This woman, Temple Grandin, who wrote this autistic woman, amazing, who wrote this book called Animals in Translation. She was also the... I read was the subject of a famous New Yorker profile by Oliver Sacks who wrote the man who mistook his wife for a hat. I've never done that. So sorry. Not yet. He wrote an article on her, right? Oliver Sacks wrote a New Yorker profile. New Yorker magazine. on this woman, this autistic woman, who wrote this book, Animals in Translation.

[01:05]

And she said something about... It's a book I'm studying, and she said something about... I don't know why she mentioned preparatory schools, but she said they used to have horses, and that was good for... Preparatory school is something before you go to school or that's a boarding school type thing? It's a boarding school like before you go to college. And she went to such a thing? I don't know about that. She just said... But she said it was good for her. No, she said they're good for children, especially when they had horses. Okay, so she said that boarding schools are good for children, especially if there are horses there. And then I thought, oh great, my father taught at a military boarding school where there were horses. Sometimes I think I'm a strange person because I grew up on a lake with horses all around me and I never learned to sail or ride.

[02:16]

Isn't that strange? But anyway, I was happy to swim and walk. Anyway, it had a whole troop, two troops of horses, I mean lots of horses, 50 horses, and some were in a barn right beside our house. So I used to hang out with the horses and feed them sometimes and so forth. Anyway, she feels that we learn From horses we learn something about what it is to be human.

[03:19]

From animals, she says. And somehow I think this is true. And shamanic cultures feel this. And Chinese culture felt this. So I think I should give you this koan I gave you last night again so you can get it clear in your mind or body. But first let me say that, you know, I was, when I thought about this little town I grew up in, it's a nice place to grow up, but, you know, it was a farm town of a thousand people. So if I think about it now, this village where I grew up or the small town, that was good enough to grow up.

[04:24]

That was a agricultural village with a thousand people. Yeah, Dorf. And here I am in a farm town in Germany. How the heck did I get here? It wasn't the cows that drew me. Maybe. Somehow, I mean, I wonder sometimes how this is, but the answer is it's this precious teaching which brought me here. Also, die Antwort ist, dass mich diese kostbare Lehre hierher gebracht hat. And my frustration with the world that I grew up in, you know, the Second World War and everything, you know, from a distance, but I heard the news every day. Meine Frustration mit der Welt, in der ich aufgewachsen bin, also das war der Erste Weltkrieg. That's really good.

[05:26]

She saved the first world war. She knows I'm old. I wish it was the First World War. Think what an example of teaching I'd be. Why? My God, he was born in 1906 and he only looks 70. Yeah. So anyway, I heard the news every day and I thought, you know, I don't want to be part of the human race. Really, I had this feeling. If this is what human beings do... How could I, you know, I don't want to be a human being.

[06:40]

And what changed it was this precious teaching. I saw another possibility for, the first possibility I saw, ever saw, for our human life. And here we are in this funny old building, which actually is also a recognition of this precious teaching. Here we have Dieter and you, Dieter, and Frank, as much as he can, living nearby. And people on the board like Nico and Neil and Beate. Somehow everybody does this pretty much. There's no salaries or anything.

[07:42]

They do this to make a place for this precious teaching. And look at this crazy woman. I mean, she married into this life which no sane woman would want. Although she thinks I'm old. as I guess am. But it's all really rooted in this precious teaching. And someone told me yesterday that they can't do this practice.

[08:50]

It just requires too much discipline. And I found that very discouraging. I want it all to seem as easy as pie to you. And I hope that this, or I wish that this is as easy for you as baking a cake. I want to make this, do you have that expression, as easy as pie? Feather easy. Feather easy, we say. Okay, feather easy, yeah. It's also wrong, feather easy, but it doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah, I want this precious teaching to be accessible.

[09:54]

And Sukhiroshi had the same feeling. He thought this precious teaching is stuck in male monasteries for macho youths. But who else? So both of our feeling, and Paul from the very early days too, How can this teaching be just part of ordinary life? And for old people as well as young people. Especially in this century, since I have three daughters, for women. And especially in this century, after I have three daughters, for women. Even if I didn't have three daughters, I'd feel the same way.

[10:55]

Well, I actually don't think it requires much discipline. My practice is, I think, 90% intentioned. And 10% maybe, discipline. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it does take discipline. I think where the discipline mostly comes in is the decision to sit every day. Or some particular number of days a week. And the decision to go to bed early enough so that you can do it if you sit in the morning.

