Of course, if I had joined you Friday morning, if I joined you Friday morning, if I had joined you Friday morning, with a clear idea of what I would speak about, That would be a path of knowledge and not a path of wisdom. So I really have to find out while we're together what we need, us, each of us need to get a feeling for this path of wisdom. That's also one of the reasons I come in a while after you've been sitting. But I want to feel what your sitting is like without my influencing it much.

[01:02]

Weil ich gerne spüren möchte, wie euer Sitzen so ist, ohne dass ich es beeinflusse. So naturally I want to hear something about your discussion yesterday. Selbstverständlich würde ich gerne etwas über eure Diskussion gestern hören. So it would be nice if at least one person from each group gave me Not the whole morning, but some kind of feeling for what you spoke about. But first let me just give you a phrase, a Zen phrase. It's not a part from here. Always Profoundly clear and still. Immer tief, klar und still.

[02:24]

If you search for it, you know you won't see it, find it. Wenn du danach suchst, weißt du, dass du es nicht finden wirst. Now that's a very typical Zen-type remark. Das ist halt so ein typisch Zen-isches. Ja. Yeah, yeah. I translated apart like being, not being apart. Oh, yeah. Not apart, not separate from here. Yeah, yeah. Nicht getrennt von hier. Always profoundly clear and still. Sometimes it's difficult since I don't know yet what you want to say. Don't apologize. Okay. It's gone. Yeah, yeah. Schon vorbei. This is the path of wisdom, remember, not knowledge. So I'll just bring it up to see if we can penetrate such remarks, these Zen clichés during the day today.

[03:40]

But first I'd like to hear from you, maybe the junkie group first. Now, no one will be willing to talk first. Yeah, please. We sat over there, our group. That helps, that helps. That's good. And we had a chat yesterday evening, and afterwards, even later, after the group was over. And after the discussion was over, we sat longer and discussed even more.

[04:45]

You mean you went to dinner together or something? And many in the group talked about experiences in nature where they felt connected. And some told about memories of childhood. And also some events that were scary. in professional life that you couldn't make it, meet the standards.

[05:56]

Or that you would become ill or psychotic and would lose yourself. It was in the high categories. And I also came up with a story this morning when I woke up from Buddha's life, where he sat under a tree, after he had left his teacher and his royal house, and was very desperate, and a story from his childhood came into his memory, One moment. And I, this morning when I woke up, I remembered the story of Buddha when he sat under the trees. So you continued even this morning by yourself. And when he had left his teachers and he remembered one story of his childhood.

[06:58]

where he watched his father plow the fields, and when he also experienced such a connectedness. Thank you. Yes. I was in the fifth group. We first made a circle where everyone told an experience. I was in the fifth group and we made a circle in which everyone told one experience. The experiences were connected with nature, with art, with music, with dancing.

[08:01]

The experiences were connected to nature, to artistry, to dancing, to music, yes. And we summarized what was kind of the basic of all these experiences. And we came up with, that it is an enlargement of the space and of time. That you can't achieve it by your willing of it, but that it sort of comes and dances in you, through you.

[09:10]

And there was a bigger problem that we couldn't solve on our own. And that was the question of feeling this connection. And what did people feel in the Nazi era about connection? And where is the connection? And where is the distinction between the feeling And we couldn't solve one part by ourselves, which is the connectedness during... the Nazi time, about the beautiful feeling of connectedness and this type of connectedness. Mm-hmm. Okay.

[10:25]

Thank you. Yeah? Oh, okay. Group one that I couldn't find. We gathered experiences in the group first. Erfahrungen mit Malen, mit Natur, aber auch Erfahrungen mit Karneval zum Beispiel. There were a waste area of experiences with... Waste? Waste? Waste. Not waste. Of music, art history, nature and also carnival. Okay. And also with the coin operator or this coin machine?

[11:35]

Gambling? Yeah, yeah, I didn't know. Telephone. Telephone. One foreign candidate. Is that what you call telephones in Germany? Coin-operated machines? And it was also a scientific discussion. Oh. I can tell. Yeah, I just can't say this. It's a discussion. And we were first denying that you could generate enlightenment experiences, but then we came up that you could set up the condition and generate the conditions that further it. And another point was, because often such experiences of beauty play a role, we actually asked the question, so it doesn't have to be harmony and beauty, was our conclusion, but that is one entrance way, like the other entrance ways, because the mitzvah was not necessarily beautiful from a conditional point of view.

