Was our meetings in the last years contributed to that? Yeah. Well, I think that there's so much Buddhism and psychotherapy in the air. That it's almost impossible now to say that they're really separate, they're influencing each other. I still have a question to these rounds. I don't know whether I understand it correctly. I see that there is more reality between us than within us. That reality happens between us more than within us.

[01:04]

Not within an individual, but within a system. So you mean that these aren't the emphasis in these realms is not so much pointing out personal psychological things, but interrelational, transactional psychological things. I think that's the case. I mean, Buddhism is... despite it coming into the American Europe with the communal movement. Not communist, communal. Communal. Yeah, communes, you know, people living together. Okay. It is a teaching of how to be free from your culture and society.

[02:38]

To find as close as possible your absolute identity. But it assumes that most of the definitions of each person arise from locating ourselves through other people. So that location is always an expanding, contracting sphere with others and with the phenomenal world. And the realms particularly emphasize that because of their spatial and layered quality. But it's personal in that it's your responsibility or capacity or lack of to know these realms and to bring intention into the realms.

[03:53]

OK. Does that respond to what you said? Yeah. Anyone else? These rooms seem to have a quality of field. Field? Oh, yes, definitely. And related to that, I'm interested. This happens also on the level of atmosphere in a collective level. How is it possible to see this also as part of this bigger field?

[05:08]

And let go of judgment and giving value to things. So what is the question exactly? Yes. So, obviously, one prefers the lower end to the upper end, But how do you look with dispassion on each, you mean? you develop the capacity to do so.

[06:31]

Which I think is actually starts with developing a tendency to accept things. The secure issue is to say, as they is, And that's what he meant. So the process of acceptance leads to eventually a kind of sense of sameness where you see a sameness in everything. Some of these things are not just a change in attitude, though that helps, but the development of our capacities. And it's not easy for somebody who hasn't developed the capacity to look on hell equally with some other man.

[07:52]

I think a stone would be softer. So let me come back to what Gerhard brought up. I want this to continue to be a discussion. I don't want to just be presenting things, but it's dependent on you to make it a discussion. I can't do it. I don't have a gun. Okay. Okay. When I say that, it comes from a joke. This woman comes home, it's black comedians, and this woman comes home and tells her husband she smashed up the car.

[08:56]

And her husband says, well, how could you have done that? And she says, Jesus made me do it. And the husband says, well, could Jesus make you do it? She says, he had a gun. You were sitting in the back. It's a long story, actually. Jesus was in the back seat. And... It takes quite a lot of energy to present these things to us, to me, too. It takes energy to try to make these things clear.

[09:58]

But more than making them clear, to make them present as real choices. Now, that's one difference with working with you than when I usually do a seminar, is I have more of a tendency to try to make these real choices. Compared to a usual seminar, here I try to present things so they're more real choices. I feel sorry. Do you have to say all these things? It's okay. But also it takes a lot of energy from you to hear things which involve actual choices or potentially choices.

[11:23]

But on the other hand... If you don't see the choices, it takes even more energy. Because you can always choose not to make the choice, which is a choice. But if you don't see the choice at all, then something debilitating happens. Debilitate means to take your energy away. Now, but I think that psychotherapists, working psychotherapists, are used to being in life-changing situations.

[12:30]

Because you're constantly in relationship to people where things might change their life. And you're used to dealing with that responsibility. And you're in situations where also things might change your life. Now I think if we take some of the examples you brought up, but let's emphasize Christina's and Siegfried's. When you work with people in such a way that they see what's going on. And I like the word resolute. Resolute means to have a strong intention. Because to resolve means to melt back or untie back to where it's no longer reducible.

[13:42]

So a resolve actually means something like dharma, because it means to analyze into their parts so that you can make a clear decision. Now, it seems to me that when, for instance, You get a family to look at what's keeping a situation going. Or you get a person to resolve themselves into a me and a witness. Now, this is an extraordinary thing to do, I think. Really extraordinary thing to do. But, you know, I'm not a psychotherapist, but it seems to me the most extraordinary moment is the next moment. Because when a person has resolved themselves in such a way that they see the me and they see the witness and perhaps other parts, it seems to me there's a very crucial moment there, I would imagine, which is it's possible to change the script.

