You started your lecture at Kotechkase with the sentence of Kotechkase in the ceremony. And I wanted to ask you whether you could also include this in this seminar. In this ceremony? And what it turns into a ceremony, or why it's a ceremony. This is a ceremony. Okay. Okay. I'll see if that happens. But we also have the... I asked the time before lunch for you to say something to me about it.

[01:10]

And I know that Peter said the last 15 minutes were confusing. I had lunch, he told me. Maybe it's not confusing, but I have There were two sides to it. On the one hand, the sense of how much the proximity to the teacher is needed, as you told me. I remembered how you always told me how much you were looking for the proximity to Suzuki Roshi, so that all these movements, all these attitudes, So maybe it was not confusing.

[02:15]

There were two sides to it. One side was that you emphasized so strongly how you tried to be as close to Suzuki Roshi as possible and to absorb as much of his physical presence as possible with his gestures and so on. I didn't say that exactly, but I implied that, that's for sure. I heard it before. So what Peter also said is, so the question to what extent the closeness of being near to the teacher is necessary. So that's one side of his being confused. That's one aspect. I could feel, ich konnte das natürlich sehr stark spüren, So there was a strong desire, yes, I also want to do it, but on the other hand, as a layperson, I'm not always that close to my teacher.

[03:17]

But as Rosche told me, and described these sensations in the hands, in the feet, in the chakras, I felt how the words also went directly into the body, how it captured my body. And then I got the feeling that the words also really have this effect when the receptor is open. And so on the other hand, when I listen to you, when you described the feeling, the different sensations in the palms of the hand, in the chakras, on top of the head, and so on. So by listening to you, just the words, made me experience these feelings and I experienced them very strongly. They entered, so this sensation somehow entered my body physically by just listening to the words and so I somehow realized that also just by listening to the words that something like that can happen.

[04:41]

Okay. I'll respond. But first, anybody else? Twice, in your lecture before, a lot of self-referential thinking took over with me. One was the folk and school building. Twice, self-referential thinking took over with me. Once, self-referential thinking took over with me. I remember that a few years ago with five other young and old, sort of 20 and 40 year old people, we were able to pick up a stone table, a heavy one, just by 19 hour strength. And so I was so much in that past thing, I lost contact. And then we were talking about the... parts of the body who respond to teacher or to what is taught.

[05:51]

And then I thought about Christ having these wounds and again, same thing happened. So I was just trying to tell you, that's why I didn't grab what else was said, except for those two things, and then slip again. Do you want me to repeat myself? Others will do so. Okay. Ah, yes. So I have achieved it twice, this self-operational thinking. Once with these memories on a table that we have raised to the ground, which was otherwise impossible. There I went completely into the past. And the next time I start, as Peter Rosche says, with this sensibility of hands and feet, of mood with teacher or content. And already, I think, I have the Jesu Wundmale. I think it's interesting, it's actually also here. I wouldn't call that self-referential thinking. I'd call it associative thinking.

[06:51]

So what... made me a lot of thinking or maybe was occupied with this notion of yours of continuous practice uninterrupted practice. And if we relate this to what you said before, that in principle we have to do with trees and less with entity, so less with units, but actually with spaces, and that also the people, who were in these spaces, then actually have to clean up again, or, as it is better understood for me, to be filled with energy.

[08:16]

And when one relates what you said about this uninterrupted practice to this, what we have been talking about, that rooms are spaces and that people who are in space themselves can turn into space or are spaces. And what I prefer to call it, it's more less spaces, more fields of energy. Is this, yeah? So regularly or very often, most of the time, I'm in the midst of people who don't practice. And what I can feel is that when I move in other contexts, then these spaces and the energies in these spaces really change and certain things are simply not possible and things become possible in other fields and spaces.

[09:36]

So what I experience is that there are differences between spaces where things and experiences are possible because of the fields which are there and in other spaces this is not possible. So there is this kind of differences between different spaces which make different experiences possible. And so for me it's kind of difficult to be in spaces which don't which are not so much related to a normal practice situation.

[10:43]

A Zen practice situation. and I have the feeling that I have to build something up there, almost something isolated, that is, to create this field within me, and then somehow try to keep it there, but that is almost a bit like swimming against the current, and it is also not possible for me to really keep this energy or this force alive, that I come into a state of mind where I can imagine that I then This is one of the problems. So my feeling or my experience is that I somehow have to, it's as if I have to swim against the stream, that I have to build up and sustain a kind of energy which is not sustained by the field I am, and it's therefore hard for me to imagine that I can continuously practice in this way because it's somehow against the stream.

