As I described, practice is kind of like... driving along the road. And you see, and the road has got a lot of billboards on it. And as you're driving, what you see is billboards. In Austria, palmers. But after a while, you begin to see between the billboards. And you see into a landscape of the mind in between the billboards or from which the billboards are constructed. So it's a kind of mind background to the billboards.

[01:01]

But after a while, the billboards become... disappear, become very teeny. And you begin to have a feeling that your mind is at a kind of rest and then someone speaks to you and a billboard appears. Something like that. So I had that kind of feeling and so that's why I made up this term, background mind. And it's this quality of repeating that begins to generate it.

[02:04]

I don't think the background mind is there, I think you generate it. Even if in some cases, even if it's a capacity, which sometimes appears or we develop in special circumstances to have it present all the time is something you have to actually intentionally or through practice generate. So now I could finish my little list or some of my list. So, we have mindfulness practice. Zazen. Bringing some kind of teaching or phrase in. And... And... What did I say?

[03:20]

Keeping in mind the Eightfold Path. And then I added some contact, practice with others and if possible, some contact with the teacher. Okay, so now I've added in the second stage, turn of it is this development of a background mind. Or knowing or having a feeling for the one who is not busy. And let me say that probably the dynamic of somebody who goes around anxious all the time That anxiety is just beneath their surface all the time. Or some compulsive thinking or paranoia. The dynamic is probably very similar to background mind. But instead of something that's making you anxious, you have the opposite effect.

[04:46]

So it may be possible, and here we have an overlap or some kind of reference to psychology, anxiety may be a way of developing a background mind and if you could, you could shift that background to another choice than making you anxious. Because if you're not psychologically clear or developed, This background mind can just get filled with, it's kind of like almost a container that can be filled with projections, fear, etc.

[05:55]

Okay. Then the second aspect of this, now that you have developed a background mind, is you can begin to really bring a teaching in a fuller sense into your life. And you can also begin to study the nuances of your emotion. You can begin to observe your emotions. Observe the transitions. and feel your way into the transitions between moods and so forth.

[06:58]

So your moods become more like tuning in stations than something that you're subject to without much choice. Yeah, and if that's the case, then we can have certain kind of psychological questions like, is that a form of repression or denial or something? And then we can also have questions, isn't it something like dualistic to go around with a foreground mind and a background mind? Is there some really kind of strange conflict here in that on the one hand you're engaged in situations, but on the other hand you have a kind of detachment, you're not engaged.

[08:01]

So those are the kind of questions we should answer for ourselves if we're doing this practice. Und das sind diese Art von Fragen, die wir beantworten sollten für uns, wenn wir diese Art von Praxis üben. So I think that's enough for now and let's take a break. Und ich glaube auch, das ist jetzt genug und ich denke, wir sollten eine Pause machen. So dinner is at 7, right? So ist das Essen um 7 Uhr. So let's come back in half an hour. So lasst uns also in einer halben Stunde zusammenkommen. 20 to 6. 20 vor 6. But we can have some also. So then we also can have somewhat freer discussion as we are doing. So I'm going to go a little further in what we're speaking about and see if I can carry it another step.

[09:24]

And tomorrow I... I think I should try to start on this theme of emptiness. But I also am already speaking about the difference between, by implication, continuity and continuum. When there's nothing but Billboards, it's a kind of continuity. When you start feeling the landscape of mind behind the billboards, it's more like a continuum. Now let's not argue about the similarity of English words.

[10:30]

Because these words are just signs for, in this case, two different kinds of experience. But they both satisfy the need for continuity. In a way in which you feel stabilized in existence. Okay. Now, one of the aspects I gave you was in addition in the second stage, in addition to developing a background mind, was the ability to observe one's modes of mind. including one's moods, emotional, and so forth.

