Well, I suppose we should stop sometime. 5 o'clock or 5.15, I don't know what you want. You know, yesterday I did a meeting with Myogen Roshi's sangha. And he translated yesterday from the two. And they made me, some individuals made me a beautiful little, what we call a Raksa. So I'm trying today to be rather as un-Buddhist as possible. Because I want to emphasize that this is just a human practice. It's really, it's not a religion. There's no belief involved. There can be, but basically there isn't.

[01:01]

So the tradition is that when I speak about Buddhism, I'm supposed to wear this raksu. And the reason is because It should be clear that this is not me speaking, I'm speaking out of a tradition, and it's something we all have, it's not from me so much. So, I mean, excuse me for being a little bit Buddhist at this moment. But I haven't worn it yet. I think, Flora, you're one of the people who helped make this. Oh, you shouldn't admit it. No. Anyway, and we also, you know, when you practice meditation,

[02:01]

Believe it or not, this area here starts to tingle and it feels sensitive. One of the reasons the Buddha has shown a little bump on his head. It means this fourth mind has begun to have a physiological presence. Yeah. And so generally you put this on this spot. And then you put it on. So I'll put it on because they were so nice to make it for me. And you already have got the picture that I'm probably involved with Buddhism. Originally, The robe, this is supposedly based on Buddha's robe.

[03:09]

A convenient size. And it was originally made from scraps of cloth. You know, things you find. Somebody made one from scraps of cloth he found outside a Berlin subway entrance. But nowadays we buy expensive silk, cut it up into pieces and sew it back together. And if any of you are interested in, you know, what this practice is about, you know, I don't live here. I'm not around. I live somewhere else on the planet. But this sangha, and Myokin Roshi is a wonderful person and teacher, is here. And if you're curious about practice...

[04:10]

There's a source. Agi, who's a psychotherapist, partner. So he's rather important, he's Agi's psychotherapist partner. Okay. So I should, again, if somebody has something you want to bring up, please do. But in this little time left, I would like to say something about self. Self from the point of view of Buddhist practice. Okay. From the point of view of Buddhism we could say that self is a necessary function.

[05:16]

You can't function without this experiential modality of self. At least as I define the functions. At least as I define the functions. And the experiential confirmation of this is if you do begin through practice or mindfulness, non-meditative but mindfulness practices. You begin to experience the mind as a field of awareness. And you feel your identification as an alive being. As this field of awareness. then you feel more fundamentally connected with that field of awareness than the contents of mind.

[06:40]

Because the contents are just appearances then. Now, if you don't have an experiential feeling for this field of mind, you are simply, if there's no way you won't be identified with the contents of mind. So, the process of identification is almost, it is just going to happen. So instead of getting rid of the process of identification, you shift the focus of identification from the contents of mind to the field of mind.

[07:41]

Okay. Now, if you develop what we could call maybe a micro momentary awareness. Okay, so you really are able to be present moment after moment. I would also say this is a function of what I would call a no other location mind. You feel you're in no other location than this. I also call it sometimes situated, situated sight. Immediacy. If immediacy in English means no medium, in is no, no medium. Then maybe we should call meditation in meditation. Because you're I forget you have to translate.

[08:52]

Because it's the medium... That's enough. Now, if you do experience... the field of mind, and within the field of mind are the contents of mind. You can also, with this micro-momentary awareness, you translate that very easily. You can begin to notice the presence of self-referential thinking. So there's contents of mind. All right. Right now, the contents of my mind are all of you. Okay. Now, all of you look rather familiar to me. Familiar to me. Yeah, I don't know.

[09:58]

Familiar because you're some version of a human being. But also you look familiar because, you know, I know some of you, I know the kind of person some of you are more than others. And if my relationship to a person is like my relationship to the tree is the space of the tree in which there's stillness and movement, I can also start relating to each person as a kind of space, a person's space, in which I can feel the movement of the person, the movement that tends to integrate and tends to disintegrate, and so forth.

[11:00]

which is often really an upward movement in the person or a downward movement in the person. And there's a movement towards stillness. So if I feel that, And then I feel also various associations, one of you may look like my mother, I don't know. Now, if one of you looks like my mother, and I don't think any of you do, You're almost too young. All right. So let's say one of you looks like my mother. Immediately there's going to be more self-referential thinking about that person than the person sitting next to them who doesn't look like anybody I've ever seen before. Okay, so what am I noticing now? I'm noticing Within the contents of mind, there's another content of mind called self-referential thinking.

