If you know the big space you may feel when you're, say, sunbathing, see if you can let yourself slip into that space. So you hear the sounds of the children and dogs. As if it were from some far off time. And yet, simultaneously right inside you.

[01:27]

It's good if your lungs can be open and healthy. And your mind can be free of desires and needs. Now I'd like to speak to you this afternoon and discuss with you the process of

[08:33]

perception and conceptualization as observed and understood by Buddhist practitioners. But first I'd like to know if you have something else, something you'd like to discuss from this morning or now. I would like to see happen. Yes. I have difficulties with what we discussed this morning. I come to the stage before I think. I feel what's going on. So if I really feel what's going on, my breath is getting more flat, becomes more flat.

[10:08]

When we, as we said this morning, take our breath, going into this state before thoughts arise, this feeling lessens, becomes less. The feeling of being present in your before thought arises is less when you concentrate on your breathing. Is that what you mean? When I concentrate on my breath, then I'm no longer in this area where I feel.

[11:32]

When you concentrate on your breath, you lose the sense of non-graspable feeling. No, that's natural. I don't know. Maybe if you're playing the piano, for instance. When you concentrate on getting the fingering right, you lose the feeling of the music sometimes. But if you keep doing both, eventually they come together. It's something like that. No, I think that the kind of questions you're asking me and most everyone is asking me show an understanding of feeling for this process.

[13:02]

Mm-hmm. And I think you can take the feeling of understanding as a... Promise. Yeah, a promise that you can realize this. And a permission as well to practice. Okay. But, let's see, given that, you have to continue the practice with a certain faith.

[14:38]

Yeah, in other words, maybe we can again think of it as a musical piece. You get the cello part and you work on that and then you have to bring in the French horns or something. Or you have a feeling for the music but now you have to make the instruments work. Now, let's just stick with the first thing you said, coming into the feeling before a thought arises. Now, I said earlier that practice in some ways was like a homeopathic medicine. What I mean by that is it works in very small doses. Okay. So, We're not in a world where we have to have generalizations or some kind of fixed state.

[16:04]

The way that Buddhism understands the world, it's moment by moment. So what you need is to be present in a particular moment. If you're fully present, let's just say, fully present in one moment, whatever that means, and not present in a thousand others, or ten thousand others, that one represents a knowledge. A knowledge in every moment that this fullness is possible. I always like to illustrate this.

[17:08]

I always like the word trivia. Because it means something very small, something unimportant, trivial. But the word is trivia, three roads. Trivial. So every... tiniest moment is a choice. So practice means that you have enough faith and insight that say you have this little experience this not so little experience, feeling of the moment before thought arises. And you probably noticed it and can notice it at other times. You kind of memorize the feeling with your body. And then every time, every now and then it comes back.

[18:23]

And you don't know what it means. And you don't know how it will affect you. But you have some faith in it. Or you have received a teaching about it. And somehow at some kind of intuitive level it makes sense. So you just, with a kind of faith, just keep doing it every now and then. And eventually it goes from a capacity to a power. So first it's a capacity, you notice. And then it shifts into a power when it begins to function in you. And then you understand it much more deeply and can and let it penetrate what you do because you know how it functions, so you can feel it functioning.

[19:50]

In some lists, for instance, you have a list of five things as faculties and then it's called ten because the second time the list occurs it's called powers. Because it's very different. when it shifts from a capacity to a power. Usually in the beginning of practice we're at the level we can feel it as a faculty or a capacity and it's not yet a power in our lives. Does that make sense? Yes. She's asking about the letters SY20 or something on the other page.

[20:51]

What does that mean? There's a book of koans called the Sho-Yo-Roku, S-Y-R, I read it. And this is from case 20. I meant to explain. Thank you for asking. Yes. I would like to continue with the point I would like to continue at that point. You said this morning that attention has its own power. It's like a muscle. You develop it, you exercise it. I'd like to know more about this power.

[22:10]

Is it constructive or destructive? Is it constructive or destructive? It's destructive of delusional ego structures. But mostly it's constructive. You're just bringing attention to things. And it's You can't bring attention to things really unless it's rooted in caring and appreciation. Attention really develops appreciation. Okay?

[23:16]

For now? Okay. Yeah, so, attention, you... Let's see, last year I spoke about the five skandhas. Of course, not everyone was here last year. But still, I don't want to go over the same thing again. And I spoke about, I think, the dharmic moment as an enfolding unfolding and outfolding. But I don't think I spoke about the stages of the evolution of attention. No. The evolution of attention. But not to go into it in great detail.

