I think I've done most of the talking during this seminar. And now it's your turn. Yes. I have a question, which might be a little provocative, but I want to ask you a little less. I have difficulties with this renunciation, not only translation, but with the concept itself. It's a . nicht nur mit der Übersetzung, sondern mit dem Konzept selbst, because I don't have the feeling that I had to, or had to, or do, renounce a lot.

[01:07]

Is this the right? So, the whole concept is quite unfamiliar to me. Maybe we could explain it a little bit more. Maybe we could explain it in a word or two. I don't know. Maybe we could explain it a little bit more. Thank you. Let's see what others have to say. Yes. We've spoken about the four marks. About appearance, duration, dissolution and disappearance.

[02:19]

And that one way of practicing is to shift emphasis from focusing on appearance into concentrating on dissolution, disappearance. And I'm interested in how you work with this, whether it's an active deletion, like when you deletion candles, and actively let it flow out of the hand. And I'm interested in how to practice with disappearance, whether that's an active act of disappearance, like when you put out a flame of a candle, or whether it's an act of accompanying, letting go of the disappearance. Disappearance And I'd be interested in the quality, what kind of taste does this disappearance have?

[03:36]

It disappeared. It disappeared. It disappeared. It just occurred to me, I was once, quite a few years ago, there was a therapeutic seminar in Schlierbach. I had to bring a cassette tape to the stage and therefore took part in one day. And years ago, the therapeutic seminar was in Schlierbach still, and I had to bring tapes from Vienna, so I participated this one day. And that day, the four marks were also the topic. And what I can still remember is that Roshi said that it is very important to recognize that that nothing is the same, that nothing, that everything changes.

[04:59]

And as an example, when I look at you and then look away and then look back again, that the memory of you is reformed, that it reappears anew. And what you said then is, you emphasized that first of all, everything is changing, nothing stays the same. But if I look at a person, for example, and then look away, and when I then look at the person again, then that's not... Letting him appear. That you let that person appear in you. Yeah. Yes. I feel like I'm in a tennis game. With no winners. And this letting go of the appearance that was there before is tricky. I said it's tricky? No, I said it's tricky. Yeah, it takes practice.

[06:16]

So that each new appearance, I mean, if I look at you and then I look at you, I mean, it's clear you're different than you. Yeah, but if I look at you and look away, it's almost as different as looking between those two people. That's a matter of practice. But I suppose it's also a matter of... I notice the detail is different. Your eyes would be particularly different from moment to moment, but maybe those eyebrows would be too. Okay. Well, these words are just approximations. So I think from the point of view of practice, I would work with receiving and releasing.

[07:43]

At least in English, the euphony of the two words helps receiving, releasing, receiving, releasing. And that's really the practice of the four marks. The most common English translation I've seen in the Four Marks Is birth, manifestation, dissolution, disappearance? Say that again, please. So I usually prefer to say appearance, duration, dissolution, disappearance.

[09:02]

Now the first three are a kind of science. In fact, things appear, they last for a moment and they come apart, they change, they change into something else. So the fourth is unnecessary. But the fourth is there, as Nicole spoke about when she spoke Friday evening. The fourth is there so that it engages you in tabula rasa. But I said tabula rasa. I couldn't resist. So tabula rasa, you all know what that is, right?

[10:18]

The blank slate, right? So in a sense, you're at the racing. So one side is just to release, but another side is more actively, make sure you're starting from zero. Okay. Yes. Good. You're hard to satisfy, but... But you can also look at these four marks, which are so basic in practice. Duration is this unit of the present. This moment of interdependent connectivity. And you can also look at mindfulness practice as increasing or developing the valency of the interconnectivity.

[11:33]

And valency, is that a familiar word to people? Like in chemistry, valency is how well things connect or don't connect. What do we say in chemistry? Valence. Valence means in chemistry how well things connect with each other. Okay. So the dynamic duo has spoken. Who's next? Yes. I have a question for you. When I look at Michael and then look away and look at him again and I have a question to that as well. If I look at Michael and then look away and then look at him again and want to implement this practice,

[12:37]

then it's only possible to have him appear anew, completely anew, if before the fourth mark has happened, the complete, is there an auto-erase? Erasion. You're standing in front of somebody and you say, please stay still for a moment. I can finish the four more. You stand in front of someone and then you say, please stand still for a moment. I have the four signs and I have closed them. I'm not going to stand around for you to finish the four marks. I've got better things to do. I'm not going to stand around for you to finish the four marks. I've got better things to do. All right. Anyway, so start again. Normally it functions so that everyday mind can continue, so that memory kicks in and that everyday mind can be carried forward.

