You are currently logged-out. You can log-in or create an account to see more talks, save favorites, and more.
Embracing Impermanence: A Buddhist Journey
Seminar_The_Eightfold_Path
The talk focuses on the Eightfold Path within Buddhism, emphasizing the integration of teachings into daily life and recognizing the impermanence and unpredictability of existence. This seminar, designed as a prelude to a longer event, aims to deepen the understanding and practice of the Eightfold Path, particularly for lay practitioners. It explores the tension between the Western desire for permanence and predictability and the Buddhist acknowledgment of impermanence and unknowability. The discussion also highlights how Buddhist practices can be embodied and rehearsed in life, akin to preparing for the moment of death, aiming for a seamless transition into trusting and letting go.
Referenced Works:
-
The Eightfold Path: Central to the talk, the Eightfold Path is a foundational Buddhist teaching that outlines a path to enlightenment through right understanding, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. The talk stresses its practical application and integration into daily life.
-
Diamond Sutra: This Buddhist text is mentioned regarding the idea of having "no idea of a lifespan." It emphasizes the concept of transcending conventional notions of birth, life, and death, aligning with the talk's theme of impermanence.
-
Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead): Referenced in discussing the Buddhist view of death as a pivotal moment. The preparation and awareness of the impermanence of life are likened to rehearsing for one's own death or a spiritual leap, akin to an astronaut's rehearsed liftoff.
Mentioned Personalities or Concepts:
-
Rusty Schweikert: An astronaut whose experiences illustrate the importance of preparation and rehearsal, used metaphorically in the talk to relate to Buddhist practices preparing for death.
-
Avalokiteshvara: The Bodhisattva of Compassion, depicted with many arms and eyes, is used to discuss the multiplicity of views and awareness required to perceive the world fully, supporting the central theme of integrated awareness within the Eightfold Path.
AI Suggested Title: Embracing Impermanence: A Buddhist Journey
Let me say something about my idea in having this, what I call a pre-day to the seminar. One is just a practical matter. Just Saturday and Sunday, and then people have to leave in the afternoon on Sunday. It's not much time. And having this time with a few of you allows me to look at some aspect of this teaching that I can't do so easily in the seminar.
[01:12]
And I find if I get started there, if I start with a few people earlier. Those of you who have time, I can... It helps get the whole seminar started. I find that if I start out with a... group of people who don't know much about this practice at all. It's very hard to talk about this practice at all. we have to come to some kind of shared feeling in order to talk about this practice.
[02:35]
Because... Yeah. Yeah, because I don't always want to talk about things from the beginning over and over again. The teaching of Buddhism arises from a particular worldview. And if you don't get the feeling of the world view that's assumed in a particular teaching, the teaching won't penetrate into our lives.
[03:42]
Now, the worldview that's expressed in this, what are we speaking about, the Eightfold Path this time? Yes. And I'm actually quite excited to speak about the Eightfold Path. Fine. It's an honor to be able to speak about it with you. Yeah, it's one of the, certainly it's the earliest, most basic of Buddhist teachings. But I think it's, you know, for anybody acquainted with Buddhism, it's... It's certainly familiar. And partially practiced.
[05:01]
But... To understand it deeply and practice it deeply is not so, not very common. And yet it's the teaching which is most suitable for lay persons. Now again, if I find if there's some in a seminar, there's a few people who it makes sense to, that sense that it might make sense is contagious, spreads to the other people.
[06:13]
So my job is to see if this teaching can make sense to some of you. Because on the basis of that feeling, we can open ourselves up to a particular teaching. Yes, so the basics. Eightfold path is, you know, right views or perfecting views. And it's not right in contrast to wrong. But right in the sense of what makes sense or is accurate. Or we can say integrating.
