Then of course also in the middle of the Sesshinom and then also really in this room that opens up into it. It was very nice. Although I think the big question is, would you have experienced this kind of freedom if the Sirene really depicted the throne? Das ist eine gute Frage. Denn ich finde, die Freiheit kommt erst da an, wo die Bedrohung da ist, und du dann trotzdem in die Gelassenheit gehen kannst. Und nicht sozusagen dich in diese Erleichterung zurücklehnen und denken, es ist ja nichts passiert, also, aber es hätte passieren können, aber ich fühle mich frei davon. Es kann zusammenpassen, aber es kann auch sehr, sehr gut gehen. Ich glaube, das ist ein Anfang. No, I'll translate all that. Beate was saying, well, she feels a real turning around is then when you can maintain the state of mind that led into this opening or experiencing this freedom or relief, then when you can have the same experience when there's really this threat that Chernobyl has actually has blown up, and then you can rest in the state of mind.

[01:32]

And I said, well, I felt that may have been a beginning of maybe a kind of strengthening something inside me that eventually might help me to... Well, the thing is, I think we, you know, we hear sirens all the time. And Ulrike, of course, heard about impermanence and your life is not really under your control in fundamental ways and so forth. But it hadn't, shall we say, come home to her. But if you practice and you have this kind of, you're filled with this, familiar with this, deeply familiar with this kind of thinking about impermanence and so forth, Something happens, and suddenly you really know it.

[02:52]

And it doesn't, I mean, I think, may I say, in Beate's case, much of it came home, may I say, when your brother died. But it doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be just a siren. The question is, how open are you to the experience, to the recognition? It's not what's important, it's not what precipitated the experience. And sometimes we need a big thing to precipitate the experience. Sometimes a tiny thing. What's important is the experience.

[03:53]

And how completely you're open to it. And you say, hey, yeah, this is the way it is, actually. Just this is it. Mm-hmm. Why don't we take a break? A pause. From our discussion before the break, you can see certain stages of practice. There's the initial... introduction and so forth, getting familiar with practice. There's the becoming familiar enough and checking it out enough that at some point you're willing to take a chance on it.

[05:03]

And you develop enough faith to take every chance on it. Those are definite stages of practice that we kind of ease, edge our way into. And then if you're practicing Zen, it's not to do a lot of preparatory practices like in some schools. And it's not to study the sutras in some detail. At least you can study the sutras as much as you want, but the doctrinal schools study the sutras from the point of view of you can become a Buddha. The Zen schools study from the point of view of you already are Buddha.

[06:17]

So the effort is not to become a Buddha, But to recognize that you already are. And this can't be a recognition based on ego pride. Or some kind of feeling you're special. It's actually quite a powerful thing to recognize that you might be Buddha. But to recognize that with the humility that great ambitions require.

[07:19]

And we're so taught in our culture to be modest and to have a big ego and hide it. We can only expose our small ambitions. And we don't even dare recognize our big ambitions. Some deep desire for a real connectedness with others. And with ourselves. So in a way you have to come to this point of faith and also this point of recognizing yourself as deeply as possible.

[08:37]

And outside the comparisons of past and future. And things to do and stuff like that. So there we have two or three stages of practice. And when you, in this sense of... Not becoming a Buddha, but recognizing in some way that the very nature of life is what we call Buddha. Means that you study not to become a Buddha, but to develop stream-entering mind. You study to develop an aroused state of mind.

[09:44]

Now, in English we have a large vocabulary, but we don't have a word that's quite right for this. Aroused isn't quite right. Aroused is almost always used in English to mean a sexually aroused state of mind. But maybe there's some similarity, but aroused is right in a way, but it means more like completely ready, open state of mind. So what are the qualities of this ready state of mind? There's two main qualities.

[11:01]

One is its openness. And the other is its alertness. And the third is its continuity. And so it's by definition you cannot have continuity in conceptual mind. Conceptual mind is a comparative mind. Consciousness is a mind that is conscious through separation. Separating subject from object. separating waking mind from sleeping mind, seeing space as separating us and so forth.

