So I'm thinking about, of course, what I might speak about that could be useful to you in practice, in imagining practice, or practicing. Ich denke natürlich darüber nach, was nützlich für euch sein könnte in der Praxis, entweder darin, euch die Praxis vorzustellen, oder eben praktizieren. We could say something like, practice is about changing your birth body into a wisdom body. Wir könnten sagen, dass es in der Praxis darum geht, euren Geburtskörper in einen Weisheitskörper zu verwandeln. Of course we have a genetic disposition, but the emphasis in Buddhist yoga culture is that overridingly we're also nurture, not just nature.

[01:02]

Wir haben natürlich genetische Anlagen, aber die Betonung im Buddhismus ist, also bei Weitem ist die Betonung auf die Erziehung und die Veränderung, die Einflüsse durch die Umwelt, und nicht nur das von der Natur mitgegeben. And we can shape ourselves really amazingly through intention. Und wir können uns wirklich auf erstaunliche Weise durch die Absicht, die Intention formen. I mean, you may not believe in mind over matter, but when I raise my arm, that's mind over matter. Ihr glaubt vielleicht nicht an dieses Prinzip Geist über Materie, aber wenn ich meinen Arm hebe, dann ist das Geist über Materie. I mean, I have an intention, and look, my arm stayed down. Ich habe eine Absicht und auf einmal bewegt sich mein Arm. I was just at a conference in Tucson, Arizona of neuroscientists.

[02:07]

Ich war gerade auf einer Konferenz in Tucson, Arizona von Neurowissenschaftlern. I was there as sort of the wild card to give a couple of short lectures. Und ich war da sozusagen als der Joker. It's all right. That's more or less the case. Also mehr oder weniger als der Joker. And they're all concerned with studying the mind as it is different from matter. Und hat da ein paar Vorträge gehalten, und die beschäftigen sich alle damit, den Geist über die Materie zu studieren. And how the mind could arrive from matter, molecules, partly conscious and so forth. Und wie das sein könnte, dass der Geist aus der Materie entsteht und ob das sein kann, dass Moleküle teilweise Bewusstsein haben und so weiter. But Buddhism is not uninterested in sources, but primarily it just says there are these ingredients and let's see what happens with them.

[03:16]

How do we mix these ingredients of consciousness, intention, the body, etc. Und der Buddhismus ist nicht uninteressiert an den ursprünglichen Quellen der Dinge. Aber im Grunde genommen sagt man im Buddhismus einfach, okay, also hier sind unsere Zutaten, hier ist Körper, Geist, Intention, Bewusstsein und so weiter. And there were 1,200 people at the conference and I don't know, 50 neuroscientists, physicists and so forth. 1,200 Menschen auf der Konferenz und es sind 50 neuroscientists. I guess, I never counted them, but it's a lot. Okay, and they're all interested in studying consciousness as it happens in us human beings. Not all of them, but it's a major theme. Die sind alle interessiert daran, das Bewusstsein zu studieren, so wie es sich in uns Menschen vollzieht.

[04:23]

Also nicht alle, aber das war zumindest das Hauptthema. And one of the first things I noticed being there is I studied consciousness too. Eins der ersten Dinge, die ich bemerkt habe, als ich dort war, war, dass ich ja auch das Bewusstsein studiere. But I studied consciousness from inside. Aber ich studiere oder untersuche das Bewusstsein aus dem Innern heraus. And I study consciousness so that I can subjectively, as a person, study objectively consciousness. Und ich studiere das Bewusstsein so, dass ich subjektiv, als Mensch, das Bewusstsein objektiv studieren oder untersuchen kann. And I know that if I study consciousness, it changes consciousness, even transforms consciousness. Und ich weiß, dass wenn ich das Bewusstsein studiere oder untersuche, dann verweigert das das Bewusstsein. Yeah. Okay. So I was thinking, you know, maybe I should look at some basics of practice.

[05:30]

Going back to reviewing in my mind what are the basics of practice. And I would say that, first of all, what you're doing when you're doing zazen, sitting meditation. And I would say that, first of all, what you're doing when you're doing zazen, sitting meditation. Is that you first take a posture in which you can sit relatively comfortably for a short time. And then you use musculature and attentiveness to maintain your posture.

