So I'd like to start seeing if you have anything you'd like to bring up. Yes. I would like to add something what I said before on mum. I would like to say in German, because seven years ago it's the last time I spoke English with this. Oh, I don't apologize. Thirty years ago was the last time I spoke German. Please, go ahead. It sounded like English to me. I spoke about an experience that I had about 35 years ago.

[01:07]

In the industry, I was a designer. I developed a design and in that context, I was just a designer. and the lessons I learned, the more important thing was the style. From there, I was able to be active in the industry. And the most important experience was the moment that it didn't show through. Yes, that's nice. Well, I'd like to share an experience with you that I had 35 years ago.

[02:19]

I was working and had a professional job and I already knew about creativity and emptiness and the relationship of them, but the stillness was lacking. And I had a very hectic job and so forth. And I worked in design. But this experience I would like to just share was that all of a sudden I wasn't drawing, but it was just simply drawing. Drawing happened. So I wanted to share that. Good. Thank you. You know, we hear in Zen practice phrases like, we could say, drawing with no mind. It may be interesting to hear such phrases.

[03:23]

But the experience is something entirely different. But I think we all have tastes of such experience. And what I'm trying to speak about at Crestone most of the practice period so far is how we let our body guide our practice. Perhaps the way mathematics can go where the thinking mind can't reach. The body, mathematics is a tool, the body can go where the mind can't reach. But to try to make this clear is, if you really, so we, you know, it's taking all the practice period so far to work on how to speak about this.

[04:53]

But in various ways we have this experience, and one of the most accessible, which I have mentioned often, is when breathing breathes itself. At some point our whole life starts doing itself. We don't have the experience so much of somebody sitting in the driver's seat, running it. Yeah. This might be a strange idea but on the other hand I don't think it's so strange. I mean grace comes in somehow in this experience because if you say breathing breathes itself, you cannot do something about breathing, it's just happening.

[06:05]

You cannot do anything about it and if it happens you are quite lucky. So grace is somehow a strange concept because it's connected with God, but if breathing breathes itself, you cannot force it. If you are in it, you are lucky, but you know it's a jump. There is no something you can do about that. So this is grace somehow. So this is a strange concept of grace, which is usually connected to God. So someone who gives grace. But when it comes to breathing, then you can't really do much about it. So if you want to get over it, there is a gap in between that we somehow overcome. So it's somehow like a gap, how you come from one side of the gap to the other side of the gap.

[07:09]

with which you cannot cross this gap. Well, as Erich writes, everything is some kind of a jump. But to the extent to which you develop the tool of non-interfering observing consciousness, So awareness extends more and more into your life, penetrates your life. And yet this awareness doesn't interfere like consciousness does. And these jumps happen more commonly. My question is about the decision to live.

[08:41]

My question is how this decision can ever be made. When I look back on my life, I have the feeling that I have constantly made decisions, and that is like a trial. And at the same time I have made the experience that the moment I make this decision, it is already a form of not being completely alive. So my question is how you can ever say or make this decision to be alive totally. When I look back over my life, I find myself making this decision over and over and over again, like steps coming closer and closer, maybe. But at the same time, I make the experience as soon as I make this decision, it's just another way of not being totally alive. It's just a separation again. That's not my experience.

[09:47]

My experience is that making the decision leads to my seeing ways in which I haven't made a decision. Which then allows me to make the decision more thoroughly. And that decision is fueled by the intention to make it fully. That intention is almost like an engine that pushes the decision more and more deeply. But it is a process like I mean, enlightenment isn't exactly a process, but the obstructions to enlightenment are a process.

[10:50]

Gisela brought up this morning her good example. And she pointed out that now she's attached to this very mind as Buddha, or the feeling that arises with that. And I said that's a better attachment. But it's better not only because it's more pleasant and less damaging and richer but it's also an attachment which is easier to get free of. And it's an attachment which eventually dissolves itself. So what we want to do is replace our indissolvable attachments with dissolvable attachments.

