representatives of these great traditions here could answer. And then Zahir would be happy. Just to give you one to think about for Saturday, Richard, is that I found it remarkable that Both, sometimes I don't see Sufism really as a tradition. So I would say the two representatives of the tradition, you both took my question as questioning your tradition. your first response was, do you want to make a new religion? And David also answered in that direction, and I found that very interesting. But I don't want... Let's leave it for Saturday. So, I just said, to perhaps encourage this for Sonam, I found it very interesting that my question, which I did not at all refer to religion, that both Richard and David actually referred to their tradition.

[01:18]

So, I did not want to discuss this now, but perhaps as a question for Sonam, let it be. Bon appétit. This morning is a very special time because our body is still asleep, our mind is still on the astral plane. We are very subtle. We can still retain something of the dream quality. Now being. First, I would invite you to exhale the air of the night in your lungs by breathing out your lungs.

[02:43]

Let's start with an exercise that helps form a path of energy So breathe in. I hope all the mics are not working. and bring it to the bottom of your heart. And you want to dress up for this and this part of your heart.

[05:18]

This part of your heart. Earth and our heart. And in a way it brings onto, through our heart, the vitality of the forces of the Earth. And especially this time in the morning there is a certain awakening that is taking place on the Earth.

[06:24]

So it's the this telluric energy that is on the rise and we take advantage of that by breathing in through the spine And projecting it forward. The second energy flow is that we breathe in through the solar plexus. The second energy flow is that we breathe in through the solar plexus.

[07:39]

I want you to be relaxed. That sounds a good word. I want you to be relaxed. That sounds a good word. I want you to be relaxed. That sounds a good word. Everything that comes in, comes in through the solar plexus. So over the years, we have learned subconsciously to tense it so it can control what we do. So after a while, it's a lot of effort to become very rigid and reflexive. Use this morning's energy to relax and open up your brain.

[09:42]

Breathe in through the chest and breathe out through the heart. A gemara, so that you can build up this path. Thank you.

[10:50]

Imagine that this is the entrance of divine positive recharging light. And breathe in that light and sublime energy. And then breathe it out to yourself. And by this act, relax your mind. Take the opportunity to also relax your brain. Tense your brain within your skull and don't relax.

[12:28]

Like you do with your mouth. And let's try to combine all three. So as you breathe in, draw your breath and your energy from the bottom of the spine, from the solar plexus and from your spine.

[13:36]

When you breathe in, draw the energy in your body out of the root chakra, out of the solar plexus and out of the crown chakra. When these three streams are connected in the heart, breathe out through the heart. This is living.

[15:15]

Try to follow your breath and forget your body to breathe in. With every in-breath, we draw in energy in the cosmos. And we can do that consciously so that we can only recharge our body when we feel happy. But it's a binding energy in the cosmos. You're not robbing anybody else from it. All that is necessary is the intention to convert the energy from prana to our body.

[16:49]

I remember about ten years ago, I was in a mountain in Turkey. And there were about a hundred of us waiting for the final night. It's a very ancient place at work. And I remember my surprise when these hundred foreigners from all over the world were actually waiting speechless and motionless for sunrise. I remember my feelings where will the sun rise?

[18:23]

Somehow, with our knowledge of songs, we believe that the song has no choice but to rise. And somehow, with our knowledge of thermothermic physics, we think that the sun has no other choice than to rise. And as a result, we have lost something of this inner being. It's the paradox of our lives talking about the awe of the sunrise and dealing with microphones that are not working.

[20:06]

So this awe of the sunrise is an experience that in the psyche is extremely empowering. So could you imagine yourself Not being absolutely certain that the sun will rise because it has no choice. And feeling the awe at the sunrise. Reenacting symbolically every day this glory. And in this consciousness we should try and chant together a Zoroastrian sun greeting rhythm.

[21:45]

and at the same time using our voice clean the sound channels in our body. Ha ha [...] Thank you for watching! Do it at your own time.

[23:03]

Oh. I don't want to be in this world. I don't want to be in this world. I don't know. All my prayers will be made for you, O God, for the glory of your kingdom.

[25:46]

Amen. All my prayers will be made for you, O God, for the glory of your kingdom. Sometimes when we do this as a group of people we can hear the sound of the sunlight.

[26:49]

It's like the different rays of the sun are producing vibration instead of light into sound. And on this theme, Let's continue and use the word Janur. Janur is light beyond light. The early fathers of the desert of Christianity called it the unlit light.

[28:13]

Somehow they were differentiating between the light of the sun, which is incandescent, light that is produced through burning and a different quality of light which is cool light. Not light through burning. And To concentrate on these two different lights produces a different result in our psyche. Also because the light of the sun being in this dimension is a light of duality. Where there is sunlight, there is shadow.

