I first came to Europe in the 80s. 82, I think. There was this institution of the weekend seminar. Often to bring people, familiarize people with the new age of San Francisco's 60s. Or to, you know, psychotherapeutic seminars and things like that. Yeah, and often the idea was you start with a public lecture on Friday evening.

[01:03]

So you start with new people. And new people might join the seminar and start practicing Zen or something like that was the cost-benefit idea. But I found that didn't work for me. I really found that maybe if I started with experienced people, and make the rest of the seminar better. So I invited people who might not be more experienced, but at least were committed enough to come on Friday as well as Saturday and Sunday. Also habe ich mit Leuten, habe ich Leute gebeten, die vielleicht gar nicht so viel mehr Erfahrung hatten, aber zumindest denen das wichtig genug war, auch am Freitag zu kommen und eben zusätzlich auch am Samstag und Sonntag.

[02:18]

So then I called that the prologue day. Okay, and here we are in a prologue day near the end of it. So, and it has made a big, from my experience, has made a big difference, this reconceptualizing the weekend seminar. And we can be free of the topic of the seminar. And just sort of explore, wander around. However, the problem, there's a new problem. So we get something happening here, which I feel we have.

[03:27]

Now we're going to bring this initiated group, inaugurated and initiated, into the seminar tomorrow. I mean, I hope you're all coming tomorrow. You have a responsibility. Then I have the problem of, okay, let's just us to heck with these new people. We already have left them behind. So how do I bring in the new people without just repeating myself? I always don't have any idea or very little idea but somehow it usually works. We'll see tomorrow. How do we get ourselves all on the same page when you guys have been reading for a month before?

[04:43]

Yeah, you're reading the first, already read the first three volumes and they're starting on the introduction. Ihr habt jetzt schon die ersten drei Bände gelesen und die, die morgen dazu kommen, fangen gerade mit der Einführung an. Ja, okay. So anyway, I'm happy to have... We don't have too much time left today, so I hope anything you want to say, please do. Wir haben heute Abend nicht mehr so viel Zeit übrig, aber also irgendwas, was ihr sagen möchtet, macht das bitte. But I will say, as an example... Oh, go ahead. You wanted to say something. Well, you know, we can take turns. We can take turns.

[05:43]

Yes, that's right. You said a sentence this morning. You have accompanied me a lot since then and it wasn't new in a way. You said that seeing is not about knowledge, but about experience. You said something this morning that has accompanied me since and in some ways this wasn't a new thing for me to hear. You said Zen is not about knowledge but about experience. Not about generating knowledge but about exploring experience. And although that's been somewhat clear to me, still the sentence this morning got a new quality for me.

[06:51]

I don't quite know why. Maybe I was just more open to it. zusammen mit dem Satz, mit der Aussage, es gibt nur Aktivität und keine Entität. Together with the statement, there is only activity and no entity. And I found our conversation this afternoon very interesting. Weil ich so gespürt habe, Because I could feel the ambivalence that we all have in our longing for entities and that means knowledge and maybe attaching to feeling, okay, well now I've got something. In contrast to experience.

[08:11]

Which is there and then it's gone again. And in my sense, many questions have such a hidden longing for knowledge. And you've always spoken to us about paths or ways of experiencing. which without experiencing, they can only be knowledge. And now it became clear to me that actually only the practice, and this is our topic, only the practice makes sure that we get trust in this experience, in the experience field, and we manage it,

[09:21]

And so then it became clear to me that only practice, and since that's our topic, only practice can make sure that we gain trust in this path of experience and to just drop the idea of knowledge. And at the end, it became clear to me that the different things that you can experience in practice, such as serenity, calmness or non-attachment, suddenly get a completely different quality in the long run. although the word remained the same. And it also became clear to me how the different qualities that we can experience through practicing, like equanimity or non-attachment and so forth, how these qualities have a whole new feeling to them in the course of practice, even though the word has remained the same.

[10:44]

And that only through such experiences of deepened quality of an experience I can recognize whether or not I've developed as a practitioner in practice. I'm very grateful for your saying that. Thank you very much. And I also like it that you called the earlier sessions we've had conversation. As she translated it. Yeah, because for me it's a kind of conversing together. Versify is to write poems. Poetic. Versification. Ah. Yeah, when I say I have a 17-year-old daughter, I almost cry.

