Because for me, practicing is like being in a laboratory. And I myself am the laboratory. But also being with you is the laboratory. Oh, she does choose. Very cute cat, very pretty cat. And you know, I actually don't do this because I am interested in teaching or particularly like teaching. Nor do I like the experience, actually, of being a teacher.

[01:07]

You know, I notice it because I really want your participation in a certain way and I realize it's not about teaching. I'm in other situations sometimes, like at this gathering of pioneer Buddhist teachers for a week outside of New York. I enjoyed being there. I in no way wanted to be a teacher or say anything. I wanted to be back in the corner. But if I can create some kind of laboratory-like situation, then I like being in it. You do not drink my water, please.

[02:09]

Good shot. He smells a little like a cowboy. That's what is this? I mean, please don't fight over the cat because that could lead to trouble. We just finished the koan last weekend of Nanchuan killing a cat. So, because the monks were fighting over the cat. And when sometimes I'm asked with people, could you explain something about Buddhism?

[03:31]

I really don't want to. If I can... Explore Buddhism with somebody, that's fine. In fact, sometimes I'm a little rude. I was at a dinner with some people the other day. And one of the persons asked me, can you say something about Buddhism, blah, blah, blah? And I said, when you're ready to do it, ask again. And I'm like, my cantankerous nature sometimes. Okay, so I'm not the only person with a self here, or an experience of a self.

[04:35]

I don't think I'm the only person. So I hope that we can discuss together this, whatever we experience as selves. So earlier in the day, in the morning, I asked those of you who were here, who were most of you, to do something like the equivalent of putting your finger on your forehead. Putting the finger perhaps on the forehead. And noticing what experience that is. Yeah. So this list is what we noticed. And I'm just noticing the ingredients without editing.

[05:53]

You didn't kill it, did you? And one is, there's a physical, bodily, sensorial location. for all to get yeah no we can ask is that a self or is that necessary condition for the experience of self or something. And maybe we can change or add to or refine this list. And the second ingredient was the observing of the act of observing the touch of the finger on the forehead.

[07:00]

Okay, and Adonai there distinguished between the act of noticing And the experience of noticing. Because there's a kind of intentionality in noticing and then there's an activity of noticing. Now this is a list I never made before. I just made it this morning. And usually when I've made lists like the functions of self and blah, blah, blah, they develop and change and simplify. And the third thing I... noticed was that there is the act of noticing and then there's an interiority of noticing.

[08:16]

The interiority of noticing is almost like the noticing is a container. Or is attached to a container. And in the container are... fragments or related aspects of prior experience. And then in addition to prior experience there are views. I like doing this. I feel stupid doing this. This is not my third eye down here. Any kind of feeling of future would be a view, because it hasn't happened yet.

[09:17]

So there's an interiority of noticing. Which, as I've said, includes experience, prior experience and views. And then the fourth thing I pointed out I pointed out just by pointing to my forehead with my finger. Is there a sense of a present? But if I just feel present, the presence of the present as interiority.

[10:38]

Very easily that can become associations, memories, past, almost no present involved. It's present in my mind, but the content is is a prior experience. Which are present in my mind? All of this is present in my mind, but the content which is present might be all prior experience. And you can get so lost in prior experience that you hardly know what the present is. So I think we also have to notice that there's

[11:43]

an exterior context as well as an interior context. And the locative, which isn't really a grammatical word, it doesn't mean what I want it to mean, but the locative experience Meaning local. Meaning a location. Of an interior context and an exterior context together produce, I put an equal sign, our experience of a present. predicts our experience of being in the present. It seems that the experience of an exterior world Locates the experience of an interior world in the present.

[13:10]

It's almost like the interior world is anchored in the harbor of the present. We're getting poetic here, aren't we? All right. And the fifth. I call it the I-agency of responsibility. Because it's clear this territory of responsibility is here and not there. This is my hand and not your hand, Shiri. I mean, you can have my hand, but not in marriage, because you're already married. When you say, you have my hand in English, it means to be married, to get married.

