What Dorothea has just pointed out to me is that we cut off the senses, as you said, and to me this is something like moving away from the identification of the content of the senses to the recognition of the process of the senses. I was wondering again about the question that Dorothea brought up before about cutting off the senses. And what I'm wondering is what that means. What that means is something like that it's away from an identification with the senses and towards a feeling of... the process of the senses. The experiential process without my putting that into fixed categories.

[01:07]

Yes, okay. I think, go ahead. No, go ahead. Maybe also in the slightly larger frame that you just mentioned, Andreas, this morning... No, John. Yes, did you mention the image of the mirror? Maybe in a similar frame, but this morning you mentioned the image of the mirror. And what happens when something is mirrored and what happens when something is no longer existent? There is this image of a container that's filled with water and the moon is reflected on the surface of the water.

[02:34]

And in this story, we probably know it all, the monk, or I think it's maybe a woman, keeps trying to patch the bucket that she's fetching the water with. And one day it can no longer be repaired and just falls apart. And so, yes, there is no container anymore, and no surface, no water surface, and the moon is no longer reflected, and now she has to lift her head and look directly at the moon. What fascinates me about this story is how I always try to put this container, this familiar, these five scanners as glasses, so to speak, between me and the object.

[04:04]

And what keeps fascinating me is how much I try to patch this container, use it over and over again and put the five skandhas almost like glasses between myself and the object of perception. and how much energy that takes, and how much activity that is, and how I could just take off the glasses. And How much energy do all these activities require?

[05:07]

And it would be possible to just not do that and not to even put on those glasses. and to not do that as part of my practice. Okay. Yes. Could you also link what Gerald said to what Roshi said at the beginning, for example, about his daughter, who was able to question these named concepts of her physics class and to create something new? So if you can let go of the given, named concepts, Could we connect what Gerald just said with what Sophia did, your daughter did, when she let go of the established concepts of her physics classes and questioned them and went away from what's known to create something unknown?

[06:35]

Okay. And may I add that this is not only possible in a fear-free or far-reaching fear-free space. Because we had the question in the room at the beginning, what can we possibly pass on in our practice? And for me it's like this, when I think of my patients or my own daughter and her school experience, which were shaped for many years by established, superior concepts, how much energy it took or do patients need to get into a far-reaching, fear-free climate and how much do they think then? That's right. And that kind of activity is that only possible in a space that's free of or free from fear, where there's no fear.

[07:38]

And I'm thinking, for instance, of my daughter, how much fear she had to overcome in you know just being in the usual spaces of education and so forth and how she had to work through that how much energy also clients need in order to free themselves from all the fear load and spaces maybe of our society or something yeah yeah much energy is bound by that I'm listening Yes. I've also wondered what does this mean to cut mental activity? Gerald brought in the five skandhas. Roshi distinguished many years ago between consciousness and awareness and from my point of view that's something like the five skandhas for beginners.

[08:55]

And as Gerald spoke now in my imagination, consciousness is like the sunglasses. And the third skanda is something like the best possible sliding, how do you call when there's several... Yeah, I know, that's true. Yeah, so called... Blind, glidesicht. Yeah, auf Deutsch weiss ich, glidesicht, das versuche ich zu übersetzen. In English it's called something like successional or something like that. It's just the best one you get. Swiss made. Swiss made. Is it possible to take off the glasses at all?

[10:20]

So are all scandals mental? Or is it... If I can follow Roshi without understanding, it is also energy or something vital or happens, it is not nothing. And the question is, is it actually possible to take the glasses off altogether? Or in other words, when I am following you without understanding what you're saying, then there's still something happening. It's not like that there's nothing happening. And with the five skandhas, are they entirely mental? Okay, I'm still listening. For me there is a concretely or specifically sensory experience. I feel like there is something like a shell that's over the senses, so a kind of mental construct that's also perceptible.

[11:42]

And that is due to the fact that it is a slower mental activity. For example, sometimes I can't even grab it. It's not as fluid as it is when it's stuck, and then I can grab it. And it's characterized by being a slower mental pace. I feel like I can sometimes almost grasp it. The shell is a slower mental pace? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And if I manage to actually fixate it or to detect it in its fixation, then it is like going through such a gel-like structure and below that lies an perception that feels completely different. And when I manage to focus on that or to fixate, to make clear to myself what that is and to get through it, then I feel like underneath that there is a different kind of perception that just really feels different.