[15:30]

Now, that's a huge responsibility, to change somebody's script. And I suspect what a responsible therapist does is say something like, what do you really want to do? What do you really feel at this point? And that may be the best thing to do. Probably usually is. But it does assume they know what the choices are. You might at that very vulnerable moment when the script can be changed offer them a number of choices they hadn't imagined. And my experience is that the moment when a script can be changed is something that appears to you as a kind of energy.

[16:53]

A kind of luminous feeling or clear feeling or gray feeling. A kind of gray light with a directionality. Or some completeness, blissness, blissness, blissful type feeling. And it takes a kind of like to go into that or not. And I think that the, if there's a, at least in Zen, the teacher generates these possibilities in themselves and they are kind of magnetically picked up by the other person.

[18:11]

Now, does what I just say make sense? Is it resonant with what your experience is? Yes? I don't know. So... That kind of, this list is about that possible script change right here. So it's not just that the Buddha is also here. This is the script as a human being we're born with. And this is pretty much what any society or human being creates with a few others.

[19:23]

This is a wisdom teaching, multi-generational wisdom teaching. Now, I am shocked not only by the tremendous fluidity that's on the other side of the psychological rigidity we have, Does that make sense? That the very rigidity most people are in psychologically is in a sea of fluidity. And most people if they don't have a certain strength, can't deal with the fluidity because then it dissolves.

[20:40]

So I'm, anyway, not just in awe of our psychological Let's use the word psychological capacities, fluidity. Sorry, I missed it. I'm not just in awe of our psychological capacities, fluidity. But also of our, and I mentioned this in the last session, our immense physiological plasticity. By that I mean the part of the brain that shapes our life has tremendous plasticity and it can be changed. So what I feel with Buddhism is that there are other teachings, but this is the one I know.

[22:00]

It's the creation of many centuries. It's not just the creation of one human being. Which offers us a wisdom script rather than a human script. Or a more, I would say, more fully human script. And so the question here is, when you're at this point, can you make this decision? And if you can't make the decision, then you should know the decision is there. To know the decision is there is much healthier than to not even see it. Because then you're also able to support other people in the decision.

[23:32]

Because, for instance, this is a Buddha realm here in this room. If I am able to see each of you in your potentialities as a Buddha as well as a particular person. If I'm not able to see that, then there's no Buddha realm here. So it's not that I have to be a Buddha, it's that I have to see that possibility to create the Buddha field. And not just me, but each of you. The more each of you can feel that or move toward that intention or possibility, the more we create what's called in Buddhism a Buddha field.

[24:34]

Buddhafield means a place where, if a Buddha appeared, he or she could be recognized. And concomitantly, it's that if a Buddha appeared, there are not people who could recognize a Buddha, a Buddha will not appear. Sukhiroshi used to say, a Buddha is good because people are good. So that's a very different idea than thinking, well, the world's a mess, we need a Buddha. No, the world has to get it together before a Buddha will appear. We make it possible for a Buddha to appear. This really makes it clear that a Buddha is not an individual. It's something we create. We might create... One of you as a Buddha.

[26:13]

But we create you as a Buddha. But we can't create you as a Buddha unless you have made this decision. And you can recognize the potentialities in others. So it's a very... interpenetrating vision of what an individual human being is. Is this making sense? Yes, of course. Do I understand correctly? So that in order that this possibility of choice helps for the client in psychotherapy, It is really necessary to be a therapist, having developed these qualities in me.

[27:36]

Do we have to have this quantity only? So that I can open up the field for the... Yeah, absolutely. I mean, ideally, at least you have to have the feeling and the intention. But it also means not to measure, have I got these yet, but to have a feeling of trust in your intention. That's all. permitting oneself that it's possible. Yes, oh yes, but that's much of what we're doing here is trying to create permission. But we don't want to just present the client or the practitioner with the choice.

[28:51]

All such choices are tests. They test us, they test our character, they test our vision. But you don't present the test or the choice to a person until they have the possibility of accomplishing it. You don't willy-nilly go around putting people in a situation where they can change their script. Let's have a script-changing party. You know pretty well that the person, you can't do it for the person, but you know they have a chance. And you know they're enough of a realistic warrior to want the chance.

