Out of necessity I've gotten pretty good at traveling, I mean to go back and forth to the United States and so forth. But the part I've never gotten good at is packing. It's not because I pack so much exactly, it's because I don't want to leave anything behind. I set up my room wherever I am as if it was exactly the office I left. But I just had to check out of the hotel I'm in. She's also in the same hotel. And I did it in record time, but I was still late. So, is there anything from what I said that you particularly understood or made sense to you, or is there anything that

[01:06]

didn't make sense to you and we could discuss it either way. Yes. Was ist denn überhaupt der Sinn von dem inneren Schweinehund? The inner pig dog. Warum erlauben wir uns in diesem inner pig dog? Warum macht es uns immer so schwer, das Tor zu öffnen, Eingang zu unserer Stille, ab der jahrelangeren Praxis? And what does that have to do with evolution? Otherwise, in age, you see it like this.

[02:27]

It becomes clear to you what is right for you. And we are controlled by emergencies. The species should think about it. Where does your response come from? And how can I avoid it? Yeah, okay. What did I say? Yes, I told you. I'd like to understand why, as you said, how can something as easy as breathing be so difficult? And how can there be such a problem to gain entrance to your stillness? And this emulation stands in the way. What function does it have in the evolution of mankind? Why? You must have some reason. I'm 70, I don't have time for all this. Well, I'm 80 and I don't have time either. But you're an American, right? That's sinful, eh?

[03:32]

Yeah. And we just elected a schweinhund. An inner one. Yeah, an outer one. But I mean, you know, I have a very limited German vocabulary. Gesundheit. Winterschlaf. Schweinhund. Schweinhund. Now, why do, I never, I mean, this is a German phenomenon. You're an American. Why do you have to worry about a schweinhund? That's German. Master. No. Did you expect me to answer a question about the evolution of mankind? I'm only a Zen tribal leader. Yeah, it is one of the first words I learned coming to Germany.

[04:33]

It's a very colorful idea. But the important thing is not why we have a Schweinhund, inner or outer, but just that we notice when it appears. Because we all have something like that. And so the why is really quite irrelevant. What is relevant is when the Schweinehund decides to appear. So you notice what triggers it.

[05:35]

Yeah, I mean you... Have a certain feeling, oh, here comes the Schweinhund. Then you try to catch the trigger early. And that's what the attentional stream is about. Keep track of when Schweinhunds might appear. So really, we're not trying to, like a psychotherapist would have to deal with trauma and how it started, etc. And then we just notice when the trauma appears, when the schweinhund appears, and we begin to be able to anticipate and cut it off.

[06:42]

Someone else? I found it very interesting to hear that in Zen practice there are also stages. And you said that we don't talk about it so much because otherwise we try to make the shoe fit. Is there any possibility for us, for the students, to recognize the steps?

[07:47]

Or are we completely blind? I always thought that Zen was like a steep cliff. One steep step. But apparently there are many. So and then for us as the practitioners or the students, do we have some chance to recognize the stages? I used to always think that Zen is like one steep cliff where it's one big step, but it seems to be different from that. Well, we do aim, the style of Zen is to aim at the top of the mountain. But then to realize you're at the bottom. And then being at the bottom, you notice, you know, what's keeping me from being at the top? And then you notice, I haven't taken the first step.

[08:50]

And so it's like that. And... I think that what a teacher expects of a practitioner and expects of him or herself is that you notice that practice does occur in stages or steps. ist, dass du bemerkst, dass die Praxis sich in Stufen oder Schritten vollzieht. And by expecting the practitioner to notice the steps or stages, him or herself. Und indem wir Fangschüler oder der Schülerin erwarten, diese Schritte oder Stufen selbst zu bemerken. And you know, this is me, it belongs to you.

[09:54]

Und du weißt dann, das bin ich, das gehört zu mir. And then when you decide to somehow solve the problem, the solution belongs to you. And the solution then is part of your practice. For example, I remember when I first started practicing, I felt there was a glass wall between me and the world and other people. I mean, I saw people, I saw things, but I felt there's some kind of intimacy or lack of connection that I feel I'd like to have, but it's not there. So we should say the first stage I noticed was that there was this glass wall there. And I couldn't have noticed this glass wall unless I had become, through sitting practice, more sensitive to possibilities.

[11:16]

And I remember it literally as now. Of course it helps when you look back. You can see the stage is easier looking back. So we've been practicing together how many years? I think I first met you in the beginning of the 90s. That was a while ago. So I think if you look back now, you'll see that actually your practice has changed. No, he says no, I'm not kidding. I'm a failure, complete failure. It has changed. Okay, all right. Okay, so by noticing how it's changed, it also helps you to notice how it might change.