[11:46]

You just have to learn to swim under a stream. Or fly above it. Over the river. Okay. Okay. First of all, I mean, please remember, I don't know what I'm doing. In another sense, I know what I intend to do. I mean, if we go to an originary point, I spent a lot of time thinking and exploring before I met Suzuki Roshi. And when I met him,

[12:52]

the fruitfulness of my thinking exploring exponentially developed. So it was clear to me that this is not something I could have created by myself in one lifetime. I needed the morphogenic accumulation of many lifetimes. So I also decided, you know, living in America, first and foremost, there was There was no Buddhism in America. Zero. Now there's all kinds of groups and stuff.

[14:15]

And that practice certainly didn't exist. And yoga was something that described people who were contortionists in services. Yoga was a description for contortionists in services. I met Sukhi Roshi and I thought, geez, somebody ought to continue this. And I thought, I got nothing to do with it. I don't know what to do with my life. Why do I do this? So I decided, that's what I want to do. In that sense, I know what I'm doing.

[15:33]

But in the sense of how to teach this in this culture, I'm just experimenting, I'm discovering. Okay. So, yes, I am aware of my own experience and the tradition that this practice is primarily a face-to-face apprentice relationship. And an apprentice relationship, which leads to monastic practice. Monastic practice is what allows an apprentice relationship.

[16:51]

and allows it to be a non-guru practice. Because the emphasis is on the practice is the teacher, not the teacher. So the teacher is the catalyst of the practice. But the practice is what belongs to you. So Zen teachers don't usually go up to students and give them a blast to the forehead and stuff like that. Hindu teachers do sometimes. Because the emphasis is on the practice we can share and not the individuality so much of the teaching. So the feeling is...

[18:14]

that you develop the yogic language. I'll just make it simple for myself. The yogic language of realization. Which even after your teacher is dead, you can continue to speak within yourself and within the world without. So in some sense it doesn't make much difference even if you teach you die. You teach you die and your feeling is... Not sadness so much as, well, this is what you taught me and now I have to go on and do it with you, without you.

[20:09]

Own it. The feeling when the teacher dies is less than the sadness, but rather a feeling of, well, you are now dead, and that is what you taught me, and with that I will now continue to practice with or without him. Okay. So it's the gift of the practice which is transmitted. And the... And it's a gift of permission and trust. And the aspect of permission is

[21:13]

really quite important. So in traditional terms, we could say that when you had the experience of your body, hands, and so forth in the way I spoke, I was not... It was a kind of inductive permission. Now I'm exaggerating somewhat your experience perhaps. But there are certain channels for experience.

[22:23]

And our experience goes down this or that channel. And part of what happens in a worldview shift You shift the channel. So once awareness or energy or something, it's something in a different channel. And permission is an important part of this. Because if this happens to you naturally, perhaps accidentally, Because if this happens to you in a natural way or through a kind of coincidence, I don't want to...

[23:39]

And you divert it back to your usual channels. But the showing of a teacher is not only to show inductively but to confirm and give you permission for this experience. So then the question is, And how much is the teacher-disciple relationship or teacher-practitioner relationship? A question of how much time is spent together. Or rather is the...

[24:43]

not rather but and how much is it a an unlocking of an unlocking of permissions in which those opened up channels, within practice have their own life and don't need the teaching, association or something. Yeah, I mean, how long does it take to unlock the door? Not usually too long. So then the associative relationship with the teacher is, if the If unlocking is a big part of it, then the associative relationship with the teacher is a lot about confirmation and refinement.

[26:25]

which it's hard to do if you're not with the teacher. So in other words, it's a complex situation, teacher-practice, practitioner relationship. And what I see is that many people I've been practicing with for decades I see only a few times a year. Much a year. Well, I don't know. I see that what gives my book It gives me a good feeling. It's that I see a wide range of people in a variety of associations with me and with practice, ensuring in what I think is practice.

[27:53]

So it's all understandable, like you said. So now the question for me So for me the question is not whether the practice is matured or not. But to what extent is it mutually matured? And to what extent is it mutually matured? Does it have a mutual articulation or expression?

[28:56]

Because it's the mutuality which is transmitted. That was quite a lot. Thanks for what you said. And what Yuan Wu, the specific phrase, statement of Yuan Wu that I was referring to, He said, when you have understood and realized the gist, the essence, the gist of the way, practice uninterruptedly without any breaks, in order that the embryo of sageshood can mature.

[30:08]

Now, if you're going to use a phrase like that, and that's one of the phrases I have decided over time to keep bringing up so that we can work with it. You use a phrase like that as a calling out and a calling forth. And not as a description, discursive description of something. And you let it fall into parts. And then you call forth the word in those parts.

[31:38]

As I said again, you're taking a word and subtracting the associations out of it and turning it into a name. So with such a phrase in Zen practice, you would, you know, once you have understood And you'd have to find words in German, presumably. Once you've understood, is there any beginning and end? Is there something? When does once begin and end? So then... Like that feeling.

