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Breath: The Anchor of Zen Practice
Practice-Week_The_Path_of_the_Breath
The talk discusses the role of breath as a tuning mechanism in Zen practice, highlighting its use in connecting awareness to the body and mind without the interference of emotions. It contrasts spontaneous action in the Buddhist context with common interpretations, emphasizing that true spontaneity arises from harmony with context rather than from self-driven impulses. The discussion also addresses how Zen practice can mitigate the influence of past experiences and foster presence, noting this process is akin to working with symptoms rather than causes. Attention is described as a key practice skill, with guidance on detecting triggers of judgmental thinking as a means of strengthening mindfulness and presence over past influences.
- "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness" (Satipatṭhāna Sutta): Essential in understanding feelfulness, the second foundation, which emphasizes being aware beyond language and emotion.
- Zen principle of Jhana (Meditation): Linked to the historical development of meditation practices, though not directly derived from the Buddha’s teachings.
- Nirvana with a remnant: A concept indicating an imperfect but attainable state, where one is free from past influences while some remnants of physical and mental being persist.
- Lineage and teaching tradition in Zen: The importance of deriving understanding from direct experience in practice, rather than solely relying on historical teachings or teachers.
AI Suggested Title: Breath: The Anchor of Zen Practice
So water doesn't have any need to be wet. What's all this talk about wetness? Except water. So bodyfulness doesn't have any need to be mindful. You can think of mind... Let's think of the breath as a way to tune in a station. And so the second foundation of mindfulness is feelfulness. Not fearfulness, feelfulness. Yeah. Okay, so in the realm of feelfulness, there are distinctions, experiences that can't be minded or languaged.
[01:14]
So, again, let's go back to the sense of breath as a tuning mechanism. Now you've got the feeling of how breath can be joined to awareness or can generate awareness. When it's not caught in the emotions, ups and downs of consciousness. So here we'd have breath and awareness connected to feeling, but not to emotion. Now, just as mindfulness is a way to bring your attention to the beatstone, your wetness to the beatstone,
[02:22]
So your breath is a way to bring attention to the bootstrap. So you could say, breath, mind. is a way to tune yourself. Breath mind tunes you to the body and to phenomena and to mind and breath itself as well. So you can think it's a kind of tuning again. And when you feel tuned in that way is also when you can feel spontaneous.
[03:44]
Ja, und wenn du dich so eingestimmt fühlst, ja, dann fühlst du dich auch spontan. That experience of being tuned allows you to act and speak without editing. Ja, diese Art, ja, fein eingestimmt zu sein, erlaubt dir zu sprechen ohne zu editieren. Okay. Now, but once you've tuned in the station, you can stop tuning and let the station tune itself. So if you let breath mind, if you understand breath mind to be a kind of tuning, Once he's tuned in the station, You can let the attentiveness of breath mind kind of merge, disappear.
[04:57]
So you can use breath mind to tune into mindfulness of the body. Ja, und du kannst den Atemgeist benutzen, um dich einzustimmen auf die Aufmerksamkeit des Körpers. Aber wenn du das getan hast, dann kannst du damit aufhören und dann ist diese verkörperte Körperlichkeit da. Yeah, so maybe that's enough. I don't know. I didn't get to two and four very completely, but we have this afternoon and tomorrow. And if I tune into your legs, it's time for me to tune out. Okay. Oh, it's Looney Tunes.
[06:09]
I mean, no. Choir singing. So who wants to start? You do?
[07:38]
Oh, wonderful. Can I say something about this morning? No. Yes, of course. You spoke about spontaneity and I have been busy with that theme for a long time. I thought I was spontaneous and I could act spontaneously. And I made the experience that if I act spontaneously and, for example, stand up, then I have to take into account that everybody will be watching me.
