Well, the ingredients we have so far is that there's meditation and most of us have experience with meditation. And there's teachings that refine and extend the meditation experience. And there's the context in which we do these practices. And that context can be with others, as we're doing now. Or with others who don't also practice. And always in the phenomenal world, of course.

[01:03]

And we can ask, what is the phenomenal world? Maybe that question we'll try to look at tomorrow. But as I said, most of us have experience with meditation. And most of us are continuing to practice for some reason or other. So I would like to know and have some discussion and not have to talk so much. I'd like a little more ma in my speaking. So I'd like to know how meditation makes a difference in your life.

[02:20]

And why do you continue? Because that question, however we relate to that question, is the center of lay practice and monastic practice, of individual practice and practice with others. So now I will wait for someone to say something. Hi, you got here. I haven't seen you since last year. I haven't seen most of you since last year. We just have a year passing. Pretends to be a year. Okay, so someone.

[03:22]

Whoever has the courage to be second. Oh, right there. I'm relatively new. In the practice of meditation. I had an experience about one and a half years ago when I learned that a good colleague and friend suddenly had died. He was about my age and had children and I got to know it during my work day and I was so moved that I had great difficulties concentrating on my work. and after one or two hours I went home and sat down and meditated because I thought that's the only sensible thing I can do in this situation.

[05:03]

And out of reasons that I don't know or cannot explain, the confusion changed, maybe, came together, fell into place. And in a certain way I was more peaceful, in a way that I cannot explain. And then from then on I could function normally in my everyday life. And I've had similar experiences, less dramatic experiences, but still.

[06:20]

So there were more experiences like that where meditation always helped in a certain way. And that's one of the reasons why I meditate. Thank you. Someone else? One of the reasons that I meditate is I don't get lost and I don't get caught in the jungle of my thoughts and fantasies. So meditation returns you to a state of mind that you prefer.

[07:33]

Would you say it that way? I experience more as a bodily feeling. I can get back through it with my breath and my posture. Altogether I... get back to what I now would call for me is the normal state. A state where there is more happening than just thoughts and fantasies. So that which brings me back, in a physical area, through and with the breathing and the holding, which for me is now a normal state, outside of thoughts and fantasies. I made this comment just now. Do you find that meditation returns you to a state of mind that you feel better about?

[08:36]

That's what I said. I'm not commenting on my comment. There's an implied worldview in the way I said that. Now, if I'd said, does meditation create a state of mind that you feel more satisfied with? Now, that's another worldview. And in such sentences, we form our worldviews. So you can ask yourself in practicing, because both views exist in Zen Buddhism.

[09:55]

The concept of an original mind is a concept of you return to a mind. more fundamental to rigorous Buddhist thinking, you don't return to a state of mind, you create a state of mind. But we feel both. And if you emphasize one rather than the other, you produce a whole different program of teaching. and if you emphasize one thing more than the other, then it results in a totally different teaching.

[10:58]

Can't it be both, in the sense that on the one hand one returns to a state of mind, I compare this to the state of the teaching that a child must feel, a baby, when it comes to the world. I would say that isn't it like it is both for me meditation is emptiness creating emptiness and starting an emptiness which I think In the only moment in life you feel the emptiness, it's when you are created and you just create it, which you then leave and you rebuild it.

[12:04]

By rebuilding it, it forms something within you. So you're saying, initially there's an originary, not original, It's a different, originary mind, which gives you the sense of a beginning. And then that beginning which you've created, you return to. Rather emptiness, I think it's the... Well, let's leave it. Okay, go ahead. I mean, in other words, whether emptiness or Heidegger emphasizes a nothingness, which becomes originary. And so we can say emptiness or whatever, but it's the experience of coming to a source. Was one difference that a line that can create emptiness is able to feel certain feelings through... it's able to control what it feels and what kind of status of feelings it is feeling in this moment.

[13:17]

A begging would never be able to do that. And I think that is the essence. For me that's the reason for meditating. meditating because I want to feel the emptiness and the control. In German, it is about an emptiness that a baby could never create, but a baby has, and that you can create as a human being and actually control what feelings and emotions come into your head and into your being, that you can then also control and get out of it. Okay, this is good. Thanks. I would put the word control in quotation marks, but we'll come back to that. Yes, Paul? One of the reasons I meditate is I find it's the only way I have available of maturing what I have read and the teachings I have heard.

