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Exploring Zen: Consciousness and Emptiness
AI Suggested Keywords:
Seminar_Awareness,_Consciousness_and_the_Practice_of_Mindfulness
This talk explores the nature of consciousness, the practice of mindfulness, and the role of feelings and thoughts in Zen philosophy. It contrasts articulation and non-articulation within the concept of emptiness, discusses the distinction between intentional and discursive mental formations, and examines how these frameworks relate to Zen practices such as Zazen. The dialogue also touches on shared resonance, collective consciousness, and the importance of letting go of control to explore deeper states of consciousness.
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"Suzuki Roshi's Teaching on Thoughts": Refers to the idea of not inviting thoughts to tea, highlighting the distinction between different types of mental formations.
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Nagarjuna's Concept: Discusses the translation of ‘non-self’ as 'non-articulated self' to emphasize potential articulation rather than absence.
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Gene Gendlin's "Felt Sense": Mentioned as a technical term in understanding bodily sensations and feelings in mindfulness.
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D.T. Suzuki and Skandhas: References the concept of Skandhas as a description of consciousness and elements of human perception.
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Concept of Emptiness: Emptiness is defined as impermanence and the withdrawal of articulation from entities, linking to Zen practice.
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Leib or Living Body: Discusses the German term "spürbewusstsein" as translated to "living body" in former seminars.
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Daniel Stern's "The Diary of a Baby": Utilized in the discussion about consciousness and the experience of newborns, emphasizing the vitality effects of consciousness.
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Alaya Vijnana: Relates to deep consciousness and resonant fields, suggesting the speaker's intent to expand on this topic in discussions about consciousness.
This summary captures the intricate philosophical discussion and references made throughout the talk, guiding academics to the critical points of interest.
AI Suggested Title: Exploring Zen: Consciousness and Emptiness
Also, wenn ihr mit mir über irgendetwas sprechen möchtet oder auch miteinander, das ist in Ordnung. But you don't have to get a lot of wonders. Ich würde gerne etwas klären für mich. I would like to clarify something for me. Die nicht fast so untergreifbare Empfindung, das Fühlen. Non-graspable feeling? Ja. Weil mein Verständnis von Fühlen ein völlig anderes ist. because my understanding of feeling is all different from that. I have always understood feelings as something that gives us information about our being in the world. And these are very specific and not graspable.
[01:08]
So it's difficult for me to turn around my thinking about feelings. Well, that's what you have to do. Perhaps you can help me. Well, that's why I say non-graspable, to distinguish it from graspable feeling. Yeah. So Karin says, I have the feeling, very often I have the feeling that what is meant is this felt sense in the territory of the longer hospital field.
[02:37]
Okay, a felt sense is a kind of technical term that's used by... Okay, bodily... Or sensation... Okay, so there is another term which is developed by Schmidbauer before Gendlin came up with felt sense. And it's actually a term that Christian also uses. A bodily... Like the body is receiving... Through feeling. What is the term Christian uses? I don't know how he uses it in English, but he uses spürbewusstsein, just the same term that Karen used.
[03:39]
And it has the quality of what you said in the other seminar of leg, body as leg, body as leg. and with this quality of receiving through feeling. Living body. So Christina says in former seminars we used the term living body for this German word Leib. I didn't, but in German you may have. Well, maybe I can approach it by speaking to Hiltrud's questions.
[04:50]
I try to avoid using other people's terms. Because you can't get the way in which the term is used by the other person. That's why I abandoned the other day the imaginal realm and said conscious imagination or something, imaginary consciousness. Because Hillman and Conover and other people's use of the term kind of traps it for me. So Hiltrud's question is the same question that arises when you look at Suzuki Roshi's statement, don't invite your thoughts to tea.
[06:10]
Although we, I mean, most people instantly understand that term, that recommendation. Basically it's saying the thought to not invite your thoughts to tea The thought to not invite your thoughts to tea is also a thought. And how do you uninvite the thought which invites your thoughts to tea? Okay, so we have to rename it. Let's stop calling them thoughts and call them mental formations.
