And thank you all for coming. And I always need to ask, is there anyone here who doesn't have any experience or much experience at meditation? Yes, okay. Thank you. And how many of you are here for the first time? Whoa! Okay, thanks. And some of you haven't met Marie-Louise, but anyway, she agreed to try to translate Can you hear her in the back okay?

[01:08]

Yeah. So as you heard Gerald say, that we'll have a voluntary or open period of zazen before the first period of zazen. And someone will be there. Maybe I'll be there. But then I have to go out and come back and formally open the first period. But someone will be there from the first period.

[02:08]

And so somebody will be there to light incense and etc., If you arrive an hour or two before that, you can happily sit in the dark. So we have these two words as a title for this seminar. Trust and love. Okay. And I believe in German they're pretty much the same words.

[03:16]

They mean pretty much the same thing. As in English. Yeah. You don't have the problem like Geist and Mind, some sort of difference. So I don't see any reason to try to look for Buddhist equivalents to trust and love. I'd rather just look at our own experience of trust and love in the context of this practice and in the context of your own life. These must be two of the most powerful words in culture, in society.

[04:47]

I don't think any group of people can flourish, develop or expand without ideas, practice of trust and love. There's a Greek word, I don't know exactly how it's pronounced, but something like arete, A-R-E-T-E, Which means the functioning excellence of a thing. The functioning excellence of something. And I think that... I mean the idea is that something can't be good for good in the biggest sense of the word unless it has this quality of functioning in its own excellence.

[06:16]

And I think that we could say that trust and love are the functioning of excellence in human beings. And in society. I don't think you could have a civilization not based on an ideal of trust and love. So we have these two words. And maybe it seems a little silly because you use these words all the time. So why spend a weekend talking about them? You can all look them up in the dictionary and go home tomorrow. But I guess what... I'm trying to convey by speaking about these two words is to look at something very basic in ourselves and in our society,

[07:53]

These words are only some kind of verbal name at the top of something that's very penetrating in our personal life and societal life. And I think the we inevitably will be speaking about the difference, if there is any, between love and compassion. And certainly in the 40 years nearly I've been practicing Buddhism in the West, One of the most common questions, things that come up is, what is love in Buddhism?

[09:21]

Now, I really think, well, there's a common understanding we have But that common understanding is also rooted in, I think, Christian theology. What does agape mean? But even that word, there's no linguistic particular meaning to it. We have to look at the context in which the word, the text, textual context of the word, And in Christian use it's quite different than a fairly ordinary word for love in Greek, I believe.

[10:33]

But I think first we have to start with these two words in our own personal context. So we're trying to, through Zen practice, we're trying to study ourselves. Trying to observe ourselves. And Certainly two of the main things we can look at is how we love. Can we love? And do we trust? Can we trust? And these are... And Zen practice is an excellent medium through which to observe, especially trust. And Zen practice is a particularly good medium to observe how we trust.

[11:58]

So I would like you to think about, feel about this evening and throughout the weekend. Anything you associate with these words. Whatever you feel about them. Do a fourth skanda free association. Okay. I think... I would like us to look at these two words first of all, I think it would be helpful to look at these two words as two directions.

[13:22]

And one direction is inward. and the other direction is outward. Now, as soon as we have two directions such as in and out we have the boundary between them. So I guess I apologize for being a little philosophical. But in this, I think it's helpful actually if we can simplify how we look at something so basic. And in this case, it's a movement inward and a movement outward.

[14:25]

Which is these two movements, as most of you would know, are central to Buddhist practice. And I would say our present society is implicitly organized to draw us outward almost primarily. Charlie can't knock us over. Some of you may have noticed we have a new shiny Buddha in the Zen room.

[15:38]

But Charlie didn't like that there was no koan about does a Buddha have a cat nature. He wanted to show us, so he knocked over our Buddha, which allowed our Buddha to be reborn. It is funny that some of you know Charlie did seem to know what he did. Because Gerald found him in the attic, hours later hiding. So we just today, yesterday evening, got the Buddha back from being restored. And maybe I can say something a little bit more about it tomorrow.

