It is pointless to study Buddhism, and perhaps it is also pointless to call oneself a Buddhist, if one cannot dare to think that one could be a Buddha. Roshi speaks about the Buddha or about the Buddha nature or also about the Bodhisattva, then he sometimes gives these thoughts to consider. Can you imagine being a Buddha? And that's what he did this week in his opening speech, in this first week, when it was about the Buddha as a topic.

[01:03]

And this sentence always hits me personally, it hits the core of my practice. I can imagine that I could be a Buddha. because it's a bit strange to think about yourself and others. I could be a Buddha, or I am a Buddha. That's even weirder. But it would actually be quite nice if it could be like that. And then there is in Buddhism the figure of the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva is a being of wisdom and it is one who is on the way to becoming a Buddha.

[02:05]

and it is one who has committed himself to the task, to the inner obligation, to control his own suffering and the suffering of other people. And I always think about it with the addition of doing as good as possible in this direction. And with this figure it is easier for me to practice, one who is on the way to becoming a Buddha. It is also easier to say, I am on the way, or I am on the way to becoming a Buddha. And then there is this Bodhisattva, I don't know, I'll just imagine it. There is a Buddhist mythology, and in this Buddhist mythology the Bodhisattva is one who has attained enlightenment, but who does not allow himself to attain enlightenment as long as all other beings are not enlightened.

[03:21]

And Roshi made the statement that the Bodhisattva is someone who can only be enlightened in being with each other, in being enlightened with you. And that is very close to me. Some of you know that I have a twin sister and her name is Ulrike and I have such a connection with Ulrike. Sometimes I have the feeling of a deep love for her, but sometimes it's just like that, she's always there.

[04:28]

And she was always there. And there is no world in which she, or there is no situation for me in which she is not there. For this relationship to my sister, this sentence is true. I can say that. It's a goal for me, this sentence. If there is enlightenment for me, whatever it is, then it only exists with her, because she is always there. There is no world in which she is not there either. And this goal of being a twin is for me also the goal of another term that Roshi always offers us, the Tathagatagarbha, the Tathagata who comes and goes like this.

[05:42]

That's what it means. And GABA is the mother's womb, the birth mother and the embryo at the same time. And I always think about it. When I was in my mother's womb, I already had a partner. And when something like to imagine that this world in which we are, as I am sitting here now and as you are sitting here, that this is such a mother body, then it is a goal for me to look at the people as my twins. Because this idea that one's own life stream cannot be separated from the life streams of others is quickly said, I think, when I look at it, but it is not easy to really move into this feeling.

[07:00]

And for me, this twin, who is so close to me, is the closest experience to that, that I can never be separated from the life stream of another person and was never separated. In my world, it would be a bodhisattva to take all people like twins. I don't know if that's possible. It would be very nice. And then, when we recite the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas at the Uriyoki in the morning, I ask myself sometimes, OK, what is that?

[08:15]

What is Bodhisattva? Manjushri, the bodhisattva of perfect wisdom, and Samantabhadra, the most peculiar companion of the bodhisattva of shining practice, and Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. How is it that the bodhisattvas, these mythological figures, are present in our lives? A few days ago I spoke with Thomas and he said that sometimes it happens, or we talked about the experience in the broadcast, when it is very quiet Ah, when it gets very quiet and there is a common depth in the sasen.

[09:19]

He said, sometimes it pulsates spontaneously when groups are together while eating or something, then suddenly everything is quiet. And then the French say, an angel has passed by, or what? An angel has passed by. And when I thought about the Bodhisattva, I thought to myself, OK, can this also be possible, that one can get closer to these figures by saying, if one feels compassion, Avalokiteshvara has come by. Or, now I have been Avalokiteshvara for a short moment, but it felt very real. This is how Avalokiteshvara has to be.

[10:21]

Or, if he is not like that, how should he be? If he is not like that, if my feeling is not Avalokiteshvara, how should Avalokiteshvara be? Or, I once took part in a seminar where I sat in a half lotus seat, because it is no longer so difficult for me to sit like that all the time, and all the other people became restless, and I could sit there like that. After the seminar someone came to me and said, You sit there like a Buddha. And then he didn't know that I was doing Buddhism. It was a bit uncomfortable. Buddha, no. But maybe it's that you can sit like this and stay calm while such a event passes by. Maybe that's Samantabhadra, the Bodhisattva, the shining lie. That you can do that for a short time.

