A monk asked Dung Shan, When it's so hot and so cold, how can we avoid hot and cold? And Dung Shan said, There's two Dungsans, but this is the Dungsan of our lineage. Dungsan said, why don't you go to a place where there's no hot and cold? And the monk said, what is What is this place where there's no hot and cold? Dung Shan said, When it's cold, the cold kills you.

[01:07]

When it's hot, Let the heat kill you. Now this is a perfect Zen story because it is both common sense and even as common sense it's a teaching. Then it's also a teaching within Buddhism. But I'd like to leave that aside for now and ask you how were your group meetings last night? Does anybody, can anybody give me some, share something about them with me or any comments or reports?

[02:36]

Yes. I was quite tired yesterday. Good. But when we were outside, we had a good talk and we came to a conclusion that we would Can you say it in German? Yes, I was very tired And what do you mean by step by step?

[03:44]

That's what comes next for me, and not big vision. Okay. What's a big vision? What is a big vision? Buddha nature. Okay. Anyone else? In our group I think we all came to the conclusion that none of us had a vision. And we were speaking about Well, about what was our inner requests we had.

[05:38]

The fact that you have no vision can be a good thing. Because so often you have visions that are not your own, that you are not supposed to have. Gradually, through meditation, you find out what is left of it. You leave the visions of your parents and your expectations of people around you. but I'd like to have some career to be someone else in the group. Deutsch? Dutch. Or Dutch is OK. Since you and I are the only foreigners here, you know.

[06:47]

I'm a loner. In our group we came to the conclusion that actually no one has a vision of how we want our own shape. That it might be good to have a vision and to hear it. is shaped by education and so on. And what is important for some of us is compassion. I have understood that so far. That is also an important point.

[07:48]

Talking, I didn't mention in English just before, it was an important thing for most of us was compassion as something that comes out of being in practice, and not something that you intend. I don't know if anyone has the capacity to be a realist or to put that off. Okay, someone else? Yes. Yes. And then, very soon after, I realized that I had already lived up to my expectations.

[09:00]

That it might not be appropriate to have my version. And then the question arose, how do we find the right scale? And I did not expect to feel like that on our own. And so then also the decal, the vision, to achieve the mother nature, whether to measure it or not. What would be great about this vision and whether we can achieve it, we don't know yet. Only that there has to be something big, so that we can see it, to go there. Yes, also to accept the consequences, to accept the consequences, to let go of everything for a very long time, and to get rid of some things. This goal is to work. In our group we talked about what is a vision and how big can a vision be and how big can we let a vision become.

[10:05]

And how can we find a vision that's not just simple expectations and fulfilling expectations. And if we allow ourselves to look at a big vision like that, like Buddha nature, can we allow ourselves to actually be drawn and pulled by this vision, knowing if we do that it is consequential for our lives? Is that so, ungefähr? Yes, thank you. Yes. As Matt said, I think the main point in our group was that the usual Usually to sell that we know what we're against, but very poorly know what we're for. You know what you're against, but you don't really know what you're for. Not as specifically. What happens, what doesn't allow us to have this vision?

[11:07]

And why don't we do it? And if we have it, how do we take it back to the world and confront other people with our personal vision of what things should be? Yes. You spoke about the fact that most people usually know what we don't want, but know very specifically what we actually want and want. And should we have such a vision, how do we actually deal with it and how do we confront other people I feel we often don't allow ourselves to have a big vision because we are afraid that it sounds childish because the big visions

[12:20]

are quite simple, they'll say. And so a lot of people in our group said, maybe the big vision is just to feel happy. I feel a longing to share something with other people, to share this forest mind with other people, to just don't feel alone, or another one that I will find out the truth or the secret beyond the things. And for me the vision in it is to discover first mind or the Zen mind or to discover own possibilities in the practices one side But we need to share it with other people and to build something up with it.

[13:31]

There it starts for me, the really big vision starts. To feel maybe there is a possibility that society can be built in another way than it's functioning now. And I know it sounds stupid, but I have this deep belief that there is another possibility than greed, hate and delusion of just money and sex. And if we are honest with ourselves, our basic decisions we made in life are mostly based on sex and money. What? And drugs? Oh, hey, the big three. Oh, and rock and roll, yes. Do I hear five? It's quite clear that it is based on that, because we find in it something that has quite a lot to do with this forest mind, but we lose it all the time.