[11:53]

Yes. I had a question about the attitude of practice and life. I made the experience that it is very difficult to dedicate my practice. Because there is a strong so, when you stand in the call, again and again in the pattern of the conscious mind to fall. I can imagine that someone always works a little bit in the right direction. in the practice, and then you get down again. And so I always have the feeling that I start from below again, but I can't really erase it.

[12:57]

Now I have to ask myself, what do I do for opportunities? What do I do for a new day? My question is about practice and living a lay life and work life and so forth. My experience is like when I make a little progress or establish myself a little more firmly in practice, then through my profession I get really sucked into another stream again, sort of pulled back. So it's really like an uphill struggle. And maybe you can just give me or ask some more ideas, you know, how we can deepen our practice also in our work life and lay life. Do everything I've said so far completely. So do just what I've said so far, one hundred percent. Or intend to do it completely.

[14:25]

Intention is the fabric of mind. And if you keep bringing intention into it, even if you don't accomplish the intention, the intention begins to filter into things. And at your age, the world wants you. At the years, in fact, most of us are, the world wants us. It's nice to be wanted. And so, you know, it may happen that if you really think about practicing 100%, your job will offer you some great opportunity that looks more interesting. The world has an intuitive sense, hey, we're going to lose this guy.

[15:34]

Give him a promotion and a big raise. Or suddenly make life more interesting. So I think, you know, whatever you do, you know, I'm sitting here talking. I could be sitting in an office at a desk. Yeah. It's not so different. But, I mean, if I was the president of Samadhi Support, for instance, I couldn't talk to you about Buddhism so much.

[16:46]

I would have to talk to you, but we're going to have to find three more tailors to sew these things. Because so many Dharma Sangha students are buying them, we need more tailors. Schneider, yeah. It's really, it's different, but it's not so different. You still are speaking and you're feeling yourself how you are and you're speaking and so forth. And you're breathing. And you're being present to the people you're working with. And maybe if at some time... Well, that's enough. Okay.

[17:55]

Something else? I am also in a similar situation that I actually work and also work a lot and practice. And at some point I noticed that my attitude towards practice is really almost materialistic. So if I don't take care of the practice enough that it would go away or something like that. Until it became clear to me that this is really a materialistic concept from this world of work. And at some point I developed confidence that the practice will not go away and that I can leave it alone. And even if I sometimes have the feeling that I have lost it, that it is never far away. And that's a thought that calms me down very much. And then maybe it's the quarter of an hour I take. very much richer, or can be very rich, than if I now somehow spend an afternoon with the feeling that I would now have to invest more in my practice.

[18:56]

So that's almost a capitalist concept again, that we overstep the practice. And I work very much with the sentence in my lay life, the practice is never far away. It doesn't matter what I do. I feel that sometimes we project sort of almost views from the business world onto our practice, like it becomes less when I don't take care of it or don't invest in it and stuff like it. So it's really adapting an economic principle to the practice. And it's really not so. I mean, I work a lot with the phrase, even if I, on one level, don't feel I practice much, that practice is never far away. I'm always close to the practice, no matter what I do. And that can be very nourishing. We have an expression in English, if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person.

[20:01]

Yes, my expression in English... You know that's true. They can take on... Oh, sure, I can get that done. So if your capacity increases, work rushes in to fill the void. So I know Ulrike finds a way through her practice and her own power to be more present to the students at her school. So then... the principal comes to her and says, the students like being with you so much, we're going to give you all the students. And so then she has to make a very basic decision. The students want to come and be with her.

[21:18]

As much because of practice as because of chemistry. And maybe it's the practice chemistry more than the... So then maybe she has to make a decision. Maybe she should just practice with these people. Or does she use the gymnasium as a way to, disguised as society, as a way to practice with people? There are definitely business people in the United States who use their business as a disguised form of practice. It takes some time to make that shift and get the other people you work with to at least unconsciously go along with it. And some people may be more suited to doing this than suited to running a Zendo.

