Yes, please. Ich freue mich sehr, dass Becker Roshi wieder hier in Österreich ist, um die Seminarreihe fortzusetzen, die vor langer Zeit hier in diesem Hause begonnen hat. Und ich möchte ihm danken dafür, dass er gekommen ist. Und möchte auch Christiane und Giorgio, unseren Gastgebern, danken, dass wir wieder in der Lichtung sein dürfen. Und ich freue mich sehr über den Rahmen, den das Seminar hat. Und danke allen, dass Sie gekommen sind. Welcome. Thanks. It's been such a long story which binds us together, starting in 1982 with Art Bob, with 13 years ago. Your colleagues must have got what you gave us, wearing children's hats.

[01:04]

I don't know. You weren't at the disco that night, were you? When you had us to bring all these things here into work, I gave you the first time this house here in our place where I wanted to be. Nothing was existing at that time. Except your husband held. Also the guest, Franscha. I mean, played before, started up and down the middle, and generally was stronger. And I'm happy that it found... Yeah, you're a soldier and we are settled in Midland. That's one of your central wishes.

[02:17]

Well, ten years ago we had one thought. We talked about purity at the time and we said, Wide Pyramid. Look at how you sit. You are a Pyramid. And you are right. You are a Pyramid all around here. For tomorrow, I must excuse myself, because I have a traveling start with a project in Greece, which is Geomancy, which somehow, honestly, we've always talked about that, like it's flourishing for women, after 15 years of working in the street. Well, thank you very much for having come back. I understand that you need to be happy to back up that thing.

[03:28]

It's all good. It's not good here. But it seems that it was quite a way to go. Because Iran is so narrow in the atmosphere. And that may be the key word in this house. This atmosphere has been... Thank you very much Thank you for letting me be here It's nice to see so many people I know. So we have this title, I believe, Detachment and Engagement. And I think it arises because people bring up things like this to me quite often.

[05:02]

Usually because we feel overly engaged in our life. Or too busy in our life and so forth. And we imagine that we want to have more detachment. And we think Zen practice perhaps is one of those things to give us more detachment. But from my point of view, practicing with people is practice itself, is nothing but engagement. It's a little different way of looking at engagement. But still we have this feeling of how to get at what's most essential in our life.

[06:14]

And I think in Zen practice that is to really, it's pretty simple, to ask yourself what is most important to you. And the willingness to ask yourself this question. And to stay with some kind of process to come to an answer. Sukhiroshi, my teacher, very often spoke about our knowing our innermost request. And always with the confidence that each of us somewhere in us has such a request.

[07:38]

Not just one, but a process of coming into some authenticity with ourself. I met a man in the hotel where I was staying in Steiermark. Is that where I was? I don't even know where I am. So everyone left this seminar I did for four days, five days. And so I went out one morning for a jog of sorts. And when I came back upstairs, when I came back into the hotel, there was a man sitting in the restaurant part of the hotel, along with quite a few other people.

[09:02]

But he felt a little something different. I can't explain what, but he felt a little different than the other local folks. And so I went upstairs and I took a bath and did other things and it took me a while to get back downstairs. Maybe half an hour, 45 minutes. And this guy was still sitting there and I thought That's a long breakfast he's having. But then, I don't know, he looked like anyone else. And I can't quite explain why something felt different about him, but maybe it's better now. So I went and sat down and started my breakfast and I was reading a book.

[10:04]

And suddenly there was this man beside me speaking at first rather rusty English, but it got better. He said I was taking a sauna the other day and I heard that there was some kind of Zen teacher here in the hotel. He took a sauna? There was a son in the hotel. I guess he'd spoken to somebody else from the seminar, not me. And he'd been an executive for some American company in Austria, so he spoke English pretty well. And he began asking me questions about detachment and engagement. So I tried to, he kept apologizing, interrupting me, and I said it was all right, so he sat down. So he'd come to some decision that he shouldn't have any goals, and he was kind of felt that he'd been harmed by the goals he was engaged in all the time as one of the heads of his company.