[24:19]

But the more you bring attention to anything, And mull over, mull over, feel over the result of that attention. And that mulling over unfolds into seeing how something functions, it might be your new puppy or something. The more you bring attention to the puppy, Depends on general that would make the puppy happy.

[25:20]

And you'd get to know the puppy better. And you might find out the puppy likes to have company when it has dinner. That the puppy is happier if you sit and watch him eat than if you go in the other room. So that would be an example of bringing attention, you begin to... understand the puppy more fully. And that attention is returned to you. So if you take a teaching like this, And you took Dignaga's statement.

[26:26]

And you keep bringing attention to your own conceptualization process. You're exercising the muscle of intention, but also you're opening up this teaching. And eventually you can really feel the teaching beginning to function in you. And in a way your attention develops, as I would say, you know, if you see an insect flying through the air, You don't see its pathway. But if an insect lands on the water, you see its path very clearly. And as you get in the habit of bringing attention into your situation.

[27:38]

It's almost like you begin to see tiny things you would have missed before. It's almost like the field of attention turns into kind of a liquid and every little insight, tiny little insight, you can feel it. on your mind. I can give you a kind of example. Once I was walking along some railroad tracks. Back to a warehouse I worked. And I threw a cigarette pack onto the tracks. And I continued to walk. I never was a smoker particularly, but You know, I like blowing it out my nose.

[28:45]

I never wanted to put it into my lungs. So I would just blow it out my nose. Until one day I noticed the psychological need I had to smoke. And I realized it was robbing me of energy I could put into that need in some other way than dissipating it through smoking. So I wadded up and I never smoked again. But I wasn't really hooked either, so this. But in any case, in this particular time, I threw the cigarette pack away. You know, it's just a trashy, already trash-filled area on some old, unused railroad tracks.

[29:53]

And I had a really tiny feeling of uneasiness. And I realized I threw it down because I thought there was such a thing as an outside. An outside that was different from inside. Now that was such a tiny little moment. Unless I'd been practicing mindfulness, I wouldn't have noticed it. So mindfulness helps you notice very tiny little moments that are a big shift in direction. Because when I turned back and let myself stay in the moment before thought arose, I realized I and up until then had a delusion of an inside-outside distinction.

[31:11]

So the practice of mindfulness, one of its fruits, is simply to bring yourself into the fine-tuning where you actually exist. Someone over here? Yes? This morning we were talking about through meditation the continuity of identity and continuity It was no longer supported by thoughts but through breath.

[32:21]

It's continuity. I would like to... I would like to hear some more sentences, what it means if you are through breath, if you exist through breath. Okay. I think the best thing to suggest is that you try it. First it's a capacity you may sense, but it could become a power you live in. But right now I'm speaking and I can feel my breath in my speaking. And when I feel my breath in my speaking, I can stay in touch with my speaking nourishing me. And my speaking comes from my body. I mean, I guess it comes from my mind, but my experience is it comes from my body.

[33:26]

Because I don't think the words, I feel the words physically and then I say something. And that lets me feel you. Because if I can't feel you, I don't know what to say. Yes. But if I can feel you, I hope I'm speaking to your own inner dialogue. So this would be an example. I mean, we all are participating in such a field. But it's an example of finding my continuity in the embodied present. Which we share.

[34:27]

But you don't share my mental space particularly. I mean, our mental space is known more than we guess to other people. Our mental space is known more than we'd like to think to other people. Our mental space is known more than we would like. We don't want our mental space known by other people, but in fact it's known quite a bit. But it's still not the same as when your continuity is embodied in a shared space. Okay. When I was here last year too, did I speak about the three functions of self?

[35:38]

Yes. Maybe I should mention that again because that's kind of basic too. What we're talking about. So what else? Someone who hasn't been saying anything, it'd be nice to hear. It's okay if someone who said something can say something too. Yes? It's a very practical question. About knowledge beyond the conceptualization. How do I use it in my everyday life?

[36:40]

In your everyday life, how do you use it? Well, I wanted to ask a very practical question, namely about this knowing that we talked about, that lies behind these concepts, which we are also aware of, as Johannes also spoke about, that we let the concepts divide us and then we come to this room and with which he speaks too, and then I need something when I no longer have a concept. Well, how do you use the satisfaction of a sunset in your everyday life? Why do you have to use it? I need it for steps I do in life. I need it for decisions. I need it for how to go along when I let conception go. I need it kind of. Gerard can translate if you want.

