Now let's look at the koan, and if you put it in front of you, we can start. David, are the microphones working okay? Let me give you a little introduction first by talking about breathing from the most basic point of view.

[01:11]

As I said during our short meditation, Dividing, separating and creating. Separating, creating. And unnoticed breath is different than an unnoticed breath. So you're creating. When you notice your breath, you're creating a new kind of breath. Now, Buddhism as a teaching, if you want to teach yourself as much as possible, it comes back to noticing the implications, amplifications, and subtlety of such small distinctions.

[02:27]

What's the third one? Implications, amplifications? It's not important. Implication, amplification, who knows? I'm creating all the time. So the word prana, which is the word used in Buddhism for breath, means first breath. So this is already a teaching. Because you're treating a breath as a unit.

[03:28]

And you're treating it as not just one of many, but the first. Of course it's not the first, because you didn't know how to count your breath when you first were born. By the time you're smart enough to say first, you're way down the line somewhere. But psychologically, practically, each breath is your first breath. So there's a truth to this teaching that each breath is your first breath. So the word prana is already a teaching. If you did nothing but leave this weekend with a sense of first breath, first breath, you'd be pretty far along.

[04:40]

Do you feel the relief of first breath? Okay. The next most basic teaching about breath is that you notice you're inhaling and you notice you're exhaling. Und der nächste Schritt ist, dass man bemerkt, dass man einatmet und ausatmet. And when you say, when you're breathing in, you say to yourself, breathing in. Und beim Einatmen sagt man sich einatmen. And when you breathe out, you say, breathing out. Und dann ausatmen. And what are you doing then? You're labeling your breath. So there's a teaching already in labeling something, naming something.

[05:53]

But it's better not to say naming, because names tend to stick. Labels you can peel off. So you're not naming it, really. This first breath is not permanent. You're labeling it first breath or breathing in. Breathing out. You know, Rika, I don't understand how you can do this, keep translating away all this stuff. I have to make no effort. You just translate. Thank you very much. So what happens when you label breathing in and breathing out? You notice there's a pause. What's mostly we don't notice until you make breathing out a unit.

[07:00]

You see, then there's a breathing out, then a stopping or pause. Then there's a breathing in. There's another pause, a different kind of pause. And by labeling, by noticing, by dividing, you discover two new things, two different kinds of pauses. So this is a teaching of differentiation. When you differentiate, you begin to see more. But again, you know they all go back to breathing in, breathing out, pause, pause. It's one unit, and yet you can divide it up.

[08:02]

And when you see that the pauses are different, they're not the same as in and out breath, the pause has its own identity which can become bigger, which can extend. So you breathe out, pause, and really stop for a moment. Then breathe in and stop. It's a kind of little enlightenment. And then this pause is not just at the beginning and end, but begins this feeling of stop begins to surround the in-breath and the out-breath.

[09:07]

So through the two pauses, you begin to feel not only the out-breath and in-breath, but the space around the breath in its entirety. So by labeling in-breath and out-breath, we discovered three new things. An upper pause, a lower pause, and the space around the breath. And then you can merge the two pauses in the in and out breath into the space around the breath. And here you have the basic pattern of teaching in Buddhism, undivided, divided, Okay, we'll see that in this koan.

[10:19]

Okay, so let's look at the koan. We're only going to do a little bit of it, tiny parts of it. Okay, the first words, in English at least, are the state before the beginning of time. So this koan begins with the... space around the in and out breaths and the pauses. If your breath is time, then the space around your breath is timeless. In such a state of mind, a turtle, which is said to live forever, heads for the fire.

[11:29]

It's fine. In here, contradictions are merged. Yeah. Ancient wet turtle heads for the hot short fire. Okay, that's enough. Let's now look at the case. A Raja of an East Indian country invited Bodhidharma's teacher who was the 27th Buddhist ancestor from Buddha, to a feast.