[13:08]

my image would not be to take off the glasses, but more like to use my mind differently. When you say underneath the image, there's another kind of mind going on. When do you feel that happening? In the midst of therapy, or as a therapist, or as a doctor, or as a meditator, or whatever. As a grandfather. As a therapist, as a doctor, as a grandfather, as a meditator. First of all in meditation. Well, first of all, in meditation. And then in therapy, if the therapy is successful, is maybe not the right word, but when it works well, functions well.

[14:24]

Effectively, effectively, yeah. Okay, thanks. For me, this short description about suchness somehow repositioned my understanding in a new way. There were these two properties of potentiality and a kind of inherent direction, directionality. And in this context, Droschi talked about, it was something like, I don't know exactly, a few sentences later, but it was in this context that the fields of the mind are not connected to a picture, so a kind of separation of seeing and hearing and feeling the body.

[15:37]

And in that context you spoke about how the sense fields aren't put together to one image, so a separateness of the body feeling and the different sense fields and so forth. If I experience something like that or am close to experiencing something like that, then it is actually always so overwhelming that it only takes a few seconds. And when I experience something like that or notice that I'm getting close to experiencing something like that, it is so overwhelming that it will only take a few seconds. I have not even an idea for how to maintain that. Only take a few seconds to what? The experience. The experience only takes a few seconds.

[16:43]

Oh, the length of time of the experience is only a few seconds. Yeah. All the dawahs, the acclaims are gone. Yeah, or maybe it's even outside of time. I don't know. It's the way that Hans has used an image and when he just spoke of a layer that feels like gel and what's underneath that and Ulrich says for him it feels like something granular. A granular feeling and there's the sense of, there's appearance and then it's immediately gone or something. There's no duration. Yeah, okay. So if I don't know how to hold it.

[17:44]

But you've noticed it? Yeah. Like a flying spider. Okay, I'm listening. Yes. Yes. I am experiencing something quite interesting with a problem that I'm currently having. I'm feeling quite dizzy much of the time, almost as if I was drunk, and I can't think very clearly. So I can't understand in my usual way and or at least much worse. then I have the feeling that I understand you without being able to say it.

[19:10]

And that makes me wonder what understanding really is and where understanding comes from. And like when Gerald spoke, for instance, I am wondering what a way of understanding is that touches me even if I can't mentally pin down, I can't repeat or I can't say what it exactly is that I understood. And the experience of it is connectedness. As an example, I practice with the sentence Heaven, Earth and me share the same roots. If I practice with this sentence, for example.

[20:16]

And in a way, I come into the sense and I connect it with breath, spine and notice a thinking about it and connect it with mindfulness and try to be in the space between the thoughts. And I connect that with spine and breath, for instance, and I'm noticing a thinking about that and then I'm beginning to feel like I'm maybe in the space between the thoughts. And then a way of experiencing arises. And then what arises is the question of where is that coming from?

[21:17]

Where is that generated from? These are, and then I can keep thinking far away from that. And then when Roshi asked, well, you can just ask me something, just spontaneously what came up for me is the word Alaya Vijjana, which I know very little about. Is that a realm that reaches into this? And some of you who are just here for the first time, like Paula and you, and you, if you have something to say, you know, please do.

[22:26]

Yeah, he's already said something, but I know he could say something else. Let's see if they say anything first. I mean, you could sing a song if you'd like. You could sing a song if you'd like. I have only fundamental questions that may not be appropriate for this frame, for this context.

[23:37]

I like them. So what about one of them? So yes, one fundamental question. So if I understand this correctly, what Buddhism is, or the philosophy behind it, then one nourishes oneself through experience. If I understood correctly what Buddhism is or the philosophy behind it, then we approach it through experience. But you talk a lot about concepts. And they are very intellectual. I really like that. But isn't that a small contradiction? No. Experience is impossible without concepts.

[24:56]

Even to have no concept is a concept. And if you're sitting zazen, zazen is rooted in the concept, don't move. And if you don't have that concept, zazen is not going to work. Okay, so if I do decide or find myself able to say something, I will probably include to some extent what you just said. Paula? I don't have anything to say. Oh, really? But if I had a medical problem, you could help me. Really? I'll try. All right, okay. Yes? It's going to be difficult to form the question.

[26:13]

But if I want to explain, is there actually a difference between Buddhism or Living the way which is described, for example, in this book, the way that we talk here, the way that we live. You guys live here with those beautiful mindsets and really remembering where life is truly about. Do we have to nail it down with Buddhism or can we just live it the way I actually live it by practicing it from my heart, in my belief, So do you have to be Buddhist? Is this lifestyle, let's call it a lifestyle, okay?

