joining us this morning. Thank you for being with us this morning. And Andreas has, I think, brought quite a lot of bottles of sugar water and things like that. Not sugar water. And Andreas, I think, brought quite a lot of bottles of sugar water. He was, yes, he was advertising, protesting. I think we should set a daily routine somehow. Yeah. Usually, I mean, because we're just kind of like, you know, getting acquainted with some things. Usually I've done pre-days from like 10 to 12 and 2 to 4. And then we start the evening in the evening for the pool seminar at what time?

[01:03]

Seven o'clock. Seven o'clock, okay. Yeah, how are people going to have lunch? Are there restaurants near here? Two restaurants around 700 meters and the next one is 900 meters? Exactly 900 meters. Would you take over organizing my life? You want to say that in Deutsch or does everybody know it already? Ich habe es schon. I did already. Okay. Oh, you did already. I'm sitting here in infant amnesia. Ich sitze hier in der kindlichen Amnesie.

[02:06]

So it probably takes, what, an hour and a half to have lunch or two or? So if we stop at 12.30, we'd come back at 2.30 to maybe 4.30. Something like that. Okay. Yeah, so, you know, what did we talk about this morning? You know, I know I have to meet with you, so I have sort of a vague idea. Maybe I should talk about this. But when I get here, my infant amnesia takes over. And I don't know what I'm going to say.

[03:14]

Sometimes I feel, oh my gosh, it could totally bore you because I haven't thought about what's interesting. Oh, I don't feel, oh God. Laughter Yeah, I might say, oh, God. But it seems to me what we ended up talking about was that mind is a structure. That mind is structure. And that the dominant structure of mind is consciousness. Consciousness.

[04:27]

And consciousness is primarily shaped by language. But also lots of cultural assumptions that are behind language. Okay, now if we know that mind has a structure, When you teach a kid to count, one, two, three, four, five, or you teach them the alphabet, you're basically teaching them to structure consciousness. This can be here and that's there and so forth. Yes. So if we know that mind can have structure, then we can know that it can have various structures.

[05:33]

And then we can imagine it might also be possible for it to be free of structure. Or relatively free of structure. And that freedom from structure is called technically original mind. And the freedom of structure is technically called the original mind. We call it the mind before your parents were born. And that just means that it's possible to have mind without structure.

[06:42]

How do you get there? Where is the structure that leads you to be free of structure? Or how do you take structure away, dissolve structure? What would happen if you did that? Well, when you get close to that, it makes you nervous. We kind of get used to structure. And we feel chaotic or crazy. We don't have structure. Now all of these questions I'm bringing up are implied questions. Part of what practice is about.

[07:47]

This yogic craft called Buddhism Which has had, you know, 2600 years about of development. There have been several major phases. Zen is one of the later phases. Yeah, let's say around 1000 years old. And I think we're entering another phase right now. Okay. Okay, so let's set that again. Mind has structure. And that the dominant structure of mind is consciousness.

[09:05]

And that dominant structure is primarily created through language. And let's imagine that what I'm observing in Sophia, is the shift from this shift, what I call, from naming to words, is a very fundamental shift. Something we call spiritual is on one side of it, and something we call, you know, usual mind is on the other side of it. Now let me go back to a question I implied earlier, before the break. Also lass mich zurückkehren zu einer Frage, die ich angedeutet habe vor der Pause.

[10:21]

Also wenn unser Körper und unser Geist zusammengewoben werden und sogar erzeugt werden durch Sprache, How can we be free of speech? Because my opinion is it's not really about speech. It's about intersubjectivity. It's about the desire to relate or communicate. And everything is changing. And one of the things that means is that everything is interdependent. Our Western habit of thinking in entities, which in a real way has only changed since Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring,

[11:31]

Rachel Carson. Silent Spring. Now, most of you probably don't know about that book. But it was written in the 60s. And she noticed that the birds, there were no birds anymore almost. And they were being killed by DDT. So her book, Kind of Spring. And that one book by that one woman started what we call ecology. As a publicly understood phenomenon. So that virtually all governments have to at least pay lip service to it. Now we take environmentalism and ecology for granted now.

[12:47]

Meaning that everything's interdependent. When I was young, that wasn't taken for granted. There was no idea he could dump all kinds of crap, chemicals in lakes and rivers. No one cared. It was all going to be taken care of by God or nature or something. So the civilizational and cultural recognition of interdependence is about half my lifetime. And it took the And it took the birds falling silent for us to notice it.

[14:27]

Maybe if more European forests are knocked down and more tornadoes destroy parts of America, maybe we'll recognize global warming. I'm not trying to give you a political talk here, an environmental talk. trying to illustrate the dramatic shift from thinking in entities and the extraordinary damage that's done to our entire planet. Sondern ich versuche zu illustrieren diese zerstörerische Kraft des Denkens, wenn man in getrennten Einheiten denkt. These were all nice, smart people. They took for granted the world as their culture presented it. Already, though, you and I, we all take for granted the interdependence.