[12:34]

Even the 27th descendant of the Buddha has to eat sometimes. And the Raja asked him, Why don't you read the scriptures? And our ancestor said, this poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of the body or mind when breathing in and doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. Okay, so you can practice with this. You can already practice with this.

[13:34]

You don't need to go much farther in the koan. To not dwell in the realms of body and mind when breathing in. and to not get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. Can you do this? Maybe. Maybe for a few moments if you're lucky. So we could end the weekend now because you've got your work for the next few years. Now, if you read this koan like it was a cereal box, you'll want to do many things today. But if you really hear this, this is a lifetime's work. So you see how easy koans are. You don't have to get beyond the third or fourth sentence and you have enough for your lifetime.

[14:55]

Hundreds of cons? Yeah, but you just pick one and you pick the first line and that's, you've got it. He said there's hundreds of koans. This is called a borrowed consciousness. He didn't come to that conclusion by analysis. He didn't come to that conclusion through immediate perception. He came to that conclusion by having been told there are hundreds of koans. This is a borrowed consciousness. It's not deeply rooted. It's energetically weak. It's the nature of borrowed consciousness. Now we're into a different teaching. So we're studying this koan with immediate consciousness as much as possible, not with borrowed consciousness.

[16:13]

Any other questions which I can deal with so abruptly? Yes? Can we shorten the word? Shorten? The work? Of the con or this weekend or what? No, it takes a lifetime. Oh, yeah. Well, that's the word. A short wait. Yeah, yeah. Well, you said it takes a lifetime. You said it takes a lifetime. And you said that's too long for you. But that's exactly how much time you have. Isn't that good? No. Well, Zen is called the short path. Because it only takes a lifetime.

[17:33]

Sorry. Of course, what I said is quite true, though. Is that every realized person has found one practice which they've done for a lifetime. And that opened up all the other practices. And that one practice shouldn't be thought of in terms of production. I mean, that's very European to try to be productive. Well, and American too. The state before the beginning of time means a non-productive state of mind. In which there's no goals.

[18:46]

There's nothing to achieve. There's no place to go, nothing to do. And it's necessary to practice in this space where there's nothing to achieve. Perhaps in the space of practical breathing, there's something to achieve. But in the space that surrounds the breath, there's nothing to achieve. So we practice both ways. But the hardest thing to learn is there's nothing to achieve. So that should be emphasized. And also, some of these teachings, you might realize it in a year, but it's much better if you just take it on without an idea of when you'll realize it.

[19:56]

It might take all lifetime. It might take one year. When you're sitting, waiting for the bell, you're not really sitting. If you want to live forever, don't wait for the bell. Okay. This poor wayfarer, he says, doesn't dwell in the realms of the body or mind when breathing in. And doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. I recite such a scripture hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls.

[20:58]

Okay, in the context of the Book of Serenity, we have the three koans here, as I've described them. And now we're into the divisions of the breath as teaching. We haven't yet got into the sutras themselves. The scriptures, they were originally on scrolls. But before there were scrolls, what was there? The breath. Where did the teaching arise from? The breath. So before there was Buddhas, before there were sutras, there were individuals breathing.

[22:04]

And some people studied the breath and the teachings arose. So this koan says, if you want to read the real sutras, go back to the breath. That's the source of the sutras. So this teacher of Bodhidharma is saying that. Okay. Got that? Is that enough? That's a little stop there. How do you study your breath? So he doesn't just say, I don't read the scriptures, I breathe in and out. Or he doesn't say, I don't read the scriptures, I just breathe. Nor is he sort of like a San Francisco hippie of the 60s.

[23:04]

I'm just alive, man. He doesn't just say he's alive, he said he's breathing. That's already something. And he says he's breathing in and out. That's already a teaching. He doesn't read the scriptures. He's alive and he's breathing in and out. And he's not just breathing in. He's not dwelling in the realms of body and mind. So if he really meant to not dwell in the realms of body and mind, he would have just said, hey, I'm alive, man.

