We didn't produce any light, sorry. No, there was one. The lower circuit wasn't working. At least not the low circuit. The electrons are on vacation. Hi. Hi. So any follow-up or through on what we've talked about so far, any reflections? I've been told I shouldn't give up too quickly and I should just wait longer. I'm trying to get feedback. So I just saw a real arm go up.

[01:03]

You asked how this can be useful for us. You have asked how the seminar could be useful for us. What has been helpful for me all the time is getting hints or suggestions how things could be practiced. Like this morning too, or from the past as well? What I mean are suggestions like taking things with two hands or a certain kind of turning word which you could use and practice with.

[02:25]

And sometimes if you talk, I'm asking myself, wait, how do I practice with it? Good. So we're taking things with two minds and making them one. Tara, was that your hand waving in the wind? Okay. I'm rather amazed that we are now again dealing with time because I'm sort of fighting with, still fighting with that clock time we have. And yesterday, not yesterday, recently I was washing somewhere and I have so much to do and had so much pressure.

[03:40]

And suddenly, when I was feeling like that, this sentence of yours came up, how can you have no time if you are time? And that time it was the first time I realized that I only have this time that I have. And this touched me so much because I noticed that because I have so much to do, I'm somehow passing by in my life. So the struggle goes on because I have to deal with so many things in these 24 hours.

[05:02]

And the first sentence that I heard from you which really brought me into practice was this sentence, nothing to do, nowhere to go. And this was somehow the reason why I came to Johanneshof and to practice, but all these 15 years I didn't, it wasn't possible for me to practice with this sentence. Somehow now I am forced into this to notice that there is nothing else beside this moment, although there is so many to do. Yes, that's my contribution to the side.

[06:31]

But it actually gets worse and worse, the confrontation between this, yes, So this is my contribution at this point. But I feel that it gets worse, actually, that this confrontation of there is so much to do. And this fundamental experience, actually, there is nothing to do. OK. Let me comment on this. We could say that the statement, you are time, in the Buddhist context, is a statement of wisdom. If you actually have a kind of physio-mental feel of that, or circumstances in your life make you notice it,

[07:38]

We can call that an insight. If you experience it, if you experience this insight in such a way that it changes you, so you never again worry about time in the usual sense, then that's an enlightenment experience. So I'm bringing this up because I think we should talk more about enlightenment and make it more commonplace. Yeah, so we could even add in there something like realization and enlightenment. Realization would be to really recognize that it's true and enlightenment would be it changes you.

[08:57]

And it can be extremely ordinary. This particular thing happened to me. I was on a bus on the way to the warehouse job I had in the And I had been practicing for some months or a year or so. And the bus was stuck in traffic. And I realized that I wasn't going to get to work on time and a lot depended on my getting there and unlocking the door and all kinds of things.

[10:19]

But I couldn't do anything about it. So suddenly I completely relaxed inside. And enjoyed the rest of the bus trip. And I've never since then been anxious about time. So I mean, sometimes I feel pressure, but I'm not anxious, no one cares. So I'm saying that we can say this was, for me, an enlightenment experience. In some ways, it's no big deal. There are many kinds of enlightenment experiences. But it was one that happened and has never changed the effect since. So there's no question that probably for you and for me, working with No Place to Go and Nothing to Do was a background that was realigning things that it could be a definite thing.

[11:51]

unchangeable experience. So all these things work together. You have a bunch of ingredients in you and you're working with them and they coalesce in a certain way. And the particular GPS of it is different for each person. What would GPS be? Good old enlightenment experience. Okay. Yes. Ich Rastenberg, hast du dann auch gesagt in Anlehnung zu Dogen's Satz.

[12:56]

And you also said I Rastenberg referring to Dogen's sentence. Und hast gesagt, dass du And you also said that you can appear here as a different person here in Rastenberg. Yeah, I find myself appearing. I mean, I notice it happens. And this is really so adventurous if you're looking closely to that. Of course I feel different in the midst of a big city or here. But at each moment this can come together with this I am time. And this happens at each moment and not only within these big differences.

