And the chirping and singing of the birds. That we hear. And the many birds enfolded in the background of the forest. Is this hearing consciousness? Or could there perhaps be two kinds of knowing Maybe two or more kinds of knowing.

[01:04]

Folded together so pervasively. that we don't notice the difference. And if there's a difference, is the difference perhaps a directionality, a direction that's not visible until there's movement? Yeah, some kind of.

[02:05]

Menthol movement. Is this hearing, this peep, peep of birds, is hearing consciousness? Good morning.

[06:11]

Of course, I would like to do this seminar in whatever way is most useful, satisfying and interesting to you. Ich würde dieses Seminar natürlich auf eine Weise machen, die für euch wie auch immer am hilfreichsten, am interessantesten und so weiter ist. And if it's going to be useful, satisfying and interesting to me, it will mean a lot of participation from you. Und wenn es für mich selbst hilfreich, zufriedenstellend, befriedigend und interessant ist, dann bedeutet das sehr viel Teilnahme, Beteiligung von euch. But do you have any ideas of what you'd like to do? Or is that my job? I'm happy to make it your job. Mimi? I am very interested in having differentiation with the physical experience of the difference between awareness, consciousness, mind,

[07:35]

Maybe give me a break to translate into German, please. Physical aspects. Well, we'll see. Mimi, you're French originally? Italian. Italian. But you speak French and Italian. She lives in Colorado Springs, mostly. I mean, Boulder, mostly. Colorado and Boulder. Sorry, I know the difference. And... and practices with the Dharma Sangha in Colorado.

[08:42]

Somehow she's on her way to Turkey and landed here. Okay, anyone else? Yeah. What helps me most at the moment is your stories about your experiencing the world and the minds. Because it helps me to go beyond this border where I know I know things. So by experience you mean, or story, you mean some anecdote about, what do you mean by story, experience?

[09:46]

Like the thing with the beggars on the last weekend? You told us a bit what you were experiencing and it helped me a lot to get hold of very subtle things that are going on anyway, but not that I realized them all. Okay, in German please. What helps me the most at the moment are Roshi's experiences that he tells us So perhaps some kind of anecdote like that makes clearer the layers of consciousness than some sort of philosophical description of them.

[10:57]

And then we could ask, are the layeredness of consciousness all consciousness? Or is it better to call some of the layers, if there are such, something else? Does someone else have something you want to say? I'm dealing with cognition and naming. Naming. And the things in order, fine.

[12:16]

Thank you. In connection with psychotherapy and also with awareness. But this type of mission implies and then An observer and something which is observed. And from the position of the observer, is the question whether and how the thing that is observed is changed by the observer. But if I somehow melt into the object and the boundaries are dissolving?

[13:32]

What happens then? What is happening? What is happening first of all with the preciseness of cognition and then the melting of that into a disappearance of the subject-object distinction? What happens to the subject, what happens to the object, and what happens to the action?

[14:36]

What does action mean, actually, then, if the border is dissolved? Okay. So what I would like to do is let these questions float in our common mind. And to see during the next days, a couple of days, if they sink, swim, take over, whatever. Okay, is that all right with you, Christa? Mikhail, is that right, Mikhail? I see a hand almost up a moment ago. No? Yes. Yes. I arrived yesterday at 2 o'clock in the night.

[16:09]

2 o'clock? Today. Today. And Christine was still awake. And I asked her, Roshi, what did you do in the evening? And she said, I didn't get much from it. I didn't know what's... But you talked about the same thing. ... And then for me this was quite interesting, exciting somehow.

[17:10]

I couldn't go to sleep and I just was thinking about who differentiates between I and self. The pronoun I or the experience of the I-observer, is that what you mean? Okay. Let's see. Who makes the distinction between I and the self? Okay. Yeah. Okay. I notice that this is exactly the topic or the sphere I'm working with.

[18:11]

And I hope when I learn more about that, that I know better how the development goes on, and how a decision happens. And I would like to know more about that. Me too. I suppose I could be apologetic to come back to much of what we spoke of last year. I suppose I could be apologetically apologizing for coming back to much of what we spoke of. It sounds like it. But I find... If I make certain distinctions or notice something, I wouldn't call the distinctions learning.

[19:41]

I'd call them information perhaps. But then that information, in this case floating in my mind, mind, body and activity, is a process of mind. I begin to notice things because of the proximity of this information in my thinking and acting. And certain statements.

[20:51]

Concepts are information rich, we could say. and you don't use them up I suppose I'm trying to come to in myself and with you ways of looking at things which are information rich And then, hopefully, work in us and through us. For instance, Buddhism is Zen Buddhism. It's always speaking about original faith. or original mind, or the mind or face before your parents were born.