[11:45]

And he had some idea maybe it would be good to be a Tibetan monk and have just nobody but servants come and bring you things so you don't have to think about anything. I thought this was a very funny idea of what Buddhist practice is like. But he had a... simple things like he felt he wanted no attachment to anything. But so he didn't want attachment to having hot tea in the morning. He thought he was wrong to want car or had his shoes or he thought everything he was attached to was wrong.

[13:03]

But he seemed to have lost a daughter early and other things and he said he'd come to this kind of view of trying to free himself from various suffering he'd gone through. But he had the desire to free himself in some way, but not a very clear idea about how to go about it. So one thing I would like to ask you, what ideas do you have about detachment or engagement? And I think, did you suggest this title? So maybe you could give me some suggestions on what you... Yes. It's this feeling that one is torn between two different fields.

[14:18]

of being responsible for this world. Being responsible. Yes, responsible. My English is a lot better. Responsible for this world. And on the other side, only to be able to make good actions in the world when I am completely In loot. In balance. In balance. And this is every day a new fight is away. To fight like a dancer on a sweat. A dancer on a tightrope walk. Tightrope walk. This feeling you... I must find every day the balance.

[15:21]

And I would like simply to know, to have other make-upers for it, to like this feeling. Deutsch, bitte. You won't have to translate. No, it's better for you to do it, I think. I won't, either. Shouldn't you say it in German? to find the answer for today. In this world of tension, I am responsible for this world. I have received one part of this world as my responsibility. And on the other hand, when I am completely sucked into this feeling, I purify the air.

[16:26]

These two aspects. How does it play out with each other? Is it possible to conquer it anew every day? Someone else, please. I'd like to understand more what you understand by detachment. Because I, for myself, I'm afraid of being detached. forbade myself to something that would be attached, and it's like forcing myself doing it. I mean, it works, because I've done it so many times all the time, but I think it's not a way of doing it, because it may be such an engagement as cutting off the attachment and all that.

[17:32]

You understand? Deutsch, bitte. Ich würde gerne verstehen, was man unter... Yes, to be detached or... I understand, because I know it myself, that when I am detached, I practice cutting it off, preventing myself from doing it, and maybe sometimes it's better to have some time for myself instead of preventing myself from doing it. Please, yes? I think for me, especially the aspect of detachment and engagement, which demands total awareness and seriousness, and actually the aspect of, at the same time, being light and gay, that seems so difficult, how to keep that awareness

[18:45]

the attachment and the engagement at the same time, to throw it away and say, well, how is it possible to stay gay with it and lie to it, not take it also very seriously? Don't you put that? No, you need the... The question arises with passion and engagement. For me, this reminds me especially of the uniqueness, the attention, the maturity, with which I have to be constant and how I can be at the same time light and joyful and, yes, indescribable, whatever it may be. Anyone else? Someone else? I don't know. One moment, please.

[20:08]

For me, detachment is, for example, giving up things. For example, when I broke my arm a few weeks ago. I'm sorry you broke your arm. I thought, this is me. It means that I should withdraw from all doings. But I couldn't give way. But now I don't have the anspruch, the demand to let go, and now I really feel detached. And I was really happy to come here because this is the feeling I was waiting for for weeks.

[21:15]

Oh, it feels good to feel detached. Fühle sich gut, losgelöst zu sein. It means really being free. So detached means being free. I think we have a problem with the translation because there is no word for detachment in German, really. We translated it in our brochure as inner freedom. Oh, that sounds good. And losgelöst sein, wie kann man das übersetzen, auf Englisch? And the other translation is losgelöst, this means something like... Not connected also. Disconnected? That doesn't sound so good. Drifting. I think we don't really can feel, we are not able to feel this world really.

[22:16]

Okay. Okay, we'll create some territory here. Okay. Giorgio, would you want to say something? For me, engagement and taking responsibility is all this feeling of not doing enough. it's always something missing, this feeling of duty. And every evening I say, yeah, but that cannot be done, but that cannot be done. And I dream of a sort of attachment, doing things, doing them maybe more efficiently, and having this inner freedom without thinking whether it's

[23:18]

I mean, you feel there's more inner freedom when you don't ask yourself like, is this good, bad or indifferent? ...of inner beauty and responsibility. It's not so much responsibility, but the last thing to check the detail But this interior wish of doing them, of creating them, on the other hand, yeah, I'm not really adapted to one of these either. You're not adapted. Okay. Deutsch bitte. It's a strange relationship between the transfer of power, which I just said, and the fact that I don't do it from the bottom of my heart, creates in me every evening the feeling that this and that has not been done.

