Well, this topic or subject of the self, in English we say subject and certainly we are subjected continuously to the self. Yeah, the self is our subject. And we're mostly subjective. Testing his English. I mean German. It's so vast. So multicultural. And cross-generational and multi-generational.

[01:21]

That we can't say too much about it. Or we can say a lot about it that's pointless. And it is so... continuously lived by us, and lived mostly unconsciously and non-consciously, that we hardly notice in what profound sense we are living. Subjectively selves. And subject to the selves we've either formed or inherited or both.

[02:28]

That is very difficult to notice. To notice how we are specifically selves. Because for the most part it's the self noticing the self. So the self notices the self it already is. Perhaps the opposite. The self can't notice the self it is because how can you notice yourself? Just as the eye, E-Y-E, can't see the eye, E-Y-E, so the eye, the pronoun,

[03:42]

finds it's almost impossible to see the eye, the problem. But the eye can, E-Y-E, can see the eye if there's a, yeah, to some extent, if there's a mirror. And according to Ivan Illich in... Greek times. A person thought they saw their own eye reflected in another person's eye. And if you have that conception of seeing, he says, and I feel too, although you see with the same organ of the eye, what you see is different if your conception of seeing is different.

[05:16]

So that's only what I just said, a small indication of how complex and subtle this subject is. the self we are subject to is. Now, you know, I'm just like you. And he left. He doesn't think I'm just like him. No, that's the wrong interpretation. No, he's pleased that I'm just like him. Again.

[06:17]

No, no, not the wrong interpretation. Also, you know, I'm just like you. A spider or something was in my water. Flies. Hello. I saw myself reflected in his eye. Many more flies. I'm sorry. See if he recovers. Ah. He tasted funny. Anyway, I'm a Westerner, yeah, like you.

[07:19]

Yeah, and yet as I am, and many of you are, practicing meditation and Buddhism. So in some ways, experience of the self, or what substitutes for the self, through Buddhist practice, to some extent is like a mirror held up to my Western experience of self. But it also confuses and complicates the picture. Hmm. Just to say that what substitutes for the self is already a complex idea.

[08:36]

And you know, I've been... thinking about this and experiencing about this for 50 years or so now. And at various times, intensely, for months or years at a time, intensely observing and studying The experience of experiencing of self.

[09:38]

And quite often the last few years. Quite a lot the last few years. And yet, every time I think I am Probably should have to, well, talk about it. I have to re-engage myself in the investigation. To sort of try to find the... the language again. And noticing that gives the language some preciseness. So as I said last night, I would like to I'd like some of you to help us review, for those of you who are new, what we were talking about yesterday.

[10:54]

Yeah, and if you don't know what to say, muddle through anyway. Yeah, because the nature of this investigation is muddling through. Seeing what? Finding what we notice and... With the help of others noticing what we don't notice. And for me, and for all of us, I think, it helps us, as I said, get on the same page. Okay. Good. That's a good translation of okay.

[12:22]

Good. Yes. As I perceive it, many aspects were brought up without trying to find a definition. For instance, I do find it difficult to define the self in the sense that we find boundaries. Normally we summarize the self or we define the self as that what we possess. And these are more... And these are more or less parts of body and mind as we experience them.

[13:31]

Another aspect was that we realized that the self is also subject to change and is amenable. And that's not only in the quality in the composition but also in the quantity of the self and the intensity. One example was when we observed our breath that the self is less present. A useful and necessary part of self or element or aspect of self was what Roshi called a handle. Because this allows us to be somehow...

[15:05]

or somehow that society can handle us in the sense that we are connected. And if you look at education, that's a very important aspect when you try to educate a child. And finally, Roshi emphasized an aspect which impressed me very much. And that's the role of memory in self. Taking the example of the watch and the beads, normally one easily recognises the watch as a watch.

[16:24]

despite all this complexity, spontaneously you recognize this as a watch. Whereas a child, unexperienced in the world, who only knows how to total, core and clasp, would only see this shape. And that led us to recognizing the elements, focusing more clearly on the elements which are the composites of our life stream.

