It's addictive, it's true. Okay. We're kind of running out of time, but there's one more group. Isn't there? Well, we, in our group number four, we arrived to the conclusion that we only have questions. And I have a similar question like Arkosch. If I take, instead of the term time, if I take suchness or being... And I miss the kick why it should be time.

[01:19]

You mean you like the kick you get from it being time? Or you? I like it. I don't understand why you... I don't understand why you use the word time and don't stay with terms like suchness, beings, or other terms that you used before. Okay. I would say rhythm or wave or things like that. Why is time? Is there something different which I don't understand? Okay, that's a good question. Any other questions? Yeah.

[02:22]

Yeah. I have difficulties to differentiate the six types of times that you described this morning. Whether one could equate fundamental time maybe with timelessness or what the differences are. Or whether one could take the word moods instead of time. I've been using the phrase to work a teaching. Perhaps in the sense that a potter works the clay.

[03:30]

You want to ask questions like that of a teaching. Why the word time and not something else? And you can try something else. See if you can substitute suchness and see if it makes the same kind of sense. I want you to say something. I was in his group. I can say something to that point. I would like to ask that you take small steps or take a different way to work in a longer time. For me it is important to make smaller steps or maybe take another way, going to work.

[04:36]

She was in the same group as Frida. Because with some more attention to the detail, the own time gets kind of disappeared or gets lost. And then you get into another time feeling. And then I would like to know whether that is fundamental time. Yeah, good enough. I mean the flaneur, you know what a flaneur is? The kind of poet type, Baudelaire type, who wanders in a city with no place to go, just feeling the city. And it's, you know, you have a little different pace, but you give your pace over to the city.

[05:39]

Also ihr habt dann eine andere Geschwindigkeit, aber ihr übergebt diese der Stadt. And it becomes a kind of muse for urban poets. Und es wird wie eine muse für städtische Poeten. So you're exactly right. This sense of the flaneur is very much like entering this fundamental time. Also der flaneur, der betritt diese fundamentale Zeit. Kai, something to say? I basically have the same question, why the word time instead of being. I was just going to... Same question. I know you heard that question. I'm tuned in enough to know that you heard that question. We can picture or imagine the moment as a small duration, but not more. Okay. Can I answer the question or not?

[06:48]

Yeah, you can't really show me mind. And yet mind functions in some way. And it functions through categories. Mm-hmm. And the categories through which it functions tend to limit it. What's that first statement of Sukershi there, that function of consciousness is to limit reality or something like that? Function of thinking is to limit reality. To make it easier to understand. Yes, so probably if we accept that as a definition of consciousness that it limits the way we perceive so that we can function more easily.

[09:02]

Probably if you're a dairy farmer, and before there were machines to milk cows, the way you adjusted your consciousness to the cows, etc., was probably different than someone who's not a dairy farmer. And maybe some professions or some ages and some cultures, they are more often in something we could call fundamental time. I'm not up to date on anthropology, but at one time I read that, years ago, that Australian Aborigines have a habit of discussing their dreams as a ritual every morning.

[10:33]

If you do that already, if you do that yourself in the morning, it already enters you into a different kind of time. And it begins to infuse dream thinking in your ordinary thinking. So the way the two biggest categories that the mind functions through are separating ourselves in space and knowing ourselves over a sequence of one thing after another.

[11:43]

So I often try to alter that by saying, let's get out of our own Western cultural habit of seeing spaces only separating, And really noticing that space also connects. And then the next stage in that is to noticing not only does it also connect, it always connects. The next step in that kind of practice would be to notice that although we can change to the view that it always connects, Do you see that's a shift in view? We have a view that space separates.

[12:53]

We have a new view that space connects. Now you can have an inventory of times in which you experience space connecting. When there's some bio-entrainment, for example. Do you know what bio-entrainment is? Like when all the clocks in a... grandfather clocks in a house begin to swing together. When athletes running together go faster than when they run separately. So there's something that's called bioentrainment.

