How to bring you back to life. And he made a big circle with this firebrand and said, ah, the original face. Which has no birth and death. Spring is in the bloodline. And we could use that poem as a riff on this poem. But the general idea is that you have the six senses, And then you have views.

[01:06]

And so forth. And then you have something like this. And down here you have what we call the laya vijnana. Now, the fourth skandha that is really the functioning skandha for remembrance. Now, the alaya vijnana is considered to be the storehouse consciousness.

[02:07]

And what happens in each of your sense fields draws remembrance and memory into it. And when you draw something up through here, it has to go through this opening, which can be quite narrow. If you have a rigid ego here, sort of a kernel ego, not much gets through. But if you feel your ego is more like a host and is saying, welcome, You can open this up.

[03:19]

And of course your views, not only your views, but the structure of consciousness itself affects this. So this is part of the structure that's behind In other words, I presume that if you're a psychotherapist, you're working in influence by one of the schools or various schools. You have some structure like an ego, super ego or something present in the way you're feeling. Or you have the feeling of many organizing archetypes that are working in the background of a person's conversation.

[04:22]

Well, a Buddhist teacher has a feeling of a number of These are a number of structures that are working in the background of a person's thinking and acting. So one of the structures is that in these six sense fields of smelling and seeing and hearing and so forth, In each person, they're usually jammed all up into one of the consciousnesses. And so there's a... And in Westerners, it's primarily... of visual conceptual consciousness.

[05:41]

So one of the aims in practice, for example, when I say hear yourself hearing, And one of the goals in the practice is, and for this reason I say to you, listen to your own listening. And the background for this message is not only that while you meditate you are simply very busy with listening. And that you hear things in a much more timeless way. like sometimes in a movie, when you see the ocean, or see car traffic, it feels more timeless than when you're just out in the street. And very similar, sometimes you see a sea in a film or how cars pass by in this film.

[06:42]

It has a much more timeless quality than if you actually see it now. And so a picture in a film from which something has actually been released, one makes an experience that is very similar to meditation. Maybe that's entering a painted picture. So, you know, when you're meditating sometimes you hear the rumble of the earth, or you hear the whir of the air tires sighing, you know. So, I mean, I point that out partly, you know, We can give you too much attention. You probably take something away that I don't point out, but you know I do what I do.

[07:45]

So I pointed out again, not only because it's our experience in meditation often, but because I want to pry the six consciences apart from each other. So if I find ways to point out that you can hear something and think about something else at the same time, Which all immediately means that hearing is a different kind of consciousness than thinking, which can go on at the same time without interfering with each other. Or that you can hear.

[08:54]

Hearing means to awaken the field of hearing. The stillness is there even in the midst of sound. And that awakens the experience of hearing as having its own cohesion, its own integrity as a sense field. What awakens again, more directly, the experience that much remembrance and memory is nothing to do with the eye consciousness or proprioceptive, is entirely in the fear consciousness field.

[09:57]

So part of my speaking with you is to try to release the time capsule, the time release capsule, helps you start from one point to separate your sense fields. And if you pry loose and begin to experience your sense field separately, And if memory and remembrance are called forth differently, and are here in your sense fields,

[11:07]

When you restore them, again both conscious and non-conscious elements, they are restored, restored differently. Makes sense? So you're actually changing your karma. I say, you either cook your karma or get cooked by it. This is a process of cooking your karma. And so when you separate the Sense is you're changing the pots you cook it in.

[12:32]

You're cooking it now in six pots. And when you change this, maybe we can say you're changing the kitchen or you're changing the farm. So one of the The second, another effort that the mindology therapist is doing in Buddhism It's trying to change this structure as well as these separate parts. So in this... Koan, what you'd see if you imagine Fayan as a psychologist, or a Buddhist mindologist, he's empathetically and compassionately waiting for a moment in his relationship with another person.

[13:54]

Especially when a person has an aroused potentiality, resonantly, personally and through the teaching, to this point, to really say, what is air-breath difference? What about this hair? At that moment, you want to move into that spot. Now, there's various ways to do it. So he says, so Fayan asks his Dharma brother, how do you understand this hair breast?

