Please. Um. Um. Well, the day before yesterday I was not here and I didn't hear all of you. Yesterday I heard some of you talking about your practice and I immediately felt that we are swimming in the same pond. Because so many things that some said are the same in my experience. One of the most interesting things, das Interessanteste für mich ist, dass, früher war es ja so, wie kann ich im Alltag praktizieren, wie geht das um Himmels Willen, und jetzt ist es so, wie kann ich nicht im Alltag praktizieren, es geht einfach gar nicht anders als, das ist ganz, das ist was Selbstverständliches, und ich muss mir nicht vornehmen, was zu praktizieren, sondern

[01:21]

So in the beginning time of practice, the quite desperate question was, how can I practice in everyday life? And now it's the interesting thing. It's not possible not to practice. And practice simply arises and arrives at me. This also follows up from what you talked about yesterday, this attentional attunement. For me, the words are For me, these are words that mean something to me. Because my feeling is I'm experiencing that. Mein Alltagsleben ist, mich durch den Raum und durch die Momente zu bewegen, in so eine Art von offenen Spüren und Entdecken.

[02:44]

My everyday life and practice is somehow like moving through the spaces and moments of my life in a kind of openness and feeling. And on the one hand, this is something very joyful. It is very easy to walk down the street It's so simple, like walking across the street where I live and walking, crossing the... where the tram goes and seeing the flower coming up there the name in German is Wegwarte and it's tremendously unspectacular but it blooms there it's simply great and

[04:01]

meeting people that I know meeting people that just happen to be there is a part of it and my practice is to try to meet them And my practice is to try to meet them and Not that I'm trying, but I'm trying to find ways to open up the moment for both of us together in this situation. And what I'm trying, not that I'm trying, but that's something that just draws me in, is to try to open the moment for both of us in this situation together. Because the other side is that everyday life in a city is really worrisome and pitiful.

[05:18]

I mean... So what we are doing is we are shielding us from each other. That's what we are doing. trying to do in the public spaces and even in private spaces. So the contrast between einer unmittelbaren Begegnung und diesen Gewohnheiten, diesen kulturellen Gewohnheiten ist, finde ich, unheimlich stark.

[06:24]

So there is this really harsh contrast between these cultural habits where we shield ourselves and this aliveness and this possibility of encounter and of meeting. And I remember a long time ago, I drove somewhere with Roshi. I was sitting on the wheel, on the driving wheel. You were sitting on the wheel. You were in the driver's seat. I was sitting in the driver's seat. So I remember we had to ask for where to go and I... and pulled down the window, and I asked a man who was passing by where we should go, and he replied to us, and this was helpful.

[07:48]

Afterwards, Roshi said to me, you didn't really talk to that person. You didn't really speak to that person. And then Roschi said to me, you didn't really talk to the man. Yes, that's how it was. And that makes, yes, I have, that has remained in my memory. And I have, it has often appeared to me again. And Ja, ich finde, es ist mir jetzt wichtig, mit den Leuten wirklich zu sprechen. So I remembered this, and it came up often for me. Und ich glaube, ich habe nicht wirklich verstanden damals, was der Roshi damit gemeint hat. So I didn't really understand what you meant when you said it to me. But now it's really important for me to really speak with people and

[08:58]

Also, in this really desperate contemporary life, Not everything is desperate, but the ways that we are encouraged, how we should be and behave, it's really sad. So... So really meeting other people, really being there, I think it really makes a difference. It's a small difference. Very small difference. A very small, big difference.

[10:18]

Or a very big, small difference. Ein großer, kleiner, kleiner, großer. Danke. Thank you. Well, one thing we're doing in this sangha, which I think what I hear from... people who practice with other sanghas, is we talk together about practice more than is usual. Yeah. And in Japan, they don't... It's almost like you speak about practice in doksan or sanzen, which is another term for doksan.

[11:35]

They emphasize it. I'm just trying to understand this as I'm speaking about it. I said the other day or yesterday, there's an inner living space and outer living space. Yeah, I mean, it's like you meet somebody, maybe someone new, maybe even not a practitioner, and you feel somehow they live in the same space you do. I mean, they may have outer circumstances that are different, but they live in some inner space that's similar. Yeah. Now, I say just now that I'm exploring what to say while I'm saying it, Yeah, as Foucault says, writing writes writing.