[13:03]

And we first noticed that there were a lot of experiences of beauty. And that is one entryway to it. But then we decided that that is not necessary. Well, because the coin operated machine wasn't necessarily an example of beauty. You mean a pay telephone? Yes. What? It was one experience of unity between an object and yourself. Well, there's no record that I know of in the Zen literature of experiencing oneness with a pay telephone.

[14:19]

But so many men experience oneness with their cars, why not? We came up that it was a form of communication, but without transmitting information. Yeah, that's good. I like that. And at the end there was a question how to kind of put these experiences of unity where you sort of lose touch with everyday life and functionality.

[15:39]

And how can it come together? Can it function together? And what's the difference to a trance experience? Okay. Good. Okay. Okay. We have... We also have different areas in our group. A lot has already been said about it, also in the middle of a cappellature event. And one of them, I think it was Ayi, she said, for example, before going to bed in the evening, she had a lot of grief, a lot of pain, but also a lot of psychical pain. She woke up the next day and had something completely different. Well, some of the areas were already mentioned of these experiences. And we had also the report of when somebody is going to sleep, being still, full in pain and sorrows and psychological upset.

[16:59]

And then in the morning, he woke up or she woke up and something completely changed. There was also someone who said that even in deep pain, the acceptance of deep pain at its limit, for example at birth, completely changed one's perception. One said, now I can't change that anymore, there is no way out, and then suddenly that suddenly stopped and everything changed. And how, for example, really experiencing very deep pain, for example in birth, and then really letting go at that moment, how that changed. Perception. And that in, for example, encounter groups or other intense self-experience groups, there were some events that really changed the persons.

[18:22]

There was also someone who had very little contact with his father for many years and only had one contact. And somebody who had almost no contact with his father or bad contact with his father after 46 years by one touch, it changed. or during a session or during a long break, that suddenly changes completely when experiencing deep pain and despair, and you actually leave the category. The same pain and sadness remain, but the appreciation has completely dissolved and it is a deep happiness. And with all these things that he tells us, a form of healing always happens.

[19:33]

Another example was the experiences in Se Shin where this deep pain and suffering was experienced and that as such didn't change but something during a break or somehow dissolved and there was a deep happiness. underneath, and all of these happenings contained healing. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, in our group we also first reported about various experiences that are very similar to what was reported in the other groups, i.e. natural experiences. But what we have also found is that it could have been experiences of horror, in the sense that we had a deep experience from face to face with the sacred fish.

[20:52]

Most of the experiences we gathered were similar to the others. One point which was also there were these experiences of fear, of being scary, like for example one person, Heinrich, was telling about his encounter with with a shark, or, for example, a car accident, a heavier car accident. So that it leads us to the point of looking at what is actually under these experiences, so what happens as a structure in us. The common denominator of this experience was that we kind of get thrown out, catapulted out of our ordinary structure.

[22:06]

And then the question followed, can it only happen to us, or are there possibilities to practice it, to train it, so that we are also in the everyday, in the moment, in the moment, able to switch to another field of consciousness. And we also had the question whether that just happens to us or whether we can practice and train to get to the point where we can change our state of mind, consciousness. And then one participant brought another example in the everyday, where from a very comfortable situation suddenly a very uncomfortable situation became and reminded her of

[23:41]

a musician, a flutist, who trains rhythm, music and beat, and he does it in a way that in order to teach his students to keep the rhythm, he constantly tries to kick them out of this rhythm. and that this, so to speak, is the training field where you can stabilize your own rhythm. Okay, there was one person who talked about a very cozy and agreeable situation which changed from more or less one moment to the next. And she reminded herself of this musician, Flattischler, who is using rhythm and changes of rhythm of tact, tempo, and he actually is training his students to keep the rhythm by throwing them off all the time.

[25:01]

So they learn how to keep it. And so we approached the field of what possibilities Buddhism or Zen practice offers in order to develop this field more. But what does it mean to be enlightened? There is also a statement in Buddhism that says we are all already enlightened. And we kind of try to see what the conditions are to enlarge this field. But then there is also another statement in Buddhism which says we are already enlightened. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's all.

