Because it recognizes that it's not that way. But if your initial response is always, I don't like it, then you start being in trouble in your life. So the second response, I don't like it, is okay. But if it's your initial response, it's not so okay. Und die zweite Reaktion der Ablehnung, die ist in Ordnung, aber nicht immer damit anfangen. You could say, it's like saying yes to your first, you say yes to everything and then you might say no. Das ist genauso wie wenn man zum Beispiel immer erst irgendetwas bejahend gegenübersteht und dann als zweite Reaktion es ablehnt. But again, it's like the Japanese word hai, H-A-I, which is translated as yes. Und das ist so wie das japanische Wort hai, das wird mit ja übersetzt. But as I pointed out before, it actually only means, I hear you. So if Ulrike is saying, you should do blah, blah, blah, blah, and I say, I hear you.

[01:08]

I might be saying yes, but that attitude of I hear you is interpreted as yes. So the initial response is not yes or no, but I hear you. As soon as you have the response of yes or no, you're into your personality. And into likes and dislikes and so forth. Which is perfectly okay. But it's much more difficult to negotiate your life if your initial response to the world is always in terms of likes and dislikes and your personality. Because the world is just not identical with your personality.

[02:12]

So you're going to always be kind of... Okay, so... And in fact, your personality or your existence, your larger personality, let's say your existence, as I say, is much, your own existence is bigger than your personality. Okay. Now, this sense of happiness that arises from concentration is often called bliss. It's a physical feeling and, I mean, the only way, the only word we have that's close to it is orgasmic. And it arises in your chest and in your breath and in your chest and can arise throughout your whole body.

[03:29]

And as your mindfulness and breath body practice develops, this feeling can actually be present all day long. If you actually start residing in your breath body, as soon as a little bit of concentration, not too much distraction, this feeling of bliss pervades your body. Now, I'm not saying you guys should start trying to do some special breathing techniques in the... you know, during the day to try to achieve something like this. I'm just saying this is what happens if you've been practicing a long time and are settled in your breath body. Okay. Now, and it's written about in the books about Buddhism. And it's true, it's not just written about.

[04:57]

Okay, now, the bliss that arises from well-being is experienced in five categories. Or probably hundreds of categories. But five categories are pointed out so that you tend to notice it. One category is called goose bumps. Do you have goose bumps? Never had to translate that before. Or your feeling of your hair standing on end. I mean, you know. That feeling is considered to be a sign of the joy of well-being. I don't know if I can remember all five, but I'll try. Another is a feeling of flashes.

[05:58]

Little flashes appear in your body of joy. of recognition or ease. Or a sudden coolness may appear on your eyes. That's another category. A third is a feeling of well-being arising in kind of waves, a pulse of well-being. Feeling a sense of well-being. Every time you look at something, a feeling of well-being comes up. Another is you feel uplifted. You feel very light. Your body feels very light. It's a little, you know, I think there's a popular song, I'm walking on air.

[07:09]

I wish I could sing. I could break into these songs every now and then. But it's literally described as feeling like you're walking on air or sitting on air, like you're on air cushions or something, or even levitating slightly. Now, these experiences, again, I tried to say in the beginning that in Buddhism, spiritual life is always very tangible. These experiences are manifestations of the actual joy of well-being arising from a settled worldview. So one of the jobs of a Buddhist is to develop your worldview.

[08:11]

Now, a developed worldview, let's say the worldview of Buddhism is that everything's impermanent. Empty. Without any inherent existence. Okay. That doesn't make you feel very happy. And it doesn't develop you. It's not a developed worldview. Because you can see everything is impermanent. But when your best friend dies, you may be destroyed.

[09:13]

Or if your best friend gets mad at you for two days, you may be destroyed. Or if two people, when you're walking on the street, tend not to look at you, you may be destroyed. All of these would suggest you don't have a settled world view. Okay, the means to developing a settled worldview is equanimity. Now, the worldview may be that the world is impermanent, but how do you get to that point so that it develops each momentary activity?

[10:16]

Now, are you all with me so far? More or less? Okay. So in order to, in order to, now Buddhism does not want you to have a worldview which says all is one. Or all is love. Or all is good or whatever, or all is bad. It's not reductionist. It's not moving towards some experience of oneness. That's not Buddhism. That's again the... the description of spiritual life that arises out of a theological culture and language.

