Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for inviting me. It's very nice to have this deep friendship towards you. I'm glad that I got to know someone who is a Zen Master, but he can also be touched and he's a living person. And at the same time you are the representative of a tradition that is more than two thousand years old. We are happy that you are here. Whatever you say we are looking forward to listen to you. Have a nice day.

[01:05]

Okay. I'm afraid I'm more of a Zen amateur than a Zen master. But I have been doing this a pretty long time. Mm-hmm. But I'm always, last year and this year, reading to some extent material from the focusing process and teaching. I'm surprised how similar in essential ways, focusing as a psychological and psychotherapeutic practice, is to Zen practice.

[02:13]

Yeah. But again, as last year, I don't think I should just speak about the similarities. In any case, that's difficult because similarities are deceptively dissimilar often. But I should just give you a feeling for what then practice and teachings are about. In ways that might be useful to you.

[03:15]

Now I'm assuming that not all of you are experienced Zen meditators. Sometimes I don't think I am, so either. Particularly as I get older and I have to start doing yoga in the morning to stay limber and things like that. I thought it was going to get easier as I get older. Well, it gets easier as you do it longer, but then you're aging at the same time. Yeah. I love this day. It's windy and rainy.

[04:34]

If it gets too windy back there or cold or you can't hear, you can close it again. So what I'll try to do is, well, talk to you a bit about Zen practice. And I'll... give you some idea of what Zen meditation is about. And I'll try to give you some understanding why it's considered so useful in Buddhist practice. But since I know for a fact all of you are not going to become yogic adepts, I should also give you some ways in which you can make use of these things without learning to practice meditation for a long time.

[06:01]

Okay. And I'd especially like to have some discussion with you. And that's important to me, to get a sense of how we can develop this topic. And also, after the break, since... since I point out almost always that space not only separates, but space connects. And to catch the reality and feeling of that is essential for But even though space does connect, it connects.

[07:12]

The connection is easier when you're closer. So after the break, maybe you can move a little closer. Yeah. Now, I believe our assigned topic is the structure of inner awareness. Is that right? Or maybe the structures of inner awareness. This is certainly right up the alley of Zen.

[08:16]

Do you have an expression, that's up my alley? That means it's what interests me. So I'd maybe change the topic a little, probe this topic a little. Maybe we could call it... You promised me last year. Can you read the green on this? Okay. Okay.

[10:08]

Can you read this, please? The transforming power of understanding, cultivating, developing, and transforming the structures of inner or interior awareness. And since this is a kind of two-part event, I guess, the morning and the afternoon, this morning maybe I should speak about the cultivating understanding, cultivating, developing the structure of inner awareness. And maybe that might be useful for the various afternoon... sessions, workshops, and then I would leave transforming probably to the workshop in the afternoon.

[11:27]

But this is quite a lot to do today. But we might as well try more than we can do. Because it leaves you some homework after the assignment. Now I make a distinction between inner and interior. It's difficult to translate when we have that one word. Well, let's use interior. I noticed on the board you had up there, you had about one third English words. Yeah.

[12:35]

And I can also try to say why I make such a distinction. And I also make a distinction between awareness and consciousness. And so, anyway, I'm happy to say something about that if you ask me, or if I happen to say something about it. Now, if that's a... Okay, let me put something else on the board. Yeah. Deep Nagar. who lived 480 to 540 CE Common Era, quite a while ago, but not really very long ago, said that perception

[13:41]

is knowing. And knowing we could also say is cognition or even ignition. Perception is knowing without conception. Without conceptualization. Ignition is my joke. Ignition is, you know, you start a car ignition, right? And sometimes, from a dharmic point of view, perception is called lighting up. When you begin to have a dharmic sense of each moment and you can be present to that moment with little from the past,

[15:24]

interfering, and little from the future interfering, then perception lights you up. You feel lit up by it. So that's where my little joke came, cognition and ignition. I say sometimes, let's imagine His Holiness the Dalai Lama asleep in a hotel room somewhere in one of his travels. And at four in the morning, as is common in some cities, a bunch of young nuts are racing motorcycles up the empty streets.

