Tell me something about the group they were in yesterday. Thus I have heard. Okay. First say it in German. Yes, please. Yes, we have talked about this in our group. We have tried to find examples for the body as a kind of voice for what is not possible through the six senses. or can be categorized as such. We first tried to gather examples, and people told us about their experiences. Someone said that when he sometimes walks into the streets, he directly feels that there is something good or bad, and that it is really a physical feeling, and that's how she acts.

[01:13]

The second was a view of the body as being born through the doing and becoming through the doing. It's a kind of view of the body as being a karmic vessel that is constantly changing because of what you do with it. It was a feeling of a kind of Yes, I called it the dolphin effect. The feeling that you go and behind you the air opens and behind you it closes again. And you are in such a way that the body is no longer closed, but what the environment directly involves. And through life, something is opened and closed again. There is no more limit, no direct body limit, at least not the skin. Another example for this, that the body reaches beyond the border of the skin, was such a field perception.

[02:34]

For example, when you are in a group and speak, that something happens, what Roshi often called this intangible feeling, which changes when someone leaves, someone comes in. And what you also perceive very physically. Because such a... Another example of this was the physical constitution, if you have a bad conscience, that it is such a physical feeling, which is hard to grasp, but which somehow influences the action. Another example of this kind was a kind of threshold when you do something, that is, you want to go into something and realize that there is somehow a feeling that the future action will probably dominate, or the future thinking, and you have to expect this feeling to arise.

[03:42]

Yes, and very quickly we came to the conclusion that with physical presence it is also about the difference between the fourth and second skandha. There was the example that you cannot do something, for example make good music or make contact with the audience because you want to, because you do it because you are really present in the situation, without bringing a concept of what it is to be. And this is part of the fourth scanner, of the conditioning, of the associations, of the learned, and really in Yes, it goes into the present moment, feels into it. And that means that you have to see your intentions first and then leave them and instead just bring in mindfulness.

[05:01]

That's the difference between having a pre-concept and simply being present. And the same thing happens when you go away from the third standard. For example, to feel one with a flower or to feel a unity. This also happens when you leave out the descriptions. That is, this is white, she is beautiful, she is big, she is small. All these categories. And we then have this feeling of being present, this feeling of being present, which is influenced neither by preferences nor by deviations. This is actually only possible if you create a space in which things have space as they are.

[06:08]

That is, if there is such an inner space, it is acceptable. Okay. English. Um... Yeah. Thank you. We try to collect examples for the body as a human fork of that which the sikhs don't take in, the sikhs sense consciousness. And so in the collection of example was the one that one person sometimes felt when she entered the special street that there was some something good or bad or not good or bad but something Something felt unpleasant when entering that, and she reacted to that.

[07:14]

I think formally she ignored it sometimes, but she learned to react to it. Then to look at the body as the karmic body, as created through the doing, and create it through doing, changing with every process, then that kind of melting away the the concept of the body by ending with the skin, by through the imagination or the feeling that if one walks, one opens the room, one takes special volume and that volume closes, not immediately closes if one passes through a special space, but it means sometimes like a dolphin when swimming in the ocean. Yeah, then

[08:17]

The feeling of the body, that is an example for the body as a field. When one sits in the middle of a group and is talking and people come in and out, the group feeling changes and that ungraspable feeling of what is in the, what is, yeah, what is between the group, between persons or inner persons. Then the changes in the body which correspond to changing in the mind, like if one has a bad consciousness, and the bodily manifestations of that. And from that we came to the difference between that bodily presence is often dominated by the fourth skanda, but it's a big difference in the second skanda.

[09:26]

And the difference between that is some person brought the example of he's staying on a stage and wants to do good music. But to get into contact with the audience, he needs to be present. Not his intention is enough to make good music and get it. get it over to the people, but to be present with the people. That means he has to leave his, he has to notice his intentions and then dissolve them and get attention in the moment instead of intention. and also to leave out categories of describing like big, small and things like that. And for the feeling to be present, to be bodily present,

[10:31]

we found out there needs to be a space, an inner space, which allows one to accept things as they are, and not to be dominated by, yeah, by , but just to sit and accept things. So far. Okay, thank you very much. So, next. Mix the gopu with them. So in our group we focused our intention on to see what is the difference between to have a body and to act with the body.

