It's a small version of Buddha's robe. And Buddha's robe was supposedly made of scraps of cloth. And it's become a ritual of... now of buying expensive cloth and cutting it up into pieces and sewing it back together. And you receive it when you have lay ordination. And the custom is you wear it whenever you're practicing zazen or speaking about Buddhism or something like that. And that means I'm responsible to speak in the context of the tradition and not just any old thing.

[01:05]

Yeah, and it's a convenient side, you know. Thank you. Someone else wants to say something. Even if you don't want to say something. Yes, could we close the window? It's too windy? It's too cold. I can't get up easily. I can do it myself. I have a question concerning listening without immediately having this concept in mind what it is. And I've tried it with language, listening to people speak.

[02:18]

And I find that very difficult. So sometimes it's worth it to say that the language is a completely automated concept. And words automatically transport a concept. And sometimes I manage to not hear the concept but just listen to the sound. And I've noticed that traveling in a foreign country where I don't know the language, I just listen to the sounds and that is a quite different experience. I have it every day. German is not my native language.

[03:38]

And I came to Germany when I was seven without knowing one word of German. And I had to go to school without knowing one word of German. And of course it was very difficult, but it had also something that was kind of freeing, not understanding the words, just listening to the sounds. So I remember this time when I was little not speaking German. It reminds me of Kobunshino sensei, Roshi, when he first came to America.

[04:39]

He didn't speak English. But Suzuki Roshi insisted he give lectures. So he'd get up on the platform and he'd be trying to give a lecture. And it'd be sort of like, Dogen Zenji wa, wa is Japanese for we stop now, that's the subject. She's a linguist, so you know. Anyway, Dogen Zenji wa, and then he'd fall asleep. And then he'd wake up, you know, and the entire, all of us were all... But, you know, the Lankavatara Sutra says that the Bodhisattva

[05:53]

He hears the syllables, the phrases, the names, and the sentences. So simultaneously, Bodhisattva hears the syllable body, the name body, and the sentence body. And the sense is that you, it's very simple, but that when you're right now speaking, the allophones, the phonemes are a kind of hum. And the cadence, the body is present in these phonemes.

[07:10]

And then the phonemes become names, not words. That distinction I'm making is a name has a vertical presence in the sentence and not just a horizontal presence in the syntax. So the resonances of words or names aren't limited to the sentence. So you hear the hum of the syllables, you feel the verticality of the words, and you feel the direction of the sentence.

[08:11]

And to some extent, we all do that. But mindfulness practice is to emphasize that. And I obviously am too dumb to learn German. Even though I've been translated 153,000 times by Katrin and Ulrike, and I still haven't learned a word. It's enough for me. And I like the mystery. I actually like not knowing what's going on. And I also like not really knowing what's going on.

[09:30]

You know, I'm always in an exotic place. I go in the pharmacy and I buy the wrong things. I'm in an exotic place, I go to the pharmacy and I buy the wrong things. I come home with the most strange things. Someone else? Yeah. How do you use the last time very much? So I have a question because last time we worked with the wahados, with the turning words. And I have experimented a lot with clients of the therapy consultancy. And I experimented a lot with that also in counselling and with clients. And it seems to be a kind of, maybe similar to Pursing, a way to use your language more from the kind of verticality, so not only

[10:34]

And it seems to me that that is a kind of language like poetry, which has more of this what you call verticality. Yeah, that's right. And more effect on how one experiences problems and symptoms and an opening for changes. Ja, I'm interested in such applications, how that works and so forth. Ich bin an solchen Anwendungen interessiert und wie das wirkt. Do you design turning words specifically for a person? Also, wählst du oder stellst du spezielle Wendeworte zusammen, also für eine spezielle Person?

[11:45]

Together with the person. Yeah, I understand. With the person for a specific problem and in a specific situation or like problematical situation. And you also try to make more wisdom phrases which are more about worldviews or shifting your worldview. Not as deeply as in Zen, but in a smaller dimension. Okay. Someone else? Yes? Yes. She asked for an example. Could you give an example of a tiny word?

