Also, jemand, bitte. Or you could continue if you weren't quite finished. Oder du könntest weitermachen, wenn du noch nicht ganz durch warst. Was mich bewegt seit heute Morgen, ist die Aussage von Dierachie, dass der Buddhismus What touches me or moves me since this morning is your statement that Buddhism, now that it's in the West, Buddhism in the West, has to change. And that's true. Buddhism itself doesn't change, but people want traditional Buddhism to change. and I feel like a conservative Buddhist who's trying to keep change from happening by building dams.

[01:23]

One example is that people... Which side of the dam are you on? Not the wet side. I don't know. The example that comes up is the people want to come to the session one or two days later or one or two days earlier. The example that keeps coming up is that people would like to come one or two days later to Sashin or leave one or two days earlier. Or can they come to have a sitting weekend?

[02:26]

And can't we change the recitations, make them shorter and less bowing and so forth? I think I've heard such things. What I'm noticing is that there is this continuous pressure that is happening for me. And the only way I can hold it or through my practice of being upright And that's a power or a force that has been developing through my practice that allows me to uphold the traditions.

[03:36]

It's the body that has gone through such a long tradition with you and with all of us, that has enabled us to say, we can do this and we can't do that. It's not a rational decision, it's a body decision. There's a body that has such a long tradition with you, that's gone through such a long tradition with you and with all of us. It's such a long body, too. That allows me to make decisions around, okay, well, this exception or this question, we can do this, but we can't do this. So there's a physical process rather than a conscious thinking or a conscious decision-making. And that's maybe one answer why it takes at least 10 or more years to establish a physically body. Mm-hmm. And that's maybe a reason why it takes ten or more years to establish this physical thing.

[04:58]

But it's something very, very clear, where I don't have to make a decision, as I've already said. It's just clear what's physical, traditional and what's right, in quotation marks. But there's a feeling of real clarity and I don't, as I said before, I don't feel I need to be making decisions about that. There's a feeling of real clarity from a physical, it's a physical clarity about the tradition. Yeah. I didn't say Buddhism will change. Ich habe nicht gesagt, der Buddhismus wird sich verändern. Ich habe gesagt, er muss sich verändern. Und er muss sich verändern, weil er sich verändern wird. Und weil er sich sowieso verändern wird, ist die einzige Art, wie wir das verändern können, I mean, Buddhism in America is becoming so dilute and American that we have to change in order to keep it from diluting.

[06:16]

It's becoming some sort of social program to help people. Nothing wrong with helping people, but it's not Buddhism. Buddhism in America is so diluted. And I think the only way to prevent the dilution is that we change ourselves. And in America, Buddhism has become such a program to help people in a social way. And it's not wrong to help people, but that's not Buddhism. Yeah. We all can see there's a difference between a two-day sashin or two-day sitting and a seven-day sashin. Yeah, but we don't seem to be able to see that there's a difference between a six-week practice period and a 90-day practice period. And Dogen says very clearly

[07:19]

I mean, he goes even farther than, maybe farther than I would. He says people who don't do, any teacher who hasn't done many angos shouldn't even be ridiculed. Ridicule is too good for them. You've read the portions? Yeah. So... It's a different understanding of what a human being is. I get annoyed when somebody says, you're supposed to do tea sensha at 90 degrees or 85 degrees.

[08:40]

Well, How can you say that's wrong? But from the point of view of practice, it's completely wrong. Did Fahrenheit and Centigrade even exist a few hundred years ago? So the temperature of the tea depends on where it was grown, how thick the pottery is, and how you're feeling at that moment, and it's through your hands touching the bowls and feeling the water, and every day you change the temperature slightly and change the tea slightly. The idea that there's some kind of temperature which sensha, all sensha, or gyokuro should be, it's simply another world from practice.

[09:51]

The temperature depends on where the tea has grown, where the plant has grown. It depends on how thick, for example, the teapot is in which you brew it. It also depends on how you feel right now. And the temperature, you change the temperature a little bit every day, depending on these factors, for example. And this idea that there is a very specific temperature So tea people even tell you that degrees should be such and such, but they just say it because you do not have the sensitivity to make the distinctions in how you make the tea, knowing where it was grown, what season it was picked, and so forth. And how thick the pottery is. This doesn't require special intelligence.

