So if we imagine this as water, over here we have likes and dislikes. And we have borrowed consciousness. Okay? And when you're in borrowed consciousness and a mind of likes and dislikes, you're in quite shallow water. Okay. And when you go toward in what I call neutral or equanimity is here, neutral mind. Okay?

[01:01]

So, this is very hard to notice because we don't have contrasts. We notice things through differences. So here, we notice this, but as soon as you start noticing differences, you're in quite shallow water. You know, I like my child. I don't like my child. But you actually feel much deeper about your child than whether you like or dislike. Now, borrowed consciousness would be more here. And it's not a smooth gradation. It's actually a drop off to secondary consciousness. The immediate consciousness is, you know, we don't know.

[02:06]

It's in here somewhere. OK. It's in here somewhere. So you can cultivate this because you can feel this change. And you can feel this. And immediate consciousness and neutral state of mind which looks neutral and equanimity are all in the same deeper water. Does that make sense when you see the picture? Does it mean that equanimity is the surface appearance of immediate consciousness? Neutrality is the surface appearance. Equanimity is the experience which allows you to access it.

[03:07]

Neutrality is the surface appearance. Equanimity is the developed state of mind which allows you to realize it. Now see if I can remember that story. Let's go through it again. A monk comes to visit Yao Shen. And Yaoshan says, what is your age? And he says, 72. And he says, is it 72? And the guy says, yes. Do you do that in German? No, I can't say it's true. It is? This is German?

[04:18]

I'm 72. I was going to be German. Then I have to learn to be Austrian, too. Okay. And he says, yes, I am. So then since he's used to being hit, Darshan says, Then the monk, what? The monk is related, what? Eric is used to being beaten, not the monk. He didn't come up with it. The monk, the monk, another monk is relating this story to Saoshan. So he tells Saoshan this story about Yaoshan and the 72-year-old monk.

[05:22]

And he says to Saoshan, after hearing this story, After telling this story, he says to Shaoshan, how to avoid the blow? And Shaoshan says, when the royal writ, the royal decree, is run through the country, When a new pronouncement of law was made, runners would go throughout the country announcing new laws. When the royal writ is run through the country, the ministers should get to the side of the road. Ministers means the princes, governors.

[06:36]

Now, again, I don't want to burden you with more than you need to know, but this is also a lineage teaching of prince and minister or absolute and relative, which is part of Zhaoshan and Dongshan's teachings. Which is taught through a series of five circles called the five ranks. Okay. So... I have to keep trying to recall this story. So, what is the... Oh, yeah.

[07:50]

He says, then how are we to realize the Buddha Dharma? Now, the monk immediately recognizes that the royal writ means the absolute or emptiness. And from that point of view, the minister for secondary consciousness or relative consciousness has to step aside. So he says to Shaoshan, then how to realize the Buddha Dharma? Because they know what they're talking about. They understand this language that I'm presenting to you in koans. He says, Zhaoshan said, filling a ravine, damning about. Filling a ravine, it's a canyon. And damning about. Yeah. And this is a kind of description of the practices that lead to mind-body stabilization.

[09:11]

To realizing equanimity, because equanimity is filling a ravine, damning a boat. So what he means is the state of mind that's the even state of mind or continuous sense of being. is the mind that can realize the Buddha Dharma. Now, on such a simple picture, we can map other things than this. We've mapped these three and likes and dislikes and neutrality. Now, I would like to respond to something that I believe Krista partly asked me yesterday, and that we talked about, and Hans-Peter Dürer and I talked about it a bit, too.

[10:27]

Let's look again at Immediate consciousness. Secondary. And? Borg. Okay. Now, what Krista asked, or I felt was in your question, was do babies have immediate consciousness? Yes and no. Actually, they have an undeveloped consciousness, which genuinely and yet also superficially looks like immediate consciousness. So we can say that a baby's consciousness, unformed consciousness, has in it the potentiality for secondary and the potentiality for immediate.

