Hey, that's your worldview. That's a good example of a sense of location. If I change my location this way, I can write world very easily. If I try to write it this way, my sense of location interferes in my shaping the word world. Anyway, that's your worldview. And down here is unconscious. And here is primary processes. Mm-hmm. Down here is secondary processes.

[01:04]

Okay. It's fairly simple. It's four dots. Okay. Now, this sense of your world is very related to your primary processes. and this is a kind of subliminal below the light subliminal subliminal subliminal I don't know what it means but anyway sort of below the light anyway and this is your primary process and you're Unconscious often relates to secondary processes. And of course there's also a relationship this way and this way.

[02:08]

Quite simple. Okay, now Zazen is over here somewhere. And zazen affects both this and this. Okay, this is zazen. Now there's two aspects of zazen traditionally. One is vipassana and shamatha. Now, this aspect, although in Zen practice vipassana and shamatha are united, still, let's separate them for now.

[03:08]

Now, shamatha means concentration. So the processes of concentration change the temperature and viscosity of consciousness. So things float in it, happen in it differently when the temperature is different. Now I'm just using words like temperature and viscosity to give you some kind of image. Don't take them too technically.

[04:09]

So if you develop concentration, If you're able to allow an uncorrected state of mind to begin to happen. And within that uncorrected state of mind, you can give it a little bit of form. Through bringing your attention into your breath, Bring your attention into your body. This tends to take the energy out of cognitive thinking. And you will tend to shift more and more to a kind of field consciousness. Okay, do you follow that?

[05:22]

Yeah. If you're not trying to correct your consciousness, but you're trying to just bring your attention to your breathing... You're not trying to push thoughts out. But it's a bit like, instead of being involved with all the sailboats and speedboats on the lake, you more and more feel the water itself. And the number of boats on the water is, you don't interfere with them, they can float around as much as they want. And the more you can bring your breath and attention together, the more you suddenly find you can slip beneath the surface of the water and you find out magically you can breathe underwater and you can see the bottoms of the boats so you're seeing secondary processes now

[06:43]

Not just seeing primary processes. He's still with me in this. And then you begin to see fish swimming by, which you hadn't noticed before. Now, usually the moment you drop below the surface, you go to sleep. So zazen allows you to get closer and closer to the surface of the water. And I can see people doing meditation. And they try the water out. It's not too wet, it's kind of wet. There's actually an expression in Buddhism to be able to immerse yourself without getting wet. This is one of the reasons the image of the lotus is there.

[08:02]

The lotus is a symbol for Buddhism. And the roots are in the mud. The stem is in the water. And the blossom is up above the water. Now, when you overemphasize the spiritual side of Zen practice, You all want to be in the blossom like a ladybug on the... Or a prince or a princess or a fireman or something. Prince Buddha fireman. He's standing on the lotus. It feels good up here, the lotus.

[09:13]

So, but practice is you actually kind of, you let yourself down off the leaves. And after a while you feel, oh, actually I don't have to get in, the stem is there, I'm also the stem. So you sense the stem part of you. And I can see people in their meditation, the water starts to rise as they're sitting. And they enjoy themselves up to about here. And then they get to about here and their head goes And it's true Some of you are sitting like this. And it definitely means you're thinking too much.

[10:19]

When you sit like this, you think. When you pull your chin in, you don't think as much. So I can see the water rising. It gets to about here and then... It's true. As soon as you can actually see the water, you go to sleep. As long as you can feel it. Okay. So, certain kinds of consciousness, let's call it all consciousness, certain kinds of consciousness, because of its temperature or viscosity, support cognitive thinking. Certain kinds of consciousness don't support cognitive thinking. The kind of consciousness you have at night doesn't support cognitive thinking. That's why if you wake up and you've been having a dream, And you try to remember the dream, cognitively you lose it.

