This is your life, not my life. And yet somehow it's also our life. That's the subject of Sangha. And I'd like you to keep in mind this week what it is for you that constitutes friendship. Yeah, that constitutes your... that forms your relationships with others. And of course your relationship with yourself.

[01:04]

But, you know, we're nowhere in talking about Sangha. We are nowhere. We don't get anywhere. We're nowhere in talking about Sangha. If you don't have some study... observation of your own relationships with others. And the confidence and courage to ask yourself, what kind of relationships do I want to have with others? And we come back to that question, what kind of person do you want to see in the world? And I think one of the pains of being alive, and especially being young, is we don't find the kind of people in the world we wish existed.

[02:11]

ist, dass wir nicht die Leute auf der Welt finden, die wir gerne existieren sehen. So we can keep coming back to that. What kind of person do we want to exist in this world? Also wir kommen immer wieder zurück auf diese Frage. Welche Art von Person hätten wir gerne, dass es auf dieser Welt gibt? Do you wish exist? Where do you wish that there are such people? I think we have to open ourselves to that hope. If we don't, there... I'm sorry to say it so strongly, but I don't think there's any hope. Oh, yes, we can just go along. Yeah, and... Still if some of us don't envision and act on the possibilities of being human,

[03:37]

Even the people who just go along have nowhere to go along. Because it's the vision of our relationship with others. The vision of our, as Suzuki Roshi used to say, our innermost request, that makes society and culture possible. And if there isn't that in some, as many as possible, Culture and society stumble and crumble along. Yeah, but strangely enough, I mean, taking responsibility, I think it's a responsibility.

[04:39]

Each of you is responsible for this week. For this seminar. And that's also this kill guy. How do you fulfill this place which you are right now? Are you just going along with the week, hoping somebody makes it happen? Or are you fully committed? taking responsibility for this week, this day, this moment. Again, the absolute uniqueness of this moment. If you can't feel that absolute particularity, Yeah, from a Buddhist point of view, you're coasting in delusion.

[06:14]

That's not bad, maybe. It's bad if it's all the time. You hardly know what your life has been. So what kind of person do you want there to be on this planet? And again, if you can open yourself to that possibility... Imagine in yourself the kind of person you wish existed.

[07:23]

That you'd love to meet. And then recognize you have to be that person. Without that intimacy... In yourself. That intimacy with, that potential intimacy, that intimacy with yourself and the world. There's no Buddha, Dharma or Sangha. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are just kind of like oil poured on water. Mm-hmm. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha make sense when it's like water for a thirsty person.

[08:25]

Yes, this is what I've always wanted. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And when that's the case, You've taken the precepts. You've entered the Sangha. The precepts, again, are just common sense, common wisdom, common, ordinary, it's not even Buddhist. It's the first step in saying, okay, I will be the kind of person I wish existed. Es ist der erste Schritt zu sagen, ja, ich möchte die Person sein, wo ich gerne hätte, dass es sie gibt. I vow to be the kind of person I wish existed. Ich gelobe diese Person zu sein, von der ich gerne hätte, dass es sie gibt.

[09:31]

That's the beginning of Buddhism. Das ist der Anfang des Buddhismus. And the beginning of the Sangha. Und der Anfang der Sangha. And it's Dharma which makes this possible. Okay. So I'd like you this week, these next days, today in your discussion, this afternoon. What? What do you find now? Not the heck with Buddhism. What do you find now? is the quality of your relationship with others. And what's the quality of your relationship with yourself? And first of all, it's some, again, some sense of ease and completeness. And if that's not possible for you, do it.

[10:39]

Make it possible. Make it wrong. Do it possible. I don't know how to say it. Sit down until you feel at ease. No other practice is important. Until you feel complete on each thing you do. Then you actually begin to enter the presence, not the present, the presence. Mm-hmm. Now there's a lot of ways to look at Sangha.

[11:40]

One way is every human being, every sentient being, everything. That means something. What that means is you have a particular kind of attitude toward each person. Each moment, each particularity, but especially each person. What could that attitude be? The answer to that question is Buddhism. No, no, I don't mean that I don't mean... I mean, Buddhism is the attempt to answer that question. What's your attempt to answer that question?

[12:42]

Do you ask yourself that question? Mm-hmm. And we need to mature ourselves in our own story. You have some story. This is particularly, the story, as I've said, is particularly important for us in the West. Somehow each of us Even growing up in the same family have somewhat different stories. Yeah, we're genetic. Each of us is very individual genetically. And we have our own history. And we have a kind of our own location in that history. Yes, and we have to take care of that.

[13:56]

And that occurs in the material, the forms, the formations of our life. Yeah, our personal history. Our memories. Our culture. Buddhism says, okay, yes, that's true. Yeah, we need to do that. And we could take again, though we need months for this, but take again this week. It would take months, but we could again take for this week.

