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Living Zen: Mindfulness in Motion

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The talk discusses the integration of Zen practice into everyday life, emphasizing the dynamic interplay between structured practice and daily routines. The discussion highlights how Zen practice is not intended to separate individuals from their daily experiences but to transform and enrich them through mindfulness and a deep awareness of life's fabric. The speaker references the works of Dogen, particularly the "Zamaio Zamaio," to illustrate how phrases from Zen texts can be contemplated in the context of personal life to infuse practice with vitality and intention. The talk also examines the Eightfold Path, with a focus on how speech, conduct, and livelihood serve as central components of daily practice. Participants engage in conversations about the challenges of maintaining practice in their daily lives, addressing personal motivation and societal perceptions.

  • "Zamaio Zamaio" by Dogen: This text is highlighted for its perspective on transcending ordinary life through Zen practice, indicating that the life realized in zazen is vastly different from usual life. The speaker suggests pondering its phrases in the context of one’s own life.
  • Genjo Koan by Dogen: Although not deeply discussed, it is mentioned alongside "Zamaio Zamaio" as another text to be contemplated deeply and personally.
  • The Eightfold Path: Highlighted as a key Buddhist teaching, the discussion centers on integrating aspects such as speech, conduct, and livelihood into daily practice, grounding philosophical ideas in actionable mindfulness.

AI Suggested Title: Living Zen: Mindfulness in Motion

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Good morning. Thank you all for being here. Can I be heard back there? Can my voice be heard back there? Although many of us in this group have been practicing together for several days now. Yeah. Still, some of you are new. now and new to practice even. So whenever I start a new practice or a practice with new people, I have a kind of hesitation.

[01:02]

I don't want to disturb you. Yeah. But I know it's maybe my job to disturb you. Yeah, disturb. At the same time, you know, your, whatever your life is, it's, you know, why should we disturb it with practice? But you wandered in the door, so, you know, here you are. And now you're eating differently and waking up differently and so forth.

[02:10]

Well, what makes a practice like? What gives life to practice? Yeah. Well, it helps, actually, that we did a seminar just now. And before the seminar, we had what we called a pre-day. We met morning and afternoon before the seminar started. And that group, which was about half the seminar, carried, I think, helped carry their starting practice into the seminar.

[03:17]

And now we've got about half the seminar. seminar stayed for this week. So that carried, I think that will carry into this practice week. If you say so. So I'm trying to answer the question, you know, what is practice, you know, a life of practice? Yeah.

[04:30]

What's practice here in this place? And what's practice for you in your particular life? I think it's... A question in many ways we can answer. And in many ways, yeah, we can't answer it. But the effort to answer it is a kind of answer. Yeah, we want... I mean, part of our commitment as practitioners is to stay in touch with... you know, the awareness of daily life.

[05:44]

Yeah, our personal daily life, of course. But also the daily life of our society and our friends and so forth. So we don't want to... We're not talking about separating ourselves through practice from daily life. Yeah. Yet still there's some difference. Did we... Was the... This Zamaio Zamaio given out this morning? No. Oh, so what did you look at this morning? What did you look at this morning? What did you look at this morning? Oh, shucks. I have to stop now then.

[06:46]

Yeah. Well, anyway, you're going to get the samadhi, whether you like it or not. It's the king of samadhi, samadhis. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to miss that. Yeah. Yeah. But in it, Dogen says, the life we realize in sitting is completely other than our usual life.

[07:47]

So we have to wonder, what does he mean? Wir müssen uns fragen, was meint er. And he says in the beginning of this Zamaio Zamaio. Und am Anfang dieses Zamaio Zamaio sagt er... To transcend life directly. Das Leben unmittelbar zu überschreiten. And... to establish the magnificence of the Buddha ancestors' house, is to sit in zazen. So what, you know, we have to ask, what is Dogen talking about?

