Gerald, didn't you do your first Sashin in Johanneshof? Yes, sir. Before we practiced together? No. One Sashin? Two Sashins? One. One. And did you do it in the room that's the present Zendo? It was in 485. Yeah. And... when we first came here together, that was where the altar is, was a storage space for chairs. Yeah. Well, I'm, you know, we're trying to create a Zendo, right? So I'm thinking about it with you. Yeah. Sorry. You want me to start? I know, yeah, Geralt speaks English well, so I just forgot and started talking to him. Go ahead. The whole thing? Yes, why not? Yeah, okay. So Roshi asked Gerard if he hadn't sat his first sashin here in Johanneshof before the two of them practiced together.

[01:05]

And Gerard said, yes, that was the case. And the sashin was also sat in our old Johanneshof Sendo. And this alcove where the altar is now, that was a storage room for chairs at the time. So it was the only room that really worked for Zendo when we first came here. So I would say that our practice there over the years was a kind of searching for a Zendo in that space. Now, this is my peculiar way of thinking about things, but I'll share it with you. So it's not such a good room for a Zendo, basically.

[02:06]

Das ist im Grunde genommen nicht so ein guter Raum für einen Sender. Because we have here more relationships between the people sitting as they're sitting. Weil es besser ist, so wie das hier ist, dass wir mehr Beziehungen zwischen den Einzelnen haben, während sie sitzen. So we've lined up the tatamis so that people are in a line and we're in a line, etc. But over time, I think we did turn that room into quite a good place to practice. And I would describe it really as two platforms floating in space. The floor is a platform. And the ceiling is actually a platform we kind of glued onto the roof above it. And then we turned the store room for the chairs into a place where the energy of the Buddha is stored.

[03:52]

So somehow my own experience of how we developed that space is that now those two platforms I described as floating in space are held together by the altar. And that when we sit in there we're sort of anchor, we anchor the two, each of us sitting anchors the two floating platforms. So when I would give a lecture in that space, where we were able to sit was sort of almost part of the altar. And I could bring that try to bring that anchoring space of the altar into the room.

[05:15]

And now in this space I'm trying to look for that kind of unifying point. Because we want this space to work as a way that the space itself is concentrated and concentrates in each of us. Of course, if I can find a way to speak about the Dharma and sit here with you, we can find that among ourselves. But in any case, I'm still exploring this space because even if it doesn't remain the Zendo and it becomes a Dharma hall or Buddha hall, we have to find a way to bring this space together.

[06:27]

To do what with this space? To bring the space together. But so far it seems that you feel okay sitting in the center. Okay. Now, what I spoke about yesterday or the day before, I'd like to continue with as much as I can. Which is... To recognize that the present is a biological present.

[08:04]

By the way, I was just thinking that we could paint big murals of the Buddha and things like that on the wall. Murals? Murals. And I'm sure that, you know, in spaces in Asia, when they did that, it wasn't like, let's decorate the walls. It's like, let's turn this into a space that has a Samadhi thing in it. I'd like to do it actually. It sounds great, but I don't have the talent. The intention, but not the talent. It wouldn't be great. Well, Okay.

[09:09]

The basket of the presence. Which presence do you mean? The present. The present and a basket full of presents. Like gifts. No, not like gifts. Like the temporal present, the durative present. Also ein Korb voller Gegenwart. Gegenwerte. Gegenwerte. Well, there is no plural to present. We have one now. Because if the present is a biological fact and not a fact of physics and science, at least our present is a biological present. A mental present, a bodily present, a sensorial present. Eine geistige Gegenwart, eine körperliche Gegenwart und eine sinnliche Gegenwart.

[10:16]

So I'm calling this the durative present, or we can call it the biological present. Ich nenne das jetzt die Gegenwart, die Dauer hat, oder wir können das die biologische Gegenwart nennen. What I'd like us to get is really familiar with that, so it simply makes sense to us. Okay, if the present is something that has duration in your body, mind and sensorium. In other words, the knife of the present only has dimensions in your biology in your biology So, of course, Christmas has a different purpose.

[11:21]

Of course, every single one of us has our own Christmas. So, there's a bastard where it's Christmas. There's a bastard where it's Christmas. It's not Christmas. No, of course, there's no Christmas. Web of presents here. Web. Yeah. Choose. Choose. present [...] presents each other or presents the activity present [...]

