How will you be able to tell even better to Michael? Now, I just tell you once in Utah, but I stay 10 years. And then he spends 10 years with Michael, and Michael spends 10 years with Eric, and so forth. One night he breaks a bone. What? One night he breaks a bone. You have one nutcase, but you have to be careful not to choose a nutcase. Are you talking about yourself? Are you worried you're going to break the line? Hmm? Hmm? So if we send 20 people to this room to make 90... Ninety ancestors reach between me and Buddha.

[01:20]

Ninety-one reach between you and Buddha. That's not many people. The transmission has tried to take nutcases into consideration. By one having a certain redundancy of lineages, But also passing the lineage in a way that's called winter branches. Most of you know that the idea of winter branches is that the branch looks like it has no buds, but then when spring comes, it suddenly comes.

[02:37]

So there might be two or three generations that don't seem to produce much, but still there's some feeling that's conveyed, and that feeling has everything in it. Okay. Okay, next sentence. We'll take a break in a few minutes after we've finished with reality. As the wolf goes... Sorry, as the wolf goes through the water... The weave is dense and fine. A continuous thread comes from the shuttle, making every detail.

[03:40]

So the sense here is, let me go to the next sentence down here. Okay. After this, the verse eulogizes. The world-honored one, Mr. Hughes. Easygoing abundance. means there's lots of possibilities. Weeding the ancient brocade means the lineage but it also means your whole repository consciousness. Like it's already finely woven part of you that's almost boundaryless with the phenomenal world of your experience.

[05:03]

But at the same time as it's the ancient brocade, it's incorporating the forms of spring. Here you have a sense of timeless spring. Like all these things are budding or related to bud. And sometimes we speak about meditation as being the sky of spring. Because when you start meditating, it's like you bring spring to the repository consciousness. Now, because obviously, although this is very like insects living on wood happening to make patterns.

[06:05]

And this means that whether you do it or no matter what you do, this activity is going on. You pull the bark off a tree and you see all those little patterns, the insects in there. So if you could pull your wolf off, your bark off. You'd find all these little patterns made by your activity, your unconscious, your non-conscious, your repository consciousness. Now says the next sentence there, although or nevertheless, although he makes his cart behind closed doors,

[07:09]

And closed doors goes back to the first word, closing the door and sleeping. Although you make your cart, cart here means culture, your identity, any vehicle that carries you. And the means a vehicle. So Buddhist teaching is a vehicle which carries you. So in this sense, what's your name? Roland. When Roland brings up what is your fate or what is the meaning of your life, here it would be, what is the cart that carries you? How do you realize the cart that carries you?

[08:27]

The cart that's made like insects unconsciously making paddocks. Or we could say it's something like an organic woman making a baby. She asked her what she's doing. She says, I don't know. There's stuff going on down there or in here. I don't know what it is, but there's millions of things going on making this embryo to one of you. You can't interfere with the process much. You can look at it, or you can have a good diet, but that's about the most you could do. So this is the sense that when you go into... dharmakaya samadhi, when you go into a deep practice of unconditioned mind, unfabricated mind, undivided consciousness, awareness which you can't discriminate,

[09:41]

When you bring this mind, this is also energy. It says the original energy is created by mind. This is again like the deep sleep, which you're most connected with the world when you're neither dreaming nor conscious. But this is a deep sleep of what you're sleeping with your friends, sleeping with the world, but yet you're still aware, but not exactly with discriminated consciousness. To some extent, in order for us to live, this is happening while you're sleeping. It's probably the deeper reason we sleep rather than just to get rest. Every time you do zazen, even as an amateur and a beginner, this is happening.

[11:03]

And as your zazen and your meditation matures, And you really have this Dharmakaya meditation where everything, body and mind, drops off. And then when you gather that into the Sambhogakaya body of concentration and bliss, and an inner sight or inner seeing and an inner seeing which you can't think about but there can be attention in it This becomes like a jewel that can shape and guide your life.

