Yeah, for those of you unfamiliar with bowing, I'm sorry I keep bowing, but, you know, it's my habit. And, yeah, maybe before the day is over or out, the day is out, we say. Does it mean the same as the day is over? Yeah. Maybe I'll say something about bowing, but right now I won't. There's some kind of yogic, let's call it a reason for it. We'll let that wait and see if it appears, Dave. And Nicole, this is Nicole Barden, who translates for me often these days and years.

[01:09]

And Nicole Barden, die oft in den letzten Jahren für mich übersetzt. She asked me at the break, well, if everything, oh, your doppelganger is being moved. Always take her with me. She's far out. Can I have the doppelganger a minute? Yes. Now this is the hippest doll I've ever seen. Anyway, Nicole asked me if everything's changing and we're just living anyway, what is the path?

[02:12]

So there's a basic question. And I hope that some of you others have any kind of question, basic or non-basic. So please let me hear from you. And I hope that some of you may have other questions, whether they are basic questions or not basic questions. Just any questions. I would like to hear something from you. Well, are you going to start, Herman? Please? My English is a little bit... I'd prefer you to speak in German first and then let her translate or you can translate. If we are constructing or creating a shared space, then we are also creating a shared time.

[03:24]

Yeah. Welche Zeit ist gut für Praxis? What time is suitable or beneficial even for practice? Well, I won't say any time. Ich sag jetzt nicht jede Zeit. Or all the time. Oder immer. Practically speaking, usually it's If by practice you mean sitting practice, that usually affects us the most if it's early in the morning. But if you mean dharma practice, then that then that means you have developed the attentional stream, a continuous attentional stream that can notice the world as a series of momentary appearances.

[04:56]

And the skill to notice the world is a series of momentary appearances, which is closer to how it actually exists. Is it yogic skill that takes some time to develop? And that practice of noticing and actually experiencing unitary momentariness of each, of each, each. And acting within that all the time is all the time. and to constantly unfold his actions.

[06:24]

The answer to that is always. Now, I could, of course, say more about that for the next year or two, if I live that long. But let's leave it at that for now. We only have this precious one day together. Someone else. Yes. I don't know exactly what I want to say yet. I'll try something. We talked about it yesterday evening, that the election for Trump also contains a high willingness for violence or aggression of those who have voted, or of us humans, let's say. I don't know quite yet how to say it, but I just try to approach what I'm trying to try it out.

[07:30]

Yesterday we spoke about the election for Trump also expressed a willingness for aggressive behavior or even violence by the people who voted for him. And that's a kind of a space. And that's a kind of space. And at deeply believe that by creating this kind of space, for example, that this can change the other space. It's not another space. It's not separate. But since everything is changing, then this should also be able to change that, the other space.

[08:33]

That's all true. And with noticing that Trump was elected, We can only hope that everything changes. And changes beneficially. I mean, let me just say I'm not worried. It's happened. That's all that's happened, so now it's going to be interesting. And the scenarios I can run out, some of them are kind of interesting. So right now I'm waiting to see what happens, and depending on what happens, I'll see what action I take. Let me just say, it's very interesting just that the polls were so wrong.

[09:35]

And I'm quite sure the polls were wrong because at least half the people who voted for him were ashamed to admit they were voting for him. So what is it going to be like to have a president you're ashamed you voted for? This is interesting. I mean, if I express my own political views, I hope it sinks, the Trump-tanic sinks the ideologues of the Republican Party. Wenn ich meine eigenen politischen Sichtweisen dazu zum Ausdruck bringen würde, dann sage ich dazu, ich hoffe, dass die Trumptanic, die Ideologen der republikanischen Partei, versinken wird.

[10:50]

What we do see is psychology, Trump's philosophy. Because people voted their anger and their feeling of being disempowered and not their rationality. If we live in a world where self-interest or feeling disempowered, which is another form of self-interest, trumps rationality. Und wenn wir in einer Welt leben, in der das Eigeninteresse oder das Gefühl entmachtet zu sein, und es ist eine Form des Eigeninteresses, wenn das die Rationalität übertrumpft, How are we going to weave our personal narrative?

[11:57]

Because our personal narrative has a lot to do with everyone else's. Let me say that I think all of us secretly somewhere wished there was some really great person we could meet. And you can just imagine, what kind of person do you wish exists? Und ihr könnt euch einfach vorstellen, euch die Frage stellen, was für eine Person, was für einen Mensch wünscht ihr euch denn, dass dieser Mensch existiert?