[24:29]

The more I do it, the more God comes to me. So it's a certain unbearable time, with what is to be created. So, the lack of self-determination, and if that were to be combined with detachment, with this letting go, with this inner freedom, I can imagine that this would be incredibly pleasant for the audience. Thank you. Someone else? Yes? It's very easy to always attach yourself to things, to take one more, to concentrate more, do more.

[25:31]

But I have a basic feeling that attachment and engagement are one and the same cycle. Yeah, they're the same. But grasping that feeling and getting a better understanding of it. Thank you. In my feeling, also engagement and detachment are folded one into the other.

[26:34]

And this whole complex being a balance. It's very easy that detachment turns into disconnectedness, like you said, and engagement turns into attachment. Ich glaube, dass Engagement und innere Freiheit oder losgelöst sein, dass das zwei Zustände sind, die ineinander where one thing leads to another and they are very connected. And that this is a field list that is in balance, that is in balance.

[27:44]

And the engagement can then turn into attachment. And the separation can then turn into a separation, no longer being connected. And you know, when we leave this territory of balance, it's about to hurt him. Too late. Yes. Yes, I see that too. And you can always register it when you have this territory and the balance of commitment on the one hand and a certain distance on the other.

[28:45]

Anyone else? Yes. Detachment means to give up my . The mosquitoes. I get so angry. I know the feeling. Who doesn't? I don't know. But I can't do it with my right hand.

[30:18]

Of course, I can get out of the sitting position with my right hand. But it has to come from the side. So... I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a good example. Quite hard to be detached when there's a mosquito in your ear and in your nose as well. Goodbye mosquito. You can change your odor, but that's quite difficult. Mm-hmm. Anyone else? Yes. As I know, I realize that we need to come to terms with life, to be able to come to terms with change, and of course that is for me a very large question of detachment and affection.

[31:26]

I feel always I'm trying to find a way of not being afraid of change, which I start to miss. Thank you. Could be. German, please. . Anyone else? I think that I know the feeling of detachment. But it happens very often that I'm so much involved that I don't get contact to this feeling of detachment any longer.

[32:35]

It's quite difficult to find my way back to this feeling and it happens by accident by chance that I find my way back. It also happens through my daily practice, but there it also happens by accident. I cannot produce it. What is this feeling of detachment? Can you describe it? I had an experience once like I had a hot potato in my hand Then just dropped.

[34:04]

At that moment many other things dropped too. It was funny. Did you pick them back up again? Okay, thank you. Anyone else? This is great. Yeah. I would describe the feeling of detachment, saying yes to everything which is and which happens, what happens. But I also know a restlessness within me.

[35:07]

Everything is okay like it is. There's nothing to improve. But where am I going to? Where should I put my engagement? What am I doing? OK. Anyone else? Yeah. You. OK. Do I have to translate for you? Well, you can. In my spare time as a mother, after my children are asleep, I have been reading quite a lot of books in the last month, just novels, contemporary novels.

[36:15]

And they were to me like voices, voices of people who... are telling about their suffering or about suffering which they they heard about or experienced and for me detachment was or is to be able to experience it to feel it and and yeah i still go on with my life great In my free time as a mother, I have read quite a lot of stories, novels, and these novels for me were like voices that tell of their suffering, of their own suffering, or of the suffering that they have experienced or seen. And for me detachment also means to feel this suffering and still be able to continue with life. And did you?

[37:17]

In the hearing of these voices, I grasp the point where I started as I proposed this. It's how can I detach and engage with the same quality of heart? Not become cool, like the children say. This is the point. Okay. Do you want to translate for us? And when you read the novels, do you feel that since you've been practicing now quite a few years, do you feel like if the way they describe their feelings or life, it would be any different for you as a practitioner? Their life would be different? When you read about in the novel, these various characters, does it feel like, oh, if they practice, they might feel different?