[12:08]

And becomes like a cart that you've made behind closed doors. You don't know exactly how you've made it, just like a woman doesn't know exactly how she's made her. A man and a woman don't know exactly how they've made a baby. But when the baby comes out, it has toes and it can learn to walk and it has hands and eyes and so forth. So in a way, though, you make this vehicle for your life could somewhat the same way as insects unconsciously just make patterns. When you bring the cart out, it fits in the grooves. Like the baby has hands and so on.

[13:15]

Now, fits in the grooves means, you know, this is before paid paroles. So if your cart had a different axle length than others, you'd have trouble because every cart had to go in the same grooves to make it load. So it says that you can have faith in this practice that even though it's at a non-conscious level, it will bring together in a kind of mind energy the imagery field of the pository consciousness, partly through realizing the independence of the sense field which vision is. Your cart will be something you can fully bring to your people.

[14:20]

But it's not fate. We don't know who's going to get in the cart with us. But we don't know where the cart's going to go. But if it's possible to go, it will go. Then they change the whole tone to this whole bit on reality here. They change the tone and say, oh, but that Manjushri, nothing can do about him, he's always leaking. And then we'll come back to what the next part is. I think that's enough.

[15:26]

Let's have a break. The late Buddhist view of reality. This is certainly the first time that I have explained the Buddhist view of reality in this context. It coincides pretty closely with much at least of contemporary science's view of reality. Except for perhaps the degree to which it is so profoundly interactive with we ourselves. And if we were looking for a definition of Sangha in addition to those of us who practice together,

[16:29]

It would also be those of us who share this view of reality. And this view of reality is important in your practice because it informs all more advanced practice. And the way in that you have faith in and the depth of your faith in this sitting practice relates to the sense that you're making a cart, a vehicle for yourself and your people. How we are all in the same carter, all in the same boat. How we live and how we die. And how we practice in that realm that is both living and dying. And how we practice on this level or in this area, which is both life and death.

[18:12]

Sangha also means to, in a sense, to this kind of sense of, I don't know, what can I say, seeing with the body. Not just thinking or having philosophical ideas about how we exist, but feeling how we exist. And feeling how we exist and share being with others. Outside or not limited to personality. And that feeling becomes a way of living this, not just thinking about or knowing about, but living this deep sense of reality as a shared weaving.

[19:45]

In which there's no single weaver. But that all of us simultaneously are weaving. In this sense, Buddhism just shows the... the deep thrust of Buddhism as being a sense that this is a practice and teaching which makes culture. Buddhism is very aware of the degree to which if people practice Buddhism, how that practice leads to transforming and weaving culture anew.

[20:48]

An awareness that we don't live in a national or universe container. We live in a multiverse of order and disorder. In which we, by our breaths and intention, are constantly weaving our own life and the life of people around us. There's no way we can not affect the people around us. And a few people knowing this, feeling this deeply, two or three or ten, has a big effect on the whole culture. Is there anything somebody would like to bring up?

[22:22]

Yes? What is the trap that makes the whole thing meaningful? It is made of a beautiful carpet. What is the trap that makes the whole thing meaningful and holistic? What is behind it? Is there a theory from a Buddhist point of view? Well, if there isn't a weaver, and we are all one big weaver, and we are all weaving this together, what is the energy force behind it that produces the difficult or the complex pattern in the weaving and gives it meaning?

[23:30]

No meaning. It's a kind thing. Just is. And if you try to find some explanation behind it that causes the pattern or determines the pattern you're just sweeping the problem under the rug. Because then you have the problem of where did the complexity come from in the complexity which led to the complexity you have an infinite regression. So the Buddhist view is something like, we're all swimming here together. You swim like a Westerner. I swim like a half Jap.

