If I had a certain experience, I don't think I could open myself up to it because I'm too afraid. Well, what I'd like to do is be able to find some kind of story or example that would make it clearer. Or at least as I understand it. But if I just tell you what I understand, it's not very useful, I think. But I will say that from a perceptual point of view, Time is a certain way of thinking and perceiving. And it's a comparative way of thinking. So let's leave aside whether time exists in some factual sense. You can have a way of perceiving in which there is a feeling of timelessness, in which the ordinary sense of the present is very wide.

[01:15]

I'm trying to think about how to bring this more into focus, or whether I should use the koan, but I'm presently thinking of the koan as a kind of subtext, not the text itself. Do we have a break? Yes, we can in a minute. Mostly I find it's... I can make certain things clear mostly when we're in a perceptual realm. And we're able to look at Buddhism when it's a different way of perceiving. And we are able... We're able to look at Buddhism when we can see that it's a different way of perceiving.

[03:05]

But it's hard for us to see that this is a different way of perceiving. But this is also a different way of perceiving. This is not really a moral system. It's an expression of how we actually exist, how we, in a way, a different way of perceiving. It arises from a different way of perceiving. And it arises naturally, not because it's something we should do. That's enough for now. Why don't we take a break? Thank you. An important question is the threshold between public and private. And personal and private and so forth.

[04:30]

So I would really appreciate it if you would sit in together and maybe groups of about eight would make four groups. and have some discussion among yourself with what these terms might mean or how to practice with them or why are we practicing. Okay, so please. I guess maybe I feel I'm holding back the flow of German. I had to kind of step out of the way and then the Deutsch comes rolling. And I have a strange inhibition.

[05:48]

Or a personal rule, perhaps. I find it very difficult to teach something that I've already talked about in the same way. Like I wanted to take this koan, the next step, with the people who are here from Münster. But to do that, because so many of you weren't here, I have to go back and it's difficult for me to go over the same ground again. Of course I do the same thing again, but for me it's a little different. When I find a way to do it, it's different. Oh. But it's also true that what I'm trying to teach you now is more subtle than I can do by myself.

[07:10]

I really do need your help. And part of my personal rule is to not teach anything that doesn't come out of what we're doing together. To find new stories, if possible. And I'd like you to more and more think of Koans are stories in which you can also think of your own story. And I'm thinking of doing the next koan seminar and calling it something like Koan Study and Storytelling. Okay. So let me tell you an old story. About this earliest Suzuki Roshi story I know.

[08:13]

And some of you know it, but I will tell it because I want to say something useful to you about equanimity. I want to leave you with something for this evening and tomorrow on equanimity. We don't have much time, so I'll try to be fairly brief. Of course, I'd also like to know some of what came out of your talking to each other, but maybe tomorrow we can do that. Maybe somebody can tell me a story tomorrow. Or at least share with me some of the things you talked about. Okay, this story is Yukiroshi when he was first with his teacher. He was a teenager, young, middle teenager.

[09:17]

He was a teenager, middle, I don't know, 14 to 16, something like that. He might have been younger, but I don't remember for sure. But the teacher, Kyokujin Soan Hiroshi, Gyokujin Sohan Roshi. Gyokujin Sohan Roshi. Who is the book Zen Mind Beginner's Mind is dedicated to. He never liked the young monks to waste anything. So no food could be thrown out. And this carried over to Suki Roshi when he was in America, always shopping for the old vegetables. But then he had the moral problem of he's getting the merit for buying the old vegetables.

[10:52]

He's keeping other people from the merit of buying old vegetables because they don't have a chance to buy them because he bought them. You can get yourself in quite a predicament with this kind of stuff. Anyway, one day the three or four young trainees at Gyokujin's monastery temple had some really terrible spoiled pickles. Probably no.