[13:58]

And when animals, when birds move together and they all figure out, that's bioentrainment. Fish. I see fish flying. I see fish flying. You've been reading too much Dogen. It's fine. Okay. Yeah, so we may have some experiences of, say, bioentrainment. Maybe we can say like the conversation of those, what those British poets felt that I mentioned the other day, yesterday.

[15:10]

But that's not a shift in view. That's only, oh yeah, that happens sometimes. So you can begin to ask, when does it happen? So that's a further step in the practice to notice that sometimes it happens and you begin to notice when that sometimes is. Okay. So this is a... we could say this part of Zen practice, of Buddhist practice, is using a teaching to move into the world of enlightenment. Which is probably only possible to move into really if you have had some experience of enlightenment.

[16:18]

But really, we've all had some experience of enlightenment. So part of practice is to uncover those experiences of enlightenment. As Dogen says, the Buddha may not know he or she is a Buddha. And you may not know you've had some experience of enlightenment. But I think the first proof of enlightenment is that you're here. I'm not just being generous, it's true.

[17:23]

You probably wouldn't find any inclination to be here unless you had some intimation of enlightenment. What we mean by enlightenment in Buddhism. And a shift can be pretty small and unnoticed, but still a shift which things begin to make sense in another way. But my stepping back and saying, oh, this sentence was written for human beings. It's not just an insight. It's an insight that shifted the way I perceived.

[18:30]

So it's an enlightenment experience. It wasn't a very big one, but it was a little enlightenment experience. But it functions almost the same as a big one because it caused a shift. Sometimes these shifts occur and they reach way down deep and high into our structure of our personality. The structure of our knowing and perceiving. When that happens, we're much more firm in the practice. Much more clear. And much more willing, much more courage to face the contradictions of our life and the practice.

[19:34]

Okay. So, I say space connects. And you, oh yeah, that's true. And then you explore it. In the ways I've said. But it becomes a shift in view when you say we're always connected, not just sometimes connected. And what I'm trying to do is not just get you to see, ah, that might be true. What I want to get you to do is to say, It might always be true.

[20:35]

When you accept that it's always true, then you really notice how often it's not true for you. But then you begin to act as if it is true. And you begin to make it true. Sometimes now you say, instead of saying it's sometimes true, you say it's sometimes not true. That's a very different position. So the other big category we have in which we divide up reality is sequence, time.

[21:51]

What's one of the third big categories? Inside and outside. So the koans and the teachings are always working with these big categories by which we divide the world. And the teachings are often trying to reverse the categories or mix them up or deny them. And the result is we can enter at least into a less edited world. Okay, so one of the categories is sequence. Another hour. Okay.

[23:10]

We simplify our experience. We generalize our experience. And one of the main ways we generalize experience is to think we're all in a shared time. So Dovin and I both want to work on this category. We want to use this assumed category and break it open. So we take an aspect of the assumed category. Let's say ripening.

[24:10]

And we can show then that ripening does not have much reality in a generalized concept of time. In a flat, sequential time, ripening always is occurring in the future. And we can't interact with that ripening. The apple's doing it by itself. Goodbye, apple. See you in a month. But we human beings aren't apples. We're also pears. Lovebirds. Valentine hearts. Kiwis, both the fruit and the bird, etc.

[25:47]

So we're not so simple as an apple. Okay. So if time, if our habit of looking at time... I don't know if I can be clear here. I'm feeling my way and trying to be clear. If we have a habit of time of thinking in sequence so I want to break up the concept of time into our actual experience of time. And I would like to not think that you're sort of crucified on the cross of time but that you are time.

[26:54]

Your life is time itself. Dein Leben ist selber Zeit. Du kannst gar nicht außerhalb der Zeit sein, weil du Zeit bist. Was immer du tust, ist deine Zeit. Vielleicht schmeißt man dich raus bei der Arbeit, aber... So you have to be sophisticated enough to adjust your time to others' time. So I want to break up the concept of time as a simple sequence. But I want to keep the habit of time. So I break up the concept, but keep the habit.

