And since we usually start here going clockwise, since we usually start here going clockwise, I think maybe we should start today at one o'clock. That would be Beate and go this way. The Eno is always ready. No, so... I actually don't have a question. I'm sorry. I'm experimenting with this, but a question comes up in this process. Oh, so you have to sit. I was really interested in what will come up this time for me. Well, then we will give you a chance after a couple of questions and say, yes, okay. What if everyone... What if everyone did that?

[01:03]

See, they all... This is good. There's no questions. I can retire. I just will start. All right, please. Maybe is this not a question, but... Concerning lecture yesterday, body consciousness, and how do you school yourself to have body consciousness? In a clinic with a doctor. In a clinic with a doctor. In the explanations I felt at one point that I was right and that what was coming at me at some point was exactly what was right for me and for my body. Anita was in a consultation with a doctor and the doctor explained things to her and at one point she got the feeling this is right and it makes sense and everything that's going to come or happen will be fine.

[02:14]

And only later I noticed that this point actually existed. That point basically waited to be addressed. And then I noticed that I've experienced that earlier and now I'm asking myself. So these are impulses from the outside. That something got touched. So how do I get there? I want to do this step earlier, or I myself want to get to that place. But didn't you get to that place by understanding him? I didn't really understand from my mind or from my understanding here.

[03:45]

I didn't understand it. And what I just said you didn't understand? I just had the doctor. The doctor, yes. I didn't understand the doctor intellectually, but I understood something. That laid deeper than what he had to verbalize. So he communicated something to you that was deeper than his words. At some point you realized you understood this deeper conversation. So in that sense it's right that I didn't understand what he was speaking about but in a different level I understood. Yes, I understand.

[05:04]

But it needed some kind of impulse, this kind of nudge. So now I don't want to wait for something like this to happen. I want to learn it. Well, I think that Zen in the West has misrepresented itself or allowed itself to be misrepresented.

[06:10]

And I'm speaking to a larger topic than just what you said. And I'm speaking also to what I tried to make some forays into yesterday. I was pleased actually with the forays I made yesterday, but I'm sure it left some of you a little perplexed. But the talk before was quite clear, so I figured I could have an unclear one. If you came on the muddled day, well, it's good to be muddled sometimes. Yes, and the misrepresentation is that we want the experience of enlightenment and the experience of enlightenment is going to do most of the work.

[07:36]

And I would say small enlightenment and big craft of practice is probably better than the vice versa. Art of practice. Yeah. If you really want to mature your practice or actualize your practice it's actualized in many tiny acts so that the So that a really kind of dense or really present mindfulness in all things actualizes your practice.

[08:49]

Can you say that again? A really dense or... Thorough mindfulness in all things. And just a noticing. Noticing, noticing, noticing without really reacting to the noticing, just noticing. So the first thing I would say is you notice something. So now you have some intentions that are about around that noticing. I'd like to know more. I'd like to be able to do it better or something. But the main thing is you noticed. So you noticed there was a point, as I understand what you said, you noticed there was a point in which you understood something, but it wasn't an intellectual process.

[09:57]

Now, Yogacara Zen practice assumes not only mindfulness, But a bodyfulness as well. It is so stupid. How can you say that? That's right. A... a body which is present and attuned to your mindfulness.

[11:02]

And if possible, remembers the physical feeling of noticing. It's when you notice, even if you don't notice consciously, a little bit of, we could say almost a little bit of bodily knowing went out and connected to the person you were speaking to's bodily speaking. Yes, so that's enough to say right now, just to notice, and then you have some intention, yes, I'd like to know this more, just like you do. Also, das ist jetzt genug, einfach zu bemerken und dann die Intention zu haben, ja, ich möchte mehr davon bemerken.

[12:24]

And trust that if you notice and you have an intention and you continue practicing, that noticing and that intention will... Okay. Sorry. And trust that if you notice... Und vertraue, dass wenn du bemerkst... And you have, if possible, some physical memory of that noticing. And you have an intention. That noticing and that intention. you can trust, will mature if you continue to practice. Now that's the most basic answer I can give to it. And that means you're the experimenter. Das heißt, du bist der Experimentierende. Kann ich dir etwas von der Kunst des Praktizierens geben, das dir hilft, das zu reifen?

