This distinction is a little difficult for me between wholesome and unwholesome. Well, it's the way it's usually translated in English. And I think it's really as simple as whether you eat wholesome foods or not. And it means you have to become sensitive enough to notice what gives you a feeling of clarity or ease and what doesn't. Because much of our, we're usually rather stuck and there's a kind of gelatinous space we live in that's sticky. Of how we feel about things, how we assume things are. And usually much of our energy is used to push through this or push it aside and so forth.

[01:01]

And this kind of practice is to be able to look clearly enough at just what generates these states of mind and when they feel healthy and when they don't. What were you going to say, Ulrike? Here the suggestion is made with healing or not healing, is a good suggestion. It's hard to translate.

[02:19]

What's your name? Richard suggested a different translation which works quite well. Which is hard to translate back into English. It's not good. It's more of a direction of saying and holds up. Yeah, that's good, too. Now, I'm just presenting this to you, and I don't think we get to talk about it much, but just to give you a picture of a kind of boring part of Buddhism that I think should be in the back of your mind. I just want to give you an image for a rather boring aspect of Buddhism, which you should keep in mind as a background image.

[03:21]

I would like to ask if I understood that correctly. The result of these first two sentences is that I You have to make decisions. If all the people think you relax well in front of the TV and you realize that it doesn't work for you, then it leads to the fact that you no longer watch TV. Yeah, I would like to ask a question to the first two points. That means I have to practice making decisions. Like if everybody watches TV and decides it's kind of wholesome for them, and I feel it's not, then I have to decide not to do it. Yeah. Or you watch a little and feel unwholesome and then you think, What do I do with this un-soulsome thought? And then you abandon that un-soulsome feeling.

[04:23]

Yes, or you watch a bit of TV and then you feel unholy? Unholy. Unholy. It's a problem for me. It's a problem. When we have this, you would never, to read newspapers, cut up from the whole report. All this, what happens in the report, is very unproductive for me. And I will cut up and leave for myself. and I will not meet other people. Other people, there's temptation of woman, and like this, I will close completely. I think that is a sort of misunderstanding. That should be clear. Yes. Yes, Julio? Are we creating problems for you? In a way, the unwholesome thought is like the rainy morning. If I want to abandon it, the same attitude is saying, I'd rather have it sunny.

[05:27]

And I feel, in my experience, any kind of trying to abandon it is giving it more energy, and it's increasing it. And what he said too, in a way, the whole activity my feeling is it's an illusion because it would give if i really succeeded would make me like truly good i don't believe that i believe that you can manage yourself to not kill somebody with it but basically the the unwholesome thought that as much part of you has has it also okay I have the problem again and again that the unsustainable or unsustainable plank is like a rainy morning. And all this effort to leave it or to kill it yourself is exactly the same thing I would rather have in the morning. Yes?

[06:38]

As far as I know, there are two ways to change. The first way is to perceive how the thoughts or feelings, whatever it is, arise, develop and then disappear again. You let them disappear and then you have to observe this cloud again and again. The other thing is that you try to become one. How do you do that now? Maybe you can take a few steps forward. And then you will also solve yourself. That's what I think. And there is actually no such thing as dualism. As far as I know, or I'm familiar with two ways of dealing with thoughts, for example in zazen, like on one hand I just observe the thought and let it go, and there's always the distinction between the observer and what I observe, or I try to become one with it and then it sort of disappears. Maybe you could comment a little more on that.

[08:00]

Yeah, that's good. I don't want to comment so much, but I like the comments. I don't want to comment, but I like your comment. Yes? One question. I have you said that walking through something psychologically is not such a good way of abandoning something. It would be better or easier to just abandon something. I didn't mean to imply that. Well, it sounded a little bit like it, because for me personally, it has been a very useful practice to work through certain unwholesome emotions and feelings in order to abandon them. So maybe you could say... Yeah, I'm going to... You know, it's just with this holiness, the Dalai Lama... I should say that? Yeah, go ahead. I wanted to say something that I didn't really understand. Roshi said that it would be better to give up such unholy thoughts rather than to work through them psychologically. I'm not quite sure what he means by that, because for me personally it was very good.

