And it turned out that it was okay and there was no problem with the American troops occupying his towns. And then at some time he... Once we were driving the car and he suddenly told me, he'd never told anyone before, that his wife had been murdered by a crazy monk. Anyway, he brought this monk who was disturbed into his temple and befriended him. And once when he was away, he stabbed his wife to death with a kitchen knife. And then Suzuki Roshi had a... What he did is he tried to help them up.

[01:03]

And what Suzuki Roshi then did, he tried to help the monk. And he had to resist a lot of local pressure to do something and the pressure of the congregation to do something to this man. And he had to do a lot to resist the resistance of the village and the administration to do something for the man. And Sukhirashi eventually had arranged for this man to be committed to a mental hospital. So these are a few examples of the picture of Sukhirashi's life that I had in my own practice. Both how to protest what you don't like and also sometimes to go along with what you don't like.

[02:25]

And how to forgive somebody even who's done something so horrible as murder your wife. But I noticed in my own experience, in my own life, that it wasn't so easy for me to forgive people who betrayed me or attacked me in some way. And I tried to understand why I couldn't. At the same time, I just accepted that I couldn't. I said, well, this is what it's like to be a human being, I guess. I'm not sure I like it, but this is what it's like. But it made... This was a pretty big and difficult situation I'm referring to.

[03:48]

And I... Suddenly I understood why people go to war sometimes. I understood why Queen Elizabeth had Mary Queen of Scots put in the tower. I could have put quite a few people in the tower. And I thought, how can I feel these things? But I did, so that's the way it was. And I didn't try to change it exactly, but I would wonder, with Suzuki Roshi's example, why can't I do something about this? And I could see that it interfered with my own practice. There's a certain kind of, and I don't know what word to use, juice that is generated by the kind of relationship you have with others.

[05:07]

And bodhicitta, which is the word meaning the thought of enlightenment, Actually, in practice means a kind of liquid or juice or feeling that is generated by this openness to others. And you could say that bodhicitta is also just a presence of openness of being with others in your presence. And although with the individuals that I was deeply disillusioned about, I could be helpful to them and friendly to them and so forth.

[06:16]

But I really felt that But I really felt somehow that justice hadn't been done. And it took me quite a few years, seven years, to recognize how important justice was to me. I could see finally that actually justice was a more definitive attitude for me than compassion. And, you know, I've grown up in a society where it's pretty hard, I got the impression it was pretty hard to get through the pearly gates.

[07:31]

To get what? To get into heaven. And you were probably going to at best be in purgatory. and you might be in a worse place but this is the emphasis of a culture based on justice and in a culture based on compassion everybody would get into heaven and I actually didn't see that difference for years So I was willing to be compassionate but somehow I wanted justice to be served before I would really be compassionate. And And from the Buddhist point of view, these folks who, if you let everybody into heaven, if you are, say, a bad guy, you'll just suffer in heaven.

[08:56]

You won't be happy in heaven. Because your karma will go with you. And that's your problem. But society isn't punishing you. The cosmos isn't punishing you. The cosmos doesn't say, hey, this is a bad guy, you're in hell. From a Buddhist point of view, you are punishing yourself or it's your circumstances or whatever. Yeah. But in any case, whether I was willing to let everyone in heaven or not, I couldn't see that. It's like the fact that I gave justice priority over compassion was not visible to me. It was... I don't know if I can convey to you the difficulty for me to see that.

[10:12]

It's like you brought up the other day a metaphysical idea or something invisible. Justice isn't exactly, maybe it is a metaphysical idea. But justice was extremely real but I couldn't see it. And it prevented me from actually moving toward forgiveness of these people. So as I said, it took me about seven years, six or seven, six and a half years to see this presence of justice interfering with my relationship with these people. And once I saw it, which I finally did see it, first it occurred is, could I be stuck on justice, sort of like that?

[11:25]

So then I noticed every time I thought about these people the last thought was one of justice. And then I recognized that it formed the whole background of my thinking. So then about a year or so after that I suddenly found myself on the other side of it. I couldn't say exactly how, but I did. And actually one of the links was the Christian idea of forgiveness. And I think the Christian idea of forgiveness is very similar to the Buddhist idea of compassion. But forgiveness not so tied into the framework of justice. So I suddenly found that I was able to start forgiving these people. Whether there was justice or not.

