Of course I would like to start with some comments from you about your discussion yesterday afternoon. But also I realize that what I'd like to... speak about, I mean, what I've spoken about so far is what I would call informed non-institutional lay practice. And if you're an inventive, imaginative person, yeah, this can be the practice of a lifetime. If you have, let's call it, a way-seeking mind, what can institutional practice, like Sashin, I would include that, Sashin and monastic practice,

[01:12]

bring to us. You know, when I'm at Crestone for half a year, I'm much on the side of monastic practice. But when I'm with you here, and most of you are lay people, I'm on the side of lay practice. To heck with monastic practice. So I'm a waffler. That's what they accuse Clinton and others of, waffling. So I'm waffling. Yeah, but I want to find really with you a way to practice.

[02:33]

And there's things, what I'd like to say, well, there's things I could say. Yeah, but at the same time I realize that I really can't say them without some kind of interaction with you. I'm just flapping my lips otherwise. So the Sandokai, the Shido wrote, famous Sandokai, which we chant sometimes. San, yeah, three or many. San means three or many. And do, as Sukhirashi has pointed out, means sameness, and that's the entry to it as practice, sameness.

[03:40]

And it also means, you know, something like One great being. Something like heaven and earth and I share the same root. Myriad things and I, the 10,000 things really is what myriad is a translation of. The 10,000 things and I, a countable number, share the same body. So, that's also the Do of Sandho. And Kai means like shaking hand. To shake hands with one great being.

[04:47]

Or to shake hands with sameness. Yeah, now... That's a little jump beyond just introducing sitting posture into your life. But still, to make this alive and keep this alive as a lineage and as a practice, Zen tries to keep, for various reasons, which I've partly spoken of, the traditional orality alive. Now that's a good introduction to hearing something, right? Unfortunately, Andreas has already spoken.

[05:55]

Someone else has spoken. Yes. What effect does meditation have on us? The longest we spoke about was what effect has meditation on us? Examples were that more intensively you see, you hear and you smell. And I believe, this is my experience, but I believe there is a connection with these three things, that you feel more intensely in your body and go out of your body and the effect is then that you feel more intensely and smell and taste.

[07:00]

And it's an example of myself, but I think it also applies to others, that you are more in your body and from there on, sort of, it's that you more intently feel and sense and... Yeah, okay. Yeah. and with the loss of energy, it is of course easier for me to start with the Sesshin, because the Sesshin is also a point where it is also about seeing how you lose the energy that you have collected, and there are different possibilities, you can observe this for yourself and also for others, that most of the time it is about speaking, But it can also go over the eyes, so to speak, the energy in which you have, what do I know, if there is a pretty young woman that you like to look at and somehow so that the energy then flows away all of a sudden.

[08:06]

And about losing energy, for me, the best example is the sheen. And you can experience in myself and also in others, you lose energy most probably after the sheen through speech, but talking, but also through looking. For example, if you look suddenly at a lovely woman and you can really feel as you get rains away. But it might make the lovely young woman happy. Not if you don't talk to her. It's... And I also believe that at other places, when you go to the disco, you can also experience it. When you are involved and dance and are in your body, then you feel how you also get energy. And if you just stand there at the edge and look at others and dance, then the energy just goes away through the eyes and you lose it and you can't talk anymore because you've just given up all your energy.

[09:12]

So that's not just meditation, that's also noticeable with something like that. Another example that doesn't only apply to meditation would be when you're going to a disco and one situation is you dance and you're on your body and you sort of then you even can gather energy and the other you stand aside and just look and watch and see and sometimes can be so draining of energy you can't even speak. It's not only about depleted. Yeah, I understand. It's a difference between wall-gazing and being a wallflower. Do you have that expression in German? Wallflower we have, yeah. Who just stands at a dance and looks at it. Yeah, we have exactly the same, yeah. Wall-gazing means Bodhidharma. Okay. Okay. Yeah, good. Thanks. That was fun. Someone else?

[10:16]

Yes. Yes. The annoyance is not so important to me. The unobstructed, to be able to get into it. That's with them. It's about, the first topic was in everyday life, when you're furious, when you are angry, when things are sort of facing, approaching you, this is how you can step aside internally and just let it pass, I think.

[11:18]

Another example would be not to be too extremely ambitious, for example, playing an instrument very well or so. Another example was what we found important was letting others just be as they are and letting oneself also be as one is. Mm-hmm. And on the other side, when the practice is sort of interrupted, then these everyday excitements and troubles and problems sort of grow and overwhelm one.

[12:28]

Yeah. Okay. Danke. Danke. Yes. Not a theme from yesterday, but probably of general interest. Yes. There are two things actually which torture me when I sit down. One is this... Torture? Yeah. Whoa. I'm sorry. But it's extreme, this kind of thinking. Yeah. And the other thing is when my sitting deepens, Well, then when my sitting has deepened, then the thought comes up, the sound of the end bell sort of will come, will come, will come, so to say.