[15:32]

Or something maybe we could say inter-independence. I think that the depth of this ecology of this in our own life is not understood well yet. Okay, so let's go back. I said intersubjective.

[16:32]

I see that my daughter wants to relate things. And it's clear she not only sees activities, she sees inferential patterns. Ja, und es ist klar, dass sie nicht nur Handlungen sieht, sondern auch Muster, zusammenhängende Muster. She sees a particular tree, but she sees that other trees are similar. Also sie sieht, sagen wir mal zum Beispiel, einen bestimmten Baum, aber sie sieht, dass andere Bäume ähnlich sind. That's not knowledge, it's a kind of observation. Das ist kein Wissen, das ist eine Beobachtung. So she's connecting those patterns all the time. And that ability we have to connect patterns I think is prior to and more fundamental than language.

[17:38]

We can have Because of this capacity, we can create languages. Okay. A deaf child of deaf parents learns to sign in the same phases as speaking children learn to speak. In other words, since it's a different motor skill, you'd think they'd learn it at a different rate. But no, it's related to the development, to brain-body development.

[18:42]

Not motor skill development. So I would say that more fundamental than language is connectedness, a desire for connectedness. And I would say that more fundamental than language is the desire for connection, to be connected. Now, language both separates and connects. Now, I'm sorry, I'm sounding rather philosophical. But this is really just ordinary thinking about our lives. Language separates and connects. You're over there, I like you.

[19:43]

That's a statement of separation and connection. Die Sprache, die verbindet und die trennt. Also, du bist dort und ich mag dich. Da ist sowohl das trennende wie das verbindende Element drin. If we are not so involved in the definitions of language, wenn wir nicht so uns beschäftigen mit der Definition von Sprache, we enter then into a realm of connectedness that's not so shaped by language. That's the main point of this meditation posture and the practice of mindfulness. Okay. All right. Now, if we know that, again, the mind has structure... Also, wenn wir uns erinnern, der Mind hat Struktur, und die dominante Struktur ist Bewusstsein, und dieses Bewusstsein wird geformt durch Worte und Denken, wie verändern wir dann die Struktur des Bewusstseins?

[20:57]

Well, let's take this distinction I see Sophia making. Between names and words. Let's go back. Let's pull ourselves away from using words so much. Let's just try practicing for a while just naming. So, you know, it's just 10 minutes a day. While you're taking a walk, say. Sort of on the way somewhere. Just name things. So you tree, you name tree.

[22:17]

Sidewalk. Grass. Strangely, naming stops wording. Interessanterweise beendet das Namen geben Worte. If you just name and don't, just name without thinking about the names. Also wenn du einfach nur benennst, ohne über die Worte nachzudenken. If you think about them, they become words. Also wenn du über sie denkst, dann werden sie Worte. You just name them, just name. You'll probably find in ten minutes you're in a different state of mind. So, I happen to have found out that there's two Andreases here.

[23:19]

There might be three. I know they're not the same. They look quite different, in fact. So I know that these two Andreases are not limited to being Andreas. You're both more than and other than Andreas. So you're not only Andreas. So when we use names, we're really aware it's only a name. Naming actually widens our experience. And let's try to not name permanence. Let's try to name impermanence.

[24:27]

Yeah, so let's take my simple example. Let's call a tree, in English at least, treeing. Yeah, something good could work. I don't know how gerunds work in German, so I can't... But I made a vow, a strange vow to myself. Yeah, some 20 or 30 years ago. Never to say anything existed. Or some, you know, does the world exist?

[25:36]

Well, yeah, sort of the world exists. Yeah, is the world ancient? Well, yes, I guess it's ancient. It sounds weird, but actually that's rooted in the practice of emptiness. To get used to the habit of seeing things that are actually just appearing. To me, they appear. What I know is they appear. But simply just try to name the impermanent aspect of things rather than the permanent aspect of things. Und mehr diesen vergänglichen Aspekt zu benennen als den unvergänglichen.

[26:38]

With such a simple exercise, you're undoing the habits of language. Also mit so einer ganz einfachen Übung verändert ihr die Gewohnheiten der Sprache. Yeah, it'll change the way you walk. Also das wird die Art, wie du gehst, verändern. Because is the floor going to be there? You're not so sure. So you step forward with a kind of sensitivity and the floor nicely comes up to meet your foot. And if you get in the habit of walking that way, People will think you're a trained martial artist. Yeah, you won't even have to be training. You're just like, whoa, look at that guy. All right. Now let's... sort of see if we can move a step back from naming.

[27:58]

So I would say, see if you can just notice without thinking. Now what I'm trying to do here is to give you get us to look at our attitudes, our habits, and loosen up our habits of mind, our habits of seeing. The title of the seminar is The Path of Wisdom, I think. Is that right? I came to the right seminar, didn't I? The Path of Wisdom. So some kind of loosened up habits of mind might be the path of wisdom.

