At least a regularity for which you decide, for example, five days a week I will do this, whether I am sick or healthy or busy or not. So this regularity has a quality of cutting through. I would like to ask you specifically about sitting, because you spoke to me earlier when it was about the bones, about the spine, and I notice that a part of my spine seems to me to be much less active than the rest, where it feels so wide and clear. It's a bit where I think it's closed. And I notice that it disturbs me in between. And then when I breathe in more strongly, it even cracks. And I think, man, that's really awful. It's almost like the cold is sizzling. And then I think, it's kind of stupid to deal with it. I don't want to deal with it. And then I find myself in a loop. In between I... That's just... The desire that it feels light and apart and I become impatient and then I let it be again.

[01:05]

What spoke to me when you talked about working with the spine in addition to this other thing. This morning you mean? Yeah. And what I noticed in my spine there's an area that is blocked and then I approach it in sitting and then I breathe into it and it starts cracking. I can almost feel the chalk falling out. And then I get impatient and frustrated and I don't want to deal with it. It's tricky. Just do it again tomorrow. It collides with the thought I've sort of taught myself or forced myself to sort of believe that during sitting you're not supposed to change your posture. Do what you want.

[02:23]

Buddhist beliefs are not behind the curtain. It's good to sit without moving and so forth, but if you want to explore something, this practice belongs to you. You know, there's some people here who haven't said one word since we've been here. And it makes me feel a little funny, and I think all of us would like to have your voice in the room. That was the Buddhist police speaking. I want to thank everybody that it was possible for me to enter later and to be able to come.

[03:51]

Good, we heard your voice. And I give you my voice too. A lot of things just make me quiet and thoughtful, and I am enlightened, and that's why I talk a lot. And that's good for me. Normally I talk a lot, and for me it's quite good, but not much. And from Greta I would like to say that I liked it very much how Rosche corrected me this morning, that it immediately gave a whole approach. A lot of the things here made me turn inward and just be with myself and to be silent. And I should say that normally I'm not like this. I speak a lot. And to be more specific, I want to say it was really helpful when Roshi touched me this morning. It really gave me a different feeling. Yes, then I will continue.

[04:59]

I would also like to thank you. For me it is also the case that I have given up a lot and I am very fulfilled. personal experience has been catapulted very much into my practice. And I have noticed that suffering simply had this good thing, that I now have a new start in my practice. It has never stopped, but it is now a very deep connection and also into this daily life. I also want to thank you. I didn't mean to get a lot of thanks, but... Coming here, I hadn't lost touch with my practice, but sort of I'd moved away from practice somewhat, and through deep experience I had here, I reconnected with something that literally kind of catapulted me back into my practice.

[06:20]

And I came to the recognition that suffering is really a good way, not only, but a good way to really get you started again. So that's what I'm taking from here, and that's very good for me. For me, there have been some experiences since I've been here. I had some very deep high points. It was a very deep moment on a Monday morning where I was very touched by the personal things that Roger had told me. It made it possible for me to feel a very deep connection. with myself and with what we are doing and with Rosé. And to be aware and to feel the connection between her and Rosé and with the group.

[07:34]

And it was really a piece of practice to stand up and to drive away. It was really like that for me. And the other thing that really touched me deeply was yesterday afternoon, this round in our group. And for me personally, to really feel and also to get closer to what I said in the group, this closeness and the activity in her. They are very moved and busy. And for me personally, the courage to live the moment and the gifts that came to me in the group through the conversation. Yes, and the exchange with all women, when we walk, when we go out, when we eat, these are things that come very deeply into my soul.

[08:46]

And the spirit in the soul that is so close to me, that is really a gift. I received so much being here and one of the real deep high points was Monday morning when you talked about your personal experience and your personal suffering and how you worked with that. and that helped me to establish deep connection with you and myself and that's very helpful and also to feel the connectedness between you Ulrike, between us two. And another deep experience was what we experienced together in our group yesterday. So all that together made me realize to treasure the present moment and all the gifts that are there for all of us.