[13:10]

Which I find quite accurate, that the medium you decide to express yourself in itself has recesses and nooks and crannies where things are lodged. So if I write something out, the writing, the act of writing reaches into areas through the medium of writing, then I wouldn't come to through thinking only. And through speaking with you is also speaking through you, because I can feel the speaking with you.

[14:30]

So this actually becomes, in fact, I think, an exploration of how we're going to continue this practice in the West. Yeah, so I've created this... this concept of an inner living space and an outer living space. And I've created the phrase inner living space. Und ich habe diese Ausdrucksweise innerer Lebensraum hervorgebracht.

[15:31]

Yeah, because when I'm sitting in the Zendo with everyone, like this morning for a while before I started Doxans, I feel I'm sitting in the midst of 35 or so separate but interrelated inner living spaces. And I think if you don't develop an inner living space, you can't do zazen regularly because it's just too boring and nothing happens, you know. So I think those of us who do do zazen regularly, in the zendo for example, are discovering and developing and evolving an inner living space.

[16:50]

Yeah, and I think by my naming it like a term, a Buddhist term, Isn't a case of making the shoe fit? Do you understand that? I think it's an act, I hope, of giving you permission to discover your own inner living space. But I feel that doing zazen, you actually start developing similar or interrelated inner living spaces. And my experience living in Japan off and on for 35 years, but continuously for four years,

[18:04]

And practicing at a Heiji and practicing at the Rinzai Monastery at Daitoku-ji. And also in Taiji, a Sotoshu practice center, monastery that was in Kyoto, in the middle of Kyoto at one time. Now it's moved outside community. I felt there's a kind of shared sense of we're all in a very similar inner living space. It's like if we all practised authentically and over a period of time practised the four Brahma-viharas, which I strongly recommend,

[19:37]

And as you know, most of you know, the first one is, they're sometimes called the four unlimiteds. Because the first is called unlimited friendliness. And it can also be translated as loving kindness. Yeah, and so it's interesting that What is meant by the first of the Brahma-vihara is simultaneously unlimited friendliness and also unlimited loving-kindness.

[21:03]

But when we hear those two words, friendliness and loving-kindness, it's actually a rather different experience. But what is meant is the spectrum of what is meant contains both. So sometimes what's called forth is loving kindness and sometimes what's called forth is And as Christina just showed us, even when you stop and roll down your window to ask directions, you can practice unlimited friendliness. And the second, Ramabihara, is empathetic joy.

[22:18]

Which is the real test of whether you're capable of practicing these four Brahmaviharas. This empathetic joy means, can you take joy in your childhood friend who's successful now and you're not? Can you even have empathetic joy when Trump occasionally does something okay? For example? He's tough.

[23:39]

You're still a little rainy there. For example. You mean thing. And the third is equanimity. And equanimity is have you really in yoga culture, equanimity means have you found a stillness that arises from your very living. you can just be present quite naturally and the fourth is compassion and in this case the compassion is defined as the development of the first three So, this is such a basic practice that if you're practicing at, say, at Daitoku-ji where I sat regularly,

[24:52]

You know all the monks are constantly feeling this sense of friendliness or acceptance or joy in what you've done and so forth. And it's shown in little things, like if I were to... if he was coughing, I might sort of gently... put my glass over there, so he would feel okay to drink my water. So my experience in living in Japan all those years is that there's little tiny fine tunings that people do with each other. and people are much more willing to physically touch each other.

[26:24]

When I would sit on the couch with Suzuki Roshi, he would sit right next to me with his legs and hips and everything right on me. Als ich mit Suzuki Roshi auf dem Sofa gesessen bin, da ist er so nah an mir gesessen, wie wenn seine Hüften und sein Körper ganz auf mir drauf waren. And when I drove him to Tassajara, which is fairly often, we'd have the Volkswagen full. I mean, you could see out the window, but it was like that. Very quickly, he would just fall asleep and his head would be on my shoulder and leaning all over me. And I was kind of like, okay, fine. Yeah, and we don't do that so much. I didn't lean all over you when you were driving.