[11:50]

And I'm leaving in the air at present some of the questions I brought up just before the break. And the third aspect I gave of this kind of discussion second stage, is similar to being able to observe your emotions, but here we're talking about holding a teaching in front of you. And in the instructions for these teachings, it often says to hold, for example, the five skandhas before you. Before is just a way of speaking. It really means within you or...

[13:09]

Und vor ist einfach nur eine Art darüber zu sprechen, was es wirklich bedeutet, bedeutet in dir, sie in dir zu halten. We could say as part of your continuum. Und wir könnten auch sagen, sie zum Teil des kontinuums zu machen. Okay, so now there's a kind of parallel between observing one's emotions. And to be aware of the skein of emotions, you know the word skein, S-K-E-I-N? No. It's like a weaving term of things weaving together, making a kind of screen. There's a similarity to that to holding a teaching in front of you. Or anxiety.

[14:24]

And again, I mentioned that Rastenberg, a friend of mine, I think I mentioned it, I don't know how clearly I put it, a friend of mine has been waking up at three in the morning recently with a kind of anxiety. And he's not a person who's normally anxious. And he feels this kind of like, what if all this happens and I'm going to support my kids and so forth. This friend of mine, he's 71 or so and has a 15-year-old, 16-year-old son and so forth. And he's a person who usually automatically sort of just wakes up, normal life around four or five and sits for a few hours. But now recently he's been waking up last year or so around three with this anxiety.

[15:43]

And he notices that if he kind of stays at the mouth of the feeling, It's sort of like a mouth which can go into this stomach or into that stomach. If he stays in the mouth of it and doesn't quite let himself go into the... anxiousness, the space remains, and it shifts into bliss. And I think it's somewhat confirming what I said before, this background mind of could be anxiety, the capacity is there. And when he goes into this bliss, he has... Almost every night the intuition, this is the kind of mind I could die in.

[16:53]

This is the kind of mind I'd like to die in. So I would say actually at his age, though he'll probably live another 20 years or more, He's actually preparing for death. And he knows that he can make a choice in what mind he dies in. And this is a central idea in practice. In that sense, your entire life is a preparation for the mind you die in. And in some sense, we're actually, each moment is like that.

[18:04]

And there's an image I'll bring to you from the Bardo, from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in oral instruction, or an instruction which has an oral accompaniment. The image is to Jump into your mother's lap. With absolute trust. Knowing and recognizing without a doubt that it's your mother. And without hesitation jumping into her lap. This is the teaching image for bringing yourself into the moment of dying.

[19:07]

Now, this is Buddhism. So this means you're supposed to practice with this image. And it means radically, can you feel that right now? Can you, without hesitation, Enter this situation with trust. Recognizing that somehow this is your mother's lap. Now, mother in this teaching, first of all means it's taken for granted. A mother, a baby, a woman makes a baby The baby makes the mother. It's the baby that turns the woman into the mother.

[20:14]

So it means the essence of what it is to be a mother. And that's also equated with emptiness. So faster than I expected to, I'm beginning the topic of emptiness. Now what a challenge that is. Can you imagine in each situation challenging yourself, can I feel recognize this situation with the surety that I would recognize my own mother's lap. Und könnt ihr euch vorstellen, was für eine Herausforderung das ist, in jeder Situation anzuerkennen und zu fühlen? Kann ich diese Situation mit derselben Sicherheit erkennen?

[21:15]

Certainly for Sophia, the absolutely most certain things in her world is she knows when she's in her mother's lap. She knows that with more, with less doubt, with no doubt. less doubt than anything else in the world. So this kind of image, you know, in a society where there's kids around and families in all ages and everybody lives together, this is an image that's real for people. What's also assumed in an image like this is you're rehearsing it. I mean, the example I used the other day was a friend of ours, Rusty Schweikert, said they rehearsed the liftoff.