[22:25]

I don't know. Let's see what happens. All of us, let's practice one hundred percent. I have a little story I want to say in German first. I have been practicing Vipassana meditation for a long time and a lot in England. And one day I was introduced to a man by a friend as a meditation teacher. A little, inconspicuous man. And he said that he gives courses once in a while, sometimes here and sometimes there on weekends. But that was not his main occupation, mainly he was working in the post office and would sell letter marks at the counter and postcards, which is what a postmaster does. Then I asked him why he had set up his life like that.

[23:26]

He could easily live off of meditation courses. And then he said, to my surprise, that he would reach more people in that kind of work than through meditation courses. I did Vipassana for quite a long time and mostly in England. And one day I visited a friend and she presented a man to me as a meditation teacher, Vipassana meditation teacher. And we talked and he gave courses once in a while, a weekend here and there, and week-long courses. And he said, but that's not all I'm doing. I'm working as a postmaster too. That was his everyday practice, so to speak. And I asked him why, because he could have made his living easily by doing his courses and seminars. And he said, that way I can reach many more people than through any teaching and courses. So I talked to people who came from other parts of the city just to buy stamps there.

[24:31]

LAUGHTER Just to have contact with him and then exchange more than money and postcards. I was quite impressed. Yeah. I often imagined if Suzuki Yoshi had come to San Francisco and not had a temple to go to, And he walked by a store and saw a sign saying, help wanted. So he goes in, the little Japanese guy, and gets a job selling hamburgers or something. Maybe he slowly sneaks some soy into the hamburger. But the problem would be pretty soon be so many customers just sitting, you know, just to be there while he was working.

[25:45]

The owner would come, it's nice to see the store full, but you've got to get them to buy more hamburgers. But Miriam Bobcoff, the person I mentioned earlier, who's the research librarian for Santa Fe, And Miriam Bobkoff, the woman I mentioned earlier, the librarian in Santa Fe, she's really good at what she does. She's developed a whole computer, she's computerized the Santa Fe library system. And she's their research librarian. And she's their research librarian. And she has offers to go to university libraries and things like that. But she really likes just being at the desk in the library, having people come up and ask her, I want to know about this or that.

[26:46]

They usually don't ask about Twingby's apocryphal statement, but they ask something and then she finds it for them. And she's really committed to this public library work just being present for people in the library. Yeah. And if we have a gift of some kind or opportunity of some kind in our society, we should cultivate it. Yes. When you're talking about intention and decision, do you make a difference between intuitive acting?

[27:55]

I do? Or do you? I don't. You don't? What do you mean by intuitive? It's about the same, to act intuitive, because it's on the basis of some knowledge. You've got to participate in something, and then the intention and the decision is something like the same, or you get to the same point. When we talk about intention and decision, the question is whether there is a difference when we talk about infection or intuitive handling. For me personally, there is no difference. Well, there's so many sources of intention.

[28:58]

Intention or intuition? I said intention. I think for myself, to say more about it this time is not productive, I think. But I do want to say something which I feel is related. And what I've been emphasizing implicitly the last week or two in practicing with us,

[30:40]

is the role of analysis in relationship to meditation and mindfulness. So it's a kind of analysis which brings us thoroughly to the point of impermanence. And it's a kind of analysis and accepting a teaching to bring ourselves to face impermanence over and over again when you look at things. And sometimes this is called facing wisdom. Now if you repeat a mantra, repeat it over and over again. Or you repeat some koan phrase over and over again. It infiltrates, it interpenetrates in your life. And things rise up to meet this interpenetration.

[31:50]

And likewise, it's if you bring a posture, a mental posture. Now, I don't... One thing I mentioned the other day, and I don't know Greek, but this is something I read, and it made sense to me. In Greek, there's two tenses, classical Greek, in the present. We don't have. One tense is the state of mind, and the other tense is the posture. Now, again, I'm trying to give you here something I've not spoken of before, but I did speak of in this mid-week practice.

