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Mindful Frameworks: Reconstructing Reality
Seminar_Trust_and_Love
This talk explores the concept of mental frameworks, using driving habits in different cultures as an analogy, and how Western Buddhists practice within varying frameworks. It elaborates on the idea of life as a construct and the possibility of reconstructing or deconstructing life through mindfulness, highlighting the significance of willingness over willpower. The discussion further extends to the practice of being present and mindful, using concepts such as "kashana" to emphasize momentary awareness. Additionally, the interconnection of trust, love, and acceptance, particularly within Christian and Buddhist perspectives, is examined. The talk concludes with reflections on how compassion is practiced and understood within Buddhism, comparing it to Christian love, leading to a deeper inquiry into how both affect societal and personal behaviors.
Referenced Works and Concepts:
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"Kashana": Described as a very short unit of time important for mindfulness, equated to a fraction of a finger snap, emphasizing the importance of momentary awareness.
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Alaya Vijnana: A concept discussed in terms of its role in maintaining continuity and duration in perception, connecting with how constructs are sustained or dissolved within Buddhist thought.
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Bodhisattva's Practice: Referenced several times as a way to see life as a construct, focusing on dismantling dualisms, thus allowing for continuous transformation.
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Wittgenstein's Visual Scene: Mentioned to illustrate the idea that perception does not naturally include an awareness of the observer, analogous to the practice of mindfulness.
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Christian Love and Buddhist Compassion: Explored in comparison, with Christian love portrayed as a practice influenced by divine grace, while Buddhist compassion is realized through meditation, focusing on empathy and presence.
Key Themes and Discussions:
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Cultural Comparisons in Mental Frameworks: Insight into how cultural differences in practices such as driving can be used to understand differing mental frameworks in religious/spiritual practices.
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Life as a Construct: Emphasizes life and reality as constructs, presenting the opportunity for deconstruction and reconstruction, which aligns with Buddhist practices of mindfulness.
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Time and Awareness in Practice: The use of "kashana" and mindfulness practices to sustain awareness of transient constructs moment by moment.
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Trust, Love, and Acceptance: Focuses on how these concepts interplay within human experience and perception, specifically within the context of Buddhism and Christianity.
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The Function of Compassion and Love: Differentiates the practice of Christian love from Buddhist compassion, and how each influences personal and societal actions.
AI Suggested Title: "Mindful Frameworks: Reconstructing Reality"
dream of backing up. But so are all the other cars going to go around him and then they... And they do the opposite of what everybody does in Germany. The light turns red here and people stop. But the light turns orange and isn't even yet green and everybody's going. It's the opposite in Japan. The light turns green and they're still waiting around to see what's going to happen. But when the light turns red, they're still going. Because whatever they have in motion, they continue. But once they're stopped, if they're stopped, they continue stopping. And this is, you know, everyone knows how to drive, but they're driving in a mental framework that's different from our mental framework.
[01:13]
So here's this old man in his 70s. I'm not 70 yet. Driving along, listening to the crickets, I mean the cicadas and the frogs, and I said to him, did you ever live in America? He said, oh yes, many years ago I lived in Berkeley. My father was a professor at the university. So I lived in California from the time I was 14 until I was 21. And I said, did you learn to drive in America?
[02:14]
He said, oh, yes. So my point is simple. That we drive in an invisible mental framework that we take for granted as if everyone else had the same framework. And I'm trying to suggest that we Westerners and Buddhists drive in, practice in, a somewhat different mental framework than each other. That Westerners and Buddhists tend to drive in, practice in, a somewhat different mental framework. And this itself is a lesson because it means that not that one framework is better than the other but many frameworks are possible Not just Asian Buddhists and Western Christians, but we Western Buddhists may find another mental framework.
[03:45]
But to find something so subtle as a mental framework, which is the way you see the world, willingness is more subtle than will. Because will assumes the same mental framework. Willingness, you begin to be able to see things if you're willing. Man ist schon einfach bereiter. So I think it'd be a good time to take a break, if you're willing. So we come back about quarter after four? Okay, thank you very much. It would be nice if we always had such nice weather for our groups.
