I noticed at the beginning of the break the constellated muses. We're musing about whatever the last sentence I said was. So maybe you could bring some of those musings into the discussion. Und so könnt ihr vielleicht einige dieser Überlegungen in die Diskussion einbringen. Whatever this sentence was, this last sentence.

[01:10]

Yes, the sentence which was dealing with how the mind is transformed. I remembered these two concepts or ideas from last weekend which are helpful for me to realize what could be meant by that. And that's this idea or concept of diachronical flow through time. And this synchronic immediacy. And I have the feeling that you mean by diachronic, this going through and through.

[02:38]

So this part dia, in the sense of through something, and this part of the word synchronic, somehow is gathering or somehow is bringing together in the present. And in the particular. and that opens in the present some kind of room a space where new things can happen and the second thing which also was on my mind and that Roshi last weekend and some of us really are struck with that and had difficulties that there is no such a thing as an underlying feeling

[04:21]

ground of being. And contrasted that at the same time with original mind. And when you are now talking about this field far beyond form and emptiness And I can feel them somehow because you said it's something different or there is a difference between this underlying ground of being and the original mind. And I would like to ask you whether you would like to refer to that.

[05:30]

Yes, I will refer to it in part of every sentence from now until tomorrow. Because it's certainly... In the background, in the field of what I'm speaking about. So let's at least say that we're again talking about edges or... conjoinment or interface. Now the reason the background of making a distinction like diachronic and synchronic.

[06:36]

Once you see that, then you notice that we tend to emphasize, to identify with one But not usually both. And our culture, usually each culture probably has... an emphasis more on one or the other. And it also is a parallel idea, more than just parallel. with the most convincing ways we experience self, is as the continuity of self, that we're somehow the same person.

[07:47]

Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen Geralt for ten years or something. And he's a little different. He's a little older. But he feels like the same person, pretty much. So not only do I experience him as a continuity, but he experiences himself as a continuity. Okay. Now, we also experience ourselves as a unity, a synchronic unity. In this, making this distinction, you're trying to, in describing the

[08:50]

what's convincing about the experience of self. Again, self is just a word. And it's not, let me use the word, performative. But if we say that we experience self and we're convinced by self, As our experience of continuity and unity, then this is a performative definition. In other words, I can perform or feel my way into continuity and unity. So one of the strictures In Buddhism, as a philosophy, it's really never an examination of thought, particularly.

[10:28]

It's an examination of performative thought, or thought you can perform. It's an examination of thoughts Can you do it? If you can't do it, from a Buddhist point of view, it's not interesting. Okay. Now, one of the problems with primarily experiencing yourself as a continuity is a lot of rationalization occurs. A lot of your inner thoughts are explaining your continuity to yourself and making sure it's there, etc. Now, this experience of unity

[11:29]

As I have a sense that this situation right now is part of and integrated within my senses. And I feel it's my experience. I'm moving my attention around and I can focus and concentrate and so forth. This gives me a sense that I'm really here. But then I don't notice so much. how in fact there's a flow of intersubjective space, that is also me. So then, if I can feel the intrasubjectivity of this field, then I will think thoughts or notice things

[12:58]

that I wouldn't notice otherwise. So every seminar for me is a laboratory in which I feel like I'm pouring myself into the same test tube with all of you and shaking. Wo ich das Gefühl habe, dass ich mich mit euch gemeinsam in ein Teströhrchen fülle und dieses dann schüttle. And I think that some of you sometimes have the experience that I say something that you were just thinking about or wanting to speak about. And if that's the case, then it's because somehow we're creating an intra-subjective, not inter-subjective space.

[14:05]

Well, I mean, this idea has to be at the center of the constellation. Because somehow there's an intersubjective space which can start flowing through different people. Okay. So there's two aspects of this self experienced as unity and continuity. Is that once you notice this, Or you hear this distinction. Then you start an inventory. Or a noticing. Where you notice, well, You know, I actually emphasize continuity.

