Well, there's lots of practical things one can do. But mostly you have to discover those yourself as part of the craft of practice. I think the main direction in the restorative phase of practice is always a mind, an initial mind of acceptance. And this is a, as a psychological process of acceptance in Zen practice, It doesn't occur through mindfulness. can really only occur through sitting.

[01:07]

And it is first of all a process of becoming, not trying to change anything, just becoming really familiar with yourself. So the first step is acceptance. you have to practice acceptance in every kind of way and one way to practice acceptance is have an initial mind that always says yes or an initial mind that always says welcome And as I say, you can change your mind on the second area. So let's go have dinner together and then take the first airplane out of Wien to wherever it goes.

[02:11]

Yes. But actually, I can't do that. I'm sorry. But you say yes. Or you have a feeling when you see somebody or see anything, it's always welcome. You can be practical on the secondary. Secondary is the imperative mind. So you really need to develop that kind of habit in your just ordinary thinking. And if you don't, the acceptance you practice in zazen will be undone by your habits in ordinary circumstances.

[03:26]

And I would say, as I think I said earlier last week, is the first two or three years of daily meditation or something close to daily meditation. And when I say daily meditation, I don't mean the quantity of meditation. I mean that you meditate on a regular schedule, whether you like to or not. As a psychological process it has to be whether you like to or not. If you sit when you like to or when you feel like it, it's not a psychological process.

[04:35]

We could call it a well-being process but not a non-being process. Yeah, because your likes and dislikes then basically control your practice. And you need to get past your likes and dislikes if you're going to really practice acceptance. Okay, so the first step is acceptance. And supporting that in your daily mental activity. And I'd say the second is, excuse me for going on so long, but the second is to really be willing to look at yourself.

[05:39]

And to develop the strength to sit through anything. So the pain of Sashin is actually extremely important. Because once you know you can sit through physical pain that's not damaging you, you can sit through a lot of psychological pain. I said earlier to someone, it's even good during this stage of acceptance to exaggerate things so that you can really bring them out. Since we are many selves, not just one, It's hard for one self to accept the other self.

[06:51]

So I think the phrase, this is also me, helps. Because sometimes you say, and you really feel, this is not me, I'm not a murderer or a violent person or a... A person who would harm oneself or others or something. To take a negative thing. And you need to say it's not me. But if you say this is also me, sometimes you can approach it. And such kind of like to say it's also me instead of saying it's me is a kind of craft, a kind of strategy. And when you get thoroughly familiar with yourself in the way

[07:53]

Images, memories, moods come up. Darkness comes up. I remember I suddenly decided once, I have to face, I couldn't say what I could, I have to face anything that's dark or... Anything I could possibly be frightened of. Unfortunately, I decided... You know, I thought I was doing it before. But I was always holding back a little. And that's also, I would say, you turn toward what threatens you or frightens you or makes you feel crazy.

[09:18]

I think the rule should be you never turn away But if possible, you turn toward, but you don't turn so far toward you're overwhelmed. But I've been practicing some years at this point. And I used to So I decided, and what's strange is I decided just entering a freeway, an autobahn, on the curve of the autobahn coming up out of the city. I can remember very clearly. But I decided at that point, I've been practicing long enough, I'm not going to just turn toward it anymore, I'm going to go all the way toward it. And a kind of, actually, momentary darkness came over me.

[10:25]

And I felt a kind of shift in myself, in my body. And I... Then it passed. It didn't last long, thank goodness. And I drove on home. But anyway, you have to keep moving yourself and being willing to face things. I used to practice also with going to sleep at night, with the feeling that the most terrible thing could happen to me during the night.

[11:32]

But I'm still going to go to sleep. So I would think, okay, I'm going to wake up raving mad. schizophrenic or something, and I go to sleep. Okay, if I'm going to wake up that way, fine, but right now I'm going to sleep. So anyway, you have to have some kind of way to move into this territory of accepting yourself. And accepting what you're most scared of. And then, in the middle of this familiarity you developed, And it's a familiarity, it's not an understanding.

[12:38]

In Zen practice, you're not trying to understand, you're just trying to get familiar, familiar, familiar. As things appear. And Then you bring intention into that familiarity. So you start intending, I would like to be free of fear of darkness. By darkness I mean psychic darkness. I want to be free of worrying about whether people think of me or something. So you bring these intentions into a new familiarity and acceptance of yourself, as you are, whatever it is. If you bring this intention... into this field of just being familiar with yourself and accepting yourself.

