This is the mountain path and this is the city path. Thanks. These are the two truths. Can you tell the difference? Okay. So what are your thoughts on these matters? So the crucial part and this also corresponds with our discussions that we had yesterday is the interruption.

[01:01]

How do I interrupt this usual non-conscious flow of identifying with thinking? And that was also a topic in our discussion yesterday. One said that he wants to be able to live his everyday life mentally every morning and even in the evening without being depressed. So this was also the topic in our discussion group. One person said that he or she sits every morning and every evening just to even be able to deal with his everyday life. So then also the question came up How does that make sense?

[02:15]

Do you then just take the mountain path so that you can force yourself to go on living this everyday life? What do you call the word? One practice of mine is to stop from time to time in the midst of activity and to remind myself of a koan that usually also just comes up by itself, something like, what do you call the world? Das hat auch eine weifende Funktion, finde ich. Das kann ich im Moment daran stehen bleiben, in dieser offenen Frage. And that also has a kind of right-thinking function. I can stand and pause within this open and opening question for a while.

[03:16]

And then we also notice that, yeah, if you do this, then practice also changes one's life, maybe slowly, but it does change. cultivates it differently. Okay, someone else. What I find very important, and this is also something we spoke about, is that practice always relates to my usual life. For that reason, the group in Hamburg that meets every week has become very important to me. To search for moments in which I briefly stay inside, for example, to return to my breath for a long time.

[04:34]

Or to simply greet certain people in my work environment, if I see them. There are people who appreciate that too. And much like Andreas has said, I try to take certain particulars in my everyday life and relate them or make them a practice, like that I pause in certain situations, or that I greet people at my job, and some of them really appreciate that, too. As a question, what is currently interesting to you, How far will this be influenced by these two truths? Thank you.

[05:39]

So one question that I wonder about is, in our Hamburg group, we also plan for the next year, and also you've brought up this question of Johanneshof this weekend, and to what extent is that influenced also by the two truths? Was that right? Yes, it is the idea, the idea, but also the energy. How do you see how these 10,000 things coming forward, how does that, how do you How does that influence the planning of how to lay out the practice within these next few years? Does that make sense?

[06:41]

For me, or for you, or for the Humber group? I would be interested. Well, next year I'm going to try to because I am unable to write and teach at the same time, I'm going to try to finish this book I've been finishing for years. And so I'm going to take off as much time as necessary. So my... Because now, one, simply because of my age, I have to think about succession.

[07:48]

But also, age or not, I'm in some level always thinking about succession. How can this practice and the institutions of this practice survive? So I'm always trying to build a foundation for that survival. And that foundation is primarily how people think about their relationship to each other and to the world. So I will continue until I perish trying to develop that. But I can't develop it by myself.

[09:14]

I can only develop it through others. And so the development is entirely dependent on people's readiness to participate in this development or willingness to. I think of the... somehow... I think of the telephone. One telephone is meaningless. Who would you call? The line's dead. So a telephone assumes other telephones. And so I have to think about how we play telephone together.

[10:17]

Or spin the bottle. Or how we turn the bottle. I think that's how it's called in German. Flaschen drehen. Do you play that in Germany? Yeah, we do. I knew it. I was so shy when I played it once. Yes, Tom. Oh, I thought you were ready. You're always ready. Question for what? Yeah. this invisibility, or the non-existence of the world, or that it is all just appearing around me.

[11:23]

Then I always notice how I am getting closer to it, and then I go far away again, and then I get closer to it again. It is such a feeling where I find myself in an epic self, because my world is fundamentally out of control. What you spoke about this morning, the impermanence of the world and then actually seeing each thing as appearance, that is a feeling that I find myself approaching and then distancing from again and approaching and distancing from. And this is also something that seems to be an infinite process for me because it's so fundamentally... shatters maybe my world. Yeah? Yeah, I understand. Okay. And then also with practicing with negations I notice where it is quite easy to negate something and then when concepts appear that are very difficult to negate where I feel like I'm not going to negate that.

[12:58]

Never! And so I see how strong this interwovenness and my identity with concepts and with things actually is. And to bring it down to this experiential level, it's always like a huge abyss where I always wonder, am I going to jump or not going to jump? That's the situation. It's like that. But to know how one is engaged in this conceptual regime.

