Is your shirt the Fighting Irish, Notre Dame? I have no slightest idea. I got that for some reason. Yeah, it's the Catholic College, Notre Dame. and it's called The Fighting Irish because it used to be Catholic and Irish. Might signify something. And as this Catholic college, which had been mostly Irish in Chicago, began to expand its football team, it found it had a lot of Polish people on it. It's a sharing translate. So I'm going to tell you something about your shirt.

[01:05]

No one else can. Not at least my age could tell you. Because now it would also be politically incorrect. But Notre Dame had a very good football team, college football team, before professional football team. And when another university would play Notre Dame, The opposing team would sing, Shame, shame on you, Notre Dame. For letting the Polacks steal your name. Because they were called the Fighting Irish, they were all Poles.

[02:11]

You didn't know what you were wearing there. And did they win? Usually. Does anybody have something about, well, not the fighting Irish, but about the mind you'd like to speak about? I hope Valentin didn't offend you. Yes. Yes. Something I already thought of yesterday, because I came to meditation from bodywork, from craniosacral work, and I experienced when I do sessions on some body that this difference between this thinking, because there's anatomy, anatomy and technique to this,

[03:38]

But the real work is more the change to the awareness, to intuitive work. And I think there's a similarity to the way The mind is observed in meditation because when I work in cranial, there's a certain point at which this switches from thinking about what I want to do to knowing where I want to go. German, please. I came to meditation through body work, craniosacral work, and it struck me, and yesterday I went up again, that there is this difference between consciousness and the truth, or between the thinking mind and the consciousness. It is very obvious there, because there is a point in treatment where I, from the anatomical point of view and from the technical point of view, I go to the intuitive level and then actually no longer think, but know what happens.

[04:48]

And I think it's just like this state that happens in meditation. Let me see if I understood your English. You say that in yourself as the cranial worker, you notice a shift from thinking or consciousness to awareness, and then your awareness guides what you do rather than thinking. And probably your work is also related, is parallel to shifting the client from thinking to awareness. And your shift from thinking to awareness helps induce a shift in the client from thinking to awareness.

[05:59]

Is that pretty much what you meant? I'm sure there's a lot of best cases. Here, you want my head. Have the rest of me, too. Yeah, it's so. I think it's so. And what's interesting is the avenues to knowing this distinction between awareness and consciousness is in in the West is often through body work and through sports. But body work, a sort of ordinary massage, for example, probably wouldn't have led there unless we also had the parallel development of Hindu and Buddhist yogic practices coming into the West.

[07:18]

And the physical work in the West, like for example with the massage, would probably not have worked so well if we had not had the yogic and hinduistic practice in the West. No, just a little historic history, which I think may be useful to notice. First, I think that, as I again often say, that lineages and developments in the West led us to Buddhism more than Asia led us to Buddhism. Lineages in the West. Yeah, philosophical, philosophy, art, psychology. The traditions in the West led us to Buddhism more than...

[08:23]

then Asian Buddhism led us to Buddhism. But once Hindu and Buddhist... traditions came into the West, they precipitated the development rapidly. And at the center of this, for some At least one of the main centers of this was a place called Esalen Institute on the Big Sur coast. And to me this is interesting partly because the founder of Esalen is one of my best friends, along with you guys. I mean, that's Michael Murphy.

[09:45]

And he's just a California kid who grew up in Salinas, California. And if you've ever seen the movie East of Eden, he's the square brother in the movie. James Dean is the wild one. The author knew these two boys and he kind of based his story, East of Eden, on these two boys. Yeah. But Michael... Went to Stanford and got interested in meditation.

[10:53]

And then, I mean, he's the most gifted natural meditator I've ever met. From the time he was 20-something until he was in his early 30s, he meditated eight hours a day. He worked as a bellhop and a desk clerk in hotels to support himself. He just loved to meditate. It felt so good. And then he inherited this place on the Big Sur coast, which was his family's summer home. Yeah, and so Michael just started doing the things that meditation had led him to notice.