[29:52]

a realistic warrior to want the chance. You know, warriors are not just men. Just like there's heroes and there's sheroes. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Something else. My impression is if it comes with a specific proton, Is there really a point of choice to change something? Is he ready to do it? He wants to mourn a little bit.

[31:22]

It seems to be just this big thing, but also in specific problems there seems to be the case that you can decide whether one person wants to take the chance and do it or not. I think, yeah, that's how I would see it, yeah. And while you're speaking, what I was thinking, feeling is that... is that, again, just imagining if I was working with a client, I would find an area where... If there's this big area that's too amorphous to deal with, I would find some small corner where they can be clear about it and work with that.

[32:37]

Maybe I should become a therapist. You're welcome. Yeah, I know where I belong, so I keep in my place. I let you guys do that kind of work. Okay, again it's somehow become 11 o'clock. And if it's all right with you, after our break, I would like to present the eight forms of suffering. And... And they're fairly simple, so I can show you how you unpack a teaching.

[33:50]

Because most Buddhist teachings are built in a way that what they're about is revealed if you know how to approach them. If you know how to approach them. Most Buddhist teachings have been evolved, developed, so that if you bring attention to them, they show you what they're about. And this teaching of the six, eight forms of suffering is fairly easy to unpack. Not that you need it to be easy, but, you know... But, for instance, unpacking a koan, I don't like the term unpacking, but it's become ubiquitous.

[34:56]

I've had to spend too much time in my life unpacking, so... Hundreds of hotel rooms. But in any case, to unpack a koan requires a familiarity with practice and a language of states of mind that's not so easy to do unless you're practicing full time. So it's a little after 11. Shall we come back at 11.35? Okay. I approach this topic of suffering with some trepidation.

[36:22]

Trepidation? Fear. Yeah. And with some modesty. for whom I to speak about the sometimes unfathomable suffering, that means unable to reach the bottom. And also silly, sometimes, suffering we have. I mean, we could define us human beings as those ones who have the capacity to suffer. You know, even in the most clear settled samadhic meditation, which perhaps the clarity of being surpasses the clearest water.

[37:40]

Still, that can be so wrenched and distorted by the loss of a child or even one's, you know, something not so significant. So this list of the eight sufferings is not meant to be, well, if we can make a list, we've got it under control. Yeah, it's just a way of saying, okay, we do suffer. Let's look into it as much as we can. And the idea is not to come to the place where we don't suffer, that would not be human.

[39:00]

But to come to the place where there's such a deep underpinnings of how we exist with each other, that suffering is something we can bear. And this kind of stable mind underneath the way we exist, It's also supported when we don't have such incapacitating emotions. Incapacitating means that take our capacity away.

[40:08]

In other words, basically, that's when emotions are no longer in the service of self. From the point of view of Buddhism, what we are fundamentally is feeling beings. And the first aspect of that feeling is caring. If you don't care, you're not alive. Even if you're angry, you're only angry because you care. So we understand everything, all of our human life is feeling. And it's first expressed as caring. Interest, curiosity. And appreciation. Maybe the key word is appreciation. If you look at something

[41:16]

It's there, you appreciate it. So all feeling, caring, all feeling emotion is initially caring and appreciation. And it's a way of thinking. It sets the tone for thinking. And then conceptual thinking follows from caring and emotional states. But when those emotions are in the service of the self, protecting the self, they become very protective and envious and so forth. there's nothing wrong with the emotions.

[42:32]

The problem is the master they're serving. Does that make sense? Yeah. This is a very mundane little list. Extremely obvious elements. If First is, unfortunately, birth.

[43:35]

Second is old age. Third is sickness. Fourth is death. All over. Fifth is separation. Sixth is envy. Envy is being jealous or? Yeah. Night. And seventh is frustration. Frustration. Yeah. And last is the five stunts. The last are the five scandals. What's funny?

[44:46]

Five scandals, yeah. Already everything hit it. Yeah. I print it, actually. It's much better than usual. Ulrike tells me I should learn a little pedagogy. Ulrike says I should be more pedagogical and write clearer. Okay. Yeah. This is pretty obvious. But it's also a list. And the list is in a particular order. It could be different. The order is not arbitrary. So first of all, when you look at this, all of these, well, the first thing you notice is that first four are physical, and the second four are mental.