[28:03]

Okay. That make sense so far? Maybe. All right. Maybe it doesn't make sense to me, but let me... I never thought of this before. Okay. So... The habit of time, by the habit of time, I mean to see things as not only having sequence, but a coalescence or coming together. How would you say coalescence? Coalescence is to come together.

[29:09]

Like you make butter or something? Okay, but also if we use time to say, okay, at such and such, let's all meet in the kitchen. So we use time as a way to come together at a particular time. Can we use that same sense to come together right now? Can we say the date with Buddha is right now? You can put that up in your bulletin board. I've got a date with Bush. Saturday night. Yeah. Not Sunday morning. Sunday morning is okay, too. All right. So if I break up the category of time, I'm just trying to say something, the concept of time, but we still want to have some way to see the relationship between things, which is similar to our habit of doing it through time,

[30:43]

Okay, now this is actually quite parallel to what I've often said about bringing your attention to your breathing. It's not difficult, as I pointed out many, many times, it's not difficult to bring your attention to your breathing. It's very difficult to do it consistently. And the reason is, I know the reason is, that because we establish our continuity in thinking And that means that psychologically we are hooked to an experience of time as continuity.

[31:47]

We're hooked to a... an experience of continuity, we're hooked to an experience of time as continuity. And we're so hooked on this experience of time as continuity that if you start having experiences that are discontinuous or experiences that you can't, don't make sense in your usual continuity, you think you're having a nervous breakdown.

[32:57]

And it's often a sign you might be having a nervous breakdown. Let's go wash the dishes. Okay. So, instead of now saying, instead of saying, like I say, space connects, the usual way we think is space separates but time is continuous. Now I'm switching that. Space connects and time is discontinuous. That's actually kind of scary and a little radical. So I didn't say it that way. I tried to sneak you into it.

[34:05]

Okay. So now, when you are able to be in your breath continuously, you don't have the same experience of continuity. Because your breath and heartbeat and body aren't continuous like a clock. Now, time is measured actually by a whole bunch of different methods, but by the planets and the shifts in orbits and so forth. The sidereal, there's a whole bunch of different kinds of time in physics. On a big scale, the differences are small, but they're there. But our own existence time, when you bring it into such a simple fact as our breathing and heartbeat,

[35:07]

And certainly the first sense of time, other than day and night, is the heartbeat. And you know, Life and death is divided by breath. When you're dead, you don't have breath. Not heard. No steam on the mirror. OK. So actually when your mind is in your breath, really in your breath, it's a little scared.

[36:43]

You're right playing on the edge of life and death in a certain way. So you're bringing your attention until it rests in your breath And you don't need the continuity of thinking. That's something very close to what I mean by fundamental time. Because time has arrived in your body as your breath, heartbeat and basic metabolism. And that extends also to phenomena.

[37:54]

To being in a forest of big trees or standing in front of the altar. With the candle burning and the incense burning. Or standing in front of another human being. which is also a candle or a Buddha or something that actually affects your basic rhythms. So as Michelle's group found, at some point the time wasn't just their own body and breath, but the group's time began to be part of the time. So that's one thing I mean by simultaneous time and situational time. At the beginning of the group we could say there was simultaneous time. But the process of the group began to create situational time.

[39:16]

Does that make sense of the distinction, Jörg? And we participate in that situational time. And that process makes you feel more and more sufficient or complete. And one of the things that practice does is it basically makes you free of fear. You can still be surprised, but surprise doesn't bring fear with it. It doesn't mean there isn't danger. It's just that you feel danger coming from afar and it doesn't make you scared, it doesn't make you fearful. It's just something happening, it might be.

