I'm afraid I may have confused you this morning, but we'll leave that problem until later. So I'd like to know something about what you've discussed. Okay. Yes. In our group there were some questions about this topic. So there came some questions up out of the theme, especially in the area to give equal energy to everything.

[01:12]

What is energy? What is the energy? it's the attention we're giving to it. Then comes the question, And the question comes up, should one be more active to see things and being aware of things? Or more likely that you wait until things come towards you? So in everyday life, how do we decide when we are cleaning our teeth or we are in a big warehouse and you have all these things that are grabbing your attention?

[02:17]

big warehouse you mean a store like a store a big store sorry i look like warehouses yeah and we had talked about that for quite a long time too what to do and to how to just observe it and what to do. And then about the text of Dogen, if you read it and you understand it more or less, but you can't really get to the base. On the deep level you don't understand how to handle that.

[03:36]

Okay, good. One of the other groups? Yeah. I talk basically about two aspects. The fundamental life and the functional life. The other aspect was no picking, no choosing. Yes. And with the consequence, what does it do to us if we behave in such a way that we run away? What does that mean? It means that we make thoughts.

[04:42]

means that we think, that we compare, then we have a lot of bad feelings. And that means the process of leaking. That's how we understood it. And then we had the process about, do we have the freedom to choose? To leak or not? A lot of question marks came up. Does driftwood, so to speak? Or is there a... Do we just go with the flow, you mean, or do we make a choice? Is that what you're saying? And do we have a steering wheel being driftwood?

[06:03]

A piece of driftwood and a little steering wheel. On the other hand, Karam said that the starting point is often just light. And then we looked at it from another point of view. The basic basis is suffering. And the Eightfold Path could be a help to reduce this or not to suffer. And then we talked about how do we take care and how do we deal with pain during zazen. It could be a wrong way to deal with it by saying, just go away to the pain.

[07:03]

It works, you know. It's funktioniert. And it's more like to watch it and to... to accept it on a deeper level. In the same way, without doing activities you don't like so much. If you start picking and choosing and you bring all your energy into what you're doing it could be very helpful and nourishing.

[08:12]

Now back to fundamental and function of life. Try to understand this. If you put it like this, is there a description of an illusion? Which? That's a good question. That makes clear that we haven't really understood it completely.

[09:24]

So this brought up the question about perception. and conditioning that could lead to the point that we have a very limited perception. And the idea is to widen the possibilities of perception. Then many questions came up around the word being alone. And in German it means allein sein. It has two parts.

[10:44]

One is All and all being, that would be the translation in German. And here in Johanneshof, we consider that the feeling of being alone doesn't come up. but also in the zazen he had the feeling of connection. And in the zazen there is more the feeling of being connected. And that led to the experience from the group that outside, in the family and so on, you don't have this feeling of being functionally alone. And then we came to the point that also outside Johannes' soup, like in family, we could create a situation of not being alone.

[11:50]

So then we thought being alone doesn't exclude being connected. We also talked about the word isolation, being isolated. Okay. Thank you. Next. We didn't choose someone who presents what we did, so I'm just bringing up what I would like to bring up. So also the question came up not to choose, but I have to choose every day.

[12:55]

So how can that work? And then the sentence came up, there are Buddhas and sentient beings. So does that mean that Buddha doesn't have feelings, or Buddhas don't have feelings? That's the point for him. He is in the same group and the same question came up in a different way So that was the question about mind which has an intention And the intention is influenced through our education, culture and family?

[14:12]

And the question was, is there an intention that is beyond these situations and beyond my education? Okay. So that's two and a half groups. But there are four here? Yeah. Okay. So we had many parallel themes in our group. the things we talked about and that are important for us to discuss. There were all these parallels, yes. Yes, of course. On the one hand, it was also the starting point, the sentence, the great path is not difficult, only without choice.

[15:20]

The basic sentence was, the great part is not difficult, just don't pick and choose. And that also connects to the energy we should put equally to everything. And to put equal energy in everything means that the very important background is trust. And these thoughts have a very important relevance for the sangha And I have to ask myself, how do I have to live in a sangha?

[16:27]

And that question is hard to explain and to answer And we also quickly came to the point of decisions. And that also brought up living from moment to moment, and that was thought is very hard to do. Okay.

