So if I imagine, as I did for each of us, someone asked me, do you live at that place up, crazy place up the hill? Isn't that a Zen Buddhist place? And I said, yeah, yeah. Are you a Zen Buddhist? I'd say yes. And... and he or she asked me, what is my practice then? And for me everything exists in a context. So I do, but I can't escape from responding from my context.

[01:10]

And from my context, I have made a decision to be a Zen Buddhist. Yeah, and that is a kind of practical decision for me. You know, I was... I was born with some genetic proclivities, but I was very suspicious of the culture I was born into. Yeah, I don't know why I'm so weird, And I always questioned everything.

[02:14]

And I questioned my culture, my school, my parents, etc. I must have been a nuisance of a child. But I did accept the social space I was born into. In other words, you're supposed to be friendly, you're supposed to go to school, you're supposed to get on the school bus, you know, and stuff like that. So I did all those things. But I make a distinction between social space and societal space. I never accepted the societal space I was born into.

[03:19]

The assumption that I heard from everywhere was that the main motivation of human beings was self-interest. And it still is. All the algorithms of economics are based on self-interest. I just made a decision. I am not going to live in this societal space. And it also, the governmental space, makes wars and things like that. But I, you know, I'm speaking English and And I realized I could not create English on my own.

[04:29]

I inherited English. And it was clear that you learn English by speaking English and reading the English of others. So this was the main field in which you could relate to others, so I made a concerted effort to learn English as well as I could. And just as I couldn't have created English by myself, or any language. I wondered if there was any wisdom language that had been created by our many generations that made sense.

[05:40]

Yeah, and so I made an effort from, you know, like, I don't know, pretty young, seven or eight years old. Were there any teachings that made sense? Yeah, and I had certain rules. It had to be evidential. It had to be scientific in some way. And it had to be compassionate. So the only thing I found... I looked pretty carefully. Was Buddhism. So then I decided, okay, here's this language of Buddhism, which, again, I couldn't create it by myself, so I ought to see you.

[06:59]

what it can teach me. And I knew I wasn't a Japanese Zen Buddhist or Chinese Zen Buddhist, but I knew that Zen Buddhism didn't require belief and it didn't require adherence to revealed teachings. So by the time I encountered Buddhism in various incremental ways, I said to myself, I can only do so much in one lifetime.

[08:02]

So if I'm going to do Buddhism, I'm going to do it as thoroughly as possible because I don't have time to do anything else. People often ask me now, what do you think about this, that, or the other thing? And I say, I only know Buddhism from the inside, so it's the only one I can respond to. So if someone asks me, are you a Zen Buddhist? I say, yes, because I've committed myself to knowing this as well as possible. So that's the context I bring to the question. And I feel that context. I feel I've chosen Zen Buddhism in contrast to the other Buddhist forms.

[09:13]

And also my feeling that Zen teaches more by teaching less. There's no stages and things in Zen Buddhism. You have to work out the stages through your own physiology and intelligence. So I made a decision, my way of being responsible to being born in this genetic My responsibility to all of us others is to explore Zen Buddhism and make it available to others if they want it. So that context is very clear to me when somebody asks me a question.

[10:51]

I feel that whole context is, watch out, here comes this context down the road. Like a truck. So then I kind of pull back and say, I don't want to do too much, just a little bit. So then I have to ask myself, what is this person who's asking me this question's context? Okay, so the first context, the context I assume is this is a lay practice context. This is not the Dalai Lama asking me, and it's not a monk or a Brother David Steindl Ross to...

[11:54]

I always call him a Zen. He's a, what kind of Buddhist, Christian is he? Benedictine. I always think, all I remember is I call him a Zenedictine all the time. Because he is. Yes, so I would... I would assume the context is a lay context. And he or she is asking me this question. And I'm assuming they're asking me an explicit question. In this case, what is my specific practice? Okay, but I'm also assuming immediately, and I'd look at this person quite carefully,

[13:06]

he's asking me, he or she is asking me an implicit question, should I practice Zen Buddhism too? And if he's not asking me that implicitly, he should be. Because he or she has to be a potential Buddha, so my question is going to be not only my explicit answer, but my answer in contrast. conjunction with his or her possible practice. Okay. So then I have to respond to what is my potential. immediate context of practice.

