So Buddhism as a teaching tries to use you as the teacher. And this koan is also in the Blue Cliff Records. It's number 73, and some of you, if you have that book, you might want to look at it. And the introduction to it in the Blue Cliff Records starts out that there's no explaining and there's no teaching. One of the things this means is that when I'm speaking to you in a sense borrowed consciousness, Well, for me it's not borrowed consciousness for the most part, but when you hear it, it's borrowed consciousness, something that doesn't arise from you, it arises from outside you.

[01:23]

And you're borrowing it and you don't have to pay me back. But in a way you pay back this borrowed consciousness when you turn it into secondary consciousness or immediate consciousness, meaning consciousness that arises from within you and is embedded in your own thinking. Embedded in your own examples, in your own context. So I can tell you these things. And you can learn what I'm telling you.

[02:39]

But it doesn't really become teaching until it's embedded in your own context. And it arises from your own experience. And you find examples or verification or doubts through your own experience. At that point you're explaining it to yourself and teaching yourself. So that's why this koan starts out with there's no explaining and there's no teaching. Okay, let's come back again. We are sitting in as comfortable and yet still a posture as we can.

[03:43]

And you begin to see how your consciousness and your attention is shaped by the objects of attention, the objects of thought. And you can see that by your consciousness being glued to these objects of thought, which you take as permanent or real, that there's a certain anxiety. If these things are permanent, they may be dangerous. They're going to be around a long time and you'd better get, know whether you like them or dislike them.

[04:56]

Whether you can possess them or get rid of them. Now this is a very bad habit of mine. And such a habit of mind keeps us on the edge of being anxious or sick all the time. And most of us need a lot of help from doctors and therapists and distractions and all kinds of things to keep this balance, you know, okay. And when this equilibrium or this sort of membrane is punctured or disturbed, a lot of stuff comes up that is difficult to deal with. kommt eine Menge Material hoch und es ist schwierig, sich mit diesem Material auseinanderzusetzen.

[06:08]

Or may come up because we haven't had a consciousness that handles difficulty or suffering very well. Oder es wird vielleicht sehr schwierig, weil wir noch kein Bewusstsein entwickelt haben, das mit Schwierigkeiten und Leiden etwas besser umgehen kann. Now, I said one of the things I pointed out in Berlin is that the Buddha's first teaching, the four holy truths, is that there's suffering. It's the Buddha's first teaching. There's suffering. There's a cause of suffering. And because there's a cause of suffering, there's an end of suffering. And there's a way to realize that end of suffering. And the second teaching is that way, which is the eightfold path. Now, when most of us hear this, as I've said, you want to jump to the third step as quickly as possible.

[07:10]

You don't want to stay too long on the suffering part and the causes are kind of messy. Be nice to get to the end. But this is not a step ladder that you're running up. These are four noble or holy truths. And if you're going to live this life, you need a consciousness that has the capacity to accept things as they are. Yeah, and when we're too attached to wanting things a certain way, everything appears as suffering. Even when you're not too attached, there's a lot of suffering. So the first holy truth is to increase your capacity to accept things as they are.

[08:35]

Okay. One of the ways we keep, you know, it's interesting. I think, you know, I think, well, this, what I'm talking about now, this is a little point I should make before we go on, and it'll take a few minutes, just three minutes or four minutes. Yes. And then I get in and I realize to talk about this intimately, we'll take three successive seminars. So I'll try to... come to a point somewhere or other. Anyway, the way by when you have the habit of naming things into permanence, all the things that are impermanent or ambiguous or move around destructively are excluded.

[10:24]

So the teaching of Buddhism, basic teaching is stop naming permanence and start naming impermanence. So when you name or label your breath, your inhale or your exhale, you're naming impermanence. You're naming something that's not going to be around there, that's something you can't grasp. Okay. But you're still, the point here is you're still, now you're shaping, first you're shaping consciousness by naming permanence.