[11:26]

Okay, now let's take the one place where the word love is really used or translated, is the practice of loving kindness. Okay, sometimes it's called unlimited friendliness, sometimes it's called loving kindness. And sometimes, again, Ricky gets a little annoyed at me saying, would you quit being so unlimitedly friendly? You don't have to talk to everyone in the train station. This is not Buddhism, she says to me. This is your eccentricity. She's probably right. After we've missed the third train.

[12:41]

Sometimes she says something like, why don't you be friendly to me instead? Okay. Anyway, I'm just showing that all these practices can get out of whack. Okay. Now, loving kindness is always very specific and not generalized. It's like you... Yeah, that's good enough. Okay, so for instance, it's recommended that you practice loving-kindness.

[13:45]

First you have to deal with what these words mean in English or German. And pick what you like. If you don't like loving kindness, pick some other word. But first you develop, very specifically, a feeling of loving kindness toward yourself. Which means not being too critical of yourself, being forgiving of yourself. You know, always looking on the bright side of life instead. Anyway, you develop a feeling of loving kindness toward yourself. And you begin to notice it. Like it says in the instruction manuals, when the signs of joy arise, the practitioner knows the signs of joy have arisen. Now, this is a little bit related to my sense of memory as a part of practice.

[15:07]

Usually what I call is dharani memory. Yeah, but I'm not going to talk about dharani memory. I don't think today. Except indirectly. Okay. So, you get to know yourself well enough that you know when the feeling of loving-kindness is present in your body toward yourself. You get settled in this knowledge of the feeling of loving-kindness. Then you try to transfer it to another person. And you try to have this feeling of loving kindness towards somebody that it's easy to feel loving kindness towards.

[16:25]

And then you get familiar with the feeling of transferring or recognizing this feeling of loving kindness in another person. So you investigate, the word is often used in koans, this should be investigated. And that means investigate from a concentrated state of mind. Or investigate from a subtle state of mind. All right, so you get to know loving kindness as it arises in you. You investigate this. It's not a generalized, oh, it's nice to be loving. Or even, often I feel loving. It's a very deep feeling for me. In Buddhism, you then investigate this feeling. Okay. Because you're really developing a vocabulary a language of emotions feeling love and not just a vocabulary of, you know, words.

[17:40]

Und ihr entwickelt wirklich einen Wortschatz für Emotionen, Gefühle und Liebe und jetzt nicht nur einen Wortschatz von Worten. Okay. So, investigating the feeling of loving-kindness in yourself, also erforscht dieses Gefühl in euch, you also investigate and observe the feeling of loving-kindness in others. Und dann erforscht ihr und beobachtet ihr das auch in anderen. You know, I have one person who practices with me. Is a person of immense confidence and very small ego. And he seems to be a person who's naturally gifted for practice. And there are such people. He may not or she may not have some of the other ingredients you need. But when I look at this person, I can feel the kind of loving kindness that just seems to come up in this person all the time.

[18:52]

So I can study the loving kindness in that person, and I can feel it. My own body responds. So I investigate loving-kindness as it arises in another person. And then I investigate it as it arises in me. Okay. Then I, again, try to practice directing loving-kindness toward particular people. And then I get the feeling of that. And I know that feeling. And I know when that feeling arises and is present. I know how to sustain that feeling. Now I transfer that feeling to a person it's more difficult to feel loving kindness toward.

[19:55]

I know the diminishment of that feeling. I know the disappearance of that feeling. I know the energy required to kind of bring that feeling back. I know how I have to change the image in my mind of that feeling forever. I know how I have to change the image of that person in my mind in order for the feeling of loving kindness to come back. Maybe I have to imagine them as a baby before I can feel loving kindness toward them. And by the time I imagine them as, say, seven or eight or ten, I immediately don't have the feeling anymore. So you actually practice in this way. Now, again, you don't sit all day long. Eight hours of loving-kindness practice today. You know, you just, when emotionally you notice, you know, you don't feel so good about the world or yourself, you then sometimes practice a little loving-kindness.