[09:08]

And, yeah, okay. Anyways, just with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, one of the things he said was that all Tibetan Buddhist practice is based on this basic kind of looking at things. So I thought maybe I should stumble into this treacherous territory and see if we could deal with it. Because I know some of you hear something like this and you shut down. And I think I would have, if I was younger too, like you.

[10:13]

But it's really not about unwholesome in the sense, I think you're mostly thinking about it, but it's unwholesome in the sense of thoughts which are not in accord with reality or actuality. But then we have to start, maybe we have to then talk about The whole problem is about the abandonment. I think abandonment is the problem. What is meant with abandonment? Like, don't think of elephants. I mean, I just think of elephants all the time. Abandoned just means, like, just now is enough. Again, let's keep it simple. If I, despite Giulio turning it around, if I wish too much for something other than this, I can abandon that thought.

[11:50]

I can simply remind myself or use a phrase like just now is enough that cuts through that. Und ich kann mich einfach daran erinnern oder einen Satz benutzen, wie zum Beispiel, gerade jetzt ist genug, der das Ganze zerschneidet. Abandon means give up putting energy into it. And these kind of phrases put you in charge of your own life. It's not telling you what kind of life to have. It's putting you in charge of your own life so you can decide what you think is wholesome and what you think is not. And you can have the feeling of letting go of what's not wholesome. And Buddhist logic is very thorough, so it tries to cover not only the already generated, but what causal conditions you have now, which will lead to things in the future.

[12:55]

And if you can do this, this leads to a deep confidence in your life and in your actions and in your thinking. I mean, it's just common sense. Something else? For me, the real problem starts with number two, because there is a thought which doesn't exist yet.

[14:22]

but it will be my thought. I mean, that's already quite a strange weather. And then I should not, this not existing thought not generate. That's pretty foul. I'm glad you recognize that. Deutsch? For me, the problem really starts with number two, although I also understand that with number one, with this event, what it is certainly not easy. But the second means a thought that does not yet exist, not to be created. That is a space and I did not find it so easy to understand. Yes, it is. And why not? Because, I mean, the second noble truth is that everything has a cause.

[15:48]

And this is just dealing with, very pointedly, that you are the cause of your future. And that means you become subtle enough to feel the seed nature of your present actions. And again, I don't think it, you know, if I really, if I was presented this when I first started practicing, I would have said, this is, you know, this gives me claustrophobia. But if I look back on what I've done, actually this is what I've been practicing, though I didn't call it this at first. So I'd like to come back to the body in a moment, but maybe it's a good time to take a break.

[17:05]

And breaks are, the duration of breaks is measured by the number of toilets. And I think we have two toilets and two kinds of people here. So we need at least 20 or 25 minutes probably, something like that. Anyway, let's start at quarter to 12. Okay, thank you. You know, at the Peace University I just presented various teachings in a way that I tried to make them accessible to you.

[18:15]

And to make them accessible and as clear as I can is the fruit of quite a long time of practice for me. But here I think of this as more of a workshop and we're trying to work through a practice together. So I like to take something that I actually don't know quite how to work through yet, because we're a laboratory together. Now, Richard over here said He thinks the four so-called abandonments make sense, but maybe as a writer, for him, he needs to clear his mind or be open in a different way than this.

[19:50]

This sounds like a kind of controlling to him. Now, but I approach it a little bit differently and I think that in order to practice it's helpful to approach it a basic teaching from the point of view of a certain faith. Not blind faith, but faith first to give the teaching the benefit of the doubt. And to say, if this is so basic, then there must be a way it also doesn't interfere with my creativity as a writer. But if it does, well then let's, we discover that it does, then let's modify Buddhism a little bit.

