I've never till now tried to sort out how to speak about this being time of Dogen's. And I don't know quite why I haven't, but I haven't. And it's interesting how, while it's the center of Dogen's teaching, and it's the subject of a mammoth book by slow-going book by Heidegger. It's difficult to get at why it's so important to Dogen and

[01:07]

and so seems maybe even almost unimportant to us. You know, I think maybe it's just we take the usual clock time so for granted. It is, after all, what we experience as shared time. Even if it's a fabrication. We can have summer... shift the clocks in summer and winter. And perhaps because it's our shared time, We don't notice that our real shared time is some kind of interweaving of waves.

[02:39]

Yeah. And I think that maybe it's the underlying assumption that clock time is real time. It makes us implicitly measure our life in terms of of this real time, so-called real time. And we measure our accomplishments and our accumulations of commodities and so forth in terms of this

[03:46]

so-called real time. So I've been trying to find because we locate each other's minds through language and not only through language of course But sometimes it's hard to notice the other ways we locate each other unless we're in love or something. And perhaps the contingency of lived time which is always varied, is actually the way we are in fact most in contact with each other.

[04:56]

So, I mean, I'm bringing this up and trying to create some categories so we can discuss it. But each of you is also some dimension of clock time and contingent time. And I'm trying to, I don't know how these words work for you, you know, it's hard enough in English. But I would call clock time non-contingent time. And I would call fundamental time Something like individual personal time.

[06:07]

And Dogen would say, if you don't really live your life within individual personal time, there's very little likelihood of enlightenment. Because realization or enlightenment does not occur in some category of timelessness or in the future. Dogen would say there's no time which is not the right time. There's no postponement. So if we say fundamental time is individual personal time, maybe we could say it's also interpersonal time,

[07:23]

And maybe we could even say, if you can make the distinction, intrapersonal time. Intra in English at least is from the inside and inter is in between. So we could say that on maybe a fundamental time Intrapersonal time. Now I bring up, again, I know that you're not all constellation therapists and you're not only constellation therapists. But the dynamic of a constellation is interesting to look at in this context. Because I could ask myself for instance, what size of a group allows the subtle voice of the group to speak through the individual?

[09:23]

Now I suppose if the three of us were to meet, There's not enough amnesia for us to speak through the group of us. Amnesia is to forget who you are. So the... group dynamic of constellation dynamic requires a kind of amnesia. I don't know if I know what I'm talking about, but here I am. You can correct me. At any time. At any time. Okay, so Because it seems to me that what happens if we say, take this group of people and we made a constellation, there's what, six or seven or so of us.

[10:43]

It's a big enough group so that we can forget who we are in the group to some extent. And each of us has our own amnesia about our past. You know, trauma, I would say trauma exists in a time stream that is always present. Or a trauma exists on the periphery of the present. It isn't only in the past, obviously. It brings itself into the present. And that's really not so different than the practice of wisdom phrases, which you use to bring something, like an enlightenment experience.

[12:01]

An enlightenment experience stays present in the present the way a trauma does. So there must be some dynamic that's similar between a trauma and enlightenment experience. Sorry. Okay, and much of the study of Buddhism is the study of how the mind holds something in mind. And maybe we want to, if we can understand or get a feeling for how, there must be lots of studies and understanding of this, which I don't know. How a trauma stays with us or is reduced.

[13:07]

Dissolved. But maybe the way an enlightenment experience or an insight can stay with us can be brought together with trauma. So maybe you have a trauma and you have the unborn twin of an enlightened experience hidden in the body. So if it's the case that there's a certain size of group which allows the subtle voice of the group to speak through the individuals which is from Dogen's point of view a function of time and if it requires a certain

[14:40]

at least if not group size, for the group to enter into an amnesia of a new identity, perhaps that amnesia of the immediate group interacts with the amnesia of each person, that part of ourselves which we tend to bury or not notice. So streams of streams of time, which are underground in us, may surface in a constellation.

[15:58]

a surface in other people in a constellation than ourselves. And if what I'm describing has something to do actually with constellations, then I would say that all situations are constellations. Right, now we are in a constellation. And each of you is remembering faintly the time you were a Buddha. Am I joking or am I not? Okay, so maybe a constellation we could describe as intrapersonal being time.

[17:22]

From the inside being time. Yes, something like that. Now, again, this concept of Dogen's, and I won't try to compare it to Heidegger's. Oh, you're grateful, aren't you? Let's stick with Dogen. There are some significant differences. For Dogen, the individual is a site of streams, layers of time, streams of time.