[08:47]

And part of this practice life, Zen practice life at least, is to make use of the teachings. And in this case, in this seminar, I think Dogen, in this practice week, Dogen. And how can, you know, I'd like to help you read Dogen. You can't read it really for information, of course. Yeah. Maybe it's not exactly poetry either. And so what I suggest is, whether it's the Genjo Koan or Samay-o-Samay, that you really just take phrases.

[10:20]

Ihr nehmt wirklich nur einzelne Sätze. And you ponder the phrases rather independent of the text. Und ihr denkt über diese Fragen nach oder wägt sie unabhängig vom Text. Yeah, and ponder them also more, almost more in the in the context of your own life than in the context of the text. We could say that each sentence is meant to find a life in you before you go to the next sentence. Yeah. So, practice life is also the schedule we have here.

[11:35]

Anyway, this week is some version of a pretty ancient tradition practicing Zen together. It has various reasons for it. Most simply, it's to break your usual habits or be different from your usual habits. Der einfachste ist wohl... Because our habits and our moods begin to take control of us. And it's very hard to think clearly, to see clearly, when we're mostly controlled by our habits. So we need to force ourselves

[12:51]

a little bit of force ourselves out of our moods and habits. But how does this schedule differ from just, you know, scheduling a boarding school or something? Yeah, well... Maybe it's pretty much the same. Yeah, but actually I don't think so. Here each, you know, the day is divided into units. And each unit is equal to each other unit. It's not really about getting to the Zendo or getting to class or something like that.

[14:07]

Yeah, it's more like the period in which the Han or the Densho, the bell or the wooden board, is being hit. is equally important with the zazen itself. Yeah. So the schedule is actually... looks like an ordinary schedule. But it's not really a schedule to get you somewhere. It's a schedule to take away time. Yeah, to stop time. Yeah, so just whatever the particular is, that's all there is.

[15:23]

And there has to be a schedule or you'd all just be standing in the hall all day long. There has to be a schedule, or if you really just stopped time, everyone would be just standing in the hall all day. So we need to know what to do next. After a while, the schedule says, go and stop in the next part of the schedule. No, I'm not talking about this just to make sense of the schedule here. But I'm also speaking about it to, can we make sense of some quality of this kind of schedule in our daily life.

[16:29]

Now, what we've been speaking about during this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is the eightfold path. Now, in the center of the Eightfold Path is our own life. You know, the beginning and end are Buddhist, maybe. But the middle is just our life. And, yeah... speech, conduct, and our livelihood. So how does speech, conduct, and our livelihood become a life of practice?

[17:31]

And when speech, conduct, and livelihood become a practice, our practice... Yeah, it's... They extend into the beginning of the eightfold path and extend into the end of the eightfold path. And this afternoon in the discussion, or if you want, in your meeting together, you can look at the eightfold path. You can look at the Eightfold Path during the discussion. And maybe I bring it up when we meet in the other room this afternoon. So I'll just say this much, that the center of the Eightfold Path, if you're not familiar with it, the center is

[18:34]

Your own speech, your own conduct, your own livelihood. And you bring attention to that. Like attention that makes you aware of the fabric of your life. And the fabric of your life, too, even in ways that doesn't seem related to this particular moment. Yeah, just the fabric of this moment, even though it seems disparate or unrelated. Do you know the word disparate?

[19:59]

Disparate? Not desperate. It could be desperate too, but disparate means unconnected. Yeah, disparate or what was the other one? Desperate. No, no, no. You said disparate or unverbunden or separate. Yeah, all right. Whatever is good. So we bring mindfulness, awareness, attention to the details of our life. We bring awareness bodily awareness through our breath into our speech. And we bring the way things are understood, how they actually exist as dharmas into our conduct.

[21:11]

And into our livelihood we bring an awareness of how we exist, really exist with others. Yeah, so that in that way we're, you know, this is also bringing, bringing, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Finding ways to identify our life. Ordinary ways. There's lots of ways we can identify our life. The ancient tradition to historical Buddhist time of the Eightfold Path, made a decision to point out these three aspects of our life.

