play chess perfectly. But in this state where she is not in the time, she is able to say very wise things. when she's in the state where she's not in contact with her memory in the usual sense, she's able to sound quite wise. But I try to do that too. Mm-hmm. And she uses biographical content to give certain messages or make something clear.

[01:04]

And if you try to take the biographical content analytically, they seem to be confused. You mean the time sequence and so forth is confused, it's conflated. Yeah, yeah. But their relations to each other, they make sense. So you might see the internal workings of her memory separate from her externalization of her memory into a... the normative order. Yes. I cannot translate. Don't worry about it. In other words, what I said is that it may be that you see the kind of intimacy of memory as we know it in dreams, of biography as it functions to integrate us at a different level than in the exterior.

[02:25]

Oh, I'm sorry. Give me a set of time before I talk. That memory functions... when we don't have to put it into the shared symbolic order, the dynamic of memory is different than when we have to organize it in terms of a shared view. So it sounds like she's losing the shared view But it's also fascinating for me to step into her world. Yeah, I bet. How old is she? Is she fairly happy? That's great. That's great. Yeah, I think the person who is senile or has Alzheimer's, I think it's different than the person who has amnesia.

[03:48]

But it's interesting to look at both because you can see, by seeing when it doesn't work, you can see something about why it works. My friend and my disciple and successor in the lineage, Philip Whelan, the poet, died this last July, I think, almost a year ago. And I went back and did his funeral in August, last August. And I saw him, you know, a month or so before he died. This had nothing to do with your mother, except that at that point his memory had gotten really mixed up. And in his case, other things were going on too.

[04:58]

In his case, when he could no longer keep them straight, he enjoyed having everything that's all conflated. He also gave up living They seemed to be connected. Because the doctors had predicted he'd die about two years earlier. I mean, they'd almost not come to see him because they'd say, you're supposed to be dead, Philip. What are you doing there? But he enjoyed his time life and thinking so much and his content.

[05:59]

People came every day and sat with him and talked with him and he'd tell stories, etc. He was a guy who knew one of these people who knows quite a lot. He knows one of these people who seems to know quite a lot. You can't figure out how they know so many things. Like one time, I got him to come to Germany once. And he was supposed to help me with a sashin, but he was not much help. But we went down the Rhine. I didn't know anything about Germany much. But he started pointing out castles and towns and telling me stories about, and I said, you know all this stuff about this castle over there and that town over there.

[07:02]

So that seemed to have kept him alive. Und als er keine Geschichte mehr erzählen konnte und niemand mehr in Beziehung mit ihm treten konnte, dann ist er bald gestorben. Yamada Mumon Roshi who was my Zen teacher in Japan he lived to be nearly 100 and he in Japan nobody will say these things but he seems to have had Alzheimer's but he never panicked some Alzheimer's people I know they panic they can't

[08:04]

figure out things. He never panicked. The last time I saw him, we were feeding him. And I remember one boy, he wanted to do it himself, so he got the spoon like Sophia, trying to feed her if she wanted to feed herself. He got the spoon in, he got it up, he got it to here and he looked and he didn't know what to do with it. He had to kind of like push it. But he never worried. He just was looking at it. What the heck is that? But he was on a BBC television series called The Long Search by Ron Eyre. And I'd arranged for him to... Ron was a friend of mine, and I didn't want to be in the series, but Ron wanted a Japanese Zen teacher, so I arranged for Momonoshe to be on the series.

[09:35]

And Ron says in this series, which was done, I don't know, in the... Seventies. Yeah, 20 years before Momon Roshi died. And Ron is having an interview and it's being filmed and they talked and at the end of the conversation Momon Roshi had let his hair grow so it was kind of He's bald, but he had kind of long white hair, longish white hair here, and a little wispy beard. Occasionally when I was in Japan, I'd let my hair, I wouldn't shave my head, and he'd say, you're too young. So maybe at some point in the future if we meet, I'll have a little wispy beard or something.

[10:41]

Yeah, and I'll be drooling down my front now. So, but Christina will help me. Anyway, so Ron said, as part of the interview, that he got up and he turned around and walked away. And I felt that for him, we'd all disappeared as soon as he turned around. So he already had that feeling when he was a younger person. Did he look at you and be totally present, but he looked away? It was like he hadn't existed. So I've often thought that that sense of non-self perhaps is why he survived Alzheimer's so well.

[11:48]

Ron also did an interview with a Hasidic rabbi who talked very intensely. At the end of the interview, Ron said to this man, What you've said is so articulate and intelligent, it's really interesting. But is silence part of your tradition? And he said, oh, of course, but we don't talk about that. And Ron ended the interview right there. Okay, someone else? Yesterday when you gave us the question what would you give to

[13:34]

a person meet, my feeling was, it was the feeling of touching something with my hand or the feeling of touching the floor with my feet. It was what came up. So yesterday about this question from Roshi, what would you give to a person The contact of the hand or the contact of the foot with the floor. And for me this non-self-referential self, there's much more surface, much more surface in the world somehow. Than the self-referential self. Yes. For me this non-self-referential self is a world in which there is much more surface.