[17:49]

And how we are able to recognize this. And finally there is something like a momentary perception, one after the other. And this momentary perception is also constantly accompanied by something for which Roshi created the term Mem-Sign. And the creation of the word or the way the word is put together already indicates what is meant by that because it's composed of memory and sign.

[19:05]

In the sense that it's somehow intensified or somehow even compressed concepts, experiences of the past which are compressed in this mem sign and brought into what is then considered as future. is dominated by this spontaneous appearance of the being with perception. And in our everyday experience, this mem sign dominates this apprehension, perception.

[20:13]

And it somehow covers this perception so that the conception itself is hardly perceivable for us. So that finally we do not perceive the world as it actually is. but by this preconceived mask of the self of the previous self previous nature and And in the evening lecture Roshi presented a kind of antidote to this.

[21:20]

And he somehow named it as a kind of aggressive awareness, attention. Aggressive mindfulness. And the principle of this is that you try to cut through this connection between mem-sign and perception. And you can do this with vados, with turning words. And Roshi suggested for this weekend as turning words, just this and just this. Is that all or just this?

[22:44]

That's good. Maybe you could give the afternoon talk. Someone else? Just a word that I asked about is the verticality of the person. Yeah, and percept. And that's with the breath, which is also vertical. You can breathe You can also, as well as just this, you can have a feeling of breathing in the world and breathing out the world.

[23:49]

And if you And it's interesting, if you add the concept of breathing in the world to an in-breath, it changes the in-breath. Yeah, and you're still breathing in and out. but you're also breathing in and out a world view and a transformative world view and at the gates of temples Buddhist temples in Japan and China they have these two kind of warrior temples

[24:51]

Guardian figures. And one is thought to be saying, ah. And the other, hmm. And this is the mantra. I have an inhale and an exhale. Yes. What is in my mind is this picture of this dream, this dream of memory, but also this dream of the self-creating self. Yes. And this image to put a hand into this dream by this aggressive mindfulness or by mindfulness.

[26:11]

And what stuck in my mind is that it needs a kind of force, a kind of strong energy and effort to do this. I think it's important for me to be able to go back into my experience, to go out there, to see if it's really possible. And because in my experience it really needs some kind of force or some kind of strength to somehow pause in this, as I would translate it for myself, in this automatism of my patterns, of my behavioral patterns. so the first was more kind of something beautiful or nice which I could relate to but the second what stuck in my mind is more kind of a question this is the question of this pure perception this question of mem sign and perception

[27:42]

Yes. As I understand it, you cannot perceive without memsign, because perception is always connected with memsign, and it's somehow tainted or colored by this memsign, already in the way I grow up, or I'm educated and taught to grow up. So I can perceive, I understand the direction of your perception, I understand quite clearly the directionality or the direction of pure perception but with this pure perception itself because I think in my opinion it can't be pure it's never pure No, not really.

[28:56]

Or even if you think about your perception with your body, when somebody is coming closer to you and my stomach somehow is getting tighter because I don't like it, just as an example. So it's hard for me, this pure perception. Let me respond a tiny bit to that. I like your implicit image of the strength or speed of the current. It takes effort to put your hand in the current. Well, it takes intention first. And then, of course, if the particularly if the current is strong.

[30:17]

It would be an example if you're very upset or anxious or something, you can put your... Nothing happens, just splashes. You get wet. Yeah, and that's of course one reason we could continue in the metaphor, one reason we meditate. So if the current is, through meditation, very slow, if the water is very still, then you can feel the temperature difference, perhaps, between different waters. then much of the technical... kind of technical or craft-like understanding of this process is that it takes...

[31:28]

reasoning, contemplation, meditation and mindfulness, to develop the habit until it's natural, that seemingly for doing, That means objects that persist or have duration. Seemingly perdurant objects like a vase are seen as mentally and physically momentary. And contingent. Contingent here I mean interdependent, all sitting on something. Now that's a little of a side path there, but it's related to the fact that you need to practice these distinctions.

