I'd like to practice with many of you through living here at Johanneshof when you're here. And I felt this morning after hearing and yesterday some narrative of your own practice. I have some sort of little feeling like I know something about living with you wherever you live. It's a strange feeling, but, you know, it's nice. So if any others of you can tell us how you live in... If others of you can tell us how you live in your practice, then I would be very happy.

[01:21]

Okay. Yeah. This is the Hannover special. Before. Oh, yeah. Sometimes Hannover. Unfortunately, I wasn't here for the second part this morning. We were in the kitchen. But Dieter told us a little bit about it and I was sad that I wasn't here. But in the small group discussion I was there and I found it quite fruitful. And yesterday afternoon when Roshi told us why you didn't want to talk to us or teach us in the same way as you used to anymore,

[02:45]

And I somehow also got the impression as if you or he had some self-doubt about whether what you have been doing made any sense. Aus meiner Sicht muss ich da stärkens widersprechen. And from my point of view, I have to disagree strongly. I paid him. I've known Roshi for 29 years and that makes me one of the people who've been doing this for way too long without being able to present any results. But from my experience, it's really not like that.

[04:28]

Because in retrospect, I want to start from now. That it goes the way it goes today. I would never have made that possible. But for me, this is really not true. And I want to start with today, with now, and to feel the way that I feel today. That is something I never would have thought possible. The experience of life with all forms of action. That I could, the way I can experience life or aliveness in all or in so many different facets in a differentiated way, that this is possible, I never would have thought.

[05:31]

And to look at all these seminars and the sessions and when I lived here for a year, I needed all of that in order to build this. And I felt reminded when you talked yesterday of my first seminar, 1991, in Münster. And for me, it's as if that is now. The bridge between body and mind. And the seminar was called Breath, the Bridge Between Body and Mind. And on Friday evening, or somehow in the first session, Roshi presented six forms of breath practice.

[06:36]

And after you finished giving us these six practices, you said, now we can stop the seminar? And then he said, in 15 years, and you really said 15, I thought, what the heck. But you said, in 15 years, we can come back, and then we can start talking about how you've experienced this. Then he said, well, he wants to be friendly, and we came here to read through this muesli package and go through it. And we finished the seminar, of course. But then you said you wanted to be friendly, and so we continued the seminar, go through various things. And I also said that he always made a lot of suggestions, and that we should try it out together.

[07:54]

I think I've done that often. I've really, within the last few years, again and again, also with these six, I've tried to develop these six different breathing practices for myself. And you've made so many suggestions over the years, and you said to try them, and I feel like I've done that a lot. I've also these six different breathing practices. I've tried to develop each of them. And many, many others. And in general, I have these many years, or because many of them are needed with me, I wouldn't have... I could never understand that intellectually. And I always needed the meeting with Roshi, the personal encounter with Roshi, with the Sangha, with the other practitioners. And I've also needed the personal meeting with Roshi, with you and with the Sangha and other practitioners.

[09:01]

And until yesterday, you've always given us an imperturbable trust that this will all be okay. I don't know what else I can say to that, but it couldn't have taken any less. Okay, let's get ready for the next 15. Yeah, okay. A little bit Twitter 10. Yeah, okay. Yeah, this is helpful to me to feel your practice. And I think it's helpful to others of us to have a sense of our shared Sangha practice.

[10:08]

So I have to write down in my little notebook, 15-year challenge. Keep breathing. One short edition. And then I think about one and a half years you started presenting to us not to look at the breath as a generalization, but each hail for itself. And I started doing that. For me, that was a huge change, something I wouldn't have expected in my practice. Thank you. The text says that when you're born, there is embodiment.

[11:44]

And on the one hand, that's true. But on the other hand, I feel that only when I started sitting... And one trigger for me to start practicing Zen was the picture of Deshimaru where he's sitting in Zazen posture. And sitting in this posture for me has always been something that I wanted to have. I've set some sashins and I've worked on my posture quite a bit. And throughout the years it's only now that I have the feeling that the body really sits.

[13:22]

And of course other practices like yoga helped to develop a particular kind of posture. And to let the body sit without any major disturbances. and on a physical level to start investigating what is breath and to get away from just the idea that breath is something that goes in and out. And all these different meanings or interpretations that can be connected with that, associated like the world is coming to me or I'm going into the world now.