[12:17]

How can I have a 17-year-old daughter? I've had three. This is the third 17-year-old daughter I've had. But I'm struck by, I barely know what it is to be a 17-year-old boy, though I have some memory. But I don't have no memory of being a 17-year-old girl. It seems to be a force of nature that doesn't fit into parental boundaries. I'm just like I'm in the Grand Canyon looking at it. Hi, April. Yeah, I'm glad you came. Okay. But when she was born in a blizzard in Colorado, I mean not in the blizzard, in the hospital, we had to drive through a blizzard to get to the hospital.

[13:48]

But then she spent the next couple of years in the apartment we have at Johannesburg. Aber die nächsten zwei Jahre ist sie dann in der Wohnung, die wir im Johanneshof haben, aufgewachsen. And she, when we were going to Johanneshof, she didn't remember anything about the apartment. Johanneshof, the apartment, she didn't remember anything. Und als wir dann aber zum Johanneshof zurückgekommen sind, da hat sie sich an nichts erinnert. Johanneshof, die Wohnung, hat sie sich an nichts erinnert. And we came up the stairs. And opened the door and she went right to her room and where her stuff was and everything. So she didn't have knowledge of the apartment but she had a familiarity with the apartment. And in practice we become more and more familiar with our lived life but we can't exactly turn that into knowledge. There's nothing really wrong with knowledge.

[15:04]

It just shouldn't be your goal or aim. Now, since we had this came up a little earlier about space connecting, Let me use that as a riff for practice. First of all, most of us, and certainly me, space is what separates. I never thought of space as separating. Space is what separates. It's so taken for granted, you don't even notice it's taken for granted. But at some point, maybe through some experientially based intuition, And noticing how you feel connected with some people more than others and so forth.

[16:37]

You know, I began to notice as a kid I could tell something about people because I could smell them. Ich habe als Kind gemerkt, dass ich etwas über die Leute wusste oder sagen konnte, weil ich sie gerochen habe. In various ways, certain intuitions led me to one day said, it is something I take for granted. Maybe there's an alternative to space separating. The first step is you don't even notice there's an alternative. The second step is you think, maybe there could be an alternative.

[17:42]

And the third step for me was, I recognized that the idea that space separates was a cultural view. It wasn't factual from the point of view of science or even my own intuitive experience. And because somehow I'm a scientist at heart, I thought, jeez, if space is only a cultural view, if acceptance is only a cultural view, what's the alternative? So then I had to imagine, well, let's just use English. I don't know, I just have these words available, so I can use them as attentional tools.

[18:48]

So let's bring attention to the contrast. Maybe space connects. So this is a process I went through which has been over and over again, replicated in various ways, as part of my processive of practice. Processive? I said that on purpose. What's interesting, we have the word progress and progressive. And it's progressive when you're making progress. In English, we have the word process, but we don't have a word processive.

[19:50]

This is quite interesting. Because we don't think of process as being processive to the process itself. Okay. Okay, Jesus. Let me think. Okay. Okay. Progressive. [...] Because way-seeking mind is the mind that seeks the way, is the mind that seeks the process, not the outcome of the process.

[20:56]

Yeah, so being engaged in when I noticed that maybe I could explore the alternative that space connects. So I began to, well, so I thought I have to create an antidote. Like I created the antidote of nowhere to go, etc., no place to go. So I created the antidote, space connects. I don't know, maybe that was the fourth one. Maybe that was the fourth step.

[22:06]

Yeah, and maybe the fifth step is then the consequences of shifting your view to space connects. View from space separates to space connects. And then I realized, using the Zen technique of using phrases, I turned that phrase that space connects into already connected. So then I'd meet somebody and I immediately decide feel already connected. And then I began noticing it made me treat people differently, because as soon as I met them, I felt connected.

[23:16]

And then I began noticing that I treated people differently, that I met them differently, because as soon as I met them, I felt we were already connected. It almost created too much connectedness and too much intimacy. And you said, stop flirting with me. I'm not flirting. I'm just already connected. It's almost more of the opposite problem, because it created too much connection and too much intimacy. And then people said, stop flirting with me. And I said, but I'm not flirting with you. We're just connected. Okay, let's hear another one. So I had to learn to modulate the feeling of being already connected.

[24:20]

But starting out from the point of view of connectedness, instead of separation, I felt I knew people much better, more quickly. So that's an example of the process of practicing within a worldview and exploring the worldview. Now, what I'd like to do tomorrow why am I announcing this? I don't know, maybe they have permission to talk about it tomorrow. But what I would like to explore using the two English words of present, the present and immediacy.