[12:00]

The Japanese way of preserving vegetables is to kind of pickle them in salts and other stuff and put stones on top of it and then crush them. And they're very delicious and they last quite a long time. And sometimes they go over the edge. And when you are eating nothing much but these pickles because it's a poor temple, you get pretty tired of them anyway, particularly the spoiled ones. So he took this particularly bad batch. They all decided they were going to throw up. But they knew if they threw it out that he would find them.

[13:07]

So they took this bunch and they went out into the garden and they went behind the temple and behind the tree And they dug a hole and buried them. And smelt it over and put things on top of it. And three days later, in comes Gyokurjin and says, look what I found in the garden. I mean, they did not, you know, what were his psychic powers, and how did he find them and dig them up, and they were all covered with dirt, you know?

[14:07]

Because they hadn't buried them in a container, they just buried them in a hole. So he said, I would like to have these for dinner tonight. And they really cringed. So he told them to cook them. And the idea of cooked, spoiled pickles. I mean, even Eric Riesler would, you know, hesitate to serve them in a session. No. No. So they cleaned them, they all worked on cleaning them and washing them best they could, and then they cooked them up for dinner. And they served him, and then they all watched the Roshi.

[15:08]

And he, without comment, was just eating away, and he ate them, I shouldn't say anything. So young Shinryu, whose nickname, his teacher's nickname for him was Crooked Cucumber, said, well, okay, and tried them, and it was fine. I mean, it was all right. He said, fine. And Sukhir, she tells that story, actually, as his first enlightenment experience. Now, why was that an enlightenment experience?

[16:09]

For most of us, of course, it would just be, well, it wasn't so bad after all. Because for years, Sukershi's father was his headmaster. And so for years Sukershi's been hearing, you know, non-attachment, it's not a matter whether you like or dislike and so forth. But he didn't, you know, you hear these things, but, you know, you do like things and you don't like things, and it's very clear. But all of this hearing and not understanding is actually preparing you. That's the trouble with studying Buddhism as long as it's interesting.

[17:13]

It's often not interesting. And that's one problem with doing these seminars. I have to be interesting. And you have to feel like coming to the seminar because it might be interesting. Or otherwise you've got more interesting things to do. But I would like to have a whole year of uninteresting seminars and we'd see if anyone signed up. I could promise some uninteresting sessions and you'd come because you know you'd become interesting to yourself. Anyway, so Tsukiyoshi had heard this stuff long enough that when he ate these boiled, cooked pickles, it's like a trap door opened and he went boom.

[18:18]

Into just a deeper state of mind. And of course we all, to some extent, know that, well, it doesn't matter whether we like or dislike something so much. But we still tend to move pretty much toward what we like and avoid what we dislike. But if an acquaintance of yours who you maybe don't even like much suddenly becomes seriously ill, Suddenly you may find that you're able to be, whether you like them or not, becomes immaterial. And you have a deeper feeling that's not in the category of like and dislike. Now, it's possible to have a state of mind where you notice that you like something or don't like something.

[20:07]

But you're able to hold yourself back a little ways from the feeling of like and dislike. And have a more neutral state of mind. And sometimes I say it's a little bit like the banks of a river. One side is, one bank of the river is I like it, and one bank of the river is I don't like it. When you get away from the banks, I like it or I don't like it, the water is much deeper in the middle. So in this sense, a neutral state of mind is a much deeper state of mind. As soon as you have a state of mind that likes or dislikes, it's much narrower. Now, the koan presents this in a little bit deeper way, and I'd like you to, if you have it there, to turn to... to the...

[21:15]

to the second page, page 87. Now what I just described is the state of mind after Like Suzuki Roshi, after he thought he was going to like or dislike, and he found it was just neutral, it was fine. He didn't have to like or dislike the pickles. Yeah. And in the first complete paragraph there it says, Old Master Qizhao said in walking, in sitting, do you have the advice? In walking, in sitting, just hold to the moment.