[11:40]

And for that Frank re-explained us that the concept of the body originates from the 18th century. But in recent research, the emphasis is more on that the brain or whatever constantly recreates and reconstitutes the body. We exchanged experiences about how we perceive our bodies in different ways. For example, one participant reported about a hike that she did now, in which she perceived her feet in different ways.

[13:00]

And then we exchanged our experience we have with our bodies, and one participant of the group told that she was hiking, and she experienced in the course of this hiking, she experienced her feet differently. and the expansion of one's own body beyond the boundaries. There was an example where a participant said that she had noticed that she was getting mimics and gestures from other participants. And an example for the expansion of the body was that one participant told her experience that she took up the gesture and the mimic.

[14:13]

And then he said, that she made the experience when she was at the practice weekend in Johannesburg, at the seminar, that afterwards We went on vacation and then she went home and her body perception was much wider. That is to say, that this separation was no longer noticeable for her, but also that it was noticeable for others. She was really addressed to asking, where were you? And another experience, Brigitta told us that she was at a practice week and afterwards she was on vacation and then she came back and she had this experience that she had more sensitivity and also that there was not this separation between body and mind.

[15:39]

And also other people noticed this change in her and were asking her, where have you been and what have you done and so on. And after half a year Brigitta went to a seminar in Kassel When she arrived there, she had the feeling that she belonged somehow to this Sangha body. She had this experience of a Sangha body and she belonged to this body. And what Brigitta has already said, that this concept of doing the body was in the foreground for us, so that we tried to understand it. And in this context we also looked at what this carelessness of the body is, I don't know if there are these four carelessnesses, what that actually means.

[16:46]

And as Brigitte already told, we put the emphasis of our group was to look at this idea of to act the body. To do the body. To do the body. Okay. I'll accept the act. Thank you very much. And now I really forgot... And therefore we try to find examples for mindfulness, for mindfulness practice. You talked in your seminar and your day show about the four foundations of mindfulness, and so we try to find examples for that. And the question which was open for us at the end of this group was, how can we bring this experience we have in this seminar, in this setting, into our everyday life?

[18:05]

I've heard that question before. Okay, thank you. That was good. This is also our everyday life. You speak English, do you? Yes. So I would ask you to speak in some sentences and then give me time to translate it into German. I listened to the tape of your talk. Yesterday? Last night, when I arrived.

[19:07]

Oh, okay. I listened to the tape of your talk. I understand about the body contains the world. So would you confirm that the potentiality of the body to contain the world is goes through an individuation from being born in a certain place from a certain culture. Would you confirm that the idea that the body contains the world And this individuation begins to limit how much the body contains the world.

[20:12]

The question How can we recuperate the whole world instead of just a particular place where we are? Okay. Well, I'm not going to respond to that right now, but maybe I can respond to it. Okay, Beata. In our group, we started with quite usual and conventional experiences.

[21:27]

Many people have, for example, the telephone rings and you know exactly who will call. Or you go for a walk with a person and then you are in silence and then one person starts to talk and starts exactly with the same sentence the other person was intending just to start. And then it continued with the description of certain sense fields. For instance, when we are all in the sendo and it's silent, And then we recognize that there is a layer of silence underneath the silence, as if there would be a silence in the silence.

[22:54]

And this silence is also something you can experience. It's a body feel you can experience. And then we came to more basic questions. For instance, what does it mean to perceive outside the senses? And one participant wondered whether one has to cut off all the senses so that you can open yourself to this perception. And then we came somehow to the conclusion that the sense fields are somehow a gate, an opening to this experience.

[24:24]

This body field of being is always there, we create it, and then we came to the conclusion that, for example, we have to introduce a completely different concept of the body. And then we were talking about this body awareness, this field of body awareness. We were questioning ourselves, is it always there? Are we creating it? And that we would need a new term for body, a new concept of body. For instance, as Dogen explains it or says it, to let fall our body and mind, that cannot mean that he is talking about our physical body.