[05:05]
So tomorrow I would like to at some point probably on the early side in the morning I would like to hear from at least one or two persons from each group. Some kind of at least brief comments or report from the group. I don't understand why one group was twelve and another seven. Do you count differently in Germany? Or do friends sometimes count two as one? So, Marie-Louise mentioned to me that some people have, she does, and some others have a problem with the idea of reconceive.
[06:36]
Reconcipient. That's the best one. Reconcipient, I think. If a woman becomes pregnant, that's also a concept, but not in this context. I think in this context it would also be considered conception. Okay. But, you know, the word has a rather nice feeling in English, and I can't always predict that the equivalent word in German has a nice feeling. And Marie-Louise said that, well, maybe she could say to look at from another point of view. Yeah, that's not the same. That's okay, of course, but it's not true.
[08:21]
So let me try to, because I want to, I spoke in the last Boulder seminar, as Molly will remember, and a little bit in Dusseldorf, like of course at other times, about seeing our life as a construct. So just for the heck of it, let me say that like to see something from another point of view is say you're an architect, you're designing something, that would be to look at it from another hillside or from above. But to reconceive would be more like, say, you're designing a prison. And you said, you know, people hate to live in prisons. But many people actually choose and like to live in monasteries.
[09:45]
So let's reconceive of this prison so it has the good qualities of a monastery. That's not just looking at it from another point of view, that's reconceiving the whole thing. What was the last thing you said, because I didn't translate it? After prison. Yeah, just that, to reconceive it as a monastery, which brings the good parts of a monastic life into... So what does it mean to see your life as a construct? We could say the bodhisattva always sees his or her life as a construct.
[11:07]
So by the way, I think we're supposed to stop at six, is that right? And there's hot food just ready to be served instantly at 6. Is that right, Mikhail? No, half an hour later. Oh. So you'd rather have it at 6.30? Yeah. Good. That's true of the cooks? You're not quite ready? 6.30. 6.30. Oh. I was going to stop in 20 minutes, but now. Hmm. so we can reconceive. But still, I think I'll stop pretty soon. Okay. Okay, so again, what does it mean to see your life as a construct?
[12:19]
Because you may... Okay, well, first of all, it means you can reconstruct your life. If it's a construction, it could be reconstructed. Or it can be deconstructed. Or you can stop construction. Or you can see the empty field in which the architect imagines the building. Oder ihr könnt dieses leere Feld sehen, innerhalb dessen der Architekt das Gebäude sieht. So you could see the space of the construct, not just the construct. Also könnt ihr den Raum von diesem konstruierten sehen, nicht nur das konstruierte selber. Okay, so imagine... Well, all right, so the Bodhisattva or any one of us, probably, if you reconstruct your...
[13:27]
You reconstruct it pretty much the same as it was before. You've deconstructed it, then there's a pile of lumber, so you put the lumber back together. So most of us don't have any other supplies, so we reconstruct the same house. But this is already a big difference. Say that there's a whole bunch of houses the same. And everybody was given their house except one person. And this one person made this house look like all the others, but he made it himself.
[14:35]
Okay. Say that several of the houses have an electrical problem. Who's going to best be able to solve the problem? Or a structural problem? The guy who made his own house really is in a very different situation than the others. And say it's a mental house. We're living in a mental house. We just decided that. There were American street... streets all over Tokyo, as far as that guy was concerned.
[15:37]
So imagine that this is a mental house we're living in. It might be pretty much the same as everyone else's. But then you hear a flood is coming. So you change your house into a boat. And you're in much better shape. Everybody else's house is swept away and yours is... You do it much better than me. Will you take me canoeing? Yes. Um... Or say a very stressful situation is arising.
[16:46]
If you are reconstructing your house on each moment, you can make the walls permeable or transparent. So to really have a feeling that in a deep sense, as I'm picking up here, that something like trust you can construct, you can develop, I think we have to see that our life is a construct.