[40:18]

Pretty negative, but it's just something happening. And that kind of thing happens because you feel sufficient. Pointing out one of the fruits of the sufficiency of time. One of the fruits of not feeling time is outside you. When you feel time is you yourself, And the time of the world is something you are participating in. I'm breathing time right now.

[41:23]

I'm breathing time with you. I feel complete and great. So there's no fear. I'm just here in this situation. There's no outside. If I feel that you're outside, how can I feel afraid? So small shifts in view No, maybe a baby feels this way for a little while. But you drop a baby once or twice and it's... I mean, here's this little baby, right? And if it's first, it's one of its first exposures to an outside point of view.

[42:33]

If an enlightenment experience can be... A small enlightenment experience can be such a big shift for the rest of your life. How big can a little delusion experience be? So, David... had this little delusion experience but creating an outside removing an inside that's not delusion if he can also retain the sense of inside but if it takes away inside And there's only dualism. After that, then we can say it's a kind of delusion experience.

[43:52]

What if the baby's experience was his father laughing and appreciating it? What if the baby's experience is somebody shouting at the little baby? Or in anger, kind of, stop crying. These experiences stay like fractures in crystal the rest of your life. But we all have a combination of these things. And we're, through practice, trying to come back into some kind of complex wholeness. So that we can move from a sense of non-duality to a sense of duality like a kind of, as I said, elastic fabric.

[45:04]

We move into an elastic fabric, which is both dualism and non-dualism. It annoys me when some Zen teachers say, well, the whole point of practice, as I read one today, is to stay in samadhi all day. That's great. But you've got to live in a temple and have a lot of attendance. Take care of you. And it's just too simple a way to see the world. I think realization really means to be able to move freely within dualism and non-dualism simultaneously.

[46:11]

Okay, so my kind of trying to break open the egg of time. I shouldn't use that image. It's to show you how to cook time in lots of different ways. Cook the egg. So that you do have this wider territory of finding yourself in a time which can mature at this moment and can dissolve and can virtually stop.

[47:13]

And we can say that the movement toward less sense of time is a move toward timelessness. Now, this is also connected, as some of you have picked up on, with a movement inward and outward. And the mind is capable of two different directions, a kind of consolidation and a kind of opening. mentioned in the koans as most of you know okay so I use time to answer your question because it's one of the big categories biggest categories by which we already act in the world and categorize the world

[48:30]

If you didn't have that category which is unimaginable because of the world we live in and the way we function we have that category. But if you could want to philosophically imagine some being that doesn't have that category, then I don't have to use the word time. I could speak of it entirely other terms. But in fact, we operate, function in this deluded sense of time. So delusion is our kind friend. Because it's the very delusion of time that allows us to see the wisdom of time.

[49:33]

Just as it's the delusion of form which allows us to see emptiness. Without form, there's no emptiness. There's no such thing as emptiness, independent of form. Emptiness is a category of form. Form is a category of emptiness. Fundamental time is a category of deluded time. And deluded time is only deluded if you identify with it as the only time. But if you just see it as a way to have a meeting or schedule things, then that's no problem. Yeah, like, when do we have dinner?

[50:49]

So let's sit for a moment. See, it wasn't an hour. Thank you for your patience and your time.

[52:08]

Thank you for sharing the discussion, not only with me, but with everyone. And thank you for your questions. And shall we go on this way? Is there some suggestions you have? Shall we continue as tomorrow as today? Okay. Thank you for translating. I feel we create a kind of laboratory and dump ourselves all in the test tube. And to some extent, maybe we really do get a glimmer of how to observe our consciousness.

[54:06]

We're in the midst of it all the time. But I don't think it really feels like the water we swim in. What water do we swim in? What does Dogen mean by the sky and sea of the fish that flies? What realm are we swimming in? Certainly one of the realms is consciousness. And what constitutes consciousness? Yeah, and I can... I never tire of going over the categories like I did this morning.

