Most of the pain in zazen, once you have some skill at sitting, comes from parts of our body that are not at ease. I've often said, you know, you have your left shoulders rented out to your father. And maybe your right shoulder is leased to your mother. And various parts of your body are are occupied by teachers and experiences and so forth. And you want to give some eviction notices. An eviction notice is when you throw somebody out of the apartment. You can Let them come back as guests, but not as tenants.

[01:17]

It reminds me, I said to my daughter Sally... 38. Yeah. That's getting old. She says she's getting old. Thirty-eight. Mamma mia. Anyway, she's a nice person. When she was really little, I told her to do something. She didn't want to do it. And Virginia, her mother, was there too, and she told her to do it. And Virginia, ihre Mutter, sagte ihr auch, es zu tun. Sie wollte es nicht tun. Wir sagten, wir haben dich produziert. Du gehörst zu uns. Es ist jetzt zu spät, ich gehöre mir. When you sit zazen, you want to say, oh, okay.

[02:27]

It's about time I belong to me. But who is that me? It's about time I belong to me. But who is that me? And to notice that there's some dis-ease, some lack of ease down at our core. And you can form an intention. And these kind of intentions are expressions of our inner request. If it's possible, I'll come into some ease and relaxation. And I'll discover how to trust the stuff. And that's part of the practice of acceptance.

[03:49]

So when you sit each day, you can notice that maybe this part of your back is tight usually or something like that. So you can say, okay, relax. And it won't relax what you say. Come on, I'm patient. I'm going to... wait longer than you. They have physical tricks in the monastery that you couldn't do at the office. For the young monks, they make the sleeves of the robes so long you can't put your arms down. So you always have to have your arms this way. Sometimes I would walk around with my arms this way.

[04:50]

Because my back would hurt so much. And Sukhya would come by and look at me. He told me to walk around this way. Because you can't walk this way. You have to walk some way. You can't walk this way. But it's a trick. Because if you walk this way, there's nothing wrong with this posture. Yeah. You can do it all day, unless you have tension in your back. And at first, when you walk this way, your back starts hurting like... And your back's going to win or your arms are going to win.

[05:54]

And since you're there, you can't put your... You can't dust the floor with your sleeves. Eventually your back literally just softens up. It's a yogic trick. Can I tell you another funny story? Can I tell you another funny story? One of these people, and there's near-death experiences, out-of-body near-death experiences. noticed all these things. That the nurse had two mismatched shoelaces. And a whole bunch of things that are too far out for me to tell you. Or it would change the seminar quite a bit.

[07:13]

One is, this person came back and said to the doctor, why were you walking around the operation room like a chicken? And the doctor said, I wasn't walking around like a chicken. What do you mean? And the patient who was out the whole time during the operation said, yes, you're walking around like this, you know. And the doctor was rather embarrassed and the nurse said, yes, he just sterilized his hands. And he was embarrassed because I guess he was supposed to be doing the operation and he wasn't, he had a student doing the operation. But he had to direct the student, he saw, but he didn't want to get his hand, so he was saying, do that, do this now. But he had to direct the student, he saw, but he didn't want to get his hand, so he was saying, do that, do this now.

[08:19]

So, Anyway, that's a long way to say, to take a simple thing like trust and being at ease and relaxed, and find yourself working with it in each period. This is a long story, a short meaning. This is the ability to have balance and peace And I started to say this morning that when you really begin to have this dialogue between ideal posture and your posture, at least for me, I find every sitting slightly different. In all these years, I find my postures slightly different.

[09:35]

I slightly find a different experience and a different sequence during the 40 or 50 minutes. Okay. So I want to put something on the flip chart here. But before I do that, does someone else want to bring something up? So I'm trying to, uh, maybe go to the kitchen again. It's our Valentine's. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. We started in the last years, but it's not a tradition.

[10:36]

It's not a serious tradition in America, but people do. In America it's not very strong, but people do. People see this? No, yes. You can see it well like this. Okay, so the five fundamentals of Zen practice. Made a mistake. Ah, a big mistake.

[11:47]

Tomorrow it might be better to put it over there because I'd know when I can move this. Okay, that's pretty simple. That's pretty simple. But I think if you understand what I mean by that, I would say you have virtually everything you need to know for accomplished Zen practice. And I'd like to make... And I want to go... We have the opportunity here. If I give an hour lecture, I have to... cover quite a lot in a short time. And that's easier in some ways because we can go along on a certain level.