[17:53]
And make this certain. So you're always seeing a construct. Yeah. Now, I find myself in recent years having to keep coming back to this. Because although I think most of you hear it and understand it, I don't think you actually practice it. You've actually embodied it. So what are the ways you practice it? That you make a decision to practice it. You're not going to will it, but you're going to be willing to see the consequences of the decision.
[19:14]
Well, there's a bunch of things. Certainly, probably the most basic is to see everything as mind. I see myself looking at you and I know that you're appearing in my mind. And the practice of mindfulness means to see everything as mind. Not as only mind, but as only appearing to you through mind. Okay. Now also, you can just simply experiment with seeing things appear in your senses.
[20:37]
Now maybe the idea of a kashana is helpful. Which I spoke about in Crestone a bit this year. Kshana is a very short unit of time. It's said to be perhaps 1 64th or 1 65th maybe of a finger snap. Good translation. Or it's cutting a silk thread, silk cloth, with scissors, the time it takes to go through one piece of, one thread. Or when a healthy, strong, vigorous person
[21:42]
oder wenn ein gesunder, starker, lebhafter Mensch. Mensch, yeah. Not some kind of, you know, limp slouch. Nicht so ein Wackelpudding. That was a creative translation. scans the sky. I like that when a strong person scans the sky. Not somebody lingering around looking at the stars. The length of time it takes to see one star. And we know there's a difference. If you look at a sky with only a few stars, it's a different experience than looking at the sky, especially at Crestone, which has got this black desert sky, the stars attacking you.
[23:05]
Okay, so in any case, it's an emphasis on being open to a very short period of time. In other words, again, noticing in your senses that you put things together. Okay, so I look over here to the right. I have my eyes closed.
[24:14]
I open my eyes and something appears. Before I opened my eyes, there were various kinds of things happening in the kind of inner light space of mind. And that, whatever there was there in the darkness, a kind of darkness, was creating my mind. If I stayed there away for a little longer, I might fall asleep. If I open my eyes, that's immediately replaced by Gerald and Jutta and the others of you. And the mind that's created by looking at you guys is different than the mind I just replaced. So you see my state of mind was constructed.
[25:25]
And if I turn and look at these flowers, Suddenly my mind actually feels different. The colors or shapes and petals are caressing my mind in a different way. Now that's obvious. But we don't usually notice it. It's invisible. I think it's Wittgenstein who said, there's nothing in this visual scene that tells you it's seen by an eye or by the mind. It could be taken by a camera. It certainly wouldn't be the same, but...
[26:29]
But there's no clue in this situation that it's seen by an eye. I have to remind myself it's seen by an eye and by a mind. Although it's obvious it's seen by an eye, to remind yourself is the practice of wisdom. And it has the consequences of wisdom. And if you get into the habit of this little exercise of feeling the mind the flowers produce, Or the green grass.
[27:48]
Or looking at all of you at once. Or looking at one of you. These are different minds. And they're being constructed in me. And a similar process is going on in each of you. So when you get used to thinking, feeling this way, what can I say? You feel almost the vibrating presence of sixty worlds. then you can feel how your own constructing of a world is influenced by everyone else's constructions. So right now my voice is influencing your constructions.
[29:06]
And so is her voice. And so is the way My body is present in my voice. And present in my hum that's underneath the words. Because all words come out of a kind of hum. and can be returned to the hum and can be returned to silence.
[30:15]
So the silence that's present in the hum also influences your constructions. And the posture of my body, which is in the hum of language, also influences your posture. So we're actually much more intimately connected in the midst of a mutual construction than we are aware of. It's little like there's, you know, when you look off in the distance, there's an horizon. And you know that there's something beyond the horizon but it's hidden from you.
[31:30]
But you also know that what's hidden from you is influencing what's within your horizon. But the horizon is not just out there. The horizon is right here. There's hiddenness right here. And one of the practices of keeping the one is generating clarity while maintaining obscurity. It's like you can't have the sun without shadows. And the shadows are also maintained. So this is again the clarity or chaos or obscurity.
