So it seems that it makes sense for me to say something about what we're doing here and what, as I was asked, what I experienced, felt yesterday afternoon. Well, I do find that it makes a difference for me not to be sitting on a platform, even a little, not very high platform. Also für mich macht es allein schon einen Unterschied, wenn ich nicht so auf so einem Podest sitze, selbst wenn das Podest ganz niedrig ist. And it makes me feel I'm speaking more with you than to you.

[01:02]

Dabei spüre ich eher, dass ich mit euch spreche, im Gegensatz, dass ich zu euch spreche. Yeah, and that's very important to me. Das ist mir sehr wichtig. And I've been losing a feeling of relevance over these last two or three years of mostly speaking to you. So I've been looking for a way to speak with you. And what we're doing here is I would say both remedial and developmental. But remedial, is that only like a silly kid in school? No, remedial means a remedy, like a medicine or... Okay, okay.

[02:04]

I'm also a silly kid in school, you know. Remedio, I mean, we're trying to solve a problem. Also dieses remedial, das heißt auch Nachhilfe im Englischen, aber es heißt auch medizinisch. Like a problem. Also wir versuchen, eine Lösung zu finden. A problem for me, in this case, of not feeling I'm speaking with you as much as I'd like. Und zwar das Problem, dass ich habe, dass ich das Gefühl habe, dass ich nicht... But it's developmental also in that if we find a solution, then we develop that solution. Now, when I came to Europe first in... I've been in England a number of times, but not in real Europe until 1983.

[03:23]

And I came because of a wonderful, bizarre individual named Knut Flughaupt Plowhead. He persuaded me to come to a conference in Alpbach. And, you know, so I came. I had no idea of practicing in Europe or a sangha starting or anything. And then a conference in Belize, Belize? In Georgia led to, no, was it? No, Krakow. in Poland led to the Wiener Bande, these guys.

[04:43]

And again, somehow a sangha developed. But the sangha's been creating itself. I mean, you know, it's Actually, it's been a process of Sangha self-creating. And for me, the Dharma Sangha, European Dharma Sangha, did not become an intentional Sangha. Until really we acquired Hotzenholz, these buildings.

[05:47]

Not Johanneshof. Not Johanneshof. Johanneshof was me a place to practice, but I was convinced if I left it would disappear. Because there wasn't, I felt, enough of a Sangha developed to continue it. And with the... with this event of acquiring these buildings and this campus. The whole process was a process of developing, a process of acquisition, understanding it was a process of Sangha development and building.

[07:03]

Yeah. So now what I mean really is not too clear what I'm talking about. What is a Sangha? A Sangha is a group of people who have shared values. and have a shared practice and have a shared identity over time. And that definition of a Sangha didn't seem to me to be really possible until we started all this. Of course, individually many of you had developed a practice that continues in your life.

[08:12]

But developing a practice which continues together, that's a different, a differently articulated process. Carlisle supposedly said that Goethe said it was necessary for him in his very nature to live within the realm of facts, F-A-C-T-S.

[09:23]

Well, that would be nice if we can do it. That's like the Buddhist view to live in the way things actually are, is. Yes. Yeah, so that's my wish to live only in the way things actually exist. But, you know, today it nicely rained. And it felt before it rained that the air was so muggy. Maybe it wasn't the clouds that were going to rain.

[10:27]

The air itself was going to start raining. so that it doesn't feel like the clouds are starting to rain, but as if the air is raining on its own. So if the air can rain on its own, is it as if we live in an invisible cloud? What I'm saying is, you know, my experience is we don't really know what we're doing. Let me make another quotation that struck me recently. Derrida says that everything is, in theory, everything from language to language is translatable. Derrida said that theoretically everything is translatable from language to language.

[11:44]

But in fact everything is actually untranslatable. And he said for me the untranslatable and the translatable are always coming together in my experience. For him. For him. And I guess what I'm saying by using this example is I feel we can't really understand each other. We have a hope to be able to understand each other. Maybe that hope is a mistake. Maybe it's a better starting point to say we don't understand each other.