[16:56]

But we're all a little startled by how gold it is. But according to the restorer, most of that is original gold he found under the fake antiquing. He found two layers of gold from around 1500. Yeah. Yeah. So... They are fifteen hundred, you say? Yes. Okay. So that was my comment, because Charlie was looking at both of us as he was going to knock us over. But it would be great. I'd sit back up and be all golden. I don't know if the translator would be golden, but... She's already more golden than I am.

[18:16]

At least... Okay. And I think we have to have a third ingredient here. We have inward and outward. Trust and love. And now it's really not that simple, but I want to make it that simple for a while. And we have a kind of boundary. A boundary for love and a boundary for trust. And we also have to have an ideal person who embodies these ideals.

[19:24]

I don't think we can understand them just from a dictionary. They somehow need to be exemplified in a human being. And for us in the West and Christian culture, it would be Jesus who embodies love and trust. And in, of course, Buddhist culture, it would be Buddha and the Bodhisattva. And so I think we have to also discuss

[20:26]

If together we want to come to some feeling about trust and love, we have to discuss to some extent the difference between Jesus and Buddha. No, I'm neither a scholar nor a theologian. So I can't analyze this in some way. you know, really careful way, thorough way. But I think together, and each of you and myself, we can feel out some directions in ourselves. Mm-hmm. So let me just start a little bit with saying what some of the ideas of self and person are in Indo-Tibetan Asian culture.

[22:15]

A human being is seen as a produced creature. and produced, filled up by the world. And you can be filled up by the world in a way that's mostly good, abundant, And you can be filled up by the world in a way that's contaminating. Verschmutzend, yeah. Okay, but already with the idea that a person is a constructed, compounded creature.

[23:41]

The word compound in English means put together to make a unity, not just a mixture. So that's great that we're put together in a way that makes a unity. But from a Buddhist point of view, sometimes we're deluded by believing the unity. So we don't see the construction. So one of the things Zen practice is trying to do is let you experience how you're constructed. Now, as soon as you know you're constructed, you know you can be reconstructed.

[24:52]

It's not a done deal. Then, okay, if you know that I can be reconstructed, how do you reconstruct yourself? How do we reconceive ourselves? Yeah, so we already have this, just when we say we're a constructed creature, which is what karma means, Karma means we're constructed primarily by our conscious acts. So we right away now have something in addition to love and trust, we have wisdom.

[25:55]

Wisdom is to see that you're constructed. And wisdom is the decision to do something about it. Okay, now, I don't think we should stay here too long this evening. So let me just speak about right now for a few minutes about trust. We all know that we can't trust everyone we meet. Wir wissen alle, dass wir nicht einfach jedem, den wir treffen, vertrauen können.

[27:13]

We can be ready to trust, but we have to also be wary. Wir können immer bereit sein zu vertrauen, aber wir müssen doch immer vorsichtig bleiben. I think in the Near East there's a saying, isn't there? Trust in God, but tie up your camel. Okay, so maybe we can't trust everyone we meet and probably we'd like to. We should take that seriously, that we would like to trust everyone we meet. But if we can't trust everyone we meet, of course we can always trust ourselves. It's understandable that you can't trust people you meet because you don't know who they are, you can't control them, etc.

[28:29]

But of course you meet yourself every day and every night. You know yourself very well. And you completely trust yourself. But in fact, it's not so easy to trust ourselves. But don't you think that's odd? I think it's very odd. Yeah. And that's one of the things that really comes through when we do meditation. You sit down like most of you are sitting or like I'm sitting and Marie-Louise is sitting.

[29:37]

And you find you're not at ease. And one of the things sitting does is it makes so clear to us that we're not fully at ease. And as I've said a number of times the last few months, We could say the first instruction of meditation is to really notice the ways in which we don't feel at ease. Notice the ways in which we don't even trust ourselves.