[21:59]

Now what could be the face before your parents were born? I think if you're practicing this, at least, if you're practicing anyway, you don't ever reach the end of the information in this statement. Okay, someone else? Yes? I think it's difficult for me It's difficult for me to follow the distinctions between I, self and presence. I was surprised that you called what for me is the self, you called presence.

[23:25]

For me the self is that what is being connected. And the I is the processes of distinction, differentiation. . But I'm interested, we can exchange the words, but I'm interested to explore the processes. Okay, Michael made a distinction between the I and the self. Okay, and I'm here when I speak about the self.

[25:02]

I'm not speaking about the self in perhaps of your experience. And I'm not speaking about the self, the many ways self is viewed in contemporary psychology. But I'm most specifically trying to limit the definition of self to that which hinders enlightenment. or realization. And to that which is a vehicle for karma, And for one's self-narrative.

[26:12]

And for one's self-narrative. Now, this does not mean that, well... Because I'm speaking if you know something about Buddhism. Why the self is such a bad rap? Do you understand bad rap? No, I don't understand. Bad rap means a bad story. You can always ask me if you don't know. Bad rap means he's got a bad reputation, a bad things. This movie has a...

[27:12]

Yeah. I suppose it's a mixture of reputation and rap as a story, as a slang. Rap, yeah, because we say you're going to rap about something. Talk about something. And so often Buddhism is, I think, misunderstood as being something meaning no self or something like that, which is, in the sense of self as a function, is impossible. So I'm trying to come to a definition of self which makes sense to us Westerners, but also makes sense in terms of how Buddhism uses the word.

[28:20]

And I think if you're going to practice, or you're going to... have clients who practice, you've got to have some common idea of what you mean by self. Now, if I understand Siegfried correctly, what he means by presence, Buddhism wouldn't call self. But it might be in a way more fundamentally doing the work of self than what Buddhism means by self. And then self, that presence, might be something closer to Buddha nature. Then I have to break, if I have to, if I use that term, then we have to say, is this going to float around and are we going to find out, come to what possibly the tradition means by Buddha nature?

[29:47]

If this is a new word that's going to float around... it means that maybe we should consider what the tradition means by Buddha nature. Because if Christianity and Western culture and Asian yoga culture and Buddhism are going to find the differences and similarities that allow integration. Buddha nature may be one of those points. And we're not also just talking about mind, consciousness, etc. In some phenomenological sense.

[30:52]

But what is understood as the potential of consciousness, self, etc.? In other words, if the potential of consciousness is enlightenment, that's another way of understanding consciousness than just as, you know, the way we see things. Or if what we mean by enlightenment is actually getting free of consciousness, then we have another idea of what consciousness is. So now we have a number of words that we might think about getting a feel for, if not a definition of.

[32:11]

No, we have consciousness. I always have to add awareness. Concentration. Self. Buddha nature. Dharma. Being. There's probably a couple more in there. Now I think it might be surprising to some that I put the word concentration in there. Because, but concentration is that use of the mind which transforms the mind. That use of the mind or consciousness that transforms or is a dynamic of consciousness and awareness.

[33:37]

Yeah. Let's see if I can give a technical definition in Buddhism of concentration. Concentration is that aspect of mind which through one-pointedness and intentionality gathers known. It's also very close to what is meant by samadhi. So already if we have a

[34:38]

idea of something like samadhi or this rich definition of concentration. Yeah, so let's just right for now just use the word samadhi. Is samadhi a aspect of mind? Which is generally available to everyone? Or just occasionally and maybe available sometimes to us? Or does the dynamic of knowing that Buddhism proposes require the yogic skills of realized samadhi and one-pointedness. The realized skills of samadhi

[35:54]

of one-pointedness and samadhi. Then is this some sort of elitist thing that depends on some kind of yogic athletic skill? And that goes against our sort of sense of democracy and We're all alike in naturalness and so forth. Yeah, these are real questions for me. And if it does depend on yogic skills, can perhaps the yogic skills that are required are necessary to discover the teachings? But are they necessary to live the teaching? They may be necessary to discover the teaching, but are they necessary to live the teaching?

[37:17]

Am I making sense when I say these things? Or some of you are saying, I'm not going to bother with such yogic skills. I'm bailing out now. but maybe they're present in us without necessarily years of practice. I know when I first started practicing, I couldn't understand what was meant by concentration. I knew you concentrated on your breath and things like that. Yeah, and that was like concentrating on your studies or what you were reading. But how could that be so important? That it's in the... It's the...

[38:40]

fruit of the eightfold path. The first Buddhist teaching starts with the right views and ends with concentration. So what is the, if it's so important, what is the role of concentration or what is meant by concentration? Both what is meant by concentration And what is the role of whatever this kind of concentration is in our life? So I think we ought to take a break in a moment. Do you want to bring something up? Yes. Somehow the last weekend still resonates in me.