[13:36]

I think other people have had that problem. I wanted to say something. Maybe it has to do with my current life situation. A young family where I have the helpless feeling that in this life I am no longer able to do the things that are important to me personally. For example, learning to play the guitar or sitting in the living room. Another example of my own personal life is that being in a young family now, the feeling that probably I won't ever be able to really learn the guitar or deepen my setting.

[14:38]

Yes, that is probably the best answer, how to give something or someone, or how to deal with it. Probably Zen itself might give the appropriate answer, but you could say something would be of help. How to deal with that. Young family, you have a child? I thought you were a bigamist there. Eight months. That's great. Now, I don't know if two babies interfere with learning a guitar.

[15:45]

But they would interfere with your going to Sashin. But I don't think it interferes with you Deepening, whatever deepening means, you're sitting. Yeah, the sitting is just like you sleep, you sit, and you sit in the midst of your life. That's all. Yeah. I think the situation, the work and my current life content, creates a very strong feeling of need for time. So that the, I'll say it now, foreign-controlled actions give themselves up and that these personal windows no longer have space. This kind of life I'm leading now creates a real closeness or hardly any time left, any gap, so that it is like activated from outside, not from myself, from my inner process.

[17:17]

I understand. Yeah, but young children almost take your life away from you. But they need it. I know in theory that if you have accepted it or identified it, or whatever you want to call it, Theoretically, of course, I know that in Zen it is said when you sort of accept the problem or identify with the problem, it's solved already. Well, you're right. That would be good if it was always the case. Okay, anyone else? Yeah. Yeah. When I wanted to go to the telephone, for example, when they did this theater, I'm in a similar situation and I found that my little daughter sometimes was sort of more precious than sitting for a few minutes.

[18:44]

For example, when the telephone rang and she made a real, what we call theater, and so I decided that I stick to my daughter and was very precious to me then. Yeah, good. I often have done the same thing. Yes. We have all the young families here. Go ahead. When I look at my parents, I think to myself, what is going on in their lives? When I look at my parents, I think to myself, what is going on in their lives? I look at my parents, I say, what is going on in their lives? What is helpful for me is that when you're conscious that it's just a certain period of time, and as this sort of evolves, what we call the time window, sort of the gaps for myself, they widen and widen.

[19:57]

You can see that. So if you're just conscious of that, it takes a certain time, a certain period in your life, and eventually you can come back to practice again. That's very helpful to see that. To try to remember that. Yeah. So there's hope. There's hope after four. After four. But it may only be hope. Okay. Someone else. Yes. With this technique to follow the thoughts back to the root Back to their source, you know? If you do this, it's interesting to see that there are not many categories. It's something like almost the same. For instance, when you go back, you see it's just what's behind this, what wish or something like that, to do something right or to control the life or make it predictable.

[21:10]

Or other thing is, to other people like Noong, and when you look behind this also, I was realizing that behind all of this there is always some kind of fear. what was it really then to see all these fields and but then realize that it's like a field belongs to be a human being and to see how much it takes how much effort it takes to hold this fear back, not to want to have this fear, to hide it, and then to see, OK, I have these fears, and to allow myself to have these fears, to be aware of them, this was really a big step.

[22:19]

Please speak in German. When you use this technique, these thoughts, to actually follow them back, how they actually come about, when you see that there are actually not so many categories in the process, it is actually always the same. So, for example, do I do something right, or I just want to calculate something, or do I need to make something predictable in life? Or, for example, how others really like me when I do this and that. And if you go back there again, then you can actually see what's behind it. It's actually always some kind of fear. And what was very interesting for me was to see again what kind of efforts I am making all the time, to hide these fears, to hold them back, to feel them, and in the moment when I really saw that, somewhere a little bit, yes, the fears, they can be taken up somewhere, they can be a human being, and to really allow myself to have them and just say, yes, they have me, that was an unbelievable relief.

[23:34]

One question about emotions during the meditational state. We talked also about negative emotions during meditation like pains or fears which came up My question is this, that if we have a state of mind where we are very happy and where there is a deep trust, there is joy.

[24:38]

My personal experience is that the meditative state also for me is rather joyful and trust comes up, joy comes up and bliss comes up. And now the reports of the other participants here sort of let me doubt a little if I sort of, am I putting or pushing that away or if it's all right like I experience it. Pushing the fear away because you're just too blissful? Yeah, sort of avoid negative feelings. Yeah, I understand. No, I understand. Okay, I hear you. and I want to see if anybody else wants to say something and then I'll come back maybe. So someone else. One thing more maybe about the difference between sitting in session or maybe even monastic practice or sitting in just for everyday something like that.

