No, usually we don't have any specific topic for either this seminar or the Rostenberg seminar. Because I just, you know, I speak about what... seems relevant during the year and hopefully relevant to psychology and psychotherapy. This morning I thought maybe A good thing to do would be just to say those of you who have come to these seminars here in Kassel and Rastenberg over now and then or over the years, is there something that's stayed with you that you'd like me to try to speak about further?

[01:11]

And those of you, any of you, or some of you are new to me, I suppose you came to our gathering for two days for some reason. I think it's good to have no reason to, but... In fact, and I know of course the most fundamental reason is you like to hang out with Angela and Norbert. Marie-Louise asked me, who's coming?

[02:16]

I said, the Angela and Norbert gang. So, do you have anything you'd like to suggest that I speak about? If I can, I don't know. Who knows if I can? More of those of you who were at the Hanover seminar, which ended yesterday afternoon, for something maybe from that I should bring in to this seminar. So now I've started waiting. Yes. In Hanover you spoke about inner practice.

[03:29]

I would like to welcome you if you could talk to us about inner practice in the context of psychotherapy. And I would appreciate if you could speak about inner practice in the bigger frame maybe of psychotherapy. What does it mean for a psychotherapist to have an inner practice? The therapist himself, him or herself. And what is that about? Inner practice. And the other part of the question, What practice can the therapist have during the contact with the patient?

[05:00]

The client. The client, sorry. What are the inner dialogues during the work? In what kind of state of mind do we enter into work? What joint mind field do we create with the client? And then last question, if that is even a question, is that actually a question we ask ourselves in our training? Is that part of how we're trained as psychotherapists? Yeah, it's obvious you've thought about this a lot.

[06:11]

And you've been pricing Zen for 30 years. I think you have to answer that question. I'm not a psychotherapist. I do Doksang with people, but Doksang is rather different than therapy. I have to keep it different or I get myself into psychological transferal trouble. Yeah. So, but anyway, of course, implicit in what we're doing is what is the relationship for the therapist and the client in that might have something to do with the modalities of mind that can be oh I'll start over of course implicit in what we're doing here is what what modalities of mind

[07:30]

that are noticed and generated in Zen practice might or could be useful for the psychotherapeutic relationship. But I think I have to leave that to larger context and seeing what you think is useful. So, someone else? Yes, Michael. My question is just follows directly Gerhard's question. I sit between my client appointment I sit between my client appointments.

[08:42]

And a few years ago it started when someone sits across from me. and so often through this very intense concentration on each other a very strong field is created. First it just arose during some situations. And then I noticed I can hold the field and I can deepen the field. And I noticed that this is rather useful because I can feel pretty well what the other person is feeling.

[10:10]

I also noticed that if the other person, initiated by the other person, goes into a strong emotion, this field gets much stronger. And now the problem begins, namely the question that arises to me is, to what extent can I, to what extent do I have the permission, to what extent is it useful, is it also dangerous perhaps, to deliberately generate and deepen this field? Now comes the question, am I allowed, is it appropriate, is it useful to deepen or intensify the feeling willfully? Intentionally. I hope not willfully.

[11:17]

Willfully means you do it just for the hell of it, you know. On purpose. And to sort of play with the situation. A willful child is a child who's a nuisance. Of course, every time I have to make a judgment call. I have to weigh it. And because I like that feeling in recent times I've done this a fair amount intentionally but I have the feeling something isn't quite right about it. Well, I trust the feeling. But again, basically I would say the same to you as I said to Gerald.

[12:27]

And I like listening to both of you, knowing you for so many years, but I would also like it to be briefer. Yes, there's misbrief. Especially after Rastenberg I concentrated on this more. Concentrated on what's going to happen. Some people recount something and they're over engaged. They just see their sadness or some aspect. So make this shift that we do in meditation to just observe something that is there and not be informed.

[13:36]

And then a big space arises and then you can practice new stage steps. But I think we have to always re-practice that. And so I wish from Roshi to hear more how we can re-engage and strengthen this awareness of observation. Good night. In the relationship with the client, there is an observation going on. In what sense do you mean by observation? Just noticing? No, I just wanted to hear the way... The therapist, I, the therapist, try to show the client that through observation, through shift out of being involved in some kind of thing, shift out

[14:50]

find the capacity to observe, feel within the capacity of observation, space arise, and then this person has potential for new steps. To progress with that. I see that this is my most important tool. Maybe could we, if it's not too strong a breeze on you, could we open a window there? But if it gets cold, please close it. Dogen says somewhere, sometimes, Dogen says somewhere, sometimes... When he says sometimes, he means something like one of the now times.