[06:36]

So then you're taking basically a physical posture, an asana, the way we speak about it today, nowadays. So then you're taking basically a physical posture, an asana, the way we speak about it today, nowadays. But also you're taking what I would call, not just an intention, but a mental posture. A mental posture you hold as your physical presence. And the mental posture is, don't move. Of course you are moving a little bit. You can see I'm moving a little bit. And my heart is beating and my lungs are working and so forth.

[07:50]

And my heart is beating and my lungs are working and so forth. But still, if I have a mental posture of not moving, it affects the whole body. And what it does is it begins the process of creating an attentional, intentional interiority. And what it does is it begins the process of creating an attentional, intentional interiority. And that's the best way I've come up with trying to describe it. An attentional, intentional interiority. An attentional, intentional interiority.

[08:55]

And we do all things. We get up, we go to bed, we eat, we think, and so forth. They asked a group of first graders once, what are thoughts for? And the majority agreed, thoughts are so you can keep a secret. And we sort of think we're keeping a secret, but of course what we're thinking is written all over us. At least to some extent.

[10:13]

But an attentional interiority is, how can I give you a feeling for it if you don't know what it is? An attentional interiority is, how can I give you a feeling for it if you don't know what it is? If you sit. And sitting means absorbing sitting. It kind of absorbs exterior consciousness. And if it doesn't absorb exterior consciousness, you can't sit for very long.

[11:15]

And if it doesn't absorb exterior consciousness, you can't sit for very long. Because the job of consciousness is to make you do things. Participate with others, imagine a future, etc. The power of that external consciousness is, I mean, it's the most powerful thing in the world almost. Or maybe it is. Now, I'm not saying to generate a wisdom body from a birth body.

[12:31]

It's necessary to do zazen, meditation all the time. More often than not. But probably it's necessary for a while. Because if this sitting absorption absorbs exterior consciousness, I think it happens to us sometimes when we're doing something like sunbathing. You know, you hear things down the beach, etc. The sun is burning you, but you don't know it. You hear things down the beach, etc. The sun is burning you, but you don't know it. But in general, we live in our externalized consciousness.

[13:42]

And the fact is, you can't sit for very long and not make a difference if you don't absorb your externalized consciousness. And then the commands of consciousness are no longer so loud. You take notes. But somehow, we could talk about the reasons anybody wants to do this, but often it's because it makes you feel kind of good, free. You're finally located in yourself in a way that feels like it should be that way. You're finally located in yourself in a way that feels like it should be that way.

[15:07]

And there's almost an alchemical shift of changing lead or something into gold. And there's almost an alchemical shift of changing lead or something into gold. Because the absorbed external consciousness turns into an internal consciousness. And once it turns into an interior consciousness, it's not anymore exactly shouldn't be called consciousness anymore. It's another kind of knowing we can perhaps call maybe awareness. And this awareness, I'm calling it awareness,

[16:09]

it's the field of mind and the modalities of knowing are many, but we have to have some way to speak about it so you can understand what I'm talking about or feel what I'm talking about. So you do begin to have this feeling of an attentional interiority. And things just don't bother you the same way. There's a kind of stillness to that attentional, like you put mud in a glass or something like that and the next morning it's all settled out and the water is clear. And so now many of the concerns of consciousness

[17:26]

settle to the bottom of and out of entirely this interior stillness. It's one of the first steps in what practice can do is free you, if really can free you, from emotional and mental suffering. It's like you take a little vacation whenever you sit. It's like you take a little vacation whenever you sit. And also one of the strange things that you notice is you make a different decision from this stillness, from this attentional interiority,

[18:31]

you make a different decision than you did earlier in the day or yesterday from giving conscious consideration to the alternatives. It's like when you wake up and you've had an intuition or you just suddenly look the other way and you have an intuition. Oh, that's what I should do, I have no choice. From this attentional interiority your thinking starts becoming a flow of something like intuitions. Yes, the things that appear to you as thoughts now appear much more like insights

[19:48]

or a flow of intuitions instead of just ordinary thoughts. There's a clarity or sureness about them. So it's like a kind of magic, you think I'm not doing anything, I'm the same person, I've got the same body and all I'm doing is assuming a physical posture, an upright physical posture which allows you to be in a kind of sleeping mode but you're awake. And you've done nothing but have a physical posture going to a mental posture, don't move and hey, you're making different decisions that seem much more accurate for the way your life is. So you may start by suggestion or by intuition of your own, developing this attentional interiority.

