What is your mindfulness practice? And how does it affect your sense of your existence? I guess you don't practice mindfulness and it has no effect. Well, I was just getting ready to leave. I believe you all being here quietly mindful. Achtsam verlassen.

[01:04]

Yes. Achtsamkeit ist. Awareness, mindfulness is. Absolut uncool. Uncool? Absolutely uncool. That's the sense that combines it all. The problem and also the opportunity, or the effect. The problem, but also the possibility and the effect. So attention is... Attention is actually something for schlaffies, for... Mindfulness is something for donkeys and softies. For people who are doing it and not doing it.

[02:18]

Pause before they start. And then they are quite mindfulness. That's uncool. And it's great. And that was the range in which we met in our small group. The practice of mindfulness has a big effect on all of us. So that I realize what happened at all. And that I have a resistance to kind of notice what happened, what is happening. But then it's also to notice that it also kind of brings a vividness, a liveness.

[03:26]

And it's challenging, you know, I'd say over-challenging, you know. And the question is, how do I deal with mindfulness? And how can I really practice mindfulness? And to stay in a kind of good mood with myself. What you mean by uncool? That's probably my translation. Uncool is just a translator that's with uncool, yeah. In Germany we have this attention. Attention is kind of okay. Attention is, I mean, it's a little scientific, a little up-to-date, but awareness, achtsamkeit in Germany is esoteric, is kind of...

[04:32]

And if you're not in the scene where achtsamkeit is practiced, then you... When I tell my father achtsamkeit, he's... He says, my son is uncool. Achtsamkeit. So this is... In American cowboy movies, the coolest guy is always the mindful one, you know. I'm sorry. America's always so... Esoteric, yeah. He has to be, otherwise he's... Yeah, otherwise he's dead. It's too late, yeah. Okay, thanks. To continue what Franz said, the more mindfulness I have, the more resistance I also can feel.

[05:44]

Resistance to what? to notice how much I am identified, how much I don't have this distance to my feelings and my thinking. It is not difficult for me to be born with it, but it is difficult for me to simply stretch this gap of identification. It's not so difficult to be aware of that, but it's difficult to close that gap of identification.

[06:46]

To widen that gap of identification. And that produces a resistance. It's always like, okay, I'm getting more and more aware of how much I'm identified and how much I'm wrapped up. And that resolves... That's producing this resistance. I am noticing more and more how much I am identified and how much I am aiming towards that. It should get better, I should become more careful, I should be less identified, I want to be more built. It should be better. I should be more mindful. And this is kind of like I feel like I'm in a spiral. That's stress. So mindfulness is uncool and now we have mindfulness stress.

[08:01]

It's uncool to be stressed. Well, the basic quality of mindfulness practice is non-reactive. So it doesn't have the quality of, I should do it, I should do that. It's just to notice, just to notice. But that's so difficult. Okay. Well, that's what you try anyway. Okay. Yes, Michael. When I'm in a situation and I don't have an aim, I don't have an idea what the result should be, then I succeed how to be mindfulness

[09:02]

Yes, and I'm mindful of what I'm doing. Yes, I can observe myself and I can observe my breathing. But when I want to go somewhere, when I'm aiming for something, then I am in principle no longer there where I am, I am always a step ahead. Then I am not careful. And then, of course, I am not mindful. But when I succeed and when I observe that and when I am aware of that distance again and especially when I am together with people and when I am talking with people

[10:29]

Then it goes more relaxed to where I want to go. Thanks. That's the main point that shows how mindfulness creates a situation that makes it easier to go somewhere and to aim for something. Okay. Okay. This setting is very helpful to practice matroness. You mean you have a soul? Yes. Because... Because here I have the time and I need that time to be mindful and in my regular life that's very often not the case.