[14:00]

To really experience it. To see where you can move and where you can't move. This is 60 or 70 percent of practice. The last 30% is hard, but if you don't have that first 60%, you never get there. And the pulse, or this approaching the appearance, world as appearance, and pulling away from it, That's a very basic dynamic of practice. So if I had a flip chart here, I don't. So I'll make an imaginary flip chart. This is the imaginary realm. And this is the relative realm.

[15:18]

And this is the absolute. This is enlightenment. So we start in the imaginary. And we sometimes understand the relative realm. But we go back to the imaginary. And we go back to the relative. And we understand it's impermanent, etc. But then we really think it's really. We don't want to. I'm never going to change that. We like this too much. The flowers are so pretty. And then we are back in the relative and we actually know that all this is inconsistent. But no, we don't really change that. The flowers are so beautiful that we like to go back and forth. We like the imaginary so much that we go back and forth again and again. And at some point you form so much strength And then she flips out.

[16:28]

I just did your comic. Okay, thanks. Giulio? Is this... What always disturbs me a little is that there's always this big pink elephant in the room as though it was all a problem. And also you spoke about the problem of mountain and city life or something. If you take the analogy of the ocean and you say that the short life is like a wave why does the wave constantly have to try becoming the ocean rather than just being a wave?

[17:46]

Well, the wave isn't, in that sense, such a good example. Because the wave isn't trying anything. It's just blown around by the wind and tides and so forth. But the sort of chemistry of water is that it prefers stillness. Aber die Chemie des Wassers ist so, dass es die Stille bevorzugt. We could say the nature of water is that it prefers stillness. Wir könnten sagen, die Natur des Wassers ist die, dass es Stille bevorzugt. Or will return to stillness if it's disturbed. Oder dass es zur Stille zurückkehren wird, wenn es gestört wird. But we won't return to stillness if we're disturbed. Aber wir werden nicht zur Stille zurückkehren, wenn wir gestört werden. We'll continue to be disturbed. Wir werden weiter gestört sein.

[19:03]

Most of us at least. Die meisten von uns jedenfalls. So, if you want to return to stillness, wenn du also zur Stille zurückkehren willst, in which the experience is extremely satisfying, und die Erfahrung dessen es ja zutiefst zufriedenstellen, you'll... you have to, through wisdom, decide to bring stillness into your life in some way. Yeah, I mean, you don't have to. It's up to you. And the decision to bring stillness into our life is a different decision in the last 200 years than it was at other times. At least the history of the Asian and the Western world is that it's from any time one knows about... The history of the Asian... Within the history of the Asian and Western worlds... from any time we know anything about, wisdom is to bring some sort of stillness into our life.

[20:17]

And one way to do this, I suggested yesterday or Friday, is to develop the habit of seeing or hearing or feeling stillness or silence or space. So when I listen to you, Yeah, I hear your words coming out of stillness. And I feel my words coming out of stillness.

[21:21]

But at the same time I feel there's like a still person inside me, that is me also, that's never spoken. Aber gleichzeitig spüre ich auch, da ist eine stille Person in mir, tief in mir, die niemals gesprochen hat. Je mehr man das spürt oder ein Gefühl dafür hat, dann versuchst du herauszufinden, wie kann ich diese Art von tiefer Zufriedenheit verwirklichen. feels like, makes so much more sense. And this seminar, we're looking at the two choices, two ways to look at it, that we call the city path and the mountain path. I know that doesn't answer your question.

[22:33]

You want to add anything? I love Julio. I never can answer his questions. It's great, but he keeps coming back year after year to not get answers. And his questions are so fruitful for the seminar. Dagmar? Yes, I also have a question that has been bothering me for some time and I have heard it more often in your lectures lately and also yesterday or the day before yesterday you addressed it and I asked myself whether I had missed it so far or whether I didn't want to hear it before.

[23:45]

I started reading this book by Nagarjuna in the summer. I began reading the book by Nagarjuna, Mahamatya Caritas. And at first I could not go beyond the first three chapters. And also then I decided to only deal with the first two chapters. But also I dared to look ahead a little bit. I saw that Nagarjuna denies this so-called primordial cause, that there is this primordial cause.