[22:41]

before thought arises. Now, this is a particular state of mind. And this is a state of mind before you even come to the categories of like and dislike. Do you understand? Again, if we think of a mind as a liquid, This is a different liquid than the liquid which can like and dislike. It's even before the thought becomes something you like or dislike, it's even a state of mind before thought arises. And it says, just hold to the moment before thought arises you don't have to translate look into it and you'll see not seeing and then put it to one side so in a way this is in reference to what you were saying Regina when something appears

[24:22]

Here you're not letting the appearance appear for a moment. You're letting you hold to the moment before a thought arises and you put that aside. Now they describe it in the in the first, right in the top of the page, a little differently, but the same way almost. The one word knowing is the gate of myriad wonders. This means knowing and not knowing. And before knowing arises, This is a gate of myriad wonders, it says. And so when you know, it says, when you know, just affirm totally.

[25:31]

When you're affirming. But don't settle down in affirmation. This means when you like something, just like it completely. Don't stay there. When you're denying or when you don't like something. Deny totally, don't like it totally. But don't settle down in denial. Okay. Now, this is the practice of equanimity. This is not a state of mind which says, oh, it's nice to be balanced. It's nice to be fair and treat everybody fairly. This is a state of mind that arises when you can hold to the point before like and dislike arise. And before even the thought arises.

[26:37]

And then you can let go of that. That's the practice of emptiness. That takes tremendous trust and love to do it actually. and creates an atmosphere and presence of love. So that is what is meant by equanimity. And when you can be most of the time in that state of mind before a thought arises, And let go of that even. Then even the word equanimity doesn't have any meaning. You're beyond equanimity. So this isn't really about it's good to be fair. This is about the way we exist. And what is our deepest state of mind from which like and dislike arise?

[27:55]

And into which such distinctions as like and dislike disappear? And this is a stream mind or field mind in which we can call it neutral but it's the way we touch everything most intimately because it's beyond like and dislike. And includes like and dislike. And you like completely. But don't hold to that. Don't settle down in it. And you don't like, don't like. But don't settle down in don't like. Do you understand? But how to really go totally into it and not already get cold?

[29:13]

Yes, it says right here in the koan. Let's see. Okay. Fayan was enlightened at this not knowing his nearest. And so he says here, but this enlightenment of Fayan's, that too creates a pattern. Do you see that sentence? The first paragraph in that page. This, too, creates even enlightenment. Even letting go of everything is also a pattern. So you should even let go of enlightenment. I would like you to all be individuals who don't need enlightenment.

[30:29]

Yeah, that's great, isn't it? Well, I'll see you tomorrow at 10, okay? May I help you? Ah, the clock changes tonight. Did you learn anything from what appeared in your conversations last night? Yes, we often come back to the example of coming back to the chair,

[31:29]

where the object is there and the concept for it, and that it usually sticks together. It's not so tragic. The only bad thing is that the same principle works in what is known as metaphysics, that is, the concepts and the four ideal objects for it. The more you sleep, the more you can understand the artistic meaning of it. What came across in our group is not such a big deal to recognize that the chair and the term for a chair are somehow connected and you can break the connection. But what about metaphysics where there are certain terms that have no material, I mean, object attached to it? And how do you deal then with the situation in a Buddhist way?

[32:33]

For example? Well, that's a lot of examples. So it's easy to see that a chair is only temporarily a chair, but it's hard to see that Buddha is only temporarily a Buddha? It is easy to see that a chair is only a chair going forward, but it is difficult to see what Buddha is only Buddha going forward. What is the feeling for you when someone uses such terms, such a sublime object? What kind of feeling is that for you if somebody uses terms like this, like sub-real or what did you say, unreal?

[33:39]

Well, what kind of feeling is this for you if somebody uses metaphysical terms as if there were some real objects attached to it? I think they're making a mistake. What's the feeling? I think so too they're making a mistake, but what kind of feeling do you have? Please, I don't know. Wait a minute. Well, if it's obvious to me, But no, it's just, I just feel quite normal, quite, you know, what can I say? But it's obvious. I'm used to it.

