Please sit comfortably. And if anyone wants to sit on a chair, that's fine too. It was nice to start out with sitting for a little bit. Even though I don't know if all of you have sitting experience yet. Is there someone who doesn't have any sitting experience? Yeah. None at all? Not at all.

[01:02]

You've stood the whole of your life. You're either lying down or standing in between. Yeah. Well, I think... After the seminar, the person sitting right beside you there, Gerald or Gisela here, could give you some instruction on sitting, okay? It helps to know a little. And by the time the seminar is over, you'll be convinced that it's not helpful to know a lot. Okay. Now, I'm... You know, this is the fourth seminar, more or less, I've taught in the last four weeks since I've come to Europe. And I have to find a way of working within a certain stream of teaching that has some relationship each week.

[02:29]

And I want to find a way for you who've come to the last seminar, or even two or three, to find some way of working together within a stream of practice. And for those of you for whom this is the first seminar this year or the first seminar ever, I'd like to try to give you a way of working, a feeling of working within yourself in the Buddhist tradition, in the Zen Buddhist tradition.

[03:57]

So I'm not so... How can I say this? I'm not so... I have to talk with you about something. But I'm not so concerned with whether at the end of the seminar you have understood exactly what I've meant. I'm more concerned that you get a sense of permission and a sense of territory in working within yourself. Noah.

[05:21]

Sorry. Now a theme I've been working with in the last six months or, I don't know, something like that year, is a distinction, a use, a confusing false but somewhat true distinction between interior consciousness and exterior consciousness. And I suppose I'm also making a distinction between the body and structure. What do I mean by that?

[07:27]

I mean, you might be a tomato inside. Or you might be an orange or grapefruit. And the structure of a tomato or orange or grapefruit is... is the body, or we can make a distinction between the structure and the fruit itself. The teaching of Buddhism is really about the structure of the mind-body, not so much body and mind. And to make my point, let me be very simple. There's a difference between ordinary mind and zazen mind, and that difference we can call structure. So when you practice, you are not only experiencing a difference between

[08:45]

zazen mind or meditation mind and ordinary mind, but you're noticing that there is a difference. And noticing that there is a difference, you can come to have a faith in the difference. That this difference between Zazen mind and ordinary mind makes a difference. I think you really have to see that it's different in order to have faith in it. And you need faith in it to have a kind of power to really develop the experience of it. Now we're going to look at this koan number four in various ways during this seminar.

[10:29]

Now again we can apply the same idea of structure to the koan. And this evening I'm not going to go into it much, but we do have a German translation. And the German and English have been passed out to people or will be? Okay, good. So I'd like you to read it this evening. And for those of you who are not familiar with koans, let me say, read it like, read it casually. Read it almost like you would listen to someone else's dream.

[11:33]

Perhaps not even your own dream. You're too interested in your own dream. Someone has woken up beside you and started telling you their dream and you're still asleep and really. But you listen because you know it's polite to listen. But suddenly some line sticks out. And you wonder it's not ordinary mind. So read the koan like that and if something sticks out, let yourself feel that. It's a kind of way of reading that is useful actually in our life when we kind of...

[12:45]

Maybe if you've had too much to drink, something suddenly stands out from the last few days that you hadn't noticed before. I'm not recommending having too much to drink. I'm just saying that sometimes you want to get a feel for something that comes through to you, but it doesn't come through thinking. You're like you're going along and you're this and that is happening and you notice this and that. And you like some things, you don't like some things. Then you realize, you know, I don't like my life.

[14:01]

I don't like the whole thing. And that's a different kind of perception which is hidden from you because it's so obvious in terms of, well, this is okay and that's not okay and so forth. And then you might feel a tremendous freedom because you suddenly have a kind of joy of feeling you have a choice about your life. And that joy wasn't apparent at all when you were caught in, well, I like this part, I don't like that part, et cetera. And when you have a choice about your life, you feel you have a choice about your life, then you might even choose the life you have, but it's very different. Okay, so first I'm giving you a sense of the koan structure as something that pops out at you.