[27:14]

Is this lifestyle underneath Buddhism or is Buddhism and this lifestyle separate? Do you see my... I don't know if you guys can follow or do you get what's in my pool here at the moment? Yes. So the question is, Buddhism and the way we speak here, all these wonderful mindsets, thoughts and so on, and for example how it is described in this book, do you have to... what it really is about in life, do you have to establish that with Buddhism? Or is it also possible that, in principle, from the way I do it, for example, with the feeling from the heart and within my belief systems, Ist dieser Lebensstil unter dem Buddhismus, is that what you meant, is the lifestyle underneath Buddhism?

[28:19]

Yeah, or are you obliged to live the way you live here with the practice of in the morning and in the evening, the Oryoku? Is that really necessary to be in there or not? I mean, I don't want to touch a... A dangerous point here. Which I'm doing. But you could look at it from another side, you know? This whole idea, I thought. Also sind all diese Formen zum Beispiel, wie ihr das macht mit Morgensitzen, Rezitation und Orioki und so. Muss man das so machen? Aber ich will keinen zu gefährlichen Punkt ansprechen. Ja. Oder kann man das auch anders betrachten? Okay, let me respond to that, maybe. But first, Martin, did you? Martin? Well, I had a big eye-opener this morning with this notion of the one thing is bigger than... The parts.

[29:28]

The parts are bigger than the whole. Because of this notion of potentiality that will... unfold over time. It was a very new way of thinking that triggered a lot and I tried to understand how do I practice that in everyday life. And for me it came back to the very first teaching event here that is actually when you do, when you have this sensory perception, I think that's the one that triggered the discussion about sensory, when you have this Your sense is all in parallel, all at the same time. It also creates this attunement, as you said in the very beginning. So this attunement can be to a flower or to a tree, or it can be to a person. For me, what I got out of this is, the important thing is that you can, like,

[30:29]

let go of this is this and this is that but back and say okay it's just here it's just I'm just noticing and yes sometimes I do have these moments in everyday life and it's described it as something underlying what I experience sometimes is that when I am in in this moment that I have like Something running through you, like, I don't know, I cannot describe either, but something like going through you, sometimes it's even shaking physically, and maybe you have an explanation for what that could be. Translation or high German? Okay.

[31:33]

You're not here, are you? No, I'm standing up. I listened very attentively, but... I think it was such a beautiful moment and such an insightful moment like Roshi's about this difference between the whole is more than the sum of the individual parts and the individual parts are more than the whole, because this aspect of... this aspect of potentiality in the course of time. And for me, unfortunately, in the discussion with Uli about the afterthoughts, the idea is that what he meant with attunement, that is to say, to immerse oneself, then it doesn't really matter whether you see a flower or a tree or a mountain, or to the human being. Sometimes I have moments in my daily life when I feel something that I can't get through.

[32:38]

I don't know what it is. It can be something physical, like twitching, or when I sit in meditation, it also affects me. Well, I'll just say this much. The fact that you have these experiences means that you have the capacity for practice. That you can notice them means you have the capacity for practice.

[33:40]

And that your body gives you the opportunity to notice them is also a capacity for practice. Okay. okay so let me say speak to what you said and first let me say that if you asked in a yogic culture If you sit in a yoga culture, you wouldn't say so much, oh, there's mind and body. You'd say there's mind, body and energy.

[34:55]

You'd have three categories. And just say mind and body is already, from the point of view of a yoga culture, is a mistake. And I think one of the things that links Petra and I is that Qigong, which she does, and I've practiced Qigong as well, not anywhere near the percentage, the way she has practiced, but it's about energy. So if I speak into this room, into the two categories, if you hear me in the two categories of mind and body, you're not hearing me. Also, wenn ich in diesen Raum hinein spreche und ihr hört mich in diesen zwei Kategorien, Geist und Körper, dann hört ihr mich nicht.

[36:11]

Ich habe den Ausdruck vorhin verwendet von dem Einschwingen der Aufmerksamkeit. Now it's assumed in a yogic culture that you're always involved in a kind of attunement of your energy. It can be explicit or implicit. Now I was just in Japan, what was it, two years ago with you and Christian? Mm-hmm. Nicole is going again in August with a group of people from the Sangha. And I hadn't been back in Kyoto for some time. Kyoto has changed a lot, of course. But one thing remained the same. The attentional bandwidth, which is much wider than in our culture, was there the same way.

