Well, I've never done that before. I've made other mistakes. Not that particular one. Maybe I'm not jet-lagged, maybe I'm just confused. Or maybe I'm so anxious to get started with you, Maya. I can't wait to bow. Or offer you a kiss. Now, the schedule that was given to me says the topic is the benefits of the practice of Zazen. And I'd rather not talk about that, actually. Because I'd rather you find that out by practicing Zazen. But the benefits of Zen practice, maybe I can try to talk about that.

[01:09]

I'll try to talk about that. I should probably start with why people don't practice Zen. Why doesn't everyone practice then? It's so obvious. It's a great thing to do. Yeah, well. Hmm. And I'm convinced the world would be, society, civilization would be a better place if people practiced. I mean, I think, I feel, the more we live the way the world actually exists, then things will be much better.

[02:14]

I don't assume that we have some kind of internal death wish or we're born aggressive and things like that. I think that's mostly. And because we don't discover how we actually exist. Now, there may be other ways to discover how we actually exist. But Zen is a good way. Buddhist practice is a good way. Now we can have a question. Why do we have to discover how we actually exist?

[03:18]

Because we actually exist how we actually desist. What's the discovery about? Also, wir können uns auch fragen, wieso müssen wir entdecken, wie wir denn existieren? Wir existieren doch, und was gibt es denn da zu entdecken? Well, the simple answer in what we've been discussing in the seminar just ended. Und die einfache Antwort, die wir in dem Seminar, das gerade geendet hat, diskutiert haben? Well, let me put it really simply. The function of consciousness, which is the way most of us know things, the function of consciousness is to provide us with a predictable world. And implicitly permanent world.

[04:21]

And this is delusion. Yeah, so then we have the basic teaching in Mayan Buddhism of the two truths. We could say the practical world where we have to act as if things are more or less predictable. And the world as it actually exists In contrast, the world as it actually exists. Yeah, which is changing, thoroughly changing, absolutely changing.

[05:26]

Fluid. Okay, how do we get to see through our consciousness to know this? To really know it. Okay. No, I wanted to start out with why doesn't everyone practice? Also ich möchte damit beginnen mit der Frage, wieso praktiziert nicht jeder? Or more specifically, I know people who, it would really be... Good, if they practiced. Relatives, cousins, deluded cousins. And close friends. I know one friend who's extremely successful on the outside of himself.

[06:26]

And in the world. And he's in a suffering turmoil inside. And he's smart and he really understands the point of practice, just not possible. I have another friend, a good friend, who went through Six months to two years of a kind of nervous breakdown. And he's lived around practitioners for years. His wife, before she died, became a practitioner. But he just could not make use of the possibility of practice.

[07:50]

Yes, he talked with me about it, but it's interesting. Why couldn't he make use of it? Well, I think partly you have to have some taste of a mind free of thinking. At least a taste of it before practicing can make sense. Also zum Teil braucht ihr zumindest einen Geschmack davon zu haben, wie... I mean, I want to say to somebody like that, what do you do when you sunbathe? Because I think sunbathing is often something like zazen.

[08:58]

Yeah, you kind of, as I've said, sort of spaced out, you hear noises in the distance, and suddenly you're burned. Maybe such a person never gets burned. They're always thinking about something and knowing what time it is. Maybe it would be helpful if they get a massage. And while they're being massaged, I could sort of teach Buddhism to them. Well, but then something's being done to them. They're not... Yeah.

[10:01]

Somehow you have to know it's your own possibility. And of course one of the benefits of Zazen practice is having to sit still and not scratch. And you're surrounded by people who are watching whether you're sitting still or not. The Buddhist police are everywhere. And you just don't move even though you want to. Yeah, of course you know this is like Sashin, of course. And you actually break the connection between thought and action. If you can break the connection between thought and action, then you can think freely without fear of acting on your thinking.