[11:51]

And it looks like immediate consciousness, and it responds like immediate consciousness. But it's not an intact trance. Now, using the word trance to mean a field of mind or consciousness which is self-organizing and has its own integrity. Because the baby's mind is very... I'm no longer a baby, so I really don't know what I'm talking about. Not everyone agrees I'm no longer a baby, but anyway... But I imagine, and this is a good enough example to make some sense, The baby's unformed consciousness, which looks like immediate consciousness, actually cannot maintain its integrity as immediate consciousness.

[13:09]

It will immediately and quickly change, very volatile, change into secondary consciousness. a kind of half-formed, borrowed and so forth. And the baby will start to cry over one thing and not cry over something else. So part of what I'm saying here is it's a mistake to think that there's a natural state of mind. So the babies are born purely perfect and we're returning to a baby's state of mind. At least my experience in teaching Buddhism is that's not the case. So as a realized territory of consciousness, by your experience of these bumps,

[14:16]

You begin to create these as self-organizing integral units. Integral units are having its own integrity. In other words, if you're in immediate consciousness, you can hold that and there's a resistance to going to secondary. And secondary and immediate will resist going into borrowed consciousness. So you actually, through your practice, develop a kind of way of putting secondary where it belongs and borrowed, immediate, and so forth. Yeah, that's clear now.

[15:37]

Do you understand? You have to say that. You want to say that in German? Borrowed consciousness for the ordinary person is nothing but leaking. What means Manjushri is he's willing to leave immediate consciousness and go to borrowed consciousness for the sake of teaching or helping people.

[16:38]

But because he's a bodhisattva, he goes from immediate consciousness to borrowed, but then he goes back like that. And when you develop immediate consciousness as a home base, if I collapse in a few minutes, please take this away from me because I'm bothering you. Or if I start becoming incoherent. Green is much stronger than blue. So, when you develop immediate consciousness and it has its own integrity, You can experience all these things but all of them are drawn into immediate.

[17:55]

So in that sense immediate consciousness begins to have its own integrity and draw these things up into it when you're not actively thinking about something. And this nothing a baby can do. This is an adult, realized practice of consciousness. Yes, one question or example. Let's say you are meditating and you have some kind of let's say anger or something and at the same time you see that you have this kind of anger and you put stop But on the other hand, you feel some kind of compassion for this state of being angry. And you also feel, OK, let this develop. So in effect, you have two sides.

[18:58]

One side is staying in this kind of anger, and the other side is kind of compassionate, looking at this kind of anger, and also some kind of joy arising from looking at this anger. So in what kind of state is it? Ganz gut. Das ging gut. In welchem Zustand befindet man sich denn, wenn man jetzt zum Beispiel, man vegetiert, und man sieht, dass irgendwie ein sehr starkes Gefühl, zum Beispiel Ärger, da ist. Und gleichzeitig sieht man jetzt, aha, ich habe jetzt diesen Zustand, das ist auch Ärger, but also a certain joy, a feeling of life for this state, for this feeling to be in the anger. And that is also a very beautiful feeling, because you are both at the same time, you are both in this feeling of anger as well as in the state of joy that you can see it. And what state do you find yourself in?

[19:59]

What I'm trying to impress upon you today and many other times, what I'm trying to impress upon you, is the tremendous significance of the experience Eric just mentioned. Because in that experience, if you really unpack it, is all the teaching and understanding of the observer self, which Giulio asked about yesterday. Okay, so maybe this is a good point to talk about the observer self. Okay, now this is, of course, some kind of mystery. We don't actually know. How this universe becomes aware of itself.

[21:18]

It may not be good to call it a uni-verse. It might be better to call it a multi-verse. Or that we become conscious of ourselves. Well, we become conscious of ourselves, I think, from my experience, that they persisted with Buddhist teaching. We're able to be conscious of ourselves just because we have many different kinds of consciousnesses. Now, if you don't have any experience that you have different kinds of consciousness, I mean, I can't say that, because everyone has the experience of different kinds of consciousness.