[25:58]

But it means more that we drop our mental representation of our body, the picture of the body. So that when we dissolve this in one area, So when we can loosen or dissolve this picture, then we can come to a moment where we can include all the world. And we continued with the description of certain yogic faculties which are not very much researched and estimated in Western science. For instance, reducing dramatically the heartbeat.

[27:26]

Or for instance in Aikido, when you can With one push you can push a person through the room without touching them. So the question ultimately leads to the following question. If we imagine that we can be a Buddha, do we actually have to include these physical abilities? So and this all came together to this question. If we can be a Buddha, we have also been able to include these faculties.

[28:29]

OK. And that led to the remark of one participant that that idea is too far out for him or her. So that you are much more interested in how you can use these fields of truthfulness in social contact, in social orientation. So for him it was more important how he can use these sense fields in social contact and in society. So this question is more important for him.

[29:32]

And finally, And also the group found out that it's very important to work in meditation with one's own body. So that... So in a concentrated, in a concentrated field of awareness, it's possible to travel throughout the body and to look at the body and its parts. And one participant said that she is wondering how she can know that it's not only fantasy what she is experiencing. I think that's it. Okay. So I want to remark something.

[30:54]

Aikido works with touching and not with not touching. Yes, but I've seen people who can throw people at a distance without touching. And what's really remarkable about that, there's another person in between. And this person, and the push comes, the person stands, and it's totally okay, and the person behind is thrown through the video. But there's also a lot of bull around it. And some of the groups have Chinese guys arrive who supposedly could do this, and everyone participates in letting it happen, but they don't actually believe it, and it's happening today. I think that this is quite an issue, this business about throwing people at a distance.

[31:57]

And it's been studied at the Stanford Research Institute, and I know the main person who has studied, what's his name? Anyway, yeah? Whatever was going on when I watched it and participated was extraordinary. But I've also been in discussions with lots of Aikido and Tai Chi leaders of groups. Some very skilled lifetime practitioners simply think they're faking it. So this kind of far out, more far out example is usually not too useful because it becomes too controversial.

[33:04]

But I think they are totally useful in the sense to show how limited Western view of this, that Western science actually totally denies this kind of realm. But it's there. I mean, a lot of people have this kind of experience. And so we just should have it in mind as a possibility. what the human body is able to do. In German, please. In that sense, I think it makes sense that Western science often rejects such examples or doesn't give much importance to them in the sense of research, although they clearly occur. I still think that one has to use examples on the whole.

[34:30]

which are convincing. Controversial examples aren't convincing. Even among the experts, I know these people, and I've seen it happen. But, you know, so... So there's one more group, isn't there? So in our group we also started with examples and we started with the statement or with the question that there is a practice body and how is this practice body created and sustained.

[35:59]

And postures like walking, sitting in a certain way, shasho, holding the hands in a certain way, creates a certain body which creates this awareness. And somebody reported his or her experience during this morning, which somehow exemplifies this experience of the six senses and what is going beyond the six senses. This was the experience without seeing, without having contact with stone, to have this feeling of being a stone, this experience of being like a stone.

[37:20]

And the question which occurred was how did this happen and how could it be reached that one will be like grass? Yes, so it was always about this question of how these experiences, these experiences also come about. Anton in the group has told this example that the world begins over the earth, And there was always this question, how did this happen? So another person reported about this, what you said about the earth and that heaven starts right above the earth?

[38:39]

Sky. Sky, yes. that in situations when pain appears in the back, there is sometimes such a sensation as being hooked on two hooks and that we simply also have an opening and another body. So, for instance, when during satsang there is this experience of pain, or any time when you have pain in your back, there is this experience as if there would be some, it's like two hooks, which are pulling you above. From above, yeah. Yeah, from above, upwards. I'm having a little difficulty because we had the discussion in English, so I have English talks, translating and trying to get... But I could translate you into Chinese too.