[14:14]

So this is a wonderful invitation to this adventure. And this is also when we meet you here or at Johanneshof or in Vienna or at Crestone. Appearing at different places differently and in new ways. So this is a wonderful invitation and aliveness. I think so. And practice is to study this. But the problem is, you know, is that we have a sense of, it's technically called .

[15:33]

I'm not pronouncing it right, excuse me. Anyway, yeah, we have a sense of an unchanging part of ourselves. That's kind of built into us. And it was built into early Buddhism and Nagarjuna kind of tried to root that out of early Buddhism. for some contemporary physicists. The cat that jumps is not the same cat as the cat that lands. And if you think it is, you're wrong. From my point of view and from... No, your husband over there is ahead of you.

[16:50]

But it's not so important. No, no, it's not so important. Is this a marital process? But Shri Nagarjuna really tries to emphasize the attentive attention which doesn't let the belief that you're still the same as you were when you were young, etc., Yeah, is... Not the same person. My 14-year-old daughter is not who she will be when she's my age.

[17:52]

And she's not going to be the same daughter at 15. Now, we do have an experience of a pattern that reestablishes itself. We do have an experience of a pattern that reestablishes itself. But if you have a view, a mental belief, that it's the same, that's what you'll perceive. But if you yogically root out that mental belief because one important point here is and why the Eightfold Path starts with right views because views are prior to perception. We think, oh, I'm perceiving things, that's the way they really are.

[19:13]

But you're perceiving things through an editing process rooted in your views. Change your view so you don't think it's the same cat that lands. Really don't think I'm the same person I was when I was 14. I can emphasize the similarities But if I believe in those similarities, I don't notice what's really going on. So part of serious practice is to find the skills to establish views rooted in wisdom. rooted in that everything is actually changing.

[20:24]

And that difference is more fundamental and dynamic than similarities. And all of the teaching of Nagarjuna is to try to get this point on. And he made it so strongly, he's often called the second Buddha. I agree to that. For me, this sentence, I am time, is too simple. It is too simple. Because at the same time you are the moment, you are the location, you are the surrounding.

[21:43]

If you say I am time, for me there is inbuilt, built within it is the danger that this becomes an identity. And I think we all feel, or I feel a great relief when I say such a sentence as I am time. And I think we all feel a kind of relaxation if we say a sentence like, I am time. Especially if you're sitting in the car with Pekaroshi driving to the airport, Osaka airport. And you notice the plane has left three hours ago. Do you still remember that? Each and every time I go to the airport.

[22:58]

And the root of this relaxation for me is, when you say, I am time, the root of the relaxation is... is that there is a different identity from the identity which expects something from me, which is expected from me. This kind of identity that consists of expectations of other people. And this relaxation, if you say, I am time, it comes from experiencing yourself at this very moment and related to whatever is around you and, you know, And it comes from this experience of momentariness.

[24:24]

And life can be a succession of momentarinesses. And not a life where you have to fit yourself into the expectations of others. And also into your own expectations. So that's my experience when I say, I am time. Okay. I mean, for a practitioner, as you're pointing out, all these statements are not true. They're only counter points to other statements that you might believe.

[25:24]

So they're useful medicine, but not a description. So they're useful medicine, but not a description. Okay. Anyone else? Someone else? Yes. Hi. My namesake. But we're not the same. No. Almost. For me, the practice works well when I have a vision built into me by society, with this vision consciousness.

[26:28]

For me, practice works well when I can get conscious or aware of the views that are built into myself by culture, by our culture. Yes. Only when I have this realization, how my point of view, when I can look at it from my point of view, then I can also easily, for example, use a vendor board for myself. Only when I'm able to look at my own views, my cultural views, then I can make use of it. That's right. So studying this world view that has been built within us, just as you mentioned that it's kind of standing behind us, And you can feel that this is different in Germany, in Austria, in USA.

