Now we could do this seminar in chairs if we wanted. And as I said yesterday, probably we can think about whether we want to continue this seminar without me next year. A hundred years hence. Yeah, or somebody from the Austrian Saga could do it, or Nicole could do it, or Pavel Rosenblum-Roshi could do it. So I bring it up only to think about to get us to think about whether you want to continue it as a tradition even if I'm not here.

[01:03]

And maybe it could be continued in somewhat different format, more a discussion kind of format. I'm bringing it up partly just because I'm emphasizing again in this way that everything is an activity. Yeah, everything is a a particular materiality at a specific time and place. It's just a statement I quoted from a book on Japanese, a marvelous book on Japanese architecture.

[02:28]

Everything is a particular materiality at a specific time and place. And place is a word... Really, in Japanese, for space. A space is always a place. A placing. A place. And a Japanese word from the esoteric side of Japanese Buddhism. Kekkai, K-E-K-K-A-I.

[03:29]

Kekkai, K-E-K-K-A-I. Means to create an interval. That means to offer incense, for instance. And that's one thing I miss here. We have this nice little Buddha back here, but I can't offer incense or something. Well, I can put on this little version of Buddha's robe. And so it's a way of recognizing that the subtitle of this seminar is Undivided Activity. Which implies immediately that there's the action of dividing activity, dividing, creating an interval.

[04:49]

And these are concepts that I want to explore the rest of today and tomorrow. If we see everything is undivided, For instance, the word in Japanese for self is jibun. And jibun means actually self. Are you going to do the jibun? Jibun means actually a part of being. So we're in a field of being and this is my part. But you're also in this field of being. Each of you is a part of this field of being.

[06:03]

So there's no concept or implication of non-human in that. This is again part of the yogic way of looking at things. Now I'm also saying this partly to bring us back to what Christina brought up just before lunch. And she's referring to the process, I said, of noticing, of thinking, that everything's an activity. Yeah, and that our bodies are activity. Our mind, our mind is an activity.

[07:23]

And so our mind-body, when it thinks, is thinking in ways that potentiate the body. Everything is a particular materiality at a specific time and place. Each of us is a particular materiality at a specific time and place. So our thinking is in the context always of a particular materiality at a specific time and place. That led me to that process of noticing. Led me to recognize that I'm thinking I, this thinking is inseparable from a male body thinking.

[09:14]

Das hat mich dahin geführt, zu erkennen, dass dieses Denken untrennbar verbunden ist mit einem männlichen Körper, der denkt. I mean, I would love to be a female body, but I'm not. Ich wäre liebend gern ein weiblicher Körper, aber bin ich nicht. I really don't know exactly what it would be like. And my thinking is shaped by also what this body can do in the world. So it must be the case that women's thinking is potentiated by what their body does, can do, is. So before lunch and during lunch, several people spoke to me about it. So undivided activity includes how we actualize separateness.

[10:32]

This is all part of what I would like to speak about, to see that the very present itself, which we think of, we're here in the present, is a constructed participatory activity. And this is also part of what I would like to speak about, that exactly this present here, a constructed activity, The present is the present from the present. The present means just what is put before you. So a gift is what's put before you. The present moment is what's put before you. And what's put before each of us is each of our own uniqueness. And our uniqueness is gendered to various degrees, so it has to be part of our thinking.

[11:58]

That's a lot of words to say, almost nothing. But do you want to say something? Since she's brought us up. Yeah. We also talked about this topic in the break. And what stood out to me from the discussion is that this topic is something that is obvious to everyone, but still no one looks back, So we also discussed this topic during the break and what we came to is that although this is obvious to everyone, it is at the same time something that nobody looks at because it's almost like we can't see it although it is so obvious.

[13:30]

And for me, this topic has nothing to do with women's liberation movement or anything like that. It's for me not in the context of a male-female debate. but just more that we women can appreciate ourselves and And that we discover our own potentials and that we allow that these potentials show. And for me, that was part of my practice. For me, it was part of my practice to find out that certain forms don't really work for me.

[14:51]

And for me, it was a huge insight to see that the key to my zazen practice is relaxation. So not Zazen, Zazen, Zazen until you break, but just... Not that way. But just to sit zazen and to open yourself to what appears. And for me that has made a tremendous difference. And maybe others can say something about that too. Because from what I understood, I can create my own reality.