[21:13]

And eventually you can find, mostly you can direct loving-kindness toward any human being. But you're also developing, in order to have the feeling of loving kindness, you're also developing a more subtle sense of who each person is. You may have to imagine yourself as a forgiving mother. But then you begin to extend this practice of loving kindness toward everyone in Munich. And this sense of loving kindness means also to genuinely feel desire well-being for each person. So you practice wishing the best for a person.

[22:14]

And then you practice wishing the best even for an enemy. And then you practice wishing the best for everyone in Munich. And in Germany. And even in America. And in Poland. And so forth. Now, this is the Abhidharmic way of looking at studying yourself. And you don't have to study the whole system. But this is one example of how you do it. Okay. Now, what I am talking about here is the conditions for enlightenment and wisdom.

[23:37]

And the conditions for enlightenment and wisdom mean you live in the field of being. How you live in the field of being. And the more you develop the field of being in which you live, the more this is called technically a Buddha field. So an adept practitioner is always trying to establish Buddha fields. Okay. Now, if we imagine there's this Buddha field, if you can't swim toward this person in this field, or you deny that these people over here are suffering,

[24:45]

Or somehow you can't deal with just the way it is without thinking about I want to protect what I've got. Now, it's natural to protect what you have. But that can't be the definitive way you find yourself. Balancing that has to be a genuine sense that each of these other people in the world, in each situation, is also you. And at least you should be willing to help them take care of themselves the way you take care of yourself. Or wishing them the same well-being you wish for yourself. And if the well-being you wish for yourself is the well-being of a Buddha, then you wish the well-being of a Buddha for them.

[26:01]

Now, what happens is, when I'm walking around, I'm walking around actually in a field of being. I hear things. See things. I have the feelings that arise from seeing Ulrike. I have the feelings that arise from seeing you. I have the feelings that arise from remembering my daughter and my mother and father and so forth, and the many people who are present in my life, including the many people I know through books who never existed but exist in me. So all of those is a field of being that I'm existing in.

[27:05]

Including everyone I meet on the street going to lunch. Now, if I have feelings of closing in or protecting myself or not liking this and not liking that and liking this a lot, etc., actually, you do not have the conditions for enlightenment or wisdom. So maybe you have to think of this as a diet or like a balanced diet, you know, a balanced state of mind. And equanimity is the means, the medicine of realizing a balanced state of mind. Okay, so when you practice equanimity, you're not practicing some kind of general everything is one. You're practicing finding each thing is equal. All, again, all is each situation.

[28:27]

All sentient beings is every sentient being I meet or have some connection with. And when I contemplate about it, how whatever I do reaches to the whole planet. And without forcing it, you let these things come in. Like you don't force loving kindness when you don't feel loving kindness. To force loving kindness on yourself when you don't feel it would be to not practice loving kindness towards yourself.

[29:28]

So if you want to practice loving kindness towards yourself, you have to be loving towards yourself when you can't practice loving kindness. But when you do feel it, then you practice it. But if you feel it, then practice it. That's all. There's no should here. When you feel it, you practice it. When it's not there, fine. Now, I'll stop in a minute. So equanimity is a practice which is a practice and an attitude.

[30:38]

which allows you to accept or be open to each situation. And the practices of sealing, which I gave you yesterday, are intimately part of the practice of equanimity. Because you can't be open to each situation unless it also nourishes you or you're able to receive it. Now, so the practice of equanimity is the practice of how to receive each situation. and to allow each situation to verify and develop your worldview.

[31:44]

So you have a feeling of well-being and joy that arises in finding the world as it is. Not that you like the way it is, but that your world view is big enough to accept the way it is. So just don't do zazen, just whatever posture you're in.

[32:48]

Let's just sit for a minute, one minute or so. In relationship, in regard to the world. In relationship to and in regard to the world, to balance yourself in regard to the world. And after lunch, we'll try to look at the practice of this more directly, more specifically. The group has to leave. Because they have a group ticket, a group train ticket, which I guess is less expensive.

[34:01]

And they have babysitters waiting to be relieved. So I don't know how we're going to continue without them. You know, it's of course wonderful to know a foreign language. But it's also, because it's my experience, quite wonderful not to know anything. Because I always have this wonderful experience of not knowing where I am or what I'm doing or whatever. Not understanding what's going on. It's a great relief. It makes me think of Yamada Mumonroshi who stopped speaking really because he had Alzheimer's disease. The last words he said were, I've forgotten everything I didn't need to know.

