So there's many things that I would like to say to you. But I have to speak them. And speak Speaking them means that I can't just say what I want to say. I'm causing translation problems. But I can only say what I can speak. And I can only speak what you let me speak.

[01:01]

Because speaking is an interactive process in which you are mentally discussing with me as I'm speaking. In other words, there's no magic in what I'm doing. Uh-oh, maybe there's a lot of magic. I hope there's a lot of magic. But there's no particular magic in textual magic I'm bringing you. We would never say in yogic culture, in the beginning was the word. Although that's probably a very simplified translation. But we accept that translation.

[02:08]

Many people do. Yes. But what I can speak is the only thing that really means anything. What I want to say may mean something to me if I practice it. But it has meaning for you and I if I can speak it and we can practice it. So in every lecture I'm trying to find out what I can speak out. I'm speaking in this way to try to give you a feeling for yogic culture.

[03:11]

Because you're here, you're here because you're involved in a cultural transformation, whether you know it or not. And you might run away from it. No, please don't. It's nice that you're here right now. But because a cultural transformation which we find ourselves part of, if we actually find ourselves part of it, we may leave part of us behind. We may leave part of our culture behind. But it's not like we're exactly... It's not like... Because we are involved in a cultural transformation...

[04:39]

It is already our culture. To be part of a transformation is to be part of a transformation. So you have to kind of make a decision. Do I cut off the part that's transforming? Or do I cut off the part that's asking to be left behind? Or do I trust that if I don't cut off the part that's transforming, that transformation will leave nothing behind? And that's what I've always discovered.

[06:20]

That I think I'm changing and I'm leaving things behind. And then I find the things I left behind are in front of me in a new and more inclusive way. Dann bemerke ich aber, dass die Dinge, von denen ich dachte, dass ich sie zurücklasse, plötzlich wieder vor mir finde, aber nun auf eine andere Art und Weise. The way I'm speaking right now is characteristic of an oral culture. Diese Art und Weise, wie ich jetzt spreche, ist Kennzeichen von einer mündlichen oder Because the way I'm speaking, the conceptual syntax of how I'm speaking is to take an idea

[07:25]

Or a concept. And fold it several ways. Part of you left behind, part of you transforming. These are concepts which I'm folding back and forth. If I was writing this, I wouldn't have to do it this way. Because, yeah, writing is a different mind. I have to speak here to your body apprehending. So I have to establish something and then on the basis of that change it a little.

[08:34]

Now what I'm speaking about also and trying to give you an example of in speaking Is it Buddhism and very specifically in Zen? We try to... Zen is a successful so far attempt To combine an oral and a literate culture in the present day. The unbelievably good example of it It's what's called in Japanese kirigami.

[09:47]

Gami is paper and kiri is to cut. So it's a cut paper tradition. Because in the transmission process of teacher to disciple, the disciple can take notes, and the teacher has notes. But the teacher never gives the notes to the student, and the student doesn't pass his notes on to his student. But he does show his notes to his teacher, And the teacher decides whether he's got it right or not.

[11:04]

And then if he does, or she does, he signs it. So it's an oral tradition which is also carried on paper. But it can only be understood and passed on orally. So it has the vitality, too, of an oral tradition and some of the meticulousness of a written tradition. But a different kind of detail comes in an oral tradition than a written tradition. Yeah, you can feel it.

[12:05]

I mean, the example I often use is if you are chanting in the morning... And you know the chant pretty well. But you don't know it perfectly, so you decide to refresh yourself by reading it. Well, it's actually a little bit difficult to shift from chanting to reading. And it's a different mind that reads than chants. And when you try to shift back, stop reading and go back to chanting, Chanting depends on the word just appearing.

[13:19]

You can't think it. And when they, you know, measure the brains of people singing or speaking, The brain lights up in a very different way when you sing than when you speak or read even the same text in all three ways. Now, this morning, I hope our neighbor doesn't mind my speaking about him. Anyway, our local grocer came to our Kinderfest and decided to join us in meditation.