[22:20]

Because we all sleep and dream and Then we all have moods. But somehow most of us have been given the feeling and the command by our culture that there's a... an observer identity that is real. And the other things are just something you're looking at. But when you have Eric's experience, it's very clear. It's not clear who's looking at what.

[23:22]

But the fact is, if we have two or three different levels of consciousness, Levels may not be the right word because it implies better and worse. Maybe we should say layers of consciousness. And some are more inclusive than others. Some, in a sense, have different functions. Okay, because we have more than one layer of consciousness, it becomes possible for one layer to observe the other layer. We only had one layer of consciousness, one consciousness, we couldn't do that.

[24:25]

So the very fact that we can be self-observant means we have different layers of consciousness. Now, this may be obvious that the real significance of the import of it really doesn't get most of us. Because one of the conclusions of really thinking this through thoroughly or unpacking it is that everything is inside. But the fact that everything is in the actuality, I'm using that instead of reality, the actuality in each act in which the world emerges, is that it's all inside.

[25:33]

So let me try to give you a picture of how Buddhist practice discovers, finds, realizes, observes the observing self. Nun lasst mich euch ein Bild geben, wie der Buddhismus beobachtet, findet, das Selbst. Mostly we tend to think, and we're taught from your time we're children, that there's an observer self. Wir denken, und es wird uns beigebracht von Kindesbeinen an, dass es ein beobachter Selbst gibt. That is somehow inside a person. Und das steckt in einer Person. And it's kind of looking at the person and looking at the world. And that both the body and the phenomenal world are somehow outside. We can certainly have this experience and there's a certain reality to it.

[26:51]

But let's simplify the picture. If what I say starts getting boring, I'm going to switch to the green one. Okay. That there's an observer self that tends to see everything else as outside. Okay. And we give that observer self different kinds of definitions Sometimes it's soul, sometimes it's spirit, sometimes it's psyche.

[27:53]

Sometimes it's self. And different cultures and religions teach the identity of this over time in different ways. And we desperately try to maintain a continuity of that and try to think that it's continuous, even though it's actually like this. And it takes actually a tremendous amount of energy to pretend that this isn't here. Now perhaps it's not like this at all.

[29:02]

Perhaps it's more like this. Hey there, hi. Now, when Eric is having his meditation experience, he is noticing that there can be a circle here which is observing the anger. But we may even have another kind of circle here. And You're here and you notice anger starts appearing. This is anger. You say, hey, look at that anger. And if you want, you can draw it back into here.

[30:03]

Or you can let it be and have its own kind of... Now, as soon as you have this, you can see, you can shift your observer to here, and you can think this is you, or you can shift it back to here and think this is you. Yes, Julian? Now you have a third observer. I haven't got that for you. That's down here. What's the third observer? As soon as you talk about it, you know the shift.

[31:04]

Then you have a third observer. Yes, and as soon as I do that, I have a fourth. That's right. Okay, so we've got one here, and we've got one here. This can observe that. That can observe that. This can observe this. And you can get so, it can be so complicated at some point that they take you to a mental hospital and confine you. But there is some basic health in here somewhere. Because some of these observers are more inclusive than others. But you understand the basic picture here. And when you're doing zazen, some people say, what's the difference between mindfulness practice and zazen practice?

[32:10]

And mindfulness practice is overall the basic practice. But zazen practice is a kind of concentrated mindfulness practice. But still sitting, mindfulness practice, allows you to explore this kind of thing which mindfulness practice cannot do. You may realize a similar result, but you can't really understand and actively participate in the dynamics of consciousness. Okay, so when you're sitting and you don't think you're doing anything, and if you try to do something, you'll interfere with what's really happening. So you just sit.

[33:23]

And more and more you can begin to feel your identity settling into your body. Or settling into a particular location in your body. instead of being just here you know it starts to be here here here you begin to because what the chakras are are places in the body that identity can settle you know um Christiana, we're supposed to have lunch at 12.30.

