And Buddhism wouldn't assume that what you need is going to be given to you. For example, to use a statement of Suzuki Roshi's again, he said, sometimes you look at a tree and you see a tree. Sometimes you look at a tree and it makes a poem. What's the difference? Buddhism wouldn't say, oh well, inspiration or I was inspired or something. That's a rather passive way of looking at it. And you have to wait for inspiration. Like Gogol, I guess he was, he used to bang his head and then write and bang his head and then... And artists have various techniques for creating a situation that inspiration comes more often.

[01:11]

So you have your waking consciousness and your waking state of mind and your sleeping state of mind. Okay, so we can have the question, how do you exist in both? Who exists in both? Is there any continuity between the two? Sometimes it seems like a different person dreams than is waking. All right, so there's these two states of being, waking and sleeping. Now if for some reason you start to do zazen, you start to meditate.

[02:25]

And if you do it with any, if you have a feel for it, and you do it with any effectiveness, you begin to notice that it's a different state of mind. And the more you do it, the more you see it's as different from ordinary mind as sleeping is from waking mind. So in a sense now you have a third question. Who am I during the waking time? Who am I during the sleeping time? And who am I during zazen? Now zazen is understood or meditation is understood as a space in your life which integrates waking and sleeping.

[04:03]

So it's a time in which it's a territory in which you can integrate these two territories It's a territory in which you can integrate waking and sleeping mind. But it's not just a space of integration, it's also a third kind of mind. Now, this evening I'm using the word mind and thoughts and consciousness and so forth rather loosely. And we'll try to become more specific, more clearer during the weekend. What I'd like you to do between now and tomorrow morning, is to look at how you use these words, mind, consciousness, thought, emotion, feeling.

[05:15]

What are you describing in your own experience when you use these words? And you should know, of course, that the topography of being is more complex and more subtle than language. So all of the possibilities of being that all the languages in the world have words for are still only a small number of the full possibilities. So if you imagined that East Germany, West Germany, France, United States and Russia all occupied the same territory simultaneously. And when you looked with the French map, you saw Paris was right beside Berlin.

[06:35]

And when you looked with the American map, you saw that San Francisco was right between Heidelberg and Freiburg. But when you look with the German map, you only see Heidelberg and Freiburg. So all the landscapes of all the beings in the world are right here in you. But you notice the landscape that your German language and German culture and European Western culture point out. And so when you start meditation, you start out wandering around in Freiburg. And you're sure you're on the way to Heidelberg because you're on Highway 5. But, you know, 20 minutes into Zazen, there's San Francisco.

[07:49]

And you think, this is completely confusing. So you think he must have made a mistake, so there's another Highway 5, but of course it's the Highway 5 in California, if she goes to L.A., And you think you've turned toward Heidelberg, and you've turned toward L.A. And when you run into Brussels. So you're now completely confused. You go into the forest in Brussels. And pretty soon you're in a territory that no language or culture has noticed before. And you're scared.

[08:50]

And you think, I'm going to get out of here. So you find your way back as fast as possible to Highway 5 on the way to Heidelberg. It's enough meditation experience for now. But as you get your courage up and you feel more kind of relaxed just where you are, and you know you can't really get lost because you're just sitting here on the cushion, and even you've learned how not to scratch, So when little itches appear in your cheek, you can let them turn into San Francisco. Or maybe some forest appears over here. And you can go into it and you feel quite comfortable. Okay, so, in other words, through paying attention to how we exist,

[10:09]

you begin to see that the topography of your being and living is greater than the information you have. That the maps only show part of it. Or we could put it another way, that your existence is bigger than yourself. And when you try to fit all of your existence in this boat of yourself, the self boat is simply not big enough. You can make it bigger, turn it into a barge, But still, if you fill it with your whole existence, it will sink. And stuff keeps falling off the sides and becomes the unconscious.

[11:32]

And then all the stuff that falls off the self-boat sticks to the bottom and it's really hard to sail. So Zazen, meditation, developed meditation practice, allows you to be anywhere in the water. And see and feel the stuff falling overboard. And make the, you know, let the boat be used for what it's good at. And as you pointed out, the self and certain kinds of minds or ways of being are very useful for certain things we do. But we shouldn't get stuck in any one boat.