[08:43]
Yeah. Yes. Yes. And some people might be disturbed and their harmony might be bothered if I do something spontaneously, for example, standing up. Yeah. And there is a question for me, so is it a question of the context in which I can be spontaneous? because I'm more practising now to hold back and not to be so spontaneous as I used to be.
[09:58]
Our sense of the word, at least in English I can say, spontaneous, means, we usually take it to mean that you do things that you feel like doing despite the context. You feel like doing it, so you just do it. That's not exactly what we mean by spontaneous in Buddhism. It feels pretty much the same. but it's arising from the context as well as yourself and not just from yourself.
[11:08]
So actually I seldom use the word spontaneity because it has this other sense. So in practice, spontaneity means to be able to act without self-consciousness and without ego. For example, if what I'm saying now comes from a feeling from you without my thinking. I'm not thinking. I'm not self-conscious. I just start speaking. But perhaps it's coming because I'm in accord with you.
[12:10]
That's what we mean by spontaneous. Okay, so I would say that if you have the courage of your own personal spontaneity... So I just thought of you standing up, but I remember once I was doing doksan and the door opened. And this guy stood at the door, bowed, flipped in the air, and land on his hands. And then he stood in front of me, standing on his hands, talking to me like this. For 15 minutes he stood on his hands. I thought this was carrying spontaneity too far.
[13:11]
He turned out to be quite crazy, actually, and he'd been arrested for trying to fly in those big... You know those huge hangars south of San Francisco where they keep dirigibles? He was caught in there. He was an ex-paratrooper, and he was doing something nuts, and the police cut him, and then he came to see me. So I think just standing up you can get away with, but... But this feeling of spontaneity, if you can trust that feeling and bring it more into as a way of responding to a situation, then this is more close to what Buddhism means by spontaneity. Yeah, or if you feel like standing up and no one else is standing up, just let a shiver pass through you and stay in one place.
[14:31]
Something like that. I mean, if I felt like standing up, and I thought I couldn't do it, I would stand up inside. I would let the feeling happen. Okay. Yeah, sure. Anyone else? Someone else? Yes. The very spontaneity. It is in this way, fusing the notion of spontaneity, if without intention thought I get a wellness of breath or walking outside I suddenly have the idea of using wisdom phrase to observe things and to put the pullover away spontaneously, without intention.
[16:06]
Yes, exactly. I know Deutsch isn't spontaneous for you. My question was whether this practice term of spontaneity also applies to you, that without a thought of intention there is suddenly mindfulness in the breath, or when I go for a walk, suddenly I come up with a practice, a certain mindfulness practice, and then I see it spontaneously, yes, That's exactly right. You trust what comes up. And you trust it if it comes up by itself more than if you think your way to it. So mature practice isn't someone who thinks, now I should practice this, now I should practice that.
[17:13]
Mature practice is you practice what you practice, what comes up. And that's an example of being in accord or fitting, finding a fit. And at some point you can so trust your thinking, anything you think you can do. You can't do anything you... Anything you happen to think, it means it's possible. Your thinking just becomes so in tune with actual possibilities that what you think you know you can do. It helps making planning for the future a lot easier.
[18:26]
Yeah. Yeah, so I think... Do you understand this sense of using breath, mind to tune yourself, to find yourself in accord with your body... and the situation. And then you more consciously go back to your breath. If you find yourself out of tune, you're kind of lost in a situation. You go out to take a walk and you're kind of, you come back to your breath and then you find yourself in tune. Ja, und wenn du dich irgendwie verlierst, dann kommst du wieder zurück zum Atem und wieder zurück zur Stimmigkeit. Okay, thanks. Oh, I was translating you. From yesterday I have still the question, I heard you a couple of times say that you are impressed with our practice in the Dharma Sangha.
[19:41]
And I'm wondering, I never questioned that, but I'm wondering, what are you impressed about? I tell him. He won't ask us. I can say that... You don't want to confirm me, I understand. I want you to confirm yourself. Just our being here together is enough confirmation. The rest is up to you.