[11:27]

And I think that it is important to me that I bring these figures into my own life. Otherwise they will remain very strange. Most of the time I have had no relationship with the Buddha. I walked through our radio station and I didn't even write to the Buddha. That wasn't important at all. Not really important. And so over time I discovered that when I look at the Buddha, even when I look at the figure, that there is something to learn from this form, how he sits there and is simply present with everything that happens around him. Can we dare to imagine that we can be a Buddha or a Bodhisattva?

[12:48]

Yes, I think we should do it or try to move into it. And if we try to move into it, then maybe we could just do it together. As Roshi said, the future Buddha Maitreya is maybe a Sangha. And maybe it's enough if in certain situations one for the other or for each other, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are so that you can say over and over again, oh, Akash is a Bodhisattva of the West. And so on. OK.

[14:05]

Thank you. I have the feeling that if you say, I am a Bodhisattva, that at that moment you are no longer pissed. At that moment it goes away again. But only if you don't think about it. Maybe. Maybe not. In the Genshokon there is this sentence, we are just exaggerating it, that's why I think about it, the Buddhas don't necessarily have to make it a knowledge for their own self that they are Buddhas. And I think, as you say, that no one is a Bodhisattva when he walks around and says, I am a Bodhisattva.

[15:09]

Then he is gone immediately. But when I see that I am a very ordinary twin and a normal person, I mean, and a twin, then... And if there is anything to practice at all, then there has to be some way into the feeling of what it means to be a Bodhisattva. And I don't have to do that publicly. But I can, for example, say, and this possibility to say, ah, now Avalokiteshvara has come by, is a possibility to keep away from me. Not I am Avalokiteshvara, but Avalokiteshvara has passed away. If I do what you suggest too early, and I say too early, if I ever say I am a bodhisattva, or that you are not allowed to do it, because otherwise you can never become one, I don't know if I will become one sooner.

[16:21]

I just try it out, how it is when I say, ah, now I really feel touched. Or maybe that touches me to tears. And that is Avalokiteshvara. If I don't do that, then the names of the Bodhisattvas are just words for me in the morning. They were for me for a long time. What kind of strange guys are they? Such names. I assume that they are all there when we call them. But I think if I try to hold them down and get them back, it will be difficult. But my problem is, am I there when you don't call? Yes. I don't know, sometimes I'm not there. But maybe you don't know.

[17:26]

Yeah, let's dance It's not easy to imagine being a Buddha, as Beke Roshi suggested in the first week, that we practice Buddha-nature, Buddha. And for that we used a choir as a pendant. And this choir sounds very short. A monk asked Dongshan, which of the three bodies does not fall into any category?

[18:50]

Dongshan answered, I am always close to it. Let's leave aside for a moment what the three bodies are, but it is enough to say that The three bodies are wise, Buddha to understand in gradation. The highest is the untouchable, then the so-called body of delusion, and finally the manifest body, which transmits the teaching. The point What fascinated me about this choir is the point where the practice of the monk is reversed by the fact that Dongshan shows him a new path.

[19:58]

So far he has practiced with the three bodies and he comes up with the question, these three bodies, these three categories with which I have practiced, I have come to the point, but how do I get out of it? How do I get out of categories now? And Dumschein gives him a sentence, an answer. This answer is not the traditional answer, where you would say, yes, of course, the untouchable body, the Dhammakaya is that. That would simply be a new category. But he lays down a path for him, and the path means, I am always close to him. Um... I think, when we practice, that in the beginning we have an intention, an intention, and it comes from an idea, maybe a pressure of suffering, or a longing, we want to change something, and we practice something for this change, and often this is still in the area of the idea.

[21:11]

the detour of what we assume. But then, at some point in practice, the point comes where you want to go there or understand that it is not really about looking at something, moving towards something, like building a house and then seeing something else, moving back to it and building something again, but that you no longer want to move within the framework of ideas and categories, but actually want to become open, ready for recording. poor categories, or at least wants to have the choice to use categories or not.

[22:21]

The same applies to concepts. And how do we get to this turning point? Dunshan suggests, I am always close to him. And this suggestion contains once that he gives this monk a trust by implicitly saying to him, I am, I say now something in quotation marks, Dumschen simply says this. He does not take a name for it, but he says, This, and this maybe says a child before he has words, or at the moment of fascination one says this, where one has not yet formed a category. This is this.

[23:21]

And it is not important that a word arises, that there is a recognition, or a recognition at all, in the sense that I introduce something that is already known, but that first of all this openness is there, to simply let it work. And he says, this is always there, this possibility for it is always there. And then Dungsan says, I am always, I am this always there. He doesn't say you. That is, he tells him, this is not something I can do for you or where I can lead you, but this is a very, very personal thing. That is, to look radically at your own experience and not to look outside. First of all, this direction. B. K. Roshi said, when you read this Koran and first the question arises, what are the three bodies?

