What are we doing here together? Well, obviously we're practicing together. And we're trying to discover what together means. It's obvious and it's not so obvious. I'm always, as you know, interested if the etymology of the word tells us anything. Und wie ihr wisst, bin ich immer daran interessiert, was uns die Etymologie des Wortes sagt. And the to part is toward or purpose. Und im Englischen ist dieser to, im Deutschen vielleicht ist zu, das bedeutet auf etwas zu oder im Englischen auch Zweck.

[01:05]

And the gather, gather part means, you know, in early German and Dutch, something like spouse or husband or companion, fellowship. And it means also to store up. Yeah, and to store up in one body. And that's pretty close to what practice period is about, to store up in or as one body. And so that's a challenge you need to take to make the practice period work, the catalyst that can make the practice period work.

[02:07]

Das ist die Herausforderung, die ihr annehmen müsst. Das ist der Katalysator oder der Auslöser, der eine Praxisperiode zum Funktionieren bringen kann. Ich war bisher noch nicht viele Tage oder viele Zazenperioden mit euch zusammen. with you and within this practice period. And of course it's an experiment. Everything we do in these especially early years is an experiment. We're finding out if this practice from Asia works for us in the West. And if it works for the way we do it here.

[03:24]

So Ango is the three-month or 100-day practice period. And so this is the fourth practice period. We're finding out what it means to do a practice period here in Europe in the West. And tomorrow, 11 people will join us for the Dharma Wheel meeting with me. And what, 10 people from the practice period? will join us when they can, within the practice period.

[04:42]

And this is also my way, our way, to see how we can continue and develop practice here as a Sangha practice and as individual practice. And whether this Dharma wheel joining a practice period works or not, or doesn't work with the practice period for the Dharma wheel or for the practice period. And we'll have some people after the five-day Sashin. Some people join us for monk weeks. For some reason, practice period, the Angu radiates a kind of power or dharmic presence.

[05:59]

And it means people want to come here. They'd like to come here now. We say no to most people. until after the five-day session. And so again, this is all an experiment. To see if the gem of a practice period can continue, can maintain its luster even with the Dharma wheel and other people coming to join us for part of the time. Okay, is gem different from a jewel? It's the same.

[07:00]

And what's luster? And we try to find out if the gem of the practice period can be carried on, can radiate further, can shine further, even if the dhamma wheel people join us and then after the five-day tashin also the short-term participants. And I can say something about this together, to this together practice. But really you have to discover it for yourself or what I say will mean nothing. And together with others, as if others were ourself, needs, you know, something like three months at least to internalize. Now in early Indian Buddhism and presently in Tibetan Buddhism much of the time too, the essential realisational practice

[08:22]

tends to be, or was in those days, and for Tibetan practitioners often, a three-year, three-month, three-day retreat. By yourself or with a few others? But isolated from, really separated from, ordinary so-called samsaric life. Now the Chinese and the Japanese decided that the essential realisational practice must, should be with others. And the three-month Ango was one of the versions of this. Not so separated from the ordinary world.

[09:45]

Now, Musa Soseki, who I've always been fond of, and Otmar and I both like him as a teacher and a garden designer, And Musso Soseki, who has always meant a lot to me, and Ottmar and I both like him as a teacher and as a garden architect or designer. Spent, you know, half his practice life trying to find the right place in the mountains in the right kind of simple hut with the right kind of people, etc. In some kind of wilderness. And although he'd had lightening experiences and recognition by teachers and the lineage, He didn't feel completely satisfied in himself.

[11:22]

And his teacher had said to him, as long as you make a distinction between practice in the wilderness and practice anywhere else, you will not realize fully enlightenment. Und sein Lehrer sagte zu ihm, solange du eine Unterscheidung triffst zwischen der Praxis in der Wildnis und der Praxis überall sonst, der Praxis an allen anderen Orten, solange wirst du nicht wirklich Erleuchtung erlangen. And this final statement from his teacher kept gnawing at him, gnawing like chewing at him. bothering him for all those years of isolated mountain practice. And his final realization was, I'm going to practice on the mountain, in the mountain, which is not a mountain. The mountain which is not a mountain means anywhere you are.

[12:35]

And so that's one reason in China and Japan, all temples, even in the middle of a downtown city, are called mountain, a mountain. Often a specific part of their name. Downtown Tokyo Mountain. What do they say about Berlin? Berlin has no mountains, but if it did, it would be the biggest in Germany. Biggest at all. Biggest at all, everywhere. Berlin has no mountains, but if Berlin had a mountain, it would be the biggest. Berliner sagen, wir haben zwar keine Berge, aber wenn wir welche hätten, dann hätten wir die höchsten.

