So do any of you have a feel, a relationship to, or similarly to the folks at this Chautauqua Boulder seminar, that practice for you is a feeling of something like coming home, or maybe that you feel this place, Johanneshof Quellenweg, is another home for you. Could you start with that? What?

[01:07]

Well, that's a good short answer. Can you elaborate on that? My shirt is on the railing there. Thank you very much, Greg. Ich habe festgestellt, dass es einen großen Unterschied macht, ob ich mit meiner Familie when I'm with my family or when I'm not just coming to the Johannishof, but when I'm living with my practice. I didn't think much about it. I just realized that I was with my family and the way my family thinks and solves problems Okay, so one thing I'm noticing is that just recently I was with my family, my parental family, and the way that they think and cope with difficulties.

[02:18]

Das ist mir vertraut oder bekannt, aber ich bin nicht mir so That's familiar to me and yet I'm noticing that I've learned to cope with problems differently and that has arisen a way that has arisen from my studies and practice of Zazen. But that's a mildly painful decision. [...] in what I have developed almost my whole adult life through Roshi and with my experience with Sasin here.

[03:38]

Yeah, and it sounds a little harsh or hard, but if I was to express it, it's something like this is no longer my family, but my family and my home is in this experience of what I've almost for all of my adult life learned with Bakeroshi and through Zazen. And Sangha. And Sangha. Is there some point at which you noticed, geez, I feel more at home in practice than I do in most circumstances? Also, If I understand that correctly, yes, I would say that was the case during the practice period.

[04:41]

in relation to my life, then unfortunately it is often the case that I feel more at home and that it is a difficulty to feel more at home in the circumstances or in the world of Zen, I say now, Sishin, seminar, other formats, than it is sometimes more difficult for me to feel so completely satisfied in my everyday life. Is that understood? And if I see that in the context of my life, it's actually a difficulty that I feel more at home in the context of practice, sesshin, seminars, the practice period, and that it's more difficult, more challenging for me to feel as complete or as satisfied in my daily circumstances. Yes, and not making this difference so big anymore, or really bringing the Sazen or the experience of the Sazen into everyday life after all these years.

[06:03]

For me, this is a long-term practice and one of the main tasks. And to have that difference not be so big, to bring that experience more into my daily life, that for me as a long-term practitioner is one of the main challenges of practice. Yeah, it's interesting that what you say, I think, is familiar to... Some of them, many of us. But yet it's, to me also, completely mysterious. Why is there, what is this difference? Yes? And so what do you want to translate? Oh, yes, translate it. Why not? I think it's interesting what you say. Maybe for many of us it sounds familiar, and yet for me it's something totally mysterious.

[07:08]

What is this difference? So when it first happened to me, when it happened to me, I was shocked. For me this occurred the very first time I sat. I knew nothing about meditation. And I was in a group of a psychology professor in Vienna, and he had participated in a week with LaSalle himself. And then he told us how that was, and in the end he said, okay, well, let's try it. I have to tell you now.

[08:14]

Then I sat down on the pillow and breathed and felt. And suddenly the tears came to me and I thought, what am I doing in my life? I run there, I run there, I run there. The children, I'm shy to the children, what am I doing? Here I am at home. I sat down on the cushion and tears started coming. And I felt, what am I doing with my life? I'm running here. I'm going there. I'm doing this and that. I'm giving birth to children. I'm taking care of children. But this is my life. This is where I'm at home. And then I just continued crying. Thanks.

[09:16]

Yes? Yes, I wouldn't be able to remember it now, but I could remember it. That was also the first contact, and that was in Freiburg, in a lecture. Where did I come from? I don't know. I wouldn't have called it coming home, but I could call it that. And for me, that experience occurred during a lecture in Freiburg, where when I was in Rütte, I was asked if I didn't want to go and listen to that. Yes, then I did that, and then someone sat on the pedestal and said things, very banal. And then I thought, why am I not sitting there? No one listens to me when I tell these things at home. We all listen to each other. These are my things. It was completely... So this person was sitting there and talking about all these completely ordinary, obvious things.