[14:30]

And this morning I spoke to him when he was about to sit down in zazen for the second period. And I have a lot of sympathy for people when they first start. And a certain amount of amusement, too. For those of you who have seen the movie Enlightenment Obscured, I mean Guaranteed, The face of the Japanese monk as he watched this Westerner try to do the Oryoki is, you know, Wonderful.

[15:53]

When we showed it here, people said, rewind it. Let's watch that monk's face again. Now, it's interesting. One of... one of Deshimaru Roshi's successors, teachers. I've gotten to know quite well. And he's a little nonplussed and perplexed by the fact that Deshimaru Roshi's, for the most part as far as I can tell, didn't teach Oryoki. that Deshimaru, as far as he knows, did not learn this Oryoki.

[16:57]

So I know Deshimaru Roshi a little bit So he had his way, and it seems to have worked quite well. But Suzuki Roshi, for some reason, was really clear that he had to introduce the body culture, yogic body culture, in the West. And I don't, there's no way to do that really unless we have a place like this or in Sashins. But I Yeah, so that's what we're doing here.

[18:10]

That's one of the main things we're doing here. And I feel sorry for you. You have to chant all this stuff you don't understand. And I asked us to take out the Sandokai the other day. Because I said, we might as well ask people to be chanting Arabic. We may be converting everyone to Muslim religion. They don't even know it. Is this Islamic? Oh, is that what this group is? Yeah. But, you know, from my point of view, it could be Arabic. I don't care. The meaning of it is irrelevant to me.

[19:13]

I have no magic attached to the Sandokai or the Daishandarani or anything. But I'm committed to this Oral body culture. And I'm simply not smart enough to figure out how to change everything. And it takes a long time before we can find way of doing these things in German and English that really is rooted in the body.

[20:14]

And now what I'm commenting on also is Dogen's saying in that text you were given. We must use speech, action and thought. To engage our life with others. That's body, speech, and mind. Das ist Körper, Rede und Geist. Or that's the Eightfold Path, the beginning of the Eightfold Path. Oder das ist der Anfang des Achtfachen Pfades.

[21:27]

Thought being views and intentions. Excuse me? Thought being views and intentions. Thought is... Thought, Dogen says the word thought. Yes. And by that he means mind or he means views and intentions of the Eightfold Path. Also wenn Dogen... And act, by action he means... Sorry, maybe I said it wrong. You repeat it again. Oh, thanks. And by action he means conduct, precepts, so forth. And by speech he means speech which engages the body. And by richtigem sprechen, darunter versteht ihr sprechen, das den Körper mit einschließt.

[22:42]

Body, speech and mind means mind is body and speech, speech is body and mind and so forth. Körper, Rede und Geist bedeutet Körper ist Reden und Geist und Geist ist Körper und Reden und so weiter. Each one is an expression of the other two. So here's this very sweet guy who's decided to come to Zazen in the morning. Or at some ungodly but Buddha-like hour. der zu unchristlicher, aber buddhistischer Uhrzeit hier aufgetaucht ist. When we get up early, we say in English, that was an ungodly hour I had to get up at. Do you say that in German? No. We say unchristian hour. Unchristian hour, yes. Well, this is a Buddhist hour, but another.

[23:43]

You've got it, everyone understands. I don't, but everyone else does. Okay. Okay. So here's this guy who walks in here and it's all dark and these strange people are sitting around in odd postures. And he's seen us in the grocery store looking like normal people, you know, buying things and smiling. Now I walk by him with a funny stick. I can remember when I first went to his end to myself, you know, I went in his dark room and everybody... Didn't know what to do. So he was standing there wondering, how do I get back on this cushion? And so he stands there and thinks about how to, for God's sake, find his way back to this cushion.

[24:55]

And then he watches everyone else do this little dance in front, turning this way and turning that way. So I said, we bow to the cushion. Then we turn around and bow to the room. And he knows English. And then you sit down backwards. And then on your cushion, you turn around on your cushion. Clockwise. Clockwise. And I finished and he said, thank you very much. And he climbed straight onto his cushion. Well, why shouldn't he? I thought it would work, you know. The point is to get onto the cushion.