[13:51]

Yeah. The Berlin people say, we don't have mountains, but if we had any, they would be the highest. Yeah. So it's like that. We're all Berliners. Oh no, that's what Kennedy said. Okay. So this is, you know, I'm a kind of not a very strict teacher. And I am, sorry, that's the way it is. But I just don't feel like I should tell you what to do. You're wonderful, complete in yourself is how I feel moment after moment, so why should I interfere? I interfere as little as I can, as little as my job requires. Which it requires a little bit of interference. But I really don't interfere unless you specifically give me permission to interfere, to say something to you about your practices.

[15:14]

And sometimes you seem to give me permission, but then when I say something, you explain to me why I didn't understand. This is not giving me permission. And this concept of the idea of the mountain, which is not a mountain, means really this practice is about your being strict with yourself. And as I've said, I'm not so strict. But in one way I am pretty strict. Which is I really notice how strict you are with yourself.

[16:37]

And that becomes the condition for how I can practice with you and imagine your practice. So, Otmar gave us, as I understand from talking to Otmar about his recent teisho, he gave us a hint, an opening, a gate into this practice. Er hat uns da einen Hinweis oder eine Öffnung oder ein Tor in diese Praxis gegeben. Mit dieser einfachen Praxis, die wir alle in irgendeinem Ausmaß über die Jahre hinweg mal gemacht haben, für die Einzelheiten innezuhalten, Sometimes I say to pause for the pause or to pause within the pause.

[17:56]

And this can be felt as a kind of mechanical or primitive entry into form and emptiness. So the pause is emptiness. And everything before the pause and after is form. And then you can switch that. And feel the pause is form. And everything else is emptiness.

[18:57]

Because maybe the pause hits you more powerfully with form than the not pausing. Weil die Pause dich vielleicht kraftvoller, noch kraftvoller als Form trifft oder berührt, als wenn sie nicht Form ist. Now everyone knows that the most basic, let's say, essential practice... Und alle wissen, jeder weiß, dass die grundlegendste oder die wesentlichste... ...is... To know that everything that you experience is also mind. Now, first of all, you conceptually know this. It's phenomenologically, you know, the truth that's easy to think out, realize it's true.

[20:15]

But to experience it in fact as your interiority is, you know, an accomplishment. Now, as I've been saying for some months now, you know, I get a little tired of hearing people say, well, I need more guidance. There aren't stages in Zen practice. It's all just sitting. But the whole brilliance of Zen practice, even the genius of Zen practice, is it's a teaching about how to teach yourself Buddhism. How do you take on teaching yourself?

[21:29]

I even say to Sophia, my daughter, who's in high school, she complains about her teachers, they're not so smart, or this and that, or they don't know how to teach, etc., Die beschwert sich immer über ihre Lehrer, die sind ihr nicht klug genug oder nicht so und so und so. And I say, well, the situation does make a difference. Und dann sage ich zu ihr, okay, also die Situation macht schon einen Unterschied. But when you blame the situation, you're nowhere. Your job is to make the situation work for you. I say to her, your job is to educate yourself and use these perhaps not so bright high school teachers to teach you.

[22:38]

Deine Aufgabe ist, von der Situation Gebrauch zu machen und zu lernen, wie du von den vielleicht nicht den hellsten, sogar von nicht den hellsten Lehrern lernen kannst. If she can learn that one thing, it can transform her world and make her an early adult. You don't want to be an adult too early, though. But now she wants to go to an early college and I have to go help her interview with this early college. But the point is to take on your own practice, to take on your own education.

[23:39]

Aber das Wichtige hier ist, sich seine Praxis, dir deine Praxis zu eigen zu machen, dir deine Ausbildung selbst zu eigen zu machen. And let nothing stand in your way. As long as you let anything stand in your way, you don't have the chemistry to make this practice work. Solange du zulässt, dass dir irgendetwas im Weg steht, hast du einfach nicht die Chemie, die man braucht, And as long as you think, I haven't gotten enough, I don't know, I don't write, ridiculous. Just now is perfect. And the next moment, make it perfect. This is also the pause. Auch das ist die Pause.

[24:41]

There's a Japanese poem which goes something like, in this lonely place. Es gibt ein chinesisches Gedicht, in dem heißt es, an diesem einsamen Ort. The sound of water, the sound of water. Der Klang des Wassers, der Klang des Wassers. The gaps, the gaps. Die, die... The spaces. In this mountain storm, my friend. And the gaps, the gaps is his way as a Zen monk, writing poet, is the pause. As you know, the Japanese word for space and pause is ma. And these boards in front of you, we call the ma board. Because on one side is where we do things, and the other side is where we teach ourselves Buddhism.

