So did you go together to... Does it look like all right for... Yeah. They arranged their two children, one of them is also mine. And the other is also his. To go to this wonderful woman who's a forest fish, I mean wall trout. It was really nice taking care of the kids, some of the kids, those two. You know, I'm always a little embarrassed that I don't come down and join you like between 2 and 2.30 and 3. Because I'd like to sit with you and I feel funny that I'm letting you sit while I sort of climb around on the roof.

[01:03]

But you know, partly it's just like the pressure of having to come soon concentrates my thinking. But you know, it's not actually quite that simple. I need to feel where you're at in order to find out what I should do next. And if I come down and sit with you, I find you're not where I left you. You're somewhere else. So I try to coalesce, bring together the feeling I had when I left here with you.

[02:16]

Let's see if we can start from that point. You know, I've talked about these things, of course, before. Not all of it, but most of it. Here and there, and sometimes I wish I knew where, so I could try to remember what I said before. But even if I remembered where I spoke about something before... I can't just tell you something. I have to explore it with you. So I don't really, you know, I have to sort of, I don't know where we'll go. I have a sort of vague target that I think might be fun, but I don't know if we'll get there.

[03:41]

Yeah. Okay. So what I've said so far And also I found our discussion just before lunch fruitful, is that we seem to have agreed, or at least it makes sense, that what our mind and moods are affects all other aspects of our life, our other priorities. So the question is, is our mind... Are we really the... pretty much the recipient or victim of our mind.

[05:07]

If you're depressed, you're the victim of your mind. It's very hard to do much about it. And probably a lot of You know, tranquilizers and things like that are sometimes perhaps really needed, but often they're because we are the victims of our mind. We don't know. We're in certain moods and we don't know what to do about it. And you certainly can't do much about it, except take cold showers and things like that, unless you really know it's possible to do something about your mind.

[06:14]

And then you can vex yourself with the problem, if you like, how does the mind do something about the mind? Bexed? Yeah. I use the word because you sometimes say to me, don't get vexed. I use that because of the French word, but I don't know what the English one means. All these times I've been trying, you don't even know what the word means. You were always proud I knew it. And you're telling me I'm vexed. Okay. To vex means to bother or something like that. What does it mean in French? Beleidigt. Beleidig, what's that mean in English? Offended, you know. Oh. But it's more like a kid, you know. Oh, all these times I've been offended.

[07:16]

So, okay, you... Excuse the little family discussion. Now where was I? Anyway, okay. Yeah, you have to know you can do something about your mind. And I said, let's not be vexed by the problem of how does the mind do something about the mind. But the mind is many parts. The fact that we can simply say the mind means we can think about the mind as well as be the mind. Okay, so we decide to do something about the mind.

[08:24]

Do we have to be at the mercy of our moods? Or do we have to have our moods in mind so subject to the success or failure of our story? Or so subject to whether we think somebody likes us or insulted us or whatever. Okay, so you decide to do something about your mind. Yeah. And so, you see that the, you may see that one of the problems is that your mind is primarily your experience of thinking.

[09:49]

And you see that, in fact, your sense of the world is tied to your thinking. If you have some experience even that's not connected with thinking, you don't really believe it's real until you confirm it by also thinking it. Wenn ihr eine Erfahrung habt, die sich nicht durch Denken bestätigen lässt, glaubt ihr, das sei nicht wirklich, bis ihr nicht irgendeine Erklärung durch Denken findet. And you see that your thinking language itself lends itself to a past, present, future type world. Und ihr erkennt, dass euer Denken und eure Sprache sich And perhaps we notice that we primarily think through language.

[11:01]

Now, perhaps more visually oriented people think through images and things, but most people think in language. And language itself, mostly our western languages, assume a doer of everything. Yeah, just, I mean, a simple example. We don't say, rain rains. We say, it rains. Well, who the heck is the it that rains? Zeus is up there throwing raindrops. Not Dr. Seuss. Seuss. Zeus!

[12:02]

You can see what we do a lot of time. Read Dr. Seuss to our children. The Greek gods. Do people in Germany read Dr. Seuss? No, it's so language-based. Oh, it's so based on English. Bartholomew Cubbins and the Ten Thousand Hats? Nothing. The Cat in the Hat Comes Back? Okay. They're quite good, actually. They're a lot of fun. Anyway, Zeus is up there and Dr. Seuss. Zeus and Dr. Seuss sit up there and throw down rain. Yeah, but, you know, it's hard to say. It sounds funny to say rain rains. Oh, dear. So... Seeing that our thinking and our language assume a doer and that doer is a story, etc.

[13:19]

And that doer is a story. Sorry, I got completely stuck. That's all right. So how do we... It's not so bad, but it's a little bit chopped up. Oh, really? Okay. Sorry. So how do we free ourselves or loosen the connection between our definition of the world and ourself in thinking? How do we free ourselves from defining the world and defining ourselves through thinking? How do we free ourselves from defining the world and from defining the self through thinking? It's the only way we're going to begin to have some real participation in what our moods are and our mind is.