[07:22]
It's integrating views, integrating intentions. No, I think that the worldview that's... assumed in the Eightfold Path, is something we all like. So I think we will be ready to accept it. What's more difficult is to see that it actually is in some conflict or contradiction to some of our other views. Now, I think it seems to me common
[08:22]
Contemporary Western culture. For educated people. Sophisticated people. We use it differently in German than we use it. You don't have the word, really? No. You can also have not only intellectually sophisticated, also your manners can be sophisticated. It means cosmopolitan in the way I'm using it. Yeah, but that's another problem. I think the way it's used in English means something close to open to various views.
[09:52]
Okay, anyway, so let's say open to various views. And often open to, as I said earlier, contradictory views. Yeah, and I think that Buddhism arose in a culture in which there were a multiplicity of views. Yeah. In Western culture, we tend to have, until recently, pretty much one view of the world. Yeah. In der westlichen Kultur hatten wir bis vor kurzem ziemlich immer nur eine einzige Sichtweise, die dominierende.
[11:03]
So... Yeah, this, yeah. I don't know if this is making sense, but anyway, I'll continue. Also ich weiß nicht, ob das irgendeinen Sinn macht, aber ich fahre einfach fort. So Buddhism works for us because we're now in a kind of... a variety of world views we have. And that's part of the worldview of Buddhism, to have a variety of worldviews. And not try to make everything fit together. The teaching of the Eightfold Path is that it's essential to have some kind of integrating view.
[12:09]
So the teaching will penetrate your life and the world. Now, what do I mean by a worldview? Well, again, I'm watching my little daughter, of course, Sophia, who is now 14 months old. And I... To me, she's a little adult, not a baby. In fact, I think that I... My own sense is that our idea of childhood is a cultural creation. I teach her. I relate to her just like I relate to anybody. It's just she's smaller and she's dumbfounded. I'm testing my translator.
[13:30]
Dumb means speechless. Yeah. So founded is founded in speechlessness, but dumbfounded means awe. Yeah. Now I forget what the first... She's dumbfounded. Yes. I just spoke to... Marie-Louise this morning. And you know, Sophia has spent the last six months in, we live at 2,600 meters or something like that. And it's high desert. And the valley in front of us Well, it's as big as the state of Connecticut. It's probably the size of Switzerland.
[14:33]
And it was an ancient lake bed. So for millennia, sand has been blowing. you know, up the mountain. So the ground is quite sandy. And there's plants here and there and cactuses, but it's nothing like this. So Sophia is quite active and has been walking since 10 months or 9 months. But we take her out of the car here and put her on the grass. And she can't even walk anywhere. Because there's so much to see, she can't believe it.
[15:40]
She stops. Everything is interesting. Yeah. So I think last year I said that In Buddhist view, babies are born with tanha. Which means a thirst for not less than everything. But that thirst starts to take shape. A thirst for not less than everything. Okay, so she's beside our bed in Johanneshof. We have a kind of lamp, modern lamp, with a very thin steel spring, like as big as a thread, practically.
[16:42]
And when she touches it, it bounces. Well, at eight months old, she was quite familiar with it. She touched it and it would bounce. But this time, she touched it. Now she's 14 months. And it moved away from her hand. She was terrified. Because now she has a world view. She expects things to be solid. She's not used to lamps jumping out of her hand. So to expect solidity and to expect things to be predictable is a worldview.
[17:53]
And so she is attempting And so she tries all the time, not just to find the names and words for things, but to find out the relationship between things. And one of those things is predictability. And solidity. But most things are pretty solid. But what's the teaching of Buddhism? That things aren't solid. That things aren't permanent. That things aren't really predictable. And yet they're relatively predictable. Okay, so how do we... She needs to find predictability.
[19:15]
And we all need to find, actually, predictability. I'm quite glad that this building was where it was last year. If I'd come up the path and it was gone, How could they have moved it? Yeah, and yet the beginning of the Eightfold Path is great views or perfecting views. Und am Beginn des achtfachen Wegs steht rechte Ansichten, die Vervollkommnung von Ansichten, oder die Ansichten zu integrieren. Okay, so... The view of Buddhism is that the view of impermanence is an integrating view.