[10:33]

And I was wondering, why am I not sitting there? These are all my things that nobody listens to me when I talk about these things at home. These are completely my topics. Then everything was clear, I didn't have any more questions at all. At first there was no doubt, then it started again in the praxis period in Colorado. And then I also went through it and after that Everything was completely different again. And otherwise, as Arte said, I can understand it very well. It's like that now. So after that, everything was clear, no more doubts, no questions, and it stayed that way until the practice period in Creston that I participated.

[11:42]

And that was something that was difficult, but I went through that as well. And then after that, everything was different again. And I can relate quite well to what Beate is saying. That is very difficult. With a little friend, it's not a big deal. It's difficult with my circle of friends and I don't have much family anymore. I can't spend much time with them anymore because they have such a different attitude or posture and it's so exhausting for me. And other than that, I also have to say it's a kind of mystery.

[12:51]

I keep being in awe, wonder about it, what's happening. Thank you. You were going to say something, Nico? Yeah, we have for so many years coordinated in our lives such that we could come here continuously even if just for a short amount of time. And one part of the reason was that we shared the idea that there should be a place like this. And another aspect, though, also that the effect of the place was experienced refreshing or refreshing more than anything else, really.

[14:04]

For me, when I entered the Johanneshof, I somehow got into a different pace, like a Pavlovian reflex. And although going back on Friday afternoon and back on Sunday afternoon was somehow absurd, my balance was always so that I said, that's good, that's like a depot. And even though it's kind of absurd to drive here, arrive on Friday and leave on Sunday, still the effect of it was like a resource treatment or something, just refreshing. I clearly felt different afterwards. And the mystery for me is still which meaning Sangha plays in it. And the mystery for me still is the question of what is the role or the meaning of Sangha in this.

[15:09]

And of course a profound motivation for that is the love for this community. And something that happens just through being together, just through being close to each other. And I discovered that pretty early on without knowing what it was, without knowing that that's the effect of the community. And at some point I started calling that my Sangha bath. Someone over there?

[16:15]

I don't think it's the same as you. I'll put it this way. Increasing loneliness and the dissolution of problems is paid with your retirement and your friends, family and your increasing loneliness. You can't exchange it like that anymore. I relate to what you said before that the increase of serenity or equanimity and the ability to solve problems in a new way, the price for that is a sort of alienation from one's former friends and also alienation and being lonely, being more lonely. I understand. Yeah. Someone else? Yes? My lay life oftentimes seems to me like a as-if life.

[17:19]

It doesn't really interest me. And the practice that really does interest me, there I feel more genuine or more authentic. And in one's lay life one for so many hours does things that really might not interest one in the end. But with other people, like outside people, I don't really feel any difference. But in practice, I feel more genuine, more authentic, and there's not this as-if feeling.

[18:43]

Leo? When I started practicing in the first years and seminars and so on, I realized that I was still running with such a silent feeling of home. But in the middle of it, it was actually as if I was back to the place where I was at home. that it had completely dissolved. And that was only a tearful realization. In the historical sense, the house, the home was simply gone. It dissolved. And now I wouldn't say it's a new form or something else, but it's like I don't feel at home anywhere anymore. But it's not like a pang or something special, but it's actually good everywhere. And that makes it possible, this loneliness or this loneliness, which, as you have already said, I lost my conventional feeling of home in the sense of going back to where one grew up in the

[19:59]

quite in the beginning of practicing you all. And there was a few tears were shared with that. And then I further have actually had no home anymore. This was, well, not, it was just dissolved. And then eventually now it's rather than having a new home, it's, know that I don't feel somewhat at home, but it's not something special, it's just being able to settle or settle down principally everywhere and this makes it easier and bearable to bear this kind of felt estrangement my predecessors talked about. So this is easier to just to tolerate, to being in a way different, experiencing and feeling different and so kind of lonely or easier to bear that way.

[21:35]

Yeah, yes. Can you speak? Can you hear her? Really, this room has pretty good acoustics. Um... just to come home in the breath and in the breath, in the vitality, in life, to somehow come home in a bad way, to come home in the silence, in the Sangha, and somehow I have now risen up to come home with this inner most request, so that ... so ... such a feeling through the practice, through the Sangha, to have a place or a possibility to be in contact again and again with what is calling me or what it is, and to know that this is something that

[23:04]

that might move any one of us in life. And then it just came to my mind that Baker Roshi once said in a seminar or session, I don't remember exactly, something about the practice also has to do with where we place our broken heart. So for me this coming home in practice has a lot to do with the possibility, with the place where I can somehow be with my suffering, with all my insufficiencies, questions, I just can be, I don't have to be at peace with it. And that is for me the essence of the practice, somehow coming home. broken heart, innermost request and everybody else.

