Yeah, I think first we have to decide, because I usually forget if we don't, when we end today. In my little calendar made from last year, this is a four-day seminar and ends tomorrow night. I don't know if anybody will still be here with me. Anyway, the idea when I came back from the States was I'd start with this Kingston weekend, but somewhere in the process it got changed this year or late last year to a three-day seminar. I guess most of you, those of you who have to drive, don't want to drive tomorrow because it's a rather bad day to drive, is that correct? So he'd like to leave today.

[01:10]

Before midnight. Okay. So who has to leave? What time does... Who has to leave in the afternoon fairly early? Are you getting a train to what time? We get into the train at 14.37 at Bad Säcken to the airport. To the airport? Yeah. Oh, yeah. From Stein or... Oh, from Basel. Why Stein? No, no, that's Basel, but... No, Stein has a train that goes straight to Zurich airport. Then we go to Basel. Okay. There's a little airport at Stein. I know that we... So that means we should end at one o'clock or something like that, huh? Oh, so the second half of the seminar I won't be able to teach.

[02:10]

I'm just teasing. Okay, all right. So we'll... I guess that's all right with everyone, if we end with one or so, something like that, 1.30? Okay. And then I would like to, of course, hear something from your discussion yesterday, and particularly if you discussed the feeling of being the Sangha or what the difference between practicing and not practicing is, I'd like to hear. Because, I mean, I can talk about Sangha, but... We're the Sangha together, so I need to know, feel something from you.

[03:19]

So Gürtz, you had your hand up yesterday, so we can start with you. Well, I don't know. We could wait till lunchtime if you want. Now go ahead. Yes, now. As I experience in many groups, the experiences and impressions and the views are quite different. And it's common to find a sort of common tune for that. Very vivid and very inspiring. And I want to just extract a tiny point from our group. That's concerning the difference between practicing and not practicing people.

[04:42]

Because I think it's a sensitive topic which has to be dealt with in a way that no one feels discriminated. And concerning my One Tech Lab talk yesterday. Has the word feeling and field a common root? I don't think so. But there is some similarity anyway. I'll find out, but I don't think so. I'm almost certain it doesn't. I'm almost certain it doesn't.

[05:45]

What I want to point out is that from the fear on one side and the feeling on the other side, both are something which they can grow out of. Yeah, okay. Dankeschön. Someone else? Noch jemand? Yes. Ja, ich finde also die Gruppe auch immer wunderbar, diese Diskussion, vor allem wenn jemand dabei ist, der sich noch alle Fragen stellen traut, weil sie ganz neu dabei ist. I find it marvelous, these groups, especially when someone is attending who has still all questions are still open and not yet asked or not yet answered. A real beginner. Yeah. Yeah. One question I would like to ask, which is bothering me since yesterday morning.

[06:52]

Where do you take refuge to? And then you ask, will you take refuge? This was accompanying me the whole day. I talked with people. I dreamt about flight aspects and flight boats like the boat people. I spoke briefly with Peter and he asked me, why do we actually flee? I talked to Peter and he said, what do we flee from when we take refuge? This touched me a lot and I thought, before the deep and real experience of passivity, This was by touching for me and then I thought it was before the deep experience of impermanence.

[08:02]

This touches on deep rooted or arch fears which also lead to practice. And then I thought about what had changed before I started practising and after I started practising. And then I thought about what had changed before I started practising and after. Because it was always like this with me, that it works anyway, nothing stays anyway. But it was more like, oh, nothing stays anyway. Before, I always had a strong feel for impermanence, but more the way that nothing's left, so to say. And somehow, through the practice, I had the feeling, I feel the transience more, and I still feel more ground, which is somehow a contradiction.

[09:09]

Through practice in one way I feel or experience impermanence more, but at the same time, which is contradictory but still I feel it, there is something like a ground. As if impermanence itself could become a sort of ground or I could settle in that. Again the question arises, where do I take refuge to? I have said that before several times, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, but actually I don't feel it. Feeling having some sort of ground is more concrete. The other one isn't. So I don't know where to take refuge. Okay. I feel I can't take refuge there because it's changing and someday we all die.