[55:30]

The six categories, the two directions, the five skandhas. It gives us a chance to notice. It gives us a way to notice consciousness. in a way to participate in it and develop it. And purify it. And feel completely familiar in our world. Yeah, like we belong in this world. On the other hand, I feel, oh, boy, you senior folks, you've heard this stuff so often, you think, oh, I could have skipped this talk.

[56:43]

But I don't think you'd think that if you really did these, really did, held the five skandhas before you all the time. It's like a jewel if you do it. And the doing of it is the only part, the doing of the practice is the only thing that has much meaning. Now maybe we could today have a little more time for questions if the reports you give me and share with each other are a little shorter. I'd like them to be really long.

[57:45]

I'm fascinated. But even though time has no one clock, Even in physics. Especially in physics. We still have one clock we agreed on. Okay, so please give me something from your discussion. We tried to understand the five skandhas. And it seemed like it was not possible to get into any particular layer of the skandha, either the form layer or the feeling layer.

[59:06]

But then we realized that we probably are moving more in them than we notice. And then the interesting question was, how can we notice it more, that we are in which one we are? Then we exchanged about how do we work, consciousness. Yes, we then tried to And we try to put the antidotes in relation to the five skandhas.

[60:46]

Okay. I think it's useful to... see the five skandhas as through two directions, one toward form and one toward consciousness. So don't just think of them as layers, but also as directions. And really, the skandhas begin to make sense when you get a real feel of one aspect. And that makes the rest of them clear, usually. Not getting a feeling for a part of a poem and then makes the rest of the poem clear.

[62:14]

And I think what's very common or familiar for all of us is the idea of, you know, Freud's psychoanalysis of free association. And from a Buddhist point of view, Freud made use of the fourth skanda. And what's interesting there, if you do think of that, What's interesting about that, if you... Is the person who's free associating on the couch or whatever... ...is not in consciousness exactly. You'd say he or she is conscious... but they're not really in consciousness in a Buddhist sense.

[63:18]

The fourth skanda is a kind of consciousness, yes. But it's not so fully conscious as consciousness itself. If it was, you couldn't free associate. Fully consciousness edits out free association. You understand? So if you're fully conscious, you can't free associate. So there's something about full consciousness that edits out part of the mind. So if you can get somebody to suspend full consciousness and be in a little slightly different kind of consciousness...

[64:23]

That moves toward, then you can free associate. And various connections come in that you don't notice or edit out in full consciousness. And I think you can all feel the difference between a mind that you kind of, even physically, can slip into free association out of ordinary consciousness, which takes hold of things. So you can see that there's a directionality from full consciousness to associative consciousness. Then you can feel that direction toward just simple perception with no associations. Or you can feel the other direction, from just a perception to associations coming in, to the editing function, quality of grasping consciousness.

[66:04]

Okay. Yeah, some other contribution. It was similar in our group, the discussion like in group one. We first try to define the verbs, the terms. And then to see how useful it is for each one of us. The group was very impressed by Lotte, because she described very in detail how she's working with the five skandhas. Yes. I like it when those who are willing to speak move toward the front, and then when they're not willing to speak, they move toward the back.

[67:39]

Not always, but... I like it when those who want to speak come forward, and when they no longer want to speak, they go back. It's just that I want to speak. I get you. What impressed me was the difficulty to come together at this point of the five skandhas, because when everybody of us told her or his experiences, it was quite... There were seven different views, seven different... Are we speaking in Deutsch? Ja, ich mache das... I will tell it again. Sorry. Ask me, I... LAUGHTER What impressed me in the group was also the difficulty of coming together at this occasion of the five Skandas.

[68:43]

First of all, to understand them, but then also to make myself understandable. Because suddenly seven very different perceptions and experiences arose, which were really exciting, but difficult to find a language for. And there, I think, it is... My Roshi has already said that this is a meaning of this practice week, that we learn to talk about it and to find words for the experience. And perhaps this is also a meaning of this skandhas, or this division, of these partly-acribic terms that are offered in Buddhism. I said that... Fell between the skandhas.

