Und die unterbrechen wir gewöhnlicherweise ja mit einem Wecker. But we have no instructions about how to sleep in the middle of sleeping. Aber es gibt keine Unterweisung, wie wir schlafen innerhalb des Schlafes. So, Sazen is a kind of sleeper. in which you train your body to be awake in the midst of a wide mind. And the countenance of breath and all those things are ways to enter this mind, but it shouldn't take over and define this mind. Now, some of you may find other ways to practice more productive and after all this is your practice not mine you're the one sitting there so please do whatever makes you happy

[01:07]

But I very fundamentally feel that practice is as I described it. And I believe it's the core of Buddhism itself. That's all. but I want to come back to this Zazen practice after some questions after some discussion I already said too much but your question was so to the point I thought I should respond now I'm completely confused Thank you. Now I'm completely deluded, not deluded, but confused. Really? Oh, good. She's unsatisfied, you're deluded.

[02:25]

We're making progress. As... Dogen says, when all things are the Buddha Dharma, there is delusion and enlightenment. Yeah, we've got 50% of it. Yes. This identification with your thoughts you were talking of, how do I recognize that I identify with my thoughts and how do I dissolve this identification? Well, recognizing that you identify with your thoughts is easy.

[03:27]

Every time you're during zazen and you start concentrating on your breath and your mind goes back to your thoughts it's really because you identify with your thoughts. It may also be because it's more interesting. It might also be because you're bored with just simply being alive. But however we analyze it is, say you're bored with simply being alive. It means that you're so convinced your thoughts are more real that you're not capable of noticing the fundamental bliss of being alive.

[04:29]

So I think we can call I mean, we can call the constant returning to our thoughts a belief in permanence. Now, A subtle permanence. In other words, we're all smart enough to know everything's changing. And nothing is permanent. But when you keep identifying with your thoughts, you're making a decision that somehow the thoughts are more real.

[05:34]

We come closer to a kind of self-permanence through our thoughts. So it's a subtle form of permanence. How you change that? All the practices of Buddhism are meant to change that. The words I just said are to make you doubt the subtle permanence of thoughts. And it's actually One of the big weaknesses of practice in general and in the West is we practice within our psychology.

[06:35]

As long as you're interested in enlightenment as... something really nice and good. It would solve a lot of my problems. And I hear it's a great experience. Or you're interested in some kind of recognition or Inka or something like that. Almost surely you're practicing within your psychology of desires and who you are and so forth. This can be quite actually dangerous and deluding. Because Dharma is quite powerful. And our personality should mature within the Dharma. Not Dharma functioning inside the personality.

[07:44]

It's a little bit like putting a bomb in a... in your bed or something. So I'm giving a more than just answer responding to your question. But just this effort to bring yourself back to this present moment to develop the habit of turning your attention inward instead of outward. All these are ways to break the identification with thoughts. And the most direct and powerful way, probably, is the ability to sit still no matter what your thinking processes are. Because if you can sit still, it means you're breaking the connection with thoughts and action.

[08:59]

Yeah, so anyway. Yes. In my practice in the last month, I could confirm what you just said, in practice and what is it, there are lots of moments of just feeling blessed and happiness, but sometimes maybe it sounds ridiculous, my body gets in a kind of really being scared, and in this moment I have a great fear of dying. I would like if you could make some quotes on that. Ich habe die letzten Monate sehr stark mit Was ist das? praktiziert und ich kann quasi bestätigen, dass es sehr viele Momente gab, wo ich mich einfach sehr gut gefühlt habe, sehr ruhig. Und es dann aber Momente gab, ohne zu denken, wo mein Körper in einem großen Aufbruch war und ich wirklich Todesangst hatte.

[10:05]

Und ich habe ihn gebeten, dazu etwas zu sagen, wenn er das möchte. It's okay. You're not dead yet. Yeah, so there's nothing to worry about. But this question, what is it? This fundamental question of Zen practice. And the more powerful you bring energy to it, and the more energy you have available to bring to it, it breaks through thought coverings. No, I don't have time to really speak about thought coverings.

[11:18]

To the extent that we actually live an image of our body, not our physical body. But one of the technical terms in Buddhism is that Most of us, as long as we identify with our thoughts, these thoughts cover everything like a fine film. A fine film surface of oil or something. Any practice where you keep bringing your energy to the present moment tends to well, if we use the image of an egg it's like the mother hen pecking in And Buddha is inside pecking out.

[12:27]

One Zen has funny technical terms, and one is pecking in and pecking out. And that's when the mother hen knows to peck in because the baby is just starting to peck out. So, every time we say, what is it? We're pecking in. Sometimes when the thought coverings are gone, it can be quite scary. We feel our personality is in danger. And we feel how fragile we are.

[13:27]

And of course that we will. And of course that we will die. It's normal to be scared of dying. But it's actually pretty silly. Having a bad flu is usually worse than dying. A bad flu lasts for a week. Dying only lasts real quick. One minute you're there and the next minute you've forgotten that you were ever there. So when we're afraid of dying, we're really thinking a lot about life.

