I am not worthy of the truth of the Tathagatagarbha. Are you standing the whole time? I'm not sure. You are standing the whole time. Is something wrong with your bottom? Maybe you heard it loud enough. Is something wrong with your bottom? No, I didn't hear about it. I didn't hear anything about it. Oh dear. So maybe you should stand next to the Shakyamuni so you look exactly alike. Yeah, I think I may, I think I might. Ich glaube, ich könnte, ich glaube, ich könnte vielleicht.

[04:00]

I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I make tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I make tonight. You don't have to translate it. It just popped into my head as I was coming over here, so I thought, yeah, I do have a wish for you, for us and our Ango, but also little phrases like that don't exactly mean anything, but I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I make tonight. We have to find, you'll have to find in German, Deutsch, a ways of embodily, because that's in my body, I didn't think of that, that's in my body, ways to bring various basic teachings into your body so they just appear in your activity.

[05:04]

Dieser Vers ist einfach aufgetaucht, als ich hier rübergekommen bin, da habe ich nicht drüber nachgedacht, er ist einfach aufgetaucht, und ich habe schon Wünsche für euch, und für diese Praxisperiode, aber ich glaube, wir müssten mit Versen wie diesem, ich wünschte, ich könnte, ich wünschte, ich könnte vielleicht, und dann irgendwas mit einem Wunsch weiter Abend oder so, Versen wie dieser, die sich körperlich in uns einnisten, müssen auf Englisch und dann auch auf Deutsch schauen, wie wir grundlegende Lehren auf diese körperliche Art und Weise in uns, ja, vielleicht, dass sie sich in uns einnisten und von alleine auftauchen. Das ist das erste Mal, dass ich so ein formales Tesho

[06:15]

in 10 Jahren oder 1 Jahr oder 6 Monaten oder so halte. Anyway, do robes belong in the Zendo or in the Tesho, does it make a difference, I don't know, it does, I am speaking from a tradition, so I wear Buddha's robe. And what about the robes, do they belong in the Zendo, are they really necessary, do they make a difference? Well, I am speaking from a tradition, so I wear the robes of the Buddha. Und die 90-tägige Praxisperiode ist natürlich eine Tradition, die wir aus China geerbt haben und in gewisser Weise

[07:17]

auch aus den Zeiten des Buddha. Und in einer Lebensspanne sind 90 Tage eine ziemlich lange Zeit, sich die frei zu schaufeln. Aber wenn man bedenkt, dass 90 Tage letzten Endes den gesamten Rest eines Lebens verändern könnten, dann ist es wieder nicht so lang. Wir haben zusammen die Sangha, wir haben zusammen sowas wie eine kleine Insel hier geschaffen, inmitten dieser deutschen ländlichen Gegend.

[08:22]

Aber jeder von euch muss das gleichzeitig auch zu deiner eigenen kleinen Insel machen, in deinem Gefühl für die Welt, wenn das wirklich das Potenzial seiner Kraft entfalten soll. Wie ich seit kurzem sage, ist die Zen-Praxis ein Weg, ein Pfad oder ein Weg des Entdeckens. Es kommt mir vor, dass es im Zen mehr der Fall ist als in jeder anderen buddhistischen Schule. Denn im Zen werden die geringsten, die wenigsten Anweisungen gegeben.

[09:42]

Gleichzeitig aber am meisten von dir verlangt wird, um diese Praxis umzusetzen, zu machen, dass sie funktioniert. Wie das so ein Weg der Entdeckung oder der Erkundung wird, das liegt wirklich in jeder eurer Hände. Die Anleitung und die Mentorenschaft und die Erfahrung, die ich in meinem Fall über die vielen Jahre von Suzuki Roshi bekommen habe, die kann ich in euer Feld sowie als Vorschläge hineinbringen.

[10:49]

Aber es ist an euch, diese Vorschläge aufzunehmen. Und so gut es eine Praxis der Entdeckung ist, es ist ein Weg der Entdeckung, es ist auch eine Praxis der Wirklichkeit. Zen ist gleichzeitig ein Weg des Entdeckens und eine Praxis der Tatsächlichkeit. Allein schon dieses Konzept, dass jeder jede Buddha-Natur hat, allein das schon bedeutet, dass Buddhismus nicht wirklich eine Religion ist. Oder kein Glaubenssystem. In other words, everything Buddhism is,

[11:53]

is embedded in your actuality, your life within the actuality of each moment. In anderen Worten, alles, was Buddhismus ist, das liegt oder ist eingebettet in deiner Tatsächlichkeit, in dem, was in diesem deinen Moment tatsächlich da ist. So how to open yourself to the actuality of your life thing, your lived life. Und wie du dich für die Tatsächlichkeit deines Lebenseins, der Tatsächlichkeit deines Lebendigseins, öffnest. Dafür benutzen wir die Lehren und die Anweisungen,

[13:00]

die Anleitungen aus dem Buddhismus. How you apply them, how you understand them, feel them, is what counts. Aber wie du sie anwendest und wie du sie empfindest und spürst, das ist das, worauf es ankommt. So this needs to become your little island. Also das hier muss deine kleine Insel werden. Vielleicht eine große Insel. Das ist eine der Beschreibungen für Samadhi. Aus dem dritten Koan im Shoyuroku. Is hang the sun and the moon in the shadowless forest.