[14:21]

Anyway. So there's a definite sense that this hand is somehow my responsibility. And simply put, civilization is based on that. Without a sense of responsibility for your location, there's no possibility of laws, morality, rules, or anything. And as John Searle, the philosopher, very clearly points out, Civilization is nothing but an agreement. And what is the name, excuse me? John Searle, S-E-A-R-L-E.

[15:23]

As he points out, there's nothing but... Got his name, but we didn't... I'm sorry. I'm just teasing you. Points out that civilization is nothing but an agreement. And in America right now, no one can agree. I'm going to stay here. I'm not going back. I'm glad I want it. So that's the fifth thing that I feel. There's a high agency responsibility that I experience when I do this. And finally, which I didn't really mention this morning, There's narrative observing. Now, we can discuss how important this narrative observing is.

[16:27]

But my feeling is that to function we have to establish a coherence. And we seem to only be able to establish coherence by a process of narrating to ourselves what's happening. Okay. Okay. Now, if I'm correct, that this narrative observing is not simply nice.

[17:47]

It's nice to tell ourselves stories. But it's dead serious necessary. If you don't do it and can't do it, you're crazy. Or you come apart. So we have to keep establishing coherence. Yeah. Now recently in this... essay letter which is going to go out. Is it translated and done? I think printed today. Printed today. Did my paragraph suggestion get in or not? No. Okay. Fine. And one of the things I say in it When I make a list, you know what happens when you make lists, you start to list.

[19:00]

List means to tip. Sorry. Listing all around, yeah. But not listless. Oh, this is the kind of translator I like. Yeah, I make so many lists, I can't be listless. I kind of avoid making lists, but every now and then I do, and it turns out to be... helpful to me anyway. So I made a list in this letter about what seems to happen through monastic 90-day practice periods.

[20:18]

Okay, now I don't... The right brain, left brain stuff started in 1962. When I actually first started practicing with Sukhyoshi. In 1962. And Bob Ornstein, was his name I think, somebody I knew slightly or moderately, wrote lots of books about Ornstein. I never really agreed with him. I thought it was too simple. I don't like anything that tends to explain everything.

[21:21]

It sounds like quack medicine. Yeah, which doctors know nothing about, right? No. Anyway, quack medicine is like, I've got this here and it'll fix anything you want. You've got cancer? Take this. You can't sleep? Take this. Okay, so, and I don't want to present Buddhism that way, though, sometimes I think, you know, I'm almost there. And I don't want to present Buddhism in this way, but sometimes I think I'm close to it. No, that was an exact translation. I swear. So what I said in the letter, that Buddhism has assumed forever neurological plasticity.

[22:33]

Yeah, and I mean it's in... Plasticity. It means the brain can be changed by how you live and what you do and so forth. When you're meditating, for example. Yeah. But... I mean, just the simple fact, for instance, that the Japanese try to make their language as complicated as possible is based on neurological plasticity. Because the Japanese have assumed, though it's not conscious, but it's a cultural act. It's conscious in some people, but mostly it's a cultural matter.

[23:41]

That learning a language creates the brain, creates aspects of the brain. So if You make a complex language, you create a complex brain. Yeah, so we don't assume that. And MacArthur, you know who that was, General MacArthur, you know. He tried to simplify the Japanese language. He tried to turn it into an alphabet. And in newspaper headlines, MacArthur wants to make us as stupid as white people. No, there was never really such headlines.

[24:52]

But there have been headlines like that about dumb Orientals in America. Anyway. Anyway. So what I said in this letter was that monastic practice or concentrated long-term practice instead of saying right and left brain Instead of saying right and left brain, I said it makes you more right-brained-bodied dominant. Because it's not just about the brain. Okay. Now, I have some reluctance about having said that.