[14:28]

What does Dogen say? Birth never interferes with birth or birth never interferes with life. And at this moment, always something is being born. And death never interferes with this. I think what he says is birth may interfere with birth, but death doesn't interfere with birth. So when you're afraid of Afraid of dying? What's being born is your fear of dying. You're not dying. Sorry to be a little silly, but... But you're so alive, I can hardly take it seriously. Okay, something else? Yeah. I have a question about the thoughts.

[16:00]

Sometimes I experience that the thoughts seem to me to be the only safe thing that I have at all, where I really cling to the thoughts and think that everything else is quite uncertain, but at least the thoughts, so to speak. But there are also thoughts I mean, living thoughts. I had the feeling earlier that you were formulating such a contrast between thinking and living. And I have the feeling that there are very different forms of thoughts, for example thoughts that you cling to, but also thoughts that really belong to life, that are basically an expression of living. I was thinking about the thoughts. I feel myself sometimes clinging to thoughts as sometimes the only firm and secure thing I have.

[17:07]

On the other hand, what you said about being alive, sometimes I also have thoughts that are alive, very alive thoughts. Can you say the second part again, Ralf? My impression was that you make a distinction between aliveness and thinking. And for my feeling, there is thinking which is very deeply connected with aliveness, lively thinking. Of course you're right. Du hast natürlich recht. What I mean to say is that when you identify with your thinking, not as aliveness, but as realness, as a description of reality, and usually embedded, or anticipating rather, a future,

[18:34]

This kind of thinking may be useful, but it's not where you want to live. And the more we live in our are the immediacy of the present moment. And the more we... live in the awareness which knows the immediacy of the present moment, the more our thinking arises then as deep recognitions, and while it may be thinking that appears as sentences and logical thought, it's less rooted

[19:54]

language itself leading us along in a kind of past, present, future construct. It's more like language as reports from the interior. And it's a kind of physicalness of language almost. And this is when we make the distinction in Buddhism between live words and dead words. So I should be more precise, I'm sorry. Does that more or less respond to what you're saying? Probably there is also something like unconscious or unconscious thinking, which basically constantly accompanies the living.

[21:26]

The question is, how much of our thinking do we even perceive? If not what appears in our consciousness, but anyway only how bubbles rise to the surface at the same time. The question is also for me, what of our thinking really comes to consciousness, and isn't there sort of half-conscious or unconscious subconscious thinking, where we only notice in our consciousness just little bubbles? Yes. I would call that a knowing that sometimes takes the form of thinking, It's probably better to just call it an ongoing process of knowing, which isn't a thinking language process. Being alive is a form of knowing. We usually don't notice that because we see knowing as thinking, another kind of recognition.

[22:32]

Now my own experience of what you're saying is if we go back to this distinction between awareness and consciousness, consciousness is that state of mind in which the direction is toward separation from the field of mind. And awareness is a knowing, we could say consciousness, but let's say a knowing, which is always related to the field of mind. And so, one you can imagine as liquid in which there's ripples that are always being absorbed back into the water. Consciousness you can think of as a whole lot of glasses of water.

[24:09]

or other containers of water, but not related to the water. They're all in different glasses. So consciousness is a state of mind, a mode of mind, which we're always comparing glasses of one container of water to another. And it's a very productive way to think. Now, awareness is a way of thinking in which your thinking is always relating back to the field of mind. And the more consciousness also, because we're not talking really about two things, we're talking about two different emphases. Zen practice would be to really take this incipient awareness And then develop it into a present, always present awareness.

[25:36]

And have it permeate our consciousness. And the more that's the case, then we have a feeling of thinking that's a kind of physical or alive thinking. I'm sorry to spend so much time on this one question. But it quite interests me to be clear about it. As much as I can, yes. For me it is also the case that I have been working on the topic of what is this for the last few months. And I think there is a very, very evident difference between the thoughts.

[26:39]

So if I ask myself now, what is this, then it is something different than if I continue when I say, okay, what is this, who is it that is talking now, or what is it that is thinking now, then it has a completely different physical clarity than when I say, when I am now in my thoughts, what is my child doing now, or how do I solve this or that problem. So I think it is very clear to distinguish which thoughts So which are productive and which are not productive, and to feel this physically. I also have been practicing with what is it for the last several months, and for me it's a palpable difference between this what is it, what is it, or being entangled in thoughts about how do I solve this problem, what's my child.

[27:41]

I have really a bodily feeling about it, which is different, and I can quite clearly say which is productive and which type of thinking is not. And I feel, for example, when I have this thought of going deeper into what it is, that it warms me up. And of course, sometimes you stand there and say, there is no way anymore. Now it is somehow a feeling of, now I don't know anything anymore, now everything is gone. Also I experienced that going deeper into this what is it, it sort of really whirls me up and… Whirls? What? Stirs me up. Whirls me up I like. Being in a washing machine.