[26:07]

Does someone want to add something? Oh. People at the seminar noticed that we were going in the wrong direction, that we were going in a bad way, that we were going in categories that were too good, that something was missing. Then we noticed that things were going the other way around. You are actually in a peaceful situation and suddenly something happens and you get into a very bad situation. For example, through a memory defect, someone gets something in the face or is suddenly written down or something is triggered. We also after the seminar were talking about how there is one way that you kind of don't feel well and uneasy and then it changes to well-being and But exactly this change works also the other way around.

[27:21]

You can be very peacefully and content, and then something happens, maybe a memory or something disagreeable, and you're off. Yeah. Yes. Yes. the path to wisdom. I'm puzzled by this statement, the path of wisdom, and I'm thinking about the path to wisdom, and I'm kind of asking myself, why should wisdom walk around? You know, the word of is quite interesting.

[28:31]

Here we have of instead of to. And as I said last night, this is something like a past act. It's a path to a path. The path itself produces wisdom and the path itself expresses wisdom. What was the last part? And expresses wisdom. Yeah, we have to think about it in that way. We have to think about it in that way.

[29:36]

And of, as you're pointing out, of expresses that. Because of is a word that means coming from, centering on, and going toward. Like we could say, forgive me, Heinrich of Hanover. Wie wir sagen könnten, ja, bitte entschuldige, Heinrich von Hannover. Oh, yeah, Heinrich von Hannover. So that would mean Heinrich who comes from Hannover. Ja, das würde einerseits bedeuten, Heinrich, der von Hannover kommt. And it could mean Heinrich who is centered on Hannover. Das kann auch bedeuten, Heinrich, der hier... or Heineck who's going toward Hannover.

[30:38]

So in a simple word like this, there's movement toward, centering, etc. If you say, what is this cake made of? It could have all those meanings. So if we said the path to wisdom, that would be a path of knowledge, not a path of wisdom. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, Heinrich von Hanover. I wanted to ask a completely different question. I made already a few experiences with Buddha here and there, and in the last couple of days I had one talk with the chef here.

[32:04]

Well, I'm translating. Don't be vain. And she told me what this is all about. Would you like to wear it? No, no. And he mentioned that there is something like initiation and ordination, that you become a child of Buddha? That's beautiful.

[33:08]

That feels so well to become a child of Buddha. You know, Buddha, I would like to be your child for one moment. And then for the next moment. My question is perhaps you have some words or mantra, I don't know, to bring me in contact with, you know, Something which kind of expresses this essence. You know Buddha, I would like to be your child.

[34:11]

But for this moment. Well, when you have such feelings, it's best to look at the words you yourself use. Yeah, so you just take the words you've used and you try them out like Buddha of this moment. Suzuki Roshi used to say, you're always showing what kind of Buddha you are. Well, you're always showing what kind of person you are. We can also say we're always showing what kind of Buddha we are. So you could have a feeling, this moment's Buddha.

[35:26]

Something like that. Or child of this moment. So that's a very traditional practice in Zen. since words and language are so important to us, so deeply influences us, you take it out of the usual context of thinking and put it in Make a statement that doesn't quite fit back into the context. And turn it into a mantra. So it's an acceptable thing to say within our language, what kind of person am I? It's a little funny to say, what kind of Buddha am I?

[36:41]

So if we say that, it has some power. What kind of Buddha am I? Arriving in this moment. What kind of child of this moment am I? Like that. So it's, yeah. Okay. That's enough. I think... Yeah, I liked what... I liked everything I heard. I think it may be good to take a break. So let's come back... half an hour, I think that's what we seem to need. Then we'll see what happens.

[37:44]

We're going to have a time problem. In ten minutes we're supposed to have lunch. So maybe we have lunch at 12.30. And then if we're going to end at 4, are we 4.30? 4.35, yeah. Okay, we'll see. Because I'd like to speak about, yeah, what I could call the path of breath. And the path of mind, perhaps I could call it that. And how the path of wisdom is integrated in your life through the Eightfold Path. Tomorrow, yeah.