[26:02]

No, but it's too late to take it out of the letter. You're printing it, you know. And I don't like saying those things anyway because then it makes people who can't do practice periods in monastic life think, I'm doomed to be left brain dominant. doomed to be brain dominated okay so um But if you sever the two halves of the brife, It's either for some kind of reason or it happens to an accident.

[27:16]

Sometimes the differences can be really extreme. A person will dress themselves with the right hand and undress themselves with the left hand. Yeah, or will love their spouse with one hand and hit her or him with the other hand. Yeah, or... There's some other funny examples. No, that's enough. But if you show a person who has this split brain, I read this recently, a snowstorm and a chicken leg, and then afterwards, and some people... And it's very right-eyed and left-eyed too, how they experience things.

[28:20]

So that you show them a snowstorm and a chicken leg. and then later you'll show them some pictures and you'll say pick out some pictures which refer to what you've just seen and they'll one person with this problem picked a snow shovel and a chicken hat eine Schneeschaufel und ein Huhn ausgewählt. And then they said to the person, Why did you pick a snow shovel and a chicken? Warum hast du eine Schneeschaufel und ein Huhn ausgewählt? They stopped and they said, Oh, it's to shovel clean the chicken coop. Because the need to make a narration that was coherent took over. Because it seems we can't tolerate incoherence to the level that you can't function.

[29:31]

So if we are biologically not just identical twin-brained but at least fraternal twin-brained, If the two parts of our brain are not like identical twins, but at best fraternal twins, fraternal twins are non-identical twins. Oh, I didn't know that. That's what I stumbled upon. Okay. But you know, this is completely out. Out in the left field or right field or whatever you want. You can have identical twins where one's a boy and one's a girl.

[30:45]

If they make the calculation of what's identical by the percentage of similar DNA or something, that definition supposedly allows some cases Did it be a boy and girl difference? But that's for science, not for normal. Okay. So if there is so much difference between even how we biologically perceive. Aside from the differences and the complexity going on in the world, which you're always interpreting, it seems to be absolutely, even biologically, necessary that we create a coherent narrative.

[31:56]

Now we can ask, does yogic experience presume the possibility of a non-narrative mode of mind? Okay, that's my list which appeared when I put my finger to my forehead. But you all also have a self and a finger and a forehead. And as I said, the experience of locating through a self, or being a self, or something like that. So, what is your experience? What do you think about this list?

[32:59]

Of course, my life is trying to make things clear, and most of us don't spend so much time trying to find language for things but still you all have the experience. So now we are open for comments. Yes. Am Ende, heute Vormittag, da hat Froschi gesagt, als wir noch ein paar Minuten gesessen haben, das wäre so ähnlich, dass wir unser Ich im Sitzen das mal erfahren könnten.

[34:15]

Prima. Rashi, at the end this morning you said, let's sit for a few minutes, and then you said we can now experience ourself while sitting or something. So when I just sit and stay here and feel my fingers touching I don't, I wouldn't say that there is so much self there. But I can clearly say there is an exterior like hearing, whatever, and feeling my hands. So it is something external and something internal.

[35:17]

And it seems to me It seems to me that in everyday life, in encounters with others, then immediately... In everyday life in what? In everyday life? Encounters. Encounters with others. Encounters with others. There immediately somehow springs up self. Mm-hmm. And maybe that could be tied to number five, to the I-agency, as if it's necessary in the encounters with others, but not when I just sit and notice what's going on. Okay.

[36:19]

So what you pointed out that self is an activity. And sometimes that activity is more present than at other times. So let's call the activity of self, selfness. Selfness. So we ask Neil what he's doing. He's saying self-nessing. Okay, so for the practitioner it's extremely essential to notice that there's more self-ness present sometimes than other times.

[37:28]

When we do this prologue day, the pre-day, we don't start sitting at the beginning of each session. Because I want to be here with your naked lay self. Your self which hasn't been corrupted by sitting yet. But You've all been sitting too long for that to be the case. Anyway, Tara? My self is completely unspoiled by sitting.