[27:43]

I wasn't sleeping on your shoulders. No, but it happens. Yeah, so there's a kind of shared intimacy signaled physically It's, I would say, it's as if. Now, you see, Japanese people wouldn't say what I'm saying. Because they experience things, this is the way things are. They don't experience in contrast to a difference to a Westerner. Another example I've given you occasionally. I was given a house on an extraordinary beach in northwestern Japan.

[28:49]

Which we spend months at a time. You were there. Yes. Right. Years ago, you were the first trip to Japan. Yes. She was only 17 and I was 22. And so I had to take the train back with this fellow, a Japanese person. And so we sat in the train together. Guess we get on in Miniyama. And all the way to Kyoto, I don't think we exchanged, if we exchanged three words, that's excessive.

[30:11]

And at the end of the trip, every now and then I wondered, Should we have a topic? Should I say something? But he just was there, so I didn't say anything. But after a while there was a shared bodily space that just felt nice. So I stopped being a Westerner, thinking I should have a conversation. And I began to notice this shared bodily space. And when we finally got to Kyoto and had to take taxis in different directions, he said something to me like, that was the most wonderful four hours I've had in months.

[31:17]

Yeah, and I thought... So what I'm trying to say is the way in which this lineage that we've inherited has been transmitted from generation to generation and personally horizontally in contemporary and vertically in temporality Has been transmitted part of it has been transmitted the kind of let's say, the living context which is not Dharma practice, the living context has been a kind of externalized interiority which is shared through little bodily signals.

[32:58]

We're not going to do that. We won't do that with the same naturalness that is part of the East Asian yogic culture. Wir werden das nicht auf die Weise tun, die natürlich dazugehört zu einer yogischen Kultur. Yeah. Just to say more of that, you know, it's actually in business world a business term called haragé. Aber um etwas mehr darüber zu sagen, es gibt in der Geschäftswelt einen Begriff, der haragé heißt. Yeah, I remember there was a western woman who... used to like to go to the Jodo Shinshu Temple. I'm just riffing here. I'm sorry. I hope it's not too boring. Used to like to go to the Jodo Shinshu Temple in San Francisco.

[34:01]

And she would be the only Caucasian and only Westerner who would come. And they were a little bit of, what the heck are you doing here? And she kind of was privy to or overheard a conversation where they said, well, she can be here. She won't really understand what we're talking about. And Harage means hara, talk, belly talk. And they've been written, it's been written about by... Oh, what is his name?

[35:07]

He's written books about German too, but German-Japanese body behavior. He's a sociologist. He kind of created the whole certain sociological field. Ted, Ned, Ted, Ted. Edward T. Hall. Edward T. Hall, yeah. Ted Hall, I used to know him in Santa Fe, a wonderful man. Edward T. Hall. Yeah, Ned Hall. And, like, if we had a table here, the Japanese would put out, and it's going to be Western and American and German businessmen were going to be there. So they put out, imitating Westerners, a yellow pad and a glass of water and a pencil for each place.

[36:08]

To get the Westerners to identify with their... And then they would feel we're communicating with our stomachs under the table. And afterwards, you know, one German businessman might say to the American businessman, you know, I was going to bring this topic up and I started to speak about it and I lost my energy. I don't know why. And the Japanese say, we know why. So I'm mentioning these things partly to talk about our own transmission of the teaching, But that's so much, but I'm also mentioning it because so much of the world we inhabit is taken for granted and you find out there's other worlds that are taken for granted that we just don't have access to.

[37:37]

Okay. So they don't speak about their practice much with each other, but I think senior practitioners who've been doing it 10, 15 years would have small groups who talk about practice. But we're developing a way to speak about practice which is non-competitive and which is beneficial to the Sangha, I think. And in the practice periods at Crestone, I guess we have done 25 or more, I don't know how many practice periods now.

[38:48]

The hardest thing to develop was the seminars. And the seminars didn't start to take hold. And there are seminars about the Dharma, of course. The seminars didn't start to take hold until some kind of way that everyone could participate in the discussion personally began to be developed. And I discovered when I came here and started teaching in 1983 in Europe that in San Francisco I didn't explain the teachings much. I followed Sukiroshi's patterns of talking about the teachings but not explaining them. But because of Tassajara, I was speaking to an initiated audience.