[11:56]

Because the thinking is always in the foreground. And a point to your Teisho this morning. Weaving a landscape. I don't think I got it right. I'm not sure if I got it right. Was it weaving a landscape by mindfulness? Is this correct? As you have said, weaving a landscape, does it mean that I can change the situation by mindfulness? Well, you can't move the tree in the garden. Maybe it's just a bush. It means you can participate in the landscape. I mean, whatever... is present.

[13:22]

At any moment is infinitely complex. Literally, there's so many parts, it's infinitely complex. Okay. What you know of it is limited. Mindfulness changes how you know of it, what you know of it. And mindfulness can Engage us in the knowing of it, so it's not just neutral knowing, we're part of the knowing. And we're part of the sight and the situation. And we're part of the immediacy of it. And we're part of the way in which it's formed in our senses and cognition.

[14:42]

So, the situation has changed Because it's so complex that any different emphasis is a change. And the situation changes and it's so complex that any... Any... Any emphasis is an actual change of the situation. So maybe we could imagine it like being an editor. You're editing the text. But if you read the text superficially, You only see yourself, your own personal history.

[15:47]

And when you read the text more deeply, Your own personal narrative is only part of the text. The text is bigger than that. And as your mindfulness develops, you're reading the subtext as well as the text. And the space of the text. But actually we're rather doing that all the time because the text in us is all one activity. Mindfulness brings us into it with an awareness which isn't ordinary consciousness. That's one description, okay?

[16:56]

But attention also decides who we are. At the end of our life, our life will be what we attended to. So if you start attending to the immediacy of the situation in a thorough sense. Your attention isn't forming you in some other way. through our anxiety or our personal narrative or whatever, our attention is forming us in how things actually exist. Sukyoshi says in this text, our inmost request, which is a rather interesting idea, what he means by that, our inmost request is seeking a medium through which it can express itself.

[18:22]

And one of the reasons we practice is we find in our job or our education often we can't really express ourselves. We can feel something. We can't touch ourselves deeply. In our work, for example, or in our education. And we can understand mindfulness as a practice which seeks that medium through which we can express ourselves. Okay. Yeah, let me. Andreas? In our group we also talked about how mindfulness changes the way we feel about our experience. We also talked in our group how mindfulness changes how we experience our life.

[19:41]

For me, one answer would be, I think, when is the experience, the deeper experience, And that's also one answer. I'm practicing because it makes my deeper experience, it makes it richer. It goes together with what you just said. To be aware that something is missing. and maybe unconscious questions or answers or experiencing of life. and the fruit of mindfulness is that it generates more mindfulness and in a more subtle way. Wonderful.

[20:46]

Yes? I have been in Frank's company. Frank, I want to just mention a sentence when we don't succeed in being mindful. Someone said it's uncool and it's full of stress. And you mentioned, Roshi, just noticed that. the failure. And in our group, Frank, you mentioned more the

[21:49]

the kind dealing with their own failing more than you mentioned when you brought that up here. That can be a part in my practice, and maybe it's also a support for other people. And then we also mentioned that mindfulness is the best practice, sitting on a cushion. One experience, my own experience, is that mindfulness is the best practice, sitting on a cushion. One experience, my own experience is that mindfulness is the best practice, sitting on a cushion. One experience, my own experience is that mindfulness is the best practice, sitting on a cushion. But practice with this, having the mindful on your spine, and I try to practice that.

[23:24]

And before that I have been mostly mindful on my breath and I failed a lot. I often get heartbeats, and the more I went into it, the more I could see a small end. And my heart started to beat faster, and the more I went into it, there was kind of no end. You mean that when you were mindful of your breath, it made your heart beat faster? They are connected, actually. Yes. And now this exercise to have the mindfulness on the spine together with the breath and the breathing. It's easier.

[24:28]

Oh, good. I like small or big successes. So Frank recommends not only being mindful of one's failures, but being kind to them, too. Yeah, a kind acceptance is good. A kind excuse is not so good. You know, I often mention the... Well, first let me say... Beginning mindfulness is a kind of inventory process. You know, sometimes you go past a store and it's closed because they're taking inventory. The doors are locked and you see people counting every package.