[07:25]
Okay, so the mental formation, to not invite your thoughts, is different than the mental formation thoughts. Now we have to ask, what's the difference? Well, one is we could call an intentional thought and the other a discursive thought. Or intentional mental formation and a discursive mental formation. But I would prefer to say something like The mental formation to not invite your thoughts to tea is a mental posture. It's a mental posture which stays in place.
[08:27]
And the mental formations you are not abiding to, T, are discursively defined, are linguistically or discursively defined. I didn't get that. Different between discursive... No, but what is the difference? One is a posture that stays in place. It's a posture. But you used the same example for both things. I did? Well, I didn't mean to if I did. One is a posture that stays in place. This is intentional. It's intentional. And the other is discursive or linguistically defined. Okay, let's take a different example. We can have a teaching to be free of concepts.
[09:37]
But to be free of concepts is a concept. So you need the concept to be free of concepts. Okay, so what's the difference? Okay, the concept you want to be free of Die Konzepte, von denen du frei sein möchtest, are again linguistically defined, sind wiederum linguistisch definiert, and the concept to not be, the concept non-conceptual, und das Konzept nicht-konzeptuell, is embedded in the... What word should I use?
[10:42]
It's... Embedded in the potential of non-articulation. Okay. So now, one of the things that Nagarjuna says, if you want to look, so I can understand it more carefully at some of the things he says, better translate it. He doesn't say non-self, he says non-articulated self. That means that self is a potential of articulation. And you can withdraw the articulation from it. If you just say self doesn't exist, you have a problem.
[11:45]
But if you say self exists, but we don't have to articulate self, then you can relate to that in practice. So non-graspable feeling could be called non-articulated feeling. Now, you said, what's your name? Edie. Edie. E-D-I-E? Yes. Like Eddie, but with only one D. Yeah. Edie. Oh, hi, Edie. You said that for you, feeling is something that conveys information to you.
[12:50]
Which means you've noticed that it conveys information to you. Now, we don't want to think this as an entity. Feeling is an entity which conveys information to us. Feeling is a condition, let's call it, which can convey information to us, but you can also stop it from conveying information to us. So the concept of emptiness means that basically just means everything is impermanent. Nothing has an inherent or permanent identity.
[14:01]
So when it doesn't have an inherent or permanent identity, we call it empty of a permanent identity. So that's the concept of emptiness. The practice of emptiness is to withdraw articulation. Die Praxis der Leerheit ist es, diese Artikulierung zurückzunehmen, zurückzuziehen, davon abzuziehen. Is that clear or interesting? Ist das klar oder interessant? Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you. You want to say more, please?
[15:04]
Yeah. I would like to exemplify it. If I'm hungry, the information I get is that I need something to eat. And you can withdraw hunger from that feeling and not be hungry until you see some food. Hits you like a slap in the face. I've withdrawn from myself the feeling of being sick. Okay. Something else? Yes, Anna. When I sit down and try to play with these five scandals,
[16:07]
What came up for me is this activity and at the same time a song from the 80s by Talking Heads. I don't like the music but I like the line. It says, stop making sense. And what I would be interested in, on what levels this would make sense, if you imagine this sip. Yeah. Just stop making sense. Well... Why don't you experiment with that?
[17:15]
You have the ingredients. It makes me remember. I was in New York and I had to give a talk. I'm very bad at public talk. The only thing I'm worst at is giving toasts. So in Creston, I always ask Martin Macaulay to tell me. He doesn't keep... So I had to give a talk at this big... tricycle event in New York honoring Jack Kerouac the beat novelist who wrote On the Road etc. and they asked me to speak about enlightenment
[18:16]
Jack Kerouac's enlightenment? I don't know. My enlightenment? I don't know. And I thought, in New York, I'd better wear a tie. And I had no feeling for these people. I mean, I had no relationship to their potential enlightenment or anybody else's, so I just didn't know what to say. So I'm not very good at it, but I'm also not good at faking it. So I just said something and I felt totally humiliated afterwards. I thought I'd jumped in the East River and disappeared. But David Byrne was there with the talking hands.