[38:32]

I like that. When I sit, as Katrin describes it, and I just notice the hands or the place, what I notice, isn't it also part of the self? When I'm sitting, just as Katrin said, I'm just experiencing, observing my hands. Isn't that also a part of self? Isn't that also a part of self? Isn't that also a part of self? But isn't that what observing or the observer not also I related or belonging to that container of self? Is there something which can observe which is not part of the self? That's the question.

[39:44]

I mean, that's one of the questions. Is the experience of your hands being together have anything to do with the experience of self? Is observing your hands are together, is the observing having to do with self? Or is the observing agency separate from the self-agency? For practicing Buddhists, these are essential questions. Okay, someone else? Yes. To put it a little more simply, couldn't we say that a being more into... That is a being more into awareness.

[40:57]

That it is less and less self. And that there may be or is an awareness which is not self. Without the self? Okay. Is there... Can I be in awareness and just notice that's awareness? And as soon as I say, well, that's awareness now, that's kind of self comes in. I'm aware. But I also can somehow stay just in a state of awareness.

[41:59]

And then I have no feeling of self, or almost no feeling of self. Okay. Okay. So, you brought into our discussion, our conversation, some conceptual formulations. which are experientially based and experientially testable. So conceptually, you brought in a distinction between awareness and consciousness. And again the conception of less or more selfness. Now I'm pointing out the conceptual content of what Atmar said.

[43:13]

Because something that's extremely important is the relationship between concepts and practice. For instance, if you don't have the distinction between awareness and consciousness. Your practice may be in a muddle all the time. And without the distinction between awareness and consciousness You don't know how to emphasize awareness in contrast to consciousness. And there are non-conscious assumptions functioning as well.

[44:20]

Now, I remember when I first started practicing, I was pretty unsophisticated. Yeah, and you know, you have... Various experiences occur. And in those days, everything was called consciousness. In fact, there was a general assumption of a unified consciousness and a unified self and all that stuff. But my experiences were contradicting this. that everything's consciousness, forms of consciousness. But I didn't know what to do about it. So finally, at some point, I created for myself, in my own practice, a concept of awareness.

[45:25]

And what that did was allow me to emphasize my practice, decide what aspects of my practice to emphasize with more clarity. It also allowed me simultaneously to start dealing with and noticing non-conscious assumptions about consciousness. And self and what is a human being and so forth. And I very soon found I had to revise what I thought being a human being was. Okay. So there's the conceptual distinctions that Atmar made. And of course, they're related to his practicing and noticing that there's less selfness present in awareness.

[47:13]

Then he introduced the question, Is the act of observing Always the agency of self. And does self come in as soon as you observe? And I would say definitively no. In other words, when you were a beginner, And say you have some state of samadhi or awareness. And you notice that, oh, this must be what they mean by samadhi. I read it somewhere. Whoa, samadhi.

[48:15]

And then immediately samadhi is gone. Now, why is it gone? Because the act of observing called forth consciousness. And consciousness and Awareness are like oil and water. You get pretty rainbows. But for a more skillful practitioner you can observe, study, poke around within the sphere of samadhi, then you've developed a non-interfering observing mind.

[49:38]

In my notes, it's neoc. Non-interfering observing mind. As soon as I type it with NIOC, my computer says none. NIOC, non-interfering observing mind. Or non-interfering observing consciousness. Anyway, okay, so, and when you have an observing function, which can study your practice, observe your practice, observing modes of samadhi without calling forth consciousness and interrupting the samadhi, That's mostly because there's no self in the observing.

[50:48]

It's just observing. Which then tells us that self is closely connected with consciousness. Now, to what degree is self only connected with consciousness? That's an open question. Okay. Yes, Peter? Does it make sense to make a distinction between myself and this feeling that my observation has something to do with me and not with my neighbor?

