Oh dear, what have we got ourselves into again? Hmm. Well, for some of you who are, for a few of you for whom this is your first sesshin or new to sesshins here, let me say something about what I think we're doing. And I must say, it feels wonderful to be back in this familiar place with the domain of the birds, especially the spring cuckoo. and the domain to so many of us who know each other so well.

[01:19]

Now, I consider this practice a... A kind of research in, as I've been saying recently, a research in consciousness and awareness, being and non-being. Life and death. For some of us, I think naturally we come here for some change in scale or scope in our personal life.

[02:24]

And a few of us even foolishly or wisely seeking enlightenment. And I don't want to disappoint any of you. But I do think your practice will, and you will develop most if you see this practice as a kind of study of yourself, a kind of research. So from that point of view I'm always trying to extend our discussion a little further. Particularly, of course, it's more obvious to those of us who meet together quite often. But we also have to keep looking at how to open up the basics.

[03:39]

And this Sashin, which I'm trying to understand as basically a lay Sashin, not a monastic Sashin, is a way that we practice with various... I mean, I think of each of you as a version of each other. I know you're also unique individuals, but I also feel that we're almost like one person in many forms.

[04:39]

Now that's not all we are, but there's some truth to that. So that no matter what your practice now. Each of your practice is my practice. Each other person's practice is your practice. So this kind of mix of people of different kinds of experiences is quite good. It's various forms of ourselves. Now in this session, I think this is the easiest schedule we've ever done.

[06:07]

I don't know if some of you will be complaining that it's too easy. Ideally, I'd like a schedule which allows trying to find a schedule which allows new people some feeling of hope. And some territory of feeling your power without being worn down completely. At the same time, a schedule which has enough possibilities in it that those of you who would like to practice with more focus can do so.

[07:18]

So there's several periods, two or four or six, I forget, with an interval. So if you want, you can sit straight through the interval so you can have a longer period of sitting. And you can always sit during your breaks if you like. And there's a very long period of sitting from nine, ten or so till four, I believe. So I hope that this meets all of your requirements and needs. A sashin for everyone. Of course that won't be true. But of course it won't be like that.

[08:35]

And a Sesshin has to have a certain level of difficulty or it doesn't move us into the precincts, territory of another consciousness. No, I'm not just, you know, here we're not just doing some kind of traditional number that I inherited. I mean, I want the sashin, the things we do, to be not entirely likable. But the things you don't like, there's very little good reason to dislike. I mean, they may be unfamiliar or annoying or not understandable.

[09:36]

The neighbors over there don't care and are not harmed by whether you bow three times or five times. So we're not harming anyone particularly here. So it's anyway a little bit unfamiliar and at the same time it's something that becomes familiar. Let me say something while I think of it about Kinhin. In this room we can really do only two kinds of kin hin.

[11:02]

One is slow kin hin and one is walking or fast kin hin. And they can't be It can't be too fast because this room doesn't allow us to more than walk a little bit fast. And of course, Kinhin is to give you a break from sitting. That's one of the reasons we do it. And to move around a bit. And to find a way to continue Zazen mind in walking. Now, slow Kinyin, we could say the main The particular point of slow qin hin is to discover the breathing of the leader.

[12:16]

Whether it's me or our new Ino, Christina, Or our two tantos imported at ruinous expense from America. Gerald and Gisler. Actually at their own expense in this case. So in Slokinian you Whoever's the leader sets the pace for the room. And you don't close up the space in front of you every time someone goes to the toilet or goes to kitchen prep and so forth. So you may close up the space a little in the beginning, but basically from then on you walk at a pace as far as you can sense established by the leader.

[13:32]

If you're not near the leader, you have to just sense it. And you are not trying to decide how everyone should what pace everyone should go. You don't have to think about that. And discovering the breath of the leader is also to discover the mind that the leader continues in walking meditation. Now, in walking or faster kin hin, what you're doing is more locking yourself into the field, the body field of the person in front of you.

[14:48]

So in walking, you always close up the space in front of you. You don't have to break into a gallop. But you, you know... Go a little bit faster to catch up to the person in front of you, so we're all in one line. These are small things, but they actually make these different kinds of keening hold together as a practice. Now, We can say sesshin, the point of sesshin is to bring yourself into focus.

[16:43]

Yeah, to stabilize your mind and body. This is not just to, for example, in ordinary life to learn to focus on your work or focus on your studies or something like that. That's one thing that's useful to learn how to do for sure. But in Sashin practice you're trying to bring yourself as a whole into focus. So that you're settled on yourself all the time. Mind and body are settled together. And you're settled into the circumstances of your situation.