[11:28]

Now the practice is, and it should be for years, the practice is the habit of naming impermanence. Now, this koan is asking us, how do we get out of the habit of naming categories of either permanence or impermanence? Okay. Now, one example of this starting to happen is your body, your breath starts being your attention starts being, your breath attention starts being sticky, starts sticking to your body, not just to your thoughts.

[12:36]

If you've been at the beach, you may have noticed how the waves come in on a rocky shore. And then after the waves recede, the water sticks to the rocks in kind of watery caves. It pours down. It follows the waves slowly. So you may begin to feel in zazen as if your breath attention is sticking to your ribs and to your body. And sticking to interior shapes in your body that you can't quite discern. But you feel each breath doesn't entirely go out but leaves some sort of energy behind or something that sticks to your ribs or to your body.

[13:55]

In a way, you're really having a direct experience of moving the mind into the body. And having a pace of mind that is inseparable from the body's pace. Now the body's pace is both extremely fast and extremely slow. Now when we were to the house to still walking along one of the lakes there, Ulrike and I were looking at the ponds. And how the ponds get covered with this green tennis court-like little plant.

[15:09]

I don't know what that's called. What's it called, the plant? It's a kind of algae. Hmm? Okay. Anyway, most of the ponds when we first got there were clear, but Ulrike said they will be covered before we leave. And I think you said these algae expand, once they get going, faster than the speed of light. She's teaching me all the time. So simultaneity is very fast. And things are happening in your body at greater than the speed of light.

[16:22]

So when the stickiness of your breath attention begins to stick to your body, your mind starts becoming very slow and very fast. And you become present in the details of the world and of yourself in a new way. So this is a continuation of Zazen instruction and paying attention to your breath from last night. Now I'd like to put this teaching into perspective, but I'll do that at the next time when we get together again. And what I usually like to do is when we get together in groups is just have it quite free and everyone discuss whatever is on your mind.

[17:43]

And I like this and I like you getting to know each other. Because I'm very selfish in this. Because the more you know each other, the much easier for me to know you. And the more you know each other, the much easier it is for me to teach. But this time I would like... To do the same thing, but also to make sure a few senior people are in each group, say five groups, that they can kind of respond to some of the questions. So let's take a break. There's two toilets, right? So that's about 20 minutes or so, something like that.

[18:57]

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Why is the simplicity so difficult? Like I said the other day, it's so difficult for the surface of the wave to know the water. And there's one When somebody asked, like, what is enlightenment? And the Zen teacher said, don't you know you're riding on that cow?

[20:02]

Too close. It is, yeah. So the question is really, and that's the practice of sudden enlightenment, how do you study something, practice something that's too close? Because whatever you do moves away from it. So it's so close that when you practice, you move away from it. So it's a kind of, you know, subtlety. I mean, this corn we looked at in Berlin is, what work, it's, you know, what is the price of potatoes in Berlin?

[21:13]

Rice in Berlin. He said, what work, I mean, obviously, I mean, exactly your, I mean, this is one of the most famous Zen masters asking this question. And it's no different than the question that's come up among the two or three of you. It's so close, what should we do? So he asked the question this way, what work should be done so as not to fall into steps and stages? Mm-hmm. That's the question. And he says, well, what have you done?

[22:20]

And Ching Yuen said, I do not even practice the Four Noble Truths. So how do you not even practice Buddhism, in other words? Because already Buddhism is too far away. So, some other, something else? I like these basic questions. This Buddhism is also not so much. A picture that was written to me is this garb of the Buddhist madness.

[23:20]

Most of us have always pulled out our breasts and my idea is to look a bit like that at night. Even Buddhism is too close, or we have to overcome that. I'm very attracted to that image you created to put on Buddhist clothes. Most of us have taken off their Christian clothes. And I'm sort of appealed by the idea to just walk around naked for a while. Well, you are naked under your clothes. Yeah. So maybe Buddhist practice is to remember that we're naked under our clothes. And always be ready to take them off. Which reminds me of my daughter at the airport when she was about two. In San Francisco. And she started taking off her clothes on the stairs in the airport.