[25:30]

The present, the present, what's sent from the past to the now. and the word for present, which is also immediacy, which in English means no middle. No medium. Maybe the present doesn't exist. In other words, the present does not exist. Now how can this recognition, both as the language shows us, but this recognition also as our experience, become practice? So let's leave that till tomorrow.

[26:31]

Yes, Nicole. I think it's a pragmatic practice to feel connected to yourself. I think it's a pragmatic practice to feel connected to yourself. I think it's a pragmatic practice to feel connected to yourself. Yes. Okay. Awesome.

[27:36]

Okay. I have a practical question for daily life. I'm practicing and I have been practicing to establish connectedness, to feel connected. And I've noticed that when in my professional life, like currently, I just have a lot to do, and the more stress I feel or the more I have to do, the more it creates a kind of... permeability or kind of like a stiffness or something. And to feel connected also requires a kind of openness. But when this feeling of contraction from stress or so forth sets in, then what can be done about it? Help! Yeah, okay. Well, the long answer will be tomorrow.

[28:51]

As part of what I just said. The short answer is to not lose touch with stillness in the midst of activity. But you have to help them to several times during a day to establish your connection with stillness. I remember someone who had a job and they had to keep seeing one person after another and angry parents and disabled kids and so forth.

[29:54]

And in this case, since her office was empty, except for her, in between people who came to see her, And this woman had been practicing Zen for a pretty long time. I said, in between people, just put your hands over your eyes and take a half minute or so to just sit with your hands over your eyes. Because this is a craft again, not a philosophy. Weil das hier nochmal eine Kunstfertigkeit ist und nicht eine Philosophie.

[31:07]

And craft is a handwork, right? Now it has become... Well, it's also a handwork. Yes, now it's back to handwork, yes. Don't try to confuse me. I barely know the word handwork. Back to handwork. Back to handwork. So it's a kind of handwork. Also, und Praxis ist eben auch ein Handwerk. But there's other ways to bring a feel, return an out-there-ness into an out-here-ness. Out here-ness, right? You want an out here-ness. Well, it's out there, but it's actually a here-ness. You can stop for a minute and use a word in English. You want it out here. You can stop for a minute and use a word in English.

[32:08]

You have to develop a skill to shift from the activity to the stillness. And if you do that often enough, pretty soon you never lose touch with stillness. And that's called equanimity and equilibrium and so forth. Das heißt auch Gleichmut und Ausgeglichenheit und so weiter. Someone else? Yes, Christ. Was würdest du dazu sagen, wenn der Stress groß ist? What would you say about when there is a lot of stress, to connect with the stress and to not feel that one has to get rid of it, but to just sense it?

[33:25]

That's good, yeah. This is an experience which, because I don't dissociate or separate myself from the stress, it sometimes even leads into a stillness. Yeah, great. You just say yes or welcome to whatever's there. Ja, sehr gut. Also du sagst einfach ja oder willkommen zu allem, was da ist. So a similar practice to what I just said to Nicole is to start on every moment. You say yes to every moment. Well, welcome to every moment. But If someone's got an electric wire attached to your toe and they're turning the current on, it's hard to say, oh, I'm just going to accept it.

[34:42]

So I think acceptance only works when you've developed stillness. Ich glaube, Akzeptanz funktioniert nur dann, wenn du Stille entwickelt hast. Ich glaube einfach, dass es so wichtig ist, dass man weiß, dass es wirklich total schwer ist. Dass es wirklich schwer ist. Weil wenn man denkt, es funktioniert, dann ist man sofort versagt. I just think it's really important that we know that this is simply really difficult. Because if we think that this is how you do it and it works without knowing that it's difficult, then we're immediately in the middle of failing. Yeah. Okay, good. Yes. Yes.

[35:43]

Tell me your name. Katarina. Katarina, yes. Thank you. I oftentimes, every morning, I have an intention at work to have one conscious or one mindful breath. Only one? And oftentimes... That's all you have time for, sure. Oftentimes I return in the evening from work and realize I have not even managed to... One mindful breath. So much about failing. And about stress and about pausing in the middle of stress.

[36:46]

Well, I think it's good to take a Pavlovian approach. You know, ringing a bell or something. And I found it useful to use doorways. So I use a doorway as a threshold to stop for a moment of a tabula rasa and start as if the whole room is new to me. So you can use a doorway, something like that to take a mindful breath. Because your unmindful thinking isn't going to remind you to be mindful. So you have to use some physical object in the world to remind you. Yes, Erica. It's not a question, but just a comment.