[14:25]

Okay. Well, now I divide my life up into sort of two-week units, but it could be two months or it could be six weeks, but, you know, in my mind it's sort of two-week units. And in those two-week units, or some unit, I'm focusing on particular practices. And I'm In any two-week period, I have various problems like that I don't feel good about or I don't understand why I don't understand something. And so for the last... a few weeks, much longer, but in a specific way the last few weeks.

[15:39]

I'm faced with regrets that come up about how I treated my father and and why various people don't feel too good about me and I don't understand why and so forth. And there's some people who outright cheated me. big time, a couple of times. So they come up in the night sometimes and I think, oh God. So the last few weeks, some weeks, I've been trying to observe when regrets come up and what triggers them and

[16:46]

how I react to them and how can I let them go. So that's been a process of the last few weeks. I mean of years, but in a specific way the last few weeks. So to this person I might say, well, you know, I'm sort of trying to Understand how to deal with regrets. And then another aspect of practice that's been coming up. I've been studying the contrast between practicing mindfulness and practicing attentional attunement and attentional engagement.

[17:51]

Because if I recognize that mindfulness is not really a term in English, that it is... You can't climb into it and practice it. It's just an idea you can apply. But attentional attunement I can climb into. I can experience attentionality.

[18:52]

And I can experience it noticing and engaging and tuning itself. And I can notice how attention develops through attunement. So then I notice that the more I focus on attentional attunement and the process of noticing, I notice that memory works differently. Now, how do I notice that memory works differently?

[19:53]

Well, I just came back from Switzerland and Freiburg. And some things are in a not yet unpacked suitcase. And of course I have books in my office here and I have books in my office over there. And I have a little briefcase, two briefcases full of books and I have a paper supermarket bag full of books. So then I asked myself, where is that darn book? And I noticed that if I think it, I can't find it. But if I don't think about it and just feel the field of noticing, I suddenly see exactly where it is on the shelf.

[21:22]

It's no longer in the paper bag, it's now on a shelf, and I remember doing it. So to the person who was asking me this question, what is your practice? I would add, yes, and I'm also exploring how attention, developing attention, develops a new kind of memory. And I would also say in Aeon there's always some teaching and testing. So I asked everyone in the staff the other day to practice the four Brahmaviharas and in particular to practice unlimited friendliness.

[22:29]

So if I ask others to do that, I'm actually doing it myself too. And I'm noticing if others do it, Yeah, so I kind of notice, you know, like that. So that's one teaching I'm testing and teaching and exploring. If I mention it to the staff in two different meetings, is anyone doing it? I have to notice that, too. And I'm exploring a statement of Vasubandhu's. And I'm exploring again, as I mentioned earlier, how, what it means to think in metaphors.

[23:49]

Yeah, so to this person who's asked me this question, what is your practice? I would say, yeah, I'm kind of looking at, I mean, this happens in airplanes and things like that, you know. People ask you in the next, what do you do? Does he really want to know? And does he really know how much of the rest of the flight I could spend? Yeah, so... So... Yeah, so as I said, I'm really actively watching what's a metaphor, how does it function, how does it substitute for comparative thinking and so forth.

[25:13]

Also ich beobachte wirklich, was ist eine Metapher, wie funktionieren, arbeiten die, und inwieweit ersetzen die vergleichendes Denken. And then finally I would say, and of course I do zazen, which is a way to examine how mind, consciousness and body and energy flow together in actions. So that would be A fairly complete response to this question at this moment, if any of you ask me this. And that's what, if I went to Doksan, that's what I'd bring to Sukhirushi.

[26:18]

And to this person on the airplane or somewhere asking me this question, I would kind of pay attention to what part of what I'm saying made this person maybe consider that this is something he or she could do, or at least this is something that sounds like a, you know, not entirely a waste of time. Because I'm speaking not only from my context, But in his context and my imagination of his context, I would try to tailor my response to what I saw him or her respond to.

[27:36]

Now, one reason I responded in this kind of detail is because if we're going to develop a lay practice which can be continued in this society with others and through others. Now, if somebody from another Zen Buddhist community or something asks me the question.

