I presume that you, naturally enough, think, well, he will give another lecture today. I do it often enough, so it's in the schedule that that's a reasonable prediction. Ich tue das ja oft genug und es steht auch im Stundenplan, also ist das eine vernünftige Voraussage. But you don't know what it's like from my side. Aber ihr wisst ja nicht, wie das aus meiner Sicht aussieht oder von meiner Seite aussieht. But from my side, I'm giving another lecture. Who told you that crazy idea? Aber von mir aus gesehen ist es so, ich muss noch einen weiteren Vortrag halten. Wer hat euch denn die verrückte Idee vorgeschlagen? On the one hand, I'm in the midst of a conversation with you that I've always dreamed could be possible.

[01:03]

For several years, even five or ten or twenty years. I remember when I was little, I kind of dreamed of somebody you could really talk with, talk to. And now there's so many of you that I can really talk with. Yeah, but my side of the conversation, I never know, really, really, is it possible? My half of the conversation. But because although at least during the lecture you're not saying much. I definitely have the feeling I'm in a conversation with you.

[02:08]

Yeah, and now I'm speaking about refining the way we talk about things. You know, in Zen practice, we could say that everything is a rehearsal. Rehearsal. But there's no public performance. Usually rehearsal means you're practicing for a public performance. But it actually means something like to learn by repetition. And I'm sure even a good actor or actress even in their public performances feels they're rehearsing for the next public performance.

[03:28]

And our services, I think, might help if you understood our services as kind of dharmic rehearsals. Yeah, we all get together and we do this. But, you know, if you really get the feeling of it, it can be present in your life in all kinds of circumstances. Yeah, this doing things in detail. And chanting together. And creating a bodily presence together. Now, I think that a healthy, physical, loving family... And that there's a shared bodily presence.

[04:52]

Yeah, that's not... which is not necessarily and in fact separate from an erotic or sexual bodily presence. So I think the child climbed up on the parents' laps and things like that. It's a bodily presence they share with the parents. I mean, you know, maybe most families, ideally anyway, that's the way it is. Yeah, so even if you see a husband and wife, a man and woman in a Yeah, the dining room here is something like that, and they're in different parts of the dining room.

[06:10]

You feel a wavelength between them. One member of the couple is in one corner of the room and one's in another. But I think they may feel a connectivity or conductivity Conductivity is light. Right. Yeah. In some ways we could say that practice increases our conductivity. I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm saying it. I mean, even outsiders, people, you know, the couple may feel it, but even outsiders can feel this band, this wavelength in the room.

[07:29]

Yeah, and I mean, I suppose that... I suppose that in... We could say Sangha and New Age talk is something like getting on the same wavelength. But there's something to it. I mean, when we just do everything physically in relation to each other in service, you discover, you begin to rehearse connectivity and conductivity. You know, in the mornings in Freiburg, I have this, we have this really very beautiful Tara statue.

[08:35]

This apartment is really for Marie-Louise and Sophia after I'm popped off, perished. I have nothing to leave them, so... You know, I don't know if they could stay here after I die or something, but anyway, this apartment gives them a roof over their head at least. So I thought they should have a tower right there. For these two young women. So anyway, it took me several years to get it, but I got this nice Tara for them. Tara is both a Bodhisattva sometimes and a Buddha.

[09:53]

Yeah, I love sitting in front. And I also think, excuse me, yeah, I'm a corpse living in the shadow of life. That's a line from a famous Butoh Japanese actor. We're all corpses living in the shadow of life. I like it. That's what I feel like. Why not? It's very lively. So anyway, I sit there knowing that they'll be with this wonderful Tara after I'm gone.

[11:03]

Yeah, but the Tara has her right foot out. And it's stepping out into the world, but it's on its own little lotus pod. And the right hand is out and the thumb and forefinger are touching. And the right hand is ready to be lifted up as the The right hand is ready to be lifted up as the right foot is ready to step out.

[12:04]

But the right foot steps out accompanied by a lotus. And the left hand is... The third finger and the thumb are touching over the center of the palm. The ring finger. Tara is not married. Okay. I'm sorry. She couldn't be. Her right foot is married, but her left foot is not. And the touching fingers are more or less over the heart. And the And the left foot is pulled in in meditation.

[13:22]

And both fingers are holding the stem of a lotus. Which? stretches around their arms and two blooming lotuses on either shoulder. And the three leaves above the lotus are at the level of the eyes and cheekbones. This is a kind of inner body. It's a kind of... If you practice this dharmic rehearsal of a shared bodily presence.

[14:44]

The dharmic iconography of these figures will begin to touch you more and more. then the dharmic iconography will begin to touch you more and more. There will be a conductivity you feel. You know, if I've said this many times, but every now and then, your right hand can touch your left hand. You can feel your right hand touching your left hand. And you can switch and feel your left hand touching your right hand.

[15:59]

And the left hand becomes the subjective and the right hand becomes the object. Now that's, yeah, some kind of miracle. But you can make this shift from bringing attention to the right hand and making it the subjective hand, and the left the objective, or switch it. Now, you can't turn your hands into wings. Or bear claws or paws.

[17:01]

You can only do what the hands can do. So who's making the decision here? Your hands can't be wings, but your hand can be things the hand can be. I was very much appreciated and was touched, charmed, by the fact that when I forgot to bring our bowls out at lunchtime, no one said anything. I was very zen of all of you. It was very zen of no one to mention it to me. I mean, you or Ottmar Christensen. Hey. But you're all prepared to eat straight off the floor. Yeah, like in India, you know.