[27:46]

And it's important for me to be able to recognize and notice this. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. You started with a sentence that I found really exciting. I'm not sure whether I can quote it correctly, but it was, everything I'm doing, my Buddhism is scientific.

[28:48]

And then she said, even when I... And even if I put this on, it is scientific. [...] experience-sophie. And then something else came in and this made it even more exciting, this term of experience-sophie.

[29:49]

Experience-sophie? Experience-sophie. Okay. Das eigentlichen, wie man mal übersetzbar ist für mich, And you can't really translate it, in my opinion. You can't really translate it. You can't. Yeah, okay. And then something third came in. The idea that when you look at a painting, for example Matisse, And this was the idea when looking at the picture, Matthies' picture. You try to experience that aspect of his personality that is not transferred by his

[30:58]

The way he speaks, or what he speaks, or words. I try to know the experience from which he's painting. It's triggered me to think. So these things triggered a lot for me for thinking. Especially in the direction, what actually can we really express by words? Transmit, not express.

[32:22]

Transfer. Okay. And that's what I'm occupied with. Okay. Thanks. And this afternoon I think I'll try to emphasize, look at this, what can we transfer by words? Okay. How can this... One sec. That would be twice for you. It's only my first. Oh, okay. How can my doing this be scientific? Well, why do I feel that's the case? And why do I try to then, feeling that, try to shape the practice that Johannes Hoff and Chris don't in these ways, us in these ways?

[33:28]

Because I think if it's not scientific, it's not going to be continued generationally. Because ordinary religion is on its way out. It just is giving itself such a bad name. This floor it was a tree. There was a branch. And it's now a floor.

[34:43]

Because someone cut the tree down. And because there's a whole ancient tradition of how to grow trees, cut them down, mill them and so forth. So this tree has become a floor because we use it that way. We use the wood that way. So this exists as a floor through our relationship to it as a floor. When I sit on it and put this bell on it and so forth, we're using it as a floor. Und wenn ich hier sitze und diese Glocke darauf stelle, dann verwenden wir ihn als Boden.

[35:54]

Seine einzige Existenz ist seine Verwendung als Boden. Und wir begründen seine Existenz nicht dadurch, dass wir ihn Boden nennen, sondern dass wir ihn als Boden verwenden. But calling it a floor is part of giving ourselves permission to use it as a floor. Okay, so this is just a bunch of cloth. There's nothing to do with Buddha or, you know, etc. Mm-hmm. But supposedly the Buddha's robe was made from scraps of cloth. In a sort of tradition of not wasting things, you collect scraps of cloth and turn them into something to wear.

[36:59]

So now we do it symbolically. You can't, I mean, I know somebody who has used scraps of cloth found in the Berlin subway to make their raksa. He felt a little guilty at one point, because part of the cloth was from a jacket. He thought somebody might be coming back again. No. But it was there for three days and he said, if it's there the fourth day, I'm taking it. So he was trying to be responsible. I went back for it on the fifth day. So then we take relatively expensive silk and cut it up into pieces and sew it back together.

[38:09]

I am not a flower. Not meat. Yeah, right. To be or not to be. Okay. So with just a bunch of cloth. And we turn it into something that's important to us by sewing it together very carefully and saying a little something on each stitch. And someone made this for me and I unfortunately can't remember who. But I appreciate all the stitches they made. Okay. Are you trying to close it or open it? Okay. Help the wasp getting out.

[39:50]

Oh, the bee. Hornet. Hornet, okay. Almost. Almost. Don't get stung. Ah, good work. I have a daughter who could have died from a bee sting. She took bee venom two or three times a week for years. Okay, so it's the custom when I am speaking about Buddhism To make clear I'm speaking from a tradition and not from my personal psychological experience. Which makes clear that I'm not the cat that jumped off the couch.