[32:55]

And then understood and realized. And what's the difference between understanding and realizing? And then you explore when you have the sensation of understanding. And when you have the sensation of realizing somehow is something different than understanding. So perhaps there's a feeling of relaxation when you understand. Like maybe you understand the weight of the post office. And before you understood the way to the post office, you thought, oh, I've got to mail this letter, and I don't know where the post office is.

[34:14]

And maybe there's a little relaxation once you know where the post office is. So maybe understanding is a kind of relaxation. And realization? I don't have to mail this letter anyway. Yeah, it's never going to get there in time. And there's a kind of penetration, another kind of relaxation. More sense of freedom breaks than relaxation.

[35:20]

So you, I mean, really, I'm not just joking. That first phrase can be a month of practice. Until these are not words, but they're really experiences. When you say understanding, feel your body knows what understanding is. And in a sense of timing, once upon a time. And then you have the gist of the work. So you can spend some incubatory turning around and over. And what I'm describing is also the intended way to read sutras.

[36:39]

I read the Lama Patara Sutra in this way. Every day, phrase by phrase, word by word, and I didn't go forward to the next sentence. I held back from the next sentence until I was completely accomplished in the preceding sentence. And completely accomplished also meant for me at the time and now, that I've gone as far as I could in it.

[37:41]

Maybe it's not accomplished, but it's as far as I can go, so I can have an experience. So then, uninterruptedly, There is nothing but interruptions. So what does uninterrupted mean? I went into detail on the least less obvious part of this phrase. So I'm emphasizing that giving an equal weight to even the phrases which seem just introductory. And there's a certain trust of the practice, the teaching, and me as a teacher in this.

[38:46]

Because I don't know. I've excerpted this from Yuan Wu's teachings. For us. There's more sentences that precede it and sentences that come after it. When I've taken these units, once you've understood and realized, is that possible once you've understood and realized? then practice uninterruptedly without breaks, in order that the embryo of sageshood matures and develops.

[40:01]

So again, there's a kind of, you know, like nine months term is a kind of term involved in these terms, which incubates the experience within you. In practice, you don't want to rush ahead. You don't want to think about how much time you have left and if I go this slowly through the sutra, I'll never... You don't compare yourself at all to others practice. The only thing you do is keep staying within as much as possible the authenticity of your own experience. And if you stay within the authenticity of your own experience,

[41:33]

Where is the problem? There's no problem. And a marvelous and fun to see film about Jacques Derrida. It's a full length film that he did at some point in his life. He allowed himself to be interviewed. And he comes across as a very soft, intimate person. unself-assuming person. And of the various French philosophers of his time.

[43:00]

He's probably the most difficult to read. A page of Derrida can be nearly impenetrable. You have to discover how to read it. More than Gilles Deleuze and so forth. I'm reading these books because I'm looking for language and vocabulary. But I'm also interested in how close, similar and different they are from each other. Derrida's son moves out of their apartment. So he expanded his library into the room. And the interviewer says,

[44:01]

Sagt, du hast ziemlich viele Bücher. And she says, have you read all of them? Und sie fragt ihn, haben Sie alle gelesen? And he says, no. Und er sagt, nein, only four. But I've read them very, very carefully. Aber ich habe sie sehr sorgfältig gelesen. And I'm sure something like that's true. Und ich denke mir, irgendetwas davon ist wahr. I would say that there's a few books like The Lamp of the Heart Sutra, which I've read, very carefully, and they opened up all kinds of other things, which I haven't read as carefully, but somehow it arrived. None of you said too much about what I asked you to do. And I said I didn't want to talk so much.

[45:28]

One of these days I'm going to be a real Zen master. And when you don't say anything, I'm going to go upstairs. Yeah. Okay, it's time for... Thank you very much. Oh! That was one of those secret signals. It's kind of warm in the room. Can we turn it down a little? Or is it just what people like? It is quite warm here in this room. Should we lower the temperature? Or is the temperature the right one that people want? Usually, does anyone always go around with it? So, first of all, you go around.

[46:29]

Okay. It's such a different, it's interesting. In Japan, you don't heat the house. You do not heat the house. And if you said to a traditional Japanese person, why don't you heat the house? If the person was somewhat astute, they'd say, the house isn't cold. So they heat the body, not the house. They have all kinds of ways to heat your hands, heat your feet. But the house should be not too different from outside.

[47:47]

Things we take for granted, like heating the house, they can be looked at differently. And the things that we take for granted, such as heating the house, can be seen in a completely different way. Thank you. Oh, the loop.

[48:55]

Thank you. Uh huh.