[13:24]

That's what I'm in the midst of trying to find a way to speak about. That's what I was in the midst of trying to speak about yesterday. So you put your finger on what's going on. Or the other way around. So that's enough for now. Okay. Next. So this is a challenge now. I don't know what to ask, and it's for me the first time I'm sitting in this context or type. Just anything that's on your mind is just fine. That's the kind of guy I am.

[14:39]

For the phenomena of drifting apart, of just bodily being here. and having nothing in the mind. Blank mind. What if there's an exterior kind of request? That I have the feeling there's just kind of alienation or something. Maybe that's the wrong word. And I don't know who I am anymore. How do I get something of my own into my head? Okay, could you say that again as one sort of group of words? I have the feeling that she's asking if something is put from the outside onto her leg, give me your question.

[16:22]

Then something is drifting apart, her bodily presence, and she has a blank in her mind. Is there anything you can say of how to get something of your own into your mind in such a situation? So you're speaking about the existential situation you're in just now. I remember in a big meeting with the black community in San Francisco. This great woman that was a friend of ours had to speak. And she stood up and she said, Oh Jesus, my thoughts just sat down. So I could suggest you stand up.

[17:33]

Maybe I should just... She stands, sit down. No, your humor was good enough to get you, so we'll... All right, so... I'm trying to get this image you brought up in the last Teishos about the billboards and the background mind, the nature of the background mind. Suzuki Roshi's not too in white, and also this guy who figured out that our that our thinking mind is always a millisecond later than the body is acting on it. And I tried to figure that out, somehow to get it together in my zazen. And one thing I noticed is thoughts not invited to chi somehow freak out.

[18:37]

That's a possible reaction. And I... I can hold my body in this thought-bound mind of thoughts not invited to tea, but somehow, somewhere there are still thoughts and they kind of tell me, well, we are going to have our own party anyway, or something like that. And it's, I always thought it's more like a switch, a switch. the one thing off and the other thing on or something like that. So either there's the foreground mind or either there are thoughts or they are all out of the house. But more and more I figure it's something going on parallel so my body can stay in this or I can experience this levered space you mentioned of being completely without thinking and I can feel that in my body.

[19:49]

but still they are thinking, going on, and the thoughts somehow freak out. They don't like that. What do you mean they freak out? Well, they're getting more and more crazy in my thinking. more and more entertaining or they try to entertain me. It's also nice party up here or something. And one in the house says, well, yes, but it's also nice to not to listen to you or something like that. So it's more something going on simultaneously. Can you speak German, please? So what I am practicing now, also triggered by the Taishos, Roshi has now also brought a new picture in some Taishos of such advertising boards that meet you when you drive on the motorway and the advertising boards as a picture of the thoughts that come and go and then behind that the nature as this background spirit.

[20:54]

And then there is also Suzuki Roshi's picture, inviting thoughts to tea, and then there is also the experiment that the thoughts always hang a little bit behind, the body, which cannot be quite calm, and what I find is that I have always thought that I can switch off one thing and switch on the other, or in the moment when I switch off my thoughts, I switch on the other, but at the moment I make the experience that I can thoughts that I do not invite, that I have invited, clearly feel in my body and I can sit down there and there is really peace, but at the same time there is also an area where my thoughts still celebrate a small party and try to pull me there and I can somehow observe that and say, yes, celebrate or something like that, but I also notice that they try

[21:57]

It's also a little bit like the thoughts having their own party somewhere, and they also somehow try to get access of the body. I can feel that very easy in my stomach. My stomach right now is affected because of the mass I take, so I can feel that very easy. It's very sensitive for that, yeah. But it's not just the party going on. It's also somehow the creative thoughts also thing to get hold of. You want to get back in the house. Yeah, they want to get back in the house, and they hold the door and shake the door or something like that. So it's a little bit like you were... Your guests had left. There's no tea party going on, but outside in the garden is the love parade. Yeah, something like that. Which can be very exciting. Especially when you hear the bass and trumps.