[22:39]

He was an astronaut, the first one to walk in space. They rehearsed the liftoff so many times. Usually throwing in a lot of problems so they'd solve them. When the final liftoff came, there was no problem at all, no anxiety or anything. It was just another rehearsal. But with no problems this time. Yeah, so as soon as you rehearse this, So that when you die, it's an effortless movement into emptiness.

[23:45]

Okay, so. So what I'm trying to establish here is this sense of repetition and this sense even of rehearsal. And with Paul, and with no pun intended, in the hearse, in rehearse. Okay. When you get in the habit of holding a teaching within you, you're actually beginning to... exercise a choice, you can make a choice about what is your object of observation.

[25:09]

Now, this is a huge change. Okay. So basic teaching is again to do no harm. Okay, so if you practice the precepts, and we can understand the precepts as a way to clear the air around you, and in my little list of stages, I have one, two, three, four, and I'm only giving you two so far. But I've given you the important ones. But one I have at all stages, any stage. And that's one of those is to practice the precepts. And you can understand the precepts as a way of clearing the air around you.

[26:24]

So again, let me just use lying as an example. One of the precepts is do not lie. But if you have some thought like, well, I don't want people to see that... No, I want people to think I'm intelligent. A common feeling we have. It's a kind of lying. You kind of want to control how people think about you. So it actually creates a kind of separation.

[27:24]

So the precepts are about stopping separation. All of these things, don't steal, don't lie, etc., are really about When you do that, you create separation between yourself and others. So they have many levels, a very practical or moral level. or engaging with your society, in the way we want people to behave. But more subtly in practice, if you don't do the precepts, you couldn't ever jump into a situation with trust.

[28:31]

Aber auf eine subtile Art und Weise, wenn du die Gelöbnis nicht hältst, dann kannst du nicht in eine Situation springen mit Vertrauen. Okay. All right, so what I'm trying to work with here is this sense of choice. Womit ich hier arbeiten möchte, ist dieses Gefühl von Wahl. Yeah, okay. So you begin to have a choice about what is the object of observation. And we now begin to have a choice for what the observation object is now. So let's take do not harm. So you hold the sense of not harming for you. You're holding it in your background mind. And in your foreground mind, you are noticing that sometimes you do harm. You say something mean or you do whatever.

[29:43]

And in that sense you don't have a choice about your object of attention. Because it's coming up out of your habit energy. Your habit energy is to think of yourself as superior to others or inferior to others or something like that. But through practice you're beginning to contradict this habit of seeing yourself as superior or inferior. With, in this example, to do no harm. At some point this background mind With the feeling of doing no harm, shifts to being the foreground one.

[31:00]

Okay, now we have an interesting, I think, psychological question. Are we ignoring now or putting aside our psychological development or psychological, yeah, whatever. Well, I could have some thoughts about that. But mostly I want to concentrate on my experience. Yeah, you know, I've never talked about this before, so I'm kind of like feel into how to say it.

[32:19]

I don't know if I'm even saying anything. But my experience has been that many of the things that would come up that I would say are psychological are killed by situations. Seeing other people in some way as, I don't know what, some comparison. Yeah, let's just use comparison as an example. So when I'm comparing myself to others, a lot of psychological material is is by association brought up.

[33:23]

But if I shift to this background mind and it now is the mind I identify with and in a way it shifts into the foreground There's no territory for comparison. I don't make comparisons. So an awful lot of psychological stuff is just gone. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, and I begin to have a choice about what I bring my attention to. Now I can basically bring attention to any teaching I want indefinitely.

[34:25]

Now, let me say here that I am very critical of the teaching of Zen in a way that you don't mature your psychological skills. Don't mature your psyche. And I used to, in the old days, see an awful lot of people use a lot of zazen to put their problems aside and never deal with them. Not so structurally different. Some people use drugs to put their problems aside. Okay. So I don't... think Zen should be used that way.

[35:42]

It's powerful enough to use it that way to some extent. I myself don't experience this having a choice of what is my mental continuum. I don't see it as a way of avoiding psychological things. You know, we say in the service in the morning at Creston, we offer the merit of this chanting to the Vipassana Buddha.