[15:31]

Like biting a kumquat. Do you have those in Germany? They look like little tiny oranges. And you eat them in a little fruit. Is that a kumquat? What are they called? Anybody know? Kumquat. They're like little oranges and you eat them in one bite and they kind of go boom. So now the koan we did last weekend had pretty clear surfaces in it. And the surfaces that were apparent once you saw them, it was possible to study those surfaces. But in this koan, the surfaces that are apparent, because language, sentences, the way a story is organized, there's certain lines like these spaces between the sections of an orange.

[17:09]

You can open this, you start reading this koan, it's maybe a little bit like peeling an orange. And you see there are certain, the sentences in the story make certain partitions, and it's like opening, taking the sections of an orange out. But you didn't get halfway or all the way through this koan and realize that you've been fooled. It wasn't an orange after all, it was actually a tomato. And where the structure was, was different. You had to see how to cut through it in a different way than is obvious.

[18:11]

Or sometimes it's a whole, you know, vegetable fruit market. Sometimes it's a kumquat, and sometimes a tomato, and sometimes a banana, and so forth. How did I get into this? When I was in high school, I used to be head of a produce section in a supermarket, and maybe I'm regressing here. I remember writing an essay. They gave me a good grade on potatoes, parsnips, and people. Oh, anyway.

[19:27]

So, if you're going to practice then, It's an obvious part of it. It's to achieve mental stabilization. So I want to talk about this mental stabilization in terms of structure. And I think I need to give, this would be a way to, this evening, to introduce you to the koan, to prepare you for the koan.

[20:37]

And prepare you for this koan. which I won't explain now why I call this Please Give Me Six Flowers. Okay. So, how do we start? And I have to say some things that make sense to those of you for whom this is quite new. Okay. So, mental stabilization. Does that phrase work okay in German? Right? because I'm gonna kind of work around this phrase so that you, as a kind of counterpoint.

[21:49]

Now a phrase that we've, a kind of phrase you can use in English, a kind of technical phrase, is calm, abiding mind. And we won't make the same mistake we made in Berlin when the translator, not Ulrike, translated it as karma-biting mind. Which people in the audience started laughing at. Image one of those computer games where this thing goes... Now if we have time on Sunday, we'll have some of the more advanced teachings about calm abiding mind, but for now we're talking about calm abiding mind.

[22:54]

Okay. Okay, so then we can ask, why not just say calm mind? Or already, I feel calm, I'm calm. Why do you say calm mind? Yeah. Okay, now, in some sense, I mean... An image often used for meditative calmness is a glass of muddy water.

[24:00]

And if you let it sit on the windowsill, overnight or for an hour or two, will settle out of it, and you have clear water with mud on the bottom. And this is a pretty useful image. But who wants to go around with mud on their bottom? And also, you know, if every time there was mud in your water, you had to sort of, I mean, all day long, you'd be sitting there like a glass of water, unable to drink.

[25:05]

And Suzuki Roshi used to say, dragons can't live in clear water. And fish can't live in pure water. They need some mud or food or something. So the question then is, could you have a kind of water which calmed the mud? Instead of trying to get rid of the mud, could the mud be different or the water be different? Okay, so these are versions using an image of basic questions Buddhism has asked itself in trying to develop meditative practice. Okay, so before we talk about

[26:08]

mental stabilization, let's talk about meditative stabilization. So, you've got to start somewhere. It's the easiest place to start with your posture. Very hard to stabilize your mind, but it's not so difficult to stabilize your posture. And yogic practice, which Zen is, as you know, has decided that this posture is the most stable. And you can sit on a chair, you can sit any way you want, as you know, but it helps to find a physical stability in your posture.

[27:30]

So the first step, and it continues the rest of your life, is developing, maintaining an ability to be physically still. And the first step, and this practice will extend over your whole life, is to find a way to sit still. OK. Learning to sit physically still is not too easy. OK. What happens when you really do learn to sit still?

