Good evening. Guten Abend. Guten Abend. Well, I saw by the poster that it says, I believe, a sentient world. Auf dem Poster sah ich, dass der Vortrag die empfindende Welt heißt. Can you hear her or can you hear me? You can't hear me either? No. Oh, okay. Now can you hear me? We'll try again. Can you hear me now? That's better, huh? A little bit. You're a little better at it.

[01:04]

But she's my voice, you have to hear her. Anyway, the poster says, I think, a sentient world. This is a big question. And there's no... I can't give you any answers. but perhaps I can think about it with you. Now, thinking, of course, limits our experience, but at least our experience should reach as far as our thinking. So I would like to try to think with you, since I'm speaking, about this question of a sentient world. Is that hum part of the sound system?

[02:06]

Oh. Is there some way that hum can be reduced? Are they trying? I'm happy to speak without amplification, but I don't know if she can. Okay. You can switch it off. Maybe you can change the microphone. No, he doesn't need it. I need it. Yeah, but you need it for the taping.

[03:33]

No, but this is... It doesn't have to be Ted. This question of a sentient world. And you can hear me okay? All right, okay. Is asking what does it mean to be alive? die fragt, was meint es, was heißt es, lebendig zu sein. And I think we each are always finding out what it means to be alive. Und wir alle finden immer wieder heraus, was es heißt, am Leben zu sein. Now, since I've been practicing Zen pretty long time, all my adult life, und seit ich Zen praktiziere, so ziemlich genau mein ganzes erwachsenes Leben, and And recently I've been meeting people who know very little about Zen.

[04:41]

And they ask me questions like, why do you get up so early? Yeah, I don't know why. Sometimes I wonder why. Yeah. I mean, in the monastic life, you get up at 3 or 3.30 or sometimes earlier. But, you know, if you're leading an ordinary lay life, still you might get up at 5.30 or 6 so that you can meditate before you go to work. So then we have the question, if you're practicing Zen or have some interest in it, why do we meditate at all? Why does Zen... practice emphasize so much, even more than most Buddhist schools, meditation.

[06:02]

Now each school of Buddhism has a little different or somewhat different way to approach this question of how we're alive. And the Zen school emphasizes, has a particular emphasis. And it has to do with how the world is understood. And how the mind is understood. And it's also a kind of style. And the style of Zen is to use the material of life as the way to practice our life. By the material of life I mean our senses, what time we get up in the morning, things like that.

[07:20]

Now, Yamada Mumon Roshi, who was my teacher while I was living in Japan, he said that the most important thing for us is an absolute respect for ourself realized through a clear realization that we're living here and now and everything in the world is working to make this moment possible. Now that's, I mean, if you think about it, that's obvious.

[08:38]

But really, can we feel how everything is working to make this moment possible? In such a way that it gives us a feeling of absolute respect for ourselves. To feel that we belong here at this moment on this earth. Yeah, again, this is not such a simple idea. But to come into a feeling of it is not so easy. To have a feeling of absolute respect for ourselves is not so easy.

[09:39]

And it has to do also with how we understand this world. Because what Mumon Roshi was saying is that somehow this world makes our life possible. And in fact, contemporary physics is itself astonished by how This multiverse or universe has exactly the right temperature and mass volume relationship and so forth that makes life possible. In other words, in Buddhism, we don't see this world we're living in as some sort of container. But it's a sentient space, a subtle permeating sentient space, that somehow works together to make life possible.

[10:49]

So from that point of view, we can feel, try to feel the world as alive. And this is a shift from feeling in a simple sense, feeling separated in the world and feeling connected in the world. And you can understand all Buddhist practice as a ways to make us realize our connectedness. So first of all, this is understood conceptually in an ecological sense of everything being interdependent. And in a deeper sense of everything interpenetrating.

[12:29]

And this is an idea and it's had a powerful effect on contemporary science, environmentalism, ecology, and so forth. And you can bring this obvious idea into your life by finding ways to remind yourself of the interdependence of everything. And even, especially if you practice meditation, of the interpenetration of everything.

