in my room for the end of the tea. Today I couldn't hear them. But yesterday they kept going and going. And I began to think they were a kind of applause. And every time you were having a cup of tea, he would... I kept getting up thinking, well, tea must be over, and then the clock would start again. I guess you were practicing or something? Well, this evening or this afternoon I'll start doksan. And again, this is a rather... complicated question for me to do doksan with you.

[01:16]

Probably during this two months I've been in Europe altogether, I don't know, somewhere around maybe 2,500 people have come to lectures or seminars. Sometimes it doesn't seem like so many, and sometimes it seems like a lot. But for me, if I start doing doksan with you, it's a personal connection, not just teaching. So, at least initially, doing doksan during Sashin, I'll do it, as I said, once or twice. And... You can ask me anything you'd like.

[02:32]

Of course, one element of doksan is you're presenting your practice. By the way, you come in the room and sit down and anything you say. So you can literally present your practice. Just as a kind of statement. What I find I'm doing these days or concentrating on or is affecting me as such and such. And I've been commenting to you about the difference between Sashin lectures and seminars for me.

[03:35]

And I'm very familiar with the difference in America But being here, not speaking your language, is still making an interesting difference for me. It's like in, this is the best way I can express it. Das ist die beste Art und Weise, es auszudrücken. In the seminars, your manner speaks to me. I hear you in English. In den Seminaren, also so wie ihr seid, das kommuniziert ihr für mich auf Englisch. But in Sashin, I'm hearing you in German. Aber während des Sashins, da höre ich euch in Deutsch.

[04:37]

What I mean is right now I feel you in German, I don't feel you in English. Does that make sense? But since I thought, and Suli Gun was a girl named Suli Gun, you can see how much German I know. So I don't know what I'm listening to exactly, but... But I think what I mean is since Sashin practice immerses us in a deeper state of mind than a seminar... Something more personal is happening to you and I can feel that and I'm trying to understand how to talk with you.

[05:45]

If you'll be patient with me I'll probably get the hang of it. And I think also that in Sashin lectures with a translator I need to go a little slower. Again, I'm exploring this with you because you're actually exploring it with me too. One thing I didn't finish what I was saying yesterday, I said if you drop your chopstick And normally in a Zendo, traditional Zendo, you're sitting on a platform, so it's fallen down onto the floor several feet from you.

[06:47]

And usually you couldn't get it if you wanted to. In any case, somebody comes and takes the chopstick. I didn't finish this yesterday, I don't think. Takes the chopstick and brings it to the altar and offers it and then brings it back to you. So if you drop a chopstick not on your table but off the table, onto the floor, You're supposed to wait for Beate or Daniela to pick it up and bring it to the altar and then bring it to you. It's not to punish you for making a mistake.

[07:48]

It's to treat whatever happens as part of the eating ritual or eating ceremony. There's the same thing that's true in the tea ceremony. Whatever you might do, there's a way to incorporate it in the tea ceremony. Except for that time that I messed up, remember, Philip? Philip and I inadvertently wandered into Sen no Rikyu's birthday party. Sen no Rikyu. He founded the tea ceremony, or at least the main form of the tea ceremony in Japan some centuries ago.

[08:52]

And since we were priests and came into this thing with Nakamura Sensei, they put us, because priests are next to the emperor in rank, Da Priester also im Rang gleich hinter dem Herrscher kommen... So ahead of all this hierarchy of elevated tea teachers... This hierarchy of elevated tea teachers... wurden wir also... They put Philip and myself. And really the line of teachers stretched way off to the right and then down and through several rooms.

[09:58]

I mean there must have been a hundred people or many people anyway. So they brought out the tea caddy, the little container that the powdered tea is kept in. This is after the tea ceremony is completed and you've all had your cups of tea. And the head of the tea school is making tea for us. who really is next to the emperor. So I take this thing and I'm looking at it and I tip it upside down and it was full and I thought it was empty. And all this very fine green tea, probably about $50 worth, falls out on the tatami.

[11:08]

So everything stops. People came out and they cleaned it and cleaned it and took the thing away. And then we started over again and it came out for me to inspect it and pass it down the line. And I inspected it carefully. And it felt a bit lighter. So I snuck a look and they'd taken the tea out.

[12:09]

So the next day by special messenger I got a drawing that Philip had done. And the next day I received a message through a special messenger, and it was a drawing made by Philip. So this gigantic bald-headed monk is sitting in the middle of this drawing. And at that time Philip had a big red beard. So he was drawn as another giant beside me. Then I had these little tiny tea teachers sitting in wine.