[38:17]

When I listen to Katharina and also to Nicole, I have the feeling that it's too obvious. Or what does it say? It's too clear. or also what Krista says about how difficult it is. then it's as if somehow the emphasis is on the subject and that it's a matter of how good one's practice is and whether one accomplishes to do this or not. And there are two things I would like to say about that. One is that we don't only have concepts for ourselves, but we have shared concepts, and that we live together in these concepts, and that we mutually reinforce each other in the concepts.

[39:29]

I can imagine that when Katharina is in the middle of a birth, and she's not alone in the birthing process, but there are many people... I hope there's a woman there. So if I need to translate the first thing still. So if it's a caesarean, for instance, and there are many people in the room, if now she was to say, just give me a moment, I'm going to do a mindful breath now. Yeah. the other people around her would say, well, that is really annoying right now.

[40:49]

There's a birth going on, and this is how we take care of giving birth to a baby, and you can't... Maybe she could be a little sneaky and not tell everybody. Maybe she could be a little sneaky and not tell everybody. But what if it was a shared practice that for everyone who's in the room, that before a new patient comes into the room, everyone goes like this? So it's not just dependent on us, but it's also dependent on where we're swimming in a culture, and we're swimming against our culture. Yeah. And then we view it as individual failure.

[42:00]

Yeah, I would focus on intention and not failure. But I went to the Soviet Union when it was the Soviet Union a number of times in the 70s, late 70s. And we'd all be, everyone would be getting ready to go to the airport. And there's some Russian custom, no matter how busy you are, everyone in the room sits down. Sort of like you suggested to everyone to put their hands over their eyes. But there's a taxi outside and... Everyone sits down.

[43:08]

It's a strong rule. And everyone sits down for a moment. May it only be a few seconds. And they do it together. And then they all get up. And it does make a difference. You're fairly new being a doctor. Are you already delivering babies? Oh my goodness. I only imagine if I were doing it, I would coordinate my breathing with the mother. Yes, Andy. I wanted to say that there are places in our culture where this is possible.

[44:20]

I don't know. And it was something like that. It was such a ball. But somewhere, it's not really a single ball, it's just a room that stands in front of me, where I sometimes get the feeling that I'm being pulled out. Or sometimes it can be like that, that this is what makes you sit in somewhere, and then this is what helps you to get into it. So in our culture, when there's a lot going on, I remember a few years ago being in Vienna, how suddenly I went into a church and just used the space of the church to reconnect with myself and feeling that I was finding stillness in myself.

[45:56]

and slowed down. And so in that case, that wasn't everyone doing it together, but it's just a space in our culture that's available. Well, the culture did it together to create the space. And he said, I also count the cafe house sometimes, the coffee house to such a space. That's what people do, we do, yeah. And to bring that more into an intentional practice in general is good. Again, you know, my job as a practitioner I only have one job as a practitioner, really. Is to have a known address.

[46:58]

Okay. Then at that known address, I have to make a nice address. Oh, you have to make a nice address. So I have to, if possible, create a good connecting or realisational even space. And I think... So I've tried to create two realisational spaces, one in Crestone and one in Johanneshof. Where the space, including the paths between the buildings and the road, all are felt from the point of view of a realisation, as if you were lighting realisation in the spaces.

[48:04]

as if you were lighting realization in these spaces. Yeah, he's a lighting designer. I'm a realization designer. Well, I didn't want to say that. And I feel a companionship, colleagueship with Giorgio in this. Because he's created this building with this point. Which also points at this point behind me. But he's also a forester. And the whole room displays the forest.

[49:05]

So the forest is a witness to everything we're doing here. And if a tree is treeing, a tree isn't just a tree, it's an activity called treeing. We could call it treeing. And And every tree is born, virtually every tree, is born to forest. Every tree tries to create an address called a forest. So there's other little trees around him. So it's the Sangha forest here. And the word for Sangha in Japanese is forest.

[50:34]

Because it's this mutual beingness which we are all in the process of trying to realize. Because it's this mutual beingness So in Crestone, I mean Johanneshof, the Buddhist name of the place is Gen Rinji. And Gen means black or mysterious. And Rin means sangha, forest. And ji means a realisational place. So you could read it as black forest realisational space or you can read it as mysterious sangha realisational space. And then you could either read it as Schwarzwald Verwirklichungsort or as Mysterious Sangha Verwirklichungsort.

[51:50]

Okay. Bushi? Yeah. You were going to say something a minute ago. I forgot it. Oh, really? I hope we've all forgotten it. Thank you very much. If you remember tomorrow, are you coming? I'm sure it's nothing important. Well, I'm sure it's important.

[52:16]

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