[15:16]

Now again, he's waiting for that moment where you can take the veil of remembrance across, away from you. And Fayan and Fayan's school, he's the last of the five schools, the five schools of Zen. His way of teaching was to particularly use this emphasis starting here and using whatever the person gave him. So he He knows, you know, they've been together all the time, and Shushan is a teacher in his own right.

[16:26]

I should say adept, because not all adepts become teachers. So he asked Shushan this question. And he says, what about this third patriarch's hair breadth difference? So Shushan doesn't give him any difference. Shushan says, What does it actually say in the column? Yeah, he says, a hair-breadth difference is as the distance between heaven and earth.

[17:31]

So Shushan gives him no difference. He just says, air-breath difference is as the difference between distance between heaven and earth. So he does two things here. He asked him the question, so he answered what we have to call semiotically or structurally. Well, x equals x. x is a sign, x equals x. It's looking at the words, not in terms of their meaning content, but the structure. So this is basically an equation, x equals x. So he says x, so there's no distance between x by repeating x. So he says,

[18:42]

Fayan answers without a hairbreadth difference. By just repeating what he said. It's also the style of taking away the language. And so he says, I believe, but how do you get there? How do you get it that way? So he says, so why are you pushing him a bit? He's saying something like, okay, I accept your understanding, but how do you get to that understanding? How do you make use of that understanding? So like Yangshan sticks his hole in the ground and says, I am just thus.

[20:06]

Yeah, I am just thus. What about you? So then he says again, so we have the third statement, a hairbreadth difference is the distance as the difference between heaven and earth. And he's in a, Shushan is in a different state of mind at that point. I'm just thus. And Shushan is now in a different state than before when he said, I am just like this. At this point, the two of them knock from the inside and the outside.

[21:09]

And on the one hand he says, I am just like this, and that is pretty good, but it is not enough yet. So he says, how do you get And it is then asked, how do you get there? And Shu Shan says, what would you say? And in this moment he really has this beginner's mind. And what will Fa Yan do? Each time it's the same statement, each time it's heard completely differently, and it functions differently. And the third time, it takes everything away and just puts the words into it. Und beim dritten Mal wird einfach alles weggenommen und einfach die Worte in ihn hineinversetzt.

[22:26]

So really here the hair growth difference is gone. Und hier ist wirklich dieser Haarfeine Unterschied weg. And this statement of this Third Patriarch also resonates with an earlier statement of heaven and earth are the same room. And here there is also a relationship to another statement of the Third Patriarch, that heaven and earth have the same roots. Myriad beings and I are one body. So by hearing this a third time, We presume, the point is, he entered into an experience that heaven and earth are one root, and I am the same body. So some koans work with this, and this koan is working with this. So why don't we sit for a little bit and then we'll have lunch.

[23:40]

Does anyone have anything to offer us from your question that I hope you have? Yes. What exactly is that background mind? How does it function? I have not understood. Do you want to say it in Deutsch? Well, you know, I am not quite Once the basic idea is there, I think you mostly just have to wait to see if you have some experience with it. That's a way it's like this...

[25:55]

piece of paper, and you experience the foreground of the letters, but you also experience the paper. I know my first experience of it, or at least the first way I expressed it, when I had a little talk once in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 60s, I had the experience of thoughts being like billboards. Mostly my mind was these billboards, various things written and so forth. And I noticed when I changed the speed of the mental observer, the car, I began to see between the billboards to a deeper landscape of the mind.

[27:17]

and a landscape out of which, as I said, the billboards were made. Now many, actually this is not something, the background mind, you know, it's like saying, well you go down here and so forth, and over there there's a movie theater. I mean, that doesn't help much, except you know there's a movie theater somewhere out there. You actually have to start walking to the movie theater, and pretty soon you try different paths, and pretty soon you find the movie theater. So you have to, I think, to actually make this certain in you or have a real feeling of it, you actually have to practice enough and try various approaches until it becomes a real experience.

[28:38]

First to understand this conceptually and then to have an experience of it is the basis of almost all meditation practice. Yes. Yes. What has therapy to do with Zen meditation? What do you mean? I mean, maybe there's a similar process or something like this.