[19:38]
And as we were leaving, I was going out the door, he said, we almost met. And I said, stop making sense. And I said, stop making sense. That's a lie, I didn't say that. But I could have. Evelyn, you haven't said anything for a while. Please start making sense. Okay. Oh, you were just waving your arm around? Oh, just like, okay.
[20:51]
Hans? Yesterday, when I was talking about the subject, yesterday it was clear to me that at this point where you have stopped from the opposite, you have stopped from everything. Yesterday you also spoke about a similar topic, and I felt it more clearly when you spoke about everything all at once being woven together, interwoven, and something new appearing every instant. Yesterday this was connected to a kind of beam of warmth within my body. And consciously and also in the background, I was dealing with that also during the night, I think.
[22:17]
And this morning I had the picture, the phrase, a kind of diffusion, that's how I would describe it for me. Diffusion, where you have two different Yes. And today there was the image and also the term of diffusion of two different kinds of liquids and different colors. Consistency. Viscosity, different viscosity. And taking away the separation between them, you can notice how they intermingle and flow together.
[23:36]
Yeah, I did say something with that. And that's what I said. This morning I noticed that I was moving in a kind of like trying to find my way by very cautiously trying to find my way. Not only in a physical sense, but also in the mind and in the thoughts, in a kind of way, trying to find... And also trying to find this point where one goes into the other is connected with an experience of lust.
[25:11]
Lust, yeah. Pleasure. I thought like President Carter you were saying I sometimes feel lust. Okay. Thank you. What you said is enough. I don't have to add anything. Christa? A term came up or a sentence that you used in earlier seminars, non-dreaming deep sleep. What's the term?
[26:17]
Non-dreaming in deep sleep. And I try to find out where in between the standards or before this canvas, this term is situated or could be situated. Or putting the question differently, is there something before form? Well. Everything all at once is before form. But the skandhas are meant to be an experiential description, a constituent description of consciousness.
[27:37]
So the skandhas are a description of the world, the description of each person's territory of consciousness. So it starts with signal or appearance or something. That way? If you have understood the word correctly, you spoke about the diving... The bathysphere?
[28:45]
Yeah. In my experience, this requires a certain kind of courage. The courage, the control. The courage to let go of control. The control by consciousness. And what also appears is what at some point you called getting familiar with the alien or not unknown. And defamiliarize with the known or familiar. And to bring that together so that surprises can happen. which take the form of something new or can make something new.
[30:00]
And diving down into these different layers, when coming up again, I noticed that it's important to introduce or make a safety stop. Well, good. Dann habe ich noch eine Frage aufgetaucht. Vielleicht hat es mit dem Ausrichten auch zu tun, mit diesem mentalen Posture und dem discursive. The question came up and maybe this has to do with the alignment of mental posture and discursive thinking. Die Vorstellung, die Vorstellung davon, dass that awakening is possible and that freedom from mental and emotional suffering is possible.
[31:17]
The recognition that awakening is possible and freedom from mental and emotional suffering is possible. Somehow a gaining idea wants to include itself into this recognition. I would like to have that. What would you recommend us that we not immediately start to try to take hold of it, of this? As you said, it takes courage to let go. Yesterday you told us that Suzuki Roshi asked you how long does it take you to enter Thousand Minds?
[32:42]
Where would you say, within this journey of diving down, where does Sazen start for you? Does it happen when perception only happens? No. Or further down, or is it simply this process? She spoke about thousand minds, not about thousand. Yeah. Well, what I tried to convey was that Zazen mind, let's call it that, really takes hold with the glue of consciousness, let's go of the associations. And then there's various samadhis, some samadhis with content and some samadhis without content.
[34:09]
You haven't said anything yet. Within me, there is a pause. On the one hand, that I very appreciate the complexity. And in between, there is something like, well, does it have to be complicated like that or complex like that? And I try to practice with two things.
[35:17]
Yes. I liked very much this image on the first day, I think, with the transparent foil. Oh, yeah, the saran wrap. Saran wrap. This is called in the States. And now with the five skandhas, this reminded me of, I remember the book by Daniel Stern, The Diary of a Baby. Yes. where he describes the experience of a newborn from the inside.