[12:47]

But we should make the boats we have very seaworthy. So Zen practice is really self-strengthening. So you're not getting rid of yourself, you're making yourself a very sturdy boat. Also man bestärkt das selbst, man versucht das selbst nicht loszuwerden, man macht einfach ein sehr stabiles Boot daraus. But not a boat that pretends the ocean isn't there. Aber es ist eben jetzt kein Boot, das so tut, als wäre das Meer nicht da. Okay, there's some other questions. Shall I give a short answer to the next one?

[13:53]

As a corrective to this ability or saying a way of this, as a corrective to all of this, there's a tradition in Zen of giving one word or one phrase answers to questions, which maybe I should do. But that really depends on our developing a real familiarity with each other. And maybe I should do that, but it depends on the fact that we all really develop a trust with each other. And that we can also establish a connection with each other, which is defined by this imaginative perception and not so much by this consciousness. I think we're going to stop in a few minutes.

[14:55]

I have a question. I had an interesting discussion the other day about the difference between self and me. In German it's dich und selbst. Can you talk more about the difference between these two? Self and me? And me, yes. Well, what is the difference in German? You should say that in German, probably. Well, what is the difference in German? How is it used differently? Is it used the same way as in English?

[16:00]

No, it's not. I think he means the self and I. The self and I. Yeah, it could be translated as the self and me. I have the impression that outside of our Buddhist terminology, we don't really speak about the self in German. We speak more about the I. The self. Okay, let me say something about it. First of all, I think that we need to recognize that these questions can't actually be answered. I certainly can't speak for how it's used in German. And I can probably spend much of the rest of my life sensing out the difference between me, I, and self, and so forth, in English.

[17:07]

So I'll only say a couple things, which is that in English at least, he, she, I, me, and so forth, are all pronouns. And linguistically, they're all in the same category. But when I say he, or she, I have a pretty particular idea of what I mean. But when I say me, I really don't know what I mean. So linguistically they're in the same category, but in fact they're in very different categories. It's the difference between trying to, the example I've used, it's the difference between trying to see what a mountain looks like from a distance when you're standing on the mountain.

[18:23]

You're walking around on the mountain of who you are. And other people don't know the little streams and stuff that you know. But it's virtually impossible for you to know what the mountain looks like from a distance. As a he or she. This is a major problem for all of us. Or it's not a problem at all. But when you start thinking about it, it's a big problem. But you can actually have some encounter with this through practice.

[19:25]

Again, we'll try to come back to that. Tonight's just a hello. And I will come back to that, because tonight it is really just a greeting, a mutual greeting. I always have a pretty peculiar feeling when I want to clarify concepts with concepts, for example, how it happens with consciousness. And actually it's not about concepts, it's about being. What kind of feelings does he have? I always feel pretty strange when I try to explain concepts. Concepts with concepts. Concepts with concepts? When I try to describe certain concepts with other concepts, whereas actually we try to deal with being. How do you deal with that strange feeling? Do you have it too? I live in the midst of it all the time.

[20:31]

I'm getting very used to it, though. I kind of like it. So, again, something we can do between now and tomorrow is without thinking too much. Just have a feeling of the descriptions of yourself. Like I'm going home. Or to wherever you're staying. But what is going home? As you're walking, the road is going home. What in fact happens is the road goes home with you. That's another way of looking at it. And when you're going to bed, you think, I'm going to bed, what's going to bed, who's going to bed, etc.

[21:42]

And then as you go to sleep, see if you can maintain a continuity of who you are, who's going to sleep. Or will it be interrupted? It's possible to maintain a continuity of who you are through your sleep. But not the sense of who you are that you usually have. What's the sense in the Bible? Only a camel can get through the eye of a needle or something? How does it go? Not even a camel or eye... What is it? How does it go? Come on. Okay. All right. It's easier that a camel gets through an eye of a needle than a rich person gets to heaven.

[23:03]

Okay. Then when you go to sleep, if you want a continuity of self to appear through, go through the sleep and come up in the morning, you have to become a camel. Me probably doesn't get through the eye of the needle. So what sense of self-identity gets through that eye? This kind of purifies your sense of self or alters your sense of self. Or makes a different kind of or more subtle or subtle in a different way self.