[20:20]
Yeah, the view of permanence is... conflicts with how things actually exist. So how do we break the habit of permanence? So if we're going to practice the Eightfold Path, we have to take on the effort to break the habit of permanence. And also to break the habit of thinking things are knowable.
[21:21]
Or even wanting things to be knowable. So we have a territory here, permanence, impermanence. And the word permanence means The word impermanence in Buddhism is a kind of sign. A sign for unknowable. Unpredictable. Okay, so how do we live in a world where we... need and assume predictability.
[22:24]
And at the same time, recognize unpredictability. Unknowability. So in a way we have a simultaneous view. So we assume a certain amount of predictability or expect a certain amount of predictability. But we're ready for unpredictability. Not as an intellectual idea, but as our actual experience. Yeah, okay. There's a word, anschauung.
[23:43]
Anschauung? Yeah. A noun or a verb? Anschauung. How do you translate it? Did you say anschauung or anschauung? Yeah, anschauung. View. View. Yeah. Okay. Now, isn't it used in a religious sense? Yeah. And how would you translate it then? Because we've been discussing it. Michael Murphy, this friend of mine who's founded Esalen, has been discussing it. And it seems to have been a word important to Einstein. And Marie-Louise says it means something like looking with a sense of prayer. Yeah. Like... Michael goes to Russia quite often, former Soviet Union.
[25:07]
And I've gone there with him quite often, too. Not as often, but anyway, fairly often. And... The Russians speak about an icon, an image of Christ. Not as an image of Christ, but a window through which you see God. And the Russians say, we Westerners, they think of us as something not the same as them. Have a very thin view of the world. Now, when I think, and I'm just, I think that when Einstein thought of
[26:10]
when he was in an elevator, he would feel at rest. So he got the idea of relativity partly from imagining being in an elevator. So he saw that, you know, time would, space would be bent. Because things would move. Everything would seem still, even though it's moving. Erscheint, obwohl es sich bewegt. Okay, his idea was, I think he called this an anschauen. Und seine Idee war, und ich glaube, das war etwas, was er eine Anschauung genannt hat. To see into the world through an image.
[27:26]
In die Welt zu sehen durch ein Bild. Now, I don't, since I don't know a chairman, I'm a little tentative in speaking about this word. Und da ich kein... So I know what was said. Of course, but... Could I know what was said? Is it noble? I don't know. [...] So we are in the very depth of German language.
[28:36]
Oh. Well, in any case, whatever it means, many of the Buddhist teachings, most of the Buddhist teachings, you have to enact. Viele der buddhistischen Belehrungen muss man einfach, man muss sie einfach You have to take... take the word impermanence as an activity not as an idea and an activity in which you find a way to put yourself in the midst of all of that. And then many things both unfold and develop from seeing it as an activity.
[29:36]
Now let me go back to Sophia again. In Creston, we have a lot of blue jays and gray jays. Do you have blue jays? I have no idea. I only saw them in Creston. They are this big bird, very noisy, and quite aggressive. No, they are blue. They are not black. They are blue, and it's not a dark blue. They're so aggressive that sometimes if you're eating a sandwich, they'll come down and try to grab it with their hand. Anyway. Well, anyway. It's an American bird. You know, actually, this was part of... Darwin's theory was supported because he found through a scientist at Harvard named Asa Gray that the plants in Harvard and what kind of scientist was he?
[31:00]
He was a biologist. That the plants and animals of America are more related to Asia than they are related to Europe. And so Darwin used it to support his idea of evolution. Because you could see an evolution from Asia into America. and not the same from Europe into America. So maybe the Japanese have a blue jay, I don't know. In any case, these blue jays make a kind of sound. So the sound became the name of the birds for her. So with the worldview we have, we thought she'd name the bird... So every time she saw such a bird, she'd go... Sounds like we both have a cold.
