It's nice to see so many people I know. I don't know if we need amplification. Can we try it without it? And I'm not sure I like sitting up here in this platform. But it does make me easier to see. Can you hear me now? Okay. And can you hear her more important? You can translate everything. Is it loud enough? Maybe we need a little more amplification. For her, but not for me. Is this okay, Martin? Microphones always make me think I have to say something.

[01:05]

I do know I want to talk with you. And I don't have any idea if what I say will be useful outside of just you and me. I'd like to know, ask you a few questions first. How many of you have no experience sitting cross-legged on the floor? And how many of you have experience doing Zen practice. So we have to figure out a schedule. And what I would like to do is meet at least this evening

[02:06]

and tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon, and Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. And I could possibly meet with you Saturday evening, but I think if a large percentage of you have not had experience sitting, just morning and afternoon is probably enough. And how many of you are living fairly near here? So if we had an early morning sitting tomorrow morning, you could come if you wanted to. So if we have a sitting tomorrow morning at, let's see, if we start at nine, say, if we had a sitting at seven, how many people would come?

[03:53]

Okay. All right. So if we start at seven and finish at nine and then you have time for breakfast, And if we were living together, eating together, it would be easy, but if we're living separately, it's a little difficult. And are there restaurants near here? Yes, there are restaurants near here, but the people in the meditation center on the Mecca, they are prepared to cook lunch for at least half of the people. Oh, there's a meditation center near here. Yeah, and some people stay there overnight. Aha, okay. Does that need to be translated? All right. So how much time do we have to leave, allow for lunch and dinner so people can eat and get to a restaurant or get to the meditation center and get back here?

[05:01]

Maybe two hours? Okay. Is that right, two hours? Okay, so if we started at... say 9.30 and we finish at noon and we start again at 2.30 and finish at 6.30, something like that. Okay. All right, so we start at 9.30 and we'll finish around noon and we'll start again around 2.30 and finish... Five or six, I don't know exactly. Then unless we decide tomorrow to use the evening, we'll have Saturday evening and of course Sunday evening, because you have to go back wherever you live, free. Unless we sit together tomorrow evening, then you have a free Sunday evening to do something else or to go back.

[06:20]

For us, it would be better if we could do it tomorrow evening, because the children are growing up and they want to go back. It would be a bit tight in the summer. He'd prefer to have the sitting group tomorrow evening because they have to get back Sunday in time. Sitting group? Tomorrow evening. Instead of tomorrow morning? No, instead of... Sunday evening or Sunday afternoon? Oh, you'd prefer not to have a meeting Sunday afternoon? You'd prefer sitting Saturday evening instead of Sunday afternoon. Anybody else prefer? Oh, you'd prefer Sunday afternoon.

[07:20]

Well, you may have to leave a little early if you have to leave Sunday. Hmm. There's an ant in here. He's looking for some greenery. Yeah, why don't you put him outside. There he is. Right there. We have to save sentient beings. He's too smart to be saved. Like most of us. All right, just let him go.

[08:35]

He'll be all right. Okay, what I'd like to do is, of course, have some sitting with you and some discussion with you. And I'm sure some of you would prefer more sitting and some of you would prefer more discussion. But this is not a seshin. A seshin, for those of you who don't know, means that we sit five to seven days all day long from two or five, two, three, four in the morning to ten, eleven at night. And I don't think a seshin... Once you get used to sitting and you like it, it is very satisfying to sit a lot.

[09:38]

But I've been convinced over 25 or 30 years of sitting with people That the views you bring to sitting are probably more important than sitting itself. The views you bring to... Would you want the window closed? Maybe once. Yes. The views you bring to life itself are more important than sitting. If it gets too warm, we can open them.

[10:47]

There are windows up there that are open. This is a beautiful room. Can we take it over permanently? So now in my center in Santa Fe, Colorado, Santa Fe, New Mexico and in Colorado, I do sesshins a number of times a year. But I'm also doing seminars like this with my older students. Because I'm convinced that the views you bring to sitting really make the difference in whether your sitting is effective or not. effective as well as satisfying and for those of you who haven't any experience sitting this posture is quite uncomfortable my legs were particularly stiff when I started sitting

[12:02]

And I couldn't do the half or full lotus. The best I could manage was what I called the half lily. Because it nearly killed me. Don't they bring lilies to funerals here in Germany? Yes, they do. And my teacher used to tell me, just sit on a chair. Why don't you sit on a chair? But I knew if I was going to do this all my life, it was better to stick with this posture until I could do it. And it took me actually a few years to get so I could sit comfortably.

[13:22]

So I don't expect those of you who have no experience to accomplish full lotus this weekend. But you need some... If you don't have a cushion, you need to get a cushion. I believe Martin and Dieter brought some cushions from a shop in Freiburg which makes them. And I don't, they didn't bring enough for, I don't know, too many people, but usually there aren't enough, so they brought some. And I believe you can use them if you want. And if you get attached by the end of the week, you can buy it. But the point of our bringing them was not to sell them, but just to make them available to you.

