I got a room, by the way. I stood there for half an hour almost until they finally were so uncomfortable. Yeah. They said no Americans, you know. They said they were overbooked. So they told me, go sit down over there and wait. I said, no, I'm going to stand here in the counter. Looking at you, I was still there. Anyway, go ahead. Excuse me. Yeah. When you started with the word the, the direction of the mind. Yeah. Yeah. It came to my mind an encounter with a son of friends of ours who was just developing speech.

[01:09]

A little boy. A little boy, yeah. And he took great joy in coming to the kitchen where his mother was and said, Mother, although... That's good, I like that. The energy he had with it, that reminded me when you said that. I like that. The children have probably more of this. Although... Even in English it may be better, although, obwohl. Oh, better in German, huh? Okay, next.

[02:13]

Yes, Martin. Well, I would like to say thank you for this practice of phrases. Yeah, and do it first, please. I think that has worked best for me throughout the years. I realize that I practice again and again with certain phrases. They come up by themselves and then I can consciously decide to practice them for a while. I also realize that they change this time that they kind of connect or bring together things.

[03:19]

That is your very life right now. Exactly this is what it means to be alive. I have, if I were to be dead, I would not experience that, whatever it is. And that motivates me to really take this seriously, to really be in that.

[04:23]

And that brings me out of the thinking and identified mind. And I think in all the years, in all the seminars, what can I do? What [...] can I do? take back from or take with me. It's those things. It's practices you propose. So thank you. Yeah, that's what I discovered. That happens, yeah. Yes. How's Annetta doing? Oh, really? Yes. Yes. All good. But it doesn't mean she's going to... I see.

[05:47]

So it's not a life sentence yet. So it's not a life sentence yet. Yes, okay. Yes, okay. Yes, okay. I learned the title two days ago and at first it appeared to me, the quality of being, but then I thought there's something wrong with it, there's something not right. I remember the title from another seminar, Mind and Nature, where I had the same feeling of there's something not quite right.

[06:49]

And then I thought about it and for me it should have been the title Mind is Nature or Mind in Nature. Okay. It's all one. And I thought, there is no quality of being. Being is being. You're trying to out-send me, I can tell. Du aus-sendst mich. Allerseits versteht wohl auch, On the other side, I understand that we have to approach this somehow.

[08:15]

Well, a good title is a problem. And it should make you think. And so it looks like it worked. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I will join to this, my oppositional mind reacts, and as I learned it with Hegel, for example, that being is without quality. Sein ist ohne Eigenart, ohne Qualität.

[09:21]

Es gibt in der deutschen Sprache den Unterschied zwischen Sein und Dasein. In the German language, there's two terms, being, and when you translate it little, it would be their beings. And this is really different to translate. What? The world of things, of appearances. And there I feel with you that the being cannot be talked about. If you are in the being, I join Anita. When you really can't talk about and think about being, you're in being or I'm in being, and when I think about it, it's sort of separated. Yeah? Okay. Okay. But it also occurred to me that I was mesmerized with the words that were not taken into account in practice, but as an attempt to simply sink into the state of the mind.

[10:50]

but I was consoled, so to say, like you were, that a meaning is not in the strict sense of the words, but in letting it sink and being also an occasion to approach it or think about it. Not the literal meaning of the words, but the occasion to work with it or think about it. I found it very useful that it is not only the quants, but also the poems, the poems. I just read a poem by Jacques Prévert, and that is a poet who you can't really take, but you come in a different state. And I was very glad that it wasn't just about the sentence, you took not just the sentence of the koans, but also verses from poems, and the other day I read a poem of Jacques Prévert, and there also it is not about the literal meaning, but

[12:06]

Let another space, another room appear. Not just descriptive, from the descriptive mind. There are no judgments there anymore. Good, thanks. We're on the same wavelength. Okay, someone else? Noch jemand? Mich bewegt die Sprache, die du angesprochen hast, mit Leidenpraxis. I'm moved by the question you mentioned about lay practice.

[13:16]

We had talked about it again and again, but still this question appears, how much monastic practice is needed for lay practice? And I call it probably not strictly monastic practice, but rather formal practice, which goes beyond this here and there sitting once or twice a week. I think this is something that I am currently trying to work on, to bring this into everyday life. And this is qualitatively something new. I can't explain it exactly. It is more than this daily life, but also not going to the monastery. And I work with this, and it's not, I can't say absolutely exactly, but it's not... In between the usual sitting once or twice a week.