[14:25]

Because thinking is very fragile. Little kids say... England and America, sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me. In Ireland, too? Yay! Sticks and stones can break my bones, But names can never hurt me. Yeah, you stupid little... Yeah. Kids say it, but adults don't believe it. If somebody calls you names, your boss says, you stupid imbecile, I don't know why I'm employing you.

[15:28]

You don't say, sticks and stones can break my... Okay, so then we discussed... One way is to immerse ourselves more in, embed ourselves more in, find ourselves more in our senses. Okay. And the second we mentioned, or whatever order, was that we... find ourselves located, our sense of continuity in our breath and our body.

[16:33]

And third, we talked about knowing the world as simultaneously mine. Okay, so this is, you know, as I say simply, every object points at mind as well, every perception points at mind as well as the object perceived. This is not so easy to notice.

[17:38]

Wittgenstein himself says, in a situation like this, in this situation, there's no information here in this situation that tells me there's a mind perceiving it. It's wisdom to remind yourself, looking at Paul or feeling Paul's presence without looking at him, That Paul's presence is my mind's presence. And the more deeply I know that, the less I feel a victim in the world. Because I know if everything looks or feels shitty, my own mind is making that happen.

[18:42]

It's not. It is a case true, as bumper stickers say in the United States quite often, shit happens. I'm sorry to make you swear. But still, it makes a difference when we know whatever's happening is happening in our own sense and mental field. If everything looks gray, we can brighten up the grayness. And I'm sitting with all those parents up there, not knowing what was going on. You weren't here for that story.

[20:04]

Some of you. I simply, you know, brightened up my mind. It was quite a pleasant experience. Yeah. Okay. So the habit of knowing and experiencing everything simultaneously as mind is perhaps the major step to take in... being a participant in your moods and overall mind.

[21:07]

So you don't experience things as out there, but you experience things as in here. whatever's out there is only experienced by you if it's also in here. Now what's the difference in experiencing things as in here? Difference to what? difference from experiencing things as out there. Because, I mean, the fact is things are, in some senses, out there.

[22:17]

Trees, those cement pillars, our neighbor. But what is the out there experience of their being out there? Well, say you're in a swimming pool. Perhaps a hotel swimming pool and no one else is in it. You're the first one there. And someone comes and jumps in the other end of the pool. You don't feel they're out there. You feel they're in the water with you. And you feel the water kind of... You were trying to swim laps and, you know... You've got water in your nose.

[23:23]

But you don't have a feeling of the person being out there. They're in the water with you. And why is that? Well, I would say maybe something like you're subject to the same forces they are. And the feeling of being subject to the same forces, the water, you know, etc., you feel, yeah, you don't feel an out-there-ness, you feel a connectedness. Okay, so let's just change it from a swimming pool to we're here in the garden and the trees are moving and I don't know, various things are happening. And if I don't think of the tree as a tree, you know, already, and I said it rains, let's say treeing instead of trees.

[24:46]

You have a feeling of the activity of everything. And you have a feeling of interdependence as meaning experientially being subject to forces. You have a feeling of interdependence meaning feeling subject to forces. You feel your interdependence in the swimming pool when this other person jumps in. But, yeah, but that's, you know, very tangible, but all the time everything is interdependent.

[25:48]

And that interdependence means things work on each other. So the more that you are part of everything, things working on each other, you feel you're subject to forces too, or the same forces, as the tree blowing in the wind. Do you notice that you are also subordinate to forces or the same forces as the It doesn't have to be such a big event as the thunder which shakes the building. It's a shift in a perception of reality. So interdependence isn't just a philosophical idea. It's a continuous feeling that you're subject to forces.

[27:01]

And the more that's the case, the out-there-ness feeling disappears. But now you're not living in a container anymore. Now I think the two biggest obstacles to taking responsibility for our mind and moods participating in our mind and moods, is one, our identification with our thinking, and our habit of self-referential thinking.

[28:10]

That's one problem. It's very hard to change. I mean, easy, it can be done, so it's easy. But you have to make a pretty clear decision to do it. Not pretty clear, very clear. And second is the sense that we live in a container. And the second is this idea that you live in a container. That somehow we're here and there's the house and there's the neighborhood and there's the planet and the stars. We're in a container. Hard to believe this container was once about this big and then went big bang. But anyway, aside from that, that's... Okay, so if we... The problem with... If we think we're in a container... We feel subject to the world and then subject to our mind.

[29:14]

If we reverse that and feel subject, our mind is our own subject and the world is our own subject. Subject you mean like in a feudal society? Yeah, like that too. And subject-object. Okay, now the world as a container depends on our thinking there's entities out there. If we think there's entities, which Werner pointed out earlier, and then we only have a mental representation of an entity out there, then we're going to think we live in a container. Okay. So if we have entities, we live in a container.