[24:14]

Okay. If he really meant to not dwell in the realms of body and mind, He would have said, like, [...] I'm just alive. That was in the 60s. Everybody said, like, like, like, like. You never know what they meant. Okay. So this is a teaching about the realms of body and mind where you can dwell. So it's a teaching of the merging of the realms of body and mind. And through that merging, you don't live in the realms of body and mind.

[25:23]

So what he's saying is not that zero is it. He's saying that ABC equals zero is it. So he's not saying zero is it. He's not saying A, B and C is it. But he's saying A, B, C equals zero is it. Do you understand? So first you have to see A, B and C. In other words, So you said no, so you have undivided, divided, merging. So you don't have undivided, divided, unity. Yeah. Or you have unity, divided, merging. Mm-hmm. So in a koan like this, they're presenting the merging as the teaching, not the unity.

[26:44]

So the teaching is what you merge. So it says don't live in the units, but understand what units you merge where you don't live. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah, okay. Pardon me? Yes, and then put them back together. That's right. You can't live in unity. You can live in A, B and C. But that's not full realization.

[27:56]

Full realization is to live in ABC, move out of ABC into A, B, and C merged into a kind of unity. You can't live in unity, but you can live in A, B and C. But that's not a real realization. You only achieve it when A and B and C are brought together again into a unity. You mean the possibility to see... Please? ...as a kind of unity. We need a possibility to see each one of them separately, and even though to be able to live it as one. Yes. Well, okay. I think when I sit, when I try to concentrate on my breathing, I notice as much as I try it's becoming difficult.

[28:58]

What do you say, Angela? When I sit and I try to concentrate on my breathing, for example, there was a certain exercise in the last seminar, so that you breathe in from below, so that I come out like this. When I sit there and try to do it exactly like that, when I give myself a lot of effort, It works everywhere. I take an eagle and it starts to wander. And instead of coming straight out, it goes like this and like that. And... If I don't give myself time, sometimes I notice that I'm doing exactly that, but I haven't noticed that I'm actually doing it. And then it works. But if I really sit there and give myself so much time, it becomes so real. This is also a kind of... If you laugh at it, you think about it, you try it, that's also different.

[30:12]

Is your question whether he means this kind of division? Whether that can also be a kind of division. You gave an exercise in the last seminar to breathe in from your hara or your stomach and I've tried that but it led to a real struggle and I felt my breath started wandering then when I tried to do this but if I don't make an effort then I can sometimes just notice that this is what is happening. So I have this kind of struggle now. My question is, is this kind of trying to do a certain breathing practice, like this breathing in from your hara, is that a kind of division? Is that what you mean, dividing something up? Yeah, you're dividing and labeling and so forth. You're saying, I'm going to do this kind of breathing and not some other kind of breathing. But any effort in practice should be a pulse of effort and relaxation.

[31:16]

You don't continuously make an effort. That's very egocentric. Because your breath itself is making its own effort. So sometimes you make an effort and sometimes you don't make any effort and you let your breath itself make its own effort. And also you just relax and let whatever happens happen. As again, the basic practice of Zen is uncorrected mind. And you occasionally make corrections, move the furniture around, but mostly you just live in the space around the house. And if the furniture gets dusty, it's all right. The housekeeper is ego.

[32:28]

Okay. The house is self. Okay. Julia has a question. Yeah, yeah. I have a problem with that uncorrected mind and waiting for the bell, because if I don't correct it and I notice I'm waiting for the bell. It's a problem. But when you say, then I'm not sitting. That's even another problem. So uncorrected mind would be to label that as a problem.

[33:31]

Oh, there's a problem. I'm waiting for the bell. Now, oh, I've corrected myself now. But you have to do something. So sometimes the best thing is just to label it and forget about it. Mm-hmm. But as I often say, uncorrected mind is the most subtle negotiation you will ever engage in. Sitting down is a correction, so already. But that's why we emphasize in Zen practice posture so much. Because if you get your posture quite right and you sit down and you're able to sit still for a certain length of time, then pretty much you can leave yourself alone. Okay. So, So why I'm going into this sort of detail about how teaching is put together is I'm trying to teach you how to teach yourself.

