Yeah, this seminar is, you've probably noticed, a day longer than others. And the prologue day, a day earlier. So I don't, you know, I'm not used to doing seminars a day longer. So I have nothing to say today, so... You know, I'll go home early. Yeah. But it is the case that what is the rhythm? I mean, you know, this seems like, if you do a seminar for as often as I have, I don't know, a hundred, I don't know how many, but lots. There's a certain structure to it that, you know, maybe it's not noticeable, but it's something that, a certain structure to what I can talk about when and how I should end.

[01:21]

It took me a few years simply to learn, just to learn not to download Sunday afternoon. Do you remember? You liked it, though. Everything I didn't get to in the seminar Sunday afternoon... Now I'm much more tamed. And I considered having a second day yesterday afternoon, perhaps a second time of small groups. And I think if we went one more day, I would have small groups today.

[02:31]

Because they help me a lot. And also I think it's useful for you all to speak in German with each other. But here we are. We have to start this morning and we will end at one o'clock, something like that. Is that right? So that you can leave for your various destinations. Now I'm I try not to be too esoteric in what I talk about. When I start talking about my cheekbones as antenna, I think, what the hell am I talking about? I've gone over the edge here.

[03:51]

What I say is true, but I shouldn't say it. I can see somebody does a cartoon of me and there's little antennas sticking out. But anyway, I'm really trying to suggest something. Wittgenstein is famous for saying the human body is the best picture we have of the human soul. And in Yogacara, Buddhism, Zen, we might say, we could easily say that human body is the best picture we have of the mind. Certainly, if we think of the body as an image of the mind, we can engage with the body as and through the mind.

[04:59]

The point of what we've, you know, there's so much, so much we haven't... Excuse me now, I've got a better word for engage. Also, wir können uns mit dem Körper durch den Geist verbinden. Okay. Good. Thanks. What we've come to is, with a number of leaps or jumps, is that we have a choice about reality. You can really, I think, sense that there's not only in us, but in the world, a number of different realities.

[06:28]

I think of the Australian Aborigines, though I'm not suggesting you all go to Australia or anything. But what I've read and seen some documentaries They have a very different sense of reality than we do. And they live in a very different perceptual world than we do. There's even from centuries ago indications that they were able to see the rings around Saturn. And anyway, this is, in our sense of perception, not possible. And again, at least in anthropological literature, they're famous for what's called dream time. My impression is the first thing they do in the morning is discuss dreams as real, bad or good.

[08:11]

Not just the good ones are real. It would probably be inconceivable for them to say it's just a dream. Well, if you start your day that way every day, even that, you'll live in a different reality. And as you know, part of the practice in Zen is to bring the feeling of the dream into your day without trying to analyze it. So we have a choice about reality. In a sense you can choose what kind of reality you want to live in.

[09:35]

So Buddhism doesn't exactly say, at least Zen doesn't exactly say, what that reality is. But it does say that you can do certain things which will create the basis for a different reality. Now, much of that is, and that's my problem with being too esoteric, is resolved, expressed, articulated through monastic life. Although I know a lot of smart people in New York and such places who really hate the idea that there's a craft to Zen or a monastic dimension to Zen. A craft with a monastic aspect.

[10:46]

I mean, even... I mean, they really, really don't... They want Zen, and a lot of people are very interested in Zen, to be mind and attitude and something we all can just express by being creative. And there's certainly, yeah, there is that aspect of Zen practice. Zen understanding. But that's a kind of... byproduct or aspect of Zen that can be part of society and art and so forth.

[11:56]

You know, that's Zen as it fits in. Or something like that. But strictly speaking, practice is as much a craft as anything else. And much of that craft is developed in monastic life. But since I have such compassion for you love for you and I respect the jobs and work you do in the world and the families you have I'm doing my darndest to see if the dimensions of practice that are really rooted in monastic life can somehow be part of our life here

[13:09]

this sort of semi-monastic place. And can be implicit in the way I'm teaching and what I'm teaching. Of course, sashins in many ways are lay... units, lay person's units of monastic life. Yeah, so, and the problems I face, you know, some are like, how much should this be lay?

[14:23]

Should I be wearing robes now? How much should this be lay and how much should be How much should it be adjusted so it works primarily for lay people? And there's no question that this should be a place for lay people. But then does the way Johannesoph is draw Crestone more in this direction? And I worry sometimes, Creston, I mean, people who have only gone to a seminar, say, in Hannover. Bravo. Oh, come on. But it's an English family, the Hannovers, right?

[15:38]

No, excuse me. They come here and they think, this place is weird, all this chanting and people running around in long black skirts. Why the heck do they chant in Japanese? We have a yoga teacher in Crestone who insists we start the class by chanting in Sanskrit. I remember feeling, what the heck does she want me to do that for? And I thought, what am I doing? And then, if you get used to this, you go to Crestone and you think, oh, my God. Really?

[16:48]

So I don't know. So it's an experiment with us, but I must say, when I look at your practice, I think the experiment is working. Okay. Anyway, last night some people wanted Beate Stolte and perhaps Eduard and... Erhard to, I hadn't forgotten, Erhard to say something about the practice period in Crestown since they were just there. I don't know if you feel like it, but could you say a little something, a couple of words? Sentences? It wasn't really Beate's first time there, but the first time for a full practice.

[18:03]

It is three months long, 90 days. In the end, this is seven days of sheen. You have to know Creston a little bit. It's situated very high in the Rocky Mountains, two and a half thousand meters high. It was a spectacular view on a very open and wide valley. Just around it, a violin gives a very different impression, different silence or quietness. It's a very isolated place. You drive one hour to the next grocery store. You said already that outer circumstances vary and contribute to come to kind of quietness in a different pace.