[12:48]

But how can we create a context where we come close to understanding each other? A point where untranslatable and the translatable or un-understandable and understandable meet. Oh, you know, Although I really do think we, in the context of trying to have mutual understanding, we probably don't. And this strikes me as strange because I would say what we are actually, human beings, is a multi-generational being.

[13:49]

I mean, and the tribal identities within that multigenerational being. The German tribe tends to look like Germans, and the Italian tribe tends to look like Italians. And the Swiss tribe, I don't know. It's too complicated. So why does this multigenerational being, which has a present surface at this time, not understand each other? And the effort, I would say, of Buddhism is within this multi-generational being of humanity

[15:12]

The Sangha is another articulation of a multigenerational being. rooted in a shared practice and shared values. And one thing we probably should make clear in this process of developing, I hope, a multi-generational Sangha, We ought to discuss and look at what really those shared values are, shared values and views. And what practice enhances this possibility?

[16:45]

Now, what I think I should bring into this discussion is what kind of revolution is practice? Because I think Zazen is a kind of revolution of being. A revolving or turning around of being. I mean, we, I think, enjoy, I enjoy, just being here with you. For me, the experience is primarily... Yeah, one of, as I said yesterday in the late afternoon, of a field of mutual acceptance which I feel is very porous and penetrating.

[18:17]

And it's completely satisfying to me without understanding a word of the conversation. And it is totally peaceful for me, even if I don't understand a single word of the conversation. The dominant experience is this porous, penetrating being. This is good enough for me. I don't really need anything else. Yeah. When we're trying, the experiment is to try it here, but again, the experiment, if it works, well, it can be tried and developed everywhere, elsewhere, elsewhere and everywhere.

[19:22]

So I would guess that, again, most of us probably, at least partially, are, to the extent that we enjoy this, are in the midst of this being together. I mean, gather is, you know, to gather is to gather. And maybe this is a more all-gather than a to-gather. But in any case, probably for most of us, it's partially at least an experience of a more intimate social space. But from the point of view of Dharma practice, it can be simultaneously or intermittently a social space. Now and then.

[20:41]

But from the point of view of Dharma practice, it is rooted in the acceptance of aloneness. What's it? From the point of view of Dharma practice, which is not social practice, social space, a practice is rooted, as I would say, in an acceptance of an absolute aloneness throughout this life. Da geht es um ein absolutes Akzeptieren eines Alleinseins, das ganze Leben hindurch. An aloneness that becomes inseparable from an inner stillness. Und zwar einem Alleinsein, das untrennbar von einer Stille ist.

[21:48]

And that aloneness and stillness is all we need. Yet, we're also this multigenerational being. And particularly a shared being in the immediate time. So how is that shared beingness, even if rooted in aloneness, how is that shared beingness developed? Also, wie entwickelt sich dann, oder wie kann sich dieses gemeinsame Wesen entwickeln, selbst wenn es in dieser Alleinheit basiert?

[22:49]

Okay, okay. So, I'll try to finish by saying a little bit what I mean by that. Und ich möchte zu einem Schluss kommen, indem ich noch etwas darüber sage, was ich darunter verstehe. Now I already spoke about three kinds of Sangha, an invisible Sangha, a temporal Sangha, a horizontal and vertical. But as each of us embodies the potentiality of Sangha, Which is, I would say, changes the game. It's a game changer. Because what Zazen does, that takes time and intention, but what happens through Zazen You develop an interiority, a sensorial and attentional interiority,

[24:06]

which this developed sensorial interiority changes how the world folds into you. And the attentional the attentional interiority opens up the bodily mind. Und diese Aufmerksamkeits-Innenheit, die öffnet deinen körperlichen Geist nach außen oder öffnet ihn. So instead of your starting point being the exterior world, your starting point is your own interiority.

[25:34]

No, no, what do I mean by that? Can I find an example? Okay. I've been speaking a lot about the spine practice recently. So let's use that. In practice. In the mode of thinking I have a spine and you have a spine. But in the mode of feeling and Zen practice and Zazen practice shifts you into feeling mode primarily, not a thinking mode. And once you are in a feeling mode, in a feeling mode, I have many spines.