[14:40]

And in this really physical space, to look for it, what is it or who is it that is sitting there? and in this physical stillness to look at what is it or who is it that's sitting here and to actually not find anything. That is something that through the stability I found in sitting, I found to be non-threatening. And then, of course, The kind of thing that's meant by this term, hisherio, of course also reaches into daily life.

[15:55]

This way of perceiving or noticing. This way of perceiving or noticing. without adding any extra thoughts or having notions start associative chain reactions. That's a state which, if I then want to talk about it afterwards, this is the kind of thing where I then have difficulty putting words to it. Because the words that I then would try to find for it kind of seem to limit it, or only illuminate one small aspect of it.

[17:07]

It doesn't mean that I don't want to say something, but it's just this indifference that is always connected to it. And that doesn't mean that I don't want to talk about this, but it's just there's this feeling of insufficiency of language that I feel. And there are aspects that are beyond what I could express in words, but that are palpable or that can be felt and that are just there. Thanks.

[18:22]

I feel like I've been breathing along with you for a long time. That's true. We can do something else too if we want, but I'm enjoying this, so I'll continue, we'll continue as long as there's somebody to say something. Do I see my nephew David? No, you're not my nephew David, I forgot, yeah. One message from David. Are you choosing people because some people have been raising them? Oh, I'm just sitting here with my eyes closed. It's not helpful. No? Okay. So you will have to be patient. You know, David's father and mother are friends of mine.

[19:26]

So he's kind of like a nephew. I met him when he was quite a little boy and I knew him before his parents were married. You were just a possibility at that time. But I have a My wife has an apartment in Freiburg and he took care of it for years. And he said, don't you have an apartment in Johanneshof I could help take care of? I said, well, we'll have to talk to Dorothea about that. Okay, so you have to decide who's going to... I remember how the first time I arrived here like an elephant in a chinaware store.

[20:32]

And I said to Otmar, during the very first meal, okay, well, now you won't be able to get rid of me. And the practice has accompanied me since then, in the house, in my environment, in the study group, in SENDO, everywhere. So the Johanneshof is always with me. And practice has been accompanying me, or part of my life since then, at work, the SENDO, the study group, everywhere, daily life, house. And something that's always helped me is whenever I've waited somewhere, even at the red light at a traffic light, I would start assuming the posture of a half-lotus. And it was difficult when I was in the hospital for three weeks.

[21:57]

And I knew that even if I need a crane, I will manage to be on the motorcycle again. But I didn't know whether I'd be able to assume the lotus posture again. On the motorcycle? Yes, especially there. At a red light. Most importantly. I do it too on the motorbike, actually. I'd fly for that. Good idea. So really all I had left was breathing. And a Buddha statue and incense in the hospital room. And a Buddha statue and incense in the hospital room. I had amazing nurses who all they've done is just whisked.

[23:06]

Opened the windows a bit, you know, because I couldn't move, obviously. So that about my practice and that present I'm practicing with the heart. And at some point it became clear to me that it's not possible to hurt the heart. And that love is something that happens really only inside oneself, inside myself. And then I project that love maybe arbitrarily onto someone where I feel or something where I feel okay that works now. Until it became clear to me that this is my feeling and that it's independent or it doesn't matter who or what is in front of me.

[24:35]

It happens inside of me. That means that the only thing that can be hurt is, in the best case, the ego. So, what the heck, right? So I practice with that, and I just call that love. Thanks. Okay. I just wrote something. You can imagine what it was in my notebook. Now you can imagine what I just wrote in my notebook. I often feel like I'm between two worlds.

[25:39]

I often times have a feeling as if I was between two worlds. I often times experience that as being sort of thrown around. When I'm here, after one, two, three days, I feel like I'm entering an entirely different mode of being than that's different from how I usually feel. And And I notice that this mode, this modality is extremely instructive for me. And what I find so sad, or what makes a difference for me here, I think Nicole once said, or you once said that being careful comes from the word Sila, right?