[29:27]

The stronger the sunlight, the stronger the shadow. But the light of Nur is beyond this dimension. It's a light without a source. It's a light that does not produce a shadow. We cannot really conceive this light with our mind. Perhaps it would help if you felt the quality of the light that would be within your body.

[30:33]

Or if you can bring yourselves to imagine what sort of light was there before God created the sun. Something in us knows about this light. So what I would like us to do is, as we vibrate here, that we travel using the vibration in landscapes of this light. Aum.

[31:58]

YAN MO YAN MO OM YOM YOM YOM

[33:17]

And yaw. OM YOM OM OM Yom Yom And hearing the echo of this vibration, allow yourself to travel.

[35:23]

Now this light is a very impersonal light. It's something that has no emotion. As I said before, it's called light. And it has the beauty of perfection. Now if we... If we just stop at this point in our morning meditations We are not very well prepared for this world. Because this very subtle attunement would be shattered the moment we leave our front door.

[37:20]

One practice that I like very much to bring us into our heart is this one. This is the practice that increases the magnetism of our heart, the presence of our heart. And Very few of us have developed this magnetism. I have seen this magnetism very alive in some very old ladies in Turkey and in Greece. And they're dressed in black permanently because they've lost most of their family.

[38:51]

And they're wrinkled like a prune. But there is so much kindness in their eyes. So much hospitality in their hearts. They would share with you whatever little they've got. That quality is not very common in cities where people are very busy and sophisticated. And it is certainly not present with people that read metaphysical books and esoteric Sufism. It's a quality that is gained through suffering, I'm afraid. If we do not become bitter.

[40:12]

So for most of us city folk that read metaphysical books and esoteric Sufism, we have to work at it. And I find this practice helps a bit. Practice has two parts. First you need to imagine yourself in the atmosphere of somebody that you like. And I'm saying like rather than love. Like your best friend. Or even better Your best friend of your childhood. Before he or she betrayed you for somebody else. So breathe in that warmth, that feeling of being comfortable and excited.

[41:19]

The feeling of not having anything to prove being exactly as you are and accepted for it and loved for it. And somehow In that atmosphere, our heart opens, doesn't it? And when you breathe out, you need to make a switch. So switch to someone who, as the Americans say, pushes your buttons. And when you breathe out, you think of someone you don't even know. Someone that really annoys you and you can't control it.

[42:41]

I'm sure we all have somebody like this in our lives. I call them the petty tyrants. They are training us like circus animals. And they are the type of people that you just can't control yourself. You get angry and annoyed before you have time to rationalize it. These people are a gift in our lives. Honestly, they are a gift. We cannot do this exercise without them. Unfortunately, as you do this exercise, you nullify their effect on you.

[43:50]

But if you sincerely exercise, life will provide somebody else. Because life provides for our needs. So what you need to do is, as you breathe out, switch to the atmosphere of the button pusher. And try to maintain the same quality in your heart as when you were breathing in. And at the same time, think of the word Rahman as you breathe out. Compassion. So first of all, let's spend a second trying to find someone who's pushing our buttons.

[45:27]

Please do not feel guilty about this. It's the person that always uses the photocopying machine when you want to use it. The person who does not put the cups in the right order. There are small things that really annoy us. Most of the times we are even afraid to admit that we are really annoyed. And let us sigh. And let us sigh. Bärbel, did you find that tape?

[46:48]

Can we hear it, please? Listen to something that is so full of this magnetism that I'm talking about and also of devotion. And you're welcome to stretch and move your body if you feel like it. Thank you. Good morning.

[48:26]

Good morning. And again, as you can imagine, I'd like to start with some sitting. Thank you. I need lots of help. Thank you. Thank you.

[50:33]

I find a surprising congruence between Reb David and Atum in my way of talking about religious practice. For me it is surprising how much congruence there is between Reb David and Atum and my religious practice. And particularly with the, since Zen is basically a practice. Particularly with the practices that Atum presents without knowing how similar they are to Buddhist practices.

[52:29]

Now what interests me about that is... Can you hear in the back okay? What interests me about that is not so much that they're similar, But they expand my sense of the same practice. Now in Buddhism, that Buddhism is rooted in practice means it's rooted in my and your practice. And if we together, maybe in the spirit that Zahir was speaking yesterday, if we together or separately discover practices that work for us, And they work within the overall fabric emphasis of Buddhism.

[53:53]

Then they're Buddhist practice. So I can learn something from Atum continue it, incorporate it in a practice, and I can freely say it's a Buddhist practice. Not because I have authority as a person, but because practice has authority. Now, of course, I would like to follow up on the things we started the other day.