[12:08]

So you can't have an aroused, ready, open state of mind that's at the level of conceptual consciousness or at the level of ego. So this next stage of practice is your own way that you choose to develop an aroused, open, non-conceptual state of mind. And the easiest ways to do that are one is with a non-conceptual mantra use of language. That's one way. Another way is to bring your sense of moment by moment continuity to your body, away from conceptual consciousness.

[13:22]

And that was the point of my teaching about the hands. And this, or pointing out this feeling in Sashin, where you find your strength from the persons around you. But it's your strength. But you're entering the stream of everyone's strength to find your strength. So that the stream right now, here, that all of you are supplying me, I'm constantly feeling my own intactness, not by comparing myself to you, But feeling my own strength through you.

[14:28]

And through the phenomenal world. In the koan it says, you know, you don't have to look at it, it just says, the profound talk entering into... How do you pronounce it? It's the opposite phenomena. Anyway, so that's what we're doing. And as it says, we don't know. Can't even translate the word. And the third is to continuously bring your attention to your breath.

[15:56]

And to find practical ways to remind yourself. So this is the stage of creating an aroused state of mind. Aroused, open, ready state of mind. that is continuously present under your activity. So this stage of practice, which is probably where all of you are pretty much, is to find whatever ways you can to develop that continuity of mind that's always present and ready. And pretty soon when you get good at it, you feel it in your sleep, you feel it, it just passes through everything like a stream underneath waking sleep. And the third, or the third, fourth, I've lost count.

[17:06]

Stop counting. The next stage is... is you don't have any control over. It's this next stage is just you're ready and maybe nothing happens. Yeah, but it's a, you know, it's a, the learning curve has got lots of plateaus. you may have a learning curve where you start practicing it and then after, you know, for years it's just flat, you know.

[18:07]

And often the flatness is, you know, you're just a boring person. No, no, that's your fear, I know. Usually the flatness is just that you're absorbing this stuff at a level that you can't recognize what's going on. I think in the political world, Thatcher and Reagan and Bush are all there because they're a way to avoid looking at what really is happening in the world. So we put a very conservative crust over something that's becoming very different. And no political party is representing it. And I think we do something like that in our practice.

[19:12]

We put a kind of crust over what's happening. And you don't see what's happening. So this practice, again, has to be based on faith and trust. You just do it. You just do it, whether there's results or not. Or you may get so used to the results, you don't notice them until you stop practicing. Then you feel kind of discombobulated. And this... This, uh... This, uh... This stage... This stage... The stage of a ready, open mind is often called in Zen great doubt.

[20:38]

The stage where you look at everything, you say, What is that? What is it? What is it? And then, something quite small can shatter that. Sometimes it's tiny, tiny things, sometimes it's a tiny experience. But you have a taste. Then the next stage of practice is how to begin living this new vocabulary that develops through these tastes.

[21:48]

You describe the world a little differently than you did before. And then you discover, hey, the koans have been talking about this for a long time. So the next stage is, as Beate says, is you begin to consolidate this or live in this experience or the continuity in a new way. And this koan is trying to present to you some of the fundamental attitudes that allow you to live within these new recognitions. So another way to look at it is we have the creative stage where you're putting this stuff together, which is also based on faith.

[22:54]

So there's a mixture of you're being creative, you're discovering this new vocabulary through the sutras and through koans and through your meditation experience. And then you're beginning to recognize that there's a Buddha land that interpenetrates this land. In which everything is just as it is. It's not exactly heaven, but it's not hell either. And it's a way in which you feel heavenly at least about everything. And in this creative stage, you begin to talk to your friends about it. Not so much by pointing it out, but by listening to them as if they were speaking to you of it.

[24:24]

Listening to them too, I think. It's just a turn away. And then the fruition stage is when you begin to actually taste it and have experiences that confirm this. Then you begin to be able to generate this from yourself. It just doesn't come to you through inadvertently hearing a bell. It comes to you from everything. You yourself are generating it. Then there are stages of manifestation, maturation and dissolving it all.

[25:25]

They're referred to in this koan too. But most of us are at the edge of the creative and fulfillment stages, all of us. And maybe the generational stage, the generating stage, is possible for us. The full manifestation, maturation, Probably we have to leave to the Buddhas somewhere, not us. It's possible maybe, but I think just let the Buddhas do it. We'll just do our best. But we can create conditions for recognizing a Buddha.