[27:11]

Sati. Sati, oh. Sati and sati actually means to be always close, right? So I think Nicole at some point talked about mindfulness as coming from the word sati, which means something like actually closely held attention. Well, I said something different, but that's fine. But I think such a practice center makes it so clear to me what it means to always be close to such an intention or to always be close to myself. And how quickly you can get away from it if you don't have this always being brought back by external circumstances. And one thing that becomes so clear to me in being at a practice center like this is that I feel the practice center makes it possible to always be close to one's intentions and what the difference is when I'm in other circumstances and what it means to have to keep pulling those intentions back in.

[28:28]

Did I say that right? To always keep having to bring them back in actively. And I feel that I would really like that this difference that still exists in me, that it wouldn't be so big and that I actually And I think that allows us to develop together that the city practice or the level that you have when you go out here is really two or three steps higher. And so what I would really wish for is that the felt difference and the difference that I feel, I wish that wasn't as stark or as big. There must be a way that also city practice or what we develop, and I think that maybe that's possible to develop with others in a city, that the level of practice just gets lifted by two or three stories or two or three levels.

[29:37]

And there will always be a difference in depth, but I would find it nice, I also notice that, and I see that with other people, that there is this separation. And I personally find it very important to bring that together more strongly. And there may always be a difference and maybe in terms of depth between being at Johanneshof and elsewhere, but still, and I can see it also in other people, I do perceive something like as if the two are separate and it would be very important to find out how to bring this together. And I think the possibilities are there and you can do a lot to develop a really valuable practice that also works in collaboration with such a place of practice.

[30:43]

And I think the potentials are all here, and I think one can do a lot in order to develop a valuable practice that works well or integrated with or works well together with a practice place like here. Yeah, can I write in my notebook? How to make a sitting group feel like a practice center. And my experience is, which you didn't mention, because, yeah, obviously. Is that a practice center which has a regular place where they practice makes a big difference? When you have something like when you have a practice center, which you're a place where you can take care of, which you can take care of, have an altar and, you know, things like that.

[31:52]

That place somehow is present in your practice even when you're not there. The Boulder group, for instance. had for 20 years a zendo they set up in the Trungpa Rinpoche's Tibetan center in Boulder. And they would unpack it. I don't know, a few times a week, and I'll sit, and then they'd pack it back up again. But the group really came together when they started, when they bought a bed and breakfast, which they turned the carriage house into a zendo.

[33:13]

The whole thing changed dramatically from that. The first step was they started practicing at Crestone and then got the Bed and Breakfast Zendo. The first step was that they practiced in Crestone and then they founded this Bed and Breakfast Sendo. And at least that was clearly experienced there. Yeah. And you're practicing in Leipzig, and didn't you just rent a place to meet regularly? We try to, yeah. You haven't done it yet? No. Okay. Good luck. Thanks.

[34:15]

This is also the case at home. Since we have the meditation room in the basement with a Buddha statue and seat cushions that are there and that are not torn away, this has simply changed in terms of quality. That's, by the way, also the case at home. Ever since we have the basement set up with an altar and with our cushions that don't have to be moved, the whole quality has changed. Strange it makes a difference to create a physical location. Ellen's done that in her place. Ellen? Marie. Marie. Yes. It's an open sender for everybody. It can come when they want. I had a feeling, like David just said, for some years also. But to practice with the phrase that space connects and already connected, that really helped me.

[35:57]

And it is sometimes still the case today that individuals from the Sangha appear to me like dead people who are now presenting themselves here. And I still have sometimes a feeling it's as if individuals from the Sangha appear to me as if they were dead and then suddenly they appear. That kind of feeling, as if they are suddenly here. And that has something quite comforting that the spatial distance doesn't really exist in that in some sense. And that's also now that I haven't really heard Roshi teach for almost an entire year.

[37:12]

When I kept connecting myself with the question of what would be important right now, what kind of teaching would I need right now? And this whole complex teaching activity of Roshi's, somehow that got simplified. to be connected with the phenomena, with people, with myself, that this can be so strong that And the most important thing is for me that the feeling of connectedness, that can become so strong that it's almost as if it doesn't take me anymore, it doesn't need me anymore.