[24:32]

And we don't know why we're swimming near each other. And sometimes we're two Buddhists swimming in Western water. And sometimes we're two or three or 70 Westerners swimming in Buddhist water. And sometimes it's a kind of milk. And each culture has a little different milk. It tastes a little different in each country. Sometimes we're swimming in the milk wondering what part is milk and what part is water. So I say, enjoy your swimming with your friends. There's no, I think it's, from the point of view of Buddhism, it's futile to try to come to original causes. Somewhere it says here, you don't have to look it up, it's fine.

[25:53]

It talks about the, to the extent that it's concerned with source, it says mind is the source, or this is the very source of this lineage, the source consciousness and so forth, but it's not, it's seeing the all-at-onceness as the source rather than something out of the situation. Yes, I think this would be a good way to configure this. is that the Buddhist emphasis is that the experience of creativity, which is you could say that creativity is an experience of source or origination,

[27:28]

Is your closest to creativity when you're closest to interdependence? When you're close to the whole field. Mm-hmm. like to produce one little bud in the spring, in the snow, requires the whole environment to have changed. Anyway, Christiane? Does it also mean to be reformed? You talked about... Yeah, a meaning is very human.

[28:39]

What a flower means to us and what a flower means to a hummingbird are quite different. So this pulse of grasping and granting is to give it meaning, give it color, and withdraw the meaning and withdraw the color. Detachment and integration. Yes. Is it correct that the Buddhist understanding of karma and reincarnation doesn't play a big role in Zen? Reincarnation plays almost no role in Zen.

[29:40]

But karma plays a role, of course. But not karma, again, as a theological system where everything is predetermined. This idea of karma has accidents, surprises, etc. I liked it when I was talking to Illich. I said, I'm convinced that if we don't fight it, dying is a blissful experience. I would say it's probably the ultimate, could be the ultimate ecstatic experience.

[30:42]

The word ecstatic literally means out of place, ex stasis. This is when you're most out of place. And most out of control. Dying is a slow or quick loss of control. If you fight it and try to stay in control, you're going to suffer. And... And Illich said, well, no matter whatever it is, it will be a surprise. And he said, I like surprises.

[32:01]

He, by the way, has a large thyroid, I think, cancer that's as big as a kind of baseball in his face, a cauliflower grape cluster-like. Illich übrigens hat einen Tumor im Gesicht, der also die Größe eines Tennisballs oder so kleinen Blumenkohls hat, der wohl von der Schilddrüse her rührt. And I guess it's one of the more operable cancers that could be cut away, but he doesn't. This is what God has given him, his feeling. He trusts in God, and so he lives with it. And I guess the medical folks say that he could die or should have died already. So his... his conversation always has just underneath the surface, well, I don't know if I'll be here next time we have a chance to meet.

[33:17]

We had a... We agreed to have a meeting with a few people sometime this year. We have to decide who might get together, but I'm going to see if maybe Thich Nhat Hanh could join us. And the title we came up with for this conversation is Two Traditions of Prayer, Meditation and Friendship. And Ulrike asked if he'd be willing to meet with the Dharma Sangha and my students. And I think that he said, probably or maybe so, yes. And he said, probably, yes, possibly, yes.

[34:39]

And if you want to, we will try to bring this to a stand. And that we just have a conversation with each other about Buddhism and Christianity, these two cultures. But here it says, okay, I heard you, where it says the thread comes from the shuttle making every detail. How could this even be spoken of on the same day as false cause or no cause? And this is a very interesting statement which brings in karma.

[35:43]

But brings in karma at the level of not just one thing leading to the next. But a complex view of karma where even false causes are causes. A sense of simultaneous causation. Yes. How is it with the notion of responsibility? In my experience, my way of feeling and thinking is very dependent on the kind of people I meet. And sometimes I think in this way, and sometimes in another way. And so sometimes I am speaking very stupid things, and sometimes maybe brilliant things that I could not imagine.