[18:26]

And maybe some streams are rivers. And some streams are creeks. And some streams are dams waiting to burst. And some streams are just kind of damp oozes. Yeah, something like that. And you kind of... Dogen would say you want to find your own, your,

[19:28]

own uprightness or something like that in the midst of these different streams so you can develop a kind of imperturbability so that you can develop a kind of imperturbability which can allow these various streams to flow within you. And unimpededly. Unimpededly. Yeah, unhindered. Yeah. And now Aristotle had the idea, I guess, that there was the present time, And they were receding nows. And they were approaching nows. And we didn't know the approaching nows but we anticipated them and the receding nows were disappearing. But Dogen says if you go through a valley and cross a mountain and then you're on top of a hill,

[20:59]

You think the mountain and the valley are gone, behind you. But they're still there. It's just you're on top of this hill, but the mountain and the valley are still there. So there's a still there-ness to time. A still here-ness, let's put it. And how to navigate the streams of still here-ness would require to use the word still. The stillness of the inner mind and body. Okay.

[22:26]

So what do you have to say? Everything was crystal clear, right? Fast. Geez, I thought I was going too slow. Yes, Michal. Until yesterday evening I had the feeling I didn't understand anything what happened here. Really? But you're still here. This is good. This morning I have the feeling that there may be a kind of click. This morning before you came or now? Before, okay. And what was the click? My impression was, if I feel connected with myself and with others,

[23:39]

So this connection somehow is like swimming in a spatial temporal feeling. So that by this connection, this spatial temporal thing arises. And it is without dimensions. And I realized this connection with myself, it's something in itself.

[24:54]

It has its own time and its own spatial dimension. And when I connect with someone else, it's a completely different thing. And if I'm connected with somebody else, this is a completely different thing that comes together. Yes. And I realized and noticed that I don't have any words for this connectedness and being close to something. It's just a being. Well, that was a pretty big click, I would say. And again, I'm going to... Because I'm trying to also explicate Dogen's uji and not just talk about practice, our practice.

[26:14]

For some reason I feel more comfortable saying Dogen would say. than I would say. So maybe at some point I'll shift to I would say. But right now I feel I'm honoring or explicating Dogen's view. And also, so maybe we know that this is not so much about just my personal experience. But also this is something that has been generationally established and we just saw it yesterday in the two koans I commented on.

[27:25]

which predate Dogen by 500 years or so. So Dogen would say that your sense of maybe swimming in a situation That is what he would mean by lived fundamental time. And that time exists, I mean, I have again a different context of time with each of you. And I notice I can swim near some of you, not so near others of you.

[28:29]

And I can't swim into your fundamental time unless you kind of invite me. But from this point of view, your whole body is showered with time. Why not? Your whole body glows with time. Glows with your streams of time like a woven aura. Okay. What? He wants to add something. Oh, please.

[29:31]

He wants to add something. My feeling was that I can only perceive this with my heart. Not with... Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. And that's partly why I said my own experience is breathing out from the heart, breathing in through the body and out from the heart. During the night last night, I found myself a little embarrassed that I talked to you so intimately. Also, in der Nacht habe ich mich etwas peinlich berührt gefunden, dass ich mit euch auf so intime Weise gesprochen habe. Also, dass ich gesagt habe, dass ich durch meinen Körper einatme und durch mein Herz ausatme.

[30:35]

In der Zeit der Uhren sollte man so etwas nicht sagen. And when you look at me with those blue eyes, what can I do? Okay, someone else. Thank you, Michael. Yes, Andy. The more I listen to our discussion about time and I'm thinking on with it, the more the distinction between space and time seems to be artificial and constructed.

[31:41]

And it's parallel to this distinction that is phenomenological between inside and outside. So that has been a click for me. Yeah, good. I mean, one of the entries here is the recognition that it's all inside, there's no outside. And what if you would say everything is outside? I would feel alienated, dissociated and unhappy. What is your name? Brigitte. Brigitte, yes. Hi, Brigitte. I'm asking myself whether there is really an either or. If I'm looking at nature, according to what mode of time is nature functioning or working?

[33:18]

An example, mushrooms, they're coming at some time during August. This is depending on the weather, on humidity, whether the forest has been worked in and so on. but at some point they are coming. So there is something like the personal mushroom time? Yes, that's right. All the fairies know about it. And there is the rhythm that happens anyway.