[34:25]

Can we postpone it to one? Of course. Because otherwise, once I stop this, I can't start it again. Thank you, Bert. But while you're doing meditation, you more and more, as I said, feel a settling of, what shall we call, a location of awareness. Settles into our body. This is a family affair. And when I was watching the Dalai Lama translate, they had the young German being translated. We had a young German monk in red and yellow robes. And he was doing pretty well but having a hard time.

[35:30]

You know, the very silent Tibetan in a suit standing nearby with no paper. He almost didn't move at all. You almost couldn't see that he was there. He was so still. But he was taking notes all the time. Particularly if His Holiness listed said very things. So this is your role. Okay, so when you're meditating, this sense of identity is settling into different parts of the body. First it's just in the body or into the breath.

[36:38]

Then you can feel a finer structure of sensibility or fine structures in which the identity gets settled into different locations in the body. But those fine-structured locations can't be realized until the fine structures are manifested or cleared up. So at the same time as you're meditating and beginning to feel your identity possibly being in different places and when I say identity I mean awareness but I also mean possible to think of that awareness as us

[37:38]

Okay, so at the same time as that's happening, your meditation posture is creating what we call an energy body. By sitting straight with a lifting feeling through your back, And sitting with a relaxed feeling. Your energy is beginning to move in your body and actually clear up little streams. It's like going in a plumbing. The plumbing is all clogged up. And the psychic body, you could say, or sun body, and all of you, too, leave that. And if I can use Erich as an example again? Just pretend you're a medical dummy. Ah, eine Medizinpuppe. Entschuldigung. You may find that when you visualize the interior of your mind, it's white here and dark up here.

[39:11]

Or you may feel a certain fluidity or pliancy in one part of your body and not in the other. But that begins to change. Suddenly you have pimples up here and down there. Suddenly you have pimples up here and down there. We won't ask if they're really there or not. Or if you But you can actually feel this in the body if you put your hand near it. You can feel areas where there's like a cold wind or a warm wind coming out of the body. Or sometimes you can feel like something's being drawn into the body with your hand. And the person may say, oh yeah, it's... You may feel it is cool, but I feel very warm in that spot.

[40:42]

Or vice versa. And that pattern that you can sometimes feel will change as your body opens up. So a kind of fine structure of the energy body or subtle body is developing as you practice. And that allows awareness and so forth to permeate the body and be located in the body in a new way. Now, again, conceptual awareness comparative consciousness cannot permeate the body. Why? Because it's too structured. And it's quite grossly structured in terms of likes and dislikes.

[41:43]

So it can't get into the fine structures of the body. of the sponge-like structure maybe at the bottom. So you have to develop a consciousness that can melt those structures and become more like water, then it can be absorbed by the finer sponge-like structures. Then it can take new structures. So we dealt just have different observing selves. We have different kinds of consciousness which can permeate in different ways the body. I could say a lot more about this and how images work to affect or hinder this.

[42:47]

But I think that's enough. Already someone told me I'm exhausting. Yes. The question of choice. that I can bring my attention to my breath, that means the observer can, you know, go to different places. At the same time, it doesn't seem to have much choice, you know, otherwise he could decide to take the breath, the whole vein, but he obviously can't. Yeah. Well, no, he obviously can't. You can't. You want to say that in Deutsch? Plus you can translate my response. Right. Yeah, in the beginning, it's like looking through a window without being able to buy anything. Yeah.

[44:15]

Zazen allows you to look in, but in the beginning you can't go in and shop. Okay, so let me finish this picture so we can have lunch with some one of our identities. Can you? Okay. So we have the observer self. And we have the other possibility of this. OK. Then we have a second possibility, a third possibility of this. OK. Now, this is almost separated off.

