So in the world, it unfolds into a kind of operative understanding. It's also like this. At first, you know, it was just a list. But at some point, you see how the whole gestalt of birth, old age, sickness, death is operating in us. Okay, so you begin to have what one would call an operative understanding. Okay, at that point, that you have an operative understanding of this, of any teaching.

[01:06]

You begin to try it on, you envision it. So you begin to, okay, I'm going to act as if it were true. Now, in none of this are you assuming it's true. Because we're approaching this with some skepticism. I think there's a larger framework of faith in that it could be true. But you've got to find out if it's true for you. So now if you really want to work with the teaching, and I will say somewhat forcefully, one teaching well understood is better than a thousand understood a little.

[02:12]

To spend a lot of time with one teaching with your full life energy This is it. So you start to envision. You're not sure it's true, but you try it on. You're not sure you should try it on with your clients, but you should try it on with yourself. How would this work if I imagine that I and others are in these realms? How would I imagine this? How would I act if space connected? Okay, so you try it on.

[03:15]

Now, the way I tried it on when I first worked with Space Connected, I imagined the room was filled with liquid like an aquarium. And I felt that there's liquid here that if I move this way, it affects Gunda. Like looking in an aquarium and a fish swims by and the plants are... So I'm trying it out. I spend actually maybe a few weeks or two or three months trying it on. Because as an idea it's fine, but to feel it, to actually live there where space connects is something quite different.

[04:19]

So one day I'm walking along and in the back of my mind I'm letting this pressure And I find myself meeting a new friend. And surprisingly it arises in me already connected. I didn't think that, but it sort of came up. I started noticing already connected. And I probably feel a tremendous relief. There's a wonderful little Zen poem. To the fully blossomed to the fully blossomed plum tree.

[05:26]

Spring comes to the north branch and equally to the south branch. And I suddenly feel like spring comes to you, comes to you, comes to you. everything is fully blossoming in this connectedness. And I realize that the envisioning has turned into recognition of its truth. Now, by this effort to keep bringing attention to some one thing, and attention in various ways, I find I've exercised the muscle of attention.

[06:39]

And attention is different now. Now this refers to three-fold moments of recognition. And that means that there's and increase suddenly fleeting moments that you'd miss normally. Now most insights occur in a nearly timeless zone. I mean, timeless, they've been waiting there in a sense, but they poke through into our time frame very briefly. And normally we are so mentally and physically restless and our attention is so directed toward self-regarding thoughts toward the many interests supplied to us by our culture, that we don't notice new knowledge.

[07:59]

And the tension now is like if you watch an insect flying, you can't see its path. It's there one moment and gone. But if it lands on water, you see exactly where it landed. And through the evolution of attention, your attention has become much denser now. You actually have a different kind of attention. And it's very... fleeting moments that we wouldn't notice, suddenly we see them. Because this attention is a kind of densified mind or something like that.

[09:13]

Or a viscous mind. And they're called threefold because there's an increase in knowledge. There's a decrease of doubt. Lessening of doubt. And there's a turning around in new direction. So, This threefold lessening of doubt, increasing knowledge and a turning around in yourself allows the teaching to open up into your life. And if you're practicing Buddhism, it opens up into the whole of Buddhism, making many other teachings make sense.

[10:14]

Like this little poem about the fully blossoming plum tree that you never got exactly, but always liked. And if you're not practicing Buddhism, it just opens up into your life and begins to make sense in the whole of your life. And the last stage is when it just is your life. It's not a teaching unfolded. It's just, oh yes, everything can actually, it is the way it is. Now, many teachings, even something like this, are designed to have this process of attention brought to it.

[11:26]

Now, I did the mulling over for you. But if you just had this teaching you saw in a book, you'd say, well, that's an interesting list. Everybody knows that. But if you look a little more carefully, you say, The separation is a little funny. Why is it in the middle? And you mull it over. That process is much better than my explaining. So not only, though, is this a way to open a teaching, or any situation, and in fact many Buddhist teachings are designed to be opened this way.

[12:38]

It's like you design it and then you fold it up so that this would open it up. And so the use of phrases and images in koans, you bring this kind of attention and modeling to just an image like this. over the mountain there's smoke and we know there's fire. I mean, you read something like that, you think, oh, well, that's poetic. Other side of the mountain there's smoke and we know there's fire over there. But then later on it says, this is the food and drink of the patched robe monk.