[28:31]

Well, one of the things that happens is you may develop physical pliancy. Or a kind of mental pliancy. Now, this is not just a kind of phrase or an idea of being mentally pliant. The arrival of mental pliancy is signaled by certain physical experiences. So mental pliancy is something that's quite specific. It's an entity. So we have something here that's a new kind of category that's not joy, not sadness, not anger, but it's in the territory of a difference between being sad and being angry. And there's a difference between having mental pliancy and not.

[30:13]

Now, one of the signs of mental, the arrival of mental pliancy is you feel a kind of tingling in your brain and actually in your brain and in your scalp and things. Or you feel a kind of tingling or itching along the crest of your skull or the center of your skull. No, I'm not telling you this so that you will try this weekend to feel a tingle in your brain. Perhaps I'm telling you so that if you do start feeling a tingle in your brain, you won't think it's too weird.

[31:35]

It's just something that happens when you meditate. But really, I'm Not talking about whether you will or have or should have such an experience. Yeah. So I'm just talking about this as a territory of being alive. As you might have somebody talk to you about what it's like to play tennis, even though you can't play tennis. So again, I'm speaking about this as part of a way of working within yourself.

[32:41]

And I'm suggesting that you take... I'm suggesting that you notice the physical sensations that go along with thoughts, feelings, states of mind. Okay, so there's this mental pliancy is... Well, let's put it another way. Our states of mind are mostly involuntary.

[33:52]

Our states of mind, sometimes the phrase is used, are not serviceable. We can't use them. They're just there and we're kind of victims of our states of mind. So in a way we could say that making your state of this practice of mental stabilization is to make your states of mind and of being more serviceable. Or more participatory or more accessible. So you feel at ease inside yourself and feel at ease in your physical situation. So mental pliancy is a mental state with physical expression.

[34:57]

And it will create a kind of blissful feeling. Now this blissful feeling arises from a certain kind of concentration that you develop through sitting. Yeah, now it's not something that arises from your channels and chakras and things. That's a different kind of blissful feeling. So here we have a kind of, you'll begin to notice a kind of ease or good, a sort of nice feeling when you breathe.

[36:31]

Now, what you're doing, what's going on when this happens, and again, I'm not describing this so you try to induce it, but that you're open to noticing it. And I guarantee you, it's already present in you. And what's missing, if you don't notice it, is your ability to notice it, not that it's not there. So what I'm trying, what I'm suggesting is that you develop ability in your sitting to notice, but not expect. Now, Ulrike at the last seminar asked me about bliss in relationship to practice.

[37:52]

And since as many of you know, it's Ulrike's birthday today, and she's 39, So I thought as a birthday present I should talk to, I should answer a question. So when you are sitting and you feel some tingle here, say. Or you feel some good state of mind is present on your breathing.

[39:00]

And when you concentrate on that state of mind, or concentrate on your breath, it feels like your breath is rubbing on the inside of your body and creating a kind of blissful feeling. And when you don't concentrate on the sensation of the breath touching your body, You just feel a kind of good state of mind around you and in you. Now this is a little different than the mud settling out of a glass of water. And again, we're talking here about some structure like the difference between a What's a tomato like inside?

[40:09]

What's an orange like inside? So you'll notice that when you're able to sit still, certain physical sensations will be the root of or expression of certain states of mind. And these states of mind are sometimes the body and sometimes consciousness. Sometimes your mood, sometimes feeling, sometimes a particular sensation in a particular place in the body. Now, it takes quite a while to notice these things because it's you who's noticing yourself.

[41:16]

And it's hard to study. It's a little bit like when you look at a page of type. On a page, yeah. When you look at a page of type. Sometimes you can look in a little different way, and instead of looking at the words, you suddenly see there's rivers of space that wander down through the type. Now, in reading all the time, you can completely overlook those rivers. But sometimes you stop reading, and you're not trying to go anywhere, and all these little white rivers are running around the black tide. Then it's about the time your mother comes by and says, get back to studying.

