What did I say this morning? Or what? Somehow. Or what did you hear me say? Or what did this morning make you think of? Please tell me something. Quite a lot was a start. Yes. I had a question. Peter? Yeah, okay, yeah. Is there a junction that's the circle of breath? You described the circle this morning.

[01:08]

And is there a connection or a junction to the circling breath, circle of breath? For sure. But not just the circling breath. But... If you perceive things as activity, all that activity, since it's related to you as a location, It's thought of as a pulse. And I've talked about pulse. in various ways, a number of times.

[02:12]

And I almost surely will find myself speaking about it sometime this weekend. So it's not just the breath, as a circling or a pulse, but many things as a pulse. So there's more pulses than just the pulse of the breath. Yes. Whatever she said. It's so sweet to see her. I need my glasses to see you more clearly, though. The circle and the sense of both circling and pulsing are reciprocity.

[03:15]

And the word reciprocal, reciprocity in English means back and forth, out and returning. And I mean, that's one of the reasons it's so traditional in Zen Buddhism to do the Enso, the circle, to paint the circle over and over again. And some people's practice is like Zazen. In addition to Zazen, every day they make a circle. You moved. Yes. I heard you talk about mind as not as an object but as an experience.

[04:38]

And that means in the experience of mind itself it's mainly observation. Mainly observation. Mainly observation. I mean, mind experiences itself in the mode of observing itself. Okay. And also in the mode of awareness, which is, for me, not an active observation, I have to say that became a letting mind appear. And I think for me the difficulty is the notion of mind as activity is a little bit the same as mind as impermanence. It's easy to get in. an intellectual grasp of it because it's easy to put awareness or it's easy to put mindfulness there for a short time but it's very hard to keep it there and remind oneself again and again that what is going on is an activity and not to collapse into that

[06:08]

duality of world and self, a self-observing world and a self-observing mind, really to merge with the activity of every moment. That's completely correct. So what do we do about it? Let's see if we can find out. Yeah, it's again and again and again, no gaining idea. Again and again, no gaining idea. It's out of the song. Oh, it is? Oh, okay. No gain again. I think of this... I mentioned it the other day, I guess, this book, The Outliers.

[07:18]

I haven't read it. I just bought it for a couple of people. I sort of skimmed it. But it's based on research done back in the... Much of it done at Harvard on expert performance. Expert performance. Leistung von Experten. Leitung von Experten? Leistung von Experten. If you say so. Ein Fehler wartet. Spitzenleistung. Spitzenleistung. Performance of experts. Spitzenleistung.

[08:21]

Spitzenleistung vielleicht auch mal das. Yeah, I don't know. In English, the phrase has become expert performance, but it means the difference between the average tennis player, the very good tennis player, and Nadal, or Federer. And if they study I'm sorry, it's kind of boring for me to tell you this, but I'd like to throw it into the pot. Yeah, if you study a group of people, say, who go into music school, and one group turns out to be piano teachers, And another group turned out to be performers in an orchestra.

[09:31]

And a small number turned out to be solo performers like Yo-Yo Ma or something like that. When you first studied them when they entered music school, they're all talented enough to be in music school. And you can't see too much difference. A little more talent, etc., of course. But at the end, when you study them, the ones who have become these different levels of skill. The difference between them Seems to be, it keeps coming out to be 10,000 hours of practice.

[10:37]

All the ones who are at the top level have done at least 10,000 hours of practice. It's the main difference between them and the others. And what surprised them in those people doing the study, it seems to be a dividing line for football players, software-developed writers, etc. Bill Joy and Bill Gates and the guy who developed the Internet. I can't remember his name. I can't remember his name. But anyway, by the time they were 19, they'd all done over 10,000 hours of software writing. So there's a book out that popularizes this idea, but it's been...

[11:46]

something that people have been studying and noticing since the 1980s. And it seems to be for the body to really internalize something. And takes some number of hours like that. So I got a little chart to see how many hours I've practiced Zazen. Have I crossed the line yet? Oh, God. I didn't put it. Well, anyway, I didn't actually get out of charge. I'm kidding. But there seems to be some truth to just doing something and exploring it over and over again.

