which is similar to healers have, too. And it was thought in Buddhist medicine that that sense of healing that can be in the hands, a doctor, excuse me, doctors, should generate in their body, and while they're giving medicine or talking, they should have that healing feeling throughout their body as they're talking to somebody. And then the medicine becomes a vehicle by which you're passing other forms of healing using the medicine as an excuse.

[01:06]

I hope I'm not giving away your secrets. Now these feelings of certain kinds of feelings of completeness or bliss or certain tingles, certain feelings of pliancy, softness, are part of the language, this inner language. You don't want to try to pull this into our usual language.

[02:17]

It destroys it. You have to let it be and listen to it. And discover again its value and not its meaning. Or its meaning appears in its own terms not in the terms of our usual language. So you have the confidence to let this happen. And with that confidence it spreads throughout the body. Or something else happens that's part of this sentence of this new language.

[03:23]

So one of the things I'm speaking about last night and today is the sequence of things. And to begin to hear the voice of your true existence, there's a certain sequence in what you start listening to. So I've tried to suggest that sequence, which produces new ears, or perhaps we could say produces a third ear, And you begin to hear the world in a new way.

[04:29]

Well, that was a long answer to one question, but, you know, with the help of our German-English companion over here. So this is what I just said is what you offered me during the break. And that is what I say, what you have offered me during the break. Thank you. So, something else? Yes. I am a bit new to this, because I am here. First, I would like to ask you, how is the difference between seeing and hearing? You have to work on it for a long time, or you don't work, it just comes down to the ground. I'm not sitting meditation for a long time.

[05:38]

And so when I start sitting, I see pictures. And I wonder if I practice long enough, otherwise there isn't any hearing yet. And when will this occur? Or what do I have to do? Yeah. Somebody else might say, you know, when will the pictures occur? So, maybe the pictures are a form of hearing. Because what I mean by hearing is that which occurs that gives us a feeling of validity. There's the koan I embarrassedly used the other night because it's so familiar.

[06:56]

What is the sound of one hand? Scratching, I mean clapping. How do you hear the silence of one hand? This is the sense that when you bring body and mind together, what happens is the silence of speech. In other words, The chemistry of the mind and body brought together produces speech. Or produces the conditions which allow true speech or your real voice to be in this theater. Doesn't mean you have to talk.

[08:06]

So in this other sense that I'm using for voice when you bring the world and yourself together and how other people exist in you Something I'm calling voice occurs. It might be the voice of angels or Or Bodhisattvas. Or just the feeling in yourself of an authenticity which makes you want to act in the world. And not act out of ego, but act out of being called to do something.

[09:09]

And when you meditate, you're beginning to enter to touch that world. Now the word for meditation in jhana, jhan, zen, chhan means absorption. In that sense, I can absorb my own presence. And I can absorb without interference with my presence, I can absorb the presence of Neil. And our great hero, Hermes. and Marina. And this presence this absorption that occurs in meditation, which just starts happening when you sit.

[10:38]

And part of sitting is to not interfere with it. And many things are called up, many things from our past, Many things we never thought were important start coming up. And you also begin to explore the viscosity of the mind of dreaming. which supports images more than it supports thinking. So you begin to have a lot of images appearing. You can think of consciousness and your mind as really layers of liquids of different qualities. And most of us know the liquids of ordinary thinking consciousness and dreaming and we don't know much of the others.

[11:47]

Yeah. And meditation practices and discovering your inner language is to begin to know these different liquids of awareness and consciousness. So you don't have to go to Mars. Yeah, or to the bottom of the ocean. Just have to put the diving bell in yourself. Yeah, and with some patience, many things appear.

[12:50]

Yeah. It gives you something to do. Something else. Yeah? My question is how to find fulfillment in my profession. I sort of like doing my job but I'm not really fulfilled and how can I achieve that? Well, I don't know what your job is.

[13:53]

I don't know what your job is. If everyone in Germany is a doctor, who are the patients? Well, I think the answer is the same pretty much for all of these different, whatever you do.

