Oh, that's what parties are about. Yeah, darum geht es bei den Parties. Kannst du für mich übersetzen? Today I have the feeling that I have spoken too much. Normally it is not so difficult for me to translate. Often when I translate, people come to me and say to me, oh, it must be very exhausting for you. When people come up to me, they often say, oh, it must be really exhausting to translate.

[01:05]

And if I don't have enough time for them, talking to the person, I say, yes, it's quite exhausting. But if I have more time, I can say, no, actually it's not exhausting. And then people look at me with astonishment and they ask, why can't it be not exhausting? Now that we are talking about speech in this month of practice, I can clearly see that this translation for me is an important practice to practice with speech.

[02:06]

I can see more clearly that translating is an important practice to me. On one hand, in a situation like this, it means for me that I have to listen to everybody with the same intensity, with acceptance, And that I have to keep myself out of the process of translating. Out of what has been said. Out of what has been said. And at the same time when translating, I notice that I have to trust that the words come from a good feeling of understanding.

[03:33]

From a feeling of understanding, a physical feeling of understanding comes. Also in the process of translating I have to trust that my translation comes from a physical feeling of what is said or an understanding. I said a good feeling because I also need an accepting access to it. I said a good physical feeling because to this I also have to have an accepting attitude. And I am always surprised that it works. And I'm always astonished that it does work.

[04:37]

And that I get support in cases when it does not work. And in this way it's a very good example for many situations. And I can understand how any kind of activity or even noticing is a kind of speech. Recently in my practice, mainly in Zazen, I had a completely different kind of pain than I had in the beginning of my practice.

[05:53]

Two days ago I had a certain sharp pain that I have been feeling for a long time. Two days ago there was a very sharp sort of pain that I felt for a longer time. Opened up. Do you take any pictures of me?

[07:15]

Or not? No, it's okay. I have a feeling of... I didn't know it would be so difficult to say it like that. I had a feeling of pure hatred. and at the same time an insight into how this hatred came about.

[08:48]

At the same time an insight into where the hatred came from? A feeling that not only affected my own hatred but also the way hatred came into the world. It did not only concern my own hatred, but how hatred more generally gets into the world. For myself, it took the form of... The root of this hatred lies in the right to defend a happy life. The root of this hatred lies in justification that I have a right to live a happy life.

[10:12]

In the defending of this right. Defending the right to have a happy life. From that arose a wide understanding, feeling for the hatred that exists in the world. And it is interesting for me to have such an experience as when translating, where it is relatively easy to practice acceptance.

[11:31]

And that it is interesting for me to see that in a situation like translating it is quite easy to practice acceptance. To see that the same attitude, which can be cultivated there relatively easily, That to see the same viewpoint which can quite easily be maintained there. That I can apply it to myself and to others in a difficult situation, as I have just described. Or that it happens in a certain sense by itself, that it fits into such situations. And that's to see that how this inner posture or this attitude extends to, that I apply it to myself and to others in more difficult situations and that it extends into these situations.

[12:47]

It became so heavy I didn't intend to. Thank you. It became clear, not heavy. It's nice to have a schedule and know we're not following it. Yeah, and now that we have learned from William the Theravadan practice of one... We should return to our roots in early Buddhism. But the kids may not like it.

[14:10]

So it does seem to be later than 12 or 1. By the time we unfold ourselves here, it will be 2.30. So how long before we can have lunch? Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes, okay. So let's say we eat at quarter to three. Yeah, and then we have nenju at 5.30 or something like that. We need some time to clean beforehand. So 6.15 or 6.30?

[15:10]

Um 6.15 Uhr oder 6.30 Uhr? Um 6.45 Uhr die Dance Show und um 6.00 Uhr die Zeremonie. Well, because we could start at 6.15, an hour later. Which? 5.45? Okay, that's only half an hour difference than usual. Because we generally start the ceremony at 5.30. That's okay. Or do we start at quarter to five? We start at half past four.