[11:58]

So he invited Fritz Perls, for instance, who founded Gestalt Therapy, to come and live at Esalen. And he invited Stan Grof, one of your teachers, to live at Esalen. And Michael is a gifted athlete and he wrote The Psychic Side of Sports. Because he personally noticed that body work Rolfing started also. Ida Rolf lived at Esalen. Charlotte Silver was there. Sensory awareness. So he noticed these things and that sports and body work And meditation all led into a similar territory.

[13:04]

And cranial therapy was often practiced there. So it's interesting that here's this one guy who happened to inherit an extraordinary piece of property on the Big Sur coast. Who used this summer home to bring the strands of kind of bodily intelligence and psychotherapy together. And we're doing it here too. You say this, and I hear it, and I think, yes, that's right.

[14:17]

But I also hear this ability to notice the distinction between awareness and consciousness as something very new and not possible without certain kinds of developments like Esalen. I also believe that this ability, this distinction between being aware and being aware, is completely new and also not possible without things like the development of Esselin. We notice it, and it's our experience, but it's hard to notice these things unless you have a certain permission or situation which allows you to notice it. Okay, and that's, again, what we're trying to do here. Someone else want to bring something up? You talked this morning about the psychotherapist self.

[15:26]

Primarily study self, I said. And the difference to the Buddhist self, or to the Buddhist way. So where do you see the difference? Because I can't really see it. Well, let's continue and we'll see if we can find out. You tell me what you think after a while. Okay. Okay. Anyone else? Someone else? Maybe it sounds funny, but I just would like to share it with you. You talked about the feeling of sunbathing. The feeling of? Of taking a sunbath. Oh, yeah, yeah, sunbathing, yeah. It's something I like very much because after taking Zen baths I just feel really connected with the world and I feel the kind of physical response. And I have the same feeling when I do a sashin after two or three days. I really nearly fall in love with everybody.

[16:30]

I don't know. It's kind of strange things, washing dishes or sitting, and you just feel a total love and connectedness to a person. I feel the same when I do very, very deep breathing. So is this the force mind you were talking? Yeah, Deutsch, bitte. I actually just wanted to share it. When I take sunbaths, I notice after a short time that I feel totally connected to the world and also feel something like a physical resonance. And I have the same feeling when I am in the sea for two or three days, I suddenly have the feeling, also with such very simple things, when I wash dishes, that I have the feeling that I love Somehow the people in a very special way, without judging or categorizing them, there is simply this feeling. Or when I do very deep breathing work or body work, which you just talked about, there is this feeling of connection and love.

[17:35]

I wanted to know from Roshi that this is the fourth spirit he spoke of. I think we could say it's the fourth mind or something like that. But I would just... notice that this relationship, what you said is just, yeah, I understand. And I think that being in love or falling in love is something, is probably a taste we have of this fourth mind developed fourth mind.

[18:46]

When we're, in a way, outside the territory of self, when we fall in love, we give up our self or feel a larger sense of self with the person we're in love with and the world, usually. And I think when I practice meditation, I often feel like the sun is shining on me. Yeah. Anyway, yes. Someone else?

[19:47]

Yes. It's two things. The same thing like falling in love happened to me when my second daughter was born. It's about one week. I could have kissed everybody in Berlin. Berlin may have been lucky. I don't know. But you couldn't do it all. And the second is, well, you talked about somebody who is a hunter and stops shooting. I mean, this happened to me before I had any contact to meditation. Because I've been a hunter and was sitting there waiting. And it's kind of meditation to sit there. Because you have to be very calm. You have to kind of be part of the nature. As the animals would find you.

[20:50]

Because they are much better than we are. So we have to really be in it. And One day I stopped shooting. I said, what is this good for? It's kind of interruption. I interrupted something that was okay. And I had to steal away because if you are with hunters... You can't not shoot. People don't like you when you don't shoot. You have to shoot. Is that what you were talking about? Yeah. Thank you. You can all speak English. You all speak English. You said we all speak English. It's not true. It occurred to me in the story of Sesshin that it also happened to me when my second daughter was born. I liked the whole world for a while. It was such a great thing. To be there, a child is born, it's something so special.

