You know, I have to give talks quite often. Or I do, I don't have to, but I do give talks. And yet each time I do it, I'm not sure what the heck am I doing. Because here you are, and you expect me to say something, and I don't know, really. I mean, I can say something, obviously, but really, how can I really speak to you, and what might be of use in a way that might be useful to you? I don't even speak German and I have to depend on others to try to say what I'm trying to say and, you know, yeah. I've been practicing Zen for 55 years or so.

[01:12]

I remember when I first started to practice, I wondered, what the heck is practice? It somehow meant something more than just like practicing the piano or practicing your handwriting or something. And I remember it was actually a kind of problem for me. What am I doing? Why do we call this practice? We don't have a better English word for it. And I can clearly remember even visualized moments when I'm giving a talk wondering, what is practice? And I'm making a distinction here that you can hear between Zen practice and the separate concept of practice itself.

[02:55]

And I certainly was engaged in the experience of Zen practice and the feeling of Zen practice. So I knew I was doing something I felt good about doing and wanted to do. But I couldn't describe to myself what practice is, nor could I describe it very well to others. Because in the early days, I remember concept of practice didn't exist.

[04:22]

I would say culturally understood more or less now in the West. But really in those days people would say to me, are you staring at your navel? And it really wasn't. And when people found out I was spending 40 minutes or 80 minutes a day sitting doing nothing, I was quite criticized. And I felt I had to explain what practice is, but I couldn't really explain it. Yeah, but I did finally say, you know, how long did you watch television today?

[05:38]

Or how long were you at the bar or at a cafe? And it was usually longer than I meditated. So I thought, well, I've decided not to spend 40 minutes in a cafe. I'm spending 40 minutes sitting on a cushion. So I'm not wasting any more time than you are. But the problem was really that they were defining me as a person who should be carrying the burdens of the world productively and beneficially. You know, this is the social definition we have within our culture, and I felt that, but I didn't really know who I was carrying the burdens of the world.

[07:03]

And the problem I had really was, and it took me a long time to recognize it, that I was trying to define practice. And what I should have been trying to define was what is a human being in which practice is an inseparable concept. Did I really say all that? Yes. OK. Yeah.

[08:18]

So I'm not a philosopher, but I think I'm going to have to philosophize a bit here. And sometimes, even yesterday, somebody, a very nice fellow who was in the seminar I just did in Hamburg, It was very present. I felt his presence in the seminar. And he seemed to like what we did, but he felt I was quite intellectual. I guess I am speaking about ideas, so I guess that's something like intellectuals. But really, I would define an intellectual as someone who believes in his thinking.

[09:26]

I don't really believe in my thinking. But I do believe I can use thinking to benefit acting, functioning in the world. Aber ich glaube schon, dass ich das Denken benutzen kann, um das Wirken in der Welt zu unterstützen. So everything I will say today, I presume, we say thanks, will be to see if I can share, mutually develop with you and share with you how we can beneficially function as the kind of human being I think we are. Everything's changing. I can't say it again. Can you say something else that's similar? Can I say something else that's similar? She's got me there.

[10:38]

Um, no. So let me just go on. Oh, no, wait, then let me try. All right, go ahead. That's your job. Did she get it? Okay, thanks. See, she's just looking for compliments. Okay, so, but the thing is that the practice as a concept, yeah. Die Sache ist die, dass Praxis als ein Konzept, as inseparable from being a human being. But maybe I should say human being-ness. Maybe I should say human being-ness. Okay, because really this is all rooted in the degree to which we are change itself.

[12:18]

Denn all das wurzelt in dem Ausmaß, zu dem wir der Wandel selbst sind. Your parents, in a process of creation, gave birth to you. Deine Eltern haben selbst in einem Prozess der Wandlung begriffen, haben euch zur Geburt verholfen. But they didn't. It wasn't easy to do. I imitate her. She imitates me. I don't know which, but anyway. But your parents gave birth to human beingness, not a human being. They gave birth to an... a process which you, from infancy even, have to continue the process.

[13:45]

Now, I'm speaking from one side, from the teaching and emphasis of Buddhism, that absolutely everything changes. We can even say change changes changing. Wir könnten sogar sagen, die Veränderung verändert die Veränderung. There's almost no way we can actually get it, how deeply, fully, unequivocally change is going on.

