Is your English okay? So-so, huh? Yeah, but it's better than my German. So if something doesn't make sense, ask Dieter, okay? I don't mind being interrupted. Okay, I'm doing this because um, well, maybe I should be translated should be trying to grow out you want to translate? All right, okay Could you switch and sit here then or do you have to run the tape recorder? Oh He's our work leader he certainly can run it Yeah, I'm doing this because I don't want to the our practice together at Johanneshof limited to these main big Dharma Sangha seminars.

[01:11]

So I think I would like us to have some, particularly when there's a stretch, when there's no... seminar, like a Dharma Sangha seminar, I'd like to do Johanneshof Sangha seminars. So you can just schedule me sometime, see if I agree. Sex, you're a warrior. So anyway, what made me think about it again was partly Gertz's question to me the other day.

[02:19]

Which Götz expressed a feeling about Buddhas and so forth that's pretty much how I felt when I started practicing. But also this is a, you know, a pretty big thing for all of us that we are buying this Buddha. It's certainly the largest purchase I believe we've ever made except for your house of itself. So... And it's even, for me it's, how could I express its importance for me? Which is for me it's, given that we have Johanneshof, it's the other half of Johanneshof.

[03:31]

I mean, as far as I'm concerned, we have Johanneshof to support our practice together. And we don't need Johanneshof. I mean, we could just practice together here and there when we have a chance. But it makes a difference, I think, for us to be able to practice together the way we are doing here. Good work. This is a warrior. You don't have to translate that. Yeah. I mean, the enemy is already gone.

[04:44]

Uh-uh, I'm not going... So, um... So for me, just as I feel it makes a difference for us to practice, have this place to practice in, I feel it also makes a difference in this place to have this Buddha. And I certainly can't explain really at all, practically, why I feel that way.

[05:45]

I mean, for each of us, you're going to have to see whether you live into a feeling for this. for a Buddha and having an altar and so forth. And I know that I... You know, I know that, well, people don't express to me reservations about the altar we have here now. I know that people don't tell me when they have reservations. Still, I know some of you do have reservations about it. And that's partly why I did it. I know that we want Buddhism to be simple and natural in Germany.

[07:02]

And even just simply black and white, if we're going to have anything. So I thought we should get some brocade in here, you know. Some gold and stuff like that. I mean, we have more brocade here than Crestone does. Crestone and I only got the pillow, but the straw mat underneath it is just a simple one with black and white. I know when I first went to Sojiji, I took a ship across the Pacific with Virginia and Sally when she was tiny. By the way, yes, probably most of you know Virginia and Sally and Antonio and Renee and Nora.

[08:05]

We don't have to name all the names. Thought Germany was great. And particularly this area they liked very much. And they liked the building a lot. And most of all, they liked all of you. They said they can't remember ever being with such a fine group of people. So I reluctantly had to agree. And... And to commemorate being here, when they found in a grocery store in Portugal, when they first arrived, a large can called Deutsche or something sauerkraut. They couldn't find it brought with us, but they took home the can of sauerkraut and had it to celebrate.

[09:22]

The only thing that Antonio was disappointed with is all these restaurants we went to, none of them served bratwurst. He kept bugging me to get him a bratwurst. Antonio was a little upset that he had not found any real bratwurst in any of the German restaurants. Yeah. But anyway, when I sailed across the Pacific with my family, I went to Sojiji and there was this immense cement concrete temple. Made to look like wood. With a huge altar and all kinds of hanging golden things to make the air look golden.

[10:34]

And I really didn't like it. Yeah. Okay, but at the same time, you know, Buddhism is bigger than me and us. And I just don't think I have the ability to decide what parts to accept and what parts not to accept. In fact, if I do, I feel it's a kind of arrogance, modern arrogance to say, Well, we want it to fit our contemporary spirit. And particularly since when I compare our spirit to even medieval Europe, but certainly also Tang and Song dynasty of China, I find our spirit quite narrow by comparison.

[11:54]

So even when I look at Christian churches, although I was brought up as an atheist, so I've never had much problem with churches. because I never had to go in them. Still, And I've always made fun of them. I used to go in churches during service with friends and then say, if there's a God, strike me down dead in front of everyone. But God was smart enough not to take such a cheap dare. Anyway. But now my feeling is, you know, I am sure that most of the things you see in these churches were one time part of someone's realized spiritual life.

[13:07]

Just because it doesn't mean much to us now doesn't mean it didn't at some point to someone. So I think we have to separate out what in a religion doesn't make sense to us just because it's not accessible to us. And what is some kind of institutional or socially coercive aspect of the religion? So we have an advantage in... studying and practicing a religion which is not part of our society.

