Well, I don't want to pretend to be able to answer questions, especially a question like that. I think probably I ought to sometime during this seminar see if I can speak about what is reality from a Buddhist point of view. I would like to try to talk in this seminar about what reality is from a Buddhist point of view. And we might even be more specific and say what is reality from a Zen point of view. For what is real to us or actual to us, It's very particular.

[01:12]

Zen and other schools of Buddhism may be somewhat different in how they are engaged in the particular. And although I think probably given the topic, and we're sitting here in the so-called Buddhist Study Center... I think we ought to try to say something about what is reality from a Zen Buddhist point of view. But it doesn't, I certainly won't try to tell you so much, except the minimum necessary.

[02:29]

I will try to make it make experiential sense. But even doing that, It still only has some meaning if it does become an opening for your own experience. I think you ought to accept that you're doing this. I mean, I think sometimes we sort of half do this as long as it's interesting. But if you think that way, that's a very non-karmic way of thinking about your life.

[03:47]

Yeah, without thinking about karma in some magical way. But just somehow you're here. You know, like you were born in... There was this baby, and then suddenly you're here. What the heck are you doing here? So now you got here. And if you really want to respect what got you here, that something got you here. You want to, I think, want to say, okay, then, Maybe I can't be fully here, but something close to fully here. Yeah, in that case... Well, questioning is, yeah, it may be the main path.

[05:23]

And to take some measure, feel for how we dwell in this world. And measure? To have a measure, a sense of the measure of it. Yeah, grasp is too strong. How would you say measure? So let's just go, you know, to the What I'm saying here, too, is that all of these things only make sense if you find them out for yourself.

[06:33]

So let's start with Judita's question. I mean, if each of you will have some difference, but in Judita's case... Well, what is suffering? Basically, you just have to ask that question yourself. Sometimes in the context of your own life. And then sometimes in the context of Buddhism. And it's maybe good to start with a smaller question than suffering. Like, what is annoyance? Or just being irritated. Yeah, if we can get there, we're already somewhere. If we can feel when we're annoyed or when we dislike something or so forth.

[07:38]

I was in a... Marie-Louise and I were in a hotel recently. And I was reading Anna Akhmatova. Akhmatova. Anyway, so the cleaning lady, you know, who was cleaning our room, I noticed had an accent and we asked her where she's from. And where did she say she was from? She was from Kazakhstan, but she was originally from somewhere else and originally from Germany.

[09:04]

I mean, her ancestors. It's very typical. And she spoke, I guess she spoke Russian, so I said, do you know this poet? And she said, of course. So I have a bilingual edition. So here I said to this woman, cleaning our bathroom, would you read this to me in Russian? And she read it beautifully, and we were both nearly in tears. We needed the sink she was cleaning. Yeah. Anyway, one of her poems says something like there's a sacred line, a secret line in loving. that we dare not cross, if we approach it, those who approach it are insane or shaken by grief.

[10:24]

Now maybe you understand why I don't respond to your glance. Yeah, so this isn't just constructed by the mind. And I'd say this is some understanding of suffering. And the... I would say freedom from suffering is also the capacity to suffer. And the... Yeah, well, anyway, that's enough right now. Something else. You spoke from reality, about reality.

[12:03]

I wanted to ask you if I understood the word correctly the way you use it. I have before had this image of a curtain which is placed between us and being. One can call this curtain illusion and delusion. or cultural imprint or something. And that which shows itself behind it is the original being. The problem I have with that is if one speaks or if you speak like this of or about reality if you think like that, if I do understand you correctly then it excludes something as if the curtain hasn't got reality

[13:38]

The way I think reality can only be something that includes everything. And I just wanted to ask you if I understood you correctly or if you have to say anything to that. Well, we could certainly define reality and right now I haven't mentioned it, but of course I have a problem with the word reality itself. Because it says there's something real.

[14:49]

What do we mean by something real? And I think in German you have a word actuality rather than reality, something like that. We have factuality, like facts are based on facts, and Wirklichkeit is reality. Is something like trueness or realness something that sense? Yeah, well, okay. So maybe factuality is … Yeah. But let's define reality and not just take the word for granted. Let's define it then, as you're doing, as that which includes everything. Okay, if we define it that way, why don't we feel included in everything?

[16:07]

Okay? So why we don't feel included in everything is part of the actual experience we have of things being somewhat removed from us or on the other side of a curtain. As a... Yeah, we have, of course, Rumi's little poem, which I've mentioned very often. For many years I knocked on that ancient door. Knocked and knocked. And when finally it opened, I was already on the other side. So we do have some experience like that in this world. When we ask ourselves these questions.

[17:36]

But we don't know we're already on the other side. Yeah. Again, let me just mention in relationship to questioning. To question is to hold. The word to hold in German is halten. Ja, but it's really halten. But it also means to care for, take care of, I believe. To keep. At least that's how I read it. Maybe maybe like you hold a baby or something. At least in English, too. And the word dharma means something close to what holds. So in the sense that when you do something like hold the precepts or hold the question, you're actually entering into the territory of Dharma.

