Yeah, good afternoon. And I noticed recently, looking at something that Thich Nhat Hanh calls his center, the byline is a mindfulness practice center. And that makes sense. I mean, we're, I think, also a mindfulness practice center. Though I do think the contemporary, in the recent couple of decades, idea of mindfulness is pretty simplistic. Important but simplistic.

[01:02]

Yeah, I would call what we're doing, I hope, a Sangha practice center. Ich würde das, was wir machen, hoffe ich jedenfalls, ein Sangha-Praxiszentrum nennen. And so, you know, right here, during the Sangha, we are in fact forming, developing, experiencing a Sangha. Und genau hier jetzt, während dieser Praxisperiode Ango, da formieren wir und entwickeln wir eine Sangha. And this is not some kind of mindfulness practice that we ourselves do independently in this case. It's a mindful, a shared and mutually developed mindfulness practice. And Yeah, that's what we're doing in this Ango, that's what I would say.

[02:19]

And this is a multi-generational practice. It doesn't just come from Buddha, it comes from generations of people like us practicing together. So, whether you like it or not, you're also now part of the lineage developing what this practice, what this Sangha practice, this multi-generational Sangha practice is. And how we develop it, just us today, etc., will also affect what it becomes in the future. Now, Gerald is leading this practice period, this Ango.

[03:34]

I'm very happy, happy he's doing it. And I'm very happy you're here. I keep saying I'm happy he's here. And I'm happy you're leading this practice period. I've been waiting since 1983 in Davos, Switzerland. And now we have to figure out how to do this together. Usually the practice period is one teacher. and students of one teacher, but here we have people who've been practicing with Gerald, and me, and Atmar, and so forth.

[04:38]

And so there's a question we're going to have to figure out how to do it together. And maybe I'll give some lectures, we'll see, but mostly Shosan Roshi will give the lectures. So we're wondering if it makes sense for me to help in the seminar discussion part of the seminar. And these seminar discussion type events like this are part of discovering how to do this practice together. I liked, by the way, the tone of, if well as what Gural said yesterday, but I loved, strangely, and maybe not so strange, the tone of his voice.

[05:56]

And one of the things he said yesterday was, which I'm bringing up in this context of the discussion seminar, One of the things he brought up is that we come here to look at our life in a new way. And I'd like to ask, I don't know if we'll have time, because I do want to... participate in taking you to the train station. But I'd like you to each think about it at least and maybe we'll have time to discuss it together.

[07:21]

What is it that brought you here? This is not just curiosity on my part or even your part. Because, as Gerald pointed out, there's the outer conditions, the schedule that we get up earlier than most of us usually get up and so forth. When you don't have much free time. Which means you hopefully will find out that all your time is free time. It is possible to feel free in all the times you are.

[08:23]

But that takes some inner work. And we can't depend on the outer conditions, the schedule, and so forth, and this nice location, I think a nice location, to do the work for us. Now Shosan Roshi didn't mention, at least in the translation he didn't mention, Dependent on all of you, all the time.

[09:23]

He didn't, it's that Sukershi's well-known comment to discover our innermost request. When I first worked with him on that phrase in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, I thought it should be inmost request or innermost. And now I've decided it should be innermost. But your innermost request isn't necessarily obvious. It may require some talking to yourself to discover your innermost request.

[10:28]

In fact, it may Well, your innermost request, whatever it is, probably goes back to your childhood or who knows, much earlier, long before you knew about Buddhism. Dein innerstes Anliegen, es reicht wahrscheinlich in deine Kindheit zurück, oder wer weiß wie lang, auf jeden Fall wahrscheinlich sehr viel weiter zurück, als du den Buddhismus kennst. So discovering your innermost request und dein inneres oder innerstes Anliegen zu entdecken, is to discover something intimately that belongs to you. Which you can begin to tease out.

[11:31]

Do you know that expression? You kind of tease it out. Tease out your innermost request. Hervorlocken? Okay. Also wie hervorzulocken. Now just the idea that you can ask yourself, what is my innermost request, what is my innermost request, is already Buddhist practice and a form of wisdom. Because it means that you intuitively recognize or somehow know that your identity is actually layered. And one layer of your identity or your experience actually we have excuse me for trying to make distinctions that are hard to separate but we have experience we have experience

[12:42]

And we have experienceable experience. So we don't really have a layer of identity exclusively. It's a layering of experienceable experience. Now, to explore, to look through these layers of experienceable experience, you need what I would call now a non-subjective observing mind.