[26:48]

I don't have a spine. That's a kind of object that's somewhere. I have many spines. I have a spine at the beginning of Zazen. And after about 10 minutes, that spine shifts and moves. And halfway through Zazen, it's already articulating differently. And when I sit in my desk chair upstairs, the desk chair also asks me or allows me or reminds me to discover the spine of the desk chair. Okay, so now if my starting point is not the exterior world, if my starting point is my spine as, spine mind as an interiority, an attentional sphere,

[27:59]

then I feel I'm sitting with a bunch of spines. If I start from my one of many spines, my spine can feel your spine. I'm sorry, but that happens to be the case. And Marie-Louise's and so forth. Okay, so if my starting point is an anterior spine, an interiority in contrast to the exterior, the shared space is different. And we have more of a chance in this developed interiority

[29:19]

in which the exterior is no longer an outside, but the so-called outside is the interiority projected as folded out into the exterior. The the exterior is an interiority folded out as an exterior. That is in fact what's happening from a scientific point of view even. But when you make it intentional, And whether you like it or not, you're approaching that through zazen practice.

[30:47]

But when through teaching and experience it becomes the primary location for you, Your body, your identity, your sense of being rests in the breath, rests in the body. And the world occurs in this folded out interiority. And the more we have the ability to be together in this folded out interiority, the more we have the real chance to develop, to create a multi-generational Sangha.

[31:52]

Because continuing and passing along and sharing with others over time is what the Sangha is. And it's going to be different than to some extent than the Sangha is in Asia. But it's interesting for me to see the most realized people I know. For example, Thich Nhat Hanh, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Suzuki Roshi. They're all clearly more in the same space with each other than they're Japanese or Vietnamese or Tibetan.

[33:12]

So the big question is, how can this Sangha this interior Sangha space be continued in a Sangha which is primarily a lay Sangha? Yeah, and so what I felt yesterday was the possibility, the feeling of the texture of this accepting space we created, the intimacy of an accepting space.

[34:45]

And we're all part of that. Now if Anita is leaving, I have to stop. I like your confidence, Anita. And it is time we stop. Thank you. And I don't know if this is a discussable topic I brought up, but let's see. Okay. That fly really likes your glass. Someone was going to ask me a question, is that right?

[36:00]

Okay. My heart is beating right now. Really? It's got some space, it looks like. We have two questions. We have two questions. We heard that through zazen we can create an inner reality. An interiority, a reality. That can be unfolded outwardly. And a space was created in which the Dalai Lama, Suzuki Roshi, and Thich Nhat Hanh met.

[37:09]

Yes, sure. They never met, but they shared. And our question now is, is it enough to simply practice to make it possible for the outside to fall? Our question is now, is it sufficient to just practice in order to unfold the interiority, unfold it, or? Or are there other measures also necessary, like language, like communication? I'd like to add the second question, if I may. I get a little confused, maybe even a little annoyed that the topics are since 40, 45, 50 years always the same.

[38:16]

I said that? Yes. Same reaction with me. You're not as old as me, though. I do feel or notice that communication or language doesn't really work. The question is how to deal with it. Does it make sense to, with humbleness and good intention, try to make something happen? Or shall you just let all go or not engage and say, we can't trust language? Okay, this sounds like a kind of personal question for you.

[39:39]

As well as from the group. Yes, it might be. Okay. What? I'm wondering if we should listen to more questions. No, I want to respond to this. And maybe all the other questions will be responded to so we can, you know. I don't know. You know, in the last koan we talked about the seal. And what the koan is presenting, that while the seal is the same seal always, The seal is always different because it's on a different document in a different place on a different day.

[40:57]

Yeah, so I think that the... questions are like a seal. They're the same over generations, and we just keep applying them, and different answers come up. So your question, the first question, do we need... language or let's say teachings, or is Zazen enough? Well, if you're a religious, spiritual, aesthetic genius, ein Siedler talent bist.

[42:17]

Aesthetic or from the lonely guy in the mountains? Oh, we can use aesthetic and ascetic. Okay. He's just a lonely guy in the mountains. Okay. There's a song. which such persons do contribute to our practice. Such persons. But this is a generational creation, this practice. And it's interesting how it really takes generations and usually some centuries for a question to evolve and become subtle and find new answers. So if you just do zazen and you're some kind of genius, you can accomplish a lot.