[24:29]

Then you go wrong. He said, look what it does to you, three bodies. What kind of resonance is there? Is there something in your own experience or not? Do you want that at all, three bodies? And so on. And he says, Dungschen says, always. And that also means continued. That means it is not a practice, not a state of having achieved once and then forever, but it is something constantly renewing. And he says, no, he does not say, I am always there. And I have translated it this way, for me it sounds like a movement, up, down. As Christian says, bodhisattva is being on the way, a movement to do something and not to imagine that you are already sitting at a goal.

[25:41]

So this whole sentence is a sentence that It is similar to breathing. You can use breathing as a vehicle, a means of transport, to enter a way of being, a way of existence, which is also characterized by breathing. And that's why breathing is so good, because you have both the possibility to intervene and to let it happen. The way to this turning point is determined by two sides, I think. The first is this side of the intentional, whereby this detachment already has two sides.

[26:48]

I recently talked to a friend about this intention, he called it seeing, because he wanted people to see something, and he said he imagined it like a band, a wide band with two colours on each side, and the band is wrapped, it is spiralled in itself, and this one colour can be recognized over and over again, This is the conscious side that one can see, but on the other side of this seeing there are always also parts that are not conscious at all, which can at most be suspected, but never grasped, and which nevertheless carry this intention, this intention. So, in the process of making an intention and of doing it, then, like one side, this really wild intention becomes thinner and thinner.

[27:58]

And the other side, this one of awakening and this one of being really attentive for the moment, for this entering into this openness, which is just not perspectival and intentional and which already knows where it should go, but which simply opens up more and more for what is happening at the moment. It gets stronger and stronger. so that this turning point is actually hardly a point in the experience, but rather spreads out as a surface. And at some point you realize, oops, you are already over the threshold. And when you say, oops, too loudly, you are already on the other side again. And you start all over again.

[29:00]

What really fascinated me is how Dungschelm can capture it in one sentence, how many he can put into it. and how clear it is to him what this monk is asking, from what attitude he is asking. I think that such a kind of answer can only be seen from such an openness, can happen from such an openness, which is not already a ready answer, or a category, or a repertoire, to which he comes back, and from which he simply but rather that this process of dialogue works in such a way that he can really let this question work, let it work and let the answer come out of it.

[30:17]

And this is often the way I experience it, how Beka Roshi speaks and how, in a way, conversations take place here. This moment of letting it work and this openness that can then simply expand until something crystallizes from it and someone says something or doesn't say anything. Thank you. How do you practice this?

[31:47]

The attempt to make things work I try to drag as little as possible from one situation to another. When I experience something, I try to make it round in some way or to bring it to a certain conclusion, and then the next thing. Not from one to the other immediately, especially when I notice that things overlap or something is stuttering. The other thing is just the attempt to be really open and to notice when something jumps on very quickly or a head immediately starts to rattle, to say, hey, what is that?

[33:01]

Listen to it first, look closely, listen closely. And to really let this space work. So not to react immediately. Sometimes there are spontaneous reactions, of course, like jokes. Or it's a quick conversation and that's okay. But just listen to it. that what happens is often expressed as something that falls into the pond. First of all, you have to pull the strings a little and then react. Not immediately with, oh, this hits me on this and that, and immediately, bang, outwards. And yes, there are... There are sentences with which I do it. For example, there is the distinction between the guest and the host.

[34:03]

Guests are those The impressions and the host, I will now call the room, which stands with the impressions. Sometimes when I am in a hurry, the host says to me, forget the host. And yes, of course, that's it. Breathing or going back to breathing over and over again. And just noticing that the intensity of the breath. Somehow a feeling for presence or for the quality of presence develops. And I simply feel that I am half present, I am quite absent,

[35:05]

I feel very present. And I try to control it in a subtle way. Sometimes I know exactly what I have to do to become more present. Sometimes it is unclear to me, so I just try things out. But there is a kind of, how shall I put it, a kind of sensitivity to how present I am. I just wanted to mention We also worked in this choir, and this sentence that Dongshan said triggered something in me, namely a sentence that accompanied me for a very long time, and it is a very similar sentence that I received from a lady at a time when I had just given birth to a child, and it was extremely difficult, because it was like a complete transformation with the child, and the rhythm is all and I couldn't practice properly, I couldn't sit properly, and I always had a bad conscience, and I couldn't practice at all, and I couldn't do it, and so I suffered for months, I mean, I was very happy with the child, but on the other side I was also there, and I know that I talked to the lady friend from the sauna, I talked to her, and she says to me, how are you, and I say, of course I'm fine, and everything is fine with the child and with the Belgian,

