I'm so glad to see you here, all here. And I'm touched and impressed that you've taken time away from your usual life and duties to come here. And some of you have traveled quite far. This is impressive. Just to enter a Dharma gate. So we have this topic, I believe. the gate of each moment. Is that right? Dharma gate and samsara gate. But first we have to settle into being here.

[01:13]

And settle into being here with each of you and with this group. And of course settle into yourself. Because this kind of topic can't be appreciated or understood unless we have some experiential basis for it. And perhaps if you settle into yourself, you can settle into this topic. And if we're going to develop this topic in the next few days, two days,

[02:27]

Well, this evening we just barely get started. So we have all day Saturday. But Sunday, you know, usually, since many of you have to leave in the afternoon, we only have two-thirds of a day or so. And this isn't much time. But I think, on the other hand, if we really can settle together into ourselves and into this topic, But on the other hand, I am convinced that if we can really surrender to ourselves and to this topic, then we have a lot of time. So much time that we can perhaps get one or maybe even two legs or feet into this Dharma gate. And only if you settle into this topic and develop it in yourself, can I develop it.

[04:01]

But this is the process of, I mean, the way I'm speaking about looking at this topic is the fundamental process of Buddhism in general and Zen in particular. To let yourself into the questions in your life. To let the questions into you. Which is a kind of skill. And also to let yourself into the question. So it's a kind of feeling and attitude. I mean, really anything real happens. when we have an attitude that directs our intention and consciousness.

[05:25]

Particularly a topic like this. Now in the Mei Se Shin here, I brought up this phrase, the pure body of reality. I'd like to bring it up again. Because serious practice or practice with any depth or... An adept practice is to look at simple things very carefully. Like our breathing. Like what we're doing just sitting here.

[06:43]

With each other. And in this funny old building, which we're trying to develop in such a way, that it enhances our practice. That just being in the building helps us come into a kind of productive, fruitful state of mind. Like we, again, this phrase, the pure body of reality, No one knows what that is. I mean, you can't look it up in the dictionary. Under pure, you know, pure. And I'd like to think of it as if your uncle or somebody asks you what you're doing practicing Zen, you say, oh, I'm looking for the pure body of reality.

[08:01]

That's what I was afraid of. But this is a central idea in later Buddhism. What I'd call positive Buddhism. Hmm. So what do I mean by that? And I think we have to ask ourselves a lot during a seminar like this. What do we mean by such a phrase? And since you can't look it up in the dictionary, You can only look it up in yourself. And these phrases, now I don't know how they work in German, but this one works quite well in English.

[09:21]

But these phrases were designed a thousand years ago or so. To... And they still work today. To catch us. To let us... Let us... fish within ourselves. So you can let yourself settle into a pure body of reality. Now we also have this gate of the present moment.

[10:37]

Now if you want to practice with some fine tuning you have to be able to ask yourself a question like what is the gate of the present moment in relationship to the pure body of reality. It may be clear to some of you exactly what this is. But to some of you, it may sound like what we'd say in English, gobbledygook. Yeah. Sounds good, yeah. Yeah. But these phrases exist because we're trying to nuance ourselves, edge ourselves into a wisdom attitude.

[12:00]

Into a wisdom attitude, a wisdom teaching. This is a wisdom teaching. Zen is a wisdom teaching. You can ask, what do I mean by that? I'd like you to ask what I mean. I want to find a new way to teach, to practice with you. Because I want to go into some depth. with you in this practice. I want us to work here in the Dharma Sangha on how practice functions, how it operates.

[13:10]

What are the qualities of practice that touch us? Now, you can just do practice. And, you know, there's rules, suggestions about how to do it. But practice beyond the first, the beginning steps. is a matter of being able to take hints from your teacher or from the tradition. Or to take hints from yourself. To notice what you're doing.

[14:19]

With a certain detachment. And a certain amusement or laughter. Don't take yourself too seriously. Oh, this is the way I am. Oh, my goodness. I mean, at the same time, it can be funny. This is the way I am. Wow. You can roll your eyes a little bit. Oh, gee. Well, there's others like me. It can't be all bad. Or it can't be this good. Well, be able to, if you look, can you look at yourself with some amusement or detachment Detached means, in this case, not to be too caught up or identified with who you are.