[33:11]

And it does eventually become another kind of natural. For example, again, in the still mind, body, water of meditation, you hear an airplane, which is fairly, in the isolated, silent Crestone mountain, it's fairly common. It just so happens, if you look on a map, And you draw a straight line from Los Angeles to New York.

[34:37]

It goes directly over Creston Mountains and Sentinel. So we're just proving the maps are relatively correct. And especially in the early morning and late afternoon. So you hear an airplane. And mostly immediately a mem sign appears. Airplane. You don't think it's a dragon. But you can kind of peel the label off it. You can peel the mem sign off and just have the sound.

[35:44]

And if you do that regularly eventually you just hear the sound. And the mem sign, you know, is really way in the background. I mean, I'm not saying it's entirely gone, but it's a big difference when it's way in the background. But, I am sure if the plane somehow lost control and was about to crash into the Zendo, from the distance away, the MEM sign would come flying forward, attach itself to the airplane, and I'd run out of the Zendo.

[36:46]

But if the mem sign, and it's possible, is not the initial mind, and you really just... Without the mem sign grabbing hold of it and saying, that's an airplane. the sound is released and fills and echoes in the heavens. And you think, this is what must be meant by the music of the spheres. Really, when the mem sign is released, the sound begins to be almost anything.

[38:08]

Angelic. Well, I mean, even a Buddhist. Bodhisattvic. And if you repeat that experience, and it becomes commonplace in Buddhism, And it begins to be how you hear. Just to add one more little note. The Lankavatara Sutra. And this is one of those key little teachings that I think it's useful to remind ourselves of. The Lankavatara Sutra says the Bodhisattva hears the syllable body the name body and the

[39:13]

phrase or sentence body. That means that I notice more, we all notice, but I would perhaps through practice notice more than I would have otherwise. That I hear in practice Eric's voice. Not so much my words. Or what's being translated. I'm not smart enough for that. But I hear his syllables. And in his syllables I feel his body. and in his syllables I feel his state of mind and when I hear the name and not the word

[40:36]

and all the connotations this name has for him outside the sentence, this generates in me another body. And then I hear the sentence. I can feel his body. constructing the meaning. And that's another meaning. And it's interesting that the sutra calls it three bodies. Because when you relate to the percept fully as in addition to the mem sign. A body of immediacy arises. in addition to the body of the Mem Sun.

[42:05]

It's very significant that your previous experience In Buddhist thinking, it's not referred to as your previous experience. It's referred to as your previous nature. Because that tells you two things. It's not just previous experience, prior experience.

[43:07]

It's experience which has integrated itself into a certain kind of... So you're not only hearing the experience which has been accumulated, you hear how that experience has been totalized or integrated. So you probably are inheriting or receiving more how it's been interpreted through experience. integration than how it was when it first occurred. And that implies that this previous nature could perhaps be integrated in another way.

[44:27]

Previous nature implies there's a new nature as possible. Excuse me for going on so long. But what you've said is so fascinating. So I think we should have a break in a moment. But I am unable to ignore my other translator. You're welcome. And you also gave this practice of just this. And today, this morning after breakfast, we had some kind of a round table and discussed various things.

[45:56]

And one of the subjects was this, just this, and that it is not so easy to practice. And I experience two ways to practice with this phrase. And one way is to somehow extract or to single out single perceptions. And the other way is to take the totality of a perception because there's so much going on at the moment. It's going on inside, outside, people are talking, the environment. And my question is also because you again mentioned this pausing, pausing for perception.

[47:12]

Whether you would like to suggest a particular direction in which this pausing, this just-this, might go? Is it important really to slow down perceptions and to single out single perceptions? Or are they simply two possibilities and you can choose between one another? Okay, can we leave that till after the break? When you started out and talked about the phrase in breakfast. I imagine breakfast being served and you said just this I hope your break is better than that

[48:35]

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