But if some talented person comes along who translates these things into German and English in a way that really works for chanting, I'm happy to go along. I'm just not talented enough. I'm not satisfied with the English or German translation of the Heart Sutra, and I've been I've been planning to do my own version sometime, but I have other things that take precedence. Sorry, I don't have an answer. The answers are longer. Sorry. Someone else?

[01:12]

Yes? I would like to tell you something and ask you something. Okay. Several people mentioned in the group the discussion we had that kind of sleepiness and being tired comes up during the meditation and also during the talks. Sorry, if I talk about my experience, it's not that there is a physical or bodily tiredness. Since I watched it, So I'm watching it and I'm asking myself the question, how comes it that although there is no physical tiredness, there's like a mental tiredness coming?

[02:40]

And it's felt as though as I stopped talking. Did you get me down here just to tell me this? I came to ask you what this is about. Do you have that when you're feeling sleepy during the lecture, is it that you still feel you're hearing? Yes. You probably are. Yeah, I mean, it's common in Zen.

[03:52]

For during lectures, a large percentage, sometimes all, nods. Yes, a large percentage, sometimes all, nods. I feel lucky. Usually it's not all. But in comparison with the sashins I did, I didn't realize that it was happening during sashins as much. It didn't, in other words, it seems to have happened in this practice week more than for you during the Sashin. It happens more now than during the Sashin. Yes. I have an idea.

[04:53]

I think perhaps in the Sashin you are in a different state of mind and in the practice week you always jump from one to the other. So I just have an idea that maybe in Sashil you are in a certain state of mind, but during a practice week you are changing from one state of mind to another and forth and back. Yeah, it may affect it. I think what... What's going on is that the mind which listens to... A Zen talk isn't the ordinary waking mind. You have to hear it more physically. And ideally the teacher brings you into that state a bit.

[05:53]

But that state is also somewhat close to sleep. So if we're in a state of mind which is awake but could go to sleep. We often lose a physical hold on our body. But you can get so that your body can be almost completely gone. And you can really hear clearly. Even though the teacher knows this, it's not so encouraging for him. No, I don't want to tell you any stories like that.

[07:12]

But I will tell you a funny story, though. No, maybe I shouldn't tell you that. Maybe I shouldn't. Yeah, I can tell you. I've told you before. But this guy, he was the head monk. And he was sitting beside me. And he would fall asleep constantly. And when it is us in mind, It triggered sleep body. And as the head monk, he shouldn't just be sitting. I mean, this was too much.

[08:19]

I mean, like this, maybe I can sort of accept. But, you know, when his head is right behind him. So I thought, okay, I'm going to get him. And in those days I always had my stick in front of me. So I'd be sitting and he'd be... So I'd reach my hand out and he'd be... And I can't really hit him when he's just sitting there. So like this went on for days, I would try to figure out how to, you know, kind of... So I had another stick in my dog's hand room. So I brought it in and I put it back here. So under my robe, right?

[09:32]

So while I was sitting, you know, you're sitting like this, but they have these big sleeves, so my hand is right here. So I'm keeping the sleeves still, right? And he's completely down. Wow! Wow! He sat right up, you know. A few minutes later, pull. Yeah. Is that the reason, and she said that we did it in the very first session, use the Keisaku. Is that the reason why we're using it? No, no. I don't know.

[10:35]

The stick is, I like the stick, but in Germany particularly people didn't like the stick. Also, sprichst du über den Stock und ich mag ihn sehr gerne, aber gerade in Deutschland gibt es Leute, die ihn nicht sehr mögen. Ich meine, in Japan nutzt man das da, um diesen Wechsel zwischen Sazen-Geist und dem normalen Geist immer wieder da hervorzurufen. So in Japan, is it used to work with this change between ordinary mind and southern mind? Yeah, I suppose. But, I mean, you could look at it that way, but really it's just simply when people get sleepy, Or they, you know, if you hit them here, it helps them wake up. And they're probably not sleepy in the ordinary sense, but... Still, they don't have an upright posture.

[11:40]

So I usually use the stick sometimes to straighten postures. I don't use it to hit much. Did you use it in Creston, this practice period? Some practice periods we have used it. It's nice that all the time you're sitting, somebody's walking, carrying a stick, and there's a kind of nice alert feeling about it. Something else? And in another session I experienced it as very helpful. I didn't like it at all. So someone walked around and he was asked.

[12:53]

He just didn't do it randomly. But even when we've done it and carried it in the early days in Rosenberg, even I remember a guy who was a martial arts teacher broke into tears when he heard someone else hit. No. I gave up. Generally, you have to ask, but... Sukhya used to get up sometimes and whirl around through the zendo, the whole zendo, hitting everybody twice... You could feel his sleeves. It was like a roo. It was nice. But it's a body culture. If you embarrass somebody verbally, In the monastery, for instance, you can get really punched or they can gang up on you.

[14:15]

It can be pretty tough in these Japanese monasteries. But if you, you know, like... when I was in a heiji, they'd come up and they'd hit you or push you or kick you. And where I grew up, you don't do that to other people. But that's okay, but you don't offend somebody verbally. So physical contact is a different thing. But verbally it is not allowed to get hurt, but to push through physical contact. At first I was quite annoyed by all this pushing and poking, I think. But it gives you an idea how different it is.

