It was my idea to try it this way. But it does change everything. It's a whole new group of people I've never seen before. You're supposed to be sitting here. Anyway, we'll try it out and see how it works. Of course I get the good view now. So you have to just concentrate on us. Okay. The nice thing about the winter branches and practice week seminars is I get to find out from you how you felt about the tesho. In the session I'm sort of speaking into the big black hole of Zazen.

[01:05]

Here I get to see you in the afternoon. In this way. So who has something to say? I mean, no, there's no who's in here, I know, but... Which non-who has something to say? Okay, since no one will be first, who will be second? Yes, good, thanks. In our group, in other groups, In our group we try to answer the question What was the question? How does talking or language support our practice?

[02:08]

That was part of the question. and what came out very clearly, quite quickly, is that it means courage. Personally, I could understand that, and the longer we spoke and discussed, The longer we talked about this, the less I could understand it. Could understand the courage or the speaking? That you need courage to speak.

[03:09]

Really? God, lucky I got a little. But what I did find interesting is that we somehow cross a kind of threshold. Normally we talk a lot during the day. but in practice we suddenly have problems talking. But I think it does make a difference how we meet and what the form is of our meeting. And my feeling was that the group supported or confirmed this.

[04:23]

I would like to add something. Because it came up for me during our talking in the group. So the whole thing started that each one said how happy they are at Johanneshof and in the winter branches and in the small groups. That was your small group? Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to know the names of those people. Yeah. I will tell you later. But it's true. It is everywhere. And of course, everyone was very happy with the tea show today.

[05:23]

LAUGHTER What I would like to add to David is the moment of the occasion. So what is in relation to what David said and what came up in our group is that it needs an occasion to meet like this. In this way it works well. But we need this occasion for meeting in this small room. And we need the occasion that you are sitting here listening.

[06:23]

And that we all sit here. And that the dojo is so beautiful. And that the dojo is so beautiful. So everything here is constructed in a way that it works well. Can you write a brochure now? Yeah, that's an issue now. Okay. Oh, Yaoshan. Yeah, so also Yaoshan needs the occasion. And for this occasion, it needs something like kairos in Greek. In addition. Oh, in addition. So both. The occasion plus the right moment. That's kairos?

[07:24]

Yes. Okay. That's what popped up, so I will tell you when there's more. It's true, even in a monastery where everyone's living together and they don't have to drive from all over Europe to get here. The Taisho of the is created as an occasion. They're on special days, specially scheduled days. And the monastic schedule is kind of designed around them. Yes, and then there are special occasions to commemorate something or other that they also will commemorate a special day by a teshu.

[08:32]

Yeah, so, okay. Ah. When David said that in this group it was about needing courage, in our group we said that it was about needing trust, and that trust has developed or grown over the years that we have been coming together here. So when David mentioned it needs courage, in our group we said it needs trust, trusting each other, and that this trust has developed over the years that we come together here. Okay, thanks. I would like to add something. When I compare to what happened in the small groups like 10 years ago and before we started the winter branches Because at that time I didn't like the small groups because it was more like some people

[10:11]

use them to declare or explain their position and to have these ego games, to play these ego games. And what has happened over the years in the context of the winter branches is that what we feared at the beginning, that if they are too large, namely a number of people, they will be allowed in. So what to my mind has happened in these years that we've been coming together in the winter branches, that one fear that we had at the beginning, Too many people come to the winter branches, and of course each winter branch has a different combination of people. I mean the fear was that that would make a problem, but it hasn't made a problem, but instead somehow people encourage or support each other.

[11:53]

And my experience is that no matter which combination of people is in the small group, it's always fruitful for me and for my practice nowadays. a different quality of openness has developed. And trust has grown, so people without hesitation talk to each other. And what comes out of it, as I experience it, is that I always see that some other person addresses something that concerns me very much, or that I then believe that it was already present in me under the threshold, and then another person addresses it. And what happens to me again and again is that in one small group someone says something, and I feel, ah, yes, he is articulating what I've felt, like kind of under the surface, and I couldn't articulate it yet, but this person has said it.

[13:24]

or another person brings in a new perspective and suddenly I can see something much more clearly. Great. I'm preparing for my retirement, you can see. That's wonderful. I can prepare for my retirement. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Do you want to translate yourself? Yes. We took the topic of meeting and how this supports the practice. We took the theme of meeting and speaking and how that supports the practice. And one of the things we discussed was the meeting, breathing together, supported the kind of speaking that developed out of it.