[40:51]

No, I'm not the same person psychologically constituted as a teenager. I had a kind of rebirth when I decided to re-examine all my views in the light of the teaching of Buddhism. So I'm not supposed to teach until I can speak from the tradition as well as my personal experience through the tradition. I'm not supposed to teach until I can speak from the tradition and through my personal experience reroute it in the tradition.

[42:06]

So it's not me as a particular person with various views about him and herself. Now it's legal. I can legally be a him or her. So anyway, this is just a bunch of cloth. But we've gone through quite a thing to turn it into something like the floor or the tradition of how to sew and all that stuff. I hope I'm not making this too complicated for you. It's okay, because I can go on a little bit more. So anyway, so It doesn't exist except as a relationship.

[43:40]

So the floor exists because I use it as a floor. So this exists in a sense of physics or quantum physics or something like that. Because it's a relationship. And capable of several locations at once, as electrons are. In classical physics, an electron only has one location, but in quantum physics, it can have simultaneous locations. And it has one stable location for a moment, depending on how it's used. So I have to turn this into Buddha's robe. It's not Buddha's robe until I use it as Buddha's robe.

[44:42]

So for me, this is a bunch of cloth. But when I touch it here, which is an experienceable place through yoga practice, it definitely happens through practice. You begin to feel the various chakras. So by doing that, I in a way turn it into, as I turn this into a floor, I turn it into Buddha's robe. And because I take the time to turn it into Buddha's robe, It gives me permission then, wearing it, to speak from the tradition.

[45:56]

Now there's another little example. You know, supposedly American, Native American Indians, Native Americans. I don't know the correct term. You're not politically correct. Native American. I'm not sure. I found it. I didn't know it either. Okay, so... Native Americans supposedly, though it may be somewhat apocryphal, leave in a design always one or two places where things don't quite match.

[47:03]

And when you look at the originals of British and European dishes, The Chinese dishes, which the British and the European Germans and others copied, the originals have the branch sort of going off the plate. As if you held up a circle and then you painted it and it didn't fit the plate. And all the Meissenware and the Spode, et cetera, of Britain. Spold is a British company that makes ceramics.

[48:13]

It fits into the rim and fits into the circle. That's a significant difference. Okay. It doesn't mean we haven't accomplished, as our culture, I mean it's interesting why it has accomplished so much that the whole world is trying to imitate us. With a little resistance here and there. Okay, so in a somewhat similar vein, usually in something like this, Everything is, all of this is, we could say, meaningful.

[49:25]

It may have an actual, it has an actual relationship, a little excessive, to holding the cloth together. But almost always they put on one completely meaningless stitch which doesn't do anything. And this stitch doesn't mean anything. So some theories, and I think there's a truth to it, that it represents an astrological pattern of stars. That then you wear at the upper part of the bodily spine. Which represents being connected with the heavens. But in any case, the main thing is that it has no meaning.

[50:42]

It doesn't serve any purpose. So that's the point. So by using this in this way, I turn it into, as we turn the floor into a floor, an example of the tradition which allows me to speak more than personally about practice. So I enact that. And the physicality of enacting it makes a difference. Enact is a hard word to translate. Sorry. I don't have many alternatives, so...

[51:43]

Now, why this meaningless stitch also is It's contentless. It's contentless. And contentlessness represents nirvana. So when you die, your content disappears. And when you die, your content dissolves.

[53:00]

And that's why it's called nirvana. And when you die, you say goodbye content. Bye nirvana. I had enough of you already. But when you have that experience right now, stopping, and really stopping, with no content, that's also nirvana. So that's also what this represents. Very scientific, as you can see. Or at least it has some kind of interrepresentational, interdependent relativity. What time are we supposed to have lunch? One. Okay. So it seems to me that, oh, yes.