[20:46]
On the bridge at Tassajara, I once went up to Sukershi and asked him if I understood what he meant by self covers everything. If what he meant by self covers everything, which he'd just spoken about in a lecture. And he actually looked at me rather fiercely And he was quite angry, rather angry. And he sort of said, I already said that or something, and he walked off. But basically what he was communicating to me is I wanted some approval for my understanding, and he simply was annoyed with me that I had such needs.
[22:17]
So I learned never to ask him for confirmation or approval. But he never withdrew support. Yes. When I sit in zazen and follow my breath, then I have thoughts once in a while. I've heard about that. Then I recognize that there are thoughts and then they stop. But this observing is always accompanied with this.
[23:52]
Oh, judgmental? Yes, it's judgmental. What's the word in German for should? Sollst. No, you're obligated. Yeah. No, now there's another word you have that people talk to me and dokes on about I hear it a lot. You're supposed to do something or... Du solltest. No. Du musst. Anyway, whatever it is, go ahead. Ah, jetzt habe ich das noch nicht fertig übersetzt. Warte mal, wo... Es gelingt mir nicht. And because this judgmental part starts, I cannot really observe it any longer. And I believe that in my breath mind... Breath body.
[24:57]
Breath body. Something similar happens that my head stays dark, whereas my lower body is light. My brain. My brain is dark. It's light. Yeah. My brain stays dark. In the... In the koan I also find this distinction between body, mind and thinking. Can the breath weave it together? We, body, mind and thinking and darkness and light together. I think you want to separate some of these things and not leave them together. Okay. Well, I mean, first of all, let me say that you clearly have a capacity for practice.
[26:02]
A little confirmation. Because you're able to feel or notice or observe that thinking is happening or judgmental thinking is happening or that one part of your body feels dark and another light. Some people simply can't make those observations. And really if a person can't make those observations they can't go very far in practice. It's a kind of gift. But most of us wouldn't be practicing if we didn't have that capacity. Okay, so now what you do is you notice that there's thinking, right? And then you notice there's judgmental thinking, and that interferes with your observation or practice.
[27:28]
Okay, so we could say the judgmental thinking is an impediment. Something interferes with practice, okay. All right, now what's useful is the idea of, first of all, the territory of practice in Zen is primarily the symptom, not the cause. The territory of practice is primarily the symptom and not the cause. You're not trying to look for the cause of judgmental thinking. You can do that if you want and go to a quaternity process and find out that your father or something like that.
[28:31]
This can be very good experience. But we leave that to those professionals. What we're trying to work with in Zen is the symptoms. Okay, the symptom is you have judgmental thinking. Now, you're trusting in the power of your presence in the present. Also, du vertraust der Kraft in der Gegenwart. Now, we're assuming because you meditate, your presence in the present is more powerful than your presence from the past. Also, wir vertrauen, dass deine Präsenz in der Gegenwart stärker und kraftvoller ist als deine Präsenz von der Vergangenheit.
[29:44]
Now, many of us live filled with the presences of the past, affecting all our actions, like ghosts around us. And if you don't really find yourself rooted in this horizon of the present, So you're not, again, involved in your identity from the past, but your rootedness in the present. I'm trying to give you a picture of practice here. And your rootedness in the present, which means you don't have a fixed identity, the present itself in its own power and energies is generating you, creating you, sustaining you and so forth.
[30:57]
Ja, also diese Gegenwart, die erhält dich aufrecht, die formt dich, die gestaltet dich. Now, working with the symptom implies that we can make you more powerful in the present than the presence is from the past. Ja, also in der Gegenwart mit deiner Präsenz zu arbeiten... Working with the present... Working with... working, assuming that we're going to work with the symptom, by the way, I've never found a way to say this exactly before, so thank you, is that working, which I've often said, is you're working in Zen with the symptoms, not the cause. But the ability to work with the symptom, not the cause, assumes that your present person is more powerful than your past person. And for many of us, the kind of person we thought we were or somebody told we were, etc., is actually more powerful than our present person.