[14:51]

And that there could be a high degree of intimacy, even with people with whom we may not have a social relationship. And the result of it, this is how the praxis is understood. And that also supports the practice a lot. I think, excuse me for continuing to write the brochure, but I think 10 or 15 years from now, Most of us will look back on this as a kind of miracle. A group of lay people can practice together and really be a horizontal sangha. Yeah. Anyway, it's really strangely not been possible because of this funny building we have here in this garden. While we're here, I can't help but think about those miners who were trapped in Chile.

[16:22]

What, 700 feet under the ground? 700 meters or 700 feet? 900 meters. 700 meters. Can you imagine if we were that group and we were 700 meters under the ground with just one little pipe coming down? Yeah, and they have to be there, it looks like, until Christmas, if nothing caves in. I think that if we could replace them, we could just meditate all the time until Christmas. Nowhere to go and nothing to do.

[17:37]

Yeah, exactly. Especially nowhere to go. They're really going to develop some social skills. Meditative skills. Okay, Evelyn? Quite the same. Really? Go ahead. I would like to add one point from the perspective of mutual interpenetration that we experience here so often. The term leaking appeared again which had been discussed in connection with another Quran.

[19:06]

When the world under 20 ascended and descended. From the perspective of interpenetration, either everything is leaking or nothing is leaking. That's why those words were put in the mouth of Manjushri. Yeah. In our group, many of the points that the other groups brought up, we also discussed. We also turned towards silence.

[20:14]

We noticed that it's difficult to be silent and the question is, is it difficult only here in this Sangha? but we feel that this mutual silence is very precious. But at the same time it's very difficult not to be drawn into some talking. as if one had to fill this empty space

[21:28]

Personally, in the last session, I experienced how much it has supported me, also in my practice, about more difficult or less difficult experiences. How much it supported me to just be silent about my experiences, be them difficult or very wonderful experiences. And I can't compare it because a year before I wasn't silent or I hadn't been silent. Because when one shares a room with someone it really needs more discipline not to talk. But to talk in such a situation is not at all helpful.

[22:51]

But talking in these small groups can be very fruitful. But talking in the big group is always difficult and needs courage. Is it difficult right now? In our group, Otmar made a suggestion. Which jumped at me.

[23:57]

How would it be if you were to go to Dachshund without thinking about it beforehand? And a little bit it was like this right now. Yeah, that's the best Dachshund. That was the best Dachshund. Yeah, you know, we've established the habit of custom, rather, of giving reports in the small groups. And I'm perfectly willing to have that happen. But I don't think anymore it's a necessary form we can do it or just speak whatever we feel. And as you point out also, this koan has nothing to do with not speaking.

[25:00]

In fact, it's speaking which gets him to come and ascend the seat. Because the superintendent came and said, the sangha wants you to speak, he had, he really, there's such a teaching about this, he had to go do it. So when the Sangha wants you to speak, it's a kind of command. So he answered the command in a certain way. So it's not about not speaking.

[26:15]

You were going to say something, Paul? It's a certain kind of speaking, not so much a report, but building on the comment that Ravi made and what we discussed in our group. It's a kind of speaking rooted beginning in breath, so it's an expression of breath. Es ist eine Art Sprechen, die im Atmen wurzelt und es ist in gewisser Weise ein Ausdruck des Atmens. And it seems so-called right speech or upright speech. Und es scheint mir sogenannte rechte oder aufrechte Rede zu sein. Is speech rooted in this kind of presence of an upright breath that supports us? What kind of breath we may feel when we chant together in the morning.

[27:21]

And we can have a feeling when we do this. I feel when I do this that what I'm saying in the service is the truth. But it's not about some statement that I'm making or about my own personal structures. My question is, he doesn't say anything, but he doesn't speak very much. When I read the case, I immediately thought of this film, how you, Roshi, enter the ex-ethno, When I read the case

[28:32]

and it said, Yao Shan entered the teaching hall, immediately in my mind I had this image of you, Roshi, entering the center, how you enter the center, how you walk up to the altar, and when and where you pass, and how you offer incense. So my feeling is, when I can observe and notice all that, that's a lot of teachings. Okay. Well, I notice the difference, at least with this case of Mr. Hu, where now, after this long time, it is much clearer to me how much is already inside this physical event. And I noticed this in comparison to the other case of Mr. Who.