[43:22]

You had a profoundly inquiring mind and full of energy. But if you then discovered the teaching of the Vijnanas, you'd say, oh great, that saved me a decade. So the teaching of the Vijnanas, for instance, is a way of articulating our sensorial experience. And the vijnanas were developed over at least half a millennium. Okay. Now, it's not just that... We create a world, we create interiority which can be unfolded into the world.

[44:45]

There's a koan in which the key question is, what do we call the world? In what we call the world, yeah, anyway, so what you're trying to do through Zazen and the teachings, the Vishyanas and so forth, you're trying to create a kind of aliveness, beingness of yourself, that the world can fold into you. If you just have an exterior perspective, the world never in a real subtly folds into you.

[45:49]

Yeah, and if you develop the eight vijnanas, you create a space that the world can fold into. And if you create a bodily mind space through zazen, this becomes a joining of the for example, adjoining of the dreaming space and the usual thinking space into one large space in which dreaming and thinking occurs in the same space. And then when you start seeing the reflexive nature of mind, In other words, the glass appears, the mind appears.

[47:04]

And the senses appear. And the senses separate from the object appear. And when that kind of layering is part of how the world folds into you, Your engagement with the world is so different, it's almost entirely different. And then the emotions that arise through a primarily exterior perspective are all altered. Okay, is that enough for a response data?

[48:13]

That wasn't an answer to the question. What would you answer? I'd like to rephrase the question as I understood it and make it more clear. Okay. I think what you now emphasize is what we would call that block of Zazen. What we try to do here this weekend as a group is try to combine competence of speaking with the competence of Zaza. So my question is what is this, what we got to know this weekend, this competence of speaking? How can this competence that we got to know this weekend help this highly complex developed Buddhist way and the way how we are here and how we are in Vienna

[49:32]

And I think those questions that arise in me and that arise within us here now aren't the same things that have been arising for the last 55 years. I don't know if that's the point. It's the question of what helps the language that we're trying here in my practice, which I've been trying for so long. Or should I rather stop with that and forget the seminar here and continue to be intensively present here at the Hitchin Yarners? Can you say that in English? You can add it. So how does this, I wasn't here 55 years ago, I don't know if it's the same, but how does this help what we're doing here, what we've just discovered, or should I just go home and forget about this weekend and just go back to practicing that?

[51:03]

Yeah, or go home, practice that and Vishnayana. Well, that's good. Well, my feeling is what we entered into here is not just a competence in speaking. Is that what you said? But a speaking that developed through a competence in, we could also say, listening. And the speaking and listening created a shared accepting space, which if I were just here for the first time, I would in a sense see if I could have a physical sense of that space and bring it home.

[52:17]

And it becomes part of the ingredients of my life. And it opens up my zazen practice and the potentiality of realizing this interiority. But I think what you said is, you know, I think way better. Just fine. Yeah. Do you mind if I add something to that? Yes, if you want to add something. For me, what you say, I can follow it very well and that is the reason why I come here and this unfolding I can do.

[53:18]

But? But what I hear from you, if I bring it kind of to a point, or make it more sharp... Isn't it that we should, in the outer, find an equally distinctive or qualitatively distinctive way of speech?

[54:23]

Yeah. I mean, in a way, what we're speaking about is the two truths to be able to simultaneously allow both aspects of the world fold into one. What we are talking about here is also the two truths, that the two worlds come together. the relatively predictable world, let's say, to fold into or be simultaneous with the quite actual unpredictable world. And the koans are trying to show us a language which reflects both simultaneously. Anyway, I'll try to absorb these various views.

[55:25]

Next. So the questions that have crystallized in our group, they also fit to that. Through your instructions, since a while we are practicing and repeatedly practicing and longer practicing to abide in the space before thoughts arise. So the question arose, and now in this dialogue seminar, how does this connect, or in what dynamics does this lead to speaking, to interpersonal contact, to speaking?