[16:38]

And he turns over in his jet-lagged sleep and lights up and says, ah, sentient beings. It's probably like this. Okay, so we take a statement like Dignaga's. No, I think this is from what Klaus and Johannes told me about yesterday is right also up the alley of focusing. But still, I think it's a completely remarkable statement. And I think, first of all, we almost shouldn't believe it. Und ich denke, zuerst sollten wir es erst einmal nicht glauben.

[17:58]

Zumindest solltet ihr erst einmal beginnen, euren eigenen Wahrnehmungsprozess zu analysieren. Weiß ich wirklich etwas ohne Wahrnehmung? Do I really know anything without conceptions? Without ideas? Conceptions and ideas is the same word. And if, given Dignaga's credentials and the long history of this statement being practiced, we do give it the benefit of the doubt,

[19:05]

We do give it the benefit of the doubt. We do assume it might be true. Then we have to think about how can we How could this be true for us? So I've been trying, in fact, recently, by chance, trying to find ways to answer these questions. As some of you here know, because I've seen you recently here and there, Now, to answer questions like this or to see the importance of a question like this, it's assumed in Buddhism that you need to learn to practice meditation.

[20:35]

Now, I don't think you need to to work with the fruits of these teachings and understandings. I don't think you need to practice meditation, but to really get underneath where this comes from, probably meditation is important. I believe, as you well understand, the observing consciousness is very powerful and useful but also interferes.

[21:36]

There's built-in maps to the observing consciousness. In fact, right now what I'm looking at is not really space in some kind of sense that physicists mean. I'm looking at what I would call memory space. In other words, everything I see is based on memory. Yeah. I mean, I see you as human beings and not Martians. because I have some memory of human beings. And I see you in clothes and colors through memory.

[22:39]

In other words, my senses are perceiving, but they're being informed by memory. Now memory space is primarily a mental space. Now, the more you can get into a physical space, you are somewhat free of memory space. Again, I can try to say something about what I mean by that in our discussions or whatever.

[23:44]

Now here, I'm not speaking about the teaching as philosophy. Nor am I speaking about it as a way to encourage you to practice or inspire you to realize enlightenment or something. I'm trying to speak about this as a craft. So everything I'm saying as handwerk or geistwerk can be, I hope, can be something that you can feel how to do or enter into. So when I say memory space or physical or somatic space,

[24:51]

I'm trying to speak about something we can discover in our practice or in our way of noticing things. Okay. Now, Zen particularly is concerned with the embedded maps in our thinking. Now some Buddhist schools answer this problem. by trying to give you better maps, to show you really how consciousness can be transformed into enlightenment, and to present pedagogical techniques which precipitate this experience.

[26:09]

Yeah, and this isn't so different from Zen. But Zen really doesn't want to give you better maps. Because there's still maps. It would like to give you no maps. But that's what makes Zen practice so hard. How do I practice Zen? Do nothing. Yeah, thanks a lot. Yeah, vielen Dank. Um... So there's some kind of teaching to nudge you into how to productively do nothing. So we call it things, I call it things like uncorrected mind.

[27:17]

Okay, which means you notice the habit of correcting. And whenever you correct, you withdraw your energy from the correction. So that's actually a practice. And it requires the habit to correct to discover non-correction. It requires the habit of correcting to discover non-correction. So if somebody says, oh, it's much better not to correct, That's not quite right.

[28:21]

Or it's better to have an uncorrected mind. That does, I mean, no, because we need the habit of correction to discover non-correction. It's like we need form to discover emptiness. I mean, emptiness isn't some generalization, some theological idea. Form is the form withdrawn from each moment of form. Unemptiness is the form withdrawn from each moment of form. Okay, so now here again I'm speaking about this as a practice and not as a philosophy. Philosophy might just talk about emptiness, but I'm talking about each moment

[29:27]

like with, say, non-correction, the practice of uncorrected mind absolutely depends on our habit of correcting our mind. And in fact, the more you have a habit of correcting your mind, the maybe luckier you are. Because you can actually have something to work with. I don't correct my mind. I don't give a shit anyway. This doesn't work. There has to be some effort in this of seeing how we function. Okay. So since we're going to sit some, and I always hate to coerce people into sitting, and when your legs start to hurt, mine start to hurt.