[23:02]

Yeah, yeah. And that gets you in the stomach and, you know, yeah. Yeah, something like that. Mm-hmm. Well, let's just use the terms that most of you are familiar with, host mind and guest mind. The more you are really... physically established, physiologically established in host mind.

[24:07]

You're actually creating an atmosphere in which thoughts can't survive. It creates an atmosphere where thoughts cannot survive. It's like birds and fishes. Birds don't, except very few, function under water. So in the host mind you might have fish but not birds. But to really establish such a different liquid of mind... Yeah, it takes some time. So... And at first, the big step is to notice the difference and be able to go back and forth.

[25:28]

But, as you say, the house gets bigger and bigger. And there's all kinds of things going on in other rooms and stuff like that. Or in the garden. At least in my own practice, the best thing is to invite them into the house. Yeah, and then don't serve them tea. That brings their own tea. So you have your tea party, but... You try. And sometimes... Yeah.

[26:31]

So that's enough for now. Okay. Yeah? Yeah. I have actually two points, and maybe both are somehow connected. One is more to share an experience, and the second one is a question. Several times during my sitting, The experience of Fermi, I felt very centered in my breath, and somehow, to put it in a picture, it's like I opened all perceptual doors So everything through eyes and ears and nose, everything could get in and went through and a strong physical feeling like if I could feel each single cell and very strong sensation and not much thinking.

[27:52]

came and went, but not for me. And like, yeah, I opened all doors of my house and each, everything could go, come in and find out again without any hindrance. And I could I felt somehow cozy, it was quite a nice feeling, and afterwards I could go on sitting and sitting and it was perfectly okay. So, yeah, that's my sharing. And a thought that moves in me is what I mean, it's nice to be in that place, but how do I really find in my, let's say, normal life, daily life, if that is somehow a regular status I can be in, how do I find a position

[29:14]

for me, in connection to the out-of-out, because everything goes in and out again, and from my remembering I know it's... Sometimes I have to say to somebody, no, I don't want this. Being in that space, isn't it possible just to be a kind of... functioning energetic, it's a very strong energetic feeling I have, a kind of energetic machine that simply works but has no no own position. Is it clear? Yeah, I think so. The question is towards the connection or the relationship between practice and, let's say, ethics.

[30:17]

Ethics, yeah. What's the relationship? also compared to other Buddhistic traditions, schools, Tibetans, so they have much more emphasis on schooling ethics. And we simply sit and sit and... That's good, yes, but what's the relationship? There are two parts. The first is that I have described something that I have experienced in different ways. During the sitting, I have been Yes, it is somehow imprecise, but I had such an energetic feeling.

[31:20]

I felt very centered in my breath, and as an image, perhaps, I somehow opened up all the gates of realization. Ears, nose, eyes and so on. Everything comes into my house and goes out with another door. Everything goes in and out without resistance. It was a great feeling. And then I could sit and sit and sit. And it was very dependent, as if I could take each cell into me. That is my experience. And the question, I don't know if there is a necessary connection, but the question was, well, great feeling, and what do I do with it in my daily life?

[32:29]

I assume that I am going back to work and so on. And then I sit down and put everything in and out. And what then? What position do I have then? How do I find myself in this space in which I am then? I am not looking for a relationship at the moment. And often the question is a further question between what is the relationship between self and ethics? We sit here and sit here, and other Buddhist records have a much more elaborate system to deal with something. Please leave a comment. Yes, I understand what you said is that here, practicing here, you did have in this specific time or have an open, very open feeling which seems to involve all the cells of your body.

[33:47]

And it's a very open feeling almost as if you'd say yes to everything or welcome everything. Not exactly. It's not even a yes. It's simply come in and go. A yes would be okay, handshake. Okay, yeah. But you said then at your office, though, or your work, you have to say no sometimes. Yeah. Well... What we assume in practice is this feeling you have of each cell of your body being involved, or something like that, that this is a more fundamental experience of mind and body.

[34:55]

OK, so then you have then you have, as a layperson especially, the practice of how do you bring this into your daily life. Or if you do bring it into your daily life, or it does occur, how do you function within it or from it? Okay. Well... First of all, practice is... In the context in which we're speaking... Practice is getting used to or familiar with this more fundamental feeling.