[12:30]

Okay. So when I look back, and even then when I look back, I notice that whatever people meant by non-duality I didn't know because I had felt this glass wall between me and others. And while it's not a glass wall, but I somehow felt the metaphor for it was a glass wall, so I decided to use the metaphor. the best words I could give from my experience.

[13:35]

And I didn't like being on that side of the glass wall. and I hadn't heard yet many decades later I heard Rumi's poem which he says I knocked and knocked on that ancient door And it wouldn't open, and yet I knocked and knocked on that ancient door. And suddenly it opened. And I realized I was already on the other side. So it was something like that. I had this image of the glass wall.

[14:36]

I had no idea what to do about it. And I knew that Zen is supposed to be about non-duality. I had no idea what that experientially could mean. So one thing I did learn early on in Zen practice is that I had so few resources and I couldn't learn from books, I had to trust what appeared to me. I didn't know what to trust, so I had to trust that. So I trusted the metaphor in a sense of the glass wall.

[16:00]

It's all I had. But I also knew I wanted it to be gone. So in my mind I visually positioned myself standing in front of the glass wall. And I just, in my mind, just stood there. And my intention was strong enough, I actually stood there for five, six, seven months. Every time I was with somebody, I felt... I wish this feeling of separation wasn't there. But my intention was always there. And suddenly one day it was gone, the wall. And that was a stage of practice.

[17:16]

So then I thought, is it really gone? I'm a little skeptical, a little paranoid. I'm always sure bad things are going to happen, so I have to be alert. So I checked it out. Yes, no, I had a feeling of no in-betweenness. So the next stage of my practice was exploring, knowing between this. Now, since I've been practicing 55 years, I could give you more examples. But this, I shouldn't ever tell you I've been practicing that long. But anyway, but that's good enough for today. Okay, someone else. Harold, you had something you wanted to say, didn't you? I told you.

[18:32]

Yeah, but tell us now. If you want to mention it. I can't remember. I just asked you if you've heard that in the old Hebrew, the word for breath, wa, is the same word as for the divine. Yeah, that's right. And this, I think, helps to find... Roots for all the religions. Yeah, this sense of sacred. I don't think all religions are the same. They're different paths into the same mystery. The rest is a matter of power. Yeah, okay. I have to think about that. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. You always say your things in German. Mr. Roshi? Mr. Roshiko.

[19:49]

Mr. Roshiko. Yes. Mr. Roshiko asked... I've heard that in Hebrew and even in Arabic. I don't speak both languages, but I've read it once. that the word Goach in the Hebrew or Aramaic or in both languages is called Atem and also the Gospels. And I think that's wonderful. It was in a book where someone translated the Father and the Son backwards. But that's what I didn't say before. I'm sorry. And you said, yes, you have heard something about that, but you didn't think of it at that moment. Yeah, that's right. And also, I can't mention everything. I already mentioned too much.

[21:05]

No, it is important. Let me clear that this is Zen, but it is a common root for all world religions. If you go really to the basis. We're talking about basis of basis. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Okay, anyone else want to say something? Yes. Hi. What's your name? Nicola. Hi, Nicola. Hi. You spoke about the timeless stream before. And if I understood correctly, it was in direct context of direct perception and also direct bodily feelings or perception.

[22:23]

And maybe I misunderstood and then you can explain to me. But what I stumbled over is that the bodily awareness is part of a temporal awareness. Because everything you perceive in the body is bound to time. Yeah, everything you perceive in any case is bound to time and bound to change. You could call it that, bound to. And the fact that it's... But what we're talking about here and what I found myself emphasizing was the shift from your psychological or self-referencing or stream of consciousness...

[23:29]

One morning and afternoon here, we can't go into too much detail. But it's not just the self-referential aspect of consciousness. It's also the very structure of consciousness which is meant to protect us from taxis and tigers. Taxis coming around the corner fast. So the structure of consciousness itself presents the world to us as predictable. And the world is not predictable.

[25:16]

It's relatively predictable, luckily. Okay, so we'd like to, from the point of view of practice and the sacred, we'd like to see if we can get out of... if we can use the predictability of consciousness when it's useful as a tool but not how we identify ourselves in the world. And the craft of that or the trick or the craft The dynamic of that is to bring attention away from the stream of consciousness. At some point it becomes, with your developing practice, a simultaneous stage of awareness and consciousness.