[25:32]

Mindfulness at first is a kind of inventory. What's happening? What do I notice? What is being alive like? Oh, what are my moods, etc.? Was sind meine Stimmungen? But you also want to add to mindfulness practice, bringing attention to attention, bringing attention to mind itself. Okay. So the beginning level of mindfulness is inventory.

[26:42]

Yeah, I'd rather neutral, non-reactive inventory as much as possible. And you just kind of live in that inventory. Like... I don't know, you're sitting, somebody walks in the store and you say, I'm handsomer than he is. What does he say? I'm taller than he is. And then you notice you do that. And you think, that poor guy doesn't deserve that. He's not prettier than me or she or he or whatever. Okay, so that kind of inventory, you just notice you do it and sometimes you squirm a little. Right. But then you want some sort of...

[27:47]

catalyst for a deeper kind of mindfulness. And that's to shift attention to attention. Or attention to mind. No, I don't know. My own experience in English is sometimes I would say mind, sometimes I'd say attention. Because, you know, you have the, because attention can have an object. But the object of attention can also be attention itself. And that is where the magic is. Okay. Okay. Can you please say it again? Then there's no magic.

[29:16]

Magic is when it disappears after it's said, you know. There was a rabbit, now there's no rabbit. We can buy a CD. It's easy to bring attention to attention. Okay. And if you do it now and then in the midst of inventory mindfulness, you begin to transform mindfulness. And mindfulness becomes more powerful.

[30:17]

transformative of your own personality and so forth. Okay. Now, I'm giving you some obvious examples or common examples. Notice the sky through the window. Use the stairs to bring attention to your breath. But what was very useful for me is I used my elbow. In a Pavlovian sense, I decided that every time I noticed my elbow, I'm going to pay attention to attention. So every time I was at working, I put my elbow on the desk, I put attention to attention.

[31:31]

It was just my little trick. And I didn't always put my elbow down. But I do now and then, you know. The thinker, you know. Or sometimes I would say I would bring attention to mind, the field of mind, when I put my elbow on something. So... Again, there's the inventory mindfulness. And there's the catalyst of mindfulness of mind or attention to attention. And that's what you do. I mean, that's easy to do. It's like when we...

[32:31]

In the altar, when you cross the path of the Buddha, you stop and bow. That's to bring mindfulness to mindfulness. So that my elbow is exactly like, in a sense... Crossing in front of the Buddha and stopping. Oh, I'm crossing it wrong. And the only tattoo I have is a little Buddha tattooed on my... No, wait. And the only tattoo I have is a little Buddha tattooed on my elbow. A practice that I use for mindfulness is using the four foundations of mindfulness. It's a stick. Starting with my body and then my breath and then observing the mind and then observing phenomena. And

[33:43]

One of the things that came out of our discussion is that I'm privileged to have a lifestyle which supports my being able to do this for much of the day. And one of the things that has changed how I, in my sense of being, is that I now experience things coming up in the mind field and going back, coming to the forefront and going back. It is that I experience that things appear in the field of the spirit and then return. And that I've understood in a different sense that there are no entities, that they are activities. And that I understood differently that there are no entities, but that what we often see as entities are activities.

[35:13]

The first sense was the sense of loss. because I kind of liked being an entity. And the other thing is that when things come into the foreground and go to the background, Then I have a harder time orienting myself because my thoughts come to the front and go to the background and just take phenomena themselves. Your pulse? My thoughts. Your thoughts, yeah. They're another phenomena. They're not constant. They're not substantial. Yeah. And another thing that happened is that I discovered that my thoughts also... And so all I can use to orient myself is my breath at the moment. Yeah, that's the way I experience the world at the moment.

[36:36]

When mindfulness leads, as Ravi is pointing out, you feel everything as... it's a little like landscape as a stage instead of the world. The things appear on the stage. Out of the floor, behind the curtain, you know, whatever. And when you begin to feel everything is... It's only appearance. And in a sense, you appear through the appearance.