[36:50]

To all Buddhas and Buddhas' ancestors. To Shunryo Suzuki Senji. And to the future Maitreya Buddha. Okay. Now, and then we say, and we hold in mind all women and men who practice the way. Alle Männer und Frauen, die den Weg praktizieren. Okay. Now this is chanted every morning, various versions of this. Und das wird jeden Morgen gechantet und auf verschiedene Art und Weise. And to offer the merit is also to offer the merit to yourself. Und diese... Or to hold in mind the Vipassana Buddha. Vipassana Buddha, when I hold this in mind, it means all the Buddhas before Buddha.

[38:00]

It means some ancient primordial Buddha. feeling that's part of all of us. Something outside of civilization or even the history of Buddhism. I did some kind of Indian ceremony, American Indian ceremony recently.

[39:04]

And their ceremony seemed to be to try to reach this primordial level. The theories they make about it are a little bit, I think, contemporary and simplistic. But the power of creating this kind of primordial mentality is... It's great. All Buddhas and Buddha ancestors. This is something like here. To... To sit is to be in the Buddha ancestor's house.

[40:25]

To become a true person inside the Buddha ancestor's room. So although this is structured from past to future, The practice is in the present. So we can try to speak about what does Dogen mean by that. room of the Buddha ancestors. So after the morning service or during the morning service, I generate a feeling of being in the room of the Buddha ancestors, being the mind of Buddhas and Buddha ancestors. What does it mean? And the third is, we offer the merit of this teaching to Shunryo Suzuki Zenji.

[41:41]

And this I know as well as I know anything. It's inseparable almost from my experience in my own mind. The next is the future Maitreya Buddha. And that's the feeling of you guys. Because if there's... Buddhism has... If I'm going to practice this, I have to imagine it's possible. If I imagine it's possible, you guys have to be Buddhists. So I have some feeling of A kind of presence right now forming. And then I hold in mind all men and women who are practicing the way.

[42:54]

And I can have a feeling holding that in mind, just like I can have a feeling of holding you, us, in mind as I'm speaking. All right, so now if you choose a particular object of attention, if you choose a particular mood or mode of mind, Let's imagine this is pushing something, some other things you might be concerned with out of the picture. But again, I said our mind is constructing our mind. So you can think of your mind as a soup. And you might as well stir in good ingredients.

[44:14]

Makes a much better soup. Stirring in toads and things like that. So you stir in wonderful ingredients. I stir in a feeling for everyone, women and men who are practicing. And it tends to improve the soup. It tends to make the soup purer or purify the mind. So even if I'm doing something psychologically, I'm at least changing my mind. Even if I'm doing something psychologically, I'm still improving my mind.

[45:19]

Okay. What am I talking about? Okay. While I'm speaking with you, for example. Während ich zum Beispiel Mittag spreche, my mind is resting in a feeling of all of you. Rot mein Geist in einem Gefühl von euch allen. And then I say something. Und dann sage ich etwas. And I have some sort of feeling about a kind of topic or something. But basically I can rest my mind in this situation indefinitely. And no other thoughts come in. I don't think about anything else.

[46:20]

And when I leave here and we go somewhere else, Basically, if I want to, I can rest my mind in the new situation, just like I can put the bell there. Yeah. Mostly my mind is determined by the situation I'm in. And that's a choice. I make the object of observation the hall or whatever's going on in it. Maybe everyone's like this, but I certainly didn't used to be. When you do the service, If I'm leading the service.

[47:50]

I have a stick that I usually carry. And it's a symbol of being a teacher and so forth. The main ones you carry are actually a representation of the backbone. But they're actually often called actually a back scratcher. As you can imagine before air conditioning and an easy access to water, These poor old sweating Zen teachers. I mean, if this was a normal situation, there'd be flies in the room and mosquitoes and I'd stink like an old pig, you know.