[32:44]
So I spoke earlier about the intimacy of one and many. There's also the intimacy of order and disorder. So in this convergence of causes, we are always establishing order. But we get anxious when we try to establish only order. So we establish order that's held together for a moment and then you let it dissolve. Then you establish order again and let it dissolve. That simple exercise is to turn toward the Dharma rather than turning toward karma.
[34:01]
A karmic mind is a predictable mind. Is a mind that tries to make things permanent. Is a mind that tries to make things last. And one of the... Because actual time is... We can't say where past and future start. Actual time is a knife edge. Also wir können nicht genau sagen, wo Vergangenheit und Zukunft sich berühren. Also ist die Gegenwart so eine Messerschneide. So duration is a mental phenomenon. Und Dauer ist nur ein geistiges Phänomen.
[35:05]
One of the jobs of the mind and memory. Und eine Aufgabe von dem Geist und der Erinnerung. And of the function of the Alaya Vijnana underneath the present moment, congealing all the time. Congealing. means to come together like gelatin. Okay. You know what gelatin is? Congeal means to start to stick together. So now we have to do the whole number again. The whole number again. Okay, I'm about to do the whole number again. Okay. We have to practice more. Yes. I'll get my routines down and down and you... Okay. I don't know what I said.
[36:07]
I can only do the number... It's always number once. Okay. Okay. One of the jobs of the Alaya Vishyana is underneath the momentary congealing of the present. is to supply a sense of continuity and duration. Continuity means it's related to the past and is predictable in the future. Duration means the present has a sense of having a length of time. Now, one of our instinctual senses is to make continuity and duration longer.
[37:10]
Instinctual. To make continuity and duration longer. The practice of Dharma is to make it shorter. Is to keep letting everything disappear in the moment. No, I have a feeling you're getting tired. No, no. Well, let's do this number over again. So, okay, so I'll continue for a little bit more, but then I'll stop. So we get in the habit of seeing the world being established in our percepts and our concepts.
[38:44]
And Dharma practice is to allow that to occur and immediately dissolve it. The moment of death in Zen practice is to begin the dissolution, the intentional dissolution of constructs. Nirvana in the present, not waiting for death, is to dissolve the constructs in the present moment. Now what allows us to practice this reconstruction?
[40:03]
One is shifting your sense of continuity from an identification with your thoughts to breath, body, and phenomena. That I've often spoken about. Another is when you have the feeling that each moment starts afresh. Not as an idea only. But as an actual experience. Because you actually have a sense of absorbing and dissolving the moment. It really feels like the baggage of the past disappears.
[41:08]
And a feeling of bliss comes up. Or we say non-referential joy. Or we say non-referential joy. Joy that arises for no reason. That also allows us now to reconstruct from joy, literally, rather than from our karma. And one of the things that's very important to realize, to notice, is that every moment then, now that we've got this down, that a moment is a kashana, Now that we have really recognized that everything is a construct, being constructed each moment from a convergence of causes,
[42:28]
And each thing in the world is an example of this convergence of causes. That bell is an example of the convergence of causes. And that's a convergence of causes. Including all your ability to hear it. Now it's more obvious that that dissolves. But the bell Also, as you keep looking at it or seeing it, dissolves as well. The bell's still here.
[43:37]
But your relationship to it, thinking of it as a bell or a teacup or whatever... is all appearing and dissolving. Now I'm presenting this sort of as a kind of scientific fact. But, yeah, that's convenient if Buddhism agrees with science. But more important is that it is as a wisdom practice. Feeling yourself with deep satisfaction and joy into this reality. Joy and? Satisfaction. So what continues our karma is also the functioning of the alaya-vijnana to supply the sense of continuity and duration.
[45:25]
But through wisdom practice we know this moment is very short. And it's actually reappearing in each moment. So in each moment there's the possibility of freedom. And so what reifies our karma? Dual perceptions. Every time you perceive conceptually or perceptually dualistically. Okay. Every time you make a subject-object distinction. Every time you see self and other. You continue your karma. It's really that simple. Your consciousness made your karma. Karma is primarily conscious acts.
