Thank you, thank you all for being here and joining us in this extraordinary decision 14 of us are making. Let me say first that many of you know that Frieder Dorothea Stausch, life partner, was in a very serious accident a few days ago. And Dorothea practices with us here a lot, and she also has been at practice periods at Crestone. Dorothea is very often here and practices with us, and she has already participated in a practice period in Creston.

[01:21]

And Frieder, just a couple of weeks ago, plastered the interior and exterior of the new Hinterhaus bath, toilet, shower room. Anyway, he horribly, at sunset I guess they say, ran his little scooter into the back of a car, going pretty fast. And it looks like what they say is his helmet hit his eyes in such a way that he's almost certain to be blind. And he has broken vertebrae, which, if they're not extremely careful and operate very carefully, could make him paralyzing, make him a quadriplegic.

[02:40]

So he has a series of operations to do in the next days. Yeah. I'm still... absorbing this fact. And I know well that our life can change instantly from one moment to the next. I wish this wasn't an example of it.

[03:54]

Anyway, Dorothea's life and Frieda's life and ours too has changed over a moment or two. Yeah. I'm also very grateful that I can do this ceremony with you and with Atmar Engel Roshi and Paul Yutan Roshi seamlessly just simultaneously together taking the precepts in this Sangha to be able to do it together like this is the way it should be

[05:16]

It's the way it should be and it's the way it is. At the same time, I'm also a little shy to be doing this ceremony with the 14 of you. Gleichzeitig bin ich auch ein bisschen schüchtern oder verlegen, diese Zeremonie mit 14 von euch zu machen. And again with the many of you who have done this ceremony already. Und auch mit den vielen von euch, die diese Zeremonie selber schon gemacht haben. Why am I a little shy? Why do I feel a little shy? Wieso fühle ich mich da ein bisschen schüchtern oder verlegen? Well, I mean, 50 years ago, I decided myself to do this ceremony. And it makes complete sense to me that serious practitioners at some point want to make this commitment to live in this way.

[06:32]

Yeah, I decided, as I said, really 50 years ago, my gosh, that I wanted to define my life in a way that let me define my life. I said it that way because you don't define your life once and for all. Taking the precept as a way to define your life so that you can keep finding ways to define your life. Finding ways to define and refine your life in the changing circumstances, moment after moment.

[07:42]

So you can define and refine your life in the changing circumstances, moment after moment. Yeah. I mean, because the conception of the precepts assumes... that we know and we discover that we live in an interdependent, interpenetrating world. A world of continuous activity. which is both, you know, quite predictable and also unpredictable.

[09:03]

Yeah. So the ceremony is about taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Refuge is a funny word, but it means in English something like not to flee from the world. Zuflucht ist ein merkwürdiges Wort, aber auf Englisch bedeutet es, ich denke auf Deutsch auch, nicht vor der Welt zu fliehen. Flüge is to flee. So refuge is to not flee from the world. And to define yourself in the world through Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

[10:06]

So what does Buddha, Dharma and Sangha mean? Well, Buddha brings the essence of the idea of Buddha is that we'd like there to be an ideal person in the world somewhere. Maybe from childhood we hoped there was some ideal person out there. And maybe we're enough childlike to still want that ideal person to exist somehow. And how would such an ideal person exist in this world?

[11:12]

Exist in accord with how the world actually exists. Well, the Dharma is the teaching and practice and the craft of practice about how to live in the world in the way it actually exists. So dharma is a way to discover, the practice of dharma is the way to discover how we want someone to exist and would like ourselves to exist.

[12:14]

And if we want such a person to exist in this world then we ought to help others to become this person, to be this person. So Sangha is those of us who try to help each other to be this person. To be this person together with others. Because we can't define ourselves separate from others. So Sangha is the those we can't define ourselves separate from.

[13:20]

And that's us and it's of course also everyone. And of course all of this means that if you want such a person to exist in this world who lives in accord with how the world and others actually exist, you, of course, have to be this person. You can't expect others to do it unless you expect it of yourselves. Now, expecting it of yourself is the taking of the precepts. Now, the precepts are not exactly rules that you follow in the world. There are rules you follow into the world.

[14:57]

I mean, again, the concept of the precepts, the practice of the precepts, is not so specifically that you follow them. That's the basic approach. But they're really meant to be held in your mind. held in the midst of your mind and body and activity. In the activity of this world.

[15:58]

And we do this together. We're in this together. All, Atman and I, and each of you, They're given from this tradition and they're received by you and then you hold them in the midst of your activity in the midst, as we say, of the 10,000 things And they help you find ways to act in the world. They continuously inform us about how to act in the world. Maybe they're like child windows into the world.

[17:11]

I mean, if you have a child, or if you see children as the world's children, You see the child wondering what kind of world he or she has been born into. So maybe the precepts give us a way to look at the world with the openness and hope that a child has. So maybe the precepts are like child windows into the world. To the world as it might be. and as it could be, and actually could be through our personal and shared practice.

[18:43]

So I look forward to doing this ceremony with Otmar, Paul, and each of you today. And as I say, I'm a little shy to be part of this extraordinary thing we're doing together. I'm odd that we want to do this. At the same time, I take it for granted that we human beings want to do this. We have this kind of connection with this concept of a Buddha, an ideal person.

[19:50]

So, thank you very much for joining us in this. And thank you for translating. You're welcome. Thank you.

[20:25]

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