[10:34]

But while we're alive... When I leave, for example, when I'm somewhere else with other people together, the possibility of Sangha remains. Okay, that's good, thanks. Listening to what Michelin said, where do I take refuge? And yesterday then Valentin said something which was quite touched me.

[11:48]

He said this Sangha exists since 2500 years. For me it's like, I don't take refuge to, but refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. That's a different aspect, a vertical aspect of Sangha. And this is more of a vertical aspect, especially also for Sangha. Okay. Klaus? I have no question. Not a question? What happened in your group?

[12:49]

Yes. Oh, you're taking refuge in Goertz. Okay, Paul? For me it was just a question one day before and one day after. I tried to stay open. Oh, good. Well, that's good. Yes, Peter? Was that your clown nose on the end of your finger? I want to bring up something concerning clowns, which I just touched in the group and which worked in me all the time since then. And after long abstinence, I want to present one picture, one clown picture, this stumbling clown, probably with a real background.

[14:13]

As a metaphor for failure. for the metaphor for failure, but also for perseverance and continuity. To continue with something in spite of obstacles. For my feeling, failure is in the center of my Zen practice. I experience that my attention, my mindfulness decreases.

[15:26]

When I work with the koan I come to frustrating confrontations or points. And then Baler Sechins didn't break the decisive breakthrough. Insofar I think failure belongs to Zen practice. And concerning your question, what did change through that practice? I experience failure not as a personal disaster, a personal failure, you know.

[16:45]

Just something part of my practice way. And in this context I see Sangha as an association of failing ones. Failure community. We should call ourselves. And important is to give the Sangha the energy to continue practicing. Because I see that others also are not perfect.

[17:54]

And also others being examples for me of failure. No, no, positive examples. Well, I mean, Marquette, we have a sign made over the door, all ye who enter here are sure to fail. Well, if it strengthens your intention, all is well. Well, if it strengthens your intention, all is well. Yes, there's a hand. Oh, there's a hand, yes. Hi. I'm a fresh man, so to say.

[18:59]

I'm a fresh man, so to say. But as far as I have tried to understand, and we talked in the group yesterday, we also found that there are parallels. Zirof has already spoken with the musicians in other groups where you have different And perhaps it's like, we talked about that in our group, and the example was music, that probably being in other groups, it may be possible to have a field or feel for Sangha, too.

[20:08]

Other Buddhist groups or other groups? Any group. Any group with a special intention to make something together. Yeah, okay. Carpenters. Carpenters or cabinet makers. It's maybe true. ... Concerning Sangha, the intention was working in me or doing something in me? Just a personal will or whatever. And it's about openness too? It's about intention too. You group yourself together to do something special. So it's about intention too. When I'm in the center, for example, and I make an effort to do the same or do that what everyone else does, which is to meditate, I have a feel for Sangha.

[21:39]

But when I am outside of this practice, this concrete practice, I notice exactly the same, as I said, maybe I haven't practiced enough yet, but that there is always a personal will to do other things, that is, you are not, so to speak, equal to a matter, but you also have personal interests or conflicts that do not necessarily When I'm not in this straight way practicing with another group, the personal will is more in the foreground and there's not this strong common intention to do something, this and that. Personal will is interfering and also leading to conflicts. That was actually my point, on the one hand to have the openness, but you always have, and I can go on briefly, this is an arc, my question would be, is there an individual spirit, an individual will in Buddhism, or is it more about that we all have the same

[23:05]

Well, there's a little something like a conflict. The one side being wanting to be open, then having this personal will, and how this is, how is it, my question is, how is it in Buddhism? Is there something like a personal will, or do we have to be sort of, wie heißt, gleichgescheitert, adjusted sort of attuned or aligned yeah yeah I understand thank you I could see what you were doing can we together or we both yeah okay Lea you're a freshling too I'm not a freshling can you say something Yeah, about anything.