[18:01]

Yeah. Ethiopia. But... Actually, you knew that circumstances would lead us to get the bowls out. Sometimes you let circumstances take care of it. Yeah, we started chanting, now we open our bowls, and I looked, I said... What bowls? How are we going to open them? So I got our bowls and we all opened our bowls very nicely. So whenever possible in Zen style is to let circumstances make the decision.

[19:04]

Also, wann immer das möglich ist, ist es so im Zen-Stil sozusagen, dass die Umstände die Entscheidung treffen. Now, if I decided earlier, oh, it's the... Gamashio's been served, I'll put our bowls out. Also, hätte ich jetzt vorher schon entschieden, dass wenn das Gamashio serviert ist, dann holen wir die Schalen heraus. Am I making that decision? Well, it feels like I'm making a decision. Oh, now we should put the bowls up. But when I wait till we're chanting and the food's going to be in front of us, am I making a decision or are circumstances making a decision? Now this may all sound like kindergarten to you or simplistic, but really I think it's pretty deep. You go back in all traditions and one of the first things world-building art that one of the first things we can call a world-building art philosophy is what is a person?

[20:51]

What can we expect of a person? What is a person responsible for? How do we establish relationships between people? And virtually every culture that's grounded in the idea that there's a continuity of self. There's responsibility because there's a continuity of self. Yeah. Buddhism says there's no continuity of self. Well, there's an illusion of continuity. How do you base a culture on an illusion of continuity? Buddhism is the only teaching I know that really emphasizes this strongly and clearly. As an incontrovertible fact.

[22:13]

And how do we build a world, a culture? Who's making these decisions that we're responsible for? When you do say there's not a continuity of self in the usual sense, how do we refine ourselves as persons then? Wenn du davon ausgehst, dass es keine Kontinuität des Selbst, also in gewöhnlichem Sinne gibt, wie sollen wir uns als Person dann verfeinern? Yeah, now we've practiced, discussed, and I think... Yeah, the four foundations of mindfulness.

[23:21]

Wir haben die vier Fundamente der Achtsamkeit diskutiert und praktiziert. Okay. Now, the four foundations of mindfulness... analyze things into parts. The body, the feelings, the qualities of mind, and the contents of mind. It's a very important analysis. Das ist eine sehr wichtige Analyse. It's an analysis into parts. Das ist eine Analyse in Teile hinein. Okay. It's not an analysis looking for a sub, a ground of mind. In all other cultures that I know about, any other similar analysis is a reductive analysis to find an essence.

[24:32]

A ground of being, a continuity of self. Buddhism says, when you analyze things into parts, you only have parts. That's a totally radical, in the world, idea. Das ist eine komplett andere und radikale Vorstellung. You end up with parts. Du hast letztlich Teile. Which means there's no outside. Und es bedeutet, dass es kein Außen gibt. If there's no essence or ground, there's no outside. Wenn es keine Essenz oder keinen Grund gibt, dann gibt es auch kein Außen.

[25:35]

All we've got is these parts. And what happens between these parts, among these parts, is all there is. And so what parts you decide to notice is the name of the game. So what we choose to bring our attention to, what parts we decide to notice, is what is creative, creates us and transforms us. So I'm asking you, Sashin, to notice certain parts.

[26:50]

Now, one part again is... You know, you've got mind and body. Those are parts. And we can gather the mind into the body and the body into the mind. We can establish and develop and rehearse this relationship. Rehearse in this case is just another word for practice. Okay. So, then we have... Yesterday I said in addition to mind-body we have the posture of the body in which the mind can be gathered.

[27:53]

And then we have the intention to gather the mind and the body and the body and etc. And the intention comes from the teaching, and the intention comes from the agency of self. Okay, so as I suggested, these are the ingredients that should be studied, observed, noticed. So I can take this basic idea of the body and the mind, and the mind and the body. As I said this morning, the body located in the mind, etc., Or located in awareness, I said.

[28:59]

So now we can bring subjective awareness to one hand and objective awareness to the other hand. And we can switch it. Now, I can only make a decision in relationship to what my hands can do. My hands, these hands. So the possible decisions are quite narrowly restricted. They can't become wings, you know. At least not without centuries and a lot of help from Darwin. Anyway. But I can also take my hands. Or these hands. I've had them for a long time. Or they had me.

[30:16]

Anyway, I can make them both subjective. If I do that, then I start to increase, you get that spongy feeling between your hands. And this has something to do with the hand of Tara over the heart with the fingers. And I can also bring this sub... Okay. My hand, the hand cannot become a wing. At least not in the immediate present. Okay. But I can take the feeling that I bring to the hand to make it subjective. And I can direct that toward the Tara figure.

[31:28]

I don't just look at the Tara figure. Now I can take that feeling that turns this hand into subjective and this hand into objective. And I can focus it on the Tara. Or on this Amida Buddha. Or you can each focus it on me. I can focus it on you. This is the a kind of inner vocabulary of dharmic practice. And it's related to getting the feeling within the lexicon of your experience, gathering the body and the mind, gathering the mind and the body.

[32:30]

And of course this relates to the whole sense of Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, the inner pulse and the outer pulse. And the three Sambhogakaya body and so forth. So we're deeply in the territory of Buddha's activity. And we could get there not by thinking it, but by feeling such things as the left hand subjective and the right hand objective.

[33:36]

Or gathering the mind and the body gathering the body and the mind and in the conductivity of this bodily presence dharmic presence we have in this world and with each other okay thank you for translating all this stuff You're welcome. Thank you for saying all this stuff. You're welcome.

[34:21]

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