[28:43]

Well, it stirs up deep things, and then the image came from somewhere of this swallowing a red-hot iron ball. It's stuck, and... Yeah. Sorry. Drink a lot of water. No, it's good. I'm glad you're doing this practice. And these are very traditional images, like a red-hot iron ball, etc. Yeah. My experience over the years is the more you give these traditional practices, Within a matured context of really seeing the depth of the question, what is it?

[29:48]

That's really seeing into and knowing deeply that everything changes and is interdependent. It increases the likelihood. It's like plowing the soil so the practice works. Okay, so let me say a few things. I would love to continue our discussion, but probably I should say a few things. And I've noticed we should continue at some point, too. And we should continue at some point in time. Okay, so there's yes.

[31:07]

Okay. And yes is this practice of, it basically is asking, what is it? But it starts with acceptance. To first of all accept whatever is there. Okay, so now we can shift to no. No is another form of what is it. So you say no to everything that appears. Is this... Is it this? No. Is it that? No. No. Is my thinking important? No. Etc. Whatever it is, you say no to.

[32:09]

I mean, maybe while you're at work you have to, you know, be a little realistic. Would you do this? No. Yes. Would you do this? Yes, of course. Yeah. But what is this? No. So when you... It's interesting. When you really do this and you're bringing your energy to the no... These names are calling out for you for identification. And you say no. So it produces a tremendous amount of energy that kind of goes inward. Mm-hmm. Now, the word shamatha means dwelling in usually something like dwelling in tranquility.

[33:16]

Now, Zen practice assumes that shamatha and vipassana are really one practice, one activity. Let's concentrate for a minute on shamatha. Just coming to sit still. And there's a funny quality of stillness. That stillness tends to generate more stillness. The more you have a feeling of stillness, It draws you into stillness. I remember Tsukiyoshi, my teacher, said once to me, he said, you know,

[34:17]

Don't you think it usually takes about 20 minutes, maybe 10 or 15, but 20, to settle in zazen? I remember thinking, jeez. I'm 25 or 27 or something, and I've been sitting a couple of years. And here's this old Zen master who just told me it takes him 10 or 20 minutes to settle in Zazen. Of course, this old Zen master was 10 years younger than I am now. But he seemed old to me then. Yeah, I remember once when he was in his 60s.

[35:37]

He said, when I'm sitting here, I'm 35. I'm just like you, 35. He says, I feel that way anyway. Anyway, so I thought about it, and yeah, so, okay. 10 minutes or 20 minutes. But I was listening to what he was saying. And this is partly in response to you. And he was saying, yes, there's a kind of process of counting your breath, of settling your posture. And then something takes over. Like falling asleep. You do this, you do that, and at some point you can feel something taking you asleep.

[36:37]

And it's very good for all of us to practice with waking up and going to sleep. You do it twice a day. Might as well make use of it. Studying yourself. And there's a strange similarity between that which takes us into sleep and that which takes us into zazen. So Sukershi was saying to me, Yeah, okay, do these various practices which settle you. But when Zazen mind takes over, go with it. And you begin to recognize it, just like you can get skillful at going to sleep. Mm-hmm. And you let this take you, and it's like a kind of magnet.

[37:57]

There's a gradient to awareness. As there's a gradient to water, it tends to seek its lowest point. And you can feel this kind of settling. Is it mind? Is it body? Is it Buddha nature? What is it? Something that doesn't fall into the usual categories takes hold of us. It's almost like a magnet drawing us into sedimenting, the word sediment, sedimenting us into stillness.

[39:07]

And we begin to feel the inner solidity. Kind of intactness. And this is Hanji's what he means when he says, standing alone. When you feel this intactness, even in the middle of a crowd, you feel alone, complete, intact. Alone in the sense of complete. You feel as complete with people or with trees or with your furniture in your room. You feel like a mountain. And this brings up, also makes a... a real power and energy available to us, to bring into our practice, our practice as

[40:21]

activity or manifestation? What is it? The mountain is asking, what is it? We have that feeling. And it also means we trust ourselves. If you're always looking for maps, Or the feeling, am I doing this right? You don't trust yourself. We have to find some way to trust ourselves at a fundamental level. So one reason we take this posture

[41:34]

Putting our legs together and our hands together. These are pretty harmless. You're not going to hurt anybody. So you can just start trusting. Here I'm alive, here. I'm not causing any harm. Can I in this situation trust myself? Or even now do I want to... you know, instructions? Or do I want someone to tell me I'm doing it right? Okay, it may be helpful to ask, does this practice make sense? We can ask such questions, and genuinely. But deep down, it's a matter of trust.

[42:47]

As we say, you know by drinking whether water is wet. So you come into trusting this inner solidity. You come into a feeling of being free of lesions of ambivalence. You're no longer leaking. So now this inner solidity can really ask, what is it?

[43:49]

Shall we have lunch? Thank you very much.

[44:20]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_69.17