[19:23]

You kind of have to let it into a different pace and in three months it's surprisingly long and surprisingly short at the same time. The length seems to come from the fact that it has a five-day rhythm which always repeats itself. This time we ate all three meals of the classic Oryoki in Oryoki in the center. What many of you know from Sechin, And those many repetitions in the sketch, for me felt like the process. The two can also say something about it. At some point you get into this daily thought that the whole life is just like that and you can only forget what else is possible, possible success.

[20:26]

And then new, new things appear also in practice which you can experience. which let me be more busy, I miss home. You cannot have like that for me. This is an example, but there's really very much value in the morning you have one hour to read. For many hours you get up at 3.30, you have many hours of zazen, and you get up in the middle of the night, then you sit zazen, and you miss a very long service and much more recitation. And here, when you have all the yoke, that's also another hour.

[21:31]

And then you come out of the chamber, and it's bright, and it's already dark. And then you go into the main hall, and then we sit in a room, and it's sometimes a bit bitter, and sometimes it's too early. Even minus 30, let's say, I don't know what this is. And then we wake up in the fire. Our lungs get warm. We get a warm tea. We sit together. It's all happening in five minutes. And everybody starts reading. We don't read together. Each one reads by himself what they want to study. And this also has a long period of time that I get a real quality of, you can really intensively, intensely, she gives me a lot of tea shows and in between lots of opportunities to go to the doctor.

[22:38]

Looking back on that, I think it's a big chance to practice more. to go, to kind of dig in more and more deeply into a subject. And in the end, it doesn't make such a big difference to the usual day anymore, to the usual subject. For the practice, it kind of densifies even more. This, in the view, I see this as a big chance. I think this was the eleventh practice period. He always repeats it. There are always some difficulties about that for any lay people. They can't just come three months and leave you We should go here.

[23:55]

I can watch it. I can only confirm what you just said for me. This is amazing and I don't believe twice in last year and this year. The arriving and the starting has never been a way. This was a seamless transition. We all go home and it just continues the next day and the next day. It's nice. that there you can stay in longer peace.

[25:11]

You can really stay in it. The subjective experience is the first. That just takes really long in the second half. The further it goes in the second half, it goes much faster in time. From the eye, it feels like it's somewhere in the wilderness. And it's all painted in the same color. And it feels like it's half like a mountain. But it's not nearly. And there it is, 2,300 kilometers. You can look sunsets and sunsets. It's really unbelievable. And if it snows suddenly, have you just made it for the sun? It's very dry. The guest of Dormitory is very...

[26:15]

Very great. It's such a nice place, I don't have to teach either. What is Tangario? This is Tangario. It's nice. I say, what is Tangario? Oh, Freientag, also Shikunichi. They ask you can walk in the forest. And it's so little populated there. that it doesn't feel like you're somewhere in the city. From the sounds, in the first time, you only hear natural sounds, the wind in the trees, the birds. There are not so many birds here. And what I noticed this time, that there's much more planes flying across.

[27:29]

And other than that, there's absolutely nothing to hear. The dog, we should not forget to mention. It's really a big hound, yes. And it's very well-humored. It's the hardest thing I've ever experienced. You know, speaking about the airplanes, If you take a ruler and you put it on Los Angeles and New York, it goes directly over Crestone Mountain Center. But it's far off. It's some kind of sound. But I know my friends are flying over. And Eduard, who became Eddie.

[28:40]

Eduard, who became Eddie. But you said even at your job they call you Eddie sometimes. Eddie. And now Eddie is speaking. For me it was the first time that I was in Crestone and that was of course the most wonderful experience in my opinion. I can't add anything to that description. But what made it special for me was, on the one hand, to be able to get there, to have the opportunity to get my job done. And the seminar in November helped me a lot with the approach. and his help was the seminar in November which he spoke about intention and after the seminar we met and told him and I didn't expect it but I could not even imagine it and it just worked and they made a deal with me

[29:48]

And that's how I got three months off. And of course three months for the practice. I used to have four weeks a year for the practice. But three months is something different. The duration, that you get into this routine. that you always work on yourself, and you learn to recognize your expectations. You don't expect much from the moment that something comes, just to accept it. Just fall into it and to accept what comes towards you. And this also is fun. Okay, thank you.

[31:00]

So you can see why I spend part of the year in Creston. But the problem with these descriptions is they're after the practice period is over. It's like people's descriptions of a sashin after it's over. And of course, Gerald and Gisela and Ingrid and René and Gunda and Marie-Louise and Katrin. You were there five years, right? They have all been there and crossed their legs and hoped to die. They all crossed their legs and hoped to die. Okay.

[32:32]

So, if we want to practice as lay persons, Or we have to because of our circumstances. Or just because we want to prove that lay practice works. That's a deep reason. You have to really bring your intention, not just leading to Crestone, but your intention into your activity. And the craft of practice becomes more important. Because in a monastery, if you stay there too, like Ulrike Dillow has been there, what, five years now?

[33:48]

You were there five years? Something's different about the third year and the fourth year, isn't that right? Sometimes not much happens for the first three years or so and it starts to come together after a while. So monastic life is designed to do much of the work for you. So the lay practice is more difficult because you have to do it more for yourself. Okay, so I'm trying to see what aspects of the craft and what images and attitudes can bring us most fully into the path in our daily life

[34:55]

Because that's also the ideal of Zen. Daily life is the most fundamental way to practice. That the daily life should be The most fundamental way to practice. Even as Gerald and Gisela found by taking a year or two off just to see what happens with your life after years of doing this kind of work. So now I think it's a good time to take a break. And we'll come back and see what happens. Thanks. Thank you very much.

[35:50]

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