[30:50]

So then I want to ring the bell. Yeah. But I was asked by your leaders to perhaps have more sitting than we did last year. Okay, so I should say something to you about sitting. Then probably, I don't know, Yeah. The main posture in sitting is your backbone. And whether you're sitting on the floor or in a chair, during the period of sitting, the effort is to sit without leaning back. And I still have the habit of many years of when I sit in a chair not leaning back.

[32:02]

Unless I'm really tired. Or unless it just feels odd in social company. Well, everybody else is relaxed. I'm sitting like this. So then I... But I always feel better. I mean, when you say to kids in the classroom, pay attention, there's a difference. Pay attention has something to do with how you're sitting. And I find attention very invigorating. So the first posture of meditation is your back. And there is a lifting feeling through your back. And that lifting feeling goes up through the backbone, through the back of the head.

[33:14]

Basically you want to arrange all the rest of your body to help that. So if you're sitting on a chair, you want to put your legs in some way that best make it easy for your back to be straight. And then usually you want your arms beside your body. Now there are traditions which sit with your arms out here.

[34:16]

But Zen would say, if you do want to sit that way, which creates a kind of openness here, Then sit with your hands far enough back that your arms can be parallel to your body. And then we Usually put our hands together. I mean, at least in Zen, we usually put our hands together. You put the tips of your fingers more or less in the middle of the palm of your hand. And you put the tips of your thumbs together. And you create a kind of oval. And then, if you're Japanese, you may keep your hands up here.

[35:28]

Yeah, because they have short arms usually. No, I see Westerners all the time sitting like this, and I know their teacher was Japanese. If your arms are longer, you're just sitting down. But this is not a bad part, you know. It's like Tsukiyoshi taught me once, put your thumbs together. No, your thumb should not be touching. They should be as if there was a piece of paper distanced between them. So it took about a year and I learned how to do it. And I had little sparks jumping between them and stuff like that.

[36:42]

I mean, something like that. Then I found out what he actually said was, press them together with enough pressure to support a piece of paper. Yeah. But it was useful to learn, you know, to do that. It's a skill, you know, it's a special skill I have. And your tongue is usually at the roof of your mouth. which at certain times in meditation tends to stop your mouth from filling with saliva.

[37:45]

And then you want a feeling of relaxation coming down through you. And we could say that perhaps the single most important thing is relaxation. And if you sit meditation, you'll notice you're really not relaxed inside. It's quite hard to feel relaxed. So this in a way is the first practice. Why? What's interfering with being relaxed? Here we're sitting here, everything is fine, you know. Everything is taking care of itself. Among the alternatives, happiness is probably the best one. Why not choose it? Why can't you choose it?

[38:59]

Yeah. Now, some people immediately object. What are all these rituals and why do I have to put my thumb this way and blah, blah, blah? And my answer would be something like, well, why do you put a sentence at the, a period at the end of a sentence? Or why does an acupuncturist put the needle here rather than somewhere else. So, I mean, we can be very refined in mental space. And I can try to speak here in an English that's precise enough. In this case, an English which is conceptually precise. precise enough that Gerald can translate the conceptions rather than the words.

[40:24]

So that's a kind of mental precision. But because we mostly live in mental space, we take for granted mental precision. And we don't take for granted. In fact, we're a little annoyed by physical precision. But your body is also a kind of grammar or sentence or something. Just as the acupuncture needle makes a difference, just how your thumbs are together, where your tongue is, has a tremendous amount to do with how your energy works later on in meditation.

[41:30]

So we don't try to explain everything so much, but we do show you what the form is that will be most fruitful over time. And we won't explain much to you, but we will show you the form that is most successful over a longer period of time and bears the most fruits. And then, so there's the lifting through the backbone. There's the putting of the body together so its energy functions in a certain way. And the only reason we sit cross-legged is if you get used to it, it's more stable.

