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Zen Connections: Trust Beyond Boundaries

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The talk explores the distinctions among different types of friendships within the framework of Zen practice, focusing on the concepts of normal friendship, Dharma friendship, and relationships with teachers. It highlights the unique trust dynamics and the responsibility entailed in Dharma friendships and teacher-student relationships, emphasizing the non-reliance on personal history and social conditions, instead fostering a deeper awareness and connection. The speaker also discusses how Zen practice can influence professional relationships, such as those with patients in the medical field, by fostering compassion and deeper human connections.

  • "Book of Serenity" (Shōyōroku): The talk examines the subtle teachings within the "Book of Serenity," focusing on themes of ultimate friendship and freedom through the practices illustrated within its koans.
  • Ivan Illich's works: References discussions related to the themes of ultimate friendship, particularly exploring how different cultural and religious contexts, like Buddhism and Catholicism, approach these concepts.
  • Suzuki Roshi's teachings: Mentioned in relation to understanding and experiencing the essence of Zen practice, highlighting the transformative aspects of engaged Zen practice and the connections it fosters.
  • Koan 53 & Koan 1, Shōyōroku: Discusses specific koans to illustrate the challenges and unique opportunities presented in Dharma practice for personal transformation and understanding of interconnected relationships.

AI Suggested Title: Zen Connections: Trust Beyond Boundaries

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Transcript: 

But all that shouting was about. I wondered why I wasn't invited. And then I just found out it's because Moonen thinks she's catching up with me in age. Yeah, it's not so bad. It's... What do the Chinese say? You are entering the last third of our life. So, what would you like to say? Hello, first of all, good afternoon. Munna, you haven't said anything yet. Oh. She's entering the last third of the seminar.

[01:05]

Hans, you haven't said anything. now why do I talk I talk more as I get older maybe you two are good examples for me falling silent so anyway somebody speak yeah We talked about the different kinds of friendship, dharma friendship, the normal life and friendship with the teacher. They seem to come from a different context or tissue. The normal friendship has usually a common history as a basis.

[02:24]

The normal friendship has normally a common history as a ground, as a basis. And which you mutually reassure and so strengthen the friendship. is based on a completely different principle Whereas this is completely different with the Dharma friendship. one's self is feeling or sensing these so-called innermost requests and this is leading here and this is a connection or the ground, so to say.

[03:32]

It's for that reason that it's not so important to know the personal history or the social surroundings of the other person. And it leads to different fields of trust. You can trust people of your common or normal life differently than Dharma friends. And concerning the Dharma teacher, a much greater amount of trust is added or has to be there as within normal Dharma friendship. when you take a teacher as your teacher and vice versa, that what you feel as your only wish can also be fulfilled in this common relationship.

[04:56]

And when you accept your teacher and are accepted as a disciple, you sort of wish or take for fulfillment that your innermost request is fulfilled in fact. And I believe that this draws with it a much greater amount of responsibility. That's an enormous friendship. Yeah, okay. Thanks. Yes? While speaking amongst our group, I actually felt the Dharma friendship quite clearly. There was much more peace in the speech than I had otherwise experienced. There was more calmness within the speaking than I'm used to.

[06:24]

That someone just could finish, things could be finished or someone could finish what he wanted to say. But within the last years also here this has changed. And I have been here for some time and the quality of talking to each other and being together has changed. And we talked about this knowing each other, this self ascending knowing each other. This could be a part of normal friendship too. And still it feels different and it's independent of conditions here.

[07:49]

And independent of sympathy and non-sympathy. More independent. And this knowing each other, this reminds me, I'm reminded of that knowing from the sheen. when I was sitting beside Christina. During the Sashin we never talked to each other but after the Sashin we stood up facing each other and we didn't first know what to say. And she said, oh bamboo. And she said, oh bamboo. And I said, oh, stone. And I said, oh, stone.