[25:59]

So he's got the point, he got onto the cushion. But from a Buddhist point of view, that would be like speaking in telegraphic sentences. Or Indians in American cowboy movies. How? Me, Red Arrow. So, I don't know. Okay, so he sat down there. But... It's true, it's true.

[27:03]

I mean, it's not true. So how do I explain it? I mean, Sophia seems to have a big crush on Joshua. And she just walks right up to him and starts kissing him. And he seems to stand there and let it happen. But usually, if we want to kiss someone, there's quite a lot of sentences that come first. Okay. If we want to kiss someone, then we run a whole series of sentences in front of him. You don't just walk up, hey, how about a kiss, please? Or there's a certain behavior that is expected first.

[28:05]

But we haven't had time to teach Sophia that yet. Well, when we bow to our cushion in a way, we're kind of talking to our cushion. Hello, do you mind if I sit on you? Also, das Kissen küssen. Das habe ich noch vergessen. We have kissing cousins, but this is a kissing cushion. Cushion, yeah. Yeah. So it's... I would say... Well, let's take... When I went to school, you know, grammar school, high school and so forth...

[29:49]

You know, the classes started with a bell. There's a bell and then the class ended and then, I don't know, I can't remember, five or ten minutes later, another bell and you're supposed to be in the room. That's entirely a mental signal. The Han is entirely a body signal. And then every minute. And it's so much a body signal that I find myself on the way to Zendo during the third round doing a little dance up to the door, which I try to control at the door.

[31:07]

Walk, walk, [...] and then I get to the door and I try to stop. Walk in calmly. So that for him to get on the cushion was a kind of mental signal. He gets from here to the cushion. But we have a lot of sentences, body sentences, body speaking, that gets us onto the cushion. The oriyoki and the way we do things, it's all a talking, a kind of talking with the physical world.

[32:20]

It's our, when we meet, it's our bowing, stopping and bowing. We don't mentally meet, we physically meet through the bow. Yeah. And... So I spoke... the other day about practices to see yourself in a new light. To see yourself in the light of the mind of Zazen. or the mind of mindfulness which flows, moves with the breath.

[33:29]

Now, As I've mentioned a couple of times, every time I go to Zurich, I'm struck by, this is a Protestant city. I mean, the clocks are half as big as this Zendo. I mean, Catholic culture is bell towers. Protestant culture is clock towers. Catholic culture is an aural, A-U-R-A-L culture. Originally. It's a heard culture.

[34:46]

And the day was rung out in the bell. In a Protestant culture, the day is read out on the face of the clock. And I don't know, I haven't, you know, this isn't something I've tried to look into historically, but I would guess that Protestant culture is very closely connected with Gutenberg and the printed text. And Catholic culture is the script, the written text. But one is written by hand and the other is printed. Oh, okay.

[36:05]

So you have an oral culture and a script culture and a text culture. And the parallel with the recognition of these transformations, these technical transformations, or something like a technical transformation. As Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message. What's parallel to recognizing this is recognizing that consciousness is historical.

[37:07]

In other words, we don't have one consciousness that goes back through history up into the future. Consciousness itself changes, has historical effect, has a history. And we are here because our consciousness is speaking to us of a new history. And we're caught in the middle of that, wondering who we are, who are, who can we be in this new history.

[38:17]

So I'm asking you for this, these 10 days, To notice yourself, particularly during zazen, I say yourself because what else can I say? I don't have a word. Or I can say it may be, notice the non-mind self, or the non-self mind. Without self-image. Ohne ein Selbstbild.

[39:23]

So I'll use your. Notice your mind without self-image. Also ich sage, bemerke dein Geist ohne Selbstbild. And notice your body without a body image. Bemerke deinen Körper ohne ein Körperbild. Or what can I say? When you're in zazen, various things happen. Let's just say you notice your mouth is wet. Or dry or whatever. So don't locate your mouth in your body image, your habit body. Lokalisiere deinen Mund nicht in deinem Gewohnheitskörper oder Körperbild.