[42:38]

It uses the structure of the body to support yourself rather than your muscles. And it folds your warmth together. So your body doesn't have to work to heat your legs down there and so forth. And aliveness, consciousness is very connected with heat. And to concentrate your heat is useful. So there's the lifting through the backbone. There's the bringing of the body together in as concentrated a posture as you can. There's the feeling of relaxation. And there's bringing your attention first of all, and perhaps last of all, to your breath.

[43:52]

To each exhale usually. And you let the inhale just come in. But you notice both inhale and exhale. Maybe you notice the pause at the top of the inhale and exhale and at the bottom. But mostly you are trying to bring your attention, get the habit of bringing your attention to your breath. So if you want to count inhales, you can, but the custom is, and it seems to work better to count exhales. This basically allows you to sit still.

[45:01]

And it allows you to develop a screen on which you can observe your thoughts. You can observe the functioning of your mind. And it's very, very difficult without sitting meditation to actually observe your thoughts and the functioning of mind. If I take these sandalwood beads, and I am trying to observe them. It's real hard for me to observe them. Particularly hard for me to count them. I actually know how many there are, but that doesn't help. But if I'm also moving, then I'm really in trouble.

[46:06]

So Zazen says, stop one part of it. And then develop a mind that stops this. Then you can study each bead as it arises. So the idea is that simple. You can't study something if it's moving and you're moving. It's just the way we human beings are. Maybe if we were dragonflies we wouldn't need zazen. But everything is changing. Everything is changing. So to observe this change, something has to hold still. To study this change. So first the body holds still.

[47:08]

And then the mind comes into stillness. And once to finish it. And I apologize for all these little formalities like Gerald and I bowing to our cushion and all that stuff. You don't have to do it. It's just our habit. So let's try sitting for a little while.

[48:11]

And is it useful to say, don't think about when I might ring the bell? I suggested you bring your attention to your exhales.

[50:16]

To count your exhales to ten, say. And that's good to learn to do. But more fundamental than that is just to bring a certain energy to your posture and then just to be present to whatever happens without Or even without correcting, correcting. Profoundly, as I say, leaving yourself alone.

[51:26]

Grundsätzlich, wie ich sage, lasst euch selbst in Ruhe. Thank you.

[57:22]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[58:50]

Thank you. Thank you for translating. Welcome. And maybe we come back in half an hour? So what would you like to speak about? There's a question, why do we have this babe? Because I'm a messy eater. It's my bag. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, in English, my bag means your job or something like that. It's a small version of Buddha's robe. And the custom is, if you talk about Buddha's teaching... you should wear Buddhist robe.

[60:47]

I don't know. I'm sort of used to it. I kind of like it. Any other profound questions? Basic questions. Thank you. Okay, what else? Yes. You talked a lot about correcting and not correcting and I would like you to talk more about that. And I would like to hear more about that sentence, just leave yourself alone.

[61:51]

And I really like that. And I appreciate it that you said that. And I would like you to talk about that also a little more. Okay. Okay. Well, you said two things. You asked me a question I take to be a question about the process of not correcting. And you also said that you like the feeling of leaving yourself alone. So trying to develop a vocabulary here.

[62:57]

So we have some shared way of speaking. Let's say your first question is a useful mental question. And let me say that your second part of what you said shows that you have a feeling for this mental question in what I call somatic space. Now the part of it that appears in what I call somatic space, it's useful to trust. And just hold to that feeling. And let that feeling lead you or be present with you. Now, a statement like to leave yourself profoundly alone doesn't so much have intellectual content.

[64:17]

It's disguised as an intellectual statement, perhaps. But the content is more feeling. Or poetry. So it's to practice with it when you notice a feeling appears. You stay with that feeling and let it show you something. It's much like, say, the example I usually use. You wake up and you had a kind of strong dream. So there's two elements to the dream. One is the details you can remember.

[65:21]

And the other is the feeling you wake up with. Now, one way to look at it is to analyze the details you remember. And that can be very useful. But usually we lose the feeling often when we do that. And also there's a certain implied That consciousness is somehow more important than the dream mind, the dream state. That dreams are somehow in the service of consciousness. Perhaps consciousness is in the service of dreams.