[14:11]

And so we can see it in a much more pure form. Like Kaz Tanahashi says, in Japan it's good to be a Christian. In America it's good to be a Buddhist, he says. I think he included Germany. Because in Japan you really see Christianity in a pure way and you don't see Buddhism so purely. And just the idea that Buddhism is a natural kind of wisdom is, you know, attractive. But it's a kind of heresy.

[15:12]

In other words, to think that... It's a little bit like thinking, as I've often said, you could create German all on your own. Language may be natural, but you could not create language on your own. It's a multi-generational... And as Christianity was once taught much more visually than it is now, in ways that are not accessible to us, so Buddhism was also taught much more visually than perhaps we're used to. So let me try to give you a sense of what the teaching of this particular Buddha we're getting is and then you can make sense of it as you wish.

[16:17]

Now the Buddha, Paul and I are quite sure, we know it was at a store called Shibata Sans. And one of the most popular and fun Japanese restaurants in town was Tsuruyoshi. And Suryoshi shared an entry with this shop called Shibata. So I think you would think so too, that when you'd sit in the restaurant, you could see this Buddha over there across the way all the time while you were eating. This was in the 70s, so it was quite a while ago. So he's come home to roost. It's like the chickens come home to roost.

[17:39]

To sit on their nest. But the roost is in Germany now instead of San Francisco or Japan. So the dates of it are, supposedly, and he had a person from the San Francisco Museum come and check it out, supposedly. That it's early Edo period. Which is roughly 1650 to 1850. So it means this was probably made in the 1700s. And my experience of such figures in Japan, it sounds right to me.

[18:44]

It's clearly quite old. So aside from my history with it in the shop where we did buy, I had the San Francisco Zen Center buy from them a large Jizo besides it. It's quite a big figure. It's standing in green gulch now I believe. Aside from my and Paul and other people's history with it, it's still remarkable to me that such a Buddha is for sale. Okay, so they sent me the dimensions today. I asked them yesterday and asked for the dimensions. And Coco, by the way, is going to come and visit us tomorrow night. And he works for a shipping company, which will probably ship it for us.

[19:52]

The figure is 70 inches high. Seventy. Seventy, seven zero. So 72 inches is about here. So that's about 70. So that's with the base and everything. So it's a big figure. And it's about 40, 30, 40, 30 inches, 30-some inches at width. So it's about almost a meter wide. So... Yeah. We don't need a table there. Well, we can have a lower table, perhaps. Go get off for incense.

[20:52]

So, I'll pass the pictures around. And, of course, the size includes the base. The Buddha itself is about this big. Now this would be classified as a great Buddha. And as an Amida Buddha and as a Shakyamuni Buddha. It's both in a Shakyamuni Buddha and within the five Buddhas, the five Tathagata Buddhas or Jina Buddhas. J-I-N-A, which means conqueror or something. Yeah. So within the five, let's call it Tathagata Buddhas, it also represents Shakyamuni Buddha.

[22:13]

Now these five Buddhas also represent the five senses and five colors and so forth. But more important, I think for us, they represent the five directions. And what are the five directions? Well, of course, north, south, east, and west. And the center. And in particular, the center as zenith, the highest point of the sky above the four directions. Now, what is the importance of directions? Is that, you know, it's in a fundamental way we exist in space, and space is a kind of movement. So I can move toward you, you can move toward me, and so forth.

[23:14]

And that movement is in relationship to what? In this sense, a center. So the four directions imply a center. So they don't speak so much in Buddhism about the four directions. We speak about either five or ten. And they're not understood as directions away from us, but they're understood as directions pointing at us. So the West is not over there, it's pointing at us. Now this is a kind of visual representation language or spatial language that's part of Buddhist teaching. When, from a Buddhist point of view, when Goertz makes that little path out to that stone, he's basically kind of constructing a little altar.

[24:32]

That stone was already there? Yeah. So it's kind of lost in the shrub brush there. So Goertz has created a way we can move toward the stone, and the stone can move toward us. And if we get that great big stone down the road there, which I'd like to get... And buried deeply enough so it doesn't fall over on... Beninia? Beninia or Janis. And if we were to get this big stone from Rittenbach, it should be buried deep enough so it doesn't fall on Beninia or Janis.

[25:36]

The instinct to do that is not much different than creating an altar. So, okay, it's interesting that this Amida Buddha's direction is the West. So it's good we're Westerners. You know, why not have the Buddha of the West? Now, what is the direction of the West? The direction of the West is the setting sun. So the direction of the West is the movement through the day. So it also means then the activity of ordinary life or compassion. And the Avalokiteshvara headdress usually has Amida Buddha in it.