[14:23]

In particular, I like to pick up on this radical point of creating. Anything we experience in this minute is either a memory or that which is a pinging upon our senses. But that's all I have about myself as well. Not only about what's outside of me, but it's all I have of myself. I can't think my way into this experience. I can only sit my way into it. And I think it's very beautiful. It's many of the most important things in our life. We can't think our way into it. Love, we can't think our way into loving someone. Unfortunately. Yeah. Unfortunately. There are many things I can seek my way into, but I can't think, read, study my way into. Can you say it in German, please? I practice, because the only way I have found, the things I study, the lessons I have heard, so mature so that I can experience them.

[15:29]

Everything that I experience out there now is what works into my senses and as a reminder. But I have nothing more to experience myself. For me, many of the important things in the world, they can't think us into them, but I can sit into them. You feel it differently in German than in English? Yes, it's become much closer. Yes, Carolina? For me, it feels quite similar to the song that was written to get back to the children's work. So also to refer back to what you mentioned this morning, my experience is similar to what Neil described.

[16:31]

No. Really? But. But. Really, this is good. Okay, one more time. So I would say I meditate because I'm very much caught into my... thinking, my thoughts, my imaginations, which I have about myself, and which I have about what others think about myself. Really? Yeah. I've heard other people have this similar feeling. So I would not say that one returns to some state of mind, nor would I say that I create a new state of mind, but...

[17:34]

I would rather describe that it's like a garden where different plants grow and some plants growing faster than others and those which grow more slowly they They die and they don't survive. Those who grow faster, they survive. So the psychological dimension or In the mind that grows very fast and produces new thoughts very fast and is also supported in the work life. And sitting generates conditions where the slow-growing plants have a chance of growing and showing their flowers.

[19:19]

Well, you better come to this seminar with Peter, Nick and me. One of the concepts of Ma is the overlapping, incommensurate, not commensurate, not reducible to each other timelines. Overlapping, incommensurate timelines. I'm continuing, but probably, I hope, you will continue after me. Also, ich fahre noch eine Weile fort, hoffentlich, aber ich hoffe auch, dass ihr nach mir weiterfahrt.

[20:31]

And those two timelines can't be reduced to each other. Und diese beiden Zeitläufe vielleicht können nicht gegenseitig aufeinander reduziert werden. They're related, but genuinely different. Sie sind verwandt, aber doch auch deutlich verschieden. Now I'm asking you these questions in the light of our new perhaps Hotzenhof. Also ich frage, stelle euch diese Fragen aus der Perspektive unseres neuen Hotzenhofs vielleicht. Because first of all I want to explore, discover, see how Hatzenhof can enhance our lay practice.

[21:38]

how we can develop our lay practice here. And simultaneously, but in a way secondarily though, you might not think so. I'm interested in how we can develop a monastic practice within the lay sangha here at Hotzenhof. The lecture this morning especially about the concept of Ma was very interesting for me. because for the last several years I've very intensely tried to explore the space within the body and to explore, to perceive and notice.

[23:02]

So, for example, in the body work I do like in the body of the other to perceive it with my hands. And the way I teach this, I also use the image of a golden thread joining the two hands, palms, and that in that way the two bodies, or the bodies of the two hands become one body. And I've had the experience that this works better when I meditate. Or when a whole class meditates. With the concept of Sophy, this installation, so that the whole body can spread out, I can claim that it is quite limited to these gold colors, but with these many angel seals or eagle laces, I think there is even a greater perception of what is in the body.

[24:59]

And so for me, I had worked only with this one golden thread between the palms, but with this what Sufi does in her installations, it's now a new image that there are so many threads inside the body opening up the space of the body. Thank you. Someone else? Yes? Susanna? For me meditation is noticing and perceiving quietness and movement. Before I always... a certain image of quietness without knowing what it is.

[26:10]

And now it seems to me that in the way I've experienced quietness in meditation, that quietness in contrast to movement is like the wheel of the teaching. I always thought that I would have to resolve this contradiction, but somehow at the moment it seems to me that I can perceive these contradictions. I had always thought that I have to resolve these contradictions, but now I find it very interesting just to notice and observe these contradictions. Yeah, I understand. Thanks. Yes?

[27:31]

Uruk? Meditation opened up many things for me and these many things can also be experienced in everyday situations. such as space and like something wide and spaces in between. I encounter things that are very different and diverse from what I feel in everyday life.