[37:42]

You have to find a new way to kind of stabilize yourself. Because the usual cues you have in ways of Being in a landscape or different when the landscape is a stage. And you're on stage. And maybe you have a little stage fright. Yeah. Okay, someone else. Yes, please. It can be frightening at times, because when you become more careful, you become more sensitive. When you are mindful it also makes you more sensitive. And the first two is suffering. And we won't be involved with suffering. Oh, no.

[38:48]

Never. For me it was very helpful as a kindergarten story. Okay, that's a story now from the kindergarten. A mouse with a huge nose. I was born in the year of the rat. And this mask could smell each injustice. And he had big eyes and could see all the rubbish in this world. This is a terrible power. Big ears. Yeah, big ears. And then she said, I can't stand that anymore. Finished. Went to the Shukra for God. And she went to God. This much.

[39:49]

With the client by the eyes, client by the eyes. I want a smaller nose, I want a smaller eyes, and I want smaller ears. And God said, no way. But God said, OK, no way, but you have one possibility. You can widen and make your heart bigger. That quality, this is what I want to say, to also develop that quality of the heart. So the only way you survive mindfulness is compassion. Compassion. Good story. I didn't learn that in kindergarten, but I wish I did. Okay, now some of you haven't spoken.

[40:54]

Peter, you have, but you can't. No, no, you can't. Ich bin nur gerade sehr angezogen von diesem Bild der Bühne. Right now I'm very attached with this image of the stage. Yes, you would be. You're a good actor, too. Weil ich bin ja in einer Person Schauspieler I mean one person, the actor, the director and the one who is watching. That never happens that often on stage. That has also been one point in Frank's group. Who is this director? And in this group I tried to observe myself, how I am listening.

[42:03]

And I noticed how difficult that is. When I try to just observe, then probably I would follow the thinking that arises out of this observing and listening. But then I am not listening anymore. I have no difficulties to be the director who brings me back to listening.

[43:08]

But the question is this relation of letting it happen and to control. That's the question. Well, I think the way is to, whenever you see a chance to let it happen, you let it happen. When you have a choice between control or the sense of doing it, you let it happen. And I think what I have found and I think what you will find is that you get more and more confident in letting it happen. You get more and more confident able to notice when the possibility of letting it happen happens.

[44:40]

And the territory of letting it happen becomes wider. And after a while, the sort of controlling or the doing self, more and more becomes the doer who sets the stage, but then lets the play happen by itself. The time I noticed that most clearly and began a process of knowing it noticing it is i um I moved in the first year or so of my practice.

[45:49]

I was in San Francisco, and I had to go to a party. Yeah. I mean, not much for parties, but I had to go. A gathering of friends I like, but when it's a lot of people, I don't. But it was okay. And anyway, I remember going. And I was there about, I don't know, 45 minutes. And I noticed a thought appear. Okay. Now it was clearly a thought that arose from the situation, not from my intention. But the thought was, and I'm sorry this is so kindergarten, elementary, but the thought arose that pretty soon I should plan to leave.

[47:01]

So I saw that the thought arose that I should leave, and I turned it in that I should make a plan to leave, and then decide to leave. But what I decided was, actually I'd already decided to leave, the situation had decided, and not me, but I thought that I had to turn it into a me deciding. So I debated it a moment or two. I decided, okay, I leave right now. And I left. But the result was in the decision to act on it by leaving right away, I was polite enough, I think. I was kind of a rude kid, young man, but anyway, I hope I was fairly polite.

[48:08]

I hope I was always very polite, but the result was that I just didn't quite get it. Sorry, I said too many things at once. Yeah. You left, yeah. Yeah, I left. Cut to the quick. But acting on the impulse, I began to notice those impulses that arose from the situation before I'd made decision. And I formed an intention at that moment to notice those impulses and act on them whenever possible. So that began a process of noticing situational impulses and not...