[14:51]

And going into the monastery. Going into the monastery. So something, I think, maybe can do that a little bit. in that direction and that's something completely new. I can't tell really what it's going to but you were talking about we have to develop something in the Western societies that might be a little different and that has the chance also to survive more than a generation. What is completely new? I'm repeating what you said. The new thing is that What's new?

[15:59]

Is this more than an additional date? An additional date? Let's say for sitting, for example. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you have the regular daily schedule and then you add sitting on Thursday evening. So that's one way to practice that as a lay person. And it seems to me that it has to be more than just adding. another hour on your schedule. So how can we develop a quality that goes beyond that and can be maintained for the rest of the week?

[17:05]

And at the same time, it can be degraded so people can't go to monasteries for like four or eight weeks. They can't. Because they have families. Four weeks they could probably manage. I'm just sharing with you what I'm thinking about. Yeah, and your own experience in Goetheghen, etc. and so forth. I just share with you what moves me in Göttingen. How can the practice look that has to develop so that this learning practice survives further generations? You talked about the use of language as practice. As Dharma practice specifically, yes.

[18:30]

In the monastery there are other practices which work as Dharma practices. Talking to Andreas, what I discovered was a strictness, for example, how I move in the center, for example, or describe the center when I stop in the middle, for example. For me, this I know as a Dharma practice.

[19:32]

This was more formative for me than the use of language. Ich entdecke aber zum Beispiel auch, wie das verwandt ist. Also I discover how this is related. Ich habe eine Freundin in Berlin, die ist Komponistin. I have a friend, a female friend in Berlin, she is a composer. Und hier eigentlich entdecke ich, wie sie mit Sprache umgeht. Within her, I discover how she works with language. Probably also with rhythm or the pace.

[20:35]

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I discovered when she uses a word which she has sort of circled or circumambulated, how this, when she uses this then, this creates a space. And I've found or discovered that this is sort of related, although she doesn't practice Zen, there is a relation, there's a similarity. Yeah. I'm sure there is. Okay. Yes? I would like to relate to what Gerald said.

[22:04]

What I feel is necessary is a separation between practice time and not practice time. A distinction, not a separation. I think it's the same in the monastery. It's not just the work, it's also practice. And so it must also be. So if I work, it's also practice. There is no conflict in the calendar. When there's work in the monastery, it's distinct from the other practice. I feel that it has to be the same in everyday life. When I go to work, it should be practiced too, and then there is not a conflict in the calendar, in the weekly schedule. And that's where these sentences help. I personally worked with this for quite a time with nowhere to go, nothing to do when going to work.

[23:21]

That's practice. Yeah, for sure. Okay. I find the sentences very helpful, but everyday life, I'm sort of washed away, well, they are washed away by the flood of thoughts. Then. And as monastic practice isn't easy for me, for me it's very helpful to come to Gauteng to learn just sit or be together with people who have been in the monastery for a longer period.

[24:30]

That's the simple way. Yes. I'd like to say a little bit about the practice of core and sentence, but also of what … In German first. In German first? First, I prefer it, yes. with the study of yourself, this sentence of Dougl, in my practice, for me and for others, is more helpful than a sentence of Norbert, if I am not mistaken. They say it's like a drug, these sentences, but I don't really get it, because the moment The existence, the moment, we can live in the moment in everyday life, because the flow of thoughts precedes everything.

[25:41]

So that's what Job said. But if I now sit on a pillow in the city, to study myself on the pillow, to look at the breath, the body, the flow of thoughts, it helps me more. And then at some point a sentence, Yes, as I said, to bring it closer, something happens. And that's what I can actually say after six years now, that I say to the students, our students who come to sit daily, I say, study yourself. With the sentence, we say, go and study yourself. Go and study yourself. What happens then? That has become a kind of rental practice for me. I notice that the rental practice has become even more intensive. with the sentence of Dogen, to study yourself, I discovered after six years now, I really have realized more and more that this sentence helps the students more when I come back to the sentence, to the base, to study yourself, instead of there's nowhere to go and nothing to do.

[27:05]

Because they can, they use it as a magic word, or as a does something in the background, but to study yourself is more helpful for them, in many ways. I get the feeling always, when we say that, in our poor practice with our students on weekends, that they are more silent, they are more within themselves. Yes, okay. At the beginning of your sentence, it wasn't about the words, it was about something formal or something. If I look at myself differently, I stood up at a certain point in my second year of college, went to this flip chart and said something, I don't know what he said, he said something in a turn. Last year, being here with you,

[28:12]

at some time you stood up and went to the trip chart, and you did a certain turning around, a half turn, and this movement of yours sort of moved me and myself so much that this was much stronger at the moment than the words. And this is what I remember most now, when I think back this year. This might refer to something Ulrike said. Oh, we'd better get a flip chart. Gebrochen. So you can go up and try it. This is a Zen story, a Chinese story, about a farmer who was on his way home from the fields. And a rabbit runs, is scared by him and runs and hits him. a stump of a tree and dies. So he brings it home to his wife. We have rabbit stew tonight.

