retiring is retiring from Buddhism. And deciding to emphasize what has been my experience over the years, that Zen is really best described as the practice of actuality and not so much as the practice of Buddhism. I mean, if this concept of Buddha-nature And fundamentally means that practice, Zen practice, is the practice of actuality.

[01:12]

Because, well, many reasons, but one is because if We are all in some way penetrated by or permeated by or resting in the potentiality of Buddha nature, of Buddhahood. then everything we need is here already. We're already permeated by the potentialities of realization.

[02:15]

Now, if that's the case, and I think it's a useful case to presuppose, that means you need to start reversing your thinking or extending your thinking to include the feeling that There's nothing missing. Everything you need is here. Okay. Now, this is part and parcel of, again, a reflection of retiring from teaching that

[03:30]

Over the years, really every decade, every year even, I've become more aware of the implications of the difference, the implications of a worldview which Buddhism, which Zen assumes as the basis of practice. Yeah, you basically said it. It's fine. But the implications, I'm getting more and more into the implications of the worldview in which Zen has developed, to see that it is the basis of practice.

[04:52]

I think I speak ordinary English words, but I guess I put them in a funny way, so they're hard to translate. No, it's actually more the length that I... Is that too long? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, that was a short one. So... well sewing things together here I think it's a sum and then and I keep being struck by the both are described the two main world views we're talking about is a yogic world view and a western rooted in a god space a world view There are these two worldviews, the yogic worldview and the western worldview, which also has to do with this divine, with the belief in God.

[06:14]

And I'm actually always surprised by that, or these two different worldviews hit me. A God space is, by God space I mean that there's some space other than this from which a creation could occur or from which we can observe as if we were outside our own life. Also dieser Gottesraum, von dem ich spreche, da meine ich diesen Raum, der praktisch außerhalb von uns ist und etwas kreiert oder kreiert hat und das nicht von uns, We often assume we can see our life as if from the outside. But there's no outside. I remember, and I've mentioned, not for a few years anyway, outside of Munster there was a construction site for a couple of years, it seems like.

[07:22]

Ich erinnere mich, dass ich das schon mal vor langer Zeit erwähnt habe. In Münster, da gab es mal eine Baustelle außerhalb, die für Ewigkeiten dort war. And there seemed to be an abandoned billboard. I don't know why it was abandoned, but it seemed to have been just sitting there empty. Und es war wie eine verlassene Anzeigentafel, die da stand. Keine Ahnung, warum sie verlassen war, aber sie war da wie vergessen worden. And at this construction site constantly, because I was teaching fairly often in Munster, there was a stow at this construction site. Like getting to the airport in Zurich airport has been a construction site for years. And somebody had written on the billboard you think you're in a stow, and you're sitting there for half an hour sometimes, you think you're in a stow, but you are the stow.

[08:35]

And that's, we think we're somehow separate from this, but we are this. There's no outside, there's only inside. Now, I'm not trying to speak philosophically here. I'm trying to find some gathering in words that give us a different feeling in our experience. So as an experiential statement, not necessarily a philosophical statement, to feel everything as an inside is quite useful and a far-reaching experience.

[09:56]

Okay, all of that was an introduction to say this. Which is, really a version of saying everything's changing. Again, the most basic statement that Buddhism can make about things is Everything changes, but really not everything changes, but change changes. Everything changes... Go ahead. Sorry. And this is actually the most fundamental statement in Buddhism, everything changes.

[10:59]

But it's not true that everything changes, but the change changes itself. To say everything changes is already a mistake. Because it implies that there's a thing sitting there somewhere waiting to change and then it changes. And there's no everything. There's only change and that change continues to change. But to say change changes, that sounds like you're not saying anything. In an entity world at least, you're not saying much. But in a world which is nothing but activity and change, then change, changing makes experiential sense.

[12:20]

Aber in einer Welt, die aus Erfahrungswelten besteht, da macht es schon Sinn zu sagen, die Veränderung verändert sich und so weiter und so fort. So this is all to say, again, that I just came in, entered the room here. Und ich kam jetzt gerade erst in diesen Raum herein. And you all entered the room a little earlier. And Rick Wicks here, who I haven't seen in 40 years. And I'm beginning to recognize you. I wouldn't have at first. You still have a face like that. But we practiced together in San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara in the 70s, early 70s.

[13:21]

And somehow at some point you landed in Sweden, got married, I guess, and somehow wandered down here. And some of you, you weren't even coming and then you signed up at the last minute. Is that right? It kind of fell through somehow. It fell. Might have been my fault. Yeah, and so what I'm trying to say is each of us came here as individuals. But, you know, I'm trying to find ways to say these things.