[51:06]

So what do you have to say? Yes? So if I make a kind of inventory of my practice, I must say that actually I'm lacking kind of endurance in my practice. I practiced for three quarters of a year with my Aral, and as long as I focused my attention to that, it improved somehow.

[54:30]

But then often I was some kind of distracted by my everyday life, too much distracted to focus my attention to it. And then I was unable to edit and then it disappeared sometimes and I was unable to recreate this energy and to rebuild this energy. And then I'm constantly having new ideas, and then I also started to practice generosity.

[55:46]

It doesn't work this way. What doesn't work this way? What doesn't work this way? Generosity doesn't work this way, or changing from one practice to the next doesn't work? from one click to the other and from one click to the other. It doesn't work that way. It works from one click to the other. That means, if my awareness stays the same in one practice, then I can also gradually evolve. But I haven't looked at it for a long time, if I see something new, because in practice you don't feel like that. This with the generosity that works, but what doesn't work is this jumping from one practice or one focus to another.

[56:54]

So my feeling is that if I'm practicing and putting my attention to a certain thing, then it sometimes works and intensifies or solidifies. But as soon as I switch to another thing, it disappears. um So my feeling right now is that this is one of the big problems of my life that too many things are interesting for me. By switching between them, I somehow am not able to establish a practice deeply enough to use it as a resource. I'm sorry. But you know I have confidence in you and I believe in you.

[58:04]

Yes. So what you said before this break somehow motivates me to say something a little bit about what I found out recently. So for quite a time I translated intensely koans from English into German. And what I could experience by this translation work was that they said and wrote this up.

[59:17]

And sometimes I had the feeling when translating, I had somehow the feeling of this glimpse of the eyelash before their brush touched the paper when writing this down. And often I feel both of them are just like being right behind me. And their intention they wrote down. And that's interesting for me that their intentions were also written down for us.

[60:42]

And we are at the same time part of these intentions. So they are having an effect on the future, but also from the future backwards. And so this, I'm not saying that I'm good at it, but this reading of koans and giving away the associations of individual words and, so to speak, like a frequency, the radio, with which radio And other radio stations are looking for it. So I'm not saying that I'm very good at it with subtracting the association from the words, but somehow I have the feeling like somebody who's sending a radio message and looking for another person, finding another person to send a radio message by finding the right frequency.

[62:02]

And So I see this realization, this understanding now also in normal life, when understanding happens with other people, then I see this yogic change. And also in my everyday life when understanding happens with another person, I can see this kind of yogic shift in this person. And how these frequencies, the radio messages, are somehow finding their way. I'm looking for a way.

[63:09]

And the space which is created by that also allows me to come closer to this uninterrupted practice. And that's what I wanted to share. Thank you. Thank you. I wanted to say something to this lecture, which was a lot on my mind. You were talking about putting these barring mats, opening these barring mats in the center of the crystal. And this effort of putting it right at the spot which is supposedly the right spot.

[64:38]

And that may be, and that's my interpretation, that one tries to establish each and every time the very same room, which is kind of a false understanding. And you also talked about this image or this idea of the world as a container. Which not at all is in accord with what Sainten's part of this is. And I also struggled a lot, I think as many of us did, struggled with ceremonies itself.

[65:55]

So I don't know how to put it, but basically I think now my understanding of ceremony is completely different. I think they are important because they show us that although you are repeating things, they are never the same. And that's the interesting part of it. And I'm a person who tries as much as possible to plan things ahead in each and every detail.

[67:15]

And I can spend a lot of time thinking about what am I doing then, and what is next step, and so on, and thinking in all the consequences. with this pre-planning, to achieve what I had planned. And I assume that behind this idea of planning all these things in detail, there's also this concept of a container, as if I could establish, it must not have me blitzing there, as if by planning I could accomplish or gain that what I would like to have.

[68:34]

And to come back to the mat, which I liked so much, because the idea that you put the mat exactly on these points, but not on the liquid. And this picture helps me immensely. So now I have it in my hands again and again. And coming back to this practice of opening these mats in the Buddha hall, is that it's not about picking the right spot, but the idea, what you said, cottage castle, that you are placing them somehow in a kind of liquid. This is something which helped me a lot in the last few days. and was very rich for Gilead. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yes.

[69:43]

Yes. Because you talked about the relationship between teacher and student that you are learning from presence to presence and whether it's the duration which is important or these opening moments I think that Sangha is equally important to develop one's own practice. I think that Sangha is equally important So, and it might be the small sitting group or a group of people practicing together in the region, or it's a kind of a network of, or a field of people practicing together is sometimes kind of spreading.