[13:03]

and ends up with some kind of body-mind resolution that you can't reach by intellect and understanding or something. So I want to encourage you, the learning curve is flat, but if there's 10,000 hours of learning curve, it jumps. Anyway, I'm still joking. But the learning curve is often pretty flat. And you have to be patient with that.

[14:05]

You have to find satisfaction in just doing it without expecting results. Okay. So someone else wants to... speak about what we talked about this morning. Does it make sense to anyone or not make sense? Yes, Caroline. And I want to talk about my experience and you talked this morning about the Asian people doing things with both hands. Gut, wenn du nur eine Hand hast, dann tust du einfach so, als ob jeder Finger wie eine ganze Hand wäre.

[15:12]

I said to myself, if I'm just having one hand, I do as if each finger was one hand. Und das verändert das... Insofern, dass... Also wenn ich die Vorstellung habe, ich habe eine Hand mit fünf Fingern, dann sind die Finger wie so Sub-Einheiten von dieser einen Kategorie. When I have the notion that I have a hand with five fingers, the five fingers are sub-units of the hand in some way. Yes, yeah. Aber wenn ich mir vorstelle, dass das alles eigene Hände wären, dann geht es raus aus diesen Untereinheiten und die bekommen... Well, then I imagine each finger being a hand. It doesn't get an entity, but it's more than out of these subunits. It's not five hands, but it's more than just... Yeah, I understand. And that changes... This makes the difference from feeling hand, fingers and object to an activity.

[16:33]

It's less and less, not at all an object touching an object, but more an activity touching an activity. Because this usual feeling of a hand with these subunits is dissolved into something more. That's good. And doing things with two hands is a way of saying, do things through your body. So sometimes you can't really do things with two hands, but the other hand is present.

[17:44]

Through the feeling of the body. And it's also a similar, you don't ever actually tell people to do it so much, but Often these things aren't explained at all, but I over-explain, I'm sorry. But I'm trying to create some dissonance with our habits. But one thing you'll notice if I watch Suzuki Roshi, for instance, if someone spoke to him, he wouldn't turn his head. He turned his body. It's a tendency to turn your body to a person, not just turn your head to a person. And that's the same kind of yogic kind of way of actualizing situations.

[18:48]

And it's something I'm being let down in that diving bell and swimming in another culture. I'm still living in this culture. I grew up in this culture. And mostly I'm relating to people in this culture. So I went to Japan this year in December for three weeks. In November. And it was like swimming again. It was great. And... But because I'm living in this culture and grew up in this culture, I'm always aware of the edge of the habits I grew up with. and the habits of the people I live with, and the yogic habits I've come to.

[20:20]

understand and actualize. And I go back and forth over this edge. So now I try to use that back and forth, also as a way of practicing with you. Now it's interesting that the topic is Zen mind. And somehow, In the wisdom of the group, we are talking mostly about the body. And someone else? Yes, Tara. Yes, I was just surprised today, when you spoke about the spine, also this resonance with the neck and the body. And this morning it would surprise me again that you're talking about the spine and the resonance with the bell.

[21:37]

was clear that my there was a resonance with the body the body and my body understood it even if it now what you were talking what i was speaking yeah i was speaking this morning even if now it's uh intellectually not uh graspable for me or not not yeah My mind is connected to the spine, but at the same time my spine also started to move by itself. It had the impulse to make movements that I didn't do. And that's something I've been experiencing more and more lately, that I suddenly realize that not I'm doing an activity, but an activity that happens to me. And while I was asking myself, what does he mean by the spine, I was noticing at the same time that the spine was making movements out of its own, not because I wanted to do it, but out of its own.