[11:44]

Because the kind of thinking, mind, or the kind of consciousness that allows dreams to happen gets dispersed by cognitive thinking. Now a person with developed yogic skills can think in dream consciousness without dispersing it. But that's, you don't have to worry about that. All you're trying to do is get familiar with this territory. Okay. So, when you develop consciousness, bringing your but in the most direct and simple way, your attention to your breathing. I'm gonna dream about this guy, I'm sure, tonight. You're looking at this and I'm looking at him.

[12:50]

I can see his five skandhas very clearly. There's a secondary process right there. Okay, so as you develop concentration, you begin to link zazen mind with the unconscious. And the minnows of the unconscious begin to swim into your zazen. Minnows are tiny fish. Smaller than sardines. Like you see in streams. Like you see in streams. Okay, the minnows of your unconscious begin swimming. And your immediate reaction is, I bet there's a shark Because mostly we're scared of our unconscious.

[14:24]

And we think the shark and the barracuda of I'm going to go crazy are swimming in there somewhere. And mostly they're minnows. Mostly when you look closely, they look like sharks from a distance, but up close they're minnows. Occasionally a big whale swims by. Which is quite exciting. At first you just think it's a wall. Once I was in, little anecdote, once I was in the, during the, who knows what it was called, the Persian Gulf Crisis, I don't know.

[15:24]

The late 50s anyway. I was in the Mediterranean on a ship, a merchant marine ship. And there were both Russian and American battleships in the Mediterranean. And I was at the wheel of a 500-foot freighter, which is a pretty big freighter, 500 feet. Mm-hmm. And our radar picked up an immense object right out in front of us. In the dark and in the fog. So I was just an ordinary seaman and the mate on my watch. I was 19 or 20. He began signaling him with flashing lights and everything.

[16:36]

And no response. And this suddenly felt like as far away as that wall, an immense battleship with a aircraft carrier not far behind went by. No signal, nothing, except after it got past us, suddenly one light went. Just to let us know we were there. He was there, he or she. Probably that ship had so much equipment, it had us completely tracked. Sometimes something like that happens in meditation. You're sitting in a wall of fog or mints, something is there and you just think it's the background and you realize it's some part of you.

[18:00]

And you sort of say, is anybody there? Sometimes it will give you one little blink. So this is what makes meditation fun, these things happen like this. So maybe I didn't want to be a fireman when I was a kid. Anyway, so when you're practicing zazen, this concentration opens you up to unconscious material. Okay, now the way of seeing that arises from the way of seeing that arises from concentration, is called vipassana.

[19:15]

It's called insight. Okay, so this is not ordinary thinking. The kind of thinking that arises through concentration. And that kind of insight concentration begins to allow you to see your world view. Und diese Art von einsichtsvoller Konzentration gestattet einem jetzt zu sehen, was für eine Weltsicht man hat. Begins to allow you to see how your world is put together. Und gestattet einem, dass man sehen kann, wie die Welt, wie man sie sieht, zusammengesetzt ist. So do you see how Zazen affects unconscious processes and your basic assumptions about what the world is? Und könnt ihr jetzt sehen, wie also Zazen eure unbewussten Prozesse beeinflusst und auch eure Weltsicht beeinflusst? Okay. But it doesn't affect much these primary processes and secondary processes. Except as they're affected here.

[20:16]

So... So over here we have practices like the five skandhas and the six paramitas. And these practices of the five skandhas are actually a way to transform the primary and secondary processes. Because you change, technically we say, you change the basis, the bases of personality. You change the base, you begin... your personality and ego is predicated differently.

[21:39]

Okay. Is that okay so far? Okay. Yeah, do you have some questions about it? Yeah. What kind of practice? Which one? The five skandhas? Okay. I'll come to that. I'm sorry. We're going to get you to get it yet. Yes. Yes. Is there a translation for scandal? It means heaps. It could be the five scandals.

[22:40]

No, no. It is a scandal, though. Okay. Now, the reason Western Buddhism has so little effect on Westerners except giving them a sense of well-being, which is a lot, is because mostly Western Buddhism so far has been taught in here. And part of it is also because our spiritual tendencies are anti-intellectual.