[17:58]

And you're settled into your situation and into the phenomenal world. So Sashin is designed to give you information immediately when you are distracted or feel like you want to do something else or you can't for this week settle yourself on yourself. There are a number of reasons for doing this and one is to come to a kind of, not kind of, to come to an absolute sanity. Now by absolute sanity, I don't mean you've become a nice person, you may remain a stinker. Yeah, I don't mean that you're necessarily less neurotic.

[19:07]

What I mean is you no longer could, under any imaginable circumstances, go crazy. Ich meine damit eher, dass ihr unter absolut gar keinen Umständen jemals mehr verrückt werden könntet. Und wiederum, es bedeutet nicht, ihr werdet jetzt unbedingt zu einem netten Menschen, sondern ihr erreicht eine wirklich radikale geistige Gesundheit. Now there's other reasons, both this stabilized mind and body and this absolute sanity, this condition of absolute sanity, are necessary to really explore yourself.

[20:12]

Now I've often talked about this fourth state of mind, Or mind being or something. A fourth state of mind in contrast to or inclusive of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Mm-hmm. No, you might ask, what is the use of this, as was asked recently to me, what is the use of this forced state of mind? Well, first of all, it's not this so-called forced state of mind.

[21:13]

Benefits are ordinary states of mind. But you can't seek its benefits in ordinary mind or you'll interfere with its realization. But there are benefits. It gives us the means to explore ourselves, to study ourselves. And it gives us the It widens our knowledge of ourselves, our capacity for knowing ourselves.

[22:34]

And fully realized, it frees us from most psychological and emotional suffering. It won't free you from physical suffering and your hand will still hurt if you put it in the stove. One of the most important aspects of it is, from a Buddhist point of view, the decision to realize or to recognize this possibility makes you an adult. You've shifted from what you were born with, what your culture gives you, and you've made a decision which has to really be an adult decision to realize yourself.

[23:46]

This is a transformative decision. An empowering decision. And it is actually your initial enlightenment. And later you'll find through practice that this initial decision, yes, I'll do this, I see the possibility, I'll act on it, unpacked, is the fullness of enlightenment. And later in your practice you will see that this initial decision, this initial knowledge and conviction, yes, I will do this, and if you really unpack this, that this will lead to complete enlightenment. I think this morning we can't go into much more detail than we've spoken so far.

[25:26]

So I'd like to say something related though, about counting your breath. And I'd like to add another way of looking at this basic practice of counting your breath. So there's counting your breath. There's following your breath. And there's naming your breath.

[26:28]

And naming the un-graspable. And now there's what maybe I could call subtle counting or noting. Now, to practice noting, you need a fairly stabilized consciousness. But anyway, it's not so difficult and I want to introduce it this morning. So when you are counting your breaths, let's ask now, how many things can you count? Now, part of what I'm saying here is you really have to know that consciousness is a construct. And what, when you, the way you, I mean, the other day, yesterday, I guess, Christian gave me a disk that was a MFS, is that right?

[27:58]

And my computer is an HFS or something like that. So it wouldn't read, nor could I doctor with this disk because the structural hierarchy, I guess it is, The two discs are different. They store information differently. Well, our consciousness has a structural hierarchy. It works a certain way. One thing we're doing in practice is to have a little different, something unfamiliar, a little different domain here during these seven days. Is to loosen the structure of our consciousness or be able to look around its corners. Or feel around its corners.

[29:05]

Or with the magical entity which your body is. To begin to know new things with your body that you don't turn into your usual familiar mental categories. So in a way in Sashin you're letting your body loose, loose from your mind to be a kind of infant, infant in each moment of the day. Maybe even for a moment you can feel your little girl's arm or little boy's arm present in your adult arm. And maybe these ancient sounds of the birds ancient in our life can awaken this infant body.

[30:28]

And also maybe our sage body. So somehow, Sashin, if you can stay with the schedule and pretty much stay with your breath or with your practice, stay in this territory of mental and physical stabilization. You can free a subtle body to be present in this session and present in your life. Awaken a body that is very subtle in the Sechin and also in your life.

[31:46]

That's partly why I put in this schedule. After lecture you can walk around a bit on your own. Maybe we will make it, it'll become a walking keening together, but at first let's just see if we can enjoy these wonderful grounds or sit as you wish quite freely after the lecture. Thank you for translating all these things. I could never do this without you. So your consciousness we have because we're a certain biological complexity.