[35:01]

So you're not dependent on koans and sutras and so forth. And this koan is specifically trying to free you from koans. By saying, I don't read the scriptures. I just breathe in and breathe out. Because even if you read this koan very carefully and it stays present in your background mind for some time, At best, it can only be a tiny percentage of the millions and billions of moments of the next few months. So in those moments, you're teaching yourself. The majority of your existence is you have to teach yourself.

[36:11]

Okay, so the koan raises the question of what are the realms of the body or mind that you don't dwell in? Now, you could, if you're not very sophisticated or not very complex, you could say, well, if I'm not going to dwell in them, I don't want to know about them. But you'd only say that if you were a hippie. Or at least a San Francisco hippie of the 60s. Or if you didn't understand this sense of undivided, divided merging. So this koan is clearly pointing out that where you dwell is in the merging But what you merge is important.

[37:25]

Now it's going to tell you what you merge. And so turn to page, well, in my book, 13. The commentary under the verse says, The pages are there, page 13. In the German, it's page 2. So, we'll read this from the beginning, but I only want to deal with the second paragraph. It says that the realms of body and mind fall into three groups. We've been, with those of you who I've practiced with a lot, we've talked about these groups. Okay.

[38:44]

So the first group, according to the analysis of the canonical teachings, are the five clusters or the five skandhas. Yeah. The next is the twelve sense media. Yeah. Or we can talk about the vijnanas there. And the 18 elements, which is a way of putting these things together. And these are called the three groups. So these three groups are what he means is he... This poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in these three groups when breathing in. These three groups are a particular way to divide up consciousness that joins body and mind.

[39:49]

So we usually divide body and mind. These three groups divide our consciousness in such a way that the division brings body and mind together. So this is a division that creates a unity of body and mind. It's all done with mirrors, I would say. Are you with me? Beate. So the five, well, the five skandhas, which many of you know. Form, feeling, perceptions, impulses, consciousness, as they're listed here. Conditioning, it's called. Form is the body, in the simplest sense. Consciousness is mind, and it brings them together in one unit, experiential unit.

[41:10]

Okay. Now the paragraph I really want to look at is the next one. The Sanskrit word anapana is translated as breathing out and breathing in. Now these are the teachings of breathing out and breathing in. There are six methods involved with this. Counting, following, stopping, contemplating, returning, purification. The details are blah, blah, blah. Okay. Now, I must say, forgive me for saying so, but I'm in kind of awe of this teaching.

[42:23]

It is so simple. And anyone can do it. And it leads you to as profound and complete a life as you can possibly have. So you've already seen the power of or the effect of just labeling breathing in and breathing out. Or noticing that each breath is the first breath. Or seeing a breath as a unit. So now we can take this breathing that we always do pretty much unconsciously. Or I should say non-consciously. So the breathing which is the very roots and essence of consciousness for most of us is non-conscious.

[43:31]

So when you bring your attention to your breathing, you're bringing your attention to the very roots of the mind that notices the breathing. Now, this breathing can be further divided up or further noticed, not just as first breath, but you can count your breath. You can follow your breath and so forth. And each one of these has a very thorough and powerful effect on your life. Who would have thought that breathing itself could be such a teaching? That there could be so much complexity?

[44:36]

It's not intellectual, it's just simply noticing. noticing with greater refinement, or noticing in a simple way first, and that simple way, if you do it, it leads to a more refined consciousness. And that more refined consciousness can notice in a more subtle way. And that more subtle noticing leads to a more subtle consciousness which can notice in an even more subtle way. So in a way you can say it's quite natural. It follows a certain course. But you have to know where to start and how to start very simply. Aber ihr müsst wissen, wo man anfangen muss, also auf einfache Weise.