[34:42]

But when it's more complicated, like I can give you an example, maybe during the day today, Then I have an uneasy feeling that I could only say, something doesn't compute. I have a feeling that something doesn't work. If somebody uses a term like this, I feel kind of quite uneasy, almost shameful and feel this is kind of almost obscene. Sometimes one might feel that way. Yeah. I don't know, to me, if I feel that way, something like that, it's at least as real as a chair to me.

[36:03]

It's at least as real as a chair, to feel sort of shame or something. I mean, in the end, all that is real to me is my feelings. And I try to make my feelings as clear as possible for that reason. But I think, you know, anyway, I have... I mean, here, somebody else has something you want to bring up from... from the future, the past. And I hadn't forgotten what you brought up about time. Yes. Another question about reality.

[37:21]

You said in the concert, you know, that it's a mistake to think that some thing is more real than others. So what about a hare's horn? A hare's horn. A hare's horn, a rabbit's horn. You said that only in German. I don't know if I can answer such a question satisfactorily. It's a classical Buddhist example of what? Something that doesn't exist. What do you do? I'm a classical Buddhist.

[38:24]

I see. I thought so. I should have known. I've seen them. We saw them. Anyway, it's a classical Buddhist example, a classic Buddhist example, of something that doesn't exist. But in the sense that it's an example of something that doesn't exist, it's real. We can imagine all kinds of things that aren't real. But they have as a kind of reality, as Dogen says, you can eat painted cakes. But it's still seems to me that there's something small behind that. Oh, that's different.

[39:38]

Yeah, and, well, for example. Ah, yeah. I don't, I think that's a false comparison, but I can't quite, I can't say more than that. It's like asking who created the world. You can ask the question but from a Buddhist point of view it's not a productive thing to ask. But I think we can look at it in various ways, if something more real than others, and let me come back to that.

[40:44]

Can I stay? Both the... This cushion is different from my chair. And you don't say one is more real than the other. You say the cushion you use for one thing, the chair you use for another thing. Its reality is its use, not its thingness. So the chair has one use, the cushion has another use, and the example of a hare's horn has another use.

[42:00]

And its use is equally real. Now, I don't think I think the kind of question Christian is asking, one should be part of one's process in practice. And I think that whether it can be answered satisfactorily or not, And even if you have the sensation of at least logically answering it thoroughly, if something like this occurs to you, you should probably not try too hard to answer it. To make some effort to answer it, yes.

[43:10]

But let it float in your consciousness. Because often something that catches you like that is the tip of an iceberg. Or is also a surface of something else which looks quite different. So on the one hand you try to answer it or you ask somebody like myself. And at the same time you keep it alive in yourself. Because practice works when you come to real impasses, not just, oh, this practice is interesting.

[44:13]

It's not that practice is like a good thing to do, it's when you have no alternative to practice that practice is really interesting. So the smaller big problems you have in practice are the real territory of practice. Anyway, thank you for your question. Thank you for your questions. Are we serious? Yes. I noticed yesterday that I was really annoyed. I was like, what's going on here? I didn't have the same courage. What I didn't like about it was, on the one hand, this alt-project, the state of mind, and to really accept everything that is there, and to go in without worrying about it.

[45:21]

But they were always a bit tricky. They said, yes, but now let's make sure that we're the same and that you're a bit more comfortable. Because that's the best thing. It's not for moral reasons, but because it somehow does it better itself. And that was something weird. It was almost like in Christianity, they said, it doesn't do you any good if you sin. I was quite irritated last night about this equanimity and all. Yes, and the other question that I was also asked It's like playing with the current or the continuum, when you come into a connection.