[29:10]

So notice without thinking. Yeah, try it when you enter a room. When you come in the Entrance. Haven't you forgotten by habit the word entrance is trance? We just say entrance. But it has a more ancient sense of you're entering a trance. Yeah, so you can break that trance at the threshold. Yeah, and stop for a minute and just feel the room and don't think the room. Yeah. If you do, again, you'll find yourself in a different mode of mind.

[30:40]

You can try it other times, but coming through a door is... Leaving through a door is quite useful. To use the physical world to remind you. It doesn't have to be long, just a little pause. Now, somebody mentioned to me at the break this moment of nirvana of a sneeze is very brief. But it's brief in relationship to consciousness. Yeah, it's longer than the moment we die.

[32:02]

Something like that. How can we be in this momentariness of the world? Consciousness is much too slow. That's why magicians are so successful because they just move outside your consciousness. But you can begin to have a mind which rests in minute, in momentariness. Yeah, that would also be recognizing that everything changes. Yeah, now, probably, what can we do to come closer to this? I said this practice of naming instead of wording.

[33:35]

And naming impermanence, trying to name activity or impermanence. And then try to maybe just feel without thinking. Notice, but don't think about what you notice. Yoga practices to kind of like lessen the identification with consciousness. Now how do we bring the body more deeply into this? How do we bring fundamental mind more deeply into this? Well, tune in next week.

[34:37]

Or tune in after lunch. Because I think we have to stop now. In a minute. But does someone have some question? I talked an awful lot. I'm sorry. You said that Zen is a new movement. Well, it's ancient, but new in the West, yes. But you also said that now a new shift is happening. Yes. A new phase is entering. It's the same thing, yes. Yes. And what is happening?

[35:52]

How do you recognize that there is a shift happening? Which phenomena are indicative of it? Why do you want to know? because I observe something similar. What do you observe? For example, the fact that we are here. I agree. Well, if you know something about traditional Zen practice, you would know that much of what I'm saying is not that it's not traditional, but it's framed rather differently.

[37:00]

Because I found that in the more traditional ways of teaching, not many people get what's going on. So every minute I'm in the process of trying to discover this change, what this change is. That's why when I start, I really don't want to come in with too many ideas about what to talk about. I want to respond to what I feel here. Yeah, because for me it's, you know, I've been practicing with people in Germany for a long time.

[38:13]

Yeah, and I've gotten used to how to speak English so that it can be translated somewhat easily. So I have some predictable elements here. But for the most part, I try to hold back from what might be predictable. And see if I can feel in my stomach, my body, the absolute uniqueness of this particular, us particular people. And I have to say some things I've said before. I'm trying to feel my way toward what I've never said before or thought before.

[39:30]

Because that would be, for me, the truest recognition that we're in some kind of different world. Because we're showing each other what that difference is. That's much more convincing than my trying to show you. And I'm more convinced. Yes, in the background. I don't know. I haven't died yet. Yeah, it's a normal question. I know people are interested. But I guess I'm peculiar. I have really no interest. Vielleicht ungewöhnlich, ich habe kein Interesse.

[40:47]

Also ich habe noch kein Interesse, was ich zum Mittagessen werde. Aber das werde ich herausfinden. Und falls irgendwas Interessantes passiert, während ich sterbe, dann sage ich es dir dann. I'm actually part of a group meeting once a year for a week to study the survival of bodily death. Also, um, ja, die, das Überleben des körperlichen Todes zu studieren. And the main people doing any real research about that in the Western world, in the English-speaking Western world, some French and others. Und die einzigen, die in der westlichen Welt ja Forschung betreiben. There's not very many people seriously researching it. meet in this group.

[41:50]

And there's really significant evidence for some kind of non-local out-of-body experience. Yeah, but there's no significant evidence for survival after bodily death. There's theories, but the theories vary interestingly from culture to culture. And the theories fit the basic cultural suppositions of culture.

[42:51]

So I have enough interest to spend a week, a year on it, But basically, I don't care. I'm very happy to die right now if I die. Who cares? I mean, I'm not trying to brag. I'm just enjoying myself. Why should I... It's been good enough so far. And as my father-in-law said... Und wie mein Schwiegervater sagte? Just before he died. Kurz bevor er starb? He said it was okay before I died. I guess it'll be okay after I die. Er sagte, es war okay bevor ich sterbe. Before I was born.

[43:52]

It's okay before I was born. Aha, es war okay bevor ich geboren wurde. Und ich nehme an, es wird auch okay sein, nachdem ich sterbe. I'm not a curious person, actually. So you should ask a curious person. I'm sorry. Okay. Let's sit for a minute and then have lunch.

[44:07]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_75.8