[36:46]

I can't practice. It's so hard for me to sit and I can't sit properly. And she said to me, and it accompanies me to this day, she said to me, the practice is never far away. And it has in me, it still resolves in me today, it's really what always happens. It's really in me. Yes. Or never far away. I still remember that song. It was a very beautiful sentence. What sounds so old to me, what you said, which also resonates with Christian, he wasn't there all the time. So there was this paradox, If you want to capture it, it's gone somewhere and at the same time there is also something, we know what it is, what it is actually, what we want to achieve, but it is not intentional.

[37:53]

and strive for it. We are so backward. They make us come back. And that's a trick. If I'm too helpless, I want to achieve it anyway. And this sentence is simply beautiful. I'm always close. Whatever it is. That's true for me too, this topic. Yes. Does it work for you? I mean, if you're not on purpose. I don't know. It works quite well. I don't know. It's a great answer. Yes, I would like to try a second round.

[39:08]

A monk asks Dongshan, which of the three bodies of Buddha falls into no category? Dongshan replies, I am always close to this. I want to make access to this koan through the body. Dieter just briefly explained what the three bodies of the Buddha are. And weiss also pointed out that the koan is not exactly concerned with this, but rather what can be a category that is beyond it.

[40:12]

The definition of a Buddha is Relatively simple. It simply means the non-emergence of conceptual thinking. The question is only where do we find it? And I think we have to find access to the body. And what is a body? Above all, what is a body in the Buddhist sense? Of course, it is first of all our completely normal physical body. But I think we all have an idea that our body, our own body, is much more than just this physical body, which will be a corpse when we die. But what is this expanded field of the body?

[41:28]

Let's take some Buddhist sentences. Dharmakaya. The Buddha is space. That sounds pretty good, I think. That speaks to everyone immediately. But what does it actually mean? The Dharmakaya is space. Is our body also space? Or is it an expanded space? We come to this feeling only when we go into a practice that is beyond the categories. Was ist damit gemeint, jenseits der Kategorien zu sein?

[42:30]

Wir meinen damit, jenseits der sechs Sinnesfelder zu sein, oder der fünf Sinnesfelder einschließlich des Geistes. Die sechs nehmen es nicht herein. Die sechs können es nicht hereinnehmen, heißt es in einem Koran. Aber wie kommen wir zu einer Wahrnehmung, die jenseits unserer Sinnesfelder liegt? Ist das überhaupt möglich? Keine Augen, keine Ohren, keine Berührung, heißt es, schanken wir jeden Morgen. Aber wie nehmen wir dann wahr? Und der Schlüssel dazu ist der Körper. Es gibt ein erweitertes Wahrnehmungsfeld des Körpers. Roshi nannte das, wir müssen unserem Körper eine Stimmgabe werden lassen. Das heißt, dann können wir die Welt erfahren in einem wesentlich weiteren Spektrum als durch unsere Sinne.

[43:35]

Weil unser Denken unsere Sinne einengt. Das ist das Herunterdimmen der Sinne. Das kognitive Denken macht uns schlafend. Wie kommen wir zu diesem erweiterten Feld hin, in diese erweiterte Wahrnehmung, wo unser Körper wahrnimmt jenseits der Sinne? Es ist eigentlich auch ganz simpel. Wir praktizieren Zazen. Was passiert denn im Zazen, dass wir unseren Körper so wahrnehmen können und die Welt durch unseren Körper erweitert wahrnehmen können? Wir hören auf zu denken. How do we do that?

[44:38]

Everyone knows that when he has already sat Sazen, that this is not quite so easy. For a moment maybe, but we come back to thinking again immediately. How do we manage to get to another place than to localize ourselves in thinking? We can only do it through the body. We have to recognize our body, otherwise we have no chance in practice. We have to get our identity out of thinking. But we can only do that if we transfer our identity somewhere else. Where can we transfer it? We can transfer it into the body, into the breath. Therefore, the breath is such a central point in practice. Because the breath is something moving that makes it easier to concentrate.

[45:42]

We could concentrate on any other part of the body. The concentration field as such then has no difference anymore. But the breath is easier accessible. We notice when we are breathing or when we have left it again. Where else can we locate ourselves? We can, when we have practiced with the body, we can locate ourselves in all things. We can live in a field of truthfulness. And that makes the world surprisingly much more beautiful. And if we can do that, then we have the Dhammakaya body. And that then the world is more colorful, more beautiful, or as Roshi often says, it feels like one is in love, that is then the Sambhogakaya body.

