I would like to add something that may be of interest. Angela mentioned Breuer yesterday. And he was a pioneer in the sense that he, without any idea of psychoanalysis, since it didn't exist, he just approached this idea of a talking cure. His first client was an extraordinary woman. And I've been involved with looking into who she was for a long time.

[01:10]

And what I discovered is that she was also suffering from a duality in our culture. She developed a hysteria. And I assumed that the hysteria of that time was an expression for this suffering from an incomprehensible inconsistency in our culture. And I suspect that hysteria at the time was one way to express an unfathomable dissonance in our culture. And last weekend you mentioned Ferdinand Pessoa.

[02:26]

And last weekend you spoke about Fernando Pessoa. And I looked him up and looked what kind of texts he wrote. And I found a text in which he describes that his own sense of himself is that he's hysteric. And maybe I should add that when you spoke about him last week and quoted his texts, that this was in the context of saying that he had enlightenment experiences.

[03:35]

And in his writings, he kept generating new heteronyms And I found a text which I don't know if it's interesting, but if it is, I could read a small portion of his text. How would we know until you read it? He says the origin of my heteronyms is a deep streak of hysteria that's in me. I'm not sure whether I'm simply hysteric or more or rather a hysterio-neuro-asthenic.

[04:50]

I actually prefer the second hypothesis, because in my opinion there is a weak will, which the hysteria literally, but does not include in the register of its symptoms. I lean towards the second hypothesis since I have symptoms of a weak will, which is not part of the register of symptoms for pure hysteria. So we can see he's been deeply involved with the ICD-10 register. Anyhow, the origin lies in my organic and continuous tendency to depersonalize. Diese Phänomene, zu meinem Glück und zum Glück für andere, vergeistigen sich nicht nur in mir, sie manifestieren sich nicht in meinem praktischen äußerlichen Leben, in Kontakt mit anderen Menschen.

[06:15]

Luckily, these problems do not manifest not just in me and not in how I'm in touch with other people and my relationships with other people. Sie explodieren nach innen und ich lebe allein mit mir. They explode inwardly and I live alone with myself. Wenn ich eine Frau wäre, bei einer Frau bringen hysterische Phänomene bekanntlich in Attacke und Eheleben aus. If I was a woman, for a woman, hysteric attacks are known to break out outwardly. . then every poem of Alvaro de Campos, the most hysteric persona in me, would bring the neighborhood into a state of chaos or alarm.

[07:23]

But I am male, and for men, hysteria tends to show in mental aspects. And this way everything ends in stillness and poetry. Yeah. Okay. Yes, he's a wonderful person. I don't know, 1920 or 1909 or something like that. Yes, Andy. I need to add to this, because the first thing I did also after the last seminar is to pull out my Pessoa.

[08:30]

I have a lot of his writings at home already. And I also wanted to read a small portion. Just a short fragment. from one of his heteronyms. So this theme of being many persons in one is a literary theme at the time.

[09:55]

So he was in good company. There's this book wrote this thing six authors in search for an author. Six characters. We never actualize ourselves. We are two abysses. One well staring at the sky. What? Did you hear me translate? One well staring at the sky. Correct. That's the end. Okay. It's Philip the Gauntlet. Thank you. So to your question, and two days ago I said something about activity and the duality of activity and entity. .

[11:23]

and that has continued to work in me and I've wondered why are there all these detours that seem to lead to this point where we are now? Do we need the detour through entities in order to perceive activities? And a saying by Fritz Perls came to me. Which is, you have to chew before you swallow. Usually. Otherwise, all the pieces stay in the stomach and you get an ulcer. Yeah, unless you're drinking.

[12:39]

What else? Yes. Yesterday, throughout the entire day, this experience of having accompanied my children kept appearing in me. And I can proudly say that this is mostly over. I'm in a wonderful relationship with them, but they've moved out and life can begin, as Ravi says. The cats are still alive. But what's special about that is that you actually accompany or lead your children into culture.

[13:53]

And in a way, that's a scary or a concerning process. And of course, you want to raise them in a way that they can participate in society because you wouldn't want to raise them in a way that they are at the periphery or can't participate or are ostracized by society. And at the same time, you show them simultaneously it's unavoidable that they do have to separate themselves. that we have tried to create a space for him to walk around in. So, we have, as I said, with Dracula, we just do it out of humor, but we create a space for him to walk around in.