[33:13]

And in that complexity there's a field of in-betweenness and of aliveness. And from that in-betweenness, a field of consciousness and awareness arises. And our culture structures that. to learn a certain way, to apprehend a certain way. Now, when you are daydreaming, what's the definition of a daydream? All three legs are interior. You don't have one leg in the outer world anymore. I mean, sort of you do, but really all the points at which you establish your consciousness are interior.

[34:28]

Now, if I'm practicing with the vijnanas, And I see that my favorite subject, who's always right in front of me, Peter Erxler, is in my sense fields as well as out there. Then in practicing the vijnanas, I basically am daydreaming. Because all the points at which I establish my consciousness are interior. Denn alle Punkte, an denen ich mein Bewusstsein aufspanne, die sind jetzt innen. It's coordinated with that whole world we call Peter sitting there.

[35:30]

Und es ist natürlich abgestimmt auf diese ganze Welt, genannt Peter, die da draußen existiert. And Peter is throwing off various effluvia of consciousness. Ja, und also von Peter gehen solche Schwaden von Bewusstsein aus. And I'm throwing off. And they're overlapping and tickling and so forth. But if I don't have one leg here in the sense that I have an exterior consciousness... And I pull that leg in and see that what I see of Peter is actually my own sense feels knowing Peter. Then I have an interior consciousness established in relationship to the outside. Now this kind of thing is rather hard to notice and actually feel and stabilize in yourself.

[36:53]

Now this is related to the practice of noting or subtle counting of your breath. So I'll just try to give you a feeling for this and then we'll call it quits for the day. Excuse me, the word note is not so easy to translate. It means in Germany quite a few things. What does it mean in German? To remark. To remark. To remark on? Yeah. Well, the root in English is to know. It's the same root as know, know something, and could be to remark on. That's not necessarily bad.

[37:54]

Is it more, do you mean more in the sense of noticing? Noticing, yeah. Well, let me continue, and we'll maybe try to find a better word. Okay, so how many things when you count your breath can you count? Okay, we say count your exhales. So you count one. One. But also, when you're doing it and your mind is present in it, you also have the bottom of the exhale, which is a little different space than the exhale or the inhale.

[39:01]

And then then there's the inhale, the uncounted inhale, which is different than a counted exhale. And there's a kind of feeling, there's a feeling, a specific feeling on the uncounted inhale. And then there's the top of the breath, which is neither inhale nor exhale. And there's a stopped feeling. And a different stopped feeling than the stopped feeling at the bottom of the breath. And then there's the mind itself or the attention itself counting the breath.

[40:11]

And then there's the intent behind the intention to continue counting even when you don't. And then there's the space around the breath. There's even the field around the breath. And in this space or field, there are distracting thoughts that wind in and out and distract you or don't. And then there's the space around the breath. So how many things is that? That's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, at least eight or nine different things you can count.

[41:17]

Or note. What happens? When you notice two things, you establish concentration. And if you can stay with those two things, there's a kind of concentration that begins. If you notice three things, you establish a line or a plane. And if you notice four, you really establish that plane or create a kind of precinct consciousness or a region of consciousness within you. And you'll discover if you notice a different four, you create a different realm of consciousness.

[42:29]

Now this kind of skill is very related to the practice of dying. And the practice of studying your dreams. And studying the moment of going to sleep. And you can notice, instead of just involuntarily going to sleep, now I'm trying to go to sleep, or I can't go to sleep, when will I go to sleep, what can I do to go to sleep, etc., You establish one leg in a sleep feeling. And you establish another feeling in a dream memory or another sleep feeling. And as soon as you establish a third, you can fold yourself right into sleep.

[43:50]

You actually create a kind of gate that you can step right through into sleep whenever you want. And you get the ability not to manipulate your states of mind or interior consciousness, But the ability to focus your states of mind, like studying, but now studying interior consciousness. But this kind of ability to study ourselves, our being in its various manifestations, and to free ourselves from the minds of suffering by being to step into other minds,

[45:01]

Without rejecting or repressing the suffering. So the dynamic of how you know yourself changes. And it's based on developing this mental and physical stabilization that is the point of Sashin. So you can see that Even a very basic practice, like counting your breaths, which people say, do I still have to count my breaths? There are many things to count, and that counting itself can create doors and transform your consciousness. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk with you about these things.

[46:26]

It's so wonderful. I think rare opportunity that we can talk about these things. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

[47:24]

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