[13:12]

And then underneath the title of the drawing was, Sen no Rikyu Meets the Barbarians. I wasn't going to tell... It wasn't on the lecture schedule today. But there was a way of even treating that. Making it part of the tea ceremony. I think we stretched them a little bit. I didn't go back next year. I'm not going back. Okay.

[14:21]

Anyway, in the various seminars I've been giving, I've been presenting a lot of teachings habe ich sehr viele Belehrungen vorgestellt. But in Sesshin, I'm relieved to just be presenting zazen mind. Aber in Sesshin bin ich erleichtert darüber, dass ich eigentlich nur den zazen mind vorstellen muss. Or helping you establish zazen mind. Und euch dabei helfen, diesen zazen mind zu etablieren. It's what I've missed in doing the seminars is there just isn't any way really to establish sasen mind.

[15:24]

So I'm not emphasizing understanding so much in this session as I am in simply establishing sasen mind. And as I said last night, just do it. And I think you have enough support to just do it. Now, when we were out walking, I said that you could walk with the sense that each step establishes a pure land. I call this a just-do-it practice. I could tell you, when you walk, practicing walking meditation, feel each step is in the pure land.

[16:40]

And if you do it, you will realize some benefit or understanding from it. But if someone asks you, why are you doing it? You say, I don't know, I just do it. And I can say, there are many things about the sashin, I can just say, just do it. And that works... That works as a way to practice, especially when you're in a culture that supports the practice. And you have faith in the teaching and trust in a teacher. So if you trust me, I can say, just do it. And if you have faith in the teaching, maybe it should work. But I think that since mostly you're practicing on your own, you need to have more understanding of practice than just do it.

[18:02]

So any practice worth its salt, any practice in Zen should also be able to be as simple as just do it. And some people prefer that. But I do want to give you both sides. I'd like you to come away from the sesshin with a sense of how to just do it, certain practices. And I'd like you also to come away with a sense of the structure and the structure of practice. Aber ich möchte, dass ihr jetzt jedoch auch ein Gefühl für die Struktur dieser Übung von hier mitnehmt.

[19:18]

And I will say some more about that. Und ich werde darüber noch etwas mehr sagen. But first I'd like to have, since I want to listen to you, I'd like to have some questions. And a few people have asked me questions already, so if you want to bring them up again. Yeah. In German, please. His question is, when the pain arises during sitting, it affects his breath, and should he actively try to slow down the breath again, or just let it happen?

[20:33]

or to try to change my feeling. And as a second step, the breath should be more relieved. If you're feeling painful in Sashin or in sitting, which I've heard happens occasionally. The thing to do is to just enter the pain and don't worry about your breathing unless you can't breathe at all. Some people have constrictions and they can't breathe. So if you start panting or something, that's okay. Or crying, it doesn't make any difference. One of the important ideas in Zen practice is the idea of concurrent causes.

[21:50]

Concurrent? Parallel causes, lateral causes, tangential causes. Can you say the beginning of the sentence, please? One of the important ideas in Zen practice is the idea of concurrent causes. For example, when you're sitting and you ask for the stick or I hit you with the stick. You may think I'm hitting you with the stick or you've asked for the stick.

[22:52]

Because your back is stiff or hurting. Or you just want to try it out and it's a little scary, so you think you'll lend your back to the process. But as soon as the stick hits you, there may be a tremendous release of emotion. Or anger or pain or something. And the stick in that sense is a concurrent cause. That's clear, right? something that happens simultaneously that precipitates something on a different level.

[23:59]

Why are you frowning? Is that clear? Yes. Is what you said with body-mind and mind-body the same with emotion and body-motion? Yes. All the levels. Yes. No matter what she says in German, the answer is yes. So koans, one of the ways you can describe koans is that they're concurrent causes. Or in Sashin, we want you to be tired, exhausted and painful. Sashin should push you to the edge. This session schedule is about as easy as it can be.

[25:16]

The only thing we can do to make it easier would be to eliminate the work period and shorten the day. But if we're going to get up and have everyone sit together in the first period and then have time to make breakfast and so forth, so this is about the shortest schedule I can come up with, which allows the meals to be prepared and to have a lecture and a work period and so forth. And at some point we're going to have to discuss Sunday because some of you may have to leave early and I think that we have to end, for the place we have to end between five and six. So except for Sunday, we'll have this schedule we've had.

