Well, I'm here because I rather like Göttingen. And I've spoken here once or twice before, I think. And I'm here because Gerald and Gisela have been practicing with me. Forever. Twenty years or so. And now they live here and they've started a Zen, as he said, a Zen sitting place in, on what street? Schittweg. Schittweg Street. I didn't say it quite right. I'm sorry. And Gerald and Gisela put on the announcement, Living Zen, I think. Isn't that right? Living Zen.

[01:23]

Well, if you have a mind and body, if you want to, you can live Zen or live and let Zen help you live. Also, wenn Sie einen Körper und einen Geist haben, dann können Sie Zen leben, oder das kann Ihnen helfen, Zen zu leben. Zen is not, I mean, sociologically, societally, institutionally, Zen is, in most of the world, a religion. Soziologisch und gesellschaftlich ist Zen in den meisten Gesellschaften eine Religion. But... It's actual practice and philosophy teaching, it's much more of a science than a religion. And like a science, it's not a revealed teaching, it's developing all the time. And right here, now, it's developing, actually.

[02:35]

And developing in Kuralvenkisla, practicing here in Göttingen. Now, in the United States, one of the phrases you hear a lot is, be here now. Do they say things like that here? It's a good advice, be here now. But be here now is a kind of... helpful guide to practice, it's not so helpful.

[03:36]

Not so helpful. I mean, it helps to be here now. I'm glad you're here now. Yeah, but what is being here. Just here passively sitting here. And you know we can't really be here unless we feel comfortable with ourself. At ease with ourself. So in many ways we could say the first step in practice is to notice the degree to which you are at ease and not at ease. And one of the ways you can find that out is to try to sit still 30 or 40 minutes a day.

[04:45]

Can you just... Sit there with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Or are you actually not at ease and there's so many things you have to do? Maybe go back to bed. So just to be relaxed here at ease with yourself is already, you know, takes maybe a lifetime, takes a while. And as we get older, the way we can be at ease with ourself also has to change, does change and has to develop.

[05:49]

And Zen practice often works through questions you're willing to ask yourself. Am I actually at ease with myself? Can I be at ease with myself? Okay. Okay. Now, one of the things that practitioners do, though it's not necessary, but often do, is to take the precepts. And the precepts are, you know, they're kind of a, they're not really Buddhist, they're kind of common human sensed.

[07:14]

They're like, yeah, don't kill, don't steal. We actually say, don't take what is not given. Töte nicht... Don't lie. Normal things you're supposed to learn as a child. But the precepts are not something you follow so much as you take and hold in your mental and physical activity. And just holding them in your hands mental and physical activity, like do not take what is not given, much follows from this.

[08:40]

And many of the teachings are like this. It's not something that's in the definition, but in what happens when you hold it in your activity. So not, for example, do not take what is not given. Informs us, if you hold it in your activity and your mind, it informs your activity. and you're thinking about things. The more you can be the kind of human being you want, others to be and that you want someone to be like somebody to be in the world, the more you can feel really comfortable with yourself, at ease with yourself.

[09:46]

With a kind of dignity and confidence. Mit einer, ja, mit Zuversicht und einer Art Kraft. I'm here and it's okay. Ich bin hier und es ist in Ordnung. So I'm looking at this phrase, what is here? Und ich schaue mir diesen Satz an und frage mich, was bedeutet das Wort hier? And how are we here? Wie sind wir hier? What is here-ness? Can you say that in German? You can ask a question like, again, like maybe, who is here or who is breathing, for example.

[10:53]

And again, the use of such questions Not to try to find an answer, but to let the question inform what you do and think. Is a central part of Buddhist practice, especially Zen practice. in the Buddhist practice and especially in Zen. So you can ask, who is breathing? But you can also ask, what is breathing? What is breathing? What is here? I think if you ask this question of yourself, of yourself, of your what-ness, I think you'll find if you ask what is breathing, it's rather a different question than who is breathing.

[12:03]

And it doesn't mean you have to give up being a who if you're attached to being a who. Your wholeness is not going to be seriously threatened by occasionally asking, what is breathing? And what is breathing? Again, I think you'll find it's a bit wider feeling than who is breathing. And when you say what is breathing or what is here, There's more of a continuity or connectedness with all this other what-ness. If I think of myself, oh, who is breathing next to me? This is, oh, gosh, I don't know.

[13:19]

Do I like this person? Do I not? I don't know. But if I have this feeling, what is breathing? All of us are some kind of, in many ways, have something that goes beyond who that's just here. And what is here? That's something very particular. And I often say that for Zen practice it's good to try to pause for the particular. Now I say it that way, and I don't know how it works in German, in Deutsch, but in English it can be a kind of little mantra, a phrase you stay with to pause for the particular.