[12:59]

And practice means you recognize you have to be that person. Und Praxis bedeutet, dass du erkennst, dass du dieser Mensch sein musst. So as a human being trying to be alive, I expect a lot of each of you. Someone else? Something simpler, please. Yes. I like your hair don't, by the way. Yes, understood. Mine's a hair won't and a hair don't. I have a personal question. I'm new. I'm new too. How did you come to Zen practice and to Buddhism? I don't know if my example would be of any use to you.

[14:19]

I followed my nose and it's pretty big. Something like that. But basically it was something like I really... didn't like the definitions that society gave me for life. So I looked for, you know, other possibilities. I studied a lot of them, and I decided Gunzen was the most articulated and open, openly articulated, open-ended and articulated. Basically, I liked all the different definitions of what life is that were offered to me. I didn't like them all. And then I looked at and studied many other possibilities and in the end I decided that I would choose Buddhism for the best articulated and also for the

[15:27]

And something I only recognized really a few years ago is that the Second World War really affected me. I lived in Midwestern America at that time. And I heard the news. My parents listened to the news about the war every day with H.V. Kartenborn and W.R. Murrow and the famous radio commentators. And if the world is Americans and Europeans running around shooting each other, I want to be a different kind of human being. And my investigation of what are the other possibilities of being a human being led me to sit right here now.

[16:37]

I asked for a simpler question. It looked simple on the surface, but not so simple. Someone else. Yes. What do you mean with yogic practice? What is the word yogic? I use it probably somewhat in my own way. But I suppose the simplest way to say I use it to mean that the body knows more than the mind. That's the simplest I can say right now.

[18:04]

So, someone else here? Yes. Arthur? Hi. Hi. I think this morning, when you were talking about it being intellectual, you said something about not believing your ideas. Yeah. Not believing in my thinking. But you're convinced, obviously, of your ideas and your concepts. But I'm convinced not through ideas. I'm convinced through my experience and bodily experience confirming and refining those ideas. Okay, now I have to say something. Do you want your part yourself or should I translate it for you? Okay. So the question was, this morning you talked about the difference between philosophy and practice.

[19:11]

and said that you don't believe in your thinking. And then Roshi replied, he said, yes, but it is obvious that you believe in your ideas and your concepts, or you are very convinced of them. And then Roshi said, yes, but I am convinced of my thoughts, ideas or concepts So I only speak about what I've experienced. I'm not teaching any Buddhism I've heard about. I'm only speaking about my experience. And then I look and see, can Buddhism help me talk about it? Yes. I'm really thoroughly skeptical. I keep, I really check things out carefully before I say, okay.

[20:43]

Temporarily it's true for me. Ich überprüfe die Dinge wirklich ganz sorgfältig, bis ich sagen kann, na gut, also zumindest übergangsweise stimmt das jetzt für mich. I can imagine writing a book, temporarily it's true for me. Chapter one. Ich kann mir vorstellen, ein Buch mit dem Titel zu schreiben, Übergangsweise stimmt das für mich. Erstes Kapitel. Okay, yeah. Yes. I am also new. But I have a question about a sentence that I have been thinking about for many years. And the sentence goes like this. Life and death are the same. And if you have understood this fact, then you don't need to fear death anymore and don't experience any real difficulties anymore. I'm also new, and there's a sentence I've been thinking about for a long time, and the sentence is, life and death are the same.

[21:53]

And if you recognize that life and death are the same, then you don't need to be afraid of death, and also you won't have any real difficulties in being alive. Well, I don't think you'll have less difficulties dying, perhaps, but you still may have some difficulties living. But the question is more, how can I understand Life and death are the same. Okay, so first the answer. Okay, I think you can say that you then have less difficulty in dying, but you can still have great difficulties in life. But she says, okay, and the question though is, how can I understand life and death are the same? Well, it sounds like you've heard this statement and on some level you believe it and on some you doubt it.

[22:55]

And I wouldn't say that they're the same. I would say they're inseparable. I have a fairly new granddaughter, about as new as your daughter. Who, like her daughter, is very talkative. I had my 80th birthday party a few months early, a couple months early this year. Because I was in California, where most of my family is, so I had an extended family birthday party. And so I walked by my granddaughter, room, her name is Paloma for the peace dove.

