Good morning everyone. Guten Morgen. Guten Morgen. There's a sutra, Buddhist sutra, the name of it means something like the heroic process teaching. There is a buddhist sutra and it has a name that is similar to the heroic process sutra. Heroic samadhi process sutra. And the idea of it is that if you really face the possibility of samadhi in your life, and what that means, samadhi, you must be a hero, or at least a shiro. I like being a shiro myself. It's not so macho.

[01:22]

But I think it's true that to face one's own life and to face how we actually exist takes courage. So, I mean, I don't know why all of you are here, how you wandered into this. Some of you are familiar with Zen and some with constellation work and some of you may not be familiar with anything but yourself. In any case, I think that if you are going to do this, whether it's familiar to you or not, we, you, each of us, does have to summon our courage No, you know, why am I here?

[02:34]

In Guni and Regula's seminar. Because this is really their seminar, just an adjunct. A footnote, I mean a sit note. Yeah, I do stick my foot in it. Yeah. Well, partly because we like doing things together. And partly because Zen practice may enhance the process of constellation work.

[03:47]

And Zen practice also asks some of the same questions For instance, one question that Buddhism is always asking, and constellation work implicitly is asking, is what is the body? And also, though it may not be so obvious, another question is, what is a ceremony? Or how does ritual function, ceremony, ritual function in our life?

[04:59]

Now, how many of you know very little about Zen Buddhism. A couple of you. Well, whether you do or don't know much about it, I'm happy to respond in any way I can about practice, what's going on here and so forth. Now, so let me concentrate this morning on what is, some questions about looking at what is a ceremony or a ritual. And also, how can practice assist this constellation work?

[06:08]

Of course, you know, and what we're finding out in these seminars, which this is the third year, fourth year, third year, seems like forever, whether it does assist or not, And what we are trying to find out here, and this is already the fourth year that we are doing this together, is whether the presentation work supports it or not. Okay. Now... Okay. Ceremonies, religious ceremonies and public ceremonies, are usually based on some, we've done it for centuries this way, or we've done it the last 30 years this way, or something like that.

[07:31]

Yeah, and what does that say? I mean, you might think, oh, it has to be done a certain way. And I don't think that's the real import of it being based on previous ways of doing it. I would say it's based on previous ways of doing it, mainly because it's meant to be a timeless realm. That's why every 50 years we do it, every 100 years. So that implies a kind of timelessness. It's the same. And so what I think the dynamic of that is, is that you're cutting off the currents of contemporary life.

[08:49]

blocking the currents of contemporary life. So it doesn't have to be based on the past, it only has to block the currents of contemporary life. Now, Milton Erickson, who I really can't speak with any authority about, but it is interesting that Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls were sort of the models for Bandler and Grinder for NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I got a lot of names out there. Interesting.

[10:01]

That's Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, and Fritz Perls. And then the other ones? And the two guys who put this together modeled these three people's behavior, supposedly. There are two guys called Bandler and Grindler. Do you pronounce it Grindler? Bandler and Grindler. Okay. Well, what's interesting is Virginia Satir is one of the ancestors of constellation work. And Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls, I knew them, not well, but we were contemporaries. I mean, you were really 95 years old. But actually, I knew them because I was younger and they were older. But there does seem to be some kind of similar resonance between NLP and Zen and maybe constellation work.

[11:24]

They share an ancestry, too. So... If you don't mind, if you're not familiar with the way I speak about things, I sort of take a little here and a little there and I hope it comes together. It's a mosaic or a less-saic or something like that. Anyway, you can see the problem right there. So Freud seems to have worked from, at least initially, from a quasi or semi-meditation posture of reclining.

[12:30]

And creating an associative mind. A mind of free association. But the therapist him or herself had to also create a mind of free association. I suppose you might even call this a kind of constellation of two. Perhaps transference between the analyst and the patient, the client, is something like maybe what happens in a constellation.

[13:36]

At least some connections established. Now, you can see how little I know about all of this because I'm just kind of like... For me, it's all the first time that we've done this, so that's the way I think about it. But consolation as a therapeutic process is not based on reclining. It's actually based usually on standing up. This is, I think, a remarkable difference. Although sometimes in constellations people fall down or lie down, but still the basic posture initially is standing. Now, does this create a different mind than transference?

[14:43]

Does it create a different mind than half lying on a couch? What mind are we working out of and into when we do a constellation? This is the kind of question Buddhism, Zen especially, is always asking. Very simply. Unless you're a horse, it's very hard to sleep standing up. The reclining posture inclines you to sleep. I joke and say you can only sleep sitting up in zazen or in a car.

[15:50]

When you're driving. So the posture has a great deal to do with the state of mind you're in. So what kind of mind is the mind that stands up? And stands up with others. Okay. Now, this is exactly the kind of questions that has led to the development of Buddhist philosophy, teaching, practice, etc. Now, if we're defining a ceremony as cutting off contemporary currents, the currents of contemporary life, Yeah, so maybe that's part of the posture.