[30:04]

And I'm interested in your experiences about We are combining these two ways. Or maybe it's just better to go every way separate. And then look at it and see it's something similar. So that's it. Can I say it in Deutsch? What does therapy have to do with Zen meditation? And in particular I am interested in whether there are simply two similar processes and whether it is good to go separately or together. Are you also asking the question, should you or one do therapy and Zen, or do them relation to each other, or something like that?

[31:15]

Do you have experience in doing both together at one time? I do, yes. But that doesn't mean I know too much about it, but, you know, I can talk about it a bit. I actually think that almost if anybody's planning to practice Zen with people, you should probably do some therapy. For yourself and for the understanding of something central to our Western culture these days. I think nowadays with the empathy, sympathy that therapists have for and familiarity for meditation.

[32:32]

They can work together pretty well. Twenty years ago I would say most therapists were antagonistic or threatened by meditation or just dismissed it. And as I said the other day, I think nowadays there's much more of a dialogue, there is a dialogue possible, because both ways of studying ourselves, each knows they don't have all the answers. Now there's some big differences.

[33:37]

The way in which you relate to a teacher in Zen and the way you relate to a therapist is quite different. So that's something, you know, that's a different kind of interactive relationship that can be very valuable that you don't get in Zen practice. And also the conception of the teacher in Zen assumes, in the developed sense, assumes the presence of a sangha. It's assumed that a teacher can do most everything that's necessary for the development of a person if the relationship is in the midst of a sangha that lives together.

[34:47]

I think that you'd have to admit that there's no expectation that a teacher could do everything for the development of Zen and realization if there's only the kind of contact you have in a lay setting. And you have to admit that it would really make no sense to transfer all the responsibility for the development of the practice completely to this teacher-student relationship if it is only in a lay environment. There's a support and difficulty in the Sangha that's very important, the way you rub together in the Sangha.

[35:52]

So I think that's one good reason among many why a lay practitioner should consider seriously also doing therapy if they feel like it. Now, there are some overlapping, of course, overlapping aims and processes and so forth. But the basic paradigm of what the human being is and the human being's relationship to the world, I think, is quite different in Buddhism than in psychotherapy. So what the Buddhist teacher is trying to do and the therapists are trying to do is somewhat different.

[36:57]

I mean, the Buddhist teacher is trying to bring you to realization or enlightenment, and the therapist is trying to help you understand yourself better. And of course the Buddhist teacher wants you to function better too, but maybe he doesn't care too much about that. I think that probably the main Buddhist practice that is in rapport with or similar to psychotherapy

[38:11]

is following a thought to its source. Now this is a kind of code for many ways in which you study the mind following the arising of states of mind, thoughts and feelings. You begin to be able to study the structure of your mind. You begin to be able to make choices about the structure of your mind. And also that process develops a new structure of the mind. No, I don't see any reason why psychotherapy couldn't work with that in the same way, and I think it opens you to psychotherapy.

[39:21]

But I'm not a psychotherapist, so I don't really have to ask some of the psychotherapists here. Do any of the psychotherapists want to say something? To work with imagination. [...] It's very similar. I mean, the way you work in psychotherapy, you follow an imagination or association to its source, and it's a process. I work with that in my work and in my meditation. Yes. I mean, I think the main area where it overlaps is I think what you said this morning.

[40:46]

I mean, if main gate practice is to start where we are, then this must be the biggest overlap, I think, because whether I do psychotherapy or meditation practice, I start with where I am. And especially as a beginner in both practices, I don't really know much. I mean, I just have to start. So I think a lot in meditation in the beginning is therapeutic. Maybe a lot that happens in psychotherapy first is that you kind of learn how to be in a meditative state. Anyone else? Yes. It's difficult to answer for that question, for that topic.

[41:58]

I, you know, I work in Europe and I combine now for nine or ten years psychotherapy and meditation. And I notice the more I do this practice and the more I lead people to the practice, the more there's change of the space which we enter. You and the client, you and the patient, yeah. And it's not so much a question to pick the person where he is. I did that the years before, too, I think. But there is a deep difference is where we, in which space and which room we go, which space and room we enter. I have been working for the last ten years in the combination of psychotherapy and meditation.

