Okay, but what I could do is, let's imagine this might be a focusing technique. I can lump all those distinctions I'm making into a featuring of self and other. Of self and other. Yeah. I can form a concept of, I can notice that these all arise from my perceiving that I'm different from you and you're different from me. I can notice that concept there and I can dissolve. And immediately there's a different kind of connectedness. So I can do that with anyone. I can look at you, for instance.

[01:02]

And in the midst of talking to you, I can feel the energy which creates separation. I can pull that energy into a feeling of this self-other. And I can have a feeling of dissolving it and I suddenly feel we're swimming in the same water without distinction. So that would be practicing with connectedness. Would that fall into the category of a focusing technique? Not yet, but it's a good idea. Not until now, but it's a great idea. We're working together. But anyway, this is a very traditional way of working with non-dualism. Okay. So again, you notice how you establish separation, you notice how you establish connectedness.

[02:17]

Or you notice when you feel separated, you notice when you feel connected. And the third is, you notice how you establish continuity from moment to moment. And mostly, if you had a serious interruption in your thinking, you might think you're a little crazy. And the the emotional dependence on the continuity of thought is the main impediment to enlightenment. Because enlightenment is a disruption of the continuity of thought. An eruption into the continuity of thought, which makes you stop and say, I've been looking at the world in a way that doesn't make sense.

[03:36]

And it literally turns you around in your mind. You can feel being turned around and everything is brighter and different. But if you really are dependent on your continuity of thought, you suppress all such things. And I would say all of us have innumerable enlightenment experiences. We just haven't noticed them. And they stay like little bubbles and they haven't opened into your blood. And they are floating around in your memory space, unacknowledged. So, you also notice how you establish continuity. Okay. when you are able, for instance, say you're very upset or nervous or anxious.

[05:22]

What's a common thing for people to do is go wash the dishes go jogging or something like that. What are you doing when you wash the dishes? You're trying to establish physical continuity instead of mental continuity. So don't wait until you're so anxious you need to wash the dishes. Start establishing physical continuity now. So I'm thinking, but I also feel. I'm just right here in my breath and body. And I don't think I have anything to do tomorrow or the next day. Sometimes it drives Gerald a little crazy because he wants me to think about what I have to do tomorrow. and he's right but I'm happy I let him worry I'm exaggerating so the other two things I'd like to emphasize here I'm trying to create a vocabulary so we can talk about this

[06:58]

There's two kinds of perception. A percept, that's a perception, known only through itself. And a, let's just call it a percept, known through observing consciousness. Now, what's the importance and the difference in this? Would you say percept is the same like perception?

[08:16]

A percept is a perception. Okay. It's just a way of saying, instead of saying a perception, you can say a percept, like a concept or conception. Okay. Now we all know what a perception known to consciousness is. I mean, I look at you. I know you're a certain kind of person and so forth. There's a conceptual process in knowing you. Okay, so let's take the example I have to keep using. There's a feeling in this room right now. Now it's different than the feeling earlier in the day and this morning. If I ask any of you to describe it to me, you can say, well, it's an atmosphere. You might say it feels good or it's boring or something.

[09:28]

You might say, I feel quite connected right now and more so than this morning. In other words, there's things we could say about it. But as soon as you say something about it, it's gone. But as soon as you say something about it, it's gone. And you've already missed the moments that follow. you know, a bird lands on a branch. And instantly there's a shadow on the ground, perhaps. And you can describe that shadow. But by the time you describe it, the shadow is slightly different, the branch is moving, the bird is centered, right?

[10:28]

So in that sense, A perception is known only through itself. You're participating in it, but as soon as you observe it, it's not there. Ihr partizipiert darin, aber in dem Augenblick, wo ihr es wahrnehmt, seid ihr nicht mehr in diesem Prozess. Und das Beispiel, was ich manchmal hier anführe, ist dieses grüne Aufblitzen. Kennt das jemand von euch? At the moment the sun sets, sometimes you can see a green flash. I've seen it three times. And it's seen, the American Indians consider it a sign of some kind of metashamanic cuteness or something like that.

[11:35]

But it's actually probably most likely just a function of mindfulness and a non-conceptual mindfulness. If I know other people have seen it. And I've stood on the very spot where other sunsets and I haven't seen it. And I got someone else to see it once. But you can't... It's so short. You can't... You can't even think you want to see it or you don't see it. So we could say this is a perception known only through itself. Or somebody, you know, again, the kids are down by the swimming pool. Again, I'm trying to stretch it to create some examples. We all hear the kids.

[12:51]

But one of you here is a father or mother. And you know that child's voice you just heard is your own child. In a way, that's a perception known only through itself. The moment of the perception is the knowing of the perception. Buddhism says mindfulness should bring us into a state of mind. Where this is the fundamental way we perceive. Where every perception we are essentially knowing only through itself. And we are not conceptualizing it and observing it.

[13:53]

We could say that Consciousness is this process of observing. And here at form is awareness, which is not a process of not conceptualizing. Yes, Eric? What is it supposed to do with using language and not using language? It... Not exactly.

