Since the first session went so long, what time are we supposed to end? Is the kitchen already gone? They will come back. They just have to set up the gruel and put the gruel in the studio. I think it's my favorite meal. I mean, sometimes. Okay. So we can continue for 40 or 50 minutes. Okay. Isn't here.

[01:11]

It's all right. We saw that the dinner crew had left already, so it's OK. Oh. So it was quite interesting for me to sit in the back for most of your first session with Nicole translating. And I had two, I had several feelings. One is I felt myself back in the time of practicing with Sukhirushi. Because so much of what you spoke about, or much of what you spoke about, were feelings, perplexities, etc., I had in my early years with Sukhiroshi.

[02:29]

So I had about 10 years of mostly spending time with him. And much of what you were speaking about The only way I know something about it is from my lucky association with him. So, And I was sort of like amazed at how much the vocabulary, the words, the ideas are part of your life through Satyoshi's relationship to me.

[03:56]

It felt like we were making a world together, making a way of knowing the world together because of him. And the lucky fruit of his intention to come to the United States. Okay. At the same time, there were things you said I couldn't quite understand. So that was interesting to me.

[05:01]

I kind of imagined, why don't I understand? For instance, some people saying, I guess, that it was hard to distinguish between concentration and attention. And Neil saying, I guess, that he didn't distinguish so much between perception and attention. Is that correct? That's what got translated. That's an extra category. What's an extra category? Perception. It's a category in addition to attention? Yeah, for me. Things I have to clear, the distinction between them. So they are clear, or you have to make them clear?

[06:10]

Perception seems clear. Attention is not so clear. Yeah. OK. After all these years, I failed as a teacher and now you didn't. You made the lack of clarity clear. OK. All right. Well, anyway, in that vein, then I had to think about, what is my experience? And, you know, since I've been doing this longer than most of you are old, I don't know what it's like to be normal anymore. Or not even... Normal, a different kind of normal.

[07:13]

So then I was trying to think, what do I experience? Okay. So I thought, maybe I should try to see if I can... Clearly, in what I was hearing, there's quite a lot I assume that isn't so, it seems like it's not so obvious. And like exploring the difference between inner attentional space and outer attentional space. Okay. So what do I experience? My experience is I'm in the midst of a kind of illuminated space that has no preferences and that it's like a round sphere and it has various outer boundaries.

[08:46]

Okay. So then when I was trying to imagine listening to everyone, how to say something about that? Do I have to say it? Well, I don't know any other way to express what I experienced. And so then I had to notice that what is the structure or what allows this space? Well, what fills it and gives it a kind of structure in the sense that you took it away, it collapses. is a complete neutral acceptance with absolutely no preferences.

[10:17]

In the midst of the feeling I can like something or dislike but it's hardly important. And if something did become important, or strongly, it would kind of shrink. And I was, before I was coming over here for the to join the first session. Marie-Louise was, and I felt, rather short of time because I had to do some things just beforehand and then I had to come here.

[11:25]

But now that that Sophia's had her birthday. And now we know the couple schools that she's been accepted at in the East Coast, in the US East. We have to make plans to go east with her during her Easter vacation, which is soon, in the beginning of April. And airplane tickets become more expensive, you know, buy them soon and reservation, all that stuff. So Marie Louise being way better organized than I am, is trying to plan when we should go.

[12:37]

And she asks me, when would you like to meet us in the east, because I'll come east from Krestov. And because I was on the way here for this first session, I was in this kind of space that I just described. And I was simply incapable of thinking, when do I want to do anything? That didn't exist. And Maria Louise was saying, when do you want... And I was thinking, I don't know when I want to do anything.