[15:34]

But to see yourself with some relaxation. As you might see someone else. Or as the Buddha might look at you. With a lot of compassion, I hope. Because you're also the Buddha. And you can practice that by having compassion for yourself. I always say this practice is big enough for two. You and the Buddha. This posture is big enough for two. The strange posture we inhabit Yeah.

[16:46]

And we find also the Buddha's been renting space here for quite a while. He's been waiting for you to invite her in. So I want to find a new way to teach, to practice with you. So we can go into some geistcraft. Handwork. Okay, sounds good. even though some of you are quite experienced and some of you are quite new, I want to find some way together so we can do this.

[17:57]

So at least what I think we have to do is develop a common vocabulary together. look at some basic things we need to know if we're going to work with this topic. And So I'd like to make some definitions. And I'd like you to be able to ask me tomorrow what I mean by these definitions. Und auch wenn ihr sie vollständig verstanden habt, dass ihr vielleicht dann auch für andere fragt, von denen ihr, die sich nicht zu trauen zu fragen oder zu schüchtern sind, zu fragen.

[19:13]

So könnte ich zum Beispiel sagen, dass Zazen eine weisheitsverstärkende Haltung ist. What's that? What's Dharmagate? Why is there this emphasis? Really, what does it mean to emphasize the present? What is the present? How do we discover the present? Do we all just know the present? Is it something we're sitting in here in this room? Does each of you have your own present? And How is our own present part of each other's present?

[20:17]

And are you really in the present or is it just some kind of tube to the future? Dogen sums up his life's teaching in the title for his most essential fascicle, the Genjo Koan. And Genjo again means to complete. complete that which appears. And what appears? What does he mean, what appears? I mean, you're appearing right now, how do I complete all of us? That's good. Sunday afternoon we'll all be complete.

[21:21]

I hope. Wouldn't that be nice? It's possible. He's not so sure. But maybe it's good to believe it's possible. If you can believe it's possible, then you can practice with more sincerity. To complete that which appears, discovering the universal in particular, are two phases of each moment. Okay, so now we have these three kind of phrases or wisdom attitudes.

[22:34]

So we now have these three statements or these whispers of wisdom, which are expressed in the pure body of reality, the gate of the present moment, and to complete just what appears. Now I could also say, breath redirects the present. It's the um-lighten of the present. The breath is the detour to the present. Or maybe the shortcut. Yeah. Well, I've been speaking quite a lot recently and I'm trying to stay within what we've been talking about recently.

[24:10]

So that we can come in the and into this practice with greater clarity and greater intimacy and really discovering it functioning in us. Because we somehow have to have practice functioning in us. Like if we could put a little practice in it and it would get in there and start functioning. So if you tomorrow can ask me or bring up for all of us comments or discussion,

[25:38]

that bring us into an operative sense of practice. And as I started to say, what I've been speaking about recently is the embodied present, or to bring our sense of identity. and our sense of continuity and our sense of reality into our breath, body and phenomena.

[27:04]

I think for most of us you'll find, if you look at yourself carefully, Your sense of continuity is in your thinking. Your sense of reality is in your thinking. And you check up on reality through thinking about it or observing similarities. And your sense of identity is in your thinking. These three things don't belong in your thinking. They weaken you.

[28:08]

They make you vulnerable. And they delude you. That's the basic teaching of Zen we could say, of Buddhism we could say. Can you really reconstruct yourself? Is it safe to reconstruct yourself? The construction site is where you live. So serious Zen practice is asking you to reconstruct yourself. Reconstruct yourself in a way that's transformational and at the same time transformational possible. And safe. And doable. Yeah. And that is to enter the Dharma gate of the present.

[29:28]

So I think that's enough of a kind of introduction. And how many of you have not much experience with zazen practice? Oh, good. Your legs look pretty good, though. But we have to pick him up and carry him. They don't unfold, right? So I can give you some sasen instruction, I guess. And how many of you are new to the Dharma Sangha and Yohannes Hall? Yeah, I know some of you at least. Okay, the main posture is your back.

[31:00]

And you want to sit in a way that your back can be fairly straight. Straight isn't the right word. What you really want, straight is a description from the outside. What you want to feel is a lifting feeling up through your back. And through the back of your neck. and relaxation coming down through your body. Now why don't we sit in a chair then? Well, because actually in a chair you use a lot of muscles to support yourself.