[15:00]

At this moment, where are you located in your story? And what is it asking of you? Und was, wonach fragt es in dir? Was fragt diese, was erbittet diese Geschichte von dir? So what attitude, because there's always some kind of formation, concept, attitude. Und da gibt es immer so ein Formieren, ein Konzept, eine Einstellung. What attitude or, what attitude do we have with each person? Welche Einstellung haben wir mit jeder anderen Person? You've got one. Du hast eine. Could you not have one? Wäre es möglich, keine zu haben? Could you have a better one? Könntest du eine bessere haben? A different one? Eine andere? This is just basic stuff.

[16:01]

If you want to know your widest yourself, your widest life, das ist eine grundlegende Sache, wenn du yourself or your widest life Your self is too narrow, so I have to say yourself and your widest life. You have to existentially... In a real way, ask yourself these questions. And you don't ask them once. But if you really ask them once, it'll change your life. Deepen your life. But we ask them again and again. Everything you see if you see this uniqueness, absolute uniqueness.

[17:11]

If you're in a generalized world, there's no questions, really. But if you're in this absolute uniqueness, there's nothing but questions. Somehow questions and openness and satisfaction and completeness Satisfaction and completeness. Yeah, they sound contradictory, but they go together. Okay. There's also, the sangha is a political unit. Traditionally, it's a political unit.

[18:18]

It was considered to have its own body of regulations and able to organize itself and take care of itself. independent of secular authority. And this parallel was a reflection of the sense that our true life exists outside the culture, I don't like the word outside. Ich mag das Wort außerhalb nicht.

[19:24]

Yeah, and I often say it's all inside. Think of it that way. It's all inside. Und ich sage oft, denke darüber als alles innen. If I say it's outside, it's cold out there. Wenn ich sage außerhalb, es ist da draußen so kalt. Yeah. So maybe instead of outside, I should say in the fullness of the world. But already, if I say the world, we have a concept. We always have a concept. And as I said yesterday, one of the signs of Bodhisattva practice of Sangha life is how we use concepts. We need to use concepts. You've got to go through the door and not walk into the wall. But still, when you can feel the door and the wall is movable.

[20:38]

I don't know what. It's something fluid. And I gave you an example yesterday of instead of the compass directions, the ten directions. And I gave you an example yesterday. Instead of the compass, the ten directions. Okay. So the ten directions is just a kind of antidote to compass directions. And just shifting from it's out there to it's coming here. And the clue to that is that the two of the ten are up and down. They are up and down. What's up and down?

[21:50]

As I said, the sky starts here. Up is in relationship to down, down is in relationship to up. It's just here. And as I say, here cracked open. Now lost. Okay, now here we're talking this kind of wisdom, using language in the way of wisdom. This isn't just Dharma. It's the practice with each other. What kind of world do we live in? Who knows? You know, in a funny way, my practice began... I had lots of different beginnings. But I remember lying in a bunk bed in a dormitory for a restaurant I worked in on Cape Cod.

[23:00]

Yeah, I had a summer job during college. And I woke up thinking, I'm an American. I'm sorry to admit it in front of you. But... And then I said, what is an American? Wasn't an easy question to answer. So finally, you know, I actually came to a feeling of what it is to be an American. But trying to answer the question, which took some months, I realized I wasn't only an American. And then it became clear to me that I wasn't just an American.

[24:21]

What's the territory where I'm not only an American? So Buddhism would say something like, although we need to locate ourselves in our own story and mature our own story, That will really only happen when we feel how we're not only our own story. So, again, in the fullness of the world. I don't know what to say. Let's use that phrase. And let's understand world is a disintegrating concept. Or if it has any meaning at all, it's constantly forming at this moment.

[25:25]

We live in the ordinary world, but we also live in a world which is constantly forming at this moment. As you can die at this moment. Or have an insight. Or become sick. Or just feel at ease. So we're trying to set up some kind of sangha here.

[26:33]

Within our German, European, German-speaking society. And in America. But it also has some forms that go back to Japan and China. And the forms in China went back to India. Because this is somehow within a culture and somewhat separate from a culture. Like our practice is. So wie unsere Praxis das ist. You know, Sukyoshi always looked appreciatively to the persecution of Buddhism in the 10th century in China. And as you know, Suzuki Hiroshi, who considered persecution... Oh, Buddhism.