[12:50]

Probably. If we take a simple one like in English, just this. And again, a phrase like this, like this, is an incubatory process. The repetition which is not repetition begins to affect your modalities of mind.

[13:51]

And the words, even the words having horizontal and vertical presence here, So sometimes it's not just this, it's just, just, just. And just has the word and feeling of justice in it too. And just, if you say just, it also has a feeling of being right. And that can flow into the experience that everything's in place, everything's just where it is.

[14:57]

Nothing else. And the just also has a in it, like a book. And this also has is in it. And it also has the in it. And thusness. And thusness is the experience of enlightenment. So thusness and the are very closely related. So every time you say in English the book or the bell, you feel not just the bell but the thusness of each thing.

[16:08]

I can't do that in German. So you have to find out how to do it in German. So you have to experiment yourself and find out how it works for you in German. Yes. Yes, I also wanted to share an experience with you, with Michael Klesset, with whom I did an exercise that has to do with decoupling of words and content. Well, you say it yourself in English or else you would have to give me time to translate the piece, then I won't see it. Okay, I would like to tell you about an experience I've had with a friend, Michael, and it has to do with taking away the contents of words. And Michael calls it decoding.

[17:14]

You write a term for a current location Okay, so Michael called it de-labeling. Yeah. And one imagines, one writes a word or a concept, a label, on an imaginary band-aid. And you feel it and then you put it away. And then you feel it and then you take it away. Yeah. And then you look whether another word appears. And if it does, you do the same thing. And when you do it like 10 or 12 times, you really reach pretty deeply.

[18:30]

I'm going to get a can of Band-Aids and try it. No, but I mean, I think it's exactly right. Like that. And before we end, I'll try to present one practice at least that we can do as lay adepts. It's related to what you said. Okay, someone else? Someone who hasn't said anything yet. You know who you are. Yes? I don't know because they're rotating in my mind.

[19:38]

They're rotating in your mind, okay. Well, it's nice to hear your voice. Someone else want to rotate? Yes. worked with or studied the vulnerability stress concept and my question now is who or what is getting hurt in this vulnerability stress concept? What do you think? Was denkst du? Was denkst du? Was denkst du?

[20:42]

The I or the self? I don't know. Well, you know, my experience is that when the narrative of the self is rent, torn, The self can be wounded. And practice is, you could say, how to free the self from being wounded. Because practice is definitely about, if you look at practice, what glues all the different practices together. There's three things. One, knowing things as they are. Becoming free of mental suffering and enlightenment.

[22:03]

But we can definitely be wounded and those wounds are often sources of realization. The phrase the wounded shaman and so forth is not just a phrase. It's really like that. It depends on how you... Live your wound. I don't say heal your wound. Live your wound. Okay, thanks. Anyone else? Ena? Not now. Any more not nows here? Oh, not now.

[23:28]

Oh, dear. I don't have that privilege to say not now, do I? Would you open that window? I'm going out. No. Suki Roshi, he seems to say that to me sometimes. he said a number of times to me you came in by the door but you may have to leave by the window so we're talking about interruption and substitution and I mentioned this in Hanover too And at the point at which you said everyone got bored and lost their attention. And I don't know if it was because it was before lunch or because it was the content.

[24:36]

Or because I started talking about the tapestry and pretty soon I was into the weave and the threads. Okay, so there's the basic practice of naming. One of the earliest practices in Buddhism. Which is a kind of turning word practice, but it's just one word. Which is you just name things. And as I'm using words, you don't word them, you name them. So if I look at a glass or pick up a glass I don't just use the glass and drink from it or whatever I do I actually interrupt whatever the mental habits are And I name it glass.

[26:10]

And if I happen to look at Gerald, I name it Gerald. And if I happen to look more closely, I say nose. Because we both compete over who has the biggest nose, but I always win. So whatever it is, you just name it. And what are you doing? When you do something like this, you're doing so much that you're ready to get bored when I tell you. She's just yawning already. You get more and more sensitive At naming.