[34:31]

Yeah, I agree. But if you look carefully at the mushrooms, I'm not a biologist, of course, a botanist, But I mean the big difference between animals and plants is plants can't move. I mean pollen flies through the air, etc. But basically plants have to stay in place and keep adjusting themselves. And that process of adjustment relates to the rain and the forest and insects and all kinds of things. So I think that a plant's time is a different kind of time than ours, but the mushroom has its own time. But the mushroom isn't independent of all kinds of other circumstances.

[35:47]

And if all those other circumstances aren't functioning, the mushrooms won't appear. Anyway, maybe I can come, I have a good example of that, but I have to kind of remind myself of it. Yes. Yes. All the time I'm thinking about this, how children are playing and completely forgetting themselves in it. They're just entering a role and leave it.

[36:53]

And they are completely entering and immersed in it and that's the time of play. And I think that is also the secret of the exhibition. And I think this is also the secret of constellation work. That you can leave behind all your disguises and identities and fully enter this constellation. Mm-hmm. And enter this system time, the time of the system. There is a somehow repressed thought, philosophical thought about the origin of culture in play.

[38:16]

There is a book by Huizinga, Homo Ludens. In theater theory, we also talk about the play and get more intense. It is not the case that the play is played by an actor in theater play it's also the term is play and it's not that the actor is getting better the more he's identified with his character but it's the other way around in theater theory that an actor is

[39:16]

the less he identifies with the person he's portraying, the more accurately he plays the person. Yeah, I've never thought about it that way because I do know a lot of movie people talk about how they, recreate the role like David Day-Lewis created the Lincoln role. He spent a year pretending he was Lincoln. I have to think about it. But I know he's in his world. But they always have to keep the distance. I know I have to keep a certain distance in order to have something to say.

[40:34]

The main reason I don't come and join you at the beginning of the sitting Because then I just disappear into the sitting with you and I wouldn't have anything to say. So in a stashin we have enough sitting, I can participate in some of the sitting, but I have to also not participate in some so I can give a lecture. Sushins, by the way, and practice periods are consciously, intentionally time machines. They're meant to alter your experience of time. They're meant to put you in a situation where you can't have your usual experience of time.

[41:39]

And in a Sashin, the emphasis is on time. putting you in a situation where you can't have your usual experience of personal time. And in practice period, the emphasis is on not being able to have your usual experience of time with others. And that understanding is the basis on how you create the schedule. So true. What is the difference between strong identification and this sense of time of connectedness?

[42:52]

This discourse brought me to a question. What is the difference between strong identification and this feeling of connectedness? Is this correct? Since you're posing this, what is your experience? Was wäre deine Erfahrung, da du das hervorbringst? It's almost not possible to describe it. If I identify with someone, I very strongly enter his world.

[44:05]

And I imagine this world. If I am in the state of resonance with somebody, then I'm oscillating. I'm going back and forth. and a little bit I'm in the space of the other and I'm going back to myself. But how can I, and this is I'm occupied with, how can I for any duration stay in this personal fundamental time and at the same time be in this connection?

[45:28]

Well, again, I have to respond within English words. I often say that you it's not that you don't for example it's not that you don't that you stop thinking but you stop identifying with your thinking Rather primitive understanding of Zen is you stop thinking, but no, you don't identify with your thinking. In a way, when you don't identify with your thinking, you allow your thinking its own identity. For example, Sukhi Rishi would not say, you do zazen.

[46:38]

That's a false idea, a false focus that you do Zazen. What you want to do is let each part of you do its own Zazen. So you release all the parts to do their own zazen. So your shoulders do their own zazen, your spine does its own zazen, your feet do your own zazen. Okay. And when you create the identity of you that does zazen, there's much less alchemy there.

[47:48]

Now, my experience when I use the word, if I feel connected with you, which I do, I feel that actually it lessens my sense of individual identity and I feel more the connectedness and less individual identity. So the connectedness lessens identity for me. Or widens identity into a more shared identity. And the shared identity is Sangha. I mean, most of my life is exploring shared identity. When she asked what she asked, my chemistry at school came up for me.

[49:11]

Because there are two reasons why, possibilities why... Liquid things can come together, mix together. So the one is mixing them so that they connect to make something different. Yeah. Or the other thing is emulsion. Emulsion, yeah. Emulsion. Yeah. So they don't really mix, but they are somehow swimming around each other. Boiling water. If you let it rest, then they recover their original identity.