[49:01]

And I'd have a fly whisk trying to get the flies off me like a horse. And that's where the fly whisk comes from, as a symbol of teaching. And the other thing, my back is always itching. Okay. So the nyohe, the usual one, it's actually shaped like this. And they say it's... but it also represents the backbone and part of the practice of using it is when you're doing the service you rest it very lightly on your leg barely holding it

[50:02]

And while you're chanting and doing things, it remains perfectly upright. So it represents the mind which is stable in the midst of change. And more specifically, it represents the backbone being stable in the midst of the body changing. And it's interesting, the quality of being able to hold something like that while you are doing other things not paying attention to it, but it doesn't move, has something to do with this stable mind. And it also refers to the body-mind of the backbone. As a kind of antenna.

[51:31]

And I used to watch Suzuki Roshi very carefully. Both how he held his staff but also how In the midst of doing things, it was a kind of stillness in his backbone. But I don't mean rigidity or something. Now, what I'm trying to point out here is how thoroughly in a realized person or a mature practitioner the sense of a kind of mental continuum or imperturbable kind of

[52:35]

quality of mind, is how fully that's carried out in the practice. To the way you wear your robes, hold the staff. Some people wear their robes well, some people don't. Your robes hang on your body. Some people are able to wear them so they're always neat. And some people are always... And the robes tend to move. I mean, they're just barely put together, and they tend to move if your body isn't relaxed. So there are kind of barometer, robometers. Okay, so here's... That was good.

[53:50]

Robes. Robometer. I can't help that. It's the same as you say, the robometer. Yeah. Okay, so what is it when you can basically choose where your mind rests? Choose what is the object of attention. I think this is, mature practice is marked by the ability to choose the object of mind. And you notice the difference in what you choose

[55:18]

And where you choose to rest your mind. Now that's something of the difference between a continuum and continuity. Okay. So now can we explain this or should we explain it? What? You talked about the wisdom phrases or interceding with wisdom views. And I find in my practice that there's an arising of one of these phrases or views. Kind of like a gift. And my paying attention to it allows it to unfold. And... And I'm curious about the intention behind resting the mind on something.

[56:56]

And allowing something like this phrase that comes forward in my life. But when you allow that phrase to come forward, you're choosing... To pay attention to. Yeah. Okay, so that's what I mean. And when you can begin to let a teaching unfold in your life, because most of these teachings... can't be explained, let's put it simply. They can only be practiced.

[57:58]

And they can't be practiced really until you've developed a background mind. Somehow that's the divide after which the teachings unfold in your actual activity. I didn't expect to get to this place. How did we get here? So then you really can practice with teachings because you just rest your mind in particular teachings.

[59:17]

Okay. So I don't know, there's a lot of unanswered questions here. But let me go on with a little more experiential questions. But let me continue with a little more experience. If you say somebody's speaking to you, and while they're speaking to you, you're thinking about what you're going to say. That's a real, I think, a divided mind. You're only partially hearing what the person's saying. And you have the arrogance predicting where they're going.

[60:18]

You don't really have to listen anyway. And then you're trying to say something that wipes them out. It usually looks reasonably intelligent. Or how do you get out of the conversation? Anyway, anything in that territory, I find, is really a divided mind. I don't find this experience of a background mind divided at all. Because... It's a little bit like the image or analogy of water and waves.

[61:27]

Waves are certainly different than still water. But from the water's point of view, it's the same. Yeah, so if your sense of identifying with water it's not with the waves, but with the water, there's no feeling of difference between the waves and the stiller water. It feels something like that. So, does anybody want to say something about this? Again, I've never talked about this exactly like this or used myself, my own experience as an example. Nor have I thought about dealing with the psychological issues.