[45:21]

But this is the more emergent self, which very quickly can go back to this. Now, these are all forms of identity. And this koan is talking about this as a form of identity. Where there's knowing, but no observing self. Does that make sense? And this is called original mind. Or the mind before your parents were born. The mind in which the baby Jesus appeared in the cradle. And so it appears like this. And you can... You can... When you... Observe Samadhi.

[46:38]

Yeah, so this is Samadhi. And normally if you observe it, it goes away. Okay, so here's Samadhi and the observer can come in without disturbing him. Man, I think this is Star Wars. Anyway, but then you can start bringing other things into this field. And this field has various qualities. There's different samadhis. But this field can be like a kiln in which when you bring something up into it, you transform it. or purify or change it and then when you put it back in your memory it changes how your memory works it changes your storehouse consciousness now all of this is interior consciousness and it's the experience of an adept at practice

[47:43]

It's not that hard. A large number of people in the Dhamma Sangha are playing with this or experiencing this or are on the edge of this. Okay. Pardon me. Is this the way the yoga center works? So what we have here is you could say this is delusion, this is terrible. Let's get rid of that. This is the bad guy. But if all you knew was this, you would never know it. It's like you wouldn't know immediate consciousness clearly unless you also knew it borrowed.

[48:53]

So we can't get to this as unknowing that's not self-observing. Unless you use the vehicle of wisdom called ego. Because in another sense, the fact that you can observe yourself is wisdom. And the practice of going from here to here to here to here, the pulse and movement of that is in an inner sense what's meant by everything changes. So the bodhisattva is someone who can make this circuit.

[50:15]

And so can know people in each of these ways of having observed self. Yes, okay. Yes, Julian? So the ego is very useful and shouldn't be get rid of, but just it should be, you should make your own thing. That's right. And it shouldn't be very useful. That's right. And it shouldn't be where you live. It shouldn't be where I live. It shouldn't be where you live. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's something you use, like a car, to live in your car. OK. The Bodhisattva leaking doesn't mean leaking energy.

[51:31]

Anybody in Boreal Consciousness leaking is somebody who is only in Boreal Consciousness has no choice, they leak. The Bodhisattva has a choice and deliberately and consciously leaks in order to be able to teach. Is that so? And it's a kind of sacrifice the Bodhisattva makes. In German. I have some problems with the concept of what one licks and what one licks in birth consciousness. And the answer is birth consciousness. But Bodhisattva is also baiting a hook. Baiting a hook. Baiting a hook. Okay, so say this is my leaking.

[52:38]

This leaks much more. So I take my leaking and I go to Eric and I say, hey, no, that's Eric. Whoa. Eric said, I like that, right? So then I, but actually he doesn't know there's a string attached and I figured, yeah, I don't know. So Bodhisattva, when he's leaking or she is leaking, is also fishing. Yeah. When I realize that everything is inside of life, I can just believe, you know, remembering. In your sense, it's not just your brain. That would mean like a sanity on a conceptual level. Yeah. You can say that. It might have happened.

[53:44]

And the Samadhi, it's not about immediate or the second, say, immediate text in their work. It's just, it can be experienced and has a different level of consciousness. And it has a lot more impact if it's in immediate consciousness than if it's in conceptual consciousness. That's the idea. And knowing that, Actually, that map is not the same as practice, but that map helps you practice. Can the actual salami happen only through practice, or can it be achieved outside by a little bit of practice? That's like saying, is the baby naturally enlightened?

[55:01]

Yes, of course you can. The samadhi is something, an experience people can have. But recognizing it and realizing different kinds of samadhi and so forth, actually moving in this water, swimming in it, To realize it accidentally, or to notice it accidentally, is like seeing the shine off the lake. Like seeing the shine, the sun reflecting another shine off the lake. But it's not swimming in the lake. But seeing the shine of the lake can change your life. Okay. I think we've done about enough, huh? I have a question. Yes. You said before there is no nature in a baby, for example.