[09:53]

I really want to thank everybody for the exchange, if it wasn't walks or meals or being together. It's really my energy now to go on in this work during the year to have a kind of this work group in the Sangha working in this way of being and in this way of exchanging so that we can going on in this deepening process in my everyday life and in the exchange, because what I really realized was that this is the kind of support which helps me going on in this kind of being. What has become clear to me is that this energy that is there in this way of doing, in the group, to continue and that we can also ask each other for more support.

[10:58]

We talked about it tomorrow. I just feel that it is there now. beyond the being's background. Very grateful. You should say something to him, one of the quiet words. Okay. And the other thing that moved me a lot, I think, is that years ago I did a work with a long-time woman called Laura Schienen, who came back from space and time. It was a body work.

[12:00]

And I have heard so many things here again in an extended context. And that touches me very much. And I would like to deal with these aspects more, to put more of this body into the head, into the body. Just hi. One of the reasons I was somewhat quiet is that I got a lot of information and nourishment for my head, and because I'm not so familiar for it, sometimes it was a little fast, and I needed a lot of time to absorb it and process it. But what it did to me was, years ago I did some work with a woman I appreciated very much, Laura Schielen, So your daughter's named for?

[13:11]

Yeah. And she taught something which was called space and time, and that connected the head with the body. And what I experienced... It was kind of body work. There was a lot of mindfulness taught how to get into the body. So what I experienced here that you opened up a field that reconnected me with this way of incorporating or embodying things again in a much broader field context. So I really feel this is where I'm at again and where I want to continue to physicalize certain things again, get in touch with my body.

[14:19]

So that I'm very grateful for. Okay, thank you. Well, not to interrupt, but... There's this idea of a laya of Tathagatagarbha, which sometimes is translated as Buddha nature. Sometimes it's translated as Tathagata means Buddha qualities or coming and going. And garba means, interestingly enough, both embryo and womb. And the word suchness is in there too, tathagata.

[15:30]

And tathagata garba, as I said the other day, everything that we see can be called the tathagata garba. It's a word for the universe. It's a reality, but it's not a reality that's passive, just waiting for us. It's a reality we activate. Like the sun activates our solar system. I mean, it requires the sun, the moon, it requires all of this to activate itself. So if the sun was different, we'd be in a different kind of solar system. The sense in Zen and Buddhism is we have that choice all the time.

[16:32]

Just let's go back to the example that we had together. in dissolving the self-other distinction when I was speaking with you and you were speaking to me, I said it also immediately changed my body. And I described that change as a Dharma position in which my body was more open to the Buddha Dharma. So by experiencing something as dharma, I opened myself to dharma. So there's the possibility of a certain dharma activity.

[17:34]

Now, we have this old house, Johanneshof, a former Steiner anthroposophical kinderheim and former farm and barn. And we have, you know, put in this nice early Edo period Buddha from the 1600s. And we have, you know, clean floors and a zendo and stuff like that. Okay. So when people come in, they feel something is different than going in another farmhouse, say. So we've tried to create the building so that it creates the possibility of Dharma activity.

[18:58]

And that's our first priority. At a certain size or certain kind of activity, you lessen the possibility of dharma activity. And sometimes when I'm at Creston, I allow myself, find myself, being carried by the dharma presence of Yohanasvara. But sometimes I feel this Dharma activity very strongly in my body, shall we say. And I feel sometimes just the way I'm walking down a hall, turns the whole building into a dharma practice center for me.

[20:13]

No, I haven't asked anybody else if they think it has two, but for me it makes the building much more of a Dharma place. So again, somehow in my backbone, if I feel this, it turns the whole building into a Dharma place. Or my, in dissolving the self-other distinction, made my body a Dharma place. So when I do that, when all things are the Buddha Dharma, Yes. There's enlightenment present as well as delusion, etc. So I think that our seminar here, I, from my point of view, would define it so that a Dharma activity or presence is possible here.

[21:23]

It means we shouldn't get too large. I mean, ideally you could be the whole planet, but in fact, since it's an activity, a manifest activity, it does have a field, a realm. And I think this sense of Dharma activity is carried in this group especially by those persons who have been here from the very beginning. And those two, mostly the same people who know each other well outside this seminar. So that's what makes the seminar more fruitful, I think, than average, not just because of the topic or because we all happen to be psychotherapists.