[30:45]

And so noticing that, to come into a deep trusting of ourselves. Okay. Now there's a kind of dynamic in that. Of acceptance. And again, you know, there's no way we can get away from this basic practice, instruction of acceptance. And I think no matter how long you've practiced, there's always an edge of should that comes prior to acceptance.

[31:54]

It comes prior to acceptance. I think maybe sometimes we even should love. And should trust. But it doesn't work that way. I think trust grows out of acceptance. And the phrase I always give you, just now is enough. is also a way to discover the root of trusting.

[33:10]

I mean, just simple, simply. If you think just now is not enough, You don't trust. You don't have deep trust. And if I look at the kind of person who comes to practice Zen, in contrast to other practices, including other Buddhist practices. Zen practitioners tend to, one, favor experience over knowledge. And they tend to want to trust themselves.

[34:20]

And they tend to want to trust the world. They may not trust things as they are. But they'd like to trust things as they are. Now we're into, already in a short time here, we're into a very complex metaphysical situation. Can you trust things as they are? Can you trust this world as it is? At least as the initial act of feeling and thinking. And in Buddhism it's thought that the initial act of thinking and feeling sets the stage for all further acts.

[35:51]

So maybe you can't always trust and always love. But can your initial perception of any situation the initial feel you have for any situation the initial way you conceive of any situation Can that be trusting? Accepting? Now the stillness and calmness we can find in meditation is only possible if you have this deep sense of acceptance and trust.

[37:06]

It's the basis of all further practice. So accepting yourself just as you are. When you sit, accepting your posture just as it is. At the same time you feel the ideal posture So suddenly Buddha is already present. You're accepting your posture as it is, but your posture is informed by Buddha's posture. And the dynamics of acceptance and trust are here.

[38:19]

Maybe just now isn't enough. Maybe you'd like to go to bed soon. Maybe you'd like a chocolate. Oh, someone back there would like one. You'd like to go to bed and have a chocolate. But still, somehow, just now also has to be enough. Because even when you're in bed with your chocolate, that has to be enough.

[39:24]

So how can we start out with this acceptance? This state of mind, mode of mind, in which just now is enough, in which we trust things as they are. So, let's sit for a couple of minutes and then we can stop. Let's sit for a couple of minutes and then we can stop. Thank you for translating. So usually I hit the bell three times to start and once to finish.

[40:27]

You can sit in any old position because it's only going to be a minute. Unless I fall asleep. Good morning. Is there anyone here who wasn't here last night? Okay. And I see our translator is willing to try again. Okay. Okay. In a way I'm a little overwhelmed by trying to speak about such big topics as trust and love.

[42:13]

Because I don't think you can separate these terms from the cultural, theological understanding that is carried with them. that is carried with them. Maybe you should speak a little louder. So I have to speak about it a little bit. But mostly in Zen practice you don't have to look at the scholarly or theological background of the teachings.

[43:39]

You have to just see how these things are present in you. Mm-hmm. But I think these words like this are practices. You know, my own background is, compared to Europe, almost non-Christian. I mean, I grew up in a Christian society, so I feel that in that sense I'm Christian.

[44:47]

But, you know, I'm from, in America, from New England. And, uh, You could say my background is rather non-Christian transcendentalist. The transcendentalist divided up into sort of a Christian branch and a non-Christian branch. And Thoreau and Emerson and others were mostly the non-Christian side. And Thoreau and Emerson belong more to this non-Christian side. And on my mother's side of the family, it's Congregationalist.

[45:47]

And that means, you know, instead of having a Pope, I mean, you have the priest, right? And in Protestantism, instead of the priest, you have a minister. And in Congregationalism, you don't even have a minister. Because the congregation represents the divine, not the minister. And on my father's side, it's Unitarian. And Unitarians deny the divinity of Christ. So you see, I'm not very prepared to speak about Christianity.