[11:17]

Which means you don't have to control your thinking. Das heißt, du musst dein Denken nicht mehr kontrollieren. Your thinking isn't empowered with your life. Das Denken ist nicht bekräftigt und ermächtigt durch dein Leben. And because you can let your thinking go, not control it. Und weil du es einfach lassen kannst und es nicht kontrollierst. And to not have to control your thinking is a first step in being free of your thinking. So I think one of the problems is, for some people, it's very difficult or impossible to separate their identity from their thinking.

[12:18]

And to separate themselves from cultural definitions of themselves. separate themselves from definitions through other people. And if you live in that world of in the midst of definition of yourself and through definitions of other people, It's very difficult to practice.

[13:25]

Because you've got to find out how to sort your life out in the midst of all these definitions of yourself, in your culture, with other people. So now that's one point. And another is you come, which is quite related, you come to the center of your lived life. the center of your life, the living center, the living center of your life. And the other point is, you come to the living center of your life. No, I don't know quite how to say it, but you conclude that the center of your life has to be

[14:30]

the living of your life. You conclude that the center of your life has to be the living of your life. Just Being alive. And the living of your life is immeasurably more important than what you do. And that what you do or accomplish in this world, I don't know, it's great, it may benefit other people and so forth. But I think practitioners put the living of their life way ahead of accomplishing anything.

[15:42]

And if they're going to accomplish something, They don't want to accomplish it at the price of their lived life. Now say that you do feel this. You do feel that, yes, just the living of this life must be at the center of my life. Yeah, so you try it. You try to just be with yourself sometimes. Some people find they can't do it.

[16:58]

Some people discover that really why they're so busy or interested in accomplishment is they have to distract themselves. And some people I know who've done a lot of drugs, it's because there's too much pain in just their simple lived life. So if you find out just in the most simple sense being alive, Say, just sitting on your cushion, being alive. And when you enter a Zen monastery in Japan, you have to sit for ten days to two weeks.

[18:05]

with no schedule except to sit. First outside the meditation room. In my experience anyway, on a hardwood floor. With people shouting at you, what the heck are you here for anyway? What do you know about Dogen? I would say, I'm sorry, I don't speak Japanese. I do the same thing here. I'm sorry, I don't speak German. But after you survive that, then they stick you in a room.

[19:29]

Leave you alone. Except they're watching. Buddhist police everywhere. And if you go to pee too often, you're out. Hmm. Now, this is kind of crazy, kind of, you know, young men's initiation stuff. But there's some point to it. Because you can't handle just being by yourself all day with no structure. You shouldn't be practicing serious meditation in a monastery, at least. Because if you don't manage to be with yourself without structure and a time plan, then there's no point in really getting into practice.

[20:40]

Yeah, it's called Tangario, and so in Crestone people have to go through several days of Tangario before they can enter. Anyway, the point is that We need to be able to practice some kind of ability to be just with ourselves without distraction is necessary. We're the most extraordinary event in the universe that we know about, each of us. How can you possibly be bored with yourself?

[21:46]

Or constantly need to distract yourself? Some understanding like this, some view, this kind of understanding or view is necessary to practice. And when you're left alone to yourself, if you find yourself anxious or ill at ease, that's the first problem to solve. Why can't I just sit and be at ease? So we could say that that's the first step in practice. Finding an ease at the center of your lived life. And ease at the center of your living, not the living defined through others or your culture, just simply being alive.

[23:13]

If you achieve this much, it's quite good, actually. And these things are achieved once and it's easier if you've achieved it once. Because you really know it's possible to be deeply at ease. But Every few years we have to come back to it again in each phase of our life. Sometimes in each period of zazen we have to discover and we don't this ease again. But if we know or even believe it's possible.