[33:12]

Because one of the exciting things we're facing in today's world Is it different societies, different cultures, think in different categories than we do? And when we open ourselves to these different categories, it's very liberating. It not only increases our increases our possibilities in the way we can manifest ourselves. But it also loosens our categories. And even the recognition that the world exists in different categories is already an intuition of emptiness. Just like all these things exist differently in this room, it's only possible because of space.

[34:26]

And the more you see the many possibilities of being, that's only possible because of emptiness. So one way the Chinese view the past is the past is rather time. Time is what goes back into the past and comes up to the present. But the present is not viewed as a category of time. The present is agreed as a category of space. In which there's a timeless quality or stopped quality.

[35:36]

And you can... see it in this introduction to this first koan in the Blue Cliff Records. And I don't know if we'll go through it to study it in detail. But I'll just mention it run through the so-called introduction or pointer. When you see smoke on the other side of the mountain, right away you know there's fire. When you see horns on the other side of the fence, immediately you know, already you know there's an ox there.

[36:50]

When you hold up, when one is held up, three is understood. And to judge precisely at a glance, This is the ordinary nourishment, food and water, of a patched robe monk. Now, whether that's obvious or not, each of these is a practice of compassion. And then the second part of the pointer says, but what about when you come to cutting off myriad streams? Then she rises in the east and sets in the west. And there is freedom to go against or for.

[38:04]

In all directions. And there is the freedom of to give and to take. What kind of person is this? Now, the latter part of this, whether it's obvious or not, is the practice of wisdom, which is cutting off myriad streams. When you cut off myriad streams, then this space of the present Like the sun, you are free to rise in the east and set in the west. We are quite independent. And in this space of the present, we are free to come and go, give and take.

[39:05]

In four directions, above and below. So there's this, to go back to these Greek tenses, with the sense of the present as space, There's the freedom to hold certain postures. Or to rest in certain states of mind. When we do this, when we have this kind of feeling, our intention, our decisions become different.

[40:28]

They gather forces from many sides, and they feel like intuition. and they feel like they're coming, rising up in us involuntarily. It's also the accompanying thing is that when your thinking becomes more transparent, when you begin to feel the field of mind, Your breath, which is also identified with your thinking, suddenly loses its hook into your state of mind. Because our breath usually parallels our moods.

[41:38]

If we're a little anxious, we breathe one way and so forth. Your breath drops its hook into our mind and begins to hook into our heart. It's a kind of subtle physiology. And our breath begins to move with our heart. And our breath moving with our heart then opens us up to the wisdom of emotions. Emotions that are not tied into the service of self. In other words, emotions usually come up and protect us.

[42:42]

I'm better than that person, or this is good or bad, or I like this person, etc. As I always say, emotions are rooted in caring. If you're angry about something, you're only angry because you care. But that caring is in the service of self. which is usually locked into mental patterns, not emotional, truly heart patterns, shall we say. So when our breath itself comes into the realm of the heart, Our emotions become very open and compassionate and not discriminatory in the preference of my family versus this and that.

[43:50]

Although we have a definite preference No, although we have a definite, say, a different responsibility for our own spouse or our own child. At a purely emotional level, you love, you seem to can't help it. You love whoever is in front of you equal to your own child. Your family becomes very big. I mean, attachment to your thoughts, identifying with your thoughts is no different than identifying with your daughter or son or your spouse.

[45:07]

So it's a different kind of... I mean, we're talking not about some nice idea of compassion, Some moral idea, say. But rather the actual fact of a subtle physiological change where your heart cracks open. And maybe it closes up again, but more and more opens up. And you find yourself bathed in this... Anyway, I'm already saying too much. But as I did say in the mid-week practice, space actually comes to be kind of soft like cotton.

[46:09]

And you feel the movement even of your hand as something happening in a very soft kind of space. Maybe as if you're always touching a baby. And this is not something that you can notice if you're constantly distracted by thought. Such a deep relaxation. You find the snap chart, I mean the flip chart here. I think I'm going to write something down on the flip chart.