[36:22]
And what is ? And he describes what the newborn experiences are only sounds, and he calls it vitality effects. And beside taking in this complexity somewhere here, I try to just look at these wonderful pillars and how this is built. Yeah, OK. This is good. Yeah, this is good. You know, we can certainly enjoy that forest.
[37:29]
But if you're Giorgio... And you have to take care of the forest, you have to know a little more about it than just enjoying the trees. And if you're going to deal with global warming in relationship to forests in Austria, etc., you've got to have even more complex understanding. So the question is, are you practicing to make things somewhat better? Or are you practicing to really... practicing Zen as a transformative practice.
[38:31]
As a transformative practice, it's rather complex. But at least in English, it's complex and not complicated. Okay, and it looks complex from the outside. But the more you're on the inside, it gets less and less complex. So Giorgio, what he knows about the forest doesn't feel complex. He just knows if he can see it in the way the tree is healthy or not healthy, etc. And a good way to deal with something that at first encounter feels complex is to notice what's hidden. And I could ask all of you, what stands out with some vividness from what we talked about?
[39:59]
And the vividness usually means you have a bodily feel for it. So it's like one of those magic strings in fairy tales. Once you get a hold of it, you can begin to lead somewhere. And I myself, if I was sitting here listening to, say, some scientist talking about something I'm not informed about, Und wenn ich selbst hier sitzen würde und zum Beispiel einem Wissenschaftler zuhören würde über etwas, wo ich nicht sehr informiert bin, I would notice that while he or she was speaking,
[41:14]
I happen to also feel these columns. And then I would go to the feeling of feeling those columns and use that feeling to listen to the scientist. No, that way of looking at things, I find not only just happens to work, It happens to work, it happens to be useful. Und diese Art, die Dinge anzuschauen, scheint nicht nur zu funktionieren. But also it is an example of what's meant by the Alaya Vijnana.
[42:26]
Sondern ist auch ein Beispiel dafür, was mit dem Alaya Vijnana gemeint ist. And if I can speak about the Alaya Vijnana during this seminar, I will be pleased. But what I've been doing during these few days is touching on aspects in what I'm speaking about that lead toward the Alaya Vishnaya. Because, you know, like now we have developed enough of a shared resonance, because I don't have to wonder much about what to say. I can just enter the field and say something.
[43:28]
But when we don't have a shared resonance field, then I have to, what should I say? Because it might... And if you do copy that letter I wrote I speak in it about establishing conscious continuums and I would like to see if I can find a way to speak about that here with you this year So you can read in this letter, if you do read it, and it's in English, I'm sorry, I don't have a translation.
[44:29]
You can read what I say about that in the letter. And I'm still developing how to speak about these conscious continuums, three or four of them. Yeah. How? I see. Yeah, I see. She also said to me that the way I'm writing these days is so dense, it's like a forest with no paths.
[45:33]
You didn't say it quite that way, but... Oh... I've known her a long time. She knows how to be tactful. Yeah, that might be the case, that it's dense. I can't tell. Because for me, it's just clear. In other words, for me, I take out every word that's not useful. Which makes it clearer for me to get rid of the filler words. But then that also makes it more dense.
[46:40]
So it may not be such an easy read, especially in English. Yes, you were going to say something as well. I would like to say something. Please. We had a question in the break also from a conversation with Ulrike. He's disappeared, I see. She's in the horizontal. Yeah, I see. I know, I can see her toes moving. And the question is, where in the five scandals impulses located in the five skandhas. Well, impulse is one of the translations for the field of associations, associative mind.
[47:48]
What I was interested in is there are different kinds of impulses. There are some kind of fleeting impulses that just come up. And that you can notice. But there is also a way of... But there is also a kind of impulse that arises within oneself, and this moves in the direction of intention. Like, I would say, an intention that you do not know yet, And it's like you're creating the intention.
[49:33]
But it doesn't feel correct or good to call it intention because it's not shaped as an intention yet. Yeah, okay. It's just an impulse. No, it doesn't feel correct to call it an impulse. You're asking too much of the fourth skanda. The fourth skanda is simply a rubric or a core idea for together-making. Because again, absolutely everything is an activity. Nobody in Buddhism thinks anything is an entity. So if you have associations, they're associating. And if they're associating, then they're impulses, intentions.
