Thank you for your willingness to be rearranged in the room. I like this better, actually. And maybe it's good to be rearranged. Maybe the break will change the room another way. Does anybody have something you want to say or bring up? Du hast gestern kurz in einem Nebensatz erwähnt, dass Gewahrsein sehr stark verknüpft ist mit Atem. You said yesterday in one sentence that awareness is very much connected to breathing, breath.

[01:04]

Could you say something more please about that? Is it a general connection or is it a sort of path or an entry? You know, one of the hidden elements in the current of my teaching is for some reason a deep resistance to speaking about things I've spoken about before, recently. So since I've been speaking or talking or doing whatever I do, continuously for about two months now, every weekend and through the weeks too, almost everything I want to say I've already said.

[02:17]

So I have a resistance to saying it, so I keep avoiding certain topics and I wonder how. Then I can't say what I want to say because I need to build a certain kind of picture. It's a peculiarity of mine. I don't know why. Some teachers can give the same lecture every time. I feel comfortable. Okay. Here we go. Okay. Awareness is connected with the body. I think we have an image of the content of mind. Well, first of all. Okay, go ahead. Mm-hmm. And I probably should speak about the five dharmas.

[03:42]

Okay, but if we have an image of thinking, thoughts, moods, as a kind of units of content. Yeah, in what are... Where does this content appear? It occurs in the field of mind. Okay. And you could have another picture. You could have a room or a warehouse or something like that.

[04:46]

Or some continuous series of rooms with nothing around it. But clearly, through practicing meditation, you have much more the sense of words on a page. And the page gets bigger and the words get farther apart. So through our practice, Zen practice, meditation practice, we end up with this, with a metaphor, image that fits our experience. Of contents of mind and a field of mind in which the contents appear. And when you have this experience, everything that appears is a dharma. Because a Dharma is a process, not a thing.

[06:09]

So someone asked me recently, is it in the five Dharmas, discrimination is called one of the five Dharmas? How can discrimination, which is one of the problems we have, in a way, identifying with our discrimination. How can it be a Dharma? Both a Dharma, if you experience it as appearing from the field of mind. Is that a clear image? Does anybody have a problem with it? It's like there's things under the surface of the water, and when they appear, you say, oh, that's a name. That's a feeling. And I've been trying to think... going beyond what you asked, but I'll wend my way back, perhaps.

[07:23]

Because the questions people have asked, and the person who asked the question about the unconscious yesterday isn't here today. But he asked... He asked, where does the unconscious fit in this picture? Actually, I've answered that question many times, but it's actually rather difficult to answer. And in this new context, I have to respond differently. And I don't have much problem with the concept of the unconscious in this context. That's fairly easy to deal with.

[08:28]

But what's more difficult is the experiences people have which are explained through the unconscious. Like the functioning in unseen in consciousness of forgotten memories. How do we explain that in this picture? Well, this isn't a picture of everything, but how do we explain it, at least in this picture? So the functions... The consciousness, what I would say, are something like forgotten functional memories. Excuse me? Forgotten?

[09:32]

Of the unconscious. Of the unconscious, yeah. Also, die Funktion des Unbewussten, würde ich jetzt mal sagen, wäre also eben vergessene Erinnerungen. Forgotten functional memories. Vergessene funktionale Erinnerungen. Forgotten dysfunctional memories. Vergessene dysfunktionale, also nicht-funktionale Erinnerungen. regressive patterns where we're in part of our personality we're held at 14 years old or something like that. Yeah, creative aspects in which the unconscious for a writer or artist or something like that functions to widen or rearrange his conscious associations. Mythopoetic images of the self. Like you think you're Napoleon.

[10:46]

Or a beautiful princess when you're a fat old man. Or any kind of image that works beneath the surface. and affects how you think of yourself. Well, that's some of them. Okay. So the question is not how do I explain the unconscious so much, but how do I explain those aspects of people's experience? And I'd be happy for those of you who are therapists or those of you who think about these things, if you want to add some aspect or dimension during the day.