[32:22]
So we can say that practice is a way of making the presence of the present, your presence in the present, stronger than your presences from the past. That doesn't mean you don't, won't still or shouldn't work with presences from the past. But we're also now trying to work with your presence in the present. And that's why I think many therapists have told me that they have found that their clients who practice
[33:37]
are better able to put in use therapy than their clients who don't practice. Because they can work in the present more effectively than people who don't practice. Often anyway. Yeah, okay. All right. I'm not quite finished, though. But that's all right. I mean, I'm trying to finish. Let's see if I can. As Paul says, I won't put a bow on it at the end, though. Yeah, okay. Now, what's important... If you notice you have an impediment, like judgmental thinking,
[34:53]
Could be anything, but let's take that. You want to notice the trigger. What starts the judgmental thinking? Now, this is a skill of mindfulness. Das ist eine Fähigkeit der Achtsamkeit. You decide to notice when judgmental thinking starts. Ja, du entscheidest zu bemerken, wann das beurteilende Denken anfängt. You can notice when anxiety starts or you can notice when a headache starts or something like that. Ja, du kannst auch bemerken, wann Ängstlichkeit kommt oder wann ein Kopfschmerz kommt. When the flu first appears in your body before you have the flu. So this ability to observe the trigger is a very important skill.
[36:08]
So you notice your thinking is going along and then you notice, oops, I'm judging, I'm putting myself down or something. Now, what you want to notice is exactly when that occurred, what in your body happened, what you thought of, etc. It's kind of looking, it's in a way looking for a cause but a kind of inner cause. I can remember I was doing something like that and I kept trying to figure out what made this kind of thinking occur in myself. And part of this ability to find the trigger is related to following a thought to its source. It's the same kind of skill. It's the same ability.
[37:23]
So a thought comes up and you ask yourself, where does that come from? Yes, like on your computer, where you can always go back and on and on. So you follow it back until you come to can't undo. Well, I had a problem with some kind of compulsive thinking. I don't remember what it was. It was a long time ago. Kind of bothered me when it got in me. It was like, I think you say in German, an earworm. It was like an earworm when it started. But one day I was able to trace it back to when in Apoteca I saw a person in a green tweed jacket.
[38:29]
And I thought this was very peculiar. I don't see people in green tweed jackets very often. Do I have to be wary of green tweed jackets? I thought, there must be other sources than men in green tweed jackets. But somehow, after I noticed that one thing, it never happened to me again. It just freed me from this, whatever this earworm was, mindworm.
[39:30]
A geistworm, yeah. They're all over the place. Yeah. Yeah, so if you can notice the trigger, when it starts, and then you also join that to an intention not to judge yourself. So it's a little bit like an acupuncture practice. You can bring the intention not to be judgmental to yourself at the point where it starts. It's very powerful in releasing yourself from it.
[40:30]
I apologize for being so technical in my description. But these kind of things have really helped me. Oh, good. I'm happy. That was great. It was? He's checking me out. Like in the good old days. Yeah. What are the good old days? Like in the good old days. Oh, yeah? I used to talk like that more often, you mean? Yes, good new days.
[41:35]
Yeah, I've often thought I should do a book or essay or something on the psychological uses of Dharma practice, of Zen practice. Because although there's no really Buddhist psychology, there's skills that can be used in psychological exploration. Yes, Martin? Yeah, another question to the past. I mean, I agree that the past is quite a part of our thinking. actually present moment.
[42:36]
But in practice, when I figure out what's the past, I cannot figure out what it is, or where I end up. It must be somehow, some stored information, somehow, somewhere in my body. And that's about it. But then my question is, why is it so much influence? And even I cannot find this stored information. I just don't know what it is. Yes, well, it's clear that the past is a big part of my thinking and is currently influencing me, but in sitting or something like that, when I really try to figure out what the past is in the first place, then it doesn't work for me. Then I get stuck somewhere and come to the point There's a past. We're not sure about a future, but there's a past.