[14:01]

Heißt es, hänge die Sonne und den Mond in den schattenlosen Wald. Und unterscheide Herbst und Frühling an den Zweigen, die noch keine Knospen tragen. Das ist keine Philosophie. Das ist ein Bild oder ein Gefühl, das du verinnerlichst, internalisiert, so wie zum Beispiel diesen kleinen Vers, ich glaube, ich könnte, ich glaube, ich könnte. Also die Sonne und den Mond in den schattenlosen Wald zu hängen.

[15:05]

Ein Wald ohne Schatten ist nur dann möglich, wenn die Zeit angehalten ist. So time is stopped and you're in charge. It's your sun and moon. Die Zeit ist angehalten, aber gleichzeitig bist du in der Kraft, oder das ist in deinen Händen. Das ist dein, deine Sonne, dein Mond. Ein Grund, warum wir in Zen-Praxiszentren, in klösterlichen Zentren so früh aufstehen. Oder ein Grund, warum wir aufstehen, noch bevor die Sonne aufgeht. Because we get up, the sun gets up, because the sun gets up.

[16:19]

It's its own problem, we're our own problem. We get up and then the birds start to get up and the sun comes up. We're inseparable from the process and independent at the same time. We get up and then the birds start to get up and the sun comes up. We're inseparable from the process and independent at the same time. Und trotz des zeitlosen Samadhis erkennen wir,

[17:27]

und können wir Herbst und Frühling an den Zweigen unterscheiden, die noch keine Knospen tragen. Das ist eine angehaltene Zeit, die alles enthält. Sie enthält die Sonne und den Mond, die die Zeit repräsentieren. Und sie enthält Frühling und Herbst, die auch Zeit sind. Und es enthält die Zweige, die noch keine Knospen tragen. Kannst du in diesem Bild, in dieser Metapher

[18:32]

die noch nicht knospenden Zweige in dir selbst spüren? Courageously, stupidly, courageously, to take 90 days out of your usual life. Just to let yourself feel the budless branches of whatever your life is. It means you've decided to step out of, this is what you've got yourself into, I'm sorry, it means you've decided to step out of your culture. How can you unpack yourself?

[19:44]

If what you know as yourself is all arisen from your culture. How can you get close to discovering actuality, if actuality is just told to you by our culture, which we know is just a version and not an ideal version. So the effort to realize,

[20:45]

to come to the realization of a Buddha and the historical Buddha. Centuries of our ancestors, and they are our ancestors just as much as your biological family are your ancestors. Or they can be your ancestors. Have been sincerely struggled and struggled for decades and generations. How do we make this possible for ourselves and for others? I mean they really have made an immense effort. This posture, this sometimes difficult posture and satisfying posture,

[22:20]

which is so alive and yet gives us the chance to discover stillness, and stillness is the transformative jewel of realization. And they've come up with this posture, they've come up with Sashins, they've come up with 90-day practice periods. And Dogen emphasizes not the 270 or whatever it is, precepts that earlier monastics took, but the 90-day practice period with others. When you see if you can step out of your culture,

[23:43]

and step out of your learned experience so far, and establish some new kind of lifing in the world. And establish some new kind of lifing in the world. And some of you know that one of the topics of my life, or one of the topics that I have studied for my entire life, is the question, how does the societal world form itself?

[24:55]

And I particularly have studied the invention of science as a dynamic and description of our world. as a dynamic and description of our world. And it's interesting how clearly one can see the important changes in the new use or in the new form of very simple words. The word, for example, I want to see if I can feel our way into this with two words.

[26:08]

The word, for example, I want to see if I can feel our way into this with two words. The word evidence has been known for many centuries. But really, in the sense that we mean to evidential truth, things like that, it wasn't used in that way until, or barely used at all, until around the 17th century. But really, in the sense that we mean to evidential truth, things like that, it wasn't used in that way until around the 17th century. And before that, I mean, you may not get the point exactly,

[27:11]

But before that, I mean, you may not get the point exactly, but if I continue, you'll get the point I'd want to make, at least, I hope. Because before that, what they used to mean what we mean by evidence was something became clear. But before that, what they used to mean what we mean by evidence was something became clear. And this signals the difference between a sensorial world and a cognitive world. And we're going, in this 90-day practice period, ideally we're going back,

[28:20]

back, forward, something like that, to a sensorial world. Say I'm walking along the path between the buildings at night, and the past lights haven't come on, or it's just quite dark. And someone's coming toward me, I don't know who it is. And then it becomes clear, it's Uli. And then someone else says to me later, who was that on the path? And I say, it was Uli, it was clear to me, it was Uli.

[29:29]

And then let's imagine the person says, do you have any evidence? Was Uli wearing that usual jacket? Now, what's the difference there? Evidence requires me to think about it, then put it together, it's a constructionist view of the world. This use of the word evidence, when I say evidence, I have to think about it, because it's necessary that I think about it, I have to construct it, or it's a world that can be constructed. And the way concepts of technology and construction and so forth have taken over our thinking, it's closed us off from a sensorial world.