[38:24]

It's almost like I barely even exist. And yet I also notice that I... And yet, of course, I know that there's also more to it. Like I just now listened to the tapes of the first doorstep when you talked about the ten directions. And now, very simply, I've just started to make these ten directions, bring them into my feeling, make them palpable for myself on the cushion. I'm not the kind of person who would practice for two years the same thing.

[39:39]

So this practice is quite practical for me because now I can also bring the Vijñanas each separately into the ten directions. can feel breathing in a variety of ways. And also pain, as I could see yesterday. That was quite phenomenal yesterday. The pain in my knees was something like the pedestal of the Buddhas, the stand for the Buddhas. And so then you said something... But that's actually something that came from the tape.

[41:02]

But you said it's like the policeman who on his traffic island or something and is calling into the different directions, calling the different directions in. And there was a real feeling of something around that started to build itself around me and suddenly I started thinking of a womb. And that I find quite phenomenal. So here you say a new sentence and I try it out and then these new things happen. These kinds of things happen. So maybe we can start offering you incense and pretending we're midwives. But of course, unfortunately, that doesn't really stick around.

[42:08]

It's like the first time I have such an experience as sensational, but then kind of... And so I keep practicing patience. Yeah. You know, you mentioned the listening to the tapes, whatever they are these days, recordings. So I wonder for lay practitioners or anybody else, how important that we started at some point recording the Taishos has been. At least I hear from some people that they listen to it every time they go to work or something like that, driving. I've only heard myself once I was driving from Crestone to Boulder and somebody had borrowed my car and there was a tape in it.

[43:31]

So I started listening to this and I didn't recognize the voice and it sounded like my brother and I thought my brother doesn't know these things. And then I thought, how do I know what this guy's going to say next? Because I knew what he was going to say next. So I listened for a while, and I found it actually quite interesting. Even if I knew what the next sentence was going to be, I thought, oh, this is interesting. This was German translation or direct? I wish it had been German. And I suddenly automatically understood.

[44:47]

No, it was, as far as I know, it was just English. For me, they are very important. Oh, okay. For me, it was also as if I had what you're teaching and Johanneshof, I had that home with me. So very strong, yeah. For me, especially the first years, and since I didn't understand what you were saying, I listened to it ten times, so I said, listen to it again. Sometimes people say to me, I've been practicing here now for years, but I didn't understand you for the first three.

[45:56]

And I think to myself, if you didn't understand me for three years, why were you here for three years? But they say, well, there was some feeling in that. For me they've also been very helpful. For me they've also been very helpful. Especially before I had friends, actual friends, who practiced. But before then, these tapes were like my only Zen friend. And now my grandparents are more interesting.

[47:03]

They say better things. Really? I have to improve. Okay. You know, there's a... I guess it's called a blog. Is it called a blog? Yeah, it's a blog. You're a blogger. I hope not. But anyway, which is Sumzen, S-U-M-Z-E-N. Yeah. And there's a password, Baker108, which you've helped set up, right? The Leipzig people? Yes. Yeah. With Nicole, yeah. With Nicole. Okay. Okay. And she's... Somebody's put stuff on it. I've never looked at it. But one thing she put on is the talks from tree planters. And there's other things on it, I guess.

[48:19]

Even Christian Dillow sent me an email the other day saying... I didn't know about some Zen, he said, but somebody from the Boulder group told him about it. And he said, I listened and I couldn't stop. It was quite interesting. I'm surprised. I said, surprised? There's nothing to listen to but to read. But you must have read it. Oh, I guess, yeah, he read. He started reading these things and he said, but I have to go to lunch now or something, so I have to stop. And I think these recordings, and you're listening to them, are really what Suzuki Roshi started. Because the lineage is, yes, I'm speaking, but I'm really speaking from the feeling I realized practicing for 10 or 12 or so years with Sukhiroshi.

[49:39]

Yeah. So maybe maybe we could have the next if there is a next doorstep Zen, be writing on the doorstep. Writing on the doorstep? Yeah. So I'll send a text out, and then people can, I don't know, I'm just half-half joking, but I'm wondering, really wondering, what means we use, institutional means we use and practical means we use, to continue this teaching we are developing together. Mm-hmm. Okay, it's time for a break.

[50:44]

Shall we continue like this after? You're shaking your head yes. It looked like a good head to listen to. All right.

[51:12]

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