[32:05]

It's hard to sit in a chair without leaning back. It's okay, but it's better to not lean back. Then your feet get cold. But really we sit this way because you can sit in a chair, of course. But we sit this way because it's more stable. And you're folding your heat together. And as I point out, your heat and your consciousness awareness are closely connected. And your energy. And you want to sit in a way that the posture does it for you.

[33:10]

And this is a yoga posture and it's a skill. And it takes some time to learn it. And it can be quite interesting and painful while you're learning it. but then after you learn it a worse problem happens it's easy to sit and the excitement of the difficulty is gone and sleep sets in and then boredom and I mean, but there's no possible reason for any one of you to be bored. You don't expect other people to be bored with you, do you?

[34:13]

If you do, you have a small psychological problem. But each of you is so extraordinary, how could you possibly be bored with yourself? To know that and have that confidence is also the beginning of Buddhist practice. To have, as Yamada Moon, my teacher in Japan, used to say, To have such a deep respect for yourself. Knowing that, through knowing, as well as knowing, that everything in the world, the universe, is at this moment working to make this moment possible for you.

[35:25]

We forget that. You know, it's hard to... to take that seriously when you're busy and have things to do. So to do some meditation or mindfulness practice once a day is to let our body remind ourselves of this truth. So if you can sit in a way you can abandon yourself in the posture. Let your thinking Settle in to sink into the sands of your body.

[36:36]

And let your intelligence and awareness of your body begin to teach you. So we could say zazen posture then is to come into trusting yourself and into an intimacy with yourself. And the more you can sit still, not scratching, not moving too much, it's surprisingly something else sometimes takes over. And there's a feeling of something bigger than ourselves present in this posture.

[37:40]

Und dann gibt es das Gefühl manchmal, dass etwas Größeres als wir selbst in unserer Haltung einfach anwesend ist. But it is a skill. It takes a little while to learn. Aber es ist eine Fertigkeit und es braucht eine gewisse Zeit, es zu lernen. It takes a while just to start to trust yourself. Und es braucht auch eine gewisse Zeit zu lernen, euch selber zu trauen und zu vertrauen. And trust yourself at a very cellular level. Und euch selber auch auf einer cellulären Ebene zu trauen. So this is Sazen instruction I just gave you. And usually our shoulders are more or less above our hip bone. And you sit on a cushion high enough that your back can be straight. And usually we put our left hand on top of our right hand about halfway.

[38:57]

And usually we direct our attention to our breath. To our breathing. And usually our tongue is at the roof of our mouth. And your ears more or less in line with your shoulders. It's a kind of acupuncture. It has the preciseness of acupuncture. Surprisingly, it makes a difference whether you sit a little forward. It's really a fine tuning process that you develop through sitting.

[39:59]

And the more you get the tuning down, you'll be surprised what kind of stations you tune in. I could say some more about that, making jokes about it, but I won't. So let's sit for a few minutes and then we'll call it an evening. And for those of you who don't know, I will start with three hits of the bell and end with one. And for those of you who don't know, I will start with three hits of the bell and end with one.

[41:07]

When I come in, of course, while you're sitting, it's not necessary to bow. The very beginning, it's custom to bow together or... before you're really sitting. That's up to you. And it looks like it'll be a warm day, so maybe it's good to keep the lights off. It might keep it cooler. Now I'd like to say some more to give us some more material for discussion. Because the discussion is as important to me as anything I might say.

[44:14]

But I should probably establish some things we could discuss. And I think I spoke about Dharma gates and samsara gates in Berlin last year, didn't I? Yeah. It's the same Dharma gate, but maybe we can look at it differently. No, it's not the same Dharma gate. How can anything ever be the same? But I try to imagine some of the questions you might have.

[45:30]

I know I get some comments or criticism that I don't present Buddhism enough as a religion. That I'm too scientific. But maybe for me I think the religious side is more the secret side and less the public side. Certainly the usual side is that the Religious is the more public and scientific is the more adept. But it's nice to be backwards sometimes. And I also know that particularly for new people sometimes... They really get, if they've never been to the Zender before and seen bowing and robes, they think, oh my gosh, what have I done myself into?

[46:52]

This looks like the churches I left. It looks like the church I just turned my back on. It happened. And among, and Zen is particularly, Zen practitioners are often fairly separate from the religious side of Buddhism. Uchiyama Roshi, some of you may know his books. And his teacher, Sawaki Kodo Roshi. They both looked, Sawaki Kodo Roshi looked for him. Ujjamaa continued, a temple without a congregation.