[35:14]

That's a little how I feel, yeah. But I just went into the toilet in the restaurant here. And I took the container of soap and washed my hands. I thought it was kind of thin soap, but you know, it was all right. So I came back later and I used it again. I thought... Is this soap? I put it back in the lawn. It said, herb fresh. Yeah, and I realized it was some sort of deodorant or, you know, to make the bathroom smell nice. So I looked around. I found the soap over here, so I used the soap. But I squirted the stuff all over my hands, you know, and it smelled like perfume.

[36:41]

So I said, I thought, well, it's all right. I smell like perfume. So I came out and I walked up to Ulrike. She said, how can you smell like a toilet? . Yeah, everything changes. Okay. We don't have too much time. So I'd like to continue a bit on equanimity and things that are related to that.

[37:49]

But first I'd, well, first I should say, I've discovered just now that there are a few people in this seminar who've applied for the Sashin. And some people have, I know, I don't know if people in this seminar, but I know some people have applied for Saschins like three or four in a row and still not gotten in. So I should say something about how I accept people for Sashin. Basically, I'm accepting people on really, in the end, how well I know them. I mean, first, if you've done other sesshins,

[39:04]

And I think you can do a Sashin. And if I know you through seminars, you come to seminars too. And what you contribute to a seminar. So the more I feel and know your practice and know you personally, then it's easy for me to accept you. Now, the way it is, if I just used that criteria, those criteria, there would be no new people in Sashins. So I try to keep about, say, five places open for new people. And I mean, I could keep more, but actually the sashins work better if you have the experience of people in the sashin.

[40:20]

But still, I want some new people to come and people even from other traditions. But I still have to know you to accept you because a lei sashin is a serious thing. The test of being in a monastery isn't there. So I have to be careful in how I accept people. So if any of you want to come to Sashin, you should come and identify yourself to me so I can keep you in mind when we go through all the applications. I want you all to come to Sashin, if you can. But at present, with doing two Sashins a year and the seating limited to 49 people, we can't accept everyone. We found a place near Bad Kreuznach where we could do Sashins more often.

[41:40]

And that we could possibly buy. And compared to the prices of apartments in cities, it's not very expensive. But compared to the money we all have, it's very expensive. So I don't know if it's possible or the right place, but sometime in the next few years, it'd be nice to find a place that we can afford and practice more regularly in. And I'm trying, again, since this is my last, this is next week or my last seminars in this part of Europe at least, I've decided to really concentrate, and each year I've made the decision in stages, to concentrate on where the students are.

[43:06]

mich darauf zu konzentrieren, wo meine Studenten sind. And so next year I'm going to take that a step further and probably I think I'll only do seminars in cities where there's sitting groups. So that's the Frankfurt-Heidelberg area and Munich, I think, and... Berlin and Munster, that's it? Vienna. And Vienna. Sorry. And it is possible, for those of you who are interested, that you can come to a sashin in America at Crestone. And since we have our own place there, it's not so expensive to do the sashin, and I don't have travel and all that stuff, but you have the airfare, but sometimes you can get quite cheap airfares.

[44:36]

Und da in Kresto natürlich unser eigener Platz ist, und auch sonst in dem sind keine Unkosten für mich entstehen, in Form von Reisen und so weiter, ist es billiger als in Sechin in Deutschland, aber ihr habt natürlich die Kosten für einen Flug. Okay. Aber manchmal gibt es recht günstige Flugtickets. OK. Now, before I start on this wonderful practice of equanimity, I would like to see if there's one or two questions about anything. Yeah. You say uncorrected mind and do not control the breath. How about working with imagination while thinking? Like not forcing the breath down, but imagine it to be down.

[45:40]

That's okay. Visualize it, you mean. Can you say the question again in German, please? Uncontrolled mind. [...] Yeah, it's interesting. You have very good questions, very astute questions about zazen. Especially for someone who has such a hard time sitting. Yeah. Sure, you can visualize your breath in a certain pattern. You can even visualize it coming in through your feet if you want. It's a helpful way to practice. I'm trying to think about how much detail in my book to go into breathing practice, but I'll probably go into quite a bit of detail. Which I've promised the publisher that I will finish before next spring or I won't come to Europe next spring, next year.