[39:44]

Or you could do both. Okay, maybe I'll try and... Yeah, it's not very structured. Another comment to the practice body was that the practice body partly is individual, through posture, through the way of walking, and the practice body also is this... this practice together, when everybody in the seminar practices together, drinking tea or eating orioki or in the Zen log, then the synchronicity So we have about the practical body as an individual experience, with the individual body, about the sitting, the walking, standing, speaking, and about the practical body as something that arises in the common togetherness, in a synchronicity, when the things come together, eating in the obi-yoke or in the sendo, sitting in the sasen or drinking tea.

[40:56]

The question that came up again was just try to grasp what is that the sixth sense don't take in. And one person said that, brought up the remark that there is something beyond, no, that He read that all the six senses step from the same source, so what does that mean? And then we had more examples about that. This field or this power, I can't, yeah, we had the difficulty to find words for that.

[42:23]

And there was an example of a Tai Chi teacher who made an exercise with very advanced students, having them blindfolded, run down, barefoot rocks at night and they didn't hurt themselves. And another person brought up another example of the hardest Shaolin monk exercise where they sit on these very high poles and at a certain moment they jump and it's very deep and it's several meters and they have a platform of that size and they They find it, they jump in the rock, as I understood it. And we try to get maybe at least a sense of what is that that makes that possible. That we thought that is what the six don't take in, or what is generated as this kind of one.

[43:26]

Yes, we have two examples in group 1 of a Tai Chi teacher who does an exercise with his very advanced students. He connects them to the eyes and then lets them run down very high rock tops in the night. And they don't get hurt. And another one said the Shaolin monks have as their hardest exercise to sit on very high poles, several meters high and have to jump a distance of several meters and only have such a small platform and also hit it. So the question was, what is it, what does it mean, what is possible beyond the sixth sense? And part of that was overcoming fear, and we had quite a discussion then about fear, what fear means, and we find that in the Heart Sutra, without any hindrance, no fears exist, and it's a good idea to look into what is the hindrance to overcome fear, and let fears apply to concepts.

[44:38]

Through these examples, we have also come to the question of fear, that they also have the purpose of overcoming fear, and that we also rediscover this freedom of fear in search of the heart, without fear of obstacle existence, and that it is useful to look at what is the obstacle in order to overcome the fear, And the last question was that to be able to enter this expanded bodily field, is it based on certain experiences in childhood, and what does that mean, if so? So a question also in the context was whether this extending of this physical space or this physical being also depends on certain experiences from childhood and what that means when it is so.

[45:53]

I feel like I opened Pandora's body. Yeah, I hear there's a sport where you can... Excuse me. Yeah? There's another group. Oh, there is? Oh, go ahead. So... The parents went swimming... That's you. Oh. No. The parents went swimming with their kids, and while the kids were on the playing ground, the parents had their group Yeah. And so what Christina said was that she has this... What she does during meditation very often is this going through the body by parts, in each part of the body, and that she has this experience that when she puts the attention, for instance, in the feet, that the feet create themselves somehow, and that each...

[47:01]

the whole world that was very important for her and that was an example for body experience and Hermann, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I will translate. Do I have to translate? Yes. Okay. Let's start with German. I'm sorry. It's all right. We forgive you. Who is we? Me. So, the parents were swimming with the children, and while the children were at the playground, we sat down and held our seminar. And what Christine told us was that she was very much involved in the meditation, this perception of the body in parts. and that it is interesting for her, because each body part somehow creates itself, so without having a concept on it, for example from the foot, how many parts it consists of, it simply rises, and each part is different.

[48:11]

And for example the shin, that is only one part, but there are parts like the foot, for example, which consists of many parts. And each of these parts contains somehow for her, it seems like a jewel, she said, and contains the whole world and every part is different and it can wander through the whole body and Yes, and Hermann told me that he does an exercise that he does when he wants to concentrate or when he wants to get into this physical feeling, that he gives himself such instructions as not to make any differences. And he told me about an experience that he went into his new job where he a new unknown and fearful situation, and he said to himself, okay, everyone I meet is a Buddha, and then it really worked, so he felt safe and well and also had a good physical perception.