[24:10]

Well, for me to start practice I had immediately also the feeling of coming home and coming home within my breath and in my breath into aliveness itself in coming home in in that and also in stillness. And what also is very much connected to coming home for me is this shared thing of the innermost request. Where I had the experience in the Sangha, we all share that. It's something that is the, I don't know what force, energy, that makes me move, us move, makes us practice. And then I remembered something that you said in one of your talks, Teixos,

[25:15]

This coming home also has to do for me with the possibility to put our broken heart, to give it a space, to give it a room, to have practice as a place where I can meet my suffering and where I can be with my suffering with my weakness, with my incompleteness and, now I'm adding something that I didn't say before, and feeling with that complete and whole. And I think to come home and feel this lively existence of myself and of all the others in the Sangha is something that I would call at home in practice. OK. Yes, Gregor? For me, coming home, I see also an aspect of it's to establish, to create the space.

[26:23]

And it's not something we go for. Deutsch, first? First of Deutsch, yeah. For me, coming home, I see I want to add the aspect that you have to create this space for the first time. And that I, for example, make the experience that I can be somewhere and do not feel at home, because maybe the people are completely different and not as beautiful as before. But when I sit down for an hour, as long as I need, and suddenly I realize The space is established. And that has... I'm trying to cultivate this quality more and more. And with that, this being at home is also... to make music. It's not something that's either there or... like now the...

[27:25]

Johanneshof-Quellenweg, because if we don't establish it, it's just a barn before. It's not the wall, so to play a little bit with that, I'll see. For example, when I go somewhere and don't immediately feel at home for whatever reason, maybe just different mindsets or frequencies, then I experiment with settling myself and for an hour or however long I need to establish and generate this feeling of being at home. And I'm experimenting with making that more mobile or more flexible, that this feeling is not just there in the same way that Johanneshof Quellenweg might be there, although that we also have to generate first, and before it was a schreinerei, and then we make it this space, but to establish this feeling of coming home and...

[28:49]

Yes, David? I would like to speak to the problems in practice that for me currently have a bigger meaning. For example, I have this experience that interactions with my friends or other people are suddenly a lot more difficult than they used to be. And also thinks that for my age would be pretty normal to just go out in the evenings and so forth.

[30:08]

That's all a lot more difficult. And also that through practice, sometimes there's a kind of discomfort, a kind of uncomfortable pressure upon myself to also want to solve these problems. And even if I just try to observe these things, and without needing to soften immediately, then still, it's not something that will just go away. or that just dissolves.

[31:11]

Thank you, David. Did you want to say something? Well, please. What brought me here 11 years ago was a mixture of body, search for change, curiosity and little knowledge. When I think back to what brought me here about 11 years ago or so, that was a mixture of suffering, curiosity, and really not knowing much. I had a seminar with you on a weekend. It was a weekend with the Sangha, and it was an experience that ultimately let me leave here And I participated in a seminar with you and with the Sangha and that was the time that made me leave here, which I had bought a cushion to sit on and made me leave here with a feeling of you're not going to get rid of me anymore.

[32:22]

It's a similar story to what many have said with the parental family. I find myself more and more at discrepancy with them. and then questions are asked of me from the peripheral circle of the family, that I say, yes, this is my And when there are questions from my family, maybe from the periphery of my family, and I speak about the Sangha, and I say something like, well, it's like my second family, I'm noticing how I have a little hard time to express that, to say it that way, and yet I acknowledge that that's how I feel.

[33:36]

Actually, it is my family. That's how I feel it. But I don't dare, I wouldn't dare to say that. Well, I'm glad we haven't been able to get rid of you. And we never tried, actually. Yeah. Well, okay, so... For people who come home to practice, this is, come home into their practice, it becomes their home, our home, my home, our shared home. Okay. come home to practice, dann wird das das Zuhause, das wird mein Zuhause und unser gemeinsames Zuhause.

