Now of course I'd like to hear anything you want to say from your discussion yesterday. I would like to mention two things that our group, which once the strengthening of the I or personality or self-feeling actually and one was to call someone by their name, again and again, not just by name, but by other people, always by the same name, the same name as before. And that was perceived as strengthening, that there is a permanent self. The other was the ability to remember consciously, that I can say, Two things which

[01:04]

were mentioned in our group which reified the feeling of permanent or personal self. One thing is being called by one's name continuously in nearly every situation. There is the ability to remember actively, like going back in one's past and not school time and through this tunnel of remembering. And so there's also the feeling that was all, I have experienced this all. So this also adds to this feeling of it's all the same person, all the continuous one person. Of course the reason you're wearing that raksu because you're now wearing Buddha's clothes instead of the clothes you grew up in and you have a new name. At least it's symbolic of trying to get ourselves out of Always the same name and the same dress.

[02:44]

And although wearing something like this is a little odd, People come up to me and say, what's your bag? Of course, bag is a slang from the 60s, meaning what's your idea or job or view? And this word bag in English, also Tasche in German, is a colloquial turn to ask what your task is or what you work on, what you do. Yes, okay. Yes. That strikes me. Yesterday, when I was sitting in the front, I came here to sit and you were lying on the floor. Yesterday, when I came back into the room, my raksu was not on my seat.

[03:48]

So I sit without raksu yesterday for the first teaching. So yesterday... Oh yeah, I speak English. And then I sat and thought, that's not right. I was sitting here and my sense was that something's not quite right. And I had this bodily feeling that something's missing. You know, again, it's rather funny to wear something like this, but if you look at Chinese paintings over centuries... Every new century and every new period, the lay person's clothes change. And the monk always looks the same in the pictures. Century after century, he's always wearing this or something like that. So from that point of view, wearing that shirt is a little funny.

[04:57]

Okay. I don't want to say that in terms of the type of group, but what I am happy about is that there are actually differences, both in terms of character and in terms of the body. And the body is everywhere, also in the virtuosity, so this separation and this diversity, and from that we then somehow form our identity, our sense of self. I'm not speaking representatively for our group, but I am observing that everyone has a different unique bodily identity and is different in their own way.

[06:01]

And also that bodily aspect of being of difference and manifoldness is present in nature, and it seems like from that we are forming our identity or ourselves. It's a starting point. Sure. Yes. Yesterday I thought about Monsieur Luneau again and about the color, why I don't recognize it in the same way. So I thought about... We have selected... Monsieur Hulot. Monsieur Hulot. Oh, Hulot's Holiday. Jacques Tati. Jacques Tati. Yeah, I'll get the movie for you. And why I keep perceiving him in the same way. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought maybe I'm just a particularly rigid person and I am trying to make things appear the same way that they appeared before.

[07:16]

So I talked to my wife about it, and she said, well, it's a clear case. What's happening is that it's a biological function, and the things appear depending on what your hormones are like at a given moment. What your hormones are like at a good moment. Okay. Okay. And that shocked me because it made me think that maybe we are biological machines and that the self is being generated by our hormone status. Well, it's not so bad. As long as you enjoy being a biological machine, it's okay. If you feel like a machine, it's not too good. Someone else? Yeah. We had the thought that the stability, the continuity of the I-feeling The thought came up that the stability and the continuity of our physical reality is strongly bound to

[08:54]

to our perceiving us as continuous, that the pain in the knee is the feeling that that's me. And that there's an immediate connection between identifying with the sensation that what I'm feeling is mine and that that's me. And the question was whether there is a way of experiencing without that connection. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I will try to speak to that. That's an important point. Yes. Yesterday I thought about there are two functions of self that interest me in particular.

[10:21]

One is the perceiving self. And the other one is the self that produces karmic effects. I can understand the first one very well, the self that perceives. But actually I don't understand why a self can produce karmic effects. I understand the first one, the perceiving self, pretty well, but I don't quite understand why the self can't produce karmic effects. Yeah? Okay, I think, you know, I'm finding this difficult to sort out Somehow we've entered a level of this question which is especially subtle.

[11:31]

At least I find it so. And I noticed that if I were with you all at Johanneshof Quellenweg, because we'd all been sitting together in the morning and in the evening, and all as a sangha eating together three meals, that I would be speaking both to a more shared mind and I'd also be speaking to a more shared mind rooted in zazen, meditation. So that more... the more individualized minds I feel here, combines with the particular complexity of how we've entered this question.