[40:29]

Lasse deinen Mund wie eine feuchte Höhle in Raum schweben. Ihr wisst nicht genau, wo er ist, aber irgendetwas ist feucht oder trocken. It's like when you lose your thumbs. Where are those darn thumbs? Das ist so wie die Daumen verlieren. Wo zum Teufel sind denn diese Daumen? They're in the Grand Canyon somewhere. Die sind irgendwo im Grand Canyon. Or then maybe you feel something in your stomach or your arm or your cheekbone. Und vielleicht spürt ihr etwas in eurem Bauch, in eurem Arm, in eurem Backenknochen. Just notice the noticing. Don't notice them in the framework of your image of the body. Wittgenstein says if you draw a circle and you put two dots in it and a straight line and a bottom curve,

[41:35]

It says we can't help but see that as a face. But from a yogic point of view, he's wrong. Somebody put some lines in a circle. What's that about? Or one part of you may notice it's a face. But you must free yourself from it. It's just lines. Now you're at the edge of that. How do we give meaning or take away meaning? What subtle body might we have if we could free ourselves from our body image, habit body?

[42:54]

Welchen subtilen Körper könnten wir haben, wenn wir uns von unserem Körperbild lösen können? What subtle body might we have if we could awaken with the first light with the birds? Welchen subtilen Körper könnten wir haben, wenn wir erwachen könnten mit dem ersten Licht und den Vögeln? What subtle body might we have that overlaps with others. Not that we have, but that we are. So somehow Zen practice is trying to keep the history of the various consciousnesses we've been as part of our practice.

[44:19]

Zen practice... Shall I do it again? Yes, please. Zen practice is conceived... Zen practice is conceived... to be open to the consciousness of the particular culture in which it's in, but not replace the oral, A-U-R-A-L, and oral, O-R-A-L, consciousnesses of our history? Ohne dabei die mündliche und die gehörten Traditionen der Geschichte zu ersetzen.

[45:24]

Yeah, is it because, well, the old way was better? Yeah, well, maybe. Maybe in some ways it had more subtlety. But that's not the point. Better or worse is not the point. Your point is, can we... So this meditation, this sitting down on the ground, learning how to support yourself through your own body and enter into a mind which is not waking or sleeping, or dreaming or non-dreaming, deep sleep, but some new mind we generate, that opens us to the potentials of consciousness.

[46:54]

The potentials of all our minds. Consciousness, non-consciousness, unconsciousness. waking, deep sleep, dreaming. Yeah, it's not about religion, really. In a sense, this is not a belief culture, this is experience. How can we be here to open ourselves to our experience Through our experience. And to trust our experience. And to trust the mind that arises from our experience.

[47:55]

Well, I spoke it the best I could. Also, ich habe so gut ich kann gesprochen. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank. The Lord is with you. I am very happy to give you the opportunity to speak with you.

[49:16]

I am very happy to speak with you. Thank you. Oh, my God. Yeah.

[50:30]

So, Dieter, we'll have one more meeting the morning of the last day? Yeah. Okay. Or we can have some kind of discussion or something. No. Yeah. Let you speak. I'll sit here. You talk. It'll be refreshing. Okay. Okay. So I find that, yeah, there's the specifics of practice.