[22:34]

We could gather a group of psychotherapists, it wouldn't be the same. So everyone who comes here just once or twice or a few times benefits from those especially who come here every time. So this is a kind of definition of a dharma. We've created something very precious here that requires us each separately and together to continue. And although it's always different, Still, something is continuing that's unique.

[23:41]

And its uniqueness is that it could be completely gone if we stopped meeting or the meetings were significantly different. That's why... That's one reason we hesitated to open up the seminar to, you know, barbarians from Kassel and things like that. I mean, the farther you get from Rome, aren't there barbarians up there in the north somewhere, Hamburg? I mean, this isn't Rome, but it's the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. I know a little history. So this, when we find our immediate realm, or the world, a scene of Dharma activity, This is what's meant by the Tathagatagarbha.

[24:58]

And that Tathagatagarbha, which includes all of us, is also a name for our own Buddha nature. Which is interdependent with the phenomenal and sentient field. So in that sense, the Tathagatagarbha and the Alaya Vijnana have an interplay. So the alaya-vijnana is this reservoir of all your stored experience, which is constantly interacting with the world when you have your continuity embodied in the present. And it generates itself a Tathagatagarbha.

[26:05]

And the generation of a field of Buddha field or this sense of a womb embryo situation Also in folds in our alaya-vijnana. So the alaya-vijnana and Tathagatagarbha are interactive complementary ideas. So we could add a seventh here, which is the perception is in a Buddha field, or in the field of the Tathagata. So maybe we should have a break. We can drag our Buddhafield downstairs.

[27:12]

To help me, you know, make sure I don't do too much harm. Okay, so is there anything we would like to talk about at this point? I have a question regarding the Sangha, our Sangha.

[28:19]

I just wanted to ask if you have any ideas or suggestions for us, so that we can Also wir haben so Ideen von, wir wollen uns zum Teil zu zweit unterstützen, dass wir also so gewisse Sachen, die wir hier diskutiert haben, auch in den Alltag bringen und wie wir dann sozusagen gemeinsam, wenn wir uns treffen, so that we can deal with it as focused as possible, so that we can really live with the time that we are together. We somehow have the feeling that it is really about this deepening now, about implementing it, and that we can simply keep it up much better over the year. Yeah, we as Sangha where we live, we are in the process of wanting to deepen and the practice there as Sangha and also make it denser.

[29:44]

So the question is maybe you have some ideas that would be supportive for us how to do that because we also want to meet and discuss the things you've presented here. maybe in groups of two or whatever, and find ways how we can sort of transport these teachings also in our everyday life. Maybe you have some ideas that could make this process deeper. I don't know. I'm glad to know you're doing it. But... You know, if I'm ever in the area, or you'd like me to come, like if you were designing a little meditation hall or something, I might have some ideas, but basically, I'm just glad you're doing it. Yeah, so when I'm near you and you need help to build a small meditation hall, then I might have some ideas.

[30:47]

Otherwise, I'm just glad you're doing it. In this context, my question is, what importance does Sangha have in this development? In the development of a Dharma therapy or in the development of one's own practice? Your own development in practice, in meditation practice, it's almost equally important with your decision to do it. And maybe in the larger sense, I might speak to that before we end. But after all, your interest in practice is already part of what's happening here and part of your friends here.

[31:59]

That's already Sangha. So the more you develop that Sangha, which is not a social event, It may have social dimensions. And it may have work dimensions, like you work together or something. But a Sangha is those people who can feel each other's practice. And whose deep intention is to support each other's practice despite any other differences. and even I've noticed myself, is that I've seldom seen a person start to practice who doesn't have a friend who's been supportive of their practice or part of their early practice.

[33:05]

Sometimes one of the friends drops off and stops, but they were part of the initial process of developing practice. And one of the key stages in one's own development practice is when at some point suddenly you stop practicing for yourself and you really practice for other people. And you go to the Zendo simply because, or primarily because, you know, because other people are in the Zendo. You know what it's like when there's one less person or there's a hole where you usually sit. Okay, and Christina, you were going to say something too, right?