[19:02]

So when you do something like hold the precepts or hold the question, the precepts and the other thing was told? A question. Okay. What's the difference between clinging to, then? Well, at this level, practice is really a craft. Mm-hmm. And again, let's take another, put something else in our pot here. The word sōkure, a Japanese word. S-O-K-U-R-E-I. [...] But it really means detached yet not separate from.

[20:23]

Okay, then there's a question already. How do we get there? Detached yet not separate from. What is being pointed at by such a word? Now, in my first year or two of practice, I understood conceptually that fact and the problem of duality and non-duality. And the subject-object relationships.

[21:27]

I didn't have the subtlety of the world being objectified as I spoke of this morning. Yes, sort of objectified, but without a subject-object distinction. The whole world almost like held in two large hands. But anyway, I could understand the conceptual problem and I didn't know what to do with it. Understanding conceptually, but I couldn't resolve it.

[22:28]

within my experience. So I just held this as a problem. I could see that's there and this is outside me. I'm looking at this and naming it and so forth. So I just, yeah, I held it as a problem. But it helped me to notice, I think it was part of my noticing, as I have said this before, but I should do it again. It is in a way like Ralph brought up. I felt there was a glass wall between me and everything. You can't see it, but I could feel it. Yeah, and I'd be talking to somebody and I could feel this kind of glass wall.

[23:52]

I'm in. This isn't philosophy here, this was just my experience. And it seemed to be related, my feeling it so clearly seemed to be related to my holding the problem of duality in my mind, in my attentiveness. It feels as if it was somehow related to this problem that I held in my mind about this duality or, let's say, in my... Yeah, not in my mind, but in my attentiveness. So I kept asking, in a way, yeah, asking a question of this wall. Yeah. What is this wall? Is it here now? When is it stronger and when is it less strong?

[25:11]

Is there any time when it isn't there? I don't remember exactly, but something like eight, ten months, a year and a half, this was a continuous attentiveness for me. And one day I just noticed it was gone. Oops, yeah. I mean, I said, where is it? No, it's gone. And then I check up. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be here anymore. Everything looked the same. But after all, the wall was glass. But I didn't feel separated from anything.

[26:13]

It's a different world when you don't... It takes a while to notice how different it is when you don't feel separated from anything. For example, you not only don't feel, you really can't feel lonely again. You can't feel not included. I mean, you can know that you're excluded from certain things. But your experience is so much always an experience of being included. The ways in which you're not included are just quite small by comparison. Yes, so that's all really the result of the activity of questing or questioning.

[27:17]

Questioning without needing an answer. Questioning without impatience. Being satisfied with the process of questioning itself, not necessarily finding answers. Although, of course, questioning is part of answering. I always used to have the image in my mind of the question is written with a pencil. And on the other end of the pencil is the eraser. And the eraser always represented the answer to me. Because eliminating the question was the answer.

[28:37]

So I always had this strange confidence that if I've got the question, I've got the eraser too. And I literally used to have an image of a little yellow pencil sharpened at one end and an eraser. Also ich hatte wirklich immer dieses Bild vor mir, dieser kleine gelbe Bleistift, auf der einen Seite geschärft, auf der anderen Seite der Radierung. This little image gave me a peculiar confidence in the process of questioning without needing answers. Also dieses kleine Bild hat mir immer sehr viel Sicherheit gegeben in diesem Prozess des Fragens ohne Antwort. And since we're talking about this, I might as well tell you the story I've told often about the brown telephone. You all know the story too well, I shouldn't tell you.

[29:59]

I was, really this process of questioning was developed over quite a few years and was at the center of my practice. In the early years, a question would last a year or a year and a half. But after a while, I could do real quickly these questions. In other words, you develop some skill at it. You develop a skill at it. I could take almost anything.

[31:00]

And then put it in this... Samadhi means one of the meanings of samadhi. Sashin means to collect the mind. Samadhi means a mind that's already collected. So you kind of get, so you can put this question in a collected mind. And Very quickly, the possibilities, it resolves itself. Oh, well, anyway, this is all the prologue to the brown telephone. So, anyway, I was asking myself a question. In this case, I was sitting in Zazen, or... I think I was in Zazen.

[32:10]

And I'm trying to stay with this question. And I'm really concentrating on the question. Yeah, holding it as words and feeling and so forth. But something was distracting me. Over here in the periphery of my was a brown telephone ringing. Nothing. I have to learn to concentrate. Samadhi. Back with that phone. So I kept ignoring the telephone. But finally I heard a little voice, a voice, penetrating voice like Ralph's. And it said, everything is included.

[33:12]

So I said, whoa. Okay, so I went over and I answered the brown phone. And it told me the answer. So this has always been the example for me. If you don't actually know if something is a distraction or the answer, you actually don't know. Some of the responses are just the opposite of what you think they're going to be. Just as if you approach this question of what is your innermost request. With the collected mind of samadhi, with the one-pointedness of samadhi, you might find that it's not what you thought your inner request would be after all.