[15:20]

Most of the time, I hardly ever emphasize immediacy. So once you notice that, then if you have a way-seeking mind as... Dogen and Sukershi, I would say, is at the center of practice. You experiment with trying to shift your identification to... The synchronic dimension. Simultaneous dimension. And then you go back and forth between the two. Seeing what happens when you identify with one or the other.

[16:24]

And then perhaps we could call it the third stage is you begin to notice the interface. Like you're not noticing the lake and the stream so much, you're noticing where the stream comes into the lake. And then you locate yourself where the stream comes into the lake. And when I say that, I immediately have an image of these kids who swim in big rivers where they can swim next to the pylons of a bridge, where there's enough swirl to stay there and not get swept down the Rhine. And when I have this picture in front of me, then I remember a picture of swimming children who swim in the vicinity of bridge pillars, where enough...

[17:38]

that they are not driven away from the pure. So this is what I mean by an edge or a shift. And that's what's encapsulated in the MemSign. So MemSign is one of the clearest places where the flow of the past meets the percept of the moment okay Okay, so I want to continue with this sense of edges or interfaces. But before I continue, does someone else want to say something? I like it when you say something.

[18:42]

whatever I'm saying always gets richer, at least my own experience of it is richer. I like it when you say something, because my experience is that I also become richer, at least that's my experience. Hildrud? What particularly touched me during our discussion was the development that this knowledge So what touched me most in what we did is what the effect which Which is what we realized. Is it about the exhibition work? No. During the discussion. No, no. Yes. Okay. How it affected my body and my emotions. Yes. I was deeply touched.

[20:13]

And I felt with the women we were talking with, I felt in one space and fully connected. And it was a feeling or I felt a feeling which I have sometimes during meditation. Yeah, I would say, just for the sake of kind of giving some articulation to this as it really happens. Sometimes we create within consciousness a little pool of non-dual awareness.

[21:26]

And when we do it, it's one of the most exciting things that happens. Yeah. Anyone else? Maybe now I can say something. I'm not very good at German, probably. I think maybe now I can say something. Yes, I understood, yes. Maybe not. So what kicks or gets me somehow into, and I know this, getting into this pool of awareness surrounded by consciousness?

[22:37]

is connected to the last sentence. You said before the break, just the last sentence before the break, which I, not in the slightest, have an idea what it was. None of us know. It is an experience like I am hit. It is an experience like I am hit. And then I have a break for you. And then I have a feeling like I have a board in front of my head. And so I see it is as if the computer would have a complete breakdown. And I somehow have to surrender and I have to endure that. And then all these other things, this other can happen, and that's somehow like a gift.

[23:50]

And it always goes together with some place that is simply very deeply touched. And it's always accompanied with some area or some space or some spot which deeply touches me. And in this instance it was the second line in the rope chain. And there is no understanding anymore, but this kind of being touched, and then something opens up. But still I don't understand.

[25:11]

Yeah, well, somehow, you know, of course, there's enough, by the way, there's a number of koans, which are about like, what was the last word? Or so-and-so doesn't understand the last word. Or so-and-so never received the last word. So he's incomplete. But what's interesting, none of us know what that last sentence was, and I don't even know. But of course if I do know, and the tape recorder knows, it's not important. What is important is somehow we were together carrying something on top of a number of words.

[26:26]

Or maybe pulled along by words. Or maybe ahead of the words. And we sort of gather this together. And then the last sentence served to drop it over the edge. And of course, as Eric was saying yesterday or the day before, When you read the transcriptions of what we do here, it's not there in the words. Now, if you listen with a certain mind, I suppose you might be able to call it forth. But it really depends on a kind of mutual carrying something and releasing it.

[27:49]

And the words are not the content, the words are the boats. And the words are not the content, but they are only the boats. Someone else? Yes. Today you have a sentence that is very simple. You said a sentence today, very simple, when you listened. And you said, I understand.

[28:49]

Yes. And this is on my mind since the day before yesterday when you brought this issue up of darkness and light. When you said that it's not about turning on the light or turning on lamps or bringing light into the darkness but rather to function within darkness. And I have to admit that somehow, somehow got very deeply in me in an immediate and maybe shock-like way.

