You and you were joining us. And I'm sorry you don't know what's been going on, but you were alive before you came here, so it was fine. Um... Well, of course, I would like to know what's useful to you. Because I guess we could say that I We have a rather dense web of simplicity.

[01:03]

And we have to sort out from that what's useful. And I guess I present it that way because everything nuances everything else. And one of the backgrounds that's going on while I'm speaking Is what I'm presenting dependent on doing zazen or doing meditation? Is what I'm presenting benefits from doing Zazen, what is independent of doing Zazen?

[02:17]

And is what I'm presenting not dependent on Zazen at all? And sometimes while I'm speaking I have a kind of sense of which should be among these three, it is. But often I wonder about it as I'm saying something. I was just getting the thought. Because as his parent, we're all lay people. Although I'm ordained, I'm mostly dressed as a lay person, and sometimes I dress as a monkette, I mean monk. So the Wiener Bande practitioners here in Austria are

[03:31]

Among the dharma sangha, the white groups, like Vienna, Austria, and Boulder, are the groups which are most important. developing a most developing practice within that group separate from Crestone. And it may be that you in Austria you feel rather far away from Germany. If not geographically, culturally. And in Boulder, they had a group going for 25 years before they started pricing us. So they transformed their long-term group into a dharmasanga group.

[05:09]

And as many of you know, they bought for a million dollars a Bed and breakfast. And then they pay the back back, which gave them the money. They rather than the rest of the place is a bed and breakfast. And it's the most successful B&B in Colorado. People like the atmosphere and they come and they don't know it's meditation. So we're going to scout around for a B&B or a pension home in Vienna.

[06:25]

Oh no, we found one in the cottage gas. Are you willing to take in gas? Okay, so Christina suggested we discuss lay practice, monastic practice, residential practice. So there's two big questions. How can you develop a lay practice when you don't stay together that much? And more crucially, how do you develop a lay practice that can be generationally passed? Now, I gave you earlier, equally mind, made up phrase I made up this morning, simple, equally mind.

[07:55]

So this is a bell. And it's equally mind, it's equally mind. my senses and mind proceeding. So I might use the phrase like equally mind. On every person. Equally mind is the bell, but also your equally mind, no, yours, But a phrase like equally might can be practiced with a residential practitioner or a lay practitioner.

[08:57]

Is there a difference I had one little anecdote. Brian DeCamp, who did practice with us for 20 years. And he started out as a young software programmer. I guess now he's 40, I suppose. And he started two or three software companies. And supported himself moderately well. And now it looks like his partner here is going build a house on the grounds at Crestown to live.

[10:04]

So this is an experiment. But he himself, you know, I've often... mentioned that Sukhiroshi, well I won't tell the whole anecdote, just that there's a tradition in practice to do things with two hands. So if I pass this to Eric, I would pass it with two hands. It requires me also to turn my body, not just my head. And that is decided by my body.

[11:06]

So he had a group of friends he met with once a week. He decided to do things with two hands. With the feeling like if he gave a sock to somebody, he was passing himself off. and using the salt as excuse. After nearly three years, meaning once a week, when they were off to get One of the friends said, What's wrong with you? You always use two hands. And I said, Oh, practice. But if you're hanging out with the Vinabandha, in one of the cafes.

[12:35]

Maybe immediately they will say, oh, stop doing things with two hands. So there's going to be differences. So I want to hear. Mm-hmm. Yes. I was thinking about that. Which point? This point of doing things with two hands. Because My question would be, or maybe you could say a little bit more about it, and this is also connected to residential practice. How can you teach and how can you understand the body? How can you learn with the body and understand with the body?

[13:37]

So I would like to know a little bit more about that. Although this is contradictory, because you say something. Yes, that's a general question. Can you make it more specific? Well, I think the problem is I only recently realized how important it is as much as possible to be the presence of the teacher and to almost imitate the teacher. So the way he moves or the way she moves or what she does. So it seems that the teaching is somehow enfolded in the presence and in activity. And this is particularly challenging for the practice where no residential teacher is, because it is so important to have this physical aspect.

[15:11]

So how can we have a lay sangha where the teacher is not always present? Well, it's very nice that you asked everybody this question. I'd like to hear their answers. Yes. So I think that sharing a common space of a shared presence is very important. And I think it's not a coincidence that personal attendants of the teacher are the karmic dharma successors in Buddhism. And also in martial arts there are these very close students which live together with the teacher who continue this lineage in martial arts.

