I have no idea what she's doing. Or you begin to feel a little rubber ball of space in your hands. A round gummy ball in your hands, yeah. Do you know what I mean? You can feel almost like a kind of space in your hands, or between your thumbs, this kind of. We call that mind arising in your hands. So it makes sense. Mind arises in your hands. But when you look at the cheese in the morning, and you just look at it, And you don't yet have the associations and thoughts, et cetera. But the fullness of your attention is in just seeing the cheese or the flour.

[01:09]

We can say in a way that mind arises at the breakfast table. Sounds like a New York play or something. Mind arising at the breakfast table. So, this is also what's meant by the form skanda. So we could say that in a way, if you practice, everything is settling down here.

[02:13]

Pretty soon everything settles. Everything is settling down here. So when you're practicing zazen, one thing you're doing is in a sense returning everything to the form skandha. You're not getting rid of your thoughts. You're letting your thoughts settle into feelings, and then the feelings settle into the physicalness of you. Man lässt die Gedanken einfach in Gefühle zurückkehren und die Gefühle lassen sich dann sozusagen in der Körperlichkeit wieder. And then the physicalness of you is infused by mind. Und diese Körperlichkeit, die wird dann von mind durchtoben.

[03:17]

And then thoughts arise out of that mind physicalness. Und dann entstehen Gedanken aus dieser mind Körperlichkeit. And then during the day, the more you can feel that and return to that through your breath or your way of looking and acting, you're very stable. You're right where you are. No one can move you. We also call that iron man. Iron woman. That's Margaret Thatcher. And this sense of infusing

[04:26]

of settling everything into the form skanda, into the lake, out of the waves, and out of the boats, to the still, deep part of ocean or lake. That feeling begins to extend to your environment. Extends to your friend. To just your office or wherever you are. So the feeling then comes into waves or boats and settle. Now there's lots of ways that's expressed. There's lots of ways that's expressed.

[05:29]

This whole thing is expressed. There are a lot of ways this whole thing is expressed. Now, the basic symbol of Buddhism is the lotus. It's sort of equivalent to the cross in Christianity. Actually, what's also similar to the cross in Christianity is the swastika. And the cross is, of course, the meeting of two points. But since everything moves in Buddhism, you just don't have the meeting of two points, you have the turning.

[06:53]

And it's understood to turn both ways. Oops. So the swastika, and Hitler actually got the swastika from some Tibetan guy who's, et cetera, from Buddhism. So the Native American Indians in America also use the swastika. And I think it's understood to be quite likely now that American Indians are originally an Asian culture that came across from Alaska. So the sense of a mandala or a point that moves in and out is another basic symbol of Buddhism. So maybe you guys will bring true meaning of the swastika to Germany.

[08:05]

Okay, so this is the lotus. Picasso, I'm going to write down here. I mean Picasso. Okay, so this is sometimes called the mud seal, the water seal, and the space seal. And now I think we need a break. D. I thought it would be nice for you to have some flowers of direct perception.

[11:01]

No, one thing that we always do is we always are concerned about what other people think and how other people think. It's only natural. We're born with and of other people. But how to practice, you need to find also a place where you can kind of rest, where you really don't care what anyone thinks. And where you're really content to be alone. And not wonder whether anybody else feels this way or not.

[12:32]

Or anybody else ever knows you feel this way. You can be enlightened in such a place. Just because you don't care, anybody knows. This is part of what's meant by no gaining idea or no idea of attaining enlightenment. And to come to this place where you don't really need anyone else to know what's happening to you is also paradoxically the place where you can hear your inner teacher and hear the world speak to you. So generally one can hear in the world the world view, your culture is, the voice of your culture is built in.

[14:06]

And here in your primary process is the main way in which your consensual reality operates. So example, the primary process here is we all agree to be here, to pay attention and try to understand. And we're friendly to each other. And then in the secondary process, you may be thinking, I can't ever understand this. Or it may be built into your personality that the fact that you always understand.