[12:36]

And sometimes there's more self-referential thinking and less self-referential thinking. So I can begin to be aware in this stream of awareness, this flow of awareness perhaps. The presence of self-referential thinking as a content of mind. A somewhat unnecessary content of mind. Somewhat unnecessary. Sometimes it's necessary. If you look like my mother, I don't know why I don't make a choice about it. I have a mom. Now, if I can notice self-referential thinking as a content of mind, I can also notice the physical feeling that goes with self-referential thinking. And I'll notice when I feel insecure Or a little anxious.

[13:49]

There's much more self-referential thinking. Now, in terms, let's just keep it simple, there's ten contents of mind. It's really innumerable, but let's say there's ten contents of mind. When I'm relaxed and at ease and feeling secure, and what I call situated immediacy, Just located here. Maybe one in ten of the contents have self-referential thinking. The others are just appearances. Now, I'm feeling anxious and a little insecure and... nine of the ten are involved with self-referentialism.

[14:56]

I like it or I don't like it. And the one or two things that aren't self-referential, I throw out. I try to invite some self-referential things in. My point is, you can make an inventory, a kind of inventory, When you count all the products in a store, say, we've got three packages. So I can begin to feel a topography or inventory of self-referential thinking. And I can begin to feel the mind, the bodily feel, in which there's more self-referential thinking than less. So then I can actually... I notice I feel better when there's less self-referential thinking. When I'm anxious, I think I need self-referential thinking, as this is mine.

[15:57]

But when I'm not so anxious, I don't care whether it's mine or yours or, you know, etc. I'm happy to share it, what the heck. Okay, now, when you begin to notice the mind that has less self-referential thinking, you begin to feel better. And you begin to move in the direction of less self-referential thinking. So it's not a situation where there's no self-referential thinking or there's a lot. It's a situation in which there's a certain topography of self-referential thinking. Or a quantity. And there's a direction to this quantity. When it's moving toward less, I feel better. When it's moving toward more, I feel more stressed or anxious. Okay, so I kind of get so I can...

[17:17]

let it keep moving toward less. And when it moves toward less, the dynamic of my experience is more close to selflessness. So it doesn't mean there's no self, it means the dynamic of self is less. And there's a technical term for that. It's called self-gone-ness. Self-gone, self is gone. It's so fun to be translated. I never really don't know what he's saying. One time I was giving a lecture in Berlin. And I was talking about calm, abiding mind. There were a few hundred people.

[18:38]

And I kept saying, you know, calm, abiding mind. It's a technical term. And the audience kept looking stranger and stranger. So I finally turned to my translator and I said, what are you saying? He said, I'm translating karma biting mind. And he said, I'm translating karma biting mind. And it was the time of the first computer games called Pac-Man. You know, I could develop it as a practice, but I never have. So I really don't know what's going on, and I love it. It's more mystery, you know? Okay. So the idea of no self or non-self as a function in Buddhism is something like I just spoke about.

[20:08]

Not that there's no self, but there's less self-referential in the activity of self. There's less self-referential thinking. Okay. Now, perhaps I can go up to my knee chart. Oh, I'm bowing to a knee chart. Maybe this is going to be a lying down chart. And now, which I think works together, instead of the five marks, I'll list the five dharma, I'll list what's called the four marks. I hear this is a children's hospital or something.

[21:30]

It's a flip chart of the kids. We have birth. Or appearance. And then we have duration. And then we have, or we can call it manifestation. And then we have dissolution. And then we have disappearance. Does it have two P? Yes. I always have one P disappearing. I like to make my words experiential.

[22:34]

What? E-A-R. Oh. See, I couldn't resist having one letter. I have my helpers here. Now the four marks, the first three are a kind of science. And they're the four marks of the Dharma. And the Dharma is a way to experience that everything is changing. Buddhism is basically a development of the recognition that everything changes. Okay, one of the marks of and so we could also call it the four marks of appearance.

[23:35]

One of the marks of appearance is that it appears. Okay, now the more you notice the field of mind then Things just appear. And they appear more in a more kind of free association than a narrative stuck together, particularly self-narrative. Again, Freud, I think, said somewhere, creativity is inseparable from daydreaming. That the creative person has this kind of daydream, free association.