[42:26]

Mom, did you ever notice these white rivers? What? Get back to... Yeah, well anyway. But if you don't notice them, you know, you don't. And nothing in the type, nothing in the words, and nothing in the way it's typed, nothing tells you to look at those rivers. You have to just one day see them. Well, there's lots of things that are part of your own structure, but nothing in the way thoughts, emotions, feelings work, show you there's rivers of energy moving between those things.

[43:38]

And if you could see in these, if you could see suddenly in a paragraph there was a kind of river of energy that was moving that actually was appearing sometimes in the words, then you'd have something like what's going on in you. So it's noticing This ability to notice is extremely important in practice. So first of all, let's continue this little idea. And first of all, you follow the words of your mind and your ego. At some point you notice there's these rivers, there's some other structure between thoughts and feelings and so forth. And that takes actually a more subtle kind of mind to notice.

[44:52]

Because unless your mind is fairly relaxed, you'll immediately flip back to, and your energy will pull you into the words, the thoughts, and so forth. So it requires a kind of new inner vocabulary or place where you can rest at an energy level where you don't get caught in the words and thoughts. So then when you notice those, what I'm calling these rivers of energy that that move in the spaces of your body and thinking and consciousness. Once you notice that, and then you relax a little more, you'll notice there's another pattern underneath those rivers.

[46:19]

And that third pattern can definitely not be seen from the first. The third pattern can't be seen from the words or thoughts. You have to be at the river level before you see the level that moves underneath that. So this kind of practice is really what I'm talking to you about. I'm not trying to tell you what to notice, but I have to tell you something about what to notice so I can talk about noticing. But you'll definitely be a more, can I say something negative, a more pedestrian Zen student if you try to notice what I'm talking about.

[47:33]

You have to be? You will be a more pedestrian. Pedestrian? Pedestrian? And it's much better if you just find ways to notice and not try to program what you notice. And if you worry about whether you're a pedestrian or not, you're even a worse student. So I'm teasing you a little bit. Okay. Okay. Now, I don't want to go on too long here, so I'd like to stop in 10 or 15 minutes.

[48:46]

So I just want to introduce this sense of working within your own interior consciousness. And by interior I mean a consciousness that you can't explicitly share, although it's implicitly shared. Now, you may find the kind of relaxation you need that allows you to notice these rivers within you, but it's very difficult to share a description of that relaxation with anyone. You can talk to somebody about the weather, the time, and where the pension is.

[49:57]

But it's very difficult to do anything but share formlessly these distinctions of relaxation or noticing within yourself. So this is a kind of unshareable interior consciousness, which I'm trying to increase your faith in and permission to enjoy and explore. And the ability to rest there, the ability to rest in interior consciousness is part of what is mental stabilization.

[51:18]

Until you can rest in interior consciousness, there's no mental stabilization. So again, let me say that when you feel a physical sensation that you can see as a root of a state of mind or mood, You're clearly working with a kind of alchemical merging of mind and body. Mind and body are not just ideas now. But you're actually feeling where they rub together and how they overlap.

[52:23]

And you're beginning to experience the kind of overlap. And when I'm talking about mental pliancy and physical bliss, I'm talking about inner structure of territory of mind and body overlap. And real mental stabilization means when mind and body are fully overlapped. Und wirkliche geistige Stabilisierung ist dann erreicht, wenn Geist und Körper sich voll überlappen. Now, that overlap can sometimes happen with the brightness of biting into a kumquat. Und diese vollständige Überlappung kann manchmal auftauchen, wenn man diese Strahlkraft erfährt, bei dem Hineinbeißen in eine kumquat. That's one way of practice.

