I'm sorry I'm such an old cripple. I feel like I'm 90. If this is what it feels like, I hope not only live to 89. I knew somebody when they were 90. He wrote a letter to a friend of mine and said, I feel just like a young man with something wrong with him. Hmm. awfully big space here, but tomorrow we can change that.

[01:05]

I'd like to sit in your laps, actually. It's easier for you to move than me. So I would like to start. Hi. How are you? Good. I'd like to start with some reports, but not lengthy, just brief reports on your discussion. We would like to start We tried for quite a long time what it means to sit with the mind with the body You didn't find a real answer.

[02:07]

Then after a while the theme came, the wisdom of not knowing. And suddenly the feeling in the group was very relaxed. Oh, good. There was this feeling that there is... Can you say that in small steps? Yes. We felt that the answers for all these questions

[03:14]

couldn't be found through concepts. They are more or less inside ourselves, like sleeping or so, and then sometime will come up and wake up. In the end, we felt very good. This is wonderful. So I would like to treat this more as a discussion, so I don't wait till the end. I think, it seems to me, you implied that the answers to these questions can only be reached, felt, through long familiarity.

[04:47]

And after a while you say, well, Well, of course I'm sitting with body and mind. What else could I be sitting with? But what is this sitting with body and mind? And after a while we can feel it better. Now, you all know what sleeping is. My hope, anyway. Some people have a lot of problems. But if someone asked you what sleeping is, it's not too easy to answer.

[05:51]

How am I supposed to know I fell asleep? Or are you sleeping within the mind or sleeping within the body? So, I mean, you would notice that if you were dreaming a lot, seems to be sleeping perhaps more in the mind. If you develop a posture of sleeping, then you can find how you sleep in a particular posture. Once I was in a conference, I think, in Bremen. And there was a Chinese woman, a sort of 55, 60-year-old elegant Chinese woman.

[07:06]

And she'd left China when she was 19, if I remember. And after I talked for a while, Afterwards she said, She doesn't know quite what reminded her, but she remembered when she was young, she was taught different postures to sleep in. To sleep? To sleep in. Okay. Women were supposed to sleep in different postures than men. And some postures were considered healthier than others. And this we don't have much teaching in this way. In fact, being a young parent, there's a lot of books nowadays that say parents should not sleep with the baby.

[08:34]

Because the parents will crush the baby. Denn die Eltern zerdrücken das Kind. This is a very unconscious idea about sleeping, I think. Das ist eine sehr unbewusste Idee vom Schlaf. Or will stunt its emotional development. Ah ja, dass die emotionale Entwicklung stauchen oder behindern. I think it helps its emotional development. Yeah, you don't want to. Let you spoil the baby with too much attention. It should learn to individuate. Individuate. It says now, by the year 2000, even 12% of parents sometimes sleep with their baby. Until recently, Sophia has never slept alone.

[09:48]

It's so cozy and nice. But she's beginning to individualize. Okay, so now you sleep by yourself. And she seems to like it better. Someone else. Yeah. So we had different aspects, but one aspect or problem came up. Can you just sit without studying and texts and without being taught, without teaching?

[10:58]

Without any teacher. This is a question which comes up in the group and we decided to ask this. You should ask somebody who's not a teacher. Well, I certainly couldn't have practiced without a teacher. I would have had a lot of ideas that would have led me this way or that way. And I wouldn't have... You know, for us... Yeah, no, I don't remember, but... You know, but for several years anyway, I did absolutely nothing when I sat.

[12:08]

I don't think I would have had the confidence to do that unless I'd had the experience of knowing Sucreus. And in many ways, it's a kind of apprenticeship. And I picked up a feeling for practice from Suzuki Roshi. That I never could have imagined, actually, without him. Because this world of sitting is different from all other worlds. And I had to see it, the difference in him. I would have had some idea. I would have tried to make my sitting into some world I knew. Anyway, for me, it would have been impossible.

[13:25]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay? Something else. And behind the idea that you can sit by yourself and teach yourself is an idea of a sort of natural man. Or a natural realization. Well, there's some truth to the idea of a natural realization.

[14:32]

Some people do have realization experiences without practicing Buddhism. For example, Protestant conversion experiences are very... phenomenologically similar to enlightenment experiences. How would you translate this? Conversion? And William James, the philosopher, has chronicled a lot of these phenomena. Protestant conversion experiences. But the context in which they happen turns them into Protestants, not Buddhists. As I've often said, I think a lot of artists are, you know,

[15:33]

their painting and writing is working back toward the enlightenment experience. But they only know how to reach this or repeat this, taste it again, through their writing and painting. And they don't make it their life. And it's taken 2600 years for a Buddhism to develop, how to make it our life. Sorry, what do you mean the artist and writer don't make it to their lives?