[32:13]
But then one day, looking out the window, the shadow of a bird up above the house went across the lawn. And she saw the shadow and went, krrr. Well, that's a complex connection to see. It doesn't look like a bird at all. And I realized that she was naming the activity, the bird-like activity, not naming a bird. Okay, so I needed a concept. So my concept changed it from she's naming an entity to she's naming an activity. We could call that an insight.
[33:41]
And such shifts are actually the root of enlightened experience. Because I shifted from seeing her name entities to watching her name So what I see now, she names activities, not entities. But if she's ever going to start to speak... English or German. I'm sorry to be so basic, but I think I don't know how else to get into this. And I'm sorry to talk about my daughter all the time. It's not just because I'm a loving father.
[34:57]
That has something to do with it. But it's because it's my current study. And this whole idea of a neonate or the newborn is important in philosophy too. Okay, so I'm seeing her name activities. Und ich sehe, wie sie Tätigkeiten, Aktivitäten benennt. But if she's going to speak English or German, she already understands a great deal of what you say to her. More in German than English. Because her maternal language is almost entirely German.
[36:02]
Her parental language is almost entirely English. So if you say to her, Go get Papa's shoes and bring them here. She goes and gets them. Ask her to put on her clothes. She tries to put on her clothes. She's confused why I have different things on my face than Marie-Louise does. I have eyes and Marie-Louise has eyes. But anyway, she has to conflate this activity down into names that are entities if she's going to speak our language. So now I can observe a certain tension between entities and activities.
[37:06]
Now, you could say what I'm talking here is sort of philosophy. But Sophia knows nothing about philosophy. But she's living something which I can only speak about in philosophical terms. So can we imagine a world where we see activity instead of entities? So impermanence is an activity. Now, in the teaching of the bardo, in the importance of the moment of death, and in Buddhism, the moment of death is...
[38:45]
extremely important. And in a way we're rehearsing, you could see Buddhist practice as a rehearsal for the moment of death. It amuses me that the word I'm using the word rehearsal because it has the word hearse in it. A hearse is what you bring the coffin to the cemetery in. You mean a carriage or what? Yeah, a hearse. A hearse is the black car or carriage which brings the... So it's just not important, but I hear rehearse. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Now, a friend of mine is an astronaut named Rusty Schweikert.
[40:04]
He was the first astronaut to walk in space. And he has some interesting things to say about that experience. Anyway, he said that when they did the liftoff, They rehearsed the liftoff many, many, many, many times. Each time they caused problems. What happens if this happens during the liftoff? And he said, so finally, when the actual liftoff came, He said it was a piece of cake.
[41:13]
Do you have such an experience? He's such a good cook. Good at making Austrian pastries, too. A piece of cake means it's completely easy. I guess it's like as easy as eating cake. Anyway, because there were no problems, it just went. And there was no fear, no anything. It was just because you'd rehearsed it so often. So the moment of death is described in the Bardo. As leaping into your mother's lap. Without death. doubt. And without hesitation. Yeah, it's a very simple little image.
[42:17]
And it's an accessible image. We can all sort of imagine leaping into someone's lap we trust. Certainly when Sophia is upset. She really likes leaping into Marie-Louise's web. Now, in my point, from what I've been speaking about, this is a kind of un-showroom. An image you can... ein Bild, in das man hineingehen kann, das ist es, die Mutter unmittelbar zu erkennen, und die Mutter ohne Zweifel zu erkennen, und auf den Schoß der Mutter zu springen, ohne irgendeine Art von Zweifel,
[43:21]
Okay, what does that mean in Buddhist practice? It means that right now can you feel that? And right now can you feel this trusting in this room as if it were your mother's lap? No, that doesn't mean to be stupid. Of course, we're in situations we can't trust. We can't trust everyone. Then how can we, even knowing we can't trust, how can we trust? And if we're going to rehearse the moment of death, like Rusty Schweigert's liftoff, If we wait till a moment of death, we're going to be nervous, we're sick, you know, our children aren't with us, or whatever.
[44:37]
How can we... for this liftoff or entry into dying? How can we rehearse it now? We may wake up in the middle of the night. 3 a.m. or something. With a kind of anxiety. With a kind of... But if we stay with it, the other side of that anxiety is often a sort of bliss.