[54:20]

You know, that's what the Native Americans do. They see each other and say, oh. Really? In the movies, yeah. In the movies, yeah. But really? How? How now? Yes, go ahead. Well, I am... I got addicted in research, no, exploring Western culture. You got addicted? Yes. Yeah, okay. Okay. And one thing that came to my attention is that we like that everything ends well. I noticed it in myself. It's built in within us that we want that everything ends well.

[55:24]

And we talked about it in the last Paul Rosenblum seminar. And Erich said, but you know, it won't all go well. and we talked about it during the last Paul Rosenblum seminar, and Erich said, but you know, it won't end well, actually. Do you know it? It will not end well. How depressing. No. No, actually not. And I find it quite interesting that we are living in a culture where we always want that it will end well, but actually we know it won't end well.

[56:24]

In the West we live in a bubble where a large percentage of things end well. Gut. You're right. So I'm asking myself, what follows from that? And what follows from our cultural view that everything should end well? I would hope you just didn't talk about practice, of course.

[57:31]

Okay. And what came to my mind then was, and it also came up this morning, und was da für mich mir eingefallen ist, und das ist eben auch heute Vormittag angesprochen worden, die Erfahrung, dass mein körperliches Gefühl, ich zu sein, dass das auch das etwas ist, was ich hervorgebracht habe. that even my bodily feeling of, my bodily feeling, my very own bodily feeling is something that I have created. Yeah. And you have something to say. And that's what I find very interesting, that you can actually create something like yourself, in the deepest detail. And I find it very interesting that we are able to do this, that we are able to make, creating ourselves, making us up somehow, even in these dimensions of bodily existence.

[59:09]

And for me this feels very way to be able to experience how we are creating ourselves. Yes. Then you have the problem with agency. who's doing the creating of yourself, and is that continuous? And then you have to explore agency is also arbitrary and discontinuous. Okay. Okay? Yes, please. In Dutch it's better. First, yeah. Yeah. Can you speak a little more loudly? She doesn't have her horn. Is there a specific practice that I could do even in everyday circumstances?

[60:26]

To more and more be able to notice this creating. And also notice this agency of creating. Yeah, you take... take some phrase or something that you decide to repeat on each appearance. But it doesn't work, it doesn't work very well unless you train yourself to notice the world as a flow of appearances and not a flow of continuity. And so practice, one of the beginning points of practice is to notice

[61:35]

the world as a series of sensorial appearances. And that then, a bodily sense of sensorial appearances, And that creates the domain or territory in which practice can function. You apply practices to appearances. Until you see things as a series of appearances, you can't apply the teaching to anything because the continuity doesn't allow the teachings to take hold.

[63:10]

Okay. Yes. Yes. If I'm creating myself, then I also am a scientific object. Well, I don't know. Maybe, yes. Maybe. So, what then means this word that I am constantly dealing with, this word, Dogen's word, sometimes? Aye, aye, aye. Aye, aye, aye. Offer a profound state of discussion.

[64:26]

First he enters the ultimate state. So what is this ultimate state? In contrast to this scientific creation. Well, when I say scientific, I mean something like how things actually exist. Of course, how things actually exist as a phrase is a black box. It can mean anything. How things actually exist is we're all fools. Or we're all deluded, whatever.

[65:36]

But the phrase which Buddhism is based on, to know things as they actually exist, means for us to know things as a human with the kind of senses we have. Yeah, for us this is a bell, or a teacup, but for a dragonfly, as I say, it's neither a bell nor a teacup. So how this actually exists for a dragonfly or that bee or that hornet is not the same as for us.

[66:43]

So even how things actually exist for us is relative. But we establish that. And we establish it in Buddhism through our senses and the view that everything is changing and interdependent. And these are statements which I think would be in agreement by most scientists. So in that, okay. So is that okay with you so far? No, what would you say then? No. Okay. Maybe I try to come from a different angle.

[68:01]

Okay. If I apply a medically turning sentence. Medically. Yeah. Then... Then I prepare for that and I allow that happening and I... By medical, do you mean an antidote or do you mean Western medicine or homeopathy or something? That is very difficult to find out now. That means, there is a... So there is some state where I intend it and then there is a state where I don't have to intend it because I already am it.

