So I thought we needed maybe a visual category of the Buddha other than our translator. Can you look at me? Oh, I'm sorry. When I was, when my daughter Sally was, you know, Five or six or something like that. No, it had to be younger. Because we went to Japan when she was four, so probably four or something. We had various statues and Buddhas in the house, you know, over the sink and in the bathroom and here and there.

[01:01]

Yeah, so I kept finding them facing the wall. And I thought, well, you know, like Bodhidharma faces the wall. She sees me sitting facing the wall. So you want them to face the wall. And she said, no, I want them to stop looking at me. So it was given to me the other day, well, a few days ago, for my 70th birthday, by the sangha. It's a little heavy to travel with, but, you know. Getting him through the, you know, metal detector and the airplane. Okay. Now, this idea of categories is...

[02:10]

I think an important way to start thinking about what we're talking about. And it actually comes from Agora, meaning the Greek marketplace. That comes from a place where people can gather and speak clearly about things so that they can be understood. So, you know, in a way the concept of Sangha is in there. Sangha is those who gather to understand the teaching.

[03:22]

And when you say the categories, often people mean in philosophy, they mean Aristotle's categories of quality, quantity, relationship, and so forth. And how we look at things in categories and concepts so we can understand them. And for Kant it was more, you know... particularity, singularity and universality and so forth. So we could say for us who are What is it we're interested in practicing? What are the categories of our experience? And into what categories can we divide the Buddha.

[04:37]

So the Buddha categories are something we can reach. And how can we look at our own experience in categories that could reach the Buddha? Are these categories of experience that we already have? Well, yes, but it's also categories of experience that we could have. Yeah, okay. Now, I would like to at this point not go any further but without hearing something from you. Yeah, anecdotes about your own disillusionment with Santa Claus.

[05:46]

I don't care what you're talking about. No, please, someone contribute something. I know nobody wants to be first, but if you're not first, you can't give someone else a chance to be second. You can be the first, but if you're not the first, you can't give others the chance to be second. Yes. Nikolaus, Santa Claus. I was different than you and as a child I dressed Nikolaus, who was my sister, with a mask, very appreciated. different from you when I was younger the what is St. Nicholas St. Nicholas was different all St. Nick he was a jolly old soul yeah Excuse me, we have to calm down.

[06:55]

Excuse me, my sister was disguised as Saint Nick. Really? And I appreciated that. And you knew it was your sister? I didn't know it. Oh, you didn't know. And my mother said I was big enough to become a magician now. And my mother thought it was big enough to get disenchanted. So the mask had only half of her face. Only half of her face. And I could see my sister. And that was just against my trick. That's great. That's a good story. But when I think back now, I thought what a dumb little thing I was, dumb little kid. But today I think differently about it. Perhaps it was a name thing already that I wanted to have connected to something non-graspable.

[08:19]

He would like to say something. And I was constantly, repeatedly thinking of Martin Buber during your lecture. Mm-hmm. And it's part of the human nature to have a connection with you or with the other person. What I liked about the lecture specifically was this Buddha idea about the connectedness with it. You said about sitting on your cushion meditating also yesterday evening that sitting on your cushion is meeting yourself but also meeting non-self.

[10:07]

Now the last thing that comes to mind. There is a wonderful term from an English psychoanalyst, Winnicott, who said that the ability of the child to be alone with himself, There's a famous term from a famous English-speaking analytic when he called the ability of a child or a person to be alone with itself. What does that mean? What does that mean? To be alone without feeling lonely. What it means is a sort of paradoxon that you feel there must be some connectedness that you don't feel lonely while being alone. This relates to the experience here.

[11:32]

The experience in sitting. Yes, the experience in sitting. Yes, I understand. Yes, this thought is beautifully captured in the German word, being alone. That means, being alone for me, but being one with everyone and everything. There's a beautiful German term which contains that being alone, being at one with everything and being connected. This is like everybody and everything at the same time. It's alone. It's the same in English. All one. Hey. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Yes. When it became clear to me that the Christmas man didn't like what we were offered, When I was being clear about that Santa Claus wasn't dead, that was being presented to me.

[12:51]

I was disappointed by this mockery, but I didn't want to complain that he doesn't exist. I was disappointed about the trickiness, about the lying a little bit, but at the same time I sort of wanted to defend him. Well, there was the proof that he didn't exist. It's called theology. I'm an unbelieving Thomas, that's it. I understand some things and I know there are some things which I understand. And also there are things that I don't understand.