[49:10]

personal self decisions or whatever. It was part of my effort always to get it In the simplest sense, how do we exist? Like someone else. Oh, yes. I've been waiting for you. I've been waiting for quite a number of you, and you all know who I'm waiting for. Your sweater goes all the way up to the top of your head. And Gisela is following our impulse. Okay, Gisela.

[50:22]

And I try to get out of this thinking to compare myself with more advanced practitioners who talk here. Oh, yeah, good. That's good, very good. And that's always difficult to talk because my thinking is awake and this comparison is there. And I'm noticing that. Good. I put it aside now. And I want to mention how How strong these connections are between the intensity of my daily practice and the possibility to be mindful.

[51:43]

and that I can identify with what was said before. that it is actually not so difficult. You said that it is easy to get the attention, the awareness. But what I find difficult is to keep it. But what is so difficult is to stay with that. And I'm here. And I think, well, I got it and I put it in the rucksack and take it home. But at home, this bag, this rucksack is not always there. That's difficult.

[53:09]

But now I have the feeling to be in a process. A little experience from last night. I woke up quite often. Waking up, I asked myself, what's going on now? What kind of state of mind am I in now? And I had to admit I have been just unsatisfied. Just what? Dissatisfied. But I have been satisfied again because I noticed it. Oh, this is good. But my sleep wasn't so good.

[54:15]

I woke up again. Well, maybe you should make little drawings of rucksacks. Put them in your bathroom and put them, you know, in the kitchen. You know how in hotels they give you a little mint on your pillow. You put a little picture of a rucksack on your pillow. Mm-hmm. Yes, Isabel. Well, the longer I listen, the more I realize that my problem, I think, with the mindfulness so far was that I understood it as something punctual or linear, what I create.

[55:17]

The longer I'm listening, the more I'm aware that I understood mindfulness as something kind of in a line or more punctual in one point. That kind of concentration kind of always disappeared and it was difficult to hold that and that made it so stressful. And I didn't notice that I changed it to more the mindfulness in this spacious mindfulness. That was your idea, not my idea.

[56:23]

I don't know who is noting that, but someone is noting quite often that I'm not mindful. And that gives me the possibility, or as we say in therapy, the permission to be careful. And that is really, I think, a heavy... So if I really allow it, if I give myself the time and space, as some have described it, And when I allow myself and when I give myself the time and also the space, how some of us describe it, then I don't have any control.

[57:29]

I hate words. Exactly, I can say that again. I find it completely crazy how you described it in the lecture, that you pull words out of silence, or that words are pulled out of silence while we disappear into it. It's the way you say it. It's not that you say it, but the way you say it creates such a space of attention and understanding that was not there before. So that's how you described that and it's more how you described it putting the words out of silence in this tissue this morning. It's more the how you said than that. Yes, and I realize that it is very difficult to describe with words what you experience when you are anxious. I am mentioning that because I notice how difficult it is to describe with words when this mindfulness poses.

[58:37]

What I can say is that the feeling And what I have to say is it's the closest, the best way to describe it is what we call in German language was love. Okay. Acceptance, openness, the whole bunch of it. Good things. Yeah, well, that's good. I wish I was a better teacher. Or I could make myself very small in several words and sit on your shoulders. And then when you were making mindfulness too much something stressful, I could whisper in your ear, no. That's not good. And sometimes people would see her and she'd be going, shut up. And

[59:37]

Anyway. Who else? Yes. Oh, goody. I just wanted to say, according to what you said, if I manage to be careful, then it's a feeling that the world will continue. Okay, I want to add to what Isabella said, when I succeed, even for a short moment to be mindful, this is what the world makes wider. Good, okay, thanks. Someone else is, you're trying to make me happy. Go ahead. Ich habe keinen Stress mit der Achtsamkeit. Ich tue es noch nicht so. I don't have any stress with mindfulness because I'm not doing it so often.