[36:11]

And you get to know it more and more and taste it in various ways. And after a while it's pretty familiar. It's most of your zazen period. And then it begins to be underneath what you do. But then you still have the problem of how you act on it, act from it. So mostly I think you can say that the stage of practice I'm describing now Also, ihr könnt zum größten Teil davon ausgehen, und das ist jetzt diese Stufe der Praxis, die ich jetzt beschreibe. You can't really, you have to take on the role, not the identity, but the role of whatever your work requires.

[37:26]

Also, du musst die Rolle... and you have to function in that role and that role has its own habits and sometimes those habits We do things we don't feel good about. Not necessarily bad about, but perhaps we said no in a way we don't like that we said no or something. But then your practice is just noticing your role And noticing, you know, and deciding to, you know, maybe I can develop my role a bit.

[38:33]

In this light, Sukhyoshi said, the last thing you perfect is your personality. Your practice develops ahead of your personality. He doesn't mean your psychology when he says that. He means the habits you've developed accumulated in your role or your personality. And as for, for instance, if you take the precepts, And you don't have to wait to take the precepts.

[39:38]

You can take the precepts anytime. You don't have to wait for a ceremony or something. Now, every action, whenever you act, a whole lot of things come together to make the act possible. An act is situated in your experience with similar things, memories. Now you've learned to hold the precepts present in your activity. So every act is accompanied by a feeling of the precepts. How these express or follow the precepts. And as you bring the craft of practice into each act, you may know that act as mind only.

[40:47]

You may know that act as occurring in your own mind and perceptual field. I translate it as in your acting. I'm lost now. In your specific act. In your act. The precepts are present. And other aspects of the art or craft of practice may be there too. Like every thought points or every sense perception points to the object perceived but also points to the mind. Or you might bring into, what?

[42:07]

So, in every perception of an object, points at both the object and the mind. Thank you, Martin. That can also be present in each act. It should be present in each act. Your breath can be present in each act. Your sense of releasing and not holding is present in each act. That presence is the actualization of practice. So all those things which you can hold in the… all the things of practice you can hold in the moment are realization of practice.

[43:30]

The actualization of practice, or… What's different of realization, actualization? Well, realization has the problem of the word real, and there's nothing that's real. There's actuality and reality. There's not a reality. There's only an actuality. Yes. The problem with realizing is that the word real is in it and there is nothing real, but that it is in the implementation or... And realization, which is often a synonym for enlightenment, adds a sense. If each act is a realization, then it's a realization which affects all your acts. Okay, but what I'm emphasizing here is the realization

[44:43]

Insight may be in the background, wisdom may be in the background. But you're bringing the truth of that, the truth of that, let's put it that way, into each act. So you're actualizing just that one thing in terms of realization. Now, that sounds maybe a little complicated, but it's not. Only a little bit. Only a little bit. Do I detect a little rust? I mean, irony? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's less, what I'm speaking about is less complicated than the language a mechanic uses to fix a car.

[46:17]

You have to be very precise. There's this little part and there's that little part and you have to be very clear about where they fit. Does this fit inside that one or does that one fit inside this one? What I'm speaking about is not any more complicated than that. Simpler. But we're just not familiar with the language. So I'm trying to get us familiar with the language. And I'm trying to create the language because it doesn't really exist in English and German. Okay, so basically... What you have is you actually, every one of your acts is accompanied by lots of stuff.

[47:22]

Brain damaged people can bring some things to an act, but not other things, and they mostly don't know what's going on. every act is actually a very complex event. And that complexity of each act carries your world view. Like as I said yesterday, each word carries with it the whole context of language. Okay. So he's talking about a certain experience. which I would say doesn't fit into our language.

[48:34]

You can't describe it exactly as happiness or sadness. You can say it felt good, but there's lots of things that feel good. And if you explained this to a lot of people, they wouldn't have, what the heck is he talking about? Every cell in his body has the breeze blowing through it. But in a situation like this, we can say something like that, and people say, oh yeah, the breeze blows through my cells too. Okay, so then there's this experience, which is not so different from others of ours. So this experience is a contrast to our usual way of being.