[46:49]

That is already the result, the fruit of it. of the sensed blissfulness in the practice, in the zazen. And if we then take the step, as Christian described it, and say, what I experienced there, I want to share that with the world, because it doesn't make any sense for me alone to experience that. I want to share that with the world. then it is the manifestation, then it is the nirmanakaya. Because the Buddha only makes sense when we are all Buddhas. And sometimes it seems to us that everything is big terms, but you can design it very practically with very small exercises. For example, the mudra that we hold, we should keep our thumbs very straight.

[47:53]

If we don't do that, when they go up, we are thinking. When they go down, we are falling asleep. If we can hold it, our mind can hold it too, because body and mind are connected. And it is so strongly connected that every spiritual process has a physical component and vice versa. This means that if I can keep this mudra for a longer time, I have such a stable state of mind that it enables me to keep it on a physical level. And you can't keep it in your consciousness. That's the interesting thing about it, and that's the clever thing about Zen practice.

[48:54]

You can only keep it in a mental area that is below consciousness. Otherwise, the mudra will always wander. But it also wanders in that, and the example is simply taken by Roshi, and I find it very fitting, It also travels in such a way that when we go into other rooms, suddenly sometimes we no longer know where our thumbs are actually. And that is already this searching and not finding and not being able to locate exactly. That is already the Buddha is dream. That is already the first experience of it. And it takes place by often having experiences where we feel a boundless body. That is this sense of space that is meant by it. And I think you can only get there if you really deal with your own body on a very practical level.

[50:00]

That means, in the zazen, always practice regularly to wander through your body. Und da gibt es eine unendliche Vielzahl von Phänomenen. Man kann wirklich die kleinsten Details in seinem Körper erforschen. Die mittlere Zehe des linken Fußes, das mittlere Gelenk der mittleren Zehe des linken Fußes. Das kann sehr spannend sein. and also certain inner organs. There are different colours in the organs. You can see how much they are in flux, where energy stops. You can intervene, you can heal with it. You can explore yourself and make the greatest adventure.

[51:02]

There is no fixed journey. You can simply try to build up a field of concentration through breathing. Once you are in this field of concentration, you can take in everything you want. Man kann auch warten, bis der Körper signalisiert und irgendwo ein körperliches Signal entsteht und man sich darauf konzentriert, das greife ich auf, das nehme ich in dieses Konzentrationsfeld. Oder eine andere Technik ist, man kann das Konzentrationsfeld halten und dann bewusst öffnen. Und diese bewusste Öffnung führt dazu, dass das Konzentrationsfeld immer auf etwas geht, was sehr einspitzig ist, wie man sich auf etwas konzentriert. Öffnet man das Konzentrationsfeld, ist man in einem Gewahrseinsfeld.

[52:13]

which is not so different from the field of concentration, because it is also characterized by not thinking. It is just a more relaxed form. And these are all things with which you can juggle, you can try them out and you can explore them. The result of this is, That you really love your body. That you simply like what is there. And that a very peculiar joy arises from it, that it is there as it is. And this joy, Dogen calls it, is a joy without a reason, which simply arises and can be created again and again. I would like to go and listen to what he said.

[53:42]

But you can still ask your first question. The question I'm interested in is about the body. You said at the beginning that there is a very concrete body and then there are also all the other bodies. And then it is always said, as you said, I can look at my body or observe it, but then it is about my very concrete physical body or something, because I haven't got that right yet. Yes and no. Well, of course it is your physical body, when you come to rest and concentrate on it, what appears to be is already you, but when it is on a deeper level, that is, you have really concentrated for a while on your breath, what then appears is not the actual body,

[55:08]

but you juggle with the mental image that you have of your body. I said that last week, too, that what Dogen, for example, means with this, let the body-spirit fall, That doesn't mean that you can't somehow dissolve your physical body in meditation. But you can completely dissolve the mental body image that you have of your body. And what then rises are body images again. But we say they rise from a level of truth. And that's why it's also called the body of truth. That is, you don't think about your body. Or if you concentrate on an organ and have concrete experiences with your milk, then it's not your fantasy or your thinking about it.