[39:04]

Tomorrow, next year. To be continued next year. And it will continue next year. I can go real fast. I can go really fast. But then it gets, well... Someone asked me at the break if one needs a teacher. Yeah, I get asked that quite often, of course. I should say no. What do you expect me to say?

[40:04]

You think I want to be out of a job? Um... But to make a distinction like path of wisdom or path to wisdom, that kind of distinction, it's helpful to have a teacher for. And there are many such distinctions that really aren't about knowledge but are about experience. So it helps to join your experience to the experience of a teacher, at least sometimes. Yes, how much that's up to you.

[41:08]

But some is probably pretty helpful. Now the experiences you described, that you described in your groups, and make clear that we know much about what this what's indicative of this path of wisdom. But these experiences are usually in the context of, well, they happened once or twice in my life or maybe a little bit more, but yeah, they seem like a kind of luck.

[42:26]

But you also asked yourself the question, if we can have these experiences, why can't we Why can't they happen more often? What kind of conditions or mind or body or situation conditions we can create can make this kind of experience more possible. Yeah, that's basically a Buddhist question. Buddhism has developed through trying to answer such questions.

[43:34]

Why hasn't our Western culture asked such questions so clearly? Yeah, I think it's helpful to think about that because we need to notice the countervailing tendency in ourself, the countervailing, the opposite of tension in ourself. I think we have a sense of being born with an inherent nature. Yes, human nature, soul or something. Which we can add to our experience, but we can't really change ourselves that much. Anyway, our tendency is more in that direction.

[44:57]

And in yoga culture, there's much more the emphasis that each of us is a construct, which we ourselves are constructing. It's not a very attractive word, construct, but we don't have a better word for it than I can think of. And... Andreas mentioned this sleeping and waking up and feeling different. I think we sleep for our mind, not for our body. There'd be lots of ways to rest if it were only about our body.

[46:13]

There's various ways we could take a little rest, take it easy, but we need to tune out consciousness. We have a very articulated consciousness. Very productive. We're supposed to accomplish things. And the strong emphasis on planning and productiveness, I think, is what primarily creates the unconscious. Now I say it creates the unconscious. Yeah, that's my view, but it also is a Buddhist view that... we're not the same human beings in each century.

[47:27]

There's a tendency for us to think that human nature is always the same. It would have been good if the Greeks had psychotherapy. Socrates could have been straightened out. But psychotherapy is a very particular, I think, a way for us modern contemporary people to work with our mind. There's a big tendency in Western culture toward universality. And in Western culture there is a great tendency to make everything universal.

[48:43]

My opinion would be that Freud, to make it simple, discovered associative mind. And to make it simple, my assumption is that Freud discovered associative thinking. which is freer of the boundaries of consciousness. So where's these things that consciousness doesn't remember coming from? Well, they must be coming from somewhere. Let's call it the unconscious. And then the unconscious was thought to be originally universal. All cultures had an unconscious. Well, to some extent that's probably true, but the boundaries of where that is, what to the contents of consciousness and unconsciousness, very different in different cultures, I'm quite sure.

[50:01]

And Jung seems to have discovered dreaming. In a different way than Freud used dreaming. And Jung then made the dream-like images archetypes. And he imagined these archetypes are universal even though they're mostly Greek. And he imagined a kind of, what's he call it, a universal, what's the word he uses in English? collective unconscious.

[51:11]

He imagines a universal collective unconscious. Now, from a Buddhist point of view, this comes out of the views in our culture to try to universalize things. On some level we are all the same, or all people have the same conditions. Now, so we sleep, as we could say, in order to dream. Also können wir sagen, schlafen wir, um zu träumen. We need that territory. Wir brauchen dieses Territorium. Now, what Jung didn't emphasize was non-dreaming deep sleep.

[52:14]

Was Jung nicht so erwähnt hat, ist diesen Zustand von Tiefschlaf, wo du nicht träumst. But that's what Buddhism and yoga culture emphasize. That if there's anything approaching universality, it's non-dreaming deep sleep. Something close to unstructured mind. Okay. But Buddhism would not assume this unstructured mind is the same everywhere. Because the non-structure is influenced by structure. weil die Nichtstruktur beeinflusst wird durch Struktur.