[24:21]

And I walked by her room and she called out, Papa, Grandpapa, Grandpapa. I have a good idea. And she's two years old. I have a good idea, okay. So I turned back and went in her room and I said, what's your good idea? And she was standing in her kind of crib bed with the, you know, bars, holding them. And I said, Palolo, what's your good idea? She said, I want to get out of here. And I said, well, what do you want to do?

[25:31]

She said, let's celebrate. Let's go down. I said, they've all gone. They all went home last night. Oh, okay, but still let's celebrate. So I said to my daughter and my son-in-law, very nice folks, when she was first born, I said, I don't know what possessed me to say it, but I said, now you've created someone who has to die.

[26:32]

And life is discovering that you have to die. You will die. There's no exceptions. I've heard as far as I know. And you can't really separate living from the fact that we have to die. But you won't remember that you died. If there's any consolation in that. But there's no need to anticipate that you won't remember. So anticipation is the problem. So... And the best state of mind is to be always ready.

[27:45]

And to be always ready is also a definition of practicing. Yes. I also noticed that not taking the limits of the self or the self so seriously could actually be a daily practice in order to accept that we are no longer, because that is an immorality. I thought that to not take the boundaries of the self so seriously, that that could also be a practice in order to accept when we are no longer, when we don't exist any longer. Because actually looking at it, that's an immensity to think of that fact. To think of what?

[28:56]

That we won't exist when we don't exist anymore. Yeah, we do create, each of us creates a personal sphere. And it would be hard for you to imagine how many anecdotes I have and for me to manage how many anecdotes you have. And when I'm gone, all those anecdotes will be gone. And nobody can recreate them. What? That's sad? It may be sad, but that's also an anecdote. Yeah, it's interesting that we do create very unique spheres of aliveness And they're impermanent.

[30:10]

Any other lonely hands looking for the air? Hi. I have a bit of an open-ended question. I'm writing a book about how people develop their practice, not in Zen, but in design. But I feel there is something there, that sort of teacher-student relationship. And I was wondering if you had any comments on that. how your teacher or teachers can help you develop your practice. Do you speak German? Me? Okay. I have a question. I'm writing a book about the way people develop their practice. Not in Zen, but in design.

[31:13]

And I have the feeling that something is hidden in the teacher-student relationship. There's something in there. And I'm wondering if you have any comments on that. Okay. Well, I have lots of teachers. Most of them are dead. Proust. He definitely was a teacher of mine. Proust was definitely a teacher of mine. I counted the other day, a while ago, Lady Murasaki, about 400 people who I'd say are my teachers, and almost all of them are dead. But they've created, helped me create, the collective experience that I call being alive. And it's interesting that one of the scary things about Trump is playing by nobody's collective experience.

[32:40]

The rules of nobody's collective experience except to kind of bully. And one of the really scary aspects of Mr. Trump is that he doesn't care about any collective experience at all. So he doesn't play his game along with any collective experience, except that he's just such a bully. I don't know, how do you say that in German? Yes, sorry. A bully, sorry? A bully. But a very insecure bully. But in any case, and you know, my living teachers have been, of course, Suzuki Roshi and Ivan Illich and other people. And my friend, Brother David Steindl-Rost, he's still alive. He's 90 now. ten years older than me.

[33:46]

We used to exchange clothes sometimes and give lectures where I'd pretend to be him and he'd pretend to be me. Because we looked alike. And my friend, of course, David Steindl-Rast, who is now 90 years old, and we used to look alike and sometimes we just exchanged the clothes and then held lectures where he said that he was me and the other way around. There's a friend of Brother David in the back here. So I think, you know, two heads are better than one. Because they're capable of separate simultaneous locations. Yeah. So So I myself decided to place myself within the collective experience of the people I found who reached me the most.

[34:54]

In terms of Zen, then how am I a so-called teacher? To the role I've taken, which is one of the classic roles in Zen practice. I'm not really trying to teach you Buddhism or Zen. I'm trying to teach you how to teach yourself Zen. Then I really feel a connected tissue and field with you when we're together discovering how to practice Zen. Yeah, and then I feel two hearts are bigger than one.