[16:15]

Therefore I try to only see men as a little strange but not as evil. Thank you. Yes? We've spoken about, and we didn't quite know whether this was an archetypal recommendation by Min, but we've spoken about how Min oftentimes, the advice is to kill the dragon.

[17:33]

Can I have a little synopsis here? It's so interesting. And we weren't quite sure whether this is a feminine aspect, but we felt in our discussion that we would much rather like we would dance with a dragon or marry it or play with it or something. But Rosa says that speaking about this example specifically, to me that is not an example of difference because I could very much imagine killing a dragon. Oh, okay. Okay. Can you speak up a little?

[18:51]

What I would like to say is not so specifically about this current topic, but I'm referring back to what Christina said about unrestricted speaking and Hans-Jörg's not clicking into making an object an object. Yes. I think it's very interesting to see how this half-dry grass, half-dried vine, or even if it's a flower, if you allow it to, so to speak, wait without receding, When I, so about the shifts, that is something that's interesting to me. When I look at this little grass, or it's actually easier with the flowers, and I allow myself to perceive unrestrictedly.

[20:29]

Is this easy? Then I can notice something about shifts, that this subject, what I'm looking at, and this subject, that both there are shifts. Okay. And that also includes uniqueness, where I don't even want to take this extra step to distinguish it into male and female, but just the uniqueness itself. Yes, Richard?

[21:34]

My doppelganger. during the first morning satsang and I wasn't here yesterday but I had a sudden intense feeling as if I was sitting here in the form of a woman At last. And it felt very good, I must say. And I had a feeling it's more compact as my usual form. And then a shift happened and I perceived myself in the form of a man but not myself as a man.

[22:44]

So I felt the form of a man. And I noticed that the difference between the two is that it is a bit stiffer. And I noticed that the difference to a woman is it's somehow maybe drier or stiffer or something like that. A male is drier and stiffer than a woman. Yeah, probably. And you know, you, even though you're the translator, you can also be a woman if you'd like to.

[23:51]

You were going to say something, Tara? Let's give some other people something. I've been reading a little bit, reading, right? A little bit Judith Butler. Well, I know, I've read her too. She's great, really. And she coined this terminology of doing gender. And I And she says that, or I think that, femininity also is not an entity, but is also bound to a particular time and context and so forth, and is also in the midst of changing.

[25:05]

Yes. And there is still a question about that, because I am now also in the Sassanian experience of such spontaneous movements. And I have one question about it because I am having an experience in Zazen now of spontaneous movements. And you once spoke about it in a lecture about... You have to remember everything. the former cook and Sahara. And in that context, on the one hand, you called it a kind of Zen disease, It's called a Zen disease sometimes. And that it oftentimes happens for women.

[26:07]

That's what I remember from that. That's right. I can't escape my past. Okay, yes. Should I say something about that? Well, Chuck Luck, I mean, Charles Luke... Yeah. Philip, well, you used to call him Chuck Luck. Charles Luke writes in one of his books, the second series, I guess, about this uncontrolled movements, which he calls the Zen disease. So Charles Luke writes, I think in his second volume or something like that, he writes about these spontaneous movements that he calls the Zen disease. And I haven't seen much of it in recent years, but when you have a lot of people sitting, living for some years, like we did at Tassar in a monastery, it happens more often.

[27:11]

That's my experience. But it definitely was more women than men, and Ed Brown was the male I knew who I practiced with, who had the most active, uncontrolled movements for a male. It's the kind of like, when you get very close to developing stillness, your body starts just, people would fly off their seats, literally. Linda Ruth Katz, who is now the president overall of the San Francisco Zen Center, used to have it quite a lot.

[28:23]

It is interesting that it more often happens to women, in my experience. So it may be that what's required to discover physical stillness is different for a man than a woman. And it's interesting, at least in my experience, that it occurs more for women, and then it may be that what is necessary to develop silence for women is different from for men. Yes. Anyone else has something to say before we do something else? Yes? Could you translate for me?