[49:18]

Yeah. Let me just... So, and what Hermann said was that if he is somehow tense and he wants to relax somehow, and wants to have this experience, this bodily experience, is that relaxation. Not of relaxation, but this of... Boundless. Boundless, yeah. He has certain sentences he uses. For instance, no bar. No distinction. No distinctions. Just when you see, let's say, I look here, then I start to make out, not to make objects out of you, not to cut you in pieces, just to make a whole thing out of you.

[50:30]

Thanks. Just to make a whole thing out of you. And then I bring it together with this boundless feeling of my body. So I work on the mental aspect, intellectual aspect, like putting all these things away, and then I bring it together with this boundless feeling of my body. I try to bring it together. On this one, it was another thing between Erich and me, that we talked about how... how the posture of our spinal column changes our body feeling. Do you have a really good body feeling if your spinal column is in a good position? It's just a difference when you sit like this or when you sit like this.

[51:32]

It's a very strong mental thing, but there is a kind of a shamedness of having a real open posture. Shame? Shame? Yes. Let's say, when you do it, then maybe he says, oh, you walk like a carton. Yeah, because when you do it... Not yet like the Pope. It's true, when you really get up mind, it's not useful, not... In this society, you don't see it open. Some actors do it, or some politicians sometimes do it, or kings do it, or special groups do it, and you see it. But for the normal people, it's not common to do. And you feel a little bit strange when you do it. I feel a little bit strange.

[52:32]

But I enjoy it sometimes. Yeah, yeah, okay, I understand. What else happened at the swimming pool? Well, it was quite interesting to see... We're all a little jealous. I'm sorry, but you have kids. Oh, I have a kid. I could come. You could come. Well, for me it was interesting to watch people in their bathing suits, actually. Because... Because I think at the swimming pool, people are very much acting in their mental posture. So how they would like to be... Their clothes off, but they have their mental body on. Yeah, but I think their mental body is even stronger when they are almost naked than if they would wear dresses. Yeah. Because they're much more showing off and...

[53:33]

Which way is the bathhouse? So, it was quite interesting to see so much mental constructs going, how bodies are constructed by mental constructs. So for me it was very interesting, so Roshi asked what else happened in the bathroom and I said it was very interesting to see the people in their bathing suits. And that's because you can see the mental constructs of people even more strongly when they actually wear very little clothes than when they would wear clothes. And for me it was very strong to see This whole body culture, yes, that everyone tries to have a beautiful body and how the bodies are occupied by it. And that there is no natural and no serenity in the bodies, but there is an extreme, actually a pretty tension in the relaxation.

[54:38]

So there is no relaxation in the bodies, but there is a certain, although the swimming pool is the place where you should relax or could relax, there is not much relaxation, there is much tension in relaxation. So there is something I want to add to that, please. Already during the discussions, I had my difficulties with Hermann's presentation. What do you imagine? So he sits in the bathroom and he sees the swimming pool and he sees the grass behind and he sees the trees and now he tries to see everything without limits. So because Herman was speaking about what he imagines or tries not to see.

[55:49]

So for instance, he's sitting in the swimming pool and doesn't see and has this boundless perception. And to use no concepts, no mental concepts. But I had the feeling that this is again a mental construct. Like, I try not to have this construct. It's constructing itself. ... Yes. And what came up for me is that there are these simple things, like Gunda and Beate already said, like walking, standing, sitting.

[56:51]

What I have strong positive experiences with is to fold my hands and to take things with two hands, to practice this two-handedness. And a good example for me was Richie who had problems with his muscles and for a long time he was not able to lift the cup with only one hand. And Hermann and I, we told him to act with both hands. And your awareness changes completely when you do things with both hands. And in the kindergarten they said, no, you are working only with one hand.