[45:58]

And in the middle, they sort of end with separation. And in fact, that's the key. It is assumed in this way of looking at suffering that all suffering is a form of separation. So you have here Separation from your mother. Separation from life. Separation from health. Separation from... No, this is separation from you. Separation from life. And this is from Lao Tuan. And this is a separation of anger and hate, et cetera.

[47:03]

And then there is a relationship between birth And the first one and the fourth one. And then the relationship between the second one and the fifth one. And the relationship between the first one Third one. Excuse me. Angry and hate is separation from what? From just separation between people. Between people. It's just separation. You could call it self-created separation. The last one is

[48:04]

So there's this kind of relationship. Then you can say that this first one, this first relationship, is attachment. Don't look so worried. Yuck. I don't. You can't be. You should go sit here. I want to see. Yes, certainly. I want to see. And the second one is comparisons.

[49:30]

And the third one, third unit here, is weakness. Die dritte Einheit ist scheitert. The last one is delusion. Und die letzte ist Täuschung. Gleich. This yellow one here is attachment. Maybe I should make something I can see. Now, this is very typical of a Buddhist teaching, is they just give you a list, and if you start paying attention to it, looking at it carefully, you see that the list is really about relationships.

[51:17]

Now, shall I wait until you're, if you're writing it down, that you're finished? Should I wait until you have written it down? Okay. So this is for the purpose of meditation. It's not been designed to work with clients, but it might work. In other words, say that you're sick, you have a cold. Now, my view is that basically A lot of the major sicknesses, maybe most of them, are all dormant illness.

[52:39]

I have a feeling there's a low-grade flu in me all the time. And most of the time I keep it low-grade. But if I fly airplanes, the air and the proximity of a lot of flu germs sometimes overwhelms my low-grade flu. But in general, if it's not some situation where you're under that kind of prolonged exposure, I've noticed that If I get sick, it's usually because I was angry about something.

[53:55]

If I examine, actually, you know, the day before I got the flu or the cold, I was kind of irritated about something or frustrated. So if you're working with this as a meditation device, if you have a physical sickness, look for a mental cause. And if you have a mental situation, you always look for a physical cause. So that goes for each of these things. Each has its... And so then you look at what's common to the physical and emotional mental manifestation. And for instance, if you find yourself envious a lot or something like that, it's usually related to your making comparisons.

[55:31]

He's richer than I am. He has a more beautiful spouse. But it's often age-related. We're not jealous of somebody who's 20 years older than us with a more beautiful spouse or more money. Usually somebody in our own age range. It's always related to the fact that we're not we're not accepting, we're making too many comparisons to whether we're young or old or something. You're generally only even concerned about old age when you compare it to what you used to be or to young people. I knew a friend of mine had a friend who was in his 90s, and he wrote her a letter and said, I feel just like a young man who has something wrong with it.

[56:45]

I feel just like a young... This 90-year-old wrote to this friend of mine. I feel just like a young man who has something wrong with him. So if in practice you noticed you were often... affected by envy and jealousy. This teaching would suggest you work with how you relate to getting older. And then in turn it would suggest that you notice how you make comparisons all the time. So you would work with your habit of making comparisons even between movies. And more deeply, your habit of an either-or states of mind.

[58:06]

Because either-or states of mind, which is the way most of our minds function, are unable to perceive nuances. And if you fall prey to not seeing nuances, you then fall more likely prey to envy. And then you can work with the antidotes to each of these. So the practitioner would not deal with this so much, but deal with antidotes to these.

[59:10]

And if I'm frustrated a lot or sick, I would tend to try to strengthen myself in general. And the five skandhas is here because it's the basis for self. It's also the basis for freeing yourself from self. But it's the avenue for suffering. It's the avenue by which we create the sense of the self. This suggests that we turn the five skandhas into a self because we're afraid of death. I feel embarrassed to present something to you so obvious, but it's typical of a Buddhist way of looking at things.

[60:28]

To analyze it into parts and to then find the parts that are most accessible to transformation. Clearly, if you stopped giving... if you stopped fueling comparisons, giving relevance to comparisons, you wouldn't feel envy and hate. And you would... have a different relationship. You'd have a more sense of timelessness than in this moment has nothing to do with age. Right now I have no age.