[21:08]

Now in response to Beate's insight into the far outness of the second abandonment, I remember when Ulrike and I left the Munster seminar which she organized in Munster, her hometown, There was a big... Ulrike and I were sitting in a stow, which is uncommon. Germany has the only autobahns in the world with no speed limit and the most stows. Everyone in America knows about the no speed limit, but they don't know about the staus. So we're sitting in this stau, and there happened to be painted on a wall something that I found quite a number of people have seen. A big sign which said, you are not in a stow, you are a stow.

[22:53]

And what's interesting about that is we can experience being in a stow, but we can't experience that we are a stow. And the second point is to be able to experience that you are a stow. Because you own a car or because you're part of our society, you are actually generating stows all the time. You can sell your car and then you're doing the non-generation of thoughts and actions of stows. But most of us can't sell our car, but we can understand or begin to experience that interdependence, that causation, which is we're always generating styles or something equivalent.

[24:27]

Now, somebody at the beginning of the break said to me, do the four abandonments mean I can do whatever I want? And as long as I know what's wholesome and unwholesome for me, that's absolutely correct. This is the way you can do whatever you want. This frees you from the rules of society. Yes, you follow the rules of society, but as you well know, the rules of your society and your parents and stuff are part of the problem. So you don't want to, in Buddhism, base yourself on the rules of your society, though you want to follow the rules of your society out of consideration, but

[25:46]

You base yourself on knowing what's wholesome and unwholesome for you. Now, Giulio, you said something to me at break that you might, the harness of... Also, Giulio, sagst du, das, was du in der Pause zu mir gesagt hast? Ich habe in der letzten Zeit die Erfahrung gemacht, dass es in den 60ern immer Zeiten von einem Gefühl von großer Freiheit und Zeiten von einem Gefühl von großer Unfreiheit, die Unfreiheit erlebe ich, It's a kind of Harlelisch. And also the things that I created myself.

[26:48]

A big part of it, I have to say, when I look at it, is already from time to time. To sit in a rose, to always sit and think, what would it be like if it wasn't me anymore? Or what would it be like if someone came and said, it's all useless. Without the protection of the whole thing. That's what I asked. So can you say that in, at least some of that in English so I can hear it again and not think it? When I'm not, a lot of times not, and I experience that as kind of a harness. that I realized that, or I feel that I created that myself, I can see that. But I also see that a big part of it is the practice itself.

[27:52]

The thing that I have to practice. For example, how would I live if somebody came up to me and said, you know, you're not going to get to any point. Because a lot of times it's like a very hopeful thought. Yeah, I've asked people, But you don't wake up in the morning and negotiate whether you have a nose or not. Especially not you, I mean. Or me. I have a new grandson named Tumash. With the name Tumash. Portugal. And in the sonograms they told my daughter that he looked like me.

[28:54]

It was apparent in the sonogram that this baby had a large nose. So this is non-negotiable. And I'll mention that the realm of no choice is another one of these, just now is not enough, and just now is enough. We have choice and there's also a realm of non-choice. And in the most fundamental sense, deepest sense, we live in a realm of non-choice. When you are being born, like Tomas, he had no choice.

[30:13]

I've got to get out of here. I've got a big nose, but you know. He had no choice about who his parents were or who his grandparent is. And When you die, you will have no choice. I said the other day, you can't call up your college counselor and say, discuss whether you should die or not. And I hope that when I die, I know it's the time to die. And I hope I don't wish it was a sunny day in Berlin. So, of course I can move this cup and I can fill it and so forth. But my initial... and initializing state of mind is not that I can move it, but just that the cup is there.

[31:37]

And you may or not be here, or you may leave, or you might not have come, but for me, the deepest fact is each of you is here. So let's talk about maybe this We've talked about keep. Well, let's talk about you or your. What is this? I'm trying to keep it simple. What is this you? Now, as I said last night, it's not a container, it's a doing.