[13:40]

But we have a chance in a situation like this, to go more slowly and to practice more each day. And a kind of slowness and thoroughness again is secretive practice. And not to go anywhere, a willingness just to come into some simple solutions of things in your life. Now I divide these up into everyday practice and adept practice.

[14:46]

And that they flow into each other. One leads to the other. So just to take the first, I would say that there's karma, let's call it karma practice. and Dharma practice. And they flow into each other. But they are different. So here we would have sort of well-being perhaps. And here we have non-being. And in breath we have... Let's call it the mind-body field.

[16:07]

And here we have... transformation of continuity. So that's enough for now to illustrate this. Maybe here for mindfulness I could put general mindfulness, precise and merging. I wish I was easier.

[17:09]

I have some ability of language. You can all learn German. You can learn Zen. Okay. So in zazen, one of the things that happens when you're working with being more at ease and trusting yourself, you're working with your karma, basically. and I think in the West I always emphasize for at least two years it's a good period of time in which you let your

[18:23]

your many associations come up. And you know I call that the chicken soup, chicken stock, beef stock practice. And you know I call that the chicken soup, chicken stock, beef stock practice. Do you all know what I mean? Is that right? You said it in a difficult way, it sounds like. No? Beef stock and chicken stock. So do you understand what I mean by that? Some of you don't. Okay. So ordinary mind, let's call beef stock. And... Rinderbrühe. Rinderbrühe. Yeah, that sounds good. Beast talk. Even I understand that. Rinderbrühe. Can't say it, but anyway...

[19:42]

And your zazen mind is chicken stock. And as I say, you're either going to cook your karma or get cooked by it. Yeah. So when you're sitting and you begin to develop this fourth mind, which isn't waking, dreaming or non-dreaming deep sleep, you can think of it as a different kind of soup stock. And if you think of something in zazen, it's different from thinking of it in ordinary mind. And a lot more begins to come up that you wouldn't normally remember. So, that's karma practice to let all this stuff come up into your sasen mind and as I said in Luzern in the lecture that you organized I believe I spoke about the bedrock why we get up early in the morning

[21:21]

One of the reasons we get up early in the morning is because we get up because we get up and the sun gets up because the sun gets up. That's the same kind of thinking as let your shoulder do its own zazen. And we get up early also, so our sleeping, dreaming mind begins to weave itself into our zazen mind. So you're at that transition of sleeping and waking, and zazen mind, so you get these three minds working and zazen begins to clarify the two. And eventually zazen mind gets less and less chicken in it and becomes more emptiness stock. And so that's, I would say, karma practice.

[22:52]

And it gives you a sense of well-being. That's important. Yeah. And we do this posture for many reasons. It's good for your health. Physical health. And it allows us some kind of insight into observe what's going on with us. Sometimes it's too much for us and we get flooded so we should sit maybe smaller amounts then and develop our strength. But this posture is also designed to So you can sit immobile.

[24:05]

I would say this is a wisdom posture. It's a posture that allows you to sit up into the minds of dreaming and sleeping. non-dreaming deep sleep. And discover another mind. And at first it's like maybe you're sitting up in a lot of muddy water. You know how you have a glass full of muddy water and you put it on the table in the morning and all the mud settles. So you move more to a Dharma practice You begin to feel a clarity appearing instead of looking out over the muddy water.

[25:12]

It gets stirred up and then it's muddy again the next day. But every now and then it gets clearer or you see the mud instead of the water, or you see the water instead of the mud, or you see both separately. It says in this thing from the sutra, knowing your own mind like a vessel of clear water. And you can actually practice with this. Okay, so just imagine right now when you're looking around that there's very clear water in this room. And you can see everything very clearly through the clear water.

[26:14]

Like some days after a big rainstorm, it's very clear and you can see the mountains very precisely. So imagine right now that the room is full of very bright, clear water. Like when you look down into a lake. So when you see that clear water, you're seeing your mind. And more and more the experience of zazen gives you this feeling of your mind is this clear water. So as your karma practice proceeds in zazen,

[27:15]

You find yourself more at ease and trusting your self. And more and more unable to be disturbed by thoughts and feelings that come up. At first there's a big fear for many people, and it wasn't me, of going crazy. But I wondered, where will I go to if I go crazy? I'll still be here. And eventually you feel so stable in your sitting. And your breath now is in your backbone. And you feel so solid, nothing can harm you.