[24:29]

But the dynamic of knowing it's possible and not being at ease is also practice. Yeah, but of course you may find out that you may start to practice and your practice may really work for you. Yeah, and then you, with some success, transfer your worldly needs to a Zen career. dann transferierst du deine weltlichen Bedürfnisse zu einer Zen-Karriere. No, it's, you know, if you practice, your life is practicing, it's okay to have some kind of career, some kind of way you live practicing and, yeah, etc.

[25:36]

Ja, und wenn du praktizierst, dann ist das auch in Ordnung, diesen Weg auch zu deinem zu machen und da auch bestimmte Sachen zu erreichen. But the, Practice needs to be at the center of your life, not the career. And that's why they used to have where many people just lived their life as practiced as Zen Buddhists. Why they had two halls, one an administrative hall and a monk's hall. But even if your life is administrating the monastery, say, or Johanneshof, It's still healthiest if we keep renewing our practice.

[26:41]

Finding the definition of our life, the fundamental definition of our life. nowhere else but sitting on the cushion. Nowhere else but in that aliveness of sitting on the cushion and practicing in our daily life. So that's all ready. Then how do we continue and keep renewing that aliveness? That satisfaction in simply being alive in this world.

[27:54]

At each moment. From this kind of at-each-moment ease, the teaching makes sense, the world makes sense. Our relationship with others makes sense. Okay, now suppose, as you have, you're already practicing. So what good does it do for us to discuss why people don't practice? Because I think that if we can see why people don't practice, We can see why we also sometimes lose the taste and touch of practice.

[29:13]

And so on some kind of regular basis we have to come back to the taste of practice. Renew the taste of practice. And when we see we've lost it, we just sit down in a simple way until we find it again. You can't enjoy the benefits of practice unless you practice. So the benefits of practice flow from, first of all, Being able to continue practicing. Being able to articulate your practice.

[30:16]

Being able to renew your practice. We are now during this I think quite fruitful seminar we just had. We spoke about how mindfulness how mindfulness, which is part of consciousness, how mindfulness can transform consciousness, and how mindfulness becomes the medium for the teaching. It's that the teachings assume the practice of mindfulness, and then it's the teachings which articulate mindfulness.

[31:50]

No, I don't know. I thought today, maybe during this practice week. Maybe I should speak about these basic practices. How we articulate practice. I thought maybe I should just take some real basic ones. Yeah, like sudden and gradual. Now, as I mentioned the other day, Werner Heisenberg, a physicist, said that... If we think the world exists objectively, and somehow the smallest parts of the world exist objectively, a world understood this way is impossible.

[33:12]

dann ist eine Welt auf diese Weise verstanden unmöglich. No, I think he took whatever he meant exactly. I think he took that as a fact. Was immer er dabei genau gemeint hat, aber er hat das, glaube ich, als Tatsache genommen. And I, yeah, take it as a fact. Und ich nehme es auch als Tatsache. And I think it's at the center of the view of Buddhism. But it's not easy to really go there. Even Einstein with his theory of relativity still said something like, God does not play dice with the world. And Kurt Gödel, the mathematician, he with his theory of incompleteness, spent the latter part of his life trying to prove the existence of God.

[34:43]

So it seems that, according to a recent book by Rebecca Goldstein, that Einstein and Gödel did not want relativity and incompleteness outside their work. So that's one, yeah, so that's that. Now in Buddhism, people say things like, on every particle. dust, there's a Buddha. Im Buddhismus wird gesagt, auf jedem Staubpartikel sitzt Buddha. I wonder how Heisenberg would like that. Ja, wie würde das wohl Heisenberg gefallen?

[35:47]

Maybe he could say, maybe Einstein, maybe they'd say, on every particle is a God. No, I don't know. Ja, vielleicht würden Einstein und Gödel sagen, auf jedem Staubpartikel sitzt Gott. But what's the difference between Heisenberg's statement and this Lotus Sutra, Avantamsaka Sutra type statement. Well, Heisenberg thinks his statement is true. Heisenberg denkt, dass sein Ausspruch wahr ist. The writer of the Lotus Sutra does not think the statement is true. Der Schriftsteller von der Lotus Schrift denkt nicht, dass seine Aussage wahr ist. What he or she is concerned with is the practice of imagining on every particle of dust a Buddha.