[24:40]

I said, Elizabeth, what are you taking your clothes off for? I want to. And I said, well, we don't do that at the airport. She said, doesn't everyone want to? Well, I said, well, I mean, yes, I guess so. But anyway, it's better if you don't. Something else. Yeah. um um Should I translate it for you?

[26:05]

You want me to translate it for you? Okay. I'm trying to practice what we want to learn right now. Falling over outside during the job is asking us to go for a lot with all the nice things. What's the latest? What if you showed us the exact things as they are to resign or lay back to get out before everything ends? And then one of you told us one guy came and wants to look up this sentence and reading the newspaper about this hatred of foreigners.

[27:12]

Not really as a Buddhist or . Yeah, Bodhidharma is called the foreigner with a red beard. You had some sort of somewhat related question, didn't you, Julia? Last seminar? No, just before, about how it affects your work practice or how it takes your energy away. Yeah, I brought it up in the group, yeah. Oh, you did, huh? Once you say something, so for all of us, just simply. and how many problems are created because you get stuck on it, or also events that you suffer from, because you are somehow called something that is negative and so on and so forth.

[28:30]

That this is also very ... So what we have is, first of all, you have your regular life. And then you start to practice and you have some Some good experience perhaps in zazen or in seshin. And then you try to bring that more developed sense of practice into your daily life. So that's kind of a third stage. Then that begins to affect your life and the way you work, both positively and adversely. So most of you are at the stage of how to bring it into your daily life or what happens when it affects your daily life or the way you view your life in a new way, sometimes adversely.

[29:56]

Or maybe you lose the energy for your life. Or you think you should change it. Or you have concerns like Beate, if I'm changing, am I taking... disengaging in some way that I'm not responsible anymore as a person. You have to be a little patient with yourself. And I don't think you should let... a sense of responsibility to the world force you out of practice.

[31:01]

Because practice is also a way to take responsibility for yourself and that has to be a way to take responsibility in the world. Denn Praxis ist einfach eine Art, für sich selbst Verantwortung zu übernehmen, und das muss auch eine Art sein, für die Welt Verantwortung zu übernehmen. If we don't take responsibility for ourselves, who's going to? Und wenn wir nicht Verantwortung für uns selbst übernehmen, wer dann? So if everyone would do that, we would have, you know, almost no problems. Und wenn alle das tun würden, dann hätten wir sozusagen kein Problem. Most of our big problems come from, as Buddhism would say, ignorance. And ignorance means a narrow view how we survive. If you have a narrow view of how we survive, how we flourish, and how we control our situation, And that if such a narrow view is threatened, people will respond with violence or complicity.

[32:22]

So at the core of society and the core of culture has to be people who know themselves. And this is your job. This is each person's job, really. But some aren't going to do it. And I wouldn't be proud of yourself because you're trying. But, you know, you find yourself doing it, so accept this. Then how do you enter the way of knowing yourself? Are we getting some paper later for this? OK. Maybe we have, I don't know, consciousness, consciousness, awareness, our embodied

[34:27]

and self, and karma. And we have the structure of, we have form. So we could say maybe that these... are four layers of being. But when you practice, you are beginning to move in these different areas.

[35:42]

Now, someone asked me yesterday about time. You asked me about time. Well, you did, yes. And time is, of course, the succession of moments. And maybe I could say time is a fact, but not a reality. And I say that just to cause a problem. But what I mean is that time can only be apprehended at the level of comparative consciousness and the succession of moments or patterning that appears as karma. But at the level of awareness,

[36:45]

And the deeper sense of being, you don't perceive time, you only perceive space. So it takes time for me to walk from here over to you. But that's a function of the space. So in sense of awareness, there's simultaneity in which time is not present. Only if you try to change your location does time appear. So at the... The level of simultaneity, everything is the speed of light or thought depending on how you look at it.

[38:03]

So I'm saying this just to give you a picture of where you're moving when you're practicing. So now also I can say that there are three layers to practice. One is intention. And we could call that an embedded structure of intention. And the next is attention.