[50:26]

So maybe this is a metaphor for this distinction. Yeah. I'm not sure we always want to recover our original identity, though. Yeah. Well, what I'd like to do, I think we need a break, but I remember your hand. But I think that I would like to soon, maybe at lunch or now, end this discussion of fundamental time. And find something else we'd like to speak about. And I'm open to suggestions. And we could also then... come back, you know, Saturday or Sunday to this and see if we have more perspective on it or a different perspective on it after a bit of time has passed.

[51:52]

Und wir könnten dann auch am Samstag oder Sonntag wieder darauf zurückkommen und schauen ob wir eine andere Perspektive darauf gewonnen haben, weil ja auch etwas Zeit vergangen sein wird. Because certainly the reason 90 days, it's interesting that it's 90 days. There's certain units, seven days, 90 days, that seem to have a kind of power. Dogen says the 90-day practice period is immeasurable time. And when you're in the middle of it, it feels like that. He said, but if you do measure it, You will only find 90 days. But the 90-day or three-month practice period, it's assumed that it takes that to actually shift someone's experience of time.

[53:03]

It can't happen by thinking. Okay, so let's have a break. Thank you very much. Thank you for trying. So I would be pleased if you had something to say about where we've been and where we might go. in fundamental time, if not clock time. And you said you had something to bring us from Walt Whitman.

[54:07]

Did you remember? Yes, I looked for it, but there are so many It has so many lines in different sections that it's just too difficult. Okay, so I brought a very short thing. And it's book 20 from Walt Whitman, By the Roadside. And it's... Locations and times, what is it in me that meets them all? Locations and times, what is it in me that meets them all? Whenever and wherever. And makes me at home.

[55:26]

Forms, colors, densities. Odors. What is it in me that corresponds with them? That's pretty close to what I've been speaking about. What is it in me that makes me correspond with them? And by his presenting it as a question, he invites you in. Okay, so, yes. When you were supposed to put your hand up in school, did you simply show it like this? You can't remember. Yes, please. So with me it's similar how Michael described it.

[56:48]

It feels like fluidity that is interwoven with time and space. And it feels like an angle where it can shift, like an image that can shift, and it shifts in that direction and that direction sometimes. And there is this feeling in me and resonance and connectedness. And we talked about closeness and connectedness to others, but also about the group. And in all that swimming, what comes back to me is the thought on choice and activity.

[57:54]

And this is And this feels like a quite exciting turning point within me. so that within me, but also in the shared, it always is something thrown in and created. And especially in relation to encounter or group, And in an encounter in the group, this notion of choice comes in and this notion of creation.

[58:57]

Like I'm always being informed by the field. And at the same time, continually I'm informing the field. Yeah, it's like this. And this point, it creates a kind of excitement within me. So this is this point of restlessness and excitement. And we also talked about mindfulness points. And what I noticed when Hiltrud posed her question is one point is very important for me and that's when I can feel expansion or whiteness.

[60:28]

And this is the location from where I can be informed. I let myself be informed. Okay, good. I understand. Yes? How do you bring into this definition of time not birth and not birth before being born? You mean how do you speak about or think about before you were born? Same like death? Is not being born equal to being dead? Is not being born equal to being dead?

[61:34]

So before we talked about this, and I noticed that I realized that the death of my father, a lot of things came in motion within me with that. Also realizing that I too will die and there is a certain equal feeling of being equal because we are equal in that. But in your description of time, what is it? Is time at an end? Then? I don't know. Okay. Of course, in a practical sense, we are born and die.

[63:10]

But in the sense of fundamental time, lived time, there's no birth and death. There's lived time, that's all. And that's enough to say, I think. Before my father died, most people in my genetic tree have been all very long lived. But my father died of a non-cancerous brain tumor. When he was, I'm not so old, maybe 70. I can't remember how old it was. Anyway, I said to him, you gave me... in something like intelligence, character, health, something.

[64:32]

I said something like that. But you never told me your story. And he said, I couldn't tell it to myself. I thought that was an extraordinary moment because I also wanted to live his story and he couldn't even tell his story to himself. My mother, by contrast, was able to tell herself her story and me. So I think this sense of fundamental time is also a time in which you allow the participation of others in the world. At the break, Christina asked me, or said to me, maybe I could speak about lineage or successional time in that sense, generational time.

[65:55]

And I said, I don't think that makes sense in a seminar like, you know, a seminar. But you, but certainly lineage is about being open to carrying a story. And so that's another sense of having been born and dying. But in the sense of fundamental time, there's a now time which is inclusive. And there isn't a sense of beginning and end.