[32:59]

So, you is acceptance. Trust. Causation. And if you're not a container and you accept yourself as activity, as process, as in doing, what are the most basic things you're doing? You can think of some other things, but I would say, at least from the point of view of Buddhism, the most fundamental is you keep accepting yourself as you are.

[34:01]

And to do that means you have to also have a trust that the way you are is okay in some way. But there's also things we don't feel so comfortable with or we don't like accepting and that's caught And that, the opening there is causation. These things are caused. They're not permanent. And this causation here is all of this. When you open up unpacked causation, you add causation. unwholesome, wholesome, not yet generated, generated, enhancing, enhancing wholesome thoughts already generated and so forth.

[35:10]

And this says you're in charge of your own life. All you have to do is decide for yourself what's wholesome and not wholesome. And that leads to a deep confidence. And now you follow the rules, etc. But It leads to a deep confidence. And it's the kind of courage which allows you, if you feel your society is wrong or your situation is wrong, is to speak out because you know this is where you're based, on your own decision about what's wholesome for this human being you are.

[36:22]

And this isn't telling you... The same thing is wholesome for one person as another, or it's not necessarily what society says. Maybe some things even which are unwholesome for you are actually kind of wholesome too. It's up to you. Okay. Because there's causation, there's practice. And so let's say what practice is. Because here, we're dealing with keeping, taking care of things

[37:31]

Having possession of yourself and your life through taking care of it. And this word basically means practice. I keep practicing or I don't keep practicing and so on. So, Giulio sometimes feels that the effort to keep practicing is a harness. And I suggest you horse around a bit. Horse around? That's a bad joke, but anyway. Horse around in English means to fool around. So sometimes you say, I wanted to do Zazen this morning. I'm not going to do it.

[38:45]

Or really, today, I really want to do Zazen. Uh-huh. I'm not going to do it. Or sometimes you hate doing it and you decide to do it. Or you decide not to do it. Just horse around. If you horse around enough, maybe you won't need a harness and you'll know what's wholesome and unwholesome for you. So, of course, whether you do zazen or not is negotiable. But your nose isn't negotiable. So why isn't zazen like your nose? Or washing your face.

[39:58]

I mean, you can go three or four days without washing your face. But, you know, don't ask me at dinner. So, anyway, you can work with this difference between like My nose is not negotiable, but Zazen is negotiable. How can I make Zazen more in the realm of the non-negotiable? Move to Christown. That doesn't help. Okay, so now what is practice? Practice is mixing consciousness, pain, Happiness and friendship.

[41:09]

So when you are finding yourself as You don't have a body, you do a body. The body is a doing, it's not a having. So how you understand the you, the more you can free yourself from it as a thing or a container and feel it as experience and a way to relate to your experience.

[42:16]

Now, these are... Slight differences between the way we usually think of it, but actually quite significant differences. If I look at you as separate, that's one thing, as a different container over there, it's different than if I look at you as a share of the whole which I am. So we recognize that everything is changing. And we bring our consciousness to that change. And what are the goals of that? Well, we could add to make it more balanced, we could say truth.

[43:32]

But truth is really trust. But really the goals of practice are happiness. Now we don't generally talk about happiness in terms of Such a generalization is happiness, though we can. Generally in Buddhism it's spoken about in more physical terms, like on your breath you feel a certain bliss on each breath. In Buddhism, we often describe it as more physical. We say, for example, that on every breath we feel a feeling of happiness, or a feeling of happiness. Or you feel a certain ease or pliancy or softness in your body. Or a certain kind of comfortableness in just being where you are.

[44:42]

In Buddhism, that's happiness. And friendship is, again, I feel that Buddhism is a search for ultimate friendship or for friendships. Friendship, real friendship with a few people and maybe a feeling of friendship with everyone. So this negotiation you're doing with whether Zazen etc. is all in this area. And if you don't feel like sitting, you don't feel like sitting, so don't sit. The Buddhist police are not looking. Now, the sense here is, and these are called both clips.