[15:02]

And I would put it as succinctly as I can and say the world is the vehicle of your realization. Or I can say, if the world isn't the vehicle of realization, what could be? And if you accept that the world, what exists, is the vehicle of realization. What do we mean by the world? What we mean by the world is the vastness of the particular. Of the cherry blossom. Or this really extraordinary wall that's out there when you go to the toilets.

[16:24]

It's a great wall. I mean, I'm just in awe of that wall. Do you have a camera? If you bring it tomorrow, I'm going to take a picture of it. I figured out how to take several pictures of it. But is that trying to give it meaning? Anyway, there's a vastness to particularity. What is summer, in the summer? The cuckoo. All right, so how do you... How do you... find yourself in this vehicle of realization.

[17:33]

I think you have to find a way to bask in the particular. Do you know the word bask? I think so. Like a sunbathing, you're basking in the sun. In German, it's nearly the same as bathing. Like a cat? And this sense of basking in the particular is one way of saying what's meant by Dharma. In Dharma we could say is to discover the vocabulary of the particular. Now everything is particular. This cup is very particular.

[18:59]

But also my relationship to it is very particular. So this isn't a generalization. This is some interdependent or interbeing. As Thich Nhat Hanh says. An interbeing would be another name for Dharma. So I look at this cup. I let myself look at the cup. And in a sense I disappear into that relationship. I don't know what to say because there's an essential dualism in language. And in one way I disappear in this, I don't know, there's a duality of language in this relationship.

[20:09]

Can I ask something? Yes. You don't disappear in the looking? Yeah, okay, in the looking. That's what's asking. Yeah, why not? Yeah. But what if I don't look? You said you were looking. Yeah, but what if I just feel it? Then you disappear in the feeling. Okay. In the relationship. Whether we call it looking or feeling, yes. Okay. You understand that from a Buddhist point of view and the point of view of reality, this cup doesn't exist. It has a temporary existence. But what actually exists here? The need for a cup. If there wasn't the need for a cup, no one would make a cup. Yeah, and this cup, the potter's intention in helping us exists.

[21:22]

And if I throw this away and it breaks into pieces what then exists? The activity of cleaning up the broken pieces. And what also exists? The potter will make us another one. I can keep throwing them away and more will appear in my hands, magically. So the cup doesn't exist, but all the relationships exist. Now you can understand that logically, I hope. But the important thing is not just to understand it intellectually, but to live it.

[22:23]

To feel the reality of the relationships. and to feel the temporality of the thingness. I should say the thing, actually, because the thingness is already relationship. Okay. If the cup, I'm sorry for this question, but if this cup doesn't exist, what are you drinking from? My intention to drink. Does the drinking exist?

[23:25]

Yes. Well, yes, in a sense. It exists more than the cup. The cup will eventually disappear. It will return to dirt. And the coffee, no, the tea before that. Is existence a matter of time? Question of time? Yes, in this sense, yes. In other words, we're talking about, this is Buddhist philosophy. What exists over time? Relationship exists over time. The thing doesn't. The thing will disappear.

[24:27]

You understand that. This will disappear. Eventually it will be dirt or shards or something like that. But my drinking from it doesn't disappear. It's non-graspable. The cup exists longer than your drinking. No. No, it doesn't. I don't become a Buddhist. I'm not finished yet. Ich bin noch nicht ganz fertig. This is basic science. This is basic science. Okay, look. Let's not try to make this too rigid.

[25:41]

Let's look at it as a sense of emphasis. Relationship continues because it leads to other relationships. The cup exists as a focus of relationships, but it doesn't have an existence independent of those relationships. It has a temporary existence as a focus of relationships. But I could pour the tea in the bell. And I can drink the tea just as well out of the bell. Mmm. Ring.