[71:09]

And the kind of intimacy and connectedness appears with people whom you might see only regularly, but seldomly, maybe only once a year. And each practitioner has its own strengths and weaknesses and the situation he or she is arriving in at the moment. And And that you can learn just as much from fellow practitioners.

[72:15]

So it's like a divided teacher, actually. So you can learn from your fellow practitioners equally. And it's a kind of... like a teacher which is in parts... ...distributed. ...distributed. Back to the parts. And it's a little harder, actually. And it's like a body, actually. Okay. It's worthy of attention that at the center It is important and valuable to pay attention to the fact that in the center of Buddhism, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are equally valued. What does it mean to give an equal way?

[73:26]

What does it mean to take refuge in them? And can't one really not take refuge in others? Does it mean to not take refuge in other things? Or do you somehow, in taking refuge in whatever you need to take refuge in, you're still taking refuge in Buddha Dharma and Sangha. And related to that, what does the so-called Olisar Babar mean? The most common phrasing of it being, is that you vow to save all sentient beings.

[74:33]

You don't vow to save some, you vow to save all. I mean, you might say, I vow to save 21. But I'm the 22nd! Oh, okay, 22. All right. But it... but it asks us to define ourselves in some relationship to all others. All others who are no longer other. Or do we have to have another understanding of other? And And saving, I don't know, saving, I mean, Issam Dorsey during his Shusso ceremony, what the book Streets and written about him.

[75:48]

Somebody came up to Issam and you have this confrontational questioning. Yes, sir. Why do we save all sentient beings? Well, we save them for later. Which is quite good. So what does it mean to define yourself through... Does the definition of being disappear in the beings?

[76:57]

Or can being retain its individuality separate from beings. And I think we should explore what being is. Being as a bodhisattva is I would say that Bodhisattva is defined through being, but not through beings. And what the heck can these words mean?

[77:58]

And are they even comparable in German? But they are certainly a territory for exploring how you define discover your own existence. Someone else. Yes. You're addressing a question which is posed, I don't know whether it's the appropriate position to ask it on, but you've pointed directly at the moment. And it's a very strange experience, and everything's on your mind, Mahavir. It was actually while eating a dinner.

[79:02]

There's no inside, there's no outside. There's no inside, there's no outside. There's no outside. Total peace, and let's say total stillness with my mind, which is the only thing I have. And let's take away, assume the contradiction of the two truths doesn't then exist, because it's all mind. So now I encounter anything, and I would call it anyone, who's not at peace with themselves, because part of my mind is not at peace with itself. And it opens up a very frightening view of the bodhisattva. Because it's all about finding peace with our own mind. And the mind is the only thing we have. And I asked you, Anasol, what's the difference between nihilism and emptiness?

[80:08]

Nihilism just isn't nihilistic enough to be empty. I can't. If it's all mind, then nihilism isn't empty. It isn't. Yeah, this is... I'm on the board and my language is prolonged. The question I'm addressing is a question that has been bothering me for a few months now. And I wouldn't have asked it in my name, but I would have spoken it out loud. And it's the question, when we perceive... This is all spiritual. There is no inner and no outer. We only have this. And when it comes to finding peace and quiet with my spirit, as long as I encounter something that is not in peace, then I find peace with my spirit. I can't repeat the rest.

[81:19]

But there's no end to it. And it's wonderfully beautiful. I don't know how... What I'm looking for is how to find a form of life which lets this be livable. And I don't know how to do that, Gershom. It was as soon as I... And Leidenstedt is a slave by and large. He was a Buddhist character. Yeah, I did say how do we define ourselves in relationship to others, etc. But maybe I shouldn't have said the word define. what I could have said, contextualize what I could have said.

[82:21]

But just in general, in describing practice and yourself to yourself, I would be very wary of definitions. A phrase like only mind. So I don't know. What I said the other day, I don't know if it's any better. And an uncentered field of object engagement. and to connect with objects that don't have a center.

[83:36]

That's why it doesn't exist. As a field of object engagement. In that sense, your body is also an object. And you're engaged, and there's an engagement with the body. An engagement with the body is... Suddenly everything is the body, you're an extension of the body. And I say un-centered.

[84:40]

Because if you try, if you want to see the world as centered or organized, you're immediately in trouble. Or immediately becomes some kind of controlling need. So, uncentered means it's all equal. And you're not the center. And it's not centered. So it's a kind of balancing act. In this way and all things like that. In that way. In what time are they planning to feed us? At six o'clock. Six o'clock. Okay. Okay. I was somehow shaken or disturbed by the word permission.

[85:57]

I try. And I'm very excited or I'm curious what this word, what this will do with me, what it will affect me. Dinge, die aufgetaucht sind jetzt. Eine kleine Geschichte ist aufgetaucht. and things that appeared were a little story appeared. Living a very tense occupation and occupational activity and say goodbye to this occupation. A student of mine who didn't speak German very well said to me, oh, you're leaving.