[43:04]

And what changes about my own practice and about the fact that I guide people in the meditation practice, Yes. I think I think I also believe that in the last years, in the whole therapeutic field, there is a very significant change that makes this connection between meditation and therapy closer. Namely where we are from the defective to the sacrificial. There is a shift also.

[44:36]

We started in the Freudian concept with deficiency. The individual has a defect, is pathological, comes to us and we help him to get rid of it. And I think the therapeutic movement with body therapy and creative therapy looks at people as Jung does. that the psyche is a space of self-organizing process, which is enormous creating. And if this is true, then the self itself, a client, is moving in this creative room. And I think that is an overlap. To all of this, what you talked about this morning, it's very familiar, it's not the same, it's out of the same family.

[45:40]

If I can follow you. Meditation helped me more to that change between the deficiency and the creative person. The more all those psychotherapy I did with myself, it didn't have so much to make that change to creativity. Yeah. It is, I think for myself, this change of the defect or the injury to want to repair, to address creativity in that regard. This change is for me in my accompanying potential rather due to the rehabilitation practice. Can I ask a question? What are your experiences leading persons in meditation and at the same moment being a psychotherapist?

[46:46]

What are your experiences when you are a levitation guide and therapist? I work in a place where both are offered, where psychotherapy and meditation are offered and where the people who come there already know that it is offered there. And they usually ask themselves, and this is so partial, they usually ask themselves whether to go deeper in their work. So it's not so partial. I would say you don't have to guide her to meditation, you just have to create a space where this can happen.

[48:09]

And you can do that very well if you are mainly a therapist. Anyone else? There's a question. Yes. Well, let's stay with this topic a little bit more, okay? Ralph, do you have anything to add to this? Not at the moment. Okay. I think the question, who am I? And to learn to watch carefully what comes up in my mind or in my body or in my different sense fields is very similar in therapy and in meditation. And what you just mentioned, when I am able to see more clearly how I function, I come in the position to have a choice.

[49:20]

I have said that the question, who am I actually, in the meditation and the therapy is the same, and to learn the way, not to observe carefully, both how my thoughts work, but also what appears in my body or in my various fields of perception. And in the extent that I learn to observe how I work, I come into the situation of making new decisions. Yes? I would like to ask a big question. what is the difference between therapy and meditation?

[50:26]

Because I always have a feeling that there is also an importance to make a clear separation, which is what? About to mix it together too early, or is there more to understand both really in God, or I don't know yet. And we like to ask the question in this way, what makes the difference? I would like to ask this question in a different way, namely what is the difference between meditation and therapy? I always have the feeling that if you mix it together too early, without really understanding both, then maybe that is also the point where I am currently in my academic development, that there is also a certain danger hidden. Yeah.

[51:34]

Well, rather than respond, I'd rather take some more questions and give myself a little chance to see how to respond. Randy, before you, there was a woman in the back behind you. Yes. Yeah. Yes, I have difficulties. I hope I have more. I have more. So it is necessary for me. For me, it's a difference of levels.

[52:41]

I have experience working with a teacher and a psychotherapist, and I'm also a psychotherapist. When I see my teacher, he just works on a different level. He gives me hints that have nothing to do with my ego realm. He tells me, maybe you have a problem here or there, and then I can work on that if it's related to the ego with therapy. Yeah, there are some differences, of course, we can talk about, but most, there are also many differences that are just in the craft and the approach, which are different. Randy? Randy? A person comes to Zen or and or technically for different reasons or for a number of reasons.

[53:54]

I think what's common is some sense that one's life is problematic or that there's some some difficulties, or some lack? What do you let to recognize? There are some... Desire. You're writing some desire. And in either case, in Zen or psychic therapy, inevitably,

[55:12]

as you begin to inquire, you come up against some resistance in yourself. And this resistance or difficulty or uncertainty is experienced as a barrier. And I think It's important, and it determines how you work with this difficulty, what the basic paradigm of the two disciplines is and how that's understood.