[15:17]

You can be, say, on an elevator in a public place in Japan and say you're pregnant. A stranger may come up and put their hand on your tummy. Oh, how's the baby in there? And things like that, you know? I've never done that in a German elevator, too. Hey, how's your baby? What's up? What? Man or woman, you know? I mean, if you kind of winked, too, and, you know, maybe you'd get in trouble. Do what? Kind of? Winked. How's your baby? We were going to talk about instruction.

[16:23]

I guess this is instruction. So someone else? For me it was very helpful your first teaching when you asked us to stay in the But today I realized that I took the form too strong and now I have to allow to sit in another way. You mean to sit in the center. You can follow the schedule on a chair, too. Maybe that's one of the... The wrong direction.

[17:45]

Yeah, I like that. Someone else. There's only one group, so I can't ask you all to report. Andreas? If anyone hasn't said anything, want to say something, I know that's an oxymoron. An oxymoron is something that contradicts itself, like American culture. I don't really believe that, you know. America has an extraordinary culture.

[18:48]

There's some bad sides to it. But that's one of the first things I was told when I came to Germany. What's the difference between yogurt and America? One has a living culture. You think it's funny, huh? The trouble with America is its living culture is living all over the place. Yeah. So there's no comments at all on what I asked about instruction and practice and what kind of instructions are helpful.

[19:59]

Peter, you made some notes. You wrote something down. Maybe you can just say anything. They were like people individually talked about their experience, didn't they? One thing that was explained to me was, for example, the experience of working with the guide and not scratching. And something that came back over and over was your saying, or this saying, don't scratch.

[21:06]

And the experience was that you come into different states when you don't scratch. In comparison, these are states you wouldn't reach if you would scratch. Yes. One person said that when he scratched, the itching just disappeared. And one person talked about that he scratched and then the itching came up somewhere else. Yes. It moves all over the place. And that stopped when he stopped scratching. It's interesting also, if you really notice it, the itching is often related to acupuncture points.

[22:27]

Sometimes you scratch one place, it then moves to another place, often close to an acupuncture point. So something's happening to your energy body, literally. It's good to let happen. So go ahead. So it was important just to see that this instruction was on a mental level. And then through practice it's turned over on this physical body level.

[23:52]

And that triggers and makes the change. And then experiences with practicing with words or sentences that they By doing it over and over again, they stretch over the place. And by doing it over and over again, they also show results in stress situations. Was there a feeling from many people that they could use phrases?

[24:54]

Well, I can ask you. How many people have found phrases useful to practice with? Well, that's almost everyone. Okay. It gives some people the urge for more guidance. Several people had the wish to have more instructions, get more. That was connected with an uncertainty of what they should pick out of what you offered in your talk to practice.

[26:05]

So the feeling was that they are picking something but not knowing if it's the right one, so to speak. And the kind of opposite pole was that the feeling of being nourished was the base for choosing certain practices. And some, there were also people saying that there is too much to choose of, too many possibilities. Yeah.

[27:19]

And there was the experience that the postures or the forms give a lot of support. Yes. Then the basic feeling then came up that whatever comes up has room to express itself, come up. And then one could just let much more happen. Yeah, then there was the the radiance of a person is a kind of instruction.

[28:31]

Which led to the point that the person who mentioned it changed his life. And someone talked about the inner alchemy of the breath. to observe the breath from different points of view or different ways. For example, just at the nose or throughout the whole body. Is this a... That was experience as a form of getting to know oneself and experience oneself.

[30:03]

Someone mentioned that the change from remember to taking refuge, that that change was very important. Along with the acceptance... along with the example of the breath. It was difficult for him to remember the breath. But when he heard to take refuge in the breath, it triggered something else. And then we have to tune the instructions in half.

[31:23]

Then there were people talking about to get instructions through or by posture. Through the posture, yeah. Yeah. that they were talking about that they, like, park or hold in in their posture and find their identity in the posture. Mm-hmm. Es gab hin und her berichtete, dass sie eine Leber der Augenblicklichkeit, Someone was saying that the teaching of the momentariness was important for him not to gain for anything.

[32:36]

And to be aware about as much as possible in the moment. And that's a posture where he just could just let everything come to him. And he felt that as coming home or coming back into a center that is not graspable. In general, I would say that teaching or instruction is also a very great help. Empathy over experience, to reflect on experience or to have a vocabulary for it. Someone else, in more general terms, said that instructions were very helpful to think or talk about experiences, like vocabulary.

[34:15]

What instructions? My instructions? Instructions in general? Mine? Oh, okay. I spoke more about the lectures, but sometimes I think it goes to, like, a storehouse, words, and through breakfast it clicks. It's something like, oh, that's this. And then maybe last lecture, I hope that's what happened. What?

[35:25]

Is that about it? Yes. Maybe one more. And last. There were so-called open instructions. That means they just show you a way, but don't give you a result. So it was positive. One last thing, instructions that are kind of open, that point towards a path but don't point to a goal or something you want to reach, they were felt as very helpful. He's asking Dieter if he had also talked about instructions in terms of to get the allowness to do certain things. Permission. Permission. Yeah, a lot of teachings are about permission.