[14:32]

So the most important point in sitting is to be able to keep your back straight. So you want to have a pillow that's thick enough that your back stays straight easily. And really, when I started sitting, the pillow I have here, I sat on three of them this thick It was practically a chair. And I had to achieve a certain sense of balance. At one Sesshin we had somebody once who kept adding pillows in every part of his body. And pretty soon had pillows under both wrists.

[15:42]

You started some people laughing so much they had to leave the Sesshin. They couldn't stop laughing every time they came to the Sesshin. But in any case, the important thing is to get enough height under your bottom that your back stays straight without effort. And then to work on your leg posture. Because it's this part of your torso or your body Which really most shapes the state of your mind and energy. And in practice you become very alive through your torso.

[16:45]

And then you extend that aliveness into your arms and legs. And into your head. So depending on how I feel about your sitting, how's your translation doing? Okay. Okay. Depending on how I feel about your sitting, I'll decide how long we sit and how often. But I like you to just become familiar with sitting naturally, not in always some special meditation, just sitting. So, before we start a session, I'd like you to sit comfortably, but in meditation posture.

[17:59]

And you can have some kind of conversation with each other. But I'd like the conversation to kind of disappear. And you just sit a little until we start. As we're doing now. And are all the pillows that are available being used, Martin? The people who need them, if they could get one from Martin now, as long as they last, they should save that half-moon one. Unless nobody has a pillow, I want to try it. It's easier for her to sit on her lower legs.

[19:51]

Is that possible? You mean this way? Yeah, that's fine. Martin, do you have a pillow now? And sitting on a chair is fine too, by the way. The problem with sitting on a chair is that it takes much more musculature and effort to keep your back straight. I found just working at a desk, I can work much longer sitting on the floor than I can sitting in a chair. but you have to get used to it. For some of you, a woman just asked me if you could sit this way.

[21:05]

That's fine. That's easier for most people and is an accepted meditation posture. And if you want, you can put a pillow between your legs and sit on it. Actually, you can't sit as long this way. And there are some disadvantages to the posture. You have some of the same problems when you're sitting in a chair of a kind of inherent slumping. And it also allows you to sit too well too fast. Because the difficulty in sitting is actually quite helpful in the beginning. Because sitting opens you up to a lot of stuff that can happen.

[22:19]

For some reason, by sitting cross-legged, we get better at that at about the rate we can handle what happens to us. Sometimes, sitting in that posture, Yeah, also manchmal in dieser Haltung sitzen, aber das ist schon in Ordnung. So sometimes sitting in that posture doesn't have the physical stability that goes with sitting cross-legged.

[23:49]

A kind of earned physical stability. I'll try to... What I just said now is actually a rather... A subtle point, and I'll perhaps try to make that clearer during the next two days. Now, I believe some people asked for Doksan or Sanzen. So if some of you want an individual interview, which is called Doksan or Sanzen, with me, I'm willing to do that.

[24:51]

And for those of you who have some experience in sitting, I could do it sometime tomorrow morning at the early morning sitting. Or find some other time to do it. And for those of you who are new to sitting or newer to sitting, I would rather do it on Sunday after you've had some experience. But I probably wouldn't have time to see everyone unless I did it all day. But if you are interested, you should speak to Ulrike probably during the breaks. I think I may have killed that ant.

[25:58]

Ari. Just a couple more points. Sometimes I would like us to be sitting in straight rows. Which would be facing the wall on both sides. And one or more lines in the middle. And your body's lined up so your torsos are the same with each other.

[26:59]

Or your backs are the same. Then I can straighten your postures. And it's a somewhat different feeling in sitting. And other times, just sitting like this is fine. One thing I noticed having lived in Japan for a long time, And I've been speaking recently about differences between Japanese culture and Western culture. We are not, we Northern Europeans and Americans, are not as comfortable as Japanese people are. We are not as comfortable as Japanese people are. With noise and distraction and stuff from outside.

[28:12]

And sitting near each other. This would be, the Japanese could put another twice as many people in the same room. And they would feel they had plenty of space. Because they just, their space and time is actually different than ours. And I'll tell you something about it because it does relate to meditation practice. But now I'd like us just to sit for a little while and then we can talk a little bit more and stretch. And could you open those two windows, please? And I don't know how long I'll keep you sitting.

[29:21]

Maybe ten minutes. Maybe ten hours. You just don't worry about it. So try to sit with your back straight. With a lifting feeling through your back. And basically in whatever posture you can feel clear and upright. And at the same time at ease. And the sounds of the kids just let them pass through you. And the bell. There's a famous koan, in fact, where the teacher says to the student, please stop that bell.

[30:16]

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