[56:18]

So my question is, now, there's fear. Psychotherapy, deals a great deal, speaks a great deal about anxiety. Buddhism also speaks about fear, the risk of fear. So what? This fear or resistance, this barrier, is in both cases, I think, a gate, but a gate to what?

[57:22]

So is this fear or this resistance or this difficulty in both cases a goal? And a goal for what? Yes, I... I often say there's no Buddhist psychology. Because the psyche is not something that Buddhists think about or work with. But I think there could be a Buddhist psychologist. In other words, somebody who'd used the technology of Buddhism, the skandhas, the vijnanas, the understanding of original mind,

[58:50]

And then within that, as part of the way you both understand and approach a practice with a client, you'd work with the psyche. Yes? For me the difference is that in my Buddhist meditation way I found out that I work with myself To meet you and to talk with you was sometimes a help for me with myself. It was helpful, because you never said to me, do this, do that. You always said, I see this, or you showed something.

[60:15]

So it was totally different from my talks with the Therapeut. So a theropod is always in contact and it's very difficult to explain but it's totally, completely different. So I think the aspect of contact and to talk in contact is in the theropodic way but in the other side there's also contact but it's not The attention to the separation, that the person is really a different person, or that you are actually not going alone, I found that very supportive and different. Yes, contact, but no mixing. The other thing is that I always communicate through mixing. If a teacher feels that the basic paradigm of Buddhism is understood and at work in a person, and their commitment is there,

[61:30]

A commitment like a fire or force in them that's unrelenting. You can't expect that of everyone, but it is the best ideal case, and sometimes it's true. Then the teacher really basically only says, oh. Every joke's on, somebody comes in, you say, oh. If you don't, oh. Then you let them see if the person can sleep. But of course you can't do that with everyone.

[63:15]

You can do it with yourself, though. In this sense, the interference sometimes is much stronger with a spiritual teacher than with a therapist, because a spiritual teacher doesn't really pay so much attention that something's safe, you know, like in therapy or so. Sometimes to actually make this break and change your paradigm, you really have to suffer. And the teacher does not want to make it okay. Because, you know, Yes, early.

[64:21]

into this self-reflection that takes place in meditation and first of all creates this interaction with the psychotherapist so that this self-confrontation is possible. Well, at the beginning of the path, what is needed is a kind of security, you know, a safe space. And so that then maybe in the spiritual practice, actually somebody can bear the situation when this safe space is taken away. I think this is an incredibly important point and I think at this point many people in a meditation practice can't get any further, because basically a certain security is not there in order to really enter this insecure space. I would like to add something, because this morning, because of the feelings, this distinction came up again, that I have the feeling that in therapeutic work we often work with the expression of feelings.

[65:51]

That means that we that he survives even though he expresses a feeling. Richard often speaks of staying with the feelings. If I don't have an idea or a reference to my feeling, I can't stay with my feeling. That's where the difference lies. And I want to add something to our discussion this morning. Working with the psychotherapy, we helped the client to express feelings and emotions and that he actually survives expressing what he or she feels. And I think that is really the base experience for being able to stay with the feeling. If you don't have the security that you can handle expressing something, you also can't stay with it.

[66:54]

Well, one of the main safe place in practice is that you realize you can sit through anything without moving. So no matter how bad it gets, you know you can simply stay still. So you can then, and I think there's a kind of practice I did, was to accept, acknowledge, amplify and throw away. Everything that came up, I would accept it, acknowledge it, amplify it, throw it away.

[68:11]

And if something wasn't there, I'd try to find it and amplify it. And if I felt I was one way, I'd say, hey, the opposite's hiding somewhere, and I'd look for the opposite and amplify it. And I tried to be open to which I was sure that all things human beings are passes through us. So I tried to find a mind that could be open to that. So that's actually a kind of psychological practice within the context of Zen practice. Uli, do you have something you can offer us about differences or whatever from our conversations the last few years in Austria?

[69:20]

I mean, one of the main differences you told us over there, you already mentioned, I would say, because you said the Buddhist teacher really doesn't care for... I think that's a big thing, this caring. It's different, at least. I wouldn't say it's not there. Yes, but... Don't say I don't care. I would rather say that a Buddhist teacher or even a Buddhist doesn't really care about what is right and what is wrong, about moral values.