[12:56]

And that was a big change for me. And I bring it up and I tell this story. Only to emphasize, to point out how difficult it is to practice some of these things. Because they're very hard to see. It's hard to see your priorities. And it's hard to see when you think about other people, when you're thinking in terms of justice, when you're thinking in terms of acceptance, and so forth. But if you're going to take the charge out of your relationship with yourself and with your relationships with others then this practice of compassion And of equanimity, as I tried to describe it last night, is the way Buddhism has developed to take the charge to open your relationship with others.

[14:19]

It doesn't again mean that you don't have all kinds of different relationships with people. But your initial position with each person Genuinely initial. And the kind of basis of all your positions is really one of accepting each person you meet as if they could be you or are you. That seems so impossible. What if you meet a Nazi criminal? Or what if the mob that murdered Suzuki's wife was not insane but did it on purpose?

[15:32]

That was my problem. It seems like you need a lifetime practice to do that. It took me nine years. Can you say that again? I don't know what to say. I mean, then you probably believe basically that the human being is good, because uncorrected mind, I mean, it seems to me you have to have an extremely corrected mind to be able to forgive somebody. I mean, you know, at least... Yeah, I think we're back at Michelin's question. Yeah, it adds to what Michelin said.

[16:32]

Yeah. to believe that an uncorrected mind can act like this, because it seems that it must be an extremely corrected mind that can forgive someone who does so much evil. Yeah, I feel the same way. It's somewhat, for me, almost arbitrary in the sense, like, what's wrong with not accepting this guy who killed Suzuki Roshi's wife? I mean, I can still do something for him or try and help him, but why do I have to accept him and feel he's me and I'm him? You don't have to. I mean, what's the purpose? And I feel really we are back at Micheline's question. Are we back at your question, Micheline? Yeah. It feels like somewhat a little better. You're a better person when you're able to do that. How is it with small children?

[17:33]

They have some sense of justice. And how does this arise in small children? I don't think it is unnatural. Or how does such a child get infected by justice? I think there is some kind of feeling of just this, that is natural. Yeah, it's just... Okay, you want to say that in German? Yes, what I want to say is, I mean, this is with little children, they also have a feeling of justice, and you can't imagine that children are only infected with justice. I do believe that there is a natural origin. For injustice. Yes, that's what I meant. Justice, that's what I meant. For injustice, so I take your thing and that's very just for me. Yes, that's what I meant, so justice, injustice, that's what I meant. Yes, go ahead. The problem is that someone has to do the second best thing.

[18:38]

If someone does something to me and I condemn him, then I have to forgive him. If I can make a limit here that I do not condemn him at all, then I do not need to forgive him either. So here it is to cut it off. Well, I think forgiving somebody is only the second best choice. Because if somebody does something to do and I judge this person what this person does, then I have to forgive. But if I don't start judging, then I don't have to forgive. Yeah, that makes sense. But If someone takes away your household, your livelihood, your children, then there's a kind of, one, there's a desire to retaliate.

[19:50]

And if you don't have that feeling of retaliation, you still would like justice to be done in some way. I didn't say that I was eliminating the idea of justice. I said the priorities changed. So for me now justice is here and compassion is here and it was this way before. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[21:05]

Do you want to say that in German? Yeah. this is a disguised form of getting justice I mean I'm not sure what you said in German but Go ahead. Yeah, I thought of all these things. And really, if you look at, if you think of karma in terms of many lifetimes, you can say, well, if they're not getting it in this lifetime, they will in the next.

[22:13]

And for karma to be a perfect system you have to have the idea of many lifetimes. Now if you just think about this lifetime some people seem to benefit from benefit a lot from actions which you think their karma would punish them. But then you can say, well, inside they're really suffering. But then your motive is a kind of justice. But basically I agree with you, Christian, that when a society emphasizes karma, it creates a quite a different society than a society that emphasizes cosmic justice, where the cosmos itself is against you if you're a bad person.