[37:35]

If something's happening, say that right now 10 things are happening or 100 or 1,500. Now, magicians are very good at doing things because they can just take things out of your attention and do something. You say, how the hell did that card get in your hand? Well, they just were in control of your attention. I never thought of this till now, but I could write a PhD, ask if I was young enough, could I write a PhD paper on how magicians work in Japan? And I never thought about it until now.

[38:45]

When I was young enough, I would now write a doctor's thesis about how magicians can work in Japan. How do they get the attention to distract? But what's interesting is, say that a hundred things happen. Most people notice ten. Or one. Or none. But in general, the feeling is on a Japanese street, for instance, that two or three hundred are noticed. I mean, when I first went to Japan it was extreme because they said there was an article in the newspaper which said there's no sidewalks and so lots of kids are getting hit by cars. Now, can you imagine a German newspaper saying,

[39:49]

Well, this isn't really a problem because in the newspaper only the kids who aren't so alert get killed. So we don't need sidewalks because it's only the unalert who get hurt. This was in the newspaper. Oh, yeah. And it's true, as you noticed, that these streets are small, and cars whip right down, motorcycles are there, people are there, and almost never is anybody hit. You're careful not to put your elbow out too far, because a car is right there. And Nicole and Christian and my daughter, Sally, who's there to help translate.

[41:14]

Somebody else. Emily, the plasterer. Plastering is a very high art in Japan. And you can see an example of it. The shiny plaster is done by a Japanese plasterer. And the other is done... And Emily, this... American woman is studying Japanese plastering and she's even in a movie about a master Japanese plasterer and she's one of the persons in the movie on NHK or something. In Japan, the cleaning is a very high art. And for example, you can see that back there on the wall, where the part that shimmers a little bit, that part of the cleaning was made by a Japanese cleaner.

[42:38]

And Emily is an American young woman who learns the cleaning as a craft in Japan and even appears in a television documentary on NHK. And not only would the Japanese person, I've been in other countries too, but I know Japan way better. I went there regularly for 35 years. Yeah. Not only would they notice a larger percentage of the things than we would tend to notice, But they would notice things that aren't in our categories that to be noticed. On a genetic level, we're very similar. We cannot make babies together.

[43:40]

But we don't make culture together very well. Or we do, but it's... Anyway, it's... If I'm teaching Buddhism, I have to teach yogic culture as well in order for you to practice Buddhism. Okay, so to come back to what you said. No, first off, I want to tell my Kleenex story. So those four went off to this island where one of the museums is just how water settles on the floor of the room.

[44:50]

Isn't that true? Yeah, it's just single drops of water even. And the whole building is just to watch the water form and shape and separate. So I decided not to go because it was a whole day of travel and buses and trains. I'm an old man and so I stayed home. So I went out for a walk, though. And because I have allergies, my nose runs a lot, so I have a pocket full of Kleenex. So I pulled out a Kleenex, And one of them fell on the street.

[46:04]

And a whole family came up behind me, three kids on bicycles and the parents on two other bicycles. And there were two or three people over here. And there's a sidewalk here and all kinds of, in this case there was a sidewalk, and there's a whole bunch of taxis. And my Kleenex started blowing down the street. The whole family of five and these three people all started chasing my Kleenex. They didn't know if I just used it or... And the whole family of five people and the three people from over there all left and chased after my Kleenex. And they didn't even know if I was using it or not. And I'm standing there. What's okay? I don't know. And my Kleenex is over by the platform. And then one of them picked it up and they gave it to, I think, the father.

[47:05]

though everybody was involved, the whole street. And then they brought me the Kleenex and they handed it to me. And I took the Kleenex. This would not happen in New York City. Maybe in China. Chinese are different. Okay. So, the culture... No, we're talking partly about this Buddhist center right here. Yeah, okay. The culture emphasizes not conceptual intelligence but attentional intelligence. Die Kultur betont nicht die konzeptuelle Intelligenz, sondern eine Art Aufmerksamkeitsintelligenz.

[48:12]

And you have to leave all your... My daughter went from kindergarten, Yo-Chen to San-Nensei, from kindergarten to third grade, she went to school in Japan. Meine Tochter ist vom Kindergarten bis zur dritten Klasse in Japan zur Schule gegangen. And we had to buy her a heavy... leather backpack. And she was required to carry all her books back and forth every day from the school to our house. And we said, this is crazy, just leave your books at school. No, the teachers wouldn't let her leave until they put the backpack on her and put the books in it, because the backpack is designed to develop your posture. And developing an upright posture of a certain kind was considered part of the alertness required to study.