[26:44]

It's like that. So you're actually practicing pretty well, but you have to have the faith to not know you're practicing pretty well. I notice it, but it's probably better if you don't notice it. So... You had something... Yeah, was it... Yeah, here, yeah. You both have purple shirts on, so I get confused there. Okay. Excuse me. I feel like I'm in an aquarium.

[28:21]

That's what I want to describe to you this morning. Somewhere where fish pass by. If possible, please come with me. On the other hand, let's go in. Can you know what he said? No, I don't. You can tell me. Walter described that he had several experiences when he just woke up, that he felt his perception, his usual way of perceiving had changed, that it was like he perceived things as if it was just an aquarium and things were swimming through, and he felt a different kind of consciousness arising. And since then, the way he kind of looks at things has changed, and he wants to know what this is about.

[29:30]

Don't worry. One nice thing about practice is that it gives you a kind of stability and confidence to accept such experiences. And I think one of the tragedies, we can say, of the way we treat children is we teach children not to notice these experiences. We educate them out of kids. We don't give them any support for this kind of experience. And some people have so little support for such experience, they actually feel they're going crazy when they have experiences like that.

[30:36]

But if you do zazen, it forces you to, it in fact widens your experience and what you'll accept. So what's important is not to try to understand it in your ordinary language. But begin to recognize that it's a new language. that will let you speak about or notice what you yet don't fully understand. And this koan points out that not understanding is part of being willing not to understand is part of the language of this. So we have understanding.

[31:50]

We have not understanding. And then we have not dash understanding. So in English, not understanding as a one word versus not understanding as two words. That make sense in German? Or we could say not understanding and a state of non-understanding which you don't try to understand. But what's subtle about this is that there is... not that much difference between not knowing and not knowing. And yet, in other ways, there's a world of difference between them.

[32:54]

Again, as the Koran says, it says, Anyway, it says, yeah. Well, I can't find it. But it says, I remember, that Not knowing is... Yeah, here it is.

[34:03]

This I don't know, don't understand, is entirely transcendent, page 88. You must be utterly free from the minutest obstacles. Du musst also ausgesprochen frei sein von den winzigsten Hindernissen. Before you reach the point of not knowing and not understanding. Bevor du an diesem Punkt ankommst des nicht-wissens und nicht-verstehens. And in my thing I put a hyphen between the not knowing and the not understanding to make it one word. Und ich habe hier also selbst diesen Bindestrich eingesetzt, um das zu einem Wort zu machen. And it says on page 87. Und auf Seite 87 heißt es, also ungefähr in der, ja, der dritte Abschnitt von oben, Old Master Qijiao, der alte Meister Qijiao, said in walking, sagt also beim Gehen, in sitting, beim Sitzen, just hold to the moment before thought arises.

[35:06]

Ja, halt dich einfach an dem Moment fest, bevor Gedanken entstehen. Look into it and you'll see not seeing. And then put it to one side. So in what? Now this is very specific instructions about how to practice. But the question is, are you at the point where you can understand this? There's no place to go, there's nothing to do. In walking, Hold to the moment before thought arises. Hold for a moment. And then put it to one side. In sitting, just hold to the moment before thought arises. Look into it. And looking into it, you see not looking. And then put it to one side.

[36:14]

So when you ask me, when you tell me what happened when you first wake up, what you said was perfect. Your desire to understand it or make sense of it, not necessary. Just notice it. And he's also pointing out a very important time to be aware in your own life is the transitions of waking and sleeping. And these transitions are actually another state of mind that's not sleeping and not waking. And I think you should trust, if you're open to it, it's a very fruitful time. Just for a moment, stay in the space

[37:15]

between waking, between sleeping and waking. And you don't have to be going to sleep to do that. You can feel it now. And sometimes we catch ourselves for a moment against a background of nothingness. Or we catch ourselves for a moment in a surprise that anything's here. And you could get nervous and say, hey, shit, I'm not going to hang on to these things, you know. It's better just to say, oh, yeah, this is, yes. It is surprising that anything's here at all. This is a very fruitful state of mind. And you want to, in a way, stay with that.