[66:57]

In fact, you can kind of experiment with that feeling by feeling you're in this situation with no center. There's no edges, there's no left and right, there's just this situation. And as you give up your own location, I mean giving up your own location is giving up any location. So that's, you know, a little bit of what I would respond to what you said. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but so. Okay, anyone else? Someone else? Yes, Renata? I would like to tell an experience that I had.

[68:17]

I have been here on the weekend three days ago. And there you told the basho's haiku. Grass grows. And this touched me very much. And then I left and I attended the seminar where I assisted. And the haiku came up in me. And I told it to the people there.

[69:26]

It feels like time is passing by and I want to be with you. And what was interesting for me is that I could feel a connection at the time before, at the time in the seminar there, and also my hearing now was not separated. At the same time it was separated, at the same time it was interwoven. Maybe this is a feeling of fundamental time. And I never before heard about Basho.

[70:37]

And still I have the feeling I can experience something from him. Yeah, I think, I mean, I'm very happy that you passed this little poem on to some other people. And what seems fundamental about the time in your passing it on is you passed it on. It's not something you read. And I passed it to you. And I think that if we read that poem somewhere it wouldn't be the same as our passing it from each of us to another person.

[71:45]

Probably, I'm pretty sure that Alan Watts passed it to me. And so it has a different, I mean, I've read hundreds of Basho's poems, but certain ones stay in me like train stations or stations, wisdom stations, where things stop and you'll start a different direction. So part of this territory of fundamental time is the sense that in fundamental time you can create stations traumas and insights and enlightened experiences, and poems.

[72:48]

Again, here's this little poem that was written in the 1600s. And now it's in English in a fairly effective way. And it has some power that we feel some connection with Basho just through these words. This knowing what creates stations in the mind and body is part of the study of fundamental time. Okay. Okay, thanks Renate.

[74:02]

Yes? So I would like to approach the topic in a practical way. If I'm playing music, I'm making music myself in a certain rhythm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm leaning to clock time. But I'm doing my own rhythm music, rhythm time. And I'm swimming inside of it. And I invite Angela to join me. And if it happens that what arises is something in common, what happens is that time recedes into the background and space arises.

[75:21]

Yes. As if time would happen in space or space would happen in time. So space-time maybe would be a good term for that. And what is interesting, it doesn't depend on how exact we find the rhythm together, But how our intentions are coming together. So this is a real human experience. And this feeling wouldn't be possible in techno music. And this is very exact and loud, but they need drugs and noise.

[76:31]

Drugs and computers. And to create this feeling. So the connection is a very human experience, but the important thing is that space arises. And time somehow disappears. Wouldn't you say also that the particular instrument you play establishes a kind of field of resonance which is different than another instrument? And if that's obvious and clear, I think, then each situation is a kind of musical instrument. Yeah. which and maybe we can come closer to what's this relationship between time and space.

[77:39]

Maybe fundamental time widens into a spatial experience. Something like that. Okay. Guni, you said almost nothing. I mean, nothing in fact. Walter has spoken, and he's usually the silent one. Is he your spokesperson? Yes. Okay. Okay. So many things going on in here, and for me it's so difficult to find the words, but especially this connection.

[78:40]

What is the connection of space and time? This is me. It's been so long since I was born. You said to me, I don't like to... I didn't say much, I just mumbled. All right. Anyone else? Someone else? Everyone else? Yes. From Thornton Wilder. Yes, a quote from Thornton Wilder on the connection between space and time. Okay. Only it only seems that time is a river. It is rather a borderless landscape. And what moves is the eye of the seer. Does anyone have anything to say about the relationship to this sense of

[80:19]

fundamental time as I've been speaking about it in constellation practice? Yes. I don't want to talk about constellation work, but very often I'm thinking about the situation in Sijin. Where certain moments are ritualized and people are all bowing at the same time. or people to recite together the Heart Sutra. I noticed that when communities come together, we need these kind of rituals because if we leave it to the free will, it's just not enough.

[81:32]

Well, it does make a difference if you have a group of people all doing things in some sort of way. We all start eating at the same time, we all stop eating at the same time, etc. It begins to create a phase synchrony. It's underneath the situation. It's not about eating or chanting or something. It begins to create the foundation for what happens in practice. And there is also the difference that we don't have these rituals here and we have to create everything. So there is a possibility, a field for experimentation, but it is also more difficult.

[83:02]

Ulrike said yesterday, I believe it was, that she feels drawn to Sangha. And Maybe you partly mean the sense of Sangha between, like, Christine and I have practiced together a long time. And maybe you also mean there's a sense of Sangha here, which has developed over the years. And we're following a certain kind of ritual, of course. We usually meet here. And if this became too significantly a different group than this, I would stop doing it. Because it's to be with you that I'm doing this, not because that's more fundamental than what I say.