[53:23]

Das ist eine Art zu praktizieren. In its fullest expression, that's Dharmakaya practice. But Sambhogakaya practice, the bliss body practice, is to begin to see how the pieces, the sections of tomato, the sections of orange fit together perhaps with a section of grapefruit. And you can actually feel these sections. So there's a kind of mental pliancy in which all your states of mind begin to feel more intimate with you. And you seldom feel your states of mind are doing something to you or you're at the mercy of your states of mind.

[54:24]

Even if you feel that way, you feel you're still exercising in the middle of it. You're still a participant. Now, just to finish this teaching a little bit, let me talk about the stages a bit. that this onset of a kind of mental pliancy where you feel present in your states of mind leads to a kind of joy in the body, a kind of gratitude that keeps coming up. And that joy and that gratitude then begins to produce physical pliancy.

[55:38]

And your body begins to feel kind of relaxed and at ease inside, and actually it is softer. Suzuki Roshi used to say in his early lectures, I want you to have a soft mind. And that's what he said in English, trying to find a way to say something out of Buddhist Japanese. And out of his own experience, of course. But, you know, there's an expression in English that that person is a little soft-headed. Which means both he's not very effective, but also he's, you know,

[56:40]

So when we first heard that, we said, soft-headed, soft mind? you know, took a little, what is he talking about? I mean, it's not such a small thing when somebody tells you something, this wonderful little Japanese Zen master, Which, I mean, something you've never heard in school and college, you should have a soft mind. And that he means your soft mind means you have a soft body too. I mean, this takes some time to kind of grok. Now the sense of soft mind and soft body, I think many of you may have, if you've been sitting quite a bit or in sashin, and after a period of zazen, your skin will feel just like a baby's bottom, I mean, a baby's skin, you see.

[58:30]

Quite a nice feeling. But this is a sign that mind and body are rubbing, are merging with each other. And so when you really can look at the world from the point of view of zazen mind, It means you've developed a mind as a kind of entity that rests in a fluidity or pliancy of mind and body together. And after a while, this doesn't fluctuate.

[59:32]

You may have thoughts and feelings and so forth, but still at the center of it there's this steady feeling of a kind of physical, mental gratitude or joy. Excuse me. You may have various kinds of thoughts and feelings. And sometimes it's more present than others, but it begins to leave traces. Even when it's not there, it's quite easy to come into it again. Now, what we've done here, if you do this, is you've explored a structure of consciousness and awareness. a structure of thoughts and feelings and be able to distinguish between them.

[61:00]

And you begin to feel a kind of field in which thoughts and feelings arise and energy that moves within this. Technically, these are actually called winds. One of the signs of mental buoyancy is said to be, though you have to be a monk to know it, it's like a warm hand on your shaved head. And it's when that happens, you don't have to wear a hat anymore. Your head doesn't get cold, even though shaved. Ha! Ha! Okay.

[62:09]

Now, when you begin to feel this... I'm almost done. When you begin to feel this overlap, this stream of mind and body joining, Which is an actual physical feeling. And it's an actual... What can I say? It's real and in the category of anger... sadness, etc. It's an emotion, it's in the category of emotion, feeling, sadness, but there's no word for it. And one thing we can call it, which I started out with, is calm abiding mind. Und etwas oder eine Art, wie wir es beschreiben können, und diesen Begriff habe ich euch schon vorhin gegeben, ist dieser ruhig verweilende Geist.

[63:27]

Es ist die Stille in den Wellen. Und es ist eine Stille und eine Ruhe, die verweilt. In the middle of activity. In the middle of the muddy water. And then if thoughts appear, they tend to melt of themselves. They're like bubbles and then they kind of melt. They may be present, but they don't have their own continuum. So you don't have to push thoughts away anymore or distractions or the mud. Because you've found a way to rest in a kind of entity of a feeling of gratitude or blissfulness.

[64:29]

No, I'm not telling you this is a reward for good karma. Or something that, I don't know, it's not, this is not in the category of good or bad. I think all I could say is it's the experience of being without the baggage. And now the baggage is carried quite lightly. And so what you've done here is by studying not just the body, but the sense of structure, body, mind, etc. And the more subtle structure of pliancy and lack of pliancy.