[26:28]

It was the slightly later wake-up time of 15 minutes later than the schedule says. But ideally a session will allow all of you the opportunity to not It will allow all of you the opportunity to come to the edge of your strength. And we want you to have less sleep than you need because it's good to have unconscious and dream mind pushing at the borders of your personality. I don't know where you stopped. Can you look at me expectantly? I can guess, but... So the combination of being tired and sitting in a long period of time in one position allows something not limited by your usual personality to happen.

[28:17]

So if you're always moving, not sitting still, for instance, you're keeping, you won't ever enter zazen mind. Because zazen mind is not in the realm of your thought or personality. So whatever happens is okay. You can just stay on your cushion and let whatever happens happen. Okay. Because your personality wouldn't keep you on the cushion. Some deep spiritual instinct is keeping you on your cushion. You may not recognize it, but that's what's keeping you here.

[29:38]

I think, yesterday, you entered the lecture with this flower, and saying, you can say, I see the flower, but it's difficult or impossible to say what is the I. In the Heart Sutra, which we recite daily, it should be proved that the existence of the five skandhas would be a proof that there is no I. I don't understand this. It's the same as, for example, if I say, a table consists of four legs and two tops, and that's a proof that the table doesn't exist. Moreover, I think man is more than one first hand. What else? This should be said in German, yes. Two days ago he started the lesson in which the flower came in. He said, I can say the sentence, I see the flower. But in that sentence it is the fastest to find out what the I is.

[30:53]

Actually it is not possible. And in the Pandya Shingo, which he quotes, he said, the existence of the five skandhas is taken as proof that the I actually does not exist. I can't quite understand that. That's why I asked myself, for example, when I look at a table and say, the table consists of four legs and a table plate, would that be exactly a proof that the table doesn't exist? If I look at it in detail. And I also think about the fact that a man of more than 50 years can understand that. Okay, it's not the same as saying the table is... because there's legs, etc., there's no table. Because legs is a category at the same level as table. Your legs are a different category than the table's legs.

[32:13]

But what do you find that's not included in the five skandhas? What? Bones, like your bones. That's form. Form, feelings, perceptions. The next one's rather difficult. It's impulses, conceptions, things that cause things to move in your mind, mental activity, and consciousness. Also form, Gefühle, Wahrnehmungen, Absichten im Sinne von Konzepten und Wünschen und Bewusstheit, Bewusstsein. Now, these English equivalents, which are now German equivalents, are not really equivalents, but I'd have to spend some time on it to say why.

[33:23]

But to keep it simple, the idea is that there's nothing that you can name or point out or think that doesn't fall into one of these five categories. That's consciousness. Yeah? Different then. And bigger, yeah. Do you want to say that in German? Achtsamkeit. Ich habe die Kategorie, das ist ja unter Bewusstheit. Aber ob das Achtsamkeit, also dieses Erlernis, größer ist als das normale Bewusstsein? I think I should make a distinction between awareness and consciousness for the sake of Buddhism.

[34:44]

It's not necessarily there in English, but I'm making it there. But consciousness is to separate, and the SCI of consciousness actually means to cut. And awareness means to be wary or watchful or vigilant. And there is actually a teaching and practice where you establish an uninterrupted mindfulness through a vigilance which doesn't disturb the uninterrupted mindfulness. durch eine Wachsamkeit, die diese ununterbrochene Achtsamkeit nicht zerstört.

[35:59]

So it's the subtlety of vigilance that doesn't disturb uninterrupted mindfulness. Also diese subtile Wachsamkeit stört nicht diesen ununterbrochenen You know, it's interesting that as soon as I get technical, it's much harder to translate, or poetical. She said to me the other day, tell me if you're going to say any poems. I said, you're not supposed to be talking during Sashim. I think that at least one reason why the technical is more difficult to translate Because when you talk about technical, it's like the way a lid fits the box.

[37:23]

It fits very tightly. And I have put all the energy of my practice and thinking into finding ways in English to make it fit well. Some of these things which I say very simply have taken me years to find a way to say. And so for her to, on the spot, put them into English that fits to German that fits together is quite difficult, I think. But I want to talk to you In sâshin is one of the few opportunities we have to talk very exactly about practice so that you can use it exactly.

[38:38]

So this whole thing of the subtle vigilance which maintains uninterrupted mindfulness We can create just another technical term for it. Please say it loud. . Sounds good. All that together we can call awareness.