[53:22]

So the kind of emptiness you have is also related to the kind of form you have. Weil die Art der Leerheit, die du hast, ist auch bezogen auf die Form, die du hast. So original mind, or I prefer to say originary mind, weil der ursprüngliche Geist Original mind. Yeah. And originary you can't translate. Yeah. How shall I? Well, what originary means in English, in philosophy, is it's not there prior, but it's generated. Yeah, it's a hard distinction to make. The original text would be the text that was there at the beginning. The originary text would be the condition that allowed the text to appear.

[54:24]

So if we do think of an original mind rather than an original mind, then practice is not a process of uncovering. Yeah, and just let me say that a lot of Buddhism actually does think of practice as an uncovering. I think that's wrong, actually. It's a process of generating. Es ist ein Prozess des Erschaffens. That's really not an important point. Das ist ein wichtiger Punkt.

[55:43]

Okay. So, it's original mind or originary mind that allows Buddhism to be a teaching for us easily. Because it's fairly unconditioned by culture. But originary mind in our culture is a little different. how we get to know it is different than in Asian culture. Okay. All right. Now, when you have these experiences you're talking about in your groups, Wenn du diese Erfahrungen hast, über die du in den Gruppen berichtet hast, We could say it's something like the surfacing of an originary mind into your daily life.

[56:54]

Es ist so, wie wenn dieser originelle Mind an die Oberfläche kommt in deinem Alltag. Now, certain conditions make that more likely to happen. Also manche Bedingungen erleichtern, dass dies passieren kann. Need, chance, luck. Bedürfnis, Zufall, Glück. So the path of wisdom is to, we could call it the craft of wisdom. Also wir können den Weg der Weisheit auch ein Handwerk der Weisheit nennen. How can this be more present in our life? Wie kann das gegenwärtiger in unserem Leben sein? Okay, well the Buddhist view is it's the structure of consciousness that's the problem.

[57:55]

Also die buddhistische Ansicht ist, dass die Struktur des Bewusstseins das Problem ist. The editing process of consciousness. Yeah, and it's not that there's anything wrong with consciousness. But the grasp consciousness has on the mind is a problem. And the degree to which we identify, have created our identity through consciousness is the problem. Now, one kind of knowledge that comes from the experiences you spoke about in your groups through such an experience, you know your identity is not limited to your consciousness.

[59:10]

And once you know that, depending on what kind of person you are, You decide, perhaps, okay, I'm going to find out what this wider being is who's not limited to consciousness. And the problem of answering the effort to answer that question is the path of wisdom. Okay. Now one example that I for some reason feel like giving is to see the presence of an object rather than the object.

[60:26]

You know that some people have a certain presence. Ihr wisst, dass manche Menschen eine bestimmte Präsenz haben. There can be 30 people in a room, but two or three seem to occupy a different kind of space than others. Ja, da können 30 Menschen in einem Raum sein, aber zwei oder drei scheinen eine andere Art von Raum einzunehmen. And there's objects which have a certain kind of presence. Ja, restaurants know that. Restaurants wissen das. A good restaurant will try to find one great vase or chandelier or statue. And if they can find it, they can build a whole restaurant around it, the atmosphere of a restaurant.

[61:27]

Ja, und gute Restaurants wissen das. Die finden ein Objekt, sei es ein Kronleuchter oder eine Vase oder ein bestimmtes Projekt, Objekt, was sie da hinstellen, aus dem heraus sich dann das Weitere gestaltet. Makes the food taste better. So there's some standards of beauty or something. Well, you can just, you know, and advertisers try to make, sell the presence of the car, not the object of the car. Ja, und Werbefachleute, die versuchen, die Präsenz eines Autos zu verkaufen, nicht das Auto. Okay. Now those are kind of like commercial examples. Also das sind etwas kommerzielle Beispiele. But the fact is, some objects have a presence.

[62:28]

Aber die Tatsache ist, dass manche Objekte Präsenz besitzen. Like a wooden salad bowl has a different presence than a plastic salad bowl. because a wooden salad bowl has a different presence than a plastic bowl. I don't know if I can make sense of what I'm saying, but I'm trying. I always say I'm trying. My wife says that's not good enough. Okay, so... You go in some houses and not a single object in the person's house has presence. It doesn't seem to make any difference to them whether things are plastic or whatever it is.