[34:44]

But at the same time we have this problem, which I think is a real problem, it in some ways estranges us from our family and friends. And then at first, there's often no answer to that. Because often we feel we're in the midst of an exploration of something like the truth of our life and the truth of the world. And it's hard to turn away from that because it feels true. So then we have the problem which we can look at during the seminar or in practice of how to

[35:58]

somehow live our aliveness, live our life, so that the feeling of this truth includes others. I mean, when you're really secure in this rooted feeling, it's almost like this is what home looks like. So please, I want to share this home with you. And eventually some friends come around Can you say that in German?

[37:10]

Some of you can say they get the curve or something. They get the curve. And others somehow, I don't know, it somehow starts to work out. And even the problem with loneliness begins to lessen. And until the point comes where you almost can't feel lonely because there's nothing you're separated from. Okay. So I think this is... I mean, this is my life and your life and our shared life for many of us. And at the same time, I find it, excuse me, completely mysterious.

[38:15]

What the heck are we doing? And if it's mysterious in what we're doing, how do we continue something that's mysterious? Und wenn das mysteriös ist in dem, was wir tun, wie können wir dann etwas fortführen, das mysteriös ist? In the psychological community, it's been said, something I've read here and there, the primary scientific instrument for the study of the self is the practice of free association. No, I just bring that up as an idea. one of the starting points we can have in looking at this mystery.

[39:29]

Now here is psychology in the time of Freud and his successors. Trying to be scientific. to some degree you can say it's a science psychology. So he calls the concept of free association, and of course in association with a therapist who's in the same space, An instrument of self-discovery. Das nennt er ein Instrument der Selbstentdeckung. And the free association, the free part is you don't edit, you just let whatever is there as much as you're able to appear in the associative context.

[40:42]

Und diese freie Assoziation, also dieser Aspekt, dass das frei sein soll, bedeutet, dass man so weit wie möglich das nicht arbeitet oder... or just to let it appear as it does in the associative context. Now, in the facts, whatever facts we know and mythology we know about Socrates, He did talk about listening to his daimon, a kind of innermost request. Which I would say is a kind of inner dynamic, more than simply an innermost request. But that concept of an internalized true thing was feared in Christian culture, and the word daimon became devil, demons.

[41:57]

So in our culture, there's to various degrees a fear of the person determining themselves. But when we start determining ourselves, however we manage to do that, we start feeling at home. Aber wenn wir beginnen, uns selbst zu bestimmen, wie immer uns das auch gelingen mag, dann fangen wir an, uns zu Hause zu fühlen. Sometimes this is feared as releasing the devil or releasing uncontrolled instinctual processes and so forth. Manchmal befürchtet man, dass man den Teufel loslässt, entfesselt, oder dass man irgendwelche instinktiven Prozesse entfesselt.

[43:26]

But then we have the concept in Buddhism and Zen practice... that the precepts, the teachings that respect mutual behavior, Are the, literally this is the concept, are the generational blood of the concept of Buddha in history? And that's so important that there's really no fear of uncontrolled, instinctual, demonic inner workings.

[44:32]

And I think Freud's emphasis on free association was one step in that, one courageous step in that direction. And I bring this up because actually to various degrees we, and particularly people my age, in deciding to practice had to go certain cultural resistances and fears about it. And this iconic distinction between nature and nurture. Do you make the distinction so clearly?

[46:00]

We do, but we say environment instead of nurture. We don't have that nice thing, nature, nurture. We say environment. Okay. But in any case, and this is something it's worth exploring a little, but I don't know if we will this weekend. But clearly, Buddhism is on the side of nurture. I mean, we definitely have a genetic nature and so forth, but the Even the shaping of that is understood in Buddhism to be profoundly affected through nurture.

[47:25]

We could almost say the innermost request is that we nurture our nature. By the way, what time are we supposed to eat? We're talking about nature and nurture. It's one o'clock. One o'clock? Okay, fine, thanks. So we have this idea of this free association as a, is that our lunch crew leaving?

[48:36]

Yeah. OK. I forgive you. So we have this idea, concept that the free association can be a scientific, like a microscope or something, a scientific instrument by which we can know ourselves. Also wir haben diese Vorstellung, dieses Konzept, dass die freie Assoziation so ein wissenschaftliches Instrument sein kann, fast wie ein Mikroskop, um uns selbst zu kennen.