[47:04]

So you can all come and help me. Right, right. There's that song. It's a kind of comic song where this guy goes home, his wife goes home and says, I smashed up the car. And the husband says, how could you have done that? And she said, Jesus made me do it. How could Jesus have made you do it? He had a gun. Yes.

[48:05]

Anyway. Okay, let's talk about... Oops. Oh. Yes? I'd like to go back to my question again. Yeah, go ahead. About suffering, because I don't know if I met myself here, but what I meant is that if somebody who really suffers from hunger or serious diseases could stop practicing to work and tell them the same things like life's a construct and you can keep painting cookies, you know, So tell me more about what's your feeling about this question. What do you feel asking it? Yeah, I was thinking about that before, and I think that somebody who really... has to think about what he will eat the next day.

[49:19]

Can't think about practice, but we have more psychological problems, psychologically suffering. Aus Deutsch. So I think that if someone really thinks about what to eat next, that he can't think too much about it, where we are just more psychologically alive. It's a good question. Let me come at it from the back door.

[50:26]

But our front door. is that lay practice is possible in the West in a way it has never been possible in Asia. Because we all have enough to eat. And because we have leisure. Now, practice in Asia has been limited in the past. who choose monastic life and the institutional support of monastic life, or people who have sufficient character and personal power to never be somebody who's going to be starving. Or it's unlikely.

[51:29]

I mean, they'd find a way to eat leaves if necessary. In other words, if you can create... I mean, the kind of person that can practice in a situation where everything's falling apart, has to have quite a lot of character. Most people couldn't do it. So one thing Suzuki Roshi said when he first came to America... in 1958 or 59, I think, is that most people... Japan was very poor at the time.

[52:29]

And most people had to work too hard all the time just to get enough to eat. They didn't have time for zazen and stuff like that. Now, some people, like Suzuki Roshi, during the war, he was supposed to work. They said, you have to work, you have to do these things, we're not going to feed you. And they cut the priests of the teachers, priests of temples, off from any food supply. And you were supposed to turn all your bells and drums and everything into the war effort so the bells could be melted down to make cannons and things. And I have a picture of Sukershi taking all the temple bells and so forth and bringing them out of the temple to be given to the war effort.

[53:32]

And he was forced to do that. But they told him, you also have to go get a job and work in an office or something. And he refused. And they said that he couldn't be supported. And he just felt, and he talked to me about it, he said, I'm a Buddhist, I practice, and I'm going to live that way, that's all. And he stayed in his temple and he practiced. And the villagers were not allowed to give him food. But he found after a while that the villagers were coming up at night and hiding food and then leaving.

[54:47]

And he began to find little cages, cages I guess, of food here and there hidden that supplied him during the war. He's also a person who would have found a way to live somehow. But most people aren't so constituted or don't have the good luck to have that kind of attitude or personality. In that sense, Zen practice is a kind of elite practice. So now some people may say, I don't want to do an elite practice. Then you better unlearn how to read. Because reading is an elite practice. And I think no one would disagree that it's helpful to have people in the world who read, even if some people don't read.

[55:49]

So the view of Zen is, it's okay if not everybody can practice this way, it's good that some people do. To finish the anecdote about Tsukiyoshi, he finally went into the war as a chaplain. because and he said i just felt that the young men of my generation were going into this and i couldn't abandon them but i also didn't want to fight in the war So he went to Manchuria with the troops just to be with them, but not to fight. And then at the end of the war, when Japan was defeated, the people in the city, Yaesu, which is south of Tokyo, where his temple is, it's a pretty big seaport city.

[57:30]

began taking down all the statues and things like that in the public squares of war heroes and things. And they began hiding the women and so forth. And anyway, they thought that the American troops would come through and do all this damage. And Suzuki Roshi organized the city to not tear down the statues. And he said, they're not going to care about the statues. And he got everybody, the women, to stop, I think, shaving or cutting their hair to be disguised as boys. And he got everybody out in the streets to greet the Americans when they came through. And of course it worked. Nobody was hurt and everything was fine. But he also was giving lectures against the war, public lectures, until he was stopped.