[30:35]

And closed down, closed us off, and closed down our sensorial world. Like closing down a store. Yeah, I got that. And we shifted into a cognitive constructivist worldview. The Big Bang is a construction. But the yogic world is an experiential world, a sensorial world.

[31:45]

At the base of the ground, at the base of the experiential world, is mystery. And at the base of the ground, or at the base of the sensorial world, is something mysterious, there is mystery. The Big Bang is a brilliant, measurable kind of fact. And so in the cognitive constructionist, construction of the constructivist world, confirmed by consciousness, it's in some kind of God space, or creator space.

[32:58]

And even if the Big Bang is a measurable construction, we still don't know why anything exists, it's still a mystery. So in the yogic world you try to make sense of things, make sense of things, but you allow that fundamentally to be ineffable, to be a mystery. So it takes a little while for something to be clear, it's a sensorial experience.

[34:18]

Let's talk about, instead of people, let's talk about animals, cows. A coal burner usually has four, five, six cows in the field next door here. And you can sort of get to know the cows. They have numbers, I don't know if they have names, but they have numbers. Numbers are a cognitive world. But I find all the cows are each different, they have kind of personalities. And it takes me a little while to get to know each cow, and you keep changing them because they go off to be hamburgers. It's a human history applied to unwilling cows.

[35:38]

That's a reference to Nagarjuna saying, and Dogen saying, ashes are ashes and firewood is firewood. Firewood is not the past of ashes. Firewood belongs to the history of forests and things like that, but we've applied our human history, our human interest in firewood, so we burn it. So as I say sometimes, pig is not the past of pork. But you say pig and pig, don't you? So that's difficult. Cows are not the past of hamburgers.

[36:48]

So Dogen says, no cows is cows, no hamburger is hamburger, and don't think there's some kind of simple causation between. It's agriculture and cows destroying the planet, which is the history of hamburgers. So I'd like to get to know the cow. So I have to spend a little time to feel each cow. Until that cow becomes clear. And then there's another cow, there's five or six, and it takes a little while.

[38:04]

That cow is always this one and that one often separates itself and so forth. Now in a cognitive world, I just walk by the cows. They're sort of there doing their whatever they do. Basically they kind of like each other and they poke each other. But in a sensorial world, they're kind of a space scape, landscape. A sensorial space scape.

[39:07]

I'm really not testing you, I don't know how to talk, that's all. This one was easy. That one was easy, okay, good. So as I get to know the cows, it takes probably some days or a week or so before I really have a feel. The feel, the clarity, the clear feel of each cow in its field. And so as I walk over the two wooden bridges, Atmar conceived, they're great. I feel the sensorial space scape of the cows and of each cow.

[40:22]

I just feel them as bumps as I walk across the bridges. Then I develop a feeling for this sensorial space scape of these cows. And they're all like little bumps or little balls or something. And while we're here together in these 90 days on our little island, which we don't leave, except in emergencies, you try to step out of your culture and out of your personal habits and identities. And feel the world sensorially, primarily, most often, and not cognize the world.

[41:36]

I mean, you can cognize as much as you want after 90 days, but no cognition now. No smoking, I heard, too. Well, no cognition as well. You try to step out of your cognitive world and into a sensorial world during these 90 days. I heard some of you say they don't smoke for 90 days either. No cognition for 90 days either. After that, you can grasp as much cognitively as you want. And each of you may find your own way to do this. To really come into a breath-paced world. You let continuity go.

[42:46]

Dogen says something like, these 90 days, I forget exactly what he says, but these 90 days can't be measured. But if you do measure them, they're only 90 days. How can you not measure them? Well, if you stop thinking in terms of continuity or 90 days or time, you're in this shadowless forest. You're in this sensorial world.

[43:50]

Not just of people and cows and so forth, but a chair, too. You look at a chair until you feel you could design the chair almost. As if you were a chair designer and you looked at a chair. It took you a while to feel what the chair is all about. As if you could almost design it yourself. You develop the feeling of how it is to come up with exactly this chair, to invent it. I guarantee you that if you, as often as possible, as often as possible within these 90 days, during these months, just to feel, just to experience the world in a sensual way. And I often say, hold in for the specialness or the uniqueness.

[44:58]

Maybe I should say now, hold in for the feeling of everything that appears. This is the practice of actuality. It's available to all of us, but it's hidden under cognitive habits. So the world of each inhale, each exhale, each inhale, each exhale, breaks up this continuity and much of what we know as self and identity. So your dharmic secret weapon or secret medicine

[46:21]

is to step, literally step into a breath-based world. In homeopathic doses it's okay. Small doses work. So you start living in a successive world, not a continuous world. So you start living in a successive world, not a continuous world. And all of this is accessible right here.

[47:29]

You breathe, locate or simply find your world, with every inhale and every exhale. In an experiential world you feel and accept its ultimate, its mystery. In an experiential world you feel and accept its ultimate, its mystery. And I can almost promise you, if you do this, then these 90 days will continue in all the other days of your life. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[49:15]

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[49:30]

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