[40:24]

In the 70s, you couldn't go to Tassara unless you'd been practicing five years or so, and you couldn't stay at Tassara until you committed to stay quite a while. So I was able to, for the most part, be speaking to an audience already well initiated into practice. So in coming to Europe in the 80s, And I guess finally deciding to do a Sashin in Europe in 86 maybe, I don't remember.

[41:38]

I found I couldn't make, unless I explained some things nobody understood what I was talking about. Though it's also partly because we don't have the same sense of how we notice what each other's doing. But also because there was no monastic base. Everyone lived in Dortmund or Zurich, and there was no common practice space. Or even Vienna, the Wiener Bande.

[42:39]

Which started in Poland, actually. Right. So I had to start saying more about practice than I ever did in America. So what we're doing here is the result of that. We're finding ways to share practice as primarily lay practitioners by sitting together and speaking about practice. So I think if we're going to continue to develop and evolve

[43:40]

the practice in our terms. One thing that has to be transmitted is this way, as we develop it, way of speaking about practice with each other. Yeah, now it's probably time for a break at least. Yeah, it's a time for two breaks, in fact. Okay, thank you very much. Okay. And any comments about these things that are helpful to me to know that what I'm saying makes some sense. And also it's a question of how much shared we have and how much I riff a little too much and so on. Und auch die Frage, wie viel haben wir geteilt oder wie viel sollen wir teilen?

[45:06]

Und wie ist es mit meinen Vorträgen? Ist das zu viel oder gut so? Okay, thanks. Give me a second. Does anyone have anything you'd like to say? Yes.

[46:10]

Gerhard and I, we just discussed the Buddha statues. Because the Manjushri statue in the Doxan room. Yeah. And we both found that there are statues that we feel a deep resonance with. Others we don't. And you also said that a good statue should do that. Yes. But still I'm asking myself if everything is an expression of mind. Am I doing it or does the statue do it?

[47:13]

Is it a projection? What's happening? Yes, I know, it's okay. Oh, I was just thinking when I was, before I came down, I should ask you all to ask questions of yourself and of each other and of me, which no one can imagine answering. We should specialize in unanswerable questions. Yeah. Well, I mean, basically what you're saying is, what is the experience of beauty? And Kant talked a lot about it, but nobody knows how to... It's mysterious why some things are beautiful and some things don't feel beautiful.

[48:38]

Now, you want to say something. So it's not the feeling of beauty that appeals to me, but that I'm really in a dialogue with this statue. So you know that I was in a dialogue with the Guanyin statue. I was only with this Guanyin statue in a dialogue. So it's not the matter of the beauty. It's that I enter dialogue with the statue and above all with this canon statue. Which statue? The canon. Kuan Yin in the old center. Oh, that's a great statue. Yes. So a lot happened with that statue and it made a lot of things happen within me.

[49:54]

Okay. I still think fundamentally it's a question of what's beautiful. Ich glaube immer noch, dass es grundlegend um eine Frage geht, was schön ist. And in particular, particular statues or statues, this is a part of the larger question, what is beauty? Auch im Besonderen mit bestimmten Statuen geht es immer noch um die Frage, was ist Schönheit? May I ask something? Me? in that context? Oh, sure, yes. Du hast gestern gesagt, du könntest in verschiedenen Formen in Erscheinung treten. Yesterday you said you could arise in different forms. A hundred or something. Hundert Formen oder so. Also für mich repräsentieren Statuen auch Möglichkeiten

[51:06]

For me, statues also represent other possibilities how one could emerge somehow. I agree. And as we are also talking about the body and about the emptiness of the body, So the statue is teaching us what different kind of form our body could take. Yes, or has already taken an inner center. Anybody else want to say something about this?

[52:12]

Yes? Ulrich? Yesterday you brought the example that we are putting our attention on something and then we let it rest on it. And that it needs a more developed intention to get there, that it can rest there. And that it requires a more refined attention to be able to let it rest on something. A more developed attention, yes. And what happens when we observe this kind of attention that holds? When we observe the intention that allows us to let the...