[14:03]

And if you do nothing in this practice period but begin to isolate the experience, separate out the experience of a non-subjective observing mind, You'll come close to what is meant in Zen Buddhism by original mind or originary mind. Now, non-subjective observing mind is not a big deal. You discover it pretty quickly when you do zazen. You're sitting Zazen and your legs are hurting.

[15:13]

Whose legs? Well, who's deciding they're yours or mine? Well, the non-subjective observing mind can notice that the legs hurt. Der nicht-subjektive beobachtende Geist kann bemerken, dass die Beine weht. Und wir neigen jetzt dazu, den nicht-subjektiven beobachtenden Geist mit dem subjektiven Geist zusammenzutun. Or we could say various things, self-agency mind. So what we're trying to do here in Ango is help each of us together develop the tools, the yogic tools, the Zen tools, the Buddhist tools, to explore how we actually exist.

[16:31]

The tools of what again, please? How we actually exist. As Dogen Zenji's teacher said, to carve a cave in emptiness in the Ango. And as Dogen Zenji said, these aren't 90 days or 87 days, they're timeless days. You want to plunge into these days. One of the instructions for bowing is to plunge into the bow And plunge into the bow and stand up as if you were the Buddha.

[17:39]

And here we're saying, let's plunge into these 90 days and these timeless 90 days. And something happens. It's discovered as a craft, not as a philosophy. So what we need is this non-subjective observing mind in which wisdom can place the question why am I here? Do I have an innermost request?

[19:00]

No, I don't. Well, maybe I do. I don't know. But really, at the root of your living is this innermost request. And practice gives us the chance to awaken and bring to fruition this innermost request. So, let me start. I hope you've all been wondering what is my innermost request or why am I here? Anyway, let's start with you. What is yours? What brought you to practice?

[20:04]

The experience and the sense of being nurtured by the stillness I found in sitting sasa. I have the feeling to find the same sound between inner and outer world and that's why I always missed something about the inner world and that's why this research in our senses and also here in general to get inside and outside into it. I feel like there's a harmony between inner world and outer world and I feel like I've always lacked some of the inner part of the world and now to have time to explore that inner world and to bring it to kind of resonance or harmony with the outer world.

[21:33]

Der Wunsch, eine the wish to have a different or a deeper connection with nature. I grew up in a healthy nature and I remember walking through that nature and always longing for feeling connected with it in a deeper way, in a different way. I remember that from very early on I had some feeling as if I wasn't from this world and that gave me a sense of not having arrived.

[22:55]

and that has a lot to do with a sense of acceptance and resonance to be in resonance or decor with how things the way they appear to me And through this practice, it is very normal to be more here and to be close and also to be in agreement, to build things more and more in agreement. And through sitting practice it's possible for me to be more myself, to be more just here and not to have to change things.

[24:12]

When I look at it, I am more and more unsure which words are accurate and would describe it accurately. I already have a feeling that very early on there was a Intention, that was not mine. It was printed in different directions. Different philosophies opposed each other. And I have described that with different words at different times. But if I look at it really closely, I'm not so sure what the right words are.

[25:21]

Can you say yourself in English? Yes. When I try and look very accurately to see what the Olympics are free of, I never request. I'm less and less sure about what are the right words that fit. I do have a feeling, like Roshi was saying, that probably something very early on, that there was some kind of sense of a direction or some kind of sense of an intention that wasn't necessarily my intention. And I know at different times in my life I've had different ways of conceptualizing or making a philosophy out of it.

[26:27]

And I think those different ways, it's got to be pushed in different directions by reading certain papers or meeting certain people. But if I was looking at it purely, I don't quite have the words yet. I think what brought me to practice was an early feeling that network of what I believe, how things exist, and that they last, that this network does not carry much to look at. And it is also an early feeling to live in the presence of stars, of transience, and that I think what brought me to practice was an early on feeling that the net of how things were described was way...