[56:15]

but you are in another field and what appears is really what your body gives you and therefore it is also a mentally expanded body field. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes, I also had a question. You talk about the bodies in meditation, but I would be interested to know how it actually looks in everyday life. How do you do it personally in everyday life? I mean, if you don't sit, do you go for a breath, so to speak,

[57:20]

So most of the time, aging consists of failing, failing, failing. In that sense. I practice with the body mostly in the zazen. In everyday life, this is the first foundation of mindfulness. How do you move? How do you touch things? I always try to direct attention to this. Often it is lost again. This is aimed at the body. I practice more with external phenomena in everyday life. That means, and I have already told this to my group, for example, over a year, almost two years, I have worked with a piece of road that I usually walked twice a day.

[58:32]

It's only 500 meters, the gold road. And that's when I started to perceive things the way they are. Most of the time we go through a road that we know well. Well, now it's the Golden Road, there's this house, there's that house. You can go through this road and suddenly everything is strange. Because you just let it affect you. And that is also a practice that has brought a lot of fruit for me and where phenomena have emerged. For example, when I first started practicing, I wanted to remember everything somehow in this street. The house, the green window shop, the green bush. It almost caused me to have a nervous breakdown. It made me feel physically bad. Because that's not possible. A piece of road, even if it's so small, it's so complex, so temporary.

[59:34]

For example, a phenomenon of temporaryness. You can experience it physically, because you just can't remember it. You go through this road a few hours later, and the green hair looks completely different again. And that is something that is then also physically fixed or manifested in you over time. And that changes you. That changes you energetically to work with something like that. You said that in order to work with the body or with his body, it is important to love his body from the heart. I think it's more the other way around.

[60:34]

If you work with it, the result is that at some point you like him very much. I see it as very difficult to love the body very much. What kind of exercise do you have there? Yes, this is perhaps a somewhat wrong picture. This is not something On the mental level, the body plays an enormous role, especially in our society, especially the female body. And as soon as you fall out of the ideal norm, you already have problems. This leads to the fact that almost all women have problems with their bodies, because this ideal norm is a narrow-gauge fixation. On this level I do not mean to love the body.

[61:37]

It is more something when you are in this field of the mind and you are busy with the body. Just dive, I think it is an automatic connection, just dive into joyful, Feelings of meaning. That's how I would describe it. It's just what they call bliss. And the physical is almost always here. You don't have the feeling that the body dissolves in it. Yes, sure. The body is not important at all. Ja, das meinte ich mit, es löst sich, dass dein mentales Bild, dein inneres Bild, du hast ein inneres Vorstellungsbild von deinem Körper. Das, was Roche immer mit diesem Ding da meint, dass du den falschen Finger hochhebst.

[62:39]

Und das ist, weil du ein Körperbild, ein mentales Bild hast. Das löst du auf. Ja. Und das... Das führt dazu, dass du... Yes, you just feel comfortable in this loose body image. And that's what releases the joy, I think. A corporeal and senseless image. Yes, there is also a danger in it. For example, although that might be too long. The danger is that if you don't, if you don't localize the heart, I would call it heart quality, if you don't localize it there as well, it's more something like, I don't know if you know this movie, Terminator, it's also about body dissolution and how to pull it back together.

[63:45]

But in a world that is completely empty of meaning, This is a little drug. Form does not exist, things do not exist.

[64:50]

What exists is my relationship to the form, my relationship to the things, my perception of things, my dealing with things and forms. Und dieses deutsche Wort wahrnehmen hat sehr viel Qualität für mich. Ich nehme etwas wahr, ich mache etwas wahr und ich nehme es mir. Und to perceive forms and things. This requires, as Beate has beautifully described, a perception organ. And the biggest perception organ that we have is the body. In the process of perceiving, form meets body.

[66:08]

Form. At that time. What is form? I have tried to think about what form actually is. It is the first of the five skandhas. On one side we have form and the other end of the scale is consciousness. And form is the minimum of what we know. The minimum, the absolute least of what we can perceive. And the characteristic is that we can only perceive it when we hold ourselves in an area that is in front of thinking and in front of associations.

[67:20]

It is the real, pure meeting of form and form, body and phenomenon. And when Roshi speaks of voice, when Roshi speaks of the body of truth, I think he speaks of the fact that we come into this space and this level of being true. And that is this level that lies before the feeling, which cannot be completely separated from the form. even before the feeling of the pleasant or unpleasant or the neither-yet. This being is a space. That's how I experience it. And the practice that we operate is a practice that speaks and acts from this externalization of everything that we do, think and feel, to an inner going.

[68:40]

It is like the external world to the inside and to the only spirit. And when I take this step forward and really embody this only spirit, and I step outwards, then in the ideal case it will be a very inner action, an inner speaking and an inner from the heart.