[54:53]

But in 45 minutes or so, probably this is not possible. Unless I start downloading and usually people don't like that. So you all know something about the physical posture of meditation to sufficient extent, I think. And this posture will develop if you practice it in dialogue with an ideal posture.

[55:54]

But the role of mental posture postures in practice is not so well understood. So I want to try to speak about that some. Again, when Atum gave us the zikrs and you put your head down with a particular thought, this is a mental posture combined with a physical posture that allows a more complex continuance of both. Now, Ulrike gave you, those of you who came in the morning, gave you a breath practice the other day.

[57:09]

Breath practice is based initially on intention and attention. Intention is a mental posture. Attention is a physical posture. Now in that you can see how closely there is a very fine difference between a mental posture and a physical posture. What you can say to somebody, attention. And they will physically stand up, I hope, or something like maybe. Especially if they went to military summer camp like I did. But if someone says intention, you can see there's a difference.

[58:38]

So when you bring intention together with attention, And then further bring that together with the breath. I got a wink. You are physicalizing the mind. stabilizing the mind, and refining both mind and body. And you're weaving together mind and body.

[59:39]

So I think it's helpful to know this when you're practicing bringing your attention, holding an intention to bring your attention to your breath. It's not just to make you more concentrated or less distracted or something. It's a transformative alchemical process. And really it's the root of generating a Buddha body. Now, one of the questions that came up the other day that I said I would deal with Was this distinguished gentleman who has a hair don't like myself?

[60:49]

Who asked me to say something more about allness and wholeness. So let me just jump into that. Wholeness is a non-graspable presence that exists in time and that can be interacted with and is continuously emerging.

[61:49]

I'm sorry it's so many words. But if I used a single technical Buddhist term for it, it would be worse. It's continuously emerging, non-graspable, but it can be interacted with. Now, how do you interact with it? Mainly through developing the refinement of mind and body through breath practice. And a mind that can observe without interfering. Now, allness is also continuously appearing.

[63:13]

Nun, die Allheit, die taucht auch unentwegt auf. But it's really an all-at-onceness. Aber sie ist viel eher eine Alles-Gleichzeitigkeit. There's an all-at-onceness right now. Everything all at once. It doesn't have duration like 12 o'clock doesn't have duration. All at once-ness is timelessness. Manifestation of everything as it exists at this moment, but it doesn't exist in time. But it does affect us. In a funny way, when we talk about the weather, we're talking about all at once. It's cloudy, it's sunny, it's... Now again, this ability to feel into this all-at-onceness, this space body,

[64:25]

requires a refinement of the body-mind. Now let me speak in another way about how we refine the body-mind. I said the other day that I can have a kind of soft focus or I can look at the field of you as the whole of you as a particularity. And I can look at you as a particularity without naming in the sensorium, in the sensorial realm. So I can allow the particularity without name.

[66:12]

Or the field of all of us, which also I cannot name. Now, every time I do that, make that focus shift. I'm getting used to finding my continuity or stability in a nameless world. And a world that can't be named. You're changing a very basic habit when you do this. Und ihr verändert da eine sehr tiefsitzende Angewohnheit, wenn ihr das tut. Nun, etwas zu benennen ist auch eine Praxis, wo man die Einzelheiten benennt.

[67:13]

Aber dieses Benennen tun wir im Geiste, dass wir diesen Namen wie ein Etikett aufkleben, das wir dann wieder abziehen können. Now, the other day, again, while we were sitting, I said, you know, we can hear the stream. Or right now, an airplane. And that airplane, is it a plane or is it the harmony of the spheres? If you don't name it, it's a kind of singing in the sky. In the stream of blue that flows over us. Now the more I hear my own capacity to hear, I'm entering into a nameless world.

[68:32]

I'm not naming it a plane. It's just my hearing something. Now, let me go again into... A practice as basic as breathing practice, but not usually taught, except to people who do this all the time. Although there's no reason it shouldn't be, because it's obvious. Just as when I hear something, I'm hearing my own hearing, and a bird would hear the same thing differently.

[69:38]

When I open my eyes and look at you, I'm seeing my own seeing. What is your name? Ulrich. So I open my eyes and I see Ulrich. And if I don't think about you as Ulrich or anything, And when I don't think about you as Ulrich or something else, and I am in what we call immediate consciousness, I know there's some kind of precious human stuff out there.

[70:43]

But I know for sure I'm only seeing my own mind seeing you. Now what's the importance of this? One is I'm developing a field of mind. So I see Ulrich, but I see mind. The more I see mind as I see Ulrich, and feel mind as I see Ulrich, I can also begin to intimate or feel Ulrich's mind.

[71:46]

Ulrich's mind is also, whether you see your mind seeing me, it is your mind seeing me and I can feel that. So the most real thing that's happening when I look at Herr Ulrich, we Americans use first names too much. When I'm seeing my own mind when I see Herr Ulrich, it's scientifically, in fact, the most accurate way you can say what's happening here.