[29:34]

And so the next day he doesn't come home. And his wife goes looking for him. And he's sitting on a stump waiting for a rabbit. But in any case, the point that you and Ulrike made is I think in addition to phrases, the way we can bring essences of monastic life into lay life This is what I call enactment rituals.

[30:37]

What did we say? Enactment? Ausführungsrituale. Ausführungsrituale. And in a similar way, Nyori Roshi, who was a kind of Dharma brother of Sukhiroshi, first really said he watched Sukhiroshi open his bowing cloth, and the way he did it, he realized that Sukhiroshi is samadhi. So we actually, we better not have a flip chart because I might not be able to do it the same way again. Okay. Anyway, so, someone else?

[31:58]

Yes, Anita. And I would like to add something about, it was not this, but the winter branches before, you had said something about Boeing. And as long as I think about it, I have always been uncomfortable with my depression. Wherever I went, whether it was in Christi or in the church or elsewhere, it never felt good in the flesh. So I ask myself, what can I do? It feels like I'm not important. As long as I'm participating, I was ever in, I was not content with my bowing. And whenever I did it, in the center of my cushion, and I asked people, what can I do about it?

[33:01]

I was missing something. And since you told, whatever you told them, to yourself, I try it at home. And it makes a difference in my life. It feels like fresh, new, and I'm very happy about the way I do it now. Okay. It comes to me again. You and Inter are working together here. It's not about words, but about gestures.

[34:01]

I remember a sitting in a house of steel. And I remember there she had the house, the studio, you know, where you get... We ordered kidney. And you noticed that something wasn't quite right. And... And then he made it very clear again. And that was a certain, I can't remember, but it was a very specific position, a very specific angle. And that's why I did it. And I noticed it was exactly like that. And that got me deeply moved. And you said something wasn't quite right.

[35:09]

It's useless. How are you doing it? And then you showed how to do it. It was hard to repeat this, but it was a certain angle. It was a quite exact angle. And this exactly was it what helped me and brought me into a different... So I was really astonished about this experience because my discursive mind says, oh, this couldn't be such a small angle, couldn't be this impact, couldn't do this impact. So I thought, wow. It's true, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. You know, it's something mysterious.

[36:23]

Because Our practice is made up of very small differences. The differences between Just now is enough and just now is not enough. Or just now. I mean, when you look at that under the microscope, you have to notice how not that we're using words in practice so much. But we're using the mind in practice.

[37:31]

But we're using the words to sort of fine-tune, nudge the mind. Yeah. And so there's the difference between... Thinking about the phrase, the quality of being. And using it to gather and locate attention. And the difference between using the meaning of the words in discursive thought, and using still the meaning of the word, but the meaning of the word as a way to gather attention, is very difficult to even describe in words.

[38:34]

I mean, I have trouble trying to find ways to make the distinction in words. And the distinction doesn't hold in words, won't stay in the container of words. unless we feel the difference, feel the experience. And if we feel the experience or feel the difference, then we can use words to deflect our attention toward that experience or toward another experience. And when we do that, we're actually very intimately engaged in how we function as living beings. Und wenn wir das tun, dann sind wir wirklich sehr damit befasst und auch sehr eng vertraut, wie wir als lebendes Wesen funktionieren.

[40:18]

Ich verstehe nicht, dass Aufmerksamkeit zusammen ist, sondern Aufmerksamkeit war zu bleiben. I don't understand the difference between gathering attention and staying attentive or staying awake. Well, you can have an experience of staying attentive. And you can know that experience.

[41:23]

And you can know when you're not staying attentive. And when you notice that you're not staying attentive, you can then Bring yourself back to that experience of staying attentive. Okay. And you could even use the words staying attentive to bring yourself back to staying attentive. Then you'd be using the words staying attentive to gather or focus attention in the way we call staying attentive. But once you're staying attentive, you can throw away the word staying attentive. because they've served their purpose.