[11:47]

That's fine with me. I like it. Okay. Okay. Now, in addition to the aspects I mentioned, the conscious, unconscious, is what I call a threshold dynamic. It's like Hades is the god Hermes is the god of doorways, gates, thresholds. Hermes.

[13:01]

And Hades is the god of the netherworld. And the netherworld is not hell. Nor is Hades hell, though it becomes hell. It's just where the shades, the disembodied, bodiless spirits are. Now that doesn't have the feeling of devils or ghosts or anything like that. It's just some dimension of us that remains after we're dead. It's not transformed into a place of suffering, I think, until Christianity. So in a no play, as I've often mentioned, the front part of the stage, which is the smaller part of the stage, is the time and space of the audience.

[14:13]

When you step into the back part of the stage, which is the larger part of the stage, you're in a timeless space, which is also a kind of nether world. Where the spirits... of the disembodied or the spirits of the dead can appear. The way of walking I talked about in Noh plays are extremely slow. It's all like Kin Hin. When the actor steps into this back part of the stage, his demeanor and voice changes. It affects the audience.

[15:31]

Another kind of voice starts to feel in the audience itself. And sometimes in the midst of one of these things, an actor will not just move slowly, but stop or freeze, and the audience caught up and actually gasps or screams a little bit sometimes. And my translator and I are going to try that sometimes. Gasp! Okay. So this is another example of this threshold dynamic.

[16:47]

But it makes a big difference what you think are on the two sides of the threshold. And mostly we think of the unconscious as some dimension, repressed dimension of the conscious. And it's not the case in Buddhist thinking. It's just a different area. And the border is not hard to cross. Okay. Okay. So we can think of the field of mind and the contents of mind as a threshold dynamic.

[17:57]

Let me just say, Sophia, a while ago... said, you know, I used to be in you, Mama, didn't I? I used to be? Be inside you. Sophia said to Marie-Louise. And Marie-Louise said, yes. Sophia said, but I couldn't have been in your blood. I must have been in some kind of bag. And so Marie-Louise said, yeah, well, that's right. That's a good... And the eggs of your future babies are in you already, she said. Sophia said, I miss them already. So this is a threshold dynamic, like no place.

[19:09]

When you step behind this line, you also could be in the presence of your not yet born children. Hades is not only the god of the netherworld, he's also and the dead, he's also the dispenser of the world's riches. Maybe he's the god of inheritance taxes. But it's a funny contradiction of this threshold stuff that also, how can the God of the dead dispense riches?

[20:15]

I mean, unless, but isn't that what happens? And Hermes is a thief as well as a herald and messenger. This emphasis on this kind of contradiction is more Western than yogic. But the dynamic of the threshold is more emphasized in yogic thinking. So there's the content of mind and the field of mind. And that's a kind of threshold. Okay. Now, breathing... Okay, now, before I get to breathing.

[21:18]

The field of mind, the experience of the field of mind... In other words, when you can hold to the moment before a thought arises, you have a much stronger physical feeling of mind and thinking than when you're thinking. So the field of mind in experience seems to have much more physicality than thinking. As we talked about yesterday, the activity of thinking can get very separated from physicality.

[22:19]

You can think about anything, as I say, you can read the back of cereal boxes. Dr. Oetker has not much physicality. He himself may, but when you read his name... You can see how German I'm becoming. But again, as I implied or said yesterday, Anybody who's thinking, I really feel, is substantial, is substantial usually in a physical sense.

[23:39]

So we have the terms in Buddhism, live words and dead words. And you could say dead thinking is non-physical thinking and live thinking is physical thinking. Okay. Now, breathing can be associated with... dead thinking and it can be associated with live thinking. Now, when you get involved with your thinking and sort of you're anxious, some stress or something, often your breathing changes.

[24:42]

You get angry, your breathing changes. So certain thinking and breathing, certain thinking and emotions... whole breathing into them. And may pull the body in with it. So the practice of mindfulness is to separate breathing from emotions and thinking. So I had to explain this this way because that was behind my remark yesterday that Gerald picked up on and there was an iceberg under it or a hotberg or something like that.