[73:02]

It's not graspable. It's not permanent. In fact, the more aware I am, I see it's constantly arising and disappearing. There's a pulse and movement to this reality. And perhaps we should say a pulse and movement to this actuality. Why are you scrunching up your brow? I'm thinking too. Now if there's this pulse and movement, it means I can participate in it.

[74:20]

If there wasn't this constant re-emerging, I couldn't participate. Now, the more I rest in this kind of knowing, And the more it becomes difficult to be, say, depressed, because I can brighten up or dim this seeing. And if I see that I can't brighten it up, I can then begin to notice the obstacles, psychological or otherwise, or genetic or chemical, that are interfering with my ability to brighten it up. So the more I develop a habit of seeing mind in all the senses and mental formation, And feeling this field of mind,

[75:43]

I begin to, I'm moving into what is called the bright light or clarity of mind. So I'm seeing the clarity of mind itself, which then illuminates each object. Because mind itself is absolutely pure and clear. It's only your own feelings, I'm this or that kind of person, which begin to muddy the mind. And if you... There's no reason to dislike your mind. You can dislike the ideas you have, but to dislike your mind itself is no reason.

[77:10]

So to not dislike your mind is very close to liking your mind. And if you like your mind, you're likely to be happy all the time because everything you see is your mind. You can't look anywhere without seeing this bright, clear mind. Now, technically, this is called thusness in Buddhism. When I live in the realm of thusness, means I'm always seeing mind.

[78:10]

Now, to always see mind is in itself a transformative process. It's one of the causes of a Buddha body. Now, if you were always seeing everything three-dimensionally, you develop a three-dimensional mental concept of the body and self. If you begin to see in this way of seeing mind and the field of mind, This now becomes not a cause of a three-dimensional image of how we exist, but a wide, interpenetrating image of how we exist.

[79:18]

Can you see how simple it is? All you have to do is change your emphasis in how you see. And how you hear and feel. It doesn't mean you don't go back to your usual way, but this way begins to be a cause of a new kind of body we call the Buddha body or Buddha nature. As paying attention to your breath. And then giving a refinement to that paying attention. primarily in the practices of naming, counting and following, and the repeated practice of naming, counting and following, parallel our usual way of understanding the functions of self,

[80:40]

Und gleichzeitig entwickeln sich dabei eure üblichen Funktionen des Selbst. Von Getrenntheit, Verbundenheit und Kontinuität. Und da Ulrike die Gelegenheit hatte, das etwas ausführlicher neulich darzulegen, werde ich das jetzt nicht tun. but developing a breath body which also has the functions of separating, connecting and continuity, widens our experience of self, And to some extent supplants the more customary functions of self.

[82:03]

Now let me just say something quite quickly about five levels of perception. One we could call homogenized. Organized is again like looking at that lemon and immediately getting only enough information to have a concept and then you generalize it, lemon. For us Westerners, that generalizing process is usually under the leadership of comparative eye consciousness. We don't smell out the world as a dog does. But in actual fact, there's a whole identity we could call a smell body.

[83:05]

Which is lost because it's all homogenized into eye caution. Okay, so one practice is then to separate the senses. and work with each one independently and see what memories come up in each one and how each smell or taste or touch organizes the world. And how to do that would, practice that would take more time than I have. But the point I'm making here is when you begin to study the senses, you begin to see the limits of the senses.

[84:23]

The more I get able to fully put a wholeness into each separate sense. You begin to be struck by how dissimilar hearing Ulrich is from seeing Ulrich. Then you will simply be deeply touched by how much it differs when I see Ulrich and hear him on the other hand. And we mix it all into a single picture and if I were close enough to it, I might be able to smell him. Nowadays we wash and bathe so much it's really hard to smell anything.

[85:30]

And with this nose I can't smell anything. But, for example, if everyone in the world was deaf, But we could see. And, you know, even from here, I can smell this bell. Yeah, death. Yeah. That's when I get to the imagined world. I was deaf for a moment. But it's amazing that there is molecular, some kind of, you know how you can smell bad silverware in a cheap restaurant?

[86:38]

How sensitive we are. I certainly don't see any molecules coming off this bell. Now, if we couldn't hear this bell, But we could see it and smell it. And there was no one on the planet to tell us it could be heard. We could not imagine the possibility of hearing. As soon as you know that, what else is going on that we don't have a sense for. And likewise it applies to each of the senses.

[87:40]

They all are quite different, but we take the picture they give us as coherent. And we are trained genetically inclined to see this world as coherent. In the three-dimensionality that our senses present. But mathematicians of string theory will tell us

[88:37]

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