[36:48]

And so my question is, how is it worth the responsibility? Well, that's why I hang out with as nice people as I can find. Do you want to say that in German? Yes, where is the responsibility? I came up with this idea. My experience is that my way of thinking and feeling is very dependent on the people I am with right now. And sometimes I find the technical conversation incredibly stupid. And sometimes quite brilliant things that I don't know where they come from. And that's the question, where is the responsibility? And I said, you can translate, but I'll say it again. Because I know, likewise, how impressionable I am, that's why I hang out with you guys, because you bring out the best in me. Cool. You keep me doing Zaza, and I came here at 7 this morning. I went to bed about 2, but I still came here.

[37:50]

Love. Responsibility is a subset of compassion. No. Yeah, it's just who you're swimming, you know, with. You have compassion for these guys swimming with him. So you try not to push him under. That's your responsibility to help him swim too, or her swim. So if you have a lifesaver, you hand them a lifesaver, you know. It's all clear. Yeah. Okay. Yes. It's just his way of formulating it, that's his way of formulating it.

[39:33]

I can't explain it to you. I don't know if it's useful to me, but it is useful to me. I think my access to this kind of information is simply a way of formulating it. And how would Ivan Illich describe this experience or the existence of this big weaver out there, which he seems to believe in? I have just difficulties just to imagine this. And it's for him really a big believer outside there, or it's just his, or it feels he just fit in a kind of language, so he was to put it in special words. In this tradition, but I can't imagine that it's for him, for other Christians.

[40:36]

It's a very good question. We kind of talked close to this question. But to talk about something like this, you have to talk within intimacy. You don't go up to somebody and say, hey, what's your philosophy of life? Mm-hmm. So it's not only kind of rude to ask it too directly.

[41:42]

But you also never get a real answer that way. But also you can't get a real answer that way. So I would surmise, I think that the idea of a simple idea of a creator God is the weakest, at least rational side of Christianity. And it's what Brother David Steindl-Rust completely won't talk about a creator God, says it has really nothing to do with Christianity. So, So I would surmise that what you feel from him, that the idea of God as outside the situation or as the producer of the situation has, I'm guessing, has virtually no meaning for him.

[43:13]

As far as I can tell, and again, this is his, you'd have to ask him yourself, is the experience I have is that for him, the presence of him, her, is simultaneous with his own life. It's not outside or somewhere else. But there still is indissolvably the I-Thou connection. It's not that God is the same as him. There's always an I-Thou connection. But it feels like this is in a simultaneous field in which the tension of an unequal relationship or the richness of an unequal relationship

[44:24]

But if we had some subtlety and we were together, this is the kind of thing we might get close to. But talking about this is more intimate than sexuality. And you don't ask somebody how they make love with their spouse. And it's a similar kind of territory. You have to allow... you to find out how this person is intimate with their God or their reality or their friends. These big questions are always a matter of initiation. Und diese großen Fragen sind immer eine Angelegenheit von Einweihungen.

[45:42]

They're not in the market. They're not consumables. You can't purchase them. Die sind nicht Teil des Marktes und nicht konsumierbar. You can't ask somebody these questions like you can go to the store and ask for a jar of shampoo. Und man kann jemand nicht diese Fragen stellen wie wenn man zum Laden geht und eine Tube Shampoo kauft. So, but, you know, like we have a certain initiation here so we can talk about the koan to some degree. And if we had that, if we could meet with Yvonne, say, and have that sense of gently developing a kind of initiation and intimacy between us, maybe something would come out that wasn't there before we met. And again, the point of Sangha is that if you depend on me for the teaching, you're only going to get better.

[46:48]

limited, much less than half. It requires a mutual intimacy and inquiry and nirmanakaya work to come to some as deep an understanding as we can. nirmanakaya work means to meet together out of the mind that arises from the sambhogakaya body. Or to put it more simply, to meet and discuss these things in zazen mind.