[49:23]

Okay, can you give me your rock suit? Sure. Thank you. This was made for me by the Budapest Sangha, but they made it too small for me, so I gave it to her. This shape goes right here on the back of your neck. It's a star pattern which links the top of your spine to the heavens. Now, why do I do that? And why did you do that? Because this is a living object that she wears or I wear.

[50:59]

And the parts are greater than the whole. And one of the parts of this is Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And one of the parts of it is Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Or the three bodies of Buddha. So you touch it for the Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya, and then you put it on. Any way you want. It's just your... It's an object which you give life to. Okay.

[52:05]

All right. Now, if you're, like you said, heaven and earth and I share the same root. So the first thing you know about that is it's not the Christian heaven. It's the same word. I mean, it's translated by Westerners as heaven. But the concept of heaven in China is that heaven and earth were once together. Everything was together. Now, one of the most basic decisions you can make, was there a before and after, or is there an alwaysness? Eine der grundlegendsten Entscheidungen, die du treffen kannst, ist die Frage, ob du davon ausgehst, dass es ein Vorher und ein Nachher gibt, oder ob das eher so ist, dass alles immer schon war.

[53:18]

Who knows? Wer weiß das schon? But you have to make a choice. In the West, we made a choice that there was a before and after. And there was a beginning, but what the heck was before the beginning? Another beginning. Like the Morton Salt. Anyway, that's another thing. So East Asian yogic culture has decided alwaysness. Now, if you live in a world where there was no beginning, logic is going to be different. If you're living in a world which is always just going to keep happening, It's very important that you learn how to swim in this alwaysness which is happening.

[54:32]

So attention is what's required. And in China, they don't say, you're going into the future. They say, the future is coming to you. This would change the insurance business. The future is coming to you and you have to deal. Oh, here's the future. Oh, I better do something. All right, so this is a culture which emphasizes attention. Also, okay, das ist eine Kultur, die die Aufmerksamkeit betont.

[55:34]

And you're always involved in that attentional field, which is energy. There's no other choice. Und du bist immer involviert, du bist immer eingebunden in dieses Aufmerksamkeitsfeld und da hast du überhaupt keine Wahl. So whether you like it or not, your activity is a form of tuning attention. Und ob es dir jetzt gefällt oder nicht, deine Aktivität ist eine Art, die Aufmerksamkeit einzuschwingen. Now, Buddhism doesn't tell you this. It's coded in the teachings, but it doesn't really tell you this because that's the way it is. You don't have to explain the obvious. So, one of the ways you tune yourself is your two-handedness. And in the qigong I studied, you're always involved in your hands.

[56:35]

So they're like this and this, you know. And in the qigong that I learned, you have attention all the time on your hands, on the hand movements. They go together, they go like this or like that. A friend of mine was John Nathan, who was Mayumi Oda, who did some of the art at the top of the stairs, husband. He was a very impressively intelligent person. As a Westerner, not even learning Japanese until he was about 19, he passed the entrance exams for Tokyo University in Japanese and was a Western student in Japan after a year or two.

[57:43]

That's like getting into Harvard the day you arrive from Slovenia. Der hat Japanisch sehr spät erst gelernt und hat die Eintrittsprüfungen für die Tokyo University auf Japanisch bestanden, nachdem er Japanisch gerade mal ein oder zwei Jahre lang studiert hat. Das ist ungefähr so, als würdest du in Harvard zugelassen werden an dem Tag, wo du gerade aus Slowenien einreist. so he has done lots of things written translated he's been a professor translated a lot of things and he's actually made some movies too films and he made a film called The Colonel Comes to Japan And it was the opening of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken in Tokyo.

[58:59]

And he's filming these people. And there's customers here and they're saying, I want my chicken. And the And the clerks are bringing the food to the customers. And the clerks are told by the management, get everything together. and then turn, holding everything together, and then face the person, the customer, and once you've faced them and lined your body up with them, then hand them the chicken legs. And then the employees were taught how to do it. They first had to collect all the food and pack it all in boxes. And when it was finished, they took it in two hands and

[60:01]

If you go into a Starbucks or a McDonald's, they're going to hand you the milkshake and the hamburger. They're not going to stand there and hand you the... They're just not going to do that. And when you go to McDonald's or Starbucks or something like that, they just give you the coffee or the milkshake. But they don't start with their two hands to physically give it to you and then give it to you like that. And tuning is more important than the chicken leg or eating. And tuning is more important than the chicken leg or eating. So you're tuning yourself by how your two hands relate to each other. And when you turn to the customer, you're tuning yourself to the customer.