[11:20]

It requires attention. Sorry for... Usually I riff. Today I'm ranting. Yeah, well, that's what doorstep Zen is. I'm trying to drive you all away. And then I'll come to the doorstep, ah, what a nice view. No one there. Yeah, someone else. Somehow I'm annoyed by what you said. And I have such a resistance when someone says, we have to preserve something.

[12:23]

There is Buddhism and... It is proven, thousands of years old, and we practice, we are on the way, and we may have understood something, or not, and now we have to preserve it somehow. And now influences from outside, people from the outside, who have other needs, who have other questions, come to us. Wie ist das, wenn wir dem begegnen als dann? Darf ich kurz übersetzen? Wie ist das, wenn wir dem begegnen als? Als dann. Okay. So, for some reason that annoys me, what you just said about that we need to maintain or keep something, maintain something. I said, who said it? Yeah, I said it. Okay. because so there's a feeling in that that we've been practicing for such and such many years and Buddhism has been existing for thousands of years and we've learned something or maybe we haven't but now okay anyhow now there is this practice and the feeling that now there are influences coming from the outside but that we have to

[13:45]

maintain something or conserve something. What is that attitude if we feel we have to meet that as if we were a dam? If we were a what? A dam. A dam. Okay. I don't want to say anything against your conservatism. And it is certainly also good to guard something. I feel very rebellious today and would like to attack. Because I don't feel obliged to Buddhism. I feel obliged to experience something through the practice of... that are given to me by Buddhism. But that is something in me, that is something that is always just emerging and is already dissolving in the next moment. I don't want to attack your conservatism.

[14:47]

I'm sure it's important also to conserve or to maintain something. I just feel a little rebellious today. And I... Oh, yeah. And I don't feel obligated to Buddhism itself. I feel obligated to something I experience that, yes, has been influenced through the teachings of Buddhism, but that's something that's in me. Well, this is... And it arises and it also dissolves. By the way, if we're going to go back and if people want me to translate to go a little shorter, it's too much for my brain. Well, of course, Gerald is responsible for shaping others' practice as well as his own.

[15:53]

So that's a little different than your situation. But this is exactly the conversation we should have. So someone else. So, of course, Geralt's responsibility is to share the practice with other people, to form the practice of other people. That's of course different from your situation. But this is exactly the kind of conversation we should have. So, go on. I don't... I don't... I don't know what your dam, what that looks like, what you want to maintain in the teachings. So what is it that wants to be maintained? As you have just described, and what Roschi has linked to, should it be a social assistance group?

[16:59]

Like you described and what Roshi picked up upon, the question is, is this supposed to be a social help group? Or should this go beyond that? I can only rely on the experience of an experienced person. And first of all, I can only rely on the experience of an experienced person. And my feeling is I first of all have to defer, maybe defer, and just trust the experienced person in order to step out of this cognitive space.

[18:04]

You spoke this morning about observing one's own cognitions. That's something that is accessible to me. Yes. to be in cognitive space is very familiar to me. And in the next step, I mean, right now I feel like maybe there's some kind of sequence of steps in the next step to notice when I start thinking again. And here, too, there's a difference between just the notion and the cognition.

[19:21]

The noticing, you mean, or the notion? Maybe I think noticing or notion, that noticing is more, notion is bemerken als Substantiv. It sounds, in German I would now say noticing. Okay, fine, thank you. Und der nächste Schritt ist das bemerken, bemerken. Und das erschließt sich mir halt, also wenn ich es versuche zu verstehen, bin ich ja wieder im kognitiven Raum, And the third step is maybe something like to notice the noticing. And this is something where I have a difficulty, where I feel, okay, well, then again, I just slipped into cognitive space to notice noticing. Yes, right.

[20:32]

That's the problem with noticing-noticing. And maybe that's a kind of crutch, that noticing-noticing, maybe that's a kind of just a linguistic crutch or something like that. It's because actually it's one space or one Okay, mostly I just want to let the conversation go, but I think some definitions may be useful occasionally. Cognitive space is a kind of categorization of things. What's wrong with categorizing? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Now, what could be wrong with categorizing? And where is the problem?