[45:46]
We may actually have a feeling like, this is a state of mind I could die in. And I think when that happens, and I've talked to people who are even older than me. And they begin to have such thoughts, oh, I could die in this state of mind. We could say the rehearsal has begun. And we can start 10, 20, 15 years before we die, getting to know the state of mind in which we can choose to die.
[46:53]
This is part of the practice. Okay, maybe that's enough for the first beginning of this morning. Can we have a little break? So let's sit for a couple of minutes and then we can have a break. to just now jump into our mother's lap.
[48:37]
The essential sense of mother. Recognizing her without hesitation. Jumping, leaping, without doubt. Can we even have that feeling in our sitting for these few moments? Trusting our immediate and actual experience. Recognizing, trusting our immediate actual experience.
[49:39]
Thank you for counseling. So about half an hour or something like that, 20 minutes? How long should we say? What time? So let's have a break from about 12 to 2. So should we have lunch at 12 or 12.15 or so? What time is good? 12.30 maybe? Let's say half past 12. If it's not possible, we can make it later. There's no rush. We have no schedule except what we make. What? What? Now we can have a break of 20 minutes. Having just been at Crestone Mountain Zen Center for the last six months, we, whenever you,
[53:56]
meet someone, you stop and bow. It becomes such a habit, you know, I'm at the airport and... And I find myself doing it here. I don't have to bow to all of you. It's my habit to do so, and I'll try to break the habit. Since I probably can't break it during just this seminar, maybe I should say something about it. Also let me use it as a way to introduce a koan I want to speak about.
[55:08]
Which is again my favorite dynamic duo. Dynamic duo is a comic book term. Oh, you know that. So smart. They're called a dynamic duo. Anyway, this is Dao Wu and Yun Yan. There's three famous koans about these brother monks.
[56:12]
They were actual brothers and also Dharma brothers studying with the same teacher. And Dao was the older and Seems to have been the more intelligent. But my lineage goes through the younger brothers. But maybe he was... It's good we don't all have to be so intelligent. Realization doesn't depend on intelligence. Thank goodness for all of us. Anyway... Yunyan asked Daowu, why does the bodhisattva of compassion have so many hands and eyes?
[57:30]
Now, did Paul speak about that? Yes. Paul just reminded me of the comment. So I thought I would continue speaking about it, following up on Paul's. teaching recently in Vienna. Paul was here last year, that's right. And he's leading a sashin right now at Johannes Hall. Which makes me happy to have a Dharma team.
[58:38]
More than a duo, though. Anyway, so why does Bodhisattva have so... Bodhisattva compassion have so many hands and eyes, arms and eyes? Now everyone in... Augen and Armen. Arms and eyes or hands and eyes. Hands and eyes, okay. Hände und Augen. Augen and Armen. No, Hände und Augen. Anyway, that was it.
[59:39]
It's like looking for your pillow at night. So anyway, everyone knows the, in Asia would know the image of, these images of Avalokiteshvara. and sometimes portrayed with one thousand arms and eleven heads this is this multiplicity of views and often in each palm of each hand there's an eye And in the soles of the feet, there's eyes. So even if we had 11 heads and only four arms and eyes, or arms and feet, we have 66 eyes per person. Bodhisattva.
[61:05]
So what kind of worldview is this? I think we really should think that's a blue jay, not a frog. She would think it's the activity of blue jays and frogs. Yeah. So when we When you meet someone. No, no, no. So if I see you, I stop.
[62:06]
You know, if you're in a hurry, you just walk by. So what am I doing when I bow? What kind of body view or world view is there? Well, first of all, there's an assumption that there's a kind of field around us. A kind of field that science tells us is not there. But if you trust your experience, you know it's there. But when you trust your experience, then you know that it's there.