[16:24]

As if there's different now times. When he says sometimes, he means... And then he says, I, Ehe. Which is, if I said, you know, since I practice at Johanneshof, I have a choice of various names. I can be Dickie Bird or Richard. Or I could be Johannes Hof. Or I could be Zen Tatsu. So he's clearly saying, among the various people I could be, I'm choosing this one right now. So, and by the way, that helped a lot already, so I'm afraid you're getting cold, aren't we?

[17:32]

So I, so, we don't have a word like now times, do we? In this now time, I, this person, at this moment, enter an ultimate state. In other words, he enters a samadhi. And I offer you profound discussion. And then he says something like hoping you won't make too much of it but absorb it. So I think

[18:32]

That would suggest, from the point of view of Dogen's statement, that the Zen teacher in this case, or the therapist, first of all, I mean, overall has to be profoundly sensitive to the immediacy. And to decide at that moment not that I'm the therapist or that I'm the Zen teacher and that I don't have any titles or responsibilities, it's just What's happening at this moment that we could call a person? Yeah, and then from that I enter a samadhi.

[19:48]

Form of concentration. And then I see what happens. So that's more or less what you said. But the emphasis is clearly on... practice of embodiment and embeddedness. And by embeddedness I mean a sense of being inseparable from your immediate circumstances. Now, what that means, I think I'd have to do a little riff.

[21:16]

But let's not do that now. Maybe I should speak to that at some point. further at some further point, today or tomorrow. Okay, someone else. Yeah, hi. In Rastenberg for me you opened like a new barrel when you spoke about time. I don't understand it, but I try to work with it. So what Angela mentioned with creating this spaciousness through observation and identification, de-identification, I'm familiar with that.

[22:49]

But now with this time aspect or time, there's a whole new Something to be added. And I have this image of an elevator which could be called immediacy. and so how in this therapeutic situation there is a kind of juncture and so this elevator can drive or rise through different times And through that, new exits can be created. I have this image of the modern Buck Rogers.

[23:54]

That's not modern, that's old-fashioned. Unless you don't know who Buck Rogers is. In the 40s and 50s, he was a comic character of the future. Okay, so Buck Rogers was a funny figure in the 40s and 50s who portrayed the future. Now you see how... Anyway, the therapist of the future has a client at different floors and is in the elevator and goes, talk to this one. It took a minute, goes up and talks to that one, goes up to the next floor. But that's not what you meant. No, not really. It's like doctors used to work here now. Yeah, it's like dentists work, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, what... So, yeah, I've been speaking about time in the way you're mentioning since like February about.

[25:01]

And I've been trying to... I mean, the big categories of experience and particularly in Western philosophy... the big categories of experience, particularly in Western philosophy, are space and time. And in some ways we could say that much of what I've been speaking about for years now has been exploring the category of space. And for reasons I don't know or don't care about, earlier this year I began thinking, okay, I have to speak about time. Yeah, and I'm a kind of slow learner.

[26:14]

I don't try to understand so much as I try to incubate possibilities. possibilities of how to conceptualize the experience of time. Actually I let time sort out. I don't think it out as much as I keep it on and in mind. I don't think it out, but I let

[27:20]

the activity of time interleaf it or sort it out. So I'm still in that process. But can you tell me what part you said you didn't understand and what did you not understand? So it's not that I kind of desperately don't understand. I can still let it, I can work with it. In therapy I'm always working on that shift between the past and the present and the present thing of something.

[28:32]

And it's always kind of focusing on a pattern that arose in the past and that was useful in the past. How I can transpose this into space or time in which this can widen and in which a new experience is possible. The spatial one I'm familiar with, but the time one that's still working with me. And so what stuck the most from Rastenberg is Basho's poem and especially the last two words by itself.