[14:02]

So it seems necessary to learn this active act of releasing. Like to create a pause or to return to zero mind. You have to play with it. See what works. Because it's also a moment of when you're with a horse or a person or whatever. There's also as well as a new appearance, there's a continuity. So I find it helpful to, rather than emphasize the disappearance, I sometimes emphasize the new continuity. So, but because I'm actually, you know, I find this fairly easy to do because in fact our method of perception is this psychotic scanning.

[15:33]

Yeah, so I'm actually scanning. I'm scanning the person's face and etc. It's not important. I can't just look at their cheekbone, for instance. So as you get more skillful, your mindfulness matures. You get a kind of micro-momentary awareness. And you can actually sort of feel the scanning. And so you can feel that with each scan you're actually establishing continuity, which is also different. Even if you don't notice in this detail.

[16:52]

If you're aware that you are noticing in that detail, even though it's quicker than consciousness. you can start feeling it just because you know it. It's sort of like hearing into music. You get better and better at knowing music and you can hear into the music. Das ist so, wie wenn man lernt, Musik zu hören. Man wird immer besser darin, und dann kann man irgendwann sich in die Musik hinein hören. So anyway, again, these are just approximations that help you be more nuanced in your presence in situations.

[17:57]

Also das sind aber alles einfach Annäherungen, die dir helfen, nuancierter zu sein in deiner Präsenz in Situationen. Okay. Yes. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. The first relates to that last question. How is it with this experience that in awareness there's a feeling of time slowing down, like in slow motion? Is that an element? Yeah. And the second question deals with during morning meditation I had guests and they left me with the following question.

[19:18]

Okay. What is the difference between the effect of a yogic mantra meditation What difference is there between Zazen meditation or yogic mantra meditation or like practicing with a Christian prayer or something, contemplation? You expect me to be able to answer that? Well, unless I practiced Christian as a Christian and in a Christian meditative context, I can't answer. The only... I mean, I know lots of Christians, obviously. I said in front of my mother-in-law once how much I like pistachio nuts.

[20:33]

And I said, they're so good, they almost make me believe in God. And she said, eat some more. So, you know... And brother David Steindl-Rast, who's an Austrian. And a very old friend of mine. And he has practiced Zen meditation quite a bit. And we drove across the United States once. Yeah, we did. And we drove across the United States once. He was nothing. Anyway, around two-thirds of the way across the country, I got kind of mad at him because he wasn't Christian enough.

[21:34]

It became kind of Zen-like, everything, his view. So it's hard for me to... I don't know. I don't know what the real Christian meditation is. I mean, if you take... unusual examples like Meister Eckhart, etc., but they're real exceptions. The problem is that if you think in an essentialist way, then you can say, well, maybe Christian and Tibetan yogic are different. And you can somehow compare them. Well, I mean, from the point of view of process thinking, they're all three processes.

[23:05]

And the process is the path. The fruit of the path is the path. And I'm not somebody who believes that there's some essential truth out there. So I'm not somebody who can say all these different teachings lead to the same truth. The image I use is that different is different. And different teachings lead into Maybe the same mystery into the same forest. But they lead into different parts of the forest. And I see some people in my own lineage.

[24:08]

We're in the same forest, but I'm way over there and some of the Tibetan Buddhists are right beside me. So I think in the end you have to trust the situation that you're in and what path is possible for you. And if the path feels right, it makes sense or something, you just do it and never look back. Or look sideways. Oh, that's a good... No. And then everything that happens in your life you bring into the path. And all the detours become part of the path. And for each person it will be different. Okay. Yeah, you always ask these great questions.

[25:28]

Come back. Yeah, yes. Yes. It struck me a little bit in some kind of scary way, but I don't know the English word actually, but erschrecken. Was heißt erschrecken? It struck me when you said that there's no social being anymore. I mean, is it really possible to just put your fatherhood to the side? What would Sophia think? I haven't asked her.

[26:32]

I haven't asked her. Yeah. Yeah. I was struck the other day by somebody who they're trying to get this kid to stop a high school girl. She does something like 3,000 text messages a week. That's what it said. She's so good at it because you're not allowed to do it in class. She can do it with her thumb under the back of her sweater. How the hell she reads them, I don't know. Anyway, she's having a medical problem with her thumb. And she said in this interview that she's trying not to but she did notice that when she went out

[27:35]

after high school to the car where her father was waiting for her. She was a little angry that he was on his Blackberry and not just waiting for her looking out the window. My point is I know my daughter really wants me to be always present. And she gets a little mad that I I think maybe you misunderstood my question. Well, I haven't finished yet. But I may have misunderstood.