[12:46]

Actualizing a mutual presence. Maybe that a single mutual present exists. We're going to examine the share. If you think there's a If you think that we have to join, then you have a process that organizes inevitable mutual presence. It's not possible. It's not possible. Uh, not Desjardins.

[14:04]

It's a loose teacher's tradition. Yeah. Adams. Tending toward an American son. He was a brilliant, well, probably used to know his work, but when he was a paleontologist, he tried to put people in the new sphere with a sphere. For us, there's no kind of individual The two nationalities that have been shared, unification and unification, abacation and the separate abacation, is like an individual.

[15:18]

Of course, there are talks about vaccination. That vaccination is a very united, Now I bring this up only in your own internal debate. makes sense really in my sense also begin with the outside disorder of disordering. For Buddhists, there's no outside healing as a kind of implicit order-placening. I can't ride in the wave of the omega.

[16:25]

So if we are in the middle of a biological present, there's the We are Activating it. We are. Or. Activate. Then. It's. Wrong. Then. We're establishing. An activity. Of. The. Neck. And the door. to the basic most basic to the seeing the basic in head okay and again okay everything changes is everything is interdependent okay

[17:39]

question for buddhist practice is how many into this inter The Buddha was awake. That's what the word means. That's what the word means. Erwacht der Bruder. Erwacht die Bruder. Und bleibt dieser wechselseitigen Abhängigkeit. Dies ist der Tantrik. Dies ist der Tantrik. Tantrik. Interpenetration. [...] Okay, so that's crystal clear.

[18:57]

All right. So here we start, each of us. And we're affected by these circumstances. And how are we affected by these circumstances? And we can develop and change how we're affected by these circumstances. And maybe the biggest door and the door with the key is to develop the inhabitation of knowing the world as appearances.

[20:05]

No, I could say, more simply in English, developing the habit of seeing the world as appearances. It's not just a repetitious habit. It's a habit you have to inhabit until you really do see the world as momentary appearances. You feel it that way. And if you can in this practice period one of the streams of practice is making yourself more and more acutely sensitive to and aware of the world as appearances.

[21:14]

Again, acutely aware of and sensitive to the world as appearances. That is the most dramatic, effective change in your relationship to circumstances. You're no longer in the midst of things standing around you in a circle, circumstances. you're dancing within the circumstances. It's maybe a little bit like a kid going into a playground. And there's some kids already on the merry-go-round. Where are they?

[22:53]

On the merry-go-round. Is that right? And you want to get on the merry-go-round. And some kids slow it down a little so you can get on it. Some kids speed it up and make playfully or aggressively. It's always a little hard to get on the merry-go-round because you suddenly... So we're trying to get on the merry-go-round of the shared biological presence. And that's a lot of what our chanting is about. Many people have told me, I don't think I've ever sung well enough to sing in a choir.

[24:19]

When I first started chanting with a group with Sukhreshi, And there's one person I still remember. He used to tell me, shut up. Throw us all off. I remember who you are. Actually, you've talked about it. It's all right. But when we're chanting or when you're, the joy of singing in a choir, again, which many people have spoken to me about, is, or playing in an orchestra, is, I think, a very great and addictive even joy. So when we're chanting together, in a way we're establishing, literally tuning in to our mutual biological presence.

[25:30]

Finding paths into the durative present. But because our presence, I'm sorry for the plural, but our presence already are to some extent mutual, inevitably, But it is possible that they are more mutually present. One of the roles a teacher is supposed to play is can you with somebody who agrees to be a teacher.

[26:54]

This is not really about the psychological role of a teacher or something like that. Some of us want that role in relationship to others. This is more like a responsibility. What I'm talking about is the teacher more as a responsibility Worüber ich hier spreche, ist mehr die Rolle des Lehrers hinsichtlich seiner Verantwortung, mit anderen präsent zu sein. In a way they can discover the potentialities of knowing another person. Auf eine Art und Weise, dass sie das Potenzial, das darin steckt, So a good teacher's job is to make it easy and make it difficult.

[28:21]

Or approach that. But that's also, in a way, the role we're all cast in. In that we can make ourselves more present for others or less. Well, I mean, you can certainly understand, it's very clear that the four Brahma-Viharas, the divine abodes, And the six paramitas, the practices of the Bodhisattva, And that the six parameters, the practice of bodhisattva, are all ways to make yourself more open to others and for others.