[36:12]

So for me it's like that. Yes. I was pondering this question when I saw the title of this workshop, Presenting Psychotherapy. I was wondering, talking about creating spaces. The question was, if somebody comes to you, to a psychotherapist, and says he has panic or fever. Panic attacks. Panic attacks, yeah. I've had this happen to me. The question is, if you as the psychotherapist... I'm not a psychotherapist. No, I'm saying, but as a psychotherapist, if you are the person in the position of a psychotherapist, would you be aware of that? Is psychoanalyzing that obsolete?

[37:15]

Would it be more sensible or effective to just realize that you're creating space, maybe of confidence or trust, instead of engaging with that person? So the question is, Is it possible to create spaces where psychotherapy or psychoanalysis is obsolete, if you are aware of that? Yeah. Insofar as psychotherapy is a tool, we can create spaces and someone comes to you in the role of a psychotherapist and he has anxiety disorders or pain attacks. And if you are aware of this, whether it is ever more meaningful or more effective to create the space in which you Well, this is a very basic question and a basic bundle of questions.

[38:19]

But, you know, people come to me sometimes with various... I find I'm in the midst of relating to people who... I don't think Zen practice is going to help them. They ought to see a psychotherapist. Yeah, I have the largest demographic within our Sangha, which is, you know, the largest sense, it's about 2,000 people. In an active sense, it's three or four hundred people. In the largest demographic, there are therapists of some kind. In fact, right now, a meeting is being organized by people in who are therapists within the Dharma Sangha, to discuss how practices affected, Zen practices affected how they relate to clients, how they relate to their own practice, and so forth.

[40:05]

We should explore it because they're overlapping at least. And right now, a group of therapists from the Sangha is forming, who also have a seminar about it, who want to meet, organize a meeting to discuss how the Zen practice influences their work as therapists and also how, for example, Zen practice and therapeutic work differ from each other. But to put it in the simplest contrast I can, psychotherapy in general tries to find out what happened in the past. And in the case of traumas, sometimes that's useful to find out. But the emphasis overall in Zen practice and in Buddhism is to find out how it's happening in the present.

[41:07]

But you have to have a very considerable yogic skill to actually work with how it's happening in the immediate present. Now, to introduce a more concept, which is a practice, which takes some time to get the hang of, One of the things that you need to develop is a practice is to develop an attentional stream of awareness which is not consciousness.

[42:39]

One of the things that one develops in practice is an attention stream of consciousness which is not the same as consciousness. Attention. Yes, attention. And that, another one of my early translators. And that is a skill that the average person just doesn't have. We can ask a simple question. It's very easy for any one of you to give attention Pay attention? Is it a commercial? Give attention to your breath for a few counts, for a few moments. But it's very difficult to have your attention resting in your breath the whole day.

[43:47]

Now, why is it so easy to do for a few breaths and so difficult to do for ten? Or... An hour. Now, to ask yourself that question, the person who asks themselves such a question is a person who's ripe for practice. And then to investigate the triggers of why you can't establish continuity in the breath. And after two or three breaths, attentive breaths, immediately you start thinking again. Now that's not because your thinking is so damned interesting.

[45:03]

It may be ridiculous things you talk about. But you establish a continuity in this narrative, self-referencing stream. Aber du stellst eine Art Kontinuität, eine Kontinuität in diesem selbstbezogenen, narrativen Strom her. And it's not just that it's self-established because you need to self-reference all the time. Und diese Kontinuität wird nicht nur deshalb etabliert, weil du ständig die Bezugnahme auf dich selbst brauchst. It's because consciousness as a way of knowing is structured to make the world in categories that are predictable. So the very structure, organization of consciousness establishes and makes you establish continuity in consciousness.

[46:20]

Oh, you're done? Okay. So she was, you know, you know, that trouble with Zen students, they just face out sometimes, you know. Oh, where are we? She proved you can break continuity. She didn't even pay attention to me. Okay. So, now, again, if you're an investigative path creator... Wenn du ein forschungsinteressierter, ein nachforschender Weguntersucher bist, dann erkennst du, dass wir, um zu funktionieren, unbedingt irgendeine Erfahrung von Kontinuität brauchen.