[39:56]

During that weekend, several times you brought up intentional and intentional thinking. Intentional thought. And now again, you spoke how intentionality is built in in concentration or somehow. So I would like to know more about this intentionality, where it is rooted. And whether this is a part which it starts in consciousness and then it becomes a body habit.

[41:16]

Okay. I'm dealing with the question, can I learn to be concentrated without concentration? Sounds like Buddhism. Okay. Mimi, did you want to say something a minute ago? Yeah. I saw you were writing and then suddenly your hand went like this. Yes, I actually, when you said the hinders themselves, hinders the realization. Hinder means a blockage. First, I need to know what it is to feel realization in order to understand what is wrong again.

[42:28]

Well, that would be nice if that were the case. Realization first and practice and understanding second. Okay. To translate that into a real experience for me, how do I know this in the self that doesn't allow me to be realized? That's exactly why I think we have to define self. Because self is one of these general words that floats around and covers many aspects of our self and of our activity. Then we can't practice with precision. And we won't believe the practice because it doesn't make sense unless it has... Yeah, it won't make sense.

[43:49]

Maybe after the break? Is that all right? Maybe. Well, then go ahead. Something is cooking. Really? Let's all look at Christa then. So the thing was to save. When we look at it mostly like it is something which hinders us, then this would contradict entering into things to experience them. So I ask myself, why are there these different ideas of being an individual and experiencing... Being an individual?

[45:05]

Yeah, and experiencing oneself as an individual. I miss somehow this sense of experimenting and of also appreciation of a sense of self at the process of the self. Because I also think putting one's self in the midst of this process, of the self, is the only possibility to bring it to a resolution. Is one possibility or maybe the only possibility to dissolve what?

[46:26]

To dissolve this process. I understand. I think I understand. So the question I would have, listening to you, Is this the dynamic that you suggest as a process of knowing and of satisfaction? Sorry. Is the dynamic that you suggest as a process of knowing and satisfaction and perhaps realization the only dynamic? Are there alternatives? And is partly what we're experiencing about Is the habit that we have from our own language and culture of giving consciousness and a certain kind of self a privileged position in our knowing and appreciation of the world?

[47:34]

In an extreme sense, is consciousness and self our mother's arms? Or are there possible other privileged positions for our experience other than self and consciousness? Wow. We're into this fast, aren't we? Yeah, okay. So now can we have a break? Okay, thank you for transitioning.

[48:51]

I hope you don't mind my Buddhist habit of bowing to you all the time. The practice is common in Asia, of course. But in Zen, it's rooted in monastic life. Where the bow is a sense of stopping. Lifting your presence or aura or something like that into your hands. Bringing it up through your body. And then kind of entering that space with another person.

[50:35]

And you get so you kind of like it after a while. Because like Christa says, you sort of disappear into it. But sometimes, you know, when you're at the airplane, you buy your airplane ticket and you start bowing to the person at the counter. Because you forget after a while. Now the question of... Christina said, how do you translate knowing the word, English word, and what do I mean by knowing, came up at the break. And I would say that the biggest word is sentience. And then nearly the same word in English, feeling.

[51:45]

If there's been a car accident or something and there's no feeling, maybe the person's dead. There's no... They may not be conscious, but there's some feeling or something. They are not conscious. They may not be conscious, but there's still some feeling. So feeling and... So feeling is close to emotion in German. So we say empfinden.

[52:47]

In English I always want us to separate feeling from emotion and not conflate them. Because feeling is the quality of being that accompanies all mental and physical phenomena. It's more basic than consciousness. Those feelings are not emotions. So I'd say the Buddhist view is something like there's sentience, there's... Feeling. And then there's some kind of knowing caring. And that caring is basically, we could say, the base of emotions.

[53:48]

And then consciousness is based on that. and thinking then based on consciousness. It's a kind of pyramid. There are also of course feelings and consciousness and emotions that arise through thinking. But I don't think there's any coherent thinking unless there's some caring or interest or feeling. And I like what the word, at least in English, interest means. It's funny, you know, most Americans, I don't know about British people, they say interesting, they don't say inter-esting.

[55:17]

And even, you know, Newscasters on television say, oh, that's interesting, but it's actually interesting. But interesting means between, among, to be. To be in the center of being. Or isness, to be in the center isness.

[56:24]

So I use the word knowing to mean all ways in which we know something which may not be either consciousness or awareness. Now, very early on in my attempt to speak about practice, I had to make a distinction. I found I had to find something in addition to the word consciousness. So I chose awareness. Probably we should try to understand the usefulness of this distinction and what it is.