[21:10]

And there's two main ways you develop this attentional interiority. You form an intention to bring attention to attention. And attention is kind of like a muscle, you develop it, I mean you're not just using it, you're developing it. You're developing an attentional skill, like yogic attentional skill. By yogic I mean really everything functions through being embodied, not just thought.

[22:27]

So you bring attention to attention. And you're now seeing that you can form out of wisdom an intention to bring attention to attention. Now this attention that develops through bringing attention to attention. Because you're not now just naming entities and words and objects, etc. You're noticing the mind which notices the object. And you're discovering how your attention to an object doesn't have to identify with the object,

[23:40]

it can actually much more intimately identify with the attention which is attending to the object. And again you've made a step in freeing yourself from mental suffering. Because the attention isn't really suffering, it's what you think about the object or what happened, and the mind is what the suffering is. And the other way we develop this attentional interiority, as you know, classically in all such similar disciplines or approaches to knowing,

[24:49]

you bring attention to the breath. You form an intention to bring attention to the breath. And what you discover is, it's quite easy to do one or two or three times, but four or five times or ten times, you start thinking about things. And you can also call this early breath practice counting to one. Because you bring attention to the breath, one, and then you start thinking about things. And then you bring your attention to your breath, one, and then you start. And then you say to your friend Michael, who's sitting with you,

[26:12]

I got to two today. Eventually though you get to, you can count to ten or whatever you want. And what do you learn by doing this? This is also a conceptual learning process. Well, if it's easy to do it two or three times, follow your breath. As I always ask, why is it so difficult to get to ten? Well, because you go back to your thinking, or forward to your thinking. And what's so darn interesting about your thinking?

[27:16]

You're just wondering whether you should have cornflakes or shredded wheat for breakfast. But it's because you establish the beingness of your continuity in thinking. And it can be very scary to find the continuity by which you define sanity is interrupted. And at first it can be quite scary.

[28:16]

So you have to find some way to establish continuity in another way, because you need some sort of continuity or you're kind of like in a druggy state. So all you can do is shift your sense of continuity to the breath or to the body. And to carry your continuity in the body is a very different experience than the mental continuous stream of mind that happens through thoughts. Because in fact, there's no real continuity.

[29:24]

There's just moment after successive moment, and there's no real continuity. So if you want to know how things actually exist, they actually exist as a succession of appearances. And your body is much more in the topography of actuality than your mind is. So when you begin to establish continuity or a presence in a succession of appearances, you're within a topography that's closer to how we actually exist. And when you begin to establish your continuity in a succession of appearances,

[30:36]

you're much closer to how we actually exist. We need a team here. Okay, I thought of one other thing I might mention to add to this summary of basics. To go back a moment. Obviously, when you are able to bring attention fairly regularly to the breath, like right now, maybe you can feel that I'm speaking within my breath. Speaking is not really arising so much from my mind.

[31:46]

It's arising from my body even a little bit prior before my thinking thinks it. Speaking is not really arising so much from my mind. It's arising from my body even a little bit prior before my thinking thinks it. But if attention is woven in with the breath,

[32:49]

and the breath is going throughout the body, then you're weaving a new kind of attention throughout the body. Attention you can even follow like a little flashlight. Check out your organs, the stomach, the shape of the lungs, and so forth. You can try to look for the heart and the kidney and all, but actually the heart and the kidney are all part of a systemic process, so you end up noticing the whole process of the heart functioning and the organs functioning. The other day I was wondering if Socrates and Plato and Aristotle

[33:56]

had had Sashenes and Zazen, would they have asked the question, How do you know thyself? in the same way that a Buddhist asks. The other day I was wondering if Socrates and Plato and Aristotle had had Sashenes and Zazen, would they have asked the question, How do you know thyself? in the same way that a Buddhist asks. Knowing oneself through developing attention to attention. Knowing oneself.