[16:27]

Half past four? Oh, really? I forgot. Okay, so we'll start... We have tea afterwards and then we have a pause for cleaning. Okay, so we'll start the den show at 5.45. Okay, and then after a service, we can have an evening service. We can have a pick-up meal or just some food out. Yeah. Is that easier? Having the gruel and vegetables are prepared. Oh, then we can have a regular meal. Why not? There's nobody controlling us. We could do what we want. All right, good. That sounds like a good schedule. In about, shall we say, quarter to three, we'll have lunch. All right, good. Thanks. Thank you very much, all of you. Satsang with Mooji

[17:40]

Pārei ānke Oṃ shī shū shī sūdhū Gautam ātāri Nē gāwā ku'ānyor āi Wushen shi tsu hiyo eshi takte ima tsu ran. I know you want to talk to me, but I don't want to talk to you. [...] Thank you.

[19:00]

Well, I think, as all of you know, Marie-Louise and I went to the service, funeral service, for Colbin Chinoroshi and his daughter last night. Yeah, and it's in Engelberg. It's in Engelberg, just sort of south of Luzern. And rather nice little traditional Swiss house. And this quite big swimming pond in which they dine, which is about half the space of the house.

[20:39]

And, you know, they had one coffin, and Coben lying in it, and the little five-year-old girl sort of kind of like lying with him in the coffin. Yeah, you don't need to know the details. But also at the same time somehow the details make it more real for us. Yeah, and in a way bring it alive for us.

[21:42]

So we can, yeah, kind of deal with it ourselves. Mm-hmm. One thing neither Marie Louise or I liked is that they'd, as funeral homes do, made up the bodies so they looked like they belonged in a wax museum. They don't look like they were ever alive. I much prefer a person who looks dead. You can relate to it but if they look so artificial it's quite weird.

[22:51]

Yeah. I think it's... I can't understand why we create a world that doesn't speak to us. Because it certainly was a physical shock to see them there. But they were there in some mental state. mental formulation.

[23:52]

They were there in some kind of mental way they weren't physically present anymore. They speak to how somebody thinks we want to see them. To see them more as two people who died would speak to us. Like when Philip died, they wouldn't, you know, I think I told some of you, they wouldn't let me open the cardboard box. Because they told me I couldn't handle it. How could they say that to me? So I just, I think I told you, I said, you can get the police to stop me, but I'm opening the cardboard box. I want to know who I'm pushing into this fire.

[25:10]

And Philip looked fine. He just looked dead. Yeah, I didn't have any illusion. There was a live person there. Yeah. Why do we create a world that doesn't speak to us? How can we, if our society is so much, I think, creating a world that doesn't speak to us? I can't believe the spaces people expect us to live in that don't really speak to us. the spaces in cities and shopping malls.

[26:15]

Rilke has a poem which has some kind of a line in it, something like the souls, like the soul of the feet, but he says the souls of the hand, the palm of the hand, the souls of the hand, which walk on feelings, It's the hand which walks on feelings. That's a kind of speech.

[27:18]

Now usually the conception of Zen that I usually present and it's traditional is of our waking mind, waking thinking mind, in which thinking is one form of mind. and that we can have various modes of mind which don't involve thinking. So again, a very basic understanding, which we all should really get,

[28:31]

And the key to basic practices is the breath. Because the breath is the best way to talk to ourselves. How do we talk to ourselves? The secret of a lot of practice and the shape of much of Zen practice Buddhist practice is to talk to ourselves through the breath.

[29:57]

Don't just tell ourselves something by thinking it, but think it through the breath. Now again, you know, as you've noticed the last few lectures I'm trying to find ways to say certain things. And we're widening the definition of speech. And making speech mean something much wider than thinking. The souls of the hand which walk through, walk on feelings. Mm-hmm. So I used these terrible examples the other day of what it takes to interrupt or squash the ability to speak, to have language.

[31:44]

You practically have to be brought up by wolves to not know how to speak. So that means that speaking and the mind and the body co-evolve. So this emphasis on body, speech and mind equally is a little different way of thinking about it than having thinking just a mode of mind.

