What do you think the next step should be for backward steps or forward steps or stand stills should be for Johanneshof-Kohlenweg? What do you think should be the next step for Johanneshof-Kohlenweg or also a step back, a step forward or a stop? I think enabling people to live here is a very good idea. whether that is here in the houses that we have that are part of the campus or the house close by.

[01:09]

Yeah, we missed the chance for the Dents House, but... Jonas is here to see if we can make these two buildings more livable. So I agree. Spontan dachte ich, deine Lehren in den Alltag holen. Ich kann das gar nicht verstehen. My spontaneous thought was to bring the teachings into everyday life.

[02:10]

That is also a step in the residence sangha. During the times where we have more seminars. and we will look into how to bring the teachings more into our seminar everyday life. You remember how difficult it was when you were a teacher in Mannheim to continue the practice in everyday life and you needed to come here to feel the practice again. So you finally talked Frieda into coming here. But the question is how you struggled to bring it into your everyday life in Mannheim. It's not easy to do. How can we do that? Aber die Frage ist, ja, was musst du tun und was musst du dich auseinandersetzen, um das in dein Leben in Mannheim zu bringen?

[03:31]

Das ist nicht einfach. Wie macht man das? Ja, wir überlegen auch, sogar hier ist es nicht einfach. And we also think that here it is not easy. Yes, we do. Aber es ist einfacher, ja. because we are reminded of the practice again and again. It really comes down to one's own inner commitment and creativity. If the commitment is there and the creativity in exploring how to practice in daily life, that's the very practice Sukhiyoshi was trying to bring to the United States. Well, it really comes down to what kind of And I can say about commitment, you can't

[04:39]

It happens when you realize you're practicing for others more than yourself. Better word for commitment, please. A better word for commitment? Verpflichtung. Auf Deutsch, ja. Verpflichtung. Nein. Versprechen an sich selbst. Oder, ja, dieses Versprechen, dieses Einlassen, das passiert dann, wenn du deine Praxis für die anderen einen höheren Stellenwert einnimmst als die Praxis für dich. Commitment, which is dependent on how you feel and whether conditions are okay for you, that kind of commitment is nowhere near enough. I would like to add something from my own experience, although I want to restrict myself a little.

[06:31]

I don't want to be progressive. I want to add something out of my experience, but I wanted to limit it because I don't want to be presumptuous. Please be presumptuous. One of my most changing experiences is the practice meeting. One of my most changing experiences was the practice period. Based on what happened there, I personally came to a point where I couldn't go on. And starting from what happened and that I reached a point where I didn't know how to go on.

[07:40]

When I came home, I met something or something came towards me from Roshi. It was the word liquid, flüssig. So... The experience that I didn't know how to go on forced me to find some way how to do it, how to continue.

[09:11]

Unterhalb mir diese, ich sag jetzt mal, erste Idee, dass die Dinge ins Fließen kommen, kommen müssen. And the idea helped me that things have to come into a flow. And as that seemingly or apparently opened in me, I got the impression that things flow together. And people I met in life let something flow into me because perhaps I was open for that.

[10:18]

And it was a very strange or unique feeling. So the flowing was more important than myself. And it gave me the opportunity to let flow out what has flown into me. So far I wanted to tell that.

[11:49]

Thank you. Could I say something to practicing for yourself and practicing for the world? I think it's probably so that the initial impulse to practice comes from a need that is personal, but it has to do with a dissatisfaction in the way you are fitting in the world, the place that you have seemed to be taking in. And I think that with time it becomes clear that you aren't, that you are the world and that

[13:02]

there is no individual salvation or anything, I don't know. I think over time it will become clear that you are the world, or that you are not different from the world, and that there is no individual solution. One of the next development steps for the Johannishof as a proposal could be to go more in a traditional direction, in a direction that is suggested how to deal with teaching. So one of the next steps in development of Johanneshof could be to go in the direction of a traditional way of how to take in teachings.

[14:33]

And there is a division in listening or reading. So there is a kind of sequencing of listening or reading in the first place and then a part which is called reflection, but which is more like you take in and you ask yourself and inquiry and you feel how, what it does with you and then that you take into meditation. And in my opinion we receive a lot more and I compare that a little bit with health costs. So, in my feeling, we get a lot of teachings and I compare that to health food.