[84:07]

Yeah, and the feeling of being with you stays with me in fundamental time all year long. Every seminar I do, I notice in Boulder, Colorado or wherever, I notice, well, this also belongs to the seminar in Rustenburg and see if I can include it. So that the practitioner of fundamental time Clock time is really at the periphery of his or her attentional sphere.

[85:27]

And the attentional territory is primarily a kind of inter... interweaving of and interwaving of resonant fields. So when I am here with you, for instance, or here with you or you, I feel distinctly different but concordant resonant fields. I feel distinctly different resonant field with each of the three of you, for example.

[86:33]

But all three fields three fields feel concordant with my own field. And by the way, in English, concordant means in resonance with the heart. And this concordant means in resonance with the heart. Yes. I was surprised about your question about constellation work. Because all the time in my feeling you were speaking about constellation work.

[87:33]

I was. Oh, well, this is good. For example, the role that the body plays, the role that embodiment plays. Yeah. And you could also describe constellation work as an alchemical process. And getting conscious of this process and of what a certain distance happening to what happens. Mm-hmm. Yes.

[88:40]

He would like to add. Yes, please. Siegfried, you are talking like there would be something like constellation, but it depends on who is doing it. The method is made by us into that what you are talking about. Can you say that again, the last one? It depends on how we do it. It depends on how we can bring our heart into it. Then something arises in co-creation with our clients and our participants.

[89:50]

And that's why it is becoming effective. A while ago we also said that every moment is like a constellation. How we are sitting here is a constellation. And this changes when we enter the room where we eat. And I think what is specific about the group is the mindfulness in the way we are coming together. And I'm just wondering how, so to speak, in a Buddhist sense, this meaning, so to speak, this meaning, that, yes, we hear this in this way, we go into it.

[91:08]

And the question that is coming up whether you can say something about this meaning that is important when we come together in a mindful way. Like there's this attitude and this is something very particular. I think I have been learning a lot from you over the years to somehow grow into this kind of attitude. That sounds nice. Well, there's mindful attention to the phenomena of the world, to objects, to situations.

[92:33]

Okay. And as I've said a few times, there's also attention to attention. Now, technically it's called mindfulness without. It's a mindfulness without an object to the mindfulness. Okay, so the way I usually express that is to bring attention to attention itself. And attention to attention itself the more you develop the feel of it and the experience of it, opens into a non-conceptual field of attention.

[93:37]

So for a group of practitioners or the sangha, We could say they're shifting from attention, a mindfulness of things, to a mindfulness of mindfulness. So here we don't have a shift from a container mentality, an entity mentality, to a mentality or a sphere of knowing, which is to know everything is interconnected. Now within that field of mindful interconnectedness the interconnectedness disappears into a non-conceptual field.

[94:50]

Now the mature practitioner takes on the intention, to maintain as much as possible, uninterruptedly, this non-conceptual field of awareness. And the conceptual field of awareness becomes a reminder of the non-conceptual field of awareness.

[96:00]

And so the non-conceptual field of awareness shifts from foreground to background, foreground to background in your activity. So you might say that the non-conceptual field of awareness When we're going to lunch, say, you sort of go to lunch in a non, I don't know what I'm talking about, a non-conceptual field of awareness. So that in the dining room there, eating room there, a new field, you allow a new field to arise. and so transition moments are very important phase transitions there are often moments of insight and so forth so right now one can have different shifts like that we don't have to go to lunch to do it

[97:29]

Dogen says, see if I can remember, he says, sometimes I ehe, I mentioned this in the last seminar, sometimes I ehe, enter an ultimate state. and offer you profound discussion. Simply wishing you to be steadily intimate with your field of mind. Okay, so let's unpack this a minute. Amazon just sent it and we need to unpack it. Actually, Amazon sent it. That's Mother Zen.

[98:30]

Amazon Mama. Mama Zen. I'm Papa Zen. She's Mama Zen. Come on. Stop it. She's embarrassed. You must change. Yeah, we must. Yeah, that's right. I came back. Um... Okay, so sometimes... Whatever words used in Japanese means there are numerous times, and in one of those numerous times, I'm doing this.

[99:32]

Here is Dogen's concept that we're in the midst of numerous nows. And Angela's now, right now, may be different than Horst's now. And Horst's now was a little different just a little while ago. Now, now. Okay. Unless you have some kind of, you know, because, you know, here's a good example of where teaching is necessary. You just wouldn't get that sometimes means that unless there's teaching, unless there's institutional Zen as well as individual Zen.