[28:40]

A practitioner, a monk or something. My answer would be quite different because I'd answer in his or her context as a practitioner which I could sense Where would something I say fit into the practice this person already has? But my feeling is, as a lay practitioner, which I also am, of course, I have an obligation, I feel, responsibility to develop my own practice through the whole scale of Buddhism and not just Zen Buddhism, the Abhidharma and so forth.

[29:48]

So if you're a lay person, you have a great opportunity daily to practice the paramitas. And if you're trying to be a participant in your own mental and physical activity, you're always exploring the skandhas. And if you are a participant in your own process, then you study the five scandals. Heaven and earth, the 10,000 things and I share the same body.

[31:00]

And if you work with ecological questions, you might say, So if we all are practicing, yes, we practiced and we feel better during the day. If we don't practice and we, you know, etc., that's great. But if you want to be part of making this a lay practice, survive in our social and societal space, The layperson has more, actually, from my point of view, responsibility, obligation, to explore all the teachings in the context of daily life. Yes, and that's the only way they're going to flower

[32:11]

And bloom in daily life. And be continued. Otherwise our practice will be like cut flowers in a vase which has no more water in it. Yeah, okay. Finished. I mean, my life is, can we make this practice survive nowadays in what's going to be dominantly a lay context? Do I really think it's possible? No. But I don't know. So I also say, I don't know, and I'm going to act like it's possible. Isn't possible?

[33:28]

Most life is a loss anyway. Okay. Now I'm finished again. Sorry for that. Lengthy riff. Entschuldigung für diese kurzen Abriss. What's the word for riff in German? I would say abriss. It's a small, like a... A mini-essay. A mini-essay. Okay. In music, a riff is where the term in English comes from. It's like an improvisation. Yeah. No, no, no. No. Okay, so in English it's more like an improvisation. What I... What spoke to me, among many things, especially with you, was the statement, you made a decision at some point.

[34:45]

So what spoke to me in what you say was your statement that at some point you made a decision. And then I looked at myself whether I made a decision and when I made a decision. And, hey, hey, there is the moment when I made a decision. and became more explicit, more clear to me that it was important for my life that I made that decision. So it wasn't a decision which I just made for myself, so privately, so to speak.

[35:57]

And it was through taking the precepts in public and that made a big difference. Yeah, my practice career started when I was clearly that I was going to practice was I was working at a restaurant on Cape Cod between my first and second college years. And across the street from the restaurant. The restaurant had rented, or maybe they owned, I don't know, a little folk Victorian farmhouse type building.

[37:04]

Tiny, tiny little building. And they had all the waiters living there. And I was in the lower bunk and I don't remember if there's anybody. I don't think, maybe nobody was in the bunk that night above me. Yeah, and in college you're supposed to decide what you're going to do. With life. In life, you know. I had no idea. I had no career. But, you know, somebody asked me when I was in college, what do you want to do in life?

[38:12]

Yeah, and I like it that Jonas is here. Because I said... The only thing I can think of is I want to design my own house and have fresh flowers in it every day. So I studied architecture, but not enough, and I need Jonas' professional help, aesthetic help. So I had no idea what I wanted to do. Anyway, I'm lying in this bed. And I suddenly, you know, it was like 2 in the morning or something, and I thought, I've got to decide what I want to do. So I sat up in bed with my feet on the floor.

[39:18]

And I asked myself this comic book question, who am I? And I said, well, I'm an American. And then I said, what is an American? And I realized I'd never been anything else, so I had no way to compare. So it was very clear to me, I didn't know what an American was, so I didn't know what I was. So I remember clearly at that moment deciding, I'm not going to choose a career or a profession until I know who I am or what I am.

[40:24]

And that took quite a few years. I'm still working on it. I think a break is impending. A pause. But if someone has something you'd like to say, please, I'm all ears. So I was very touched by your saying, how do we flower as lay persons in the world? And how does this teaching flower in the world? How can we convey the well-being or the helping from this practice to others?

[41:43]

How can we convey the helping or beneficial parts of this practice to others without being pedagogical or interfering? So I made some experience with that and Susanna talked about it before. if people are in a difficulty and I don't know how to get out of that. So to share a joining, a deep presence. And we have the chance, because if people show up here, we can sort of see if we can be of some benefit to them.

[42:55]

So we have the opportunity here, when people come here, to see if we can do something good for them.

[43:04]

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