[38:05]

You said you need it for decisions, for your further life and how it goes on. I'm going to get you a drink. If I have a very important decision to make and don't make it out of concepts, how can I make contact with this deeper level to make this decision? You have an important decision you have to make soon? Every day. Oh! Okay. Well, first I wouldn't tie it myself. I don't think it's useful to tie it to how you can use it. The more you tie knowing to using, you limit knowing.

[39:13]

I think one of the problems in the contemporary industrialized world is we think of the self as has to be efficient and function well. And so we've sort of streamlined the self. And we don't have as much touch with a lot of nuance in what now is called unconscious and non-conscious. So I don't mean that it's not useful, but I mean it's not useful to think of it as being useful.

[40:13]

But if you have to make a decision, a very large percentage of decisions do have to be thought through conceptually. And all of these things in Buddhism too are approached through analysis as well as experience. But if you want to get access, or what I would do if I wanted to get access to levels of knowing that are not conscious, to levels of knowing that are not conscious, I would try to formulate the question to myself that I wanted to solve.

[41:38]

And kind of try to repeat it regularly. Or create a feeling of its repetition. in my background mind. Or I present it to myself before I go to sleep or in meditation. And I have to notice what comes up. I had a funny experience once with something like that. I was asking myself a question. I don't remember now. I think it was a practice question, but it could have been a personal question. And I got quite skillful at keeping a question going in my background mind. But I was in a kind of somewhere between daydreaming and concentration one day.

[42:50]

And I was sort of trying to stay with my in a gentle way with this question. And over here in the periphery of my consciousness a brown phone was ringing. Oh God, another distraction. So I kept coming back to my... And then this image of the brown phone was there. So I thought, oh, I'll go answer it. So I went over and picked it up and it told me the answer. So sometimes you don't know which is a distraction and which is telling you something. Sometimes I cannot make a difference between these two feelings.

[43:59]

What is the distraction and what is the answer? But it's a craft. I can't explain it. You have to learn the feeling of it. It feels more... I mean, like Buddhism has, how do you know a valid cognition from a cognition which is not valid? There's no real answer to those questions. I think one thing you can do is practice what I just said is nourishment. You practice by trying to only do things that nourish you. Walking, talking, whatever it is. If you get into the habit of that, you can begin to tell what comes up when it's wholesome or unwholesome, etc.

[45:12]

You can also practice feelings of completeness or feelings of connectedness and connectedness. Someone else? Yes. Maybe we can open a window somewhere. Close the curtains or something, I don't know. Close the curtains too because the sun is shining. Maybe try a different window. Ah. OK. of entities that observe.

[46:45]

If I look at this intellectually, I hear that you are saying to bring attention to attention. Yeah, to the attention process itself, yeah. But that is a kind of hierarchy, seems to me. Yeah, maybe, but it's mostly just a choice. I would like to say something about my practice. Yes. Often I can bring my intention and attention to my breath. Quite often. And it often helps if I look at the way I'm observing my breath.

[48:15]

Okay, sounds good. If it helps, it helps. Yeah, you just have to find out for yourself. In the end, it's simply you have to find out for yourself. I can create a general picture, but it's the repetition and finding out which works and what's most satisfying and not satisfying, because there's no outside rules. Since there's no outside rules, I mean, there are, you should obey the laws of your society and things like that. But that's only a practicality. All of Buddhism rests on Being able to distinguish for yourself what's wholesome or unwholesome.

[49:30]

And to abandon what's unwholesome and to develop what's wholesome. And it's this very this very power of you yourself to decide which frees you from society. So each of us decides. Because strictly speaking, it has to come from you. If you can't feel that inside yourself, then you better just go along with the rules of your society, otherwise you might go to jail or something. I remember my little daughter was at the airport once. She's now 36, but she was three or so then.

[50:37]

And we were at the San Francisco airport, and she started taking her clothes off. And I said, Sally, put your clothes back on. I want to take them off. I said, well, yeah, but, I mean, put them, I said, you're not supposed to do that. She said, doesn't everyone want to? I said, yeah, maybe so, but still, we don't do that. Put your clothes back on. So I tried to say, we sometimes have to go along with society. Anyway. Something else? Yes. Yes. space which we use while we perceive.