[56:37]

How can we connect this more closely? Is it possible in this space to connect the interpersonal contact in language? How is it possible in this history? Is it possible to come into contact in the inter-human space through language? That's the first question. The other question, it was parallel to it. We spoke about values, shared values, or sharing values.

[57:37]

The difference if you follow a concept or if there is a value that God became valuable in your life. What do you think would be the essential values important to our process here in Dharma Sangha? Well, the values have to be your own or become your own. But the views and values, of course, are fairly simple. Not so simple to embody, but they're simple to understand. Die sind ziemlich einfach.

[59:03]

Sie sind nicht einfach zu verkörpern, aber sie sind einfach zu verstehen. Is that everything is changing, interdependent and intermergent. Dass sich alles ändert, gegenseitig abhängend ist und gemeinsam auftaucht. Which means you have to really start recognizing how everything is an activity and not an entity, etc. So holding that as a view, it takes months, more than months, years to really transform your birth culture into looking at the world that way. Nope. Seeing the world as fundamentally a sequence of appearances and not a continuity. And realizing how you apply an experience of continuity to this sequence of appearances is a choice.

[60:33]

To see how you do it? Yeah, to find out how you apply continuity an experience of continuity to a sequence of appearances is a practice and personal choice. This is your personal choice. This is So that's a version, a way of saying everything changes. So how do you give a view like everything changes an articulation in your activity? And we can develop that as a Sangha and how to do that.

[61:36]

And in a similar way, what we mean by compassion How we are first of all shared beings and not separate beings. A shared beingness. eine gemeinsame Seinsheit sind. That as a value again takes time to, like this weekend, is an experiment and a practice of recognizing a we, the pronoun we.

[62:38]

For example, when you're ordained, what we're saying is not the lay ordination, but the monk's ordination. As you make a promise, a commitment, to make all your decisions through and for others as well as for yourself. Okay. I think that's enough unless we make that a big topic. Okay. Yes? Our group was not able to maybe formulate a question.

[63:50]

We started, though, with your expression that we human beings are fundamentally alone. One was I am fighting against this that I am alone and that I am lonely. So this is really shortened, what I'm presenting, but that there should have also been mentioned a fundamental connectedness, as you just mentioned right now. There was an example of somebody who in a session was able to thoroughly accept the being alone.

[65:11]

And how through this a space opened for connectedness. And then there was an image in our group that we do know a joint space in our sangha. And that now maybe we're at a point in the Sangha where we can develop a culture of speaking where we can just let things pop up, let them

[66:23]

develop and let them just do their thing without just grasping at it. That we give more attention to this aspect of the appearing and dissolving. I agree. But when I spoke about and you referenced fundamental aloneness, this has nothing to do with loneliness. If you're lonely, you don't know fundamental aloneness. Wenn du einsam bist, kennst du grundlegendes Alleinsein nicht.

[67:28]

So my experience is the way we're constructed as human beings. Meine Erfahrung ist es, dass die Art und Weise, wie wir als menschliche Wesen zusammengesetzt sind, A better starting point is aloneness than togetherness. Because we're such needy beings, if you start from neediness, you don't ever know aloneness. But if you establish aloneness, then you can start really seeing not only your needs, but have room for other people's needs. Usually our neediness and needs interfere with our realizing our needs and accepting other people's needs as similar and equal.

[68:29]

And at least that's the practice as I understand it. So in a funny way, Life is the practice of being willing to die. Every time I see a new baby I say these loving parents I say these loving parents has created a being which has to deal with that it's going to die.

[69:45]

There is no choice. So that's a big deal. You create a baby, poor thing, it has to die. So you know fundamental aloneness when you're really willing to die. And as I've said before, a good practice is every time you go to bed, you're willing to not wake up in the morning. In that light, maybe we could consider the Segaki ceremony. No, but are there more questions I haven't responded to yet? Oh, two.

[71:00]

I don't know what time we're supposed to stop. In five minutes. Well, we might be a little late. Buddhists are willing to be late. At least this one. Okay, ladies first. We tried to discuss what it means being alone in a world where we're all connected. It means to be willing to die or to really know that that's the case. On the side of an illuminated manuscript, a Catholic, Christian, medieval illuminated manuscript, a monk had written, Alone I came into the world, and alone I shall go from it.