[13:38]

So then you know, well, Okay, I better go back and model that image over. And see if it's my food and drink. Carry that image of mountain, smoke, fire. And it begins to unfold. So this is this process. But it also is very specifically for the purpose of evolving attention itself. Because once you develop this you go through this a number of times, you begin to have this more slow, observant attention.

[14:54]

It's almost a different kind of liquid. And then mostly you start in here, the process. This happens very quickly. It's like instead of bringing 10 units of attention to something, you're bringing 10 squared units of attention to something. And it makes a difference because you've got a different kind of attention that's now just part of how you function. So instead of just bringing 10 units of attention to something, you bring 10 square meters of attention. How do you say that? So this is, of course, related to the basic yogic skills of one-pointedness and a non-interfering observing consciousness.

[16:07]

Okay. Anyway, this is... The basic process of the evolution of attention. In other words, when you bring attention to attention, you transform attention. Just like when you exercise your muscles. And you know what the world's most famous Austrian said? I've told you before, at least. You know who the world's most famous Austrian is? Arnold Schwarzenegger! Who said, one pump with the mind in it is worth ten without the mind in it. One pump with attention in it is worth ten without the mind in it.

[17:10]

He seems to have been, I don't know how you guys feel about him, but he seems to have been quite an extraordinary person. And one of my good and crazy students Joe Muscles Kanatzer trained with Schwarzenegger and they knew from the beginning that Schwarzenegger was he knew from the beginning he had a vision I'm going to make this a world event And I said to Joe the other day, Joe's now in Germany. He's fallen in love with a Dharma Sangha woman now in Berlin and who's on Channel One, actually. It's fairly complicated. Melita.

[18:26]

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know. Joe was at one time very close to being the world's weightlifting champion himself. And he's pretty crazy, but he's great. And I said to him, why did Schwarzenegger succeed the way he did? And Joe said he was simply the best. Anyway, so now that you... Your own culture is supporting you in this teaching of attention. There is no reason to avoid this any longer. And there's a great deal working against us in our culture.

[19:45]

Basically, I mean, my own feeling is that contemporary democracies are too complex to be run by an elite. Russia is finding this out, among other things. So you have to give people real choice. It requires that contemporary democracies require The input of everyone. And, I mean, in a monarchy you can say, off with his head if you don't like what he did. But you can't say that these days. So you have to get each person to be self-governing.

[20:51]

And to get each of us to be self-governing, we have to have real choices. We have to actually have real choices. But the collusive trick is we have the sensation of choice, but there's no real choice. It's like having 100 television channels and none you want to watch. Now I don't think this is bad or something like some kind of manipulative people have done this. It's just the way our society has developed. And we do have a great society. with tremendous social order and wonderful freedoms.

[22:01]

But basically, the mass media has, particularly since the end of the 19th century, gotten hold of our attention. And for most people, they create our interests. And our interests are very where the direction, it's curiosity, interest, direction, So the media and our commercial life almost infinitely multiply our choices and narrow the real choice. So the media gets our attention and then they sell our attention to businesses.

[23:13]

And the problem is, I think, most people have no idea how much their attention has been purchased. How I look to other people, what I dress, what my job is. And then all kinds of regulations we have to do, like for health insurance. And there's a lot of benefits from it. But then by getting the benefits, we have to do something to keep, etc. I actually see this as the main problem for practice in the West.

[24:16]

Our attention has been so purchased, And in so many ways, in the way we locate ourselves with others, that there's almost a fear to really give attention as if it were some kind of egotistical thing, to just give real attention to how we exist. Our whole society, the whole effort of our society to create the order we have is to direct our attention outward.

[25:18]

Outward to socially satisfiable goals. And at some point, you have to turn your attention inward. And it's only inward attention that brings realization or spiritual life in Buddhist terms. I'm afraid this is one of my fire and brimstone talks. I'm sorry. Fire and brimstone, it means hell. Like, you're going to go to hell if you don't... Like a sermon. Like a sermon, yeah. But I think the problems with our... self are much smaller than these bigger problems of how our attention is occupied by our society.

[26:29]

If you can really free your attention and bring it to how we actually exist, and have the courage of the consequences of that mulling over, only then do you have the power to really look at how self affects the way you exist. This is all to say our most precious commodity is attention. You see, I even fell into calling it a commodity. The most... Attention is the seed of mind. And it's the fruit of mind.

[27:45]

Mind itself is nothing but evolved attention. So I think we have to all come back into possession of our own attention. So, excuse my... ranting, and we can maybe sit for a few minutes. I'm glad you went to see them. We missed you, but I'm glad you went. My mother is not so good. But she really understood, she has a great grandchild.