[36:38]

Okay, thanks. Well, there's a couple of things I can't do much about. One is... But sometimes you have too many choices. You're just going to have to make a choice. And the other is that... Sometimes you need more instruction. And that's certainly going to be the case. I mean, you may mean something other than I'm speaking about now. Thank you for making our dinner. But there's lots of things... I mean, we're too diverse a group.

[37:59]

I mean, you need instructions, perhaps, that you've had, and you need instructions that you've had, and I can't... You know, if we would all start together in a practice period, and we'd all start together, I mean... If this was an urban zendo... And most of the people came from, say, Hamburg or Munich. Then we could make sure that all new people had certain basic instructions. Yeah, and there could be classes and things like that. But in this situation, there's not a way we can... There are certain teachings I just don't want to go over again.

[39:07]

There are certain instructions. I mean, I love giving basic instructions like how to do kinhen. How you breathe through your heel, how you bring energy up your back. But I can't explain all that over and over again. Every time there's a new person. I do nothing but that every seminar. I hear my genes calling. Yeah. But if it's important to someone, some specific instruction that they would like, then that's what doksan is for?

[40:15]

Or just coming up and asking me or asking some person who looks like they might know? That's really important enough. You'll find out. Okay. Yeah? Do you want to say something? Yeah, I wanted to and I mentioned it a little bit in the group, I just wanted to mention that for me, verbal instructions are important, but it's very important that physical instructions, by doing it together, are as important or maybe even more important. So it's this doing together as two people or the whole group itself is an instruction.

[41:17]

Yes. I wanted to add, and I briefly talked about it, that it is important to hear and to receive the language instructions, but it is also important to receive these physical instructions by doing something together, together or in the whole group. It is this common doing that is an instruction for me. Yeah, if a group of people is sitting regularly, one's not there in the morning and everyone feels it. And this, what I'm speaking about this week, is imperturbable mind. Is... Perhaps most of all caught from another person.

[42:23]

You feel it in another person and you take a moment, you take time when there's an opportunity and align yourself with that feeling. It kind of comes into you. And the emphasis on the hara, on this area, putting your strength here, is a lot about the imperturbable mind. Because it's not imperturbable body. It's imperturbable mind. So in a way it's related to this not scratching. And when you come into, when your body seems like it loses its boundaries, or you feel your body is more than

[43:39]

your boundaries. And which in a way is when your thought body drops off. An example of a thought body is this kind of thing. And someone points to a finger and you try to move it. Which shows that you're seeing your body as an image which gets mixed up this way. But your fingers, your right fingers, are still on your right hand. It is difficult to do, actually. Anyway... When the thought body drops off, or you come to a feeling where the sense of itches or scratches don't happen,

[45:01]

This sense of itching or scratching doesn't happen. It still helps to have some place to have a physical location. So when you lose your usual sense of physical location, you put it here. And you put it there with your breath and your whole body. But you also, and I've said, you know, like, you can do it by physically acting it. But you open the refrigerator door. I'm kidding. But you tend to see if you can move from here, walk from here.

[46:13]

Because this sense of an imperturbable mind is... is a physicality of mind. As I said the other day, you can really sit through whatever happens. Your mind becomes very still in that. I don't know. Too much talk.

[47:14]

Anyway, but I need to try to give you some feeling for it. That's what our practice is about, sharing these feelings as... as... In some way that's helpful. Because you feel dry or because you're producing a lot of saliva? It happened yesterday, first thing in the morning. You mean you kept your mouth filling with saliva and you wanted to swallow? I wonder if it had anything to do with not accepting something, not being able to swallow a cup.

[48:19]

Or it doesn't happen all the time. Well, it could be very... If you have some idea like that, maybe those ideas reflect what's happening. But there's a period in Zazen where... your mouth fills with saliva a lot. And one of the things that's helpful is to put your tongue at the roof of your mouth. And we just instruct people to do that. But there's lots of things going on when you do that. One is you're completing a certain kind of circuitry in the body when the tongue is at the top of the mouth.

[49:21]

And it seems like the, you know, parts of the body and brain which have emotions, digestion, are all emphasized at a certain stage of zazen. And that seems to stimulate saliva. But after a while it stops. I mean, one year or something. You have a little drain pipe coming out.

[50:26]

Yeah, you can have a dental thing, you know. Everybody can be hooked up. And what's the opposite happens when the mouth is completely dry or very dry? Without having snored while you were sleeping. Maybe you're not drinking enough. I mean, we should drink a couple liters a day. And I think in Zazen you... Then I can't sit anymore because I'm sitting somewhere else.

[51:31]

Well, maybe don't drink it right before Zazen. But... If you're drinking enough, your mouth should be okay. Sometimes a dry mouth is connected with your body's a little out of sorts or a little sick or something. I don't know, but I've noticed such things myself. But my mouth is more noticeably dry when I'm sleeping or sitting when I don't drink enough. But I realized that my mouth is more dry when I sit a lot and can't drink enough.

[52:23]

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