[08:53]

Well, let's write a koan. Let's write a koan. That was coming to my mind. Okay, thank you. Yes? In our group, we also came to the conclusion that practice is a very, very burdensome basis for friendship. In our group we came to the conclusion that the practice is a good and reliable basis for friendship. Also through the difficulties one experiences and the awkwardness is one experience during one's own phases of practice. And beyond or without that personal history.

[09:54]

Friends of normal life. Friends of normal life. Friends, you have in your everyday life not necessarily have to practice but you should have some qualities like we found here in practice. And then we talked about the relationship and or friendship with the teacher. We found that it was certainly more difficult because there's also some hierarchical element in it. Just a moment.

[10:55]

In the sense that one knows something that the other can't. The sense that one of the two knows something but the other would need or could need. Yes. When the teacher talks about his private things with his disciples, there can be irritations. You said you shouldn't pile up too much karma with your students.

[12:07]

No karma. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. We noticed that in Dharma friendships we know each other more through awareness than through personal history. Yeah, information is here. and that dharma-friendships prove to be burdensome, because one assumes in less than normal contexts that one is in a certain way absolute. One has a kind of zero-point in sasana.

[13:20]

In dharma-friendships, what does it mean to be burdensome? It can endure probably more, not elastic, but more. They could handle more stress. Yeah. They endure more, so to say, because there is this thought of zero point we have in zazen. So with that we mean that we don't have such a rigid view of ourselves, but the practice is that you look at how you put yourself together. Meaning that we don't have sort of rigid views of each other, but see how we come and find together. Of course, that also means that you are much more careful with each other. And that leads to that you are more forbearing with others and also with yourself. And fundamentally we are difficult and awkward.

[14:26]

And it doesn't seem to stop. That's the ground which we should deal with each other. Only very seldom is this a reason to end the relationship. Would you say, since you're a medical doctor, would you say that your relationship to your clients or patients is somewhere a different category than either Sangha friendships or personal friendships? Or is it overlapped, the two? What would you say? You are a doctor and you would say that the relationship with your patient is different than, for example, personal friendships or Sangha friendships?

[15:31]

Or does it overlap? Does it overlap? I think that I try to bring in elements from the practice within the relationship with the patients. Not your medical practice, your Zen practice. Elements from the Zen practice into the medical. And I think that I understand people from a level of awareness. The amount of... benevolence which i sense here benevolence benevolence that i try to apply that to my patients yeah

[16:33]

I work with patients too, and what Nico mentioned, this plane or level of awareness is really fundamental to experience the other person in you again and again, in you. No matter what kind of therapy you apply to see, sense and experience the other person new again and again and wholly, holistically from several aspects and angles of this existence. So you would both say that Zen practice and Sangha practice brings an element or can bring an element of the Sangha sense of relationships we understand through Sangha into your medical and therapeutic practice.

[18:12]

It seems that every kind of friendship takes place within time. Das heißt nicht unbedingt immer Zeit, die man miteinander verbringt, sondern Zeit, die der andere einem im Geist ist. Not necessarily time spent together, but time within your own mind. Und in dem Sinne, wenn sich das ereignet, habe ich sicher auch, ich hätte das erst verneint, aber zu Patienten durchaus auch über Zeit, und das ist natürlich besonders im hausärztlichen Bereich so, auch tiefe ziehen. And I would first have said no, but over the time, this sort of deep relationship, similar deep relationship, it does take place also, especially in a family practitioner's work, like I do.

[19:24]

Although you see patients Only in small segments of time, but this again and again over a long time. Now, I don't know about German medical schools, but in American medical schools, in addition to the traditional ethics and oath of a medical doctor, they give you class. I believe there's classes in... how to relate to your patients is different than you relate to most people and so forth. And so do you think the ordinary, the non-Buddhist practicing doctor

[20:29]

has to separate how he is with his patients and how he is with his friends and family in a somewhat different way than a practitioner can. I would assume that it is, but I can't speak for myself. I would say that it is a fundamental difference. I have seen this very often with colleagues who simply... either totally rigidly limit themselves and leave nothing to themselves at all, or simply, I'll just say it black and white, break up, burn out, start drinking, taking pills, because they can't deal with this relationship story personally, it sticks with them, what the patients download from them, and they can't do it, nobody has taught them, it doesn't work.