[30:10]

It is fundamentally the question of science, or the sensuality of science. Because it raises in a fundamental sense the question about science. About the meaning of science. And then you did something else. You read to us what is put on this flip chart. Mm-hmm. And I had the feeling that it was some kind of condensed version or the result of the condensed result of what you were talking before. And I had the feeling that I understood what you said before.

[31:13]

But in the moment when you read it to us, I didn't understand anything. I'm sorry. And then you said something else. This story you told us about Gregory Bateson and his students. and that he's so frustrated by their always admitting that they understand what they say, what he says. And since then, I'm occupied with the question, or I'm mulling the question, how do I know that I understand?

[32:24]

Don't worry about it. If you have the experience of receiving something, an experience of connectedness, let's call that understanding. If you try to grasp it with your head, probably that's not understanding. Wenn du es aber versuchst mit dem Kopf zu verstehen, dann ist es wahrscheinlich nicht zu verstehen. Is it so easy? Don't make it hard. Versuche es nicht kompliziert zu machen oder schwer zu machen. It is really quite easy. The more open you are, the easier it gets.

[33:38]

And the more you don't have assumptions about not understanding, the easier it gets. Okay, so let's, I mean, somebody else want to say something? You want to wait or you want to go? You want to go or wait? I would like to say it refers to yesterday. I was part of this constellation and there was darkness and there was perception and there were meme signs and associations

[34:41]

and observing minds, and then there were film tubes, And the dance, which I was spectator of, was somehow like a story. Today, it seems to be like a story. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I had the feeling that the functions, I call them functions, like memscience, perception and so on, they somehow seem to be afraid of darkness. ...

[35:52]

And the tubes somehow had the function to help the functions to get to know and to accommodate, to get accustomed with the darkness. First perceptions, then mem-signs. And it was And it was as if these edges, these interfaces, these shifts you were talking today, were somehow represented by these tubes. And now I'm so interested, so very much interested into these tubes. And then something else happened.

[37:09]

The person for whom this constellation was meant had some kind of little tiny conflict with the associations. And suddenly the word heart came up. And I don't know why, but this word of heart is somehow with me now. um, um, um, Okay, and this is somehow something to do about the motivation or even the intention or the intent why it would be worthwhile to do this kind of transformative process.

[38:35]

And this is somehow... has also to do somehow to trust or to be led or to get somehow accustomed to this darkness. Okay, good. Thank you. Yeah, it's funny how a word is a word, a heart is a word. But when is a word with you? There's an edge. And again, it's like Sukhiroshi saying, when is a tree a tree and when is it a poem? And what mind is everything a poem? So in the little bit of time we have left,

[39:43]

Let me see if we can dance together a little bit on this edge. You know there's many psychologists and delineate these days many kinds of memory. To the extent that I read some of the research, add categories and take away categories and so forth. So we have declarative memory, semantic memory, procedural memory, which is like how you ride a bike or something. What?

[40:58]

Implicit memory. Emotional memory. Prospective memory. Prospective memory is how you remember something you're supposed to do without tying a string around your finger. Or without turning the teapot upside down. Why is the teapot upside down? What am I supposed to remember? Now, we're again in a culture which doesn't assume there's a creator.

[42:11]

Which is, you know, a thing. It's a big idea, but does it really make a big difference? Well, if you assume there's no creator, and yet creation occurs, then you have to be the creator. So there's no sort of sense, there's not an emphasis on, well, he was born smart. She was born with a really good memory. That's in a culture which assumes there was a creator. And a culture which doesn't think that way, yes, it's clear that some people have better memories at birth than others. And some people are born

[43:13]

with bigger muscles than others. But everyone thinks, well, I can develop my muscles. Even if I am a little weakly, I can still develop my muscles. Well, intelligence and memory and so forth are thought of as muscle groups that you can develop. And how do you develop the muscle groups of mind? Sort of with the washboard. of memory. In a very simple sense like reminders. To think not thinking is a reminder to use thinking to remind yourself not to think.