[13:33]

Now Buddhism emphasizes the relationship of the... more than a relationship of wisdom and compassion. Wisdom and compassion are two ways of looking at the same thing. And this sense of sentient connectedness that Buddhism assumes, we see examples of it.

[14:39]

I mean, the most obvious example of it is a mother or father's love for their child. And the mother, let's say, or father, lights up when the child is present. at least if we have the kind of mother and father we wish we could have, at least the child lights up wishing the mother were the same as the ideal mother. And I think we're all trying to light up with sentience. But usually we think other people don't let us.

[15:45]

But we can start lighting up. I mean, if you were lost in the woods or the mountains, and you walked around for half a day or two days, and suddenly someone came down the path, You'd light up. Whoa, hello. Ihr würdet ganz aufleuchten. But you can't do that on the streets of Hanover. Aber ihr könnt das nicht tun in den Straßen von Hannover. Oh, hello to everyone. Hey, hallo.

[16:45]

This would be carrying the practice of unlimited friendliness too far. Das würde die Praxis der unbegrenzten Freundlichkeit etwas weit bringen. But it's possible to feel this in ourselves. Maybe we should pretend we're lost. If we changed our view, and could feel we were lost, we might light up more. There's a Zen phrase that we work with, not knowing is nearest.

[17:48]

So you could actually, we would call it a wisdom phrase. A wisdom phrase with which you interrupt your usual thinking. With repeating it like a mantra underneath your breath. Not knowing is nearest. And I think you'll find if you tried such a phrase, find out how it would work in German. You'd find that it did perhaps increase your feeling of connectedness.

[18:49]

Increase your feeling of connectedness. of sentience with the world, of intimacy and of freshness with the world. So this feeling of sentience is not just with the phenomenal world and with other persons. It's also a feeling of sentience with ourselves. Otherwise, I mean, the way I'm describing sentience and connectedness and a mother's love and so forth, you would seem to eliminate the possibility of a hermit.

[20:14]

But a hermit has... Maybe we could say a kind of intimacy with his or her own sentience. And what would this mean? And trying to answer that question is one of the reasons we sit down. In other words, one of the things that Zen tried to do in Chinese culture and in Japanese culture was to find a way to use the stuff of life itself for practice. Like using a phrase in the midst of your thinking.

[21:36]

Using language to loosen the bonds of language. so what is this posture I'm sitting in I think babies sometimes sit this way but most people don't sit this way unless they're a little crazy or somebody's told them it's a good idea And even if you can sit this way easily, the idea of sitting this way without moving for extended periods of time, I don't know, it's a little crazy. And now people, a lot of people take it for granted, but when I started practicing 30 years ago,

[22:39]

That was pretty strange. And we should look at it, I think, recognize that it's strange. Because it's a wisdom posture. It's not a posture you're born with. So why did Buddhism end way before Buddhism in India? Was this posture developed? And I think we can also look at the question, why do we get up so early? In the same way. This is, again, not a posture of sleeping. It's not a posture of daily activity.

[23:49]

It's a posture which allows a state of mind that something like sleeping But if you're really asleep, you know, you fall over. So somehow you have to be some kind of awakeness and yet some kind of relaxation. And I think the easiest way to talk about this is to understand that pre-Buddhist India tried to discover a fourth mind. A mind that is not waking or dreaming or non-dreaming deep sleep.

[24:49]

Now we're born with these minds of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. But these three minds don't communicate much with each other. Or there's no obvious knowing that connects the three. So the question, and it's very important I think to ask in practice, to ask yourself unanswerable questions. Questions like, what is aliveness? What is it to be alive? And not to forget to keep such basic questions alive in us. So this question also, could there be a mind that unites the three minds we're given at birth?