[12:00]

And also the discipline to sit a specific length of time. Yeah. I mean, especially when you're in the first few years you're developing a sitting practice. So you sit... Make a decision in 10 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes or 40 minutes, something like that. Probably 20 is better than 10. But 30 or 40, that's pretty much the same. And the reason you want to sit a specific length of time Because you want to take it out of personal preference.

[13:02]

Yeah, the second foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of pleasure, displeasure, and neither. And we want the area of neither to be the biggest part of our lives. It's not pleasurable, it's not displeasurable, it's just the way it is. And that's what a ritual does. A ritual takes it out of preference. So, sitting in the morning becomes a ritual. And if you can't sit 20 minutes, you sit down for one minute.

[14:19]

You just do the ritual. And ritual, you know, it's such, you know, if you study Chinese culture and history and so forth, one of the most important aspects is ritual rites. And Japanese and Chinese culture is based on rights, R-I-T-E-S, not R-I-G-H-T-S. What restaurant you go to and how the restaurant knows you and treats you is a right, not a right. We won't go into it here, but everything is ritual space, not public or a space you have a right to.

[15:21]

Okay, so this part of practice does take some discipline. Now, there's discipline for learning and there's discipline for doing. There's discipline for learning and there's discipline for doing. And the word discipline in its etymology means to learn. Discipline in that sense is those conditions that are conducive to learning. But for many of us, I think discipline has come to mean how we force ourselves to do things. Yeah, and then naturally we're going to resist that.

[16:45]

But the discipline for learning, I think we can understand. Yeah, and that's the meaning in the paramitas, the first three of the six paramitas. Das ist die Bedeutung in diesen Parameters, den ersten drei der sechs Parameters. The openness and willingness to do what is needed, what a person needs. Also die Offenheit und die Bereitschaft, das zu tun, was jeder oder was die Menschen oder was man braucht. At the same time, the willingness to just learn from the person, to just be open to what the person gives you on an equal basis. And then the third parameter is patience, the ability to let things ripen. And that should be and can be a model for every relationship you have with another person.

[17:51]

This is the core of what's called bodhisattva practice. To have in yourself the feeling, I will give this person or this situation whatever it means. And the second is I will simultaneously receive from this situation or this person whatever they offer. And patience, to be able to stand there, to locate yourself in this space. So discipline, which is the conditions For learning, this is very different than discipline to do something or accomplish something.

[19:21]

Now, why do I say it's not so much discipline in this practice but intention? And it's an intention that comes out of feeling and caring and concern about others and the world and yourself. And in a sense, to know that you're being alive counts. Yeah. And governments, even democratic governments, tend to disempower us and make us feel we can't really do anything. So for me, part of this topic of wide mind, open mind, how do we have a feeling that our being alive

[20:27]

is something real and counts in this world, exists in this world. If we don't have that feeling, we can't have a wide, open feeling. in this world. So I should speak about intention then. Because most of the practices I'm presenting you the views I'm presenting you can't be done by discipline. You can only intend them. And if we want to again find out... Well, let me come back to that.

[21:44]

So how does intention work? I think I have to keep coming back to this. Intention is a different mind than discursive thinking. An intention is a view you hold. We say, hold in front of you. All these teachings are meant to be incubated, held in front of you. In front means held in your awareness. Now, to just hold the intention and not try to do it requires a deep trust, a trust in the process, the process that occurs when you hold an intention.

[23:01]

And a trust and an understanding of the dynamic of living, of being alive. And a trust also that you can't hold an intention unless it's usually a good intention. Or an intention that somehow makes sense for you. So it requires a trust in ourselves that goes beyond thinking. There's a Japanese word, iru-futo.

[24:15]

And it means a path outside of thinking. And it's also used as a word for enlightenment. But intention is a path outside of thinking. Then you really have to see that an intention is a mental formation that's not really a thought. We just don't have enough words for it. I sometimes try to find odd words like paratactic. Yeah, my new odd word of this morning is inosculate. Do the doctors know inosculate? They should, yeah. Maybe.

[25:31]

It means when nerves or veins, blood vessels, have small opens and it allows the whole system to work. They have little holes and then it works, right? that the blood vessels all connect to each other in ways that there's a flow. You don't have to explain. All right, go ahead. So it's not inoculate, it's inosculate. So inosculate literally means to allow a connectedness to occur where there doesn't seem to be the possibility of connectedness. So a word which no one knows and nobody ever uses, we can turn into a Buddhist term.