[39:40]

So I usually define awareness quite simply as that which keeps you from wetting your bed at night. So consciousness doesn't keep you from wetting your bed at night. But awareness does. It's a watchful, non-conceptual state of mind. That we in our culture don't use. Except to teach our babies not to wet their beds. And athletes use it quite a bit. And if you fall, as I've often said, if you fall and catch yourself without hurting yourself, It's awareness that caught you, not consciousness. So awareness is extremely quick and always present. It is both quick and calm and pervasive.

[40:42]

And it's always with you. But we don't have access to it unless you become a yogi. Or we have minimal access to it. So awareness in the term, in the five skandhas that consciousness is, consciousness includes, I could list quite a number of different kinds of consciousnesses, awarenesses and so forth, we just don't have language for it. This is literally territory that Western languages have no description for. And even in Asian languages, though there's a more conceptual... understanding of these things.

[42:02]

In detail, it's only in Buddhist and yogic teachings that the language exists. But since you made the silly mistake of coming to this session, you're involved actually in a practice which requires this language if you're going to give yourself access to the experience. For example, I tried to give you a sense of how the eating bowl ceremony is based on what I called dharmic perception. Dharmic perception?

[43:06]

Or a perception that can be sustained by concentrated conscious awareness, something like that. Okay. Now let me give you a sense of how... I'll try to make this very simple. First you establish... Well, Zen practice, Buddhist practice revolves around a number of phrases, often double terms. For example, form and emptiness. Another is shamatha and vipassana. And shamatha and vipassana and form and emptiness are all understood in various ways according to various schools and practices.

[44:13]

And form and emptiness are not just terms that describe reality. They're also descriptive as practices which join reality and allow you to realize form and emptiness. Okay, so basically shamatha is emptiness with an arrow going toward... No, shamatha is basically form with an arrow going toward emptiness. What I mean by that is you're taking a form and you're sitting here.

[45:29]

Within that form you realize zazen mind, or we can say that's emptiness. If you can realize a non-conceptual mind stream, We could call that shamatha. Or tranquility or absorption. Okay. So in this sense, form has become emptiness. Okay. Then if you... If while you're in the state of... At least in English, insight tends to mean a kind of thinking that specially gifted people do. A special kind of attention, a special kind of intelligence.

[46:42]

But in Buddhism insight really refers more to the state of mind in which the kind of thinking that happens will be insight. Okay, so insight can also be called analytical penetrating awareness thought. Again, we don't have words for this kind of distinction. But if you can be in a state of mind of awareness and non-conceptual analysis, Non-conceptual awareness.

[48:17]

The result of that kind of thinking is what we call in English insight. Another classic example of insight, of vipassana, is the four applications of mindfulness. And like one who lives in form, contemplating form or one who lives in feeling, contemplating feeling So it's not mindfulness of feeling, but it's more like feelingfulness of feeling. Knowing feeling through feeling. So it's one who lives in feeling, knowing feeling. If you can maintain your identity loop in feeling, let's say your sense of location, if you can maintain your sense of location in feeling,

[49:34]

and live in feeling, knowing feeling, if you can do that for a sufficient length of time, insight results. Okay. So that's in a sense what you're doing when you do sâshin. You are sitting here in shamatha or zazen mind, And many things in your life come up. And the way those things come up is insight. If you just practice tranquility, you'd never understand Buddhism. Buddhism is a combination of the two. Now, strictly speaking, Zen and Dzogchen are somewhat different than the picture I just gave.

[50:52]

But this is the very fundamental practice that I just described. Okay. All right, so seshin, and I said I was going to try to make it simple, so here we go again. So seshin in establishing zazen mind is, we could say, shamatha. Okay, but shamatha or concentration or absorption, the state of a mind of absorption, did not produce the kind of thought conception awareness form of the forms of the session or of the eating ceremony. they were established by insight meditation.

[52:15]

So in other words, somebody after realizing Zazen mind, then developed the form of Sashin to support Zazen mind, understanding the forms through Zazen mind. Okay, so the forms of Sashin arise out of Zazen mind to support Zazen mind. Okay, that's fairly simple, right? Okay. Okay. So the reason I want to point that out and to give you a sense of how the forms do support zazen mind, and how the forms arose from zazen mind, or we could say eightfold path mind,

[53:27]

the mind of realized conscious concentration, and there are many fruits to this practice. For instance, when you finally get so that you always think in concentrated consciousness, You no longer have thoughts about something you can't do. And you no longer have anxiety and painful thoughts in the same way you used to. You may have painful thoughts or suffering, but they're units of suffering. They don't spread throughout your thinking. Okay. Now a little digression, okay? A little digression, a little side trip.