[13:41]

Sorry. Okay. Why are you laughing? I'm just imagining you. No, it's okay. Well, I'm glad. I want your approval. Okay. Now, so then while this is going on, I'm trying to examine this experience to try to understand it that I'm having, which might be different than the way you experience things. Is that another aspect aspect of this in addition to acceptance as being part of it so let me just go back a footnote and say that one of the there are some real basic things you have to develop if you're going to practice

[15:09]

One is acceptance. An immediate acceptance. I used to say, if you're in an airplane that's going to crash, I've been in airplanes a couple of times which look like they might be in trouble. If you're a practitioner, you find out that you've got three engines and two have gone out. Why would you have three engines? Four engines and two have gone out. There's no positive or negative reaction. You just, oh, there's a problem. And you sort of I mean, then probably a moment of fear comes in and you think, oh, well, that's a nuisance.

[16:34]

And I think that probably having talked to people who had bicycle accidents and car accidents, something like that almost happens biologically sometimes because suddenly everything is slowed down and you're just in the situation. And so maybe what happens is through practice you just enter, are able to enter or do enter that biological state, everything's slowed down and everything is... syllabified, syllables, you hear syllables. So probably one of the most important things if you want to practice is just to notice everything that your first reaction is always acceptance.

[17:54]

So, for instance, if I asked you now, I would like all of you on next Wednesday to go to Denver with me. Without any hesitation, I would like all of you to say yes. How can I get the tickets? Is there room on the plane? So your first reaction would be acceptance. Your second reaction would be, is he crazy? I mean, maybe two or three of you will end up going. It would be fun.

[18:56]

Most of you would say, I'm sorry, you know, I've got a kid or I've got a job or I've got, you know, etc., But the first reaction is yes. Let's go to the movies. Yes. Well, no, I'm sorry, I can't. Maybe you have to practice it mechanically. with just yes to whatever happens. Welcome, yes. I'd like to see all of your bodies filled with yes. Welcome, ready. Sukhiroshi used to say you should always at each moment be ready. Okay. But you build that up until it is the way you feel.

[20:01]

I can remember, as I've told you this often, when I realized practice had really changed me. I had a Hamada cup. Hamada is the national treasure of Japan. And at that time, this cup which I had, let's say it was worth a thousand dollars. It would be worth ten times that now. Just a little cup. Because he's dead, you know. But I always used it. And my daughter Sally, who's now 51. It was on my desk.

[21:13]

It was on the edge. I like to put things on the edge. I like things to be a little dangerous and mixed up. And she knocked it off. And it broke into about 20 pieces. I didn't have one moment of a problem with that. I just said, oh, now it has to be cleaned up. Later I thought, now it has to be repaired. And now I have it repaired with gold. It's the Japanese way to repair things that are busted. Not much gold, just a tiny bit. Mixed in with the glue. But it looks very pretty. Now there's Western potters who learn this technique from Japan.

[22:13]

They make a beautiful bowl, they break it, repair it with gold and sell it. Really, there are Western potters who do this. In Japan, you wait until it breaks naturally. Yeah. Anyway, it was interesting. I just looked down and said, hmm. Things are made to be broken and be cleaned up and replaced. It's all just part of activity. The cup was clearly an activity which now had changed its form. The cup was clearly an activity which now had changed its form. So one of these basic practices is the practice of yes, welcome, acceptance.

[23:14]

Another is, as I've mentioned during this and the previous seminar, of the dual appearance of mind and object. And The more you practice that, until after a while, you're in a big space all the time, because the objects change, but the space that arises just gets bigger and bigger. So the process of of acceptance and the process of noticing the field of mind that appears with every perception is part of the way over incrementally, little by little, with a few enlightenments thrown in,

[24:30]

you begin to develop this space that's just always present. Now, as I started to say a moment ago, another aspect of the condition for structure of this space is the breath. And that made me aware that really I established a field of breath space before I concentrated on awakening the body through the spine. So if I look at this experience of this kind of space I described, It's constantly being massaged by the breath.

[26:08]

The physical activity of inhale and exhaling doesn't make the space pulse, but it becomes sort of part of its presence. Okay, so then I asked myself, sitting with you, listening to you translate, what is the result of this? And it's funny that I didn't, I've never described all this before. Because I just take it for granted, a kind of version of it for granted. is that this space becomes, I think the easiest way to say it, a substitute for self.