[27:49]

internet of how things appear and what I had and what I had in mind to describe them wasn't much the course and too short or not you are able to get what is essential and also an early on feeling of in the face of death and imprudence, and that all the answers that came up or all the responses were not adequate to cope with the depth of that feeling. The night before the opening ceremony, Uli asked me, are you ready for the next 90 days?

[29:11]

And I almost surprised myself a little bit. I said, I can truly say it's moment by moment. One thing that has struck me during this first five, six days is the richness that can come from a new experience, a totally different context. the shock to my system has thrown me into a place where I can just hope to find my innermost request, moment by moment. Do we need it in German? I don't think so.

[30:15]

Yes, so Uli asked me before the practice period if I was ready for the 90 days and I was surprised myself and said I can honestly say from moment to moment And what also surprises me is to be in such a completely new situation, how rich it suddenly is. And I can only hope to find my deepest inner concern from moment to moment. Yes, what brought me to practice was to recognize and to realize that I am wounded, that I am suffering, and to learn in this exercise to help myself,

[31:27]

What brought me to practice is to find that I'm wounded and that I'm suffering and to learn how I can help myself and that by learning how I can help myself I have time to help others. At the beginning of my apprenticeship I was raised as a Christian, and in Christianity, at the beginning, it was the word. And that didn't suffice for me to believe, to build a word, because I am also very receptive to words. But then there was this way and this promise, that there is something in every word. You can't name it, but you can taste it somehow.

[32:32]

And that made me wonder. And the longing, of course, to get the awakening. And today, here, it is for me especially Dogen who calls me to the question or to practice this somehow. What does it mean to be enemies of body and soul? I come from a Christian background, and in Christianity it says, in the beginning there was the word. And that never was quite enough for me. It wasn't the sense of building everything upon words. I have a longing or a sense that there's something beyond words that draws me. Yes, I can only do one thing. You have to do a whole other sequence. And of course from that also my path arose and the longing for awakening. Übrigens, wenn ich euch übersetzen soll, hilft es mir, wenn ihr so ein oder zwei Sätze sagt.

[33:35]

and then currently what is important to me is the phrase by Dogen to drop body and soul you said for me it is to understand myself and my breathing and to integrate my body and my breathing and to integrate my body. The first thing I understood in the practice was The first thing I got from practice was to not identify with the self. And I noticed that that helps me with my problems and is a different way of being.

[35:03]

And one inmost request for me is to live with a sangha and to practice this. Throughout my life, on and off, I've had culmination experiences where I experienced myself as absolutely one with the world. These were blissful experiences and I'm here because I also want to live that and I want to live from this position.

[36:16]

Do you want to say something, Taibin Sensei? Yes. I'm staying here for two days, but I'm thinking what brings me into routine practice. Since my childhood, I had a question that, why I am I? You understand? Why I am me? Why I am not you? Why he is my father? Why she is my mother? Why I was born in Japan? Why I was born in temple army? Like this. I think this feeling, I think this feeling bring me into the practice.

[37:36]

And probably I found something, like in the monastery, probably I found something, which taught me how I can accept myself and accept this world, how to connect this world, how I was connected to this world. I've had a question since I was a child, and the question is, why am I me? Why is that my father? Why is that my mother? Why was I born in Japan? And so on. And this feeling that these questions come from, I think, is the feeling that my Zen practice is based on.

[38:39]

And I found something there in the Zen monastery. And then the question, how is the world connected and how can I accept myself and how am I connected to the world? The phrase, inmost request, innermost request, I only encountered it here. And what I find amazing about that phrase is that it directly links into a feeling that I'm very familiar with.

[39:45]

and it's a bodily feeling, and so that this phrase is a link from language directly into a bodily feeling, that is something I find amazing. It's not so easy to put it that way, but I would say that what concerns me the most is that the continuity that I have created through my own thinking is rather problematic. And it's difficult to really articulate but I would say that the continuity I have established through my thinking self and continue to establish is rather problematic. And to create a continuity from the physicality

[40:57]

And to create a continuity from the body, from a bodily feeling, connects me to something true. And it's just like Bekaroshi keeps emphasizing that it's a craft, it's a skill of training. And the training is a path. The question reminds me of two key moments.