[22:24]

Our speech, our conduct, and our livelihood. I suppose It's not so different than our parents would do it. But here it's how to bring a certain kind of attention and mindfulness into each of these areas. Yeah, and when you read this Samae o Samae, I think it's good to look at it not just as Buddhism, but also as a kind of history.

[23:40]

Dogen was in the early part of Buddhism and the very early part of Zen coming into Japan. So look at it from that point of view. And India was far away. The historical Buddha, millenniums away. Yeah, so how was he going to make this real for himself and for the people he practiced with? So I think if you can read it with that historical sense, you can...

[24:40]

the Buddhist sense of it will have more depth for you. The Buddhist sense will make more sense to you. Have more depth for you. Yeah, and... then the question is, is this true for us too? If you really want to bring whatever you understand as Buddha's life, if you have the confidence to imagine this possibility in your own life, How do you realize this? How do you actualize this in your life? So that's the kind of question I'd like to... to concentrate on during this seminar, this practice week.

[26:03]

And I'd like you to be patient with the schedule and see at the end of the week how it feels to you. Okay. Thank you very much. Vielen Dank. May our intentions equally penetrate every being and every place with the true merit of the Buddha Path. tujom nohem segandho onyom utyayin segandha O my God, I pray to you. O my God, I pray to you. O my God, I pray to you.

[27:17]

O my God, I pray to you. Eric has put us on the right path, which is to know who he is. BELL RINGS

[28:52]

So did you meet in small groups or did you just meet in a big group? And you had the question, I guess, or something like that, is practice, life of practice possible, something like that? What do you have? What was the question? Is that the question? What's this in my heart? Is this a question? Is this a question? Practice in daily life, that was the question. Was that the question? Yeah, I put out several questions. Oh, that's the one you picked. No, no, both practice life and baby life. I see. How they differ. Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to know your answers. You know, Dogen, had the same question.

[31:18]

Is practice possible? Why should I practice? This question was framed though by If we're already enlightened, why should we practice? Framing it that way is a little more punch. Yes, probably lots of people at that time in Japan in the beginning of the 13th century. had similar questions.

[32:21]

But we don't know their names. Why do we know Dogen's name? I would say you could say we know his name because he tried to answer that question. It just wasn't one of many questions. But he actually spent his life trying to answer that question. it was one of many questions it wasn't just one of many questions and I think you know there's a We don't want to start with his answers.

[33:32]

We want to, I think, start with his question and our own question. Because there's something creative about it. I don't know. I mean, creative. Quickening. Dynamic about a question. Actually, quickening, as I spoke a couple of years ago here, for obvious reasons, in English is the... first feeling a woman has that she's pregnant. So there's a quickening, perhaps, too, in having a question. Yeah. Because we really don't know if practice is possible.

[34:59]

Denn wir wissen wirklich nicht, ob die Praxis möglich ist. In our age. In unserem Zeitalter. In our society. In unserer Gesellschaft. No, we know we can practice, yeah, sort of, as a kind of healthy thing to do, like exercising. Wir wissen, dass wir auf eine Art praktizieren können, wie so als eine gesunde Sache, wie ein... Yes, it can be a kind of therapy or something like that. Yes, we can make some kind of progress. But really are we practicing Buddhism then? As I said this morning, India is far away. The historical Buddha is far away.

[36:09]

Even farther away for us than for Dogen. Why does this have some possibility for us? And if there is a possibility and you decide that there is a possibility, then what does it mean for your life? And what does it mean? What could it mean for the life of our society? So, anyway, what I'm saying is the good place for us to start this week is with, you know, really finding our own version of this question.

[37:26]

Making the question our own. Yeah, more important than whether we come to any answers. Yeah. So anyway, can I, can you, we have to do this together. Your Honor, is practice, I mean, together, can we conclude that practice is or is not possible? What is our experience of? Not to say, does somebody have something they'd like to say? Yeah. I would like to report from our group.