[23:02]

It reacted, so to say, and lately I have been noticing this more often happening. This has often happened in the last time. Yes, and I also experience it in other areas more and more, that I actually rather notice that something is already in progress or some activity has already happened, which I then perceive, but it is no longer In the past I formulated a purpose and kept that purpose consciously and worked towards it. And now I have the feeling that it actually happens backwards. I don't do anything and come back to a point that once was a purpose. In former times, I had an intention and did or tried to do it. And lately, I've come to just noticing what is happening, but it's happening on its own, so to say, not intentional, like what was happening this morning.

[24:07]

That's good. Yeah. I like it, too. Yeah, I like it, too. That's the way I feel. Mostly the decisions are being made in a wider mind than just thinking. Thinking is a kind of coach and editor. So I notice that thinking and identity both sort of stopping me or refraining me from getting into my body. What I'm saying is not difficult to understand.

[25:19]

But sometimes it's difficult to hold in mind because it's so different than the way we usually think. But often, if we just stay within it, something understands. At least that's how it's been for me. I have to get used to my own ideas. Something where I'll discover something and then I can't quite believe it. And then it'll take me sometimes days or sometimes even years to actually get used to it and let myself into the implications of it.

[26:26]

Yes, yours? I'm dealing with the question of activity and stillness. What activity is taking place within or during stillness? If there is any sign present, I had the picture of a thread in English, to put the slack out. I don't even know what it's called in German. So how to keep the thread tight, but not too tight. When stillness is present, the image that came up was like in English when you say you keep a thread, but you don't hold it tight, just not loose.

[27:40]

Who's doing this? I don't know who's actually doing this, but this image belongs to it. You know, it happens. When something happens, why do we have to ask who does it? No, I know, but it's an important question. We tend to think something's doing it and we tend to then think there's a doer. But things do happen. Maybe we can say wisdom does it. And then it gets us off the hot seat.

[28:46]

Do you have the expression hot seat? Yes, but I'm looking for the German word for it. Heiße Stuhl. [...] In English, that sounds quite funny. Yes. When you're saying, if something happens, who's doing it? Isn't it the same when we all know there is a mind? Nevertheless, we ask again and again, what mind is this? For me it's like putting this question again and again and looking for answers.

[30:03]

It's something like a dog chasing its tail. Still I know how important this is to put this question again and again and probably it's just about putting this question over and over again. Well, I think we have to notice the language with which we describe ourselves and ask questions and so forth. And that noticing the language you use also ought to become an exploration and refinement of the language we use.

[31:11]

And in the end, we sort of use language, but we don't feel Am Ende ist es dann so, sollte es so sein, dass wir dann die Sprache benutzen, aber nicht von ihr eingeschränkt werden, also dass wir Teile der Sprache benutzen, die wir finden. And the way Zen is taught in Japan is almost entirely by example. You get it sort of bodily to bodily, body to body, in an apprentice type situation. But there's two differences here.

[32:22]

One is, as I think you've heard me say, the major difference between Asian Buddhism and Western Buddhism is the Sangha. In the West we have or are developing an adept lay Sangha. And an adept lay Sangha comes together sometimes, may even have monastic practice sometimes together, but usually is living separately. So we can't have the same apprentice context. And The implicit worldview, shared worldview is not there.

[33:38]

In Japan, there's an implicit worldview. may not be the majority worldview, but still it's an implicit shared worldview by the practitioners. So I find I have to do something which, when I look back at history, has been done by others at the transitional stages between cultures. I look back in history, what I'm doing, and the only way I can do it, is what others have done at transitional stages within history, in transitional Buddhist stages, is to try to make explicit again and clarify what we're doing.

[34:44]

And I've come to find through experience that it's essential in making practice accessible. Otherwise you're practicing in a paper bag. And you don't realize it's in a paper bag. It looks big, but you're just in this paper bag. It's to say, hey, don't you see? Let's tear this paper bag out. Look at where we're actually living. What defines our living?

[35:47]

Can we be free of definitions in living? How can we be free and yet still find the definitions that are necessary? Now, I'd like to say something a little more about spines. But I think it's time for a break. For a pause.

[36:12]

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