[65:43]

Mental pliancy, physical pliancy. physical and mental bliss. Then you've begun to see that the thoughts that appear within your continuum dann fängst du an zu sehen, dass die Gedanken, die innerhalb deines Continuums entstanden sind, und die Emotionen und inneren Haltungen, die innerhalb des Continuums entstehen, werden dadurch beeinflusst, wie die Strukturen deines inneren Bewusstseins wahrnimmst. Now last week we talked about how the breath is the main gate of practice.

[66:53]

And again, this is true. It's true in this seminar as well as last seminar. So I'd like us to sit for just a few minutes. With a sense of your breath as home base. If it's possible. Nice and warm. Amen.

[68:40]

Well I feel very grateful to have these couple of days now to discuss Buddhist practice. I don't like to express my appreciation too much because I think I could sound like a politician. I actually consider it kind of magical that we're willing to come together for this time to discuss the Dharma.

[70:37]

A little bit like in this khan, you know, I feel that we've all pointed to this ground and there's a sanctuary created here at least for a couple of days. And I suppose if I had my way, I would have us at the beginning and end of seminars have a little ceremony or maybe offer incense or something at the beginning. Maybe we could have a stick of incense and the discussion could end when the stick of incense burned out. But I guess for some people in Europe I have an image of being very informal in the way I teach Buddhism.

[72:00]

In fact we had one person come from Europe to a sashin at Creston. And it's... The sashins in Europe are usually full unless you apply in advance and so forth. And so he could get into the sashin in Crestone more easily. So he arrived in... Found we were all in robes and blowing incense and ringing bells. He said, this isn't like you in Europe. You don't do this in Europe. And he left during the first day of Sushina, I believe.

[73:19]

Isn't that right? In the morning, yeah. He came actually because he said of all the Buddhist teachers in Europe, I was the most informal. So maybe if I started offering incense and things in seminars, people wouldn't like it. I don't know. But anyway, for me it's not about religion so much as it's just a way of expressing something. And right now it's my way of expressing my feeling for these occasions when we come together. And that Ulrike and I found a way to work and teach together that is very satisfying for me.

[74:31]

Okay. Now, if there's a number of you here who weren't here last night, And I can't repeat what I said last night. Because I can't remember what I said last night. Anyway, I talked, I don't know what I talked about. You could translate that. I can't remember. Yeah, well, but perhaps rather than say something briefly about last night, I'll refer to it today, now and then, if I feel it's necessary.

[75:41]

Now, is there anyone who has something to say or you'd like to bring up from last night? Or is there any part of the koan that kumquatted you, that jumped out at you? Well, that's right. We discussed produce last night. All right. So. Anyone have anything to say?

[77:02]

I'm also very touched about this feeling to erect a sanctuary because I remember when I first came here with Götze and Monika, we talked with Matthias about using this place. He pointed out that he feels that this place is very much a holy place or an old Celtic place. He feels on this place a lot of different things have happened and that's why people also built these churches. And I feel so touched by the place here, these two churches together, and these Protestant Catholic priests now bringing Buddhism here, and us being able to be here. Yeah. You want to say that in German? Yes, I have the feeling that Koan fits very well for the place here, where he shows the world on earth on the ground and says, here we are building a sanctuary. I also feel that this is a very holy place here, this hill.

[78:07]

And when I first looked at the place here with Götz and Monika and we saw Matthias, He told me that this is also his feeling, that this is an old Celtic cult place and that later the old church was built and then the Protestant church next to it. So David, do you know any Celtic songs you could sing us in German or English? Well, as soon as a single mote of dust arises, the whole earth is contained therein.

[79:15]

Doesn't Blake say something like this? Does he be in a mess in the graves? You can see the universe in a grain of sand. What's the difference between Blake saying it and just it being said in Buddhism? Is it the same kind of spiritual, aesthetic, religious experience? Why not? I'm not Blake, so I don't know exactly, but let's assume that it's the same. Ich bin nicht Blake und so weiß ich das nicht genau, aber gehen wir einmal davon aus, es ist dasselbe.