[29:47]

So she's free to just talk? Sit here so I can put my hands on your shoulders. Of course. For me, it's interesting that Roshi has actually started to talk about, in this context of materiality, about the uniqueness of the body and thus also to talk about a distinction of genders. because my whole practice was just about removing categories, and especially the category of gender. And I think that's also, it doesn't end there, but I think the combination of these two exercises is especially interesting in researching how we actually exist. So I think it's one thing to remove the category, as he said yesterday, to remove the category of human beings and to locate ourselves more in this common sentience, in this common breath of the body, or in materiality itself.

[31:06]

but also to discover myself as a place for living, which is completely free from the first personality, which is Nicole. And then I can send the different things. What are the names that I give myself? there is a layer that is Nicole, then there is a layer, maybe a role that I take on, sometimes director in the Johanneshof, I can take that off. And then also take off as a woman. I wanted to add that, so that I do both. Thank you very much. Yes, Adi?

[32:27]

Oh no, yes. He was pointing to you and I thought he wanted to say something. Maybe, yeah. So this may be similar to what I just said. We have this image of what we are and it's like a case or something like a shell that doesn't entirely correspond to what we actually are. and the operation practices are graphical and really relevant pieces.

[33:31]

And also through my psychotherapeutic practice I've come to see how irrelevant this image we have of ourselves actually is. And it feels to me more and more like I am my body. And the restrictions that I have aren't somehow restrictions that one can think away or therapeutically make go away. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[34:50]

But it's rather just accepting that one is what one is. But nonetheless, to not feel restricted by it. I would like to come back to what you described in the morning, and also referring to what Christa just said, about the five or the six senses. Because the five senses actually are the experience ability of the body.

[36:09]

And if we add a sixth sense, then we are creating a new dimension of what's experienceable. ... And what's interesting to me is whether the sixth sense, whether that goes beyond the individual and beyond the personality. Okay. That's a good question. To explore, for sure. It's a good question. It really is a question because, of course, it also has to do with male and female.

[37:25]

And, of course, also with what practice looks like. Yes, Tara? You once said that the pattern is more important than the content. And ever since you said that, it's something that I've been wondering about on various levels, whether it's about conditioning or emotionally or in my perception.

[38:26]

Yeah. And here, too, in this question about male, female, for me, again, what seems more relevant is the pattern than the content. That's my feeling, that's why I like to work with animals, with animals, because I can just, yes, it doesn't exist like the tiger or the woman or the man, but the movement, the relationship runs against everything, whether it's on the floor or on the floor.

[39:26]

And what you said about taking off the categories like the personality, like the name Nicole, or taking off the categories for male, female, and so forth. That is one of the reasons why I like working with animals so much, where when I work with horses, for instance, I feel it's easier for me to take away these categories, then I'm not Tara, but it's possible to connect on a different layer, maybe just materiality or something. That's what occurred to me about that. Okay, thank you. Yes? You said there's an amplifier. I thought of something that a friend of mine told me who is a neuroscientist. He said that when during pregnancy a feeling for being male or female develops... By the mother or the... For sleep.

[40:54]

Yeah. Sleep, sleep. There is a phase in her pregnancy, which, as you have seen, obviously, as you can see in the picture, is the later subjective gender for her husband. So during pregnancy, there is a phase when a hormonal level, the hormonal levels decide on, or decide, but determine what later on the... It will be a male or female. Yeah. No, but that's subjective, right? Yeah. The feeling for how you are a male or female develops. You mean the feeling in the embryo or the feeling in the woman who's pregnant? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yes, that's right. The condition of the uterine gland in this part, I mean, is, as it seems, as always, the condition is already determined by the pregnancy, whether it is as a male or as a female, whether it is later found in another theater.

[42:21]

So what I find interesting about that debate is that already during pregnancy, so when one is an embryo, it is already determined whether you, no matter which body you're in, male or female, whether you will identify later on in life as male or female. Well, that's extremely interesting. It's interesting that a neuroscientist can think that there's neurological information about whether how you feel. I'm ready, you know, I'm ready. Eric? I think this is a difficult and partially unpleasant debate.