[47:02]

So I called up a friend of mine, Paul Lee, who was Tillich, the... Paul Tillich, the Christian... Protestant theologian and philosopher. I was more confused afterwards. And our translator went to Catholic, grew up as a Protestant, going to Catholic boarding school, so I asked her too. So I can tell you as a Buddhist how I understand what I was told. Yeah, so let's take this, I think the central word would be agape. Now here's how I would understand it as a Buddhist. Okay.

[48:20]

That God loves us human beings unequivocally. God accepts us as we are. We don't have to earn God's love. And I believe Tillich says you don't even have to believe in God to receive God's love. It's completely a gift from above. Okay. And Eros is a movement from below. Mm-hmm. So, again, as a Buddhist, how I understand the dynamic of agape is that if, although you may not experience this love of God,

[49:26]

if you love others as God loves you, this self-sacrificing love, then you're likely, or that opens you to experiencing God's love. Now the test of this and development of this love is if you can love somebody who hates you or your enemy. And the crucifixion is the metaphor for this. Or in the pre-Christian era, if somebody hits you once, you hit him back twice.

[50:42]

I think this is still practiced today. I don't think Bill Gates hits only once. He probably hits four or five times. Or maybe you only hit back once. That's some restraint. But in Christianity, you turn the other cheek. This is certainly a powerful practice.

[51:44]

And I know Christians who at crucial moments in major ways they've been harmed have been able to turn the other cheek or try to. Now, if I'm right about the dynamic of Christian love, even if you don't really consciously practice it fully, Still it pervades the atmosphere of how society should be, what kind of governmental programs there should be and so forth. So what I'm pointing out here is I think there's a dynamic to how you make something work.

[53:08]

In other words, the dynamic of receiving God's unequivocal love would be to love others in that way. And this seems to get mixed up in people's mind, I think, a lot with spousal love, erotic love, parental love. But I suppose that this is most like parental love. And when you love your child, it opens the child to loving. And the child loving you opens you to loving.

[54:16]

I think this is quite similar to the dynamic of loving others opens you to God loving you. So I'm speaking about this because there seems to be a lot of kind of, a little bit of tension and confusion about how love is or is not part of Buddhism. Even my friend who is Tillich's assistant, Paul Lee, who I've known for many years, said to me, Oh, well, love is active and compassion is passive. So we have some ideas, I think even he who knows quite a bit about Buddhism has some ideas like this.

[55:42]

Now I don't think I can answer satisfactorily these questions. But I'd like us to explore together in ourselves our own experience of trust and love. And last night I suggested that you really notice the degree to which you can feel at ease with yourself, trust yourself. Sometimes doing zazen, even noticing that our heart is beating, That can be scary.

[56:54]

Because you suddenly feel mortal. Yeah. What if it stopped? Mostly we hardly notice our heart. It just keeps going along. Thanks. But you... But practicing meditation you come into the whole process of being alive. And I think at first that can be scary. What if something goes wrong? You have to call the doctor immediately. The doctor doesn't, he's in the same boat, you know.

[58:04]

He's wondering what if something goes wrong. But at the same time, you begin to see that mostly things work. Thank goodness. It must be God's love that's taking care of us. But some things mostly take care of themselves. And if you get so... you're not so anxious, you can usually participate in your own processes and enhance them taking care of themselves. So a dynamic of trust can reach right into our physiology, into how we heal ourselves. Doesn't mean you might not need to go to a doctor, but still, then you can help the doctor heal you.

[59:16]

It's not an accident that healing is connected with the word wholeness and holy. And one of the dynamics of Zen practice is discovering a feeling of wholeness, and maintaining that feeling of wholeness. And it's also a Taoist and Zen practice called keeping the one. So now, in addition to

[60:18]

trust and love which we're bringing up here. Here's our loving kitchen crew arriving. Thank you for making us lunch along with others. We have, in addition to love and trust, we now have an idea of wholeness. So maybe I can speak in addition about a dynamic of trust. Maybe we can have a dynamic of wholeness. Okay so far?