[15:02]

I mean, because language... For instance, I was with Charlotte Selber once. And she said to all of us, it was when I first met her, the first meeting I had with her. And she's 98 now and still traveling around Europe for a couple months a year teaching sensory awareness. She's gotten shorter over the years, but not less alive. But she said, why don't you all close your eyes? And then she said, blue. And I felt the word come across the room to me like a little bubble and hit me and spread out through my body. So that's a word, that's part of language.

[16:04]

But it's out of the context of the syntax of language. So in that sense where language is just an immediate perception, yes, it can be part of it. And that experience made me realize that every word I hear does that, I just don't notice it. And then I took on the effort in a sense or intention to come into sufficient mindfulness that I felt that more of the time. Okay. So, now we'll try to talk about the... We're supposed to finish in 20 minutes. This is going to be something else. I'd like to try to do this.

[17:33]

You can meditate some other time. You can meditate without me, but you can't do this without me. There's something called the Alaya Vijnana. And Vijnana... is a word which means to know together through separateness. To know together through separateness. Now, Vijjana first of all refers to the six senses.

[18:36]

And we speak of In the West of five senses. But in Buddhism you're speaking about the senses as functions. So the way we get initial information. So we get information through our eyes, ears, nose, etc. But we also get information through our mind. And in two main ways. One is memory. And one is a non-sensuous object of perception. Maybe close to what Kant meant by noumena. Okay, let's take this moment.

[19:43]

I said there's a moment here known only through itself. That's not known through my smelling or hearing. It's a mental act. I can know the... the unity of the feeling of this room as a non-sensuous object of perception I can feel the unity of the feeling in this room and we can call that a non-sensuous it's not physical object of perception so the mind is also considered a sense organ Okay, so there's six vijnanas. And every perception is six-fold. Okay, so if I see this bell... All right.

[20:50]

I can see it. But I'm not hearing it. So the absence of hearing it is part of its perception. So every perception is sixfold because the perception is either there or the absence of one of these six. So, okay. Then the seventh vijnana is the editing function. And the eighth vijnana is the storehouse consciousness. It's where the memories are stored. But it's not just considered unconscious. It's not just what the consciousness... doesn't want to notice.

[22:04]

It's what the consciousness sometimes is incapable of noticing. So virtually everything that's happened to you is somehow present there, even if you never conceptualized it or perceived it. And if I were going to draw this, then I'll do this quickly, because we have to stop for dinner. It drives me as funny sometimes. Dinner is more important, but it is. So if I draw something like this, Okay, so that's eyes, ears, nose, taste, body, perception, and mind.

[23:17]

But the eye doesn't know anything unless the mind is present too, right? The eye is actually part of the brain sticking out. In other words, you don't hear anything unless there's a mind to participate in the hearing. Okay, so each sense perception is also... connected to mind. Okay. So this is the sense organ. That's the organ there, right? And this you could call maybe sensate mind. Sensate. Sensei means mind related to sensation.

[24:24]

So we have, maybe we can draw a line down here. And this is the sense organ. But it's also part of mind. And this is part of the analysis of how Buddhism looks at this. And the Abhidharma. And next is what we could call receiving mind. So let's just draw it as another circle. And then there's an editing mind. Let's draw that as another circle. I'm drawing this, I never tried this exactly. And third, now we have a thinking conceptual mind. Let's draw that as another circle.

[25:42]

Now, what's happening? Now, if you observe your mind, a perception that comes in, comes in and your mind receives it. And then your mind edits it. And then your mind begins to bring in associations. Now say that you have the, going back to, you have a feeling that you're already separated. Say that I feel that space separates. I should keep using this as an example. If I have the feeling that space separates, it's a view lodged back here somewhere.

[26:50]

Before thought arises. So if I think that we're already separated, my perceptions will reinforce that. And the conceptual process will reinforce that. So my perceptions will tell me it's true. So the view is prior to the perceptual process. Now with wisdom and analysis, close analysis of the perceptual process, and with wisdom and you can see that views are conditioning the perceptual process. But that takes a big effort to know that.

[27:51]

It's not obvious. It took people generations of meditation experience to really notice this. And then to formulate it. And say this isn't for just geniuses or the occasional person who happens to be deeply enlightened by accident. Compassion is to find a way to teach this so everybody can know. Compassion is to give people a choice to know the world this way. Mitgefühl ist die Fähigkeit, Leuten die Wahl zu geben, die Welt so wahrzunehmen.

[28:57]

To inject this into society. Das praktisch in die Gesellschaft hinein zu injizieren. Because the Buddhist view and my view is, we are a very, very young society, civilization, culture. As I've said, I had a long talk with my 93-year-old mother the other day. And her memory goes back through her aunts and great-grandmother and stuff back to about 1850. And certainly I may not live to 2050, but Gerald probably will. I mean, I'm planning to live to 2050, but I don't know. So, in other words, that's a 200-year unit. Yeah, on 1850... To 1950, a 100-year unit.