[28:26]

When you come into that kind of strength in your posture, then you're in this more dharma practice, not karma practice. You do still work with your karma. But primarily now you're working through dharma teachings. Now here a wisdom teaching comes in. Okay. I'm supposed to stop at six, right?

[29:26]

Okay. A wisdom teaching comes in. I think the most basic is the five skandhas. I think an insight into the five skandhas, you haven't got the five skandhas yet, is to look at the three minds of daily consciousness. I can teach any of these things or bring these up again if you want, but I've talked about them enough, so unless you ask me, I won't do it. Okay, so let's look a little at the five skandhas. So you're sitting in your chicken stock. It's getting thinner and tastier. And yet there's still all this mud and associations and things. And there's all these associations that are coming up.

[30:37]

And you can begin to see a flow of associations. And then you hear something from outside. And that hearing something that perception stirs up the associations. Yeah. And then, And then you have some kind of feeling. You started out the day with a little mad or a little fearful or something. And you can see how that mood also changes the associations. Okay. This is what you notice, but... If you have the teachings of the five skandhas, you see that you're actually working with three skandhas.

[31:42]

Associative thinking. perception, and feeling, non-graspable feeling. And as you come out of zazen, you can feel your ordinary consciousness form. And you can begin to have the feeling of the fourth skandha. And you can begin to see where you locate yourself. Japanese people generally locate themselves as a culture in the feeling skandha. And we tend to locate ourselves in the perception skanda.

[32:48]

In other words, we're in consciousness, but we trust and believe in perception. It's real because we perceive it. But the Japanese more, they don't trust perception so much, they trust their feeling. If you said to, in Japan, that bell is not there. That's not a problem for the Japanese because they're not interested in perceptions particularly. They're feeling why you said the bell wasn't there. So to say the bell's not there is just a contrapuntal way of speaking. Contrapuntal, it's a musical term.

[33:53]

It's like Bob Dylan's song where he says, I think about... I seldom think about you most of the time. To say I seldom think about you is like saying the bell's not there. And then he says, most of the time. Yeah, okay. Okay, okay.

[35:00]

What shall I end with? I wish we had more time. Nanchuan was asked by Zhaozhou, What is the way? Nanchuan said, Not mind, not Buddha, not things. And... Dogen has a little poem that makes me think of a poem of Dogen's. This mind is Buddha. This is easy to understand. Difficult to practice. No mind, no Buddha. This is hard to understand, but easy to practice.

[36:07]

So I'll come back to that tomorrow. Not mind, not Buddha, no bell on the table. And we should also speak about these wisdom teachings and wisdom phrases. And what I mean by these three kinds of mindfulness. It's kind of obvious maybe, but we should speak about it. So this, let's maybe sit for a few minutes.

[37:16]

The Chinese have a phrase to not alienate yourself from wholeness. From the flow of being. from the handshake of Sandokai, of many things and yet sameness, and yet some, in the midst of that, some friendliness or handshake. And in all this, still, friendliness and a handshake. was each person with phenomena with our own mind. And the practice of

[39:36]

The practice of acceptance and completion. Acceptance and relaxation. Acceptance and stabilization. Acceptance and openness. And transformation. Feeling yourself in this. in this dialogue of many of us here and yet experience of sameness or oneness. This practice opens us up to this all-at-oneness. And this practice opens us up to wholeness.

[41:06]

The possibility of wholeness in each situation. So this is what Sido meant again. Buddhism is intimately communicated. Intimate comes from both innermost and in-betweenness. in-betweens, dazwischenseint.

[42:11]

Thank you. Thank you for translating. You're welcome. Excuse me for changing the venue. Venue is a kind of current fashionable word for saying change the place. Es tut mir leid, dass ich die Lokalität verändert habe.