[48:05]

So our inner sight or our Our interior consciousness, our inner consciousness is talking with each other. And there's an interplay or pulse between a kind of inner consciousness and outer consciousness conversation. And this would be grasping and granting again. So to create the conditions for this is again why I started the Dharma Sangha. And why I called it the Dharma Sangha.

[49:07]

Because Dharma and Sangha are impossible without each other. So I created, started the Dharma Sangha out of a multiplicity of causes. But now it belongs to you. Yeah, so... Sorry to, you know, pass the ball your way, but that's where it is. That you can give it back, you know. And I'll give it right back. Yeah. I have to come back to my old question.

[50:10]

Please. Well, I'm coming back to this energy force that creates the pattern, and I'm just putting out this as a kind of provocative question. Does maybe this... Maybe this has something to do with love. Yes, exactly. I mean, that's the fundamental teaching of Buddhism. And that the... The desire to share the same reality with others. And to, at a simple level, just help each other with food, money, bedding, whatever is necessary, you know, friendship, smiles.

[51:22]

And all of it comes back to the basic bodhisattva vow to realize, to actualize this reality with every person you meet. And when you take all your different intentions, all your different desires, they at root are this desire, we say. So if you can bring yourself to the presence of that root desire, then all your practice is informed by it. And this intention shapes what the insects do, how you make your cart. And it's important that it's an intention and not a thought. Because an intention affects awareness. Undivided consciousness. and affects interior consciousness, exterior consciousness.

[52:52]

So intention will move through all the medium, while thought and comparative thought will only be in some of them. When it's at the level of an articulated intention. Yes. But again, it's like the difference between paying attention to your breath and not paying attention to your breath. And you could say another sense of enlightenment in which it's called initial enlightenment, that occurs at the moment you decide to practice.

[53:54]

Because the moment you decide to practice, when you look back on it from having practiced for years, was the moment you actually decided you recognize deeply how your life is joined with others. And practice is opening and deepening that realization. Yeah. I want to come back to the process of meeting, how to enter into the space where we will meet. We meet at work. Yes. I would like to come back to this picture of the game.

[54:56]

You can create this variety where the game is worth it and the picture is new and the picture is still there, but we are also at the point where the game stands. I understood. What do you want to say? It's fine. Well, as the koan says, is that this is zazen practice or meditation practice or being outside of your comparative thinking. So developed mindfulness practice where your body is seeing the world. And where breath, mind or awareness is the primary way where you're resting. This is the way you're more and more in the weaving and doing the weaving.

[56:04]

So that's why we have a faith in your practice Because faith enters you into this as if you were a god. Or as close as we have to God because it enters you into the process of creation. And then in that field, there's the subtle presence of Bodhisattvas, of Lakshmi, and so forth, as in the koan. In that sense, then, you have the larger meta-identities of archetypes and bodhisattvas and so forth.

[57:09]

For example, there's not just a subtle body that we share here. That subtle body has its own identity. And that subtle body may have a Manjushri identity or Avalokiteshvara identity, depending on our lineage and the teaching and what we're doing. Now, what's interesting is, what I just said, I could not have said at 9 o'clock this morning. So there's some difference. There's something different between when we first started this morning, after breakfast, and now. And it's not clear how we get to this point or why I was able to say this. What you did to make me say this and why I feel you're hearing.

[58:11]

Now someone I wanted to have their question, who was it? About, yeah, you. Before we finish, we have to have lunch in a few minutes. In German, right? I know. Why, for example, when you come back from work, you don't want to go back to work, but the experience is that you always fall out of this equation.

[59:14]

So, no matter what the reasons are, whether it's the fear of people, or anxiety, or withdrawal, or whatever. So, in any case, I can't share this power of practice. And this experience is actually Yes. So you said the same thing, more or less? Sounded like it. This is of course the problem.

[60:20]

And it's not just a matter of understanding it. It's of course a matter of doing it. And doing it is almost impossible if you're by yourself. It's like there's little molecules of practice in you. And they can't really get going unless there's other molecules around you also practicing. And if you're in the usual world where most people don't practice, Or have a different way of organizing and directing their molecules. It starts to reorganize your molecules the way theirs are. So this is another dimension of enlightenment. When your molecules are so organized, they organize the people around you rather than they organize you.