[30:08]

From 1850 to... 1950 to 2050 is a 200-year unit. The world hasn't been very different from my great grandmother's time until 2050. 10 200 year units bring us back to the time of Christ. 12 or 13 bring you back to the time of Buddha. In 12 or 13 200 year units we don't learn much. We're still trying to learn how to simply get along with each other, how to live together.

[31:10]

And I think for, I mean, as far as we can tell, for tens of thousands of years, we didn't know how to create groups larger than about 13 or 20 people. So the basic Buddhist idea in these teachings is we've got to find ways in which this can be injected into society so we can learn how to function together. But you can't force people. You can only make it an attractive, convincing choice. So it took generations to figure this out and to then think about how to teach it. So basically we have something we can call the alaya vijnana.

[32:20]

Like that, shall we say. So that's the alaya vijnana. And the thinking mind is drawing on the memory mind to create concepts. The problem is that this occurs late in the process. You can think of this as a warehouse. And you can call it a warehouse. And this warehouse has almost all the doors and windows closed. And all these memories are piled up there. Like kind of garbage. And it's spoiling and a little sticky in there.

[33:21]

And you think of something, you dig down in your memories and... And it's not stirred up much. Now, the Alaya-Vijjana is healthiest when it's constantly renewed. When it's a flow, a flow in the immediacy of the present. And the alaya vijnana is also considered not just a storehouse of past experiences, But the seeds of enlightenment and understanding. But what do seeds need? Sunlight, water, stuff like that, right? And it's not getting it when it's tied to the thinking conceptual mind. So to go back where I left off this afternoon, when you begin to move your continuity out of your thoughts,

[34:42]

into the embodied present. You also move the Alaya-Vijjana into the present. The Alaya-Vijjana now surfaces in each of these areas. And the alaya vijnana then appears in all these areas. And in all these mental functions the alaya vijnana appears. Now without trying to go into more detail and there are technical Buddhist words for each of these. in ordinary language one receives the sense impressions one edits it or conditions it according to our views of the world and then thinking

[36:04]

adds memory. And we have a conceptual process. And sometimes that's drawn like here is a flower. It's happily growing in the ground. And here there's a flower that's also happily growing in the ground. But it's the wind of the mind that's blowing it. And here's a flower in a potted plant or a vase. Maybe it's in a vase, maybe it's in a potted plant. And When the conceptual process is primarily a thinking process, when the memory process is primarily a thinking process, the flower is no longer rooted in the world.

[37:33]

cut off and not nourished by the immediate thing. So this idea of moving your sense of continuity out of your thoughts is not just about freeing you from neurotic suffering and thinking that just keeps going nowhere. But it's about bringing the whole process of mentation into the immediate present in a way that the wind, water and sunlight of the immediate present all the interactions that are part of the immediate present are constantly renewing the alive jnana.

[38:49]

And opening you to an immense creativity that's very different when your conceptual process is related to past memories. Well, that's a very large chunk in 20 minutes. But I think it's actually quite understandable. It's quite simple, basically. The memory process, the associative mind, is far more creative and healthy when it's not simply tied to the thinking process when it's part of the immediate perceptual process prior to conceptualization

[40:06]

It's like you're not making a concept, you're just stirring it. The immediate present keeps stirring it all up. And that's what Dignaga meant. Perception is knowing without conceptualization. Okay. I don't know if that was clear, but it was fun to try to do it. So let's sit for at least a few minutes. Let's thank our translator who is beginning to get tired. So the bringing of your attention and energy

[43:37]

equally, equally to each moment, each moment that arises in your perceptual field, this simple act, even if you don't understand what it's about, If you just try to do it and meet and notice and meet the many hindrances that occur along the way and bringing your attention and energy equally to each moment. And you bring your attention to your breath and your sense of continuity to your breath. These two simple practices These two simple practices can transform the structure of inner awareness.

[45:01]

So understanding the background of these practices may give you confidence in practicing them. But the understanding is only, you know, is not so important compared to the actual practice of these two practices. These practices work pretty well even if you don't understand the background that led to them. And these practices work very well and work very well even if you don't know the background of how it came about.

[46:47]

It was a special pleasure for me to be here again with you. It was something very special to be here with you again. And I think that because you're here in the context of this focusing practice and teaching, it allowed us to go over quite a number of things in considerable depth. It would have been impossible if we just gathered for one day coming from our regular life. So I appreciate the atmosphere and teaching that Johannes and Klaus have created and others. And I'm touched and honored even that you asked me to participate in this.

[48:04]

So I hope it's been useful. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We will have two of you. Thank you for translating. moving things through. And thank you too. You pointed exactly at the point where we have been yesterday. And it's the same experience we had last year that you continued where we stopped last year.

[49:24]

Oh. Good. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Do we have a party again this year and dancing? Oh. A little bit. This evening we danced. We danced also? Oh, okay. So I think...

[49:43]

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