[47:45]

If you don't have some experience of continuity, you won't get home tonight. Okay. But once you recognize that, you don't try to get rid of continuity. You try to establish continuity in a different way. Aber wenn du das erstmal erkannt hast, dann schlussfolgerst du daraus nicht, dass du jetzt versuchst, die Kontinuität abzuschaffen, sondern du versuchst, die Kontinuität auf eine andere Art und Weise herzustellen. And one of the vivid experiences of discovering how to sit still We could say meditation is really absorptive sitting. Absorptive sitting, let's call it meditation too, is to sit still enough to examine change.

[48:57]

If I'm trying to observe this, it's real hard to observe it. It's moving. And if I'm moving too, then it really gets complicated. So if I can sort of stop moving, then maybe I can begin to watch the movement. Also, wenn ich zumindest erstmal aufhöre, mich zu bewegen, und dann kann ich anfangen, zumindest so ein bisschen die Bewegung davon zu erkennen oder zu studieren. Once you discover, if you still, really discover stillness, then the mind begins to be stiller and you can begin to observe.

[50:00]

So, sitting, absorptive sitting is a posture, physical posture, and a mental posture, and the primary mental posture initially is don't move. Also, das absorbierte Sitzen ist zunächst mal eine körperliche Haltung und eine geistige Haltung. Und die erste geistige Haltung ist, bewege dich nicht. And it's the mental posture, don't move, which gives the physical posture power, revelatory power. Die geistige Haltung, bewege dich nicht, die der körperlichen Haltung eine enthüllende Kraft gibt. And one of the things I didn't want to come to Berlin, because I knew there'd be a lot of new people here, and I'd have to tell you you ought to sit, and I didn't want to tell you that. Because I was sure you'd all be good people and if you've gotten this far somehow you must be doing something right.

[51:07]

So why should I interfere with what you do? So I've spent, I've been practicing Zen, yes, I've told you, 55 years, but I've spent a lot of those years trying to not tell people they have to sit. And some people think they don't have to sit because they're waiting around for sudden enlightenment. And if I'm suddenly enlightened, why do I have to sit? And as I've said recently, there's no question that sudden enlightenment or any kind of enlightenment, incremental or sudden, is rather nice.

[52:22]

But enlightenment is also often incremental. and hardly noticed, except you've changed direction. But practice is a physiological act. Because you actually are changing the neurological pathways of your body, which don't change with instant enlightenment. The last thing. don't change just through enlightenment.

[53:26]

The pathways change through repetitive, uniquely repetitive physiological practice. And establishing a non-conscious attentional stream takes a little while, maybe 10 years. And not looking for results, but having the patience of the path is necessary. But it is interesting, I mean, I find it mind-blowing, actually, that practice changes you physiologically.

[54:38]

It's a process of re-emergent creation, moment after moment. And I can give you some hints that help. View everything as an activity and never as an entity. This platform I have through you, that was awfully nice of you. So I can see the friend of Brother David in the back. This platform is an activity. You can see the activity in the grain of the wood and the knots. You can see the activity in that the weight of it is sitting on the floor.

[56:21]

And it's the activity of the house holding up the floor. But it's a different kind of activity and different kind of speed than Nicole in her translating. But you kind of have to train yourself to see everything as an activity because it's built into English with all its nouns, in fact. There's no nouns in the world. There's only verbs. This is not a platform, it's a platforming. As trees are treeing. So if you start relating to a tree as treeing, You can see that it has no boundaries.

[57:46]

The insects in the bark are part of the tree. Die Insekten und die Rinde sind Teil des Bäumens. The branches are part of the tree. Die Zweige sind Teil des Bäumens. Die Wurzeln sind Teil des Bäumens. The space it creates and the space of you feeling the tree is part of the tree. The photosynthesis, the air you're breathing is part of the tree. So you have to kind of train your habits to catch yourself when you see things as entities and stop and say, no, it's inactive. Now, I've introduced a lot of things that require a little bit of some footnotes or sitnotes or something.

[58:51]

Ich habe jetzt eine ganze Menge Dinge hier reingeworfen, die sowas wie Fußnoten oder Sitznoten bräuchten. But it's almost time for a lunch note. Aber jetzt ist fast schon an der Zeit für eine Mittagsnote. Yeah, so it's 12.30. As I said yesterday, I'm known to be tardy, but somehow it's exactly 12.30. I'm very proud of myself. And I hope you have a lot of statements and questions afterwards, because I'm finding it exciting to be here with you. Michael can tell you something about the meal possibilities. Why don't you stand up and then... My name is...

[60:24]

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