[45:51]

And not get too intellectually ahead of yourself. Und nicht einfach intellektuell sich sozusagen vorausgehen. Just see the simplicity, power of, say, labeling instead of naming. Sondern einfach die Einfachheit und auch die Kraft dieses feinen Unterschieds zu sehen zwischen benennen und etikettieren. And if you can notice in... ...need you. Now, what I just said is in the middle of that paragraph. Guishan's admonitions. If you have not yet embraced the principles of the teachings, Wenn du jetzt die Prinzipien der Lehren noch nicht umarmt hast, fehlt euch die Grundlage dafür, ein Verständnis des mystischen Pfades zu erlangen.

[46:55]

In this case, the mystic path means the realization of enlightenment, but also the realization of the bliss body, the Sambhogakaya body. Und hier bedeutet mystischer Pfad auch die Verwirklichung von Erleuchtung, aber auch die Verwirklichung des Sambhogakaya. Sambhogakaya. He was actually a singer in the 60s. Duva, duva, sambhogakaya. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to give you this weekend the basis to realize this mystic path. And I'm not just showing you the six methods of breathing, which I'll try to do. That are pointed out in this koan. But I'm also trying to show you the principles of the teaching. Undivided. Differentiated, merging.

[48:12]

And it says a priceless jewel is hidden within the pit of the clusters of being. So the clusters, once you begin to see the clusters of being, oh, I'm not just alive, I'm not just, I'm alive, man, but you see the clusters of being. You see what being is. And deep within the clusters of being, there's a priceless jewel. It's true. Hmm? This jewel is sometimes shown in Chinese and Japanese paintings as a great dragon coming up out of the sea or the sky with a jewel in its mouth. And sometimes as a Buddha figure just holding a jewel in its hand.

[49:17]

And this jewel is also within your clusters of being. And you will find a spiritual light shining alone, far transcending the senses. So here we have the nub of the koan. The senses, the clusters of being, breathing, and something far beyond the senses. But that is still realized as inseparable from the senses. And is realized through the senses. Not some special magical thing or some pill or something. Just the senses you have, each of you right now. The senses that will go have a feast if the Raja invites you.

[50:33]

And I think there's a restaurant down the street called the Raja. And there's an Italian one called Raja Rony. And there's an Italian one called Raja Rony. So it's 12.45. I think it's time to have lunch. So two hours is good enough? More, less? What? Three is less? But I think people, you should take, in this beautiful day, after lunch, you should take a nice little walk in this lovely breath of Munster. Is that good? 2.45 we'll come back? So quarter to three. Thank you very much. No, I think probably since this is a seminar on breath, the bridge of body and mind, we better find out how to create this bridge.

[52:31]

So I've been talking about basics. But I've been talking about the basics of basics. So now we'll get away from the basics of basics and talk about just the basics. Can you translate that? I guess. So we would start with counting. Like kids. But before we do kinder counting, does anyone have something you'd like to bring up or bring into the discussion? Yeah. Well, the question to the basics of basics, is there something else except body and mind, or is that everything there is?

[54:02]

What else would you like there to be? I was brought up in a Christian tradition, and we have this term soul. Yeah. Is soul a thing or an experience? For me, it's an experience. Then for Buddhism, it's an experience, too. For me, it's an experience. How is the relationship between the three then, soul, body and mind? Well, if the breath is the bridge between body and mind, where does the soul come in? Is you experience soul separate from body and mind?

[55:07]

For me, soul deals with observing the breath, for example. Who's observing the breath? I prefer not to answer this question, because when I say I, then your next question is, who is this I? Well, I actually preferred not to ask the question, too. Ich hätte es auch vorgezogen, diese Frage nicht zu stellen. Ich hätte es auch vorgezogen, diese Frage nicht zu stellen. I didn't say that.