[15:00]

And then the other side came out, this huge thing of suffering is connected with us. Because we can not create this forest mind but we can't continuously hold it. And I think the basic key is really this continuum, to hold it. We can easily have this great vision of, oh, why don't we all live together? It's so wonderful to watch cows and have all these good feelings and be great. But if you really try to do it, I mean, then the real problem starts. Well, you know, this guy, I can't really stand him. I'll watch this guy.

[16:02]

But I still have this dream and I think if we are honest to ourselves and if we really allow us to have this dream, Even if it sounds stupid or childish, I think everyone has this edge of longing and there must be a possibility to create them. And Bekka Roshi once said, if you really want to practice, what do you need is that seriosity. I think I would call it madness. You mean seriousness? Yes, seriousness. Because he's... I didn't want to mention madness. He's a guy who built a zendu in the middle of nowhere for fifty people, even if only three residents are there.

[17:09]

And it's a kind of madness. And I'm really impressed by that and I'm quite sure that there will be someday fifty people to fill every place in the center. I would like to dream this dream. Do you think you should say that in German? I don't know. Some people would like it a little bit. I started to say that we often do not allow ourselves to have a great vision because it often sounds childish or so simple.

[18:19]

For example, when we come to the program simply to let the sentence work, my vision is to be happy, or my vision is that there must be a form of society that is constructed differently than based on money or on sex. And almost all of our important decisions that we make in life have to do in some form with love, sex, partnership, and money, the other big area, money, power, the basis of existence. It is quite clear that if we think of being a beginner, to say, no, I am not, no, no, I have already left this system years ago, it will cost us much more than we would often admit.

[19:26]

just as our parents have been dead for a long time and they can still influence our partnership. At the same time we all have this certain longing for it, this certain dream, and sometimes I think we simply have to develop the good to say quite simply, yes, this is perhaps also my dream, But to make it really, really practical, to let it become alive, that is a completely different step. So to experience Zazenmai, to have certain meditation experiences is one thing, but to really live continuously and to live in a form of community is a very difficult task and I think it requires a certain craziness, a certain amount of craziness.

[20:34]

And I have also written that Baker Raji has built a big radio station, beautiful, where 50 monks could actually live, although at the moment only three people live there and that is this kind of craziness that he has and I am very sure that 50 people will live there someday. Yes, I would like to rest with you. I don't know why you say Crestone's in the middle of nowhere. There is a post office eight pounds... Someone else?

[21:44]

Yes. I think that the night also comes in the forest. There are also surprises and animals and moments that we are afraid of. The unknown that we have in the forest. in what that is. Maybe it's my misunderstanding, but when I think that I always have to keep this quality of the forest mind, it has... it has for me an aspect It's hard to explain. I always have to... I like it as if.

[22:45]

I think... When I'm sad... I'm sad. I can also be sad with the horseman. I think more in the sense that the dark comes as well. The darkness comes as well. Are you a native speaker in English? English, I'm a native English speaker, yeah. Yeah, so please translate. I'm sorry, I was trying to speak German. That sounded very good to me. Was it okay then? It was very good. I was thinking, you know... I'm going to get there in ten years. It took me six.

[23:47]

I'm thinking that we've been talking a lot about forest mind and that... But the night comes also to the forest. The darkness comes. There comes surprises. There comes strange shapes in the forest. We get lost in the forest. So it's just a question for me what this forest mind is. Yes, basically. Yes. Can you share forest mind? Yes. It's inseparable from sharing.

[24:49]

You know, when I used to be with Sukhiroshi I'd usually not want to say anything and I didn't like what came from my mind. But I often would feel an itch a kind of itch that I wanted something physically. Physically I felt like I wanted to say something. But then, since I didn't know what words went with this itch, I would immediately get a little anxious. And the fear would try to stop this itch. Then I think, well, this is done letting fear shake me, so I try to let this itch come out, and then sometimes I'd say something.