[61:08]

So the experience of being in such a place is you're taken care of by the presence of the others. Even if it's a Kentucky Fried Chicken. So you mentioned the Orioki. The Orioki is a two-handed tuning event. is designed so it takes a lot of attention. I think you don't eat an Oryoki meal and chat with your neighbor. It doesn't work. It requires attention. And once you're in the middle of the attention, you can't get out of it easily.

[62:24]

I've got to pee, but I can't get out of here, and the bulls are all, you know, okay, so you stay. So I don't like to tell people what to do. I like to see what they pick up. The other day I said, don't give too much instruction. So I like to watch people mess up. But it's not really messing up, it's just watching them be attentive. And in general, we have work meetings and we say, do this and that and et cetera.

[63:25]

In Japan, they just don't explain anything. If you can't learn by watching, well, you don't learn, that's all. When I give Zazen instruction, it lasts... If it lasts five minutes, it's long. Yeah, sit down and sort of fold your legs and do the best you can and, you know, that's my instruction. And there's no mistakes. There are no mistakes. You're just doing it. Okay. I hope you don't mind, but if I finish this, it's going to take a little while.

[64:27]

But you always say, you know. Not always. Well, almost always. You're a good example of alwaysness. All right, so one of the reasons, and I decided very carefully, there was early discussion, some Buddhist groups have eliminated, Zen Buddhist groups have eliminated Oryoki. It's not Western. And I decided, I can't teach all this stuff. It can only be shown, so we'll do the Oryoki. And there's things like, there are rules, like no extra movements. So you don't put your chopsticks down too much. Unless you've been holding them.

[65:42]

You don't just, because the meal's over, you put your chopsticks down. No, leave your chopsticks on your... Because that would be an extra movement. Zum Beispiel, wenn das Essen zu Ende ist und deine Stäbchen noch auf der Schale liegen, dann machst du jetzt keine extra Bewegung, um sie von da runter zu legen, sondern du legst sie nur nach unten, wenn du sie sowieso schon in der Hand hattest. And whatever you do requires two hands. How you pick up the setsu stick, the cleaning stick, and then move it here and put this hand and put, you know, etc., And then the chopsticks, if you've used them, use them, they're put down one direction. If you haven't used them, they're put down the other direction. So without even thinking, you know where to put your hands and pick them up because you don't have to think. It's making it possible that you can get so you can do the Oroki without thinking at all.

[66:44]

And for example, when the chopsticks are used, they show them in one direction, when they are not used, they show them in the other direction. And the whole activity is based on it. You can do it completely without thinking about it. So the chopsticks are an activity, and they're in one position in the middle of the activity and another position at the beginning of the activity. Now, if you went to a Rinzai center, They would have a somewhat, they have a different way. I lived in a Rinzai, practiced in a Rinzai center for two and a half years. And they have a different way they do the bulls. So you can make your choice. Yeah. And, um, And then how, for instance, Rinzai tends to do everything with more explicit energy.

[68:01]

As if you were pushing through space, and Sotoshu does everything as if you were shaping space as you were going. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, there's... whether you decide to bring your practice into this context is something you can make a choice about. But just having no context, then you're not using the multi-generational potentialities. If you decide to put your practice in this kind of context, that's a decision that you can or must make.

[69:04]

But if you put your practice in no context at all, then you don't use the generation-wide intelligence or generation-wide knowledge. Okay. So when I was first starting to practice and with the kind of intuition that Martin mentioned and others of you have mentioned I noticed that I might say that you and Paula and I were separated by space. Something didn't compute there. And very early in my very beginning of practice and the increasing sensitivity through sitting,

[70:16]

I suddenly thought, I suddenly recognized that that's a cultural concept, that space separates. So I began to try on, maybe it is a cultural concept, maybe space doesn't separate, maybe it connects. So I tried on the antidote to that, that space connects. Okay, now, Buddhism assumes the plasticity of the brain. You're born into this world of alwaysness and activity. Du wirst in diese Welt des immer stattfindens und der Aktivität hineingeboren.

[71:38]

And you're not yet formed. Und du bist noch nicht fertig. Du bist nicht ausgeformt. So the whole American abortion thing would be nuts in Japan. You're not yet formed. You're formed by culture and by living with two parents and so forth. Okay. Um... So one thing that we have these phrases like not knowing is nearest. And so not knowing is nearest.