[24:36]

So, there's appearance, spontaneous appearance, and it feels spontaneous, not narrative. And that appearance has a certain duration which we call the present or your own experience. And whether you like it or not it's going to dissolve. Again, I can look at you and I can fix you like a Polaroid camera in my mind but the next shot is gonna be different. Whatever the configuration in the camera, and you know the early digital cameras, and I guess the little ones had a lag. Take a picture, it's not the picture of what you shot, it's the next moment. And as a darn nuisance, I wanted that back there, but things are changing faster than the camera.

[25:46]

So whether you like it or not, things are going to change. Okay, so really we only need the first three. It's a kind of scientific description of change, momentariness. Why is disappearance there? Because you complete You complete the disappearance. You're not just letting it happen, you're receiving and releasing. And that releasing is like someone said earlier, what's the relationship to making it conscious? This is kind of making it non-conscious. This is where you as a participant in this dharmic experience enter in. Now, it's kind of useful, both of these, to use them, whether you're a meditator or not, or an in-meditator.

[26:50]

You can begin to feel, yes, that's the way things are. They appear, we name them, we think about them, or maybe we can just name them, not think about them, and then we begin to have a different kind of knowing mind that's not conscious, not ordinary conscious. Knowing this configuration, and notice and be more aware when things pop up from the side not your main narrative not your main mental narrative but other things pop up and be more aware of these kind of sub-textual or sub-conscious and then it changes but you actually help it change It's kind of a tabula rasa, you erase the blackboard.

[28:30]

Now, on tabula rasa, and if you just keep, if you have the experience of seemingly erasing that mental blackboard or whiteboard or greenboard, as an incubatory process, it enters you into the world and the experience of self in a new way. Now, let me end with what I call the four functions of self. Because as a psychotherapist, I think it's probably important to, in addition to seeing the self as an entity, which accumulates experience, you also see the self as a function. Okay. I'll get right on this. Okay.

[29:47]

Now this is not anything you'll find in Buddhist teachings. Well, Someone told me once with a professional teacher. If you'd only learned to write clearly on the flip chart, I'd consider you a real teacher. If you'd only learned to write clearly on the flip chart, I might consider you a real teacher. I'm trying. So the first is separation.

[30:55]

Okay. The immune system is a kind of separation. The immune system is a kind of self. It knows what belongs to you and what doesn't belong to you. And you have to know this is my voice and not just something in your head. It's also something in your head and there's comments going on around about it. But you can still make the distinction between what you're hearing in your head that also is sourced outside. And if you can't, you're probably a little bit crazy. All right. So we have to be able to establish separation in order to function.

[31:58]

In order to function, in other words, you can't take a bus, you can't buy something unless you can establish separation. So no matter what Buddhism says about being selfless or free of self, you need a functioning self. The second is connectedness. Okay. Now, yogic cultures tend to emphasize connectedness more than separation. And you have rather somewhat extreme forms of it in Asia, with Japan, for instance, I lived there for years, a kind of group mind.

[33:14]

And in the West, with our emphasis on individuation and self-realization and so forth, we strongly emphasize, in at least a simple sense, separation. But I think deeply understood, you individuate yourself in a field of connectedness, a field of other people. So Buddhism would emphasize individuation, which simultaneously acknowledges the field in which you exist, the human field and the physical, phenomenal field.

[34:18]

Buddhism would emphasize individuation in the field of other people and phenomena. And one of the things we would do in practice is we would counterbalance the strong emphasis on separation with an emphasis on connectedness. Now, as I said yesterday, our perception, we think we're just perceiving things as they are. But I can say with my cataract operation, it's clear that I was perceiving things in archetypal forms that my brain recognizes.

[35:28]

that I got to know the thing in an archetypical way. There's a level of mind in Buddhism, the manas, which actually is editing your experience. There's virtually an infinite number of things happening, and I select some of them to notice. Okay. So your perception is giving you a picture of the world that actually your consciousness has been trained to produce. And that training is your worldview or your views.

[36:45]

Or that training is contained in your views. All right. So the example I'm making is I feel you're there and I'm here. And we're separated by space. But that's not a fact. It's a cultural view. We're also connected by space. We have this mutual body. You can notice our resonant feeling and so forth. And the moon is affecting all of our reproductive cycles and the donau is moving slightly to the moon. No matter how long closely you look, you can't see the strings that connect the donal to the moon. Or to the tides.