[46:27]

And then he said, yes, when you're angry, then it's interrupted immediately. And then I felt, it doesn't work for me. Sometimes it can be annoying. For example, when I go out of the river, out of the breath, And sometimes there is the moment when you really feel your anger, which is also a kind of life energy, and you get a really hot stomach. The anger goes very deep and calm, because it is the right thing to do. And when it comes to anger, it is also when it comes to deep grief. I remember a moment when someone died very suddenly and I felt that I was in deep grief. in contact with the continuum. Or also with desire, for example. If you really feel that there is desire in every cell, then that is the same access for me as these four, which are all a bit... and then the second thing is I brought up this image of this dream and the continuum and I just don't agree that just these four immeasurables or equanimity and joy and access to this continuum and that anger and I mean strong emotions just interrupt that my feeling is and also from working with people and working with the breath and

[47:49]

that deep anger, you don't like the word anger, but being really pissed or really, I mean, or even that kind of lust or sexual passion or deep grief. I mean, the same thing happens with people. I mean, it's my own experience that the breath really goes deep into the bottom and into the body. drops down and becomes very even and people get in touch with the continuum. I just don't like it. It's all these kind of, these things are too noble here. Well, Buddhism does sometimes smell like Christianity. Yeah. On the contrary, in some way I understand equanimity quite different, maybe more in the way you like it.

[48:54]

Because when I feel anger or something like that, then for me equanimity is to accept that and to allow myself to think. So in some way I keep neutral to it because I want to allow it. And in some sense there's a kind of joy also to allow that. and just to let myself go into this feeling of anger. And if I can do that with myself, then I can also accept this with other ones. And I think, for me, this is more equanimity, in some sense. This, yes, that is kind of joy that I feel. And so, just quite the contrary, that usually they be quite likely thought. Anybody else? Yeah. I didn't feel well during the groups. I felt only like words, words, words. I was thinking of a story that Osho once told about a disciple who was sent to a polo game, and the other day he was asked

[50:07]

were the jockeys tired after the race? And the disciples said, yes, they were. And he was asked, were the horses tired, too? Oh, yes, they were tired, too. And the polo poles, the kinds that stand, were they tired, too? And the other disciples said, stupid questions, to pose that, even they cannot be tired. But the Master said, well, they're tired, and he decided that I have to think about it. And the other day he said, yes, poets were tired too. And then the Master said, if you have understood, it's all good. That's what increases me, not if something is real or not real, it's how I relate to it. If I feel it, if I feel the rock or the tree or I have the feeling that we are not alone here. I have the feeling that we are not alone here.

[51:10]

Although I mixed it up a bit. I remembered a story that I've told before. But I didn't hear it from him, of course. It was about a master who sent his students to the polo game and then read a book. And he asked the next day, were the jockeys tired after the training? Oh, yes, they were very tired. Then he asked, were the horses also tired? Yes, they were certainly also tired. Then he asked, were the border guards from Polarfeld also tired? And then the other students said, that's a good question, if they were tired of the material. And the master said, yes, they were tired. And the student said, I have to think about it. And the next day he said, yes, the restraining rods were also tired. And the master said, yes, you understood, everything is one.

[52:22]

And that's also where I always try to feel so bound to it and not against it. And that's why it bothered me so much to talk about the prayer and the prayer and so on. It's a little bit like the story in the koan. In the eyes it's called seeing. In the ears it's called hearing. What is it called in the eyebrows? Okay, someone else? Well, maybe, anything else?

[53:23]

Well, it is perhaps words, words, words. Water, water, water everywhere. And not a drop to sink. But I feel that it's really essential that even if it's words, we have a lot of interaction with each other. And I find this subject of compassion and love and so forth the most difficult thing to teach. And I think probably just my own problem. But it's also that I notice the things that are closest to the way we already think or have a lot of feelings about are the most difficult to teach.

[54:37]

We have a lot of ideas and feelings about compassion, love and so forth. And they're very close to the same ideas in our own culture and in our own Western religions. But from the point of view of practice, I'm always talking about things from the point of view of practice. So I'm talking about how these things function in practice or are part of practice. So I really don't want to present this, though. It could be that these are good, that compassion is a good thing.

[55:40]

I want to present it how it works in practice. And to do that, I have to distinguish it in some ways from the Western ideas of practice, of compassion. And this is not easy to do. I mean, I have the experience when I talk about things that are fairly easy to talk about and quite clear. People often say they don't understand. Or they don't at least understand it first, but maybe later they do. But with this kind of subject I find that it's so closely linked up with our own values and things that we care a lot about or have rejected that it's much more difficult to make it clear, even for me.