[47:30]

Five practices to change our relationship to thinking. Okay. The first is to leave your thoughts alone. I don't have short thoughts. And that's also uncorrected mind.

[48:37]

And we observe your thinking. And these two are done primarily in meditation. Yes, I would like to write down five exercises here, how we change our relationship to thinking. The first is to let our thoughts rest. This is the practice of not correcting the state of mind. And the second is to observe the thoughts. The third is, what did I say, change the basis of the continuity? Or what did I put third? Intercede. What? Intercede. Intercede. Intercede.

[49:39]

And fourth is to change the basis. Now, these three are through meditation and mindfulness. So the first two can be achieved through meditation and through mindfulness exercises, and the other three, i.e. this simplification, are used to change the basis and, fifth, to change the nature of thinking. Okay. Now, that's meditation, M.E.D., and that's mindfulness. Okay. Now this one is in some ways the hardest one.

[50:53]

But it's again, it can come to us like during the mid-week practice. Micheline spoke about how on the train and reading the Diamond Sutra, she suddenly, teaching came home to her. And maybe I'll come back to this again in how we face or open up our living space through impermanence thinking. Through cutting off myriad streams. To recognizing there's no Peter there. Whatever I say about him is less than what's there. So what I want to cut off everything that makes him less.

[52:07]

So what I'd like you to do now is we'll take a break. And what time is dinner, dear Tonto? Six o'clock. Six o'clock, okay. So let's have a break till about five or ten after five. And when you come back, I'd like us to have various spaces around here. Some small groups, maybe 10 or 12 in a group or something like that. And I'd like you to perhaps discuss any one of these practices which has been important for you or made sense to you. For example, changing the basis of continuity from thinking to your breath. So let's have a break.

[53:38]

I'm very grateful you're all still here. Most of you anyway. At least it looks like you're still here. Mm-hmm. What I would like to do, but not absolutely immediately, is have us come forth with some of the discussion yesterday afternoon in the small groups. But at least to begin, I want to say a couple of things. I really want each of you to develop a sitting practice. I hope you do. And I can't really explain...

[54:46]

To some extent I can, but really I can't explain why I think this is important. But it's not by accident that from earliest times it is said that Buddhist practice entirely depends on discipline, doing it. Meditation means sitting practice and wisdom. These are the three pillars and also why incense burners have three legs. But the three legs support one practice. There's not wisdom. Wisdom practices really aren't possible without sitting practice. Now there's lots of practice that's available to us, beneficial to us, that's primarily forms of mindfulness.

[56:36]

And anybody can develop a sitting practice. I don't care if your legs grow out of your ears, you can still do a sitting practice. Your posture would look funny, I admit. Yeah. There was a monk, a disciple of Matsu, There was a monk, a student of Matsu. His name was Qin Yu. A Chinese name, you know. He was actually English. In any case, every day at mealtime, He would take the rice bucket itself, rice pail, and he would hold it up and dance in front of the monks hall, singing, Bodhisattvas, come and eat, Bodhisattvas, come and eat.

[58:03]

Now, this is a translator. Okay. Yeah, if I do the dance, will you do the dance? And it says that Shui Do, famous Shui Do, said, he was not good-hearted. And Chang Ching was asked by a monk, what did this old fellow, Chin Niu, mean? And Chang Ching was asked, what did this old fellow, Chin Niu, mean? It makes me think I used to do a lot of work in the projects, which were mostly black people in San Francisco. And there was this great, powerful woman.

[59:17]

She was very funny. She used to say things like, when it was time for her to speak, she'd stand up and say, shit, my thoughts just sat down. And once in a meeting she said she had met with this Chinese woman and she said, I don't remember her name, it sounded like a fork falling on the floor. Yeah, so anyway, these guys were English. But they had Chinese names.

