I think we ought to start with some discussion, but first I want to say a couple of things. What I've been speaking about is considered very difficult to understand. And I don't think it's so difficult to understand. And it's considered not only difficult to understand, it's also considered... If you don't understand it well, it's misleading. And it's generally only taught to monks at a later stage in their development.

[01:03]

But I can't wait for you all to join the monastery. I don't know. I think it's... If I can be clear, and I have a feeling you've been practicing a long time, longer than a lot of monks, Yeah, so if I can skillfully, if I can manage to be skillful and to present this in a way that is clear enough to stay in its own territory, then hopefully it can be actualized in your life and in your practice.

[02:31]

Anyway, it's an experiment. And so when we do have some discussion, I'd like to hear if you find it difficult or just find it, you know, whatever you find. And I'd like to know what parts seem clear and what parts aren't so clear. And I'd like to know what parts seem clear and what parts aren't so clear. Now, again, we have this topic, how the Buddha appears. I don't actually know how this topic appeared.

[03:36]

It must have been partly from me, right? And I don't know how it sounds in German, but it sounds kind of funny in English. I don't know how it sounds in German, but it sounds kind of funny in English. Buddha appears? Well, he walks in the door. I don't know how he appears. Hello, Buddha's here. Oh, that's how you appear. But actually it lends itself very well to the history of the development of the concept of the Buddha. Because there was a shift, you know. First there's the historical Buddha. And then there's the following the path of the historical Buddha. And then the historical Buddha's way in the past, and the path gets kind of faint. And my feeling is that it's not simply a matter of, as I think I said the other day, a prologue day of yesterday.

[04:52]

I don't think it's simply a matter or only a matter the development of Buddhism, but that early Buddhism is for a different kind of person than later Buddhism. And then what kind of person are we? Are we a third kind of person in the history of the development of Buddhism? Of course it's not just one, two or three, but because it still takes a long time to change, centuries to change, attitudes, world views, etc.

[05:56]

And so at some point, When the trail following the path of the historical Buddha got rather faint and a sort of different kind of person was following the path. When the path got faint. The path got faint, yeah. And you have a different kind of person following a faint path. Mahayana Buddhism in fact said the path has to start here. We have to bring the Buddha into the present. So they brought the Buddha into the present not only bringing the experience of what it is to be a Buddha into the present, but also to bring a new view of the world into the present in which a Buddha could inhabit.

[07:22]

which a Buddha couldn't inhabit. Is that crystal clear? Clear or not, anyway. Okay. So what we're talking about is how the Buddha appears in this world and in us. Well, from one point of view, can you look at it as a useless exercise? Well, just do Zazen and be happy.

[08:37]

But if you want to make use of the teachings of Buddhism, this garden owes from the past. We have to know what we're Watering. Where to aim the hole. Yeah. We have to know how to receive the teachings. I hope I don't talk too much.

[09:39]

You know, what I want to say is about this big, but when I start saying it, it gets bigger and bigger. So, now, There's various ways, though, I could approach this, how the Buddha appears. Yeah, and I actually feel a certain loss that I can't present other ways in addition to what happened here. And you may feel a certain loss too because you expected something else when you came to this seminar. You expected a Buddha to appear and you only got a heavy Bodhisattva. I disguised weightlifting.

[10:47]

Nobody knows when they're not looking, I start lifting weights. Is that right, Richie? Okay. Okay. Yeah, you might have wanted to develop the idea yourself, see it developed a different way. So you may feel a certain loss, too, in not going the direction you wanted it to go. Okay, so now... Let's make use of this sense of loss.

[11:52]

As I suggested, this is part of practice to notice in this example a sense of loss. And then shift it into a sense of acceptance. The mind of acceptance. Like the phrase that just now is enough. Or just this is the way it is in fact. Somehow this day and this beautiful center. These days. This weather. Great. And thus, us, these of us who we are, have shaped what happened.

[13:13]

So with this mind of acceptance, we shift from a sense of, well, it could have been otherwise, We can shift it into... A mind of acceptance. And that mind of acceptance can open us up to a respect for what happened in this particular time and place. And a respect for each one of us who happens to be That attitude is an essential part of Practicing with others, practicing with the teaching and the teacher.

[14:22]

And practicing with the opportunities you have. Without regret. Without loneliness. But still, we can look at how we develop the process of teaching. Yeah. So, you know, some of you who participate in the winter branches are here. And I would like you to... not be dead sticks, but under branches. So in any situation, You feel you possess the teachings, you're not just receiving the teachings.

[15:31]

Maybe the Winter Branches program isn't fully there yet. I think it's definitely partway there. One of its blossoms in the spring is to feel these teachings belong to us. So you speak about them as if you're speaking about your own home. Okay. Now, since I'm here in this tower, with my buddy of 20 years, we don't break bread together that often.

[16:38]

The companion is to break bread. But we do. I have to speak about the teachings in a way, since I'm sitting on this tower, I've got to do something. I have to speak about the teachings in a way that I... know from experience and which I can receive myself in the process of speaking.