[61:52]

And that's much more than enlightenment. That's actualization. So until that's the case, and of course it's always to some extent the case, as just as Eric was saying the same thing, Eric Eno, it's helpful to practice with others. I mean, I don't, somehow in our emphasis on individuality, we don't seem to really get it, how much we need the help of others. We want to believe if it's really, really, if we're really strong and we're really ourselves, we can do it all alone. And this is a delusion.

[63:02]

A self-indulgent fantasy. The truth is you do it totally alone and simultaneously with others. And this is not contradictory. And it's so much more fun. How to do it with others?

[64:13]

It can take many forms. It can partly just be remembering a phrase to pay attention to your breath. And it can be putting an altar in your house and practicing mindfulness and so forth. Yeah, but we need, particularly when in a culture which is, we're trying to find a way in which we can both swim in Western culture and swim in Buddhist culture, mix them. We need to have these gatherings every now and then. brauchen wir einfach ab und zu diese Art Zusammenkunft. It's a kind of ritual, actually.

[65:16]

Even if we said nothing new, it's a kind of ritual of renewing ourselves and deepening ourselves. Es ist eine Art Ritual. Selbst wenn überhaupt nichts Neues sagen würde, wäre es doch ein Ritual, uns zu erneuern und auch zu vertiefen. And we more and more find out how to do it together rather than just me or something like that. Now, I want us to sit for at least a few minutes before we eat. Do you want to say something after lunch is okay? Hmm. I'm sorry, Ulrike and I were late. We got stuck in the parade. If we'd had flowers in the car, they would have thought we were afloat. Afloat is one of these things that goes in a parade with all kinds of... Ulrike could have been waving from the car...

[66:19]

What's she doing with that foreigner? Well, we effectively have an hour or so before I go back to America. And I'm glad that so many of you suggested I come here during the winter, and I'm glad to be here. And just to give you another kind of feeling for what this reality... stuff in this koan is. It's a little like you started from a kind of genetic, psychological family soup.

[67:43]

And you may feel that you got out of the soup and now you're kind of walking on the ground. And some of you feel you're going to get the soup off you. Super. But mostly what you've done is you've gotten out of your family psychological and genetic soup and you've just stepped into a bigger soup. Instead of wandering through this soup, you fell into the Dutch-German-Swiss-Austrian Dharma soup. It's soupa, soupa.

[69:11]

It's sangha soupa. Okay. But, you know, in Buddhism it's essential not only that we study our story and, in effect, as Westerners, our psyche, But we also study our reality, how we exist. And how we exist is as important and fundamental a part of us as any idea of psyche or soul is. And having run a few restaurants, started a few restaurants, to really teach someone to cook you teach them first to cook one thing really well. Gertrude Stein chose her cook by having her make an omelette.

[70:17]

In Japan, they ask you to make rice. If you can make rice, you can make anything. So the idea here in Sangha is, if you can understand some sample of this soup very well, then you can understand all the soups. So the idea of Sangha is how do you cook a small soup together before you jump in the big soup with everyone else or it's the same thing but sometimes you concentrate a little bit on yourself and the Sangha first and then the big soup. Okay. So at some point before we end, I'd like to sit a little bit and also look at the koan a little bit more.

[71:29]

But right now I'd like to hear from anything you'd like to bring up. And before we come to the end, I would like to sit down and say something to the choir, but first ask if anyone of you would like to say something. Yes. Yes. Eine große Gewebe und der eigenen Geschichte. Und dass es nicht das Gleiche ist. Und ich wundere mich, wie diese zwei Dinge zusammengehen. Und wie die Psychoanalyse damit zusammensteht. This morning we were using a picture of this ancient procade and pattern and one's own story and how this is, of course, different.