[26:06]

So I hope if any of you feel an itch, you'll say something. Yes, oh, there's an itch in the back. Yes, oh, there's an itch in the back. We somehow lead him on. He comes from somewhere, so he starts somewhere and goes on somewhere.

[27:25]

You have to prepare a... and that this question of vision for me is very much in line with what we have learned in our vision, this material that is in the corner with sex and love, and that this is no longer so important. So this meaning for me originally, which I have, does not interest me so much anymore. For me the group meeting turned out as a bypass or something because I let your vision drop a little bit and I discovered for me that we're part of this dream, this seminar title.

[28:28]

Let's start somewhere and I don't think it will just carry us on. We are just like carrying a light. You know this discipline? Give it to the next one. Yeah, yeah. I guess this word vision is for me right now is a very material or social mind thing. I consider it in this way. And so I'd like to talk a little bit, okay, I'm feeling fine in this, to be part of this thing, and everything is settled quite warm, and this is sufficient for me right now. Settled quite warm, I like that. Okay. Yes, I'd like to say something because, well, as you've taught this about this itch, it's a bit the same thing. I don't have words, but I want to say something.

[29:32]

And for me the vision is, yesterday I felt it very strong, I don't have words for it, or I don't know what it is, but yet I'm feeling I'm standing right in my vision. And that was good too. Standing, writing. Right in. Right in your vision, yeah. Not having words for it or not knowing it, yet I'm standing right. For me it's... I often want to say something, but I prefer words. I don't know how to say it. And that fits very well with what Jukka said. Yesterday I had the strong feeling that even if I can't put my vision into words or I don't know it in that sense, that I'm still in it. And that was a very strong feeling yesterday. That was nice to notice. Okay.

[30:40]

Yes. In our group I felt yesterday that it's again very difficult to talk with words. And so I feel that it's difficult now. And we had some big difficulties with the word refuge, Zuflucht in German. Because some thought about it's negative to flüchten in German. And perhaps you can say something from your side to this bird. Okay. Deutsch. We had some difficulties to understand each other. The main problem was the word refuge. That it has something to do with refugees. Refugees would be so negative. And we tried to find words with all of them.

[31:45]

Being able to be at home, as you said yesterday. I said it in English. That was a look at the light at the beginning, this home. I notice that we always need a lot of time to communicate with people. I am very interested in how one can lay this vision and for me I also discover that it takes courage to realize it in everyday life and that I also have this courage and that I also want to trust it. For me, I want to say it needs courage in my life and trust to build this vision every day. In my work also, I lose this trust very easily, and I go in old patterns in which it's clear.

[32:59]

I should be back from living with clearness. And I think in this environment it's more easy to go with clearness, but the daily life goes away. Yes. For me too, there is a question about language. So, how to give this light to others? Of course, in the way we are living and changing our practices, I remember what you said the other year about to develop a known language and so I'm concerned with the question what can that be, a known language? For me the question was how we can change the language.

[34:08]

How can we continue this fire? First of all, our own existence, the changes we experience in practice. But what can it mean to develop our own language? Yes. I would like to say a little bit about our group. First of all from me, I feel that I am very shy to have such a vision at all. And when I looked at it in a real way, I felt what it actually is to feel the connectedness, to feel the connectedness. There is such a direct knowledge about me, I am connected, I can't get out of it, so to speak, but to really experience it, so to speak, as a reality. And somehow, to add to Elke, these little steps, that was so essential for us. It's like Richard said, it's to test, what the master gives you or the teacher gives you, it's just for me to test it.

[35:24]

What is my next step? In the end, it also looks like a great vision, but what is really authentic for me? What does that mean for me? I don't know. I usually feel a little shy to have a vision or to speak about a vision and what comes close to my vision is to really feel connected, not just think about it as an intellectual idea that we are all connected, but really have the experience of being connected. I would very much agree with Elke, this kind of continuing in practice in these small steps and as you said yesterday, to test everything the teacher says and make it to your own experience and develop a feeling of authenticity wherever you are rather than having a big vision.

