When we used to do two-day seminars and not three-day seminars for some of you, Saturday afternoon we almost always broke into a big group or a small group. To discuss in Germany, in Austria, to discuss in German, what what had come up during the morning. But in more recent years, I've felt how can we really have a discussion?

[01:09]

We've only had one morning to discuss these topics which take quite a long time to absorb. And even Christina, who I've been practicing with since 1844 or something... We met in Prague. We met in Krakow. And I'd always wanted to go to Krakow. That's why I went. Because as a kid, I'd get everyone in the neighborhood, which was a small neighborhood, so not many kids, To come into my basement where we had bunk beds for my brother and I. And I had this little Buddha from somewhere that used to sit on a shelf in my family's house.

[02:19]

I was about 12 or so. And completely uninterested in religion. An aggressive atheist from the age of one or zero. And growing up in a scientific family. But some reason I took this little statue and put it on the red painted ladder that went up to the top bunk bed. And I found this word, Krakow, on a map. It looked like the most faraway city that you could possibly find. And I had no idea what was going on given my idea about religion.

[03:41]

But I got all my fellow kids to get in a line And we chanted, bow to Krakow. I really have no idea what I was doing. Maybe I'm not much into other lives, but maybe there was another life surfacing. So even Christina, who I've known for a century,

[04:53]

wrote me a letter recently and she said in the early days she couldn't really make sense of the five skandhas and I couldn't have imagined why she couldn't understand her get a feeling for the five skandhas. Because they're so completely obvious. I mean, when you do zazen, you go straight through the five skandhas. You sit down in consciousness. Consciousness is here. Yeah, he didn't do that, though. And then you settle into associative mind.

[05:56]

And then you settle out of that into percept, only mind. And then into non-graspable feeling. And then into form itself, which is emptiness from which everything arises. And once you have these distinctions made, It seems clear that those are already present in our activity. Not something you have to learn. It's something you notice. But anyway, I'm trying to Find a way, of course, that we can really make sense of these practices.

[07:09]

So I excerpted part of her letter. I didn't get her permission to do this. But emails are public now anyway. The NSA knows everything. Okay. So, by the way. Really? Wonderful. Okay. So what she wrote to me, you don't have to translate what I wrote. She said, what I feel we should do, in English, with courage and trust among ourselves, we should look, she's giving me necessary advice. We should look at the things about practice that we do not understand.

[08:24]

Especially the things this morning. I don't know about that. And haven't been able to understand all these years. Questions that we have never dared to ask. Really? I'm not sitting here asking anything. Because maybe they're too basic or too dumb or embarrassing. And then this is the daring one, or maybe too much of a challenge to the teachings. In writing this, I already feel I'm daring. But what else is there to do if we do not dare? So she said something I think is very important here. This is where the contribution of the Sangha could be so valuable and important.

[09:32]

Each person's particular not understanding is where the meeting between the wisdom teaching and the worst takes place. I think that's exactly the case. I said that, she didn't say that. I think it's exactly the case. Okay. I therefore think we should treasure our not understanding. Because these are the crucial points, places where wisdom teaching may come alive within our culture. And then she spoke to me about having the Ma Kanji from the past.

[10:39]

Do you have it there? No. Had it earlier today that Kaz wrote for you? Well, what I would like to do is leave and go upstairs. And leave Christina sort of in charge. No one will ever write me a letter again. And bring up how I would suggest, it's up to you, what the Ma Kanji and the Ma practice meant to you.

[11:41]

And how not noticing what's there already, like the skandhas that you wrote, creates a very narrow world even for your children trying to identify themselves. So maybe we can make more of a doubled circle, a donut. And we can have some discussion, you can have some discussion in Deutsch. Yeah, and maybe if you want to pass something around, you can use this thing and then you can put it behind your back, things like that.

[12:46]

And if the conversation starts looking like it's really happening, I might sneak back in. And hope Eric might, for example, sit beside me and whisper to me. Yeah, so that's my idea. And thank you very much. You don't need this. You wrote it there. If you can be great, if you can all agree or have some agreement on what is not understanding.

[13:58]

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