[17:35]

Is that pretty much representative of the four groups? Okay. So I understand the Zen teachers who, when faced with questions like this, say, just practice. It's pretty hard to answer these questions or to respond to them. In our usual context they're not really answerable. And normally, if you're in a monastery, you can only study on the toilet.

[18:38]

And the toilet is just a hole. There's no seat. And there's no light. And it's very easy to drop your papers down into everyone else's... And you find and you find in the John's, the toilet's little matches, burnt matches, because they're trying to read something before they go to respond to their koan. But I don't think any of you are going to do live that way, nor are we going to change the toilets here at Johansson.

[19:46]

Hello, Charles. He assumed the nirvana posture. So let me return a little bit to what I was speaking of this morning.

[20:52]

Because what I was emphasizing was, after the talk, Geralt said to me that you just immerse yourself in this ancient teaching and see what happens, something like that. And that's true. I mean, that's something I could have said. But right now I'm... As we are establishing this place, and now planning four buildings for Crestone, I'm thinking about, you know, what we're doing.

[21:57]

Just to say, at Crestone, an architect I know, Marie-Louise von Baden, agreed to come to Crestone for... a few weeks to a month and then is staying three months. And we designed two buildings and two more that were quite finished yet. And I think we are in this process and it looks like we'll have the money to do at least one or maybe two of the buildings starting in April. we'll have a fairly complete, nearly complete, I think, monastic practice unit.

[23:04]

And here we finished our... made our final payment on December 31st. And this weekend we'll have an eye-opening ceremony for the Buddha, a kind of celebration for finishing the purchase of this place. So again, I'm asking myself, what am I doing? So my feeling is that this isn't an ancient teaching, it's a very new teaching.

[24:09]

And again, to say a little more correctly, five of those... Ten of those 200-year units bring us back to Christ. And 12 or 13 of them bring us back to Buddha. This is not very long time. I read recently about the Haida Indians in Queen Charlotte. I'm sure they didn't name the islands. Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of Canada. And they have in their stories... A time when the islands were much larger and there were big grassy plains.

[25:21]

And then the big flood woman came. And the island shrunk and they had to keep moving to higher land. So the geologists got interested in this. And they figured out that, yes, 11,000 years ago the islands were quite large with grassy plains. 11,000 years ago. And for the next thousand years, the ocean rose an inch a year or more. And for the next thousand years, the ocean rose an inch a year or more. So then the anthropologists got interested and they went out with boats and dredged in 170 feet of water.

[26:35]

Fifty-five meters or so, I suppose. Something like that. And they found stuff from villages that were there. So there's been a presence in China of human presence for 400,000 years. China has been united as one kind of country under one language system since 221 B.C. And all of the rest of the most populous nations are very new. Russia is new.

[27:43]

America is new. Indonesia is new. Brazil is new. Germany was a confederation in 1812. And what, some sort of empire under Bismarck in 1870 or something like that? So this country you live in, I live into, is pretty new. And in something like 8,000 years, Europe has produced 44,000 languages. Europe has? Yeah. In the last... How many years?

[28:46]

Something like that, I think. And still there's many modified alphabets. I think India has 850 languages. All I'm pointing out is we're still getting it together. And what happened during those 500,000 years when people were around and, you know, what happened? I think it's my own feeling at some point we learned how to live together. On a large scale. And as soon as that happened, we began to develop languages and so forth. And then within those languages, various teachings evolved. And I think that from that point of view, what we're doing is very new and still evolving.

[30:08]

So I say this also because I want it to be clear that It's in the hands of each of you and in the hands of us together, Johanneshoff and Crestone, to decide together or separately what it means to be human. And that's what taking the precepts is and so forth. It's just making a decision of what it means to be him. So Dogen says, you know what? When all things are the Buddha Dharma, then what it means to be human includes both Buddhas and sentient beings.

[31:19]

That's okay. I lost it, too. Dogen says... that what it means to be human is one of the possibilities is to see all things as the Buddha Dharma. Then being human includes both sentient beings and Buddhas. Enlightenment and delusion. Illusion? It's a... Täuschung. Täuschung is a bad translation, yeah. Now, probably Buddhism is marginal in any society.