[61:09]

But when I'm doing it, I notice how difficult it is to notice this difference between observing and judging. And it makes it somehow very rich when I can allow this judging of what is happening. And that creates a new possibility of being in contact and meeting people on another level. And also another meeting with myself. But very fast I'm getting in disorder.

[62:10]

Because I'm losing a sort of orientation when I'm widening this frame, and that makes it very difficult. You're widening your frame of reference. My frame of reference. But I'm curious about that. Well, all of this just takes practice. You do it a little bit, you don't do it so much it overwhelms you. And slowly you begin to be a... More of a participant in your own life. And not so pushed around by emotions and desires and things like that. Just the mindfulness, let's say, of anger. The traditional pattern is you notice, now I'm angry. Now I'm more angry. Boy, I'm really angry now. You notice that. Don't you? I'm less angry. You're not trying to stop yourself from being angry.

[63:40]

You just notice. So that's the inventory process. But while that inventory process is going on, you're creating an awareness around the anger. There's a certain detachment to be able to say, now look how angry I am. And you don't find yourself necessarily in the middle of the anger, you find yourself sort of observing the anger. Observing but not interfering with it. And you begin to develop a kind of non-interfering, observing mind. And your inmost request or innermost request begins to feel, actually, I'm more like that space around anger than I am the anger.

[64:56]

And your more deeper sense of identity comes out. These very simple practices have big consequences as they... I feel like a car salesman selling mindfulness. There's a bargain, you know, right over here, this bargain basement mindfulness. She told me, never sell practice. Or make it too interesting or too exciting. And you can imagine how interesting my lecture would be if I tried to make it interesting. I'm trying to be boring.

[66:03]

Just in short. the last process. I always thought that I'm very not mindful and actually I am. But living in a community with more colleagues, working... When we both came into the room, there was a clock on both sides. There was one person living there. When we entered the room, there was a lot of... And that's exactly what happened.

[67:04]

I tried to see two things. First, to see that I feel that it's not just him, but also me. And what I tried is to notice that I am the one who has that feeling, not just him, also me. That he is not, that I am making him like that. That might be true. And the other was exactly that, that I saw myself over there, And the other thing is I kind of saw myself above the situation. And today he is one of my closest friends. Good work. I think if I, you know, I try to use beginnings as part of my noticing appearance.

[68:06]

Yeah, if I was a therapist, say, I think each time, and I'm sure a therapist must do something like this, And if I was a therapist, I think when a person first came into the room or joined me or something, I would bring my attention to my breath or... to our mutual breath or to the space of the room or something. I'd create some sort of pause that I did at the beginning of each session. And I'm sure once my intention, once I had that intention, how I actualize that intention would develop.

[69:21]

Or if I was a computer programmer, before I sat down to work, I would have some sort of little ritual to bring mindfulness, a moment of mindfulness before I started, you know, something like that. If I was a school teacher, I'd let the kids come into a space of mind or something like that at the beginning of each class. How the kids came into a mind. Into the space of the room as a space of mind. I might even feel like, as the kids came in the room, I'm thinking of my daughter's clasps.

[70:25]

You might feel I'm breathing the space that they're coming into. So the basics of Zen practice and teachings involve trying to think up little things like that to bring teaching and wisdom practices into your situation. Does anyone else have a desire to make me happy? No! OK. All right. Oh, thanks. I want to mention that the practice and the awareness on the spine that helped me a lot and it makes it much easier for me to practice mindfulness.

[71:53]

Oh, really? That's good. Yes. That's good. I've never emphasized the spline so much as I did these days. Instead of, I kind of took it for granted. I just started being more explicit. And Gisela, when you spoke, for instance, I think you can say, now I'm going to speak for all the people at my level of practice. And that takes the burden of comparison away. Okay. So I want to tell you a little, if we have time, Yes, we do. A little anecdote that Ulrike Greenway told me. Do you want to say something? No. You just scratched your... He's eating my nails. Mindfully eating my nails.