[72:38]

But my question is, well, how is this related to each other and maybe where does psychoanalysis come in? What do you think? Well, I feel it's better not to compare everything with each other or to try to find out the similarities. I think there's no problem in practicing, in doing psychotherapeutic work. In fact, I think it's good. Studying your psyche and story is somewhat different than studying the mind. And studying how you exist. And the custom in Zen is that you don't really start teaching somebody until they've got their life together. And that means you've got to come to some kind of psychological truce with yourself.

[73:48]

And if possible, have your way of supporting yourself and your relationship with your immediate family kind of worked out. Anyway, practice can be part of that process. But you can't take certain further steps in practice until you've got that pretty much together. Okay. Yes?

[74:52]

I would like to come to the old subject of Easter. And you mentioned that it was a difficult time. And I hope that we will be in the old field, where we will have opportunities, where we will have ideas, where we will be able to change the people of the world. And I don't regret that I didn't have any ideas. But it's very nice to be able to connect with you. I want to support what Beate said. It's also very important for me that we have the Dhamma Sangha and that we can find out ways how to practice and live together and develop that in Germany.

[75:53]

But I also am realizing I'm kind of shy to put out ideas about it, concrete ideas or a little... But still, I want to support what Beate has said. So we have Beate supporting Beate. That's so much for the Bs. How about the Cs? Well, one thing I like and I often say to people when I talk about, they ask me, what's it like to teach in the German-speaking world? I know that Dutch is just a dialect of Germany. It's the other way around. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Well, English is a dialect of German, too. A lot of French, don't they? What I say is that German people take very good care of each other.

[77:08]

We're the only foreigners here, aren't we? But you don't need a translator. So it's true, you know. There's a sense in the seminar that we don't go too far. No one takes the lead too much until everyone can participate. And if you don't understand quite what I mean, let me say that's in sharp contrast to being in French-speaking Belgium, where generally a few people take over the seminar pretty quickly. They do all the talking. A few people do all the talking and kind of forget about the rest.

[78:26]

So anyway, I liked it very much because we do take care of each other. Which one do you like? I like it very much that we here, we Germans, take care of each other. I'm half Japanese, half German, and sometimes an American. Yeah. Do you know what they do in Japan to indicate a westerner?

[79:27]

Do you know what they do in Japan? Can you translate that? No. I did. Nobody could hear me. But the other side is that everyone is quite shy to talk about things. You know the five fears in Buddhism I've told you many times? Fear of death. Loss of livelihood. Unusual states of mind. Unusual states of mind. What's the first? Talking. No, that's it. Loss of reputation and speaking before an assembly.

[80:40]

And in Buddhism it means the courage to speak out in your society when everyone's against you. To speak out for what you know is true. So anyway, Anyway, the sense of our taking care of each other is one reason I come back here teaching regularly. And also I sense in Germany there's a feeling of the right time to do things. I don't know what the right time to do things is for us because I'm still somewhat of an outsider. Und ich kann natürlich nicht beurteilen, was die richtige Zeit für uns ist, denn ich bin immer noch irgendwie eine Außenseite.

[81:43]

So if someone wants to talk about what the two Beatas have mentioned, you can do it in German. I don't need you to be translated all the time, because Ulrike can explain what's going on. Zwei Beatas, also, oder wenn jemand noch etwas dazu sagen möchte, was die zwei Beatas gesagt haben, dann könnt ihr das in Deutsch untereinander machen. Ich muss nicht immer übersetzt werden, und Ulrike kann das ja dann für mich übersetzen. Certainly several people have said they want to say something, but they haven't, so I don't know. Yes, Diane? Right now? Is it a good idea? Takes too much time? Well, let's talk for a little while now, and then we can, if we want to, we can...