[15:11]

And here you like some people or are attracted to some people or you dislike other people. But all of these are very involved with what other people think and what you think and what they don't know you're thinking and so forth. Now it's obvious that it would be nice to be in a place where you're not so concerned with such things. But that's not just a moral place. It's a place where a different kind of flower can grow. So it's some place in here which isn't concerned with so much these other things. And then if you really can be there, it actually begins to make a big circle which includes all of these things.

[16:20]

So, If we imagine that the self is a boat, you're in the boat. And you don't actually have much connection with the water. And the five skandhas are not, it's not the self, and it's more like an inner tube. Most of your body is actually in the water and you're holding onto the inner tube. But you can't really see in the water. So it'd be nice also to abandon the five skandhas. So the heart center says the five skandhas are also empty. But the first step is still keeping the five skandhas in view.

[17:37]

Which means from the boat of the self, you can see the inner tube floating out there. And it's like when you hear an object, you're aware that That object is being heard within the realm of your hearing. So you're not just hearing music or sound. You're hearing the music of your own hearing for that sound is arising within your hearing. That's keeping the five skandhas in view. So likewise, when I see these flowers, I see the flowers arising within my own seeing. And I see it blooming as a feeling and a perception. And that's keeping the five skandhas in view while I'm seeing the flower.

[19:06]

And likewise, I see each of you blooming. Okay, so let's float the inner tube over to the lotus. Now, the lotus is, as I said earlier, a symbol of Buddhism because its roots are in the mud and its blossom is up in the air. And even when water falls on the big leaves, it rolls up in little balls. It doesn't set on it. So it fills up with water of these little balls. pearls of water and then it dumps it under the leaf below.

[20:09]

So it's of the water, but not in the water. But it's also in the water. And it's also in the water. And it's also in the mud. Now, some people practice because we don't understand the yogic side of practice. We don't understand the yogic side. And we're afraid of our personality in the world. We practice too much up here.

[21:11]

You cut the lotus off, actually. That sounds like what would happen to you. There's too much up here. So we talk about this as, as I said, the space seal, the water seal, and the mud seal. That doesn't just mean be the roots, but be in the mud. So sometimes it's critical. In a koan it will say, he's in the weeds or he's in the mud. And it means he's ignorant or unenlightened or doesn't know that everything is empty or something. But sometimes we say he's in the mud or he's in the weeds.

[22:28]

Because he's enlightened. And enlightened means that he also is in the mud. So in that sense, we call this the Nirmanakaya Buddha. The Nirmanakaya Buddha is your teaching manifesting in the weeds and ordinary details of life. This is called the Dharmakaya Buddha. It means the understanding where everything is empty or space. And there's an actual experience of things with no boundaries. And everything interpenetrates without interfering with each other. That's the actual state of the world. Thought of like at an atomic level. and this is more like at a molecular level where everything is separated into separate elements and that's also the actual state of the world now this is called the Sambhogakaya Buddha or the instructional body of the Buddha

[23:50]

The stem. And that's the water seal. And it's taught to be realized you need to know and exist fully in to be sealed by the mud, sealed by the water, and to be sealed by space. Otherwise you kill the flower. You don't really know the flower. When you know this, you can get out of your inner tube and be in the mud and the water and the flower. And the flower and space are the same. Sometimes it looks like a flower and sometimes it's space. Mm-hmm. So this is zazen.

[25:11]

And it's often associated with bliss or enjoyment. Because in Buddhism, there's no rule book. There's no Bible. There's no world out there which instructs you. The world in here instructs you. And this also represents your backbone. As this represents your backbone. They always put a slight curve to these sticks, so it's your backbone. So when you enter your backbone, and this also means your chakras, your inner channel, a deep kind of bliss or ease or satisfaction arises. which isn't an ordinary enjoyment about likes and dislikes.