[38:35]

That's a stream-entering state of mind. What is it? So of course during the day you have to put it together, not be so surprised, and go to work. But some of that surprise is still there. It refreshes you all the time. This is actually, you're touching what's called in Tibetan Buddhism the clear light. You're touching a refreshing awareness that's always present. And one gate to that or door to that is surprise that anything's here at all.

[39:35]

So you catch yourself for a moment sometimes not knowing who you are. I've often repeated to you Lou Welch's little one-line poem. He looks in the mirror in the morning and says, I don't know who you are, but I'll shave you. So someone else had something else you'd like to bring up? And for over a year I haven't made any progress. It's like my practice has become flat.

[40:48]

I sit every day, but I don't even sit with this tiredness and freshness that I used to have. And I don't know what I should do, whether that's okay or not. Well, this has been touched before, but it's really kind of important for me right now, and this is where I'm at. I'm practicing since several years now, and since a year I'm actually, and I'm sitting every day, I've reached this plateau you mentioned, and I've lost some of this kind of need and freshness to practice, and I don't know what to do. Yes, it happens. Yes, it happens. This is also a short question for me, which is very busy at the moment and also very busy for you.

[41:55]

What is actually our motivation, our real deep motivation, why we are here and why we sit and practice? And this prana was introduced to me very late. I got to know Beka Hoshi seven years ago and then slowly started to practice for her. hatte einiges auch an interessanten Experimenten und Erlebnissen, was so die erste Zeit anfühlte, dass ich es einfach sehr aufregend und sehr spannend fand. Und da eine große Motivation im Sinne von Youth empfunden habe, das war einfach interessant. I traveled the half of the world with many friends and I saw a lot and had a lot of experience and I felt very full and happy.

[43:03]

Until the first verses came, where a deeper desire came into me. I took a lot of seminars with me, sat a lot of Shins, and after that I learned a little more. And then something happened in the living room. I was in a private room with a young man. And he said to me, I don't know what he said to me. Two years ago, I was sitting in the kitchen. And Richard Vecino said, Big man perfects everything. And ordinary man perfects everything. That didn't say so much to me. I was surprised to see my brother die. The great spirit covers everything. And the one who is not the spirit also covers everything.

[44:08]

And my brother was 40 years old. He had a very lonely and difficult life behind him. He was an alcoholic and very, very mentally unstable. At the same time very intelligent and very close to me in character. And then I accompanied him for three more weeks, he was already conscious. He was briefly breathed in after the operation, noticed several tumors. And yet I was with him at this intensive care unit. And then suddenly it came to my mind that this is the most important thing that everyday life is basically everything. and basically the whole practice. Because I have made so many different experiences in these three weeks, where I was very happy, very happy, and very happy.

[45:19]

It's a horror station, this NTSU-station, where people are being talked about, about medical, technical things, and the actual person or the death is completely separated. It has become clear to me how the wider society is affected by death and is unable to see it. And suddenly I heard that it is the very everyday life, and death also belongs to it, but also completely different things that really make up the motivation. Why do we practice? Do we want to live an interesting life? Do we want to live from tomorrow? Do we want to be happy? Do we want to be happy? Do we want to be happy? For me, it was a really strange thing to see that we are all so different, that there is this single strive for enlightenment, where, if we are very honest, I think everyone lives in such a way.

[46:51]

It's real life. We have to practice to catch this for me. The world is going to change. The world is going to change. I think. You're meeting everyone. Yes. This is the only car you have.

[47:54]

It happens. It's just the way it is. Es gibt keine Erleuchtung und kein Blut. Das ist keine Wahrnehmung. Das passiert einfach. Ja, das [...] passiert einfach. And I think you should know that. Or you should... Yes, what can you know?

[48:55]

You should somehow... No, I don't understand that. I'm wrong. I don't know it either. But it should be the big question of practice. Why do I practice? In which direction do I go? What do I create through it? My world I create through it. Yes, exactly. Yes. That's been in you a long time. We don't need monastic practice, but we need some kind of loose confederation of Dharma brothers and sisters. And Dharma friends. And not necessarily to discuss Buddhism so much, but just to feel each other. And, you know, it is our own perceptions, and yet the kind of floor of those perceptions changes through practice.