[53:22]

Noticing rest. Danke. To let the noticing rest. Dann finde ich, haben wir ein ähnliches Beobachten, wie wenn wir beobachten, was zwischen mir und einer Statue passiert. This is a similar kind of observing as observing what happens between me and the statue. Ich finde, dass eine Statue, und es hat sicherlich auch einen Aspekt von Schönheit, aber auch einen Aspekt von einem Raum erzeugt. So my feeling is that a statue, it also creates a kind of space. This has an aspect of beauty, but this kind of still space activity Skin still?

[54:44]

Still. Still. It's like an activity space which is somehow creating permanently whiteness and stillness. Can you say that in German? Okay. I experience in such a statue at the moment an activity, a space activity which permanently creates further and stillness. And observing that is very similar to observing the intention which was noticing on the rest. I don't know. Sorry. I have the feel of it, what he's saying.

[55:49]

Heike? So I wanted to refer to Tara and what came up in me were experiences of relating to statues. Also in Creston gibt es eine Statue, das ist gar nicht die größte und besonderste, aber einfach eine, mit der ich in einem bestimmten Zustand zwischen Schlafen und Wachen In Crescent, there is one statue and it's not the biggest or the most special, but that I have been in strong contact in the stage between from waking to sleeping. I really had the feeling that it breathes. And I really felt like I'm crazy, but I again and again had the impression that it breathes.

[56:52]

And there was another experience where you, Roshi, brought these statues here. These are the ones with four arms. The ones upstairs in the entry to the Tibetan statues? Yes. And then during a session I started sitting like that with one hand in the mudra and the other like that. And the clear feeling arose that I have four arms. So in your words, I could ask myself whether it is an internalized exteriority or an externalized interiority.

[58:09]

And I cannot explain it, but I also just wanted to describe that I'm also exploring this. Okay. Adding to what Dara said, what happened for me simply, In Vienna there was a Buddhist bookstore that also displayed Buddhist statues. And I went there just to look at the books. And somewhere around the corner there was a Buddha statue and I just looked at it like at any other statue.

[59:35]

But suddenly I noticed that there was something in my chakras, I say in my chakras, because there were these places, chest area, forehead area, And suddenly I noticed that something is going on in my chakras here. And I'm saying, I'm naming it chakras, but it was in the chest area and on the forehead. And then whenever I could, I went there just to try out and see whether this still happens. And it actually repeated itself. Now the statue is gone, the bookshop is gone. You should have bought the statue. You should have asked me to come look at it.

[60:38]

And I wondered what is it about the statue that such a resonance arises within me. Yes. Why don't you tell the anecdote of when you went to San Francisco Zen Center and you commented about the statues? Okay. Before my time, before this Hartford time, when I visited San Francisco, So this was before my time at Hartford Street when I visited San Francisco. He was head of the Hartford Street Center for a while.

[61:41]

Two years. But that was before. I just had been visiting San Francisco. And then of course I went to Page Street, where I always heard a lot about it. I'll take a look at that. And I also went to Page Street, because I had heard a lot about it, and I just thought, I will have a look at it. Wie der Zufall es wollte, war dann, also ich habe einmal besucht, und dann hieß es dann, am Samstag ist hier eine große, irgendein Jubiläum, ich weiß nicht mehr so genau, was es war, 30, 40 Jahre, irgendwas haben sie gefeiert. So just as it happens, I visited once and then they said on Saturday there will be a big anniversary. I don't know what it was, 30 years of something. And then I went there and you go up the stairs and then you go to the Dhamma Hall on the right. And that was packed full. So and I went there and I went up upstairs and to the right there was the Dharma Hall and it was packed full with people.

[62:49]

And in the front row the people, the important people were sitting. And behind there was a wonderful, very beautiful statue. And some people gave talks and talked about the history and so on. Because, of course, I knew Baker Roshi and they didn't mention him at all. It was a different story. And then at some point there was also question and answer. And then a woman asked, where did you get all these beautiful statues that are there? Yes. And then there was possibility for questions and answers. And one woman asked, where did you get all these wonderful, beautiful statues?