[66:36]

And maybe we should translate all of our consciousness into dreams. So often the feudal hierarchy perhaps of assuming consciousness is the boss also does damage to the dream. So another way of looking at the dream, and again, I actually think it's quite useful sometimes to analyze the content of a dream, the content you can recall at least, But it's also useful to forget about the content. It's just to stay with the feeling.

[67:38]

And see if you can keep that feeling with you throughout the day. It's like then in the midst of your consciousness, There's a small stream, creek, brook of dream feeling running through your day. And it can sort of water your day. Sometimes things that wouldn't have bloomed, bloom. And the way it influences your day tells you something about the dream. So here you're not trying to understand the dream conceptually, but pour the dream feeling into the potted plant of consciousness. And see if the potted plant turns into a forest.

[68:49]

Well, I never said that before. Yeah, I got carried away there. That's kind of... But that's what I think. There's also an image of Consciousness is a potted plant, which is traditional in Zen, but that I'll talk about later. Okay. Now, implied in all of this is the basic... given of Yogacara practice. Now, Yogacara is the school of Buddhism which is most characteristic of Zen practice.

[69:54]

And it's sometimes called Vijnana Vada, And it's sometimes called Chittamatra. And Yogacara just means to apply yoga to your life. That means to apply mental and physical postures. Vijnana Vada means the process of knowing. And Chittamatra again is a name for the school means To know that everything we know is through the mind.

[71:01]

In other words, to know that if I see you, the seeing of you not only points to you and who and what you are, but the act of seeing you also points to the mind which sees. So when I see you, I also see my mind seeing. And to see my mind seeing is... the practice of this school. So a given of Yogacara teaching is that all mental phenomena as a physical component and all sentient physical phenomena as a mental component.

[72:16]

Which simply means every state of mind you can feel. And you can develop a feeling, you can begin to develop your ability to notice the distinct feeling that accompanies every state of mind. Okay, but that's very hard to notice mentally. You need to notice it physically. And our mental-physical relationship is usually fairly primitive. Unless we develop it. Hence Yogacara, the application of yoga. That was a long answer to your question. The first couple of questions maybe.

[73:24]

I'll try to be short now. Yes. Yes. I can't bring two things together. One is to bring all my energy to sit and it's all connected to to do everything effortless. So one is I sit and do it with intention. The other is you bring your energy to each thing and also you want there to be an effortlessness in this. Is that what you mean? This practice gives me little nourishment. There is nothing to arrive at, no goal. Where do I take the effort and the power to sit for decades and knowing that there's no goal?

[74:35]

Maybe there's this longing That's his question, longing for. Well, to bring all your energy to each moment, And to find that is flowers in a realm of effortlessness. Sounds contradictory. But experientially it's true. Now in addition to if there's some longing, This word has come up recently several times.

[75:45]

I think it's Ivan Illich said, you don't understand Germans, he's German and Austrian. I think it was he who said to me, you don't understand Germans and Austrian. I'm sorry, and Austrians and Swiss Germans. I don't mean to... German-speaking people... I know I'm walking on eggshells here. If you don't understand that The language culture is characterized by longing. I don't know if this is true. But in any case... If in addition to this feeling of effortlessness, there's also longing,

[76:54]

then there's something to practice with. It's useful to be able to notice that. And if you can notice that, you can just let that be. And see how it arises or how it sustains itself. And if you, it's your life, right? So if you enjoy this longing, long away. And if you don't enjoy it, then you can kind of withdraw nourishment from it. I can put a statement on a little chart up here, a flip chart, that relates to that maybe in a few minutes. Okay. What else? Everything is perfectly clear.

[78:26]

You don't care whether it's clear or not. Yes. Yes. I think I understood that to leave the feelings alone. But do you think it's the same towards watching your thoughts or is that a different process? The questions you're all asking are very real. And to some extent they can be answered conceptually or intellectually. But really they're found through the craft of practicing.