[27:25]

So I don't just name Norbert. Norbert. Norbert. Or white shirt. Or the red shirted brothers, red brothers. And you just start noticing more and more. Okay. Actually, what you're doing when you do this, you're doing lots of things. And this is a basic practice which I think if you want to practice Buddhism, you ought to make this a habit for a year, half a year or something. You can still go to work and do stuff like that. Now I'm going to work.

[28:27]

Sidewalk. Door handle. Ignition key. It's like that. So you're becoming more mindfully sensitive to sensorial impressions. And you're beginning to notice the phenomena of appearance. The word phenomena actually means, in English, the etymology is what appears to the senses.

[29:33]

But we mostly long ago lost that sense, and that phenomenon is used to mean what's out there. But we only know what's out there because it appears to the senses, unless you think about Mars or something. So, but Mars doesn't usually appear unless you see a star that looks red in the evening. So by the simple practice of naming, you're beginning to notice appearance. and you're beginning to limit yourself to sensorial experience and by naming, just naming and stopping there you're cutting off associative mind

[30:42]

So I say, Katrin, but I don't think the other Katrin. Or I don't think anything, I just think Katrin. Or bell or glass or whatever. And it's a habit which... becomes the habit of sensorial apprehension. And it becomes a habit of noticing a succession of appearances. And it becomes a habit Now normally, again, you don't explain all this.

[31:57]

You just say, practice naming and I'll talk to you in a month. So I'm violating the tradition by going into such detail. And you then will try to make the shoe fit. Do you have that expression? Even if the shoe is the wrong size, you'll try to make it fit. I don't know why practicing Buddhism is always hurting me, because you're wearing someone else's shoes. But I'm trying to, you know, they have socks which fit all sizes. I'm trying to make shoes which fit all sizes, too, for lay practitioners. One size fits all. So you just keep this practicing name.

[33:13]

And you see that it's cutting off discursive associative thinking. And locating you as phenomenologists, Israel, Merleau-Ponty, etc., all want to get you to do And Buddhism is a kind of phenomenology. And if you read Merleau-Ponty and so forth, which I do and others, I like a lot. But you can see he hasn't practiced naming. You can see he's brilliant and it's interesting and it's insightful but there isn't as much pragmatism in it as there could be.

[34:16]

But in any case it is a kind of phenomenology and you're engaged in through naming In the sensorial world. Okay. And you're engaged in the world as appearances. Okay. And what is another word for appearance in Buddhism? Dharmas. A dharma is the dharma practice, which is the most common name for Buddhism, is completely seeing the world as a succession of appearances. A mature practitioner sees the world as a succession of appearances.

[35:26]

Okay, now there's a so-called a cosmogonic question. I kind of like it when it's called a cosmogonic question. It sounds crazy. Moronic. Which is, why does anything exist at all? And as I've said, you know, this was important for Heidegger and Wittgenstein and others. Why does anything exist at all? Well, if you practice naming, you tried to sneak in, but it didn't work. Because if you practice naming, you practice appearance. It becomes more and more surprising that anything appears. And one of the fruits of practice is a kind of the cosmogonic question is answered by gratefulness.

[36:58]

Because you can feel the emptiness out of which everything appears. Appears within our senses, your senses, the senses. You start, you turn on the water in the morning and you want to bow when warm water comes out, or even cold water. In Johanneshof, it takes about 10 minutes for warm water to get to my part of the building. Then I stand there bowing, waiting, you know. No, I had to learn to bow for cold water, too.

[38:11]

But really, a kind of warmth begins to pervade experience. A kind of warmth and softness, space connected. Everything feels soft. Yeah. And then, you know, this is, you know, the experiential content of compassion. It's very hard to get angry because you're feeling that kind of warmth with others and with everything.