[26:42]

Yeah, you know, the culture hasn't leased it. But I'll probably forget it tomorrow, so anyway, I mentioned it today. Okay. But there's something happens when you hold an intention. And again, you can take a whole bunch of intentions... and try to hold them, and they just go away. They slip away. That's interesting. Why is there something that we can't figure out exactly that knows that intention isn't for us? So be very grateful if an intention takes hold of you, even if it's an extraordinary intention that you think, that's too important for me, that's too grand.

[28:01]

Hey, if it takes hold, accept it. Don't let the stupidity of social vanity destroy you. Don't let the stupidity of social... We're taught to not be vain, etc., but often it's a form of social control. Don't think big, you little... No. I didn't actually... I can't repeat this word. You snail. You snail. Someone has to think, what can we do in this world?

[29:08]

And have the courage to try. It doesn't mean, oh, I'm important. It means you try. Yeah, you don't. It's maybe secret practice. But not schizophrenic practice. It's just you can see in a person when they're alive with a deep intention. Then you just hold that intention. If the tension takes hold of you, you take hold of it. And then you trust the process of being alive. To let the world talk to you. You don't, you know, sometimes I say studying a koan.

[30:11]

You don't know what it's about. No, you can't. What is this koan about? But somehow it takes hold of you and you get familiar with it. And one day you're sitting with some people talking. Maybe in a cafe. And an unusual, invisible fish swims by through the air. And no one sees it, but you see it swimming right through the air. And you realize the koan has given you exactly the means to take hold of it and release it. So holding an intention and trusting our living in this world

[31:26]

Now this process of bringing an intention to fruition or bringing it or letting it shape our world that open up possibilities in our world, or widen our mind, is helped if we practice mindfulness. The practice of mindfulness, which I could say very simply means to physicalize the world, To physicalize the world in a way that the intention has a medium to function in, swim in.

[32:51]

Makes it more likely the intelligence in the intention, the possibilities in the intention, will begin to function. When you get in the habit of holding an intention, small ones and big ones, And thinking through the world. It's a way of thinking through the world or thinking through living. There's a satisfaction that's hard to imagine.

[33:54]

You really do begin to feel your... Living counts, makes sense, adds up. So these views or practices, teachings I present, I hope one of them is a fish that swims into your shirt. And they work through intention, not through discipline. And the intention to develop mindfulness, the mindfulness that makes intention work,

[35:13]

that mindfulness is also developed simply from intending to be more mindful. To bring attention to attention itself. Your attention and intention are the most precious aspects of being alive. And this can't be done. You can't do it. You can't discipline your doing. All you can do is allow intention to work. And this is not something that you can do where you can bring yourself to do it, but everything you can do is simply to allow this intention to act.

[36:30]

Thanks. Okay. That's my little riff on intention. Now, maybe I should just... It's about time for a break, but maybe I should just repeat the koan now. And we can come back to it. And I'm putting out this koan because it relates to the topic. And also because I think it shows us something about how to notice this subtle process of intentional mind. To be sensitive to the unexpected parts.

[37:46]

Okay, the introduction is scholars plow with the pen. Gelehrte flügen mit dem Stift. Orators plow with the tongue. Redner flügen mit der Zunge. But we adepts, or we patched, robed mendicants. What's a mendicant? A sower? Okay. Aber wir... But we... Patched, robed mendicants. Yeah. Yours is patchier than mine. I just have these nails in there.

[38:46]

Oh, yeah. We're just... Us adepts lay adepts as well. We lazily... Watch a white ox on an open ground. And then it says, how to pass the days. What a plaintive cry from 1,000 years ago. How to pass the days. Oh, so Di Jiang asked Shu Shan, not the Chattanooga, Shu Shan boy... No, you don't have to say that. Di... Did you ever pass the corner on fourth and grant her a little ball of rhythm?

[40:01]

Has a shoeshine stand for people's... Okay. Anyway. It's one of my early songs. The Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy. Anyway, D. Jung asked Shoeshine... Where are you from? Oh, I came from the south. How are things in the south these days? And Xu Shang says, there's extensive discussion. And Xu Shang says, how does this compare to my planting the fields and cooking rice? And Shushan says, but what can we do about the world? I mean, this is real. What can we do about the world? And Dijon says, what do you call the world? What kind of open mind or wide mind do we have that knows this world?

[41:22]

What do we think this world is that we function in? So that's enough for now. Let's have a break. Thank you very much.

[41:28]

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