[28:36]

And since everyday life is very varied, there are many different things, so these qualities that I experience through meditation, also I meet them in very different forms. And woven into meditation is the sense of recognition through the repetition of meditation. And it seems to me that this sense of recognition is the sense that gives me this shared experience with everybody here.

[29:42]

It's very much inviting and gives a feeling of coming home. Yes? Anushka, is that right? Yeah. Hi. You always want to say it in German first, but you can say it in English yourself. About two years ago I had an experience where I experienced a very big fear, so big that I, as an example, and not even more afraid of me. Of course, I was already confronted with the fact that I would be murdered, and that was already accepted, so to speak, and this fear was so great that I was actually only worried about my relatives, how they would have to process it. and automatically a meditation has taken place.

[31:18]

And what I find so interesting is that there is an absolute cool peace. It was just a complete peace. And a very, very strong situation. So at the moment everything would have happened. Everything would have been the same. That went on for several hours. And then... I would like to learn what many of you have been doing for a long time, the same thing as an instrument, What did I just try to say?

[32:49]

So she was in a very difficult and dangerous situation and she was very, very, very much afraid. I mean the fright was very huge. And it was... being afraid of her own life, but also of that of others. I was just saying I was so much afraid about my life that I already got into a status that I didn't care about what would happen if I died. I was okay with everything. It was just like normally when you are afraid you care about yourself. But it went so far that I was already The saddest thought was thinking of my parents or my friends, what the suffering they will have if they know what happened to me. And this, I think, is an example of how far the fear went, because usually I would, of course, if I'm around in the world, I think about myself, first of all.

[34:08]

It's not that I'm saying this because I'm... I think it went so far that I was, okay, that's okay, all these things happened to me, but I could never think what my mom would, you know, what her life would be. So this was just an example to say that the fear was very present, and I already said, okay, I'm okay with this, but... And then the states of meditation came in, and it lasted for many hours. And it was completely... In the beginning, I didn't... Afterwards, I told the story and I never knew which words I should use. And I thought, oh, maybe it's like the Schutzengel or the angel that was there. Guardian angel. Yeah, or, you know, you can get many words if you don't know. So what's interesting to me is it's something very original because it was... I did nothing except of being afraid and my body... took it out you know and took it out for many hours in a complete feeling of wholeness and peace and it was and I was so strong after that and very very very very concentrated and I would love to find this capability to find this peace and being so concentrated at the same time but

[35:36]

I experienced it just happening because the situation was particular. And I would love to learn to discipline with this and not react like I reacted before because it's something that I cannot control. It's something I can control and I can't bring up. So your experience has been, it seems, that this was a resource that was already there. Yeah. So you returned to it or discovered it or something. Okay, good. Thank you. Yes. When I think back, since I've been meditating, I've always been motivated to become free. It was always this longing for freedom, and I found it in coming to my breath and feeling that there is something

[36:46]

So ever since I've been meditating I had a longing to be free, to find freedom and this happens for me when When I concentrate on my breath, it feels like then I can be free from my small little self. And it was always the practice of coming in harmony with what I encountered in my life, with what I am. So for me it is a practice to be in harmony with that which is right now in my life. And what I've experienced here in Sashin, which was new for me,

[38:04]

That when I sit upright, I can hardly say, that I shape the moment, that I create the moment. that in the moment when I sit upright, I create the moment. So that it's not only about accepting what is, but also be there and maybe participate. just to be.

[39:24]

And I found that this is something I cannot do on my own but nobody can do it for me. Okay, I understand. It's the way it is. Okay, someone else? So while I've been sitting here, I've asked myself, why do I continue to meditate? So what I found is that there are two fundamentally different worlds. And one world is wholesome and nourishing and regenerating and the other one takes food and

[40:51]

and is depleting, consuming, maybe consuming itself. I would say the most fundamental reason is to be in the world which is nourishing and wholesome and regenerating. So this wholesome world you discover or feel more often when you are practicing meditation. Yes. So before you started practicing meditation you found the world kind of debilitating or something, draining. Yes. Boring. Boring with myself, boring with people. It basically increases the surface experience. So meditators are those who fear boredom. It may be true. It's partly true for me. Paul?

[41:59]

To continue with something that Ulrich had mentioned. That I find... There is the possibility of increasing the surface areas of my attention, my awareness. The attention is not simply on what the experience is, but how the experience takes place. So there's paying attention as well as developing an attention-keeping mind.