[32:56]

to treat body, speech and mind equally, as equals, means that you can't have body and mind without speech. Because the mind we have co-evolves with the process of speaking. And if our ability to speak or learn language and grammar is seriously disrupted, we don't develop a mind. And we don't develop a mind. a hand which walks on feelings. So again, let me go back to Sophia noticing autos.

[34:11]

So first, you know, she connected autos with papa. That was almost the same word. I think I told you she did a funny thing in Munich, München. Yeah, she went up to this little tiny... BMW Porsche-like car and kissed it and said, baby. The owner of the car was very proud and could understand. And then she turned and behind her there was this big white panel truck.

[35:21]

And she said, Papa. So she was trying to make sense of the world. She sees me driving, or if I go away, where's Papa? Well, Otto and Papa, they're not here. And now she sees her immense, her large nephew Yeah, my grandson playing with cars. And she's got it pretty clear now. Little cars and big cars, they're all autos. And I'm convinced that what she's developing is a narrative of the world.

[36:22]

A kind of grammar of the world. How this word auto, no longer just a sound but a word, creates a story. Or better than story, perhaps a grammar of how the world fits together. And I think at that moment she begins to create memory. Although babies earlier can imitate something, you know, a year, a year and a half, they can imitate something months later, they can repeat something they've seen physically.

[37:37]

Do you understand? So there seems to be retention of physical patterns. A memory of physical patterns. But there doesn't seem to be a conscious memory of it. What happens with learning the grammar even a deaf person using sign language learning the grammar of a language seems to me to be connected with the creation of memory. Now, this is not something I've studied, this is just something I'm trying to observe.

[38:52]

Now, if we take it that body, speech and mind co-evolve, that you can't really separate them is that I move my arm That's speech. I mean, I spoke to my arm and said, hey, move. Or my arm just told itself to move. This is all in terms of this body speech and mind way of looking at the world. This is all speaking.

[40:06]

So somebody asked a Zen teacher named Corin, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West? He came from the West. He came to the West. He came to the West. He came here to Johanneshof. He came from the West. And Khorin said, sitting, you know, Bodhidharma supposedly sat for years without moving. facing a wall.

[41:22]

So Korin said, oh, sitting long you get really tired. So he responds, he takes the question away. Yeah, and there's another story that always stuck in my mind. Deshan was one of the famous Zen masters. And if there ever was a Zen master who was a tiger, he was one of them. He's famous for saying if you say such and such you get 30 blows. If you say something else you still get 30 blows. So dinner was late. So at the right time, Deshan comes down with his bowls.

[42:46]

And Shui Fung says, who's cooking in Deshan's temple, says, what are you doing down here, old man? The bell hasn't rung yet. He's probably a little embarrassed that the meal is late. But he's also sort of confronting Deshan. Deshan just turns around and goes back upstairs. So Shui Fang tells Yanto about this. Janto says, oh, the old man, he never really did understand the last word. So somebody tells Deshan that Janto said he doesn't understand the last word.

[43:48]

So Deshan and Yanto meet and they understand each other. And when Deshan comes down the next day to give a lecture, Oh, Yanto says, look, look, the old guy has now got the last word. Look how good he looks. Hmm. That's all. So what's the last word? Why are we concerned with the last word? Our eyes are horizontal, our nose is vertical. Most of what's happening we don't think about. What do we think about?

[45:07]

How can we change what we think about? And if body, speech and mind are... If sometimes... body, speech and mind appear as speech sometimes appear as mind and sometimes appear as body how do we let this body, speech and mind speak to us? Or do we speak or do we let speech speak through us? So this practice of recognizing body, speech and mind as versions of each other last night while we were well

[46:37]

Vanya was doing the ceremony and our drum out here was being used as the mokugyo. It really started to rain. It really was raining hard. You couldn't hear anything. We were out under a kind of piece of canvas. And there were 20 or so people, I guess, sitting around on three sides of the coffin. And people, some people were speaking to Coben. And to Maya. An extraordinary looking little girl. So still and not speaking. And with, you know, the rain was speaking and

[47:52]