[32:44]

It is marginal. on the edges, on the margin. In other words, even if you're in a Buddhist country, still the real practice is marginal to that society. Mm-hmm. So one of the things we're doing in trying to have a sesshin or practice week or a place like this, is to spend a fair amount of time in meditation and mindfulness practice. And to disrupt your personal schedule. So you have to get up earlier than you would normally get up, I think, or later, maybe for some of you. Yeah. And getting up early, you work with the mind of dreaming and deep sleep.

[34:04]

So we disrupt our schedule, not so seriously here, but somewhat. and then meditate together. And I think the willingness to disrupt your schedule and to meditate and to try this of functionally living together, is part of coming into this other mind. Now, what Buddhism has tried to do is to make this other mind normally limited to some degree of psychedelics or shamanic practices, etc.

[35:17]

Buddhism? Buddhism has, yeah. Buddhism has tried to bring this other spirit into the levels of shamanic practice or psychedelic practice. Yeah, I mean, I have a staff. One of the staffs I have has a mushroom soma, the original psychedelic mushroom on it. What? Did you say it wrong? So what did you say? I said that part of Buddhism presents this other mind in terms of psychedelics and... No, no. Buddhism has chosen

[36:19]

to present the mind that sometimes is discovered partially through psychedelics and shamanic practices. Oh, in other traditions. Yes. You have to be careful because later people will be in a bear skin taking acid. Then the neighbors will really think we're strange. Except we'll be closer to the local ancestors. Yeah. I have a staff which has the psychedelic mushroom, muscaria, whatever it's called, or soma.

[37:35]

It's on the top of it, and it's a traditional Buddhist staff, but it's basically, definitely a psychedelic mushroom. You know, There's a man named Alasdair MacIntyre who makes the point that there's virtues and practices and institutions. Alasdair MacIntyre. Practices and institutions. And virtues I would... widened to include charisms. Do you know charisms? Charisms is a Catholic word for cities. Cities are special powers, mind-reading, so forth, things like that. Charisms are the source of charisma.

[38:36]

But charisma is now what movie stars have. It used to be what saints had. So the Catholic Church I think, decides on sainthood on the basis of certain charisms. So some kind of virtue or charisms or siddhis or insight or wisdom. or wisdom, need practice to sustain and develop.

[39:43]

And then they need institutions to carry those practices on over generations. But what usually happens is the energy goes downhill toward the institutions. And in fact, the institutions' only purpose is continuing themselves. So the emphasis in In a healthy institution it is to keep pushing, making energy run back uphill. Into the practices and into the virtues or enlightenment practices, realization practices. So, I mean, if we're going to be healthy as institutions here in Creston, here and in Creston, we have to insist that the condition of participation be

[41:14]

Eventually this will be just a nice place to hang out. And then soon it won't be a nice enough place to hang out. Okay. So Buddhism has tried to bring into our society over the last 2500 years, our human society, a practice accessible to virtually anyone. A realization practice accessible to virtually anyone.

[42:21]

So we're together here trying to think about how to do that. And we read Dogen for his advice. So then we have these questions. Well, we have to make choices and so forth. And what was yours? Does a Buddha... Well, sure, he has or she has feelings. Nothing but feeling. Very little thinking, though. But does a Buddha have choices? Nothing but choice, but it's a different sense of choice.

[43:30]

Okay. So I think we have to stick to some practices. Mm-hmm. Let me go back to my simple example. If I hold this up and you concentrate on it, And you become quite concentrated on it. And you develop the skill that finally your mind can rest on it. If it goes away, it comes back easily. So now you can imagine, or you have a mind concentrated on this piece of paper.

[44:36]

Okay, now if I take it away, if your mind remains concentrated, what is it concentrated on now? Ideally, it's concentrated on the field of mind itself. This is concentrating on an object. And now the object of concentration is the field of mind itself. And you can feel it physically. And again, since mind and body are akin to each other, You can feel your mind precisely physically. Now this is a skill that you learn in meditation.

[45:39]

So you have to learn certain skills to make sense of what Dogen's talking about. But you can have a taste of those skills even as a beginner. Through the taste of those skills. Now, If your mind is now concentrated on the field of mind, I can bring this back up and you can examine it from the field of mind. That's, as I say, the essential difference between shamatha and vipassana. shamatha is the development of... shamatha is the shift of attention from the contents of mind to the field of mind. And vipassana is the inner seeing and insights that arise through observing the contents of mind from the field of mind.