[43:06]

And the attention-keeping mind is not so much what I speak into the world, but how also the world is able to speak to me. And the experience of what you were weaving for us this morning, these surface areas for me are a kind of porosity. So something which initially seems the thingness with the solidity of it is more experienced in terms of the porosity of what's there and allowing this

[44:19]

I've been working with the feeling of the depth of this life which is uncasped. The depth of what? The depth of this life. And I have recently worked with this sentence, the depth of this life is unreachable, unreachable. and the way I'm able to penetrate and allow this unrestability to penetrate me is through the act of sitting. And I notice that it is through this act of sitting that I can penetrate into this depth and also that I can let myself penetrate into it.

[45:21]

Maybe we could define Sangha as those who share the depth of the ungraphability of life. I think that's one of the best definitions I've ever heard. Yes. Yes. But this ungraspability, doesn't it lead directly into fog and trouble? . Even though I've experienced some of the things other people said, at the present time, I have more problems with all this.

[46:46]

And I'm not so sure. So it feels like I'm standing in the fog and the ground has been pulled away under my feet and I don't really want to think too much about it. I mean, it's superfluous anyway, it doesn't matter. And so much is superfluous. Superfluous. Superfluous. And some things that used to be quite nice have become boring. You're in trouble.

[47:54]

I continue meditating anyway, and I don't want to ask these questions. It's superfluous. Well, tomorrow we'll try to deal with this. Ideally, meditation allows you to enjoy being in the fog, in the mist, and having the floor pulled up on you, too. What? It's joy to be in the midst of the song. Yeah. Yeah. It opens so many... Oh, good.

[48:56]

Yeah. I mean... I mean, to survive a life which is inherently inconsistent and contradictory is the fun of Zazen. Yeah. Okay. What is the fun of Zazen? She really wants to know. I'm asked to translate. How can I translate if I didn't get the first part of the sentence? Well, let's leave the fun until tomorrow or later today. Susanna? In this context of depth and incomprehensibility, the depth of incomprehensibility is perceptible. So when Paul mentioned non-graspability and the depth, the depth of the ungraspability can be perceived.

[50:24]

felt, sensed. And I find that incredibly beautiful. Yes, Agatha? Yes. monastic practice, being with people who don't practice, being with people who practice. So you've mentioned many aspects of lay practice and monastic practice and practicing with people who practice or practicing with people who do not practice. And it is so, as I experience it at the moment, there are also and how I experience it these days mostly it is also the mind which is wide and vast and empty and I can practice that when I really sit down

[51:52]

And as Ulrich said, there are so many different situations in everyday life that I can actually notice in my mind how I cling and how emotions come up. And so nowadays I can notice this. More than you used to be able to. Yes. And the nice thing is that I don't doubt it, because I always feel this path or this field as a singer. And the beautiful thing is that with all these things that happen that I notice, I don't feel so helpless and disconsolate, because I continue to feel the big field and the connection to the Sangha and to the teaching and to the teacher.

[53:24]

Mhm. and so it can happen that because there is so much stress I do not meditate and then it becomes worse and then I notice after a phone call that I'm so angry I cannot go to sleep But all this is like a field of study. It is like a large field of study. But it's all like a big field that one can study and explore. And this gives us an extension, because also the difficult experiences are somehow raised to the possibility, I think, And this gives a wide feeling because also the different situations and problems are somehow held in this field and what seems to me in the end the monastic practice.

[54:46]

So the possibility that I have to come here again and again. Because through the monastic setting and through the rituals, I can feel very clearly that this ego becomes weaker and that the experience of physical connection and perception, that is, these spaces in between .... Yes, what is with them, I need another verb, otherwise I don't understand anything. So when I'm here the self kind of weakens and I fear through the experience here that these states of mind can be developed and I can continue to develop them.

[56:27]

And it really makes a difference that there are other people here who do practice the same thing. And there is a connection and like mirroring each other and different answers. And that helps me to do this with others who do not practice. Yes, I understand. Well, I'm really happy that our practice has developed as well as it has. And I'm also happy that we've learned to articulate something about our practice.

[57:30]

with the rather mysterious skill or ungraspable, hard to grasp skill of being able to speak about practice in a fruitful way that doesn't interfere with our practice. And I still want us to think about this in relationship to how we can, this new big step we have, how it can enhance our lay practice. Make stronger ways we can practice with each other.

[58:44]

And also have a more developed taste of practicing together. So we should take a break. Thanks a lot.

[59:11]

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