[21:47]

And while we, let's say, have made this difference between I think there is a big difference between non-Buddhist practicing and Buddhist practicing colleagues of ours. And especially it's the difference between pity and compassion. We don't, in Germany, don't learn how to deal with what sort of patients load upon us, whether consciously or not. Yeah, of course. And either you have the normal situation, a non-Buddhist practitioner, he sort of rigidly fences himself off, doesn't have to do with anything, or he breaks sort of down, burns out, drinks, takes tablets, whatever.

[22:50]

Has access to drugs, you know. Whatever, yeah, yeah. So for us, we clearly learned the difference from... At least the difference between pity and compassion. And compassion is sort of limitless and is personal. So it doesn't drag me down. I experience and feel it fully, all the pain, everything, but it's not personal. I think it's the same, but I would say it has nothing to do with Buddhism. I think there are many people who practice something else to make this distinction. Yeah, I wouldn't say that's... I'm translating him. I see that, but I would say it's not necessarily having to do only with Buddhism. I see other people who are dealing also differently. No, yeah, sure, of course. I mean, there's a wide sense of practice now in Europe and America that's not just limited to Buddhism.

[23:55]

What I notice in American doctors in general is, you know, they put on their white coat and they accrue authority to themselves and they speak with authority. in a way that I think a practitioner would be more interactive. I would like to. Because it was a question, I would like to answer it. Because it is really a vast experience that the patients call me in a very different way. And I am sometimes amazed by the way I work. What they call you in, yes? Yes, what a wide spectrum of behaviors. It's interesting, I would like to answer more, because I'm myself astonished about how large the scale of reactions, of my reactions, the patients invoke in me.

[25:11]

From you, yes. For me, the activity itself can also be relatively stereotypical. What I'm actually in fact doing may be quite stereotypical, but the main reason is this relation, well, I'm really gladly doing my work the whole day through. Okay, good. I mean, I think that I'm discussing this, and I want us to discuss it in terms that are familiar to us, not necessarily as practitioners, but as like doctors, therapists, etc., Because really, it's not necessarily apparent, but I think you're experiencing it. Sangha relationships and teacher-disciple relationships are territories of relationship that really barely exist in our culture, our Western culture.

[26:19]

By the way, did you hear about the invisible man who went to see a doctor? And the nurse went in and said, there's an invisible man to see you. And the doctor said, I can't see him. Lona, what's your experience with being a therapist? The client-centered therapy is closer to Buddhism than to the other psychotherapy. The client-centered therapies of my experience is closer to Zen practice than the other psychotherapies.

[27:54]

It's closer to Zen practice than itself being closer to other affiliated therapeutic practices. Okay. Well, I should think one difference would be... Ideally, practice gives you the ability to suffer with others, to feel others' experiences without losing your own. You're sealed, but you don't have to armor yourself, but you can enter into somebody else's craziness or illness or misery, and yet... but you can just come right back into yourself. Something like that. You have the strength to enter into someone else's situation and yet not lose your own glue. So what I would say is, through the practice, is that you have the ability and the possibility to feel the pain or whatever it is, also with them in their suffering, but also their craziness and whatever, to get in, but not to lose yourself or to stay intact or to stay man himself, without having to arm yourself.

[29:20]

Okay. So someone else about the... We can come back to this if we want. Someone else about the discussion. For me the criteria is whether practicing or not practicing is whether he relates to that human level. Right? Yes. So I distinguish whether I meet someone from human to human with our experience as human. And on the personal level, my person and your person. And also from the personal level, my person and your person. And my personal history and my suffering and my practice helped me to come back on that human level, so to say.