[87:19]

Sie werden sich sehr vermissen. You will miss yourself very much. Es wurde für mich ein wunderbarer Chor. And please turn into a wonderful Chor for me. Etwas anderes. Das Aussprechbare und das Nicht-Aussprechbare in der Liebe. Something different. Something that is speakable and unspeakable in teaching. Or something you can speak about and something you are not able to speak about in teaching. Not unspeakable. That is possible. You can say... Mobilizing, perhaps. Ineffable. Yeah. to dive into different depths, be in silence during the session, and to dive very deeply.

[88:37]

So I experienced when somebody is asking me quite a normal question during the sheet like, is the shower so in the bathroom? I absolutely was unable to understand because I didn't know what the shower soap might be, who was talking to whom, and what is a bathroom. I've had problems sometimes, and I think maybe it's humility. Maybe it's just practice. Maybe it's just practice. But when I know that at a certain moment during the day, I have the duty to work in the kitchen,

[90:23]

Da stellt sich etwas ein, das langsam auftaucht und irgendwo einen safety stop macht und dann in einen Bereich kommt, der für solche sprachlichen Informationen erreichbar ist. Sorry if I'm kitchen-cute here. Before that, slowly something is bleeding out, which enables me, it's like the safety valve. A safety stop, which enables me then to function in this kind of situation and to have these kind of interchanges, exchanges. And that's... And that's where also the image of diving comes back.

[91:26]

When you are diving very deeply, you are not allowed to go to the surface immediately, but you have to do it slowly and the body knows that. Yeah, isn't it wonderful we have the ceremony of Sashin so we can have these experiences? And the, what you're... students said to you, aren't you going to miss yourself? That's a description of an experience some people have preceding or following an enlightenment experience. is suddenly you realize that everything you've given importance to for 10 or 20 years and really cared about has not been important and

[92:32]

And I've known people to literally cry continuously for several days just out of relief and also simultaneously sadness that they gave it so much importance for so many years. Are we running out of someone else? No. I'm still thinking about this question after everything is mind. So I see it that way. So I see it this way.

[93:58]

We are still caught in this idea that when we say mind, we have this dichotomy of mind and matter. So if I say something like, everything is mine, at the same time I'm saying, nothing is matter, nothing is existent. And if I got it correctly, there are many people who say that we need the self and we need a matter in order to be able to give up the self. And my question is also this change of the mind.

[95:06]

Is the change of the mind between such positions And my question would be that this shifting of minds, whether by this shifting of minds some kind of quality can appear, which is neither known. So as we are saying, form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Yes, it's worth turning this over. I don't think it's useful for me to say anything. I think this is something you can keep turning over and all of us can keep turning over and see what happens.

[96:11]

Someone else? Yes? My maybe continuous trying to open spaces, open up spaces. Stoßen auf die Erfahrung, dass sich Räume öffnen, wenn ich gar nichts mache. they are connected with an experience or an experience appears that spaces seem to open when I'm not doing anything.

[97:13]

Now I ask, although I... How much do I do? How much do I wait? And then I'm asking the question, how much should I do? How much should I wait? Is attention the only thing which is necessary? That is what amazes me, that I... And small things happened, and I'm sitting there watching it, and I'm amazed that they are happening. Am I in between now? How do I feel? Or not me? So am I somehow in between or how can I find myself or not myself?

[98:31]

Although I just have to say in the experience that this experience of opening yourself is actually a wonderful thing. And I must say that this experience of opening up by itself is a wonderful experience. There's a kind of well-known story about calligraphers, a person who's practicing calligraphy with his teacher. And every time he does the kanji, he doesn't feel it. So finally the teacher goes out for a minute to go to the toilet or something. And often, you know, in practice, we're making an effort in Zazen.

[99:44]

And then there's no fruit to the efforts. And then you relax and give up or you forget and start thinking about something else. And then you suddenly find yourself extremely concentrated. Und dann findest du, dass du plötzlich extrem konzentriert bist. And it happens sort of by itself. Und das passiert irgendwie auch von selbst. But it usually wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been concentrated. Aber für gewöhnlich würde es nicht geschehen, wenn du nicht vorher so konzentriert gewesen wärst. So it's some kind of craft of effort and reflection, letting it happen. One of the subjects in the background of what I've been saying is how to allow, how to, how to not interfere with the body knowing. .

[101:43]

And one of the things that I... I don't know if now is a good time to speak about it, but one of the things I would like to speak about, so why don't I speak about it now? It's something I've... spoken about now and then. Something I've spoken about now and then. Is that Suki Roshi and, you know, again, talked about this before, when I was doing the Mokugyo, doing the circus, And I don't remember exactly how long, but for a couple of years I was the dohan every morning. I've been waiting for it. I was the dohan every morning.