[21:47]

Is there a problem with categorizing? Where is the glass of water? It's here. It's not there. It's here. That's a category. Here and there. Before and after. What's wrong with that? Okay. Let's take non-cognizing attentional attunement. Nehmen wir nochmal diesen Begriff nicht. Deshalb habe ich das Problem mit erkennen. Nicht. N-C-A-A. Thank you. Just give me a moment. I want to see if there is a different word for it. Okay. Okay, now in a yogic culture, you're mainly taught to be attentive, not to be intelligent. But it's assumed that decisional intelligence arises from attentiveness.

[23:06]

Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass die Intelligenz, die in zum Beispiel die Entscheidungsfindung hineinfließt, aus dem Aufmerksamsein heraus entspringt. It doesn't start with categorization or comparison or cognizing. Intelligenz beginnt nicht mit Kategorisierung oder Vergleichen oder mit dem kognitiven Erfassen. Now, this is a different kind of person. Aber das ist eine andere Art Mensch. You can still make babies together. Man kann immer noch zusammen Babies machen. But if you were brought up in China, you'd be Chinese now, not German or Austrian or Swiss. Aber wenn du in China aufgewachsen wärst, dann wärst du jetzt Chinese und kein deutscher Deutsche oder österreichisch oder schweizerisch. Now, non-cognizing attentional attunement does not make categories.

[24:27]

Auf dieser Ebene werden keine Kategorien geschaffen. Ob das jetzt hier oder da drüben ist, das wird alles gar nicht miteinander verglichen, sondern man ist einfach nur aufmerksam. But what's wrong with that? Well, first of all, it slows your apprehending down. It's like you have to pick everything up and put it in baskets. This goes in here and that goes in there. So the cognizing slows your apprehension down. The categorization slows your knowing down. And it takes energy. Anyway, it takes energy.

[25:50]

Ja, also es braucht Energie. So you have a little less energy in the flow of things. Und diese Energie, die fehlt dir dann in dem Fluss der Dinge. Yeah. Now, again, one thing you notice if you live in a yogic culture for a while, is everything is done with energy. Boom, boom, boom, boom. None of this slow, you know, kind of being careful. Because energy is always good for your aliveness. Okay. So, Categorization slows your actional response to situational events.

[26:55]

Handlung, im Prinzip dein Antworten mit Handlungen in situational... A situational flow or response. In dem Fluss der Situation. Okay. That's just ordinary categorization. Und das ist nur das gewöhnliche Kategorisieren. But if your category is the distinction between human and inhuman, non-human, you are destroying the world. Our environmental disaster, which is all over as far as I'm concerned, is because of that kind of distinction. We don't take care of the non-human as if it was human. It's like Dogen says, it's like your own eyes. What you see, you touch this as if it were your own eyes so that you do not make a human-non-human distinction. Then with this kind of distinction we destroy the world, the entire ecological crisis in which we are in.

[28:24]

And if you ask me, that's over, that's already gone. Then it is this kind of distinction that leads to such terrible effects and in contrast to that, So our habit of making categories Categories which give us the sense that we're doing something. Because unless it's in a category, we don't think we've done something. We don't think we're noticing until we notice we're noticing. Wir denken nicht, dass wir bemerken, bis wir bemerkt haben, dass wir bemerken.

[29:37]

Okay, that's a kind of bad habit that we Westerners have. Das ist eine Art schlechte Gewohnheit, die wir Westler haben. But when we make the kind of distinction between human and non-human... Aber wenn wir eine Unterscheidung treffen, wie die zwischen menschlich und nicht-menschlich... It's a disastrous... delusion. It's not just a delusion, it's a disastrous delusion. Silvia thinks her dog is herself. And she thinks her dog is also her room. So she has no problem with this. But really, anyway, I stop. Someone else.

[30:41]

Ungewöhnliche für mich hier. I was surprised and astonished by the discussion between Gerald and Eckhart. Unusual for me to experience that here. When I categorize Buddhism, I find it less conservative, but rather cynical and postmodern. And if we are going to talk about categorization, for me, Buddhism is less conservative, but the word I would have thought of is postmodern. Buddhism is postmodern?