[62:28]

questions that might come up in relationship. But you know, it says in the Heart Sutra that when there are no fears, there are no hindrances. The mind has no hindrances. And at some point in practice, in this shift from continuity to continuum, a different dynamic starts, which It's almost like the liquid of the mind is a different liquid. You haven't solved all your psychological problems. But the water that contained those psychological problems has been drained off.

[63:40]

replaced by another kind of water. In which there aren't these hindrances or obstructions. So that's, if I'm, you know, if this is the case, it seems to me a fairly dramatic thing to say, that practice changes the mind sufficiently that the mind that had obstructions is not there anymore. Then I would say that practice changes the mind sufficiently enough So you're changing the way the mind is constructed. Now, are you still the same person? Do you still have the soul you were born with?

[65:11]

Does memory function the same way? I think it doesn't, actually. Actually, I'm a little embarrassed that we got a little far out here. This is the kind of thing I normally would only talk to with people I'm working on transmission with. Because there's no point in bringing this up in a context unless everyone's committed to doing this. But here I am in the mother's lap of my friends. And I jumped in without hesitation.

[66:11]

And now making a fool of myself. Okay. But I'm struck myself by the remark of, when I say it, when I find myself saying it, that you can choose where your mind is going to rest. I think that's quite unusual. I've never said it quite like that. I've talked about it before, but never quite this way. If this is the case, It seems to me it's the case. It's my experience. We're talking about a very transformative dimension in practice.

[67:16]

Which is related to this shift from continuity to continuum. and is related to the to the transformative experience of emptiness. Which I would say is different from the experience of enlightenment. So we're dealing again with a more complex picture of Buddhism than just you're enlightened or not. So maybe we can sit a little bit and then we can have dinner. It feels a little bit disbalanced. I don't know whether just technically in German or in English or... Well, I think in German, maybe you could every now and then translate for me.

[68:40]

But if you don't translate, I could just leave. Yeah, maybe you would like to translate. But, oh, I should have left you sitting up there. You could translate for me. Would you? Would you? Oh, here goes the pillows back now. Why shouldn't Michael sit beside you and translate for the two of you? Oh, not for everyone. This is OK, yeah. Well, but for the two of us, OK. Not details, but you know, I understand. Yeah. Also jetzt beim Sasin ist mir irgendwie aufgefallen, dass wenn man die Fragestellung, die Roshi mir gestellt hat, nämlich ich soll irgendwie erzählen, wie das war und wo ich die Unterschiede sehe zwischen Sasin-Praxis und

[70:00]

and this psychotherapy that I finished this week, that I might have to tell you something about how I came to practice and why I started psychotherapy. And maybe I need to write something now so that I don't forget certain things. I need something to try to give so that I don't forget something. This is the technique I should use. Mind mapping, you know that? No. It's good that you don't know that. Okay, but I'll tell you first of all how I got into psychotherapy. So I somehow noticed that I had problems with my stomach about seven years ago or so.

[71:12]

I always had a soul-brenner and I didn't have any meaning to it. And that somehow started at the point when I started to work, so I was really done with my studies and also finished my dissertation and just started to work in this stressful job of a non-university researcher. And then Christine and I went to Creston and it was somehow gone. And then Julius was born and we went to Johanneshof. And when we were back in Vienna, I thought, somehow I should look at what that is. Why am I always burning red? And I went to the doctor, to my family doctor, and I just described it to him, and he said, well, I'll give you this medication, proton pump blockers, which reduce the production of gastric acid, and that should actually be over.

[72:48]

Take it once every 14 days. And if that doesn't help, then we have to see what's going on in the stomach. And okay, we did that. It came back after 14 days. And I did a stomach x-ray and there were two very small erosions found. And my doctor said, well, there are two options now. Either you continue with this medication or you do psychotherapy or autogenous training. And I thought to myself, well, then I'll do psychotherapy. And I asked Christine once earlier, because I needed someone because of professional problems that I had in a team, that I would like supervision for myself. So I said I would like to do psychotherapy to deal with this psychosomatic problem.