[29:54]

Anyone else? Someone else? Yes. I am relatively new to therapeutic work and also new to this seminar. I am pretty new to therapeutic work and really new to the seminar. Yes. Hi. Hi. Nevertheless, at work in the hospital it is often very clear to me what to do. Still, it's in the work in hospital pretty clear to me what needs to be done. And I think it's also related to the fact that I know that somebody is suffering and that I want to be a helper. But if I am not in the role of the helper, I am in my private free time and someone is a friend and maybe also spiritually on the road, but has no sangha, no teacher,

[31:13]

Okay, so just when I'm in my private time with friends or a friend who has a spiritual practice or capacity but no teacher and I'm a friend, I'm not in my role as a helper. Then I don't know what to do. You mean that you're with a friend who is in some sort of crisis, you mean? And you'd like to do something, but you don't want to destroy the friendship. Yes. Yeah. Suddenly I'm no more a helper.

[32:22]

Well, you can't do anything unless the person gives you permission. And how to shift a personal, social relationship, friendship into... the other person giving you permission is difficult. it shifted into what kind of, in a helpful relationship? Yeah, whether you have permission to... I think usually a therapist can't be his or her spouse's therapist. And I think surgeons don't do surgery on their spouse.

[33:39]

So I don't know, it's a problem which probably everyone here has some familiarity with. I myself, for instance, if I think I'm going to practice with somebody, may practice then with somebody, I do not become a friend of them. I don't do social things with them. And partly that's because for most people, they think friendship is the deeper relationship. And my experience is the practice relationship with someone is usually way deeper than the friendship.

[34:57]

But of course, again, I'm not practicing with people who I'm exactly helping. I'm trying to discover some sort of mutual wisdom together. That's different than somebody who comes to you because they're having psychological problems or something. Anyone else? Maybe one other person, if you have some idea? In psychotherapy we often have this concept of a development or development of the psyche or something. And if therapy is not just a laboratory of disturbance, then it is a very time-consuming profession.

[36:21]

If therapy is not just a fixing of a disturbance, which is a sort of contemporary way of looking at it, but rather what is called illusion therapy, self-realization or self-realization. So from Jung's way one could understand it as a becoming of a self or something? I'm asking myself if there's anything in Buddhism or in Zen that correlates with this concept of a development over time, or if these things are now really far apart from each other. Okay. You know, I think we should take a break.

[37:30]

First let me say a few things. There absolutely is an assumption of transformation over time. I'll just throw out some problems just for the heck of it. Not transcendence over time but transformation over time. But is there a process of individualization? That's something else. Is there a process of individualization? That's something else. Although it's very clear that you can't practice Zen unless you have a strong sense of self. A strong experience of self. That's better to say than a sense of self.

[38:33]

Now, let me say... I'll try to make this short. When I say that, it means it's not going to be easy. One of the basic zazen instructions is don't invite your thoughts to tea. And everyone understands pretty much what that means. But there's a clear distinction being made in this statement. There are two kinds of mental formations here. The conceptual or intentional mental formation of don't invite. The conceptual or intentional formation of don't invite and the discursive mental formations we call thoughts.

[39:55]

So when Zen speaks and Buddhism speaks about freeing yourself from thinking it means freeing yourself from discursive thoughts. It doesn't in any way mean freeing yourself from conceptual or intentional thoughts, mental formations. It doesn't mean you free yourself from conceptual or intentional mental formations. Intentional mental formations. In fact, the only way you can free yourself from discursive mental formations is through conceptual mental formations. Okay.

[41:16]

But, of course, not all mental formations are something you want, you know, working around. But we use various practices to free ourselves or transform conceptions. For example, for me again, keeping it very simple, Zazen is a physical posture. But it's not Zazen unless you have the concept, don't move. It's the concept, don't move, which transforms the posture into zazen.

[42:26]

All right. Now, so that's all a prelude to saying That the concepts you hold in mind, even if you don't do anything, affect everything you do. All right, for example, now, and this is coming up, because what you said, Andrea said, the Huayen teaching of Buddhist school, Zen is a mixture of Madhyamaka, Wayan and Yogacara teachings.

[43:30]

One of the Wayan teachings is the teaching of the ten times. Okay, the ten times are pretty obvious. The past, present and future of the past. The past, present and future of the present. And the past, present and future of the future. And that's nine. And ten is all of it at once. Now, if you have that conception, Like I said the other day, when you took your Abitur or something like that, you might wanted to have been an astronomer.

[44:37]

And instead you ended up to be a psychologist. But that future from the past is still functioning in you. So when you're with anybody, you're kind of open to the awareness of these ten times. And if you hold the... I mean, it's just so obvious, but if you hold the awareness of these ten times in your... background mind, let's say, it opens you to begin to feel people living those ten times. Now, one of the ten times is to take a break. All right, so...

[45:38]

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