[47:07]

Now one of the things I said last night was one of the faculties of this morning, one of the faculties of mind is the mind can have direction. Now that direction tends to lead into direction. into consciousness, a separation of consciousness from the field of mind and so forth. That direction tends to produce contents of mind. Practice is to keep coming back to the field of mind. To always relate the contents of mind to the field of mind. And that's part of what I'm saying by physicalizing the mind. Okay.

[48:31]

I'm supposed to stop shortly. Is that right? No. Um... Okay, so it's a good question. What does it mean to bring energy? And it's not so easy to answer, but I think you know the answer. I mean, you know the difference when you bring attention to something, sort of half-heartedly, and when you bring attention to something fully. And when you... You know, it helps to be very tired. Oh, yeah. Oh, oh. It's true. What? I mean, when you're really tired, right?

[49:43]

You can barely stand up. You have to hunt for that half a bonbon of energy. And instead of putting it in, pretend you're awake. You know what I mean, that feeling? Try to find some energy to... So that's putting your energy into things. That's putting your energy into things. And mostly you don't notice it unless you're really tired. But you can be quite rested and put your energy into things. And practice is to not only bring your attention equally to each thing, but to discover that energy body or feeling of energy And bring that energy into each thing as well as attention.

[50:48]

To discover that experience of bringing attention and energy together. When you, as I said last night, change the ingredients of your life, When you change the surface of your moment-by-moment experience, you change virtually everything. So let's not try to get philosophical about it. and talk in too big terms about choice, you're still going to have to make choices.

[51:56]

But let's not make choices unless we absolutely have to. So if something's in front of you, you give it energy. You don't say, I'd rather be doing something else. You don't say, oh, this washing dishes is really boring. I can't wait till it's over. I always think of that famous Austrian, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who said that a pump with a mind in it is worth ten without the mind in it.

[53:02]

So you're... shitting all over the world when you say, oh, this isn't very interesting. You call it washing dishes, but if you're washing dishes, wash the dishes. Like that. So. I work for some restaurant. I'm trying to train the dishwashers. He should hire me. He said, Look at this cat.

[54:10]

He's giving good attention to each leaf. So whatever is in front of you, you treasure that which is in front of you. If it's a person, you just give that person whoever she or he is. Wenn es eine Person ist, er oder sie, gebt ihr dieser Person eure Achtsamkeit. Vielleicht fängt dann jeder in eurer Umgebung an, Sonnenbrillen zu tragen. Das ist zu viel. Schnell die Sonnenbrillen auf. Gebt Achtsamkeit zu, was immer es ist. And if it's too much, you hold it back politely, but still the attention is there. It's honoring the world as it is. Not the world you want it to be. So if you just try that until tomorrow,

[55:13]

Then we can talk more about these questions. Thanks. Mögen unsere Absicht der Gleitermassen dies gegen jeden aufdringen, mit dem wahren Verdienst des Unabhebens, schon dort, wo nur hält, sei Gartenbruch, wo nur mit Schild, sei Gartenberg. Hallelujah. Say, I am God, Lord. Bolzerdo, [...] Thank you.

[56:46]

I wanted us to chant Friday night because it was more like a tea show, but it's more like a discussion. If I hear the chanting, I start spouting something. Spouting. Like a hose. When I hear the chanting, I'm supposed to comment on the teachings. I'm a Pavlovian Buddhist dog. So I'm very happy to be here with you in this yogic mind-body laboratory.

[58:44]

So, okay, let's hear about, can I hear from at least one person from each discussion group, a little bit at least. You started with the question, what does it mean? What does it mean if something is in front of us, in front of me? It was not clear. Something appears in front of me.

[59:48]

What does it mean? Okay. That was pretty much unclear, but on top of that we had to finish it. You're not the only comic here So that was our second question What does it mean to finish what appears in front of me? To complete. To understand. And what does it mean to complete?

[60:52]

What does that mean in everyday life? One comment was, here in this situation, it's pleasant that I don't have to complete something. so that you don't have to finish something you don't have to do anything you just let it happen so that it becomes complete We don't have to make it.