[26:39]

So you know it's Avalokiteshvara. Now, how is it a Shakyamuni Buddha? It's understood that the way this type of cosmic or great Buddha is understood is that every aspect of the historical Buddha's life has a glorified or pure Buddha that's a counterpart to each historical period in the Buddha's life.

[27:41]

Okay. Now, where does this Buddha exist? Since there's nothing outside the system in our way of looking at the world in Buddhism, let's just keep it simple. It exists in samadhi. When you're in samadhi, you begin to manifest a Buddha body within you or through you. So there's this kind of understanding in the Sambhogakaya or... samadhic body, a Buddha is manifested. Okay. So, Shakyamuni Buddha in his own samadhi is manifestable. manifests a Buddha.

[29:03]

Manifests a pure, glorious Buddha, unobstructed by ordinary life. I'm afraid this may be boring to you guys, but anyway, I'll tell you how it's understood. Oscar understands, because there's a glorious, you know, Chao, dog, in his samadhi. It's even more golden than he is. So the sense is that Shakyamuni Buddha manifests in his samadhi a Buddha. And you can manifest this same Buddha in your samadhi. So it connects you to Shakyamuni through this. Samadhi Buddha.

[30:14]

So then a figure is carved to represent this link between you and Shakyamuni. So the teaching is that when you look at this Buddha, it's supposed to resonate with your own sense of a somatic Buddha. It may not, but it also may. And it may not now, and it also may later. Hey. Hey, would she like this?

[31:16]

Or does she want to go somewhere? Papa. Papa. Okay. I speak English, but I'm not Dada. His father's English. Her father's English. Thank you very much. Nor am I... Nor a horse. So... Okay, so then the figure, the most important thing is the mudra. And the mudra represents... you're bringing yourself together in the meditation posture.

[32:25]

So your hands represent our kind of a physical expression or manifestation of your... Okay, good, thanks. Our physical manifestation of your mind. And our hands are in fact physiologically very connected with our mind and our... So you're bringing mind and body left and right and so forth together. And the sense of it being a circle is meant to be an inclusive circle or cosmic circle. And it also sometimes looks like a triangle and then it's meant to be understood as a fire which consumes impurities. And also it's meant to be three sides, Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha.

[33:37]

You're bringing the three jewels together. So when you sit in this posture, bringing Buddha, Dharma and Sangha together, bringing your left and right sides together, and mind and body, yeah. you're more likely to enter into the samadhi of which you can feel the samadhic body of the historical Buddha. So we're not passing the historical Buddha to each other. We're passing the somatic Buddha to each other or sharing the somatic Buddha.

[34:46]

Dogen calls this self-joyous samadhi. Dogen calls this self-joyous samadhi. Yeah. How do you translate that? Self-juris? Yeah. Yeah. So in this Buddha, particularly the Amida Buddha, like this, and there's three levels. There's this level and this level. This is the second level, and this is the highest level. It's this one. So I don't know exactly what this represents, but my sense of it is that it represents one and yet two. So you have Buddha's life and our life, or relative and absolute, brought together in this larger sense of oneness.

[35:59]

And I suspect once we get this Buddha, we'll see most people sitting so shoes on. There was a period of time when I sat like this, but it's actually rather difficult compared to this. Okay, I think that's enough stuff about this Buddha. But if you have something you'd like to bring up, I'm happy to see if I can respond. I want to thank you both that you answered my questions. Well, I'm not sure I answered them, but I'm glad to say some things about it.

[37:06]

Some statements which I can succeed very well, especially the correspondent feeling between the statue and the own feeling when I'm sitting, that there are some preferences. You have a feeling for that. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yes, what I liked about the description and my answer to my question was that this correspondence between this statue and my own sitting grows on it and also, yes, this is a correspondence feeling that I also feel more with the statue and I think that this correspondence feeling can also grow in my own sitting. So this is a visual help on a level that is far away from the real instructions or other things.

[38:08]

I have a question. Since there are these so-called national treasurers in Japan who do certain buildings, are there certain people who carve Buddhas? I mean, is there a tradition of carving Buddhas, and do you have to have some background before you're allowed? I don't know anything about that. I know actually more about how it works in Tibet or in Tibetan Buddhism than I do in Japanese Buddhism. Which is, you're supposed to, if it's just an artisan sculpting the Buddha... or a figure or a painting, artisan or craftsperson.

[39:24]

It's not considered a real figure for religious purposes until some realized person has said, yes, this is okay as it is. But, you know, there are iconographic rules that were developed... of proportion and circles and all kinds of kind of geometry mathematics and how the face is and how the proportions are and so forth. So it was studying very carefully what these various dimensions is and the proportions and how circles work and how they represent the chakras and so forth.