[54:56]

Yes. I have a question. What about the joy? It's something ... She has the same experience with the joy. It doesn't spread to her thinking and body anymore. Is that bad or good? It's good, but it's different. It's different, yeah. Well, if you've watched this way of thinking, I mean, I often think of the way a surgeon says, scalpel, scissors, you know, one thing at a time. Yes, this way of thinking reminds me of the activity of a surgeon who says, here, scalpel, scissors. Or an airline pilot, just before your plane takes off, you check each instrument and so forth, one thing at a time. You say it out loud. Or you study qigong or tai chi or something.

[55:58]

You analyze the movements down into very small units, and then you get so you can move very freely in flight, but it's also actually combined of many small units. When you break it down into many small units and then redo it, you have a much more complex flow in what looks like a simple movement. This all arose out of Asian culture and Buddhist culture which thinks differently about how to divide the world. Now I've gotten this far, I'd like to just finish this little simple description of Seishin.

[57:03]

There are three main ways of practicing with your breath. This is the digression. There are three main ways of practicing with your breath. And one thing, try not to do anything with your breath. Don't slow it down. Just let yourself breathe. At least that's the most basic thing. Since you start doing something with your breath, you have problems. But simply, first instruction is to pay attention to your breath through counting your breath. And you develop attention in that way, or attention. And the second is you follow your breath. And you develop a feeling of connection in that way. And a feeling of connection that can move through your states of mind.

[58:43]

This is literally just to teach you an inner vocabulary that isn't the connection of thoughts. So by practicing with your breathing this way, you learn a way to feel a location stream that isn't thoughts. The first ability to stay attentive outside of thought. And that immediately moves you from consciousness into the threshold of awareness. And why breath in English is called spirit.

[59:48]

Inspire, expire. And then you establish a connection with your breath that's not a thought connection and it moves with your breath. And then you establish the sense of touch or how your breath touches you or feels in your kind of, then you start to have blissful feelings in your chest and so forth when you breathe. So one thing that's another important thing to remember in Buddhist, in this kind of Buddhist way of thinking is the importance of sensation. Sensation is understood a little differently than feeling. Okay, so it's understood if you can get a sensation on your breathing, for instance, And from that sensation, a state of mind occurs.

[61:08]

You can then, by returning to the sensation, produce the state of mind. Mm-hmm. So it's a little bit like the sensation we're considered a kind of pill. And once you produce the pill, you can take it in other circumstances. So, you know, there used to be a kind of This is another digression on the digression.

[62:09]

There used to be a kind of drink in New England called moxie. And a kind of soda pop. A sugar water drink. Anyway, this some guy was making some kind of sugar water drink in New England. And some guy came in and said, this is really good. If I tell you something that will make you a million dollars, will you give me $250,000? And the guy said, well, yeah. So the customer said, bottle it. And it became Coca-Cola. And it became Coca-Cola. Whether that's a true story or not, I don't know.

[63:20]

But, you know, the word genius also is genie. Like a genie in a bottle, and you rub the bottle in a genie. Yeah. Genie is a power you have that answers your wishes. And it's related to what I've talked about before, the daimon of Socrates and the demon of the devil. The sense of having your own individual genius or power that our society doesn't like us to have. What's interesting, I think, about the genie idea in the bottle that answers your wishes...

[64:26]

is that you have to summon it. You have to rub the bowl and say certain things, abracadabra or something. Okay. How do you say abracadabra in German? Same? Isn't there a song, abracadabra, I'm going to reach out and grab you? I think so, yeah. It's fun to dance to. So this sense of a concentrated consciousness, concentrated thought, or the forms of sesshin.

[65:34]

In other words, if in sesshin you are supported by these forms, and you get a sense of these forms that support your practice, The sense of thoughts or activity that are characterized by concentrated consciousness. Let's say perfected or completed concentrated consciousness. It's a sense of establishing a perception in concentration. It's a sense of establishing a perception in concentration. Well, Anu, do you have the idea of establishing a perception in concentration?

[66:59]

Okay. So at an odd moment after Sashin, do that. You're looking out the window, say, of your office or school room or something. And you just look at the trees like we have here and you establish the green or the mist or the feeling of it. Or the movement of it. Or the preciseness of the leaves. you establish them as a concentrated conscious perception. Yeah. And if you do, it can bring back sashin. It's like you summoned a genie out of the bottle and the sashin popped out.