[38:27]

Sure. How would they feel different? Can I answer tomorrow? Yes, sure. Okay. I had to think about it. All right, sure. Yes, Christa? Yes, when you read the voices in these novels, these people, if these people would practice, would they feel or feel differently? And I said, I would have to think about that. I have the feeling that the passion has something to do with the own way to do something, or the way to feel. But you don't take it too personal.

[39:36]

But to experience oneself rather in a deeper relationship to other things. Okay. Did you say that, that's what you said in German before? Okay. Danke. Anyone else? Yes. For me, engagement and detachment are strong together because only if I can really be detached and engaged. And if I look at my daughter, when she's really engaged in the way she's detached of everything about her.

[40:40]

And also, I think she doesn't think of what's the meaning or the When I get older, I use this. I had it also when I was a child, and I used these two rings together. I can only make it a green abyss today. And I can't make it be engaged because I can't really create the tension. For me, this is a very strong connection. When I watch my daughter, for example, how she is brought up, how she plays with something, when it is really separated from everything else, from things, and also from things, it has a purpose or a meaning, what I am doing now.

[41:53]

And that's why she really has this commitment. When I get older, I feel more and more that I am losing Okay. This is great. Usually when I ask for people to say something, it's hard work to get one person to say anything. Das ist großartig. Gewöhnlich ist es so, wenn ich Leute bitte, was zu sagen, ist es schwierig, dass irgendjemand was sagt. Ja. Ja. Yeah. I didn't break my arm. I broke my leg a couple of months ago. It kept me from practicing. This is the first effort I've made in about six months, trying to sit, and it's not easy.

[42:56]

I'm still in some pain. Anyone can sit on a chair who wants to. No, that's okay. It's not advisable. But I noticed something. Although it was completely unique to practice for quite a while, I still felt that the past years of practice work with me in a way. I didn't lose the faculty to observe myself getting engaged in things. And I feel, to me, this is the quality of detachment, being able to watch yourself getting engaged, doing things. I have not yet reached the arm, but the leg. It is not quite as it should be and I can not really sit. I have practiced it very much. My practice was strongly influenced by it. And I have noticed that in all these months, the past years of practice have never left me completely. I think I have also brought the feeling. to look at myself, to cling to me, to engage in me, whatever it is.

[44:01]

And that for me is the meaning of the ability to connect engagement and distance, if you can observe yourself and if you are never completely lost by an engagement. That you can still maintain a state of right and wrong by observing yourself. So maybe we can continue the discussion tomorrow. But let me, I mean, it's a special pleasure for me to be here with you. And there's almost, we could talk about almost anything. about practice, because practice would apply to almost anything that's been said.

[45:04]

But to hear your discussion, your own feelings about this, creates a kind of territory for me and for all of us, I think. in which we can try to find some entry into practice. And I feel there's, many of you, all of you, there's quite a lot of accurate feeling has gone into your thinking through what this is about. But you can also see that there's quite a lot of difference in how these words are understood and how they're understood in German

[46:13]

what level you understand them and so forth. Sorry, the second part. I don't know what I said. Which part? There's a difference in the understanding of the words. Yes, thank you. Zen practice, Buddhist practice as an adept practice I would have to say is a kind of inner science. And of course it's connected with a part of mindfulness practice and, when possible, sitting practice.

[47:32]

And the mindfulness practice and can the sitting practice create a kind of experiential openness to oneself and the world? And Buddhism is rooted in a philosophy of what the world is. It's assumed in Buddhism that no therapeutic or realisational practice will have real power unless it is rooted in how the world and we actually exist. So if you look at Buddhism in any detail, there's an attempt to come to very exact meanings of each word or what we intend.

[49:02]

And to see that how much of our suffering is caused by how we construct the world and how we constrict the world. And construct. Constrict, I don't know. Constrict, to shut down, to narrow. Yeah. That's because you seldom constrict the world. Thank you. Now, I just did this seminar with, primarily with, for four days or, I don't count, five days, four days, with a number of people who are mostly therapists. And much of what we talked about there would be useful to talk about here.

[50:03]

But there's two people from the seminar who are here. Me and Ulrike. I don't know if I should go over any of this again. Would it be useful for you? Or would it drive you crazy? Yeah. And what we called that seminar was transforming the present and perfecting the personality. And In any case, whatever we end up speaking about, we have to look at what kind of world we actually think we live in.