[69:45]

Innerly Auf der Ebene, wenn ich inniglich denken, spreche und handele, handele ich aus diesem sogenannten Wahrheitskörper oder Dharma-Körper heraus, vielleicht kann dieser Satz, ich bin dem immer nah, kann zu dem Satz werden, angekommen.

[70:48]

Okay. In ancient times there was this word phantasia and at that time it did not have the meaning of fantasy, but the meaning of acting. And acting in the sense of I experience life as an act sensually and with my whole body.

[71:55]

And we still know this word, imagination, and it still has both. It is the one side of consciousness, I imagine something, and on the other side it is this imagination, that life is imagining itself to me, and I am in the middle of it and imagine myself to it. And this word has always fascinated me, and it has somehow lost its meaning in the last, I don't know, 1700 years. It was later the Antique 300 or something like that. The sensual, sensual acting in life, part of life. You spoke of pleasant and unpleasant sensations and of an outside of them, the body of truth.

[73:47]

How do you notice If you perceive yourself in the body of truth, what is the difference between a pleasant feeling and this presence? The problem is that Beate has clearly pointed out that the moment I capture it in language, in associations, when the pictures are taken, I am no longer there.

[74:49]

And I experience it as presence, in the sense of the body as space. It is this, yes, which borders me. Is it a technical distinction that you no longer call it a feeling? That I no longer call it a feeling? Well, it is very important to distinguish between feelings, pleasant and unpleasant, and beyond that. Who else? I think your question is about... I think Gerhard said that all phenomena can be perceived in a pleasant or unpleasant way in this aspect, and then there is an effect of it, and that is the truth.

[76:14]

And I don't think that's what's going on today, as far as I understand it, but there are these three parts of the category, pleasant, unpleasant, and again pleasant, even without being in the true body. I think it has a lot to do with being in this again and again, because pleasant, unpleasant, very fast, there is no such thing as possible and not possible. But in the end, yes, I can show you someone or peek at them, and that's uncomfortable. And yet, in reality, it's not at all categorized. That's a little more comfortable for me. What has just been denoted, if something is upside down, I don't like it, I don't like it, and when I'm gone, I'm gone. And that's why it's so important to stay in these songs, because it opens up your perception of so many things that you neither like nor don't like, but you just perceive them because you can be there without... without...

[77:34]

to control me towards something or to control me from something without being driven by it. And the body as I understand it is not a perfect science. Okay, you have the head. It is not... It is not the head. I think it's very beautiful what you said about form. I always think about what form should actually be and how to learn from it so that it can't be the upper part. And then I read something that really preoccupied me. It's a form of density, of intensity.

[78:40]

And you expressed it as the smallest value moment, or the greatest value. So that you know that you can still separate it from other things, that you can still separate it from other things, like a quantum dart, which is able to step over the sword and warn about the situation. Otherwise, it just stays in such small fields, sometimes even too subtle. It has been able to warn about things like that. At some point, the memory gets lost and suddenly it is said over such a sword. And I believe that this is also difficult. Sometimes I feel that there are certain things that I can't compare to.

[79:43]

The question for me is always, when I say, what is form, and I minimize it to the very least of what I can know and perceive, How do I perceive what is in front of everything imaginable? And here comes the term being and the body as an instrument or as a voice fork to carry. And I don't experience it as a condensation, but I experience it as sorting out. In that sense, it is not a leap at some point, but it is an emptying in that sense, for me, physically. And this being has something to do with this space, this feeling, this first feeling of space.

[80:52]

When I say form meets form, then space meets space. You as space and I as space, we meet and we quarrel. And what makes you and what makes me, is our relationship between you and me at the moment. It is the perception of what I perceive and what you perceive and what we make of each other. And I take it and I make it real. For a very short moment. Now I'm really tired. Christine has to do it too.

[81:53]

What concerns me in practice and in the month of practice even more is experiencing loneliness and togetherness. Being lonely together and being lonely together. And in our everyday situation this is already quite present has become an issue for me, more and more. And now in the month of practice, when so many, where the commonality first becomes even stronger through so many of you, it has become even clearer. And I mean that, I experience it as intense and powerful, these conditions, these feelings that arise. Both in a productive or positive experience, as well as in a overwhelming and somehow losing myself in it and overwhelming one.

[83:07]

So this waking up at four in the morning with you and then going to the radio station and sitting there for almost two hours. and then the recitation for an hour, then the study in silence for almost an hour, then the orioke. I mean, from the normal world, from the normal perception, it is as if you were hit in the face with a healthy human mind, because it is such an unusual setting. But this setting brings me strongly to myself, in a way that I wouldn't be able to do if I were alone, these five hours in the morning. And in this respect, this has a lot to do with each other for me, this common and lonely.