[24:06]

So the self that has continuity through waking and sleeping is different than our usual self. because our usual self is like the rich person who can't get through the eye but it's very good to be rich when you're awake so it's not very helpful to be rich when you're asleep that's true we all become equal in sleep don't we Anyway, pay attention or notice what you do without too much thinking between now and tomorrow. What consciousness or what person makes the transition between tonight and tomorrow.

[25:16]

And as you're walking downstairs and in the street, feel like you're stepping into your own consciousness. As if your consciousness was a kind of bubble of light around you. Or, you know, like with a flashlight, you are walking into your own light. You have to try on various images like this until you find one that actually gives you a feeling of consciousness. So I'm not giving you instructions so much as suggesting you experiment. And I'm suggesting experiments that have been very useful traditionally in Buddhism and been useful to me.

[26:22]

And you might try my experiments. But I'm happy to try yours too. And you should try your own as well as mine. In the seminar this weekend, I'd like each of us to try to get a feel for the consciousness of each other person. I have a feeling for Tina's consciousness, and it feels very nice.

[27:29]

And for several of you already. So some of you will be here at 7 tomorrow. And some of you, I hope all of you will be here at 9.30 tomorrow. And I look forward to seeing you. And sleep well. Now I'm going to have a little apple consciousness. Certainly tomorrow morning, and at the beginning of the afternoon session after lunch, I would like you to start the session just sitting.

[28:42]

And I'd like you to start without me. So that you're just doing it on your own. Yes. But now I'm here. I think anyway. I think therefore I'm here. So let's sit for a little while. Please take a stretch and sit any way that's comfortable for you.

[29:54]

But you need to stand up or stretch out. Now I don't want Tina to have to sit here all the time like us. So she wants to walk around and etc. I think it's all right with all of us. And you can sit in the back or the front. You can sit here if you want. And there's a yard out here that we're not, as adults, allowed to go into, but I think it's for the kids in the neighborhood of the building to play in. I think she could go up there if she wanted. Good morning.

[31:42]

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Now, what are we doing here? This topic, consciousness, perception and karma, is basic to Buddhism. You could almost say all of Buddhism is evolved out of these three ideas. And yet they are very, very difficult to talk about. See what I mean?

[33:04]

How difficult it is to talk about these things. Now it passed out. Only you in German should see what happened. So I don't know. Yeah, good. It was special. You also can feel free to sit anywhere you want and walk around.

[34:29]

So again these ideas of consciousness, karma and perception are central to Buddhism, but also central to our human existence. I think you could say that they're at the very depths of culture and individual life. And very, very difficult to study. In other words, if we, during this weekend, can come to any real sense of these terms, In our experience, we'll be doing what every philosopher is trying to do or trying to touch. And for me too, I have to, with you, try to find out with you how to talk about these things or get a feeling for them.

[36:27]

It's a little bit like asking the film of a camera And the film only knows, doesn't even know what the film is, barely. To ask the film what the camera is. And the film doesn't know what the camera is. The film just receives these images. But what organizes these images into the film? The film doesn't know. It's just images appear on it. And our consciousness is like that. Images appear in our consciousness, but we have very little idea of what the camera is that got them there. So Buddhism has tried to study what the camera is that brings your consciousness into consciousness.

[37:41]

Or that brings the world into consciousness. Now the initial perception I have, say, of Tina, if I can use you as an example, the initial perception is one thing, but if I'm going to think about Tina and all of you, I have to hold the image of Tina in my mind, which is not the same as the initial perception.

[39:03]

How do I hold, by what means do I hold the perception of Tina in my mind? And then unify it with the perception of all of you. and make a decision. So there's some structure to consciousness that does that after the initial perception. The initial perception doesn't tell me much. The consciousness or the structure of consciousness actually puts it together. Okay, so there are many initial perceptions. And how do I, what happens to those perceptions once I perceive them? And then, how do I associate them with other perceptions?