[14:47]

Es gibt fast gar keine... Or if, I mean, if we, let's say, take the long view, very, very long view, if the Earth, our planetary system is going to be swallowed by the sun or a black hole someday, that's a big change. If this is an astrological fact in a long time scale for us, but a short time scale for whatever the universe is, Then we're here for our few moments.

[15:50]

Yeah. And so Buddhism takes the view that if that's the case, it's happening right now in the details of our life. It's not waiting for the sun to swallow us. Und im Buddhismus wird die Sichtweise eingenommen, dass wenn sowas stattfindet, dann findet das genau jetzt hier statt, inmitten der Details unseres Lebens, und nicht als ob wir auf die lange Zeitspanne warten müssten, in der die Sonne dann die Erde verschluckt wurde. And if we're part of that process, then we're part of that change. And we are part of that process. Also, let's just for a moment or so go back, if there's a moment or so, go back to the, if there's such a thing as the Big Bang.

[17:14]

It's easier to imagine a Creator God than it is to imagine what the hell happened at the Big Bang. But if, as they say, The Big Bang didn't happen in space. It created the space. It happened as. This means that there are no universals. Space is not a universal. It's something that was created and we're creating right now.

[18:20]

Now, why am I mentioning this? Because what's quite amazing, I find, being a Westerner by birth, that yogic East Asian yoga culture, particularly, and Indian yoga culture, particularly Buddhism, emphasizes that space is an activity. It's something you're creating. It doesn't exist outside you. It's part of you. So the view is really just a little view of the Big Bang. The Big Bang created the space it happens in, and you are creating the space you live in. This great old, but not only old, it's been

[19:26]

renewed many times, I'm sure, from the 1870s or something, it was built, this house? 1894. Okay. Anyway, someone in 1894 took this space near one of the many lakes in Brooklyn and said, let's build a house. And now Micah has lived here 17 years. Yeah, so she's been creating a space with the help of others for 17 years. And fortunately or unfortunately, whether she likes it or not, we are now creating a space too. It's not only hers. That's so great.

[21:05]

Well, I guess it has to be, right? Might as well look on the good side of things. Okay. So if that's the case, and I really get that, that that's the case, then I know I'm not just speaking with you. I'm creating the space I'm speaking in. sondern dass ich den Raum, in dem ich spreche, mit erschaffe. And you are participating in creating a space with me. Und ihr habt auch euren Anteil daran, diesen Raum mit mir zusammenzuschaffen.

[22:10]

Your inner architect. Das ist euer innerer Architekt. So we may not have a soul, but we've got an inner architect. Dann vielleicht keine Seele, aber wir haben einen inneren Architekten. Okay. So if I'm a practitioner, and I'm trying to separate a little bit practice as a concept from Zen practice, Then, whether it's Zen or not, in fact, I feel we are all in the process of practicing because that practice is, for example, creating the space we exist in. Yeah. And clock time may be quite minutely predictable.

[23:15]

But it's only a prediction in a very small category. The many things that change as part of time can't be predicted. So an atomic clock is predictable within the range of an atomic clock? and can even hopefully predict the opening of the parachute and the Mars lander. But you all know in your own body that you have different kinds of times. And we can say things like, I have no time.

[24:49]

But that's only a kind of comparative time. But you actually can't have no time because you are time. Aber tatsächlich ist es unmöglich, dass du keine Zeit hast, denn du bist Zeit. Julie is in a different time than we are. Not a different time zone. A different beingness time zone. And we are in our own metabolic time. And we remember the time of childhood where years were a bit longer. And what you discover if you meditate is that actually sometimes you can find yourself again in the time of childhood.

[26:11]

And not being childish, but the kind of time you had as a child. So that means that the experience now, we're talking about absorptive meditation, the word zazen means sitting absorption, not really meditation. You can discover other dynamics and territories of time that aren't accessible through ordinary consciousness. Dass du andere Dynamiken und Arten von Zeit entdecken kannst, die durch das gewöhnliche Bewusstsein nicht zugänglich sind.

[27:30]

So, knowing that's possible is knowing what practice is. Zu wissen, dass das möglich ist, bedeutet gleichzeitig auch zu wissen, was Praxis ist. And beginning to observe and study those, investigate those potentialities and factualities, is called practice. So maybe I can try a definition I couldn't have done in the 60s. A definition I would probably change a bit tomorrow. Practice is the investigation of aliveness. And there's no real aliveness without that investigation. So whether we're talking about Zen practice or just practice, And I'm not trying to convince any of you who are new to practice.