[46:38]
And karma is created through dualistic perceptions. You have an extraordinary opportunity in each moment. That's why the moment of death is so important in Buddhism. Because at the moment of death you can transform a lifetime of karma. So at any moment you can transform a lifetime of karma. The Bodhisattva is just somebody who says, why wait till I die? Now, I'm going to say one thing here.
[48:01]
There is no such thing as a totally non-dualistic state. You can't have non-dualism without dualism. So we're always, in fact, all of us, the Bodhisattva too, is establishing a dualism. But what the Bodhisattva does is then dissolve the dualism. So if I'm talking to Nico, I can have a simple telegraphic mantra. as I'm talking to Niko, I can feel, dissolve the self-other distinction.
[49:06]
And it's surprising how such a short wisdom instruction When practiced, can also suddenly change the way a relationship feels. Yeah, now I find myself in Dusseldorf. I had to talk much about the same thing, and now I see it. But we can't proceed with a simple understanding of in what world our hope and trust in our hope, love and trust in Buddhism Unless we also see that Buddhism sees everything as a construct.
[50:07]
I didn't get the first thing right. Hope, love and trust can't really be understood in Buddhism unless we see the way Buddhism sees the world as a construct. Then we can ask ourselves, if we're deconstructing, if we're dissolving everything, through the practice of the One, or through seeing everything as mine, if we're constantly constructing and dissolving the constructs, what is the function of faith, trust, love?
[51:22]
What is that is? What is the function then in such a world? Okay, so I just threw some more ingredients in the soup. The soup we all trust and love. since we're all swimming in it. And I think that's enough before dinner. So let's sit for a few moments. And thank you again for translating. So each moment right now is being constructed.
[52:41]
And we're going to add to this construction with the bell. How do we know this is really a wisdom practice? And not just candy or delusion. And not just candy or delusion. or just one more path among many paths?
[53:46]
How do we trust this practice? How do we trust ourselves? And each other here in this group, this seminar together. How do you trust what is happening to you just now? Can you bring this kind of trust and attention to what's happening to you right now?
[55:01]
I think you can. I trust you can. Is it because I love you? Is it because I trust you? But I trust you can. And I trust I can. This is how we begin.
[56:06]
With each new breath. Thank you very much.
[57:12]
Thank you very much. Especially thank you. I think it gets harder to translate later in the day. Oh, it's okay. Thank you, Kai, for playing the didgeridoo last night in Zazen.
[58:31]
I felt I was in shamanic heaven. You can't be here for every period of zazen. But those sounds also have some power of staying within us even when we don't hear them. It's always rather sad for me to do a seminar with you because I don't get a chance to get to know each of you well enough. I see you and I feel your presence and I think, ah, there is a friend, but this afternoon you all split.
[59:44]
So I have to make Buddhism as attractive as possible so you come back. It's working. And I also feel it's such a short time. We can't really do justice to this extraordinary these extraordinary two words. But one wonderful thing happened as I discovered a new translator. You're supposed to be selfless and just translate whatever it is.
[61:04]
She was quite uncertain about translating. But at the same time she had some strange confidence that at least she should definitely try. So it's nice because her father is one of my best translators. And Gerald. And there are several others. And there are other people too, but they don't have the time or opportunity to translate. Well, it certainly makes a big difference that I can feel and say something, which for me is at the upper limits of my own English.
[62:08]
And have someone able to translate it so I can feel an understanding coming back. You know, and I've had, I experienced one, I experimented once, and I've told you this, some of you this before, with a group of people who speak English very well. But when I only taught in English without, spoke in English without a translation, I couldn't feel them understanding. So I didn't know what to say next. They seem to have heard the English with their minds, but they didn't feel it with their bodies as they do German. So even when I speak
[63:18]
If ever German well, I still will have a translator. I can guess what she's saying. I just translated. Maybe I emphasize it. I could feel the emphasis. But when Russell Smith was here, who had been the director at Crestone, he liked the pace of being translated so well. He thought, when I speak in America,
[64:37]
In English, we should have somebody who translates into some... Into some Eskimo dialect. Eskimo dialect. Now what we've accomplished so far, at least what I've discovered for myself, is that Christian love is a practice. It may be given freely, unconditionally by God, but the realization of it and manifestation of it seems to me to be a practice.