[27:18]

Self almost doesn't exist. as a monitoring function. Everything is monitored by how this space is present and affected and so forth. It doesn't mean that I'm free of self. But to the extent that this space is most of the time for me, Usual self-reflections, which I remember from college days, say.

[28:34]

Where I'd wonder how people thought about me or how I liked and what I wanted to do. I just don't have those thoughts anymore. Wo ich mir Gedanken drüber gemacht habe, was die Leute von mir halten und ob ich gemocht werde oder nicht gemocht werde und so. Also solche Gedanken habe ich einfach nicht mehr. I do remember, though, in those days. Aber ich erinnere mich, dass damals... You know, I have an aesthetic interest in a lot of things. And this young woman came to visit somebody, and that person wasn't there, so she wanted me to show her around Cape Cod or something like that. Cape Cod?

[29:34]

Cape Cod is a place outside of Boston, Massachusetts, that is part of the ocean. And she was a little older than I am and quite beautiful. And I remember, you know, I thought I should impress her with my aesthetic interests. And I thought I should impress her with my aesthetic interests. So I pointed out, oh, I like that, or that is a Victorian style, and this is Georgian style, and this is this and that. And after pointing out all these likes and dislikes, I felt totally depleted. Like I'd taken my insights and distributed them, and they were all lost, and I felt, ugh. And she said, can we spend the evening together? And I said, no.

[30:36]

I'm sorry. Then I said to her, this is Victorian style and I don't like this and that and so on. And then I told her everything. And after I had spilled all these preferences and deviations, I noticed that I felt completely empty and out of it. And then she asked if we could spend the evening together. I said no, I feel out of it. So I remember, really, too many likes and dislikes depletes you. Too many preferences deplete you. So from that point, I tried to have less and less personal preferences. Yeah, I still kind of have preferences sometimes, but, you know, it's different.

[31:39]

I'm not invested in them. Okay. So it was interesting to me, again, listening to all of you, I felt, what do I experience? Do I experience this space which I... maintain all the time or it happens all the time. And when you brought up the percept and attention for me like if you look at a tree And the wind is blowing. You're hearing the leaves and you're seeing the leaves.

[32:42]

And for me they're, probably for you too though, I can take the sound of the leaf and fix it on a leaf. And then the leaf becomes visually more precise when I join the sound and the visual perception. I can just take them and put them down. And there's no problem with perception or attention. Yeah. We have one word in German, which is, we all better to translate it as Erleben. It's not exactly the same as perception. It's something more and something, some non-sharp edge about it. And this is probably part of the confusion for me. Erleben is what you not just experience, but what you feel and experience in what comes to you. The whole ensemble. Okay. Yeah. Well. Yes, I'll start there and then Daniel will do it himself.

[33:47]

So when I hear the sound of the leaves and see the leaves, then I can do these perceptions over each other or I can move them around. I don't have to do them over each other either. But what happens is that I can There's a lake in Berlin that I used to walk around sometimes. You can walk around the whole lake. takes an hour or so. I don't know which one. Herman Rosenberg used to bring me there. And I used it as an example years ago of beginning to separate the five physical senses and very clearly walk walk with the smell of the path for a while, then shift and walk with the sight only and not ear, et cetera, until you really can take the five senses and separate them and put them back together.

[35:06]

And that's one of the basic practices of the Vijñanas. Again, a practice of categories that to bring your attention to. And of course not all categories work. You try a category and you can't make it work. You can't bring attention to some categories. It just merges with other categories. And it always might be the case that Buddhism is wrong. This category doesn't work for us Westerners, sorry. But usually you find out a few years later, ah, now I can bring attention to these categories.

[36:10]

Michelle Foucault makes a big point of... The early Greek thing was to know thyself and to take care of thyself. Thyself. To give it an antique flavor. Arbeitet diesen Punkt klar heraus, sich selbst zu kennen und sich um sich selbst zu kümmern. And that, from the Buddhist point of view, is part of both. To know oneself and to take care of oneself are identical efforts, and it's part of just knowing how your five senses work separately and together. And the best etymological release of the word vijnana Release?