[12:53]

Das hängt zusammen mit dieser ganz spezifischen Komplexität, mit der wir uns diese Frage jetzt anlehren. So it's a rather interesting challenge to see if we can sort this out together. Es ist eine interessante Herausforderung, jetzt zu schauen, ob wir das gemeinsam auseinanderhalten können, was wohin gehört. Tell me your first name again. Nasbeg. Manfred. Manfred, yeah. We had e-mail to him, but I can't. Manfred, okay. Hey, Manfred. Hey, from. Okay. First thing you mentioned, the perceiving self. I think you mentioned earlier that perception in Buddhism is not really self. In Buddhism, Buddhism is not really self. Rather, perceiving. There is perception. Perceive the section of your personal apparatus. But this is just a function.

[14:04]

When you have good or association, then it becomes self. My self is highly awaited, experience or desires uh it's we can call it uh uh practice direct perception uh Yeah, I'll just imagine. It's a process of lessening or removing the offending that's part of the process.

[15:05]

Okay, so once we see something like that, what does it mean? Then we can see it as a practice to feel self when it's not self. To feel self-referential when it's not self-referential. Yeah, and I'd like to just listen. Since this is, again, As soon as I sort this out, I'm going to sort these. I would respond specifically to someone else. If anyone sucks, you are going to say Bing. Anita. Bing. But I'm I'm sorry, Sarah.

[16:17]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Your opinion is also intentional. Okay. I'm interested in the state that is used for example in service or to a highly We're doing some figure and particularly in that's where it's a stupid one to see when the To see where they go on capturing Introducing a faster pace and so forth.

[17:33]

And that's something so forth. It's in a kin and when we're walking together It's a completely different space that appears and I'm picking it together. I said it here I What is that? There's the smoker, thief, or head, and who's the head of the fiat? And so, in service, throw myself into the exact situation of the 20s, and then that's the existence of self. I can play the voiceless part of the situation. But then there are past fashions to try and cast a dead beaver.

[18:35]

I notice how long my dead beaver will be isn't. All of that is hope isn't. And when all of that is a mess, and what's that? Is a process good? Yes. Good. Well, I know. Well, I want to come back to that, too. As I'm trying to form some kind of a little giga. Because in this process in which I try to redefine myself again, then what you just said will always help. Okay, someone else? Yes. What Anita says is actually exactly what I also feel as long as my perception is there. What Anita is speaking to, that's also something I'm interested in.

[19:44]

This feeling of, particularly when sitting zazen, when I have a sense of all of that disappearing and there's a feeling of melting into or of unity or something and in other religions that's sometimes called the higher self and I wonder whether maybe that's the actual self. Why have we always spoken about the self and not about the I? Because we only have a weekend.

[20:46]

The pronoun I as a referential point in language has its own problems. But maybe if we can redefine the role of self, we can extend that to thinking about I as a pronoun. Now let me speak to whether the self which tries to fit you into the shared field of kin-hin is a self or not. It's an experience of separateness from the combined field, from the joint field.

[22:07]

But is a feeling of separateness necessarily a feeling of self as a problem? Because all of this is in the context of two main things. The potential freedom from suffering. And the likelihood of enlightenment. So the self which is a problem is that which is a vehicle for suffering or a cause of suffering. And the self which makes it very unlikely that you will realize enlightenment.

[23:22]

All other forms of self are perfectly fine. Okay. But so what do we mean by... these four little letters. Suddenly I thought of Smokey Robinson. He doesn't need vitamin C or vitamin A. He needs vitamin L. Love. So we have to design what vitamin itself is. So let me launch into something to see if it goes anywhere. The word Sanskrit means to refine.

[24:27]

So language from the point of view of those who developed Sanskrit Sanskrit was a vehicle, a means of refining yourself. So Sanskrit as a language was not simply about communicating to someone. Or improving your language was not about communicating better.

[25:27]

But rather that the effort to communicate better was really about refining yourself. Okay, so I think this is an obvious fact, obvious idea, but it's not a commonplace idea. So maybe I have to place it in some context common for us. So language is is really something miraculous and extraordinary.

[26:32]

One of the most complex things on the planet, other than the brain, is language. And yet babies can learn it, infants learn it. So infants, infant means you can crawl, I think. So crawling and walking are closely related to learning language and mathematics. Okay, so... So in addition that an infant can learn it, adults can for the entirety of their life discover pathways within language which refine their own thinking.

[27:41]

Now, this all again depends on a culture which assumes the plasticity of the brain or mind-body activity. So our culture has not until very recently assumed anything like the plasticity of the brain. And the culture didn't assume it, actually, still doesn't assume it, but neuroscience has shown that it's a fact. So now that it's a scientific fact, maybe it'll penetrate our culture. Okay, so, I mean, you can see it in very simple things, like when MacArthur, you all know who MacArthur is, right?