[36:27]

I feel more comfortable in that. Yes. For me it is so that I am not aware that I have a great version. But I have the feeling that there is something in me. And for myself I wish that I can focus more on my environment. And for my environment I wish that what I sometimes experience after a Tai Chi, when I practice Tai Chi, the connection that I then feel with my environment, that flow, although I notice that I am not in the rhythm with the environment, that I have to have my own rhythm.

[37:27]

Nevertheless, this connection Yesterday I described that I sometimes feel like a fish in the water. And this connection, this wish, my environment. I'm not conscious of having a vision. I mean, I don't consciously look at a vision or can't even think of a vision I have, but I feel deeply inside myself, I feel I have a vision, although I can't express it. And I... What I really want to give to others is this feeling of connectedness that I sometimes feel after Tai Chi, when I practice Tai Chi and I come out and I feel this with everyone.

[38:31]

And yesterday the words came to me, I'm really like a fish in water. And for the others, I just wish so much they could feel that too. So, maybe I should say something. Well, I agree with everything everyone said. I think there are a lot of problems with the word vision because, probably mostly because we've tied the idea of vision to politics.

[39:39]

to capitalism or communism or some social programs which are going to help everyone and so forth. So if we have a vision which We have a vision which doesn't look like it's functional or realizable. We tend to denigrate it or not able to take it seriously. In Buddhism, visions are impossible. You don't want a possible vision. The vow to save all sentient beings?

[40:57]

I mean, really? You can have only two vows. One is to save one sentient being or to save all. It doesn't make sense in between three and a half. Your effort should extend to everyone. Maybe if you have that kind of effort, you'll save one. But these words like save and refuge are problematical. But anyway, you have to work with the deep intention of the words, not... There's two obvious connotations.

[42:15]

Now, if you have a vision, you know, I don't think you can deeply think about the world unless your thinking is rooted in vision. You can also say, and I think I could say, I have no vision, I just go along from day to day. But I can also say that it's also true that deeply rooted in my thinking is a vision. Or a dream. And Sukhiroshi's dream was to bring this forest mind, this mountain mind, this Buddha nature to the West. And that description describes some of the things he did, get on a boat and airplane and come here and so forth.

[43:40]

But it's more accurate to say probably that he felt that the possibilities of practice had become so cultural in Asia that many of the possibilities were used up. And he didn't just say, oh, I've got this, you know, forest mind and I'm going to bring it to the West. That kind of confidence is important. But in a deeper sense, he knew to develop my own forest mind, I have to find people who want to develop it with me. I mean, I practice with you because I know something about Buddhism and I want to share it with you.

[45:04]

But I practice with you also because my own practice requires me to share it with you. I can practice in a way that I feel pretty good all the time without you, but I can't really develop deeply my practice unless I'm with you. Now, if the vision or dream or Buddhism is impossible, and it looks hopeless, then it's only possible if you have faith in life.

[46:18]

Faith in something bigger than yourself. Faith in what we don't yet know. If I were in an airplane that was crashing, I mean, I know, but I realize that intuition was wrong. And now through practice I feel quite ready to die and quite willing to die.

[47:21]

But if I'm in an airplane crashing, I'm not going to think, hey, I'm going to die. I'm going to fully intend to live right up to the last moment. For me death is nothing. I fully intend to live. So I have that, that's a little of what I mean by faith in life. You know, refuge is, you know, This is a hard practice, refuge.

[48:25]

Sometimes when we are desperate or everything looks confusing or hopeless, we may say to ourselves, Oh God, please, someone help me. So you want to go to something for refuge, for help. And our instinct is to go to a person, a mother or a father or some big humanoid. It is a hard practice to go to emptiness. To turn that around and say, hey, no big humanoid is going to help me and my parents are aging.

[49:48]

It doesn't mean that the act of prayer deeply felt doesn't help you, but in Buddhism we practice taking refuge in Buddha Dharma Sangha. Awakening of faith A faith in what you don't yet know, an awakening of faith in this mountain mind, this forest mind. So lying in your bed saying, oh God, please, someone help me, you change that into, move your mind into forest mind. and move into sleep or your activity.