[84:10]

And it strengthens and supports itself. It is indivisible, it belongs together. And Waldabein experience for me Also weil ich dabei in einer Weise erlebe, die ich im normalen Leben so noch nicht erlebt habe. Also ergeben sich daraus auch Fragen für Dinge, die in meinem Leben wichtig sind. Also wir haben hier in der ersten Woche gesprochen über Freundschaft. Was ist wahre Freundschaft? And we realized that the way we practice here and in some way also meet in a friendly way, that it sometimes looks pretty strange. So tense and very formal and exhausting. And at the same time, relaxations and experiences become possible, which in normal friendships were at least not experienceable for me so far.

[85:23]

Why does the deepest trust sometimes look like enmity? That's what we talked about in the choir in the first week. What kind of practice is this that allows us to experience in a way that is sometimes so irritating? What is being irritated about? And then the other question arises for me, what does this mean for work? And it only leads to the area that has always occupied me in my life and that has occupied me here as a work leader. And there I notice that work is like a gate, like a bridge, like a playground for what in Sitsen and in Oryoki partly shows itself very strongly.

[86:29]

it is a possibility how to live it more, how to try it out more, how to make certain experiences again and how to create a force that is no longer accessible when sitting. That's why work for me is, on the one hand, an access or a bridge here in Johanneshof and a playground for for what can be experienced through practice. And then it is also an access to the question that we all ask again and again, that we all have. So how do I take what I experience from here or in practice, how do I take that into my everyday life? So I think there is also work that falls, or the possibility of how I can try it out, how I can try it out further. For me, this has become really clear when I work here.

[87:39]

When I experience how I can wash and after washing I am completely broken and muddy. Or how I can wash and afterwards be more alive than before. Because I was able to open myself to the situation in a way, also the commonality that is there, Here in Johanneshof, when we wash, when we cook, when we work. So it makes the energies accessible that are different from the energies that work according to the battery model. So I power myself out and I need a certain charge afterwards to be able to continue to power. And that seems somehow, for me at least, it's a point that these energy-laden moments that are showing up here for me, that they have something to do with exhaustion. As if I had to invest myself in some way. to experience an energy that approaches me in a different way and revives me than this purely muscular or purely physical energy that I then exhaust.

[88:56]

And what does that have to do with the lonely and the common? For me it's a question. I have the feeling that I'm looking for a distance that allows me to be both in a way that brings me closer, that doesn't make me disappear in the community, that allows me to go down together, but also doesn't push me away in loneliness. And to get a feeling for that, that's a point that concerns me in practice, because it becomes so clear there. Thank you very much. I've always expressed it like this for me.

[90:02]

Being together, being together and being alone. You call it being lonely. You consciously chose that and what do you think about it? Maybe because it rhymes. No, because there's more to it. Being alone has more of an external quality to me. So there are two, three, four, and one is alone. And loneliness is more of a feeling, or something like that. That's why I think it's loneliness. I think loneliness is something negative. Loneliness is something negative, a little negative. It's unsettling, yes. It's lonely. It's lonely, yes. Alone is already neutral. I am the other way around. I am loneliness, which is wonderful.

[91:02]

I can see it in here. If you feel loneliness Do you also feel a kind of closure, where something opens up? I mean, I'm a person who feels better when he has a certain distance to the common. That's what I mean by distance. And there is also a closure. But at the same time I notice that for me, in order to be able to experience it in a certain way, I need the distance and I also need a certain closure. It's like trying something for me and also getting a feeling for it.

[92:07]

What is the right opening, what is the right measure in which I feel comfortable and can also fully experience the situation. For me, the complete experience has nothing to do with a complete opening. At least for me, the feeling of being overwhelmed arises. It can also be a strong experience to be overwhelmed. Yes, it's a strong feeling to be out of it. But there, at least from my natural point of view, I would first of all do some kind of filter or something in between that doesn't make it so intense. In that sense, it's a bit like closing. That's why I ask you this.

[93:09]

On the mental level you have a concept. The concept that you have to take a step back in order to be able to experience it. But as you described it before, there is a different desire emotionally. I mean it. Do you feel it? Or did I say that? I ask it as a question. I believe that there are a number of conflicting feelings and needs in me. In this respect, I would not divide this into a conceptual concept and a felt need. I believe there are different needs. And there are different concepts in me that exist next to each other. And what really interests me is how I make the vitality of this moment fruitful for me, to be able to speak here, to be able to address it. And if I feel it in me right now, an openness is needed for what is happening in the room right now.

[94:15]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_71.8