I would like to make a remark. Okay. Ich bin ein neuer Zweig. I'm a new branch. A new branch, oh, yeah, okay. A twig. So when I first came, I was a bit nervous and wondered how it would be taken on in this group. And although this is not the first time for me at Johanneshof, this is different. And I would like to say that with every day I feel more carried in this group or by this group. And also by this place and maybe by this image of the eyebrows.

[01:04]

And just in the group it became clear to me again what is special about this group and what is special for me that I can be there, that a learning curve is developed here in a common practice and reflection and then talk. And right now in this small group it became clear to me again how special it is to be here and to have this group and to be here in this lineage where we practice together and the lineage which we develop together. Okay.

[02:18]

Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I've got... I say it in German. It's hard for a professional English teacher to speak German, I know. It's horrible. It's a nightmare, isn't it? Do you still say it in English? I want to try it. If I don't see it... Keep a standby phone. We have this... I'm not going to be very good at packaging. This is part of the... Thank you. Really? But... They even have some finding work. Thank you. We have these beautiful Buddhist names.

[03:21]

These most beautiful Buddhist names. And I don't know how it is for the rest of you. But the name that was given to me Sticks like hell. Sorry about this. The name I was given at my birth, I find it incredibly sticky. Like given by whom? Like birds. Like birds, oh. Marie, you don't like Marie? It's a nice name, but it's very sticky.

[04:24]

Really? It's very sticky. Oh, Rosemary, try my... I'm always thinking of you. Now I definitely want to get rid of it. I did my guess. You're singing beautifully. No one's ever said that before. It's like this. As soon as Marie is told... So soon as I hear that name, attached to it comes up all the wonderful personality I've been busy building up over decades. And there's a very strong feeling. to get rid of that.

[05:33]

It would help me enormously here to be able to carry my Buddhist name. Because it's like an entry into emptiness. It's not really what something empty, something wider. It's not something bigger, but something bigger, something wider. And I talked to a few people and they said that for them the name is something personal, something they want to keep for themselves. What I said to them was... There's no place on earth I would show more of myself than here, or my non self, or whatever. Both at once sometimes.

[06:40]

All of that at once. I would like to be called by my Buddhist name and I would like to know yours, those who also feel the same way. You've got the first half, the second half you can keep for your secret self. This is all a theory. I've never thought of anything like this. Why don't you just turn your raksa around? That's what she did yesterday. Oh, really? By mistake, I guess. So we'll call you... Do you want to be called Hoan or Myokon? Whatever you want. All of it. I don't know. The question's on the day, doesn't it? Well, you can actually use any combination.

[07:42]

You can use ho-kan, or you can use ho-an, or you can use myo-kan, or you can use ho-myo. There's quite a few possibilities there. You've totally confused me. Let's just do ho-an for now. Okay. I like that. Which one do you like to be called by? Ho-an. Okay, we will call her Hoang from now on, if you can remember. I think it's a great idea, and for me that has to do with lineage. Ever since that special day when I was ordained, since the day I've been wearing a robe in which I feel as if I'd been wearing it for a hundred years

[08:43]

Ever since then I am not so much interested in Evelyn any more. Ever since that day, whenever I come to Johannesburg and get my robe out of the basement and unpack everything, I open the window and send Evelyn on holiday. Oh, okay. Okay, Evelyn is not so obedient all the time. Sometimes she flies back in the window. But it is an important part of this practice. So would you like to be called by your Buddhist name when you're here too?

[10:10]

Yeah. You just ask people to do it. It's fine. I'm going to say my Buddhist name. Doshin Gyoko-san. Doshi. Doshi, okay. Okay, good. We need a translation list. If more people do this, we need a translation list. We need a list of who's who. My spontaneous reaction is that I notice something is hesitating. I'm perfectly willing to talk about my Buddhist name like maybe in a small group or with some of you but somehow not in the big group.

[11:30]

And maybe with each of you. Or maybe with each person individually. Because this Uli who exists practices with the name. And the name is like a turning word for me. And it's changing all the time. Sometimes I'm kind of growing towards or into the name and then at other times I totally break together in front of the name. This is actually a very precious process and I would have the feeling that if you would address me with my name, which you would always address with yours, I know this is a process and if you called me by this name it would get fixed and kind of sit in front of me extremely firmly and would

[12:41]

maybe destroy this very subtle process of approaching and then maybe going away again from that name. I can accept your wish and I'm willing to try to remember your Buddhist names and use them if you wish. I think these two feelings or opinions can stand side by side. Okay, so we'll call you Vuhli. They will not see any Sangha laws. There will be no Sangha laws that you have to use the Buddhist name. This precious thing and this challenging thing that Uli has described, I can feel that too.