[40:28]

And you can see that the clothes here and the face make a kind of oval and so forth. And my own feeling is that when, I don't know exactly how they did it in Japan, but certainly some sculptors had a... feeling of expressing their own realization in each statue or each figure. They probably worked in groups as well which worked closely with Asanga. And you probably also worked together in groups that then had a relationship with Anna Sanger again. It's hard to put it in words but there is a different feeling of what you said about room and space.

[41:46]

When you say there are five directions and the directions are basically pointing at you, I mean the West is pointing at you then. You're saying there is the West, right? So I can see that practically Well, when I see something in the hallway, you know, a piece of paper, it's pointing at me, I want to take it from the floor. I want to clean up. It's not the feeling of cleaning up, but it's something that's pointing at you and I grab it and I put it away. And I see this kind of field of practice in a way. But the bigger field is, of course, with human beings. I mean, how do we respond to each other? When I look at Monika, Monika, in my sense, is sitting over there, but actually when I look at her, she is in my field and she is pointing at me, or this is the way to connect.

[42:52]

I mean, this kind of... The feeling of practice is totally different than what we are doing here. So, how do you put that basically more in practice? German. When Bekoro studied the five directions of language, where East, South, West, North, and you, or the center is there, I try to implement this in my practice. What does it look like in practice if it doesn't mean that the West is over there, but rather the West is looking in my direction? When I practice, In the moment when I started to practise, a piece of paper, which was lying on the floor, immediately animated me to stop. Not only to clean, but simply because it was part of it, that something was looking at me, and I could meet it in my fold, by doing it away.

[44:02]

And also for other things in the room, and when I clean up things in the living room or in the kitchen. That's how I have this practice of connection, that something comes to me and I do it. That's just clear to me. And I don't see that I'm really cleaning up, but there's something that's connected to me and that's how I react to it. And my bigger question is, of course, It's something different, different than we have here. Totally different. This Amida Buddha, Amitabha Buddha, which means something like, Amitabha means something like immortal, but really it means... Go ahead. To, it means something more like to...

[45:04]

a way of existing beyond life and death. It's not so much to be immortal over a long period of time, but to be immortal or free of the ideas of life and death right now. Yeah. And Mayumi Oda's picture in the seminar dojo room says, the goddess is coming to you. Can you come to her? And that's the same idea. And so in that sense, Amitabha has a solar aspect. And sometimes then this Amitabha is shown as the sun behind the mountain, implying can we come to the sun and can the sun come to us as it's coming up from behind the mountain.

[46:40]

And often it's used on scrolls for when a person is dying. And... And you put it up and it shows the Buddha, Amida Buddha, coming down from heaven or down from the sun to receive the person who's died. And sometimes a related figure is held up when a baby's being born and you have a kind of 2001 type. Remember that movie, 2001, where there's a kind of Crystal Buddha in a sphere?

[47:44]

Crystal baby in a sphere? Near the end. There are scrolls with a kind of Amida-like figure and a baby in a thing, which is meant to be hung up while a woman's giving birth. Yeah, so these two ideas of the baby come together. Yeah, okay, something else? So there are a lot of associations with a figure like this. But when we have it here, if we do, I say if only because I don't believe it until it's actually here.

[48:57]

We'll have our own associations with it. How it feels. Once called Buddha the pin-up that you can't take down. I didn't say girl, I just said the pin-up. Well, we don't have something like pin-up. But pin-up girl is all right. Pin-up boy, you know. Okay. So a pin-up is, you know what it's like, a soldier puts a picture of Lana Turner up or Kim Basinger or something. So this is a pin-up that you can't take down. I think when you put the photo of your child or your lover or your parents on a bureau, it's kind of the same thing really as putting a Buddha up. For all of us, we put up this figure representing our practice and our tradition.

[50:15]

And hopefully, as I always say, our sitting posture is a dialogue between an ideal posture and are accepting our actual posture. And that ideal posture is not just a Buddha's posture. It is also an image of the Buddha. And when that image of the Buddha is really internalized, just looking out at this beautiful scenery, sometimes you feel you're seeing the Buddha. Or when you look in the Buddha's face, you see this beautiful scenery. Okay, is that enough for now?

[51:22]

So, we'll see if it actually appears. And then we'll see if we like it or not. If it doesn't appear, you can sit with me. I'd have to fatten up my cheeks and get a nice round face. I think you could do it better. It's true. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you for having the kids join us. And they were quite quiet and good, weren't you? Oh, yes, of course. I don't have rules sometimes.

[52:20]

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