[25:01]

What do you mean by the primordial cause? Yes, the primordial cause. And I saw that Nagarjuna... It's called Atman in Sanskrit. And I found that Nagarjuna negates what he calls atman in Sanskrit, something like the ground of being. And somehow the summer, this extreme relevance or something of this statement really popped up for me and became conscious to me. And it really pulled out the rug, the last rug beneath me.

[26:08]

It might not be the last rug. But it's good to notice that it's the last rug. And I'm not sure if maybe there's a relationship or connection with the two truths or if this goes maybe too far for the seminar. But I would appreciate to hear more and more about this, maybe in the upcoming session or from time to time. Okay. So we could think of the two truths as two rugs that we... I mean, this topic is just two pegs in emptiness.

[27:16]

A peg in the wall. So I take a peg and I put it in emptiness, then I hang a topic or two on it. Okay. And there's no ground of being and no wall. But the topics give us something to do together. It's a way of loving each other. Okay. Yes. I was very touched by how you presented how to do the service. I was very touched by how you presented how to do the service. And again make clear to me the extent to which at a practice place things are determined and how to do them and also how important it is to pay attention to the details of how to do them.

[28:34]

And yet we describe the moment as unpredictable and unique. It seems to be a contradiction. And I think it is very difficult outside of a practice place or a monastery to notice that this is not a contradiction. And to really experience this pulse between there's a script and not a script and a script and not a script. And we had a discussion about this, that probably being a good actor depends on such a thing that you have a role that is pretty much predetermined, but then it's only played convincingly if you don't feel it as predetermined, or if you have this kind of pulse.

[30:01]

Yeah. Well, the closer we can get to the margins of thought, cognition and perception, If we can create a practice which makes us feel the margins of cognition and perception. Sorry, if we can create one. A practice. We're more likely to be able to dismantle the margins. So formal practice creates boundaries that you realize you can release.

[31:03]

I think we'll stop in a moment. I know some people have to check out of their hotels in order to come back after lunch. But I'd like to read a poem of... Philip Wayland to you. One of my favorites of his poems. And it's Philip practiced with us, with David and myself and others for till the end of his life. and David and I practiced with Philip until he died. Philip was one of the main beat poets and one of the leaders of the San Francisco contingent of the beat poets.

[32:08]

And what again? One of the leaders of the San Francisco contingent of the beat poets. It's called A Vision of the Bodhisattvas. They pass before me. One by one. Einer, jeder Einzelne. Riding on animals. Sie reiten auf Tiere. What are you waiting for? They want to know. Worauf wartest du, wollen sie wissen. What are you waiting for? Worauf wartest du? Sie, young as he is, and mad into the bargain. Z, so jung wie er ist und verrückt. Excuse me, what does mad in the bargain mean? Mad into the bargain. In addition to being young, he's crazy.

[33:15]

Z, young as he is and mad into the bargain. As if being young was a bargain, but part of the bargain of being young is being crazy. That's the word I don't understand, bargain. Oh, bargain is a bargain when you buy something at a sale. Schnäppchen. Schnäppchen, okay. Yeah. young as he is and mad into the bargain tells me someday you'll drop everything and become a Roshi you know I know the forest is there Ich weiß, der Wald ist da. I've lived in it. Ich habe darin gelebt. More certainly than this town.

[34:22]

Noch gewisser als in dieser Stadt. This is irrelevant. Das ist egal. What am I waiting for? Worauf warte ich? What am I waiting for? A change in customs that will take a thousand years to come about? Eine Veränderung in den Bräuchen, die noch tausend Jahre dauern wird, bis sie sich vollzogen hat. Who's to make the change but me? Wer soll diese Veränderung vollziehen außer mir? Returning again and again, Amida says. Amida Buddha. Returning again and again, Amida says. Why is this dream so necessary? Walking out of whatever house alone. Walking out of whatever house alone. Nothing but the clothes on my back.

[35:25]

Money or not. Down the road to the next place, the highway leading to the mountains. Down the road to the next place, the highway leading to the mountains. From which I absolutely must come back. What business have I to do that? What right have I to do that? What business am I to do that?

[36:25]

I know the world and I love it too much. I know the world and I love it too much. And it is not the one I'd find outside this door. Okay.

[36:39]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_79.08