[56:57]

So for example if I say if you shift your attention to each sense field and shift your attention from the object of perception to the field of perception And to treat each sense field separately. And join the other sense fields in each sense field separately. To take the group of each and join them in each one. to take seeing and hearing and find it in tasting.

[58:00]

And I can say, if I teach that, it's not so difficult to teach it. Because it's different enough in the way we usually perceive that people can see it and then usually start to practice it. And you can experience the usefulness of it. Or the accuracy of it. And this takes some of the charge out of dualism. A dualism, to proceed dualistically, has a lot of energy or charge or electricity in it.

[59:02]

And there's a tremendous relaxation in taking the charge out of dualism. But if I say, take the charge out of your dualistic relationships with other people, Can you change the way you separate yourself from other people and see yourself as connected to other people? Then we're in a much more difficult territory to talk about and to understand. At least that's my experience. So this is, for me, the hardest, kindest seminar to do. And the way I'm presenting it too is more in a kind of somewhat technical way for people at a certain stage in their practice.

[60:06]

So I'm afraid I'm not being useful to everyone, but then I feel badly. But I can handle it. Okay. So let me come to what Michelin said. And I think we shouldn't have a break soon, so if you're getting antsy, we'll have a break after I respond about Michelin. Do you have an expression, antsy? Oh, you can have somebody with ants in his pants or something. Okay. Okay. Maybe I should wait till after we have a break.

[61:31]

Okay, let's have a break. Am I pronouncing your name right? Tell me how. Micheline? Micheline? I like Micheline's question. And, you know, to find a way to language, to speak about it, is not easy. But I appreciate that you have a sense of uncorrected mind. And that's not so easy to come to. And to accept the idea that you don't correct your mind. Now, the experience that Anger, lust, love, jealousy can be a stream itself.

[62:50]

It's true. Anger, shall we say, can be a continuity. But you can feel anger as a stream. No, I don't feel anger as a stream, but I have the feeling that sometimes with grief or anger or whatever, you can, when it's in a certain way, you can be angry and it's really disrupting you and you're getting far away from yourself. But it can be when it's very deep that it connects you with the stream that's lying on the continuum. It's not that way. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I understand. The special anger can be both. It can be connecting you with the stream or it can interrupt the stream.

[63:51]

Yes, that's true. Do you want to say that in German? Yes, it's not about the flow of emotions, but if you have deep emotions, in a certain way, sadness or good or lust or whatever, Anyway, whether you said it or not, let me finish my thought. Anger can be, and jealousy and so forth, can be definitely a very powerful stream you're in sometimes. But it's not what I mean by continuum.

[64:57]

Because say that you're very jealous and you're full of that, it's still, even though it's a kind of stream, it doesn't connect you with other things. It only connects you with itself. Now, I don't... There's a... Somebody I know saw working in a shop, there was a Polish woman working in a shop. And this Polish woman's worked for her for quite a while and she's been in this country some years. And she noticed that this woman one day somehow seemed upset. And I'm bringing this up because it's part of the tension in German society right now that people have been talking a lot to me about.

[66:20]

And people are wondering what to do. And I'm not German and I can't speak to really your society and how you feel about it. I'm trying to become German, but I'm only partially successful at it. So, don't believe it. How do you say? Don't say, you don't believe I'm trying? I think what do you think I'm doing all the time anyway she asked this woman how she was feeling are you feeling something or something and she started suddenly opened up and said they're becoming more and more nervous all the time they

[67:45]

the Polish family, she and her husband. And that's a fairly young couple. And they've recently reinforced their front door because they're so nervous. And a man that she sees every morning for the last few years and always says good morning to him. But he never responds. The Polish woman says good morning to this guy every morning. And he never responds. And recently, a couple of weeks ago, about the time this happened, he suddenly said to her, get out of our country, you Polish pig. And she felt he couldn't have said that even six months ago.