[23:30]

From a Buddhist point of view, the cosmos couldn't care a hoot at all about what you've done or haven't done. Anyway, that does produce a different society. Yeah. Isn't that a projection of your own need for justice? What? That's what I just said. No, it's okay. Yeah, so I think it's a misuse of karma when it's used that way. And I also think one has to be careful to not think of karma as some kind of total system where there are no accidents and so forth.

[24:45]

Because that way you turn karma into a kind of theocratic idea. Now, I don't know, maybe we've talked about these things enough for a while. But again, my own feeling is one has to do this sometimes. So would you mind if we sat for a little while and then had lunch? My question is, why not start at the individual, like with the question, what is human dignity?

[25:57]

For me, dignity starts there, where I'm conscious of what I'm doing and where I feel I have a choice about what I do. Yeah, okay, I agree. I learned that justice is not something else, it is something that is conditioned. I want to add something about this justice, a feeling of justice children have. I think it's actually conditioned. In science experiments you can prove that it's something conditioned, it's not innate. Okay.

[26:58]

in practice or practice feeling repetitive or mechanical bothers some people. And Ulrike brought it up when we were walking to lunch about the argument we had in the car once. Maybe you can just tell people. This is family dharma. Whatever. Androshi is asking me, I can tell it myself. We went to a seminar and I was very emotional about something. I was sad and I cried. Richard was busy with me, but he was driving. There were always dead animals. And he has this habit of always hiding when there's a stray cat or whatever on the street.

[28:27]

And I was in this state, so out of me, and he was always very friendly. Ich bin ja fast aus dem Auto gesprungen, also das war, oder, ja, also dieser Kontrast, ich, also so in meinen Emotionen gefangen, und er so einerseits so, ja, also tropfte das so an ihm ab. He made it so clear to me that he is totally untouched by it and also remains so in this practice world. So that he sticks to this practice of hiding from dead animals. And there was always something for circumstances. It's a lot longer than you told me. Finally somebody listens to me.

[29:49]

So you get to tell your own version. I have no idea what you said. Well, maybe somebody likes the answer. I don't know what you said, but anyway, it was one of the most fierce arguments we ever had. And I was completely involved with the argument. I wasn't holding anything back. But I also had to pay attention to the driving. So we're arguing, but I'm paying attention to the driving. And I saw a dead animal, so I bowed. And for me, there wasn't much difference between paying attention to the driving while we're arguing or bowing while we're arguing.

[30:59]

So I wasn't sure whether she was bothered by the bowing or bothered by that I had a state of mind that was separate from the fighting. it adds an interesting twist to battles to practice in the middle of it you know so hmm Yeah, these have caused such a lot of trouble, these four immeasurables.

[32:12]

And that brings me, can I bring back Micheline's question again? In a sense, Micheline brought up that, I mean, this being equanimous or joyful or compassionate, whatever we understand about it, and I think each one of us will at some point have an individual understanding. It somehow interferes, especially for women, sometimes feels like we have to be nice again and we want to not be nice anymore. We want to feel our own power Is that true? And, I mean, basically the way we've been, I mean, culturalized in this culture, we were trained to be that way. And it's up here. So, I mean, you don't actually have to disagree, but we want you to acknowledge that. Okay, okay. I was never trained to be nice.

[33:13]

You were... There is a difference. There's a difference the way women act. She's a nice girl to be with, whatever happens then. Making harmony and making... Be compassionate with your mom. Be compassionate with your dad. Where are we actually? I would like to connect to Micheline's question from tomorrow. Where she says, I come into my current or my continuum just as well through... passions, yes, so lust, anger, anger and I don't feel like being that kind of girl anymore. So I've been that way for too long and I'm actually somewhere else now. And somehow it reminds me of that and I really want to come into my own strength as a woman. And then Erich said that this also applies to him as a man.

[34:18]

I like it when we have some argument. It feels interesting. Did you say anything I need to know? No, I just translated what you said before. Yeah, go ahead. And then I was asked about the access to teaching, the idea of teaching, the experience of access, and I tried to make it accessible. It's a bit like that, we go to the expanse of a chair, or a milk chair, and this is the way it is.

[35:27]

For me, in relation to liquid and emptiness, it was a very powerful approach to just clarify the transversal penetration, so that in the chair sometimes the wooden table is also there. Do I get to know what's happening here? Do I have to become Robin Williams? Yeah, yeah.