[63:31]

It's just utilitarian. But if you see presence rather than the object... Aber wenn du Präsenz siehst, mehr oder statt des Objekts, dann ist diese Präsenz nicht das Objekt. Und ist aber auch nicht getrennt davon. Also du siehst den Mind genauso wie das Objekt. One of the traditional ways to think about self is mind or self is not this stuff.

[64:33]

But it's not different from this stuff. So you're stuck with this problem of it's not just this stuff, but it's not different from this stuff. And it's not both this stuff and not this stuff. Like that. So that means when you do kind of look at that, you start wondering what mind is or self is. And asking such questions makes you more sensitive. And you're less likely to think of self or mind as some kind of entity.

[65:45]

So part of this path of wisdom is to less often see things as entities. So the object is neither, it's not only its presence, it's not, the object isn't the presence and the presence isn't only the object, you know, like that. So you get in the habit of feeling the presence of something or the absence of the presence of something. It's better to have, I would say, in your house, to have only one object with presence than ten without presence.

[66:46]

That means we keep the artists busy. So I think that's one of the reasons that beauty is one of the things you mentioned as allowing this unconditioned feeling to appear. Beauty is something like presence. And you can take beautiful flowers and arrange them in a way that they have no presence. Und du kannst wunderschöne Blumen nehmen und sie so zusammenstellen, dass sie keine Präsenz haben.

[67:58]

So the presence even of the flower is something you can't grasp. Auch die Präsenz von Blumen kannst du nicht greifen. So you're really more clearly seeing mind when you feel the presence of something. Also so siehst du klarer den mind, wenn du die Präsenz von etwas wahrnimmst. Okay, so let me, before lunch, see if I can just speak about this, what I call the path of breath. Now, some of this is familiar to most of you. First of all, it's the bringing attention to the breath. And noticing you can do it for a little while, but not for a long while. And discovering that if you do get so that you can do it continuously, the way your physical stance, posture is attentional, is continuously your attention.

[69:13]

We learn that much. We learn that our posture, our stance is a kind of attention, a kind of awareness. And we create public space a particular way. How we hold back attention or express attention in different cultures to create a kind of public space. So we've all learned to do that. You can also learn to have your breath constantly at your attention.

[70:24]

But what's profound about doing that is your attention from the breath for some reason doesn't go back to your thinking. ist, wenn deine Aufmerksamkeit vom Atem aus einem Grund nicht zurückgeht zum Denken. If your attention doesn't go back to your thinking, then your need for continuity from moment to moment doesn't have to be established in your thinking anymore. And then your continuity is established in your breath, in your body, and in phenomena. This is a real big change.

[71:38]

Then you can understand much more easily phrases in Zen like the mind is not separate from things and things are not separate from the mind. the more that it becomes your habit to just feel your continuity in your situation. Rather than in the imagination of past moments and of next moments, this present becomes a different kind of present. Okay, now I would say the second path of breath. Also, which most of you know, and I mentioned earlier too. is now you're bringing your attention not just to your breath, but you're bringing attention to your speech and your thinking.

[73:01]

Yeah, once we learn to think, speak and think, our attention goes to our thinking. And we create a powerfully powerful thought space. Now, practice is to draw that thought space back to the body. So thoughts, not just continuity, but thought space itself becomes related to the body and breath.

[74:02]

Can you repeat that? Thought space itself, not just continuity, becomes related to the body and breath. And memory is woven into the present. That's changing the kind of path you're walking on. Memory is woven into the present. And time and space are woven together. Zeit und Raum werden zusammen verwoben.

[75:07]

I won't try to explain why. I don't need to explain why. It just happens. This is the craft. Ich muss nicht erklären, weshalb. Es passiert einfach. Das ist eine Kunst. Zeit und Raum fühlen sich an wie ein Tuch. You wouldn't so easily say, I don't have any time. Because you are time. You can't not have any time. you can have no time in relationship to what somebody else expects of you. He expects me to be there at a certain time, but that's his problem. I'm blissed out right here. What do I care? No, you have to be nicer than me. Okay. Heidegger says that the ancient or earlier meaning of memory was that it meant when past, present and future are held in one concentration.