[68:55]

So what my friend recognized is actually she's in a terrible crisis, or was, and was suffering a lot herself, and it took her own suffering to see this woman suffer. And she felt she was doing enough to help this woman by giving her a pretty good job and so forth. But she'd actually never stopped to actually see how she was or talk to her. So later in the day she bought, I think she said for five marks, a rose. Can roses cost five marks? Anyway, she bought a rose, just one rose, and gave it to her.

[70:02]

And this young woman who worked for her burst into tears. And then later in the day, for the first time that she'd ever heard this woman, was singing while she was working. Okay, so what I'm trying to point out here is that compassion in Buddhism is your personal relationship to people. It can't be displaced to someone else doing it. In the 15 years ago or so, in the teaching responsibilities I had, I tried to be, you know, I was quite helpful to a lot of people.

[71:10]

But I also then would get other people to pick up after my helping people. I'd find a house for someone to live in, say. Even sometimes buy a building and rent it for the cost of the mortgage. And then because I found this house for this person, a year later I moved three more families in. It was a big house. But still, pretty soon they had four families living in this house and all because I kept saying, we have to help people. Finally one of them called me up and said, there should be a little more wisdom in your compassion. You've created a horrible situation in this house. So this is another example of trying to put compassion somewhere else, get someone else to do it for you.

[72:44]

So compassion is a practice. Again, you can't say, I shouldn't help such and such a person because the government's doing it. I mean, this is at least from the Buddhist point of view of compassion as a practice. Because this has to do with your personal relationship to yourself and with others. There certainly is compassion where you help your society or support your society to help other people. But that's a different kind of compassion than the practice of compassion. So the other day, or just yesterday, we were walking here from the subway, from the U-Bahn, And I picked up a broken beer bottle along the curb.

[74:10]

And of course it's probably a good thing to do. And if I was parking my car in the dark, I'd be glad if somebody else had picked up the beer bottle against the gutter. But I actually didn't do it because it's good or bad. I did it as a practice. I feel once or twice a day, when it's possible, I should do something like that. And I do it for myself, really. It has something to do with taking the beer bottle away, but I do it because it's my practice. I don't do it because I think I should become a street cleaner. And I don't do it because I think I have to spend all day picking up every beer bottle from the Oktoberfest.

[75:19]

So it's not like I think, oh, well, I've seen five beer bottles, I'd better pick them all up. No, if I pick up one or two, it's enough. That's obvious, but it's still, what I'm emphasizing, it's a practice. It has to do with getting your juices flowing. Okay. Anyway, that's enough for us. for now. Does somebody else want to pick something? Yes. I don't know if I'm saying the same thing, but Sometimes I don't want to have a board either.

[76:29]

I think it's just too bad to go out with a beer bag. It's just... [...] When I speak to certain people who are Buddhists, then it's all Buddhist practice. Then it's just a matter of friendliness in their Buddhist practice. Then I would say to them, I'm not a Buddhist. The examples you just brought up is a point where I feel I would almost prefer to throw out the word practice out of the window. It almost makes me sick because for me picking up a big beer bottle, I take that for granted.

[77:29]

I mean, it's obvious to do that and to do everything as a kind of practice. And it's like people I know say, my Buddhist practice is to be friendly, and it just makes me sick. Okay. And I understand you too, but sometimes I feel so... Yeah, I understand. When I hear such statements, I don't want to name myself Buddhist or anything. I see also that we have to find ways to deal with this practice, to make it, obviously, fixed. Okay. Someone else? Yes? Seeing what I think about the discussion we have about equanimity, love, compassion and choice, it's so problematic because it relates you to other people and how you practice that defines your own self.

[78:51]

And I'm thinking of what is the emptiness of self? Do you want to say that in German? You're asking about the emptiness of self? Is that what you said? And what do you mean? We're relating to your The example you very often bring is that A doesn't exist and B doesn't exist, only A and B exist.