[14:59]

What we've tried to do is to give them a space around this, around their participation in culture, right, a society. And we have not taught them meditation, but through humor and other tricks, we've tried to just create a space around for them. so that they can and maybe have to, whether they like it or not, have to reflect on what's going on in the process of growing up. And we have also given them our own body, so that they can look for themselves, so that they can look for themselves. And of course, through living together, we've also passed on our own suffering to them, or maybe they've chosen it.

[16:09]

Maybe they choose what they need or what they can use. And that is also a difficult thing. And as a Western Zen practitioner, As a practitioner of Western Zen, I say how important it is for me to respect my own suffering and to give it a space. This first noble truth is not just there to be transcended. And what I've learned also is that this is a gift that we can give to each other.

[17:12]

that we allow for it to exist and that it's not just there to be gone but it may leave also it may go away also it's not but it's permanent okay thank you yes Last night, last evening, I was in a state of like, what do you say when a TV crashes, like a white... Whiteout? Yeah, maybe. Like a computer crashing, anyhow. Tilt. Tilt, yes. So you crashed last night? Kind of, yeah. It was really, I felt it.

[18:30]

I felt like it was so much yesterday and it did capture me, but at some point I didn't understand a thing anymore. But fortunately, I'm quite familiar with this process. And I have a trust that throughout the weekend it will somehow sort itself out, or just that through sleeping overnight and just leaving things in the background, it will kind of organize itself. And I came up with something, and I would like to say that and then hear if I'm completely off-territory or if I'm on a trail.

[19:36]

And something arose for me and I would just like to hear if that's in the territory or if it's somehow off-roads. Und zwar dieses ungeteilte Aktivität. About undivided activity. Das war für mich ein neuer Terminus technicus, den kannte ich noch überhaupt nicht und ich fand es sehr irritierend. That was for me a new term. I've never heard it before and it was somewhat confusing. And I oftentimes have this experience of where I first find a word complicated or hard to access, but when I then do find an entry, then it's like, ah, that's what it is. What arose is what I call beingness. A feeling of being present. Without content.

[20:49]

In a kind of leaned back position and defocused. This morning I had some phrase arise, it's like being in the Hancock, is that what we say? hammock hammock in the hammock of existence And for me it's like it's an activity that is not an activity or like activity that doesn't have an opposition to it. And I've noticed that if I lean back too far, then things get kind of blurry and vague.

[22:02]

But you did speak about it as a form of knowing. And so that I felt, I mean, I've noticed that maybe I do need to lean in a little bit. And then it's an act of balancing myself. And so this other phrase arose, knowing before thought arises. Knowing without thinking about, noticing without thinking about. Which is a little different. OK. Yes. I'm very happy about the first part of what Andrea said.

[23:07]

And I'm very curious to see for how, for me, how the content will organize or change throughout the next day, days. Okay. Yeah, I, some people say, oh, that was very clear when I, like yesterday. It's interesting, a few people said it was very clear yesterday. And then at the same time I hear, like what you said, at some point it was too much or something. What is too much? At what point is it too much? I just talk too long or there's too many things? No. No, it was just the really new bringing in. In first evening you brought in so many questions that were very clear, like his terms and feet, body, and then it unfolded and so for me, but it's not too much in the sense of like, it's just a feeling.

[24:27]

What I'd like to be able to give you is a kind of grid. Ich wäre gerne in der Lage, euch so etwas wie ein Netz zu geben. Und wenn ihr dieses Netzwerk einmal habt, dann könnt ihr alles draufstellen und könnt anfangen, das zu bekochen. Or a grid, as I spoke to Siegfried Essen the other day, about the funeral ceremony is basically a grid based on the tetralemma. And I'll say something about that probably. Anyway, I'm trying to see if we can get some key views which then are quite simple but transformative.

[25:42]

It's like you change the foundation of the house. But then any house you build on it is on that foundation. So anyway, I'll have to continue. Anybody else? Everyone else? Yes, Ulrike. I would like to reference Christine. . And what you said yesterday afternoon about attention to breathing, that this is caring for aliveness.

[26:58]

Yes. Yes, and the experience is that we are there to worship the Virgin Mary and our angels. Not to look at us, but to open a room so that there, in the same measure of freedom and how the other Christina said and we spoke about how in the experience of suffering there is a density in our experience and when we bring attention there non-judgmentally just observing without interfering how then it opens in a way that we find aliveness in this experience yes

[28:13]

Yes. I think in this vein that's how I experienced when Norbert got increasingly sick, how I experienced this. and it became clear that he could do less and less of what he used to do, and that there was also just an increased bodily suffering. But I would also say that he and I, together, were able to take it into consideration that there must be a middle ground again, at least where he is. And I would say that both he and I were able to bring the sense of suffering, the sense of suffering and everything around it into the presence in a way that from that a new kind of aliveness arose, just like Christina was saying, without avoiding the aspects that were difficult or bad.