[26:39]

Now this is not a question that can be simply asked individually. In other words, for an individual to ask this question, probably thousands of people over generations have to have asked the question. So we can understand Buddhism as the development of many people asking themselves this kind of fundamental question. Is there a fourth mind or a mind that unites all of our minds? gibt es einen vierten Geist, der unsere Geist, diese anderen drei vereint?

[27:48]

Or is greater than or more than our three minds? So somehow the sense of sitting down in the stream of our life occurred. Also, And you can think of sitting if you try to do it. You don't have to sit this pretzel-like way if it's difficult. It was particularly difficult for me to learn, but It's my job, so I do it. And you can sit in a chair, of course, or something. The problem with a chair, it's much harder to be stable and relaxed. And it's harder to concentrate your heat. But let's just take this as an example and you can extend it to whatever posture you'd like.

[29:13]

So the key is to be relaxed and to at the same time have a lifting, alert feeling through your back. And see if you can let go of your thinking. And I don't mean stopping your thinking. That's okay if it happens. It wouldn't be useful if it happened permanently. You'd have a hard time functioning. But what I mean by letting go of your thinking is to loosen your identification with your thinking. And sometimes we practice with the simple four elements.

[30:22]

Or just the stuff of us. See if in your sitting you can let your thinking sink into your body like water sinks into sand. Schaut mal, ob ihr während dem Sitzen euer Denken wie Wasser in euren Körper hineinsinken lassen könnt. If you do, something interesting happens. Wenn ihr das tut, dann passiert was Interessantes. You know, I'm used to, familiar with mountain streams in western United States. Also ich kenne Bergflüsse in den USA. Western United States. And there, the streams go along, and then suddenly, sometimes they disappear and reappear later. I think in southern Germany, near Lake Constance, the Donau disappears for a while and reappears.

[31:35]

And in these mountains, mountain streams I'm familiar with, where the stream comes to bedrock, it appears on the surface again and goes back under. I'm told that something like a very large percentage anyway of the water in the stream runs under the stream bed. Much of the water of the stream is hidden from view. And we know from spiritual practices and psychology and psychedelics and so forth that much of our life is hidden from view. So what happens if you do sit as a habit?

[32:49]

Like we have a habit of being awake and a habit of sleeping at night. The power of sitting happens when it's a habit. And when you get into the habit of sitting, Und wenn ihr diese Gewohnheit euch aneignet, dann kommen diese versteckten Ströme eures Lebens hoch im Sitzen. It's almost as if you make yourself bedrock or sitrock. Also es ist wie wenn ihr ein Sitzfelsen werdet. and you begin to feel some kind of fundamental mind or original mind begins to rise in us. It's almost like when the consciousness, the structured consciousness we identify with subsides.

[34:16]

The stuff of the world itself is permeated by mind. which begins to appear in us through our sitting. It's the best way to get a taste of it. Now, it occurs at other times. I think non-dreaming deep sleep is something like this. Also nicht der Tiefschlaf, in dem er nicht träumt, ist sowas. I think what I call awareness in contrast to consciousness is like this. Und Gewahrsein, was ich Gewahrsein nenne, ist im Gegensatz zu Achtsamkeit oder Aufmerksamkeit ist sowas.

[35:18]

Yeah, so I'm trying to use ordinary English words as kind of technical terms. So how I try to give a feeling for this word awareness as I'm using it is to say that Many people can, for example, wake up in the morning at a particular time without setting a clock. You decide to get up at a certain time and almost to the second you wake up. So this common experience that people have What does it? You're not conscious during the night.

[36:29]

But something wakes you up. I call that something that wakes us up, awareness. And that's another taste of this original mind or fundamental mind. It's always present and very quick. Like if you fall down, consciousness is too slow to save you, but something allows you to catch yourself. But Zen Buddhism says, okay, we can notice this and we can analyze and observe it, But it's not present in our life. It's not developed. It's just like a connecting background, but it doesn't come into the foreground.