[79:28]

The questions arise, but you have to keep working with How these questions inform your practice. And feel your way into solutions. It's a lot like a sport. A tennis player may be taught how to do it the classic way. But they may find their own way, which is quite unorthodox, to get the ball back across the net. And I didn't really respond to the first part of your question. the process of not knowing or not correcting.

[80:42]

First of all, it doesn't mean you're never correcting. You're trying to drive from here to Lindau or Stuttgart. You have to kind of correct your... You have to do something. I try to drive often by feel. And... I end up in the strangest places. It's often quite interesting, but I have to have no place to go in order to do that. So think of meditation as a little vacation from So don't think of it as, oh, I should never correct. Just a little vacation from correcting. First of all, you notice when you have a habit of correcting. And when you do it, when you do find yourself correcting, you kind of relax and don't correct.

[82:25]

And usually, correcting is a certain kind of liquid. And when you then correct or follow up on the correction, you keep that liquid going. Then you keep that liquid going. You keep that liquid going. you keep the beef stock. Okay. But when you kind of relax from the correction, it's like you slip out of the beef stock into chicken stock. Yeah. So, in other words, strangely enough, the act of not correcting changes the mind.

[83:33]

And then you can actually, it becomes easier and easier not to correct. So you learn a mode of mind that doesn't correct. I don't know if that helps you or not. It's a kind of crack or process. And that also helps if you don't have holidays and it helps in everyday life. It helps turn everyday life into a holiday. Because eventually this chicken stock begins to be present all the time. I don't know. So something else along these lines or anything else? Yes. I'm a little bit confused. with the mental component and the feeling component.

[84:54]

If I let everything happen as it happens and comes, what do I do if I just sit there and there's a mental process taking place? Do I... Do I feel into this process? Because you said I should stay with the feeling. Yeah, that's good. So, in other words, I transform the mental into feeling? The mental is accompanied by feeling. So you pay attention to the feeling part of it. as well as the mental formation part of it. So there's not necessarily at this point an effort to transform. Okay?

[86:06]

Does that make sense? So you're actually developing more skills of relating to what appears. So generally if something happens that we're thinking about, we try to think about it. We think about how to solve the problem, etc., This is fine, perfectly normal to do. But another, you can increase your vocabulary your skills available to you your provisions to in addition notice the feeling that goes along with it and concentrate more on that feeling and see where that feeling leads you instead of where the thinking leads you.

[87:09]

Now, feeling I don't mean exactly emotion. Emotion is more like I like it or I dislike it or I'm angry or something. This is just like I always have to say, there's a feeling in this room. That is definitely present in this room. It wasn't present here before we came in the room. And it's slightly different this moment than it was a couple of moments ago. Your question changed the feeling. And so that feeling isn't an emotion. Atmosphere, maybe. But in Buddhism, feeling is a term which accompanies, means the aliveness, the feeling, like, that doesn't feel, this feels.

[88:23]

So I know that, well, this felt. He goes, ah, then I know he's alive, right? So feeling is that which accompanies being alive. And it's not yet turned into like and dislike. Now to know the feeling that's present in this room without liking or disliking it is what I mean by feeling. So every thought process has a kind of feeling that accompanies it that you can feel.

[89:28]

And this is as real as the thinking itself. We generally don't emphasize it because our culture doesn't emphasize it. Our culture emphasizes that we notice thinking processes. But it just happens that yogic culture emphasizes noticing feeling processes. And if you don't notice feeling processes, you can't develop the relationship of mind and body. then you cannot develop the relationship between body and mind. Yes? How is this feeling, which is talked about, related to the knowing behind conceptualization? Can you say that in German?

[90:31]

What is the connection between the feeling we just spoke about and the knowledge Yeah, that knowing is first of all the feeling, the non-graspable feeling I'm speaking about. It's a little wider than just that, but it's not a knowing that arises from conceptualization. Okay. Now we are stopping at one o'clock, is that right? Yeah. Okay. Hmm. Hmm. This is just a throwaway statement in the middle of a koan.

[94:28]

You know, the koan is talking about the koan, and then it has this guy saying this. But if you look at it carefully, this is a statement of considerable...

[94:44]

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