[14:12]

And it's very peculiar with this turned around Raksa, it's getting very cold in the area. So I like to turn it around again. Because I like it to continue to have an effect towards my inside. diesen Namen auch zu hören. But I'd also be glad to hear this name. Okay. I've got my name to keep me warm. I've got my name to keep me warm.

[15:14]

I've got my name to keep me warm. [...] Anyway, I feel very limited through my personality So I don't see any reason why I should add to that another person. I didn't think that this is how the discussion would go.

[16:17]

I didn't really think about it, but I didn't imagine it. Manuel? No. Just bowing. Bowing. It's nice to... Keeping your hands warm. Yes. So, Lea Lindhjom. She's a Venetian. These days I'm very impressed by your teishos and we also discussed in the small group why and how these teishos have such an effect on us. So we feel that your teishos are carried by your personal experience that you make kind of maybe that we can feel them and maybe understand a little.

[17:33]

And you have pointed out several times how these experiences, what influences led to it, namely through Shunroi Suzuki. And you've said several times that Shunryu Suzuki, I mean how important he was for you and that he led you to practice in this way So when I listen to you I also listen to the lineage which might lead back a long time. Another aspect is that I'm still thinking or occupied with rituals. And the rituals are also part of the lineage. Rituals are basically repetitions that go through flesh and blood in such a way that my attention can be directed to something else, i.e.

[19:04]

to the breath, to the body. and rituals are repetitions, so that they are part of my flesh and blood, so I can put my attention on something else, like on the breath or the body. But beyond that, these rituals seem to transport much more, and it seems that these rituals carry more beyond that. Many in the group have said that they take maybe small rituals but they do take them into their everyday life. And I think that maybe this is the joining or the relation to the monastic practice.

[20:08]

Thank you. Yes, Nikke? We have also found in our group that when you visit other Buddhist groups, they have a really different basic feeling. So in our group we talked about when some of us visited other Buddhist groups and did something with them, that there is really a different feeling and a different feeling of practice. And if we think about the fact that we, years and even decades, practice the same kind of practices,

[21:10]

then that changes our body and our mind in a kind of similar way. Maybe that's how all couples become like. And they start looking like their dogs to them. And we noticed that the relationship that's alive, that goes only one or two generations back. In the lineage and beyond that it's kind of vague. Yeah, yes, yes, okay. Yes.

[22:27]

You. So lineage also means that you practice a certain form, the way in which you do something. Lineage means, too, that one practices a specific form. I mean, how one does things. Yeah, partly. Okay. And for me, it's already the case that I simply decided to go in exactly this direction. And for me it's the case that I've decided on this direction or on this form and for this teacher and for this kind of teaching or this form of teaching. And I do feel like a part of it. Okay, thank you.

[23:31]

I did not make such a conscious decision to practice in this language. somehow there was a kind of magnetic effect, by affinity or maybe by chance, and so I'm here now. And so when I first became interested I looked I mean, nearby, I mean, where I lived, so I could get to the teaching or the practice, I mean, more easily, and I found some teachers in some groups.

[24:40]

So there were some good discussions and contacts with teachers in Vienna? that could have worked maybe for me, and I consciously decided to go there at that time, but it didn't work. So this conscious decision didn't work, it just didn't work for me. and in the meantime it is completely clear to me that it is carrying me here, and that it has taken me. So it was more an unconscious feeling what I was looking for, whatever, so by now I've had the experience that this ear

[25:44]

There was already the first contact with Johanneshof at that time, when the first session was organized in 1996 So my first contact here in Johanneshof was also the first session here at Johanneshof in 1996. When we had all that snow out in the car? Yeah. I didn't know anything about Suzuki Roshi or Baker Roshi. Ich habe über die Gruppe nichts gewusst. I didn't know anything about the group. How did we let you in the Sushi? Gisela asked you if I can come. I saw a picture in a magazine and I reported... Gisela opened it. I saw a picture of you in a magazine. just three weeks before the session.

[26:51]

I don't know how you got in, but I'm glad you did. And just called and could come. To talk to Gisela. Maybe Gisela talked to her. And so this worked. Yeah, it's quite mysterious. I mean, it's one of the strongest things in the world, is the lineage feeling. And yet, it's very hard to describe her. You can't grasp it, you can't say what it is exactly. Yes, Paul? I've been, since your suggestion the first day, particularly focusing on meeting and speaking throughout the day and afternoon. and feeling as we've come together in this way that there's more space in between the moments of meeting and speaking.

