I'm really happy to be doing this sashin with you. Together with you. And I tend to, I'm surprising, you know, obviously I've done a lot of sashins. But it's surprising, I seem, sometimes I forget, I forget in fact, how refreshing the attention is that sashin requires from us. Yeah, it's funny I forget. Yeah. But when I'm heading for a sashin, heading, bodying for a sashin, heading, I don't know, when I'm heading and bodying for a sashin, it's like I'm going to a destination.

[01:13]

Like I was going to Sweden or like next week to the United States. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's like, you know, I know I have to pack, I have to cut off things I'm doing. But if I go to Sweden or some place, I know who's going to meet me. I know where I'm going to stay. But when I'm heading for the destination Sashim, Yeah.

[02:29]

I don't really know if I'm going to stay. I mean, I've never left a sashin in the middle yet. I've considered it a few times. I remember once I thought, you know, when I was in my 20s, I thought, do I have a lifetime of sashins ahead of me? I almost got up and left. And when the destination is a sashin, you don't know who you're going to meet either. It's like a location which is an absence.

[03:29]

Or a location which can't really be remembered or comprehended. Hmm. Hmm. My inner airplane doesn't know where to land. It's looking for... Perhaps it likes flying around and thinking in futures. Perhaps our inner airplane is looking for airports in the past. It's very hard to find airports in the past. So maybe it's better to not think of Sashin as a destination, Vielleicht ist es also besser, sich das Sashin nicht als eine Endstation oder ein Ziel vorzustellen.

[05:00]

Even though my body feels like it's going somewhere a few days before Sashin. Obwohl mein Körper zumindest, der hat schon immer das Gefühl, als ob es irgendwo hingeht so ein paar Tage vor dem Sashin. It knows it's going somewhere, but it really doesn't know quite where. Yeah, and the word destination means, the etymology means to make firm, to establish. And to establish. And destiny, the idea of destiny is to try to make your future firm or somebody knows your future, your established future. And the idea in the word destiny, destiny in English, is also about establishing the future or that someone knows the future or something like that.

[06:13]

Yeah, but Sashin, I think it's clear we don't know what our future will be, even in the next seven days. But in Sashin, I think it becomes clear that we don't know where our future leads, not even in the next seven days. Yeah, in Sashin, things come up which you wouldn't in your usual daily life think about or notice or remember. So maybe to think of Sashin as an unknown location, a location you'll continuously locate, oder ein Ort, den man fortwährend verortet.

[07:18]

And the etymology of location is a place or a position. Und die Etymologie des Wortes location, das ist ein Ort oder eine Position. And, you know, Johannes, it's both. Johannes is a place and your posture is a position. Yeah. And locate, to locate means to discover and establish. So maybe, maybe we can We're preparing ourselves for an unknown location but not a destination.

[08:20]

And you don't know who or exactly what you'll meet. So if we think of Sashin as a location the schedule is a location your body is a location your posture is a location your breath is a location And attention is a kind of location. But attention itself can be a location.

[09:26]

And I think you know that when attention shifts from objects and this and that to attention itself, When attention really does shift to attention itself, it locates itself in attention itself. This is a shift into zazen mind. And you can feel that shift when you're sitting. But attention can also be a location can also be attention to breath. Attention to posture and attention to the body.

[10:34]

So we have these, again, seven days in this, you know, I don't know, meter or so or less square, Zabuton. And within that, there's the location of breath and body and posture. And I would as much as possible keep bringing attention back to body breath and posture. And see what happens. Now in English we say, I could say, notice your experience.

[11:36]

But I'd rather say something like, notice close to your experience. Because, in English at least, notice your experience implies that your experience can be noticed. But you... We can only partly notice our experience. So in my mind I see a kind of spaceship approaching a planet and it can only... fly by the surface, but it can't really know the planet or the object. But you can think or notice close to your experience. And we also think that somehow to notice your experience is an act of knowing.

[13:16]

But it's only an exploration of knowing. So again, I prefer to say something like, notice close to your experience. Like you might notice you're getting the flu, I hope not. Yeah, I hope not. If you notice close to the experience, you notice into the details of your emotions or getting the flu or something, it may be that noticing becomes part of a healing process.

[14:29]

noticing becomes an ingredient in the process of whatever you're experiencing. Yeah. Dogen says, know that the world of sitting is different from all other worlds. Notice, yeah, is that true? Notice that the world is sitting is different from other worlds. Then he says, clarify this for yourself. And then activate way-seeking mind. The way-seeking mind of the Buddha ancestors. What is sitting at this moment, he says.

[15:41]

Is it vertical or horizontal? No. Maybe the inner airplane can fly close into your experience and land. Land in this location of breath, body and posture. And just stay there for this week. And when it gets difficult to sit, painful to sit, Perhaps you can explore this location which includes the pain.

[17:00]

And then notice when the tension is more with the breath than with the pain. Or when you bring attention, noticing close into the pain. Not just as if it were going to go away. But as if it's going to stay. Maybe you can land in the pain itself as a location. Yeah. Nothing bad is happening to you. I mean, probably anyway.

[18:06]

I see what happens when you bring attention, noticing into the breath. Oder schau mal, was geschieht, wenn du die Aufmerksamkeit und das Bemerken in den Atem hineinbringst. Oder in die Gedanken hinein, wo du vielleicht etwas anderes tun möchtest, vielleicht weggehen oder so. Kannst du die Aufmerksamkeit zurück in deine unmittelbare Situation bringen? It's a process of noticing close to your experience. Within your experience. So anyway, we have this precious days together. in this each of our own location and somehow our location overlaps with other locations and we don't know who we'll meet or what we'll meet

[19:21]

But the sense of heading for something which you don't really know what it is is at the center of exploring what Buddhism means by self and freedom from self. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[20:06]

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