[26:54]

This is the first time I've ever done this. See what you brought forth. It actually tastes much better. Now, if I drink this tea out of this cup, the relationship still exists. I mean, out of the bell, the relationship still exists. So the relationship is what's real here, not whether I drink out of this or this. Yeah. The bell will disappear, the cup will disappear, but this relationship will lead me to teach tomorrow to, you know, go to Mexico next in a couple weeks and so forth. If I don't drink this tea, I won't have the strength to get on this plane and go to Mexico.

[27:56]

So in that sense, and that's what interdependence means, that The world is interdependent and the relationships exist, not the things which are the focus of the relationships. Let me just finish this train and then I... I have a similar problem as he has and as when as I experience it everything in the world is energy so then the cop also is energy and then there would be a difference between from from

[29:15]

You drinking from the bell instead of the cup. That was just a remark I would make. Yes, but if you look at it as energy, that energy is manifested in relationships. But that would mean that everything exists only when there is a relationship with the people. That is, if there were no more people, then there would be no tree. And with us, the relationship to this something also dies. That would mean that things would only exist if we were there, or rather when we would die, or even the tree, when we would die, other things would also die. No. Because the relationships don't exist. Well, that's what Gurdjieff said. That's what Gurdjieff said. Gurdjieff said, I believe, said that Gurdjieff predicted the world was going to end at a certain point.

[30:31]

And people got very nervous. His followers, some of his followers got very nervous. The world is going to end. And when that time he predicted came, your chief died. So for Gurdjieff the world did end, or in some sense it ended. But all kinds of relationships exist whether we are alive or not. I mean, when you cut down a forest, you're not cutting down trees so much as you're cutting down an environment. If you think of it as trees, you can replace the trees. The birds and insects and mosses, everything's gone. Yeah. Anyway, let's not overdo this point.

[31:50]

Let me just go on to what I'd like to say. The sense of Dharma is that relationships are what are real. And you own the world through relationships. Or you belong in the world through relationships. In other words, I don't own this cup. This cup I remember Suki Roshi once said he was giving a lecture and he said these glasses are not my glasses these glasses belong to you but you know about my tired old eyes so you're lending me your glasses and that's true

[33:00]

The whole of society, you know, makes these glasses, but lets me use them. I could not make these by myself. Or if I could, I'd have to use knowledge that I received from many other people. These glasses are like the cherry blossom. All of our human culture is here. So I think of these glasses as belonging to and you let me use them. And this cup belongs to everyone. But what belongs to me in this sense? What belongs to me is my looking at it. My relationship to it belongs to me.

[34:07]

And your relationship to it belongs to you. Now, I can do something about this relationship. I can look at this cup. With a sense of completeness. As I said earlier, with a sense of completeness. Or absorption I meant. I can feel absorbed in looking at this cup. And the more I allow this cup to have its own independence in my looking at it, I feel the vastness of this particularity. Now this is a kind of language like when I speak a sentence.

[35:12]

particularly if it has to be translated, it has to have a complete thought in it. And although I really don't speak German, I don't understand anything. And I apologize for that. And I can't explain it. But I have a definite sense of what can be translated. And I have discovered that when I am translated into French, I have to speak a different English because a different English is easy to translate into French. So I know an English that can be translated into French and I know an English that can be translated into German. So there's a kind of completeness in that.

[36:46]

That's part of language. Okay. But there's also a language of how I look at things. And why we study the Vijnanas is to study the language of our senses. And one of the problems we have in hearing the world is we only know the language of thinking. But there's a language of hearing and looking and so forth. And it's not just the language of music. It's the language of hearing itself. So just as you can practice with the language of German, You can practice with the language of the senses.

[37:50]

And one of the keys to this is the sense of Dharma. And Dharma is to recognize that the relationship is what's most real. And to sense the vocabulary, shall we say, or the sentence of the relationship. So, now let me tell you what this Dharma language is as I understand it. If I look at this cup, I tend to have a feeling of looking at it with my body, not just my eyes.

[38:58]

If I look at you, I will tend to not look at you just with my head, I'll tend to look at you with my body. So if I look at this cup, I turn a little bit toward the cup, and I allow myself, I give myself to this relationship. And when I do that, I feel a certain completeness. You know, like a painter might know when to finish his or her painting and not just keep painting forever. There's a moment when you stop painting.