My robe was getting soaked and some people got up and left and some people stayed sitting and some people were sitting there quite late 11 o'clock or so when we left 10.30, I don't remember what time Now it's all speaking. You know, what listens? And it's not just exactly, you know, so simple as, yeah, let's listen to the forms of the world. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to say something which is that more than speaking or language, there's a kind of grammar of our relationship to the world

[49:27]

which we can uncover by speaking through the breath, and then that grammar becomes more malleable, and perhaps we could say reaches into the world like some some languages have animals speak in sounds their language can't pronounce In other words, I can't say certain German sounds. I understand. So animals are imagined as speaking in sounds that your own language can't say.

[50:43]

So that's a kind of recognition that the world speaks to us in a outside our grammar. In a way, our grammar is the bones of the world. But The world doesn't just... How can I say that so it's not so obvious?

[52:02]

Okay, let's leave it at that. But another kind of memory is called up. I still like us to come back to Sukhriyashi saying, when is a tree a tree and when is a tree a poem? When does Bodhidharma appear in the world? When does a Buddha appear in the world? When is a tree a poem?

[53:05]

When is the kind of memory that functions parallel to our usual memory? awaken through how we speak to the world. Okay, now the way to start exploring this is is to use the language of the breath.

[54:05]

So again, the establishment of breath as continuity. so that you're no longer establishing continuity through your thinking. That's not quite right. You continue to establish a kind of continuity through your thinking, but your fundamental continuity is established through your body and your breath.

[55:09]

And your immediate circumstances. And so two things are happening now when you do that. Well, lots of things are happening. And as you've heard me say many times, it's a huge shift. When your fundamental continuity is established through the body. And what happens when you do that? You'll find out if you do it. But I'll give you some hints. One is, it's sort of like your thinking is released from the dark, from the birth.

[56:28]

Your thinking begins to float free. But it floats free always... Well, I can't say always, but it floats free mostly in a sea of possibilities. Not in the sea of impossibilities, but in the sea of possibilities. I'm just throwing this in as a little aside. We have a memory of what hasn't happened. For example, you're driving a car.

[57:38]

One of the main examples. And you don't have an accident. At every corner you don't have an accident. I hope most of you don't have accidents. But you kind of have a memory of the accidents that didn't happen. And they're sort of waiting there in you, a memory of what didn't happen. And the movies make a lot of money out of that. Because they show all these Boy movies. Full of car accidents.

[58:54]

And people driving like crazy. And it's all the memory of the times you could have driven like crazy. So the movies show us what we remember that didn't happen. In any case, I'm just trying to So the thinking floats freely in a sea of possibilities. And intuition becomes more commonplace. Okay. The other thing that happens is you develop a stable, undisturbed presence of mind.

[59:57]

stable and undisturbed or much less disturbed. Your mind isn't caught up in the thinking process all the time and it just feels like a presence. So that's what somebody's speaking about when they say the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. The mind that arises through what we don't have to think about the mind that arises through the shared obvious, which is still speech and articulate,

[61:27]

As the hand touches a sea of feelings, and things arise in another kind of memory, another kind of grammar. Kobun and Maya die in another kind of grammar than our usual sense of loss. Grammatik, wie wir Verlust sonst empfinden. Okay. Now if you also bring your attention, again as I said, to... Whoa, this was going to be short.

[62:54]

Also, das hätte jetzt mal kurzer sein sollen, aber... If you also bring your attention, as I said, to each inhale and each exhale, with a sense of the preciseness of each, And the sense of the uniqueness or better, the incomparableness of each inhale and exhale. Mit einem Gefühl von Einzigartigkeit oder besser, einem Gefühl von Unfassbarkeit. If it's your last word or last breath, your last exhale, you'll know it's unique. But can your mind be slow enough or precise enough

[63:58]

To be speaking individually through each exhale. On each exhale. Like you were making particular music on each inhale or exhale. So you're kind of yoking, yoga, joining mind to the preciseness of exhaling and inhaling. You're yoking, joining mind to the preciseness of each inhale.