[38:30]

Oh, okay. there was a chaos in the group that it was composed of people who already have been practicing for quite a long time with you, also with you. Do they know anything? There were also people who just started to practice and then people who have been practicing zazen for maybe one or two years. Towards the end of the conversation,

[39:33]

I had the impression that everybody had found a possibility to integrate practice or zazen into their daily life somehow. At the same time, nobody was really satisfied with it. or not satisfied yet. Yeah, that's what I wanted to report. Yeah, that's what I wanted to report. Yeah. In our group we mainly talked about hindrances.

[40:59]

On the one hand about those hindrances that everybody experiences for themselves in their own practice. Essentially it was about, could you help me, ? Sloth. Sloth. Essentially, it was about sloth. For example, you are... I don't think any of us are slothful. Maybe like Maya says there, we're lacy.

[42:00]

Yeah, lacy. Slothful is really kind of... Also, träge, das hört sich... Slothful, das ist zu stark. Vielleicht faul, ja. When you... Maybe secretly you're slothful, but you clean up for the seminar. In Verborgen seid ihr also vielleicht slothful, aber hier leuchtet ihr. Volker said this is the way you come here for a seminar and you are kind of inspired. inspired and then after a while... Sloth sets in. Sloth sets in. Auf der anderen Seite wurde von näheren ausgeführt die Hindernisse, die sich sozusagen draußen, die jeder draußen in seiner Umwelt erlebt.

[43:03]

Also, das Verständnis... On the other hand, people talked about the hindrances that they meet in the outside world. Not being understood, hectic, competitiveness, the circumstances of your life. Maybe also other people can contribute. When Volker said that came to but really we immediately were on a very personal level when we talked about practice, although we don't know each other.

[44:12]

Interesting. Das ist interessant. Okay, anyone else? I also was in Beate's group, and when Volker talked, I remember that. That is a great question. Well, you can discuss that. I was not in Beatrice's group, but I remembered that when Volker... There's lots of Beatrices, anyway. He was in your group? Well, you have some similar facial expressions.

[45:16]

In the old age, you really have to make sure that you go through the practice so straight. And even if it's not just really important that you have support like here, in a monastery where you sit with people, where it's much easier. I remember that we talked about if it's maybe really too much to ask of yourself to be so straight in practice or if it's necessary to have support like here in the monastery to sit with other people and so forth. Yeah. Now group everybody started to say something about how do you bring the practice to your life. And you could see that for everybody the central issue was how to bring attention to one's life.

[46:45]

Of course, there are also the difficulties. The difficulties and where to get to the topic. In the profession, in which also the practice is tried to take in the professional work. So no useful work or things like that. But then there was a layer to the west, which then disappeared at that point. So we talked, then of course we talked about the difficulties and especially how to, in the context of livelihood, how there is a certain kind of pressure in, you know, for having a certain kind of profession. It's hard for me to remember, I don't know. There was also the topic of motivation and two aspects of that on two sides.

[48:11]

There were those who draw their motivation from experiences in meditation because they want to re-experience what they experienced there? On the other side, there was somebody who is sitting without knowing why, and the same is true for this seminar. And comes back again and again. Who's here in this practice week, he doesn't know why, but keeps coming back. Maybe it's good not to know why then. I see you more often. If you know why, maybe I don't see you again. Maybe two other aspects. How do you bring your attention?

[49:43]

How often or frequently does it happen every 100 kilometers when you're sitting or when you're driving your car? Yes. And another example was to really notice every step while you are on your way to your work. OK, thanks. Yeah. We also had in our group, we had the question whether it's helpful in practice to withdraw.

[50:45]

Particularly the question was, I'm now at Johanneshof or in Johanneshof for six weeks, whether it's good to choose a framework that makes it easier to practice? There was also the question of pain. Yeah. The question whether this is kind of a container or a safe place where you avoid the world or face it, face it or avoid it, address it or not.