[61:29]

I'm just here with you. And not recognizing we're going to die and also self are both delusions. And then also there's, of course, a sequence here. Birth leads to old age. And old age, we're more likely to get sick. And sickness often leads to death. Which is, of course, separation. And when we feel separated, we're more likely to feel envy. And envy is often the root of frustrations. And if you put all those together, you end up with a very strong sense of self.

[62:47]

So the other way of working with it is, and of course, here you also have the teaching that there's a lot of separation between body and mind, and you have to work with that. So all of these lists usually work both directions. So the skandhas, also from the skandhas, if you develop a sense of no-self, you'll have less frustration, less haste, etc., all the way up. Then what's here is you have the sense of the vital energy given us at birth. Again, as I said in the last session, we're given an immense packet of vital energy at birth. And tremendous redundancy in our ability to function.

[63:57]

But if we don't keep restoring that, it runs down around 40, 45, 50. And then it's pretty much downhill all the way. Unless you find some way to give rebirth to this vital energy. So practice is also to come into touch with your vital energy. But what most depletes your energy is sickness, separation, envy, etc. So if you can reverse this pattern in here, you end up with a kind of Taoist idea of longevity, of being able to get in touch with your

[65:12]

like energy and stay alive for the sake of others. So listed in any list in Buddhism usually is how to make a Buddha. Und implizit in jeder Liste im Buddhismus ist auch, wie man einen Buddha hervorbringt. It's just a list of things, but actually if you look at it carefully, it has a teaching about how you are reborn as a Buddha. Und es sind einfach eine Liste von Dingen, aber wenn ihr das genau anschaut, dann ist es auch eine Beschreibung, wie man als Buddha wiedergeboren werden kann. a process, for example, It's also the description of healthy and successful power. Mourning process.

[66:15]

Mourning? Yeah. You mean if you lose a parent or something, this is a mourning process? If you lose, mourning means more than losing a person. It also means losing you. Grief. Yeah, I understand. If you go through that process, as an adult, What I notice also is young people, they can do almost everything with their body. The older I become, it becomes more necessary to... Yes, I understand. ...go through the circle again and again. Because the state of the body becomes more dependent on the state of mind.

[67:17]

Yeah, I agree. And this, coming back to frustration again, this frustration is just all kinds of frustration. You can't get a ball of string undone. But it's more particularly when you haven't, as I said here, you recognize you haven't had the courage of change. You had a calling, but you've been unable to answer it. And so the frustration of leading a life that you didn't want... And then that really makes the self-formation inaccessible to change.

[68:23]

So again, this doesn't cover everything we call suffering, but if you are suffering, you look at it in this kind of way to explore it. There's a lot of teachings in Buddhism which are little packets like this, they're little units which you're meant to explore and open up.

[69:36]

Is that enough on that? Do you think we want to say anything about it? Should I speak about something else? Does anybody else want to speak about anything? I'm really impressed with how little terms and so on you can really describe a very complex field. It's interesting, isn't it? I didn't do it. I mean, I just thought... Yeah, I mean, I really am in awe all the time of what our ancestors did, how astute they were, you know. And I don't think it's because they were smarter than we are. I think if you look, it will be at particular historical periods, which were both periods of crisis and periods of immense friendship.

[71:04]

And if you look at the periods where the koans were produced, for instance, it's a period in which there were a fairly large number of people in regular communication with each other over distances of a few hundred kilometers. With deep mutual appreciation of each other and also very great clarity about the differences. And an intelligence began to appear in the teaching which surpassed what any one person can do. So I don't think we look back and say, oh, the ancients, we can never reach what they have achieved. Nor do we have to think, this is the best of all possible ages.

[72:21]

You know what Voltaire said about that? He said the optimist is one who thinks this is the best of all possible ages. And the pessimist is one who knows the optimist is right. But rather that this is something within our human capacity together, but not individually. Yes. Yes. Experiencing myself was too, you said also this morning. An enormous up-speeding coming close of psychotherapy and Buddhism in itself.