[51:14]

Now since January of this year about, I've been emphasizing over and over again a particular fairly simple practice to bring your attention and energy equally to each moment. At the initial level of experience without discrimination. Whatever appears for you at this moment, you find yourself one with it.

[52:17]

Or you complete it. Now the emphasis in Zen practice, on Buddhist practice, is to really want to see how we cause ourselves difficulty. There's even a very precise analysis of how the mind functions and how it functions in a number of ways which cause problems. Now we'd have to see, I'll have to think about what kind of detail it's useful to go into to support one's intention to practice. And to support one's development of practice.

[53:38]

In practice, I don't really mean it. I'm not so interested in it being Buddhism. This is just a human wisdom. You can call Buddhism if you want. A human wisdom to come into this world as it exists and we exist. Now, practically speaking, we have to figure out the schedule for tomorrow and Sunday. If we're going to continue the discussion, we all have to agree on what time we're going to be here. So what time will breakfast be tomorrow? 4 a.m. No, realistically, what have you usually done? 8 a.m. 8 or 8.30? And we sit before.

[54:50]

Okay, so what if we started at, if we ate at eight, eat at eight, eat at eight, eat at eight. And we ate at eight. Could we start at 9.30? Was that too early? Should we start at 10? 9.30 is okay? Okay. And So breakfast at 8, from 8 to 8.30? No, from 8 to 9.30. All right, okay. So some people might come five minutes before 9.30 and call it done. Yeah, well, that's next. Okay. So should we sit, say, at 7.15 for those who want to? Should we sit at 7.15 for those who want to? 7, because it's too short. No, even if we sit 40 minutes, it's 5K.

[55:54]

We can sit 2K. 5K. So, I mean, I don't know how many people here have very little experience with sitting. Okay. Well, if you want to come, then you'll have to say something about sitting. Mm-hmm. But it's okay. I don't care if we sit in the morning, if you move or what. It's nice to sit still. I can explain why. But I don't want it to feel like something coercive. And you can sit in a chair if you'd like, and we can have chairs here if anybody would like. Looks like it.

[57:04]

7.15 we'll sit down, is that right? Okay. Okay. And then, so we have lunch about 1 or 12.30 to 1, something like that, okay. Okay. Okay. And the evening free tomorrow evening. Oh yes, somebody could sing for us. Mongolia? What kind of singing do you do? And not Mongolian Tuva singing. Oh, can you demonstrate Tuva singing to us at all?

[58:05]

Any of it? The Tuva that... No, okay. Oh, okay. Okay, so tomorrow evening, if you'd be willing, that'd be nice. Okay, after dinner sometime. Okay, good. But a simple practice, like bringing your attention equally, and equally is very important, To each moment to what appears to complete what appears this is already quite not so easy to understand. What is each moment?

[59:13]

What part of each moment? What is a moment? What is attention? What do we mean by energy? And why equally? And what is the effect of equal? And what kind of world do we live in that it makes any sense to bring your attention to each moment. So I would suggest that, you know, between now and tomorrow morning, at least for a few minutes or longer, you see You just play with, experiment with the sense of bringing your energy equally to each moment. Or your attention equally to each moment.

[60:17]

And so we will start tomorrow for some of us at 7.15 and breakfast at 8. And we'll start the seminar at 9.30. Is that okay? Okay. And just for sitting... I think tomorrow morning I can say something about the sitting posture for those of you who want to come. Okay, thank you very much. And thank you for translating. I would basically just sit down in your cushion and try to sit still till the bell rings.

[62:00]

And the sitting still is an ingredient that most makes sitting practice work. And the main posture of traditional Zen sitting is your backbone. And really you want to sit on a cushion that's high enough that allows your backbone to be straight easily. So sitting in a chair can be okay if you If you lean back, it's okay too, but ideally you sit in a chair without leaning against the back.

[63:15]

The feeling of coming into your own posture from inside is important. Then why don't we all just sit on a chair with a straight back for 30 or 40 minutes? Yeah, well, the reason is because it takes much more effort, actually. You need your muscles to support you when you're sitting in a chair. And that's true also of sitting in this posture. which is quite a good and traditional meditation posture, which traditional Japanese architecture and clothes are all based on this posture.