[52:23]

So we found out that here you in a different way you meet your own pain and your imperfections more In a place like this, you mean? Simply because the possibilities of escaping are limited and you are more confronted with yourself. It is possible to go out, to do the Tantra, to feel something. And here you are really thrown back to yourself.

[53:26]

Yeah, you can in other places you can avoid things by maybe just with switching on the television or But here you you can't you are thrown back to yourself That's our But that the pain and the sadness that occurs is that it is also carried through the structure that is set up. You don't doubt or you don't have the question, do I get up or what do I do? It's clear what you do. Yeah. I've noticed. I understand. Okay, someone else?

[54:50]

I myself noticed that to bring the practice into one's life starts with little things. I'm mixing up German and English. How mindful am I when I'm cleaning things or go through a door? What else? Cooking. Yeah, cooking. I think sitting is like a catalyst for how things are in my life, where I notice things more easily.

[55:53]

Or I just notice them in the first place. And I think if I can manage to keep... Say it again. Say it yourself, please. I think if I can manage to keep out of the mindfulness and normal life and going to the Zen, then it will grow from the small, from the little things into all of my life. I hope so Okay I noticed for myself that it really was a decision for me Do I really want to change my life or not?

[57:06]

And I noticed that through sitting, through daily sitting, my life has changed. But I also noticed that for this new life, I sacrificed a part of my old life, where I sacrificed something. I am sitting together with three women. And in one of these women we noticed that she is really not willing to pay this price or make this sacrifice.

[58:24]

I think there is a lot of fear. What I observe for myself is that I'm really nourished by this new kind of life, by this sitting. That makes me happy. Okay, now. In our group we talked about a difficulty when it comes to practicing in everyday life. Our friends and sometimes our closest relatives don't know what we are doing here.

[59:29]

So it's not so easy to explain and so there are questions like where does he go? What is he doing there? How much does he pay? And people are, then there's something, there's a kind of insecurity and sometimes even distrust. Yeah, we talked about that. Just let me interrupt and say that I remember in the early days with Suki Roshi, Yeah, the main group of people, myself and a few others, were sitting every period in the morning and afternoon and going to every lecture and so forth. And there was a sort of nice young woman who started coming occasionally.

[61:03]

And she came three or four times twice a week, three or four times a week. Yeah. And she got a visitation from her family from the East Coast because they thought she'd become a religious fanatic. And I remember thinking, yes, if you start hearing your daughter's going to church four or five times a week, you think, I mean, even then I remember it struck me as incredibly funny. Because it was also completely understandable. Why did they think she'd become a religious fanatic? Anyway, the problem is... Quite a big one, actually.

[62:20]

Yeah. Okay, someone else? Yeah. In our group we started out with these concepts from the question, practice and daily life. In the beginning, it was quite easy to say everyday life is goal-oriented living and practice is not goal-oriented living. And in that also standards that we know in our everyday life and then new standards in the practice life that we are maybe not so

[63:28]

which we don't quite know how to use, how to deal with them. And the experience that there is a life that nourishes us and a life that depletes us. Or a way of life. Or a way of life. And the main focus in this polarity of daily practice and daily everyday life was the question

[64:50]

If practice is something that really nourishes us, why is it so difficult to do it in our daily life? And people gave examples from their experience when they experienced, they had unpleasant experiences when they tried to bring the practice to their daily life. For example, somebody said that practicing unlimited friendliness, he only got anger and... That's... Aggression from their spouse.

[66:08]

And he was almost... And she didn't really... She was unable to bear it almost. So much friendliness. So much friendliness. And considering other... And considering other examples we came to the point where maybe it's wrong to draw a line or separate practice and daily life. Yeah, that things belong together, that negative experiences are also part of it. Okay. Someone else? Noch jemand? That's a lot, so we don't have to have more, but if someone wants to say some more.

[67:26]

That's a lot, so we don't have to have more, but if someone wants to say some more. I noticed, or in the group, we noticed that Zazen can easily become an institution. In a negative sense, you mean? In a negative sense. For me, it's like, okay, I eat something quickly eating, and then I have to put on my robes, and then I have to sit. That's absurd.