[16:51]

Don't make the experience their life. They just keep bringing the experience back to writing and painting. Okay. So the artists and writers don't make the deep experience of their lives, but bring their writing and painting back to this experience. They don't know what happened, or they are not aware that this was kind of, sort of, what Buddhists would call an enlightened experience? Well, not till recently. I mean, that until recently, of course, At least they would never have thought of it as anything to do with Buddhism.

[17:55]

Nowadays they might. And I think one of the best examples of it is a little-known poet in Europe, but a pretty famous woman poet in America, named Elizabeth Bishop. And she clearly had at the dentist's office what I would call an enlightenment experience. And she calls it, the poem is called The Waiting Room, I think. I could show it to you if you're interested. And Ezra Pound and other poets keep coming back to certain phrases, often phrases with a lot of light in them. And I'm sure it's, you know, various ways to touch their enlightenment experience.

[19:03]

But this idea of a natural man is very pervasive in our culture. In recent years, this recent century, one of the main proponents of it in architecture was Le Corbusier. And there's a building around here somewhere that he designed. But he thought there was some kind of primordial man... prior to culture that you should build all buildings for. So he developed a whole architecture based on this primordial man which was universal in all cultures.

[20:11]

And of course, one of the obvious things he forgot was disabled people. Yeah, he only thought of abled people. Yeah, but it also is true, he wasn't a very tall man. And it happens that all his ceilings are rather low. Yeah. And he had... He also designed balconies, for example. There's a big, huge house in Berlin, and you cannot enjoy the view because it's just built for tall people. Oh, Le Corbusier did? Yes, and people start now to cut off, to get off one layer of bricks, but they're not allowed to do that, and so the city is watching that, and they have to rebuild this. Is this an early building he did, a brick building?

[21:32]

Well, not brick, just to get the layer off from the balcony, from the wall, so that they have the view out of the window. Can you say that in German? Yes, in Berlin there is a big house and it was constructed with cost and everything. Maybe he wanted everyone to peer over the edge like him. But he had no idea of a Japanese house, which is entirely based on a different pace of being alive. Okay, someone else? My feeling with this text is... I think it's a big, big help for sitting and it's almost like a manual to sit.

[22:47]

help to be aware about and with the sitting. Good. I think so too. And also to show all these different aspects of sitting. Yeah. Okay. Anyone else? Yeah. Yeah, thanks. A small part of our discussion. And one of the questions came up, what is the relationship of this text to our everyday situation and life? Is it really only about sitting in the Zendo? Initially. I mean, you don't think you can walk around in the kitchen as Tenzo and say,

[24:13]

Cooking within cooking? I don't think that I can walk around as the main cook of the kitchen and say, do I cook within cooking? It wouldn't be very fruitful. It wouldn't be very... Paul was here, we had a seminar, he asked us questions, When Paul was here in his seminar he asked us the question, Where does sitting begin? Is it when we enter the Zendo? Is it when we sit down? And this feeling I had with these questions comes up when I read this text. Is it sitting within sitting? Well, Dogen means it to be really exploration while you're sitting still.

[25:18]

Dogen begreift es als At the very moment of sitting, blah, blah, blah. But it's true. One reason we don't, you know, just have bells announce Zazen. That we don't have? Yeah. Like in a school. We do have. I mean... You know, and then we all rush into the sender, you know? There's a kind of sequence of the roll down and so forth. All of that is meant to... you know, bring you into sitting before you're in the zendo.

[26:23]

Okay. The same. Was it the same group like Argosch? And in the German language there is this, the saying, to sit, how do you translate this? In English it's said wholeheartedly. Without holding something back. That's translated into, without holding something back.

[27:23]

That's how it's translated into German? We had the same talk about it, and it's not quite the same the way it's translated, I think. Do you have wholehearted in ...? Aus ganzem Herzen, yes, we do. But I like the German word. And I would like you to maybe say more about it. And I'm working with the question about trust, and I would like to know if there's a relationship towards trust within these words. Of course. Yeah, unfortunately I don't know what the Japanese is, but wholehearted in English, and I understand Dogen at this point, this word.

[28:36]

He means with the fullness of your feeling which cares and accepts and trusts. And of course, any such attitude is always an experiment. Because can you really trust? I mean, you know, sometimes we're betrayed. But we start out with a basic trust. And I think this is... You know, I think probably Eric Erickson, pretty well known...

[30:06]

psycho-analyst-therapist. Is he known in Europe at all? He was a friend of mine. I liked him a lot. Very sweet man with a marvelous wife. Anyway, I think it was his idea that basic trust, or he was one of the persons, basic trust is established when you're a child, when you're an infant. And if you don't have that established, then you've got a lot of practice work to do to overcome your habit of mistrusting.