[31:43]

Yeah. Okay. But anyway, what I noticed, I'm a Sie macht schon viele Jahre hier mit und habe schon einige sessions hier gesessen, sieben Tage. What I've noticed is that I've been here for so many years and I've done a lot of sessions and seven days sessions. I've said seven days. And you're still feeling postmodern. Ja, immer noch das Gefühl, es passt mir sehr an. But I used to sit sashins in a different tradition for five days, and they were also called sashins. At least five days can be called a sashin. So, four to five. So his sashins were four to five days.

[32:53]

It's almost a sashin. It's a four-day sitting, not a sashin. And I've also said some Vipassana ten-day retreats. I don't know what a Vipassana teacher would say about the duration of seven days for a Sashin. What I mean is that it doesn't matter to me. I'm not here because of the form. But because the teacher and the teachings and the people.

[33:56]

And now here it's in this form. For good reasons. But for me these are also categories. Ten, seven, five. And that I found unusual, to discuss on that level, referring to the conversation between Gerhard and Eckhard, not to be in dialogue. What I understand very much is, when people come and want something different, can I go before, shorter, and so on? What I understand very well about what Gerald is saying is what that's like when people come and want things to be different, like, can I come shorter, and so forth.

[35:04]

They don't want to revolutionize Buddhism. But what they don't, what they aren't trying to do is they're not trying to revolutionize Buddhism. They just want to do it shorter because they have other things to do. And to make the kind of decision that Gerald has to make or has made then is to, you know, in some cases say, sorry, that doesn't work for me or that doesn't work for us. But that's not Western Buddhism or a different kind of Buddhism or anything like that. But that's just to uphold the practice in the tradition that you're practicing in. And to notice, because for me it took a moment to understand what that conversation is about.

[36:17]

And are we concerned about whether the ANGO is 91 or 89 days or is this about something else? And for me it's very clear it's about everything else. But when I'm doing the Ango here, I'm doing 90 days. Good. I hope I didn't lose my bread, didn't lose myself. Please, someone else. Maybe someone else. One comment I forgot to say or didn't say. The question for me is, when I look back at my practice, what was effective for me?

[37:29]

The question that arises for me when I look at my practice is the question, what was effective for me? What worked really for me? A practice that transforms. I've tried other things. And that has really changed And this, for me, really has transformed or changed me in ways that I never would have thought possible. And of course, that's the basis. It can only be the basis for my decisions. And in terms of this worked for me, try it.

[38:49]

And you're welcome to participate if you want to try it in this way. And then in the sense of, okay, this worked for me, you can try it out and you're invited to try it out with me in this way. I hope I don't have to keep saying someone else. My interest was somehow kept in the second chapter of the Shogunate, and I felt that I could somehow deconstruct the wall of conditioning by... You can speak German first, you know, if you want.

[39:52]

But I feel closer. All right. Aber sag mir kurz, übersetzt du dich selbst gleich oder mache ich das dann? I don't know. [...] proceeding through Prashina Paramita erkannt hat, dass die Entis sind.

[40:57]

Das wird recht schwer. Also ich kann für mich, was mich da interessiert hat, glaube ich, ist, dass ich die So what was helpful for me is to notice that, okay, so there's form, there's perception, there's consciousness. And in sensing into these, when I do that, the normal way of conscious constructing isn't possible.

[41:57]

It's not the normal way of constructing. The usual way. Or it's kind of a method of deconstructing this conscious, this normal perception. And I learned, especially in Gerald's session, that one can spend years just studying each of the sensory channels. Still, I'm interested in what it means in the first sentence, what this seeing through Prashina Paramita means, and also whether it is something that comes from where, whether it is where a decision can take place, So I'm interested in what this Prajna Kavarita perceiving through this, what does it mean?

[43:24]

Or is there kind of a decision that I could make? But I'm not sure if I have the question on the point yet. Yeah, I think you have to bring it into more focus. And what you mean by prajnaparamita. Probably that's the question. Okay, and all, everything we do, if everything is an activity, everything is actually deconstruction. Because there's no construction without deconstruction, because construction is a process which involves deconstruction.