[49:37]

Now, the more this is a continuously present experience, it remains in contrast to our usual experience, but it also supports our bringing the precepts or the craft of practice into our each specific act. We could say simply you're bringing wisdom, the wisdom that rises through practice, into your acts.

[50:41]

Now, eventually, To be continued tomorrow. Eventually, this is tomorrow, suddenly. Eventually, this experience, let's just say, represents... the fundamental being... It will do that eventually. No. This experience that he is talking about represents an aspect of, let's call it, fundamental being, which is for the sake of the conversation.

[51:42]

Say it that way. For this conversation, let's call your experience a part of the basic... an experience of the basic being. Yes. This host, mind, and body, let's call it that. Host, mind, and body. Host, mind, and body. Turns all the guests into hosts. Now, that's actually a shift of the worldview of practice or wisdom or Buddhism. It's now so fully actualized in yourself, it transforms the worldview of your culture, the worldview of your birth culture.

[52:49]

And that is the basis for the full enlightenment. Not the enlightenment experience, but the full enlightenment of transforming your worldview. Not the enlightenment experience, but through the wisdom and enlightenment, transforming your whole life. Then the role you take at work is no different. It's all the same. Yes, please.

[53:49]

It must be a follow-up. Just to make clear, I understand you. I like this picture of making guests to hosts. That is what you say. And coming back to my question of relationship to Zen and ethics, that means... guests become hosts. In my words, yeah, we are all hosts. And that's, so to say, how this ethics come into my daily life. That's one way, yes, for sure. Yeah, that's... That means there's no... Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

[55:09]

But of course, you're bringing the precepts in to your activity at all times. Martin? I wanted to ask you to comment a little bit about the process of stilling the mind and concentration and the kind of feeling quality or emotionality which goes along with it. Or in my experience over some time I feel that those states or processes towards a clearer or cleaner mind is losing a kind of emotionality. It's not so joyous anymore as it was. And then a voice in my head starts, in a way, doubting whether I do the practice wrong.

[56:24]

Not attachment, but kind of detachment and a way into a kind of quietism. So what is happening there? It's not dull at all, and it's not in normal life situations, so to speak, out of the Zendo. But I feel that that kind of rewarding emotionality, which was very supportive, But that one fades away. And because we are talking about body-mind and conceptual mind, came yesterday the idea, because I detected that kind of tension in my back. There was a tension which I had not mentioned over years. Tensioned or not?

[57:27]

Which I had not noticed over the years, which came now clearer into my... And, of course, there is now a kind of slowly relaxing that... And that kind of... not concentration, that kind of... Tension. Tension has an effect towards emotionality, maybe. Positive or negative? Maybe both. Because it's not only positive feelings. It's the other way with pain or... Okay, German, please. I wanted to ask you about the process of becoming still, a kind of spiritual collection, and the feelings, or emotions, or even the qualities of feeling that are connected to it. And in my experience, During this time I see that the intensity in the feelings, for example of great joy, that it lets go, that it becomes calmer, that it no longer plays such a role.

[58:39]

I wonder if I'm doing something wrong in practice. As if I'm not clinging to anything any more, but rather... ...losing myself in a kind of equality. A worry that... And the other thing is, because there is always this kind of body spirit, that I have noticed after years, that, so to speak, under the old structures of the bodily sitting, that there is still a tension. Did you add anything to what she just said? Just a little differently. You said you were worried about... Why does it worry you that you're losing the emotionality?

[60:05]

There's no such word as emotionality, by the way, but emotional quality or something. The kind of fear is that something is drying out or drying in. The fear that you're drying up like an old prune. Yes. That happens anyway. What happened to you? Yes. And what would be an example of the emotional quality or dimension that seems less? Joy. Joy.

[61:08]

For example, when I'm starting here in 10 days, the first time I enter in the group, into it, it's unbelievable. Joyous. Two days later, it's joy. And then it is something, but... And then it's joy to get out. And one aspect, I think, is it's not so rewarding then anymore, which is, of course, a kind of cleaning. No, in sitting. In sitting. In sitting, he has this great joy, and it is just joy after two days. Just ordinary joy. It goes from great joy to ordinary joy. This doesn't sound too bad. It sounds so bad. I mean, not all of us go from great joy to ordinary joy.