[40:04]

Well, there's a, and you feel complete. Well, when I look at this cup, I can look at this cup in a way that it makes me feel complete. Or the other word I use, which is similar, is it makes me feel nourished. So Dharma language would be to do each thing so it makes you feel complete. Or do each thing so you feel nourished. I'm serious. I mean everything. If I shift my posture like that, I do it in a way that makes me feel nourished.

[41:05]

Like sliding forward on my cushion a little bit. For me, this is an opportunity to put my hands down lift myself up and put myself back and I feel actually something complete in the way I did there. Yeah, I'm touching this beautiful world. This cushion that Herman's little baby Richard has made a mess on. And I can feel his little presence here on the cushion. Look, this is simple. If everything you do from now till January 1st, every little unit you do, You do so that you feel complete.

[42:17]

You're going to feel just such a simple thing to do. You're going to feel much more complete. when 1997 comes. If you're rather strict with yourself or free with yourself or playful with yourself so you do simple things so that they nourish you. I'm speaking to you now within the feeling of being nourished. It's partly how I know what to say, if I know. So this speaking is not coming out of my thinking.

[43:26]

I have no preparation or anything, except my life. It's coming out of feeling nourished with you right now. Or feeling the clarity of each breath, which isn't smeared into worrying about my future. So this is the language of Dharma. This is discovering the world as the vehicle of realization. The vastness of the particularity. So I think that occurs just when you go into your medical office.

[44:26]

When you sit down in the chair. When you look at someone. In each one of those, each instance, each Dharma is a vehicle of realization. And again, I go back to the simple teaching of An incidental remark of my teacher, which I've repeated many times, somebody asked him, what do you notice most being in America, having lived all your life in Japan? He said, everyone does things with one hand. And I realized that if I pass this bell to Neil, when I use two hands, I'm much more likely to pass myself. And the bell is just an excuse. So if I have a chance to look at you because you told me

[45:36]

you will never become a Buddhist. For me, that just gives me a chance to look at you and receive you. Because that relationship is what exists for me. Thank you. Okay. He's still not a Buddhist, but you know. Yes. Does my profession also not exist and only the relationship I have to my profession? Yeah. I mean, in... Is it only this diversity of relationships that you see from the outside that you call a profession? And you can change all those relationships and make your profession much more livable.

[46:47]

And it's good if you fight with this idea. If you don't fight with it, you won't understand it. So if you're resisting it, it's good. Because it means you're really conscious of the other ideas you have which are in conflict with it. All three at once maybe would be... When I love someone and have a relation to him, does he also, the other person, not exist? Nobody exists. Nobody's here. Only relationships are here.

[47:48]

And you know that most clearly when you love. Mm-hmm. The baby, the little baby, relates to your breath. And your heartbeat and your warmth. All those relationships exist. Some kind of thing called mother doesn't exist. Mother is spring is the blossoms of the cherry blossom. Mother is the gathering of the baby into your body. So when you're taking care of your babies, and you can really allow yourself to disappear into this relationship, to be absorbed by that, this is practice.

[49:01]

Whether you're doing zazen or following your breath, this is practice. So you have doubled the chance of most mothers. Ha, ha, ha. Isn't it just the idea of relationship that we have? Sorry, the image of relationship that we have? What is the image of relationship? What is the image of relationship? The question is if it's more the idea of relationships we have in us than the relationship itself.

[50:02]

The idea interferes with the relationship itself. But we direct our attention through ideas. Now, let me mention again this idea of magazines, because I think it's quite interesting from last night. The magazine is a physical object which has almost no commercial value. What really has value is the attention of the readership. And I think you could really make an interesting study of why around 20 years after 1885 Mass circulation magazines developed. until we're 20 years later from zero to four for every household and what again has value is not the magazine you can practically give it away

[51:17]

is the attention of the readership. And the attention of the readership is sold to people. And it's called advertisements. And it shapes your attention. First the magazine gets your attention and then the then they focus that attention on your buying a product. And our attention is constantly focused manipulated and purchased. I'm afraid much of what we often think of or we want as our vocation is actually just another form of a manipulated attention. And to really discover it, you've got to somehow withdraw your attention from this manipulation.