[28:12]

And in your teishos I feel you've been articulating this space for us. An observation which is becoming clearer for me. Is there also a listening that's taking place? And in this creating of a neutral mind, which I think Somebody spoke about in our first discussion. In receiving and practicing these teachings together, I really feel the listening is making ourselves. And together creating something, I don't know what it is or what it will be.

[29:29]

I'm grateful for this way in which you have not just been speaking but also have been listening and articulating that for us. One thing I've been trying to One thing I feel when I'm speaking from the feel and mind, if I may say so, of Suzuki Roshi. The feel and mind. from the feel and the mind, if I may say so.

[30:59]

I'd like to be able to say also... I'd like to be able to also not say what he didn't say. Sorry. Because there's a great deal that he didn't say that is what I'm doing today. One of the most interesting sentences in this koan One of the most interesting sentences in this Koran, which Susanne pointed out, is what is it Yang Jia said, to be silent in speaking and speaking in silence, something like that.

[32:12]

The gate of great generosity opens. And then there's another phrase after that. I can't remember what it is right now. But anyway. Nothing is blocking the way. And nothing is blocking the way. It's like there's a field of which you're speaking. But you can only speak a portion of it. But somehow the speaking carries what isn't spoken. And so in this koan, it refers to that as the gate of great generosity.

[33:30]

And it's also, they try to express it in saying the Bodhisattva appears with his whole body and half of it. And when you're talking about bodhisattva, you also mean the kind of aura or nimbus and the whole field of wisdom and compassion manifest. And anyway, these are almost things one shouldn't talk about. So I'm glad you didn't translate it. But it's not exactly something special.

[35:02]

It may be, as Paul says, comes from a certain kind of listening. And this koan brought us to this point. And also I think that as a sangha, sanghas, particularly in our type of situation, are always developing. It's something new for all of us. And I'm in the process of discovering what our Sangha can be as well as just as you are. And what you know, but something is happening. We can hear it, we can feel it, and we can hear it, and so forth.

[36:13]

And I don't think we should make too much of it except it becomes the vehicle for practice. But I think Paul could say, since we've been together since the 60s, this is an old couple. And we'd look exactly the same, but his nose got flat and boxed. He was a boxer. I think he would say that he feels some connection between how I'm teaching and Sukharshi's teaching. And he feels, I'm sure, some connection between how he's here and his experience with Suzuki Roshi.

[37:24]

And I'm guessing, you know, I don't know. I'm just in the midst of it. So, you know, you have to be in the outside a bit to see it, but I'm in the midst of it. But I assume now that Otmar and David and others of you, also all of us, carry it in some way or express it in some way. It's not that it's better or worse than other lineages. But rather it is the gift of lineage, a particular lineage, which allows some kind of... through its specificity, allows some kind of...

[38:47]

flow and presence. Do you have anything to say to that, Paul? Thinking back to the 60s and so forth. Mr. 60s? Mr. Francisco, they say when you remember the 60s you haven't been part of it. That is the 60s that we try to keep at the door. I agree with what you said. Maybe in a different way than you feel.

[40:16]

As you said, you're so close to it. And you're not the same as Suzuki Roshi. And in some way, in my practice, I don't feel a difference between the two. I remember once telling Suzuki Oksana that we chant the Heart Sutra every day. We chant the Heart Sutra every day in German. She said something like, he's so happy. No, he would be so happy. This is the kind of livingness I feel in what we are making together.

[41:28]

Yeah, well I'm also trying to speak about lineage not just because it gives us a feeling of intimacy and so forth, but also how do we practice it? How do we develop it? How do we actualize it in our lives? Someone else want to say something? First, Darfur. So, from the beginning of the discussion, it was the concentration point it was more on the characteristic of the lineage and things like this including the names and then we came

[42:48]

through the discussion we came to one point So completely unexpectedly we came to one point So is what is transmitted through the lineage the same or not the same for every generation? Yeah, that's the crane in the moon. It's the same and it's different. And it's the sameness which allows the difference. No, that sounds like too easy a response. But I think it's true.

[44:10]

And maybe in tomorrow's session we'll try to see if that's an important point. Why is it different and the same? And how does that work? And what remains the same? And what does that sameness, what difference does that sameness allow? And secondly, Why is the poor guy criticized on the end of the Koran? The superintendent? No, the... Oh, you have to play both sides of the street. I mean, these koans, as I emphasized today, are a very sophisticated form of literature.