[30:36]

And I've seen people who did practice, but it wasn't so easy for him to get onto this human level. And then our doctor, for example, and other quite probably simple people who are deeply human and... For me it's a difference whether I feel this human connection or if I call it friendship. It's a difference. I feel here this deep human connectedness. We sit together, we sit together, and I feel this deep connectedness. And, for example, we have several women in our sleeping room and when the light was put out, someone just said, good night, and that was really, that touched me.

[32:04]

Yes, being together here as human beings. I wouldn't say that would be my friends. Yeah, it would be nice to say, but it's probably overlapping. There's one distinct quality in friendship, and this is very personal. That's what I'm saying here. A friend is someone who takes you quite deeply as you are, but doesn't leave you as you are. He confronts you. He goes through thick and thin. He goes along with it. And there's also the factor of time in it. And there's also the time factor in it, like you said.

[33:35]

But there's a different quality and a different aspect as in Dharma friendship, more human quality. In the group, this Dharma friendship... We specified in our group the term Dharma friendship and so far we spoke of one body. and sort of transcending personal intimacy. And additional that language isn't there or doesn't have a central meaning, which is in other friendships.

[34:41]

And also, last point is that In doing that, we are creating a culture where we learn and establishing it and learning to do it through and with our different practices. And that's a big difference towards normal, regular. Peter? I can briefly summarize, because a lot has already been said. For me, the term Dharma friendship is misleading. Quite shortly, because much has been said already. The term Dharma friendship leads, for me, leads me astray.

[35:55]

It leads to the conventional term of friendship, at least in that direction then. What happens, what takes place within what we're doing here in the Sangha is more like we accompany each other. Yeah, also there are the other components which have been described before which I need to repeat. And which is sort of grappling me, right, from Koan number one, with Bodhidharma and the emperor, this is being caught in our usual or conventional circumstances.

[37:06]

And I think one should sometimes cut through these terms or being quite clear-cut with these terms in the description. Christian, do you have something more to say? I see that in German the term friendship is occupied differently. What I find in my own life at the same time, is that the increasing age, what I call friendships, is connected to this quality of Dhamma friendships.

[38:35]

What I see in my own life is that my friendship has a tendency or developed into what I could call Dharma friendships. Even when they are not members of the Sangha. And other things just fall away. Hmm? I didn't mean to, maybe I did use the word Dharma friendship or maybe that's how it got translated. I usually say Sangha friendship. And Dharma friendship is more of the relationship with a teacher perhaps and Sangha friendship is not so different. Isabella? Yes. When I come here to Johanneshof, I define it as my second home. When I come here to Johanneshof, I define it as my second home.

[39:56]

And the feeling is I come to my family. This is more like my brothers and sisters. This is like a community designed by fate, which I can choose, but this is deeply connected. Okay. Alan? I'm sorry. Relationship to you is, I don't know if it's more or less, but my feeling is friendship is too less this word.

[40:58]

It's too personal. So I use this word love. And it's funny. It's a bit like it's not allowed always when I feel it. I make it on this intense feeling when you are not there and I miss you. And it's more than I miss anyone else. So, friendship is more personal. It's history. You have to say it yourself. I define the term love by how much I miss Roshi when he's not there. I miss him more than anyone else. When I use this term, I want to exceed the term friendship, because it's too personal. At the same time, it's as if it's not allowed to say something like that. Somehow you get a red head, and I'm a little nervous.

[42:01]

Yes, but I still think it's the most appropriate, because it's also unconditional, because it's also important that it's not related to appearances or to and from. It's not conditioned upon my personal things. Well, I hope I see you more often. I don't want you to suffer. I don't want to suffer. Alan? I have the feeling that this whole process with Patsis and... I often feel trapped in my own story and in my own karma and that this is a possibility Dietmar says that his life outside of this story that has captured me, that I can develop something in a different basis or in a different space.