[68:27]

So for weeks I didn't do zazen. I just watched the Buddha or I looked out of the window. In your robes or not? In your robes or not? With my robes. Chanting the heart sutra and bowing. If you look out the window in your robes, this is... Wenn du in deinen Roben aus dem Fenster siehst. Another point that I found interesting when I heard Christian speaking of his daily life and his practice, I asked him, what is everyday life for you? You live here at Johannesholm. And then it was clear for me that everyday life and practice merge or go together, mix.

[69:49]

It is a question of definition or attitude, what I understand as daily life or practice. Yeah. Yeah. I like sitting here listening to you. And I like... Yeah, the topic kind of interests me. And it would be good if during this week, We can each come to a clear idea of how practice is present, it could be present in our life.

[71:07]

It would be also good, I'd be happy if we could come to a feeling of You know, four or five, six ways in which practice can be part of our life. You know, four or five, six ways we all agree on. although only perhaps a few of them would work for us, for any one of us. Yeah, we already practiced two or three of them, and we might want to emphasize another one.

[72:14]

And it would be good, I think, if we could come to a feeling of practice that also allowed us to make use of others in our practice. Yes. How to make use of a place where our practice would flow easily into being at Johanneshof and then flow from Johanneshof back into our regular life. Yeah, and flow from Johanneshof into your life. In such a way, a place like this evolves.

[73:21]

Our practice evolves. Yeah. Now, you spoke about being here at Johanneshof as a container, something like that you said. He translated it that way. Well, in any case, yeah. I don't think so. You don't think so? Well, I think of Johanneshof as a container. And talking about this with you brings me back a lot to my deciding to practice. Well, really, there were two questions.

[74:22]

One was deciding to practice. And that sort of just happened to me. But deciding how to practice, that took some time. Yeah, and I suppose I realized that Part of my deciding to practice the way I do now was that I knew how much help I needed. I knew that... Without Suzuki Roshi's help, I couldn't have done it.

[75:38]

And then I saw how practicing with others made my practice possible. So part of my decision was that I needed help, and I could get help by finding a way to keep practicing with others. But then I saw how much it helped me. So I've spent a lot of my life making containers for other people to practice. Because the container helped me, so I I tried to make containers to help others. No, I don't know if container is exactly the right word. And I don't think there's anything, you know, some people get into, well, I should be strong enough to do it on my own.

[76:48]

I shouldn't need the help of a group. It's something artificial about coming here. I want to come to a practice center. It's artificial. What isn't artificial? Everything's artificial or art, one of art. And if you're a happy tree, you know, you're glad if it rains. But if somebody comes with a hose, you don't care. That's nice, too, you know. Somebody comes with a hose to water you. So I think of Johanneshof as sort of like a hose. So maybe the lineage is like a hose from Buddha. Watering our practice, you know. And, you know, what you were saying, I find you talked about how to handle things.

[78:18]

And Dogen has a phrase I found very useful in that. Treat everything like it was your own eyesight. What he means by that on one hand is, because it's rooted in an expression that Gold in your hand is great, but in your eye it's kind of a problem. Gold dust, you know. So you have to treat your eyes rather carefully. But in actual fact, when you look at something, it is your own eyesight. So that's one aspect of bringing practice into your life.

[79:21]

Is to have a phrase like that. You don't necessarily have to have one, but it's often helpful to have a phrase like that. And we started late, and I don't know if we should go a little later, or should we stop? How are your legs and everything? Should we continue a few minutes more? And For some reason, for some people, Zazen is like a magic pill.

[80:41]

You start doing it for some reason, and as you say it, unbelievably, it changes one's life. How is it possible? How is it possible? Anyway, it does. But it doesn't for everyone. And it does for some people some of the time, and then later another time it doesn't. And I think one of the differences is that some people have more of an aptitude or openness for sitting, of course. I think if you look at your own practice, when it's working, when it's not working, when you're sitting practice, it has more vitality in a very close relationship to the implicit or explicit questions you're bringing to your practice.