[26:33]

And this deep enjoyment instructs you. It instructs you how you move down the roots into the world. And how the world is born out of this stem. And how the flower is born out of this stem. So Sazen is really to develop this. So this and this happens. But the stem also will be dead if it doesn't have this and this. Do you understand? That's the idea anyway. And that's the experience actually too. Mm-hmm. It's also a bridge up.

[27:42]

These are... I like it. Makes me want to swim. I know. He's got his eye on the stem. By the way, did we ask somebody to make a reservation at the restaurant? Okay. Well, we did. Okay. So practicing the five skandhas or practicing microclimates, you begin to see the possibility through the microclimates of the stem.

[29:14]

Because if you don't know Be able to see, feel yourself in these more tiny and the actual present, the actual territory of your life. You only see the pond or you see the blossom. But you don't feel the water all around you. And you don't feel how the stem lives in the water. So the sense of zazen again is to find out how this stem lives in the water. It's literally like you find the stem of yourself in practice.

[30:18]

And all these things, the five skandhas and zazen, all lead to this stem. When you really know this stem, you can let go, abandon the five skandhas. We say it's beyond meditation, you abandon practice. The stem and the path itself is you. But in actual fact, sometimes the blossoms, sometimes the stems, sometimes the mud, and sometimes we abandon. And all those, these roots down here, may not know about this. But actually we mean when people, when we say people are already enlightened, we mean they're the root, they just don't know about the rest of the plant.

[31:37]

But when the root becomes aware of the whole plant, Tremendous amount of energy and awareness comes from the flower into the roots and from the roots up into the flower. Okay. Now I'd like to see if we have time to pass the stick a little bit more because it's fun to hold. I just had one question in my head.

[32:53]

I've been thinking about it for the past two days. I don't exactly know if I should ask or if I should answer this question. I would like to ask you about the topic of will or desire. I would like to ask you about the topic of will or desire. I would like to ask you about the topic of will or desire. Sometimes I think of these inner stones, and I think of them, [...]

[34:04]

I felt quite at home here during these two days, and I have a question. In order to practice, I need some volition, some intent. And I have this battle inside me, and somehow I feel I have to strengthen this dimension of volition and intent in order to practice. How do I do that? I feel like I'm in the core. I feel like I'm in the core. I feel like I'm in the core.

[35:16]

And quite finally, I have to get out of the room and reach to the other side of the table. I was feeling angry and I thought to myself, I'm going to get out of the room. And then when I got out of the room, I was feeling angry and I thought to myself, I'm going to get out of the room. Good morning. This question stayed with me, in which world do I look in my body and mind? And it's staying with me. On one hand I feel something is urging me to practice with the core, and on the other hand it's something that I feel uncomfortable with.

[36:39]

So, I'm kind of in the midst of all this, but I feel very well. Truly, I have... Is there something you want to say in English? Okay. Okay. Please come and help us.

[39:33]

Shabbat shalom. But there were days when it was very difficult. It was very difficult for us. It was very difficult for us. We had to live with the fact that we were there. We had to live with the fact that we were there. We had to live with the fact I can't hear the words between the words.

[40:42]

I can't hear the words between the words. I can't hear the words between the words. I can't hear the words between the words. I want you to do it like this.

[42:23]

It's wonderful to have to hold this now. And then sometimes when I'm going, I don't even think I'm on my neck. And yet it's really, it's how I feel. It's just effortless. So many questions. I don't know where to start. But my main question is, when is it good to start practicing the kula? I am very thankful for that.

[43:52]

I am very thankful for that. [...] I feel very grateful for the repetition of the five skandhas, more than 50 much clearer, and now it's just as if it's floating around in my consciousness, and I really feel I can work with them and they can protect us. And I also have a question about koala. I picked up the last machine and I kept working on it but then I drop it again and then I work on it again so my feeling is how to proceed

[45:03]

He said it in all the waves and boats.

[45:25]

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