[46:04]

Sorry. Using a flip chart, I feel like I must be a real teacher. And when I use a flip chart, I always think I'm a real teacher. Can you see through the flowers? Okay. But we have our faithful translator here. So if you can get a feeling for this, of taking, of keeping your own life, it opens you up to a deep confidence. And that confidence is expressed also in very physical terms, that you just know you're sitting right where you are just now, and there's no place else to be.

[47:05]

Herman Rosenberger here, sitting here, also just gave birth recently. With the help of Utah. And they have a little boy born a day before my grandson. And he shares a name with you, Richard. A family name. And again, you know, the Buddha, when he was born, he supposedly said, I alone am the world honored one. And I think that my daughter and Antonio both felt when Tomás, Tomás, you pronounce it in Portuguese, Tomás was born, that he was the world-honored one. I mean, the whole world, the appearance of a baby like that honors that the whole world functions.

[48:30]

You know, it's still the planet, still not so polluted and so forth. We still can have a baby appear. It might not be the case at some point. For some species, it's no longer the case. But such a baby appearing, and I I would guess that maybe you felt the same way. The whole world, this baby honors the world. And although we can see that, of course, as I've pointed out more easily with a baby, it is also true for you.

[49:49]

Each of you honors the whole world. That's what confidence means. You have that sense of confidence right now in this body and mind, and you don't say, well, my body, it's got a pimple here in my leg somewhere and stuff. I mean, yes. And that confidence allows not only effort, but joyous effort. And yes, Three and four I didn't quite get.

[50:59]

Was I not here? I didn't go over them, I just wrote them. Okay, so let's go over them. Why don't you read them in German? From the first, right? Should I start with the first? Yes, do all four. I will repeat all four. I don't know how to translate my abandonment. I will just leave it as it is. Firstly, one gives up unhealing thoughts and actions that have already arisen. Secondly, it is about the non-presenting. This is the basic condition of a human being who takes responsibility for his or her own life.

[52:07]

Recognizing that everything's changing and that our life is impermanent and so forth. And in the deepest sense, recognizing that enlightenment is possible. And when you take that responsibility for your own life, it is the opening to this deep confidence. And that confidence allows you in a very unthreatened way to make an effort. And this allows you, and we can come back to these three and four if you want, but this allows you to come to a really deep mindfulness or presence

[53:19]

And one word for body in yogic cultures is presence. And I may be sitting here looking at you and looking around and a fly comes by and I'm not looking at the fly but my eye will close. Or the other day, we were, Ricky and I were driving, and I said, I had the feeling, I pointed out to her, but I had the feeling my name was somewhere. And I was just sitting in the car, looking at the window to the side and talking.

[54:24]

And then I noticed that the car in front of us had a license plate. It was B-AK. Now, I had no consciousness among the cars in front of us that I'd seen the first three letters of Baker, but I still somehow felt, where's my name? So there's our bodily space, which has to do, isn't just the surface, this container, our bodily space in all our senses has various kinds of extensions. And when you're driving a car, or you're a doctor doing something carefully,

[55:28]

There's a whole sense of the car as an extension of the finger or the hands. Or if I wake, if I live out of a suitcase a lot, I just go and I reach in and there's my sweater. I didn't remember where I put it, but somehow my body knows where everything is. So right now, if you're not so involved in your thoughts, all of this is somehow held in a presence. This is also keeping your posture in mind. This larger bodily space. And this bodily space is non-homogeneous and non-repeatable.

[57:01]

Now, non-homogeneous, we think of space being, you know, kind of all the same. But it's not. It's different. If I hold this in front of me, which is closer to me, this or my toe? In terms of measurement, this is closer, but In my experience, my toe is closer. That's an example of the non-homogeneous space that is not about distance. It's about how we experience space. No. Which is closer to me, this stick or Hermann? And also space is not repeatable.