[49:39]

And I could say that that kind of broke the ground or opened the path for Buddhism to say, go ahead. That posture and stillness can be a similar kind of concept or scientific instrument. I don't know if psychologists today very often have people lie on couches, but Freud, at least iconically, changed the client's posture to couching instead of sitting. And I don't know how it is nowadays, whether psychologists still work a lot with the couch, but at least in an iconic way, Freud has changed the attitude of the client from sitting to couching.

[50:48]

Why can posture make such a difference? Why can we even think of posture as a scientific instrument by which we study ourselves? At least I can review right now. Obviously, sleeping and waking are usually different postures, except when you're driving. I mean, I'm kidding. We human beings don't sleep very well standing up. So obviously the mind of sleeping and dreaming and non-dreaming deep sleep occurs best in a horizontal-like posture.

[52:00]

So here we have these minds we're born with. Waking mind, which is associated with an upright posture. der Wachgeist, der Wachzustand, der mit einer, with a waking posture you said, upright posture, mit einer aufrechten Haltung assoziiert wird. And sleeping, a dreaming mind and non-dreaming sleep mind are associated with a horizontal posture. Und das Schlafen, Träumen oder nicht träumender Tiefschlaf werden mit einer horizontalen Haltung assoziiert. And now, through centuries of experimenting in India, this posture I'm sitting in now, and Nicole is sitting in and many of you are sitting in,

[53:10]

combines aspects of the horizontal and vertical posture. In other words, if you can get the posture stable enough, And to some extent you can do it on platforms and chairs and things, but it's more difficult. But if you can fold your warmth, your heat together, And heat and warmth have something to do with consciousness. And you can be stable enough to let go, in the posture, to let go of waking consciousness. This posture becomes an a scientific instrument.

[54:35]

At least in the context of what we're talking about now. A way in which we can develop a bodily mind stillness sufficient to observe the mind. A classic question along these lines is how can the eye observe the eye? And we could also say How can the pronoun I observe the pronoun I? So this is, we can also say, how can we use the body to observe the body? And how can we use the body to observe the body without using the self?

[55:56]

Okay. Okay. I mean, we've got very ordinary words here. Body, self, body observing the body. And the fact that the words are all overlapping in meaning is actually rather confusing. But in fact, we have discovered a way, which is yogic Zen practice, Buddhist practice, and similar practices.

[57:00]

We've discovered ways to use the body's posture Now that's a little different than just the body. The body's posture in order to observe mind and body. And the key here is bodily stillness. Now you would think stillness is whether you're still or you're not still.

[58:04]

But there's various kinds of stillness. And different schools of Buddhism develop different kinds of stillness. There's stillness which excludes everything that disturbs it. There's stillness which is open to everything that could disturb it, but transforms it through stillness. And there's the stillness of the movie screen with a movie on it, but the screen isn't affected. There's the stillness of the movie screen, which is still before the movie and can be still during the movie.

[59:09]

And if you're just practicing Zen with us, You've discovered a way to be still, but probably you're not so aware there's other ways to be still. And there's some value, which I'd like to try to convey, in distinguishing between these different kinds of stillness. Und da liegt ein Wert darin, und das ist etwas, was ich gerne erforschen möchte, diese unterschiedlichen Arten von Stille zu unterscheiden. Ja. So, we have something here we're calling the body.

[60:15]

That's a word, and it has a reference. Wir haben hier etwas, was wir den Körper nennen. Das ist ein Wort, und das hat einen Bezug. And posture, this is not... The body has a posture and the mind can have a posture. And the body and the mind and the posture of each is also related to changing. And within that, body, mind and change, there's also stillness. So these are English words I'm using. And they represent, they can open us to experience that includes these words.

[61:24]

And we can put together with those words a practice in which we feel at home and I think ultimately the world could feel at home. And if I use a word like ultimately, we'd better stop for lunch. And do you mind if I ring the bell and we just... feel like we're sitting for a few moments. I could even say the bell is a posture.

[63:26]

It's certainly a gesture. And now we're on the other side of that gesture we call the bell. Maybe there's a slight difference, a slight change. And we can use stillness to give that change some depth. So we've just used Change to give change some depth through stillness. We can breathe into that field.

[64:28]

Not going anywhere.

[64:52]

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