[29:36]

Okay. I have a question of understanding that is somehow related to me. I just have one question for simple understanding where I couldn't follow yesterday. It's what you said about what is it when you're riding backwards on an ox. Well, it's not the usual way to ride on an ox. So that's all. It means you don't need a back mirror. It means what? It means that you don't need a back mirror. You don't need a rear view mirror. I understand the part about the rear view mirror, but I feel like there's something in that statement that captures me.

[31:18]

There's something in it that I would like to understand more, but I can't quite fathom it. Well, it's like the backward step, or you could say the spineward step. If in the middle of a situation where you're busy, you bring attention to the spine, you're stepping into yourself and out of the situation a bit. The concept here is we're in the midst of an inter-penetrating, inter-independent world. And that interdependent world means that we're connected with everything. So let me say something first about the...

[32:20]

funeral ceremony and the tetralemma. And because we should be taking a break soon, I'll try to be brief. The tetras means four. Tetra bedeutet vier. And so the four conditions we could say. Können das die vier Positionen, die vier Konditionen nennen? Something is or it is not. Etwas ist oder es ist nicht. That's two, right? Das sind zwei. And then it both is and is not. And then it is neither is nor is not. Okay, this is not Indian logic or sort of, and Nagarjuna may emphasize this.

[33:43]

So it's A and B? Both A and B and neither A and B. These are considered the four possible positions of everything. So the funeral ceremony is then based on these four positions. The person is dead. The person was alive. Somehow the person is, in your experience, both alive and dead. And in a wider scope, neither alive nor dead.

[34:44]

In this sense of undivided activity, undivided activity is an activity which is not interfered with by being born or dying, etc. It's just part of undivided activity. So when I arrived at your house before, I thought maybe I'd arrived before Norbert died, but I arrived just after he died. And then I was there, and quite a few visitors were there from Kassel who I didn't know, but some of them seemed like they might be not Buddhists for sure and maybe Christians. So I couldn't really do suddenly a funeral ceremony, not knowing these people and they're not initiated into the situation.

[36:23]

Und ich dachte, ich kann nicht einfach eine normale Beerdigungszeremonie machen, weil ich diese Leute nicht kannte und weil ich nicht wusste, wie sie in die Situation initiiert sind. So with Norbert behind me, clearly dead, cold, clearly dead, gone. The extraordinary gone-ness of a dead person. They look like they're there, but they're not. So I stood, if you remember, with my hands on the back of a chair. And I just talked about maybe what a funeral ceremony would be like as a way of kind of doing a funeral ceremony. So I talked about him. So I talked about him, about him, that's treating him as dead.

[37:39]

And then after a while I began speaking to him as if he were alive. So that's another aspect of the Tetralemma. Alive, dead. And when I spoke to him as if he were alive, I'm speaking to his aliveness in me. I married the two of you. I've known you forever. I've known you longer than your son knows you. So it was very, very difficult for me to be there. Also... Just okay. Okay. And when I speak to him as if he were alive, I'm also speaking to his still aliveness in human, everyone, all of us.

[39:09]

So then it becomes alive and dead, and then in a larger sense, see, neither alive nor dead. And so funeral ceremony is based on moving in this field, this grid, like an electrical grid. And we did the first funeral ceremony for Neil in this way in Berlin. I wasn't there, but I was speaking with Otmar and others about the ceremony.

[40:12]

And a few days ago, well, a few weeks ago, I did the... Green Gulch in California, I did the funeral for my first Dharma brother. Graham Petchy died fairly recently. And there's somehow some kind of... non-conceptual or intuitive truth in doing such a ceremony where you really are in the midst of acting in the field, both alive and dead. As I now feel, as I said, Yesterday, this ongoing activity, this undivided activity, will continue after I'm dead.

[41:30]

I'll just be part of the ongoing activity. So this ongoing, this undivided activity, which will be going on after I'm dead, is present now, so I feel like I'm living in the world in which will be here when I'm dead. So I feel like I'm both alive and dead. And I feel I'm enjoying the world that you'll enjoy after I'm dead. I'm not planning to die anytime soon, actually, because I'm quite used to being alive.

[42:48]

And I'm not used to being dead. In fact, I will never be used to being dead. It's not experientially possible. OK. So that's, yeah. So that this, Let's leave the elephant after breakfast. I mean after break. Break fast. No, break. Okay. Thank you very much.

[43:38]

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