[72:39]

You repeat over and over again and it changes your behavioral patterns. But it also has been clear to me for years that it also rewires the brain. And there's a brilliant book that a woman neurobiologist published recently. By Lisa Barrett Feldman, is that right? The other way around, Feldman Barrett. Lisa Feldman Barrett. How emotions are made. She makes clear when you have a behavioral pattern that is different than your usual, your brain, actual brain is neurologically changed. And she makes it very clear that if you develop a different behavior pattern, then your brain changes neurologically.

[74:04]

If you take a certain practice, you actually are changing the kind of person you are. So I noticed in the 60s when Suzuki Roshi said the first thing he noticed when he came to America is that everybody did things with one hand. So I started doing things watching him and doing things with two hands. And it led me to being able to call a taxi in Kyoto. Brian DeCamp was somebody who lives much of the time at Crestone. And he's a mountain climber.

[75:06]

He's gone all over the world climbing mountains. And he is also a computer programmer and I think was head of the team that developed... What's the... Well, Skype. Skype. He actually developed a new interface. A new interface with Skype. Skype, okay. And Brian DeCamp... Also is a good friend of hers. Yeah. And Brian is a mountain climber and has traveled the whole world. He has climbed all kinds of mountains. He climbs really high. And he is also a computer programmer and was part of the team that has now developed the new user interface for Skype a few years ago. And do you know he just had a baby? And do you know what the baby's name is? Atlas. I would not want to be named Atlas. Anyway. It's a boy or a girl?

[76:13]

It's a boy. I mean, that would have to be just lass. Oh. Yeah, not at lass. Okay. Anyway, he met with a group of men friends once a month or so in Boulder, Colorado. And he began to do things always with two hands. Picking up a glass of water. And so forth. It took four years before one of his friends who had met with him every month said, what the hell do you do things with two hands always? But, you know, I know that the Japanese aren't too smart, so they've never thought of handles. Or maybe we're not too smart and we don't need handles. We need handles.

[77:30]

The Japanese and Chinese feel it's better to do things with two hands so they don't put handles on cups. And when they drink, if you've noticed, you're using two hands, right? They hold it here. What's this? It's called the chakra shelf. It's a little shelf. It comes out from the chakra and there's a teacup on it. And when they drink, They'll hold it here. What's this? The other chakra shelf. And when they put it down, they would tend to, you know, etc. So they are activating the chakras just in drinking tea.

[78:34]

It's a different concept of being alive. They activate the chakras just while they drink tea. That's a completely different understanding of how we are alive, how you can be alive. And I can say to a Japanese person in a Japanese restaurant, what, your grandparents were Japanese from Japan? And he'll say, how'd you know? And I'd say, because you held the teacup like an American. You didn't hold it here or here. For up to about two generations, they'll hold it here. And then after three generations, they hold it like we do. And I can tell someone in a Japanese restaurant, I can ask them the question, are these your grandparents who emigrated from Japan? And the waiters ask, how do you know that? And then I say, well, because you hold the cup the way we Americans hold it. If you brought it, you didn't hold it here or here. So back in the 70s, noticing and deciding that yes, that space separates is a cultural concept, not a fact.

[79:47]

and when I decided that the space trend is a cultural concept and not a fact, So I created a phrase already connected. And some of you have been practicing with me, like you since 83. No, I've talked about already connected as a turning word phrase, right? Yeah, okay. So what did I notice when I did that? I noticed, and I'm experimenting, always experimenting, I noticed that when I thought everything that space separates, I noticed that my senses, the concept of here, let's say here, was prior to my five physical senses.

[81:21]

And it conditioned my five physical senses to notice separation. Da habe ich bemerkt, dass das Konzept, und sagen wir mal, das Gefühl dafür sitzt vielleicht hier, da habe ich gemerkt, dass das Konzept mit dem trennenden Raum, dass das Konzept der Wahrnehmung vorausgeht, dass das Konzept den Sinnen vorausgeht, dass das Konzept die Wahrnehmung geprägt oder konditioniert hat. So then I would switch and form the repeated concept already connected. Every time I saw you or you or you or you, I would say, already connected. So I installed the concept, already connected, and my senses began, over a period of months, began showing me connections and not separation. And really, I would meet somebody with the feeling already connected.

[82:30]

You know, I'm just saying it to myself, already connected. And the person will say to me, would have said in the past, you know, it's funny, I just met you and I feel already connected. I mean really, it happened. Yeah, but then there are rules in our culture. When you use two or, in German, what are the two forms of you?