[56:23]

Well, the view of Buddhism would be that soul is an experience within the sense fields and within body and mind. If you can experience it, it has to be within the realms of body and mind. So just as we can divide up the five clusters in 12 or 18 datu, we can make these kind of divisions. We could make divisions of soul, psyche, spirit, and so forth, unconscious, non-conscious. This is just another way of dividing the same territory. And I would say soul is an experience of the solidity and fluidity element Joined with the sense, with the non-graspable feeling and the sense field that arises from hearing.

[58:16]

And the ingredients within the clusters which goes together to make the experience of spirit is a different configuration. And I really don't know what I'm talking about. But... Hmm... I think in the West, as many of you have heard me say, we have to take into consideration the way the West divides up consciousness and awareness.

[59:19]

How the West divides up consciousness and awareness. And we can practice with those distinctions as well as the distinctions that Buddhism gives us. But one major difference would be that Buddhism in no way would consider any entity as soul anything but temporary. That is neither permanent nor inherent. Now, this would be somewhat different than the territory that Hinduism, which is very like Buddhism, but still has the idea of a deity. Someone else over here.

[60:27]

I would like to share some of my experience with believing. I often have the image that I create space without me. And this space is dependent upon... Yeah, I will. I think it's best to leave her alone. This space is dependent from the way I breathe. Yeah. So, something like the experience that I, a certain way when I breathe and create this space, I can put my children to bed and to sleep in this space. So I can bring the... I mean, you can use the space you create to put them to sleep.

[61:29]

Yeah. I mean, you can see that you have influence on yourself and to other persons that special tips can come up. And so I tried more and more to control my breathing. I think sometimes for the ego to reach certain points. And so this was very clear for me. I would like to tell an example about you when we were at Ulrike's house and looked to this video of Michael Jackson. I wasn't there. I mean, um, one thing is the power of Michael Jackson. You know, I would like this.

[62:31]

But the video started with pictures of very, very ill children in Romania, and really with horrible pictures, and with the sorrow of this world. I was astonished about these pictures and I felt, I started crying. And there were some other people and I had the feeling, and then my control stopped. Oh no, don't cry. It's embarrassing. It's so weak and stubborn. And so I started to control my breathing and to to put the tears away. And it was quite a fight, and I get very nervous with it. And Richard was sitting one meter away, and I looked at him, and suddenly I saw that he was sitting totally relaxed, subnormal breathing, and his hands were on his cheek.

[64:00]

And I was very touched by it, because you can... you can stay in a normal breathing and have all kinds of feelings, a feeling like grief and happiness and all. And so I said, I really felt It's not the way to control your breath and to put away tears, but it can happen at the same time that you are crying, and yet that you can breathe totally normal. And I was very touched by it. And there was created a realm for me that I could be. Do you want to say that in Deutsch? Nobody wants it in German? OK. Well, that you can use this practice in the service of ego is undoubtedly true.

[65:30]

You can also use it in the service of being a successful business person or being a good samurai. But you have to be very motivated to do that. Because if you're not consumed by making money or something, or by the kind of danger a samurai lives in, These practices will tend to deepen past ego. They can be used in the service of ego, though. Martin, you're shaking your head. Just a translation, I'm not sure.

[66:44]

Yeah, go ahead. I didn't understand past ego. It's translated ego which is past. No. You can go beyond ego, yeah. You mean a past ego in the sense... It can go like two cars past each other. Go past ego. It can be beyond ego, thank you. Yeah, okay. Since you brought up the Michael Jackson thing, I might say a moment something about it, because it was quite interesting to watch. And Ulrike brought it to my attention. And what city was it in? And Michael Jackson was already exciting enough in America in about 1983.

[67:47]

And we were in America quite used to, of course, rock and roll music and so forth. In Bucharest, they're not used to rock and roll at the time this game happened. And when a singer is a good singer, they hold you enraptured in their breath. And a good singer will make you breathe with them. And Michael Jackson plays an edge between secondary processes of harm, violence, etc., and another process of helping people and so forth. And by playing that edge with large audiences, he gets people in a very vulnerable place.