[44:24]

But I felt if we were not so many, this smaller room might be better. And it also will make a difference between this weekend when we'll have to be in the bigger room. And what made me think of it partly is this scroll was hanging over there and really shouldn't hang in a dining room. It's more of an altar piece like the Buddha. Probably should be. put away actually when it's not being used this way it's the kanji for character for mu uh written by a i think still

[45:30]

still alive probably, pretty famous Korean calligrapher. And it's sort of moving toward utter darkness. And it's interesting because, you know, in most spiritual traditions, a lot of them anyway, and spiritualist traditions. Spiritualism is a practice of table moving and all that. So funny, it was a spiritualism that I've been... Of course, I went to this meeting, so I've been thinking about it. Spiritualism was a huge movement that swept... for about 50 years swept England and America and I think Europe too.

[46:53]

And the use of mediums to communicate with the Other side. The other side, because somehow... The other side which is somehow here. It's exciting. But it's, you know, in near-death and out-of-body experiences, there's a direct communication with But in the spiritualist tradition, somehow these folks on the other side communicate through tables.

[48:02]

It's a very strange movement and how popular it was in the turn of the century in America and Europe. But that's true in Zen too, but it's actually considered deeper as utter darkness. Not even light. And this is an experience too. You can't even see the other side. It's too dark. But for some reason these spiritualists all want to do it in dark, you know. They don't want any light in the room.

[49:14]

Anyway, enough of that fun. Thank you for translating all this stuff. You're welcome. So I think we've snuck up on something. Snuck up on the subject of this seminar. It's not so easy to identify the subject of a seminar. Yeah, and we have to work together to identify the subject.

[50:33]

And I would say the subject at present is the relationship between causation and realization. The difference, the parallel relationship And the causal relationship between causation and realization. And we can't get to this place easily. I mean, my experience is, particularly if we're talking about something new, we have to flub around a bit. Like when you are on the telephone and you don't know somebody, you... You say various things until you get a feeling for their voice and then you can start talking.

[51:38]

So we together have to get a feeling for our inner voice, listening to our inner voices. And each group, you know, old practitioners, new are coming, it's always different. And sometimes it's not possible. But at this time, I think we've gotten somewhere. We've kind of snuck up on the subject. You know, we've come up with some... new terms.

[52:42]

There are new words, but used as terms. Yeah. Like past cause and present cause. Or a new way to define intimacy. Yeah, and some new, some ways I'd like to speak about enlightenment today. And a phrase I've never used before, to weave mind and phenomena together. So somehow by flubbing around, do you understand flubbing around?

[53:45]

I was able to say, to weave... mind and phenomena together. So somehow I think we've come into a common practice reality. And this is a joy for me. Because I can feel it. I think it feels okay. And this is something, you know, it's, to me anyway, precious when this can happen.

[54:51]

And it's really the difference between ordinary life and... And coming into a practice life. With oneself and with others. Where there's a heightened awareness. So maybe what we can do this weekend is share the fruits of this week without going into the research. So these folks who come in, you know, these lazy folks who come in for the weekend, these, yeah, Just lazy.

[56:04]

It's the only person I know who wouldn't know the word lazy. I had a feeling. So they're coming for a quick fix. So we can give them maybe the fruits of our research. They don't have time for this creative flubbing around. They think they came for the goodies. But we know the research is the real part. Because our practice will develop if we know how ourselves to do the research.

[57:08]

No, I mean, so I don't just give you another taste show right now. Overflowing from this morning. Overflowing? I see. So, please, what would you like to bring up? Maybe I start. Please. I don't want it all to depend on me. What stood on my mind from this morning is the moment where you were talking about the present moment is conditioned by the past and is conditioning the past. Yes, that's right. And... that for me was, for my mind it was, or for my thinking, it was like it started to think, well, how does he mean it?

[58:39]

Is it like I reframe my remembrance or I, yeah, sure, I can do this, I do this in therapy too. But on the other hand there was a bodily feeling of this is totally true and Yeah, that was quite intense, this feeling of... And it's like, because we were talking in our group about the body experienced in practice, and I realized that for me it's... The reason because I stay with the practice is because I have my body who is telling me, that's right. Also my mind is more saying, what is he talking about? And this moment was a moment where it was very clear that in my body I had a feeling of quietness and, yeah, relaxation and say, yeah, that was word, like it was language, but it had a body, yeah, the body reacted on it.