[52:19]

But those specifics of practice, yeah, they can be like exercises, mental and physical exercises. But they don't enter you into practice. And they're certainly not transformative practice. Unless they are animated, given life by your views and attitudes. And some of us come to practice, and most scientists and scholars who comment on practice, as far as mostly anyway,

[53:27]

I think that Buddhist practice and Buddhist ideas of mind occur in categories they are already familiar with. It may be more of one category than the other, than they're used to. But that it's almost entirely new categories, doesn't occur to them. How could it occur to you? Because all that can occur to you is what you pretty much already know. So, but if someone tells you, hey, this is occurring in rather new categories,

[54:32]

That's already a step. If you get the possibility. And if you get the feeling of one of the new categories, that actually loosens you up to discover your own experience in new categories. Also, wenn ihr sozusagen eine Kategorie einmal begreift, dann lockert das eure Erfahrungen auf für die anderen neun Kategorien. Also, was ich hier mache, während oder... is really the thoroughness that you bring to certain simple ideas. Gewissen. That's a big word in German. Yeah.

[56:14]

It means also some. Some? Like some books? Exactly. Because I hear in Dokusan, gewissen. Well, in Dokusan hear ich doch ab und zu mal das Wort gewissen. So that's what I meant when I said to view yourself in a new light during these ten days. But it all sounds like something we're familiar with so that it's hard to notice that it's different because it's in similar words. But even something you already know, if you bring attention to it in a new way, it transforms it.

[57:16]

In this sense, what I mean by thoroughness is to bring a certain vitality to each of your moments. Now, what I said the other day was that we're involved whether we know it or not in a cultural transformation. But we're not talking about Asia or Buddhism, we're talking about a Western cultural transformation. That is appearing in some individuals ahead of the culture itself. Like some of us are already where our culture is going.

[58:50]

I mean, a little bit like we can see teenagers are often ahead of where our culture is going to in an immature way. Unfortunately, they're usually not mature enough to find this new direction in a deep way. And because we're somewhat ahead of our culture, it's hard for us to notice it in ourselves. But what we can notice is when we turn to our own culture, our own traditions, It often doesn't seem to be where we're at.

[60:07]

We can't seem to get answers that make sense to us from our own tradition. Even from our own personal history, we can't find answers. We're somewhat ahead of our own personal history. We can feel a shell or a skin coming off. But we don't sort of know what to do about it. So some of us decide to sit. And this is what Dogen means when he says, this bodhi mind will only arise through a link with the Buddha.

[61:32]

But what he means is, it will only arise through sitting. Now, some Buddhist schools want you to chant the name of Buddha or the teaching of Buddha as a way of going back to the source of the Buddha. of yourself. But Zen takes the position that the teaching and the Buddhas arose from sitting. So we can enter practice in the most fundamental sense by going back to sitting.

[62:47]

For sitting is the source of the Buddhas, and sitting is the source of coming truly into our own experience. But we've been all been sitting in various ways all our life. And not coming always into our truly into our own experience. So how does this sitting in unconstructed stillness, how is it different from Yes, ordinary sitting and walking around.

[64:03]

Even being able to touch unconstructed stillness is already a big part of it. Now, usually we're in a predictable... This is how I see it. We're in a predictable... Usually we're in a predictable state of mind. Based on our past experience and our anticipated experience. Der darauf beruht auf unseren vergangenen Erfahrungen und auf den Erfahrungen, die wir so vorhersagen.

[65:14]

Ja, and that to me, and again, it's the way I see it. Das bedeutet für mich, und das ist natürlich nur meine Art, das zu sehen. It's like walking around in a big tub of dirty bathwater. Dirty bath water being the mind you've already bathed in over and over again. Sometimes it's warm and cozy, but sometimes it's kind of grimy. So, Buddhism says, don't walk around in the dirty bathwater of the mind. Walk around in the fresh bathwater of each moment. Okay, now this thoroughness also means that you somehow... I say somehow because I don't want to say you do it, because it's not just something you can do.

[66:32]

You somehow find yourself in the fresh, actual uniqueness of each moment. It awakens your vitality to be in such a mind of uniqueness. And it also takes vitality to discover it. Now one of the things I often say is that a truism of yogic culture is that every state of mind has a physical component.

[67:40]

And every sentient physical state has a mental component. Yes, thus it's a way of saying mind and body are inseparable. And it's a way in practice of beginning to realize, discover, you can feel, physically feel, notice your states of mind. Now, this does not mean that the physical component of a state of mind is like a telephone ringing. Oh, I smell, as in Proust, the hawthorn.