[65:17]

It's what's interesting that happens if you really get the habit of doing that. The ordinary experience of time passing ceases. Time seems to expand or disappear into the space. And this calls forth another kind of memory again. Longitudinal memory is kind of fades out. Can you say that?

[66:42]

Yes. She can say everything. I can stop and she can finish. I can barely say that. How can you say it so easily? Okay. But that's a point here is that you're speaking to yourself through your breath By joining through this wisdom practice the mind to each inhale and exhale the mind to each inhale and exhale in a way that calls forth another kind of knowing of the world.

[67:45]

Another realm of perhaps where trees are poems. Now, speaking in the way I'm speaking about, when speaking is a promise, you're yeah let's just put it that way where speaking is like you're making a promise with each thing you speak where speaking is like a

[68:59]

Now the way this is entered is, again as I said, is when you join, as I'm doing now, you're speaking with your breath. So you try it various times when you can to speak where you feel your body in your speaking. Now, when you do that, which is the center of the practice of the Eightfold Path, you are continuing the co-evolution, let's call it, co-evolving of mind, body and speech. which awakens a world which speaks to us in so many ways and it's always speaking to us whether we're sitting still or whether we're active

[70:16]

whether we are sitting still or active. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Oh, yeah. Well, of course, I'd not only like to ... well, I'd like to entertain whatever questions you have.

[72:34]

That's a colloquial expression. And if I can entertain you at the same time, that's good. Yeah. But of course I'd also like to hear from you any suggestions or comments on this practice month. And dividing it into monk weeks, like a regular practice period, in these two ten-day units. And of course, if we do a closing practice, if we do a closing month practice month, ceremony tomorrow.

[73:56]

Yeah, of course we can do that because this is, these two, these 20 days are rather different than the Sashin. At the same time, it kind of leaves the sashin out. Maybe we should do this closing ceremony at the end of the sashin, I don't know. And since I left the Incans in Lucerne, maybe it's easier. In Engelberg. But we can use a small bell if we decide. And I also want to read something to you.

[75:11]

This is from Yuan Wu. Who is more or less the source of the Blue Cliff records. and is certainly a central figure in all of Zen Buddhism. Yeah. Of course this, he says here, of course this matter, he speaks about awakening The awakening before the primordial Buddha. Before the primordial Buddha. He basically says it is a realization independent of the teaching or a teacher.

[76:15]

but he says that when it comes to after the primordial Buddha though you have your own independence you still should rely on a teacher to mature and acknowledge your realization and help you realize your... acknowledge your... and to... make you into a vessel of the teaching.

[77:35]

Otherwise there are sure to be demons who will ruin the correct basis of practice. Basically what he's saying here is although realization is some quality of human and of quality of human life. Practice requires Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Yeah, so I'm not here talking about this, you know, in some way trying to promote Dharma, Sangha or myself as a teacher. I am not presenting this here to talk about the Dhamma Sangha or

[78:49]

What I'm emphasizing is, what I'm pointing out is the emphasis in even such a central figure as Yuan Wu on the craft of practice. Yuan Wu. He never slept, though. Okay. So then he says, once you've... This matter relies on each person. He says you should cut off sentiments. Detach from perception. Detach from perception.

[79:55]

Make yourself empty and silent so there's not a single thing that can be grasped. Make yourself empty and silent until there's not a single thing to be grasped. And reach the stage of great peace. When this is intimately continuous without any leaking, then you can come back to the world and respond to beings. What is most difficult is to be perfectly at ease.

[81:24]

Not activating the conceptual faculty. Not activating the conceptual... If you are suddenly dragged off by conceptualization, you have leaked and tarried. Tarried means wasted your time. So what is most difficult is to be perfectly at ease. Not activating the conceptual faculty.

[82:32]

I mentioned that, really. To emphasize again the craft of this practice. What he's talking about is not about enlightenment. To be What is most difficult is to be completely at ease. This is the craft of practice. Not to be dragged off by conceptual thinking. This is the craft of practice. Mm-hmm. And that's what I really want you to completely understand.