[16:32]

So therefore I think succession and transmission with a monastery component in it will be possible. Now that's kind of discouraging for the lay practitioners here who have not decided to start roaming with me yet. But I do have a known address, you know. I have a lot of extra rooms, you know. But the good news, on the other hand, is that the sangha also has a teaching function, that you learn from each other. So that the sangha also has a teaching function, so that the students are learning from each other.

[17:45]

And that also applies to laypeople. If the teacher is not there, then... And it also works with lay practitioners, even when the teacher is not always present. That's what I hope. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But you're in a special case because we have the same names already. [...]

[18:46]

So what you present in my perspective is primarily from a Japanese context, or from the context of Japanese experiences. So original. And if you enter into this Japanese way of living, which in a certain kind expresses this and realizes it in almost all aspects of life, It's much simpler to understand the Buddhist teaching in the way you present it. And the problem in the West is that we lack this basic experience, this basic continuous experience.

[20:03]

And this being together with the teacher and the being together with teacher and student allows this osmotic process to absorb the teaching. Ich denke, die Schwierigkeit ist eben für uns, etwas zu etablieren im Westen, das auch für sich alleine dort bleibt. And the problem we are facing in the West is are we able to establish a way which supports this and helps us in this way? Yes, and this is aggravated by the fact that the Western way of life is totally opposite to the Japanese way.

[21:33]

He puts it upside down. Because Western worldview is coined by the idea that the world is our entities. So in the same way as you brought this term culture up, where culture is the word is in a context. And if you look at this way, then kothu is a word which also allows certain experiences.

[22:46]

The Western way of learning would be without any experience, just understanding, mentally understanding. Yes. Yes. So in my experience, I think that the worst is lacking this foundation in experience. OK. Now I would hope that we can also have a conversation in the time we have, back and forth among ourselves and not always directed toward me.

[24:07]

It's more interesting for me when I hear the discussion. The help of my spy. Well, what you say is all sort of true. But it's not my intention or experience. I am practicing in Japan and then starting to practice in the West. I tried to take everything out of this Japanese and only leave what's yogic. So I know it looks like, and I use Japan as an example often, but I don't feel I'm talking about Japan. And it looks like that, but I don't think it's talking about Japan.

[25:19]

If I'm talking about anything, I'm talking about some dynasty, primarily some dynasty China. But it has China, sorry, China, yeah, China. When you're in Japan, they think India is the West. And when you're in the West, you think India is the beginning of the Orient. And India is where yoga was invented, not the British colonial version, but the earlier version. India from our point of view was a kind of beginning of a body culture. China more so. And I would say Japan is the largest numerically body culture in the world so you know like I met this wonderful man recently he's a practitioner of Chinese medicine

[26:36]

And he studied all these years in China and his lectures all over the world, but his practice has made a difference. In any case, the disadvantage that Japanese had practicing Buddhism And the advantage we have, we can really see the difference in the worldviews. So what I'm trying to do is... is to make use of the differences in worldview to precipitate a shift.

[27:54]

And so if you look at the number of people seriously practicing, Probably more in the West than Japan. So, anyway. Sorry I make it look so Japanese, but that's not my intention. You know, in Japan, you know, West would want to imitate a I can't use the Japanese version. We go like this. I think what the Japanese do. They imitate Caucasian. They say cat eyes. Just one point.

[29:11]

So the point I wanted to make was that when you look at various communities like cooking or pottery, you are able to find this kind of awareness or this kind of worldview. You can find it there. Yeah. The yogic worldview is quite explicit in Japan. But it's not Japanese. They practice it, but it's not German. Like in Europe, you could find many things. This is French, and this is German, and this is Ukrainian. But there are also things which are Christian, common to all. Yes, the other side. The other side. So it's part of my experience.

[31:04]

So when Eric is preparing tea in the kitchen and cottage person for tea after sasen, Then we can see that his movements and his activity have a beginning and a duration and an end. Or when Christine is in her robes to greet all the others. And when Michael is somehow organizing the room, designing the room, and it brings in structure as well as freedom in this activity? I can't get an idea about what you can experience.

[32:22]

Dann kann ich eine Idee davon bekommen, was du an Johanneshof oder in Christen erfahren kannst. Well, it is true that a characteristic of yogic culture is you give a beginning and end to every action. And in the middle of the action, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So you're not sure what's going to happen next. But, oh, it had a beginning and end. Someone else? For me, Friday evening was quite impressive. When we sat together and those people who were there since Friday morning told what they experienced on Friday and what they listened to.