[43:34]

Really. Because I think in our society, this is such a poisoned territory. A little bit like the data protection law. According to the new data protection law, you can't send someone an email anymore because you might immediately be sued for damages. And when you have this conversation with men and women, there is a difference, and there is a difference in the way you talk. I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say, but I am in the environment in which I am, where I have the opportunity to talk about this, what I have learned, and the time that I have spent, but mostly it is a total silence.

[44:40]

And at least in the environment where I work, which is at the university, if you start speaking about the differences, you enter the debate with differences between male and female, you immediately end up with very rigidly taken positions. And it's just a complete mind's field. Not mine. Mind feelings, right? Like the minds that explode. Yeah, like that. As a man, it's best to follow Oshu's advice. You're angry. Keep silent. Don't say anything. Yeah, yeah. We have already started to talk about it. We have already started to talk about it.

[45:44]

We have already started to talk about it. We have already started to talk about it. We have already started to talk about it. And then we're accumulating ideas like dancing with the dragon as a feminine aspect while fighting the dragon as a masculine aspect and getting into ideas about doing gender or whether it's a physiological development, let's say, in the 27th week of pregnancy or something like that. And this entire debate about what's male and what's female. What are civil rights? What is the correct, the appropriate place and the rights of any one individual in a society?

[46:51]

Is the group more important than the individual? Yeah, what's more important? What position is the father's and which is the mother's? All of these are societal categories. And I think if we push these categories into practice from top down, then we are making a big mistake. I think it's much better to enter into practice and ask oneself the question, what are the differences that I'm experiencing from within practicing or from within exploring experience?

[48:06]

And so therefore, I'm less interested in, and I don't think that Christina's initial impulse was in this direction, to look at particular categories. What are the differences in practice, and what are the consequences from it? That I would find very interesting to look at. And what are the access points? And whether we call this male or female actually doesn't matter. I think there are so many different men and so many different women.

[49:27]

And to quote from Asterix, do you know Asterix? Asterix? There are big druids and small druids and fat druids and slim druids. LAUGHTER And all druids have different cycles. Sickles. Sickles. Do you have any response to your husband? At home. Yeah, I completely agree. I do see it this way. And I think it's just an encouragement for all of us to look at our own experience.

[50:53]

And I think women have, you know, maybe all it is is that we have a feeling that we are not as welcomed with our uniqueness. Thank you. Thank you. We've sometimes discussed whether there's anything like a male and a female zazen, whether practice somehow differs. And since I can't actualize both, I can't know. Zazen... But I like the idea that Zazen is a form of being beyond gender categories.

[52:00]

Okay. Well, let me briefly summarize my experience. Is... I inherited this practice from Suzuki Roshi. And he came from a practice in Japan where it was really all about men. And in fact, to enter the Zendo, in Eheji or in Daitoku-ji, the Rinzai monastery where I practiced. To actually go in the Zendo, you had to be an ordained male. And if they did let you in, because you were a long-time practitioner, as Irmgard Schlegel was, a German geologist who lived in England and practiced at Diatokici for about 20 years,

[53:18]

To go into the Zenda, finally that Roshi said to her at some point, you can actually now sit with the men. If we give you a special ceremony that makes you ceremonially a man. At some point, And she said, no, thank you, and continued to sit where she sat, in a different room. Okay. But Suzuki Roshi very clearly wanted practice to be for men, women, old and young. One reason he got away from

[54:21]

Zen practice in Japan, one to leave it behind, is because it was all designed about young males, or designed for young males. So there was no question when we started together, tasahara, that it would be, the practice would be for men and women. And he felt, and I felt, that Zen practice ought to be gender-free. Now Katagiri Roshi, who was the other Japanese practitioner, teacher, at the time we founded Tassajara, he definitely wanted Tassajara to be men only, and we were going to make a female Tassajara.

[55:44]

elsewhere in the mountains there. And I said no. And she said no. Of course, there's a lot of problems that happens when men and women practice together. But we have to be clear, to me, we have to be clear that whatever those problems are, we'll face them and meet them. Now, for many years, again, I've been doing this more than half a century. And I've been regularly told that Zen is too male. And the forms are developed for men.

[56:56]

Empathetic, sympathetic to men. Males. So I have tried to feel what I've tried to feel how are the forms male or female. And all the forms that I present as part of our dharmasanga practice, from my point of view, they're essential for the practice itself, independent of gender. As far as I can tell, that's the case. But I'm still told it's too male. Yeah.