[51:06]

Now this... What I'm trying to teach you is I mean it may be, I hope it's useful in a level of some insight maybe or some stimulation of your own thinking. But the real function of what I'm trying to teach you is will only be realized through your deep practice. Through your meditation practice and mindfulness practice and as much as possible, as Beate says, realizing through those two practices a continuity of mind.

[52:09]

It's a little bit like I said to you, well down the road a piece in your practice of the way, In a small village you will meet a pink elephant, a large pink elephant. It's okay to smile at it, but better just ignore it. And it's some unspecified village at some unspecified time in the future.

[53:23]

There will be three roads and you have to make a choice. But I'm afraid you have to take all simultaneously. And the only way to take all simultaneously is to take any one of them without hesitation. And then they all turn out to be the same road. But if you hesitate, all three of the roads are the wrong road. telling you things that I don't know when you'll come to this village or when it will be useful. So I'm trying to give you some feeling for these things. Now, Dogen took this phrase, the true Dharma, I, treasury, for his

[54:24]

Shobogenzo for his life work. And then his first fascicle, the first section of his book is called the Mahaprajna Paramita. And the Maha Prajnaparamita is the second part of the phrase, I have realized the inconceivable mind of nirvana. And so, and I've tried to, because the Heart Sutra is a description of the inconceivable mind of nirvana.

[55:51]

So in the last years in Europe I've tried to teach you the five skandhas, the eight vijnanas, The three natures, the three minds of daily consciousness, the five elements, and such practices as important points as unfindability and so forth. Those are for the most part come from the Heart Sutra. And these are in a very simple sense teachings which show you how to re-see, re-seed, re-package your re-discover your experience.

[57:10]

And through this re-discovery discover emptiness. Now, you can't practice this unless you have some vision of it's possible or of emptiness or of Buddha nature, even if you go step by step. And the whole point of a vision in Buddhism is to make you really go step by step. To really know there's no other alternative. No, no, no, no, no.

[58:31]

We're getting very Pavlovian. This is Thich Nhat Hanh calls the bell Buddha's voice. As the Buddha speaks the Dharma and hitting the bell is the Dharma. Nothing else exists in this world except in this way. Nothing else exists in this world except in this way. The big bang, every atom, everything only exists in this way. We have our mind and we think about where our house is and what we have to do next.

[59:42]

That's all, of course, necessary. That's the practical level in which we live. Finding the necessary refuge from the rain and from hunger. But you should know that deeply... That's appearances. Things exist, only exist that way in kind of one level of your mind. There is Just as this stick and this bell together produce the sound that you hear, together we produce something that is ringing right now.

[61:04]

And you'll know this most deeply if you know nothing else exists. And when you know that nothing else exists, then you know that everything exists in this way that nothing else exists. And then there's a tremendous immediacy to us being here. And the more we can live in this immediacy, most of the problems we have are gone. And if you can stay in this immediacy long enough, some deep other kind of seeing begins to occur. As Peter said yesterday to me, when you have forest mind, there's no forest.

[62:28]

There's no subject object anymore. Although you may not have seen the cows the way some people felt them, I think you can know also at the same time that those cows really knew we were seeing them. They pay no attention to the folks who walk by in social space. They've learned to ignore that. And they ignore the cards. And it's not that there were 50 of us or so.

[63:37]

If one of us was there in the way we were there, the cows would immediately feel something. I heard one cow say to the other, Oh my Buddha, 50 green thumbs. So all this means and it's practice and it's a vision is to see things from the inside. If you view your body from outside, you view it usually with disgust. Or love. But we're one big stomach. The world is a stomach, we're inside. And there's no outside to this stomach.

[64:54]

And the practical way we have to organize our mind, our life from the outside, shouldn't hide from us the Dharma reality of everything is inside. There is no inside and no outside. And if you just take those phrases and work with them, no inside, no outside, it may move you. So, the first two are the same, teaching and entire presentation. The first teaching is Buddha. But the entire presentation of the world is the Dharmakaya. Which is the biggest name for Buddha.