[59:50]

Yeah, yeah. And when we were talking in our group about the body experience that's always with this practice, this came up to my mind, and we all agreed that especially this practice is really always body practice. And for some of us it's like this, it's like an anchor where we can see we are on the right way because our body has answers. Also the mind is sometimes not so convinced. And the other thing was that we were talking about language or thinking or mind and body and the relationship and that there is really no distinction. And also thinking can be something very lustful. Joyful. Joyful, yeah.

[60:51]

Not lustful. It couldn't be lustful. Even President Carter admitted to that. Yeah, thinking can be joyful and that is a body experience. So there's a barrier of... Either you don't have to think or you only have to feel. It's not there. And for me, I'm not very clear about it, but I am fascinated about it, that words are in my body and that also when you speak, you can speak out of the body or out of your still thinking. So that's important. Okay, please speak in German. What I was concerned about this morning was the moment when Hoshi talked about the fact that the present moment is conditioned or determined by the past.

[61:55]

But also, as I understood it, the present moment, the possibility, is the past. to change, so to condition the past. And that's not quite clear to me from the head, or I have thoughts that stand against it, but when I heard that, I had a physical feeling that it was right. And I have experienced this phenomenon more often and I find it very, so it simply amazes me. In our group it was often about Yes, how does this affect our body, the practice, but also what is spoken? And then we also have the connection of thinking and, yes, without physical experience. Yes, the body is just simply more sensitive than consciousness.

[62:58]

Consciousness has to work through separation, through conceptions. And so it divides things into parts and what's in between is lost. And Zen and Yogacara teaching, Zen is Yogacara, primarily Yogacara practice. He's rooted in the... actual and potential wisdom of the body. And the body works through connectedness, not separation. And since our body is alive, it's aware, so it's working through a body awareness, which is connectedness.

[64:05]

I always think of the experiments they've done where they put electrodes on your arm. Your arm knows it's going to move before your mind has made the decision to move. So your conscious awareness that you're going to move the arm actually comes after a more fundamental, basic decision to move your arm. Yeah, and maybe we could say the body is also an anchor and a fishing line. We anchor ourselves with the body, and yet we also throw the line out ahead of thinking.

[65:18]

And it's possible, as you have noticed, to use words to find words rooted in the body rather than in thinking. Words develop in language. But we can bring them into the body in the way we work with them and speak. So I think to me it's quite right that we can trust our body more than our thinking. And yet we should also examine through our thinking and the reservations we have and so forth.

[66:33]

Something else? Yeah. Somehow, these few days I have a feeling within the body that there is a whole universe in my chest and at the same time I have a picture that I'm hanging on the rope within this universe, and I'm holding on to the rope, taking it as my whole life. Taking the rope as your whole life.

[67:34]

And there is this fear, which I call the kind of survival instinct, I don't know, that I cannot let go of the rope, because the experience of the body would be kind of falling into nothing, dissolving. So I'm dealing with how can I confront this fear. and at the same time I have the image that I am hanging on a rope in this universe and think that this rope is my whole life. and I can't let go because the physical feeling is that I stop existing, that I have to open up.

[68:36]

It's like a survival instinct that holds me to this rope. I ask myself now, how can I face this fear? I think I know this experience, at least something very similar. And also it's an experience that's understood, a situation that's understood in Zen. And it said, one of the images of it is to throw yourself into the whirlpool. And maybe you'll come out on the other side. You have to say maybe. Because this is actual fear. And if you say, oh, I will come out on the other side, well, you can say that to yourself.

[69:54]

But then it's just an idea. You don't have actual fear. And it's a genuine, in my experience, for myself anyway, and in the tradition, it's a genuine feeling like you are letting go over an abyss or into a whirlpool. And who can actually do this? It's not easy. So first I'd get to know the rope. Climb up and down it sometimes, go back up it. And in a visual way, you can visualize it.

[71:00]

And, you know, get to know the strands of the rope. And you may notice up a meter or so, it's actually only two or three strands that's coming apart. So you might go up and repair it. And then you can, you know... Try holding it with one hand. You'll find one arm is quite strong. This is all going on in your mind. So you can also say, oh, maybe I can fly. And you can see how long you can take your hands off. I always played like this. Yeah. And at some point maybe you say, OK, phew.

[72:03]

But you also have to be careful not to overwhelm yourself. A mixture of inner caution and courage is good. But, you know, this sense that the whole universe is in our chest, this is, I want to speak about this, the true human body, as Dogen calls it. And developing a confidence. in the confidence and experience of the true human body.