[39:16]

Now you may think I'm nuts. You'll leave here and you'll say, that guy thinks he can solve all the problems of the world by practicing naming. It's like somebody at a carnival selling medicine. Buy this, you know, it'll cure your cancer, it'll make your elbow feel better, and et cetera. When I was a kid, there was a thing called serotonin, which was nature spelled backwards. This was pre-television and none of you were pre-television, but I was.

[40:27]

And they advertised serotonin all the time. Serotonin will cure everything because it's nature spelled backwards. So, Cessnam is name spelled backwards. So if you just practice naming everything, well, but it's sort of true. If you really do it because you're entering into the way the mind and the senses work. then it takes a kind of wisdom to do it.

[41:39]

Because it's kind of boring, it's not exciting, you know, you can't change the channel. So, naming. But it's not so difficult to get into the habit of naming, actually. So you practice naming until you begin to feel everything appearing. And then all the practices related to Dharma become available to you, which is practices related to appearance. Okay. Now, if you want to, every time you name, you can reverse it and name namelessness When I name the glass, I become aware that I'm also naming the nameless.

[42:58]

Because glass, water, I mean, really. I mean, it's, you know, this... comes from the clouds and blah, blah, blah. So, really, and if you start naming Gerald, I don't know, I mean, Gerald, I can name him, but he's actually nameless. And when I look at Gerald with the feeling that he's not even a he, he's a he-she nameless, it changes my experience of Gerald. I actually feel this as a vividness, as a presence, a presencing which isn't limited to Gerald.

[44:17]

I mean, if you don't mind. And this is also, you know, you meet somebody, anybody, a kind of bum on the street or somebody in Kaufhof bringing you, telling you where something is in the store. If I think this is just a bum or just a clerk, I get the information, I walk by. But if I feel But this may be a bum in some ways, but a bum, you know. But it's also something nameless.

[45:20]

But extraordinary beings we are, even if we're bums or clerks or... Zen teachers. So you tiptoe by the bum with a kind of awe. I'm not making this up. Yes, I am. But I'm making it up from wisdom. What we call in Buddhism wisdom. So there's naming and there's namelessness. And we inhabit our names and we inhabit the associations of our names.

[46:29]

and if you can make this right brain left brain body shift so you feel also the nameless world then these concentrations become more possible the three doors of deliverance. These concentrations, they're also called concentrations. And the Prajnaparamita Sutra that I've been quoting says when the adept practitioner has developed the stability of observation, which allows the experience of the nameless, the experience of the nameless, that would be the signless, and no wishes attached to it,

[47:52]

So the wishless and the emptiness of appearing from emptiness, why does anything exist at all? The transformative fruit of these concentrations on the mind are called the three doors of deliverance or enlightenment. Simple practice. You just have to do it. And it's available to each of us anytime, all the time. What are you waiting for?

[49:02]

Don't you think it's a good place to stop? And then when I see you next year, I'll get a report. You were going to say something? Yes, please. Stop. I would like to say something because I wrote something down recently and it has to do with this nameless space. May I read what I wrote recently?

[50:07]

Why not? Sure. I mean, as long as it's not too long. It's not book-length. Okay, please go ahead. If I could put into words... What is here? What I see here, taste, smell and feel here. If I could find words to describe this beauty, to describe this beauty.

[51:11]

If I could write words, which could make graspable for others this which is non-graspable. If I could give power towards to describe this all embracing unity, unit die mich immer wieder neu hier erfasst, which grasps me again and again anew, und mich zum Weinen rührt, and moves me to tears, wenn meine Worte doch so berührend sein könnten, if my words could be so moving, um anderen die Berührung auch zu schenken,

[52:35]

to give others this being moved, wenn meine Worte klar und einfach, if my words sein könnten, could be clear and simple, vielleicht in einem einzigen Wort sagen könnten, maybe saying in one word, was deine Herrlichkeit ausmacht, What makes your herrlichkeit, greatness, majesty, glory? What makes your glory? Ach, wenn ich dafür nur Worte hätte. Ach, if I had words for that. Thank you.

[53:39]

So let's sit for a moment.

[53:40]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_75.09