[37:48]

So somehow there's a field of connectedness we're living in. Now, if you have a view of separation, your senses will show you separation. Your senses will obey the view of separation. Now, that's why the Buddhist first teaching starts with views. What your views are condition everything you do and see. So if you change your view to a feeling that space connects, or as I put it, instead of assuming we're already separated, You change that with an antidotal pharmaceutical phrase.

[39:04]

I'm just joking. You create a phrase in contrast to already separated. You create a phrase, let's say, in English, already connected. So I've just met you. It's wonderful that you're sitting there. And actually, I feel already connected with you. Partly because it's a fact. And partly because I practice the feeling of already connected. Okay, now, if I feel with every person I meet, I'm already connected. Well, I don't have to be polite or formal in the same way. You have to be a little careful, because if you are feeling already connected too much, it makes people feel nervous.

[40:15]

In our society, you have to maintain a certain distance. I mean, even though if I feel already connected to you, if I come up and I talk to you sort of like this, now you're not going to like it properly. So you do have to maintain the cultural rules you're in. And in Boyan, the different cultures I've lived in, it's very different, the body space you establish. In Japan it's interesting. They want to feel connected so much that the president of Sony has an office when he meets with Germans and Americans which is separate and etc. But after the Germans and the Americans leave, he goes out and has a desk amidst a hundred other desks. So you can begin if you notice that the function of self is to establish separations.

[41:17]

And also connectedness. And if you start now for the next month Trying to remind yourself in a Pavlovian sense. Every time you see somebody, you say to yourself, already connected. I'll bet you, you find when you go to a store to buy something, the clerks are going to be much nicer to you. It makes a difference. So already connected as a phrase that begins to, is an antidote to the view that we think is a fact that we're already separate. Changes the psychological context in which you live. The third It's continuity.

[42:49]

Quit checking my spelling. You're making me nervous. Continuity. Okay. If you're going to function in the world, you also need to have a moment-by-moment sense of continuity. Now, normally, we establish this continuity through the narrative of self. And through the continuity of thoughts. Most of us westerners do that. I would say Japanese people don't. And I don't mean the Japanese people are naturally Buddhist, but they come from a yogic culture.

[43:53]

I can remember a vivid experience of it. This Japanese man came up to see me. I had a little house on the beach facing Manchuria on the Japan Sea. And he spent a day with us. Two days or something. And then I rode on a train back to Kyoto with him. And it was, you know, four or five hours on the train. And maybe if Asuli was talkative, maybe he said five words to me in five hours. And I'm sitting there thinking, what would be a topic of conversation? Does he dislike me? I mean, maybe he just thinks I'm a jerk. No, no, and... there must be something we can talk about and then we ended up in Kyoto and I had you know not said anything either and he said to me

[45:04]

That was one of the most wonderful train rides. I felt so connected with you. And then I noticed, with Japanese people, you often have to allow a lot of space between, a physical presence between words and between in situations. Okay, so there's connectedness. And there's continuity. And this Japanese person was not really establishing his continuity from moment to moment through thoughts. So he didn't have to show me his continuity because he felt it. Now again, as I said yesterday, this is one of the things that makes bringing attention to your breath so difficult. And this is a very basic teaching I'm giving you now, I think really basic and fundamental.

[46:35]

And you can do it or approach it whether you're a meditator or not. There's a reason why in most languages breath, spirit, psyche, soul are all interrelated words. So a basic practice, a fundamental practice in Buddhism is to bring attention to the breath. And right now I'm speaking within my breath. Within an embodiment of breath and speaking. That's just my habit. As I say, a habit I inhabit. Okay, so... Anyone can bring attention to their breath.

[47:51]

You can do it for two or three breaths. Or maybe ten. But very quickly, attention goes back to your thinking. So then we have the question, why is something so easy to do for half a minute or so, if you're lucky, so difficult to do for 10 minutes or 24 hours? Now, we already know how to do something fairly similar. Our culture does teach us, necessarily, as we learn to walk, part of the process of learning to walk is the infant learns to bring attention to his or her posture. And if you don't develop the ability to bring attention to your posture, you don't learn to walk.

[49:03]

You fall down and you're not sitting. So walking is a necessary attention to posture. And all of you have attention to your posture right now to some degree. As a practitioner, I would say that attention ought to be in your spine. But at least it's in your posture. And for most of us, when we're asleep, we have some idea of I'm on my back or my side, etc. So we already know how to bring attention to our posture. Now, it is equally possible to bring attention to your breath. That doesn't mean concentrated attention like you're trying to do a counting or something.