[23:42]

And Western religious teachings for the most part emphasize faith and are not an avenue for real intellectual examination. One thing you should know about Buddhism is it's 50% intellectual. Or it's 100% intellectual. And 100% not intellectual. Okay. Now, by intellectual, I don't mean that you believe in your thoughts. Um... I think most intellectuals believe in their thoughts.

[24:58]

That's why artists, businessmen and so forth actually practice Zen better than intellectuals. People have a tendency to act and do things physically. Looks like cement up there. Sounds like a violin case. It's like artists and businessmen out there. It's the Berlin marching band. Anyway. So Buddhism feels that anything that can be thought about should be thought about.

[26:02]

And what can't be thought about shouldn't be thought about. Now, we tend to think about what can't be thought about and sometimes don't think clearly about what can be thought about. Und wir denken oft über die Dinge nach, über die man eigentlich nicht nachdenken kann, und über die, die wir eigentlich nach- oder bedenken könnten, das tun wir nicht. There's lots, I mean, thinking is, language thinking is within the limits of language. Und das sprachliche Denken ist eben innerhalb der Begrenzung der Sprache. So a child who asks, what's on the other side of blue? Und ein Kind, das jetzt fragt, was ist auf der anderen Seite von blau? It's a very poetic question. But it's not within the limits of language. They're misusing language. And a lot of the intellectual questions we ask are a misuse of language.

[27:06]

They're philosophical questions. Okay. Okay. So, if we can get past the... If we can see that a certain amount of intellect is necessary in practice, you'll come a long way. In fact, the word for faith in Japanese Buddhism Daishinkan means great faith root. And it means faith rooted in experience and intelligence. Not just kind of blind faith. Okay, so we need to practice Buddhism in the West.

[28:33]

We need both this and this. Okay. I think I should stop. We'll take a break pretty soon, okay? A few minutes. But let me try to say something, a few more minutes about this. When you start to practice, you're mostly in here.

[29:37]

In the zazen concentration and a certain amount of new contact with your unconscious. Unless you really look carefully at what happens through concentration, There's not much effect on your world view. So in fact, most of us in practice is related, is in here for this practice. And this down in here. Okay, now, you can accept certain Buddhist views that you read or I tell you or something. Or better, you can accept them in the sense that you test them out through your own practicing. Or if you practice this third state of mind of zazen regularly, it just becomes a habit you do daily.

[30:57]

And you become familiar with it like in the boats of your day, you're aware of the water around you. It begins to affect your world view. You begin to really see how the boats of your life are sitting in water. And how they're floating. But you still don't see much about how the boats are made. Okay. Now what actually happens in practice is you begin to sense that the way your boat is made is affecting your meditation. And is affecting the way you see the water.

[31:58]

And the contact with water. Okay, so what happens during the first years of practice? Is you wonder what this boat is you're in. And you, maybe you don't like the boat you're in. But you clearly will think you'll drown if you get out of this boat. You're not sure you know how to swim. This may be an unknown liquid. It might be acid, like on the surface of Venus or something. So you stay in your boat, though you'd like to change your boat. How do you change your boat? Okay, you find another boat that floats pretty well.

[33:13]

Okay, so you find an inner tube. Yeah, inner tube? Inner tube, like inside a tire? An inner tube? An innenreifen. Or a rubber raft. And that rubber raft or inner tube is the five skandhas. Okay, so you said, oh, the five skandhas, that floats. And it's different than this boat. So you tie this inner tube securely to the boat. And climb into the inner tube. And then cautiously let yourself float away from the boat.

[34:30]

Do you understand? Yeah. Then you look back at the boat. Yeah, look at the angle it is in the water. And look at the hole. Look at us taking in water constantly. Now I know why I can't sleep. It's those pumps at night pumping the water out. So you get so you can sit in the five skandhas. And if you want to repair the boat, you can pull yourself up, patch it up. And if you want to, you can climb back up on the boat and sail it. And your job probably requires you to go to work in the boat. If you come to work in an inner tube, they'll probably won't like it.