[17:58]

Because the process of speaking goes its own way and then has to come back and be received. Because I'm not just imparting information to you. I don't want to anyway. I mean, maybe partly, but... For me, at least, I'm doing something more alchemical. Finding something out with this wonderful opportunity to be with you. You know, if I sit at my computer and try to write this, something about it, it's different than if I'm sitting in front of you.

[19:04]

Something different happens. So I can only speak about what I can experience and what I can receive. So I can only speak also about What at least a few of you can receive. And can experience. And can receive into your experience. And, further, I can only speak about what all of you can receive. into your own experience. And it makes a difference. Don't I have to go to Kassel tomorrow? And I'm supposed to start at 10 o'clock.

[20:05]

And you're going to translate for me? And then Wednesday I go to Göttingen and I have to give what's called a public talk in the evening, right? 7.30. Couldn't you have made it 8.30? All right. Change the poster, 8.30. But if I was Trungpa Rinpoche, I could just arrive at 8.30. He was famous for arriving hours late sometimes. People would all wait and they'd talk and chat. I'm pretty well behaved for a Zen guy. Well, Gerhard and Gisela will be there, and in a way I can speak to them, but I can't speak to these other people.

[21:33]

Yeah, so it makes a difference. And when I say what you can receive into your own experience, for instance, if we were all sitting more, I could say different things. Because the experience you would have with which you could receive would be different. And it's not that I would plan to say something different. I might, but probably I usually don't. But something different comes out or is drawn out. Yeah, if this was a sashin, it would be different to here. Yeah. So it definitely is important that in this group most of you have practiced quite a bit, and most of you have practiced quite a bit with our lineage, in our lineage.

[23:15]

So it also makes a difference that the winter branches people are here. We spent as much time as we did on the Abhidharma and so forth. So from that point of view, you see, we can't just sit and be happy. I mean, that's not bad, though. If we want to receive the teachings, we also have to have the experience which allows us to receive the teachings. Okay, now we have discussion. Well, at least for a few minutes, yes. I would like to add or connect to that.

[24:25]

For us, the important is that we have the possibility to get into a deeper practice, to enter into a deeper practice. It's not so much about the importance of Johanna, so? In Berlin our sitting room is around about 12 people now. We have received people who had a deeper monastic practice like Akush and Ulrike. I feel there is such a difference in the topics that we address and what we practice about if we wouldn't have met those people.

[25:38]

This feeling that there's a real difference. As we're not having always a possibility of having been long in Johanneshof doing monastic practice, so it's really this importance that I feel. So you would say that the lay Berlin sitting group is partly anchored in the practice at Yohannesov, even if you don't go to Yohannesov? Well, I hope it's true and I believe you.

[26:57]

Yes. Yes. Yesterday, I have a question relating to what you said yesterday about trees, that you could imagine that people are trees. I can imagine that I'm a tree. And I have difficulties. I would like to ask if you could explain that again, and where the difference is. I can imagine that I'm a tree. And I have a little difficulty with that. If you could please sort of get into that again or explain that a little more. Okay, yeah. I mean, maybe I'll come back to it, actually, because I might be an example for later. But just for now, I don't mean you imagine another person as a tree, but you feel the mind that you had when you were just in front of the tree.

[28:09]

In other words, you're trying to generate, get a physical feel for a non-conceptual person. non-discriminating mind in front of the tree So it doesn't see it. Knowing that feeling, you can have it in other circumstances. You have a physical, physical feeling for the non-discriminating non-discriminating spirit that you felt with the tree and this spirit, so to speak, you take or you feel again, so to speak, when you I mean, this is based on the Yogacara dictum that all... Every state of mind has a physical component.

[29:31]

And every sentient physical state Human physical state of body has a mental component. And you can, in the Abhidharma, this is called indexing. In other words, you can index a state of mind to a physical feeling. You can reproduce the physical feeling and generate the mind. And we do that rather naturally often. You know, you're a little anxious so you breathe slowly. Well, that's the same thing.

[30:39]

Breathe slowly produces a different state of mind. Yeah, take a cold shower. Take a cold shower, it's called indexing. What are you doing? Are you taking a cold shower or are you indexing? To make clear, it's a technical term. Sometimes I call it interdexing. Interdexing. Interdexing. Interdexing. Yeah, why not? Okay, something else? Yes? Yes? I would like to ask about the mental state of acceptance. It is relatively easy to accept this weather, all the people here, but when the tram arrives late, I would like to know if there is a difference between giving to life and not giving to life.

[32:00]

But I would like to, if you could say something when it's a real loss, when it's a real severe illness, when it's modificate. And additionally I would ask about surrender. If there's a connection to surrendering to life. Yeah, I mean, I will try to respond. It's an important question. But also I'd like to say that if I'm asked questions, we're not having a discussion, so I'd rather have something with everyone. But... Some things... If it's part of the discussion, I'd better respond now, because I will come back to it later.