[73:53]

And when I said in the beginning, I'm just starting to build up my practice, my feeling out. This is a very hopeful beginning. You know, Dogen says, if you shoot an arrow at a target, and you miss for 99 times and hit the 100th time, he says, all arrows hit the target. So I feel that what we've done in previous meetings has made us able to talk about this in a way that we can see the closeness. Certainly true for me. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. Bitte schön, is that right? Something like that? So we're supposed to end in a moment.

[75:28]

Why don't we sit for a moment? The most precious thing, I think, is the direction we give to our life.

[78:23]

The direction we discover and give to our life. So if it's okay, maybe in relationship to what we've been speaking of, we can speak a little of that this afternoon. You've changed, Christina.

[80:51]

Your voice is deeper. I never know what's going on. So what would you like to talk about? Or what would you like to contribute to the discussion? Please show me. You should say, it's already shown. Okay, I will come to that.

[82:01]

But I would like to discuss Attention first. Kind of the first step. But before I launch into something, I imagined hitting myself over the head with a champagne bottle. Still, what would you like to This is much more interesting for me if you say something.

[83:13]

I don't want to just leave the seminar. Can you imagine I get tired of hearing my own voice? I would like to suggest something. Please. I would like to suggest that we make a circle and everybody can say what's the point now. I don't know. I don't know. I won't say if that's typical, you know. But I'm interested also in things of other people.

[84:19]

So that was my point. So now you have to... I have said my thing at this point. Perhaps I'm getting some idea. Really, I... No, I need some minutes. Okay, we can come back. To you. Just ask them to speak in sentences and stop a little bit so that I can speak. So I'm very happy to be able to be here for the first time.

[85:31]

And I have the feeling that I understand very much many of the old things already since a long time. But I think that now the time has come that I am dealing with all these things more actively. My feeling is that in my life, since all things started a little bit too early, Very much to Ernie. You were premature. A preemie.

[86:34]

There was improvement. And it's connected to not having enough structure or forms in oneself, in myself. And also an unwillingness to practice in a regular way and in a disciplined way. And I'm very pleased that I like being here.

[87:42]

And that I don't have to protest against certain rules which exist here in myself, in a protest. It's wonderful. sufferings and I think that Rausch is always very modest when he says that Buddhism is the only thing. I have to mention that he revives dead concepts that have already been read everywhere by bringing them together as a whole,

[88:44]

So I'm very impressed and also grateful about the teaching of the eight sufferings, and I think you are too modest about your teaching because very often you can teach in which seems to be rather dead. You can present in a way that is more accessible and also useful, and it can be used as a tool in my work. Yeah, good. So there's this picture, there's the Dhamma rain and something will grow from this rain. Rain, yeah. Not rain. Rain, yeah. Rain. The difference between repeating things, which is actually not possible, because every moment is unique, and the question of how to achieve continuity, how to become more of a gardener, how the teachings can be continuously implemented, because that's the experience I have.

[90:10]

You start, you go down again, you start again, you go down again, and the question is always about continuity. But this picture of the Dhamma rain seems to be too simple for me because I'm now more struggling with getting more continuity in my practice because my experience is that you start with practice and then it goes down, your effort in practice. Your effort in practice also decreases and then it goes up again. And so I'm trying to be more a gardener and to get more regularity in my practice. It's a practice, it's a flat learning curve. It sort of goes like this and it's flat for a long time. And you have to be patient during these. Lots happening, but you can't tell what's happening. So I'm very glad and grateful that I came here, that it was accomplishable from my family and my occupation.

[91:45]

So the thought I am following from this morning is that the creation of a Buddha field, so that it could be my creation. Yes. and connected to this to also see the Buddha field in others and to relate to this, to the Buddha field in others.

[93:02]

So, for instance, in my hospital work, I'm very much confronted with sickness, with pathology, with deficits, and not to respond to that so much, but to be able to see the Buddha field in others and to respond to that. I hope so. And I realize that it's more simple with my daughter than in my daily work with sick people. Yeah. And for me, some things are new and some are completely new.

[94:03]

I notice that I always need time to process it. So, although other people have already mentioned that, I'm also very grateful to be here. And... This is wonderful. I also want to know how you can use this, sir. And some things you are presenting are... Not that... Yeah. Yes, I understand. I can tell I'm different by looking in your eyes. I'm new to me and some...

[94:56]

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