[57:30]

But right now I put it aside until it comes up. Now, when we get older, when we're living within the debris of our life, Debris means something that's broken up into pieces. Sort of our half-fulfilled and half-acknowledged karma. And then we begin to wonder is consciousness, perhaps we wonder is consciousness location of our life.

[58:54]

And we see that actually there are territories of our life like in dreams and perhaps in wider senses of knowing that aren't in consciousness. But it's consciousness where we try to put it together make some sense of it. It's funny, as you get older you have stronger and clearer convictions. At least if you've matured, let's say. And you less and less have borrowed convictions. Convictions borrowed for others. You have your own convictions through your lived life. But just to the extent that they're not borrowed, they're also kind of lonely.

[59:56]

And you've seen a world gone wrong so often that you begin to wonder if convictions make any sense. I wonder if the convictions make any sense in a world that keeps going wrong in the same old ways. I see a worse rerun in America. political rerun than it was during the Vietnam War. I don't mean that the wars are the same, but I mean that the deception within the mentality is even worse. So we have convictions because of the way the world is, but then they don't seem to make any sense, so why do we have convictions?

[61:16]

They don't seem to change anything. So I think we... When we're older, we have to look at what's been our experience and how do we decide we want to stay alive. When you're younger, what your experience is, what consciousness is and so forth, is important in a different way because it's important in your not yet the direction of your not yet lived life so I'm also I mean I'm thinking of these words as you know

[62:22]

Can they make sense of our life, young or old? Help us make sense. Now, Ulrike, what was the main point of what you brought up earlier? What was the main point of what you brought up earlier? So I asked for a more precise distinction between concentration and intention. And my question also, where is intention rooted?

[63:40]

And I'm still not going to that yet. And I'm not speaking about self only as something that hinders realization. Because self, of course, gives us many rich experiences. And it's an enhanced experience of life. And in many... The functions of self we have to have to live.

[64:51]

And I'm not speaking about consciousness and discrimination as being bad. Dogen speaks about consciousness as that that mind from which you make the decision to practice. But he doesn't mean there aren't many other uses for discrimination, which is most of our daily life. But discriminating mind from the point of view of practice is problematic.

[65:54]

Yeah, but all of our life is not practice. Much of our life is just living our life. Solving a problem. Sukhya, she said once, although I teach you to be free of comparative mind, if you choose a teacher, you want a teacher who discriminates well. Now Sophia, you know, my three-year-old, I mean her own three-year-old who also I'm the father. That's in relationship to, I think I've told you the story, when Virginia and I, my first wife, were giving Elizabeth, Sally, a hard time.

[67:05]

And she wouldn't do what either of us wanted. So finally we said to her, look, we manufactured you, we made you. You belong to us. So you have to do what we want. She said, it's too late now. I belong to me. So what, yeah? How old was she? Well, it was when we first went to Japan, so she had to be four, I guess. Yeah. So we do have this sense of I belong to me. And Sophia sure has a strong sense of me and mine and so forth. And if I bring something into the house, a package, she says, is that for me?

[68:36]

Not everything I bring in is for you. So she was away from her mother for the first time. all night the other day. And she spent the afternoon at the zoo in Stuttgart while she had to do something else in the afternoon. Somebody was with her at the zoo. And now she's punishing Marie-Louise heavily for this separation. So she wants to be separate, but she wants to be connected. So she's negotiating this territory of separation and connectedness. And articulating it. And we can, we're trying to, I'm trying to see, can we help her articulate it?

[70:00]

Can she articulate, where's the emphasis? More toward connectedness, more toward separation? And how do they work together? Because in addition to me and mine she announced as I mentioned a few days ago She announced a couple weeks ago that her doll is going to live longer than she is. She said, I'll die and this doll will belong to someone else. So she also has this sense of connectedness. And the basic idea that the doll will belong to someone else is the root of the idea of Sangha.

[71:02]

Because Sangha basically is the idea that being, the fullness of being is also those who continue. practicing with you with the sense that you are those who continue in the present time and in the future. Okay. So maybe now, if you don't mind, I would try to define the functions of self, which I've done many times, but again, I think we ought to be on the same page. Und jetzt würde ich gerne, wenn ihr nichts dagegen habt, die Funktionen des Selbst definieren.

[72:16]

Das habe ich schon oft gemacht, aber ich möchte gerne, dass wir alle auf die They're very simple, separation. Continuity. No, connectedness. Connect. And continuity.

[73:17]

And the self is also, self is the location. the observer, the sense of agency, And this means ownership. In other words, observer, we feel it's us observing. And we have a sense of agency that we cause things to happen.

[74:19]

And we have a sense of ownership that somehow we enjoy or suffer the consequences of the actions. That's my action. It's my action. I know I did it and I was the observer.

[75:07]

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