[82:43]

Dhyana said she heard that there's a seminar being planned on women and Buddhism and practice. And she feels some of the things she wanted to bring up here, she's going to wait and then rather discuss there. If I wear my robes, could I come? Only. Well, at Dharma Sangha, there's half women right here, and the board is all women. Dharma Sangha is half women here, and the board of our small association is only women.

[84:16]

Would anyone like to say something? Or should I say something? Yeah. Yeah. Then I said, my son, let's start up the talk. The red kid wants to run. He can't run off. Let's run. I want to talk about my family.

[85:24]

And Hildegard and Ruth have put in an incredible amount of work. You can't imagine how difficult it is. And Götz and Monika know that too, who were partly there. And I think a few founding members are here right now. That was a phone call, who had time that evening. to drive to Wiesbaden and it is incredibly a lot of work and to build it up and with notaries, tax advisors, lawyers and so on. I would really like to thank everyone who was involved. Can we maybe write it down here again, Hildegard?

[86:55]

I think we'll have to set up several accounts in the long run. See that? In Austria they formed their own Dharma Sangha. Yeah. Also, you know, Ulrike has to make some decisions about whether she can continue doing this full time or she should take a job or do something else.

[87:59]

So I'm trying to encourage her to make this her... Dharmasanga, her family and home, and I keep trying to hypnotize her, and I say, Dharmasanga is your home. So if you want to help hypnotize her, you can, you know, or encourage her to. I asked you not to talk about this. I forgot. Yeah. Oh.

[89:02]

Oh. We are still a little careful to make it so much bigger, because so many individual organizational things still have to be done. We always have to have a membership meeting to change little things or something. If we just see it more clearly, then we will do it that way. And by the time it's done, you can transfer a donation instead of a membership contribution. That's de facto, I mean, you're members anyway. Where is Al-Aqsi? I think it's also quite good to integrate the seminars during the year so that one can dedicate one afternoon to this club story and do it from the beginning so that you can draw something that I can draw, things that are discussed, so that there is also such a public forum.

[90:27]

It basically took place after the Sashin Singha, that we had a Dhamma Sangha meeting. I have to think about what Ivan Illich always said. He talked to Erich and Christine a bit. In the moment when an institution There are a lot of difficulties, and I have already spoken to many of you about it, that we should not confuse it, that we then have to found the institutions that we have to found and integrate into this society. that we confuse them with the actual spiritual goals that we have, or that we make the institution a container for these spiritual goals or contents. And that's why I'm very much for such a slow growth of the organization Dharma Sangha. And I mean, we talked about it yesterday with Roshi, Ruth and Hildegard.

[91:38]

We could basically to create that as a member status without further... through a member contribution, you wouldn't have to institutionalize that through the form of an association. Supporting members or friends or anything. Do you understand my inner gap? It's very important to me. that nobody feels excluded because we now have this small association to deal with the financial matters in the right way, where we don't, especially as the right way of life, Buddhism is very important, that you don't hurt the rules in the state in which you live, that we don't make any mistakes there. And on the other hand, that it is not confused really with the spiritual content of what we are dealing with here.

[92:40]

And no one should be excluded. Basically, the founding members who were there now, who were there by chance, they suddenly started to get a lot of work. I don't know if that's true, but that's the main reason. of this association and this legal form of organization, the administration of money for the long-term procurement and then also the administration of your own center in Europe, in German-speaking Europe? Or does it have another background? No, actually... Why do we need this seminar business and, on the other hand, no great legal organization?

[93:41]

Yes, especially for that. I have been asked again and again, especially by therapists, if I can simply have a certificate, a receipt for the seminar fee. I have always issued them. But it was never quite clear to me in which territory I was moving. Imagine how it started five years ago. I organized it for the first time and I didn't know much about it. So it was important to give a form and above all to get the common benefit status. This is incredibly important for donations. Because we could now say, basically issue documents for donations, but they were not taxable. I would say that was the primary reason for the founding of a legal institution at that time. Well, if we want to acquire a center, then it is absolutely necessary that we have one.

[94:38]

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