[62:15]

We just go much lower. Well, I don't want to say that we shouldn't evaluate our practice and sort of like wonder about it, does it make sense, etc. Yeah, but the larger context of practice is once you've started and once you've decided, okay, this is what I'll do. That mostly you just trust and you notice. And it's very common to go through, after a certain number of years of intense practice, a period of real discouragement, difficulty, layers of psychological stuff you thought you'd gotten through come up and it's worse than ever.

[63:41]

It is very common that after a few years of intensive practice you come into a phase that is very discouraging and you find layers of psychological things that you thought you no longer had. And this is sort of symbolically spoken about as Mara comes back, the attacks of Mara come back. And you could easily say, well, it's practice that's causing this, I'm going to stop practice. I'm not saying that this is where you're at, I'm just saying in general that's a bigger picture. And it's in some ways true that practice did bring you to this point. But it's also true practice got you through earlier stages.

[64:43]

And now you trust practice to get you through this stage. So that's just, I'm just speaking about that for all of us in terms of the context of Trusting and noticing. If you put too much energy into evaluating, trusting, noticing, and yet, is this good or bad, then the practice gets kind of stuck. Now, by trust, I don't mean belief. And the trust that you're testing and, you know, et cetera. You're going to trust.

[65:45]

It's a trust that you test. But still, a kind of trust and acceptance of practice is the chemistry that makes practice work. Now, practice is usually accompanied by the learning curve, as I've often said. It's often quite up in the first year or two. And then it flattens out for a long period of time, sometimes several years. And if you develop your practice, it's sort of like this. You have sort of like even just an hour or two of... But if you know how to go into that, it usually means it makes a jump.

[66:58]

Feeling quality. Yeah. Well, you know, I can't speak, you know, if I haven't seen you for a while, so I'm really not so in touch with exactly what you're feeling. So I speak about my own experience. Is that the categories in which I... liked or disliked things or appreciated or felt joy.

[68:03]

Slowly didn't work anymore. But they were replaced with another kind of feeling. I would say, if I tried to think of the sequence, replaced first of all by clarity. The world became extremely clear and precise. And then a kind of brightness. Then each thing almost gives off a kind of light. Then everything became only feeling with no thinking. And then the... What we call technically bliss, which is also joy, but bliss, where everything is accompanied by a kind of, not a kind of, a bliss.

[69:35]

Everything feels blissful for no reason. everything turns bliss. It feels there's bliss that accompanies everything. Which we could say, first of all, it appears a kind of deep satisfaction. Or it appears first as gratitude. You just for no reason feel gratitude. And I can remember my zazen after, you know, four or five years. I don't know. Yeah, four or five years, say, of sitting. Yeah, I would say from four, I'm just, I can't remember exactly, but say some four or five years to sort of eight years of practice sitting.

[70:38]

I had in Zazen the deep moments of deep satisfaction. A kind of satisfaction that wasn't any category of satisfaction I've known in the past. And for no reason. Yeah, just appeared. And I used to, at first I just noticed it happened sometimes. Once a month, once a week, sometimes in Zazen. Yeah, sometimes, more often. Well, it just seemed to appear, so there it was. There it is. And I thought it was actually kind of peculiar.

[71:49]

Didn't seem to even be in categories of practice, I understood. Yeah, and so it just was like that for, as I said, I'd say four or five years it was like that. Then one day it just occurred to me, maybe this is what it's all about. It took me quite a few years, half a decade. And then I thought, Well, maybe it is. Maybe I've just been ignoring this. I just thought it was a sort of nice feeling. It's nice to have, but this can't be it. But once I said, well, it's better than the other feelings. So then I somehow gave it more scope.

[72:50]

And in the next two or three years it just took over. But strangely, the act of noticing it and allowing it made a big difference. Made a big difference. You wouldn't think so. It was there, but it needed a certain kind of noticing to open up. You may not believe it, but it was there, but it required a certain awareness.

[73:43]

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