[48:09]

And their feeling was it's the congregation that makes it a religious practice, not the services. What exactly do you mean with congregation? congregation, I mean, the gathering? The gathering of the... No, the local people who come to your church on Sunday. The community. Die Gemeinde. Yeah, we call it... No, community, but... It's the same... Die Gemeinde, ne? Die Kirchengemeinde, yeah. Yeah, that's not community in English, but... Yeah. Um... Yeah. Um... So it meant they didn't have to do memorial services, funeral services, weddings and things like that. And then of course there's a tradition of hermit practice or fairly isolated practicing in fairly remote temples with just a few people.

[49:31]

And Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's Emphasis was certainly first and foremost on serious Zen practice. Strict Zen practice. I don't know if it was that strenge, but anyway, strict. And that would have been okay for me if that was exclusively his emphasis. But he also encouraged me, pushed me even to participate in the religious side of the practice.

[50:34]

With the Japanese congregation in San Francisco. And when I went to Japan for four years, he also, one of the things he wanted me to do was to see Buddhism in the most ordinary way people follow it and practice. And he thought that Buddhism without the religious side gets a little too dry. Too much of a sophistry or philosophy. And he felt it's the compassionate side of practice. And I think he saw it as a a way to bring Buddhism into a culture.

[52:14]

And a basis for everyone's practice even. the most adept emphasis. So it's always, it's a kind of koan in itself, how much the religious side, how much the more... scientific and craft side of practice. It seems that actually Buddhism may have become a religion by attempting to bring culture into a society. Much as in Europe, Cistercian and other monastic orders went to very remote places and built monasteries in order to cultivate that area.

[53:33]

And as it might have been in Europe, it has been brought to more backward monasteries. The Cisterciensia. The Cisterciensia, that's what they learned. The Cisterciensia, so to speak, where they have withdrawn to more backward places and have let them down. Buddhism isn't so much as social, doesn't view society as service-oriented or social-oriented so much. But it views it more as... Buddhism views itself as maybe a culture maker. And because Buddhism is, we could say it has three emphases.

[54:51]

One is philosophical. Or we could say reality-based or something like that. Because whatever we do, it's inseparable from how we actually exist. So the second side would be therapeutic. That it benefits us. And the third would be soteriological. or salvational or enlightenment realization based.

[55:55]

So if you look at the teachings of Buddhism and Zen, there's a choice in what you emphasize. And the teachings that are emphasized are those that reveal how we actually exist. And are based on how we actually exist. And then are beneficial to us. And the beneficial side is because it's nice to be benefited. But also, unless we have a clear, healthy state of mind, we can't really study Buddhism. I think the Pali Canon starts when a healthy conscious attitude arises.

[57:22]

Inseparable from sensuous relatedness. permeated by calmness or serenity, accompanied by wisdom, only then can we practice. Oh, he's leaving already. He's leaving already. Oh, shucks. Well, this is the challenge. And this is the help I was following. Healthy, and it's interesting, when a healthy conscious attitude arises. Inseparable from sensuous relatedness. That's interesting. I think that's one that kind of like, what's that?

[58:23]

And that just really means yoga. It means the physical sense of the world. More specifically, it means we find ourselves in a bodily space, not a mental space. And much of practice is to get ourselves out of mental space into bodily space. And then permeated by calmness. linked to wisdom arises

[59:42]

Then, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then the whole Pali Canon, the Abhidharma Pali Canon proceeds. With a study of how our mind and being and body actually works. Now, When you understand the when arises, you won't feel this is so impossible. The when doesn't mean when it arises and is now a permanent state. That would be a deluded interpretation. There's no permanent state. There are only momentaries.

[60:59]

This is the gate of the present moment. So if you understand that statement in mental space, You already don't understand it. You have to understand it in the space of when I see you. When I look at you. This when is momentary. And when I look at you, what arises? So it means this conscious, healthy attitude, inseparable, you don't have to translate it all, inseparable from sensuous relatedness, permeated by serenity, linked to wisdom, can be only that long.

[62:00]

So Augenblick, that's where it's all at. I said, Augenblick is where it's all at. Augenblick ist also das, wo es wirklich alles zusammenhaut. So, you can stay. Du kannst bleiben. You know, we can have, if some people need chairs, we can easily put chairs in the side or back or something. You have to speak to the Eno wherever he is. Because we recognize things.

