They didn't wake you up. You didn't wake them up. Oh no, I wasn't asleep. You go in a room and somebody is pretending to be asleep and you can tell their breathing is voluntary or has tension on it. One interesting thing that you can develop, a yogic skill, is you can follow your breath with attention from voluntary breath to involuntary breath. So as your breath becomes involuntary and you fall asleep, you can stay aware into that going into sleep. Like following something under the surface.

[01:28]

These are little things you discover just by practicing. Okay, a second is to bring your, from the Eightfold Path, to bring your speech together with your breath. And this weaves mind and body together. Sorry, I've made it wrong. The first thing is bringing mindful attention to your breath. And the second is bringing mindful attention to your speech. Through your breath. And this weaves mind and body together. And is very closely related to the speech of body, speech and mind.

[02:36]

And the third is bringing attention. Now, these are very basic, simple practices. And they're not traditionally described the way I'm describing them. But that's not because what I'm talking about is not traditional. But because we need to notice these practices differently. Third is this bringing of attention, mindful attention to each inhale and each exhale. And this moves you out of generalizing your experience.

[03:42]

And this practice is the loom that weaves time and space together. And this fourth practice is this speech of body and mind. So, I've said enough. Too much? No. I want to keep trying to speak about this in a way that it's actually useful to you. And I think you can see the first three are understandable and can be useful.

[04:42]

But the way this third one, this understanding of the practice of body, speech and mind, opens up the poetry, the many-fold memory and poetry of our experience. Many-fold memory and poetry of our experience. This I'll try to come back to. Knowing that, even from studies of children and things, that this speech is actually the integration of mind and body. We did it as a child. We created these structures.

[05:47]

And through this practice of body, speech and mind, Through yogic experience we re-enter the way we're structured. That this is possible itself is exciting. Dass das überhaupt möglich ist, ist sehr aufregend. Possible and slowly begins to be revealed to us. Das ist möglich und langsam, langsam entdeckt sich das für uns oder öffnet sich für uns.

[06:56]

Thank you very much. Vielen Dank. Yes, please. Okay. Satsang with Mooji In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So we're trying to practice together and to think about practice together.

[08:30]

And as I mentioned earlier, to someone recently, pointed out to someone recently, what is fairly obvious, that our lived body is simply by habit incorporates our views. And our thinking usually supports that.

[09:41]

It's very difficult to change the habits of our lived body. But we can change our thinking somewhat easily. And if we change our thinking in a mantra-like way, we can slowly, the habits of our lived body will change. So a good part of practice is is bringing the views and wisdom of practice into our thinking in ways that slowly influence the whole of our life.

[11:00]

As someone said to me this morning, the micro-decisions that flow through the day And somehow we have more access to those micro-decisions if we practice zazen and practice mindfulness. And in addition, particularly for Zen practitioners, we bring certain phrases or views in mantrically into our consciousness. our consciousness.

[12:01]

So, given that as a little introduction to how I see practice, and and that we're here trying to practice together, I'd like us to also think out loud with each other about our practice. And to do that, I would like, you know, the easiest way is for each of us to say something. Mostly, not necessarily to get an answer, but just to share what our practice is and maybe have some discussion.

[13:03]

This is a wonderful opportunity that we are developing here at Johannes Hof. to once a year gather for some part of a month, and to gather in a way which is really part of our ordinary life, like this madhouse of children we have here. Which probably makes some of you long for Crestone. Or perhaps home.

[14:14]

Less children. So, oh, by the way, I told Karen she could take a few pictures now and then. No, she's going to aim the camera anywhere but here, but we'll see. I don't know where she's going to aim the camera, but I think mostly this direction. Because she could take pictures of all of you and then you all appear on the Dharma news. So unfortunately you're sitting on the left. For me, particularly since today, I'm aware of the fact that this month is not finished yet.