[36:35]

The stool in Germany also means shit. Yeah. So it just talked to me. Did you translate a chair as a chair? No. A stool? The non-reality of the stool. I thought of that, I was wondering. I think it's important to have an idea of learning, at least on a theoretical level, to learn. It's important to be able to go through the six senses and to make it clear to everyone. When we talked yesterday or today about Stuhl or not, it was just a question of whether or not Stuhl was the right one. That was very theoretical, I didn't know what I was doing. The theoretical level also makes sense. When you start to trust these ideas, then I notice that this idea, the theoretical level, that it is more accessible for me, and also as an experience, and that this is also a level where I very rarely see, for example,

[37:42]

a sick man, a woman who has been murdered, where I am more willing to take a step back and try to understand what has happened in the life of this man, what is involved, that a person is doing something like that. I can then very quickly operate in a kind of balance. That means that I don't have feelings, that's what I need. But I think that's just the way it used to be. For example, there is a saying that if a tree grows so badly, then it doesn't grow so bad. We don't make accusations that it grows so badly. how the sick man behaves, especially when he has a bad hangover, then we ask him for suggestions and we ask him what these people simply lacked for his development, so that something can come out of it.

[38:57]

And that's why I can very quickly get a lot out of this 26-year-old man, not just on an environmental level. Ulrike is never going to be able to translate. Maybe you can give a brief summary in English, Heike. I ask myself why we are so struggling with these ideas. I see that there are always problems with all the morality stuff, but it's not the only thing. I think it's not, for me, I think it's not, it's not really so difficult, these ideas, or to experience, or to make efforts in experiencing these things, and so I ask myself why we are struggling, and, you know,

[40:06]

I look back to our way to deal with emptiness and there was always discussion about the existence of a chair or not a chair and it was theoretical and it is necessary to do it on this level too. I felt for me in my life, in relation to compassion, it's more powerful to to understand this picture, idea, or the experience of the suspects in that interdependence.

[41:10]

Yes, and I think this could be a more simple or thoughtful way to understand compassion. And when I think of this ill monk which killed The moment of Suzuki is very simple for us. What was in his life that he, it's something and so I have a It's not so difficult to deal with this point. In this context, even if it is theoretical, in this context of entertainment, I remember a scientist of my time. He wrote something like, when a dog went... I'm sorry.

[42:13]

When a tree is not grown so fully, we don't make sastra. We don't approach him, but we are asking what was missing in his life. And when we look at such a mind, we are always... Yes, we don't ask in this way, but in the context of Ludic Languages, it's more just simple or obvious need to ask who's visiting. And for me, in my life, it's very helpful. Yeah, Thich Nhat Hanh has a new book out called the Diamond Cutter Sutra, I think. And I think along with Konze's book, which is a bit dated at present, They're the two best studies of the Diamond Sutra.

[43:25]

There's several others, but they're more academic. And commentarial. Because Dr. Kunze and Thich Nhat Hanh are both quite academic, actually. And I recommended everybody at Crestone study Thich Nhat Hanh's new book and the Diamond Sutra of Konse again. And I'd recommend it to you too if you're interested. Yeah, I heard that, yeah. So you ought to go see him if you can. But he talks a lot about, and I think his phrase is good, that the chair is made up of non-chair elements is the phrase he uses all the time.

[44:34]

And he's emphasizing, but he's emphasizing throughout this that interdependence really means emptiness. Yeah, I understand. But interdependence is one way to understand emptiness. But the direct cognition of emptiness has very little to do with interdependence. And the formula that wisdom and compassion or emptiness and compassion are aspects of each other, you can't understand it just through the study of interdependence.

[45:39]

But my aim also in a seminar like this is to bring these issues up as much as I can so that they actually are something we start thinking about. Mein Ziel jedoch ist, diese ganzen Themen in einem Seminar so oft wie möglich einfach vorzubringen, dass wir anfangen können, darüber nachzudenken. Und in dem Prozess versuche ich dann zu verstehen, was eben die Schwierigkeiten sind, die wir haben und die ich habe. And I would like us to talk with each other again, but let me say something for a few minutes first. I think I understand this feeling of being in your own power, even though I'm not a woman, pretty well. I was so tired of everybody having expectations of me because I, you know, I was 24, 25 years old and I was just sort of floating in the world working in warehouses and reading a lot and so forth.