[50:06]

It means a kind of overall awareness of breath, like in my speaking now, you're listening now. Okay, so if I The reason it's so difficult to do it for a long period of time is because we establish the continuity of self in thoughts. As I say, it's not because your thoughts are so interesting. Even if they're totally ridiculous thoughts, you'd rather have mind in attention to thoughts than your posture. And after all, why shouldn't you? Your posture's boring. But your thoughts are boring, too, usually.

[51:08]

At least, I think if you told me some of your thoughts, I'd think they were pretty boring. If you told me some of your thoughts, I'd probably think they were pretty boring. But when you, okay, eventually if you have an intention to bring attention to the breath, Now intention is a mental formation that functions in both awareness and consciousness. Discursive thinking doesn't function in awareness. But intention does. So if you develop an intention and let the intention do the work, You strengthen that intention to bring attention to the breath. Eventually, If it happens in ten years, that's great.

[52:23]

It can happen in a month or two. For a few months, it takes time. It takes repetition. But eventually, like a gummy band snapping, the movement of attention to the thoughts over and over again suddenly rests in the breath. And as soon as attention rests in the breath, rests in the body. And resting in the body, it rests in phenomena. And you suddenly find yourself really here. In the idiocy, in the situated amnesia. Yeah. And suddenly the body is not boring anymore. Because you feel the aliveness.

[53:25]

The incredible energy which is what is being alive. And you feel the relationship of that to your circumstances, circumstances, what stands around you. And to what is so-called others, which are not really other. The last one and you can go home. With yourself. With your self functioning. To keep it simple, context. Now, if you have a brain injury, in which you can't, like, or Alzheimer's, where you can't establish a relationship to what appears.

[54:39]

Your accumulated experience doesn't relate to what appears before you. If you can't establish either, for whatever reason, a meaningful relationship to what's happening. In the context of your self-experience, you're lost. You're in trouble. Somebody will have to take care of you. I remember this great Roshi, who was my teacher in Japan, Yamada Mumon Roshi. At the end of his life, he had a Probably Alzheimer's. He was nearly 100 years old. And I would be sitting with him and he would start to eat.

[55:40]

And his habit was he'd put the spoon in the food, and he knew how to do that. And he'd get the spoon up to about here. And then he seemed to wonder, what the hell do I do with that? He would sit there, you know, and he'd sort of look at it. Mm-hmm. And, you know, you had to push it toward him, and then his mouth would take over. In the last two years of his life, he stopped speaking. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to be disturbed by having Alzheimer's. Of course, there's a lot of monks around him to take care of in the church. But the last thing he said before he stopped speaking is one day he said to Shunan Roshi, my friend. It was another friend of mine, his main disciple. He said, I've forgotten everything I didn't need to know.

[56:50]

He never said another word. I've forgotten everything I didn't need to know. So we do have to establish context. Otherwise you can't function in a normal sense unless you've got a lot of monks around you. I'm planning for it already. Just in case. Any volunteers? No. Now, this is where dreaming mind as a mind of association comes into play. Because dreaming mind or associative mind is a mind of everything you've done and could do.

[58:10]

It's like the mind that appears to some people in the midst of a near car accident or something where their whole life appears before them. This is a non-chronological state of mind where much of what's happened in your life appears. Through meditation, this field of context is more present. And it changes how you make decisions. So the context of meaning is transformed by practice. So when we look at the four functions of self, we can see it's not an entity. It's not permanent. And you can be aware of more or less self-referential thinking.

[59:18]

And the way self is a function and not an entity allows you to develop practices related to the four functions. Okay. That's as much as I can do in one day. But what a great audience, or not an audience, a great feeling of participation I have from you. Because when I start in the morning, I don't really know what I can say. And I have to start feeling what's here if I can say something or not. And you've given me some wonderful permissions to listen. And you've given me permission to discover some things I've never said before.

[60:27]

And obviously because you're a new group to the way I teach. I've had to do some things that I'm familiar with. I've tried out before. But I never feel satisfied if it's only that. I never feel satisfied if it's only things I've said before. That's why I almost never give talks to new groups. Because I'd much rather speak to an accumulated experience. But this guy is so persuasive. He got me together. on a plane in Denver and come all the way to Budapest to meet with some new people. And I'm very glad I did. Because you were great. You're great. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

[61:41]

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