[72:54]

I'd like to tell you a little story that Ulrike told me. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Anyway, it's just an interesting story, and it just gives you a good example of a different culture. You know, as you may know, she goes to China fairly often. And she's making her last... I believe last trip to China in a few weeks. She's going for a couple of weeks. So I guess a recent trip, she was in Hangzhou, which is a beautiful city. I've been there once. It's a kind of famous beauty spot, but now it's kind of...

[73:55]

Busy city. Anyway, I was there. In fact, the Buddha, it's this log that folds half that I use in the duksan room, came from Hangzhou. The Buddha in the duksan room. It's made from one piece of wood that opens up. Anyway, she was there, and it's on a lake, West Lake, I think. And every night, you know, you're a little jet lag, you don't want to get up, she said. So every night she would hear this. No, every morning, because of jet lag, she'd wake up odd hours. And she would hear this screaming.

[74:58]

And she thought maybe somebody's being assaulted or something. It was very, very kind of scary, intense screaming. I guess the third morning she happened to wake up and hear it, so she said, I'm going to get up and find out what's going on. So she went out and And she walked around and she heard the screaming. It was coming across the lake where there's a small mountain. And the mountain was, you know, high enough. It's a ways it takes, she said, I don't know how long she said. 45 minutes or 30 minutes to walk to the place. But the screaming was quite near, near sounding. So there were a lot of people walking in this dragon, so she walked too.

[76:05]

And then round the lake and then up the... to the mountain. And the closer she got to the top, the louder the screaming. And there were hundreds of people there. Men and women. They didn't seem to be I said, were they couples? She said, no, they seemed to be all single people, but mostly older people. But it was both men and women, not just men. And many people carried nightingales in little cages. And some people only had one in a cage they carried.

[77:10]

And some would have six or eight or more and they'd carry them on a stick. And some cages here and some cages here. cages, the one or more cages they had, and they'd hang them in the trees up at the top of the mountain. Then they would open the sides of their cage, and the nightingale would start singing with the birds in the trees. And when first light came, when birds start to sing, the nightingales would start singing with the other birds who start singing when dawn appears. And from the time the sun first appeared, until the full circle orb of the sun was over the horizon, all these people would stand in front of a tree

[78:32]

and scream as loud as they could until the sun was all the way up. It was primal scream therapy carried to an extreme. She doesn't have any idea except they seem to be letting it all out, if nothing else. And it made me think, you know, Yakujo, who's in our text, Baizhang, As you probably know the story, he asked Matsu a question. And Bai Zhang answered, and then Matsu. Bai Zhang said something. What does this mean or something? I forget the story.

[79:47]

And Bai Zhang said, Matsu screamed so loudly, I was deafened for three days. And Bai Zhang said, Ulrike said, after seeing all these people practicing every morning, I can understand. Probably it's true. Ulrike said, she went and tried it. She got in front of a tree and went... It's the best you could do. So you can see if there's a cultural thing about really screaming at fullest power, why these stories of Zen masters shouting squats and all is, you know... more understandable as part of the culture.

[81:07]

But the image of these people with the nightingales singing beautifully with the birds and the people screaming like mad. I've never seen that in San Francisco. The text says you will find your own practice in the West. Yeah, I haven't started screaming yet, but... Suzuki Roshi, you know, a couple of different times at Trudy Dixon's funeral, Trudy Dixon edited the Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. He was saying something, something joyful mind, something mind, and then suddenly he let out an unbelievable scream in the middle of the ceremony.

[82:14]

Ulrike said that whenever she's in Hangzhou, she joins them in the morning with their nightingales and they're screaming. And she says, after the sun comes up over the horizon, they stop screaming, all of these several hundreds of people. And they close the little doors on the nightingale cages and take them off the trees and walk back down into the city. In Japan we eat cucumbers in the spring.

[84:34]

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