[14:46]

Ich weiß nicht, wie das im Deutschen klingt, aber im Englischen klingt es wie ein kleines Mantra, was ich immer wiederholen kann für das spezielle Pausieren. So whatever comes into your senses, you allow it to absorb for a minute. And if you're thinking, usually everything becomes a kind of generalization. Oh, that's a tree, that's a wall, that's a person. But when you stop and think, Well, the tree isn't just a tree, as I often say, it's a treeing. It's in the activity of being a tree.

[15:49]

And it's the space of the tree as well as the... particularity of the tree. And the space also is a kind of particularity that you can feel. You can have a spatial feeling for the space of this room or the space of a tree. So you'll have a much more thorough and deeper feeling for here. If you pause for each particular, whatever it is that your senses notice. And pause long enough to not have it be a generalization, have it be a unique presence.

[17:02]

Und so lange zu pausieren, dass es keine Verallgemeinung ist oder wird, sondern eine einzigartige Präsenz. Because in fact each particular is unique. Denn in Wirklichkeit ist jedes spezielle einzigartig. The world is, you know, we know it's changing. Always changing. Everything's changing. Wir wissen, dass die Welt... sich ändert, sich andauernd ändert. But usually in our thinking, we might know that intellectually, but usually in our thinking we assume a kind of repetition, predictability, boredom. Wir wissen das vielleicht in unserem Denken, aber so wie wir leben, gehen wir eigentlich davon aus, dass es Wiederholung gibt, dass es was von Festigkeit gibt und dass es Langeweile gibt. But when you get in the habit of pausing for the particular, the uniqueness of each particular is much more likely to come through to you.

[18:23]

And the uniqueness of each particular begins to awaken your own sense or inform you about your own particularity and uniqueness. So from the point of view of Zen practice, you're much more here, actually, when each here-ness is a particular, unique acting. wenn jedes Hiersein ein spezielles und einzigartiges Handeln ist. I mean, we think of ourselves as an entity, as a self, as a body, etc.

[19:44]

Wir denken über uns als Entität, als selbst oder als Körper. But in actual fact, we're performing the body at each moment. We're performing the self at each moment. This is a lived body. And we are performing here-ness at each moment. That may sound a little complicated. Yeah, I just wanted to stop in the cafe and have a cappuccino. I just wanted to. I just want a cappuccino. I don't want to perform here-ness.

[20:46]

Yeah, but once you get in the habit of it, the cappuccino actually tastes better. It's unique. And the chair and... Yeah. Okay. Now. Now we have be, here, now. Now we're talking about now. Now. Yes, I mean now. Well, we all know that Yeah, time is, well, there's many kinds of time. Sometimes time moves pretty slowly, and sometimes it moves quickly. And maybe at some point you sort of notice that you can't really have no time. Because you are time.

[21:59]

So you can't have no time. Compared to someone else who wants you to meet them a certain time, then there's a problem. But that's not... In any fundamental sense, in a fundamental sense, you are time. And maybe it's good to arrange your life so that you always feel how you are time. You'll feel much more nourished by your life if you do. And so, again, time, there's different kinds of time. I think sometimes we, if you think about your life, it seems like your childhood was about half your life. Time is, yeah, quite different for a child.

[23:05]

And sometimes if we practice, we begin to feel this dense time that we knew as a child. And time is not something abstract that just goes along. It is just as you are time, each situation is time. Maybe we could call it situation time, the sight of time. The location, the site of time. In that sense, time is ripening, maturing. And some, there are moments which time comes together and it asks us to do things when we have this feeling.

[24:07]

Sometimes we relate to time so that situations, of course we know this, mature. And the more you Pause for the particular. And the more you feel engaged with the particular, in your body, in your senses, the more time feels like something tangible, something, yeah. physical, part of the world. So now is no longer just something squeezed between the past and future. Now is now a big space in which things take form.

[25:34]

Okay, so let me continue. What about, let's say, now and here. What is now and here? Well, you're We're here together now. Wir sind hier zusammen jetzt. But actually what constitutes this now-ness and here-ness? For me. Aber was dieses hier sein und das jetzt sein konstituiert... And I'm sorry to point out something so simple. Und es tut mir leid, so etwas Einfaches hinzuweisen. But what constitutes this... here and now for me, is my own senses, my own mind. I feel all of you with my body. I see all of you with my eyes. The warmth of your bodies is quite comforting.