[30:41]

If we think in terms of entities, then we think we live in a container. Now, you may think this is too intellectual or too philosophical or something like that. It's intellectual because you're already intellectual. I'm sorry. I mean, if you have an assumption that the world is a container, that's basically an intellectual view you take for granted. And again, the Buddha's first and most important teaching is the perfecting of views. Because it's views which shape, control everything we see, hear and know.

[32:03]

So we're trying to shift our views a little bit. Okay, so let's look at this thing of entities in the vein in which we spoke with Werner. Is this an entity? Well, if I throw it at you and it hits you in the head, you're going to think it's an entity. Yeah, but at what point do we call it an entity? Can we call the atoms entities? Can we call what is mostly space with a few atoms here and there an entity? No, we're like Sherlock Holmes.

[33:07]

We're like Sherlock Holmes looking for the entity. Where is the entity? Okay, is the molecule an entity? No, this is bronze, so presumably it's made of copper and tin. Copper and something. And so is the copper ore... the entity? Is the tin the entity? Is the idea in the maker the entity? Are the tools he used or she used the entity? Is this final shape, the metal entity? Or is this a paper clip holder?

[34:08]

What point is it an entity? If I throw it in the fire? These things, they break quite easily. If I drop it, it will probably break. That's why it has a good sound. Because it has a crystalline structure. So if it breaks, is it an entity then? I happen to mention, because I thought of it recently, my experience of the cup my little daughter broke. Now she's 41, but she was little. Someone had given me a Hamada cup. Hamada was the most well-known national treasure potter of Japan. And he was potting in San Jose for a while.

[35:21]

He visited America once. And he didn't like American clay. American dirt isn't good enough. But it was too processed. It was too consistent. He wanted a more... And in Japan, often potters aren't really taken seriously unless they have their own source of clay. They live near where the clay that they... But I had this cup, which, you know... Yeah, it was something kind of nice.

[36:37]

My little daughter, who's four years old at the time, knocked it off my desk. I loved it because I didn't have any experience of a problem, of a loss. It was just, oh, now it's something to clean up. Because I had soul and I thought, hey, practice is working. Because I had power. I only viewed the cup as an activity. I did not view it as an entity at all. So it went from an activity of something I drank out of to an activity of something I cleaned up. And I thought, oh, this gives potters a chance to make more pots.

[37:41]

That's why they're breakable. And then I thought, oh, it can be repaired. And I brought it to Japan next time I went. And I went to a shop and I said, is there anybody around who still repairs pots in the old way? He said yes to old ways to do it with gold. So our potter over here is nodding her head. Is that right? There's some potter in America who makes beautiful pots, smashes them, prepares them with gold, and then puts them in the gallery.

[38:44]

This is carrying the whole idea too far. Anyway, so he said, yes, there's... I'm going to pick up my friend. Really? Let them wait. So... I'm going to give you a break soon. So he said, there's a guy who does it. He's very old now, but I think he still is doing it. So he repaired it and it's now quite nicely. Got little lines with gold. And a few years later I went back to see this old guy who had it repaired for him, who sent me to the man. And he said, oh, I remember you, yeah.

[39:48]

I had that cup prepared for you. And he's dead now. Next time you come to Japan, you won't find me either, he said. And he's also dead now. Anyway, so you really can get to the point where you don't experience things as entities, but as activity, as subject to forces. So this bell, I don't think you can point to any point that it's an entity. It's always... an interrelated, interdependent event.

[40:50]

It's a bell. It's a bell when I ring it. It's a bell because I think of it as a bell. Or it's a bell because I don't use it for paper clips. Or it's a bell because we have a name for bells. Okay, now it takes some So it takes time. Take some time to keep reminding yourself. Okay. And when you really have that feeling, the world shifts into something that you're so much a part of.

[41:53]

that you feel empowered by the activity of the world, not estranged by it or from it. Now, I've been debating whether it would be a good idea for us to have small groups today or tomorrow morning or what. Ich habe. Since we have a one-day longer seminar. And I decided, concluded a few minutes ago, if it's okay with you, well, now half an hour ago, that it would be good to have small groups this afternoon. And I'd like to suggest for a topic or question or something you'd like to discuss is what can you have a feeling for well first of all what is your idea about what reality is what kind of reality do you think exists

[43:39]

And what kind of reality do you unconsciously assume exists? And if you feel there's a difference between... Like, do you assume really things are a container? Do you assume really that you're... primarily defined by your story, and if you have a different view as a possibility, are you also, can you be, or do you want to be, bring these two views together? Our assumed view and our assumed view, unconsciously assumed view, and our more thoughtful or perhaps wiser view. And you can see it also, as you mentioned, if you can't find your continuity in your breath and body, then I would say, in fact, you assume that the world is defined through your thinking.

[45:14]

For you. You find your sense of continuity of the world experientially in thinking. Okay. So anyway, that's something like that's my suggestion. Let our director and Eno decide how we divide up. Thank you very much.

[45:50]

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