[73:55]

And she does some kind of gestalt therapy. And I have to admit, I still don't know what gestalt is, because what we did two years ago was actually, basically it was just talking. So it was mainly conversational therapy, as always. I'm just the one who does the therapy and I don't have to worry about the theories. Okay, was ist grundsätzlich dabei herausgekommen? Also was für mich irgendwie, für mich war dieser ganze Therapieprozess war nicht so im Sinne von, es hat irgendwie nie, es hat nie so eine Sitzung gegeben, wo ich sage, oh Gott, oh Gott, das habe ich noch nie gesehen und das ist ja irrsinnig schrecklich und das hätte ich mir nie gedacht von mir, dass das gibt oder dass das so war, sofort.

[75:49]

Für mich war das eher so, For me, all of this was somehow well-known. It didn't give the impression that it was completely surprising. For me, the whole material would have already been there. Why did I have this pain? Why did I have this pain? Now I have to go into the details.

[76:53]

Embarrassing family history details. For me, the reason was, I'm the fourth of five children, and this not being noticed by the parents, not by the parents, but by the mother, and this constant attempt to be noticed by the mother, but actually you can do something, you just won't be noticed. Okay, then it's an attempt to turn away and find your own way, but still in the background always this effort. Do you see me? Do you see me? Do you see what I'm doing? And so on. So that's how I would see this basic conflict. And So my experience of this therapy process, and I don't want to make a theory out of it,

[77:56]

My experience was that, as I said, the material was all there, but it was not put together. What was extremely important for me was this speaking, and to go into this situation through this speaking. As if this speaking makes the situation open again, makes it experienceable again. To get this knowledge, you have to talk about it, what's important to you. And I would now like to take a step back and talk about how I came to practice and where is the difference?

[79:30]

Also ich bin ihnen ziemlich, meine Eltern oder mein Elternhaus ist ziemlich katholisch gewesen und ich habe so eine katholische Laufbahn eigentlich so hinter mir, so Ministrant und so weiter und so fort und dann mit so 16, 17 Jahren so einen Bruch eigentlich, so einen atheistischen, eher atheistischen als agnostischen Bruch. And what was important to me was to get a theory of the world, to find a theory of the world for myself. And for me it was very important to find a sociological theory of the world. But on the other hand, there was a need for mysticism or ... or some other experience. And at the beginning of my studies, Christine and I came into contact with Sufis in the West.

[80:45]

And with these meditations, you do completely different meditations than with Zen. You do it over sound, over light, and then there is this Sikha, this meditation. And Christine and I have been together for about five or six years with the Sufis. And for me, what attracted me, or what was important for me, was simply the experience, the experience in meditation of different states, of light states, of just these meditation experiences. And at the same time there is also this running, this attempt to understand the world rationally, to find a theory with which I can understand the world and explain it as well as possible.

[82:00]

And then there are two things, then it somehow came together. For me, I was very much concerned with system theory, with Vatorana, Varela, with sociological system theory, with Luhmann, and now back to meditation. The problem for me with the meditation, with this Sufi meditation, is that it was always guided meditation and that you always have to do something about it. So that means you have to imagine something. And I somehow had the feeling, I actually want to have my peace in meditation. So I don't want to be disturbed by anyone. And then we got to know Roshi in 1988 in Poland. And it was such an experience for me. I didn't deal with Buddhism at all before and thought to myself, Zen Buddhism is something for pretty dry guys and pretty boring.

[83:09]

And I was just attracted to the person of Roshi. And what was very appealing to me was that it integrated this vision. On the one hand, the meditation experience, and on the other hand, a worldview that was compatible with system theory. And I just tell it so broadly because I just want to highlight what attracted me to the practice. And what attracted me to the practice was, on the one hand, the teacher, then this teaching, this teaching that is simply compatible with a demanding intellectual theory of the world.