[25:49]

Okay, so let me give you the example again which I... spoke about I remember when some of you were here earlier in the year when you practice mindfulness and you're angry mindfulness practice is to name the anger not to repress the anger name it and notice it So you get angry, you get more angry, you get, now I'm really angry, etc. But the naming creates a mind which is not involved with the anger. So in effect you use anger to generate a mind free of anger. And the more you get in the habit of doing that, the less you're caught up in your anger.

[27:05]

And you can choose to express your anger, but you aren't forced into it. what you notice is this mind which isn't involved in the anger, Again we say detached yet not separate from. Your breathing also doesn't get involved in the anger. So you begin to find when you have a steady mind that's not caught up in emotions, even though you have emotions.

[28:11]

And from the point of view of yogic understanding, emotions are more fundamental than the basis of thinking. Okay, so you begin to have a mind and the breathing is very steady, doesn't change much, even though you might have some kind of anger or something like that. So that kind of breathing is a kind of tuning of awareness. Does that make sense?

[29:12]

More or less? Okay. And you had some reservation about this one or comment about it when I spoke about it before. Yes. You have the same one still? Yeah. No, not yet. All right. Someone else, have a little short question. I would like to hear something more about Body Mind or about one of the talks you spoke about on Friday night and you wanted to continue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll do my best. One thing we have to decide It says in the schedule that we stop at 4 o'clock. Yeah. You want to say that out loud in German?

[30:13]

I'm sorry. I just was so much with it. I was so much with it. Okay. Also, natürlich ein Ding müssen wir uns entscheiden. Das ist im Zeitplan, also in der Seminarkündigung steht ja, dass wir um 4 Uhr aufhören. We're getting in such a mutual field that when I speak, he thinks he's already spoken. Well, it's not so clear. And I guess since we're all from Berlin, we don't have to end at one o'clock or something like we do in Johanneshof, so you can travel to Berlin. Except that you're not all from Berlin. So what time is the earliest anyone has to leave? Not because you're bored, but because... Five? Oh, okay. Yeah. One o'clock. You're not allowed. Lock the doors. Okay.

[31:18]

Four. Well, then we have to figure out how lunch is and when we stop and blah, blah, blah. Well, we'll put it off for a few minutes. Okay. So let me Since I said I should speak about the five dharmas, many of you know them well, but I would say it's the basic structure of consciousness, basic structures of perception and knowing, Thank you. Appearance?

[32:51]

It's really quite simple. Naming? Discrimination? Wisdom? Or right knowledge? and suchness or thusness. This describes exactly what I said a minute ago. Practice is to enter into the moment of knowing consciousness of the particular. So, there's lots of forms of practice that if you want to actually practice the Dharma as an act, it's this sense of being present

[33:59]

at the moment of the arising of content. Parallel teaching, which is probably good to put on, with the four marks. A parallel lesson would be that the four signs of a dharma, namely birth, duration, dissolution and disappearance, Okay, now you really only need this. Except that would be passive. Because things in fact appear, last for a moment, and fade away.

[35:24]

Yeah, it's not so obvious in stones, but they're slow. If you can look at a microscopic level, the stones are also appearing and dissolving. And if you look at the tree, the tree is obviously, every moment the tree is slightly different. Insects, wind. I find if you practice direct perception, which is one of our practices, with a flower vase, which is often on the table in the morning, if you look and feel carefully, the cut flowers in a vase will move slightly during breakfast. But especially one's own mind in noticing.

[36:40]

If I notice a tree or you, I have certain levels of concentration and awareness. I can look at the tree carefully, then I can pull back and so on. Okay. Now, if you notice, and I'm just going off on a tangent toward the center. If you notice that, in fact, if I look at that plant or palatine or whatever, there's a pulse in my consciousness itself. There's a pulse in my thinking itself. Sometimes that pulse, we find, goes from noticing to thinking about, noticing to thinking about, noticing to thinking about.

[37:44]

And that noticing going to thinking about, pretty soon you're not noticing, you're just thinking about it and you've forgotten what you've noticed and noticed it, you know. Good. You can use that sense of noticing and then thinking about. Instead, notice the shift to seeing the whole field and then seeing the particulars. In other words, the tendency for things not to stay and to change is not the same necessarily as going to thinking. You can't change the fact that things don't tend to stay.