[34:23]

No? Christine. I don't know whether this really fits here, but my question is how do the five skandhas come into play here? Well, the five skandhas are part of the perceptual process. Just like the vijnanas. The vijnanas are the sixfold, but we could make it more complicated and put in, but one of the, I mean, the skandhas is part of the vijnanas and vice versa. The vijnanas is one of the skandhas. I mean if you want to take a menu for practice, you just look at the Heart Sutra. Now, there are aspects of practice, like I mentioned these six, right?

[35:59]

But I put on the, well, I added a seventh, the Buddha field. But the Buddha field is a little bit like, you know, a kid, with a kid, kids like to count your fingers, one, two, three, four, five, you know. And I always like to play with kids and get them to count the spaces. There's only four, one, two, three, four spaces, right? And I say, why are there five fingers and four spaces? Then I say, well, what about this space? And that's a different realm than the fingers. So the seventh point includes all these. So you can't really list it. Like the sixth finger is the space. And so when it appeared, like the seventh aspect here, if we thought of it that way, appeared here in the room,

[37:01]

Before the break. So it becomes part of the list but we don't write it down. And there's many aspects of teaching it like that. You create a list so that maybe the 7th, 8th and 9th appear in the room but aren't written down. But sometimes they're the ones you remember most deeply, not the ones you write down. So that's why, in a sense, a teaching like this is inherently oral, or face-to-face. Don't you have an expression in German, four eyes, or we need a four-eyes meeting, or something like that? It's like that.

[38:14]

And Dogen speaks about face-to-face transmission or warm hand to warm hand. Buddhism is a history of development over generations. And even sutras were often a text, like we might create a Dharma therapy text.

[39:26]

And it might be developed in this group. And then there's a Dharma Sangha Austria. We have a legal organization called Dharma Sangha Austria, which Eric and others put together. It's mostly so that people can have receipts. So there's Dharma Sangha Austria, there's this group, and there's Dharma Sangha Europe, and Johanneshof. And we might pass that text around, Crestone too. And then we'd each try to practice it. Try to make sense of it.

[40:29]

In America, for instance, there's a difference in therapies, whether the East Coast, Midwest, California, etc. It's partly because Midwesterners have their midlife crisis at a different time than East Coast people. The midlife crisis in the East Coast is more like 29, and in the Midwest it's more like 35 to 40, and in California it's more like 45 to 50. So there might have to be a little different Dharma therapy depending on where it was even developed in the United States. So at some point we might get all these texts back. And then you try to make sense of it and put it together in a wider text that reaches more people.

[41:39]

And I believe that's just exactly how the Lotus Sutra was developed. It was first a text for a small group of subsidiary groups. And in that way with groups of people both that are contemporary with each other and groups of people over generations have developed the teaching. I mean, much of what we've talked about has come out of this Dignagas, who lived in the 15th and 16th centuries, statement that perception is cognition without conceptualization. And you can see that that is, as more and more people practice it, problems arise. Is there a substratum, or is there a ground of being, or is it, you know, everything's causing itself?

[42:42]

I mean, all these questions start arising, and the idea develops. And I am convinced that we're part of that development. It's partly just as soon as it comes into a new culture, there's this kind of development. And when there's a creativity of a new Sangha, So it didn't just stop back in the 9th century or 12th century or something.

[43:45]

Okay. So that was a little bit of an introduction to this, one of the ideas of this Tathagatagarbha. Yes, we could say that, you know, we generally say that Mahayana is the Bodhisattva vehicle. But we could say that Mahayana is the or late Mahayana is the Buddha vehicle. The Buddha Kaya. Because Bodhisattva still has the sense of like the earlier Theravada or early Buddhism, a sense of the arhat, who in a simple sense realizes through himself. And then you have the bodhisattva who realizes through the power of dedicating your practice and life and energy to everyone.

[45:02]

And then you get the sense that the whole world in its all-at-onceness is the vehicle of enlightenment, not the individual. So it's a kind of understanding of the world as composed of knowledge, which we could say, in fact, it is. Knowledge which wants to realize itself. And that's not such a strange idea. Everything's changing, and that changing is a movement toward completion. And we're part of that movement. And even if, you know, speaking more specifically about Buddhism as a practice, because this, and also I think the idea of a

[46:07]

personality that's the field of the present. Is perhaps an idea that can inform one's own thinking about things. But I don't think it's, at least my impression would be, it's not something that can be part of the Dharma therapy because it's so thoroughly dependent on realized yogic practice. But at the same time, we all have intimations of all these things. All these things exist in various, at least small parts in each of us. So I'm speaking about this Buddhakaya in that sense. And sometimes we say something like, the Buddha's foot told this sutra. Or people listened with their feet, knees, hands and shoulders.