[22:03]

Yes, I know that. And the other thing was that at some point, I'm a hunter, I stopped shooting at some point, because I thought, I'll get everything mixed up. So, everything was right, and if I had shot, there would have been a bang, and everything would have been mixed up. If I had hit, I would have... Anyone else? No, you meant? My experience regarding these three states of mind that Roche described at the beginning is that there is a kind of stiffness, of inflexibility. And this fourth state of mind has something to do with becoming more flexible or being able to act in a more situational manner.

[23:07]

My experience about the three states of mind you were talking about... Given states of mind. ...given states of mind is that they seem to be very unflexible and like rigid almost. And the experience during the zazen especially is that something gets softer and more flexible, more able to adjust to the situation that is really going on there and responding somehow. So is that part of the fourth mind you were talking about? Maybe the fourth body. Okay. Yeah, I mean, what you said and you said and what Melita said have kind of been so clear.

[24:18]

the experience you've described is so clear, but it's made me feel something I can't quite, don't know how to express yet, so we'll have to see if it comes up. Now let me say at this point something I spoke about in Hannover. And let me say something about what I said in Hannover. This thinking of the mind or understanding the mind as a kind of liquid results in a different way of teaching and expressing things. Instead of expressing things so that they are clear and graspable, you express them so that they turn into fish and swim in these minds.

[25:36]

Or you express them in ways that they'll enter a particular liquid of mind and stay there and get immersed, bathed in that mind. And you express yourself in such a way that you look for a certain area of the spirit, so to speak, stay there and somehow... Yes, you stay there, but you swim there so that there is almost no separation, so to speak. So mantra and repetition are an essential part of the process of understanding. You don't try to think about it and understand it.

[26:40]

Maybe you put it under your standing. And let it really get soaked over time, and the soaking produces understanding. So as a teacher, I shouldn't just present things in a way that you can understand them. I should also present them in a way that you can't understand them. But so that they sink into your mind and stay there. And then hopefully float to the surface at some point.

[27:45]

Oh, that makes sense. It's really quite a difference in the way understanding is understood to occur. And if you see that, the koans make a lot more sense. Koans are full of turning points, turning phrases, which you turn in yourself And the turning in yourself engages them with the details of your life. And a thinking that occurs through your lived experience produces understanding. Which is often actually what happens when you have an intuition. A thinking has been going on underneath the surface and then pops up.

[29:13]

And from the point of view of yogic practice, this thinking under the surface or through your living is what's called real thinking. And the pure mathematicians and creative scientists I know all think this way, to come to something they can't think their way to. Und die Mathematiker und Wissenschaftler, die ich kenne, die sind nicht, sie sind dahin auch so gekommen zum Verstehen, nicht durch das sich hindurch dorthin denken. Okay, so, yeah, something else. Noch jemand noch etwas? Yes. I'm always so interested in patterns and signs and symbols.

[30:16]

And in the Aum symbol there is, on the right side, this little pattern that I guess shows the fourth mind. Could you say something especially to this kind of sign, the quarter moon with the dot in the midst? I am very interested in symbols and signs. And there is this sign of Om, where in the corner there is this quarter moon with the dot in it. And it symbolizes the fourth spirit. And I asked Roshi if he could maybe say something about that. Well, strictly speaking, symbols aren't used in Buddhism. Things that we might think of as symbols are used.

[31:20]

But it's much more to be understood as a drawing of an experience. So something that prefigures experience but doesn't symbolize experience. What do you mean pre-figure? To pre-figure something is to shape something that leads to, like a seed. A seed isn't a symbol of a tree, but it pre-figures the tree. Also, das geht darum, dass sozusagen eine Art Vorgestalt oder wie ein Samenkorn oder so was da ist, was sozusagen in der Erfahrung vorausgeht, aber das nicht das Symbol der Erfahrung ist. So a Buddha isn't a symbol of a Buddha.

[32:26]

A Buddha is something, if you immerse yourself in it, it tends to turn you into a Buddha. And the circle, many times circles are used. And there's a long tradition of the use of circles. They're meant to allow you to enter your experience with a sort of roundness and sense of the sphere of presence. And when these There's a whole series of circles that are used in teaching Buddhism.