[13:47]

And the intention itself works. Okay, I guess that's... I'm sorry I've been on so long, but... Okay. Anyone else? Yes. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. And so, yes, it's a very good program, yes. But I think it's also a good time to act, and I think it's a good time to act, and I think it's a good time to act, and I think it's a good time

[14:55]

Well, I think confidence is a dangerous word. Because you can't really have confidence. You don't know. I think to really make practice work, you have to put all your eggs in one basket. Do you have that expression in your brain? You don't put some eggs in this one and some eggs in this one in case you drop that. You put all your... And you don't determine, you don't say, oh, is this really the best practice? I think I'll try a little Tai Chi as well. And I'll keep some of my birth religion beliefs. And if something better comes along I'll look at that too.

[16:11]

You can learn from a practice with that attitude but you can't realize a practice with that attitude. You basically have to say to yourself this may not be the best practice. This may not be the best teacher. There may never be results. I don't care whether I'm enlightened or not, or if there are any results. Okay. I'm just going to do this. This is where I'm at. This is the life I have right now. I'm going to receive, I'm going to accept this life I've received. In fact, what I'm doing is practicing

[17:12]

Yes, let's say Buddhism, or whatever it is, in this circumstance, at this time. Of course, there is a period of time where you decide, you know, which teacher, which practice, which, etc. But at some point, you have to shit or get off the pot. It's an old expression. At some point, you can't look around forever. You just have to decide, this is what I'm going to do. It may not be the best, but it's what I'm going to do. I decided not to say that, but it just came out. And making that decision is the existential kind of dynamic or something like that, the catalyst that really makes practice work.

[18:59]

It's like Yuan Wu saying, you must realize Buddhism right where we stand. The whole essential being is right here before us. It's not so important if it's the right school or the right teacher, etc. And strangely enough, to really not care about enlightenment is quite close to enlightenment. To not care whether there's success or not is quite close to being free of success. To not care about success is very close to being free of success.

[20:02]

But you can't fake it. You can't fake not caring about success. I'm not going to be... I know that's faking. Not caring is... No, that doesn't work. No, they understood. We understood. Yeah, that's not confidence. It's a kind of faith, we could say. existential faith or something like that and it's the catalyst it's what makes it work you might be wrong but can't be helped we don't live in a predictable world And if you want a predictable future, you better not be practicing Zen.

[21:19]

And then the next step is maybe one of the most difficult, is to accept the life that practice gives you. You may want to fit practice into your life. And that's perfectly fine. Yeah, but that's... Bodhisattva practice is to accept, is to bring your life into practice. And accept the life that practice gives us. And it may not be what we planned. Or what our friends and family planned for us. Hmm. Okay, something else?

[22:31]

There are questions that have half come up and are floating around. And it... And it helps everyone, I think, if sometimes they're articulated. But we've talked a lot, so if you want to stop, we can stop. Wenn ihr aufhören möchtet, können wir aufhören. You know, I am a sociologist by what I studied. Also du weißt, dass ich Soziologin bin von meiner Ausbildung her. And I think that is a kind of view which sociology in itself, it's a kind of view of... at the world and at society. And it's very much connected to find, I think, the root of sociology is to try to find the right all of society, the possibility to somehow steer human life.

[24:13]

And I think the root of sociology is the desire to control society or to find the right organization. And So I find in myself there is this way of looking at what's going on. And in a way, this view is a burden. Can you state it more specifically? What view is a burden? I mean, we know a lot about what's going on in our world. We know what's going wrong or we believe that we know what's going wrong.

[25:32]

I like that. And at the same time, it's very clear what the limits of our actions are. So that's how I see this view of... view us, the way of seeing our world as a burden. Because we believe that we know what's going on, but we cannot do much about it. So you feel helpless. Frustrated.

[26:41]

In myself I found that I cannot really accept what I see. And not being able to accept what I see, this somehow limits me. Why is not being able to accept what you see limiting you? Because I'm always fighting I don't want it to be true. I don't want that it's really like that.

[27:44]

Also, ich möchte nicht, dass es wahr ist. Ich möchte nicht, dass es wirklich so ist. during the past weeks, a sentence came up in me. And it was only part of a sentence and it said, it said, when the world is really like that, And then it was open. Was für mich hochgekommen ist in den letzten Wochen ist ein halber Satz und der heißt, also wenn die Welt wirklich so ist und dann geht's nicht weiter. But it helped me somehow, it was nourishing to feel that half sentence.