[69:48]

He fell between the skandhas. Yeah, I think the importance of these groups came out in these difficulties to come together, to talk together about our different experiences and to find a language for this experience. And in this case, I think it may be useful to... Because people often ask, why use these five skandhas? I mean, I have ways to deal with meditation and with my experiences, so I don't need five skandhas or all these systematic, these Buddhist terms and things. But maybe these terms are useful in the way we try to find a language or a way to speak together about these experiences. At least that, yes. Okay, good.

[70:50]

One second. May I open the window a little bit? At least for a few minutes at least. Yeah, go ahead. What? Some resistance against the complicateness of this concept and now what do we need this for? I got a headache So, the wish arose for something more simple, a tool with which I can test this, how it works for me.

[71:57]

This was your feeling or the group's feeling? The latter was my feeling. I don't dare to speak about it right now. Yeah, I want to ask somebody in the front rows to switch off the light. I fear it's getting too hot there. No, it's okay. I'm not getting hot about that, but the wood. Oh, there's lots of space in there. Yeah, okay. That's nice that you're worried about these things, though. Okay. Someone else. You're hidden behind the pillar of Peter Dreyer.

[73:02]

My concept is that when I meditate and a thought arises, I can name it. So when I meditate then I name what's coming up and I also look whether the feeling is agreeable or disagreeable. whether I am in the past or already in the future, whether I am planning. Then I try not to judge this thought and to release it. And return to a breath.

[74:18]

Yeah, this is good. Until a new thought comes. This is good too. And when I feel that I can't stay with the breath, then I cling to it because, well, the thoughts are annoying. And then it opens up a space where I can fly. Whoa! Can I meditate with you? Well, this is a pretty classic Theravadan kind of meditation.

[75:23]

And it's kind of the basis within Zen practice, too. But we don't all live together all the time, so I can't talk about everything. But I guess I'd have to say I assume that people do this practice. Yeah, it's a kind of ground practice. And a ground practice that reaches to the extent of Buddhism. Yeah. So if you do get in the habit of naming, noticing naming various ways you can do it, everything that appears, And if nothing else, you gain an experience at noticing the topography of mind.

[76:50]

And if you notice whether things are agreeable or disagreeable or neutral. you begin to be able to move also more easily into the wide field of neutrality, so it's neither agreeable nor disagreeable. And I would think that if one gets used to doing that, it makes the five skandhas easier to practice. So you get used to noticing things. It's little. I suppose fish don't notice they're swimming in H2O. They're just swimming in water. But it might be useful for fish, you know, particularly as today's contaminated streams and things.

[78:05]

Oh, it's more H around here or there's more O around here or something. Well, in a way, the skandhas are allowing you to do a kind of chemical analysis of mind. Or rather consciousness. So, something else? Nobody in the group had any tool how to work with the skandhas. After the lectures by Roshi were more or less built up, I was actually very stunned.

[79:14]

Because I have the problem, when I sit down and concentrate on breathing, at some point I just lose my thoughts. When I sit, when I meditate, then comes a point where I lose my thoughts. And my difficulty is how do I start with the five skandhas then? Because I don't think anymore, I am entering a space but I can't describe it anymore. And after the discussion in the group I had a feeling that I could maybe describe the five skandhas by intuition.

[80:22]

So that is my question. It sounds more like a statement. Yeah, it sounds right to me. Yeah, please. I have the problem that on one hand I want to get rid of my thoughts Give them to me. Oh, this is curious. Yeah, go ahead. And on the other hand, now I have the feeling that I should have thoughts, and that makes me confused now.

[81:30]

Why do you think you should have thoughts? Because I should name it what's happening. Naming isn't thinking. Naming is a mental activity. And it uses words. But it takes words out of thinking. So you say, thinking mind. That's not thinking. And naming tends to sink thinking. It's like a boat of thinking goes by and you name it and the boat sort of sinks.