[15:40]

And then we don't get so many guidelines as far as the digestion is concerned, i.e. this part of the reflection, or the balancing, or the sensing. but then we don't get that much guidelines about how the digestion functions, so how to work with that material or make it work so in a way of more maybe inquiry and also in a form of questioning. And then there is a lot of space here for meditation to really let that work in, let that settle in meditation. So with all that precious

[16:59]

presence we got of the teaching, I would also like to hear from the people and from you, Roshi, how that process of digestion, of reflection happens in more detail. How to stand in the place where no standing is? What you just mentioned, Roshi, the question came up or appeared. You just heard the question. and this weekend I didn't join all the sessions and I cared about laundry and prepared breakfast and the question came up do I miss something now

[18:29]

And it was just exciting for me to be in this field here, in this place and to know that you meet here with Roshi and And it was kind of exciting. exciting experience or interesting interesting experience to be at this place or in this field where i knew you were sitting in this room here and i could i was somehow by myself and doing the things which i find important for this place like doing the laundry and preparing breakfast and through totally being committed to that, in this motion, in this movement,

[20:06]

I find a kind of hold for me, a kind of trust, a confidence. And in this space, things can appear and be digested. So concerning you, Dieter? So healthy digestion has to do with an attitude of nothing to do, nowhere to go. In a way of there is nothing to miss. So I want to relay to your question, Roshi, what does Johanneshof need as a next step?

[21:36]

And that's a question to the people who live here in the first place. and secondly to the people who come here regularly or irregularly. It has something to do with being at home. And it has something to do with leaving our usual home when we come here. So we leave our environment or surroundings but we also leave the way we normally feel or function at home.

[22:55]

We are leaving our usual mind home, and what are we finding here? Or what are we expecting here? Was braucht es, dass wir uns in diesem anderen Zuhause, wirklich Zuhause fühlen, hier? What does it mean that we find or feel ourselves in this other home, really at home, that we are here at home? That's the question to the residents.

[23:56]

What does it mean for you to be at home here? And not to wish to be somewhere else. Or only occasionally. So, das braucht ein schönes Zimmer, das braucht Beziehung, das braucht eine gute Lehre, was immer. Das muss ganz basis, also basic sein. that needs a nice room, that needs a relationship, whatever. It has to be very basic. Teachings, and also for us who come regularly, we let ourselves down here for a few days, and it is our home. I don't feel like I'm just visiting, I'm really here. And that's also for the people who come here occasionally.

[25:02]

We settle here and in my case I don't feel like I'm a visitor here. I'm really here. So we should explore what it means to be at home here in difference to being at home at home. And that has many facets. It has much to do with our personality. It has much to do with our decision. And it has to do also with our visions. What kind of place would we like here? And it's very simple.

[26:15]

I rejoice coming here, and that's a good start. Something that framework would be my answer to your question. Okay, we don't have much time, so let me end. In some way now. Koan number 11 in the Mumonkan. In the Tang and some dynasties there were lots of cave-dwelling hermits. And also just little huts here and there. It was quite a developed way to practice.

[27:17]

And Zhao Zhou went and visited one of these hermits. They still exist in China today, I believe, the hermits. And he came up to the entrance or near the house or the cave and said, Are you in? Are you in? And he came near the cave or the house and asked, Are you in? Oh, that was a good translation, yeah. And the hermit came out, put his hand up in the air like that, fist up. And then Xiaojiu said, the water's too shallow here to anchor. So he walked further along the slope of this mountain and he came to another hermit residence

[28:20]

A good enough room, not a nice room. And he said again, are you in? Are you in? And this hermit came out and he raised his fist like that. And Zhaozhou said, ah, you can give and take away life. And he bowed to him. And the rest of the commentary, of Mumon's commentary, is all about why do you approve of one of the monks and one of the hermits and not the other? And then they bring in a third element. Did the two hermits approve of of Zhaozhou.