[37:37]

And another example, I think, is when people go sunbathing. You know, the great sun god is, you know, caressing you. And you kind of bliss out. And everything gets like a big, calm space and you get sunburned. So that kind of feeling is not so different from this fundamental mind. And enlightenment is another example. And being in love is another example. So we could also understand Buddhism as Why aren't we in love all the time?

[38:43]

I suppose some of you have asked yourself that question. We discover when we're in love, it seems like what's good in us and we begin to see the good and beauty in everything. But it often doesn't last very long. But it's clearly our capacity. Yeah. So if you do, let's take the skill that Zen tries to suggest, that Zen suggests. If you sit still and let your thinking subside, your conscious thinking subside,

[39:51]

Maybe sunbathing or Buddha bathing in an upright posture. I love morning meditation. It's sort of like a party. We chant, we sit and bow. And we all have a Buddha bath. Yeah. So what happens is when you do get into the habit of sitting as a shortcut in practice, a short way And you can do it. I much prefer if she were the same level, but... It's too small up here, though.

[41:15]

It's not a tradition. Is it... Although we can do it any time of the day, it's particularly useful in the morning because it affects our whole day. And if it happens half an hour or so before you'd normally wake up, It's much easier to weave these minds of sleeping and waking together and discover the feeling of this fourth mind beginning to be generated by the two minds overlapping.

[42:20]

Und diesen vierten Geist zu entdecken, der entsteht, indem diese zwei zusammengewebt werden. And when we begin to, it appears like a quell and like a spring coming up. Es kommt wie eine Quelle, die hochschießt. It appears and we notice it and we can begin to stabilize it. Part of the sitting of sitting still is the means of exploring, stabilizing this fundamental mind. And as we stabilize this fundamental mind, and stabilize it also by making a physical contact where mind and body, you really feel the connection,

[43:27]

This mind begins to permeate our mind and body and begins to then flow into our day. Now at first it disappears as soon as you have conscious thinking again. And disappears in your activity. But if you practice mindfulness of the body and breath and phenomena, this fundamental mind begins to surface in our daily life. And if you use a phrase like not knowing is nearest, or say just now is enough,

[44:32]

Or what is it to be alive? Or maybe arriving in aliveness. This is also a kind of wisdom interruption. Das ist auch eine Unterbrechung, eine Weisheitsunterbrechung. Which often lets this fundamental mind erupt into, surface into our daily life. Welche diesen grundlegenden Mind an die Oberfläche kommen lässt. There's an integration of this mind with our daily life. So whether you're practicing unlimited friendliness or a hermit in the mountains, you can come into intimacy with this fundamental sentience in case any of you listen to this later, where you don't feel alone in a crowd and you don't feel alone in the forest.

[46:01]

You feel this, which Yamada Mumon Roshi tried to point out, Deep respect and belonging just through how everything works to make this moment possible. You know, when I was coming here today by train from Freiburg, I could feel, I could see there were many, particularly where there were plowed fields, there was mist above the plowed fields.

[47:07]

And sometimes the train went past canyons and then the whole canyon would be filled with mist. And usually we have a visually-based sensibility where there's a front-back relationship. Like you see the front of a tree, but you don't see the back of the tree. Or the back of the moon. Yeah. But when I looked at this mist in these valleys, It made everything formless.

[48:11]

And it touched everything front and back. Except like a sound you hear in the night that you can't identify. Where you can feel yourself saying, what is it? because the mind runs or flows in descriptions. We want to know what it is. But when not knowing is nearest, when you're willing to be more like the mist, when you're willing to let mind arise from formlessness rather than form, which is the core of Zen practice, when you allow mind to arise from formlessness rather than form, you will begin to find yourself in a new realm of mind.

[49:29]

A mind that you can't say what the boundaries are. And you find yourself in a new realm of body when you give up descriptions. And then the question of what is sentience? What is this sentient world? What is this alive world? Seems to, feels like it's answering itself all the time. As we can let this mind, fundamental mind, surface in our activity, surface in its formlessness, without trying to capture it in descriptions, and the best mindfulness practice for this

[50:43]

Bring your attention to your breathing as often as happens naturally during the day. Happens naturally through your intention to do it. Because this not only weaves mind and body and the world together, it also moves you more to the formlessness of aliveness. The form and formlessness of aliveness. I think that's more than enough for this evening. Yeah. Well, as much as, maybe it's enough.