[58:14]

The deeper sense of the body and activity, no moment can be repeated. And our culture and our way our mind works and our science is all about making sure something's real because you can repeat it. But we have to act in complete non-repeatability all the time. And that's also this sense of presence. And mindfulness and effort within mindfulness. And then we have one pointedness, which I won't discuss. And finally here we have intelligence. Now I think that's an interesting definition of intelligence.

[59:34]

In Buddhism, intelligence means when you have freed yourself to come into your own power through these four abandonments, And you have this confidence and effort and so forth, then you begin to have real intelligence. And not just the intelligence of your thinking, but the intelligence of your body initiating on its own. The silent intelligence of your body and the world. that you through such direct gates as just now is enough or knowing the realm of no choice through just now is enough and no choice the gates the silent gates of intelligence of the world and the body open up

[61:10]

And this is more what really body and mind as expressions of each other means. Unfortunately for me, Ulrike has to go to Heidelberg today and to take a train in a little while. And I think Neil or Katrin or somebody will translate for me. Would you be willing to translate? Try it out, Katrin. Okay.

[62:12]

But I have to, I mean, I love both of them too, but I'm also attached to Ulrike and I'm sorry she has to go away. And she's starting teaching in the gymnasium in Schriesheim near Heidelberg. So is there anything you would like to add or say or any thoughts before we close up our shop for the morning? Yes, I would like to say goodbye to all of you first. And there are some Sangha people here at that time. I was very happy to see them again. And I'm sorry that I'm really not there all weekend. And I would also like to say goodbye to the new friends, last week. And it was very nice to see familiar faces again and again during the last week of this event of the University of Peace and to see more and more familiar faces.

[63:15]

And I just wish you all a nice weekend together with Roshi and with each other. And I wanted to tell you a little story. I think it fits quite well. Just a little story. Okay. We lived in this hotel where all the referendums of the University of Peace were accommodated. And the Dalai Lama also lived there for four days. And he had his suite on the last floor. And our room, I don't know if you know the Grand Hotel, it has such a big roundel in the middle, where you can look down from one floor to the other like in an American hotel. And our room was on the fifth floor. We could always walk so diagonally. And it was a very, very nice feeling to always know that he was there. And his Tibetan bodyguards were always there.

[64:17]

And so it developed over time. You got to know each other. And we usually had to go to the same podium discussions. I was also constantly used somewhere as a translator. And most of the time it turned out that I often had to leave without Roshi. And that I somehow arrived at the back entrance of the Tempodrome at the same time, especially when the whole entourage of the Dalai Lama arrived. Maybe you've seen it before. It's really incredibly impressive. There are three or four huge black limousines. They arrive very quickly. Then the doors are opened and then his holiness really jumps out. And the monks and the bodyguards, they move like a swarm. very quickly to the entrance, to the stage entrance. And since they already knew me somehow, it was then somehow clear, I have to get in there as a translator. And even if you otherwise often have the experience that you don't get there at all, to this swarm, or rather to the one that comes through, it was more so that I was really exercised in a way that was really pure.

[65:32]

And it was energetically Very beautiful and also a very amazing experience. I can't express it any other way than flow. And I have now noticed in the course of this morning when Roshi explains what presence is. I think another word for presence is flow and giving yourself to this flow. And then let myself be carried along in this flow and also in this energy field was something that enabled me to translate hour after hour after hour, either with headphones in the cabin simultaneously or on stage or in the background. somehow also to know that this current, that it is there, and he has built it up, this presence, this current. And he is then, on the last day he left at 5 a.m. and we then said goodbye to him, waited for him and waved.

[66:34]

And these cars are then really drove off again towards the airport and I really noticed a part of me was flowing with it and how this feeling was still in the hotel for days. And we really build this flow together, also in practice, and these are these extensions of our body and how we basically create a state of mind with our body that sets an example. And that was such a beautiful example for me for practice. I just wanted to tell you that before I leave. And I will flow a little with you, even if I'm in a train. I have a question. Before you were telling that your grandson who was born did not have the choice to choose his parents or grandparents.