[33:31]

But some generations will destroy them or refuse to teach them because they become too much like symbols. And you try to understand them rather than turning your experience into letting these lead your experience. So I think your feel for these figures is probably helpful to your practice. Okay. So anybody else, and then I should say something more, perhaps. Yes. The nature of mind, how does it work for me, where does it lead me? Then came the association of pure substance, pure reason.

[34:32]

I tried to feel what this... Where does the word nature lead me to within myself? And where does it lead? To other words. Basic art substance. That was more a German word and that led me, I had the feeling, that can lead me more A German word would sort of have had more weight.

[35:50]

Yeah? What was the German word? Quality. Original. So would you translate original mind by Eigenschaft? How would you translate original mind? Ursprünglicher Geist. It's a real German translation for the prefix he uses, which is Ur. It's like something like Arche. Like the Ur root of Goethe. Like Arche, you know. Primal. Primal, yeah. Okay. Well, there is this idea of original mind, fundamental mind, Ur-mind. Okay. And this experience led me to notice that these words drew me into somewhere else. Was it a good somewhere else?

[37:04]

Ecstasy, you know, means somewhere else. So what I think I should do is continue some of these basic categories. And in ways we can, you know, feel our way into. But first, let me see, it's 10 after 12. What time are we supposed to end today, Atmar? Eight o'clock, nine o'clock? Yeah, sure, he says. It's going to be an all-night session. Okay. Okay. And are there restaurants around here, nearby?

[38:16]

I just saw a list at the door of four restaurants nearby. Okay. They're open on Saturday, I presume. We should find out if we go to these restaurants if they're also open on Sunday. Usually they are. Okay. Okay, so we'll continue a little bit and then we'll take a break for lunch. Okay. Now, okay, so we've got these three minds and a fourth. And what we notice if you see what happens when dreams arise, Thinking, you can't think too much or dreams won't arise.

[39:19]

There can be a kind of knowing in the midst of dreams. And there can be a kind of observing in the midst of dreams. But it's not the same as consciousness. Okay, so if you notice that, you can draw the conclusion that if I want to observe these three minds, I can't do it with thinking. And we have Martin's comment and question about why is thinking so interesting, addictive, etc. And Andreas, last night I spoke about The nature of mind, perhaps we could translate it as source mind, the source of mind.

[40:24]

And that's like Ur. Okay, so now if we notice these three minds and ask ourselves the question, can they be more related? And we notice that we can't observe the mind of dreaming if we're thinking. So then we have to then we can conclude we have to develop an observing mind which doesn't think. Okay, so what are the categories we've got now?

[41:25]

We've got non-dreaming deep sleep, dreaming and wake. And we've got a fourth something we're calling a fourth mind. And we've got an observing mind that isn't Now I call it technically non-interfering observing mind. And what is one of the first experiences of the beginner in sitting? That as you really more and more the body absorbs your attention. The space between thoughts and thinking gets wider.

[42:27]

And at some point, there's virtually no thinking going on. And you've heard the word samadhi. So you think, oh, this must be Samadhi. And immediately, Samadhi has gone away. Now, do we have to conclude that to observe samadhi is to stop samadhi? So a yogic skill is you can begin to, with a corner of your mind, observe samadhi and not interfere with it. So we can call that non-interfering observing mind. Now, this... non-interfering observing mind, is one of the basic yogic skills of practice.

[43:45]

Now, I think we can call, say that awareness is perhaps the function of this, the knowing function of this fourth mind. And as you begin to wake up, not in zazen in the morning, for example, Yeah. For example, in Zazen in the morning. That you wake up into awareness more than into consciousness. Or you notice that you... Don't have to wake up into consciousness.

[45:22]

But you notice you're awake, but it's not really thinking consciousness. So let's call that awareness. Well, what's happening is you're actually generating awareness. No. In other words, awareness is something that we could add to these three given minds, because we also are born with awareness. So it's like a fourth mind that we don't notice, like non-dreaming deep sleep. But what we do when we practice meditation and mindfulness is we establish ourselves more and more in awareness. We not only establish ourselves in it, we create awareness, we exercise it, we generated.