[47:44]

But in fact we do something like that. That's what it is to be face to face. It's not just face to face, it's shoulder to shoulder and so forth. Then you have the idea that the Buddha told Prashyapta, partly it's just, you know, the Buddha only could do so much in one lifetime. So then, you know, so you have a teaching that goes beyond the historical Buddha But there's some feeling that what was essentially the realization of the Buddha continues. And that continuation can teach us. And that continuation is the Buddha speaking to him or herself.

[49:08]

So you have the image of the Vairocana Buddha. But Vairocana Buddha is always a nimbus, an aura surrounds the Vairocana Buddha. And in the major figures of Vajracana, the nimbus, the aura, has many other Buddhas in it. And this is like this Buddha is teaching this Buddha, teaching this Buddha, because the aura is the Buddha, not the Buddha figure. The whole aura is the Buddha. This is a kind of idea of Sangha. The Sangha is telling, somehow it's not me teaching you, it's all of us together creating something that teaches us.

[50:22]

So my responsibility is not so much to teach, but to create a field which teaches us. So that's again the idea of the Tathagatagarbha. And it goes beyond the idea of the Bodhisattva. Because it's not just the Bodhisattva deciding to give up enlightenment for others. It's already everything all at once is the Buddha. So this is why this teaching of this alaya-vijnana developed in the immediate present.

[51:41]

It's part of everything all at once. Not everything over time, everything right now, all at once. Whatever is here is everything all at once makes this possible. And again, go back to my teacher while I lived in Japan, Yamada Mumonoshi. To repeat what he said a little more clearly. He said that the single most important thing is To have a deep respect for yourself. To develop a deep respect for yourself. Knowing. Which is parallel to or part of the condition for knowing. that everything in the universe is working to make this moment possible.

[53:00]

Anyway, I think that's enough for us for this seminar. and happy if you want. Anybody wants to bring up anything? If the electronic, anybody would like my email address for the electronic Buddha field? Somebody set it up for me, so I only read my email once or twice. It's rbaker108 at, I guess, aol.com. Could you write it down, Andy?

[54:16]

Yes. Okay. And where you have dots and where you don't have dots. But it's all AOL.com. It's always the same. I mean, our baker is a dot in between? No, just our baker. I don't want to put my email as the seventh thing on this list of receptions. And I think it doesn't matter whether capitals are small. Any secret plus number 108?

[55:22]

What? Any cigarettes plus number 108? Cigarettes? Significance. Secrets. Secrets. Secrets. Not secret. Secret, yeah, eh? Now, a friend of mine just picked Y the number 108. There's 108 beads in the Mala and things like that. And actually 108 is, I think, the panashas are divided up into versions. It's a magic number. Many sacred traditions, including Egyptian. The 108 is there because there are 108 men in the Mala and 108... Yes. 108 names of God. Yeah. Whoa. Don't embarrass me. But Christian Becker came down and set up my computer, so that's what he chose. Isn't that what you do when you do?

[56:32]

I don't know. You use email? No. In English, it means each, like five bananas each. But it's on the keyboard of typewriters, so I think they just picked it because... at 75 cents apiece or something. All right, shall we sit for a few minutes and then... Thank you again so much for having me join you again this year.

[57:51]

It's my thoroughgoing pleasure. And somehow the self-selection process, now that we opened it up, has worked very well. We can't imagine anymore doing it without the barbarians from the north. We won't speak about the barbarians from across the sea. Again, I'm touched by how much work it is for Siegfried and Christina and Guni to do all this, and I appreciate it. I know people thanked you earlier, but thank you very much. Yeah, because there were a lot of phone calls during the year and decisions, and for a while it was only 12 people, and they wanted to know if we should cancel, and I said, well, let's try, so...

[59:05]

Ulrike drove a very far way to come and help us. Very far north? Yes.

[59:27]

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