[28:46]

Oh, good. I would like each of us to, as I suggested yesterday, divide up into two or three groups. I leave it up to you whether it's two or three. And there's two small rooms there that are unused with chairs. And there's this room as a third room. Now usually when I suggest this I say don't just sit with your friends but I can't say that in this group. And would you like to participate? Do you have to go take care of your baby? No, he's not here. Oh, okay. So you might be a resource for practice for one of the groups, too.

[29:51]

Gerhard, you might be a resource to another group for practice. And what I would suggest is you consider two questions. You can remember it. What is the basis of personality? And what is the key to the development of the person? Just some of your ideas, what you work from. Okay, and then I'll come around. I wish I could participate sort of like a fly on the wall. There's a saying in English, the walls have ears.

[31:02]

And then, no we don't, no we don't. So, but I'll come around to sort of give you a ten minute warning or so before we might end. And of course I would like afterwards to hear a little bit about what you discussed, so maybe somebody could be remembered. Okay. Yeah.

[32:09]

We have to decide, or I don't know exactly what time we'll end tomorrow. What works for everyone. In the leaflet it says five, the latest. Okay. We have the room until five or something like that. And does that give, does anyone have to leave earlier than that? It might be that we have to change them more and take them back. Yes. Someone else might need this room. Oh. Yeah, I see. I see. We can't fight with them. Yeah, I like your spirit.

[33:37]

No, no. If we fight, we're going to fight. And does anyone have to leave before five? Does anyone have to leave before five? For traveling or something? So we can plan to go till 4.30 or 5 or 4 or something like that. Okay. We have to leave at 5 o'clock, really, because we have to leave this. So you should have the opportunity to go to leave right away. At 5. So maybe we should end a little before 5, 4.30 or 4.00. Okay, I mean, it's up to us. So I'm bringing it up partly because, you know, this is our next to last day. And how it would be good to... tie, if it's possible, together what we've done tomorrow, or maybe go off on a completely new tangent.

[34:57]

So we can keep that in mind in this afternoon or something. So I would like to know what you discovered or affirmed in your discussions. One group sounded like they were having a good time and the other was kind of somber. Somber, I mean kind of more serious. And the other ones look like they're having a good time. I don't know. Please. I'm not telling which was which. So you were going to say something? Okay.

[36:20]

I was the person who was taking notes. So I have some notes about our content. Not really the response. Okay. In what way we are interested in these questions and what are we feeling towards the two questions? Somebody made a connection to the Buddha field. And I as a person already developed this Buddha field. Then the person was described as a body, as a wooden body, in coming and going, as a spatially bodied coming and going, as a concept of personality in society,

[37:40]

and to personalities developing in society and in the psychological field. In this respect, personality was referred to as a self-referential idea. Continuity in perceiving of feelings and body. As development of self or of person. and if you leave this continuity or you... Yeah, I understand anyway.

[39:01]

You're frightened or startled by this experience. And then it's possible that another flow in the new continuity starts. Can, can. Can, could start. Persona? Sounding through. Sounding through, yes. Okay. In the inexperienced there is a recrystallization of

[40:16]

Of what? A recrystallization of what? Of a term or of a word. This can result into a new sort of flash of lightning in the continuity. Suzuki Roshi used to describe life as a flashing in utter darkness. Okay, so we can open a jewelry store. Concerning the experience in meditation.

[41:40]

That was the feeling of joy about words and images. Where you let go of language and only only take notice of its effect on you. It was important if we see ourselves as feeling, noticing and observing person. Where is my choice? Where do I make a choice in this option? Can I, the feeling or the words which came up, just let them be or do I judge them or put value on them?

[42:58]

Have you considered a career in the theater? Hello. Um... Then we talked about awareness and consciousness. In awareness, just turning the wall of bread. Yes, and then we can, to put it simply,

[44:17]

There was a description which we also had difficulty to understand but it seems important so I want to tell about it. The personality is defined as a state where emptiness and teaching and language, which internalized, it transforms in the basis of the person. And this example for this Buddha field, which is bigger than me, myself, and which is although it is at my disposal as a person.

[45:27]

And then another description of the person as a door. To enter in another bigger door, larger door. We also looked at the term practice in its double meaning. Practice in our work as therapists and also practices in meditation. and the coming together of these two, to give yourself over to this flow in practice, and to somebody who comes as a client with the same need or wish, to take the risk to enter this flow.