[34:57]

And knowing and discovering the inseparability and simultaneous interrelationship of body and mind. The last thing I would say, and I think I've maybe given you too much in these 40 minutes, but I was all really to say, one practice that's important that I haven't mentioned in a long time is following thoughts to their source. So I'll be fairly brief, I hope. I say I hope, because I don't know what's going to happen.

[36:07]

If you follow thoughts to their source, you notice something's bothering you. Or you notice you've got a headache. When did the headache start? Or when did the thought that gave me that moment of anxiety start? So you say, I want to know myself, I want to know how I exist. So you try to follow a thought back to its source. Now, we're not talking about following back into past lives or anything like that, which don't interest me. But just to follow us, see if you can see the trigger when something's happened.

[37:11]

So it's a very active, intentional process. In a way, if we talk about the mind stream, the mind stream's going downstream. When you follow thoughts back to the source, you're swimming upstream. But you have to make an effort to swim upstream. And it's actually not too easy to do. What was the thought that happened? Well, I don't know what the thought was. I don't even know what I just said, and she asked me what I just said. So actually, what was that thought before and that thought before?

[38:19]

But you get better at it. And pretty soon, you're sitting and something can occur to you that makes you wonder where that came from. And you can actually go back upstream. And you can see, oh, I thought of that guy in the brown jacket, and for some reason, it started the process that gave me headache. So you do become much more aware of the triggers that lead to compulsive thinking or anxiety and stuff like that. But you're also getting used to it.

[39:27]

You're used to being attentive to the process of thought, the sequential process of thought. And you begin to create a kind of little tube of awareness that thought happens in. And you begin to be more present in your thinking as it's happening. And you begin to see how, oh, here's the stream of thought coming toward me. I'll divert it. Or I'll stop it. It's like in lucid dreaming, you can decide,

[40:29]

well, I think I'll change this stream. So these are all attentional skills. And strangely, you try little things like following thoughts to their source. And I could give you a suggestion, as I just have, that you could develop your Zazen enough that you can follow thoughts to their source. But I can never tell you everything that happens when you develop the skill of following thoughts to their source. And how that changes or transforms how thinking functions.

[41:37]

It actually makes thinking more spontaneous and less acculturated. Anyway, that's enough to say. Thank you very much. So we can have a break, and then a few minutes are slowed up, and then I'll come back if anybody has any questions. Is that all right? Shall I do that? I hear from my translators that was pretty intense and complicated, and I'm sorry. I guess when I'm talking about basics,

[42:50]

which I'm so familiar with, it gets complicated. Or complex, let's say. I just said, bring attention to attention, and... So anyway, does anybody have anything you'd like to say? Yes. I drove your husband out, is that what you just said? No. She said that the place where tracing the thoughts to the source really helps me is in living with my dear husband.

[43:52]

Oh, really? Because you're trying to trace his thoughts or your own thoughts? An unintentional side effect of Zen practice that turns out to be quite positive. Suddenly there may be some not-so-great feeling, I don't know what it is. No, no, no. Just some disagreement, some feeling that something is wrong. Some discord. That happens in marriages? I've never heard about it. It does happen. And then in this inner attentional field

[45:01]

it's possible to detect where that initially came from. Not the place where the discord, let's say, where that actually surfaced, but the place earlier where it initially happened. At the end you're just wondering, geez, what actually happened here? Because then what's possible is then you can start really looking at where it got initiated and not so much with the continuation of the discord. Then we can really look at

[46:11]

what's at the basis of that discord and then ideally, if it really turns out well, start dealing with it differently. I've tried that too, but it doesn't always work. But maybe I have a career as a marriage counselor. You sit over there in full lotus and you sit over there in full lotus Someone else. If you put the attention to your attention then you free the person. Sort of, that's true. It works that way. But not the first time you do it. Not the first time you put your attention to your attention. This aspect that when you speak

[47:22]

that arises from the body. You once spoke in a Winter Bratches seminar about how you anchor yourself in different points of the body. Then from that network the words come. But if I do do that, which happens, I find myself locating myself also in the body and the way other people are locating themselves or could. So that will speak to others more clearly. And that's interesting

[48:37]

because usually when we try to speak we try to make use of the source of the head and not the source of the body. But if I use the source of the head I get messed up. Or I don't say anything interesting. Yes? I have a question. I don't know how you come to this term of interiority. How is that to be understood? Say that you're doing zazen. You notice