[44:09]
Okay. Do you want me to continue in this technical vein? Shall I kind of respond? Because here I'm really talking about the craft of practice, much of it as a craft you need to discover for yourself. You know, when I hear you chant, you know, I have a very bad ear. Yeah. They're big and bad. No. I mean, a person would have to be pretty stupid to, for 10 or 12 years now, be translated 100 times a year or more and not learn anything.
[45:16]
That's pretty much a description of me. Except for a few geistworms. I don't know. Part of it is that I really enjoy not understanding. It's like I like having a watch. I don't know what time it is. I can kind of bliss out, you know. I mean, I'm a hippie or a beatnik, you know. Okay. But also, I simply really have a bad ear. Someone can tell me how you say Happy New Year or anything. They tell me and One half second later, I cannot repeat it.
[46:20]
It just enters one ear and... Yeah, like that. Okay. It doesn't even enter one ear, it just falls out. I mean, it's embarrassing. I really, I can't say Happy New Year even, you know, Christmas time or New Year's. But I do know that if I write it down, then I can say it if I memorize it visually. And I haven't tried to do that with German. This is kind of an apology for my stupidity. But I love hearing the chanting or even your talking, and I try to kind of mumble along with you.
[47:28]
But your mouth has been trained to make shapes that my mouth has not been trained to make. That's simply a fact. Like I can't pronounce K-O-C-H. Unless I have a cold. And I can't say the transitions between German sounds. So it's like all these wonderful beach stones sort of shaping in the air and I don't know quite, I can't say them. I presume I could learn to say most of them. My point only is here that your body, mind, everything, really learns to say things, really learns your culture.
[48:34]
And when I listen to you, I can really physically feel the shape of the sound in the air, and I can feel, excuse me for saying so, the shape of your mouth that makes the sound. Because speaking is a physical act. And if I can speak a sound I can see in my head, it's also a mental act. Yeah, and if you can... If I can speak a sound I see in my head, in my mind, this is a little too long for what you're saying, Otmar, but it's just something I've been noticing.
[50:02]
And as I said this morning, it's very hard to get a distinction and a child during the first up to year and a half or two years can learn any language in the world, and after about two years old, there's some sounds it will never be able to say. Does your habits shape your mind and body? And as we know through real-time imaging, as I've spoken often, the period of time between the third trimester and about two years old the interaction with others, primarily the mother, actually shapes and develops your brain and your nervous system. So given that
[51:04]
our experience is laid down so physiologically that the tracks of the past are in us. It's amazing we can walk in any tracks other than the tracks of the past. Okay, because we're really formed by the past. That's our experience. And much of it is in our cells, in our body. And much of the pain of zazen is the resistance of the shapes of the past and the posture of the present. And much of the pain of zazen is the...
[52:28]
The shapes of the past being interfered with by the posture in the present. And, for instance, a person who's been meditating a long time, if they get a massage, often the masseuse will say, I can't find any tight spots in your body. Because sitting through the pain, sitting through the wanting to move and finally relaxing in your cells... A lot of the tracks of the past kind of come out of your body. Now... Now... I'll just say two more things.
[54:13]
If you can shift your sense of continuity out of your thinking... ...into your breath, body and phenomena... So you no longer find the continuity of the physical world and the continuity of your psychology of your identity in your thinking. Because your thinking, like your body, carries much of the past in it. And when you really don't carry your sense of the identity of the world in yourself and your thinking, you free yourself from a lot of the past being carried in your thinking.
[55:15]
When you free yourself from the past... When you free yourself from finding the identity of the world and yourself in your thinking, You free yourself significantly from how the past is carried in your thinking. Okay. Mm-hmm. So you can never be completely free of your past and your story, but you can be quite remarkably free.