[40:27]

How do I hold those perceptions in a unity? How do I create a unity of these perceptions? And then a unity from which I can make decisions and judgments. And then have that not just a personal world, but a world which also coincides with your world. How is the film going to know all this? It's really quite difficult. And the decision that's made The way you see it affects the way you function as an individual. In other words, as I said the other day, the way you study the self affects what self you discover. If I study myself through you, and then I study myself through you, I'll discover two different selves.

[41:48]

You know that to be true from your friends. So if I study my existence or self through zazen, I'm going to discover a different self than if I study it through my activity or Western psychology and so forth. In other words, the process of consciousness determines consciousness. We could even say the process of self determines self. Now, Gregory Bateson, a pretty famous philosopher and biologist, I believe he said, the nervous system gives us information about products, not about processes.

[43:20]

So the nervous system tells us about products, but not about the process by which the products appeared. Or, usually, consciousness tells us about the contents or the representations in consciousness. but it doesn't tell us about the process by which those re-presentations or appearances came about. Okay. Now, vipassana meditation is really a study of the processes of consciousness, not the products of consciousness. Okay. Now let me shift the topic a moment.

[44:31]

You could describe the current... crisis that we have in the world with the biological environment is that the political and economic and social histories of cultures have very little history or knowledge or understanding of the biological environment. Now, that doesn't mean we are unnatural. As I've often said, Berlin is as natural as an anthill.

[45:33]

Ants build ant hills, and human beings build cities. They're natural. So the question is not whether we're natural or unnatural, but how does something exist in our history? Now, there's a kind of membrane between us and the biological environment. Political and cultural history affects the nature of that membrane. Now, in some senses, we could call that membrane a cultural mind. Or a cultural consciousness.

[46:54]

Because our consciousness, our cultural consciousness, let's say, again, doesn't include much about the biological environment. Now what Greenpeace and various organizations and lots of the Greens Party in Germany and so forth are trying to get our cultures and us individually to see where this border is. And it's very difficult to do. Okay. Now, do you know, is it kind of newspaper knowledge about the Star Wars business in the United States? Yes? Yes. I don't have to explain what Star Wars is, okay. When Star Wars first appeared, most of the peace activists and most of the liberals in the United States were completely opposed to Star Wars.

[48:16]

Because it won't work. I mean, it's almost sure not to work. And what they were studying was the contents of Star Wars won't work. But if you looked at it from another point of view, it was clear that Star Wars meant nuclear weapons were finished. So really the peace activists, although their job is to oppose it, they probably should have also supported it. Because what Star Wars represents is the recognition that massive retaliation doesn't work. You know, it's called in English, mad.

[49:32]

Mutual assured destruction. Mutual assured destruction. So once Reagan and the government of the United States at that point intuitively or consciously understood that massive retaliation wouldn't work, they had to make a shift in thinking away from massive retaliation. So the shift was to this idea of Star Wars. Instead of to massively retaliate, to protect yourself. Instead of to massively retaliate. Okay. So that's a shift again from a dependence or belief in nuclear weapons.

[50:55]

It's a shift away from a belief in nuclear weapons. But the content is entirely based on nuclear weapons. And it's a shift away from military strength to scientific strength. You make such a major shift in the way people think. You have to retain the content of the old thinking. If you don't retain the content of the old thinking, no one will agree with you. So when you make a major shift in consciousness like that, an attitude, it has to look like it's completely based on the old thinking. But I think if you could look with the eye backwards, as soon as Star Wars appeared, we knew the wall was coming down.

[52:03]

How do you notice those things in your own thinking? How do you notice when you have already made a major shift in your life, but the content of your life is even more the way it was before? How does Greenpeace and other environmental organizations work with the content of the old to make us include the biological environment in our thinking. Now, I present that problem to you because I think it's easier to see it in cultural terms than to see it in personal, psychological terms. And I also present it to you because our individual karma is deeply involved with the collective and societal karma.

[53:23]

And if we are going to, let's just say, save our planet, because Gaia, this idea of Gaia, the planet is a living being, if our addictions to energy use and so forth are as serious as they are, continue to be as like they are, The redundant immune system of this living being of the planet could collapse. But we have to change the mind of society to do that. Because there's no biological environment in the mind of society. And to change the mind of society it's pretty difficult unless you have some idea how to change your own mind.