[56:11]

It's not natural. There's no natural state of mind, I see. And in the book of Suzuki Roshi, he talks a lot about the original natural state of mind. Can you talk about this? Well, you'd have to show me what he says, because he didn't mean a natural state of mind. It depends what we mean by natural. But I think what I've said is enough because there's no state that you're just born with. Because you're born pretty unformed. So that's enough without going into more detail because the word natural is a pit of confusion. Okay, now we had this picture before.

[57:13]

And where is the observer consciousness? So the observer consciousness, we think it exists here. But as I said, we think there's a line of past to future. Right. And it takes a tremendous amount of psychic and spiritual energy to maintain this illusion. And we actually exhaust ourselves, get sick, go crazy, and so forth. And a lot of it has not to do with wrong thinking or mistakes in our life. But that we simply don't have the energy to correct the mistakes and to absorb the wrong thinking.

[58:16]

to correct the wrong thinking, to absorb the mistakes. So once you stop doing this, you may have the same problems. But your internal gardener is watering the plants much better. And your garden is growing a lot better. Okay, so the other idea is the sense of an emergent self. I'm going to try to finish in eight minutes. Okay, you have the illusion or delusion of a continuous self. But what we actually have is an emergent self.

[59:32]

Every context produces a slightly different self. Like I'm leaning against a pillar person. And I'm looking at Eric. And we're all together now for a moment. Wir sind nun alle zusammen für einen Moment. Wir sind zusammen erschienen. Wir haben tatsächlich ein interaktives Selbst produziert. Euer Selbst ist aufgestiegen. In the self we've also created together. So we have selves which have emerged like this. And something like this is going on in this room right now.

[60:35]

While we have the illusion of a continuous self sort of going along in the midst of it. This is also true, it's just that it's not continuous. And it's, now here in a way is the answer to your question. About choice. And a question you asked earlier, how do you, there's too many of these things going on. This is not deeply rooted. It's very isolated. Again, it's this idea of nourished or caressed. It's not caressed by the world. It's not nourished by the world. And as you become more subtle, you can feel the difference. The emergent self take this one, is nourished by the phenomenal world and by other people.

[61:40]

And so when you feel that, it's clear that this makes a better decision than this. Because some forms of identity or some forms of consciousness are more inclusive or more hooked in and nourished or have more roots and through the educating and awakening your interior consciousness and bringing exterior consciousness or re-educating exterior consciousness to interior consciousness, you really begin to know all the time that greater nourishment. And you start trying to make your basic decisions in your life from the most nourished and most inclusive states of mind.

[62:48]

And that is illustrated in Buddhism always by the circle. And it means the most inclusive and nourished states of mind. So the little observer self becomes this. And that's how it's taught. Then there's ways this is taught in the five ranks where this becomes this way and this way. You don't need to know. Now, in our physical body, there's an emergent self that appears. It appears in our consciousness or it appears in our karma. And there's awareness which includes all of it. Okay. So I think that's, I would say that if you want something to take away from this, is begin to notice in your experience the difference between the emergent self and the continuous self.

[64:11]

Then we have the situation where you have this kind of self and the emergent self and the experience of this as a continuous self and the experience down here of this as a continuous self. Now, in Buddhism, you want to shift from this delusion of a continuous self to this abiding sense of self. I think that's enough. So going back to Yao Shan, Yao Shan is saying, let's honor the appearance. So something appeared. And Yao Shan said, let's not only honor the appearance, let's honor the appearance.

[65:15]

that we can honor the appearance. And I think we draw that this way. So actually your zafu, your seat, is the appearance. And Yao Shan says, this is the continuous self. Which can't be an observer, but can know if this is Christ's cradle. Okay, that's all. And it's one o'clock, I guess.

[66:40]

No, we have four minutes. I explain it in a secondary consciousness for the most part. which I try to hook into awareness. In other words, while I'm speaking, I'm feeling a secondary consciousness, and I try not to let that secondary consciousness stray from immediate consciousness. And by melting all the structures in consciousness, I try to be enough in touch with awareness that I know what you're thinking and I can answer your questions that you haven't asked. That's basically what I feel.