[39:05]

And the third is, we call mind, body, stabilization. Which in some ways is another kind of Well, let's say it's very similar to awareness. Now, you have an embedded structure of intention, which is like, I should do something about Bosnia. Now, we have this embedded structure of intention and, for example, I have to do something for Bosnia now. And I would like to use another example that I have already mentioned often. The usual way we look at things is that we assume that space separates us.

[40:12]

But space also connects us. And if you have the intention or the view, that is structural intentions and views, if you have the view that space separates, it will affect every moment of perception. So it's embedded in the structure that you bring to each moment. Does that make sense? Okay, so, but if you start to place a new intention or new view in this embedded structure, That space connects.

[41:23]

And it becomes a habit. You will talk to your friend differently. Just at lunchtime, when you're talking to your friends, feel that space is connecting you while you're talking to them. And this kind of intention or view will shape perception. So in this sense, there's no natural perception. That natural perception would be incredibly primitive. It might be sophisticated the way animals' perception is, but it wouldn't be sophisticated the way our perception is. If you had natural perception, there would be no way to even say space separates. So to be able to say space connects, I have to also be able to say space separates.

[42:34]

So this is using one view that's already very powerful, that space separates, and nuancing it or turning it to deepen it by saying space connects. So as I said earlier, if you think some things change and some things are permanent, then you have a different embedded structure of intention. And if you really believe, know now that everything changes. And you begin to deepen that understanding by naming impermanence rather than naming permanence.

[43:36]

Then at this level of practice, you're putting on Buddhist clothes. So these are the, what I would call, the three layers of practice. So what happens when you start to practice and you change your attention to impermanence from permanence?

[44:56]

You begin to change your structure of attention and views. You begin to actually change your karma. In the sense that the way the patterns work in you that you've inherited and created begin to change. And during that period of change, you'll feel disoriented, even though you're studying the Orient. And you have to be patient with yourself during that time. Again, as I've said often, traditionally that's the period of time you live in a monastery.

[46:03]

So you can really let go. Lose your job. Get fired. Bump into trees. And still somebody feeds you. So we have the Dharmasanga here in Europe and the sitting groups. And there we call ourselves the tree planters sometimes. I ask you to plant trees, but maybe we're the... And part of the job of, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, Sangha building, is the Sangha should be developed enough, hopefully, and alert enough to take care of each other when one person or other is in a sort of practice crisis.

[47:10]

Well, practice is making you wonder what you should do with your life. But I think that when you see, as you said, Giulio, that you bring up You see how you name things and how you create the world you live in. You don't stop that process. But sometimes you put on the clothes of your culture. And you know that you're naked underneath. Or you've got your Buddhist robe.

[48:12]

And you bring, but you're aware while you're doing it that you've taken on a particular structure of intentions and views. And even if it hurts people sometimes or is disagreeable, You don't have any choice. You have to also live your life. You can try to minimize the damage to yourself and to others. But I think if you wear these clothes of your culture and your karma lightly, slowly, you know, it will get brighter. So when we practice, why I call these three layers of practice, and then we'll stop for lunch, which is a little different than this, Because when you practice, you're always working with the level of intention.

[49:36]

And that's what koans are about. And what is... or taking the precepts is about. Mm-hmm. So you decide you're going to practice or that you're going to notice how space connects, and that's this kind of practice. In other words, this brings you, deepens the kind of intention that reaches into the future. And it shapes the present moment that arises into awareness. Now, attention is more like being a potter. When you bring your mind to your breath, or you bring your mind to your calm, or you bring your mind to anything on a regular basis, this is the practice of attention as a layer of practice.

[51:02]

Go, this is rather continuous and this is every moment you're working with this. And this level is that you find something even outside intention, but a kind of stabilization of the body that you can see. You feel it as a kind of physical and mental stability. And clarity.

[52:02]

And if you practice zazen, one of the main things you're doing is developing mind-body stabilization. Even while you're thinking this mind-body stabilization, you can feel it. So anyway, this is a kind of map of practice. And again, I think this map may help you while practice changes you to feel that it's okay to change these layers and be able to move freely within them or move in them through practice. Okay, just for a couple minutes, I'd like us to sit.