[80:35]

Aber es gibt einen Unterschied. Diese Aussage passt in eine bestimmte Struktur des Bewusstseins. Und so werde ich versuchen, darüber etwas zu sagen. Aber nicht jetzt. Okay, with a single horse and a single lance, the land is extended. Hmm, geez, what did that mean? Okay, who is this person who can be master in any place? who can be master in any place, and meet the source in everything.

[81:41]

This already, I mean, I think you could take as your, there's many possibilities here already, but you could take as a first kind of koan, do you meet the source in everything? And what would that mean to you? What does meet mean? As we've talked about, many of us have an experience of a kind of glass wall or plastic clear wall between us and the world. And as I said, if you have that experience, you're already way beyond the person who doesn't even notice that they feel that that's there, but they don't see it there. So even if that wall isn't there, then still what is meeting?

[82:48]

And what's meeting the source? What's the source? What's different between an object and the source of an object? And everything? I mean, that's a lot. Every time, everything. So first of all, I'm just reading this the way you read a koan, sort of little unit by unit, getting a feeling for what the full possibilities could be. Now as Mr. Who here in the case, the world-honored one, was walking with the congregation.

[84:09]

And he wandered to a place between a Catholic church and a Protestant church. And he pointed to the ground and said, the Celts were here once. I don't know if you can, but that's, you don't see where that's written, but it's written in the rivers of space between the words. And then he said, this is a good spot. This spot is good to build a sanctuary. And Indra, I don't know how he got in there, except... You know, there's a little politics here, Buddhism making the Hindu gods their kind of attendants. Or at least to put gods in context as aids, servants of people. Anyway, Indra, the emperor of the gods who was no slouch.

[85:27]

How did you translate who was no slouch? Who was no weakling? Oh, yeah, okay. Who was no slouch. And he took a blade of grass, stuck it in the ground and said, the sanctuary is built. Und der nahm ein Grashalm, steckte es in den Boden und sagte, das Heiligtum ist errichtet. And the world honored one grinned, I mean smiled. Und der von der Welt verehrte grinste, also lächelte. It's a big portrait of the grinning Buddha. Es gibt ein großes Portrait eines grinsenden Buddha. When's the last time the Buddha smiled? Man hat den Buddha ja zum letzten Mal gelächelt. when Mahakashpa held up the flower and the Buddha and Mahakashpa smiled.

[86:32]

Okay. Well, that's enough for now. Again, does anybody have, you had something, breakfast you asked me, can't you ask me now? Yeah, the question about what I stumbled about again and again is the question, where am I or where do I find myself? Where I'm located, where I move in the skandhas, in the five skandhas, because when it's described What you described, for example, I seem to understand, feel I understand it, but when I'm alone, I'm actually feeling lost, but I don't know where I am.

[87:37]

How do I find out? probably what my generation is at the moment. It's good. [...] Okay. Well I'm not going to explain the five skandhas, I don't think. And your problem anyway is that you've heard the five skandhas explained quite a bit and yet you wonder what your own territory of experience is within them.

[88:48]

You know, I love the time after seminars and lunch and sometimes when we have a little food or a drink in a restaurant. Because people start using these terms in amusing ways. You know, I'm trying to figure out something on the menu and somebody says, well, I can read the menu for you if you don't mind my using borrowed consciousness. This is a distinction between immediate, secondary and borrowed consciousness. And I likewise hear people saying, well, the other night I was in the third skanda. Yeah, then I was in the second skanda later on in the evening.

[90:08]

It's great. I don't know what the hell they're talking about, but it's great. Because we learn something if we just try out these things. You try them out, at some point they are actually familiar to you. I mean, I'm sure this is the first time in world history that so many Europeans are thinking about which skanda they're in. It's a scandal. Excuse me.

[91:00]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_72.82