[60:25]

And Chan Ching said, in answer to this monk, it was like a joyful praise of the meal. But the commentary says, you know, Not only did he beat the wooden fish and the drum every meal time, And personally announced the meal. But then he had to pick up the pail and do this dance and say, Bodhisattvas, come eat. And for 20 years he did this. Three times a day. He must have been crazy.

[61:27]

Why didn't he just go into the lecture hall and sit on the teaching throne and bang his fist and raise the whisk? Well, I won't try to explain Qin Yu's behavior. But I understand him. You may find me out in front of the building here. So I'll come back to what I wanted to say, continue what I wanted to say, but could somebody give me some comments, reports from the meetings? Especially since I can't participate.

[62:29]

In your discussions. Okay. I wasn't in a meeting, but I have a question. Can you wait till we have... You were in a meeting in the office. I saw you. Okay. Yes? Oh, by the way, I apologize for, you know, for those of you who aren't so involved yet, or perhaps ever, with Johanneshoff, forcing last night's meeting on you, but we do this every February. I hope you survived. When I first started with Zen Center back in 61 or so, someone said, after I'd been sitting only two or three days, are you coming to the meeting? I almost never came back. But I enjoyed last night's meeting quite a bit.

[63:46]

It was wonderful to see so many different approaches to... Okay, so... Any reports? Berichte In unserer Gruppe haben sich einige Fragen aufgetan. Ich will es sehr kurz machen. Eine Frage war, was ist der Beobachter, wenn Gedanken beobachtet werden? Uncorrected mind is uncorrected mind. You were packing? Oh, I was cooking.

[65:11]

Oh. Can we get you a train ticket so you can stay? Before I understand, one ticket, you see. If you have a day kit, three of them can use it, and you can get another one. Thanks. No, no, it's a good idea. It's really a good idea. One couch, please. Here you go. Wonderful. Thank you. Hiding the paint on your pants? No. Stitching? What is the observer I think you ought to observe? I mean, I could say something about it.

[66:13]

Since I've been observing the observer for a long time. But really it's about doing it yourself. to notice these things. And if you're in a context, particularly of a sitting practice again, you can begin to create a basis for noticing these things and deciding for yourself, through your own experience, what's happening. Okay, something else? Maybe I may add something. I was in the same group. The problem was this one, two, three, four, five, where to put uncorrected state of mind. Is it the first? First, it's the first. Leaving thoughts alone. What's the difference between observing your thoughts and the uncorrected state of mind, mind state or whatever?

[67:20]

Is there a difference and how can you feel it? This was one question I remember. The other thing for me was to where is, when you're following the breath, where is it exactly? Is it in every point included? Or is it a special point? Yeah. Deutsch. We were in the same group as Gerald and I still remember the problem of the order on Waterclip 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I remember that the first one was the uncorrected state of mind, but clearly we no longer knew what the difference was between the observed and the state of the uncorrected mind. And the second one is the follow-up. I have the feeling that it is in every point. The effort to leave thoughts alone, to not invite your thoughts to tea, generates a background mind.

[68:28]

So you can begin to be in the background mind and you can let things happen in the foreground mind without getting involved in them. The generation of a background mind is absolutely imperative for practice. For any development of your practice. The non-interfering observing mind is not the same as a background mind. But it's of course connected. In other words, a background mind which leaves your thoughts alone is not a mind which can examine without observing, without interfering. It's, I mean, as simple as if I look at Ulrike, I can look at her without, and I can observe her without interfering with, I can observe her, right?

[69:53]

But a non-interfering mind means I can look at her and not interfere with her more actively. The simplest example is when you have a state of samadhi where there's no thoughts particularly and even physically anchored As soon as you observe it and say, oh, this is samadhi, it goes away. That means you have not yet developed a non-interfering observing consciousness. A non-interfering observing consciousness, in my notes, is NIOC. N-I-O-C-E. Anyway, when you develop that, you can then observe samadhi and the samadhi doesn't go away.