[29:56]

Yeah, that's the world-honored one. The world-honored one. Hair Who. That it's such a long time that we talked about that case, and now... I mean, how much different it is for me to imagine this and what I can observe and how I feel about it. For example, in my experience it has become clearer to me how important it is to make pauses, this beat. For example, in my experience it has become much clearer how important the pauses are and that it makes a certain rhythm and how the pauses are the gate to silence or to space This morning when I said the subject of this koan is ascending the seat I imagined somehow in the afternoon the small groups

[31:08]

Would each take turns ascending the seat? To get the feel of it. But one question that is implicit in this explicit in this koan What is the dynamic, not the role, R-O-L-E, but the dynamic of ritual in Zen practice? And what's it rooted in? I know, I mean, what's the difference in ritual now? I said this morning there's some difference in how I do the teisho in the morning and how I less formally do it now.

[32:37]

But now, what is for me the difference... The ritual difference in doing it the way we're doing it right this minute. Last week we had a seminar here about the same number of people in this room. And we've all used this room before. But now what's the difference? It's in effect a ritual difference. Usually I have to come in through you and thread my way through you to get over there. That's a very different feeling. Just coming in here from the door, then it's more like you're an audience.

[33:41]

And when I come here directly from the door, you feel more like an auditorium. Yes, an audience. No, just a listener, a viewer. And when I'm sitting there, you're between me and the door and you may not let me out, I don't know. And you outnumber me. Oh, I forgot I have that door now. But anyway, these are ritual differences. So it's some difference to sit here than to come in through you and then sit. Yeah, someone else. Yes, Tara. But you're sitting in the same place. You sat in the last seminar.

[34:49]

So this is a ritual too. That's the only thing. I sit in the same place. Johannes is still here and the door is still over there. Everything else is different. My feeling is totally different. Then in the last seminar you... For me, Johanneshof and the Sangha are important because of the meeting. I am learning so much more here in the center, in Gassho.

[36:04]

I feel I learn through being aware, in awareness. And for that learning I need the rituals and the ritualized forms here and I need that as much as I need the talking. And nowhere I can learn that by myself. So for me this meeting in the ritual and in the form and in awareness is much more important than the talking.

[37:09]

I thought it might be equal. See, now to go cook is more difficult. I have to go cook, too. I'm sorry. Yes, chef de cuisine. Tenzo Sano. I would like to say something to listening. To hear and to listen. When it is about right speech and speech that can become authentic right in that moment. And it's connected to what Gerhard said and how something changed in the small groups.

[38:54]

And I also think of the situation that we create together during the Taisho. that listening is important as complement to the talking. In that I can also experience interpenetration. The one could not be without the other. And for me it was difficult for a long time to say something. And by training to listen, this also changed.

[40:15]

So you found that by accepting and developing as a listener, you are also able to more easily be a speaker. That reminds me of the situation in Zazen where I also have to listen to myself. And that is also easier when I don't react immediately and add more talking, which also means more thinking.

[41:16]

And listening means to create a large room and to become empty, a large space. Well, there's a technical term that's translated as listeners. So in this practice, the... Participants who aren't doing speaking are called the listeners. And it's a special skill, as you implied, to discover how to really listen. And it's considered that the dynamic of meeting and speaking and how the process of orality works requires a certain kind of listening.

[42:31]

because it is the quality of the listening which draws out the teaching. Yes. I am very much concerned with silence at the moment because it is a very important topic and it is talked about here and there and you also talk a lot about it. I'm much concerned about silence these days. It's in the Quran and you mentioned it. And I also found out in the practice week that there is silence that is not silence and silence that is silence. And in the practice month I found out that there is silence that is no silence and that there is silence that is silence.

[43:59]

And the silence that is no silence is when thinking is always going on. And I would like to talk about my experience this morning in the Sendo. I've had this experience before but not in this density as there are so many people in the center. A group in general always makes me afraid, maybe because it thinks so much, myself included. that this group generated a silence which really touched me and that the amazing thing

[45:31]

was that this silence was held by so many people. a personal conclusion or idea that I had in this context? This world of permanent thinking of which I'm afraid and where there are so many prejudices and I mean I have the same prejudices. that in this wonderful space of silence there is no fear.