[43:13]

And without me turning back myself, I have possibilities When I come here, I often feel sort of closed in in my personal history. But when I come here, it's sort of this is free from that without having to turn my back on myself. And it's just that I have more possibilities here. I'm free. I have more possibilities here than I have outside of this. Something like that. Yes, and I think that also has to do with this idea that one can dissolve karma. I think that what I am experiencing here and what the practice enables me, also in everyday life, when I am back in Sapsara, that I then have this opportunity to dissolve karma.

[44:21]

And it has to do with the idea that it is possible to dissolve karma. Not only here, but also when I'm outside again, sort of samsaric, then also I have the possibility, I'm able to dissolve karma. And then to Roshi, sometimes it's not like that anymore, but sometimes I'm afraid of you. It's not like this anymore, but in the beginning I was a little frightened, fearful. And if I don't expect anything which you can't or shouldn't give to me, then it's not necessary to have any fear. Okay. Laura?

[45:24]

I would like to agree with what I heard. I would like to agree largely to the things I heard. Yeah. In empirical life? What is it? In fact, there are also exaggerations, for example, when you, as Dana's friends, are drawn into the relative world, for example, through a project. There are exaggerations. It's about overlapping. And I would like to add something. It's about overlapping, for example, when you have Dharma friends, but you are sort of drawn in, let's say, worldly or non-sanghic projects, for example.

[46:34]

from my own experience, and I have observed it with others, and also here, and also much further away, with very, very experienced practitioners, that it is difficult if you do not have a certain skill on the relative relationship level, that then also very beautiful things can go down the stream, very beautiful, Sangha-like things. It's my experience but also the experience of several others also practicing people that you have to have some skill in dealing with relationships generally because if you sort of if you caught in worldly affairs or projects even a beautiful Sangha friendship can deteriorate if you don't are not skillful in handling it. On the relative plane, yeah. It's quite a serious... I view it as a serious problem and I noticed this several times already happen.

[47:50]

And you don't know how to integrate. And she said, and I don't know how to integrate that. Ulrich? Years ago I used to work as help for Bosnia and had to deal with quite many people who were involved in the war. And working and living with these people was quite different from what we are used in our culture. and the commonality of the work with the food somehow connected. This common work, common breathing, common silence, common food

[48:52]

And this working together, breathing together, cooking together, eating together was friendship creating to a large extent. And it's interesting for me to notice that canteens and large firms have not this ability to create friendships, foster friendships. That's interesting, actually. And friendships are mostly two people's affairs and not integrated in a larger background of work or cooking or eating. Yeah, good.

[50:27]

Malita, you have a complex life at Channel One, is it? Yes. You have a complex life at Channel One and demanding. How is that different from your Sangha relationships? I explained it yesterday. It's quite amazing. I started three years ago a new team, 25 very creative people, and... complex people and very competitive. And I don't know how it works. Sometimes we fail, but in between they work more or less like a little song. They treat each other with respect. They help each other in the creative process. And they're really mostly happy if someone succeeds and not, ah, maybe now I'm better. And this changed a bit. I'm very happy. Do you think your practice influenced how the team is at all, or do you think it's just these things happen this way in this company?

[51:30]

Both. Both, yeah. Otmar? Yes, I... I agree to most of what has been said otherwise I wouldn't be here but in my own life Sometimes I find it important, if it goes too much into practice and Dhamma and Sangha, then I always have the feeling that it is a bit overloaded or that it gets too much added value. But it goes too much into practice, dharma, sangha. It's sort of overloaded, it's got sort of too much freight on it.

[52:30]

Baggage, yeah. Yeah, baggage, yeah. And it's so much weight that it's not natural anymore. Yeah. It's important for me to have contact with people who give it to Dharma, Sangha, whatever and I feel well and I need that contact. And that has always been the case, but I certainly have myself and it is certainly interesting for me to see where the praxis remains, although I don't necessarily have to join the Taliban. Taladharma? Taliban. Oh, Taliban. Yeah, it's actually, it's very important to have contact with people who have nothing to do with practice, also normally, so to say, and I don't want to see, but also I try, of course, to see where practice stays or where practice still is, but I don't want to make a difference between people who do practice and who don't.