[15:29]

Next day I don't quite know how long I've been here. I don't either. So I simply noticed that it's not exactly comfortable to be here, but it's so much easier now than it used to be here. Mm-hmm. meaning that in the beginning to come in here with the children and to shape the day,

[16:55]

The beginning was exciting and difficult and now I have the feeling it runs more smoothly. And that I didn't expect that I would be able to practice that much because I'm here alone with two little children. However, it's possible. And when I can share my experience with you, I notice that it When I can share this experience with you, then I find that to a big extent I can make experiences like you do.

[18:19]

I'm in a similar situation like Beate. Only my husband is here to support me. So as I said, it's not easy, but sometimes I feel like in an ideal life where everything flows together. There are conflicts and misunderstandings. They can be there, but they also flow within this big stream. And on the back of the translation in my book, there is a statement that we limit the possibilities of human existence in our normal life.

[20:26]

In our normal life we limit the possibilities. And for me the month of practice is really a possibility, because these limitations, For me, practice month is an opportunity to make these limitations more permeable or even to let them almost drop away. So my experience is that the body can be a lot of things and

[21:45]

What identity is, is a question for me. May I would like to leave that as a question? Hmm. I noticed that I came here with the idea that I wanted to be able to move freely in the sense that that my behavior is not planned beforehand by thinking or that I be able to limit this kind of planning.

[23:30]

So I... find myself in this field of tension or in this crying because on the one hand the schedule asks me to perform certain activities and on the other hand there is my idea that I don't want to do all these things. And concerning the topic that I'm only here since Tuesday that has been discussed,

[24:31]

I like the idea that language or speech maybe creates this like like breath creates this connection between body and mind and I feel the more this connection is created the more intense the And I feel the more this connection is created, the bigger the desire is to be connected to other people. Personally, I'm involved with a phrase that some of you know already because I mentioned it.

[26:03]

This closeness is heart tearing if you look outside. Closeness? Nearness, connectedness is heartbreaking when you look outside for it. It's from a Quran, I don't know which one. Okay, I understand. Yeah. Okay, thank you. First of all, I'm happy to be able to be here and to practice with you.

[27:24]

and also together with the children. Yesterday after dinner I went out to the children's group. Yesterday after dinner I went outside and I took a look where the group of kids were. We have a silent group dressed in black that are in a dark room. We have a loud chaotic group outside. It is nice to see these two melt together. Personally, in my practice, I feel a little confused, not from the outside, So, personally I feel confused not from the outside but when I

[29:01]

approach Zen or Zen phrases with thinking I'm more and more confused. In the last small group Ivo described that concerning the question how is the world of sitting Meditation or sitting practice different from other worlds? He said we don't get up So this is my practice now to sit within this confusion and not to get up Yeah.

[30:51]

You know, I was a faculty kid. That means if you grew up around a university, because your father taught at a university, a college, in America you sometimes call that a faculty kid. Yeah, that's right. Compost kid. Campus kid. I felt like that sometimes. And when I went to college myself, I could spot other students who were faculty kids. It's hard to say exactly how, but I'd know another kid.

[32:11]

I'd say, oh, your father must have taught at a college or something like that. We shared something, something we could see in each other. And now, having done this 40 years, I've seen a couple generations of kids grow up who hung out like our kids are doing now. And my sense of it is it's been very good for the kids. Better than... Better than growing up on a campus.

[33:25]

I don't know exactly why. But, you know, Marie-Louise comes into this life sort of suddenly as my wife. Marie-Louise comes... And what she was struck by right from the beginning is that you're with a people who are all trying somehow to live good lives. Oh, I think that's true. We are all trying to live, somehow trying to live what we think are good lives. Despite the conflicts and things like that, this seems to have a good influence on the kids. So somehow this rather odd life and schedule And which puts us in situations where we... Is there a place for you somewhere?

[35:04]

Do we have a cushion or anything? I think over there in the corner there's something maybe. So somehow, you know, on one hand you can get so that... You don't mind whatever you do, because as long as you're breathing, as I say, as long as you're breathing and your heart's beating, it doesn't matter what you do. But whether you get to that point or not, the schedule does make you make some adjustments.