[17:14]

Yeah. And as those of you who have done constellations before know, there's a ritual, depends on the therapist, but of moving, of being behind the person, of some kind of mutual arrangement that occurs. This is a ceremony that cuts off to some degree your usual way of thinking and feeling. Yeah, ceremony or ritual. Yeah, okay. Now, in order to enter into a ceremony, you have to abandon yourself to the ceremony.

[18:29]

Or the ceremony has to get you to abandon yourself. So if that's the case, start abandoning yourself now. This would be good practice leading into whether you do a constellation or just participate in a constellation. So maybe we can use this room. Vielleicht können wir dieses Zimmer, diesen Raum hier verwenden. When you come in this room during this next two or three days, as you enter the door, you feel you're just going to abandon yourself to the room. Jetzt vielleicht heute oder im Verlauf dieser Tage, dass wenn ihr in diesen Raum hier reinkommt, dass ihr euch diesem Raum hier einfach übergebt.

[19:36]

Was ist denn ein gutes Wort dafür? Okay. And you can do that when you go on the Zendo, too. When you go on the Zazen, just abandon yourself and let the situation tell you what to do. And from the little I've read of Milton Erickson, His idea of auto-hypnosis and his view of the unconscious, not as a repository for repressed material, It seems to me he viewed the unconscious more as a kind of good friend that was kind of stuck. And you have to kind of create a situation where this good friend could come out.

[20:38]

And the good friend wasn't in the past. The good friend was in the present, but kind of like... didn't know quite where he or she was. So he used intention to create, as part of creating an auto-hypnotic trance. An auto-hypnotic means he's self, okay. And then he had this kind of It's not a love of cars. No, it could be something. Yeah, I'm just kidding. But I remember one that he tells about some woman who, from early in the morning to late in the afternoon, was in a trance and didn't know it.

[21:53]

And late in the afternoon, I think she looked in the mirror or something, she woke up from the trance. But she did something, she did things during the day, and everybody who was with her didn't know she was in a trance. I don't know if I want to say this, but Zen practice is something like that. Except you know you're in a trance. Now, that's a very loose use of the word trance. But one of the things we do in practice is basically we create what I call a mantric continuum.

[22:58]

I mean, we all have such a mantric continuum. And it's usually filled with I'm wonderful or I'm terrible. Or a back and forth between the two. Anyway, it's where our basic views of life and attitudes about our self function. And that's one aspect, the mantric continuum, of what I call usually background mind. No. The idea is This is the way we function because our views are functioning in us prior to perception.

[24:08]

The views, our basic views, our world views, are functioning in us prior to perception. As long as those prior views, that mantric continuum, are captured by self-referential thinking. As long as that mantric continuum is dominated by self-referential thinking, there's not much you can do about it.

[25:14]

Because that's occurring before everything else, all other perceptions occur. Denn das findet noch statt, bevor jegliche andere Wahrnehmungen erfolgen. You want to do something about what the content of the mantric continuum is. Deshalb möchte man etwas damit anstellen, was dieses mantrische continuum ist. Okay. So if you just create an intention, wenn du also nur eine Absicht schaffst, and that intention is powerful enough, It can take over the mantric continuum and basically create a kind of trance, depending on the intention. Okay, so if your intention, let's say, is to abandon yourself every time you enter a room or a situation,

[26:14]

You're not only putting that in your mantric continuum. You're developing your mantric continuum. Because you're using it in a way that it hasn't been used. And if you continue with this process of holding intentions, you transform the contents of the mantra continuum and develop it. So I would suggest that you not only have some intention like when you come into a room abandoning yourself to the room.

[27:31]

And when you enter a constellation, the ritual of a constellation, you abandon yourself to it. But also, whatever reason you're here, or whatever is most important in your life at this moment, in these last few weeks, that needs to be examined or moved a step forward or backward or something, sideways. Peered under. You make that your intention. It might be the intention you'd like to bring into a constellation. So I wouldn't wait till the constellation to form that intention.

[29:03]

But I'd start forming, kind of seeking out that intention now. Some inner request. And see to what extent you can stay with it, breathe with it, feel it in your physical actions, etc. And trust, as Milton Erickson did, that you already are everything you need. And you don't have to go into a trance to realize this.

[30:17]

You can go into a kind of concentration, a kind of transparent trance. Transparent concentration, whatever these words mean, I'm saying if you can bring this intention, this inner request into the foreground of your, into the background of your thinking and feeling, Without trying to presuppose the answer or the outcome, So in Zen practice you want to trust that you don't know. And trust that you have what you need to know

[31:22]

But you have to create a situation where what you need to know can talk to you. Instead of telling what you need to know, what you already know, what you don't. Something like that. And this makes it a kind of heroic invention. Take a few days now and abandon yourself to whatever you might be, want to be, etc. To face what you are, I think it used to be called, the English word used to be sculpting instead of constellation, right?

[32:58]

And I kind of like sculpting. It's like finding the figure in the stone. And you don't know quite what's in the stone yet. So, anything... really works effectively, powerfully, when you bring your full intention to it. And the power is to just hold the intention but not try to create the answer. And let situations in the minutia of your daily life talk to you.

[33:59]

And one of the most powerful ways, contemporary ways, to let situations talk to you is constellations. And now I abandon myself to the break and to Guni. And to all of you, each of you. Thanks a lot.

[34:36]

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