[26:33]

I'm distinguishing awareness and consciousness here. Mm-hmm. And the practice of what's called anasati, breath mindfulness practice, is not just that you're bringing attention to the breath as a ist nicht nur, dass du die Aufmerksamkeit zum Atmen als etwas, was sich ereignet, bringst,

[27:43]

you're bringing attention to the breath as a physical phenomenon. So you're noticing the physicality of breath. And that's coded as in teachings to notice which breath is long breath or breath is short breath and so forth. And so to say notice the long and short breath is sort of a code for noticing the physicality of breath. So even when you are noticing the physicality of breath, and some are long, some are short, some are anxious, etc., and they affect whether your mouth is wet or dry, and so forth, And you're trying to make the terrain of breathing, the topography of breathing,

[29:05]

complex enough or topographical enough, physiological enough, that it can absorb your attention. Now, if your sense of the physical act of breathing is subtle and particular enough, It can really absorb attention because if you barely notice it, it's just more interesting to think about what you have to do next. She was literally trying to take the stream of consciousness, which is an intentional stream, which is so engaged in who we are and what we're doing,

[30:24]

And you're trying to give it a more highly developed, more fully articulated target. So every time you bring attention from your conscious stream into your bodily stream, Yes, the bodily stream is temporal, but it's not the conscious stream. So the more fully you can bring it into the bodily stream and repeat that often enough, And often you need the inoculation of bringing it into meditation practice.

[31:54]

Inoculation? Like for a blue shot. And often you need something like the vaccination of meditation to bring it into meditation practice. the more you can sort of inoculate yourself with the, maybe that's not the right word to use, here's a doctor sitting here, what are you talking about? As long as you can locate attention regularly enough and deeply enough in your bodily continuity, and your phenomenal continuity, you open up ranges, stages, layers of mind that are actually way more interesting than consciousness. Way more satisfied.

[33:10]

I kind of like it to stand in a queue or to wait for a bus. I just stop. And I am still. I don't really care if the bus ever comes. It's just fantastically satisfying to just be there. And if I have a thought, I think, I hope the bus is late. Any luck? Okay, I have to figure out what happened.

[34:13]

Yeah, so that's enough to say about that. Yeah. Yes? I would like to practice a little bit. Now? Now. I'm trying, I generally start with half an hour practice before we start. Normally it would be a good idea to just, you know, to have been listening to you and not to just sit down and let it integrate a little bit. Yes. Well, I usually when I, I mean in such a case where we're not meeting tomorrow or anything, I usually hope that I'm speaking in such a way that in fact there's a kind of absorption going on while I'm speaking. But since I'm willing to accept whatever appears,

[35:21]

And you are now an interruption of my conceptual stream. Why don't I listen to you? So here. Thank you.

[36:47]

After I leave, you can sit some more. As I've often been saying recently, that the zazen practice has a particular posture, which is not a walking around posture, not a sleeping posture. Which is a posture which as much as possible you let the structure of the posture support you without your having to use much musculature. And then that physical posture is joined by the mental posture, don't move.

[39:45]

But of course you are moving. Your heart's beating. And I know some people get anxious when they first start sitting because, oh, my heart's beating, it might stop, oh my gosh. And then you notice, of course, the movements of breathing and your metabolism and so forth. And we could say there's kind of stages of practice in whether attention can stay with a kind of metabolic presence.

[40:46]

A metabolic presence. And where does attention reside in stillness? And the various teachings are often about how to notice the evolution of that stillness. The five skandhas are the most earliest and most developed of this way of noticing stillness. The unfolding of layers of stillness. And it's helpful to have the teaching of the five skandhas.

[41:53]

But it's sort of better to bring a beginner's mind to it. And just notice there's actually different kinds of stillness. Stillness where there's still percepts, but not thinking about. And stillness where there's no percepts, There's only space or there's only non-graspable feeling. Yeah, so those are all, we could say, stages of practice that you let evolve and then later you find, hey, that's the teaching of the five skandhas.

[43:02]

Well, that's, hey, that's the teaching of the four jhanas. And the jhana is the source of the word jhan and zen. And then maybe at first you have no... If you recognize what you're doing, hey, this is the four jhanas, that's what we're talking about. I already know it from my own experience. But then I've heard there's four formless jhanas. Geez, I don't know how to go there. But I don't know, but I'll just stand in front of the four formless jhanas and see if they can somehow form in their formlessness.

