quite helpful. And I wondered, where is my emphasis? Where is my own gravitational center? And my entry in Zen, particularly in recent times, is the bodily attentional stream. And that in conjunction with breathing.

[32:29]

And that's where this term, to call it a stream, that then also makes sense. More later. Thank you. Yes. So what was important for me was to hear that the attentional stream, that it's impossible to maintain it uninterruptedly, but that one can maintain the intention to have it uninterrupted, that intention can be uninterrupted. That gives me some hope. And what I've noticed is that I can maintain it for pretty long periods throughout the day. The intention?

[33:35]

The intention. Yes, okay. And I always wake up every morning, because I can't do it at night. And I've been looking for a solution for the night for many years. But this is a continuous question. And so I wake up every morning and find myself having that intention. But I'm finding I can't seem to be able to do this throughout the night. And for many years, I've been looking for a solution what to do about the night. But that's for some other time. OK. Yesterday you said that we are in one stream, which is always there, which is unconsciously there, actually in the attachment to the content of thinking, which runs through the nitrate. So one kind of sub-sentence, side-sentence that you said, that I remembered, is that you said something like that the unconscious stream is running all the time, and that that's oftentimes where we have our attachments, or something like that?

[34:50]

Yes, it just runs, it happens. So that the unconscious stream is going all the time. And if I can make that shift even just to notice that there is that unconscious stream, and that that's really where I'm identified all the time, And that when I bring mindfulness into that, then I'm already changing it. You can, yes. These three different streams.

[35:50]

The first one was that I got the words for it. So with these three different streams, that was the first time I've had words for this or received words for this. But I knew immediately what is meant by that. And yesterday I just listened and let it sink into me. And in the meantime, I've just let that move me and I've noticed a lot of things, which I'm not going to name all of them now, maybe at some other point, but just mention the things that relate to what's been said so far.

[37:08]

I perceive these different streams as simultaneous and parallel. And I'm noticing also that they influence each other. One example. And then that will be followed by a question. Thank you for giving me fair warning. The psychological attentional stream. In my experience, the psychological stream seems to influence the other two streams in some negative or maybe disruptive or destructive way.

[38:23]

And has something to do also with focus. I can focus on these streams specifically, but yet in awareness, maintain an awareness of the other two streams. And it can happen that on the psychological level, I might perceive something like a pain or something. And then it is as if the focus then goes for a moment so fully into the psychological that the other two streams seem to be interrupted.

[39:40]

So, and then my question is, this doesn't happen so often since I've been working therapeutically, I've had help therapeutically and so forth. The question is, can it work with these three streams and that sense of them being interrupted? . So can this work when you don't have any therapeutic or psychological training for one's own processes?

[41:09]

Yes. I can say more about that, but right now I'm I think since you've been doing zazen and everything else, we have to take a break. And then I'd like to continue this for at least some while when we come back. Yeah.

[41:32]

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