[50:46]
All right. So, as I said, D.T. Zucki translates it most accurately, probably, as a pastry, or no, as a confection. And your husband is very good at confections. Isn't that true? Yes. Yes, it's true. An Austrian pastry maker, and he means to be. So pastries are put together, they're confection. Yeah. So... My translation as associative mind is emphasizing the ingredients. Impulses is emphasizing the intention to do something with it.
[51:50]
And confection emphasizes the finished product. That was too much. Very sexual. But everyone understood everything. Sorry. Thank you. Do you want me to run through that again? Yeah, it sounds so nice. It sounds so nice. Okay, so... Associations emphasizes the ingredients. Impulses emphasizes the intention or the... And confection emphasizes the finished product, the put together. But they're all the territory of the ingredients of mind that aren't necessarily present in consciousness.
[52:58]
And the point of their being outside of consciousness is that they can appear in consciousness without our knowing where they came from. They're just kind of impulses that we don't understand. But we act on them. It could be biological instincts or something like that, or hunger. So the second, I feel that for, in other words, we don't want to look at anything in terms of its name. If I say associations and you think that means it includes impulses, you don't understand anything.
[54:01]
Excuse me. There's no such thing as a description. Does Hiltrud describe you? Even when I forget your name and think it's Gertrude. But that's not age and age, and he'd have to be Gorst. Whatever you are named, you are a presence in my field of experience, independent of your name. Hans used to worry I forgot his name. But I don't even know my own daughter's names.
[55:03]
I call them by my wife or something like that. So I don't even think in language. Ich denke nicht einmal in Sprache. So the word association is nothing but a target for all the other ways you can think of associative activity. Also dieses Wort assoziativ am Mind ist einfach nur wie eine Zielscheibe für alle die Weisen, die über diese assoziierende Aktivität denken können. And that gives you a kind of door But when you're outside of consciousness and in field of associations, there's no name for it. It's like a vast sea and the waves are huge or sometimes small.
[56:07]
And one of the waves might turn the ship over. Yeah, a big impulse. And then you try to find how to stay even in the midst of these waves. And the safety of consciousness you can't sometimes get back to. So it does take courage. I know when I first started practicing, I used to feel that these stories about, I said it in the other seminar, these stories about... you are dying and you go down this tunnel. I used to feel it, I'm already a little crazy, but then if I start exploring the limits of consciousness and you're willing to be outside of any controlling, I thought, well, maybe I'll go crazy.
[57:23]
I mean, I'm serious. I really thought I might go crazy. I was pretty much absolutely sure I wouldn't commit suicide, but I might go crazy, but I was willing to take the chance. I was very clear I didn't want the boredom of safety. It's a little different theme, talking about creating fields of consciousness. But you can translate yourself if you want.
[58:39]
Well, about fields of consciousness. And what you said, that you can then enter this, let's call it ours, it's not our field of consciousness, then you can simply enter it. And what you said, that you somehow can give yourself into our field of consciousness, but it's not our field, actually. Don't you think in this time of the world, or the earth, the time we have now, it could be so important to go out with this kind of consciousness, like you as a carrier of a long lineage of wisdom,
[59:43]
and whatever is there, the deep sea. Yeah, not you, but you know. And to extend this, because we are in a time in this earth which is a crucial time. It's true. Yes, and what you said about giving public talks or what we had in my house. There were long practitioners. And there were people who had no clue what this was about. And at the end, there was a melting and some transformation which was very beautiful.
[60:50]
And everybody was talking to everybody. It was very warm-hearted and it had visibly and palpably transformed. And this is a craft, it's an art. And to extend this more and more, Isn't it the time now on this earth to do this? Well, that is also why I was somewhat reluctant to go to Berlin and do this. Das war auch der Grund, warum ich irgendwie gezögert habe, das zu tun und nach Berlin zu gehen.