[67:39]

And I have always a problem in the Indian philosophy when they talk about karma they say that you choose your parents, your soul is truly them so this is just the opposite what you told me for me it's very hard to accept this point of the karma that my soul has chosen my parents and now I look back well we have to stop in a moment so I'll give a very brief answer In Zen Buddhism and in Buddhism in general there is no need to believe in reincarnation or not in any of the teachings of Buddhism. Some Buddhist traditions emphasize it and Zen doesn't emphasize it.

[68:52]

But even if it is the case that we choose our parents, as my older daughter, the one who just had the baby, actually had an experience when she was young of remembering sort of some kind of experience of choosing her parents. Once she'd made that choice, she no longer had any choice. So we're not talking about that you don't have choice, but simultaneously there's a realm of no choice. That invisibly interpenetrates the realm of choice. And we find our ease, our deepest ease, in the realm of no choice.

[70:04]

Okay, so it's quarter to or more or less ten to one. Thank you, LaRue. Please sit comfortably. Sit a bit at the end. LaRue, how you've changed. I like your little chair.

[71:05]

I think I'm going to have to get one. I stole this little book, The Art of Peace, from my host, Neil's apartment. And, you know, I just opened it up at random. And it says, always keep your mind as bright, this is by the founder of Aikido, the martial art. He says, always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky. As we say in English, fat chance. That chance means it's very unlikely.

[72:15]

Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment. Testing and competing with others, criticizing others, weaken and defeat you. The penetrating brilliance of swords strikes at the evil enemy lurking deep within. Yeah. The art of peace is not easy.

[73:36]

It is a fight to the finish, slaying the evil desires and falsehood within. Innendrin, yeah. Innendrin. To practice properly the art of peace, I'm not going to read the whole book, don't worry. You must calm the spirit and return to the source. Cleanse the body and spirit by removing all malice, selfishness and desire. Crystal clear, sharp and bright. When you read this, you think, hey, this sounds great, you know.

[74:41]

It doesn't tell you how to do it. It doesn't tell you how to do it. And really, when he talks about, you know, Don't criticize others. Slay the evil within. Clear the body of malice and selfishness. That's what this is. Now, Rick also, on the way to the station, said that If she had a little more time, she wanted to add her experience at the recent Sashin, where she was the Ino. Which reminds me to say that tomorrow morning, if you'd like, if you sit, when we sit at 10 o'clock, If you'd like to face the wall around the sides, I could then straighten your posture or look at your posture or see how you're sitting.

[76:05]

If you want that kind of help, I will be happy to do it. And this room is big enough we could practice walking meditation even if we want to. But we'll see. So anyway, Ulrike was Ino, and the Ino is the head of the practice of the Zendo. Or responsible for the practice. Which means you're supposed to sit every period. And you don't? have time to work in the kitchen and other things. You sit every period. And she's done quite a lot of sashins, but always as my translator.

[77:06]

Of course at Crestone there was a sashin where she didn't have to translate because most people spoke English. So there's one Sashin she did a year or so ago in which she did do the whole Sashin. So this was the second Sashin in which she did the whole Sashin. So first of all, she had no choice about it, about sitting every period. So I don't, you know, she, I think, came to the session with a certain amount of trepidation. Could she do this? But she's supposed to do it, and So she decided she would just do it.

[78:21]

And what she discovered was that she was able to just do it. She came to this point where she didn't feel, well, she accepted just being there without choice. And she came also to the feeling that this isn't about women or men in terms of strength. It's just finding your own strengths. to be there as you are. And she found when she was really able to sit still, I mean to the point that not she, inside and outside she was sitting still. Her eyes became still.

[79:27]

Her eyeballs became still. And when she became really still, the most still she became, she said again she felt this current or presence which was like a current. Now we can make a distinction between outer posture and inner posture. And as I said last night the purpose of In Zen practice, the outer posture in Korean and Japanese and Chinese Zen is the outer posture is to free yourself from thinking as much as possible.