[76:32]

And he was on to something there. And Yuan Wu says something like Yuan Wu, the guy I mentioned the other day. And Yuan... Wu, one of the founders of Zen Buddhism, he said, past and present become one wholeness. and held in the feeling, and one's actions have a new power. It's very close to what I think Heidegger was sensing.

[77:56]

Okay, now the third aspect of this path of breath is to bring things into inhaling and exhaling. So I don't see these flowers, for example, with my mind. Which immediately puts them into... If I see them with my mind, they tend to just be flowers. And there's a tendency to generalize. These are roses. Yeah, and these are roses too. These are a little different, but they're roses. Yeah, and I can stop and say, oh, these are different, but still I'm pulling away from generalizations.

[79:05]

But if I look, see, smell, hear through my inhale and exhale, my mind, mentation is part of my breath. I kind of inhale the flower. Exhale the flower. There's a pace. In other words, to do that gives the mind a pace, a pace pulse. I know the word pace is hard to define in German. Something like that. I have a very bad oral memory.

[80:24]

I can't remember a sound. I could learn to read a language much easier than speaking. The word pulse is interesting because it in its roots means to draw near. Like the pulse of a drum or the rhythm of music draws you into the music. Well, a big part of the path of wisdom is to find the pulse of each situation. So like to know the presence, to know the pulse. And the pulse draws you into each situation, and each situation has a different pulse. And speaking with you, I'm trying to find your pulse, our pulse.

[81:35]

And if I can find it, if I know I can feel it, Then more of you will come up to me and say, oh, you're talking just about what I wanted you to talk about. So part of the pulse is to use the pulse of the breath to come into the pulse of a situation. Your breath is sort of like a tuning fork. So if I look at these flowers within my inhale and exhale, I'm more open to be influenced by the, have the flowers start talking to me.

[82:44]

I almost don't know their flowers. It's just some experience that's happening. And that experience begins to go everywhere. But strangely, if I generalize, which is a tendency to universalize, these are all flowers. Generalizing separates me. You'd think logically it's the opposite. Generalizing connects you, but no, it doesn't separate you. It separates you because nothing is general. Everything is particular.

[83:50]

Everything is particular and unique. And that entering into the momentariness and uniqueness of each each each If I say thing, it's a generalization. Each, each. You're touching then the path of wisdom. So let's sit for a moment. How easy it is.

[85:36]

The path of breath. You're already breathing. You have everything you need. Breath. Inhales and exhales. attention. It might even be the path to wisdom. It's certainly the path of wisdom. Going toward, centering on, already arriving.

[86:41]

Aufzugehen. Aufzentriert sein. Schon ankommend. Hello. Schönen Nachmittag. I know there were one or two questions maybe people had that somebody wanted to remind me. Mich beschäftigen noch zwei Themen. Zum einen the topic of suffering, the subject of suffering,

[87:59]

I'm interested in two more subjects, one of which is the suffering. And I know from my mind that I need to accept suffering. But what does that mean in my everyday life? Okay. I won't forget. Yes? He's going back to what was reported in the groups this morning from this connectedness with the Third Reich, with the Nazi regimes.

[89:22]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. What type of connectedness is that? Okay. Okay. No? Just holding your chin. Yes. You were talking about generalizations and how harmful they are. And now I'm asking, is there only one Buddha nature or many? Many. You'll have your own Buddha nature. Already do.

[90:23]

Yes, I mean, that's a good point. And Sukhiroshi used to say, you will each have your own enlightenment. And that's actually a big difference between Buddhist schools. And there is a big difference between the Buddhist schools. Because a lot of Buddhist schools assume they know the road map to enlightenment and they will tell you what stage you are on. And the problem with that is that Only so much time. But Zen, more than most schools, assumes the evolution of mind. That... mind itself is evolving and it's not the same mind in which Buddha was enlightened.

[91:53]

Let me respond. You know, I don't like to speak about the Nazi era with you. You know, it's something that I feel Yeah, I'm a human being, and it's what we human beings, including me, do. But that particular historical thing, I don't feel so much right to talk about it.

[93:00]

But one of the reasons I'm practicing here is because of that. I would say that I find Germans are like Americans in one respect. Americans can't look back very far because there isn't much history in America. And I feel a lot of Germans don't look back past their grandparents.

[94:04]

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