[66:01]
I think of a Christian friend of mine and I use a friend in particular. I use an example of a friend in particular because I think that to really understand trust and love we have to have been trusted and loved. Or we have to find the instances, and there must be some instances in us, the instances in us of having been trusted and having been loved. And I think that the image of Buddha and the image, understanding of God have to be part, some kind of ideal example has to be part of our developing understanding.
[67:43]
And let me remind you again of the simple dialogue in the posture of accepting your posture and being informed by Buddha's posture. You can only accept your posture in relationship to Buddha's posture. At least that dialogue is what makes it a practice. So I looked to a person I know well enough who's Christian to see his practice. And When I'm, say, visiting him, there is a palpable feeling of Christ or love present.
[69:14]
I mean, how can I explain what it's like? He appreciates the moments we have together. He really feels it. And he appreciates the light on the table. And he appreciates the table sitting on the floor. It's almost like it's surprising that the table is sitting on the floor so nicely for us. We feel so lucky to have this table connecting us. It's almost like he feels somehow this was supplied to him by God, I guess.
[70:46]
So there's some feeling every little thing is a gift. He can get annoyed about things. But he's always starting from it's a gift. It's a good starting point. And what is the effect on me or others who know him? There's some centering quality as a kind of locative effect. meaning a locating effect.
[71:52]
Locative is a grammatical case in English, but it means when time and place come together. Yeah. And you feel some kind of coming together of time and place. As if you were at the center. It's almost kind of intoxicating. And this feeling is, I would say, the same, as I understand it, as the feeling of thusness in Buddhism.
[73:04]
That there's a palpable, tactile, sensate, I don't know what words to use, It's a test for her. Inclusive and yet absolutely unique to the situation. Presence. It's almost like everything that happens out there is almost non-existent. Except in his case for the many friends he keeps actively in touch with. But the world sort of disappears. News, you don't know what century you're in. Somehow great time and no time merge.
[74:05]
Great time is an anthropological idea that there's the time of kind of mythological time. of the basic views that influence us in our mundane moment-by-moment time. And then there's what we know in practice as a kind of timelessness or no time. Or stopped time. And there's that feeling, there's a kind of stopped time and a feeling of being in a great time, which could be any period. The first time I experienced this with a person and it was induced by another person.
[75:28]
When I was about 20 on my walkabout. Sounds good. Except it was a Not a walkabout, it was a sailabout, because I worked on a ship for two years. But in every port I walked about. And this was in Iran, in the Near East, on the Persian Gulf. And there was some man named Shukrila Ali who I spent every afternoon with on a table over the dusty... a kind of platform over the dusty... no street.
[76:29]
And he'd... And he'd always send his son to get me a Pepsi Cola. And there was always a kind of group of people. Maybe he was a Sufi or something. I don't know. But it was some palpable centering that I never forgot. Maybe he was a Sufi. In any case, there was always this... and opened me to my teacher, Suzuki Roshi. And it's a very similar feeling I have with this Catholic friend of mine. So thusness has this quality, of no external coming and going, but a kind of constant centering.
[77:51]
And, as I said, inclusive but absolutely singular. It's almost like You don't want to get up from it. You don't want to leave the situation. Rather like lovers don't like to leave their embrace. So you feel somehow embraced by the quality of every situation. And we could define a bodhisattva as one who establishes each situation in thusness. So I asked myself, how does my Christian friend, how does he get there?
[79:12]
Because I feel, you know, often us Westerners in Judeo-Christian culture, I think we see love as something we want to be loved and we want everyone to be lovable. We want a teaching that makes everyone lovable. But for him, I would say that he had a conceptual understanding of the unconditioned love of God. And out of his own caring for others and the world and Christianity, he took it upon himself every moment
[80:17]
on every occasion, on every object, and with every person, to practice unconditioned love? That would be my answer. Maybe I should ask you. That's what I feel and know from being with him. And what's the experience for him? I think he feels let down into not let down in a psychological sense, let down into what seems to be a kind of profound relaxation.