[63:52]

Richard Baker So then there was quiet first, and then after some time, I don't know who was the answer. They said, well, Richard Baker, we couldn't prevent him from buying. for buying all these statues. They tried. But they also had to concede that they were really very beautiful. Well, it seems that once you become the director of Crestum, or the director of Johanneshof, you suddenly start trying to stop me from buying Buddhas. Yeah.

[65:02]

So if the director doesn't watch out, it can happen that after some time, Roshi shows up and says, come on, I show you something, and he opens up the trunk of his car, and there it is. I'm sorry. The last one. The last one. So the last one, you can have a look at it. And it was not so expensive. And it really expanded and integrated space because it's standing on the other side of the little river Murg, just down there.

[66:11]

Have you all seen it down there by the stream? You go out and pull it right down there. Yeah, that was only 4,000 euro or something. What? More? Cheaper? 300? How I managed to buy that? But it's good. The statues you like that are upstairs, the man who has them wanted me to have them and he showed them to me and he said... And I said... Okay, and how much are they? And he said, $57,000. $57,000. And I said, we'll never be able to pay that. That's more money than I make in five years or something like that.

[67:13]

I've tried to give them back to him. but he won't take them back, but he still expects to be paid. And I said, you know, I'm getting old. I hope we can keep them. I can't figure out what to do. But I did find a beautiful 700-year-old Jizo Bosatsu for Creston recently. Jizo Bosatsu is the most common Buddha in Japan on all the pathways, walks, etc., because it's the Bodhisattva for children, but it also has an Orpheus-like capacity to go into the land of the dead and bring people back.

[68:28]

It's just such an extraordinary figure and 700 years old and completely kind of eroded but still there with even more presence. It's so unusual that no ordinary person would buy it. But anyway, and he wanted $25,000 for it. This was in Hudson, New York. The man wanted $25,000 for it. And... Yeah, like you went back to the shop. Every year I would call and say, is it still there?

[69:54]

And finally, Suzuki Roshi told me, never buy a Buddhist statue unless it's partly given to you. So that makes me a good negotiator. Because I know I can't buy it unless the person wants to partly at least give it to me. So I really say it has to be lower. And I mean it. I'm not just bargaining. So I don't think any of you have seen the statue that's now at Crestone. I don't think any of you have seen the statue that's now at Creston.

[70:57]

But a year ago I called and I said, did you still have it? And I said, yes. I tried to find a price and I forget anyway. It was going to be $7,000 instead of $25,000. Which my guess is covers what he paid for it. So I bought it. And it's sort of still on my credit card. Crestone says they will reimburse me, but... there's quite a few things that I've never been reimbursed for.

[72:00]

But if I can't leave me behind, I can leave some Buddhas behind. Okay, so before we go to lunch, which is in... Lunch is at 12.10? 12.15? Okay. So let me finish this comment about beauty. First of all, I would say I think beauty is unexplainable. And for me, it's been the most important... dynamic in my whole life. Because since I find things beautiful, I've decided to stay alive.

[73:05]

But if, like I was asked, the Green's restaurant has its 40th anniversary, And it's a restaurant I started and designed. So somebody suggested I might write something about the founding of Green's. So it's clear when I did it, I had to understand why I thought I could start a restaurant. I didn't know it wasn't a restaurant tour, but I was totally convinced I could start a restaurant. And without going into too much detail, I remembered way back when I was, you know, before, you know, preschool, four, five, six years old.

[74:15]

There was a little, my father taught at a military academy, a private school. It's the only job he could get during the Depression in the 30s. And there was a little canteen, a kind of restaurant for the students. And I remember When I look back, I remember I loved the space, the several spaces involved in a restaurant. There's the space that occurs when your mother says, shall we go to the canteen and have a hot chocolate? So you start for the canteen and you can feel other people who are going to the canteen and you can feel the people who aren't going.