[47:07]

Good, thanks. Melita. Many things that you said we also talked about in our group, but I would like to add three things. We said that in the last year there has been a kind of field has developed where we've learned to actively listen. that we can experience and be aware of non-verbal signs without interpreting them.

[48:19]

And the third quality that we all appreciate very much is that in this Sangha one is allowed to speak but one doesn't have to speak. And that Roshi has shown us something all these years, which is at the same time a conflict, because, for example, many good writers have the experience to do it. You can never express an experience exactly in words and yet his encouragement to try it again and again. And that Rashi has shown us an experience that also many writers have, that one cannot exactly put into words one's experience, that it's impossible, but still to encourage us to try it again and again.

[49:22]

Okay, thanks. Yeah, of course. I would like to try to express what in the last years has touched me most and has changed me most I noticed it again in the small group and then also now what several people said in this group Speaking can have different qualities for me speaking or talking can have different qualities.

[50:31]

And one quality of speaking is what I experience as deeply physical and a quality that I also experience as opening up space. One quality is that I experience it bodily, physically and as opening up a space. Both an inner space and a space shared with others in the way we are together and speak together. And I've tried to find out

[51:39]

What is this specific quality compared to other qualities? When I am in the space, it feels like an always unfolding, a permanent process of unfolding myself and unfolding a relationship to someone or even to some material stuff or so.

[53:07]

But it changed my way of being in the world as a permanent creating and unfolding and makes a really lively feeling. It's like a, yeah, it's a, yeah, so. So I experience this as a permanent, to develop me and to develop the relationship to others, and that makes a vitality in me and a vitality in the relationship to others, and that is also what I ... and that has my ... My way of being in the world has completely changed when I go back years and compare it. So his being in the world has changed if he remembers how it was years ago and how he feels now.

[54:28]

like something like that. And I thought just a few minutes ago, it's like rituals somehow like that give me some kind of orientation. Sorry. I wish to translate. Maybe it doesn't have to be translated. Yeah. I mean, is it clear? Totally. Yeah. Well, it's wonderful that we can do this together and have this teaching to explore together. There is someone over here who had their hands up. Oh, okay. I just thought I could just let it go. that these transitions from silence to talking or from moving alone to keeping quiet alone or from keeping quiet together to talking together or from keeping quiet together to talking alone to silence...

[56:27]

The transition from one room to the other, from a silent room inside to a room talking with others, sitting together and hold still together and go in the garden alone, all these transitions they make me very attentive. And this morning tissue you mentioned again, it was mentioned before, and also I was listening to Paul once saying, oh, you must, when you enter a room, you Really, it's nice if you feel what is happening in the room before you have a concept about the room and all this. And I think...

[57:37]

I can understand that. I like to translate, but I can't do it all at once. Can you tell us what I said? Yes, go ahead. As you have heard before, Paul and Hoshi have already said that sometimes a pre-accepted person enters a room and perceives the feeling in this room and lets it come to him what happens in the room. You're translating her German into German? I need a translator into English. I translated what she said into English. Yeah, I understand now. So what I want to say is that what I hadn't noticed before so much that these trends...

[59:10]

These transitions are the difficult points. because very fast the mental stuff can come in, slip in, and immediately there is some preconception and some image, be it about others, about oneself or about the situation. Or how the garden should be in the morning or in the evening. And I might notice my film and what I imagine. And I find that very exciting, because now in the question of whether silence is better than speaking, or speaking is better than silence, or does silence support me better, or does speaking support me better, I don't find that at all ... I mean, I'm supported by both, but because of these overlaps.

[61:01]

So in this question about being silent or talking, which supports more, I don't think that's so important for me, but the transitions between talking and being silent. because in just being silent something could get stuck or in the just talking something could get stuck and the transitions Loosen it up. The attention. The attention to the transitions helps me. The attention to the transitions helps me. The attention to the transitions helps me. To see things not as fixed.

[62:25]

And like Hans said, it is unfolded. And what was said is gone already. Okay, thank you. It's, as I said during the teshu, it's good to notice and notice these transitions. And you were going to say something? Today I'm so skeptical towards the world. towards my words. I had the feeling this morning to understand the Taisho in all its details.