[84:16]

And the meditation experience. Those were the three things that attracted me. And I say that because it is the root of why I was not at all interested in my personality, my personal problems, the maturity of my personality. Those were not topics for me. And although there are Buddhist meditations that are about it, they were always totally boring for me. Good. So what is good in practice which you need for psychotherapy? At the beginning, before in the first sessions, So there I felt my body like a cage.

[85:46]

This hour-long sitting in a machine, and I had terrible back pain. And that's like when, and a lot of people know that anyway, that's like when someone with an iron crane drives into your back and pulls you up like that. And that was actually, that was with a lot of, with a lot of, actually that was a long time ago. I sat very cramped, I don't know, you probably still don't see it very well, but I really sat there like this, because the pain was so strong. I see. And on one of the slides I had the feeling that the back would break open, like a hot magma.

[86:47]

It wasn't unbearable, but somehow I had the feeling that there was more room, there was more space. And I think that in practice, if you want to see this as utilitarian for psychotherapy, What can be the use of psychotherapy? Or create a space in which you can move them, so that it is not so narrow and that you can see emotions in a different way. Or that I can see it. And that's something where I say, okay, where my inner space expands very strongly.

[87:49]

Wo aber irgendwie das Problem reinkommt, ist, dass diese Praxis ja nicht nur eine Praxis ist, die man allein macht, sondern dass es eine soziale Praxis, eine Praxis in der Gruppe ist, oder dass man ja überhaupt mit anderen Menschen zu tun hat. Und mein Gefühl war, dass ich aber diese Problematik, die für mich in Kontakt mit anderen steht, which of course is connected with my own personality or with my personal story, that I wasn't able to process it or even see it. So I'm trying to make this a little clearer now. So my personal hammer is that I always try to do everything as perfectly as possible, as well as I can. I'm sorry.

[89:05]

So there are different ways where you can somehow try to be perfect, and one way is that I know the perfect way, all the others are somehow stupid, so I have to get the others to do what I want. So you said that very fast, I guess. Yes. And you also, I mean, and even if the others are somehow, yeah, I just want to, even if the others are somehow disappointed in the process, in the end they will see the result and they will be happy. Yes. Also, du kannst zum Beispiel versuchen, ein sehr guter Toren zu sein. Oder du kannst dir denken, wieso sind die so dumm und können die Glocke nicht richtig schlagen, das muss man doch einfach nur so machen. Und dann gibt es die Möglichkeit, man wird zum Beispiel kochen, und dann ist man für das Essen verantwortlich.

[90:31]

Und dann kann man versuchen, das möglichst gut zu machen. Und dann kann man irgendwie die Leute so herumschicken, und kann ihnen sagen, was sie zu tun haben, und wie das möglichst richtig ist. So there are different examples of this. And for me, retrospectively, the dangerous thing is that she somehow connected this with my neurotic structure very well. That the self-practice, although on the level of my experience, I don't know. to break into this structure.

[91:36]

Or maybe to break into this structure, but also this structure that separates me from the others, because I don't perceive what the others want. Also wie kann man dann also das, und da sehe ich das irgendwie komplementär für mich, Praxis auf der einen Seite und Psychotherapie auf der anderen Seite. Ich kann das Material, das ich im Zen irgendwie kennengelernt habe, kann ich hineinbringen in die Psychotherapie und kann sie dort präsentieren.

[92:46]

But if there are any questions? I don't want to ask a question now, but what really touched me was when you said that you felt so aware in psychotherapy. Or rather, this is my own perception, you have been lying down until you felt aware. And what my hypothesis is, is that you feel aware of a person who is completely focused on you, almost in the psychotherapy. Yes. Yes. that although you have a lot of knowledge in the earthly practice, you are not able to reason with it.

[94:21]

And the rain is the instrument of relationship. And when you feel really understood in the process of the rain and feel how someone is resonating, I think that really has a very nice effect. So if I would have this experience before I could restart again.

[94:46]

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