[64:31]

And you can sit this way with a pillow under you or between your legs. That's anyway a good posture unless you want to concentrate on developing cross-legged posture. And why do we do cross-legged posture? Because there's a kind of architecture to it and it's quite stable once you get used to it. And also, very important, you're folding your heat together, your body heat together. And your heat and consciousness are closely related. So if you can sit this way, you can settle into a more concentrated consciousness, partly just because you're folded together.

[65:57]

And your body gets mixed up. You don't know which is left or right anymore. That seems maybe silly, but in fact, when we're sitting, your kind of boundaries disappear. The main thing is to sit in some way that your back can be straight. You have a lifting feeling through your back. And up through the back of your neck. You feel a little bit like you're being lifted from the center back of your head. Or like you're being lifted up here.

[67:11]

And there's more fine-tuning involved if you want to put your... It's just good to put your tongue at the roof of your mouth. This tends to inhibit saliva and things like that here. A more emotional activity, strangely enough, is inhibited if your tongue is at the roof of your mouth. Maybe it's like putting your tongue in the garage. And also it completes when your body gets more sensitive, it completes part of the chakra energy activity. But the basic thing again is just to lift through your backbone.

[68:26]

Lift through the back of the neck. And have a relaxing feeling at the same time coming down through you. And then you can bring your attention to your breath. Either just following your breath or counting your exhales to ten. That's pretty much all you need to know about the physical aspects of sitting posture.

[69:27]

So generally I start the sitting with three bells and end it with one bell. And your eyes are usually either nearly closed with just a little light coming in. So they're not in the posture of sleeping nor the posture of waking. But lightly closed and awake feeling is okay too. Thank you all for sitting so still.

[71:28]

And I'll see you at, we start at 9.30. I know I heard it from a lot of people please stretch if you'd like to Good morning.

[73:08]

And I've been told and Christine has been told that we are not speaking loudly enough. Oh, good. And part of the problem is when you're sitting here you have the impression your voice is quite loud because of the way it echoes. So if we start hollering, you can ask it. Buddhism is posited on the observation, That everything changes. And that means that what's real is the relationship.

[74:13]

Now, you can hear me say that, but it's really, it takes some effort. Buddhism is a wisdom teaching created by wise people. So we can say that we need to develop our wisdom. Wir können also sagen, dass wir unsere Weisheit entwickeln müssen. And that means something particular in Buddhism. But we can't just hear that everything is a relationship or what's real is the relationship.

[75:19]

You have to practice with this observation. And bring it into whatever you're doing. For example, this morning, many of you were here this morning. And I gave Zazen instruction at the beginning of the sitting period. Now one thing I didn't say, which is obvious, that we all don't sit perfectly. But when you're sitting, And you're trying to follow the instructions I gave, for example. Of lifting through your back and so forth.

[76:26]

What we can say we're doing is working with Our posture is being informed by an ideal posture. Okay, so we have your posture. And we have an ideal posture. And the priority in Zen practice is always to accept your own posture. That's the first priority. Second priority is always to be moving toward or working with the ideal posture. So which is the posture of sasana? The ideal posture or your posture.

[77:40]

I just told you. It's only the relationship that's real. So the posture of zazen is the relationship between the ideal posture and your posture. An ideal Buddha posture is not real. Your posture provisional posture at this moment, however you're feeling, is not real. In Buddhist wisdom teachings, it's not real. What is real is the working with the ideal posture and your posture. So when somebody says to me, my posture is so bad, I know they don't understand what their posture is. I mean, it's a kind of way of speaking and I understand.

[78:42]

But just the fact that they're noticing their posture is bad means their posture is good because it means they're working with their posture. Now that may sound like Zen contrivance of some sort. Something manufactured. Yeah, but... It's the wisdom thinking of Buddhism that you have to get familiar with. So I always say this posture is big enough for two. It's big enough for you and it's big enough for Buddha.