[100:36]

And I'm using institutional Zen to mean the teachings, the chance to meet together, etc. That's all a kind of institution. So sometimes, in some nows, in one of many nows, I, Ehe. Ich, Ehe. Now, that would be like me saying, I, Johanneshof. He's not talking about himself, he's talking about one of his roles. One of his roles is, he's abbot of Ehe, Eheji, and so often a teacher takes on the name of the place.

[101:50]

So he's speaking from his role as abbot. So as I might say again, I, Crestone, enter an ultimate state. which means he enters a samadhi, a particular samadhi related to this situation, that situation, a situation. And because he's in that samadhi, he can offer, again, an activity, Offer profound discussion. And this is all kind of by itself. It's the ultimate state does itself. And the fruit of that, it does profound discussion. And the profound discussion does itself and goes places you don't know.

[103:19]

And he offers profound discussion and simply wishes. He's just hoping you're present. But present only to the steady intimacy with your field of mind. So he's not saying listen to me. He's saying I'm doing what I'm doing. I hope you're just intimate with your field of mind. And maybe these simultaneous units, the profound discussion and the intimacy with the field of mind will somehow resonantly flow together.

[104:28]

Is that crystal clear? Is that understandable? But it's interesting. I never had a college professor saying, well, now I'm going to enter an ultimate state. Oh, really? Tell me another one. Yeah, geez. No, I'm going to take a different class. And I'm simply wishing you all to be steadily, steadily intimate with your field of mind. And how do I get an A or B for being steadily intimate?

[105:29]

So it's in this kind of context that we're trying to feel Samadhi, feel. Sangha, feel fundamental time. Somehow. Not just in clock time, we're surfacing now in another kind of time than clock time. Yes, Andy? I just wanted to say it's a kind of a joke, but And coming from you, this is profound. Yeah.

[106:42]

Someone else. Ulrike is ready. Almost ready. Why does he say steadily? Instead of what? Well, continuously would be another choice, but if he translated it continuously, it would be a mistranslation. Because continuous continues. Steadily has to be steadily reestablished. It's an activity, yeah. If my daughter Sophia is steadily reestablished, holds her own when she's riding a horse. She's constantly adjusting herself to the horse.

[107:45]

Yes. We have talked about that here we have a constellation. My feeling is that in this room we have many constellations. Yes. That's clear. Crystal clear. and many reflections from the crystal. Yes. Would you say that this profound discussion Dogen is talking about

[108:56]

or any content of our mind? Is the entrance to this mental field? Or asked in a different way, could I enter this field of mind without any content? Why not? Just bring attention to attention. And every time you bring attention to attention, let everything else fall away except attention itself. And more and more you get a bodily feel for the field of attention to attention. Freedom from conceptuality.

[110:27]

And it is interesting because, I mean again, if I say bring attention to attention itself. That's a mental instruction. So we'd have to call it a mental conception. Yet the very conception of... bringing attention to itself, can release conceptions from the field of attention.

[111:31]

And mind can be a boundaryless awareness. Almost without location. And without location makes it extraordinarily inclusive. So this inclusive mind without location would be a kind of... The essence of fundamental time.

[112:31]

Yes, very good. Could you maybe say something about what kinds of feeling qualities are accompanied by this attention to attention itself? Any feeling, bodily, mentally, any feeling qualities? There are meditation teachers that put a lot of emphasis on the feeling qualities of stillness or what did you say? Joy. Being in the flow. Really, for example?

[113:45]

Yeah, but I don't mean which teachers, I mean what feeling qualities do they point to? So they say these are transpersonal qualities, not only feeling qualities like joy, being in the flow, silence, stillness. They call this spürbewusstsein. Sensational awareness. Sensational awareness. And they say... And they say these qualities arise when attention is being moved from the object to attention itself.

[115:13]

Transpersonal means what? You shouldn't try to find a way out. I'm not trying to find a way out. Transpersonal sometimes sounds like it means something like transcendent or something. I don't know anything about transcendence, only incendence. I think we perceive this when we enter into this resonance together, with each other.

[116:22]

And this is also what Michael called the heart. Okay, well, my tendency would be to say non-personal rather than transpersonal. Yeah, I myself prefer rather Maybe kinesthetic or gestural terms rather than generalizing terms. Do you want to say something, Walter, or are you just scratching your head? Okay.