[56:18]
It's technically called nirvana with a remnant. A rest in a remnant, like a remnant of cloth. So as long as you're living, there's no total nirvana. Because always there's some quality of your living, physical, mental being that's there as a remnant. Now the bodhisattva position is to free yourself as completely as possible from the remnant. I mean the Buddha position is to free yourself as completely as possible from the remnant. And the trouble with that is to really maintain a Buddha position, you have to live pretty much in a cave or in a monastery cared for in all the details of your life by very sweet monks.
[57:42]
And being married is out of the question. But if you want, the bodhisattva position is to make use of the remnant in how you relate to the world. Relate to the world. You use the remnant as a way of interacting in the world. Yes, indeed. Buddha has always spoken only about the breath.
[58:44]
He has never spoken about the interval. Is it because he knew that we go ahead with our thoughts and then we are no longer in the present? I think the interval is important. It is a good possibility to come out of being locked in. Buddha always talked about the breathing, but not breathing in and out, but not about the interval. The Buddha did? Oh, really? Okay. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. Did he talk so little about this interval because he knew that our thinking gets distracted
[59:58]
And so we don't come back? You mean in the interval between breaths we're more likely to get distracted? No, we long for the interval. We long for the interval. We do? And stop breathing? We are not in presence in the interval. And that we are not in the presence in the interval We're not in the present. No, in the interval. In the breathing we're not in the present because we long for the interval. Yeah. Well, anyway, first of all, how do you know what the Buddha said? Um... The interval always comes up for me, and I would like to know more about that.
[61:33]
Okay, that's fine, but to say that the Buddha said something about it, this is a problem. She supposes that that's because he talks little about the interval, is that he knew the... Okay, anyway, the thing is here, we actually know nothing about the Buddha. For 300 years at least after the Buddha's life and much longer, it was entirely an oral tradition. There's extremely scant historical evidence that the Buddha ever existed. Supposedly in India, they found the Buddha's father's tomb.
[62:36]
No, I don't doubt that the Buddha existed, but everything we know about the Buddha And there's many contradictory statements. Ones where he says there's no such thing as reincarnation, and one in which he says there's reincarnation, for example. Okay. So we can't really go back to the Buddha for a source. Okay. Now, it's also, as this is a lineage teaching, We don't go back to the Buddha as a source.
[63:49]
As a matter of policy. For instance, if you're really studying with me, you don't go back to Sukhiroshi as a source. If you bring up, I mean, I'm being a little strict here, but if you bring up what Suzuki Roshi said to me, then you're really a scholar. You're not practicing. Because if lineage has any meaning, then you try to find out everything from me. For example, practicing with Sukhirishi, I never cared a bit what his teacher said.
[64:50]
I only practiced with him. Okay. But, of course, we do look at our lineage in another sense. And we have this case in the Shoyoku, which goes back hundreds of years, where they talk about the pause. I think that's enough. Or we do talk about Zen as Jhana. Jhana is the word for Chan and the word for Zen. And that comes from the teaching of the four jhanas. And the four jhanas are pretty much historically established as a teaching created long after the Buddha's death.
[65:54]
So what we're talking about is, you know, it's like being a scientist. We're not talking about what Newton said. We're talking about what now we think science is. So we also say we're born in the same lineage but we die in different lineage. Yeah, so Paul and I are born in the same lineage but we have different now In another sense, you and David are in the same lineage. Or you and each of you are in the same lineage. But you look to yourself for what the teaching is, not back to me. As a teacher, if I can't give you your own direct experience of the teaching, if you have to refer to it as Baker Roshi's teaching, then you don't understand the teaching.
[67:20]
You have to refer to it, this is coming from me. In a way, it's one of the reasons we don't do guided meditation in Zen practice. There was somebody who had in the weekend left early, a little bit early. Because they were used to more Theravadan, so-called Vipassana practice. Where they do guided meditation. This is a perfectly nice person, but he kind of thought I was unintelligible or too intellectual. Since I'm trying to free you from your intellect, I don't think you're intellectual.