[59:00]

Just after the war had started, he was still giving public lectures, trying to stop the war. And after the war, he was virtually the only Buddhist priest who marched in peace marches and anti-war demonstrations and things, and anti-nuclear demonstrations. One of the only. It's very difficult to break ranks in Japan. But I explained all that just to show, you know, you have to negotiate yourself. He would turn the bells over, but he wouldn't take a job. But he would go to Manchuria, but he wouldn't, etc. You know, you have to negotiate how you survive in your society. Now let me respond to your question

[60:02]

Christiana in a somewhat different way, but coming at it from another direction. But does somebody else have anything they want to bring up before I start on this, so we can finish on this question of equanimity? Yes? The philosophy. You said before you can experience this joy, it's necessary to have a settled view of the world. And then you said Buddhist view of the world is like this and that. And then, but in our culture, the view of the world basically, I mean, you yourself said in the language already, is a different view. And so probably everybody here probably always will get in conflict with the two views. So I think there would be one possibility just to forget the traditional view and take on a new view, or maybe find the synthesis or something of both.

[61:43]

Do you think that's possible? Do you want to say all that in German or something? He said, to experience this joy, it is necessary to have a fixed worldview. And then he made a difference between the Buddhist worldview and our Western worldview. And he said, this Western worldview is even included in the language. Okay. Yeah. I can't believe you. What's the... I don't know. Is this another question? I know.

[62:57]

Yeah, I heard. Yeah. Well, some people might want to. Some people might not want to, depending on your past. Some people want to, maybe others don't. It depends on your past. These are good questions and I will answer them as best I can. And also what I want to say about equanimity is related to that. These are good questions and I will answer them as best I can. And this also has something to do with what I want to say about equanimity. Even in Asian Buddhist cultures,

[64:15]

where the culture has developed in relationship to Buddhism, and hence is supportive of Buddhism, a culture that has to survive in a conventional way still will create ideas of permanence. Now, it may be there may be many more doors or openings or it may be a less permanent kind of permanence. But then you still have the ego, which is creating forms of permanence. So that's different, but the same ballpark. Same ballpark? A baseball. It's in the same playing field. Das ist also zwar anders, aber es ist noch das gleiche Spielfeld.

[65:33]

Or maybe it's the same game in a different ballpark. Okay. Hello. Um... Um... I think it's so, so you face the same problems in Western culture and with a Western self. In a big sense, you face the same problem as in a Buddhist Asian culture. In the dynamic of it, in the particulars of it, it's different. Now, it's possible, and the whole point of Buddhism is to, in any culture, be able to establish a worldview based on emptiness and impermanence.

[66:44]

So the skills, techniques, practices of Asian Buddhism in establishing a worldview based on impermanence are virtually the same as in the West. Can be the same in the West. Can you ask the kids to be a little quieter? The skills, techniques and practices which in an Asian Buddhist culture are used to establish a worldview based on impermanence are applicable in the West too. Do you want to discard your worldview? No. I think it's probably possible to discard it.

[67:53]

But you'd have no reason to discard it unless you want to live in Asia. Because if you are living in the West, you still need to function in the West. So you also then need to... You see, one of the questions about Nagarjuna... Did Nagarjuna create a system which deconstructs all worldviews? and eliminate the need for the establishment of conventional reality. No, I don't think so. Not only do you need to deconstruct world views, you also need to establish for yourself conventional reality in your society.

[69:02]

And then you have to mature the kind of person, in our case a Western kind of person, in that conventional reality. Now, I'm going to meet with a group of psychologists in Vienna in next May. And one of the things I'm going to try to do with their participation and help ...is to work out clearly how the territory of Buddhist practice and the way in which conventional reality and the individual self can be matured in Western terms and with the help of Buddhism. By the way, though I asked you to ask your kids to be a little quiet, I wanted to say that they're wonderful, sweet kids.

[70:04]

And amazingly well behaved. And without seeming to be over disciplined. They seem quite free and also well behaved. It's great. And it's nice to have them in the seminar. Does that answer both your questions pretty much? Or do you have something, tail ends? Yeah, go ahead. I don't want to get too much into it, but go ahead. Yeah, right. That's what I'm afraid of. The background for my question is, I personally, I've studied Catholic theology and so I'm coming from this direction, but then through drug experiences and things like that, everything changed.