[83:31]

Du and sie. Yeah, when you use du and sie. In English we don't have that. But when you can use the first name, so when you can use last name, when you can touch somebody in the shoulder and stuff like that. Und dann gibt es aber Regeln in der Kultur dafür, wann du zum Beispiel im Deutschen, wann man jemanden mit du anspricht und wann man eine Person sieht und wann man jemanden an der Schulter berühren kann und so weiter. So, at first, if you're not realized you're functioning from a different point of view than the person most of the people you're seeing, you have to be very careful because they feel you're being too intimate. The Me Too movement. Oh yeah, boy, everybody keep your hands under your arms. If you don't include this perspective, if you don't take it from a certain perspective, Yes, you have to sort of relearn things. I mean, I can... I feel funny telling you this, but you can go into an elevator in Japan and there's four or five people, say, two or three people.

[85:02]

And there's a woman who's pregnant standing beside you. You're a complete stranger. You can put your hand on her stomach and say, is this your first baby? You would not do that in New York. 9-11. Because it's just you're there. I mean, Europeans have so much distance. I remember I gave an Englishman once a California hug. He said, I'm not like that. Like what? It's legal now. I mean, it was a legal thing. If you're in the Japanese village, people are all around the village, even in a city, in their underwear.

[86:05]

Wenn du in einem japanischen Dorf bist, dann gehen die Leute in ihrer Unterwäsche durchs Dorf. They simply don't have an outside-inside distinction like we do. Like outside you have to behave differently? Outside is the same as inside. Die haben einfach nicht dieselbe Art oder so eine Art von das ist draußen und das ist drinnen. So eine Unterscheidung haben die nicht. Die haben nicht das Gefühl, dass man sich draußen irgendwie anders benimmt oder kleidet als drinnen. So if you're in the inside... And you're walking around in your underwear and you want to go shopping, you just continue down the street in your underwear. When I first used to go to Japan in the 60s, there were signs in the Tokyo airport which said, please don't wear your underwear in the airport because Westerners don't understand. with signs. So gender distinctions outside incest are just not the same as in our culture.

[87:27]

Now, the baths in Japan, hot baths, are now separated into men's side and women's side. That came with MacArthur. After the Second World War. Because it wasn't sexual to be with naked men and women. What was sexual to be alone with a man or woman. So you weren't supposed to be alone, fully dressed. But naked in the bath is just like being in family. Okay, these add up to be a lot of small differences. But they add up to be rather subtly different.

[89:01]

For example, when you do zazen, and I'll just use a few examples here, not many, maybe only one. When you do zazen, And you want to bring attention. You're developing your attention. You want to bring attention to discover what aliveness is. So you need a vehicle for that attention. Okay, so the vehicle, the easiest vehicle is breath. And not breath as a generalization, but breath as an individual inhale and exhale. And not the concept, the word, inhale and exhale. But the whole physical experience of the breath.

[90:16]

Okay, so now you're bringing and developing the skill, bringing attention to the breath through the inhale and exhale. So you're using the breath as a vehicle. Now you also want to have your body bring attention. So you use the spine as the vehicle for bringing attention from the body and into the body. So you're sitting down and you're bringing attention. You've made an intention to bring attention to the breath. And what you're paying attention to is the intention and not the attention, because there's no mistakes.

[91:30]

Wait, not the attention. Say again, please. If you bring attention to attention, then there's mistakes. I'm not attentive. I didn't count to ten. I counted to zero four times. Is counting to zero four times four or still zero? Zero. Okay, so now I'm bringing I have an intention. I'm bringing an intention into my spine, an uplifting spine. And I'm using the intention to bring attention up the spine to create energy.

[92:47]

And now the breath Each breath is coming up the spine. And as the breath, the inhale and exhale starts not just being something the lungs are doing, but actually is coming up the spine. The skin begins to buzz. And you can begin to feel the layers of the skin kind of widening and a kind of buzz, almost an itch that you don't want to scratch coming into the surface of the skin.

[93:54]

Now, you're used to giving attention to categories. And you're giving attention to the inhale or the breath or the breathing. You don't notice that your skin is vibrating. So there's no category for skin vibration. And then as you begin to notice that, a kind of bliss fills the body, orgasmic bliss fills the body. Und wenn du anfängst, das zu bemerken, dann wird dein Körper von einer Art Glückseligkeit erfüllt, von einer Art orgasmischer Glückseligkeit.

[95:02]

And you think, Zazen is not so bad. I think I'll continue. Und dann denkst du, Zazen ist gar nicht so schlecht. Ich glaube, ich mache damit mal weiter. But this happens because you're noticing things out of the categories of your culture.

[95:17]

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