[26:05]

The word for a fool or a dope in Japanese... the word for a donkey or a dumb head in Chinese. A dumb head, yeah, that's right. A dumb head, I should know that. Go ahead. Is Manuke. The word is Manuke. And Manuke means one who doesn't know the paws. And you need to refine your own experience to know the pause. You can do it with your breath. You have to find some way. You can use the pause at the top of the breath. Or at the bottom of the breath, or one or the other, sometimes one, sometimes the other.

[27:13]

You stop the continuity of breath for the moment at the top or at the bottom. And you pause and stop the continuity of the mind, the consciousness as well as breath. And let the world come in. Now this practice of three months is just to give you a chance to see if you can establish a continuity, a fundamental continuity, unending attention to the fundamental, as Musa Soseki says.

[28:27]

A pause in which you feel the pause also in others. The pause in which you feel comfortable with yourself. Or maybe you never feel comfortable with yourself. Deeply at ease. Then that's your practice. To explore that not feeling at ease. Because compassionate realisational practice comes about when your deep feeling at ease is joined to or knows others' potential deep feeling of ease.

[29:33]

Denn deine mitfühlende... Compassionate what practice? Compassionate realisational practice. Deine mitfühlende Verwirklichungspraxis besteht darin, anderen auch zu helfen, sich zutiefst wohlzufühlen. So it's a dry run, a dry run? Ja. An experiment. You're trying it out for three months. Also ist es so was wie... Eine Trockenübung, danke. Es ist wie eine Trockenübung, du ein Experiment über drei Monate hinweg. Noch bevor du dein Boot ins Wasser setzt. Oder bevor du eintauchst und einfach anfängst zu schwimmen. Und du machst diese Praxis auf eigene Gefahr. You know where, like it says, swim at your own risk, no lifeguard?

[30:36]

And what's at your own risk is your own afflicted and obstructed mind. And you need courage to practice at your own risk. To endanger your comfortable, convenient view of yourself. To know yourself, your observing mind in the pause, And feel the pause and the potential of the pause in each person you meet, which is beyond particular personalities.

[31:47]

That's beyond. you know, whatever. Whatever you said is fine. Personality. Personality. And here, let me just, you know, finish with saying, I'm trying to speak about how you make the presence of mind your constant friend. As I said, you start with knowing that every percept is also exterior percept, is also interior mind. Wie ich gesagt habe, du beginnst damit einfach zu wissen, dass jede äußere Wahrnehmung auch innerlich Geist ist.

[33:04]

But knowing that is not the same as feeling it. Aber das zu wissen ist nicht dasselbe wie das zu spüren. When you find yourself, no matter what you look at, a tree, a leaf, another person, You feel completely filled inside and complete simply by the perception. It's as if you finally gave attention to somebody you love. Who's been waiting for that attention, but you simply were too busy with yourself to notice. der schon lange auf deine Liebe gewartet hat, aber du warst einfach zu beschäftigt, um das zu bemerken.

[34:05]

It's like you notice something, just anything, any whole object, and it suddenly feels like the object has been waiting there for you to notice it. Maybe it's something like a musician feels. They make a note. And they know the note has a beginning. A durative middle. And an end. And they know they have to release it. That's the four marks of a Dharma. Beginning, middle, dissolution and disappearance. Anfang, Mitte, Auflösen und Verschwinden.

[35:14]

And so in the pause you feel these four marks. And in the pause you feel these four marks. Maybe you pause for the four marks or the top of the breath or the bottom of the breath. Vielleicht hältst du inne für diese vier Kennzeichen an der Spitze des Atems oder nach dem Ausatmen. And you can breathe, you can use the breath to breathe the pace of the world as pauses. And to do this, you're taking your attentional stream out of self-relevant referential thinking, bringing it to the actual experience of mind on each, as each occasion. So every note has a roundness, a space, a music. Every perception.

[36:32]

Everything you look at feels like a space arising within yourself. If you do calligraphy, if you happen to be born in East Asia and sinified East Asia, Chinese influenced East Asia. There's 10,000, 20,000, even 30,000 kanji in the space around you. And you know them through the gesture of the hand. It's almost like your hand pulls them out of space.

[37:39]

And that experience makes everything feel like it's pulled out of space into your interior. That's something like the feeling that each precip as a space drawn into your interior. It has a roundness, a deep satisfaction. And you bring that sense to the details of your life here every day. And your equanimous perception of each person moment after moment.

[38:41]

You discover that in yourself and you bring that especially to people you don't know so well. Until we're functioning in our own individuality and in our simultaneous percept body. This is the Zen practice which teaches you Wisdom and compassion. And the compassionate realisational practice which is the point of this practice period.

[39:50]

Thank you for letting me join in to the practice period.

[40:04]

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