[62:10]
I agreed to be in Hamburg for some reason, so I thought, yeah, I'll go to Berlin and see dear Michael. Also, aber ich habe zugestimmt, nach Hamburg zu gehen, und da habe ich mir gedacht, ja, dann gehe ich eben auch nach Berlin zu der lieben Maike. But also, I knew all the people you were inviting were people you knew and were friends. So I thought if I can tune in to the way you are friends with these people, it might be the alchemy I need. So I made use of you. Thank you very much. But would you consider, like when I put it, giving your, let's say, knowledge to an extended public these days because we are at this crucial point on Earth?
[63:29]
Well, yeah. You know, and I am actually thoroughly, let's not say profoundly, thoroughly pessimistic. I think it's all over for us. I don't think we can do much. I think in 100 years or less we'll have a minuscule number of people compared to now. So I can only, I'm just deciding to practice, be on the path with others who want to be. But I simply do not have public skills. Ich habe einfach keine Fähigkeiten für die Öffentlichkeit. I have to be actually talking with somebody where I feel a response, or I can't do social things. I mean, I'm not a person ever in college went to a party.
[64:32]
Also, ich muss mit jemandem sprechen. I just don't do those things that I can't have any relationship to. Yeah, so, I mean, no one's asking me to do it. You might be sort of asking me. No one's asking me, and I don't think I could pull it off. But maybe if I could write something that would be useful, I have no idea. I don't. I think for me everything is very particular and peculiar. So I can feel the peculiarity and particularity of Siegfried, and that's enough for me. Also kann ich diese Besonderheit und Eigenartigkeit von Siegfried spüren, und das ist genug für mich.
[65:39]
I hope he says something, so here he is. Also ich hoffe, er sagt etwas, hier ist er. Thank you, Michael, für dieses Thema. Thank you, Michael, for the topic. Das ist mir sehr ein Anliegen. This is important to me. Ich bin passiv, ich bin pessimistisch und optimist. I am pessimistic and optimistic, pessimistic in view of the number of people in 100 years, but optimistic in way of the development of consciousness. I'm optimistic, too, because it feels better. Ich bin auch optimistisch, weil sich das besser anfühlt. Aber mir ist jetzt noch was anderes klar geworden. But another thing became clear for me now. Aufgrund deiner Teachings habe ich beschlossen, seit zwei, drei Jahren... Because of your teachings I decided... I decided... Die Felder, die ich aufstelle in der Aufstellungsarbeit, die Personen...
[66:56]
The people that represent things in my constellation work, To use the names that are represented as provisional terms, names. Und jetzt wird mir klar, welche Zusammenhang das hat. And now it becomes clear for me what is the... So what's important about it? It's the loosening of the relationship of field and name. Until now I thought it would be important to find the right name at the end of the process.
[68:04]
And now I think it's not about the right name, it's about the appearance of the function in the process. And what feels good for every participant. And my feeling is that I also I'm asking them to allow that, that there are no final names. But feeling for the situation of Durkheim.
[69:22]
The feeling for the ascension of the whole function. And to perceive the... Sorry. And to experience the representatives as fields that interact with each other. Yeah, that's how I do it too. Thank you. Yes, Kristin? Is it sauce? Sometimes I have picked up this sentence and it enhanced something within me that was already present.
[70:31]
And the sentence was, humanity puts an end to itself, something like that. And picking this up and being in resonance it made me realize that it already includes a position afterwards when this already has happened. . And sometimes I have the feeling that I'm looking at the present situation from a future perspective.
[72:13]
But it's not a future perspective. I understand what you mean, yes. It's not a future perspective. Yes. And that's also... So from this point of view, I also see that it's different from the outside. And for that reason now I'm also interested in that which is beyond the scandals. I think you can say beyond consciousness or... the self generated by consciousness, within consciousness, but I don't think you can say beyond the skandhas, that's like saying beyond this bell or something. Outside that? outside that which is served by the using of the scoundrels.