[73:14]

So I think we've come this far in coming into a shared practice reality. I think we've come this far that we can have some real sense and experience, taste of the true human body. One of the most subtle and Hard to understand ideas in Buddhism. Okay. What else? Yeah. We discussed in our group also how do I realize when my practice becomes physical.

[74:35]

I think there was some energetic experience that one could say that it is always a positive energetic growth Some people say if that happens it is a positive energetic push As an indicator, when one realizes that the practice, the attachment It's an indicator if the connection with the thinking identity, with identifying with thoughts, when that is broken or diminished, then there is this energetic function.

[75:46]

In a way you can enhance the practice of coming into that. Is the practice of bringing your tension and energy to each moment. And that bringing your energy to each moment means the feeling of the readiness to act. So at each moment you feel a readiness to act. You have this kind of alertness. Like maybe a tennis player or something. Okay. Something else. Frank? Miss, this is Mr. I mean, I'm interested in what is the body?

[77:10]

What does Zazen do with this body? Is it only the skin back here, or is it something different? And I would like to add, while I was in the same group like Andreas, and... you talked about what Zazen is doing to us. Yeah. And some of us said that, like you told them, and some of us told that they had a more rigid experience. They get more and more doubts that this practice is putting them in a rigid And they are afraid that they maybe do something wrong to themselves. And maybe sport is better. And so I would like you to emphasize on this point, what is doing to this real human mind.

[78:21]

Yeah. But what is this body? I don't think it's right yet. It's still unknown what this body can and can't do. And I'd like to know what Zazen does with this body. Is it just this skin here? Is it just this thing we do sports with? Or is it something else? In our group, as Andreas has already said, some people had positive energy experiences through Sazen. There were also some who had strong doubts while sitting because they felt more rigid and locked in and thought that they were doing something bad. That's why I asked Roshi to talk about this point again, what to be with the body, or how to be with the body. Well, I think usually a person feels rigid in the practice when they're practicing too much alone.

[79:31]

There's not enough teaching. They're not putting themselves in confrontation with a teacher actively enough. But some of us may like to be rigid, so, you know, can't be helped. Or at least maybe if you have certain ways of thinking about your practice, you can... escape from rigidity. The basic image to bring to your sitting every time is your lifting through your backbone. The feeling of moving upwards through the spine.

[80:39]

There's nothing rigid about that. It's basically you're stretching, lifting up through your backbone. We say stretching up as if to heaven. Sort of like lifting up a pearl necklace. That image. And then with that simultaneously relaxing. And really if you can't relax, working as your main practice. Relaxing through your body. Letting your shoulders go. Letting your stomach go. As I've told you before, I always thought my stomach was relaxed. And then after I'd been practicing about, I'm sorry to tell you how long, five and a half years, I don't know if that makes you feel hopeless or hopeful.

[81:53]

My stomach went in. And now I wish it would kind of, you know, Go back to the way you used to be. If you have this feeling of readiness in your sitting too, I think you won't be so rigid. And also, for instance, I don't have the feeling I can't move.

[82:59]

I know, in the beginning... Of sitting, I used to try not to move. And near the end of Sashin sometimes, when Suzuki Roshi would extend a period, we'd all be praying, can't it be over soon? And he'd shout, don't. Move. Sometimes some strength would come in from somewhere. But in general, I don't have a feeling of not moving. I'm quite free to move. But I'm also quite free to sit still.

[84:07]

So that's a different feeling than saying, don't move. To find the freedom, okay, here I am. Okay, do you have the freedom when you're waiting for a train, say for four hours, to just sit there? No. Like something picked you up and, okay, stand there by the luggage for four hours. That's not rigidity. You can lie down and be quite still for four or five or six hours of sleep. Why can't you do it when you're awake? What's the difference? It's not rigidity. It's about the way the mind works. When we speak about the body and In practice, we can't distinguish really body and mind.

[85:25]

The mind is just a more accessible gate. I mean, the body is just a more accessible gate. Okay. Is that enough? Michael? Okay. ten powers of the enlightened people who know the enlightenment. Oh, that's in there? Being used in the text. Dasabhava. Dasabhava? Yes. Yeah, I asked him to write it up. You haven't done it yet? You asked me to write it up? Yeah. I made a copy. You made a copy. I can read it out loud if you like, or you can look at it later. Yeah, I don't think... You can just look at it later. I have it here.