[44:25]

When there's no deconstruction, you're in a world of entities. Okay. So, shall we have one more person and then we'll have a break? Ich wollte noch mal ganz kurz was zu dem Thema von Gerald sagen. Ich glaube, am besten oder sehr gut gefällt mir an der Zen-Praxis, wie ich sie hier erlebt habe und erfahren habe in den Jahren, dass es um Erfahrung geht. Ich kann eigentlich nur über das reden, was ich erlebt, erfahren habe. And one comment again about the topic Gerald brought up is, what I like very much, resonate with very much in the way I've learned Zen practice here, is that it's really about experience, and that I can only speak about what I've experienced.

[45:44]

And with that I mean what I've partly incorporated, or incorporated through. And what I mean by that is also what, at least one of the aspects, is what I have, what would you say, de-bodied? De-bodied or through-bodied. And one aspect was, for example, I learned about Zen at some point. We only sat there for two days and they called it Seishin. And one thing that happened for me is first I sat for two days, and they called those two days a sashin. And in the first years that I practiced, I could not have sat for one second longer. And that was a great help. Then it was a help that this was done in the West.

[46:45]

And then it was helpful for me that it was, in the West, shortened like this, because I couldn't have done it longer. Well, it didn't have to be called a sashin, though. It could have just been called a two-day sitting. And for him, whatever it was called, it didn't matter at that time. And so I don't know what Buddhism is when it's phrased like a general, like a generalization. Yeah, me neither. It's honest. And the way that I've practiced here with you and with the teachers and with others is that I feel like it has always and it keeps developing, evolving through us together.

[48:28]

And it's always been in a dosis that only slightly overwhelmed me. Yeah, I tried to overwhelm you. No, a teacher, ideally, when they start a sashin, they look at the group. They look at each individual and they look at the group. And they look at the relationships between three or four people or these five or six people or these two or three people. This isn't done usually categorizing thinking. Distinctions are not categories, necessarily. Wow, okay. Okay. Okay, so you get a, it's almost like there's a basket.

[49:36]

Each sashin is a kind of basket. And it's going to be woven. It's partly there, but it's going to be woven during the Sashin. And then the teacher decides, what can I introduce on the first day to see where it will go by the seventh day that nobody's overwhelmed or only somewhat overwhelmed. And the teacher then decides, what can I introduce on the first day, or bring in? And how could that develop?

[50:38]

And so that on the last day... Now, you wanted them to be overwhelmed or not? A little bit. Okay. So that on the last day... Overwhelmed at least, if not overwhelmed. Okay. Okay. Now, you also generally are teaching at least two and sometimes three or more levels. Und normalerweise, wenn du lehrst, dann lehrst du auf mindestens zwei, aber normalerweise drei oder vier Ebenen. So, particularly with Sashin, for beginners, mostly you're teaching on a level where everyone can absorb it. And the more mature the group is, and maturing, you begin to add things that could be more disturbing. Some things almost can cause nervous breakdowns in people. So the teacher has to be careful to

[51:58]

You know, that's one reason I make sure I know everybody in the Sashin who's coming, etc. Because I've had Sashins where somebody's talked me into somebody. I've had three or four breakdowns in Sashins. And it's always been the case where somebody says, I really know this person. I've practiced with them. It's okay for you to... And I get there and I, oh gosh, this is dangerous. And maybe it happened to me three or four times that someone had a nervous breakdown during a session. And that's also the reason that when I do a session, then I'm absolutely sure that I've spoken to each person before, that I've had contact with each person before. And the times when it happens to me that someone has had a nervous breakdown, it was actually always when the recommendation... And you have to skirt very carefully around and past somebody who, if you said this, it's not how they're put together. There's some psychological danger. And it may be that you really have to be careful, where you then know, okay, if I say that now, then that is so different from the way in which this person puts himself together, how this person holds himself together, that it can really disturb the person.

[53:57]

So you can't, and also everybody has a certain, in the West, certain shared cultural basket they've grown up with and live in. So in 1986, when I first did a Sashin, I believe in Europe, I was paying attention to what things which really are completely different than our Western culture I could introduce a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Now, this is somewhat different, what I'm doing in Steptoe, because I never explained these things before. This is Stepdoor Zen. Stepdoor Zen. It means you can leave easily.