[54:10]

Yeah? Yeah. Well, You know, here we are with this group of people. And it's not the people we would probably know as just our circle of friends. And yet we have a connection with each other that's developing all the time. And on the one hand, I mean, basically I make no distinction between whether somebody's practicing or not practicing. And if you look carefully at people, everyone is practicing. At the same time, I've learned over many years now I can't mix friendship and practice relationship.

[55:20]

I mean, very unusually. It's very unusual to be able to do it. And sometimes I think it's possible, but it's only Almost 100% it turns out not to work. But it's not just that I'm not just Sangha friendships in my case, it's I'm the teacher, so that makes it different. Now if I try to look at the differences Again, I don't exactly have words for the differences. And let me say, I have quite a large number of very close friends that I've had for

[56:25]

10, 20, 30, 40 years. Who I see much less often than I see the people I practice with. So I value Ordinary or usual friendship. And I take very good care of my friendships. But I would say that friendships, personal friendships, usually are about who you are. And practice friendships are about who you are. To make it simple, more what you are. With personal friendships, your identity is involved. And in practice, it's more you release yourself, you release your identity with each other. And how you accept somebody you practice with is different than how you... There's acceptance in both, but how you accept a personal friend.

[57:54]

Okay. Ivan Illich, who most of you know, was really a close friend of mine. And he and I both, I mentioned this before too, both agreed that somehow for him Catholicism and Buddhism are... searches for ultimate friendship. And once when this came up, Marie-Louise was there and she had met Yvonne, I think only once,

[58:55]

And she said, when I met him, Sophia was a little baby at the time on the floor. Yvonne had gathered all this group of people and various people to... hang out together one evening. Very vocal professors and stuff. And when he saw Sophia on the floor, he had everybody in the room get on the floor. Of course, that's not so unusual for us. And Marie-Louise said, you had the feeling that you had always known him. He ends his book, the ABC of reading, the alphabetization of the popular mind,

[60:21]

The last sentence is something like this. Even within our loss of innocence, it means we're over-formed by our culture. Even within our loss of innocence. We still are foolish enough to long for the the only space left to us, that silent space of friendship. He also talks about the various ways the pronoun we is used. What do we mean when we say we?

[61:56]

When you and I speak. But we is silent. We doesn't speak. You speak or I speak, but we doesn't speak. You speak, I speak, but we don't speak. And he said some of the African Bantu tribes have two senses of the word we. One is the sense of we that's made right now in the immediate situation. Like Atmar might say, we are going to have dinner a little late tonight. That's a we that doesn't refer to anybody else but us.

[62:59]

So they have a sense of the we that generated in each situation. They also have a second we, which means the we we want the world to be like. The we we hope the world will be like. And that's very much like Sangha and lineage. There's the we we generate now in this seminar. And there's the unspoken we, in a way, or implicit we, that we generate. All want the world to be a certain way.

[63:59]

It's not yet that way, but we relate to each other because it might be that way. Now, The wado, you know, turning words, the word in Chinese, wado, means the source of words. It means turning words, like the phrases we use, wisdom phrases, but really, etymologically, it means the source or root of words. The feel of where the words arose from. The space between words. And I know there's some theologian, Christian theologians feel that it's not in the beginning there was the word, it was in the beginning there was the

[65:02]

beginning of utterance, the start of a word. So there's the silence or space in which words appear and disappear into. When I and you or I and thou become we. Now that sense of silence is part of this first koan. where Mr. Who gets up on the seat and then gets back down. And in this koan we've been, we were discussing today, koan 53, there's another koan element to this connectedness or silence.

[66:43]

And what Suzuki Roshi also pointed out years ago when he spoke about this case. And so let me see if I can say something brief about it because we should stop as usual. I'm very careful to get started only when I have to stop. So I don't get carried away. Now I'm the preacher. I have the Bible here. But I think we have to look at the text, because you have to kind of nudge this out of the text. The whole world does not hide it. His entire capacity stands revealed. stands alone revealed.