[47:05]

Collecting unemployment, living in the slums. And people used to always have all kinds of ideas about what I should be doing. Even being nice to me, I found, was irritating. So I developed this phrase, which I've mentioned once or twice, I've told this story, of don't bug me, man. Is that translated into German? Sort of. So what everybody said to me, they'd say, good morning. I'd say, don't bug me, man.

[48:21]

How are you? Don't bug me, man. Shall we go to the movies? Don't bug me, man. I just said it in a mantra. The first thing I said to everyone, and no matter who it was. Don't bug me, man. And finally, you know, it became almost a joke among people I knew. They'd see me and they'd say, oh, hi, how's Don't Bug Me Man Baker? Don't Bug Me Man, I'd say. Anyway, it created a kind of space for me to just, you know, be free of all this stuff. Okay, so now how does that fit in with this mechanical practice? Is it mechanical and do I feel it's mechanical? Okay, and when Thich Nhat Hanh, Michelin was telling me this morning, says things like, stop at the traffic light, stop and notice your breathing.

[49:47]

And I say things like, use the stairway to practice your breath, when you look out the window, etc. Is this mechanical or not mechanical? And in some ways I think it is mechanical. I've made a decision to practice a certain way and I simply do it. And at first I did it out of a faith in practice. Okay, and going from a person who only wanted to be natural and refused to wear robes and I refused to wear a tie in college and all that stuff And when Suzuki Roshi would do a ceremony in which he didn't equally represent lay and priests, I would walk out of the room sometimes or out of the ceremony.

[51:04]

He was awfully tolerant of me. One time I got really mad at him about something he'd done in relation to Japanese people and Westerners. So I was feeling kind of... So for a couple of weeks we hadn't had much contact. Then the phone rang. And I picked it up. I said, hello. And he said... I just wanted to hear your voice. So... So this... So then, how did I get myself into this stuff of wearing robes, for one thing, and practicing with these things?

[52:14]

Well, and how can I really make clear to you the importance of this vow, this bodhicitta vow, this vow to realize enlightenment with each person you meet? And this has to be explored, if you're practicing, in every possible way you can think of exploring it. And, you know, you have zazen, you have all these practices, etc., and all of them are balanced by this one thing, this vow to realize enlightenment with each person you meet. I'm not asking you to agree with this. But I'm saying this is what Buddhism is. So if you want to practice Buddhism, you have to find some way to deal with it.

[53:15]

Now, so let me try to tell you, at least from one point of view, what's going on here. Now, Eric Griesler asked me last night, wasn't it last night, about the relationship between the paramitas and the four immeasurables? And I said that the paramitas were a practice of enlightenment or emptiness, didn't I? And this is an enactment of emptiness. Now, what's the difference?

[54:46]

Well, most of Tibetan Buddhism or Shinkanshu or Tantric Buddhism is based on an idea of an enactment. No, Shingon is the true word, which is the tantric school of Japan. Inactment. They only teach the enactment? They primarily teach, or what's fundamental to the way of teaching in tantrism is the idea of enactment. In other words, if you want to be a Buddha, act like a Buddha. Okay, so... What I just... What I... found myself involved in in practice, is noticing through Zazen, Sashin practice and so forth, I began to have, as I said earlier, a more and more continuous state of mind.

[56:14]

First is a background state of mind, in which I worked on koans or repeated a mantra and then the development of awareness and then the presence of this background mind and awareness in your foreground mind too, mixed in, evenly mixed in. And I studied the presence of this continuum mind, shall we call it, all the time. What's the difference in your state of mind before you go to sleep, when you wake up, before lovemaking, after lovemaking, and so forth.

[57:16]

Is there any mind that's present through everything that you can identify? Now let me come back to this. This joy, I said, is non-referential and empathetic. I talked about equanimity as being not being equanimous, but rather having a state of mind that's not in the categories of good and bad. So it's not realized through being good, trying to be good. It's realized like in the koan again, resting for a moment before a thought arises. Or having a state of mind, again, that's neither in the categories of like or dislike.