[28:51]

I may have misunderstood. Yeah. What I'm saying right now is I have to think quite a bit about to what extent my priorities are practice and not my family. And I don't find myself saying practices being a higher priority is also better for my daughter. I don't know if that's true. Probably not. So this is related to what Eric said, of course. I think the best I can express it right now is of course we can't step entirely out of our being as a social being.

[30:10]

Because we are in fact defined through other people. Our education, everything we've read, our parents and so forth. But there is a difference between acting in the being that's defined through others and acting in the being that's not defined through others or less defined through others. One of the experiences of zazen is you begin to have experiences that you've never had before. And you're not sure anyone has ever had before.

[31:15]

And there's almost no place you can go to make sure that at least someone else has had this experience. And when you're in a territory of experience which is outside any kind of social confirmation, you need a kind of inner psychological courage. it doesn't mean that's the only way you live, but it means that sometimes you're in that kind of situation. But sometimes you're in that kind of situation. You know, we can look at a country like Iran, how many women are able to actually step outside of their society and the way their society wants them to think and say, I'm not going to act this way or think this way.

[32:37]

We may think it's easy because we can have made those decisions in our society, though allows those decisions. But the way in which we are socially conditioned is so subtle that it's at every level of us. And the tradition of practice from the very beginning is a lot about how to step out of that.

[33:40]

And also be able to step back into it. Mm-hmm. But you step back into it as a role and not an identity. Okay, that's as much as I can say right now. Okay, yes. Just a little more explanation on the difference between role and identity. And it puts a... I thought role and identity was so clear I wouldn't have to explain anymore.

[34:52]

Well, I have a role as a teacher, right? I don't feel it's my identity. Yeah, and when people say, oh, you're a teacher, I think, who are they talking about? And when it's, and when it, if it all disappeared, and it has been, has disappeared, been taken away from me, eh, I don't care. I mean, on some level I care, but basically, no, it's different, you know. Even with my daughter, I practice feeling the same way about other children as I feel about my daughter. I know that I have more responsibility for her than other kids she plays with.

[36:13]

I go back and forth in my relationship with her knowing I'm her father and then I'm just a person in her life. And I try to have no preference for her over other children, and I try to have no possessiveness of her. Und ich versuche keine Vorliebe für sie zu haben im Vergleich zu anderen Kindern und ich versuche kein Gefühl von Besitz über sie zu haben. So dass ich versuche kein Gefühl zu haben etwas in der Welt zu besitzen oder mir anzueignen. Also versuche ich immer für sie da zu sein But I also... I feel I'm pretty good at not being possessive and not favoring her over other children and things like that.

[37:47]

And... That's enough. But I do that because it's my practice. But I also try to, in the midst of that, still be as good a father as I can. One important story for me was years ago, Chuang Tzu, C-H-U-A-N-G-T-Z-U, Chuang Tzu, one of the early Taoists. His wife died. And someone came over to see him a day or two after his wife died. And he was sitting in the backyard with a bell, a bold bell.

[38:52]

And he was hitting the bell and singing. And this guy said, your wife just died. Why are you sitting there hitting the bell and singing? Yeah. I don't know. He said something like, well, she was my wife for 35 years and it was wonderful and now she's gone. And he went on singing. But I bet he didn't sit out in the backyard singing with a bell every day. It was probably something he was doing to deal with his wife dying. So it's always been a question for me in this more personal realm. How do you completely feel and completely love with an abandonment and at the same time be detached? I'm so amazed that anything exists at all.

[40:16]

I'm not a bit surprised when it all falls apart. I don't know, do I sound like a nitwit? I'm sorry. A nitwit is, nit is very small and wit is, you know. A nitwit is, nit is very small and wit is, you know. Someone else. I would particularly like, of course we're going to end soon.

[41:22]

I would particularly like it if some of you, and you know who you are, who haven't said anything yet, would say something. And I know who you are too. And I know who you are too. Oh, thank you. I was wondering today, when you were talking to us about mind, that at home I have a calligraphy of Kaz Kanahashi, and it's a symbol, I don't know the Japanese name, but the translation is mind and heart. It's the same word. So I was thinking maybe we are missing something because we only talk about half the word. The mind and the heart is a connection in the tradition.