[66:18]

Which is just everything all at once. But you can have that as a concept, but can you, as Elke says, step by step, occasionally feel everything all at once? In this vision, it's not important that the world isn't the way we want it to be, but just look at the entire presentation of the world. Including that person who you don't like the way they looked at the cow. So you have to work with this Dharmakaya. I mean, in one level it's an experience, and open to you an experience of boundarylessness in your meditation, a spatial feeling.

[67:26]

And you see it in religious figures when they're shown with a nimbus or aura, this is the dharmakaya. And you can feel it in some people. You can just feel this space, tangible space in them. But this also means, as practice, because we can talk about, you know, at one level... Everything is interdependent and ecological and all that. That's all true, but it's a philosophical and conceptual level of Buddhism. But to really see interpenetration, to see the mountains flowing,

[68:27]

To see with forest mind. You have to peel some skin off your eyes. You have to peel some skin off your whole body. In Zen language we call that exposed in the golden wind. So this is not religion or practice as some kind of way to orient your outer life or your social mind. But to have the courage to open yourself little by little to how things actually exist. So dharma is that, that's what the word dharma means.

[69:50]

So maybe we should drop Buddhism because Buddhism has confused people into superstitious images and all that kind of stuff. And dharmism is to see with these eyes. To open your true eye, and so to see the phenomenal world in terms of how it actually exists, And to see your own mental, psychological, perceptual aliveness the way it actually exists. And to bring that into your bearing, into your conduct.

[70:52]

On one level first of all by taking the precepts. Which is just to vow to be an ordinary human being. And to open the eye of the Dharma. So in that sense the last is taking refuge in Sangha. And to appearing as the Nirmanakaya. And the second two are the realization of the Sambhogakaya or bliss or subtle body. And the practices of following your breath and so forth. The first level is simply to bring mind and breath and body together.

[72:04]

And you do that through the intention. By intending to follow your breath, you're bringing intention, which is mind or thought, to your breath. And your breath is the alchemy which brings mind and body together. And when mind and body are together more and more chemically almost like a kind of fluid together A subtle breath begins. So we give the instruction, for example, let your breath come out and the feeling is, it doesn't actually do it, the feeling is and the image is that it comes in from

[73:42]

way down in your torso and comes up. Now we say that for two reasons. One reason is that when you do that, your breath becomes very stable. You don't use your upper lungs much. And we do that so that when you're sitting, as you become more concentrated, you don't shut down your breathing.

[74:46]

And if you learn to If this calming process really starts happening and you can really let your thoughts melt into your larger mind, you start using very little energy. Most of your energy is mental. So all that mental energy begins to be available to your wisdom. To the inconceivable mind. To the mind which doesn't conceive but is a mind.

[75:47]

So is that mind, as your thoughts melt into the inconceivable mind, you have more energy, you don't need to use so much energy, and your breathing can slow way down. So you may be breathing only a few times a minute. And you don't want your breathing to shut off, so this image helps your breathing be stable in this kind of meditation. And your whole body begins to melt together. You don't know which is your right leg, which is your left leg, which are your hands. You begin to physically feel melted together. Now the second, we don't usually say much about it because it will just happen, but the second reason this image is used is because your subtle breath starts and when you exhale, when you inhale, you immediately feel it coming up your spine.

[77:40]

And this subtle breath, which I don't like calling an inner breath, a subtle breath, when it moves up the spine and it'll be helped by this image, Now you're developing at a physical level the mind that can be continuous. And you're developing at the dharmic level the mind that sees everything from inside. And you can feel the entire presentation of the world. And you feel it now, not just occasionally or intuitively or in flashes, now you feel it as a continuity.

[78:47]

So someone asked Dungsan, how do we avoid hot and cold? And you know, before air conditioning and so forth, This was a practical question. And it's never hot enough in Germany to use my fan, which I hate, but in China and Japan, you know, I can stand, you know. This was written by the Kanshoer. head abbot of the Heiji and it says divine wind or Buddha wind or holy wind.

[80:02]

Yeah. Hey. So how do we avoid the problems? Please, somebody help me. How do we avoid these problems? So go to a place where they don't exist. Go to a place where there's no hot and cold. Now we all know that there's no such place. So then the practical advice is, if it's hot, you've got to just be hot. If it's cold, just be cold. But the monk also asks, what is this place where there is no hot and cold? And that's the inconceivable mind of nirvana. So the monk is asking, well, what is this inconceivable mind of nirvana where there's no hot nor cold?