[28:47]

New to Zen practice. I am trying to convince you, or at least play around with the feeling that we are practitioners whether we like it or not. We just decide what tools to use, what skills to use, what views to use in order to investigate and evolve our aliveness. What I'm already trying to convince you of is to play with the feeling or to try out the perspective that we are all practitioners, whether we like it or not, and that we simply make the decision in our practice path about which tools we use, which perspectives we use to explore our vitality.

[29:50]

No, I first came to Europe. Some friends asked me to speak in a conference in 1983. And I had no intention to stay in Europe or... establish a practice with others, a shared practice with others. But somehow, I don't know, I ended up doing it. And nowadays I usually only speak to people I've been practicing with for years or decades. And since I don't know most of you, many of you, this is like going back to the 80s and I'm trying to say something to people who aren't familiar with practice.

[31:04]

But it's amazing. Some of the people I first started practicing with are sitting right here. Martin, Hermann, you and you and you. But the challenge, so Arne and I accepted, Mike has been asking me off and on for a few years, I think, I might do something like this. I felt the request was more than once. So I said, what the heck, I might as well try. But we'll see if I can make any sense to those of you for whom this is quite new.

[32:19]

Michael asked me to come here several times or once very intensively. And now I thought, well, then I'll try it out and see if I can make sense of it for those of you who are listening to me for the first time. I often have the experience with people who are new to the way I, even they may know some practice, but they're new to the way I speak about practice. Well, tell me that for the first year or two they didn't understand a word I said. I hope none of you are having that experience. So then I say, well, why the hell did you... I don't swear. I say, why the heck did you stay around until you did start to get...

[33:23]

I never get an answer which makes me understand why they stayed around. Maybe it sounds serious, but it takes a while before you realize it is serious. Anyway, I'm always debating within myself these things. What the heck as a Westerner am I doing practicing East Asian Zen? And what I speak about like right now is 55 years of trying to answer that question. Now our theme today is supposedly weaving the narrative self, is that right? Weaving our personal narrative.

[35:02]

Oh, weaving our personal narrative. Sounds nearly the same. And this is in the context of the kind of superficial idea that Buddhism is about having no self. But we can't function without some kind of self. Your immune system is a form of self. Our immune system is a form of itself. It knows what belongs to this body that you happen to be and it knows what doesn't belong. It usually knows, but not always, what doesn't belong. So we have to have biologically a distinct sense of definition of self, and we also need to psychologically in other ways.

[36:10]

If self is a necessary, unavoidable part of our existence, Wenn das selbst ein notwendiges oder unvermeidbarer Teil unserer Existenz ist, How are we going to make sense of it within the concept of practice? Wie können wir das dann innerhalb des Konzeptes der Praxis verstehen? And in this case, practice means an active engagement, an intentional engagement with practice. that everything is changing and fundamentally not predictable. My translating team is here.

[37:34]

Okay. So I would like your help in trying to do this. And I mean, some of you are going to say, well, I don't know enough to ask a question or make a statement. Yeah, but that's exactly the kind of question I want, is from somebody who doesn't know enough. Or... wonders what the heck this is all about. And if you're worrying about whether you're intelligent enough to ask a question, Or you're worrying about whether it could be a relevant or irrelevant question, or it's a stupid question.

[38:40]

If you're investigating the self, you can see the edges of the self-referencing going on. If you're investigating the self, Because it's the edges of the self, which you're going over or not going over, which make you decide whether you can ask a question. Make a statement. And practice would be then noticing, having an observer, not necessarily yourself, having an observer which notices why you don't ask a question or why you might or... why you could go over that edge or why you don't, etc.

[39:47]

But it's not just a function of, you know, self-boundaries. It's also an implicit recognition of that we have already created a mutual space. We have a culturally inbuilt respect, mostly unconscious, for this mutual space we've created. So this mutual space is also... And so this mutual space is also something we've created and we respect.

[41:01]

So you're also wondering, enter into this mutual space in a way that's a creative part of this mutual space. But recognizing that we're We've created a mutual space, recognizing that we've created a mutual space, not just functioning in it, but recognizing that we've created a mutual space is practice. Aber zu erkennen, dass wir einen gemeinsamen Raum geschaffen haben, nicht nur in diesem Raum zu funktionieren, sondern zu erkennen, dass wir ihn geschaffen haben, das ist Praxis. Okay, so I think we have to take a break. Ich glaube, wir sollten eine Pause machen.

[42:14]

Thank you very much.

[42:17]

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