[61:35]

Yes. Very good. Now my sentence is at okay length? Yes. Okay. She has to train me, I have to train her. Whenever I make a slightly... like that you say it in a voice no one can hear. But it's interesting to me to translate with someone new. Because I have to start feeling how what I'm saying can be translated. No, I used to practice when I... Now it's kind of a natural feeling for me, but practicing when I lifted my foot up to walk, I stepped forward with the feeling that there'd be no floor there.

[63:07]

But at the same time, you have to trust that the floor is there. Might not be there, but you have to trust that probably something's going to be there. I mean, the planet hasn't disappeared since the last step. So it might be a hole, but still probably the planet's somewhere at the bottom of the hole. Now, I mean, this may sound silly to you, but I think practice occurs in such little details. You have an experience of, maybe I can't trust. Which makes you very alert. But then, but I have to trust. Since I don't know how to fly. My foot has to find the earth somewhere.

[64:22]

And each step can actually be some kind of presence and experience like that. Wondering and trusting and reaching. So here part of the dynamic of trusting is actually not trusting. Or Being open to maybe the earth isn't there. But at the same time knowing you have to trust or you can't walk.

[65:25]

And some similar dynamic is in each interaction with others. Now there's a, as I said, there's this sense, I believe in Christianity, of this love being given from above. And Eros is an upward movement. And there's some similarities in Buddhism. And in Taoism and Buddhism, Eros is, I mean, it's similar to the Greek idea, is that Eros is the first god that appears out of chaos.

[66:50]

So it's the first god that brings order to the world. And that's the similar idea in Taoism and Buddhism that eros brings order. And it's eros that leads us to marry. And eros which leads us to have children. And this is certainly the most fundamental order in society. In all societies, it's the couple and the children that basically everything else comes from. So the energy of eros is considered an ordering energy in Buddhism. And it's connected to this also, this feeling of keeping the one.

[68:24]

Now, I don't know how much I'm going to be able to give you a feeling for these various things. But again, Here in the Christian world we have this upward and downward movement. And in the Buddhist world we don't have that much. We have primarily just an inward and outward movement. But the boundaries between in and out are very flexible in Buddhism. In Buddhism, you can be Buddha. In Christianity, you can't be God. God is another world, and I believe it's a heresy to say that you're God or you're Jesus or something.

[69:41]

And the emphasis on love is an emphasis on relationships to other people. Almost like people are sitting in this world, which is rather separate from us people. Now, perhaps one of the reasons Buddhism emphasizes compassion Because the emphasis in Buddhism is not toward individuating. The person is someone who's separate from the world and others in Buddhism.

[70:45]

But the person is someone who can dissolve this separateness. Yeah. So we grew up in a world in which we're not that. That out there is nature. And even our mind and body are not very connected. When we still have a lot of people think, you know, you could replace all your body with metal parts and so forth and somehow function. Up to a point you can, but I would guess you'd feel more and more mechanical after one. So in Buddhism we have a different conception, which is these boundaries between us and the world. and us and other people, and between us, between mind and body, are very flexible.

[72:24]

And our practice is to extend those boundaries. Not to become more separate, but to become more connected. and with the world, so-called physical world, as well as with other people. So I think that that sense of the dynamic of altering our boundaries is perhaps better captured by the word compassion than love. But I don't really know what I'm talking about here. These are English words.

[73:25]

I'm trying to use these words to give us a feeling together of practice. These are English words and with them I try to give us a feeling of how we practice. I'd like to take a break in a few minutes. But for at least a few minutes before the break, I'd like us to sit. I suppose the main dynamic of Buddhist practice of trust and love and wholeness and compassion is the exercise of attention.

[75:48]

bringing attention to what you do. And now we're bringing attention to trust and love. To our personal experience of trust and love. To our own topography of trust and love. When it's easy, when it's not. This much we should know about ourselves.

[77:28]

This much we should know about ourselves. So viel sollten wir über uns wissen. You didn't translate that.

[79:04]

The phrase, keeping the one, is not only a practice of Zen. It's a practice probably borrowed, I don't know, in the fourth or fifth century, somewhere in there, from Taoism, in fact. But it's characteristic of late Buddhism in Chinese society of trying to find sophisticated ways in which large numbers of people can practice. How they can practice complicated things? Sophisticated ways, large numbers of people can practice.