[50:12]

And I'd like to know the same as much as I understood Ulrike only translated some of it, but as much as I understood, I'd like to know too what you... What you need or what would help in practice for each of us. I know, and what you mentioned, you know, and what this koan is again trying to do, keep by, you know, once a koan gets in you, it's hard not to use it.

[51:22]

So I'm sorry, I'm using it quite a bit. This koan is emphasizing using the actual point you're at and turning that point into understanding. So the koan is asking Beate's question, where are you going? And you've got to read these koans very slowly, as if you spend a year on the first sentence. And where you're going is the same as asking about enlightenment or what is it, etc., What is it is one way, but where are we going is another form of the same doubt.

[52:27]

Is there any place to go? Would it be better not to go anywhere? Where are you going? He says, on pilgrimage. Entering the path. Are you, each of you, on a pilgrimage? Are you a pilgrim? Can you look at the world as a pilgrim? Just, hmm, surprise, there it is. So Dijong asks exactly what Beate is asking.

[53:29]

What is the purpose of this pilgrimage? And this is another stage of practice. You have to keep asking, what is the purpose of this? Entering the path of this practice. Why are we sitting here? Where does, you know, this is a kind of spiritual entertainment we're doing here. But if that doesn't exist, then it's hard to, we have to find some way to allow ourselves to keep practicing. If it's entertainment, that's okay. But you allow yourself to use it being interesting or making it interesting to keep you practicing. But sometimes, like for you, it's not interesting. So whether it's interesting or not interesting, you're always asking, what is it?

[54:50]

So I would suggest you use the phrase, what is it, when you go into zazen. You know, it's okay. Try to freshen up your mind a little bit with, what is it? Or you can use the image of what is the surface? What is the crust? What's under the surface? Why am I keeping myself on the surface? Is there a surface? Do I have the courage to face what's under the surface? Or over the surface? So you have to keep asking, finding ways, and this practice of Zen really emphasizes using questions and doubt in this way to keep refreshing your practice.

[55:53]

So you can turn the very point at which you feel your practice is kind of dead or boring, and you can say, okay, boring, what's boring? So, D. Jung said, what is the purpose of the pilgrimage? And Fayan, who became a very famous Zen master, said, I don't know. Now, he wasn't giving a big deal question, just saying, I don't know. And Dijang turned that, I don't know. So instead of looking elsewhere, you look right into the boredom. And there's exactly the same kind of situation presented where Lao Bu meets Linji.

[57:01]

Where do you come from? From Luan City. There's something I would ask about, may I? I don't understand. He says, I don't understand. Linji said, Even if you look through the whole world, you can't actually find someone who doesn't understand. Yeah. He says, I don't understand. Throughout the whole world, you can't find someone who doesn't understand. So he turns the same point. So you have to get into the habit of turning your own self at that point. So there's actually a skill in learning how to do this and yet not interfering.

[58:17]

You're looking into the boredom without trying to get rid of the boredom. Without interfering with the boredom. That's a kind of subtlety actually. Beate was at Crestone when she heard that her brother was seriously ill. And in general, may I say, you were having a pretty hard time then. And Beate spoke to me and I was listening to you and suffering with you. At the same time, I could feel that if Beate saw this slightly differently, it wouldn't look like suffering.

[59:23]

Or she could experience it quite differently. And then didn't you call me up later and say, you did experience it quite differently? So while I was with her, I had the feeling of both being there, although she was recognizing one side, I was recognizing that, but I was trying to have a feeling for the other side. I wasn't trying to feel the other side. I was feeling the other side. And then at some point, Beate felt the other side. But then her, if you'll forgive me for saying so, your usual habits came in. And you tried to make this feeling on the other side a permanent state.

[60:30]

You tried to find a new security in this new way of seeing. And that's applying one language from one kind of way of being to a... You can't apply that language to it. You actually have to abide in neither abiding nor non-abiding. As soon as you try to abide in non-abiding, it doesn't work. You try to abide in something permanent, it doesn't work. So it says in the koan, water levels everything.

[61:40]

But water itself is nothing you can depend on. But it's wonderful to be talking with you. Because we're having a conversation among ourselves here that we couldn't have had four years ago. We're all sharing in a... in a way that I think there's a good deal of mutual understanding in the fullness of this life we lead.