[42:29]

Well, in Chinese and Japanese, the word shin and shin mean heart and mind. And that's really because it's a, I would say it's, to say it simply, it's a yogic culture And they would assume that any thinking that's real is done with the body as well. It's done with feeling as well. And whenever I say something like this, I always think of Einstein. Somebody asked Einstein where he gets his ideas. He said, I feel something in my body and I pay attention to it and it turns into an idea.

[43:34]

So there's more of a feeling of, again, not of entities but of relationship, heart and mind relationship, thinking with feeling. Okay, so you are the symbolic representative of all the people who have... Oh, there's another one. It's okay, yeah. I sit at home sometimes and I have the image that I let my thoughts pass by.

[44:39]

And now I took this phrase, I'm not inviting my thoughts to tea. Thank you. Thank you. And I really like this phrase because there's this experience of ease for me. I'm just not inviting them to tea. There's a lot of ease and I have the experience of then being in a kind of space where there's a big movement somehow.

[45:56]

Yeah, good. ... And this experience was so much stronger than experiencing the thought guests. They were comparatively small. Yeah. Thank you. Yes? A small question? This un-corrective, incorrective mind has to do with the lack of intention. Because today, or yesterday, I got a message that it was about intention again, but it's about lack of intention. My question is, this uncorrected mind, does that have something to do with having no intentions? I came in yesterday at lunch and we've spoken about intention a lot, but we haven't spoken about not having any intention.

[47:01]

Well, of course, it depends what you mean by intention. If you mean, you know, sort of goals, ambitions, things you're attached to. In that sense, uncorrected mind is you just let what appears. You don't care what appears. You don't have any goal in letting whatever appear, appear. In dem Sinne bedeutet dieser nicht korrigierte Geist, dass du die Dinge einfach erscheinen lässt. Du hast kein Ziel darin, was erscheint oder so. Du lässt, was auch immer auftaucht, es taucht einfach auf. But you do have an intent not to correct. Aber du hast die Absicht nicht zu korrigieren. And uncorrected mind wouldn't work unless you had the intent not to correct. So some very fundamental intents, like to practice or to stay alive, will be present. Okay. Now, there's some people who haven't said anything, but somehow they're not looking at me.

[48:37]

Yes, Andreas, I'm ready. Not really a question. I don't really have a question. I love hearing your voice though. Yes. Think about the uncorrected mind. If I go through the four marks, this disappearance, if it doesn't happen, I will not stop it. That's uncorrected mind. Yeah, like that.

[49:39]

You have to just... It goes on and I don't turn it on. I just let it go. Okay, then I go. Success of that? Okay. Okay. Now, maybe I can say a little something about the feeling of practice as a path. Okay, we have an expression, I suppose you do in German too, you can't see the forest for the trees. Okay, so you're in a forest. Why did I think of that? Okay. So here we are in a little hut in the trees. And we can't see the forest.

[50:41]

But somehow we could say that understanding the practice in a big sense like it's about living and living within the experience of everything changing and freeing yourself from subtle entity thinking would be to see the whole forest. So you, and having a feeling for the whole forest, then you, I don't know why I'm saying this, but anyway, then you must feel that there's a, if you just see the trees, you don't see the path either.

[51:45]

It's like there's no path among these trees. But my experience is if I have a feel for the forest as a whole, somehow I can feel a path open up within the forest. And you also, so in other words I'm saying, sometimes you also can't see the path for the trees. Okay, now when there's a feeling of a path mind, I shouldn't talk about this because I'll have no topic for next year. Oh yeah.

[52:46]

Promise? You promise. So there's a kind of increased intensity or vividness or something. And there's do you know A photographer like Bill Elsie, for instance, has an ability to look at what's going on in Crestone and take great photographs. And someone else looks around at the same thing and they take a photograph and it's, you know, okay, but... Well, there's a certain way in which when this intensity is present, Everything you look at looks like a great photograph.

[53:58]

Somehow you look at something and the detail, it's like a great photograph. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And there's a feeling of warmth or familiarity to situations. And there's a feeling of completeness or things are where they're supposed to be or something like that. Anyway, when you have those kind of feelings, it usually is a sign that you're on a path or on the path.

[55:03]

You know, even a schmaltzy popular song. I said schmaltzy for your benefit. Porny popular song. You feel, you know, behind it there's even a kind of wisdom. I mean, popular songs are kind of corny, but when you're in love, they don't seem corny at all. Only you can make my dream come true. Yeah, only you can know my ecstasy. I think we better stop. When I get this corny. Okay. So let's sit for a moment.

[56:23]

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