[68:54]

Here comes the hawthorn state of mind. Hi, hawthorn mind. And then you forget about the Hawthorn. No, it's more like, or you forget about the telephone ring. It's not part of the phone call anymore. But this is a kind of clumsy analogy, but it's all that appeared to me. While the ring is no longer part of the telephone call, The electricity is part of the ring and part of the telephone call.

[70:05]

So your vitality, let's call it vitality now, is part of everything you do. So ist die Vitalität Teil von allem, was ihr tut. And your vitality is intimately part of your posture, mind, body, and so forth. Und eure Vitalität ist auf innigste Weise Teil von eurer Haltung, Körper und Geist und so weiter. So there's really, in Buddhism, there's no time, oh, I practice in the Zendo, but I don't practice at other times. That, you know, something like that. Real practice that does much, that affects much, is continuous. Yeah, but what is continuous practice? Aber was ist diese unablässige Praxis?

[71:23]

It has to be something that's possible to do continuously. Das muss doch etwas sein, das man auch wirklich ununterbrochen tun kann. Now you can't be in Zazen continuously. Also man kann ja nicht ununterbrochen in Zazen sein. Unless you get a little flat board with skates and get pushed around. Außer man hat ein kleines flaches Brett auf Rädern und wird hin und her geschoben. Give him a push and he goes... So maybe in zazen we're practicing at practice. Excuse me? Maybe in zazen we're practicing, or in the zendo, practicing at practice. Yeah, so practice again is... How robust is how you acknowledge change on every moment?

[72:25]

Practice is that. Is how you acknowledge change on every moment. So I say thoroughness or I say vitality, etc., Now here I am still speaking about this fascicle of Dogen's that Dieter nudged me into. Speech By arousing speech, we arouse bodhi mind. He says, we arouse bodhi mind. Is arouse passive or active?

[73:30]

Active. I'd be nice if it was passive, but I'm afraid it's not. We arouse body-mind. Guru, right speech, right action, and right thought. Now, speech, thought, and action, what does Dogen mean by that? It helps to understand Buddhist thinking to understand what Dogen's thinking are saying. He means speech, action, and thought are expressions of each other. Er denkt, dass gesprochenes Handlung und gedachtes oder Denken jeweils Ausdruck voneinander sind.

[74:45]

And they're also inseparable from each other. Und sie sind auch voneinander untrennbar. So he means tai taju yu samadhi That's good, yeah. And that means mutually joyous samadhi. Okay. And ji-juyu samadhi, another term that's similar, means self-joyous samadhi. Okay, self-joyous samadhi arises from unconstructed stillness. Unconstructed stillness, you could say. It also arises when the mind of non-dreaming deep sleep arises into our life through satsang.

[76:05]

A mind we already are. So this is not different than something you already are. But it's different categories. Whoever told you that the mind of non-dreaming deep sleep should arise in your daily life? It's a potential. It's something that makes us healthy and restores us through sleeping. It's a kind of necessary medicine that sleep delivers. But let's bring that medicine to the surface.

[77:24]

Okay, but still such terms as self-joyous samadhi or mutual joyous samadhi, sound kind of unattainable. But actually, if you practice satsang and you practice mindfulness, you'll notice moments of... non-referential joy, joy that comes up for no reason. If you've had one moment of that in your life, it can be present most of you.

[78:29]

It doesn't mean to only enjoy the green of the grass and ignore the brown grass. That's a Zen saying. We have to see the world as it is. So how do we practice continuously also seeing the world as it is? So I think now I'd just like to speak about the speech part of speech, action, and thought. Why is speech there with action and thought?

[79:40]

Speech seems like a kind of action. then sprechen scheint wie eine Art Handlung oder sogar wie ein Gedanke zu sein. Also es scheint nicht auf der gleichen Ebene zu sein wie Handlung oder Gedanke. You know, they asked a bunch of Americans, some survey might happen in Europe too, they asked Americans, what are you afraid of most? Being in debt, losing your spouse, etc. No, the most common fear was speaking in public. Nein, die größte Angst war, dass man in der Öffentlichkeit sprechen muss.