[68:30]
I'm intellectual, but it sounds like that sometimes. I think it's more a matter of intelligibility, not intellectuality. Okay. We don't give guided meditation because Zen particularly assumes the evolution of consciousness and evolution of mind. So I'm not going to guide you back to Buddha or guide you to an enlightenment that I already know exists a certain way. Because strictly speaking, to have an idea that there's one enlightenment for all of us, that's like oneness or basically a theology, God. Yes, but to assume that there would be one enlightenment for all of us, yes, that would be such a theory of unity and that would be based on God.
[69:50]
So... In our practice, we try to get you started, but what you experience is up to you. And the idea that we're born in the same lineage but die in a different lineage... means that you may experience things that I never experienced or the Buddha never experienced. So in the end, you can't confirm your experience by someone else's experience or the Buddha's experience. So in one sense we're in a path of a deeply common experience.
[70:50]
And we are actually learning a language of a very particular kind of spiritual, religious, something or other like that experience. If you have a different language, a different view, you'll have a different experience. But even if we're in the same lineage and our experience is very much flowing together and flowing in the same direction, we still have the freedom of our own experience, which is independent. Whoa.
[72:12]
This half of the room improves, this half of the room... No, thanks. Okay. What? Oh, confirmation. The better students are on this side. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry to get a little serious there. I apologize. So we should stop soon. Does anybody want to say anything, add anything? I have a question. I don't know if there's time for it, but the methods of... I hope we're on the same page. Valid cognizant. Valid cognizant methods, yeah.
[73:13]
Okay? Pointing, following, stopping, contemplating, returning. I understand. What's purification in that regard? All right, all right, all right, I get the question. No, but they need it in German. Oh, okay, in German. Okay. The purification of the, what is this, brushing the teeth of the mind? Dental and mental. Dental and mental. I'm just a zentist. Simply, purification means removing the impediments from consciousness and through the breath.
[74:36]
As the breath carries the mind, we're removing the impediments of consciousness, etc. When you bring your, through your breath, bring yourself into accord with each situation, With the energy of each situation. As it manifests, this is a process of purification. Okay. This is something in this general area I thought of speaking about tomorrow.
[75:41]
And nobody has given me suggestions for what you'd like me to speak about tomorrow. Isabella? The end of our discussion earlier about attention, when we experience attention and what we experience in this conversation, was very intense and formed its own space. And the final question that remained for me is still in the room. When does one decide how to be attentive when I am awake? So we had a very intense discussion. I can feel it. At the end we kind of ended up with the question how and what and who decides when we stray.
[76:54]
When you stray? With the attention. Oh. So when you're paying, giving attention, having attention on something and we stray, how does that happen? Is that the question? Who's deciding? What is deciding? What is deciding? That you give attention or you don't have attention. That it's there. It's suddenly there. Peter's spontaneity is deciding. No. Yes? Well, in a sense, yes. But Peter asked the same question in another way. Yes, Christa? So what comes to me is that we have asked ourselves and what is not clarified for me, maybe you did the same anyway, what does it do that we always lose ourselves out of attention, that we always go out of attention, out of attention, that's for me.
[78:08]
Yeah, what is a remnant for me is that what makes it and why do we always lose our attention? Like attention to our breath you mean? Or attention to anything. To phenomena. Yes. Okay, thank you. Yes, Judita? And how concentration plays a role? What kind of concentration?
[79:11]
A directed concentration to the object that I observe. While I'm observing. Okay, I'll do the best I can tomorrow, I promise. Yes. What is the relationship between breath body and breath on the one side and chi and the chakra system on the other side? And what is relevant for our practice? In two sentences. We both intend to practice together for at least some more months or years, don't we?
[80:15]
Good, I'm glad to hear that. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[80:31]
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