[63:14]

Our life can change in a moment. A moment of a healthy, conscious attitude, etc. Suddenly we can see the world and move ourselves into this wisdom-based world. So when Buddhism would come into an area, Yeah, and there's all these guys sitting somewhere, not doing anything, just facing a wall. The villagers after a few months get quite curious. What are you guys doing here?

[64:19]

Staring at the wall. And then the villagers think, these guys must be wise or something. So they say, what can I do to stare at the wall too? They look calm at least. So you tell them to sit cross-legged or practice mindfulness or repeat the name of Buddha. The same thing? Or you get them to bow to the image of the Buddha. To bow or open yourself to the feeling of this dimension of being.

[65:39]

So this can be a practice for us more, us who are more interested in the depth practice. It can be our practice as well. And an almost necessary dimension of our practice. But if you want to come into practice with more thoroughness, then, instead of just repeating the name of Buddha, say, You bring your consciousness into a phrase like the pure body of reality.

[66:48]

If you bring a phrase like that into your feeling, thinking, As if just now this is somehow also the pure body of reality. If you bring yourself into that feeling, that's really no different than bowing in front of the Buddha and the Venda. But now you're bowing inside yourself or noticing inside yourself this quality of what we mean by Buddha. Now again, the idea of Buddha is

[67:49]

Not that it's some kind of good or divine person. Who is outside of you. But waiting for you to become good. Yes. or waiting for some state of grace where they can appear to you. Although it's not perhaps on one surface much different in Buddhism, the conception is different. The conception in late Buddhism is that Whatever a Buddha is, you already are. And there's not much sense in practicing Buddhism unless you accept, believe this, feel this.

[69:09]

that somehow in your own history is the history of a Buddha. The qualities of what we mean by Buddha are already your qualities. The experience is that are the realisational experiences that make a Buddha have already been, at least in an embryonic sense, your experiences. So that you may not have matured them. They may not permeate many of your moments of consciousness.

[70:26]

But if you can really only use a phrase like this effectively... Unless you see it as a fishing line or fishing net. Or a phrase net. That you kind of let down inside yourself at moments of serenity. Or moments of suffering. And you tug gently on the net. Or tug gently on the phrase. Sometimes it comes up with these Buddha qualities. Now again, unless you have this sense of this is how we exist, these practices don't really make too much sense.

[72:01]

the pure body of reality doesn't make any sense as a practice phrase unless you have a deep feeling conviction Or an intuitive knowing. Or an observation through other practitioners. That this pure body of reality is a reality. So we could say Zen practice is as simple as the combination of wisdom phrases and craft. For example, just now is enough, which I repeat very often.

[73:06]

It is a wisdom phrase. Because it describes absolute reality or fundamental reality. And the craft is, how do you apply it? How do you bring it into your recognition, into your life? The craft is to choose or frame for yourself wisdom phrases. And to simultaneously develop the craft that can hear and be open to these phrases. Okay. That's the way it is, I think.

[74:31]

So, we have to have a schedule, don't we? We have a schedule. What time do we have lunch? Our leaders have to go, like me, have to go look at the schedule. 12.15 we have lunch. So we should take a break in a little while. You want one now? She wouldn't admit it if she did. A break? Who needs a break? Okay. So we have this gate to the present moment. You could spell it G-A-I-T too.

[75:50]

They share the same roots. Gate means like the gate of a horse or the gate of how you walk. So again, I want to keep looking with you at things real closely. Your body is just far more complex and subtle than your mind. I mean, you're not conscious of the immense activity of white blood cells and protein, stuff going on right now. But we can refine our consciousness.

[77:02]

The main way to refine your consciousness, the big and very simple secret, is to bring your attention to your breath. It both physicalizes the mind and refines the mind. For example, right now, most of you, your mind is not recognizing your each breath. zum Beispiel jetzt im Augenblick, erkennt euer Geist nicht jeden Atemzug. Whether you're breathing through the right nostril or left nostril.

[78:10]

Or the difference between the pause at the top of the breath and the pause at the bottom of the breath. That's the normal territory of the breath, but our consciousness skips over the subtlety of it. So in all these more body-based practices, and particularly Zen, there is this emphasis on refining consciousness. And so we can really notice what's going on. And to physicalize consciousness, to physicalize the mind. So we can have more contact with our mind. So we can hold and sustain states of mind through their physical dimension.