[81:42]
That everything is all right. And around himself, at least, he's going to create a situation where everything is all right. If you need tea, paper, a better cushion, whatever, he's always feeling it, thinking it. Kissen? I'm just teasing. It's Ü, not I. If you need tea, paper, kissing. Our friendship doesn't go that far. It still feels like an embrace though.
[83:00]
So it's like this practice of what I see in him, maintaining the one without wavering. Yeah. Now, it does seem that this Christian love, as much as I can understand it as a Buddhist, is to some extent a profound extension of parental love.
[84:02]
And we do speak of our Father who art in heaven and so forth. And Jesus is God's child. And I think we are each God's child as Christians. So I'm saying this not because I think this is right or something. I'm saying it to suggest that the overall image you have of what your world is in a spiritual sense Influences how you experience the world, of course. And how you express yourself. Okay, now what would I say about Buddhism in a similar way? I would say that strictly speaking, compassion in a karuna, in a Buddhist sense, compassion, karuna is a term.
[85:33]
Yeah. It's also the name of Kaz Tanahashi's daughter. Karuna is not an extension of any usual feeling we have. And Hinduism was more just a term for being... aware of and responsive to people's suffering. In Buddhism, it's a way of knowing the world realized through meditation. And realized in particular through the realization of emptiness.
[86:40]
And if it is connected with say parental love I would say it's connected actually with parental attention. Because Buddhist compassion is more to feel with, to feel along with others. To be ready to help, but to more... more... more... Engagement is to feel with, not try to help. There's a word in Chinese, I believe, for love, which means to watch.
[87:56]
It's particularly used for the way a parent loves their child. You watch what they're like and you're there for them. But you've got to let them be separate from you. And eventually you have to let them go and do their own life. So compassion has some, I think, as I understand it and experience it, has more this feeling of being present for and with maybe active empathy, not active love. We have to say it again, I think. Active empathy more than active love.
[89:10]
Yeah. Now, in the individual, I don't think it makes so much difference whether it's one or the other in the way they behave. But it's when it's extrapolated societally creates a somewhat different idea of what society should be. And the fundamental way you try to help another person is to create in yourself the mode of mind or being, that would help them.
[90:13]
So there's this kind of dialectic in the practice of compassion. Yeah, so I would like to have some reports or comments from yesterday's groups. I gave you all warning yesterday afternoon that you should prepare yourself. Ich habe euch alle gestern schon gewarnt, dass wir euch darauf vorbereiten. But you're waiting for someone else who's prepared.
[91:18]
Wir warten auf den anderen, der sich vorbereitet hat. You lazy dogs. Ihr Frauenleute. All good. You're always ready. Ein Thema in unserer Gruppenreise ist, Non-subject in our group was that we said we speak of trust, but there is this wish that we want to speak about love. Can you hear her, Molly? Can you hear her? Yes. Okay. Yes. Then we spoke about the word term trust. that trust as such doesn't exist.
[92:27]
It's always directed towards something. I don't sit there in trust. I trust that something's going to work out or that somebody doesn't hurt me, things like that. No, that's good. It's particular. That was the discussion. And I see that way we discussed about it. Then we asked ourselves if trust and acceptance is the same. So what we think with acceptance is that in the situation either we have to say yes to it or we can't change it anyway. And both isn't meant. So then we asked us, what does acceptance actually mean?
[93:39]
Then we discussed your example from the person who was clinging there on this cliff. And then it was my question yesterday, what does trust mean in this kind of situation? Then he said that he has to really accept the situation. Then he got real clear. And we asked if the fact that he accepted his situation, was that already trust? Or did it mean he accepted the situation and then had trust that he'll find the exit? Then the question is, is trust in accepting identical?
[94:47]
And I added an example which is very close to me in Germany. So if I speak about really awful situations, Germany is also the history of Judaism. I'm always touched by this subject. To what can a person in a situation like that can give trust? They can only have trust that it has an end somehow. Or there is trust that you really accept that it's just like that now in this situation. Maybe we should hear some others and then I will try to respond to some of the things you brought.
[96:17]
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