A few minutes ago, I walked around the pond and was amazed at how much what we have designed there has changed in the last few weeks. We had the idea for the path dug out in the moor up there and poured gravel and sand into it and laid the stones on it. And that was like a small dam a few weeks ago. And that's all completely sunk in. And I had the image that the moor simply covers this path and it sinks. And then everything becomes the way it used to be. Let's see.

[01:05]

It's not like a street where you can be pretty sure that it will still be there in 20, 30 years. We can't be sure that the path will be there. Maybe in a few years we'll just have to look out a few more stones. I find that interesting. Two days ago, two [...] days ago, And that was the offer that the organizers made us. Some had blankets with them and also a few pillows, but most had to sit on chairs.

[02:10]

And what was even more difficult was that there were chairs that fell to the back. And if the people were to sit upright on the chairs, they had to sit on the edge at the front. And it became clear to me that we are really not a society on the ground. We are a society on chairs. Everything plays out more or less on chairs and around chairs. And in the beginning, people really hung on their chairs. If you lean on a chair that falls backwards, it is very difficult to take on any attitude that is different from a comfortable attitude. And then, after I had asked her not to lean on people anymore,

[03:14]

to put your feet wide, so that the ground contact is there, through this old offer, to go into the upright position, to feel the back, the neck as an extension and the back of the head as an extension of the back, to get a feeling for it, to be pulled up. And since this morning I have started to think about what attitude actually means in our society, what position it has. Attitude. And it is still very, very confusing for me. What does it mean in our society when we talk about attitude?

[04:18]

I didn't find much out. Body posture has little priority, especially in the military, where the posture is an expression of respect, but also only for a moment and then the men and now also women can stand normally again. From the whole tendency From my point of view, it is about taking in a natural posture, to be completely natural, to have fun and to move naturally. And I have not found a clear line in terms of the spiritual attitudes in this society either. The Christian values regarding the attitude lose more and more meaning.

[05:30]

And the attitude, spiritual attitude, goes more and more to the point that happiness depends on material wealth. And in this context, the fellow human beings are not fellow human beings, but competitors. I think in Buddhism, and especially in Zen Buddhism, attitude has another value. And especially with regard to body posture, we are confronted every day, especially now in the month of practice, with posture.

[06:35]

It starts in the sendu in the morning, where we sit upright, where we do G-meditations in a certain way. The hands have a certain posture. We bend in gassho, The whole day is actually structured around body posture. We sit on the floor, we eat Uriyoki. There we also take a certain posture. We bend over. And ideally, we have a certain posture that we maintain for 24 hours. But what is the core of this body posture?

[07:39]

And I think the center that everything really revolves around is the spine. The uprightness has something to do with the spine. The upright walking has something to do with the spine. The hands are raised along the spine. In Zazhu, the thumb of the left hand is rolled in and if you imagine this as an extension, you have a kind of staff or sword in your hand that you carry in front of you parallel to the spine. The bending in front of the Patriarch is very long in the direction you are going, like in a column, sliding down and then tilting forward at the last moment. The eating of the Oryoki is very, very strongly oriented to the spine.

[08:47]

The shells are brought to the spine and back into the aura, in the direction of the spine. The shells are positioned in such a way that the middle shell is exactly in the height of the spine. And the whole thing gets, because it is concentrated on the spine, a very concentrated posture. And what happens exactly when we really make the spine the center point? We concentrate, we are very focused, and we are very careful overall. And it becomes something that Bekha Roshi mentioned in his last lecture.

[10:00]

We become open to the fact that the world can speak to us. We take away this hyperactive activity, focus on ourselves and see what the world has to say to us. But I think that alone is not enough either. To do this, for example, would be Choran work, a Choran or breathing. And when I connect the spine, the alignment, the center of my whole activity with the breath, I start to disconnect from the world somewhere. I become very concentrated. I move as a pillar. I sit as a pillar. I sleep. I lie down.

[11:00]

The Buddha is sometimes portrayed lying on the side, sleeping, with a completely straight spine. I am concentrated and open to the world. I don't act, but I hear, I feel. And my impression is that this is more possible in a month of practice or in a period of practice than in a session. We have more time, we can really take a month of time, to make this centering and this concentrating on the spine our center. And in this way there is no natural attitude in the sense.

[12:11]

Even the wandering through the meadow is a movement with and around the spine. Cycling is a movement around the lower spine. Walking, talking to people. And lying in bed in the evening. I can lie straight on my back And there are these nice exercises that I put something on my forehead or on my chest and try to keep that in place all night long. And to notice when I turn to the side and where it falls. And these are all activities that can group around the spine.

[13:11]

That we roughly described where Zen would establish the body posture. The spirit posture would be briefly described to establish there that I could say it is a spirit posture that Yes, I want to change it. I take a mental attitude in which I am open to change with this fundamental question, who am I? Who moves around the spine? Who actually breathes there? And that moves in a first step, as Dogen so beautifully describes, on the level of self-studying.

[14:22]

And at some point this level practically falls apart and we forget ourselves. And maybe we realize then that we were never separated. It is never this separation that causes so much suffering, that it never existed, but that we have been made over and over again. There is certainly this attitude a very old one, the attitude that is offered here in meditation or in zazen. It seems to be effective. It has been practiced for over 2500 years and there are many people who feel drawn to it.

[15:30]

Nevertheless, we have to make it effective for us. And we have to try for ourselves whether these attitudes that are offered to us by this long tradition and old tradition, whether they work for us or whether we should make small changes. But the first step is, of course, that I just do what the tradition offers me and then see what happens. and change something on that basis. This getting up and this becoming still in the spine is traditionally described with a picture, namely, how do I get a snake stretched?

[16:38]

And the answer is by putting them in a bamboo. And how do I calm my mind? By directing my attention to the spine. Poschi once used a nice picture. You know it for sure. Sitting on the pillow is like sitting in a laboratory. We put ourselves in a reaction glass, also of this orientation, and see what happens. And the nice thing about this practice is that we are very concentrated. We make a lot of effort and the end is open.

[17:44]

We don't know where it will lead us. We have hopes and wishes, but we don't really know where it will lead us. Something else that has moved me in the last few days this month of practice as a very long tradition. I feel very lifted up in this month because there is this tradition. I remember that I arrived in Creston and after a few months had to read a Dogen text. with the title Busso, and it's about the Buddhas and Patriarchs, or I think the German word Erzväter is even more beautiful than Patriarchs.

[18:54]

And everything that Dorian does there is, he says, first he counts them up, he counts all the Buddhas up to his teacher, And this is something that impressed me very much. There is a continuous line from Shakyamuni Buddha to Dogen and then also from Dogen to us today. And when I later found out that this line man-made, that there might not be a 100% continuous line, but that there are jumps, it didn't bother me very much. Just to know that there is a line of transmission was very impressive to me at the time. As I said, he performed all the patriarchs and said, everything we have to do is, we have to bow to these patriarchs once a day.

[19:54]

If we do this, then we realize their wisdom. And this is something that has passed through my practice and has now become very awake again in the last few days, in this month of practice. practice something that is very old and gives us, or me, a lot of support. And in his article, Angu writes, Togen, that the practice period makes sense, that the practice period makes it possible to meet Buddhas and Patriarchs. to meet directly.

[21:01]

And we should not think that the practice period has a beginning or an end or leads somewhere. And when we start the practice period, we do it with a lot of effort and at the end of the practice period the world is in your head. We don't know when the practice period started, we don't know when it will stop, Wir wissen nicht, wo sie hinführt. Ende offen. Vielen Dank.

[22:02]

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