[81:33]

When it's cold, let the cold kill you. When it's hot, let the heat kill you. Which means, see everything from inside. And the philosophical basis of this koan is the usual idea that there's oneness and differentiation. Which is partly implied, for instance, in the Taoist Chuang Tzu statement that Ulrike had at the beginning of her piece. And while Chuan Tzu in the simultaneity of our time left a footprint on the wet tile of Ulrike's mind, And the still wet tile of Ulrike's mind, which we all have to keep putting water on her.

[82:53]

If you look closely at that footprint, although it inspired her, it's not Buddhist really. Because there's no oneness and differentiation. Where can that be? Oneness as separate or something special or better? So we could look at... I'm taking a little more time than I should, but I'll try to finish quickly. If the Dharma can be quick, we're going to have to enter another kind of time now.

[83:58]

If we took differentiation and oneness and we took sameness and differentiated and oneness and we took relatedness So you can't see, but it's all right. You have a good mind. Differentiation and oneness are something separated from each other. But differentiation is related to sameness. This is something Ulrike has been working on, speaking about sometimes, which is, what is the experience of sameness?

[85:19]

In the middle of sameness, you can feel differentiation. And in the middle of differentiation you can start to feel sameness. When I see you as a version of me, I also see your differences very clearly. And then if I use the word relatedness, So we could... What I should have done probably is put... I should have put differentiation, differentiation, and differentiation, and then put oneness, sameness, and relatedness.

[86:21]

And then you'd see that that's one way of looking at it. But if you take differentiation and you relate it to sameness, you can see sameness and differentiation are just a shift in mind. Do you see that? And differentiation and relatedness are almost the same thing. Differentiation, relatedness. So Buddhism says, if you think this way, you're basically thinking in terms of hot and cold, which can be avoided. The image Buddhism uses sometimes or Zen uses is pearls rolling in a bowl. Instead of, and sometimes the bowl rolling on top of the pearls. This is a response to partly what you said yesterday.

[87:34]

Yes, there's experiences of oneness and sameness. But you can't say oneness. You have to say oneness is a pearl and there's lots of pearls and they're rolling around in a ball and you can't even find what their position is. So the teaching of Buddhism is don't think in terms of differentiation and oneness or Buddha nature and your nature. But oneness within differentiation and differentiation through sameness. And you can't say which is true and which is one and which is the other. So if hot kills you and cold kills you, it means go to that place where you don't make distinctions.

[88:53]

Where you're not addicted to I like it or I don't like it. It's hot, I wish it were cold. I like this, I don't like this. I want this, I don't want this. We're always addicted. Our mind works in terms of opposites, as we've talked about. Oneness and differentiation. Inside and outside. So dharma means come, have the vision or the intuition and what Sukhiroshi tried to bring to us was a mind which has no inside and no outside.

[89:56]

Open this Dharma eye which sees everything from the inside. This place where there's no hot nor cold. You let such distinctions teach you the eye, the Dharma eye or the forest mind. You're still hot if it's hot, but you understand. So let's have a break till twelve and then we'll do some walking meditations. We take a break until 12 o'clock and then do G-meditation. A very practical question. It is described in this picture that when you exhale, the breath enters here.

[91:13]

No, that it comes back here. With the inhalation through the stomach. Yes. Whatever you said, I agree. Can we sit for a minute actually before we have a long enough break? Please, I ask you, open yourself to this inner eye.

[93:35]

Have faith in this inner eye, even though you don't yet know what it is. Commit yourself to be present when it opens. Commit yourself to be present in all your situations. Sukershi's dream was that you would know this. He asked me to share it with you. So a 20-minute break, is that okay?

[95:47]

This time when we walk, Ulrike will carry a bell and occasionally hit it. And then we'll stop, at least listen to it ring or watch what happens around us. Okay, so I'm going to take a bell and ring it every now and then. And then you all please stay and listen and smell and...

[96:18]

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