[24:15]

What we talked about? How this changes with the old friend. With people who just had sort of more loose acquaintances, I just talked about anything, nothing special. I feel this is not so... in a way I feel a little non-social or unsocial because I think it's not more so important what we did talk about now. I don't think it's important. Okay. The other friends who I really did something together with, like going for walks, listening to music.

[25:36]

There's actually no problem. I can be like I want to. Yeah, thanks. Yes, Amar? There was this question, practicing what does the Sangha mean, and before participating in the Sangha, and my really experience in the first ten years, how I experienced the Sangha has definitely been this just once or twice a year. The Sangha comes together, we unpack all the yogis, and suddenly we have to be silent and On Sunday morning, there was a breakfast, and then... This is at the house distiller. This was house distiller, and this was definitely an experience of some love, because I said to many people, next to many people in this machine, I didn't know their name, I didn't know who they had been, and...

[26:46]

And the next time there was almost no time to talk about this because we arrived on Saturday evening on Sunday morning for unpacking the zendo in the kitchen. So this was what I experienced the first ten years what a Sangha could be. I remember one really nice story I said next to Beate. for, I guess, two or three sushis and also once next to Nico and after the sushis they told us, well, there's a wedding and everyone is invited and then I said, well, who is going to marry? Well, Nico and Beate asked me, do you know each other? At that time I was pregnant Well, yeah. Well, this was also somehow a sangha, yeah. I mean, it was definitely my first experience, how I experienced a sangha in the first ten years. So you were sitting next to Paulina and didn't know it. Yeah, I hope I can sit really next to Paulina one day, yeah.

[27:54]

And now, living at Johanneshof... That's also changed the Sangha and I cannot say that it's necessarily easier now because personality comes in and social space and personal space comes in. But I also understand you mentioned when there was the idea to buy Johanneshof or if you should look for a place that you told us that your teaching in Europe somehow would come to an end without a place like Johanneshof, that you actually don't want to go on in this unpacking for Sashin or packing then the stuff again, and that the Sangha needs a place like Johanneshof, and that's also now it's not just sitting for seven days in silence it's also talking and a lot of personality and more problems definitely but also more possibilities to uh yeah to develop the summer yeah

[28:59]

My experience of singing in the first ten years, it was called Sheens in the House of Silence and there was always everything packed on the roof and we arrived on Saturday afternoon. the complete rail equipment was unpacked and suddenly there was silence and on Sunday morning we had breakfast again and packed everything and then we left again. And that's how it went for me in the first ten years and I hardly knew anyone with a name and and I still experienced the Sangha very intensively as a group of people who follow a strange practice at the beginning and remain silent and do not know each other, but still a lot of community that was created there. And then came the Johannishof and that does not make life in the Sangha necessarily easier, because now social space comes with it private space and more points of friction.

[30:10]

But as far as Sangha is concerned, I also remember that Roshi said that the teaching, as it was in the first 10 or 15 years, as he did in Germany in the first 10 or 15 years, does not go anywhere without its own place, because it was simply this meeting for intensive practice and then again Everything was going back home and then it was all very nice and then I thought, yes, I have to do that again. But around Johanneshof, another Saunga was created or a different quality of Saunga, which you can really experience here if you live together here. Also because it is not necessarily easier, sometimes even more difficult. But you didn't come to Johanneshof from Haus der Stille. You went from Haus der Stille to Crestone and then here.

[31:15]

So what was the effect of going to Crestone for practice periods for many years? You didn't come directly from Haus der Stille here, but first to Crestone for several years. What was the effect there? Well, I have been in Creston for the first five years and that was almost at the same time as the Sangha developed at Johannesburg. And that was definitely, for me it was definitely to experience really a monastic practice, to go into More sitting, more ceremonies, yeah, really this monastic settling that was, has been very important in my practice. So I have been in five practice periods, so that also brought together almost two years in Cresta, yeah. You usually stayed nearly six months. Always a half year, because that's how I could get to stay because of my visa, yeah.