[33:17]

I'm not objecting to your question at all. I think it's important. Okay. So, using your very example, after I started practicing for, I think for some months anyway, six months or so, a year, six months, let's say, and I was on a bus going to work. And I stopped that job pretty soon, so it had to be maybe around six months. I worked in a warehouse. And on the way to the warehouse, I was going to work here, of course, on the bus. And I don't know what happened. There was some kind of blockage, and the bus was going to be 20, 30 minutes away. It was my fault partly because this was the last bus I could catch and sort of be on time.

[34:32]

I'm sitting on the bus and there's stuff going on out the window. And I'm kind of like... And then suddenly I thought... I can't do anything about it. If I get out, I can't walk. I would never get there in time to walk. Well, I thought, I can't do anything about it. I'm going to relax. And so, commonplace thought, right? And I must have had it dozens or hundreds or thousands of times in the past, before that time. But... The hundreds or more times I'd had it in the past, I hadn't been practicing.

[35:53]

And somehow, I can only say it's because I was practicing. I completely dropped any concerns. I mean, completely. It's never returned. 45 years. It just changed. I've never since been anxious about things. Now, what about life and death situations? I mean, one I can remember was a year or so after that... Some years after that, a woman I know was having a baby with a midwife.

[37:03]

And I was there and my wife was there. And I can't always reach birth, but anyway, the baby got stuck and wouldn't come out, and there was not much time. And the doctor was there. There was a doctor and a midwife. And the doctor brought portable equipment, but she had to go to a hospital. And the hospital was quite a ways away. Not too far, about a 20 minute drive. He had to bring his equipment.

[38:07]

I can't remember, but somehow he had me drive his Porsche. And this is the first and about only Porsche I've ever driven. And I didn't know how to keep the lights on. It was like 4 in the morning, it was dark. But I discovered that if I held one switch, you know, it blinked the lights, but if I held it on, it kept the lights on. LAUGHTER I can't remember why he wasn't in the car with me. But I guess I was supposed to go first to the hospital and prepare the hospital that she was coming, because I could drive faster than he could get her into the car and his equipment. So I had to drive this damn Porsche, and I went through red lights and everything, holding this damn blinker.

[39:12]

So the lights stayed on. And I got to the hospital in Berkeley. I can't remember the name of the hospital. And the doctor was just going off duty and he wouldn't do it. And he said, it's your fault for not doing it in the hospital. I'm not going to take care of this woman. She's not supposed to have midwifing babies. In America, if a doctor does this, you can sue the beep out of him. I'm not on television, but you know. So I got the hospital all energized and I said, you've got to call the next doctor who's coming in or who would come in.

[40:36]

And we found the next doctor was willing to do it and came in earlier than was going to come in. And it all worked out. But I'm sure that my... not getting worried or concerned helped. I know it did it. But I certainly realized there was an emergency. And I don't know if that answers your question. One more and then we'll have a break. Try it in the first minute. I feel the basic assumptions of the teaching are not difficult to understand. I think the practice is much harder. As far as I understood, that the Buddha appears if we don't hinder him.

[41:39]

And that awareness is a kind of, or if we are into awareness, we can experience the way we exist in original mind, and that's our primary existence. and we don't recognize it, but we are more identified with the consciousness as a kind of secondary consciousness, or borrowed consciousness, as you call it. Sometimes, yeah. And the difficulty is that consciousness, in spite of being our secondary way to exist, is felt by us as our primary way. And you talked a lot about and think this is a difficult part of practice. How can we switch the true priorities? as I learned yesterday, that we have to, in a way, train or intersperse into consciousness enlightenment views.

[42:43]

And this is a step-by-step procedure in spite of the assumption of sudden enlightenment, because it's always there, we don't have to develop it, we just have to discover it. And I think, for me, the idea is the Buddha is already there, but we hinder him to be born, in a way. I think you could say the Buddha mind is always there, not the Buddha. Okay. Deutsch, bitte. As far as I'm concerned, I think the basic assumptions of the teaching are not so difficult to understand, because I find it very hard or very difficult to implement them into practice. And the basic assumption is that the Buddha mind or where the spirit is always there, as the original spirit with whom we have contact in the being. And that is our actual way of existing, our primary way. but we identify ourselves with the built-in consciousness, i.e.

[43:49]

the consciousness of a secondary kind, and in practice this secondary consciousness would enter into the views of enlightenment, bring or put into it, so that it becomes possible step by step to prevent the Buddha or the Buddha spirit from being born, because he is actually there and it is our basis, only we do not know it. It is easier that he is actually always there and the difficult thing is that although we may understand it intellectually, we cannot practice it. Okay, thank you. I can speak to more of that later. But, yeah, that's... I might use slightly different words, but it's pretty close to what I would say.

[45:09]

Not pretty close, but the same. Okay, so let's have, let's call it a break. Okay. And I'd like to continue with anybody who has something to say about the difficulties of this understanding this or when it's clear and so forth. And if it's not clear, it's his fault. This is actually not true. Having a translator makes me more clear because I have to speak in a way that's clear. You have to be a little bit more marked and it's not clear. You have to buy the tapes and then you definitely will understand.

[46:11]

I never thought of that. What we should do then, if that was the case, we should leave out certain parts that make it all clear. To be continued.

[46:28]

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