[68:03]

In other words, if you can take a particular sensation... or concentrated conscious perception, if you can take a particular sensation, if you can take a certain perception, or a CCT, And you can stuff the whole sashin in it. Like putting the genie back in the bottle. Then you can move that sensation around and let the genie back out of the bottle sometimes. That's a very basic idea in Buddhism. I'm turning it into a little joke. And you can say to people that, well, this is the sashin we learned how to bottle.

[69:15]

Bottle sashin at Maria Lach. Make a million. No, we won't make a million. But I think we've talked enough for today. I think we've talked enough for today. But I will perhaps in the succeeding lectures to give you an idea why this identification of sensation It's so important in practice. An example I've given many times is that someone asked Einstein where he gets his ideas from.

[70:16]

He said, oh, I have a sensation in my body somewhere. and I pay attention to it and it develops into an idea and this is excluded knowledge in our society and also excluded by the ego and perhaps part of Einstein's genius was that he moved in the realm of excluded knowledge That he noticed such things and took them seriously instead of just saying, oh, my wrist hurts. For example, when you first start practicing, you may have various itches that appear. And practice is a lot like turning the heat on in September in the radiators.

[71:39]

You know, when you first turn the radiators on, they still go clank, bang, as the heat starts going to them. That's what happens to you when zazen mind starts getting into your body. Some of you start throbbing and shaking. And various pains appear here and there. And you go clank. Okay, so those itches, which can become in later practice extremely intense. Like you had a whole squadron of mosquitoes on your nose. You can't believe you haven't lost a major amount of blood. But if you stay with the itch and don't scratch it and begin to move it it can open up the whole acupuncture system in your face from the inside.

[72:55]

You'll find out the itches will spread and each one will be an acupuncture point. And you can drop your normal perception of self as if you're suddenly looking at a house. The house disappeared and only the electrical wiring was standing there. You feel like you're looking right through all this electrical wiring. Which was first disguised as a little itch, or a big itch. And your ego and your habit was saying, oh, it's just an itch.

[73:56]

But it was the energy starting moving through this radiator for the first time. Or maybe in this case the thousandth time. It takes time to notice these things. But this small sensation which includes the world and a sensation you can remember and concentrate and use to change states of mind, is found in the basic breathing concentration practice. So I've given you beginning practice and advanced practice simultaneously here. So the Sesshin ideally is designed so it has many pills in it that you're taking, time-release capsules and during the next few months

[75:11]

If you know how, you can bring back the feeling of sasin. And you can recapture zazen mind. Or the taste of zazen mind from this sasin. You can bring back in particular zazen periods you do in the next months. And the techniques for doing this are not natural. They're learned techniques as part of the language of Buddhism. You might discover them if you were a religious genius and had a few centuries. But it's easier to pay attention to the genius of the teaching. And make it your own. Okay. Okay.

[76:32]

Yeah? Can I ask something? Yes. The second thing which you talk about, the itch. So in this moment you make the breath and go with the itch. Yeah, yeah, whatever you want to do. Enjoy yourself. They're basic rules, but they're not magical rules. But you want to concentrate on your zazen mind, And I'll come back. You basically enjoy yourself. And there are subtleties to this relaxation and effort that we could talk about. And maybe I'll talk about tomorrow. Basically, one of the main mistakes Westerners get into

[78:01]

is that one state of mind is better than another, and that no thought is better than thought, or something like that. Or concentration is better than relaxation. No. Sometimes thought is fine, sometimes no thought is fine. Sometimes you want a concentrated state of mind, sometimes you want a relaxed state of mind, which may be in actual fact more concentrated. So pay attention to where your location of awareness moves from the pain to the breath, etc. And sometimes you restrain it and direct it and sometimes you follow it. And your wisdom and skill in restraining and following is the essence of practice.

[79:25]

I'd like to stop. Should I not stop? Okay. Yes, you have to trust yourself, and you have to trust your practice. If you don't, you can't do it. Or you have to move toward trust. Does that need to be said in German? Yes. Yes. You said this is the essence of Zen. Who is the teacher then? In this situation, you just talked about Who have you been listening to?

[80:36]

That's not a little question. Who's the teacher and how you make these decisions about when you do something and when you don't do something, basically you can trust the mind of awareness. The mind of awareness illuminated by bodhicitta. So maybe we can talk about that tomorrow. I'm trying to give you, turn the sashin into a big pill. A dharma pill that you can take and realize zazen mind and be able to take the pill at other times during the year.

[81:53]

What? Three times a day. Well, once a day maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, thank you very much.

[82:23]

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