[29:42]

So this is a koan which exemplifies the practice of grasping way and granting way. Although it's clear In the story, Jojo says the water is too shallow here to anchor. And then seemingly approved of the other hermit. The whole koan is about can we really know, even though the story is written this way, can we really know whether one was better than the other or whether there was approval or not approval? Can we really know whether...

[30:44]

Is Giorgio really approved of one, or one is a bit different? There's difference, but is the difference one of better or worse? The point of this kind of koan, which is a story which is Even when it's so clearly pointed out, there's a positive and negative difference. Is it really the case? And when you look at your own life, and you feel good about this, or you forgot that, or you did this, can you really say that anything here is negative or positive, or it's just... you're in a texture of your life which doesn't fall into categories of approval and disapproval.

[32:18]

The Tibetan, there's a wonderful book called The Mad Monk of Tibet or The Mad Monk or something like that. who was quite opposed to the Dalai Lama, the present Dalai Lama. And he died, I believe, as a kind of drunk. But he was one of the most brilliant monks and creative monks in the Tibetan tradition in the last century.

[33:28]

One of the things he said is the ultimate is not in the sphere of mind. By this he means we can't really know what's going on or the outcome because what we're doing is this extensional hyper-object. Yeah, we can't. No, I mean, the things we see within our human sphere and our human sensorium, etc., as I've said, have an existence and a mystery beyond us. Yeah, so we can't really know.

[34:45]

And it's, can you come into a mind and way of being where you do make practical decisions? how you drive a car, how you support yourself and things. But also at another level, we don't know what's going on. So this is part of living in the spectrum of Not the either-or, but the spectrum of the granting way and the gathering-in way.

[35:48]

Sometimes we gather in and say, the water's too shallow here to anchor. And sometimes we say, hey, you have the power to give and take away life. Meaning to precipitate realization. But really, do you want to fall into, actually, one's better than the other? There's another level where we don't know what's going on. So practically speaking, in the example, talking about the Oryoki, from what Anna asked.

[36:52]

Don't think you have to, every time you have the Orioki, you have to feel the vibrations of 2,500 years thrilling your hand. What's important is that sometimes here's this teaching given to us from two and a half millennia. Can you simply now and then remember, hey, this is thought of as Buddha's skull? And mostly you forget about it.

[37:53]

But you have the habit of bowing before you put your spoon in that bowl. And you have the habit of... bowing before you pick up that bowl or wash that bowl. But you've completely forgotten about it and you're just thinking about when you could join Nicole in Tokyo. But in the depth of, what can I say, the medium of associative memory that results through noticing. So every time you, whatever you think, you give a little bow before you pick up the

[39:00]

Something's happening in the wider sphere of your activity rooted in the 10,000 things and I. share the same body. So sometimes you feel this is the Buddha's bowl. And sometimes you feel your spine and chakras when you pick up the middle bowl. And so forth. If it just happens sometimes, but it's embedded in your activity, Also wenn es auch nur manchmal passiert, wenn es in eure Aktivität eingebettet ist.

[40:11]

Then suddenly sometimes in the middle of an Oryoki meal you'll feel your durative time. Und dann spürt man manchmal inmitten des Oryokis-Essens die fortdauernde Zeit. And each bowl has its own durative time. Und jede Schale hat ihre eigene andauernde Zeit. 500 years or 10,000. 500 Jahre oder 10,000. And two or three other people in the Oryoki meal, too, suddenly have a feeling of, hey... I'm in this host mind which has its own durative time and space. So the imaginative creative way we enter into the 10,000 things through metaphoric thinking evolve us in ways that are beyond our own immediate experience.

[41:20]

Okay. Was that crystal clear? I have a question. Yes? I didn't get what you meant with metaphoric thinking. Could you please give one more example? You'll have to return to the first session when I spoke about it at some length. That's the problem with lay practice. If you took everything I've said in the last 30 years, it's pretty good.

[42:24]

But it's all in little chunks, and this person isn't in it. I can't repeat it all. And as Paul said, sometimes you have to do the laundry. And that's the granting way. And you helped me with my laundry, and that's very nice. Thank you. So I don't know how they hold it. We have four minutes to get there. And I'll try to get there today.

[43:15]

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