[51:53]

So I was wondering how can I not use that in perception because I only know to perceive with that thing. Okay. Yeah. Well, first of all, Again, this practice is not something I can give you. It's something real. I mean, I can show you or try to show you some of the elements of practice. And I can even try to give you a

[52:55]

feeling for practice. But basically you have to bring the teaching into actual confrontation with how you experience things. I mean, Gregory Bateson once said to me, it's really hard to teach in America. He says, because everyone always agrees with you. You tell them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they say, yeah, yeah. Great. And they haven't understood a thing. They don't see that they don't understand.

[54:13]

And if you don't see that you don't understand... You can't work with it. So the most important thing is to see that you don't understand, not to think that you understand. And if your first reaction is, I understand, you're probably... Mostly you're understanding because you want to be a person who understands. And it's much better to sort of fine-tune yourself to know this in every situation the degree to which you don't understand. Okay, so say that we take your statement and you feel, you don't really understand this. You take that maybe I know what I'm talking about, You sort of have an idea of what I mean by memory space.

[55:27]

And you look at your own perceptual process. And you see it's inseparable from memory. Okay. So you don't give up. You at that point say, Well, I'll give old Baker the benefit of the doubt. Maybe what he's saying has some truth to it. And he says that Dignaga, Dharmakirti and Dogen all agree with him. So I give him three weeks. One for each of the three D's.

[56:28]

And I'll present this. I don't know what to do. I'll just keep asking myself the question. I keep presenting myself with the problem, and I'll gather as much information as I can. And from my conversations with one or two pure mathematicians, That's exactly how they work on a problem which is presumably unsolvable. They don't know how to get on the other side of it. And the whole mathematical community might say it's unsolvable.

[57:39]

But they keep presenting themselves with a question. What happens, you begin to see a topography. In other words, you may begin to see that sometimes your perceptions... perceptual process, is more clearly related to memory. Okay. as a refreshment. I wasn't going to do this, but I put the five skandhas up here. This is probably the single, along with breath practice, this is probably the single most important analytical technique or process within Buddhism.

[59:02]

It's fairly simple. All right. When Freud, or a psychoanalytist, has you a practice free association, you're basically slipping out of this consciousness into this skanda.

[60:18]

And you're just resting in... Now let's take the... When we were meditating briefly before... We could hear the children and the dogs. And we still can. They're right in the background. We're not noticing them. It was easier to notice them when we were doing meditation. Why is that? Well, there are two reasons. At least. One is, in meditation you are not really in consciousness. So consciousness right now is blocking that.

[61:22]

The activity now that we're calling consciousness, paying attention to this conversation now, puts that into the background. And And also, when you're in meditation, you're more noticing, you're more bringing attention to attention itself. You're more bringing feeling, hearing itself. Rather than hearing the object, you're more in the midst of your own hearing. And what happens when you start to meditate? It happens when you start to sit still. You hear hearing.

[62:29]

You hear yourself hearing. You know you can only hear to the extent that you're capable of hearing. You're not hearing it the same way another bird would hear it. a bird song. So you're hearing only your own hearing of the bird for the children. Okay, so that is a skanda more like this. You're just feeling the sounds and you're not turning it into, oh, that's a child or that's a bird. You're just hearing the sounds. But say that you focus on the sounds of the child. And you think, oh, one of those is my child.

[63:31]

Or you think about, oh, well, I'm a little worried about the swimming. Is anybody watching the kids swim? Is it safe? That brings you into consciousness. And that's like a different liquid than this. But maybe you don't think about the children. It's not your child, and it's just voices. And it just reminds you of being at the beach sometime or a lake or whatever. And so that's at this level of mental formation. So at that point you can see memory space functioning. You can see down here memory space doesn't function.

[64:50]

Okay, so immediately you start seeing a topography of when there's more memory space or less memory space. It's like if you're suffering. People say, I'm suffering, it's really horrible. Yes, I'm sure it is. And it often is. But it's helpful you're not always suffering to the same degree. You're not always depressed to the same degree. There's a topography to it. You can notice, well, actually I felt a little better through this afternoon. You begin to notice every afternoon at three you feel a little better. So then you start pretending it's three at two o'clock.

[66:03]

Or you start trying to get the feeling of what's going on at three o'clock, but I don't feel so depressed. In other words, you begin to see the topography. Topography allows you actually to start seeing the triggers, what triggers the state of mind. And that process of seeing the topography and the triggers is a function of developed mindfulness practice. And to notice the difference in memory space would help if you happen to know how to work with the skandhas. And the differences in memory space might be helped if you knew the practice of the five standards. I think it's probably a good time to take a break, don't you?