[14:10]

No, I think it's about through concepts, creating a space, wo die Dinge, einen Raum zu erzeugen. Ja, also um nicht wieder nur einen Kontext für einen Inhalt, Yeah, not to give another context for another content to create, but yeah. That's why I'm having difficulty. Yeah, where and how does the absolute appear there? That's what I'm having difficulty with. Do we have to worry about the absolute? Let's leave it till later. Okay, someone else? Yeah. When I look at myself, what kind of feeling is that?

[15:43]

For me, it has something to do with being up. it has a feeling of being held, but in German it has a connotation also of being uplifted. Uplifted or being picked up. This is something this time I noticed in your posture in a new way. This feeling of being uplifted. Something I can relate to physically. Especially. You know, a relationship that was offered to Santa Claus, being a person of respect, which created some resistance against it.

[16:55]

I thought it was stupid, mean. When you were little, you did? Yeah. The only nice person in your life was Santa Claus and it turned out to be not real. No, not nice, not at all. You know, somebody to implement order. Yeah. We don't have to talk about Santa Claus, by the way. Yes? I can translate myself. I think I disliked the idea of God quite early, but it took quite a time to be able to abolish the idea emotionally.

[17:59]

Today I really get angry. I think if this guy existed, you would have to take him to court and sentence him very severely. But having this idea, I think I felt lonely. What do I do if I'm in trouble or if I'm going to die? Where can I take refuge? and my normal consciousness I think is very unstable and maybe full of anxiety and if there is something I can take refuge if I don't take refuge to a mighty person like God and don't surrender to something outside of me and I think this is always the question where can I find some rest if everything is changing and even the thing I am experienced or I experience as myself is going to vanish in the moments of death or fear of death and where there's support if I don't can take myself to God and say okay I give you my hands so I have very early

[19:12]

I think I had difficulties with the idea of God, or the idea was rejected, but emotionally it took a very long time to really let go of the idea or to turn away from it. Today I would think, if there were these people, he should be put in court and severely punished for what he does to humanity. When I let go of this idea, I still have the fear, when I am in existential moments, like dying or in fear of death, where can I find refuge, even if everything changes and the consciousness is full of this fear and there is no work to do, to which I can turn to. So I go into your hands, God, or your will be done. Yes, these basic personal needs which sometimes we think, oh, it's just something we've struggled with. But they're actually, I think, struggles at the center of how we live together and create civilizations.

[20:34]

Yeah. Earlier you had your hand. I just thought about what you said. Yesterday in the newspaper I read, or in a news magazine I read, that people were introduced who choose death, which is possible in Switzerland, which isn't possible in Germany. And there was another woman was introduced and she had problems with the fifth commandment, you shall not guilt.

[21:42]

She said, if God is really this loving, kind being, then he will understand what I'm doing when I kill myself. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of us are at that point sometimes. Yeah. Yes? Ask myself if Al Gore is the ecological Santa Claus of America. I haven't seen the film, but it's supposed to be very good. Have you seen the film? Yes. Well, that's a good idea. He probably was like that. Yes, that's an observation.

[23:02]

I would say the majority here, we are raised Christian. And that's our culture. And when we talk about this, we talk about Christianity in the highest superficial way possible. We talk about Santa Claus that's a lie to children. We talk about Christianity as if it was a Catholic church and the Crusade. And I include myself. I think it's psychologically interesting that we have that superficial attitude towards where we come from and we enter a different culture like Buddhism with the most subtle and most open mind and an open heart. And when I hear this, I think it's... I feel that it's not really fruitful. Because there's also

[24:07]

the devil's advocate. There's also a way to treat Buddhism and Zen and the whole thing as a kind of Santa Claus, and it happens a lot. And it just feels very smug, the way we talk about Christianity. For example, I'm a mix. I'm them, but I have also, for me, gardening, my life is important. I don't have a definition, but I just feel strange to hear this kind of attitude. I also like to talk about the model of the Christian faith, about the man of Christmas, about how we as Christians believe in the man of Christmas. Then we act as if it is the Catholic Church or the crucifixion, and I feel it as if it were the upper church.

[25:09]

I find it interesting that we all come here, or a large part of us, and that we talk about it, You only go one centimeter deep into this discussion and then you join the buddhism and then you are incredibly clean and incredibly open and incredibly ready to go into it. For me, I also stand in it and I like to do it. It seems to me not to be particularly testable without a kind of discussion. Yeah, I agree with you completely, actually. And, well, let's have more people say things now. Yes. I discovered myself with Santa Claus, what you said, and as a teenager I was really in a struggle, in a search for God.