[42:36]

Now, if you lived in a monastery, the monastery would be structured to help you stay attentive without using the words to stay attentive. Okay. But then you have to design a life which helps you stay attentive. Now, monasteries have been developed over some thousand or two thousand years to help us stay attentive. Now, how does the lay person do that? I mean, I did it very simply and crudely when I first started practicing.

[43:43]

I have very stiff joints. If you can do that, you have stiff joints. And Wilmot... Yeah, but there was also a squirrel running right behind you. I'm sorry. This was such a nice... Really? Yeah, it was just a nice view. Will it happen again? No. A squirrel or a rat? Hello, little squirrel. Okay. So it was very difficult for me to learn to sit. You know, in America, the main flowers for funerals, and might be in Germany too, are lilies. Yeah.

[44:45]

So when I first started sitting, I called my posture the half lily. Because it was nearly killing me. I felt I was at my funeral. And I used to, when I first sat, I used to kind of like push my legs down, push my legs down, finally get them sort of And this foot stuck out behind me and I don't know. I was sort of like you after your hip operation. So one day, and then Sukhiroshi very kindly would get up and walk with a stick every period, doesn't he? But there was also implicit permission that you could move when he came by with the stick.

[45:52]

After he passed. So I would hope maybe he'll come by after 10 minutes and not after 20. So after he'd come by, changed my legs. I always thought it was going to get, the longer I sat, the easier it would get. And that was true for about 20 years. And then I started getting older. I forgot about getting older and it starts getting more difficult. So after he'd go by, then he would sit the rest of the period like this. And one day, one morning he came by, Sikirishi.

[46:54]

And he leaned over and whispered in my ear, Why don't you just sit at home and not come to the Zendo? Because he saw as I was suffering, you know? But I persist. Okay. Now, my bias is I don't like to tell people to study Buddhism, to practice Buddhism, they should sit Zaza. And that's partly a compassionate position. Because I don't want anyone to feel excluded from the possibilities of practice.

[48:21]

And it's also probably slightly dishonest because my experience is people who make practice work usually sit. But certainly there are People whose lives don't permit them or their bodies don't permit them to sit. And they can find ways to practice, of course. Anyway, that tends to be my bias, not to say that practice depends on sitting. But there also is, and there also is a range of things we can do which are related to or similar enough to sitting that it works.

[49:23]

But if I'm doing anything, I'm presenting a practice of Buddhism, which is primarily a lay practice, with, as I say, a monastic component. Now, is the monastic component that, for example, you sit with Geralt, that his and Gisela and their long practice at Crestone in Johannesburg, in other words, within the spectrum of the Dharma Sangha Europe, If some of the participants members have monastic practice, it seems to become part of everyone's practice.

[50:55]

To a greater extent than I would have guessed. Okay. Now, if I just look at our situation, because I'm doing this, but I'm also studying what I'm doing, observing and studying. Okay. Now, I would say, in general, it does make a difference if you sit once or twice a week. And it makes more of a difference if you sit every day. Or five or six days a week. All right.

[51:57]

It probably doesn't make a difference if you sit three or four times a day. Probably... once or twice a day is sufficient. My experience that for the lay person to sit three or four times a day often is a kind of psychological problem. Because it's not true that if a little Zazen is good, a lot of Zazen is better. Yeah, okay. And that would not be true in a monastery either. Yeah, we have work periods and so forth. Okay. But again, if I just look at the results in the Sangha, many people actually fairly effectively, it surprises me, many people fairly effectively sit as a regular habit virtually every day.

[53:13]

And I know that if I led a completely lay life, that would probably be pretty difficult for me to do. One reason I create monasteries everywhere I go is because I need the help. So if I go to Vienna and I get off at the train station and people say, oh, come to the Zendo. I thought I would go to a restaurant. No. So I'm stuck. Everywhere I go, people force me to sit. Anyway, so that's how I've designed my life because I know I'm better off when I sit. Now, But many people sit every day, nearly every day, and their practice does not really take hold.

[54:30]

We could say it's a well-being practice, but not a non-being practice. That's a kind of coded way to say it, but let's leave it at that. So what then makes the difference? What in addition to daily zazen makes practice take hold. One answer, I think, is the use of phrases. But the use of phrases already implies an intimacy with the mind.

[55:47]

An experienced spaciousness of mind that allows you to use phrases. So even the ability to use phrases already suggests a certain development, maturity of practice. And then there's enactment rituals. Like Anita mentioned, a certain way a certain bound. Or Ulrike saying, you come to your cushion and you bow to your cushion. Or as Brian DeCamp mentioned to me once in Boulder, he's a

[56:47]

computer software programmer and has started his own companies that do computer software. He's taken on the enactment ritual, let's call it that, of doing things with two hands. Like that. And so you bring your whole body into the activity of passing something, for example. And of course, That's so implicit in Chinese and Japanese culture that they don't put handles on cups. Which you tend to, then you have to kind of use two hands. And if you watch Asian persons in an Asian restaurant, you usually tell whether they're first or third generation.