[86:27]

It's interesting. But it's not so interesting, really, unless we can look at it as practice. I don't know if we have time in this seminar to look at it. Again, we'd have to sneak up on the subject. Yeah. Okay. You'll get out of that one pretty easily. Yes. You talked about the readiness in meditation. Does it mean to be responsible for the very situation we're in? So to say, to experiment also what's good for you or what's not good for you? Of course. When I say, ask me, I already have the answer.

[87:27]

That's a good way. the willingness to understand that you find yourself responsible in the situation and that you are ready to explain how everything is going well. And quite concretely, I have asked again, also about the rigidity, whether this breathing is better talking about talking about the rigidity Do you recommend counting the breaths, or would you not recommend counting, or would you say it depends on you what you do?

[88:37]

Okay, have you said that in Deutsch? Yes, he did. I did. Oh, good. Yes, of course I'd recommend counting your breasts. Natürlich. I didn't say always. I said I'd recommend counting your breasts. Because I got into real trouble when I allowed myself not to count. Will you tell us? Yes, I got lost. I don't like to get lost. This is mainly German. Yes, if I was allowed not to count the names, then I would be lost. It's like letting go of the rope, he said. Yeah, I know. I love getting lost. in the menu at the oxen.

[89:46]

That's how I found Tassajara, I get lost. People know this. I'm driving by myself. I sometimes don't get there after a while. I sometimes come to an intersection and I've made this turn many times. But I have to know what's wrong with me. I sometimes think, well, maybe it's this way this time. And I actually don't know. And I think, maybe it's this way, and I can't... And then I go, and I'm lost. It's great. That's how you missed at least one airplane. Oh, did I? Oh, yeah. I almost missed my legal wedding that way. I'm sorry. I got way out somewhere north of... towards Stuttgart and north of Lake Constance and I was on the handy phone.

[91:07]

I don't know where I am. Everybody was waiting for... This time it wasn't so good. But for the first hour or so, I had a good time. The second hour, I was getting kind of anxious. Yeah. So was everybody else on the other end of the phone. I have another question. How is this phenomenon to be understood or explained when I count while practicing I mean, I'm in two cells, and that works quite well, and suddenly I realize that's not even right in the background, or somewhere else I think about a lot of other things.

[92:21]

So how do you explain the phenomena that I'm counting, and while I'm counting there's kind of a background where I'm thinking about other things at the same time? It's a kind of practice. It's a difficult practice. It should be good. You do it all the time when you drive a car. You're driving and paying attention, you're thinking about things. Not you, you don't think about anything when you're driving? Yes. But not always. But we're just complex beings. And this just shows us the complexity of mind. And that's coming back to you. It's good to count. And try to find out how many there are. How many breaths there are?

[93:36]

But if you only count to ten, you're already lost. Or if you count to one million breaths, you're lost. You only have a sensation of being located in this breath. But it is good as a practice for beginners and more experienced people to count your breath. It's a good thing to do. But sometimes not to do it, it's okay to. And it's okay to see if you can find that stability even in being lost. And in practice, when we count our breaths or focus on something, the more clear that is to us, we're developing a background mind.

[94:47]

And through zazen you begin to be more and more aware of layers of mind. And you can begin to start shifting your sense of identification with one layer or another layer. Okay. Is that enough for now about these things? Does somebody else want to say something? She's hoping I wouldn't notice that she was here. One said, oh, does she ask people to say something? And we said, no. The question is not clear, but I'm concerned with this weaving.

[96:05]

Our group at the end, we touched on a little bit what does it mean to weave breath and mind, but I think we Now I wonder if it's possible or does it make sense to breathe the breathing with thoughts or what part of mind? I mean if there is a big breathing sense then I can feel something unclear which is breathed but does it make any sense to breathe intentionally a thought with my breath and what does happen? Our group is almost at the end. The question about the connection between spirit and breath. And I wonder what it has to do with it. Does it make sense, for example, to connect a thought intentionally with the breath, physically,

[97:13]

You can think of a word or an intention to bring your mind to your breath.

[97:23]

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