[26:33]

I looked around in different directions I was seeking. And nothing at the end, nothing was left of a transcendental belief. And what I appreciate about this openness and this leap, this transcendental leap Beyond my experience, there was not necessary. What remained was a deep trust, although I really cannot say wherein and what in. The trust remains. You mean, if I understand, that the trust you wanted from Christianity or as a teenager seeking, that trust remained, but trust in what is not... The trust remained, but what to trust in is not clear or is unknown.

[28:04]

The feeling is still there. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, well, that's good. Yes? Someone? Yeah? I'm astonished that while we here are talking about Christianity that this is... we are talking about a God which exists outside of us. I think it's strange. This is an idea, but it's an idea I don't personally have. And in my being, I experience what the Christian mystics call God's experience, experience of God.

[29:23]

Okay. Yeah. I like what Julian said, and I want to move on to that. I mean, you also know my fight for Buddhism and Christianity. And I can say for myself that through the Buddhism and the occupation with Buddhism and my path in it, I have noticed how much I have Christian roots and have grown in it. That was not so clear to me at all. And there is a Christian saying, I can translate it myself, there is a Christian saying, when you fall, you can never fall deeper than in God's hand. And I realize how hard it is for me to go up there, because if you fall with Buddhism, where will you go? So, I don't know. I really wanted to stay so clearly in my roots and my romantic longing also through the dealings with Buddhism.

[30:26]

And the Presbytery offers a great treasure. I said that I liked what Julian said, and I mean, you know, in our talks, my struggle with Christian Buddhism and which position I want to have, and there is a sentence in the Christian religion that says, when you fall down, you can never fall deeper than in the hand of God. And I realized, I talked sometimes about it, I said, when you fall in Buddhism, in what you fall there? If you fall into nothingness. And there is really this romantic longing in me, where I find a lot of answers in the Christian religion. And the deeper the way I go in Buddhism, I really realize the chance, Treasure. Treasure that we have in the Christian religion.

[31:28]

And how difficult it is really to find a position in this, if I want to give it up or not. Something like this. I understand, yeah. Yes. I think a central difference is that from Jesus there is no doctrine that is as relevant to us as the Buddhist doctrine, which more or less directs existential experience from person to person for thousands of years, so that we can accept it as our teaching and experience it in ourselves. On the Christian side, there is only the censored writing, and that has to be enough for us. This makes it difficult. The institutions exist in both religions, in one religion, but in Zen Buddhism, I think, many of us have access to it, because it is this direct line with the direct personal

[32:35]

I think the main difference for me is from Jesus you won't have your lineage you don't have the followers the successors who transport his main experiences to 2000 years later so with Buddha and Buddhism even if when the lineage is developing so we can learn from you as teacher and from the lineage all these different aspects we can experience part by part for our own. And in Christianity, there's only the institutions and the text that is censored. So some of the texts are available, others are not available.

[33:45]

You don't have this... immediate teaching. So this makes it very difficult in Christianity to get to the center of it and get to the center of experience. And it's easier in Buddhism. That's, I think, why a lot of people in Christianity are entrenched in this. in the same time searching for a better way, a better access. Yes? I wanted to answer another question where you said When you fall, you can never fall deeper than in God's hand. And where do you fall when you fall in Buddhism? I think that's a very central question, Buddhism. And it's not so different from this Christian way of understanding that we actually don't... I think it's a central question.

[34:59]

It's more an idea that we fall that deeply and that in fact we cannot fall. That's my concept. And that the idea of God's... That is the idea of the little I, the little ego is an illusion and that being interwoven and interconnected really in Buddhism, that we can't therefore, that it is more an idea, it's a concept. And additionally, like you said, how the Buddha appears and in what categories can we bring it into our lives? And I experience that this flowers or flourishes when I'm free of fear or not afraid.

[36:04]

Yeah, okay, good. Yes? When you speak about three bodies of Buddha, I listen and I try to remember and I say, what do I need it for? I sit here and I enjoy just not thinking. I tell my thoughts, I think, why is it necessary? This is one of my thoughts coming while you talk about it. When I sit here and speak about the three bodies of Buddha, I think, why should I still remember what the characteristics of the individual states are? I just want to sit here and not think.

[37:05]

Yeah, well, that's not needed, but maybe I can make it a little clearer before Sunday afternoon. After hearing Buddhist people, I would like to introduce my personal standpoint as a modern person of the 20th century. And you're old. That's important these days. 80% of the Americans believe in God. And in Europe it should be as much. Rather early I gave up this classification and God and soul, I gave it up rather early.