[102:54]

And we didn't know we were waiting for you, but yes, we're waiting for you too. I asked him at some point, you know, when you're doing... When do you speed up? And he said, you don't speed up. And trusting my teacher, I didn't even raise an eyebrow. Because he clearly speed up. And when he did it, he would go, you know, and I said he didn't speed up, so okay.

[104:18]

So I, you know, trusted him. He doesn't speed up. But everyone else would say, and if you recorded it, you'd say he sped up. But no, I'm happy to believe him. And I accepted that. And I... Yeah, understood. But I would say I didn't really realize it with clarity until fairly recently.

[105:19]

And this is a way for me to open up what I mean by mental postures. Because all thinking, well, let's say all... The mentation of practice is mental power. Or you establish the establishment of mental posture is practice. Then we can even call it a ceremony. And now I'm going in another direction, but up and down.

[106:38]

And if, as you said, Richard, and I'm not talking to a mirror, And you said when you're with a lot of people, it's like swimming upstream. And for me, every person I meet is a practice. And this is quite a... a fulfilling practice in St.

[107:40]

Stephen's Place in the middle of the day. But what I feel is I ask myself What space is this person in? And then I ask myself Are they present in their own space or in their space? And then I ask myself, do they know they're present in their own space? And then I ask myself, is... And then I ask or notice what space, their space, draws out of me.

[109:00]

And this is related, as Tara said, to the practice of generosity. The practice of the first parameter. Which is to discover how you are related to each person you meet. So for me, I have various ways to do this. This is my current way. And I would say it's a ceremony. I ceremonially do it. And ceremony means something like to make sacred.

[110:03]

And in English, sacred means dedicated to a single purpose. And there is a kind of singularity to doing that. And so, let's say that this is my current version of the ceremony of generosity. And at first, I'd say there's three stages. First I notice that the way I am present with each person I meet and my experience I could say my practice is just much more my experience not as a practice but just experience

[111:26]

Each person I meet is absolutely equal with everyone, my wife, my children. I have no preferences, just colibris. Okay, and so I do notice that at particular times, at a particular phase of aliveness, I'm present within alterity or otherness. In a somewhat different way than I was six months ago. So then I ask myself, what ceremony am I performing now that's different than before?

[112:46]

And I'm using the word ceremony to make Christina happy. So then I see that actually what I'm doing is asking myself those three questions. And I have to explore a bit to discover what ceremony I'm going through. And the fourth being not exactly a question, but establishing receptivity to the space that appears through the three questions. Yes. Anyway, so then once I have articulated the ceremony I've established, then I make it more graphic and more clear by intentionally feeling those three questions.

[114:20]

And being aware of my own receptivity to whatever degree it's present. And then I forget about the three, articulating the three questions. And now I'm just doing it naturally, a little different way before I made it unnatural. And then naturally. And nobody, of course, knows what the heck I'm doing. I'm just walking through the crowd. But it's so extremely interesting. I could walk back and forth for about a month. Yes. But people do sort of know.

[115:43]

But sometimes I get these winks. Or somebody inclines themselves toward me and then steers away. Or I find I get person after person smiling at me. What? In the end, though. This is unusual? Not unusual. The Viennese are renowned for being grumpy. They are? Oh, really? Well, I'm trying to do my work. It's a good city for a body sound. Okay. This is just fun. What the heck? You've got to do something with your time. Okay. So that's a ceremony or that's a mental part.

[116:51]

Okay. Now, what I realized, what Suzuki Roshi meant when he said, I don't speed up, what he meant was that he has a mental posture of not speeding up. And what that means is that he allows his body to do whatever it wants to do, but he maintains the mental posture. And then that means by allowing the body to do what it wants to, you're allowing the phenomenal world to do what it wants to.

[118:02]

And noticing these body, speech, and mind. Speech, in this case, being a mental posture. Are at the center of the yogic experience. Sounds quite different from and is different from how I often implied Well, I never even from the very beginning bought into the oneness of body and mind. Do you understand bought into?

[119:11]

But I did think about and find myself experiencing a greater integration of body and mind. And And then, without going into too many details, I used to say, even though body and mind are inseparable, we can experience body and mind separately.

[120:31]

And through practice we allow, through practice we, We find ways to weave the experience of the separateness of body and mind together. But now I wouldn't say that. Okay, what would I say now? Now, here I've been practicing 50 years. So for 50 years I've been practicing noticing and experiencing the distinctions between body, mind, and phenomena.