[38:56]

But you can change what they change into. But you can change what they change. So, if I'm looking at you, you know, oh dear, why am I, maybe I'm still not going back to America soon. Tell you everything I know. One minute. Everything I know would fit into one minute. A friend of mine, I don't know why I'm telling you this, a friend of mine has had for a long time a record company.

[40:06]

And I told him once, I said to my daughter, I taught him everything he knows about rock and roll. Because I, in a sense, introduced him to rock and roll. And he said, my daughter said, My father says he introduced you, taught you everything you know about rock and roll. And my friend said, yes, Sally, and it took exactly one minute. So much, you know. Yeah. So you can get in the habit of feeling the particular and then feeling the whole, feeling the particular and then feeling the whole.

[41:14]

And the result is, you don't go to thinking, you go to another kind of feeling, and you end up feeling the context and the particular in a different way. So, in a passive sense, things appear, they last for a moment, particularly when you notice your mind itself perceiving. Particularly when you... If you're looking at a tree, you're looking at an object, a mind object. What the object... can be mind itself. And when you notice mind itself, it's much easier to notice that there's change all the time.

[42:22]

So what you do, you notice, and then you... You notice more strongly, you notice less strongly, some kind of pattern like that. And you can call that duration. There's a certain duration. And then there's a dissolution of that noticing, and then that noticing appears again. But if you're a practitioner, then make it disappear. In a sense, you clean the slate, clean the blackboard. So, you know, if you learn to play tennis, you know, you may play creatively in a different way than others, but still there's a basic way you do tennis.

[43:30]

I don't play tennis, but yeah. And in yogic thinking, there's no natural. It's all something you learn. And you may think there's natural, but the natural is just embodied habits from your culture. Okay. So things are born or appear. They have a certain duration. And during that duration, you can name them. Or you can refrain from naming them.

[44:31]

Or you can name them and then discriminate about them. Or you can name without discriminating. Where you can discriminate, then cut that discrimination off. Like going to the field of mind instead of the particular. Okay, if you do this, if you cut it off, And you're not thinking you're naming, but you're experiencing, that's called suchness. You feel a physical presence of each thing which isn't so different from other things. There's a kind of thusness to you, and a thusness to you, and a thusness to you.

[45:33]

It's not blank or nothing, and you're different than her, than she, but there's still a thusness quality of each of you. Es ist nicht so im Sinne von, dass es leer ist und ihr seid natürlich verschieden, aber dennoch ist bei jedem eine Soheitsqualität. Dies fühlt sich so an und dies fühlt sich so an. Ja, also Soheit verbindet auch. So there's a constant internal and external stream of images.

[46:43]

And consciousness is a balancing of these internal and external flow of images. Dharma practice is to enter into that flow and stop it. And know, feel what appears. Now, if you understand that as the central act of Buddhist practice, If you understand this as the central action of Buddhist practice, then you can see this particular way of describing the mind. hinges on consciousness from here on.

[47:47]

Everything from here on is a function of consciousness. Self, memory, language, etc. If you interrupt it at this point, you change all of this. Yes. What do you mean with interrupt? Not to go into consciousness, to stay in awareness, or what? To find consciousness, the threshold, the point at which things appear, from the field of mind. At that point, you decide whether to go into discriminating or not to go into discriminating. Dogen says in Ocean Mudra Samadhi that things appear

[48:52]

But the observing eye consciousness doesn't have to appear. And things disappear, and the observing eye consciousness doesn't have to disappear. He means things can appear and disappear without a relationship to observing eye consciousness. That changes the function of self, of karma, of the unconscious, etc. I, pronoun I. The pronoun I. Not the visual I. Not the visual I. I'm sorry. It's not because things appear with this I. In this case, it's pronoun I. The observing I doesn't have to appear. Yeah. So if the observing I doesn't have to appear, which then results in self, memory, language, etc., you actually change the dynamic of how you function.

[50:28]

doesn't mean you eliminate that. It's just that you don't have to go into it. Okay, I think it's about time to take a break. What do you think? Okay. Okay. I'm already halfway on my break already.

[51:03]

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