[46:50]

Mm-hmm. that there is the same process happening in both of these kinds of practice to secure your own borders and awareness for the other, for the dissolving Yes, that's exactly what was taught to me in my life, with each individuality. The wish to experience is to make it possible. The wish to experience? To experience, yes. and to experience his wish toward experience.

[48:05]

And this experience was defined as not avoiding. And finally... It was seen as letting go of language-based experience. To stabilize yourself in a signless state. To move from the head into your center. And opposed to this mystical experience which cannot be stabilized. But we tasted so much of them that we also take the work on for that.

[49:19]

Okay. Okay, so the other group. You can. And then we agreed on a round of conclusions. We discussed all kinds of things. We said every person should say something in English.

[50:19]

So we took some of that. Each person said something. Who has begun? Persönlichkeit ist eine Mischung aus, korrigiert Sie mich mal, in der Mitte sein und die Mitte verloren zu haben. Personality you mean an anchor like body, or voice, or name? projections of others toward me and my reactions to these projections.

[51:42]

But there is a higher level missing, something like as Wachstumsmöglichkeit. A spark of God, something expiring, which keeps us growing. Yes. Die jeder in sich hat. Which everybody has in her or himself. Soll ich ihn auch mal weglassen? Okay. If I take something bigger than ego, the building stone of this,

[52:48]

Building stones are the basis of personality. One of these are the possibility and the effectual doing of separation. For example, internal or external. The key for development is important to notice that these differences you make are something I can let go of them or dissolve them.

[54:16]

Or I can put them in effect again. If I am able to stay conscious, The separations or distinctions I make are not reality but coming from my structure and put in effect through my sense organs and through my structure. The next person.

[55:27]

The basis of personality is energy. And that personality is something like a crystallization core. personality is something like the core of this energy. These points of crystallization, this is where personality comes in effect. where this energy comes into, turns into matter. Life throws beings out into existence.

[56:30]

Also a few stones. They pop up everywhere. And so the question is, where does personality start in this? For example, a cat has definitely a personality. Who? A cat. A cat definitely has a personality, yeah. Personality also means to have space for... Function?

[58:07]

No, not for function, for decision-making. Oh, okay. Space where you're not bound, but you can. So that you can organize these potentials. So personality is the freedom which I can take to organize these spaces where I can decide. and the others to see it. The way I or others perceive it. And then there is something like and I can find something to hold on to.

[59:16]

I can come to a point of view. Not everybody has the same capacities. But through all these spaces where I can make my choice, I can come to I can sort of fit in in the way I was meant to be. Sounds good. And if I'm not agreeing with that, then I'm in my ego story.

[60:22]

Yeah. Yeah. Das Persönlichkeit so etwas ist wie die The basis of personalities are distinctions and making of value. But all the time you have the possibility of stepping out of these judgments. Development means in connection to others, being open in connection with others.

[61:32]

being able to make new distinctions, or no distinctions. My key for development would be The key for development would be orientation. Something like a vision like how I am, how the world is. Or to have a goal in life which can also be something not very big. The aspect of personality is other stories, but also other mental or physical activities which I perform to gain continuity.

[63:17]

The possibility of change is in the spaces between these stories and activities. This space is something new can come in which you didn't see before. So new stories and new activities become possible. And this can also go into body chemistry, where something new can crystallize. And there is also this example of the catalyst, that in chemistry certain connections cannot arise, because a very high energy activation is necessary, and by lucky coincidence or application of a catalyst this does happen.

[64:47]

Please be quiet. In chemistry there is an example that certain connections actually cannot happen because there is a high barrier of energy which has to be overcome. Then there are two possibilities that this can happen. The one is chance and the other is a catalyst. The other is a catalyst which can go at a level of energy. Next person.

[65:51]

Personality starts with energy. There has to be strength and they tend to give shape to something. a force or a desire to shape that is above or impersonal. This strength and this intention to give shape is not personal, it's above personal. And this force, this desire to shape, through the process of thickening This strength and intention goes through processes of dancing and in that way it creates itself.

[66:55]

Something happens which we do not know. Only the result is accessible to us and that is consciousness. This consciousness makes distinctions. compares and it remembers. It compares yesterday to today and projects this into the future. These manifestations of energy They combine, they form the personality, it's like a dance.

[68:08]

What furthers this development? This is directionality. Potential of energy or strength which cannot be exhausted. Potential of energy or strength which cannot be exhausted. And development is experienced as directionality, longing, to grow toward this inexhaustible potential.