[70:36]

I would say Buddhist teacher is not so much involved in right and wrong. Okay, well, I think that I love this discussion. I like this discussion. But I think maybe it'd be a good point to take a break. I'd like to continue the discussion a bit, if it's okay with you guys. So, Ralph? Do you see a possibility to come back to the core? I mean to discuss, perhaps to discuss this interesting question, psychotherapy and meditation with the background of this core.

[71:55]

I could know myself no clear idea, but I would like to. So you feel something in the koan that you'd like to bring into the discussion. I had the impression that our discussion before the break was a tendency in this I.org thinking which you were talking about. I felt a little sort of disappointment or something. I wonder if you have an idea to see how we could come back to the Koran and still be with this question. My question was whether Becker-Roschi sees any possibility of coming back to the koans and maybe discussing the question of psychiatry and meditation in the background of the koans, because I had the impression that there is a lot in this question in the koans, but I had the feeling that the discussion was a bit too much in Wiesbeth Widerohler-Benk, as he said,

[73:27]

Can I add one question? Sure. How can I change a therapeutic situation into a koan? Can I become your patient? You'd have a koan then. And so would I. You're blushing. Well, I was thrilled by the idea of seeing him once a week. We have to stop meeting this way. What was your question again?

[74:29]

How can I relate a therapeutic situation to a Quran? And what do you mean by that? Well, yesterday we played this situation, the Quran, and I found it really to feel that there is something like insight happening, or a therapeutic insight. Now I understand, yes. Well, I think if I was a Buddhist psychologist... Now, I mean, really, if I'm in that frame, I'd have to learn a lot more about transference and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But assuming I had sufficient professional skills, I think what I would do is expect the people I saw to sit for 30 to 40 minutes before I saw them.

[75:33]

Dann würde ich einfach erwarten, dass also alle meine Klienten 30 oder 40 Minuten vorher sitzen. So you'd have to have a big waiting room. Du musst ein großes Wartezimmer mit Kissen geben. And then, but it might be interesting to see people in other contexts too, like in a cafe or something. Aber es wäre auch gut, Leute in einem anderen Kontext zu sehen, zum Beispiel im Café. It's beginning to sound like my life, actually. Es ist mein Leben. And then I think if I had this sense of both the original mind, the original face, which has no birth and death, and I had this synergetic and energetic picture of how we work and that enlightenment is possible, And I again worked with the basics, the vijnanas, skandhas, and so forth. I think that situations would naturally arise which would take the form of koans.

[76:52]

that practically speaking one could either see koans like I may, maybe a therapist, a Jungian therapist may see in a person's conversations the presence of an archetype, say. I would see the presence of maybe 15 or 75 different koans. Not all at once, one at a time. So if I saw the presence of that, then the koan might be a provision for me, a resource in which I would see an extension or make a suggestion related to the koan. The koans work various points and various blockages and so forth. But more basically, I think situations could come to the fore as the Genjo Koan of daily life, and they could be worked with.

[78:39]

But I would assume that a certain stage of practice you'd have to call preparatory, in which one would go through their story and their life and so forth. In relation to what Ralph said, I do want to come back to the koan and look at it, and we will do that tomorrow. But I feel we need a certain breather.

[79:43]

We looked pretty intensely this morning and then you need a different kind of pace and then to come back to it. And I think it's also useful just to have a time we air views, we hear our views. And I think if we don't, as the koan suggests, don't form a logical understanding or Have any anticipation? You know, our views are sort of like leaves blowing this way and that way. I think it's useful just to hear them. That's not to diminish them, but it's just to hear them. And sometimes we act on them and sometimes we just hear them.

[80:54]

Now I notice that the way people progress in practice is that it's almost like they make sometimes deep inroads into practice and in developing and understanding. And then in slightly other moods or a different set of considerations, Ja, und in einer anderen Stimmung, oder wenn Sie andere Überlegungen haben, sind Sie wieder da, wo Sie angefangen haben. Ich finde das manchmal unglaublich oder schwer zu glauben, wie kann man einerseits ein so tiefes, entwickelndes Verständnis haben, und dann auf der anderen Seite wieder, also wirklich ganz am Anfang stehen. Sometimes in some moods we're quite enlightened and others quite benighted.