[62:44]

We want to know the world. And we want to be knowable. And we try to turn ourselves into a knowable object. And you can see it, I can see it in all of your faces. But as I used the example the other day, If you see a mongoloid child or adult, they don't turn themselves into knowable objects. They make faces when there's no reason to make a face. They laugh and giggle. They drool.

[64:03]

They expose their gums and tongue. Their face is not under social control. All of your faces are very highly controlled. It means you've turned yourself into a knowable object. As you have to do. That's good. It's a kind of compassion for each other. But also at some point you have to not be a knowable object. You suddenly have to be free of anyone knowing you. And free of your knowing anything. Sometimes. So that's what the play in here of knowing, not knowing, is all about. No, we're going to go to lunch soon.

[65:23]

Yeah, sure, but let me say something. We're going to go to lunch soon. And can you, for the time we're having lunch, see if you can come near to not being knowable. Not needing to know anything. Enough to find the restaurant probably, but that's about it. But play with that boundary because we're usually always trying to control the world. Which means we're trying to make an effort to control our conception of the world. They'll just see if you can feel I'm not knowable and I don't know anything and so forth.

[66:42]

I don't need to know anything. And see if you can know your friend at the level at which they're not knowable. I don't really know what I'm saying, but I'm trying to say something. Or remember, maybe I know what I'm saying and I'm not saying anything. Yes, Beate. I have some problems with this knowable and unknowable. You said if your face is very controlled, so that makes you a knowable person. My feeling is the opposite. It makes you an unknowable. That's true also. So you have to give up this control.

[67:47]

Like a person, me, comes from person, like a mask. You have to put away this mask before you can become a noble person. That's true. Don't say it for me, Gemma. I was a little confused with the term to be a recognizable person when he said the sentence, our faces are very controlled and thus we become a recognizable person. I had rather the feeling that it is exactly the opposite. Because my face is controlled or our faces are controlled, we do not give ourselves to be recognized and are unknown persons. Here we have a difference between knowable as predictable. As a Mongoloid child, you can't know very well at all.

[69:10]

In that sense, they're not predictable. We are very predictable. And through that, making ourselves predictable, we make ourselves knowable. But as Beate is pointing out, that also hides. So that's the point. How do you become knowable in a new way by not making yourself a knowable object? By not making yourself an object. By not trying to be intelligent. Yeah, so do we need an hour, two hours, an hour and a half?

[70:24]

What do we need? Two hours, really? Okay, so let's come back at three o'clock. So we meet again at three. A very fundamental dignity. A physical dignity. A physical dignity. But the basic direction of practice, the basic direction of the pilgrimage, is really what may be hard to understand. The fundamental direction of practice is relaxation. And if you can't right now deeply relax, deeply feel at ease inside and out,

[71:37]

This is the water that levels everything that you can't depend on. You can't attach exactly to relaxation. But if just now you can't, as I said, feel deeply at ease, then just there is your practice. It's a kind of thawing or melting. It's a kind of relaxation in which boundaries disappear.

[73:11]

Boundaries just disappear to the very degree to which we feel intact and complete and at ease. So it's not a loss of boundaries, it's a disappearance of boundaries. The world is not a description of the world. Your thoughts are not a description of the world. The world is the world. Your thoughts are your thoughts. Fundamentally, they're not about anything.

[74:35]

This is relaxation. No descriptions of anything. I'm not starting zazen, I'm just listening to the bell. In the ear, it's called hearing.

[75:43]

I was having a wonderful time listening to you. I never knew Buddhism could be so funny. And I didn't feel left out, though. It made me happy. But I would love it if you could educate me, you know. Anybody tell me some story of what happened. Tell me something about it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Is she... I guess we're going to elect Seagram to be the reporter. I hope you do better than if I tried it in German.

[77:29]

I was talking to the others that I have the feeling everybody is so far away there from really like Buddhas, just how they are sitting and just from being aware of these people here. And it's the first time I meditate this way and I feel like a baby. And totally I know how to sit, how to open my eyes. And I don't know how to meditate, really. Mantra, yeah, what's in it? Only what I can do is... That's a lot in one life. And it was... I wanted to get out. And it comes and all of a sudden, this is what I can... So anybody else?