[54:48]

And to see the processes in yourself And if you don't, you won't be able to recognize how to make change in society. As Star Wars, though it looks like the opposite, is a move away from nuclear weapons. And why? Because it's a basic change in assumptions. And the change in assumptions is more powerful than the contents.

[55:53]

Because the assumption is what structures the consciousness before the contents appear to you. Okay, so how do you get again into the structure of consciousness? And this is the point of zazen practice. To get into the structure of your consciousness. To see the process and structure of your consciousness. So while we're talking about these things in this seminar, We'll also be practicing zazen song. So while we're doing this discussion, we're also trying to learn something about the meditation process that allows us to discover these things.

[56:58]

So we have two things going on then. What are these terms, consciousness, karma, and so forth? And how do we practice zazen so we enter this process more clearly? How is zazen a practice of consciousness, karma and perception? So I would welcome again questions or comments from you about these two things. the terms and also how do you practice zazen so that you can realize this.

[58:04]

So you're less estranged from the world by being in your own consciousness. Now, of course, this will be the last topic I think I introduce before we have a break. Now, of course, There is a long history, well, there is a long, there are, in fact, there are innumerable instances of human history, human culture, being part of and in interaction with the biological environment.

[59:25]

There's no way to escape from the encounter of individuals and groups of people with the biological environment. They are virtually inseparable. But we've separated them. And that separation is sometimes what we call the difference between natural and unnatural. So there are again endless, innumerable, unlimited numbers of experienced contact we have with the biological environment. But where does that information, that experience exist?

[60:40]

And have we, is it really, can we even call it experience? Have we experienced our interaction with the biological environment? Probably not. It's there, but it's not part of the self or history of a government. It's not part of the history and self of our culture. Except for the fact that we make Davies together, there's very little in our personal history having to do with the biological environment.

[61:42]

But that experience exists. Or that information exists unexperienced. So if that stuff exists, why isn't it part of our experience? Because the assumptions that filter out the initial perceptions don't include the biological environment. So the assumptions you have filter out your experience. So there's many instances of stuff in your life that doesn't come into your chronology. Now let's get rid of the idea of past, present, and future.

[62:47]

Things don't really exist in the past. They're present. But they're present in a special way. And they're present in... in varying degrees. Now if you do zazen and you're sitting let's imagine time as a kind of sticky stuff. Just for the image of it, let's imagine time is a kind of sticky stuff.

[64:02]

Does that make any sense in German? Time is a sticky stuff. Chewing gum. Chewing gum. Bubblegum time, maybe that's good. Some of these things, I don't know, maybe you have to stay and stick to the words in English, the sticky stuff of time. Isn't there a rocket, the SST, isn't that some weapon system? So when you do zazen, in a sense, you're emerging, immersing yourself in the sticky stuff of time. Now, when you're in your thinking mind, you're in a fairly simple chronology of stuff that reaches back, that produced the history of your thinking self-present.

[65:05]

So you have the sense that something that happened five years ago is happened five years ago and is in your chronology up till now. But there are many things that happen that aren't in your chronology that are floating out there in the sticky stuff of time. Floating along with you in the present. So you do zazen. And in a funny way you're looking out horizontally into the sticky stuff of time. And I think any of you who have done much meditation

[66:19]

Have the experience of something appearing out there in the sticky stuff of time that you hadn't recognized before. I mean, it's not part of your chronology. You don't know where it fits in back there somewhere in the past. It's waiting there for you to notice it. It's been waiting a long time, as long as you're, you know, maybe 10, 20, 30 years it's been waiting. So all of you are like fields walking along. And surrounding you is this sticky stuff of time filled with stuff. And you kind of pull it in so you can get between people. And walk through doorways so it doesn't stop you as you're trying to get out.

[67:51]

So you pull in most of the time. But you still don't recognize it pulled in, you know. And you do zazen, you let it kind of open up. Hmm. Now this is actually, something like this really happens in that everything is enfolded on top of everything else. The way memory exists is everything is enfolded together. It's very difficult to notice things because it's all folded up. That's why things appear in dreams only half unfolded. The dream images are complex because these things are folded together. This is why the image is a more powerful dimension of consciousness than thought.