[27:08]

I hear all of you. There's a kind of fabric of sound here. And all of these Percepts have a quality of mind, of course, and are known by my mind. Now, I know each of you is out there. And I know I don't know you my mind and senses can only know you partially. Can only know you within the capacity of my senses. So you actually extend each of you beyond my mind and senses. So I feel, I know there's a mystery when I look at any one of you.

[28:26]

Yet, excuse me for saying so, I feel a tremendous intimacy with you. Any one of you I pause for. Because you are actually the intimacy of my own senses and mind. So I mean, I don't want to get you nervous or something, but I have to kind of hide it, but I feel a certain intimacy with each one of you. And there's nothing in this scene that tells me, there's no information here that tells me my mind is seeing you.

[29:40]

Like in a photograph, you don't see the camera. So I have to remind myself That what is present here is my own mind and senses. Now, Zen practice is to make this a habit. A habit you inhabit. So looking at you, feeling your presence, I'm feeling my own presence and looking and hearing and so forth. And when I look at you and perceive your presence, I feel my own presence in my senses and my mind.

[30:43]

The habit creates an incredible feeling of connectedness. So an actual fact for each of us, our here-ness is our own mind and body. And we can open that feeling of mind and body, unfold that feeling of mind and body into the space of each person and into the room. and the alternative to unfolding into this space, this being space, is not to isolate myself or separate myself or feel threatened or something because I am here in this particular I don't there's no there's no severance pay severance pay is what you get when you're fired from a job and

[32:22]

There's no severance pay in feeling separate and isolated. So rather, what's the alternative to this unfolding? is to rather have a feeling of folding all of this in, absorbing. And it's quite useful in this practice of pausing for the particular. is to, you know, as you're kind of developing the habit, eventually, at first the habit is rather noticeable, to yourself at least. And after a while, it's just normal activity.

[33:30]

But as you're bringing it into, trying to develop it as a habit, it's often helpful to breathe on each particular exhale or inhale. Not only allows you to pause for the particular with the feeling of the body really being present. Bringing attention to your breath in this way. takes some of the energy out of discursive, comparative thinking. And brings us more into the actual experience of our body and mind.

[34:40]

and is a way of weaving body and mind together. Because in fact we don't have a Descartian-like situation where mind and body are separated. Nor do we have a New Age situation where mind and body are one. Mind and body can be experienced and are, for most of us, separately. So practice is actually to weave mind and body together. To cultivate the relationship of mind and body. Yes, various ways to do it. Zen practice is one way to do it.

[35:56]

And breath is a kind of needle or shuttle or loom. So each of you right now, in fact, particularly if you bring awareness to it. Somehow awareness or attention non-discursive attention is a catalyst or a Some kind of cooking process makes things happen in consciousness and simultaneously extending consciousness.

[37:04]

the more each of you right now or at any point don't bring discursive thinking attention to your mind and body. But just bring, let's call it awareness, non-discursive attention. to your breathing, and to the body just being here with some ease, and the mind, if it's not too involved in thinking, If you don't identify with your thinking too much, you can bring this kind of soft or gentle awareness, attention to your presence of your body and mind.

[38:31]

You actually are, each of you, weaving mind and body together. Now Zen practice works most powerfully when this is a kind of continuous mental and physical habit you develop. But luckily for us rather distracted people, it also works in homeopathic doses. If you just happen to do it a little bit now and then, it actually magically makes possibilities that seep into your other activity.

[39:43]

Now I say to practice, the more you can do it continuously, this is, yeah, more powerful. You may think, well, that's really not possible. I've got too many other things to do. I'm too busy for enlightenment. But in fact, right now, you have developed a habit of continuous attention. And what is that habit? Your posture. You don't think about, I'm bringing my attention to my posture all the time. But you're actually pretty aware of how you're sitting or standing.

[41:01]

but in reality they are pretty safe You're aware, most of us are rather aware at night even of our posture, whether we're in our back or our left or right. So you learn very early part of learning not to wet the bed and things like that. You learn very early to... Have a continuous sense of your posture. And now it's a habit which you don't have to think about most of the time. And to be continuously aware of our breaths and that this is mind I'm seeing. can be as natural as being aware of your posture.

[42:20]

Yeah, so please. Now here be. I mean, be here now. In this full sense of being at ease with yourself, Or knowing you're not at ease with yourself and knowing that opens the possibility of becoming at ease with yourself. And be here in this moment. Absolute particularity.

[43:31]

This, again, unique particularity.

[43:35]

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