[58:10]

And at home I tell him, at home we are working with two hands. But he is able to distinguish between these two spheres and now he is able to lift things with one hand also. So that's what I am working with, or what I would like to put the emphasis on, is to work with this body, with this bodiliness of the body, which I can really experience. In our book, we have also dealt with the body, because in Roshi's lecture it was mentioned that the Dharma can only be understood through the body. And there's something I would like to add in our group, because we were dealing so much with doing the body, because you said in your day show that you only can understand or grasp the Dharma if you are working with the body, or through the body, you can understand it through the body.

[59:40]

So I just wanted to add that because it corresponds to what Jutta said. Because for me that was interesting that you said, you know, contrary to white. For me it was also immediately when... Contrary. I like this new word, contraried. It doesn't exist. Well, there's compared and there's contrary, and you've conflated them. But let me say that I like seeing families having dharmic disagreements and not karmic... Karmic disagreements. Yes.

[60:50]

It came to my mind that there must be a difference in being upright. I think if there's some being upright where you feel ashamed or the reaction of the other people is a kind of strange, it seems to me to be a mental being upright. I mean, a mental process that lets you being upright and that the other person can feel. If you are bodily upright, then normally it's not visible for the other people that you are really upright, but they feel your presence in being in this kind of upright. And that's quite a difference in my feeling. Okay. As Hermann said, when you get up and you are straight, it is often perceived as strange by other people. and then you get comments like, you are like a cardinal, and then I thought about it, and that immediately triggered a contradiction in me, and it feels to me that there are different ways of being upright, one is really through a mental process in which you assume to align yourself, and that is often perceived as negative, as a kind of

[62:23]

So not to be open, but more in the sense of pride or to present yourself. But there is also a physical being that is aligned. And in my opinion, this is almost not perceived by the other person. This is only perceived indirectly by a kind of presence that this person radiates. It does not seem so strictly aligned. And I would like to give an additional remark to that. I'm working a lot with Turkish youngsters and they say all the Germans, they're always all like that and the Turks think that's terrible. And when you arrive as a cat in hell, they will be happy, the Turks.

[63:29]

When he arrives as a cat in hell? Yeah. Yeah, but the chart had to show off. They really move like this because... Especially with man. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, there's not much time for me to say. I think I have a few comments. Yeah, I think it's okay to bring up these, you know, running down the hillside in the dark and so forth examples.

[64:41]

But they, you know, not only are they, you know, We shouldn't give them much weight. And it's usually an attempt to grasp or make real something that we're trying to be more open about rather than test our abilities or something. And it can lead to problems. I remember Tassajara in the Early 70s. One of the most intelligent of the people at Tassara at that time was also reading Castaneda.

[65:46]

And he tried to... go to the zazen, I guess, with his eyes closed in the dark. And I guess a couple of mornings he made it. One morning he tripped at the bridge and just missed falling into the stream bed, which is quite a distance. But just as bad, there was a nail sticking out of the edge of the railing and it caught him in the eye and nearly put his eye out. So anyway, I

[66:47]

I don't think we should try to test our extrasensory perception or something. And you can discover its functioning in more subtle ways. Man kann sein Funktionieren auf eine subtilere Art erfahren. I started to say I know some people who are, their sport, present sport is paratrooping, paragliding. No jumping. Parachuting. But they throw the chutes out in front of them and then they jump after them. Twelve people. Then they catch them and put them on.

[67:59]

And now they have a new variation of that. Thirteen people jumped after twelve shoots. It means one has to catch on to somebody else and be taken down. But they could get no insurance company to cover. But supposedly they put it on the web, who would like to be the 13th person. They had thousands of applications. I don't think anyone in this room. Moritz kind of said maybe.

[69:02]

Anyway, that's not what we're concerned with here. And I think that the image formulation I suggested yesterday Actually, I was quite useful. I was surprised myself by it. That the sense fields are not included in the sense organs. We can understand that. And by analogy we can get the feeling that the world is not included in the sense fields. And then we can reverse the analogy and say, but the world is included in the body. And that fits in with a general picture of the body, as I said the other day, as a tuning fork or dousing rods.