[37:35]

Why would you say release? Because the word is stuck together, and you're taking it apart and releasing it into its separate parts. Oh, and that's the best etymological way to take this word, vijnana, apart, thank you. Vijnana means to know things separately, together. Yes. Yes. Were you going to say something? Oh, I thought you were counting everything. No, no, no. She was asking for a translation for that part. Oh, I see. Oh, I was just so excited that you were going to say something. I've been waiting. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. So you can see that for me the idea of an interior or inner attentional space is a starting point.

[38:47]

And I guess what Gregor started to say and then he didn't say and then later I heard he did say, it's kind of like For Gregor, I guess you said it was something like a starting point for you. Was that what I, did I understand correctly? Hmm. Yes, it came from a long practice of turning inward. Good. Okay. So does somebody, I'm sorry for that long stuff, but I guess I didn't know what to say after I heard all this confusion that confused me.

[40:10]

Peter? What do you think? Peter, what do you think? It's interesting what you told me from your frame of mind. Yeah, okay. I mean, I wouldn't say it's light, but it feels illuminated. Yeah, that's by the way, because you've used this word so much. It's in the realm, in the room of grace, or it's here? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Can I say? You've used this word, illuminate, so much. I find that in German, you either say, enlightened, erleuchtet, it's just not, oder beleuchtet, oder erhellt. In German, the light, all the works with light, I find difficult.

[41:12]

So the way I translate it, but maybe you wouldn't agree, is I say, it's penetrated by light, something like that. Grace. Yeah, my grandmother's name. Yeah, maybe it's a kind of, it might be, I think many religious, the different religious traditions Die unterschiedlichen religiösen Traditionen. The experiential aspects of different religious traditions. Die Erfahrungsaspekte unterschiedlicher religiöser Traditionen. Often overlap a lot.

[42:13]

Die überlappen alle sehr stark. Even though the philosophy or beliefs don't overlap at all. And grace is one of these experiences that we would understand it differently in Buddhism, not that we were receiving it, but things happen as if by grace. And we have some of the same problems with the word light. I mean the Tibetans always talk about the clear light and Zen Buddhists talk about utter darkness and mean nearly the same thing. But then there's illuminated manuscripts, which doesn't have to do with light.

[43:20]

It has to do with twirly-whirlies. Can you say that in German? Die twirly-whirly. Yeah, no, I don't know what you just said. And what is this illuminated what? Illustrated. Illustrated. Okay. What do you say in German? Illustriert. They're illustrated. We say they're illuminated. And it means really something like attention is brought to it. So to illuminate something doesn't mean necessarily to light it up in English. It means to make it clear, to make it stronger. And illuminate in English does not necessarily mean to do something with light, but to make it clearer or stronger.

[44:35]

Well, there's also Concentration and some people have a concentration and attention. But I'll come back to that because Gregor was going to say something. First of all, I can't find myself in this description. First of all, I can find myself in that description very well. Such a wonderful wife who will purchase my tickets for me.

[45:41]

Yeah, I lucked out. I call myself one of the lucky dogs. Einer der glücklichen Hunde. and therefore my question is or I even see that as a reason why I prefer to live in such circumstances that you don't have to have a wife who buys tickets for you Dass du keine Frau brauchst, die Tickets für dich kauft. Yes. My brother, my cousin, my son-in-law, my brother-in-law.

[46:45]

Her brother. Mein Vater. He's so young, he could be my kindergarten, you know. But anyway, he's getting married on July 4th. Der heiratet am 4. Juli. And I said, July 4th, that's Independence Day. Aber der 4. Juli, das ist doch der Unabhängigkeitstag. And his older brother said, it's the loss of your Independence Day. Sein älterer Bruder sagte, das ist der Verlust deiner Unabhängigkeitstag. But Gregor, I usually buy my own tickets. Aber Gregor, normalerweise kaufe ich schon meine eigenen Tickets. Yes, that's clear. I don't want to go into detail, but I have a question. How do you still get there? Can you switch? Yes, I can imagine, but we don't need to go into the detail.