[45:14]

And they're very aware that they're going to be read. And they're very aware of the presence of the reader. So they kind of, you know, they make a serious statement. And then they say something, oh, linear jets for monkeys. And that's kind of playing with the reader. Because the reader is thinking, oh, God, can this be true? And so they say, oh, that isn't true. And then the koan puts Yaoshan up and then the koan has to sort of take Yaoshan down. And some of the comments are to play to the readers a kind of own inner debate. And some of the put-downs are a form of praise.

[46:42]

Like if one of you said something extraordinary You always do, but, you know, let's say something very extraordinary. And I thought, geez, it's a little too much. I'd say, don't pay any attention to that stupid fellow. So that kind of stuff, layers are in the koan. And the superintendent is simply a literary device. He's there to represent the traditional way of doing things.

[47:46]

He's in a comedy team. One of them is the dumb guy, one is the smart guy. Well, the superintendent is the dumb guy. He's the straight man. He'll read the sutras, come and talk to us, and then Yaoshan can be connected. These are literary devices. Okay, yeah. I would like to know how you call what happened in one's own life? There have been many different influences and some of them one would say from viewing it from today that they had a taste of Buddhism in them and for me the first was my father

[48:57]

And he is now so very old and fragile and he has given me so much. He was the first one to teach me how to look, to see. He was a painter and he played with me with colors like some are hot and some are cold. Or that he showed me the snow and said, look, the snow is not just white, it's blue and green and whatever. and so on, and then later in the psychological training there was already the possibility to make a selection and not to take the directions, the analytical ones,

[50:25]

Later in my psychological education, I had the chance to choose and not go towards the analytical side, but more to the side where it's asked, how does something exist or happen? So all these influences kind of gave me the sensorium to meet Buddhism and in the end to meet you. And for me, you are the living representation of this lineage. Wherever it may come from. Yeah, there's something mysterious in the influences that bring us to practice.

[52:03]

In your cases, I can see clearly why a father like you have and a painter would affect how you see the world. But often there's coincidences and I don't know what, why. We don't know. Lineage works in, I think we have to accept that lineage is also rather mysterious. It works in rather mysterious ways. I think of, it occurred to me, Marie Louise, my wife, has a very, very Catholic mother. And while we're taping this, they'll never listen.

[53:17]

And an officially Protestant father. And Marie Louise's mother, once I was eating, just a little anecdote, Once I was eating pistachio nuts she'd given me. And I said, I love pistachio nuts so much they almost make me believe in God. God can make a pistachio nut. Ich mag Pistazien so gerne. Sie schmecken so gut. Well, I lost the first part. What did you say? Sie führen fast dazu, dass ich an Gott glaube.

[54:18]

Sie bringen mich fast dazu, dass ich an Gott glaube. She said, eat some more. And there's always pistachio nuts when I visit. But her father gave her for some reason some book on Tibet when she was a child. And then when she was in high school, For no reason anybody can figure out, in her high school, like in American high schools anyway, friends write things about their other friends who are graduating?

[55:19]

Is that common in... It's always done in American high schools. It's for the occasion of the graduation. Anyway, somebody wrote for Marie Louise, but she's going to end up to be a Zen monk. I've seen it all written down and I didn't know where that came from. She said, I guess later she said, I don't want to be a Zen monk, I guess I'll marry one. I guess later she said, I don't want to be a Zen monk, I guess I'll marry one. But anyway, there are many aspects of, my own feeling is that there's many aspects in Western culture that are in effect lineages which lead us to practice, as well as from Asia and so forth.

[56:39]

My feeling is that there are many influences in western culture that bring us to practice. I also have the feeling that we have become buddhists I have the feeling that we ended up with Buddhism also, because the German or European mystics had no chance of developing a lineage. The institution of the Christian church didn't like it, so they didn't allow it. It became clear to me again today that I have really come to Zen because of this lineage.

[58:05]

It took me quite a while until I realized that I needed a teacher. In the very first years, I read books about Zen. And that war book, it was about dialogues between teachers and students. I have an inner curiousness developed. I have a feeling developed that there is a reality or a knowledge or something that I cannot reach. until I read Zen Might Beginner's Mind, and it was totally clear to me this is the right teacher, Suzuki Roshi.

[59:45]

A year later, I received an invitation to an event in Vienna, And in the book that my beginner's mind, there is written that Baker Rashi is the successor of Suzuki Rashi. And I thought, I want to get to know this person. Thank you. So I got to know... Did you come to Vienna? Yes, there was a symposium on psychology and Buddhism. And a Tibetan teacher organized it, I think. I don't know. Yeah. There was a symposium about Buddhism and psychotherapy. There was a little conference. He says they were more side by side and there was not much connection between the psychotherapists and the Buddhists. The way I understood this question first, it seemed to me it was wrongly posed or formulated.