[38:31]

And put everything together into the world of Haudenosaunee. And you can actually only research or sort of get into it empirically. And I think that in this spirit, Buddhism comes into play. Within this mind, Buddhism comes to that mind. In an empirical way to look at the world. In one way a revered view where there is no God is a horrible view. Because you are sort of lost. Not lost, but you sort of deliver it completely.

[39:40]

You give it completely. And I don't want Buddhism to be sort of instrumentalized to build up a secret new god. It's sometimes done, yeah. And as I understand it, Buddha can only mean something that to settle yourself now in impermanence. Just settle yourself in impermanence right now. Sounds like an oxymoron. Yes? Listen to what was said here. And I came yesterday evening and today I came here with a concrete problem.

[41:08]

And I'm quite touched and moved what is working within me. I'm searching and I feel myself sort of touched by Buddha, by the Buddha. And I feel that I'm in contact with myself in what I feel also. Same I'm in contact with people like a businessman, my superiors and opponents. bring through their behavior, bring myself in a really needy, essential situation.

[42:36]

And especially for myself, it's after having a period of a child, a young child, educational, getting back into a professional gang and where I really am out of work. And this is the experience at the moment. I'm not getting back into work. But I don't feel so healed or so carried that I... On the one hand, in my everyday life, this year, I don't feel supported, I don't feel carried. like we mentioned and I don't get this in my life and I'm really searching for words but I don't get this together into one whole at the moment.

[44:12]

Like what you and we were talking about right now to put this into effect which is not yet possible for me. Well, if we're going to talk about Buddhism and what is the Buddha or something like that, in any real way, in this culture, we have to also talk about... Not in the sense that we're in some sort of comparative religion discussion teaching Christianity and Buddhism. And I realized when I mentioned Santa Claus, I was potentially opening a can of ants, worms.

[45:33]

But, you know, I don't think actually that this is necessarily superficial. We're very little when Santa Claus comes up. It's an important part of our life with our parents and It's not a superficial experience to find out it's not true. It doesn't have to be. And in discussing this, I hope it doesn't become smug, but it could. And what I hope we can...

[46:37]

talk about, have some experience of during these two days, is Buddhism attempting over 2,500 years to struggle with the same human needs that Christianity's also struggled with. And in the practices, what I find is in the practices of Christianity, there's often a great similarity to the practices in Buddhism. Not in the sense of meditation, but in almost every other sense. But the conception within both popular conceptions and sophisticated conceptions, in which these practices are framed, are quite different in monotheistic religions and Buddhism, which basically is not a religion.

[48:18]

And, uh, So I think that, you know, basically as human beings we have to discover what we need in our own life. And what teachings, practices most... are useful to us, help us. And I can't... And for me it doesn't really... It's an open question which practices we choose. And there's more available than just Christianity and Buddhism.

[49:29]

But, you know, I... I was not brought up as a Christian. And, uh... Except there's unavoidably, um... unavoidably, if you're brought up in a Christian culture, you're partly brought up as a Christian. But I was brought up, yeah, pretty much as a Western. You know, when I say that I have to have a little footnote, my father was actually quite skeptical about the West, too, but But still I was brought up as a westerner.

[50:34]

My parents neither identified with being American or identified with being westerner. But growing up in this art culture here, Europe and America, America is full of Europeans. Yeah. I've had to deal with as I suggested, not with being a Buddhist in a Western world, I had to deal with... The problem was not that I was a Buddhist in the Western world.

[51:41]

The problem I had, which defined my path... Was more kind of proto-scientific. Which is how to define my life with others and within myself. Through me. my own experience and nothing beyond my own experience absolutely nothing until I could extend my experience where it hadn't reached before

[52:46]

And part of my practice has certainly been, from the time I was in my twenties to now, a considerable extension of what my experience is. And in that process, I discovered the garden hose of Buddhism. In other words, you know, a plant doesn't care whether it gets rain from the sky or from a garden hose. The water is good. So I was kind of at first only wanting, you know, natural experiences, but eventually I decided the garden hose of Buddhism was okay.

[53:48]

Yeah, after all, the teachings of Buddhism are based on somebody's experience. Mostly. So my practice then has developed in the context of the worldviews, Western worldviews, not so much Christians specifically, but Western worldview. And that is... And when those worldviews support or interfere with my experience.

[55:06]

And what characterizes the Mahayana view, as I've said, in contrast to the Theravada or Hinayana view, is a primary emphasis on prajna. On world views and how the world actually exists. I'd say one of the truisms of my...

[55:49]

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