[42:06]

The first one was in my early childhood, when the feeling of myself grew and I often felt separated. One is in childhood when the feeling of a self was already growing and I oftentimes felt separated. but at the same time there was the experience of feeling united or one with the plants and the trees and the sun and that there was a great power in that feeling And what arose is a longing to find it again.

[43:21]

The first practical experience. I had a very strong feeling of grief. But I kept going back to breathing. This feeling of grief was dissolving. and the second experience was and throughout my first experiences with practice when I had a great sadness and but by coming back to the breath over and over again the sadness dissolved and that was sensational for me and at that point I thought well maybe I will stick with this practice He brought me to practice. It's a pretty long story. I don't think we have all the time for that.

[44:37]

No, we have to take him to the train. But one thing was really that I really felt disconnected. I felt like, like we call it, very connected to nature and to all things around outside. But I lost connection to the people. And there I thought, hey, this is just not right. It's just not okay. And in that way of Zen practice, brought an authenticity to the for me to the connection also to what I would say true nature and that's one thing and the other thing is I discovered that contribution is for me one of the biggest and the most requests and

[45:49]

that actually we all somehow have sometimes pretty serious stuff and it is good to be there and to be present. Do you translate yourself? Yes. What led me to Zen practice is that I felt very separated from us as people, as a group, as a community. and that I always felt very, very good in nature. But only through this practice did I really experience what it is to really be in nature. And what has developed from it is also, of course, that we and I sometimes have to do with very, very serious and very difficult things.

[47:04]

And to show that it is present is actually one of the most important tasks for me. When I left my original family at the age of ten, When I left my original family at the age of 17 and tried living with myself, it was almost impossible. I couldn't stand it with myself and looked for therapeutic help. I found help, but to make it short, I still managed to keep secrets.

[48:05]

And on the Zafu, it's impossible to have secrets from myself. And it was like another socialization that made it possible for me and everyone else to really begin to live, to begin to live. And it was like a new kind of socialization which made it possible to begin to live with myself and others anew. Und der zweite Grund, oder die zweite Frage nach meinem tiefen inneren Wunsch, wird aus meinen vielen Krankheiten her, in denen ich mich immer sehr nah am Tod gefühlt habe. And the second source for my inmost request is from the many diseases I've gone through in which I've always felt close to dying. And the only thing that saved me was my breath.

[49:25]

And I started examining the breath early on and that's the basis for my Zen practice. I continue to examine the breath. It's still my practice to explore the world with and through my breath. For me the Zen practice brought me out of a certain chaos that I was finding myself in. From a very early childhood this chaos was present somehow in my life. Maybe not from the... My first memories were kind of...

[50:46]

I remember first things like strong light and strong love, but very soon, as I was developing as a person, I started to feel completely insecure in this world. Vielleicht nicht aus meiner allerersten Erinnerung. Da habe ich so ein Gefühl von einem starken Licht und viel Liebe. Aber schon ziemlich bald habe ich angefangen, mich ziemlich unsicher in der Welt zu fühlen. and I was trying to find different ways to deal with this and I was mostly searching outside for the, I was trying to grasp desperately on something outside of me. And that would inevitably brought me to another disaster and another chaotic situation.

[52:06]

And the moment I said Zazen the first time, I had a feeling... I had a feeling, that's it, that's all. The only person who can give me this, what I search, is me. It's Zazen. I really experienced this safety. I felt really safe. And of course, Of course my patterns are still present and I practice along with them my patterns which are searching and grasping outside. But I also parallel develop this feeling, this body that looks inside and that makes me trust my own experience and not depend on the outside world.

[53:43]

Parallel dazu habe ich auch meine innere Welt entwickelt und diese Erfahrung, dass ich mir selbst vertrauen kann und mich nicht von der Außenwelt abhängig mache. And also there is Sangha of course, because without people who are doing the same this would all be impossible. Und dann ist natürlich die Sangha, weil ohne das mit Menschen zu machen, die alle das Gleiche machen, wäre das unmöglich. Well, it's wonderful that we all got a chance to speak and still have time to get to the train. That's probably Narva's innermost request. Yeah, your innermost request, we were hearing that. And I'll tell you my innermost request some other time. Oh. Oh. I really do think we have to go. But it's just wonderful that we've been able to be so open with each other and I hope we can continue to explore and develop this trust.

[54:55]

Okay.

[55:12]

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