[33:48]

I wasn't there, right? No, you weren't. Oh, yeah. But you could have done that. Yes. Naturally, I couldn't understand many things rationally. Yes, but it was such a shabby feeling there. Not with standing. I felt the feeling was similar after listening to a lecture from you. Oh, good. OK, thanks. Yes, it is actually a great job to have you here today, to be here today, to be here today,

[35:15]

Yeah, please. Yes, but I . It's a kind of a pioneering enterprise, which I assume is ineligible anymore. But it's so . Yes, yes. I think that, pardon me, so the chance to reach for a quick question now is how practicing format might work. But it's like, it's very, so I was thinking What does this culture have to do with it? So there was no access or practice to the environment, to the aspects of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example.

[36:33]

And in this moment there was, of course, also the dissonance of the same texts, because it is a kind of criticism that seems to have been with me for a long time and also for a long time. So particularly, because it seems to science, science is very good to have an exploration of science, but what is with the care, you know? And the idea is that when you stand on your feet, you are already standing on your feet, you are already breathing, you are already in a state of relaxation. And that actually also brings a game to mind. So once there's the connective goes to me, it's that for access to was the evenly hovering attention with .

[37:38]

Is that hovering? Evenly hovering attention. Hovering? Yes. Hovering over? Yes. Evenly hovering attention. OK. Yeah. Which is the mind, the . Yeah. You can see that's the right of the interplay. We have . Yeah. Now is that a technical term within psychoanalysis, hovering in tension? Because in America now they talk about helicopter parents. who hover over their children all the time. They follow them to university. That's interesting. I think that as you're doing many of these things, and it's quite useful when you find

[39:03]

similar, but often different, but similar enough practices or attitudes, which you can kind of fold them together. Yeah, and because they're that makes it more accessible but also creates a kind of transformative alchemical dynamic in our own culture. Eric knows the book, The Hair with the Amber Eyes, which some of the rest of you might know. I know it's a marvelous book. It's hard to believe that the... What's the name of the family? If you see family...

[40:16]

And that building looks like it's the governor of Vienna. Not quite a house. But they are convinced that the author is ancestor was a relative was probably Charles Swan in Swan's Way. But what you see in that book is the literally craze for Japanese things in In Paris in the 1800s. And before the rich collectors. In Vienna also. So this process of interleaving cultures, interleaving, what is interleaving?

[41:50]

Interleaving cultures is, Been going on for 150 years or more. It's the resonance of our first meeting here. being in the Chinese room. My experience, limited experience, I have of choices all over Europe. They have a Chinese room, but often it's actually Japanese. And Michael took me on a tour of the Lichtenstein camps of Schwarz.

[42:55]

And there was a Chinese room? Yeah, so, okay. But I wanted to say one thing. We... One of the expressions... articulated expression of unlimited friendliness. is the practice of bowing whenever you see someone. But as I demonstrated before, shown before, is that whenever you pass someone in, or see someone near or at a distance, but it will difference in how you look at them.

[44:29]

So on the one hand, it's a kind of every time you see somebody, you start to doubt. But you don't usually just walk by and bow, you stop and bow. And you don't usually stop with your feet, your ankles that distance apart. And you don't usually And your hand is this far apart from you. Measure your body with your body. And then you are practicing unlimited friendliness. But You're also meeting the Sambhogakaya body.

[45:40]

Because the feeling is that you're actually bringing your hands together into kind of the mushy space that you can feel, bouncy space. You bring your hands and the heel of your hands especially have a certain power. Up through the chakras to this chakra. Let me pause there. And then you lift that into a shared space. And then you bow with the other person into that shared space. And then you bow with the other person into that shared space. and you feel you disappear into a mutual space.

[46:46]

Now that's a bodily dimension that's not it other than the different. But I'm sure you can find a way with your client to kind of feel bliss kind of state. So, and the schedule in the monastery, I think, and one of the things that shocks me That makes me inwardly weep. I'm not joking. There's this 90-day practice. And it's also a form of authorization.

[47:55]

So all of America now, people do six-week Anglos. not 90 days, or two weeks, and then say the person's authorized to be a teacher. Well, there's nothing wrong with two-week practices or six-week practices. But it'd be like going to medical school for a few weeks in a third world country coming back and opening a practice in Chicago. It's nuts. It's so obviously nuts, but no one thinks it's nuts. They all take it seriously. It's so obviously nuts, but no one thinks it's

[48:56]

And it is primarily the attempt to adapt Buddhism to lay practice and lay people who can't take three months off and go to a monastery. Because probably the most powerful thing that happens In a 90-day practice. As you have a schedule, which in every aspect alters your experience of time. And first it's rather difficult. But you enter into another kind of because you're with a group of people and you don't see pretty much anyone else.