[78:47]

Can you tell me a little bit about what you talked about or what was the general feeling? What was the subject? For example, I think, regardless of the worry, what will come out of me, I have no idea in which direction it will go, I don't know. And the whole worry, that it will go, that it will sit, first of all, to leave it like that. And that's also my reason to leave it like that. My motivation to practice then overlapped a little bit what the others said. It was mainly to become more independent, more independent from my worries, more independent from this constant question like, Who am I?

[80:13]

Where am I going? What should I do? I think in general it was a very good feeling just to hear everybody, to feel everybody and to just share this feeling of practicing together. It was interesting to me that Ulrike wrote this little thing in English, not in German. Then she wrote a piece about, what's it called in the tree planters? Creating the Self. She wrote a piece called Creating the Self. It was printed in the Dharma Sangha, a little quarterly called the Tree Planters. Pretty soon I'm not going to come to the seminar at all.

[81:36]

She can just do it. I only quoted Hermann because he said like this about the tree planters, what you said, cordially called tree planters? Cordially. We have an expression in German, it's called a little cheese pamphlet. Cheese pamphlet. Something like that. You mean it comes in the box of cheese? To wrap the cheese. To wrap the cheese. Wait until you publish something in the papers. I'm going to wrap cheese in it. Anyway, she also wrote that in English. So I think what she noticed, and I noticed, is that in a way you can practice, your practice, a lot of it occurs in English. And you may even talk to yourself about Buddhism in English sometimes. Not you, but some of us.

[82:38]

Yeah. And I told this story at the Korn seminar, but Suki Roshi, when he was in Japan, he gave a talk one day in Japanese. Then the very next day in my little house in Kyoto, he gave a talk in English. And all the young Japanese liked it in English, and it was fresh to them, but in Japanese it was the same old Buddhist stuff.

[83:43]

So I think actually there's an advantage Because what you're really doing is learning a new language, a Buddhist language, which is not English and not German. So for you to be practicing in English, German, and this new Buddhist language is probably quite fruitful. The question is, let's see here. We're going to end, I said sometime, before or after 5.30.

[85:01]

In America, that might be 7 o'clock. In Germany, it probably means 5.35. But let's see how long we go ahead. Beate just told people it would end at 6. It's 5.15, 16 now. So, I'd like us to... think a little bit about practice in ways that might be useful between now and tomorrow morning. But also, before I say something specific about that, I would like to know if in the meeting you had together, if there are any questions that came out of that that you'd like to ask me that might direct what we do this afternoon and the remainder of the day and tomorrow.

[86:26]

And let me say, I've done about as much as I can do to introduce Zen Buddhism to people here in Europe. The next step is really clearly up to you. You have to direct me. You have to educate me. And you have to talk with each other. Otherwise we won't get to the next step.

[87:27]

The main second step in practice is when you really start practicing undifferentiatedly for others as well as yourself. Okay, so is there some question that did arise in your talking together that you'd like to put to me. about talking about meditation experiences, because it's somehow non-verbal territory. And so I find it helpful to get enough people to support, but it's difficult to talk about meditation experiences. And there is somehow a raise of concealing yourself somehow.

[88:42]

Could you say something more about that? Yeah, maybe you want to say that in German. . Sealing yourself simply means to put it as simply as I can Means not armoring yourself. And the experience of sealing is when you don't leak. When you don't feel your energy kind of pissing itself away in your conversation. Or another way to say it is when you do something, you feel nourished by it.

[90:13]

So while you're speaking to somebody, your speaking is always in the range of feeling nourished by the conversation. It doesn't mean you avoid always being depleted, but in general you have a feeling for keeping the conversation in the range of feeling nourished. So the general rules about talking about meditation experience are something like this. You can always talk about it with your teacher. And you should.

[91:21]

Certainly share any significant shifts or experiences. You shouldn't necessarily talk about it with every teacher who passes through. You shouldn't probably talk about it in ways that with just one other person or in ways that feel comparative. But often in a context like we just created, you can talk about meditation experience with a group of people. But often, for example, in a context that we have just created, one can talk about meditation experience with a group of people.

[92:12]

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