[32:21]

And it was for sure a good preparation to go to Sangha and having it more now at Johannesburg, more open, like it has been in the practice period in Crestone. Well, Crestone is, for many of us at least, part of our larger Sangha. Anyone else? Agatha? I want to say something about the subject of the corpus and the sensation only. I would say something about embodimental sensation only. I had an example that I like so much. Yesterday we were in the kitchen and we dried up and washed. Yesterday, an example I liked, when I was in the kitchen and we were washing the dishes and drying them.

[33:26]

Probably ten people in the kitchen. And I experienced it very consciously as a dance, how we are attentive to the rhythms of the others. and experienced this sort of dance where we were mindful about the rhythms of the others. Then Neil approached me and expressed that how beautiful this is, we're just very many together and no one touches each other, just feels around and there's no conflict. That was expressed. And here it's easier to notice these things and to share them. Because it's an exercise that we do here that leads us to take the inner experience so seriously.

[34:39]

Because what we're doing is a practice where the inner experience is taken so seriously. And that it also has such a... almost scientific, investigative, valuable place. That's what I like. And it is something nearly like a really scientific investigation and it is such an importance as they are. That's what I like. Outside the Sangha also these people exist? With these people, there's immediately a closeness. How can I make these experiences, which I have the opportunity to make aware of and to expand and to learn from, to be experienced with other people?

[35:46]

What we talked about, Herr Gruber, about the experiences which we have and develop and cultivate here, how can I make those accessible to other people? And several people talked about how they deal with when they meet people whom primarily they don't find sympathetic. It wasn't that easy to find out what we were actually doing. It was an aspect of trying to stay in the body, to breathe together with this person. And it wasn't quite easy to find out exactly what we do when we meet other people.

[37:01]

One aspect was staying in our body, breathing with the other person. And another aspect was to examine yourself. What is it that bothers me? Or is it something in me? Is it just a personal process? And also investigating what's happening in me. Is this what's going on and is this an own process of mine? Yes, and there are many other fields of practice. I spoke of an example of my neighbour who I don't like to smell in the corridor. in the large fields of practice. And one example is my neighbor whom I didn't... I couldn't smell. I didn't like to smell in the corridor outside. This is the German expression, I can't smell you? Yeah. It was in fact the real smell then. And then I worked with the smell. and went into it.

[38:13]

And their fear appeared in the smell. Since I asked myself that, this sweat of fear really changed. Since I asked myself that. Why would you call that when you sweat out of fear? We call it Angstschweiss. I understand anyway, yeah. But is there a word in English for that? To sweat out of fear. Yeah. I'll see if I can think of something. Go ahead. There's so much which isn't talked about but can be practiced and also former experiences of mine.

[39:22]

You're giving us the tools and the words to express that. Okay, yes. My experience is, since I'm here, there are two types of experience. This is an outer experience which we react to. and therefore I would say it has a so-called normal everyday experience and there's a certain type of inner experience which we don't dare to tell ourselves and there's an experience which you teach us

[40:36]

This experience is new to me. The experience of having experiences with myself. And now I'm talking about such an experience. I was here on Easter with Gerald and the group and during the session I made the experience that my fight with my ego would stop for a moment. I was here over Easter, was around this group, and during that time I made the experience, I had the experience that my fight with myself, my struggle with myself ended for a short time.

[41:52]

And immediately after that came the thought, what do I do when I no longer have this ego? When you no longer have what? When I no longer have this ego. Exactly afterwards the thought appeared, what do I do when I don't have this ego or I anymore? A certain fear appeared. which I could put aside during the time I was not here. And when I came back here and we had this initial day and you talked about as I understood to dissolve the body...

[43:17]

I could find my way into, or feel myself into, in this thoughtful stillness. which I felt or sensed. I felt or experienced this as an emptiness. In fact, this doesn't give me any fear. This for me now is a Sangha. Okay.

[44:32]

Yeah, it says in the Heart Sutra, no fear. And it happens. Okay, I think it's time, because you're afraid I would never have a break, that we should have a break. Thank you very much.

[44:59]

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