[36:10]

The schedule makes you make some adjustment. And somehow that sensitizes us to changes in our life. Because there's changes going on underneath our daily life all the time. We often don't notice them because we have our habit of life. And sometimes people don't notice until they retire. But if you do some practice like this occasionally, where you adjust your life to some kind of arbitrary schedule like we have,

[37:41]

It seems to make you more sensitive to be able to notice changes going on when you're ready to make changes in your daily life. It helps you notice when there's some kind of change occurring or could occur in your daily, your regular life. And it also, doing this for a while, I think most of us notice, creates new kinds of friendships. And for some reason there's some special feeling later on when you go back to a place where you practiced.

[38:47]

And especially for kids when they go back. And a large percentage, a significant percentage of the kids who grew up in the 60s in the Zen Center formed the intention to someday do a practice period in Sashin, and many of them did. So this attempt to make a practice place which somehow overlaps with people's ordinary lives, on the whole is a good thing to do, I think. So the attempt to create a place of practice that overlaps to a certain extent with normal life is a good thing.

[40:05]

From a more or less exclusive emphasis on stillness or silence towards more presence. I made my main Mindfulness, being mindful with every breathing in and breathing out, I made into my main practice.

[41:26]

Became your main practice. And on the side I try to name what arises and to some degree also is distracting. And when a practice month comes, a lot of liveliness comes into the house. And disturbance, right?

[42:29]

Not only the children, but conversations happen. And teishos are given. And there are many enticing enticing enticements enticing enticing what? things to pray oh things to pray for example to know or to be brought near For example, to know that one creates one's world through one's faculty to remember and to

[43:43]

And to name or to give words. And within that, the possibility to change, to... to... to do these creations differently but then to remind myself and be patient with the fact that this being mindful with the particular breathing in and breathing out doesn't work so well yet.

[45:19]

until it is at the point that I can really keep an object in front of my eyes and look at it in fine detail, without anything else carrying me anywhere. And that, for example, before, it did not make much sense to do this practice, which I am currently doing from the table of Bekarowski. and that it takes time to be able to focus on an object and to observe it in its subtleties and that before that is possible it doesn't make much sense to begin with the practice that I just mentioned from Roshi's Teisho.

[46:28]

Okay. I have been practicing with the phrase, to complete what appears. And I asked myself, how do I complete what appears? Only in observing things or also in becoming active, meaning to... In doing things. To put something into action? What? Oh, to put into action what appears.

[47:35]

Yesterday something beautiful happened to me. I had the feeling that there was beauty within me. And I realized that this beauty Yesterday something opened up in me. I discovered that beauty is within myself and that I put this beauty into the flowers. take as a rule of Zen practice that everything is an action.

[48:41]

So even you have a feeling if you work with a phrase to complete that which appears, The nature of such a phrase is you're trying to work with what to complete means. In the end, it has to be a feeling of completion. And the feeling is more likely when we have the feeling of, even as you discovered with the flowers, it's an action to find the beauty of the flowers. And I think when we feel something like that and we stay with it, it begins to penetrate many things. Maybe we all look like flowers to you.

[49:48]

Thank you, Yudhita. You make me think of, you know, no, with the window there, Judita. You know, I don't sing very well, right? And people used to say to me, well, when you sing by the window, I'll help you out. Philip, I can imagine you two starting to sing and we just swing the window. I've only been here for five days. And I'm still pretty much in a transition phase.

[51:04]

My zazen periods are very unstable, they are very different, the moods are very different. My zazen in the various periods is very different, the moods are quite different. And somewhere here this task has inspired me that nothing is to be achieved, And somehow this task came to me that there is nothing to achieve. That there are no goals. This stuff. But it is interesting and also burdensome. It's interesting, but it's also a burden.