[52:04]

Yeah. So let's see. Why don't we take a break? And in 10 or 15 minutes, I'll ring a bell. And if anyone's still here or comes back, we can have some discussion. It's really nice of you all to come here this evening. Thank you very much. And thank you, Maya, for translating. You're welcome. Now I hope you all didn't return to listen to someone else's questions.

[53:18]

So what should we talk about? Yes. How important is it to have a goal in life? You should say it loudly enough so everyone can hear. Aha. Wie wichtig ist es, ein Ziel im Leben zu haben? Well, I think of... something Wittgenstein supposedly wrote down in his journals. He said that it was a revelation to him when he discovered how his

[54:23]

his exploration of logical thinking was profoundly affected by his trying to live rightly. Not by his living rightly, but his trying to live rightly. So I think, I don't know if a goal is important. Or you can speak about in an abstract, what goal makes a big difference. But I would prefer to use the word intention. Yeah, an impossible intention. And I think the best intention The most fruitful intention is try to become that kind of person you wish existed on the planet.

[56:04]

Okay? Yeah. Report back next year. I mean, if we would like some such person to exist, then clearly you ought to make the effort. Okay, what else? You did come to hear everyone else's questions. Yes. I have heard that longing and passion is very much put in question by people who meditate, that they are kind of looking down on it.

[57:40]

Longing and passion? Longing and passion. Are meditating people don't like that? Ja, ist deine Frage, oder hast du gesagt, dass Meditierende die Sehnsucht und die Leidenschaft nicht gern haben? Nein, dass sie sie als absichtsvoll betreiben. Since they have an intention, so what do you think about passion? I think compassion is safer than passion. This is a very difficult question to answer. I've also heard said that, by a German, that German's culture is permeated by longing.

[59:02]

Since I long to be at least half German, Still, I don't know if that's the case. The practice of meditation generates a mind, a wide mind, which doesn't get caught by or identified with particulars. I mean, I don't know quite how to, but it's a bit like the waves and water, this analogy.

[60:24]

The waves are completely water. But the water is not only waves. And if there's a difference between whether you identify with the water or you identify with the waves. And the ideal in Buddhism is not to eliminate the waves. or to eliminate the passion for life or for your loved one or whomever but to identify with the how can I put it a mind that underlies the various forms of expression.

[61:38]

Aber euch mit dem meint zu identifizieren, der darunter liegt. All diesen Ausdruck. So it's a kind of misunderstanding to think that Buddhism says the waves or passion are not good. Also es ist ein Missverständnis zu meinen, dass Buddhismus sagt, die Wellen oder die Leidenschaft sind nicht gut. Okay. Yes. So you can just say it in English aloud, you don't just say it to me. So what say it in English? Okay.

[62:40]

You spoke about formlessness. And what was the other one? And collectedness. Connectedness, yeah. And unconnectedness. Separation. Separation, yeah. Can you say that again? Because I don't have it anymore. Say the question again. Yes. And what? Yes. Okay, when you talked about this formlessness and connectedness, I felt that it had also the feeling of dissolution of the individual.

[63:46]

And, yeah, how does that go together? Okay, that's a good question. This is, we all, including myself, are part of Western culture. We have a particular way of functioning. A particular way that we form ourself with others and through our societal life. Through our psychology. And that has to be respected. And I think that Zen, for example, as I always say, is badly taught when it teaches, suggests we shouldn't think. Or somehow denies the functioning of self.

[64:57]

In every culture, in any culture you have to have a self. And particularly in our culture where the self is identified with our story. our personal history. Buddhist practice should enhance and not interfere with the maturation of self. That doesn't mean we shouldn't look at this human wisdom, which Buddhism is. this human wisdom, which Buddhism is.