[52:41]

However, our attention is focused through ideas. So Buddhism is a philosophy in that it says you better make sure those ideas through which you focus your intention are accurate. These ideas are what? Accurate. So it's that everything is impermanent is a more accurate idea than thinking everything is permanent. At least Buddhism thinks so.

[53:43]

So does most contemporary science. And the form of thinking of seeing that everything is impermanent is to see that everything is interdependent. So this is to say that ideas can both help and hinder our actual relationship with the world. And if you make the ideas as accurate as possible, then the relationships will function better. And you? You had something? My question is now, in the office where I work at the moment, there is a lot of stress and I have to do things at the same time and a lot of attention is focused on me.

[54:59]

To come back to the idea of being nourished. I can experience this when I have time and the calmness is there, but I live and I work in a situation where a thousand things have to be done at once and there is pressure and there is rush and there is, for me, a great difficulty to do these things all at once and quickly and precisely in this mind of being nourished. How can this be achieved? Zaun. tennis players and often other athletes have the feeling when things are most demanding

[56:33]

And most happening all at once. Everything slows down. The ball seems to come across the net at another speed entirely. I can't promise this is called zoning in current athletic talk. You get into a zone where you can't seem to do anything wrong. And it's actually through mindfulness practice you more and more get into that kind of space. And this is really what Dogen means in this poem, one of the things he means. In the spring cherry blossoms.

[57:38]

In the summer the cuckoo. In the fall the moon. In the winter the snow. Clear and cold. But he means that mind which is detached and very clear and precise. So I would suggest that when you're in your job, You know as an idea that this mind where everything appears slowly or clearly exists. And you have that as an intention or a physical feeling in your body. And you try to act in the situation to try to bring that clarity out.

[58:48]

And it may slow you down at first, but in the long run, it will make things very precise and complete for you. Because, you know, although I practiced this, picking this up, feeling the coolness of the metal. Feeling that my hand is next to this chakra. And now this chakra. Still, when I pick something up, you don't notice that. I'm still doing it. So it's not a matter of fast or slow. Although when we practice it, we practice it slowly. That's what the tea ceremony is about. Slowing down this practice. And that's how you practice if you want to be more technical with the skandhas and the vijnanas, because you slow it down until you know looking, picking up, holding, so forth.

[60:14]

And that's also why when you practice the skandhas and vijnanas, you do things so slowly until you are able to see exactly what it means when you do something. Just as her little boy, who's four, girl, boy, said to her the other day, toddling across the room, hey mom, is there a God? in some kind of, he's learning English, or German rather, and to form such words and sentences. And sometimes we start speaking so fast that we forget the question. Isn't there a God present here?

[61:15]

Or is there some wider sense of being here? So practice is to slow it down, but not to go slow. And I'll take one more, you had one more, and then I'll stop. My question is about decision and the fork you talked about. I find myself quite often in a situation being confronted with fogs and where I have to make decisions.

[62:16]

And when I have to make a decision, for example, should I attend a conference or do a journey in two months, this is sort of drawing me out of the presence, and there's my difficulty. I understand. Well, let me speak about this maybe tomorrow. Let me maybe talk about it tomorrow. It's my way to get you to come back. I used to watch these serials, you know, on Saturday afternoon as a kid in movies. Somebody was always going over a cliff on a horse and say, to be continued. Yeah, yeah. But to answer it thoughtfully, we need a little more time, and I think we should end soon.