[53:09]

Please stretch as you wish and sit comfortably. We've sat 40 minutes this morning and 30 minutes just now, approximately.

[56:46]

And for you who are fairly new to practice, sitting 40 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day is sufficient to practice Buddhism fully. Did you have a good lunch or find a place to eat? I think it would be good to hear each other a little more. And then I'd like to introduce this koan a little bit. So do you have something we should be good to discuss together? Yes?

[58:05]

Before lunch, you said, attention and views are embedded. They are embedded in what? Why embedded? Want to say that in German? Well, what I mean is that the intentions and views and psychological and cultural patterns Have a, is a patterning that exists moment after moment in your body and mind. It's, I don't know a better word, embedded in your body and mind. And in turn, as I wrote here in this book, speech and conduct are also embedded in this, in intention.

[59:20]

So on the Eightfold Path, you have Complete views. Complete intentions. And these two make a kind of structure from which your speech arises and your conduct arises. And in turn, your livelihood arises. And then in turn, the kind of effort you can make arising out of this embeddedness. And that effort allows you to create karma or to create dharma.

[60:22]

And if you make a Dharma choice, then you practice mindfulness and so forth. And then you have a certain energy available, an effort available, rising out of this embeddedness to make a Dharma choice. So you can practice mindfulness, and concentration. And then why this is called a pass is because through this concentration and mindfulness, then through insight and so forth, you can go back and change the way views and intentions are embedded. So you're making a choice at the point, you're making a choice either to continue your karma Or to practice the Dharma.

[61:56]

As I say, you're either going to cook your karma or your karma is going to cook you. And that choice is really at the point of effort, what kind of effort you're capable of making and what energy is available for that effort. And that sitting practice and mindfulness practice change your energy, change what kind of energy available to you. And here is where your lived body is. Your lived body is continued or transformed according to your practice, your habits, and so on.

[62:59]

I don't quite follow because when I continue to practice, I'm still embedded in my ordinary life and continue my story. Mm-hmm. You either have karma and the dharma, what we mean by dharma, is, of course, present but not acted upon, not conscious and so forth.

[64:20]

But when you make a choice to practice the Dharma... Do you mean karma is present but not acted upon? No, Dharma is present. I don't quite understand how you mean that. When you live your karma... The way things exist in terms of everything's changing and so forth is still there. In the language that we've been talking today. if you have named, if your karma, let's call it simply, is named permanence, and through that you begin to accumulate all these things, fears and anxieties and joys in your body, then

[65:22]

the unnamed impermanence is still there. But by not naming it, it doesn't have much power in your life. But when you start naming impermanence, and yet at the same time acting in the world, but knowing it's impermanent, you change the way the world arises in you. So, in other words, at each moment the world is arising and disappearing. And how it arises and disappears in you and how that experience is perceived and embedded in you can be different. And in one way, your energy functions to continue your story.

[66:56]

In another way, it functions to free you from your story. But to the extent, of course, that we have to live in the world, But you still mature your story. It's like you're an actor where there are real consequences. You can't exactly get off stage very easily. And there's no off time, there's no dark nights. But it's still not the whole way you live. So you can't eliminate your story, but you mature your story in a bigger space. Does that make sense?

[67:57]

Yes, but then again the work comes back from the beginning of the day. These are names of life. We are still not clear how this naming of man happens. Does that mean that she will practically always name something, and we will always name other things, and that would be the naming of man? I still haven't quite understood what you mean with the practice of naming. You explained this morning, do I name whatever appears or comes up, and this is naming the impermanence through the changing things that come up? So you weren't here on Thursday night? No. Okay. Well, the example I used... just to keep it simple and basic, is that the most basic breathing practice, as well as counting your breaths, is to name your inhale.