[58:38]

And as I said last night, you practice this and you practice this and you're still on the floor of the mind which likes and dislikes. And you're not liking and disliking, but you're still on the floor of liking and disliking. And if you keep up the effort, not forcing, just a presence of this other possibility of having a neutral state of mind. But not a dead state of mind. But a state of mind with a lot of energy in it and you're not leaking. And suddenly, sometimes the floor goes out underneath that and you feel a whole different kind of space.

[59:45]

And it comes from this simple practice of pulling yourself, resting before a thought arises or trying to find a mind outside of good and bad. You brought up a very good point this morning. Does Buddhism assume human nature is basically good? And this was quite a dispute among the European philosophers of Mill and Locke and Hobbes and things, were people inherently good or bad. And although Buddhism starts out with the Four Noble Truths being the truth of suffering, Really the basic position of Buddhism is that the fact of existence is joy.

[60:48]

When you don't have a comparative state of mind, When you begin to have this non-conceptual continuum, which I'm finding as many ways as possible to bring to your attention, when you begin to have this non-conceptual continuum, A strange joy starts arising in you. Its first form is usually unexplained gratitude. You start feeling grateful for the walls, for the sky.

[61:58]

Your friends get so bored. You're grateful your lips are soft. You're grateful your cheeks are hanging there, you know. And then you start feeling this kind of physical bliss on your breath. And then your fingers and you feel alive throughout your body. And this happens more and more when you're outside or you're not identifying with conceptual mind. So this is technically called non-referential joy because it's a joy that arises for new reason. It's not in reference to anything. So this empathetic, non-referential joy means that with compassion you experience whatever they're in and you engage yourself with whatever they're in.

[63:12]

At this level you also empathetically share their joy. But in a deeper sense you feel their non-referential joy which they themselves may not feel. Okay, now why did I say this fits in Buddhism at the level of enactment? Because as you begin to feel this continuum or this stream mind or field mind, You feel more and more, and there's no words for it, but you feel that whatever you see is also you.

[64:28]

You see a... As Sukriya used to say, your ego covers everything. It's another way of saying being free of ego of course. So when an animal is killed on the road I feel that was me that was killed. Not quite the same way but in somewhat the same way Beate I think felt when that woman jumped out the window you were killed. And you're carrying something for her now. So you begin to notice that the more you rest in this continuum, and taste it through zazen and mindfulness practices and so forth, you have this sense of connectedness with people coming up, which falls into these categories.

[65:51]

which falls into these categories. And so, for example, when he says, when it says in the koan, in the eyes it is called seeing, in the ears it is called hearing, in the eyebrows, what is it called? And the koan says there was a silence. And then he says, in sorrow we grieve together. In happiness we rejoice together. So what he means is, this other stream is the stream of being which we share with everyone. So you could say in the eyes it's called seeing in the ears it's called hearing and in the eyebrows it's called compassion meaning again that somehow you don't feel a difference between yourself and others at least at some levels

[67:07]

You don't feel a difference between yourself and others based at some levels. So when I had this crisis in my life, when I felt so disturbed and disillusioned by a number of people, And I felt definitely that one or two of them were really doing damage to other people. And even at the point where I came when I could forgive them and feel very comfortable actually or like they were me. I still felt they should be stopped. Anyway, so... But the difference in feeling, I can't quite explain, but I can say that before I felt it, I definitely felt my practice was stopped in some way.

[68:42]

This continuum was stopped. Not in every direction, but in some directions and also in some fundamental way. Okay, now the idea of enactment. This sense of continuum arises primarily through the practice of uncorrected mind, unfabricated mind. But you see what some of the fruits of it are. Like this non-referential joy or an immediate feeling of connectedness with other people. As if you shared the same stream of being. So you begin to see that you can enact this feeling even when you don't feel it. And this idea is a little funny to us perhaps. And it takes forms like, I think it was Gregory Bateson asked a Japanese woman, Why do you honor your father so much?