[51:50]

Again, still with this topic, does it make a difference that my observing has to do with observing what happens with me and not with my neighbor? Also, wenn ich den Begriff selbst, der so eng mit dem Bewusstsein zusammenhängt, We have the term self, which is so closely connected to consciousness, which is for me the narrative self. This morning the approach I found helpful to start with the direct observation.

[52:59]

Another list came up which is the five skandhas. And I thought, where is something coming up which has to do with it? And what I think, and as Ottmar said, it is hard to fixate this so clearly, make it, yeah. For example, because the feeling of pleasant and unpleasant in the second skandha, das kann changieren von, ich nehme Bezug zu mir, das kann verschlimmen.

[54:02]

This may change in the way it can have a relationship to me, but it can also disappear, this relationship to me. And I ask myself, should I discriminate between the narrative self And the direct observing of when I breathe, is it my breathing? Nothing else. Without associations or anything. So it would be like breath only or something like that. There's a breathing where this coming together dissolves. And there is still being some feeling that it has something to do with me.

[55:19]

but where this narrative part isn't existing, present. Okay, so you're bringing up a distinction between a sense of, let's say, meanness, and a sense of, which is perhaps a sense of location as well, and a sense of the narrative sense, narrative self, which is more temporal than locative. So you put the distinction between an I-ness and a distinction where... Okay, so let's call this a location. When is this experience of a location a self, and when is it just an experience of a location? Now, you this morning, or someone said something which is related to feeling pride.

[56:50]

And what is the... most basic rule in Western culture, pride goeth before a fall. And what is the most basic rule in a worldly culture, so, yes, pride comes before a fall. Hutzpah goeth before a fall. Pride. No, but I said Hutzpah. Hutzpah, yes. Hutzpah goeth before a fall. So Hutzpah comes before a fall. Okay. But in Buddhism it's important to be able to feel pride. Now, what's the difference?

[57:54]

Well, in Buddhism when they say you should be proud of what you've done, it's clearly you're proud of what you've done in comparison to what you did before. I'm proud that I could practice mindfulness much more continuously than I was able to last year. That's in all the sutras they refer to pride in this sense. Yeah. Anyway, we won't go into it any more deeper than that right now. But then we can ask, is that pride a sense of self?

[58:57]

It's not pride in comparison to others. It's a pride in comparison to yourself, to yourself, to yourself, to your previous activities. Anyway, these are... I think, important questions, significant, crucial questions to examine as a practitioner. And to notice in your non-self, the differences.

[60:03]

And notice in experience, I can say it that way, to notice in experience the differences. So if I always say by habit to notice in yourself, even though I mean self in a very qualified sense, it still has a tendency to concretize the experience. So if I can find ways to say, like, to notice inexperience, That else actually is more effective than just putting self in quotation marks.

[61:06]

Okay, it's time for a break. Thank you very much. Thanks for this discussion, for the laboratory work. You say laboratory. Labor, like labor. American labor. Labor in America is without you, is it? In England, it's with you. In America, it's without you. But when I do it, it's with you. Thank you. Not only with you, but also, I prefer a lot of British spellings.

[62:18]

You with you. And one thing that maybe I should point out is when you mentioned Peter the Five Scandals you mentioned the Abhidharma version which is the in Buddhism, the authoritative version. But around here, the convenient or authoritative version is the dharmasanga version, or mind. Which is that the second skanda is a non-graspable feeling, not

[63:22]

pleasure or the sensation of pleasure or pain. Yes, because when you use the five standards as a way to practice and not as a way to define the absence of self. And probably, I just don't know how really it's the traditional definition of the second skandha. really is felt by Asians practicing it, but for me, at least in our Western paradigms, ways of feeling things, Non-greifable feeling is much more accurate than the sensation of pleasure or non-pleasure.

[64:48]

So I don't mind if you're an Abhidharma heretic, but it's, you know... I don't care if you're a tabidama cat.

[65:16]

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