[67:58]

What is your entire capacity? When is your entire capacity free? When do you feel free? in the power of your entire capacity. When do you feel you have the, it doesn't say so here, but it's other versions, where there's the freedom always to turn around? When you can't get stuck. It says here, he encounters situations without getting stuck. In all situations he has the ability to for his entire capacity to be present.

[69:12]

In his phrases, there's no partiality. Sorry. Well, I'm going to retranslate it anyway. Bias. Personal bias. I know what it means. Yeah. It's also what it means is there's no subjectivity or there's no self-referential thinking. In his actions, there's no self-referential thinking. Everywhere he has the intention to kill people. That means to take away their conventional self.

[70:20]

But say in the end, where do the ancients go to rest? Go to rest means to live with delight, to live with freedom from birth and death. Where do the ancients find this freedom? Now, this is what they're speaking about here, and it comes up quite often in this book of Collins, probably more often Or differently than in the Shoyoroku. But it refers to a kind of power. I don't know, it's not the right word to use. Freedom, vitality, something like that. It's what, what do they say? Behind an ass and ahead of a horse.

[71:22]

In front of an ass and behind a horse, you know. Okay. This means something like The radiance, as he puts it as a footnote, the radiance of the mind. Why would that be the radiance of the mind? The horse and the ass are conventional life. But in between, there's the radiant mind. Okay. That's a funny way of saying it. Could you say unimpeded? Unimpeded, yeah.

[72:30]

Okay. And as Sukhirashi says, you can't experience this directly in conventional life. He actually uses, he's trying to find in English, the substance of the universe. But what he means is, what is it that glues everything together? What is it that makes everything alive? I mean, there's a tremendous power in how everything exists. There's the implication here that the realized person, the Zen master, is in the midst of this power of how everything exists. And is free from the concern with life and death.

[73:34]

You may live within the concerns, of course, with others and yourself, but at the same time there's freedom from it. Yeah, that's what's implied in this introduction of this koan. And then how can this ever fly away? Or how can anything hide it? Now, the sense of it is that If I try to say... Let me use the word, the contrast between who and what.

[74:50]

Um... And I don't know, right now I can't think of any other way to express it. And I've often said to you, notice the difference when you ask yourself, what is breathing? And when you ask yourself, who is breathing? The more you have, the longer you have the implicit sense of this lineage, succession, the more you find your connectedness in the silent space of friendship, In the we, in the silent we, in the silent what-ness, this accumulates or develops into a power, which is a connectedness that can't fly away, which can last throughout your, continue throughout your lifetime.

[76:34]

And through the lifetimes, in fact, of the lineage. And this is also related to the idea in the first koan, in the Shoyeroku, of the evolution of life. or the multiplication that occurs through uniqueness. The more you have this experience of uniqueness, It's accumulative in a transformative way. And it's a kind of power. And when you have Find yourself always in uniqueness. There's always room to turn around, to move around. Okay, that's the background of the introduction to the koan.

[77:38]

Now, it's something you probably couldn't ferret out for yourself. Because it takes some familiarity with studying koans, being familiar with koans, until you see, because this way of looking at things is apparent throughout the koans. Yeah, but it's particularly present in this koan. I was in diesem koan besonders anwesend. Yes. Is it, but I found, I started practicing that it is exactly these sentences which really sort of grabbed me. Yeah. Because without knowing anything about any study koan, whatever it is, it's exactly this head, this brought, there was something in it that spoke exactly this.

[78:43]

Yes, and Sukershi also said, it's... It's living on this edge, as I said, margin, which opens you to the power of phrases and the use of negations, like moo, to free you or enlighten you. So it's funny, these phrases of the ancients, even if you're not familiar with it, have a certain edge. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. We chanted that one time, then we stopped.

[79:57]

Let's chant. Where's our Eno?

[79:59]

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