[47:55]

The question is, can you also shift? Yes, of course. I have to or I couldn't be here. And I thought of trying to describe the shift. The shift for me is something like I pull this illuminated space. This switching is for me something like I pull this lightened space I would say I almost pull it into the left side of my body. And then with the right side of my body do the order tickets and call people and stuff.

[49:04]

But it stays there. It's funny how physical it is. I experience it very physically. Yeah. Yes. How do you shift back? What? How do you make the back shift? Oh, just to say, it's waiting. It's just waiting. It's ready to go. It's unhappy. Can we get out of here? Yes. What more? I don't find what's been said here or in the small groups as confusing or, yeah, confusing. But what we lack in these discussions is the ability to go back to a starting point.

[50:20]

But what we lack in these discussions is to, like you say, to always come back again to a starting point. Und Startpunkt, das ist für mich etwas, was ich tatsächlich erlebe. Nur das kann einen Startpunkt sein. And a starting point for me, that's something that I actually experience. That's only that can be a starting point. And even if that's only the ability to go to breathing and to observe the breathing, then that's what I'll do. I'll go and observe breathing maybe two, three, four times. Great. to present your understanding, to notice it.

[51:38]

Now I'm trying to understand it, but now I'm going away from my experience and my thinking about it and wanting to understand it. This is moving forward and I'm trying to explain it this way and that way. But I'm away from a starting point where I can actually anchor myself somewhere in what I experience. And when it gets complicated is when people try to understand their experience and try to explain it in terms of their understanding and put words to it and try to describe it. But then they remove themselves from their actual experience and from their starting point. of what they really experience. And then we can put another category here and say, do I go into consciousness with my explaining it or talking about it? And consciousness knows very well how to explain it wonderfully.

[52:44]

And maybe one has even understood it in terms of the theory. but then to anchor that back into some sort of awareness, and the awareness is at a place where, okay, this is really something that I experience, and not something that I'm thinking about. Good. And that makes it simple, because I could say, I just forget everything else. But basically that also makes it simple because I can then say I just forget about everything else. And then I trust that even if it's just this little much, that the rest of it will just unfold out of its experientiality rather than through thinking.

[54:11]

That trust is really important. And it doesn't take much. And sometimes the less, the better or the easier it is. Yeah. I agree completely. You know, I mentioned this morning, because I noticed the distinction between bringing attention to and discovering attention with. And in English it makes quite a big difference, but I'd never noticed exactly how much until today. So anyway, because of that, I started practicing today with with.

[55:16]

Yeah, so instead of saying this, just this. Which is also a practice of welcome and acceptance, just this, whatever it is, just this. And that should ideally become an inner habit. And it's the English face of thusness and thisness and suchness. And das ist die phrase or face? I said face. Face, okay. Und das ist das englische Gesicht von soheit.

[56:19]

Ja, soheit. Of thusness. Yeah. Thisness and such. Yeah, we only have soheit, diesheit. Diesheit, okay. Diesheit, soheit. And, but, now I'm, since this morning I've been practicing with with. It's not, I'm with the bell. Yeah, just with, nothing else, just with the bell. Just with the platform, just with the floor. Yeah, feels good. I don't know if it works in Deutsch. I think it does, does it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, please start. On the mark, get set, let's have dinner. Gambate. Gambate. Good aside. You know what gambate means?

[57:22]

What a pleasure to spend the afternoon with you. And to be so well, I hope, translated. And thank you, by the way, for letting me celebrate Sophia's birthday yesterday. We had a rather nice little party. Next year we ought to join you.

[58:27]

Maybe she'll come here. Fifteen. Oh, I said eleven. She's been thirteen, right? Thirteen is eleven plus. And I looked at her and I said, 14, it's 16 minus. Oh dear. What? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[58:47]

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