[68:04]

Whether it's working, I don't know. So at least I'm practicing what I'm preaching. Or preaching what I practice. Ah, but actually I'd just love to meet you. This is the best way I know to love you. Or to be friends with you. I know it may be peculiar way to be affectionate, but this is my way of being affectionate. But sometimes I can hold hands too. Thank you for translating. So this afternoon we have to do something.

[69:07]

We could disband. Disband means we can stop. Or that's good. Or we could go swimming. In the shine of the lake. But not in the lake. So if we have lunch from one to 2.30? I know a couple people have to leave at three, right? And shall we stop now or shall we meet again at 2.30 for 45 minutes or an hour? What would you like? Till we meet again. Okay, so we'll have lunch at 1 and meet again at 2.30. And if you can be here, it'd be nice.

[70:11]

And now it's exactly one o'clock. So I'm just ending zazen. It's the end of this koan, but we got pretty far. Enough, I think, to have the koan work in you. And if you come back to this koan at some point in the future, you'll find out that it moves you at some unexpected levels. But that takes time to come back. These things work in you. And Michael, did they cut out your tongue in Bali?

[71:29]

It seems they hadn't said a thing the whole time. You just have a new dramatic haircut. It's true. But in a way, I really would like to have, if we had more time and could meet all afternoon, to have some discussion among each other in groups. Because, as you know, I... think that talking among yourselves about these things and seeing how you each understand it, what your experience of these practices is, is really a good way to learn or to absorb. So maybe we should pretend this is one big group in which you've decided to include me.

[72:33]

I also like to do groups because I love hearing you talk. So is there anything you'd like to discuss? Yes, fine. How can we Of which the borrowed immediate and secondary? Those levels? The Deutsch. You know, I've been doing this so long, I've lost some perspective.

[73:51]

On how difficult this is or easy it is. Whether you get it immediately or you need to have practiced for a few years before you get it. At least it seems to be different with different people. But the ground basis for most all second stage practices is being able to, in a sustained way, have your mind or attention resting in your breath or your body. If you don't have that skill, or at least some of that skill, then you have, what I would guess is you have no way of staying in immediate consciousness.

[75:18]

I mean, To stay in immediate consciousness, even though it sounds fairly simple, would be like trying to keep water suspended in the air. It's going to immediately fall into your usual way of thinking. And so fast, you probably won't even notice it. that you went by immediate and secondary and several other layers. So if you really want to fruitfully practice, you want to attempt, not just in zazen, but in your daily life, to either bring your mind back to your breath, or to your body, or to your immediate situation, like the way your elbow is on the table, say, if you're at a desk, or to bring your attention to a phrase.

[76:55]

Mama, come on. like no sign just now is enough or some phrase some way to use language to remind the surface of the wave of the water And the ability to sustain attention on a phrase is, I suppose, the most characteristic Zen practice. The ability to maintain your attention on a phrase is probably the most specifically Zen way of practicing. And as I always say, use some reminder during the day to get you to do this.

[78:01]

I think once you've noticed the distinction between immediate, secondary and borrowed, and you have the ability to sustain your attention on your breath or body or a phrase, then it's not very difficult at all to locate the feeling of immediate consciousness. And then take that feeling as the baseline in your activity. And I say activity meaning physical activity and mental activity. So your observing self, is it kind of always there?

[79:19]

Like when you have the example of someone and you observe yourself looking like a little spaceship, so is it always there? earlier, that it was very damaging for my feelings to have that certain self. I always used to think, oh, well, I'm happy. I'm happy right now that it happened. It was somehow damaged, but not really the pure feeling. So my question is, is the observing self just always different from just try to not make it even more, but does it ever shut up? Does it ever, you know? So in German once you say, does the observing self ever shut up? Yeah, well, I mean, this is a very different experience than this.