[52:18]

What is the burden? To work with it inside. That there's nothing to achieve. But I'm constantly busy with doing things and having goals also during sitting. That's hard to describe. It's not just superficial. It's hard to describe. It's not only superficially in

[53:27]

within the thinking but it's hard to see what the difficulty is. But I think it will be good to have been here before the sashin starts. Usually I directly went into a sashin and then it was usually pretty hard. It might still be hard. But it might be different. Well, I think when an insight is offered to us as a feeling, when it's a feeling or a recognition, it's a kind of jewel or treasure.

[55:00]

that if we can find a way to remind ourselves of this insight and feeling, it's pretty hard to do unless there's a feeling of recognition that accompanies it. But if we can recognize such a feeling and treasure it, and find a way to remind ourselves of it, such a, let's find a word for it, such a feeling insight, becomes the seed of a realization.

[56:17]

I could say a certain territory of realization. I'm here since the beginning of this practice month. And the first two monk weeks were something like vacation. And since five days I catched up with myself. And Judita made me a beautiful flower. Like Judita on the road with her flowers. And Judita made a... So it's an inspiration, an inspiration how she is acting with the flowers.

[57:37]

The same way I will be busy with the chainsaw. No, no. It's to mow. The lawnmower? Oh, yeah. I know, yeah. The trimmer, yeah? The trimmer, yeah. I wonder if the bushes will agree with you. Probably. I had a phrase that was important to me that Dieter mentioned. Speaking should be true and helpful.

[59:04]

And with that I practiced. For me, Zazen practice is new. A few months ago, I started with it. I have the feeling that I have not yet grown into a situation in which I have the feeling that I am staying in this situation.

[60:16]

Like a family for example. Keine Kinder oder so? Yeah, and I feel my life hasn't led me into a situation that I stay in. Not like, for example, like a family when you have children. Und ich bin unter der And I grew up with this feeling of being constantly forced to ask myself what I should do. And I don't want to define my life so much.

[61:31]

I don't want to define my life so much. I don't want to define my life so much. I don't want to define my life so much. But I also don't want to go against, like Akos said, discriminative thought or subjectivity. And as I said, I have a little bit of experience with Zazen practice, but actually I don't know what it is. Okay, thanks. Maybe we should have over the door, all ye who enter here should not know what to do.

[62:52]

All ye who enter here should not know what to do. Then we'll give you the schedule. And we can have some freedom. I'm grateful that I can be in Johannesburg for a longer time this time. In earlier times it was always a shorter period of time, a practice week or a session. This time I can, as I said, I can practice for a longer time and observe myself for a longer time.

[64:16]

to observe how I enter into the state of the calm spirit, and how I come out of it, and this entering and coming out, which I consider to be very important for life outside. So to observe how I enter a calm mind and how I leave it, and I think this is very important for the life outside, so to speak. At this point I don't plan to live in a monastery but I do try to I want to try to bring Zen practice

[65:31]

to the greatest extent as possible into my life. I am also grateful that I have the opportunity to learn these games and to fantasize. I'm also grateful that I happened to be able to learn about and study Zen at this point in my life or maybe a couple of years earlier. So that I can create a basis for for my whole life, for leading my life.

[67:16]

I hope so. You know, I like having a chance to I like to listen to each of you, but it doesn't seem to fit in with the time we have. Now, I think we should take a break of ten minutes. The door guard. Okay.

[68:21]

Yeah, for me, since we had to run around like this last time, I think it started with the high speed. Yeah, to each bit, huh? We also had a round the other day when we... And you said we all shared what we think is practice, and you added that trust belongs to it also. And we all said what we understood in practice, or what we were able to practice, the added that the whole trust is also very important, and this word appears to me all the time. Yeah, I don't know who or what trusts, and it's more that I feel, yeah, just have this word and go.

[69:23]

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's almost impossible to practice without some basic trust and acceptance and ease, those three things. I think it is almost impossible to practice without a certain basic trust, an acceptance and a serenity. So Kategori Yoshihide used to say, quoting Dogen I believe, to settle yourself on yourself in zazen. But that was a phrase for Kadagiri Roshi that was, you know, important throughout his practice life. And to settle yourself on yourself means also just to trust being alive and to feel at ease in yourself.