[82:41]

But if you get in the habit of that too much, naming is a kind of mind that's not thinking mind, but is its own kind of mind. So naming mind will also have the qualities of homeostasis and own organizing. But naming mind is clearer than thinking mind. Yeah, but we sometimes need muddy thinking mind. And thinking mind can clear up, so it's just like, you know, clear water or like... Something similar was also a theme in our group. We try to approach the five skandhas when we are angry at somebody.

[84:14]

Oh, okay. Then you can think about going back, what was the feeling, what are my associations, and what happened before that. Then we can think and deliberate about what was before, what are my feelings, what happened before then. That's one option, but then I have to think. The other option is not to think and to get back to the present time. What shall we do then? Yeah, all of the above. As you like.

[85:38]

But you can, if you get to know your mind, you can substitute a joyful mind for an angry mind. Or you can have an angry mind which... wants to express the content of anger but doesn't express it angrily. It's a little bit like, it's nothing special, but it's a little bit like you're at the source of your mind. It's not like you as a person, it's like angry mind comes first and you're being pushed by your angry mind. Like you're a little boat in the rough sea. You feel like you're at the source of your mind. So you can decide to go out on an angry mind or not, you know.

[86:41]

Maybe the angry mind is nearly the same, but where you are located in the mind is different. Does that make sense, sort of? I will talk mostly about two aspects of our group. How does it happen that the observer dissolves into the sense field? That was the general question?

[88:19]

And we took the vijayana of hearing, where many people had different experiences, Then I take away the naming of the sound. Someone said. And then I asked, what does it mean to take it away? There are different observers in different states of consciousness.

[89:21]

Ist immer noch etwas Beobachtendes oder Wahrnehmbares da, selbst wenn die subjektive Schraube fällt? Is there still an observer there if the subject-object boundaries are gone? You're asking, the group was asking this. And if this is not the case, how does perception take place at all? How do I, can I remember? Do you want to remember? She forgot.

[90:45]

She forgot whether she wants to remember. I actually think that... more of an anecdote, that probably if you practice Zen, you handle Alzheimer's better. You handle Alzheimer's better. Because your mental functioning isn't tied to remembering. because your mental functioning is not bound to the memory. I remember Yamada... Yamada Mumonroshi was my teacher in Japan. Yamada... And he got quite, probably Alzheimer's.

[91:57]

No one would say, but probably it was Alzheimer's. And I even had him interviewed by the BBC at one time. Long before he had Alzheimer's. On a program called The Long Search. They wanted to interview a Zen teacher in Japan, so I arranged for it to be Yamada Mumunoshi. And the program ended. Yamada. Y-A-M-I-D-A. And Ron Eyre, who is the narrator, a British fellow, he said when Muman Roshi got up at the end of the interview and turned and walked away,

[93:01]

Down the hall of his temple. Ron had the feeling that everything that had happened had just disappeared when he turned away. And Mummo Roshi had that kind of quality. Yes. So when he was quite old, I went to his 80th birthday party or something. And these people, famous people from Tokyo and no actors, had all come to his birthday party. So there's about 200 people in this room. And he came in, we came in together. We went to a bath first. We were sitting in a hot tub and then we went to this. It was great to hang out with him. Andreas and Andreas and Gerald are planning a bath under this room.

[94:41]

So we came in and he looked around like that. Everybody said, why are all these people? I know some of these people. And then later, a few years later, I used to help him eat. We'd pick up a spoon, he'd look at the spoon while it was there, and he'd have to push it in his mouth. And he... The last thing, he didn't speak the last two or so years of his life. And supposedly I wasn't there. The last thing he said was he said, I've forgotten everything I didn't need to know.

[95:42]

He never spoke again after that. One did another... program, not this BBC time-lapse series.

[96:08]

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