[34:23]

That's an inner request. Okay, so let me, I said I'd say something about genrinji. Because I want to speak and we should take a break in a few minutes. Because I want to speak about the verticality of words as well as the not so much the horizontality. Sophia certainly named things first. And names are not words. And she had no ability or capacity to put names and make them into words.

[35:48]

So sentences were produced. To produce sentences. So that sentences are... Um, setze zu formen. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, it's a development when a name becomes a word. Es ist ein Entwicklung oder Entwicklungsstufe, wenn ein Name zu einem Wort wird. But it's also a development when you take a word out of the sentence, out... out of its wordness, and make it a name again. It's like names, like Beate, Richard, or Miko. These have meanings. I don't know what, you know, brave, beautiful, strong, and so forth.

[37:15]

Names have meanings if you look them up. But if we say Beate went to pick up Katrin? We don't have a feeling for what Beate means historically, etc. But if we stop and look at the word Beate or Katrin, For Marie-Louise, you have more opportunity than most of us. Mother Mary. We also have all the accumulated experience, or you have your experience of who you are. And when I say Beate Stolte and Beate Aldag, I have a different feeling for those two Beates.

[38:21]

And when I say Beate Stolte and Beate Aldack, then I have a different feeling for these two. I remember knowing a number of people with the name Anderson. And they were so different, it was some months before I realized they actually had the same name. Okay, so that's what I mean by the verticality of the word. Maybe we can say the word related to heaven and to earth. And one problem we have with our very productive, effective way of thinking is our words don't easily gather experience. Yeah, they're just words in sentences.

[39:34]

There's a little line of... 99%. Something like the steeple with the metal roof in the blueing sky. Yeah, a steeple with a metal roof. I mean, that's an obvious, you see them all over the place. But he tried to take it somehow out of being words and objectify it and turn it back into something with verticality. He tried to take it out of the words, to objectify it and to bring it into the verticality.

[40:40]

I don't know if he said blueing, but something like blueing instead of just blue. I'm sorry, I translated it wrong. It's the sky that turns blue or bluish. He doesn't just say blue. So gen. Gen means dark. So black forest. Gen Rinji, black forest temple. But Rin also, forest, it also means the sangha. Those who practice together. And what is Sangha? Sangha is those who continue. When we realize our own separateness is inseparable from those who continue. When we realize our own separateness is inseparable from those who continue.

[42:03]

When others are no longer other. So Sangha isn't just other people. Sangha bedeutet nicht bloß andere Leute. It's the experience of willing and feeling your own being continued in others. Just imagine for a minute if suddenly you thought this was the last generation, some kind of weird disease was going to pass, make us all perish. Sophia the other day said, dolls don't die. She said something like, I'm going to die, but my doll's not going to die. So I'm going to have to, somebody can have my doll after I die.

[43:04]

That was interesting. Dolls live longer than she does. Now she's very much, this is my doll, don't you come near my doll. She has that feeling very clearly. But at the same time she has the seemingly contradictory feeling that she knows she has to share that doll for the doll to be alive. For the doll to be alive. Yeah, this building we're going to share over generations, I hope. That's all in the sense of Rin as forest as Sangha.

[44:29]

The trees which share each other's living and thus make a forest for other trees. So Sangha as a forest is suddenly something that's It's wider than just, oh, the Sangha, you know, at Crestone or at Johannesburg. And Gen, again, means, as I said, dark. Or, I'm told, reddish black, actually. And it has the feeling of the dark sky, which you can't quite fathom. So then it has a sense of out of the darkness or out of what can't be fathomed, everything appears.

[45:39]

There's a phrase, the mystery of the 10,000 things. So the source of the 10,000 things, what's the source? Mother. so suddenly this word gen also means mother or the valley spirit or the mysterious woman Yeah. All of you mysterious women right here and some of you men who are also mysterious women.

[47:00]

Almost. So now people ask you, what's the name of... Your temple? Oh, Mysterious Woman Sangha Temple. Woo! Then you can't go to the children's parents' meeting anymore. I can't? Oh, no. She won't let me go to the children's... parents meeting because I might announce I'm from the mysterious woman's Sangha temple. They'd all be here the next day. Okay. And so again also as I said then means this ability to know the world which is known and not knowable at the same time.

[48:10]

It means that the ability, since it has the sense of mystery, It comes to mean have the feeling of to live in the world that is not knowable simultaneously as you live in the knowable world. So I will clean up my act and I'll just tell them we live in the knowable, unknowable Sangha temple.

[49:17]

Okay. But you know, it turns out that Japanese and Chinese kanji or characters accumulate or open up into meanings like this, what I call the verticality. Also, dass diese japanischen und chinesischen kanji, die akkumulieren das oder öffnen sich dieser Vertikalität des Wortes. But every word in our own experience, words that we experience as experience, are there if we slow down, dwell in this unmeasured world, as well as this measured world. Yeah, and so we practice here to have a taste of this, well, unmeasured world.

[50:40]

And to wonder how we fit in. Yeah, again, I went ten minutes too long. Sorry. Yeah, let's take a break. Thanks a lot. Thanks for translating. You mysterious female, you. Careful. Okay. See you.

[51:17]

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