[70:09]

And the general macrocosmic, microcosmic image of the body, that is, characteristic of Chinese thinking. Where, you know, like we have blood vessels, veins, etc. And we have chakras and energy paths. And those energy paths are also have a connection with the world. But again, developing this kind of stuff is not the point of Zen. There may be some exceptional athletic dimension to these things.

[71:13]

Or psychic powers. But it's really of no interest to me and not of any interest really to Zen. It's okay to have a body image or a view of the body which allows for such dimensions. But to say the world is included in the body does not mean the world is included in the body. In any kind of factual sense or absolute sense, it just means the body now is part of the world. If I look at one of you now, you know you're included in my seeing but not 100% I partially see you and if I'm in a certain mood maybe I see you more fully and maybe you interfere with my seeing you and maybe 20 years from now I'll see you better than I see you now

[72:36]

I don't know. It's always some kind of, it's always variable. So we're talking about, yes, The world is included in the body and the body is part of the world. But the degree to which we have that experience changes like the weather. And with our mood and with our maturity and so forth. So it's a matter of degree. And for most of us in our practice it's a matter of a very small degree. But it's important in practice to be open to that small degree. And one of the ways of being open is to

[73:52]

Acknowledge what you experience. So if someone says, like someone said in one of the groups, I guess, how do I know if it's fantasy or real? And this question is a profound one in Buddhism, is what is verifiable knowledge? Or rather not verifiable, but actual knowledge. Because some knowledge we can't verify in the sense that it's predictable.

[75:14]

Or that it happens again. And I think in practice it's good to be open to small things. Things that you've never experienced before and maybe you'll never experience again. But how do you know when you're not just imagining things and when it's... some actual information or experience. Well, there's no precise answer to that. For instance, if you feel every word you say in your body, and you feel your thoughts in your body, you can be more sure that an experience that you feel in a similar way is probably true.

[76:27]

So that's something you have to find out for yourself. And the image often in Zen of you know when water is wet refers to meditation experience. That you have a direct experience as the wetness of water, whether this meditation experience or this image Because you have a direct experience, as you have the experience that the water is wet, you can say whether this experience is true in meditation or not. And the example I use of the cardinal thing is this blind woman I knew in San Francisco who developed an ability to see a tiny bit. So she tried to go to work without her seeing eye dog. And she did it for some weeks.

[77:55]

I think after, I don't know how long, six months or a year, she stopped trying, but she did it for some time. And she found that everyone treated her as blind, even though she didn't have her dog with her. And what she discovered was, suddenly she hit upon it, that if she stooped, and didn't walk like a cardinal, everyone treated her as seeing. When she stood up too straight, you know how blind people are often very straight, people saw it, but if she stooped a little, put her tail between her legs, And this is part of the way we...

[79:11]

communicate with our body. And how do we communicate power or clarity or vulnerability? with how open we are, how we stand. This is something we have to learn to negotiate. But just to have a cultural stoop is not necessarily a good thing. So if we don't have a...

[80:41]

Yeah, there just isn't time for me to say too much here. So... Let me just end by saying, I think the best practice for us is much like Christine is doing. Keep coming back to and practicing the bodyfulness of the body. Because we're going to have a variety of images and experiences of the world and our body. And this view of the body and how it's interconnected with the world. And our experience of our interconnection with the world. And actually how we develop and mature our storehouse consciousness are all affected by how we

[82:05]

view as well as experience the body. And the useful thing for us and necessary thing for us in this kind of practice is to anchor our continuity in the body. And to develop that kind of experience. And then in meditation, too, you can begin to trust the subtleties that arise and begin to know also how those subtleties are present in our daily activity. By subtleties, I just mean... wider and more open way of knowing.

[83:16]

And more relaxed way of knowing. And none of this means anything really if you're not relaxed. If you can't feel at ease with yourself, this is all just talk. So, That's enough for now. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing all this effulgence with me. So I think we have these variety of experiences. And how do we make them part of our ordinary experience? Again, I think, to say it again, is to find our experience of continuity

[84:19]

through the body. Thanks.

[84:36]

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