[68:52]

powerful in a sense, because more things can be folded into an image than into a thought or a word. But thought has its own power to create our common consciousness and common world. And we use thought then to go back and filter the images. Because there's the initial perception, then there's the image, then there's the thought. So when you do zazen, or when you live in a certain way, or change the pace of your living sometimes. It's almost like these different folds have different frequencies.

[70:10]

Folding is a very important part of Buddhist practice, actually. If this is all folded up, it's very hard for you to tell exactly what it's like. You see this part, or you see this part, but how do you figure out the whole from that? And much of your history is like that. And waking mind doesn't unfold it. Waking mind deals with the product that appears. Thinking has a very difficult time unfolding this. But there are forms of consciousness that non-thinking forms of consciousness where this unfolds automatically.

[71:20]

And you could begin to see it from various points of view. It's almost like different states of mind had different frequencies. And the different frequencies allow different dimensions of karma to unfold. So again, while you're doing zazen sometimes or meditation, Something happens that something occurs from nowhere. You don't know how it arose, but something occurs that happened to you in the past.

[72:23]

But it's only become part of your chronology either in a very bent way or partial way or it hasn't become part of your chronology at all or the history of who you are think you are now the great problem we have just to shift it back to the the cultural biological environment As all the millions, billions, unlimited numbers of interactions we have with the biological environment, are out there somewhere in the sticky stuff of cultural time.

[73:27]

But the conscious history of governments and societal definitions doesn't include it. So we somehow have to change the membrane of society and the membrane where society and the biological environment meet, to allow this information from the environment to come across and become part of our history. So also, The practice of karma and consciousness in Buddhism is changing the membrane in your life that makes it more permeable and the mystery comes across into your life. The mystery and many dimensions of your existence which are just out there in the sticky stuff of time and are part of your history. Wow.

[74:41]

It's hard to do. Okay, so that's another step to an introduction to karma and consciousness. Okay, thank you very much. And let's have a 10.40. Let's have a break till 11.10. And when you come back, please come back and sit down. And let's sit for a little while after the break. Please sit in any way that's comfortable for you.

[75:54]

Do you have something to write with? This is going to be for you. I'm going to ask you to do it. I'd like to hear something from you any comments so far or people who have individuals who've been in other seminars if there's something that occurred in the other seminar you'd like to have me bring up in more detail, please tell me. In general, I try to avoid things I've discussed in other seminars, if I can. So it would be up to you to... to if something came up before that you'd like me to talk about, I'll try to.

[77:17]

Okay. What? Yes. Deutsch. I think so. Or you can say it in both, but start out with Deutsch anyway. It concerns me personally. The time when I lived in Crescent, where I had this disciplined life, and then came back to Frankfurt and went to work, where I worked with old people, I've noticed that since then I can't remember my practice in my life. I make these differences.

[78:20]

I sit regularly, but I don't think about my consciousness or my breathing or my work. That's what I notice the most. I will summarize a little and you can correct me if I have left something important out. After living for nine months in Crestone Zen Mountain Center and then going back to Frankfurt to my work where I take care of old people, I'm realizing that I cannot integrate my spiritual practice into my everyday life. And although I sit every day, I feel I cannot do this, having my consciousness on my breath and practicing in this way. That's why places like Crestone exist. And it takes, I mean, we can make a baby in nine months, but you can't change your spiritual consciousness in nine months.

[79:32]

It takes more incubation. More incubation. Hibernation. Winterschlaf. Yeah, there's summerschlaf and a winterschlaf. That's interesting, because hibernation doesn't have any season in it. Oh, yes. It's usually winter, but you can use it outside of the seasonal connotation. But normally animals hibernate when it's cold. Human beings sometimes hibernate when it's hot. Sorry, German language is so... Precise, yes. It's so hot I went into winter schlaf.

[80:38]

Well, you just have... I think, as I said yesterday about... taking a chance to practice at doorways and stairs. Another way to remind yourself in this, you know, occasional moment incubation Settle yourself into your breath or bring yourself back to your breath. Every time you look out a window. So that can be a practice. Like stepping through the door can be a practice. So all day while you're taking care of these old people you do that. You could also take as a practice each time you see one of these old people notice their breath notice that particular person's breath

[81:47]

And sometimes, and if you feel like it, and if you're with them long enough, adjust your breath with theirs. And if they're nervous after you've adjusted your breath with theirs, you can use your breath to calm them down. Because once you hook your breath in with somebody else, theirs hooks in with you. You can actually calm another person that way. And that's part of the teaching of how you practice with somebody who's dying. Some other question? I know that doesn't answer all your questions, but that's a start.