[29:34]

Again, how do we do things together? We could say Buddhism is one of the great experiments in how to do things together. You know the word behavior. The deeper meaning is to be, to have being. Behavior, to have being. Im Englischen ist die tiefere Bedeutung, sein zu haben, wie im behavior. So behavior just isn't being polite, it's also, in the deeper sense, to have beingness together. Im Benehmen geht es nicht nur darum, dass man nett ist, sondern auch darum, wie man miteinander ist.

[30:42]

It doesn't mean you lose your own individuality or something. Das bedeutet nicht, dass du deine eigene Individualität verlierst oder so. In fact, I think it develops your uniqueness because this uniqueness becomes the dynamic of sharing. Sondern ich glaube sogar, dass das deine Einzigartigkeit entwickelt, weil diese Einzigartigkeit die Dynamik des Miteinanders ist. And sharing is not such a good word, but anyway, paths into the potential shared present. And there are also biological paths in the sense that you're in tune, attuned and in tune with others, enchanted. I suppose it may be like an orchestra which plays together every morning. and afternoon and evening for three months.

[31:56]

They get pretty good playing together. And it's always just an overlap. Difference is not lost. And as Gregory Bateson emphasizes, it's difference which activates a mind and creativity. What does it activate again? Mind itself and creativity. Mind is the relationship between parts. And in a way, that's his definition of it, and it's the Buddhist definition too.

[33:00]

And we are deepening our relationship to the parts. Und wir vertiefen dabei unsere Beziehung zu den Teilen. Okay, so now what are the parts? Was sind die Teile? Well, you've got the skandhas and all kinds of things, ways that Buddhism says, oh, let's look at these parts. Wir haben die skandhas und alle möglichen Listen, Arten und Weisen, die der Buddhismus herausstellt, um zu sagen, hey, lasst uns diese Teile anschauen. Skandhas means aggregates, accumulations. And we're accumulations of parts that we know and don't know. From a Buddhist point of view, the self is a frame of reference. But it's a frame of reference which is primarily self-referential.

[34:03]

So, I said earlier, it's more about awareness than consciousness. Because consciousness is primarily structured through self-referentiality. And awareness is more accepting and openness which I hope is happening to you in zazen. So we could also say that practice here that we're this durative present. We're trying to establish a feel for, a knowing of, an accepting of the durative presence. Wir versuchen hier ein Gespür und eine Akzeptanz für diese Gegenwart, die Dauer hat, zu etablieren.

[35:18]

The biological present. Oder die biologische Gegenwart. And then knowing that, the practice is to make this biological present as open as possible. Which inevitably includes a dangerous vulnerability. And a new kind of strength which... grows, I don't know, through this vulnerability. So let me give you three categories to look at now instead of the skandhas.

[36:19]

The three mysteries in Buddhism are body, speech and mind. And it's interesting they're called mysteries. So here are three categories, body, speech, and mind. And it's quite interesting that, well, body, yeah, that's a mind, I don't know, something, right? Those are kind of identifiable categories. But speech, what's that? Why is that as important as body and mind? Well, I'm asking you to explore. But just noticing the categories of body, speech and mind is a form of speech.

[37:37]

Speech in the sense is observation. I may not name you, Catherine, but I notice you as something, right? And that noticing with or without naming is a kind of speech. Yeah, so if I notice Jonas and I notice you, there's a difference. Yeah, there is a difference. And noticing that difference is speech. So what I'm asking you to do is see if these categories mean anything to you. So I give you permission inside, not that you need my permission, but I give you permission anyway inside. While you're sitting, notice, what is body?

[38:51]

What is body? You know, it hurts, I know that. Oh, and what is mind? Well, you know, you have various feelings, things appear, etc., And you're noticing mind and you're noticing body. And that noticing is, we can say, is speech. And are these categories, can you separate these categories? Of course there's a difference between body, speech and mind. We know there's a difference between body, speech and mind as well as there's three words. But can you really find any boundaries between them?

[39:53]

Real difference or what kind of overlap? Now, Shingon and Tantric Buddhism emphasizes knowing, finding yourself, finding your experience within body, speech and mind. And that joined to the experience of bodily time, time as bodily time, is already part of the territory of the body. Durative present.

[40:55]

Durative present, which includes phenomena and others. Okay, that's enough. Ah. I realize it sounded complicated but it was simple. All you have to do is take any part of it and start doing it and its simplicity will be apparent. And we will find the Samadhi of this room. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[41:52]

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