[27:41]

Persecution is too... Yes, persecution. He considered this persecution of Buddhism in the 10th century somehow positively. Yeah, because Buddhism became, Zen particularly, became much stronger then. Yeah, it survived outside the collapse of the imperial system. Yeah, not only was Buddhism persecuted, the whole Chinese society was collapsing. Nicht nur brach der Buddhismus zusammen, die gesamte chinesische Kultur, die zertröckelte irgendwie. And the institutions, the Buddhism which survived best was the one that could, in a sense, retreat to the mountains. Und der Buddhismus, der am besten überleben konnte, war der, der auf bestimmte Weise in die Berge sich zurückziehen konnte.

[28:43]

Yeah, Sukershi kept coming back to this. But they didn't just retreat to the mountains. They took refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And what form did that take? At that time it particularly took the form of lineage. And it was called the Chan lineage, the Zen lineage. And it was called the Buddha mind lineage. For Sangha became those who are within the lineage of the Buddha mind. And that's our lineage. We're in the lineage of the Buddha mind. And the realization of that is the practice of the Dharma. Yeah. Again, I... Yeah, only a few minutes left, or 10 or 15 or an hour. Don't set up here or there.

[30:03]

Don't set up before and after. What is the phrase that settles the multiverse, the universe? Was ist der Satz, der das Universum begründet? Again, we spoke about that last week. Darüber haben wir letzte Woche gesprochen, wiederum. A monk asks Dung Shan. Ein Mönch fragt Dung Shan. What is the... What do we do when it's hot or cold? When it's hot and cold.

[31:06]

And as I said, this means all those things, pleasant, unpleasant, etc. Go to a place, he said, why don't you go where there's no hot or cold? Und er sagte, warum gehst du nicht an einen Ort, wo es weder heiß noch kalt gibt? Und der Mönch sagte, wo ist denn das? Wenn es heiß ist, dann das tötet dich wirklich. Wenn es kalt ist, das friert dich wirklich. Wir können uns das sorgfältig anschauen. But let's just, I think, just where is there a place, go to a place where there's no hot or cold. Now this is what he said. What did he mean? What is this place where there's no hot or cold?

[32:09]

What is this place where there's no likes and dislikes? Okay. Again, I'm trying to come back to weave in the four foundations of mindfulness. To really study when you like and when you dislike. Take an inventory of likes and dislikes. Is your mind constantly in a pendulum of likes and dislikes? If it is, Buddhism says you're not. I mean, I suppose Buddhism pities you. It's just sorry for you.

[33:13]

What a weird place to live. And when there's not like and dislike, what's the alternative? Boredom. And when it's more extreme, we're talking about the second foundation of mindfulness now. When it's more extreme, it's greed, hate and delusion. But there's also pleasant, unpleasant and neither pleasant nor unpleasant. So this is also a territory to explore in the Sangha. And how much you move, likes, dislikes, boredom, distraction, etc. Yeah, I'm jumping around here because I don't know how to, in one week, this week, bring together the first two weeks.

[34:20]

I hope I am starting this conversation among us and within yourself. For how do we penetrate the Sangha? This lineage of teaching. So there's the Sangha of each person and each person. And as I said, there's this Sangha as a kind of institution, a way of keeping a monastic practice going. Or here, don't read monastic, read just being together, practicing.

[35:24]

That's how practice survived the late Tang dynasty of persecution. People just practiced together and found a way to continue this practice. And that's what we're still trying to do. But it has to arise out of real questions in your own life. What are What's present in our relationships with others? Is it trust? Is it acceptance? Is there a flavor of does it benefit me or not? Is there likes and dislikes?

[36:33]

What's swimming in this space around us and with each other? Can you clear this up? Can you find the place where there's neither hot nor cold? Neither even pleasant or unpleasant? This kind of clarity. Then we have the practice possible of the paramitas. So let me try to finish by The Sangha, the lineage, is understood to exist outside. Outside. Now, let me try to use outside without a outside.

[37:35]

Where's the side? I could say on the other side, but then I start sounding occult. It's on the other side. Because where does enlightenment happen? It happens outside of the... world bound together by language. It happens outside the ordering codes of culture. And it even happens outside the world our senses present to us. So Sangha is this kind of understanding that we live in a kind of way of being with others, the forms of our life,

[38:51]

And we simultaneously can feel the freedom from those forms. The being able to sit down in the in a very wide freedom, I don't know how else to say it, and wake up in this freedom, and notice this freedom in others. Noticing this freedom in others, and Acknowledging this freedom in others is the practice of the Sangha. Yeah. So anyway, I can't do everything today. Again, so much of the frustration of our life is culture gives us so many possibilities, but it simplifies us.

[40:33]

And tries to capture our attention. Not for religious purposes much anymore, but for commercial purposes. And unless you just want to satisfy likes and dislikes. It's not satisfying. And we usually don't even know it's not satisfying. Sangha begins when we know it's not satisfying. We're going to live with each other the way something tells me I should live. And I'm going to make that happen. That's the root of Sangha. Thank you very much.

[41:38]

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