[83:08]

Yes. Yes, I had a question, namely this concentration, the concept of concentration. I feel that there are different kinds of concentration, the purposeful, so to speak, which concentrate on one point or one thought or on one picture, and the one that is so general. Yesterday he spoke of having a room consciousness, for example. that you have a consciousness of the people who are in this room. This is a different kind of concentration. Should you always deal with this or should you concentrate more on one thing while meditating now?

[84:13]

Or how should you deal with these different kinds of concentration or consciousness? I've noticed there are two kinds of concentration. One concentration is more goal-oriented, more focused, like on a particular object, and the other concentration is more general, the way you described it, in the sense of this consciousness of this room or this room concentration, kind of more dispersed. And my question is now how to deal with these two kinds of concentrations. Shall I, in my meditation, just focus on one, The basic practice in Zen is field awareness, is not to clear your consciousness or repress your thoughts. It doesn't mean that sometimes you can't use concentration on a specific object, but in general that's not the way Zen practice is done.

[85:36]

And these things don't have to be described, as your question implies, as a problem. They can live quite happily together. I don't know if you do, but in general people have a tendency to present a difference as a problem. And that's partly because we get into a thing of it's either this way or that way instead of having a larger sense of simultaneity, of things can exist simultaneously without contradiction. But that would be an example of a kind of assumption that's embedded in the structure of your consciousness, whether you assume non-contradictory simultaneity or you assume sequential distinctness.

[86:43]

You know, this boson is full of these kinds of terms which I make up too if I go along. But I saw on somebody's Sony disc machine the other day, It had a term on it, four times oversampling digital resonance something or other. So I thought, geez, people are getting used to these kind of terms.

[88:06]

They even appear on electronic equipment. I'm not sure what it means, four times oversampling, digital resonance, something like that. It sounds like Buddhism, four times oversampling. You're often four times oversampling with a little digital resonance. Okay, some other question? Yeah. I want to know if the attitude is not optimal. Well, yesterday and today I've experienced during meditation that a certain heaviness occurs in the area of my forehead.

[89:15]

My question is maybe I'm doing something wrong with my posture. See, again you're presenting this as a problem. Yeah. See, if that happened to me, what would I do? I'd say, geez, when I meditated today and yesterday, it was a peculiar, wonderful, interesting heaviness that we feel around. I wonder if it will come back. I wonder if it will go away. I wonder if it will say hello. I wonder if I can talk with it. I wonder what images are associated with it. I wonder what will greet it if lightness will greet it from below. I wonder if I let it spread down through me, what it'll say.

[90:30]

Jeez, I can't wait to get back to Zazen. I'll try to come back to that... under the topic of imagination. Okay, someone else? Yeah. then the world came out of it a little bit alien. I mean, I had a little bit of a... I can't really describe it. I was ashamed. The effect was that I felt a little bit alienated. Of course, I stopped again. And I wanted to make it regular. And then it got better again.

[91:31]

And... Yes, and I still had questions. Yes, yes. I just... I just can't do anything about it. That's it. I sat regularly for quite a while, but then realized I felt a little estranged from the world outside, and almost became a little Weltfremd. It's a very good German expression. Very estranged from the world. Estranged. There's no literal translation. Yeah, the word came kind of forward for me. Estranged, admittedly. And... Then I stopped meditating and felt a lot better. I wonder how to approach that. Let me make a comment first just about German language. Can I do that? What I noticed, because I just sit here and listen, I didn't know what the heck's going on,

[92:36]

How much German language allows energy to be put into it? You say, . It's like a tube you can shoot these old bursts of energy into and it pops out. I liked it. You can't do that in English. In the same way, I was talking to Gerald yesterday about Japanese. In Japanese you can do a similar thing. For instance, the chant that goes...

[93:33]

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