[73:26]
Well, I don't quite understand what you mean, but we could talk about it. I'm not sure that I know what you mean, but we can talk about it at some point. And you were going to say something? Well, I had a question about what would you say. What do you mean? So what did you mean? Did you mean there will be only very few people who will practice with consciousness, or there will be very few people? Very few human beings, or many less proportionally. But the world functions pretty well in the Middle Ages with a tiny percentage of the population exists now, so it's not necessarily bad.
[74:34]
It might be okay. I mean, my own, you know, I'm from a family of people, you know, the basic thing is to be a scientist. Or an engineer. And I have a daughter, Sophia, who said he has one daughter who's an opera singer, he has one daughter who's a painter. He's always wanted a daughter who's a scientist. Maybe I should do that. And children, I think, often fulfill the unlived life of one of the parents. But I don't want to put any pressure on any of my children to do anything except stay alive.
[75:52]
But I say this with some guilt being immersed in the world of science. And I think science is killing us. And I'm not one who says, oh, they'll find a scientific solution. And this was my insight in my high school graduation speech. And that was, Michael, hard for them to get me to do, because I said I wouldn't do a high school graduation speech. So I finally agreed. And I basically said two things.
[76:53]
Russia and America are going to develop to be kind of twins because they're going to have a similar technological dynamic. And I said, and it's innocent to think if we develop nuclear weapons, everyone won't have them. And I said, It's like you think you can control handguns, you cannot.
[77:55]
So I spoke less than five minutes and sat down. That's the only thing I could think of to say that might be important. And I think scientists built atomic weapons, whatever the reason and the justification and Hitler and blah, blah, blah. It was immoral. I think it's incredibly innocent people saying, we're just going to go where science leads. where it's leading us. The scientists need to follow the precepts. Of course, you don't always know what science will be beneficial and what won't. But it has to be at least considered.
[79:06]
You know, going back to this, since Constellation and family therapy is part of our profession, shared profession here to some extent. I mention this only in the Constellative flavor. I realized the other day, the other days, I don't know, recent months, that I'm actually getting older than most of the people I know. But I actually feel like everybody's younger brother.
[80:17]
And I think the older brothers should do it. And I suddenly think, I'm sort of the older brother. But I realize now, when I think about it, it makes sense. Because I'm the oldest child in my father's family. But I had one older brother I knew about, a half-brother, and a half-brother. I have two older half-brothers that I didn't know about. But I realize now, when I look back, and I did realize some of this before, that my mother used to say things fairly often She'd say something like, you'll never understand how a mother feels about a child.
[81:44]
And how she can miss a child. And I realized from those statements, I intuited that there were at least two kids out there that she missed but never spoke about. My father didn't even know about it. So you were the constellation expert, but my feeling is somehow I felt for my mother I was not the oldest, I was a younger brother. So I don't want to ever take the elder brother's stand. It's not all that simple. But it is true that when I was younger, I was one of the first serious Zen practitioners in America.
[83:09]
Then I got asked to do all kinds of things. Be part of a BBC time-life film movie series? I said no to everything. No one asked me anymore. They gave it up on me. But I looked like I might stand out, and then I couldn't. So I prefer not to have a public identity as much as possible for some reason. And I'm always surprised when people are seen to have a sole public identity. And I haven't written a book, so I don't understand it.
[84:10]
Because usually you have a public identity because you've written a book or something. So maybe my basic stance will make me, if I do finish a book, I'll make sure it's only published posthumously. But I'm sorry to engage you with such a personal conversation, but I'm a failure from your point of view. But I love being with you guys. That's about all I can handle. Thank you. Let's have lunch. Hi kiddo. Thank you for translating.
[85:47]
You're welcome. Yes? What? Something with urbanness. Oh yeah, but do I have to be part of it? No. I mean, if you want me to, I can. Well, it's very simple. Okay, go ahead. So if the weather is fine, there will be fire this evening? And therefore it would be great if everybody would collect some wood and bring it to the fireplace. It would be nice if everybody would join in that. . Thanks for the . OK. . I would like to express that it touches me very much if you tell about your life, always when you tell something about your life.
[87:33]
You don't want to get me started. Because I immediately don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe. I'm very uninterested in my life actually, but I'm glad I'm still alive.
[87:43]
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@Score_78.34