[79:54]

And in your posture you're always discovering your posture and you're discovering the potentiality, your feeling of the Buddha posture. I was with a group of scientists recently in a kind of meeting of discussing the evolution of consciousness. They were all serious scientists except me. And I was there to discuss really the evolution of consciousness and conscious evolution. But what interested me, and as I've mentioned recently, listening to these very good scientists, They take very simple things and look at them very, very carefully.

[80:55]

And that's very characteristic of Buddhist thinking. So we're looking carefully at this simple act of sitting. Wir schauen sorgfältig auf diesen einfachen Akt des Sitzens. And so, you know, I think you see that sitting is necessarily a relationship between just accepting how you sit. Und so seht ihr, dass sitzen einfach notwendigerweise eine Beziehung ist zwischen dem Akzeptieren, wie man sitzt, And feeling the possibility always of sitting a little straighter or a little more relaxed and so forth. Yeah, and because you notice you could sit a little more relaxed, there's a kind of upward movement in the activity.

[81:59]

Upward in the sense of toward more beneficial qualities. And that's one definition of what a yoga posture is. A yoga posture is a posture you take which is like a bridge between something less clear to something more clear. So your posture, whatever it is, it could be jogging or whatever, it's a yoga posture. I think a cold shower is a common yoga posture. You're moving from... I don't sleep. So in sitting the ideal posture, you feel you could, as I said, be a little more at ease or a little clearer.

[83:15]

Now, the next statement I'm going to make depends on a number of assumptions. Basically, it depends on some faith in or intuition of what we could maybe call somatic intelligence. Or a bodily wisdom. Or a trust that this world is inseparable from. Which is also really what everything's changing means. Yes, I've been quoting my teacher in Japan, Yamada Mumunroshi, recently.

[84:31]

And he says that the most important single thing for us to know is to have or develop a deep respect for ourself, a respect inseparable from knowing, that the entire world at this moment is working to make this moment possible. Yeah, that's a simple fact. It's the case. But we think we're kind of new age or schmaltzy or something if we notice it. Yeah. Maybe Buddhist wisdom is deepened schmaltz.

[85:33]

So if we have trust or faith that there is this profound interpenetration that is also us, And you can see in just these two words, interdependence and interpenetration, a development of Buddhism. Earlier Buddhism emphasized interdependence. Der frühere Buddhismus betonte die gegenseitige Abhängigkeit. And later Buddhism emphasizes interpenetration. Und der spätere Buddhismus betont die gegenseitige, wechselseitige Durchdringung.

[86:37]

That everything is not just interdependent causally, but is also interpenetrated with the whole. Dass alles nicht nur wechselseitig voneinander abhängig ist, kausal, sondern auch durchdrungen voneinander. Okay. So what we experience in practicing Zazen, and I'm describing Zazen partly to encourage you to do it, but really that's your choice. But I'm speaking about it because it's... the best example I can talk about in this kind of context.

[87:44]

And this wisdom teaching, although it can be applied in many circumstances, certainly developed through the practice of meditation. Okay, the statement I will now make is that when you are in this dialogue between your ideal posture and the posture, your own posture, that you accept, sometimes the ideal posture takes over. And it's almost like you feel something drops away. As you said yesterday, that you suddenly felt something drop away and a lot dropped away at the same time. Mm-hmm. When something takes you over, and you do something that you wouldn't normally know how to do exactly,

[89:16]

not only putting one thing down, but putting many things down. This means that Buddha has moved into this body big enough for two. And he doesn't charge rent. Oh, hello, you're here today. You know, we can have that kind of feeling. So to really sense that this happens, we have to accept and accept the experience of it. A number of things have to be present. One is this trust in this interpersonal dependence and interpenetration.

[90:17]

And also that whatever is meant by Buddha, it's not back in 2600 years ago, it's present here. And it doesn't make any sense for anyone to practice Buddhism unless they think that realization of Buddha nature is possible. So it's necessary to take realization seriously as something real. It's okay if you don't, it's up to you. And that then your practice is primarily therapeutic and about well-being. It's not then about non-being. And why is it good that it's about non-being?

[91:32]

Am I making sense? More or less? Am I going too fast or too slow? Too much detail? Okay. He's behind the pillar over there. Peter, hi. Um... Okay, let's just take your statement that you put something down. What was it that you put down? Potatoes. Potatoes, okay.

[92:16]

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