[69:12]

So in the midst of smoke and steam and all kinds of stuff, he suddenly appears standing completely still. And everyone's waiting for him to sing, so everyone's breath is abated or is held. And he stands completely still. I mean, for how long was it? five minutes, four minutes, a long time. And everything's going on and people are getting more and more anxious while he's just standing, sort of like that, you know. And suddenly he just turns a hand over. Hundreds of thousands of people start screaming. It's actually quite amazing to see.

[70:38]

Then he kind of turns his head. And he's got total command of everyone. And he's using basically, that he's learned as a child, breath techniques. And he's using a kind of shamanism. In which he can get people totally involved in a tiny gesture and move. Move people's minds with it. I was very touched watching it, actually. This whole mechanism, a kind of mechanism of the creation of somebody like Michael Jackson and all the electronic equipment and all the people, it's quite amazing, I think. It's both good and bad. But I'd rather see Michael Jackson doing it than political leaders. Someone, yeah, what?

[71:49]

Yeah. Yes. I wanted to ask about one point of this. Mm-hmm. You know, I have two points here. Did you say it in German too? OK. So I should talk about in relation to this the basic practice of counting your breaths.

[73:12]

Now, Ulrike and David and I drove up together yesterday from Heidelberg. And they asked me some searching questions about my use of the term interior and exterior consciousness. And I don't think this is the kind of question that's pretty hard to talk about or distinction without a lot of mutual consent or practice, shared practice.

[74:15]

So I will use tentatively these terms interior and exterior consciousness. Or maybe I can try to speak about it in a little different way. Okay. You have a consciousness which you share with others. I can look at Ulrike and you can look at Ulrike. Now, this kind of consciousness is, I call exterior or shared consciousness. Now, when you are in zazen mind, when you're concentrating or practicing zazen, I may see Ulrike or David or Herman or something as an image, like a dream image inside myself.

[75:35]

In my so-called mind's eye. Now, this cannot be shared in the same way as we both can look at Ulrike or Hermann or whatever. Is that an obvious distinction and clear, right? Now, if I have in my mind a certain image, although I can't share it directly with you, proprioceptively it is shared with you. But it's shared in a different way. And it's shared at the level of non-conceptual You may, in other words, you may feel the image I have, but probably you don't see the same image, though you might, but you feel something, so we can say it's non-conceptual sharing.

[77:00]

Does that make sense to you? Yeah. Is that what the audience, for example, feels when they go to that Michael Jackson concert? Because he creates something and they all share the same thing. Yeah, Michael Jackson is moving in a kind of fluid which is non-conceptual. And he knows how to generate, probably because he's grown up on stage, He knows how to generate non-conceptual fields. And a good actor does too. Okay. Now, I am using words the best I can. I'm not, you know, these aren't... If you try to analyze these words, maybe later you can say, well, should you really call this non-conceptual?

[78:14]

Well, right now that's what I'm calling it, okay, because I have to do the best I can. Okay. So from one point of view, the consciousness with which I look at Ulrike is no different than the consciousness with which I see Ulrike in my mind's eye. but shared consciousness, which is primarily shared in the in the visual field.

[79:18]

And I don't know about German, but if you study English, almost all English words go back to visual images at their roots. So language, for the most part, is locked in the eye vijnana, in the eye field. Und so ist eben zum Großteil die Sprache eingeschlossen in dieses visuelle Feld. Okay. So our usual consciousness in which we think and talk about... Und dieses gewöhnliche Bewusstsein, mit dem wir jetzt denken und so weiter... ...is primarily conceptual... ...ist also hauptsächlich konzeptuell... ...and primarily visual.

[80:22]

...und visuell. Mm-hmm. And so it's limited by these dimensions. And it's limited and shareable. Because it's limited, you can share it. Okay. Now, that's where most of us live. Now, we also live, most of us, primarily in borrowed consciousness. We live in the realm of highly intermixed with what other people told us and what we've read and so forth. It doesn't mean we're not sometimes in primary consciousness or secondary consciousness. But the boss is borrowed consciousness. If there's any conflict or something, you switch to borrowed consciousness where the pilot or the captain is the ego.