[80:27]

And when you begin to have this feeling of it appearing and merging, or emerging and merging, then it doesn't interfere with your happiness or whatever. In fact, it causes your happiness. And then sometimes you can feel this. Or know this. Sometimes in koans it will say great function. It means to act for this To act as if it were an ego. Because this isn't dead, but it can function, but not with the usual sense, the usual way we observe our actions or decide about our actions.

[81:45]

So if you are here, the more you can be here, the better. But if you have to be here sometimes, it would probably be good to have another little observing self. Think that's a balloon. This guy can get quite pure. Yes. Is it similar when you ask the difference between serving the bride and... I think when you start observing the breath, then usually it is this kind of upper self, observing self, that also controls your breath.

[82:57]

And then you have back pain and all kinds of pains. And this kind of observing also destroys your joy and what you said, your positive feelings. And if you don't control, if you just observe, then this does not interfere. And I guess this is the lower one. You want to urge that? I wanted to ask if this is comparable to the observation of the breath and the control of the breath. If you start to observe the breath during meditation, then this upper self will also always control the breath at the same time, and this is noticed by the fact that you get a tension, that the breath becomes unnatural and you also get back pain or so.

[84:00]

But if you can just observe the breath, can enter the breath, then it stops. So that's why you want to get so that you observe your breath very gently. You're not really trying to make the breath a real strong object of attention. It's more like you're maybe in a rowboat in a lake. And you want to You don't want to climb up on the dock, but you want to hold on to it so you don't stray too far from the dock. The dock is the pier or the... Man möchte nicht zu fest an dem dock fest machen, sondern herumschlingen.

[85:08]

So you sort of hold gently to the pier, but you let the boat kind of float around too. So hält man sich ganz leicht fest am dock und lässt das Boot etwas herumschlingen. That's why it's best in the beginning to have the feeling, the intention to observe your breath. And more let it happen than make it happen. So it's more like you develop a field of willingness rather than willing something. because of course observing the breath controls the breath so you want to observe kind of gently until finally you can observe without controlling or interfering then your breath just breathes itself And it's funny, when you can breathe, when you can observe your breath and not interfere, you create a field where your breath is actually freer.

[86:35]

Because normally your breath is actually very subject to your emotions and states of mind. So a non-observing controlling, I mean a non-controlling observing actually allows the breath to be more natural. And you'll feel it. Be very refreshing. Let's see if anybody else wants to say anything. Yeah. Well, it depends on the desire. I mean, some desire is, you know, biological. So then our consciousness tries to control it.

[87:54]

Or manage it so that we can wait until dinner time to eat. As Eric said a little while ago, consciousness is a cultural phenomenon. So some desires arise from our consciousness, yes. And biological desires are turned into something sometimes quite neurotic by our consciousness. Does that respond at all to what you wanted to say? Say something else if you want. Consciousness is a field, but the structures of consciousness can, I suppose, can even have desires almost independent of your biology.

[89:02]

Yeah, like wanting a house bigger than you need is not biological, it's... your consciousness, a desire arising from your consciousness, from your comparative consciousness. Yes. Oh, straight hotline from Balu. Yes. Yeah. period, sometimes, you talk to someone about a bubble-like field in your own system where Yeah, I think so. Do you want to say that in German?

[90:05]

Do you want to say that in Deutsch? Yeah, that's true, I think. I think that's true. And interior consciousness has much less ego functioning in it. So the more we let our friendship or our connectedness with others rest in interior consciousness,

[91:32]

or its manifestation as immediate consciousness, there's more real contact. I think that's probably why people get drunk together. It's a sort of primitive way of doing it. Maybe not so primitive, I don't know. I would say that, by the way, that Bali is a trance. That when you go to a place like Bali, you actually enter another cultural trance than your own. And you can feel it right away. You don't have to see Balinese buildings. Just any five Balinese standing in the street create the feeling.

[92:40]

Which should make you aware that you're in an Austrian trance. Or European or Western culture. You wanted to say something else? What I'm talking about? What two people are talking about? Doesn't matter what I'm talking about either, actually. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

[93:22]

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