[75:29]

Then when you get to the canteen, you have to go in through the cold wind coming off the lake beside the canteen. So there's that entry space. And then there's the space. In America, you never just sit down at a table like you do in Germany. You always wait for someone to seat you. So then there's the space where you wait to be seated. And then there's the space where they take you to a table and you suddenly enter a private space at the table that's different than the waiting space. Then when you're sitting at the table, once you're settled,

[76:51]

it opens up into the shared space in a new way. And it was so clear to me that a restaurant has to create those four or five spaces. So I designed greens to create those four or five spaces. And I have paintings and big sculptures and things like that. And I completely designed it to be an art object. First of all, an art object. You've been in greens, right? And second, it was supposed to be a place for people to practice. So all the waiters should be students, then practitioners.

[78:09]

And third, I wanted, but I never did it, I wanted all the waiters to wear primary colors, red, blue, green, so when they were in the restaurant walking around, it was like a Calder sculpture. Like Calder? A Calder is a person who did mobiles. Okay. C-A-L-D-E-R. Okay. And then, if it made money, that would be okay, but that wasn't my concern. I wanted to cover its costs at least. But I left, and now it's about making money, and it's open 364 days a year. Okay, so what I've noticed as a practitioner is that as my

[79:20]

my attentional skill has developed and I can slow down immediacy more and more things become beautiful. In other words, my experience is that beauty is a function of the degree to which you can give attention to something. It used to be certain paintings or sculptures. But now I would say that with my attentional skills through practice, Aber jetzt würde ich sagen, dass mit den Fähigkeiten, aufmerksam zu sein, die sich durch die Praxis entwickelt haben, ist es so, dass alles, also ein Stück Dreck auf dem Weg, meine Aufmerksamkeit so völlig aufnehmen kann, dass es mich völlig einnimmt.

[81:21]

So I would say that some statues engage us because the artist and because the genre in which the artist is working has been developed the way a winemaker knows you want to bring out certain things from the grape to make a wine taste a certain way. I'm not a drinker, but I know that. So the tradition, like the Nepalese statue that you mentioned, There's a long tradition of how you shape the body to call forth an inner body in the person. And I think what happens for a practitioner is that doing zazen, for example, and practicing attentional attunement

[82:43]

creates more and more, excuse me for making all this up, but creates more and more an inner living space. which is intentionally attunable to particular aspects of practice which some statues call out. And as you continue practicing, sometimes some statues which you didn't notice at some point begin to call to you. So it's been very important for me to create places for practice, but then create examples of practice in the statues.

[83:57]

And I'm very happy I've been able to do that partly for you. And partly for you. And partly for me. Okay. Yes, please. We have been to Japan, Dorothea and Gisela and Erhard. We saw lots and lots of statues. Huge statues, three times fitting into this building. That statue in Nara took 250,000 people to make. It's not on my credit card.

[85:11]

So we were in a museum and you can imagine one statue more beautiful than the other. But for me it was like these were statues in a museum and we were walking through with very many other people and tourists. And we came to Daidoku-ji and entered the garden where a very good Dharma friend of Pekaroshi was practicing. And they had a very beautiful koaline statue in the garden, on such a tree, if you can remember.

[86:13]

And they have a very beautiful cannon statue within a garden. But what really touched me was that somebody put flowers in front of it and put incense there. And that's also part of our practice. what statues have to do with life, how we relate to it, or how to place a flower there, or how to present incenses there on a regular basis, that also creates a completely different relation to it than just looking at it like in a museum, where you walk through and admire it. But that really touched me, to see that someone flowers and incense. There was a big incense basket in front of it, where you could really see.

[87:28]

You take care of yourself in there. So this is also part of our practice, to relate to the statues and to offer incense. And this is what touched me most, that there was this big incense burner, and you could see that somebody cared for the statue. That makes a big difference. So this really makes a big difference. And it makes statues come alive. Thank you. I guess Nicole came in at the beginning, before I came down and announced that I would give the Tay Show today. Yeah, normally, since she's leading the practice period, she would do it, but she thought it might be a way we could combine the doorsteps in and the on-go. So I guess the lecture starts at 2.50 in the Buddha Dharma Hall.

[88:36]

Or you have to be there at 2.40 or 2.45 or something. Well, we from the practice period, we had a zazen before. Yeah, and if you want to join the zazen period before, you can. And if there's anything you'd like me to speak about, between now and the end of lunch, you can tell me. Yeah. Okay. Okay, thank you.

[89:37]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_78.12