[31:12]

But if you have basic trust, even as a child, you're real confident in the world. You might be very careful, but you don't think of the world as dangerous. And people are dangerous. So it helps if that's the way you've grown up. But if you're not, then you get some good practice work. To over and over again try on trusting. Okay, someone else? Yeah. In our group there were several points we had talked about, and one was that we saw this text as a map for the inner path.

[32:25]

and this map shows us certain points that we can explore but also with the suggestion that we should not make concepts out of it. It's more that we have to let go of these concepts if we want to continue on this journey. It was one aspect and the other was what results or what effects does this practice have in our everyday life and situation. And this aspect came very strongly because Dogen is pointing very strongly towards sitting.

[34:09]

Yes. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Perhaps we could take his emphasizing sitting too strongly. Because I think it's also possible to... I would hope you'd have some taste of sitting and some experience, but you don't have to explore the whole path just through sitting. It may be that we experience this aspect of sitting too strongly, but I hope that we get a feeling and a taste of it. And what was the very last part? You don't have to explore the fullness of practice primarily only through sitting. But often, you know, Dogen is an example. Thich Nhat Hanh is an example.

[35:12]

It's by the latter part of their life that they conclude that only monks can do the practice. Because simply for most lay people you practice with them for many decades and they just don't make the kind of commitment that you make when you are ordained. So they end up wanting to spend time with those people who really are committed to the path. On the other hand, Suzuki Roshi sounds ordinary, but it's actually a powerful observation insight. Here in the West, we're a different kind of monk and a different kind of layperson.

[36:43]

We're a kind of mixture. And he was, and I am too, committed to lay practice as well as ordainment. And I don't think I'll change just because I might get old. I'm planning anyway to get old. Okay, someone else? Yes, we had a question.

[37:48]

What does the... What does the... What does the sentence mean, to jump over the heads and outsiders, silos and demons, to jump? Non-Buddhists. And people who criticize... practice and say this other way is better and so on. And demons means those people in a culture who really want to destroy what's good in a culture or something like that. And there were a lot of in Dogen's time there was a lot of

[38:49]

They didn't have the belief that we have in the superstition we have that there are no ghosts. They didn't have the belief that there are no ghosts. Or superstition. So they had more in general in those times, more of a feeling that there was a presence of forces in the world and in your house and in the society and that refers to that too. The clackers may well be meant to drive demons away. As in some ceremonies which I do, I put my hand in my sleeve and I snap my fingers, and that's supposed to get rid of the demons.

[40:03]

It always works. Do you see any demons around here? No. Now, how many groups did you divide up into? two people in each group now. Yeah, and I don't expect right now everyone to speak, but I hope during this week you realize this is such a small group, we really should all participate in the discussion. You know, I don't do this, but, you know, in Zen there's a tradition of simply pointing at somebody, often during service, and say, express your understanding of Zen.

[41:25]

You're always expected to be... not coasting, hoping these things don't happen. And sometimes in the middle of the service, the roshi just turns around and sits down. And it just starts a question and answer ceremony. And five or six people have to come up and bow in front of him and say something, and he answers. And then they get back up and finish the service. So I can at least expect all of you to participate in the discussion.

[42:31]

Okay. If I sit in a Sesshin, I often see and realize that everybody is concentrated on his or her body and more like enclosed. And sometimes it happens that when I concentrate on my breath, something like concentrated something happens that is somewhere around my shoulders and head,

[43:34]

And I have the feeling that many of the people in the room are within this denseness And in the text it says to sit in the body and sit in the mind, and has this something to do with the saying? Well, your experience, if you sit in the body without thinking, or you sit in the mind without thinking, the posture of the mind, the body begins to show us aspects of body and mind which we can't think.

[44:56]

No, I could... Petra shared this experience with us. But in general, if you hear about such experience, you can't kind of produce it. The best you can do is not interfere with it. But if it does happen to you, you can begin to know the bodily feeling that generates this feeling. Anyway, this kind of experience is okay. And it quite well may be the case that others feel included. So you have to be very nice to them.

[46:06]

And I also feel that this feeling is very pleasant. And if I try to produce it, it doesn't work. That's the way it is. Okay, yes. I have a question come up and I'm sorry that my German is not perfect. Yeah, I'm sorry, mine isn't too. It took me a while, mine is also not perfect. During this discussion I felt that I am free here. During the discussion I had the feeling I'm a stranger here. And I also feel a stranger in Poland. My parents are German and I have German papers, passports.

[47:24]

My body feels like parted. Sometimes I feel I'm being on this side and sometimes on the other. That's it. Thank you.

[47:43]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_75.31