[81:49]

Sie hat mehr Lebendigkeit durch die impliziten oder expliziten Fragen, die du zu deiner Praxis bringst. When you've lost the ability to bring a question to your practice. Wenn du die Frage verloren hast, wenn du die Fähigkeit verloren hast, eine Frage zu deiner Praxis zu bringen. Or to deepen the questions you used to bring to practice. Oder die Fragen zu vertiefen, die du zur Praxis gebracht hast. Then you... your practice gets kind of stale. So this working with the questions in your life is extremely important. What do you mean by working with questions? What do you mean by bringing questions to your practice?

[83:02]

Questions how practice can make sense or questions about a problem that I have in my life? Yeah, everything. Alles. Questions are really powerful. Answers are kind of boring. You don't want to kill a question with an answer. Yeah. And also going back to this, well... It's interesting. I always say, how do you explain what you're doing to your aunt and uncle? I still can't explain what I'm doing to my aunt and uncle.

[84:07]

After all these years, they've gotten used to it, though. And now they're mostly dead anyway. But at some point they got used to it. Yeah. They couldn't understand why I dropped out of college and all this. Just before I was supposed to graduate. But one of my experiences in relationship to this idea of a practice place... I've mentioned this before occasionally. I decided with a considerable effort and intensity to make my daily life a practice place.

[85:29]

make it my daily life a practice place. I even imagined the city of San Francisco was a monastery. I had no idea what a monastery was, but, you know, I did my best to imagine something. And Sukhirushi at some point decided that, expressed to me that Because he came to San Francisco with the vision that you could really emphasize only lay practice. And that was partly rooted in his recognition that the way his father lived and the way he lived as head of a temple was pretty much like a lay life. I mean, he was married and had children, but he lived in a temple, but the temple is like living in just a house, really.

[86:47]

But the temple was somehow also part of a monastic system. So anyway, I did my best to practice the way I could in San Francisco. And I knew Sukershi, though, had decided we ought to have a mountain place or an isolated place to practice. Yeah, so I... Because he was interested, I started looking for places. But it was just really, it wasn't that I thought we needed a practice place in the mountains so much.

[88:02]

It was just out of my love for him that he was interested, so I looked. And other people looked, too, and we went together, Sri Krishna and I, and looked at several places offered to us. And then one day I discovered by accident this place in the middle of 350,000 acres of wilderness. And then I happened to find a place in the middle of 350,000 acres. I don't know what that is. That's big. I mean, it's hundreds of miles. Yes, from untouched nature. Yeah, so I showed it to Suzuki Roshi.

[89:12]

It wasn't for sale, but I thought maybe we could figure out a way to talk them into selling it to me. Not the whole, all of it, but the piece in the middle. Yes, so for me, practice was being near him. And I didn't really care so much whether it was in the city or somewhere. Yeah. But we ended up getting this place. And actually, I got less time to spend with Suzuki Roshi because of it. Yeah, because in the city, pretty much I could see him all the time. When we started Tassajara, I had to share him.

[90:15]

But what surprised me, because I didn't expect it, was not only how it affected my own practice, But how suddenly I had real Dharma brothers and sisters. Before that I was pretty much practicing on the whole alone. Most people were actually engaged in their lay life. Vorher habe ich wirklich nur alleine praktiziert. Die meisten Leute waren in ihrem Laienleben engagiert. And it was so dramatic how many people really got into practice in a real way that I guess convinced me for the rest of my life.

[91:19]

And I also had, you know, I decided, you know, the general commercialization of America was disturbing to me as a young person. It's much worse now than it was then, too. So I decided I wouldn't work for, you know, commercial companies. Yeah, and I've been... But... But a little older, after practicing, I would have worked for a commercial company.

[92:19]

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