[14:40]

And it also reminded me about what you told, that you felt there is a glass wall separating you. When I first started practicing. At the beginning of practice. And I think we all know, at least I also know that experience in some way of feeling separation and there's no contact. So for me these are territories of experience, the experience of this separation and also the experience of incredible surfaces. And so for me, these are areas of experience. First this separation and then a really unique surface in the experience.

[15:50]

Yes. Well, we might be able to if we all think of, let's say this is a group who have been alive quite a long time and practicing quite a long time too, various ways. We may say, yes, we have experiences that reflect what we're talking about. manifest what we're talking about. But we can't make theories about it. And we might say, maybe we shouldn't make theories about it. Maybe we should just have examples of this experience. Yeah, and Zen is full of such a way of looking at it. Among the three bodies of the Buddha, the Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya, and Dharmakaya Buddhas, which I've indirectly mentioned,

[16:57]

referred to a couple of times. A monk asked, which one, asked Dung Shan, which one does not fall into any category? Among the various not just human bodies, but Buddha bodies, which one does not fall into any category? And Dung Shan said, I'm always close to this. Now that is not a descriptive answer. Das ist keine beschreibende Antwort. Es ist eine anleitende Antwort. So if you take this phrase yourself and start repeating it or bringing it into your experience, I'm always close to this.

[18:17]

Wenn du diesen Satz nimmst und ihn in deine Erfahrung hineinbringst und wiederholst, ich bin immer nahe daran, The phrase can be the experience of not falling into any category. Yeah, that glass wall, I remember when I... I could see that my really noticing it was a fruit of practice. And I felt a little better feeling the separation than just feeling separated. Does that make sense? But since I couldn't see the glass wall, And I didn't know how it got there.

[19:23]

I didn't know what to do about it. But for some months I remember feeling this invisible glass wall. As if I was only seeing myself through an outside observer and the world through an outside observer. But I remember feeling I intend, it's possible for this to go away in human experience. I'd like it to go away. And one day it just was gone. And the subject-object separation feeling just disappeared. But that's an example of Zen practice is you intend something and then you wait to see if it happens.

[20:33]

And of course this difference in surface of, say, self and non-self, is both are always present. And you can intentionally or... Functionally, let one or the other be dominant. Mostly, not intentionally, but can be intentionally. And in the first... teaching of the paramitas, which I, we also, maybe last year, talked about a year before.

[21:59]

In the paramitas, the first one is generosity. And generosity is the, to, have the feeling in each situation you'll give to the situation or the person whatever they need. So the bodhisattva practice is in answer to the question What would you give a person if you could to each person? You don't give them something. You offer something. But you offer... The feeling that I will give you anything you need if I could, if I can. Sorry, could you say it again? you don't give some, offer something, but rather you offer the feeling that I will if I can.

[23:17]

Yeah, so I'll, or the situation, so you know, like I, there's beggars in the street in Vienna, I always try to give something to them. Yeah. I'll give you whatever you need. Nobody told you what they need. Yeah, okay, something else? Could you, this topic of self and non-self and the self-referential self, could you draw this?

[24:21]

Draw it on the flip chart? Yeah. Do you think it's possible to make it? I hadn't thought about how to do it. Yeah. If it occurs to me how to do it... I have to wait for an image to appear in my mind. Okay, maybe we should take a break, unless someone wants to say something right now. While the sun is out. I was astonished at the question that you put forward about how the non-self gives meaning, that it was very important to me before we had a break. This question arose from two things which I two states which I could bring up from my memory.

[26:01]

This question arose for you independently of my bringing it up. And one state was a state in which I felt full of, filled with meaning, full of meaning. And simply when I describe it, it was being a person taking care in a children's camp. And I remember this state quite clearly.

[27:03]

I am waking up in the morning I wake up and I know exactly what I have to do and I'm filled with joy. Maybe it's not the right word, but with meaning. Yes. And the second state is the situation is I'm with my children and we are in the Prater. In the where? It's landscaping in Vienna. Oh, okay. Okay. In the fun park. Actually, it was the fun park. Oh. In Vienna. In Vienna. You mean the one that occurs in the third man? Yeah. And for one afternoon I experienced the world as a piling up of singular events.

[28:15]

Yes, indeed. I was in a certain way quite in the middle, but it also brought me closer to the Buddha. This is also a contradiction. And it was very particular on the one hand, and at the same time it was also empty. And this seems like a contradiction, but what it feels like. Emptiness in a negative sense? In a negative sense, yes. It was in between somehow. There was not a sense of giving meaning at all there.

[29:39]

Mm-hmm. The feeling of that afternoon seems not that I like to repeat that, or I don't wish to repeat that. And I asked myself, what is the motivation in this path of Zen to approach, to walk this path, if it's accompanied by feelings like that?