[25:58]

Usually we have the instruction just to go back to the body during sitting and I think in sessions or maybe even in monastic practice you can do also something different, you can just let your thoughts go just follow your discourses, and just by sitting still, your body gets aware. There's a kind of awareness through the body, so in a session you can allow more to let your thoughts go, because you know your body is aware of that, and that brings I don't know if I can really say that. It's a kind of, you get a different type of awareness about your thoughts when you let your discourses go.

[27:01]

And this is not possible. Discourses, you mean discursive thinking. Discursive thinking, yeah. And in German, I think, normally you should always go back to the body, to the breath. But in a session or in a monastic situation you can allow yourself, in my experience, to just let the thoughts run. And by being in a sitting meditation all day long it leads to an observation happening through the body. The body observes the thinking, so to speak, Are you okay? Anyone else? Yeah. I would like to say something about this devoidness of constancy.

[28:11]

Last year we also talked about the practice period, and in contrast to this thought that everything is impermanent, it was like, no, that's really too much now, I don't want that. One second. You were talking about the absence of permanence, and pondering about that, I find this clearly not what I want. This is too much for me. So really what permanence is... Yes, and I started to think about it, and I started to deal with it, and it was a very big unhappiness, and now it's been, how long has it been, three, four weeks, and somewhere, I am totally fine now with this knowledge that everything is impermanent, because it makes things so much easier for me, because I no longer have to endure the positive states that I really want to endure, so I no longer have to strain myself so much,

[29:27]

First I clearly didn't want that and then after three or four weeks now I find it's a great relief because first I don't have... First she didn't want what? She didn't want impermanence. She didn't want the awareness of the absence of permanence. But now, three or four weeks later, it's that I find that I don't have this effort to get or keep positive states. And also the negative states, I find as a relief, they're also going away. They're also not permanent. Yeah, that's true. So I'm completely relieved. Completely relieved and relaxed now. Yeah. Well, good. Joseph, you've been unusually silent these days. Do you have something you want to bring to us?

[30:32]

Yeah, I'm wondering. I feel myself lazy. I'm wondering, we are sitting so many hours, so regularly, have done all kinds of meditations, and I guess I try out just to remember myself. I try out being watchful, as good as I can. And always when I remember, it's really not anything to be done. I try to enjoy the world like that. Oh, sounds good. It's good to be lazy. I really like being lazy. It's hard to be lazy in our culture sometimes.

[31:34]

what we have already done. I can't remember where to sit, where not to sit. And I don't want to go on with these efforts. I just try to remember that I have already experienced everything. And to be very alert and to see where I am making mistakes. And to just laugh it off, to enjoy it and to see, yes, it will go down. And sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. Okay. Okay, yes. Yesterday you said that the process of the connection between the Elysium I would recommend to destabilize in a long period of time. I have always had the feeling that I can't do it.

[33:05]

I can't do it, I don't know how to do it, but I can't do it. I have to let it go. When I listened to you, you said, well, you have what we say, good talking, but because when I meditate, I find that there's a lot of destabilization going on, and I also feel for a long time quite embarrassed. Within yourself? It's like a chicken is losing its feathers, like that, yeah. Yeah. So during Zazen you feel like an embarrassed chicken that's lost its feathers. Maybe I shouldn't tell this anecdote but I know somebody who brought a turkey home. And it was all plucked and everything and they put it in the refrigerator.

[34:20]

And then later they opened the refrigerator and the turkey came running out. It was plucked but not perished. And supposedly, an Italian family lived in New York and they actually supposedly wove a sweater for this turkey because they couldn't bear it. You had a powerful image there. But I think that one of the advantages, one of the benefits of practicing in a Sangha is we have some feeling for your experience and your experience and your experience.

[35:35]

And it also, I mean, not that each one of us will experience everything that someone else does, of course. But one of the views that's good to take in in Zazen practice useful as a Attitude and useful because to some extent it's true and happens. Anything that human beings have have been in the past and are now is also part of you or can be you.

[36:45]

And I think it's useful in a practice, you know, particularly the more stable your sitting is. is that you really learned to sit without moving. This is an extremely powerful psychological dynamic or strength. Because if you can sit without moving, As I say, you've broken the connection between feelings, thinking and acting. And you know you can feel something completely. without having to act on it.

[37:53]

And as long as there's some kind of doubt, geez, if I think these murderous thoughts or something, I might act on them. But if you realize you can think anything human beings think, or you might think, and still just be still. And sometimes at that moment, in the midst of murderous feelings or fear or something, there's a shift from identifying with your feelings to identifying with Everything all at once.

[39:05]

Perhaps with the night sky, which isn't disturbed at all by all your emotions. Yeah. So I think we should have a break. And then we'll see what happens. Okay. Thank you very much.

[39:15]

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