[80:10]

I mean, for some people, Buddhism is a lifetime study. But for most people it can't be a lifetime study. But it can be a lifetime practice. So how do you make a practice that bears the fruit of a lifelong study? Does that distinction make sense? In other words, I mean, we could take all of your children, and Nico and Beate are offering their two, and we start educating them at three or four, and by the time they're Forty, they know quite a lot about Buddhism.

[81:24]

Yeah, and some people will do this. Or at least they'll start when they're 16 or 20. Okay. But how can we be more compassionate and make this practice available to people in complex urban societies? Because Mahayana practice is supposedly for laypeople. But even most of the monks who have temples, still, they're really part of the society, almost like lay people.

[82:27]

When they have their own temples. So there was a long effort to develop practices... that included many practices. Now, zazen is just such a practice. The way in which zen emphasizes zazen is a form of looking for this one practice. Now, the one is also the many. You know that in Buddhism. There's this intimacy of being in the midst of the one and the many. We know somehow there's some unison or unity here.

[83:37]

And yet at the same time the unity is taking many forms. And we can't quite intellectually put that together. But you can stand, feel yourself in the intimacy of this incongruity. We can or we can't. We can. And in the Sandokai, these teachings of Shido, he speaks of the intimacy of the one and the many. So the one unfolds into the many. And the many fold into the one.

[84:48]

So that's how a one practice is understood. Now the one practice I usually recommend to you is come into the goal of finding yourself present to your breath at all times. If you can do that, all practices of Buddhism practically are resolved and are included. And all practices of our human life of finding the arete, as I used that Greek word last night, of coming into the excellence of what it means to be human.

[86:19]

Okay. But the key factor here again is attention. So you're bringing attention to the breath. And through that to body, the body and phenomena. But you're also bringing attention to attention. So we can bring attention to attention and we can bring that attended to attention to various things.

[87:20]

Okay. When you're a baby. You need attention. All of you needed attention. And if you don't get it, you're in deep doo-doo. And it's clear that when babies don't get attention, they suffer permanent pain. brain and emotional damage. So babies are designed to get your attention. And it's hard not to give a baby attention.

[88:29]

Good Zen teachers learn how to be helpless. I haven't gotten there yet. I'm trying, though. Yeah. Babies also give attention. I mean, when a baby, a newborn baby, and you're the mother or father, I mean, they just give you, whoa, attention. And what do they get in return? Nourishment, you know. Love. Wiping. Yeah. All kinds of things.

[89:35]

Okay. You can give attention without it being active loving. You can give attention just by being present. And babies get upset if you go away. Babies have to learn that you're still present for them even when you're away. Now, when we're little, we try to get attention.

[90:37]

Although we are giving attention, we are also... The dynamic is primarily receiving attention that takes care of you. Now, we can understand being an adult... is when you make the shift from receiving attention to giving attention. we make the shift from receiving attention to giving attention. And what happens when we start giving attention? Instead of your parents nourishing you... the world begins to nourish you.

[91:45]

Other people begin to nourish you. And this dynamic perhaps is not so different from the dynamic of agape. When you start to love as God loves you, then you receive God's love. And when you make this shift in Buddhism from receiving attention to giving attention, the world begins to nourish you. Mm-hmm. Okay, so how do you give attention to the world? So now we see what Buddhism has done is said the crucial thing here, the dynamic, is attention.

[92:54]

In a way, more fundamental than love and trust is attention. It's the practice of attention which opens up love and trust. And love and trust are movements toward wholeness. And it's attention which opens up wholeness. And it's particularly attention to the one. This is the logic behind this kind of practice. Okay. So now you understand the logic of attention.

[94:10]

As a practice. And rooted in the most basic realities of human life. Which is the way a baby to flourish needs attention. Is that how the baby needs the attention to bloom?

[94:43]

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