[30:45]

And then I asked myself, what was this meaningful experience, the first date, what was it that made my experience of this being meaningful? And I found some answers, but they didn't really satisfy me. And now I come forward with a hypothesis. I think that giving meaning, which I found in the normative phenomena of this children's camp, I think it won't end in a case that's provided

[32:12]

The giving meaning arises from the world of non-self. You're asking that or you're proposing that? That's the hypothesis. Okay, well, we'll try to test it. Okay. Someone else? Yes. My people get a very intimate analogy of the mind, of the functions of the mind, but when I look at my actual practice, yes, may I recognize a ton of things to talk about, but it's been secondary to the actual experience of my whole effort, which I was most interested in.

[33:22]

I lived most of the time young, and This would come close to the natural construction of states of feeling, states of mind, natural activities, which is very pleasant. And I don't know, maybe we're refining some of it, some of it, some of it, some of the qualities of this practice and learning. It's a wonderful thing to think about that. Let me see if I understand what you said. Oh, you want to say that in Deutsch? Yes. Description of mind and its functions of the mind. He describes states?

[34:42]

And this helps people to understand states of the mind. I do or he does? No, what you're talking about helps people to understand the states of their mind. But when I'm really practicing, this is secondary. It's there and I can recognize things, but it's not the closest. What I feel closest is is the effort. This effort can be very, I like, an experience I like, in a subtle activity, and it has something to do with refinement. And my feeling is this is another direction than describing the functions of mind.

[36:01]

And maybe it also would need another language. I'm not sure about it. It's just something I guess. Okay. So you find that your experience is your effort and your refinement of that effort. More than the refinement of your particular states of mind or something like that. And the refinement of your effort is, you don't have a language for it, maybe there needs to be, there could be a language for it, but it would have to be a different language. So something like that you're saying?

[37:10]

So it was . Well, say that we were successfully practicing together. Also nehmen wir an, dass wir auf erfolgreiche Weise miteinander üben würden. You are somebody. Und du bist irgendjemand. Okay, the language of our practicing together would be the experience of a mutual understanding. Das wäre die Erfahrung eines gemeinsamen Verstehens. Or rather a mutual... The expression of our practicing together, let me say it again, would be the experience of a connection.

[38:30]

That was outside, you know, social forms and so forth. It would be immediate and always present. Something close to that. but although the connection would be always present, the understanding of a particular situation would be different on my side than your side, the disciple side. So that... the understanding or the way of the dynamic of being or something like that could be commented on through this open feeling, trusted feeling of being connected.

[39:57]

Usually nothing needs to be said. And I would say that if I understand what she said, That would be a process of refining and developing an effort or stance or presence in the world. Yeah, but I'm not practicing with you or any of you that way. Momentarily, perhaps, but not.

[40:59]

For the most part, not. And so that that kind of practice can happen, sangha and monastic situations exist. You can practice that way yourself, but it's different when you feel that intimacy of your practice is open or shared by another person. And I have had the experience of having quite a good connection with someone here in Europe, coming to seminars and coming to Johanneshof for extended periods.

[42:04]

And Then they come to Crestone for five, six months or something. And they can't handle it. Because there's no support for all the familiar ways in which they communicate. And my job in such a situation, if I take them seriously, Is to ignore them. Or to say no to everything they, every movement towards familiar, you just reject or don't recognize them. Until this other feeling of communication occurs.

[43:13]

And some people feel rejected or hurt. Yeah. So this is... I mean, I'm... You know, I have a group of people I meet with... twice a year. Or ideally, twice a year. We call it the Dharma wheel. And the people I've been practicing with quite a long time, who already have or are likely to have teaching responsibilities, die bereits Lehrverpflichtungen haben oder vielleicht haben werden.

[44:17]

So I try to meet with them ten days or two weeks, twice a year. Und ich versuche mich mit ihnen zehn Tage oder zwei Wochen, zweimal im Jahr zu treffen. That's my idea. Das ist mein Ideal. One problem with it is the rest of Sangha feels excluded. Ein Problem dabei ist, dass der Rest der Sangha sich ausgeflossen fühlt. As soon as I get feelings of why am I not included, I just want to cancel the meetings. The sangha just isn't mature enough to handle it. Okay, now the kind of discussion we're having here is the kind of discussion we might have in a Dharma wheel meeting. And I've never quite had a discussion like we're having here this morning and today in a seminar. And I don't know why we're having it here, but it's your fault, not my fault. And because normally the conversation presumes that you have no other life but this practice.

[45:43]

And that's not true of you. You have a different life than just practice. Or just this kind of practice. Okay. So in such a group, I would say that this feeling of connection and so forth would be assumed. But the kind of thing we're describing, I'm trying to, this question of how does non-self supply meaning For practicers, it's a question rather beside the point. Because you know it, but you just don't have to describe it. So why am I trying to describe it? I don't know, you caught me in the moment of asking myself the question.

[47:10]

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