[80:54]

And you know, the five fears in Buddhism are fear of loss of livelihood, loss of reputation, loss of life, loss of unusual states of, I mean, no, a fear of unusual states of mind, and fear of speaking before an assembly. And that really is, in the end, too, who, how many people can speak out in their culture when the culture is going in a direction that's wrong. How many people can speak out in their own life when their life is going wrong? Now, sometimes, you know, friends and spouses and so forth

[81:54]

are together somehow involved in this cultural transformation, personal transformation, but on slightly different tracks. So they separate, the tracks go off this way. Then a few years later you find, oh, actually you came to the same place and you didn't realize you were, by going different directions, you were coming to the same place. So sometimes friends you lost when you started to practice return as friends again in a new way. And if you're in a sangha, that friendship disappears. can stay on track side by side.

[83:30]

If not, it doesn't have to go in different directions. So coming back to speech, we know that if an infant doesn't learn to speak, Kasper Hauser, he's supposedly someone who didn't learn to speak. Is mentally and physically crippled as an adult. So speech is the catalyst and the guide for the development of the relationship of mind and body.

[84:34]

That's pretty much biologically established. Yes, the development of the relationship between body and mind. So somehow Buddhism through practice recognizes this in the triad of body, speech and mind. And the key role speech plays in the Eightfold Path. So if we can bring our breath and mindfulness into our speaking, Wenn wir unseren Atem und unsere Achtsamkeit in unser Sprechen hineinbringen können, so that we always feel touched by our speaking, so dass wir immer uns von unserem Sprechen her berührt fühlen and in touch with our speaking, you know, if you have a toothache or a headache, it's kind of hard to think clearly.

[86:05]

And it's hard to be in touch with your emotions. And you think, if only this toothache would go away, everything would be fine. And the toothache goes away and everything isn't fine. You hardly notice it. But if your body is constricted or your breath is constricted, you also can't think clearly. So in Buddhism we talk about heel breathing. Heal. Heal, yeah. It means to breathe with the feeling of the breath coming through the heels and the spine.

[87:14]

Now, if you're slouched, your voice... can't find its words. And words can't find their breath. Now, if you just try to talk a nonsense language like, say, imitating Hungarian. If I listen to Akash speak Hungarian, and I tried to add a whole bunch of consonants to English, And I made a whole lot of sounds that sounded slightly Hungarian.

[88:17]

I would run out of possibilities very quickly. Sophia goes by a Chinese couple on a bench and she, for the next few meters, is kind of making Chinese sounds. But her repertoire is quite small. Because the voice seeks words. It doesn't seek sounds, it seeks words. So Akos's voice can find Hungarian words and mine can't. So the voice seeks words and words and voice seek breath. Yeah.

[89:41]

And one of the ways we constrict ourselves is not fully exhaling. We retain a little air as a protective kind of thing. And this might be our last breath. But you don't have to worry. Usually it comes back. There'll be a point when it doesn't, but you won't remember that. So part of practice of body, speech and mind and the key to entering the eightfold path as to some of you, I've spoke about this before, is to bring mindfulness and breath into your speech with the clarity and vitality of the body

[91:08]

So that your voice, your speech is in touch with your emotions. In touch with your feelings. In touch with your body. and touched by what you're speaking about. When you're not touched by what you're speaking about, your language is dead. So this speech which generated was the catalyst of the development of mind and body, the speech which was the catalyst of the development of mind and body, mind and body, becomes the entry point for our practice, where we can begin to feel body and mind and thought as one activity,

[92:40]

In this sense, speech means also thinking. And your thinking becomes muscular. Your thinking becomes physical. And your thinking becomes truthful. As I pointed out, lie detectors work a large percentage of the time. Because it's difficult for the body to lie.

[93:30]

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