[28:47]

Es war irgendwie nährend, diesen halben Satz zu spüren und Can you say the half sentence again? When the world is really like that. Meaning, since the world is really like that. If the world is really like that. Then what? What? Yeah, then it's really like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my feeling again, coming back to this bodhisattva decision, If the world is really like that and it is really like this, what can I do? When you really feel this, and I think when you can't accept it is when you're also very close to really feeling it.

[29:52]

You can only find either some way to help and some way to help makes a difference in yourself as well as the world perhaps. Or you come to the conclusion there's nothing to do but to practice. So let's sit for a moment. Look, Krista, who is it that comes today?

[31:24]

Ellie's? Isla. Isla, yeah. Remember the bird that we saw there standing still? Were you here? Last weekend, yeah. Somebody found the bird sitting dead over there under the deck. Oh. We had a bird just stood there for, I don't know how long, maybe a couple of hours. It just stood in the window. The door was open, it was just standing. I had the fantasy it came because it might hear the Dharma. But we guessed probably it would die.

[32:41]

It was in the process of dying. And it had diarrhea, but just stood there for hardly, I mean, occasionally it moved its head slightly or opened its beak about a millimeter. Well, you were here too. Then suddenly it flew away. And then it died under the deck here. So I would like to, starting with that optimistic note, I would like to... have a report on what she spoke of. After these groups, I always feel so left out, you know. So please someone start. Felix, Felix, Felix.

[34:15]

Is that what you did? Oh my goodness. Maybe you better start tomorrow. Okay. Okay. And I try to give structure to the fullness of the... And the question one There were a lot of very bodily, physically occasions where we felt very... Alive. Alive. Yeah. Like running, being in the, you know, direct sailing, or horseback riding, or singing, or dancing. Mm-hmm.

[35:15]

So... Experience of the birth of our own children. eigene Kompetenz auch bewältigen zu können. And in this situation there was the inner confidence that you can handle the situation from your own resources or something? Ja. Auch während Saarsein oder auch in der weiteren Folge auch während

[36:19]

Also during satsang and also in like intense kind of discussion where it started flowing So this is leading to the second question, when did you feel alive with others? Being together with children or grandchildren. Dancing with a good partner. Where you feel familiarity and it's just going along well. Also laughing together. Laughing together. The experience of being present during the last hours of life of one's father.

[37:25]

To the third question of something we would like to give to somebody To give laughter fire, you know, the cold, the hot fire of your own intensity. Steinen und Faszination? Fascination and being startled or astonished or something. Achtung! An honest kind of respect regarding the other one.

[38:43]

And after somehow finding all these examples and talking about them, Interestingly, what came up was the experience of boundarylessness. in context with violence or imagined violence? Feeling without boundaries in connection with violence. When you're looking at the violent scene in a movie, or also when you fantasize it, or when you're doing it, and sometimes also you have a feeling of being very vital.

[39:50]

That's what also people who were in this situation are. Okay. All right, thank you. Great. Something else. Someone else. Well we can stop now. In our group, it wasn't so different from what we just heard.

[40:56]

There was a situation where we felt very alive, connected with being very much in the body. sometimes it were unexpected situations kind of extreme situations like a challenge you had to come up with you had to meet you had to meet And also situations where you felt very much accepted and filled with gratefulness. And when we started to talk about the second question, somehow we asked ourselves, it arose, what does it mean to be alive or to feel alive?

[42:28]

And then came situations where And situations where being alive with others were situations where you shared something with others? Yes, so in groups, for example, where we had a common room, For example, in groups where a shared space somehow, like a frequency you share, then Meeting challenges together.

[43:54]

Being silent together. Were you in the same group? Okay. And to the third question, what could we give to somebody? The first thing that came up was a smile. Smile together. And several people said the physical presence of the other to recognize it and to accept it. And sharing this common space.

[45:22]

Yeah, okay, thanks. Okay. In the beginning, each one of us told in which situation they felt most alive. And for most people, or for all people, it turned out that this being most alive was connected with some kind of ecstatic experience, or I don't know, ecstasy, but sometimes connected with drugs, or with only an example.

[46:29]

Yeah. ecstatic situation. This feeling of being alive felt kind of an ecstasy.

[46:54]

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