[46:38]

And we find that a big part of the process of generating awareness is rooted in or connected with breathing. So breathing It's more connected with awareness than it's connected with thinking. Okay. So that's the inventory so far. Okay, now consciousness. Why does consciousness interfere with observing dreaming?

[47:40]

Now, much of Western philosophy has emphasized the development of consciousness. And emphasizing reason, rationality, and logic. And logic or rationality is a kind of natural conclusion... or expression of the nature of consciousness. Because consciousness can be deluded, superstitious, irrational. And without developing your consciousness, making it more internally consistent, We tend to be deluded or irrational or etc. So we have emphasized logic and reason as the highest form of consciousness.

[48:54]

Or even the highest form of mind. Now Buddhism, I think, would agree that it's the highest form of consciousness. But it's not the highest form of mind. What is your name? As Wolfgang noticed, there's more subtlety when he shifts to awareness than when he's in consciousness or usual consciousness, thinking consciousness. Okay, so consciousness in Buddhism is seen as a tool of thinking but not the highest form of mind.

[49:55]

So developed awareness, if we wanted to make comparisons, is a higher form of mind than developed consciousness. But that doesn't make sense to say higher or lower, because actually what you want to do in Buddhism is develop your consciousness and develop your awareness. Okay, now how do you develop your consciousness? Well, education and so forth. Okay. Now, consciousness... is even highly developed consciousness can be deluded.

[51:06]

Because what is the nature of consciousness? No, we're not talking about the nature of mind here. We're talking about the nature of consciousness. or function of consciousness, job of consciousness. So we're now looking more specifically at waking mind and consciousness Yeah, the main aspect of waking mind. And what is the job of consciousness? Sorry, this is for some of you to review, but... We should look at all these categories. The job of consciousness is to create a predictable world. You can't live in the world unless it's fairly predictable. If this had the quality of dreams right now, I mean, you'd change faces and ages and your grandmother would appear in the middle and, you know, things like that.

[52:32]

That may be going on. Underneath your thinking may be the presence of your grandmother or... fantasies and so forth. But consciousness keeps that rather hidden or out of sight. Because, yeah, as I say, when you go outside, you want the tree that was there earlier to still be there. And the root of the word true and tree is the same. It means the predictable world. So we can't function unless the world is predictable. So this is the job of consciousness to make the world predictable. And also to make it knowable, cognizable.

[53:48]

And also to make it chronological. To see things in succession, in sequence. And to see things as meaningful. So that is in a way the what-ness, the what-mind consciousness is. Consciousness provides us with a predictable, knowable, chronological world. And when we really develop its capacity to be predictable, knowable and chronological, we actually end up with logic and reason.

[54:56]

Okay. And the way in which consciousness makes the mind The world meaningful is through self. If the world doesn't feel meaningful, we're lost. People who have had brain damage of some kind that makes them lose any sense of meaning, they're really lost. They don't know what to do. So, consciousness, To make it simple, consciousness' job is to make a knowable, predictable world.

[56:02]

And in contrast to less developed consciousness, which is irrational and deluded and so forth. Okay. but this knowable, predictable world that we need. from the point of view of Buddhism, is the fundamental delusion. Because it tends to see the world as permanent. A predictable world is implicitly seen as permanent. You want the tree to still be there.

[57:03]

It doesn't jump across the street. Eine vorhersagbare Welt ist implizit permanent, also beständig, weil man will ja, dass der Baum, wenn man rauskommt, immer noch da steht und nicht über die Straße gehüpft ist. And we turn the world into nouns. Und wir verwandeln die Welt in... Hauptwörter? Hauptwörter, ja. Yeah, it's a tree, it's not treeing. Also das heißt, es ist ein Baum, es ist kein Baumen. Yeah, it's actually a Baumen, it's not a Baum. Es ist eigentlich dieses, also dieses, das Verb Baumen und nicht das Hauptwort Baum. The tree is an activity, it's not a thing. Der Baum ist ja eine Aktivität und kein Ding. Okay. So this is Majamaka teaching, Mahayana teaching is rooted in the idea of two truths.