[80:37]

You find a posture, and it actually takes time to learn to do it, but you find a posture that you just know so well that you don't have to make decisions about how you sit and so forth. And it's stable enough that for 10 or 15 minutes or 30 or 40 minutes, you can just sit without worrying about whether your legs are going to hurt or the creepy crawlies are going to go up your back or something. What are those big daddy long legs called? You don't have to worry about the feeler connectors walking around on you.

[81:46]

Which happens sometimes. When you get that, come to that kind of posture, it makes it quite easy, to use this word, to abandon yourself to your posture. So I would suggest in this in the emphasis we're making in this seminar not just acceptance of yourself a sense of abandoning yourself to the posture, kind of a complete trust in the posture.

[82:47]

It's like you take the form and it's so settled you can forget about the form. It's analogous and similar to falling asleep. When you sleep like a baby. When you feel... Those few times, or maybe often, where you really sleep completely at ease, no disturbing thoughts, no tension. But you're not falling into a dream sleep or semi-non-conscious sleep. You're falling into a... Let me put it this way.

[84:03]

Instead of falling into a dream sleep or an unconscious kind of sleep, you're falling into zazen mind or into a non-conscious, a mind that's neither exactly conscious nor not conscious. But you're letting yourself fall into it. And you let the forms, the outer form of your posture just disappear. And we feel that sometimes. You feel you don't know where your hands are, your toes, your shoulders. You're completely alert and awake, but your body, you can't measure anymore the space of your body or the boundaries of your body in the usual way.

[85:10]

We could call this abandoning yourself to your posture. Abandoning yourself to... Giving yourself... I'm just trying to find words to get you to feel this, to give yourself over to your posture. Now, Ulrike in this Sashin... she will never forget and is incapable of forgetting the kind of stillness she had.

[86:17]

Now, it may not be there again, it might not be there ever, but it's a kind of turning point in one's being to have that kind of experience. It's a kind of deep knowing outside the realm of ordinary knowing. So really if you come to this, even for ten minutes or five minutes, this abandonment of yourself to your posture, it generates a blissful state of mind.

[87:25]

And so let's continue this sense of abandonment as you're abandoning yourself to your posture, letting your posture disappear. And with this feeling, and it's a kind of feeling you can stay with, a kind of current you can stay with, And if it starts, it's a stronger current than the current leading you into thoughts. You can begin to abandon your thoughts. You can let your thoughts disappear. As I say sometimes, like water into sand.

[88:28]

So you can let your thoughts disappear and you can let your wholesome thoughts disappear and your unwholesome thoughts disappear. You're letting everything disappear. Again, if only for a moment, this is a kind of Excuse the big word, a little epiphany. I don't know. It's a Christian term. Yeah, I know, but I wouldn't know how to translate it. And it's a kind of moment of rebirth. Now, if you're letting wholesome thoughts and unwholesome thoughts disappear.

[90:04]

In this deep current of trust and giving over. Giving over to the silent intelligence of the body and the world. In giving up letting disappear wholesome thoughts and unwholesome thoughts, you're creating the most wholesome state of mind of all. You're creating a joyous, self-joyous, and then empty state of mind. And from that self-joyous, empty state of mind,

[91:07]

It is very easy when thoughts come back, they tend to be wholesome. You're actually changing the soil in the flower pot. So I wanted to just look at this four abandonments from another point of view, which is the point of zazen practice, of abandoning even wholesome thoughts into an empty state of mind, which is the most wholesome state of mind of all. I'll try to make shorter sentences, I'm sorry. This is also keeping your practice or keeping your posture in mind.

[92:48]

Now does somebody have something you'd like to discuss? Now let me say that this is not So difficult to do, but if you have the faith and trust in your sitting, you discover ease in your sitting, it actually happens quite easily. and it becomes a kind of inner knowledge. Okay. Yes. I've become an inkling what meditation can be.

[93:49]

But a few days ago you told me that when you meditate, you also live your life.

[94:15]

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