[71:09]

Developing a background mind is a precondition for adept practice. A non-interfering observing consciousness is a tool of adept practice. As is one-pointedness. The two most important tools of practice to study the mind are non-observing consciousness non-interfering observing consciousness and one-pointedness. And these tools develop mostly without intention through sitting practice. In other words, the capacity develops, but then finally to really perfect them, you have to do it intentionally.

[72:20]

Okay. In our group we had seen some understanding of the first four points, also some personal experience of them, but almost none of us understood what the point five was, to change... The nature of consciousness. The only example we could come up with was the one we had in the last seminar, to think in pictures, to shift to thinking in images. In our group, we had all the understanding of the first four points and each in the form of personal experience that could link us to the point.

[73:21]

But in point 5, we were actually all blank. The only thing that came to mind as an example was that there might be a change from conceptual thinking to thinking in pictures. And that one point is what is meant by that. They had two other examples. Of the fifth? In the carnival, huh? Yeah. In the carnival. It's probably, probably, my guess is festivals and carnivals are rooted in some kind of teaching of impermanence actually. Okay, anyway, I understand and I knew that the fifth would be the most difficult to relate to.

[74:32]

That's one reason I put it up there. Because we've been practicing together long enough to know what the first four are, so now maybe we have the opportunity to understand what the fifth is. I realized, I think, three or four times in my life that I really can die in this continuity of thinking. Once it stopped in meditation, and once it was just... And that other people can die, but really understand it. And I was so panicked these three times I lived.

[75:35]

It was a really big panic. and with heart beating a little. And so it doesn't get better to get there, because now I know that there will be panic. So what I learned is I'm even more afraid now. What can I do with that? I'm sorry, but go ahead. I'm Deutsch. I was also in the group. I asked about death experiences. I had the experience three times that I was dying every day. I found it in my meditation and also elsewhere. I just had panic anxiety as a result of the experience, with all kinds of pain and heartbeats. It's possible to get there without panic. Okay, something else? Yeah. Sunday morning.

[77:05]

Yeah, go ahead. Four and five. Four, five. Yeah. Yeah. Well, partly it's because it depends... Go ahead in Deutsch. Did you say it in Deutsch? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, partly the problem is that really to know this practice depends on a sequential consciousness. In other words, a consciousness that is a second generation consciousness can do this practice better than our usual first generation consciousness which most of us live in.

[78:11]

Yes. My example of the thin train didn't help. Let's not give up, though. Yes. During this week, I had the experience that you spoke about the brain at Jonathan's last weekend, and about the feeling that arises from it.

[79:23]

And I have been in this feeling of the brain and also of the feeling of compassion for the people with whom I came into contact during my work, and I have a feeling that I really simply ... Well, at the weekend at Jonathan, you talked a lot about here-ness. And so I've been really carrying this with me, and here-ness and compassion and the relationship between them, and I've been really feeling that and exploring that. And my question is now, has that something to do with these practices? Of course. Natürlich. Yeah. I presented here-ness as a wisdom view. In other words, a view you can bring into your thinking, and that would fall into this third category, because you're interceding in your usual way of looking or experiencing there-ness.

[80:34]

You're interceding with a vision or view of here-ness. In a very simple way, for instance, if I say, as I've suggested as a practice sometimes, on each step you say, arriving. Physically, on each step, you are physically arriving, but mentally you're thinking about this or going somewhere, right? So if you intercede with a phrase like arriving, that phrase tends to make your mind join your foot in the arrival. So we could say, I don't know if you like me to be so technical, but we could say that a here-ness is a wisdom, a...

[81:45]

a wisdom view, which is operative in the sense that you can envision it. So basically, in the schemata I gave you, it falls into number three. But to actualize this in all aspects of the way you do things, it requires these other things like breathing practice and so forth. Okay. Yeah.