[44:13]

And the brave practitioner uses teachings as a suggestion but doesn't try to follow the teachings. To have the patience to let the teachings unfold through your own experience. As Dogen says, don't let the sutras turn you, you turn the sutras. So one of the things I do is I practice with body, breath, breath body and phenomena. So I use waking up.

[45:28]

I prefer waking up rather than waking down. If I wake down and all my problems and I've got this to do and it's late, I didn't answer that email. And I've always been amused I don't know the vocabulary, but I know in Germany nobody wakes up, they stand up. I imagine all over Germany people pulling the covers back and standing up. In America we just sort of roll over and... Put our legs down.

[46:33]

Yeah, so I wake up and what I practice is I wake up into my breath. Or I wake up into breathing and not my breath. And waking up is a good chance to practice. So it's the daily life and consciousness which is waking me up. I can only stay to bed so long and you have to get up and do things. and for me this is a very basic practice it starts when I wake up and attention is waking up into something And I kind of get it, hey, wake up in the breath.

[47:48]

And I wake up into short breaths or long breaths or stale breaths. Like stale bread. No. She doesn't know, I haven't experienced a stale breath. And so I let attention wake up into the potential, the sacredness of the breath stream that's always with us. Now, if this is all very primitive, mechanistic almost, what I'm talking about, but I have to use the ingredients I have. And what are the ingredients? I've awakened. So I use that.

[49:10]

And attention wants to go to what I have to do later and have a cup of tea or something. Would I suggest attention go into the breath? And then I suggest the breath goes into the body. I get up out of bed. And then I suggest attention go into phenomena. You know, the word phenomena in English, do you have the same word in German? We do, but it doesn't flow so easily. It's not a technical, philosophical word. In English, it's become meaning the outside world.

[50:14]

But literally, etymology of phenomena is the outside world as perceived by the senses. So it means the sensorial outside world. So then I bring... Erscheinungen. Okay, the problem I can tell you, it's a big problem every time. You use appearances. Sorry. I'm sorry. Because you use appearances so much to describe something very specific. Yeah. If I was to translate the German word that would be used, a more German word for phenomena is the same word as for appearance, and then we'd have only one word for appearance and for phenomena. And so that's a problem in translating. I understand. Yeah, English has about twice as many words as German.

[51:20]

But German has more verbs than English. That's interesting. Phenomena, an event in German. To experience events. That's event in English. It's like Heidegger or the phenomenologists. They also say the phenomena. It's very technical or philosophical in German. I haven't found a better reason. It's always a bit different than what he says. But I know the problem. That's true. So what's good about this, though, is these problems between English and German show you that English and German are not really about what's going on. They're only pointers. And you don't want words to You don't want words to tell you how to experience.

[52:57]

You want words to point to experiences that come before words. Du möchtest ja gar nicht, dass die Worte dir sagen, was du erfahren sollst oder wie du erfahren sollst, sondern du möchtest eigentlich Erfahrungen, die auf Worte verweisen. And one of the things that zazen does, it's almost like it tunes you into stations that speak neither German nor English. And this is where the emphasis on non-graspable feeling comes in. Because you notice there's gradations or real distinctions in feeling that you don't have any words for. But you begin to be able to allow yourself to be in these unnameable but distinctive terrain

[54:10]

a feeling, something like that. So I wake up into breath. And then I wake up into the body. And then I wake up into phenomena. And then I use the experience of being located attentionally in phenomena. To walk to the kitchen or walk to the toilet or whatever. And the more I can feel attention simultaneously in phenomena, which of course is the case because otherwise I couldn't walk across the room.

[55:39]

But when attention is flowing in phenomena and not just in the mental stream, somehow it's different than just walking across the floor. And the attention located in phenomena begins to flow back into the body. And into the mind as attention. So already the attentional stream is in body, breath and phenomena. Of course it's also simultaneously in what you have to do that day, otherwise you wouldn't be making a cup of tea or coffee or something.

[57:06]

But they begin to be braided together. Okay, now, Nicole mentioned appearance. And I think maybe it would be useful to talk about that after a break. We're supposed to stop in 45 minutes or so. So why don't we have a 15, if we're really going to do that, that's okay. Why don't we have a 15 or 20 minute break and then we can talk a little bit more or sit a little bit more or something. Because I haven't told her yet, but I now have a new word, not appearance, but dharma appearance.

[58:09]

It sounds like a disease in German. Yeah, well, maybe I have to avoid that one. Dharma appearance. Okay, after lunch, I mean after brunch, I mean after break.

[58:51]

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