[69:09]

Three terms which are keys for the development. This is curiosity, trust, Mm-hmm. And energy for activities. Energy for activities. Mm-hmm. Okay. Danke. So let me thank you. Thank you. You know, in Zen we don't... discuss practice, our practice.

[70:22]

And even guided meditations and things like that are not done very often. Because we don't want to interfere with the experience of meditation. Mm-hmm. And we don't want people sort of competing of, I had this experience, I had that experience, et cetera. But on the other hand, it's common to create situations where the basic idea of what's going on can be discussed. By the way, Horst, maybe you could share with everyone your diagram that you showed me. I mean, not right now necessarily, but it'd be nice if everyone could see it. It's great. I mean, anybody who brings a color printer along to the seminar.

[71:39]

I have one, too. No colored ink in it, though. And the custom is to create situations where you discuss, again, basic questions of what we think a human being is, what we think the relationship to the world is, and so forth. And there's a number of reasons for this. One is, again, I can only speak about this from the point of view of what I know. I don't know anything about Zen. I mean, I'm interested in a lot of things, and I've done a lot of things, but really, all my adult life I've only done Zen Buddhism.

[72:44]

So I'm afraid you're stuck with, this is all I can say, so, you know, I'm sorry. Yeah. But the idea of a discussion from the point of view of Zen Is how we describe ourself to ourselves explicitly or implicitly is extremely important. We may have practiced well zazen, we may have one pointedness, but if our description of ourself is a little bit confused, it doesn't help much. And so that we keep kind of regurgitating, regurgitating, that means to swallow and... Like a cow does.

[73:47]

We regurgitate our images of ourself and the world regularly. And when we do it with others, we begin to develop a common vocabulary. And there's a natural tendency to idealize a little bit how we describe what a human being is. But that also means what we want a human being to be. And maybe one of the reasons I like meeting with you guys it's not just because of your outstanding personalities but also because you meet regularly together most of you do or you see each other or you're friends

[75:09]

So there's enough of a common sense of what a human being is that it makes what I'm doing much easier. I've found there's a world of difference or a very large difference between doing a seminar in a city where maybe I have 50 new people and I have 44 new people and six people I see regularly. Those six somehow transform the whole group and allow something to happen that's just not possible if there isn't a few people who have a lot of connection. So Zen practice presumes a certain Sangha friendship.

[76:14]

in which there's the development together of what a person is. And the more there's a kind of Over a period of time, an agreement reached of really what a person is and what an ideal person is. There's a flow of energy in the group that's very different than when that's not there. And speaking about personality, Sukhirishi used to say that after years of Zen practice, what's left is personality. In other words, the sense of self, the ego is gone, but whatever that person is, mischievous or funny, that becomes much more precise and clear. And I also wanted to say, yesterday I felt a little funny saying about your stomach and aligning yourself with other people and all that.

[77:39]

Because it feels sort of artificial, if I say it that way. But, you know, when I was recently in Japan, there's a little place, remember we used to go and have breakfast, coffee, Colorado? Yeah. I would go there, because you can kind of order something that resembles breakfast. And they get used to me and they create a little stump dish for me. So I bring a book and I eat my little kind of plastic eggs or something like that. But then I would watch the other people eating. And it is extraordinary the rapport Japanese people build with each other instantaneously.

[79:01]

Because these yogic things like conversation is first of all physical alignment, are just taken for granted. They don't know it's Buddhism, but they're doing it. And sometimes it can be a little annoying to us. Because it looks like a dance. You know, somebody picks up their cup and somebody else picks up their cup. And they both hold their cup at a particular chakra point. If one drinks and the other drinks and the third lifts his cup up to that first chakra point and waits a moment until they're finished and then he moves his cup, you know. You think, well, this is... There's tons of little choreographed, intuitively choreographed things going on.

[80:02]

Far more obvious than Westerners do. And they build a kind of field where they just feel comfortable. They hardly have to say anything. But you can look at the lines. If you drew lines between the bodies, there's all these curved lines. There's very seldom sharp lines. Like if the lines between us basically were curved, that kind of feeling. And there's a space between them which they kind of, it feels like they're stretching it, moving it. and playing with the kind of elastic space. At the only time you see it in the West, this kind of sense of physical choreography is between lovers.