[72:09]

Of course he was aware his mother was present when he came into the world. I think his mother was present. But still the experience is like that. Yes. She has two questions, right? Oh, okay. I was in the same group as Agathe and it's about the same topic. I was in the same group as Agathe and it's about the same topic. You mentioned something that you mentioned many over the course of years, that I can choose and in the West, we say space separates.

[73:27]

But space also connects. Now you said regarding being fundamentally alone. it is more helpful taking this as a starting point. I hear a development in that. And I ask myself, what would be the end point? Or is there a fundamental connection? Or is it I'm glad you lived in Zurich. He spoke German, high German. Swiss high German. No, no. He spoke German. So I hear this fundamental aloneness as a development, like a progression maybe.

[74:52]

So what would be on the other side? Would it be fundamental connectivity or connectedness? Or would it be something beyond speech? Or is it like I'm always close to this, you contact the polarity? All of that. There's no universe. There's no universal time or universal space. There's only context. In the emotional context, the starting point is aloneness. In the context of the physical world, the starting point of connectedness is more useful and profound, I think, than the starting point of separation. So there's no universal starting point.

[76:11]

It's all contextual. So I, since we only have a few minutes, let me say I've been thinking about how can we do this. And I'm sorry so many people aren't here. I wish the whole sangha could be here. But we'll have to bring this into the whole sangha. So there's something called the Segaki ceremony.

[77:14]

It's mythologically related to Buddha and Ananda, etc., but it's probably a Chinese ceremony which has been developed particularly in Japan. And the concept of the ceremony is the feeding of the hungry ghost. And a hungry ghost is a... creature with such a narrow throat that it can't swallow the food it needs. So it's constantly hungry, but it can't swallow anything. And this is the Buddhist idea that when you're a needy person going through life always not meeting your needs or wanting something else, you're really a kind of living hungry ghost.

[78:32]

So the Segaki ceremony is an effort to feed the hungry ghosts. Okay, so one of the center part of the ceremony I've never done it in Europe. I used to do it annually in the United States. Ich habe das in Europa noch nie gemacht. Ich habe es in den USA einmal im Jahr gemacht. Okay. Is that you make food offerings? Man macht Essensdarbietungen. Well, you have food available, at least. Zumindest hat man Speisen zugänglich. And a central part of the ceremony is everyone in the Sangha either sends or is present with the names of people connected to them who've died.

[79:52]

So even in this group we probably have 10 or 20 or maybe more people who we know who have died this year. And if we ask the whole Sangha to bring names, it would be hundreds of names. So one of the parts of the ceremony is all those names are read. Now if we do the ceremony, if we decide to do it, somebody would have to help me and read the German names, or when I read the German names, people would start laughing. But this creates quite an atmosphere, all these named one person after another.

[80:56]

And then you also include the experiences and karma you want left behind. And karmas and feelings that you want to break your connection with. And it includes things that you don't even want to mention to yourself.

[82:01]

For instance, I wish my autistic child would die. So it's a space even for things that are unacceptable to you. Okay, so the Segaki ceremony can be extremely opening and powerful. And it's often preceded by several days of meditation. And if we, I'm just, I don't know, imagining, if we wanted to do something like this, it could be preceded by a seminar like this. And which we would know we're not only speaking to each other, but we're speaking to all the people that aren't here or couldn't be here or aborted children and so forth like that.

[83:26]

People we wished we'd spoken to but then they died before we could say what we feel. This sense of communicating with ourselves and with this wider sphere of our intergenerational being. This sense of communicating with ourself and with this wider field of an intergenerational being. And it's an example of what can happen when you combine intelligently a ceremony with something like a seminar like this. You feel a space which includes the dead.

[84:40]

Maybe it's too much for us to do it or not appropriate. But somehow I thought of it during this seminar. Okay. I turn it over to... Please close. I'm just doing what's possible here, following instructions. Okay. Have we, have we already, have we already died?

[86:47]

Are we, are we still preciously somehow still alive? How we're alive is, in the deepest sense, our choice.

[87:26]

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