[63:28]

And if I were asked now, I wouldn't know anything. I wouldn't either. Because I'm lacking the words, I've tried to form an image. And I found the image that language, especially how you use it in the Teishu, is like fireworks. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. But afterwards, it's night. He's a lot of fireworks, but, you know, after that, it's night. But all these colorful particles of light, the reds and greens and yellows and so on, they somehow get stuck in my body.

[65:11]

They vanish. burn out in my body, but they leave a kind of residue. Okay. You're the first person ever described in a lecture of mine as a firebird. Nico? Nico? We talk about meeting and speaking. And in my life I meet and talk with many people. I hadn't been here for a while and last weekend it was first time after some time.

[66:28]

It was something I could physically feel that the bodies I met here at the seminar, that it was a different feeling from when I meet these bodies in my everyday life. And the difference is that the bodies I meet here are so much more beneficial for me. And the difference is that the bodies that I meet here they are much more nourishing for me. And the reason is that they really listen to what I say. and it need not be something very important that one has to say but the bodies really absorb what one says.

[67:43]

The bodies have time to absorb what one says before they are involved in figuring out an answer to what's said. And that is very nourishing. And on the other hand, it is almost physically painful when this quality is not present. And I always wonder why I come here again and again. And I ask myself often why I come here again and again. And that is one of the deeper causes why I feel so good when I am here. As I think all of you know, Nico is a medical doctor, so you're seeing patients all day, or clients.

[68:57]

So that's interesting that practice makes that kind of difference. Okay, we'll have to stop in a minute, but yeah? As preparation for winter branches 12 I listened to MP3 winter branches 11. How were they? I only remember one thing. Was it green or blue? It really hit me and I occupied myself. And I don't know yet what I'm going to say at the end.

[70:10]

But I cannot quote literally, but you said something like, it is not about understanding. And... Since I've known you, I've been coming here again and again, because I don't know anyone, And ever since I've met you, I come back here again and again, because I've not met anybody who understands better than you. Even if I only understand a tenth, it is the trust in your understanding that If I understand maybe one tenth, I trust in your understanding that keeps me on the way.

[71:26]

And I know you said at least a hundred times that it's not about understanding. But this time I really heard it. Okay. Let's see. Okay. One more. Yeah. A little bit of treachery. Pardon me? I'm going to commit a little bit of treachery, maybe. Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Oh, are you going to say that yourself? Yes, in a little confession, when I go upstairs. I don't think that what I'm saying now... No, I'm sure that what I'm saying now wouldn't be as experienced as I would have been if I had told you, if I had been taught by Moshe.

[72:32]

I don't think what I'm about to say, I would be able to feel this, not only I think, I know, I wouldn't be able to feel, experience what I'm about to tell you if I didn't have you and the Sangha and the teachings. I'm convinced of that. These meetings we have in here, they're out there every day, and that's up to us. And maybe people don't hear me as well as you do, but they feel me. There was an encounter at the garden.

[73:38]

The old grandmother came down from the street and she looked at what was going on. She just told me how bad she can go now and how her day is. This encounter with this woman was as close to me as the encounter I have with you. And she told me about her day and how she can't walk so far and she's getting older. Just this little meeting with me reading and her talking to me was just as precious and equally as close as what I have with you. Is that treachery? Seems to be normal to me. Sometimes I get the feeling that here it's bad, there it's bad, and this is good, and that outside it's not possible. Sometimes I get the feeling there is a bit too much of that.

[74:39]

That's why I threw that one. Yes, I understand your feeling. I understand the feeling. You know, Sukhiroshi in this teisho he gave years ago, of course, in which he spoke quite a bit about Yaoshan. He said it's common in Buddhism. for various schools to base themselves on a particular sutra or particular teaching. And so the concept within those schools and practices of Buddhism

[75:41]

is that there's teaching and then practice and then perhaps or ideally enlightenment. He said, but in Zen it's the reverse. There's enlightenment and practice, and then teaching. And from that point of view, you can then study any teaching. And his point he's making in this lecture, much about Yaoshan, is why he's emphasizing or trying to point out why the context of the teaching is so important Because it's based on this situation of the lineage and the Sangha which create a field in which there's an implicit enlightenment.

[76:54]

ideally, but even in fact. And that implicit enlightenment becomes more explicit in the practice, and then opens up the teaching, even to old ladies who are walking by. And this is an old guy. I could have been the old lady walking by. Create a situation where the teaching opens and practice opens up into all of our situations. into all of our situations. So, thank you very much.

[78:10]

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