[121:46]

And what these words call for. And being in the midst of an experience which is more subtle than three categories. And But finding that the categories are useful, even the experiences, the topography experience is much more defined. And a Leon definition. And I still feel that these three categories are very useful, although this land map of the experiences... Now, here I'm not so speaking, but how do you pronounce the French linguist, Fernand de Saussure?

[122:57]

De Saussure is French. Saussure? De Saussure. Saussure, okay. Vivre a... I don't know how to pronounce it. And as far as I know, again, I'm not a scholar, but modern linguistics mostly stems from Saussure. And maybe language before him was more studied as languages about language. Saussure said that language is about the way the mind works. And not about the way the mind works.

[124:04]

Language is the way the mind works. What we know. And I think this is basically true. Or true in the sense that we are thoroughly connected to the categories by which we observe. And the mind develops habits of noticing through categories. For example, also a weird example.

[125:05]

If you pet a cat, if you pet a cat within the categories of petting a cat, just listen. If you pet a cat, the category you're supposed to notice is the fur and the purr. So you... You snore. That's what men do. Oh. Wait a minute. Okay. Um... So you feel this purr and the fur and it's quite nice.

[126:16]

But my experience is that's because you're noticing the cat through the categories of its surface. And you can have another state of mind which doesn't notice through categories. And the cat is suddenly this incredible dynamo of energy. And just vibrating and ribs and stuff going. And it's unbelievable. It's like, ah! So when you change the categories, when you actually notice the world, suddenly the world comes alive in a different way. You see that I wasn't able to use language exactly for that experience.

[127:29]

Okay, so you have categories of body, speech, and mind. Which for 50 years I've been... And more, I'm 76. But for 50 years as a Zen practitioner, I've been contemplating, integrating, engaging these categories of body, speech, and mind. And because I am a meditator, I don't just experience the world in the categories of mind. a vastly richer topography than the categories of language.

[128:39]

So those of you who know medical terminology, maybe it's a tomography as well as a topography. And I find over the years I put these categories, let's keep it simple, body, speech and mind, on different parts of this topography. Ich habe herausgefunden, dass ich über die Jahre hinweg diese simplen Kategorien von Körper, Sprache und Mind an verschiedenen Punkten dieser Topografie Mostly it's not intentional. It's that the category doesn't work anymore quite there. It's shifted. But I have to teach in categories.

[129:58]

And I have to refer to my own experience through categories. And as Ian Forrester again said, how am I supposed to know what I'm thinking until I see what I say? Okay. So what I notice now is that yogic practice emphasizing mental postures. the bodily cognition to be free of mental postures.

[131:01]

Or relative. I mean, One of the funny things that's very common, I think, in Japan and also, I think, in Korea and China, is you can make a statement like, this is not a bell. And I'm not quoting Marguerite. Because as is the case in his paintings too, is that it's clear this is a bell. Or maybe it's only a bell.

[132:04]

Maybe until the bell doesn't ring, it could be very strange. but in any case it's so obvious there's something there if I say it's not there it's just a meta statement about it it's not a why it's a meta statement so it's very common and it can be a problem for bit American and German and Japanese businessmen. The Japanese may say, that's not true, when everyone knows it's true, but that's not true is a comment on how it's true. And it's not considered a lie.

[133:19]

I suppose for us it falls into categories of irony and things like that. Okay, so it was. For Suzuki Roshi, it was not a lie to say he doesn't speed up. He couldn't quite get it to time. establish a mental posture where you don't speed up. And that meant to him discover how to let your body hit the molecule. And And then, when people start chanting more and more together, which happens, and you're hitting the mokugyo somehow, both slightly ahead and slightly behind the chanting.

[134:47]

You're pushing the chanting and leaning it. That's the way it is. And if you hold a mental posture of not speeding up but you let the body do its own thing it speeds up much better with everybody than if you intended it. It's a kind of respect for letting the body think for itself. And that respect is carried a third step to the phenomenal world as being kind of a body. That you allow the unexpectedness of the phenomenal world to be present too.

[136:06]

So now I wouldn't talk about weaving body and mind together. I might say allowing mind, body and phenomena to have their own freedom. And if I live into my 80s, come back and we'll see what I say then. Why don't we pretend to have dinner? We were one minute earlier. Thank you very much. Sorry, I'm embarrassed. I talked so much. I'm really sorry that I talked so much.

[137:24]

I'm sorry. And I won't see you until next year. It's lucky I live in timelessness. The question was, how are we going to proceed in the evening? No, the question was how are we going to proceed in the evening. Maybe I would suggest a short period of Zazen and then some discussion. Yes. It would be nice if you tried it anyway. Yes, we will. It's 6 p.m.

[138:36]

now. 20 o'clock? 20 o'clock? Okay. And then we can think about it tomorrow morning.

[138:43]

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