[44:28]

It's really that simple. And you don't think oh jeez, I can't remember things, I'm really stupid. Or this, after you're about 50, you start thinking it's early onset Alzheimer's. You rather think, oh, I can use my not remembering to develop memory and consciousness, etc. The main categories of memory are short-term memory and long-term memory. And there's an interface you can start feeling between short-term memory and long-term memory and what becomes long-term, etc.

[45:46]

This assumes, this kind of practice assumes there's a field of mind in which there's a noticing going on of short-term memory and long-term memory. But if there's a field of mind going on which notices short-term memory and long-term memory that field of mind is itself a prospective memory because it's noticing what's going on. Now, part of this is not thought... Well, now it's good to notice the relationship between short-term memory and long-term memory.

[47:00]

Part of it is... Just doing it exercises the muscle groups of the mind. And what is the main washboard for exercising the muscle groups of the mind? Immediately, the present, so-called present. If your mind is identified with the past and who you are, etc., it's a very lazy mind. But if your mind is engaged in the present all the time, you're exercising the mind as well as being engaged in the present.

[48:04]

No, I think what psychologists would say today, research psychologists, is that there's a clear instrumental causative relationship between memory and intelligence. It's clear that people who have a good memory are often more intelligent. But sometimes people who are extremely intelligent don't have much of a good memory. Thank goodness. And then there's people who have these memories that they can remember everything they've done on a certain day, the date, the time, when they washed their face and etc.

[49:29]

It's kind of horrible. And usually they're not exceptionally intelligent. But the relationship between memory and intelligence seems to be very important. And memory seems to develop what some people call crystallized intelligence. I don't like the term it's too fixed and shiny. I would prefer something like articulated intelligence. Now there's a word pramana.

[50:35]

And surprisingly, I don't think I've spoken to you about it. But it means a valid cognition. Yes. P-R-A-M-A-N-A. Okay. And it means... A cognition. The ma means to measure or cognize. And pra means to complete or actualize. So prāma is a knowledge event. And the last part, āna, instrumental.

[51:35]

And āna is shortened in the word to nā. And it's translated usually as valid cognition. But how do we perform a pramana? Okay, so pramana means that, is taken to mean, is that it's based on a percept or a direct inference. Or a direct interference.

[52:57]

The smoke over on the other side of the mountain, there must be a fire. That's a direct interference. So, eine direkte Schlussfolgerung ist zum Beispiel, da drüben ist Rauch. There's horns on the other side of the wall and it's either a cow or a kid in a Halloween costume. Okay, so that means... In the stream, the flow, the continuum of your thinking, you're noticing the units. And you're noticing whether what you just thought or said is based on a percept or a direct inference. And if it's not, you kind of doubt it. And when you're thinking and you're thinking

[54:01]

mostly is rooted in percept and inference, it gives you a feeling of certainty. It gives you a feeling that what you're doing or saying or thinking is true. And if most of your thinking is a knowledge event, then you feel more complete. You feel more accurately in the midst of how you're perceiving. And the ana part means in the sense it's instrumental does it lead to enlightenment does it lessen suffering now that's a hell of a excuse me heck of a lot

[55:37]

a big basket full of stuff to bring into every little thought moment. I have better things to do than worry about whether my cognitions are valid or not. A lot better things. But if you make the effort sometimes and you notice it in homeopathic doses, I mean, if the entirety of your life can pass before your mind when you have a near-death experience. and something like that does happen to people, then certainly everything that's carried with the word pramana can be brought into your momentary, my moment thinking.