[63:23]
Like when you're standing and you feel somebody looking at you. And then you turn around and you see they're looking at you. Or it happens often in autos. You think you're alone and that makes sense. So when you feel power, you actually gather that feeling into your hands. And you gather that feeling in your body into your hands. And when you're And you know, when you're doing healing or something, you can feel a little pulse, almost like something spongy between your hands.
[64:25]
And it's the kind of thing healers speak about. They just have so strongly, they notice... Aber unsere Kultur sagt uns, wir sollen das nicht bemerken. Weil es irgendwie rational und wissenschaftlich nicht erklärbar ist. Aber hier sprechen wir davon, der eigenen Erfahrung zu vertrauen. Und der O antwortet, das ist wie in der Nacht nach seinem Polster zu greifen. So ist seine unmittelbare Antwort nicht eine intellektuelle Idee, oder irgendeine philosophische Bemerkung,
[65:29]
Yeah, something like that. Immediately experience. An accessible experience. We all know what it's like to reach for a pillow. So I think if you You know, while healers may notice this, all of us may notice it if we have permission. We have to have the confidence to trust our experience, not the cultural view only. Wir müssen das Vertrauen haben, unserer tatsächlichen Erfahrung zu vertrauen und nicht der gesellschaftlichen Konvention.
[66:42]
Ihr habt dieses Gefühl, diese Energie in eure Hände zu bringen. Das Gefühl in eurem Körper und in eurem Rückgrat. Bringing it. So you're feeling it. The body isn't just like this. You're actually feeling it. You're breathing your heart. But that's a little bit too private. So you lift it up into more shared space. So, and the bowing offers that to the other person. That's not what the problem is in our business life But if this is how we exist
[67:56]
How do we recognize this part of our existence and recognize it with others? I guarantee you, if you have 20 or 30 people who live together for several months, And whenever they pass each other, it's not really about some kind of religious practice. It's a kind of yogic practice. expression of awakening, experience and connection with others. So it's not just a habit for me. I'm rather addicted actually to this experience of connectedness.
[69:23]
So if I see you after some years, okay to give you my sword hand in friendship. But it feels better to me to bow. But we don't have this habit yet. So then it feels a little strange. But I think you can see that... the teaching, shall we say, in this practice, to try to live at a pace which recognizes our subtleties. To live at a pace which recognizes recognizes our actual existence, which is a subtle existence.
[70:43]
Because we often disregard the subtlety of our existence. And it helps to act it out with the power. But if that's kind of a nuisance and not acceptable behavior in our society, you can have the feeling in your own mind You can have that feeling without acting it out so obviously. I think we're trying to say something like that when we say goodbye. Or some people have a habit of going like that when they say goodbye. Is there no ways to make our subtle existence an activity?
[72:06]
So let me list the Eightfold Path. Because a teaching like this is meant to be meant to be something you hold within you in the midst of your activity so it begins to be part of your knowing or part of your activity. It's called path. So path means it's something that you're walking on right now.
[74:23]
So we can call it right or perfecting or integrating. I hope you didn't mind I made a little Walter here. Now for each of these if it's an activity and not an entity, probably we need a cluster of words for each one. And When we think of these words as entities, for instance, the word mindfulness occurs in this list, most people start thinking, well, this is the same mindfulness that occurs in all the other teachings where it says mindfulness.
[76:02]
That's not an immediate mistake. Because this is mindfulness in the context of these eight. The word mindfulness doesn't have a meaning outside the context of the context. Und das Wort Achtsamkeit hat keine Bedeutung außerhalb des Kontexts, in dem es steht. Now that's something, it's a little bit contradiction to our habits. Und das läuft ein bisschen gegen unsere Gewohnheiten. Because we think of a word as naming something. Weil wir daran denken, dass ein Wort etwas bezeichnet. And then wherever that name appears, it's more or less the same. Und wo immer dieser Name auftaucht, da ist es mehr oder weniger dasselbe. So each of these words, if you're familiar with it, you can just use one word, because you know each word represents an activity.