[69:29]

Okay. And now there comes this word sometimes. And this is what I do not understand. Is sometimes, sometimes? Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes, sometimes. When you don't have to apply the antidote, Because it's already embodied.

[70:40]

And those times in which you do apply the antidote would be considered different times. And in this time, in this way of looking at it. Time is only the experience of duration or succession. Now, Buddhism divides our experience up into the two truths, the relative and the fundamental. The relative where everything is changing. And the fundamental where... Let's start over again.

[71:53]

The relative where we see things as predictable. relatively predictable. And the fundamental where we see things is absolutely momentary. And we have to function in the relatively predictable. Sometimes the scheme, schemata, is set up so that there's the people who view things as really predictable and really stable. And then relatively predictable. and then absolutely unpredictable in any fundamental sense.

[72:57]

When you divide the world up into these areas, or divide your experience of the world up into these categories, you can notice the difference the division into these categories, allows you to notice when in fact you tend to really think the world's predictable. For example, when you're younger, you know you're going to die and you've got the information. But if you examine the person's actions, they're acting as if an exception is going to be made in their case.

[74:04]

So if you notice that you underneath everything sort of think, that is not gonna happen to you. Then noticing that creates a dynamic in you to notice that it's relatively unpredictable. But that kind of practice functions when you can really notice your views. Yes, I'm acting here as if I'm going to live forever. Or, now I'm acting here as if, well, I might live forever, but probably I at least need insurance.

[75:16]

Or you notice, now I'm acting here as if I don't even need insurance and I don't care what happens. There's a French philosopher named Blanchot, B-L-A-N-C-H-O-T. There's really a kind of literary critic and philosopher. And maybe you all are familiar with him, I don't know, but he particularly loved the German language and studied Germanic literature. And he really tried to get into what state of mind allowed Höldlin and Rilke and others to write.

[76:17]

He discusses four or five German writers. I find it a useful and brilliant book. And he really tries to get into what I was trying to say the mind from which Matisse used paint to realize. And he discusses, for instance, the stress Kafka felt on the one hand of wanting a family and the other hand knowing he couldn't write what he wanted to write if he had a family. And I would say it's short, but it seems as Blanchot presents it.

[77:36]

He appreciated and believed in the aliveness of a family. But in fact, he felt more alive writing. So he had the courage of that choice. Okay. Now, Blanchot also mentioned in his book something that I've never seen anyone mention before.

[78:37]

And I mentioned it in the Winter Branch Seminar. The importance of dying in this life. There's a phrase we use in Buddhism to be completely willing to die and yet to gladly remain alive. That's a very basic practice. And the way I suggest it is when you go to bed at night, maybe not every night, but why not, go to sleep with the feeling, I don't care whether I wake up or not.

[79:44]

Go to sleep with the feeling, Or if I wake up crazy or whatever. And you can get to the point where you do not care if you ever wake up. This is a tremendous and unexplainable freedom. You care, you gladly remain alive, but actually at the same time you don't care. So Blanchot has a few pages where he describes this. I've never, outside of Buddhism, ever seen this described as a practice.

[80:50]

It's related to the noble intention to have an intentional death. It sounds like we're being very serious here. But this is just everyday life. And how your views function in everyday life. As you say, to make your life, to make your... So if I go back, because we're supposed to go to lunch, I enter an ultimate state. At this moment, not some generalization of ultimate states, we could say there is one possible ultimate state at this moment.

[82:15]

as we feel the presence of everything here at once, with absolutely no thought about it should be other than it is, And no interest in it being other than it is. And really being able to relax in that space. Completely dependent on this immediacy. So that could be what Bill getting at. And then from that, he finds something to gladly say. So we're supposed to go to lunch, but let me ring the bell because it's such a nice sound.

[83:35]

Amen.

[83:48]

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