[61:55]

I know. We have a Zen poem, which is very simple. Sitting quietly, doing nothing. Spring comes. Grass. Grass grows by itself. So then we said that if something is complete, it's more like a feeling and not the thought, it is complete. The feeling of being complete. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Maybe you could say something, it's something else from Dogen.

[63:09]

We were wondering what did he mean when he said, birth is like a cypress. The word is like a cypress, and death is like an iron man. Just to be clear. Okay. And then we were speaking as well about self and ego, and somebody, when we were speaking about it, Peter said, but it's not actually the question what it is, he said it's not stable, so it's not so important to say it's ego or self, it's more important to see it's not stable, it's not permanent. And somebody else said it was very important in our society to have a good functioning cell. Particularly if you'd like to hold a job.

[64:10]

Okay. Somebody said it was very relaxing not to take the person, if somebody takes himself, not as such important. It would be very relaxing. Okay. Next. Thank you. We had two metaphors from this morning, from your talk. The one is being in love. Very old theme. And the other one, Shakespeare and Dante. This being in love, of course, is something everybody had experienced and was touched by, and it brought out smiling.

[65:28]

We found it interesting that it was irritating. Because the word being in love had the negative connotation or label. So we had talked about yesterday to widen the awareness and put the same emphasis on everything And many of us had the experience at least in earlier years. Being in love is a focusing process and a concentration on feelings which we like in love.

[67:14]

So that seems to be a contradiction to what we were talking about yesterday, the Buddha field. And then a very interesting idea came up. to see being in love as a gate. So there is this focusing process If you are in love, you have an illusion of this person that needs to be transformed.

[68:30]

In that moment where being in love ends and suddenly we see parts which we don't like so much in that person The other point was about Shakespeare and Dante What we found very interesting was this idea of the design of people or of human beings. And the power or the generality that lay in these people And the power in Shakespeare to have all these projections and created all these different people.

[69:54]

And what is the connection to us and what does that mean to us? One answer or result was if we are very humble and just take care of ourselves and study ourselves. then we can create lots of pictures for ourselves and about ourselves. We have many possibilities. You also thought about the context and the field in which the writers had these pictures and ideas.

[71:01]

So they couldn't just sit down and try to generate Hamlet. So there's an artistic intuition which is bigger than the person and which you can't... Yeah, connect to, it's just like it happens or it doesn't. Two more points. The question about the many and the one. Some of us intellectually could follow what it could mean.

[72:26]

And then we finally said that the most important thing is to live it and to realize this. There was at least one person in the group, he thinks, who could realize this a little bit this morning. One shot, one shot. And finally, a very practical question. Are there any other possibilities, ideas that are useful? Are there more possibilities what one could do during zazen except counting or following the breath?

[73:52]

Okay. Next. The result of our group were four questions. What exactly does it mean to be complete? Second question, is Dogen arrogant? Is it helpful to discuss Buddhism? Fourth question, how can we deal with studying literature if you don't have any experience? Literature being Dogen or being Shakespeare or what do you mean by literature?

[75:18]

Buddhist literature. Okay. Okay, thank you. Next. In our group, there were two focuses on discussion. The first was decision-making. The discussion circled around two positions in the beginning. to make a good decision is good in quotation marks. Or is sitting or zazen the way to, the only way to reach a good decision? Or what another position was it needs training in active diet or worrying?

[76:23]

wild shock and stuff like that. Then there were some suggestions about how to make decisions or experiences. The first was to let the decision Evolve itself so that time the other ones to hear when making decision on the stream behind the conscious stream of behind thoughts and Then there was the notion that Someone said I heard of that one should big decisions take lightly. Of what? One should take big decisions lightly.

[77:24]

Oh, yeah. And should be careful with the small decisions. And that in our society, the tendency is the other way around. And, yeah, we were... there was somehow an agreement that... the consequences of big decisions are often not thinkable, seeable, while the small decisions, the units could be made more clear, and that big decisions are also composed of various parts of small decisions sometimes. So when these are clear, the second unit was about about establishing Buddhism in the West about the vision of doing that and the wider so to say the wider frame which involves practice which involves the institutions and

[78:50]

Most of the members of the crew get a feeling of more responsibility for what you said, or the feedback you gave. And they creed that it helped them to, or even that it's necessary to have this vision to overcome some of the everyday obstacles, that we are not just living together, but that there is a vision, a broader vision. This is Captain Outdark. We have a third question. I have... The question which arose in the very beginning of the discussion, it was, is there an opposite to everything is dharma?