[71:28]

But still, I found at the basis, it seems exactly the same thing. What you are saying, for example, what Jesus was saying, actually exactly the same thing. Just the language he was taking is a different language, because he took the language from his tradition. But it comes down to, it seems to me, actually the same thing. But then the practice that developed out of that is a different one. And so my question now is how to, what, maybe finding a new kind of practice because, you know, the old practice doesn't turn on so many people nowadays. The old Catholic practice or old Buddhist practice?

[72:31]

Catholic. And so... I mean in Japan, it's the same hot room. Yeah, right, maybe the other way around. Yeah. And so that's my question of finding a, maybe finding a synthesis with using, maybe combining the languages of both traditions. Yeah, that's what we're doing here. Maybe you want to sound a bit quicker, but it gets too involved. Yes, and that's how I came to the conclusion that the basis of the Christian religion is actually exactly the same as what Richard says.

[73:42]

But the language is different, but a practice has developed from this language, which has a lot more to do with the basis, or at least today very few people get away from it. That's why my question is, how do you deal with a new practice and synthesis? I generally think different is different. But still, they're all spiritual languages. Of course, seeing it as a spiritual language is quite different than seeing it as a fact because God created the world. If a Catholic or Protestant God created the world, then the world runs by those rules. But if you take that as pictures to say something that can't be expressed?

[75:09]

Yeah, sure. But then that's a kind of coded language. Okay, but in any case, I think if you take it as a language, as you just said, and not either of them as the truth, but as a language about the truth, then you can begin to get these two languages talk to each other. But at this point, even when they don't talk to each other, we Westerners have to learn to talk both. Okay. Now let me talk about equanimity. Okay. So equanimity is translated often as neutrality or indifference. Okay.

[76:16]

Now, I don't think that's such a useful translation. Or it's a translation that if you read it in a book, it doesn't give you a feeling for what it really means. So here, one of the practices of compassion is to be indifferent toward your fellow beings. Or neutral. And that doesn't seem, that seems the opposite that Monica brought up of loving. How do you feel towards your fellow human beings? Neutral. Neutral. Okay, so feelings, sensations, etc.

[77:29]

are analyzed in Buddhism into three categories. Likes, dislikes, and neutral. And neutral is also indifferent. And this neutral and indifferent is also used for equanimity. Okay. So let me try to look at it from another way. So let's call it not generalized And not compared. So this is an attitude in which you don't generalize anything. Like oneness or etc. It's not generalized, it's very particular.

[78:30]

And it's not compared. It's not this is better than that. There's a higher reality and a lower reality. So this not generalized and not compared is saying don't be reductionist in your thinking. And don't be hierarchical in your thinking. That means, in other words, saying, each person is Buddha. Okay, or the statement that each person is Buddha derives out of a practice like this equanimity.

[79:34]

Now, this sense of equanimity is a door into each situation. You can think of it as a door into each situation. So the practice of not generalized, not compared could be summed up as a wado, or a turning word, perhaps as each. Als jedes. Each. Jedes. I don't know how it works in German. Not so good? Jedes. Jedes. Hey, that's great. I like it. Jedes. Hey, me, jedes. You, jedes. Each, each, each.

[80:39]

And this each, the practice of each, is what is really meant by the practice of indifference or neutrality. So neutrality means you're not in the realm of likes or dislikes. And sometimes I've used the image of it's like a stream. And here's one bank of the stream coming down, another bank of the stream coming down. And at this bank you have likes and at this bank you have dislikes. And if I look at those flowers and I say, I like those flowers, That's okay, but those flowers are much more than like. I mean, they're an expression of the whole planet that has appeared.

[81:40]

And a tradition of gardening and so forth. And my liking and disliking is pretty narrow. And when I say I like those flowers, it may be from my association with those flowers or my etc. For example, some flowers in Japan are not liked because they're planted outside toilets. Because they have a strong smell. So people see them, oh, those are toilet flowers. But we don't have any association like that. We say, those are beautiful in the Japanese person. Those are toilet flowers. Like me thinking I smelled like perfume, and Erika thinking I smelled like a toilet.