[81:25]

Does that make sense? Okay. All right. So as soon as you count your breaths, you are moving your ego consciousness into an unshared consciousness. or unshared in the usual way of language, concepts, and visual images. And I call that usually unshared and sometimes unshareable consciousness interior.

[82:26]

Interior and exterior are kind of false distinctions, but you understand why I'm using them. Okay, so you're projecting ego, which functions very well in shared exterior consciousness, And is more or less in control. And you project it into interior consciousness or this less able to be shared consciousness. And you find you can't count to ten. Because the medium of this interior unshared consciousness isn't easy to count to ten in, because it's a kind of unformed flow of junk.

[83:41]

So when you try to count, in effect, you're educating interior consciousness. And that's the first step toward developing one-pointedness. Was that too much or is that okay? It's very simple, but I'm dividing something very familiar up. It's very simple, but elusive. Yes. Any form of concentration has the same function of developing one-pointedness. So a mantra has the same function and every form of concentration has this task to develop the one-pointedness. What does it mean if I can count to ten without any problems?

[84:55]

Am I further away from being in this room or already in the middle? Why does it mean, then, if I have no problems counting to ten, does it mean I'm really far away of this stage or am I quite good at what you just described? It could mean either. In other words, if you... I mean, if you can count very easily, you may be just forcing exterior consciousness on your interior consciousness. Or if you can count and still go out of ordinary consciousness into zazen mind and still count, then it means to some degree you developed the ability to be one-pointed. And if you can get out of the external consciousness at the same time and count to ten in your sasin, then it means that you have developed this one-pointedness to a certain extent.

[85:58]

Maybe we should tell people it was so funny at the last seminar. Oh, about counting. About counting to ten. Yeah. Go ahead. It was very funny. At the last weekend, Roshi explained that as a meditation instruction, when you breathe out, you count to ten. And while sitting, you always have this... And we looked out at all these people and they were going, It's lucky you didn't tell them 100. We might have had some problems.

[87:19]

It's good that we didn't say 100. Then there would have been a few accidents. Now implicit in Julio's question, is if you're practicing uncorrected mind, how do you count your breaths? Well, first of all, if you want to count your breath, you do. If you don't want to count your breath, you don't.

[88:20]

If you... Find yourself counting your breaths without wanting to, you continue. If you find yourself not counting your breaths when you want to, you continue. Okay, that's one level of uncorrected mind, which is quite important. And I would say that I spent the first five years of my practice making no effort. And you can see the result. Nearly 60 years old and still, you know, acting like a kid.

[89:29]

Man. Basically. You know, sometimes I try to count my breaths and sometimes I'd, you know, but basically I decided really to practice uncorrected mind and just to trust in practice and do it. And I actually saw results in my daily life. I didn't see many results in Zazen. So to the extent that I needed candy, I got a little. But I certainly went past the boredom barrier. I didn't care, you know, just that. Hmm. Okay.

[90:54]

But I wouldn't necessarily recommend that for all of you. Some of you, it's, you know, it's all right. But what happens is, there's the first stage I just mentioned. You know, when you do, you do. When you don't, you don't. Mm-hmm. But then you begin to find that you're not doing it. Your body, your states of mind, your breath, parts of your body begin doing it. When you really release gaining ideas, Practice begins to practice practice. Like writers say sometimes, writing writes writing. You start writing and the process of writing starts writing you. Now also, strangely enough, there's a certain direction to being.

[92:14]

In the sense that, as I've put it recently, the movement of water is based on its desire to be still. If water didn't have a tendency to return to stillness, there'd be no movement and water would all just disperse. So water has a direction towards stillness. You can stir it up, but if you leave it alone, it becomes still. And consciousness has a direction towards stillness.

[93:12]

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