[49:42]

like if it's in Johanneshof you notice tractors go by outside the zendo and there's birds in the morning and so forth. And you can feel that as exterior to yourself. But you can also develop a kind of stillness or motionless you just hear it inside you. You can even close your eyes during zazen and still feel many things a kind of space inside the body and then you can open your eyes and be surprised where you are. And when you develop

[50:50]

the more you get used to that and you develop an interiority for instance like being able to explore your body from the inside then you can begin to explore that interiority in contrast to an exteriority. The most simple example I can give is that when you hear birds you hear them as outside you but actually you're only hearing the capacity of your own hearing. So you're not hearing the bird obviously

[51:54]

as another bird hears a bird you're hearing a bird in the capacity of your own sensorial, oral skills. This was observed a couple thousand years ago in Buddhism and became the source of teaching that when you hear the bird as your own hearing it's a tremendous feeling of familiarity and inner presence. Maybe I shouldn't say this

[52:59]

but when you develop your attentional skills are more highly developed you can project this interiority to the exterior and you can feel the exterior world as if it were interior. You feel it completely as an interior experience even though it's about the exterior. The longer you practice and get familiar with these things

[54:02]

and incubate them in your experience what I'm not talking about isn't anything special, it just develops. It develops if you have an intention to develop your attentional interiority. It's interesting, when I'm with people like most of you I don't know very well and I've been practicing with you for a long time I tend to explain things in more detail than when I'm with people I practice with for a long time because I think they know everything already so I don't have to explain. It's interesting, when I'm with people like most of you I don't know very well and I've been practicing with you for a long time I tend to explain things in more detail than when I'm with people

[55:03]

I practice with for a long time because I think they know everything already so I don't have to explain. Anyone over here want to say something? You always look a little worried. Okay? Yes? So if you were to continue what you just said about the interiority So if you were to continue then in the end everything that happens

[56:04]

is part of my interiority? Yes, in actual fact that's just a fact it's happening in your sensory. So you know it as also you don't know it as primarily exterior you know it as also exterior. And it develops through the shorthand the short way of saying it is there's always a dual arising is there's always a dual arising If I look at this bell the bell arises it's a physical bell I've got it in my hand, right? But I can't know it's in my hand

[57:10]

unless my mind is knowing it. So a mature practitioner always feels mind and the object arising simultaneously. But since the job of consciousness is to protect you from tigers if a tiger is leaping at you you don't say, oh it's also mind. I mean in Crestone we have bears and they're around when I'm on the way to Zazen sometimes and I don't plan to think they're only mind. But if I know it's also mind in this case

[58:19]

I may be more settled and composed in how to relate to the bear. And just for another little thing here this kind of mind where it's an extension of interiority that exteriority is an experienced extension of interiority It's something called the Sambhogakaya which we could translate as the internal mind body.

[59:24]

But I've never done this with a bear but I think animals more naturally are in an internal mind body than we are. And I've had experiences like which I've mentioned occasionally in a totally dark night in Crestone where the night before I loan my flashlight to someone and I'm walking down through the woods without a flashlight and you can't see anything. And this particular time was before we'd cleared a path which I can sort of find with my feet.

[60:29]

And I was going along and going along and feeling my way and trying to not walk into trees and things and I suddenly found myself in a large biological field. And I realized I'd walked into a group of deer of about 12 or 15 deer that were at that time, that springtime, always around and they weren't disturbed at all because I think they were in the same kind of mind I was in. If I'd been in the usual sort of external mind

[61:41]

I would have thought, oh, there's some deer and they would have said, oh, they were all... And there were male deer as well as female deer. And so I suddenly recognized where I was and I said, don't change your state of mind. And I stood there for a little, I don't know, a long maybe 10, 15 seconds and I was kind of enjoying the intimacy of this biological field. We were all moving and breathing. But five or ten minutes away

[62:48]

I could hear them hitting the board saying Zazen's going to start. So I whispered to the deer, they're playing my song. Well, I didn't say it that way. But I gently found my way through the deer and they just stayed right where they were. So I think animals are in a higher state of mind, at least less conscious, but in some ways a higher state of mind than we are in from the point of view of yoga. Thank you very much.

[64:02]

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