[70:33]

And coming to that in your satsang can be a lifetime intention. And the one-minute intention. Yeah, okay. Oh, it's just very good to be here. I'm new here in Johanneshof and I've only been here for one weekend and now it's the first longer period that I stay here.

[71:50]

I feel welcomed and well-carried and in the right place with my practice In sasen I have been practicing for four years I've been practicing zazen for four years and in zazen... I keep observing and again and again surprised how hard it is for a healthy body to sit still. how everything can hurt.

[73:31]

And sometimes I observe this with humor, sometimes with sadness. Sometimes with ease and I can simply return to the breath. There are moments where nothing, nothing hurts. These little pains have the advantage that I'm never sleepy. I think in this week what is new for me is I have been, until now I've been practicing zazen alone or I did zazen.

[75:20]

I did zazen alone. That in this form there is room for shared thinking about practice. And I'm grateful. Suzuki Roshi used to say quite often, if you can sit zazen, it means you're probably mentally and physically pretty healthy. And I used to think, well, I don't know, it's not that special to be able to do zazen. But now, having a little bigger picture than I did then, I think it's true that when we can sit zazen, it means we're probably pretty healthy.

[76:32]

I think it's true, if we can sit and sit, then we are pretty healthy. Yes. I've been here for three days now. And I found the first two days very difficult. I find it difficult to be here with my daughter and to integrate myself within this group with others but also with the other mothers But then, and this is already familiar to me, it happens actually every time.

[78:00]

I think these are misunderstandings and small conflicts. And now I just reminded myself why I came here. And now it's easier. Yesterday I was very moved by what you told us about Kobun Chinora and his daughter. And I always imagined how the two must have felt during the last minutes.

[79:20]

And it reminded me of the fact that something like this can happen to all of us. any time. And that I have no time to waste. Well, I'm new, not practicing. I've never practiced satsang before. Your posture is pretty good. Yeah. Maybe that's about it. And I kind of like, I go along with these days and just try to be with the experience.

[80:25]

It's more like lots of questions come up. By now I enjoy them being there as questions. I think the first two days or so it was a bit difficult. The experience in the sitting is very different with the attitude I put into it. And I just wonder, I just wonder. And I sit and I search and I go along and I don't know sometimes. And also like I had years ago a very strong experience in a Christian monastery where I was actually sitting also a very long time, you know. And my experience there was, without that I knew about it, got kind of a root for my for my life without me being a practicing Christian person. And this came very much as a question to me when I was here.

[81:35]

And the experience in there was very similar, but I think what was different for me where my experience is very different if I just concentrate on my breath and being here now. I get in contact with all my borders and I get in contact with all the things that are not resolved and that are hurting and pain and frustrations and not knowing and all kinds of things and I can perceive them. And in that experience there I could in a way also be there, but then there was a... I could connect to a very strong light, and I could look from that light with all these things. And suddenly they disappear, you can start to laugh about it, because they are so small in comparison to this big, huge amount of love that is available. And sometimes I wonder if these experiences can integrate, or if it's two completely different ways,

[82:42]

Yes, and it brought up all this discussion or wonder inside. German, please. Sorry? German, please. German. I don't live in Germany since 20 years. Okay, are you Greek? This is the first time I'm telling you this. And I've only been here for five days. And... It raises a lot of questions in me. These are more the questions that I try to answer. When I sit, I have very different experiences, depending on the attitude I have. I had a very strong experience about ten years ago in a Christian place, in a Christian monastery, where I was actually sitting alone for a day or two or three days, and where I could also look at myself, because there was also the perception of all the things that are there, but at the same time there was a very great light, a very great light, so that I could look at this experience from this light,

[84:09]

and then they fainted or became very faint or small, and suddenly there was a lot of humor. And I ask myself at the moment, when I sit down and have really tried to catch up with the breathing and the attention to the breathing, with the few that I know about it, then I first bump into my limits and then all that which is unsolved and all that which hurts and all that which is frustration or annoyance. And I always ask myself whether the two experiences can be united in one way or whether it is something fundamentally different. I think the experiences we have are much more related to us and the particular time of our life than to where they occur.