[66:12]

Historically, it's been Asian wisdom, but it's just human wisdom. And I think it's important then to look at self not as an entity, But then self as a function rather than an entity. Now the function of self, the basic functions of self are to give us a sense of separation. As your immune system decides what belongs to you and what doesn't belong to you. Okay. And it also gives us a sense of connectedness. And the third function of self is to give us a sense of continuity.

[67:27]

Now, if you want to... Practice with this. You yourself have to see how you function. And you can use meditation and mindfulness practices to notice how often you habitually create separation. Now, I would guess that most of us have the feeling we have a view already established in us that we're already separated. That I look at you over there.

[68:29]

And I assume we're separated. By space, by all kinds of things. Now, from the Buddhist point of view, we should notice that's a view, not necessarily reality. Now, I can substitute that view with the opposite view. To do that is the practice of wisdom. So I can substitute already separated with already connected. Okay, so then you can experiment with this phrase already connected. So I can look at you now and I can feel, before I think or sense, already connected.

[69:40]

And just saying that, we both feel more connected now, don't we? I saw your face change. Ich habe gesehen, wie sich dein Gesicht verändert hat. So these antidotal phrases really work. Also diese Antisätze, die wirken wirklich. Ja, die Antidoten. Okay, then you can also study how you establish connectedness. Then you can also study, observe in your own behavior, how you establish continuity. And you have to take care of how you establish continuity and connectedness and separation. The first job

[70:40]

is to really learn how you do it before you try to change it. So this practice requires gentleness and respect for yourself. But as you can see, you can develop the feeling of connectedness with just a phrase. You can also see that we are, you can also change what we experience as continuity. Now, let me just give you, I think an accessible example. And I think to explain this takes a minute or two, so we'll end with my saying, talking about this.

[72:06]

I can ask all of you right now to bring your attention to your breath. All of you can do it. It's the easiest thing in the world to do. But most of you can't do it for half an hour. Or perhaps even 10 breaths. So this is extremely interesting. Why is something so easy to do for a short period of time virtually impossible to do for a long period of time? I think the answer is because we establish our sense of continuity in our thinking.

[73:08]

Which means that although you may think, oh, self is impermanent and everything is changing, every time you're Attention returns to your thinking. It reflects a subtle belief in the permanence of self in thought. Now, there's various ways to work with this. The simplest and the most effective is this bringing your attention to your breath. And eventually, you begin to have your sense of continuity in your breath, body, and phenomena.

[74:24]

Now, what do people, again, commonly do? When they're feeling particularly, say, upset or stressed? Yeah. They wash the dishes. Or take a cold shower. Or go jogging. What are you trying to do when you do that? You're trying to take your sense of continuity out of your thinking into the physical world. And that's all meditation is trying to do. To take your sense of continuity into something much more subtle than washing the dishes.

[75:34]

Although washing the dishes is great fun if you don't have to do it all the time. But you bring your sense of continuity into your breath, body and phenomena. Then it can be sometimes in your thinking. But it's not wholly dependent on your thinking. It gives you a tremendous new kind of stability and a new realm from which to develop and mature yourself. So there is some correct intuition that there's a dissolution of self. Or at least that's what our fear and our ego think is happening.

[76:44]

But really, we're only changing where we establish our continuity. And we establish a much wider and deeper sense of self. So we dissolve, to some extent, the dependence on the fragile sense of self linked to thinking. And the practice is as simple as developing the habit of having your mind in attention, rest in your breath. And because you can do it for a few moments, you can know you can do it continuously.

[77:50]

And find how you really belong in this world just where you are. And that everything is working to make this moment of aliveness possible for you. In this sentient world. When we understand it this way, it's a Buddha field. So that's enough. Thank you very much.

[78:52]

It's fun to talk with you. And I heard you saying various things. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for coming this evening. Danke, dass ihr gekommen seid. Thank you for translating. You're welcome.

[79:13]

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