[81:08]

And, I mean, if you're in a restaurant and you see two young people, even middle-aged, getting to know each other, this kind of interesting rapport goes on in the way the space is shaped. And when you have these eyes and you go to Japan, it looks like everyone's in love. I know they're not in love. But the basis of their connectedness is in this area. So it doesn't have to be natural. Once you're used to it, it's just part of your behavior. I was thinking, you know, in our conversations the last few days, I was thinking maybe I should do a book, you know, with all of you or something called The Waiting Room.

[82:39]

Which I describe practices that are similar in Buddhism and that overlap and all the stuff we've been talking about. Okay. Okay, now... We have only five minutes. So let me just start with a few sentences on this idea of original mind. Original mind is rooted in really the idea the conception of original mind, in contrast to the experience of original mind, the conception of original mind is rooted in noticing there's a distinction between mind and thoughts.

[84:04]

And it's also rooted in the pre-Buddhist tradition of noticing that we have these three minds at birth of waking, dreaming and non-dreaming deep sleep. And there's the natural question, if you pay attention to that, yes, we all know we have these three minds that are quite separated. And function through their separation. You couldn't have the kind of creative thinking we have or dreaming or ordinary consciousness unless there was the separation. So the separation is So the separation is so inseparable from the way we function that we can't imagine not having these three minds.

[85:29]

But the natural possibility comes up is there a mind which joins these three or a mind which includes these three? So the conception is rooted in these two facts. Now, the... Now my feeling is in reading contemporary philosophy and psychology that the conception of original mind is quite original. And even the emphasis on it in Zen is original, is quite different than in all other forms of Buddhism. The emphasis on original mind in Zen is unique to Zen.

[86:50]

It's not so the same in other forms of Buddhism. And my personal opinion is the dogmatic linkage of original mind with sudden enlightenment is a heretical dogmatism of a large percentage of Zen. And you know, I consider Buddhism and a a science, an inner science, and a yogic philosophy.

[87:56]

And maybe that's not all I think about Zen. But I think that seeing it that way is very important in our culture. Because, you know, if biology is quite different from physics, and the study of plants and so forth is, on the whole, has been in the past quite different from the study of motion and things like that. So the development of molecular physics and then molecular biology, there came to be a clear overlap. And now almost some biology is almost inseparable from physics in what they're trying to talk about and study.

[88:56]

And that's possible because physics is very clear about specifics. So biology, can begin to, and when it's clear, they can begin to influence each other. So if I give you the usual way of looking at original mind, a kind of Zen sort of way of approaching it, that you don't talk about it, you push people into the experience. I think such an approach is almost useless to Western psychotherapy.

[90:00]

We have to look at it, I have to look at it scientifically if I'm going to make it useful for you to say, oh yeah, that's similar, or I can make use of that. And I think we can see that in our conversations by my trying to make these things clear in a very specific way. You can say, oh yeah, that's very similar to what we do. If it was general, you wouldn't be able to see the similarities. So I want to keep starting from these basics as Horst Hiltrud, is that right? Hiltrud pointed out to me yesterday that their son is a physicist, is that right? And they said to me, is this Buddhism or physics? Something like that. Well, I'm trying to, by talking about attention or direction and movement and attention, I'm trying to look at this in a very basic way, how Buddhism is built up from such basics.

[91:34]

And then, oh yes, there's similar basics in psychotherapy, and we take those basics a little different direction. So I'm trying to make a kind of a grammology, a dictionary of grammar or syntax. So, and the distinction between mind and thoughts, you know, no big, I mean, everyone would notice that, but it's not very noticeable. It's like everyone notices there's a page under the print in a book. But who cares? And it's very hard to pay attention to the page. It gets quite boring after a while.

[92:34]

And your mind naturally starts looking at the sentences. Except for a few people, a blank piece of paper is quite uninteresting. And they're usually left in stacks unexplored. I can't explore this one, the middle of the piece, empty. But when you start to meditate, and you begin to notice that the print on the page,

[93:34]

the thoughts on the page begin to shrink sometimes. And sometimes the blank piece of paper gets bigger and bigger. And sometimes it reaches out and grabs sentences and pulls them into out of sight. And sometimes it sticks words in the middle of sentences and changes their meaning. Anyway, then you start noticing that there is a difference between mind and thoughts. A kind of difference you wouldn't notice probably if you didn't meditate. And you begin to notice the difference in feeling in your own body when there's less print on the page.

[94:39]

So it starts to be real to you, this, oh. there's a difference between mind and thoughts. And when it starts to be real to you, you are then beginning to work with this sense of a big mind. Okay, let's sit for one minute and then we'll go have lunch.

[94:57]

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