[61:15]

It was a wrong question for me. So it seemed like the question was here is the lineage and there I am and do I discover myself in the lineage of something? So I have rather the feeling that the lineage or what I mean by lineage, what lineage means to me, that it is already in me. So it's like as if I had a compass within myself And I experience it more as an opening of something that is there and I am almost in an attempt to say what has always been there.

[63:08]

So it's not so much a discovery but more like opening something that has been there all the time. It's not so much my thing with persons and names. So lineage for me is more a means and a way of practice, maybe, to open and help me open what's there.

[64:19]

Thank you. I think we should stop in a minute. I'll let you say something, Ingrid. But let me say that one aspect of what we're calling lineage for me is present in every seminar. And I have a feeling that I want to share this practice with you.

[65:23]

But it's not just like I am a container. I'm going to take out practice and share it with you. But it would be more accurate to say I feel the potential of practice without any predictive sense but I feel the potential of practice. Yeah, but I feel I'm looking for someone to develop this potential with. It's like it's not there until I meet you.

[66:25]

Something like that. And so I feel very lucky that so many of us have practiced together so many years. Because it allows me to keep discovering layers of this potential. And it happens in every seminar too. We start out, we get here. Dorothea was in the last seminar, right? And it was a different feeling than this seminar. But I thought it was a great seminar.

[67:34]

I enjoyed it very much. So it's not a comparison, better or worse, exactly. It's just there, not only were there 11 or 12 new people to Yohannesov, But there were a few more than that who also were new to me. They'd been to Johanneshof probably, but I didn't know. And also, in general, there were people who hadn't practiced as much as you have. But in a group like that, I just start out and kind of fool around the first couple of days and try some things out and see what happens. I have to do some things in some dumb ways and stuff.

[68:35]

until I can find some sort of wavelength where we all seem to be together. Once I find that, then I can start teaching. And it takes some time. Now, if we live together at Crestone, in a practice period, that's sort of, I don't have to do any of that in a taisho. But here, and with even the Winter Branches group too, I haven't seen you for a while. And Alexander not for quite a while.

[69:51]

And I have to sort of, again, kind of like fool around with the topic for a bit. But with winter branches, we can start much more quickly, even the first potato sometimes. But then once we come to some kind of common territory of practice, Then it's sort of the electric potential or spark from that can jump to the next seminar. So, you know, this sounds kind of strangely like I was an engineer or something. Some of you have said a couple of times in this seminar something about magnetic quality.

[71:08]

But from a certain way, I feel like we all are able to conduct an electric charge. And the more we practice together, the more that charge gets concentrated. And that helps me, that develops my practice and my own potential. So the kind of mind of the lineage is only partly present at the beginning of a seminar and gets more present during the seminar. And gets more present as we go along over the years. Ideally, if I have good disciples.

[72:17]

And so far, I'm extremely impressed with my disciples. I shouldn't tell anyone. But they will continue this charge, this current charge. Sie werden diese Ladung, diesen Strom, weitertragen. And I can fade into the darkness. Und ich kann mich in der Dunkelheit auflösen. So, that's what I'm looking forward to. My retirement plan. Und dem schaue ich entgegen. Das ist mein Pensionierungsplan. Okay, Ingrid? Ich wollte noch mal zu Formen reden über eine der Schienens- oder Praxisperioden. I would like to say to rituals and forms and session and practice period and living in a monastic context how that experience is for me it relates back to what Nico and Peter said

[73:40]

It seems to me that between the skin that's my and the reality in between there A much clearer reality is developing. Is that right for you? I would like to make a remark to what Manuel said. In our group, I was in the same group, there were three people who said that they came across the book Zen Mind Beginners Mind. In our group we were six and there were three people who said they came to this lineage through the book that might beginner's mind.

[74:50]

What I find interesting in relation to lineage and how do I feel lineage And I, similar to Manuel, had read several books about Zen and books with koans in them before I started practicing or came to this lineage. But none of these books made me start to practice. And that Mind Beginners Mind was the first book of which I thought or felt I can never understand it without practicing. And I looked in the phone book under Zen to find a group with whom I could practice.

[75:58]

And I think what is special about it So this book is Teishos that were given to a group of people who were there listening at that time. And so these tattoos kind of refer to the practice there and the people there and maybe their problems or something. And the sort of non-graspable feeling. like we have here at that time, those people.

[77:13]

And nevertheless, it immediately grasped me, gripped me. And it seems to me that in this book there was more koan practice than in the other books that were about koans. And this is pretty much what I experience here in this week, what we are doing. And that way I feel that I'm in this lineage. Okay, I'm glad you are.

[78:00]

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