[82:46]

So that's likes and dislikes. So those flowers, if you have an indifferent feeling, I don't know, that's not good English, or a neutral feeling. But you have a feeling of just each. Not even flowers. Excuse me, the problem with each in Germany is in Germany you always have a gender. So it's in English you don't have a gender, so it's difficult to deal with that. That. This. Because not in German, das, das, das. Okay, well, you can use this. Can you use this? Not that. Okay. Because that's also a practice in Buddhism to say this. It also has a gender, but it feels less strange.

[83:56]

Yeah. It's interesting. You know, English is not an inflected language. Inflected. You don't. The word doesn't indicate whether it's a subject or a predicate, a verb or something. So in that sense, it's a very non-Buddhist language. Because it suggests that each noun is a real thing out there, a state. That it's a thing out there. But inflected language suggests that these things change in every context. So in that sense, an inflected language may be philosophically closer to Buddhism. However, Buddhism also practices with just stopping everything and entering a state.

[85:01]

So as for mantra or Wado practice, English probably works better. So if you don't understand it as a thing. Okay, so we'll do this. And feel in it the sense of each to each particular. So when I say, when I'm looking at something, actually my eyes are scanning, your eyes go pop, [...] and put a picture together. But if you're practicing with this kind of this, I'm not even seeing a group of flowers. I'm not even seeing a flower. I'm seeing pistil. Pistil, the little male part that sticks up. And I'm seeing the crenellated... The female part.

[86:17]

Oh, the one on the right, the female part then. I meant the one on the right. In any case... That's my scientist translator here. Anyway, and I'm seeing the crenellation, crenellation? The crenellation and whiteness of the petal. And I'm seeing the edge of a leaf. So I see, I'm letting myself just see particulars. So when you, again, when you practice neither liking nor disliking, and you're not generalizing, and you're not comparing, you just see even each little part. So if I look at you again, I see.

[87:26]

And I see. And I see blue. And mm. Mm. Mm. So I see a lot of this, this, this, this. So that's the practice of what's meant by equanimity. And why is that the practice of equanimity? Because this practice begins to develop your worldview. Because it's the way we actually see. So you're refining your worldview. developing your worldview, maturing your worldview, recognizing your worldview, recognizing the world.

[88:31]

So again, in each situation, each encounter, you have just a feeling of this. And I'm not feeling I like you or I dislike you. As soon as I like or dislike, I actually am doing something. I receive you with the least bias if I'm indifferent. And I receive you with the least bias if I'm indifferent. Do you have the punctuation when you do German like that? When you set a word aside? So you do the same, do you mean the same thing? Okay. I thought you might think I was a little crazy. Okay. Okay. Okay, now suffering. Nun leiden.

[89:36]

There are several kinds of suffering that are pointed out. And the word that's usually translated as suffering, dukkha, has a very wide meaning. One of them is dukkha, dukkha. And then there's dukkha this, dukkha that, and one of them is dukkha, dukkha. Sounds like a rock song of the 50s, dukkha. Dukkha Dukkha. Dukkha Ellington. Okay, so a Dukkha Dukkha is usually what we mean by ordinary suffering.

[90:37]

You get stuck with a pin or burned on the stove or you have a disease or something. There's also dukkha, which means the dukkha of change, the suffering of change. That we suffer just because things change. Even if it's a good thing, it changes. We have a good meal and it makes us feel good. But then after the meal we've eaten too much or you can't eat forever. The fourth cookie. How do you stop before the fourth cookie? While they still taste good. Yeah, so in that sense, just change itself is suffering because of the way we're constituted.

[91:47]

And related to that is that everything is impermanent. That nothing stays, that's very similar to change, but it's a little different. That just everything is impermanent and that's suffering. So good and bad is suffering. And then, let's see if I can remember all the categories. Well, I can't remember. There's one or two there. But then there's the suffering in which you see another person suffering. And we could say empathetic suffering. Or because you have this bond with another person. Okay. Now, Ulrike said that you don't use the word empathy much in German. It's a little unusual.

[93:00]

I see. Because in English it's very common. You have empathy for somebody or you don't. Empathy means to be able to feel with another person. Mm-hmm. So, empathetic joy and empathetic suffering are very connected. So, which is really means also the ability to be empathetic. And this is related, of course, to the practice of having your own seat. And again, we could define the bodhisattva as one who can enter other people's shoes without leaving their own shoes.

[94:01]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_71.12