[79:22]

Now, just in that little statement, I've said quite a lot. So you may, you might have something. You might wish me to try to clarify it. Well, you might have something to add. So we're using this word, we've got this word, gate. And so we use and have this word Thor. I also like it because it's similar to Gathe, Gathe, Paragathe. Gathe, Bodhis. And I like it also because of this similarity to this, what we chant Gathe, Gathe, Paragathe. And gate is to go beyond going.

[80:23]

And the root of gate is also to go past. But the main emphasis of gate is to block a path. The gate of the field. The outside gate of the house. Or like the gate to a fortified city. You don't say the door to the fortified city. You say, I couldn't get through the gate, but where's the door? Mm-hmm. The door is, at least in English, the emphasis is on its opening and the word gate is an emphasis on blocking.

[81:31]

The gate is... Stops you and it's something you have to go through. And you may not always go through. There may be a gatekeeper. There's a Kafka story, I believe, about a gatekeeper and he's discussing how can he get in and so forth. It's quite an interesting story. Mm-hmm. So the three main breath practices are naming, counting, and following. And there's a few more, but those are the basic ones.

[82:33]

Now, counting is, we usually start out in Zen practice with counting, because it covers sort of covers part of the territory of naming and following. But naming is a distinct practice. And naming isn't the same as a word. A name is not a word. For instance, we could call Neil McLean. We could call him M.C. Neil. Now you can't look that up in the dictionary. There's no M.C. Neil in the dictionary. But we could decide to call him M.C. Neil. Because we can name, a name is very particular.

[83:50]

And it's a recognition, a recognition. I recognize that it's a such and such. Mm-hmm. So when you name your breaths, ah, an exhale. You're stopping a moment. Ah, an exhale. It's an inhale. Or a long inhale. A short exhale. Hmm. I'd like to look at this simple practice a little more after our break and then I'd like to have some discussion.

[84:54]

So let's sit for a couple of minutes. Just to finish a little bit of what I said about naming.

[86:44]

The word gate also has in its etymology a sense of an empty space or place or to spread out. Maybe there's a sense of a place where you wait for a moment. And that's also what naming does. It makes me think of a friend of mine who had a half-Chinese daughter. And he didn't know Chinese, the father. But he was learning some. So he had this little girl in his arms whose mother was Chinese.

[87:46]

He pointed to a bird and impressed everyone by saying the Chinese name for bird. The Chinese word for bird. The father did. And the little girl looked at him and said, sparrow. And the little girl looked at him and said, sparrow. So there's a moment of a stop there. Like when you recognize an old face, to re-know an old face. So there's a stopping and a re-knowing. We knowing. It's funny how much is in just a single word. And when you bring naming into your

[89:11]

practice as a repetition. And repetition is how we embody something. A mantra is to embody a phrase or syllables. We chant the Heart Sutra every morning and you begin to find yourself physically within the space of the Sutra. No eyes, no ears, no nose. It's almost like a presence, not just an idea.

[90:28]

So we bring this naming, and to name is an attitude. An attitude is a constructed mental... It's a mental construct. And it's also used like the attitude of an airplane means the angle it's approaching an airport or something. So to name something, you're actually bringing a mental construct or a direction toward your breath. So you have an actual process of breathing.

[91:29]

And we're noticing the actual process of breathing. And we're taking this mental construct, this activity of naming, and we're interjecting it into the process. It's a kind of interference. It slows the process down. Take hold of Neil. That's like naming or stopping him a moment. Oh, so a breath is going by. Like an old friend.

[92:36]

You can't quite remember the old friend's name. Is it Peter or Dieter or Russell? Oh, Russell. Don't go by Russell. Stop. Hi, Russell. And the old Russell turns around. Oh, yeah, I'm here. So a breath goes by. They're going by all the time. And so you start, oh, that was a short breath. Hello, short breath. Hello. There's this kind of feeling. That was a short breath. You don't know quite what the next breath will be unless you start physically trying to breathe a certain way. This is a long inhale. Long exhale. Like that. Now, what are you naming?

[93:56]

You're naming something that's impermanent. Usually we name permanent things. Or things we want to be permanent. A tree. Our house. Our friends. We expect the tree to be there. In English, the word tree and truth have the same root, because the tree is usually what was in the front yard yesterday, it's usually there today. But here we're changing the habit of language.

[94:38]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_71.03