[58:05]

Of two truths? Two truths. Two truths. Truths. One truth seems to be true, makes us think it's true, as Robert Musil says, life forms a surface that acts as if it could not be otherwise. And our senses confirm that. Consciousness confirms that. Oh yes, it is pretty much predictable, pretty much permanent. And when we see difference, we see difference as separation. We don't see difference as change. So the activity of seeing difference notices separation, but the mind of wisdom notices change. The mind's ability is to see difference.

[59:30]

And that capacity to see difference in a predictable world sees separation. And the harder capacity is to see the change in the tree moment after moment. What's easier to notice when you first start this is to notice the moment-by-moment change in mind. So one of the gates to noticing change, not just intellectually, you know everything's changing, is to notice that, again, I'm seeing mind and not just objects. And I see my mind is changing all the time.

[60:33]

I look at you, and then I look at you, and I look at you. And I don't see so much you changing, but I see my mind changing. But if I get used to always seeing my mind change, it opens me to noticing hey, you're different than you were a moment ago. And the feeling in the room overall is different than it was a moment ago. So this opens you to each moment is in fact and experienced As unique. Now that's a very big difference. To see uniqueness instead of separation. And consciousness can't really see uniqueness.

[61:44]

Consciousness can intellectually, logically know about uniqueness. But consciousness is not just a medium of thinking. Consciousness is also a medium of knowing. And as a medium of knowing, it can't experience Und als ein Medium des Kennens kann es nicht wirklich Einzigartigkeit erfahren. Bitte? What's the difference between thinking and knowing as a function of consciousness? Was ist der Unterschied zwischen Denken und Wissen? All right. Anyway, I'm making a distinction between thinking and knowing. Nun, ich mache einen Unterschied zwischen Denken und Wissen. Thank you for pointing that out.

[62:46]

So right now I will say that awareness is more the medium of knowing. Consciousness is the medium of thinking. Sophia came in the apartment six months ago. And she knew the apartment, but consciously couldn't understand the apartment, didn't know where her room was, etc. So there was knowing that wasn't thinking. Okay. Excuse me. We have in German, there's a difference between, I think there is some English word like I can, K-E-N, is there? Can? Yeah, it's something like knowing. It's something like knowing, yeah. Intimately knowing or having experienced it, being close to it.

[63:50]

In my ken means, in English usually it's not used very much, but it means to be in the territory with which I know, I'm familiar with. So this is sometimes mixed up, knowing and kenning, so to say. We have problems here. Consciousness, as I've described it, it's what-ness, Also, das Bewusstsein, wie ich es beschrieben habe, als was-heit, how it does its job, so wie es seine Arbeit verrichtet, is through memory, language, and self. In other words, consciousness is the territory for language and memory and self. So most of our knowing is in the categories of language, self, and memory.

[64:53]

But not all of our experience can be known through language, self, and memory. If something unique happens, if it's really unique, It's not rooted in memory. So always at each moment there's experience which hasn't been experienced before. So the deeper you get into these things, you find there's no words for it in any language. And particularly in English and German, which haven't developed in a yogic culture, the words actually really don't allow you to notice things.

[66:09]

Sometimes people tell me they'd rather hear Buddhism in English. Because the German words are rented out to Christianity, leased to mythology, and so forth, occupied by the culture. By that measure, I should understand Buddhism in German. But what I've tried to do is shake the culture out of the English words. Yeah. What we can come back to is what is knowing that's not in the category of consciousness, language and memory. Okay for now. I never fully satisfy him.

[67:21]

That's why he comes back next year. Okay, so we've come a long way in one morning. Looking at some very simple categories and then beginning to see what the relationships can be or what results from the relationships. So I think this is a good enough place to stop. Consciously, I think so. But is this conscious thinking my body told me first? Because it's hungry or it has to pee? Or am I sort of thinking about how it's going to work and when we end in the afternoons?

[68:26]

I like the pace at which we're translating together because we're struggling together. So let's sit for a few minutes. What hears the bell? Consciousness, awareness, the body.

[69:25]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_74.57