[80:06]

And if I, in this equation, put, for instance, subject and object, well, Eric and an object, then I can see that only Eric's object exists. And that there is no Eric at all. Eric's always only realized when he meets an object. So here it is empty, but what does it mean? What does it not mean? I don't know. I think, well, I thought about it, or it came up during satsang, and I thought, well, that's strange, but it was somehow... I felt fear when we were there. That Eric was empty. Yeah. Yeah. . And if I now insert into this equation, for example, A is a subject and B is an object, and that exists only in the relation between subject and object, and if I then continue to say, well, that's me, that's Erik, then I come to the conclusion that Erik is actually empty, that he does not exist.

[81:42]

And the problem I see is that we always relate to ourselves and are so aware of what we see, but that is not so clear at all. Yes, but this is a relationship development. I don't know your name. Eva Zwick-Dierlich. That's a shame. No, that's you. That's problematic. Okay. I'm going to take a little nap. So what was this discussion about? She said, well, it's no problem at all because when I... Pinch, pinch you. When I pinch you, you will cry. So it's proven that you are you.

[82:47]

And I said, it's not so because it's only Eva pinches Eric. It's not you. It's just another form of... It's again a relation. Yes. And we exist in these relationships moment after moment. And then we rest in this continuum, as Michelin says, which is underneath everything or in the midst of everything. And it's described as a non-conceptual continuum. And often the first senses of feeling this continuum is one of fear. But again, as Michelin said, and Eric said, when you... accept your anger or go into your anger, you're actually, particularly the more you've practiced, you feel this continuum which includes the anger.

[84:09]

So when you approach anger, say, from the point of view of uncorrected mind and just accepting it. You're changing your anger when you do that. And you're establishing a connection. Every time you do that, you're establishing a continuum. And the more that continuum is already established, you're entering that continuum. So you place the continuum in APNPA and floating in time or whatever. Well, there's one continuum. I don't know how useful this is, but anyway, there's the non-continuum of A and B. And then there's the continuum of ABBA.

[85:20]

And then there's another level of continuum which is not conceptual at all. Before A and B arise. As it says in the koan, before a thought arises, hold that for a moment and let it go. And that's something you can feel in your body. And the more you feel this in your body, or your body-mind, a certain kind of ease arises from that.

[86:21]

At first you may feel fear, often you feel fear. But out of this ease grows something like this. And this is part of the practices in Buddhism from the point of view of practice, which change your relationships to each person you meet. So the thing about compassion is that it's about each person you meet, every person you meet, and all people. What's the difference between each and every? In German it's the same.

[87:23]

Okay, each and all. And so how do you, from the point of view of Buddhism, how do you how do you practice this? And so this is why I picked the title of Compassion, the Dance of Love and Emptiness. To emphasize that compassion isn't just something that's a good thing to do, it arises from the practice of emptiness and is actually a kind of relationship between love, attachment, affection. and emptiness, and together they, we can call it compassion. Something else?

[88:24]

Now I... Suzuki Roshi's... You know, having spent a lot of time with Suzuki Roshi, I tried to understand what he did or what his relationship to other peoples were. And... During the Second World War, he, at the beginning of the Second World War, was, before it started and just after it started, was giving a series of public lectures against the military, the developing militarism in Germany. in Japan by him. And he was actually being paid for these lectures by a part of the government.

[89:54]

But as they moved toward the Second World War and the war started, he was prevented from finishing the lecture series. And then at some point he saw his whole generation going off to war. And he decided to then join the military as a chaplain. He felt even if this war is wrong, he had to help his own generation, his own people. And I also have a photograph of him donating all the bells and equipment of the temple to being made into guns and things.

[91:00]

But anyway, he went and he was in Manchuria as a chaplain for a while. He must have had a pretty horrible time. And then after the war, when the American soldiers came, he... The town was very scared and were tearing down the statues of military heroes and things like that. And he got them to... not do that and not hide all the women and so forth. And they all came out and greeted the soldiers.

[92:12]

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