[35:33]

but after a while you get so you can spend more and more time in the inner tube and you even feel this inner tube can change shapes so you can make it look like the boat when you go to work And the first few years of practice, probably I would say for myself, I saw the inner tube or the ox pretty early on. But I was neither willing to ride the ox nor get in the inner tube right away. But I would say I pretty early on sat down in the inner tube for a few moments. But even though I didn't admit it to myself, I thought it was a great accomplishment. So I didn't think it was a great thing, but really I did.

[37:09]

And I thought just that one time in the inner tube was good enough. But so mostly for years I stayed in the usual boat and kind of let the inner tube float behind it just in case there was trouble. But I kept the inner tube in view. And I suppose it took me 10 years before I was most of the time in the inner tube. So I would like to, after the break, tell you something about the five skandhas, the inner tube of the five skandhas. Because it's the best life raft you can have.

[38:10]

And I'd like you to know about the five skandhas and this life raft. I would like all of you to know about this life raft. And little by little, you can start using it yourself. It's up to you. But at least you should know it's there. Doesn't mean you're getting rid of your main boat. Just means you're able to look at it differently. So this is the Five skandhas floating out here. Let's see, we should draw it as a little inner tube here.

[39:35]

It's a little inner tube that you're floating in here. So after the break, we will look at this inner tube, okay? Thank you very much. Thank you. That was an hour. It's now 4.35. Shall we come back at 5 to 5? 20 minutes long enough? Okay. I don't want you to think about all these things too intellectually. But rather get acquainted with it the way you might with a new friend. Who you don't know too well yet. But you're a little bit excited about getting acquainted. And this scares you a little. And you don't want to push it.

[41:03]

And you want to let this new friendship take its own time. So you kind of get up close and sit beside this person now and then. Without asking too many questions. You can share life histories a little later. Now someone, one or two or three people mentioned to Ulrike that they didn't want a new topic started so soon. I hadn't thought it was a new topic. So it's good for me to see that it's a new topic. Really, since this is getting familiar with this, maybe we should get familiar more slowly. Hmm? Okay.

[42:25]

Now, Olaf mentioned to me at break that this whole, this thing was a little hard to understand or get familiar with. So it's just a drawing. But let's, if you have any questions about it, maybe Olaf, you had some, would you tell us? I know it's okay, but... Yeah, but ask... Worldview. Okay, is that all right? Should I talk about that a little bit? The main world view of Buddhism is that everything is changing and that nothing has a permanent existence Nor an inherent existence.

[43:54]

Now that takes a really long time to get a feeling of what that means. It's taken Buddhism a long time to get a full feeling of what that means. I would say it took at least a thousand years. So don't worry about it if you don't get it right away. It's pretty easy to understand initially It's very difficult to see its real implications.

[45:02]

What I talked about last night was emptiness. And the meaning of everything changes is expressed in the word emptiness. Now, just to give you a little background, it might help you a little bit. It's a bit of what Herman and I spoke about at lunch. It was accepted in Buddhism that there was no fixed self. That's been accepted from the beginning.

[46:04]

And then it was accepted also that the five skandhas, the life raft of the five skandhas is another way to posit self through perceptual analysis. what's also impermanent. Now, it's called five skandhas, which means heaps or piles, because Supposedly, the historical Buddha first explained the five skandhas by piling five piles of sand or rice or something. So it means the five combinations or aggregates.

[47:31]

And you can make one pile higher and you can mix the piles. Or you can make one pile. Now most of us experience one pile because the actual fact of perception is very quick. Somebody, I believe, has slowed down birdsong. And we hear chirp, chirp, chirp. I wanted to hear it in German phonemes. Depends on the bird. Not Dickie Bird.

[48:48]

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