[83:08]

I shared in the small group yesterday an experience I had with watching my breath, which I actually started at the last session, which is really awkward for me. And I shared the experience that following my breath takes me to a feeling of a kind of pain, it's not a physical pain, it's more like really an awkward feeling of being in my body and being separated, being not connected, I don't know, or just being alive as a kind of pain or suffering, whatever. And I tried to work with the phrase, people already connected, which helps a lot in many other levels, but on this physical level of watching my breathing, it doesn't make a difference. So I kind of force myself to watch my breathing.

[84:12]

I don't enjoy it very much, and I would like to have some help. I told in a small group that I started to follow my breath with attention and that this is a very uncomfortable experience for me, because I have the feeling that it takes me to fine levels of being separate and how uncomfortable it is for me, so really physically uncomfortable to be in this body and to perceive and feel it. I then tried to work with a sentence without talking to you more intimately or in more detail I can say that almost certainly you have to be coming up against some resistance or some uncovering I mean there's simply nothing wrong with breathing practice.

[85:24]

I mean, just bringing your attention to your breathing can't be harmful unless there's something that happens as a result of the process that you can't handle you can think in a sense that each breath is a little shovel and you're doing a little excavation There may be some psychological archaeology going on here. You may be finding some artifacts. And if you need to stop breathing for a while, stop breathing for a while. Stop intending to your breathing and smooth the dirt over. It's okay.

[86:41]

But I would stay with the pain to the extent that it doesn't overwhelm you. If you come to a difficulty in practice, it's always good to turn toward it and keep a little pressure on it, but definitely don't turn away. Your karma really starts multiplying fast when you turn away from a difficulty. But you can be gentle with yourself. You don't have to overwhelm yourself. Can I say something to Christiane? Of course. What you have described I have already experienced, but for me it was more of a sadness. When it was really good for me to follow my breath, I had a time when I was very, very sad, and later I understood that it became clear to me with this breathing practice how little I had lived in my body so far.

[87:53]

I mean, I've experienced at some point in my practice something similar as Christiana, and what I recognized later when I was getting more developed in following my breathing, a lot of sadness came up. It was more like a recognition how little I had actually lived in my body until I started practicing. You mentioned sequential consciousness. Is the practice of completeness preparatory for sequential consciousness? Yeah, sure. But you should understand more clearly, which I will try to explain perhaps in the next seminar, what is an access concentration and what is a sequential consciousness. Sometimes when I went to the seminary, I did it young.

[89:08]

There was a fellow there who said that he does science and thinking all day long and he comes to my seminars and there's just too much science and thinking. He says, give me a break. Religion is supposed to be simple. You have... grace, faith, and then everything happens naturally. But you have to really understand Buddhism is really, from our point of view, it's an inner science. And as the tremendous things we know about the outside world, we know almost nothing in comparison to how we function. our interior and inward consciousnesses function.

[90:42]

Whatever subtlety or complexity is in the world is in spades here. And it's basically not a big problem because you are living it. You are already what you are studying. So it's really a matter of lifting the shades and looking in. And beginning to be able to notice what's there. And first you only see the reflections on the window. But finally, when you really start looking in... Okay.

[91:45]

Something else? Shall we stop? Yeah? I think we had the same problems like the other group about point five. We could find examples for the other four. And then we spoke about how to get a taste of practice. For one person it seemed to function quite intellectual, reading and getting a taste, and for others it was more related to having pictures or to sound, the sound of words. or other symbols. And so because we had some problems as well, you know, understanding these profiles. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Dutch? In the first four books, we could also find examples and understand, but we also have our problems with the computer. Then we talked briefly about access to practice, i.e.

[92:46]

how to get a taste for practice, and for one person it was purely intellectual. Okay. Thanks. I would like to, after our break, I'd like to say something a little bit, and then after our break we can come back to more of the questions that have arisen from the groups and just individually. Okay. Yesterday I was wondering, what could I talk about today?

[93:56]

You see, I want to share with you what we've been talking about in Crestone. And in recently in Kimse. And then this mid-week practice here. Yeah, but I also...

[94:12]

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