[85:18]

I think if you at that point in your life had been in a Zen monastery, you probably would have had a similar experience. Of course, the context influences us some, and especially influences how we interpret it. It influences the experience we have, but it especially influences how we interpret it. And there's a certain ripening of time in us. And the experiences we have in one session or in one time of practice, it's usually and should be different each time. And some people get addicted to, not you of course, but some people get addicted to certain kinds of experiences.

[86:44]

And then as their practice assimilates those experiences, Not much else happens for a while and practice gets dull. The learning curve is flat. Yeah. But if we're patient, some other kind of deepening and maturing occurs. Again, I'm not speaking just to you. I'm just speaking about what you made me think of. But Thomas Merton, who was the leading Catholic monastic in the United States, or the spokesperson for Catholic monasticism in the United States,

[87:55]

said that somehow Zen meditation and Catholic monasticism seems to produce a similar kind of person. He was probably the first Catholic monastic to begin publicly doing Zen meditation as part of his practice. Excuse me for commenting so much, because we'll skip dinner if we don't keep going. Kara? I've been practicing Zazen for quite some time but this is actually the first time that I've sat more than one period a day.

[89:33]

And the first couple of days have been extremely challenging accepting the limitations my body is showing me and dealing with feelings of anger and frustration in accepting them. And then I realized that's also something that often transcends into other areas in my life rather than just accepting the circumstances and things as they are and wanting to push further. I extremely enjoy practicing here at Johanneshof in an environment which is, we can feel very connected with with other people who try to, similar to the way Marie-Louise said, with other people who want to lead a good life and also have that feeling of connectedness without so many words and very different pace.

[90:43]

The environment I normally practice in is extremely fast and extremely noisy. And in that respect, most of my Zazen practice is trying to stay with the breath and not being distracted by what's happening around me, noises that come up. So this is actually quite an experience for me, sitting in silence. I have been practicing Zazen for some time now, but this is the first time that I have sat on it for more than a period of time. The first two days were extremely difficult for me to accept and deal with the limitations that my body shows me. and to let go of the feelings, the annoyance and frustration, simply to recognize these limitations.

[91:47]

Although I have also learned that this wanting more instead of accepting what is possible for me is transferred to other areas of my life. And it was interesting to find out. And it feels very good for me to practice here at Johanneshof, in a community where I have the feeling of being surrounded by people who also try to lead a good life and to feel a certain groundedness without words. and to practice in an environment that is quiet and has a completely different way of walking, because normally I practice in an environment that is extremely fast and extremely loud,

[92:54]

Brilliant. Coming here from a Theravada monastery would have only one meal a day. When the practice was to eat as much as possible. And one sitting, so the stomach would expand and deflate like a balloon.

[94:01]

24-hour period. I didn't know that. There was one sitting? You tried to eat everything at one time, so your stomach would go up and down like a balloon in 24 hours. Okay. the belly inflates and collapses again during a 24-hour day. So coming here I had to address the problem of the gross disparity between my appetite and my actual body's needs. So you moved from an antagonistic relationship to hunger to a more An antagonist, you said?

[95:06]

I just had a hard time... An antagonistic relationship to hunger, to a more friendly relationship. I... I've been helping the stomach define the parameters of hunger and satisfaction by overeating and undereating. He's been helping the stomach. Defying what? And finding that This friendly relationship is fruitful in that the stomach is able to gauge its own needs and articulate clearly what's required.

[96:40]

In this friendly relationship, the stomach itself can measure and articulate its needs. One meal a day derives from a practice developed in the tropical setting where it makes sense. It's very important to Europe. To have only one meal a day came about in a tropical environment, this exercise came about in a tropical environment where it makes sense and is then after...

[97:30]

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