[63:47]

And according to the announced schedule, we're supposed to go until six. But I mean, I'm happy to go to till six. It's another 45 minutes. But my feeling is what we're doing is quite dense. And it's actually already eight o'clock. If you unfold what we did, it reaches at least 8 o'clock. Maybe 8 o'clock next year. Because you're a very intense group of folks here. So I think if it's okay with you, we'll just sit for a little bit and then we'll end for today.

[64:54]

Is that all right with you? Yes. And then you can take... The seminar will continue in your leisurely walk, feeling nourished and complete on the streets of Berlin. And this is a practice I'll offer you and it will last until 8 o'clock actually. And you had something in the back there? One question, but you can say the Rilke citation. Again? The Rilke? Well, I wish I could say it in German, but while we sit, I will say it. But first, before you sit, why don't you stand up and stretch a little bit?

[65:59]

Oh. This is a very useful exercise. I don't know if you know it, but it's very useful to just make your legs like that and then just sort of turn your body and then let your hands go. And then your hands... kind of flop against your body, massaging your body.

[67:05]

It's a basic Tai Chi exercise. Ah, maybe we don't have to do Zazen. It's also useful to get used to standing in this posture. Waiting for a bus, for instance, is quite a good posture. Or for a movie ticket. And then you can start doing this and kind of... Clear the bus stop. Clear the bus stop. This is another one. Hey, she's got what I like.

[68:16]

You're my new teacher. Samuel Beckett went on a visit to England. And it was an unusually nice day, rare in England. And the friend who was with him, they were going to a cricket game. The friend said, this is such a wonderful day, it makes one happy to be alive. And Beckett said, well, I wouldn't go that far. This is pretty good right now. So, shall we sit for a little bit? Sit down.

[69:23]

Yes. Oh, God. I still taste the bell. Ich schmecke immer noch die Glocke

[70:24]

Thank you. working with aggression or anger or any of these very particular way of thinking we call emotion.

[73:02]

Yes, first to accept it and just observe it. In a bigger and bigger field of mind. The second step, I would say, is to see it as relationship and not expression. I mean, you're not just expressing yourself, which is okay, but more you're relating to another situation through this activity.

[74:09]

And to everything we think is bad in some way, like sometimes aggression can be rather something we don't like. Usually part of our motivation is good. And if we can really discover the good part of our motivation, we can express the same thing in a deeper, more satisfying way. then we can express the same thing in a deeper and more satisfying way. Be patient with all that is unsolved in your heart.

[75:46]

Treat questions like they were locked rooms. Books written in a Tongue we don't yet know how to read. Neither English nor German. Like books written in a foreign tongue. Don't seek answers, live the questions now. In this open text of the world. In this instantaneous text of the world. What exists just now?

[77:52]

Sound. Taste. Heart beating, heartbeat. The Long breaths? Short breaths? Perhaps blissful breaths? We put these things all together to have a certain sense of continuity, identity, and so forth.

[79:06]

But sometimes don't put them together. Let each be individual. complete in itself. Maybe let each of these float apart into a big space. When you finish meditation, you can put them back together. There are various ways to put them together. Just now let them float apart. A sound.

[80:07]

The sound. Heart beat. The heart beat. The breath in the nostrils. The breath in the nostrils. The breath in your chest. The breath in your chest. Perhaps the longing in your heart. The presence of the persons next to you.

[81:33]

Your own presence. The presence of all of us together this day. There are many companions. In the spring, young cherry blossoms. In the summer, the cuckoo. Autumn moon. The autumn moon. In winter the snow, clear and cold Winter der Schnee, klar und kalt

[82:49]

I hope you have a nice evening. And I hope secretly to be your companion. And schlaf gut. And I'll see you, I hope, most of you, all of you, tomorrow morning. Ten o'clock, is that right? Yeah, okay. Summertime. In the fall, you fall back. So we lose an hour? We get an hour plus. We gain an hour. So should we start at 8 o'clock? 9 o'clock? 10 o'clock? So why don't you take this extra hour for an hour of timelessness?

[84:40]

We just have the gift of timelessness. Okay. You're welcome. Did he kiss? Did he kiss?

[85:09]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_74.06