[14:22]

So we each came here as individuals with, in Rick's case, prior connection, but quite a long time ago. Now, the best way I can say this is you've arrived as individuals. Not really individuals, kind of fields of activity. But separate from this unit, this present situation. So, I'll try to say it this way. So, each of us arriving here have entered a text which is being established.

[15:51]

You may think you're still individuals. And the way brain consciousness works, the brain wants us to think that. But already in these 20 minutes or so, you are part of a text we're writing, writing, creating right now. Creating right now. So somehow consciousness doesn't let us have a conscious experience of our textuality. Yeah.

[17:10]

Our textuality, our contextuality. Yeah. So... So there are... it's wonderfully the case, and it goes way back in Buddhism, that the experiential relationality is not limited to consciousness. And it goes far back in Buddhism that the experienceable reality is experienceable. Experiential, not reality, but relationality.

[18:15]

Experiential relationality. Also betonung auf relationality, das heißt die Beziehungen untereinander, das Beziehungsgeflecht zwischen uns. And we can know about it, that's why I'm mentioning it, And by knowing about it, we kind of develop the extrasensory ability to feel about it. So, that's what I would like us to start with during these days. To awaken our always transforming contextuality.

[19:27]

As if there were words here and we become some of the words. It makes me think of the beautiful book of poems you gave me some years ago, which I can't really understand, but I love the book and I have it, and even have it with me. So I'm driving here. And I start realizing, luckily I just drove through town, otherwise I'd be an hour late. Did you all take the... Yeah.

[20:31]

It's crazy, but it's a holiday, and so they're not probably working, and people have to be able to get into town, so I just drove right through all the barriers. Otherwise I'd still be somewhere. So you drove through town instead of the mountain? I've done the other several times. It's an extra hour. Okay. So I'm driving along and thinking, sometimes it's important to disobey the rules. So I just drove into town and, you know, fine. And I'm wondering, what shall I speak about to get us started? And as I'm driving, I saw all this on the windshield. So I've said it. You saw what?

[21:37]

All of this on the windshield. So what did you see on your windshield? And I know you have a wonderful windshield, so why don't you start and we'll go that direction. And I know you have a nice windscreen, so why don't you start and then it goes further to the left? Okay. Should I translate you or do you do it then? No, so translate me, yes, I speak German. Okay, please briefly. Yes, okay. Please start in Deutsch, but you don't start in Swedish. I'm also now in the situation that I came together with Hans.

[22:38]

But that's been going on for years, right? But that's been the case for many years. Together it's new. Thank you very much, first of all, for the letter, because when I read it, space opened up for me. I knew your windshield would be working. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you're just repeating.

[23:40]

English. Oh, sure. Okay. The first that came to me but I'm not sure whether this is kind of the right thing to mention here but I will say it anyway. So in recent, recently, I kind of got very interested in the climate change debates and And at the same time, I've started to work in a psychotherapeutic clinic in a management position.

[24:51]

And at the same time, I've started to work in a psychotherapeutic clinic in a management position. And a lot of things we practice are present also in the clinic, which is like breathing or MBSR or what's it called? Yeah. Silence. The mindfulness practices. So that's already... Anchored? Yeah, now I started. Okay. You can translate yourself if you want. I try. I'm not sure. Okay. Then look back and forth is fine. Yes. Yes. And I ask myself what there are new things in Buddhist practice that I could bring in.

[25:57]

Yeah. Yeah. I could bring in there. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was some kind of crazy event. I decided to give a talk for the Fridays for Future. In the village where I live, on the marketplace. And I think you all know Fridays for Future, the movement founded by Greta Thunberg. So there is a scientist from Potsdam, Joachim Schellenhuber, who spoke in the Vatican. He was a member of the scientific board in the Vatican.

[27:13]

And then I asked myself, why does such a conservative organization like the Roman Catholic Church And why do they have a scientific board working or discussing climate change? I don't know. And then there arose this desire in me that from a Buddhist point of view to bring something in this context, in the climate change context, into the world.

[28:18]

And then I prepared the speech. And then I realized that I had started to meditate in the morning, of course, and to go to all the Buddha statues that we have in the house with a smoke stick. There are exactly four of them. And then I kind of found myself all in a sudden on that morning to meditate, of course, but also with incense to walk to all our altars, which are four in our house, and Buddha statues. And it was as if I called for support by Buddha and all the ancestors. And I ask myself now, yes,

[29:19]

And I ask myself whether this was a fallback old patterns, maybe, or whether this was an act of remembering what we actually practice here. Yeah, and how I could open my mind best possible for this situation. Yeah, this is... Thank you. And so I'm still thinking about that, and I'm interested what you, Roshan, think about that.

[30:28]

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