[80:00]

Yes, everything is karma. And this is karma. That's true, actually, the understanding. I asked Dieter to translate it into JNM, too. Why didn't you ask him to translate it into German? Who? In the back. Good question. Okay. But his was longer, so I think more complicated. There are two points in this conversation. One is decision and the other is the relationship between sitting and decision-making in an active way. Yes, active, passive is a bit stupid, just in motion when shopping and such things, and some rarely ... sitting is the actual point, and that is totally necessary, and others say that sitting does not help them so much, because they have to do it additionally, or above all in their activities.

[81:13]

then it will be about decision-making, different comments. One was that you simply let decisions happen. That means not to think for long, not to... to the thoughts and the alternatives, but to simply give it time to develop a feeling and in connection with that to listen to a background stream that is there. And there is also a saying, as I have just heard, which says, take big decisions lightly and be careful with small decisions. And the feeling was that this is the other way around in our society. That is, that if you take small decisions lightly, you go over them quickly and somehow solve them and thank yourself very much for big decisions.

[82:18]

and there was such a slight agreement that this need for small decisions simply from another um The second thing is about the question of the establishment of Buddhism here in the West, and most of us see it as an extension of the previous one, which Vicar Oshila talked about.

[83:24]

And that this expansion or this vision also gives a feeling of responsibility, which is very helpful to go away from small things and a narrower perception or a very narrow perspective. And that this is not just a Do you want to say your four questions in German? You said it in German. Oh, you did? Oh, I see. You did already. All right. I heard it in English somehow. Okay. What made you think that, what made your group, or you, come ask the question, is Dogen arrogant?

[84:29]

It was mainly because of the writings. He referred basically to texts he wrote. And what he said there was very stringent and very direct. And it seemed to us that what he said didn't leave any leeway. He was saying, it's either that way or leave it. Take it or leave it. Yeah, that's what you said to me this morning.

[85:32]

Yeah, and I brought that into the group. I see, yeah. LAUGHTER Well, we're in the middle of a kind of soup or stew. in which there's a lot of questions. And the most important thing is to let these various questions be part of our soup. It would be wrong if I tried to respond to each one and try to clarify it. Because it's good not to clarify some questions and let them ferment.

[86:36]

Yeah. Or incubate. Yeah. Because they lead to other questions. Yeah. So this process of keeping ourselves open is part of the practice of what's called great doubt. So I can try to respond to some of what we've brought up, but it's still for me in the part of the process of stirring the soup. And there's not... You know, I have one of my weaknesses is that I hate to repeat myself.

[88:17]

I'm afraid of boring you. So I try not to repeat myself. But when we're with a group of people and some of you are newer and some of you are not and some of you have forgotten I mean, you haven't attended every lecture I've ever given. So we have to establish some common vocabulary. Because we have to remind ourselves of this basic vocabulary of Buddhism. So we can see where Buddhism and Dogen is coming from. Dogen was unusual. He was very intelligent, obviously.

[89:51]

And he came historically He wasn't necessarily the most intelligent or most subtle person, but he, you know, in Buddhism, but... But he had a sense of putting his intelligence to a historical... in a historical moment. He saw coming from Japan going to China and coming back to Japan. And seeing Chinese culture in contrast to Japanese culture. And being in touch with the genius of Tang and Sun dynasty Buddhism. He saw that there was a chance to make an intervention in his own culture.

[91:08]

You know how you do an intervention in an alcoholic family or something like that? You know how you do an intervention in an alcoholic family? Sorry. Tea, yes. So, Again, the transformative power of Buddhism is that it is very clear that our personal story and our societal, cultural story are rooted in intention and shared intentions. And if you can change those intentions in an individual,

[92:23]

And in a sangha, you can actually change a culture. So we could say that Buddhism is an intention intervention. And Dogen clearly saw this. So he really, sort of like a sword, came down. in his culture with a certain preciseness and clarity. Is Oscar okay? But Paul came in. So part of practice is to...

[94:07]

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