[50:22]

You're with a group of people and you don't see anybody else much, the army. And something happens in that space that becomes a physical sharing space that's not an exterior space. No, I don't want to, you know, touch my heart with this. But there is something that happens, and there's a reason for it being called Angu, which also means you don't leave. It's one of the most difficult times. is you live in a time that you take for granted heartbeat, breath.

[51:40]

You don't change people's basic... You know what happens with jet lag. Maybe you have zen lag. So you don't change people's basic feeling of time. Easily. But you can do it in several three months. And then you actually discover you're living in a different time than you grew up in. Or maybe it's closer somehow to the time you grew up in. And then you think you are in another world than the one you grew up in. It is a time, a world that is similar to the one you grew up in.

[52:47]

So there's going to be some things that are different. Of course, different is different. But if some of us, like Tara and Christina, are going to go to the first practice group and find out, oh, it's like he said it all. And it's going to be very pioneering because the facilities aren't ready and the plumbing isn't done. So I'm going to depend on the resilience of these two people. So, bin ich also an der Resilienz. Da bin ich abhängig von der Resilienz dieser Eltern. Der Widerstandswidrigkeit. And their husbands staying at home.

[53:51]

Und der haben wir nicht wie zu Hause. Okay, you will say something. Also, ich weiß jetzt nicht mehr, was ich sagen wollte. I don't know what I wanted to say. Aber, also, was mir jetzt Spaß gebracht, wie du heute gesprochen hast, What came up for me during your speaking is that I perceive it as one What? What we are doing is one thing. I mean, there is practice period, and there is practice period, and there is monastic practice. And there is practice. And when...

[54:51]

So when Erich and Michel and Marcel came together, he was in his basement, and found that somehow there was a massacre without knowing what we were doing. After that, we went and polled together in Arreca, after we had been together in Arreca. So there was no Johannesburg. So there was no Johannesburg. So there was no Johannesburg. So the monastic practice somehow became possible because of the practice. And I feel the presence of my teacher in my field. And when we meet as a sangha, the presence of our teacher also meets in this way.

[56:09]

The presence of our teachers, because probably these are different teachers. That's what I was saying. My experience is that the sangha somehow fails, the teacher doesn't succeed, but he somehow appears in the middle. So the teacher somehow, the teacher is not created by the Sangha, but it emerges somehow in the Sangha. For me personally, the decision not to practice in the monastery, that implies for me the task to stay where I am. implies for me the task to practice where I am. And this also implies to take the chance to do this practice period. And I'm very grateful to you that this is possible. And at the same time Also für mich persönlich habe ich so eine innere Motivation, die so geht, je stärker der Widerstand, desto, ja, das klingt sehr kompakt mit mir, desto besser wird das.

[57:36]

My motivation or my sentence of motivation for me, this might sound a bit competitive, the stronger the resistance, the better the practice. The stronger the resistance. That's why, in general, lay practice is more difficult. And that's why, in general, it is assumed that lay practice is more difficult than monastic practice. But to come back to the beginning, what I said, I'm only part of the Sangha. I see the Sangha as a whole practices together.

[58:40]

Yeah. Well, you know, I've been doing this for 55 years or so. And if I say something like that, I say, that's embarrassing. You should need better results, I think. And it doesn't make much difference to me whether for me personally whether I'm in practice period or not. There's some difference but not much. But the big difference and why I'd love to do it is I know a number of people in a way I can't know anywhere else, any way else.

[59:44]

There's an inner shared sentience that's deeply satisfying even through it. Or, to put it in another way, spectrum, a kind of ordinary thoroughly ordinary way. Anyone else want to bring up something here? I think for some of you, you are trying to do a practice here, and I'm trying to do that. It's getting kind of tiresome for me.

[60:59]

But the big question for me as a practitioner, teacher, as I said earlier, how can I teach present Buddhism so you can do it whether you do zazen or not. What's not dependent on zazen. And so forth. And so forth. And how can we develop a Sangha which will continue? I think, I don't know for sure, but I think Buddhism is probably the longest lasting success of teaching.

[62:00]

There's been a consciously articulated generational teaching for 2,500 years. intentionally articulated so it can be passed to the next generation. So even though Mahayana practice is conceptually a great practice, It's in fact in past monastic. So how are we as predominantly and primarily Why is Sangha here in the United States going to pass the teaching? High language of myself being buried.

[63:13]

Of course, I'll be burned. Ich habe ein Bild von mir gehabt, wie ich beerdigt werde. Aber natürlich werde ich verbrannt. And I saw an ash-filled hand come up. Try! Und ich sah eine Hand aus dem Grab rausgekommen. Und sie hat gestimmt und gesagt, versuche es.

[63:50]

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