[117:38]

It's interesting, I have to give this a little thought. And I would, I'd love to see the examples where Ayya Khema, for instance, writes this or hear or say it. Because in my lineage practice, the custom is to not describe the qualities of mind or the fruits of practice. Because you kind of commodify it. And it's a little bit like you're selling it. Yeah. Ayya Khema constantly says, let go, let go, let go. And with this quality, suddenly she says, there, sit down.

[119:12]

And hold on to it. So I was very surprised by that. So maybe I changed my course to Zen because of that. You mean I'm stealing you from Ayya Khema? See, I didn't know that you had to be stolen. That's Christmas bread, isn't it? Christmas bread? Stolen. Yes. Stolen ist Weihnachtsbrot. Yes. Well, I'm so little German, I have to show off a little bit. One of the things that interests me is... And it's always in the background, as I mentioned in the last seminar.

[120:28]

Does what I'm speaking about depend on practicing zazen? Does what I'm speaking about depend on regular practice of zazen? Or is what I'm speaking about enhanced by practicing zazen, but not dependent on it? Or is what I'm speaking about apprehensible, apprehensible through, you know, mindfulness alone or ordinary circumstances.

[121:29]

There was a, Eileen Ludders, I mentioned, I have to look, anyway, a woman, with very good European credentials. She studied it all the best. universities in Europe, and not all, but three or four. And she's now at UCLA in Los Angeles. And she's published something which you may know about. But it showed a dramatic to me, dramatic difference in the effect of meditation on lots of dimensions of mind and body, depending simply on how long you've practiced.

[122:44]

This wasn't just about whether you practiced regularly, but whether you practiced for 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years, made a big difference. I remember Sukershi saying a few times, Well, if you continue doing this for a while, by implication, you'll have a chance to understand something. And, you know, I always thought, well, you know, I was 24 or 25, I thought, well, two years... And I know if I'd pressed him, he would have said, oh, five or six years.

[124:00]

But now I know that if I'd pressed him and he'd said five or six years, he really would have meant ten or twenty. But being so kind, he didn't want to discourage me. But any case, one of the things that is a quite important factor in all of these practices, including such a simple thing verbally, at least conceptually, as shifting from attention to attention itself. It's really probably only in any real way accessible. to a person who's practiced long enough, they have an established stillness of mind and body that's pretty much unflappable.

[125:42]

So that there's always in oneself a movement towards stillness. There's very little that moves toward the opposite of stillness. And in all activities, the activities that one's engaged in and with, are always moving towards stillness. And the classic example of this, of course, is the wave of the ocean, which may be moved by wind, boats, all kinds of things. But the shape of the wave is always the effort to return to stillness.

[126:57]

And even in the wave, the water is still. So that experience, body and mind experience, probably... requires a fair amount of still sitting to get to. And that inner dynamic of stillness makes all the practices easier and some of the practices only work when there's only that inner still. But there is, as Siegfried implies, I've said, once you know the shift from from attention to attention itself, it's a bodily feeling, a bodily station,

[128:30]

to which you can go to bodily any time, be taken. The field of non-conceptual time, though, is present. Though, is present. But I really have is be selfish. In fact, I don't think it's one of my experience. Because the strong tendency to make the shoe fit is interesting to find out. Just find out through your own investigation. And then, for many years in time, I was not explicit like I am now.

[130:00]

Da war ich niemals so explizit, da war ich nie als jetzt dünn. It's very strongly the way it goes in the tradition, the custom in the tradition. Also das verlor ich stark gegen die Traditionen an und das Verbräuche der Tradition. But when I was in California, aber als ich in California war, I was almost always practicing with people who, I mean, I had to be practicing this for five years. I let them go to Tassajara. I wouldn't let them go to Tassajara unless I did it to at least a full two years without leaving. And I allowed myself to go to the Sahara because they didn't have to. Because they had two full years. I didn't practice with anyone who [...] didn't practice.

[131:22]

So you don't have to go because it's so much as we are in the field. What's going on? And the I seriously practice with people who you only see once a week. This is nuts. But I have to say that it's not I decided it's worth trying. With. And my effort is to. Things like this. I'm sitting quietly doing nothing. All connected. Things like that. That work. Within us. But not in. So I have the experience when I see you.

[132:30]

I just saw you yesterday. So this is my experiment. But still, I don't want to describe things to make them interesting. But nevertheless, I want to describe things to make them interesting. Or there is the danger that I feel as if I would be interested in them. And I already do that too much. As if I already have breakfast. Thank you for transferring.

[133:36]

Mama's then.

[133:38]

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