[69:13]

Sort of this inhale. This exhale. Now I know I'm inhaling. Now I know I'm exhaling. What is this I that knows I'm inhaling? Now you're a sitting person. Now I'm a speaking person. Now I'm a looking at Ulrike person. So when I say, now I'm a speaking person, I'm not naming permanence. Because the speaking person, because the speaking church person changes very instantaneously into the looking at Ulrike person. Yeah, now I'm feeling space connecting.

[70:20]

Now I'm feeling space separating. Now I'm feeling space connecting Martin and myself. So if you begin naming impermanence like that, you begin to actually sow the seeds of karma in a different way. Now, what happens when you name impermanence? You're doing, what you're actually doing is naming uniqueness. Because this particular moment is totally unique. And I look away at Martin and it's totally unique. And then I look back at you and it's unique again. So in naming impermanence you produce uniqueness.

[71:22]

And there's a different kind of energy in uniqueness than in permanence. You're moving out of generalizations. And generalizations as a state of mind is not very deeply or energetically rooted. So we were talking about that at lunch a bit in music and in theater. How do you play something or act something as if it was the first time? Well, you can't act the first time. It has to be actually a first time. And if you live in a mind of impermanence and uniqueness, it is the first time.

[72:29]

And the word for breath practice is prana. And prana doesn't mean breathing. It means first breath. First breath. First breath. There's no second breath. There's a second breath, but then you're in comparative mind. So you can see the difference between these two states of mind, the mind of first breath and the mind of second, third breath. I watched Suzuki Roshi, well, I mentioned at lunch too that A woman came to do the tea ceremony who was the kind of best known tea teacher in San Francisco in the Japanese community.

[73:34]

And she did the tea ceremony quite beautifully and Sukershi wanted to introduce us to a little Japanese culture. This was about 1961 or two. And it was fun to watch her. She was very refined and it was quite beautiful. And then Suzuki Roshi, she said, Suzuki Roshi, you must do it. And he said, well, I don't know, I can't really do this. So she insisted, so he got up and he did it. And he started doing this, and he did everything right. But he looked like he didn't... I mean, I thought, this poor guy, he's up here in front of everybody, and he doesn't know how to do this.

[74:56]

Because it kept looking like he didn't know quite what to do next. And then when he dipped in and got the hot water, I thought, oh, my God, he's going to spill it. Because hot water is usually hotter at the top, so cold water you dip down at the bottom, but hot water you take off the top. And you could see him taking off the top, and you thought, geez, he's going to spill. This is really hot in this golden bowl. So while I enjoyed watching her, I got very engaged with his doing it. I mean, what's going to happen next? It turns out I found out later he was extremely experienced at the tea ceremony. But he did it completely like he was discovering everything for the first time, and he wasn't acting.

[76:11]

He was discovering it for the first time. And that doesn't arise just from some kind of, oh, it would be nice to be that way, wouldn't it? It comes from the practice of impermanence. Which puts you into uniqueness. And then in uniqueness you begin to feel a kind of energy and aura around everything. Because when everything is unique and very, there's something different that happens. And you begin to feel the subtle body or presence.

[77:14]

And again, this arises from a simple practice of naming impermanence instead of naming permanence. My father, when I used to be a kid... I still... Anyway... He, for my birthday parties, for some reason, he organized several years in a row a treasure hunt. And I don't know, do you know what I mean? He would hide something for all the kids somewhere. Then he'd make a map. And the map, it has these clues on it, you know. And he would... Anyway, so we'd all go out trying to follow this man.

[78:35]

But I always felt I had an unfair advantage. Because I would study my father's mind. And I think, now, what would my father do at this point? And I could usually figure out, I know what kind of person he is. He'd do this. So I'd have to hold back because I realized it wasn't fair for me to get... He wouldn't tell me anything, but I could always figure it out. And then I'd realize he would be trying to fool me because I'm the kid he knew the best. So he wouldn't be just trying to fool the other kids. He'd be trying to fool me, so I'd think, now how would he think he could fool me?