[58:11]

So that's the position I find myself in, in terms of developing the practice at the two centers. Now often nowadays, when we do a seminar or a sashin even, there's more women than men. Usually about 50-50, but sometimes it's 60-40. With women. Okay. Okay. Now, I think historically, you said you weren't so interested in the historical, I mean, women's good side. But for me, that is the larger context. Because as several people have brought up recently, often permission is required for change.

[59:15]

And our society is giving us permission. I mean, most of the world societies have been male-dominated and male-domineering. Die meisten Gesellschaften in der Welt waren von Männern dominiert und... What's the difference? Haben Männer dominiert und haben Männer dominiert. Wurden von Männern dominiert oder Männern dominiert, aber haben Männer dominiert. Okay. Ja, okay. Ja, macht Sinn. Okay. And Suzuki Roshi's instinct, I think he's an extraordinary person, he was, he is, but his instinct still was also informed by underlying societal changes.

[60:35]

And Suzuki Roshi was an extraordinary person and at the same time he was also informed or influenced by So he gave in fact permission to Western Buddhism to be equally male and female. All future, at least in America, all future practice centers particularly rural practice centers, and were on the model of Tassajara and male and equally male and female. And it was also often the case, just practically speaking, is that all the urban centers I don't know of any exception, were held together by couples.

[61:53]

If there weren't couples, most of the centers wouldn't have existed. So for the first time in 2,500 years of Buddhism, there's an explicit permission that comes from Western society, too, to look at practice as gender-free. Now, what I've noticed too is that women usually get an understanding of practice significantly quicker than men.

[63:00]

I've noticed, for example, a similar kind of It's not comparable. It's parallel, but whatever. It's that orchestral musicians get the mutual body of practice faster than other musicians. But so because I noticed that women catch on to what practice is about quicker than men, I always expected that the leadership in Western Buddhism would be primarily or largely women.

[64:07]

But there are lots of women teachers now who have male disciples too, which there were not in the past. Yeah. Okay. But still, even though you can release various layers or categories of identification, And Richard can explore releasing his maleness and coming back to it and et cetera. still the particularity of you as a woman remains.

[65:16]

To think that there's some kind of general mind that's really separate is again a God space. Particularly remains. Now again, what I notice is that, and I've been trying to think it through, feel it through, explore it. When I was with Suzuki Roshi, both of us would start from the same premise, with the same information, with the same, very similar Zazen experiences. As far as I could tell, we would have virtually identical feelings about a situation.

[66:37]

But when we enacted it, his was different than mine because his was filtered through Japanese culture and mine was filtered through Western culture. And what I'm confronted with again, and really having seen, excuse me, thousands of people in Dokusan, is that women's thinking is somehow slightly different than men's thinking. And I think that despite the political thing nowadays, which I'm well aware of, that you can't talk about anything but equality in the present atmosphere.

[67:37]

different is different and so I'm what I'm kind of excited about actually is we now have permission to look at practice is it in you know we're different people different cultures but is there a somewhat different way in which the woman's body-mind expresses ideas, thinking, feeling, and a male body-mind. I've assumed most of this half century that there isn't. But from the bottom up in our Sangha, I've had to recognize there is a difference.

[68:44]

Experientially, I find. And then I start having to think about if I'm the, sorry, I'm stuck with being a male, head of the Dharma Sangha. I want to find our practice centers as subtly as possible, open to male not just open technically to men and women, but open in the way the practice is developed equally for men and women. Though I have a lot of women who, there are a lot of women who practice, have been practicing with me in the Dharma Sangha for years.

[69:49]

There are very few which have Nicole's commitment, for example, to make this her life primarily. And there are more men who have made this kind of commitment. But that may not be a difference in male and female way of viewing the world, but more a cultural distinction that men are more career-minded than women. Because again, just from my experience, although women get practice quicker than men. Ten years later, the men are in all the leadership positions. So despite the political problems of this, I think that it's a useful discussion to have for at least part of an afternoon.

[71:11]

And we've gone way beyond our break time. So please, let's have a break. Thank you for your patience.

[71:29]

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