[81:59]

And those have to start working together and pushing on each other. As I've said, you know, death carves out... a void in the middle of the present. Makes the here very precious. And that's always a koan. So, something a little less serious, something else we could, anybody wants to mention? Yes. Yes. Who painted the picture?

[83:01]

That question always comes up, doesn't it? As Peter over there said, What is the self? I guess the self must have painted the picture. Or maybe the picture painted the picture. Or maybe entering painted the picture. I'm serious. I'm not just fooling around. Or I'm fooling around and serious. Okay, so maybe we should ask instead of what is the self, because the self for most of us is some kind of life raft made of cement.

[84:08]

We can climb into it any time. It will be absolutely solid. But we look at it and it's sand and fast, quickly dissolving. And self reverberates so strongly for us with soul and afterlife. So maybe we should say, what is the experience of the observer? Or in what sense do we have a feeling of location? Anyway, reframe the question. We could try out quite a few ways to do that. But I'd like to, I think one of the, I mean, you know, the phrase, I mean, the Mahayana Buddhism is called the middle way.

[85:56]

And this is commonplace, every place you read, this is the middle way. And it sounds like a nice democratic average. Of course, let's be the middle way. That's balanced and healthy. But at the level of practice, it is the most extraordinary, subtle idea. How can I give you a feeling for it? The middle way means that you don't see a material world which you can transcend. There's no transcendence. There's nothing beyond this world.

[86:59]

This world is as you see it, you know. It won't be any different. It's pretty much just like now all the time. Okay. And also, you can't deny the world. It's middle way in the sense that it's not nihilistic to... Not a Barkley and barking up the wrong tree of, you know, it's all in the mind. Thank you. So, if it's not... something transcendent, and it's not material, which also means it's not something material that can be transcended.

[88:22]

It's not permanent. It doesn't have an inherent nature. And you can't also throw it away. The practice of that is unfindability. It means when you look for an identity or a self, you don't find it. Peter can say what is self, but when he explores himself, herself, our self, you can't find it. And the practice is not just start here, but also stay here.

[89:26]

Start and stay. So you start with a question, as I suggested, and you stay with it. So you start looking for self. Now in recent seminar, practice seminar, I went into more detail of the technique that's been developed in Buddhism for looking for the self. So you look for the self, you look for the self in the body, or you look for the self in the mind, etc. You try to even find the body, and yes, some stuff here.

[90:28]

Whatever you look for, even this Buddha, you don't find it. It's not in the parts. It's not the sum of the parts. And so forth. But you put it together, you paint the picture. You, by an act of imagination, make these parts into a Buddha. And you discover a self as an act of imagination. And you reimagine that self. And there is an observer, but the more you study yourself, that observer moves around. Sometimes there's will, and sometimes there's more intensity, and so forth. There's definitely a kind of functioning of self.

[92:03]

But it's not graspable and not findable. And as I said the other day, what everything has is an unfindability. Now, have you developed sufficiently sufficient one-pointedness in the sense of not just staying with an object, but staying with the field of concentration or the field as an object? To stay with this unfindability. Then we can say the ability to stay with this unfindability is the self. Now you'll find that in any Buddhist dictionary?

[93:09]

You will. It's on page zero. An unfindable page. So when Yangshan says, no, I won't go into that. So this sense of unbindability and to be able to stay with that without forming a logical conception, And giving things form and appearance and name as needed. But only as needed. Not the structure of your world.

[94:10]

The structure of your world is staying in unfindability. This is the practice of the middle way. Now... Sometimes we wonder, I'm changing the topic here, but sometimes we wonder, am I happy? Could this be the happiest moment in my life?

[95:11]

Or will I be happier in the future? Yeah. it won't ever be any different. Or if it will be, it won't be by thinking that way. Or how can I say it? If there is happiness, it's found in the depths of the present. Not in any thinking about, well, maybe

[95:45]

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