[67:09]

So let's come back at 20 after five or so. We'll try to kind of finish this up. And what I'd like to do is really speak about the process of the conceptual process and how it turns into a conceptual process. and how you can fairly easily transform that process. That's the, you know, coming episode, you know. The horse is going over the cliff. Be continued. All right. Thank you very much.

[68:26]

launch into something or other? Yes. I would like to come back to this morning. Someone asked about the I or the self in this whole process. What I understood as an answer, there are many observing selves. There are many... And that was beyond what I could imagine. There are many functions of, there are many

[69:43]

observing minds. They're not all necessarily selves. We intend to attach our personal history and experience to a particular kind of observing mind. And if you like, again, Keith Richards was asked about Mick Jagger. And Keith said, Mick Jagger? He's a lovely bunch of guys. Yeah. And I think if you say that you have some friend who knows you well, they may notice that you have several friends

[70:50]

kinds of personalities. I mean, sometimes we have a primary personality and a secondary personality. And a secondary personality surfaces in stressful situations. And the secondary personality is bothered by different things than the primary personality. And actually has a kind of different accumulated history about the world. The secondary personality may have a kind of bitterness and paranoia.

[72:04]

The primary personality might be more rational and relaxed. These are two different ways to observe the world, which, given their two different ways, they accumulate a different history. So the process can be more complex than that. I think through practice you simplify it. I don't know if that answers your question, but at least it responds. Anyone else have something? Yes. I have a question to you about the situation. Diagnosis.

[73:16]

In conventional psychotherapy, the therapist is gathering really a number of figures, data, really composing a sort of collection. I think this, for those who are putting emphasis to focusing, it's different. I would like to know if you could give a hook. how an exemplary psychologist would replace these diagnostic schemes by doing a therapy in this way. Okay, why don't you, if you'd say that in German please, Deutsch bitte. And then if you translate it for me so I can hear it twice, because I have to think about what you say. He had something this morning that was the feeling of being very rich. Then memory came up from suffering and neediness and then in conjunction with that came a therapeutic diagnostic model.

[74:29]

How would a Zen Buddhist who works as a psychotherapist replace this kind of diagnosis? Something else? And then another question came up. How would this therapist... How would this therapist work with guilt and fear? Who would work with that? You'd like me to create a whole new branch of psychology right now?

[75:49]

Why not? Well, actually, I've been meeting now for eight years with a group of around 20 to 25 psychotherapists in Austria. And up until this last year, it was a closed group, but this last year we opened it so other people, if anyone's interested, who are psychotherapists, can join it. Except we're still keeping it under 25 people, I think. And it's been a very rich discussion, for me especially. And we're trying to look at the very kind of questions you asked.

[76:53]

It just can't be answered briefly. But I can say that in general, I feel and I think We agree. We can imagine a school of, shall we say, of Dharma therapy. A Dharma therapist and not a psychotherapist. Because in short, I feel it's a mistake to think of Buddhism as a form of psychotherapy. In my opinion, it's just not. And I think the idea that there's a Buddhist psychology probably harms people. Because there are people who practice Buddhism who probably should see a psychotherapist first.

[78:10]

Because Buddhism isn't about neurotic suffering. Basically it's about freeing you from existential suffering. Now if you get free of delusional and existential suffering it helps you free yourself from neurotic suffering. But it's not the same. I mean, the Pali Abhidharma Canon, you don't have to know what that is. I should just identify my statement. It's a couple thousand years old. It says, when a healthy conscious attitude arises, belonging to a world of sensuous relatedness, permeated by serenity,

[79:39]

linked to knowledge, then practice begins. Oh, thanks a lot again. It takes maybe a whole team of therapists to get you to this point. When a healthy conscious attitude arises, Yeah. The cheerfulness of the sage. Yeah. belonging to a world of sensuous relatedness. You already feel in a connected, embodied space. And you're permeated by serenity, by calmness. And this is linked to wisdom. Then we can start.

[81:10]

The trick here is you have to understand when. When means just a moment of this. You might feel miserable all the time but if there's a moment when there's a healthy conscious attitude That can be a turning point in your life. So here the practice is to notice when this kind of openness and relaxation is there. Okay. Anyway, again, I would say that Buddhism is a mindology, not a psychology.