[77:27]
So let's start out with just write, unless you're perfecting your degree. So let's start out with just write, unless you're perfecting your degree. The first is views. The second is intention. The third is speech. The fourth is behavior. Or Führung. The next is then Lebensunterhalt. The next is Anstrengung. Or Energie. Or a new word I've made up, a new allusion.
[78:52]
Where did she come from? Because it's awareness and energy. And mindfulness. And concentration. Now, some people ask, okay, then where's meditation? Well, some aspects of meditation and mindfulness and some concentration.
[80:04]
Again, these are As activities, meditation is part mindfulness. As an activity of concentration, meditation is part of concentration. As an activity, meditation is part of concentration. Okay, now, what do I mean by an activity, too? What do I mean by holding this earliest of all Buddhist teachings?
[81:10]
Holding it before you or holding it in your mind? In your activity? Yes. And if you're practicing Buddhism or interested in this aspect of Buddhism, well, in a way, you can hardly call this Buddhism. It's kind of common sense. But what makes it Buddhism and what makes it common sense? And how is common sense carried into a practice in a way that one thing that makes it Buddhism? Okay, so I'm speaking with you now. That's the activity I'm engaged in.
[82:26]
I'm also breathing. Of course, I think my heart is beating. I have some kind of metabolic feeling. And while I'm speaking, there's certain views in my speaking. If I have, while I'm speaking, I have the feeling Is this intelligible? That's a view or attitude present within my speaking. Or if I have the view... I know more about this than you do.
[83:39]
That view that I know more about this than you do. Or is this intelligible? Influences how I'm talking. So part of practicing the Eightfold Path would be to be aware of my views while I'm speaking. Now if I have an intention too, my intention is to be here for this seminar. My intention is to share this with you. Okay, say that my intention is to share this with you.
[84:40]
I find that intention influences how I'm So say I have shifted my intention. And my intention is now to live this with you. So if my intention while I'm speaking is is to live this teaching with you, that actually changes the way I speak. And I find if my intention is to live this with you, I feel better than when my intention is to share it with you. So, you know, somebody might say, oh, thank you for sharing this.
[85:55]
Okay, fine, I accept that. not sharing it with you. It's not exactly shareable. It's not like I have something I'm giving to you. That turns it into an object. And so I find it more effective actually to I have the feeling I'm living it with you. So then it doesn't make so much difference what I say, as long as it expresses my living it with you. And if I feel I know more about this than you, Yeah, which in some sense this is, on some level, at least partly true.
[87:15]
But I find it a divisive idea. I feel more like... we both don't know too much about it. And if we are going to know something about it, we only will know something about it. By discovering it together. So if I have the idea while I'm speaking, yeah, let's see if we can discover this together. Then I don't worry whether I know the other, et cetera. So I, in that way, can be aware of my
[88:17]
intentions in the middle of my activity. And I can be aware of my views in the middle of my activity. And I can be aware of my conduct too. How is my breathing and And how am I mindful right now? Am I concentrated on the particularities or do I feel the field that's present? Mm-hmm. Anyway, this kind of way you can begin to find the Eightfold Path present in your activity.
[89:38]
Now the Diamond Sutra says, no idea of a lifespan. Yeah, does this mean we don't know we have a lifespan? I don't know that I'm in a certain part of my life. Yeah, some of you are my age, some of you are younger, and some of you are older. This is a kind of fact. So why does the Diamond Sutra say, no idea of a lifespan? Because if I take away the idea of a lifespan, if I take away the idea of older or younger, or that I'm at the end of my life or beginning of my life,
[90:50]
oder diese Vorstellung, ich bin jetzt am Ende meines Lebens, ich bin jetzt am Beginn meines Lebens, wenn ich diese Ideen wegnehmen kann, so dass es keine Idee von einer Lebensspanne gibt, dann sind Sophia und du, ihr seid alle im selben Alter. Yeah, but of course the activity in relationship to Sophia is different than the activity in relationship to each of you. So part of this idea is not that we don't have an idea of life...
[92:09]
@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_71.26