[83:48]

That we're engaged in a relationship with ourself, with our experience, through the practice of sasana and mindfulness. I don't know. That's fairly clear what I'm saying. I think we have some idea that we're waiting for some big experience that's going to make everything happen all at once. And he says basically, yeah, you may have such an experience, but the demons will get you unless you have the craft of practice. Demons, he means all the misunderstandings that can distort your experience.

[84:50]

Okay, so that's enough of that. So anybody want to speak about something? Yes. I have a question as a part of my question, what is identity? I have a question, a part of my question, what is identity? In practicing here I found... In one group we studied the habit and habitual patterns and I found that... One group you mean, one of the smaller groups, yeah? And I found that, and also in my living here, I found that my habits and my attitudes, they are at the same time very close to me and at the same time I can somehow be removed from them.

[86:25]

And I have found in this group, and also in my environment in which I live, that these habits and my attitudes, that this is very close to me, but that this can also be solved by me. In the Nenshu ceremony there is this poem and it says, everything is like a dream, like a drop of dew, a flash of lightning and so on. A star in the morning. And in the Nenshu ceremony there is this poem, it is all like a dream, a flash, a drop of dew, a star in the morning. But I never heard you teach like that.

[87:35]

What do you mean, you never heard me teach like a star in the morning? No, you never taught like our experience is like a flash of light. Somehow the emphasis was more on exploring experience, or as I understood it, of course, exploring experience and discovering actuality as it is. Where did you hear the poem? I heard it when Beate recited it at the garden. Where did she get it from? She got it from Dieter.

[88:51]

Where did Dieter get it from? From me. I didn't write it, but I certainly did a lot of editing on it. So wouldn't that be part of the way I'm teaching? OK. Next? No. Well, the feeling of that is from the last part of the Diamond Sutra. And that it's preceded by the whole of the Diamond Sutra. And of course that view, which is a way of expressing

[89:57]

emptiness, or as I said during some teshos, to take everything as an assumption, even that the world exists, as an assumption, even if the world exists. It's not different, really, than saying, view everything as a flash of lightning or a drop of dew. Would you rather have me speak more that way? Are you missing something?

[91:16]

I could make the lectures very short. Like a flash of lightning. Where do you go? Then I'd have to really arrive late so you had some experience of at least waiting. Because when I arrived I'd have to leave. I just wonder how can something which is part of me be like a flash of lightning? Oh, so that's what you mean. Yeah. I think if you were at Coburn and Maya's funeral, that view feels very clear. They were there and Catherine was cooking dinner and suddenly they're gone.

[92:20]

And Sukhiroshi used to say, I think it's even in Zen mind, beginner's mind, the appearances are like a lightning flashing in darkness. But, you know, Zhu Jing, Dogen's teacher, Zhu Jing, Ru Jing, excuse me, it's both ways, Ru Jing and Zhu Jing, Ru Jing, the teacher of Dogen, says, living is like putting on your shirt. He says, living is like putting on your shirt. Yeah, I don't know, for me that feeling that, okay, we have certain habits that even become clearer, our personality becomes clearer through practice.

[93:45]

But our personality also becomes more like a shirt that we put on or take off. To me that's also like saying life is like a drop of dew in the morning. Something else, somewhere else? I would like to ask again about conceptual thinking. For instance, when I say, I take the world as an assumption or something like this.

[94:58]

Or when I hear, living is like putting on a shirt. Okay, something... comes to the world or something arises with the world. On the other hand, I hear conceptual thinking is or conceptualizing thinking is is um is a trap or um i would like to ask again what you mean by conceptual thinking

[96:13]

Because I don't get it together with the sentence, life is like a shirt. Like putting on a shirt. Or a blouse. Well, that's a good question. When he says, when Yuan Wu says, not activating the conceptual facility, faculty. Yeah, he means when the mind, when you know the world through concepts. Okay.

[97:32]

But it's also the case, as we've been speaking about these few weeks, that the that the, that the, how can I put it? that articulation is inseparable from mind and body.

[98:41]

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