[82:22]

It's about how the mind functions, not how the psyche accumulates its personal history and so forth. And I think one of the big differences in Western Buddhism is we have to develop a practice that allows each person to mature their individual story. In Western Buddhism? Yeah, Western Buddhism has to develop a practice. which allows each person to mature their individual story. So Zen, which is taught, like cut off your thoughts, etc., probably is damaging people. Because we Westerners have to work with our story. We don't have to only identify with our story.

[83:32]

This makes a big difference. So as a therapeutic approach, I think a Dharma therapist would, for instance, get people to work with moving their sense of continuity into their breath, body and phenomena. A Dharma therapist would create the state of mind they want the client to feel. They might try to create the wisdom mind or the healthy conscious attitude and place it in their body somewhere.

[84:33]

and hope it's communicated osmotically to the client. I think actually good psychotherapists do something like that intuitively already. So anyway, that's enough to say. Again, I responded but didn't answer. Das ist alles, was ich sagen möchte. Noch einmal, ich habe geantwortet, aber nicht vielleicht beantwortet. Is that enough for this? And I can go to the board? Kann ich jetzt zur Tafel gehen? Okay. Okay. Anyway, I'd like to see if I can get this. I'm trying to... find a way to talk about this. And I've tried two or three times in the last couple of months. Now first let me add Two things.

[86:12]

One is the three functions of self, which you know. They're very simple. Separation. Connectedness. And continuity. Now, as a practice, you simply want to notice when you do this. And what's the big thing here? Not to see self as an entity, but to see self as a function. It's much easier to work with functions than it is with an entity that you give an identity to. then an entity you give an identity to.

[87:32]

Okay. So I tried to make this as simple as possible. How would you translate, what can you say more about entity? An entity, as if it were a thing called the self, that had a life of its own. Rather than seeing it as a way of functioning. Okay. Now, your immune system is an analogue for the self. Your immune system knows what belongs to you and doesn't belong to you. And you have to know that or you get sick. You have to know this is my voice and not some voice you are hearing in your head.

[88:34]

And if you can't make those kind of distinctions, you probably might end up in a hospital. So we have to establish separation. That's Gerald, and this is something or other called sometimes a person standing here. For me, I think of myself as a standing here person. I don't think of myself as Richard. And I know that when I'm a standing here person, I'm much more likely to do or say foolish things than when I'm a sitting there person. So if I start running like her across the room, you'll know that that's me.

[89:45]

Now, connectedness, we also are connected. However, our culture tends to emphasize separation a lot, not connectedness much. Connectedness is things like how to be polite. Unless you're in love, or you have children, most of us don't feel a gut connectedness with other people. But it's possible to feel the same connectedness you feel with your spouse or your children pretty much with other people. Now for the Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva would feel nearly the same feeling for other people's children as their own.

[91:12]

They have a different kind of responsibility they have to distinguish, but the feeling would be of connectedness of this sentient world we live in would be similar. All right. Now, part of what I'm talking about, connectedness, is also the sense of a somatic or embodied space is also a more connected space. So we can say that practice, yogic practice, tends to move you more toward here. But you still have to establish separateness. Now, I would suggest, again, that if you want to work with these things, very simply, you notice every time you're talking, it's easiest to do it with people.

[92:13]

Yeah. So when you're talking with somebody, you notice the degree to which your thinking and acting is based on a feeling of separateness. And then wonder, why couldn't I feel more connected? Now, one... traditional Buddhist practice, which might fit in with focusing, which is you form the conception of self and other. You notice in your interactions there's present an implicit conception of self and of it.

[93:17]

You understand what I mean? Okay, I'm looking at you. And I'm talking with you. And I think you're probably younger than I am. Yeah, and You're a woman and not a male. And you live somewhere and I don't know where you live. And you're intelligent or stupid. I have some ideas whether something is stupid. Okay, all those ideas are a distinction between self and other, between me and you. And those kinds of ideas are functioning with each person I talk to. So in the middle of talking with you and trying to communicate with you

[94:24]

There's a whole lot of other perceptions going on, tangential perceptions going on. That you're such and such a kind of person. That you like me or you don't like me. Or you could like me if I smiled more. Okay, all of those... All of those things are going on. And they create a distinction between me and you. They create a separation there. Now, one way to do it is to be friendly and I try to talk around those separations. And I would say that's ordinary social...

[95:17]

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