[57:01]

Okay, this is technically called memory engagement. You develop the ability to remember the idea of a pramana. Yeah, and it's kind of a prospective memory, perhaps. And you remember to apply it as often as it occurs to to thoughts that arise. What does it do? It develops your intelligence. It develops how you articulate the stream of thinking, consciousness and awareness. And your thinking tends to be becomes very precise and clear. And the instrumental part will begin to

[58:08]

a simultaneous feeling. If you're left suffering, is there a possibility of enlightenment? Now, if you want to know what a dharani is, you could turn this into a dharani. And then you'd use the syllables. Perhaps ma-pra-an. You could just rearrange syllables that you kind of keep that in the back of your mind. This is a memory engagement. Which works with these edges. Okay, I said I might... I'll finish in a minute, if you're hungry. I said that you know I tried to sort of

[59:37]

dance or swim with my friend darkness. The one of the ways you practice enlightenment, you dance or swim with enlightenment. You know that enlightenment, you may not be enlightened, you're not enlightened. But you know enlightenment, if it's anywhere, is here. It can't be there. So you feel, well, enlightenment is here. I don't know what it is, but enlightenment is here, but I'm going to act as if it's always here. And if you dance with enlightenment, you're more likely to be enlightened. Or have enlightening instead of id experiences. Now, let me say there's three interesting kinds of mind.

[61:03]

Uncontrived mind. Uncontrived mind. Not contrived mind. What do you mean by contrived? Contrived means you've You've made it of something. It's constructed. Unconstructed mind. And then non-intentional mind. And spontaneously arising mind. All of those are just right here. Okay, say you're walking in the woods here. These beautiful woods. You're just walking along. And suddenly it's late afternoon or early evening and an owl.

[62:06]

Es ist Nachmittag oder früher Abend und plötzlich kommt eine Eule. Well, you didn't intend for that owl to... Ihr habt also nicht diese Intention gehabt, dass die Eule da... In Buddhist I'll say, what? In Buddhism sagt die Eule nicht wer, sondern was. Okay, so at the moment you hear... You think, it's a non-intentional mind. You didn't intend it. And a non-intentional mind is right on the edge of the Dharmakaya. A mind as space. And sometimes if you have a non-intentional mind arises, through the owl's egg, then you begin to have spontaneously arising minds.

[63:26]

And then, when you have such a non-intentional mind, because an owl appears, dann erscheint auch ein non-intentional mind. Okay, so that's enough. In other words, you can play in the mind because at the edge of a bewildered mind or a confused mind, It's an edge. And it can go either way. It can go into an uncontrived mind or it can go into a bewildered or confused mind. And you use engaged memory, to stay on that edge and more and more find yourself in uncontrived or spontaneously arising minds.

[64:42]

And this is very close and this is a way to practice which makes much more likely the experience of enlightenment. Okay, that's probably enough before lunch. Walter gave me the high sign. You know, last night, just after I came back, Michael Murphy called me. And some of you know him because he founded Essling Center. And he also wrote a book which he seems to maybe getting closer to being made into a movie. So he asked me to do something this fall and I always say yes, whatever he asks.

[65:58]

And then he asked what I'm doing. And I said, well, I'm meeting with these friends who are, many of them are systemic psychotherapist, et cetera. And he said, you know, recently, this is all coming back to Esselstyn. And he said, for instance, Gordon Wheeler, who was, I don't know if you know him, he's written a book about Gestalt and putting Gestalt in a new context. He's titular head of Esalen right now.

[67:03]

And his wife, Nancy Lunney, is head of the program. And he says they're both recently, in the last year or so, completely re-engaged in Constellation. practice and thinking. So who's the woman who was the Esalen who was one of the founders of what? From Esalen who? You can't think of her name? She was, I don't know. You know her name, I just can't think of it right now. Anyway, no, not Ida Rolf, she did Rolf. Anyway, before Bert Hellinger, Virginia Satir.

[68:13]

Yeah, Virginia Satir. She was at Esalen. She was actually one of the three main founders of Esalen and board members. And then I told him, you know, who do you imagine on a gloomy, rainy, almost rainy day would have maybe said, this is really a quite beautiful day, we should have a longer lunch. And Michael said, it could only be a golfer. And he said to me, that can only be someone who plays golf. I wonder if that's an example of intrasubjective space over the phone.

[69:28]

And he asked me to congratulate you on your spirit.

[69:32]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_79.19