[58:19]

If it's first and second generation still hold their cups here and here, and those are chocolate points. You drink here and then you hold it here. Third or fourth generation? Coca-Cola, yeah. All right. So, anyway, after two or three years, this group of friends that Brian meets with once a week, finally, they said to him, Why the hell do you use two hands always? Because they noticed this and they began to feel his presence in a different way because he used two hands.

[59:27]

Now, what are you doing when you do that? Again, you're articulating experience as a Dharma. Experience. Yeah. Du artikulierst, du drückst aus Erfahrung als ein Dharma. You're defining experience in terms of appearance. Du bestimmst Erfahrung in... You're defining experience... In terms of appearance. Als Erscheinung. Okay. And so... There's an object. And you're not just experiencing the object. You're articulating the experience of the object, not just the object.

[60:28]

So you're articulating the object. sensorial experience and the mental experience. So, in effect, you're noticing that every experience is both mind and object. When you do that, you transform your life. Okay. Now, monastic practice is designed to make you do that. As a habit. And it's one of the big transformations of Zen from... More traditional Buddhism.

[61:33]

Zen is also traditional Buddhism, I don't know. But you, anyway. Because the monk, traditional monk, takes, I think, 270 years And the female monastics take 311 or something. I don't know why. They're even better than men, you know. But Zen kind of eliminated all that, particularly in Japan. And said really more that let's base the rules not on, let's not have rules But let's have the forms of monastic life based on articulating dharmas.

[62:50]

The great advantage of that for us is the rules, the precepts based on articulating dharmas can be carried into practice within lay life. Okay. But still the fact remains, if I just observe what we do, that there's a difference between sitting once a day, not sitting at all, There's a difference between sitting every day. There's a difference between sitting every day and living at Johanneshof for a while.

[63:51]

And there's a difference between living at Johanneshof for a while and living for two or three years at Johanneshof. But living for... A year at Johanneshof doesn't seem to be anywhere near as powerful an effect on a person as three months at Creston. Almost all the persons, and I'm just observing my senses, Almost all the persons, and I'm just observing with my sense. who've made decisions to make their entire life based on practice, almost no one has done it by living at Johanneshof.

[65:03]

It's almost always been done by people who do two or three practice periods. Three months practice period, that's the question. And if you look at the people who are willing to say, I'll give up everything else in life and I'm just going to take care of Johannes or I'm just going to take care of Christa, they're virtually all people who've done several three-month practice periods at Christa. And the people who say, I'll give up everything else in life Why is that? You know, I wonder myself, why is it? And it doesn't happen. Some, there's a few people who come to practice period.

[66:05]

Six weeks doesn't seem to work. A lot of people come for six weeks, it doesn't happen. And there have been several people who have come to practice periods and it's pushed them out of practice. But what is the satisfaction that occurs in practice period which is greater than any satisfaction, money, success, etc. ? that you can have in lay life. That's what I see. It's a fact if you just do the demography of the group. Several hundred people. That's the fact. And why does Johanneshof not work the same way?

[67:08]

And this is part of the decision we're trying to make. Should we try to buy Wolfram's property next door? Das ist Teil dieser Entscheidung, die wir versuchen zu tun, indem wir uns fragen, sollten wir Wolframs Eigentum neben Adel kaufen? We'd buy two more buildings. We have two more buildings and double the hectares. Wir hätten zwei Gebäude mehr und doppelt so viele Hektar. I asked Heinrich if we could move all this to Cresta. He said no. Because this would help. Because this would help. Because what monastic component do we need?

[68:09]

Now, some people, of course, go to practice period. And they don't decide to be a monk. But they decide to bring practice into their life in a certain way, into their lay life in a very fundamental way. Because we don't want a world of all monks. Where are we going to get our food? We need some architects. And spouses and things like that. But anyway, it's a mystery that I'm trying to understand. Because basically, in the largest picture, I'm convinced that lay life, while probably more difficult than monastic life, can be fully a sphere of practice.

[69:26]

I think that's the challenge of Western Buddhism. Yeah, so that's what we're doing. Whether you know it or not, that's what you're doing. Okay, I think it's time. Now we have this big challenge and responsibility.

[69:57]

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