[55:11]

The door is right over there. Yeah, there. Tsukuyoshi used to tell me, you came in through the door, but you damn well better be ready to leave by the window. How is it called? No, step door is the other one where you fall in. Door step zen. Faultier. Faultier, exactly, faultier. There's door step zen and there's step door zen. You didn't mean step door zen, did you? I was playing around. That's a kind of faultier zen. And there's trap door zen. What is the faultier? That's also the faultier, yes. Well, now we're lost. Okay. So anyway, so... Okay, also Suki Roshi, I didn't translate how you have to go out through the window. He said that to me very clearly at least three times in Doksan, various times.

[56:12]

Like he was ready to push me out if necessary. Okay, so during the Sashin you can sort of, I can, I'm a good teacher, ideally if I'm a good teacher, can sense what I can get away with introducing. And so you don't prepare talks in advance and have an idea what you're going to... Because if you do that, you're in a category and you can't really sense what you can get away with. So there's three levels usually, the explicit level, the implicit level, and the hinting level, where you hint at things.

[57:22]

Now, this five-day Sashin, which I've occasionally done, you know, we do them sometimes, you can't really introduce things in the same way because you need the seven days and probably the third and fourth day to take people back into their own space. When you do five days of sashimi, and we do them sometimes, when you do five days of sashimi, then you can't necessarily bring in the same things that you can bring in seven days, because you need the seven days, and especially the third and the fourth day, where the third and the fourth day bring people back into their own space. So the fourth and fifth days, you're bringing people back into, ideally, their own space, and then the fifth and sixth days, you're weaving that together.

[58:41]

Now, if it were a ten-day practice, you'd approach it somewhat differently. Okay. Now, the problem with people coming for shorter periods of time, there's a dynamic among the people that develops. Now, I let one long-time practitioner come two or three, three times maybe, to half a practice period at Crestone. And I, this person was quite intelligent, and I knew, I was quite sure they sensed They can only handle about three months, I mean six weeks, because they can still maintain themselves for six weeks.

[60:04]

But more than that, they're going to lose it. But I still let this person do that. And at some point I said, now you're going to have to do a 90-day practice period. Now, if this person hadn't had a real capacity for practice, it wouldn't have been so important. They would have just three months or three months, and it was nice to be with everybody and so forth. But I was pretty sure this person only had capacity for practice up to a point, and they were then going to retrench and be the person, the social person they wanted to be, because they identified themselves societally primarily, not dharmically.

[61:12]

And after this person did the three-month practice period, it basically ended his practice with the Dharma Sangha. They weren't really respected by the other people in the practice period, and they kind of lost it. You know, there's no universal time. Jogan says there's maturing time. The four marks of a dharma establish there's appearance and then there's durative time, then there's a duration.

[63:07]

And there's a duration in this glass. It's a slower duration than mine. And there's a duration in each of you, and it's different in each of you. It's not the same. It's not universal. Excuse me. It's different. Yeah, I know, but... How can I say this? At least in German, the way I use duration now, Dauer, duration, it kind of makes it feel like the lifespan of the person. No, it's just momentary. Seconds. Die Dauer von jeder Person, die momenthafte Dauer... Yes, das ist total blöd.

[64:12]

Die Spannung. Maybe it's a kind of span. And so in a yoga culture you feel these different durations in each person. It's like your tummies are talking. And this is all part of how to keep your own in the it's a kind of phasing phasing phase things phase they're in phases they're not kept there it's how to keep your own phasing intact and yet connecting with others phasing is the skill of of being a tree in a forest um

[65:23]

A change, a change that takes place in phases. And the question of how you keep your own phases intact, that is also the ability of how you are a tree in a forest. How you keep your phase and that of the other. Say it again? Maybe. I'll come back to it. The problem here is that the real world cannot be put in words and cannot be put in categories. So you want to develop a practice where the words open you up to what's going on, but don't take away the complexity and subtlety. So we're trying to use words which don't turn into categories.

[66:47]

And we need to explore this together, which is what we're doing. And... Since we're incapable of ever taking a break from the Dharma, let's go take a break. Okay. Thanks for translating.

[67:11]

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