[70:14]

The words you use, why do you... Respect your father. What has he done? What kind of person is he? And she said, I don't respect my father for what he's done. I respect my father in order to practice respect. Her father, she also respected at other levels, but one level was, you need the opportunity to practice respect. And this is a kind of Buddhist idea that's gotten into Japanese culture. Although compassion will arise naturally from a natural state of mind, and in Zen mind beginner's mind, if you have copies of it,

[71:20]

Sukhiroshi's section on naturalness is describing this natural state of mind, which is naturally a compassionate state of mind. You also develop this by enacting it, by reminding yourself of it, by little acts of friendliness, by this woman giving the Polish woman a flower, say, or something like that. So, I don't really know how to translate enactment. Is it like pretending? Pretending. So when I bow also to these animals on the highway, And bowing also remembering the ways in which I'm already dead.

[72:38]

And will be dead. And it's mechanical, but I find it very helpful. And anyway, that's enough. So let's take a break and then after the break let's have some discussion again with each other. If it's okay with you. Thank you. Ending. Does anybody want to bring anything up or discuss anything? Does anyone want to say a few words before we come to an end? It's just about justice and the people.

[73:47]

It's just so open-minded. It's too late. What is it about? Justice. Justice and some statements about justice. It's important. I noticed at the weekend that It was a bit exhausting. I lack practical experience and I would like to take part in the session to be able to cover it with more experience. It's always a mixture of thought and practice for me. I mean, the weekend was quite tiring for me because I'm just lacking the practical experience.

[74:50]

So it was a mixture of just thoughts about things and the lack of practice. So I just wish I could participate in the Sashin to cover more practical crimes. Are you applying for Sashin right now? Yeah, I'm going from the 3rd to 9th of this month to 100. Oh, there's a Sashin? Yeah. Oh, okay. It's your first ashi? All fourth. Anyone else? Did you understand what I put on here? F-E-E-F. Yeah. No? Yes? This is going from form to emptiness. This is going from emptiness to form. And the idea here is that it's part of the teaching of the five ranks, so-called five ranks.

[75:59]

You should begin to notice when you're starting from a position of emptiness or of having moving and moving into form. Or like in the equanimity where you're moving from a condition of likes or dislikes to no content. So this is considered a practice of enlightenment. This could be considered going from form to emptiness. But when you're resting in a place of no leaking, of feeling at ease, just in a presence which isn't conceptual, And then you engage yourself with someone.

[77:19]

That's considered going from emptiness to form. And in compassion. And that's sometimes called in the koans, entering the weeds. Or leaking or something like that. Or in the ten ox herding pictures it's entering the city. It's the bodhisattva practice of entering the world in the ordinary way it is. And not trying to protect yourself. Perhaps like going to the Oktoberfest. Or going to a Bavarian beer hall or something. Yeah, maybe we could do a kind of seminar at the Bodhisattva in the Bavarian Beer Hall.

[78:33]

Dogen Zenji's disciple was named Ejo. Ejo, E-J-O. And he was older than Dogen. And he tried many things and various kinds of practices and heard of Dogen and went to study with him. And when Dogen was questioning him, When he first met him. During the questioning of Ejo, he said to Ejo, one hair pierces many holes. One hair pierces myriad holes. And he practiced for many years with Dogen.

[79:53]

And after about four years, I forget how many years, he was opening his orioke eating bowls and he experienced enlightenment. And so he went immediately to Dogen's room and with full ceremony presented himself. And Dogen looked at him and said, what did you understand? And Eja said, I don't ask about a single hair. But what about myriad holes? And Dogen said, pierced. And so Ejo lived with them for about 20 years. And Dogen said, even though you are older than me, you will continue my teaching for many years.

[81:15]

And Ejo was a very physically strong person and did continue Dogen's teaching after Dogen died. Now, I started out this seminar talking about stream mind and field mind and a sense of a continuum. And here Dogen talks about a single hair. This is the same thing. It's another way of looking at it or another way of realizing your practice of this continuum as a single hair. But an image like this is not meant to be understood like the hair means one thing and the myriad holes mean something else.

[82:20]

It's a very powerful image that goes beyond any symbols or explanation. The image and image itself working in you is its power. So I just present it to you if it happens to catch any of your fancy. So shall we sit a couple of minutes and then end the seminar? Go each other.

[84:20]

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