[79:40]

But it also has to be interesting for the other kids. So what would my father imagine the other kids would think about? We'd be out running past the golf course and through the woods and everything, and all the time I'd be running in my father's mind, thinking, what is he doing now? And I began to think of this the other day because I was thinking about how this, you know, these distinctions you've heard often, basic Buddhist distinction between like, dislike, and neutrality. When we name everything into permanence, Denn wenn wir alles in Beständigkeit hinein benennen, dann müssen wir sofort Bestellung beziehen, in einer Art Beziehung, ob wir das mögen oder nicht mögen.

[81:09]

Aber diese vielen Dinge, die einfach unbeständig sind, die nur einen kurzen Moment da sind, are often hidden in neutrality. They're not in the categories of like and dislike. Do you understand what I mean? Yeah. I mean, when I take an inhale, And I notice it's an inhale. I don't particularly like or dislike the inhale. I'm just inhaling. It's not permanent enough for me to really get involved with liking it. Yeah. I really like this inhale. And you get very attached to it.

[82:18]

But then it's gone. So you can't get too involved in liking and disliking the impermanence. So it falls into neutrality. We don't like it, we don't dislike it. So we call it neutrality. But in this neutral mind is where the treasures of being are buried. But there's no map to where these treasures are buried because it's outside of maps and patterns. But maybe if you know your father and mother's mind, or you can begin to feel the minds of people, you can find out really where the treasures are buried. I don't know where that story came from, but it was there.

[83:25]

Okay, some other question. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You want to say that in Deutsch? Of course, there's cultural and social and civilizational and biological karmic. And they're all mixed up. I think that's enough to say, but that's the case.

[84:39]

Maybe I can come back to it later in what I feel you might like me to say. But before I assume too much, is there something you'd like me to... You want to take the question a step further or ask me something more? Sure, go ahead. ...against other cultures, other foreign people, and there's the same situation that we have in Poland and Bulgaria, And I wonder what's about the people that work together in terms of abuse overnight with manipulated

[86:10]

Well, I mean, of course I don't have any answers. And I think it might actually be useful to do a seminar or to take some time to look at social issues like that as Buddhists and how does it make any difference to think about them as Buddhists than think about them in the other way. Now if I were If this was happening in America, something like this and things, various terrible things happen in America, of course, too. I could discuss it with some confidence, but as this is happening in Germany and in Europe, I don't know, you know, I don't have a, I didn't grow up here, so I don't have a deep feeling for how things work.

[88:05]

But I think Weizsäcker had a... What I thought was quite a good point yesterday in his talk. He said these folks all had a... socialist communist identity before in Yugoslavia. Yeah, identity based on being against democratic liberal ideas. And we in Western Germany and Western Europe have developed a democratic identity. And I believe you can look at Athens as the city in which the modern speech of the marketplace was developed. I believe that before Athens, Greek speech was more based in oracular speech and mythic speech and so forth.

[89:30]

Because language is a way of ordering the world. And the way of identifying the world. And I think that the Yugoslavian people, former Yugos, well, what's it called, Yugoslavian people have lost their ability to identify themselves. So they've fallen back into stereotypes. medieval stereotypes or racial stereotypes or stereotypes based on their history before communism. And my impression in the world is that the survival of your identity

[90:51]

is you more fiercely defend your identity than your food. You know, otherwise people wouldn't commit suicide. Or blow up their entire possibilities of growing food to kill your neighbors. And I think that you have a floating in Germany of various kinds of identity, including unspoken identities, which are quite narrowing. And these kids from, you know, often kids from families which are unemployed and so forth or kids who are disturbed and at a certain age are quite open to picking up these various identities.

[92:06]

And they feel their own identity threatened and so they blame foreigners or something. But I think in general, They have to act on subtext larger societal identities. And it's interesting to me that so far these drunken kids haven't really killed many of the actual foreigners. They're killing the Turks who live here, who've been here for a long time. So their mouth says, if you ask them, they don't like the asylum seekers.

[93:27]

But they don't attack, but they attack the Turks who aren't asylum seekers. So they're attacking people who have jobs, who have establishments, but are different.

[94:01]

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