[28:52]

No, he was the general who was head of the Second World War and he was kind of like head of Japan for a while after the war. And the first thing he said to the Japanese in effect was, you guys are nuts. You need 5,000 or 6,000 characters to read the newspaper and you need 20,000 or 30,000 characters to be a scholar? This is nuts. In English, we have 26 letters. That's all you need. So he tried to simplify Japanese. And the best he could do is to get newspapers limited to 2,000 characters.

[30:09]

So by the time you're in high school or mid-high school, you could probably read the newspaper. But the smarter Japanese said, You're trying to simplify our brains. Because our culture's view was to make things as simple and efficient as possible. And the Japanese view and Chinese view was to make things as complicated as possible because it makes us complex. So they want a complex language to create complex human beings. I mean, we create cars that get the car from point A to point B.

[31:28]

The Japanese made cars that got the driver from point A to point B. And basically, that simple concept destroyed the American car industry. And until American cars started, getting the driver and the passengers from point A to point B, they couldn't compete with Japanese cars. Yeah, I mean, German cars tried to get you from point A to point B very fast. with a feeling of power and the horses' haunches behind you. Anyway, my point is only very simple distinctions shift worldview.

[32:48]

Okay, so clearly Japanese and Chinese are the languages considered a vehicle of refinement. And its complexity challenges you, like mathematics, developing the ability to do mathematics, challenges you to think a certain way. Or athletics challenges you challenge you to do things like soccer players can do things with the ball and put it on their head. I can't do that.

[33:48]

Okay, so what this sense of Sanskrit as a means to refine So Buddhism never wanted to, non-self didn't mean getting rid of the self that can be refined. Okay. So now there's two questions that we should try to at least think about or notice. One is, does the word self in English and the equivalent, whatever it is in German, Deutsch, cover this sense of the

[34:51]

what is refined that we could call self? Or do we mistakenly identify that refinement of how we live Do we identify that refinement of how we live as self? I would say we don't have to. But as soon as you compare it to others' refinement, you do. So the comparison turns the refinement of self into the karmic self. Okay. So... I'm speaking with you here.

[36:31]

If I start having a thought, is what I'm saying intelligent? I don't know what to say next. It cuts me off immediately. But if I just speak without any self-referencing, I don't know what I'm saying, but I'm not worried about whether it's intelligent or not. So the comparison immediately turns my activity process of speaking into self-comparison. Okay, so you're standing in the kin, Anita, you're standing in the kin hin line. And you're stepping forward half a step. And you're, first of all, bringing your breath up your spine.

[37:33]

And as you exhale forward, you step forward. And then you're lifting your heel and bringing your breath up your spine and stepping forward. So you're engaging the intelligence of a foot You're entraining, you know the word entraining? Like you entrain two bicycle riders, ride near each other, they entrain, they create a bond which makes them both go faster. Yeah. It's like cuckoo clocks, I mean, not cuckoo clocks, grandfather clocks tend to swing in a house all together if they get entrained.

[38:53]

Women living together in a dormitory tend to get their menstruation entrained. Synchronized wouldn't be the word? Well... Well, no, I mean, there's a full moon now, or something close to a full moon. We're all of us somewhat entrained by the full moon, but we're not synchronized with the moon. But I've been depending on the full moon to help us develop a common mind. Okay, so when you're...

[39:55]

You never thought your little Kenyan thing would lead to so much. So you're in Kenyan and you've entrained body, mind, breath, etc. Synchronized, okay. Synchronized in English means you really chrono as time. You make them in the same time. But in trainment, they're just related. Synchronized. Well, there might be harmony. It depends what you mean by harmony. Yeah. So you're having the experience of your body's coming into entrainment. Now you want to shift to joining the field created by Qin Hen. And that is a refinement of, what can you say instead of self?

[41:14]

That's a refinement of the craft of a lived life. It's not necessarily self, it's just how do I step into the field with others. And that's like learning to sing better with others. But learning to sing better is not self unless you compare it to other people. So from that point of view and Suzuki Roshi would clearly say every encounter with a person is self.

[42:17]

a chance to refine our lived life. And then I can say it again, to refine the self, which is an instrument of our lived life. Or as Jörg and I have been discussing back and forth silently, the attentional point. So there's an attentional point that you're now seeing how to step into the field of Kenyan. Okay, that's enough for the break. You want to say something, so you're next after the break. Anyone else? Okay, thank you very much. Thanks for translating. You're welcome.

[43:31]

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