[36:56]

Now that would be an example of sudden practice. If you took it upon yourself to imagine on every particle of dust there is a Buddha. You can't go anywhere with this. It's a kind of visualization. It's a kind of image in conflict with the world as we usually imagine or image it. And I gave you the phrase, it's not mind, it's not Buddha, it's not a thing. Everything you see, it's not mind, it's not Buddha, it's not a thing.

[38:13]

This kind of statement is typical of sudden practice. Perhaps to find the ease at the center of your living, this is maybe gradual practice. Now you have a choice. You can choose sudden practice or gradual practice. The craft of sudden practice or the craft of gradual practice.

[39:14]

Or you can choose both. Or you can just practice, and sometimes it might be sudden, sometimes it might be gradual. But it can't be willy-nilly. You really have to kind of put yourself into the practice. And they certainly work together. And gradual practice is most fruitful when there's, to some degree, also sudden practice. But sudden practice also assumes a certain view of the world.

[40:20]

In fact, the fact of sudden enlightenment may have led to the view of the world which supports the idea of sudden enlightenment. And the basic view of the world behind the practice of sudden enlightenment is the world as Tathagatagarbha. Sometimes Tathagatagarbha means Buddha nature.

[41:29]

And there's a lot of controversy about that within Buddhism. Isn't it kind of sneaking the idea of a permanent self in? Let's just look at the word Tathagatagarbha. Tathagata means everything, the universe, the cosmos. But instead of just giving it a generalized word like universe or multiverse, Tathagata is a word for everything that we can practice with. So again, tathagata means coming and going. And the Buddha as one who comes and goes.

[42:41]

And Garba means both womb and embryo or fetus. It also means interior. It also means the calyx, the leafy shape around a flower before it opens. So it also means both the husk of the seed and the seed. And sometimes it means a hidden chamber, secret room or something like that. So this is a subtle way to talk about everything changing. Everything's changing, coming and going. But there's also an interior, exterior, inside, outside movement.

[44:02]

The hidden to the flowering. And it's this Tathagatagarbha idea, both womb, embryo, coming and going. From which we have ideas like, on each particle of dust there's a Buddha. On every particle, every particle reveals the truth. If every particle reveals the truth is already somehow true or is the truth then everything you need is here. Enlightenment, Buddhahood can't be somewhere else. So it's hidden and revealed, out of view and in view simultaneously.

[45:23]

If it's so, then sudden enlightenment is possible. And somehow each of us is already enlightened is also a possible idea. Und dann ist auch die mögliche Idee daraus, dass jeder von uns schon erleuchtet ist. Now these ideas, this view of the world supports the practice of sudden enlightenment. Diese Weltsicht unterstützt die Praxis der plötzlichen Erleuchtung. Sudden enlightenment does happen. Plötzliche Erleuchtung passiert. And this view of the world makes it more likely, supports it. There's one sutra which is something. The teaching of the source from which all tathagatas arise. Ja, da gibt es eine Lehre von der Quelle, aus der alle Tathagatas erscheinen.

[46:34]

Ja, that's why we live on Quellenweg here. Deshalb leben wir hier am Quellenweg. And this teaching is part of the Avanthapsaka Sutra. Und diese Lehre ist ein Teil von den Utsutsakas. Ava Tamsaka. Ava Tamsaka. Ava Tamsaka Sutra. Yeah, which emphasizes this Tathagatagarbha and sudden practice. So this afternoon I'll introduce gradual practice. Until this afternoon you can practice sudden practice. And maybe by four o'clock you won't need gradual practice. It's not mine. It's not Buddha. It's not a thing. How do you keep this in view Wie behältst du das in Sicht?

[47:53]

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